vancouver 2010: a local reflects

[disclaimer: i have no sporting or entertainment event pictures as i was a poor student with an uncertain future when the ticket lotteries started in 2008. also, i didn't see a point in waiting hours in line so that i could gain entrance to provincial/country themed 'houses' where visitors were packed in like sardines and over-charged for drinks and snacks -- granville avenue was the same, but for free.]

upon realizing i would be moving to canada, i thought i would pick up french by osmosis. looking at this sign in thinking about my american friends, i can now admit that i have not only not absorbed any french past 'tabernac!', living in canada has made me a better skimmer. i expect to be confused by product titles on consumer packaging ('wtf do strawberries have to do with fraise-r?'), so when it's in english on the first read it's like getting extra time back in my life. [i estimate i allot myself 30 seconds per day of mistakenly reading french when expecting english. and that shit adds up.]

so everyone lost their shit when it was revealed that the olympic flame cauldron would be kept behind secure fencing. for fuck's sake people -- what do you want? do you want to stand right under the flames and stare up, causing black spots in your vision after you stare with crazed olympic obsession for 20-30 minutes? i ascended the viewing platform, where i took this photo -- that thing was radiating major heat.

and you know that if the cauldron wasn't secured, plenty of idiots from around the world would compete to prove who would get drunk enough to try climbing that thing. burns, on the other hand, would be a nice change from the usual injuries associated with the winter olympics.

lightning round: spot the less-desirable-than-normal spelling!

i sure have a nice walk home from work.

love love love

mountie texting. [or if he's an early-adoptor (for someone 40+) perhaps mountie sexting?]

this has nothing to do with the olympics. it's just a photo of moonrise over my hood.

i think i can count 5 cliches here: moose, maple leaf, o canada, red & white schematic, and the smell of desperation that makes people like my mom write emails saying patronizing things like 'well, i'm glad they won the gold medals in hockey -- since it means so much to them' because canadians know americans tend to forget about canada and canada will not be forgotten!

boxing beaver at the corner of cambie and broadway. is this some kind of hbc symbolism that escapes me because i'm not canadian?

so saskatchewinians come from a bubble eh.

i propose this thing be canada's answer to the peace arch.

proof that this creek is false.

this guy stirred up quite the hub bub. some random lady on the sidewalk told us it was a former canucks player. that is a pretty big deal around these parts.

anything that makes america look less dumb by proxy is always welcome in my book.

whoever decided to put the porta potties on the traffic median at drake and pacific gets an a+ in my book.

yea, mid-february is about a month too early for the cherry blossoms. heck of a show, though.

i was originally drawn to the bizarre space-elvis, but wow -- those tan pants are the real riot.

sometimes i wonder what future generations will make of this sort of thing...

... and these guys...

... and these guys. i know that latinos often share physical characteristics of caucasians -- but these where some seriously white canadian boys. pretty sure those pants are in style in kitsilano right now, too.

i think a local first nation's creation myth is about a whale that crawls up on shore and turns into a bear. in case you were wondering if that was a whale-bear at the top, bingo.

i love teepees. i have a great teepee story that i should share sometime. my store involves leeches and indiana jones, so it's a good one.

the bay, the ever prestigious department store that has descended from the hudson bay company -- the beaver-pelt trading company and founder of canada proper.

stephen colbert was my greatest olympic moment.

i used to do this with christopher

#19 bus to stanley park @ 6pm

vancouver olympic torch relay and protest

riding the bus to work this morning...

oh dear

let's all stand in the middle of the street

oh right, today's the torch relay, right.

| | |

what now?

_____wayssuck.org? could that be segwayssuck.org?

are you saying the olympics is nothing but watersports?

complacency is complicity, eh?

the rich play, the rest pay, eh? yea, welcome to reality.

i love this arthouse longhaired guy on the right, documenting the scene by carrying around his camera still on its tripod so that he can get some raw footage for the crappy docudrama he'll make about the IOC and how it's evil.

i can't call it my 'girlcave'

isn't that already a euphemism for a vagina? how odd, it appears no one's defined girlcave yet at urbandictionary.com. well anyways, i can't call it my girlcave because it sounds too much like an euphemism for vagina to me.

i was standing out on my balcony watching a hazy winter dusk, thinking about how much i love my new home -- feeling all protective of it. it's my skyhigh zen palace and ain't nobody coming in to mess up this chi. it's private, cozy, and all mine. like a man cave, i thought.

i'm not a man though -- girlcave came to mind. but i'm a grown-ass woman.

maybe i'll just call it home.

my sassy new building

one morning during my first week at my new place i see this:

general gist of the memo: thanks to the olympics we're going to police the hell out of the parking lot.

response: *dick sketch* 'too much expensive'

january 2010: lost lagoon, stanley park, vancouver, bc, canada, earth

dainty maid douche bag

"the only improvement made in douche bags in twenty years."

june 16th, 2009

reviewing the photos on my memory card from the last 12 months, i found the last picture i took of my childhood pet, christopher, before he died in october. i remember looking at this photo after i just left him again, and thought it was interesting. seeing it again, now that he's gone, it looks like he's already ghosting.

always aspiring to be realistic, i used to think that people being shattered by the death of a pet was a bit much. i can't say every moment of my waking life is distraught misery, because it's not. but spending 6 days at my parents' house, the first time since he died, was quite the emotional mindfuck. it may seem like auto-pilot, but i loved my rituals with my ani-pal. i can't walk into the house from the garage without calling 'krr-ihs-tohffur!' here kitty kitty.

it felt painful to make myself not carry out my cat-call as usual. it sucked. my mind kept filling in his image where he would sit -- center floor of any high-traffic area. my mind would echo his variety of greetings and commentary when timely. any time i let myself call for christopher, it seemed too debbie-downer to ever do again.

music is one of those things that heals the hurts. i have already mentioned a song i love, but listening to it from the perspective of mourning my kitty. i'm the girl, christopher's the he, my parents' house (and christopher's lifelong home) is the meeting place.

all it takes is a peppy 60's-inspired pop-orchestral mid-tempo ballad.

the last shadow puppets: indie baroque pop-rock?

example, so catchy: meeting place

wikipedia classifies the last shadow puppets' genre as indie rock, baroque pop. good enough for me. i'd classify the last shadow puppets as one of the best surprises of 2009 -- for me. their album the age of understatement came out in 2008.

nevermind -- onto the goods:

the title track starts like some kind of high-energy old west chase -- plucky, driving, epic horns: the age of understatement

catchy, swift: standing next to me

concise sentiment floating in a pool of ethereal goo: the chamber

sounds james bond-y: my mistakes were made for you

an avant-start to creepy punkishness: i don't like you anymore

acoustic-y, gorgeous closer: the time has come again

[it's] in our nature

i've recognized josé gonzález on the music scene for a few years now, but i never seemed to get into his music. lucky for me, in our nature was the breakthrough album -- even though it's been out for two years. at least it doesn't sound dated.

in our nature

killing for love

time to send someone away

little to no respect

that's what i have for a blog called one day, paris. a blog written by someone whose ultimate life dream is go travel to paris.

what's wrong with having a dream, you ask? nothing wrong with having a dream, i suppose, but i do know how much time blogging requires. instead of spending that time blogging, how about getting a(nother) job, saving up, and actually making the dream a reality?

also, there are the pitfalls of getting one's hopes up. and paris -- really? i've been there, honey, and let me tell you: it's kinda harsh. and not kinda harsh.

florence and the machine: queen and court of 2009

i don't care if december is still three hours away -- i'm beating the critics to the punch and declaring the best album of 2009:

lungs by florence and the machine

forget your owl city's and your lykke li's and your passion pits; annoying, boring, cliche. blah blah blah. i've been obsessed with florence and the machine after a mention by none other than p nasty himself.

who wants to read about music -- listen for oneself, right?

song for the work-out mix: dog days are over

epic journey in 4 minutes: rabbit heart (raise it up)

for those of us who love rough housing: kiss with a fist

happily hypnotic: drumming

after my beloved childhood pet died, i asked my ipod to play a song that would make me happier - it did: you've got the love

the most beautiful song that will ever upset p.e.t.a.: bird song

the lyrics drive me completely bonkers. i spent weeks just feeling the sonics before i started to listen to the lyrics i already knew by heart; except i hadn't thought about those words at all.

top it all off with the mega-mix: rabbit heart (raise it up) (jaime t's lionheart mix)

RIP christopher

may 19, 1993 - october 29, 2009

ripping off starby's one bakery recipe at a time

[i stole this from yahoo answers; tis delish]

SPICED PUMPKIN BREAD

3 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
3 large eggs
1 16-ounce can solid pack pumpkin
3 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder


Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter and flour two 9x5x3-inch loaf pans. Beat sugar and oil in large bowl to blend. Mix in eggs and pumpkin. Sift flour, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, salt and baking powder into another large bowl. Stir into pumpkin mixture in 2 additions. Mix in walnuts, if desired.

Divide batter equally between prepared pans. Bake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 1 hour 10 minutes. Transfer to racks and cool 10 minutes. Using sharp knife, cut around edge of loaves. Turn loaves out onto racks and cool completely.

Makes 2 loaves.
Bon Appétit

minor happenstances

for all the conspiracy theorists out there

justin bobby

it's not quite a verb yet, but urban dictionary's definition of

justin bobby does explain the relevant circumstance

[preamble: i'll admit i watched the first season or three of the hills -- an incredible transition in the reality tv realm from mostly real to mostly fiction, posing as reality. that show made several young people into highly paid actors who were playing fictitious accounts of their 'real' lives. what! as viewers, we're required to accept contradictory truths about the main characters. they're famous for playing fake versions of their real lives -- we know it's fake and we looooove it. that's an interesting way for mainstream attention to turn at the end of the first new-millenial decade -- we love fake reality (hello second life). it's the new american dream -- people trying to utilize their persona or circumstance for recognition, status and pay-out.]

scrolling through perez on my reader today i came across a justin bobby post. i haven't watched the hills in ages, but it makes my day to see a justin bobby post every now and again.

the coming insurrection

one of my online browsing hobbies is pouring over amazon.com's lists of new or bestselling social sciences non-fiction books. i keep a reading list of books i'd like to read some day -- because otherwise as soon as i have no particular book in mind to read, then nothing sounds appealing. take for instance the ending of my first year of grad school -- once i had free time and went browsing at the central library downtown all i ended up checking out were huxley's island and a few parapsychology books that were pretty crap. i didn't flip my reading switch back on until i found canadians, a pretty interesting book about contemporary canada. after that my reading floodgates flew open and i've been a devout bookworm for the last 18 months.

it seems that just reading books isn't enough, as i'm now tediously examining finite sub-categories of social sciences non-fiction for titles to add to my reading list. i justify this minorly obsessive habit by telling myself that, as an avid reader, i know there are plenty of crap books out there -- especially research on nano-contemporary social phenomenons. take for instance the absurd popularity of malcolm gladwell's books right now. [sidenote: i personally judge gladwell's popularity because i'm not impressed with his pop sociology; i think he over-generalizes some pretty subtle things and stamps his interpretation on it to the crowds' delight; i'll be curious to see how his theories hold up over time.] so sociology is the hip non-fic category for this millisecond -- which means the publishing market is churning out more content in that field, interesting concept, research and writing, or not. phenomena flood the market with junk, so it's not too wacky to keep an extensive list of options -- that way, i know that if the book doesn't deliver on the content-front within the first 20%, i don't have to waste my time feeling like i have to suffer through the book out of some kind of reader's responsibility.

now that i've hyper-analyzed my reading strategy, i can explain that i've so thoroughly combed through amazon.com and .ca, as well as many computerized cycles of recommendations based upon my livingsocial.com book profile, i needed a new source for my fix. i turned to bn.com. i thought it would be the exact same as amazon, just with its signature green-theme design. as in the color, not the trendy environmental phase currently enrapturing the western world. i was surprised to find that its classification scheme was different than amazon's; then again, i would think that's interesting due to my status as an information professional.

browsing bn books > non-fiction > political theory & ideology, i came across something called the coming insurrection. what a title! the book description reads:

The Coming Insurrection is an eloquent call to arms arising from the recent waves of social contestation in France and Europe. Written by the anonymous Invisible Committee in the vein of Guy Debord—and with comparable elegance—it has been proclaimed a manual for terrorism by the French government (who recently arrested its alleged authors). One of its members more adequately described the group as "the name given to a collective voice bent on denouncing contemporary cynicism and reality." The Coming Insurrection is a strategic prescription for an emergent war-machine to "spread anarchy and live communism."

looking at the customer reviews section, under the 'good for' heading were the options: book club, gift giving, inspirational, intellectual stimulation, topical conversation. i had a nice lol when i saw that book club got 1/5 stars -- this book is about the coming insurrection, theoretically by the masses, because that's what an insurrection is. the coming insurrection would be a perfect book club item, because the idea is to spread the word of rebellion! so how the hell did it rate only one out of five stars?

i had an even better lol when i looked further down the 'good for' heading to topical conversation, which was rated 4/5 stars. isn't a book club topical conversation? it's the same thing. and yet the completely divergent customer ratings.

hm.

frozen ocean

not only does facebook make attendance at my upcoming 10 year high school obsolete, it makes me feel like i'm witnessing my 10 year high school reunion every damn time i log on. nothing but peoples' boring vacation pictures, boring wedding and house pictures, boring baby pictures, and delightful puppy and kitten pictures (if my supposed fb 'friend' knows how to take a non-shitty picture, which half of them don't).

for better or worse, i generally know how maybe half my graduating class is doing these days. but due to the fact that i started facebooking five years ago while i was still an undergrad, i never really got that much distance from my high school classmates. it's the general presence of those regulars that make the mia's that much more illustrious.

while walking down my building's stairs and exiting onto the sidewalk, my thoughts leapt from approaching autumn to winter to alaska, snow and icebergs to here down the coast to southern california to frozen ocean.

a little over ten years ago my high school marching band was preparing to take a trip to southern california over the christmas holiday. during a band practice the director explained the trip itinerary included an afternoon at the beach. a plump, blond, simple girl who was new in town from texas raised her hand and asked, 'but if we go in december, won't the ocean be frozen?' the band director looked as though he'd gone slack-jawed and was then pressed between heavy dictionaries with tissue paper. he was an exceptionally thin man to begin with, but his interior rage at the blunt moronic-ness of the question seemed as though he would implode into a fairy twinkle, and then absolute nothingness. taking a moment to collection himself, the director asked for any other questions, invalidating the girl's query by ignoring its existence.

a 15 or 16 year old high school student asking whether the ocean nearest disneyland would be frozen in december would normally be a sign of a failed education system (i did note she had moved from texas), but this was the suburban midwest. as if any high school students anywhere need a reason to pick on others, this girl was already fat and from texas -- it was as if revealing her stupidity was the last straw in the argument of how could you possibly not pick on her?

from then on everyone referred to her as frozen ocean behind her back, at least in the beginning. it seemed so casual that it must have made it back to her at some point. the girl committed a massive social blunder and suffered extensive alientation -- it's one of those things you look back on, now as an adult, and think 'no wonder people end up fucked in the head.'

but that's not the point i'm getting at. even though this girl, this frozen ocean, had the odds stacked against her, she seemed to dig her own grave by thinking, or at least acting, as though her peers were her friends -- her desperation was so sad that no one really shunned her to her face. she seems like exactly the kind of person who would go on fb and friend anyone that was in her high school graduating class, and people would accept her request out of pity, knowing they could hide her from their own fb feeds. it's these aspects of this girl that i haven't seen in over ten years that make her absence from a social networking website so glaringly obvious.

so no, i don't want to attend my upcoming ten year high school reunion -- i want to know what the hell happened to frozen ocean.