how to rake a lawn

1. get a rake. preferably one with no missing tines.
   
   
   yeah, sort of like that one
   also, a pair of work gloves that don't give you blisters, and sunscreen on the off chance that it's twenty degrees in thunder bay in march. cause you never know. the maintenance shirt is optional.
2. rake up pine needles into 37 little piles.
   
   
   it doesn't have to be 37 piles exactly, but it helps.
   give all the piles names ending in bob: joe-bob, billy-bob, sally-bob, rob-bob, etc. etc. if you run out of bob names, you can try hyphenating other names. save billy-ray-jay-sean-paul-walker for the biggest pile.
3. find a girl on a quad with a trailer.
   
   
   preferably one who is really, really happy about driving a quad
   get her to drive around while you load up all the pine needles into the trailer. then drive the quad to the back of your property and dump out the pine needles. take over the driving for the really rough parts, but let the girl sit behind you and carry the rake. say goodbye to the bobs.
4. drive the quad back to your dad's house on the trails alongside the train tracks. stop when the girl behind you says "hey, a deer!" spend a couple of minutes explaining how deer are so stupid that they don't recognize the quad as a potential threat, and this is why they are just standing there five feet away staring at you. make the girl feel better about not bringing her camera with her by telling her the deer are the same colour as the trees, so they probably wouldn't have turned out, anyway.
5. "fix" your dad's computer by putting google back on his bookmarks toobar and help your aunt program emergency numbers into her cell phone.
6. come home to a clean yard!
   
   
   admit to yourself that the girl really did all the work.

weird things people say

over on rebecca rosenblum's fantastic blog, there's a super interesting discussion going on about different words people use to describe the same thing. at least, i find it super interesting, as a displaced maritimer constantly horrified by all these ontarians around me referring to their mother's sister as an "ant." (and don't even get me started on how y'all pronounce "manure"). anyway, here's a rundown (so far) of what I say versus what other people sometimes say. but you should really check out rebecca's blog for the complete wordy goodness.

1. other people: do you want a ride/do you want a lift?
   me: do you want a drive?
2. other people: washcloth/washrag
   me: facecloth
3. other people: housing development/cookie cutter houses/surveys
   me: subdivision
4. other people: i left it at my work
   me: i left it at work
5. other people: wax beans
   me: green beans and yellow beans
6. other people: pacifier
   me: soother
7. other people: just dinner or just supper
   me: dinner and supper, interchangeably!
8. other people: housecoat/dressing gown
   me: bathrobe
9. other people: knock, knock ginger/nicky nine-doors
   me: kick door run fast!
10. other people: bumper hitching
    me: skitching
11. other people: dish towel
    me: tea towel
12. other people: snow machines/skidoos
    me: snowmobile
13. other people: shag/stag and doe/wedding social/tacky!
    me: nothing. they don't exist in my world.

memories brought back by playing the demo games in the new microsoft gameroom

so we downloaded the new microsoft gameroom for our xbox the other day. we didn't play for very long cause, well, first off, they're demo games, and second, once you're used to halo 3 or whatever, asteroids doesn't really hold your attention. but they had a couple of old atari games on there that made me really excited. when we were kids, my mom found us an old atari 2600 and a bunch of games at a yard sale, and that, along with test drive and gauntlet on my apple iie, made up my early gaming history (until that fateful christmas of 1989, when we got our nes, and our lives were changed forever).



i wanted to shoot that dog so badly 
but really, it was that yard sale that defined my childhood: it was also where i bought a nearly-full set of old school nancy drews. somewhere out there on st. margaret's bay road, there's a thirty-something who's kicking themselves for getting rid of a potential gold mine.

1. we played battlezone a lot. i mean, a lot. i can even remember my dad playing it some nights at the cottage after a few glasses of wine, which is weird enough in itself. but the weirdest thing is, i totally remember battlezone as being in colour. not just in colour, but with elaborate, detailed graphics. but, you guys, battlezone really looks like this:
   
   
   yeah
   i was so confused by this that i was sure i had mixed it up with a different game. but everything else is the same, right down to the contours of the background. clearly my little mind had filled everything in all on its own. next thing you're going to tell me is that national velvet was in black and white, too...
2. she would never admit this to anyone, but my mother is quite the gamer. when i moved back home briefly in my last year of university, our mother-daughter bonding time consisted of beating donkey kong country one and two--and when i moved out, taking my super nintendo with me, i came home for dinner one day to find that she had bought one for herself. but my mother's love of gaming was actually born on a beautiful summer night by the bay, when i first introduced her to a game called word zapper. word zapper is a game where you're given a word and you have to shoot down letters from the top of the screen to spell it. my mom would play it for hours, the same way she would later play wordtris. yup, words and shooting things: a combination made in jones girl heaven.
3. in 1986, my sister and i spent hours upon hours shooting each other in combat. in 2010, cory and i spent about 30 seconds shooting each other in combat. granted, the real game has 27 different versions of shooting each other, whereas the demo only had one. but still. that's a lot of shooting each other. although who knows, if we hadn't done all that shooting in a video game, we might have tried pellet guns instead. or bows and arrows. we had a lot of issues to work out.
4. remember how i told you way back when about how i owned et as a kid but never watched it? well, the same thing went for et, the video game. and then cory told me about how et for atari basically bottomed out the whole industry, and there are literally entire landfills full of et atari games still in their package. so on one hand, i'm kind of sad i never played it, but at least i did my part to aid the struggling industry by actually owning a copy.
5. i don't know if this totally counts as an atari memory, but i also spent a lot of time at my friend meghan's playing return of the jedi on her atari st... so much time that i can still remember the little sound effects the death star made when you blew it up. i was worried that i totally just made this whole game up, until he who can find all things on the internet saved me from certain insanity.
   
   
   look how happy the ewoks are!
   later, on that very same computer, her brother showed us this thing you could do where you plugged the computer into your telephone cord and you could type messages to other people. he called it the "internet." crazy.

top ten foods i can't live without

so the other night for game night, jeffy brought over a dozen leftover storebought st. patrick's day cupcakes that his mom had given him. they were super frosting heavy (not exactly xbox-controller-friendly, but whatever) and i realized that i could basically just sit there eating the frosting off of every cupcake and be totally and completely happy for the rest of my life. and although the sugar rush did not exactly help me stay alive as the thing in marvel ultimate alliance 2, (i was the thing! you wouldn't think it would be that hard) it did get me thinking about other things i could happily subsist on if i was stranded on a deserted island. well, at least until i had a heart attack.

1. bacon - i basically feel like bacon is super trendy right now. it's sort of like the neil patrick harris of breakfast foods: even though it went through a period where people pretended not to like it, it was still super cool the whole time and people who loved it the whole time are totally a little bit smug about the fact that its back on top. and bacon deserves to be on top. there is nothing you can't make better by mixing it with, wrapping it in, or topping it with bacon. if bacon were a person, it would be named president AND america's favourite dancer AND win the art ross trophy AND steal brad away from angelina all at the same time. that's how awesome bacon is.
2. melon - when i was in mexico for my friend meegan's wedding, they had this crazy breakfast buffet where you could pretty much have any food you could ever want. and every day i had the exact same thing: a giant pile of bacon (obviously) and a giant pile of melon. now just the fact that i could have had a giant pile of bacon and another giant pile of bacon, but instead chose to replace one of the piles of bacon with melon, tells you how much i love melon. this may have to do with the fact that when i was a kid, i was not allowed to use the melon baller.
3. bread - a while back, cory and i bought baguettes to take to christmas dinner at his aunt's place (we were making escargot, because we're that classy). the point is, it was a really good thing we bought two baguettes, because we (well, okay, i) totally ate one of them as soon as we walked in the door.
4. cheese - whenever i'm at a fancy party (which, let's face it, happens all the time) i basically expect there will be a cheese plate that i can position myself in front of for the entire time, and if there isn't i am pretty much supremely disappointed. cheese is like the bacon of dairy products. think about it: if the question is "with or without cheese," the answer is ALWAYS "with cheese." although who knows, maybe i've just been brainwashed by those goons at the cheese board.
5. burgers - i've never met a burger i didn't like. seriously. i love fast food burgers and greasy diner burgers and steakhouse burgers and gourmet burgers topped with pretentious toppings and big juicy homemade burgers. i actually think the best burger i ever ate was one of those little hockey-puck freezer burgers from the superstore that we carried up from heather and scott's and barbecued on my back deck after hurricane juan when the power was out everywhere. seriously, give me a burger and i will basically love you for life. and put bacon and cheese on that sucker and i'll marry you.
6. wings - ever since i moved to ontario, heather and scott and i have been on a quest to find the best wing in hamilton. and it makes me really sad to think that we are going to have to give up on our mission before we come to a definitive decision. i think it might be here, although i still have a soft spot in my heart for that divey little bar we hit up back when i was a hamilton wing virgin.
   
   
   i don't think they have wings like this in vancouver, i'm sorry to say.
   then there's wild wing, which was totally like the second greatest thing about our trip to niagara falls (let's not get too crazy... we were staying in a hotel attached to a water park) and definitely the first greatest thing about driving an hour in traffic to vaughan with cory's parents in the backseat. holy crap, i love wings.
7. nuts - my sister is allergic to nuts, and so growing up they were completely verboten in my house. so now, i basically go crazy for nuts. christmas eve i was sitting right next to cory's cousin's nuts and i could not keep them out of my mouth. you would have thought, by the end of the night, i would have been sick of nuts, but you would have been wrong. i just can't get enough nuts. in fact, i would really like to get my hands on some right now... oh, grow up.
8. finnish pancakes - i like regular pancakes very much. but there is something about the finnish pancake that makes my heart beat a little faster. for those of you who have never had one, it might look a little like a crepe, but really tastes nothing like a crepe. and it can usually be found buried under eggs and sausages and home fries as part of the big viking at the scan.
   
   
   do not start the big viking unless you are fully prepared to finish the big viking
   i guess you can probably get these places other than thunder bay, but i've never seen them, and i am not ashamed to admit that they are basically the main reason i'm here.
9. ice cream - over the years, cory has taught me many things about food. he has taught me to dip my sausages in maple syrup, he has taught me to soak my lobster in butter, he has taught me about pineapple juice and honey bunches of oats with peaches and hazelnut coffee flavouring. but the single greatest thing he has taught me is how to appreciate ice cream. i will admit something to you, internet. i used to be an ice-cream non-believer. i thought that chocolate ice cream was the be all and end all of the ice cream world (because, really, what could be better than chocolate?) and really, i could take it or leave it. then one day cory was all "let's get this reese's peanut butter cup ice cream" and i was all "i've never had it before" and he was all "you are completely insane and we must purchase this ice cream right now and eat it." and now i basically fall in love with a new ice cream flavour every week. seriously, if you have never had breyer's banana cream pie ice cream, go out and find some right now. i promise you, you will not be disappointed. well, unless you don't like ice cream. or banana. or cream pie. sigh. what is wrong with you?!
10. bananas - are pretty much the greatest fruit next to melons. and i'm not just tacking this on at the end because i feel like this list is totally gluttonous or anything like that. i really do love bananas... oh, come on. didn't i tell you to grow up?!
    

top ten annoying phrases repeated by the announcers in nhl 10 for xbox 360

1. "he was all over that like a hyena on hamburger!"
2. "this game is over. i'm going for a hotdog. what do you want on yours?"
3. "this team loves to bang bodies."
4. "that was a great interception because of... anticipation!"
5. "he likes to staplegun people to the boards."
6. "they keep looking for opportunities in the slot, but they just aren't there."
7. "well, he didn't mean to do that, but it worked out for him anyway."
8. "both of them are going to feel that tomorrow."
9. "and the home team is out to an early lead."
10. "sidney crosby with two minutes for interference."

top ten holidays you didn't know existed

so, you guys, i missed world nutella day. i missed world nutella day! this is unacceptable, really, but i didn't know about it until all the sites coming up on foodgawker were all "here's the world's most delicious nutella recipe ever created in celebration of world nutella day!" and by that point it was too late. so i vowed i would never miss another awesome holiday again. maybe, with this list, you won't either! at listophelia, we are here to help.

1. dyngus day - on the monday after easter, when a few lucky people are still on holiday and i'm at walmart buying discounted easter candy, kids in poland are celebrating dyngus day. and by "celebrating dyngus day," i mean "boys chasing girls around dousing them with water and whacking them on the legs with sticks in order to impress them." whatever, poland... at my house, we just call that a weekday.
2. world penguin day - it is a truth universally acknowledged that penguins are awesome. whether they are marching, wearing stripey scarves, at the disco, or beating the leafs in a shootout, you show me a person who doesn't like penguins, and i'll show you a person with NO HEART. i think for world penguin day, we should all wear black and white. maybe guys should wear tuxedos! although i can't see that ever really catching on.
3. scrabble day - we don't play scrabble at our house. this is because i am really, really good at it and cory is worried that i will beat him. not just that i will beat him, but that i will beat him with such severity and vigour that he will have trouble walking for the rest of the week. so i'm really not sure how we're going to celebrate scrabble day. maybe i'll invent a drink called the double word score or something, and we can drink it while not playing scrabble.
4. no socks day - i sort of really hate socks. i mean, i appreciate that they keep my feet warm in the winter, but as soon as i'm home they basically somehow find their way off of my feet and into a little pile under the coffee table like so much shedded skin. so i am one hundred percent behind this day. long live the flip-flop!
5. national play doh day - you may not know this about me, but in my spare time, i enjoy making play doh sculptures of animals wearing hats.
   
   
   
   this duck wears a sombrero, bitches!
   
   so really, every day in my house is play doh day. but i appreciate the fact that, with this holiday, other people might finally be able to recognize the noble doh.
6. world gratitude day - i know they're probably talking about being grateful and saying thank you to people and whatnot, but i hate the idea that there has to be a day to remind people to do that. so instead, i'm going to pretend that it's a day to listen to this. it's so free, this kind of feeling...
7. name your car day - naming cars has always been a bit of a tradition for me. my first car was a little mazda 323 i called the green goblin. later, in university, my roommate and i drove around a 78 sunbird with a permanently-reclined driver's seat we called the bitchmobile. my current car is known to anyone who has ever ridden shotgun as lola the corolla (i put a sticker on her dashboard!) i really believe that naming cars is an important part of the car-driver bonding process, and i'm glad that it is finally getting the recognition that it deserves.
   
8. teddy bear day - i think teddy bears are okay. i mean i have one: his name is enrique, and he's a ninja bear who has made his home in lola's backseat for a couple of years now. he's a total perv, but he makes a good pillow.
   
   
   
   all tuckered out.  but the reason i'm psyched about world teddy bear day is not because i am particularly obsessed with teddy bears. it's cause it's on my birthday! also, michael keaton's birthday. that's right. me and BATMAN! word.
9. bad poetry day- somewhere, hidden in the depths of my mother's house in halifax, is a box. and within that box, there is a pile of books. and within those books, there is some of the worst poetry you will ever read. don't believe me? i wrote an epic poem about the animals that were killed when a subdivision went up in the woods near where i grew up, set to the same rhyme and metre scheme as the wreck of the hesperus. so i don't need to celebrate bad poetry, you guys... i have been celebrating it since i was born.
10. national list day - is basically like my birthday, but neatly ordered. i expect an e-card from all of you.

top ten weekend revelations

1. march is the best time for bonfires because there are way less bugs, as long as you don't mind your shins being on fire while your back is freezing.
2. julie and julia is actually kind of cute.
3. coney fries should really only be enjoyed at the coney. the gravy reheats okay in the microwave, but the fries do not.
4. drinking on the train tracks is just as fun when you're 33 as when you're 16. although much safer when there's no cliffs to climb down.
5. cory knows the words to every single terrible boy band song from the 90s.
6. i still suck at xbox hockey.
7. someone at the globe likes matthew j. trafford as much as i do.
8. dodgeball is so hot right now.
9. kielbasa is pronounced with the accent on the "sa." although i'm still not quite convinced of this. it could just be an elaborate joke that thunder bay-ites play on outsiders.
10. migraines still suck as much as the last time i had one, which was at least a year ago. but luckily this time i had someone to look after me while i lay on the couch like a little lump.

top ten differences between a frittata and an omelette

the same? or different? you decide.

1. frittatas are cooked in the oven, or cooked on a stovetop and finished under a broiler. omelettes are cooked on the stovetop.
2. frittatas are cooked slowly. omelettes are cooked quickly.
3. fritattas require well-beaten eggs with a lot of air in them so they are thick and fluffy. omelettes require gently stirred eggs with no air in them so they are thin.
4. fritattas are open-faced. omelettes are folded over.
5. fritattas have their ingredients cooked in. omelettes are filled.
6. fritattas are well-cooked. omelettes are traditionally served wet.
7. fritattas are served at room temperature. omelettes are served hot.
8. fritattas are italian. omelettes are french.
9. fritattas are served at brunches with cute little salads on the side. omelettes are served at denny's.
10. i made cory a delicious fritatta for dinner the other night. i did not make cory an omelette.

top one list i wish i had written: the guardian edition

1. the guardian is well known for having insightful, regular, and often hilarious book coverage (most of which i know about from bookninja. i am a child of my generation: i get my canadian politics from george strombolopolous and my book news from george murray).  how not to title a novel is an article from their books blog and features a list of possible titles for specific genres that actually made me spit my cucumber-infused water across the living room (yeah, cucumber-infused water. try it! it's basically the most delicious thing ever). i am so writing a book called fuckepedia. i'll publish the whole thing on twitter!

what you would call me* if i was a...

1. ...vampire: angelique darling
2. ...pirate: black anne bonney
3. ...pimp: deacon dr. jones shizzle
4. ...princess: princess callista lucinda, the nightengale of goldfell
5. ...prison bitch: dirt devil
6. ...rock star: tempest ford
7. ...l337 gamer: sna2zyp3pp3r
8. ...viking: amy the berserk
9. ...spammer: doormen s. torque
10. ...little miss: little miss all-goes-well
11. ...pro wrestler: shapely peaches
12. ...secret agent: canstopper, noyu canstopper, agent 001
13. ...porn star: penny silkhole
14. ...superhero: the super-intelligent tornado
15. ...jedi: jonam rehal
16. ...carney: viper
17. ...zombie hunter: claire shotgun
18. ...jellicle cat: alemona
19. ...stripper: candy lemons
20. ...swedish furniture: ämii
21. ...chef: jelly jones
22. ...walmart associate: enos
23. ...hippie: aquamarine moonshine
24. ...rapper: tiny honey
25. ...soap opera character: carly worthington
26. ...bond girl: eva evermore
27. ...drag king: lance goodthrust
28. ...harry potter character: pansy
29. ...emo: nothing
30. ...old school dj: shaft master quick

* according to random name generators, which in my experience are always right.

top ten things i learned from discovery's "clash of the dinosaurs"

you know what always really bothered me? how everyone on friends used to totally act like ross's interest in dinosaurs was the most boring thing on the planet. um, have any of them ever even seen a dinosaur?! they're basically like the most fascinating extinct animal there is. well, except the dodo bird. did you know the name "dodo" is thought to come from the dutch word "dodaars," which roughly translates to "knot-arse"? you probably did, if you've ever looked up dodo bird on wiki. such is my devotion to extinct animals. take that, friends other than ross!

luckily for me, the discovery channel knows exactly how interesting dinosaurs are.

1. t-rex is the best dinosaur parent. they protect their babies for a really long time compared to other dinosaurs.
2. sauroposeidon laid a bazillion eggs and then just left them to fend for themselves. their babies had a one in three thousand chance of surviving.
3. one of the reasons that they just left their young behind was because sauropods were so big and needed so much food that they had to keep moving from area to area or else they would run out of food.
4. they also had stomachs that chew their food for them! and their stomachs were as big as a swimming pool! full of acid! sauroposeidon were pretty impressive.
5. t-rex's eyelids were made of bone.
6. triceratops was the most dangerous animal ever to evolve on land. its head weighs one thousand pounds!
7. quetzalcolatlus were like prehistoric stealth bombers and had a wing span of forty feet.
8. ankylosaurus had a piece of bone in the tip of its tail that they could use as a sledgehammer.
9. t-rex can cover fifteen feet in a single stride and can see prey miles and miles away.
10. paleontologists have really awesome beards. they are pretty much the hairiest of the science world.
    
    
    i also like his hat.

top ten things i'd buy if i was rich*

so this totally started out as a weirdo search term that brought someone to my blog. and when i saw it i realized it would actually be a pretty awesome idea for a list. the thing is, my idea of rich is probably super different from most people's: i consider myself rich when i can buy the brand name laundry detergent or two-ply toilet paper. also, as some of you might already know, i'm not really a stuff kind of person. but if i won the lottery or whatever, i suppose there are a few things that i could spend some money on if, you know, i had some left over after my roller coaster adventure.

1. kohler dtv shower - full disclosure: in my lifetime i have never had a bathroom bigger than a closet. in fact, i've lived in apartments where the bathroom was literally in a closet (i've also lived in an apartment where you had to walk through the bathroom to get to the balcony, which is not as glamourous as you might think, especially when, in order to get to the barbecue, you have to parade your plate of burgers past the toilet). and i have had some really crappy showers, which makes me appreciate a good shower when i come across one. and while the shower we have now is pretty great, all things considered (and not just because of the shower curtain),  i have to admit, i still partake, now and again, in a little shower porn.
   
   
   mmm... individually-adjusted 56-nozzle body sprays...
   the pinnacle of this, in my humble opinion, is the kohler dtv shower. indeed, i fear i am disrespecting the kohler dtv shower by calling it a mere "shower". the kohler dtv shower is a total custom showering experience integrating lights, music, steam with a water distribution system that lets you preset the temperature, pressure and direction from which you are getting wet... i can't talk any more you guys, i'm sorry, i'm getting choked up.
2. dune buggy - so we were watching the local thunder bay tv station (which i love and think is amazing) and a commercial for j&j sports came on showing a bunch of people on dune buggies kind of like this one.
   
   
   i might not be remembering the commercial exactly right. immediately cory was like, "want!" so i guess i'd buy one for him. and, you know, maybe drive it now and then. i mean, he lets me drive the atv sometimes, and i haven't hit a tree yet.
3. a vespa - while cory's driving the dune buggy, i'll be zipping around in one of these (and you have to say "zipping." that's what you do in a vespa!) i guess it's pretty girly to fetishize the vespa, but it's a poorly kept secret that i am, in fact, pretty fucking girly. ps, there is a story in my book about a vespa and for my graduation, my thesis advisor gave me a card with a vespa on the front that i carry around in my purse. how's that for fetishization?!
4. a really good steak - apparently there are places in toronto where you can spend a hundred and ninety bucks on a steak. i have never been to any of these places, but i am really, really curious as to what a hundred and ninety dollar steak would taste like. i'd probably have to throw in a side of duck-fat fries, too, and maybe a jumbo shrimp cocktail for dessert. i may put ketchup on my kraft dinner, you guys, but that doesn't mean i can't appreciate potatoes fried in the fat of a (apparently very expensive) bird.
5. louboutin boots - further evidence that i am, in fact, a girl: i check ebay on a weekly basis and pray that i will find a pair of these boots that were accidentally put up for auction for one penny with no reserve that for some miraculous reason no one else has found out about.
   
   
   i call it "the perfect storm."
   seriously, you guys, i would be the hottest thing the thunder bay applebee's has ever seen. especially pulling up on the back of a dune buggy.
6. courtside raptors tickets - basketball is awesome: there's no other sport where you can, if you have the money, sit close enough to the action to actually trip one of the opposing team's players. not that i would want to do that, *cough* vince carter *cough*. plus, if you showed up on the right night, you might get to see something like this:
   
   
   if that were a real raptor, he would have eaten the whole dance pack.
   let me put it another way: when my dad and stepmom sat courtside at a raptor's game, they sat next to neve campbell. when cory and i went to a raptor's game, we sat next to a dude with a faux-hawk and a gold chain who wanted to high five every time the raps sunk a three pointer.
7. a kayak - again, full disclosure: i have a kayak. jorge is a beautiful yellow dagger currently strapped to the side of a shed at my dad's place three thousand kilometres away from me.
   
   
   me and jorge paddling in frost fish cove  alas, jorge is irrevocably tied to the atlantic ocean. he would never survive in the tragically un-salty lake superior. but there is a pretty beautiful river right across the street from me in tbay that is basically begging to be paddled. i guess i could rent a kayak, but that kind of feels like renting a boyfriend. or shoes.
8. a waverunner - to quote the irrepressible daniel tosh: "money doesn't buy happiness... uh, do you live in america? cause it buys a waverunner. have you ever seen a sad person on a waverunner? have you? seriously, have you? try to frown on a waverunner. you can't!" he also said "i don't think i could stab somebody, cause i'm really bad at a capri sun," but that doesn't really apply here.
9. a muppet - well, why not? i mean, me buying a muppet is equally as far-fetched as me buying a hundred and ninety dollar steak. my top choice would probably be the swedish chef.
   
   
   imagine him making you pancakes in the morning!
   i guess my second choice would be beaker, although for some reason i think he would be the kind of muppet who you'd wake up to discover was watching you while you slept. creepy.
10. a thousand tubs of every single kind of ice cream known to mankind. and one fucking huge freezer.

*this post is in no way related to my previous post about wheel of fortune and the million dollars. seriously, it's just a coincidence! i'm in no way coming up with devious plans to somehow hack wheel of fortune...

how to win a million dollars on wheel of fortune

NO ONE IS EVER GOING TO WIN!*

1. get on wheel of fortune.
2. spin the wheel and land on the million dollar wedge, which they haul out for only one round per episode.
   
   
   see it there? that little tiny sliver in the middle of the bankrupt wedge? yeah. 
3. solve the puzzle. this shouldn't be the hard part, given your competition.
4. win the game and make it to the bonus round.
5. spin the bonus wheel and land on the million dollar wedge.
6. win the bonus round.
7. defy gravity, cure cancer, and find a boyfriend for jennifer aniston.

*ffs. someone actually did it!

i hate her

top one sign of the apocalypse of the day

1. cheesy russian pop music? check. alexander ovechkin? check. might as well just shoot me now.
   
   

LOAD "AWESOME" ,8,1

1. Impossible Mission
2. Pitfall
3. Lode Runner
   
4. Quest for Tires
   
5. Bruce Lee
6. Choplifter
7. Summer Games
8. Ghostbusters
9. Space Taxi
10. This.
    

green beer: pros and cons

pros:

1. green beer is kind of a novelty.
2. i might some day want to write a story about a character who drinks green beer. so it's technically "research".
3. "green" is a really hot catchphrase these days.
4. everyone else is doing it.
5. green pee (does it work that way? i have no idea)
6. i expect it to taste like peppermint schnapps. will be pleasantly surprised when it actually tastes like beer.

cons:

1. green-stained teeth.
2. green clashes with the purple shirt i was planning on wearing.
3. green reminds me of mold.
4. not sure what makes the beer green in the first place, but i'm guessing it probably stains.
5. too much green beer most likely has the same effects as too much normal-coloured beer. although this really could be a pro or a con. ask me tomorrow morning.
6. i'm not irish. although i do like irish people! irish music, though... meh.

happy st. patrick's day, everyone! i'll let you know tomorrow how things went.

seven reasons why, statistically speaking, robots can never replace stage actors*

oh, stage actors. you probably thought you were totally safe from becoming redundant. sitting in your unheated dressing rooms that you share with the entire cast, waiting for your grad-school-dropout director to give you your ten minute call so that you can perform your little heart out in front of an audience of ten people, you probably console yourself with the thought that someday, all those smug, trailer-and-craft-table screen actors will all be replaced by cgi.

well, stage actors, let me introduce you to robothespian. he can do everything you can do. and currently, he is being used mostly in interactive displays for museums and science centres, which, let's face it, we all know is the bread and butter of the working actor (keith's brewery actors, watch your back!) but on today's attack of the show, they discussed the possibility of robothespian tackling some meatier fare. and judging by the robothespian's singing voice, that possibility is very, very real.

but take heart, stage actors! i have seen the future, and it does not include a soliloquizing hamlet-bot performing for adoring crowds of thousands. let statistics tell you why.

1. robots are robots. they will not mess up. and it is statistically proven that 87% of people who go to see live theatre and secretly hoping the actors will mess up. take away that possibility, and take away your audience. advantage: real actor.
2. robots are ugly. even the most technologically advanced and perverted robotics engineer is not going to be able to make his robot look like tricia helfer, no matter how hard he tries. and it is statistically proven that 92% of people who go to see live theatre spend 72% of their time imagining what it would be like to have sex with one or more of the actors. with robothespian, that percentage would drop to 43%. advantage: real actor.
3. robots are expensive. the robothespian rt3 will cost you $80,000. and that's just for one! statistically speaking, that is approximately 80,000% of your entire operating budget. plus, i know some real stage actors who will work for comp tickets and a grilled cheese sandwich. advantage: real actor.
4. robots break. no matter how well-engineered, one misplaced nalgene bottle, one sloppily-hung light, one prompt book hurled by an irate stage manager, and you're benching your robothespian for at least a show or two. and studies have shown that statistically speaking, 96% of actors would still insist on performing while ill. all you need to tell them is that a reviewer is in the audience and they'll perform through the ebola virus. advantage: real actor.
5. robots are scary. come on. that's the reason that we all think they're so cool. and it is statistically proven that the more like us the robots are, the scarier they are by a factor of 7. robots displaying human emotion through facial expressions rate about a 9.2 on the "more like us" scale. advantage: real actor.
6. robots are complicated. and even though the robothespian interface is apparently really user friendly, it is statistically proven that 74% of stage directors can't even program their alarm clocks, let alone program a robot. advantage: real actor.
7. robots are, well, robots. they can never hope to convey the complex and nuanced range of human emotion contained within the brilliant words of the great playwrights throughout history. and statistically speaking, this is important to 26% of people on the planet. wait... did i say 26? i mean 2.6. but still, for that 2.6%, advantage: real actor.

* a disclaimer: i love robots. and i love stage actors! this is all just science, you guys.

a list of things related to this photograph: ingredients for some serious kitchen multi-tasking

1. second batch of chocolate chip cookies cooling.
2. water boiling for sausage and pepper penne.
3. first batch of chocolate chip cookies ready to eat.
4. banana muffins ready to go into the oven.
5. rotini for sausage and pepper penne. (i know, i'm a maverick!)
6. sausage for sausage and pepper penne
7. rye and ginger for the cook.
8. penguin with stripey hat and scarf on a snowboard.
   

and, a follow-up list: the end result of some serious kitchen multi-tasking.

1. breakfast.
2. lunch.
3. dinner.
   

top one sign of the apocalypse of the day

1. i love you, jt. but really? really?
   
   

top ten signs you might be a haligonian

this list is dumb. my list is better!

1. you feel like with the recent news of the death of beep, a little part of you died as well.
2. you know the answer to "and do you know what we're having for dessert?!" is not cheesecake. it's always "pie, seaweed pie."*
3. you were once in the studio audience of switchback and waited around afterward to pet rufus.
4. you know that the only way to eat garlic fingers is with donair sauce.
   
   sometimes there's not even enough room for pizza afterward! 
5. you saw joel plaskett play at the marquee on new year's eve. and you're super psyched about the thrush hermit reunion!
6. you know someone in that sobey's christmas commerical that they've run every year since the beginning of time.
   
   my old roommate is at 0:34 
7. you learned about the halifax explosion every year from grade primary to nine.
8. you've buried a case of beer on the wanderer's grounds the night before a concert on the hill.
9. when someone asks you for the number for a cab company, you sing them the answer.
10. you know that when you throw your trash over the side and the ocean takes it away, the place that it goes is "away."*

*there is no trace of either of these commercials on the whole of teh interwebz. since i am generally inclined to believe that if it's not online, it doesn't exist, if you remember either of these please post in the comments so i know that they're not just figments of my imagination!

eight awesome things about killer whales

the discovery channel had this crazy show about killer whales on last night, and now i'm pretty much convinced that they are poised to rise up and overthrow us. in fact, they're probably reading this right now. uh... long live the orca!

1. orca language has different dialects! apparently the antartic orcas sound like they're on helium. and the bc orcas sound like they're stoned.
2. orcas like to play in the waves! they think they're people.
3. orcas travel in giant pods! and each pod has its own distinct culture passed down through the generations. for instance, there is a pod of orca in new zealand who eat sting rays (and possibly other kinds of rays, even) although no other orcas anywhere eat them. sort of like how people in the martimes eat dulse.
   
   
   
   
   sometimes, there's little pebbles hiding in the folds. it's teeth-shatteringly delicious!
    
   also, this means that orcas are evolving in different ways. so in, like, hundreds of years, the antarctic orcas will be a totally different species from the bc orcas or whatever, with completely different superpowers. kind of like the x-men!
4. orcas are really big! the largest orca on record weighed 8 tonnes. which is pretty much what i bench. i'm also 13 feet tall and have been known to go into con dar on a semi-regular basis.
5. orcas can see with their ears! i guess lots of species can do this, but according to scientists, orcas can pinpoint a single salmon a whole football field away simply through echolocation. and, crazier still, they can identify the type of salmon. i don't even think i can do that! and i'm technically half lobster.
6. orcas are super smart! they have the second biggest brain out of all the mammals. and they can coordinate attacks with surprisingly complex strategies.
   
   surprising considering my pug group can't even figure out they should be hitting the same mob the tank is hitting
   seriously, if you never watch another video on my blog, watch this one! it's crazy. remember the simpsons episode where the dolphins all coordinated and came up on land and became our overlords? they got it wrong. it should have been orcas.
7. orcas have their own song! which would make a pretty kick ass soundtrack for that video you just watched.
8. orcas eat sharks! case? rested.

time out, internet!

It's back! Set your friends' homepages when they aren't looking.

videos that amy didn't think you were rad enough to watch (but i did so i linked them for your convenience but it's okay, we're cool.)

1. Epic.
2. Still epic.
3. I'm easy.
4. My beak and my hydraulic suspensions!
   

top one awesome video of the day

1. i miss battlestar so much, you guys! but maybe not as much as this guy.
   
   
   i also miss the beastie boys so much. remember when they were awesome? apparently this is a shot-for-shot remake of the original. if you don't believe it, watch the comparision (ps, my favourite part is totally at 1:31):
   
   
   i realize this technically makes it two videos. deal with it.

top ten reasons you should be excited about darwin's bastards

1. it's a short story collection! about the future!
2. it features "darkly humorous dystopian visions"!
3. the description uses the word "extravaganza"!
4. at least five people who i went to school with have stories in it! and at least five other people who i wish i went to school with!
5. it is edited by zsuzsi gartner, who is one of the main reasons my book exists!
6. it includes a story by matthew j. trafford, whose genius you are already familiar with!
7. at the toronto launch, matthew is going to dress up like charles darwin!
8. it has 23 stories in it! and 23 is universally acknowledged as the greatest number there ever was!
9. i can promise you there are fewer exclamation marks in it than in this list!
10. it has a trailer!

alternatives to march madness

march madness is pretty much my least favourite sports tournament.* in fact, i would go so far to say that march madness is my arch-nemesis. if i were a superhero, march madness would be the evil genius whose plans i continually try to foil, yet who somehow still gets away at the end, petting its cat and laughing maniacally. in fact, so slippery is the villainy of march madness that i (as a superhero) am required to use all the weapons in my arsenal in order to stop it. unfortunately, the only weapon i have is my blog. also a nerf gun that shoots foam bullets, but that has proved to be basically ineffective on, well, pretty much everyone. so politely suggesting in list form other things you could do instead of watching march madness is going to have to be it.

1. the ides of march
2. march of the penguins
3. middlemarch
4. march hare
5. the march of dimes
6. fug madness
7. midnight madness
8. micro madness
9. reefer madness
10. general all-over madness

*with the exception of the fact that march madness involves really cool bracket templates like this one. who doesn't love templates?! you guys know that templates are basically family to the list. well, maybe technically closer to the form, which is obviously also awesome. the template and the form are like brother and sister who are cousins with the list! although the list is older and drives a really cool car and gets to sit at the grown up table during family dinners.

a list of things related to this photograph

1. in 1995, thunder bay hosted the nordic world ski championships.
2. they made these jackets to commemorate the event (if you look closely, you can see that the insignia says "nordic world ski championships, thunder bay, ontario, canada. i mean, if you really don't believe me).
3. the jackets are damn ugly.
4. according to cory, the jackets have been decreasing in number ever since 1995. last year, he only saw one person wearing one out and about in thunder bay. but the point is, it's been 15 years and people are still wearing them.
5. he was hoping that this year would be his first ugly-nordics-jacket-free year.
6. yesterday, after hitting the library and walking around the marina with our starbucks, we were driving by value village and i said "we should totally go in there and see if we can find a nordics jacket. ha ha ha."
7. we found one.
8. cory almost bought it. so he can "show people what he's talking about when he's telling the story about the ugly nordics jacket."
9. he settled for a picture instead. he was just going to hold it up, but i decided i had to put it on. then he threatened to dump me.
10. i think it's pretty sexy, personally. although as you can tell from the face i'm making, it smelled pretty value village-y.
11. on a semi-related note, the value village in thunder bay actually has some pretty good stuff in it. at least, way better than my bloor-lansdowne value village that has totally and perpetually been picked over by hipsters.
    

live list: top ten reasons i'm happy to be watching the oscars from my couch in my pajamas and not from the front row of the kodak theatre

1. i don't think i would look very good in a dress with weirdo ruffley feathers all over the bottom. and it seems like dresses with weirdo ruffley feathers all over the bottom are really big this year.
2. if i had dressed up and walked the red carpet, i would have missed sort-of watching it on tv while hiding behind one of the armchairs during a rousing game of hide and seek with little cousins. (i probably could have hid there forever, really, but was spotted when cory said "hey, it's taylor lautner!" and i popped my head out to look. what can i say, i'm totally on team jacob.)
3. the cake we had at dinner had money in it. do you think there will be any money in the fancy appetizers at any of the afterparties? my guess is going to be no. i mean, have you ever tried to stuff a quarter in a crabcake?!
4. ryan reynolds was there and scarlett johannson was nowhere in sight. i wouldn't want him seeing me and bringing up all those painful, long-hidden emotions that he's been trying to bury for all these years. (i'm sorry, ryan. i don't want to hurt you. but things could never work out between us. not after the proposal.)
5. i'm not going to lie: i'm a little scared of that chick from precious.
6. when you get up to go to the bathroom at the kodak theatre, some stranger comes and sits in your seat, then you have to pee really quickly while avoiding damage to your borrowed designer dress and run back to your seat so you don't miss anything. when i get up to go to the bathroom here, i press pause on the tv, take my time, maybe head to the kitchen afterward to grab a drink or a twizzler, come back and not only is there no stranger in my seat, but i can press play and pick up right where i left off. and if i get bored during the dead celebrities montage, i can just fast forward. also, to be honest, i don't really like sitting on someone else's warm butt spot.
7. instead of spending the afternoon getting my hair done and waiting in traffic in downtown LA, I got to spend the afternoon tubing at loch lomond. and also filming what may very well be a heavyweight contender for next year's academy awards (first i have to get them to add a category for sheer awesomeness).

this was the closest i could get to a star wipe 
8. up in the air isn't going to win any awards, and that just makes me sad. and i don't want to cry in front of george clooney.
9. i haven't seen most of the movies that have been nominated for awards, so it might get a little awkward at the after parties (also a little boring when the only people i can talk to backstage are jason reitman, james cameron, and the dude who played the prawn in district 9--and also a little disappointing when i found out that the dog from up wasn't actually there). although, really, who needs to see the whole movie when you've already seen the trailer?
   
   
   
   A Trailer for Every Academy Award Winning Movie Ever -- powered by Cracked.com
   
   
10. my pajamas are really, really comfortable.
    

top ten alternate plotlines for the office's baby "event"

so as some of you might already know, jim and pam had their baby on thursday night. and yes, i realize i'm talking about them as if they are people i know in real life, but they basically are, okay? i mean, out of all my friends who have babies, i'd say 99% of their births i found out about from facebook statuses. but jim and pam pretty much let me right into the room with them during the birth, and then let me see all the crap that went down afterward.

which is sort of the point i'm (slowly) getting to. even though they dress it up with the whole fake documentary thing, and the no laugh track thing, the office is basically a sitcom. and there are rules for sitcoms. rule number one: when you're building up to a huge happy event, like a wedding or a baby, you have all the hilarious hijinks, mixups, and misunderstandings before the huge happy event, and then end the show with everything being wonderful and normal and perfect. we don't want to see the messy, realistic bits that come afterward; we know that they're there, we don't need reminding. we want happily ever after. the end. these are our expectations for this kind of show, and it's unsettling and unsatisfying when it doesn't work out that way.

office, i still love you. but get it together. remember jim and pam's wedding? you nailed that. i want you to get back there, so i'm willing to help you out. i don't even want a writer credit! although the writers for the various sitcoms that i stole these ideas from might.

1. pam goes into labour and everyone from the office rushes to the hospital. when they get there, michael and jim argue about michael's involvment in the baby naming process. dwight tries to break up the argument and they end up getting locked in a supply closet, and kevin has to help out at the birth. they escape the supply closet just in time (after learning a valuable lesson about teamwork) and arrive just in time to see the baby be born. the baby is born and everyone is happy.
2. while pam is in labour, ryan befriends the single mother in the next room and eventually convinces her to reunite with the baby's father. he is so moved by this experience (after learning a valuable lesson about what is important in life) that he decides to propose to kelly. they arrive just in time to see the baby be born. the baby is born and everyone is happy.
3. at the office, pam's water breaks. jim slips in it and dislocates his shoulder. they are both rushed to the hospital by michael and dwight. michael has to assist pam in the birth while on the other side of the hospital, dwight assists jim with the relocation of his shoulder. they fix it just in time to see the baby be born. the baby is born and everyone is happy.
4. when pam gets to the hospital, she discovers her doctor is obsessed with fonzie. jim spends the rest of the episode trying to find another doctor. pam finally accepts the fonz loving doctor just in time for the baby to be born. the baby is born and everyone is happy.
5. pam and jim arrive at the hospital, only to discover that they've been given a room with a roommate... karen! she is now divorced and tries to convince jim to get back together with her, right around the same time that pam is in a lot of pain and saying all kinds of mean things to jim. jim tells karen he loves pam, and requests that they change rooms. they get a new room just in time for the baby to be born. the baby is born and everyone is happy.
6. while pam is in labour, oscar meets a guy in the next room with a broken leg who he thinks is really cute. he concocts a scheme with andy (his wing man for life!) whereby andy goes into the room pretending to be a doctor in order to get information about the guy. the guy eventually finds out, and even though he liked oscar in the beginning, he tells oscar he won't go out with him because of his deviousness. oscar gets back just in time (after learning a valuable lesson about honesty) for the baby to be born. the baby is born and everyone is happy.
7. while pam is in labour, jim goes to get her ice chips at the ice machine down the hall and his arm gets stuck in the machine. after a while, he manages to drag the ice machine down the hall to pam's room. he arrives just in time for the baby to be born. the baby is born and everyone is happy.
8. pam goes into labour during an office birthday party for erin. jim drives her to the hospital while the others try to wrap up the party quickly in order to not offend erin. they manage to get to the hospital just in time for the baby to be born. the baby is born and everyone is happy.
9. pam goes into labour at the office, but when they leave to go to the hospital they discover that there is a tractor-trailer stalled in front of the exit to the parking lot and they won't be able to get any of the cars out. they are about to call an ambulance, but there's no time! jim is still arguing with the truck driver while michael delivers the baby in his office. jim arrives back just in time for the baby to be born. the baby is born and everyone is happy.
10. pam delivers the baby, and surprise! it's twins! dwight offers to buy the second baby from them to work on his beet farm, but they refuse. the second baby is born and everyone is happy.

reasons why the mcdonald's free coffee promotion is not as great as it sounds: a dialogue

1. cory: you know why this promotion is stupid? because they're not discounting anything else on the menu. so when you go in for breakfast in the morning and you get an egg mcmuffin meal, you're still paying the same price you always are. so the coffee is really not free at all.
2. me: okay, but what if we were just out shopping or something and wanted a coffee? we could just go into mcdonald's and walk out with a free one.
   cory: remember today when you saw that commercial on tv for a whopper? and then wouldn't shut up until i took you to burger king? do you really think you could walk into a mcdonald's and walk out with just a coffee?
   me: touché.

daily dose of listalgia

these are all 100% authentic, used on slash by one of us and catalogued lovingly in list form. with apologies to the possibly-incriminated...

things i've been distracting myself with since the olympics ended

1. community - reasons you should watch community: a) it is directed by the same people who brought you arrested development; b) it's possibly the funniest show on tv right now. the characters are ridiculous and the dialogue is totally tv-dialogue-y and clever but because the rest of the show is so stylized it works and isn't annoying (think 30 rock, not gilmore girls). plus, it's self-referential enough and has just enough ongoing storylines to reward those people who put in the time:
   
   
   i guess you had to be there...
   some of you might be turned off from watching this by the recent discovery that chevy chase is such a d-bag that he was actually banned from ever hosting snl (that might be just me. thank you, xbox trivial pursuit). but trust me, d-bag or not, the man is still funny.
2. joyland - i first discovered this website through rebecca rosenblum's blog and have been addicted ever since. this website is good because i can combine two of my favourite things: wasting time on the internet, and pretending stuff that i'm doing is actually "research" (seeing as "stuff" normally includes napping, playing video games, and looking at facebook, i think i'm maturing).
3. hipster puppies - this website is good because i can combine two more of my favourite things: puppies, and making fun of hipsters. what can i say, i'm a complicated girl.
4. cooking - even though the best part about cooking is definitely still the eating, i get pretty psyched about the cooking part, too. even if i do get excited about the weirdest things. check out this giant carrot i found the other day!
   
   
   the coffee maker is for perspective! although in all fairness i do have to disclose that this is only a baby five cup coffee maker i got so excited about it that i brought it into the computer room to show cory, who wasn't quite as impressed as i was ("take a picture and put it on your blog," he said. ha ha. WHO HAS THE LAST LAUGH NOW?!) i was also going to take pictures of the roast beef but it was far too delicious-smelling (and took far too long to cook) so we basically just ate it. although you can imagine that it looked something like this.
   
5. thunder bay - it gets to you. like, one minute you're carrying your giant purple sorels to the rink because you're embarrassed to even wear them out from the house to the car, and the next minute you're wearing them to the a&p to pick up milk. then suddenly the waitress at the coney knows your saturday morning order without you telling her, you're drinking crystal, and you don't notice the smell of the mill at all. and then when you're not here, you're making people watch the "my hometown" video and making jokes about how long it must have taken them to get that shot of the green light.
   
   does dryden have any mcs who want to throw down with this guy? DIDN'T THINK SO. word.
   i guess basically what i'm saying is it feels a lot like home. but listen up, thunder bay: if i forget how to walk in high heels, i'm blaming you.
6. writing - yeah, i still do that, believe it or not. in fact, i was going to make a blog post called "my top ten favourite lines from my new book." but then i thought it might be a little premature: i mean, what if i put a line on the list and then i ended up cutting it? i'm not much of a cutter but you never know. and what if that was your totally favourite line on the whole list and you were so disappointed that you couldn't find it in the finished product that you, say, gave the book a bad review on goodreads? i don't think i'd ever forgive myself. so, short story short (see what i did there?), you're going to have to wait. and hope that i can finish it before the next olympics comes around.

top one existential comic of the day

1. since someone has been "too busy" to make me a new comic for my blog, perhaps you would instead be interested in checking out the amazing garfield minus garfield. but i'm warning you: it's funny, but also weirdly depressing. kind of like dr. horrible's singalong blog. or the cable guy.

things sidney crosby has to do before I stop making fun of him

1. Score the winning goal in overtime to win Canada hockey gold.
2. Move out of Mario Lemieux's basement.
3. Stop making this face.
   
4. Date a smoking hot chick.
   

things we can expect to see in 2014 in sochi, according to their presentation at the vancouver closing ceremonies

in sochi, games play you!

1. space bowling
2. snowboard ballet
3. crystal chariot racing
4. hamster balls
5. magical supermodels fairies
6. blimps
7. alexander ovechkin