Fill in the _____ Friday

1. When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do is...swear at who/whatever woke me up or snooze my alarm clock. 
2. I can hardly wait for... moving into our new place! July. Feels like forever.
3. The quickest way to my heart is...sarcasm...because...who doesn't like sarcasm? The way to stay there is to be straight with me and treat me fairly. Trust is a huge thing to me, and if you lose it, it's gone. I'll always admit when I've done something wrong, and I don't like being blamed for other people's shit. </rant>
4. A little-known fact about me is that...Though I really don't like football AT ALL, I love football movies. Specifically Remember the Titans, The Blind Side and Any Given Sunday. Don't ask me why; I really couldn't tell ya.
5. The best part about my job it... the people. Hands down.
6. Something I just can't live without is... a shower every morning. If I don't have one, I feel gross and don't really wake up properly for the rest of the day. Needless to say, I'm not a big camper.
7. Something useful that I wish I knew how to do is... service (or better yet, rebuild) car engines. Or any engines, for that matter. I'd love to be mechanical, I like knowing how things work and it's great to know what's wrong or when things need to be fixed - nevermind being able to do it yourself!

And, as always, a huge thanks to Lauren at The Little Things We Do for the blanks! Head on over, check her out, and link up!

Wicked Wednesday - The Asteroids Galaxy Tour - "Golden Age"

I don't know why, but I really dig this:



Oh, right, that's why. Fun song, interesting choreography and.... Heineken. Yeah, that's really all it takes.

Ten on Tuesday

Don't die of shock, but it's actually Tuesday, too!

1. I want to go back to sleep.

2. If I drank coffee, today would be a ten coffee day.

3. Sunday was Earth Day. I hope y'all got extra environmental.



4. This week is the last week our intern will be working with us. I've grown very fond of her, and I am now sad she's leaving. :-(

5. I am participating in a blog swap with Lin from Linny's Vault, and I finally got hers in the mail last week. I've now discovered that waiting for her to receive it is torture. Will it get lost in the mail? Will she like it? Oh, the suspense.

6. I think I need a vacation. I've been spending a lot of time lately fantasizing about what it would be like to be independently wealthy and be able to spend my time doing volunteer work, reading, taking random classes, earning multiple degrees, and becoming overall a very smart person. Of course, if I actually were independently wealthy, I'd spend all my time watching bad TV in my bathrobe and eating Cheerios. But a girl can dream.

7. I am stressed. I know this because I have suddenly developed irrepressible urges to eat ridiculous amounts of chocolate and potato chips.

8.  I *may* have gotten a little carried away with book shopping lately. I bought three yesterday and then went home to discover four in the mailbox. I'm pretty sure J. will notice them piling up soon, and it will undo all the brownie points I earned getting rid of those 5 boxes last month....

Maybe he'll forgive me if I use them to build one of these:

9. Speaking of books, I've been really into reading book blogs lately. One of my favourites is Book Riot. It has all sorts of interesting posts, including libraries of the rich and famous (part one and part two), reviews, opinion columns and various other fun book-related stuff! Check them out!

10. And because there must be laughter:

Fill in the _____ Friday

1. Today is a great day because... it's bright and sunny! Oh, and it's Friday, just in case that doesn't go without saying.
2. Tomorrow I will... read and tidy up the house. Hopefully sort through some books and clothes to get rid of. Maybe go shopping for some new work pants. If I can handle the mall. On second thought, scratch that.
3. My favourite time of day is... that depends if it's weekday or weekend. If it's weekday, going home time. If it's weekend, probably just before lunch when I'm properly awake, but still have most of the day stretching out before me.
4. Sometimes you just have to... let things go. Even if they're not fair, even if they make you mad. They're just not worth hanging onto.
5. A song that I just can't get enough of lately is... hmmmm. I haven't really been listening to music that much lately, but I do like the newest Florence + the Machine album.
6. My favourite accessory is... I always have the same earrings in because they're those larger gage hoops with pop-in beads, and my nosering doesn't really come out either. Plus my medic alert bracelet and my watch... and that's about it, really. Unless you count bobby pins? Or tattoos?
7. My favourite thing about this week was... well I had a pretty good week - got a new place with J. and spent a lot of time chatting with Lin from Linny's Vault, who is, in a word, AWESOME. Also the Canucks avoided a sweep and won their first out of four playoff games so far against the LA Kings. That definitely didn't suck.

 As always, thanks to Lauren @ The Little Things We Do for the blanks!

Ten on Tuesday

1. One thing that drives me nuts about Blogger is that it keeps flipping back to tracking my pageviews, no matter how many times I switch it to "Don't track your page views." This annoys me so deeply that if you have a fix, I almost don't want you to tell me because I have begun to like complaining about it.

2. This amused me:



3. The mini pie situation has not yet resolved itself. If anything, the cravings have gotten worse.

4. The weather roller coaster we're on here is making me dizzy. This morning it was cloudy when I left home. By the time I got to work it was freezing, windy and pouring with rain. Now it is very sunny and I don't have my sunglasses. I think the climate is off its meds.

5. I'm sad that I finished the Hunger Games. Nothing else I'm trying to read is as absorbing. *sigh*

6. I'm doing a blog swap with Lin from Linny's Vault, and I finally have her package ready to put in the mail tomorrow! Can't wait for her to get it!

7. So much work to do this week, on top of trying to read strata minutes for a place we're probably buying and trying not to be overly anxious about....well, everything. Need vacation, stat.

8. Finally got Instagram for Android on my phone. What's the big deal? I don't really get it.

9. You know that saying about not going grocery shopping when you're hungry because you'll buy too much stuff? Well I have yet to find any set of circumstances under which I can go into a MAC store or a Chapters and not come out having bought too much stuff. Even on a full stomach.

10. Tomorrow night is game 4 of the first round of hockey playoffs. The Canucks are playing the LA Kings and are down by 3. It's very stressful and upsetting. Apparently Daniel Sedin (for those of you who don't follow hockey, two of Vancouver's top players are twins Daniel and Henrik Sedin), who has been out due to a concussion, will be on the ice again tonight. We're all hoping he'll keep us from being unceremoniously and prematurely knocked out of the playoffs.

Ten on Tuesday

I have been slowly adding points to the same Ten on Tuesday post since the last time I actually finished a Ten on Tuesday post.... back in March. That's how lazy I've become. *hangs head* 

It's now Friday, since I completely missed Tuesday this week after having a holiday on Monday and losing track of the days. Since I've been such a delinquent blogger of late, I might as well just post it on a Friday. Clearly that's the only way it's ever going to happen! You will notice notes added in italics in points 1-7. These are updates to points I wrote anywhere from one to three weeks ago. Hey, better late than never, right? Just say yes.

1. I have seasonal allergies. This does not please me. (If anything, this situation has gotten worse.)

2. I went to see The Hunger Games weekend before last (since this post has now been in the works since March, this timeline is incorrect. I went to see it the weekend it came out -- whenever that was), and have now officially jumped on that bandwagon. I read the first book (and yes, you should read the book even if you see the movie - in the first chapter it explained some things that didn't quite make sense) and am totally engrossed by the second one (update - I have now finished all three. It didn't take long - once I started reading it was pretty much impossible to stop.). Definitely check it out.

3. It's a short week - we get Friday and Monday off for Easter - and yet it is passing interminably slowly. Why is that? (This was added last week. Now I'm feeling jealous of past me, which is annoying. And a bit confusing.)

4. Apparently there are now dating websites for Doomsday-ers so they won't have to face the apocalypse alone. ?????

5. And another one about the Hunger Games - you might have heard the whole thing about racist tweets (check out the originalTumblr blog, Hunger Games Tweets, that first shone a light on the issue) regarding Rue and Thresh being African-American in the movie version, despite at least two separate passages in the book describing them (or at least Rue) as having dark hair, dark eyes, and dark or brown skin. I am so outraged by this that I just have to sound off briefly by saying that I am deeply disturbed by some of the remarks - particularly those saying that (SPOILER ALERT) Rue being played by an African-American girl made her death less sad. Are you f*cking kidding me?? Disgusting.

I read a few articles about it, but this one in the New Yorker was by far my favourite. It not only discusses the issue in detail with the founder of Hunger Games Tweets, but talks about the problem at the root of all this - the tendency to assume that characters are white. Quote:

 [...]the white default—in books, as in other forms of mass media—is learned and internalized early, including by children of color. It takes vigilance—and self-awareness—to overcome. “I picked up on the [character and racial] descriptions in “The Hunger Games” immediately,” says Adam, who is of Caribbean descent. “But then again, whenever I read something, I wonder, ‘where can I find the character who represents ME?’ ”

6.  One of the chains of book stores in Vancouver, Book Warehouse, is closing down. I'm quite sad about this, because that pretty much just leaves us with Chapters. On the plus side, however, they're having huge sales, and I managed to score a few books last week (obviously, this was now a couple of weeks ago. Though I've been back many times since, so it's still accurate to say "last week," whenever it was. This will be the case until it finally closes, as I am helpless to resist cheap books.). Not that I actually need more books, but whatever.


7. One of the first things I'll do if I ever win an obscenely large amount of money is buy my own Starbucks. You're all invited for free peppermint mochas, of course. (Still true. Only now you also get mini pies. See photo below.)

8. I'm loving reading again. I even revived my book blog, Backlist Books. So if you're a fellow bibliophile and want to see what I've been reading, head over and check it out. I like to review books as I read them rather than when they come out, so you'll notice an ecclectic mixture of old and new books, ranging in genre from non-fiction to young adult to memoir to fiction to art... you name it, it's probably in there.


9. I have to tell you that Lin from Linny's Vault has now become my main source of amusement. I'm beginning to wonder what I did for entertainment before I "met" her. Not only have I realized that it is possible to make new friends after the age of ---age omitted---, but that it is also possible to do so over the internet. Who knew?? If you haven't checked her out yet, you are obviously missing out on the best parts of the internet. If not life. Go say "hi" to her immediately, if not sooner. (She also started me on the Ten on Tuesday train, so if you decide to join in, go link up on her site.)


10. And because we always need something funny, here you go:

Fill in the _____ Friday

1. Today is a good day because... it's sunny. For once. It won't last, but still...
2. The best thing I did all week was... discover Starbucks' 2 for $2 deal on "petites" - particularly the mini-pies! Yum.
3. The current weather is... see above... and it makes me feel... much more energetic than usual. I don't drink coffee, and I live in a very rainy city, so I'm pretty much grumpy nine months of the year.
4. The best thing about spring is... uh... more sun, duh.
5. A fashion trend I'm dying to try out for spring is... jeans and converse. You know, pretty much the same look I've been rocking since grade school.
6. A person who made me smile this week was... I'm going to break with the original question here and go with the dogs who visited us at work on dog day - Barkley, Henry and Joey. Best day ever.
7. The most delicious thing I ate all week was... mini pies!!!!!!!

Head on over to The Little Things We Do to join in the fun!

Mopey Monday Funnies: Post-April Fool's Day

Not that I care much about April Fool's, but it did spawn a few amusing memes:

And that's it for this week's mopey Monday.... Here's to it ending quickly!