Shaking her fist.

You know what I think? Glossettes ought to have an assorted candy package with their chocolate-covered raisins and peanuts. I recently tried some assorted chocolate-coated candies and I found myself really discouraged from my initial excitement. The problem with the current assorted chocolates is that you can't tell what you're going to get when you pull a chocolate out of the bag. Don't get me wrong, I like many types of chocolates, the mint ones and caramel ones especially, but when you start messing with my chocolate with strawberry cream, orange cream and jelly beans, that's where I draw the line. So I'm willing to settle for something more simple, like raisins and peanuts. When I see those little guys, I know that I'm either getting peanut or raisin. The surprise element still exists, but this way, I at least know that what I am going to get I am going to like. Please Glossettes people, do something about it!

You know what I can't stand? OK, so we all know that Asians have this annoying commonality that makes them known as "asian tourists" - the peace sign, enthusiastically posed in photographs. We've all made fun of them, we've all mocked them, even daringly in their presence. But what I actually find more annoying is that people make it a sport now to mock them in their own photographs. For goodness sakes, I think it's just as ridiculous as the real thing.

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Shaking my fist.

Some good quotes this year.

"You had me at the first touchdown." ~ Josep

"Mustafa" ~ Michael Mo, yelling at the zamboni

"Sher-wyyyyyn!" ~ The Sherwyn Fanclub

"Natasha, your cardboard is showing." ~ ProFac Party

"If you see a bunch of people running...look to see where they came from, and run in the opposite direction." ~ Mom

"You should wear pink more often, that way you won't look so yellow." ~ Mom

Marathon

Oh the hours of waiting, and finally the episodes of So You Think You Can Dance are downloaded :) As a self-professed addict of the show, I have done a poor job of following it - missing the first 3 weeks!!! Ah, but this way, I can enjoy the episodes back-to-back-to-back-to...haha, I am in bliss. Even until 3 in the morning! I'm so glad that this show came around. It's way up there with watching gymnastics and figure skating, the oh so girly things that I love to watch. You know it grabs my attention like nothing else and gives me goosebumps to watch. I'd have to agree with the judges this season that the top 20 dancers are probably the most talented group compared to past years. Sabra has only danced for 4 years and she's amazing. I love that there are 3 hip-hop (no training at all) guys. And I'd have to say that my favourite style is afro-jazz. Before this show, I had this fascination with hip-hop dancing, but being exposed to the other styles of dance, I've really grown to appreciate the ballrooms and the contemporaries a lot more! It's so easy to focus on the dancing styles when there are only two dancers at a time, dancing to some world-class choreography. Juxtaposed against each other, the contrasting dance styles stand on their own so well.

One negative thing that I'll say about this show, like most vote-in reality shows, is that I think people develop their favourites early on and tend to vote along those loyalty lines. This tendency is natural of course. However, this show is about talent and not about popularity. Thus it is essentially a competition that is not necessarily about the best dancer, but the most popular dancer. I think this is why Nigel always refers to the winner as America's "favourite" dancer, which is very fitting. For instance, why is everyone loving on Lacey so much? She gained notoriety even before she got on the show because her brother won it last year. I'm still not quite convinced yet. The incestuousness doesn't stop there. Faina is Stanislav's (guy from last year) sister; and Lauren was one of the choreographer's assistants last year. Aiy, it's going to be hard not to be biased this year. Ah, whatever. I can't vote anyway...and it's still really enjoyable to watch.

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Fitness journal: I've been getting the hang of working out regularly. It's still a big pain, but I keep telling myself that it's only like 45 minutes of discomfort, I can handle it ;) The other half of the routine is food, another thing that I have to master. I don't understand my body. I have been trying to do the more frequent, but smaller meals thing. Let me tell you, it's not working out. I think I spent all of yesterday eating because I was never felt satisfied. I walked back and forth to the kitchen about 7 or 8 times.

Eating three meals a day is predictable and you pre-empt the hunger. On the other hand, eating every 2 hours or so is really disruptive. I kept feeling the need to get up and eat. It is either due to my metabolism increasing or just my body freaking out and wanting appetizer, entree and dessert all at the same time, not in scattered chunks through the day. So what did I do? I made a nice hardy chili. Call it the most expensive chili - I threw everything in it but chocolate - but you certainly get your money's worth. My body is so confused with food these days that just one bowl was causing my stomach to explode with the density of it. And then out of the blue, I got really hungry again just before playing softball, which is not a good thing.

Oh and for some dumb reason I keep thinking that I am going to get used to oatmeal. For about the 3rd time, I tried forcing myself to like it. It looks appealing with all that steaminess and creaminess, but buying that bag of oatmeal was the biggest mistake ever. When I made it, the brick that transpired truly made me want to gag (again). I guess I will have to use what's remaining for cookies and apple crumble because that's about the only place that oats belong!!!

A cheeky wee tale Pt III.

It must have been the cold weather but I found myself constantly craving coffee. I like european coffee, most definitely because it usually comes with a little chocolate or a biscotti. Yum. It's all about balance - bitter with sweet - makes me happy.

The last couple of days were pretty good. Yes, yet another bus trip. This time it was to the highlands. We toured up the west coast to Loch Lomond, a place that inspired a fairly well-known yet annoying song :) Following Lomond, some fantastic scenery on the way to Loch Ness, especially in Glen Coe. It's so funny how so many cities in Ontario can be traced back to the UK...Glencoe, Stratford, London, etc...but I digress. Although I did end up falling asleep as we approached Glen Coe (a bad habit I have while on buses), when I awoke to see the green mountains with mist rolling across the tops, it was absolutely remarkable. I think that given the chance, everyone should go see this, as well as the cute Scottish cows (known as "highly coos"). Unfortunately, we didn't get a chance to stay very long...we were off toward the famous chain of 4 Lochs, of course ending in Loch Ness. Loch Ness was a bit of a let-down after all the anticipation. Our tour guide informed us of a one million dollar reward to anybody who could capture a video of the Loch Ness Monster. An apparent sighting was made just a couple of weeks before we left for Scotland. I don't believe in monsters but I wouldn't have minded some excitement! When we arrived, we took a tour of Urquhart Castle. There wasn't much to see given that the last occupants blew it up to bits before vacating so that the enemy couldn't use it. Then we took a boat cruise on the Loch, but the experience was eclipsed by the fact that it was bone-chilling cold. Everyone on the boat looked as disinterested as I did and seemed to want to get off ASAP hehe. The trip proceeded, without the million dollars, to Inverness, the most northerly city in Scotland. Down the east countryside, we stopped at Pitlochry, a picturesque town, for dinner. A lovely place, I would have also liked to spend more time there, but I was glad to be sleeping in a familiar place in Glasgow by the end of the night.

So after touring most of the country, there were only a few things left to do. On Thursday, we went to the Sudirman Cup - World Team Badminton. We happened to be in Glasgow during the week of the tournament. We watched China play Malaysia in the morning and Canada play France in the evening. It was all coincidental that we were there, but I was really glad to be able to go. The highlights involved seeing Val play for Canada (and get the only win for the team) as well as to watch team China, some of the world's best players. Lin Dan had a really disappointing match against Chong Wei but there were some damn good rallies. I also developed a huge crush on the Chinese men's doubles team, but I confess I like Yu Haifeng best.

All that was left to complete the trip was another food adventure: haggis and a traditional scottish breakfast, complete with black pudding. I like to tell people that I've eaten haggis but to be honest, I don't think that I ate the authentic stuff. It was more like minced meat with some spices. It was served with mashed potatoes and turnips with oat cookies. The haggis on its own was not distasteful, but certainly was better with the sides. The black pudding also was not what I expected. It had a really mild taste, which really detracted from the fact that I was eating sheep's blood.

All in all, the trip was memorable and interesting, but definitely a once a lifetime destination. I'm satisfied that I did just about everything while I was there. I'd say that the people are quite nice, but not friendly. Everyone keeps to themselves. Even Paris Hilton was furious that nobody made a big deal about her when she was in Scotland - they simply don't care for celebrities. I quite like that about Scotland. I could actually feel the difference when I came back here, where strangers seemed interested in what you were doing. Scotland is a nice place, but I can honestly say that it's the only place I've visited where I couldn't see myself living. I certainly won't miss the weather, or the food.