counting the things I've done

So look at that - I vowed to blog twice a week and now a month has gone by without an update. Shocker. I blame my dirty condo. Not because I've spent all my writing time actually cleaning mind you, but because I think to myself that if I have enough time to write a post, I could spend that time cleaning. So in order to avoid the dreaded vacuum cleaner and organizing the guest room, aka "the place where things go to die" I also avoid hitting up the old blogger website. Instead I do important things like bake banana chocolate chip muffins and watch Gossip Girl. So even though it's November, I think it's about time I went over all the fun things I did this summer. I feel it's appropriate because now that we've "fallen back" and there is snow on the ground, I'm pretty confident that summer is officially over and I can make a full and complete tally of all the things I did. Here it is, in no particular order and with no particular explanation as to why these were important things:

• Wakeboarding - and not only did I learn how to wakeboard, I got up my second try. My history as waterskiier might have helped, but I was pretty impressed with myself. I also had good instructors (thank you AH and TS). But I will say that the next day my forearms were so sore I could barely squeeze the shampoo out of the bottle.
• Biking - I biked to work almost every single day. You would too if you had the awesome red cruiser pictured above (yes that is my actual bike).
• Zumbaing - I Learned to zumba. Okay, "learn" might be a bit of a stretch. But I went to a zumba class, danced my ass off and had one of the best laughs I've ever had.
• Getting old - I turned 35. The less said about that the better.
• I only went to one wedding! This really is exciting. And it was a fun one too. Extra points for the fact that butter chicken was the main course.
• I went home to Ottawa for 10 days. SS and HC came with me. We played croquet. Bet you didn't know that official croquet has over 30 rules. Needless to say we didn't follow any of them.
• Vegas! Now, normally this type of trip would garner it's very own blog post, but it really did happen a long time ago (September long weekend) and I have no photographic evidence as I lost my camera (while totally sober I might add), so it's almost like it didn't happen. Luckily I have my credit card statement to remind me about the trip. One thing I do remember is that I stayed up past 5 am two nights in a row, which really is shocking when you consider my age (as noted above). It was an impromptu trip, celebrating, among other things, the fact that Christie quit her job and AH's son turned one. While he was at home celebrating with grandma, AH was wearing a tie on her head chatting up a former Saskatchewan Roughrider named Big Earl.
• Running - Like an idiot, I went ahead and signed up for this stupid run again. And this year they changed the route to make it even more hilly and more difficult. But I finished. And once again it was a beautiful day, with great friends, and post-run burgers and beer. No hat stealing this year though. Although it should be noted that this past Sunday, HC, SS and the acquaintance who threw that post-bar party last year all ran the NYC marathon. I cheered HC and SS on from my couch and then went and ran 4.2 kms in honour of the fact that they were running 42 kms. Pretty much the same thing, right?
• Superhero - I rescued an 8 month old from a locked car. With my own two hands. Oh, and my phone. It was quite funny - I went to Gabe for Thanksgiving (you know, with the usual suspects, KM & Lily) to visit BB and TT. On Saturday afternoon, TT and I were out touring the galleries on the island, and TT accidentally locked her adorable infant in the minivan. Yep, they have a minivan - don't worry, we mocked them endlessly. Luckily I had the foresight not to leave my phone in the car, we called BB and he arrived from the other side of the island with the other set of keys to let the poor child out. I could not stop laughing. TT was somewhat frantic. Needless to say, we teased the poor woman for the rest of the weekend. Mother of the year that one.
• Ryan Gosling - well I didn't actually "do" the Gos, but I did see 2 of the 3 movies he was in this summer. You know I have a love for Dirty Dancing, so was a total sucker for the scene in "Crazy Stupid Love" where he shows off his "move." And ever since seeing Drive I have been somewhat obsessed with '80s synthesizer euro-pop. My two current faves are "A Real Hero" which is on the soundtrack and M83's "Midnight City" which I'm super bummed is now in a Victoria's Secret ad. Boo. As I basically wrote this whole post to this type of music, let's end on the video shall we? Because while I'm sure I did other stuff this summer worth noting, I think this list about covers all you need to know.

thefacebook

Last night I saw The Social Network. I am not a movie reviewer, but here are my thoughts, take 'em or leave 'em.

First off, it was a very good movie. Was it the best movie I've seen this year (as some reviewers have taken to calling it)? No. Movies that I liked better than this one include The Kids are Alright, Me Too (a Spanish movie I saw at the film fest last week), and maybe even Inception. But still it was really good.

Obviously it's a great story - 19 year old screws over friends to become the youngest billionaire in the world. And more importantly, he created the phenomenon that is Facebook, of which I have been a member since sometime in 2007. To be able to write the code (whatever the hell that means), have it go viral, then mainstream and figure out how to make money from something that is ostensibly free is amazing. Even if it might not have been his idea to start out with, he took it and ran with it. Congrats Mr. Zuckerberg. The script was great - lots of talking, with subtle humour that you really have to listen for. I laughed out loud numerous times (and often times alone ... not sure if the rest of the theatre just wasn't paying as much attention as I was). The acting is great - Jesse Eisenberg in particular. And Andrew Garfield as the original CFO who really got screwed over. He was fabulous. It helps that he is super cute. And not at all age appropriate for me to be crushing on, but whatever. JT was good too - but really, I think I prefer him as a singer.

One thing I will say though is that there are no strong female characters in the movie. If we take this movies at face value (which I know we're not supposed to), it appears that there were no smart girls at Harvard in the early years of this decade - only groupies, girls bused in for parties, one night stands, slutty interns or complete whackos. I suppose you could argue that a female is responsible for the whole phenomenon (she breaks up with Zuckerberg, he starts an early version of facebook and then mopes when she doesn't accept his friend request right away), but really, this movie is about horny boys who happen to write computer code and turn out to be evil genuises.

What's almost more interesting than the movie itself is all of the coverage around it (mostly through blogs and other forms of social meadia) - what's true, what's not, what could be, and what definitely isn't. Seriously, if you want to waste a few solid hours reading some very entertaining articles, click on any of the above.

And as an appropriate coda to show just how useful Facebook really is, last night I did some Facebook stalking (one of my specialties) and found out that yankee hat guy and threesome date guy are friends. For serious. This city is just too damn small.

majordomos for everyone!

On Friday night I watched the documentary Valentino: The Last Emperor. Great. Beautiful clothes (duh). Everything is sewn by hand. It really is something to see. The amount of time, effort and money spent on creating beauty - it's astonishing. Plus he has quite the personality. And he has quite the life. That is his house outside of Paris. It's a 16th century Chateau. Not bad. And he has a majordomo. I want a majordomo. I've often said that I need a nanny, even though I have no children, but now I realize what I really need is a majordomo. It sounds much more sophisticated. And I am nothing if not a sophisticate. According to wikipedia, a majordomo is a person who speaks, makes arrangements, or takes charge for another. Apparently they went out of style with the end of feudalism, but I guess no one told Valentino.

things that are cheaper than the chair

Add this to the list of things that makes me happy - Mark Ruffalo. After my depressing trip to Crate & Barrel yesterday, CG and I went to see The Kids Are Alright. Great movie. It's been universally praised by critics, so I don't have much to add, but needless to say it made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me think, the acting was fabulous, it had a great soundtrack and it made me lust for Mark Ruffalo. Both his character and him as a person, because, not only is he easy to look at, I feel like is just a cool guy. Not sure if this is true or not, but according to Lainey he is great. So I'll just go with that. Plus it only cost 12 bucks! Much more reasonable than a $1400 chair. Oh and we went to Farm for dinner first. Dinner (including wine) for 3 was $156. Also much cheaper than the chair. Cheese also makes me very happy. And then, we got pre-sale seats to Arcade Fire at the end of September. At $58, also cheaper than the chair. All told, these 3 things add up to only 8.7% of the cost of the chair. And they brought me much satisfaction. So all in all, a successful 24 hours.

p-dubs

I saw Get Him to the Greek last night ... laughed out loud. A lot.
Most pleasant surprise = Diddy (or as I like to call him, p-dubs). Oh and Lars Ullrich. Yep, they are both in the same movie.

That's really all I have to say about that.

Up in the air

Recently I was on a plane and the woman in front of me was watching "Up in the Air" which I have already seen and quite enjoyed. It reminded me that it has one of my favourite scenes from a movie, ever. Right after Anna Kendrick's (Natalie) character get dumped via text message, she has a breakdown and a speech that sums up how I felt for most of my 20s:
Alex (Vera Farmiga): What a weasley prick
Natalie: What does that make me, someone who falls for a weasley prick? When I was 16 I thought I'd be married by 23, maybe have a kid. Corner office by day, entertaining at night. I was supposed to be driving a Grand Cherokee by now.
Alex: Life can underwhelm you that way.
Natalie: I don't want to say anything anti-feminist, I really appreciated everything your generation did for me.
Alex: It was our pleasure.
Ryan (George Clooney): Well done.
Natalie: It just feels like success won't matter til I find the right guy.
Alex: You really thought he was the one?
Natalie: We could have made it work ... he really fit the bill. White collar, college grad, loves dogs, likes funny movies, 6'1, brown hair, kind eyes, works in finance but is outdoorsy, you know, on weekend. I always imagined he'd have a single syllabled name like Matt or John or Dave. In a perfect world he drives a four runner and the only thing he loves more than me is his golden lab. And a nice smile. What about you?
Alex: That he's not an asshole. He comes from a good family, wants kids, is healthy enough to play with his kids. He can't earn more money than me and it would be nice if he has hair, although that's not a deal breaker anymore. And a nice smile. Even that could be enough.
Natalie: Whoa, that's depressing ... you should just date women.
Alex: Tried that - trust me, we're no picnic.

It's an abridged version, but when I saw it in the theatre, I almost fell out of my chair laughing. I definitely did not plan on having a corner office or kids by age 23, but the part about the boy with the single syllable name, the dog and the SUV - all true.

Having already seen the movie, I watched another quality film - Twilight: New Moon. Full of crap dialogue of course, but I felt the need to watch it in order to understand the cultural zeitgeist. I guess it falls under the "guilty pleasures" portion of this blog. And PS, I'm totally Team Jacob, even though the cutoffs the wolf pack wear are awful and Taylor Lautner is way too young, not to mention too short.