I know...

Again, I suck as a blogger.
Here are some new and exciting things in my life. Most importantly I now have a nephew. Jacob Riva was born on March 1 at five pounds eight ounces, he's still pretty teeny and super cute.



I'm moving again, which I'm sure surprises nobody. I'm moving into the biggest place I've ever had, with my good ol' roommate, on Monday. It'll be nice to have extra space for once - there will actually be an office for us! And a porch! Especially considering I'm in the worst apartment I've ever had, this is a great move up.

Basically things have been busy but OK. No great words of wisdom since I've been busy packing and am currently watching my hometown team go down in, well, Flames...

See this now

Again, I'm a bad blogger. Whatever, I'm busy, get over it.
Go rent Across the Universe now. Seriously. It's so good. If you don't know anything about it, get out from under your rock and read something.
It's a musical of Beatles songs. But don't let that scare you. Yes, it's a musical, so it's a bit cheesy but not in the Sound of Music way (yes I'm talking to you Uncle Keith). The Beatles songs really tell the story and the versions in the film are really really good. Julie Taymor (the director, who also directed Frida) does a great job of weaving the evolution of the characters with the evolution of the Beatles. It's set in the 60s and also uses the music to make statements about the time period, the use of 'I Want You' is absolute genius. Anyone even nearly as nerdy as I am will have fun catching all the sneaky Beatles trivia and guessing which song will be used when and next.
So stop talking, stop making fun of me for my Beatles obsession (make fun of the rest of me later) and watch this movie and understand what I'm talking about.

Perils of Alberta

My friend Blake and I have differing views on many many things, but I love him anyway. He's a Tory through and through, and though once and a while he'll acknowledge his party's mistakes, but not often enough. In a recent blog post, he essentially defended Alberta's government for pissing around and not starting the twinning of Hwy 63 years ago. If you don't, you have no choice but to drive Hwy 63 to get from Edmonton to Fort McMurray, oh and with the massive increase in traffic it's become a death trap.
I was going to post the following as a response on Blake's blog, but decided it was time I posted something interested on my own blog.

This will make more sense if you read this first.

The government has to take their fare share of the blame. It's been a well-known fact for at least a decade that Hwy 63 needed twinning, and nothing was until until what, last year? The boom up north didn't happen overnight, contrary to what they believe in Ontario. The twinning of Hwy 63 can be added to the lengthy list of things King Ralph didn't feel like doing during his last term as premier. This government can't make them move any faster but they need to acknowledge how long they've neglected this project, and for that matter most of the infrastructure needs of Fort McMurray.

I'm a big girl now

As I look around my tiny basement apartment I don't feel very grown up. But if I enter my really tiny bedroom I feel a bit more grown up, because I finally have a grown up bed. A real, queen size, pillow top doesn't fold up bed. Few things in my life say grown up, my job does, my car does, my shoe collection might and I have a slightly more grown up wardrobe than I did a few years back. But I live in a basement and none of my furniture doesn't match, some of it was free and some of it is broken.
But I have a real bed now, so at least I can have a good night's sleep until I'm actually a grown up, or at least can be better at pretending to be one.