Some times things change

This once a month thing really has to stop. I mean to write more, I really do. I keep starting posts that I never complete or time just flies by. But this time I have a sort of explaination for the lack of writing. I moved!! No more ‘Sauga (Mississauga for the non-locals), I am officially a city girl. Not a fake city girl being on the edge of Scarborough, one of the Yorks (North or east), just close enough to get away with writing “Toronto” as my address but a true down town girl. It is kind of great so far. I have this awesome view from my balcony of the north end of the city.

Don’t make fun of my makeshift panoramic. I have never had a balcony before so I take good advantage of it. I sit out there and eat all my meals listening to the sounds of the concrete jungle. It is mostly traffic and sirens. The sounds of traffic I am used to but the sirens are taking a bit of time to get accustomed to. People keep assuring me that soon I won’t even notice them. We will see how long that takes.

Living alone is strange. It is very quiet and I am having a problem occupying my time. Yeah I do some unpacking, reading, cooking but it always seems to take less time than I thought. It is weird. That may also be because I don’t have tv or internet as yet. When watching tv and surfing the web time always seems to fly by. Not having it is a good thing right now, unpacking isn’t taking as long as I expected. I have only been here a week but my room is packed away and I mostly have a living room. There are some boxes of just “stuff” still hanging around but I will find locations for their contents soon. It took a whole lot longer the pack.

Not having these technological distraction has also forced me out of the apartment. Just yesterday, with a group of friends from work, I went on the Hippo Bus . For those of you who don’t know it is a tour bus that goes all over the city by land and…wait for it dary! (HA) Sorry I mean sea. That is right, the bus goes in the water.

I had always wanted to go but the cost of the tour always turned me off. At $43/person after taxes it seemed really high especially in a city I know quite well. But I was peer pressured into the adventure with talks of a fun day out and getting a discount cuz we would have a big enough group. It did bring down the price to $37.35 which I think is still kind of high but our tour guide Alice (awesome) and driver Mary (possibly Marie) made it worth while, well to a point where I can’t really complain. It was informative and entertaining.

This is us on land passing by a reflective building.

And this is of another Hippo Bus we passed on the way out of Lake Ontario.

Before getting on the Hippo Bus I had always thought there was only one but no there are apparently three. We were on “Happy Hippo” the one above was “Harry Hippo” and I can’t remember the name of the other one (We were told the name but never came across it). It was a fun hour and a half.

Also moving has sadly brought “Movie Fridays” to an end. WHAT! I know, it is a travesty. I have been doing “Movie Fridays” almost continuously for about 7 years (5 month break when I went to Japan, I did see some movies while I was there though). So it will be sorely missed. But before it ended I saw 2 more movies. These reviews will be short, I swear. The first was Captain America: The First Avenger.

I liked this movie a lot more than I ever thought I would. When I first saw images during the making of the film I was not very excited about but whoever did the trailers did an excellent job. Everytime I saw one the movie looked better and better and it did not disappoint. The movie played heavily on the fact that the character of Captain America was/is a propaganda figure. For a good portion of the movie Steve Rogers isn’t donning his suit battling the bad guy, he is on tour putting on a show; sing, dancing, and smiling for the camera. The movie is very kitch keeping the mood light and the heavy parts aren’t too heavy trying to beat you over the head with its message.

The movie is what it is: a superhero movie. There is a clear definition of good and evil, it spans the globe, and there are amazing feats of both physical strength and strength of character. During the film you root for the good guy and you despise the bad guy. And the end of the movie you walk out happy with the conclusion.

Captain America: The First Avenger is a great movie to go see. It tells its story well and is just a lot of fun.

Unfortunately the last movie for “Movie Fridays” sucked.

Even from the start I knew this was a stupid premise but with it being directed by Jon Favreau and staring Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford I thought it would be a lot of fun; it would be cheesy but in a good way. You know, the so-bad-its-good kind of thing. But I was so wrong.

There were 3 very big problems with this movie. First it took itself way to seriously. It is “cowboys” and “aliens” people, the audience is looking for mindless entertainment so entertain. Don’t get all serious about it, there is no message to be had here. Second, the aliens came to Earth for gold? Really? That is the best you could come up with? Third, Olivia Wilde. Blink! Her wide-eyed-ness was just annoying. I don’t know how she keeps getting work, she can’t act. I get that she is pretty but don’t make her the focus of the film, make her some secondary character that doesn’t take up too much screen time.

At the end of the movie they threw in the revenge story that was a really lame attempt at adding dimension to the film. Please. It just made it worse and that Kuato-esque death at the end was flat out comical, I actually burst out laughing at that point.

Sad to say but Cowboys and Aliens is totally not worth it.

That brings us to the end of “Movie Fridays”. As The Matrix taught us “every beginning has an end”, it ended on a kind of crappy note but what you gonna do?

After that I had to go 2 weeks without going into a theatre, having my seat kicked and shoes stuck to the ground, and I was almost twitchy. I was saved by a couple of girls from the office who invited me out to go see a movie on a Tuesday (maybe this will be my new thing, “celluloid Tuesdays”). I sadly had no say in which movie we went to see and I was dragged to Crazy Stupid Love.

I am not a girly movie kind of person, I usually pass all the rom-coms in the theatre and end up watching them on bored Sunday afternoons. But I am kind of happy I saw this one. It was good. It didn’t try to reinvent the genre but it threw in its own twists. You followed a group of very realistic characters in plausible situations. No one was really demonized simply flawed but you liked them for the most part. It was also funnier than I though it would be managing to keep its tone light. It did get sappy at the end and some of my fellow movie goers got watery eyes and I intern laughed at them but it just added to the movie’s effect. Part of the ending was a little trying as it seemed out of place for how the movie had progressed but it was saved in its last moments.

Side note: I never understood the appeal of Ryan Gosling. He is good looking I guess but he didn’t really do anything for me. But after this movie I am giving him a second look. He looked good. All his outfits were perfectly tailored, he was very suave, and his body is not just fine but foine. The audience must have agreed with me cuz when he took of his shirt there was a round of applause.

Anyways, Crazy Stupid Love is a well done cute movie.

That is it from me for now. You will just have to wait and see what adventures I get up to next.

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