Listography

Yesterday I discovered listography.com. It’s so much fun!

Check mine out at: http://listography.com/bandrubber

A light?

The other day I had this conversation with some guy:

Guy: “Do you have a light?”

Me: “Nope.”

Guy: “Good, never have a light”

Dude if you know smoking is bad already, why bother!

xtranormal

So today I discovered the website http://www.xtranormal.com where you can make your own “movies.” It’s actually quite hilarious really.

Here’s my first creation. Not so awesome, but still funny to see what it looks like.

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch?e=20090716100204346

Public Transit Creepers 101

There are many reasons I hate public transit.  Below is one of the many reasons.

This is a real email I sent to a group of friends after we parted ways for the evening:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hello Ladies -

I think you all should know that I just got picked up by a Buddhist 46 year old fatso whack job on the subway, wearing a fedora with lovely sweat coming down the sides. I know he was 46 because a) he said he was not a pedophile because he has a niece who is 22 and b) she was born when he was 24.

He thus proceeded to tell me about his half korean nephews (one questioned why the other was yellow), his english mother (proof being she’s english because she comes up as Momsie on his blackberry – she’s 81 btw and he sets reminders to call her).

He also thought it necessary to question my attire: “What are you wearing? Is it like a workout outfit – there’s pink, white, black leotards, I’m just very confused.”

Also – he’s a fan of Star Trek and Klingon books and how they were supposed to be more evil than they were in tv, and he is also into Japanese literature – he did, however, tell me that I don’t need to learn Japanese because he only knows one word.

I am so over public transit – but if any of you are interested, Darcy lives at Lawrence West Subway – a very painful distance from St George. He told me that he talked to me because I was pretty, so I’m sure he’d talk to all of you!

Otherwise thank you all for a charming evening! I hope to be able to do it all again, minus the creepo!!!

Talk to you all soon!

- laur

DAVIDsTEA

In my quest to find new teas, I have recently discovered DAVIDsTEA. (http://www.davidstea.com).

DAVIDsTEA is awesome – friendly staff, awesome stores, and of course – delicious tea!

These teas are fabulous – coffee drinkers will be converted after one cup, or even after one smell.

I just picked up some tea from the new summer collection, and I tried out Coco Cocoa this morning. It is absolutely delicious, and as the package describes – “better than ice cream”! It’s the perfect blend of black tea and yummy flavours.

What are you waiting for? Get out there and try some of this awesome tea!

The Corporate Lifestyle

I find it very scary how individuals can work for a mass, impersonal company and yet feel so much connection towards it.

I work at a large company based in Toronto. The office environment there is *intense*.  On my first day, I had this overwhelming sense that employees were trying to cure cancer. When really, the product being sold ain’t saving anyone’s life.

To me, an office job is a means to an end. I find it so hard that people are truly passionate working at the bottom of a large bureaucratic chain of a company to the point where stress escalates on a daily basis. Maybe I’m just not cut out for office life, who knows. Many of the office folks need to take a giant chill pill. No, we’re not curing cancer here or saving the world.

If anyone could enlighten me and explain where the dedication comes from, pray tell. I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with an office job whatsoever, I just can’t understand why people get so caught up in their working lives that they forget that life exists outside the 9-5, M-F.

Green Ciggies

Cigarettes are going green…

As seen in Toronto Life Magazine, du Maurier is advertising their cigarettes as reducing “impact on the environment”.

I saw this ad and I was shocked and appalled. Apparently it’s okay to smoke, as long as the packaging is ”green.” Anyone else see the absurd irony in this?

Cigarettes will cause cancer and imminent death, but hey – the environment is A-okay! It deeply disturbs me that cigarette companies have taken this approach when trying to get individuals to smoke their cancer sticks. Now, the so-called ‘benefits’ are being put on these ads, to reach the earth friendly individuals out there. For each extra sale as a result of this marketing campaign, though the environment may not be suffering, what about the impact on the health care system or the health of the individual smoker or those around them?

What happens when naive individuals transfer the green packaging on to the cigarette itself – thinking if it’s not harming the environment, how could it possibly be harming lungs?

I thought the next step in terms of cigarettes was to make the drugs, which are 100% harmful, illegal. Instead, cigarettes are now GREEN!

This world is a scary place, and it just got a little bit scarier.

Bad Service Rant

Recently I went to a restaurant called Maki Sushi – which serves all you can eat Japanese food – for dinner with a group of 7 friends. Though I enjoyed my meal, it ended with a kicker. After we all had given in our credit cards or cash to pay for our dinners, the waitress returned and informed us she had undercharged us – having given us the amount for a weekday dinner as oppose to a weekend.

I was shocked. Not only did she practically blame her mistake on us, but was totally disrespectful in the process. Here I was, having paid already, handed back my cash and told I had to give more. Since it wasn’t worth my time to deal with the small cost increase, I spitefully left every penny I could dig up to pay the additional amount.

In my opinion, when the waiter screws up, the difference in dollars should come out of his or her tips, not the pockets of the customers. Customer service is going down the drain these days. It doesn’t seem to matter that without the customer, the restaurant itself would not exist.

Needless to say, Maki Sushi has lost my future service.

Why Angels and Demons Sucked and Star Trek Kicked Ass

This is a little story about my friend called hype. Or how hype can make or break a movie in its entirety.  *Spoiler Free*

Angels and Demons as well as Star Trek had tons of hype surrounding them, and rightfully so. Star Trek’s background involves tons of prior movies and television series. Angels and Demons was written by the successful Dan Brown, and as a prequel to the successful book The Da Vinci Code and the average follow-up film.

Star Trek. Star Trek has had hype for years in the making. The second J. J. Abrams signed on to create the movie, individuals all around the world started following the development of the film, finalized by the release. Hype. Hype. Hype. But then something miraculous happened, Star Trek was actually good! And despite the fact that movie goers went to watch the film with extremely high expectations, satisfaction was still delivered!

As an aside, I do not recall the last time I went into a movie with just so much hype and left thinking the movie was AMAZING. Star Trek changed all of this – I went in with high expectations as a result of the great reviews, and deep down I thought there’s no way I won’t leave without some sort of disappointment. As a fan of previous Star Trek movies and tv series I was ecstatic when I heard a new movie was being created, and I was even more excited when I heard that one of my favourite tv show creators was putting the movie together. With an all-star cast and crew and with so much hype surrounding the opening of Star Trek, how could there not be some sort of disappointment. But Star Trek and movie fans alike were in for a treat. A movie with so much hype was actually good and it delivered! And as raters usually harshly review films that have years of hype surrounding them, it was a shock for me to find out the film had great reviews,  a 95% rating on rottentomatoes and an 8.5 on imdb. For once, hype boosted the potential of Star Trek, turning it into a piece of art. A perfect finale was created to the years of anticipation with a finalized, extraordinary film, which I personally cannot wait to watch again.

Angels and Demons. Might I start by saying – what a mess. I read the novel years ago and loved it, having not been able to put it down. The suspense drove me crazy. And with the intense hype and controversy over The Da Vinci Code that came before and with the release of the aforementioned film, of course Angels and Demons came with a mass amount of hype. I often find myself overwhelmingly disappointed with films based on books, and I was hoping this one would prove me wrong for once. Then came the extremely poor reviews, so I doubted the movie, yet still went to see it. I sat there the whole time thinking of the immense hype that landed in bad reviews, and found myself biased when attending the movie. Thus I went in with no expectations. However, I still found it hard to enjoy the movie as I was expecting it to be below average. The film was slow and unexciting. As someone who has read the book, I expected a lot from the movie. Instead, I was bored, since I knew the final outcome and who was the “bad guy”. Though this usually does not bother me and I find I can enjoy the film anyways, I found this particular movie to drag since nothing really happened except for when the two minute climax took place.

The point I am trying to make is that had there been no hype surrounding the release of Angels and Demons, yet bad reviews followed, it would not have been as big of a deal. However, with so much hype, people were expecting greatness from the film, and when it did not follow these set expectations, the reviews were terrible. However, with Star Trek, the hype was perfect when the movie itself proved worthy of extraordinary reviews. Thus the reviews following a hyped up movie are hard to ignore, serving to set the stage for the release of the film.

Without a doubt hype can make or break a movie. While it played a huge role in the success of Star Trek, it had a damaging effect on Angels and Demons. The self-fulfilling prophecy was at play. I expected greatness from Star Trek and left satisfied. I expected a below average movie from Angels and Demons, and that’s exactly what I got. If the reviews were good for this film, who knows, perhaps I would have liked it – but that’s a different story altogether. Instead, the point is what hype does to a movie. The reviews following the opening of a hyped up movie result in what the movie is destined for – either greatness, as in Star Trek, or a complete flop, as in Angels and Demons. Whether we choose to let hype and reviews play a part in how we are biased when attending the film is our own choice, but without a doubt hype plays a strong role in the success of a film. And fans always become disappointed when a hugely hyped up film results in failed reviews and a poor movie in itself.

Next time, pass on the hype, or perhaps just actually make a good movie when expectations are set that high, oh Hollywood.

The Biggest Asshole, 2.0

So I’ve recently notice that many individuals have come across my blog as a result of search terms including ‘asshole’ , ‘the biggest assholes ever’ and ‘Donald Trump’. Apparently I am not the only person bombarded by these crazy personalities each and every day!

How is it that yet by human nature we’re still attracted to these personalities. We enjoy watching shows such as Hell’s Kitchen and Celebrity Apprentice, which is lead by anger-prone personalities? A fault in human nature perhaps…

I invite whoever lands here next to share their asshole of the day stories! A little rant if you will.