I'd go for Scorsese. Eastwood might do it, but I have a feeling they're going to give it to Marty for all the past wrongs. (See Costner, Kevin winning for Dances with Wolves, instead of Scorsese for Goodfellas.)
Also I already have the DVD, but thanks for the sentiment.
1. I had a girls night with my Mom last night. It was awesome. We went to dinner and a movie. It's been years since I caught a flick with my mom. Well at least when it was just her and me. The last time was way back when we still lived in Calgary. She and I headed out to watch Emma, the one with Gwyneth Paltrow while my brother, sister and Dad went to go see Independence Day. It was really nice to hang out with my mom.
2. On the bus ride home there was a man doing needle point. That made me smile. He was really cute too, and I wished I had my knitting with me.
3. Does anyone want to go see Million Dollar Baby and/or Hotel Rwanda with me?
4. Re: Evi and the Oscars. They're on Feb. 27th. Which is a Sunday night. I did want to make a night of it, but then I didn't think anyone would be interested. But since you are, why not? So Oscar Party at my place! (and by party I mean a small group of friends, some marshmallows to throw at the screen for when stupid people win, and ballots for everyone to fill out prior to the show.) So if anyone wants to come just let me know, and I'll plan in earnest.
So it's that time of year again. Now I know that the Oscars hardly ever reward the most deserving movies of the year. There seems to be all these politics that influence the decisions. But I love them all the same.
So here they are the Noms, my picks for who will win, who I want to win and who was snubbed.
ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
Don Cheadle - HOTEL RWANDA
Johnny Depp - FINDING NEVERLAND
Leonardo DiCaprio - THE AVIATOR
Clint Eastwood - MILLION DOLLAR BABY
Jamie Foxx - RAY
Okay don't get me wrong, I love Johnny Depp and will be very happy if he wins. But although he was awesome in Finding Neverland, I really want Don Cheadle to win this.
Who will win? Jamie Foxx.
Who should have been nominated? Well Jim Carrey for Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless Mind. Paul Giamatti for Sideways. Gerard Butler for Phantom of the Opera. And I would have loved to see Mark Wahlberg get something for I Heart Huckabees.
ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Alan Alda - THE AVIATOR
Thomas Haden Church - SIDEWAYS
Jamie Foxx - COLLATERAL
Morgan Freeman - MILLION DOLLAR BABY
Clive Owen - CLOSER
Yay! Clive Owen! Yay! Morgan Freeman! I'm pretty happy with all these actually. I'd be happy if any of them won and I think they all deserve to be there.
Who will win? I think it might be Freeman. He's long overdue and Oscar loves to give retroactive Oscars. Meaning Freeman should have won for Shawshank Redemption, so ten years later they'll give it to him for this. See also Crowe, Russel (Gladiator instead of The Insider) or Washington, Denzel (Training Day instead of every other movie he'd been in before winning).
I'd only wished Patrick Wilson was there. He made me actually like the character of Raoul in Phantom. And he's awesome. Oh and Peter Sarsgaard. He was great in both Kinsey and Garden State.
ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
Annette Bening - BEING JULIA
Catalina Sandino Moreno - MARIA FULL OF GRACE
Imelda Staunton - VERA DRAKE
Hilary Swank - MILLION DOLLAR BABY
Kate Winslet - ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND
I really want either Kate Winslet or Imelda Staunton to win this.
Who will win? Annette Bening
Who was snubbed? I can't really think of anyone else to put there. It was a bit of a weak year for women's parts.
ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Cate Blanchett - THE AVIATOR
Laura Linney - KINSEY
Virginia Madsen - SIDEWAYS
Sophie Okonedo - HOTEL RWANDA
Natalie Portman - CLOSER
Who I want to win? Laura Linney. She was great in Kinsey.
Who will win? I think Natalie Portman might take it. Maybe Virginia Madsen.
Who should be there? Again I'm pretty okay with this list. I think the only change I'd make is to give Cate Blanchett a nomination for The Life Aquatic instead of The Aviator.
BEST PICTURE
THE AVIATOR
FINDING NEVERLAND
MILLION DOLLAR BABY
RAY
SIDEWAYS
Who should win? I've heard Sideways is really good... and I really liked Finding Neverland.
Who will win? My money is on The Aviator.
Who I wish was there? Garden State, Phantom of the Opera, I Heart Huckabees, The Life Aquatic, and Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless Mind. That would be an awesome race if those five were up there.
Full list of Nominees can be found here.
I guess only having Sunday off really does make the weekend short. But it just seems to me that every week that passes, the weekdays get longer and my Sunday gets shorter.
Not much to update on. I ran some errands yesterday. I got my grocery shopping done, and returned a video. I headed off to Staples to buy a decent hole punch and some graph paper so I can start designing some knitting projects. Which should be super fun.
I need new toys for my kids, so I popped into Toys R' Us as well. And was gravely disappointed. There really wasn't much appropriate. I wondered around the store for a good half hour too. I have to say play doh has certainly advanced greatly since I was a kid. They have all these weird creature molds now and buildings and everything. Pretty cool actually.
My cousin came over in the afternoon and we lazed about. We watched Extreme Makeover Home Edition, and as I'm sure I've mention previously that show always makes me cry. Today was no different. It's just so awesome, and the families are always so grateful. Most of them have given up all hope by the time Ty and crew show up, so tears are always falling. Especially mine.
It was a good night I suppose. I got to bed at a decent hour and I had a good day at work today. Which is nice.
Just to let everyone know the Oscar nominations are being announced tomorrow. I'm very excited about this. I'll be sure to post my picks for the winners soon....as well as who was totally overlooked coughGerardButlercough.
I had a late night last night, which was worth it 'cause I had a great time. But I had to get up early this morning and go to work, and me being sleepy at work definitely made things a bit tougher. If I'm not on the ball my kids notice right away and will exploit any opportunity they can to annoy me.
Y'all one of my kids bit me today and later shoved and screamed at me. It was a bit rough.
Anyway, after work I gave Anna a call. We had plans for dinner at Cianti's as a nice little treat for ourselves. We went there at one point in December and they had this promotion on where they gave you this red envelope that you couldn't open. The deal was that you had to bring it back at some point in January and your server would open it and inside would be some sort of prize. Anything from a free dessert to a $50 gift certificate for the restaurant. Since January is coming to a close soon, we decided today was as good a day as any to check out what we won.
And I have to say we did really well. We won a free entree. Which is sweet. Actually it was the second best one, after the $50 gift certificate. So that was awesome. I pretended I wasn't on a diet and ordered freely. I just couldn't help but get the chocolate mousse for dessert even though my Linguini Primavera was incredibly filling.
Afterwards we headed over to the video store and rented "Waiting for Guffman". Neither of us had seen it, but had only heard good things. And I really loved "A Mighty Wind" and "Best in Show". It really didn't disappoint at all. It was super funny and very quotable. Not that anyone needs me to say that, I'm probably the last person on the planet to see it.
All in all even though the day started off a little rough (I had a good session with a kid too though, he's making so much progress it's all I can do not to burst into tears when I'm with him, he makes me so proud) it ended really well. So thanks Anna for the wonderful evening!
Not much has really been going on in the world of Tessa. I'm super happy that the abusive husband and screeching wife team are no longer on The Amazing Race. Now the show will hopefully be enjoyable once again and not cringe-worthy.
My Mom was in town the last few nights. She and I headed to Chapters last night. I found a CD I've been looking for (Future Shop didn't have it and I was almost ready to head downtown to overpriced Virgin when I thought to check at Chapters...they really do have everything). My mom wanted to show me a knitting book, called Denim People by Debbie Bliss. She thought I would enjoy some of the patterns in there. But we couldn't find it. However the Knitting section in that store is absolutely horrendous. It's always a mess and completely un-organized. We went on the computer and found out that the store supposedly had 7 copies. After flagging down an employee she headed to the back to check to see if they were just not shelved yet.
While we waited we wondered towards the wedding section and I spotted Stich and Bitch Nation. Which is a knitting book I've been looking for for a few months now. I think someone may have hidden it, or just not paid attention to where they were putting it after looking at it. I grabbed it and my Mom offered to buy it for me. Which was awesome because the CD was $30 and I really couldn't justify both, especially because I haven't worked as much this month as usual do to my sickness, my kids getting sick and my vacation.
The Chapters lady eventually came back and said that she couldn't find it. My mom was a bit peeved. I went down to check if maybe it was on the bargain book table, but it wasn't. So I still don't have that book. But I have my awesome CD and I have my Stich and Bitch. So I guess I'm still happy.
My diet crankiness seems to slowly be going away. I've stopped dreaming about cake which is nice. It's so annoying to have a dream about perfect cake and then wake up and realize not only have you not eaten it, but you can't. It really makes you crave it more in the end. But I'm still doing good. I'm getting back into the swing of things which is nice. I hate dieting, but I like the results of it. And already I feel healthier and lighter. My clothes are getting a teeny bit looser and my scale says a smaller number everyday. It's all I can really ask for and giving up cake and mini eggs for awhile is worth it I suppose.
I read The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux last week. I had tried to read it a few years ago (like ten years ago) and I didn't make it past the first chapter. This was different and I really did enjoy it. Of course I hated both Raoul and Christine and even the Phantom until the end. But it was cool all the same. I think my favourite part though was at then end after the Phantom had kidnapped Christine and Raoul and the Persian are going to save her. The Persian keeps telling Raoul to keep his hand at the level of his eyes, to avoid being strangled by all those nooses the Phantom leaves around and Raoul tells him that he doesn't want to because his arm is tired. So awesome!
Totally read the book just so you too can understand what a total tool Raoul is.
I didn't go to work today. A combination of feeling icky and the silly washer repair man only being able to come when I was supposed to be in North Van, but really mostly the sickliness.
So of course I've spent most of the day in varying degrees of boredom. I read a little, watched two movies and cleaned. I did go out at one point to get groceries. My fridge was empty and it was a necessity. Yet I think it was also a mistake. The entire time I was outside I felt absolutely wretched and sickly and weak. I was so glad to get back to my place.
As is probably obvious from this post is that I don't do sick well. I hate lying in bed with nothing going on, and I just don't have the attention span for reading vast amounts at a time anymore. I'm always looking for ways to pre-occupy myself. Which leads me to be even more sickly cause I don't stay indoors and in bed enough to get better. But hopefully whatever I'm afflicted with will go away soon. Here's to me waking up tomorrow completely healthy and yuckiness free!
I guess it's about time to get my squealing "phan" girl (get it, phan like phantom, I'm so witty I slay myself) off the top of the page.
I don't really have much to say. I'm coming down with some weird illness. It'll most likely turn out to be a cold, but weird illness just sounds so much better.
I was thinking at work today about cleanliness. And how when you come right down to it, I am very unclean. Well no, not unclean, just a slob I guess. Not about gross things like food. I hate food that's been left out. It sticks and it's gross, but about non-smelly things I'm pretty messy. Especially my bedroom. At the moment half my wardrobe is strewn across the floor. It's been this way for at least two weeks and I just can't be bothered to pick it up.
My "office" has a whole bunch of random work papers in haphazard piles. I really need to file them, and if I hadn't left them for so long, it would have been easy, but I have and now it's going to take awhile. So I've been avoiding them.
My living room is a mess of different yarns and knitting needles and patterns and blankets cause I'm always cold.
In the end I think the only acceptably clean room in the apartment is the second bedroom. And that's only because I don't use it.
What I find weird about all of this is how impeccably clean I am at work. When the kids and I are done with a toy we clean it up. Which is fine and part of my job. But the weird thing is when I arrive at some of my houses I sometimes have to do a bit of cleaning of the rooms I work in. So usually I leave the place I work in a much better condition than how I found it.
So why can I do this at work, but not my own house. Part of it may be that it is an other persons home. Another may be that since it is my workspace it needs to be uncluttered, so working in a messy room would be counter productive for the kids and lead to way to many distractions.
I guess I just find it weird how cleaning at these places is just second nature, while cleaning at my place is an absolute chore.
And yes I did just write a long post about cleaning. I'm not boring at all. Maybe I should stop reading so much. (to get that last line you should go read a few posts back at Amy's blog...which you should be reading anyway cause it's awesome.)
So I guess I'm a little late to the party here, but I went to go see The Phantom of the Opera tonight and I thought I'd put forth my two cents of the adaptation.
A little history is required first though.
My Mom loves musicals. My Dad doesn't. My Mother got us kids all hooked on musicals, perhaps as some sort of deranged revenge on my dad. Not really sure. But anyway I love them, and the first musical I saw live: The Phantom of the Opera. I was 10. It was awesome. I had already memorized the entire thing by the time I saw it and I adored everything about the production. It is what really entrenched me into this world and I will always hold it dear. In the end it really is one of my favourite musicals of all time.
Then they made a movie. I had HIGH expectations. Then I heard that it really sucked. And my expectations lowered a bit, until I remembered that a lot of people don't like musicals (these people are weird) and are haters and feel the need to tear down and mock what they do not understand. These people are to be pitied, and my expectations were once again incredibly high.
And in the end, I was not disappointed. It's been a few years since I listened to my CD and dude I missed a lot of the blatant sexuality of this musical when I was a kid. I seriously had no idea that Music of the Night was all about the Phantom wanting to get into Christine's pants. I know, right?
I did find a few things to grumble about. They added in a few scenes to explain where the Phantom came from, and how Christine came to the Opera House, which were annoying, and they changed the occasional line and sometimes they spoke things that were supposed to be sung, but over all I LOVED IT.
Oh and that Phantom character. Here's another thing my ten year old mind just didn't grasp. The Phantom is incredibly darkly intensely sexy. And I understand that he's a murderer and a stalker and has some deeply rooted psychological issues. But seriously, I would not kick that man out of bed. Damn! I was totally hoping they changed the ending. Raoul is wonderful and cute and everything, but The Phantom is just so...I don't even think there is a word to describe it. He's entrancing and dangerous. And you know he'd show you a good time.
Whew, glad to get that out of my system.
In completely other news, I have recently accepted to be a bridesmaid in another friends wedding. This will be my third time. Isn't there some sort of saying that once you're a bridesmaid three times you will never marry or something. Anyhoo, guess I'll be a spinster, it'll be worth it to be in this wedding.
I've been so distracted by the snow that I forgot to write about the Worlds Best Television Commercials 2004. Anna and I headed out to the Ridge on Wednesday night (also known as the night before the snow fell) and had an absolute blast. Those advertising people know what there doing, I don't think I've laughed so hard since I saw the Worlds Best Television Commercials 2003 last year.
Highlights included a really awesome one for a French language school, one I think was for Nike which had a whole basketball stadium playing musical chairs, and pretty much all the beer ones (especially the "Men of Genius" ones). An awesome time.
This is fucking sick. It doesn't have a snowballs chance in hell of passing, but the very idea that someone would present this as a bill is absolutely disgusting.
Obviously it's a step towards making abortion illegal. And of course may I just add that the person who came up with this big idea is of course uterus-less.
I feel so bad for women in Virginia right now.
I had a lot of trouble sleeping last night. While I was watching CSI they kept having those little "watch the news" clips during the commercials. And I was absolutely horrified to watch cars slipping into one another and bumping/crashing because the lack of traction on the roads. I was so scared to drive today. I had figured out a bus route that would have me 10 minutes late for one session, half an hour early for another one, and then 20 minutes late for a meeting. And that's only if all my buses were on time. But it was better than the alternative of, you know, dying or messing up my car.
Anyway because I'm a little prone to panic attacks, especially at night, I had a lot of trouble sleeping because I was just so anxious about driving today after the stunt filled drive of yesterday (fishtailing is oh so much fun, especially when your going uphill on a unplowed, unsalted road. Awesome time there!) This morning I woke up extra early (6:45, vs my usual 7) and the first thing I heard on the radio was how a whole bunch of people going down highway one were in the ditch. Right then and there I decided to take the bus. So I got up, scarfed down my breakfast, made a substandard lunch*, and ran out the door. I was halfway to the bus stop when I realized the roads were pretty much clear. No snow. No ice. I turned around went down to the parking garage, said a little prayer and pleaded with my sweet lovely car to make it through the day. And I ended up having a super easy drive in. And made it in one of my best times ever. Meaning I gave my self an hour to get to North Van. It took half an hour.
So yay Vancouver snow plows. You are great!
* About the lunch. I've started up dieting again. New Years and all. So I had to weigh the amount of cheese I was putting in my sandwich. And measure the amount of mustard. Very time consuming. So I wasn't able to really devote a whole bunch of time to making my lunch tasty. Le sigh. I've been dieting now for 3 days, and already I'm getting results so I guess it's worth it...but you know... it's annoying all the same. Why can't my metobolisim be fast Gosh darn it!
In other news: Happy Belated Birthday Amy!
Okay. The thing is when I said I wanted snow, what I really meant is I wanted it to snow when I didn't have to drive, and to stay lovely and clear when I had to. So next time I guess I know to be more specific 'cause driving to work today was a whole hell of a lot of not fun. Actually I'll up that to down right scary. My car, does not like snow or hills or a combination of the two. It really doesn't like stopping and starting either. The wheels however do very much enjoy spinning.
So yes, it's beautiful and lovely outside. And the snow is perfect for snowball fights and snowmen. But very bad for driving.
So bus here I come!
(Hopefully when I wake up tomorrow it will be gone....this is Vancouver right?)
You know what's an awesome thing to happen on the first day of the year? You know that day when your a little hung over and a little bit tired and just looking to have a relaxing time before you get to go to bed again?
Your washing machine to leak, have your downstairs neighbour come yell at you because it's leaking into her apartment and then mopping up the water, taking all your clothes (including all but one pair of jeans) out of freezing, soapy water(it just had to be during a cold/cold cycle didn't it!), rinsing them all in the bathtub, and then realizing it's a holiday, so the soonist you'll see a repair man will be Monday, if not Tuesday. So you will be unable to do anything with your wet, half clean clothes until at least then.
What a great way to start 2005!
