thing left to do in 2009

1. watch some hbo canada (they're having a flight of the conchords marathon!)
2. make some drinks and snacks!
3. decorate the living room (with balloons!)
   
4. do my hair!
5. wish everyone on the internet a happy new year! XOXO
   

live list number one: announcing the 2010 canadian men's olympic hockey team!

i'm going for a 1-1 ratio of maritime players to northwestern ontario players. cory wouldn't put any money on it, but that's just because he's scared... also probably a little intimidated by daren millard's awesome hair. or by the handsomeness of stevie y.

okay, here we go! i've got my fingers crossed for joey macdonald...

goalies:

1. martin brodeur (duh)
   
2. marc-andre fleury (yay!)
3. roberto luongo
   

defensemen:

1. dan boyle
2. drew doughty
   
3. duncan keith (apparently even though duncan keith was born in winnipeg, he grew up in fort frances, which, if i were a fair and rational person, would make him number one for northwestern ontario. but i am not a fair and rational person, and thus he does not count.)
   
4. scott niedermayer (he's the captain!)
5. chris pronger (alternate captain and number one for northwestern ontario... but he was the one i expected. so if we can keep those damn staals off the team, we're golden.)
   
6. brent seabrook
7. shea weber

forwards:

1. patrice bergeron
2. sidney crosby, assistant captain!
3. ryan getzlaf
4. dany heatley
5. jarome iginla
6. patrick marleau
7. brendan morrow
8. rick nash
9. corey perry
10. mike richards (grr)
11. eric staal (grrrrr!!!)
12. joe thornton
13. jonathan toews (aww)

damn. 3-1. although... i have to say, crosby kind of counts as three players, due to his extreme awesomeness. i mean, don't you think that you'd trade pronger, richards and staal for crosby? yeah, i think you would.

top ten things i want to eat right now; or, top ten internet recipes i would totally make (if i could actually cook), part 2

so it's been about two days since the end of all the christmas gluttony (including an unfortunate seating-me-next-to-the-snacks coincidence at our christmas eve get together which will heretofor be known as "the seventy two pounds of homemade barbecue peanuts incident") and it's still a couple more days until the beginning of new year's gluttony (my perfect new year's? me in a fancy dress, hot shoes and a sassy little party hat drinking champagne and eating various foods wrapped in other foods with my favourite person while watching the ball drop on television from the warmth and safety of home. i'll let you know how it turns out this year.) anyway, point is, my body has grown accustomed to a certain level of caloric intake, and, well, i'm hungry. here's what i want to eat, right now, courtesy of some of my favourite food blogs (ahh, food blogs and junior hockey on a monday night. it doesn't get much better, really).

1. double peanut butter chocolate swirled brownies
2. eggs benedict poutine
3. blue cheese, pear and walnut cake
4. caramel popcorn with fleur de sel
5. homemade tater tots
   
6. egg nog ice cream
7. patti labelle's "over the rainbow" macaroni and cheese
8. chocolate bailey's truffles
9. homemade soft pretzels
10. roasted garlic and brie soup

top ten top ten lists

so i'm pretty excited that this year, not only do we get all kinds of the usual best-of-the-year lists all over the place, but we get the best-of-the-decade ones, too (never mind that the decade doesn't really end until next year... i also prefer the cleanliness of 0-9). yep, it's that magical time of year when the whole world goes list-crazy, and just cause i love you guys, i'm going to break it all down for you so you don't get too overwhelmed with the listiness. and not to make you feel like you have to read the whole thing or anything, but holy crap this took me a long time. in fact, i think my couch-sitting partner made it through 7 levels of borderlands while i typed this. most. epic. blog post. ever. but hey, no pressure.

1. movies - entertainment weekly has a list of the ten best movies of the decade. so does the new yorker. as you can imagine, there is no crossover between the two. i'll admit i'm a much bigger fan of the movies on the ew list, mostly because i haven't heard of 90% of the movies on the new yorker list (i suppose, actually, they should be called "films"). i was excited to see that they included the darjeeling limited, a super awesome movie which richard brody describes as "[fusing] love and death, comedy and tragedy, comfort and adventure, understanding and opacity, style and substance in a modernism of personal and reflexive cinema and a classicism of grand and subtle literary emotion." exactly what i was thinking, richard brody, when i called it a "super-awesome movie." i could write for the new yorker so hard, you guys. ps. for a nice middle ground, my friend nate has his own list on his blog, which i am happy to report also includes an acceptable amount of wes anderson. and while we're talking about movies (i know, i am so cheating here), you might want to check out the best movie posters of the decade. i seriously love that the 40 year-old virgin is on there.
   
2. television - back to entertainment weekly, they have a sort of okay list of the top ten tv shows of the decade. while i'm not sure i agree that a show that only had 13 episodes should be on this list (or any list, for that matter) and that it includes both the shield and the wire (aren't they the same show?) i guess people like the sopranos and lost okay. i prefer film.com's list of the best comedies of the decade, where they give props to both the american version of the office and 30 rock, my absolute favourite hour of television. now if i could just figure out what people's obsession with the seriously painful gilmore girls is...
3. music - as usual, rolling stone is pretty much the place to go for any music-related lists (okay, i guess my music snob friends would tell me otherwise, but it's my blog). they've got a list of the best albums of the decade which should piss everyone off nicely (i'm not sure how you can make the decision that yankee hotel foxtrot was a better album than the blueprint. i'm not saying it was or it wasn't, i'm just saying that's like deciding cheese is better than chocolate cake), and a list of the best songs of the decade which i must say makes a pretty good argument for "crazy." at number one. personally i think the best thing about the rolling stones lists is the comments section: ""100 best songs of the decade" is an oxymoron. it should have been an empty list - as i can't remember one decent song let alone 100. this is a world wide malaise and i can't see any end to it." thanks for those uplifting thoughts, gazzie.
4. characters - i really like techland's list of the best characters of the decade, only because a) it encompasses all characters in all forms of media, and b) their number one pick is from a web comic i have never heard of, but that made me actually lol for real when i saw it (true story!). i09's list of the best new characters of the decade is awesome just because it features dr. gaius baltar, who everyone should totally love to hate to love. i also quite enjoyed this list of the best tv characters of the decade, mostly because a) it talks about stephen colbert as a character, b) it has a list of tobias funke's most memorable quotes, and c) there is not one character from the gilmore girls on the list. also, not to give anything away, but house is number one. as he should be. oh, and here's a list of the best movie characters of the decade that is fairly boring and predictable but was the only one i could find.
5. books - the goodreads list of the best books of the decade is voted on by users, so it's no surprise that the bane of my existence, the kite runner, is on there. seriously, it seems like i've had this conversation about a hundred times in my life:
   
   random person at party: oh, you're a writer? have you read the kite runner?
   me: yes i did. nice weather we've been having, eh?
   random person at party: oh my gosh, wasn't it just, like the best book ever?!
   me: yes. it was sort of like that. do you need another drink or anything?
   random person at party: i mean, you must totally wish you could write something like that! the characters are just so, you know, interesting. and it's so poignant! don't you think it was poignant?
   me: no. no i didn't. actually, i hated it.
   random person at party: (silence) oh. (scathing look of contempt). well, i guess you would know, you being a writer and all. (exits huffily)
   
   so yeah, the kite runner. bane of my existence. i'm not even going to say anything about the twilight books on there, cause everyone knows that they're trash and that twi-hards are all crazy. but i actually kind of liked the time traveler's wife. and there are enough books on there that i could scrape together, say, a top five of my own favourites. (since you asked, let's go life of pi/white teeth/everything is illuminated/bel canto/never let me go) the new statesman also has an interesting list that might as well be called top ten books that i really should read of the decade. at open book toronto, there's an interesting list of the top ten literary feuds of the decade (the ryan bigge/leah mclaren one is my personal favourite) which reminded me that i really need to get in one of those. and of course, not of-the-decade but of-2009 should disqualify this list (by the obviously brilliant, insightful, and cutting edge trevor j. adams) from the running, but since it's my blog, i'm going to do whatever the hell i like, thank you very much. oh wait, what's that, you say? my name's on the list?! well, i'll be a monkey's uncle.
   
6. canadiana - if this list is already a little too americentric for you, let's pause for a second and see what canadians have been up to this decade. not surprisingly, maclean's has the best canadian books/movies/music/television of the decade, along with some political-y ones that should be helpful to you if you run out of ambien. i liked the television one best (clone high was canadian?! who knew!?). now has a list of the best canadian books of the decade that, in a shocking twist, doesn't put margaret atwood at number one. the maclean's and the ctv lists of the best canadian movies are pretty similar (both put atanarjuat at number one; tragically, neither mention bon cop, bad cop). but the most hilarious by far is the ctv list of the top 25 canadian albums of the decade - not for the list, which is acceptable, but for the user comments: "no nickelback? no theory of a deadman? no three days grace? there is no way none of these bands have not had a bigger impact on canadian music than any of the bands listed above." that's a triple negative there, herb tarlik. are you trying to confuse us with your mind games, or do you really think three days grace was more influential than arcade fire? okay, cancon complete. phewf. now the crtc will stay off my back.
7. hockey - so, yeah, i was pretty tempted to just include lists that ranked sidney crosby higher than ovechkin... or better yet, left ovechkin off entirely (okay, there weren't any of those). i was especially loathe to consider lists that not only ranked ovechkin higher, but also used as evidence him winning the calder trophy in a rookie season that he clearly stole from crosby to begin with. but hey, i am nothing but a fair list-maker. okay, i am many things other than a fair list-maker. but whatever. i will begrudgingly admit that any player that can go hat-trick-for-hat-trick with crosby (number seven on this list of the top ten hockey games of the past decade) or help him transform the post-lockout nhl (number four on this list of the ten biggest nhl stories of the decade) can't be all bad.
8. stuff - and "stuff" basically means technology, right? pc magazine has a list of the best products, services and technologies (again, which basically means technology) which, for a magazine called pc magazine, is pretty apple-heavy (don't let john hodgman know). the list of the webby awards for most influential internet moments of the decade is kind of along the same lines... all youtube/craigslist/twitter-y. but this newsweek list of the things that were unknown in 1999, indispensible now kind of seriously blew my mind. and i mean, it's true... how did we win arguments before wikipedia? how did stoned college students and bored office drones entertain themselves before youtube? and what did we do before e-tickets? went to a travel agent?! holy crap. and i have to say, i might not have heard of chipotle before this article, but because of this list it might be rocketing to the top of my list of restaurants i wish we had in canada.
   
9. worst-ofs - this one's for all the haters out there. techland has the top ten worst superhero movies of the decade, which is mostly awesome due to the fact that the spiderman 3 entry has a video clip of the jazz club dance/fight scene. for even more hilarity, the worst photoshop disasters of the decade is pretty amazing (my favourite one is the swedish taxi!). this list of the worst songs of the decade deserves a mention just because of the 5000 word essay on why the counting crows/vanessa carleton cover of big yellow taxi is number one. i also like this list of the worst nba teams of the decade, only because the raptors are not on it (although toronto is not off the hook, according to the washington post, who name the rom as the worst architecture of the decade). the time picture gallery of the ten worst things about the worst decade ever is also pretty cheery, especially if you feel a desperate need to relive 9/11, katrina and the tsunami. but by far my favourite of these is the perennially-awesome guardian's list of the people who ruined the decade, if only for the following tagline: "michael cera: deluding awkward indie boys into thinking they'd get the girl since 2003."
10. celebrities - so, i'm up to number ten already and i still had two categories left to cover: video games and celebrities. worthy and weighty subjects, both. upon great reflection, i decided to go with celebrities, because, frankly, gamers are mean (although if there was any way i could have gotten victor lucas or scott jones involved in a flame war, i would have in a heartbeat!) so instead, let's talk about some nice, safe, happy top celebrity scandals of the decade, shall we? how about some pretty knockout dresses of the 00's? (please read this article and tell me why they are all yellow. seriously, ew, call them mustard, call them canary, call them sunny, they're still fucking yellow. also, that dress michelle obama wore was damn ugly. yeah, i said it.) enjoy some top ten worst celebrity entourages of the decade! peruse some top twenty five celebrity twitpics of 2009 (eligible for this list only because there really were no twitpics before 2009). there... do you feel like you've dropped a few iq points? then my work here is done. oh, ps, shadow of the colossus as the best video game of the decade? you decide.
    

top ten bitch-slap lines from "bring it on"

yay for muchmusic and their christmas bring-it-on-athon! nothing like campy movies featuring bitchy girls ripping each other's hair out (and felicia day as a goth cheerleader!) to get you out of the christmas spirit and into the fight-people-for-discount-electronics spirit (i'm a nova scotian at heart, guys... i can't wrap my head around the whole shopping-on-actual-boxing-day thing). or in the case of me, who spent the whole day playing sims 3 (best christmas present ever!) in the sucker-punching-that-skank-who-lives-next-door-when-she-tries-to-flirt-with-my-hot-sim-husband spirit!

1. "she puts the 'ass' in 'massive.'"
2. "sweetie, no double earrings. you're a state cheerleader, not a state hooker."
3. "what's the plural for 'butt'? on one person, i mean."
4. "she puts the 'whore' in 'horrible.'"
5. "you see, when you skip a meal, your body feeds off its fat stores. and if you skip enough, maybe your body will eat your ass!"
6. "so? do you think i'm gonna let this barbie-looking heifer come up here and talk about my momma?"
7. "she puts the 'itch' in 'bitch.'"
8. "if she could take a little prick, she wouldn't be a virgin."
9. "just because you skanks go all the way doesn't mean your team will."
10. "oh i know her. little miss fancy-fingernails shimmy shimmy lipgloss barbie."

these are a few of my favourite things*

1. christmas eve snowman
   
   



2. yule log channel
   
   



3. boxing day snowstorm
   
   



4. puppies with snowy faces
   
   



5. boys with beards
   
   



6. my new pittsburgh scarf
   
   



7. penguin on a snowboard
   
   



8. penguin with stripey scarf and hat on a snowboard
   
   

*seriously you guys, i have a turkey and chocolate hangover the size of the rogers centre and the only cure is to curl up in front of the tv and eat pizza and watch season two of chuck. i promise you all witty and insightful lists in the coming days, maybe even ones that don't have anything to do with christmas. or penguins. although i'm not making any guarantees about the penguins.

my top ten favourite christmas memories

christmas, 1977(?)

so, you may or may not have noticed, but i am super excited this year about christmas. basically this is because i pretty much had no christmas last year (unless you call eating frozen turkey dinner and working "christmas"), so i'm trying to double up on holiday cheer this year. and even though i'm so amazingly happy to be here in thunder bay celebrating christmas with my other family, this seems as good a time as any to think about the ghosts of christmases past. they're friendly ghosts, don't worry. they're like little caspers. with santa hats.

1. the more i look at the photograph above, the more i think it might actually be my sister erin and not me (babies... they all look alike!). needless to say, i don't really actually remember this christmas, but there are several things from this photograph i do remember: a) the red carpet we had in our living room until about 1990, b) that little fisher price schoolhouse on the floor under the tree, c) the bird decorations in the tree that came with a little ball that made bird sounds when you turned it on, d) that little angel candle thing on the coffee table, where you lit the candles and they made the angels spin and hit these little bells, that i'm sure my mom still whips out on christmas, e) that hat (i may not actually remember that precise actual hat, but it's a pretty good chance i had other ones exactly like it in various sizes and colours while growing up). anyway, one thing i am sure of is that this was probably one of the best christmases ever, given the look on my (or my sister's) face.
2. speaking of erin, one year she had an allergic reaction to something (or maybe an asthma attack? tough to say) and ended up being hauled off to emergency after dinner on christmas eve. this might sound like a bad memory, but it wasn't! the nursing staff gave us milk and cookies, we sang christmas carols, read "the night before christmas" to some sick children who were worried that santa wasn't going to be able to find them in the hospital, and somewhere along the line two jaded teenaged girls rediscovered the true meaning of christmas. at least, that's how my sitcom-saturated brain remembers it after all these years. i think what really happened was we sat around being bored until 5 in the morning and maybe ate some chips from the vending machine. but hey, it was different.
3. when i was in high school, my boyfriend's family had this big neighbourhood party every christmas eve where the adults would hang out upstairs and get drunk and all the kids would hang out in the basement and try to sneak their liquor (it wasn't hard). even though the "kids" were all too old for it, santa would always show up and make us all sit on his lap and give us gifts that the adults had pre-wrapped and hid in the backseat of their car for him to pick up on his way in. all three of the years i went, i got a box of toffifee.
4. i know that i said i didn't have a christmas last year, but one thing i did do was go to my friend matthew's epic christmas party, which he's been having every year since the beginning of time and which i had always been dying to go to. it was one of the first snowfalls in toronto and the bus ride over there was sketchy, but it was totally worth it to spend six hours getting very, very drunk and then daring people to dunk various things in the crab dip (i went for a tootsie pop).
5. a couple of weeks ago i told the coast about the most memorable christmas present i ever received, which was an apple iie computer (yes, i know i am a geek). i'll admit, i don't remember anything about that christmas other than opening that present (like i said in the article, the boxes were huge! plus, there are pictures. i know i was in grade six because i had a terrible, terrible perm). but i do remember a few years before that, when we got my dad a "hi fi" (it had two tape decks, a record player, and a cd player! not that we owned any cds) and we wrapped all the components and put them under the tree and then hid the speakers around the house so that he had to search for them (mostly cause they were too big to wrap). then we left everything where it was and took off for sugarloaf to go skiing, and when we got back the house had been broken into and everything had been stolen except the speakers. they even took one of my cabbage patch kids! i remember this well because for some reason i still have the diary i kept that year (it was a ziggy diary and it had a lock on the side) and the thing that i chose to write about was the fact that my dad was sick and when the cops came over he was in his underwear. ahh, kids.
6. i've been to church, like, twice in my life, and i think my nana went about once every five years, but the christmas before she died we actually got our shit together on christmas eve and went to the church across the street from her apartment for their holiday service. it was actually really nice. the minister told a story about how she spent a christmas on a farm birthing a cow, and then we all lit candles from our neighbours and sang some songs which i even knew the words to, and my nana whispered some inappropriate comments to me about the how ugly the clothes were that the other women in our row were wearing. i miss you, nana!
7. the last christmas i spent in halifax, erin didn't come home until boxing day, my dad and stepmom were away in florida, and my aunt and uncle were on a cruise. so mom and i spent all day christmas in our pajamas eating chocolate, drinking bailey's and watching all three of the pirates of the caribbean movies. it was awesome.
8. one year when i was in university, my roommate and i decided we were going to have our own christmas party at our apartment on christmas eve. we bought a whole bunch of little mini-quiches from the grocery store which we were really excited about, and i made some kind of punch that involved rum and lime sherbet. i think a bunch of people showed up, i'm not sure... i just remember meegan and me getting really drunk off the punch and waking up the next morning in my party dress and having to go over to my mom's to open presents all hung over and probably stinking like slightly-sour limes. i was so classy in those days.
   
9. when i was in junior high, for like three years in a row i had a sleepover on christmas eve eve with my friends rachel and karen. one year i had been babysitting in the afternoon before the sleepover and got an early christmas present from one of the kids: pink eye. rachel and karen still came over, and we went up to the store (which was the cool place to hang out when we were in junior high) and i wore sunglasses to hide my disgusting eye, even though it was nighttime. i'm pretty sure this is where my lifelong love affair with sunglasses began... although back then the pair i wore were black with neon pink arms and said "days of thunder" on the side that i'm pretty sure i got for free with my happy meal at mcdonald's.
10. this christmas hasn't even happened yet, so maybe it's not quite fair to count it. but i can tell you right now it's already the best one ever, because i already got everything i wanted. (um, have you seen the pictures of my early christmas presents? i rest my case).

happy holidays, everyone!

the top ten music videos of the past ten years, according to muchmusic

there are no words.*

1. beyonce - single ladies
2. stronger - kanye west
3. umbrella - rihanna
4. womanizer - britney spears
5. fallen leaves - billy talent
6. boom boom pow - black eyed peas
7. paparazzi - lady gaga
8. american idiot - green day
9. never too late- hedley
10. lollipop - lil wayne

*actually, i guess there are some words: at least kanye didn't write this list, because then it would be the best videos of all time instead of just the last ten years. oh, and numbers 3-10 would be kanye videos.

top ten lines from "elf"

so i just went to see avatar, and now i'm going to write a post about elf. make sense? buddy the elf is just like jake sully, you guys. he's an outsider looking for acceptance from a strange clan, he wears a weird outfit and he falls in love with a zooey/zoe.

or, it might just be that a) it's christmas, b) elf is my favourite christmas movie ever and c) i just got another early christmas present which just happens to be elf on dvd (i also got some mango soap from the body shop and a westfort coney island tshirt at christmas number 2. and yes, i am spoiled.) this is the first dvd i've ever owned! i'm going to have to build a shelf or something. ps. all these quotes are from buddy.

1. "i'm sorry i ruined your lives, and crammed eleven cookies into the vcr."
2. "it's just nice to meet another human that shares my affinity for elf culture."
3. "first we'll make snow angels for two hours, then we'll go ice skating, then we'll eat a whole roll of tollhouse cookie-dough as fast as we can, and then we'll snuggle."
4. (answering the phone) "buddy the elf! what's your favorite colour?"
5. "what about Santa's cookies? i suppose parents eat those too?"
6. "oh, so, good news! i saw a dog today."
7. "we elves try to stick to the four main food groups: candy, candy canes, candy corns and syrup."
8. "i just like to smile, smiling's my favourite."
9. (to fake santa) "you sit on a throne of lies."
10. "you did it! congratulations! world's best cup of coffee! great job, everybody! it's great to be here"

grocery list #2: revenge of the bendy arrows

a list of things related to this photograph

1. this is a picture of the top ten scores from the second-to-last question in the second-to-last round of one versus one hundred on xbox live last night.
2. in case you don't want to click the link, this is an online version of the tv trivia show where one person tries to eliminate members of the hundred-person "mob" by answering questions correctly.
3. your score is based on three things: getting the question right, getting the question quickly, and how many people got the question wrong.
4. you can answer every question right in under one second and still not even get in the top one hundred, let alone the top ten.
5. last night there were about 30,000 people playing.
6. see number seven on the list? flapjackpenguin? THAT'S US!
7. on the next question we dropped out of the top ten because we were so excited and running to get the camera that we didn't answer the next question quickly enough.
8. the next question was: which of these pair of homophones mean the opposite of each other? a) ewe and you, b) raise and raze, c) bear and bare.
9. the answer is b). obviously.
   
10. we answered it in, like, 3 seconds or something like that.
11. i will never forget that question.
12. i mean, seriously! we're word people! we should have been all over that.
13. yes, i took a picture of the tv.
    
    

three early christmas presents!

1. my very own hockey stick - so we've been going to the rink quite a bit (especially since it's been up to, like, -10 degrees instead of -1500) and i've been complaining cause all of cory's sticks are wrong-handed for me. so now i have my very own, complete with pink hockey tape! you should see my laser slapshot now.
   
   
   
   check out the sexy sorels!
   
   two awesome things about this stick: a) it's an ovechkin stick. let me tell you how i feel about ovechkin. i hate him. i hate him so much with his stupid tousle-y hair and his stupid nhl 2k10 cover and his stupid calder trophy and everyone thinking he is soooo much cooler than crosby. i mean, the guy can't even use a vending machine. it kind of gave me a little satisfaction to wrap his stick up with pink tape. b) cory bought the stick the other day while i was at old navy, and it wouldn't fit in the trunk so he just tossed it in the back seat with the other hockey sticks and we drove around like that for days without me even noticing. this is why i'm a writer, people: my astounding powers of observation.
   
   
   
   riley might be little, but she plays pretty good d.



2. a snuggie - this is one of those things where the commercial would come on tv and i'd be totally laughing at it, but deep down i really wanted one. you've gotta admit, snuggies look kind of amazing, but those commercials are damn stupid.
   
   
   
   oh, those slippery, slidey blankets!
   
   anyway, at early christmas this year, cory's awesome aunt and uncle gave me one! the problem was, this one was a little different than the one in the commercial in that it has snaps and actually unsnaps into, like, just one big awesome cream coloured blanket, and when i took it out of the packaging i unsnapped them all without considering how to get it back together. i swear it was just like trying to fold up one of those stupid giant road maps! five university degrees between the two of us and nothing. eventually we sort of maybe kind of figured it out... it has sleeves and a v in front like the picture, but there's a bit of a gap right in the front, and i can't really move my arms away from my body at all. but it's totally warm and cozy! although i still don't think i'll be wearing it out to the movies any time soon.
   
   
   
   i am so cozy in this picture, you don't even know.



3. scratch-and-win tickets - they're totally the gift that keeps on giving!
   
   
   
   i have a thing about scratching all the scratchy stuff off of the entire square - are you totally super surprised by this?
   
   see? we totally won $4 on this ticket, which i will use to get two more tickets, and one of those will surely win us at least another $10 (it's the odds, right?!) with which we will buy 5 more tickets, and so on and so forth until we eventually win the $35,000 and retire to disneyworld! it's a foolproof plan, right? right?
   

anyway, yay, christmas! let's make it last at least a week or two.

if i controlled the universe

... aside from the big things, like stop global warming, erase everyone's student loans or get john krasinski to come over to my house for fajitas and beer, here are the top ten things that i would do.

1. lines for dumb people - okay, maybe "dumb" is the wrong word. let's call them "low functioning." or "confused." but say you're in line at the airport waiting to check your bag. you've already printed your boarding pass, you know exactly where your gate is, and all you need to do is hoist your bag up on the little conveyor belt, smile at the agent and wait for her to say "have a nice flight!" but inevitably there is someone in front of you who a) hasn't printed their boarding pass, b) doesn't know what a boarding pass is, and c) probably isn't quite sure why they are at the airport. and then before you know it, what was early enough for you to get to your gate ahead of schedule and maybe even stop at tim's for a double double turns into you pushing old ladies aside in order to get through security on time. the world would be a much happier place if you could have just gone right through the "people who know what they're doing" line. this also works well at banks, post offices, and those little machines where you pay for your parking before exiting the parking lot. "people who know what they're doing" lines, everyone. they're the key to world peace.
2. staggered commercials on competing channels - you know how you're watching "glee" and when it goes to commercial you want to switch over and check the score of the leafs game, only to find out that they've gone to commercial too? i get the concept... networks don't want you switching over, they want you to stay and watch their commercials and make them loads of money. but i'll be frank, i don't like the way this affects me. luckily, for me the pvr takes care of this problem most of the time. i'm just looking out for the rest of you, really.
3. windshield wipers that sync up with the music on the radio - so, um, here's a confession for you. anything slightly off-beat makes me crazy (along with anything slightly asymmetrical, but that's a whole other post, really). nowhere is this more apparent than when kanye is competing with some slapping intermittants. and then before you know it, you've been sitting at a green light for five minutes tweaking the dial ever-so-slightly back and forth trying to get the right beat, while people behind you are honking their horns and throwing everything off.
4. outlaw jargon - okay, maybe outlaw is too harsh of a word. instead, let's take all the people who a) use big words that they don't quite understand because they think it makes them sound smart and b) people who use phrases that don't mean anything because they think it makes them sound professional, and stick them all in a room together with nickleback playing 24/7 and only festival eggnog to drink.
   
   
   festival eggnog. almost as gross as people who say "going forward" or "highlighting objectives".
   
5. take out the traffic lights on the highway - this one is more for cory than for me, but a happy cory makes the roads safer for all of us. there is a highway in thunder bay with traffic lights every two feet. not just traffic lights, but traffic lights that don't sync up in any way, and don't ever seem to be green. i'm pretty sure the purpose of a highway is to get somewhere in a more expedient fashion, but in thunder bay it's sometimes actually quicker to go through town instead. add to this the number of times that you have cars (or giant trucks driven by chicks, more likely) driving equal speeds side by side in the two lanes, and you might as well just stay home.
6. fix the labelling in itunes - say you've just bought the new jay-z album, and you want to listen to "empire state of mind" on your ipod. fine, you go music-artist-jay-z... and nothing's there? want to know why? cause it's not under "artist-jay-z," it's under "artist-jay-z featuring alicia keys," just like "run this town" is under "artist-jay-z featuring rihanna and kanye west" and "young forever" is under "artist-jay-z-mr. hudson." and do you know how long it takes to go through your itunes and change all the labels? no, you probably don't. but i do.
7. find terry swan - terry swan is my nemesis. or maybe he's, like, parallel-universe-me or something. or maybe he's just the dude who used to have my phone number. but i've been getting calls for him since i got my toronto number over a year ago. not even my voicemail message, which explicitly states "if you are not calling for amy jones, please do not leave a message" can deter the people who are trying to track down poor terry swan. so seriously. if anyone out there knows this guy, can you tell him his brother is looking for him? along with the men's health clinic, his insurance agent, and some guy named bill who he worked with on a job site in brampton last february. then can you give me his new number so i can call him a bunch of times a day? okay, thanks.
8. declare a "national stan rogers day" - it has been brought to my attention that some people (specifically in northwestern ontario) do not know who stan rogers is. now, i get that people who are not from nova scotia probably have never stumbled home drunk from the bar at 4 am and woken up their neighbours by singing "barrett's privateers" at the top of their lungs (except for those rich toronto boys who lived next door to my dad and had keg parties every weekend). but "northwest passage" was voted by cbc-listening canadians as canada's alternate national anthem! and not only that, he was born in ontario! and died tragically in a fucking plane crash! show a little respect.
   
   
   
   i'm a broken man on a halifax pier, bitches!



9. bring back "arrested development" - wasn't that show so good, you guys? i would have liked to have seen it jump the shark. maybe we could just have a spinoff with gob or something. amy poehler could make a guest appearance! i don't know, i'd watch it.
10. put the apostrophe back in tim horton's - i'm just saying.

top ten last minute* holiday gift ideas

1. box of chocolates that will get eaten in one sitting in front of the tv and make the recipient feel fat and gross.
2. some kind of gimmicky appliance that will break after the recipient tries to use it once.
   
3. ugly christmas sweater that will sit in the closet and get chewed by moths (or get the recipient made fun of when she wears it to the office new year's party).
4. homemade cookies that someone in the recipient's house will end up being allergic to.
   
5. gift certificate to future shop which, while handy, hardly says "i'm thinking about you!"
6. a bottle of wine that will end up being used for cooking (or brought as hostess gift to a new year's party).
7. jewellery that will be sent into cash4gold by the end of the year.
8. a calendar, which, let's face it, will be pretty useless after about 12 months.
   
9. my book! it's colourful, compact, easy to wrap, and will fit into the $20 and under limit that was set for secret santa.
10. a justin bieber cd. because if the recipient is young enough to enjoy the musical stylings of justin bieber, she probably shouldn't read my book.
    

* i used the title "last minute" because i realize for most people, this is considered last minute. most crazy people.

grocery list #1

i think my obsession with lists might have started with grocery lists. they're such perfect little time capsules! and they tell you so much about a person. for instance, i prefer the simple-yet-elegant bent arrows, whereas cory just prefers to strew the words willy-nilly across the page. whatever works for you, i guess.

three ways to decorate for christmas

1. little eskimo ornaments on top of the pvr (muppets poster in the background = optional)
   
   



2. christmas tree. actual size in feet: one. actual size in feeling-christmasey-ness: one hundred.
   
   
   



3. christmas brick. because i know the first thing i think of when i think of christmas is "brick".
   
   
   

things to do when you're unemployed

so i've wanted a peppermint mocha for about a week, but every time we're near a starbucks, we've either just ate or i've already had too much coffee or whatever. so yesterday we basically went out of the house just to get me a peppermint mocha. the guy behind the counter was super friendly. this is how the conversation went:

guy behind counter: so, what are you guys up to today?
me: this is the big outing of the day.
guy behind the counter: out running errands?
me: nope, just out getting a peppermint mocha.
guy behind the counter: oh, you're probably swamped with exams right now.
me: nope. just out getting a peppermint mocha.
guy behind the counter: oh. (pause) stripe facing me. no. facing me.*

*side note: i never, ever, ever swipe my card the right way.

did you ever see the friends episode where ross is on sabbatical and bored because he did, like, three things in one day and then ran out of things to do? and then joey was all "no, dude, that's, like, three days worth of stuff to do!" you've got to spread it out. leaving the house for a peppermint mocha, that's an all-day event. so are the other things on this list, so don't blow them all at once.

1. take the dog for a walk - in order to make this an all-day event, you have to make sure that you take her somewhere really fun, like the rink or the woods or whatever. or bring along some of her puppy friends. make it an adventure, so when people say, "so what did you do today?" you can say "we took riley on a hike out to slate river with rocko and jeffy" rather than just boring old "we took the dog for a walk."
2. bake cookies - better yet, bake cookies without an electric mixer. not only are you making a delicious snack, but you're working your upper body at the same time.
3. go to matinees - this is less of a big deal for me, since i worked at night and could go to movies during the day pretty much whenever i wanted. but it's so much nicer than going at night - it's quiet, there's no gangs of annoying teenagers talking through the entire movie, and you can eat your poutine in peace.
4. grocery shop - again, not quite as big of a deal for me, but grocery shopping during the day is sooooo much nicer than grocery shopping at, like, 6pm. although i have to admit, here it doesn't really seem to matter when you go to the metro (sorry, a&p), it's still always busy. and they're still out of ice cream.
5. play video games - this sort of seems like a no-brainer, but you have to be careful how you play video games. since there's nothing from stopping you from sitting there playing a game all day long, you have to stop yourself... otherwise you just end up playing to the point where your fingers start to hurt and you feel slightly gross and dizzy and every time you shut your eyes you're seeing down the barrel of a sniper rifle and you sort of feel like you might never want to play a video game ever again. then there's one less thing on your list of things to do.
6. watch tv - again, you have to be careful how you do this, or before you know it, you've watched four back to back episodes of a baby story and so many sports highlights that you're watching the same highlights again for the second time and you feel like you haven't accomplished anything. what's better is to download (er, i mean, rent) a season of a show you want to see, and then watch the whole thing. then it doesn't even matter if you spent all tuesday watching the first season of how i met your mother, cause it's like you accomplished something!
7. don't go to the mall - this might seem like something you would want to do, given that the mall really seems to be like a haven for the unemployed, but it will just make you want to buy stuff you don't need and can't afford. for instance: i went to the mall today to pick up something christmas-related, and made the mistake of going into la senza, where they had underwear on sale 7 for $35. that's such a good deal! extraordinary-monitor-amy would have left that store with 14 new pairs of panties, and a new bra to make sure she matched. unemployed-writer-amy left empty-handed with a deep, lacy-thong-shaped hole in her soul.
8. take up everyone on every social event you're invited to - this one might be more specific to me, but a year of working every single fucking saturday night pretty much completely killed my social life. now that i have my nights and weekends free, i just want to do stuff - you know, go out of the house, see real people who are sitting in front of me and have conversations that don't require me to type 80 words per minute. your friends want to have you over for dinner and board games? great! your dad wants to take you to a hockey game? fantastic! your little cousin is going to be on stage for two minutes during a christmas concert? uh, sure! why not? i missed this stuff, you guys. life sucks without it.
9. take naps - i have never been a nap-taker, but lately i have had my eyes opened to the beauty that is the afternoon nap. there really is nothing better than an hour asleep on the couch under a blanket with the tv playing softly in the background. especially when it's minus seven billion outside and gets dark at 4pm.
10. do work - okay, this might be totally antithetical to this entire list, but i guess i do have a pretty broad idea of what "work" is - writing is my work, so any writing i do, even this blog, i consider to be work-related. and if i don't do something work-related during the course of the day, i feel, well, icky. although, depending on what kind of day it's been, i can stretch anything - from checking facebook to playing sims - into fitting my definition of "work-related." it's all, um, research. right? research.
    

seven books i loved as a kid

in honour of the best movie i've seen all year, fantastic mr. fox (yes, i saw it. no, it did not disappoint. royal tenenbaums with foxes!), which is based on my favourite book from childhood, i thought i'd make a list of other books i loved as a kid. and these just weren't books i liked a lot... every book on this list i read at least 20 times, and more often than not would wish intensely on every star and birthday candle blowout that i would wake up the next morning as one of the characters. as you will see, even as a kid my tastes were super highbrow.

1. fantastic mr. fox/anything by roald dahl - i know you know by now that i really loved this book, but i don't think you really understand how much i loved this book. i was (am?) a real sucker for talking animals, especially ones as clever as the characters in this story. in fact, mr. fox and his underground society of wild animals was the direct inspiration for the secret club i had with all my stuffed animals, which would convene in my bedroom every night after the muppet show and for which i would take meticulous minutes on my typewriter with the sticky "e".
2. sweet valley high - one of the hardest to understand paradoxes of my childhood was how i wanted to be both elizabeth and jessica from the sweet valley high series (along with oscar the grouch - he was happy when he was grumpy, and grumpy when he was happy! trying to grasp this totally blew my little five year old brain). this problem has perpetually plagued me throughout my life: i'm a cat person and a dog person, i like elvis and the beatles, i thought archie should be with betty and veronica. i like to think this indicates a complexity of character. or, you know, maybe just indecisiveness.
3. nancy drew - a few months ago in an interview in the new quarterly, i talked about how i used to write alternate (happier) endings to books on the few blank pages in the back, because i thought that was what they were there for. i made no better use of those back pages than in all my old copies of nancy drew (purchased, i think, at the same yard sale in st. margaret's bay where we got our atari). i could not understand why, if ned was supposed to be her boyfriend, why they never, ever even kissed. so yeah, if anyone ever finds those old nancy drews, they will also find some extrememly poorly-executed love scenes on those back pages. you're welcome.
4. the other elizabeth - so along with talking animals and love scenes, as a kid i also had a thing for time travel. after reading this book (which i'm pretty much convinced no one else in the world has ever, ever read), where this girl named elizabeth goes back in time and lives a whole life and comes back to the present and almost no time has passed at all, i came up with this theory that every time i was walking under a streetlight and it flickered, that this meant i had actually gone back in time, lived a whole life, and then was transported back to the present, where it was only 20 seconds later and my memory had been totally erased. i don't believe that anymore, of course. that would just be crazy.
5. rilla of ingleside (which you can read online in its entirety... wtf?!) - i read all of the anne of green gables books, of course. i was a good little maritime girl. but this one - which is told from the point of view of anne and gilbert's youngest kid, rilla - was hands down my favourite. this was mostly because i was in love with walter, rilla's sensitive, beautiful older brother who goes off to war and DIES. walter's death affected me so deeply that when we were rehearsing "in flanders fields" in choir for a rememberance day assembly, i ran out of the room crying and was actually physically unable to sing. what can i tell you... i was in grade three and totally unable to control my emotions. i'm not like that anymore, of course. that would just be crazy.
   
   
   the japanese love anne of green gables!
   
   
6. flowers in the attic - in about grade four or five, while all of the boys in my class were going through their wwf phase, all of us girls were going through our vc andrews phase. i guess maybe there's some similarities there, although i don't really want to look too deeply into why, at the age of eight or so, we all suddenly became obsessed with the grotesque and violent and sexual. all i know is this is around the time i started writing stories about evil parents who chained up their kids in basements or tried to poison them that were so ridiculously unrealistic yet still somehow prompted my school guidance counsellor to talk to me about whether or not i was "having trouble at home".
7. the mists of avalon - okay, i wasn't exactly a kid when i read this, more like in high school, but i remember it fondly as the last book i was truly obsessed with - the kind of obsessed where i would run home from school to read it, the kind of obsessed where i daydreamed in class about medieval england instead of about boys. after i finished it, i went out and found every book i could find about king arthur, and was so thoroughly depressed to discover that the characters i loved in the mists of avalon just weren't there. morgan le fay was always a super bitch, and guinevere was just a beautiful chick who laughed at all of lancelot's jokes. boring.
   

a list of things related to this photograph

1. this photo was taken at the fort william gardens, during a cis hockey game between the lakehead thunderwolves and the saskatchewan huskies.
2. our seats were right behind the saskatchewan bench
3. it was teddy bear toss night. this means that we all brought teddy bears, and when the home team scored their first goal we threw them on the ice and then they donated them to charity
4. the home team did not score a goal until the second period. that was a long time to wait. especially for me. i tend to be a little impatient. and bouncy.
5. when the home team finally did score, i was so excited!
6. i then proceeded to throw my teddy bear... right into the back of number 13's head.
7. saskatchewan won in a shootout. but the real winners were the people who actually got their teddy bears on the ice. oh, and the kids, i guess.

top ten looney tunes clips

maybe i'm crazy, but i find it totally satisfying to re-watch looney tunes cartoons that i loved as a kid. it's basically the visual equivalent of hot chocolate. seriously, wait til it snows, wrap yourself up in a blanket and watch these clips if you don't believe me.

1. the one with speedy gonzales and the cheese ship - i totally associate speedy gonzales with the invention of microwave popcorn (or, at least my family's discovery of it). i don't think it was a coincidence that we would buy the cheddar cheese flavoured stuff, either. i also think watching these cartoons taught me way more than first year spanish, but when am i ever going to use "es el gato stupido?" in real life?
   
   



2. the one with bugs and daffy and the treasure cave - apparently this one is actually called "ali baba bunny." what i remember the most about it was "hassan CHOP!" also it's one of the "i knew i should have taken that right turn at albuquerque.
   
   



3. the one where daffy duck is robin hood - i'm pretty sure this is how i learned about robin hood, too... which meant that i thought robin hood was secretly a selfish egomaniac until i saw the kevin costner movie version. then i just kind of thought he was a wuss who was friends with bryan adams.
   
   



4. the one with "wabbit season! duck season!" - "i say it's duck season, and i say FIRE!" HAHAHAHAHA.
   
   



5. the one with the missing shaving cream atom - "there's no one who knows his way around outer space like duck dodgers in the 24 1/2 century!" unless it's the eager young space cadet.
   
   



6. the one with the alludium pew 36 explosive space modulator - marvin the martian is pretty much the greatest cartoon character ever invented. "where's the kaboom? there is supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!" poor little marvin.
   
   



7. the one where wile e. coyote falls off a cliff - haha, got you. he always falls off a cliff! oh, then he buys some stuff from acme. haha, got you again! my favourite part of this video is when they give the latin names at the beginning for the road runner (disappearialis quickius)and wile e. coyote (overconfidentii vulgaris)
   
   



8. the one with pepe le pew and the perfume shop - i love the little perfume store owner on his bike at the beginning. and the franglais that they all speak ("i am le bankrupt!") and poor kitty always somehow getting the white stripe painted down her back, thereby rendering her completely irresistible to pepe.
   
   



9. the one with leopold - okay, so this one totally freaked me out as a kid, even though i thought it was hilarious. when bugs leaves his glove in the air and the opera singer is fighting to hold the note and his face is turning red and he's totally suffocating, i always felt like i was suffocating, too! then usually i'd realize that i was holding my breath through the whole thing. it's a good thing i was a cute kid, cause i wasn't too bright.
   
   
   
   
10. the one with "the flying dutchman" - this is actually called "what's opera, doc" (which i didn't know until i searched for it on youtube) and it's almost impossible to find the whole thing. so this clip is just the fun part. you know, the "kill the wabbit!" part.
    
    

things i love about halifax right now

1. the word "halifamous".
2. maybe some day getting to be halifamous.

things i love about thunder bay right now

i am so happy to be here, you don't even know. here are some of the reasons why.

1. the scan, and the woman whose sole job it is to refill your coffee every two minutes.
2. riley -- even when she's puking garbage.
   
3. watching a bunch of deer walk by the window and being the only person who gets even remotely excited about it.
4. going from indian summer in toronto to a winter wonderland in less than two hours on a plane (also, landing at the airport in a snowstorm!)
5. wearing ugly purple sorels 5 sizes too big for me and still feeling super sexy.
6. reese's peanut butter cup ice cream on sale at a&p.
7. the fact that everyone calls it a&p even though it's been metro for months.
8. marjorie dowhos and barry third.
9. the fact that everyone's house i go to has my book sitting on a table somewhere.
10. two words: memory foam.