Happy Halloween!

I figured since it's Halloween, I thought I'd talk about ghost and death.

One of the most well known ghosts is the Lady in Red that haunts Fairmont Vancouver Hotel. It has been said that she haunts the 14th floor (which is really the 13th floor) of the hotel, and has known to approach people in the dining room, demanding her seat back at the table where the patron is sitting in.

Ghosts have been sighted at the older movie theatres around Vancouver. (Sorry, the link won't work, just copy and paste into a new browser window. http://www.where.ca/vancouver/article_feature~listing_id~119.htm)

This link lists a few haunted places around the Lower Mainland. James Cowan Theatre and Ceperley House are about a 5 minute walk from each other, and about a 5 minute drive from my house. I've known about these ghosts forever as I've lived in this area most of my life. Ceperley House is now an art gallery. I remember going there as a child and I was consciously aware of the building was haunted, but never seen the ghost. Still I was scared. What can I say, I'm chicken shite (still am!).

Errol Flynn actually died in Vancouver. What he died from was pretty gross in itself.

One of the most famous murders in Vancouver history, the death of Scottish nanny, Janet Smith. It is rumoured that she haunts Hycroft Manor, along with some other ghosts.

Another well-known murder, which involved the well known Bow Mac sign on Broadway. (Janet Smith's murder is further down on the page).

This morning, one of the radio morning shows that I listen to on my way to work was broadcasting live from Balthazar. Where Balthazar stands now used to be a brothel back in the 1920s. Apparently the owner, a Madam Maxine, was murdered in the basement, and even today, many of the staff, especially those who have been there a long while, have had encounters with her. Fun stuff.

Man, I'm going to give myself nightmares tonight. I told you I was chicken shite.

The Picard Song: SIMS

IT P/J sent this to me. The dancing SIMS crack me up, and I still pee in my pants every time I watch it, and the original video. Apparently, the original remix was done by Dark Materia, and you can even download the MP3 from the site.



And just for old times sake, the original video:

CAN

A friend of mine sent this to me a few days ago. Normally I don't post stuff like this. I'm not the type to buy into fuzzy, feel good stories like all those "Chicken Soup for the Soul" type of things. Frankly, I find them extremely boring. I don't find puppies cute or revel in nice scenery.

However, I'm putting this link up to remind myself that no matter how much I would love to have control over how where my life leads me, I don't have any control. Zero. Zip. Nada.

This is also a reminder to myself to look for the good in a not-so-good situation, because there is good in everything, even when I can't see it.

We as humans can be really short-sighted at times. Really.

CAN

I've had an epiphany just now...

I've realized just today that I've been holding a lot of anger, resentment and bitterness in one part of my life. Specifically, towards one person. This person, I don't have much respect for, yet I need to work with person, and to get something done that also been a thorn in my side for the last six years. I think that's partially been holding me back for so long.

I want to get on with my life my way, but these feelings of resentment have been really holding me back. There is light at the end of tunnel, I just choose to ignore it and whine.

So I'm going to stop whining at get on with it.

I will try my hardest not to continue feeling anger, resentment, and bitterness, after all, I'm human as well. But knowing is half the battle, and knowing what's been dragging me down this past 1.5 years helps me let go of things a little easier.

Really, I don't have a lot to complain about. I know someone who recently lost her leg in a car accident; someone else fighting cancer; and still many others who battle with infertility issues, weight issues and money issues. I have none of that. My life's pretty good all things considered.

I've been praying for a long time for me to get to this point. And I've finally gotten there.

Law & Order: SLU

Someone on my chat board posted this, so I thought I'd share, it's very funny. It amazes me to no end that the Muppets can still entertain me. I think even some of the jokes younger kids may not understand. This clip rocks!

Tired...

I had a very harrowing week this week. I was not in a happy place in terms of work (something blew up), and it was only today we finally fixed it. I think I will go to bed soon which is not a good idea as I was hoping to get about 4 hours of homework done.

That just means that I will really need to focus tomorrow and get as much done as I can to make up for the 4 hours I'm losing tonight. What I'm doing now is pretty tedious and time consuming, which makes it look like I've done nothing. So I'm not in a very happy place right now...

Bah.

Jane Eyre (Part 3) - Meet Edward

When I first heard that Toby Stephens was to play Mr. Rochester, I thought, "Who the heck is he?" Well, I went over to IMBD and lo and behold, I have seen him before. He played the the Korean-cum-White Boy baddie in Die Another Day. Believe it or not, one of the few things I remembered about this film was how impressed I was with the actor who played Gustav Graves. In fact, in the scene above, if you listen to the commentary on the DVD, they were quite astounded by the depth of acting. I recall thinking that this was one of the better bad guys that I've seen, and I actually liked his evilness.














As I had mentioned earlier, Mr. Rochester is my favourite hero because he's so passionately in love with Jane. I love Toby as Mr. Rochester. Like Ruth Wilson, he brings so much depth, charisma and emotion to the character. Toby made Mr. Rochester alive in my mind. So, here are my impressions of Mr. Rochester as I was watching Jane Eyre.

Mr. Rochester is creepy. I've noted that on at least three occasions, Rochester knows exactly where Jane is, even if she thinks he doesn't. I suppose when you're newly in love with someone, you always know where that person is. You tend to be hypersensitive when it comes to that other person. Rochester's "Jane-radar" was going waaay off the scale. At least twice, he pops out from nowhere. Similar instances are in the book, but watching it as it is portrayed really gave me the creeps, I thought he was stalking Jane.

Mr. Rochester has bad hair. I have decided that I don't like the long hair. I don't know whose idea it was to give him long hair, but I thought at times he looked about 50 years old, and one time, I though he was actually constipated. I blame the hair for that. Plus, Toby kept on having hair accidents off-set. What you see are hair extensions, and they would fall out once in while, and at the most inopportune times. Poor guy. He would have looked much younger and better looking with short hair (Okay, Mr. Rochester is supposed to be not much to look at, but Toby Stephens is a very good looking man, so hence the hair comment. Gimme a break, I'm female).

Mr. Rochester is a big jerk. Really, it never occurred to me that how Rochester was treating Blanche and Jane was not right. Not only was he was being manipulative, but cruel even. It was the first thought that went through my head when I realized (after all these years) what Rochester really was doing with the whole house party thing. So thank you Toby for showing me what a jackass Rochester can be. And I still don't know what Jane sees in him.

Mr. Rochester is a magical cowboy. Okay, this has nothing to do with the character and everything to with the actor. I've noticed that when Toby is walking, he looks like he's swaggering. Either his shoes hurt him, or his breeches are too tight, but I always think he's in pain. This is not a slight on him, merely an observation, so please don't flame me. As for the magical part, his mother's none other than Maggie Smith, and at least once, I thought I saw the McGonagall glare. Hey, it's in the genes. (I think he looks a bit like her, and probably where he got his chiseled good looks).

But really, Toby is an excellent actor. I've been watching clips of some of his other work that he's done, and I'm thinking, "Wow! This guy is really, really good!" If you don't believe me, click here for the clips; just be careful that you avoid the Jane Eyre ones as they contain spoilers. So I'll be watching a lot of Toby in the near future.

Don't go yet, still more coming...

Jane Eyre (Part 2) - Meet Jane

This is Ruth Wilson. She plays Jane Eyre in the new BBC adaptation. I have to say that she was AWESOME as Jane! Really!

The one thing about her acting that I love is how she shows emotion. Her face is very expressive and she can do subtle very well. Even when her facial expression seems to be bland, you can tell that something's just brewing below the surface. That takes talent.

I've never realized before how emotional and passionate a person Jane Eyre was until I saw this adaptation. A previous adaptation that I've seen long ago with Timothy Dalton had Jane act really dull and lifeless. This of course coloured my characterization, in my mind, of Jane as a dull, lifeless person. If you don't believe me, watch this YouTube clip.

But Jane Eyre is anything but. Ruth Wilson really made Jane Eyre's character come alive. While re-reading the novel, I suddenly pictured her as Jane, and I could see that she really was an interesting person.

So Ruth Wilson, thank you so much for showing me Jane's true character, and show me who Mr. Rochester fell in love with! (Really, I've always wondered what he saw in her!)

Another kudos for Ruth. If you check out her IMDB page, you will note that she's has virtually nothing on her CV. This is because this girl pretty much came out of acting school last year. I'm definitely looking forward to watching her in the future. She's made a fan of me.

Still more coming...

Jane Eyre (Part 1) - some spoilers

Once in a while, I get very obsessive about a certain thing. My poor husband has to put up with my obsessions, usually by ignoring me (but pretending to listen/care). Well, if you can guess from my last post, Jane Eyre is my new obsession.

So the BBC just aired a new adaptation of Jane Eyre. I have to say I quite liked it. I had to first watch it bent over my laptop (very uncomfortable), as it won't be airing in North America until January 2007 on Masterpiece Theatre. Thus, I entered the world of illegal downloads (something I've never done before), mainly because I did manage to watch the first episode when it aired in the UK, and got sucked in. (You lawyer type out there, I will be buying the DVD, so leave me alone!)

Before I go on, I must warn those of you who love the book and who intend on watching this latest adaptation that this version has been modernized a fair bit. And I don't mean so much of the language as some scenes/passages were either removed, rearranged or redone, all for the 21st century audience. There were a lot of complaints that there was a fair bit of the novel missing, or not redone to their liking. This group I would label more as "purists" to the novel itself. I won't go into too much detail as I don't want to spoil your viewing pleasure should you choose to watch.

However, I recall having the exact reaction the first time I saw Pride and Prejudice (the one with Keira Knightley). This too was modernized somewhat and I forced myself to throw away all my preconceptions and to watch it a second time in the theatre. I have to say I enjoyed it better the second time around and it did work well, but it still should have been longer than 2.5 hours.

So after seeing Jane Eyre at least twice over (and some of the episodes more than twice), I have to say, give it a chance, it does grow on you.

So here's my opinions/weird thoughts thus far...
- The mad lady wasn't mad looking enough
- Yes, the ending was cheesy, but it fit in the the screenplay writer's vision of Jane Eyre
- The kissing scenes fit in well, but I feel this is where most of the purists will complain (once you see it you will understand).
- No, my favourite quote isn't in there, it got replaced with something just as good =D

Favourite line by a minor character:
Adele: Mrs. Fairfax, Mr. Rochester says that all the ladies will find me disgusting!
Mrs. F: That's nice dear.

Favourite non-verbal scene:
Lady Ingram giving Jane the iciest stare in the world. Even I could feel the chill! (Sorry, I couldn't find a decent pic of this, but Francesca Annis was absolutely perfect for Lady I!)

More to come...

Jane Eyre: a book review(-ish)

Believe it or not, I've never read the entire novel of Jane Eyre from beginning to end. I've always intended to, but really there are parts of the novel which are really, really boring and wholly unromantic.

What propelled me to finally read the whole novel were two things:
1) I have a ton of novels that I've never fully read sitting on my bookshelf. So I made a resolution of sorts to read through every one of them from beginning to end before I buy any more books. Okay, I've bought some since, but I'm definitely keeping to my resolution of reading the books from beginning to end. I am notorious for skipping over sections and reading the ending before I actually get to it. What can I say, I get bored and impatient easily. I don't think there's a single book that I haven't done this to.
2)The BBC put forth yet another adaptation of Jane Eyre, which has just finished airing in the UK. I found out about it before my UK trip and actually saw the first episode when we were in Scotland. More on that later.

I have to say that I liked the book, and actually reading through some of the boring bits helped me understand Jane and the plot a bit better. However, I suspect that when I re-read this book again, I'll probably only go back to the parts I like.

Although Jane Eyre isn't my favourite book, Mr. Rochester is my favourite romantic hero. Sorry, but Mr. Darcy is a big stick in the mud as a character, Mr. Rochester is way more dynamic and romantic in my opinion. Really rich guy falls for a poor, plain Jane, what woman wouldn't want that happeneing?

My favourite quote from the book, from Ch 27 (Mr. Rochester speaking to Jane):

Then you are mistaken, and you know nothing about me, and nothing about the sort of love of which I am capable. Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would still be dear. Your mind is my treasure, and if it were broken, it would be my treasure still: if you raved, my arms should confine you, and not a strait waistcoat -- your grasp, even in fury, would have a charm for me: if you flew at me as wildly as that woman did this morning, I should receive you in an embrace, at least as fond as it would be restrictive. I should not shrink from you with disgust as I did from her: in your quiet moments you should have no watcher and no nurse but me; and I could hang over you with untiring tenderness, though you gave me no smile in return; and never weary of gazing into your eyes, though they had no longer a ray of recognition for me. -- But why do I follow that train of ideas?

My only major beef with the book is St. John Rivers. I couldn't believe how much I wanted to punch him in the face! What a self-righteous, pompous ass! And how dare he use the name of God to justify what he's doing to Jane. I though he was emotionally abusing her. I would love to dig further how people back in the Victorian era would have viewed St. John and his self-righteousness. I certainly don't agree with it, and I'm Christian.

I'm also questioning what the point of having St. John in the book, or rather, why he is that way to Jane. He could have been the kind clergyman cousin and that would have been the end to him. If Charlotte Bronte is trying to make a statement with him, I've completely missed it.

Another beef: I don't know why Jane has so little faith in Rochester after she runs away from him. She's constantly fearing that he has gone back to the continent and taken up with mistresses again. Does Jane really not know her man?

Overall, an enjoyable book. Next up, my reviews of the latest adaptation...

Ghostly Fun

Hubby and I went on the Haunted Vancouver Trolley Tour tonight. This is something that I've always wanted to go to. They only run this tour for a couple of weeks in October, so it's easy for me to forget about it.

However, I took the plunge and booked some tickets for tonight. It was really fun. We got to visit an old morgue where they did autopsies and an old cemetery. I didn't know that there were over 90,000 bodies buried there, and I drive past there every day on my way to and from work!

Our guide told us lots of ghost stories, grizzly murders and sad stories of how people had lost their lives. I didn't realize that Vancouver had such an interesting past!

IE 7

I haven't been posting for a while simply because my life's been very dull. I have some posts coming up, but they're long for me to type up, so you must be patient.

Anyways, IE 7 was finally released on Thursday, and yesterday, I downloaded it to my work laptop.

My reaction: meh.

What I noticed right off the bat was the font on some of the sites that I frequented changed, and not necessarily for the better. That annoyed me, and hints that the browser may still not be treating the CSS as it should be.

Tabs: big deal. Firefox and Safari have had them for a long time already. Actually, tabbed-browsing started with Opera, and I used Opera for a while because it didn't have the same sort of usabilty problems as IE. However, Opera crashed a lot, hence my switch to Firefox.

Security: from my perusal of the menu items, it seems to be better, but I'm playing a wait and see game. Someone had already passed around an email stating that a vulnerability had been found with Outlook Express. Sweet.

The only thing that impressed me about it (and I really wished that Firefox has), is that when you go to close the browser windown, it asks you if you want the tabs that are currently open, if you want them to be reopened again when you start up the browser. Some may not see this as a very handy feature, but I'm normally in the habit of closing my browser windows at the end of the day.

I hate to say this, all browsers so far, leak memory, and/or are memory hogs, and my poor, underpowered desktop normally can't take the abuse. Plus it saves me from having to re-boot too often. Plus, I normally have about 5-10 windows opened at any one time, so having them re-open again without having to bookmark all the time is a godsend.

Final verdict: we'll wait and see, but so far, not very impressed...

Weird Al

You know, I never realized that Weird Al is still going strong. A couple of weeks ago, he just release his 12th album. The local radio station played his polka remix from his new album, and I was double over with laughter, it was so well done!

So anyways, here's a blast from the past, one of the songs that I use to love a lot when I was a kid. Enjoy!

My foot's feeling much better

Today was the last time I had to see my physiotherapist about my foot, when I had put my cuboid bone out of alignment over a month ago. My physio gave me a clean bill of health, and gave me more exercises to do in the next few weeks to strengthen my ankle and foot muscles so this doesn't happen again.

While I've become a little afraid of my physio (he actually put a bruise on my foot that lasted over a week in my last treatment), I have to say that I admire his skill as he not only fixed my problem, but taught me prevention techniques (not wearing heels again would be one =P)

I've learned early on that if there is something physically wrong with my body, that I should take care of it right away. I learnt that lesson when I was working one summer during uni break as a receptionist in a physio office.

I remember very distinctly two patients who had similar problems: they both couldn't walk because they had sustain some injury. Patient #1 was a young teenage boy who had both of his legs broken in a car accident. Patient #2 had somehow busted both his knees while lifting something heavy at work, and had to go in for surgery. They both initially came into the office in wheelchairs.

After six weeks, Patient #2 was on crutches, and would eventually walk on his own as he did well with the treatment and his exercises. Patient #1 was still sitting in a wheelchair.

After a while, the physio who was treating Patient #1 decided not to treat him any longer and told the family so. Why? Apparently, this family had simply gone from physio to physio, allowing their son treatment from the physio, so that it could alleviate the pain in the teen's legs (apparently he was in constant pain), but wasn't encouraging him to do any of the exercises. The teen told his family that his legs hurt when he tried doing the exercises. I'm certain that they did, after weeks of not using his legs, his muscles wouldn't be used to being used again.

I remember distinctly the physio vainly explaining to the family her reasons for stopping treatment, and she didn't feel right to continue to take their money. The family wouldn't listen, and instead continue to coddle the teen and defend his reasons for not doing his exercises.

I left the job soon after that incident as I had to go back to school. That summer taught me that the body has an amazing capacity to heal itself, but only if you let it.

Royal Victoria Marathon

Here's hubby running the Royal Victoria Marathon. Sorry, don't know why the pic's so small... Blogger might be doing some image resizing.

You can't tell, but it was raining quite a bit that day. Soggy run for hubby.

KOOKY: Please kill me now..

No one told me when I started this job that I would become a lawyer. 50 pages of legalese. Blergh. And this is the second draft. Well, my only consolation is that it's down from 61 pages.

Read on...

YouDeserveATaxBreak.ca

I got this postcard at my gym the other day. Fitness Industry Canada is trying to get the Feds to give the people who actually pay money to go to the gym a tax break. I of course filled out my name on the petition.

However, does having a gym membership necessarily mean that you're getting healthy? How many of us let our gym membership run month after month without setting foot in the gym?

One of the step instructors at my gym is this nice, soft-spoken Japanese lady. She's soft-spoken, unless she's teaching class. Then she belt's out the encouragement. "Come on! Higher! Faster!"

One thing that she said this past Saturday at my step class that I didn't agree with was this: "In order to lose the belly, you must do suck in the belly all the time. This builds up the muscles in your core and flattens your stomach." This woman has two kids, and she's lost all her pregnancy weight, and then some. She's as skinny as a stick.

Like I said, I don't agree with this, not 100% anyways. She's also one of these people who can go on exercising for several hours (She teaches 3-5 classes each day she teaches, which is about 4 times a week, so that's about 12-20 hours of exercise). I'll be lucky if I get 3-5 hours at the gym a week. She probably loses calories faster than she can eat them. She seems to be the type that has really high metabolism. So the combination of less eating, insane amounts of exercise and a high metabolism, she's become all muscle and no fat.

If I only had that much energy and time.

Anyways, check out the petition: YouDeserveATaxBreak.ca

This is art?!?!?????

Yes boys and girls, this is art, as it is apparently in a art gallery, the Tate Modern in London. I was actually there three weeks ago, and saw that they were building something in that big space. I didn't know it was a slide. It looks fun, and I would have gone down it if it had been done when I was there.

But I don't know if it's art...

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I haven't been around the last few days as we were in Victoria. Hubby was running the Royal Victoria Marathon, and his time is 1 hour and 57 mins for the Half-Marathon.

It was a neat weekend as we got to stay at The Empress Hotel for the first time.

Life for me is slowing getting back to normal. Read: I'm continuing on with my school project, so it's more sitting in front of the computer typing out code. Well, I suppose I should be thankful for this chance to get my degree done, no matter how tedious and painful it may be. I have to keep reminding myself, that no matter what happens, this (by BCIT rules) must end sometime in 2007, (and not at the end of the year either, sometime much closer to the beginning of 2007). Bah.

Lost...

Lost Rules.

The Others are creeping me out big time.

Can't wait for next week's episode, I'm hoping they show what's going on back at the camp.

Production Testing

I don't know why people want to still do production testing with test servers, data and software. We know that the test works, now you need to see if the software actually works in production.

I'm writing some code at work that's suppose to interface with another piece of software. We tested everything, and it was fine. Now they want to test the code that I wrote in production. I'm okay with that.

What confounds me is that they wanted to test my production installation against their test environment. No, don't assume that you're production code is perfect. No code is perfect. It could be that there is something in production that is off-enough to cause a bug, but you didn't get that in test.

Idiots.

(Sorry for the non-techies that don't understand this, but I had to get this off my chest. Something that is relatively simple, and shouldn't have taken up a lot of time is made more complicated and drawn-out by jackassery, and a lack of communication. Bah.)

"So how was the food?"

Surprisingly, I got asked the question a lot when I came back from our trip.

What can I say, English food isn't the best tasting in the world (in my opinion anyways), and you certainly don't go there for the food, like you would, say Paris.

On our trip, wee had bangers and mash, fish and chips, Yorkshire pudding. And good old English breakfasts.

Anyways, I decided to dig up some references on British Cuisine.

Traditional British Food

What Wikipedia has to say

Finally...

My mom finally got her lost piece of luggage back. 7 days after we landed in Seattle. It was slightly wet.

We figured that her piece of luggage got into Seattle the day after our flight. The airport was supposedly to deliver the bag straight to my mom's door, but it sat at Sea-Tac airport for another four days before someone had the presence of mind to call.

Whatever. At least she got her stuff back.