Friday, November 24, 2006

 

Counting down...


It's almost that time...

I've got one more working day until I start my hot new p/t gig @ the food place, please don't let me eat too many white chocolate covered oreo cookies, faaaaack!

Meanwhile, I am doing the Joe thing today in tempo land - VERY interesting indeed. Even hotter is the fact that I am writing to you from a MAC - OMG, I love the MAC, I am one with the MAC, sweet, sweet...I DEFINITELY want a notebook for home now. And with word on the street that MACs now have Windows?? Shut-UP!

Well - apart from the fact that the head JOE in charge has not acknowledged my presence, this has been a stimulating morning already. The whole acknowledgement thing is par for the course of temping but is interesting considering the contrast in behaviour across sectors, personas, etc. I think realtors make a lot more than fashionistas and I don't recall nothing but manners for days w/ the Bay Streeters from earlier this week. Which brings to mind the blue vibes I get when I think about people like Serena d.p and the Canadian apparel industry; lots of sniffles. The good thing about this gig is that 1) it took me 20mins to get here and 2) Cheryl lives around the corner. I have to make a pit stop @ her place for my pits later on, eek.

Friday, November 17, 2006

 

Ewww

This sux, royally:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6157612.stm

In other news, chomping on the bits to see Casino Royale, woo-hoo! I have been fully brainwashed by the media blitz and am super curious. I fully enjoy the continued firestorm re: Bond, er Craig being so buff, HOT. Hot I tell you.

What else? Start date for new contract has been pushed back by a week so likely more temping, went to see Masia 1 perform for the Reel Asian Film Fest music showcase @ the Drake - turns out Moose lost the master key, eek. Having lunch w/ former CBC peeps over roti in the underground - not in my day I tell you and at Saint Cinnamon at that - crazyfied. Tonight is dinner @ The Rushton, tomorrow a UK garage sale and Sunday movies. Monday back to the real estate perch and will have to suss out new leads for Tuesday starting, oh - say now.

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

 

And in other movies news

You know - Russell Crowe should be thanking Sasha Baron Cohen for releasing a box office monster the same week as A GOOD YEAR came out. C'mon! Russell Crowe as a romantic lead? Cack. The guy is only ever good looking, and barely at that thank you very much when he is covered with dirt, debris, blood and sweat. Yack - I definitely won't be going to see that one and the Crowster is lucky that there is enough Boratedness out there that people won't even have to forgive him cuz they'll have never heard of this bloody GOOD YEAR movie crap to begin with. Cackle...

And in other Russell news, Russell PETERS got a sweet write up in today's Globe, nice...overdue as f*ck and nice...

http://theglobe.ca/servlet/story/RTGAM.20061115.wxpeters15/BNStory/Entertainment/home

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

 

NEW VERSION? Wha??

No idea what the deal is w/ the new version of blogger - anyone care to share?? Help! Some of you have even bounced out of blogger all together, off to greener pastures and such.

Right. So - yesterday was the big municipal election love in. I am super suprised that Pitfield conceded at all AND as early as she did - wtf?! Shocking, runaway win for Miller, sniffle. Am also shocked that dear Alexandra Bravo didn't make it in, am going to do some digging re: the numbers on that one re: C. Palacio. I had high hopes for Alexandra, who is a super keen resident; hopefully she will continue to grow her public career!

Admission - am secretly brooding re: the Miller victory because as a TTC super user, I have my suspicions about the company morale and just the wackiness of the service. Case in point the door situation yesterday on the train home, the disappearing Friday evening buses, etc. Most interesting...

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

 

Ooh, still hoping to catch up


Happenings for days. Here at home, around the world...

In the midst of the clanging, the din of the news of the world, mid terms, war, divorce, what have you, I see that former SA President Botha passed away. The interesting part of Mbeki's attendance at the funeral is that his eldest son, who disappeared while he was in prison, was likely killed by Botha's administrators. Sad that he has never had the opportunity for a proper burial, like so many to be sure.

Friday, November 03, 2006

 

Hoping to catch up

At least somewhat...

Now that the gig by the water is done and I am plotting a path towards the next big thing, which I have heavy expectations for, I can spend a moment luxuriating in the blogosphere catching up on far too many truancies.

So, let me begin with my most favourite encapsulation of Banda-gate thus far, care of the fantastic Borat, followed by a great read from the Globe all about the chained heat, better known as Canada's penal system for women - BC style - way to make us look bad in front of the stylish French people, helloooo

Firstly, on Madge:

My only concern is that this singing transvestite will not be such a good father,” Borat said in a mock video link from Kazakhstan.

And the prison tidbit, oh dear...

France tunes in to mother's guilty plea in B.C.
Bizarre tale features jailed professor who wants to seek French presidency
ROD MICKLEBURGH
From Friday's Globe and Mail


VANCOUVER — Detours in the long and winding road to a PhD are not unknown.
But few can measure up to what befell Nathalie Gettliffe this spring, as she journeyed all the way from her native France to defend her doctoral thesis at the University of British Columbia.
Instead of appearing before an elite academic panel, she found herself arrested at the Vancouver airport and thrown in prison.

While her professors wondered why she hadn't shown up, Ms. Gettliffe was being charged with two long-standing counts of child abduction.
The charges were laid after she fled five years ago to France with two children from a broken marriage, in defiance of a B.C. court order. Since then, her case has become even more bizarre. Behind prison walls, where she remains to this day, Ms. Gettliffe has not only managed to complete her thesis defence, but also give birth to a baby boy.

In the meantime, she has become a cause célèbre in France, the subject of numerous media reports pillorying Canada for its treatment of a pregnant woman and turning B.C. into a land of "terrorist justice" in the eyes of her many fervid French supporters.
Adding fuel to the frenzy, Ms. Gettliffe has announced her intention to run for the presidency of France in 2007.

The remarkable saga of the 36-year-old learned linguistic professor, however, is at last nearing an end. In a brief court appearance yesterday, her lawyer, Richard Fowler, announced that Ms. Gettliffe will plead guilty today in B.C. Supreme Court, rather than face a scheduled jury trial on the charges against her on Nov. 20.
Mr. Fowler said sentencing arguments will be heard later this month.
But Ms. Gettliffe's guilty plea is unlikely to diminish the fierce emotions her case has generated in France.
There, she has been characterized with great sympathy in the media as a brave mother seeking to protect her children -- Joséphine, 12, and Maximilien, 11 -- from an alleged cult-like church attended by the children's father, Scott Grant.

The Vancouver Church of Christ has links to the U.S.-based International Church of Christ, banned from many U.S. university campuses for cult-like recruiting drives.
At the same time, prison conditions in B.C. have been characterized as "worse than Guantanamo" by Ms. Gettliffe's current husband, Francis Gruzelle, who appears regularly on French TV to plead his wife's case.
The couple say they are writing a book called The Hell of Canadian Prisons.
By the summer, the atmosphere in France had become so volatile that police feared a vigilante attack to prevent Mr. Grant from bringing Joséphine and Maximilien back to B.C., after gendarmes tracked them to a small village in the French Alps where they were being cared for by a relative of Ms. Gettliffe.
Their fears prompted a police escort for Mr. Grant and the children on the way to Paris and then to the airport.

Mr. Grant, whose marriage to Ms. Gettliffe ended in divorce in 2000, regained custody of the children after France's highest court upheld the original B.C. court ruling.
Alarmed by public hostility in France, Canada's ambassador to that country, Claude Laverdure, took the unusual step this week of writing to French journalists "to set the record straight" about her alleged prison mistreatment.

"It is completely understandable that those close to Ms. Gettliffe want her released," Mr. Laverdure wrote. "But it is unacceptable that the reality of this case should be so distorted, that the Canadian justice and correctional systems should be so unjustly criticized and that Ms. Gettliffe's situation in prison should be so wrongly portrayed."

Ms. Gettliffe gave birth in late September to her new son, Martin, at a public hospital near the Alouette Correctional Centre for Women in the Fraser Valley, where she is incarcerated.
Since the birth, she has been given a single room in a special wing of the medium-security prison to allow her to care for the baby.

Earlier, arrangements were also made to enable the imprisoned woman to give the required oral defence of her PhD thesis that had been so abruptly cancelled by her arrest.
Ms. Gettliffe's six-member academic committee agreed to conduct the hearing at the Alouette prison, a first for the university, according to Sherrill Grace, who chaired the unusual proceedings.
It was a marvellous experience, she said. "The guards did not stay in the room, and I must say that Nathalie was incisive, intelligent, articulate, poised and professional. There was not the slightest ripple. She was just an academic again. It was very touching."

Prof. Grace, a veteran of the UBC English department, said she became caught up again in the excitement she feels whenever there is engagement with a young academic.
"There's a euphoria about it. You completely forget where you are," she said. "What's the old saying? 'Iron bars do not a prison make.' "



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