Happy holidays!

My Zip.ca account finally seems to’ve been shut down. Below is the final message I sent to them.

So, it’s finally happened. 16 days after you told me my membership had been Zip Cancelled (I love how you’ve branded it, by the way…it gives unfair termination a little zing!) I can no longer sign into my queue. However, I wonder if you’d noticed that since that initial cancellation email, you’ve sent me 8 movies. I’ve dutifully watched and returned them all, whereas some more vengeful than myself would have tossed them off the balcony, or at least scratched them.

However, even after experiencing service this horrid, I can’t bring myself to feel bitter. I sincerely believe that you’ve treated me this way not out of spite, but out of complete, utter, stunning incompetence. Good luck with that.

Don’t they know they are openly hated for their freedoms and their cafés and their vinegared french fries?

Canada Goes To Hell (from the San Francisco Gate)

Wow…our vacuum cleaner just caught fire. Or at least start belching a lot of smoke; I put it out on the balcony before it lit the carpet ablaze.

I guess that’s a testament to just how freaking hairy our cats are.

Occasionally Torontoist makes a lot of sense.

Someone asked me the other day about my favourite movie. After explaining that I could never narrow it down to just one, I tried to narrow it down to 10. I could barely do it. I got to 25, but then managed to take another step and narrow it to just 10.

I’m not saying these are the best movies ever made. And I deliberately excluded sets like The Godfather, Star Wars & Lord Of The Rings. That didn’t seem fair. And so, in no particular order:

• Almost Famous
• Dead Poets Society
• Fight Club
• Grosse Pointe Blank
• Hoosiers
• Last Of The Mohicans
• Seven
• Silence Of The Lambs
• Reservoir Dogs
• The Usual Suspects

Also, a list of the 5 movies I’ve seen which I’ve despised the most. I’m sure there are others, but these were the ones I could think of along with their Rotten Tomatoes ratings:

• Showgirls (15%)
• Tomcats (14%)
• Romance (39%)
• Evolution (41%)
• Adolphe (not rated, but my original review after seeing it included this line: “i’m certain this movie, in a past life, was some old sick nazi guard dog”)

Well, we’re just about ready. Xmas shopping is now officially finished, my paper is 98% done (just have to review and upload it now) and the re-org at work is just about sorted; I personally know what my job will be when I return from vacation, but some people won’t know until tomorrow or Friday…or maybe later(!).

Tomorrow night we’re arranging to have the boys looked after while we’re gone; Friday we’re having people over to watch the new extended edition of Return Of The King and order Swiss Chalet (as has become a bit of a custom for me lo these past 3 years). After that, we just have to pack and hope for good flying weather on Sunday.

…calling this a top ten albums of 2004 list yet, since I’ll almost certainly change my mind once a few more from my wishlist roll in (e.g. Jolie Holland, the soundtrack to Friday Night Lights), so let’s just say these 10 could very well be on contention:

• The Arcade Fire . Funeral
• Division Of Laura Lee . Das Not Compute
• Jimmy Eat World . Futures
• Kasabian . Kasabian
• Loretta Lynn . Van Lear Rose
• Neko Case . The Tigers Have Spoken
• Ted Leo . Shake The Streets
• A.C. Newman . The Slow Wonder
• The Von Bondies . Pawn Shoppe Heart
• The Walkmen . Bows And Arrows

Notice the absence of PJ Harvey and The Fiery Furnaces there? I want to love them, I want to think they’re brilliant (especially Blueberry Boat), but I just can’t get into them. They’re the biggest disappointments of the year for me. In fact, the whole lineup is rather uninspiring compared to last year’s haul.

• Childstar
• Elles Etaient Cinq
• I, Claudia
• It’s All Gone Pete Tong
• La Peau Blanche
• Ryan
• Saint Ralph
• ScaredSacred
• Shake Hands With the Devil
• What Remains of Us

from CBC

As I lay on the couch trying to ditch the cold that had driven me out of the office, a fire alarm went off. This happens occasionally when they test the system so I didn’t think much of it.

I went downstairs to check things out; the building manager was there and looked pretty unpanicked, talking to someone on the phone while the alarm panel went crazy. The elevators were out so I had to walk back up to my apartment. No big deal, I thought; they’ll shut it off in a minute. Then the second-stage alarm came on. A bit more concerned now I step out on my balcony; a fire chief’s van has just pulled up in front, lights on, and I hear sirens about to turn the corner onto my street.

Right, time to go. Stuff the cats in their carrier bags — which they do not like, by the way — and carry them down to the lobby. A bunch of people have gathered down there already, with pets & babies in tow, waiting for the all-clear. Eventually it was deemed safe to go back to our little boxes in the sky, much to the relief of the cats, who’d been howling the entire time.

Jeez…I can’t imagine carrying them down (and back up) 20-odd stories. I hope this doesn’t happen in our new condo building…