The class I'm teaching is a nutrition course. The classroom is in one of the engineering buildings. As I was setting up my laptop for my lecture yesterday, with the students from the previous class filing out of the room and my students filing in, one of the students from the previous class came up to me and asked bewilderedly, "What class is this?"

"Nutritional Assessment," I replied, somewhat confused as to why he looked so confused.

"Oh. It's just in engineering classes there aren't usually so many..." His voice trailed off.

"Ah. Not usually so many girls. You are wondering where all these women are coming from!"

* * * * *

Overall, the first lecture seemed to go well. It was waaaaay too short, as I suck at estimating how long it will take me to present stuff. But it's not like anyone is going to complain about leaving early on a Friday. Plus, it gave students lots of time to come up and chat with me, which several did. I love to see that kind of enthusiasm for learning!

Since this was the first class, it was just introductory/refresher stuff, so I was able to get through the material at a fairly rapid pace, as it wasn't the first time most of the students had seen this stuff. I'm hoping that I was able to convey my passion for the material by the high energy style. Or something like that. All I know what the I was fucking exhausted by the time I got home!

The rest of the classes will be more challenging, as more of the material will be new to them (and to me!).

Unending Jest

Someone who rides the bus and does most of her reading on said bus and thus must carry her book to and from said bus probably should not get herself into reading a book this size:

The apple is in the photo to give you a sense of the size of the book.

Granted, it's a smallish apple, but it's still a really big book!

Fortunately, my health benefits package includes $400 a year of massage therapy and another $400 a year of chiropractic, no doctor's note required, as lugging this book around for last 87¹ months has really done a number on my vertebral alignment.

¹ At least it feels like I've been reading it for 87 months.

Three Months Worth of Recycling and My Biennal Apartment Cleaning

Ever wonder what 3 months worth of recycling looks like? Well, wonder no longer:

This is the recycling that has been piling up in my kitchen since the city workers's strike started back in July. They are *finally* going to pick up recycling this week and I can't wait to put this stuff outside and get my kitchen back!!

In other cleaning-up-my-place news, I was struck with my biennial "I feel like cleaning" mood on Friday and did some tidying up and organizing. Apparently there is this new invention that's like a sponge on a stick and you put the sponge part in soapy water and run it across your floor. I believe they call it a "mop." So I tried that out and now have shiny kitchen and bathroom floors¹

Some other features of my newly semi-organized place include taking my shoe collection from looking like this:

To looking like this:

Although I do have to admit that even with a five-story shoe rack, I don't have enough room for all my shoes²

Also, I hung up a whole bunch of stuff on the walls, as seen here:

My two favourite pieces:

"Spirt Bear" by Joseph M. Wilson and
"Haida Killer Whale - Skaana" by Bill Reid

My friend Therese brought these two pieces,
which apparently I have not hung up straight,
back from San Fran for me.

The flower paintings were done by my cousin's husband and given out
as gifts to everyone at their wedding. The gingerbread man cutting board
was given to me by either my mom or my sister (I can't remember which).

This is my bragging wall... or, walls I guess, as I couldn't fit them all on one wall
(Go to the Flickr page if you want to see what each of these degrees/diplomas/awards are).

Of course, there are still piles of paper on various tables, chairs, filing cabinets and other available surfaces (photos not available³), but I'm sure I'll get around to cleaning them up in 2009, when the mood to clean hits me again.

¹Although the tile in my kitchen, like the paint on the walls and all the furniture, is older than me, so it still kinda looks like crap.
²Plus, there are four more pairs in my bedroom that I forgot to take a photo of and I'm too lazy to take a photo and upload it now that I've realized that I didn't take a photo of them.
³Because I don't want to document what a slob I am. Despite my claims to the contrary, I'm really not at all about fair and balanced reporting .

My Latest Publication

I'm pleased to announce the publication of my latest study!



Click here to read the whole paper (.pdf).

Seriously, you want to read this paper. I promise you won't be disappointed. It's even got pictures or, as we science-y types call them, "figures."

The One That Got Away

As you can tell from the top the screen, my blog kinda needs a new name. I've never been good at naming things. As a kid, I had a stuffed bunny rabbit named Bunny, a stuffed frog named Froggy, a stuffed puppy dog named Puppy, and, believe it or not, a stuffed penguin named Pengy¹. Probably the low point in my naming things career came when my sister and I got this set of stuffed teddy bears with movable limbs; she had the big one, I had the little one. Their names? Mr. Movable Bear and Baby Mr. Movable Bear. My one great shining moment in naming something occurred in 2004 when I came up with a brilliant title for this article, but the instructor of the course for which I wrote that paper was not a Kubrick fan and thus my moment of naming-ability glory came crashing down.

My blog has been nameless for quite some time. I briefly tried out Total Perspective Vortex early this year, but it didn't stick. As you can probably tell, the only way this blog with have a name other than Bloggy is if I steal something from film or literature. But I'm OK with that, if only I could find something that I liked.

And then along came Infinite Jest. I've been reading IJ for about a thousand years now, ever since *somebody*² recommended it to me. Don't get me wrong, it's a *fantastic* book, just very, very long and quite dense, so it's been taking me a while to read³. As I was reading, a great name for my blog occurred to me when I read the following description:

"The monologues seem both free-associative and intricately structured, not unlike nightmares. There's no telling what'll be up on a given night. If there's one even remotely consistent theme it's maybe [hockey]⁴."

That's a description of Madame Psychosis's radio show, but don't you think it fits my blog perfectly? Don't you think I should change my blog name to "Madame Psychosis"?

Unfortunately, I appear to have missed the boat. By 4 years.

So, instead, I've decided to use the name Madame Psychosis for one of my other nameless things - my laptop. I brought Madame Psychosis to work today, because my work computer, which is currently nameless⁵, is a freaking piece of crap.


¹I still have all of these stuffed animals, except Pengy. I don't know what happened to Pengy. Poor Pengy.
²You know who you are.
³I guess if there is ever a good time to be reading a really, really long book that takes you forever to get through, it's when the library workers go on strike for three months and counting...
⁴the real phrase here may or may not have been "film and film cartridges" rather than "hockey"
⁵although I can think of a few choice names for it sometimes

Addicted to Scrabble

My name is Beth and I'm addicted to playing Scrabble online. And the thing is, I'm terrible at it. I don't have the patience, the vocabulary or the inclination to do math that Scrabble requires. Jorge was giving me tips the other night, but I'm still no good. Yet.... I. can't. stop. playing. it. As I type, I have 8 games on the go.

Perhaps I keep playing because I do things that amuse me, like this:




Hee hee. I played sex for 10 points.

Also, amusing is:




Hee hee. My rack.

It helps that I have the sense of humour of a 12 year old boy.

I will say, however, that I'm improving. As evidenced by this screenshot:



That's right. I played sex for 30 points this time. I'm now officially 3 times better at playing sex. It must be true, because it's on the internets.

The Chief

Yesterday, I did the Chief. For those of you not from around here, that's a mountain in Squamish. I've been wanting to do the Chief for years, but carlessness, among other things, have meant that I've never done it before now.

It was a wonderful sunny day (likely the only one we'll get for the whole long weekend) meaning we were rewarded with some great views once we got to the top. And I have to say that I like the Chief more than the Grind - better scenery, less annoying stairs¹, and you get to climb up with ladders and chains at parts. Who doesn't love ladders and chains?? Also, more shirtless boys.

Speaking of which, Rachel made an observation. Boys don't get up early. We went in the morning and most of the people we saw on the way up were female. On our way back down, after eating our lunch at second peak, all the shirtless boys were climbing up. Good to note for next time.

On the hike, I got a lot of smiles and comments on my new T-shirt. - including the comment "that is the best T-shirt I've EVER seen!!" Unfortunately, it seems that you can't read what my T-shirt says in any of the photos I took. I'll have to get the ones from Rachel's camera and see if you can see my shirt in them. In the meantime, there's still 25 points up for grabs if anyone can guess which one I bought^{2, 3}!

I was going to do the Grind today, but decided not to as my muscles are a bit sore from the Chief. I was kind of expecting them to be since, unlike on the Grind, where you have a cable car ride down the mountain after the hike up, you hike back down the mountain on the Chief. And hiking down means eccentric muscle contractions, which are more damaging to the muscle than going uphill. I learned that in OAC⁴ Phys Ed class, 12 years ago. And I still remember it. No idea why that one little fact stuck in my brain so well. And why useful things like, say, where I put my keys five minutes ago, or the fact that my bluetooth headset is in the pocket of the skirt I just threw in the laundry, don't.

So, instead of the Grind, I decided to do some tidying and organizing and cleaning today. September's not too late to do my spring cleaning, is it?

¹they keep putting more and more stairs in on the Grind and I find the stairs far more difficult to hike up than natural terrain. I think, being a shorty, my gait just doesn't match up well with the stairs
²I had a few guesses in the comments section of where I import my blog postings into Facebook, but no one guessed right yet.
³And no one who has seen it or who I've told what it says gets to guess.
⁴OAC = Ontario Academic Course (or was it C for Credit) - a.k.a. grade 13.

Harry Potter and the F'ing Amazing Final Book

For posterity, I would like to record how I spent Saturday, the day the 7th and final Harry Potter book was released. Please note that all times are approximate.

8:13 am - Post a blog entry.

8:14 am - Log off of msn, log off of Skype and shut down browser with email in it so that no one can interrupt my date with Harry.

8:15 am - Lie in bed, thinking that I really should get up so I can go sit on the porch to wait for my book.

~9 am - The doorbell rings, I jump out of bed and race to the door, where my book awaits me on the porch. The letter carrier is nowhere in sight. (A co-worker of mine will later ask me, "How do you know that a letter carrier brought it?" "Oh my god," I will exclaim, "It was brought by an owl!!")

Rip open packaging. Begin to read; promptly lose track of time.

Decide I need a cup of tea. Make pot of tea without ceasing to read. Consume entire pot.

Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read.

Decide I'm hungry. Toast an English muffin, and make another pot of tea, still without ceasing to read. Consume English muffin, with cream cheese, and entire pot of tea while reading.

Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read.

Shout out "oh my god!" at various intervals.

Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read.

Decide I'm thirsty. Drink a can of diet Pepsi while reading.

Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read.

Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read.

Decide I'm hungry again. Make pizza. Discover that I cannot do this without putting book down. Quickly throw dough onto cookie sheet, dump pasta sauce on top (having discovered the pizza sauce in my fridge had gone moldy) along with chunks of mozzarella (roughly cut in order to save time). No time to chop veggies, as there is book to be read, so determine that a cheese & sauce pizza is sufficient. Stick pizza in oven.

Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read.

Take pizza out of oven. Read while it's cooling. Read while I eat it, along with another can of diet Pepsi.

Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read.

Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read.

Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read.

Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read.

Hunger raises its ugly head again, but is quieted by consuming a spoonful of leftover chocolate frosting (I'm not a proud woman). Make and consume another pot of tea, without ceasing to read.

Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read.

Move from living room to bedroom to read on my bed instead of on my couch or armchair (between which I had been alternating up until this point).

Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read.

Check facts in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read.

Recognize a name, so check back in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince to determine that I'm right about where I thought I'd read that name before. Continue onto next page of Deathly Hallows, where this is confirmed.

Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read.

Decide my room feels too cold, fear that Dementors are present. Move back to living room.

Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read.

Decide its time to eat something other than frosting. Nuke leftover stuffed green pepper, thankful that I have something that I can make without stopping my reading. Eat it while reading. Decide I've passed any possible recommended caffeine intake for the day, so wash it down with some nice cold water.

Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Scream out loud "no no no no no no no no no!! It can't be."

Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read.

Think I see, out of the corner of my eye, Lord Voldemort's snake-like face pressed up against my kitchen window.

Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read.

~2:20 am - Finish.

2:37 am. Facebook Sarah in reply to her email and to inform her of my finish.

Fall into bed, sleep the sleep of the just.

Nightmares, Hump for the Hip and omg it's freaking hot out

Seeing as how I've been done school for almost an entire year, you'd think that I wouldn't have that nightmare where I'm supposed to write an exam but only discover this fact at the time of the exam - I don't know where the exam is being held and I certainly haven't studied for it, as I only just found out that I am even in the course! I haven't even taken an exam in over 3.5 years! To make it even weirder, it was an English exam... and I haven't had an English class since 1995!

In other news, I just listened to the best Hump at the Pump ever! Billed as "Hump for the Hip" as the participants won tickets to the Tragically Hip concert, as well as a catered suite where they get to meet the Hip, this H@tP involved a threesome (complete with man pagent to chose the lucky boy who got to partake) and police witnesses. I'll post a link to the video when it's up on the CFOX website.

In other, other news - it's freaking hot out. Already, at 8:13 am. And I live in a basement, where it is usually nice and cool. I guess that's what happens when it's the hottest day ever in the history of Vancouver, which is what today's forecast calls for. Yesterday was also one mofo of a hot day - I decided to sit outside in the sun (because I'm a masochist, apparently) and drink a Frappucino (because they are tasty, albeit calorific) in the afternoon while doing some reading (did I ever mention that I *love* my job?)... today may call for a repeat of that, if I don't melt first. Then I have a softball game. Let's consider the Frappucino carbo-loading and/or pre-hydration, k?

And speaking of work, I should go there now. Catch ya later.

It's Me, In Comic Form

I've been a fan of PHD (Piled Higher and Deeper) comics for a long time now. And this recent comic describes me perfectly. And this one is a perfect description of my life in grad school.

It's like the guy who writes this comic follows me around and chronicles my life.

Binaries

I was at a women's health event on Thursday and we spent most of the morning talking about the defintions of "sex" and "gender." Sex and gender, you may be surprised to hear¹, are not the same thing.

Sex is a biological construct - based on our genes/hormones/anatomy/physiology, we are classified as "male" or "female," although research shows that things are not quite as clear cut as this. For example, we tend to think of sex chromosomes as being XX = female, XY = male, but there are people with different chromosomal combinations (e.g., XO, XXX, XXY, XYY); similarly, we think of vagina = female, penis = male, but there are people born with indeterminate genitalia, or both sets, or incongruous external and internal anatomy.

Gender is a social construct, something that we humans create. We can think of "gender roles" (the way that society expects us to behave) and "gender identities" (what gender we personally identify ourselves with). We talked a lot about how there are many genders, not just "male" or "female", and even within the groups "male" and "female", there really are multiple "masculinities" and "feminities)².

We spent a considerable amount of time exploring these concepts of multiple and complex sexes and genders, specifically regarding how this complexity affects our research.

What happened at the break after this enriching and thoughtful discussion really struck me as rather funyy. The women's health field is, not surprisingly, dominanted by women researchers. The group at this event was made up of probably 100 or so participants, of which there were maybe 2 or 3 males. At the break, many participants, myself included, headed to the bathroom. As I walked down the hall, I noticed a large lineup of women at the door to the "women's" washroom, and no one going into the men's washroom. Hadn't we just discussed that "male" and "female" is a false binary??

So I knocked on the door to the "men's" room (because I realize that societal norms do dictate that it would be "strange" for a woman to walk in on a man at the urinal and that might make some men uncomfortable), and getting no response, I said something nonchalant to the women lined up for the "ladies's room" and marched on into the unoccupied "men's" washroom. I'm not sure if any of the other women saw the poignancy of my actions and certainly no one followed me. I guess it's easier to talk the talk than walk the walk sometimes.

Wow, this posting turned out far more cerebral than what I usually post here. It's almost like something you'd expect to see here or here or here. Perhaps I should nerdify it a bit by adding in a few more big words⁴ and post it on my "professional" blog... yup, I've started a professional blog for work/education purposes... I'm trying to inform others of the benefits of blogging for reflective practice/educational purposes/community building, so I figured that I should be practising what I preach and blogging my own reflections on my professional practice. But I'm not linking it to this blog which, if you know what I did for a living, would probably make a lot of sense to you.

¹or maybe not, depending on your background.

²As an aside, this issue of "masculinities" and "feminities" got me thinking about how I have never really felt that I fit into any predefined gender roles - when asked "are you a girly girl or a tom boy?"³, I've basically come to the point of giving the answer "I'm a tom boy who likes to dress like a girly girl." In many ways, I have some very stereotypically "male" characteristics. I love both watching and playing sports, although I think it is somewhat outside of the "male" gender role to want to bed your favourite NHL hockey player. Another example - I'm very career focussed, but I like to wear short skirts and high heels while I go about my career. Hell, I wore CFM boots to my PhD defence!! I like pretty, sparkly jewellry and wearing makeup, which I think contrasts nicely with my pig-sty of an apartment and my trucker mouth. We are all aware of my obsession with pretty shoes , but are you aware that I will wear my pretty shoes to watch action and horror movies but wouldn't be caught dead watching a chick flick? It's never actually bothered me that don't fit into some stereotypically "female" roles, while I do partake of other "girly" behaviours that would make some feminists look down their nose at me... I actually like picking and choosing my behaviours regardless of what society feels I should do. But it was an interesting phenomenon to think about in a group of predominantly feminist scholars and strengthened my confidence in being who I am, regardless of whether mainstream society accepts it or not.

³Which I've been asked more times that you'd believe.

⁴and remove the part about bedding Taylor Pyatt.

In my continuing efforts to disparage all things Calgarian*, I would like to point out one of their many grammatical errors:

I would love to stay and chat, but there is playoff hockey to go and watch! Don't wait up!

*I would also like to point out that the Blogger spellchecker's suggestion for Calgarian was "Vulgarian."

Thesis Data Cloud

A while back, Darren mentioned wanting to make a data cloud for a presentation he was giving at Northern Voice - he wanted to find a tool that he could enter all the responses he'd gotten on his Why Do You Blog survey to generate a data cloud. This got me thinking about how data clouds are an interesting way of analyzing data - you get a visual representation of how often each word is used in your document. So then I had the bright idea that I wanted to run my thesis through a program like this - I was curious to see what words I used most often. I happened to be chatting with a friend of mine who is all computer savvy and asked if he knew of any tools that could do this (as I could only find one that required that the document in question be pretty small and my thesis may be many things, but small is not one of them). And the next thing I knew, he'd written me a program! We had to do a bit of tweaking (like not including common words such "and" and "then", not including punctuation and numbers, and, of course, I had to make it use pretty colours). And when all was said and done, it was just so friggin' pretty! I love my thesis word cloud! You can check out the whole thing here, but I've included a bit of it below, just so you can get an idea of how beautiful it is!

binge biochemistry biol biological biology birth births bk black blank blind blinded blindly blood bloom blow blue boat bodies body bone bones bonjour born both bottom bouillon boundaries boundary brain breakdown breaking breed breeding briefly bringing brown bud buds buffer bull bulletin bullock burns but c ca cage cages calcification calcified calcifies calcium calculated calculation calendar caloric calories camera camp can cannot carbohydrates cardiac cardiovascular care cartilage

Seriously, go check out the whole thing here. It's friggin' cool.

Update: OK, that looks a little f'd up, since Blogger's formattin apparently doesn't work so well with the formatting of the data cloud. I guess you'll just have to go here to see how it should look.

Things That Make You Go.. wtf?

It has proven to be far more difficult to get Air Canada to change my last name on my Aeroplan card than it was to get my name changed on my passport. What the hell is up with that?

---

I went to my old grad student office to check if there was any mail there for me. There was the usual junk mail (e.g., ads for journals about addiction research, newsletters from research networks) and a pay stub from 2005. That's right, a pay stub for money that I made two years ago! I mean, where has this pay stub been? Was it stuck in the campus mail system for all this time? Was it sitting on someone's desk who decided to make a 2007 New Year's resolution wherein they clean up their messy desk?

---

While looking at job postings on Monster.ca, I noticed that there are postings for positions like "Combat Engineer" and "Infantry Soldier" with the Canadian Forces under the category "Sports and Recreation/Fitness"... um... the military? Sports? Really?

---

The following is a book review posted on the Barnes & Noble site for the book, The Omnivore's Dilemma:

This book is so good because i think its a good book. Like they told me a recipe that its good and taste good. it is a good book, very good. Recommend it to all the good people, not fatties, cuz they will eat like savage, i mean the good normal people only. If you have weight problem, dont buy this book, you need a Diet book not this good book. Once i reading this book, i saw a picture of a food, and i said 'WOW, what a food!' to myself. So I made it the food and I mused 'it must be overweight/obese people favorite food, like how can they eat all this' so then I thought I must write a review to warn overweight people about good food that will make u bigger and soon colonize the whole world!

Do I really need to ask? No, but I can't resist.... WTF????

---

And lastly in the land of wtf, my roommate went to a Canucks game the other day and, after the game ended, she noticed that someone had left behind a set of those inflatable plastic sticks that people bang together to make noise at sporting events. And look what is printed on those inflatable plastic sticks that people bang together to make noise at sporting events:


Thank GOD they wrote that! However would anyone know how to use this high tech device otherwise???

---

January Wrap Up

Two things about January:

1. I did, in fact, post something every single day in January. And twice on the 10th.
   
2. The only game in the entire month of January where the Canucks didn't get at least one point was on my birthday.

In other news, my future husband, Marc Chouinard, scored his second goal as a Canuck tonight. Danielle got to go to the game and I am just a wee bit jealous. I listened to the game on the radio and it sounded very, very exciting!

Also, the release date of the last Harry Potter book has been, uh, released. July 21, 2007! w00t!! When book 6 came out, I preordered it from Chapters* so that I would receive it on the day it came out... and I read it from cover to cover, starting from when the letter carrier put it into my hot little hands at about noon until I was done at about 3 am the next day, having only taken two breaks - one to walk to the store to buy diet Pepsi and one to make myself something to eat. I also rode my exercise bike for 6 hours that day... I would ride it for an hour while reading, then sit on the couch for an hour while reading, and then repeat. That made me feel like I wasn't being a total sloth by just sitting still for 15 hours straight. Hmm... I don't have that exercise bike anymore... will need to come up with a new method for July 21!

Yup, first post of Febrary = phoning it in.


*Also, if you pre-order right away, you get it for half price.

New Blog Title?

After much yammering about it, I think it's high time I changed my blog title to something non-thesis related. But I'm still not 100% sure what to change it to. So I'm trying one on for size - and I may try other ones in the coming days, sort of a multiple blog-ality disorder. Or I may get distracted* (ooh... that dog has a puffy tail!) and leaving up whatever title happens to be there. We'll just have to wait and see how it pans out. For the moment, I'm not going to change my URL, as I don't want to lose any of my readers.

OK, so first up we have the new title: Total Perspective Vortex. Astute readers will know this is reference to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. For those of you who already know all about it, feel free to let your attention wander freely for the rest of this paragraph.** The Total Perspective Vortex is summarized by Wikipedia thusly:

the most horrible torture device to which a sentient being can be subjected [...] it shows its victim the entire unimaginable infinity of the universe with a very tiny marker that says "You Are Here" which points to a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot.

Most people go mad from being shown how utterly insignificant they are. Only Zaphod Beeblebrox has survived it unscathed, as the TPV was "simply telling him that he was the most important being in the universe."***

Anyhoo, I thought that Total Perspective Vortex would be a good (if nerdy) name for my blog because all indications given on this blog are that *I* am the most important being in the blogosphere. The drawback to this blog name is that some other guy already took the URL totalperspectivevortex.blogspot.com... he wrote a grand total of 3 postings back in June of 2004 and then abandoned the venture. Clearly, he was not the most important being in the blogosphere.

The only other name I have thought of comes from this photo, taken at Capliano Canyon last April:

Photo courtesy of Dave.

One of my pet peeves about Capliano, aside from the fact that they charge you nearly $30 to cross a friggin' bridge, is that they have all these signs that tell you what to do. Like the "Kodak Photos Spots," where they tell you "oooh, this is a good spot to take a photo! then you can have a photo that looks like the photos taken by every other tourist that's ever been here!" And like this sign that actually tells you that it is a good place to do some thinking. And so I couldn't resist doing this pose for a photo. And it wasn't even a "Kodak Photos Spot"! So I was thinking that "The Thinking Spot" could be a good blog name, because I could use this photo. Except that anyone who has ever read this blog knows that very little thinking is going on here****.

*I'm very easily distracted.

**And that was a reference to Dumbledore in one of the Harry Potter books.. I'm pretty sure it was the Goblet of Fire, but don't have the books handy to double check it.

***Of course, he was in an artificial universe that was created specifically for him so he actually WAS the most important thing in that universe, but that's beside the point.

****Also, thinkingspot.blogspot.com has already been taken too. Sigh

The Heathen's Guide to World Religions

I've been looking for a copy of The Heathen's Guide to World Religions ever since I lost the custody battle for the copy I used to sort of own*. Chapter's, the liars, have been claiming that this book is "temporarily unavailable to order" since the beginning of time. I've searched used bookstores all across Vancouver. I've searched online bookstores. I even googled the author, William Hopper, and the publishing company, Diogenes Press, in hopes of contacting them to see if they have a few copies of this book lying around that I could purchase. All to no avail. Until now.

Somehow, out of the blue, Anonymous posted a comment on a recent posting of mine (which had nothing to do with The Heathen's Guide to World Religions whatsoever) that merely said, "http://www.heathensguide.com/" And lo and behold, you can buy the book there! I highly, *highly* recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of the major religions**. How can you not like a book that is dedicated to "Mother Teresa, who had me forcibly removed after I was introduced to her; and some guy who punched me in the face for Jesus"?

And, as an added bonus, the author has a blog too. Which he appears to have started on September 4, 2006. I love the irreverent way this guy writes and I'm definitely adding this one to my blog roll. I'm telling you, get in on the ground floor on this blog everyone!

Thanks Anonymous!***


*OK, so there wasn't *actually* a battle. A skirmish. With light sabres. But not really a "battle" per se.

**This is a new and expanded version, compared to the version I used to sort of own. And I've very excited to see what's been added.

***Anonymous - you should totally come out and tell us who you are and take credit for your find! Or am I the only attention whore on this blog?

Weekend at Rachel's

While not as slapstick hilarious as Weekend at Bernie's, I enjoyed a lovely long weekend at Rachel's. We went with some other friends to the Royal on Saturday night - we had been on the guest list at Plaza, but apparently you can only get into Plaza if you are on the guest list, which means that "guest list" translates to "you are allowed to stand in the stupidly long line up." Hence, we ended up at the Royal. We didn't have to wait to long and once we got in the music was pretty good. So far, so good. We were dancing, having fun - Angie even danced in the cage* (completely sober, since we'd been in the line up at the Plaza so long that we effectively had no alcohol in our systems by the time we got into the club). I was fulfilling my contractual obligations as Rachel's wingman** for much of the evening, but when I sat down from dancing it totally hit me that I was not well. It was very strange, because I'd only had 3 drinks and that was over about 3 hours or so, which should not be a problem at all. It was so sudden that I even recall asking Rachel "did someone slip something in my drink?" But I was drinking out of a bottle and my drink never left my hand, so I don't see how that could be. I hadn't really eaten much that day and perhaps it just hit me once I stopped dancing because I was sitting still for the first time in hours. Who knows. Long story short, Rachel took good care of me, got me back to her place where I could pass out in peace. And refuses to go out with me again unless I've eaten beforehand. Fair enough.

Sunday we spent on the beach. The weather was absolutely gorgeous all weekend, which is almost unheard of for a long weekend in Vancouver. We went to Kits Beach, which is within walking distance of Rachel's apartment. But we went to the "ugly section" at the far end of the beach - we just really didn't feel like dealing with the 90210 kids at the busy part of the beach. And I actually managed tone down my farmer's tan by getting some sun on my shoulders and midriff. Just in time for it not to be summer anymore! Since I hadn't brought any of the books I'm currently reading with me, I borrowed "He's Just Not That Into You." It was definitely an entertaining read and there were things in there that totally resonated with me (e.g., if he tells you he cheated on you because you are too fat, you should run, run away; and all men are basically cowards***) and other things that I just didn't buy (e.g., a woman should never, ever call a man. Ever). Sunday night was spent just chillaxin'... well, I was chillaxin', Rachel was flying a Cessna.

And today we went to the PNE. I'd never been to the PNE before - Rachel hadn't either, although she had been to Playland. We went with a couple friends of hers who recently moved here from England. It was a nice sunny day and it was fun to be hanging out with cool peeps, but I can't say that the PNE was all that impressive. We saw cows. We saw mushrooms. We saw a monster truck. I refused to go on the rides at Playland on the grounds that I am morally opposed to paying $9 for a 45 second ride. Especially one that looked so bloody tame. On the plus side, the poutine was vegetarian and we had mini donuts.

And then I came home. And Danielle is back! Danielle is the girl whose place I subletted for the summer and who is letting me stay with her until I figure out what I'm going to do with my life. Danielle is cool like that.



*conveniently (for her at least), she had the camera with her, so I have no photographic evidence to back this up.

**disclaimer - while checking out the the definition of wingman on Urban Dictionary, there seems to be a disproportionate amount of attention paid to the fact that the subject of the wingman's attention is "ugly," so I feel the need to state unequivocally that the guy whose attention I was occupying so that Rachel could spend time with her boy was not ugly. About 2 and a half feet taller than me, yes, but not ugly.

***I'm totally kidding about that one. I think ;-)

Messy Bessy

I'm reading Life, the Universe and Everything and come across this passage:

The mess is extraordinary, and has to be seen to be believed, but if you don't have any particular need to believe it, then don't go and look because you won't enjoy it.

Which, coincidentally, is an exact perfect description of my apartment. But seeing as Sarah & Dave will be here in just 22 days, I better do something about it! Of course, I really should be marking the assignments that my students handed in a week ago that I haven't even looked at because I so don't want to have to mark them. Which explains why I was reading LtUaE and am now blogging about it. I'm not procrastinating, you're procrastinating. Get back to work, you!

Guts

Went to a reading by Chuck Palahniuk* and Douglas Coupland last night. It's only the second literary reading I've ever been to (went to one by Salmon Rushdie a couple of years ago). Palahniuk was actually quite pleased that about half the audience said that they had never been to a literary reading before, as he wants to get people reading who don't usually read.

Both of them read stuff they've written that hasn't yet been published -- Coupland read a few excerpts from his new novel, jPod, including a scene where the protaganist meets Douglas Coupland on a plane, and reading out from his pages of random numbers. He went on about the great random number generators you can get on the web and I found myself wondering if I was the only one in the audience who not only has used a random number generator, but has used a random number generator so frequently that they have it linked to their homepage**.

Palahniuk read a short story, Mr. Elegant, that has only been read by his workshop group (apparently he has a small group of friends that he workshops with every week), which was pretty cool. He also showed up an hour and a half early to sign books, and stayed afterwards to sign more (saying that if they kicked them out, he would just stand out in the parking lot and sign until everyone who wanted to get something signed, or even just say "hi," had a chance to do so). I thought that was pretty cool of him.

I got a copy of Fight Club signed (because I'm just a poser and have only read bits and pieces of his other stuff). He gave me a rose. It had a tag on it that said "With all my love." He also gave a rose to every other person in the audience that said "With all my love," so I think that maybe he didn't really give me all his love. He also gave something else out at the end of the session (check out the stamp on my signed copy of the book and see if you can guess what it was). It makes a lot more sense once you've read Mr. Elegant.



In completely unrelated news (and in my ongoing effort at fair and balanced reporting of the UBC Women's Rec Hockey scene), I opening the scoring in my hockey game tonight with a goal on my first shift! We won the game, so we are now 2-2-1 on the season and are looking good for making the playoff***.

*I have to say that Wikipedia is freaking fast. I googled Chuck Palahniuk so I could hyperlink his name and when I looked at the Wikipedia page, I saw the photo at the top and I was like, "wow in that photo it looks like he is wearing the exact same thing as he wore last night. What a coincidence!" Then I read the caption. (I would also like to add that that photo appears to have been cropped from a photo in which he has his arm someone... most likely someone whose breast he was groping with a plastic hand with fake blood on it. Seriously. I'm not making that up.

**I'm purposely not linking to my homepage (which is just a page of all the links I usually go to) here. I was going to, but then I realized that if you could see all the the links that I usually go to, you'd find out what a freak I am. So no homepage for you!

***Of course, most seasons all the teams makes the playoffs, so this isn't really that big a deal.

Update: I just posted this and noticed that it says I posted in at ~9 pm on 28 Feb (which is when I started writing this post, but didn't finish at that time), even tho it's actually 2:41 am on 1 March... and my hockey game was last night at 10:45 pm -- so, if you believe Blogger, I'm psychic and knew the outcome of the game before it even happened. Silly Blogger!