Mother Nature is surely joking

I can't believe it's April 1st and there's no snow on the ground. I half expected Mother Nature to pull a cosmic joke and wake up to two feet of snow this morning. Such is the expectation when you live in Canadaland.

I can't believe it's April 1st and leaves are unfurling.

I can't believe it's April 1st and the furnace is turned off.

I can't believe it's April 1st and I have been wearing shoes for two months.

I can't believe it's April 1st and people are out there riding bikes and playing Frisbee in the park.

I can't believe it's April 1st and I never got to use this cartoon to complain about the weather!

Tea for Tuesday

Every tea lover loves a little something something with their tea and I was challenged last year as my daily croissant habit started to add up. Even a pack from the grocery store didn't put much of a dent in the cost and don't forget how deliciously calorific a croissant can be.

I discovered the solution by accident when I had to run out and get a garlic bulb for dinner. I didn't want to go all the way to a supermarket for just one thing. An Indian import store opened up near us and since it was within walking distance, now was the time to check it out!

All good import stores will carry a taste of home and my eye was drawn to the colourful packages near the till. So many cookies, cakes and confections! On a whim I grabbed a green bag of rusk cakes and I was instantly in love. They don't turn to instant mush like vanilla biscuits and there was just a hint of sweetness. They look about as flavourful as a rice cake, but trust me - there's a pleasant mellow flavour that isn't sweet or salty. Rusks hold the tea's flavour and melt in the mouth! Any tea will do - but chai and black tea do very well. Now when I go to the import store I get two bags at a time.

Now, the funny thing is that you would think all rusks would be alike. Nope! I tried a few different brands and kept going back to the green package, made by TWI Foods here in Canada. There are subtle differences in flavour from brand to brand, but at least the cakes are so inexpensive that it's not a huge loss to try a bunch! My wallet and my waistline loves them.

Picture by moi! It took 18 shots to get the perfect one.

Tea for Tuesday

I was disappointed when the Tea Lovers community on G+ didn't recommend a Southern sweet tea recipe to me. I didn't need to worry, though, as all the recipes are pretty similar. Black tea, water, a little baking soda, and depending on your preference, a whole lot of sugar!

I will back up a bit as Southern sweet tea is a bit of a mystery to Canadians who haven't travelled to the Southern United States. My first trip ever to the US was to Kentucky. It was a hideously long journey that consisted of three flights and a thunderstorm. By the time my friend and I hit the hotel, it was pitch black and raining buckets. The hotel didn't have a restaurant, but fortunately the bright yellow sign of a Waffle House beckoned.

Hungry and tired, all we wanted was a good cup of hot tea and some toast. The waitress looked at us like we were from another planet when we ordered tea.

"Sweet tea?" she said.

"Just tea."

"Sweet tea?" she said.

"No, just regular tea."

"Sweet tea?" she said.

We were so confused. I didn't understand what the problem was. "No...just tea like with hot water and a tea bag?"

My friend was mortified, but I didn't know how else to explain what we wanted (oh Canadians, so polite :-)). In that grand moment of embarrassment we learned the difference between hot tea, iced tea and sweet tea. Canadians are used to drinking powedered mixes like Goodhost iced tea or Lipton Brisk. Sweet tea turned out to be a delicious treat, when we finally tried it later on in the trip.

So, for our latest potluck at work, I endeavoured to make sweet tea. No one really thinks to bring drinks to a party. It was ridiculously easy. I made it the night before at work since trying to carry one of those giant Tupperware pitchers would surely be a disaster. Everyone asked what I was doing and some people raised an eyebrow at the two cups of sugar. I claimed a spot in the fridge and felt proud of myself for being a smartypants.

The next day, however, anxiety set in. What if the concoction was too sweet? What if no one liked it? I gamely set it on the table with some plastic cups, and took a big glass for myself to get the ball rolling. I noticed that others were taking cups too. Whew! But this is the devil of anxiety - what if there were dozens of half empty cups left all around the meeting room? Again, I didn't have to worry. When I circled back later in the afternoon, the pitcher was empty. It was a hit, not a miss!

The 4 Quart Tupperware always seems like a foolish purchase until you really need it!

Auto-correct, My Worst Enema

As the saying goes, auto-correct is my worst enema.

I downloaded a popular predictive typing app years ago for my Android phone because it was so handy and a time saver; now it seems to have lost its mind a little.

I have pretty fat thumbs so I thought it would help me type better on a tiny screen. Instead, it constantly embarrasses me.

I wanted to congratulate an old co-worker on his new job, so I sent him a text that read "Congratulations Pail!" Oh c'mon, who on Earth names their kid ‘Pail’? Why didn't you suggest ‘Paul’? Doh.

This app will gallantly protect you from making a big ducking fool of yourself, but can’t get a popular name right.

Worse, I recently planned a potluck with a male friend via texting. “I’ll bring the slow cooker and we can make children” was totally not what I meant to write.

OMG! My thumb hit the send button faster than my eyes could see and my brain could comprehend. “Chili! Chili! We can make chili!!” Auto-correct, you’re driving me to an early grave, or at least making other transit riders inch away slowly from all the laughter. A slow cooker is about as unsexy as appliances get.

It seems the app is preoccupied with me having children actually, because it pops up the word constantly. The result is that hubs picks up fried children after work, I have leftover children for lunch and every now and then we go to Swiss Chalet for children with dipping sauce. Yeesh! You’d think I was Snow White’s wicked stepmother handing out poisoned apples left and right. I guess it’s my fault for doing a poor job of training the app. Garbage in, giggles out.

Now this one isn’t entirely the app’s fault, but it’s still pretty funny. One time we were driving down a thoroughfare alongside which our neighbours live. I dashed off a quick note to my friend whiile stopped at the intersection because I could see her sitting upstairs. “I can see your head through the -“ The light turned green and with one little bump, I completed the text. “I can see your head through the blood.”

“OK, I am totally going to hide in the closet now,” she wrote back, because that was not creepy at all!

As the saying goes, auto-correct is my worst enema. At least Word just quietly offers to change it to enemy :-)

70s Saturday Sci-Fi Scans

Today's blast from the past is a time capsule in itself. While we were on vacation, my parents cleverly hid a few boxes of old books in the basement. It took about a month for me to notice :D.

See, back in the day when there were used bookstores all over the place and trendy neighbourhoods were less Starbucksy than they are today, I used to enjoy scooping up old sci-fi paperbacks by the pound. My husband also enjoyed this hobby, and it's possible that we bumped elbows in those dusty, musty places. Digging through the boxes was almost like shaking hands with my younger self. “Why hello there, young woman in the plaid shirt! You don’t know me, but let me tell you about the fuuuuuture!”

Sometimes I wasn't too careful about what grabbed - sometimes all it took was an interesting cover to seal the deal. Let's start with the author photo and cover of today's tome. Pretty groovy for 1976!

Doesn't the title alone make it sound like this awesome dystopia? The “Terminal Generation?” Who are these poor, trapped souls? Are they like “The Starlost”? What evil overlord must they overcome, what adventures will they have? I can totally see why I bought it. On the inside it says:

We are the Terminal Generation...

on the brink of despair, engulfed by waves of confusion, desperately grasping for hope in what seems to be an utterly hopeless world.

But, if I had read a little further, I would have discovered that it was one of those 70s disasters books full of future predictions, and this one more so than others. Hal Lindsey is an end times author, or dispensationalist, as Wikipedia helpfully explains, and apparently there was no shortage of all the ways the world was going to end by the mid-80s, if not sooner. Mr. Lindsey is still at it, actually! There isn't a cohesive narrative that most non-fiction books are able to form at all, just short screeds that clearly inspired the cover artwork. Lindsey's mind is wrapped up in a lot of anxiety caused by world events, particularly a fear of communism. The chapter on false prophets is particularly quaint - sometimes it's easy to forget all the consciousness raising stuff people did in the 70s that was pretty cultish.

It's pretty hard to take the book seriously in this day and age - maybe we’re just used to the news or have some disbelief because we're still here 30-plus years later. It was the idea that the alignment of the planets in 1982 would trigger disasters - but at least there's a hint of science fiction within. Lindsey mentions The Jupiter Effect, a book from 1974 which somehow had an introduction by Isaac Asimov. It's nice to know that goofy ideas existed long before the Internet :-D

Not Your Parents' Mad Max

We saw Mad Max: Fury Road with friends this weekend and it was amazing. I knew a little about the film from the trailer and that some people were upset that it was a “feminist action movie”, but it was definitely one of those movies that I didn't want to know too much about beforehand, so if you haven’t seen it, don’t read beyond the trailer below.



Fury Road is a challenging movie in many regards. It helps to have watched the previous movies (which my friends had not) and it requires a certain amount of visual literacy to enjoy it to the fullest (remember that I went to art college). Every frame is filled with so much detail like car parts, logos and tattoos. Three-quarter views, profile views and symmetrical shots add a lot of visual interest and show off the cars and craziness. Much like how authors will write entirely in dialogue or start their story by discarding the first part, Fury Road is told almost in visuals and with very little dialogue. Most dialogue sounds pretty grunty anyway! Close attention needs to be paid to how the characters use objects and speak through their actions. For example, Charlize Theron as Imperator Furiosa expresses emotions mostly with her eyes and Tom Hardy as Mad Max has a wild, fearful look most of the time. It’s the ultimate in “Show, don’t tell”.

Come to think of it, Fury Road is not a traditional action movie at all. Fury Road challenges viewers expecting to be spoonfed the who, what, when, where and why. It was clear that our friends would have preferred to see Age of Ultron instead as they did not like it at all. “I don’t understand why…” they kept wondering as we wandered the mall afterwards, and I kept piping up with answers like “The War Boys spray their mouths with spray paint because huffing paint gives them a high before battle…”. The movie is so nuts that questioning how the drummers hang on to the sound machine or why the world is so weird will just drive you nuts.

I welcomed the challenge and found the movie so refreshing in many ways. I loved every second, from the practical effects and stunts. The movie does not shy away from showing blood or the effects of violence. Another piece of sly commentary on bloodless CGI, perhaps? Be prepared for a lot of squishy stuff to happen.

Trivia: did you know that George Miller also directed Happy Feet and Happy Feet 2? Are you surprised at all? I’m not, since Fury Road has a strong environmental theme. In one of the more subtle moments, reformed War Boy Nux points at a tree in the desert and doesn’t even know that it’s called a tree (this tree, by the way, is a nod to the Arbre du Ténéré). There’s something hopeless about watching the tree being uprooted by the war rig in order to keep the Five Wives from being recaptured.

Speaking of the Five Wives - five physically healthy and beautiful young women held captive by top baddie Immortan Joe - they are never shown as damsels in distress. Although they are fragile and unsure after living their lives locked behind a vault door, they quickly find their strengths and fight for themselves alongside Furiosa and Max. All the women in the movie are given agency, and there’s even room for older, wrinkled women to shine. The Vuvalini are bad ass little old ladies on motorcycles that show up about halfway through the movie. It’s all right for men to look a little rugged in movies, but never women. Furiosa and Max fight as equals, never trying to one up the other and sometimes shooting at the exact same time. They triumph not just physically over Immortan Joe but over inequality of the sexes when they stand together in victory at the end. A movie that shows men and women working together equally and respectfully to solve a problem? OMG!

It seems that all the reading that the Wives did put some ideas into their heads about equality, and as seen in the trailer, they wrote “We are not things” in their sheltered paradise. At every turn Miller slips this idea in that people are not commodities. Max is treated as a “blood bag” by Nux, the Wives are stored away like precious jewels and the War Boys are Immortan Joe’s disposable warriors. I really liked that Nux, shown as a crazy disciple worshipping Joe and V8, is allowed to become human again. So many times society writes off people who have made poor choices in life. Once bad, always bad - but the wife known as Capable does not believe this about Nux and treats him with love and kindness.

Whoo…I should probably stop here. A whole book could be written on all the subtle intricacies and meanings of Fury Road. Just enjoy it if you see it, and marvel that George Miller was able to make the film he always wanted to make 30 years ago.

Made in the 70s Saturday

The world is full of knock-offs meant to trick parents and grandparents, from toys to movies, and if you ever received a Go-Bot or a My Little Phony, you may have also been disappointed with a trip to see...

Starcrash

I thought my husband's enthusiastic embrace of The Starlost meant that he would be all over this 1978 movie. He kept hemming and hawwing and even my plea that the 16 people that read this blog regularly were losing out on a fun column couldn't persuade him. So I made some popcorn, got out my notebook and found it on YouTube. Later when he wandered out of his man cave, he asked "So what was it about?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know?" He was mystified.

"Well, it's about this space outlaw named Stella Star and she wears this leather space bikini - " He rolled his eyes at my description of leading lady Caroline Munro.

"And she travels with her space navigator and in their spaceship they get chased by space cops..."

My husband squinted at me something fierce as I continued. "And they go to separate space prisons...but then they are freed because the space emperor needs them to defeat the space devil, well, he looks like Satan, so they go to this planet with space Amazons and I don't know what they were doing there, but they face the giant space Amazon robot. Then they go to this other planet with space cavemen..."

He slowly walked away from me before I could utter another mention of "space". However, that's the best way to describe this movie in a time where science fiction films were not exactly taken seriously nor had great production values. Starcrash is no Star Wars, but while Stars Wars has roots in pulpy serials of the 30s and 40s, Starcrash has them proudly on display as Stella Star leaps into a new plot every fifteen minutes. When I realized that I didn't understand why things were happening, I thought it was a case of inattention. But nope, there are whole...holes...happening.

Is Starcrash a bad movie? Well, it's a bad movie, but it's also a FUN movie full of hilarious lines, goofy acting and out of the blue costume changes. It never takes itself seriously and Caroline Munro does such a good job as a plucky space heroine. It dares to be whimsical when so many movies opt for grim and dark. What's not to love about a robot with a Texas twang, David Hasselhoff wearing too much mascara and Christopher Plummer appearing as if he had wandered onto the wrong set? Star Wars it is not, but at least there's a ten minute laser battle near the end that must have been awesome on the big screen.

Oddly enough, Starcrash opened up a whole new genre of film for me. Surely you have heard of spaghetti Westerns? Have you heard of spaghetti science fiction? Looks like there is plenty more fun and weirdness to indulge in :-)