Hey all,

Camping trip #2 is this weekend....so far it's all boys for the Thursday night, (kinda scary, I know) and then Megs and I will join on Friday/Saturday. Anyhow, if you didn't let me know you were coming but are still interested (beans...Annie...looking at you guys.) there's still room for about 4-5 more bodies on Friday and Saturday. Anyhow, it would be nice if you guys could come!

It's supposed to be scattered clouds/sunny this weekend. Although I'm sure Mother Nature will kick us in the pants at the very last minute just for good measure. It's just not camping if we don't go home soaking wet.

 

So....3 months since the last post eh? Glad to know I keep on top of things. Anyhow, for those of you that care, I like the new job. Having an office of my own (with my name on the door to beat) is frickin' cool. I guess it better be to make up for the lack of money they pay me. Oh well, the experience is more than worth it. But I've just realized lately that a lot of people can't write good resumes/cover letters. Or just completely lack the knowledge that it's a good idea to submit those things ESPECIALLY IF THE POSTING SPECIFIES IT. Anyhow. It provides me with great sources of amusement during the day.

So camping for those of you missed out was super fun! Check out the pics that I posted. As Megan said, the site we went to was gorgeous, and Friday night was beautiful. It even cleared up enough at midnight for a good hour-ish of stargazing. And not to forget the midnight glow-in-the-dark frisbee/“lightsaber“ fights, and the stupid *#&% pans that burnt my precious pancakes. Wah! So if you didn't come, we missed ya.

Trip number two is pencilled in for July 22/23/24. Hope to see you then!

Alright geniuses out there....please help me! I'm supposed to be writing a paper, which was going quite well, but then I came across a brainteaser. Please help put me out of my misery?

“ Three travellers at an inn are charged 30 silver pieces for their food and drink. Each person pays 10 silver pieces to the server. However, the travellers soon demand a refund for a poor meal. The owner says that she will give them a small refund. She gives the server 5 silver pieces, and tells him to give the money to the upset diners.

The waiter thinks to himself, 'I'm not going to get a tip and after all that hard work I've done. I'll keep two silver pieces and give them three.” He gives each traveller one silver piece

Now the diners have each paid nine silver pieces for their meal. That's 27 silver pieces in total and the 2 pieces in the server's pocket makes 29.

What happened to the other silver piece?”

It just makes me want to tear my hair out...

My heart goes out to the 4 RCMP members who were slain yesterday in Rochfort Bridge/Mayerthorpe and their families. It's shocking to think that something like that could happen so close to Edmonton. And even more so to know that these officers went on to the property first looking for stolen property, and were killed while guarding a marijuana grow-op that they found.  When we hear about grow-ops on the news it's usually a quick raid showed with pictures of the plants being removed on to a big truck without any conflict. It's a dark day for everyone involved in law enforcement.

Amongst the pizza eating, cranium smack talk, and picture stealing of tonight, Vi/Inge and I came to the conclusion that we all need to get together more often. (Or something like that) Anyhow, lo and behold Jane has a smackload of 50cent admissions to the cheap theatres. So I'm thinking next Saturday night, we all pick the cheesiest movie playing and go watch it. How does that sound?  See ya around!

You wouldn't think counting would be so hard eh? Ha! 5 hours of counting bears will change your mind about that! Here goes the recap.

The teams last week were in Norway and ended up in Nesheimstunet (a farm pretty much...ooh cows) as their pit stop. The teams leave for Stockholm, Sweden by taking a train from Voss, then transferring onto a bus from Oslo to go to Stockholm. I'm not going to bother telling you who left first/second etc because it really didn't matter. All the teams were bunched up onto the same bus, which is no surprise because their start time was at 2 in the morning.

Once in Stockholm, their first task is to find a ice bar located in a fancy shmancy hotel. I think the ice bar looked really cool, everything was made of ice  (duh) but the coolest was the shot glasses made of ice! They had to slide the shot glasses on the ice bar top and hit a target before their team was allowed to continue on to their next clue. The thing I found kind of funny was that the teams had to put on parkas before they were allowed to enter the bar. I'm not sure how much fun that it would be to go to a bar all dressed up in a parka...

Kris and Jon finished the task first and left the ice bar with instructions to go to the IKEA store in Stockholm. *sigh* I'm sure the Swedes are really proud that the task assigned for their country was based entirely around a store that SELLS FURNITURE... Anyways, all the groups get bunched up again because the store doesn't open until 10 am. It  looks like all the teams just end up sleeping outside the store doors until it opens. Now the episode didn't really show it but apparently it was really difficult to find the clue box because there were so many levels to the store. After finding the clue box it was also very difficult to get to the sample/assemble level. On the extras clip (available at www.cbs.com) they showed a clip following Kris and Jon running up and down unsuccessfully until they grabbed onto an employee and got her to show them.

Detour: the teams had to choose between counting and building. In counting, the teams had to take inventory of bins of stuffed bears and pots/pans.  They had to get exactly 2304 and report to their “supervisor” to get their next clue. If they got the wrong number however, they had to go back and count all over again. In building, the teams had to assemble a desk making sure that they used all the pieces and had built a quality desk, as decided by their “supervisor”

The teams kind of split down the middle and went to the different tasks.  I'm very surprised that so many teams stayed with the counting task after seeing what they had to do! There's bins full on little itty bitty stuffed animals! Sigh...I don't think many of them realized that it would be extremely frustrating to count so many items. I know when I have to count the cashbox for work and I keep getting wrong numbers I get so mad/frustrated it just drives me insane. Also, according to my dad, it looked like the people who chose to build the desk got building instructions which made the building task very easy as long as you can read. At first I thought they would have to assemble the desk without instructions (like the season when they had to assemble a bicycle without instructions), which would have been really interesting!

Kris and Jon again are the first ones to leave the detour (they built a desk) and receive their next clue which instructs them to take the subway somewhere that I kind of missed. From the subway station they had to get onto a tandem bike and bike to a farm field somewhere for a road block.  When Kris and Jon arrive there they see that there is a yield sign.  The yield sign allows any team to “yield” any team behind them. When the yielded team arrives, the yielded team has to turn over the hourglass and wait until all the sand is gone before moving on. This part of the race was just introduced last season, and it showed how useful the yield could be if played properly. Chip and Kim (winners of the last season) threw a wrench into Colin and Christie's streak by yielding them on the very last leg of the race. Colin and Christie had been steam rolling all the teams on the previous legs, and I really expected them to win. It'll be interesting to see what happens this season. By the way....it was hilarious watching the teams bike because they all had HUGE backpacks, so whoever was biking in the back kept getting hit in the face the entire way.

Roadblock-Hayfever: one team member had to go out to the field and unroll bales of hay to search for clues. There were clues hidden in 20 bales out of hundreds.  Side note-I'm really glad that they put in the rule about each team member only being able to do 6 roadblocks, this really affects certain teams in terms of their playing strategies (the strong guy-less strong chick teams) because they can't have the guy doing all the roadblocks. Anyways, Gus and Hera finish their IKEA detour next, followed closely by Hayden and Aaron, then Lena and Kristy (who were the first teams to successfully the counting tasks!)

Aaron and Jon find their clues easily and head off back to Stockholm to find the Af Chapman boat, which is the pit stop for this leg of the race. The two teams are neck and neck all the way to the mat, but we see Hayden and Aaron step on the mat first.  On the extras clip Kris and Jon said that they decided who to go first by playing rock, paper, scissors. There's nothing that game can't solve!

Jon begins unrolling the bales of hay for their team, as does Aaron for his team. It looked like this task of unrolling hay was VERY tiring. Has anyone ever unrolled bales of hay? All the team members that did the task looked totally wiped out after finishing the task. Lena and Kristy arrive at the task 3rd and Lena goes to do the Roadblock. Gus and Hera arrive 4th, followed by Jonathan and Victoria, then Adam and Rebecca.  At this point we flash over back to IKEA where Lori and Bolo/Don and Mary Jean are STILL counting.  Both teams eventually switch over to the build task.  The oldies have trouble getting a drawer to fit, and Lori and Bolo finish ahead of them. Strangely enough, the teams actually arrive at the Roadblock relatively close within each other. More surprising was to see that Lena and Kristy were STILL at the Roadblock. They must have had at least 5 hours head start over these two teams. I can't imagine how bad Lena was feeling...

Unfortunately Bolo and Don have no trouble finding their clues and they set off to leave. Lena pushes over another bale and starts unrolling... By this time it's completely dark and she has to start using a headlamp to see where she's going. Kudos to her to not stopping though, I know they were holding on to the hope that maybe this leg was a non-elimination leg. (If it was, the last team loses all their money but is not kicked off the race)

Eventually though, Phil himself went out to the field and had to eliminate Lena and Kristy there. We find out that they had been there for EIGHT hours and Lena had pushed over a hundred bales of hay. I'm glad that Phil went over though, because I think that Lena would have opened every damn bale before she would have given up.

Sigh, I really can't believe how unlucky the girls were. Really, what are the odds that you would push over half the bales and still find no clues. Tough luck...I really would have liked to see them get farther though, they were one of the few teams that actually worked together.   Next week, looks like they go somewhere in Africa...

Random thoughts:

-looked like Jonathan does care about Victoria, sort of. He kept yelling at her to take a break and breathe when she was doing the roadblock. He showed some genuine concern that she was close to passing out. I'm just not sure whether he was worried about her or that if she passed out, she wouldn't finish the roadblock...

-and Gus, why were you wearing a bike helmet like that? Why? It was on TOP of his floppy cowboy/safari hat and it wasn't even done up. Why don't you just not wear the helmet, it's not going to protect you anyways!

-This episode of TAR really highlighted the luck aspect of the race which kind of stinks. The team that ended up losing did nothing more than pick the wrong hay bales....at least a hundred wrong ones....for EIGHT hours. *sigh* Usually the luck is good though, getting onto flights at the last minute or even convincing flight attendants to let you on after the flights close. Bad luck....BAD BAD luck. Grrr...

See ya next week.

I got this in my email account today in regards to my Wed, Nov 24th post about TAR6 Episodes 1 and 2

“so you think meredith and maria are dumb because they can't drive a standard?  i think your stupid for thinking that. you think your so smart because you know how to? is that it?  or do you even know how to?i want you to email me back and tell me what you think.“

This being sent from someone named Ashley....who I must say that I don't know. I don't know why she didn't write a comment on my post . But she requested that I write her back and explain why I called Meredith and Maria dumb. (Which I DID NOT!!!)

I'm kind of flattered that someone would be so offended by something I posted to take the effort to send me an email challenging me to justify my OPINION. *sigh* Anyhow, just for you ppl out in the Blogosphere....

1) As a matter of fact I DON'T know how to drive a stick. Although if they EVER open up TAR to Canadians, you can bet your ass I would learn how to drive a stick AND fill out the application form at the same time.

2) If you're going to take the time to criticize my posts~! you really should learn how to use punctuation! And mayb be mor carful with the speling there. It'll make me more likely to not want to laugh it off. :p

That was kinda mean..but eh....I'm stupid according to Ms. Ashley. (Ooh, proper capitalization would be a bonus!)

Anyhow, please comment on my original post about whether I was unclear or unduly harsh on M&M and whether my response to Ashley is appropriate...

Jane's response-

“No I don't think they're dumb...I'm sorry if I came off that way. I'm quite sad that they lost BECAUSE they couldn't drive standard.  I think that they had a good relationship with each other and had a good chance in the race.

If you read my post again I said "LEARN TO DRIVE STICK IF YOU ARE GOING ON TAR!!! You know you will have at least part of the race through Europe....surprise! They like to drive standard cars there."

I was very surprised that there continue to be contestants in the SIXTH SEASON of TAR that do not learn how to drive standard prior to leaving for the race. (Or really, they should learn how to drive standard cars before even APPLYING) Almost every season there is at least one team who has difficulty with driving standard cars, and it doesn't make sense that a team would neglect/ignore the fact that they will be faced with having to drive standard!

That's like saying "Oh I didn't realize that I'd have to eat gross food on Fear Factor" That's just silly, or if you will, stupid...

Freddy and Kendra (I think it was them) grabbing a second clue and getting penalized 1/2 hour....Stupid as well. For that matter, Adam and Rebecca mistaking a diesel car for a gasoline car. Stupid as well.  These are all mistakes (BIG mistakes) that caused previous teams in previous races to be eliminated. In my opinion, these two teams deserved to lose just as much as Meredith and Maria. But as luck has it, they're inability to drive a stick handicapped them too much!

I hope that clears things up...

Question for you though, why did you send me an email and not post a comment on my post? LOL, not that it matters. Check in after tonight's episode for another recap of episode 3.

Cheers,

Jane“

I think I'm at the point where I think throwing up whatever I need to throw up is starting to sound really good. I've been feeling “throw-uppy” since yesterday after eating hot pot. (*groan* hot pot's just never good for me...) Spray painting 7 boards out in the cold for an hour and a half today probably wasn't great for me either. I'm just praying it's not the stomach flu that's going around (although I'm pretty sure stomach flu won't make you throw up....does it?)

With ickiness and queasiness of stomach,

~Jane

This upcoming Friday, November 26 is Buy Nothing Day, the whole idea is for everyone around the world to adopt a non-consumerist lifestyle for one day.  This may seem like a silly thing to do, since it's just ONE day, but I suggest you try it.Even for students who take globalism courses, or study pollution issues (which are all ultimately due to the production of the goods we buy) or those who are well aware of the impacts of our excessive consumerism this can be a hard BUT worthwile event to participate in.

For myself, I “know” the environmental impact of living this consumerist lifestyle, and I “know” the repercussions economically that purchasing mass produced things has on many 3rd world country. However I often feel very removed from it all, and uncomfortably experience a dissociation of my feeling that I need to behave in a accountable fashion from my desire to have the newest stuff at the cheapest possible price (especially when I'm up at the till holding my newest purchase in my hands)

I have changed my spending patterns in the last few years, but I know that my attitude and spending behaviour is nowhere near where it should be in order to ensure little environmental impact and equality to everyone around the world. Don't get me wrong, I don't think that we all need to go the hippie route , however we do need to make ourselves conscientious of the effects of our lifestyle and try to make some changes.

The difficulty that arises from trying to change our lifestyle should not be an excuse for not trying! The only impossible tasks are the ones that you don't begin.

I hope that everyone that reads this post will participate in this year's buy nothing day even if it means planning ahead and making sure you won't have any “essential“ things to buy on Friday. (Check out  http://www.adbusters.org/metas/eco/bnd/ for more info and links)

It's only ONE day...

Hello again, I think that this is the most posts I've made such a short period of time! Whew. Anyhow, who's been watching the Amazing Race 6? Ooh ooh ooh, pick me pick me! If you haven't, shame on you. It's the best “reality show” out there.

If you've been living under a rock, here's the general idea of The Amazing Race. There are 11 teams of 2 that compete in a race around the world. In most legs, the last team to arrive is eliminated.They compete in various tasks and challenges throughout the race that typically have something to do with the country they are in. I'm going to recap most of the stuff/add my two cents.

If you want the official TAR recaps go to the CBS website. For the funnier full recap you can go to Television Without Pity www.televisionwithoutpity.com

Anyhow, season starter last week...I always have trouble differentiating about half the teams because they're all young couples. However I did learn the names of a few teams. The requisite old couple, Don and Mary Jean, Lori and Bolo (married pro wrestlers), Jonathan and Victoria (Jonathan manages to be both more of a jackass than Colin from TAR 5, and more obnoxious than Sam from Apprentice season 1) There's Gus and Hera....the father/daugter-non Caucasian team, and Avi and Joe-geeky, Bronx bred Jewish guys. Oy. The other teams I had a bit of trouble telling apart, but hey, as the season goes on...it only gets easier.

**Jonathan said...episode 1 “I'm a mental magician, my power of foresight is just so strong“  also by Jon “I'm a dictator...when we have problems, I tell her what to do“ Divorce his ass Victoria!!! (aka Botox....lol take one good look, you'll agree) ***

So this season race begins in Chicago and their first task is to get on the subway to catch a train to the O' Hare airport. I've never been to Chicago but I have taken the subways in places like London and HK, and I can imagine how hard it would be to try to find the right station and line to get onto. They groups all end up on one of the 3 planes to Reykjavik, Iceland.

A big part of TAR is luck, and the teams that chose the plane transferring through Baltimore demonstrated that perfectly. Their plane was delayed by almost an hour, and although at the beginning of the race that doesn't matter, near the end it will make or break the team.

In Iceland they had to retrieve a clue from behind the Seljalandsfoss waterfall. Some of the teams had difficulty finding the right waterfall....and others just assumed that it wasn't the right one.  I don't remember who said this...”I don't know what that waterfall is but that's NOT it” as the shot pans in and focuses on the clue box. Aah....no wonder TAR's editing team wins Emmy's!

After the waterfall, the teams drove out to the Vatnajokull glacier, which Phil Keoghan (the host) voiceovers is the largest glacier in Europe. They get to snowmobile out to a site ON the glacier and stay overnight in a camp. When I saw that shot....I swear I have never wanted to be in TAR more! (except a few seasons ago when the went to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe...or when they went river sledding last season? Ah who am I kidding.....every show makes me want to be on TAR )

Next day, the teams all go out and have to choose a detour task between searching in a glacial lagoon for a buoy or go ice climbing. The search in the lagoon is more frustrating, but the ice climb is farther away and more physical. Anyhow, the lagoon search is boring, so I'm only going to tell you about the ice climb. THey have to climb this part ofa glacier using ice picks it looks frickin' hard to do.

After the tasks are complete they head towards to the pit stop at the Blue Lagoon hot springs. Surprisingly 2 teams manage to be on the complete opposite end of the lagoon and had to go all the way around. In the end, Avi and Joe were the last ones to arrive and were eliminated. I must say that I was kinda sad....they were quite funny in a self deprecating way. My fave quote from them was “40 years of wandering in a desert and we're sleeping on a glacier“ ---“There is a god and he has a sense of humour“

Peeves from the first episode: After 5 previous races...and I'm sure they had to have watched at least ONE season prior to departing. They should have learned from the previous races mistakes. For example...Adam and Rebecca. You CANNOT assume that the vehicles go on gasoline. If it's a diesel car....it takes DIESEL. This problem never fails to occur for at least one of the teams.

Also, Lori and Bolo....how could you even think that you could get through that part of the race without a MAP?! Oy! And Meredith and Maria....dumb dumb dumb. They could have lost because they decided to follow a group without realizing that they had missed the clue completely. They must have lost at least 3 hours because of that. 

Okay...Episode 2

The teams left Iceland and headed to Norway, they ended up all on the same flight and landed at the same time. From there they had to head to an Olympic ski jump and one of the team members had to complete the Roadblock and go down a 1000ft zip line. It looked like SO much fun.....although I'd be peeing my pants I think.  (Oh....on a side note about the Roadblock....I'm very happy about their new rule about team members only allowed to do 6 roadblocks each, because now there won't be anymore situations of whiny girlfriends/fiancees making their bf/fiance do all the dirty work. Not naming any names...just saying)

From there they had to go to a old Viking park? Historic thing? I don't remember. Anyhow, they stayed overnight, so again all the teams caught up again. In the morning the teams had to split themselves into to traditional Viking boats and row themselves across a fjord. Bolo had it right when he said the teams basically went fit, young teams versus not really fit, not really young teams.  The non fit/young team was doomed to lose....not cuz they weren't young or fit, but because Jonathan....the never ending mouth was on their boat. I'm surprised no one jumped ship from his incessant yelling at them. Oy.

After crossing the fjord, they drove somewhere and go their next clue. They had to choose between roller skiing or a series of traditional accuracy test. There was no real advantage for either task so....eh. Despite the fact that Freddy and Kendra were penalized 30 minutes AND Lena/Kristy got lost, Meredith and Maria lost and were eliminated because they couldn't drive a stick shift.

Big Peeve from Ep. 2 LEARN TO DRIVE STICK IF YOU ARE GOING ON TAR!!! You know you will have at least part of the race through Europe....surprise! They like to drive standard cars there. It was just dumb that Meredith and Maria didn't drive stick. That was just dumb. I kind of liked them but they deserved to lose because of that. And it wasn't really a surprise.

So there you have it...they first two episodes of THE AMAZING :D Watch it next week! (I swear I saw an IKEA sign somewhere in the background of the preview shots. Anyone else think that they're going to Sweden next week?) I also have a feeling that I'm going to be screaming at the TV everytime that Jonathan's on the screen. *sigh*