June 24, 2008

In case you were wondering, we watched the rerun of Deal or No Deal because it was a Star Wars episode and all of the women holding cases (do they have a title? Case Models? Howie's Beauties?) were dressed like Princess Leia.

Ian was thrilled.

June 23, 2008

"Hello and welcome to Body Break; with Hal Johnson and Joanne McLeod!"

This was a phrase I hadn't heard in a very long time until the other night when we were watching a rerun of Deal or No Deal. The first thing I noticed was that both Hal and Joanne, who are both familiar to me from birth thanks to growing up in a town with no cable, look exactly the same now as they did when I was a kid. And if you think it's because it was an old episode, think again! They spent most of the 90 second clip talking about the Wii!! If you look closely at the photo, you can see a very fuzzy Joanne standing in front of a very fuzzy Wii game screen.

The episode focused on using games to increase your physical activity. Maybe it's just me, but I was surprised to see them touting the Wii as a way of getting active. I have played Wii tennis and Wii boxing before and while both can definitely get the heart rate up, it is by no means a replacement for a good, old fashioned workout. (On a side note, divorce rates would be much lower if all married couples played Wii boxing. Seriously. Think about it - you are pissed with your partner for whatever reason... work out that frustration by kicking the crap out of him/her on screen instead of arguing. I should be a therapist! Anyway, I digress.)

So do I agree with Hal and Joanne about the use of the Wii to get active? Like I said, it's by no means a replacement for lifting weights, a bike ride, or playing soccer, but in a society where both childhood and adult obesity rates are skyrocketing I guess we have to take whatever improvement we can get.

Keep fit and have fun!

June 22, 2008

Dear Jackass who parked beside me yesterday

Just because you drive a big truck with an extended cab and a long box does not mean it is acceptable for you to park beside me at such an angle that I can't back out without ripping my drivers side mirror off on your bumper. My car was the only other vehicle in the parking lot - there was plenty of room for both of us. Next time, either park straighter or go park away from other vehicles if you feel you must park like a jerk. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

Sincerely,

The Apathetic Bride

PS. It's summer now. You don't need to leave your big, manly truck running when no one is in it.

June 21, 2008

Speaking of drive in movies, this is the camera they use to project the movies on one of the screens. It is considerably taller than me and uses a 4000 watt bulb.

There's some useless but interesting trivia for you.

June 20, 2008

We went to the drive-in for a movie night tonight. The drive-in always two screens and plays two movies on each screen every night. It's a pretty good deal if you can stay up late enough to watch both movies. The only down side is that the people who own the drive-in have taken to storing a lot of old car wrecks and other miscellaneous junk on the property.

We saw The Love Guru and Indiana Jones 4. The Love Guru was pretty terrible, but it had a lot of cameos that kept me entertained (Stephen Colbert as the Hockey Night in Canada commentator was pretty funny). Indiana Jones 4 was good, but not great. Kind of like the all the other Indiana Jones movies. Well, the ones I've seen anyway.

June 18, 2008

One of the blogs I read occasionally is "Wedded Diss". One of the recent topics covered was paper invitations vs electronic invitations (e-vites). I have to admit, e-vites are something I've thought about. On the pro side, e-vites are cheaper, more efficient, and more environmentally friendly (although, computers do run on electricity so maybe Mother Earth is screwed either way). The biggest e-vite con I can come up with is that there is no way I can use e-vites exclusively since there are several people on the guest list (eg, my Grandma) who have never used a computer in their lives. It is this same group of people who would be very disappointed to not recieve a traditional paper invitation.

Ian and I went to a wedding a few years ago that used e-vites for all the guests. Well, sort of. The bride and groom emailed or IM'd all of their guests and invited them to the wedding. No invitation, e-vite or otherwise, was received but some of the essential info was posted on the brides sisters blog. The wedding was lovely, but the whole experience of not having an invitation/directions/accommodations list/everything else people include in their wedding invitation envelopes was horribly disorganized and confusing. So I guess my only experience with e-vites wasn't terribly positive.

Our wedding is out of town and there will be lots of directions and accommodation information to include so the verdict is paper invitations. I'll go add that to my to-do list.

June 13, 2008

One year from today is our wedding day.

What we have:
A bride
A groom
A partial wedding party
A ceremony/reception venue
A caterer
A wedding dress
Accommodations for our immediate families


What we don't have:
Accommodations for us
A guest list
Invitations
Center pieces
Clothing for everyone except the bride
Someone to marry us
A photographer
Hairstylist
Flowers
A colour scheme
Alcohol
Guest Favours
Shoes
A wedding website
Approximately one billion other things I have not even realized we will need

Oh dear.

June 10, 2008

Also for sale.

This is a Honda motorbike of a 1978ish model. It belongs to a friend of Ian's who recently moved to join the military. Ian is selling it on his behalf. The only things I can tell you about it are:

1. It apparently does run, but it hasn't been started in a very long time.

2. It doesn't have a seat.

3. It's really heavy.

4. It almost tipped over onto the hood of my car once.

Any takers?

June 9, 2008

For sale.

We won this bike in the 2007 hospital home lottery and it's been in our garage for about a year. It's a nice bike, it's just not suitable for us at this point in our lives.

The bike is a 2007 Norco Rio Vista Cruiser (mens model). It's in excellent condition (it's only been ridden for about a block). You can check out the specs for the very similar 2008 model here.

Any takers?

June 7, 2008

We picked up our season tickets for the Roughriders today. Ian is a huge football fan and a lifelong rider fan. The season tickets are my engagement gift to him.

The photo is of Wes Cates (Rider player) being mobbed by autograph seekers.

June 2, 2008

I took this picture standing on our back step. Our next-door neighbour is different sort of lady. She's in her early 50ies (I'd guess), but dresses like she's about 19. It's an unfortunetly frequent occurence to come home to see her in her yard dressed in shorts and a bikini top, hanging out her lingerie to dry. It disturbs me.

Another odd thing about her is she has, without fail, gotten a new boyfried every spring and fall. Seriously. Once the snow starts to melt in the spring, she gets a new man and makes him clean up the yard and get it all set up for summer. She keeps him around for a month or two, then dumps him and gets a new guy for fall to get her yard ready for winter. It sounds like a good system to me... maybe I'll give it a try.

June 1, 2008

I went to see the Sex and the City movie tonight (the picture is a very blurry representation of my ticket stub).

I discovered Sex and the City sometime in my early twenties, when Bravo aired episodes really late on Friday and Saturday nights. Since that time I've managed to collect the entire series on DVD, so I guess I qualify as a fan of the series.

I've been thinking about why I enjoy the series so much. It's definitely not because I'm a fashion diva obsessed with Chanel and Manolo Blahniks - far from it. I have a hard time believing that a freelance sex columnist makes enough money to keep herself outfitted head-to-toe in designer labels. And I pretty sure that life in New York, while wonderful I'm sure, is very little like what is portrayed on the show.

Looking back, I realized that I started watching the show at a time in my life when I thoroughly believed all men were assholes (bad breakup). I had never seen a television series that depicted not only one but four strong, single, female characters. I won't go as far as to say that Sex and the City helped heal me or anything so dramatic, but the strong and funny portrayal of 4 intelligent single women did help empower me to a small degree. I have to admit that I can see aspects of myself in all of the four lead characters, however improbable the series may have been.

I once read a summary (that I'm pretty sure was written by a man) of the entire series of Sex and the City that read "This stupid, fluffy, and sometimes stale "comedy" with the shelf life of an open bag of chips on a rainy day made a heroine out of a neurotic, skinny shrieker-monkey who had bad affairs for reasons inexplicable to her three mismatched friends, Slutty, Prissy, and Bossy." Yes, both the series and the movie were stupid, fluffy, and stale at times but it contained a charm all its own and an ability to connect with millions of women that few Hollywood productions will be able to reproduce.

May 31, 2008

We helped my brother and sister-in-law move today. The house they moved into is probably the weirdest house I've ever been in. For starters, it's huge (particularly for a rental) with a full upstairs, main floor, and basement. Three bedrooms and 1 and 1/2 bathrooms upstairs, two enormous living rooms and a kitchen on the main floor, and laundry and a second full bath downstairs. Several additions had been built at different times, giving the house a strange sprawling feel and some very interesting angled walls. The picture above is of the "master" bedroom complete with "ensuite" bathroom. There is a full patio door and balcony on the wall directly opposite the toilet and sink, so you can sit on the can and watch all the action on the street if you like.

Unfortunately, the previous tenants left behind some substantial damage. The house reeked of pot and several holes had been punched in the walls (I'm guessing from the house-cooling party the previous tenants had). They also didn't clean anything. For months, it appeared. We also found a dead pigeon on the balcony.

The house has a lot of potential, but it will need a lot of repair to make it desirable for conscientious renters like my brother and sister-in-law. Unless they can reach an agreement with the landlord, I doubt they will stay here very long.

May 30, 2008

The elevator closest to my office has been broken since Monday. When I first started working here (more than a year ago now), I never used the elevator. I used to think to myself "This building is only three floors tall, the only reason a person should need the elevator is if they were carrying something too large to get up the stairs."

Apparently, I've changed my mind somewhat. While I don't think I use the elevator much, by Friday I caught my self thinking "Sigh, the elevator is still broken..."