the intro for anything and everything

REISBRENNEN TRAILER BY FORMAT67.NET from FORMAT67.NET on Vimeo.

it's funny how this song is used in a movie, a prelude to the uefa euro 2012 and a bunch of advertisements and vimeo videos, but does not actually have an official video by the XX. it should. intro is a fantastic instrumental piece.

the first time i heard this song was in a fan-made uber-cool video about reisbrennen, the biggest meet-up for japanese car fans in germany. yes, today's sunday morning laze will give a nod to my NFSW days and the many awesome videos i crowdsourced from my community, of which i probably wouldn't even know about.

that's one of the big things i miss about working at EA. getting to find out about gems such as this.

a walk in the dark at the park

sean and i got our craft on last week for the illuminares festival at trout lake park. in all the time that we've been together, we never broke out the paints and glue gun and channeled our inner martha stewart. not including our annual pumpkin carving, of course.

but that's exactly what we did to prepare for the lantern festival. we were both pretty psyched that it was moving back to its original outdoor location at trout lake. due to a new community centre being erected, the festival had been moved the past couple of years, first to crab park in the downtown eastside and then indoors at the trade and convention centre, hardly ideal locations.

and for my first time participating, i wanted it to be as midsummer festival-y as possible.

for my lantern, i drew inspiration from linda brecht's exquisitely made paper lantern. so very lovely and girly. i painted my lantern 3 shades of blue and glued the flowers, diagonally across the entire lantern.

here we are with our finished masterpieces:

we got to trout lake when the sky started to go black, all the better to view candle lit lanterns. but to our surprise, although there was hella lot of people attending, there weren't many that came armed with lanterns. i would guess about 90% of the thousands and thousands of people that showed were without light. that's a really high number. i'm sure the thinking was, "oh, i won't make a lantern this year. i'm sure they'll be lots of people with lanterns there." but when you get everyone thinking like that, then you got yourself a pretty dark event. 

surprisingly, on the organizer's side, there weren't as many displays to see either. a couple of trees were decorated with paper lanterns, but no way near as many in the past years. i think that with the festival being relocated every year due to trout lake being out of commission, it lost steam in attracting and keeping those exhibitors who go all out with their creative displays. 

however, sean and i still had lots of fun walking around in the dark, with our lanterns in front of us lighting the way. and keeping everyone around us at a healthy distance. you know me and my crowds.

but next year will be the event's 25th anniversary and i have a feeling everyone who was there, will want to be participants, rather than spectators. we already have an idea of what we're going to do next year!

lifting us higher

kinda sad that i wasn't able to go to the sold out florence + the machine concert at deer lake park on friday. she has such an incredible voice and stage presence.

one of my favourite florence songs is shake it out. but dare i say that capital children's choir's cover of the song may be even better?



instead of the voice of one angel, you have a  60 piece choir of angels. absolutely heavenly.

a purr-fect combination

View from the ISS at Night from Knate Myers on Vimeo.

love, love & love some more.

a breathtaking time-lapse video of the international space station, set to john murphy's adagio in D minor, which is from one of my favourite movies, sunshine.

just beautiful.

beauty is my power

"i was ruined by a king like you. i replaced his queen, an old woman. and in time, i too, would have been replaced. men use women. they ruin us, and when they are finished with us, they toss us to their dogs like scraps. when a woman stays young and beautiful forever, the world is hers."

the best thing about snow white and the huntsman was charlize theron's queen ravenna. heck, there should have been more of her in the movie. fierce.

costume designer colleen atwood really outdid herself with this movie. love her.

yawning like no one's business

continuing my hobby of catching charlie in mid-yawn, here's a collection of charlie yawns this week:

saturday

tuesday

today

wow, he can really open his mouth wiiiiiide. is it just me or does charlie's toothy yawns remind you of the leviathans in supernatural? you know, right before they devour their prey. chomp!

keeping it cool

the hot, sweltering summer has arrived in vancouver.

here's how charlie likes to beat the heat:

lying spread-legged on the cool porcelain bathtub

here's how i like to keep cool:

the tank on "low" setting. yes, low.

sitting in front of my portable a/c, which i dubbed "the tank" because of its size and weight. this little monster can really belt out the cool breeze. while my tower fan normally does the trick, there are a couple of hours out of the day where it gets too hot and muggy. uncomfortably so. unfortunately, that's what i get for having a south facing apartment with no other trees or buildings around for coverage.

glisten like a diamond

in an attempt to break free from the clutches of being an instagram-oholic, i'm exploring other photo apps. i have around 100 photo apps on my iphone right now. i know, it's a sickness. but not one breaking the bank account, as i only download them when the apps are free.

here are some fun filters that i like from filtermania 2:

clockwise from top left: partylight, article, slide and old photo

but i think my favourite is the sparkle filter.  it's dreamy, it's ethereal and it makes me look like a vampire from the twilight series.

lazy summer days

an afternoon of napping and lounging with mr big paws.

the one i waited for

Lamb - Gorecki by Angkor

could we stay right here until the end of time? until the earth stops turning?

lamb's gorecki for a happy and peaceful sunday.

charlie's perch

i always feel like somebody's watching me...

the rock goddess returns

quite possibly the most bad luck i've ever had in all my concert-going years, i missed seeing garbage not once, but twice. in the same year.

the streak may be broken, for in my tiny fists of fury, i got myself a ticket to garbage's gig on september 29 at the centre for performing arts!  ms manson in vancouver!

i can't wait.

wakey wakey...

...eggs and bakey. good morning chuckleman.

triumf-ant

did you know that canada has a national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics? and that it is located at UBC in vancouver? well, we didn't until just recently.

and did you know that at triumf, they: 

* use proton therapy to treat ocular melanomas. a low energy beam is directed into the patient's eye, irradiating the tumour. triumf treats a dozen patients a year and the success rate is 80%

* built a positron emission tomograph (PET scanner) to image locate cancers 

* played a role in developing the ATLAS detector for the hadron collider at CERN

* discover how and why supernovas explode by recreating the conditions inside the dragon machine

* have the world's biggest cyclotron, used to accelerate 100 trillion particles each second.

sean and i found all this out last week when we partook in their free guided tour for the public. while there, we also found out some other interesting tidbits:

* triumf is government funded 

* owned and operated by a consortium of 17 universities across canada

* their annual electricity bill is approximately $2M

* CERN can only operate 6 months out of the year. more than that, they'd be no power left for geneva
* although there are gamma rays present, fat chance of anyone hulking out. we would most likely arrive and leave as human as bruce banner
* there were no radioactive spiders on site, so any fantasies of becoming spiderman were quashed as well

24/7 monitoring for radiation contamination. look at all those monitors!

faraday cages to safeguard electronics

the highlight of the tour was the cyclotron. made up of 4000 tons of magnets, it is shielded 3 stories underground by 3 layers of 100 ton concrete blocks, 4.5 metres thick.

above the cyclotron

and although it was 18 feet below our feet, it was still strong enough to magnetize paper clips placed out on the table for tour groups. the paper clips acted like compasses on the table and in our hands.

dancing paperclips

although i'm sure it's safe, (otherwise they wouldn't be any tours), i did feel a little "weird" standing right above the cyclotron. i felt a slight burning sensation on my right ribcage and sean felt slightly dizzy. but as soon as we went outside, we were feeling ourselves again. if airplanes are not advised to fly over the cyclotron, as it affects navigation, it wouldn't be a surprise that we would indeed feel something. 

at the end of the one hour tour, we all had to walk through a body scanning machine, similar to those found at airport security. the difference is that this one screens for radiation contamination. exposure at triumf is about .3 micro sieverts, or the equivalent to eating 3 bananas. i didn't even know that radiation is measured in banana equivalent doses nor that bananas are a natural source of radioactive isotopes. not to put anyone off of eating bananas, the BED is used to remind us that radiation is commonplace and that you would never eat enough, even in the expanse of one's lifetime, for it to kill you.

photo credit: BBC

but me being overly dramatic in my head, i prayed that i wouldn't trigger some sort of security clamp down a la silkwood, when i walked through. 

luckily, i did not set off any alarms. none of us did. in fact, the tour guide assured us there has never been any incident. that she knows of.

i'm a worrywart because i'm not a scientist and that i respect the unknown in science, but that aside, it was quite an interesting way to spend an afternoon. we did learn a lot. get yourself psyched up by watching their video on 99 things you can do at triumf.

science is neat.

explore the world

i've always wanted to buy a really cool map of the world that i could display on my wall and pushpin all the places that i had been to. but i'm pretty picky about what it should look like and if it would go with the rest of my decor.

well, this one certainly would. want! even though the pins are too big and the map is too small to pin every single place i've traveled, i'd still adorn my wall with it. (well, i could pin country and state instead of cities)

but if i wanted to keep track of the places visited so far, it would look a little something like this:

and when i look at it on a global scale, i am slightly bummed because there's so many places i haven't hit yet! not that i haven't not been anywhere, i do know that i've travelled more than some, but less than others.

i also make it a habit to try to see and experience as much as i can when i go somewhere, including visiting outlying areas. as my map shows, i've travelled fairly extensively throughout california, netherlands and the UK.

but that's just the tip of the iceberg. lots of world left to see. 

i used to joke that i would just throw a dart on the wall map and that would determine where my next adventure would be. but considering that the world is two-thirds water, i'd end up in the middle of some ocean. and unfortunately, some places that i would love to go to are not tourist-friendly right now. but that wouldn't deter me, it would only delay things for a while.

so i'm making a list of when and where i have travelled. (not counting childhood or family trips) this will serve as a motivator for me to a) travel at least once a year if i could and b) travel to a place that i've never been to before.

2012
BC: victoria
yukon territories: whitehorse
BC: kelowna


2011
BC: harrison hot springs
BC: kelowna
washington: seattle
california: palm springs, joshua tree


2010
BC: whistler
california: los angeles
netherlands: amsterdam, den bosch, utrecht, zaanse schans
belgium: brussels, antwerp, bruges


2009
washington: snoqualmie falls


2008
UK: london, evesham
france: paris
california: san francisco, sacramento, santa rosa, muir woods
UK: london for christmas


2007
new york: brooklyn
UK: cornwall, devon, padstow, cotswald, bath, wells, glastonbury, blackheath, avebury, stonehenge, warwick, stratford upon avon, london
ontario: toronto


2006
north carolina: raleigh, durham
arizona: phoenix
hawaii: maui


2005
new york: new york city


2002
california: los angeles, alhambra, irvine, marina del ray, newport beach, santa monica, beverly hills, venice beach, san diego, san marino, huntington beach, pasadena


2001
manitoba: winnipeg
alberta: calgary


2000
nevada: las vegas
washington: leavenworth, winthorp


1996
alberta: edmonton


1995
lousiana: new orleans (mardi gras)
new york: new york city


1994
netherlands: den haag, groesbeek, apeldoorn, beekbergen, haarlem, amsterdam


1993
oregon: portland
ontario: toronto


1991
california: san francisco, santa cruz, 17 mile drive, monterey, carmel by the sea, san jose


1990
hawaii: honolulu

where to next?

spread 'em

oh charlie. you crack me up when you lie down like that. 

that's my little peanut, folks.

shiny and new

there's a sort of pride and satisfaction that comes when you treat yourself, or rather your wheels, to a professional hand wash and wax. i mean, just look how shiny my car is! it absolutely gleams.

a slew of sunny days finally arrived in vancouver, so i took my VW golf for some pampering. they did a pretty stellar job. 

i wonder how long it'll take until a bird poops on it.

waddle this way

i had so much fun at vancouver aquarium's last after hours event, that i just had to go again. but this time, it was a girls night out, since sean was working. and this time, there were new african penguins to see!

as it's now summertime, the event wasn't sold out like it was in march, which was great for us -- more elbow room and facetime with the animals. it was especially purr-fect as my girlfriends had never been to this event before.

since the tropic zone was closed for the event, disappointingly, i did get the chance to see some things i missed out the first time around, like the very colourful amphibian gallery.

and fewer people means more opportunities to play with the dolphins!

but my most favourite thing of the evening? tanu the otter. 

tanu was sleeping whilst drifting on the water, completely oblivious to all our oooohs and ahhhhs. had she been awake, it would have been adorable to see her eat off her stomach. 

i was rather sad when her partner, milo, passed away this past january from cancer. they were known the world over for being the paw-holding otters. 

photo credit: vancouver aquarium

but she did seem content when we saw her. however, i do hope the aquarium gets her a companion soon. everybody needs a hand to hold onto. 

i used to think that i'd like to sign up for a beluga or dolphin encounter at the vancouver aquarium, but i think this adorable little otter may have won me over. (and she was just sleeping!)  i may just have to sign up for the sea otter encounters.

photo courtesy of clear

what a wonderful way to spend a bright and warm summer night.

happy panda week!

did you know that it's panda awareness week?

everyone knows that pandas are known to be not particularly amorous, but conservation efforts at the chengdu panda base in china, have increased their numbers considerably. the centre started with 6 pandas but now have 108, bringing the count to around 400 in captivity around the world. a conservation success, they will now be reintroduced back into the wild.

to celebrate, 108 (people posing as) pandas invaded london, including trafalgar square, to do tai chi, of all things. sidebar: the coolest things happen in london.



and then there's this cuteness overload video from chengdu panda base. what could be more adorable then 4 chubby black and white blobs having a rollicking time going down a slide and smooshing each other?



one day i'm going to visit the chengdu panda base and hug myself some panda.

#penny4NASA

we stopped dreaming...



have you heard this wonderful sermon by neil degrasse tyson? this man makes so much sense about space exploration, you wonder why we're not listening to him.

well, there's a sequel to the above video: we stopped dreaming - a new perspective.



we must keep dreaming about space and then make it a reality.