Amnesty International: Signature spot commercial ad

Amnesty International, along with Doctors Without Borders, were two of the very few organizations that helped the Rwandans during the genocide in the nineties.

moot or hooey?

our server at work has been down for three days now.
one might ask "what can happen in three days"
apparently, 160,000 emails!

two computer geniuses and hours of sweat later and the server is apparently up and running again… sort of…

picture a single mom of eight, all under the age of seven, sprawled out on the living room couch. it's 10am, no one's been fed, changed, or cuddled, and they're all vying for that elusive coveted lap time.... you get the picture
like swimming in a sea of bread dough. thank god for those semophore lessons in Brownies…

moot or hooey?

some software actually comes with bugs that can crash your computer.

the elephant man cometh

165,000 pounds for 3.3 pounds. sound like a fair exchange?... that's £s for lbs.

this is a big fat truffle that was dug up by Luciano Savini's truffle dog Rocco, near Pisa Italy. what i'd like to know is how long they figure it'd been buried there. sheesh, this thing is so big i could have dragged my grandfather out of a smoke filled pub after a three day binge and he'd have been able to sniff it out.

moot or hooey?

a classic report in the 1960s noted that California-gas-company repair crews found leaks in their lines by watching for circling turkey vultures attracted to the carrionlike scent added to the gas as a safety alert. (ah, those Americans)

Hall of fame

this is Jeff.
Jeff is one of the most incredible people i have ever met. i fell in love with him instantaneously. not as in "i really liked him and you would too" fall in love. more like "would you like to run away with me to the caribbean tonight and live on coconuts and moonlight" fall in love. that kind.

i'd often heard of people meeting and falling in love at first sight and spending the rest of their days together in marital bliss(oxymoron?) but until this fateful night, it was all just phenomenon.
then Jeff comes along and it's wtf just pulled my pulsing, hot blooded heart from my chest, into my throat, and out onto a platter with a euphoic splash and a little sign that says "consume rapidly"...

Jeff's story is amazing.
he's a an extremely talented dancer. one night a few years back, while attempting an inverted tango (dancing upsidedown suspended from the ceiling) in front of a packed audience, the wires snapped and he crashed to the ground breaking bones, some in his back, which left him paralyzed.
a few years and a lot of determination later, he was walking again.
when i met Jeff, it was at the "Passion" exhibition of a friend, Tony Hauser which celebrated an array of extraordinary Canadians. Jeff was one of them.

so i'm standing there, platter in hand, believing in god again, when i hear the faint voice of my friend Tony penetrate the blissful amouric mist, tripping me mid stride, telling me alas... he's a vegetarian...
vegetarian in the form of a long term relationship that wasn't about to end anytime soon... oohh!

i felt his words step out before me like the padded body of Lafleur flinging me through the air in slow motion landing spread eagle across the floor as the pulsing platter of love sailed un-noticed swirling this way and that, through the crowd, down the stairs, out the revolving doors, into the street, where it was promptly flattened by a taxi cab.

i never got to confess to Jeff, and today i found this photo as i was cleaning up my desktop. so Jeff, wherever you are, you've made a believer out of me. not in god(though i did keep all those promises)... in love!

moot or hooey?

It's reported that more than 10,000 marriages a year now are directly traceable to romances which begin during coffee breaks.

let me guess, you're a gemini...

this year I was fortunate enough to be a jury member for the Gemini awards. even more fortunate, was being invited to the awards themselves as well as a few choice parties and events surrounding the big day. wasn't sure what to expect. knew a grand total of two people, and one of them was an old boyfriend I'd left naked in a hallway in a flurry of feathers a gazillion years ago so wasn't sure how that was going to go…

stayed at the beautiful, historical Hotel Saskatchewan and barely had time enough to unpack my bags before being whisked off to an event. the incredible vibe in the room was unlike anything I'd experienced at any film event in Vancouver. maybe because it wasn't a film event. I had to keep reminding myself that this was TV. there's such a crossover of people in the two industries it can get a little confusing.

met some incredible, talented people, everyone asking
"what brings you here?"
(gulp!) "jury member, but not for any of the categories up for awards this weekend"
was so grateful the category I'd been a juror for had already been announced in the big smoke the week before. next question
"what do you do?"
"well, I have a day job which really doesn't have anything to do with anything that's happening here, and um, I make films and act."
"nice, what kind of films do you make?"
"dark comedies."
"oh really? give me an example of what you'd write about"
"well, one might say I have a bit of a morbid sense of humour but I really think it can be funny when say, someone slips on a rotting corpse or…" (huge pause)
"ok then. Nice talking to you"…

clothes say a lot about a person, so when I came upon a couple of women dressed in flamboyant dresses and coats, I just had to stop and introduce myself. I spent the rest of the evening laughing my face off with Phyllis Ellis
and Louise. they didn't mind my dark side at all. Phyllis later won a well deserved Gemini for best comedic performance, and after the previous crazy night it was pretty obvious why.

the writers, Paul Bates et al, from The Hour came up with the opening sketch and the buzz around the room afterwards was incredible! The Best Geminis Ever etc…
watching the host, George S, zip back and forth across the stage and through the audience it was clearly evident that this man was extremely good at what he does.
at a party the night before, he seemed (a bit surprisingly so) a little less impressive than what was presented on The Hour. (sorry, until I can deal with my elephantitis there'll be no details)
however, about thirty seconds into the conversation he stepped in a little closer and zap, I thought he was going to kiss me… (reality check)… I thought I was going to kiss him… (snap) ok, but there was this charisma thing that just made me feel so at ease.
I got it. that's what it was. this guy just oozed charisma!

Regina was an impressive city. everyone I spoke with, from the staff at the hotels to the servers at the events, were friendly and welcoming. one taxi driver said this was due to the size of the city and the fact that if you pissed someone off they'd most likely know where to find you and send guido over with a large wrench to rearrange your dental work.
all in all it was a great time spent with some amazing people, and I certainly hope to cross paths with a few of them again some time in the not so distant future.

moot or hooey?

before Regina was named Regina, the city's name was "Pile of Bones"

those darned dogs...

did you hear the one about the hunter who…

today's paper… "Surrey Mounties find dynamite, shotgun near tree", read read read un huh… guns, trees…
three quarters of the way through the article i'm so captivated (yawn) that my gaze drifts to the much smaller, scrunched in between ads headline (again, guns and trees) which is, one can only assume, an error in syntax… or an exercise in dyslexia.

"hunter shot in leg by dogs"

"ha ha ha!" i snort. "yo, editors!!?"

it gets better. turns out it's right on the money. some guy (James Harris from Iowa) goes out hunting one day, shoots a pheasant, lays his gun on the ground so he can hope a fence and retrieve the bird, and his pack of hunting dogs (coward) jumps on the gun and shoots him in the ass…. ok, the leg.
talk about biting (well, shooting) the hand (um, leg) that feeds you.

moot or hooey?

four of the dogs held the gun while the fifth pulled the trigger.

new pad

computer key pad that is. actually the whole set-up. mine came to a screeching halt a few weeks ago so I'm getting a new lap top. between that, being ill for a week, and general laziness, I've been pretty slack in writing this blog.

my new computer has all the bells and whistles. can't wait to get at it. it'll be hooked up to Skype so I can talk to friends in Cuba and Chile, and the graphics programs are breathtaking... now I can ramble on and on in technicolor!

moot or hooey?

the word "blog" is made up from the two words "blah" and "dog" and originated with stories of people's pets.

long tack sam

my friend ann marie made a fabulous film a few years back and has just released a book under the same title.

it's an incredible memoir about an even more incredible man.

moot or hooey?

Long Tack Sam was the greatest Chinese magician in the history of vaudeville

bumper to bumper

fifty minutes in an enormous bumper to bumper line-up to get over the Lions Gate Bridge, not moving an inch in three minutes, when bonk, the guy behind me rear-ends me. 

geez, for the love of... are you serious? boy oh boy oh boy oh boy! 

i throw my car into park, pull the emergency brake, get out of the car, put one hand on my hip and gesture towards my bumper like a Bob Barker girl with the other.

he just throws his arms in the "i don't know" pose then backs up a couple of inches. 

I turn so he can't see me laughing, and get back in my car.


moot or hooey?

the term road rage originated LA in 1984. George Orwell would have been impressed

stick em up

looking through today's "day in pictures" on the BBC site, i came across this photo. the caption underneath read "five-year-old Emmanuel Macasucao picks up broken plates a day after a tornado hit his family's home in northern Philippines." ... that's all you have to say??
so little Emmanuel is out in the street playing with broken glass. take a closer look. little Emmanuel is out in the street playing with his life.
ok, so it's most likely a fake, maybe... but who cares. he's five years old holding what looks like a pretty real firearm in a country known for its "Paltiks" who manufactor operable replicas of anything from simple revolvers to M-16s and AK-47s.
with a gazillion of these floating around and everyone and their dog purchasing these things, from politicians and military, to the Japanese yakuza, civilians, and "private armies", and everyone and their cats thinking they're real and defending themselves accordingly, couldn't you give him a lego set or something. so what if his isn't operable. who's gonna know?!... until...

moot or hooey?

the Philippine authorities and the military turn a blind eye to the production of these weapons even though they're obviously illegal, and are known to jam and explode, because they are unable to provide an alternative livelihood option. surprised there aren't more jobs available in funeral services

Euchred!

going through "24" withdrawal the other day, i decide to walk up to the video store and rent the last series. i get all the way up there only to discover it's gone. it's been rented and there'll be no sign of it for two whole days. 

well, you know how it is when an addiction sets in. it's one thing to know you've got a fix just around the corner. a completely different story when your dealer just rented out the last goddamned copy of season six. i'm just about to get medieval on this guy, when my phone rings… it's a friend of mine inviting me over to play Euchre. yes! the perfect distraction to keep me from crawling the walls.

i unchain the clerk and zoom home to get my cards.

we're sitting there at the table, pleasantly distracted, toes, eyes, nostrils, and eyebrows working out our secret codes when i look into my hand and see a bower… Jack... Bauer.
'oh cruel world'
so Robert Cochran and Joel Surnow et al were Euchre players, hmm.

moot or hooey?

the term "bower", in euchre, comes from the German word "bauer". it's also a word for "jack". and the "joker" was invented specially for the game of euchre non existant prior to that in a regular deck of cards

ps: Jack Bauer borrowed my gun for this photo shoot

bum-sicles

this is fabulous! renowned photographer Spencer Tunick took this photo of 100s of people on melting Aletsch glacier in Switzerland. apparently the photo shoot was commissioned by none other than Greenpeace as part of a campaign to raise awareness about global warming. 2,300m (7545 feet) but the temperature was between 10 and 15C. the Aletsch glacier is a protected Unesco World Heritage site.

moot or hooey?

the best bum scene ever filmed for the big screen is in the film "the cooler" with William H Macy.

honest, I just want to talk...

these are South Korean special commandos. they are staging a drill south of Seoul in preparation for an inter-Korean summit later this month. will they be attending?

Unification Minister Lee Jae Jeong and Vice Unification Minister Lee Kwan Se left for Kaesong, North Korea today for preparatory talks. at the eventual new summit-level meeting, if and whenever that will be, the parties will discuss the establishment of a peace regime and the settlement of the Korean Peninsula's nuclear problem, as well as ways of further implementation of economic cooperation projects between Pyongyang and Seoul.

sounds pretty friendly. peace, cooperation, no nuks... and 007 frogmen with waterproof sub-machine guns... hmm, something tells me there may be a better way to show the love. not to mention it's a bit like picking a fight in a Hell's Angels' bar armed with a big fluffy pillow.

moot or hooey?

the death tolls for Nagasaki as well as Hiroshima are still open

what are friends for

what do you think these guys are doing? playing poker yes? just taking a break? well sort of. their pal Christino Parian is in the little white box in the background. they've had the wake and now they're trying to raise enough money to bury him.

moot or hooey?

in North America a typical funeral with burial is about $7,000. a typical funeral with cremation, about $5,000. immediate cremation, $1,000. not including the pennies on your eyes.

eraser head

can you imagine having a pencil stuck in your head for 55 years? Margret Wegner can. she fell over when she was four and and one went right up her nose. she only just had it removed... 55 years later.

Professor Hans Behrbohm claims the 3.1 inch pencil had not been causing Ms Wegner any harm, so it was safe to leave it. um... she suffered headaches and nosebleeds for most of her life and had serious frontal sinus inflammation... a little lead poisoning never killed anyone though so...

apparently the pencil had narrowly missed the optic nerve and was too close to the brain to risk removing it 55 years ago... he went on to say "she now no longer has headaches and will be able to smell again"... well... that's just... amazing...

moot or hooey?

apparently Ms Wegner was able to sneeze out raunchy Freudian imagery for years

thanks heaven for little girls

reading the paper today i came across an article that claimed that several local newspapers geared towards the Punjabi population were posting ads for ultrasound clinics that are promoting the abortion of girls. the idea that someone would do this simply flummoxes me. the world is filled with incredible Punjabi women who have made enormous contributions. one can't imagine the loss of not having had these people in our world. here are some of the women who have made a significant difference and for who's existence we should be forever grateful.

Dr Parminder Bhachu, Artist Pritham Chakravarthy,

Dr Ruby Dhalla, Dr Nina Grewal,

Director/Writer/Producer Mira Nair,...


... the list could go on, and on, and on... feel free to add to it...

moot or hooey?

apparently selective sex gender abortion and infanticide are responsible for over 60 million deaths or disappearances of female babies. repercussions ranging from a shortage of brides, to an increase in female sex slavery

hey dude, who smashed my car?

yesterday our offices were in a whirlwind in preparation for our October board meeting. briefings, updatings, info exchanges, meetings. everything was right on schedule as usual... until David called the office with an update...

the article below was in The Province this morning.

"David Suzuki, right, and ethno-botanist Wade Davis start searching for other transportation yesterday after their rental car was hit by an emergency team rushing to the Vancouver rade and Convention Centre, where the environmentalists had been meeting with Premier Gordon Campbell."

Mysterious parcel spices up Suzuki's day
Lora Grindlay, The Province
Published: Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Strange things were afoot at the World Trade Centre in downtown Vancouver yesterday.

Just before 2 p.m., a receptionist at the Ministry of Economic Development on the waterfront building's seventh floor opened some mail. A powdery substance fell out and the receptionist reported tingling on her hands.

That brought a swift response from police and fire officials, who shut down the building.

In the excitement, one of four fire trucks that rushed to the scene at the foot of Howe Street smacked into a rented red Toyota Yaris, stranding the high-powered duo of conservationist Wade Davis and environmentalist David Suzuki.
Davis and fire officials traded insurance information as Suzuki cooled his heels. They eventually hopped a cab to the airport while firefighters duct-taped the front grill and fender back on to the car.

Suzuki said they had been meeting with Premier Gordon Campbell before flying to Campbell River. "Surely this is not a story?" he said with a laugh.

As for the mysterious powdery substance: "Our best guess right now is it's some form of cooking spices," said Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services assistant chief Tim Armstrong.

"It came from Italy. They normally get packages for different trade shows here."

moot or hooey?

last time Wade was in Vanc for a board meeting his computer was stolen

green green grass of home

North Vancouver has a vast array of hiking/running trails that run like veins through the mountains from ...

Deep Cove to ...


Horseshoe Bay ...

the Baden Powell trail, one of the many that wrap through the mountains, can be accessed at a number of points enabling the hiker to choose the length and level of difficulty and adventure. the wilderness is stunning!



moot or hooey?

the West Coast Trail , another internationally acclaimed hiking trail and must do while on the west coast of Canada, is 77 kms long and was originally built in 1890, to serve as a communication link to aid in the rescue of vessels in distress off the southwest coast of Vancouver Island

desperate plea

no wait...

I take that back...

...this is really embarrassing but i'm hoping someone out there will be able to tell me how to post photos from your desktop. email me!

pleeeeease!... thanks

that little extra DNA

we're a strange lot, we humans

driving past the PNE the other day, i cracked my window in time to catch the screams of a group of people strapped into a huge roller-coaster.

i didn't actually see them but the imagery was enough to make me laugh out loud. we're the only animals on the planet who will actually barter with others to scare the begeesus out of us. here's five bucks, see if you can make me puke...

now i have just enough residue from the cro magnon years to understand the rollercoaster thing, the thrill of zooming past things at the speed of light. whipping around corners being flung this way and that, but what i have a hard time wrapping my gray matter around is bungie jumping. 

i mean with roller coasters it's the centrifugal force thing, the speed thing... but bungie jumping?... it's... the death thing. i'm going to wrap this rubber tube around my ankles and hurl myself off this tower towards the pavement or rocks, and hey, i just might smash a hole with my head or rip my legs off, but whoa, what a rush!!

rollercoasters or bungie jumping... both pale in comparison to... the catapult...


moot or hooey?

there has never been a sport invented that's required rain

home is where the ??? is

the real estate market in Vancouver is nuts. for the past few months i've been looking for a home and have found it a very depressing task. the other day my realtor took me to a loft at the edge of Gastown. the building was nice, the price was right, parking included, insuite laundry... i opened the front door and an overwhelming sense of claustrophobia sent me running for the balcony doors. it was small, the cement floors were chipped and there was a palpable pungent odor of cat poop and sweaty bodies that brought my hand to my face in an automatic response. my realtor with his usual charasmatic smile looked over at me and said "this is cute. i can see you living here. i like the floors" (they were green) we finished the grand tour and exited the building. as we were waiting to cross the street i looked down to see a spent hyopdermic needle at the side of the road. looking up and back at the front of the building i then saw a man and a woman sit down against the building and roll up the woman's sleeve.

my realtor simply shrugged and said that was to be expected in this neighbourhood and that we should probably think of moving quickly on this one as there was already one standing offer on the place... we crossed the street and i stood, amongst the wafting streams of urine, fixated on his enormous teeth,

as he reiterated the urgency of responding quickly, all the while planning my excape route once i'd knee-capped him with my ball-peen hammer. somehow he'd come to the conclusion i fit in here, that this was where i belonged. i went home and hid under the covers.

moot or hooey?

Vancouver opened the first safe injection site in North America. at present there is... umm, one.