She might be able to pull it off.

It kind of bugged me that Beyonce was going to play the part of Etta James, because she's kinda plastic-y...and Etta was definitely not.

Abortion rates rocket to record high as Britain set to overtake US as world termination capital

...that's only because no one is counting them in Russia, China and India.

I love how the west considers itself "The World".

"The French say they need the largest condoms in Europe while Greeks get by on smaller ones, according to a Europe-wide study by a German consultancy that provides advice on condoms.

The snappily named Singen-based Institute of Condom Consultancy asked 10,500 men in 25 countries to measure their penis and enter the number into a database."

LOL...and the hidden study in this study is that the French are also the biggest liars...

It's that time of year again...

Chicken Head Tracking

I'm sorry....I had to.

Uncle Tim should be my nanny.

I know that there are a lot of people who just hate the fact that there are big box stores and chain coffee houses all over the place.

There's a certain kind of Torontonian that abhors anything but cute, hip little bistro type establishments with quirky and kitschy decor...and the attack on generic, uncute, and suburban Tim Hortons with their disposable coffee cup drama is amusing to me.

Why should Tim Hortons be my nanny?
I'm a citizen who knows where the nearest garbage can is.
I drive about town with empty coffee cups in my car until I get home or get to a gas station.

Yes.

I know that the disposable cups create a lot of waste.
But, Tim Hortons isn't the only coffee place that uses them.
Because they're the biggest, they should pick up the tariff on all of them?

They at least do something to curb their negative impact on the environment.

If we're going to demand this, then it should be built into the cost of the cup...for everyone who sells coffee.

The cup manufacturer level.

Yeah, that includes the cutie little bistro cafe's take out cup as well.

New trends in false lashes -
The "Who Needs to See Anyway?" Edition



Taking high maintenance to the next level.

Bacon Sweet Potato Fritters

at Papamo

Mango Coconut Bread Pudding
(Tastes better than it looks)



at Papamo

Prince was just as odd at 19



Thanks Anna

Rusi? Ukransi? su ludi...XA XA



(from YesButNoButYes)

Snoop Dogg on Martha Stewart

(Thanks ObamaFan)

No, but...for real...

Tonight, on my scary 3 hour drive home...(yeah...not even funny because my tires SUCK), I saw a vanity plate on a BMW sportscar that read:

"an V usss"

...all I could think of was that he needed to lose the "V" on that plate.

Seriously.

What kind of "an usss" gets that kind of vanity plate?

Letters to God


(click on image for more)

Found at A Welsh View

Acting or Real?

This morning I was watching CBC Sunday, and the guest was Jamie Oliver.

It was a very interesting interview that got me thinking about something that is missing in schools now...something we used to have when I was in high school...but, I think is gone now.

Jamie made the co-relation of obesity and a downturn in the economy, saying that when the economy does a nosedive, obesity increases because people go more for starchy and unhealthy foods.

Talking about schools and his lunch programs in the UK, it got me thinking about Home Ec in schools.

Way back when, I took Home Ec and while I didn't realize it's value back then, I certainly see it's value now. The skills I learned in Home Ec have come in handy over the years. Budgeting, grocery shopping, the basics of cooking.

I know that we kind of looked down on it, because it was seen as continuing to marginalize women (even though boys had to take it too), I'm seeing it's value now...as well as "Shop", which I took in middle school. Woodworking and the like.

These are all valuable skills that everyone needs in day to day life.

Just a passing thought on a Sunday.

There's an ad on some channel that keeps using this video:



which made me think of this video:


Which made me think of this video

...oh, the late eighties, early ninties...

Unfussy Apple Cake



at Papamo

Second Life and the disabled

I don't do the mani....but, I do have the pedi...and I think I've had this girl work on my feet.

Forty-year-old David Pollard and 28-year-old Amy Taylor, married both in real life and in the online game "Second Life," have split after Taylor caught Pollard's avatar cozying up to an attractive female avatar on a virtual couch. "I caught him cuddling a woman on a sofa in the game -- it looked real affectionate," she said.

The U.K. couple's passion for living through their "Second Life" alteregos "Dave Barmy" and "Laura Skye" had led to temptation before. In 2007, Pollard was caught red-handed having sex with a pixelated prostitute in the game, leading Taylor to hire a private investigator to look into his virtual infidelities.

Why do I find that so hilarious?

Ok.

So, the other day I was looking for someone to do some translating for me because one of my prospective clients has absolutely no English...and I have absolutely no Mandarin.

There is an Asian teacher on the second floor with whom I have never had a full conversation. Only passing in the hallway "hello"'s.

Now, I obviously cannot make the assumption that she even speaks an Asian language, much less the one I need her to speak...but, I was desperate.

This is how it went:

Me: "Hi. Can I ask you something?"
Teacher of unknown Asian Heritage: "Sure"
Me: "Do you speak another language?"
TUAH: (with a smirk, and a bit of a snort) "Yeah. French."

Obama appears on toast

Michelle Obama's mother has reluctantly agreed to leave her lifelong home on Chicago's South Side and move to Washington to help smooth the transition for the grand-daughters who dote on her.

Babe, if the mister got into the white house, all of our extended family would be moving in too!

Mama would be bossing the white house staff around like crazy.

I could see it now:

"AYE!!! Ver yu tink yu goink mid dos shoes on??!!!??"
"Det no gonna be enuf food for da people...c'man...don be so cheap!"

There would be a barrel of cabbage in brine in the garage, and you'd have to double bag the sremske kobasice in the fridge to mask the blast of garlic smell when you open it.

It would be the first time they ever saw left over curry goat in the fridge and garlic pork on the sidebar for Christmas when my mother in law got there.

The toilet seat wouldn't stay up because of the fuzzy cover on the lid, and the sugar stiffed doilies would be killer in the oval office...LOL

Didion was at pains to say that she did not think any of this was Obama's doing, nor to his tastes. He would, she speculated "welcome healthy realism" and achievable expectations. In our frenzy, we are doing him a disservice, expecting miracles "at a time when the nation can least afford easy answers." She recalled, the day after the election, an overexcited newscaster declaring that we now possess "the congratulations of all the nations." She likened this to the naivete of thinking we'd be regarded as beloved saviors in Iraq. But, she ended, "in the irony-free zone that our country has become, this is not what people wanted to hear."

Let's get a grip, shall we?

When I look at the stuff being sent to me about Obama, it's hard not to get caught up in the romance...he's young-ish, good looking, cool...Kennedy-esque.
And we romanticize...we need to, especially now...but, he's a man.

A human, man.
Not the Messiah.

Can we prepare ourselves for less than perfection?

LOL....

The second the City of Toronto invests in a sign change with a little catchy "Village" (Bloor West Village, Leslieville) above your street name, your attempts to stop the gentrification are futile.

5 Reasons to Stop Saying "Good Job!" to your kids.

I read this article at Education.com, and some of what is stated in the article helps explain why so many young adults have a lack of ambition, yet such a strong sense of entitlement.

Creating praise junkies.
Rather than bolstering a child's self-esteem, praise may increase kids' dependence on us. The more we say, "I like the way you'." or "Good ______ing," the more kids come to rely on our evaluations, our decisions about what's good and bad, rather than learning to form their own judgments. It leads them to measure their worth in terms of what will lead us to smile and dole out some more approval.

Mary Budd Rowe, a researcher at the University of Florida, discovered that students who were praised lavishly by their teachers were more tentative in their responses, more apt to answer in a questioning tone of voice ("Um, seven?"). They tended to back off from an idea they had proposed as soon as an adult disagreed with them. And they were less likely to persist with difficult tasks or share their ideas with other students.

In short, "Good job!" doesn't reassure children; ultimately, it makes them feel less secure. It may even create a vicious circle such that the more we slather on the praise, the more kids seem to need it, so we praise them some more. Sadly, some of these kids will grow into adults who continue to need someone else to pat them on the head and tell them whether what they did was OK. Surely this is not what we want for our daughters and sons.

I've seen time and time again that more difficult praise is to get, the more it's valued. When you continuously blow smoke up your kids ass, your praise doesn't mean anything anymore. It makes a person lazy, it's internalized as "I'm great...I don't have to bother trying" or "It doesn't matter what I do...I'm great".

I realize that this isn't exactly what the article means to say, but it plays into what I perceive to be a part of the problem. For years, the importance of not damaging a child's self-esteem was pushed so hard, that even insincere praise was encouraged.
If it's insincere, it doesn't mean anything. What's worse, it creates a vicious circle of expectations for the child, and parental fear to the point that you cannot even tell your child the truths that they need to hear for fear of "damaging their self-esteem".

Does praise motivate kids? Sure. It motivates kids to get praise. Alas, that's often at the expense of commitment to whatever they were doing that prompted the praise.

What I can't stand is to hear children and teens praised for things that they should be doing anyway. "Thank you for picking up your toys!" or, "Good job putting your dishes in the sink" or worse, paying a child or teenager to pick up after themselves.

It's one of my pet peeves. It tells them that they're doing their parents a favour for looking after themselves...and then we sit and wonder where this attitude of entitlement comes from.

I was thinking the other day about how old my mother and uncle were when they came to Canada. My mother was 21 and my uncle was almost 18.
A lot of 18 year old's I know today can barely get themselves to school a few blocks away on time, never mind move to another country and make a life for themselves.

Whatever.
Just pointless pondering while I should be working...Ok, I did read the article for work...

R.I.P. Miriam Makeba

I'm always fascinated by pictures of people.
I don't need to know them.

Photographer Richard Renaldi did a whole series where he asked strangers to pose together, and asked them to touch for the photo. The series is called Touching Strangers, as well as another interesting series called Bus Travelers (has no strangers touching).


In this interview with Renaldi he says:

"In thinking more about how I would approach the project, I decided I wanted the images to explore how notions of trust, love, social conventions, and taboos are expressed through body language. After that it was really just getting up the courage to actually go out and do it."

It's very true that a photo can tell a thousand words, some true, and some we just make up.

(Found and scoffed from Uncertain Times)

I fell in love at 2;13.

But, in 2000 no one was listening to reason about the situation in the Balkans.

I love the look on his face when the Moderator asks the question.
It's the same look that every Serb gets when faced with a simplistic conclusion to the complicated situation in the Balkans.

That cross between defensive and exhausted.

(Thanks Anna)

One Nation Under a Groove



The Daily Mash made me laugh today.

I hope that the Kumbaya feeling we have now that Barack Obama is the President Elect hasn't caused everyone to immediately lose their sense of humour about just how much Obama can do in four years.

Nick Vujicic



Nick Vujicic on Wiki

(From Miss Cellania)

Pictures Taken at the Right Angle



Click on image for more.

(Found at A Welsh View)

Americans:
If things don't work out for you tonight....MOVE TO CANADA!!!



(Thanks Tat)

Vintage Maxi Pad Ad on Flickr



"Things happen when you're on your period.
Like being shunned from the make-out Pot Party at Tim's lake house and having to find your way home though the woods in your fancy prom dress."

Love Stories



The Mister and me met once when I was 18 at a club when I was with my first boyfriend, and lived peripherally, always hanging in the same places, but never together with the same people...almost a decade later we met seriously in the workplace.

20 years later...still together.

Fine Young Cannibals



I still feel like dancing when I hear this song.
Loved the lead singer Roland Gift, too...combine his looks with a British accent, and well....*sigh*

Call me Holmes

I was bonding with The Mister, watching the Rapters and Milwaukee playing basketball for about 7 minutes...because that's all I could take.

But, in that 7 minutes, I honed in on Dan Gadzuric, of the Milwaukee bucks.

Well, with that surname, I immediately was curious.
A google search told me that he is Dutch, born in the Hague in 1978.

Wiki says he's of Dutch nationality.

With a name like Gadzuric?
Yeah.
Ok.

Further checking led me to find out that his mother is Serbian, and his father is from St. Vincent.

Now, that makes more sense.

It seems that being Serbian (even half) would be something to hide.
If possible.

Mo' Better Blues



I have never watched this movie in it's entirety, until this afternoon.

While I cringe whenever Spike Lee speaks, I cannot deny that I loved this movie.
The soundtrack, mostly by Spike Lee's dad, Bill Lee...is beautiful.

...and while I have a love/hate relationship with Spike Lee's movies, I loved this one.

The visuals...kind of a cross between the 40's and the 90's, and John Turturro, as well as Samuel L showing up in small parts...I cannot deny a love for Bill Nunn and Giancarlo Esposito.

Some of the dialogue is a bit hoaky, but can be overlooked because of the above.