ForksOfTheSalad

HAVE YOU GUYS SEEN THIS MOVIE YET?!

I just saw it for the first time tonight and I am so upset that I didn't get to see it in theatres! I'm the first to admit that I absolutely love musicals and this one takes every cake you can imagine. For those of you old enough to remember Coyote Ugly, this is the improved version with Cher and Christina (who, by the way, is incredibly sexy but cute at the same time in this movie).

Get out there and see it, you won't regret it.

And hello the rest of the world. I was getting a bit sick and tired of my previous journal entry so I'm posting a new one!

Yesterday we had a lovely snowstorm that originated from the US. Thank you Texas. Blizzards were all up in my face for the first time since 1993. And of course my current city does not enjoy having snow plows, and the ones they do have drive around with their plows up. Makes sense right?

I've been doing a lot of research recently. I've turned my focus onto environmental issues and I'm currently studying the existence of "pollution havens" - I'm basically trying to find out if countries with lower environmental regulation/ standards attract higher amounts of foreign direct investment. Or perhaps more simply put: do firms in pollution-intensive industries move to pollution havens to minimize costs? This is a question that is rather controversial in academia, so this should be fun.

I'll post my results when I'm finished.

Hope you all are well!

The one thing I really didn't get about Spirit Day is why it took a couple of gay kids killing themselves to shine a light on the fact that kids are being bullied on a daily basis. People are jumping on this bandwagon like it's something new. You know what I say to people like that? Too little too late.

I would like to know why celebrities and companies and people around the world didn't bat an eye when a proportionately higher amount of just plain old kids committed suicide because of bullying. The phrase "it gets better" was used by almost every god damn celebrity addressing the LGBT community on their YouTube videos. Excuse me, shouldn't you be telling all kids that "it gets better", regardless of sexual orientation?

Equality my ass.

I didn't wear purple today. Not because I don't support the idea but rather because I think they went about it entirely the wrong way.

SO it was my birthday a week ago today. And here in Canada, the Blackberry Torch came out two days later. There are signs every now and then and a brand new amazing looking phone being released right when you're having a birthday is a HUGE sign.

Needless to say I bought it and I have loved every minute of it.

I had an iPhone once and I really enjoyed the touchscreen combined with the number of apps that were available. When I first saw other people with the iPhone the apps seemed very trivial. However once I started using it I found that there were a lot of useful apps that I could use in everyday life. The one thing I really didn't like though was the lack of pull email. To me, that's the critical killer of the iPhone because email to me is SUPER important. I want it on demand right away for all of my email addresses and I don't want to have my phone checking at every 30 minutes because it's incapable of handling the pull system.

The Blackberry Torch has combined the amazingness that is a Blackberry (the pull email system, obviously) with the neat functionality of a touchscreen. Is the touchscreen more of a gee-wiz thing than really anything that you'd use? I'd say that it depends. Whenever I'm in a situation where I don't want the clicking of the regular keyboard, being able to hop onto the touchscreen to type silently is a wonderful feature. I really enjoyed that about the iPhone because some of the older Blackberry models (read: 8900) have really annoying clicking sounds. The Blackberry Bold 9700 came out with a quieter keyboard and a smaller version of that was used for the Torch. Back to the touchscreen, surprisingly the keyboard is quite accurate in portrait mode (which is the only mode I ever use). It was a pleasant surprise to find it comparable to the iPhone keyboard experience. The touchscreen is also nice to be able to check the new message you got with a few taps without having to physically pick up your phone. Could the same be said for other Blackberries? Yes, but being able to just use your finger is so much better.

What other improvements have I noticed? Since the screen is so large on the Torch, the new operating system changed the way that you view emails. Where I was used to scrolling through every line of text on my older Blackberry, this version shows the email like it's an image, and when I scroll it isn't line-by-line it's page by page. This feature is great, not going to lie.

Is there anything that I don't like about the Torch? To be honest, no, not yet. I've read a lot of reviews complaining that the resolution on the Torch isn't comparable to the iPhone 4 for example. Or I've heard that the processor isn't as fast as other current phones on the market. To be honest, you'd have to be a pretty big nerd to notice the difference. I can't tell the difference and things seem to run fast enough for me!

PS: Thanks for the birthday wishes, I feel old now.

I had a guest ask me today what ingredients go into our cotton candy. I smirked for a bit thinking that it was a joke before I realized that this lady was totally serious. Our conversation went a little like this:

Lady: Excuse me, what's in the cotton candy?
Me: Uh, sugar.
Lady: Yeah and what else?
Me: .. just sugar.
Lady: There's no way cotton candy is made of just sugar
Me: It really is.
Lady: -bewildered-

Like HELLO what did you think cotton candy was going to be made of? The stuff dissolves on contact with water! I bet she was hoping there was some sort of benefit to eating it. "Will I get 100% of my daily intake of vitamin C with this cotton candy?" NO YOU WILL NOT YOU FREAK.  After this weird conversation I went back and looked at the floss and sure enough it was just medium sugar, colouring and artificial flavour.

I also had someone today ask me if our slushies are sugar free. I was like LOL. Who's ever heard of a diet slushie? That DEFEATS THE PURPOSE OF A SLUSHIE GOD DAMN IT. Some people are trying to get the whole theme park experience without the calories. Sorry but that just doesn't happen.

Same thing at Starbucks. Some lady orders a Caramel Macchiato and after she pays she's like "shame it doesn't come sugar free". Really? Honestly? You're at Starbucks and you're going to be worrying about the sugar in your drink? If you didn't want sugar you shoulda ordered a black coffee weirdo. Nevertheless we made it with non fat milk and sugar free caramel but it's just not the same.

Speaking of Starbucks, you know what else irks me? When I'm  making the order for the skinny 16 year old who ordered the non-fat skinny whatever drink. Skinny means we use the sugar-free stuff in your drink. Why would you have a sub-par drink that you're gonna pay lots of money for? If I'm going to be paying a whole bunch of money for a specialty drink like the drinks you get at Starbucks, I'm going to enjoy the whole damn experience and you bet there will be sugar and calories in it.

Sheesh.