Independent Olympic Athletes

This year at the London 2012 summer games there are three athletes competing in the Olympics under the Olympic flag as independent athletes. I noticed this while watching the parade of nations at the opening ceremonies. I've been watching the Olympics since 1988, when it was in Calgary, I dont' remember every opening ceremonies, but from what I could remember I hadn't seen that before. I had seen the flag that the Chinese Tiapai, or Taiwan, has used, which has the Olympic rings on it since they can't even compete with their own flag because of the issues between Taiwan and China. So I looked around & from what i can see independent athletes compete for different reasons. Mostly it has to do with the fact that a country is either newly independent and doesn't have an Olympic committee set up yet, but the athletes still qualifiers to compete, or as almost happened in London, the country has it's committee or representation revoked for some reason by the Olympics but their athletes still qualify. It seems to be a way for the Olympics or sometimes international issues to be politically dealt with, while still allowing the athletes to compete.

London 2012 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremonies

WARNING: There are a bunch of spelling mistakes that I'm too tired to fix so deal with it! :P (& in my head I'm laughing when i say that, not trying to be bitchy)

Two years ago I wrote a blog post while I watched the opening ceremony for the Vancouver 2010 games, a lot of people seemed to like it, so I'm going to do it again. We'll see how this one goes. I'm a little skeptical of some of the rumours, you know the 50 foot he-who-shall-not-be-named. It's just about to start, on CTV they're doing a prologue, which does get you ready for the games. They're going through a bunch of athletes that are the most talked about. And of course they're talking about the Canadians, how we're so proud especially after Vancouver, we do want to show off to the world, prove we're not just about winter, as usual we're not expected to take home that many, but I'm patriotic, so I say we'll take them all. :)

So we're just about to start. Mom's on the couch, she may or may not fall asleep we'll see.

They really do have a field, huh, that actually worked. Now we're watching a video across the country, coolish, I guess. Now we're in London, still on film, wonder when we're getting to the stadium, cause if this is it China won on opening ceremonies. Finally in the stadium. Countdown with balloons. Tour de France winner, cool, not on a bike though, oh, ringing a giant bell though, once & then balloons are released. Maypolls, little kid singing, old timey cricket, bee-keeping, oh northern Ireland choir cool, right out in the somewhat middle of nowhere, I know that place I just can't remember what it's called. Scotland choir, giant Clydesdale! I love how the are representing each part of the UK,  now for Wales, & horse drawn wagons. of course the choir from wales is sing in Welsh, so I have no idea what they're saying. now we've got some guy in a top hat with a book, where is he going? Back in the stadium little kid choir just finished up, everyone now looking at the top hat guy making a speech, I think it's a poem I'm sure someone knows what it is. update on mom on the couch, she's asleep. oh that speech was from Shakespeare. CTV is taking a break as they are people drumming & it looks like a storm. Oh wait they haven't left yet. I think we've hit the industrial revaluation. the Tree is coming out of the ground, with people coming out of it, which if you have a tree & it does that , worry. Now that the drumming is on it's way we've gone to commercial. sucky! there shouldn't be any commercials during opening ceremonies. 1st commercial was from P&G who sponsor mom's. now there's a relay of a screw driver? Rona, ah. Back to the ceremonies, missed a lot of people moving around, the drumming is kinda done, they're pulling up the field which is a great way to get rid of it. Smoke stakes are going up, the music's getting a bit heavier & faster. They just panned over some of the audience, however I think it was the part with a lot of dignaters because they were just sitting there, kinda said. Woman Lib group out on the field good. This part about the industrial revolution is called pandemonium, pretty organized for it though. There's a black guy in amongst the rich guys, I don't think there were too many of them at the time. Now the wars. There is a moment of silence sort of, all the actors are still while a slow song & whistle is played. now the chilling part, through the smoke they have lights & things simulated air-planes bombing. Now some kind of Beatles thing going on. There's a sort of multon metal going through the stadium for the rings apparently. The announcers were talking about it's the 1st time the opening ceremonies have coordinated the music sounds, movement & video together, apparently these guys have never seen ANY of the other Olympics. So far, personally I'm not overly impressed, I mean it's pretty good for the history of England, but I'm not like in a HOLY CRAP IT'S THE OLYMPICS!!!! mood yet. That;s one of the things I judge a good opening ceremony, if I get chills & if I'm ready to see the athletes kick butt! Right now the rings are flying through the stadium, getting ready to link up. It was probably a bad idea on CTV's part to keep re-playing Beijing, cause that was awesome. Vancouver gave me chills & made me want to dance. The rings are together, they're all still reddish yellow though. The crowd is cheering & so are the actors on the field. Now would be a good time for a break. Back to film, happy & glorious is what the next bit is called. We're at Buckingham palace with a tour group, someones on his way to see thing queen, excuse me BOND is on his way to see the queen. It's the ACTUAL Queen. Is this how's she's going to the Olympics!!! SO COOL!!! Yeah I'm impressed with pop culture. The Queen is getting cooler with age & the Churchill statue moved! The Olympic rings are on the London bridge. here's comes the helicopter!!!!! NOW THIS IS COOL! Wait.. is Bond going to jump? no the Queen is!!!!!! & him Bond too!! The Queen is too used to huge crowds cheering for her. the union flag is coming with the army, Navy, & air force reps. I love the flags coming up, it's always a super proud moment. I like the British, I"m Canadian, without them my country wouldn't be here, well I wouldn't have been made that's for sure(British, French, possibly Irish or Scottish background) Chaos choir singing & signing, they are deaf & hearing impaired kids, & they're in their PJ's Mom's up now, she just mentioned that she would sing God Save the Queen in school & Church, she was raised Anglican. Second start to the right & on till morning....Peter Pan!!!!!! National Health people here, GOSH? Apparently it's a children's hospital that's funded by the profits from Peter Pan. Dancing nursers & doctors,with kids jumping on  light up beds & some really big ones, that are really trampolines. Just as a point for the American political situation, cause Romney went across the pond for no apparent reason, he's not the president, leave your damn election AWAY from the Olympics, anyways Crazy Americana's are trying to stop themselves from getting National Health Care & here are the Brits proudly showing off theirs & they should be proud. Public health Care is a necessity, not a privilege! I'll will gladly pay higher taxes for it. Wait JK Rowlingis reading from Peter Pan, & now their are carts with scary people dressed in black. One little girl is now stuck while Voldemort is growing, Cruella De Vil is popping out of a bed, plus the Queen of hearts somewhere. & now the nurses are zombie/robots. Oh wait here comes Marry Poppins to save the day, well 50 or so of them, that's a little scarier to me. The kids are super cute though. Whoever is playing the villains in the costumes are having a lot of fun! Now the kids are jumping on beds, & there's a rhyming tune, i can't make it out, like I know it from somewhere. Now all the kids are going to sleep, awwwwww. There is now a giant baby being put to bed, creeeepy! London symphony Orchestra, cool. Chariots of Fire's going to be playing awesome! now some chills are coming!!! It's MR BEAN!!! Rowan Atkinson on the keyboard!!! playing the keyboard for the Chariot's of fire, checking tweets, being bored, AWESOME! He just threw his dirty Kleenex in the grand piano! & now he's day dreaming of people running with him, but he's left behind, but has an idea! oh yes a Car!! AWESOME! No chills, too busy laughing. Before a musical sequence starts we gotta have an ad from Coke. Now we're in a part called Family.film & live action, kid sitting outside the fake house playing video games. now there's a crowd outside with iPhone, & now different TV shoes on some giant old TV's. The classic British shows, including black adder & coronation street, no doctor who :( unless I just missed it. Now there are a bunch of 'teenagers' running around the stadium with giant glow sticks over their heads, at least that's what it looks like. This is supposed to be about modern Britain & typical family's. Now we're in the 60's it seems like, at least in music. Lollipop is British? cool. Oh finally not just an appearance by the look-a-like Beatles, but an actual Beatles song. Ok the story line with the girl & the phone is stupid, especially when the guy who found it is calling her........missing plot point? Rocketteers! David Bowie, Queen, With Wayne's world!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah Canada's there!!!!! Whether you're looking for it or not!!!! I though I heard a TARDIS! I gotta find out if I'm the only one. Now we're in the Punk 80's That guy is still looking for that girl, don't care!   I think we're in the 90's, yup I know theses songs & danced to them. Sweet Dreams LOVE IT!!!! Fire starter! I haven't heard this in a long long time! Yeah 90's, that's when I started paying attention to music. Now the guy & girl have met up, again WHO CARES!!!! Can we get back to the music? k, bunch of scenes of people kissing from movies, lady & the tramp & Shriek in there. Now we're up to live performance, a rapper, I don't know who it is. This part is supposed to be a house party so all the dancers are heading to the house & going through. Now Amy Whinehouse, a little bit anyways. the guy & girl are in the attic dancing. I love how the announcer are going on about the fact that everyone is a volunteer, wouldn't you do this all for free too?! I would, to be a part of history, a part of your counties history. So they lifted up the house & sitting at a computer is the DUDE WHO INVENTED THE INTERNET, the actual dude, he's British apparently. So we're back at commercial time, which is fine, cause I gotta pee. The parade of nations & the lighting of the torch still gotta happen my fav part of the parade of nations is of course making fun of all the fashion. Damn it we're back & I haven't peed!!!!!!!!!! So David Beckham is driving a speed boat with the torch heading to the cauldron. Now a moment of silence for people who couldn't be here. The photo's of people who couldn't be there were submitted my the spectators, that's really sweet. Now a giant yellow ball, sun moon? Ok, we got a kid running, dancers silhouetted who through up dust to make the area look fogy. Emeli Sandre, is singing, I dont' know who that is, but she has a good voice. Now there's a lone man in the middle of the dancers. The man is approaching the kid, who was standing to the side. Now mom's up, she's looking through flyer's, & of course doesnt' like the quite reflection part. I'm glad I didn't sit through the Parade part of Vancouver with her.

Now the athletes! Greece force of course, let's  suits, smallest complement this year. Afghanistan next, cool only 13 time in the games, guys got a suit,women very formal. Albania, never won a medal, that sucks, they're wearing suits, Algeria, 12 games, green pants white windbreaker. America Samoa, cool, very tradition clothing, no medals for them either. Andorra, black shorts & jackets with red shirts, have competed since Montreal Angola, very traditional, plaid shirts with white sari's. Antigua, suits with yellow shirts. Argentina, dark blue pants, blue shirts with the yellow sun on their right side. Armenia, white pants, black jackets white scarves. Aruba, white pants, red jackets, straw hats. Australia, 1st of the big teams I'm told. white pants/skirts with green jackets. What's with the school uniform look. At least the inside of the Australians jackets have put the names of every gold medalist. Ok, I missed some athletes, cause mom's making dinner & there is nothing for me to eat, unless I want a whole chicken, really there are 2 whole chickens in the freezer. Ok now we're at Bengladesh & now Barbedos, kakie pants, yellow skirts black jackets. Belarus, they just mention a surprisingly big team, I wonder if they menat the flag bearer, they guy was like 7 feet! Belgine I think they just said, I'm not sure. Men have black jackets, women red. Balize, white pants, blue jackets straw hats. Benin, 5 athletes, go Benin!!!!! Bermuda, 8 althlets, red shorts, black jackets, they look happy. Bhutan, gross national happiness!!!!! Very traditons looks for the girls, tiger strips for the guys, sure. Bolivia, kakie pants & black jackets. Bosnia & Hexnagovnia(I know i got the second part wrong) Botswana, black suits for the guys, whites for the girls only 4 althlets. it looks like the flags are going on the hill Brazil, suits & green & yellow scarves, pants & skirts. British Virgin Islands, 1 athlte, brown suites. Bruni is sending their 1st female athlete. Bulgariea, with blue pin strips? Burkina Faso, not supposed to get a medal, very african tradtional look. Burundi(Canada in 3) Burundi in very very tradtional african looks, almost warrior looking. I missed a country. Cameroon, they have a nice tradtional African look & they're very happy. CANADA! You can tell we're in Britain cause you can hear us cheering. khaki pants, red jackets with a white strip across with Canada written across. We're super happy to be there. There are other countries coming in, it's CTV so we're no longer paying attention. China came in & a few others, yeah Canada's in so I kind of stop paying attention, plus I'm hungry. I'm going to have to go out to eat, but I had McD's today with the purpose of having a salad tonight, I forgot that there's nothing but lettuce to make salad with. Cuba just came in yellow jackets very bright & another 7 foot flag bearer. maybe we should do that next time, not look at record just you know go, you're the tallest athlete you get to carry the flag.
;) Czech republic with rubber boots? Also their flag barrier overcame cancer. As much as the Olympics want to be about equality, making one of the countries send a women or they'll be disqualified, the fashion doesnt' always reflect that, guys in one suit, girls in another, which would be fine except a lot of those outfits are skirts. Drinking tonnes of water to keep hunger panes down. We're on E Ecuador just walked in. The athletes are wearing yellow & the couches wearing suits, that makes more sense. Egypt just walked in. They're talking about Olympic rules in regards to Muslim religion, the Muslim women will keep covered, but when it comes to swimming they can't have their neck covered apparently so there's debates going on around that. Fiji just walked in & they now have the hottest flag bearer, dude is shirtless with a grass skirt & he's buff, really really buff. I missed France but I did notice some of the were waving union jacks, weird. Germany, know how I was talking about the somewhat sexiest clothes. blue for the guys pink for the girls. We've been going back & forth to commercials, always happens after Canada walks in, we haven't interviewed any of the Canadian athletes yet, which usually happens. So Hong Kong goes in themselves? I thought they were part of China now, I'm sure there's some kind of political thing that I don't know about nor would fully understand. Iceland just walked in, they've never won a gold. Independent Olympic Athletes, 4 athletes, I dint' know you could do that, does that mean they just don't want to represent their country & don't qualify for another country or are their country so small that they can't support Olympians? That's something to look into. Iraq has 8 athletes. Ireland huge cheers fro them. green jackets of course. Israel, the announcer is mad because apparently the IOC wont' take a moment of silence for the Israeli athletes who were killed in Munich, how do you not take a moment of silence? Canada took a moment of silence when a guy accidentally died the day before the ceremonies. Munich was huge! apparently its the 40th anniversary of the tragedy. Just wrong, it's not going to hurt anyone to stand for a minute in silence. Republic of Korea is in, which is what you say, not south Korea. Latvia just walked in, it reminds me of the name of Dr Dooms country which I can't remember right now. The Libyan flags look like an American flag. Libya apparently had someone kidnapped. Lithuania is in grey & white for them. I missed Finland, unless they don't have a team, which sucks :( I had a roommate from Finland that's why I wanted to see them. Malaysia also has red & white strips with a blue square, I'm betting America had something to do with their past. Mexico just walked in, they have the most colourful outfits of everyone their. I know I'm not reporting on all the fashion, it's a lot of suits. So because of the Hunger Games, according to the announcer, archer is popular. Now I liked the Hunger Games, I haven't read the books, but the movie was amazing & made me cry, a lot. But the Hunger Games wasn't the only movie that came out this year with an archer in it, the was Brave & the Avengers had Hawkeye. I do have a crush/obsession with Jeremy Renner right now & I'm a huge marvel fan, so Hawkeye is the best to me. They're all awesome, I did archer in high school & I loved it so I wanna take it up. Now we're on the N's. more suits. Nepal has some nice outfits, beautiful dresses for the women, suits for the guys. I do love Nepal's flag. New Zeland's in & the flag bearer is wearing a fug pelt? I'm not sure something that looks furry. So around the stadium they have drummers lining where the athletes walk, reminds me of China who had girls dancing & clapping, who kept it up for like what seemed like 3 hrs.  Papa New Guinea have some nice red & yellow shirts So far nothing too outrageous in fashion, really just a hell of a lot of suits & some nice traditional stuff. I really expected someone to walk in with  like something neon. I just noticed that Poland is also waving British flags, for the host nation I guess. but I dont' see a lot of it really. Apparently their were 3 countries that were told, send women or don't come, & they did. So Russia just walked in, so what like 30mins till they're all in? Oh yeah break time, next break will be when America comes in. So every time they pane over to the Royal box I check to see if they've fallen asleep, it looked like Prince Phillip might have, but appernlty he's reading, what the hell is he reading? Oh yeah there was finally a team with fashion I could talk about, I don't remember which country they were though, they were wearing, yellow, just yellow. Singapore came in & they're talking about Ping Pong, I still think that's funny! People make fun of curling, but that's a real sport!!! Ok yeah totally cultural I just realised, I'm Canadian & Ping Pong is big in China & Singapore & other Asian countries, I'll shut up about it. South Africa just walked in, they are wearing their flag, their flag bearer had to actually under go gender testing. We've actually come to that. Will & Kate were shown, surprised it took us that long to see them, maybe they just showed up. So appernlty the stadiums in Greece are in ruins, that seems appropriate to me. Funny? No? Oh well I though it was funny. Sweden the best looking team just walked in. This is going to be slightly controversial but I think Hitler was in the wrong country when he was looking for the Arean race. So the Syrian team just walked in & the flag bearer yawned. really it's so boring being in a world class event? So all the athletes are hanging out on the field. Apparently the athletes are allowed to mingle on the field, which is cool since usually they try to keep everyone in their own area. I love how whenever a country comes in, the camera pans over to the delegates box to see the presidents or ambassadors or whoever else is their representing their country, these guys & gals are all in suits & usually try to be very serious but when their country comes in you get excited! The America's just came in. So Michelle Obama is there, which is awesome, now the American outfits have controversy, they were made in China, which you know is not that surprising since that's where all of their clothes come from But the Americans are also wearing Berra's & you know how much the Americans love the French. We didn't go to commercials cause you know Labrone James is there. & now we're talking about how Mitt Romney is trying to act like a president, it's so stupid. So now one of the announcer is defending what he did & the other was saying it was stupid, so yeah you can tell their political alliances. Really why is that guy even there? oh his wife has a horse competing. Yemen walked in we're almost out of athletes! So who will light the torch? & now the British, this is the time when no one can hear anyone else! I love it :) So Britain is wearing white with golden accents, in their hoods. Sure why not.

The athletes are all in so lets rock out!!! Apparently. Arctic Monkey's, sure. I don't now them. So Britain has symbolic doves, dudes on bikes, or people. any way the Arctic Monkey's are signing come together, Paul McCarty is supposed to be performing so this feels weird to me. Now there's a flying bike/dove like ET! Nah. Now the boring speeches, the athletic oath, the official oath, all that stuff. Now it's time for the Queen to open the games!!!!!! Except we haven't done the oath's, are they doing that else where? Time for loads of fireworks, like the amount that makes you think that there was a real fire. So one side is holding the Olympic flag with their hands at their waist & the other up at their shoulders, oh it looks like someone just fixed it. Everyones' at shoulder height now. Muhammad Ali is there, he will be doing something with the flag too? No, just to be a representative for the ideal of an athlet. The Olympic anthem is playing & they're going to the top of the hill to put up the flag. It will be flown the highest I believe is the tradition. No sorry, the host nation & the Olympic flag are flown at the same height. As usual when the flags are n a stadium time for fans, they got the Union Jack going, dont' know what's happening with the Olympic flag. So the torch is still on the river with David Beckham. The torch is on it's way, a footballer is carrying it right now. Now for the oaths while we wait for the torch. I can't remember if doping was mentioned in previously. I forgot the Couch's have to take the oath as well. Poor couch got smacked in the face by the Olympic flag. The stadium is dark, torch time? or performance?

Now it's time for the flame. So haven't seen Paul McCartney & he's supposed to be preforming, so is it him? It would be awesome if it was David Tenant, all Whovians are hoping it is. So the footballer just passed off the flame to a group of young athletes to represent the future of the Olympics. It's a very simple torch, they have a gold theme. They name the kid & then who nominated them. I see about 5 or 6 people with torches. now they're lighting a bunch of them. HEY! we did that!!! Thief's! Now there are 6 torch's running through the stadium, kids still have them. right in the middle is the cauldron? or something like it, there's something spikey down there. All the things they carried in with each country is being lite, 're called they peddals. The kids lite them. It's like a lot of little flames are being lifted up as one big cauldron. That's so cool! it's so symbolic! More fireworks. I'm still on the cauldron, that's so cool, everyone is a part of the flame, amazing. Paul McCarty is singing Hey Jude. So now we're done? Yeah it looks like it.

K, so notes? Bejiin won. Can't help it there's was CRAZY! I like parts of these opening ceremonies, & there are a lot of stuff that brought every country together, but there were a lot of slow parts. Know what else the British stole from Canada? The non-athletes, the kids, we did that in Montreal. :P

Dark Knight Rises Tragedy

I saw Dark Knight Rises today. I saw the 2:30pm show @ Fairview Mall. I could not help but look at the exits while their was any guns on the screen. It's paranoid I know & I'm not trying to take anything away from the tragedy in Col. I've lived in Toronto my whole life, shootings in the city happen, I'm not going to pretend they don't, but this past month, Eaton centre, little Italy, a Scarborough blog party & another Scarborough shooting today. This one, the one in Col. seems to have hit me harder than most news stories.

I don't understand, there is no way to understand.

I just really wish people would stop shooting each other.

What is This?

I saw this on the CNE grounds when I was down there for a show. Does anyone know what a fashion incubator is? Do you but a dress in it until it's ready?

George the 4 Week Old Kitten

This is George a 4 week old kitten that my friend Dakota Bubble is fostering, he's super cute!

Cleaning Out my Music

Recently I've been on a bit of a clearing out spree. I went through all of my CD's and burned them to my computer & I'll be selling my CD's on eBay soon. If I haven't mentioned it before I worked at a record store in downtown Toronto for about four & a half years. The store is pretty famous in Toronto, well was as it's no longer there, it was called Sam The Record Man & that store was a post of it's own! While I worked there I not only bought a lot of CD's I also got a lot of free CD's(if you work at a record store become friends with the buyer, trust me). So now I have tonnes and tonnes of CD's clogging up my closest and other area's in my room. I noticed a few things as I burned them, my obsession with the Backstreet Boys at the time was very expensive, I have multiple versions of the same damn CD! Also that my taste has changed a lot since then. And I have a very very diverse love of music. I know a lot of people say that they like all kinds of different music, but it's just a cross section of what's popular, or in some cases it's still just different kinds of one genre. Like I said I have Backstreet Boys in my iTunes now, as well as Lady Gaga(I know not that far apart, wait for it), Johnny Cash, Muppets, Disney, & a collection of Benedictine Monks CD's. So I burned all these CD's & they're in my iTunes now & I'm going through them getting rid of the stuff that I don't like and some stuff that is utter crap. It's an interesting journey though. Going through stuff that I know I used to love, but now I just find corny or songs that I had completely forgotten, it's fun.

I wish I had something more exciting to post

I know it's been over a month since I last posted anything & I was really trying to be good & write a lot, & actually go out and do stuff. I really do wish I was off for something exciting, but really nothing much was going on except trying to get government funding for school in Sept. I'm glad to say I did get the funding I needed, not as much as I would like but that's not too surprising. I'm going to be going back to college in Sept for International Business Management, it's a year course with an intern-ship at the end. I'm getting funding through a program called Second Career through the Ontario government, it covers your tuition, book, transportation, and some living expenses, which is nice. However qualifying for it can be such a pain, especially if the worker who's supposed to be helping you isn't really. My worker was going through being supportive & then suddenly coming up with new stuff I needed to do. Super stressful. Now I just have to get a part-time job so I can afford to actually do stuff while I'm at college, this is a new stressful. I can only work 20 hrs a week, and I did retail for 10 years & my back and feet suffered from it & my sainty suffer too so I'm trying to keep at least my sanity in tact. I'm not sure how to find an office job for nights & weekends & most of the call centre jobs are mostly about selling & I suck at that! So that's what I'll be doing for the most part in July. 

UFC

After my day out at the Health Expo (see pervious post) I went over to my good friends Dakota Bubble and Emperor EJ’s place to watch UFC, Emperor EJ’s friend R came this time. I was super excited to see Jim Miller. 

Jim Miller is a special fighter to me, he’s a red head, which I think are hot, and the first time I went to Boston Pizza for a UFC fight with Emperor EJ and Dakota Bubble he was in the first fight. Saturday night he was fighting Nate Diaz for the chance to fight against the belt older of their weight class. If you couldn’t tell already I only have half knowledge of the UFC, I don’t get into all the back story I just like to watch the fights and so far all I’ve figured out about weight classes is that the heavy weights are like slow moving tanks and the bantam weight class most of the guys there need a burger. 

The fight was actually on Fox, but Dakota and Emperor don’t have cable so we live streamed it. What I liked about live streaming it now is that during the commercials on TV on UFC.com they now have trivia and tweets from the fighters before the fight. The tweets though should only be on there during the first commercial since the same tweets are shown over and over and over again, the trivia is fun though. 

This is also the third fight we’ve watched from the Fox network and I have some helpful hints. First the Statue of Liberty is in New York not New Jersey, which is where the fight was taking place, and I’m a Canadian looking at that and going WTF? I can’t even imagine what people in the states were saying. If the stadium that the fight is in isn’t as big as some of the stadiums that the championship fights are happening don’t do a fly over shot from so far out, zoom in a little so the stadium doesn’t look so tiny. And my number one issue with Fox Sports which is about to drive me bonkers, could someone at the network go out to any office or computer supply store and get the announcers sitting behind a desk some mic stands! Seeing these guys sitting around a desk and holding their own mics just drive me nuts! Either that lose the table and make them stand it would look less pathetic.

Unfortunately Miller didn’t win, it was a good fight though & Nate Diaz was the first person ever to submit Miller and how he did it was both impressive and gross, Miller accidently bit his tongue while he was being submitted.

Fun night with friends all around.

Health Expo

On Saturday myself, my mother and my mother’s twin all went to the Health Expo down that the Direct Energy Centre. The Health Expo was open to the public for free and it was also where anyone who was participating in the Goodlife Toronto Marathon was registering and getting their digital chips activated, and whatever else you have to do before a marathon. 

As usual these past few weeks there’s a story just on getting down there. We would normally go to Union Station and take the 509 or 510 streetcar down to exhibition place. When we arrived at Union station the area for the streetcars was blocked off, I’m assuming for construction, so we had to go out of the station and up to the street level to get a shuttle bus. Normally just a quick adjustment for a regular TTC rider, you know bus for streetcar in your head, but when we got to around Bathurst we had to get off the bus and get onto another street car. I have no idea why they couldn’t just stick with one or the other on the route.

When we arrived at the Expo we got a nice little bag packed full of energy bars, ads, a magazine, some stickers and a nice little coupon for two free admissions to the ProHealExpo in Aug, can’t wait for that. We now have a nice bowl packed full of energy bars on our dining room table.

Once through the door we entered a contest with Goodlife, that booth I have an issue with, there was only one entrance and exit for the Expo and right after you went through the doors you had to walk right through this Goodlife booth, plus with everyone coming in and entering this contest and getting a little freebie, I got some lip balm, it was just way too crowded at the front.

After we finished up with the Goodlife booth we went systematically through the booths, one row at a time, I find it the best way to cover every booth and make sure you don’t miss anything. The Health Expo was about one third of the Green Living Show so that did help on time, we were all at the Green Living Show for about six hours, we were only at the Health Expo for about two maybe three hours. We tried a lot of protein drinks, shakes, and bars, we also had some boxed coconut water, I’m not a big fan of coconut to begin with, except in a pinna calada, and I hate it. My mom and her twin got a complimentary hand massage from a booth selling organic had lotions; they both enjoyed it, unfortunately for me my eczema was kind of acting up so I didn’t get it done. Molson Canadian had a booth, they gave away coupons for a free six pack of their 67 beer, you know the diet beer, I’m guessing they aren’t doing as well as they thought with that brand. There was a booth for Weight Watchers, they gave out samples of chips they have. My mom was first successful with her weight loss through Weight Watchers.

There were a few things that I noticed at the Health Expo, there were a lot of protein dinks, shakes and bars, there were a few booths telling you that the water you’re drinking is terrible, even if it’s filtered you need their hydration water, I’m not even going to try to explain that one. There was a lot of overpriced clothes and equipment, yeah there’s equipment besides shoes for runners. There was even a booth dedicated to protecting your bare feet, they were selling socks.  And there were about four or five booths for chiropractors there. I have nothing against chiropractors, one helped me deal with some of my back issues when even my doctor couldn’t help, but doe one little expo need five booths for them? If they all got together and had one booth under like the chiropractic board of Canada or whatever kind of association they have would have made way more sense.

It was a great Expo though, lots of free stuff, lots of coupons for me to use. I wonder which expo or show we’re going to next?

3rd Week of Running

I’m finding it a little harder just to get the 3 runs in a week I need. This weekend has been so busy I couldn’t make up the 3^rd run. I will say that I found the 1^st of the my 90 sec runs easier and I am running further, but the more I run on the more I feel like I’m going to die! I had my 1^st experience with shin splints, god those are awful. I had gotten new shoes on the weekend and tried them out on my Monday run, that’s when I got shin splints, on Tuesday I was just trying to walk in them, mind you this is with my mom so I might as well have been running, and I got a cramp in my foot. I didn’t really know those were possible, but if it’s possible to hurt your body in a strange way I will find it, and I did. On Wed I got another run in and that one I did much better in & then the rest of the week and weekend were booked solid. Hopefully this week I’ll get all three runs in.

Avengers Midnight Showing.....in 3D!

First of all I'll just start out by saying that the Avengers movie was AWEEEEESSSSSOME!!!!!!!! Ok on to the night.

A few hours before I even headed out to the movie last night there was a huge rain storm, strangely when I actually left my apartment it wasn't raining, but the lightening hadn't stopped though. While I was standing in the bus shelter waiting for the bus it started to rain again, pour actually. Funny though there were a few guys who were walking towards the shelter when the rain started, now two of them stood outside the shelter, but pressed up against the shelter because they were smoking, which I was very thankful for, but it just looked so funny! So the bus arrived & I was on my way, as I rode the bus I watched the lightening I thought it was quite fitting for the movie I was off to see, for one of the characters anyways. When I got down to York Mills station I heard an announcement for a delay on the subway at Osgood station, which is right where I was going. Luckily by the time I got to the platform though it was cleared up. I got to ride on the new train, which I still get excited to do since I don't take the subway daily at the moment. After I had gone about 3 stops there was another announcement about a train delay at College station, apparently they were having door issues on a train there, but luckily it was cleared up just as quickly as the other issue. After that the train ride was very peaceful. When I arrived at Osgood station and met up with my cousin we went outside & the rain storm had gone down to spitting at that point, which was nice. 

We were seeing the 12:20pm show & we arrived at Scotia Bank theatre about 11:15pm, they had already let the line up in the theatre. Along with our theatre I saw the UltraAVX, the IMAX, and at least 3 other theatres showing Avengers. It was a great vibe in the theatre, I love opening night showings. I played TimePlay for the first time, that's so much fun & a great marketing tool I love that Cineplex came up with it, it's awesome. Sidetrack there, so the actual movie I am not going to spoil cause there is just too much awesomeness & there are so many little jokes & plot twists that you just have to sit and watch the ride, trust me. If you know any of Joss Wheadon's stuff, Buffy, Angel, Firefly then you know he can throw humour in places you didn't think you would have it. Also Joss Whedon is great with ensemble casts & as I've been watching the commercials and previews there was a feeling that Robert Downing Jr was going to totally steal the movie, which honestly nobody I know would have had a problem with since we all love Iron Man, but he didn't. There were great scenes with Iron Man, there were great scenes with Captain America, and there were great scenes pretty much all around. There is just so much in the movie that is funny, heartfelt and exciting. And in this movie I have finally made peace with Samuel Jackson as Fury. It's a personal thing since I love Fury in the comics and I thought he was doing well there was just something I wasn't quite satisfied with, but after this he is Nick Fury, totally. I love Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye & I'm glad they went with Hawkeye, I've been watching the Avengers cartoon & Hawkeye it that is also hilarious.

One of the things I love about midnight showing is that the fans are the ones out in droves, and that they cheer and laugh hysterically during the movie. Now my cousin can attest to this, but I started some of the clapping in our theatre last night. There were a couple of scenes that I started clapping for then the whole theatre erupted, it was just so easy I did it twice at the beginning & I got the crowd going a few more times during the movie, & sometimes when there was clapping going on I would shout out as well & that would just get everyone yelling out as well. It was such a fun night.

Also stay right to the end of the credits, a lot of people got up and left but there is something awesome at the end.

2nd Week of Running

Last week was a bust, so this will be a sort post. I started off Monday looking forward to the run, unfortunately the weather didnt' agree with me, it was raining. I went out with my mom & aunt anyways and ran for a bit in the rain, but I was cold & wet & all my muscles decided that they didn't want to work properly, so we called it a day after 20 mins. Tuesday was even worst so there was no run, not even a walk. Wednesday I got ready for a walk but ended up being felled by my stomach, which decided it didn't want to work properly. Thursday I had to go out to Centennial College to get some information to help me go to school in September & then Friday I went out shopping & got new running shoes, & yesterday day....well see previous post for that information. Today is family dinner & then tomorrow hopefully I will be out again running. I'm determined to do this & I'm determined to run a marathon & I am a Taurus so I can be pretty damned stubborn when it comes to some things.

Trip to Oshawa

I should begin with a little background, I have lived in, first East York, then North York & then Toronto after the amalgamation, but pretty much in and around Toronto. I worked right downtown, Yonge & Dundas for years & then later up at Yonge & Eglinton, but I haven't to been very many trips outside of the city in Ontario. I've been to Ottawa, which I loved (politics), been to Kingston, Niagara On the Lake, Pickering, Whitby & like pretty much everybody in southern Ontario I've been to Niagara Falls. In Canada I've been to Corner Brook, NFLD, North Sydney, Cape Breton, NS, Wolfville, NS, New Minus, NS Halifax, NS & I lived in Windsor, NS, for a year, I did drive through Montreal so I was technically there. I really pride myself on being Canadian, it's such a deep part of me when I returned from living in FL for 6 months I almost cried at seeing our flag. With that pride I know I want to see more of my country, but not always the typical places that people see, Montreal, Vancouver, Toronto, I want to see the small towns, the history the diversity. That's the background to my motivation for going out to Oshawa today, the reason is much simpler.
My good friend Dakota Bubble had an interview with a non-profit for a volunteer position, I tagged along with her boyfriend Emperor EJ so he wouldn't be bored out of his skull waiting for her, which we weren't. We took GO transit out of Scarborough Town Centre, we passed through Pickering, Ajax, Durham, & Whitby, we saw a bit of there downtown's as we passed through. I would say the thing I was surprised about as we passed through the town was the porn shops along this route. Maybe whoever came up with the GO route is a connoisseur of porn? Once we arrived in Oshawa & after Dakota Bubble had eaten myself & Emperor EJ set off in search of a Dollarama, yes we are adventures (Emperor EJ was looking for something specific, which we never found). On our walk out to Dollarama (which we found thanks to google maps on Emperor EJ's phone. Yes I'm still impressed with stuff like that) we walked by Oshawa's Memorial Park. I didn't get a photo of that, which I should have, it has a good size band stand with permeate metal bench's in front of it, there is a statue of a solider on the corner honoring the fallen of the town, also on the side of  the bandstand were murals depicting the major wars that Canada has fought in starting from WWI. Along the streets in Oshawa like all towns were fire hydrants, except they don't look like any fire hydrants I've seen before, here's what I mean:

Each fire hydrant was painted differently, there was one that had wild cats on it, one just looked like someones are supplies threw up on it. Something else they have a lot of was murals, there were the one's on the side of the band stand, down a side street we walked by & this one on the side of a building.

Along with the murals, the fire hydrants and just quite small town feel we found some other things there. Yes me & Emperor EJ found a comic book store. Yeah we're geeks & we of course stumbled across the comic book store, I bough Uncanny X-Men First Class & Emperor EJ picked up a Walking Dead lunch box. The one thing I loved about this comic book shop was everything was pretty much on discount, the trade books were $10.00 & the hardcovers were $15.00. If I had a much larger bag with me & a stronger back, I would have stuffed half of their Marvel collection into my bag & gone home with it. I was disappointed I couldn't find Deadpool comics. Also we stumbled across a Donair place. Now for anyone not from the East Coast of Canada & I'm going to say specifically Nova Scotia & New Brunswick since my mom's side is from Newfoundland & I've never heard them mention it before, & I have no idea about PEI, Donair's are spiced beef that you have on a bun with lettuce, tomato, onion & a special kind of sauce. I'm unsure which is more important, the sauce or the meat. My whole time in Nova Scotia I didnt' try one but the guy at the shop gave me a little sample of his meat & sauce & I can understand liking it, the obsession? I'm not sure about that, we'll see. So the shop is called Down East Donairs: A Maritime Tradition, the place has only been open since Dec of last year & the place were he's set up shop even feels a little East Coastish, the building he's in is painted a nice pastel colour & the doors & window farms are all painted white, kinda looks like some of the postcards that come out of Newfoundland. He's on Twitter if anyone wants to follow him, search DownEastDonairs, I'm not 100% if that's it.
When we returned from Oshawa we went to Dakota Bubble & Emperor EJ's place & had Chinese takeout from Mandarin & watched Iron Man 2 & Captain America. It was an awesome way to end a fun day. I would like to take more trips to the towns around Toronto. Stay tuned there may be more posts coming through out the summer & I promise more photo's next time.

Fight Night & the Worst Time We've Ever Had at Boston Pizza

So I should start off by saying that I'm not trying to diss Boston Pizza & I really do believe in telling people about good service since most people do just bitch and complain on-line & I've worked in customer service for over 10 years so I do give waiters & other service people a pretty wide berth when it comes to serving me, but Saturday night was one just the perfect storm of what can go wrong in a restaurant going wrong.

On Saturday night I went to Boston Pizza with my friends Emperor EJ, Dakota Bubble and P. We were all looking forward to the Jon Jones fight & so it would seem were half the people in Toronto. I ended up getting to the restaurant 1^st around 9:20pm, I had completely forgot about the NHL playoffs, so the place was packed when I got there I had to go on a waiting list. I waited for about 20 mins or so & I had written down some entertaining things that I was going to blog about people waiting, however with what happened that night, the entertaining people in the doorway were almost completely forgotten. I got a booth and just as I did everyone else showed up. We sat down, looked through our menu’s, talked, watched a few prelim fights and then realised it had been almost 15 mins & we hadn’t had one waiter come over and say hi or ask for drinks. We were starting to get antsy then, we piled all out menus in the middle of the table, hoping someone would notice since we couldn’t’ even seem to get a waiter near our table. Luckily the manager who was walking around the restaurant all the time, & we’ve talked with him before & he’s a really good manager from what I can see, noticed us and came over apologized for a waiter not coming by, there had been some mix-up and he would make sure that a waiter came by. We got our waiter, Sean, nice guy really friendly, said if we needed him just to flag him down and all that. We ordered everything right away because we were ready too. Now Boston Pizza has a feature menu on right now that features the all-meat wings. So P & Emperor EJ ordered the Nacho Wings and the Fire Cracker Shrimp & tried to order these bacon wrapped steak, they were told that the restaurant was out of the bacon wrapped steak, which looked sooooo goooood. However we did see the dish twice that night on other people’s plates long after we had asked for it. It was about 10-15 mins before we finally got our drinks, which as the night went on was a short time. Anyways after we got our drinks we watched some of the fights, the 1^st one was Canadian vs. Canadian, which made me wonder where the fights were, Georgia apparently. It was pretty funny to see George St-Pierre (GSP) there as a water boy for 2 of the Canadians, good to see him though, he does look a lot smaller then when he’s in fighting condition, but still superhot. Back to Sean, so when he came back to refill my water & Dakota’s pop, he went to go grab the refills and he seemed to be gone for a while, but when he came back he had a pitcher of water and a pitcher of pop for us, apparently he couldn’t find any glasses, on the other hand it was a brilliant idea since he didn’t’ have to come back to the table very often. After getting the pitcher it was another 20 mins before we got out dinner. Sean wasn’t the one who brought us our food, other waiters did, I however did not get mine. When Sean came back & asked how everything was I could not resist and said ‘I would love to eat’ and pointed to the empty space on the table in front of me. Also we had to ask for forks and knives, luckily everyone else had ordered finger food, and Dakota is on a nacho kick right now. When Sean returned he informed me that somehow my pasta had vanished. Now because of this & the terrible start to the evening the manager had pulled off one of the dishes from our menu and then my pasta, the end result was about $23 off the menu, we split it between us all. But when we got the bill they had forgotten to take off the two dishes.  In the end Jon Jones is still the champion & we’ll probably still go to this Boston Pizza.

1st Week of Running

One of my life goals is to run a marathon, however I am a bit of a big girl, I'm currently hovering around 200lbs. So that I can meet that goal, and also because there is a wedding in the family coming up, I've gone to a dietitian who's helping me with my bad eating habits  and I'm getting weighed, right now, every two weeks, and I've started running. Now since I've never run like this before I'm not just going out & running until I pass out I'm doing it with this great article couch to 5k. My aunt used the same program when she starting running a few years ago, and she's in her 50's, I'm in my early 30's. I started Monday, the 1st few little runs were really hard and I lost my breath easily. Tuesday I hurt everywhere, I really do mean everywhere. I didn't go for a Wednesday, I went out on Wednesday (To see where I went check it out here), so Thursday was my next run day. Thursday it was much easier to run & even right after the run I didn't hurt, Friday I didn't hurt either. Today I ran again, I was with my aunt, who had walking sticks, and my mom, who was walking my brother's dog, who thinks he's still a puppy. Every time I would start to run the dog would try to run after me & because he's kind of big he would almost drag my mom with him. Again it was a little bit easier & because it was cold outside I wore a sweater, which I had to take off for a bit. Now though for some reason my arm hurts, that might not be because of the running though. After the run, I had a shower, had a salad, & then took a nap, I was so tired. From this 1st week of running I'm hopeful for next week. I just have a few notes for myself, 1 ALWAYS remember to stretch, I've really got to get that through my head, I forgot the first day so I'm not surprised that I hurt so much on Tuesday. 2 Make sure there is enough water for the whole run, Monday I ran out & that sucked. 3 Invest in a new sports bra soon. I'm poor right now and I'm using an old sports bra I got a few years ago, I have rather large breasts (DDD) and they bounce around a little more than I would like. 4 Look up runners diets & talk to my dietitian about them. Right now I've added more  vegetables to my diet and I've heard that runners usually have a heavy protean diet, I want to make sure I'm doing it right so that it doesn't bite me in the ass later.

The Pirates! Band of Misfits 3D

So last night I saw a preview of The Pirates! Band of Misfits at the Tiff Bell Lightbox with my cousin and his fiance. It’s by the same people that brought everyone Wallace & Gromet, Chicken Run & the Curse of the Wererabbit. It was really funny and really well done, of course. And the surprise for me was that the director of the movie Peter Lord was there for a Q & A.
 I had won the tickets off of twitter from Vinci Genius. From the Q & A we found out that the movie was inspired by a book called Pirates and Scientists. It supposedly takes place in 1837, as you find out in the 1^st scene. The main character of the movie is Pirate Captain, really that’s his name. The other pirates from his crew have equally cool names like Albino Pirate, the Pirate who likes kittens and the pirate with gout. I don’t want to go through the whole plot cause well that would ruin the movie for everyone, so I’ll talk about look. With the 3D it totally takes you into the sets of this stop animation movie, the details are so vivid even with being fantastically you believe it. Also whenever the Pirates are traveling long distances across the ocean they change to an old style map with little cupids on the edges, sea monsters and also the boat has a little trouble getting over a crease on the map.

The voice actors were great as well with Hugh Grant as the lead as Pirate Captain.  The voice actor I was so excited to hear was David Tennant, if you don’t know I love Doctor Who & my personal battle between who is my Doctor is a whole nother blog, David Tennant was Charles Darwin. Just take that thought in for a moment. And as I’ve always found with David Tennant you can’t really tell it’s him. For me it was probably the fact that he was using something closer to his actual accent that made it a little harder to see the Doctor through the animation. Another historical figure in the film was Queen Victoria, but not like a Queen Victoria I think most people have seen before. I always think of Queen Victoria as strong but a fair Queen, in this movie even right at the beginning you’re a little scared of her or creeped out, one or the other. The plot twists just with Queen Victoria are really interesting & defiantly not where I thought that movie was going at all.

The director had brought along with him Pirate Captain & Polly, his parrot, which was cool to see. After the Q & A he stayed around to answer some more questions and to talk to some fans. Now this is the last week of the kids festival at Tiff & there were a lot of kids there & the director was great with them, listening to each of their questions and answering them in a way that they would understand. We got his autograph & our photo taken with him. I love meeting people who get to do something they love & have some sort of fame but appreciate their fans. It was a great night out for sure. I love Tiff events there are so many things going on there.

Now I just got to figure out where to put the autograph so that it doesn't get ruined.

Under Contstruction

So I was off Blogger for a while & now that I'm back I'm going through my template, the different gadgets I have and trying to figure out what I want the look to be. Because of all this the look of my blog is going to change from day to day & sometimes from hour to hour so don't be too alarmed, or at least not too annoyed.
Thanks!
I promise to stop soon.

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The Green Living Show

Today I went with my mom & aunt to the Green Living Show here in Toronto. It was at the Direct Energy Centre & it was apperenlty where every school in the city had sent their kids today. When we were walking by the parking lot we spotted the busses, I didn't think they would be there, but I should know better. Other than the massive amount of young ones I smacked in the head with my bag today it was a good day. One of my favorite parts was the 'Fresh Food Market'. There were about 10 vendors with mini samples of local and organic foods that they were selling, salads, soups, & some desserts. For $10.00 you got 5 vouchers to use. My aunt got some organic coffee, myself & my mom split our food between us, we had a peanut bean sprot salad, a 'Ontario' salad, which all the differnt things in the salad were from Ontario, also we had an apple crisp with local apples & sweet potato donuts, which were my favorite. Along with the food we paid for we got a lot of samples, greek yogurt, pasta sauce, pesto, organic milk, homemade pop, bread, and more stuff than I can remember. Along with all the food there were a lot of beauty prodcuts avalible and a lot of ways to improve your house to keep your power bills down. It was a little strange to see things like Porche & Lexus right next to the people selling organic fair trade coffee. With the size of this show you can see how popular that the green movement is. The fact that there are little home grown companies right next to the big ones & both are looking for your money and the little compines are usually winning out in this kinds of places shows that there are a lot of things that the larger companies have to fix & with how scarce everyones' money is these days consumers are getting pickier & doing way more research into where they're going to spend the money. All and all a good day, so tired now.