Flowerballs

Or balls of flowers or balled flowers...?

Last night, out for a stroll, I saw these:




I used to garden a lot and got quite obsessed with it all but I have never come across these weird little doodads.




Whatever they are, they make a nifty silhouette planted amongst some birds of paradise:




Part of me likes the idea that they're actually 'real' daisy-like flowers and someone has come along and plucked and pocketed every single petal. :D




But, if you look real close (enlarge) you can see many tiny blooms on the right side of the ball.




Or I think they're blooms?

Does anyone know what these flowers are?

Urban Carcasses

Hearing help required.

When watching that Precious flic a while back, I became quite captivated by the performance of Mary Jones, the mother of Precious, played by Mo'Nique. She was a horrible nasty character yet towards the end of the film I managed to have a touch of empathy for her.

Who was this Mo'Nique woman? I don't watch much TV so I had not heard of her much before. I knew that she won an Oscar for the role of Mary Jones, it said so on the DVD box ;-) so I figured she was 'just' an actor.

But, I googled (of course) and OMG! She's fucking hilarious!

I love this clip:




I had to watch it a few times to hear much of what she said but I still can not understand what she said from 1:17 to 1:25... can anyone hear it clearly? Help?

If swearing bothers you, I suggest you pass on the clip!

Skywatch Friday: Air Traffic Control

At the entrance to Victoria's Inner Harbour stands a wee inukshuk. I like to imagine that he controls the float planes that buzz in and out of the harbour.



It's not a real inukshuk though. Real inukshuks are made of stones balanced upon one another. When you zoom right in on this fella, you can see that he's made of driftwood that's been fastened together somehow. But that's ok by me; I like him. But what I like most of all is that he's wearing a snazzy wee backpack!



Cute, eh? :-)

See more skies - Skywatch Friday

Happy Birthday Handsome

Is this dude dreamy or what?

Check out that dark wavy hair with the Elvis styling at the front and those turned-up-hem trousers.

This is a photo of my late Dad probably in his mid-twenties... so 1950s, I guess. Waaaay before my time (my Dad was in his forties when I appeared) but it's one of my favourite photos of him. I can see why my Mom, after years of his pestering, finally went out with him.

He'd be 82 today.

I miss you, Pa and Happy Birthday. Sending you a big hug, an eye brow tug and a huge slice of banana cream pie (like your Mom made). x.

The photo above is from a team photo of some sort - my Dad played football (North American football) in the CFL and other leagues. I'm not sure which particular team or league photo this is. But I bet the dudes in the back row were a bit unimpressed with this particular photo. ;-)

Driftwood Art

The other day I went for a walk along the Westsong Way, a walkway that follows the north shoreline of Victoria Harbour from 'The Blue Bridge' to Westbay Marina. It's a gorgeous walk.

About halfway along, you see this:



It's a sort of shore boat made of driftwood, constructed by local folkartist Rich Rico. You can climb aboard, sit on a bench inside and kick back and enjoy the view. See the people in the boat?



It's quirky...



and whimsical...



It has clam shell teeth... chomp! chomp!



and it's surprisingly structurally sound...



It also reminds people of important stuff...



But beyond the zen and folly, there is a more important message here...



It's about biznus weenies wanting to exploit the natural beauty of our public spaces to allow a parking lot for the floating winnebagos of the rich. No. Fuck off. Go park your 'I have a small penis' yachts in the snotty yacht club in the Uplands.

And breathe, Marnie...

Save Victoria Harbour cos I love it just as it is... and so do they:

Movies Reviews

Ms Toastburner style...

Crazy Heart
OK-ish. A bit dull.

Jeff Bridges was great but obviously the Oscar he won for this role was not really for this role but for his performance in The Big Lebowski. That's my very biased take! :D

Robert Duvall was great too. I wish there had been more of Bridges and Duvall together in the screen as their characters and chemistry were the only really good bits in this film. The rest of the characters were two dimensional and cliched.

Tested my tolerance for country music.


Precious
Pretty good.

Irritating pretend amateur documentary style cinematography.

Fantastically frightening acting from Mo'Nique. She was brilliant.



Into The Wild
I couldn't finish watching this one. Two reasons:

First, it's not a good film if you're hard of hearing. There is a lot of 'narrated thoughts' in this film - mainly from a woman whose voice is hard to hear. And she talks aaaaalll the friggin' time! There's a lot of reading of subtitles while flashback scenes are happening in the film. I had to rewatch so many bits; once to read the narration, once to watch the flashbacks.

Second, it's telling that when the main character was getting beat up by a railway worker, I had the thought, 'give him one for me.' I didn't like the main character at all. I didn't care about him nor find him compelling, just irritating.

That all said, I've just found out that there is a documentary of this Into the Wild tale called 'Call of the Wild' -link- (not the Jack London story). I would be interested in seeing this as it is an interesting story. I'm going to try to tract this down locally.


Harry Potter
I've now seen the first two Harry Potter flics. These were fun. Loved them.

I survived the willy thing. ;-)

Winging it.

Yesterday I spent the day at my Mom's; it was her birthday and 'the fambly' had a wee get together. The teevee is always on at my Mom's and yesterday it was tuned into PBS - one of the few decent channels. They were showing 'Winged Migration' - a sort of documentary about birds. I mean 'sort of' cos it wasn't informative really. It was more of a visual feast.

Here a wee clip following some geese:



It was made in 2001 but I had never heard of it before. Strange really cos this is the sort of thing I really like. It is stunning and hypnotic. The cinematography is amazing. It took four years to film and involved imprinting birds to accustom them to cameras and paragliders, ultralights and other filming techniques (dodgy?).

The end result, for me, is watching it and wishing I could fly.

Wonderful news! You can see it all on YouTube ... at least right now.

Part 1 of 8 is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9lYEor72YQ The rest you can find from there.

But I think kicking back on a sofa with a DVD and a big screen would be ideal.

Enjoy.

For my British friends...

I just saw this on the teevee...



=:-o

Harry Potter and his Nimbus 2000.

This is a post loaded with confessions and ends with a dilemma.

Unrelated photo of a very cool car. Love it!

Confession One:
A few weeks ago I read Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. I have since read The Chamber of Secrets and I'm now just getting into The Prisoner of Azkaban.

I purchased these three books a few years ago for a dollar when a local bookshop went tits up. I was actually intending to donate the books to a charity. Somehow I didn't.

Then a few weeks ago I was in the mood to read something light and easy and as I scanned my bookshelves I kept coming back to Harry Potter.

Confession Two:
I've really enjoyed what I've read.

It's not intellectually challenging nor thought provoking but it does take me back to my childhood and the discovery that I could go on adventures through reading. Very simple and very nice.

Confession Three:
I've seen Harry Potter's willy.

It happened long ago when I was reading an article about 'child stars' and how some manage the transition to serious adult actor and how some (most) do not. Daniel Radcliffe was presented as a current example of going about it the right way, ie, do some serious theatre and get your lad out.

When I saw the the nudie shots that the article had mentioned, I thought that they were rather arty and sexy and that he's an attractive young man. And never thought about it again... until a couple of days ago when I rented the DVD of Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone.

Dilemma:
How do I watch wee Harry Potter after seeing what I've seen without feeling like a right perv?

;-)