Gloryfades.org

Shen at paintmythoughts.org reminded me of this really interesting article on what happens to your body when you drink a can or bottle of Coke. I’m addicted to Diet Coke. While the amount I drink now is nothing compared to the litres I guzzzled as a drive-thru wench at McDonalds, it’s still a lot more than I want to. All of the sugar is replaced with aspartame, a chemical that I know very little about but is linked to such lovely conditions as brain tumors, brain lesions, and lymphoma. Woohoo! I’ll take a Big Mac, Diet Coke and some brain lesions to go, please!

Do you know how I know it’s an addiction? Because every time I want a Diet Coke, I crave it. My mouth begins to water and I start to get edgy and annoyed until the moment I have it and I can actually feel the bubbles burst in my mouth. Water doesn’t do that.

Image source: Natalie Dee

I hope everyone had a good weekend. Mine was quite nice. On Saturday G. and I did some Christmas shopping at the Eaton Centre in downtown Toronto. The mall was crazy. There were more than a few times where I wanted to throw some elbows but I suppressed the urge. It made for lots of good people watching, though. We even saw a pirate in the food court! Only in Toronto, you know?

We also went to a Grey Cup party that night hosted by a friend of G’s. He throws a good party and Saturday’s was no exception. Lots and lots of food, enough beer to keep us all feeling good and loud, and Dance Dance Revolution! I’ve never played DDR before. I’ve seen some amazing things on Youtube, though.

Sadly, I didn’t own the board just as well as that kid did but I still had a lot of fun. G. and I liked it so much we were tempted to get it the next day from Futureshop. We decided to wait, though. Christmas is already an expensive time of year. Plus, G. decided to buy Guitar Hero III yesterday so it wasn’t like we were leaving empty-handed. I played a couple of songs and reconfirmed my suspicions - I’m just not that very good at it, lol. I didn’t want to be a wet blanket, though. I’d totally play it again. I’m coming to turns that I’m a total video game n00b and likely won’t ever be very good at any game.

On Monday, I began the process of bonding my rabbits. Few people actually know that I rescued a second bunny from the SPCA. In fact, if my sister is reading this, it’ll be the first time she’s heard of this second bunny! His name is Diefenbaker, after the 13th Prime Minister of Canada, John Diefenbaker. He was Caleb before he joined my family but I decided he need a much more suitable name for my tastes. G. suggested Studebaker when he was introduced but I liked Diefenbaker more. Diefenbaker was the source of much mirth during my Canadian Foreign Policy class in my final year of university.

Photos after the cut!
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Happy Thanksgiving Day, American counterparts!  As a Canadian, I’ve already celebrated my turkey day a month and a half ago (and probably still wearing the mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce on my hips), but it’s always nice to wish everyone a day of good food, family gathering, and awkward pauses in conversation when Grandpa Joe farts obnoxiously!

As for myself, I’ve opted to celebrate Buy Nothing Day tomorrow.  If you don’t know what BND is, here’s the official two second explanation from the Adbusters website:

“Driving hybrid cars and limiting industrial emissions is great‚ but they are band-aid solutions if we don’t address the core problem: we have to consume less. This is the message of Buy Nothing Day.”  - Kalle Lasn, founder of Adbusters.

Source: Adbusters.org

My reasons for participating are thus: I think Black Friday is crazy.  Last night, while make Christmas cards, I had the television playing in the background.  I was horrified as one commercial boasted that stores would be opening at four in the morning for early bird specials.  Four in the morning?!  The sad part is, I could already picture the line-up of people waiting since three to get in the doors for their holiday shopping bonanza.

It’s just lunacy - Christmas shouldn’t be about buying mom that ugly sweater from Tabi at bargain basement prices (although, if I were forced to, I would only buy that sweater from Tabi at bargain basement prices).  It should be about spending time together.

Yes, I buy Christmas gifts.  Yes, I probably spend more than I should.  I’m not saying that I’m above consumerism.  I’m saying that this type of excessive consumerism is ridiculous, though.  I’m not pointing my finger at YOU, I’m pointing my finger at US.  We’re all guilty of spending way too much money on crap that we don’t need or can find secondhand.  Couple that with the fact that most Americans and Canadians have a heavy debt load there’s just no reason for us to be battling each other for the last Tickle Me Elmo, especially if it means enough credit card debt to last until next Christmas.

I love Christmas.  A lot.  A couple of years ago, I did exactly what I’m against doing now.  I maxed out my credit card on expensive gifts for my family.  I did it out of love for my family but I’m sure they would have been just fine with getting something cheaper or nothing at all from me.  My family has a history of debt and poor financial decisions and I’m sure that if I made it clear that I didn’t want to go down that path for the sake of a few new trinkets for everyone, they would have been overjoyed to hear it, my mom especially.  Instead, I did what a lot of other people did - closed my eyes and put off opening my credit card bill until well after the holiday.  I was still paying off that debt this summer!

I hate the fact that Christmas gifts are now mandatory and I feel as though I need to buy more than one gift per person in order to validate my feelings for them.  If I see one more commercial where an iPod makes a better gift than a handwritten love song I’m going to cancel Christmas.

Of course, I can’t really cancel Christmas.  I’m only one person.  In Canada, no less.  This type of thing can’t be changed by one person.  However, if you participate in BND you can actually make a difference!  The more people that spend less money on BND, the better.  After all, they can’t call it Black Friday if no one shows up to the shops, right?

It’s not a easy battle, but BND is a small gesture in the right direction.  People need to start thinking about more than just consumption because there are bigger things at stake.  Especially when they can’t afford it.  Live within your means, people.  I’m just starting to figure that out now and it’s not an easy task.

Anyway, that’s just my $0.02!  I’d be interested to know your thoughts - are you shopping tomorrow?  Do you intend on showing up to any early bird specials?  What are your reasons for shopping tomorrow?  Are the sales really that good?

On a completely different note entirely, I have just signed up for Technorati. We’ll see how well this goes!

November is here and it has brought the cold weather along with it. Currently it’s about 9 degrees celsius in Mississauga. Yesterday I had frost on my windshield which sucked. I actually had to get out of the car and scrape it off. I didn’t have my gloves with me so my hands were icicles by the time I was back in the car.

This creativity kick that I was talking about earlier is still sitting around in my head. G. has asked me to “stick to one” but there’s a lot that I want to try. Right now I’m planning to make my own Christmas cards this year. I bought the supplies last night at Michaels. It wasn’t cheap but I’ll probably have enough stuff left over for next year as well. Besides, I can make other things with the cardstock.

To some people this sounds like a really tedious task with little to no benefit. However, I disagree. Benefits don’t necessarily have to be things like a returned Christmas card - they can be as simple as an email response or a recollection months later.

Friend: “Hey, remember when you sent me that card for Christmas?”
Me: “Yeah, those were a lot of fun.”
Friend: “It looked really cool, too.”

Something like that … Even if I don’t get a response, it doesn’t really matter to me. I’ll enjoy making them on blustery nights in my room while my bunny hops around.

What is important to me is enjoying what I’m doing, being imaginative, using my hands and my brain to create something pretty.

I never thought I would appreciate what Martha Stewart does - and to a big extent I still don’t since most of her supplies are extremely overpriced - but I suppose I get why she started out. She built an empire on making personal creations she could share with her family and friends. I want to be able to do that as well. A lot of people think she’s just awful and maybe they’re right. She’s so WASPy, so saccharine, just so perfect that the only place she can really go is down.

Still, at the core, all she’s doing is making nice things. What’s wrong with making nice things? If you have the time and the energy, you should totally do it. The objective is not to become Martha Stewart; it’s to slow down and do things for oneself for a little while.

I certainly didn’t set out to turn this entry into an argument for Martha Stewart. I guess I just recognize the intentions behind all of the stuff that she hawks. I also recognize that the bottom line is also the almighty dollar, which is why I don’t buy Martha Stewart brand items! I’m not stupid.

Perhaps one day I’ll finally settle on something like G. asked. I’m not really sure why I should, though. It keeps me busy and keeps me entertained.

Weekend is here and I’m pooped to the max. Today I handed in a crappy English essay and watched Once Were Warriors in said English class. If I had known it would be a movie day I may have stayed home and downloaded it. I decided to stick around, though, and watch it with everyone else. I had already paid for parking, after all. :/ Anyway, the movie was good. I haven’t finished the book (shhhhhh) but the movie was really raw and frightening.

For those who don’t know, Once Were Warriors is about the Heke’s, a Maori family living in the Auckland projects in New Zealand. My knowledge of Maori culture and life until this semester was minimal, at best. While I’m sure this movie and book are definitely the grimmer side of being a Maori it does present a really interesting comparison to the native population of Canada. I can see that it isn’t just our aboriginal population that was marginalized by the colonialists, a fact that really shouldn’t surprise me but still does. The movie was incredibly sad and pretty much ruined the book for me. It’s probably going to be hard getting through the rest of it cause it deals with a lot more violence before the end.

I don’t really know what I’m trying to say, really.

I wanted to try and make a new layout for gloryfades.org today but I couldn’t come up with anything decent. I’m gonna try again before the end of the night and hopefully think of something. I’m still hanging onto the blog on that domain with my dear life. No one really reads it and I don’t really update it as much as I used to (not that I updated it much to begin with :X). I hate having to choose between LJ and gloryfades.org because I want to put my thoughts onto both of them but sometimes I just can’t.

Well, reading back that last sentence made little sense to me. Once before I couldn’t write about certain things because I didn’t want a certain person to read it. Since then she has departed from my life and (hopefully) does not visit my website anymore. I could simply cross-post my entries into both accounts … Seems logical. I have no idea why I didn’t think of that earlier!

I’m not really sure what I set out to write tonight. It’s been a long week and I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me. I’m distracted by several things - my exams are coming up and I’m starting to get nervous, I have a lot of bills to pay and not much money to pay them with, and Christmas is coming and I do not have that much money (again).

… it’s here My tattoo:

I know the image quality sucks but my webcam sucks and I know the angle is weird, but you try taking a picture of your back straight. :hehe: What do you all think? I love it!!

Oh man, this is so exciting! I picked up the drawing for my tattoo. It’s in black and white, but I got a copy of it! If you’d like to take a look, go here. Sorry about the watermark, I’m just a paranoid idiot who thinks someone’s going to take it. What do you think? It’s going to be in colour, but I like it! Leah, it’s going to be about the same size as yours, I gather. I kinda wish it were bigger, but I think if I want it bigger, more vines could always be added later. Plus, it’s relatively cheap! I was thinking it’d be about $500 (since I wanted a rather big tat) but it’s only going to be from about $150-180. Excellent