Astérix et les jeux olympiques

On Saturday July 26, 2008 I went to see the movie Astérix et les jeux olympiques. This is the movie in the Astérix and Obélix series... It had a lot of very well known French stars... For example... Gérard Depardieu in the role of Obélix, etc. I don't really feel like listing all the stars, because I don't know of them...

The reviews in France and in Quebec were right... This movie isn't very good. I sat through it and I found it pretty bad and boring...

I don't even know if this film is worth it on DVD... But Depardieu is usually quite amusing. He also didn't look like he was reading cue cards, but it's pretty easy to play Obélix...

Deux jours à tuer (Love Me No More)

On Tuesday July 22, 2008, I went to see the movie Deux jours à tuer (Love Me No More). This is a French film about a marketing chef who loses it and completely destroys his life in two days... He quits his company, he insults his friends, etc. etc. But, what are the reasons for this? Is it because he's having a mid-life crisis, since he just turned 42 years old? Or is it because he's in love with his new mistress? Or is he a closet homosexual whose repressed side has finally caught up to him? You'll have to watch the movie to find out.

This movie stars Albert Dupontel, whom I saw last in Odette Toulemonde. I don't know much about Dupontel, but he really played a good role in this one, and I really enjoyed him as the main character. He also spoke pretty good English!

The only thing that bugged me about this movie was the English translation of the title... * shudder *

Save the Mole - Please help out my brother

Hi everyone. There's a contest out there about saving the TV show, The Mole. My brother has decided to participate. Please help him reach his goal of 500,000 views by August 2nd 2008. Tell your friends! Here's the link to his video. I apologize in advance that it may not be the best quality, but it's Youtube. lol

Please help my brother spread the word, and also help save the Mole.

More bureaucracy stupidity

I would like to take out a moment and highlight some things I find very stupid at a place where I teach aerobics. I will not mention the place here because I do not want to get in trouble or whatever.

Recently, this company/organization/enterprise decided that they would augment the instructors' salaries by $3/hour, and offer a new pay scale with hours... This is all fine and dandy, since their old rates were from about 20 years ago, and things have been getting more and more expensive, but wages haven't been going up at the same rate. However, there's a new twist... Now, this company/organization/enterprise decided that they will only hire their own instructors. I.e. If they are QTT Aerobic Fitness company, they will only hire the people that have a QTT Fitness Instructor Specialist Training program. Therefore, all existing instructors who work for QTT will now have to go through a process to obtain the QTT Certification. Hereafter, I will assume that the company name is QTT, so that it will be easier to continue my story.

Of course, this requirement ignores previous instructors who have done a certification elsewhere, who have kept it up with the original company, and who have years and years of experience. A colleague of mine, who has taught for 19 years, is also being asked to complete this task. Another colleague of mine, who has taught for 11 years, also has to complete this requirement. On top of that, they are only lending me, and anyone who's taking this requirement the manuals, and we do not have the right to mark them up in any way.

Personally, I cannot study without making notes in the textbook. I do not study that way. I guess I'll have to be environmentally not friendly by using sticky notes, or having a huge pad of notes on lined paper... Sigh...

The manual is also very poorly structured, and they go into details in a lot of stuff that does not need to be gone into detail for, in my opinion. I believe that my manual for when I did my training with another organization is a thousand, if not a million times better.

The QTT Company/Organization/Enterprise needs to get off its high horse about their training. It's actually really not that great. On top of that, it's not like the augmentation brings their salary any more competitive, most other places pay at least $5 or $10 more than what they offer. I do not know how they believe that they will keep their instructors. I could just imagine a lot of people will just jump through this hoop, get the paper, and then jump to go and teach at other gyms. I mean, it's very appealing to do that, and I may even consider this!

Some people who make decisions up high do not have the brain power to follow things through. It's amazing, really.

Wanted

On Tuesday, July 7, 2008, I went to see the movie Wanted. This movie features James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman.

The premise of the movie is that we learn about a group of assassins, who call themselves The Fraternity. They also are highly skilled in many forms of weaponry. However, their specialty is that they are very good with guns and bullets.

The film starts off with a lot of violence, lots of people get killed, because someone asks about a bullet. The bloodshed happens, and you see that the guy who asked the question runs away from the room. He gets to the end of the hallway, and he pushes for the elevator, frantically. You see that the elevator comes, and he uses that as extra distance to build enough speed to kill all the people who were supposed to kill him. After some exchange of conversation, you see that this guy gets shot by a bullet.

That was a nice first scene... The premise of the movie is that the main character, Wesley Gibson, is a nobody, and is a bit of a wuss. His boss is overbearing and is a real bitch. His girlfriend is cheating on him, and with his best friend at the office. On top of that, this asshole bums purchases off of Wesley.

The premise of the movie is that Wesley's father, whom he believed walked out on him when he was seven days old, was killed by an assassin name Cross, and now, the assassin is off to get Wesley. Eventually, Wesley takes on the training to become an assassin, and learns about the ways of the Fraternity. He is angry about the assassin, and wants to avenge his father's death by killing Cross.

Does he kill Cross? Does he fail in his quest? How does he track him down? All these questions and possibly more will be reviewed if you watch the movie. It is one that you should see if you like lots of action and excessive violence, but done in the style of Kill Bill.

With a Little Bit of Help From My Friends

This post is not about the Beatles' song, although I would like to sing it.

I was very lucky this weekend. I had two sets of friends come and visit me, and I enjoyed every moment of it.

First of all, my good friends from Boston, Nima and his partner Sakis, decided to come up to Montreal and visit me. They bunked at my place, and we hung out. They got here on Friday afternoon (July 4, 2008), at about 5:00 p.m..

We hung out a bit, chatted a bit, and then we decided to venture out and do some sightseeing. Of course, it is impossible to see all of Montreal in a couple of hours, but we saw a bit of the city, the usual tourist stuff. First, we went to a bank to exchange some cash, because Nima and Sakis needed a bit of Canadian cash. After, Nima was interested in browsing for some French singles, so we went to the original Archambault. Nima looked really excited, because he has never been to an Archambault. He swore that if he came to Montreal, he would go to one, and even though he didn't buy anything, he got the Archambault experience. His partner, Sakis, bought the most recent Ivana Santelli CD.

After hanging out at the original Archambault, we ventured into Old Montreal for some sightseeing. We saw the cobblestone paths, Marché Bonsecours, City Hall, the Montreal Science Centre, and we went into some tourists shops so that they can get some souvenirs. Nima and Sakis wanted to eat all you can eat sushi at my favourite restaurant (which was close to my place), but they also wanted to see the village in Montreal. So, I decided to kill two birds with one stone, and we went to the village to have all you can eat sushi.

After dinner, we walked around the village for a bit, and then we took the metro to my favourite bubble tea place in Chinatown, and we ordered bubble tea to go. We went home and went to bed.

This was a really cool Friday afternoon and evening. Unfortunately, Nima and Sakis went to Quebec City on Saturday. I couldn't go with them, because I had another set of friends from Ottawa who were coming up, and we were going to do dinner and go dancing or clubbing or something fun.

So, Nima and Sakis went to Quebec City, and I had dinner at a Greek restaurant with my friends Mika, Mariette and Stephanie. We also met up with Raj, a friend of Mika's. Everyone had lobster, because it was lobster fest at this restaurant. However, Raj did not have lobster, because she's vegetarian. We shared some funny stories about men, and funny instances... And some stories about Rupert. After dinner, we went to a karaoke bar downtown. Unfortunately, Mariette and Stephanie got lost, so they did not hear my rendition of I Will Survive, complete with feather boa (Stephanie's from Vegas).

On Sunday, after I bid farewell to Nima and Sakis (because they had to leave relatively early to be back home in Boston for early afternoon), and after I finished teaching aerobics, I went to have brunch with Mika, Mariette and Stephanie. We enjoyed ourselves again before we split our separate ways. The three girls wanted to go shopping, and I was off to play mahjongg.

I am really thankful for friends who care about me, and who enjoy my company as much as I enjoy theirs! The best part: Drama free! Diva free! (Well, within reason), and I met Nima, who is a good friend of mine, but I have never see him in person. We have been talking/chatting for six years!

I really enjoyed my weekend. I thank my friends for giving me these memories, and I will cherish them. These moments make dramatic individuals more tolerable.

Wall-E and other tidbits

On Sunday, June 29, 2008, I went to see the movie Wall-E.

This is the latest Pixar animated feature, featuring Wall-E, a robot, who doesn't know that he is the last robot on Earth. One day, he is just doing his job, and then we see a rocket ship landing, and out comes another very hostile robot. This hostile robot is called Eva. Eventually, Eva warms up to Wall-E, and Wall-E shows her his abode.

Eva, however, is programmed to seek life on Earth, any sort of vegetation life. You see, Wall-E is part of a bunch of robots used in Operation Clean-up. Apparently, this giant chain BNL ruined Earth completely, and they had to bring in these robots to compress garbage and try to clean up the Earth, and it failed, so... the human race has been living on this spaceship called Axiom for the past 700 years.

This was a very fun children's film. Kind of classic Disney/Pixar, but fun. I didn't watch Cars, nor did I want to, but I really enjoyed Wall-E.

Definitely a must see if you're into good animation on the big screen.

And now, the other tidbits:

My parents, my brother and I went frame shopping for his degree. We went to Michael's, and arts and crafts store. A few years ago, when my parents went to buy frames for my degrees, we went to the same place, and we had a disagreement. They got the cheapest frames, two pairs at $7 each for my two degrees. They are not terrible, but not the most outstanding, and they are quite generic looking. However, when they were looking for frames for my brother, they were looking at $25 frames. Granted there was a 40% discount, 60% of $25 is still more than $7... How do you swallow that?

Also, when I was taking the train back tonight, July 1, 2008, I discovered that they have added a new stop to the 5:00 p.m. train. Usually, this is the express train, which makes two stops. One in Dorval, and one in Montreal. However, they've added a new stop: Oshawa. What type of stupid idiotic, no thinking, lack of research crap is this? We stopped, and maybe six people got in. Waste of my time. In my opinion, Oshawa does not have enough growth to warrant the 5:00 p.m. train. If they want a train, either one earlier, or the milk run. I'm going to be writing a letter to VIA.