12.30.2011

26: Lolz

I am so excited to finish my Masters applications just so that I can finish reading the Jessica Darling young adult series. This is my life. I am okay with that. I promised I would finish one more today and that it what I am going to do now. I am going to take control of my destiny! Or something.


Also, as soon as I finish one I am allowing myself to go to Indigo with Alan to get my Christmas gift. I want Chuck Klosterman's new book, even though his novels are terrible, the new issue of Fables and a book about dinosaurs, something legit educational but also with awesome photos. We'll see what I end up getting. I wish I was one of those people who are really good at buying people gifts, but I'm really terrible. I think I've given out two gifts so far. My fallback excuse being "well, my Christmas is January 7th. How awesome would it be to celebrate then instead?".



Pop Culture Addictions December 2011



Teen Mom 2 Season 2:


Jenelle laid charges against Keiffer for domestic abuse and it's a truly emotional scene, I'm sure, but all I can focus on is the hideous flip flop and socks combination. I'm not one to talk, my birkenstock love is so great that the tiger striped birkenstock tanlines on my feet haven't faded yet, but really. Is this socially acceptable? I guess if you're going to jail for domestic abuse people already hate you and appropriate footwear isn't going to do any good.






Joe Gilgun



When Robert Sheehan left Misfits I was uberbummed, but when Joe Gilgun joined I forget about him. It didn't help that his goodbye cyber clip about Las Vegas was lame. Joe Gilgun is fabulous (I wish that swastika wasn't in this picture though).  After Misfits I watched all of This Is England, even though there are scenes that are incredibly hard to watch. 





I just love scenes of people becoming friends and bonding and being adorable, even if they're skinheads and several of them are terrible racists. In similar news, I now have several skinhead autobiographies on hold at the library and the librarians probably think I am a white supremecist. It's the same feeling I had when my friend and I were at the library doing research for essays and the stack of books next to her were about Nazis and the KKK while all of mine were about black baptist churches and had titles like "spiritual american coloureds".

 

Final Destination Movies


It won't let me embed, but it's an amazing opening. It acknowledges the previous three movies and gets you hyped for more ridiculous deaths!




Ignore the fact that I am 500 years behind on this trend. I watched the first one when it came out, but Devon Sawa wasn't in the rest of them so I never had a reason to continue. Well I finally did and I loved them. In the same way that I love Scream, except less, because I like happy endings. They're campy, they're ridiculous, but they're not really scary. It's exactly the type of "horror" movie I like: silly, fun, attractive people, several nineties fav actors and other recognizable actors before they really are recognizable/only recognizable to people who watch disney channel movies about mermaids or Pretty Little Liars (I fall into both categories). However, the movies totally add to the list of things I am afraid to do because of the implausible ways in which I could die:


1. laser eye surgery? no thank you, i will get a monocle when old righty really gives out.
2. one of those knife blocks? no thank you, plus they are crazy full of bacteria and HOW DO EVER YOU CLEAN THEM?
3. airplanes? aww sheeit.  i will continue with my airplane anxiety meds, since a transatlantic boat ride is even scarier. 


Pop Culture Things I Still Hate or Have Started to Hate December 2011

People in any way supporting Roman Polanski


tv: christoph waltz: blah blah blah blah hilarious stoic blah blah
nev: oh i like him
tv: christoph waltz: well, working with roman polanski is a blessing.
nev: nope, done. change the channel.
alan: what?
nev: done done, roman polanski can suck my balls. i'll watch his movies when he does his jail time.


I can't get past it and I don't want to. I don't want to listen to anything he has to say or anything about him. I don't want to hear actors waxing poetically about him. I don't care about his movies or his problems. He can sit the fuck down. 
I can't get past people's private lives to see their work. I'm sure if media was more present in the past I wouldn't be able to stand Roald Dahl, as it is I still can't help thinking "oh, but you said that thing about Hitler and all the anti-semitism and I don't know about that, but Sophie Dahl is so endearing, i like her."

(Hitler quote in question: In 1983, Dahl was quoted as saying: "There's a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity ... I mean there is always a reason why anti-anything crops up anywhere; even a stinker like Hitler didn't just pick on them for no reason.")



Seriously, it's getting to the point where I don't want to watch anything Johnny Depp's in. I understand that people give interviews to promote their movies, but it's getting to the point where they're doing the opposite:

"You wanna watch the new Johnny Depp movie? You won't after you see this new interview of him hating on america, but not wanting to pay France's taxes and making insulting comparisons to rape! Stay tuned!"

The Time Traveller's Wife

The only good thing about this book is I can imagine a situation where a child would be like

"Man, wouldn't time travelling be awesome?"
"Would it? Read the time travellers wife."
(This could also just be because I am a terrible babysitter. Yesterday I tried to convince a child that a city 17 hours away from us was further than the moon. This works very well with politie children, who think disagreeing with their elders is rude so they say "hmm, I don't think so, but I will google it later to see.")

I feel like Audrey Niffenegger just wanted to write a book about sexual exploration. It's not a love story. Was I stupid in expecting it was one?

My dislike in four bullet points:

1. Henry's backstory with his mother was lovely and the idea of him time-travelling and getting to know his dead mother through minute, everyday interactions was a thrilling idea, but instead more of the focus was on the type of sexual propabilites that drunk people converse about:
"Yo, yo, if you could time travel back to your past self, would you have sex with him or would that be gay?"
"If I cheat on you with you, is it cheating or is it awesome?"
"Dude, dude, when are you a paedo and when is it like 'it's cool guys, she's my future wife' "
<B>Answer:</b> I think you're still a paedo, this seems like an argument fundamentalist mormons in those culty campsites make.
2. Everything being cyclical makes everything too easy and boring:
a) They fall in love by telling eachother that they are already in love in the future, which means I didn't get to see characters falling in love.
b) Henry ruins every fun experience by being like "I know, we're house shopping, but this isn't the house that we end up buying" and (I can only imagine) "Really? Do those earrings really go with that shirt? Cause I saw a picture of tonight four years from now and you're totally wearing studs."
3. Henry is so obnoxious; I know you're a librarian and shit and you can't watch television like the rest of us, but the things that come out of that character's mouth are annoying as all hell:
"The geneticist looked like D.H. Lawrence."  Really? Cause alongside John Steinbeck, D.H. Lawrence was one of the studliest authors (I might be alone in this opinion) and you're not really describing that. Plus... I can't even do a plus, I'm frustrated.
"I was so embarrassed reciting Rilke in front of the doctors and nurses. They probably think I'm a pussy." Because you are a pussy. Am I supposed to believe he was a womanizer reciting Rilke to chicks? Oh shit, a punk rock librarian. I'm unimpressed.

4. The woman portrayed as constantly waiting around for the man; particularly the last page. So disheartening, pre-Victorian.

Unforunately, I still want to see the movie, because after Chopper I want to see everything Eric Bana does. This list can't be doing wonders for my credibility.

This is depressing so I'll leave with a movie recommendation: A Film With Me In It.
Two reasons:
1. Dylan Moran
2. It's pretty much a movie version of 13 Dead End Drive (the boardgame).


"Is he dead because you did a murder?"

11.01.2011

25: Broken Computors and Blondie

I'm sick and pretending to write an essay, but at least I have found a solution to the second computer that has been broken under my watchful eye (my fault this time. red wine + keyboard = no blog posts). 

Also I am now platinum blonde. I would post pictures if I wasn't also sick and gross. 
For now, I will share the reason I am, once again, blonde. Even though there are clearly other colours that suit me better.





I think that the youtube recommendations would be a lot less successful if I was in charge.  Right now I am getting. "Gwen Stefani: What You Waiting For,  recommended because you watched Four In The Morning". It should really say "Gwen Stefani: Four In The Morning, recommended because you have just watched it 47 times in a row, and by now we have realized that you aren't going to switch to a new video". 

Take it under advisement. You're welcome, youtube.

10.07.2011

24: Leopard Print and Sadness

Nevena: What did you do?
Big Al: I thought there was a footrest underneath the computor.
Nevena: There isn't. What did you do?
Big Al: I thought I was putting my feet on the foot rest.


Needless to say, I do not have a footrest underneath my computor. Al kicked something and my computer exploded*. This is to say that I am using my father's laptop and the amount of emotional attachment I have towards my computer is phenomenal and phenomenally pathetic. I miss it. I miss that my keys go a little higher like a typewriter. I miss the really old version of microsoft word that I have and understand. I miss doc. docx is a nightmare. Mostly I also miss having a printer. 

Somehow the death of my computer** triggered a domino effect and now all the printers in the house are broken.

NOW FOR SOMETHING HAPPY!


This is my family. From the back to the front:

 
My mom: my floor length leopard print coat from Black Market.
My gramma: My three quartered length sleeved Talbots leopard print coat.
Me: My short, short sleeved leopard print coat from Anthropologie. 
My dog: Her leopard print coat from the Clothing Show. 


I have to go change, wearing skin tight snakeskin*** pants is not a good idea after eating tons of pulled pork sandwiches.


*Not literally. Just figuratively in the same way that my heart is now exploded from computor loss related sadness.

**The sad thing is that after typing computer seven times in this post, I still cannot spell it. The computer has to keep red underlining computor with two o's. Computer and beginning are the two words I cannot spell subconsciously, I have to stop and think about it every time. Yet I can spell subconsciously subconsciously. Figures.  

***Of course it's an animal/reptile print.

9.22.2011

23: Food Food Food Part 2

in memoriam part two

Siena:  Pizzeria Trofea. Porcini and Sausage. Best pizza ever. I have so many pictures of various slices of this pizza that I ate over the course of five weeks. By the end of the trip the pizzeria lady started to give me the biggest slice/the slice with the most porcinis. It was the only three euro pizza at the two fifty place but it was so worth it. 
Cinque Terre: Pretzelly super salty bread and all I never need in my sandwiches is salami.

Roma: Super thin mushroom and sausage pizza. I think there was supposed to be olives on this one but I couldn't find any.


Roma: The only filling salad we could find in Italy. Avocado, salmon and rocket.


Firenze: Salmon and cream cheese bagels from the Deluxe Cafe. I was in love with their bagels
Train: Prosciutto cotto, pecorino and paprika pringles. (I love chip sandwiches).


Siena: Seafood cous cous. 




Siena: Tagliatelle with truffles. THis and the cheese filled gnocchi were my favourite. I originally ordered it just because the English translation on the menu simply called it "noodles to the hypocrite" and I thought that was funny (plus it had truffles) and I stand by ordering it because it was delicious, but my waiter was much nicer to my eating companion who ordered Sienese pici. 




Viena: We didn't have time to go on a gondola so I bought a pizza gondola and it was delicious. 


Venice: Tagliatelle with porcini mushrooms. I'm easy. I have favourites.




Verona: Porcini mushroom pizza.
Siena: Wurstel! "Nev, why would you order that at the pizza place?"  "WURSTEL!"
Roma: Ravioli with cherry tomatos.


Siena: Last meal at the I Maestri. Seafood Spaghetti.
And finally, rest in peace Jeff Conaway, because he already got left out of the Emmys' in memoriam and that can't happen twice. 



9.21.2011

22: Food, Food, Food, Food, Food!

Recently I have lost the will to eat. After eating nothing but pasta and pizza for five weeks straight, I have been informed that it would be to my advantage if I cut dairy and gluten out of diet (and went to a chiropractor several times a week to have my back violated - I"m sure the chiropractor community refers to this as "adjusting my spine" but as a person who hates to be touched/hates that popping sound, I cannot agree). 


It's difficult. It's so so difficult. I have spent so much of my life eating gluten. I love sandwiches. I love hamburgers. Hell, I love aht.seriouseats.com. I can't get enough. I was going to write about Kevin Williamson vs. Darren Star and instead I'm going to do a photo-dump of the delicious food I ate in Italy. 


in memoriam of the food i will no longer eat. part one 


Siena: I Maestri Lunch. Eggplant Parmigiana
Siena: Typical Breakfast on the way to class

Siena: This is the kind baby face that let me know I had successfully ordered Naturale water > Frizzante.
Firenze: Calzone
Siena: Antipasto at Civette Contrada Dinner
Firenze: Deluxe Cafe cream cheese bagel. I have no idea why it was so good, but it so was.
Firenze: Beef Carpaccio + Rocket Salad
Siena: My first Italian breakfast: salami, pecorino and eggplant.
Rome: Best gnocchi ever. Cheese filled and covered in truffles and olive oil.
Siena: My first pizza. Eggplant. Delicious. I was so excited by how good it was I accidentally threw half a slice at a wall.
Cinque Terre: Bacon&Egg on Toast
Firenze: This was a different experience for me, thicker pizza with airpockety crush. The moral of this photo is to be nice to Italians and they will reward you with free pizza lunch.
Siena: Fish pizza. I could taste it for the rest of the day.
Firenze: Monte Cristo like breakfast sandwich. Good, but I forgot that I can't handle the heaviness of Monte Cristos


Siena: Osteria Nonna Gina's' secret sauce without nuts! Except it did have nuts and you might have a situation where you have to run and get an epi pen and then run and call an ambulance. Dinner and an adventure all in one!
Siena: Pizza Trofea! Best $2.50 pizza ever! I don't know why this combination was everywhere because I always just ate the hotdog bits first and then the pizza ever.
Siena: I am the worst sweets eater. I will only eat gelato limone. Any other flavour and I will be a sticky complaining mess.
Milan: Artichoke, mushroom, olive pizza. I'm not a fan of olive pizza that I can't bite into, but hey olives = good.
Rome: Parpadelle with wild boar sauce. 
Siena: I Maestri. Pici with ragu. Pici is like thicker spaghetti and it's Siena's top shit. 
Volterra: Margherita Pizza, perfect post Torture Museum nausea.

Cinque Terre: Pizza Diavola
To be honest, the best thing about the pizza diavola was the atmosphere (and it was delicious, what am I saying?). We were sitting on the rocks drinking red wine and watching daredevil Americans jump off cliffs.





And this would be it in the daytime.

Totally beautiful.

It was all pretty amazing. I'm going to do a part two very shortly. I just didn't want to go too crazy with the  photo dump. 


love

9.06.2011

21: I'm Back!!!





I had the worst internet in Italy. It was pretty decent at three in the morning, but I had to wake up for class at eight so that wasn't the best of times. 

I didn't eat that much gelato, but my favourite pictures are always of food or me eating food. I loved Italy. I never expected to love it as much as I did. I never expected to start liking pasta (I know, I know. Who was I?). But I do and I did and I'm happy to be home, and yet it's weird to not have to walk up seven hills to get anywhere. 

To be completely honest, I'm not one of those people who wants to pack up and move. I love to travel, but I love Toronto. The first weekend home involved greasy pad thai, $50 shoes that I could only find in Milan for 90 Euros, hugging my dog and drinking big-ass margaritas. I like it here. I think I'll stay. 

Three things that I have to continue doing in Toronto to make me as happy as I was in Siena:

1. Walk > Subway
2. Try new things on menus. Sometimes I just picked whatever had the funniest name.
3. Dance Dance Dance Dance!

7.28.2011

20: Bye Bye Birdie



I'm off to Italy for five weeks! The past few weeks has been a mess of twelve hour work shifts, trying to figure out how to use my new camera and panicked packing. Such fun!
(I still don't really know how to use my camera, I am still not fully packed and my last cheque hasn't arrived yet, but that's okay! Cause I'm just watching the Hills anyway.)

Arrivederci!!

7.19.2011

19: Siblings -Shit On It! Shit On It! I Love My Sister.

Right now I'm working 11.5 hour days and reading Pretty Little Liars on the 50 minute commute there and back. 

Ergo in the few minutes I have before I pass out at night, I've needed a bit of a pick-me-up and what with all the dysfunctional sibling relationships in Pretty Little Liars (sisters pushing each other down stairs, sisters killing each other et cetera et cetera) I've been rewatching Friday Night Lights.

Johnny and Adam are one of my favourite siblings on television. 
I get very emotional seeing siblings on TV. Whenever I'm watching a hospital show and someone's crying over their sibling I feel the need to call and make sure my sister is okay. Whenever I'm watching a crime procedural show and there has been a case of fratiricide or sororicide (I had to look that up, who knew it was called that?) I feel the urge to call my sister and let her know that even if she stole my favourite toy, I would never kill her. 

It's nice to see siblings getting along, even if their method of getting along is mostly just pranking each other every Friday night dinner. 

Example: 


Because no matter how much salt your brother puts in your water, he is still your brother and five minutes later, everything is right as rain and you can hang out in the garage together drinking non-alcoholic "children's lager". 



Here is the first half of the first episode. Watch watch! Enjoy. There are only six episodes, easy to demolish in  one sitting.

7.12.2011

18: The Same Outfit I Keep Wearing Over and Over

Leather Shorts: Club Monaco Fruffy Shirt: Garage Sale Bag: Joe Fresh


I love this shirt, it fruffs out in the back as though I have tails and it's lacey and it loves me. I should have taken better photos. 


Mostly I have just been taking lots of photos of food. 



This was my forray into the raw vegan gluten free food world. I got so nauseous I thought I was going to throw up all over The Order of the Phoenix. My word. It tasted about as good as it looks in this next picture when I mixed it all up. 




Blurgh. 


Frozen yogurt is far more enjoyable. Now I still have 2.5 more Harry Potters to read before Thursday Midnight.