Meryl's Bloggy Wog

Why not just scrap Healthcare all together?

2011-01-05T07:53:00.000-08:00

I normally try and write when I am in a calm state; passion and emotion are great for devising a story but a distraction when writing one.

Unfortunately today’s blog will be written purely from a very angry place in my head, if I could title it ‘What Grinds My Gears’, and still pull readers I would, but I can’t

The republicans took the House of Representatives.

Now yes this is American politics, and No I’m not American, but anyone pretending that changes in America don’t ripple out to become changes in the world are fooling only themselves.

They want to repeal the Health Reform.

That’s where I got to before I got angry. It’s not really a revelation; they had opposed it for so long, it’s just completely mental. Why would you possibly want to repeal a reform that gives you access to Healthcare. It’s like asking for something bad to happen to you. To put the proverbial cherry on the cake they are doing it under the pretext that the heath reform is unconstitutional...yeah its mind boggling.

When me and my sister were little (and ok occasionally now) we used to spend hours stuck in a ‘yes I did’ ‘no you didn’t’ ‘yes I did’ ‘no you didn’t’ feedback loop, both of us forgetting what it is we were talking about and just arguing the opposite of whatever the other would say.

It’s how you get caught in the classic switcheroo, ‘no I didn’t’, ‘yes you did – damn it.”

That’s how I imagine American Politics got to where it is at. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to repeal a reform that gives everyone access to proper health care, so maybe the republicans are trying to repeal it just because it is the opposite of the democrats?

When I was still at school my politics teacher told me that at election time political parties walk to one side of the political spectrum and run to the middle, it made me feel like politicians had to try and cater to everyone. Somehow in America the populations at the ends outweigh those in the middle and now you have millions of people asking someone to take away their constitutional right to health care. It’s deeply unsettling.

Anyway, rant over… for now anyway.

Hope you are all appreciating your free healthcare and the sensibilities that come along with said appreciation.

Meryl

We’re all going to die

2011-01-04T11:58:00.000-08:00

Not my most positive blog title yes, but one of the more sensible I promise you.

I don’t know if you saw the story but on New Year’s Eve thousands, like thousands of birds fell dead out of the sky in Arkansas. The article is here, with video but to summarize, they don’t know what the hell is going on.

Obviously people jumped on the ‘the end is coming’ bandwagon as quickly as possible, and although this is ridiculous the pictures are incredibly eerie for a happening that must be based in science not voodoo. The article suggests that perhaps the birds were startled and all flew up into a thunderstorm and died, but the autopsy results are showing internal damage as a cause of death, not electrocution. It is the stuff of nightmares, and even though I am and never have been an advocate for ‘the birds’ there is something stirringly sad about thousands of them just dropping out the sky.

My favorite bit of the article is this fellow: "I've been to Iraq and back and not seen nothing like this," Beebe resident Jeff Drennan told local Fox16 News on Sunday.

Really Jeff? No birds falling out the sky in Iraq then? Just hundreds of people shooting each other and dying? They don’t know how good they have it.

Maybe Jeff’s long reaching stupidity killed the birds? I’ve always thought there was something weird about him, walking around talking to cobble stones and whatnot.

Anyway, first sign of impending doom for 2011, don’t let life get in the way of living or don’t be a regretful red winged blackbird, contemplating what you could have done different as you fall out a cloud…either/ or.

Meryl

..all i need is a Doctor Who Bowtie

2011-01-03T11:08:00.000-08:00

I am sure you would start to question my identity if I didn’t at some point talk about the Doctor Who Christmas special, so to avoid identity confusion I am going to tell you all about it.

It was brilliant, a sentence I have perhaps over-used when talking about Doctor Who but none the less the truth. It was clever and funny and sad and poignant, but more than that it was fun and exciting and that kind of ‘silly magical’ that goes down a treat at Christmas.

Flying fish, that come down like rain, fueling themselves through the mist using the tiny electrical charges. A giant shark, and a ship full of people to save, whoever was working on this episode must have been giggling the whole way through, it felt like a story you dreamed about when you were young, except this time the Doctor was there so knew it was going to be alright.

The Christmas special was called ‘A Christmas Carol’ and although I’m a big Dickens fan, the concept has been re worked so many times that it has officially been pronounced dead by the board of imagination. Somehow the magicians behind Doctor Who spun the idea on its head, added a time machine and re-animated it like the proverbial Frankenstein. More than anything it was exciting.

It takes the writers mere minutes to set up the premise. The doctor has to convince a man (Kazran), who refuses to use his machine to allow a ship to land, that he must do so before lots of people die. There’s the trademark, ‘you don’t have much time to sort this out Doctor’ scenario that often accompanies a Christmas special.

To jump ahead, the Doctor finds some old footage of young Kazran and projects the image on the wall of the study, here you see the young boy embarking on a ‘secret project’ whereby he hopes to lure a fish into his room so he can see it. Interrupting him, his father walks into his room angry and shouting, he bans Kazran from seeing the fish and we are shown an older Kazran looking on sadly as his young self cries into his arms.
The Doctor disappears into the Tardis and low and behold you hear the unmistakable sound of it landing outside Kazran’s window. The doctor walking into shot and speaking to old Kazran through the Camera tells him is memories are going to change, before he turns his attention back to young Kazran.

After an adventure with a shark, and a growing understanding of how Kazran became like his father the Doctor begins to visit Kazran every Christmas eve, of course this takes mere minutes for the doctor.

Abigail joins their group, a young girl taken by Kazran’s father as insurance on her family’s loan. She is released from her frozen state by Kazran, because like him she too had demonstrated an interest in the fish before she was frozen. Once he releases her, the Doctor and Kazran find her singing to an injured Shark and realize her voice both calms and disarms the fish. Every Christmas Eve they embark on an different adventure and as time flies an older, more handsome Kazran falls in love with Abigail.

Believing this love will change the future the Doctor seems pleased with his progress, however after learning a deep secret about Abigail, Kazran cuts himself off from the doctor, telling him he no longer wants to see him.
Confused, the doctor returns to the present, Kazran still hasn’t changed his mind. He reveals that each day they released Abigail from her frozen state was a day closer until she died, and on their last meeting Abigail had told him she only had one day left to live. The Doctor realizes that this is what made Kazran the man he is today, that this is why he shut him out of his life.

Finally Amy Pond turns up to appeal to Kazra. Calling herself the ghost of Christmas present she projects him inside the ship to see the people he is going to let die. Enraged Kazran doesn’t care, he laughs at the doctor when he turns up at the house telling Kazran he had shown him the past and now he was going to show him the future. Fine he shouts, show me the future, show me the crying families of the people who died, I don’t care.

When the doctor steps aside young Kazran is standing there, terrified at his future self. The revelation changes Kazran, almost immediately he softens. Everything has changed.

After a couple more glitches, and in the last possible minute before everything goes wrong, the Doctor figures out that Abigail’s special ability to sing to the fish could be harnessed to help calm the skies. He asks Kazran to release her, even though this will be the last day she ever lives.

The episode ends with Abigail singing to the skies, as it begins to snow. It gives you the warm Christmas glow you’re always looking for around Christmas.
I hope I waited long enough not to ruin the episode for you, but I swear I really haven’t done it justice and you’d be a fool not to go watch it anyway.

Like always Doctor Who allows you to suspend your belief for a whole hour, not because it’s Christmas and there is magic in the air but because just for a second you get lost in the adventure of it all.

I hope you all had a great holiday, and a fantastic new year! I hope that this year brings lots of adventures to get swept up in, and that you live life remembering that it’s on a limited lease.

All I'm asking for in 2011 is a Doctor Who Bowtie,

Love and Cuddles out into the universe…past, future and present.

Meryl xx

Sausage Rock n Rolla

2010-12-29T10:01:00.000-08:00

So I started my blog this time last year, and in the most cyclical move of 2010 just as I started the year I shall end it talking about sausage rolls.

Everyone ate a lot of sausage rolls this Christmas and it is for two reasons, 1.because they are delicious flaky puffs of happiness and 2. They are the savoury alternative to the ridiculous amount of chocolate and candy on offer.

It is sausage rolls that led to me saving Christmas.... Obviously by saving Christmas I don’t mean saving Christmas, really I mean I saved the sausage roll portion of Christmas, but you got to create your own spin on these things, plus I want to see how many Grinch references come up in the advertisements on bloggywog. I’m going to guess at least 3.

It’s not a long story, although that hasn’t stopped me from weaving a lovely yarn before (country reference, nice). To be brief, we ran out of sausage rolls, and to remedy this, my mother sent me to get more. It didn’t take me long to locate them at the local No Frills and as I reached for the last box in the freezer I didn’t imagine there would be any real further complications to the task, until the lady behind me claimed she had got the sausage rolls first.

It took me a second to comprehend the accusation, I did after all have the box of sausage rolls under my arm and she didn’t. How could she possibly be claiming she had reached them first, when they were in fact in my possession? Unlike me this reasoning didn’t prevent her from pursuing the issue. She explained that she had seen them a few minutes ago, and was just grabbing some other things before she was coming back to get them.

This follows very few social etiquette rulings, although to be honest they are always slightly vague, perhaps one can place dibs on a food entree even if it still remains within the confines of its frozen ice house. Worried that I was committing some sort of social faux pas I hesitated but at no point did this negate the huge amount of pressure placed on me to retrieve more sausage rolls. Letting greed and heroism win out, I let the Lady know in no uncertain terms that the Sausage rolls belong to me. Ok I may have said ´Well they’re mine now´ before running off giggling. Shouting expletives at me while I walked away, although deserved, was highly un-Christmassy.

Whatever you think, I came out of that gorgeous yellowy grocery store with a box of 60 sausage rolls and two bottles of coke, and the whos began to sing, it was pretty darn special.

On a less exciting note:

I would like to apologize for my absence the last few weeks, I have a brand new job and a brand new project I’m working on and poor old bloggywog got moved to the backburner. On the subject of backburners (excellent Segue) for Christmas I got a SLOW COOKER, more on that later.

Back on topic..I will try and keep up to date with the blog, I love it so much at very least I will reduce the amount of distance between posts.

Now back to the Slow Cooker. I love it! I literally cut up a tonne of veggies, threw them in the pot with some beef broth, some water and some diced tomatoes (apparently the backbone of any Crockpot recipe???)and some beef and turned it on. All night it laboured away cooking and stewing. Of course I haven’t tried what I made yet, but it smells delicious! Thank you Olie and Jenny it’s amazing!

The box said it was a set and forget cooker, and seeing as my general attitude towards cooking has always been set and forget this was the perfect gift.

I did really well for gifts this year, so thank you to everyone! I hope you all having a fantastic winter holiday and that you are all happy and successful in this coming year....THE YEAR OF THE RABBIT! It’s supposed to be a lot calmer than the YEAR OF THE TIGER that just went by (why the CAPS meryl? – I don’t know animal years feel like they should be capitalized don’t they?)

Ok love and kisses to everyone...

Meryl xx

Potter

2010-11-23T16:33:00.000-08:00

So as a self confessed Harry Potter addict this was a big weekend for me. My friend Katrine couldn’t go to see the film until Sunday, and although my inner nerd wanted to be at the midnight showing my grown up persona was able to take control and book tickets for Sunday at 7:30pm.

To be honest it was the books I fell in love with. The films are fantastic and visually wondrous, and you can tell that the splitting of the last film was more a desire to get it right than a money grab, but the books are where it started and ended for me. J K Rowling was the reason I wanted to write, she was the reason I wanted to read, for the 12th and 13th years of my life she helped me realize the power of words, the transformability of sentencing. She showed me that even though I couldn’t craft, or draw, or make a bloody money box in tech. I could still be wonderfully creative. She taught me that I could paint with people’s imaginations instead of with a paintbrush.

That being said, the movie was great. I think we take for granted how much of a film is taken up by establishing characters and that in this, the 7th film in a series, they don’t even have to devote the first few minutes to who these people are or what they are up to. They haven’t had to draw an audience in, or pander to those not in the know. They whole heartedly exclude those who haven’t seen the previous films or read the books simply because they are far and few between. Their theatre seats are filled with fans ready to both adore and abhor the material. They are about to be judged on every aspect of the translation from book to film, their work will be reveled for its similarities but scolded for its change, no matter how integral it may be to telling the story via a different medium.

All in all their seats are filled with people who feel connected to this story, who like myself have invested themselves in Harry Potter since they were also 11 years old. The successes of the films aren’t simply due to the huge fan following of the books, the success of the films are in the films themselves. J K Rowling wrote intelligent, plot driven, exquisitely told tales of three young people facing a world of danger and so it is no surprise that the films become magical, mystical blockbuster sellers. Nothing J.K.Rowling wrote was fluff, nothing had no purpose, so much so that in order to do her final book justice the movie moguls had to split this one two ways.

They were right; the first one encompasses everything it needs to. Better yet it does the book justice by pausing on the banality of trying to fulfill a mission when you have no idea where to start. Even when I read the book I felt the frustration of trying to embark on a huge mission when you don’t know what to do, and rather than run from one huge battle scene to the next, the movie makers (now given the luxury of two films) were able to rest on how helpless and useless the unlikely heroes must have felt.

I was surprised at my sadness at loosing characters, that even the knowledge of what was about to occur couldn’t stop me feeling some sort of loss as these characters give their lives for one another. Rowling was never afraid of loosing a character, because by the end they were all so three dimensional and important. You felt the hurt and the pain but you were also able to watch these characters survive the losses and move on. I once heard JK Rowling say in an interview, it is so easy to kill of a character because everything for them is done and it is over, that it is so much harder to suffer their loss and continue your life. That rebuilding one’s life takes more courage than ending it. She, as always, was right.

To bring the sycophantic rant to an end, go watch the film, or better yet go re-read the book. It is worth the money, it is worth the time, and it’s sure as hell is worth the effort.

Love to you all

Meryl xx

Sci- Finally

2010-11-04T12:51:00.000-07:00

So people always say that necessity is the mother of invention, which is very true, but if necessity is the mother of invention then imagination has got to be its maternal aunt or at very least its second cousin.

The coolest thing about being around in the present (as opposed to living in the past) is that all the crazy sci fi inventions that people dreamed up in fiction are being brought into actuality.

I have composed a list of a few that just seem mindbogglingly cool.

The Invisibility Cloak. - Harry Potter managed to get his hands on one of these bad boys, in fact he had in his possession the only real invisibility cloak in the world, well perhaps until now.

‘Scientists in the UK have demonstrated a flexible film that represents a big step toward the "invisibility cloak" made famous by Harry Potter.The film contains tiny structures that together form a "metamaterial", which can, among other tricks, manipulate light to render objects invisible.’

Self Tying Shoelaces – Marty Mcfly was mostly concerned about getting himself back to the future before he paradoxically was never born, but he was able to stop long enough to try on the Doc’s self tying, auto adjusting Nike Trainers and now Nike are patenting a pair that do exactly that.

Teleportation – So ok you might now believe me on this one, and we aren’t exactly close to beaming up Scottie but teleportation does exist.

‘The leaps in teleportation technology lie in the transfer of quantum information: where information is transferred (or teleported) from one quantum system to another. For example, take a pair of photons that have identical spin, and separate them. If you adjust the spin of one, the other, through the teleportation of quantum information, will simultaneously adopt the adjustment. The maximum teleportation distance achieved so far is 16km’

Hologram messaging – ‘Help me OB-Wan’ It worked for princess Leia and in the not to distant future it will work for you too, hopefully you won’t need a slightly retro beeping garbage-can robot to deliver it for you.

‘At its heart is a new plastic screen material that will record 3D holographic images time and time again, every two seconds. In the set up described in Nature, 16 cameras recorded 2D images of objects and people from multiple angles That information was then sent to another location using a computer connection.
At the remote site, a laser was used to "print" the visual information on to the new photosensitive polymer. The 3D image composed of the 16 perspectives decays naturally, but the laser can write the next "frame" before it completely disappears.’

I find it all very cool, but to be fair I am both a Sci-Fi fan and a techno-geek. It’s amazing how anyone can just dream something up and someone out there will figure out a way to make it work. There is just no way of knowing how amazingly cool the future is going to look. It’s very exciting

Hope you are all well

Much Love Meryl x

Striking News

2010-11-03T12:05:00.000-07:00

They have replaced Paul the octopus - with Paul the octopus II (that's right, the second).

Here is the article my mum sent me

Cheeky right, replace old Paul with a younger and to be fair cuter looking octo-baby.

Is nothing sacred?

November

2010-11-03T11:54:00.000-07:00

So yesterday I wrote about toast, which at first seems silly but at a second glance, well I guess at a second glance seems pretty silly too.

I am trying to get as much material up here as possible but I am finding myself delightfully busy writing for some other projects that are hopefully up and coming soon. I did also watch the entire box set of the boosh, so as you can imagine a hectic week.

Seeing as November is upon us, the inevitable ‘where did the year go’ talks have begun, and to be honest I find myself a little overwhelmed with it all. Can you even believe 2011 looms, it sounds positively space age.

2011 is going to be a fun year because there are actually a tonne of predictions that it’s when the world will end. Of course the Hollywood film suggested 2012 was the dreaded due date, but all the bible pushers are dead set that it is going to be next year.

I love the apocalyptic predictions because they always manage to find some excuse for why the world hasn’t crumbled, but really how many times can you claim you calculated it wrong. It would be like trying to add 3 butterflies to 4 oranges, there just isn’t a definitive answer.

I still am not sure why people need to claim that the world is going to end abruptly, we are doing such an excellent job of destroying it slowly through pollution and apathy. You would think that in fact we would suggest there was going to be some sort of smog-age where everyone has to walk around with gas masks trying to run from their self inflicted mess, but this apparently isn’t box office enough so we still believe the earth will crack in half and engulf people, or more evangelistically the skies will rain down with blood.

Either way I’m looking forward to it, to the next year that is, not the arrival of the four horsemen. Or more importantly I’m looking forward to the rest of 2010. November does sound like the end of the year, but in the 58 days we have left, a whole bunch of stuff can happen, look at lost, the had discovered the hatch by that point.

Alright love you all chicas will try and blog something of interest next time

Meryl x

Toast

2010-11-02T19:52:00.000-07:00

Toast is the equalizer of all breads.

A sentiment I have actually always believed (and apparantly thought about) since I was very young.
Bread in itself tastes good -mostly, but people will happily debate the pro's and cons, the white vs brown of bread till the cows come home.

I personally like flax bread, it is the equivalent of crunchy peanut butter in a bread-like format, it's got a nice soft white bready texture with the added bonus of tiny little nuts reminding you are almost being healthy.

When it comes down to it white bread is the best. I should stress this is not an opinion even though most people would suggest it is subjective, white bread tastes the best but it unquestionably the worst type for the human body to try and digest

Then comes flax bread - ok fine this is an opinion, most people are partial to a pumpernickle and I would happily tip my hat to them, pumpernickle bread is a fine choice for a second.

The rest end up being equal - multi-grain, five grain, tomato infused, and plan old brown, somebody could steal my sandwhich from my hand and replace the bread with any of these kinds and I would be none the wiser.

The only other bread worth any mention is raisin bread - which I am discounting because it is two steps up from nornmal bread but only one step down from cake. It belongs in it's own breadish cake hybrid catagory, and like dogs judged at crufts it can't really be considered a purebread stream of either cake or bread along with the others.

(I should point out my two seperate uses of the word bread in that last paragraph was purely accidental, proving only that even I am unable to keep up with my own extravagent use of vocabulary)

All in all, there is a definite bread hierachy that seems rather universal. (feel free to disagree, I can't hear you anyway) People definitely have a preference, but chuck any type of bread under a grill and they loose any bread-like definition and become simply 'toast'.

It's a good metaphor for life, like comparing individual personality traits to the over-arching fact that we are all human. If all type of bread end up being just toast, then all type of people end up just being human kind.

You may have surmised that I ate some toast today, I just can't imagine what gave it away and yes I did hold it up into the sky to phisically demonstrate that I believe it is representative of an ideology, that's just the kind of person I am.

Of course i really should branch out and talk about bagels, or wraps, or even french bread but if I think anymore about toast I may find myself standing over the over like a all seeing bread god judging when each slice of uncrisped bread can officially be given it's title of toast, and that may finally be the proof that I'm insane.

Instead I will wish you good night and ask you to stop, just for a moment next time you are about to slide those slices into the toaster and realize what a big moment for it, it really will be

Over and Out Meryl

Halloween

2010-11-01T11:15:00.000-07:00

There are certain advantages to now living in North America and forefront of those is Halloween. People go crazy for it here; they even close off the street and just let people parade themselves up and down in their extravagant costumes.

This year four of the group dressed as sugar skulls, one of us went as autumn and then Brandy was quite literally ‘hot pink’. I shouldn’t say it, as it’s vain, but we looked awesome. Not one of us looked like we hadn’t gone all out, I was proud of us as a troupe and we got the appropriate reaction when walking into the various parties we stopped in on.

Of course we then got completely trashed, which to be fair has become a real Halloween tradition of mine. I am not sure what it is about Halloween but I swear the same amount of alcohol as you normally drink will make you go berserk. It is my belief that with all the costumes around you added with the reaction you are getting to your own costume, you actually feel drunk before you have had your first drink, hence that first drink feels like the fifth, and the fifth drink feels like the twenty fifth.

In an equation it would look like this

Halloween Drunk = Drink x 5

So the fifth drink would be

Halloween = Drink (5) x 5
Therefore,
Halloween Drunk = 15 Drinks

It’s all very mathematical.

Church Street on Sunday night was so much fun. Some on my favorite costumes included.

Gargamel – complete with a net full of surfs

Double Rainbow – If you don’t know you should

Phillip and Terrance – Who before I came to Canada made me wonder if Canadians really did have big slits in their mouths.

Beetle Juice – A really good one.

The Entire Disney Troupe – Mickey was there, little mermaid, buzz light-year, Pinocchio. Pinocchio was the best!

The whole thing filled me with Halloween style Christmas spirit, and just for a moment it was nice to be part of a larger group of people all dressing up and being nice to each other and sharing an experience. All felt right with the world…. and then it snowed.

The snow certainly gave it the Christmassy edge, I just still can’t believe how subject to change Canadian weather is. It may rain all the time in England but at least there is little chance the temperature will change 20 degrees in one evening. It was one of those Halloween nights where you wished you had opted for the full body furry dog suit, just so you could be huddled up nice and warm and still go to the party.

All in all, this year I’m giving Halloween a full thumbs up! Even my parents got into the spirit and went as Dexter and his latest victim, they sent me a picture, and they definitely looked cool!

I hope you all had a great night, and weren’t one of the slew of girls wearing teeny tiny costumes in the minus degree weather!

Boo to all of you!

Meryl x

RIP Paul the Octopus

2010-10-27T06:24:00.000-07:00

Paul the Octopus is dead . I’m actually feeling a little sentimental, three blog posts this lovely Octopus provided me, as well as enchanting a generation with his uncanny ability to predict football matches. Some times the things we love are taken before their time.

I think the sentiment is best summarized by his agent (yes agent) when he said

"It's a sad day. Paul was rather special but we managed to film Paul before he left this mortal earth,"

It’s a very weird world we live in isn’t it!

Meryl xx

Full story here

Rob Ford

2010-10-26T11:35:00.000-07:00

Things that Mayor Rob Ford has said:

On the Homeless

While berating an anti-poverty activist - "Do you have a job, sir? I'll give you a newspaper to find a job, like everyone else has to do between 9 and 5

On Aids

Ford argued against the city spending $1.5 million on AIDS prevention programs. Ford stated that - "(AIDS) is very preventable," and that "if you are not doing needles and you are not gay, you wouldn't get AIDS probably, that's bottom line."

What about women you ask?

With respect to the increasing rates of women contracting the disease, Ford said; "How are women getting it? Maybe they are sleeping with bisexual men."

On being racist (ok fine on work ethic)

Those Oriental people work like dogs. They work their hearts out ... that's why they're successful in life. ... I'm telling you, Oriental people, they're slowly taking over, because there's no excuses for them. They're hard, hard workers."

On Cyclists

Roads are built for buses, cars, and trucks. My heart bleeds when someone gets killed, but it's their own fault at the end of the day.

So it is always the cyclists fault?

Ford was arrested in Miami for driving under the influence (DUI) and marijuana possession charges

How has this happened? How has Rob Ford won Major of Toronto? I didn’t vote for him, I imagine normal, forward thinking people didn’t vote for him so I am going to have to conclude that they counted the votes in bizarro land where up is down and left it right.

What is worse than any of this is that I realize the majority of people in Toronto right now will be offended by this? Because for some reason the majority of people in Toronto decided that it didn’t matter that the man is completely bigoted idiot arsehole with a insistently red face and asked him to run the city anyway?! I honestly feel I could change the top sentence of this blog to things you’d say if you were an arse and all of them would still apply.

It all makes me really sad, really really really sad

Meryl

Paranormal Activity 2 - eek

2010-10-26T08:33:00.000-07:00

So it is scaaary. No I haven’t misspelled it, it is so scary that it actually needs those extras a’s just to clarify it is in a class all of its own. I don’t know how impartial I can be in terms of reviewing this film because poltergeists and things jumping out at me have always been on my list of things that keep me awake at night. I was a mess after the first film and it kept me up for a good three days. Sleep deprived I managed to convince myself the local cat was following me and told my roommate it was throwing malicious looks my way as if it knew something I didn’t.

Everyone that saw me in the aftermath of Paranormal Activity 1 could not understand why I would want to go and see the follow up film. To answer them, I like to imagine it’s a similar notion to lining up for a rollercoaster ride, every time you go on it scares you but somehow this doesn’t prevent you from going on again. I managed to rope my friend Katrine in to going with me last night but gave her ample warning that I would going to be a pathetic mess and a bit of a liability while I was at the theatre. Strangely she still agreed to go and at 7pm we found ourselves walking down to the Magic Lantern wishing farewell to regular sleep and peace of mind.

As if I needed any help being completely freaked out we walked into the little theatre and noticed the place was pretty empty. Standing ready to great us was a young happy looking fellow who sold us our tickets and laughed brazenly at us as we quipped about our new form of self harm. As we paid for our concessions (yes Katrine decided to buy popcorn for the horror film?) I noticed he double backed around us, and when we walked to towards the screening rooms, there he was waiting to take the tickets he had just sold to us. Having eerie flashbacks to the shinning I wondered if perhaps this gentlemen was going to play every role at the theatre and be every staff member we met and I kept my eye on him as we walked towards theatre number 9.

The theatre was empty when we walked in, which was strange as we hadn’t arrived early. Minutes later the lights dimmed and I wondered how on earth I’d ended up watching a movie that was about to screw with my head in an empty theatre with a job morphing, slightly psycho looking theatre worker as my only reassurance that help was near by. Nevertheless we persevered.

The film lulls you into a lovely sense of calm for the first twenty minutes or so, but immediately informs you that the events you are seeing happen before those shown in Paranormal Activity 1. The characters are introduced immediately starting with footage of baby Hunter fresh from the hospital looking slightly squishy and being welcomed to his new home. His doting parents Kristi and Dan as well as Dan’s daughter from a previous marriage run around the house excited by the new addition to the family. Hunter is introduced to his new nanny Martine and the family dog Abby and all in all you get the sense that this is a very normal, very ‘people next door’ family.

The cameras you see in all the trailers get installed in the house after an apparent break-in at the home, although nothing is actually stolen and it from these monitors that you get to see the rest of the film unfold. The big shocker comes when Kristi’s sister Katie comes over and you realize that this is Katie, as in ‘scary I’m possessed by a demon monster and go missing’ Katie from the first film. I think it was at this point my eyes opened wide enough to swallow my face, it was a great way to tell the audience things were going to be crazy. I won’t say very much more as I wouldn’t want to ruin the film for those that haven’t seen it, but they intertwine the two stories really really well.

The film slowly begins to escalate and the director Tod Williams manages to make every creak and every movement bone tinglingly scary. Slamming doors make your heart want to stop, and Hunters continued concentration on things behind the camera filming him make shivers run up and down your spine like the proverbial blind mice.

There are about three moments where you think you are going to die, like you literally wonder if your heart can take this much stress without just giving up and killing you and I think there was an equal three moments when I asked Katrine to hold my hand. It turns out that being in the theatre alone has its advantages and we were squeaking a squealing without threat of embarrassment or judgement. Of course when I say ‘we’ I mean me, but there were a couple of moments where I think Katrine joined me on the ‘I’m never going to sleep again’ train. The ending is brilliant and unexpected right up until it happens, and at no point did you feel the usual this is all a bit silly feeling that most horror films finish up with.

Trembling we walked out the theatre but it wasn’t long until I regained some composure. The film is scary but I was more prepared for that this time, so afterwards I felt more relieved it was over than panicked something was going to get me. Don’t get me wrong the sequel is as scary as it predecessor I just think my management of it is more adept.

I would highly recommend watching the film, especially as Halloween is upon us. It’s a proper chiller, no real gore or guts just good old fashioned things that go bump in the night but if you do go I would not recommend doing it alone.

Hope you are all well

Love and Kisses

Meryl

PS: In a more reality based kind of scary…Rob Ford is mayor?!?! How could this of happened? More on that tomorrow.

Algonquin Park

2010-10-04T06:49:00.000-07:00

So I must have made over a hundred jokes about dying in the forest yesterday but strangely enough we all made it out of there alive. Jean, my new favorite photographer took some members of her photography class out to Algonquin Park on Sunday and even though I only have a slightly pathetic looking digital camera, the long lensed, light metered real photographers let me come along.

It was a little cold, but I can see why people head up to Algonquin at this time of the year, the colours are spectacular. Rapidly changing trees look as if they contain tiny fires crackling the length of their branches. Golds, browns, burnt oranges and reds litter themselves among the evergreens, creating a plethora of colour just ready to be captured on film. It’s strange, as you pass them in the car the trees look as if they are spinning revealing layer upon layer of delicious autumn hue. It was intoxicating and I was ready to give up my life in the city and stay among the foliage.

Of course then I got hungry and cold and as pointed out by the class there are no Tim Horton’s in the woods. We went on a 5.9k hike which I insist should actually be considered 6K considering we had to double back to the huge muddy bog to find Jen’s sunglasses, but even slime covered feet and shoes couldn’t damper my excitement to see such spectacular sights.

It was like slipping into a painting, brushstrokes of colour surrounded us the whole day, even the mushrooms joined in stretching from bright white (which are the ones that will kill you) to red toadstools complete with fairy like white dots. Katrine, my non photog buddy bought a mushroom book from the park store which provided us entertainment both identifying the mushrooms and forcing each other to take on some of the more ridiculous mushroom names, although her ability to track mushrooms with such aplomb earnt her the name truffle pig, which kind of stuck for most of the day.

Autumn has got to be my favorite season; it is so magnificent a canvas for the weather. Even as the leaves die and cascade from the trees they are picked up by the wind and swirled all around us, I got such Pocahontas flashbacks I think I may have started greeting people with Wingupo instead of hello – of course by ‘may have’, I mean I definitely did do it.

I would like to take this moment to say thankyou to Amy, Katrine, Jose, Jen and most of all our lovely guide Jean for what can only be described as a magical day. I’m excited to see all the photographs from the day especially from our more advanced photographers but I’ve put one of mine up for now so you guys can see how beautiful the place really is

Happy Monday

Meryl xx

Carpe Diem

2010-10-01T16:49:00.000-07:00

My top five films are always changing, and why shouldn't they the world keeps putting them out and constant re-evaluation of one's top five lists is a necessary part of keeping up with the new. But no matter how many films they put out there the one film to remain steadfast even as I grow and learn is the Dead Poets Society. Does this resign me to the Robin Williams films are for girls catagory? Maybe, but it is a small price to pay to be able to shout YAWP at the top of my lungs and understand it is the very underpinnings of non-conformity.

For years I worried about being different, I worried that my over active mind and underactive filter system would forever make me a freak, it kind of did but here was a film that told me most men lived lives of quiet desperation and I'd rather be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.

I always imagine Carpe Diem to be the sentiment of a generation, of course our newest group of young people are more likely to subscripe to phases like 'that's hot' or 'just do it'. Carpe Diem is a marketing exec's dream come true. A phrase that represents the underlying fear that we will run out of time to do the things we want. If people are afraid of death it can only be because they feel it will come too soon, but if we make the most of everyday surely we can keep that fear at bay, at least long enough to realize that death is only scary because we love life.

The Dead Poets Society is so sad because it represents the dispair of wanting to do something and being unable to do it, but in actuality are the people keeping us from our dreams mearly ourselves? There are so many barriers to being a free thinker and not small ones either, fear, life, isolation why would you want to think outside the box if everyone relatable is sitting inside. It is impossible not to worry what others think of us, ok it isn't, but it is damn hard and rejection is always a good reminder that putting all your hopes and dreams into one thing can lead to dissapointment.

I have come to believe that being strong comes from working through disapointment and from enjoying the bad as much as you can from worrying less about what people think of you and more what what you think of yourself. Strength comes from pushing forward when all you want to do is retreat. Carpe Diem, sieze the day, it doesn't mean that if you do it will end well, it just means you did it anyway. Or more elequently put 'to gather ye rosebuds while you may'.

Perhaps this is just the poet in me struggling to get free, the elequent rearrangement of words to give them more meaning. I refuse to live a life of quiet desperation and if the only way to do that is to be loud about it, then that is what I will do. People always talk about not wanting to put their thoughts into words and I understand why, as a race we are continuously looking to save face. If we leave our hopes and dreams in our heads no-one will know if they don't come true.

When Niel's father asks him what it is he feels it is the one chance he has to verbalize what he wants to do, and he backs down because in the end he doesn't feel like it could ever happen. If there was ever a message to learn from Mr Keating it was that anything is possible that you can't let anyone tell you that it's not.

O'Captin my Captin

Meryl

Third Star on The Right and Straight on Till Morning

2010-09-22T14:25:00.000-07:00

The foray into adulthood is so unceremonious that I think it takes people a long time to realize that they have ventured into it. For me, I realized there would be no defining moment and no sense of achievement while I was walking down the road in a business suit and sensible high healed shoes. Here I was dressed like the very adults I had admired while heading to school in London. I looked like an adult, I was presenting myself as an adult but I felt very much like a child playing dress up.

There aren't really any defined parameters to being an adult, other than the obvious achievement of living for over eighteen years. I have always thought, to consider yourself an adult you have to be living on your own, and making enough money to pay your bills, but I certainly understand that there are exceptions to these clauses.

I think when I was younger I was under the impression that everything in life just falls into place once you get older, that being an adult would be one of those milestones in your life that are marked by celebrations and certificates. What I failed to realize is that growing up and growing old is all about learning who you are and where you want to be.

Socailly we are kind of told that getting a great job is tip top most important, number one priority in life, which to an extent can be true. But as I learn more about the world, I keep thinking that perhaps being an adult is more about turning childhood dreams into functional realities. It is easy to get lost in a need for money and status but I think the two things prohibit our ability to really think about things. I know that a lot of my thoughts are obscured by an instant need to make money to live, and really how could they not. It is easy to be adventurous, care free and spontaneous when you have the money to back it all up. Finding a balance between the two is what is hard

I have talked about balance so much in my blog, and so I worry I am becoming a little cliche. Perhaps my blog entries are becoming a little too self endulgent. I write about these things because I truly wonder if people have the same conflicts running inside their own minds. If there is no marker to tell you you have become and adult how do you really know that you have?

My biggest fear is that being an adult is accepting that life is essentially treading the same steps as those before you. Living a hugely similar but slightly differing life to the social norm. It makes me feel like peter pan, running away from adulthood because it seems so incredibly dull. Unfortunately there is no never never land, but perhaps I can try and bring a little of it's ideology here. Maybe I have it all wrong and growing up doesn't mean assimilation instead it is a practical aplication of ones abilities to meet one's dreams.

Seeing as I have no answer I shall just have to put every ounce of effort I have into doing what I love, which is writting and have enough determination to not give up on it until I succeed. Maybe I will have to put aside my desire for some concrete congratulations on growing up, and worry more about who I am than where I am at. Whatever happens if I really get in trouble all I have to do is follow the third star on the right and straight on till morning and then my biggest problem will simply be pirates.

Love to all of you out there.

Meryl

Spice Up Your Life

2010-09-21T07:08:00.000-07:00

It was the mid nineties and the entire population of England was unashamedly enthralled by two words that would change the face of feminism forever….Girl Power.

I was 9 years old when the Spice Girls first released Wannabe and it was from that moment that I realized that girls could be loud, brash and naughty and people would still love you for it. So the Spice Girls were of course a manufactured, well researched, mostly auto tuned pop band, complete with five distinct personalities that different girls could relate to, but they were an inspiration to millions of young girls, and boys all around the world.

The spice girls get a lot of flack for the rise of girl gangs in England at the time, and not the ‘lets all braid each others hair’ type, the let’s go down the high street and mug people kind. I don’t think that is what the Spice Girls represented at all. They were a group of friends who were having a laugh, who didn’t need men to make them happy and who would put each other first.

If you want to be my lover you gotta get with my friends, wasn’t a beautifully written lyric line no, but it was a great message none the less.

The Spice Girls had a resounding effect on young ladies everywhere. Yes we all bought into the merchandise, and if I remember rightly very few desks weren’t littered with spice girl rulers and pencil cases that year, but more than that we bought into the idea that perhaps girls did have power, that we could zig a zig ah without transgressing any socially dictated conventions.

For me it was ginger spice…funnily enough it also was for my brother. She was giggly and mouthy and kissed Nelson Mandela on the cheek when she met him. I thought she was brilliant and glamorous and amazing and when she left the group I was devastated. I actually got to meet her once when I went swimming with my brother, and he’ll hate me for saying it but he was just as excited about it as me. We also walked to Emma Bunton’s house to drop a note asking for tickets to the Spice Girls tour, something that makes my cheeks go red when I think about it now.

But the reason I bring up the Spice Girls is because my birthday made me realize how lucky I am to have these strong independent ladies around me now. I still find myself being inspired and changed by these great role models who look after each other and me everyday. I doubt all of us have the Spice Girls to thank for not being meek, gentile and unadventurous people, and perhaps they were just a product of changing times. What I do know is having the confidence to find happiness in ourselves and not expecting to find it in other people is definitely what Girl Power was all about

Over and Out

Meryl

PS: If you are wondering if I went to see the reunion tour then the answer is yes. Me and my sister put our hair in pigtails covered ourselves in glitter and sang every word of every song until neither of us could talk...twas magical xxx

The Tale of Two Cookies.

2010-09-17T13:26:00.000-07:00

So yesterday was my birthday, and it was a truly fantastic day! Birthdays are both special and a bit weird, there is no real difference between that day and any other but even the sight of the date makes it feel foreign and exciting. September the 16th to me always looks different from every other date because in its own strange way it represents me. Obviously it only does this to me, and maybe my family. No one else see’s the 16th of September and have me pop into their brain….or do they.

Fade to black

Fade in.

(Exciting)

[At the office, early morning, interior shot]

So I got a great gift from my friend Grace yesterday in the early morning, and I get to see all these lovely messages on facebook through out the day, but all in all I’m trying to get through my large pile of paperwork so the day feels like most others end up feeling. All of a sudden the doorbell at work rings and there is a man standing with a box that has my name on it, he looks at me and in a rather unenthusiastic singsong tone he says ‘Cookie Gram’.

Low and behold there in the box is a massive cookie (pizza sized at best guess) with Happy Birthday SMAGE written on it. Now to quickly explain, my friend Sian has called me Smagel for years due to an unfortunate bagel misunderstanding that the Ivers family will never let me forget, but Smage is a new name and I was laughing at the mistake while feeling lovely and warm inside that Sian would work out a way to get a cookie delivered in Canada to me on my birthday all the way from England. It was a great surprise and a great gift beat only by one event.

Cookie number 2. About an hour, and fifty bbm’s of thanks later there is another ring on the doorbell, and standing there as if there were a glitch in the matrix is another gentlemen with a white box in his hands who smiles at me and says, cookie gram.

Two cookies ladies and gentlemen, for one birthday.

Turns out while Sian was trying to book cookies from England her confirmation hadn’t come through and worried that it wouldn’t turn up, her and her brother Kieran had scowered the internet to find another company that made cookie grams and ordered it through them. The second cookie gram was beautifully wrapped and when I opened it, it was really well decorated. There in the center of it written in Capital letters was HAPPY BIRTHDAY SMEGAL. Two cookies and neither could manage an accurate spelling, not to mention the slack I got from my co-workers about being named after a character from Lord of the Rings. Either way cookie grams are amazing, as is Sian. Thank you so much for making my birthday so very special and delicious. For the first time ever I really understood the psyche of the cookie monster. I became cookie centric.

Big thankyou’s to everyone that made my birthday so special. For my gifts and for my messages, they were amazing. I must be the luckiest person alive to have the friends that I have, which is not what I was thinking when they devoured my cookies in less than an hour. No I’m just kidding you are all beautiful!

I hope you all have exciting plans for the weekend! It’s my birthday party on Saturday and I intend to post pictures and blog about the event. If I can remember it, and don’t drunkly loose my camera…at this point what could happen is anyone’s guess.

All my love to those of you also celebrating your birthday this month, including my good friend Caressa who I adore and cannot wait to see on Saturday!

Love and kisses as always

Meryl x

It's like they made it just for me

2010-09-14T10:51:00.000-07:00

If this wasn't made for my blog then it should have been

Click here

M x

TTC Blog

2010-09-09T06:47:00.000-07:00

I’m back on the TTC. After almost a year of being driven to work moving has left me right back at square one taking the subway every morning and afternoon during rush hour. It’s not so bad really, it’s a bit squishy and smells bad but it is certainly a great way to get to work without harming the environment. It is delays that get to me.

Having spent a majority of my life taking London transport to school I am no stranger to delays, but London has a million different lines to accommodate your sudden route change, Toronto has two. It was this morning, as I stood pressed up against the glass trying to find some personal space while the train lingered in the dark tunnel that I realized I have spent a lot of my life holding hands with a subway pole.

It’s not a big deal really, but the familiar sight of a silver subway pole between my fingers makes me realize how much of your life just slips away right before your eyes. I won’t be the first person to observe that you spend more time with your work colleagues than anyone else in your life. Or that you walk the same piece of pavement or sidewalk everyday until you leave some sort of physical mark there. I used to let my imagination run wild as I walked to the subway, trying to imagine what the area would look like if every step I had taken in it was highlighted blue. If I could retrace my steps over the last year, yes they would take me to India but then they would bring me right back to the very area I walk around like a caged animal pacing.

When I first came to Canada I was far more adventurous. I would get off at different subway stations just to have a little look around. It also helped me get to grips with the city a little quicker. Now that I have moved I get a whole new area to discover which is exciting, although I am sure it won’t even be a month before I’ve devised a standardized route to get to all the things I need. Routine shouldn’t really be mocked though; I think I may be too hard on it. We create routine out of both necessity and enjoyment. We return to the places we liked and we find efficient way to get to places we need. That’s hardly a bad thing is it? I guess if I were to give myself advice it would be to try and mix up the two. To appreciate routine for the necessary part of life it is, but also to try and find new and exciting things to do and to see.

On the topic of breaking routine, Happy New Year to all the lovely Jewish people out there, I hope you have year filled with Happiness, Excitement and Success

Love to all of you xxx

Thirty days has September

2010-09-07T11:06:00.000-07:00

September is my favorite month of the year. It is a little self serving because September happens to be my birthday month too but that is not the reason I love it so much. Lots of things happen in September. The weather changes, the kids go back to school, drinking starts happening inside and new television shows are premiered. This predominantly is why I love September. Ever since I was young I had knack for making my imaginary successes accurate, and when I imagine having my television show on the box it would always be premiered in September along with the rest. September makes me feel inspired because I know with a little (or a lot) of hard work it could be my turn to see my script come to life.

September for the last six years has also been my month for moving. Once you get locked into moving in September it is not uncommon to continue doing so. This happens because you sign a year lease and are moving again the same time only a year later. I have stressed how much I dislike moving in September because all the students are trying to do the same only more aggravatingly and expensively and they get in my way, but overall it means September has become the start of something new, and pairing this with new shows and new opportunities I slide into the more introspective and philosophical Meryl I hide away for the rest of the year.

Talking of which the apartment is coming along really nicely. Nearly everything is in place. My kind, loving and sympathetic parents bought me a new netbook for my birthday and more importantly Charlie is back in town. I had asked my parents to look after the dog for a week, just so I could get everything packed up and moved without freaking him out, and he has spent a week in a big house with a big yard eating chicken my mother cooked for him. I missed him a lot while he was away. I think he is settling in, but my new place is a lot smaller than the old one and I think he feels a little peeved that I have downsized especially after spending a week in a dog equivalent all inclusive. Unfortunately for him he is a tiny little dog, so his options are rather limited and I am sure he will be used to it in no time.

I am going to keep this blog short because I am working on an ending to a story I found while clearing out data from my old netbook. It’s just a short story but I can see where I was going with it and feel I need closure by ending it right. If you are really good I will post it for you to read, fine if you are bad I probably will too.

I hope you had a great weekend, I went to second city on Saturday for the new show and it is hilarious, check it out if you can! I also watched a couple of newly released movies. The Runaways, which was poor and had very little happen for most of the film. I will say Dakota Fanning is really a great actress and brought a lot too it, but that was the only real positive to the whole thing. I would skip it if I had a do-over. I also watched Happy Tears, which is one of the weirdest films I’ve ever seen. For some reason I liked it, but it is hard to remember why, hmm if you have seen it let me know what you thought because to be honest I’m not quite sure.

Ok my pretties. Speak to you all real soon xxxx

Why I love Ricky Gervais, Steven Merchant and Karl Pilkington

2010-09-03T10:32:00.000-07:00

For lots of reasons, most predominantly this.

Change

2010-09-03T06:49:00.000-07:00

If I close my eyes really tight and wish on a shooting star, do you think there is a possibility the rest of the boxes in my house will unpack themselves…yeah I didn’t think so.

If I was Matilda this wouldn’t be a problem.

Anyway onto brighter things, today I want to talk about change (I know, how Obama of me right). Change is really important in life and yet it is one of the things that make us panic more than anything else. As a western civilization nearly everything we do works around routine, we are quick to ‘settle in’ and feel weird before we do. I am trying very hard to do the opposite, to use this change of address as an opening to change all the other things I wanted to but didn’t.

Ok so not all the other things, but lots of them. When Obama talked about change he promised a lot of things he himself may not be able to deliver and I know there are lots of people who are disappointed that he hasn’t really followed through on a lot of his policies, but for me Obama talking about change was more about mental state. For the first time in a long time the American population recognized that perhaps what they had going on wasn’t working for them, that proceeding in a both needless and endless war didn’t make any sense. American’s can be so great, but they are also blindly patriotic believing that being American is supporting everything the government decides to do, even if they think it is wrong. For the first time they had a leader saying, we need change, we need to grow and get better and re-evaluate.

And that is how I feel. I absolutely loved my time in Ossington, I have had a great last two years and met lots of people who I adore and are so important to me. I got to live with great people and have lots of fun but it changed my focus and allowed me to enjoy routine and procrastination. I’m ready for a new adventure. I’ve got my own place, I’m downtown in the city and I’m ready to spotlight my focus and write my arse off. This coming year is going to be different, because like Obama I want change.

So after re-reading this perhaps my comparisons between one of the most powerful men in the world running a country and me moving house are a little presumptuous, but I’m going to stand by them because that’s the kind of arrogant tosser I am.

Love to all of you x

PS: A big shout out to my Grandma and Grandpa on their 56th Wedding anniversary, and to my Uncle J and Aunti S on theirs too!

Box City

2010-09-02T07:06:00.001-07:00

Hello Bloggywoggers

So I’m moved in. I can’t believe it’s all moved in, well I can because of the 6 hours I spent in the 33 degree weather shifting boxes and beds around. All in all it was a bit of a nightmare. It was stiflingly hot which is awful moving temperature and there was just the two of us moving everything. I will never do it again ever. Next time I want 10 strong men packing and moving my stuff while I lay leisurely on a soft chair eating grapes. On the plus side we managed to move for a whopping 30 dollars each, which is quite a saving.

Or is it?

No it isn’t.

Why?

Because I managed to smash my computer the night before we were due to move.

Let me set the scene for you readers. It is nine o’clock the night before moving day and I’m trying to stuff the last of my rubbish into boxes and bags. My brain is trying to concentrate only on packing, but it is being distracted by worry that I won’t be able to move the heavy boxes I have now packed. I’m running around the house like a bit of a loon concerned I’m going to leave something behind. I grab one of the lighter boxes and lay it on top of a pile of clothes and it slowly slides sideways and onto the floor hitting a hanger which unearths another box which causes my bed side table to collapse sending my computer flying and with a smash it hits the hardwood floor.

The worst part is that the screen was facing down when it fell, so I have to walk over to it not sure if it is going to be dead. As I turn the poor thing over I’m silently praying to the god I don’t believe in to make it be ok, and unsurprisingly after no divine intervention three quarters of the screen has gone black. On the plus side one quarter of the screen is functioning perfectly so I know the actual computer is still working and all my info isn’t lost. This will be my fifth computer in three years so I’m starting to think it is me and not them.

By the end of moving day, I was sweaty and hot, I looked like crap and my arms were aching, and the after effects today are kind of worse. I can barely lift my arms up and I’m covered in bruises and of course now don’t have a computer to write my blog on. Again you will have to put up with the spelling mistakes associated with writing blog entries on a blackberry. I do feel happy and calm though. My new apartment is all mine, and although it looks like box city right now, I can see how it is all going to take shape and I’m going to love it. I can’t wait to get it in order.

I want to say thank you to my room mate Mike who really took the lions share in moving stuff, I like to think I did as much as I could but all in all he was the hero of the day. I would also like to thank Dave for driving that huge truck and not taking out any lampposts on the way (scraping one doesn’t count). Oh talking of which how strange is this, while in the middle of moving we had our photo taken yesterday. We had decided to take a break because we were just getting so hot and Dave ran and got us all icecaps from Tim Horton’s. We all took a seat on the end of the truck, feet dangling boxes and chairs scattered in and around us. All of a sudden we see a flash and some man is taking photos of us. To be fair we probably looked like a Tim Horton’s commercial, all ‘stressful day, take a break and cool of with an icecap’ like, but it was a little strange none the less.

While I am doing thankyous, I would like to thank everyone who checked in on me throughout the day, although it was all very hectic it was nice that people were thinking of how horrible I must be feeling moving in the heat. A massive thank you goes out to Jen for feeding me dinner and letting me sit in her air-conditioned apartment she is the best neighbour ever.

Also if any of you want to donate a computer to me, don’t even bother I wouldn’t take it if it was free. Yes I would, yes I would, somebody? anybody?

Meryl

Brain Dust

2010-08-30T12:10:00.000-07:00

So if I am being honest today I am a little frazzled. I’m generally a really calm person, well unless you sneak up on me in the house to which I will jump as if you are a ninja. I know moving does that to people so I’m not overly worried it is abnormal but I have a bunch of other little things to sort out that make me feel like I am trying to juggle fire sticks (not technically the right name for them).

The best thing to do when really stressed out is to take a moment to breathe. There is very little in this life that cannot be sorted out and taking a second to think everything through will stop you from panicking or feeling overwhelmed. I am breathing lots and lots today, all the time in…out…in…out and so forth. Ok so I would be doing it anyway so I could stay alive but this breathing is focused, it’s special breathing I promise.

Due to the insane amount of packing and sorting out I have to do, this is where this blog ends. …
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Haha ok, all my special breathing has caused dust to go into my brain and its making me silly. Today's picture is how I want my new apartment to look ...........It won’t :(
Love you all

Meryl xxx

New Chocolate News

2010-08-27T11:48:00.000-07:00

So anyone that read my blog when it was brand new will know I was a little obsessed with consistency when I first started. For some reason I was truly worried that my, all over the place, topic choices would put people off continuing reading. To remedy this I decided as long as I reported sporadically on chocolate related news stories I could pretend that my blog was chocolate centric with other topics thrown in. I should point out I now see this is the thought process of a mental patient but have come to terms with it and have a brand new chocolate related story for you today.

Chocolate covered iPads. Yes it sounds mental but it is true. You can now get your iPad coated in chocolate and wrapped in nice looking chocolate wrapping to confuse and surprise the recipient of this cool new piece of technology. So I wasn’t sure if I thought this was cool or not so I shopped the idea around the office, and I am not going to lie it split the crowd.

There were three main argument strains.

1.    That’s pretty cool I want one
2.    What’s the point?
3.    There are starving people in the world and we are putting iPads into chocolate really?

I have to admit I’m a little on the fence. It is cool, if someone gave me an iPad covered in chocolate I would just die. It would literally be the coolest thing ever, but on the scale of unnecessary indulgences it is hitting the big 1, 0. It goes along with gold plated iPods and Swarovski covered blackberry’s it is just an extravagant amount of money to spend on something so superfluous. (big word)

This is the time I wish I knew how to create a poll on blogspot. It would be cool to have one of those bar chart things which show what you guys think on the matter. I personally think the best thing to do is believe in number three and secretly hope you get one. That way you can be a good person and a person with a chocolate covered iPad, it’s a win win all round.

Alright hope you all have very exciting weekends planned, mine will consist almost entirely of packing so I can imagine yours will be somewhat less humdrum. 5 days till moving day…move-y move-y.

Meryl xxx

Frozen Vegetables

2010-08-26T11:46:00.000-07:00

Obviously frozen vegetables are somewhat of a second class to the fresh vegetables that parade themselves pompously among the vegetable section of the supermarket, but they last a long time, they are all ready cut and you don’t have to worry that a bug might be living inside them.

Also when I was buying fresh vegetables I found that some went bad almost instantly, and they end up being quite expensive. When I switched to frozen vegetables I thought I had found my solution, the vegetables of my dreams if you will, and I am still of the same mind, except… runner beans.

I was trying to make vegetables sound somewhat sinister there and I don’t think I succeeded, but something that has started to irritate me is how difficult it is to buy mixed frozen vegetables without there being a somewhat majority of runner beans thrown into the mix.

It’s just like when you open a pack of starburst and you’ve got five green ones, what is the point? People live for the red and purple ones, green are just filler that you eat first before savoring the good once. In this analogy baby corn count as red and water chestnuts as purple, god I love a water chestnut.

You are probably wondering why I don’t just buy a pack of frozen baby corn, or invest in a bag of water chestnuts to cook up with my beef, but it doesn’t work like that. If I really just mixed in one type of vegetable the whole meal looks a little sad, not to mention individual packaged vegetables are almost double the cost.

I have thankfully found the solution. All too often do I present to you, dear readers, nuisances of life and then leave it at that, but no more. I don’t like runner beans fresh, and I certainly don’t like the water filled chewy version that are frozen but I have been introduced to a new kind of vegetable called stir fry mix. Now the creators of ‘stir fry mix’ have done a very clever thing and switched up the runner beans for sugar snap peas (everyone’s favorite green vegetable) and the results are delicious if I were you I’d run out and by some right now.

This makes me think of a great show called Archer, it is an animated show released by adult swim and it is truly hilarious. This poor employee is chopping vegetables at work for a stir fry to serve to his girlfriend later and when he tells archer they have special name for Friday’s stir fry night Archer replies ‘is it stirfriday?’ to which Cyril looking glum says ‘wow, that’s way better that what I had’

I guess the whole world is talking about Stir fry related things and I’m on the forefront. Reporting to you from my bedroom side table I’ve been Meryl have yourself a great evening.

xxx

Triple Decker Sandwhich

2010-08-25T11:18:00.000-07:00

Je suis tres desole pour my absence yesterday. Look at that, starting my blog in some strange French to English mix, how Canadian am I? I have been trying so hard to keep up with my blog but yesterday just got away from me.

More importantly today I wanted to talk about triple decker sandwiches. You may have heard of triple decker buses (Harry Potter Reference anybody) or triple decker trains (Go Canadian Transport) but triple decker sandwiches is a phrase that makes sense only to my grandpa, my siblings and me.

Triple Decker sandwiches are exactly as they sound, a sandwich with three layers. My grandpa used to make them for me, my sister and my brother when we stayed round their house. Most commonly they would run like this. Piece of bread (preferably toast) sardines (probably two) piece of bread (again toasted) egg (hopefully scrambled) piece of toast, tomato, piece of toast. Done.

Now of course when you are 8 years old and you have a sandwich the size of your face in front of you it becomes somewhat of a challenge, but my grandpa didn’t mind if we ate them, I think he just liked that we liked them.

Other than triple decker sandwich breakfasts it was my grandma that made the food in that household, and she is an absolutely incredible chef! She would make lasagna from scratch, amazing porridge (which looking back was probably ready brek with honey) and the best cheesecake in the land! There was no way you were coming back from G&G’s household hungry. We used to have so much fun there!

In other news, excitingly I have been asked to be a bridesmaid by my very good friend Grace!!! I am so excited for her and so excited that I get to be part of her special day and her life in general! Congrats again grace-la, this is going to be amazing!

This week may be a little blog light but only because I am moving to a new apartment next week and have a crazy amount of packing to do, still exciting to be moving, change always brings new excitements, as well as massive amounts of stress and panic…right?

Meryl x

PS – I could not find a picture of a triple decker sandwich that met with my high standards, so I drew one. It didn’t all pan out like I thought it would.

Gregg's Bakery

2010-08-23T07:32:00.000-07:00

So my mum sent me an article about Gregg’s bakery. The English people reading this know exactly what Gregg’s is but for you Canadians I will take a minute to explain.
Greggs, or Gregg’s bakery is like a fast food bakery shop. You will find them everywhere in England and they sell cheap lardy food like sausage rolls in flaky pastry. They also specialize in all these different types of pasty and every donut or sweet treat you can even think of and for the older folk they sell fresh bread that we will cut there. It was also where I had my very first job. I was 14 or 15 around that age, and I started at Gregg’s doing weekends to make a little bit of cash.

Gregg’s take their stuff seriously, and I dreaded every second I had to spend there. In England sausage rolls are the perfect hangover, or drunken binge snack. In fact I am sure all of you out there can appreciate how delicious a hot sausage roll would be after a heavy night out. What you can also understand is that being a 15 year old girl having to serve drunken lads sausage rolls at all hours of the night was far from an enjoyable experience.

I think I would still take drunken customers over preparing the food. There were always the fun jobs, like sugaring the donuts or icing the pastries where you could eat your wages in sweet treats, but I was also in charge of mixing the tuna mayonnaise, which has a surprisingly small amount of tuna in it, and scraping the burnt pork mince off the oven.

Those ovens. Not only did they make the back area of the store unbearably hot, they would beep two minutes before the pasties were ready, one minute before they were ready, and then every ten seconds until they were done. This was followed by one very long beep that persisted until you took the tray out the oven even if you did have a line of customers that you were serving. Sometimes I would hear the beeping in my dreams, just a sort of distant reminder that I would have to go back to work at some point.

On the plus side, Gregg’s Bakery treats their employees very well, even as a part timer I got a reasonable wage and an hour break. Plus the people were really nice. Management were kind of crazy though, they were just so into their jobs. In the article my mum sent they quoted an employee talking about Gregg’s recipe for Jam Donuts, and he replied 'We're re-evaluating it because we believe we can improve the mouth feel and flavor attached,’ It is weird isn’t it? Mouth feel, that does make me laugh.

I think everybody’s first job sucks, but it is an important milestone in becoming an adult. Unless you are babysitting, best job I ever had. You get paid lots of money to sit and watch television with someone else’s kids, in fact once I got a job looking after a dog. Gregg’s was a typical first job, I learnt how to manage my time, how to run cash, how to talk to customers and how use a bread cutting machine without chopping off my fingers so all in all it was a great step for me and I look back on it fondly. Would I go back, never, but I would definitely stop in for a sausage roll.

Anyway, take a moment to read the article, it’s funny to see how serious they are about pleasing the customer and about what they feel the can improve. Hope all your Mondays go well!

Meryl xxx

Green Wing - Flying

2010-08-19T13:28:00.000-07:00

Question and Answer

2010-08-18T13:03:00.000-07:00

So I was sent a bunch of questions over the last few months to answer but I feel really weird doing a Q and A because it looks a bit pompous and tosser-ish (new word) but now that I have 11 of them sitting in my inbox I thought maybe if I do them really quickly it won’t feel so odd – like ripping off a Q and A band aid

1. What are you afraid off?

Ok easy one, birds. Its not so much a fear as a dislike, when I was very little my dad took me up to Trafalgar square to feed the birds and lots of them landed on me and I ended up with three on my arm knocking each other over and scratching me up. City pigeons are the worst because they fear nothing, not even being trodden on but the ones in the country aren’t so bad. The only time I really got in trouble was in Venice when a million them took off at once and I ended up rolling in a ball on the floor while my friends laughingly picked me up.

2. What else do you write other than your blog?

Right now I am working on writing a television Sitcom, it’s so good that if I even shared a bit of it the universe would collapse on itself and we would all die. Although the peoples in suits seem unaffected by this and are happy to have me write it and rewrite it while they pitch it out for me. I am also particularly good at writing lists

3. Why does every blog entry come up twice on facebook?

It is a very slow process making people check out a website, so I have my facebook set to import each one and show it as a note as well, that way if you can’t be bothered to click you can just read it there…lazy bastards

4. How much do you earn from your blog

You cheeky thing you asking about money, but if you must know, very little. As I have demonstrated I love to play with the algorithms for the advertisements along the sides of my entries and if people click them I get paid for it. Please don’t feel you have to click on them to help me make money, really don’t, but if you see something that interests you go crazy! I started my blog as a great way to showcase my writing, and when I do go to meetings for my sitcom I am able to present them with a website to show them my style, plus I have a feeling they are dying for new writers with detailed knowledge of the conker championships

5. If you were stranded on an island what three things would you take with me.

Easy – Jack, Sawyer and Desmond (he is my constant)

6. What is your favorite TV show?
Impossible question, there are too many good ones, not to mention I change my mind daily. I guess if it came down to the wire and I had to pick to save a baby Kawala from being shot I would say Gavin and Stacey. I think because it felt so real and sweet. I didn’t pick Doctor Who, which came as a shock to me as much as it did to you. It is amazing and excellent and funny and clever and smart, but Gavin and Stacy is similar to something I would write, it is what I aspire to.

7. Pirates or Ninjas

This one was sent anonymously, which is so sad because it is my favorite question of the bunch, and I gave it some real thought. I think Ninjas, it is because they could be anywhere, literally you could turn around and there would be ninja standing silently behind you. Of course you would then be dead, but you last thought would be ‘Oh my God a ninja’. Pirates are mostly at sea, you are less likely to see one and if you did you may be able to get away.

8. Do you have any secrets?

Lots and lots and lots and lots.

9. When do you normally write your blogs?

Sometimes I write them in my mind first while I am walking somewhere, and then write down as much as I can remember once I get to the computer. This is my favorite way of writing anything because I feel like you allow your thoughts to come to completion without being interrupted by getting it all down. If I do write them off the cusp it will normally be late at night, or on my break at work all depending on whether something has sparked my interest. I’m a little like a goldfish though, so I have a short period of time before I forget what I am thinking of have moved onto something else.

10. Is everything you write true?

I worry from this question that Danka (from Persia) you are assuming what I have written is so manic it might be made up. Unfortunately everything that I write actually happened or is happening or I think may happen. I don’t imagine my life to be any weirder than anyone elses but I do realize the way I write is. Introspection can be a blessing or a curse but I am off the belief that if you can laugh about anything that happens to you life is a little more enjoyable and a lot more fun. I should add that my entire blog about being afraid of padlocks wasn’t true but I hope from the tone of it you realized I was purposely lying to you readers to get out of trouble for not blogging in a while.

11. Do you want to become an internet star?

I would love a hundred billion people to read my website everyday but it isn’t why I write. I once heard an interview with David Sedaris and he said that everybody has an idea to write about but only very few people put pen to paper. I wanted to make sure I didn’t fall into that category and started a blog to force myself to write, it worked. As long as I get to write all the time and keep my focus I’d be happy even if no one read it.

Ok and we are done, feel free to send me anymore questions you have, or just leave them in the comments box. In fact I demand more comments, my special counter of page impressions is up to about 100 a day now and if you all leave a message it will make me happier than a kitten in a cat nip castle.

Love to all of you

Meryl xxx

Facebook Friends

2010-08-17T10:58:00.000-07:00

This topic was actually a suggestion by my very intelligent friend Zina, and when intelligent friends offer you blog topics you bloody well better take ‘em. What she was saying is something I have heard a lot of people discuss which is what exactly it means to be someone’s facebook friend.

From previous blogs you probably know that I’m very pro facebook, this is partially because I moved country and it is a very convenient way to keep up with long distance friends but it is also because I personally believe it encourages social interaction.

This is a sticking point for people, turning genuine social interaction or ‘face time’ into technological interaction or ‘facebook’ (see what I did there) is really a reduction in human interconnectivity or mingling. The best example that I’ve seen of this is a commercial for a phone. They have a gentleman sitting in a café and opposite him keep flashing different people who he is talking to, in the end you see in fact he is having a cup of coffee by himself texting away on his phone, the resounding message being ‘keep up with your friends’. It is difficult to know if that is what you are actually doing, or if in fact you are isolating yourself from the real life human beings sitting around you. Being on your phone certainly isn’t going to result in meeting someone new or feeling part of society so maybe technology is inhibiting social networking?!

Why do I think facebook is different from this? I think facebook is different from this because your friend list tends to keep growing. Normally when you meet people at a party you don’t get to know them well enough to ask for a number or to suggest another meeting time, but adding someone to facebook allows you to explore the possibility that a new friendship could be forged. Zina said it best when she says it allows someone who is interested in finding out about you, to, well, find out about you.

I really believe it is also useful for finding a relationship. By no means do I think facebook is a dating website, nor do I allow the lovely gentlemen from Egypt to add me after telling me ‘I have nice picture’. What facebook does do is eliminate moments such as those described by James Blunt where you meet someone you really like and then they are gone. Facebook enables people to stay connected after that first glance, reducing the crazy statistic that proximity is a discriminator for relationships. Socially it allows us to get to know more people, to reduce acquaintances and add more friends.

Facebook does a tonne of other crap too, like let people know what you are thinking about 24/7, share with others your likes and dislikes. It also sells most of your information to marketing companies for lots and lots of money. I guess sometimes you have to take the bad with the good, and marketing companies have always managed to get their hands on your stats way before facebook took off. You have to be careful what you put up in a public domain but I have no sympathy for those who complain about it. If you pinned a picture of yourself onto a cork notice board in a community center and it was gone you would realize that it was a risk you were taking, posting stuff up on the internet is really the same deal.

I have this great link you guys should check out, it is from a hilarious show called the IT crowd, they do a whole episode on a new social networking website called ‘Friend Face’ and here is the clip. If you have time check out the whole episode here.

Anyway I must dash, things to do people to see, mostly on facebook in the farm I’m cultivating…just kidding I’m a nerd not a loser. (debatably)

Meryl xx

Shot – A – Palooza

2010-08-16T11:53:00.000-07:00

When my friend decided to throw an event based around drinking many many shots I think we were all aware it may end a little sloppy. We were right it did. It was however huge amounts of fun. There were pudding shots and root beer float shots, and peanut butter and Jam shots, the rest of them kind of all blurred together in my mind, I can’t imagine why? See that wasn’t sarcasm the shots literally have decayed the part of my brain in charge of imagination. Only kidding, three quarters of my brain is taken up by imagination hence why I woke up yesterday morning laughing because of the dream I had.

It isn’t always easy to describe a dream but this one was so clear I wonder if perhaps it happened. It didn’t. In my drunken haze I fell fast asleep and dreamed I was in an elevator. It was pretty standard but had two full length mirrors on either side. The elevator stopped at the first floor and in walked this little round monster with one large blinky eye. It was actually very cute and it turned and looked at me give me a blink and turned back towards the door. The elevator continued to go up and on each floor more and more of these little monsters started clambering in. Now as anyone who has stood between two full length mirrors know when you look in one you see it’s reflection in the reflection of the mirror and inside that you see the reflection of the other mirror (you’re still following right) anyway it creates this endless hallway effect which goes on forever.
Once there were about 25 eye blinking monsters and me reflected in the mirrors we looked like a small monster army and for some reason they all kept blinking in perfect unison. It got too much for my drunken brain and I started laughing so hard in my dream I fully work up disorientated and a little disappointed. I was missing my blinky friends.

I actually re-told this dream to Jen the next day and she asked if the monsters were green. I should point out they were not, they were rainbow coloured, like skittles. Actually more like iPod colours. They were rainbow iPod monsters.

As a special treat I have drawn a picture of the dream – please note it is a reconstruction and I cannot draw.

They are cute aren’t they! I also want to wish my brother HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! Today is his birthday, and it is the first one in which he will be married yay!! I am very lucky to have him and I hope that this year is amazing and exciting and full of successes!! Love you lots.

And to everyone else happy Monday, thanks for reading, I am a grateful grapefruit. If you need cheering up click here

Superbug

2010-08-11T12:07:00.000-07:00

So remember SARS? and bird flu, and swine flu. Yes mostly because they are reminder of what happens when the whole western world gets itself into a flap about nothing. It is also a great way for an economy to make money. Scared people will buy lots of things to make themselves feel safe including investing in vaccines.

So today I read about the new ‘superbug’ that has made it’s way from India and Pakistan, which ironically I could have brought back with me when I was there in January. Not only is it immune to our usual antibiotics it is also able to spread very quickly from person to person, which is weird because that would be exactly the same as bird flu, SARS and swine flu. Spooky coincidence. Obviously one shouldn’t be flippant when lives are at stake but scare mongering has become cliché and creating general panic to generate income seems to be a common strategy the government employs.

I guess we will just have to see how things progress, but I would slap a couple brown skins down (I’m so Canadian) that the whole thing spirals out of control. At the end of the day you just got to accept that we are very rarely in control of what is about to happen, so relax enjoy knowing there is very little you can do.

Alright, short and sweet today!

Be good

Meryl

PS Gustav – contact me by owl, it’s the only way I can see of communicating. Unless you have any better suggestions?!

xxxx

Tennis

2010-08-10T11:19:00.000-07:00

I wish I could say I was exaggeration when I tell you me and my friend Katrine spent the entire tennis match admiring Rafael Nadal’s bottom but I’m not. I don’t really think we were to blame, it’s a perfect arse made better by some perfectly fitting trousers.

Anyway, to find myself in the gold seats of the Rogers Cup center court watching the world’s number one tennis player was pretty amazing. We also got to see Peter Polanski play, or POPO as we affectionately nicknamed him and really the Canadians took the night.

It is always good to see a country come behind its athletes and to say the Canadians had the crowd last night was an understatement. It must be great to have the home advantage but it doesn’t take away from the fact that two of Canada’s most excellent Tennis players took down the world’s number 1 and number 2 in the doubles opener. Tennis is lots more fun that I had thought.

Ok so doubles is a lot more fun than I thought. Singles was kind of what I expected, lots of head turning, but doubles is lightning fast and really exciting, it makes you want to shout things out and cheer people along, which you can’t because tennis is posh. Yes ladies and gentlemens there is no cat calling or heckling in tennis, you are allowed to clap and you have to wait for a point to be over before you leave your seat to go pee. It’s all very civilized and nice but I think part of sport is being allowed to shout mean things at the opposing team. Well it didn’t faze us too much and after a few drinks we weren’t exactly adhering to the no shouting policy.

I also had the pleasure of going to the Black Keys last week and they were just wicked. Plus the morning benders opened so all my dreams came true in one show. I love love love the morning benders but the black keys totally blew them out of the water. My roommate said it best when he sauntered up to me wide eyed with a big smile on his face ‘Dan Auerbach eh? He is just such a showman’. And he was right, there were a couple of truly magical moments where the crowd were totally into the show, they are brilliant live. The only downside to the show was the venue. I like Kool house, it’s really big and the sound is good but by George was it hot. If we had been in a cartoon we could have watched a thermometer’s level rise to the top and have it burst open, it just got hotter and hotter and hotter until you couldn’t move let alone dance. For a venue called Kool House they should really invest in a better AC system

Ok peoples onwards and upwards. I hope the week is treating you well. Here is a little treat for you just because it’s Tuesday. I’ve found a bigger Doctor Who nerd than myself…check him out here :)

Century Blog

2010-08-05T11:25:00.000-07:00

Welcome to blog 100, I honestly don’t think I have celebrated doing a 100 of something before ever. I’m sure I’ve done lots of things a hundred times, but I guess this is the one I shall momentously mark by giving you a Sesame Street style list of 100 things I like:

1.    People who are silly
2.    People who are serious
3.    Umbrellas
4.    Snowflakes
5.    Witticisms
6.    Laughter
7.    Puppies
8.    Kittens
9.    Speeches
10.    Falling in Love
11.    Protective Friends
12.    Ghostbusters
13.    Ice cream
14.    Sunshine
15.    Rainshine
16.    Chocolate
17.    Colours
18.    People who are relaxed
19.    Smiles
20.    People comforting others
21.    Selflessness
22.    Selfishness
23.    Butterflies
24.    Toffee Apples
25.    Rollercoasters
26.    Going to the Movies
27.    The Theatre
28.    Street Art
29.    Live Music
30.    Alcohol
31.    Vitamin Water Dwnld
32.    Intelligence
33.    Knowledge
34.    Star Signs
35.    England
36.    Canada
37.    Warm and Breezy Days
38.    Ice Lollies
39.    Hot Chocolate
40.    Fireflies
41.    Autumn
42.    Buying Presents
43.    Getting Presents
44.    Moonlight
45.    The Smell of Petrol
46.    Fresh made bread
47.    Days that feel like Holiday
48.    Actual Holiday
49.    Being in a crowd
50.    Being part of something
51.    The NEWS
52.    My Bloggywog
53.    Doctor Who
54.    My Friends
55.    Being naughty
56.    Being good
57.    Free Stuff
58.    Snow Angels
59.    Cotton Candy
60.    Lists
61.    Chestnuts
62.    Tim Horton’s Banana nut muffins
63.    Winning money
64.    My Blackberry
65.    Charlie
66.    My new sister in law
67.    My original sister
68.    Family in General
69.    Walking round the City
70.    Looking at photos
71.    Writing
72.    Reading
73.    Facebook
74.    Streetlights
75.    Solar Power
76.    Gadgets
77.    Gizmos
78.    People falling over in the snow
79.    Snow at Christmas
80.    Zombie movies
81.    Clouds
82.    Fairies
83.    Daydreaming
84.    Travelling
85.    Information
86.    People checking to see if you are ok
87.    Barbeques.
88.    Blue tack
89.    Love
90.    Fresh Baked Cookies
91.    Anyone that reads my blog
92.    Scones
93.    Jam and Clotted Cream
94.    India
95.    Indian Food
96.    The like button on facebook
97.    Panel Quiz Shows
98.    Pubs
99.    Life
100. The number 100

That was actually a quite easy list, in fact I sure there are thousands of things I like, I’m a very like giving person, I give my like to all things, except silence. In fact my list of things I hate is much smaller. It is mostly things like war and poverty and all the normal stuff, but it does include silence, whispering, George Stroumboulopoulos and Terry Fox. Grr Terry Fox.

So 100 yay! Thankyou to everyone who reads my blog, extra thanks to those that share it! It really means so much to me in so many ways! All my love and more importantly all my like

Meryl xx

99 with a flake

2010-08-04T11:10:00.000-07:00

Today is my 99th Blog Post, which I think we all know is seemingly less important than what will be my 100th Blog post, but 99 is a cool number. It was the age of the first house I ever lived in, Hawthorn Cottage. It is what we English call ice cream when you stick a flake in it and it is also the amount of people that read my blog yesterday, spooky. Although I should assume a good ten of those were probably my mum.

Back to a 99. My grandma and grandpa used to take us Grandchildren to Valentine Park in Essex and I can't tell you how cool this place was. It had everything, one of those zip swings, a climbing frame and tiny train that ran the length of the park. It had places to run around in, a tire swing and those weirdly shaped animals you sit in and just rock back and forth. It was paradise. What Valentine Park also had was a tiny cafe, which had this one window leading to the outside and they would sell 'whippys' with a flake in it. It was idilic, I can't tell you how well behaved me and my brother would be to get one, it took everything in us not to run ahead or throw bread at the ducks instead of to them just so we could earn our 99. Looking back I'm pretty sure we were always going to get one, but when you are young you are bamboozled into thinking there is a chance that you won't, so you do what you are told.

Not to throw back to an old post but my Grandma used to collect Conkers too. Not so she could take her place in the Conker leagues like we were hoping but because she would crack them and give them to us to feed to squirrels. We used to take the cracked Conkers down to Valentines and if you stayed still enough the squirrels would run up grab them out your hands and run of to a safe distance to break them open. It was fascinating to watch because until then I didn't realize conkers were nuts, you may yourself only be finding out from this blog...BREAKING NEWS Conkers are nuts. God I'm so BBC.

So tonight I am off to see the Black Keys. Oh yes that's right you heard me, could I be any cooler? Yeah maybe if I hadn't written that sentence I could already have been cooler. It's going to be great! Morning Benders are opening so I'm more excited than Augustus was in the chocolate factory.

I hope your slightly odd feeling short week is going well, there should be more four day weeks I think people would be happier. I'll get right on it. I look forward to posting my 100th Blog sometime this week and by george it is going to be good, you can't even imagine the goodness of the good that the blog will be... yeah.

Also an irritated shoutout to my brother and sister in law - I have started watching cake boss and now can't seem to stop, god you were right about it being addictive. If you haven't see it buyer be warned it's Jersey Shore addictive, there is just no going back.

Love to you all

Kisses Meryl xx

KOL

2010-07-29T13:27:00.000-07:00

So the Kings of Leon were regally fantastic last night. They really are better live than on disk. The whole thing was very rock and roll, die hard fans filled the Molson Amphitheater (like to the brim) huge screens were erected but played only in black and white. The lead singer was working through a cold which did nothing but make his voice more rustic and beautiful. It was all good, well all except the lawn was very far back from the stage. Luckily I had no intention of sitting still and we snuck as far forward as we could ending up middle centre, we couldn't have had a better view point.

The show was a great length and the crowd were hugely responsive, even the new stuff they played kept people motivated which is a risky move for any artist. My favorite moment of the night was when they played 'Where is my mind' by the pixies which is a massive tune anyway but they really brought something to it, of course when they played Use Somebody the place went crazy and I started sending voice clips to England to show off. The whole night was great and the atmosphere was really sparkling, mimicked perfectly by the fireworks at the end of the show. My brother used to live for the end of shows, it didn't matter what we were watching if they had fireworks or those sparkly tinsel things that fall from the sky he was a happy camper.

Of course the booze at the amphitheater is some ridiculous price, I don't understand why they are so keen to exploit you like that, they are already making a packet from the show why they need to charge you twice the normal price of a beer is beyond me. But hey 11 dollars a beer is better than no beer right - glass is half full kind of moment.

This coming weekend is a long one, as in we get the Monday off too, I am so broke I'm not up to much, but seeing as I am moving soon gotta start packing at some point.

Hope you are all well! love and kisses meryl x

PS: Today's Picture is actually from the show :)

The Hurt Locker

2010-07-28T12:31:00.000-07:00

So I'm not a war film person, in fact the only one I've ever really enjoyed is Apocalypse Now, and really how couldn't you. So when my room mate brought home Hurt Locker I just wasn't in the mood to watch it. Nevertheless he put it in the dvd machine for him to watch, and by the first five minutes I was completely hooked. The film is spell bounding. The suspense is crazy and the direction is divine. It manages to give you this insight into how frightening every day of a war must be, while touching on how the horrific things these soldiers saw drove them to fight harder. I was literally on the edge of my seat every time they diffused a bomb, and the fact that the soldiers could never really be sure who was working against them and who were just civilians meant I got overwhelmingly nervous through a lot of the film.

In my own mind I am of course anti-war, as the old saying goes it is old men talking and young men dying, but sometimes I feel this demeans the soldiers. There are people in this world who lay down their lives everyday to try and save lives, who fight for freedom and keep the peace and I think being anti-war doesn't have to mean I'm anti soldiers. So I have decided to do the whole Red Friday thing, it's not exactly a massive contribution to my country but it is so easy to do it is embarrassing I haven't already done it. If you don't know about Red Friday, and I am sure you do, you can click here it will tell you all about them and what else you can do to support the troops.

Alright that's all from me today, tonight I am off to see the Kings of Leon, woohoo and I am sure I will have a lovely blog all about it tomorrow, and I'll probably want to do some sort of Kings of Leon Thursday where I only wear black - just kidding

Cuddles

Meryl xx

Jitterbug Blog

2010-07-27T13:16:00.000-07:00

So today I had a coffee after not drinking caffeine for just over a year, I am so jittery if you gave me a pen I could draw you a Spirograph without any equipment. Yes I feel awake, but almost too awake. I think I shall have to go back to not drinking caffine because the head rush it is giving me is making me giggly with an underlying dollop of hysteria, which lets face it doesn't go down massively with the old work colleagues.

On the plus side tomorrow I am going to see Kings of Leon, which is super exciting as long as there are no birds near the amphitheater - look how up to date that joke is. Obviously keeping birds away from an amphitheater isn't an easy task with the sky being - well pretty big at least, but if they need any help I'm happy to oblige.

So the coffee is keeping me awake and the news is keeping me stressed out which means my blood pressure is probably sky rocketing, in particular this story got me boiling. For the 99 percent of you out there who did not just click on the link I will summarize. The story is about a priest, who to welcome new member to her congregation gave a man and his dog a wafer for holy communion. Now even for the large population of you out there who believe in Jesus and the bible surely there is the understanding that a wafer is just a representation of Jesus, wafers eaten outside a church don't have the same connotation and they certainly aren't made from his skin so why get so upset that a wafer was given to a dog?

My favorite part is a quote by Cheryl Chang from our very own Anglican Network of Canada who said, and I quote 'I don't recall anything from the scripture about Jesus dying for the salvation of our pets'. Funny that because from what I've learn't Jesus was actually pretty cool, he talked about the heavenly kingdom being inside ourselves and giving away our material possessions and helping those in need. He also talks about how important community was and told stories about Samaritans who would help out anyone that needed it. What I don't understand is how all of this translated into pouring money into the Churches and wearing expensive gold representations of Christ around your neck to show your faith. By his own teachings wouldn't Jesus be annoyed that people were wasting money on trinkets instead of giving that money to the poor. Wasn't he this representation of humility and removal of material distraction.

Maybe I'm wrong, maybe his main message was that humans can eat wafers and dogs can't, and if that is the case perhaps all these people have a right to be outraged. If it had been OK for pets to be included in communion he would have said so, and that is what we should be concentrating on.

I'm not trying to bash religion, well obviously I have, but religion in its purest form is lovely and promotes caring and community and all things good. Somehow people have ruined it, by taking from it only judgment and hatred and anger. A priest was welcoming congregates to her church, which are institutions constantly telling us Jesus is waiting with open arms, maybe I'm not in a position to say but an educated guess would suggest that her actions wouldn't cause Jesus to walk off in a hissy fit.

Well anyway, those of you off work enjoy the sunshine and those of you who arn't don't drink any coffee it makes you mad!!

Meryl xx

Decision Time

2010-07-21T13:16:00.000-07:00

My friend Zina is terrible at making decisions (sorry mate) but she is. To be fair to her, for some reason she does keep coming to these forks in the road where she has to choose paths, but as she said herself all decisions require of you to pick one thing over another. I make fun of her a lot but really when it comes down to it being indecisive is a common trait and I think we all wonder about those sliding doors moments when you life could have gone in a completely different direction.

In the grand scheme of things decisions don't matter, whatever you decided was and is the right decision, simply because every path you have to choose from contains another multitude of paths that will late split off even further. There are very few decisions that lead you in completely opposite directions but plenty that make you feel that way.

I'm trying to sound wise but the only advice I had for Zina's big decision was to try and do what makes her happiest, but then realized that choosing what makes you happy opens up a whole new plethora of questions, rather than helping you make a decision. In my life I make decisions really quickly, which isn't always a bonus. I try really hard not to think too bigger picture because then you end up saying no to things you really want to do based on a future that can change all the time, but I have to admit this is only a good process if everything works out OK. I could very easily be stuck on the other side of a quickly made decision wondering why I didn't think it through first and then act, so I guess there is no really smart way to make a decision.

Wow, this hasn't been a very good blog has it, I was hoping to think of something to say to Zina to make her decision making a little easier and instead I've talked myself round into thinking it is impossible to solve. I guess I will end it pretty swiftly by saying whatever decision you make will be amazing, whatever you choose will bring new things and lots of changes and hopefully lots of fun, and hey even if it doesn't so what, we only get to live once (minus James Bond) so why not make the most of the highs and the lows no matter which one we prefer.

Ok, thats probably the smallest amount of help I've given someone while trying to be nice, only beaten by the time I held the door screen open for someone who was painting before realizing the door was being held open by a large piece of wood anyway - I still don't know why they let me find out about it on my own, no body could have said something?

Summerlicious Tonight!! - Which if you don't live in Toronto you won't know about. It's amazing really, all these restaurants in the city open their doors to the less well financed and offer plates of their menu for a set fee. Basically you get to pick a plate from each course and try them, for about $35 dollars. I'm excited! I'll let you know how it goes xx

A Very Big House in the Country

2010-07-20T10:31:00.000-07:00

So yes ladies and gentlemen I went to the country. I'm not going to lie it was a very scary experience, no fences, no street lights and no noise. At night it was very very dark and very very quiet and when I say there were no cars I could have counted them on one hand. But all stereotypes aside I really enjoyed it.

I was lucky enough to go back for my friend Jen's family reunion and to say they were a welcoming family is an understatement. I don't know if it is people in the country or just the Colenutts, but family meant something to them and they had hundreds of stories about the things they got up to when they were youngsters. Everyone got along really well and people were camping on the 3acres (yes acres) of land that surrounded Jen's house. The biggest difference between the country and the city is the buildings, here in Toronto it is almost impossible to see the horizon unless you go up a very tall building but in the country you can see to the end of the world just standing on your feet. Plus there are lots of fields, like lots of them everywhere you look, if you imagined the amount of starbux that litter the streets of TO and trade them in for fields that doesn't even half the number of them scattered around the countryside. It seems like a silly observation to make seeing as the country wouldn't be the country if it was full of buildings, but there is something strange about not having neighbours or having to drive to next door that spooked me when I was out there.

The main advantage of fields and no street lights are fireflies and stars. Fire flies are my new favorite thing in the whole world, they are truly magical. Tiny specks of gold light up the fields and then disappear before your eyes, swirls of golden light are just everywhere you look. They kind of mimic the stars out in the country, the sky is just full of them, having no smog to contend with. You look out to gold dust and up to star dust, night time in the country parallels no other. It's dead silent too, so when we went to have a bonfire all you could hear was the crackling of burning wood and bull frogs croaking, it was a very peaceful experience.

They also drink like fish in the country, well maybe it was just us city folk letting go, but I woke up to a Jello shot on Saturday and didn't stop drinking until well into the next day. This I use as my excuse for accompanying Jen over to where the family were camping and scratching on the tents to scare everyone, I promise it wasn't me it was the alcohol.

So I guess it's 'Country 1- 0 City' although it was nice when we arrived home. The city may not have fireflies and be filled with smog but it is also filled with noise and activity and hums with excitement. There is a calm that comes with knowing the city is always awake, always alive and kicking. It reconects you with the world and makes you realize people everywhere are always doing something. The country promotes calm through actual calm and quiet but the city does it by making you believe anything is possible and that progress is natural. I wouldn't say the country is backwards, but it does promote tradition and familiarity which the city only dables in, if the city is where the future is made then the country is a reminder of where we came from.

I think I have come to the conclusion that you need a little of both, if you remember where we were when we were self sufficient, when we used to grow our own food and live in these communities who cared about each other, then there is so much we can learn. In many ways within that idea lies a smarter and greener future but I don't think this gives people the right to slag off the city. The city has a lot going for it too, it's multi cultural and diverse and has found a way to make sure that anyone from any background can have the future they want, provided they are prepared to work for it. Plus the city at night may not light up from the stars, but the buildings and the street lights create a glow of their own, one that could challenge Van Goughs stary night even if it doesn't promote the same idea.

Ok I'll put a lid on it, a quick thankyou to all the Colenutts for having me this weekend and to Ira for driving me there with out crashing. I had a great trip

Hugs and Kisses

Meryl xx

Consider Yourself Our Mate

2010-07-19T13:29:00.000-07:00

That there is Jack Wild, my very first crush. I've still got a bit of a soft spot for cheaky chappys but it must have all started with the Artful Dodger. Oliver Twist is one of my favorite films of all time, it was a huge production filled with excellent songs and London spirit and to be honest Jack Wild's Artful Dodger really made the film for me. It was the confidence with which he played the part, you wanted to be his friend, you wanted him to take you back to Fagen and you even wanted to help him pick pocket down the streets of London.

I watched the film very recently and although there is a huge amount of comfort in it, every time I watch it I feel the film becomes more sinister. This has a lot to do with how much stricter we are on violence in children's films nowadays, you are far less likely to see a woman being bludgeoned to death in a Disney film than you used to, which is a crying shame really. Joking aside films like Oliver Twist and Pinocchio and even Dumbo to an extent would not be made today, there are very few children's films that show heartache or separation or violence, which is weird because the world we live in now seems to be so prone to fear mongering.

Anyway my new favorite moment in Oliver Twist is where you get to see the dodger reacting to Bill Sykes hitting Nancy. There is this moment when the Artful Dodger looks up to the man he sees as his role model and looses all his respect for him. It's a great way to deconstruct Bill Sykes character very quickly as he goes from a hero to a threat in an instant, and in his panic at getting caught he becomes a coward and a brute rather than a trickster who has one-up the upper classes. Maybe I'm reading to much into the whole thing, but Oliver Twist is a great example of doing bad but being good. So often in life we are put into circumstances where we must do what we can rather than what we should, or as J K Rowling put it, we must choose between what is right and what is easy. Fagen's kids weren't bad, they were just lost and alone and trying to survive, to be bad you have to really mean it, you have to become Bill Sykes.

This whole post makes me sound like I've done something bad and am convincing myself I am actually good but I promise if that is the case it is subconscious at best. In other news I did get to go to the country this weekend, and will be writing all about it tonight to post for you tomorrow. I didn't stand at the window and sing 'who will buy this wonderful morning' but where I went was so beautiful I bloody should have...can't wait to post up some pictures.

Hope all you weekends were lovely, even if you didn't see any fireflies. - yes London friends FIREFLIES
More on that tomorrow

avec beaucoup d'amour Meryl

PS Jack Wild went on to do Pufnstuf, a children's television show about a magic talking flute...no I'm not making this up check it out here, careful thought it will mess with your mind.

Lizard Heat

2010-07-08T12:41:00.000-07:00

Did you know to keep their body temperature consistent Lizards face their chests towards the sun until they are the correct temperature and then they turn away? It is my estimation that it would take a Lizard about 2.4 seconds to get it's body temperature right in the current Toronto Climate. Or more simply put it is bloody hot. My friend Grace keeps telling me to stop complaining, to embrace the heat and enjoy it because the winter will come and the snow shall fall, but I'm finding it all very difficult. Especially in the night time.

In other news Paul the octopus was right, Germany went down in the last round of the world cup, god he's a smart little octopus. I'm not going to dwell on it too much because this will be the third blog about octopuses and I don't want to become typecast.

Other than it being a million degrees, the city actually looks really nice in the sun. It doesn't matter how many years I am here I always get that 'I'm on holiday' feeling when the sun shows it's face. After taking a short walk at lunch I walked past a cafe and saw the new NOW magazine is out and in another blog related coincidence Louis CK is covering this weeks issue. There is an amazing article all about him in there which I would recommend reading and once again I shall pretend to myself that I am heading the news by reporting it first.

On the other hand I thought I was first on the scene with Paul the octopus, but my friend Sian had already heard about him way before my last couple of blogs, I am now feeling super competative with her friend Paddy to bring her wacky news before he does. He obviously doesn't realize he is in this competition which, I'm not going to lie, kind of gives me an upper hand but a girl has go to do what a girl has got to do.

Anyway, just a short one today folks, the heat is slowly melting my keyboard and now I only have the top two rows to work with

hope you are all feeling well lo_e a_d kisses

_eryl xxx

Say Hello to Sunshine, Sunshine

2010-07-07T11:03:00.000-07:00

Today I was wondering how exactly I was going to top my post on octopuses and to be honest I can’t. Unless in the next few hours a giant human eating octopus descends upon the city it seems unlikely that this one is going to be as eccentric the last. However I would like to talk about

Oh my god I am sorry to stop mid sentence but you are never going to believe what just happened, a new article about octopuses was just posted on the BBC website. Sometimes I worry I am in a Truman show-like environment where people watch what I am doing so they can freak me out. Sometimes I don’t worry about it. Anyway the article is about Octopus mating habits and it’s not massively interesting but it will be the first discovery they have made to help them understand how exactly deep sea octopuses reproduce. It’s been a very octopussy week hasn’t it. Maybe I will have to make that my new item.

Back to what I was saying, I would like to talk today about Louis CK. Now if you haven’t heard of him before then you are behind and you really need to do some catching up so that you aren’t shunned by society in the future. Louis CK is one of the funniest men in the whole wide entire world. I went to see him last year with my room-mate and laughed so hard I had to take a time out. Amazingly my extremely kind and loving brother bought me tickets to see him at the comedy festival this year, as a thank you for MC-ing his wedding, and now I get to see him THIS SATURDAY at Massy Hall. I am so excited I even refused to watch his new sitcom to prepare myself for the Gala. He is hosting it, which means I also get to see a whole line up of other comedians too including Jimmy Carr, it’s just going to be so good I can barely breathe.

So yeah this was mostly a show off blog, well not the octopus thing that was more sort of sharing of information but I hope you aren’t too jealous and that your Wednesday is going well, try not to melt in the weather, and drink lots of water so you don’t die

Hugs and Kisses Meryl

Psychic Octopus and Such Like

2010-07-06T12:29:00.000-07:00

So Germany have a psychic octopus, yes that sounds made up but it isn't. They asked him to predict who would win in the Germany vs Spain football match, and the little blighter only went and predicted a Spain win, he should be hung for treason. Apparently he has a 70 percent success rate, which sounds high but I probably have about a 70 percent success rate in predicting the world cup too.

My favorite bit of the story is that they set up two glass tanks, one with the Spanish Flag and one with the German flag and asked (yes asked) the octopus to pick up a clam from the tank of the winning country. Octopus are mostly head, so I can imagine they have a rather large brain, but to believe an octopus can reason any of this through is a stretch even for the eagerly imaginative like myself. The world is a bizzar place.

Next up a welcome return of the re-occurring item CHOCOLATE NEWS. I paused there for applause. Beijing is adding a new section to it's Bird's Nest stadium showcasing a miniature replica of the wall of china complete with terracotta warriors made entirely out of, you've guessed it chocolate. They have decided to add a 20,000 square meter exhibit made entirely of chocolate to attract interest of children all over the world. They are also opening workshops to show you how to make some of the chocolate decoration and to be honest I kind of want to go. They are doing a very similar thing in Taiwan, with a new art exhibit featuring important parts of Taiwanese and Chinese culture being reproduced in chocolate for people to go and visit. The whole world seems to have gone chocolate crazy!

I once left a twix in my desk at work over the weekend and when I came back it had melted into the shape of a mud puddle...does that count as art. I bet it would at the tate modern.

Ok hope you haven't melted in this weather! The weekend is supposed to be cooler so just hold out, or come to my house, the basement is lovely and cool

xxx meryl xxx

In case you are wondering - the octopus favored Spain over Germany...I guess I'll be eating my words if he is right...if he is wrong I am going to go out and eat calamari.

Super Proud

2010-07-05T11:49:00.000-07:00

So every now and then you get to have one of those weekends you know you will never forget for a hundred million years and this weekend was one of those for me. My brothers wedding was such a beautiful experience, it went from being carefully written out and timed events on a page to a magical evening filled with love and family. I think any event that is fueled by sharing in love is going to be a success and Olie and Jenny are so very in love that the event felt like it was fueled by a jet engine.

Every single person that spoke at the wedding spoke beautifully and everyone that contributed went above and beyond! We all got to share an incredible moment, and for the first time I realized what weddings are all about. Previously I had thought weddings were all about politics and inviting people who convention dictated you had to, rather that people you wanted to surround yourself with forever, but I was humbled. Every person that came, whether they were close to the couple or not seemed excited that they were embarking on this adventure of marriage together, there was no jealousy or judgement just love and best wishes.

Of course I got to spend time with my family from England, and weirdly I can't put into words how truly fantastic it felt. Even for the short time they were here, the feeling that everyone was back together was overwhelmingly delightful and I found myself giggling even when my uncle pushed me in the pool fully clothed.

Excitingly I got to take them all to the pride parade where we mostly baked in the 900 degree weather and saw more penis's that I had advertised before we left the hotel, but the vibe Pride puts out is infectious and everyone seemed to enjoy watching the city rejoice in equality and love. To make up for the overly hot wait, I took the fam to get bubble tea (which sounds like I paid but was prevented from doing so by aforementioned pool pushing uncle) and to watch the disgusted faces of my English peeps was a truly priceless moment. Once they had gotten over the initial textural shock of a bubble tea they were converted and we were all a little more refreshed while sitting in the air conditioned cafe. My cousin couldn't quite get past the tapeoka bubbles and then managed to cause the watermelon juice to shoot up through her straw and all over her shirt, so she was allowed to refrain from finishing hers, but my Auntie gets the real shout out because hers was lychee flavoured and tasted like eyeballs.

After a sad goodbye I was still in time to join some friends for the last few hours of pride. Which were immense, I think Toronto should close it's streets and let people dance and drink every weekend because it is so much fun, especially with the weather being so nice. Pride is always fun, and it is a welcome reminder of how lucky I am to live in a country that chooses to treat all it's citizens equally and give everyone the same rights. Put like that is seems a little insane to imagine anyone fighting against that cause, but there are still a bunch of them out there and I'll just have to hope that like in the movies Good prevails over Evil.

I hope you all had a HAPPY PRIDE and that this weekend was full of fun and laughter. I just want to say thankyou to everyone that made this weekend amazing, I am so very lucky to have such an incredible group of family and friends!

All my love, hugs and kisses Meryl xxxx

PS: I found out my cousin Robert is also a huge Doctor Who nerd, it's got to be in the genes, I was loving it!!

Canada Day

2010-06-30T12:47:00.000-07:00

So this post has nothing to do with this picture....but that, good people, is the right way to give someone a high five. All you've got to do is look directly at their elbow and there is literally no chance you will miss. Try it with a friend today.

So I don't have anything really in mind to talk about in this blog, I'm just super excited because I get to see my grandparents this evening!! They have flown all the way from good old Blighty and the clock is going super slowly just to really frustrate me. I thought, to while away the time, and to celebrate being a canadian citizen I would talk about Canada Day.

Canada Day of course is tomorrow, it marks the anniversary of four of the main provinces coming together and making Canada which now has a bunch more in it's collection. The Canadians are amazing people, they are both very kind and sweet as well being very witty and dark. It's not an easy combo to pull off. Although when people think of Canada they tend to think Maple Syrup and Moose there is a lot more to the country than it's given credit for. Although the Maple Syrup here is amazing. Canada is full of culture, full of diversity and if that's not enough for you its bloody ginormous. In fact little old England could fit quite happily in lake Ontario, 'mazing right?

Anyway, I have to dash, my lunch hour seems to have gone by far quicker than usual, its all the planning for the wedding...lots to do

hope you are all well...Happy Canada Day, enjoy the time off! See you at...PRIDE!!!! - more on this in tomorrow's blog xxxx

Future Blog

2010-06-29T12:29:00.000-07:00

I've stopped worrying about the future. For a long time I was worried about direction, and purpose and everything else that comes along with the future, but now for the first time in a long time I have started to understand why people always tell you to live in the present.
I'm not trying to get all down and dirty with philosophy, which is a weird sentence, but seeing as nothing ever stays still it just seems to make a little more sense to enjoy what you have going on for you right now. I said in a post before that I would become 'the proverbial yes man' that I would say yes to as many opportunities this year as I could, and at the end of this first half it's the one new years resolution I feel I have managed to keep.

There is nothing wrong with planning, or thinking ahead I just think if you set yourself a goal to be happy you spend a lot of time waiting to get there and forget that being happy can change everyday too. I think my brother getting married got me thinking, if you do decide to get married you are committing to sharing the rest of your life with someone else. You are asking someone to witness your life because as humans we want to know we have a place in the world. Insignificance is a great thing, when you realize how very little your life means in the world it actually helps you to realize how little you should truly stress about it, but it also makes you realize that your big, huge life changing plans do exactly that, but only for you. The only thing that stops this being depressing is that in the small world you create for yourself you are the most important person. People joke about the sun revolving around them, but in a way it does.

Time is a perfect example of this, when it is morning where you are, it is night time where someone else is, you live time according to where you are, and you live life according to who you are. In my life all I can do is hope that being kind and good to people will make them happy, and being kind and good to myself will make me happy. Someone in India once said to me that every ounce of effort should go towards being happy, and whatever that ends up being is where you were meant to be. This sounds straighforward, but I think for years I spent so much of my time trying to create stability and trying to make money, believing that at some point this would make me happy, but as I said you end up doing a lot of waiting and not a huge amount of living.

Because of this Ferris Bueller is one of my absolute heros. My roommate hates the film but I really think he missed the point, yes he stood on a float and sang to an enormous crowd and bamboozled a restaurant chef into giving them a free meal, yes it was cheesy, but he was having fun and living life. Ferris had it right when he said ' Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it' and I absolutely plan not to.

Happy Tuesday one and all

Meryl xx

Football

2010-06-28T11:50:00.000-07:00

So we got crushed. I'm a little angry with the entire England football team at the moment, but I have this sneaking suspicion I'm not the only one. I won't say much but I will say this. If they hadn't stolen our equalizing goal in the first half, the game would have been different. It was well over the line. So maybe by different I mean mostly the same, but 4-2 would have been a less embarrassing exit from the cup.

The Germans played really well, they had a lot of young whippersnappers on the pitch, so for a while I was starting to think they had more players than we did. Obviously they didn't unless you count the ref...no just kidding. They were everywhere, and they ran really really fast, we ran slightly slower which may be why the German goalie practically scored a goal. 4-1, hmm really depressing.

On a lighter note my family from Angelettere are all here for my brothers wedding. My cousins are on their way soon, and even though it is a little sappy, I'm actually getting excited. I cannot wait to see my grandparents as they will indubitably say lovely things to me and surrounding myself with people I've known all my life for the next few days is going to be great.

I am of course trying to eat really healthy this week for the wedding, mostly because I can't breath in my bridesmaids dress but bakerella but this recipe up this morning, and now all I can think about are pillow cookies. Sometimes I think it is a good thing i'm so poor at domestics, not even a little bit of me imagines I could make these. Maybe if I leave the ingredients out on the counter tiny cookie fairies will come in the night and make the cookies for me? It worked for the cobbler guy, and he was only making shoes... yeah I'll let you know how that goes lol

Hope you are all enjoying this fine Monday - Canada day is Thursday, yay! So really today is like Tuesday with tomorrow being Wednesday and Wednesday being Thursday and having real thursday off...wow I kind of lost what I was saying, it's fine no one will notice.

love and sunshine

Meryl x

For My Sister

2010-06-25T11:20:00.000-07:00

Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me Too

Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too,
Went for a ride in a flying shoe,
"Hooray!"
"What fun!"
"It's time we flew!"
Said Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too.
Ickle was captain, Pickle was crew,
And Tickle served coffee and mulligan stew
As higher
And higher
And higher they flew,
Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too.

Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too,
Over the sun and beyond the blue. "
Hold on!"
"Stay in!"
"I hope we do!"
Cried Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too.

Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too
Never returned to the world they knew,
And nobody
knows what's
happened to
Dear Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too.

Shel Silverstein

Please Santa

2010-06-24T19:08:00.000-07:00

Do I want one?

yes I do.

Colouring in

2010-06-24T12:44:00.000-07:00

Colouring in is really only for kids, which is a real shame because they are not very good at it. Not that I'm much better, for some reason arts and crafts have remained outside of my realm of capabilities for years. My dad used to joke I was better at graphic design, which I guess was a nice way to tell me that the money box I made him shaped like a giraffe head wasn't very good.

Why shape a money box like a giraffe head you may be wondering, and rightly so, but the truth is it's the only thing I can draw, well that and stick people. Anyway, the reason I am talking about colouring in is because I got invited to a place called Clay Art. Now Clay Art is, and I may be over-simplifying here, colouring in for grown ups. You go to this lovely restaurant, have lovely wine and eat lovely food, but on top of that you do lovely colouring in of clay figurines.

Please don't get me wrong, I think this is a great idea, I'm pro Clay Art I promise you, what I can't get my head around is what you would do with it once you are finished? Essentially you get to take home the thing you just made, but the nice thing about doing it when you are a kid is you get to go home and show your slightly crap piece of glued together art to someone who is guaranteed to pretend to like it.

Maybe this is coming from a place of shame, my arts and crafts skills are embarrassingly bad. Maybe I'm the only one imagining a multi-coloured, badly painted, clay squirrel sitting on my mantelpiece and all of you out there would make something deserving of display. I always remember being about five years old at folds school and being told to go outside and find a stone to turn into a paper weight for fathers day. I was walking along and I saw a rather large rock locking up to me shaped exactly (and I mean exactly) like snoopy's head. I painted it white, with a little black nose and eyes, and gave it a well defined red bowtie. I was so proud to give it to my dad on fathers day and he convincingly told me he loved it.

About two years ago I went to visit my dad at his office and there sitting on his desk was a stone paper weight. When I went to check it out, it was covered in all these different covered paint blobs, all white and red and black and squishy and it took me a moment to realize that this in fact was the paper weight I had given him all those years ago. I immediately asked what had happened to it, and he told me that it had always looked the same, assumedly meaning it had looked like that when I'd given it him.

Yeah, I wasn't happy, I had been sure I had created a perfect stone replica of the cartoon dog, apparently becoming the next Van Gogh just wasn't written in the stars.

And on that I will leave you. If I do end up going to Clay Art I will let you know what it is like, but to be honest I'm pretty sure I will skip it. There is a chance I will be heading to sewing lessons in the upcoming weeks, the girls have convinced me into it. All I have to do now is learn to play the lute and wear petticoats and I'll be ready for tea with Marie Antoinette.

Kisses for everyone

Meryl

PS: After looking for pictures of Snoopy I now realize he does not wear a bow-tie, my five year old self was such a fool.

Earthquake, England , Exciting

2010-06-23T11:21:00.000-07:00

So England won today! They must have read my blog and thought 'lets do it for Meryl' boys or lets do it for England, either-or, I'm not bothered. I am all over excited because we just an earthquake, yes a teeny tiny one but it made everything in the office shake and has kept us talking about it for a few hours now. Aparantly they felt it all the way out in Quebec, maybe it wasn't so small?!

It's got my imagination going mental, I keep thinking that it was one of those warm up tremors you see in Sci Fi films and next time I am blogging it will be from under a shelter while the whole world collapses 2012 style. What I really need right about now is a plane, the people in planes always seem to survive. I wonder if celebrities who play characters in films about earthquakes would be any better off? I'm just saying if John Cusack was standing next to me in an earthquake I'd be looking at him for the next cause of action, I think we all would.

The timing is all a little weird you have to admit, the G20 is coming to town, there is a mini earthquake stretching to Quebec, I may be a Sci Fi nerd but I don't think it is a massive jump to feel a little twilight zone-ish this afternoon. World leaders and natural disasters are some sort golden duo for the box office, put 'em together and you've got a massive commerical market nipping at your feet.

On that note, I hope you are all ok, that our tiny earthquake didn't cause any apples to roll off of desks, hopefully the world isn't about to end and I'll be back here tomorrow for further blogging

Meryl

Zzzap

2010-06-22T12:24:00.000-07:00

Hello Blogsters - which is a mix between blog and monsters. Today will not be a two part blog, so hopefully it will be a little less cumbersome to read. Today I wanted to talk to you about a show I used to watch called Zzzap.

Now me and my little sister used to watch the show because it was great. It was set up like a comic book page except each square was filled with a different character. The Camera would zoom in on these characters and cut to a short sketch about each. There was a bunch we liked, like 'The Handymen' which where two hands that would make something crafty (which we later realized belonged to the same person) and 'Daisy Dares', where Daisy would get kids off the street and dare them to do things. If they were good at it, the kids would win, if they were bad that round went to Daisy.

One amazing fact that I didn't realize about Zzzap was that the show was designed for deaf kids. Looking back it all makes sense, there used to be little signs that would pop up instead of actual dialogue and the show was based around visual comedy, or art. In fact Niel Buchanan who did Art Attack, played Smart Arty a french painter in the show. When I found this out it got me thinking.

One of my best friends Zina, her mum is actually deaf and she used to take Zina with her to the cinema to see the shows that were subtitled. Something I remember quite vividly is that they used to go very late at night. Now that wasn't all that unsual in their family, in fact it was not uncommon to be eating cake at midnight if you were staying round, but the one time I did ask Zina why they were going so late she explained that they have very few showings of newer movies with subtitles because they think it will distract regular viewers.

Yes, this means that if you are deaf it is especially difficult to go see a film, particularly if it is new. Now being deaf is hard enough, I can't imagine how difficult it must be, especially as a child. But to alienate a whole group of people simply because others might get irritated by seeing subtitles under their film, seems a little selfish.

Zzap managed to be a show that catered to both Deaf and non deaf kids, and I may be a little dim but I'm pretty sure there were others out there like me and my sister that just enjoyed it because it was a good show. The whole thing really got to me so I wrote an e-mail to the customer service at Cinemax venting my concerns, and immediately got told I would recieve a reply within one buisness day, which makes me realize I must be very important to them.

I think I might see if I can do something about this, of course it will take that whole buisness day for me to figure out how exactly I'm going to convince a huge corporation to add subtitles to their premiere events, but hey Michael Moore got Walmart to stop selling ammo so I should at least give it a go.

Big Hugs to everyone

Meryl

PS: to Gustav, sorry I missed you out in the birthday shout outs - but see you get whole individual one to yourself in this blog, please try and be good this year, or don't, your call xx

PPS: If you want to watch Zzzap it's up on you tube click here

Supersize Blog Part 2

2010-06-21T10:44:00.000-07:00

So I split these up because this Blog is more of a shout out type one and I thought it would make the other one look a little rambly, not that it has stopped me before.

Item One: Birthdays

Two of the most important people to me in my whole life had birthdays these last couple of weeks. First was my little sister who turned 18! I can't believe she is so grown up now, well I can, she has become this incredible person all on her own. She will however remain my little sister forever. We have this special bond and although I tell her all the time that I will be here for her, I know she will always be there for me too, because she always has. Plus she's an even bigger nerd than me, a good measuring stick to make me feel better when I'm watching Doctor Who. She also cried when I gave her a card, haha.

Secondly is my best friend Sian. Sian is one of the most incredible people I have ever met, she is truly the most giving, supportive amazing friend I could ask for. She has supported me in everything I have done and everything I have been through since I was thirteen years old and without her I wouldn't be half the person I am. She is strong and smart and funny, and I think her mum said it best when she described her as a person that takes everything she can from an experience and really lives life. I've mentioned her numerous times in this blog mostly because she has been out there traveling the globe and making me jealous but even from a distant land she has managed to log into my blog and tell me how wonderful I am. People gravitate towards her because she is magical and like Mary Poppins crazy things tend to happen when she's near by. I want to say thank you to her for always being there, and always loving me and wish her a Happy Birthday and tell her I hope that amazing things happen for her this year and forever. Although this would be easier to do if I won the lottery and got to go visit her in England. I love you Siany

Item Two: Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to all the Dad's out there. My dad took us all out for lunch (yes for his father's day) which just goes to show how very lucky we are to have him! I bought him this cool aerator/wine decantor and a big bottle of wine so I essentially bought him the gift of delicious booze. This is one of my favorite gifts to receive so I'm glad he felt the same!

Item Three: The Wedding

So my brother and his fiance are getting married so soon! They of course are very excited and so are we, everyone will be flying from England so to say July will be a family month is rather an acurate sentiment. Not only do I get a brand new sister I get to MC the wedding which means loads of attention and talking a lot, my two favorite past times.

I also want to give shout outs to Mike A who also had a birthday these last couple of weeks, as did his sister Summer! I had so much fun celebrating with both of you, Dance Cave was crazy fun....love and cuddles to each of you. They also go out to Brandy and my new friend Gill, absolute comedy was absolute fun, all we needed was some absolute vodka and the night would have been absolutely complete. Although those long island ice teas certainly did the trick.

And so ends Super size blog the sequal. Maybe I will end up splitting the third installment up into two so I can eak as much money out of a slightly shit series as I can...twilight anyone

Peace and Love

Meryl xx

Supersized Blog

2010-06-21T08:57:00.000-07:00

So a lot of you out there are giving me 'mum guilt' about not writing in my blog and I would like to apologize for being gone so long! I have had a crazy couple of weeks, these allergies really bested me and the drugs they put me on make me sleep a lot. They also make me dream about huge screaming flowers that are trying to turn me purple so you know they've got to be full of something hallucinogenic. On the plus side I am feeling much better, my face has de-puffed and my eyes arn't as red as they were. I was more worried about how red the outsides of my eyes had gone, I looked like the start of one of those films where the devil tries to posses a human child, but now I am fully angelic again and itching to write about a billion different things. That is why today's blog has been super sized, I may even split it into two, oh you lucky devils never had it so good.

First I would like to talk about Where the Wild Things are. Yes I'm about six months behind, but I've tried to watch it twice on an airplane and not managed to fight the jet lag to get through it and only just got round to renting it this week. It is brilliant, it is clever and sweet and funny and heartbreaking. It makes me want to sleep in a big pile of monsters and build a nest made of twigs. It helps that the soundtrack is kick arse, I can't imagine there was more than ten minutes of film that didn't have something composed for it. It manages to deliver quite a complex storyline in a very simple way and doesn't feel the need to over explain it to you. This tiny kid goes on a huge adventure and while ruling his kingdom of monsters gains quite an adult perspective, it wasn't sickly sweet, and it wasn't overdone, it many ways it was perfect. All I really know is that I want a furry monster suit complete with ear hat as soon as possible and I shan't rest until that happens.

Second item of business, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. When you are sick you watch a lot of movies, and I was lucky that a bunch of really good ones had just come out. The Imgainarium of Doctor Parnassus is so good I don't think I'm going to return it Blockbusters. It is visually spectacular. It's like a firework display inside your brain only longer and less dangerous. The imaginarium of doctor parnassus is about climbing inside people's imaginations and the film mimics that by being a created from opening up ones mind and spilling the contents onto the page. I feel I could say a hundred more things but I am so afraid I'm going to ruin it for someone so I will just tell you to go rent it. I want to tell you to go watch it at the cinema but it's too late for the both of us - sad face

I also need to apologize to anyone I told on Saturday that I work for Chum Fm. I don't, but me and my friend Nina wanted to go see the NXNE (North By NorthEast) show that was playing at Lees Palace, and it is your fault for not correcting me when I told you to tune into 94.6. I still have to check if there are photos of us plastered all over the NXNE website, because the camera man seemed more interested in us once we told him we were media. Sometimes a girl has got to do what a girl has got to do, but I think telling people we would give them a shout-out Sunday morning may have been going a little too far. I wish I worked for Chum Fm believe me.

I also have a sad story to tell you, the Noel Fielding stand up show is sold out. That's right for three nights Noel Fielding will be performing here in Toronto, and like an idiot I tried to book too late. It certainly doesn't help that the venue is about three feet from my house, but I am going to stand outside looking sad in the rain in the hopes that someone pulls a slumdog millionaire and lets me come in for the show.

No Meryl Blog would be complete if I didn't talk about Doctor Who and this weekend was the finale episode of the series. It was both sad and deeply unsettling. Doctor Who is known for scaring people all over the Globe but Saturday nights episode was scary in a whole different way. It took me a long time to re-settle and now I am desperate for the new series to begin. If any of you fools are still unaware of Doctor Who I would suggest now is a good time to go get caught up. Find someone who has the box set, or see if you can find it online, hell, steal it from somebody if you have to, you are missing out.

Finally, probably, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter Theme Park just opened in Orlando, Lainey Gossip covered the whole event and her review is envy making. Check it out here. If you didn't want to be a wizard before then you will now.

Ok proper finally. The world cup. I am, of course, supporting England but they are making this a very difficult task. Two draws, one at 0-0 and one to the US?!!? I'm not going to have a go at Greene because the poor guy is probably still having a little cry, but I will share with you a joke I heard on Mock the week. One comedian said that Greene was so distraught about letting in the ball that he put his head in his hands, and then he dropped it. Yeah harsh, but not as bad as it will probably be if England don't pick it up in the next couple games. I attached a picture of my puppy wearing his England shirt during the game, unfortunatly this didn't seem to help out the players. Come on boys, three lions and all that.

So I hope this slightly longer blog makes up for my absence these last couple weeks, I will try and go back to blogging everyday but these allergies are certainly keeping me down, my eyes keep swelling up so looking at the screen isn't so easy. If it makes you feel any better I'm going to have to go for allergy testing where they will stick needles all over my back, I will take each needle for a day I didn't blog...oh being a martyr is hard job, I need some lemonade asap.

Hope you are all well. Unless you are a flower in which case you can wither and die....

kisses Meryl

Allergies

2010-06-03T11:21:00.000-07:00

So normally when I don't post an entry I come up with a really exciting story as to why I was unable to get to the computer but today I have a real life, bonafied, air-tight, can't be argued with excuse. My face blew up. So not in a don't shake the bag full of C4 kind of way but in the oh my god I'm allergic to flowers kind of way.

I got out of bed and thought I must be really sleepy because my eyes were all small, but when I went and looked in the bathroom mirror I got a bit of shock because it looked like a giant had got hold of my head and was using his really big thumbs to squish my face into itself. I actually looked a little like a puffer fish, my cheeks went all large and my eyes went small and my lips were all sticking out like Angelina Jolies.

I feel a lot better today, but my eyes are still puffy and swollen. I'm so full of anti-histamine that I've gone a little do-lally demonstrated perfectly when I got angry at the women in shoppers for charging me for a plastic bag when I had put all my medicine straight into my purse. My friend Grace informed me that I had asked for a bag, but I was insistant that I hadn't. Anyway I felt really stupid when I looked in my purse and saw all my medicine sitting inside a plastic bag, meaning I had both asked and received the bag in quesiton.

Being sick sucks, and being sick at work is even worse. I don't have enough money to keep taking time off work, plus yesterday I sat around in my pajamas feeling sorry for myself. If i'd had a banana leaf I would have fanned myself sighing. So it is probably best I get out of there before I turn melancholy.

On the plus side someone put new episodes of the supersizers up on youtube, so yesterday was a bit of marathon day for that! Silver lining moment :) Hope thursday is going well for you all!

Meryl xx

CD Sad Face

2010-06-01T11:01:00.000-07:00

So I recently watched a film called Zeitgeist which is really worth a watch, but I'm not going to say much about it in this blog today. Basically the film got me thinking about inaccuracies in religion and how in essence when massive periods of time elapse these inaccuracies are as hard to disprove as proving something that is true. Zeitgeist devotes most of the first half of the movie suggesting that we have formed literal religions based of figurative myths. For example instead of Jesus being the sun of god he is actually representative of the Sun, a vital source of energy for the earth, and instead of him being executed on a cross and being resurrected three days later this is a description of a change between the summer solstice and the winter solstice whereby the sun seems to stay very close to the horizon or 'dies' for three days before it moves back up into the sky.

What boggled my mind was this idea that time is a very dangerous thing, the erosion of correct information leaves us with false information becoming fact and standing hard even if we are shown evidence to the contrary. The small relief that allowed me to maintain calm was that we as a society have managed to find a way to store information both efficiently and for thousands of years. Well so I thought.

This is where the title CD sad face came from, I recently read a study that strongly suggested that CDs are not going to store data for the thousands of years promised, in fact the average life span of a reasonably well protected CD was five to ten years and un-protected CD's were averaging a year. Now of course manufacturers everywhere got a little hot and bothered about the whole thing and said that this was only the cheaper brands, but further reasearch has suggested the brand-name writable CDs have just the same problem.

The Solution: The only one they seemed happy to support was that one should continually copy data onto new CDs every couple of years. Sound familiar? Somehow I can't seem to see how we are supposed to keep a well documented commentary of what's going on in today's world if we can't find a sufficient way of ensuring that information reaches the future untouched or unchanged. Maybe I've gone a little conspiracy theory on this one and I should just relax, but it would be interesting to see what the future is like if everyone in it has a detailed understand of the past, they do say one must learn from their mistakes right?

I have a fail safe, which I'm sure you are highly relieved to hear. I'm going to start carving things into gold. Apparently it is highly insulating, it lasts a long time and it will always remain valuable. Of course I have to worry that it will melt once global warming kicks in, and that it will be very expensive to procure, oh and it is really heavy and hard to inscribe. Ok so maybe not gold, I'll keep working on it.

Until then, watch the movie, it's all eye opening and what not. Plus it's free click here - yes I just embedded a link, I feel like a butterfly that just got out of its chrysalis.

xxx m xxx

Eddie Izzard

2010-05-31T10:28:00.000-07:00

So as I mentioned on Friday I was off to see Eddie Izzard's new stand-up called Stripped. He was hilarious, truly, truly hilarious. He is so quick and crazy that it takes some serious keeping up to understand what he is talking about, but if you let him take you down the path you end up in a beautiful hilarious garden of funniness.

His last couple of tours didn't receive the best of reviews so I think most people weren't sure as to whether he would be back on form, but I would highly suggest you go check him out. He is playing again at Massey Hall tonight and I will add a link to the site in case you want to get tickets.

The entire show was based around the history of the world. It was kind of a creationist vs scientist based show and if you are of the religious persuasion I would suggest sitting this one out. Luckily for me I happen not to be, and enjoyed the show tremendously, I found myself laughing very hard through most of it. I have to admit my favorite part was when the audience groaned at one of his jokes and he looked out into the audience and said 'Toronto, Fuck off'.

I think I admire him because he is so quick, he manages to wrangle everything he says together no matter how out there his opening statements tend to be. When he pantomimed a sharks vs jets, west side story style dance-off between flying fish and birds I realized perhaps being a complete maniac wasn't such a bad thing, and had to re-evaluate where I fall on the crazy person chart. I've been told I'm an 8, but if Eddie Izzard is a 10 I am definitely sliding down the scale.

Eddie Izzard has always been funny, one only has to mention the words Cake or Death to have die hard fans giggling themselves silly. For those of you who don't know Cake or Death, first, shame on you, and second here is a way to catch up

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNjcuZ-LiSY

No...I'm waiting for you to go watch it before you continue reading
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I'm right about him being funny aren't I? Yes, yes I am

Happy Monday to all of you...

Meryl xxx

Massey Hall tickets for tonight: http://www.ticketmaster.ca/Eddie-Izzard-tickets/artist/851852

Alphagetti

2010-05-28T11:54:00.000-07:00

Alphaghetti is actually more delicious than it is given credit for, but anything edible shaped like letters seems to have a bad rep. In honour of Alphaghetti and the fact I am going to see Eddie Izzard on Sunday night this blog will be an alphabetical list of my favorite stand up comedians.

Beginning with:

A...Alan Carr / Alan Cochrane / Simon Amstell
B...Bill Bailey / Rob Brydon
C...David Cross
D...Dylan Moran / Dawn French
E...Eddie Izzard / Ed Byrn
F...Frankie Boyle / Nick Frost
G...Ricky Gervais
H...Russell Howard
I...Robin Ince
J...Jack Dee / Justin Lee Collins
K...Louis CK
L...Lee Evans / Mark Lamarr
M...Michael McIntyre / David Mitchell
N...Noel Fielding / Nick Swardson
O...Omid Djalli
P... Peter Kay
Q...Carolin Quentin
R...Ross Nobel / Russell Brand / Ricky Gervais
S...Sean Lock/ Sue Perkins / Jerry Seinfeld
T...Tina Fey
U...Umm
V...Vic Reeves
W...Robin Williams / Robert Webb
X...Really X?
Y...Gina Yashere
Z...Alex Zane

OK so this got way out of hand, apparently I don't understand the concept of one comedian per letter, it's a distribution thing, they all seem to start with the same letters. Truth be told I've watched a lot of stand up, it is one of my favorite things in the whole world! Making other people laugh for a living must be the best job in existence, not for the money, well, unless you are Ricky Gervais and can turn down a million dollar gig in Hong Kong, but just because you are spreading happiness and good energy.

Talking of happiness and good energy, my computer is fixed, which means this will be the last blog I have to type up on my phone, god these keys are tiny. A big thankyou to Rick who fixed it for me, you are my computer hero! :)

Hope you all have a fantastic weekend sunshine babies

meryl x

NEWS Review

2010-05-27T12:33:00.000-07:00

So yes I'm reviewing the NEWS, figure that one out. The word news consists of the letters N. E. W. S - each letter representing a different direction, respectively North East West and South, so how on earth I ended up watch a 25 minute segment on the weather and a further 10 minutes on lawnmowers last night I'll never know.

I got pretty angry about it, I wasn't in the best mood to be watching the News anyway. I wanted to see if they were talking more about Top Kill, and thankfully as of this morning it seems like the whole procedure has worked. It is funny, as soon as I read the article in the paper I imagined there must be a room full of BP executives high fiving each other and sipping champagne. There is a lot of work still left to do, but stopping the oil pump leaking is certainly a great first step.

Anyway back to the NEWS. In Canada it is not uncommon for the weather to become news, and I kind of understand it when it is snowing. Snow can create traffic and road closures, people can freeze to death or slide of the road, I get it, it's news, but hot?! Last night someone was paid to walk around and ask people what they though of the 31 degree weather, and you will never guess the responses they got. It was the most ridiculous montage of people saying it's hot I've ever seen. There was a jogger who thought it was hot out, a man who worked at a dry cleaner who thought it was hot out, some students who thought it was hot out, and some old lady who was walking her dog in the park, she also thought it was hot out. What a waste of f*cking time.

I happen to know the police are in the middle of a shootout in Kingston, Jamacia because they want to extradite a drug lord, I know there is a war going on in the middle east and England is having problems with it's new coalition government. I know that the G8 and G20 are starting plans for their upcoming conferences, and that there were new terror threats in India. I am also abstractly aware that behind closed doors corporations are doing evil things to further control of the population, and government officials are using our non-transparent system to spend Canadian Citizens money on bigger houses, yet when I want to get informed I've got ten idiots picked off the street agreeing with eachother that it's hot outside.

Yeah, I think you can tell I wasn't happy, there is a specific section for weather right at the end of the news where I would have happily watched muggles embrace the heat, but with so much going on in the world I can't understand why they would fill the opening slot with fluff? My disposition took a turn for the worst when they put the lawnmower segment before the oil spill. I was calming down about weather-news because I assumed they would be talking about BP straight after the break, but they didn't. Instead they had a man mowing grass, in the city no less! They put a comparative grass segment before reviewing deaths in Kingston, to steal from Ricky Gervais 'I just don't get it'.

My poor roommate once again gave me a pitying look and asked why I was still watching, but it's honestly because sandwiched between all the stupid idiot news there are stories that I've been following. Plus I haven't seen such a stupid evening of news in a while. The last time I got this angry the newscasters were following the story of the building in Toronto whose roof lit on fire, but they were reporting on it a week later after it had been put out and nobody had died. If news isn't current then it's no longer news, it's history.

As I just mentioned, and on a more positive note there is no more oil gushing into the Gulf, so I'm going to take this small success and realize getting all hot and bothered about Toronto News is silly. The News is pretty regulated now so I don't exactly imagine they will have the expose stories of old, fluff is kind of the only thing they can do without someones say-so and even that I'm not so sure of.

The Internet is a better source for information it may be inconsistent but at least it's still free media. Not my blog obviously, it's the ramblings of crazy person, but under pressure I could find fifteen people in my office to agree it's hot - voila I'm a professional.

Meryl

PS: Bonus point for anyone who can tell me where the image at the start of this blog is from

Clue - Scorchio.

Supplementary Blog

2010-05-26T11:52:00.000-07:00

Sometime my timing is pretty bloody impressive. This is an article just put up by the bbc

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_and_canada/10159626.stm

It show exactly how BP plan to stop the oil leak.

I just high fived myself

Slick Work BP

2010-05-26T11:17:00.000-07:00

So I think I'm suffering from some sort of bank holiday Monday jet lag, because today is Wednesday not Tuesday and yet yesterday was the first day of the week. It's got my whole sleep patterns wonky. It's the weather too, it is excruciatingly nice outside, well I'm assuming so, I've only seen it through the window. Global warming is a terrible, self inflicted problem that is going to get us all killed, but warm weather in the summer is a nice silver lining to an increasingly dark cloud.

Talking of dark clouds, today I wanted to talk about the BP oil spill. (that was quite a segue) I want to know why it is taking one the largest, richest and biggest companies in the world over a month to block up an oil spill? Don't get me wrong pulling out solutions named 'Top Kill' sounded cool but knowing that it only has a 60-70% chance of working makes me wonder if perhaps 'Top Manslaughter' or 'Top Snuff' may have been a more apt description. It is causing havoc on everything and thousands of things are dying because of it, there has got to be a smarter solution than filling the ocean up with mud.

The whole donate your hair to the ocean seems a little lame, unless Rapunzel suddenly calls up for a donation but at least people are trying to do something. How is it that we are still so dependent on oil anyways, it seems like another lesson we just aren't learning from. Prince Charles has invented a car that runs on cheese and wine and still we have yet to see anyone take a serious stance on the electric car. The whole wine and cheese car is obviously a little ridiculous, you'd have one hell of an upper-crust new car genre if you took it too seriously, but there has got to be something blocking cars that run on electricity because it just seems like the way forward. It's massive corporations that are creating this road block, there is too much money and corruption in the oil industry for them to let it go. Maybe I will invent a car that runs of Mac and Cheese to appeal to a more modest, money conscious populous, the top of the bottom can use Kraft Dinner while the rest of us have to fill up with the No-Name variety. That's a weird thought even for me.

Anyway, if you do want to donate hair or fur and save some cute sea animal babies then Matter of Trust are the people to go to, here is the link to tell you more

http://www.matteroftrust.org/contribute.html

I hope the majority of you are not at work and are basking the beautiful sunshine, but if you are see if you can sneak in a drink on a patio, after all it feels like pimms o'clock to me.

and then it Ends...

2010-05-25T12:55:00.000-07:00

So welcome back from the long weekend peoples. I hope you all enjoyed the sunshine, the fireworks, and hopefully the drinking. I had a great weekend, and am less snow white coloured than I normally am, which will confuse the dwarfs but is making me fairly happy.

Lets cut right to it shall we, Lost ended. Six years, hundreds of plot twists, a multitude of character deaths, and an empty coffin. It was sad. Like many losties, I'm unsure of how to feel about this last episode. I was convinced I would have pages to write on todays blog discussing all the crazy expose moments and final conclusions one could draw but I don't. It ended well, truly it did, it was sad and heartbreaking but also joyful and sweet. When Sun and Jin remembered it was pretty special, and when Jack jumped into the air to knock down the man in black my heart fluttered, but was it the ending I had dreamt of? I can't imagine any alternative way of ending Lost so it's not like I have a handy comparison I can use to measure whether it ended well or not. Everything was tied up, the flash side-ways were explained, and the show stayed true to the characters beautifully.

They had a close up of Jack's eye closing right at the end, and the juxtaposition from the beginning of the series with Jack's eye opening really made you feel they were telling you the very end of a well woven story. They showed Rose and Bernard, something I think we had all been hoping for, and they even kept Sayid and Nadia apart because they were doomed right from the start.

I have to watch it again, there were so many references I must have missed, and so many easter eggs I'm bound to find. It is a weird feeling when something ends, you really shouldn't have any emotional reaction to it, it is after all a television show, but you do. There is a strange end of an era feel about it, these are characters you put time into, and a storyline you enjoyed watching unfold. It feels a little like when you are a child and someone reads you a story. You lie there quietly listening to an incredibly fantastical story, wondering where on earth it could go next. When it is done, and that final page is turned over, an overwhelming sense of sleepiness washes over you, you pull the duvet up to you neck, turn over, and go to sleep.

I think the word I am looking for is closure. The final episode of Lost wasn't incredibly significant, it didn't blow my mind with unexpected answers, but it did give me closure. I did understand that this was the end that nothing else would be explained or would be contradicted and really when it comes down to it, what more could you ask for in a series finale?

I do wish I had got a lost cake though, I put a picture of one up on this entry but there were a tonne to pick from. This was the other one I was contemplating putting up, it's funny eh?

Yum Cake....Happy Tuesday

Meryl xxx

Genetic Blog

2010-05-20T07:47:00.000-07:00

My mum sent me this....I'm starting to better understand why I'm such a freak.

xxx

PS: she titled it 'Dalek's can Fly!!'

A little Lost

2010-05-19T11:08:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lame pun but when you get lost in a Lost episode there is no escape from it. So yes I'm still excited to watch the season finale, and yes the fact they extended it by a half an hour makes me think it is going to be immense but no, I'm not sure it's all going to be explained.

My roommate was complaining they haven't done enough back story on Jacob and the MiB, and that the whole protecting the light at the heart of the island is a little bit stupid, and unfortunately I have to agree. There were so many unresolved mysteries that I was looking forward to finding out, and only a few have met to my satisfaction. The whole Richard back story was amazing, it really worked and felt like it was conceived really early on. But why the island exists, why the others took over the Dharma village and why does everyone have such a vested interest in the island is still beyond me. Look at Whitmore, he just couldn't leave the island alone.

Interestingly Desmond was identified as Jacob's fail safe in the show but really he has become a bit of a fail safe for the writers, I'm just dying to know what the jammy bastard is up to, I think if anyone is going to save the show it will be him. I also have no idea how they are going to bring the two alternate realities together, so I'm still holding on this idea that the finale is going to blow my mind and I'm going to write some sort of apologetic blog entry about how wrong I was about everything being tied up. I guess we will see

Funnily enough my mum just send me a link about Lost, apparently they are auctioning off all the props from the show. I want the computer with the button. I would be more than happy to press it every 108 minutes for the rest of my life, or at least until a map of all the Dharma camps showed up on my wall and metal objects started flying all over the place.

If you are interested check it out here

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1279469/Grieving-Lost-fans-alive--props-auction.html

hare krishna to you all on this fine Wednesday.

hugs and kisses meryl

PS: ANNA LUCIA - amazing right?

Doctor Who Blog

2010-05-18T11:59:00.000-07:00

Oh what a surprise Meryl is talking about Doctor Who again. I wonder if there is actually some sort of support group for people that like Doctor Who too much, I wouldn't join it anyway, if being in love with the Doctor is a sickness I'm not looking for a cure.

As any of you who read this blog know, I have not been able to watch Doctor Who for two weeks because I have no computer. For ages I mused on how terrible a situation this was, but this weekend I got to watch two back to back episodes and for a short moment I wondered how terrible it would be to let the show run ahead so I never had to wait a week to find out what happened. Obviously as soon as those episodes ended I realized this was a terrible idea and there was no way I'd be missing another episode unless tiny aliens invaded our water system getting inside our bodies and killing us from the inside out. An unlikely turn of events, I'm assuming.

This series of Doctor Who is a little darker than the previous ones, and of course they can do that because they know this is their last doctor. It is weird to think that the show has been running for so very long. Of course it had a massive gap in the middle, but the British public accepted it back with open arms, and like most of them, it has been fun to watch the show as both an adult and a child. The daleks, of course, are one of the scariest sci-fi monsters ever created, but when you were little this was because they were metallic and spoke weird. Now as an adult it is their rational that is scary, they have no emotions at all and are determined to erase everything in their path. As an added bonus they can now fly, eradicating jokes about defeating daleks simply by running up a flight of stairs.

I remember the first time I saw what lives inside a Dalek during an especially scary episode of Doctor Who and I don't think the image has left me. It reminds me of when I was younger and my mum took me and my brother to a museum. At the very end they had a life sized darlek that you could climb into, and my brother was so freaked out he wouldn't even go near it.

Doctor Who still manages to have its hide behind the sofa moments, and although that is no longer my favorite course of action I have found myself turning the lights on during certain episodes. It is funny and exciting and ridiculous all at the same time and manages to pander to a hugely varied audience of ranging ages. Most importantly it is driven by imagination, the stories are magical and spectacular including story lines about star whales that save humanity and police boxes that can travel through space and time. So yes, I'm a complete nerd or geek or loser but for one hour a week I get to be little again and imagine that out there is a huge galaxy of planets populated by weird and wonderful species just waiting to be discovered

Over and Out

Meryl x

Peanut Butter Blog

2010-05-17T10:57:00.000-07:00

So this blog topic was a suggestion by my friend Michele, well she was talking about how if she started a blog she would be worried she would end up blogging about peanut butter, but my brain didn't process that information correctly and I though what a great topic for a blog, Peanut Butter.

Essentially as soon as I heard the words peanut butter I though of the good old fashioned crunchy vs smooth debate, and to be honest I am a firm believer that crunchy is just so much better. Here in North America there are a hundred million types of peanut butter to choose from, but Kraft kind of dominate the market. Ironically I have bashed Kraft many times before in this blog, well they did steal cadburys from the British, not a concept we are massively familiar with.

Anyway, to try and help what they must assume is an idiot market they have different colour lids for the different types of peanut butter. Unfortunately although we all understand this system it seems that everyone knows one of them taste bad, but no-one can ever remember which one it is. I am pretty sure it is the blue lid one myself, but seeing as I am a strict crunchy peanut buyer I've never had to be too invested in the peanut butter code system. I have cracked it wide open and use the incredible new system of reading the label.

Another new discovery since I moved to Canada was the peanut butter and jam sandwich, or more American-ly, peanut butter and jelly (yeah I know?!). It is bloody delicious. I shouldn't like it, my brain knows that, but it can't seem to get the message to my tongue. It is sweet and salty, it just manages to work even though it shouldn't. The same logic lies behind peanut butter and apple, it is so wrong yet so right.

My final disgusting treat of the day is cream cheese and jam sandwiches. I must have been twenty years old when I first had one and it was pretty much forced upon me by a friend, but I conceded it is also delicious. It is weird and not normal, but truly scrumptious. Before you ask, yes I am ashamed of myself, today's blog feels more like a confessionary than a blog entry, but I dare you try one and not like it, literally i'll double dare you if I have to

Ok, welcome to monday universal readers, hope it's not to terrible!

hugs and kisses Meryl x

50th Blog

2010-05-14T13:06:00.000-07:00

So for the last two weeks I have had this great idea, that when I reach my 50th Blog post of 2010 I would do a special 50th Blog edition. Unfortunately my last post was blog entry number 50 and I didn't even realize until today. So I've decided to flip convention the V's and do my 50th Blog Special on my 51st Blog entry.

So for today's very special 50th edition, I am going to give you 50 amazing facts about life, the universe and everything.

1. I stole that last line from Douglas Adams, I am in essence a word thief
2. Right Handed people tend to chew their food on the right side of their mouth
3. Honey is one of the easiest foods to digest because it has already been digested by bees
4. Knowing the above honey fact has never put me off eating honey
5. Triangles are the best of all the shapes.
6. I like the word Eagle, and yet I don't know why
7. Determination is just another word for success
8. Red and Purple candies are always the best ones
9. Jaffa Cakes were actually the subject of a legal debate to determine if they were in fact biscuits and not cakes.
10. I think they are biscuits
11. They taste really good with tea
12. I once ate a whole tube of Jaffa cakes on a plane ride home from England when I was infact planning on giving them out to my Canadian friends so they could try them
13. Coming up with 50 facts is harder than one might think
14. I had 15 different people tell me how much they also hate George Stroumboulopoulos after my last blog entry
15. This made me feel better because I was worried I'd been a little harsh
16. I wasn't actually worried I'd been a little harsh, I just imagined a better person would be worried so mimiced that emotion
17. When you blush the lining of your stomach also turns red.
18. My favorite colour is blue, or more specifically light blue.
19. Late at night I listen to the New Classical 96.3 because Meridith Lightstone has the best voice of anyone ever.
20. Stand up comedy is objectively the best thing in the world.
21. Obviously that is really subjective
22. My friends are my family, and I'm very lucky to have them.
23. The average person laughs 13 times a day
24. Taking a ruler to school with you makes you look smarter.
25. Women Blink nearly twice as much as men.
26. No matter how many times I am told, I can't seem to remember to turn the water lines off at work in the evening.
27. I have broken four computers in three years. For some reason the more I love technology the more it tries to hurt me.
28. The best game to play on the train is 'can I make you look behind you'. If you ever catch me doing it, tell me it is mean.
29. It isn't mean, it is hilarious.
30. It takes four people looking up at the sky to cause the next person who walks by to look up also.
31. I discovered this with a group of my psychology buddies and it was one of my favorite studies we ever did.
32. I hate pigeons, if I was god I would wipe 'em out.
33. I still haven't watched last weeks Doctor Who, and have mentioned it in every subsequent blog since it came out.
34. I can't believe I am only on number 34, I'm starting to think I've only got 40 facts in me
35. Frisky Dingo is one of the best animated series ever made ever.
36. Today in the news there was a woman who made a pass at Obama, if she was here I would definitely high five her.
37. Today my co-worker said 'I always finish early', and I said 'I've heard that about you', and someone double high fived me.
38. Double high fives are at least twice as good as regular high fives
39. I've changed my mind, my favorite colour is green
40. The human mind can remember 5 to 7 things at a time before they are wiped from Short Term Memory
41. My favorite word in mellifluous
42. My favorite french word is parapluie

43. Oscar Wilde is one of the funniest people that ever lived
44. I actually really like Bingo, even if it is an 'old people's game'
45. I started writing a blog as a great way to showcase my writing, but now I love doing it because it is fun.
46. I cannot believe I still am not at 50, I'm full of useless information but apparently I've gone blank.
47. My new favorite drink is blueberry vodka and seven, it was discovered by Jen by accident at a bar in Eglington.
48. It is our equivalent of a flaming moe
49. I really appreciate everyone that reads this blog, and any of you still reading through to 50 have just earned an extra special place in my heart.
50. This extra space in my heart includes utilities but there is no internet provided I however, heard there is unlocked wireless all over the shop

God that was difficult, but I have a lovely warm 'job-well-done' glow about me now. I hope you are all having a fabulous Friday, and that your weekend plans include lots of getting up no good.

If you can't be good at least be safe

all my love meryl xxxx

George Stroumboulopoulos Blog

2010-05-13T10:46:00.000-07:00

I hate George Stoumboulopoulos. I've never met the guy, I probably never will, but I know if I did I would call him snuffaluffagus and slap him straight across the face.

I really don't think it is his fault that I hate him so much, in part it is his position in Canadian television. People outside Canada think he's our go to guy for hard hitting interviews. They think we all sit around watching the hour, wondering what interesting details will George delicately extract from tonight's guests. We don't. Lots of people hate George Snuffaluffagus, in fact most people find him acutely irritating. His lack of competition is the only thing keeping him going, the minute a celebrity has to do something in Canada their agent books them on The Hour assuming this is Canadian culture, this explains why he has had some undeservedly awesome guests come and talk to him. It is overwhelmingly frustrating, I often sit shouting at the television, because no matter how hard I try I can't watch more that fifteen minutes of the hour without wanting to punch George in his ugly little smug face.

Its become psychological, my roommate can back me up on this. I have had well over twenty dreams about being on The Hour pretending to be interested in George's awkwardly delivered questions before turning on him and embarrassing him on his own show. I have also dreamed about starting a show called The Hour You Wanted Back' and having it start only moments after his hour ends.

Someone has to take him down, and I'm ready to roll my sleves up. Canada has so much going for it, the people are relaxed and easy going and really very tolerant. Not to mention there is a crazy amount of talent just waiting to be tapped into. The diversity of music here is mind blowing, with tiny bands making it huge nation wide. Canadians manage to be super nice and positive while maintaining an underlying level of sarcasm that could give England a run for it's money and to have George Stroumboulopoulos pretending to represent any of this is just an outrage. George was definitely the kid at school that tried too hard, that had no friends and made people feel uncomfortable when he stood too close to them. It is like he was given a chance to re-write himself, and to give him props he seems like a normal bloke, but a normal bloke who is trying to hard, who has no friends and makes people feel uncomfortable when he stands to close to them, or asks them questions while touching his fingers together.

I should be worried that you will be thinking I've gone of the rails, but I'm pretty confident a lot of you will agree with me. I once saw a guy on the street looking at a poster for George Stroumboulopoulos when the show was quite new, and his face literally crumpled like he was watching someone throw up. That's what George Stoumboulopoulos does to you, he makes you feel embarrassed, your cheeks rosy up, your nose crinkles and a creeping feeling runs down your back. Not the feeling I get when I think of Parkinson I'll tell you that much.

I feel a lot better now I've got that out of my system, a bit like after you sneeze. I think I've gone through my whole hit list now. I've already covered babe in a previous blog, and i've been told that doing a Terry Fox one will only get me in lots of trouble. You've been saved this time Terry Fox, but I will blog about you someday somehow.

hope you are all well

love and kisses xxxx

PS - just went to find a picture for the blog, look at him with no shoes on, God he's such an idiot.

Long Boring Politics Blog (as promised)

2010-05-12T12:16:00.000-07:00

I imagine my newer friends see me as a slightly eccentric English person, but to my older friends I'm Meryl who wanted to be the prime minister of England. Yes that truly was my ambition as a young teenager. I only remember having two ambitions as a child, first was to be a dinosaur (as I have mentioned previously in this blog) and the second was to run the country. I got really into politics at school, I wasn't exactly a top student, but when I got the opportunity to take a politics class I was lucky enough to have one of the most inspirational teachers I'd ever experience take a shine to me. Miss J was one of those teachers who didn't listen to staff room gossip and specifically told us her class would be a clean slate kind of moment. Because of this I jumped right into it, and the more I learn't about the way the country was run, the more I wanted to know.

I started reading the newspaper everyday, and having long boring conversations with my dad about where I thought the country was heading, and slowly but surely I started to believe I could do a better job of it. The Iraq war happened and thus I was convinced that the only way we could move forward was for Tony Blair to be removed from office and me put in his place as the herald leader I imagined myself to be. I was 16, I really thought I knew best.

Moving onwards, politics is still a passion of mine, and although things got very interesting in Canada when the Liberals and the NDP were going to overthrow the government, the whole proroguing of parliament for months really put a damper on my politic spirit. Just in time to perk me up politics in England goes a little bonkers. In a whirlwind of decisions, Gordon Brown steps down as leader of the Labour party, the Tories grab 97 extra seats and the Lib Dems are the most powerful people in the city.

See in England there is no minority government, it is a First Past the Post system, and although I could debate it for hours, I like this better than the Canadian one. So long story short England now has a coalition government, with the Lib Dems and the Conservatives joining forces in the final hour. To me this is a little like dipping cheese into ketchup, it's not that disgusting but it certainly isn't a natural combo. Labour would have been a more natural choice for the Lib Dems, there just seems to be a more common thread of rationality running through the two parties, but Gordon Brown just didn't win over the British public, and if Susan Boyle is anything to go by it's popularity that counts.

It's Gordon Brown I feel sorry for, he stepped down in a last ditch attempt to woo the Lib Dems and in a very Britain's Got Talent type way they gave him three XXXs. It's been thirteen years since England has seen a Torie PM, and now we have one who looks like he has a bed time regiment to keep his skin smooth. Not that smooth skin is a bad thing, it's just I like the prime minister to look a little hassled, he should after all be constantly worried about what to do for his country.

It has been quite a week, and I have loved every second of it, now I get to familiarize myself with the new Cabinet and the whose who of a brand spanking new coalition government. It will be an interesting year politically for sure. There is nothing like a close election to pull a country together, when water cooler conversation turns from Coronation Street to Downing Street you know you have the country's attention. It reminds us that we do make a difference, and we do have a say, even if it is a little one.

Alright lovely readers, I'm done I promise. I still have no computer, and I still haven't got to watch the new episode of Doctor Who. I did watch lost yesterday and it was good, really good. Still no closer to having any idea what is going to happen, but it certainly answered questions they had set up right at the beginning of episode 1. Got to admire good writing.

Top Model Finale Tonight - GO TEAM RAINA

peace and love always

Meryl x xx

Rush Blog

2010-05-11T13:10:00.000-07:00

So I am rushing around like a headless chicken right now, which is a phrase I truly want to poke fun at but don't even have the time to do so. What I will say is that what has gone down politically in the last 24 hours of modern Britain is blowing my mind. The Tories are in power? Really? Not to mention the Lib Dems are about to realize that they are only a pretend force in the all mighty government in which they have 57 seats.... God damn it, I don't even have time to get into this either.

In the next three hours, I have to make a cake, have a shower, rewrite a pitch and calm down enough to watch Lost. I am vowing to write an extra long, annoyingly opinionated, politically themed blog for tomorrow. You will be begging for it to end, I'll promise you that.

Lost is going to be great! I hope I'll be satisfied...that's what she said...no time...but she did...no time

Meryl xx

Black Wii Blog

2010-05-10T11:26:00.000-07:00

I don't know how I have been bamboozled into thinking the black Wii is cool, but I do. It is exactly the same as a white one, only, well black. It makes me think of this documentary I once saw, totally randomly about Vodka. There was a vodka company who were looking to invest in black vodka, simply as a marketing gimmick. You see what they thought was, eventually people would come up to the bar, ask for some vodka and the server would say did you want it black or white. This is obviously a spin off from coffee, and to be fair people do ask for their coffee 'black' or 'white' but I'm just not sure if the same can be said of Vodka. It's just not an everyday purchase, well, except for a lucky few.

The Wii has been so heavily associated with white, even as an educated technology geek I let it fall into a Mac computer category in my brain. Plus the black plastic has got me thinking Darth Vader type of thoughts, and even I'm being tempted to the dark side. It will now mirror the other gaming consoles like the PS3, and looks a little less cuddly and Mario-like than it used to. I think I'm a just a sucker for new things, and this small change in colour is making me look at the Wii in a whole other light, which is ironic because Black by definition is devoid of light. - There is some reflection-ary humor there, you can thank me later.

Am I going to go out and get one? No, I'm not, but I'm sure as hell going to visit anyone that does. The bubble will burst pretty quickly I think, it is after all exactly the same operating system in a different casing, but I'm protective of my enthusiasm because it is actually a little cool. Apple have dominated the markets for years simply by colouring in their MP3 devices so why not let Nintendo have a try right?

So just a short one today, I'm typing on my phone as my computer is broken. Yes that does mean I didn't see the new Doctor Who yet, and people wonder why I'm cranky. xxxx

Jimmy and Beans Blog

2010-05-07T10:27:00.000-07:00

So this weekend, two of the most amazing people in the whole world are having a party to celebrate their engagement. It is so exciting! This will be the first time I go to an engagement party where I can say I was there at the beginning of the relationship. Jimmy and Beans totally belong together, they are both huge amounts of fun, slightly crazy and a great team, best of all they got engaged in Figi, yeah I know, life is not fair.

This weekend is also mothers day!! So I wanted to take some time in this post to tell you about my mum. She is a little bit mental, and a complete nerd, but she is one of those people who laughs at everything. She likes to theme dinners, making sure the food and table are red for valentines day, green for christmas etc. She threw a plastic frog in the bath when me and my sister were really little, and shouted 'Frog' at the top of her lungs. She also used to feed us icicles that would form outside the windows in the winter. She let my sister keep snails as pets even though they used to slither away in the night and gets the names to every movie she watches wrong. She made great play dough when we were little (even though I always coverted the expensive real version that came in tubs) and she made sure that the house was full of fun all the time.

She is also a massive Trekkie. She has a picture of herself superimposed into the star fleet team, and went to the convention in America last time it was about. She loves the matrix, stories about murders, and lives on the internet, in essence she taught me it was OK to be a complete nerd, but you have to commit. She is also a fantastic mum, and I am very very lucky to have her.

Long story short I love you ma, and can't wait to see you on Sunday.

Hope you all have a great weekend! Love and kisses to all the mums out there.

Meryl

Special Shout-out to Grace who is the best mum I know, Tianna is so very lucky to have you!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

General Election Blog

2010-05-06T11:44:00.000-07:00

So today is general election day for the British peoples. It may not be an obama-style event but its pretty exciting because it is pretty close. Politics in England is actually really fun, people are committed to their parties and for the most part the English are prepared to speak out against them if they think they are screwing up. Gordon Brown has already been described as the 'worst prime minister ever' but I think people are just saying that because Thatcher is going to die soon and making jokes about her would be inappropriate. They should just go all south park on her arse and make 'too-soon' jokes.

On a lighter topic, I didn't wear a jacket today, I thought today would be day 1 of not wearing a jacket, but now it is freezing cold and apparently it is going to rain. Really when I took the umbrella out of my bag I should have realized this act would be relayed to a satellite device, which would beam the information across to a tiny man whose job it is to burst clouds. It is one of those Murphy's law thing-a-ma-jigs, it sounds so cliche, but it does seem to rain the minute I take my umbrella out of my bag. There is also never a cab when you really need one. Oh and someone is always around when you need to pee behind a bush. This Murphy, sounds like he was really onto something. His life must have sucked.

America's next top model was good yesterday, thankfully Raina is still with us. It was nowhere near as good as lost on Tuesday, it was a super emotional episode marred only by my roommate chanting, 'are you going to cry' at me through the second half. He's such a compassionate soul. To be fair it was the only thing keeping me from having a little bit of an emotional moment, damn those lost writers they know how to get ya.

OK, love to you all my beauties.

Special hello to Zina, who should be working very hard so she can become a pip pip person... hugs and kisses Meryl x

ANTM Blog

2010-05-05T10:47:00.000-07:00

So firstly how crazy is this sandwich? I found it so randomly too. I'm pretty sure I wasn't googling Rubix Cube Sandwiches but one can never tell.

Secondly, I feel very young today. On Monday I started a course entitled, 'Television and Situational Comedy Writing'. How bloody cool does that sound right? Anyway I went in knowing it would help me learn to format my sitcom, as well as give me an great spec script to keep on file to send off to become a free-lance television writer. What I didn't realize is that it was going to be one of the most creative spaces I've put myself in, ever. I like to think that you can glean material from anything you experience. Just sitting in an office you are able to come up with some of the most elaborate story lines ever. The small things that happen are what make a show relatable, and up until Monday I couldn't imagine a better place to derive inspiration that the big old wide world.

However, being in a room with ten other people aspiring to do the same thing, really gets the ball rolling. While being torn between amazement at these incredibly creative people, I felt an overwhelming sense of competition that I've never felt before. I'm not a massively competitive person, I've always been distracted by having fun to really push myself ahead, but here I was in a room full of strangers thinking, be funny, be funny!

The adrenaline was pretty cool, it certainly makes you think quicker, and more intensely, although I swear after class was done it took me a good hour to calm down.Why do I feel young? - Because now I have homework. Good old fashioned, do it or you are in trouble, homework. I kind of like it, I have to sit down in the evenings and get stuff done, I'm starting to feel like I'm going to have to get my mum to sign off on it or something, lol or was that just for when you were in trouble? Either way, this time around I am going to take it more seriously, no copying someone else's on the train, and no my dog ate is style excuses when I get to class. As long as I have a ruler and a pen I should be good!

But the name of this blog is ANTM blog, and that is because today is Wednesday, and after work I get to go and hang with some lovely ladies and watch America's Next Top Model. My favorite to win is Raina, she is definitely the best one, but that never bodes well for them, Tyra is a bit of a tart for controversy so the normal ones tend to go first.

Alright hope your week goes well, and don't forget Mother's day is on Sunday so if you are going to buy gifts do it soon or face the consequences

peace

m xxx

Pub Quiz Blog

2010-05-04T11:28:00.000-07:00

I have been moaning about wanting to join a pub quiz team for just under a year. Now it looks like my dreams are coming true. Less sarcastically put, I made a new years resolution that I would join or create a pub quiz team. Why? Because it combines two of my favorite things, quizzes and pubs.

I'm pretty good with trivia and very good at drinking, and the challenge of doing the two things at the same time was too tempting to give up. Now if I was still living in London, finding a pub quiz team would be as simple as finding a pub, but here in Canada it is more a niche group thing.

Thankfully I found the following website. http://www.tpql.com/ It is for the Toronto Pub Quiz League, yes league. Now after a moment of wondering if I really could 'play with the big boys' I e-mailed the creator of the site and asked if there was space for a new team, when it started, how long the league was and bla bla bla. And I got a response.

So there is no space for a brand new team (damn you procrastination) but there are spaces for spares, and by George I think I'm going to do it. If any of you lovely people care to join me please visit the website, just think how fun it will be to answer questions and win money, or answer questions get drunk and win money. Ok so it may be answering questions and getting drunk and not winning money, but even that sounds like a laugh.

Ok love you all, you beautiful people. Gosh darn your all so beautiful, enjoy the weather xxx

Baby Foal Blog

2010-05-03T10:34:00.000-07:00

Hello Baby Foals? This is micro-pigs....you win.

Sooty Blog

2010-04-30T08:31:00.000-07:00

So how good was Sooty!

He was a tiny orange puppet bear and yet he did so much. I watched Sooty and company from when I was very little till, well, yesterday when I looked him up on youtube. Although I loved Sooty and his many antics, my favorite was Sweep, a puppy puppet (ooo the alliteration) who used to communicate by squeaking. He was one of those soppy characters who is always doing something silly, but for me he made the show. This brings me to the important point I wanted to make in this blog. Why is it that Ricky Gervais is so much more famous than Steven Merchant?!

I have had a crush on Steven Merchant since he played the ogg-monster in the original Office, what can I say I like 'em tall and gangly. This was even before I saw him interviewed on the box-set extras, or on the million television shows that had the writing duo as guests. I was lucky enough to be in England when Stephen, Ricky and Karl were on Xfm and got to catch the hilarity that is Karl before the podcasts hit, and can I just say Stephen is hilarious. He is dry, and witty and you can tell his humor had a massive influence on the final dialogue in both The Office and Extras. I was glad when he cast himself as the hapless agent Darryn Lamb because he was finally getting some of the fame he so desperately deserved. It certainly irritates me that Ricky Gervais is tagged as the creator of the Office when it was something that emerged from a writing duo.

I guess watching Sweep, a vital character in the Sooty and Company ensemble, stand in the shadow of the far less vocal Sooty was just a reminder that sometimes the real stars don't get the credit they deserve. Before you think I've completely gone off in the deep end, I do realize that Sweep was a puppet and Steven Merchant is a live person, but puppets need credit too.

And with that I hope you guys have a great Friday and a fantastic weekend xx

The Raccoon Blog

2010-04-29T07:11:00.000-07:00

So my favorite Kate in the whole world shared a story with me about Raccoons having a garbage ice cream party in her cabbage-town apartment. The saddest part was that the blighters didn't even invite her, it was a secret and exclusionary party held to spite her.

Normally I would tack something on to the end of that sentence, like 'well it wasn't' , but with raccoons you really can't tell. They seem all cute and cat like and then you realize they are wearing tiny zoro mask and are looking to scratch you. When Kate suggested I blog about raccoons I was worried that after being asked to blog about squirrels people were thinking this was a nature blog or if they weren't they might start to. But I cannot say no to Kate, she is so darn witty and thus today you are getting the Raccoon Blog.

When I first came to Canada people warned me of two things, raccoons and leaches. Not necessarily in the same conversation I should add. This has led me to freak out when I see a raccoon especially at night and has prohibited me from ever going in a lake. It isn't the actual raccoon that worries me, it is the whole 'don't back it into a corner it has rabies' panic people have instilled in me. If I am being perfectly honest, my natural instinct is not to back anything into a corner, unless it is a sofa, but now I feel I have to be double careful that I don't do it. Telling foreign people that leaches can only be removed from oneself by burning them off is just not good manners. Until I figure out how to take a lighter into the water, and still have it work, I'm sticking with foot dangling. A better piece of advice for newbie Canadians would be that dock spiders can swim, although that is a frightening thought also.

I think now I have been here a few years I am less worried about Raccoons, they really will leave you alone if you don't bother them. They also like to sleep, a lot, so it's not like you have to dodge them in the street. Because of the cartoon I was under the impression that they mostly work for the newspaper, reporting news from around the forest but that myth has been dispelled. I'm calm about it now but I did freak out in my first year here when one followed me towards my house. I had one of those fight or flight moments, and I worried running away would only cause them to chase me. I think that is bears though? What I do know is that if you are being chased by a crocodile run in zig zags to confuse them.

Oh and don't play with stingrays they can be deadly - too soon?

Meryl xxx

The Beer Bistro Blog

2010-04-28T07:36:00.000-07:00

This may be my new favorite place in the city. I'm not a food critic or a beer connoisseur, but I have eaten my fair share of food and have drank a couple people's share of beer, so I feel a review won't make me look like too much of a pompous arsehole right?

To start off I'm not going to review the food, it was good. It was very yummy, the end. What I am going to do is talk about the beer. Now they do a very clever thing down at the Beer Bistro, they let you have three mini beers off the menu rather than just one big one, which to be honest is the reason I decided to go. What I did learn was that this mini beer combo is called a flute. Or was it a flight? I think it was...maybe it wasn't, hmm...ok so I guess I didn't learn anything.

The three beers I tasted were:

1. Weihenslephaner Hefe Weissbier - From Germany (Which I nicknamed Fefershnefer)

2. Durham Hop Addict - From Ontario

3. Leffe Brune - From Belgium.

The Weihenslephaner Hefe Weissbier (try saying that three times fast) was definitely my favorite. It is described as 'A wheat beer that is light and fruity with notes of banana and clove'. It was really light and coloured like honey. It would be amazingly delicious on a hot day during the summer, I couldn't get enough of it!

Ranking 2nd on my favorite tiny beer list was the Leffe Brune. It tasted like figs, and if you don't like figs then I can't imagine how you could possibly be enjoying life in any real capacity. It was a dark bitter beer but the figs made it taste really fresh and fruity. I gulped it down pretty quick.

Third was the Durham Hop Addict. Maybe because I am not a Hop addict this didn't appeal to me. It was supposed to taste like grapefruit, which I'm not really a fan of anyway, but it tasted like an orange peel mixed beer. Despite it being my least favorite it really wasn't a chore to finish it, the waitress really had made some excellent suggestions.

That's why the beer bistro is so great, the staff are really into it. They know everything about the beer and the wine list. They are quick to recommend something to go with your meal and will tell you the history, and where you can get it from in the city. You are likely to forget everything you learned because you are about to get drunk, but just for a minute you imagine you could have a deep and meaningful beer conversation with someone in the future. The staff are self professed nerds, suggesting the more you learn about beer the more you seem to want to know. Just having someone take the time to find beers you might like is cool, and my dad, who very kindly took me for dinner, also ordered a flight so we had six mini beers to taste over dinner.

I only really went to the beer bistro after a recommendation from my friend Jen, and now I'm the first to recommend it to you, it's really fun and you'll have a great time. So go on, do it, all the cool kids are.

Peace and Love
Meryl xx

http://www.beerbistro.com/home.htm

Tuseday Blog

2010-04-27T12:06:00.000-07:00

So I am feeling grumpy about a lot of different things today but seeing as this is not a confessional I thought instead I would talk about my favorite blog topic chocolate.

Yes ladies and gentlemans you heard right, chocolate news is upon us again. This time it's back with a vengeance. No it isn't, but I am sad to say it is not good news. I think this is one of those 'no news would have been good news kinds of moments' but who am I if not a loyal chocolate journalist.

Scientists (my favorite vague source) have suggested that chocolate actually makes people depressed. This was weird news as I was under the impression that for years scientists were saying that serotonin in chocolate made people feel happy. What they are now suggesting is that chocolate lovers are depressed people who eat chocolate in a sort of self medicating way to make themselves happy. After a while they get used to the intake and rely on it, making them more depressed over longer periods. A little bit like crack cocaine right? I know I shouldn't be thinking it, but it is a little bit like being a crack addict.

This sent my brain into overtime, imagining people scoring chocolate on street corners, taking bites of it in bathrooms of ritzy clubs or sitting in dingy flats sharing chocolate wrappers. How terrible is this though? Essentially the more chocolate you eat, the more you need to eat to make you feel good. It is certainly going to change the way I look at a mars bar...no it isn't mars bars and bloody delicious. I even like mars bar ice-cream. Great now I'm hungry

I hope you are all well and having a great week. There is no episode of lost tonight which has contributed to my less than pukka mood. Thinking about it now I like chocolate, and I'm not in a good mood, Oh my goodness I'm a victim of chocolate depression, the truth was right there staring at me this whole blog and I never even saw it.

There is only one thing for it, I need another chocolate bar, I'll have to call my dealer

xxxxx m xxxxx

I can't do it

2010-04-23T11:39:00.000-07:00

Yes these monstrosities are the new hit thing for the summer. While shopping with my friend Grace I realized that although yes these are about to become the hit item, they are just too ugly for me. She tried some on, and she loved them, and I made fun of her for at least twenty minutes but I couldn't put a dent in her desire to get them.

I have promised her that I will make fun of her when she comes out wearing them, but that has kind of barred me from ever being able to join the trend in the future. I honestly can't imagine myself regretting the decision, but then again today I am wearing pants my mum gave me in the 90s. See how fashion has swung itself around.

Just a short one today, a big shout out to my friend Joel on his birthday can't wait to see you later!

Hope y'all have a fantastic weekend (yes I said y'all what you going to do about it huh?)

xx m xx

The Backup Plan was to shoot myself

2010-04-22T10:52:00.000-07:00

So I was a very lucky lady and was given tickets to a film premier which I attended last night. I wasn't sure what the film was going to be, but then I found out it was the new Jennifer Lopez film - The Backup Plan. Now i'm not really a 'chick flick' kind of girl they are all so terribly dull and predictable, but love actually turned out to be a great film, and I've got a soft spot for sex in the city so I went in trying my very best to be positive and believe it was going to be good.

It wasn't

Looking back I should have researched the movie before I went to see it. I'll try not to spoil the almost lazy ending of the film for you so I will give you an idea based only on information given in the trailer. What I will say is that ruining it so you couldn't see it may have been one of the best gifts I could give you this year but some people never listen so here we go. The Backup Plan is about a woman who can't find a man but wants to have a baby anyway. She goes to get artificially inseminated and exactly following the deed she jumps in a cab and some handsome stranger jumps in too, it is raining the end. Ok so i'm not doing a great job of curtailing my bitterness in this blog, but it was so painful to watch I feel I would be doing a public service if I stopped it being released in Canada full stop.

I have a problem with women being objectified as crazy commitment freaks, whose main life goal is to have a baby and fall in love. I don't care if it represents a majority, it's ruining it for normal people. I myself am surrounded by strong and intelligent women who mostly want to drink lots and lots and have fun. I'm not saying women don't want to have families, I'm just suggesting their priority is to be happy and if that involves children great but if it doesn't that's great too. The movie is a collection of cliches held together by moments of slip-on-a-banana style comedy. This kind of humour is like looking at the shadow of funny, you recognize it but it just isn't the real thing. I know this is what chick flicks are about, they are designed to show off the kind of love women think exist. It is that kind of, I hate you leave me alone, oh wait here you are at my house lets fall in love formula that could never really happen.

Please don't make the mistake of thinking I don't believe in love, or put me in some weird feminism box that I don't belong in. I'm a huge believer in love. I truly believe that people can care for one another and share a life together and be happy, I just think love should be an extra in your life not a necessity. You don't have a baby because you need something to love, you have one because you have love you can share.

Oh god I've gone mushy, if I carry on this way I'm going to end up writing a chick flick before the week is over. The best love story ever written has got to be between Tim and Dawn in the original office. Stephen Merchant and Ricky Gervais had it just right. Here were two people who managed to find fun in the most tedious things, they were never going to have these huge dramatic lives, or fall into each others arms in the rain. They just knew if they were together they would be happy. It was beautifully written and executed so delicately, it felt so familiar.

So I guess my point is don't go see the movie, take the 15 dollars it would cost, go rent yourself the office on DVD and watch that instead, and don't worry about how much you owe me for this irrevocably good advise, you can just buy me a bottle next time you see me

hugs and kisses

xxx m xxx

Poem Blog

2010-04-21T13:35:00.000-07:00

I can't go two minutes without someone asking what my favorite poem is. Ok so maybe no-one has ever asked, but in case you were going to here it is. It's by Spike Milligan but I always associate it with my friend Zina, as she loves this poem too. We actually wrote a poem together about our teacher when we were in Year 11. Poor Mr Thomas, I don't think it painted him in the best of lights. She read it to me quite recently and I laughed so hard I nearly pulled a muscle. It is amazing how much of your past you forget, makes me think keeping a diary isn't as sad and pathetic as I have always thought it was. I find diaries a little vain, she says as she continues to write her blog, and have never been able to get into the idea you should complain for pages and pages to a book each night. Hmm what do I know right? I also hate postcards so maybe I'm just genetically predisposed to bitterness and sarcasm?

On the Ning Nang Nong

On the Ning Nang Nong
Where the Cows go Bong!
and the monkeys all say BOO!
There's a Nong Nang Ning
Where the trees go Ping!
And the tea pots jibber jabber joo.
On the Nong Ning Nang
All the mice go Clang
And you just can't catch 'em when they do!
So its Ning Nang Nong
Cows go Bong!
Nong Nang Ning
Trees go ping
Nong Ning Nang
The mice go Clang
What a noisy place to belong
is the Ning Nang Ning Nang Nong!!

Spike Milligan

x m x

Thermometer Hand

2010-04-20T07:56:00.000-07:00

So an old friend of mine, who will remain anonymous (for now) was commenting that my blog is a little all over the place topically. He is right, but I like that about it. More often than not I write about things that have come up during the previous day, or have featured in conversations during the week, and so in a very life-creating-art kind of way this blog is representative of the best things in life being both random and unplanned. Ok so yes I do have the attention span of a mentally deficient gold fish, which may explain part of the diverse array of topics covered, but his big suggestion for today's blog was to call it 'witty banter' so really I think I still reign supreme when it comes to the bloggywog.

Which brings me to today's topic - thermometer hand.

Yes, I realize even for me this is a weird topic, but my lovely co-worker told me the sweetest story yesterday and I had to share it with the world. When he was little and he used to get sick, his dad, like most dads, would place a hand on his head to check for his temperature. Now unlike the rest of us who understood this was an easy, but not hugely accurate, way to see if you had a fever, my co-worker believed his dad had a go-go gadget style thermometer embedded in his hand. It's so sweet, and kind of clever, and I immediately starting debating the pro's and con's of such an invention. It would mean that when you stuck your finger into coffee you'd truly know if it was too hot to drink, or if you wanted to see if the ocean was really cold you could get an exact reading. To be honest with you that's about all the uses I can think of, which gives me the feeling Apple aren't going to start working on a prototype anytime soon.

I really can't think of other uses for thermometer hand, but hey in the spirit of interactive technology why not tell me all the things you could use thermometer hand for in the comments box. - If you are wondering if this is a trick to get you to comment, then yes it is. If you aren't going to do it for me, then do it for thermometer hand.

xxx m xxx

Pot Noodle Blog

2010-04-19T09:26:00.000-07:00

Why would I blog about Pot Noodle?

That is a really good question. Strangely, I have written on my arm 'Pot Noodle-blog', but I can't for the life of me remember why I wrote it. I am assuming I had a kind-of Pot Noodle related light bulb moment, but I guess in my case it was one of those faulty light-bulbs where the filament is already broken.

Pot Noodle was amazing, It was very late 80s early 90s England, and my mum used to buy them as a treat. I wonder if we knew then how bad food in a cup truly is. Here in canada they have a similar version called a Mr Noodles, a little sexist but a similar concept. It doesn't taste the same though, it tastes a little healthier. It's funny, Pot Noodle totally embraced its non healthy status and started a commercial campaign suggesting that even though you knew it was bad for you it tasted so good you couldn't help yourself.

Its ballsy attitude towards the public must have made it more popular, it became funny to have a pot noodle, especially if you had been plastered just before consumption. Even now I could polish off a pot noodle no problem, aware of the ridiculous amount of chemicals and salt I'd be digesting.

Considering that I have no idea why I wanted to write a pot noodle blog, the last couple of paragraphs were incredibly easy to write. Maybe the concept has been rattling around up there for a while and my subconscious was desperate to get it out. It could also be that I got pretty bladdered Saturday night, which was the fault of my friends, the cheap price of booze, and the unbelievable alcohol to soda ratios they were pouring the drinks at. Pot noodle would have been a logical next step once I had reached that level of drunk.

This weekend I also go to see Kick Ass, and to dive into the cheesy pun that's on everybody's lips, the film really did kick ass. I have never wanted to be a super-hero more than I did during the film. I wanted to fight crime, kick people's arses and re-lode my guns mid air. I also wanted rubber boots, rubber gloves a belt with my superhero name on it and a jet pack. The film is hilarious, I loved it, I would give it 5 stars, screw it I'd give it 6. It's going to be massive so see it now and you'll get to gloat about it when it's all popular. The other cool thing about the film is nearly all of it is filmed in Toronto. I was sitting in paramount theater watching the people in Kick Ass going to the cinema, and low and behold they were walking into the very same place. Everybody in the theater was mumbling it was kind of surreal.

So I hope everyone had a great weekend, and you enjoyed the beautiful weather we had on Sunday, I'm sending all my good wishes and happiness to all of you...except a little bit that I want to keep for myself

xxx Meryl xxx

Micro Pigs

2010-04-16T08:33:00.000-07:00

Even my roommate who possesses enough cynicism in his heart to run a small country fell pray to how cute micro pigs are. They are so damn cute, I would sell my sister down the river to procure one. (sorry roo)

Pigs are actually super smart, and although dogs are the traditional lap pet, I have a feel micro pigs are about to take the crown. I know there are a lot of people who say that keeping a pig as a pet is a very bad idea, that it is cruel, and I'm sort of with them. I read Charlotte's web when I was very little and have always been under the impression pigs should be living in places where there are mud puddles around and spiders to talk to. I could also be talked out of getting a micro pig because I have a real problem with babe, you know from the movie. If you know me you probably know this is usually where I go on a rant about how babe was essentially a lying, manipulative little pig, but I'm trying to keep some of the crazy under wraps so i'll skip it for now. Stupid Babe.

Talking of farm animals I actually have a friend who is afraid of cows, like proper afraid. Poor Sian, I think it all started in a field somewhere after she was chased by a bunch of them. She is also afraid of mushrooms, which is making me laugh all over again just as I type it. I'll never forget she came out for dinner with me and my parents when I was little and ordered a veggie burger. When she opened it up, there was this massive mushroom inside. Oh my, her face was priceless, she didn't want to scream because it wasn't just the two of us, but she looked like she was about to. She grabbed her knife and fork, and using them like chopsticks extracted the mushroom from the bun, I think I may have wet myself trying not to laugh.
Sian is my traveling friend, I've talked about her before in this blog, mostly to admit to large amounts of jealousy I feel when she travels to the most amazing destinations. Unfortunately she got into a bit of a pickle tubing the other day and had to go to the hospital for her foot. She described it to me in graphic detail by e-mail and after I was done throwing up I e-mailed her back to wish her better. I really hope you are feeling much better baby girl I miss you lots!!

Last night I couldn't sleep, so I went into the living room and watched the Daily Show and most of the Colbert Report. They really are hilarious, political humour is just so very funny! Still it is important to remember the only reason these shows exist is because the politics in America is a little mental. I wanted to share a clip of one of my favorite comedians Dylan Moran, this is his take on Barack Obama

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCbwhWulPj8

He is so funny, if you like him you should also check out his sitcom Black Books, it's old now, but it's brilliant.

Ok hope you lovely peoples are having a great day, and have a great weekend planned

All my love (and goodness there is a lot of it) Meryl xx

Blog-ette

2010-04-15T09:30:00.000-07:00

Today will only be a mini blog - or a blogette, which makes me think of baguettes, which makes me a little hungry.

I thought I would share with you some cool sites, places on the old internet I like to hang out - it is weird when people 'hang out' on the internet.

Anyway here is a top five style list

1. www.bakerella.com - not only does she make the most amazing things, she has stuff on there that even a baking idiot (like myself) can handle. A lot of you will recognize the chocolate truffles that I bring everytime I am supposed to contribute to a pot luck.
Ironically last night I was watching America's Next Top Model with the girls and Jen and Michelle launched into some proper baking trash talk. They were all like 'you think you know about apple pie with crumbly top but you have no idea' it was way better than regular trash talk

2. www.cakewrecks.com - Hilarious cake mistakes, and every Sunday they switch it up and show the most beautiful cakes I've ever seen

3. www.failblog.org - There is nothing funnier than people falling over, or signs that don't make sense...if you are looking for a giggle check it out.

4. www.google.com - So yes, it is an obvious one, but what can't google do. I need a definition, a correct spelling, a picture or even a website, google has it going on. The also provide the advertisements down the side of my blog, and I've mentioned numerous times how much they amuse me. My only gripe with google is that it has become a conversation stopper, people no longer debate and compromise on topics of discussion. Everything seems to end with 'let's google it'

5. www.bbc.co.uk/news - This is actually my homepage. It's hugely useful to have the news up when I open up my internet browser as it gives me ideas for my blog. The site also has a section called 'in pictures' which has some of the most beautiful images I have ever seen. The BBC site links out to their radio stations, TV channels, sports and a hundred other things so it's a great place to check out whats on the up and coming in terms of new shows etc. It keeps me on my toes in terms of script writing, one day maybe I'll be on the website.

This list could go on forever, but I think essentially the rest are on the top ten sites visited in the world. Sites like Perezhilton, Lainey gossip, facebook etc. My only other internet surfing tends to be reading peoples blogs and I'm lucky enough to have very talented friends whose writing makes me laugh and keeps me up to date with what they are doing.

If you have any suggestions of websites you really like please leave them in the comments, I'm always looking for fun new places with interesting articles or artwork! Or if you have a friend with a great blog, leave that for me to, wow I've become demanding, I didn't even say please. That's just how I roll yo, - lol

Ok must dash, love to all of you...hugs and kisses meryl x

Bric-A-Brac Blog

2010-04-14T11:01:00.000-07:00

So yes, this blog entry will be a little bric-a-brac as I have a lot of things to say and not very much to say about any of them.

First up, Perez Hilton stole my article from last week... So he obviously didn't, but 'Perez Hilton used the same clip as me' doesn't have the same ring to it. It seems the 'queen of media' also liked the robot who folded towels and put it up on his website, way after me might I add. This must mean my blog will be swept up like a hurricane and I will be an overnight success, I literally cannot wait.

Second on the list...iSpecs, so yes right now it is just talk, but my inner nerd got all revved up by the idea that apple will be releasing 3D glasses. I like 3D way more than is normal, I really wanted to be cynical about it, and talk about how it was just a fad, but Avatar couldn't have utilized the technology better and now I love it. Part of going to the movies is being completely swept away by someone else's story, it is a small escape from reality, and a short period of time when your emotions are not guided by you, but by the directors and actors whose craft it is to story tell. Add a further element of surrounding you with the film, making you feel like you are physically part of the action and it's pretty spectacular. Now that Apple have decided to make the iSpecs and become part of bringing 3D into the home, I am very excited to get my hands on a pair. All I need now is for Doctor Who to Broadcast in 3D and my head can explode allowing me to die at a moment of true happiness, only to be buried in my barely used iSpecs.

Third, I overdid it at the gym yesterday and now my abs hurt, to add insult to injury I have also developed a small cough. This means everytime I cough my abs cramp up, and it hurts so much I giggle. This continues to hurt my abs and is also hurting my reputation at work, I'm starting to look like standard street crazy.

Finally, I really really want to go to Lollapolooza this year, the line up is incredible, and it would be so, so much fun. Obviously I have no money, and I don't seem to know anyone who lives in Chicago, but if you do, go to this website and book yourself a ticket, you will not regret it, it's going to be massive!

http://www.lollapalooza.com/

If you want to, you can book me a ticket too, some people don't like to accept 'charity' but I'm all for it, can't get enough free stuff to be honest. Oh well looks like it will be a summer in the T dot for me, fun will just have to be had here in the city.

Hope you are all well

meryl xx

PS: Click here to see Perez's take on the towel robot

http://perezhilton.com/2010-04-14-inefficient-awesome

You spin me right round baby right round.

2010-04-13T12:27:00.000-07:00

If you like the feeling of your internal organs trying their very best to burst out through your skin then you'd probably love spinning. Or perhaps you like to pedal really fast without worrying about cars, either way it is a mad thing to do. Knowing it would be a room full of sweaty people,riding bicycles that aren't about to go anywhere, with the lights off, I still found myself getting ready for 50 minutes of agony at adrenaline gym on a Monday night.

I'm a convert, seriously, I hated it so much I actually kind of loved it. Spinning is a cardio workout fueled by crack, and it made my heart beat faster than a twilight fan bumping into Robert Pattinson in a moonlit medow. I haven't been in the gym for a long time anyway, and I thought seeing as I've gone all sugar cleanse-y I should start getting fit and healthy too.

It is day two of my sugar cleanse and it's going well, I have a bit of a headache but in general I'm feeling pretty energized. I went home yesterday and there was a massive cheese cake that my roommate made. I know this sounds mental but I think it actually winked at me, it gave me the 'you know you want a little bit of me' wink and it took all my willpower to eat a tuna salad instead. I just pretended it was cheese cake, which obviously didn't work, primarily because it was in fact a tuna salad.

So it is important to eat healthy and exercise, my only gripe is that it is very expensive to do both. I am starting to feel as if the government is making it harder to eat good food. What this has lead to me doing is measuring things in alcohol. It is a terrible habit I've picked up, but it is essentially when the price of something only has meaning in relevance to the price of booze. To give you an example, a membership at the gym is going to be 40 dollars a month, which is equivalent to a large bottle of Canadian Club or four bottles of cheap wine.
It's not that I'm an alcoholic, although I do like a drink. It's just that we are very frivolous when it comes to buying copious amounts of booze on a weekend, and it helps me put into perspective how little an amount it is to spend going to the gym to improve my health.

I like to call it alcho-math. No I don't, it didn't have a name until just that moment. I'm actually on a role today, my co-worker Dave was talking to another co-worker Michael and in the middle of the conversation Dave said something along the lines of 'I know who you need to call'. Anyway, I immediately chimed in and asked 'is it ghostbusters?' followed of course by singing the ghostbusters theme tune. yeah that's comedy gold that is. Well, comedy silver at least

Hare Krishna to all of you xxxx

Sugary Sweet

2010-04-12T11:39:00.000-07:00

So today I have started at 21 day sugar cleanse, I'm trying to get my insulin back in whack. I love sweet things, with my whole heart. If stealing candy from babies didn't have the negative connotations it's known for, I'd be doing it left right and centre. Well until today.

It's actually going fine so far, I'm not craving anything sweet as yet. I have always found if I have a, low sugar/high protein breakfast and lunch I get less tired in the afternoon, and unsurprisingly that's where I'm at right now. I do have a feeling that tomorrow I will start having daydreams of giant donuts you can sit on, and cookies that sail you across chocolate milk rivers, but if nothing else it will provide good blog material.

Today is also the birthday of my very own roommate. Happy Birthday Michael! Although that is a waste of time as he refuses to read my blog point blank. He says listening to me is a constant blog so he doesn't have the energy to read the internet version....as you can see we are very close.

No I'm just kidding I absolutely adore him, and deep (deep) down I know he loves me too. I hope this year brings him success, happiness and lots of money, like lots and lots of it. His birthday being today means not only did we go out last night and get smashed, but Kate is in town. Kate is about to become a nurse, which is super useful if I get sick. She is also wicked funny, and due to popular demand is starting a website with some of the quips she usually saves for facebook. I will post the link as soon as it is up and running.

I just realized how ironic it is that I pledged this blog over to chocolate related news and now I'm not even allowed to eat any! I guess me not eating chocolate is some sort of news....some sort of news? news about chocolate?..I'm sensing this could be considered a paragraph containing chocolate news. Look at that... ever the journalist.

xxxx

It only ends once....

2010-04-08T12:38:00.000-07:00

So Lost is continuing to blow my mind, and today I went on a forum to see what other people are saying about it, and it's good to know there are even bigger losers than myself out there.

Now I'm a devotee. I've been watching lost since the beginning and am more than happy to stick with it until the end, and as Jacob continues to say, it only ends once. I'm also a bit of a non-lost sympathizer because I get how completely ridiculous the series must seem if you just started tuning in now. I do however think it is one of those shows that is worth the effort. Lost is a show you've got to put work and thought into, not only do they slip in a hundred million references to past episodes, they lay traps for you to fall into making you second-guess every guess you actually make. It's fun really, to take a stab at what you think will happen and watch it crumble once the new episode is released.

Series 4 and 5 of Lost were a slight let down, still excellent but a little frustrating. I think for a second people were unsure if the writers knew where they were going, but this latest series has more than made up for it. It is as if the entire six series were planned at the start, and there have been more twists and turns than a helter-skelter on Blackpool beach. The writing has been fierce, and the storyline immense, but there is this overshadowing worry that it may all go nowhere. What is so great about Lost is that you feel as if you are on the verge of understanding everything. You put all the stuff you don't understand in a box and trust that eventually every one of those items will become a 'kick-yourself' clue to the final conclusion. This does however mean that if the final reveal is not satisfactory it's going to be a let-down of gargantuan measure.

I don't really want to go into too much detail, as people get pretty upset about spoilers if they haven't watched the episode. Plus I've got friends who are desperately trying to catch up to the current episodes before it all ends. I will say that side flashes are amazing, and this most recent episode about Desmond has got to be my favorite. Plus Charlie was back, which made my week, he was always my favorite. I really hope it keeps being amazing, but I guess we'll just have to see.

To jump into a completely different topic, I went to see the Ryerson Fashion Show last night. Or the 'Mass Exodus: In Bloom' as they've named it this year. It was good, it was actually really good, the clothes were beautiful and the music was awesome. There is another show tonight and tomorrow, and I would recommend it highly to anyone that didn't get their fix during Toronto's LG Fashion Week.

I also got completely soaked because in a Noah's ark type fashion it hasn't stopped raining all bloody day. It rained all day yesterday as well and I certainly didn't look as fashion savy as I had hoped when I arrived at the show. Maybe I will go all winnie-the-pooh on the situation and float my way home on an upside down umbrella.

Hugs and Kisses

Meryl xx

Techno Blog

2010-04-07T11:04:00.000-07:00

Let me start this post by telling you that yesterday I saw an old woman feeding chesezies to a squirrel, and he was absolutely loving it, running up his tree and down again to get more. Who knew squirrels were so into chips? (or crisps) maybe there is a whole seedy underground crisp scene in the squirrel world, it would explain why most of the squirrels in the city look like they are on crack.

I was actually walking with my friend Grace back to her car when we saw the woman in question, she was in one of those wheelchairs for old people that are actually more similar to a go kart. All I'm saying is, if I saw one parked on the street I would be tempted to hotwire it and take it for a spin. Don't kid yourself, you'd want to as well. It's funny because when she saw us, she hid the packet away, like she was doing something wrong. Hmm am going to keep my eye on all old people, have a sneaking suspicion they are up to something.

I am concerned that my blog had become a little too squirrel-centric, so thought I would change the subject to technology. The nice thing about this topic is that people seem pretty passionate about where they stand on new technology. Some people (like myself) are very excited by new technology, see everything as progression and find robots 'wicked cool'. Others are of the 'technology is eating our brains' camp and of course many people's opinions lie in between.

In terms of robots, today I got excited because of a clip I saw about a Robot that can fold towels, I am going to link to it in this blog. Now I realize that the problems encountered in I-Robot were not of the towel folding variety but I am definitely getting a 'this is the beginning of it all' feeling when I watch this clip.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8607538.stm

Although the robot folds the towels in a very mechanical way, the way s/he smooths them out before stacking them feels very human. It is amazing to think it was all the way back in 1495 that Leonard De Vinci very first designed a robot refering to it as a humanoid automaton, and here we are today with China bringing out a robot that can break dance.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8383992.stm

It just feels like with the exponential speed that technology is changing in the next ten years things are going to go bonkers. Maybe I'll be blogging inside my new space-house, from my space-computer operated by a space robot. Yeah but again maybe I won't. I do know that by then I will have an iPad. They are seriously cool, I tried really hard to avoid the hype, but I had a go on one, and in all seriousness, it's amazing. I even found myself cradling it in my arm like a new born baby, and they probably make an app for just that anyway.

I do like old school technology too, when I was on holiday I saw a guy selling plastic flowers that dance when you turn music on and if that doesn't make you smile then perhaps you are in the presence of a dementor who has sucked all the happiness from you, or your life is just devoid of sunshine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nr3eDTRCSxQ

Love and hugs to all.

Tinkerbell

2010-04-06T08:18:00.000-07:00

About a year ago, me and my little sister came up with an idea for a children's book about fairies. It was brilliant. We had fire fairies that lived inside light bulbs, and snowdrop fairies that encouraged clouds to burst into fluffy balls of white. We even had mini fairies that were born inside the eyes of tiny babies giving them that twinkle they always seem to have - well that one actually sounds a bit creapy, but anyway, long story short we started illustrating it. My little sister would sit for hours drawing potential fairies, and I would come up with story lines and new types of fairies and where they lived.

Slowly but surely we came up with a bunch of story lines and a plethora of fairies, with the tooth fairy being a centralized character among the others. Little did we know, someone, somewhere inside the Disney empire was doing exactly the same thing, and before we knew it Disney Fairies was born. Now don't get me wrong, people have the same ideas all the time, and Disney kind of have a monopoly on Fairies after Tinkerbell became their mascot. However there are a tonne of similarities between their story and ours.

It's strange, I much preferred Tinkerbell back when she was a bit of a bitch. Trying to keep Wendy and Peter Pan apart, commandeering the thimble she gave him, not to mention trying to get the lost boys to shoot her to death. Then she seemed sassy and strong willed, now she just seems a bit of a moron. I literally watched her on the screen at the Disney Store in Covent Garden try and get out of a bottle for five minutes, and she wasn't even caught fully inside of it. She also fell off a branch, and got stuck in a spider web. I don't remember these being difficulties for her when she was fighting pirates and mermaids in neverland.

Fairies are such a cool part of childhood, they have wings and live in flowers and dance in the moonlight. A little bit of me still wonders if I was offered the chance to live in a massive flower if I'd say yes....what am I talking, about of course I would live in a massive flower if the chance arose. Who wouldn't? A bee maybe...no one likes to bring their work home with them.

Anyway, fairies are mythical and magical and all that, but I must turn my attention to something more reality based. My mum sent me another article she found in the Times. It is some woman complaining about Cadbury's being bought out by Kraft, I like it because she has taken the issue very seriously, she even brings up Nestle's choice to move production of Smarties from York to Germany claiming 'Smarties never tasted the same'. Ironically Nestle's biggest country of production is Canada, who knew right? I'm going to keep an eye out for a smarties factory I don't think I've ever seen one. Anyway, I never fail to find people getting worked up about ridiculousness funny, and this article is a great example. The fact it came out the same day the UK prime minister announced an election date just helps to demonstrate one really shouldn't sweat the small stuff.

And that's chocolate news, I've been Meryl Goodnight.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/janice_turner/article7086092.ece

BFG and DW - its acronym city

2010-04-05T08:01:00.000-07:00

So I casually referenced the BFG in my last post and had a bunch of people leave me messages wondering, to quote 'what the hell' I was talking about.

I can't believe there are people who haven't seen the BFG, it is such a Disney classic I just assumed it was part of everyone's childhood. It's a great film and I highly recommend you go watch it, it was made back in the day when all the cartoons were still hand drawn, so it has a really magical quality to it. If you do want to see it, without me ruining the end stop reading here, I guess even though the film was made in 1989 I should add a spoiler warning.

So BFG stands for Big Friendly Giant, and is based on a book by Roald Dahl. Just like The Witches, Dahl's books are a little scary and don't shy away from talking about evil which isn't something you see see often in the children's book genre. The BFG starts with the friendly giant walking the streets of London piping good dreams into little children's bedrooms. Unfortunatly one little girl called Sophie is watching him, and when he sees her, he grabs her out her bedroom and takes her with him back to the land of giants.

Frighteningly, the land of Giants is full of these evil monsters who want nothing more than to eat human children, Roald Dalh gave them great names like bloodbottler. The BFG is the only good giant and eats cucumber-like things as part of his vegitarian diet. These are called snozzcumbers - starting to see the logic of my last post are you now?

Anyway long story short, all the BFG wants to do catch good dreams for little children and bottle away bad dreams that cause nightmares. With the help of Sophie, and rather weirdly the Queen of England, they manage to recruit the RAF to come to the land of the giants, tie up the children eating monsters, and give the BFG a job in the palace.

It's bizarrely sweet, magical and a little scary and I would highly recommend it. I'm actually tempted to go watch it again right now....but I can't.

Why? You ask - Because the brand spanking new, been waiting for it for weeks, Doctor Who is on the tele-box. I am going to watch it and I will let you know how it goes.

Wow, it was really good, really really good. It's always so weird when they change the doctor. David Tenant was so brilliant in the role, I was convinced I wouldn't be able to accept the change to Matt Smith. But he's great, he's really funny, and makes you honestly believe that this is the same man, with a different face. Yet different, that's whats amazing, he manages to maintain being the doctor while bringing a whole new, very comedic attitude to the role. I really like him.
I like Karren Gillan too, she plays Amy Pond. I always get a small amount of companion envy, I can't seem to help it, it seems like it would be such a fun character to play, but she's really pretty and really sassy and I think the two of them are going to be a great comedy duo. Plus there is a new Tardis and my inner nerd thought that was pretty cool.

Ok enough, I realize there are only a select group of people out there who share my enthusiasm for Doctor Who, although 8 million people tuned in to see the episode so maybe I just need to spread my net further.

For those of you who do care, I have three words for you...Green Sonic Screwdriver

Hells yeah

Meryl xxxx

Empty Headed.

2010-03-31T12:52:00.000-07:00

I literally cannot think of one single thing to write about today. Maybe I have used up all my ideas for the month of March and now here I am typing with no direction to head in.

When I went woke up this morning, I thought I would write about India, but I can't seem to start writing about it without an overwhelming longing to go back taking over. I know I've gone a little mental because I've started applying for competitions to win a vacation. I miss the freedom of being away, and just doing different things all the time. I had this idea that I was going to do a new activity every week, meaning 52 activities a year, and then blog about them, and I am still looking into it, but it's so expensive. I am aware that money does not buy happiness but it certainly can buy freedom to be happier.

I also thought I may blog about Lost, I know I am going to blog about it sooner or later, that show is just getting crazier by the second. But there are too many open ends right now to even delve in! I do occasionally play the lost numbers in the lotto, although the message from the show is that the money will be cursed. I guess I'm of the opinion cursed money is better than no money. Plus how cursed can a bottle of Canadian club really be?

So I will leave it at that, your humble empty headed blogger apologizes for the lack of content. But honestly I am feeling more sorry for myself than you, what if yesterday was the last day any idea's entered my head? Maybe I will end up like the BFG, collecting dreams in bottles to fill other peoples heads, eating snozzcumbers and drinking frobscottle.

I sincerely hope not.

xxx

The Easter Bunny

2010-03-30T07:07:00.000-07:00

Easter is upon us. Well nearly, and I felt it was important to talk about the Easter bunny before all the mayhem and chocolate ensues and makes me forget what I wanted to say.

In polite language....who the flip is the Easter Bunny.

Seriously, I only just about understand the connection between Jesus and bunny rabbits, and even if we were to take it at its most literal and suggest rabbits are a symbol of fertility, which mental person decided they would also be bringers of eggs, made of chocolate?

I get it, it's like the whole Santa at Christmas, someone made it up to sell more chocolate. What worries me is why people bought into it. To demonstrate I am going to make a confession, and it's embarrassing but true. Until I was about twelve I thought bunnies laid eggs. Now don't get me wrong, I realize that, that makes me a little dim, but the connection between bunnies and eggs was so strong. Every bloody Easter there would be pictures of bunnies surrounded by golden eggs, hiding them around the garden, or delivering them in little weaved baskets. Look at willy wonker, admittedly they were smart and made geese lay golden eggs, but still the reinforcement of my false belief was there.

Once I learned the truth I was a little pissed off. It wasn't the fact I'd been lied to, the tooth fairy revelation had taken care of that, it was the fact that having an Easter bunny bring eggs at Easter followed no logic at all. Why not have a unicorn bring Jelly beans, or a gryffindor bring a mars bar. It wasn't bible based, so the possibilities were endless.

I much preferred Easter when there was an emphasis on chicks. Tiny, little, yellow, fluff balls that made the world seem a damn sight cuter. In fact I remember at primary school there would be an Easter hat competition, and my mum and I would stick tiny chicks all over a hat and tie a yellow ribbon around the middle. We would then parade around the playground while our hats were judged by the teachers. Do you know what? This might actually have been my sister who we made the hat for, either way it was hilarious amounts of fun. PLUS, and this is a big one...chicks lay eggs. They come from eggs and they lay eggs, no confusion there, why get a rabbit involved.

On a more calm note happy Easter to those of you celebrating, and Happy Passover to my Jewish friends! I hope this holiday is fun for everyone, and no-one has crazy dreams about massive rabbits destorying the city and pulling planes out of the skies...I sure know I won't.

And finally a big hello to my friend Karla, who told me a story about being at school and sneezing snot all over her face, because of this I will love her always x

xxxx

Light vs Dark

2010-03-29T08:05:00.000-07:00

Firstly, my deepest sympathy goes out to friends and family of the 38 + people who were killed this morning in Moscow. It just goes to show how important it is to promote love instead of hate, because there is no reason these innocent people should have died for a cause they had nothing to do with.

Suicide bombing is a phenomenon I will never fully understand. How is it possible that people seek a better future, by taking away someone else's? There is no light without dark, but today we are reminded how important it is to fight for light whenever possible.

It is difficult to start this blog on such a sad note and turn it into something that won't propagate the Monday morning blues. But I'm going to give it a shot.

As you know, I love the little adverts that pop up next to my posts mostly because they are in someway related to what I have written. Because of my squirrel post, one of the adverts last week read 'Keep Squirrells Off' and stated it had 'Effective products [to] keep out pesky squirrels'. I personally haven't had enough trouble with squirrels to buy effective products, but I wonder if there is someone somewhere being besieged by rodents, thinking finally a product designed for my specific needs.

Another advert that popped up was one that said 'you have lost the game'. I've seen these all over the internet, and they irritate me because I know what they are talking about. I think everyone is 'playing the game' now, and I think everyone probably remembers the first time they heard about it too. I've started to think of the times before I entered the game as a golden age, where I wasn't worried about winning or loosing anything, certainly not trapped inside a game that will never end.

My first foray into 'the game' was in Devon, England while visiting a couple of family friends, and to be fair there is nothing but cows and grass to distract from ones humdrum existence there, so I can imagine the game was an interesting way to wile away ones life. But I live in the city, and I realize now that there is no way to escape from the game, until I die...the ultimate game over.

Ok so deep down I'm not actually worried about being trapped in the game, but it does make me think about certain pieces of information that you can never un-know once you know them. Charity is a good example of that. When you learn about people who are living in dire situations, who need your help to survive, you can put it out of you mind but it never gets unlearned. They say ignorance is bliss, and I can see why. Nevertheless, social consciousness is an important part of moving forward and creating a better future, a perfect example being Obama's recent health care reform bill being passed 219 to 212 in the US. It just goes to show that when people want change they make it happen, maybe ignorance isn't bliss, maybe taking action is.

So to sum up this rather patchwork style blog entry, the world can be a scary place. But as long as there are more people in it doing good than bad, progress will happen. Oh and of course stay away from birds they are like evil squirrels with wings. Hey maybe I should invest in some effective products to keep out pesky winged squirells, it could come in handy if they decide to attack.

Peace and Love
Meryl x