my problem with twitter

I enjoy twitter.  I really really do.  I enjoy the time I waste reading all the articles that are teased by snappy 140 character-long introductions.  I love that it gives me something to do while I wait in a restaurant for my friends who are always late.  In the evenings, it gives me yet another thing to do besides clean my house. I laugh at all the funny hashtags that bring people together (remember #tellviceverything? - awesome) and subsequently mock people who don't understand what a hashtag is.  But what I've come to realize is that twitter is also a way for all the cool kids to tell you what they are doing and make you feel left out for not doing it too.  It's worse than just not knowing what's going on - with twitter, if you follow a certain type of person and watch what they are doing, you can be part of the zeitgeist (i.e. cool because you know what's happening) but be left out of it at the same time (i.e. loser because you're not there).  If I'm sitting at home I can basically see what all the hip and connected people in Calgary are doing and then feel bad for missing out on it.  It's FOMO (fear of missing out) at it's worst because it's self-inflicted.  I guess I could just get off my ass and become more involved but sitting at home complaining about it is more my style.

PS - When I went to find a link to define FOMO, I found this NY Times article: How Social Media Can Induce Feelings of "Missing Out"  It does a much better job of articulating every thought I posted above, so I apologize for making you read my rant, when I could have posted the article and been done with it.

PPS - For a long time I thought that FOMO was something my friends and I coined, as we've been using it for many years.  Turns out, not so much.  I actually can't believe that I haven't posted about it before.  It's long been a symptom in my life and plays a big role in helping me decide to do the things I do, generally to very happy results.  For the most part I've always thought of it as a positive, but when it comes to twitter, I've decided it is causing me much angst.

a list for a sunday

I have been known to post a variety of lists - lists of things I've done, things not to do, things to be thankful for, books to read, music to listen to, and top moments from various events.  This time I'm gonna post somebody else's list.  It comes from the Lists of Note blog. It's taken from a letter that F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote to his 11 year old daughter in 1933.  Here's an excerpts - I gotta say, I think it's a pretty good list of things to consider when going through life.


Things to worry about:
Worry about courage
Worry about cleanliness
Worry about efficiency
Worry about horsemanship

Things not to worry about: 
Don’t worry about popular opinion
Don’t worry about dolls
Don’t worry about the past
Don’t worry about the future
Don’t worry about growing up
Don’t worry about anybody getting ahead of you
Don’t worry about triumph
Don’t worry about failure unless it comes through your own fault
Don’t worry about mosquitoes
Don’t worry about flies
Don’t worry about insects in general
Don’t worry about parents
Don’t worry about boys
Don’t worry about disappointments
Don’t worry about pleasures
Don’t worry about satisfactions


I'm not sure why it struck me at this particular moment in time ... but it's a beautiful sunny Sunday morning in February, I'm packing to go away for a week of work and friend time, and I'm feeling somewhat reflective.  I don't know that I'll ever worry about horsemanship or not worry about boys, but I feel like this is a good list to remind me what's important in life.  

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.

it's the little things pt. 4

On Thursday I came home from work to a belated bday card from KM (for a full description of my actual birthday click here). This card was a welcome laugh on an otherwise boring day. And while the card might have made me smile, the little present inside made me positively giddy. It was a magnet with the words "shithead" on it. For those who know me well (i.e. KM), they know that shithead is my favourite insult. Mainly because I like the visual – someone with a normal body, but instead of a head on top, there is a big ball of shit. It’s juvenile, I know, but it makes me laugh. And so the fact that KM saw this fridge magnet and thought of me, well it just means so much. It really is the little things.

The magnet in question is pictured here. This is my actual fridge. To the right and slightly above said magnet is a Globe and Mail clipping - my one and only letter to the editor that made it into the actual paper. Unsurprisingly it was a letter commenting on the ridiculousness of a Harper policy. On top of that - two fortune cookies fortunes (you may recall this post). Then to the left is a picture of my old roomates from university (including KM, she of the awesome magnet) taken in an apple tree in the Annapolis Valley. It was taken at the beginning of May 1999 - so the blossoms were in full bloom, just in time for the world famous Apple Blossom Festival. Below the magnet is an autograph from Orland0 Bloom, written on the back of a coaster from the Four Seasons in the Bahamas. My parents were there for a conference and Orly was staying there whilst filming Pirates of the Caribbean (part II I think). My dad worked out with him for an hour having no idea who he was. My mom spotted him later and got the signature. I'm not a huge fan of his or anything, it's just kind of a nice memento and a good story.

And finally, below and to the left is my newly purchased membership in the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta. Shocking I know, given my leftie leanings. I was actually a member once before, back in 2006, when I was part of the stop Ted Morton movement. People like me are known as "temporary tories." There's been some backlash, but this is the way the system works. And seeing as the PCs have been ruling this province for 40 years, if you want to have an actual say in who is running the government, taking part in the leadership election is the best way to do it. So I voted. And guess what? My vote made a difference and my choice won. It really was the best 5 bucks I spent this month! There have been a lot of surprising political victories this year - Nenshi, Layton, and now Redford. People talk about how uninteresting politics is and how apathetic the electorate has become. But then stuff like this happens and it gives us hope. Now I'm not about to get all "yes we can" on you - let's face it, the conservatives are still in power and I had no other plans on this particular saturday night - but the fact that I stayed up way past my bedtime last night to follow the #pclrd hashtag happenings on twitter and woke up actually interested in the results should mean something to someone. So now there will be a general election sometime in the next year and we'll see how Redford fares with those people unwilling to pay 5 dollars to have their say. And you can bet everyone of those 5 dollars that I will be calling more than one of the politicians running in that election a shithead. Good thing I have the magnet.

where the streets have no name

Remember way back in June last year when I was so upset that the U2 concert was postponed? In the true spirit of never being satisfied, this June I'm upset because the concert is over! It was on Wednesday night, and my, how fabulous it was. Beautiful evening, beautiful music and a few great stories - this one about Bono hitchhiking is just so fantastic. Only in Canada would an Edmonton Oiler pick up a rock star on the side of the road.

I then spent the 3 hour drive back to Calgary listening to all the U2 songs on my ipod. The one below will I think always be my favourite:

I should also point out that while U2 is obviously a big-time band, they are also a sentimental favourite. My brother had both October and War before they were big and so the fact that I got to go to their concert 30 years later is one of those things that kind of throws me for a loop. But it also makes me thankful to be able to enjoy such fabulous things like good live music and singing at the top of my lungs on the open road.

guilty feeling got no rhythm

Guilt - it's a tricky feeling. And one I find myself struggling with constantly. About lots of things and to varying degrees.

There are of course many different kinds of guilt. There’s harmless guilt, like the name of this blog, referring to songs that are so lame they’re good. There’s nagging guilt, as in “I shouldn’t have eaten that cookie” or “I should really go to the gym.” There’s guilt in a court of law, as in “we the jury find you guilty of murder.” There’s moral guilt, as in cheating on your spouse or plagiarizing an essay. And then there’s psychological guilt, which according to Freud (and Wikipedia), is "an affective state in which one experiences conflict at having done something that one believes one should not have done (or conversely, having not done something one believes one should have done)."

It’s this last one that is haunting me these days. For women my age, this type of guilt is most often associated with working mothers - when they're with their kids they feel guilty for not working and when they're at work they feel guilty about not spending enough time with their kids. Well I have no children, but I still feel guilty when I make decisions that I think might disappoint or negatively impact others. I easily forget the mantra “you can’t please all people all the time” and so when I try to in fact do this, I end up overextending myself, having to back out of a plan and then feeling guilty about reneging. So in this way it’s my own fault.

But in another way, it’s something I have no control over. As a single childless woman with a good but not overly cumbersome job, living in a perfectly manageable 800 sq foot condo, I don’t really have any responsibilities beyond myself. So sometimes it makes it tough to figure out what my main priorities should be – Friends? Family? Job? Favourite activities? Decorating? The gym? Fashion? Food? Myself? When I choose one over the other why does it feel so bad? And then, when my friends’ and family's priorities are ordered differently than mine, and I choose one of mine over one of theirs, which I know might disappoint them, once again I end up feeling shitty.

One of the easiest ways to answer this of course should be - do what makes you happy. Life is too short … (fill in the blank here – to drink cheap wine, to read a bad book, to watch from the sidelines, and so on and so forth). Sadly it’s hard to live that way. In fact, living without guilt effectively means that you are a psychopath, something I don’t think anyone should really be aiming for. But a blog post like this one from Derek Miller does help to put things into perspective. I think what I should try to do is whenever I feel guilty (like really guilty, not the eating a cookie guilty) is to re-read the “Here it is, I’m dead” post and work on letting go of the guilt. It's really the least I can do. Check back with me soon and I’ll let you know how it goes.

And yes, the title of this post does refer to the classic Wham! song "Careless Whisper." When I googled the term "guilty feeling got no rhythm," imagine my surprise when I found out the actual words are "guilty feet have got no rhythm." Turns out I have been signing this song incorrectly for 25 years. This of course only adds to my enjoyment of it! In case you forgot how awesome George Michael was back in the day, I implore you to take a look:

no poetry, just politics

It's been a few weeks since my last politics post ... my apologies, I've been too busy following the election to actually write about the election. Plus I don't really have happy thoughts about the whole thing, so I have a hard time sitting down to write about unhappy things. Why I am unhappy you ask?

Well for one, Harper's dead eyes during the debate scared me. Secondly, I have a home phone number and so I get 3-5 nuisance polling calls a night. And finally, I am feeling unbelievably disenfranchised because despite the fact that I live in the 4th largest city in Canada, not one of the leaders has bothered to show up here yet. Not even Harper, and his riding is here.

I'm feeling particularly disheartened because despite the fact that I live in a riding that should be up for grabs, as it is an empty seat (former cabinet minister Jim Prentice has left politics - an exit that I'm pretty sure had something to do with the above-mentioned Harper dead eyes thing), but still, according to project democracy, some random woman named Michelle Rempel is going to win my riding with 54% of the vote. Not because she's fabulous mind you - according to a trusted source who was at a meet and greet with the candidates last night, she's actually quite the opposite. On her website she talks about lower taxes, fighting crime, and the coalition. There are three things wrong with those statements - Canada already has a low corporate tax regime, crime is on the decline, and there is no such thing as a coalition. And then today she was the only candidate not to show up at a debate at the U of C, even though she actually works at the U of C! According to her spokesperson, she declined because "her campaign team didn't like the moderator." Um, I don't like snow in April, but I still walked to work this morning! You can't always get what you want Michelle! I'm sure that attitude will serve you well in Parliament. All the best to you, but please know that while you might end up representing my riding, I will never call you my representative.

Okay enough with the sad ranting, on to better things that have come out of this election. Such as this awesome video and website. As someone who has multiple relatives from Cape Breton, I particularly enjoy the Rita McNeil reference. Embedding is has been disabled, so you'll just have to check it out on youtube or just go directly to shitharperdid.

cheap politics

So I've mentioned my disdain for Harper, (here and here) but thanks to his latest attack ads, it's crossing over into absolute hatred.

This ad is ridiculous and wrong on so many levels. Last time I checked, a coalition government is completely legal, not at all shady, and part of our parliamentary democracy. Harper is trying to scare the uneducated amongst us and I think it's completely wrong. Jeffrey Simpson's article in yesterday's Globe and Mail says it much more eloquently than I can, and Ignatieff may have his faults, but coming back to Canada to become an elected official is not one of them. Attacking his motives is cheap politics and I can't believe I live in a country where our prime minister thinks this type of mud slinging is completely acceptable.

I could go on but I won't. Mainly because watching this ad makes me want to throw my computer out the window and my new job doesn't pay me enough to buy a new one.

what purple means to me

I'm a bit late to following up on my previous election post, but now that I am in Toronto, which also just had it's own election (albeit with a somewhat different result), I'll just say a few things.

In the weeks leading up to election night, everytime I wore purple, people asked me if I was part of "the purple revolution." The truth is that I just like the colour purple and it is a staple of my wardrobe. I didn't ultimately make up my mind on who to vote for until a week or two before election day. I've met Naheed Nenshi a few times over the past few years as part of my day job, and have always found him to be bright, articulate and thought provoking. When he entered the race, I really thought he was just doing so to further the conversation. I even said to a few friends that I thought he should drop out and throw his support behind more legitimate contenders (i.e. Wayne Stewart or Kent Hehr). Ultimately of course, the reverse happened. And then as he gained momentum, I decided I would vote for him, but I figured he still wouldn't win. I knew all of my FB friends had planned to vote for him, but whether or not they would actually go out on the day and fill out a ballot was unknown. Turns out they did. Good for them. And good for him for capturing their imagination and inspiring them to care about municipal politics.

In my mind, the best candidate won. And I do think he will get shit done. Not just the things my young left-wing friends care about (i.e. the arts, poverty reduction, libraries, bike lanes, walkable cities, etc) but other things like budget reduction, the airport tunnel, snow removal, and investment attraction. The issue of course is that he is receiving so many accolades that he cannot possibly meet (and really, I don't think I'm being a huge pessimist here), I just hope that people are not too disappointed. He is human. He is mayor of a major city with a $60 million budget shortfall, civic employees with incredibly low morale, a growing population and the lowest property taxes in Canada. Good luck.

To me the real story is about participation. Today while visiting with my friend Victoria we ran into her neighbour who was coming home from cleaning out her office ... as of Tuesday she was out of a job because she was on Smitherman's campaign team. You would think she'd be super pissed about Ford and his big win. And while I wouldn't exactly call her happy, she wasn't ranting about how ridiculous it was that a "buffoon" had won. Nor was she cynical about the whole thing. She had great perspective. She had met some great people, worked on something that mattered and in the end, over 50% of the electorate turned up to make their choice and even though it wasn't hers, she was okay with it. Toronto may have picked a polarizing leader, but at least people made the effort to pick him (or not, as the case may be).

The same thing happened in Calgary. Calgary has led the nation in population growth over the past ten years, and as the city has grown it has been said that the people who move here aren’t really committed to sticking around. The common knock against Calgary is that they come to work and make their money, but build their life elsewhere, leaving us with a lifeless community. 54% of the electorate showing up to vote proves that this is not the case. Such a large turnout demonstrates that people voted because they are committed to this city. They are here for the long term and they want to be engaged in the community. And it wasn’t just on Election Day. Throughout the campaign, there was a strong indication that this election would be different. People were talking about the issues and the candidates everywhere you went. No aldermanic candidates ran unopposed. For the first time there was an aldermanic forum in every ward, and people actually showed up. In more than one case, organizers had to scramble for more chairs. There were over 35 mayoral forums, attended by the majority of the candidates, and a large number of citizens. The largest, organized by Civic Camp and the University of Calgary’s Student Union, had over 800 attendees. When was the last time 800 people showed up for anything related to municipal politics? In my mind, all the discussion about what it means that Canada's most conservative city elected a Muslim mayor is totally beyond the point (nor was it really discussed until after he won - seriously no one cared). The real highlight for me is the fact that wherever you went, people were talking about the city, what type of person is needed to make it a better place, and how excited they were to be able to make that choice. As geeky political type, I found this to be super cool. As a result, I'm hopeful that the conversations that were had leading up to the election will continue on into Nenshi's 3 years (and possible more) as mayor, and that people will commit to being engaged to the Calgary community for the long term.

Ok, will stand down from my soap box now. I promise my next post will be much more vacuous in nature.

thanks emily et al

Today is civic election day in my neck of the woods. I love voting. I've voted in every election and I change my vote a lot (Liberals for Joe!) One of my least favourite things is partisanship. You should be able to vote for who you want depending on the important issues of the day, not just because it's the way your parents voted or because of something that the governing party of the day did 20 years ago. This is why American politics drive me crazy and also why it's tough living in Alberta where the conservative have been in power since the dinosaurs were roaming through Drumheller. But civic politics are different - there are no party lines and the policies put in place my our mayor and aldermen (even if the are women, they are still called aldermen, but that's a different story), really matter. We spend so much time worrying about our federal politicians, but they are so removed from us - if my property taxes go up, if my streets are free of snow, if I have access to the library, if the bridge I walk across every day is patrolled by police, if there are enough seats in the arts venues, if the bike path is accessible to all, if construction delays my commute, etc - are all decided by the men and women who get voted in today. And I think that matters.

And just in case you needed another reminder about why voting is so important, in a great example of symmetry, it just so happens that 81 years ago today, 5 Canadian women won the right to be declared "persons" under the law in all Commonwealth countries. 81 years is not that long. It's not even a lifetime. My grandmother is 96. It's crazy to me that I know someone who at one point who would not have been allowed to have a say about the direction of the society in which she lives.

no turkey, but still thankful

Today is Thanksgiving Monday. I could not be happier to have the day off. For that I am thankful. I am thankful for many other things too ... here is an incomplete list of other things I am happy for, right now, Monday October 11th at approximately 3:30 in the afternoon (I specify the time and date, because what I am thankful for changes at an alarmingly fast pace):

• my parents (obvious, but true) - they live far away and I get annoyed with them on the phone, but they are the most generous, well meaning people in the world and I could not have asked for a better mother and father.
• my friends (another obvious statement) - both near and far. I have been lucky enough to have travelled and lived in various cities and I have friends in all of these places. And I got to spend some quality time with a few of them, both new and old, this weekend, so that is wonderful.
• alcohol - this might seem weird, and mean that I have a drinking problem, but it's true. I'm thankful for the great bottle of pinot noir that SS and I shared last night over a pork loin dinner (no turkey for us), and while I was super hungover on Saturday, I'm thankful for the vodka sodas on Friday night (and from a few weeks ago at the Drake) that allowed my friends to get ridiculously drunk and provide hours of entertainment and great stories to last for years. But I promise that I don't drink alone (well not excessively) and I know when to stop. So please don't be freaked out that it's listed third here.
• BBM - I've mentioned this before, but really I think it's my favourite new technology.
• music - a soundtrack to my life makes things much more interesting.
• photography - along with the music, the images of my life that I wouldn't otherwise remember, remind me of all the good times I've had.
• the pathway system - I love that there are pathways dedicated to walkers, runners, cyclists, rollerbladers, etc that run through some of the most beautiful places in the city and that on sunny fall days like this past Saturday, people take full advantage of them.
• the Saturday newspaper - I do love the interweb and all the things you can find online, but there is still so much to be said for reading an actual paper full of stories from all around the world. Ideally with multiple cups of coffee.

There are obviously many more things that I am thankful for ... this is a list that could never end. But sometimes it's nice to stop and highlight a few.

I'm a data geek and I'm enraged (and you should be too)

Allow me to interrupt these mindless musings to talk about something that is making me so unbelievably frustrated - the decision by the federal government to scrap the mandatory long form census. I cannot be nearly as articulate as some of my researching counterparts have been, see here and here and here but I really do have a bee in my bonnet if I can be so old fashioned about it.

The whole thing is about ideology trumping evidence. The government says they are doing away with the long form census because it is too invasive and they want to protect the privacy of Canadian citizens. They say that the government has no right to ask them how many bathrooms they have in their house. The thing is, the census doesn't ask them that. Also, in the past 2 census years (2001 and 2006) the privacy commissioner received exactly 3, yep 3, whole complaints from the general public. In fact after the last Census, when Stats Can did a public consultation about how to improve the census, not one person indicated that they should get rid of it. No one.

The census doesn't ask about bathrooms. It asks about ethnic origin. It asks about languages spoken. It asks about unpaid work in the home. It asks about transportation. These questions are vitally important for all levels of government when they provide services. The answers to the census questions allow government to decide where immigrant serving agencies, daycares, bus lines, roads, etc, should all be located. Now apparently Stephen Harper is just going to pull out his google map, put on his blindfold, spin around a few times, point his finger, and tell his trusty ministers where they should build things for whatever population lives there ... awesome.

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.

what could have been

Just caught up on "so you think you can dance" season 7 ... the actual performance shows begin this week. This is a show I definitely enjoy. I think were I a pre-teen now, I would ask my parents to put me in dance. Of course, when I was a kid, I took ballet at the local community centre. I was 5 - needless to say it didn't stick. Then when I was 12 and 13 , my friends who were still dancing were doing boring broadway/jazz type stuff with crazy sparkly makeup, lots of dep gel, and bad leotards. It was the late 80s and hip hop hadn't quite made it to my white bread, all girls junior high. Too bad. The course of my life could have been dramatically different. As an adult I have attempted to learn some new moves - a few years ago I took both funk and hip hop - both of which let to nothing more than massive embarrassment. I'm still convinced though had I stuck it out when I was younger, this could have been me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMedv-940I8&feature=related

swedish vs swedish

So today at work someone brought in a costco-size bag of Swedish berries. I ate quite a few. Maybe even half the bag. It got me contemplating the age old question ... which do I prefer, Swedish berries or Swedish men? Looking at the evidence, I'm not entirely sure.

exhibit a: tasty treat (aka candy)


exhibit b: tasty treat (aka Alexander Skarsgard)



I will definitely have to think on this one.

all aboard

There has been much debate about high speed rail in Alberta ... there are multiple reasons why a fast train linking Calgary and Edmonton would be awesome:

1. the avoidance of gasoline alley in Red Deer;
2. going there and back in 3 hours instead of 6 makes a work-related day trip that much more palatable;
3. it's much easier to bb message while sitting on a train seat than it is while driving 130kms an hour with mack trucks speeding by;
4. the whole reduction of CO2 emissions thing;
5. going to see shows that can't play in the Saddledome because of the stupid roof (i.e. Justin Timberlake) would be that much easier; and finally,
6. I love my Edmonton peeps and it would be fun to see them more often.

I'm sure there are other reasons (i.e. integrating the economy, ease of doing business, cool looking trains, etc, etc), but I recently discovered a new, much more important one while travelling from Montreal to Ottawa on the train this past Sunday: there are hot men on trains. Seriously, there were 3 very attractive, age appropriate men in my train car ... gives a whole new meaning to "riding the rails."

Ugh.

I interrupt the pop culture commentary to talk about me. I often hear to get what you want, you have to ask for it. But what happens when you don't know what you want? Right now I feel like I am just waiting for things to happen, maybe because I don't know what to ask for. So here I sit, waiting for a variety of things:
1) a new episode of Lost (and maybe an explanation for WTF is actually happening on the show)
2) a phone call from a potential new employer
3) a clear message from a boy to let me know whether or not he is interested

I can't definitively ask for any of these things, because:
1) I have no idea what is going on with Jack, Hurley, Sawyer, Kate et al, so a new episode is really not going to help
2) while I would like a new job, not sure if it is this one
3) while I would like a new boy, not sure if it is this one

So instead, I sit here, resentful and thinking that none of the things I am waiting for are things that I really want.

And so I repeat - ugh.

I'm with Coco

As an avid pop culture aficionado, I have been very intrigued by the recent "late night wars" (quotes not my own ... that's the official title apparently). It's like the fourth wall has come down and all bets are off. Despite all the hilarity, my favourite part was probably Conan's last show where he gave a dignified sign off and urged us all not to become cynical. It really was a great moment on TV and here is the last part of his speech (courtesy of EW.com):

"To all the people watching, I can never thank you enough for your kindness to me and I’ll think about it for the rest of my life. All I ask of you is one thing: please don’t be cynical. I hate cynicism — it’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen. As proof, let’s make an amazing thing happen right now."

While I would never say I am a cynic, I would say that I am slightly jaded - a comment like this makes me rethink my attitude, if only for a few hours.