Go Canada Go

I love watching the Olympics! Today at work, I am actually listening to them. We have the radio on to listen to the  hockey (men) quarterfinals - Canada against Latvia. It was a nail-bitter of a game, but we made it through to win 2-1. I love all of the events. However, I listen to some hockey on the radio when in the car with Jason and I can follow along well. I hate listening to other sports on the radio though (mainly baseball, I really don't like baseball.) Tomorrow there will be an iPad at work so we can watch the figure skating (women). My boss got me a celebratory cookie from a local bakery.

Boys' Weekend In Toronto

Jason's nephews are visiting us in Toronto this weekend. For Christmas, Jason and I gave them a trip to the new Aquarium as their big gift so we are off to go do that tomorrow. We had a short but fun evening with them tonight - highlights of the Olympic Opening Ceremonies, bath time, some reading, then to bed.

The Boys Showing Jason And I Their Reading Skills

Jason, L, and P

Photo by Me

26!!

I turned 26 today, lets look back at 1984:
• The Apple Macintosh was introduced at a price of $2,495.
• There were approximately 1,000 hosts on the Internet.
• Sony Corporation introduced a 3.5 inch diskette
• The term cyberspace is coined by William Gibson in his novel "Neuromancer"
• Mass marketing of cellular phones to the general public started.
• Chrysler introduced America to the Minivan.
• Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India, was assassinated.
• Researchers for the first time positively identified the virus that leads to AIDS.
• Ronald Reagan was re-elected to his second term as US President.
• Astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart made the first untethered space walk.
• Trivial Pursuit revived the board-game industry. Developed by a Canadian entrepreneur, the game is introduced in U.S. stores and records sales of $777 million during 1984.
• Vanessa Williams becomes the first Miss America to resign when she surrenders her crown after nude photos of her appeared in "Penthouse" magazine.
• Michael Jackson's hair caught on fire during the shooting of a Pepsi commercial.
• Motown legend Marvin Gaye was killed by his father in a domestic dispute.
• The Cosby Show first debuted on NBC.
• The first infomercials appear on TV due to deregulation by the FCC.
• While working at WNBC-AM New York, Howard Stern appears on 'Late Night with David Letterman' in June. The appearance launched Stern into the national spotlight and gave his radio show unprecedented exposure.
• 1984 Academy Award winner, Best Picture: "Amadeus"
• 1984 Grammy Award winner, Record of the Year: "What's Love Got To Do With It?" Tina Turner
• The Wayne Gretzky led the Edmonton Oilers to win their first Stanley Cup, defeating the New York Islanders in 5 games and ending the Islanders run of 4 straight Stanley Cups.
• The Winter Olympics were held in Sarajevo.
• The Summer Olympics were held in Los Angeles.

Don't Show Me A Montage

I had an amazing time, but my trip to Spain did have some negatives; bad weather, missed flight connections, etc. Another big issue with leaving for the two weeks that I did was that I pretty much missed all of the Olympics. We thought there would be some coverage in Spain especially because the apartment had cable with BBC World News and CNBC. However, not so much, the coverage we got was beyond minimal. I would say maybe 30 seconds a day. Getting into Toronto this weekend I ended up watching almost 8 hours of Olympics on Sunday. At Teri's house, I started watching CTV coverage from the time I woke up until just after the final goal of the Men's Gold Medal Hockey Team. (Go Canada Go!!) In the morning, within the first half an hour they showed one of the emotional montages to music of great moments and I definitely cried. I love the Olympics, I'm really sad to have missed it.

New Link

Curly Jenn or Jenn From Work has just started a blog. She was chosen, after a year long application process, to be a volunteer at the coming 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. She is blogging about it and then hopefully will just continue the blog afterwards. Jenn is a fellow English Major, and I don't know if it is because she graduated from Ottawa U or that it is just Jenn but her writing is incredible, much better than mine. A fellow co-worker, Pat Walton, helped her with her awesome banner, he is a photographer and graphic artist, she talks about it in this post. Jenn's Blog or JBlog: My Journey to the 2010 Winter Olympics is now a link on the right, I'm sure you will enjoy it!!

Talk Radio

In general I’m not a huge fan of radio. (Though I enjoy the commercials, which is the part that everyone else seems to hate.) If music is on I find it distracts me from thinking or if there are other people around it distracts from conversation, and I like both thinking and talking. I really don’t like news radio and talk radio is the worst of all. However, this morning in the cab (yes, on occasion I take a cab to work, please don’t focus on this detail) talk radio was on. Some interesting topics were being discussed, both related to the City of Ottawa, so I thought I would share the issues and my opinions on them.

Larry O’Brien & The Lockout
For those that don’t live in Ottawa, O’Brien is our mayor. I truly feel that he embodies all that is corrupt and terrible about politics in a single person. Even before the legal scandals that have overshadowed his term I didn’t like him or his ideas for running the city. The latest drama surrounding him is a discussion he had on a local television station about transit strikes. Last year's winter OC Transpo strike was terrible, so so awful. On TV, he said something along the lines of “If it looks like we are going to be in a situation like that again, then I think we need to lock them out during the summer, so as to avoid a strike in the winter. If they are in position to strike, we are in a position to lock out.” People are very unhappy with his statement. While I don’t know if this tough talk is the best approach, he is right, legally the city could lock out their employees if there is no contract. That is the employer part of the whole strike thing, they have certain rights as well. Unions have the right to strike, their employers have the right to lock them out. What I think is important about what he said is that he reminded everyone of a very key component that is often forgotten.

Bilingualism & The Olympic Torch
The Olympic Torch ceremony held at City Hall over the past weekend was conducted solely in English. There is an uproar over this which has lead to the city working on clarify their bilingualism policies to ensure that French is not forgotten again in the future. (Ironically the memo that went out about this was only in English and it wasn’t until an hour and a half later that a bilingual notice was sent around, along with more apologies for forgetting, again.) I can not believe the ceremony wasn’t bilingual. We are an officially bilingual city, policies should be so solidly in place that official languages are always considered. I don’t understand how it wasn’t caught earlier on in the planning. I definitely think that it should have been in both languages and that it was a huge error on the city’s part.

I Wish

I want to...
-be painted by Michelangelo
-play improve games with the cast and guests of Whose Line Is It Anyway?
-speak another language
-go to a Caribbean resort with all my friends, drink and swim in the ocean
-win an Olympic medal for Canada
-have my Grandma back, alive and healthy
-be young again and playing 'Kick The Can' with the neighborhood kids
-see Twelfth Night in the Elizabethan Court
-like and know wine
-go to a Harry Chapin concert with my parents
-see the Hanging Gardens of Babylon
-wake up everyday with someone I love, and who loves me back
-climb Mount Kilimanjaro
-swim in a bath house in ancient Rome
-live in the same city as my little brother