Eat shit and...

Today I went to Fujiya (a local Japanese grocery store) to buy some stuff. Though I'm pretty familiar with Japanese food (I worked in a Japanese restaurant/sushi bar for five years) I still like to browse the aisles and see what's what.

Today, I was in for a treat! Tah-duh....



Mmm-mmm! Nothin like a nice little box of Collon! And for just $1.65, Canadian, I just had to buy it. When I got home, I opened the box... ooooooh! pink interior and a brown wrapper... lol...



Then I opened the brown wrapper... oooooh! Wee little colons... just like on the box!



After reading and re-reading the list of ingredients, I tried one... mmm! very nice. Very similar to those Belgian rolled wafer cookies, but not as sweet. I suspect they'd be very good with mug of coffee... and there's a coffee enema joke in there somewhere I'm sure. I'll leave that to you regular readers.

;-)

Science of the fucking obvious.

I was just reading the Beeb and came across this article that discusses that "reseachers found volunteers who cursed at will could endure pain nearly 50% longer than civil-tongued peers."




Well, duh. Anyone who has ever stubbed their toe knows this already but one of the researchers, Dr Stephens, raises an interesting point:

"If they want to use this pain-lessening effect to their advantage they need to do less casual swearing.

"Swearing is emotional language but if you overuse it, it loses its emotional attachment."

I'm not sure that I agree with this. I think there are likely many types of swearing that people use depending on the context. I swear casually all the time and that sort of swearing is very different that how I swear when I'm in pain or when I'm pissed-off.

I think, for me, there is casual swearing and 'charged swearing.' For instance, one of my favourite movies is The Big Lebowski. Apparently is has the most mentions of the word 'fuck' than any other film. I barely even notice it as to me it's mostly used very casually and is somewhat similar to how I swear casually in certain contexts. But how I use the word 'fuck' when in pain could peel paint off walls.

I think this clip illustrates what I mean; there is 'yeah, fuck it' and 'FUCK!!!'. If you don't like swearing, run away now.



Sooo....

What do you think about what the researcher says? Do you feel that you have different categories or types of swearing? etc...

Poor ol' Fosina Ross

The first pic is not my photo, I swiped it from here (sue me). It's McNeill Bay, in Victoria (well technically in Oak Bay, a city squished right beside Victoria). It's a very nice place to walk, jog (yeah, right) or ride your bike along the water.





Here's a plaque that basically says that McNeill Bay was where the SS Beaver (heehee) anchored before landing to scout out where 'Fort Victoria' would be built and it was, in 1843, the first few days of Victoria's existence. Of course, the place existed and had been settled quite happily prior to Whitey showing up but fessing up to this that would meaning having to redo the plaque.





The view is great. It's the sort of place that is beautiful to see from and that's hard to capture in a photo... hard for me to, I mean.





The actual beach is not really a great beach as the road is smack, right there and wave break is just functional concrete.





But!

When on the beach, if you turn your back on the water you are met with another commemorative plaque! This is to Fosina Irene Margaret Ross who 'gave this esplanade to the people of Oak Bay.' Could it be uglier?





I especially like how it's so lovingly placed next to a storm drain.





And I always wonder did she get shafted in this deal? Or was she such a royal bitch that she had that coming? I've been wondering for years...



For more That's My World Tuesday posts - click here.

What's for brekkie?

The most important meal of the day... the breaking of the fast... as they say.

I am a breakfast eater; I love it. And probably because I've lived on my own for much of the last few years, I've maybe developed odd breakfast habits. Contrary to my blog name, I rarely ever eat toast (a very typical Canadian breakfast food). I don't usually eat other typical Canadian breakfast foods either: eggs, cereals, French toast, pancakes (North American kind), bacon, granola, etc... I like all that stuff but typically I prefer a big mug of strong black coffee and something very spicey.

This morning: coffee, honeydew melon, a few cold leftover boiled baby potatos (yum) and a few slices of some very spicey Italian ham (I forget the name). My mouth is still burning. Heaven.

I very often double-up my evening meal and eat the half the next morning; day old, ice cold spicey stirfries = bliss.

Do you eat breakfast? What is a typical breakfast in your part of the world? What is a typical breakfast for you? What is your favourite? Any weirdness you're will to fess up to?

Over to y'all.

Vegetables.

Veggies. Veg. Edible plant matter.

Do you like vegetables? Do you have any favourites? Do you like them cooked to within an inch of their lives or do you like them raw? roasted? stir-fried? etc? Are there vegetables that you've never tasted? Do you think vegetables are evil? Are there some vegetables that you can't stand? Do you eat your veggies? Any interesting vegetable tales to tell?

I love most vegetables and eat them all sorts of ways. Favourite: onions! Green, spring, sweet, firey, red, raw, roasted, soup-ed, stir-fried, roasted, tempura, bhaji, pickled at the bottom of a gin martini...

Brussels sprouts are evil! I hate them. Hate. Hate. Hate them! According to my poll, it looks like I'm out numbered but I have the science to justify my loathing (more later). I don't like eggplant/aubergine very much either. Or lotus root. Bleugh!

I'm sure there are many veggies I've yet to try or even know about!

Who's next?

BTW, the portrait in the top left is by a wonderful artist called Giuseppe Arcimboldo and the painting is called 'Vegetables In A Bowl Or The Gardener' depending on your perspective:

A nice place to bee, honey?

There are a lot of things about Canada that piss me off: the spawn of Satan that is the Prime Minister; the racism towards Aboriginal peoples; the lack of progressive leadership in addressing poverty; a popular culture that is highly masturbatory for anyone and anything Canadian, oh I could go on and on...

Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of good things as well and generally I think Canada is alright, though that really does depend where you're at. I love the west coast but I sure as hell would not want to live in Tisdale, Saskatchewan:



(Not my photo, found it on the net, here.)

By rape they mean rapeseed, that bright yellow crop that is grown for canola oil. And you maybe, like me, might have thought that that's just an old photo and the powers that be in Tisdale have since adjusted the wording a bit. Oh, but no. It's right there on the town's website.

I'm not easily offended and I do have a sense of humour. I laughed at the linguistic 'funny' in the slogan and the uncomfortableness it produced. Thankfully, for my sake, it was only uncomfortableness that I could laugh off.

When thinking about sharing this with a couple of friends, I had to remember that quite a few of my friends have actually been raped, one by her own father. As I have never been raped or sexually abused I wondered how they might interpret the words.

I talked to two friends and very gently explained what I had found and asked what they thought about it. They felt sick to their stomachs. Obviously.

I can imagine that in Tisdale, SK the word 'rape' most likely conjures up ideas of yellow fields much more for people living there than it does in my mind. They are surrounded by the crop, it's integral to their economy, it's a part of their daily lives. Perhaps the people working at the town's hall are genuinely unaware of alternative interpretations.

Orrr...

Perhaps they are fully aware and the notoriety produced by the town's slogan is the only way for Tisdale to let the world out there know that they exist.

Orrr...

It's just another typically backasswards small rural Canadian town. A town that on the surface is full of friendly happy shiny people but contains an underbelly of red necked sexist machismo (and various other yuckiness, no doubt).

Whichever way, this highlights another thing that pisses me off about Canada. Many Canadians will bleat on about how friendly, peace-lovin, tolerant, egalitarian Canada is yet behave in the exact opposite manner, turn a blind eye to anything that doesn't conform to their sugar-coated stereotypes or just be so incredibly ignorant of the world beyond their front porches.

And breathe, Marnie.................

I feel a meeting with a punching bag brewing. ;-)

Am I over-reacting?

People are funny...

You just never know who you'll bump into.

A couple of days ago, I was out and about, camera slung over my shoulder when a woman came bounding by me from behind. We were approaching an intersection, so she stopped and I caught up. Looking down, I just had to ask.



She said that they're called Kangoo Jumps and, for her, mean the difference between running or not running. Regular running shoes aggravate her arthritis. She happily posed for a photo! She was 72, she was! Stated loudly and proudly. Then the light turned green and off she ran...



And ran...

Skywatch Friday...

Looking skyward from the base of a totem pole...



A different angle of the pole...



The above totem pole was carved by people of the Kwakwaka'wakw Nation, an indigenous nation on northern Vancouver Island and the adjacent mainland. It's 128 feet or 39 metres tall and is found in Beacon Hill Park in Victoria, BC. If you're interested in learning a bit about totem poles, this is a fairly good link.

The Burj, the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben and a totem pole; common theme? Cultural variation in the expression of uterus envy. ;-)


For more skies from around the globe, visit Skywatch Friday!

Consider these werds...

You know when you're surfing the blogosphere and you make a comment on someone's blog and sometimes you have to type-in a non-word (or as I call that, a werd) into a word verifcation box? Yeah? You know what I mean?

Call me strange, but I've always liked these werds. They seem to follow linguistical rules (or is it morphological?) that already established words follow to be considered real words and not just random letters shuffled together. I have been writing these werds down and considering what they could mean. Currently, these are my three favourite werds:

upsinge

slystrad

femate

I have ideas of what these werds could mean (cos I think about this sort of shit way too much) but I am curious about what sorts of meanings these words evoke in others.

So, define the werds, post a comment. Please. If you want to.

For my British friends...

my tv... is smokin'!

I don't have cable, I don't watch tv. When I'm in the mood to watch stuff, I watch a film or documentary or I surf the net, usually ending up on YouTube. The net is so much more interesting than tv to me as you just never know what you'll find!

Check out this YouTuber CONRADCIGARSPIPES! 6300 plus videos of him smoking a pipe! I love it! Not only is it truly and wonderfully interesting to me, the variety of music he plays to smoke to, is great! 6300 plus videos!!!

Purple squishies and a guinea pig named Rob

(Rob not entirely as shown.)

I am hard of hearing and so is my good friend, Mog. And so are a lot of people. In fact, one in eight to ten people are hard of hearing or deaf (depending on the survey). We are everywhere... mwhahaha! But, in our increasingly noisey and aging world, the ratio of people who are hard of hearing or deaf will only increase. So, look out! ;-)

With so many people in our communities who are hard of hearing or deaf, our communities are very unaware of what hard of hearing or deafness is, what are the issues faced by people experiencing these conditions, what solutions are available, what solutions could be available, etc. Hearing loss is invisible and quite often the issues that people with hearing loss* face are also invisible.

This invisibility allows discrimination, social stigmas and negative stereotypes to flourish, to go unchallenged and to go unaddressed, often placing people who are hard of hearing or deaf feeling as though they are second-class citizens.

I'm very much a believer in 'walking in someone else's shoes' in trying to understand various experiences of the world. I like it so much, I went and got myself a degree in it. The hook, for me, is that understanding a person, a group's or a culture's point of view from their point of view, is an effective way to understanding, not just knowing. I believe that understanding links 'how it is' to 'how it could be.' I believe a 'Black Like Me' experience is an effective practise in understanding.

A while ago, Mog and I were discussing our frustrations about some ignorant a-holes and their seeming inability to comprehend why people can take offense to insults, jokes and put-downs about their disabilities. I shouldn't really call them a-holes; it's not like me to want to offend anyone's anus.

Anyways, Mog and I went on to talk more seriously about the frustration of not being understood, of not having our experience understood. And not just understood by a-holes but by just 'regular folk'; our hearing friends, acquaintances, family and society, in general.

Enter Rob and his purple squishies. Somewhere along the line Mog asked Rob to try being hard of hearing or deaf for a day. He was insane enough to agree! ;-)

Here's Rob's report and here's Mog's report. Kudos to you both!

If anyone reading this wants to try being hard of hearing or deaf for a day, let me or Mog know!


* I am aware that I can seem an audist here to anyone reading this who identifies themselves as Deaf, ie, culturally Deaf and I apologize for this. I walk on the edge of a sword here, being hard of hearing and experiencing that very much as a personal loss and having an awareness of Deaf culture, please understand my position.

Ultra-realistic labia!

Thanks for your attention.

I saw a wonderful film a few nights ago called 'Lars and the Real Girl' and I was going to write a bit of a movie review but thought, nah. All that I can really think to say about it is, "do yourself a favour and see this film; it's very sweet." And it is; it's a very sensitive film about a man who works through some personal problems with the help of a RealDoll named Bianca and his understanding friends and family. It's a yummy film.


I first became aware of RealDolls, a few years ago when I was doing a postgrad degree in gender studies. They were used as a talking point for ideas about and concepts of sexuality, corporal femininity, object/subject relations, techie-sex, etc. Very many interesting discussions were had indeed.

In one such discussion, I learned of a man who had purchased a RealDoll and a comment that he made has stuck in my head for years. He explained that when he ordered his RealDoll he asked that she have breast implants as he felt that that would make her more realistic to him. Ha! What kind of postmodern craziness is that?! It's so surreal and so fascinating to me that blurry grey bit between fantasy and reality and how differently, different people conceptualize these notions as well as notions of sexuality, human-ness, humanoid-ness, gender, subject/object, etc. I could go on and on...

Also about that time, I watched a documentary about RealDolls on British telly called, 'Guys and Dolls.' Although not as sweet and sensitive as 'Lars and the Real Girl,' it still attempted to portray the men interviewed in an understanding and compassionate light as opposed to allowing it to sway into freakshow territory (those 'documentaries' exist in abundance).

I just googled and found it! I (heart) the internet! Here it is in all its silicone glory. (The vagina repairman scenes are a bit freaky, in that gyno exam gone so entirely wrong kinda way, haha! Viewer discretion advised, I guess). It's an interesting documentary though as it shows that 'Lars' is not necessarily unique or fictional.

'Guys and Dolls':



Hey L, if you need any of this deciphered, let me know. I'm happy to translate (as much as I can, that is!) but here is a good synopsis that explains the show pretty well: http://www.offthetelly.co.uk/reviews/2006/guysanddolls.htm

Gutted.

One of those words that has a bicultural meaning for me. My inner-Canadian thinks, 'caught fish, sliced down the middle, roe and other weird stuff fall out, etc.' My inner-almost-Briton thinks, 'very upset.'

Yesterday, I received back a gift that I gave to someone. A gift that represented affection and good memories. To open a package and see that gift returned, I can say that I felt gutted. I felt like 'caught fish, sliced down the middle, roe and other weird stuff fall out, etc.' Completely eviscerated.

How very Canadian I am.

Who hasn't had a day when you feel like this?

Blimey! =:-O

I love it though! The calmness of the others around to let her just spinout is interesting (to me). I bet she felt great after that!

Does anyone (N?) know what she is saying?

In front of a potato, we are all equal...

I was doing my normal morning ritual; a big mug of black coffee and reading the news on the Beeb's website. As usual, it's the odd story that hooks my attention... Khalil Semhat, a farmer in Lebanon, has dug up a 25 pound potato. Biggest potato, ever. Story here.




Just when I think it can't get more interesting, it does. Did you know that it is the 'International Year of the Potato'? I didn't either and it gets even more interesting...

Reading through the potato website, I have learned quite a bit about the importance of the potato in the global human food chain. For intance, I had no idea that China was biggest potato producer; more than 20 percent of the global harvest! I associate the potato with the Americas and just assumed, wrongly, that they were the top producers.

But it gets even better! This is the best bit! On the potato website is an area about what potatoes mean to people: a source of income, an object of genetic research, a plant with varieties that require conservation and, wonderfully, the common interest of the 'Slovenian Society for Sautéed Potato and Onions'. Who knew!

Here's a quote from Stanislav Menard, the president of that Society:

"One of the basic rules of our association is that members should get together to prepare a meal of sautéed potato and onions at least once a month. In 90 minutes, over a frypan, you rediscover the importance of sharing time with your friends and enjoying a meal together, two things that are being lost in our fast food culture. The other rule is that no one should talk politics - in front of a potato, we are all equal."

I love it.