Monday, February 28, 2005

What a load of Horst Burbulla!

Well, another Oscar night is come and gone. All in all, one of the better shows in years, I'd say. Kathy Griffin on the red carpet with Star Jones - wow, what an odd pair. Gotta admit, I love me some Kathy Griffin (you're awesome! Stop with the plastic surgery addiction already! Less being cut up, more cutting up others!), especially when she described Gisele Bundchen as "Leonardo DiCaprio's grandmother". Bwa ha ha! That's a keeper.

What else - oh, Chris Rock. People have already complained that he toned it down for the Oscars, but that's probably because IT'S THE OSCARS! Seriously. Anyway, I thought he hit the right balance and his bit about the Gap employee declaring war on Banana Republic...yeah, good times. Although the funniest bit of the night was when he introduced "comedic legend Jeremy Irons" all, haha, it's funny because he's a stodgy old Brit, and then Irons shows off some quick wit with the "I hope they missed" comment that got one of the biggest laughs of the night.

Other good stuff - NFB-produced "Ryan" winning Best Animated Short got the biggest cheer out of the five women in my apartment. We Canucks loves us some Animated Shorts. No gold for fellow Canadians Paul Haggis (adapting Million Dollar Baby) or Hubert Davis (Best Doc Short nominee Hardwood), who at least got to stand on the stage and was easily identified with his movie, 'cause it was about his pro-basketball playing father. Just picture this.

Speaking of standing on the stage - those two new twists this year were less obnoxious than I expected. I refer, of course, to the "lesser" nominees being either a) forced to stand onstage as the names are read, with the losers slinking off in shame when the winner's name is called, kind of like high school all over again when they were on the lunch-time dating game representing the AV club, all, fuck you quarterbacks and drama queens, one day I'm gonna be nominated for an Oscar and forced to live this all out again in front of millions of people or b) seated along the aisle in one section with their fellow nominees while some perpetual Oscar-bridesmaid announces the winner who then proceeds to the Town Hall-esque microphone that's miraculously appeared for their 10 seconds of air time before fucking Bill Conti decides only people who promise to talk about Clint Eastwood don't get cut off by the music.

Okay, let's talk fashion. Um, the women were mostly hot. Whatever. I liked the pretty colours. I'm going to be a little harsh on the dudes here, because, seriously? They have it waaaay easier than the women. It reminds me of grad, with all the girls booking hair and makeup appointments and shopping for dresses months in advance and getting waxed and styled and trimmed, and, omigod, don't get me started on accessories and the shoes, with Mme. McFarland ordering us all to bring them in so we could walk properly in heels, like, Julia Roberts could've have used her some Mme. McFarland, and God Forbid any other girl should get the same dress as you 'cause then wouldn't you both just die and you have to start ALL OVER AGAIN. And the boys, like, rented tuxes the day before grad. So I have a little more sympathy for the women 'cause even if they don't look so good, it's rarely due to a lack of effort. Whereas the men? All they need to do is a)shave, b) get a haircut and c)get a tux. And some of them couldn't even do that - yes, I'm looking at you, Johnny Depp.

This is getting long, so other notable moments:
-Fucking Beyoncé. Note to Academy - an accented name does not a French person make.
-Fucking Josh Groban. I want to poke him in his creepy dead eyes.
-Adam Duritz - Get a haircut or SpongeBob Squarepants is going to try to live in your head.
-Penelope Cruz is no longer relevant, not that she ever was, why is she on my TV?
-Sure, Martin Scorsese didn't really deserve to win this time around, but he's been robbed so many times in the past I figured they'd try to make it up to him. Apparently not. He's the Susan Lucci of legitimate cinema.
-Sean Penn trying to stick up for Jude Law, who was probably wetting himself over the number of times his name was mentioned anyway.

There's lots more but I'm not about to recap the whole night, because somebody's already done that for me.

Oh - and in case you were wondering about the title - I'd like to thank Academy's Science and Tecnology Awards for introducing me to the freakin' awesomest name ever. It's so satisfying to say. Try it! Nobody's around...come on, say it with me! "Horst Burbulla! Horst...Burbulla! Hoooooorst Burbullllllaaaaaa!"

And...I'm spent.

Thursday, February 17, 2005

100:1

Oooh, fun with ratios! Want to guess what it is?

a)Odds of Catalina Sandina Moreno winning Best Actress this year
b)Amount of time Floyd spends watching reality TV vs. time spent actually living in reality
c)Number of times Bush has pronounced "nuclear" incorrectly vs. correctly
d)Ratio of e-mails received this morning supporting Bill C-38 to those against.

Have you guessed? That's right, the correct answer is e)-All of the above! Or, more exactly, d). 'Cause this morning, there were over 1200 new e-mails for me to go through - and only 12 of them were against...well, it's hard to tell what these people are against. Mostly they're against other people, I guess. Based on the faxes we've been getting, these people are against eating with two knives or two forks at a time. I kid you not. Fuckwads.

Anyway, ain't nothing gonna break my stride. The debate started in the house yesterday, with the PM kicking things off. All in all, a pretty solid speech and one, which I might add, went up on his website as soon as he started speaking. Read along with Paul! Harper spoke next, but in all honesty, I didn't really listen 'cause I had to work and also because, as I've said before , his position is kind of crap.

But these two, frankly, were just the warm-up act for who was up next - the Silver Fox, aka Gilles Duceppe. 'Cause seriously? Dude rocked the house. He was eloquent and passionnate and hardly even looked at his notes. He even kicked Maurice Vellacott's ass all over the place, and I always enjoy watching a self-righteous snot get taken down a notch or two or 10. I'm thinking of ordering a tape, actually, because written words don't really do it justice. Suffice it to say, Vellacott was being a condescending smart-ass and Duceppe responded in English and smacked him down but hard. I just hope he doesn't argue this convincingly for Quebec sovereignty...

The NDP speaker was Bill Siksay, one of three openly gay MPs in the House, and his speech was really personal and touching. You'd have to be a pretty cold-hearted bastard to look someone like that in the face afterwards and say "Nope, still don't want your relationships to be as valued as mine!" But it still happened.

Anyway, as I said, correspondence has been overwhelmingly supportive. I've been keeping since the beginning, and overall it's about 3:1 for and against. Not bad when you consider that I've received about 15,000 messages. Still, I'd appreciate it if equal-marriage opponents would stop being so batshit crazy.

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

You can tell by this electronic communications device that I am important

One of my biggest peeves on this job is the constant use of these. The bastard child of cell phones and laptop computers, these little gizmos are EVERYWHERE at work. You're just not anybody if you don't have one, like in middle school with Club Monaco sweatshirts, only WAY more annoying.

Anyway, I like to pass my day making fun of people who are all addicted to their CrackBerries and mock them for their hip holsters, like, what are you, a digital cowboy in the Wild Wild Web?

And then we got one. At our office. Man, we don't even have cell phones. My co-worker and I sort of stared at it, half-fearfully, like primitive women after a lightening strike sets fire to some nearby bushes. Oooh, pretty! But what is it? Is it dangerous? Is it useful? Ow, it buuuuuuuuuurns!

I was really worried I'd turn into a CrackHead myself, but it turns out that my laziness overrides my need for social status. Although I did take a great deal of pleasure that we got the newer version which is smaller and sleeker and has a colour screen, boo yah losers!

Ahem...anyway, I haven't really bothered using it much. It takes for-freakin'-ever to type e-mails, especially since I stupidly refuse to compromise on capitalization, punctuation and sentence structure. Whatever, it looks pretty and it makes me feel special - it's like a trophy wife for political staffers!

In other news - if you guys aren't watching Monday Report you're missing the awesomest half-hour on TV. Be sure to check out the piece on Denmark from last week!It's satirific!

Friday, February 11, 2005

Sunshine, lollipops and rainbows...

Um...I don't really know the rest of the words to that song. I don't even know if those are the words. Lemme check. Alright, looks good.

Anyway, just trying to clear my mind a bit...I know the last few posts have been angstalicious - it's been a long week, people! Bear with me. Anyway, here's something fun - I naved through nate's blog and then found this cool site through links onShelleBelle's. So, something fun and totally tirade free for this entry!





You Are the Very Gay Bert and Ernie!





Two grown puppets living together, sleeping in the same room?
They've even got coordinating striped shirts!




Whee! That was fun...Well, while I'm at it, how about this. Whoops! I meant this!

Apparently, they hate trees too...

So, I was in a kinda good mood...I put all new r&b and 80s music on my Mp3 player and was in full MIG mode to Beyoncé's "Crazy in Love" and got into work to the sounds of "Video Killed the Radio Star" (the original by The Buggles, not the craptacular Presidents of the United States of America remake). All in all, a pretty good start to my day.

Until I saw the fax machine...oh, those fuckers. Seriously people? It's called E-MAIL. It's this form of communication where YOU CAN SEND A MESSAGE INSTANTLY WITHOUT USING INK AND PAPER. Look into it sometime. So yeah, there was a pile of anti-equal marriage faxes all stacked up, and we have to keep refilling the goddamn trays because people can't just send the fax ONCE they have to send it TWO OR THREE TIMES because that is the fax equivalent of SHOUTING!!! And we all know that SHOUTING SOMETHING MEANS IT'S TRUE!!! THE LOUDER YOU TALK THE MORE VALID YOUR MESSAGE IS!!!

Anyway...sigh...it's just that they took two of my least favorite things (vitriolic ignorance and wanton disregard for the environment) and smooshed them together and gave them to me first thing on a Friday morning. Goddamn bastards.

Tuesday, February 08, 2005

Bus Riiiiiiiider

Buh buh buh bu ba ba buh...err...bam bam buh ba bam buh buh...

Geez, it's hard to sound out a bass line phonetically. I was going for The Guess Who song but I think I wound up closer to the mating call of the wild spotted wildebeast. Anyhoo, that's been me most mornings (the bus rider, not the wildebeast) ever since winter struck Ottawa back a few months ago.

Aside from my notoriously queasy stomach, which has improved to the point where I only rarely fear vomiting on my fellow passengers, I actually quite enjoy the ride. There's tons of characters on the bus, especially in my neighborhood of Sandy Hill. My bus (the #16) also happens to stop by a daycare for teenage moms, so that's quite fun. One morning there were eight strollers on the bus. I felt like I was in a condom commerical.

Sometimes there's fun conversations to listen to, like the other day when some dramalicious girl was venting to her friend about her baby daddy or whatever the kids are calling that these days:

D.G.: And, like, I gotta fuckin' go to school? How'm I supposed to go to school, and get a fucking restraining order against him, 'cause he's going to be there.

Friend: Yeah. You gotta do something.

D.G.: And then he totally came by my place, even though he was, like, he knows he's not supposed to come. And he totally came right into the room, and I was, like, in a meeting with fucking Child Services, you know? And he took some of his clothes from my room, so they, like, they think he lives there but he doesn't.

Friend: He just busted into your place like that? Fucker!]

D.G.: Well, I opened the door. I mean, I wasn't going to let him in, and I opened the door and he was like, fucking drunk and I did, like, fucking everything to stop him, like everything I could think of. He just went past me and took his clothes that he'd left. I mean, I wouldn't have opened the door if I'd known it was him, I mean, I saw it was him, but I didn't know he was drunk.

Friend: That sucks.

Me: [in my head, shaking D.G. by the shoulders] WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU AAAAAAAARRRRRRGH!!!!!!

So, mostly I listen to my Mp3 player (an Xmas gift from Papa Smurf). I have to watch myself, though, 'cause (and I hope this isn't just me) when I'm listening to music on headphones I sometimes forget that a)nobody else can hear it and b) there's other people around. And then I find myself, like, humming along or mouthing the words and suddenly everyone's looking at me all "yup, lots of characters on the bus!" And I'm all, shit.

But the one thing I really can't help is the MIG - that's "Music-Induced Groove" for those of you who don't know or did know but forget because, damn, that was a long time ago. The phrase was coined by one of the Stellyans (I think maybe Erin?) to describe that unconscious toe-tapping, finger-snapping, head-bobbing or booty-shaking that occurs when you're listening to a really good song.

Like this morning I was totally MIGging out to "Hey Ya" because that song is totally Da Bears, and the woman next to me was all, "Yup, lots of characters on the bus".

Tuesday, February 01, 2005

Keeping me sane

because apparently drinking at work is considered a no-no:

This article from the Onion. I was in France at the time, and it was pretty hard to explain to the French, of all people, what the big deal was. They were all "A nipple? Really? That's what this is all about?" And you would understand it if you watched French daytime TV where there is a fairly reliable supply of boobies. Just sayin'.

Once you've had Pierre Berton rolling a joint you've set the bar pretty high, but this week's Celebrity Tip with Margaret Atwood on Monday Report was pretty damn good.

Also - Mo and I watched Masters of the Universe last night, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the weekend. Both were fairly awesome, although I bet you'll all agree that TMNT holds truer to the cartoon than MotU. Also, we agreed that they need to make a She-Ra movie like, right now. Right now! You hear me?