Isn't it nearly the end of April?

If so, can you tell me why it's snowing here?

If this continues, we'll never convince all of those people who live in the US that believe that all Canadians live in igloos and travel by dogsled all year round that it actually is more of a moderate climate in our part of this vast country.

So much for the summer shoes and sunglasses that everyone's been expecting to dig out of the closet!

(And in case you don't already know, I really detest snow. People here have little experience driving in the stuff and often just clog up the roads. As well, it's not unusual for power outages... @#*&!)

They've arrived!

These balls are made for hoppin'

And that's just what I'll do,

One of these days these balls,

Are gonna hop all over you!

A big Thank You goes out to Meeg & Jess for their assistance in getting them here!

Did I happen to mention that I'll be seeing Duran Duran at the end of this month in Vancouver?

Yes, in case you don't believe it, they're still touring. Has-beens? I don't think that Reuters think so... In fact they believe that Wild Boys Duran Duran are Cool at last!

What about you? Do you believe the hype?

A true friend returned home today. I just wanted to pass this message on to her:

Farewell Mariko!

I already miss you and you've only just left!

(PS. I was so glad to see you at the airport this morning!)

Don't forget us here, alright?

Continuing on with things of interest concerning my friends, I wanted to post this for Ms. Murdoch. After reading this article from Reuters online, I discovered that Motley Crue are launching their own traveling rock festival! I thought I'd like to share this with my friend across the pond...

For more information, you can access the info on the tour from the Crue's website.

M, if you're interested and you'll be in this area, they'll be in Vancouver on August 11.

Once in a while, I am lucky enough to stumble on to some pretty amazing weblogs and over the past weeks, I've found one (via the recommendation of a friend) that has some pretty amazing images and exceptional (in this case - multilingual) commentary and I cannot help but share it with you.

You should definitely check out +33photograph. Even if you're not into photograpy, I'm sure that you'll really enjoy the images and the words. Thank you to Kazu for allowing the link.

Here's to sparking creativity in life!

Sometimes I just don't understand people. Not that I'm meant to understand everyone but I really do not understand those people who say one thing yet are thinking another. Life is too short to play games with people they don't like.

Why, for example, if you don't want to be a part of something, do you avoid communicating that? Why can't you just say "I'm not interested in doing that" instead of not responding to emails and other communications? The person that requested it in the first place cannot read your mind. You should just say it and stop wasting yours and the other person's time.

Why do you agree that it would be good to go for coffee with someone you don't like when you meet them on the street and they suggest it? Why would you not just say that you're not interested up front and wasting more time?

I just cannot believe that people are so afraid of saying what they really think. I think it's worse to be considered a "fake" than to be considered honest. Life is too short to play that kind of game. Especially for the person that is afraid to say what they really think.

I've been thinking about the behaviour of women a lot lately. Being the strong-minded individual that I am, and never having bought into the whole "girls should be cute" idea, it's hard for me to understand why women can be so manipulative and dishonest. It's just such a waste of time in the big picture of things. After all, if someone gets into a relationship with the person that you appear to be, they will be totally unprepared for the "real" you and it will all be based on a lie. I don't know about you but I really have no time for lies.

While there are men that do the things I've mentioned above, it seems to me that men are equally as unaware that many of those "cute" girls are actually intelligent and manipulative. I believe that those men who go for the "helpless" types of girls are looking for something that doesn't exist because women are actually way stronger than they like to appear to be. Women are not cute and stupid. Women are just very adept at manipulation. We can all do it yet there are some of us that refuse to...

Anyway, for any of you young drama queens out there who prefer to take the "dishonest" route instead of saving yourself time, give your head a shake. Wouldn't you rather just get on with life instead of skirting around the subject? I would.

Zzzzzzzzz!

What a totally unproductive day...

After having a night of really active dreaming, I was rudely awakened by my alarm. I toyed - in an almost catatonic state - with the idea of calling in sick for the morning just so I could get caught up on my sleep. No such luck though... I managed to drag myself out of bed, get dressed and get on the bus.

Now, it's nearly the end of the day and I'm feeling the same as when I woke up. Even my lunchtime walk didn't really help. That said, I'm not ready to resort to the caffeine. I'll see if I can wait until after work today.

It's my own damned fault that I'm in this state because my schedule over the weekend was packed full of things that needed to be done: cooking, farewell parties, seeing friends and yoga. I should have known better as I'm not really a spring chicken anymore. Nevertheless, I survived and here I am.

I must say that I am extremely thankful for M's lasagna. It certainly hit the spot at lunch today. Lucky for me there were leftovers today so I was able to have a lovely lunch... It's sad to see that this will be the last dish of her wonderful culinary creations that I'll be eating for a long while... Have a safe trip back, my friend. You'll be missed!

That's it for me today. I'm dead shattered and will be heading home early to catch up on lost sleep. G'night all!

I don't know if you've ever heard of her, but if you are looking for something a little different in music, you should check out Akiko Yano. Once married to Ryuichi Sakamoto, she's broken down many barriers in the field of jazz in Japan because of the male dominatedness of the genre. And, although I am not really a fan of jazz music, I still really enjoy her music. She is both unique and very talented.

I found an article on the Japan Times online edition entitled "Jazz icon Akiko Yano finds her electronic muse". It was an interesting read.

I'll have to go out and find the cd to add to my collection...

This will soon be mine!

(Space hoppers rule!)

I was offered a new job today... I interviewed for it earlier this week and got it. It's going to be a nice change even though I am continuing in the same department. And, while it's supposed to be more condusive to me being creative, it'll be interesting to see if it actually is.

I suppose it's the next step towards retirement... (Which, by the way, will only happen soon if I find some rich guy to support me. Not much chance of this happening but, hey, a girl can dream, can't she?)

Who?

Hey, did anyone in the UK see the new episode of Doctor Who Series Four? Care to give a review? There's no news as to when we'll see it here in Canada but we're waiting to get word on when that will happen...

Okay, so I sat up for quite a bit of SNL only because Christopher Walken was on it. While I usually love Christopher's work, I really do have to say that I'm not really a big fan of SNL. It wasn't always that way... I used to love the show when I was in my teens and early twenties. Then, the writing went downhill...

This clip from that show made me laugh. I guess it was only because I got to hear Mr. Walken say "googly eyes" about a million times. Oh, and because it was funny to see so many faces even though he was the only one in the skit.

And, even though I love this guy because of his twisted personality, I think they have to find a way to make it look like he's not reading cue cards. At first, I thought he was doing a weird character and was distracted. I guess it didn't help that I tuned in twenty minutes after it started.

Anyway, I hope that you all have a great week!

Before the weekend begins and I don't have time to post, I thought that I would post just a little so that it doesn't look like I'm neglecting the blog...

Neglect much like that I am doing with my other blog Stay Focussed. I suppose that means that I am far from focussed and I must apologize to K & S however I think they are in the same boat. I hope to get back on track with that one but for now, all I can do is stick to the eating better/getting more exercise part... Maybe this is a good reminder to the three of us.

If you like Lego, you might want to check out this photo essay entitled Iconic photos in Lego which has some famous "toy" versions of well-known black & white photographs. I thought it quite clever although it would be great to have the originals up as well to compare them. Nevertheless, it's a great photo essay. Thank you to the Guardian Online for posting it.

Also, I found this article a little surprising. In this Reuters online article, it appears that 81 percent of Americans think their country is on the wrong track. That's a startling number of people, don't you think? I knew that things weren't looking so good down there but I don't think I would ever have imagined that that many people would be so down about the direction that their country is going in. Public opinion is an interesting thing.

Anyway, I also wanted to give an award of recognition to D who successfully translated my Welsh statement a while back. The Welsh phrase "Mae fy hofrenfad yn llawn o lyswennod" translates to "My hovercraft is full of eels". It was strange to find such a phrase on a translation site but even stranger still is that I didn't know that they put eels into hovercrafts in Wales. I can feel a crazy t-shirt making activity coming, that's for sure... And, D, if there is any underlying meaning to that phrase, let me know before I wear my new t-shirt out to any Welsh events...

Have a great weekend all!