My stroll to bootcamp on Friday night

I thought I was going to get measured on Friday night but it'll be Wednesday's class. I'm excited to keep going with bootcamp. Of course, I didn't want to go to class on Friday night so I took the camera and wandered down to class at Second Beach.

One of the parks in the west end.

One of the parks in the west end.

Woohoo! Autumn means sweaters and boots!

I like the entrance to this apartment building, it's very 60's Hollywood (at least to me it is!)

This has got to be one of my favorite apartment buildings in the west end.






I love sunsets! This is what we got to see each time we went to bootcamp!

Second Beach

The view from the beach

Vancouver Film Festival, movie number 7

So, Tuesday night I went to see Close to Home. It was about two girls who had to join the Isreal army as soon as they turned 18 (appartently this is madatory as soon as you turn 18, male or female, you join the army for a year). It's like a day in the life of the girls, how they are feeling, one wants to be with her family, the other wants nothing more than to be far away from her's. They patrol sectors of the city, registering Arab men and women as they come and go from the city (which no one really wanted to do). Although it wasn't a deep movie, it was a glimpse into the life of the women as they go about their lives. It was interesting and entertaining.

This weekend, I have seven more and then one more on Tuesday and then I'm all finished! I did give up one tonight, one of my hamstrings is in spasms from bootcamp last night, and maybe badminton today. . .oh well! It's a Canadian movie that did well at the Atlantic Film Festival so I'm sure it'll be on DVD one day.

I'm a kitty-kat

This stupid video!!!

lol, I love it, the song gets stuck in my head all the time, it's evil but I can't stop watching. . .why can't I stop watching it?

These are the Dave's I know I know, these are the Dave's I know

These Are The Daves I Know

Classic! Some of us are David's, most of us are Dave's, we all have our own hands but we come from different moms.

Movies from Sunday, October 1, 2006

So Sunday, I saw three movies, The Last King of Scotland, Requiem and Fido. I have to say, all three were great movies, however, the first two were pretty heavy.

The Last King of Scotland was brilliant. I really enjoyed the way Forest Whitaker played General Idi Amin. I know that sounds like a bizarre statement, but I didn't know a lot of the background of Idi Amin until I saw the movie. Forest Whitaker plays the general very likable and charming, it's later in the movie that you see the real side of him (the last half hour of the movie my body was completely tense and I couldn't move for a full five minutes after the movie finished. I would fully recommend the movie to anyone. All the actors were great to watch and it was nice to see Gillian Anderson again acting in a movie (or at least, if she was in a movie in the last little while, I didn't see it).

My next movie was Requiem from Germany. It's based on true facts about a girl who suffers from epilesy, wants to go to school (university), and starts a relationship. Her attacks get worse and worse, and she feels that demons are attacking her. It was pretty heavy to watch, and of course, I had just seen The Last King of Scotland so I was already mushy in the brain. Again, even though this movie was very hard to watch at parts, I would still recommend this to people to see. However, prepare yourself first!

My last movie I saw was Fido. Oh my god! This was funny! So, the movie is about zombies who are used as servants (I won't explain how there are zombies or how they get them to be servants, the movie does a very good job of explaining it). Billy Connolly plays an amazing zombie and you won't believe it's him (the director was at the movie and explained in the Q&A that everytime he yelled CUT, Billy Connelly would talk non-stop as his lines were urg, grrr, urk, etc). If ever you wanted to see a funny zombie, it would be Billy Connelly. Carrie-Anne Moss is the mother. I actually liked her better here than in the Matrix. I know it's two entirely different movies, but, if you can watch Fido, you will completely understand what I mean. The father was played by Dylan Baker (who's actually afraid of zombies). Everyone in the movie was great and I can't recommend it enough! GO SEE IT!

Day one of Vancouver International Film Festival

Well, day one for me seeing movies. I saw three today. The first one I saw was called When the Road Bends: Tales of a Gypsy Caravan. I can't heap enough praise on this movie. It was amazing. If you don't know who the Rom (or Roma or Romani) people are, this is the movie to see. The Roma are the people who left India many hundreds of years ago and travelled up into Europe. They took their love of music and dance with them. Gypsies from India (yes, there are gypsies in India, this is where they came from) Spain, Romania and Macedonia came together and formed a 35 person group to perform across North America. This is the documentary of those six weeks, and what a six weeks it was! I know I've only seen three movies so far but, for me, this is a must see! My favorite line from the movie was when Esma Redzepova (the Queen of the Gypies, and this is a real title given to her in 1976) is about to come on stage and the stage manager says, "Don't worry if you can't get the spot light right on Esma, she'll find it. The don't call her the Queen of the Gypies for nothing!" I have to go find the soundtrack or individual group's music. Other groups who were featured are Taraf de Haidouks, Majaraja, Fanfare Ciocarlia, and Antonio el Pipa Flamenco Ensemble http://www.whentheroadbends.com/

The second movie I saw today was Everything's Gone Green. This is a Canadian movie that was shot in Vancouver, however, doesn't try to hide the fact it was shot in Vancouver. The movie was based on a screenplay by Douglas Copeland. It was a good movie, well written, a few times it looked a little strained but I would still recommend people see it, if for nothing else but seeing their local areas in a film that's actually trying to be the areas it's filming in as opposed to bringing in a palm tree and being Northern California, or Arizona or LA. I did think though that it was trying almost a little too hard to be Vancouver (references are everywhere to show that it's Vancouver, so it was a little over the top at times). However, they did capture the entire "I want a better life but don't really want to work hard to achieve it" feel you sometimes get in this city.

The third movie I saw today was No Sweat. A German movie. I might have enjoyed this more if the theatre didn't feel so much like a sauna as well. It was about a small health centre run by a brother and sister. The overall theme of the movie is about the economic recession. It follows the lives of the patrons of the health centre (and health centre I mean massage, steam, etc) and how they are coping in the face of the recession. There were some good parts, and, as I said earlier, I might have enjoyed it more if it wasn't so much like a sauna in the theatre as well (I had to leave at one point to get some air), I could probably recommend it to people, but one's that would specifically like the type of movie it was, slowish with an easy pace but not feeling like it's going anywhere.

Tomorrow I'm seeing more movies and will report on them as well!

25th Annual Vancouver International Film Festival!

Woohoo! I start seeing movies tomorrow. I had decided not to see a lot of movies, and then I read the guide again, so I was up to 12 (which really for some standards, that's not a lot at all!). So I went out and got tickets for the 12 movies, then, last night I went and read the guide AGAIN and found four more movies, so now I'm up to 16. Today, read the guide AGAIN and now I want to get one more ticket!!!! We'll see though.

Saturday I'm seeing When the Road Bends, Everything's Gone Green and No Sweat. Sunday I'm seeing The Last King of Scotland, Requiem and Fido (really excited about fido!!! looks crazy). After that, just 10 more to go (well, maybe more if I keep reading the guide!!!)

Sugar Daddy's

My birthday party

A few of my friends came out with me to Celebrities on Saturday night and helped me to celebrate my birthday this year. . . .Lynn was awesome and decorated the VIP section for me! I had a blast and had to sneak out about 1/2 hour before the club closed, too many shooters (damn friends! lol)







Crazy people (below)

Sears catalogue pose! (below)

Is it Japan or is it Vancouver? (below)

Me under the decorations Lynn did at the club (below)

Is it me or is it a cut out?

Random Pictures from the Car

These pictures are taken from Langley to Downtown. I was on a "field trip" with work (I'll post pictures of those later) to see the overpass we were working on out in Langley. It was very interesting to see the construction of the overpass (which is huge!)