Month: November 2009

Traditions and Wishes and a Well-Dressed Little Tree

It’s officially Advent tomorrow – even if it’s not quite December, but that pretty much means I can now unashamedly inundate you with posts about Christmas!  (Okay, maybe just this one. MAYBE another one closer to the 25th.)

Sweet finally caved after I’d wrapped 2/3 of our presents and they’d been piled on the coffee table for weeks, and let me put up our little tree.  I’ve never had a real tree like my friends, or an 8 ft high pre-lit monster of festivity to take over the room like my dad  – but my little 4 ft one comes out of its box every year, perches on a table with a little red tablecloth, an excited Rose Kitten pawing at it, and gets decorated with baubles and bows from the dollar store (goodness, I’m starting to sound like Charlie Brown here).  This Christmas may be our second one together, but it’s our first proper one living together in our own little house, so I decided the tree deserved an upgrade.

We bought a nice big long string of lights – the twinkly, warm, environmentally unfriendly ones because they’re so much more cosy than the LEDs.  We bought Proper Decorations that cost more than a two dollars.  (Except they came without hooks or strings – point?? – so we had to improvise with paperclips.  I swear that’s the only ghetto part of the tree this year.)  We bought bows and garlands and even some really meaningful ornaments that’ll serve to remind us how blessed we are, and to do what we can to help others.   I lucked out on amazing wrapping paper and spent an evening curling ribbons to a collection of indie Christmas music (I’m allowed to bring out the indie versions before December – I’m hoping to get around to posting a mini indie Christmas mix! – but next week, bring on Josh Groban).

My dad always asks me for a Christmas list every year, and the last couple of years, my lists have really made me feel like I’m getting old!  Over the last couple of Christmases I’ve asked for (and received!) an electric hand mixer, canisters to store teabags and sugar, a crock pot, a rice cooker, and a sewing machine.  What happened to gizmos and music and makeup and clothes?  Looking at this year’s list, I tried to make things a little less quarter-life crisis and a little more fun.

This Star Trek T-shirt from the amazing ThinkGeek.com.  Or just a gift voucher for their whole online shop, because everything is way too awesome.  Especially the office supplies 🙂  This Doctor Who one is pretty cool too.

The most amazing USB hub ever:

Yes, I found it on giftsforblokes.com – I don’t care!! I want one!

Books!  Audrey Niffenegger’s Her Fearful Symmetry, Terry Pratchett’s new one The Unseen Academicals, Nick Hornby’s Juliet, Naked and The Lovely Bones are all on my wishlist.  I plan on reading way more in 2010 than I did this year, and these all sound like very good books to take with me to the Dominican in January.

Games! Because Sweet and I live together now, we can get each other something we’ll actually use together: A WII. So I asked for rock band and karaoke revolution.

A cheap laptop, so I can go be a Starbucks blogger, a ceramic curling iron, ‘cause I’ve never owned a curling iron and I think it’d be fun, and gift vouchers for restaurants, because nothing beats a nice night out.  Not a utensil in sight!

Now we’re living together, we’re also starting our first holiday traditions.  Last year we snuggled in my little apartment and watched Love, Actually (incidentally the first movie we ever saw together at the cinema) and The Polar Express next to our little ghetto tree.  I also made a batch of hot butter rum batter for warm drinks.  We’ll be doing the same this year, and throwing in a holiday (/engagement, since we never had one) party with friends, drinks, games and good times – and one year to go until we officially tie the knot this time next year!  I love starting traditions, and I love the anticipation of them when December approaches.  A personal one of mine every year?  Cranking up No Use for a Name’s punk rock cover of the best Christmas song ever.

What are some of your holiday traditions? And what’s on your list this year?

In the spirit of Thanksgiving…

In the spirit of all the American Thanksgiving-inspired posts I’ve seen recently, even though we had our own Thanksgiving a month ago (complete with microwave turkey and dropped pie all over the oven), I feel inspired to write a Thanksgiving post of my own. 

It’s interesting when you look back on your life over the last couple of years and see how much has changed.  How difficult situations, at the time, seemed so arduous and complicated; taking big steps involved cutting ties, getting rid of the comfortable and easy and moving on toward the different and new.  It’s been a tumultuous couple of years, but I’ve landed with a handful of people who make me feel like life’s amazing. 

I’m thankful for my fiancé, who came back after years of not seeing each other, took a chance on me at a time when it would’ve been easier to say no (though my persistence may have played a small part in this) – he was working fifteen hour days six days a week, and seeing me the one free night of the week meant he had to give up church, time with his family and time with his friends.  I’m thankful he stuck with me when my confidence had been destroyed along with my self-esteem; while I was unable to believe somebody could ever care about me, and while I was afraid of absolutely everything.  I’m thankful for everything he’s taught me, about faith, about relationships, and about gratitude – not a day goes by without him giving thanks for the country we live in, the people we have in our lives, and the blessings we really do have, even when life seems hard.  Through him I’ve become a better person – more secure, more benevolent, and more confident.  And for this I am truly thankful.

I’m thankful for my best friend, who funnily enough also was in my life years ago, and came back after years of being out of touch.  We’d fallen out over something stupid, and at the lowest point of my life, following an enormous break up, I was sceptical I could ever live independently again.  I’d poured all my energy into a horribly abusive co-dependency as a result of my own insecurity, and I had no idea how to function in the real world.  In a recent conversation, she said I’d been like “a paper bird, literally trembling, and jangling cups and saucers as I’d pour her tea”.  She came back into my life during my biggest low, and I truly believe she rescued me. She took me under her wing and slowly brought me back to life.  I’d never been cared for like that before, and I owe who I am today hugely to her kindness and friendship.  I’m incredibly thankful for someone I know is going to be there for life.

I’m thankful for the wonderful relationship I have with my dad.  We’ve gone through some extremely difficult times together, and he’s been the constant in my life that’s helped me get through absolutely anything.  I couldn’t imagine life without him and I’m lucky to have been blessed with such an incredible man I get to call Dad.

I’m thankful that in a world of technology, incredible authors are still churning out fabulous stories, wonderful writing, and books that allow my imagination to soar further than any movie could.   Though on that note, I’m also thankful for the technology that allows me to stay in touch with my friends and family back home, to watch all those wonderful BBC programmes, and to listen daily to my beloved Radio 1 and not feel quite so homesick.

I’m thankful I got the opportunity to work where I do now.  My term may be coming to an end, but even if I don’t get extended, I’m thankful I was given this opportunity.  I’ve grown more in the eleven months I’ve worked here than I ever have in any other job, and I’ve formed friendships I know will last beyond my time here.  People have supported me and pushed me out of my comfort zone, seeing my potential and capability when I haven’t been able to see it myself.  I’m in a better place because of my experience here, and for that I am truly thankful.

I’m thankful for the awful relationship experiences I had in the past – they forced me to really figure out who I was, who I wanted to be, and were invaluable life lessons.  If I hadn’t gone through the crap, I would never have been motivated to live any differently, and I look back on it all as an opportunity to learn and grow to get to where I am today.

I’m thankful for all my new bloggy friends! For everyone who reads, comments, and emails when I’m going through something good or bad, for those people scattered around the world who check in and read my blog, and whose friendship is becoming very real – I’m thankful I found you, and I can’t wait to keep reading and being a part of your lives as much as you are mine.  

Things can be pretty bad sometimes, but when you take a moment to really count your blessings, life can seem truly wonderful.   Happy Thanksgiving to everyone south of the border!

Cowell’s Stranglehold?

Recently, there’s been an outburst of attacks on smash UK reality show The X Factor.  For those not in England, the show’s basically American Idol, but good.  Four judges (including Mr. Cowell) each mentor a category (Girls, Boys, Groups, and Over 25s), pitted against each other for their act to win the competition.  They go through initial auditions in front of thousands, bootcamp at the judges’ homes, and lives shows on an enormous stage with pyrotechnics, smoke and confetti cascades.  Winner gets a hundred thousand pound recording contract, and total world domination (Leona Lewis, anyone?). 

I’ve been watching faithfully for years now, and I suddenly feel like a minority in a war between the masses.  There’s the pop-loving, Britney-singing X Factor faithfuls who’ll buy anything remotely connected to the show (and whose musical taste is determined solely by who’s currently at the top of the charts, and who they heard in the club last weekend).  Then there’s the other half – the recent outburst of celebrities giving a voice to the music snobs (hey, I’m a music snob too, I’m allowed to say that), Sting for one claiming the show is a “soap opera which has nothing to do with music”, and Calvin Harris, who crashed another awful “Jedward” (two bratty little tone-deaf twin brothers who jump about the stage, rapping to Queen songs) performance, running across the stage with a pineapple clutched to his head.  

His aim was to vocalise the growing concern of the state of the music industry.  In recent years, we’ve seen incredible artists emerging out of the UK, but now, in Harris’s words, “it’s like a frightening stranglehold that Simon Cowell has got over the entire music chart in the UK at the moment.”  

Growing up, the phenomenon of the Christmas number one was something exciting to look forward to. After the turkey, presents and mince pies were done with, the family would gather around the TV to watch Top of the Pops, and see who’d won the battle of the charts for the all important top spot.  Since X Factor inception, the spot’s been a guaranteed win for whoever comes out of the show on top, or the annual charity single sung by the year’s top twelve contestants (always a cover, always a ballad, always so horribly Westlife). 

I love the X Factor.  I think it’s great entertainment, not to be taken too seriously, and a fun way of spending your Saturday night in the cold leadup to Christmas.  I’m also passionate about British music, and hate to see publicity taken away from real, talented musicians struggling to make it in a world dominated by reality TV.  I’m not going to stop watching the show.  But I’m not going to stop supporting the little guys, either.

Heroes

What constitutes a hero?

As a child, my hero was probably either Captain Jean-Luc Picard, or someone named Saracen/Zodiac/Wolf/Unicorn/Trojan off of Gladiators (yes, really – was there a Trojan in US Gladiators?), and as a teenager, my heroes grew into those of the English language.  I devoured all the Shakespeare I could, used Peake in an art project, and memorised Chaucer by heart.  As an adult, my heroes once again changed.  No longer celebrities or people who passed away hundreds of years ago, today I look up to people who simply desire to change the world.

According to the dictionary, the primary definition of ‘hero’ (in a non-sandwich related sense) is “a man of great strength and courage”, with a further definition of “someone admired for his qualities or achievements, and regarded as an ideal or model”.   Now, there are a lot of people out there who use their talents, morals and dedication to make a positive difference in the world, and significantly less caped, muscular crusaders zipping about the skies battling evil, and I think these people ought to be given a lot of credit.  Heroes of the written word and the silver screen may have battled monsters and other terrible foes, but they did it for the sake of others.  Translate it to the real world, and your everyday heroes may not be the strongest, handsomest, butt-kickingest demon-slayers, but courage, altruism and grace are certainly transferable skills.

So my heroes today are people that change the world.  People who volunteer for hours on end for a cause to help the less fortunate.  People who give up their Christmases to give the homeless food and somewhere warm to eat it.  The kind-hearted geniuses that came up with It Starts With Us, and everyone who carries out every single one of their weekly missions.  People who go on great feats of endurance to raise money for charity, and people who decide to use their talents to make the world a better place.

One of the people who’ve made my world a better place is author Neil Gaiman.

In a world where future generations of kids will develop arthritis and obesity sitting in front of televisions and computer screens, he churns out literary ingenuity, satiates our appetite for imagination and transports us to other worlds full of fantastic characters that’ll have you begging for his next book two birthdays before its publication date.  He’ll lead you through familiar places – the London underground, an American road trip, give you a relatable protagonist (a young Scottish businessman, maybe, who helps a girl on the street, or perhaps a recently released convict, let out early on account of the death of his wife), add in centuries worth of folklore, cultural symbols and mythology and transport you on journeys you’ll never forget.  There’s not a whiff of a wizard or a dragon that give the realm of fantasy such a stereotype, but his wit, intellect and sheer imagination make him a master of the genre.  I’ve loved Neil Gaiman for years now, loved him for all the times he’s made me rush home or cancel plans just so I could savour another journey into the impossible, and loved him for everything he’s left for generations to come.

And this afternoon, I found out he was coming to Winnipeg.  I read the words and my initial reaction was to scream, however managed to temporarily stifle my exhilaration by quickly holding my breath.  I couldn’t hold it in, so I quickly did some laps around the office and did everything I could not to skip through reception.  NEIL F***ING GAIMAN IS COMING TO WINNIPEG.  You never think you’ll actually meet your hero – so what the heck do you say if you do?  I met someone from Star Trek a few years ago at a convention (hush), and naturally proceeded to clam up, turn beet red and squeal something unintelligible while he signed a photograph for me.  I don’t want to make an even bigger arse of myself in front of the most talented and respectable man in the world.

So if you had the chance to meet your hero, what the devil would you say to them?

Who really likes being stuck in traffic anyway?

Traffic

This weekend I had an interesting conversation with my best friend about blogging. She’s been blogging for a year and a half, updates on schedule like a fiend, and averages at least 35 comments a day. I’ve been writing for five years, and am lucky to get 3 or 4 per post. I’m in the blogging communities. My posts automatically show up on my Facebook page after I’m done writing. I visit at least 15 blogs, and comment, at least every other day. So why don’t people care? I asked my friend what the trick was. Her response took me by surprise – why do you care?

I’ve always thought I was a pretty good writer – in school I was the A+ English student who read Jane Eyre for fun and actually looked forward to writing 15 page essays on the corruption of the church in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. I subscribed to endless Word-a-Day emails, and carried a thesaurus around to improve my writing while I was on the go. I loved the English language, and I loved to write.

Looking back in my archives, I was a terrible blogger. I’ve obliterated all posts about my Series of Unfortunate Relationships, and what’s left is the remnants of my post-teenage rambling about nothing of any substance at all. Only in recent years have I actually started to write, instead of keeping an online diary. I write about intense emotional experiences I’m having in regards to my personal growth, my dreams, pain and persistence. I write about my opinions on current events, music and movies. I write about things I’ll look back on and actually care about.

So why do you care about traffic?

The question took me completely by surprise. I thought about it for a few days, and came to several conclusions:

  • A few weeks ago, over lunch with a coworker, she asked me why I was pushing myself out of being an introvert and into the spotlight, when clearly it made me uncomfortable. I told her “because I used to be able to” – and looking back on my life, she made me realise a lot of what I’ve done, I’ve done for the approval of others. Singing in a band, going to stage school, putting on talent shows – I enjoyed doing all of them, but I enjoyed being told I was good at something more. This is something I’ve only recently realised, but holds a lot of truth. I love to write, but I love being good at it, so naturally a lack of traffic would cause discomfort.
  • I’m an INFJ.  Apparently the rarest of the personality types, the description of it fits me to a tee. We are crushed by too much criticsm and can have their feelings hurt rather easily. They respond to praise and use approval as a means of motivating others, just as they, the INFJs are motivated by approval
  • Having switched from a boring “this is my life” blogger to one who writes about things I actually care about, I guess I had the expectation that other people would too. Fact of the matter is, the Blogging World is just like the Real World. There are people who rule it, who can post about the contents of their bowel movements and still have a hundred responses, and there are people who can write about morality and politics, psychology and the human mind, about growth and inspiration… and get absolutely nowhere. I never did that great in the Real World; I grew up feeling kind of an outcast and today I can count my friends on one hand. So naturally my blogging experience draws a parallel.
  • I don’t like schedules. I don’t like deadlines, and I don’t like planning things out and working on them weeks ahead of time if I can just put them off ‘til whenever I feel like them (this has been recently illustrated in my recent attempts at a bible study; my friend is diligent and excited to stay on the 5-night-a-week schedule, while I get to Sunday and try and cram everything in in one go). Maybe this sets me up for failure in terms of ever being a successful blogger with piles of responses and thoughts every entry. But I think I care more about doing it my way.
  • I’m not on Twitter! It seems every blogger and their dog is on Twitter, and it’s something I just can’t bring myself to devote that much time and energy to. One week from now, I’m not going to care about what I was doing at 10:12 am on Monday morning, and I don’t expect anyone else to, either.

So maybe I’m spelling my own doom. But I’m going to keep writing, about what I want to write about, whenever inspiration strikes. It’s my blog, after all. And if, along the way, somebody’s motivated to respond… it’ll bring a pretty big smile to my day (I made somebody’s actual blogroll the other day, and almost fell off my chair).

And besides, I can’t be that rubbish. I just got signed up to write for an online music magazine.  And that makes me very happy indeed.

Heartbreak

Sometimes I just absolutely hate being a part of this world.  I try and fill my life and as many other people’s as I can with optimism and positivity, but when I see things like this I just about die inside.

I received the email from my PETA subscription, and I can’t even describe how hard it is to read about things like that.  I know animal cruelty goes on in this world.  I know people kick their dogs and tie cats in bags and throw them into the river.  I know chicks get their beaks chopped off so they can squeeze more of them into confined spaces without them pecking each other to death.  The thought of every one of these things breaks my heart and when I saw the article yesterday, I spent most of last night in tears, with my poor boy trying to console me.  

Last week we were driving down a residential street, and we saw what looked like a guy kick and hit his dog.  We couldn’t stop, but if I’d been driving I would have pulled a 180, got out of the car and started screaming at him.  Last night I was this close to booking a flight to Utah, with a mission of punching the asshole doctor condoning these horrors straight in the face.  Try injecting and jamming things into your own kids’ brains.

How can people live with themselves or allow this sort of thing to happen?  I try and do all I can to support people who live in extreme poverty and disease-ridden areas because they don’t have a choice in how they live.  I pick World Vision over United Way because I prefer to do something to help those who have no other choice.  And I feel and advocate for animals for the exact same reason.  It’s not their fault they can’t speak. They need looking after too. 

It’s tough to see the images and read the stories of what’s happening in the world.  Every time I read an email I contemplate hitting the unsubscribe button.  But it fuels my determination to do everything I can to try and put an end to this horror.  I’ve spoken to Sweet, and we’ve decided instead of wedding favours, we’re making donations to World Vision and PETA with little cards informing our guests of our decision, and why.  I’ve already signed up for next year’s 30 Hour Famine and we’ve agreed to rescue another cat from the Humane Society.  Once the snow’s been and gone, I’m going to start volunteering.  I wish I could go climb Kilimanjaro and raise millions for malaria nets, or model in a campaign to stop the fur industry like Christian Serratos.

I just wish I was in a better position in this world to be able to do more.  Sometimes, lots of people in this world really break my heart.

Some days, I’m extra proud to be a sci-fi geek

This weekend, I did something I haven’t done for what feels like at least a year.  And I did it two nights running.  Ladies and gentlemen, this Friday and Saturday, I went to the cinema.  In a world of video piracy and mass filesharing; actually deciding to go out and spend $20 on a film where you may get kicked in the back of your seat multiple times (and may end up hating anyway) hasn’t really been top of my list on a Friday night.  But this weekend, Sweet and I went for a couple of good old fashioned dates.  Friday, I got to pick.  I scanned the Free Press and landed on the one that I knew nothing about other than the fact it got numerous five star reviews from pretty reputable places, and it was written by Nick Hornby.

An Education held a lot of promise – a great cast (including Carey Mulligan of recent Doctor Who fame, the bad guy off of Flightplan, and Emma Thompson, who I’ve always loved dearly.  It was a nice enough story set in ‘60s England, about a girl with a strong academic background who meets a glamourous older chap, who takes her to Paris, proposes marriage and encourages her to give up school.  Relatively low-key, slightly underwhelming (the “bad guy” doesn’t even turn into a psycho stalker, and after dropping out of school she still ends up with a place at Oxford), but nice nonetheless.

But then we decided to do it all over again.  Saturday afternoon, like the old people at heart we truly are, we grabbed a couple of toonies and hit the cheap seats, where we opted for District 9.  I’d read a bit about it when it came out a few months ago; from what I knew, Peter Jackson had gone off to South Africa to film a Halo-based movie, but something had gone wrong with copyrights and that sort of thing, and he’d done a different movie instead.  What resulted was what I can only say was THE single best sci-fi movie I have ever seen in my LIFE, and for the next couple of weeks I request you ALL go and catch this before it leaves the big screens.

District 9

It was incredible.  With sci-fi movies (and television), my general experience is that big blockbusters with lots of special effects and generic good guys vs. bad aliens formulas have always won over mass audiences, while more “intellectual” storylines in Star Trek and X Files episodes are the nerd armies’ best kept secret.  Sci-fi that makes you think is generally thought of as “for the geeks” or turned into a cult classic, never reigning the box office or drawing in a nation on a Saturday night.   District 9 may just change everything.  It’s comparatively low budget ($30 million) to other recent sci-fi movie endeavours (Transformers 2 had $380 million to play with), and cast with a bunch of no-names whose lead actor has never before graced the screen.  There’s no outer-space warfare, or journeys to other planets, and the only things getting blown up leave you questioning your morality with a sense of enormous discomfort.

I’m not going to tell you what happens in the movie.  They cleverly omitted the major plotline from the trailer, which made for enormous surprise, and I think with good reason.  But I’ve never seen anything like this.  This is a heart-wrenching, thought-provoking political commentary, which, unusually, paints us as the bad guys.  It will tug and tear at your emotions as you feel for computer-generated characters who don’t actually exist, don’t render any sort of human facial expressions, and don’t speak.  You’ll fall in love with these characters based on nothing but subtitles, which in my mind, says a hell of a lot about the quality of the script.   This film is stunningly original and can easily put a good number of larger blockbusters to shame with its performance, intelligence, emotion and imagination.  It’s pretty gory, and I was definitely rather uncomfortable at several points, but anything that causes such a reaction based on raising questions of our capability to be so inhumane is fully justified. Plus, I’m a girl. I get squeamish pretty easily.  But I’ve never been so moved by what initially looked like such a boys’ movie.  I’ve never seen anything so action-packed and at the same time so reflective, so soulful, and so emotional.  I’ve never been prouder to be a sci-fi geek.  Bring on District 10.  I’ll be one of the thousands queuing up for advance tickets that’ll sell out faster than any Star Wars movie in box office history.

Future Nostalgia, or Why I Hate Louis Walsh

I’m sure at some point in everyone’s online lives, they’ve been forwarded one of those “you know you’re __________ if…” emails, had a quick chuckle and felt pangs of nostalgia. I’m sitting here listening to the Wonder Years feature on my favourite radio station (an hour every Friday consisting entirely of songs from one year out of the past twenty), happily enjoying my Backstreet’s Back, remembering the days of watching Goosebumps after school, collecting POGs and taping songs off the radio, when I started thinking about what those emails are going to look like when they get sent to kids who’ve grown up in the 2000s (or noughties, as they’re calling it on the Beeb). What do we have today that people 20 years from now are going to reminisce about?

I started thinking about it, and then I started getting angry. Even today, we still have 80s themed clubs and nights out and parties, because everything was amazing and new and great back then (says the girl who only fell out of the womb halfway through). New Wave was so exciting; synthesizers so futuristic, style so bold (I dare you not to fall in love with any man wearing eyeliner, painting half his face in more makeup than me and singing about romance on the dark streets of London). It was so awesome, in recent years it’s made a bit of a comeback, with shops like American Apparel regularly stocking brightly coloured tights, legwarmers, baggy tops and oversized belts, and artists like Late of the Pier, White Rose Movement and the Mary Onettes , armed with keyboards, spiffy haircuts and guyliner, releasing killer indie electronica that could slip easily into any “Best of the 80s” compilation unnoticed. The future of music in recent years was looking pretty good; an off the radar revival of everything new wave with a modern indie twist.

But, let’s face it, these guys aren’t on your everyday radio. They’re not in your Billboard 100 or on the cover of the Rolling Stone. They’re definitely not coming to Winnipeg. So as much as they have my heart unreservedly – people aren’t going to remember them twenty years from now.

So let’s look at the mainstream – what’s crashing the radio waves, taking over the charts and touring all over the world these days? I grew up listening to the Chart Show on Sunday afternoons, eager to see who was in the top ten, and it’s something I’ve carried on doing since my move to Canada, thanks to the wonders of modern technology. I listen to the Official UK Top 40 every Sunday (yes, it’s full of a lot of chuff, a lot of the time, but it’s more for the homesickness/nostalgia factor) and to my horror, this past weekend, in at number two was Westlife, with yet another cover of a song from two years ago.

Westlife was one of those Uber Boy Bands formed by Louis Walsh (of recent X Factor fame) that, due to an unfortunate lack of H1N1 contraction and a lull in anvil production, are still going eleven years later. Still dominating the charts with rubbish covers of decent songs, this time they’ve taken on a Chris Daughtry track, done nothing but added a couple of lame oohs and aahs, and rocketed to the top riding the wave of somebody else’s hard work.

I didn’t mind them in the nineties – they were just like the Backstreet Boys, but Irish! Bonus! Then their manager became a judge on an international talent show, and I guess things got a little scary. What’s this? Real people with actual talent winning the nation’s hearts? I suppose there really wasn’t much else in the way of choice but to nick a bunch of songs everyone knew the words to, get the lads together for a night of karaoke, and release this uninspired bile on the masses.

I suppose my loathing began a couple of years ago when they got a number one with a cover of Michael Buble’s Home from a couple of years previous. When I heard the Daughtry cover this weekend, my curiosity was sufficiently peaked enough to look into just how far other people’s talent has pushed their career, and found 63 covers, tackling the masters (The Eagles, Sinatra, Josh Groban)… and, in I suppose the hope people wouldn’t notice, classics from Nick Carter, Brandy, and various obscure musical soundtracks. I can’t even hazard a guess as to how much money they’ve made sitting on their arses, adding the odd choir and singing other people’s songs. Tossers.

Yes, it makes me rather upset that so much of music today will be remembered for the work of decades past – success seems so easy when something so formulaic becomes the norm; random sample of a decent old track + random rapper + thumping dance beat = $, or do a cover of something that was successful before, add some pretty faces and synthesised strings and you’ve got yourself a number one. I know what I’m going to remember about this decade. Little indie bands who I heard on the radio’s “unsigned” hour and ordered their albums in from halfway round the world. The new new wave which took something nostalgic and creative and made it new and exciting. And bands who’d been together since they were thirteen, played real instruments, wrote great songs about science and love and government conspiracies, and went on to take over the world.

That’s going to be my nostalgia of the ‘noughties’. At least when it comes to music, anyway. What about you?

crap

Advocation for Self-Education

Not normally one to write about politics or current events, I couldn’t help but hop on the H1N1 discussion. At work, I’ve somehow landed myself the position of Co-Chair of the Workplace Safety and Health Committee (yes, me, I know) and naturally, the topic of H1N1 and subsequent vaccination has been a bit of a hot potato in recent meetings. I’ve found myself very much in the minority when I decided to sit in at lunchtimes and continue to watch Torchwood, while everybody else bundled into their vehicles to hit the nearest vaccination “clinic”.

Shopping centres around the city have been transformed into mass vaccination hotspots; on Friday afternoon I had to make my way past a full news crew and endless winding queues just to be able to buy a book. We were told inititially that everybody should be vaccinated, that Canada had bought more than an ample supply of the vaccine, and there was most definitely enough for everyone. My coworkers started coming in with sore arms, proud of their premature innoculations, and satisfied that their families were now safe from the flu. But then the news started to turn. People not in one of the “at risk” categories were encouraged to hold off and allow those more needy to go ahead first. Doctors’ offices were packed with floods of people. And strange reports started coming in from around the world.

Having been raised on Star Trek and the X Files, any time the government decided to encourage mass injections of something into the entire world’s deltoids was always going to peak my curiosity. And being on the Health and Safety Committee, it was only right that I did my part to educate myself on the possible risks, right? I started seeing Facebook groups popping up on “Protesting the H1N1 Vaccination”, news articles from around the world on how the vaccine was never properly clinically tested – “so far, according to the Health Canada website, there have been no tests on children or those over 60 – for either vaccine. Instead, the federal government is relying largely on results from what Health Canada calls a “mock” vaccine based on an entirely different strain of flu.” The ingredients of the vaccine seem further cause for concern – the biological index of that vaccine includes chicken embryos, formaldehyde, squalene adjuvant, thiomersal (mercury derivative), polysorbate 80 (preservative) and aluminum adjuvant among others listed on the Biotechnology Information Institute website.

And then came the post-vaccination effects: the recently married cheerleader who can now only walk backwards following a freak reaction to the swine flu vaccine (I couldn’t bring myself to watch the video). The jab being linked to 25 deaths in the USA after a letter from the Health Protection Agency, the official body that oversees public health, telling neurologists to be on the alert for a brain disorder that could be triggered by the vaccine. And in a recent study published in the journal Neurotoxicology just last month, the researchers found that primates injected with a single vaccine containing thimerosal suffered significant neurological impairment when compared with those who received a saline solution injection, or no injection at all. Thanks to Marie for the link to that one.

It’s hard, when there’s so much conflicting information flooding the internet, to really know what to do, and it really comes down to a personal choice involving weighing out the pros and cons, and deciding which makes you more comfortable. Or uncomfortable. Of course, statistically you’re more likely to get swine flu than you are to get some horrible mutation/disease/die from the vaccine. And fear plays an enormous part in the decision. Which are you more afraid of? For me, it’s an easy decision. If I’m going to get ill, I’d rather it be from a natural strain of the flu than from a one in however many chance a man-made, untested “solution” going wrong. When I was a kid, people didn’t care about hand sanitisers or breathing masks or worrying what they might catch from being on an bus for 20 minutes on the way home from work. There wasn’t such thing as “correct coughing” into the crook of your arm. You put your hand in front of your mouth and nobody would bat an eyelid. Today, we live in such a state of fear that we’ll blindly inject things into our body if the newspapers and TV make us all afraid enough of H1N1.

Fire me from the Health and Safety Committee, but I’m not getting the H1N1 vaccine. I’ve spent too many hours watching shows that question the government, and recently, doing my research on the flipside of the H1N1 vaccination coin. If you’re debating getting the shot, I’d strongly encourage anyone to make sure you’re fully informed before succumbing and falling prey to the mass hysteria taking over today’s world. I’m going to close with one of my favourite songs right now, which just so happens to touch on the topic of not being controlled or forced into anything – and also just happens to sound kind of like the Doctor Who theme.