This week has been crazy busy, and rather than bore you all with a giant paragraph, I figured I would describe it succintly in point form instead.

Monday

-On the way home from work on the bus. I spot a seat at the far back, but its a tight squeeze in-between two guys.  I look at the seat hesitatingly until one of the men says to me: “Sit down. You are the highlight of my day anyways.” Um..thanks?

-Went to bellydance class with my jazzy new scarf. Turns out the rest of the class bought new hip scarves too and we make a lot of noise jingling around. My instructor is trying to recruit dancers for the beginner’s class performance. I raise my hand to join, then she tells the class we’ll be dancing in front of 350 people! Yikes!

Tuesday

-My neighbours are making all sorts of noise, like their moving furniture or installing shelves, at 7am. It sounds like there are raccoons  in the pipes.

-Finally got around to seeing a physiotherapist who advised me to see the sports doctor on site who can refer me to get an x-ray. The physio also provides me with exercises to strengthen my “core”. Unfortunately for most people, the sports doctor only works Mon-Friday, 9-5, so its gonna take some manoevering to see her.

Wednesday

-Went to my second “Comic Jam” at Shanghai restaurant. On my way there, I spotted this licence plate. It says “Cup4Sens”. Gotta love a man with optimism eh?

The Jam was great-the food was yummy and the “Halloween-themed” drawings were hilarious and very cool. There weren’t as many artists this time around, but there were some journalism students who came to report on the event. I got interviewed by a girl from CKCU and tried my best not to appear too nervous. She also tried to capture the sound of a pencil drawing on paper with her microphone, so I was sitting there attempting to draw and kept accidently tapping her mic with my pencil. Oops! Anyways, here is a photos of the event:

Here is a sample of the drawings, to see them all go to the site. I drew the first square and the silliness grew from there.

Thursday

-My software at work is driving me bonkers and I wonder why the financial system we use at work can’t be easier and more user friendly? Why does it take ten people to fix one little issue?

-Fully intended to go and see Stella perform that night but with a sore throat, I decided not to risk infecting her and the rest of the patrons at the tavern.

Friday

-After work, I felt bummed about my stagnant daytime career and how alienated I feel from my work group. Wine helped me forget about it a bit.

Saturday

-Took the cats and dog to the vet. $400 later, their butts may not smell pinesol fresh, but they are healthier

-Got my hair done and fooled around with my camera

-That night, stayed home, ate candy and watched Trick ‘r Treat while kids showed up demanding that I share my ’stash’

Sunday

-Went out and bought hubby a videogame for his birthday, which he spent all day playing. I think he likes it.

-Did some painting and promised to myself that I would start cleaning next weekend.

Is it wrong that I find certain ’evil’ movie characters seriously hot? I don’t think so, but maybe I’m just nuts.  Since it’s almost Halloween, I thought it would be fun to disturb you all with my list of the “sexiest bastards” to ever grace the big screen. 

 1. Cillian Murphy-”Scarecrow” in Batman Begins

Personally, I prefer him without the cloth sac over his head. LOL.  Something about mad genuises always gets me!

2. Ralph Fiennes-Red Dragon/Francis Dolarhyde from movie “Red Dragon”

Maybe it’s because I love the novel so much or maybe its due to my appreciation for his sinewy back muscles accented by that beautiful Blake tattoo, but damn is he fine! Sure he murders families and has a split personality, but nobody’s perfect right?

3. Tadanobu Asano as Kakihara in “Ichi the Killer”

I’ve seen a few Japanese “yakuza/action” flicks and while many of them are beyond ridiculous, this one is a little less so with interesting characters and visuals. Kakihara is a crime boss who is also a twisted pervert and loves giving and receiving pain.  (So much so that he slashes the corners of his mouth and staples the cuts together. Ow!) Which I guess makes him a good antagonist. I don’t appreciate or respect sick scumbags like this in real life, but as a strictly fictional character, for some crazy reason I find him attractive. Go figure! (Now if only he could improve his wardrobe)

4. Billy Zane-The Collector in ”Demon Knight”

Speaking of gory flicks,  Zane provides a nice distraction as a demon who is searching for a key that will plunge the Earth into the Devil’s playground. He’s not only hot, but also very funny in this movie!

5. Gerard Butler “Dracula 2000″

So this pick is kinda obvious-Most women find Gerard attractive and probably doubly so as the die-hard romantic Dracula. Personally, I just like seeing him with his shirt open.

6. Malcolm McDowell-Alex deLarge in “Clockwork Orange”

Yet another ‘gang’ leader and all round evil bastard who gets neutered in a experiment to reduce violent tendencies in criminals. But you gotta love a guy who appreciates Beethoven though.

What about you? Any favorite male or female villains?

Pictures:

Scarecrow-http://screenrant.com/chris-nolan-reteams-scarecrow-niall-6514/

Red Dragon-http://www.aveleyman.com/FilmCredit.aspx?FilmID=25837

Kakihara-http://www.robink.ca/movies/ichi-the-killer-2001/

The Collector-http://www.best-horror-movies.com/demon-knight.html

Dracula-http://mereshorrorscifireviews.blogspot.com/2009/02/dracula-2000.html

Alex-http://www.nj.com/entertainment/tv/index.ssf/2007/11/a_life_spent_chafing_moguls_an.html

On Saturday morning, my mom and I went to a bellydancer’s bazaar. After the doors opened, we went in and I followed the signs to the nearest ATM machine. The machine was located in a bar next door and as I approached the door, this jerk of a vendor sitting on the sidelines looked at me and said:”Can I have your card”
Me *thinking he meant my admission ticket, gave him said ticket*

Him: “What is this? No, I want your bank card. I want your money”

Me: *Glared at him like “wtf?” *

Him: “That was a joke.”

Me: “Fun-nny”

Because nothing is more hilarious than pretending to stick someone up. Moron! Anyways, I got my money from next door and after ignoring his next comment “Where’s my money”, we were all set to browse.

I wish that I had taken some pictures of the individual merchandise, but I wasn’t sure if that would be o.k.  My multi-talented bellydance instructor was there giving tarot card readings and invited my mom into her “tent” for a reading. I tend to be a little bit skeptical of tarot card/palm readers, but apparently she gave my mom a very accurate reading. While she was in there, I managed to buy a very nice Turkish coin belt, since my last one got misplaced during our last move.

Saturday morning was also when hubby took Marcus to the vet since our cat has been smelling pretty nasty this past while. Turns out he had infected anal glands and the vet took him downstairs to have them “expressed” and got a shot for the infection at the same time. Needless to say, Marcus was not impressed! LOL. I never heard about this issue before, but these glands need to be expressed regularly or else your pet can run into major problems. But I read recently that putting more fibre in your cat or dog’s diet can help.  We’ll be taking our whole ménagerie to the vet’s this weekend to get all their butts checked. And if you own a dog or cat and haven’t done this yet already, I recommend you do the same thing!

             Sorry, I had to post this video, because its so silly!

Tonight would’ve been my French class but the instructor is sick, so its been cancelled. This suits me fine because Aunt Flo came to town and I’m just not feeling up to yakking it up with strangers in an overlit room. How is the French going you ask? Well, knock on wood, its been going well. I’ve been chatting with French/Belgian/Québecois penpals, studying various language books, listening to French music, watching French TV (the cheesy soaps are entertaining) and reading French books. (Like this weird one) Now I just have to keep it up and hopefully my confidence in that language will be much better!

Anyways, the rest of my time has been divided up between dance class, painting, drawing and cleaning.  Hubby also wants us to go to Toronto again for a communal birthday party between him and his friends who live there.  I must be getting old/lazy, because I don’t really want to go that far again for a shindig. I mean we just got back! Ah well, we’ll see how it goes!

We left on Thursday afternoon hoping to beat the Toronto rush hour. Unfortunately, Toronto’s traffic is bad all the time. As much as I enjoy visiting this metropolis, I honestly, have no idea how people can drive there and stay sane.  Anyways, we arrived later than expected so we didn’t do much that day. On Friday, however, we decided to head out to the Ontario Science Centre.

I was VERY excited to visit this place because “Body Worlds” is currently having an exhibition there. Hubby wasn’t much interested in seeing filayed corpses on display (What’s wrong with him? LOL), but he agreed to go with me anyway. Unfortunately, they didn’t let us take any photos. (To see some pictures, go here) It pisses me off when venues have that policy and the only reason I can see behind it is so they can make more money with the exhibits merchandise. ie:

But Body Worlds is really cool and a great educational tool for learning first hand all ab0ut the inner workings of the human body. The rest of the Science Centre had lots of interactive games like this:

So naturally we spent some time screwing around with the various perception and logic games. After awhile my back started to ache (tailbone issues again), so we headed back to the hotel, but not before snapping some pictures of more crazy licence plates.  It turns out, Toronto is a regular cornocopia of funny and ridiculous plates:

This one says-T UP FOR FUN. (Oh golfers!)

I saw two others but didn’t have my camera on hand at the time. One had a plate that read “Mumzi” (gag!), while the other was this huge, obnoxious truck that said “Truck” (Lest there be any confusion)

The next day-Saturday-was the day of the wedding, but it wasn’t until later, so we went shopping. If you want to be really specific, we were actually staying in the town of Markham and Markham is about 70% Chinese. We went into one such Asian malls and were pretty much the only non-Asians around. It kinda felt like walking around in public naked. But I had a craving for Hong Kong buns, so we went to a bakery, where no one spoke a lick of English and were stared at like we were some lost tourists. LOL.  The woman behind the counter was really rude, but ah well, I got the buns, so that’s all that mattered at that point.  I didn’t want to draw any more attention, so I waited until we were outside and took a picture of the mall.

There are a number of Chinese malls in Markham and while they can make you feel self conscious if you’re non-Asian, they are great for finding authentic restaurants, desserts (as mentioned) mini Buddhas and Chinese pop music and movies.  Next up came the wedding and here is a nice blurry one.

It was a nice reception and the food was not very vegetarian, but there was an open bar which everybody took full advantage of. One of hubby’s childhood friends was pretty in the bag most of the night and when we were in the ladies together, was feeling insecure and complained about her looks. ie:

Her: “I hate my (insert any random body feature)

Me: “You’re crazy! You are beautiful.”

Her: “I don’t believe you!”

Seriously? Now I know what men have to go through in vainly trying convince their girlfriends that they are attractive women! Sheesh! But in her defense, weddings do have a way of bringing out your insecurities if you’re single, which she is. But and this is no lie, I’m sure she won’t be single for long, since she is a sweet gal. Anyways, after more drinking and silly dancing, the venue apparently was done for the night and turned on all the lights, telling all the guests to go home.  It was only midnight, but I was relieved, because by the second rotation of ‘Uptown Girl’, I was ready to hit the hay.  On Sunday, we woke up early, met my brother and his girlfriend for an awesome breakfast at “Fox and Fiddle” (I forgot to include the photos) and left for Ottawa.

Along the way we stopped for the tourist trap known as the ‘Big Apple’.

Here you can go on kiddie rides, feed llamas and eat apple desserts.

It smelled like heaven in that place! But I didn’t want to bring something home that would’ve gotten wrecked anyways, so we just watched the apple pie making in process but didn’t sample.

When we got back home, I thought I could finally sleep the hangover (I mean, fatigue) away, but last night, I only slept for about four hours. The electricity in our house kept going on and off  and by the fourth time, I said “screw it” and went downstairs to watch ‘Hannibal Rising’ on TV.

So that’s our last big trip for awhile and its back to normal. I’m hoping I can make it through work today and bellydance class. Then again, the buns I bought will probably help.

Hubby and I are leaving for Toronto later today. This Saturday is our last wedding and I’m still sick! But I guess timing isn’t everything! (Or at least not with me. LOL)

Anyways, I’ll post some pictures when I return, but in the meantime have a great weekend!

Picture from-http://www.ostlerpetloverinfo.com/category/dog-health/

Anyone else feel like they blinked and the long weekend was over? For me, it was a giant blur of cleaning, drawing and cooking. We had our big dinner on Sunday and it was a great feast of veggie shepherd’s pie, tofurkey, real turkey, fake gravy, real gravy, turnips and carrots, rolls, stuffing, cranberry sauce and two dessert pies. Now we have a sweet week of eating leftovers, no more cooking until its all gone. I made a vegetarian shepherd’s pie because I figured it could feed the most amount of people with it and also made two dessert pies.

The fruit pies were from scratch and I had a mini-meltdown because A)I had been cooking since 7am that morning and B)the dough for the apple one wasn’t coming together properly. (Despite me using ice cold everything! Argh! Ah well, I should remember that excellent pie making takes practice. Lots 0f yummy practice!:))

On Monday, I slept like crap and couldn’t breathe through my nose and my throat hurt. Thank the Pilgrims and Indians (Aboriginals, sorry!)  it was a holiday, because going to work like that would have sucked! The cold is still with me, but I’m not going down without a fight! Last night, I also attempted to do yoga, except this time I had to do it in my living room so hubby could watch the hockey game in the basement.  It didn’t go very well-The cats rubbed against me in child’s pose and the dog insisted on smothering me with kisses in corpse pose! LOL. Hopefully tonight the TV downstairs will be free.:)

It’s a three-day work week for us-We’ve got our last wedding (phew!) to go to this weekend in Toronto and I’m taking this Friday off. Do you think the couple would mind if I wore jeans and sneakers? I think my feet have exceeded their limit for the requisite wedding (aka. painful!) foot wear.

The ground around the shelter kinda looks like this…I’ll be taking a picture of my local shelter and posting it later.

Those pathetic assholes who smashed the first wall of my local bus shelter have now decided to smash yet another wall! So this morning I not only got to feel the cross breeze of rain coming from two different directions, I also got to step in broken glass with my new sneakers!

So I complained to another bus driver this morning about the fact that we still haven’t got a replacement for the first busted wall and now we need another one, as well as somebody to clean up more broken glass. Naturally, she said she’d say something to management and naturally it will go nowhere. Just one more passenger ranting to a system that really doesn’t give a shit!

Argh! It makes me so angry that there are retarded douchebags out there who just randomly destroy public property and face no consequences whatsoever while our transit system and City does dick all to fix what they destroyed!  So the rest of us decent commuters have to suffer in the wind, rain, hail and snow!

You might say-So what? It’s just a shelter? Well, here in Ottawa, the temperature can go down to -40C in the winter, add in the wind and blowing snow and you’ve got the 9th circle of hell.  A tiny refuge from the wet and cold is really not asking a lot!

*Calming down*  Sorry, its just hopeless situations like these really piss me off! And just the sheer stupid, selfish inconsideration of some clowns really drives me up the walls!

Ah, anyways. It’s Friday and a long weekend, so I should try and relax. I’m planning on buying groceries tonight so I don’t have to face the crowded stores tomorrow. (Which will probably resemble the 7th Circle of Hell.)  To avoid losing my mind, I’ll probably also do some cooking tomorrow and the rest early in the afternoon on Sunday. My mom volunteered to help, so I’ll definitely be taking her up on that offer. Much wine and pie will be consumed. Much!

To my Canadian readers-Happy Thanksgiving!

Picture-http://lesasbookcritiques.blogspot.com/2008_11_01_archive.html

The weekend was productive-or at least ‘artistically’ productive. I found a site called “A Patchwork of Flesh“ that collects various interpretations of Frankenstein’s Monster, so I thought I would submit my own. Unfortunately, however, I didn’t realize that the artwork had to be 2.5 by 3.5 inches until after I finished. I also underestimated how difficult it is to depict a fictional creature with a warped head using only a small movie picture. LOL.

Ah well, here is my monster. He likes flowers and I thought I would try and draw him half naked, because those shoulder pads aren’t doing anything for him.

The rest of the weekend was spent cleaning, watching more ‘Six Feet Under’ and painting. I also managed to bake a cranberry/pumpkin cake and it turned out wonderfully. Does anyone have any vegetarian suggestions for a replacement item for the usual turkey? We’re hosting Thanksgiving again at our place and I’m not fond of Tofurkey, so anything other than that is welcome.:)

This Fall I’ve been keeping busy with extra-curricular classes. Last night after running home from work and shoveling food in my mouth, I hightailed it to my second French class.  Everyone in class was really chatty, well except me, I’m more the sink-into-my chair-and quietly-try-to-cram-verbs-into my brain-type. Despite living in a city with many Francophones and being exposed to it for a long time, I’m shy to speak French.  Perhaps, because I’m scared to make mistakes and look foolish. After class, the gregarious, Haitian instructor looked at me and said: “You should be confident! But don’t worry, we’ll practice a lot. You and me.”

Admittedly, her faith and patience me made me feel a bit better. After class, I dropped by my parents place. My mom had gallbladder surgery recently, but she looked really good and the bruising from the incisions was very minimal. Spencer, their now sole basset hound, was his usual affectionate self, possibly more so now with his sister, Katy gone. He kept looking at me with these sad glassy eyes, that seemed to indicate his feelings of loss. It kinda looked like this:

Anyone who tells you that animals aren’t capable of emotions and feeling grief are full of shit. He was one sad, lost puppy.

On another note, I had the singing bus driver this morning.  (Click on link to hear him sing) This guy is fairly well known among Ottawans as the driver who sings really loudly, for no apparent reason other than the fact that OC is probably too cheap to buy him a radio. He’s got a great set of pipes and I admire his guts to sing to a group of sleepy commuters, but today, I just wanted to listen to zone out and listen to ‘Swordfish Trombone’ on my i-pod while staring at the fog outside. It’s nice however, to see someone trying to stay happy in their job.

This weekend, my plans involve hopefully buying more sweaters (to replace my overworn ones with holes in them) and looking for a new lamp for my art room. I’m going to try and get some yoga practice in there as well, since its been awhile. I might even make some Fall treats.

Have a good weekend!