The Fall - Fantastic Movie for the Family

A MUST SEE! largely due to the child starring in the movie, Catinca Untaru. The director purposely choose a non-actor, someone who had never been in a movie at all, someone who barely spoke English. And he intentionally cast her very young so that she hadn’t reached the age where she would be able to “act,” but instead is just reacting onscreen in every moment. Her performance is wondrous because it’s real.
You find yourself drawn to her and I doubt the movie wouldn't be as good without her.

The movie is about Roy Walker (Lee Pace), an early 20th century Hollywood stuntman, lands in the hospital after performing a dangerous stunt to impress his girlfriend. Distraught and suicidal after losing her, the bedridden Roy befriends a fellow patient, a young girl named Alexandria (Catinca Untaru). He enchants her with vivid, fantastical tales about five heroes — an Indian, an ex-slave named Ota Benga, an Italian explosives expert, a masked bandit, and Charles Darwin — who unite to fight a common enemy, Governor Odious. Although Roy has genuine affection for Alexandria, he also has an ulterior motive: by telling tales and gaining her trust, he tricks her into stealing morphine from the hospital pharmacy so he can commit suicide.
As the line between fact and fantasy blurs, real-life people begin to populate Roy's fictitious stories.

There are some fight scenes that may upset the younger viewers, also have some kleenex on hand because you will probably bawl your eyes out on some of the scenes.

Beautifully shot around the world, over two years:

Agra Fort, Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India
Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India
Andaman Islands, South Pacific, Pacific Ocean
Argentina
Bali, Indonesia
Brazil
Cambodia
Cape Town, South Africa
(hospital scenes)
Charles Bridge, Prague, Czech Republic
(Blue bandit jumps from bridge)
Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
Chile
China
Egypt
Fatehpur Sikri, Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India
Fiji
Himalayas, Nepal
Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA
Italy
Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India
(blue city)
Ladakh, Jammu & Kashmir, India
Maldives
Mehrangarh Fort, Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India
Namibia
Paris, France
Prague, Czech Republic
Romania
South Africa
Turkey

When Brandon was born....

A lot of things occurred during my pregnancy with my second on the way. Except this time I knew the ropes and understood the aches and pains and nausea, taking extra care not to wear myself down in the boardroom. After all, there is mental strength needed in child formation, growth, cycles, or whatever the hell they call the gradual days leading up to the birthing of said child. I was treated like glass.

So here's what happened the year Brandon was born:

A Peruvian Boeing 737 crashes in the Andes, killing 123 people.

The Dunblane Massacre: in Dunblane, Scotland, 16 children and 1 adult teacher are shot dead by a spree killer who then commits suicide.

France Télécom introduces its Wanadoo Internet service.

Cisco Systems acquires StrataCom for $4B

Gay rights: The Supreme Court of the United States rules in Romer v. Evans against a law that would have prevented any city, town or county in the state of Colorado from taking any legislative, executive, or judicial action to protect the rights of homosexual.

Ted Kaczynski, suspected of being the Una bomber, is indicted on ten criminals counts.

Off the coast of Long Island, New York, a Paris-bound Boeing 747 carrying TWA flight 800 explodes, killing all 230 on board.

Centennial Olympic Park bombing: In Atlanta, Georgia, a pipe bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park during the 1996 Summer Olympics, killing one and injuring 111

NASA announces that the ALH 84001 meteorite, thought to originate from Mars, contains evidence of primitive life-forms.

Britain's Charles, Prince of Wales, and Diana, Princess of Wales, are divorced.

Super Mario 64, a revolutionary plat former game for the Nintendo 64, is released in the United States.

Okay, so there was a bunch of other stuff, too, but clearly I wasn't interested. I mean, come on, you're a 35 year old mom having a baby to entertain the first baby you had....do I give a shit about the health of our nation's relations to Uganda. I gave a shit about CNN and the news reports on TV whilst I was stuck in bed, big and friggin' fat and bulbous and pissed off. Sorry, Di, your life must have sucked in that castle and all. Try living in Surrey....in a bungalow....with one toilet.

Back to my story of when Brandon was born.

I gots the pains...you know...you moms out there know what I mean when I say I gots the pains...

it doesn't have to be in the front, could also be in the back...way LOWER BACK, you know, the chicken wish bone part of the back. MY GOD, SAVE ME, SAVE ME FROM THIS FUCKING PAIN and make a wish already.

So there we are, driving down King George Highway, one of the most highly patrolled roads in British Columbia for speeding and a bunch of other sins, yet this time hubby decides it's time to be cautious and not draw attention to ourselves.

Two miles later I'm telling him.....NO!, whimpering more like it, it's time, get me to emergency so that I can at least have one more cigarette, since I wasn't allowed to smoke in the car. But then he discovers he has no CASH in his wallet and doesn't want to be stuck in the hospital without no funds to the cafeteria for jello.

I thought, asshole, always looking out for his frickin' stomach. I was so pissed off and tested his loyalty to me "go ahead retard, stop off at the bank machine and get your fucking money". I was totally pissed off, seeing that I thought I had time for delivery and this side trip had screwed up my birthing scenario totally for one last smoke and I truly wanted to lay one last guilt trip on him.

Fortunately, there were no other vehicles at the ATM and hubby did an illegal=U turn at the stop lights, and we ended up at the emerency parking lot where I was able to take my last few huffs of cigarette, deep, because the entrance was actually several metres of gangway walks, and up and down before you actually got to a wheelchair.

So up I go, wheeled up to the maternity ward, liked I've got multiple sclerosis or something, where I'm tended to and fro, nurse upon nurse, all gouging into my pot of gold, their fingers dabbing and poking and stretching me into some sort of confession, I know not what, and then she insists I take a shower, like chinese torture or something.

What? Fuck, she's the nurse, she must know what she's doing, so up I get up off the gurney and waddle myself to the toilet area with the built-in shower unit. I turn the shower on and feel the hot ocean spray on my back. It's a weird feeling, but it's enough for me to know I'm in the wrong place, wrong time. Call my husband back, NOW, I implore, because earlier they had sent him home stating there was
no evidence of imminent birth. Mrs. Bergeron is in false labour.

What did you call me! No time for these petty issues now I think, I'm totally pissed off and want one of those epidurals, since the first time with Sabrina didn't kick in soon enough, and apparently I bled faster than Secretariat at the Belmont Stakes.

Get me my husband here now and get me my goddamned epidural too! I knew Brandon was coming. It was the feeling of needing to take a bowel movement. I felt a heaviness inside me that suddenly needed to explode, an uncontrollable need to take a dump.

The nurse asked: Do you feel like you need to poo, or is it more like a need push?

Actually, it was both, but man oh man I needed to push and nothing was going to stop me, whether I shit on the gurney or not. I'm pushing.

I tell Brandon about his birth story and how we were in Las Vegas, and Elvis Presley married us and that we had a nice buffet and saw a good show and won some money on the slots, then we had jumped from an airplane, diving, diving with all the other Elvis' towards the Earth, where we got born and lived and married and died.

Brandon still thinks it's funny that the nurse thought his mom was taking a dump.

I'm Just Saying....

I'm truly disturbed about my newest discovery this evening. I am coming to you -live- via Mozilla Firefox vs. my regular Internet Explorer. Now, come on...what's the difference? What happened to my technology? Did I allow my children to rule the computer on MSN, Bebo and Facebook? What happened to my regular, safe, easy to use interface? Even YouTube indicates my blog links are "no longer available".

What's happening to me! Am I going crazy? All Internet Explorer views of my blog links to YouTube are unavailable and I rush and seek out alternative video formats to replace the originals that once elaborated a story on my blog. Until Brandon, my 11 year old son told me that YouTube will only work with Firefox.

Shit. Honestly, it's difficult to keep up when you're not in the cut. I'm so removed from my previous self that I now have callus on my mid fingers from opening up beer and cider bottles. I am so removed from office protocol I've become cynical of my choices of anti-bacterial soap vs. the green crap they pretend to save the world with. Have I evolved?

Hell no. I'm still confused. Why didn't anyone tell me about Firefox and why is Internet Explorer still around if it's been repositioned to "special projects".

To be quite honest with you, I have no idea what Internet Explorer or Firefox have in common, whether they are one and the same and merely build changes, I just can't seem to find the energy to research it right now.

I'm more interested in the U.S.A. Presidential Election more than anything else. It's not that it commands most of my attention, but it beats the hell out of my own Canadian election of whom I've no clue who is running, whether they are pro, con, abortion killers, death row killers, church killers (ouch).

I'm just saying.

What changes would become when either candidate wins?

Is there so much attention on this election because there is a possibility of an African-American being nominated as President of these United States of America, or that a woman has become a new build of Susan B. Anthony.

But what do I know. I'm just America's retarded cousin who sits at the children's table, who once worked for huge American companies, witnessing the processes and procedures and the writings thereof, enlisting hours upon hours of meetings and meetings and paper and control documents and interface relations documents and document identification documents and bullshit upon bullshit, with Californian wives showing up at YVR in fur coats, and Fullerton secretaries who asked what the time change difference was in Vancouver.

I'm just saying.

I hope America can shuffle through all that paperwork and make the right decision.

Before the Devil Knows I'm Dead

I am ashamed of myself.

I knew better. I am pissed off because of what I said or acted, reacted, crawling my way out of dark spaces, empty voids beneath the fold-out bed in the trailer, where I began yelling, 9, 9, 9. Sabrina would grab my arm and yank me out to the upper bunks of heated mattress, to the toilet, where she would find me in the still of night, snoring, just a flush away to the sewage of shame.

She meant nothing to me then. My last memory is playing crib. Me, Shirley and Mark. And Mark brings out his special cigarette and I know what it is, I have no pretense or judgement of this offering, as I suck back it's fumes deep within my virgin lungs. That is when I died. Watermelon flavoured papers and all.

I left my body several times that night. As I was dying I was thinking how great this would be for my blog, wishing for a laptop so that I could instantly record the last moments on Earth. Instead, I desperately tried to convey my departure by telling the world, "don't be afraid", except the words Shirley and Mark heard sounded more like screams and last minute gasps of air "what's happening to me?"

I held onto hubby, "don't let go, don't let me go", as I begin to feel myself float up into the hemisphere again, he and Mark just laughed and pointed fingers at me, at the hilarious trip of fear and loathing to Las Vegas, witnessing my distress as I tried to say goodbye.

Instead, I have jolted back into my chair, as we now sit beneath the stars, I suddenly realize I'm not dead because I can still see faces and fire and trees, then instantly I slipped back into the dark. Except this time I knew enough to hold onto hubby's arm without letting go.

I had a choice. And hopefully I'm in Heaven a half hour .... before the Devil knows I'm dead.

Sabrina August 20, 1992

Both my kids like the story about the day they were born. Sabrina was our first and with that came all the books about birthing babies and raising them and what to expect and all the other nonsense we're sucked into believing as the gospel truth.

I didn't expect false labour, 5 million times, nor did I expect an eventual forcep delivery, where she rightfully is known within our immediate family as the ugliest kid ever born. Her face was bruised and marked up as blood and womb guts spurt out hitting the ceiling. Hubby felt obligated to watch, because of the books, apparently gagging at each stroke of the butcher's knife as he slit my vagina up into a smile, like the Black Dahlia's.

Out she came, an ice cream scoop, as I held her close to my chest, all covered in syrup, the cardboard bowl positioned under my chin as I ready myself to puke an over indulgence of sugar. Instead, I fainted due to blood loss, as bells and whistles rushed hubby out of the room, only after briefly grasping her little hand that had squeezed back, hello daddy.

There really wasn't a hello mommy. I think a hello Auntie Corinne came first, then how y'a doin' gramma and grampa and cousins and who in the hell ruined my first photo shoot!

It's like I just woke up from coma and already she's 16 frickin' years old. It was just yesterday.

What are you doing? "Nothing"

As most of you know by now, we do not get along with our neighbours, the Nutfucks. They were away for a month, yippee! and it was incredibly peaceful and harmonious, other neighbours wandered outdoors, we conversed openly, laughed, drank beer in complete freedom, without snagglepuss coming out to complain about this and that.

One night one of their visitors had the balls to park here.....



I was fuming, thinking they just got back from vacation and already want to provoke us, pester us. I took the picture so that I would have evidence of how they act and create problems in the street. I was even going to call the police complaint line and have them send a patrol car around, else a tow truck because it was blocking our Hummer...it is incredibly rude to park and block someone's vehicle like that, what were they thinking.

Hubby was about to leave when we spied the culprit. It was our other neighbour who parked there, his tenant's new boyfriend! What nerve, he could have parked in front of that house instead. Honestly, sometimes people are so fucking stupid.

Anyways, I haven't been able to take pictures this summer because of not having a battery charger, but I was able to use a friend's, which allowed me to take a few pictures. Here's hubby watering the grass (or his Hummer...hmmmm)






Hubby took about 300 pictures of the inards of his pride and joy, which I promptly offloaded to some designated folder marked "his crap".






Sylvester is 16 years old now, an outdoor cat. Isn't he pretty, just sitting there all princely. He looks nice in summer after losing his fur coat and come Fall/Winter he almost doubles in size. Not sure if he has many seasons left in him and it worries me because there are many coyotes and racoons in the area, not to mention nutfuck's speeding in the street.






Sabrina's friend was picked up by her Dad the other day in this fancy BMW, and where he is parked is actually our parking space, however, I was still wondering if romanian squish-face would come running out, perhaps to set up her sprinkler so that water sprayed inside the car.







I own the crappiest web camera on Earth but this doesn't stop Sabrina from taking pictures of herself. Geez, is she vain or what? Thing is, they all do it, take pictures of themselves in various poses and 'moods'.

We're off to the lake after work tonight, weather predicted to be mid 30's, but feeling like 40c. We are invited to a pig roast on Saturday, with live band, which is at Tony and Sandy's new place, our friends who purchased a 6 acre farm in Cloverdale.

"Falling" Movie Scenes

Crank , starring Jason Statham, plays professional assassin 'Chev Chelios' who learns his rival has injected him with a poison that will kill him if his heart rate drops. This movie has a fun falling scene. We first saw Jason in the movie, Snatch, about unscrupulous boxing promoters, violent bookmakers, a Russian gangster, incompetent amateur robbers, and supposedly Jewish jewelers who fight to track down a priceless stolen diamond. (also starred Brad Pitt)




Cool, eh...the wink...is he alive still? Could it be? Yes, Jason fans, there is a Crank 2 in the works, as we find Chelios facing a Chinese mobster who has stolen his nearly indestructible heart and replaced it with a battery-powered ticker that requires regular jolts of electricity to keep working. Thank God!












Vanilla Sky, starring Tom Cruise, plays a successful publisher who finds his life taking a turn for the surreal after a car accident with a jaded lover.



And other famous falling scenes:

Beijing Fast Food

(click on images to enlarge)

Running On Empty

Eight months ago I began to feel tired and weak. I couldn't walk 10 steps without having to catch my breath. Nor could I walk up stairs without huffing and puffing, showering, washing dishes, even standing made me feel lethargic.

After one week of camping, where I resigned myself to the confines of the trailer, missing out on the beach, walks under the stars, boating, I decided it was time to haul my ass into the doctor's office. I hate my doctor.

"I can't breathe", I explain, as he stabs my chest with his stethoscope.

"You're lungs are fine", then he begins to scribble away on a pad of paper, and tosses me a list of blood tests I will need, and an EKG. Oh, great, just great. Son of a bitch thinks it's my heart and I'm gonna' die.

During the electrocardiogram the nurse had commented my heart beats were "not within their normal statistics". Oh, great, just great.

Two days later and back at my doctor's office, the results are revealed. I do not have enough blood in me. It's supposed to be 115...I have 78 of whatever that means, and I need to get to emergency right away for a blood transfusion.

One urethra catheter later, one failed external ultrasound later, one internal ultrasound later, one chest x-ray later, one failed intravenous line on hand later, two painful failed insertions in arm later, 8 hours later and two pints of blood,

priceless.

Surrey Memorial and doctors, nurses and staff were excellent. I was wheeled here and there, examined by many specialists, blood pressure & heart rate monitored every 15 minutes (in case I had allergic reaction to the new blood),

priceless. Thank God I live Canada.

What was wrong with me? Turns out I have a huge fibroid, and my menstrual cycles have been extremely heavy, thus the loss of blood, eventually the loss of oxygen to my vital organs, thus the rapid heart beats.




Fibroids are muscular tumors that grow in the wall of the uterus (womb). Another medical term for fibroids is "leiomyoma" or just "myoma". Fibroids are almost always benign (not cancerous). Fibroids can grow as a single tumor, or there can be many of them in the uterus. They can be as small as an apple seed or as big as a grapefruit. In unusual cases they can become very large.

About 20 percent to 80 percent of women develop fibroids by the time they reach age 50. Fibroids are most common in women in their 40s and early 50s. Not all women with fibroids have symptoms. Women who do have symptoms often find fibroids hard to live with. Some have pain and heavy menstrual bleeding. Fibroids also can put pressure on the bladder, causing frequent urination, or the rectum, causing rectal pressure. Should the fibroids get very large, they can cause the abdomen (stomach area) to enlarge, making a woman look pregnant.

To resolve the future loss of blood through menstruation, there were two choices:
Hysterectomy (surgery to remove the uterus) or an IUD (intrauterine device) called Mirena® contains a small amount of progesterone-like medication, which can be used to control heavy bleeding, which is what I'm going to get.