Canada turns 147 years old today.
I’m hosting a party that will probably have me barbequing in the rain, but it’ll still be fun.
Hope everyone has a great Canada Day and for those who aren’t celebrating, check out our greatest superhero:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFinqPnt7So&w=560&h=315]
Merida would be the first to jump into the TARDIS with the Doctor, no hesitation!
This story was inspired by real events. Someone posted something similar but much creepier on the blog of an author I like and it inspired me to write this story.
It’s an attempt at both an obvious moral and a romantic story.
Comments and criticisms are encouraged.
*All the events and characters in this story are made up. Any resemblance to real people is purely coincidence. Except the Pirate, he’s based off a friend M.F.*
Last night I went to see How to Train your Dragon 2 for the second time. I loved the movie both times but appreciated it more the second time.
The first time I was hung up on one character being super awesome at the beginning and not doing anything later on. I made the mistake of equating Ecological Zeal, Talent with dragons, and acrobatic skill with ability in combat. The character wasn’t a great fighter but I assumed she was from her ability with the dragons.
The movie’s pacing was fantastic. The moment you think it’s getting slow it adds action.
Where it really succeeded, with me, was in the little moments, the interactions between the characters when their lives weren’t in peril. There are three or four beautiful moments of interaction that make the movie for me.
If you can, I recommend you go see it. It’s my favourite movie of the year so far, beating out The Lego Movie and Captain America the Winter Soldier.
If you’ve seen it, what did you think?
Éric
Hello my Imaginary Friends,
Today I don’t feel like ranting. I’ll let others do it for me:
On stupid comments and other stupidity: This Behaviour is Not OK! by S.M. Carrière
On a similar note, in that it includes retail customers: Maybe You Get Bad Customer Service Because You’re a Bad Customer By Matt Walsh
If you don’t want to read these two awesome posts, just remember that being nice to people in customer service shouldn’t be the exception. Also let them do their job without getting harassed sexually, verbally, emotionally, physically, or spiritually.
I’m in a good mood. You might think from this blog that this is a huge exception and you’d be mostly right. I get worked up and protective a lot. Probably more than I should.
But today I’m happy. You might be asking why. It’s simple, spent last evening in a bookstore with my wife, a good friend, a baby, and a famous author. (There were a couple hundred other people too.)
Our Friend, K.R. asked us to go to a book signing with her. My wife said yes without even asking me (K.R. has an adorable baby boy and my wife can’t say no to being around babies) When I found out who the author was I was pretty excited.
I haven’t read anything by Diana Gabaldon but I had heard great things. Her Outlander Series is said to be one of the best Romance, Action, Adventure, Historical, Time Travel series ever.
I wasn’t expecting too much (Writing and public speaking aren’t skills that every writer has). She was hilarious, interesting, and intelligent. She probably has one of the coolest stories on how she got published (I’m Super jealous) and had no issue making “Men in Kilts” jokes.
The series is also partially inspired by Doctor Who and one of my favourite companions Jamie McCrimmon.
Overall it was a great talk, and a wonderful evening.
I’m still waiting on word from the publishers that I submitted my novel “A Study in Aether” to back in October. I’ve decided I’ll email again next week and if I don’t get a response from them by end of July, I’ll look into alternates. Every time I think about them I flip flop between three thoughts, “They hate it so much they don’t want to reply”; “They think its ok and are considering it but don’t know”; and “They completely forgot about it”.
Expect me to not mention this until end of July. Unless I get an email soon.
Once I get a response, if it’s a no, I’ll have to decide if I want to go back to submitting to agents, pay for an editor and resubmit to the other company that was so nice, or self-publish. Each one of those is scary for separate reasons.
Well that’s it for now.
Hope you’re having a great day.
Èric
Every year in Ottawa there is an event called Ribfest. It’s a festival, of sorts, with vendors from across North America who come and sell Ribs and Chicken. There is also a protest every year from groups like PETA.
This year’s PETA protest bothered me but not in the way they wanted it too.
The concept is that they’re trying to make people realize that animals are similar to humans. They have the same parts and the same feelings. I’m not going to debate that. The protest’s intended message is lost in the “Sexy” aspect. People stopped to take pictures, people talked about it and a bunch of people sat nearby and watched the half-naked models while they ate their meat.
The message that seemed to be more prevalent from this protest, and what bothered me about it, was that women are just like animals. Instead of humanizing the animals they effectively dehumanized the models.
The naked people were all woman, all white, and all model shaped and sized. To the guys taking pictures and catcalling these models, they are effectively pieces of meat.
In my opinion the protest was misogynistic, and badly thought out. PETA loves to have nakedness in their protests. I know it’s done for shock value but I still think they’re missing their mark.
What do you think? Is it a thought provoking protest or something else?
Éric
***Edit for clarity: The models were all volunteers and members of PETA.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8ScNjBd118&w=560&h=315]
A few weeks back a friend recommended I look up Video Game High School and I was instantly hooked.
My productivity was completely destroyed for two days as I plowed through the two seasons on Youtube.
The show has its issues but it’s a lot of fun to watch and extremely funny.
Go Enjoy!
Éric
