look mom, i'm on youtube!

Remember a million years ago when I said I was about to make my YouTube debut?

Well,

it happened. And I'm mighty proud of my brotha-from-anotha-motha.
Mad editing skillz, broski. For reals.

Anywho, without further ado, here it is:

from mother, with love.

"You know what you need? You need to find something you love to do and something that will sustain a comfortable life for you. Find something online that you can do from home. What are you always doing on your laptop? Blogging? I'm sure you're good at that. Can you do that professionally? I think you should. I don't really understand all your Twitter and Facebook and Google and Blog talk, but I'm still listening. You've already found what you love, now you just need to make it work for you."

Health care latest: House passes legislation - CNN.com

History is being made on this day, ladies and gentlemen.



Watch it unfold here.

Female bloggers take on Margaret Wente - The Globe and Mail

Margaret Wente of the Globe and Mail infuriated the world of female bloggers yesterday by saying that "blogging is a man's world."

I guess she's never heard of Google.
(I typed 'female blogs' into Google just now and came up with 82 million results. I'm sure a couple of those might have been blogs written by women. Maybe not.)

Read female bloggers' responses to Wente here. You must read this.

beer. punk rock. good people. nostalgia.

A faded 'PAID' stamp on my hand; a rockin' headache of epic proportions; a faint memory of screaming "JOHN MELOCHE IS SEXY!"

All indications of a great night. It seems like a lifetime ago that this kind of thing was a nightly occurrence for me. I'd almost forgotten what the allure of that scene was. Last night sent a rush of memory from my toes right up the very tip of my skull (making a special stop at my now damaged eardrums---thanks guys.) A hundred different faces, familiar and new. The same idea applied to the music. A lively crowd, complete with a moshpit, crowd surfers, and special appearances by the bands' front men. The devoted fans shouting along with the singers, reinforcing the social, political, and moral significance of the lyrics.

All of these elements made for one resounding and undying theme: unity. The sense of singularity and harmony was overwhelming, pasting a smile permanently across my face. Mavericks was the center of the universe last night.



Or maybe--six beer and three shots later--it was just a sauce-induced euphoria.

Either way, I was reminded of why I was so in love with this scene so long ago. There is a part of my heart, I think, that has always been reserved for all things studded, drunk, and grungy. And that piece was brought to the front and center last night.

I would thank everyone myself for an awesome time. But someone already said it best last night, and to try to top it would be an act of utter futility:



"Cheers to beers and queers." - Kyle Loverin

my favourite movie of all time has a first name, it's A-V-A-T-A-R

I love this time of year. Why?

It's OSCAR TIME!

The biggest night in movies and the film-geek's highlight of the year.  I also love this time of year because it makes it okay for me to be a cheeky film critic. SO! These are my Oscar predictions for tonight.

(Note: I'm only including predictions for the award categories that I care about. So. In your face, Mr. YouKnowWhoYouAre.)

Cinematography
“The Hurt Locker” Barry Ackroyd
DARK HORSE “The White Ribbon” Christian Berger



Visual Effects
“Avatar” Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham and Andrew R. Jones
DARK HORSE “District 9” Dan Kaufman, Peter Muyzers, Robert Habros and Matt Aitken


Music (Original Score)
“Up” Michael Giacchino
DARK HORSE “Sherlock Holmes” Hans Zimmer (because it's Hans Zimmer)


Writing (Original Screenplay)
SHOULD WIN “Inglourious Basterds” Written by Quentin Tarantino
WILL WIN “The Hurt Locker” Written by Mark Boal
DARK HORSE “A Serious Man” Written by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen (because it's the Coens' best movie since Fargo, don'tchyaknow.)


Animated Feature Film
“Up” Pete Docter
DARK HORSE “The Princess and the Frog” John Musker and Ron Clements


Actress in a Supporting Role
WILL WIN (boo) Mo’Nique in “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire”
COULD WIN Maggie Gyllenhaal in “Crazy Heart”
DARK HORSE Anna Kendrick in “Up in the Air” (rooting for her.)


Actress in a Leading Role
WILL WIN Sandra Bullock in “The Blind Side”
COULD WIN (boo, again) Gabourey Sidibe in “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire”
COULD WIN Meryl Streep in “Julie & Julia”


Actor in a Supporting Role (I'm torn on this one. I love all of these actors, and I've especially developed an extra-soft spot for Christoph Waltz after watching his awkward-but-adorable acceptance speech at the SAG Awards.)
SHOULD WIN/YOU BETTER EFFING WIN Christoph Waltz in “Inglourious Basterds” (if only to see another awesome acceptance speech.)
COULD WIN Matt Damon in “Invictus”
COULD WIN Christopher Plummer in “The Last Station” (Actually haven't seen this film, but you can't expect anything less than an Oscar-worthy performance from Plummer.)
COULD WIN Stanley Tucci in “The Lovely Bones” (although this is a strange role to win an award for.)
DARK HORSE/WOULD BE AWESOME IF HE WON BUT HE WON'T Woody Harrelson in “The Messenger”


Actor in a Leading Role
WILL WIN Jeff Bridges in “Crazy Heart”
MIGHT WIN George Clooney in “Up in the Air”
DARK HORSE Jeremy Renner in “The Hurt Locker”


Directing
TOSS-UP “Avatar” James Cameron & “The Hurt Locker” Kathryn Bigelow
COULD WIN, BUT WON'T “Inglourious Basterds” Quentin Tarantino
MIGHT WIN, BUT BETTER NOT “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” Lee Daniels


Best Picture
BETTER WIN “Avatar” James Cameron and Jon Landau, Producers
COULD WIN “The Blind Side” Gil Netter, Andrew A. Kosove and Broderick Johnson, Producers
IF IT WEREN'T FOR AVATAR “District 9” Peter Jackson and Carolynne Cunningham, Producers
MIGHT WIN “The Hurt Locker” Kathryn Bigelow, Mark Boal, Nicolas Chartier and Greg Shapiro, Producers
BETTER NOT WIN “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” Lee Daniels, Sarah Siegel-Magness and Gary Magness, Producers
TIED FOR DARK HORSE “Up in the Air” Daniel Dubiecki, Ivan Reitman and Jason Reitman, Producers & “Inglourious Basterds” Lawrence Bender, Producer

images from http://oscars.go.com

Maybe teen mums are on to something. I'm just saying | Leah McLaren, The Globe and Mail

“I think it would be very difficult to have done it a different way. When I was 19, I didn't have to give up my life to have a child. I was 19 – I didn't have a life yet. I established one later.”

Leah McLaren, columnist for the Globe and Mail, writes about author Hilary Mantel's controversial case for teen motherhood.

Read the whole story here.

the anatomy of a good day.

I went to work with sex hair today.

Not a typo. You know that wacky hairpie you get after an intense love-making session? Yeah. That's what I'm talking about. 

It was just one of those mornings. I--very reluctantly--woke up at 6:30am this morning (ick, I know,) seriously considering calling in sick (okay, fine--tired.) But then I came to my senses and decided that it wasn't worth the lost income. 

So, I stumbled to the bathroom and took a shower. Usually after a shower, I'm wide awake and ready for the day. This morning, this was not the case. I went back to bed, with the intention of resting my eyes for 15 minutes or so. My better half had other ideas. (We don't refer to them as our 'better half' without reason, you know.)

Enter: sex hair. Obviously I was running late, so I slapped some makeup on and rushed to work, sans Tim Horton's. NOT cool. All the morning sex in the world couldn't make up for a morning at work without coffee.

....okay, that's a giant lie. But coffee is pretty much an essential for me. Even though I was feeling unusually chipper, preparing myself for a caffeine-free morning kind of put a damper on things. 

Hubby to the rescue again!

A good man would never let his woman suffer the strife of early mornings without coffee. So it goes. 

Not only was I lucky enough to have his beautiful self deliver me a coffee, but because it's 'Rrrroll Up the Rrrrim' time, I won a free donut. 

Fucking. Score.

A free donut, to which I treated myself after a hard day of work. 

This is the anatomy of a good day.

somewhere in the world, a tree-hugger is sobbing inconsolably

because of me.

I spent eight and a half hours tossing 11 years worth of invoices into the trash. Yes, the trash. To be burned. Not recycled. BURNED. There was a part of me that wanted to start laughing wickedly, like an evil tyrant CEO dumping radioactive waste into the ocean and watching all of the aquatic life shriek and die. Really. That's actually how I felt.

As I stared at my massive pile of dead and shredded trees, I began to consider how I could incorporate this into my blog. How could I morph this into a social commentary about how suburban businesses are impassive with with their waste management policies? Environmentally unfriendly, if you will. If the incredulous looks I received when I asked if there was an alternative to just burning all of the wasted paper (i.e. recycling it,) were any indication, I'd say that the term 'impassivity' doesn't quite constitute what's happening out here in the boons. It's probably something more along the lines of... apathy. And perhaps a touch of being misinformed.

I really don't want to sound patronizing or anything, but it's that generation. Only granola-munching, natural-fiber-wearing hippies recycle. At least that's what my grandparents and the rest of their entire generation (and most of the generation directly proceeding them) would have you believe. Okay, so that's a gross generalization. But I'm angered, and it's much easier to point your finger at a group of people rather than sift out the problem individuals. Individuals  who cite cost as the reasoning behind their businesses not being more "green friendly." That's understandable, I guess. But, as these things often do, this has inspired me. I've given myself a new mission at work to discover a way around this. I've designated myself Chief of Green Affairs, Rescuer of Old and Used Paper Products and Enforcer of the Three R's. I started this mission by creating approximately and hour and a half's worth of extra work for myself by going through every single old file, removing the contents, and keeping the actual file folder. This, instead of just dumping the entire box of folders onto the trash pile.

This is my new mission. Paper cuts will happen. Trees will be saved.

Has Activision Just Shot "Modern Warfare" in the Head? | Fast Company

So, what do you do when you've got the most successful cross-platform FPS franchise, aka Call of Duty, under your belt?


You fire the guys who are responsible for that success.


Activision announced yesterday that they had ousted their two leads of development at Infinity Ward, Jason West and Vince Zampella, citing insubordination as just cause. Idiots.

So, what do you do when you've got a bunch of money hungry turds trying to run your favourite game into the ground?









BOOM! HEADSHOT.

but that's just my opinion.
Read the actual story from Fast Company here.