Weather Craziness...

We went from cold, long-sleeved weather last week of 8°C (45°F) to 33 freaking degrees celsius today (91°F). It's so warm and sticky. Yuck. Oh, and the public transit employees decided to go on strike today without telling anyone, which is a major WTF. It was a good thing I could postpone my going to school today. Blech.

One of My Favourite Songs Popped Up on iTunes...

Billy Joel's cover of Bob Dylan's "To Make You Feel My Love". I think it is one of the most beautiful love songs. Makes me feel like writing sappy fiction. LOL

When the rain is blowing in your face
And the whole world is on your case
I could offer you a warm embrace
To make you feel my love

When the evening shadows and the stars appear
And there is no one there to dry your tears
I could hold you for a million years
To make you feel my love

I know you haven't made your mind up yet
But I would never do you wrong
I've known it from the moment that we met
No doubt in my mind where you belong

I'd go hungry, I'd go black and blue
I'd go crawling down the avenue
There's nothing that I wouldn't do
To make you feel my love

The storms are raging on the rollin' sea
And on the highway of regret
The winds of change are blowing wild and free
You ain't seen nothing like me yet

I could make you happy, make your dreams come true
Nothing that I wouldn't do
Go to the ends of the earth for you
To make you feel my love

Sad Thoughts

Every time I hear the music from St. Elmo's Fire (like my iTunes just made it pop up), it reminds me of my grandfather and makes me tear up. One of my uncles, who was a TV producer and actually died a few years ago of cancer, made a wonderful video of my grandfather's 80th birthday celebration. It has all these interviews with my uncles and aunts talking about their childhood, and my grandmother, who has also passed away now, talking about how she met my pépé and fell in love with him. There was a montage of the family in it to the music of St. Elmo's Fire. This took place almost 20 years ago, and it still makes me tear up every time I hear that song. My grandfather passed away in 1989, and I still remember coming home and seeing my dad cry. It was the first time I had ever seen my dad cry. I remember he was watching that tape either before or after the funeral, and I remember thinking in my kid's head he was torturing himself. But now, I think I understand why he had the need to rewatch it even if it made him sad. I think I need to get this tape from my dad and convert it to digital so I can make sure to preserve it.

All this sad stuff makes me think of even sadder things. I happened to see her interview with the author and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel on Wednesday. He spent teenage years at Auschwitz, and they showed a trip he and Oprah made there. He was explaining what happened at the camp. The scale of that place was just horrifying. They said it was half the size of Manhattan. A place where you use slave workers and kill millions of people was that huge. It gave me chills. I had a big ball in my stomach watching the whole thing.

On Thursday, she had these high-school kids who wrote in essays pertaining to "Night", Elie Wiesel's book about the Holocaust. The stories some of these kids told were so moving. In particular, there were these two girls who went through the Rwandian genocide. Their stories were so touching. Then, Oprah actually reunited one of the girls with her parents she had not seen since 1994. My eyes were full of tears. It was very powerful. I rarely ever watch Oprah, but I'm glad I caught that.

Picture Surprise!

Two years ago, my brother and I gave my mom a digital camera for her 50th birthday. (She loves it, and took tons of pictures of France recently!) At that time, my mom gave me her camera. I had a camera, but I was never overly fond of mine. I always loved my mom's camera, and it took some kickass pictures of Italy and Washington DC on class trips. Anyway, when my mom gave me the camera, there was a film in it that was already started, but my mom did not remember what was on it. I decided to take a few pictures this weekend to finish the roll, and finally got it developed. Four events are chronicled on this film. Here they are! LOL

1) My M.A. graduation. Yes, this film dates back to November 2002!

2) My move to my current apartment in the summer of 2004.



A sleeping cat (the black and white mass on the corner of the bed) amongst a messy bedroom. I think I was trying out the camera so I documented the mess of a move! Mind you, the current state of my room isn't much better! LOL

3) The weekend in NYC in January 2005. Gina, you look like a little girl in this picture! :)

4) I had fun with my cat and my plastic brain over the weekend. Yes, I'm probably the only person who would think to do this!

So there you have it. This is my life in pictures!

I Am A Public Transit Girl...

and now, I have icons to match. So pretty.

In other news, heroic computer dies to save the world from a master's thesis. This made me laugh until I had tears in my eyes.

Another funny courtesy of Piled High and Deeper (PhD), which is exactly my feeling about life right now:

Oooooo... Shining New Course Website!

Lookie: Course website!

In other news, I wanted to be able to view something, which required membership, so I succumbed and now have a My Space page. You are welcome to befriend me. LOL

Just Because It Is Funny!

I was rewatching The Office season finale while having dinner tonight. Oh, and to answer the implicit question you probably have after reading this first sentence: Yes, I am afraid I will be obsessed with that show for a while so I will be blogging about it. LOL Such is life. ;) I just had to post my favourite exchange from the last episode because I think it is hilarious... I had a little help from a rocking Office fansite called Office Tally.

Michael, the boss, is trying to find a charity to which he will donate profits from their charity casino night.

Michael: I am going to donate to Afghanistanis with AIDS.

Jim: I think you mean Aid to Afghanistan.

Michael: No, I mean Afghanistanis with AIDS.

Phyllis: Afghani.

Michael: What?

Phyllis: Afghani.

Michael: Afghani? That’s a dog.

Pam: No, that’s Afghan.

Michael: That’s a shawl.

Dwight: Wait, canine AIDS?

Michael: No. Humans with AIDS.

Creed: Who has AIDS?

Jim: Guys, the Afghanistananis.

Michael: No, no, AIDS is not funny. Believe me, I have tried.

Ah, clueless Michael. Such a funny group scene with flawless delivery.

Live From New York, It's Saturday Night!

Disappointing show tonight. Kevin Spacey was the host, which has been a good thing in the past. Tonight, not so much. Sure, there was the best installment ever of The Falconer, and there was a very funny parody of The Usual Suspects, which I didn't see coming. The opening monologue of Kevin Spacey on American Idol was funny but the rest was take it or leave it. Last week's episode with Julia Louis-Dreyfus was so much better; actually, it was probably the best installment all year.

And what is up with Nelly Furtado? Her two previous albums were wonderful, so this change in style is a little disconcerting. She had such a style of her own before; this just felt like she was copying what is out there these days. It didn't even sound good. For shame, Nelly.

After the new SNL, there was an old show from 2000, with Britney Spears as host and musical guest. Surprisingly, it was a very strong show. There was a Chris Parnell rap about Britney (his raps are always so funny), an installment of the Ambiguously Gay Duo, and a lot of well-paced skits. However, many things about it felt like I was in the Twilight Zone. Britney was looking good, funny jokes about McCain endorsing Bush for President (hahaha), about Clinton philandering, about Angelina Jolie and her recent marriage to Billy Bob Thornton. Strange. By the way, watching this old episode explained something from the new Update tonight. At the end of Update tonight, there was a tribute to Tina Fey with her favourite characters singing to her, and one of them was Rachel Dratch as a creepy baby with an arm sprouting from her head. This was supposed to be the child Angelina had with her brother. It made it funnier to know that.

Margin Tutorial

Okay, guys. I'll just show you what you need to alter in your code to change the margins. One disclaimer though is I don't if all the codes are written exactly the same but at least, you will have an idea what you need to play around with to get that.

For example, the chunk of code in my template that needed to be modified:

/* Content----------------------------------------------- */

#content {

width:820px;

margin:10 auto;

padding:0;

text-align:left;

}

#main {

width:560px;

float:left;

}

#sidebar {

width:240px;

float:right;

}

What is in red is what needs to be modified. They are the width in pixels of your page. First is #content width, which is the whole width of text. This is roughly approximate to width of main comment (posts) plus the width of the sidebar (which is where your profile & links on the side are located) . However, the number of pixels for content width is usually slightly bigger that the exact total of main + sidebar because it needs to accounts for margins included in the layout. So you will need to change the number of pixels for the content width, and do so as well for the main comment width. In my case, I also made my sidebar a tad larger. The values posted above have already been modified; they were something like 560 px, 330 px& 220 px initially. You just need to increase the values to something you like.

As You May Notice...

I've played around with the colour scheme of the blog. I'm not sure if I like it. Is it okay to read or is the white font too bright? Should I used a softer colour? Let me know what you think.

Infomercials!

I don't know if I have ever said so, but as a teenager, I used to have a love affair with infomercials. I never bought anything from infomercials but I loved to watch them on Sunday mornings. There was nothing quite like it for my snarkiness. Ron Popeil was the king. He had the Rotisserie, the Food Dehydrator, the Pasta Maker,... It has been years since I've watched informercials on purpose, although I have stumbled on the occasional infomercial for Magic Bullet or Sonic Blade (Note that it uses "Non-Compression Sonic Separation Technology." Big deal, it is an electric knife like my grandma had when I was a kid!) while channel surfing.

Last night, I stumbled upon the worst informercial I had seen in years. I was working on my course website, and had the TV on just as background noise. Then, this came up. I had to watch for I was mesmorized. "The GeMagic allows you to add sparkle to almost anything." They put cheap gems and studs on every possible thing you can imagine. It looked like Rainbow Brite threw up! It gave me a good laugh though, which is what counts.

Arrrrrrggggggghhhhhhhhh!

Okay, my head is about to explode. My roommate has been spending her day clinking and clanking, vacuuming, yelling at the cat, complaining about dust, coming into my room to ask me to move things,... The upstairs neighbour is practicing the same riff on the guitar, over and over and over and over... Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I swear, I'm about to cry and/or pitch the mother of all fits. Leave me the f&#? alone in peace and quiet!

James Frey Acknowledges Fabrications

James Frey Acknowledges Fabrications. In other news, the sun is hot, and cats are furrier than frogs. *rolls eyes*

By the way, Stephen Colbert had the best line pertaining to Frey this week. He was interviewing Bill Bastone of The Smoking Gun, which broke the James Frey story a few months ago. They were talking about Frey's appearance on Oprah:

Colbert: She [Oprah] tore him a new one.
Bastone: Technically, she tore him two new ones.
Colbert: Well, he could use a few new ones, because the first one was all beaten up from tearing the book out of it.

Hee.

OH MY GOD!

Okay, last night's episode of The Office will go down as one of my all-time favourite television episodes! I don't think I could do justice to the clever dialogue, the brilliant acting by the whole cast, the misdirections in the plot, and the most touching yet simple love declaration, which no one (even my spoiled little self) saw coming at all!

To recap for the non-Office watchers: Jim has been pining for Pam for years, but she is his best friend, and she is engaged to be married very soon. Pam is not particularly crazy about her fiance, but she stays with him before they've been together for 10 years and it is a comfortable situation. Anyway, we think Jim is coming to inform Pam that he has been granted a transfer to a different branch of the company, because his boss has mentioned to him that he should announce it to other staff members. Jim asked for a transfer because he knows he will never get Pam. He has decided that he needs to move on with his life, and he can't stand to watch her get married. Instead of talking about his transfer, he says to Pam "I'm in love with you.", and she is flabbergasted. So is the audience. She doesn't understand why he has to say this now, and he says: "I needed you to know...once." She turns him down, saying she can't. You see his eyes well up, and he wipes a tear as he walks away. I had to look away from the screen, because it was too much. My heart dropped in my stomach. Man, that is good TV! Jenna Fischer and John Krasinski acted their butt off in that scene.

The last scene of the episode has Pam on the phone with her mother, talking about what just happened with Jim. The camera slowly pulls away so you think, this is all over for the season. But then, Jim enters the frame. You think he has come to finally tell her he is leaving the company...but he kisses her instead. And she reciprocates. Fade to black. We have to wait until September/October for the rest. Ahhhhhh... Anyway, I will fully admit I squeed at that last scene!

Because I am feeling giddy from it, I have linked to a video of those 2 scenes (there is an abrupt cut because there was another scene in between) for anyone who wishes to see:

This wonderful episode inspired me to put together a Top 10 list of my all-time favourite TV episodes. I'll post it this weekend.

Media: Fake and Real News.

The Onion is a brilliant fake newspaper. May Sweeps Stunts, New Anti-Abortion Pill Kills Mother, Leaves Fetus Alive, & Alligators Dangerous No Matter How Drunk You Are. I admire clever, satirical writers. This is one talent I wish I had.

On a non-fake news matter, I saw this editorial linked on a website. Funny stuff. Plus, it is from a Dallas newspaper so it is a little shout-out to returning Dallasite, Ms. Jamie.

I Am Bloggy McBlogerson Today...

Well, I was up very early, thanks to a vomiting cat. She just doesn't seem to learn not to eat leaves from the plant that makes her sick. God knows how she got to them since I thought we put it high enough so it was out of her sight and reach. Anywaaaaayyyyy, I just had to say it seems I would need the t-shirt to the left of this post. Too bad I need to save my money for some real work clothes instead.

I Am Speechless. I Am Without Speech.

I must say I just find this sad: Send a Brick. "We are tired of open borders, uncontrolled immigration, terrorist infiltration, the spread of pandemic diseases, criminal alien gangs and all the other horrors that can arise due to our defenseless borders and unenforced immigration laws."

As a Canadian living in a very multicultural city, I find this kind of attitude very dismaying. Building a big wall is not the answer to feeling threatened by immigration. There has to be more reasonable alternatives.

A Poem That Is a Palindrome

This is the kind of thing that puts me in awe of some people's creativity. (I can't link to it directly, but it is under "Other things". Click on poems, and then on "Dammit I'm mad.")

Friday Night is Alright for Cleaning!

Nice little wordplay, ain't it. ;) Well, I did clean because 1) it was needed, and 2) my roommate had to write hi in the dust on the TV. Yes, my roommate scrubbed the kitchen counter, the kitchen table, some spots in the living room,... She was playing around with the bottle of Windex all around the kitchen and living room. But did she spray the TV screen? Of course not. She wrote with her finger on it. Like a five-year-old, I swear! Anyway, I vacuumed all over, mopped the kitchen and bathroom floors, and then scrubbed the bathroom so it is all clean now.

Last night, I also had to explain to her hypochondriac self that no, we were not likely to get the avian flu, and that yes, plans were needed even if that was probably not going to happen so that it doesn't end up being a pure improvisation like it was with the SARS situation. Yes, they are developing a vaccine, but no, the need for it is not dire at this moment since the virus will still need to mutate to be particularly virulant and contagious in humans. [As a note, I learned this week from a scientific magazine that flus that are avian in origin, known as Type A influenzas, are the ones most susceptible to pandemics or epidemics because of their ability to mutate quickly.]. Anyway, I don't quite get the germ paranoia. Sure, you need to be careful but once you take universal health precautions (of which you are particularly aware of when working in a hospital) like frequent hand washing, you have done what you can.

Tonight, I went walking with my friend David. We had a nice time in the cool May weather. Guess what he got me? A pin from my subway station. This is totally the kind of things that get me excited. I'm so glad it takes so little to make me happy. LOL

Cheesy TV Goodness!

My friend Eve lent me her season 1 DVDs of Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. The special effects are totally terrible, and the plots are cheese-tastic but man, is it ever enjoyable to watch. I got the feeling I had when I used to watch it in high school. It is just popcorn TV. And man, is Dean Cain ever a dreamboat. LOL It's actually better than I remembered, but that is probably because its last season SUUUUUUCKED.

Plus, a fun game while watching old shows is to spot guest stars who have gone on to bigger and better things. Well, that might be overstating it! Most of the time, you just know them from another show. LOL Anyway, it entertains me to do this! So far, in the first 9 episodes of Lois and Clark, I've spotted Jerry Hardin (aka Deep Throat) [by the way, his daughter plays Jan on The Office, and she is totally gorgeous.], Sonny Bono, Courtney Peldon (aka the princess of fug), and Tom LaGrua (who played Remo on Caroline in The City). Yes, I totally used to watch Caroline in The City, and I loved it. I'm not sure I could explain why.

The reason I initially watched Desperate Housewives was because of residual good feelings about Teri Hatcher from Lois & Clark. My interest in Desperate Housewives quickly waned but Teri Hatcher is still in the black because of Lois & Clark. LOL

Fans of Toronto's Transit System

Who knew there were aficionados of the TTC? I will confess though that I'd really like some of those subway station art pins they sell. My God, I'm such a geek.

What else to say today? The weather is nice. I went grocery shopping so my fridge is full of yummy food.

Roommate anecdote of the day... I come home from the grocery store, with my hands full of bags. This is the moment my roommate decides the cat should go walk outside. See, I bought a little harness and leash so we can take Portia to run outside. The cat is a little gunshy so far but I think she will learn to enjoy it. Anyway, so then, the roommate tries to put the harness on the cat except that she can't do it because you have to hold Portia in a specific way to do it. I'm busy with my packages but I say that I'll do it since it will take me under 10 seconds to put the harness, and then, she will be out of my hair while I unpack. So I kneel down on the floor and put the harness on, and roommate tries to hold the cat. This is the moment when roommate decides to point out my feet smell! Oh brother.

1) Yes, I know my feet smell. I may not have the crazy smell detection she has but I can smell my own rotting feet. ;) LOL Summer is prime time stinky feet central. Fortunately, these are not my teenage years. My feet used to smell 10 times more back then. Nevertheless, telling me my feet smell is like telling me my hair is brown: it is an evidence that does not need to be pointed out to me.

2) We can't wear shoes in the house so I usually wash my feet when I come in. Clearly, I hadn't had the time. Seriously, she needs to grow a filter. Pointing stuff like that out to me is just awkward. Man.

Okay, I can't believe I have been driven to write about feet odor. What have I come to?