Sunday, September 30, 2007

The Cat's Back

I did the junkfood route. Lays chips, jalapeño dip and two éclair's over two days, not much of a splurge. I really wasn't into it. I watched The Island with Ewan McGregor which was sort of an updated version of Logan's Run. It was good (4/5). I was never much of a fan of Ewan but he was hot. I also watched four episodes of Fat Actress with Kirstie Alley (3/5).

I lied about not doing any stinking dishes or laundry. I even took out the trash, which I never do. I'm so whipped.

I changed the living room around and the cat loved it. I don't know why but she has to be right in the middle when furniture is moved and then she checks out every thing as if it's new. She is spoiled though. Her post is now in the center of the living room window and she couldn't be happier. Dog isn't climbing over the couch now to bark but all she has to do is walk up to the window; hence no sleep for me this morning. Grrr. And she's still limping. Double Grrr.

First thing Jeff said when he came in was "Oh, oh, someone's been moving around furniture again." Translation. "I don't like it" and "I hate change". You can guess my response I'm sure. I can't get over how big the window looks without the couch in front of it and somehow there is more space for doing yoga in the middle. Bonus! But it's only temporary.

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Topic Links
* The Island
* Logan's Run

Thursday, September 27, 2007

When the Cat's Away... The Moe will Play

Ha! I have absolutely nothing planned. Jeff is away for the next two days on a school trip and I ain't got nothin'. Ok, I could rent a movie, get some junk food but that' all of two hours. I do need a lip wax but do I really want to do that? (shoulder shrug)

I know what I'm not going to do. No stinking dishes, laundry, or cooking meals! Wahoo! I was going to say showering too but I like clean hair, amongst other things.

I do however want to change the living room around. The couch is in front of the window and I think part of the dog's elbow/shoulder problem has to do with the way she leans over the couch for hours to look outside.

Is it a girl thing to want to change furniture around? It drives Jeff crazy. At least until he gets used to it and then it's like "this was a good idea". DuH!

Ideas welcome.

Monday, September 24, 2007

Banning Alicia Silverstone

I was checking out Pretty by Nature, a blog by Teri Cosenzi, about "natural and organic beauty" and found this video featuring Alicia Silverstone in the buff. According to Teri it has been banned by numerous networks across the states because of it's content.

I hesitantly clicked on the video expecting to see abused animals locked in cages, tortured or used as researched specimens. But what I found was a beautiful and artistic video about Alicia's preference for being Vegan.

Click on image below to watch the very short and very tasteful ad:



As Teri said in her post, there are worse things to watch on tv. This doesn't even come close. I think the banning has more to do with appeasing other advertisers than the nudity (if you can call it that).

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Topic Links
* Pretty by Nature
* Peta

Friday, September 21, 2007

Resident Evil: Extinction

This is the third installment to the Resident Evil Trilogy which is an action packed visual effects feast for the eyes. It is years later and the virus has ravished the whole planet affecting flora and fauna, as well as killing off millions of humans. Those who are healthy keep moving and usually keep to the roads unless they need food or gasoline.

The Umbrella Corporation still exists with different factions in major countries. They are all working together to produce a cure. Unfortunately that involves cloning and disposing of many likenesses of Alice. The evil scientist, Dr. Isaacs, from Apocalypse is still around in Extinction and he's obsessed and awed with Alice and bit on the crazy side.

I jumped a lot thanks to a lot of well placed sound effects and scary decaying zombies. My only complaint was all the landscape panning. I had to look away often because it was making me nauseous.

It was nice to see Oded Fehr again as Carlos Olivera and Ali Larter, from the television hit Heroes, was a welcome addition as the leader of a band of survivors. The film didn't really answer any questions this go around. It was more about surviving the virus and zombies, finding a cure and exacting revenge. And of course Milla Jovovich kicks a lot of zombie butt in the form of man, dog and bird.

In my opinion, although it's been said there will only be three films, they left it open for the possibility of more. Overall, I loved it and am looking forward to seeing it on DVD.

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Topic Links
* Resident Evil: Extinction

30 Wanna Movie Hottie: 12

One of my favorite serial movies is releasing the third instalment today and it stars this week's Wanna Movie Hottie - Oded Fehr as Carlos Olivera. As you remember, because I know you've been following along, I featured another movie hottie from another Resident Evil film (Wanna Movie Hottie: 8). The Resident Evil trilogy is one of my favorite. I just can't get enough of Milla (a whole other story).

Oded, who I just watched get hanged in Texas Rangers last night was born in Tel Aviv, Israel in 1970. I've never really seen him in any lead roles but he usually plays memorable supporting roles. Like Ardeth Bay from The Mummy and The Mummy Returns, Zankou from Charmed, and Antoine Laconte from Deuce Bigalow.

It's amazing what locks of hair can do for a person. He is most recognized when he has shoulder length hair and a bit of fur on his face. He lives a pretty incognito life these days but I'm sure that will change with the release of Extinction. We're going to go see it tonight so I'll let you know how wonderfully scary it was tomorrow.

The Basics: The 6'2" actor is married and has two children. He speaks three languages: Hebrew, English and German. He studied acting in both England and Germany. Like most men from Israel he served for his country in the Israeli Navy.

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Topic Links
* The Mummy
* Resident Evil: Apocalypse
* Resident Evil: Extinction

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Messing is a Ball

Tonight I was watched a documentary about Lucille Ball. And you know who kept coming to mind throughout it? Debra Messing. I kept seeing Debra's face, her eyes, her smile... her wit. So I decided to go look at some pictures of the two to let you decide. Here's what I found:








The pictures really don't do it for me but I wanted to do it anyway. I also switched them all to black and white because of the differences in red hair. Now before you judge go watch a Debra Messing episode from Will & Grace and then an episode of I Love Lucy. Report back.

One True Thing

I never heard of the movie One True Thing but when I saw it starred Renee Zellweger and Meryl Streep I PVR'd it. It was released in 1998 (two years after Jerry McGuire) when Renee looked and acted normal. She plays Ellen Gulden (or Ellie as her family calls her), a moxie journalist living in New York. She goes home to visit her family for the holidays and finds out her mother has cancer. Her father demands that she give up everything to move back home and take care of her mother. Because she adores her father she does it.

It is beautifully filmed and acted. Without giving too much information, One True Thing is filmed from the perspective of Ellen as she's being interviewed by a lawyer about her mother's death. Her flashbacks are quite different from the words coming out of her mouth.

Ellie's mother has always been more of a silly inconvenience to her. As she begins to get to know her mother and see her father through adult eyes she realizes she has missed out on a truly fabulous woman. If you haven't seen this film you owe it to yourself to watch it. It is an interesting, entertaining and emotionally moving film.

Gilmore Girls starlet, Lauren Graham makes an appearance as the loyal best friend, Tom Everett Scott plays Ellen's impressionable brother and William Hurt her professor father. The film is based on the book by the same name written by Anna Quindlen. After watching it I consider it one of Renee's and Meryl's best films.

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Topic Links
* Read more about One Sure Thing at Amazon.com
* Read more about One True Thing at Amazon.ca

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Dog Guilt

About three days after we got home from our trip Shelby started limping. Jeff and I have various theories on the cause of this, none of which are the same as the other's. We've been alternating between leashing her in the back yard and letting her roam free like she usually does. I took her to the vet Monday morning and after a few hours of debate on what we should do I brought her home with instructions to tie her up so she wasn't chasing squirrels, birds, air, etc.

On Friday she seemed to be doing much better, only limping occasionally if she'd been lying down for a while (even I do that). So when I let her out to do her business I let her do her own thing. She immediately caught sight of a squirrel and went racing at it. I swear she can run 40km a hour. And skidded to a stop across the back (because there's a fence).

This is where the guilt comes in. She could barely walk today. And when she goes to get up from the lying down position she winces and whines in pain. She doesn't put any pressure on her front paw and when she sits she keeps it raised and close to her body. Of course, Jeff is devastated by this. He took her to the vet and they x-rayed her shoulder and elbow this morning. The vet didn't seem to think there was any arthritis but was going to send the results to a technologist to read. To do the x-rays they had to sedate her. From what Jeff says they also had to manipulate her injured leg quite a bit. So she was in even more pain when she came home. Because of the drugs she was also quite pathetic looking. She couldn't keep her legs from sliding out from under her. Jeff was carrying her everywhere (I'm sure his back will be sore tomorrow).

Had I kept her on the leash like I was suppose to she wouldn't have re-injured herself so badly. Bad mommy! Can you imagine if I had kids. "Sure, Johnny, go play in the traffic." UGh!!

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

I Wanna Read... Prisoner of Tehran

I watched an interview with Marina Nemat on The Hour tonight (Podcasts rock) and was moved and interested in reading more about her and her experience. It's so easy to get caught up in our own lives that we forget people are suffering elsewhere.

Prisoner of Tehran is a memoir by Marina Nemat about her childhood in Iran, specifically when she was arrested for having a contrary opinion or as she put it, she was sick of the propaganda they were being force fed at school. She was 16 when she was carted away and tortured.

At one point she was taken, blindfolded with three other prisoners out to a deserted location where she realized she was going to be executed. In a freakish twist of fate a car showed up, distributed a slip of paper and she was taken from the scene.

***
Topic Links
* Purchase Prisoner of Tehran from Amazon.com
* Purchase Prisoner of Tehran from Amazon.ca

Monday, September 10, 2007

More Squidooing

I added two more lenses to my Squidoo profile. I'm trying to expand the Curvy Chics one by creating a lens for each person mentioned so I can link between them. Sneaky eh? Not really.

Velvet d'Amour
Joy Nash
Plus Size Bras
Plus Size Halloween Costumes
M.E. Wood

I'm working on another one for 10 places to see in canada before you die. Did I say that one already?

I told you I'm addicted. Want to make your own?

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Back to School

Jeff is back to school as of yesterday. Things went pretty smoothly for the first day. He seems to have made a seamless adjustment back into working. He seemed to be dreading it for the last week but I think he's over it. I'm glad to have the space but at the same time I was just getting use to having him around all the time.

I wanted to test out blogger's new video feature so I found a short clip from our RVing trip when we stayed at Rushing River Provincial Park. The loud noise you hear isn't static. It's a combination of the water noise and wind. I'm amazed at the clarity of the image because it was 10 o'clock at night.

Saturday, September 01, 2007

Refinancing the Mortgage

With the mortgage interest rates pretty much increasing every month and no sign that things will go in our favour, Jeff and I decided to get out of our open mortgage which doesn't have a fixed rate, in favour of a closed fixed. We didn't do any shopping around but chose to stay with CIBC who we have been more-or-less happy with for a number of years.

We still had to go through the whole negotiating for a good price and we are happy with the five year term rate we were offered (it's confidential, and besides I don't want to hear if you got a better one).

In another 6 years 9 months it will be all ours! Wahoo! Hard to believe. For those of you out there thinking of buying a house for the first time or in the process... it doesn't get any easier to renegotiate it. Sheesh. It takes weeks. We've had three visits with our mortgage specialist. And finally signed the papers this week.

Just in time for Jeff to go back to school!