Monday, September 29, 2008

Word.

lit-e-ra-ti: (pl. noun, singular -ra-tus) persons of scholarly or literary attainments; intellectuals.

Word on the Street
was yesterday. I love Word on the Street. Seriously truly madly deeply love it. There's just something so exhilarating about seeing all those vendors grouped in Queen's Park but all there for the same reason: the love of printed matter. I was a little put off by Warner Bros. Nights in Rodanthe booth but no one was paying it much attention so that made me feel a bit better.

My coup of the day, though, was the purchase of Watchmen. I think I might have squealed with glee when I found it; my excitement led to a conversation with another book-lover and two other people overheard us and both promptly bought the book as well. Hurrah! I feel so proud to contribute to the book buying of others.

But Watchmen...Watchmen. I didn't know much about the book until I saw the movie trailer before The Dark Knight. Just from watching the trailer, I really didn't care if I ever knew the story because the movie looks so bloody brilliant. But then I learned more about the story and also learned that Watchmen is the only graphic novel on Time Magazine's Top 100 Novels list. (It was this fact that has inspired me to read the entire list. I start on Wednesday.)

I have also just finished rearranging my bookshelves and I'm currently gazing lovingly at my many beautiful books...so pretty...so diverse...so many still unread. But they can wait until I'm done with Time's list. The Globe and Mail is also doing a series on the 50 Greatest Books and I'm thinking that might be the next list I tackle. Must represent the Canuck opinion, right?

Oh Word on the Street, why can't you be every Sunday?

Thursday, September 25, 2008

No more excuses

la-zy: (adjective) averse or disinclined to work, activity, or exertion; indolent.
ALSO
la-zy: (adjective) (of a livestock brand) placed on its side instead of upright. **who knew?**


Egad. I have been thinking a lot about blogging but, of course, thinking is not doing. But I want to get back to it because there are things happening right now that I want to blog about: my new job, the publishing world, what not to wear to work, the Canadian election, the U.S. election, weight loss, feminism, pink ribbons, hockey, mental health, my two-week headache.

Oh, and I’ve decided to start my next “project” on October 1. I’ve decided to read all the books on Time Magazine’s 100 Best Novels of All Time list. And I’m going to blog about it here. I’ve already picked the first three books I’m going to tackle but that will be in the other blog, as will my reasons for reading all those books and for picking the Time list as my guiding light.

I was planning on starting all this at the beginning of September, but I’ve been busier than expected this month (and the two-week headache didn’t help things much). But now that it’s really, finally, officially fall I feel more inspired to start all those things I put off in the haze of summer. Fall is my absolute favourite time of year so I really feel ready to get some stuff done. Really, it will just be reading and knitting…but I can’t think of anything else I could want.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

I like sentences. Full stop.

punc-tu-a-tion: (noun) the practice or system of using certain conventional marks or characters in writing or printing in order to separate elements and make the meaning clear, as in ending a sentence or separating clauses.

I was once told that it took 30 days to form a habit. My plan, then, was to post every day in September and hopefully form a (better) blogging habit. Alas, here it is the 9th of the month and I'm on my, what is it?, 2nd post. But really, what can you do?

I am going to start posting more, particularly about hockey, as it is about to start soon. JOY. But before I can do that, I must go read Doctor Sax by Jack Kerouac. It's for my book club. Book club is this Saturday. I'm only 50 pages into the 250-something-page book so I told myself I would read 50 pages a night, Monday through Friday, until I was done. I still have to do my 50 pages tonight and it's 10:45 pm. It's not that I don't want to read. I like reading. It's just that I really like reading books that have proper sentences and periods and commas and thoughts that start and finish within a few lines of each other. I like structure. I'm a structure girl. A complete, full-stop sentence is a beautiful thing. A properly-used comma can give me shivers. And a well-placed semi-colon...pure bliss.

But this run-on nonsense? Almost enough to turn me into a mathematician. See, it's all about structure.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Olympic #5: Green

re-ward: (noun) something given or received in return or recompense for service, merit, hardship, etc.

Yes, I know at the end of my last post I said this would be the "white" entry on the Olympics, but then I remembered that the last colour is green, not white, as white in the background of the flag. So I'm a bit of an idiot. I'm okay with that.

But back to green and - what else? - money. I'm not going to post about funding for amateur athletics, because I did touch on that in the "red" entry and because there's not much to say other than Canada needs to give more money. I'd rather talk about the financial compensation the individual athletes receive when they win a medal.

The Beijing Olympics marked the first Games where Canada gave money to its medaling athletes. Other countries are already doing this and Canada comes close to what some are offering, there are some countries that are giving a lot more. I think it's great that Canada is giving monetary rewards to the athletes that win medals and I hope, as a country, we're able to keep it up.

What makes me wonder - and worry - is whether pro athletes who compete in the Olympics also get moolah if they medal. For example, in Vancouver in 2010, let's just say, for instance, that Canada's men's hockey team had a chance to win a gold medal. Not that crazy. But that team will be made up entirely of NHL players. Top-notch NHL players. Multi-million-dollar-contract NHL players. Now, I don't think pro athletes should be in any amateur sporting event ever (but that's for another post) but I know Canada will send NHLers to Vancouver - as will every other hockey nation with NHL players to send. I'll be watching with interest to see what they do with their medal money. Of course, I cannot fathom that anything other than donations to charity will occur...right?