How My 30th Birthday is Likely To Shape Up

1. I was supposed to carpool to work today, but the girl who was supposed to pick me up didn't set her alarm and just woke up when I called her three minutes ago.
2. When I get back into town from work, I will have to spend over $2000 on car repairs (on top of the $500 I spent two weeks ago), and hopefully my car will start more dependably.

Extrapolating from those two things, I believe my day will end with:

3. I will catch dysentary and spend 8 hours in agonizing, sleepless pain, which will abate 40 minutes before I have to go to work on Wednesday.


My 30th Birthday = wake up, buddy, it's grown-up times.

Great Moments In Spam History, Part 1

I don't get a lot of e-mail spam, and normally I just delete them without reading. But for some reason, I looked at one tonight and I was compelled me to share it with other people.

"Your woman will be shocked by your fang's astonishing progress."

First of all, that is just a great sentence. Second of all, "fang"? Really? I know there are a lot of euphamisms for that part of the male anatomy, but "fang" gives it an edge that I'm not entirely comfortable with. Anyhow: just needed to share. Now I'm off to have nightmares about teeth growing in inappropriate places.

All Times Are Valentimes!

I thought about doing a traditional "I hate Valentine's Day" post, but I've decided against it. Not saying I actually Valentine's Day, because I really don't. If you're curious, it has to do with the whole "societally mandated day that you must prove your love" angle of the day. And while I still believe that, I think I've mellowed a little in my old age, and my opinions aren't as ABSOLUTE and UNYIELDING as they used to be. So I'm willing to loosen my stranglehold on that opinion a little in order to make things tolerable around my house. The Peach knows I don't like it, but she still likes the whole idea, so I'm willing to swallow my pride - and my tongue - and meet her halfway. This 14th I will be getting her a tiny present with a card, and we will have a romantic meal of champagne and cheeseburgers, followed likely by some movie with Cary Grant in it.

And that's it. That's about all I can handle at this stage in my life, and luckily The Peach isn't super-high-maintenance about it. I'm very glad I'm not with someone who would be like that about Valentine's day, but then again: a relationship like that would have fizzled out long before the first February reared its ugly head. And I'm kind of looking forward to seeing what the kids in my class will be doing for Valentine's day. God, I'm actually looking forward to something V-Day related? I must be losing my bile. The Young Doc would be mortified.

Pop Quiz

When one's significant other mentions in a casual moment of conversation that he or she is thinking of becoming a vegetarian, do you:
a) stare shocked into his or her face and say nothing for a long time?
b) nod your head understandingly and begin a sensible dialogue?
c) become bombarded by images of dozens of your favourite meat-based meals flash through your head?
d) become filled with remorse that you realize that you may never have any of those delicious meals again?
e) a, c, and d?

If you answered anything except e), you are a better person than I am.

Get Some Leverage

There are a few things swirling around in my brain right now, but if I don't put something down now, and I mean right now, I probably won't write again for another few weeks. A busy, sometimes stressful job only compounds my procrastination.

First of all: happy 2009, ye few and mighty readers. Anyone get anything good over the holidays? Or have good New Year's stories? My holidays were SLOW AND RELAXING. Which was a blessed relief.

Secondly, anyone who is able to should be watching the TV show Leverage. It's a smart, funny series written & created by John Rogers, who I first discovered as the writer of Blue Beetle - one of my favourite comics series of the past couple years. (Link to his groupblog here.) The show is about a team of theives and crooks who get together to pull off crimes that screw over evildoers and help the little people who have been stepped on. Great cast, well-written, stylishly directed, and you get a great heist every week. Sadly, it also feels like just the kind of show to get cancelled before its time, or air for one season and then not get renewed. So I'm doing my part to spread the word. Leverage: it's a good thing.

Back later.

Occupational Hazard

My first official job as a Speech Pathologist has been going pretty well; I'm part of a good, supportive team and I really like the kids I'm working with. Most of my job involves planning and delivering treatment directly to the kids in the class, but every Wednesday I have meetings and check-ins with family members. Today I met a few mothers in a book-learning workshop that a colleague was running, and the conversation started running, as it invariably does, to their other children. I'm usually fine with this, as I think part of being a parent (particularly of a special needs child) is venting about their kids, so I nodded and smiled along with them, not having much to contribute myself, since The Peach and I have no kids. One of the mothers turned to me, and said, "What are your kids like?" That sometimes happens: people assume, since I'm at the end of my 20s, married, and involved with education and children's development, that I have kids of my own. So I tried to pull out a stumper for an answer.

"They're quiet," I said.

All I Am Is All You're Not

My brother took off for London, Ontario yesterday. He got accepted at the University of Western Ontario to study for his Master's degree, and he jumped at the chance: partly to study, partly to get out of Edmonton. I saw him off at the airport; I had dropped The Peach off there an hour earlier, so I figured I would just stick around and say goodbye to him. My mom and his girlfriend were there too, and I didn't want to steal their time with him so I just gave him a hug and said I'd send him an e-mail some time soon.

I've broken down crying four times today whenever I think about it. I didn't see him very often while he was here, but at least I did see him sometimes. And it hurts to know I can't just call him up or bump into him randomly any more. I didn't realize it was going to hit me this bad. And with no Peach around, I have been distracting myself as best I can, with beer and comic books. But there's nothing sadder than a grown man sobbing with a can of Black Label in his hand while reading an old issue of Excalibur. Anyhow. I just had to vent.

Secret Messages From The Picture Box

Sometimes while I'm flipping through the channels on my television, snippets of dialogue from different stations merge together to create odd, quirky sentences. A few days ago I was flipping down through the channels, and I heard the following message:

BBC News: Just beat-
Food Network: -a juicy steak-
Nancy Grace: -for several hours.

I know you need to tenderize your meat, but that seems like a long time.

What's Up Wednesday - Special The Dark Knight Edition

So I got back from seeing an advance screening of The Dark Knight about forty minutes ago, and I thought I'd give you guys my thoughts. First of all, yes, I liked it. Which is strange, because I wasn't really expecting it to. I thought it wouldn't live up to the expectations, probably be good but not as good as Batman Begins. And I was wrong. I think that Dark Knight was much, much better than the first movie, for a number of reasons. First of all: the first movie had about fifty minutes of unneccessary origin story, while Dark Knight had zero. You started in with Batman as the status quo right away, which was good for the momentum of the storyline. Second: the science in this movie, while still kind of bad, wasn't nearly as bad as the science in Batman Begins. (Seriously. Microwave generators creating steam in water pipes but not cooking ANYONE? That's bad, BAD science.) Third: excellent, EXCELLENT foils. While The Scarecrow and Ra's Al Ghul were passable in the first movie, Heath Ledger's Joker is really very good. He's been getting a lot of praise in the media, which I had chalked up the hype machine going into overdrive due to his death. His performance in this movie, however, is in fact very good. Chilling, hilarious, and dare I say even honest? His Joker may not be the one fans are familiar with, but it fits the Nolanverse (a term I just coined, thank you very much) very well. The buzz that he might get an Oscar nomination seems a bit much, but "not getting an Oscar nomination" does not equal "poor performance". Ledger did a teriffic job, showing you just how good an actor he really was.

In fact, as good reason number three-point-five, the acting of nearly everyone in the movie is rather good. Gary Oldman gets a lot more to do in this movie, and he does it very well, playing the one good cop in a city gone crazy and giving the audience a solid anchor. Aaron Eckhart, an actor I've never been particularly fond of, is really quite engaging as Harvey Dent. Of course, Maggie Gyllenhaal is a vast improvement over Katie Holmes, and Michael Caine & Morgan Freeman round out the cast with their trademark gravitas and a couple of light comedic touches. The actor I had the most problems with is sadly Christian Bale, who does a very good Bruce Wayne but grates on me whenever he's Batman, thanks to the ridiculous voice he affects whenever he puts on the cowl. You don't need to sound like you're gargling chunks of hot asphalt* to disguise your voice or sound intimidating. Less is more, man.

Bale's vocal antics as Batman are one of only a few minor quibbles, though. The story starts off as fairly straightforward but then gets as twisted and turned as it becomes more affected by The Joker's influence. There are many good moments in this movie that I could harp on, but it's getting late. The point is, even if you're not a comics fan but liked Batman Begins, I think you'll like this even better. Not that you need me to sell you on it. I just think it's worth your time.


* - Who am I ripping off homaging with this line?

What's Up Wednesday - July 9, 2008

Capsule reviews today due to insomnia and overwhelming urge to sleep.

The TV Show: I blazed through the last half of How I Met Your Mother Season One and ALL of Season Two while my Peach was away. That show is good stuff. Definitely above the level of your average sitcom; nearing Coupling levels, but not quite there.

The Book: I finished The Perks of Being A Wallflower in a span of 24 hours and it was pretty dang good. Certainly above what I've come to expect from some of the YA (Young Adult) books I've been reading. Also: why did I start reading YA books? I didn't read them when I was a young adult; why read them now?

The Album: Sly and The Family Stone's A Whole New Thing is really, REALLY good. But then again, I'm mostly basing that on how awesome the first track, Underdog. SO AWESOME. I think I may have found my new theme song. I will be sad to see you, Theme From The Andy Griffith Show, but you are not funky enough. (Yeah yeah!)

TrivInsomnia

I'm unable to sleep, which is going to wreak havoc on my day tomorrow (I'm supposed to meet people at 8:00 a.m. for breakfast). But I thought I'd use this time to look up some things that I was curious about earlier this week and share them so as to improve the breadth of knowledge of my readership.

1. There is no difference in makeup or size between a symphony orchestra and a philharmonic orchestra. Both are made up of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion sections, and have a large number of musicians (about one hundred; compare that to a chamber orchestra, who has about forty members). Philharmonic (from the Greek for "music-loving") and symphony (from the Greek for "sounding together") orchestras do differ in one sense, though. It's a matter of semantics. Symphonic is a general term, while philharmonic is a specific term that only occurs as part of a name. So you could say that the London Philharmonic Orchestra is a symphonic orchestra, but you couldn't say that the London Symphony Orchestra is a philharmonic orchestra.

2. Chicken Tikka Masala, an Indian-style dish that features roast chicken (chicken tikka) in a tomato and curry sauce, wasn't created in India at all. It was created in Great Britain. The most famous story was that it was invented in a Glasgow in the 1960s, when a customer in an Indian restaurant ordered roast chicken and when it arrived, asked where the gravy was.

3. Speaking of gravy: poutine, the famous French-Canadian dish of French fries, cheese curds, and gravy, caused an international incident last week. A poster celebrating the Canada Day party at the Canadian Embassy in the U.S. featured Samuel De Champlain, founder of Quebec City (whose 400th anniversary is this weekend), holding a plate of poutine. This is apparently insulting and in bad taste: Jean-Paul Perreault, spokesman for Impératif Français, was quoted as saying "If they wanted to make a joke it's a really bad joke and if it wasn't a joke, well, it's worse then." Then, he likened the poster to using a hot dog to pomote English Canada. I'm not Quebecois, but I think that's overreacting. First of all, although it's unclear where hot dogs were first created, it was probably either Vienna or Bavaria, and was likely refined in New York City to look like the hot dogs we know today. Second of all, poutine is a well-known French Canadian food, and it has instant recognition: putting it on the poster makes sense to me, and I don't see how it's insulting. Also: if they make the English Canadian poster, I think John Diefenbaker should be holding the hot dog. It would look really funny.




That's all folks. Good night; hope you can get to sleep.