whaaaaaaaat

If my blog kind of sucks lately I'm sorry.  Things are getting busier these days.  I'm kind of a real grownup now because last week (two weeks ago already I guess) Brahm and I went and got pre-approved for a MORTGAGE and we're going to start house shopping this week whaaaaaaaat.  Plus, our wedding is in 4 months (and 2 days) whaaaaaaaaaaat.  If I didn't mention before at some point, Brahm moved home from Montreal at the end of March HOORAY but that means a bit of a lifestyle adjustment because when you don't live in the same city as your sweetie you have a bit more free time to do things like write lots of blogs.

This doesn't mean I'm going to stop blogging because I'm busier now BUT please forgive me if I don't have time to make epic posts that blow the whistle on water softener salt toothpaste for example.  I will still try my very hardest to stick to my M-W-F posting schedule, even if the post ends up just being a text from my mom or a picture of something awesome.  However this also means I will be able to write some neat posts about house hunting/buying and some more cool stuff we do leading up to the wedding!

So stay tuned because this blog is about to get WAY more mature than ever because I'm a serious grownup who does grownup things like buys houses and gets married and maybe gets a puppy whaaaaaaat.

The Garbage House

I have lived in the same rental house for a while, which is divided into a few apartments.  I'm looking forward to owning a single detached unit in the near future because I feel like I'm now old enough and successful enough that putting up with the weird antics of other renters doesn't need to be part of my life anymore.

Obviously this is a first-world problem, but let's talk about weirdos who stink up houses anyway.  Very often these days I come home to find that my house smells like rotten garbage (literally, like rotten garbage).  I don't understand what is causing this smell.  I am pretty sure it's the cooking attempts of the people living in my basement, but how they manage to consistently conjure up such a garbagey smell is beyond me.

I've lived in this house for almost 8 years now (whaaaaaaaat!) and have seen various other tenants come and go, blast their music, allow their boyfriends to live here illegally and use my parking spot without asking, obsessively do laundry at all hours of the night, sing loudly at 3 am, etc. but never have any of these tenants garbaged up the house like this.

People, if you would like a cooking lesson so every time you cook it doesn't smell like garbage in the whole house, I will come help you out.  I'm a pretty good cook and most things I make don't smell like I threw a bunch of rotten vegetables into a plastic bag, heated it up for 3 days, and then wafted the bag scent through the ventilation system of the house. 

Seriously, it's so gross, and it happens so much.  Do they not know the food they're making smells like butts and/or garbage?  Or maybe they do, and I have some sort of annoying habit that I don't know about and they're trying to get back at me?

How to open a banana

The other day my boss was complaining that he was having trouble opening some of the bananas at work lately.

"Just open them from the bottom," I suggested.

"What are you talking about?"

"Trust me.  Pinch the bottom of the banana instead of trying to snap off the stem.  It will pop open magically and you won't end up with a squished end from trying to pry it open!  It will blow your mind."

It totally blew his mind.  And when I heard about this crazy talk a few years ago, via a YouTube video much like the one below, my mind was also blown.



Apparently this is how monkeys open bananas, so it's the natural way to do it.  None of this silly Western "we open bananas from the STEMS, thank you very much" way of making simple tasks more difficult so they appear refined!

If you aren't already on the bottom-opening banana bandwagon, try it once.  You'll never go back to the old way, because the old way is totally stupid when you think about it.

Facebook users beware of the most embarrassing app

If you're a Facebook user, you may have noticed some of your friends reading articles and posting them to their feed recently in a post that usually looks like this:

"Joe Blow read an article:

Snooki poses in a bikini for her new book cover
or
Teen Mom has new boyfriend
or
The Duggards have another baby
or
The Situation and Snooki are getting married, Jon from Jon and Kate Plus 8 is going to be the minister at their ceremony and all of the Teen Moms and cast of The Hills are going to be the bridesmaids

Posted by Social Reader"

You know, really embarrassing celebrity gossip articles.

I started thinking this was a bit weird a while ago because usually the people who were having these articles posted to their Facebook feeds were not the type of people who would admit to reading these articles, let alone share them on Facebook.  Like seriously, I have been known to click on the odd article about the cast of Jersey Shore BUT I would never share it on Facebook as if it's the greatest thing I've read in a while.  However I didn't quite know how best to bring it up without sounding like I was rudely judging my friends for their love of reality star gossip, which they obviously loved enough to shamelessly plug in their Facebook feeds.

HOWEVER, the other day my friend Dani posted the Snooki's bikini article for the second time in a couple of months.  If you know Dani, she's not really the type who would post about Snooki's bikini even once, but twice?  So I texted her:

Me:  Okay I have to know - are you actually reading all these articles about Snooki wearing a bikini and sharing them on FB or is it automatically posting them somehow?
Dani:  I have never read anything like that.  I'm confused???
Me:  It has said on FB a few times that you read an article about Snooki posing in a bikini for her book cover.  It does this with a few of the people I know who don't seem like the type to be like "hey guys check out this sweet article about Snooki!"
Me:  Maybe time to change your password?  Has it ever said I read anything like that?
Dani:  I guess I'll change it today.  No, you are safe from Snooki's bikini.

So EVERYONE:  if you notice people in your Facebook news feed are reading out of character articles like this, maybe ask them if they know they're using this "Social Reader" app that appears to be doing the posting.  Because chances are, they aren't.

How embarrassing is this app?  You don't know it's posting this stuff to your feed, and meanwhile all your friends start thinking you are a giant Jersey Shore/Teen Mom fan.  Well done, Social Reader app, well done - but I'm on to you.

I love Brahm

Whaaaaaaaat my blog is back in business!  Thanks to BRAHM for solving the problem - I don't know how he figured it out but he somehow realized that a couple of the recent images I posted on recent blogs were GIANT .png files that were making my feed too big to load in Google Reader.  So I replaced the offending images with .jpg files and suddenly my blog appeared back in Google Reader!  Hooray!!!

So the moral of the story is never to just copy and paste pictures from websites into your Blogger editor - always upload the files so you know what size you're posting.

Now THAT is true love - a partner who will help you fix your broken blog!  That is the kind of person you should marry.

PS - if you're a Google Reader subscriber you'll see a bunch of old posts showing up out of order as I fixed the images.  If you want to know the real dates on them I think you'll have to come to the blog in real life and look at the dates, but they don't matter too much. 

Google Reader you are MEAN

Okay friends, if anyone is still reading this, I have no idea how to fix my blog so it will still work in an RSS feed.  Hopefully if you are one of my subscribers you came here to see why I haven't posted in a while and see that I HAVE been posting but Google Reader is being a big jerk.

Anyone reading this have any idea of what might be going on?  When I go into my blog on Google Reader it says the last post I wrote was the last one that posted to Google Reader on March 28, and then doesn't recognize that I have any new content.  I can't seem to find any info on this on the Google Help forums either.  I deleted the feed and then re-subscribed myself but that didn't do anything.  SAD :( :( :(  I am now poised to probably lose 2/3 of my readership (9 people, in case you are wondering...) thanks to Google Reader being a huge jerkface.

I'm too depressed about this to make a post tomorrow but posting will resume Monday, if anyone is still reading anymore.

Testing testing 123

Trying to see if I can get my blog to work in Google Reader :(

You Guessed It

Hey RSS feed followers.  It appears all of my scheduled posts are no longer working in Google Reader.  Hopefully I can figure out how to fix this sometime this week but in the meantime, if you've missed the last week of posts, they were posted on the blog, just not in Google Reader.

So come on over to the blog itself for some bloggy enjoyment and sorry about this bug.  Hopefully it will be fixed soon.  In the meantime, I still always do post every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Another Celeb Sighting!

As you know, I've met a lot of celebrities and have been known to be somewhat of a celebrity myself, so this should not come as a surprise BUT I have to say, this was probably my most successful celeb meeting to date.

I met Sandra Rinomato, host of HGTV's Property Virgins (and the upcoming Buy Herself)!

She was speaking at the Saskatoon HomeStyles show a couple weekends ago and being a huge fan of Property Virgins (it's awesome, you should totally watch it), I dragged my sister along to hear her speak and afterwards, decided to go chat with her.  There were a lot of senior citizens who were big Property Virgins fans who wanted to do this as well.

Anyway, it was cool!  The other times I have talked to celebs I've been like uh uh uh yeahhh nice to meet you ummmm okay I guess I will walk away now BUT Sandra Rinomato was very easy to talk to and I told her I love her show and chatted for a minute or two about my upcoming loss of property virginity (!!!!).

Unfortunately though the rest of HomeStyles was super lame because it's only for people who want to build or renovate houses, or buy hot tubs, so it was not so relevant for me.  I'm super sad that I had to work the weekend of Gardenscape because I'm pretty sure that would be my heaven :(

Why I Like The Hunger Games

There's a lot of hype about The Hunger Games right now.  I've read the books, and seen the movie, and I'd like to talk about what I like about it.  If you aren't sure whether you want to see the movie or read the books, maybe this can help you make a decision.

Let me start by saying I get that the concept of The Hunger Games is nothing new - there are many films and books and stories out there about battles to the death and humans hunting each other and all that.  So absolutely in no way am I defending that The Hunger Games is a totally fresh concept for a story because it's not.  I don't think author Suzanne Collins would ever try to defend that either.

What I do think though is that The Hunger Games is a very interesting take on the concept, and from it creates a very interesting, moving story about war and oppression and uprising and standing up for what you believe in, even when it's the hardest thing you will ever have to do.  It's also got a great underlying theme of unconditional love and never giving up on the people you care about when it seems like they are lost to you forever.

I also found it to be an interesting commentary on "reality" media and news coverage.  I think a discussion on the large role the media, the news, and even the personal stylists played in The Hunger Games and their significance could go on a long time.

I think maybe though what I like best about The Hunger Games is its main character, Katniss Everdeen (played in the movie to perfection by Jennifer Lawrence).  In a series of books and films that is hyped this big, I'm so so excited that the protagonist is a female who doesn't suck.  She's super tough, but she's emotional.  She's flawed and dynamic.  She's a strong character who happens to be female, not a Strong Female Character. 

And yet, crazily enough, The Hunger Games appeals to males AND females.  I was in Costco the other day and I saw a nine-year-old boy excitedly exclaim "HUNGER GAMES!  HUNGER GAMES!" and grab the boxed set off the shelf.  Contrary to what Hollywood seems to think based on the movies they keep churning out, movies about women can appeal to a male audience too.  A good story will appeal to everyone, no matter the gender of the protagonist.

I've heard some people compare The Hunger Games to Twilight.  Um... no.  Admittedly I have not read or watched Twilight but from reading the Wikipedia page, the only thing these two series have in common seems to be having a female protagonist and a love triangle - although in Twilight the love triangle IS the story, whereas it's maybe the C-plot, if that, in The Hunger Games.  Because Katniss has more important things to do than worry about which boy she wants to kiss more.

Do I think The Hunger Games is the greatest series ever?  No.  Do I think it's amazing literature/filmmaking?  Not particularly.  But it's an interesting and thought-provoking story, and definitely a page-turning series of books.  As a feminist I think the fact that an extremely popular movie like this passes The Bechdel Test with flying colours with a whole roster of interesting characters who happen to be female, already introduced and yet to come, is groundbreaking and awesome, and I'm happy to support it.

However - do I think you should watch the movie before reading the book?  No, I don't.  I think the movie does a great job of visualizing the settings and characters from the book, and overall the movie was one of the closest book-to-movies I've ever seen, but it glossed over the importance of a lot of subtle things that contribute to the story.  The screenplay was written by Suzanne Collins and perhaps that's actually a downside - when the author herself lives and breathes the story, she might miss some of the elements that an outsider NEEDS to understand the whole picture.  The movie is great if you already understand the story from reading the books, but there are a lot of things that will just seem like plot holes when you watch the movie if you don't already know the story.  I hear that Suzanne Collins is not writing the second screenplay which hopefully will make for a movie that makes more sense, even if it does have to take a few more liberties with the story to do so.