Constant Inanity

So so very very angry over $40.17

2009-08-13T22:17:00.004-04:00

I got home from my trip to Europe a few weeks ago and got my credit card bill, only to see that I was charged $40.17 for a phone call that lasted less than 5 minutes. I called my credit card and the customer service rep I spoke to said not in so many words that she sees people upset about this particular company's charges all the time. Seriously, I once called a friend on a cell phone in rural Togo and only got charged a dollar a minute. Even if I had used the whole 5 minutes I was charged for, the cost would have been 8.34$ a minute!

The company is International Satellite Communications and they're in San Ysidro,CA, so essentially, they're in Tijuana - and they charge credit cards for payphone calls in Spain... don't you just loooove globalization?!

Anyway, I'm furious. I kind of disliked Spain to begin with, it was hot, it smelled bad, the people we dealt with were rude and/or shady, the only nice Spanish speakers we met there turned out to be from South America.

I rarely travel anywhere that I don't find anything to like about a place... but I actually can't think of much that was good about Spain.

Well, it was kind of fun watching the pickpockets and hookers plying their trade on Las Ramblas.... but that's a bit of a stretch as a good quality about a place, isn't it?

I won't even bother getting into my frustration with the ridiculous service charges the landlord for the flat we rented levied on us. But at least I had the option to walk away from that shady deal because it was face to face. I never agreed to pay this amount for that phone call, and I'm going to have to pay it whether I like it or not.

I'm so fucking angry right now!!!

Top 5 Celebrity Women

2009-01-20T11:24:00.004-05:00

Dita Von Teese

Jennifer Connelly

Scarlet Johnasson

Marilyn Monroe

Top 5 Celebrity Men

2009-01-20T10:21:00.008-05:00

Some girlfriends and I were talking about our top fives last night and I was about to email them some pictures, but then I thought, why not post about it instead. I have pretty conventional taste, no?

Elvis Presley

Brad Pitt

Robert Redford

George Clooney

Scott Bakula

More restaurant closures in Toronto's Chinatown

2008-10-16T13:04:00.001-04:00

Some of my favourite restaurants in Chinatown have been closed down in the last week by a rat infestation that is plaguing the neighbourhood.

My poor knees

2008-10-09T11:57:00.001-04:00

I got the coolest new thing for my birthday - a spin dryer

2008-10-09T11:38:00.002-04:00

My aunt had one of these things in England when I was young. She lived in a 200 year old farm house.

On days when she wanted to do hand washing, she would wash the clothes in the sink and then spin the moisture out of them with the spin dryer.

Then if it was too rainy or cold to hang the clothes outside she would hang them in the kitchen. She had an AGA stove in her kitchen and so it was always the warmest room in the house. She also had such high ceilings, that she had a rack for drying the clothes that was on a pulley. She would lower the rack down to hang the clothes then pull it back up to the warmest driest most out of the way spot near the ceiling. The whole set up was ingenious.

I think a lot about energy efficiency, I also live in a pretty humid basement and I really like to do laundry, but I don't like to use the dryer. So, when I found one of these babies on the internet, I knew I had to have it.

I asked my mom and my godfather to go dutch on it for my birthday and it arrived yesterday. I tried it last night and I'm sooo pleased. I wish all my clothes and sheets were dirty so I could wash them all.

Here's how I'm using it. I put the clothes in the washer (cold water of course). Then when the washer is done I take them out and put them in the spin dryer. It spins them waaaaay faster than the washer does and it a few minutes it's extracted a whole lot of extra water (and suds, which lets me know that the washer doesn't do a great job at rinsing, or I use too much soap). The clothes come out almost dry. Then I either put them on the line or put them in the dryer for a few minutes to finish them off.

The thing is brilliant. Hanging clothes in my basement is often really frustrating for me because anything like sweaters or jeans is musty before it's dried fully - but putting sweaters in the dryer often wrecks them too. I'm anticipating never having to deal with musty clothes again!

A really great gift.

Listeria stupidity - why don't people have common sense?

2008-10-09T10:51:00.003-04:00

For those of you not following the Canadian news. One of our major meat producers here had an outbreak of Listeria in one of their plants a while ago. 20 people died. Now this seems like something to get all up in arms about and you would imagine that I'd be flipping out because I'm such a nut about bacteria but I'm not.
Here's why:

- if we hadn't started tracking outbreaks so closely here, then we likely would have never linked these 20 deaths to each other

- if you cook your meat properly you won't get listeriosis from buying listeria tainted meat

-listeria is extremely common and exists everywhere including your pet and probably your kitchen

I think that people are flipping out about this for a couple of reasons:
-people aren't savvy consumers of sensational news stories

-people think that living in a first world country magically makes them immune to disease.

The plain fact is that you need to cook meat before you eat it, you just can't eat hot dogs straight from the package. If you want to take the chance and eat sandwich meat without cooking it yourself, then do it while you're young and healthy and not pregnant.

Burnt Toast!

2008-03-07T08:54:00.002-05:00

I woke up in the middle of the night last night and I smelled burnt toast! It made me think of this.

Bounty hunter coming back to the small screen

2008-02-29T17:15:00.001-05:00

HONOLULU, Hawaii (AP) -- TV bounty hunter Duane "Dog" Chapman is preparing a return to the airwaves.

Duane "Dog" Chapman's show was pulled off the air in November.

The Chapman family confirmed Thursday that filming is set to resume on the A&E show "Dog the Bounty Hunter."

The show features Chapman and crew in pursuit of bail jumpers in Hawaii and other states.

It was the highest rated show on A&E before the network pulled it off the air in November.

Chapman was heard in a taped phone conversation using a racial slur in reference to his son's black girlfriend.

Chapman has apologized and tried to make amends with the network and the black community.

Network officials say that since the show is about second chances, they decided to accept his apology and resume production. No air date has been announced.

Goal #43 - Change Banks

2008-02-22T09:17:00.004-05:00

The banking fees of most of the major banks in Canada are daylight robbery. It's really shocking that anyone puts up with it, yet I put up with it for years. As of yesterday, I'm not gonna take it anymore. I signed up for an account with PC Financial. I went whole hog and got all the services including overdraft protection and all that shiz. And something really interesting happened when the lady credit checked me. I think this may have been the first time in my life that I was credit checked, that I knew about. Apparently, I have perfect credit, how about that! My boyf and my mother, possibly the two most fiscally responsible humans on earth, would have you believe that I'm a fuck-up when it comes to my cash. And, yeah, maybe I don't balance the books all that much, or know my bank balance at any given moment in time. But, I did set my bank account to pay the minimum balance on my credit card every month, whether I remembered to do it or not. And voila! An A+ credit rating. Sure sometimes I forget/can't pay off the balance, and so sometimes I pay interest on my credit card purchases... but, I'm that much closer to Goal #1 Buy Property.
Big pats on the back for me!

I love to kick ass on skates, but this kicks ass on skates without any of the violence and I respect that!

2008-02-13T08:52:00.000-05:00

BlueAir 201

2008-02-12T13:47:00.000-05:00

I purchased this air purifier from a website in the US today. I am very excited about this purchase because I'm tired of all of my co-workers 'God Bless'ing me 30-40times a day. I'd be a lot more on board with the whole religion thing if there was someone I could pray to, or light candles to, who would lower my chances of getting hit with crazy customs fees. Fingers crossed!

A big weekend of not doing what I said I would

2008-02-11T11:59:00.000-05:00

Clearly the fear of God doesn't move me too much, it hasn't made me give up sleeping in on Sundays, eating meat on Good Friday, being mean, and the list goes on (I won't mention some of the bigger sins because sensitive eyes might be reading, but you get the idea)... well here's another one to add to the list! I started this Lent-themed-super-goal-crossing-off-extravaganza with a bang and then it all started to peter out. I lost my resolve, I did't run at all on the weekend, and I didn't floss!
Then I got an email today with a training schedule for a 10K run I'm doing in May and I almost had a heart attack just reading the thing. No frickin' way I can do all that training! On the other hand, if I do that training schedule (and floss while I run), all my goals will be done. I think I need a buddy for this training or something.
And Bill, you'll be happy to know that I haven't let #47 go, and that I have continued to make great strides at clearing my boxes out. Turns out my fear of my mother is a much greater motivator than my fear of God. Perhaps if her present career doesn't work out she should consider becoming a fitness trainer, the kind who rides along beside you in a golf cart.

Lent

2008-02-07T00:08:00.000-05:00

What the hey, I'm kickin' the goals thing into overdrive for lent, you know, instead of giving stuff up. I'm going to try and finish:
#3. Do 50 situps and 50 pushups every day for 50 days
#17. Floss every day for 90 days
#46. Run 3x per week for 2 months
#47. Clear the mountain of boxes out of my mother's living room left over from my move
Think I can do it? I'm sure going to have less time during the next couple of months.

Goal #11 - Run a 5K

2008-02-01T12:07:00.000-05:00

On December 30th, I got up in the bitter cold and went down to the Distillery District to run the Resolution Run.

It's a multi-cultural commute!

2008-02-01T09:54:00.000-05:00

There's a big snow storm in TO today. They're advising that everyone stay off the roads if they can. Since I still have to get to work, my solution to this problem is to leave my car, and all that insurance liability, at home and take a cab to work. So, this morning, I got dressed for the elements, called a cab and went outside to shovel some snow until it arrived.
When I got in the cab, my driver was chatting on his cell phone in a language I didn't recognise with a CD hanging from the rearview mirror with Arabic writing on it. The heater in the cab was cranked to 5 million degrees and I started to feel almost immediately that I was going to doze off. But it also got me thinking.
(Now, I don't want to start anyone bitching about cab drivers or immigration, because I'm a big supporter of immigration and I'm greatful to our cab drivers for doing a very dangerous and difficult job. And if anyone says anything that even hints at racism in my comment section I will delete it.)
It just occurred to me how funny it is that almost every single cabbie in Toronto is from a warm weather country and how silly it is that they're the ones who are on the road getting us around 24/7 in hail, sleet and snow. Driving a cab is often the first job an immigrant gets when they come here, and these guys probably never in their lives had to drive in, or even experience, these kinds of conditions before they came here. So it's really a pretty ridiculous situation when I, who grew up here, and learned to cope with these conditions from when I was a little kid, is depending on a guy who has probably been here less than a year to get me around in bad weather. I read recently that the weather condition that causes the most traffic accidents worldwide is sandstorms.
Sometimes, in fair weather I get frustrated with the cabbies for how carelessly they often drive, but on days like today I appreciate the hell out of them and their 5 million degree heaters.

Goal #8 - Pay off credit card debt

2008-01-31T16:39:00.000-05:00

As you all know, carrying credit card debt sucks. But I just couldn't seem to pay it down. This one was going to be a really hard one when I set out to do it. But it actually just kind of happened by itself. My mom broke her leg - and when I say broke her leg - I don't just mean crutches and colourful cast. She's still not back to work and it happened last fall. There's nothing like giving up a lot of your social events to move home with your sick parent, to keep you from overspending.

Goals #5 and 6

2008-01-31T16:27:00.000-05:00

I'm really taking care of business today!

Goal #5 Bring lunch to work every day for a week
This one's not so ground breaking.... but.... the week I did this was the only week I've done this the whole time I've had this job. So clearly it was an achievement.

Goal #6 Get a Permanent Job
Getting a permanent job was an acheivement 10 years in the making. I've never really liked moving around (making new friends, finding someone to have lunch with, getting into a routine), but I didn't like staying the same place either (most people get old fast). I've done a lot of maternity leaves in the past. It's a really good amount of time to work somewhere. You're there long enough to make friends and find the good lunch places, but not so long that there isn't a light at the end of the tunnel. Also, I hate performance reviews, and the great thing about working contracts is that you don't have to do performance reviews. The last permanent job I had, I actually quit during my first perfomance review.
The place I'm working at now is awesome, I love most of my co-workers, it has a great vibe, and I see myself staying here for a long time. So, it's worth staying, even though they make me do performance reviews.

Back on the horse and Xing off Goals - #2

2008-01-31T16:20:00.000-05:00

Getting an RRSP. I know it's not super sexy, but it's way sexier than eating cat food when you're old. Besides, it's been one of my life goals to retire as soon as I freakin' can. Anyway, I've been at my job over a year now, so let me into their matching RRSP plan. Signing up was a pain and I was very disappointed with the lack of choice and not excellent performance of the green and ethical ones. So I just picked one and tried to forget about it. Then I got my year end statement, and I already had 800 bucks in there woohoo!

New Entry - my god she's back!

2008-01-31T16:07:00.000-05:00

Yeah yeah, I've been super AWOL, I'm sorry.
I've been busy. This is the first time in months that I've had a quiet minute in front of the computer. The BF and I have officially given up our apartment, and I'd just like to mention that moving sucks. I'm not totally done because I've filled my mother's living room with boxes and predictably she's pissed about it, so I have weeks of work ahead of me sorting boxes.
I've not only neglected my blog, I've also neglected my friends. So, if you're reading this, and I normally send you a gift on your b-day and you didn't get one this year, send me your list, I'm ready to be thoughtful now.
My first priority now is my goals, I'm sooo behind. I need to clean em up, write the rest of them out, get flossing, run places, and write posts about the stuff I've already done. Whew!

I'm back and I'm in love!

2008-01-24T10:14:00.001-05:00

Raw Video: Rare Lemur Born in English Zoo

Spills & thrills

2007-11-23T12:00:00.000-05:00

Trash and Smash, centre, a blocker for Les Contrabanditas takes out a member of La Racaille at the Montreal Roller Derby. (John Morstad)
More pictures

Don't let their retro-style skates and short skirts fool you. On the rink these roller derby vixens will trash talk and bodycheck their way to the finish. It's fast, rough and dirty - and it's bringing spectators to their feet
M.J. STONE

From Friday's Globe and Mail

November 23, 2007 at 8:46 AM EST

MONTREAL — The capacity crowd at the Aréna Saint Louis is on its feet. Gliding into a corner, Beater Pan Tease delivers a solid bodycheck that sends her rival, Miss Sassy Craft, tumbling. The felled player rolls forward with bowling-ball intensity, tripping up her fellow competitors as they advance behind her.

The audience roars as, one by one, the skaters lose their balance, crashing into a massive pileup of bodies.

Campy and irreverent, the inaugural season of the all-female Montreal Roller Derby was the summer's cult sporting sensation.

It's part of a resurgence that has crept across North America, with leagues springing up in Canadian cities such as Vancouver, Toronto and Hamilton.

Founded by Concordia University student Alyssa Kwasny (a.k.a. Georgia W. Tush), the MTLRD featured more than 40 women and three teams: La Racaille (Dirt), Les Contrabanditas (Pirates) and Les Filles du Roi, (The King's Prostitutes). With homemade uniforms and old-school roller skates, the players ham it up for the crowd with trash talk and threats of violence.

Add a plethora of spectacular falls and masked wrestlers duking it out between periods, and it's no wonder why Montreal audiences, fuelled on Pabst Blue Ribbon, whooped it up at the derby.

The sport has come a long way since the first event took place in Chicago in August, 1935. The brainchild of movie-theatre mogul Leo Seltzer, the 3,000-mile Transcontinental Roller Derby featured multiple two-person teams racing around a track 11 hours a day for an entire month. When Mr. Seltzer noticed how much spectators enjoyed the collisions and spills, he retooled the derby into the event it resembles today.

Although the roller derby's profile had been in steady decline since the 1970s, the sport has been boosted by Rollergirls, a reality TV show about the Texas Roller Derby League's Lonestar Rollergirls.

As practised in the MTLRD, it's a two-team contest that takes place over three 20-minute periods. Matches feature four "blockers" and one "jammer" per side. Jammers begin the race at the back of the pack and gain points by fighting their way past the opposing team's blockers, whose sole purpose is to push, shove and bodycheck the competition's jammer to the floor.

Zoe Brown, (a.k.a Di Nasty) - a filmmaker and community worker by day and roller derby vixen by night - could barely skate when she first joined Les Filles du Roi. "I was falling around like a helpless four-year-old."

But Ms. Brown now says that she loves competing in front of an arena full of rowdy spectators - despite the risk that she might get hurt.

"I love the speed and adrenaline and look forward to all the hitting and checking," she says. "Competing in the derby is a wonderful way to channel your aggression."

Awesome pictures of the 2007 ToRD Championship game

2007-11-21T10:31:00.000-05:00

Here is another link to derby pics.

Carnivorous plant has a secret deep inside

2007-11-21T10:30:00.001-05:00

BEN HIRSCHLER

Reuters

November 20, 2007 at 8:10 PM EST

LONDON — The carnivorous pitcher plants that feed on insects in the Asian tropics may not snap shut like Venus flytraps, but they are smarter than they look.

Rather than being passive pitfall traps, the tube-like pitchers of Nepenthes plants actually contain a clever slimy fluid -- similar to mucus -- that produces powerful filaments to snare prey, French researchers said on Wednesday.

The unusual qualities of the fluid could one day be used to develop new, less environmentally harmful pesticides, the experts believe.

Just how pitcher plants catch their prey has intrigued biologists since Charles Darwin's time. Until now, it was thought that gravity and the slippery tube surface were the key, with the fluid in the pitcher simply helping digestion.

But Laurence Gaume at the University of Montpellier and Yoel Forterre from the University of Marseille have discovered that the fluid actually has the perfect viscoelastic properties to snare flies and ants.

"The elastic nature of the fluid is responsible for the huge spring-back forces that act on moving insects," Dr. Forterre said.

"The only chance for insects to escape the fluid would be to move slowly. But once they've fallen in the pitchers, insects most often panic and exhibit quick movements. It is like swimming in jelly."

The effect is seen even when the fluid is diluted more than 90 per cent with water, as can happen during heavy rainfall in the jungles of Borneo, where many of the plants grow.

The researchers have yet to identify the molecules responsible for the elastic properties of the fluid, which appears to be unique in the plant kingdom. But they believe the ingredient could help produce better pesticides in future.

Viscoelastic fluids or polymers are often added to pesticides and herbicides to prevent sprayed droplets from bouncing off plants, so limiting soil pollution.

The fluid from Nepenthes could provide new polymers that are both highly effective and environmentally friendly.

Dear Japan, I hate you, signed Jennifer

2007-11-19T15:52:00.000-05:00

Japanese Whale Hunt: A Japanese fleet left for the Antarctic Ocean yesterday with the intention of killing more than 1,000 whales, including 50 of the endangered humpback whales protected by an international moratorium since 1963. Japan argues that whaling provides value material for research into whale stocks, and that whale populations are at sustainable levels. Hideki Moronuki, whaling chief at the Japan Fisheries Agency, said humpback whales in our research are rapidly recovering Junichi Sato, spokesman for Greenpeace Japan, said "this is not about research," and charged that most of the whale meat will end up in Japanese pubs and supermarkets