My Out of Style is Coming Back

Two posts in two days!  What’s the occasion?, you ask.  Well now, I was nominated for the Stylish Blogger Award.  So I’m celebrating with some verbal diarrhea!  I was nominated by Ian at The $#!& I Think About.  Yeah, I’m married to him…you think I’m going to let a little nepotism stop me from receiving an award??  That’s just not my style…

Speaking of style, most people who know me in my offline life recognize me as “the least possible stylish person on the face of the planet”…which is better than being “the least possible stylish person beneath the surface of the planet”.  I just like to call it my own style.  And that style is either ahead of the curve, or pitifully behind.  Maybe a little of both…

Even my blogging style is erratic at best.  I’m a go with the flow kind of person.  Not necessarily wishy-washy in opinion…but certainly not as stubborn and rigid as some people may think I am (though there are things I don’t bend on – I HATE mushrooms!).

I think that before I go too far into stuff that isn’t related to this award, I’ll get down to the guidelines for receiving it.  Winners of The Stylish Blogger Award must list five of their favourite things, and then pass the award along to five worthy bloggers.  Easy as pie.

Which isn’t easy, by the way.  Do you know how complicated making pie can be?  Especially if you don’t have the required 9-inch pie plate that every recipe calls for?  Ugh.  Oh, and pi isn’t exactly easy either…try memorizing that sucker past about 10 numbers.  I still need to look it up.

Since Ian didn’t use up one of his slots with mentioning our relationship as a favourite thing, but acknowledged it beforehand…I’ll do the same.  Love you honey!  Wow…that just sounded awkward.  We don’t exactly do the pet name thing…lemme try that again.  Love you my little undead zombie monkey…there!  So much less awkward, right?  On to my other favourites…

1. Massive Attack – They’re the band that I named my blog for, and have been one of my favourites, if not the favourite band of the past decade and a half.  I finally had the good fortune (aka money, transportation, timing, knowledge of the event prior to the event) of seeing them live last May with Ian.  They put on a phenomenal show and I hope to be able to see them at least once more before they stop touring.  If you watch House, they are responsible for the theme song.  They’ve released a bunch of albums and loads of singles.  Come to think of it, I don’t know why I’ve never dedicated a post to them before and posted my pictures!
   

   3D & Daddy G of Massive Attack in Toronto, May 9/10

2. Comedy – Be it stand up, sit down, or any other number of ways that it is delivered, I can’t get enough of humour.  I adore stand up comics like George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Sam Kinison, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, Russell Peters, Margaret Cho, Demetri Martin, Nikki Payne, Dave Chappelle, Bill Maher, Russell Brand, Daniel Tosh…I love stand up!  I would love to spend the afternoon with one of my newest “must watch” individuals, Karl Pilkington.  I’ve apparently been living under a rock for a number of years as I’ve just recently discovered him, but I can’t get over how much this guy makes me laugh.  Seriously…check out The Ricky Gervais Show or An Idiot Abroad…you’ll love it!
   

   Bet you didn't think I could find a picture of Karl Pilkington AND a couple of globes...

3. Geography – I am officially a nerd for geography.  I took a liking to the possibilities I was presented with in high school, and decided to major in it at university.  It’s less about colouring the countries all pretty like and more about the interconnectedness of the world around us.  Geography is everything!  Social, cultural, historical, economic, physical…I couldn’t resist studying something that would let me look at the development of glacial landforms in one class, the spread of disease in another, how city development is influenced by transportation hub development which is influenced by topography in a third, and how to put all of those items together in a map in a fourth class.  Alex, I bet you can name a prof for all of those courses too!  I can’t believe I’m working in my field too…it’s fantastic!
4. Dragon Age – I am in love with this game.  Not since Marble Madness and Tetris have I been so obsessed with any one game.  I’m currently salivating as I wait for the delivery of the sequel to Dragon Age:  Origins.  It’s a role-playing game with massive replay appeal…where decisions you make early in the game affect your ending…and it’s just really pretty.
   

   Fighting one of the dragons...cuz, it's dragon age...oooh look...pretty, sparkly magic! Source: Bioware

5. The North – this place has made me fall in love with winter.  If it can do that for winter, spring, summer and autumn should be spectacular.  There’s a lot of things that might make a person not like it up here, but for me, it’s an amazing place and has quickly become one of my favourite things.
   

   We haven't been able to photograph these yet, but when we see them, this is what they look like...

Now, enough about me…you should really be checking out these Stylish Bloggers!

1. Holly at Holly-the-Strange – Holly is taking a brief hiatus from blogging, but when she returns, she’ll find this award waiting for her.  This is definitely to celebrate her anti-style!
2. Christy at Mamarazzi Pages – Christy is a wonderful photographer and often blogs about her stylin’ family!
3. Kittie at Culinary Eccentricity – Kittie blogs quite a bit about some very stylish food!
4. Bryoneyh at [Postage Stamp Required] – Bryoneyh blogs about her adventures through post-graduate life as a single woman…with style!
5. Lorna at Gin & Lemonade – Lorna is a reader, writer and fellow crazy cat lady, so if that doesn’t exude style, I don’t know what does!

You’re The Best

Aww shucks…someone thinks I’m awesome.

I’ve received an award from Hippie Cahier, and she is just swell.  So swell in fact, that she has not once bothered me about the fact that it’s taken well over a month for me to get to writing this post about it.  You see, it takes me a really long time to write blog posts now that I’m working at the speed of the internot up here in Iqaluit.  So I tend to put things off.  A lot.

Maybe I should just learn to write less in one post.  Or not overanalyze things.  Am I overanalyzing this right now?  Sheesh.

But I digress…on to the award…

It took me a really long time to come up with a good post title, since I don’t know of too many songs related to winning awards.  Maybe I need to listen to some happier stuff?  In any case, I was hit with a bolt of lightning as I recalled that super fantastic awe-inspiring moments from the All-Valley Tournament and decided that Daniel LaRusso was the kind of winner that I was starting to feel like.  Look, I’m already starting to meander back off topic…

The Memetastic Award

Originally given to the Mayans for their use of cacao beans as currency in 250 CE (or created by Jillsmo sometime in January of this year – whichever comes later), the Memetastic Award was developed to honour the memelicious spirit in which blog awards are typically given.

Yeah, I don’t know what that means either.

Either way, there are rules you have to follow when you receive this award, so I’m not about to be the first to break them here.

1.     Display the obnoxious graphic associated with the award.

2.     List five things about yourself, where four of them are bold-faced lies.

3.     Pass on the award to five bloggers – there is no specific criteria for this selection.

Jillsmo then goes on to post a threat that could be used against her in a court of law…I think.  But fun times anyhow…

Candies and Rainbows and Gumdrops, Oh My!

The graphic is described as “absolutely disgusting”, but I happen to like it.  It has a kitten in celebration.  You have no idea if you do not cohabit with kittens, but they – contrary to popular belief – do not celebrate in this way.  Kitten celebrations include claws extended in poorly placed locations – such as the fatty part of one’s thigh, or over one’s shoulder into their back.  The rest of the time, they sleep.  Or eat and poop.  But celebration is limited.

Four Lies and A Truth (in no particular order)

I can’t just tell you some things about me…since I’m a storyteller, I’d like to tell you some of my adventures.

1. After meeting my husband while visiting South America, we lived in a marital stalemate for several years with perceived domestic bliss until I found out he was hired to kill me, while I was hired to kill him.   An extremely violent confrontation in our kitchen let to a rekindling of romance followed by the explosion of our home when those who hired us realized we were both threats that must be eliminated.  We have since made peace with all involved and are living quite happily now, but are not allowed within 50 metres of any big box store in North America.
2. When I was quite a bit younger, my brother and I found out that we were going to have to move.  We learned that unless we were able to raise enough money, developers would be buying us out and building a golf course over our neighbourhood.  I stumbled across this treasure map, and got my group of friends to come with me to help look for the hidden fortune that the map seemed to indicate was somewhere in a cavern.  While searching for it, we discovered an evil gang of thieves lived in a house above the entrance to the cave.  After all was said and done, our adventure ended in the bad guys getting caught, and my brother and I finding the treasure and enough money so that our family could stay!
3. I recently spent three weeks with Angelina Jolie as a houseguest.  That woman is a handful!  I couldn’t believe how much trouble she got herself into…drinking, gambling, and having an affair with Orlando Bloom.  We had to lock up all of our liquor for fear that she would cause trouble with some of the residents of our home.  Sneaking out to the airport almost caused an international incident.  We’ll think twice about allowing such an insane houseguest into our home again.  Thank goodness she’s on her way to Newfoundland now…
4. In high school, I once came up with a very elaborate plan to ditch school.  I left behind a dummy in my place with a great recording of a snoring effect to make sure no one would think I wasn’t there if they briefly checked on me.  I made sure to bust two of my best friends out of school for the day too…there was no way I’d do it alone.  Everyone thought I was so sick, that people started to send me flowers and balloons…it was really nice to know everyone cared.  Meanwhile, my friends and I were living it up at a major league baseball game, a fancy French restaurant, and local museums.  What a great day it was…if it wasn’t for my principal almost catching me sneaking back into my house at the end of the day, I’d say it would have been perfect!
5. Camping is one of my favourite ways to spend a vacation.  So when I received the opportunity to go to this old cabin way out in the woods with four friends of mine, I wasn’t about to pass it up!  We made the long drive out there, and when we arrived at the cabin, it was perfect.  Until we found this ancient looking book.  It had a cassette tape with it, if you can imagine…and luckily the cabin owner had a cassette player so we could listen to it.  That was a mistake.  It was a really evil book…and the tape was a translation of it.  Whatever it was, it released…something that possessed my friends, one by one.  We had to lock one of them in the cellar of the cabin to prevent her from attacking us.  After a harrowing night of having to fight and destroy all of my possessed so-called friends, I decided the only way to end this was to burn the evil book.  I threw it on the flames in the fireplace and watched it burn as the sun came up.  A fitting end to a hellish night.  Needless to say, I don’t jump on the opportunity to go camping too often anymore…

 

And the Award for Best Meme Goes To…

1. For his promotion of Winnipeg, Manitoba…Bob of Bob’s Place:  Exploring Winnipeg and Beyond…
2. For his fantastic insights into movies and thoughts on life…Cal of Confessions of a Self Proclaimed Megalomaniac…
3. For hardly excessive use of blood in a blog background…The Gore Whore of The Gore Whore Reviews…
4. For amazing photography and a kick ass blog name…Sandra of Enso Monkey…
5. For some truly meme-worthy recipes that I drool over fairly regularly…the anonymous mom over at Try It You Might Like It…

PS…I’m not letting you explicitly know you won this from me…you’re all subscribers, so hopefully you’ll catch that I sent this to you…eventually…  🙂