Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Letter to the Editor...

I haven't had a hamburger since 6th grade camp. I only ate it because that's all we had for lunch n' I was hungry. I have no problem with other people eating burgers, but I guess I just don't care for the texture or taste of ground beef. I never really ate steak that much either, but in the past few years I have grown to love a good steak. I mostly eat chicken.

Hmmm, what about ground turkey or ground chicken burgers?

Anna: good lord you SO didn't offend me! And I've seen cows being slaughtered too...in the grand scheme, that's life (I'm certainly not down with letting cows randomly roam free...as far as i'm concerned, a cow is sorta domesticated)...it was more like: it was effing CREEPY as hell to see something so cute get shot in the head, no matter how quick and painless it is...plus, i DID use to work at McD's, and I know how nasty in general it is to eat anything there (including the ketchup...shudder...ALWAYS ask for the packets!!)

Remember, I"m the girl who thinks chicken meat comes off the chicken tree...raw meat creeps me out, especially when I've seen it ALIVE beforehand.

Which is why I had a chicken pita today for lunch with Carrie...if I don't see it raw, then it's just another vegetable as far as i'm concerned.

NORM: heck yeah In N Out rocks!! I'll probably crave it once I get that image of the cow shlopping off the conveyer belt out of my head.

Enough with Don Imus already!

You know what I don't get? WHy every radio station and tv show are saying "hey, what's the big deal with Imus, he's been doing this for years"...well if it's not a big deal, why the eff are you still discussing it?!!

The only reason I know who Imus is is 'cause of Howard Stern, and since I love Howard I pretty much was biased as soon as I heard the story. I mean, come ON...who does this old creepy guy think he is calling some chicks "nappy headed hos"?

Well...then I actually HEARD the clip from his show...what the BLEEP is everyone freaking out about? Okay, granted, I'm not black. I'll give you that. And I'm also not from the east coast, which is his target audience. I live in Southern California where even the whitest kids think they're gangsta...must I remind people about BuckWild from Flavor of Love season 2? She's from Rancho Cucamonga for God's sakes.

Thing is...it's not like he just started a rant. He was chatting about women's basketball, about how scary these chicks looked (and dont' tell me that a team of somewhat professional women's basketball players wouldn't creep you out, they're tall and muscular and jock-ish), and he's talking about how the other teams were like "dang, these girls are scary looking!" and he called them a bunch of "nappy headed hos"...not in a BAD way, but just in a "these girls are tough, I wouldn't mess with them either! They look rough!"...

Was it the smartest thing to say? Obviously not. But to his defense, he's one of the first radio "shock jocks", he didn't get where he's at because he's held back...you can't have your shock jocks showing restraint whenever you see fit. Suddenly NOW you want to fire the guy?

Plus it's not like the dude's got a written script. News flash: radio jockeys ad lib. For HOURS. You can't take alot of time to THINK when you're ad libbing your content. If he'd said "damn, those ugly ass whores should be shot", that's one thing. But to say "damn, those chicks are scarrryyyy!" is another. And okay, for him to call them "hos"...well, wtf...if he were black, would he still be under fire? I get that only black people can call each other the N-word (Alanna, you're still my niglet though! booyah!), but "Ho" is for Whore, and that goes across all races...

As for the "nappy" comment, do a search in google...Take a look at some things that come up...
Nappy Hair Affair
But A Nappy Hair Affair (ANHA) is about so much more than hair. It is about reclaiming and respecting our culture. We have been conditioned to hate one of our most unique characteristics-our hair in its most natural state. We have been conditioned to accept European standards of beauty and to reject our own. ANHA exists to cause a shift in such negative mindsets and promote a positive image of people of African descent. We do it through support, affirmation and education.

So wouldn't that imply that it can also be a GOOD thing to be nappy haired?

Nappturality
Napptural hair is the type labeled "bad", nappy hair that needs to be "fixed."

This perception needs to change. We need to stop being afraid of our hair. We need to learn about our natural hair. We need to see natural hair worn on women who have embraced it. And the only way we can do that is to showcase our natural hair on its own merit without seeing it compared with other hairtypes.


See! Spread the word people! Nappy might be a GOOD thing!

Okay, okay, I get it...you think I'm stretching. And I kinda am. But really...point is...it's not THAT bad...it wasn't meant to be malicious, he was chatting about sports, if they had been big tall WHITE chicks he would have made an equally rude comment (and really, I'm not afraid to say how female athletes can be frickin' scary)...but people, he APOLOGIZED...cut him some slack and let's move on. There's a pretty big difference between what Imus said vs. Michael Richards.

On another note, I'm finally trying to catch up on Lost...at least now I know what happened to John Locke and why he ended up in a wheelchair...I bet in 50 years if they ever watch reruns they'd say "wow, things would be so different if that happened now 'cause he could get some stem cells and fix his spine..."....kinda like how we watch movies now and think how things would be SO different if the victim could just dial *69.

Movie Review: 16 Blocks

So thanks to the joys of 1 week free HBO, I recorded a bunch of movies (i.e. be prepared for more bad movie reviews).

16 Blocks

16 Blocks stars Bruce Willis as a tired, overworked police officer who clearly hates his job, his life, but loooves his liquor. He's ready to go home but then finds out he's gotta take a dude (played by Mos Def) to the courthouse so he can testify.

Things go crazy sour when it turns out that Mos Def is gonna testify against some big wig police officer dude, and everyone is out to get him. For some reason, Bruce Willis decides that even though he hates life, he wants his liquor, he's got a limp, and he sweats like a pig...he's gotta get Mos Def to that courthouse, 16 blocks away, with all of the NYPD chasing after them.

This was a pretty entertaining movie, I definitely recommend it. My main beef is that Mos Def's voice or accent or whatever he's got going on with his mouth is irritating beyond belief. Buddy doesn't shut the eff up at ALL during the movie and you can't understand half of what he's saying other than random babbling about how he wants to make cakes.

Ummm...and that's my review, since I don't want to give away anything else.

Saturday, April 07, 2007

Effing nasty...going vegetarian...

Listen, it takes me ALOT to get grossed out. I love Nip/Tuck, horror movies, all that stuff.

The last time I got super creeped out was when I saw the footage of that Canadian figure skater who got whacked in the face by her partner's skate blade.

Anyway, I rented Fast Food Nation. I had read most of the book, but had to put it down after reading hte chapter about how the cows are killed...not that I'm all pro-animal rights or anything, but it's pretty horrific nonetheless.

That was a few years ago and I got over it fast enough to keep eating red meat (I can't give up my chicken! As far as I'm concerned, chicken meat comes from trees). Well...for some stupid reason I decided to watch the movie.

Wait, let me backtrack. I've SEEN cows slaughtered in real life. I've been to farms in Canada and seen cows get shot and then their necks slit. I've been to Pakistan where, after Ramadan, everyone's cows and camels had their throats slit and then my family would chop up the meat in the backyard courtyard area...At age 12, I sat with a cow's head on one side of me, and a pile of MOVING meat next to me (it was explained to me that electricity still goes through meat long after the animal is chopped up). I took my cousin's broken necklace and placed the beads in the cow's eye socket.

Seriously. It takes ALOT to gross or creep me out (exclusing spiders. Spiders FREAK ME OUT big time).

So I'm watching Fast Food Nation, not really paying attention 'cause I was catching up on my magazine reading...getting kind of annoyed with the illegal aliens in the movie (don't get me started on that...WHYYYY did i pay $70 to get biometrics done AGAIN?! My fingerprints didn't change mother effers...department of Homeland Security is EFFED UP), getting annoyed with the extra random footage that wasn't needed, kind of surprised that a low-budget movie would have people like Bruce Willis, Wilmer Valderamma, Greg Kinnear, Avril Lavigne, Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke, which is a pretty significant list, and being reminded of my days working at McDonald's.

Finally I get to the part where they show REAL footage from slaughterhouses.

Holy CRAP. I threw everything on the ground and curled up on the couch with my shirt covering my mouth yelling "ughghg!...aaachghghghg...ughghghhhhhh". Listen, cows are kinda cute. They have those big doe eyes, they're kinda stupid, they're funny-looking...so when you see one just standing there and then a gun against its head and it gets SHOT and then it jerking around and all the blood trailing out of it and then it strung up and all the blood just pouring out and the scenes where the intestines are slopped into a big bin...seriously vomit inducing.

I do believe...I'm done eating meat*.

* for at least a week anyway.

The whole industry really IS effed up. I'm anti-illegal immigration, however I don't think that gives the right for anyone to start abusing their power over those people. I'm not okay with food being that...artificial...while trying to act relatively healthy (I don't care what anyone tells me...the lettuce at McDonald's might as well be deep fried. NONE of their salads are healthy. Their WATER isn't healthy. Basically, only eat their if you're hours away from dying of starvation). And one thing that I remember from the book was that the success of places like McDonald's is that they hire teenagers on purpose, not because they're cheap but because they don't COMPLAIN...in hindsight, I was exposed to some seriously dangerous conditions and I was burnt SOOOO many times I would go to school comparing my war wounds with the other people who worked at McD's. You think an adult will tolerate that crap? I can buy whatever I want in order to ensure proper ergonomics at my work station so that i don't get back pain. BACK PAIN. Compared to burning yourself, that's pretty minor.

Argh I don't know what my point is. Just that I don't want to eat a burger for awhile. And that I think I need to adopt a baby cow.

Monday, April 02, 2007

I'm the whitest brown girl EVER.

Went to a crazy hip hop cardio class with Alanna and Janet tonight.

Now back in the day (and when I say "back in the day", that means 10 years ago when Stacey dragged me to 7am step aerobics classes at Ottawa U), I could totally keep up.

However, keeping up to like...Paula Abdul...is NOT the same as keeping up to remixed Ludacris and Justin Timberlake...I had all the dance moves of an 80 year old tone deaf senior citizen.

Moral of the story: I blow goats.

Time to watch Fast Food Nation. Stay tuned for the review. It'll be better than The Inside Man i'm sure (which can be summed up as...Clive Owen literally WAS inside...the entire time.)

Friday, March 30, 2007

Rena kicks ass...

Props to the birthday girl...check out her pics of cakes she's made...she needs her own tv show! These cakes look gorgeous!

Movie Review: THE DEPARTED

Movie Review: The Departed

Yeah yeah I know, everyone's seen this movie except me. Suck it. I'm anti-movie theater so I gotta wait till stuff comes out on DVD.

For reference sake, "the departed" is a fancy shmancy term for "the dead guy".

The movie takes place in Boston, noted by the crazy accents. Key players:

Jack Nicholson: local meanie "ohh i'll have you shaking in your booties" mob boss. Don't mess with this mofo. Likes his cocaine big time.

Matt Damon: as a kid, Jack Nicholson took him under his wing. He goes to police academy and ends up working for the state as some big wig, all the while secretly maintaining his ties to Jack.

Martin Sheen and Marky Mark: heads of the undercover cop department. Only they know who's undercover...the rest of the police force (including Matt Damon) have no idea who in the bad guy world is actually a real cop.

Leonardo Decaprio: dude who also graduates from police academy, but when he applies to the police force Martin Sheen and Marky Mark flip out on him that his entire family is full of criminals and theythink he's fake. SO...they offer to let him be an undercover cop.

And so begins over a year of hell for Leo, 'cause he's a legit cop working for Jack Nicholson acting like a bad guy, while Matt Damon gets praise and promotions when really he's a bad guy acting like a cop.

Alot fo suspense...alotta gun shooting...alotta swearing...oh somewhere in there Matt Damon's girlfriend, who's a cop psychiatrist, befriends Leo on the side...which is a killer for her since Matt's got one of those male issues where he can't get it up and she's jonesin' for some good nookie.

It's a fabulous movie...worth all the accolades given to it. There was ONE movie mistake: a scene where Jack Nicholson is freaking out about the rat on his team, one moment Leo has nothing next minute he's got a cigarette in his mouth. I have to admit, some endings are predictable but in this case, I was like...WTF! I kind of get the impression that they ran out of ideas on how to wrap everything up so they just winged the most violent outcome.

Hey, worked for me. I give this movie 9 out of 10 stars.

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Movie Review: The Devil's Rejects

Movie Review: THE DEVIL'S REJECTS


Disclaimer: Ihaven't seen the prequel, House of a Thousand Corpses.

Devil's Rejects =
Natural Born Killers +
Dazed and Confused +
Pulp Fiction -
any good looking people in the above movies.


Will this movie win an Oscar? Nope.
Was it highly entertaining, effed up ((bleep))? Absolutely. I give it 8.5 out of 10 in terms of entertainment value.

And...that's pretty much the only way I can sum up this movie.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Movie Review: Without a Paddle

Movie Review: Without a Paddle

Without a Paddle features 3 actors that I kinda dig in random comedies...Dax Sheppard (of PUnk'd fame), Matthew Lilliard (sp) (from Hackers) and Seth Green (hello...can you say Austin Powers??)...so I actuallyhad pretty high hopes for this comedy.

WELL...let me tell you...formulaic doesn't even begin to explain the half of it.

The 3 guys were childhood buddies and are forced to reunite upon the death of their 4th childhood buddy. They find their old treehouse and decide as a group they're going to find some Random Old Dude's Lost Treasure...jobs and girlfriends and real life be damned.

Let's see...Seth Green plays the piddly nerdy guy...BAD choice of roles. He's better off being the snot-faced brat we've seen him as. Matthew Lilliard plays this responsible wall-street type...wtf is that about?! Did the casting director not SEE Hackers or Scoopy Do? This guy is best at playing oddball freaks. And Dax playing the screwup of the bunch is just depressing.

So of COURSE Seth Green thinks it's a bad idea and complains the entire time. And of COURSE their journey into nature goes downhill...apparently when this movie was made (2004?), cell phones were very rare because only one of the three guys had one. Which...NATURALLY...gets consumed by a bear.

Hijinx ensue, including being chased by some pot growers with guns, meeting gorgeous tree hugging hippies, and getting saved by some wilderness dude played by Burt Reynolds.

I can't tell you exactly how it ends because at this point my netflix rental totally got jacked up in the DVD so I had to return it. Needless to say, the moral of the movie was that the "treasure" isn't money...it's about appreciate life, this moment, and making it last.

Whatever. Try telling a homeless person to choose between a meaningful life or money and i'm sure they'll pick the latter. Heck, I would.

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Elementary school...

Oh thank the LORD that I've learned the art of dressing as well as plucking my eyebrows. And Bryan...you look SO MUCH better now! 8th grade memories should be burned.

Saturday, March 24, 2007

Nastiness to the nth degree

Supersizing it: McDonald's tests bigger burger
Angus Third Pounder exceeding sales goals in California roll-out


Okay seriously people...SERIOUSLY! A third of a pound! Most of the time people want to LOSE a pound...not add a 3rd of it! Seriously..if you ate one for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, you'd be a pound heavier! Granted some of it gets converted to energy, but take it from someone who's worked at McD's...you might as well consume a third of a pound of lard.

I mean, if you're THAT hungry...just order two burgers...

Friday, March 23, 2007

Movie Review: The Descent

Movie Review: The Descent

I heard this movie was super scary so I was pretty psyched to see it. I haven't seen a terrifying movie since The Ring (although 28 Days kinda creepy me out...but just 'cause I would go to bed thinking "what if there WERE some sort of disease that made people like that?)...

But...I digress.

The Descent is a semi-low budget movie with no famous people in it. Which oftentimes is good, because then it feels a bit more "real" (as in, if Angelina Jolie were in it, I'd be fully aware that her fate isn't at risk).

The title of the movie has two different meanings...the obvious one is that 6 girls go off to explore underground caverns. The other relatively obvious meaning is the descent into madness.

So the general gist is that there's 6 girls who are adventurous "yeah girl power woo hoo" types and they get together for a weekend of girly adventure crap. One chick's husband and child died recently, and it's hinted early on that one of the other chicks (aka Asian Tough Girl) was having an affair (even if just emotional) with the Dead Husband.

The 6 girls are:
Asian Tough Girl
The Widow (our heroine for the movie with a brit accent)
Party Girl Friend (brit accent)
Plain Girl (american)
The Medical Intern (american, younger sis of Plain Girl)
The Irish Lesbian (I don't know if she's a lesbian, but she kinda looks it)

The girls all go underground, they're all oohing and ahhing, with Asian Tough GIrl leading the way. They go through this nook in the cavern, until the nook collapses. So they're trapped in the cavern, they've lost a bag of ropes, and then Asian Tough Girl admits they're not in a mapped out cave...it's one no one's ever gone through and she thought it would be great if they could explore it and then name it. They start FREAKING out.

Ohhh snap...does this hardhat make me look fat?


Along they go, deeper and deeper in this underground cavern with just flashlights and flares. The Widow keeps hearing little noises and thinks she sees a dude...but everyone thinks she's nuts.

The Lesbian at one points sees light and runs towards it (turns out, some rocks glow phosphorus), trips, falls in a hole, jacks up her leg to the point the bone has popped. Insert the convenience of having a Medical Intern to rig something up so they can keep moving.

At this point their flashlights are dying out, they're filthy, they're bitchy...and that's when the Movie Monsters appear.

Now I have to give this movie credit. Since it's supposed to take place where ther'es little/no light, they got pretty creative in showing the scenes. The flares make stuff look red, and when they introduce the Movie Monsters it's because one chick uses the night vision on the camcorder to see stuff, which has a greenish creepy glow to it.

As you can imagine, chaos and screaming ensues. Maybe I would have been more scared if I hadn't watched it at 1pm in the afternoon, with daylight pouring in through all my windows.

God, why is it always so chilly in here?!


Overall, the movie was decent. It was VERY entertaining, once you get past the boring crap of the girls drinking and catching up the night before their descent. I guess I just say "decent" because it didn't scare me per se, but other than that I'd give the movie an 8 out of 10. The ending wasn't what I expected, and I like that these girls' reactions to things are much more realistic than in other movies (as in, there's ALOT of freaking out. Which is how it should be.)


I'm having a not-so-fresh feeling right now...


The big downfall: the "behind the scenes" stuff. The way they show how they build the sets and all that was cool...but wtf do I really give a crap to hear from the Director and what everyone thought of him? And his vision? And his life at that moment? NO! When will moviemakers get that? Unles you're a celebrity director or producer (a la Lucas and Spielburg), shut yer piehole and show the stuff the actors went through and how you made the movie.

Monday, March 19, 2007

Book review

Book Review: My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult

Since I was bed-bound all weekend, I cranked through all 423 pages in one day.

This book is phenomenal.

The general gyst of the story is about a chick (Anna) who is born specifically to be a cord-blood donor for her sister (Kate) who's got leukemia. Her parents specially "picked" the same genes as the dying sister to make sure they're an exact match.

13 years later, Anna's had to donate bone marrow and platelets and other medical mumbo jumbo...and now Kate needs a kidney, and Anna doesn't want to give it. So she seeks out an attorney to have the right to NOT give her kidney, knowing that without it her sister will die. Opposing counsel? Her own mother, who used to be a lawyer in her previous life before the world of cancer came through...

What really makes this interesting is that the story progesses on a day-by-day basis until the trial, and everyone involved has a chapter. The lawyer, the chick responsible for making sure Anna's taken care of, the parents, the brother....So you can truly sympathise with all sides.

The ending is a wee little bit predictable, but still shocking to say the least.

This one paragraph actually had me bawling (okay, to my defense, I was on my deathbed...a Hallmark commercial would have made me cry). This is Sarah (the mom)'s chapter, she's in the hospital talking to Kate about her time at some camp for kids with cancer:

I pull my chair closer to the hospital bed. "Do you remember the summer we signed you up for camp? And the night before you left, you said you'd changed your mind and wanted to stay home? I told you to get a seat on the left side of the bus, so that when it pulled away, you'd be able to look back and see me there, waiting for you." I press her hand against my cheek, hard enough to leave a mark. "You get that same seat in Heaven. One where you can watch me, watching you."

Man, if the thought of ever having to tell your child that doesn't rip you apart,nothing will!

Knot in one's stomach indeed!

Thanks to everyone for being concerned about my potential trip towards the white light lol.

On another note...one of the many things that puts a knot in your stomach...when your spouse's company lays off 30% of the company...

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Death is coming for me....

Karma's a bitch. This is what I get for snorting pepper. (Don't ask, 'cause I'm not gonna post what i mean on this blog!)

I can't remember the last time I was this sick. I'm thinking high school. It's a tough call, because when I lived in Canada I used to get sick on a weekly basis...the usual cold and runny nose thing, so that's the norm of life...and I moved to California and practically never got even a mild cold, I'm guessing either because I've battled so many cold viruses my immunity is made of steel OR because withthe weather and all that, it's not very conducive to getting sick.

Last Tuesday I ended up with a crazy bad fever but I toughed it out for the week....by Friday night, I was DEATH. Seriously. Death.



I did manage to get to a clinic to make sure I didn't have strep, and they said I don't but there's definitely something that's jacking up my throat (ha ha insert whatever joke you want here) and i've got a fever. I spent Friday night being delirious between crazy fever and super chills....Kraig kept asking if he could take me to the hospital but I thought between then $20 I spent on the clinic copay, plus my $50 copay to go to the hospital...pfft eff that! For $70, I can suffer.

And suffer I have...not to sound like a whiney bitch, but seriously...I'm hoping someone can club me like a baby seal and put me out of my misery. To top it off, I have laryngitis...

I'm all for sucking stuff up,hell even the nurse after the colposcopy was shocked that I would actually go back to work after that procedure and my girlfriends ripped me a new one for not having them or Kraig there with me (I don't "do" people coming in with me to the doctor)...but I've been wallowing in self misery 'cause the weather this weekend was gorgeous, I have a ton of stuff to do for Kraig's company due Monday, my house is so filthy I might as well have a sign saying "white trash lives here", and I can't begin to explain the laundry baskets full of laundry begging to be burned at this point.

Anyway, so if I'm incognito for awhile it's either because i'm in bed hacking up a lung or becuase I've figured out how to do that thing where you sit in your car with the engine running.....thank the LORD for my husband, who actually thinks that my raspy lack of a voice is cute (as he said, he likes it because i can't yell at him) and because I'm so independent, he actually LIKES it when I need him. Stab me now PLEASE.

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Facebook...myspace...StalkMe.Com....

Sabina Horigan's Facebook profile

Yeahhhh...I got a Facebook profile finally. Not because I really give a crap, but it seems like everyone in Canada uses Facebook and no one I know uses myspace...it's absolutely insane how many people from my high school and university have profiles and it's super creepy to see everyone..well...OLD.

Time to go work on stuff for Kraig's company...I'm whoring my time for money.

Why I've been bitchy for a few weeks....the Colpsocopy

So...the colposcopy.

Be warned: this is gonna be graphic. You're going to squirm. Maybe. I don't know. I haven't written it yet. All i can say is that it's DEFINITELY going to fall under the category of Too Much Information. If you don't want to read about women's gonads, skip this post.

Every year I'm very diligent about getting my girly checkups from the doctor...if there's any area I want to keep intact, it's "down there". This year
was no exception.

Fast forward 2 months later...I get a call from my doctor saying that there's some abnormal cell crap going on. This was at like 7pm at night and I was driving around Lake Forest trying to find a house 'cause I was buying something off a chick from Craigslist, so I was a bit out of it when she was trying to explain this to me.
Finally I had to pull into a parking lot and stop the car. I was like "but...but...I always get checked...but..." and she told me I would need a colposcopy because they want to make sure it's not cervical cancer.

So I look this whole "colposcopy" thing online, and it seems pretty simple and (allegedly) the same pain level as a regular pap. Since regular pap smears don't hurt at all, i didn't think much of it (I mean, you feel like an a-hole laying down with your knees spread out and your feet in stirrups, but it's not PAINFUL.)...

Uhhh...riigghtt....

My first mistake was working through lunch so I could do the colposcopy late in the afternoon and then come back to work. BIG BIG mistake.

I get there and the nurse tells me waht's gonna happen. And...here's what DID happen:

1. I had to be in a big special room, not a normal room like they use for pap smears.

2. Doc puts in the usual contraption they use for pap smears. That thing that looks like a stork's beak. I can't remember wtf those things are called but you get the point.

3. This bizarre solution on a gauze pad had to be rammed up inside, up against the cervix, to get skin samples and to clean up the area. This was part 1 of the bleeding...it hurt like a mofo and it's a bit alarming to see a doctor put a cloth with your blood in a jar full of solution.

4. Doc gets a colposcope, which is like a combo microscope plus lamp, and looks deeeep inside to scope out which areas have abnormal cells.

5. Doc then CUTS out the areas on the cervis with the abnormal cells and puts them in a different container with solution.
I've felt alot of pain in my life...i've had brutal ear infections, i've had a brazillian wax, i've burned myself on lord knows what, i've slashed my hand with a huge ass knife...when i was getting that fixed the doctor even commented to kraig that i've got a crazy huge tolerance for pain...ummm yeah. Getting 2 chunks of skin cut off your cervix
is the craziest pain i've ever felt. It's not that it was so horrible as much as just...BIZARRE...it's like someone's set your internal organs on fire. To be honest, I imagine it would feel alot like if someone squeezed a dude's nuts super duper hard.


6. Think it's over yet? ohhh...no...

Then this brown goo that looks like slimy peanut butter has to be applied across the cervix to make sure everything heals (sort of like a liquid bandaid if you will). It was like pouring battery acid all over the exposed flesh.

7. FInally all the instruments are taken out of me...

My take-home instructions said I couldn't have anything inside me for 2 weeks (which includes penises and tampons) and that peanut butter stuff would come out of me in black chunks so I had to wear a pantyliner immediately after the procedure ...

Now this is the part where I remind you, the disgusted reader, that this was all during my delayed lunch break...and I actually went back to work. First off, i just felt lousy...I've been molested with a camera probe before (that was for when I did the egg donation thing, which didn't pan out since they couldn't easily find my right ovary, only AFTER the rape-age of the camera occurred), but this was like...ick factor. And my stomach had super bad cramps, like when you drink a ton of water while playing sports.

The worst pain came days later, when my period started. First off, PADS. WTF. How 70s is that? Who the eff wears pads in this day and age?! If that's not straight up Judy Blume, I don't know what is. Secondly, the cramping was out of control (I never cramp during my period). I wanted to keel over and die. Well okay that's a bit much, but it was extremely uncomfortable.

A week later I had to go back for the result of the biopsy on my precious cervical skin tissue...got regular pap smear so they could scope it all out taht it was healing properly (it was), and the results are: YAY i'm A-OK!!! I gotta get regular pap smears every 4 months for a year to make sure the abnormal stuff doesn't eventually turn into cancer, but no more colposcopies!! Yaaayyyy!

Letter to the editor

Is it any better at Ballys or LA Fitness?
I get the feeling that this is the hierarchy:
LA Fitness > Ballys > 24 Hour Fitness

And to branch on that...

LA Fitness > Ballys > riding yer bike > stabbing yourself in the eye > 24HF

The only other gyms I've belonged to were private gyms OR Gold's....Gold's kicked ASS because the people who work out there truly want to improve their physique, they're not there to socialize or be retarded like at 24HF. They have spray bottles everywhere and you HAVE to wipe down your equipment after each use with disinfectant spray or else you'll get serious flack from the other members.

That being said...as I've said before...24 Hour Fitness is the McDonald's of gyms. It's not healthy, it's not ideal, but it'll do in a pinch.

(Which is sad that the trainer I had at 24HF actually used my quote when he interviewed for a job at a more elite gym)

These so-called vacations will soon be my death

Wow, for a brief moment...i feel smart.

I'm trying to find info online on the courses that I took in University...some of these
actually sound like I required brain cells to pass them:

CSI2114 Data Structures (Last offering 2006/05) (3,0,1.5) 3 cr.
Introduction to abstract data types. Trees, binary search trees, balanced trees. Searching. Sorting. Simple examples of complexity analysis. Graphs, simple graph algorithms: depth-first and breadth-first search, minimum spanning tree, shortest path. (Lab work will be done in the Java programming language).
Prerequisite: CSI1101 or CSI1102.


CSI2121 Principles of Assembly Language Programming (Last offering 2006/01) (3,0,1.5) 3 cr.
Assembly language fundamentals, addressing modes, number representations, arithmetic and logic instructions, program control instructions, arrayprocessing. Procedures, parameters passing, stack operations and interfacing with high-level language. System functions interrupts, and input/output operations.
Prerequisite: CSI2111. Corequisite: CSI2167.


CSI3125 Concepts of Programming Languages (Last offering 2006/09) (3,0,2) 4 cr.
Classification of programming languages. Syntactic description of programming languages. Imperative programming languages: data objects, data types, control structures, sub-programs, principles of implementation. Logic programming languages. Functional programming languages. Object-oriented programming languages. Modules.
Prerequisites: CSI2114, two programming language labs selected among CSI2165, (CSI2171 or CSI2172 or CSI2173) and CSI2174. Cannot be combined for credits with CSI2115.

CSI3310 Operating System Principles (Last offering 2007/05) (3,0,1.5) 3 cr.
Review of computer architecture. Processes and threads. Processor scheduling. Concurrency, mutual exclusion, and synchronization. Deadlock and starvation. Memory management and virtual memory. File management and I/O management.
Prerequisite: CSI2121 or CEG3131.


Ha ha funny that alot of the classes I took are now obsolete. Much like my degree I guess.

MAT2343 Elements of Discrete Mathematics (3,0,0) 3 cr.
Basic counting techniques. Generating functions. Recurrence relations. Inclusion-exclusion principle. Graph theory: eulerian and hamiltonian graphs, planarity, coloring, digraphs, graphs and matrices. Matching.
Prerequisite: MAT1341 or MAT1361.

MAT1322 Calculus II (3,0,0) 3 cr.
Further techniques of integration. Improper integrals. Applications of the integral. Separable differential equations. Euler's method for differential equations. Sequences, series. Taylor's formula and series. Functions of two and three variables. Partial derivatives, the chain rule, directional derivatives, tangent planes and normal lines.
Prerequisite: MAT1320.


Ahhh good times feeling remotely smart. Now...not so much. In case anyone really cares,
here's the link
to the exact program that i did.

On another note, I was emailing Nicole D about St. Patty's day and I got this freakin'
Canadian drinking song in my head so I started singing it at work...well then I absolutely had to
find the mp3 online so I could play it for the poor souls who sit near me...I can't believe i actually found it
easily online for free..listen to it here...Home for a Rest...i dont' care
what kind of swanky high class bar you're in, that will ALWAYS be played at some point in the night 'cause it's upbeat (it gets faster after the first few lines),
it's about drinking, and allows drunk Canadians to hug each other while drinking and jumping up and down.

These so called vacations will soon be my death! I've been drunk for a week, I've been drunk since I left!

I got some medical results back from the doctor, i still ahve to discuss the colposcope (ohh joy), but on another note I have "dangerously low" levels of B12. When babies
are born, they have on average 2000 (whatever units) of B12 in 'em. I had....141. So that explains:
1. My general retardness...I find myself not being half as sharp as I used to be...I guess a lack of B12 can cause dementia. At least I have an excuse!
2. The fatique...thank the LORD 'cause I really was feeling like I was going insane. I can't begin to tell you how much I fantasize about sleep during the course of the day. Okay, granted,
part of that comes from the diet pepsi addiction, but even when i'm pounding that stuff back i'm exhausted. It doesn't even give me a jolt...i only drink it because I get headaches when I don't.

For now, i'm popping multi-vitamins and I've gotta get checked again in a month 'cause if vitamins don't help, it could be a lack of "intrinsic factor", blah blah.

I absolutely cannot WAIT for memorial day weekend. Four days of nonstop sleeping. That's the weekend where I wean myself off the diet pepsi...not even so much 'cause I care about the addiction
but more because I'm very vain about my teeth (and there's only so often I can bleach 'em) and I'm thinking that I'll kick myself when I'm old and my bones break.

Mmm....sleeeeeep....I'm gonna curl up in a ball on the bed with the cats around me and i'm gonna be in HEAVENNNNNN....

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Movie Review: OPEN WATER

Movie Review: Open Water aka: a movie about 2 people surrounded by sharks and not even scared of them becuase they're too busy complaining about how they want a refund on their diving trip.

When the movie Open Water hit the theaters, it got crazy good reviews. I'm guessing because it's based on a true story. And when people say "Based on a true story" or "Based on actual events", you know that the only part that is "actual" is the part where the main character brushes their teeth.

But I figure...it's a shark movie, so I don't really care for accuracy as much as the "crap my pants" factor.

Well...let's just say...I'm betting this really is exactly how it happened.

It's 2 hours of a couple swimming in the ocean combined with 3 minutes of a shark taking a chomp out of the dude's leg. That's it.

Well let me even elaborate...It's 2 hours of...
1. Cheap filming (you can hear every background noise).
2. Them packing their bags and heading in the dude's car. Her being frantic about leaving work behind.
3. Them vegging out on vacation.
4. Them in their hotel room (alert! boob shot! and they don't even have sex! Miss Thang has a sunburnt nose!)
5. Buddy brushes his teeth.
6. Middle of the night, the guy has to kill a fly.
7. They go out on a tour boat thingy to go diving
8. Some new york guy forgot his mask. He freaks out for like 20 minutes.
9. Everyone goes diving.
10. The couple accidentally gets left behind.
11. They're in the water.
12. They stay in the water.
13. They pee in the water.
14. Girly finds candy in her wetsuit.
15. They argue in the water.
16. The timeline is displayed on screen. It's been like 8 hours.
17. Girly gets stung by a jellyfish and complains.

"Ohhhh jellyfish! It hurts! It hurts! This is the most screaming I'm going to do for the next 24 hours because I'm more scared of a frickin' jellyfish than Jaws! Ohhh my pedicure is ruined!"
18. It gets dark.
19. They complain they want their money back.
20. A shark comes by and chomps a chunk out of the guy's leg.
21. They complain some more.
22. Nighttime comes. It's cold.
23. Morning comes. it's cold.
24. Chicky realizes the boy is dead.
25. She takes her stuff off and then slips underwater.

And that's it.

Uhhh call me crazy, but when you say "based on a true story" that actually allows you to toss in moments that might be interesting to the viewer, regardless if it happened or not. Otherwise, that's THE TRUE STORY and its boring as hell.

If there was a movie about paint drying, this was it. I actually got mad after I saw it. I mean, wtf. Do they really know if they woke up to catch flies? Do they really know if she was obsessed with her laptop? No. They made it up and put it in the movie. Do we really know if she went to bed naked with sunblock on her nose (uhhh word to the wise: chicks don't SLEEP naked unless they want to stay up all night doing naked activity). Of course we don't. THey made it up. Couldn't they have made up the SHARK ATTACK A LITTLE BIT BETTER?!!!?!??!

Like the guy screaming bloody murder, the girl pulled under water, them fighting off the shark...OH yeah they had a weapon...a knife...but Dude drops it before ever using it. Hey just a thought moviemakers: show us a scene where he stabs a shark inthe eye!??!?!?!!!

Seriously. Paint drying. In movie format.

Then I thought maybe the DVD extras would maybe show a bit more about the true couple and all that. Umm...no. It was about the married couple who directed this movie. And you know what they talked about? How much the birth of their child impacted their view on moviemaking. WTF.

If I gained anything from this movie, it's that sharks aren't scary at all and that you should make sure your tour boat person remembers to pick you up.