Late night rambling
Jun. 12th, 2004 12:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
onefixedstarHmm, I'm falling behind on updating again. Although I'm still doing better than I ever did with a paper journal, where I averaged about one entry per month. When I remembered at all.
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semiotic_trader and a_just_society were in town last weekend for a friend's wedding, and stayed over at my place. It was nice seeing them. We went out for brunch on Saturday, which also happened to be MacGuy's birthday. The original plan was to do a birthday brunch (and in fact, Saturday was chosen as the day at MacGuy's request), but he then decided at the last minute that he was going running, so we ended up with three for brunch. The place we went to was okay, but not great (scrambled eggs should not be brown). The only reason I'd ever consider going back is that it's a two minute walk from my place, and since I'm moving at the end of the summer, that probably means that I'll never be back there for brunch.
The four of us snuck out to see Harry Potter in between the wedding and reception. That was quite enjoyable, although it felt a bit short and a couple of things were left out that I would have liked to see included. Later in the day, MacGuy and I wandered down to the Distillery District with a couple of friends, and then back to the Four Seasons for supper. Decent food, excellent service, and reasonably affordable as long as you're not drinking. Well, sort of. Did I mention the excellent service?
I was watching a show last night on Canadian speech patterns. There was the usual hoose/aboot stuff, of course, and the role of "eh" in Canadian speech. More interesting were the differences between Canadian and American intonation, and the great vowel shift (box to bax) that's been taking place in virtually all major northern American cities over the past fifty years without touching a single Canadian border city. Who knew that speech patterns respected political borders? It was also interesting learning of certain common words and phrases that are strictly Canadian. Toque and serviette I already knew, but bird course, eavestrough, and "had the biscuit" were all surprises.
Mandatory political commentary: I'm beginning to panic slightly about the upcoming election. At first I figured it would be a Liberal majority again--dull, but at least we'd know what to expect. And then the possibility of a minority government reared its head, and since it looked like the NDP might hold the balance of power, I was okay with that. Now, however, a Conservative majority is starting to seem like a real possibility, and that's frightening. I think I may have to vote Liberal after all, because there are enough wealthy Rosedale-ites in my riding to make a Conservative victory possible. Strategic voting. Blah. But better the Liberals (even with Paul Martin) than the new Conservatives. (And once again, I lament the flight of the Red Tories from the newly merged party.) Although if the Conseratives do get in, it will be interesting to see if they have the balls to invoke the notwithstanding clause and override the Charter if the House passes an unconstitutional law in a free vote. (Yes, laws opposing abortion and gay marriage both come to mind.)
I've been playing fangirl this week with my new laptop by hunting down Farscape fanvids. I somehow missed Farscape the first time round, but I'm getting caught up nicely thanks to Space's daily airing of reruns, and I should be good by the time the movie comes out. In the meantime, I'm impressed by some of the videos. I haven't found quite as many as Buffy generated, but they've got a good number with some good interpretations.
semiotic_trader and a_just_society were in town last weekend for a friend's wedding, and stayed over at my place. It was nice seeing them. We went out for brunch on Saturday, which also happened to be MacGuy's birthday. The original plan was to do a birthday brunch (and in fact, Saturday was chosen as the day at MacGuy's request), but he then decided at the last minute that he was going running, so we ended up with three for brunch. The place we went to was okay, but not great (scrambled eggs should not be brown). The only reason I'd ever consider going back is that it's a two minute walk from my place, and since I'm moving at the end of the summer, that probably means that I'll never be back there for brunch.The four of us snuck out to see Harry Potter in between the wedding and reception. That was quite enjoyable, although it felt a bit short and a couple of things were left out that I would have liked to see included. Later in the day, MacGuy and I wandered down to the Distillery District with a couple of friends, and then back to the Four Seasons for supper. Decent food, excellent service, and reasonably affordable as long as you're not drinking. Well, sort of. Did I mention the excellent service?
I was watching a show last night on Canadian speech patterns. There was the usual hoose/aboot stuff, of course, and the role of "eh" in Canadian speech. More interesting were the differences between Canadian and American intonation, and the great vowel shift (box to bax) that's been taking place in virtually all major northern American cities over the past fifty years without touching a single Canadian border city. Who knew that speech patterns respected political borders? It was also interesting learning of certain common words and phrases that are strictly Canadian. Toque and serviette I already knew, but bird course, eavestrough, and "had the biscuit" were all surprises.
Mandatory political commentary: I'm beginning to panic slightly about the upcoming election. At first I figured it would be a Liberal majority again--dull, but at least we'd know what to expect. And then the possibility of a minority government reared its head, and since it looked like the NDP might hold the balance of power, I was okay with that. Now, however, a Conservative majority is starting to seem like a real possibility, and that's frightening. I think I may have to vote Liberal after all, because there are enough wealthy Rosedale-ites in my riding to make a Conservative victory possible. Strategic voting. Blah. But better the Liberals (even with Paul Martin) than the new Conservatives. (And once again, I lament the flight of the Red Tories from the newly merged party.) Although if the Conseratives do get in, it will be interesting to see if they have the balls to invoke the notwithstanding clause and override the Charter if the House passes an unconstitutional law in a free vote. (Yes, laws opposing abortion and gay marriage both come to mind.)
I've been playing fangirl this week with my new laptop by hunting down Farscape fanvids. I somehow missed Farscape the first time round, but I'm getting caught up nicely thanks to Space's daily airing of reruns, and I should be good by the time the movie comes out. In the meantime, I'm impressed by some of the videos. I haven't found quite as many as Buffy generated, but they've got a good number with some good interpretations.
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no subject
Date: 2004-06-11 10:44 pm (UTC)Re: Translation
Date: 2004-06-12 06:07 am (UTC)And yeah, "had the biscuit" means "done for." Mom used to use the term sometimes, mostly in regards to things that were worn out and needed to be tossed. That one might be dying--I haven't heard many people use it lately.
Re: Translation
Date: 2004-06-12 12:31 pm (UTC)Re: But did you actually hear them use it?
Date: 2004-06-13 03:12 pm (UTC)Re: But did you actually hear them use it?
Date: 2004-06-13 04:43 pm (UTC)I asked my grade 10 history teacher what my mark was, and he said "your what?" and I said "mark" and he was like "oh, your grade." and I was like "yeah, in Canada we call it a mark" and he said "that doesn't make it right" and I was kinda insulted, but he told me I had an A or something, so I was happy.