“This is FUBAR!”

I should give this little review/rant the caveat that I wasn’t really paying attention to the details in this movie (as if I ever pay attention to the details for anything), because mom and I were preoccupied with making fun of everything. We also watched this last in our schlockfest, so I think I had reached some critical crap saturation point and was unable to absorb any more.

I think Douglas Coupland hates me

People who shun new technologies will be viewed as passive-aggressive control freaks trying to rope people into their world, much like vegetarian teenage girls in the early 1980s

1980: “We can't go to that restaurant. Karen's vegetarian and it doesn't have anything for her.”

2010: “What restaurant are we going to? I don't know. Karen was supposed to tell me, but she doesn't have a cell, so I can't ask her. I'm sick of her crazy control-freak behaviour. Let's go someplace else and not tell her where.”   ~Douglas Coupland

But…are those even frogs?

My mom came over to my house on Boxing Day and we watched, among other things, Frogs. 

I think where the movie Frogs fails is that the wildly inaccurate title is also misleading. The movie has ambitions beyond killer frogs, even beyond killer animals on a single island. They hint of a nature revolt occurring around the world, but they don’t ever show any of it, and all we’re left is a wealthy family’s struggle to survive on an island that, I think, is supposed to be in Florida. Of course, I’m probably putting too much thought into assessing why a movie about killer frogs isn’t that good.

Happy Boxing Day

I hope everyone had a good weekend. I've been at my brother's house for the last couple of days and just got home today. It was a great weekend. On Friday, my work has a family Christmas party, so I invited my family. Eleven people ended up coming: my parents, my aunt & uncle, my brother and his wife and kids, my SiL's sister, and my SiL's parents. It was actually pretty awesome. The kids got their faces painted and saw Santa. I gave everyone a little tour of the building and showed them the fish and lobsters in the lab tanks. After that it was over to my SiL's house for their family's traditional Polish Christmas Eve dinner.

I couldn't eat most of the traditional foods (shish kabob, cabbage rolls, dumplings), but I could still eat the borscht and perogies. And the dessert, which is important. And the candy cane martinis, which was even more important.

Running away and joining the circus is no longer a viable option for me

My SiL is riding the Stop Shopping bandwagon with me. Not because she saw the movie, but because she's a reasonable person. We've decided to stop exchanging gifts among our generation (i.e., between me and my brothers, and her and her sister) and instead we'll just do something together. This is the first year we've implemented this. Sadly, one of my brothers didn't make it out this year, so it was just four of us. We went to circus school. It was really sweet. We got two hours of a little private introduction to the circus arts. We did the mini trampoline running and jumping over things, the trapeze, the ring, the silky bandy things, and the big trampoline. There was also juggling, plate spinning, and diablo lessons too. Overall, I was pretty bad at most of the stuff. I couldn't get my plate to spin, I could only juggle two balls, I did throw up and catch my diablo, but only once successfully. I liked running and jumping over things off the trampoline. Spinning on the ring was fun. And we did this one trick on the trapeze where you wrap your legs around the ropes and then basically do a "Superman" and hang parallel to the ground - I really liked that. I totally don't have the arm strength for the bands, but I was able to jump really high on the trampoline and do all the tricks.

I had intended to take pictures, but just got caught up in everything and didn't get a chance. I was impressed by the abilities of my SiL's sister, she seemed to pick up on everything really quickly. My brother did really well too, and was a very good sport considering every trick we did had unmanly names like mermaid and starfish. I'd go back again, if only for the chance to jump on the trampoline again. But I'll prepare next time - work on my jugglinig skills beforehand. Maybe do some bench pressing or something so I can do the bandy things.

You don’t have to buy a gift to give a gift

Sometimes I wonder if I should even celebrate Christmas, given that I’m out as an atheist. My mom knows, y’all. That’s how officially atheist I am now. I didn’t even know that she knew - I’d been putting off telling her, I didn’t want to upset her. But, despite her growing inattention to detail (so that’s where I get it from), she’s caught on that all her kids are atheists. I told her it wasn’t her fault. She’s pretty liberal though and doesn’t think we’ll go to hell just because we don’t believe in a God (Oh! And my 5-year-old niece heard about God for the first time a few days ago. I don’t envy her parents having to explain that to her). So, this brings me back to Jesus’ birthday. I mean, I’ve gone to birthday parties for people I didn’t necessarily like before, but this is different.


But Christmas is my favourite holiday. I like it because it’s a family holiday. I like when my family gets together in one place because I like my family and it’s fun to spend time with them. Is that horribly cheesy? Whatever. I didn’t always appreciate my family, but I do now. I can’t give up Christmas, so I try to adopt the spirit of it while quietly ignoring the reason for the season. I think this is acceptable. It’s what most people do. And I don’t really care if it’s not.

Crotchety old man eats vegetables and survives

Christmas celebrations are in full swing. Halifax is well on track for another green Christmas. Its actually supposed to rain that day. And we’ve been having really strong winds. Clearly the deity in charge of weather doesn’t get that Christmas should be calm and white, not wet and blowy. No one dreams of tying down their lawn furniture for Christmas, you know?


My parents are in town now, and last night to get them out of my poor SiL’s hair, I took them out for dinner at a vegetarian restaurant that I’ve been wanting to try since I found out it even existed. It’s apparently been in the city for decades. Not surprisingly, I never noticed. The important thing is that I know it exists now. It’s in a new location which happens to be in my old neighbourhood in Halifax, so that’s kind of nice.

Snakes on a Train

I think I didn’t like this movie because it wasn’t what I was expecting. Although it was written, filmed, and titled solely to capitalize off Snakes on a Plane, it was nothing like that movie in spirit or execution. I can't be bothered to throroughly pick it apart, that’s how underwhelmed I was.

It’s not like this movie can be spoiled, but be forewarned that I’m not going to keep any major plot points to myself.

It starts with a couple wandering through the desert. My thought: where’s the train?

Preachy Ellie, FTW!

Alej told me that Hali was going to get hit with a weather bomb and when I asked her what that was, she said it was going to be rainy and very windy for the next few days. I said that's not a weather bomb, that's just Halifax. Is Vancouver really wetter? I mean, really? Or do they just complain more? 'Cause Hali is plenty wet.

Most of you know about this already, because I've been talking about it, asking for advice, convincing people that I'm serious about it, and staving off mocking older brothers. If I had Facebook I'd just change my status, or something, but I still shun that (down with Facebook!), so I'll write a whole post about it and you have to read it. Ha! Here it is. My big announcement. I'm vegetarian now. Specifically lacto-ovo-vegetarian. The best thing about being vegetarian is that no one can call me a hypocrit for only not-eating seafood and now I can be extra preachy about eating sea food! I have free liscence to never shut up about how guilty y'all should feel for eating fish and shellfish! Preachy Ellie, FTW! (I suppose I should mention that while I do still eat eggs and dairy, I only buy free range eggs and organic dairy).  Here's hoping my soap box can withstand the weight of my smugness!