Larocque and Roll

Vague Oscar content February 28, 2005

I usually don’t watch the Oscars, mostly because it bores me. I think I watched them last year because I had just got back from a road trip or was leaving on one the next day (something like that). This year, I went to an Oscar party and had a blast. Some observations:

The red carpet show was only interesting in that we got to critique what everyone was wearing. The general consensus was that Johnny Depp didn’t look as quirky as usual.

Star Jones should not have worn a dress with a back that low. She’s lost a lot of weight, but she’s still a bit saggy and the dress really emphasized that.

Mike Myers looks orange-ish. Lay off the tanning lotion!

Chris Rock was very good and behaved himself. Well, except when he was dissing people who weren’t there. I don’t think he would have gotten away with the Russell Crowe bit if Russell Crowe (who I loathe) had actually been there.

What criteria did they use to decide which awards would be presented on stage and which awards would be presented in the audience? There didn’t seem to be a theme.

“… comedy stylings of Jeremy Irons.” Hee! I’ve seen his outfit variously describes as Jesuit robes and something that could comfortably worn at the dojo. I thought it looked snazzy.

Beyonce has a terrible French accent. Almost everyone at the party spoke French to some degree or another, and we universally agreed that she sucked. As pointed out by the Vidiots, why couldn’t they have used Johnny Depp’s wife?

Robin Williams - hee!

What in god’s name is that thing on Adam Duritz’s head? It looks like some kind of freaky atomic tarantula perched up there. We also admired the moxie of the guitarist wearing the “I (heart) Scarlett” t-shirt.

Speaking of Scarlett, who cares?

There is a woman sitting in Sidney Lumet’s box with the most enormous boobies. She’s applauding wildly, and they aren’t moving, which lead us to believe that they are fake.

Oh, lordy - it’s Beyonce again. And we like the fact that the Phantom is running away from her. Hee!

Sure, send out Penelope Cruz and Salma Hayek together and make me feel twice as fat and ugly. Thanks Academy!

Antonio! So lovely!

Strapless dresses seem to be the thing this year.

Josh Groben is cute. Beyonce… not so much. Enough with her already!

Yay Yo-Yo Ma! Farewell, Jerry Orbach! I’ll miss you the most!

Prince is a pretty, pretty man. He has a very feline face. (I had a dream about him last night. Karen’s friend Kris was doing his taxes, and we weren’t allowed to be seen by him while he was at her house, so we had to hide in the laundry room. Which sounds like something that might happen in real life.)

Shut up, Sean Penn. Seriously, you have no sense of humour and I question your sobriety at that moment. Did you really sit in your seat for the whole show stewing about that remark Chris Rock made about Jude Law? You probably did, and spent the better part of that time thinking of a snappy comeback. Alas it fell flat, and somewhere out there Jude Law is shaking his head and thinking, “Dude, you are so not the person I want defending me. Shut up.”

[Update 03/01: I heard tonight that Penn is starring in a movie with Law, hence Penn’s comments. Still, “Shut up, Sean Penn,” and throw in an eye roll for good measure.]

The rest of the show was pretty uneventful. Props to Jamie Foxx and Clint Eastwood, and better luck next time to Martin Scorsese.

Another book I didn’t buy February 26, 2005

I forgot to mention that I also completely failed to purchase My New Fighting Technique is Unstoppable on Friday afternoon. Don’t be fooled by its length and simple and uncomplicated illustrations. This book packs a punch! (Also? I’m not afraid to make a fool of myself by laughing hysterically in the middle of Chapters. Just so you know.)

Beware the Melties!

Obviously, I’m in a chatty mood tonight. Could be brain hibernation thing. Could be the fatigue. Could be the cranberry juice and vodka.

Steve the First. Certainly the funniest thing I’ve heard on the CBC lately. Naturally, Don McKellar is involved, but so is Mark McKinney.

Anyways, it’s on at 11:30 tomorrow morning on Radio 1. Do yourself a favour and listen if you are able.

What’s in your wallet?

Earlier this week, the Hot Librarian (who never fails to leave me laughing so hard I gasp for air - she’s that funny!) was musing about what women keep in their purses and how it says something about them. What we carry in our purses is probably insight into what we value, or things we can’t let go of. Purses are also memory repositories - remember that trip to Lettuce Knits, and how crazy cool Kensington Market was? Well, the receipt is right here, and the memories are coming back. What we carry in our purses is also indicative of what kind of emergencies - medical, cosmetic, or other - we are prepared to deal with.

Or, it could just mean that I don’t clean out my purse all that often, and I must have a brick in there somewhere because it weighs a ton.

• Wallet, naturally. Library card, Subway coupons, Blockbuster card, the usual suspects. The unexpected - a $10 credit for The Bookworm, a used bookstore in St. Catharines where I’ve had a credit slip for the last fifteen years or so (when it gets low, I just bring them a box of books I don’t want anymore and replenish my credit). A ticket stub from when I went to see Fantasia 2000 at the Imax in Bayer’s Lake. A receipt from the Clay Cafe. A discount card for Disc Go Round, a new and used CD store in Halifax. (Hey Phillip - do you want this? I won’t be back anytime soon, alas.)
• Cellphone. I lost my password, so I can’t check my message. Sorry to the person who left it - I’m not intentionally avoiding you, unless you are the collection agency who’s trying to get in touch with the person who had the number before me.
• Tissues, because I sneeze a lot.
• Hydrocortisone cream. I am genuinely puzzled by this - how did this get here, and when did I think I would have a rash emergency (ha ha) that would require this? Obviously, it’s something I must have thrown in there on my way to work one morning, when I am not at my best (obviously).
• Altoids, the curiously strong mints. Mmmmm!
• Name tag from the OLA conference. Why haven’t I taken this out yet?
• Notebook and pen to write down random stray thoughts that occur to me when I’m out and about, such as things I shouldn’t forget to bring with me to Sudbury, potential taglines for my blog (what do you think of “It’s Dewey Decimal-riffic!”?), and the middle three books in the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series, with years of publication and ISBN so I can (eventually) order them through interlibrary loan.
• Lip stuff. Burt’s Bees Beeswax Lip Balm, which is superfantastic. Body Shop Cranberry Lip Balm, which is sparkly. And a Lancome Iced Cranberry Juicy Tube, which I like but is kind of messy to put on.
• Burt’s Bees Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream to keep my cuticles moisturized. Otherwise, they look hideous.
• Buttons (the kind you sew) from Courage, My Love. They’re funky, one-of-a-kind things that I forgot were there. Huh.
• receipts from half a dozen places, none of them very exciting.
• A phone number on a slip of paper. Oh dear, I don’t remember getting this. I hope I was having fun when I got it. (No, wait - it’s someone in the book club’s phone number.)
• A government bond. Geez, I thought I had taken that out of there.
• My income tax assessment form from last year. Ah - that explains things. No, seriously - I went to the bank to do some banky things and needed those two forms.

Well, a good half of that junk is coming out. I need to take my car to Canadian Tire tomorrow, and I need to make room for books to read while I wait (hopefully not three hours).

Friday night mind-dump February 25, 2005

I’ve just finished a really intense week, where you have to sit still for hours at a time. No checking your email or switching tasks or playing with your hula hoop when you need a break.

(I know - I heard the collective “…..hula hoop? WTF?” Yes, I have a hula hoop in my office for when moments of writer’s block set in, or when I need to be distracted.)

So, my brain has kind of gone into hibernation. I was in need of retail therapy this afternoon, so off to my favourite enabler - Chapters!

What I got (Magical Thinking, Choice: The Best of Reason) is not so notable as what I didn’t get.

• Busted Flush, the latest by Brad Smith, whose All Hat was pretty a good novel about racing and real estate, set around my hometown.
• Bellydance, by Dolphina, who has some excellent tapes about bellydancing.
• Haunted hillbilly by Derek McCormack, a story about Hank Williams and a vampire - it’s actually quite good.
• Sarah by J.T. LeRoy, mostly because I couldn’t find it.
• Various manga, mostly because I couldn’t remember which ones TangognaT has been recommending lately.

Sellevision and Running with Scissors went to Thunder Bay with a collegue, who has been instructed to read them and pass them along. It was only after she left that I recalled telling my mother I’d bring them home for her to read. Rats!

Oh, also - good luck to Team Jakubo at the Canadian Men’s Curling Championship in Edmonton next week. They’re the team representing Northern Ontario and they’re based out of the same club where I curl on Monday nights. One of the guys on the team totally laughed his ass off at me when I ended up sprawled all over the ice the first time I tried to curl back in October. (I was killing myself too, and he made sure I was okay before cracking up.) Good luck, guys! SWEEP! HURRY HARD!

I always thought she was after Shaggy February 22, 2005

A bit of fun.

They say it’s your birthday! Happy Birthday to you!

You can’t play cards without the Joker February 19, 2005

Tonight is my grandparents’ card party, which they hold every year to celebrate their anniversary (which was actually last Saturday. Happy 17th!) They invite all their friends and family for an evening of eating, drinking, and progressive euchre. There are prizes for the top three scores, the lowest score, and the most euchres. My dad has, in back-to-back years, won all three. Door prizes are also given out, and then we have dinner, usually around midnight.

This is the first year in a few years that I’m missing it. Us kids weren’t always allowed to go - it’s only since I was finishing up my undergrad that my sisters and I started showing up. Partly because it’s a raucous time, partly because they didn’t want to invite my sisters without inviting me. They wanted to make sure I understood the game before they’d let me come to the card parties.

See, I’m terrible with the rules games. From the time I was in elementary school (”Okay, so if the bottle is pointing at me, do I kiss the person next to me or across from me?”) until I went away to grad school (”Okay, so if I’ve ‘never never’ done something do I drink, or do I drink if I have?”) it’s always taken several very patient people to explain the most elementary guidelines of any game. Sports, I can pick it up quickly. Show me how to do something on the computer or with knitting needles, and I get it. Card games? Not so much.

It started when my sister Denise got really bored one afternoon when we were about 9 and 10. Denise already knew how to play the game, and wanted to play with someone. Both my parents were busy, and Rachelle was too young, so that left me. Except I didn’t know how to play, so she was going to have to teach me how.

Now, Denise is really good at teaching people how to do things. I present a unique challenge to her abilities both because I’m her sister and I don’t catch on to the rules of card games very quickly. The lesson quickly dissolved to the point where both my parents had to come and separate us, so it was decided that now was not a good time to teach me.

(Another funny story about Denise and I playing games: when we were little and playing hide-and-seek, my dad could hide me in the best spots in the house and Denise would still find me right away because I couldn’t stop giggling. My dad put Denise on the kitchen counter with a cereal box in front of her, and I’d walk by her fifty times before my mother pointed her out to me.)

Eventually, I did learn how to play, but it was years before people stopped asking, “Are you following suit? If you have trump, play it.” Or, “Why did you play the bower on that queen? You should have used your king and saved the bower.” I’m not a bad player now, but I still have the tendency to go alone with not much in my hand, or to pass when I could order someone up.

Also not attending - my dad. He had a tooth pulled, and is home watching “Gladiator” and like me, is cursing Gary Bettman and the NHL.

Err… oops

Sorry if you checked in here this morning and found the background to be either grey or one of several other shades of green or pink while I tried to figure out what the background colour used to be. I was playing with the template of what I thought was my test blog (which is my NaNoWriMo blog, kept up for the express purpose of fudging about with the template) last night, but turns out was the template for my main blog. I guess I was so tired that I didn’t notice I’d ftp’d the wrong file to myself.

(Thanks to my mom, who emailed me this morning to point this out.)

Tagged for a meme February 18, 2005

Just before lunch, I checked Bloglines to see if there was anything new and interesting. And came across this:

5. Three peeps to pass this on to?

Anna and Carol, because they both manage to say astute things about teevee. And Rebecca, because she really needs to close that book and turn on the television.

Oh Amanda, we’ve never met in person but how well you know me (I did pass you a few times at the OLA conference, but I didn’t get a chance to say “Hi!”)

1. How much space is left on your TiVO or Comcast box?

Well, I don’t have one of those doohickeys, nor do I have the Canadian equivalent. I suspect that if I did, I’d be recording every program that piques my interest. I know I’d be recording Sugar every day, and probably Mythbusters. For certain, I’d be recording Rick Mercer’s Monday Report and Corner Gas, both of which are on while I’m at curling.

2. Have you ever bought a DVD of a tv series and if so which one?

Yes - I have Firefly and season 1 of Futurama. As well, I have a couple of episodes of The Muppet Show on DVD.

3. What was the last tv show you watched before reading this message?

Last night I watched CSI. I wasn’t really interested in ER and there wasn’t anything else on that made me want to leave it on.

4. List five shows you wonÂ’’t miss:

That’s a hard question. I turn the tv on a lot and flip channels, mostly watching whatever happens to be on Food TV or Space, but it’s mostly background noise for whatever I happen to be doing at the time.

There aren’t a lot of shows I make an effort to sit down and watch. Lost would be one such show, A Cook’s Tour is another, Battlestar Galactica a third, and CSI. If I remember, I try to watch Farscape reruns on Sunday afternoons, and Iron Chef America on Sunday nights.

5. Three peeps to pass this on to?

Let’s see… Denise because she’s my sister, Jamie because she needs something to distract her from worrying about Thor (her cat - he’ll be fine!), and the tinylittlelibrarian because she’s a fellow librarian and bookworm.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go finish reading my book