(no subject)

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a weird, cool......weird, neat, and above all, weird movie. Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet in a strange inventive and interestingly told story. I recommend it. It's a drama, with a sort of bittersweet ending, not pure sappiness, but not sad or anything, and it just sort of makes you think. See it, it's cool...a bit heavyweight in places, but very cool.

Friday night was our company christmas party. It was decent. It was a buffet dinner again, which I still think is stupid (if I am getting dressed up, for a nice somewhat formal evening out, is it too much to ask that it be a nice relaxed table service dinner?), but the food was decent, and the DJ (same as last year) was excellent. They are very good at getting people involved, getting people to participate, and are fun to interact with. Helen and I got some decent dancing in (not one rhumba though, that was a bit dissapointing), but we left after they got onto a tear of some thud-thud-dance-club-no-melody-just-a-stupid-beat music, and we got bored silly.

Saturady we bought a ladder to put up christmas lights, and just to have a ladder. Turns out it's too short to reach one end of our front porch where the crowd dips away, and besides, I have nothing to attach the lights to short of nailing them to the shingles. Next year we will have gutters I can hook it to, but this year, I think we will end up giving them a miss.

Sunday, I went downtown and bought christmas gifts. I got something for my father in law (just a small thing, I think I may still want to get something else, we will see), sister-in-law, got something for carlin (and I am not saying what), and wandered a fair number of stores in the rideau center and the market for other ideas. I am still stumped on Helen's mother, or a communal gift for the two of them. A few ideas from a past post are still percolating, though some have been dispelled through consultation with Helen. A wine of the month club is an idea still, and I pondering a stone bhudda for the garden...but I can only give them so much garden decorations before they are forced to do the polite thank you while secretly wishing I would stop giving them things like that.

*damn* Forgot to check my ebay item yesterday, and the auction expired last night. No cool ebay purchase for me.

(no subject)

I was reminded of this on the radio today as I went to lunch. Until then, I had totally forgotten....and I should not have.

15 years ago today, 14 women were shot dead while at l'ecole polytechnique in Montreal, 13 more were wounded. They were shot not because they were anyone specific, but because they were women, that was the only reason needed to condemn them in the mind of their killer.

Genevieve Bergeron, 21: Helene Colgan, 23; Nathalie Croteau, 23; Barbara Daigneault, 22; Anne-Marie Edward, 21; Maud Haviernick, 29; Barbara Maria Klucznik, 31; Maryse Leclair, 23; Annie St-Arneault, 23; Michele Richard, 21; Maryse Laganiere, 25; Anne-Marie Lemay, 22; Sonia Pelletier, 28; Annie Turcotte, 21

article in Montreal Gazette

This is an event worth remembering, and worth fully digesting. On it's own, it's a tragedy, but a small one compared to the scale of violence against women that goes on across the world. What it is however, is a single, tightly ecapsulated, and above all visible example of gender based violence. We have too few examples that the public consciousness will latch on to, that an ignorant public will look at, and pay attention to. This, to me, is among the chief reasons why we should make sure it continues to be acknowledge by others. It is something we have to learn from. Too many people are numb to single acts of violence. It's yet another beating/shooting/rape/assault/discrimination. Many people will nod sagely and admit that it's an awful thing, but it's "just" another one, there are so many. Does it take 14 dead in one combined act to overcome this apathy? I wish not, but it won't do to forget or go numb to this one as well, what will it take to shake us up after that?

(no subject)

Told to me by the co-worker in charge of the project I am working on.

"Damn it Mike, you're too damn efficient!"

when I had gotten further along in development that he realized.