If I Was A Chef, And If I Worked With Meat

I would totally plate my dishes like this:



Because I am an asshole and like to shout things like, "THOSE DEAD CRABS ARE TOTALLY DOING IT ON THAT PLATE!"

Dia de los Muertos

I haven't enjoyed Halloween for years. I'm not a fan of drinking until pukefaced while adorned in an ackward costume. I'm also not a fan of the "sexy" occupation costumes that most women these days seem to think are the be all and end of celebrating the holiday. Unless it's a sexy garbage collector. Because that? That is hot.

That being said, I think the Mexico's Day of the Dead is a completely different animal that I would very much enjoy. And I do hope that my own big brother, who is in Mexico on business this week, will take the time to head out into the streets to experience it for himself.

And that he'll take pictures.

And that he'll bring me back a skeletal present.

Because it's all about me.

MEMEME.

Day of the Dead Horseman Mosiac by Martin Cheek

Hell Has Frozen Over. Something Made Me Like Posh Spice.

Ms. Beckham being interviewed by two wee lads. No longer robot! Who knew she was capable of more then pouting and pointing?

Video from YouTube.

Is That A Nail In Your Tire, Or Are You...

Oh, right. It is a nail.

This morning, I came out of a meeting to see my phone's voicemail light flashing, accusingly, at me. When I finally got around to listening to the message - I am convinced that people only leave messages when they have something bad to tell me - I was left with the task of figuring out how to deal with the fact that my car, who had left my garage with four lovely and inflated tires, had somehow become crippled and was now listing to one side.

Lorne (my boss), and Fabian, Stefan and John, (in charge of all things facility related at my office) (insert "How many people does it take to change a tire?" joke here) (and "How many parenthetical asides does this sentence need?" joke here), helped me take off it's floppy, deflated shoe, and put on the donut that I had in my truck.

The tire? Had a big old nail stuck in it.

The donut? Yeah, it was flat too.

Lorne and I piled, with tire, into his car to get it all a-patched up. Which took 2.5 hours. By the time I shanghaied Fabian and John to take me back to pick it up and slap it back onto my car, it was time to run home and deflate myself. But not before stopping to pick up hilarious, and possibly horrible tasting, Halloween themed cookies to give the boys tomorrow morning as thanks for their above the call of duty help.

I don't know how many times I can say this, but the people I work with are #1 Awesome.

The end.

Missing: One Sweet Tooth

For the past few years, I've pretty much revamped my mode o' eating, cutting out the masses of prepaired and highly processed foods that I used to live on (aside: I really believe that the chemical preservatives that I used to down with abandon have severely slowed down my own aging process. Really). In return, my palate has become more sensitive, and it allows me to actually taste the food that I eat. And until you make a major eating-style change like that, you really can't understand what that's like, but trust me, when I say taste, I really mean taste. Flavours explode. And sometimes overwhelm. Which brings me to last week.

I used to adore super-sweet things, and milk chocolate was my favourite type of snack. I avoided dark chocolate assiduously, as I found it far to bitter to enjoy.

These days, I adore dark chocolate and can't stand it's milky sister because all I can taste when I bite into it is sugar and milk fats, and nothing of the cocoa bean at all.

I bring this up because last week I gots me some Nutella, remembering how I loved to eat it directly from a spoon, and on top of things like ice cream. I loaded up a spoon, turned it over and, in turn, loaded up my taste buds. And pretty much gagged. Sugar - check. Milk - check. Fake vanilla - check. Where was the cocoa? Where were the hazelnuts? Overpowered by everything else, they were! And it made me sad. And it made me start to plot, and consider just what I would need to make my own, less sweet, less fake version of the spread. And then I pondered that since I already make an organic dark chocolate cinnamon peanut butter, how easy a cobbling a Nutella-like spread together would be.

Kitchen experiment ahead!

Trading Off the Good for the So Bad It's Good

I have a deal with myself. Every time I purchase a CD from a major label, I have to buy a CD from an indie band as well, to mitigate the evil. Looking at it in a different light, every time I buy an indie band's CD, I give myself the chance to buy a major label album as well. But that's also to mitigate the evil. Because rock'n'roll? It's the devil's music. Because of the ass-shaking, you see.

That being said, I was in BestBuy (yes, I know, evil) today, purchasing headphones so I can watch work-related video clips on my computer without driving people in my area of the office crazy (the good). I stopped by the CD section and picked up the following:


The Lemonheads - s/t: The latest Lemonheads record. Oh, Evan. Also, Become the Enemy (listen to it via their MySpace page) is currently my most special favourite song that I've heard this year.




Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton - Knives Don't Have Your Back: I will confess that I haven't gotten around to listening to this one yet, but I adore Haine's stuff with Metric, so I can't think of a reason that I won't love her solo stuff. I will say that the packaging on this baby? Beautiful, beautiful.



Justin Timberlake - Futuresex / Lovesounds: When he shouted he was bringing sexy back, he meant it. Not as fun as his first solo disc, Justified. I feel like he really wanted to name it Music to Make Babies To, and that he really wants to be Barry White for the kids who only know Barry White as the guy on the Whacking Day (whacking!) episodes of the Simpsons. I also feel that if this record had a scent, it would be musk.



Beyonce - B-Day: Much more even and consistant then Dangerously in Love, but lacks the crazy excellence of songs like "Crazy in Love".


That is all.

Flavour of...Flavour

I love notecards. There's nothing more excellent then a wee little card, blank inside, with a great graphic on the outside.

In fact, a few friends and I are currently involved in a notecard swap, and when I gets me my loot, I'll be posting a photo essay to show you my take.

That being said, I recently came across Flavour Design, a BC-based design company that, in addition to kitchen and furniture pieces, has a line of crazy-cute notecards.

Look! It's a monkey!



Design*Sponge has also instilled in my furiously beating heart a complete adoration for Paper Stories' Bittersweet Collection. Because, really, who hasn't wanted to tell someone, with style and panache...

"Suck It" image stolen from the lovely Grace at Design*Sponge.

Little Fat Man With A Pug Nose Face

Pug, pug! Pug, pug!

Courtesy of Amblus, via You Tube, lovely David Bowie on Ricky Gervais' Extras.

A Scottish Shopping Trip, Anyone?

When the weather turns cold, I start to think of accessories for my excellent coat. I start to think of hats and gloves. Most of all, I start to think of scarves.

Today, I'm thinking of this saucy felted lass:

Image ripped from AkarDesign.com. Purchase it there, too, North American kids.

Lovely, no? She's the child of Sarah Campbell, the brain and hands behind Mogwaii Designs, located on the Isle of Lismore. Along with her scarves, bags and hats, she also has a line of housewares that are also making me a-drool. A shopping trip to Scotland would make for a verra cosy winter, I reckon.

Who's coming with?

And In Project Runway Related News...

Radar reports:

Project Runway Spinoff Gets Green Light

The "American Idol but with fill-in-the-blank" formula has been pretty well exploited—models! chefs! indie filmmakers!—but Bravo seems convinced there's life in it yet.

The NBC-owned cable network is following up its Project Runway success with a new reality series that will pit aspiring interior designers against each other in an elimination-style contest. The show, Top Design, will begin airing in January, with Todd Oldham, who has designed home furnishings lines for La-Z-Boy and Target, playing the Heidi Klum role, and Elle Décor editor in chief Margaret Russell standing in for Elle's Nina Garcia. With taping already underway, Russell will be spending the majority of her time in L.A. for the next six weeks, according to a show insider. (Good thing she just hired a new executive editor, Traditional Home's Mitchell Owens.)

While it seems natural to pair Elle's sister title with a Project Runway spinoff, it wasn't a foregone conclusion, notes the insider. In fact, Metropolian Home—which shares both a parent company (Hachette Filipacchi) and a floor (the 41st) with Elle Décor, was also considered, as was Conde Nast's Domino. Winning the bake-off is no small feat: Hachette sources say Project Runway, which is Bravo's top-rated program, is thought to be the prime driver behind Elle's recent newsstand spike. But Met Home editor Donna Warner gets the consolation prize: a one-time stint as a guest judge.

Oh, oh, I am already hoping that we get Top Design up here. Adoration all around for Oldham from me.

Friends Shouldn't Live So Far Away

Because it makes me sad.

It makes me happy when they come and visit, and when I go visit them, but when leave must be taken, it fills my little head with melancholy. Even though it means I have people to spend time with in excellent places like Vancouver and Chicago and New York...Oh, I need to get over myself.

Confidential link to Kate: Thomas Haas.

Spendy, Spendy!

Well, dreamy-spendy, that is.

Do you ever think about what you'd do if someone gave you a gift card to an upscale store like Holt Renfrew, or Saks Fifth Avenue? I do. Because I am graspy, and because I like to think about stuff that I'd like to make mine.

If I came into possession of such a thing, I would either put it towards purchasing another Mackage coat - this time of car coat length. In particular, this beauty, which I've visited in person, but without the stupid hood that isn't actually attacked to the coat.




Or, I would invest it in a classic, crazy expensive bag. Like this little lady from Furla:



Or this bad boy from Cole Haan:



What one item would you purchase? And it can't be practical! Okay, it can, because coat and bag? Practical. But it must be designer-y and make you drool.

I Gots Nothing. NOTHING.

Seriously, nothing. I need to work on that, obviously.

Okay, I lied. I became impatient and bought a dress, itself deeply discounted, online from Stylefly.ca. It's by a line called Saint Grace.



It looks like this, but is in a plum-y-currant colour. I may wear it Wednesday, if the rain disappears by then.

No Dress For You!

Instead, new rotors for my car's front brakes. How exciting!

Well, no dress for me for a few weeks, at least, until I can find time to make it to a city (read: Toronto) with real stores that don't exist in malls.

That is all.

There's No Use Fighting It

Part the First

Every year I hope that the summer will last forever. That I'll never have to turn over my thermostat control from AC to Heater. That the snow? She will stay away. And every year, I am denied.

This year, I've come to accept the change in season. My air conditioner is already wrapped up in it's winter coat, the furnace has been clicking on for the past two weeks, and today, I moved my outdoor furniture from my balcony to my storage locker.

I feel grown up.

***

Part the Second
























I have gone from reviling dresses to loving them. And this time, I'm not just talking about those of the cocktail persuasion. I'm talking about a wholesale love for the dress.

I want to wear dresses during the day. At work. Which, generally, is a non-cocktail type of place. I want dresses like the one you see to the left. Generra, Ella Moss, Rachel Pally, Geren Ford, I want you all to come to my house and make me pretty things to wear.

And if I was a rich girl, I would also be wanting the dress on the right. Oh, Crazy Uncle Karl, how you make me covet.

Do you like how I just throw out designer names like I've made a study of fashion? I try, kids. Being a poseur is not easy.

That being said, after my car's appointment at the shop, I may try to head on over to Holt's to see if I can find one not too outrageously expense frock to add to my wardrobe. We shall see.

***

Part the Third

I love the Showcase comedy Rent-a-Goalie.

I hate hockey.

I don't know how to reconcile these two facts.


***

Part the Last

For the past few days, my parents, especially my dad, have been doing a wonderful job standing by the sons of his brother as they try to deal with a mountain of shit that he has shovel atop of them.

Although you know that other people's families don't usually work the same way that yours does, its always a little shocking when you're actually confronted with the fact.

It makes you step back and think about your own situation.

And if you're lucky, like me, it makes you thankful.

Oh, look, it's Thanksgiving Day as well. Who knew?

Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo

Hey kids, just to let you know that I'm taking a few days away from the blog. Will be returning, at the latest, next week.

The end.

Flush of Good Health

You may have noticed a change in appearance around these here parts. That's because I'm a-going Pink for October.

Lets face it - someone you might know, someone you might love, someone you might be, has been affected by breast cancer. And even though it's important to spread awareness and raise money for research aimed at combating the disease year-round, it's also important to turn other people's attention to the issue with a very focused, month-long campaign to spread the word.

So while you're thinking about breast cancer, examining your own boobahs (you too, owners of the man-boobs, or, perhaps, "pecs" is more to your liking), and considering donating to the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation / American Breast Cancer Foundation, why not do something even easier?

If you have your own blog, our your own site, or if you make use of Yahoo's homepage as a starting off point on the web, why don't you see if you can turn those pink as well? Do a little to spread the word. Because, like GI Joe says, "Knowing is half the battle".

Tap That Ass

Get your mind out of the gutter - I'm referring to my car. And the crazy lady who ran into my rear end this morning on the way to work.

Of course, it really wasn't a run in, it was more like a wee bump, but still, it leaves me livid and hating the drive into the office even more.

I wonder how you can drive on a four lane road, and be behind at least 12 cars that are at a complete stop, waiting for a light to turn, in a lane beside another that is full of cars that are also at a standstill and still manage to tap the fender of the car in front of you.

I also wonder how someone can do this and merely throw their hands up in the air in a shit-happens kind of way. And then insist of driving right behind the car that you bumped into for the next 4 or 5 kilometres.

I pretend to know how people's brains work.

I know nothing.

Anyway, the car, she is fine, as am I. And I may have to confess to snickering at the imprint her license plate left in the layer of dirt coating my bumper. Whoops?

***

In a few paragraphs where I don't complain, I must tell you of my delight with my new necklace!

Ordered from Day Lab for a mere $10 ($10!), I am now in excited possession of a brass octopus. I will love it and hug it and make a home for it around my neck.

Love it! Hug it! Hang it around my neck! It doesn't get any better then that.