Bilingual

Gord and I were talking tonight about how we were both worried about moving to Montreal without knowing any French. We thought maybe every interaction with people would be a struggle, that everyone would hate us because we had made little effort to learn the language before moving here...and how relieved we were after our first stop at the U-Haul building. We were greeted by the Montreal standard "Bonjour, hello", and the man behind the counter spoke perfect english and was helpful and friendly. That's when I knew things were going to be just fine here.

One of our first days in Montreal, Gord went for a walk down Sherbrooke late at night, getting a feel for our neighborhood. A young man burst out of an apartment building and ran over to Gord, asking a question in frantic French. Feeling terrible that he didn't understand, Gord had to admit that he didn't speak French, and couldn't help. The young man quickly rephrased his question in English.
"Do you have a condom?"

You know what would be awesome?

If Xander from Buffy had his own late night talk show. Not just the actor who played Xander, but actual Xander Harris, with his I Heart Dirt t-shirt and a desk, and a parrot, and 3 guests a night.

And Andrew could be his Andy Richter.

Sweet.

I'm gonna watch that show right now. In my head.

It's because we're in Ottawa....

Stephen Harper - He Kills Kittens.

Sorry, Kel - this is Canadian election crap.

I came across an interesting site today, and it gives you the straight poop on your riding - just put in your postal code and it will list the candidates in your riding. Helpful, if you're in a Conservative quagmire like Pine Lake and haven't heard a peep from any other candidate but Earl Dreeshen. It's got a definite bias, but don't let that sway you. If you've sold your soul for 2%, vote for the man in the smarmy sweater vest who DOESN'T THINK CANADA STANDS FOR ANYTHING. And don't tell me you voted for Harper when next I see you unless you want a swift kick in the gonads.

Another thing I learned recently - vote swapping is not illegal. So, don't despair, Albertans. Your vote could make a difference in a riding somewhere - just not too close to home, you poor buggers.

In Montreal, we actually have a Liberal MP. I don't really like party politics, I don't consider myself a Liberal, but good golly ain't it nice to know that there won't be a Conservative 'speaking on my behalf' in parliament. Cause the jackass would get it all wrong, and I don't have time to hang out on the hill correcting him all the time. Well, actually I do, but I don't want to. Who's going to win the election? Voter Apathy. I've always liked that guy.


ps. I guarantee Harper doesn't look this good naked. Why doesn't David Suzuki run for Prime Minister?

"Voting based on who looks best naked? I suppose it makes as much sense as voting for the best liar."
-Gord

Break on Through

We're in Ottawa, no thanks to me or the damn Garmin.

Here's what happened. We were heading to Ottawa today, and I got in a snit when mom wanted to use the GPS thingy that she brought.

"I don't need a damn computer telling me how to leave the city, I know how to get off my own street!"
And I proceeded to take us on a very scenic drive off the south end of the island and headed towards the United States border. Oops.

So we took a long detour, and when we tried to use the Garmin, it got worse. We were at an intersection and could go straight or turn left, and it kept telling us to "Turn right". I gave up on it and decided to go with the old stand by - stick to the main roads, which lead to other main roads, which lead to big cities. We eventually found the 201 which at least lead north, then found actual signs that said "Ottawa" and after a mere hour and a half of being lost, we found our hotel.
We went to the National Gallery for a couple hours - free admission tonight. Remember that Heritage Canada commercial that Hetty King narrated, about the teachers in one room schoolhouses - "Its a very difficult passage. It's from the Bible. This is what I use to teach your son to read." And the dour old men look abashed because they can't read....I saw that picture.

And some Picasso's, a Jackson Pollock, Van Gogh's Iris, the Voice of Fire, some of Emily Carr's early work, some Group of Seven paintings and sketches...and then back to the hotel to eat Tim Hortons chili and watch Ugly Betty. It was a mulitcultural day.

The bathroom here is HUGE. Or comparatively so. Our bathroom at home is so small that you could, if you were in a hurry, pee and shave your legs at the same time. Pee in the toilet and shave your legs on the tub, I mean. You always have the option to just pee your pants, but that doesn't save time. The shower here sounds like helicopters and it was giving me imaginary Vietnam flashbacks. Then I got "Break on Through" stuck in my head, because every single movie about Vietnam has that shot of helicopters over the trees and they inevitably play one of three songs - The Doors Break on Through, The Stones Paint it Black, or Fortunate Son by CCR. Sorry, every other musician from the late 60's - apparently you did not capture the soul of the era.

Thank you Turtle, you saved my life.

Ok, so last season on Heroes some stuff happened, and apparently I don't remember any of it because tonights episode made no sense. At all. Why does Weevil think he's Peter? Why was Sylar in some black and white craptastic music video getting shot? Why is Mohinder still around? Why is Fatty Dumb Dumb Cop wandering around the desert with a scorpion on his face, why does Future-Ando think he's on Dragonball Z, everyone is coming back to life for no apparent reason, Peter's got a magic reappearing scar and a stick up his butt, Nicki's not Nicki, she's Tracy and she'll freeze you instead of kicking your ass....Did they even hire writers for this season, or are they running the show as an improv acting seminar, and the audience shouts out scenarios a la Whose Line is it Anyway? And if that's the case, can we get Drew Carey to moderate the bad ideas, please? I think they're just trying to confuse the hell out of us so we tune in each week to see if they've unraveled their tangled web. Eeeew, Mohinder has pepperoni growing on his back. I don't think I can keep watching this show if it's going to jeopardize my relationship with pizza.

In other news, the good old government is going to give me some money, so Yay for not being homeless in '08! Buy yourself a drink, cause the government isn't giving me enough to buy a round, but we should still celebrate.

Neighbors have been particularly loud today, elephants upstairs and they've turned the daycare downstairs into a disco. Those crazy French babies and their all night discos.

Tyra for Vice President

Ok, I do not normally watch the Tyra Banks Show, but its 10 AM and there's nothing else to do today. Except housework, and I'll do that as close to when mom arrives as possible. Anyway, Miss Tyra ran a preview of a teen pregnancy show that's coming up, and she asked some 14 & 15 year old girls if they were actually trying to get pregnant, and when they said yes, she said

"You guys sound STUPID.", and it made them cry. HA.

Which is why she'd be a better choice than Palin any day.

Looney Tunes at 5 AM.
Cats threatening to puke in our shoes.
Leftover chocolate cake.
Out of Charles DeLint books.

The trick is to balance the bad with the good. Cat puke is canceled out by cartoons. Lack of reading material is condoled with baked goods. That's my day so far.
You?

Damn it feels good to be a gansta

We just watched Office Space, and I had a few flashbacks to the asinine work I used to do...or not do. The hours and hours of wasted time, when there really wasn't anything to do but I had to be at my desk in case something came up. Good God, do I not miss that at all.

We're going to play Monopoly because it's the only board game that made the move with us. Perhaps we'll scope out a Salvation Army for some other games, although the SA near here looks like it was recently bombed, and was impossible to walk through the last time we went in on a furniture hunt. Perhaps the giant Value Village will be a better bet.

Talked to mom this week and she may be out on the 21st or so, so long as she's done with doctors appointments for a while. We'll see. If she makes it out, we may do a trip to Ottawa and if I'm lucky, I can throw a rotten egg at Stephen Harper. Or call him "Steve", which I hear he hates.

There's not much news, other than I got my scanner and can take uber scans of negatives. So I was scanning for an hour and playing with photoshop and some day in the future, I shall be able to sell photographs and art prints on etsy. If you haven't checked it out yet, here's a link to a commercial and if nothing else, there's some funny dancing to be seen. And Bojana and Susan, should you have some down time at the office, it's an easy way to kill time. You'll find thousands of things to covet.

Its fall, and there are new shows to talk about.
So You Think You Can Dance Canada - pretty good, too bad Miss Mary Murphy had so show up and force us to mute half the show. But the dancing is on par with the American version, so I'm addicted.

Secret Life of the American Teenager - I've seen all the episodes on Surf The Channel, but I think CBC is going to be running this in Canada, and it's definitely worth watching, if only for Molly Ringwald. Be forewarned, some episodes are going to make you really crave chicken wings.

Tried watching Torchwood tonight....meh. Some guy was brought back to sort-of-life with a magic glove (not the fuzzy glove) and there was some projectile vomiting....and we changed the channel. Terminator has started up again, and it would make an awesome drinking game if you took a shot everytime you thought "What the FUCK is going on?" or just generally wanted to slap someone at Fox for letting it air. But its good mock fodder, like the incredible Bloodrayne.

Not really looking forward to Heroes, unless they're going to step it up a notch and become laughably bad instead of just pathetic. If stupid tar tears doesn't die soon, I'm out. But please, Fatty Dumb Dumb Cop - don't ever change. If you became competent, I don't know what I'd do.

America's Next Top Model has started up, and it's the same old same old. I watch that on STC as well, so I can skip all the bullshit drama and just watch the photoshoots and kick outs. Same with Project Runway. Reality tv is only watchable if you can avoid the personalities of the people involved.

Going to play Monopoly now.

New Post

It's becoming impossible to avoid the US election shit storm. I don't want to know anything about it. I hope Obama wins, I hope Palin gets kicked out of public office (actually, I hope she's attacked by a band of enraged women who rip out her tongue and stuff it up her ass), and I hope McCain has a quiet retirement. But I can't vote, have no say or influence on what happens and reading/watching/hearing what is going on only makes me want to bang my head against the wall til my brain leaks out.

And as for Stephen Harper and his bullshit "I want Canada to stand for something" ads - We do stand for something, jackwad, you'd know that if you were capable of human interaction. I'm pretty sure we're known for peacekeeping. Of course, for a guy who's foreign policy has consisted of attaching his mouth to W's butt and swallowing whatever came out, he's so full of shit we shouldn't expect anything else to come out when he opens his mouth.

And this, George Carlin, is why I don't talk politics, because it just makes me want to get a flamethrower.

I'm going to bury myself in cartoons until I calm down. I'll see you again in a year or so. Or after the lobotomy, depends who wins.

Much ado about nothing

I haven't posted in a while because there's been a whole lot of nothing happening. That, and it's been too hot to type.

Last you heard, Kelly was here and we were going to explore our fine city. Which we did. We went to his hotel - the Hyatt, very nice Ubisoft - and walked past Chinatown to Old Montreal and the ports. It was really damn hot, and crowded and touristy. I think we saw the church Celine Dion got married in. There were horse drawn carriages, and old buildings with new crap in them - the cheesy Canadian memorabilia, maple leaves and moose and mounties, oh my. And VERY expensive restaurants. One pub was advertising a special on a beer and sandwich combo for $16. Like hell I'm paying that much. So we walked back to the hotel, and wasted some time flicking between 3 movies poorly dubbed in French. Zoolander, 102 Dalmations and Mortal Combat 2. It was a crapfest all around. At this point, we'd still only spent 3 hours out of our apartment. So we got groceries (giant ham - $4.75 at IGA) came back to the apartment and Kelly played his french Mass Effect and watched some CNN while Gord and I had naps. We cooked the ham, watched some creepy early Dakota Fanning thing, and Kelly went back to his hotel. We don't have pictures of anything, because we didn't feel like lugging camera's around in the heat. I can't wait for fall & winter. The heat is sickening. I felt this way about Calgary too, so don't think it's just the humidity. It's all the same to me. I do not like the heat.

Sunday we took Kelly to the airport, got mildly lost on the way, this time by overshooting the turn off instead of turning too soon. Next time we're sure to get it right. Monday was much nothing, interrupted by some sleep and eating. Tuesday was Gord's 24th Birthday, and we did some more nothing. Wednesday I ordered a printer and a scanner so that I can print photos and scan negatives and artwork at home, and hopefully sell some of them on Etsy and continue this blissful existence of no alarm clocks or office work. I'd rather shovel sheep shit all day than put on black polycotton blend pants ever again. There are no cubicles in my future. I don't know how people can stand office work, it just seemed meaningless and endless to me. At least with sheep shit, you know why you're shoveling it. I'm not anti-work, just against any more unfulfilling work. I think I've done enough of it for this go round.

2 Terry Pratchetts to go, and then....well, by then I'd better have my printer so I have something to do all day.