Sorry about the lack of blogging over the past couple of days. I’ve been kind of heads-down with work, errands and this stats assignment. The assignment’s mostly done though, so I can relax for a few days.

Today we ran around town doing a bunch of things:

• We went to see the World Press photo exhibit at BCE Place, which was pretty compelling. Some of the images were disturbing, none more so (to me, anyway) than the little girl crying after seeing American troops shoot her parents at some checkpoint in northern Iraq. She was covered in blood and looked terrified. You get the sense that the girl is completely, utterly lost to the world. There’s no saving her. It was awful. If the American public thinks it’s getting the real story about Iraq, they haven’t seen that picture.
• We shook that off (pictures of animals and sports on the way out dulled the ache) and walked over to our condo’s new sales centre. They have two furnished model suites ready for viewing, one of which is ours. It was good to get in there and finally see & feel what our unit will be like. There are some minor differences — our ceilings will be 9 feet, not 8 feet like in the model, we have a huge balcony, and our unit will be much higher — but it was still a thousand times better than trying to imagine things based on a floor plan. Nellie blogged about it yesterday, and included a picture.
• We picked up some scrumptious breads and a pie (whose scrumptiousness I can’t vouch for as yet) at All The Best, got nostalgic for lunch at the Quail & Firkin (I had a C.O.B. and many fries, after which I felt awful) and picked up a new bed for the cats at Canadian Tire. After that, and some grocery shopping, I was ready to come home and have a half-nap. Getting my ass up for the stats assignment…Herculean.

.:.

We also watched a movie called Stardom (imdb | rotten tomatoes), directed by Denys Arcand and starring (rowr) Jessica Pare. It wasn’t great, but I laughed at the parts where they skewered celebrity culture. My favourite: the “Annual Slalom for Bosnia” charity event.

.:.

The religious right is whipping the TV industry like a rented mule. Beating it like a red-headed stepchild. Smacking it like it stole something. NBC has agreed not to show Madonna singing a song from atop a cross during her TV special, airing next month.

.:.

From tederick we find this story about a woman who experienced the feeling of lightning shooting out her ass. Zowie! Is there anything Croatians can’t do?

By the way, kudos to tederick for the use of a post-carbonite-Han quote. Don’t try that at home, kids.

[tags]world press photo, condo, quail and firkin, all the best, stardom, nbc, madonna, tederick, ass lightning, han, carbonite[/tags]