It's Funny Cuz its English

I love anything in a British accent and these mac ads strike me as exceptionally funny. The ads are the same as our American mac ads, only they're funnier. Cuz they're English. Cuz they say cuh-late-ing and we say co-lay-ting. Er, at least, I think that's funny. Judge for yourself.

If You Smile at Someone They Might Smile Back

I was waiting at the crosswalk when I got my first Vancouver man-smile.

I was feeling pleased about finding two pairs of jeans that fit my giant badunkadunk yet were conservative enough to wear to work. I was clutching my shopping bags, standing on the curb waiting for the light to change when all traffic came to a standstill as a screaming fire engine approached. As it slowed to round the corner, I could see into the truck and my eyes met the eyes of a fireman. He was in full gear, seated on a bench, and we locked eyes.

And then he gave me a toothy grin.

It made me feel really happy and I smiled back. It was the first time in four long months that a man besides my husband smiled at me. And I really liked it.

It made me so happy that I am still thinking about the smile two days later. I was never a girl who got a lot of attention from men, but ever since I moved to Canada I have felt as if I were invisible. Just when I was resigned to the idea that I'm aging, in my 30s, and no longer an object of desire to anyone besides my dear husband, this brief, smiley exchange occurred on a crowded city sidewalk.

There are a lot of quotes, legends and lore about smiling, but I think this one best sums up my fireman smile (plus it rhymes):

Smiling is infectious,
You can catch it like the flu.
Someone smiled at me today,
And I started smiling too.

So go on out and spread the love, smile at a stranger. Who knows, she might still be smiling two days later.

No One Cares About Your Blog

some info, myspace style
Originally uploaded by dorsia.

Despite the fact that my family comes from a caste of scribes, I was actively discouraged from pursuing a career in writing. As a descendant of scribes, maybe it comes as no surprise that I have gravitated towards writing in my spare time and publishing my thoughts in a blog.

Which brings me to the title of this post, "no one cares about your blog."

I beg to differ.

Sure, maybe the only people who visit my blog are my husband and my mom. Sure, I could just write on paper and keep my thoughts to myself. There really is no need to publish my writing.

But I think millions of bloggers like myself are onto something. Anna Quindlen recently wrote an article in Newsweek (Write for Your Life 1.22.07) about the lack of writing in our modern lives. Writing, says Quindlen, is one thing you can do to bring some clarity into a confusing world and build an idea of self. In a nutshell, that is why I write.

And I am not alone. In fact, a bunch of my friends keep blogs and I absolutely love visiting them online. I care about them and I care about their blogs. As an added bonus, I have learned a lot from blogs about topics ranging from cooking to cuteness.

Sometimes I feel sad about living during such a stressful time of war and confusion, but then I visit my friends' blogs or stumble upon new ones. After visiting these blogs I feel happy and lucky to be alive in a time and place that makes it easy for us to express ourselves freely. Plus, it's comforting to know that I am not alone. The blogosphere reminds me that we are all just writers trying to make some sense of it all.

Rabbit versus Snake

On the days I am feeling really punchy, I have the tenacity of this rabbit:

Who Wants to be an Amerikan?

A video from the Vancouver film school:

Canada vs. Colbert

Gung Haggis Fat Choy?

Maybe you've heard the traditional Chinese New Year greeting 'gung hey fat choy', but here in Vancouver we have Gung Haggis Fat Choy.

That's right, haggis. The Scottish delicacy made of sheep organs. But instead of the traditional Scottish presentation it will be served with Chinese plum sauce.

This is just one example of multiculturalism in Canada; the other day I received a dinner invitation to Ma's Chinese Muslim Restaurant. I was too busy to go and check it out, but I am intrigued by the idea.

Here in Canada the government has an official legislative policy to promote multiculturalism. The official policy certainly has a trickle down effect, from fusion food to biracial families, multiculturalism is visible everywhere. In fact, maybe Canada has been too successful with its multicultural agenda, at the expense of losing its own identity.

My original samosa theory supposes that every culture has its own version of a samosa, but here in Canada I have been unable to find a dumpling that is uniquely Canadian. My hypothesis hasn't been disproven, but I am skeptical I will be able to find a Canadian samosa, I think whatever I find will be a fusion food. (But I am still doing taste tests, stay tuned.)

Passport Reminder

On January 23rd the State Department's new requirements for travelers will go into effect.

That means that if you travel between the US and Canada and you are traveling by air, you must have a passport. Technically, you can enter Canada without one, but you can't return to the States without your passport. That would leave you stuck in the airport like Tom Hanks in The Terminal.

Visit the State Department website for the really detailed (boring) info.

I Have Been Scooped

I thought my 'every culture has a samosa' hypothesis was uniquely my very own creation, but it turns out someone else came up with the same idea. Adding insult to injury, she's Canadian! I better get cracking on my breakthrough samosa novel before she does.

Goodbye, My TV Friends

I hate to be the type of friend who dumps her girlfriends when she gets a life, but it's time for me to grow up and make some real friends. Besides, tomorrow is my first day of work and if all goes well, I will meet new and exciting people. I hope I don't need you girls anymore.

Rachel, you were always there for me when I needed to fold laundry or avoid working on my manuscript. I would never actually eat your turkey bacon mustard cranberry sauce fried sandwich, but I found it highly entertaining watching you cook one. Be the good big sister that I know you are and share some of that crazy sandwich with Giada. She's too thin anyway.

Ellen, you rock. I haven't watched you on TV since your hilarious sitcom was cancelled and I am totally impressed with your talk show. I like watching you dance, even though I don't join in. But I am sure that housewives all over America are grooving along with you, and that's cool. That segment you did with the kid who hypnotizes lizards had me laughing out loud. I am going to miss you.

And Oprah, what can I say other than just when I am feeling really lazy you come on at 4pm and remind me to "live my best life".

Farewell, ladies, thanks for keeping me company for the last few weeks, but now that I am gainfully employed I just don't need you anymore. Maybe I'll drop you a line if I ever need some company on a sick day. Buh-bye!

Use It Or Lose It

A Canadian study has found that people who speak a second language have a delayed onset of dementia. (You can read another version of the article at Wired Science.)

That leaves me feeling hopeful that a lifetime of speaking Hindi and English, combined with a spicy diet of turmeric-infused curries (which may be a therapy or cure for Alzheimer's disease) will leave me blogging my Diane Sawyer-style-hard-hitting- journalism deep into my old age.

What are the side effects of my custom designed neurological impairment prevention program? My friends will have to deal with my blogs and yellow teeth deep into their old age. It seems like a small price to pay.

Boo hoo hoo sob sob bwhh sniff whaa

This commercial makes me cry.

Hockey Day in Canada

Here in Canada we celebrate a few unique holidays. Boxing Day, Victoria Day, British Columbia Day and Hockey Day.

Ok, so hockey day in Canada is not an official holiday, but it may as well be. I have a feeling all the banks will be closed and the stores will be empty as Canadians spend the day at home watching thirteen hours of televised hockey on CBC. This is such a big event that the meteorologist gave her weather forecast wearing a special "hockey day in Canada" jersey. I suspect that this will be a lot like the American Superbowl, and I may tune in to collect some ethnographic data. My a priori hypotheses are as follows:

• The 13.5 hour broadcast will include approximately 2 hours of viagra commercials, 2 hours of beer commercials and 2 hours of miscellaneous commercials featuring talking babies, bipedal dogs, and dorito-eating-bikini-clad supermodels.
• There will be three half time shows (one for each game... Montreal at Ottawa, Vancouver at Toronto, and Edmonton at Calgary), each show featuring Canadian talent like Nelly Furtado and the Bare Naked Ladies.
• The games' play-by-play voice over will be subtitled in French.
• I will have to vacuum tortilla chip crumbs out of the carpet for the next two weeks.

If I get anything out of this holiday, I hope to gain a better understanding of:

1. The rules of hockey.
2. Why it is ok to pull off your equipment and get in a bloody fistfight with your opponent.
3. Why hockey is Canada's national past time.

The broadcast begins at noon and the first game starts at 2pm. You can check out the schedule here.

Interactive: Canada is Melting

The CBC photo gallery today is a series of before and after satellite and radar images of the collapse of the Ayles ice shelf in Canada. (Click back and forth between image 1 and image 5 for a quick before/after comparison.)

The chunk of ice is larger than the size of Manhattan. The ice shelf is about 4500 years old and broke off in about one hour. It's hard to believe that people are still questioning whether global warming is a real phenomena. Here in Canada people accept it as fact.

Little Mosque on the Prairie

"Muslims all over the world are known for their sense of humor."

So goes the promo for CBC's new comedy Little Mosque on the Prairie, which premieres Tuesday, January 9th at 8:30pm.

So far I have been disappointed with CBC's original programming, but I will definitely tune in for this one. If I had any friends here in Canada I think I would have a big preview party a la Oscar night, but instead I'll just curl up on the couch with my knitting and watch it at home. I think it is pretty cool that CBC is daring to make a comedy about Muslim life in Canada. No American network (especially not PBS) would dare tackle this topic. Canada has a long history of excellent comedic writers (The Simpsons, Saturday Night Live, Alanis Morissette), so I think that if they don't pander to political correctness they can come up with some really funny story lines. Let's just hope that the Taliban doesn't tune in on Tuesday.

Have Some Time to Kill?

Then head on over to NCBI's PubMed and click through all the trend tables of American poverty, mortality, twinning, diabetes, health care expenditures, cigarette smoking and more. The data is organized by year, race, sex, and age, so you should be occupied for hours.

(I found this while I was doing a bona fide literature search and got way way sidetracked. You've been warned.)

A Comic Dissected

Here is today's Pearls Before Swine by Stephen Pastis.

This strip is an excellent example of my all-time #1 comic pet peeve: using the same panel twice. Look again and you'll notice the art in the first and second panel are exactly the same. The third panel is barely different.

Chalk this up as one cheap trick lazy cartoonists use all the time. Garfield by Jim Davis is the worst offender. In Garfield, you can read the panels in any order and the punchline is the same...flat. (Really, try it sometime. Read the panels out of order and the strip's content is pretty much the same.) Today's lazy Pearls Before Swine is forgivable because the writing is pretty good and the punchline made me snort.

Want to know another cheap trick lazy cartoonists use? How about hiding your characters behind a sand dune so that you don't have to draw their bodies in each panel? Take another look at the strip above and you'll be wondering what those ducks are doing behind that giant mound of sand.

Perhaps For Better or For Worse is a melodramatic Canadian comic, but you can't ever accuse Lynn Patterson for being lazy with her art or writing. I wish more comics delivered her caliber of art and content to the comics pages.

Tomorrow I won't be wasting time online reading comics cause I am going to Seattle, whoopee! I am pretty excited about the road trip and being in America for a day. (I just hope I don't get caught at customs.)

Happy New Year!!!!!!!

Two Bald Eagles
Originally uploaded by nanodudek.

Do you believe in lucky signs or auspicious symbols?

New Year's Eve afternoon I was strolling the beach with my husband and good friend Juliann from California. Suddenly, my husband noticed these two bald eagles resting on a totem pole. We stopped to stare and marvel at the two birds.

This moment felt incredibly lucky and special to me. First of all, I have never seen a bald eagle outside of a zoo before. Second, I have been feeling lonely in Canada, but here I was with my husband and friend to enjoy this moment together. Third, I had my camera with me and was able to snap a decent photo! How incredibly lucky was that? And finally, the timing of the event on New Year's Eve made me feel that it was a great way to end 2006 and a positive image of what 2007 may hold.

Best wishes and good luck to you in 2007!