29 April 2012

Hey jaded people who "don't care" about bees

Bees give us coffee. So sign this petition to help save the bees, or so help me god, I'm coming for you when the coffee supply runs out.

27 April 2012

Geographical Bias (Happy Friday!)

Deb sent me this today. I think only happily Facebookfree people like myself haven't seen it yet. We tried to find an original source, but were unable to. I've been looking at it, trying to figure out which province the creator lives in. I'm going with BC, because this seems like the kind of thing those Lulu-lovin', riot-sex-havin' tea-snobs would create. I mean, there are FOUR Atlantic provinces and they couldn't think of anything more descriptive to say about them than "talk funny"? Total Westcoast.   


This tracks surprisingly well with an assessment another Westerner, who ironically, but-not-completely-ironically, refers to herself as 'seriously Westcoast, recently gave me of The Rest of Canada:
The North: big, lots of fishes and trees. 
Saskatchewan, Manitoba, "western Ontario": MB and SK are interchangeable empty wastelands. Western Ontario may be entirely imaginary (e.g. "Thunder Bay" is clearly a made-up place).
Ontario: all municipalities and locations within it are within a one-hour drive of Toronto, except for Toronto's suburbs, which are a 3-hour commute from downtown. 
The East: not sure of the difference between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Also, can't remember whether Labrador is the island one, or Newfoundland. PEI is a place where time stands still, as enforced by the provincial government in 1908. Also, mandatory braided pigtails for all elementary school children (note the gender-neutral policy). Proportion of individuals with extensive freckles and ginger hair is rising due to strict immigration and marriage requirements.
She is an eternal fount of stupid opinions borne of a conceited sense of superiority, infuriatingly coupled to false modesty and humility. 

Ah, Spring. There you are.

Last Thursday I noticed green grass for the first time this year. Earlier this week I noticed the arrival of  that scourge of suburban lawns: the bright yellow dandelions. Now, that third horseman of the Springpocalypse ("- pocalypses" are so in right now) has arrived: torrential rains. Let the jokes about building an ark begin. It's pretty bad today. If I find out after arriving to work that I left my headlights on, I'd seriously consider letting my battery die than going back out in the rain to turn off my lights.

26 April 2012

Those aren't mountains. Those are sluts.

I give you Sluts Across America, a birth control advocacy project. 
"Sluts Across America" is the collective voice of the women and men in this country who use or support birth control, and are sick of being judged because of our desire to be responsible and safe about our sexual health. If protecting ourselves makes us sluts, then it's time to redefine what "slut" actually means.
I'm with them all the way.  I do find it great that the Slut Map doesn't follow the Jesusland map, showing that some issues, at least, have nothing to do with politics. Although, admittedly, the borders of Jesusland need to be redrawn.

25 April 2012

Awesome little old lady, or Death Cozy

My mom (the destined-for-fame inspiration for Death Sweater) is in the process of knitting a sweater for her newest grandson, Baby Bono (or, Trenton as his parents insist on calling him). I asked what she's been watching while she knits, she said "one by one, the 10-pack of horror movies Mike gave me (only two left)." I should warn Baby Bono's mom that the sweater needs to be exorcised before wearing.  


I asked mom to send me a photo of the sweater. She's been having camera issues all winter. She lost her own camera, then she broke the camera she usually uses for work. She wrote back (all her emails, every single one ever sent to me, is addressed with a "Dear Leslie" and is signed "Love Mom"):
The new camera they got me is an iPhone. I don't like it particularly, but it takes pictures. I even crocheted a red iPhone cozy to protect the screen and keep it from getting scratched up, and also so I can find it easily in my purse.
I then expressed surprise that her work bought her an iPhone (my thinking being since print journalism is dying they would be cutting corners), and begged her to send me a picture of the cozy. She then responded:
If it's usable as a phone, I don't know about it! Anyway, I'll be glad to photograph my iPhone cozy too! You'll see why it never gets lost in my purse.

Why can't we do this?

The idea of moving to New Zealand is looking better every day. They may raise the price of a pack of cigarettes to $100 in efforts to be a smoke-free country by 2025. Imagine it. Oh, bliss. No third-hand smoky elevators. No inhaling clouds of smoke at the bus stop. No getting stuck behind smokers on the sidewalk. No assholes throwing butts out their car windows. And, yes, the long-term health benefits for the people being forced to quit, and their families, and the reduced strain on the health care system, are all benefits as well. I wonder how hard the immigration process is?

24 April 2012

Don’t believe everything you read about meta analyses of sound studies showing proven causal relationships.

This made my afternoon..

I'm guilty of a lot of these. 



Daily Dose

The internet is telling me that a Whedonverse alum made their way into The Avengers. Not that I doubted it. And I was all prepared to not find out who, then I accidentally found out who. That internet sure is a double-edged sword.

Also, the AV Club has a discussion on bad heroic leads in otherwise great shows. Oz, you could learn a thing or two from the guy who loves Buffy but not Buffy.

Dear Game of Thrones,

Thanks for giving me rat nightmares. Jerk.

Give us more Tyrion and I'll forgive you,

Ellie


22 April 2012

Dear Lord

I mean, Dear Oz.

We talked on the phone earlier today. You'll remember that I spent the better part of our conversation yelling at you for giving up on Angel after only 10 episodes. I've been trying to think about a way to convince you to stick with it. But everything I want to drag out as reasons to watch are, I think, spoilery, and should be discovered on their own. The first half of the first season is no way to judge a show. Many awesome shows do not have good first seasons (including Buffy, which only had about 4 great episodes in it's first season).  You're missing out on so much, not just the really funny or dramatic episodes, but the expansion of the Angel world to include all sorts of great characters you haven't even met yet. And if there are characters currently you don't really like, remember: this is a Whedon show. Characters will die. Not Angel, mind you. I suppose it's not a spoiler to tell you that he never really dies. And if he's the reason you don't like the show then there's really nothing to be done about that. Except to say, give it more time!

I can't tie you to a chair and make you watch it. Not as long as you're living in Alberta, anyway.  I suppose if you're willing to live the rest of your life never understanding the context of Numfar's dance, then who am I to argue?




 
Love, Ellie

21 April 2012

There's a rainbow in my pocket.

Or, for my American readers, there's suspicious, potential surveillance devices in my pocket.

My quarters, soon to be converted into laundry. 
These are dated 2011, but this week was the first time I noticed them. I love that we're not content with just coloured paper bills, that we want colour on our coins too. This playfulness the Royal Mint seems to have is so at odds with how I tend to view Government departments (yes, it's a crown corporation, which is different, but most people don't care).  I'm glad they do fun stuff like this. Because, really, why not?  I also learned that they're making some changes to the loonie and toonie. They're going to do laser etching. Cool. 

20 April 2012

Happy Friday

This Super Mario-ified cover of The Smith's This Charming Man makes me happy.

Original. 

Cover. 

I don't know how effective it is for people who don't know the song, or don't have it permanently engraved on their soul, but at the very least it's pretty damn catchy.

18 April 2012

Check this out, but don't think too much about what the number actually means. Because then you start picturing unpleasant things.

Also, in keeping with my new theme.

17 April 2012

Sweet Idea of the Day

My BFF and I were talking about this great commercial staring Hugh Laurie ("Forty-five!"). I'm really going to miss him and the House character when that show ends. 


Maybe Joss Whedon will return to TV and write a show for House and Giles. They could call it the Hugh and Tony Awesome Hour and they could just sit around being British and awesome. 

15 April 2012

I can't write what I want to write without giving stuff away


It's one of those movies where the less you see or read, the better. The trailers I watched actually ruined a couple of little things. I made a point of not reading any reviews before seeing it as well. So, apparently, did one guy in the theatre because about 15 minutes in I heard him say, "What is this movie about?"

14 April 2012

Thor

The Avengers comes out soon.


I'm looking forward to it because I like superhero movies and I like Whedon. Those two things together can never, ever end badly. While I'm sure you can go into Avengers without having seen any of the individual character movies before it, I wanted to see them all. I liked the Ironman movies. I saw Captain America, but honestly couldn't tell you anything about it. I'm watching Thor right now.

13 April 2012

Cool cool cool. As well.

Friday (being a downer)

It's not a happy Friday today. It's more of a black Friday. My niece and nephew move to Ottawa today.

But this story about a baboon "reading" cheers me up a little, until I think about how sentient and intelligent animals are just as likely to be crushed under the foot of human progress as other animals. And I'm less happy again.

Updated:
Speaking of animals, there's at least one lynx left in Canada.

12 April 2012

Cool cool cool

Check this out. Freakin' hypnotic.

Update: Click to zoom! Click to zoom!

This picture is unrelated to the content of this post. It's just cute.

Barkley!
This is a fun little quiz to see if you can identify the second line of famous books (okay, some of them are only "famous" within certain cohorts). I mean, what comes after "Call me Ishmael" or "It was the best of times..."? I scored an 87%, which I think is commendable considering I haven't read some of the books in the quiz. I think an awesome quiz would be to identify books by their last sentence. The only passage of a book I ever intentionally memorized is the last sentence of House of Mirth. It's so beautiful, I didn't want to forget it.  

10 April 2012

09 April 2012

For all intents and purposes, I'm an Auntie again!

My BFF had her baby finally. On Easter, which is actually her favourite holiday because she really likes bunnies. No pictures yet, but I'm expecting the human boy equivalent of this:
























For those of you keeping score at home, this is my 6th nephew. For my baby-making friends out there, another niece would be nice...

08 April 2012

Hoppy Easter

We woke up to this in Nova Scotia this morning:

 

Hardly a day you want to get out of bed for, let alone rise from the dead. We had Easter dinner at my Aunt's. I let my niece and nephew loose with my camera and they took some beautiful shots:  

05 April 2012

04 April 2012

Overheard at the Office

Woman (upon seeing Male co-worker with a coffee cup): Is it 3 o'clock already?
Male co-worker: No. It's always coffee time in my cup.
Me (to myself): Amen.

01 April 2012

Simultaneously the most awesome and most unnecessary Easter-themed sign ever.

"Easter is an "egg"celent time for parasite control."  ~Petworks in Dartmouth.
If you've got a better way to celebrate the resurrection of your Lord and Saviour, I'd like to hear about it.