Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a good 2008. I should totally be asleep right now as I am leaving for the airport at 4:30AM but I decided to do this before I actually go to sleep. For today's post, I am going to write about some of my favourite things of 2008. Some of them have or will have their own posts but for now it's just a list. In no particular order,...

• Panera Bread (American restaurant, really good sandwiches and soup. One of the things I miss most about Boston)
• Joss Whedon TV shows (I discovered Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly this year. Also, Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog was awesome)
• The Sims 2 (for PC)
• Television Without Pity (Snarky recaps of your favourite shows, what more could you want?)
• Tina Fey as Sarah Palin
• Neil Patrick Harris
• I discovered some new and amusing websites this year. See my blog roll. I also enjoy www.tvtropes.org
• Twitter (I don't use it often but I like reading what other people are saying)
• Hulu (although I can't use it in Canada)
• Flamenco (That's not a new favourite, but I saw some amazing flamenco performances in '08)
• Living with my sister (It's been an adventure, especially with her doing a new thing everyday. It kept me on my toes)
• Using acronyms for phrases even if it's shorter to say the actual phrase (ex. btw for "by the way")
• Quoting random TV quotes in casual conversation (It's a sickness)
• Having an actual TV and using a DVR to record certain shows. (Awesomeness)
• TV Shows that are online (How I caught up on TV when I didn't have one)
• TV on DVD

I probably have a few more favourites but I am getting tired. I hope everyone has a great 2009!

Christmas movies

I don't watch a lot of the Christmas specials that are aired on TV in the months leading up to Christmas. I love the Grinch so I occasionally watch it if the stars align and I am able to but many of the other ones I can do without. I tend to watch more of the Christmas movies that are not generally aired consistently like Muppet Family Christmas. For the last few years, I have been watching the movie "White Christmas" every year. It has Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney in it. I really enjoy it. I like many of the songs although some of them I still don't understand the relevance of. I didn't get around to watching it til tonight so it felt rather odd watching a Christmas movie after Christmas but it was enjoyable anyway.

We just sang, whoa. Lalalalalalalalalala.

Today, my sister, my mom, my niece and I went out to my cousin's farm for the day. It's about a 2 hour drive so we didn't spend much time out there. On the way back, after listening to "Hit the road, Jack" for about the thousandth time, I managed to convince my niece to just keep listening to the CD even though that was the only song she knew the words to. We had a good time singing along and dancing to the music even if we had to make up some of the words. I don't know what CD we were listening to but it had a lot of good old songs. The other song that my niece really seemed to enjoy was "Charlie Brown" especially when it went "Why is everybody always picking on me." It was a fun 45 minutes of the 2 hour trip. It also helped to keep her awake so that she didn't fall asleep too close to bedtime. It was a pretty good day.

Hush little baby

Today my family and I went over to my cousin's house to see her and her kids. She had a baby in May that I had not met yet so it was exciting to meet him. I managed to get to hold the baby for quite a while. I love holding babies. They are so cute and cuddly. I hadn't held a baby in quite a long time so it was nice to hold one again. My niece is getting a bit old to hold like that and tends to protest and try to get away. The baby's getting pretty big and is starting to look like he's about to crawl. Today was especially nice because I got to hold the baby for a long time, but didn't have to actually have responsibility for feeding him, changing him, or putting him to sleep, and I could leave him at my cousins when we left. So woo!

Free Food, Yay!

There is an Applebees Restaurant opening up in my hometown, and one of my sisters received an invitation to have complimentary lunch there today as part of the staff training. She was able to invite three people, so I went with her and two of my other sisters. It was very good. I especially enjoyed the fact that we did not have to pay for the food. It was nice because I ordered a margarita which normally would have cost me $8 but was free today. So, free food and free drinks. Double yay!

Oh, you just got burned, phonics style

As I mentioned in a previous post, I really enjoy the show How I Met Your Mother. For Christmas this year, I received the DVDs for season 2 (see also my post on TV DVDs). As I was watching them over the last couple days, I realized how much I enjoyed the character of Marshall (played by Jason Segel). I then realized that I never mentioned Marshall as one of the reasons I like that show and only really mentioned him in relationship to his haircut. So I decided to use a whole post to rectify that situation. Marshall (and Jason Segel) crack me up. Marshall is a pretty lovable guy. He gets excited over odd things, loves to do the robot, has some of the best facial expressions (maybe not the absolute best. I am looking at you, Jim Halpert), has a sort of innocence about him, and loves Lily very much. As for Jason Segel, I first saw him in Freaks and Geeks about ten years ago, and I have definitely found a few of his recent projects very enjoyable. Much like I very much enjoy any movie where Hugh Grant dances, I think that things can be very much improved in so many ways by having Jason Segel sing:
(Freaks and Geeks)

(Forgetting Sarah Marshall)
I posted the following video in the post about How I Met Your Mother, but it applies here too.

(How I Met Your Mother)
His dancing also is a bit of a high point....

(about 2 minutes in, Freaks and Geeks)

(How I Met Your Mother)

Merry Christmas Part 2

As I mentioned yesterday, we spent Christmas Eve at my Aunt and Uncle's house. We had brunch at our house today and it had many of my favourite foods. We don't have much of these foods very often so it was a treat to have them. The food included crepes with whipped cream and strawberries and raspberries, cinnamon buns, regular buns, bacon, sausage and fruit salad. I believe that is everything that I ate although there were some other offerings . Everything (aside from the meat and fruit) was homemade so it had that extra enjoyability factor. We also had copious amounts of Christmas baking which managed to keep me full enough to last until supper time. There were Christmas Tree and Candy Cane cookies, shortbread cookies, some chocolate peanut butter balls, and many other types of cookies. Tomorrow I should probably go back to watching what I eat but today was a good day. Now I just have to try to get to sleep after eating about 10 thousand times the amount of sugar that I should be eating.
I hope everyone had a good Christmas. Good luck with the Boxing week shopping!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

I hope everyone that celebrates Christmas has a good one. Thus far, it has been a pretty good one for me. I ate good food. Saw my family. Opened my presents. Won some games, and sadly lost some others. It's been a good day. Tomorrow is full of more good food and family interactions so that will be fun. I am trying to think of my favourite part of today but it has been a very good day so far so I am coming up with a bunch. I really enjoy some of our family traditions. First of all, I love apple strudel. We have it for Christmas every year and joy of joys I did not have to be the one to make it. It was made before I arrived on Monday so yay. Today I also enjoyed seeing the presents that everyone received and our tradition of opening one present at a time in ascending age order. It worked quite well for the people over five years old. My four year old niece just unwrapped gifts continously because otherwise we would have been there all night. I enjoyed spending Christmas Eve with my Aunt and Uncle's family. I also enjoyed the $10 gift exchange. Each of us buys a $10 gift and put them in a pile in the middle of the room. We each choose gift to unwrap or steal one from someone else. I believe there are a number of different names for it. Sadly, there was one missed tradition this year. I don't know if it's tradition so much as something that seems to happen nearly every year. The tradition: someone forgetting to wrap a present and put it under the tree. Everyone got the appropriate gifts this year so that's good. A couple years ago, my aunt forgot to wrap one of her kids presents so she had to run back upstairs to grab it. The present was a pair of gloves, and in her haste, she ended up giving him two right gloves.
Merry Christmas Everyone!

Never say that to a teenage boy

I have two sisters that have their own blogs. One of my sisters mentioned a couple months ago that she had been in and won a couple speech contests. Today she said the speech for my other sister, a couple other relatives and myself. I really enjoyed her speech. It was about an incident that transpired when she was younger and how she may not be as angelic as she seems (cough, cough!). Said incident involved a truck that they may or may not have been allowed to drive (Heavy emphasis on the NOT). It was quite amusing and it had bonuse actions to go with it so woohoo. She has always been able to write poems or stories that had a certain flare to them. I totally could see why she won the contest. So my favourite thing today is my sister's speech especially since it involved actions.

Are we there yet?

I am so glad to not be in an airplane or an airport that that is my favourite thing of the day. Today was the most excruciating day for flying I have ever had (That being said, I haven't been many places and I have never been out of North America). The east coast had a bunch of storms going on so that pretty much gummed up most of the flights for the rest of the country. I doubt that any flight that happened today was on time. We got to the airport in Ottawa a few hours early and ate and took our leisurely time walking through the airport, laughing at all the suckers going out east whose planes were delayed or cancelled. Then our plane was delayed. Yay us! It was pretty much only about a half hour delayed to start with which wasn't bad because we had a four hour stopover in Winnipeg. So we boarded the plane and waited and waited and waited......and waited. I managed to drive my sister up the wall before we even made it the runway because she had a book to read while I did not. Awhile into this waiting period the pilot told us that we had to wait a bit longer because the bridge would not detach from the plane. Eventually the plane was successfully detached but they had to ensure that no damage was caused to the plane. No damage was found, so off we go, do de do. When we arrived in Winnipeg, the pilot announced that there were no gates ready for us so we had wait on the plane for another half an hour. Sigh. We finally disembarked and found a place to eat. There really is nothing through security in Winnipeg so our food was less than exciting. Our flight from Winnipeg to Regina was delayed about forty minutes. Luckily we weren't flying to Saskatoon because that flight was delayed to after one am. Our second flight was pretty uneventful and short and we are now at my parents house so yay!!! I am hoping that the way back is less eventful.

"'Tis the season to be jolly and joyous"

Today for my sister's new thing she transferred some videos from VHS to DVD. This meant we spent much of the evening watching Muppet Family Christmas and old home videos of Christmases past. I love Muppet Family Christmas. It is funny, a bit cheesy, sweet, has people hanging on coat hangers in the closet and spends 12 minutes on singing Christmas carols. It also has Jim Henson in it which is cool because he died soon after I believe. I had to keep reminding myself to just enjoy the movie because I kept thinking about the plot holes. I mean its a movie with puppets, there has to be some leeway. It was also nice to re watch the Family videos to see my grandparents who passed away a number of years ago and also to see how much has changed. I would have liked not to see some of my wardrobe and hair choices though (Other people's wardrobe and hair choices I just thought were funny so I liked seeing those). The camera work was rather shaky being the novice filmmakers that we are/were, and it seemed indescribably long just watching people open present after present but it was fun to remember when we got something or how lame the gift we/I got someone was. A lot has changed since then (but then it was bound to, it was ten years ago) but it was nice to go back and see how things were. I should now continue packing so that I can head home tomorrow barring any flight cancellations or unforeseen disasters.

"Listen to the rhythm, don't be scared"

Today was my last Flamenco class of the year. I really like flamenco, although lately I have been having trouble getting my feet, hands, head and torso coordinated so as not to look like I am having trouble getting my feet, hands, head and torso coordinated. The frustration with the moves was getting me down but today I was reminded why I like the class. I still had trouble with the moves but my teacher brought in a guitarist to accompany us. There is just something about dancing to live music that makes things so much better. There is just this energy that is involved that reminds me why I love dancing. The first belly dance show I saw after I started taking classes was one that only had live musicians and drumming. It continues to be one of the best shows I've seen. After the main show, the drummers continued drumming and audience members were allowed to dance. I remember doing the same move over and over and over because I didn't know many others but I was just so wrapped up in the music and the rhythms that it really didn't matter. I am more likely to dance if there are other people dancing as well, but once I am up there I have the best time and time flys.

"It looks like a five year old made it."

Last week, I mentioned that I made potato rolls. My favourite thing today is along the same lines. I made just regular buns. I love homemade buns fresh out of the oven. Very enjoyable. I should clarify that when I said I made them, I mean that put them into bun form. My sister made the dough in the breadmaker. I think I did okay. It took me til the 36th bun before I figured out a system that worked and my sister claimed that the first ones looked like they were made by five year olds (or perhaps three year olds, I don't remember) but the point is that they taste good.....Which probably has more to do with my sister's part in the process than in mine. But oh well. I now know how to make buns like a person my age should make them, so woohoo!

What the heck kind of channel is this?

With our digital cable, we get the channel JoyTV. It broadcasts the weirdest assortment of shows that I have ever seen. In the morning, it has shows like Jewish Voices, Sikh Versa, Diya (a Hindu program), some Christian shows and some other decidedly faith-based programming. However, it also has shows such as The Simpsons, Supernatural, Lois and Clark, Smallville and Fresh Prince of Belair. My personal favourite, and the reason I found the station to begin with, is Angel. (Seriously, a show about a Vampire on a religious network? I guess he is looking for redemption, but still...) I love the randomness of the programming, although I am sure the shows have a common theme. I just haven't found it yet.

I can't think of a clever title so this will have to do.

So today I did the BodyPump class at the gym. I have done this class a few times and I enjoy how strong it makes me feel even though I usually have the least amount of weight possible on my bar. I have definitely noticed the difference in my body since starting the class and it is the class that I do that I can tell is working to shape different muscle groups. Many of the other classes seem to be focused more on cardio while this more about weight training. The hardest part is figuring out how much weight to use for each of the different muscle groups. The instructor gives guidelines about how much to use but you also have to base it on how much you actually can do. I bumped the weight for my squats today which seemed like the 'smart' thing to do right before Christmas but it wasn't a huge leap so I think I'll be okay. On a related note, I think I did something not so good to a glute so I have to figure out a good way of stretching it. I have tried a bunch of different stretches but none of the seem to really hit the spot. Any suggestions?

Do overs

On Friday, I decided to get a haircut. My hair was getting long and mangy looking and I increasingly had to put actual effort into styling it. I knew which place I wanted to go to, because it is the chain of hair salons I always go to. I did not, however, know where one of those elusive hair salons were located when you actually have a car you can drive. I usually go to the one way downtown near the Rideau Centre because the Rideau Centre is easy to get to by bus. But currently there is a bus strike and traffic is awful and downtown is not just downtown when I am driving, it is DOWNTOWN (Like it's some sort of Bermuda Triangle that if you get there you will never come back the same, or on time to pick your sister up at work.) So I drove hither and yon, up and down the streets of Ottawa (not randomly, I had some idea of where to go) looking for this hair salon chain, when a) I could have phoned my sister to ask where to go or B) I could have just gone home and looked it up on the computer or C) thought of this before I left the house. I finally decided to choose option B when I saw the sign but by that point it was too late and I had to do some fancy maneuvering to get back because traffic was awful (see above about the transit strike). I finally arrive at the salon and am ushered to a seat. My stylist was very slow however and took a longer time to cut my hair than I had expected . I wasn't entirely pleased with it but I didn't want to sit around for another hour for her to fix it so I paid and left. Luckily with this chain, you can go back within 1 week of the original haircut and get them to fix it, so that is what I did today. The stylist I had today was much faster and she seemed to understand what my hair needed and how to fix it. I am much happier with my hair today. So my favouritest thing of the day is First Choice Haircutters for their relatively inexpensive prices and the opportunity to go back to get your hair fixed.

Now is not the time to be awesome...Oh, but it so is!

As I mentioned last week, Mondays are the day when I pick a TV show (from Mondays) and write about it. This week, the winner is Chuck. No question. I watched the pilot last year but I never really got into it until this year. Probably because last year I had to watch it online and this year I have a TV and can watch it when it is actually on, and then again, and again,.....and again. And probably a couple more times. For those of you that don't know, Chuck is a about a guy named Chuck (go figure!) who received an email from his old college roommate that effectively filled his head with government secrets. He is now protected by a guy from the NSA (Casey, played by Adam Baldwin of Firefly and Angel and one episode of Bones - well that's where I know him from) who growls a lot, and a girl from the CIA (Sarah, played by Yvonne Strahovski) who is his cover girlfriend and the ex-girlfriend of the guy that sent the email. So basically he has his bumbling spy life with Casey and Sarah, and his actual life with his sister Ellie, Ellie's fiance Captain Awesome (or Devin, as is his actual name), his BFF Morgan and his Buy More coworkers. His family and friends have no idea about his spy life. Tonight's episode was pretty awesome and at one point my sister and I said "Wow!" simltaneously. It was a pretty awesome moment if by awesome you mean horrifying and sad. Sadly this is the last episode til February but it was a great episode to go out on. You can watch episodes online at citytv.com (in Canada) or on Hulu (US), or rent or borrow the Season 1 DVDs from a video store or library.

Plain, old, unromantic Anne Shirley

Today, I watched the new Anne of Green Gables movie. I love the books and the first two movies with Megan Follows. The latest two are so far removed from the original story that they are barely recognizable. In the latest incarnation, Gilbert was killed in WWII and Anne returns to Green Gables and discovers a letter from her father. It was revealed that Anne's father is still alive but they were separated. The movie basically covers the years before Anne went to Green Gables and her middle aged life. It is consistant with the movie from 2000 but not to the stories, at all. I liked how they incorporated some of the footage from the early movies, showing Marilla and Mrs Hammond in flashbacks. They also had the original Rachel Lynde as an old woman. I am puzzled about the casting because the original movie, I believe used mainly Canadian actors in main rolls for funding purposes. This movie had people like Shirley Maclaine (as the Elder Mrs Thomas), Rachel Blanchard (as Louisa Thomas), and Barbara Hershey as the elder Anne. I thought the girl playing the young, young Anne was interesting because she used some of the speech patterns and intonation as Megan Follows did in the first two. The movie was alright but it lost some of the humour that I loved about the first two movies and had more of a dramatic plot. I would definitely prefer the first two movies or any of the books over this one.

I will never be okay again.

My sister has a blog as well where she does a new thing a day. Today's new thing was making chocolate covered cake balls. They were very good. She explains how to do it on her blog. I don't know what I was expecting when she told me she had to crumble the cake but I clearly was not expecting her to just grab a handful of cake and start mushing it up. It was the weirdest thing I have ever seen (well, maybe not the weirdest). I think I was expecting her to crumble the cake up in a more civilised manner. She just dove right in. I ending up breaking down into hysterical laughter for about ten minutes. She seemed concerned for me and I told her I would never be okay again after what she did to that cake. I guess if she had crumbled it in a more civilized way the end result would have been the same but I may not have been as traumatized. In the end, the dessert was good (because chocolate is good) and I am less traumatized.

Insert sound indicating relaxation here

While generally I would prefer a massage provided by an actual human being, today my favourite thing is the massage chair that my sister found at my gym. It was sooo nice. It wasn't just one of those ones vibrate. This chair has things that squeeze your legs and another part that goes up and down your back. It felt so nice after lifting weights for an hour. I'm not saying that the vibrating ones aren't nice, but this was just better than that. I would probably write a bit more but I am about to fall asleep.

I'll eat anything as long as it's chocolate.

Mm mm. Chocolate. I am horribly addicted to chocolate. However, I do not suffer from this addiction; I enjoy it thoroughly. Generally when I say I enjoy chocolate, it is the type that is easy to eat like chocolate bars, chocolate syrup (for ice cream), chocolate milk, chocolate ice cream, chocolate extreme blizzards, chocolate sundaes, chocolate chips, chocolate chip cookies........Where was I? The chocolate I ate today was the complete opposite of easy to eat. It was still good but you needed to chip away at it. You see, my sister made chocolate truffles that had this chocolaty creamy filling and she had way to much so she put it in the fridge. It got very hard. Now a smart person would wait for it to thaw or put it in the microwave before they attempted to eat it, but to put it simply, I did not. Stabbing the poor chocolate with my spoon somehow seemed like the thing to do instead. At this rate the chocolate in the container will last until 2010, but at least I won't eat large amounts at a time. So it's a win-win...win situation.

Ah ha, unidentified particulates. The two sweetest words I know

I am going to give you fair warning. This is going to be another TV related post and if you don't watch the show in question, this post may be completely irrelevant to you. But rather than it being about a specific show, it is going to be about a specific character. Namely, Jack Hodgins from BONES. This character has got to be one of my favourite characters on TV. Why? To answer that question, I will have to make another list. In no particular order:

• He's rather cute.


• He's snarky and sarcastic.


• He gets oddly excited about things like insects and compost heaps


• Even when he hates everyone, he's funny about it.


• Even though he is extremely wealthy, he comes in everyday to work with insects, dirt, and unidentified particulates


• Finding weirder and weirder things about Angela made him love her more and more


• He is one of the more self-aware lab workers


• He's not above using his boss to make his problems (or Dr. Sweets) go away
  
• I mentioned that he is snarky right?


• He unconsciously uses words like 'baby' and 'dude' when he gets excited.

There a lot more reasons why he amuses me, but the main one is his snarkyness. If anyone has other reasons, feel free to share.

Yum

Today, I made one of my favourite types of bun from our leftover mashed potatoes. So good. Never mind the fact that I only had leftover mashed potatoes because I measured out the amount I need for the buns. They are called Golden Potato Rolls.

I don't know where my mom got the recipe but I am so happy that she put it in the recipe book she gave me, my sisters, and several of my cousins. From start to finish they take about 3-4 hours because there are a couple of periods where they have to rise but totally worth it. The rolls had big chunks of potatoes in them because apparently yesterday I did not cook the potatoes well enough before I mashed them, but other than that they were pretty good. The recipe asks for all-purpose flour but I usually put in some whole wheat and adjust the recipe accordingly. If anyone want copy of the recipe, let me know and I will post it in the comments.

It's gonna be legendary...wait for it ...

...dary.
Now that that is out of my system, I can discuss my favourite thing of the day. I decided that for Mondays, which is my favourite night of TV watching, I would choose my favourite show based on which one I enjoyed the most that night. Tonight, the winner is How I Met Your Mother, if only for the fact that Jason Segel (aka Marshall) cut his hair. There are in fact many reasons I like that show, but his hair was getting so bad it was distracting. I got very excited when I saw the new do. That probably says more about me than it does about him but I can live with that. I am going to attempt to list the reasons why I like the show. They are as follows, in no particular order:
- Neil Patrick Harris
- Slap bet


- the various rules, theorums, etc that they apply to life and dating (For example, the Hot Crazy Scale)
- Neil Patrick Harris
- Mary the Paralegal
- Ted does a rain dance
- Canadian popstar
- various catchphrases including the garbled one from the title of this post (legendary, wait for it, awesome, lawyered, and more)
- Barney (as played by Neil Patrick Harris)
- Lets go to the mall
- The fact that the websites they discuss are in fact real -1, 2
Those are just a few of the reasons I like this show. I will discuss my other favourite Monday shows (Big Bang Theory, Chuck) another time.

Burn Baby Burn

Today I had a fire in my sister's fireplace. I love having fires. I love the smell, it just fills the room with it's wood burning goodness and gets on your clothes and pretty much everything else and lingers for a few days. I used to go camping quite a lot but I haven't gone camping for a few years. The fires at the end of the day when everyone gathered around and sang songs was one of my favourite things about the camping. Also, food cooked over fires. My sister and I cooked bannock over the fire a few weeks ago which was pretty cool. I believe it was the first time I had cooked food over an indoor fire (gas stoves don't count). The fire that one has in an indoor fire is a bit tamer than an outdoor fire just for practicalities sake but I like them both quite a bit. I love watching the different shapes the flames make as they burn the wood. I always end up sitting right next to the fireplace so that I can poke and prod at the wood to get stuff burning. We had a fireplace in the house I grew up in but my parents changed it to a gas fireplace about ten years ago so it became less interesting. The log never burns. You can't play with it and it gets really hot so that you have to stand quite far from it. Even with the gas fireplace we never really had fires that often, here with the wood fireplace I have had 4 fires in the last four weeks. It's a nice way to spend a winter night.

Is it aluminum or aluminium?

I was a linguistics major in university (see previous post about being unemployed) and language has always been interesting to me. What I really enjoy though is hearing new ways of pronouncing old words. It probably sounds weird but it entertains me. When I started my first phonetics/ phonology course I spent the ride home from class getting my cousin to repeat various words repeatedly just to see how we said them differently. Last night I was watching a documentary and the lady that was speaking pronounced the word aspartame as asparta-me (sounds close to anemone). I had never heard it pronounced that way before. I don't know if that is the correct way to say it or if she was incorrect but I found it interesting. That got me thinking about the way I say different words and how I will read a word and pronounce it a certain way in my head and then actually hear it aloud and realize that I was wrong (I used to think the word 'bodice' rhymed with 'lease') I will also hear a word pronounced completely weird or wrong and adopt that as my pronunciation because it sounds cool (I pronounce the word 'particularily' as 'particuly' because I heard it that way on ER.) On another note, I find it interesting that the plural of octopus is octopodes and not octopi.

TV Watching, Uninterrupted

When I first started this blog (all of a week ago now), I knew that many of my posts would be TV related, because frankly that is one of my favourite things. I watch certain TV shows every week and they are what I like to call appointment television. Last year I was out on my own and did not own a TV. I felt deprived. Luckily, there is a handy invention known as TV on DVD. An entire season of television on a set of DVDs for your viewing pleasure. No commercials. It is a good way to revisit an episode of your favourite TV show or discover a new one. I especially like it when libraries lend out series on DVD. Makes it a lot cheaper. It may not be the best use of your time, especially if you have things to do that do not include watching moving pictures but it's a good way to relax after a hard days work. And it gives you some entertainment when the writers go on strike. (Wait, that was last year. I meant the actors. Man I hope they don't strike.) I also tend to enjoy all the little extras that come with... the bloopers, the commentaries, the documentaries, the interviews. This enjoyment of TV on DVD may have something to do with a personality quirk of mine where I must know everything there is to know about what I am currently into, but I think it is generally a pretty cool thing.

We will survive

Once again this post will be about exercise. Today I went to the BodyCombat class at the gym. It is a very high energy class that is, as the name would imply, a mixed martial arts based class. Lots of kick and punches. I have done this class for a over a month now and I continue to actually suck at the kicks and punches but I have a good time anyway. It's quite cathartic. It was a new release a few weeks ago that I tried out and it ended up being my favourite set of moves and the reason I continued going to the class. They continue to use some of the same songs from that release along with some older stuff that I am not as familiar with. It takes a lot of energy but it simultaneously revs you up with the high energy music that the moves are based on. I am getting better at it. I find it to be one of the best workouts I get, lots of sweat.

Hard work pays off later, procrastination pays off now

I was having trouble coming up with something today that I both really liked and somehow fit into the events of my day, so I put it off quite a long time really. Thats when I realized that one of my favourite things for the day or even really in life is having the time to procrastinate. It may not exactly be the most efficient use of your time or in fact might be something you regret later but while it's happening it can be quite satisfying. So today's favourite thing is procrastination. Because as Michael Scott says, "Desperation yields the best results." Although the person I am taking personal mottos from may not be the best source. You may now roll your eyes and mutter to yourselves about how pathetic it is that I have having trouble coming up with stuff five days in. You know you want to.
.

Editing community style

So I have been unemployed for a few months now and have been applying for quite a few jobs. I continually need to update or change something on my cover letter or resume and like to get feedback from someone else about how I should word something or what I should put in or leave out. One way I have found that really works and that I really like is called Google Documents. You can upload a document that you are working on into google documents andthen invite collaborators to help you edit. I find it to be a great for more than one person to edit a document at the same time. I believe you need a google account in order to actually edit it but I could be wrong.

Shaking it up

I started going to my current gym in September. It's a Canadian chain called Goodlife Fitness. I am generally not the sort of person that enjoys go to the gym just to on a machine or four for an hour. I really need motivation. So the group exercise classes that they offer there have really been an added incentive for me to go to the gym. One of my favourite exercise classes is called Zumba. It's a very energetic dance based workout. It's also a lot of fun. Once you've been to a few classes, it's quite easy to follow. The girl that leads my class changes it up quite a bit every week but she also keeps some of the same songs and routines so that you have that familiarity with it as well. I don't believe that Goodlife has the exclusive Canadian rights for Zumba like it does for some of the other group exercise classes it offers so you may be able to find it in other venues. The other dance exercise class I have gone to at GoodLife (BodyJam) is enjoyable as well but it requires you to remember sometimes lengthy routines for multiple songs. Zumba changes the routine with each song, so each song has it's own choreography. I also, personally, do not feel like I have 6 left feet when I do Zumba like I occasionally do when I do BodyJam. (Yes, I apparently gain 4 extra feet, thank you for asking.)