Saturday morning, running through Lost Lagoon. Sun, for once, shining. I rounded a corner and at a park bench, a couple in their mid-50's...I'm not sure how I knew they were a couple, there was just an intimacy to the way they interacted with each other that suggested a long, long association. He was in a wheelchair, and on a respirator, clearly not well. And his wife? Standing behind him, giving him a haircut while he watched the swans and ducks play in the water, with the sun reflecting on the water in such a way that every splash seemed like a spray of diamonds in the air...
This is NOT Sour Grapes but...
Doesn't this girl seem a little SKINNY?! My god, you can see every rib! And this in a Victoria's Secret catalogue? Isn't Victoria's Secret supposed to stand for bosomy, buxom women with a little meat on their bones?
Now, I know I'm not a size 6 and that people could critique me aplenty if I ever showed up in a lingerie ad, but to me, this girl isn't sexy. It's disappointing. Her boobs are huge, and look totally fake on top of the rest of her skeletal little body. Her arms are pins. She looks seriously undernourished. Since when did thin=beauty? I'm all for fit, healthy people, but this is ridiculous...this isn't healthy, it's sad. If you tried to get this girl to run around the block she'd keel over, I'm sure. When all you've had for breakfast is a Diet Coke and a cigarette it's pretty tough to stay physically fit. Way to go, Victoria's Secret. Way to make your North American customer base of women whose average size is a 14 feel good about themselves. Happy Valentine's Day.
I Love Doing Videogame Law.
Check this out:
A local blogger, Darren Barefoot, who is amused (or bemused, dunno which) by the Second Life craze, has started a parody site called "Get a First Life," which looks like the Second Life site but has links like, "What is life," "Find out where you ACTUALLY live," and "Fornicate using your ACTUAL genitals." Haw. For those of you who don't know, Second Life is an online environment, a "metaverse" if you will, where your virtual avatar can pretty much lead a parallel life for you...new friends, new relationships, new job, new BODY, you can buy virtual property that you can sell with real money...basically if you suck at your real life, you get a second chance here. Many, many people are obsessed with it.
Anyways, "Get a First Life" has a link inviting cease-and-desist letters, and they actually got one from Linden Labs, who created Second Life, which is quite funny. As CBC reports, the lawyer starts out with the usual scare-the-hell-0utta-you language, then pops this in for good measure:
"Linden Lab objects to any implication that it would employ lawyers incapable of distinguishing such obvious parody...Linden Lab is well-known for having strict hiring standards, including a requirement for having a sense of humour, from which our lawyers receive no exception." The lawyer then goes on to say that Barefoot's invitation to submit a cease-and-desist letter is "hereby rejected."
This made my day. Funny lawyers. What will they think of next?!
A local blogger, Darren Barefoot, who is amused (or bemused, dunno which) by the Second Life craze, has started a parody site called "Get a First Life," which looks like the Second Life site but has links like, "What is life," "Find out where you ACTUALLY live," and "Fornicate using your ACTUAL genitals." Haw. For those of you who don't know, Second Life is an online environment, a "metaverse" if you will, where your virtual avatar can pretty much lead a parallel life for you...new friends, new relationships, new job, new BODY, you can buy virtual property that you can sell with real money...basically if you suck at your real life, you get a second chance here. Many, many people are obsessed with it.
Anyways, "Get a First Life" has a link inviting cease-and-desist letters, and they actually got one from Linden Labs, who created Second Life, which is quite funny. As CBC reports, the lawyer starts out with the usual scare-the-hell-0utta-you language, then pops this in for good measure:
"Linden Lab objects to any implication that it would employ lawyers incapable of distinguishing such obvious parody...Linden Lab is well-known for having strict hiring standards, including a requirement for having a sense of humour, from which our lawyers receive no exception." The lawyer then goes on to say that Barefoot's invitation to submit a cease-and-desist letter is "hereby rejected."
This made my day. Funny lawyers. What will they think of next?!
Pet of the Day
So a week ago I get an email from my friend that he's bought a bunny for some unconditional love. Next thing I know, the bunny's called BRUNCH. Pretty quick, he's posting photos of Brunch "with a little mint behind the ears..." You know, I fear for this bunny...Co-Author Curriecat
My co-blogger.
How did it get to this point?
Since the dawn of the IPod, a new breed of crazies has been born, crazies who walk the streets not just of Vancouver's downtown eastside, but the globe. They are...the ISinger. You know. That person who sings aloud at the top of their lungs to their IPod as they're walking down the sidewalk, oblivious to all around them. Sure, people sang along with dino-predecessors to the IPod, but not with the same careless abandon as those people I see every morning now, the only thing distinguishing them from crazy Larry who sleeps on the dumpster in the alley behind my place being those tell-tale white earbuds, or a small length of white cable peeking out from under an overcoat.
Was it the IPod commercials with sexy good looking people dancing and flipping their pefectly mussed hair around that has led to this lack of inhibition? I don't know. There just seem to be alot more people who could care less that perfect strangers can now hear what they would sound like singing in the shower in the morning.
Now, people who know me would probably take me for an unabashed ISinger. Not sooooo, my friend, not so. An IHummer, yes. An IUnder-my-breath-at-the-good-part, yes. Even at times, a IWhistler. Until today, I haven't been able to push past that little bit of reserve I have left and sing along freely on my morning commute...although the numbers of otherwise normal-looking people with briefcases who are singing along have been wearing me down. And this morning, I became a full-on ISinger. At the corner of Nelson and Bute, I became an ISinger. So loud an ISinger, in fact, that several umbrellas swivelled around to find out where the noise was coming from.
I was instantly mortified and quickly switched to IHumming, acting oblivious to those staring at me, like it was the most natural thing in the world for me to shout out the chorus to a Killers song and then casually resume humming.
So what's wrong with me? What IGene is missing that I can't ISing with the best of them? I'm thoroughly disappointed in myself, strangely proud of those giving way to their inner geek, dropping pretenses and rockin' out, no matter where they are, and also, a little bemused: how did we get to this point? How has a little piece of plastic, some white earphones, and 4-60 GB (you pick) changed what's appropriate street behavior and what's NOT, so much?
Was it the IPod commercials with sexy good looking people dancing and flipping their pefectly mussed hair around that has led to this lack of inhibition? I don't know. There just seem to be alot more people who could care less that perfect strangers can now hear what they would sound like singing in the shower in the morning.
Now, people who know me would probably take me for an unabashed ISinger. Not sooooo, my friend, not so. An IHummer, yes. An IUnder-my-breath-at-the-good-part, yes. Even at times, a IWhistler. Until today, I haven't been able to push past that little bit of reserve I have left and sing along freely on my morning commute...although the numbers of otherwise normal-looking people with briefcases who are singing along have been wearing me down. And this morning, I became a full-on ISinger. At the corner of Nelson and Bute, I became an ISinger. So loud an ISinger, in fact, that several umbrellas swivelled around to find out where the noise was coming from.
I was instantly mortified and quickly switched to IHumming, acting oblivious to those staring at me, like it was the most natural thing in the world for me to shout out the chorus to a Killers song and then casually resume humming.
So what's wrong with me? What IGene is missing that I can't ISing with the best of them? I'm thoroughly disappointed in myself, strangely proud of those giving way to their inner geek, dropping pretenses and rockin' out, no matter where they are, and also, a little bemused: how did we get to this point? How has a little piece of plastic, some white earphones, and 4-60 GB (you pick) changed what's appropriate street behavior and what's NOT, so much?
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Saturday Afternoon Confessions
So last week some girlfriends and I went to see "The Holiday," one of these cheesy romantic comedies where sad good looking English girl Kate Winslet switches houses and lives with sad good looking California girl Cameron Diaz. In between surreptitiously crying, we all scoffed at the "unreality" of the movie: in one series of scenes, Cameron Diaz' character, finding herself well and alone in her flannel PJs in Kate's english cottage, a) puts on the Killers at top volume, dances around and sings, b) talks to the dog and plays Simon Says with the dog, c) checks her split ends and d) talks to herself about various topics. "How unrealistic," we scoffed to each other. "Who does that? Who dances around their house alone to music and talks to themselves?!"
It's a sunny Saturday afternoon and I'm trying to get the house clean and the chores done so I can get out there and enjoy the sun. Two minutes ago, I stopped dead when I realized I was was folding laundry in my flannel PJs, with my "Motown Sound" CD cranked loud, and I was, shamefully: a) dancing, at various times with my cat, b) singing "This Old Heart of Mine" at the top of my lungs to aforementioned cat ("I looove youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu, yes I doooooo", and c) taking a break after each pair of socks folded to check my cuticles.
Um. Yes. Perhaps art (or commercial releases aimed at women aged 18-45) does imitate life? Perfect! In that case, I'm looking very much forward to what happens next, when in 10 minutes or so a drunken Jude Law knocks on my door and asks to come in for a brandy.
I guess I'd better go brush my teeth.
It's a sunny Saturday afternoon and I'm trying to get the house clean and the chores done so I can get out there and enjoy the sun. Two minutes ago, I stopped dead when I realized I was was folding laundry in my flannel PJs, with my "Motown Sound" CD cranked loud, and I was, shamefully: a) dancing, at various times with my cat, b) singing "This Old Heart of Mine" at the top of my lungs to aforementioned cat ("I looove youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu, yes I doooooo", and c) taking a break after each pair of socks folded to check my cuticles.
Um. Yes. Perhaps art (or commercial releases aimed at women aged 18-45) does imitate life? Perfect! In that case, I'm looking very much forward to what happens next, when in 10 minutes or so a drunken Jude Law knocks on my door and asks to come in for a brandy.
I guess I'd better go brush my teeth.
Heather Says I Have to Post.
OK, OK, I'm here. First off, my bro and I have made a running pact that we are going to do the Vancouver Sun Run and the T-C 10 K together this year, together meaning, me sort of half-running, half-sprinting to keep up to him. Last year I half-heartedly trained for the Sun Run for about 3 weeks, didn't run for another 8, then did the run, somehow, in 76:22. I'm going to be BOLD and say I'm going to complete in under 1:05 this year. That would be shaving 11 minutes off my time, MINIMUM. This will involve, um, training. I know this is a snail's pace to the rest of the world, but it will be the Dani equivalent of being one of those Kenyans running barefoot through the Alps...
What is your 1950s name?
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Snow Day
It's a Snow Day in Vancouver today, for most people, but we junior lawyers are like the postal service: come rain or shine, hail or sleet, feast or famine, we will bill you. He he. Here are some photos from my walk (well, slide) to work this morning.
Nelson Park.
Trolley service doesn't appear to be working...um, I guess you could try to bike...
Doesn't this look like the lamppost near Mr. Tumnus' house in Narnia?