Three

"Nothing is as far away as one minute ago."
~ Jim Bishop ~

It's amazing how swiftly and slowly different facets of our lives are readjusted.

Three hours ago I was biting my nails, willing the Canucks to win the final game of their current road trip.  Three days ago I in the middle of my work week. Three months ago I was panicking that Christmas was coming too fast. Three years ago I wondered where my life was heading.

Three hours from now I'll still be passed out. Three days from now I'll be planted on the couch watching the game.  Three months from now I'll be knee deep in the height of event season.  Three years from now maybe I'll have figured it all out.

"It is never too late to be what you might have been."
~ George Eliot ~

Lent

Wednesday marked the start of Lent.  For those of you that aren't familiar with Lent, here is what Wikipedia has to say about it:

Lent in the Christian tradition, is the period of the liturgical year from Ash Wednesday to Easter. Lent is a time of sacrifice for Jesus. The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer — through prayer, repentance,almsgiving and self-denial — for the annual commemoration during Holy Week of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, which recalls the events linked to the Passion of Christ and culminates in Easter, the celebration of theResurrection of Jesus Christ.

According to the Canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus spent forty days fasting in the desert before the beginning of his public ministry, where he endured temptation by Satan.^[1][2] Thus, Lent is described as being forty days long, though different denominations calculate the forty days differently.

This practice is common to much of Christendom, being celebrated by Catholics, Lutherans, Methodists,Presbyterians, and Anglicans.

As tradition dictates, we each think of something to give up until Easter.  If you're like my brother, you'll give up things like mercy, kiwi (or anything else he doesn't normally eat) or Lent itself.  My mom tried to give up shopping one year - it was a massive fail from the start since she never specified what kind of shopping she was giving up.  My younger sister, previously mentioned for her suspicion of aliens, gave up popcorn once and would get a frightening look in her eyes whenever someone around her ate some.

This year I'm giving up eating and drinking in places that have any sort of drive-though or -in.  anyone that knows at all will realize what a big deal this is because I have an unnatural addiction to things that are bad for me.  So at the start of the month (I gave myself a head start) I said goodbye to Starbucks, Tim Hortons, White Spot, and all of my other junky favourites.  Hopefully the time away will not only leave a little extra padding in my wallet but will also help curb my addiction.

Fair warning - if you see my eyes go extra wide and just a bit crazy, run for it because you're probably holding something I'm avoiding.  I'll let you know how it all pans out next month!

Shift

I watched The Adjustment Bureau last night and was a bit surprised.  I assumed it was going to be an action thriller featuring Matt Damon trying to escape the clutches of a shady Government agency who are trying to keep him away from Emily Blunt.  Apparently, a lot of people thought that's what it was going to be about, except for my sister who thought it somehow involved aliens.

What I saw was a surprising romance that blossomed despite higher forces working against it.  This movie smartly raised questions about fate, destiny, and faith without sacrificing honesty.  It gave us real characters that we can relate to event though their stories are quite different from our own.  If Emily Blunt's character Elise was a real person here in Vancouver, I'm pretty sure we'd be friends.

Sure, there were some uncomfortable moments where I felt a little creeped out (i.e. Adjuster Thompson, played perfectly by Terence Stamp, watching David (Damon) and Elise asleep in bed) and some that were stretched a bit too long (like a kiss between Elise and David that just kept going even though they were about to be caught by the Bureau) but every film has it's speed bumps.  Aside from a few questionable moments, this film had chemistry, spunk, and some unexpected humour.  It was a far cry from the film I expected in the best way possible. 

By the conclusion, it makes you wonder, would you fight against what should be for what you want it to be?  Are you willing to risk everything for one person even if it meant the end of everything you hold dear or changing the future for everyone?  In an age of formulaic, cookie-cutter romantic comedies, or dark romantic thrillers, it's refreshing to come across a movie that crosses thought provoking love story with enough action to keep you on your toes, wondering what could happen next.  Could this mark the start of Damon's foray into romance movies?  Entertainment Weekly thinks it could be.  Read their review on The Adjustment Bureau here and give the movie a shot - you might agree with them by the end of it.

Timing

I've fallen behind once more!  After getting three posts done in one day and being ahead of the game for once I'm back to the last minute scramble.  In my defence it's been quite a busy work week and I've been actually doing research for some future posts!  Shocking I know but I figure if I'm going to do this, I should be doing it right.  My own previous productivity has inspired me to attempt to keep it going.  Clearly I've failed today but I have high hopes for the rest of the week.

Tomorrow's post - a review of the movie The Adjustment Bureau.  Here's the trailer to get you ready for it...

Stats - The Best City Issue

Based on last week's poll about the Best Canadian (Provincial City), Vancouver beat out Montreal as the best city by a narrow margin.  With an underwhelming amount of votes, Vancouver won after getting that crucial second vote, breaking it's tie with Montreal which finished with one vote.

I'll admit that putting polls on the blog sidebar was a long shot attempt to get some reader participation but this one makes me just a touch sad; the kind of sad that can only be cured by the mini Kit-Kat hiding on my bookcase.  Thankfully, that means I'll be all smiles again in about 2 minutes =)  See, just thinking about the chocolate is making me smile already!

While I of course voted for Vancouver, I have to be honest and admit I've only visited four (Vancouver - obviously since I live here, Victoria, Toronto, and Ottawa) out of the ten cities included in the poll.  The other six cities were Calgary, Montreal, Quebec City, Charlottetown, Halifax, and St. John's for those of you who didn't vote.

Hopefully some of you will feel under-represented by this lopsided victory that you'll actually vote next time =p  Either way, I'm glad Vancouver topped the list and can't wait to get a chance to visit the rest of the cities on the list!

Weekend Recap

I came so close!  In a fit of laziness, I took my phone off airplane mode yesterday so I could use my iTunes remote as I worked through my pile of laundry.  What happened next was both lucky and irritating; work called me =(

Apparently they were migrating all of our emails this weekend and something went wrong and wiped out all of our mailboxes.  This is a minor problem for me since I'm pretty good about saving copies on my laptop and printing copies of the really important stuff.  The most irritating thing about a deleted mailbox is that all the messages I would be following up on this week were gone.  The lucky part about all of this was that if work hadn't been able to get a hold of me they probably would've been pissed/worried I might mess it up further by trying to fix it on Monday.

Once off the phone, I switched it back to airplane mode.  Having it on just tempts fate so I figured any other disasters could wait until this morning (thankfully, there weren't any more!).  Going back to my previous post about how I'd feel today, I'm definitely glad to be back online.  It's sad but I'm addicted to social media =(  Between Facebook, Twitter, and online blogs, I had the itch to see what was going on ALL weekend.  While I managed to avoid it for two days, I'm definitely gorging on tweets, posts, videos, and photos tonight.

Clearly, the next time I do this I'll have to go on a proper vacation.  Hmmm...what a convenient excuse to take one soon =)

Home Stretch

I used to think getting one of these done a day would be difficult.  Now I know it's nothing compared to finishing three in one go.  By the time this gets posted, it'll be Sunday and I could be in one of two mental states; totally relaxed or willing time to fast forward to Monday morning so I can take my phone off airplane mode and finally check my email.  The last time I did this, I ended up totally relaxed but that was because I had the distractions of Tofino and the open road.  This time, I'm staying in town which leads me to believe I'll be itching to get back online. 

It's different when you're away, especially when you're alone, because you're in vacation mode.  I naturally avoid thinking about what's going on back home because I'm too busy exploring whatever place I'm in.  This is probably why the idea of a stay-cation (vacationing in your home city) has no appeal to me.  Sure, there are lots of places around Vancouver that I've never been to or haven't seen in quite a while but I'm not going to pretend to be a tourist to go see them, I'll just go, or wait for someone to come visit so I have an excuse.

Hopefully I'll make it through this weekend unscathed and off-line.  I'll let you know how it went on Monday =)