Geeky Cat Miusings

Nuit Blanche was a pretty cool event here in Toronto where the city was transformed by artists from sundown to sunrise with art and music. One installation consisted of three boxes: one was vibrating and another was randomly inflating itself and the mystified audience stood around and wondered what this was supposed to mean — and so they contemplated it for a long time. One bold female walked right up to the piece of art and shoved one of the boxes to get the action going. And so one box bumped into another and, as such, is a reflection on human interaction as well as the cosmos.

There were many balloons used in various installations throughout the festival. Some balloons were quite large. Some were grouped in very large bunches resembling a bunch of purple grapes floating high in the sky with a string of lights falling to the ground. I just LOVE balloons!!! (I hope every one knows that I much prefer receiving balloons to receiving flowers.)

I wish I took more photos but here are a few for you:

We received some free chocolate (ok, lots) that evening and now they are posting our photos on the web.

ps. sorry but the chocolate is all gone

I am starting to scan some pictures from my youth and it is bringing back such sweet memories. My first phase in this walk down memory lane begins with my first trip to Italy and I put those images together in this album. Just click on picture to see more ….

My friend, Julian, says that a week without laughter makes one weak. So without further ado, here is some gems he has shared with me this past week:

Two antennas meet on a roof, fall in love and get married. The ceremony wasn’t much, but the reception was excellent!

A dyslexic man walks into a bra….

Did you hear about the collision on the highway between a cement truck and a paddy wagon? Hardened criminals all over the highway…..

I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.

Champagne for my real friends and real pain for my sham friends.

Outside of a dog, a book is your best friend. And inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.

Did you hear about the cross-eyed teacher who couldn’t control her pupils….

I heard that cats are smarter than dogs because you can’t get 8 cats to pull a sled through snow….

This is from a Red Skelton bit:
Algie saw a bear
The bear saw Algie
The bear was bulgy
The bulge was Algie

I would recommend that if you don’t feel better after a few chuckles, seek a doctor’s advice.

Scientists want to see how traveling in space affects germs. So they took them for a little ride in the space shuttle and then let them come back (because leaving them in space would be cruel). The poor little earth bound mice were fed the well traveled germs because no researcher was willing to risk his life for humanity. Guess what happened? The mice became green and developed large oval heads and then took over earth? Good guess but no. They were more likely to get sick than the mice that where fed the same germs that never left Earth. To sum it up: germs taken into space came back meaner, stronger and deadlier. Scientists caution that children not try this experiment at home.

Fetuses and babies spend up to 75 per cent of their sleeping time in REM, the neurologically active dream state. I would just love to know what fetuses dream about.

Talking about sleep, did you know the the less sleep you get the more you will dream the next time you sleep? If you miss a few dreams from lack of sleep you will see greater sleep intensity — dreaming is increased and is more vivid when you go to sleep. It seems that if you miss REM sleep (the dream phase) alone, but still get the other stages of sleep, you will still experience REM deprivation and have the subsequent rebound. REM can be suppressed by alcohol, nicotine, blood pressure meds, antidepressants, and mad researchers. Researchers have deprived rats of REM sleep for four weeks causing them to die. Very sad.

On a happier note: Giorgio Armani the fashion designer has opened up a shop in Second Life, the virtual world where you have avatars and using avatars, you can do pretty much anything that you can do in the real world, and more (like flying). Armani is going to be selling items to Second Life residents and his avatar will be there to greet the fashionistas. I can’t wait to be able to dress well, easily.

Commuting takes its toll on humans. I don’t see any evidence that they have tested commuting on rodents to see how they fare before subjecting humans to hours of traveling every day, but they have found that commuting does cause considerable stress to humans. Each extra minute traveled correlates to an increase in health problems. Studies show that long-distance commuters suffer from more psychosomatic disorders than people who have shorter trips to work. I am curious to see if traveling for work is as equally stressful as traveling for pleasure. If there is going to be a study for this I would like to be in the second group please…. I am long over due to travel…somehow I will … even if I have to be a guinea pig.

ps Tama, you should have a lot fewer psychosomatic disorders than me

Me thinking I have to get off the couch to go to the ROM walk (I am possibly the only person in Toronto who could be laughing at that thought):

Diana T, Christel, and I met in front of the ROM to take one of their free instructional walks of the surrounding area. We lost the tour guide within 5 minutes of the beginning of the walk because we were too busy chatting amongst ourselves. After some searching around corners and peering through bushes, we found our guide and he was talking about this building:

while we continued to chat The scholarly guide was not too happy with the three chatty gals and gave us a sign to be quiet — for there were others there who were very serious about it all.

We could not be quiet for we had much to say. So off we went for a place to converse. There at Far Coast sits Diana T and Christel with a smoothie:

Christel and I (with snow-white belly exposed) sitting in comfy chairs with the lovely posters in the background:

Diana T and Diana C showing off funky wall and how well coordinated we were (she forgot her silver earrings):

I am looking a bit skittish — maybe because it looks like snow outside:

Hiya fellow summer lovers. Are you loving this weather as much as I am? It is wonderful and I’m heading out….here are some pictures of my mom enjoying her garden:

I did someone a favour at work this summer with no expectation of payback, but this morning I was so happy to see a nice three foot Umbrella plant by my desk at work (see http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/photo/2716872010098122463ZwpodG for more info). It is for me to love and nuture and I promised I would do my best! The plant really makes my work area nicer — more homey — something I have been meaning to do for a long time now. I have cat photos attached to my desk in a random fashion but I hope to get it organized somehow, maybe with a large frame that holds many photos. I have seen ideas for making an attractive workspace in some magazine. Some of them go too far by making the workspace look like a bedroom with feathers and pillows — though it might work for my home office. Ummm….

Right now I have 4 mugs, my lunch bag (more like a suitcase), pens, papers, a cat calendar, a speaker with sub-woofer that hardly works, hand cream, lip gloss, a thank you card, and a whole bunch of cat pictures. I know there is a show on television, I think on CityTv, where viewers send in pictures of their rooms and the designer advises them on how to decorate the space. Is there a similar show for office spaces. Just wondering…

This morning, as I was on the bus travelling to work and listening to my iPod (they were talking endlessly about the iPhone — as they have been doing ever since the iPhone has come out) when I saw something very upsetting on the road. Even after I passed the scene of the accident, my mind was filled with the tragic image and I needed to play some uplifting music to ease my mind and calm my soul. After 15 minutes of listening to serene music I was ready to return to the podcast, but since the iPod does not have bookmarks, I could not easily return to the place I left off but had to scan through the hour long podcast to find my spot. My old Zen player had a bookmarking feature — I think it actually was able to store 10 bookmarks — something I used frequently and would really like to have on my mp3 player. If someone knows if there is bookmarking within the iPod, please let me know.

I have heard both good and bad reviews about the new movie Eastern Promises. One reviewer says the movie is better than David Cronenberg’s last movie A History of Violence while another says it is really disappointing, not up to Cronenberg’s standards.

Well, I am going to see it for myself and I will decide how I like it — at the very least it will have something interesting to say about human nature. According to the imdb, a memorable quote from the movie is, “Forget any of this happened. Stay away from people like me.” If only we can forget anything we want forgotten… And if only we knew how to stay away from people we really should just stay away from.

I finally went to the Toronto International Film Festival after a very long hiatus and found it to be an enjoyable experience but I question if the bother is worth the pleasure.

Purchasing a single ticket is $25 (there is $4.50 service fee) which is double the entrance fee to a regular movie screening. I personally would rather see 2 movies but there are bonuses for seeing a movie at the Festival. Usually the director will attend the screening and make an opening commentary prior to the movie and answer questions from the audience following the movie. The director’s commentary certainly expands my comprehension of the movie - but is it worth $12? You can find similar Q&A on the internet with a quick search. You may also see some of the actors and crew sitting in the audience. Some people find the possibility of seeing or sitting near a celebrity very exciting. Since I don’t find it very exciting to see a celebrity and if I did see one I would just smile (or not smile as is the case when I saw Tie Domi) and move on, I would say that is not worth $12. Sometimes you get to see a movie that you would not otherwise get to see because no distributor will by the rights. If that is the case and the movie is a very good one and deeply movies you, such as the one I saw on Saturday, then yes it is worth the price. Certainly joining my friends in seeing movies they wanted to see is worth the price of admission because that is what friends do - support each other’s interests.

I also thought that the extra effort of buying tickets online and waiting in a line to pick them up would be too much of a bother and not worth my time but in reality there was no lineup for tickets — but you do need to go to the theatre well in advance of the start time to get good seats as they fill up quickly and I dread having to sit in the front rows.

Afterwards it is nice to go to Yorkville to go celebrity watching or, in my case, watching people watch celebrities. The city was awash with very good looking and well dressed people during TIFF - a great time to stroll about!

Happy TIFFing!