Update on the purse

- Still missing. Tried calling my cell phone number, no one answered. Sent it a text message with my mom's work number just in case some non-thief wants to return it.
- Met mom at the train station and got into my apartment. Luckily I have spare keys already, so she just had to let me in. As Matt mentioned in an email to me, I totally spaced on remembering that the landlady could let me in - she's hardly ever in her office, and I have bad memories of my old landlord (whenever I called her for anything, she'd swear at me... long story).
- Big thanks to Matt for phoning the LTC and reporting it stolen. I only have 10 min breaks in between classes in which to relocate, plug in computer, check/send emails, get food/go to the bathroom, etc. By the time I realized it was missing I only had one of those breaks left. I was able to borrow a friend's cell phone and attempted calling the LTC and my mom at work but no answer on either counts - so I resorted to a last minute email to Matt before my internet access was cut off. So thankfully he phoned and left them his number in case it turns up.

Anyways, fingers crossed that it turns up tomorrow. And in the meantime I am only reachable via email and msn.

Oh silly purse, stop wandering away

I seem to have left my purse on the bus this morning. I'm really hoping I can recover it because if not it means having to purchase/deal with getting: a new cell phone, key copies, garage remote, and actual purse. My phone is pretty old, and it was free to me, so I didn't actually lose something valuable but replacing it is bound to be expensive.

Fortunately, as you can see, this could be a lot worse but I had removed my iPod this morning because the battery had died (otherwise it would still be in there) and a few other items worth about $30 had been tangled on the iPod headphones and in my morning rush been removed as well.

I also keep all my wallet-type things (money, credit card, ID) in with my bus pass which, thank god, I had put into my coat pocket.

So all in all, hassley, but not as hassley as it could have been. I've appealed to my mommy to call the LTC and stay at work a bit later today so I can pick up her spare keys.

The HFPA was stupid this year

Sometimes they're good, other times not so much. My biggest gripes:

- Babel was 1/10th as good as the Departed.
- Leo didn't win anything cause he split his votes with himself! Poor pretty man.
- Ugly Betty is not funny.
- Nothing was funnier than Borat.
- Cars was terrible.
- Everything was as most pop culture-ites / critics predicted - no surprises, how boring.
- Volver or Pan's should have won Best Foreign Film ... stop allowing Hollywood-produced movies to be included in this category just because they have subtitles. You're the foreign press association for god sake!

Ugh.

Itchy

Apparently, tanning dries out your skin so much that unless you moisturize 5 times a day you're incredibly itchy all over. Now I wish it were just my foot that itched!

One thing I will NOT miss about London...

the crappy movie selection! Granted, things have been much better for the past few years with the Hyland and Rainbow art series. I have memberships/packs for both, and definitely get my money's worth every year.

But I happened across the listings for the theater near my dad in Toronto (ok I check the TO listings every week just to see what I'm missing):

BLOOD DIAMOND (14A) 12:20 3:40 6:55 10:25

CASNO ROYALE (PG) 11:55 AM 3:05 6:50 10:20

DREIAMGIRLS (PG) 12:35 3:30 6:40 9:50

THE GOOD SHEPHERD (14A) 1:00 4:30 8:15

LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA (14A) 12:00 3:10 6:30 10:05

NOTES ON A SCANDAL (14A) 12:10 2:30 5:00 7:30 10:00

PAN'S LABYRINTH (14A) 12:40 4:00 7:10 10:10

PERFUME: THE STORY OF A MURDERER (14A) 12:30 3:50 7:20 10:30


Not a bad film in the bunch! Honestly, this wider range of film selection is probably the BIGGEST thing I am looking forward to with regards to moving to Toronto full time.

This Post Brought to You by the University of Phoenix Online!

In response to Matt's comment on the "Soundbites" post:

Well, in my defense, I usually do post links rather than full articles. But in this case, the source material definitely warranted its own post (rather than one featuring a jumble of links) in terms of length, interestingness, and scope of appeal. I did actually think twice about it, but more in terms of giving them credit rather than the ad revenue shtuff. I figured a byline was good enough for the following reasons:

a) I voted in 75% of these polls - implying that I am certainly an avid (daily) reader and active participant on their site, and have given them lots of free publicity (regardless of actual size of my often non-existent readership) and "clicks" on this site alone.
b) Sure they compiled these quotes and created the polls, but the real people responsible for any chuckles you may have had were Conan O'Brien, Jon Stewat, David Letterman, etc.
c) By far the majority of Entertainment Weekly's revenues come from their magazine; the website is more of a supplement. That's why you'll find lots of articles free of charge and with really very little ads blocking your view.
d) As James mentioned in his post, there are lots of ways to get around advertising these days. Personally I think the amount of it out there is morally reprehensible and a good reflection of our society.

But in case you are still a little wound-up over this business of paying (in some way, shape, or form) for anything you received benefit from, here's what you missed:

CLICK ME!

CLICK ME!

Much Music is Stupid

Not that this is a new epiphany, but it came to my attention in particular today as watching their rendition of the "Top 100 Videos EVER". This isn't a VH1 or even MTV list, so I wasn't expecting to see the usual list-toppers like Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer, Michael Jackson's Thriller, Madonna's Like a Prayer, A-Ha's Take On Me, etc. This is a fair allowance, seeing as the majority of Much Music's viewers (aged 13-18) wouldn't have ever seen these videos before.

BUT, I didn't even recognize half of the videos! And it's only been a couple years since I gave up on following current music closely. Approximately 70% of the videos were from the last 2 years. COME ON, this is pathetic. I would have hoped for a better range of videos from maybe 1990 onwards? Or even just the last 10 years! You know, a little Freedom, Virtual Insanity, 1979, Ironic, Sabotage, Waterfalls, Loser, Smells Like Teen Spirit, etc. To give you a taste of just how bad this list was, the top 5:

5. Work it, Missy Elliott
4. Dirrty, Christina Aguilera
3. Cry Me a River, Justin Timberlake (this one is actually pretty great, regardless of your opinion of the song or artist ... IMO)
2. Baby One More Time, Britney Spears (also deserving of a spot, for a much music list anyways)
1. Stan, Eminem (stupid)

I'm thinking I should start a new label for my posts called "Grievances". That foot post got me thinking about it.

Noisy Neighbours

At least 2 boys live next door to me in my apartment building. One works across the street at the Radisson (?) hotel as a bellhop. I know because one time in the elevator he was talking about how he had lent his tie to a hotel patron. Earlier this year (Sept onwards) they'd been fairly noisy, often playing loud music and yelling. The walls are pretty thin here and even though the elevators are between us it seems my bedroom is right next to their living room. I could sometimes even make out the actual words they were saying, if that's any indication.

So around October I ran into the bellhop in the elevator again, and when he saw we were getting off on the same floor, he asked which unit I lived in. He was quite dismayed when I told him, as apparently his group had thought they were neighbourless. He promised they would keep it down in the future, and to just pop over if they were being too loud. And, surprisingly, this has been very true - generally quite quiet over there for the last few months.

Then a few days ago there was some sort of raucous fight between multiple boys around 8am. Lots of swearing, yelling, door slamming, etc. Then one screamed that he had to go to work and it ended. Well, they seem to be having a lot of trouble over there lately, as last night around 3am they got into it again, this time with a girl doing most of the screaming. Luckily I'm a fairly sound sleeper, not easily annoyed, and don't have to get up at any certain time these days.

My foot

really, really itches. It's quite a bother.

Celebrities Don't Need More Money

I believe Matt (?) mentioned how the gift bags at the Oscars are no more. This is a little ray of hope.

After we watched Ice Age 2 the other night (Mom's decision), I got to thinking about an article I had read a while back. It consisted of interviews with various cartoon voice actors complaining about the recent wave of celebrity voices. Up until the Shrek era, it was quite uncommon for a Hollywood star to voice a character in an animated film. After all, the skills needed for each type of work are quite different.

Lately all of these 'original' voice talents have been getting no work due to Raymond, Eddie Murphy, Queen Latifah, etc. stealing it all. It seems these Hollywood types really get a kick out of not having to get all made up, and perhaps starring in something that their children can appreciate. It seems nowadays that even the minor characters are being voiced by celebrities. Watched the Ice Age 2 credits, it seemed only characters with 1 line were given to a 'pedestrian'. Personally, I'm not a big fan of this. Sometimes it's useful and appropriate to have a Mike Meyers as a Shrek character, but most of the time (re: Queen Latifah...) it just distracts. And now I feel bad for all these out-of-work voice actors who were probably not making much to begin with.

Avoided the plague ... sort of

I'm mostly all better now after an untimely illness struck me down at 4am on the 22nd and kept me in bed until the 26th. I still feel awfully weak; noticeable when I went to wash my sheets this morning and it took a good 5 minutes to get one pillow case off. And then I had to lie down for a bit. Is this what it's like for really old people to keep house? Because that would be really frusterating.

I hate being sick, as do most people I imagine. But it was nice to not have to worry about missing school, and being easily taken care of by people who had already taken those days off.

Annoyed

That with my new blog layout, it's so difficult to see the things that I've bolded! Basically the bolded text looks just like the regular stuff. See the Lost post below for example. Suggestions?

I also don't like how narrow the posts appear on the screen with inches upon inches of empty space at the sides. Talk about inefficient.

Furthermore, where is the left pane? I want a left pane jeez! All my lists take up far too much room on the right side and it would be great to spread them out a little.

EA Games helps keep me unsatisfied

Say what you will about my generation and our tendencies towards instant gratification and selfishness, but consider that this behavior is really just a construction of the changes in our society as a whole. I do not think it is theoretically possible for billions of people of the same age to willingly change their attitudes all at the same time. So, really it's not our fault it's yours (not you, specifically) for encouraging the shifts in values that have in turn changed the structures that influence our behavior.

Anyways, that little social-psych babble is really just a prelude to my real beef which is with The Sims. I recently purchased an expansion pack which allows your Sims to play with little kitties and doggies (and budgies and hamsters and fishies). Upon excitedly tearing open the packaging, I noticed a small one-page flyer drop out. For a change, it was advertising something actually related to the game I had just purchased, and not Metal Men 3 or some other nonsense.

However, it was an advertisement for the NEXT Sims expansion pack. Not the current one, not one that I can go out and buy in-stores already, but one that doesn't even have a name or a set release date. But the colorful advertisements promises dozens of new key features that guess what - I want now! My satisfaction of the game, even with my new Pets expansion pack, has been greatly diminished by my new ability to imagine in precise detail what these new features will be like. Argh.

Life is hard without Roger

Ebert, that is. I used to check his website every Friday because it would always be updated with his full reviews of all films opening that weekend. Recently he's been struck down by life and hospitalized. He's now recovering and seems to be quite on the mend as he has posted 3 reviews recently.

I miss him so much because we have uncannily similar taste in movies. I think around 95 times out of 100 I will rate a movie within a half a star of what he gave it. Sometimes we disagree, (The Aviator comes to mind!) but that happens once in a blue moon. We do tend to have wildly different "Best of the year" movie lists, but he likes the weird stuff a bit more than I do.

Anyways to not have him around has left me completely stranded in the cinematic world. Trailers help, as does knowing who is attached to a movie. For instance I love both Sofia Coppola and Christopher Nolan's films so I instantly have interest in seeing Marie Antoinette and The Prestige. But, appearances can be deceiving, so until I am given advice by an authority I truly trust it is hard to know whether these are worth seeing. Now, I generally try to see most of the films in "Oscar season" so thankfully it's not like I have to make that many decisions really.

Because darn is it hard to find agreement among reviewers about what to see. Some will say it's a masterpiece, others will vouch that it is completely not worth your time. One easy pick was The Departed which scored an 85 on Metacritic, meaning it has extremely universal praise. It also helped that a couple of friends who I respect really loved it.

So who to trust? Basically you have to find someone that you share the same taste with (even a friend) who sees a lot of movies. And luckily, I had 100% found this in Ebert. I tried desperately to find a replacement for him while he's been ill. In fact, I went to all the trouble of statistically compiling scores found on Metacritic of some highly polarizing movies and comparing cumulative reviewer scores with my own rankings (a very complicated process... there were spreadsheets involved).

But, alas, no one even came close to matching me. Many critics are too hard on the movies and I find myself thinking "wow you just really didn't get it, did you!" In terms of real life people, Luke has pretty good taste in movies but doesn't often see them before I do. The parental units generally have great taste too, especially in older movies to expose me to. Though again, they usually won't see new releases before me, and they have made some questionable choices in the past (The Ring and Million Dollar Baby come to mind for opposite reasons)... and obviously they would think I had made some poor calls too! This is why I was so lucky to have Ebert.

Alas! what is a girl to do except for watch a lot of trailers, sift through the buzz and try to determine on her own what movies are worth her $10. SIGH!