January 17, 2006

Jack Layton's Product Endorsement

Admittedly not an exact quote, but the essential bits are there, from Jack Layton on CBC’s The Current this morning:

“And I see that support when I go into Tim Hortons (pause- and then quickly) or the local coffee shop.”

January 16, 2006

In Your Face

Hang your self-portrait in the Art Gallery of Ontario. Details here under “In Your Face”. I think it’s such a fun idea and will definitely check out the exhibit in July.

January 12, 2006

Yods

What a day! My academic courses started today, one where we discuss Coetzee and Shakespeare and Thoreau and Dillard and Hughes and Wordsworth altogether and all I can say is that grad school is an enormous amount of fun. In my other class, we are discussing contemporary issues of authorship and so JT Leroy and James Frey got tossed around and we have to collect literary zeitgeist and we’re having current events at the beginning of every class. There were lovely people in all my classes, and they were much less scary than last term. For creative writing, we have to listen to Kiss by Prince loud on repeat and write… something. I am reading a book called Blooming English by Kate Burridge, which is so readable and interesting, and I now know why Stuart says “tyune” and I say “toon”. Yods! Today I walked home and bought a pound of beef I saw was on sale in the butchers and a Christmas present for my father-in-law, and remembered to pick up quarters for the laundry. And the sun was shining shiny and the weather was about five degrees, I was wearing my spring coat and you know it really might have been April, except it wasn’t. Yesterday I was reunited with my friend Katch from Japan, and we spent the afternoon eating Japanese curry and drinking green tea. And Stuart’s career as a volunteer has branched out in some interesting directions, and he doesn’t just feel like he’s spending his days. He is happy. And so am I. Plus many hours of EastEnders arrived in the post yesterday, much thanks to my maw-in-law. And how about Brad and Angelina. I am fascinated…

I have also learned the word “alloloutrophilist” which is “one who is fond of drinking the bathwater of others.”

January 11, 2006

Post Cereal and attack ads

I don’t claim to be a public relations expert, but I do question those who believe attack ads are effective at luring voters. If anything, they’re a sideshow to the actual politicking (which itself is a sideshow but I digress). The Conservative “The Liberal Party is Corrupt” ads are laughable at best, featuring the familliar wooden actors (incidentally where did the Conservatives find these actors anyway? They are terrible), “the liberal party is corrupt” voiceover, looped in a trance/europop styley, and why are all the bad actors fixated on watching the loop on a fake TV show? You could say that perhaps they are hypnotised by the Liberals (which might be sort of interesting) BUT they are clearly disapproving of the Liberals. Their disapproval, of course, is demonstrated with head shakes and rolled eyes. It’s a terrible terrible commerical, and I always cheer when David Dingwall comes on. Just because I think it takes a great amount of strength to get through life with a name like “Dingwall” and for doing just that, perhaps he is entitled to his entitlements. I haven’t seen many of the Liberal attack ads- but I don’t watch much TV so this doesn’t mean anything. The Liberal ads I’ve seen are more polished than the Conservative ads (but then again so is Hal Johnson and Joanne McLeod’s Bodybreak) but they are still ridiculous. They attempt a jovial comraderie, and say absolutely nothing. “He might be a Satanist. He might not, but you never *really* know. Do you?” Focus on evil Harper face. It’s stupid! I have only seen one NDP ad, and it was so boring I hardly noticed it. When I was an English teacher, we taught this absolutely idiotic lesson where students had to say “Someone’s got to do something about crime”, or “They’ve got to do something about pollution”. The NDP ad seemed just as specific as my stupid English lesson.

I just do not believe that attack ads are effective. When I was little, I didn’t eat Post Cereals because they attacked General Mills and Kelloggs in their ads, and I thought that just indicated they had nothing of themselves to market. And perhaps this indicates that I was a strange child. But I would vote for the party whose platform was so subtantial that they didn’t have to resort to character assassination and attack ads that insult electors’ intelligence. Unless there was definitely something worth attacking, but trite accusations and tape loops aren’t it.

January 8, 2006

New hats in the meantime.

I guess it might be obvious that I’ve been despondent of late, and I have no wish to suffer in silence any longer. I’ll give it to you straight then. On the day before New Years Eve, they killed off half of my second-favourite EastEnders couple. The actor who played him talks about his departure here.

Spending the final day of my long long holiday reading “The Year of Magical Thinking” and listening to the new Dar Williams CD- “My Better Self”. Both are wonderful, really. Following the completion of my book, I shall cook my famous spaghetti for our supper, and then my husband and I will watch one hour dramas about forensic science. We don’t care which ones. And I will knit a blanket out of wool that was once my misshapen poncho. It has been the most splendid, carefree month with almost nothing to do except the things we want to do. And I have read so many books (in one sitting many times, which is the best way) and we’ve seen so many friends, and even though it’s January and an era of great impecunity, we’ll ride that wave into springtime. And we’ve got new coats and hats in the meantime.

January 2, 2006

Idiot bias

That Leah McLaren was annoying this week will not come as a massive shock to most of you. That I keep reading her anyway is more surprising, but she just keeps turning up in my newspaper. Anyway, she wrote about debt this week. It reminded me of an article that was in the Globe a few weeks ago, about that poor twenty-four year old who didn’t realise that paying for your psychology degree with a credit card was perhaps not the best life choice and was now blaming all and sundry for her debt problems. And McLaren, who can’t understand why she amasses so much debt with such a modest lifestyle- car, house, cashmere. However it seems that Leah McLaren bought her house in a place where she doesn’t live, and so rents an apartment on top of mortgage payments. I am beginning to see her problems. I also doubt that Ms. McLaren drives a 1989 Honda Civic. So here are these poor twenty-somethings, debt-ridden, symptomatic of a quarter-life crisis.

I’ll give you a life crisis- the threat of death. All else is melodrama. If you are lucky to be 25 or thereabouts, save your crisis for when you’ll really need one. And if you are stupid enough to pay for your psychology degree with your credit card, please own up to your stupidity. Don’t blame your debt on teachers telling you to “follow your dream” or on-line poker. If you find it necessary to live far beyond your means, don’t market this in national newspapers as a fashionable choice. Do these idiotic people have no shame? And why must they keep hanging the “idiot” label upon my entire generation?

December 29, 2005

Tragedy Politicized

The Yonge Street shootings are not a political issue. They did not result from anything you can pinpoint so easily. In the last day I have heard this tragedy blamed rather bizarrely on gun registration, immigrants, Paul Martin, and the futility of social programs. To add this to an already towering political platform would be gross and tacky, and out of respect for the dead and injured, no candidate should do so. The problem of gang violence in Toronto won’t be fixed by a snappy campaign slogan. These are the kinds of problems that won’t be fixed soon, by any kind of blanket solution. It will be a long, expensive road of tiny steps, but of course this sort of reality is never popular in the lalaland of politics.

December 24, 2005

The eve is nigh!

Overheard in Red Pegasus: “Oh my god! Mechanical sushi. Emily is Chinese. She’d totally love that.”

Overhead in Shoppers Drug Mart in the last minute gift aisle: “Nothing says ‘You destroyed my family your filthy whore’ like rat poison.”

Stuart received a letter from Santa Claus yesterday. Lynn Crosbie’s response to Hughes News is hilarious. We had a spontaneous brunch out. We’re having chicken fajitas for dinner tonight, in year two of that great tradition. And we’re watching Love Actually, a Christmas ode to Stuart’s homeland. I am on last minute gift-knitting duty. We’ve been eating Christmas baking for over a week now, and we’ve nearly gone off it (and nearly finished it). A year ago, we were due to work in the morn and a three year old was due to pee in my presence. Here’s hoping that nobody pees on my carpet tomorrow, and that all the snow hasn’t washed away. Merriest of Christmases to all and the goodest of goodnights.

December 23, 2005

Meron Pan!

Here is a picture of a “Meron Pan” which is “Melon Bread” in English and was one of my favourite things to eat during my Japanese life. It’s a sweet bread, and the top crust is a sugary cookie and it gets it’s name from its meron-like shape. I miss meron pan. And then yesterday I got some! I had an urgent lack-of-knitting-project crisis and met Erin at Romni, and picked up enough wool to knit pair of socks (and a plan for a tea cosy). And then we popped into Sanko, the Japanese corner store and I bought a meron pan which turned out to be delicious. I also got mochi and a pack of Japanese curry. Oishi!

Here is a photo of AmPanMan, which means “Bean Bread Man”. He is a Japanese superhero, and is friends with noneother than Meron Pan Chan (“melon bread girl”) who I believe accompanies him in this photo. AmPanMan and his friends (various bread products, you may have guessed) help out people in bed by offering their heads for eating. Really. And you ask me why I miss my Japanese life…

December 21, 2005

A little bit of proof that the world is a good place

Yesterday we received a Christmas card from Northern Ireland that our friend forgot to stamp!