another contender for fromage of the year?

you twit

I haven't used my Twitter account for much, other than to follow a couple people, and to auto-post book reviews. I've decided to start posting short summaries of my Great Attraction blog entries. So if you find my posts too long to read, twit away!

The Story of Me: In 2009

Most modern calendars mar the sweet simplicity of our lives by reminding us that each day that passes is the anniversary of some perfectly uninteresting event. Oscar Wilde

Just reading vegan-whole-foods-chef Jae Steele's end of year list, and I liked her categories. So I decided to try them out myself, and tossed in a couple more that I thought of...


Favourite learning experience: Taking a First Aid course.

Best health move:
Dancing in the kitchen while filling the dishwasher, and cooking.

Favourite new health tool: A new battery in my ipod.

Favourite new recipes: Avocado-green-apple salad (adapted from 100 Recettes 100 Vedettes.) Celery soup (I think I adapted it from some internet recipes.)

Favourite comfort food: Curly pasta with lemon juice and olive oil.

Favourite Party In Your Mouth food: You know... when it's the start of your weekend and you make something really nice? Jae Steele's guacamole.

Favourite drink:
Rooibas vanilla soy milk latté at Starbucks. (But what I drank the most was my own latté made with Almond Sunset herbal tea.)

Best writing accomplishment: The query letter. Now if only I could get back to working on the outline...

Best blog accomplishment: Generally maintaining a 5 day/week posting on A Great Attraction.

Favourite garment acquisition: New jimjams.

Favourite tv show discovery:
Welcome Back Kotter (rediscovery); Gavin & Stacey; Spaced.
Purposely avoided too many new shows.

Favourite movie: I don't watch a lot of movies--probably The Hangover.

Best cultural move! : Finally going to Stratford. Runner up: Getting back to reading about a book a week.

Saddest moment: The Night They Drove Old Nombly Down.

Most memorable This Is My Life And It's Pretty Great moments: * Getting home after work and listening to CBC radio 1 while chatting with my cats and making supper. * Watching tv with Fernando, on the couch, and fending off Haley when she tries to lick our ears. * Anytime I spend the day reading and listening to music.

Motto of 2009:

"Every morning, I get up and look through the Forbes list of the richest people in America. If I'm not there, I go to work." (Robert Orben)

Fromage Video of the Year?

Black Eyed Peas - Meet Me Halfway

Mabel's Techno Corner!

Ever wonder how to uncheck a large number of songs in iTunes (songs you don't want to delete, but don't want to play either, like Christmas songs) ?

No Mabel, of course we haven't wondered... cause we don't own 534 Christmas songs.

Well, just in case you know someone who does, here's the solution I got from googling--never knew you could do this:

"pull all your tunes (the ones you want to uncheck) into one folder, then control click one of the tunes and they should all be unchecked, not just in the folder but in the library."

cover land

I'm sure I've posted the Jenny Owens cover of "Hot in Herre" before. The cover is so good, it makes me like the original. Written by The Neptunes (Pharrell and his partner.)

original by Nelly


Jenny Owens Young: "get up up on the dance floor!"



Here are some covers by Jamie Cullum, that I just discovered...

"Don't Stop the Music" - original by Rihanna


by Cullum - fantastic!


"Frontin'" by Pharrell


by Cullum


My fave Britney Spears song "Toxic"


the Yael Naïm cover.


Now that's how covers are supposed to work. They shouldn't sound like the same version with a new singer--you've got to bring something new to the song.

And if you really prefer rock versions to pop music, there's a whole series of "Punk Goes Pop" albums. Here's a cover of Huey Lewis' "Power of Love" !



Man, checking out this Punk series... most of it is People Unclear on the Concept. Who needs a supposedly punk version of The Police's "Wrapped Around Your Finger?" It's already a rock song. Same with The Roots' "The Seed 2.0". And Punk Goes Heavy Metal?? Heavens.

books and blogs and cuts

I figured out how to put dates into the books I've read in facebook--I'm adding the date to the tags. Of course, you know me... I'm going back through my entire list of books and trying to identify when I read them. For the older ones, the tags are elementary school, high school, univerisity1, coles, chapters and university2. But now I'm reading through my oldest blog entries for any mentions of books I was reading, so I can be more accurate with those.

And I came across this funny entry, describing the various ways to "cut" someone in the Regency period:

To renounce acquaintance with any one is to cut him. There are several species of the cut. Such as the cut direct, the cut indirect, the cut sublime, the cut infernal, &c. The cut direct, is to start across the street, at the approach of the obnoxious person in order to avoid him. The cut indirect, is to look another way, and pass without appearing to observe him. The cut sublime, is to admire the top of King’s College Chapel, or the beauty of the passing clouds, till he is out of sight. The cut infernal, is to analyze the arrangement of your shoe-strings, for the same purpose.

Definition taken from The 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, originally by Francis Grose.