Gripe of the day: Pepsi vs. Coke, who cares!?

I tend to disregard commercials, too few are entertaining or informative, but yesterday I was captivated by this yawning ad. It starts with one person yawning, and obviously everyone else catching the contagious act, spreading to inexplicably large crowds of yawning proportions. I was mostly watching to see which product they were pushing, but my curiosity turned to anger when it made me react before showing me the punch line.

Here's a note for Diet Pepsi Max-ers:

If an ad makes me yawn, I will NOT buy the product, no matter how much it promises me “more caffeine”. I don’t think an ad campaign with a slogan of “yawn-a-thon” is particularly smart either. In fact, when (or if, and it won't) DPMax comes to Canada, I look forward to invoking the law of my “slap-a-thon” to whomever comes in reach of said product. You really want some sweet caffeine? Chew on some choco-spresso beans why don’t you. Or if you’re a corporate slogan whore, reach for Coke’s “side of life” which at least is trying to inspire you to be spontaneous, positive and find the ultimate happy. Give the big C-C props for making us feel happy again by buying the world some coke. Er.. a coke. Hey, it’s their slogan.

Mmm.. c'est teeeeeellement booooon!

On one of my very spiritual quests for chocolate at the office, I purchased this super flavorful bar of 99% cocoa Lindt Excellence chocolate.

I’ll admit to having some favoritism for Lindt over the other euro brands thanks to a student exchange trip to France as a kid. The mother of my French host family discovered my love for all things chocolaty within an hour of my arrival and made it her mission to turn me into Üter. There were chocolate rice krispies, homemade real hot chocolate, nutella and box after box of the incredible Champs Elysées by Lindt. I was in luck, she worked at Lindt and endlessly supplied me with kilograms of the stuff. Sure, I ate other things, all of which were delicious with the exception of a traditional meal of inedible lard in weird sauce (who likes lard?!), but the sweets were the most memorable.

Back to that super flavorful bar or 99% pure caca-oh. It tastes like black crap. Not that I know what brown or corny crap tastes like, but this stuff is so vial and bitter that it turns me off the taste of cocoa. I can’t imagine the people at Lindt tried it before selling this asinine product. I tried it again just now (for effect), and tears stained my cheeks. BARF! Non, mais vraiment, je pense que mon lunch remonte.
Beware:

To freak or not to freak

My left pinky finger has been handi for more or less ten years now. Sounds weird? Not so. Handi would be short for handi-not-capable in my case. Back in the day, in the midst of a creative spurt, I tried to split a jumbo straw for some art I was creating. I placed the jumbo straw in my left palm, gripping it tightly as I tried to force a knife into the straw to cut it length-wise. To my surprise, and I should have seen it coming really, the knife easily cut the straw and my pinky finger along with it. Shocked, I opened my hand only to see something I expected even less: the opponens digiti quinti, in short, the bone.

I ran upstairs to tell my sister I cut myself “taking the knife out of the dishwasher” and I did what our cumulative minds thought was best, I placed my pinky under cold running water until she could solve the bandage situation. Twenty minutes later, she emerged with peroxide and forty pounds of gauze in hand. I should have taken pictures then because she did the best mummification on a live human I’ve ever seen and wrapped my poor digit in the forty pounds of gauze. The bandage job was so good in fact that I didn't feel the need to trek to the doctors.

Skip ahead a couple years when I realize that I’m no longer able to bend the end bit of said finger (flexor digitorum profundus). I accepted the consequences of my momentary stupidity until a doctor said it could be fixed. I made an appointment with a hand specialist who was a little too excited to hear about my case. He said my finger-bending ability could possibly be repaired. However, since the cut ligament causing the handicap shrinks when unused, there was no way of knowing how much it had shrunk. He would have to perform an invasive surgery, cutting from mid-pinky in a small zig-zag pattern and extending the disfiguring and increasingly large pattern down my forearm. (As shown here if you strain your eyes and look at one of the superimposed photos.)

I immediately refused the procedure after the doctor explained he had never done such a thing and would be happy to do the explorative surgery. Another option was to forge the joint in a permanently bent position to stop my tip from extending back. Oh, oops! Did I leave that out? Since no ligament is attached to my fingertip, I’m unable to bend the tip of the finger, but there’s also nothing holding it from bending backwards. Now you understand how much of a freak show this is? Back to the point, I didn’t like the idea of my finger being more susceptible to breaking by having a stiff and forged joint (no pun intended), and I also refused this procedure.

Once again, I accepted my fate and lived on to see the disgusted looks on people’s faces as I showed them my very own conversation piece of art. It’s been a long and harrowing road of freakdom, but alas I managed to get through it, using it to my advantage. (My longtime high school art teacher took 10% off my project mark for drawing my hand with a demented finger, but later gave me a perfect score when I showed him how close to reality my drawing had been.)

Spring forward to this morning, when I considered amputating my finger after seeing this on gizmodo: http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/pull-my-digit/video-of-artificial-finger-shows-its-neither-digital-nor-made-of-chicken-268412.php (it’s worth the jump, but come back here, YOU!)

Problem solved? Possibly, but is it better to have a mechanical blue finger covered in fake skin or one that doesn’t bend at all but has a nail perfect for painting? Let’s just say I’m sitting here re-reading my post as I apply vampy red polish to all my ten digits.

“I’m just too punk rock for this" morning’s post.

.. sad!

The one and only Frankie Abernathy from Real World: San Diego (aka the funny season) passed away Saturday June 9th, succumbing to Cystic Fibrosis. The cutter will forever be remembered for giving me one the of the best quotes from tv "I'm just too punk rock for this".

Nerd accessories are cool?

This month's Vanity Fair showcased the newest trend in fashion : nerd goggles, by D&G of all people.

No joke, this is what's being designed for us tech-wise kids. I'm happy nerds everywhere now have the options to pimp their eye shields, yet I'm secretly cursing all the cookie-cutter over accessorized non-nerds holding daddy's (or worst, Husband no.4's) credit card, who are going to sport these thinking it makes them look smart, without any visible need to shield their eyes from wafted particles of harmful chemicals. Oh, the shame, and how dare they. (nerd tear)

I heart Nerds

Because I just do. Geeks too of course. There is a difference between Nerds and Geeks according to the world of Wiki, but I’m not one to discriminerd.

That being said, I'm letting out my inner nerd.

What's the deal with bad videogames? I recently rented the new Pirate of the Caribbean game on PS2. How could www.ign.com readers rate the game as an 8.7? The game is lame, folks, real lame. The initial gut busting laughter of watching Capt. Jack Sparrow walk around in a drunken stupor isn't enough to support yet another repetitive button mashing game. It's also not fun to have little puzzles pointed out to you with a "glowing light". If there's a dangling rope, I assume I have to slide on it. Why would I want a light beam shinning and calling me to it. Seems like the game was designed for children (despite the obvious drunkenness displayed throughout). The story isn't fun to follow (like the new movie I hear), there's no challenge and no surprises. It took us about 5 hours to finish the game, and only about a fifth of that time was mildly amusing.

The God of War franchise ruined every other game for me. Intricate puzzles, lifelike movement, endless awe-inspiring scenery and a great story taken from Greek mythology. Sure there's some violence, but you're fighting gods and monsters, not people. The best part? My recent mythology studies were put to good use! I was no longer "just watching" the story develop, I was involved, captivated and understood every aspect (finally). Who said videogames were a complete waste of time.. pffff!!!!

Let me get back to being a girl here, why haven't any media gossip sites picked up on the nipple outage of the first Miss Universe contestant during the bikini judging?

Another cancellation?

Veronica Mars is a brilliantly witty and entertaining show, week after week, getting episode ratings that are among tv.com’s top 10. Thanks to the new “Sun” channel, I was able to watch the 2 hour finale on the original US programming time slot, prime time Tuesday night. It was the first time I’ve watched the show live in Canada, and maybe the last.

I feel on edge, nervous, and I keep checking its status every few hours for updates and miraculous news. The show may be added to the “shouldn’t have been cancelled” list. CW who has already announced and left the show off its fall schedule, has yet to definitely cancel the show. Mixed signals are being sent, confusing fans everywhere. One day the show’s outlook seemed promising (a new direction for the show was rumored to pick up at the FBI academy, a couple years after present-day VM) then conflicting articles surfaced the next day about the show not being renewed. While rumors now seem to go towards the cancelled path, all I really want to know is, WHY? Why _wouldn’t_ they renew the show? The series finale proved the show still packs the same punch as the first season, while leaving _plenty_ of unanswered questions and possible key character developments.

Until they bring it back for another season, I'll refuse to believe yet another great show's been cancelled.

BIRDS: back from The Vault

As my first entry from The Vault (a place where good anecdotes from the past are safely kept until they mature and come out at the appropriate time), we visit my house last year during a tumultuous time..

Last summer, July 21st to be precise, birds became my new foe.

I wake up that morning, hear something funny like a distant flutter, go about my business, hear something funny again.. I look for the source of this noise but can’t find one. As I’m getting ready in the kitchen, I look in the living room and see a little tweet tweet bird sitting up in our tree!!! I yell to the Lord “There’s a bird IN the tree!” He sleepily replies something about that being what birds do.. and I yell again “in the LIVING ROOM TREE!” He runs downstairs as I stare in disbelief and says “AH! Am I seeing double? There’s TWO birds! No no.. THREE!” The three little birds were just chilling and pooping in our small living room tree. Our yelling must have scared them as they started flying around everywhere. We open doors and shoo them all out one at a time, then leave for work.

I come home that night and I hear a little tweet tweet. Oh. Dang. Another one must have gotten stuck in the fireplace shaft when we closed it after figuring out their entry way. We open the shaft and down plops a bird, yet again in our living room. Other roomie pulls the ol’ scream-scram as the bird flies out and I videotape the incident.
Then… another one falls and pulls a repeat performance.

Half an hour or so passes by, and I hear another high pitched scream from upstairs. Ah crap. Roomie went to loo and was surprised by yet another bird in the shower. It flies around, and we finally coax it downstairs and out the front door as I yell for it to “get OUT and don’t come back, YOU!” then shut the door on my hysterically laughing neighbor who witnesses the incident.

The next few weeks went by in much of the same fashion, with a total of 12-or-so birds entering the house.

…

As I say my goodbyes to our real pet this morning, Bailey the little man Chihuahua, (that’s not an oxymoron, he’s quite manly) I hear the unmistakable sound of a bird falling down the chimney… I can’t say I was surprised, but the little turdlinger was, and I bet the bird was too. I had to leave it there until I return tonight, video camera in hand to tape the sooty tweeter’s escape from chimncatraz.

Easter 2007

In need of a major break from this city and work, I headed up to Toronto in Via One (first class) for a nice weekend of R&R. I sat next to someone who must have had a hearing issue as she didn't understand the question "excuse me, I'll just be a moment to settle down, I have to place my bags in the overhead compartment. Would you terribly mind standing up for a minute?" I don't know how else I could have said it.. so I politely waited for everyone to board, cramped in my seat with all my bags on my knees, hoping there would be an empty seat I could take. The last thing I expected was for a friend of mine to walk on board and relieve me of my boring seat partner.

Toronto brought one some great adventures, eating more cheap (and tasty!) sushi than one person can handle, dancing like a rock star, street meat, and knowing that best friends always make everything better. I also crossed another accomplishment off my list: acquiring the ruler of all lip glosses, the fiery punch, the possible end to my glossession (m).. the Two Face "lip injection". (it's just a name)

(m) glossession: Gloss. Obsession. Smash 'em together why dontcha.*

*on a side note, I can never understand why the auto-correct function tries to replace some nonsensical words with their own suggestions. In the case of "dontcha", which is obviously "don't you" to us, Mr. auto-correct is suggesting we replace it with Pontchartrain or Chardonnay. Uh, what?

I won

I can no longer say I've never won while rolling up the rim. So far my tally is 3 coffees and 2 cookies. Not a bad year at all. Now where's my iPood?

A concert for me?

March 22nd.

I've known about this concert for a couple weeks. It seemed too good to be true. David Usher, my favorite artist since 1995, was going to play at Zaphod's, this little club for the unpretentious with a concert stage no bigger than a small bedroom and no higher than a gnome.

Moist's first album was readily available in 1994 for people like me to eat up. Creature came out in '96 and by then people were taking notice. They played the closing concert at La Foire Brayonne in Edmundston on August 2 nd in 1997. I was in town then, visiting my mom and extended family. I remember my older cousin was going to attend the concert with her friends, but I was too young to go unchaperoned, so Mom was brave enough to take me. We stayed outside the concert fence, I could see the stage, the sound was loud and clear, and that was enough for me. At the time, I didn't want to be in the pit anyway. Two folks who left the concert before it was over give us their tickets so we could get in. We popped in for the sole purpose of buying an early birthday gift for moi, a burgundy tee with a silver Moist logo. (I still have it.)

I saw them again at Summersault '98, the best concert of my life. The Can Am Speedway in Shediac hosted the outdoor concert with two stages. The small stage had up and coming bands like Bucket Truck (who?) and Treble Charger, while the big stage featured Esthero, I Mother Earth, Moist and Our Lady Peace. I even got to talk with the IME basist for a while (Emilie can attest to this!) then met their new front man. (Remember Edwin's departure?) Other memorable moments include running from the loo to the stage at high speed through a field of muck as soon as we heard Moist, swaying to OLP's mega-extended version of 4am, and Andre crusted with mud from head to toe.

Then his solo career took off, and I attended his concert in 2001 in Moncton, then for free in the summer of '02 at the X in Ottawa. The point is: Big fan.

I was called crazy for going to a concert by myself, but I never once regretted it, especially when the girly girl next to me told her friend I was a loser. I wasn't aware I'd lost anything! Anyway, opening act was great. I thoroughly enjoyed how the singer and her band mate had to disassemble their own gear and walk through the crowd with their equipment. (There's no backstage entrance at Zaphod's.) She later saved me from the classic embarrassment of walking out of the loo with a long trail of T.P. stuck to my shoe.

Then came the headliners.. David Usher! ..And most of the former Moist. Was that Kevin Young and Jeff Pearce?? They too walked through the crowd, hopped on stage, and blew everyone's minds from start to finish then to finish again. The crowd went wild when they left the stage, and they encored for about 45 minutes thereafter. It was Nelly hot in there. Wow. For such chitty chatty prior to the actual event, I don't have much else to say about the concert! My mind's was blown to pieces! I never expected to see my favorite artist play in such an intimate venue. If you can try and imagine how unreal that would be, I assure you that it was.

Gotta thank BC for being that genius he is and turning to Ticketmaster. If it wasn't for you, I would have trusted the sourciest (m) source at said venue who informed me the show had been sold out for months...

(m) Sourciest: Most trustable source, the one who should be giving your the most accurate information. It's in the Emtionary. (because who's dic? and what makes him so knowledgeable of the English language?)

the lost bloggeries

It happens, things in your life change, events happen, most of them worth mentioning, but you procrastinate on posting. Well this is that time where I decide to backlog multiple unwritten bloggeries at once. (Don't say I never used the term bloggeries!)

A simple KnockOut

It was a little too easy for Wladimir Klitschko to knockout Ray Austin, but it was enjoyable to watch. I thought Ray stood a chance against Dr. Steel Hammer. They were almost identical in measurements, except for a 2" longer reach on Austin's side. Nevertheless, the handsome Ukrainian champion delivered four blows in succession for a knockout early in the second round.


Vitali Klitschko is apparently re-entering the world of boxing now that his back "ain't broken no mo" (as Tyson would have said).


Let me just wipe the drool of my chin..


Here's the real reason for a post: My pimped out GH controller! eeeeeeeeeee!!!


http://picasaweb.google.com/myraaume/PimpedOutGHController

Rummy: (adj.) beyond or deviating from the usual or expected

I'm at my 15th coffee, and still no win. I even tried to get other people to get me a winning cup, and that didn't work. However! It's been the best Tim's week in history. They remembered my order for three days in a row this week, right down to the toasted bagel with nothing on it and a knife. Also, zero fudgeings. It's unheard of. It almost makes me want to send them a card.

My roomie (not to be confused with Roemie) finally introduced me to his current lady. She'd been in my presence at the house for the seventh time. For those of you who placed bets, I'm sorry, that makes me the winner. (where's my reward?!) The Lord intervened on said situation (short for landlord) when it became a little ridiculous. When roomie asked us if we had met, I think he was surprised we both quickly answered with a giant NO! Now the deed is done, but I 'm left wondering how long it would have gone on without intervention.

Today in Nerdlinger news:

The Dude is a genius. Google spread sheeting all our GH high scores has proven to be the best idea designed in the smartest of ways. (GH is short for Guitar Hero in case you're in the dark about my latest and greatest attempt at becoming a rock goddess). Now I get to compete with peeps on my level who aren't around for me to whoop their beehinds in person. Our high scores are displayed for each song, while keeping tabs on the number of top scores for each player.

To celebrate my recent domination of high scores, I decided to pimp my GH controllers proper. The original Ol'Blacky is getting a funky lime paint job, while Mr. Red's been given the Paul Wall treatment. That's right. If my guitar had a mouth, it would smile and declare a sparkle war. Just because my controller's jewel encrusted doesn't mean it wouldn't kick your macho candy ass.


Fun movie projects announced: Tin-Tin. Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. What's not to like?

Press pause on life Saturday March 10th at 10pm. Dr. Steel Hammer aka Wladimir Klitschko will fight Ray Austin in Mannheim Germany. I'm ticked that Heavyweight championship boxing matches aren''t watched enough to be on pay per view anymore. the upside is that I get to enjoy the match at home, away from creepy drunkards at the local sports bar. If you're lucky enough to have HBO, the match is playing live at 4:45pm. Otherwise, avoid stumbling onto the results online and wait until it reruns on TSN at 10pm. Don't try to ruin it for me by talking about it either, nobody likes to make a girl cry.

The Seinfeld continuum

I'll never wash these eyes again! Last night, I saw a SWAT type truck being followed by an ambulance pull into this street full of condos. It wasn't a ghetto area per say. There were lots of people around, driving and walking. The po-po vehicles got out of sight for a minute or so. Then I saw it. First the parked ambulance pulled back from the scene and the two ski mask wearing drivers. Second, the truck parked and empty of drivers. Finally, the heavy body armored helmet wearing dark shadows, one crouching, the other standing behind, both with frighteningly large guns. I can't remember seen anything as cool as that. I looked around the corner to see more of them, and just like that, a whole bunch of them were on either side of the condo, closing in on their target address, getting ready to enter. Although I would have loved to stay for the entire action, it was smart to leave. I felt like I was witnessing something I shouldn't see, and wanted to slowly and quietly tiptoe away like Seinfeld. I witness the weirdest things!



And what's up with Wizz Air? How much did they pay for the rights to steal Soul Plane's concept? They even have the same color scheme for crying out loud.

They always fudge up my order!

I get coffee every weekday morning, no exceptions. On a good week, they only fudge my order once. On a bad week it goes up to three fudgings, 20 wasted minutes, a few death stares and a bottle of bleach. This would be one of the bad weeks… I mean COME ON people!! It’s not hard to pour a large BLACK coffee, toast a 12 grain bagel, add two little packets of PB, a knife and hand it to me. I even tried to make it easier for them by dropping the PB from my order but they still can’t get it right. Speaking up doesn’t seem to work either, since the whole staff’s chit chatting loudly through the entire process. It’s too bad their coffee’s my crack; this morning could have been the final straw if I wasn’t almost late for work.

I understand that they were out of 12-grain, but I can’t understand why the branch MANAGER would pour so much coffee in the cup that the lit threatened to explode at any moment. I contained the volatile liquid.. only to discover a few minutes later that the fawken cup was leaking onto my white and pink hearted Harajuku Lovers purse. UNACCEPTABLE!! Pardon the language, but sometimes shit happen, and I can’t help myself but let vulgarities slip. This would be one of those times. I’ve got nothing else to say about that, but “color safe bleach”.

In other zoo news. The roommate dislocated her knee cap and I missed all the ambulance and stretcher action. It sounds exceedingly painful and is one of my worst nightmares. I won’t even allow the dude to tickle my knees because I’m scared the cap will move. The other roommate still hasn’t introduced me to his new chick and she’s been in my presence five times now. I wonder how long it’ll take him. It’s just going to get increasingly weird, she doesn’t even say hi to me as it is now. I’m taking bets if anyone wants in. I promise not to influence the results.

I keep saying, my life is one continuous Seinfeld episode...

Still with the coffee.

I feel like everyone's talking about coffee, I have javanoia. (I held the #1 score on freearcade's javanoid for three days back in college. That's pretty huge. :P ) Too much of it, needing it, not being able to have it, quitting it, replacing it with tea, making your own, or going out for some, it's all I hear about. Is coffee brain a side effect of the coffee challenge or is it caused by the start of roll up season? (it's the first day!)

I'm looking forward to another fun winless year. The satisfaction I get from never having won is far greater than that of winning.


"Tonight, in lip balm news: a night of gloss pots!" Glossator has gloss-à-tour de force. Ha.

WHAT did I tell you?

Look at the time of this post. Just do it. Look. One guess as to why I can't sleep.

Coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee.

Standing in a dark shower this morning, I had a stupid idea flourish from an intense lack of sleep. Not being able to calculate how many minutes I had actually slept, and how many were spent tossing and turning, the only thing I wanted (apart from a working light in the bathroom), was coffee. Lots, oodles, and tons of coffee. Partly inspired by Fry's decision to drink 100 cups in 48hrs, and partly inspired by two parties who are temporarily or permanently unable to drink coffee, I decided to see how many cups I could drink in one day.


A small black greeted me at Tim Horton's this morning, and then I ordered coffee. Large black.


By 10:30a I was reaching for my second Large black. Since I couldn't leave the office, I caved for the good-til-the-last-drop instant coffee. Anything that calls itself instant coffee, but smells or tastes nothing like coffee, can't be called coffee!! No wonder nobody drinks this crap. The rancid smell and putrid taste made me want to barf-every-last-drop, but alas, it all stayed in.


At lunch time, Timothy's handed me a monster's Large.


Disappointedly not receiving the jitters after all that, I switched to black tea at 2:30p. You MUST let it steep long enough in order for all the sweet caffeine fairies to come out and play..


The cup magically replenished it's supply around 4ish. The stars I was seeing at the time made it impossible to see exactly where the clock hands were pointing, but a missed 4pm hotel cancellation policy made it pretty clear it was almost quittin' time.


I picked up another large on my way home, which almost instantly froze to my hand. Who knew -10 could feel like "B.S.it's only -10, it feels like -55 to me!" with the wind..


Anyway, now it's 7:14p, and I officially give up. As I realize I "don't like my coffee shaking", I put down my empty Second (more like 9th) Cup, and throw in the towel.


"Put the pot down! Get Away!"... I just remembered I brewed another 5 cups. What the hell was I thinking? Now I have the shakes, and when I envision sleep, I don't see it happening for another day and a half or so. Oh. I have a packed day of activities tomorrow?? Oh wow.


My bladder and my stomach are in trouble.. not to mention my mind. I don't think it can handle a processing speed faster than 300k/h, and we're already racing past viper speed.


Yes, thanks wiki for upping my paranoia level to new highs , and confirming the coffee demons are EVERYwhere. Viper is also the name of a heavily caffeinated drink.. help!

The longest gloss story ever told.

I remember my first lip gloss.. It was Bonne Bell Strawberry Banana flavored, and I had switched the cap with my friend’s shimmery raspberry flavor. Not long after that, my best friend had a lifetime supply of Chapstick, so naturally, I moved on to that more nourishing lip care. A year later after seeing adds for them in countless American teenage trash magazines, Softlips was being sold in Canada. I had to try this new gloss, as I was curious to see what was inside this ultra-feminine packaging.

I was never the ultra-feminine girly girl myself. I grew up in a big house with five older siblings, there was always a smarter, more artistic, more athletic, or more outgoing sibling than me. As they one by one left the nest, I learned to stop comparing myself to others and just be myself. As it turns out, I like me! I’m a good hearted common sensed person, and I certainly don’t fit any mold. I figured out pretty early on that there could be a perfect balance between all things girly and a tom boy personality. I do have a point here. Lipgloss. It’s a marvelous thing, and seems to me, that it too forms a perfect balance between femininity and boyishness. We all want soft and kissable lips. I mean that in its truest form. When’s the last time anyone wearing goopy lipstick got one of those everlasting major lip smacking? Don’t try to find an example of such a time; accept that it was unpleasant to some degree for the other party.

Back to Softlips. I tried and was instantly hooked. From that point on, my friend accused me of being a glossaholic. I was attracted to the feeling it gave my lips, the soft endless tingle of that menthol bite. I’ve been trying to find it in other glosses since, and here is where the obsession takes off. Over the years I’ve spent (probably too much) on many brand names, no names, flavors, sticks, gloss pots, tubes, wands, creams, waxes, and I have yet to find the perfect one for my lips. A conversation with a friend a few weeks ago motivated me to start testing them and charting the results in a Google spreadsheet format. I put the little guys up against the big guns, with surprising results. I’ve been looking for new ideas of everyone’s favorites however, as I can’t possibly have tried them all. I will eventually tabulate the results into a more refined glossahol chart. As I keep testing, I am constantly fine tuning my lips to recognize specific glossahol qualities and pick out the impostor’s faults.

These tests are a-là-Moi of course, not scientific tests. I figured if there can be a self taught Chocolate expert with the most refined pallet, why can’t there be a self taught glossahol expert. I shall call myself, a glossator, which seems disturbingly fitting. According to Webster’s: "Glossator is a (n.) writer of glosses or comments; a commentator." I realize glossahol is not an actual term, but as you’ll soon notice, I make up a lot of words. (M-cabulary) Besides, what else can lip goop be called? It comes in such a wide variety of formats, it's addictive, I must have it on me at all times, and can't sleep without it. That's enough qualities to be called glossahol for me.

I'm quite excited to hear that other people out there share the same love of the lip-tingle as I do. This applies to you Burt's Bees beeswas lip balm users. You love it, don't deny.

Look for gloss results to be posted in the upcoming weeks.

M-cabulary End note: Spanakopita is NOT one of my invented words. It’s “a traditional Greek pie of spinach, feta cheese, and seasonings baked in phyllo”. Dolmades’ spanakopita gets my seal of approval here in Ottawa. That says a lot, so try it, I recommend.

The de-virginization of my blog.

It’s cold. There’s no easy way to put it. It’s not minus a thousand today, but it’s still “nostrils freezing shut as soon as you breath in through your nose” cold. Yesterday was so terrible. I was wearing long johns, knee-high wool socks, pants, a camisole, a microfiber long sleeved shirt designed to keep me toasty, an angora and wool blend sweater, scarf, mittens, a hat, hood, and the best purchase of this year, my Burton jacket, .. and STILL I wanted to dive into a pit of lava as soon as I stepped outside. The only exposed area was about 1/3 of my face, and it still made me cry because it was mind-blowing cold. COLDEST CAPITAL IN THE WORLD doesn’t seem to describe it. The fact that people still attend our winter festival is a mystery to me. I’ve been here four winters, and refuse to partake in any of it. Skating on the canal? Forget it. If I wanted to trip and risk accidentally freezing my eyeball to the ice surface, I’d open the freezer at my house, run, and smash my head into the ice tray. That way the rest of my body would still be warm, and no one could spot the embarrassed red-faced girl from a mile away. In fact, I’d even rather try and recreate that famous winter pole licking scene in A Christmas Story.

However I’m unusually chirpy today, which can once again be attributed to eating good food. Last night I had the most delicious, tender, and perfectly medium rare cooked piece of beef I’ve ever had. Imagine, this was at a work function! It was a much needed distraction from the longest sales pitch in history. It was a good sales pitch, but all in vain. I’m not in the market, and am getting good at tuning these out. I tend to get lost in my thoughts when I think about food anyway. This phenomenon is increasing in frequency, and I should find a name for it soon. Feels like nothing else matters but the chemical reaction happening on my taste buds, the world even turns black for a millisecond. Foodphoria? Hmm. I’ll stew that one over for a bit.

Meanwhile, Muggy is treating me quite well today. I’m up to my second refill, which is no easy task! This badboy mug (which was raffled off at work, just like every other little gifts brought in from hotel reps) can hold four times the amount my bladder can hold. Maybe Muggy deserves a manlier name for being so strong and hefty. Muggington comes to mind, but I don’t think giving the mug an English heritage makes it manlier. Just the opposite really.. Mugsko. That’s so it’s new name. Ukrainians are WAY manlier than the English. No offence and all.. it just has to do with the accent.

Other news: Dropping makeup TWICE in the toilet should have tough me a lesson, and for you, should be a lesson learned via others. Let this be your lesson. (cell phones apply to this rule.) Apparently it took me THREE times to learn to put the lid down, and the third will prove to be quite challenging. My most prized makeup item, mousse foundation – the best invention since Photo shop and Airbrushing - fell into the loo. I had hoped the glass jar would float, but I don’t think glass has floated since people stopped answering the messages in all those bottles polluting our oceans. I was foolish. The jar went to deepest loo crevasse, where poo is probably hiding, and where my double-gloved hands will have to try and reach in to retrieve. It gets worse. It’ll have to stew there for a little while until I return home tomorrow morning.

End Note to S-dog: The day you realize your lankiness is overpowering your curviness is never a good one. You hate the docs that told you to stop eating basically every food you ever loved. You have to learn how to walk on sticks. You miss what ass you used to have and you especially miss your big boobs (and your dude will too, even if he will probably never own up to it.) I get it, it’s shitty. I’m making you sangria tonight, we’ll reminisce while cooking you a gluten free supper.