giant microbes

I haven't been feeling well lately. That's because I've had this little fella:

Isn't he cute? If you want one of your own, you can get one here. Also available (and just as cute!): Ebola, Salmonella, Polio, and many more. (I don't have any of those. I just have The Common Cold.)

"Look at me! I'm cuddly! Whee!"

[Click here to see fearsome image of Stephen Harper clutching an orange kitten]

As The Torontoist says:"Kind of strange to see the man with the cold dead stare snuggled up with a fuzzy friend, no?"

Apparently, PM Harper and his family have just adopted a snuggly little kitten named Cheddar. This is, of course, a ploy to trick us into thinking he's a human rather than an evil android.

amusements

OK, ignore the fact that "hilarious" is spelled incorrectly in the title of this video, and behold the amazing intricacies of spider mating rituals. Make sure your speakers are on (who knew spiders could make that much noise?).

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Test your knowledge of UN member states--try to name all 192 UN member states in 10 minutes. It's harder than it sounds.

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Or, maybe you want to create your own nation state. Decide on your country's name, flag, and currency; then choose the form of government. Sensible? Conservative? Libertarian? Psychotic? Compassionate? Anarchist? It's your choice. You'll answer a set of questions that will determine the characteristics of your utopia, and then as your nation grows and develops, it will face different issues and conflicts that must be resolved. Oh, and don't forget to choose your national animal. (In my nation state, the cat is the national animal; it frolics freely through the lush forests of my island nation.)

She Be She Strike; fame!

This wonderful piece of outsider audio (archived on WFMU's blog) apparently originated during an early 1980s CBC strike. In one remote northern station, the broadcasting was taken over by the Inuit janitor. Check out WFMU's description of the first two tracks:

Track One: OK, I'm Singing To You, Ayatollah Khomeini-- And that's just what our janitor friend does, after some mixed Inuit-English shout-outs to "Barney, and uh, Rosey, and hello to you Bruce and Matt (more Inuit) I'm happy to you. OK, I'm singing to you Ayatollah Khomeini."

Track Two: You Are My Sunshine --The definitive Inuit version of the state song of Louisiana.

The first track is sung to the tune of the old Band-Aids ad (I'm stuck on Band-Aids, and Band-Aid's stuck on me). No, it doesn't make any sense. But the second track is strange, beautiful and addictive. I've listened to it a few times and damned if it isn't the best version of that song I've ever heard.

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In other news: I'm famous!

Well, not really. But I did make a donation to Filmspotting, the excellent public radio show/podcast I mentioned previously. And every week, Adam and Sam, the two hosts, read the names of all donors and bestow a (fairly inexplicable--to me, anyway) nickname on each. I am proud to be Melinda "100 Minions Later"!

No, I don't know what it means. But it was kind of exciting to hear my name mentioned when I listened to the show!

oh my pure and innocent ears

Sometimes I like to read the letters to the editor in the local paper so that I can get good and wound up before going to work. This morning, as usual, I was not disappointed!

The best letter was the one from a disgruntled hockey fan who is upset at the amount of swearing he has been hearing recently from the players and coaching staff on the bench. "I want to remind them this is a family event," he harrumphs.

OK, whatever. I don't happen to share his outrage--I mean, come on, this is adult, semi-professional hockey, not croquet with crumpets and scones afterward. But the very best part comes next: "That language shouldn't be heard by our children or our women." (Emphasis mine.)

All I can say is, !@#$%^&*!!

the somewhat cowl

I'm still knitting my Hourglass Sweater, but you know, one knitted thing in progress is not enough for me. So today, prompted by the bargain-basement priced Rowan Pure Wool DK over at Elann, I bought seven different shades of pink wool and then, over at Knit and Tonic, Wendy Bernard's pattern for the Somewhat Cowl. My crazy idea is that I'll knit this in stripes, with short(ish) sleeves. That way it should look nice and springy, yet still be warm enough to wear here in the Land of Eternal Winter.

I cannot wait for my yarn to arrive!

favourite podcasts

Filmspotting: This Chicago-based weekly podcast/monthly public radio show features movie reviews, listener feedback, and a feature called Massacre Theatre in which the two hosts perform dialogue from a movie and then listeners are invited to guess the movie's identity. Adam Kempenaar and Sam Van Hallgren are professional, witty, and intelligent; they don't always agree on films, but their analysis and assessments are always entertaining and thought-provoking. Note: the show was originally called "Cinecast," but was changed because of a conflict with another party over the name.

Lingua Franca: Lingua Franca, a programme from Australia's national public radio network, is an exploration of language and culture. Past topics have included ebonics, nicknames, swear words and taboo words, accents, and spelling reform.

Cast-On: In this charming show, Brenda Dayne talks about knitting and all manner of other things. Yarn, patterns, knitting, spinning, books, it's all there. Dayne has a good radio voice and she and her guests (like her sister, Pam) are always engaging and amusing. I've heard a couple of knitting podcasts and this is the best by far.

happy International Women's Day

Happy International Women's Day, everyone!

Fraggle Rock has quite the pedigree

Canadian Lit trivia question of the day:

Which Governor General's Award-winning poet was a writer for the Jim Henson series Fraggle Rock?

a) P.K. Page
b) Al Purdy
c) Lorna Crozier
d) bp nichol

Here's the answer.

Thanks to Shannon for that surprising and amusing piece of information!

a voice spanning three centuries

Good Morning everyone. My name is Olive Riley. I live in Australia near Sydney. I was born in Broken Hill on Oct. 20th 1899.Broken Hill is a mining town, far away in the centre of Australia. My Friend, Mike, has arranged this blog for me. He is doing the typing and I am telling the stories. He thinks it’s a good idea to tell what’s going on. He already made a film about me a few years back and people liked that, so they might like this blog too, he says. We’ll see.

I found this charming, fascinating blog via Metafilter. Olive is the very spirit of what I'd like to be as an old woman: both engaging in her accounts of her memories and also engaged in the world around her. I especially like her interest in the plight of the lettuce man.

I really liked [Olive's blog typist/helper] Mike's insights into the role that mental stimulation plays in the part of keeping elderly people healthy and happy: "I believe [Olive] could make it to 2010. And maybe this blog will play its part, keeping her busy. A major reason for doing the blog is that Ollie seems to thrive on activity and stimulation. I’m convinced it’s helping to keep her with us." All too often, the elderly are shelved away and left to wither without care and attention; I love the way the people in Olive's life listen to her stories and record them for posterity , and also interact with her and encourage her curiosity in newfangled things like blogs!

Black Snake Groan

I saw Children of Men in Vancouver (fantastic movie, by the way--I highly recommend it, and not just for the Clive Owen Factor) and in the theatre there was a HUGE cardboard stand-up promo for the (then) upcoming Black Snake Moan. In the terrifyingly life-sized picture, Samuel L. Jackson was towering menacingly over a scantily-clad Christina Ricci, who was...chained...to a radiator.

???

After a brief glance and a shudder, I forgot about this brain searing image. However, this week's Entertainment Weekly had an entire article about the whole hot mess, and of course I had to read it. It was full of rather breathless quotations by those involved in the movie about its emotional resonance and importance.

Ricci plays Rae, an emotionally damaged woman so scarred by childhood sexual abuse that she offers her body up to every man who crosses her path. Left for dead on the side of the road after one violent episode, Rae is taken in by a former blues musician (Samuel L. Jackson) who tries to break her of her slutty ways and heal her psychological wounds by...chaining her to a radiator. The actress has portrayed vixens before, but in earlier films like The Opposite of Sex and Buffalo 66, she says, ''I was just a kid playing dress-up.'' For Moan, Ricci, who considers herself ''a prude'' (''I still get uncomfortable watching sex scenes''), bared herself in every sense, remaining nearly naked even when the cameras weren't rolling. ''Sam would be like, 'Put some clothes on!''' she says. ''I was like, 'No, you don't understand. I'm doing something important.'''

The film's requirements were nothing short of extreme, including a jarring opening sex scene with costar Justin Timberlake. Bound by a heavy chain for much of the shoot, plumbing gut-wrenching emotional depths in scene after scene, the petite actress was pushed to her physical limit. Sometimes, she would vomit between takes. ''Her fingers were blistered and cut from yanking on this 70-pound chain,'' says writer-director Craig Brewer (Hustle & Flow). ''I said, 'Christina, we can use the plastic chain.' She just said, 'No, let's keep going.'''

Um, OK. And who is responsible for this work of art? Why, the man who brought us Hustle and Flow and its magnificent anthem "It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp."

From Dana Stevens' review in Slate:

Just as in Hustle and Flow, there's an unsubtle message here that race trumps gender. In that movie, Terrence Howard's character was meant to remain the focus of our attention and sympathy even after he threw one of his hookers out into the street with her baby as punishment for talking back. I never forgave the character for that act, and by the end of the movie, I couldn't have given a shit whether he achieved rap fame or not (with the "boo-hoo, I'm a pimp" song that he neither wrote nor sang by himself but ran around taking full credit for.)

Somehow, I don't think I'll be seeing Black Snake Moan.

woman gives birth during English exam

Oh my God. A woman gave birth during her English exam yesterday.

May I never have to deliver a baby in my classroom. Or anywhere.

Douglas College is offering the baby one year free tuition (as an adult, of course)!