29 August 2012

Part of the Problem

I found this little blurb from this past February languishing away among my unpublished posts. 
 According to the cutely accented guest host of the Radio2 morning show, this is the tipping point year for cellphones. This is the year when the number of cellphones will surpass the number of people on the planet. [Insert apropos Battlestar Galactica joke here]. My first thought upon hearing this was that I should have held out just a little longer, so that I wasn't part of the problem. My second thought was that I'm an idiot and had nothing to do with it. 

24 August 2012

Happy Friday!

This post is lazy, sorry. Here's a picture of a stray dog I encountered atop a volcano in Chile.


And while you're here, enjoy this again. Because it never gets old.

21 August 2012

Missed anniversaries

I forgot to commemorate two very important anniversaries: the one year anniversaries of the 7th and 8th times I saw U2 live. It has now been over a year since the last time I saw U2 live and I'm going through withdrawal. We're rapidly approaching the 4th birthday of their most recent album. They need to release a new album and tour again soon, or I might not survive.

18 August 2012


This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, yet it surprises some people. (Lewis Black isn’t fooled, though).


10 August 2012

Happy Friday!

In honour of the impending return of Arrested Development, an article on the kind of shit they managed to get away with on network TV.

08 August 2012

Oz is finally honouring her promise to visit Nova Scotia. It's her first time east of Ontario (first time that counts, anyway). This past weekend we did some must-see/do Halifax/NS things. Among them: ride the ferry, eat cinnamon rolls from Mary's Bread Basket, visit old and new markets, taste NS wines, see Lunenburg, taste NS vodka, see Peggy's Cove, taste Dee Dee's ice cream. Also, there was tidal bore rafting. And NS beer. And NS produce. Just lots of food, in general.

While in tourist mode, I've been playing with my new unimpressive point-and-shoot camera. It's got lots of impractical features, like fisheye effect, and "toy camera," and weird vivid colour distortion. Have a look.

Houses in Lunenburg, normal setting.

Houses in Lunenburg, vivid setting.

06 August 2012

Silver & Bronze


Woohoo! Nova Scotia is second and third. Look at these results:

  1. Burntwood/Churchill, Man. 73.4%
  2. Colchester East Hants/Cumberland, N.S. 71.3%
  3. South Shore/South West Nova, N.S. (incl. Yarmouth) 70.2%
  4. Prince Albert Parkland Regional Health Authority, Sask. 69.9%
  5. Nor-Man Regional Health Authority, Man. (incl. Flin Flon) 68.6 %
  6. Prairie North Regional Health Authority, Sask. (incl. North Battleford) 68.5 %
  7. Interlake Regional Health Authority, Man. (incl. Gimli) 68.4 %
  8. Kelsey Trail Regional Health Authority, Sask. (incl. Melfort) 68.3 %
  9. Central Regional Integrated Health Authority, Nfld. (incl. Grand Falls-Windsor) 68.1 %
  10. Sunrise Regional Health Authority, Sask. (incl. Yorkton) 68.1 %

What are they for? I don’t know, let me check:
 “And, the least fit regions, again, by percentage of the population overweight or obese.”
Well, fuck. 

05 August 2012


The Olympics aren’t really doing anything for me this year. I don’t know if it’s because I tend to get more invested in the winter sports, or maybe because I don’t have cable anymore, and the only way to watch events is to stream them and I loathe streaming. They used to interest me, but I seem to now have a growing dislike for the whole thing (which I suffered from in 2008 as well). I mean, the sheer glut of events. Am I supposed to care about all the different weight classes in judo, or the various lengths people run or swim? Who decides that showing off a horse is a sport but baseball isn’t? Why is handball in the Olympics? Is frisbee? Why do some events allow pro athletes and others not? That complaint applies to the winter Olympics as well. What makes the Olympics more important than all the other international competitions all these athletes competed in last year? Clearly, I’m lacking the Olympic spirit this year.

Speaking of Olympic spirit, I have been following the badminton scandal, because holy crap!  How twisted and cynical and medal obsessed are you to strategize to the point where you go to the Olympics and play to loose? How do you play a single round where you don’t play for your life? It’s shameful. But, the disqualification of all those teams meant that Canada’s women got to play in the silver match. That is, they played against Japan for a chance to play the gold medal game against a non-disqualified Chinese team. That is the only event I’ve seen so far, that Silver game, and I caught it by accident because it was playing while I was at the gym the other day. We lost, but it was nice to see those girls (and they looked so young!) get a chance at a Silver. And they pushed the game to three rounds, so good for them. They’ll play for Bonze, now. 

04 August 2012

It just got easier for veg*ns to grocery shop. In theory.


New Canadian food label rules go into effect today. Companies now have to declare if the product contains any item which could trigger a reaction in allergic people. The bonus for veg*ns is this means things like eggs, milk, crustaceans, shellfish, fish, have to be declared. Lots of products already say if they contain nuts and such, but I guess up until now it wasn’t required?(!). Anyway, I’ll be curious to see if there’s hidden meat in things that I didn’t know about.

Although, these labels likely won't be accurate, or subject to any oversight at all, so I'd be wary and buy whole foods.   

(If you ever want to feel unsafe, check out the undeclaredingredients/health hazard page at CFIA).  

03 August 2012

Happy Friday!

This is the gif that broke me. I came across it on tumblr a few nights ago and I thought it was so cute it made me cry. I just broke down into a mass of crying giggles.


Look at it! The little stubby-legged waddle and the sad puppy face and the fluff! Oh, God. So cute.

02 August 2012

I love Coffee. And I think, in its own way, Coffee loves me back.