Americans are fools!

This is why I don't watch reality television.

If this reality is one where Constantine is not the winner of this year's American Idol, I want no part of it! Sigh. I love how Tash knew it would be me calling her right after the show to rant.

Today's sing-a-long song: "Foolish" by Ashanti

HRH

Mantras

I was going through my draft blog posts and I found this one. I list of things to live your life by. I know I didn't write them, they must be from somewhere else (you'd think I would have made a note of that), but I know why I kept them. They all ring true for me... or at least ring true for the person I try to be every day.

• There is more to moral behavior than mindlessly following rules.


• Be especially sceptical of positive claims.


• If you want your life to have some sort of meaning, it's up to you to find it.


• Search for what is true, even if it makes you uncomfortable.


• Make the most of your life, as it's probably the only one you'll have.


• It's no good relying on some external power to change you; you must change yourself.


• Just because something's popular doesn't mean it's good.


• If you must assume something, assume something easy to test.


• Don't believe things just because you want them to be true.


• All beliefs should be open to question.

HRH

Aw crap. I have to watch it again

Lucas to Guest-Star on "The O.C."

It's just all, all bad.

HRH

Knocked a wire loose in my sleep

I woke up this morning with a nose bleed after having a dream about ballroom dancing with Constantine Maroulis from American idol. These were clear signs that today was going to be one of those days.

I spent most of the day feeling like there was something very important that I had forgotten and sadly, I still don't know what that is. I fear that it is large and disastrous, but what it is escapes me. Stay tuned for all the grizzly details when I get my memory back.

Today's sing-a-long song: "I don't remember" by Peter Gabriel

HRH

Yellow! I protest.

M and I had an opportunity this week to head over to the newly expanded Yorkdale mall. If there's one thing we share, it's a love of shopping. Sadly for him, the apple store is not yet open. So we took the time to see if a bigger Sephora is better (pretty much the same) and if $170 Guess jeans are truly magic and worth the price(they're not). It turned into a recon mission as my mother is due in Toronto next week for a shopping extravaganza, so I thought I would emerge from my shopping-less cocoon to see what's out there for the buyin'. I was also bitten by a ferret, but I digress.

Can someone tell me why EVERTHING is yellow? Like seriously people. I work my behind off this winter to loose weight and feel good about clothes and shopping again and all the purveyors of fashion have for me is YELLOW?

I've been a good girl and made my peace with colours I may not love, like purple. Purple and I have found peace together. This left just two colours to battle with: Peach and Yellow. Purple had something going for it, in that it turned out to be a very flattering colour on me, and as everyone knows, with me, flattery will get you everywhere. Peach makes me think of my tweens where I thought peach was the best colour EVER! My room was peach, all my clothes were peach, most of my pre-teen makeup was peach (save the turquoise eyeliner and mascara. Oh yes, I was one of those girls.). Peach, peach, peach. Someone really should have told me that with a cool undertone to my skin peach was a really, really bad idea. Thankfully I became obsessed with fashion and models and gave up the peach passion for black. Mmmm black.

Yellow. You and I have never gotten along. You sit there, looking all sunny and cute. You totally had me drawn in. I painted two bedrooms yellow, deceived by your promise of warmth and joy. While you did lead me to my true love, blue, I will never forget the sting of betrayal when I tried to wear something yellow. I can now say that I know what I would look like with jaundice.

Rant aside, the pickings in the stores are pretty slim. It doesn't help that I'm still of the age where I don't want to dress above my age, but I'll look foolish if I shop at West49. Also, what's with all the meh colours this season. Washed out pinks, bright yellow, coral and teal? I was standing in H&M, staring at a wall of clothes, asking myself "Is snot-green a good colour for me?"

Of course it's not!!!

Hopefully the shops downtown will have a little more hope for me. I may have to ride out this wave of the 80s revival before I feel good about throwing down coin for clothing.

Today's sing-a-long song: "A lack of colour" by Death Cab for Cutie

HRH

Now they're going to have to change the song!!!

The writers of Clone High will be unhappy to hear that the USDA has changed the structure of the food pyramid.

One size doesn't fit all. MyPyramid Plan can help you choose the foods and amounts that are right for you. For a quick estimate of what and how much you need to eat, enter your age, sex, and activity level in the MyPyramid Plan box.

It's a shame Marylin Manson will have to re-record the song, but I think a change in the pyramid was pretty much due.

Today's sing-a-long song: "The Food Pyramid Song" from Clone High as performed by Marylin Manson

HRH

What's your name?

Using the Ron Mexico name generaor, I have discovered that my incognito name is Bambi Honduras.

What's yours?

HRH

Synchronize watches

May I have everyone's attention for a moment?

Thank you.

THE NEW STAR WARS MOVIE, REVENGE OF THE SITH, OPENS IN EXACTLY ONE MONTH. AHHHHHHHHHH!

To bide the time of what may be the longest month ever, join me in building a Mustafar volcano.

Today's sing-a-long song: "I'm so excited" by The Pointer Sisters

HRH

I KNEW it

I spend a lot of my time at work looking at scientific papers. I'm my time I have seen some very funny and potentially hokey titles for papers (More often though I see a lot of amazing work, but that's not nearly as entertaining when it comes to story time). Laura passed on his article from the news, as it was nice for both of us to see that someone else thinks that ridiculous titles have gone too far.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (Reuters) - A bunch of computer-generated gibberish masquerading as an academic paper has been accepted at a scientific conference in a victory for pranksters at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Jeremy Stribling said on Thursday that he and two fellow MIT graduate students questioned the standards of some academic conferences, so they wrote a computer program to generate research papers complete with nonsensical text, charts and diagrams.

The trio submitted two of the randomly assembled papers to the World Multiconference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics (WMSCI), scheduled to be held July 10-13 in Orlando, Florida.

To their surprise, one of the papers -- "Rooter: A Methodology for the Typical Unification of Access Points and Redundancy" -- was accepted for presentation. The prank recalled a 1996 hoax in which New York University physicist Alan Sokal succeeded in getting an entire paper with a mix of truths, falsehoods, non sequiturs and otherwise meaningless mumbo-jumbo published in the journal Social Text.

Stribling said he and his colleagues only learned about the Social Text affair after submitting their paper.

"Rooter" features such mind-bending gems as: "the model for our heuristic consists of four independent components: simulated annealing, active networks, flexible modalities, and the study of reinforcement learning" and "We implemented our scatter/gather I/O server in Simula-67, augmented with opportunistically pipelined extensions."

Stribling said the trio targeted WMSCI because it is notorious within the field of computer science for sending copious e-mails that solicit admissions to the conference.

"We were tired of the spam," Stribling told Reuters in a telephone interview, adding that his team wanted to challenge the standards of the conference's peer review process.

Nagib Callaos, a conference organizer, said the paper was one of a small number accepted on a "non-reviewed" basis -- meaning that reviewers had not yet given their feedback by the acceptance deadline.

"We thought that it might be unfair to refuse a paper that was not refused by any of its three selected reviewers," Callaos wrote in an e-mail. "The author of a non-reviewed paper has complete responsibility of the content of their paper."
However, Callaos said conference organizers were reviewing their acceptance procedures in light of the hoax. Asked whether he would disinvite the MIT students, he replied: "Bogus papers should not be included in the conference program."
Stribling said conference organizers had not yet formally rescinded their invitation to present the paper.

The students were soliciting cash donations so they could attend the conference and give what Stribling billed as a "randomly generated talk." So far, they have raised more than $2,000 over the Internet.

Today's sing-a-long song: "Do you know what I mean?" by Oasis

HRH

Neunundneunzig Luftballons Auf ihrem Weg zum Horizont

While there are a lot of children at the place that I work, I have little opportunity to revel in all that is good about childhood and kids. Which is a shame, because that enthusiasm and innocence is like watching someone have a good laugh. Today I had a small moment to re-acquaint myself with my inner-kid.

I had to steal someone's balloons (not from a child), use them for a couple of hours and bring them back. I guess borrow would be a better description of the whole thing. Regardless, the theft gave me the opportunity to walk around the halls with two bunches of red and silver helium-filled balloons. I may have skipped a couple of times, but I swear no one was watching.

Today's sing-a-long song: "99 Red Balloons" by Nena

HRH

You can't argue with popularity. Well you could, but you'd be wrong.

It's been awhile since I've shared some of the things I'm loving with the public at large. So to help you get over the stark reality that is Monday and the gall the weather has a dipping below zero tonight, here are some recent affections from the realms of music and makeup.

My Chemical Romance
Three cheers for sweet revenge
I finally got off my posterior and bought this CD off of itunes. Rockin, rockin, rockin. I will always be a sucker for a melodic rock song. I had the fortune of catching MCR and The Used on an MTV 2$ bill show, which kind of amused me as I was constantly confusing the two bands, and was happy to see that the band can bring it live.

The Faint
Wet from birth
M and I owe a huge debt to Adrienne and Ian for, again, turning us on to a great band. After downloading a couple of tracks of the band's site, I was a little put off by the names and content of some of the songs, but they're no undeniably good (and it's possible that I am far too easily put off). We finally picked up the CD on Saturday and listened to it twice that day alone. It's like Nine Inch Nails taking themselves a little less seriously and meeting the new wave genre.

Snoop Dogg, Charlie Wilson & Justin Timberlake
Signs (single)
I'm pretty sure that Snoop Dogg is going to owe The Neptunes a good part of his soul soon, if he hasn't already promised it to them. Song after song when he collaborates with them, it's toe-tappin-good-times. This recent single, I simply cannot stop listening to it on repeat. It could be the samples, it could be Justin. I don't know. The but the reaction to this song is always dancing. Doesn't matter where I am.

Doctors Dermatologic Formula
Ultra-Lite Moisturizing Dew
I fully admit that taking all the bad food out of my diet has done wonders for my complexion, but it has also been aided by this fantastic moisturizer for the oily skinned (like moi). I've stopped attacking my skin with all kinds of acids and now just wash with Cetaphil cleanser for oily skin and this moisturizer. The results have been dramatic (of course now I've jinxed myself).

MAC
Fluidline eyeliner
I've been a long time fan of Bobbi Brown's gel eyeliner. I dare say I was a devotee and then MAC made their version and they made it in all sorts of fantastic colours, like vibrant purple. I am SO won over.

Darphin
Figrogene Intensive Eye Contour
Our director at work looks amazing for her age so whenever she tells me something is a good idea make-up wise, I listen. She recently bestowed a gift upon me. A vial of what she claims is the best anti-wrinkle under eye treatment ever. She told me that even in times when she had no money, she would scrimp and save just so she could have this stuff. So I've been trying it for the last two weeks and OH MY GOD! The difference. I look like I've slept when I haven't. The wrinkles I do have... gone. Awesome.

Today's sing-a-long song: "It's not a fashion statement, it's a deathwish" by My Chemical Romance

HRH

Just what I needed

I took a lengthy break from plotting my route to work tomorrow and napped. I napped the nap of the innocent. It was not sleep brought on by exhaustion or by illness, just a free afternoon and a very well placed sun beam. And I'm going to need all the rest I can get.

Having spent 2.5 weeks fighting el grande cold. I would say that I'm at about %85 health. However, during the course of the cold I was a good girl and I didn't go to the gym (not like I would have been able to do much of anything). Now I am facing a 7 km bike ride to and from work for whoknowshow long this week (thank you TTC) and I'm hoping I will have the cardiovascular chops to pull it off.

I'm also wondering if, as a monthy TTC pass holder, having already paid the TTC for service for the days of the strike, if I am entitled for a refund? I bet you there is some small print somewhere in the monthy pass contract that frees them from having to return my money. Something to look into for sure...

Today's sing-a-long song: "Bicycle race song" by Queen

HRH

Update: Mere moments after I posted this, the strike for tomorrow was called off. Plain old gym for me then.

Not linking, just asking

I'm not going to link to "that site" and I'm not even going to talk about it openly (not like the government would actually notice this blog, but better safe than sorry). I just have one request. Should Justice Gomery lift the publication ban at 2 p.m. today, and Canadian voters can get a look at the controversial testimony, can someone do me a favour? Explain to me, in terms I understand, what these pay-offs were intended to do. That's all I need to know, right now.

It may speak volumes about my intellectual shortcomings, but I have found the recent writings of an fairly biased American call-centre manager more clear on this issue than the Canadian media has ever been.

Today's sing-a-long song: "A little help from my friends" by The Beatles

Update: Seems the ban has been partially lifted. Does this mean that we can now openly thank Captian Ed? Either way I'm going to. Thank you

HRH

Checking in

Still sick. Still alive. Still here.

In other news, Toronto just got safer. All the best to Matt Blair and his dad.

HRH

Together at last

Jenn sent me the URL for a great Web site yesterday. A site a melds my love of Pantone colours and astrology. Colourstrology may not provide you with insight into your true self, but it's definitely a fun way to pass a couple of minutes. Of course I'm fascinated by it since my birthday colour is spot on for my favourite colour.

Today's sing-a-long song: "Blue Skies" by BT featuring Tori Amos

HRH