I’m calling out to anyone in the net-erlands (nutterland?) to ask about how to find cheap or — better yet free — webspace. I’ve nearly maxed out my limit on Telus, and the best rate I’ve found so far is with an outfit charging USD60 per year. It’s not extortion, but maybe I can do better than that? I’ve got great video clips that I can’t share with people unless I burn them onto CD.

I admit it. I blushed big-time when I read this comment earlier today. Later, a posting showed up on lesterblog and it made me contemplate the idea of reciprocity in blogging, or what I now call bloglooping. It also made me think that **Cookie Monster** (who shall remain nameless, but whose mugshot is available in the Yahoo album) might become more paranoid now that a bit more of the web world can read about their shenanigans on **Sesame Street**. **Elmo**, if you are reading this, I hope **somewhere beyond the rainbow** is soundproofed… otherwise, you will have to muzzle **Big Bird** when he comes over.

One day I will tell my nieces and nephew just how much fun Sesame Street can be!

I took my cousins to Guu, a Japanese tapas place on Robson Street, and they were too embarrassed to ask for forks. I said I could ask for forks, but suggested that they just try to use the chopsticks. Maybe we “Flips” (as many Filipinos in North America call ourselves) are just too self-conscious for our own good. After a few dishes, though, Marion and Marlo were able to handle enough food between those two slim pieces of wood to fill themselves right up. No problem!

Jason played bartender last night for Christa, Kristin, and me. He was pretty generous with the ratios, which I didn’t notice but Christa sure did! She was thankful later that home was just down the hill.

I couldn’t help myself. I jumped into the Soundoff comments section of the aforementioned Vancouver Sun article. This time I’ll be smarter and cut and paste in my comments, instead of putting in the link, which eventually gets broken when the topic dies down.

Name: Gail
Occupation: f/t working student
Location: Vancouver

Here’s something Gordon Campbell would never have said during the Olympic bid: “Whistler/Vancouver is proud to host the 2010 Olympic Games. We have no shortage of highly-educated labourers with huge student loans to fill the thousands of mostly temporary jobs, and who will live in the low-rent housing that remains after the athletes go home…” That’s a pessimistic view, but the current BC government is all too ready to point their finger at the NDP’s shortcomings when they should be doing more to create jobs and stimulate the economy than depend on the Olympics. Otherwise, the “brain drain” often cited by the Fraser Institute will become an even greater reality for those in BC, especially when the Games are over and the bills pour in. The BC Liberals won’t be able to blame an exodus of the skilled and educated on anyone but themselves.

I added this post later, after reading people’s comments complaining about immigrants:

I have to add: blaming foreigners or immigrants is not the answer, but it seems to happen whenever people need a scapegoat. International students pay 3x the tuition of BC residents. I did not compete with any international students for my space at SFU, my application was judged by reference letter, CV, and academic merit only. Anyone who is familiar with Canadian immigration policy knows how difficult it is to get into this country independently without education. I have met a lot of office cleaners, taxi drivers, and security guards with graduate degrees from their home country — they are not collecting welfare or taking advantage of social services, they work and pay into the system. Many immigrants are from countries where competition is survival, and they’re just happy to have a job, so they’ll take ones BC residents won’t touch. It is in everyone’s best interests to strive for a better economy — no matter where you’re from.

Got a nasty shock the other day when I checked my SFU tuition fee statement…

That’s right. Starting next month, I will be paying 30% more tuition that I did this term. This is on top of the 30% increase after spring of last year. While this means I probably won’t be going east on holiday this fall, it means much more to the student who isn’t working.

It’s bad timing on my part not to pursue a university education during the N.D.P. government’s six-year rate freeze, but as one of the Soundoff commentators posted, during this time there was an exodus of B.C. instructors to the U.S., where salaries were higher. It seemed the BC institutions, with lower funding, couldn’t afford to keep them.

I believe education is an investment, however, the powers that be (B.C. provincial and municipal governments) MUST DO MORE to create jobs IN B.C. and maintain some controls on the cost of living here so that graduates are not driven away.

Thanks to Shellie for this little reminder of how old we are getting

When I was a kid adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning uphill both ways through year snow; carrying their younger siblings on their backs to their one-room schoolhouse where they maintained a straight-A average despite their full-time after-school job at the local textile mill where they worked for 35 cents an hour just to help keep their family from starving to death!

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they’ve got it!

But….

Now that I’ve reached the ripe old age of thirty +, I can’t help but look around and notice the youth of today.

You’ve got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a Utopia!

And I hate to say it but you kids today you don’t know how good you’ve got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn’t have The Internet–we wanted to know something, we had to go to the library and look it up ourselves!

And there was no email! We had to actually write somebody a letter–with a pen!–and then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!

And there were no MP3s or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to go to the record store and shoplift it yourself! Or we had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ would usually talk over some part of it and f*ck it all up!

You want to hear about hardship?

We didn’t have fancy sh*t like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal! And we didn’t have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was it could be your boss, your mom, a collections agent, your drug dealer, you didn’t know!!! You just had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

And we didn’t have any fancy Sony Playstation videogames with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like “Space Invaders” and “Asteroids” and the graphics sucked a$$! Your guy was a little square! You had to use your imagination! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen forever! And you could never win, the game just kept getting harder and faster until you died!

Just like LIFE!

When you went to the movie theater there no such thing as stadium seating! All the seats were the same height! A tall guy sat in front of you, you were screwed!

And sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 20 channels and there was no onscreen menu! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! And there was no Cartoon Network! You could only get cartoons on Saturday morning… We had to wait ALL WEEK, you spoiled little bastards!

That’s exactly what I’m talking about! You kids today have got it too easy.

You’re spoiled, I swear to God! You guys wouldn’t last five minutes back in 1984!

Iris rang this morning… she booked a flight to Vancouver!

Saw the film Dirty Pretty Things (2002) at Fifth Avenue this evening, the first movie I’ve seen since “Spellbound” so long ago. It wasn’t a great movie, but it was engaging. I just couldn’t buy Audrey Tautou as a Turkish Muslim woman, though… her accent was pretty muddled.

I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve immortality through not dying. —Woody Allen

My father never lived to see his dream come true of an all-Yiddish-speaking Canada. —David Steinberg

Too bad that all the people who know how to run this country are busy driving taxis and cutting hair. —George Burns

I once wanted to become an atheist, but I gave up. They have no holidays. —Henny Youngman

Don’t be humble; you are not that great. —-Golda Meir

It’s so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don’t say it. ——Sam Levenson

I went on a diet, swore off drinking and heavy eating, and in fourteen days I had lost exactly two weeks. —–Joe E. Lewis

I have enough money to last me the rest of my life unless I buy something. —–Jackie Mason

Most Texans think Hanukkah is some sort of duck call. ——-Richard Lewis

The time is at hand when the wearing of a prayer shawl and skullcap will not bar a man from the White House, unless, of course, the man is Jewish. ——-Jules Farber

Even if you are Catholic, if you live in New York you’re Jewish. If you live in Butte, Montana, you are going to be goyish even if you are Jewish.. —–Lenny Bruce

The remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served us nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found. —-Calvin Trillin

Let me tell you the one thing I have against Moses. He took us forty years into the desert in order to bring us to the one place in the Middle East that has no oil! —–Golda Meir

Even a secret agent can’t lie to a Jewish mother. ——Peter Malkin

Humility is no substitute for a good personality. ——Fran Lebowitz

My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me. —-Benjamin Disraeli

God will pardon me. It’s His business. —-Heinrich Heine

Bankruptcy is a legal proceeding in which you put your money in your pants pocket and give your coat to your creditors. —-Sam Goldwyn

A spoken contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. —-Sam Goldwyn

Marriage is a wonderful institution. But who wants to live in an institution? —–Groucho Marx

A politician is a man who will double cross that bridge when he comes to it. —-Oscar Levant