Yet more Olympic grammar

Here's another one I missed. I've never heard the song because I've been avoiding the "I believe" campaign. When the song came up during the ceremonies (I think that's when it occurred), I hit the mute button. 

Does the Olympic Theme Song “I Believe” Have a Grammar Error?  

 

More on Olympic verbs

Here's an article I found on podium being used as a verb. I thought it was kind of interesting.

On Language

 

Podium

 

By BEN ZIMMER

Published: February 7, 2010

A triumphant verb retakes the Olympic stage.

Olympic verbs

I did not go into the city yesterday. db and I assessed the situation, and given that it was Canada/USA hockey day, we decided that it was probably best to stay close to home and avoid the surging crowds. We're probably going to go on Friday evening. I'm sure the crowds will still be crazy, but we'll take our chances.

Yesterday I heard a reporter who was covering the games use the word "podium" as a verb. "She didn't think she was going to podium." Ack! I'm pretty open with popular culture's use of grammar. "I'm lovin' it", for example I will let slide, but let it be a lesson to you that if McD's is as sloppy with their food as they are with their grammar then you probably shouldn't eat there, which is one more reason why that place should be avoided at all costs. I know I make all kinds of grammar errors throughout my day, and am always struggling with improving it, but I can't accept nouns turned into verbs when it is unnecessary.

I was speaking to my mom, who is an ESL teacher, last night and brought this very issue up with her. She also reminded me of how the same thing has been done with the word "medal." "He is a strong contender to medal." Is it so difficult to put those extra words in? "He is a strong contender to win a medal?" That wasn't so difficult.

Does sports broadcasting seem particularly guilty of this to you?
Have you noticed any other nouns becoming verbs when they've never been used as verbs before?

Do I need a holiday? Or maybe I should say, I need to holiday.

just curious

I think I might venture downtown tomorrow and see what the party atmosphere is like.

I thought I'd avoid the whole Olympic thing as much as possible, but I have to say that curiosity is getting the better of me. I don't want to line up for hours for zip lines or ice skating or to approach the viewing platform for the cauldron. I just want to see what it's like in the downtown hub with people milling about, streets closed to traffic, and get a sense of the general vibe. There is supposed to be lots of buskers, and public art to view, so I think it'll be worthwhile.

The biggest draw for me is that the art gallery is free until the end of the month, and I'd like to see the Da Vinci sketches, which are here until May. They are also screening art films on one side of the building.

I think I should go.

Vegan Soul Kitchen

For Christmas I bought db Vegan Soul Kitchen
and then eagerly awaited for him to crack it open to discover a recipe that would inspire him.

Well, it finally happened and db did not disappoint. He pulled several recipes together to create this tasty colourful dish. What we have here is Blackened Tofu with Succotash Salsa (there were many Sylvester impressions of "sufferin' succotash" being said whenever the word came up). db served the Blackened Tofu with Citrus Collards, Brown Coconut Rice, and Grilled Asparagus with Rosemary Sea Salt (that didn't quite make it into the picture).
It was a colourful and delicious plate, and everything went together so well. It felt like a real treat to be served such fine food. 

One of the unique aspects of this book, Vegan Soul Kitchen, is that each recipe has a suggested soundtrack. So with each recipe db worked on, I found the accompanying song and played it while he cooked. I'll have to do a review of this book once I read it and we make a few more recipes from it. So far so good.

Get in line for the line up.

We went to the women's hockey on Saturday to see Canada and Slovakia. When we got our tickets last year, we only knew we'd be going to an early round women's hockey game, we had no idea it'd be Canada. So, we got lucky. However, after seeing a women's hockey game for the first time ever, I would have been happy to see anyone play. It was so great to see women's hockey! I loved it.

What I did not love was getting into GM place, or BC place or whatever it's called now. The game was at 5pm. We got off the skytrain at 3:30 pm, and got to our section just as the women were skating onto the ice. Why did it take us so long? Can you imagine why? Olympic insanity was the reason.

There was no one at the exit of the skytrain to direct people to the entrance. Usually you come out of the skytrain and just cross the street to enter GM place, but with the fencing surrounding the area, there seemed to be no entrance anywhere, and no one to tell us where to enter.

There were people everywhere looking completely lost and confused. I finally asked a cop on the other side of the fence where we could get in. He gave us several options. As we walked to one entrance, we got to an area where the sidewalk was closed. We asked another cop. He said that the first one didn't know what he was talking about because he was probably from out of town, and that we needed to go the other way. db and I headed back. Finally, one solitary blue-jacketed volunteer called out that this entryway was closed and we needed to go down this street to get in line for the entrance.

Hmm...

I started to regret not bringing a book along. 

db and I stood in a line that was merging with another longer line from another street. Once we all merged into one big happy line, we shuffled forward to an opening in the fence. This was the entranceway to the security zone. The entrance was the size of a regular doorway. So we bottlenecked through this little doorway into a holding pen, where we lined up again to get into the line ups for the security zone.

After we mazed our way through that, we were told we could go into the express security line if we had a purse and not a backpack. I just had my camera bag so we zipped into the "express" lane. I use quotations around the word express because from what I saw, our line did not move any faster than the regular lines. In fact one of the regular lines was moving much faster!

Finally, we made it to security. It was like going through security at an airport. They looked in my bag, and I walked through the metal detector. I should mention that no one had yet asked me if I had a ticket or not. I walked right up to the entrance of GM/BC place without anyone ever asking me for proof of a ticket. If you wanted to sneak anything in on your person that could make it through the metal detector you could. Almost a billion dollars spent on security, and I felt like anyone could walk up to the venue and do a lot of damage. Fortunately, no one did.

We finally made it to our seats just before the puck dropped, but many didn't, and had to wait in the section doorways until the next whistle blew.

The upside? I enjoyed the game. I also know that by the time we go to the men's 50k cross country skiing on the last day of the Olympics, that many of the kinks will probably be worked out so that moving people into venues will go a lot more smoothly. I'm definitely taking a book with me next time.

my olympic view

I don't know why I'm feeling so grouchy about the Olympics. I mean I don't live in Vancouver or near any of the sites, but it's close enough so that my bus & skytrain were more crowded than usual this morning, and that made me grumpy. It also made my bus late because the bus driver had to answer so many questions at every other stop from new passengers who have left their SUVs in their garages to take public transit to get to events. 

At first, I thought these people were tourists who had to find accommodations way out where I live because everything was booked up closer to vancity, but then I realized these are my neighbours. They looked amused by the whole novelty of taking a bus. It would seem that it's a very exciting experience. There was so much noise on the bus from giddy passengers, and people on their cell phones ("I'm going to see the torch! What? I can't hear you?" BTW, if you can't hear the person on the other end of the phone, it doesn't help if you talk louder.)

See, I'm very irascible today. 

My morning radio show has turned into the Olympic broadcasting corporation. I now get Olympic weather, Olympic traffic reports, Olympic entertainment news, and news stories related to all things Olympic.  I can't listen to my morning radio show any more. There's no balance. So I shut it off. 

***

I was glad to hear that the protesters forced the torch to re-route. The protesters voices needed to be heard through the din of "Go Canada Go." Their voices are important! So far I've only heard news reports that talk about how disappointed the children were who lined up to see the torch. How about we get into the problems of massive homeless, mental health issues, and drug addiction of the downtown eastside? These issues also relate to the Olympics, so let's talk about them. With all of the money spent...you know where I'm going. Housing, healthcare, and social programs all need help in this province (as they do everywhere). 

***

Where do I stand? It might seem clear based on what I've written so far. Honestly though? I'm torn. I'm neither pro nor anti Olympics. What I really don't like is the corporate control of the Olympics. There's something about the willingness of people to let VANOC control what we can say or do that really makes me angry, and I find the whole "you're either with us or against us" attitude offensive (I've gotten this from both sides). People seem to want me to be one or the other. Do I have to be? I don't want to be. 

I do appreciate athletic achievement. I enjoy watching many sports. I don't care if Canada wins medals or not, I just like a good competition to be fairly played. I am going to a women's hockey game, and men's cross country skiing, but as a fan of sport, not as a fan of any particular country. I just can't wave the flag like that. I'm not looking forward to the circus of it all, but the events themselves I hope will be good. 

***

I think maybe it's time that the Olympics took some responsibility for what it does around the world (dumping debt on cities). Why can't the Olympics work with the host city (and its corporate sponsors) to resolve local problems instead of trying to sweep them from view? Why not make it a partnership of some kind? Why should the host city be forced into taking on all of the burden, and bending to the will of the Olympics? What if the IOC had to approach cities instead, and ask for their permission to hold their event there? Then they would have to make the deal sweet for the host city. 

It's just a thought.

***

You Are an Omelette

You are a light-hearted, roll with the punches type of person. You're open to the world around you. You like to draw from many influences. You like to mix things up a lot, and variety inspires you. You don't let much weigh you down. You have a sunny outlook that starts first thing in the morning and continues throughout your day. Even if everything around you breaks down, you pick yourself right back up again. You are good at making do.

What Kind of Diner Food Are You?

Blogthings: We Have a Quiz for Almost Everything

I found this via Wandering Coyote. Considering my last post, this seemed appropriate. It's a vegan omelette in the photo above of course. 

a whole lotta food

I was scanning through my ridiculous amount of food photos and couldn't leave out my cookies!

These are called Lazy Samoas from my favorite cookie book Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar. What could make these cookies better?

Why chocolate, of course!

These were not only fun to make, but are also very tasty. They are chock full of toasted coconut (2 cups to be exact), dipped in chocolate, and then have a little more chocolate drizzled across the top. Since I used unsweetened coconut and dark vegan baking chocolate, they are not overly sweet.

Another success from our kitchen was inspired by our slow cooker. We got an awesome slow cooker with our rewards points. It's one with a timer that automatically switches into warm mode when it's done cooking Now that I'm working until 7 in the evening, and not getting home until 8, I can make something in the morning and let it slow cook all day.

This recipe is called "Almost Irish Stew" from my Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker cookbook, which actually is all vegan recipes.
I don't usually make stews, but this was flavourful and easy to put together. It's definitely a keeper.

Now onto brunch...

Sunday I made omelettes. Yes it's true, vegan omelettes are possible. I had a lot of silken tofu to use up, and I was planning on making a fritatta until I saw the omelette recipe in my Vegan Brunch book. It looked so easy, I had to try it.

I filled them with sauteed mushrooms and collard green. When I folded them together, I added a little Daiya cheese. They were delicious! They actually surpassed my expectations of tastiness.

I don't know what made me do it, but I cut of a corner and put it between two pieces of toast with some ketchup, making a little omelette sandwich. Then I remember the fried egg sandwiches my mom made me when I was a kid. I loved them. I had a nostalgic moment with this omelette sandwich as it tasted just like those sandwiches mom use to make me for a snack.

This is what comfort food is for me. It's nostalgia.

this past week

I've been juicing every day! It's crazy. Even right now I'm craving some juice, but I'm just feeling a bit lazy about cleaning the machine.

I've realized that I need an extra 15 minutes in the morning so I can juice and then clean the juicer.
I make enough so when I come home I can have juice in the evening. I use to come home and have a beer.


For a week I was hooked on a beet, apple, pear, and ginger combo. It had that deep red colour from the beets, and the pear gave it a nice texture. It was the best.

This week it's been anything goes. I do find apple, carrot, and ginger is a good base to start with. Today I made pineapple, celery, carrot, pear, and ginger. I stopped taking pictures though because I don't want to bore you with endless pictures of juice.

As for the rest of my week...

The time flies by so quickly.  It's just one juice after another and then the week is gone.

Wildlife Rescue has been going well. I'm getting use to the routine of it. I've started working on my next level of volunteering so I can take on more responsibility. The staff are so nice and helpful. I can see myself volunteering there for a while. It does get quite busy in the spring so I'm glad I started in the winter when it's quieter so I can ease into the job.

There was red tailed hawk in this past week. I've never seen one so close-up before (probably a good thing). They are quite impressive. He stared at me as if he had no fear, and maybe even as if he could kill me.  The rest of the birds are mostly pigeons with the occasional robin or thrush.
***

Wednesday we went to see the Blues as they were in town to face the Canuckleheads (as we call them). db and I sat up in the nosebleeds and watched the game. I enjoyed it even though the Blues gave the Canucks two goals as if gifts. After that game I decided I wasn't going to watch hockey for the rest of the season, but they were in Edmonton next and I just had to watch because I suspected they'd win, and guess what?

The last 3 days have been work, work, work. I haven't had any time to bake or do anything fun like that. Maybe tomorrow I'll try a new recipe from my brunch book. I should make something nice for my day off, something to go with my juice.

Vacation

I'm back after a little vacation, and then a week of just getting back into my work routine.

My mom was visiting for a week, and I took a few days off. I barely opened the computer at all, so I haven't been making my rounds.

We had a nice visit. Here's what we did.

The Brackendale  eagles are famous. You may have heard about the annual eagle count that is done in early January.

This year the count was on the low side (956). On average there is around 1600 a year. Imagine at the peak what it must be like!

We started in Squamish at the official "Eagle Viewing" site, and then we drove further along one of the roads to see if we could see others.

That's where we spotted this one atop a tree.

Then these two (a juvenile and an adult) were perched next to a creek.

We drove along Paradise Valley road where all of the trees are loaded with moss. It's not that uncommon to see trees covered in moss on the we(s)t coast, but this whole area is unique because it had tree after tree after tree covered. It turns out that it's a protected area funded by the Nature Conservancy of Canada.

 

On the way back to the highway, we spotted another eagle. It's near the top of one of the trees on the left.

I zoomed in as far as I could with my camera and tried to steady it on the car to snap some photos. I did get a few nice ones. I tried taking a video, but whenever I selected the film option, the eagle would stop moving all together. I swear he knew what I was up to.

They are beautiful birds, and I feel very fortunate to have seen so many in such a small area.

Near our place we see them occasionally, but they are soaring so far above that we never really get to admire their beauty. At our last place we would see more because of the sloping green belt that was fairly open, so I think the eagles like to hunt there. We're more enclosed by the forest where we are now. I do love watching them soar high above in the sky though.

Thursday we went to Seattle. We started off at Pike Place Market. I think mom really enjoyed it.
Here's the flower area. In the summer it was full of fresh flowers. It was nice to see it was still vibrant full of beautiful dried flower arrangements. I think if I lived in Seattle I would buy my flowers here, and always have an arrangement in my home.

I didn't really take many pictures in Seattle. The weather was pretty damp, and we were more about getting to and from places. Plus, I had taken so many pictures of the market and downtown last time we were there. I guess I should put them on my flickr page. I'll do that after this post.

I did, of course, take pictures of our food. We were seeking out a vegan restaurant on Broadway Ave, and couldn't find it. We finally went into the grocery store and asked if someone knew of it only to learn that it was now the grocery store!

So we went back to Pizza Pi, which was fine with me. Mom had never been, and db and I were ready to try something else on the menu.

db had a calzone, and I had this lovely pizza with a sundried tomato cream sauce topped with olives, spinach, and artichokes. Of course they use teese on all of their pizzas.

Mom had one of their sandwiches. It was very good food.

Mom asked why they didn't use the daiya cheese, and they said it didn't work well with their ovens. I'm kind of glad in a way because teese really is a good product, and daiya has taken the vegan cheese world by storm. I'd like to see teese continue to thrive as well.

We did bring back a dozen donuts from Mighty O donuts (I really like their website as well so check it out). I mean...vegan donuts! Need I say more? They also serve a very nice coffee. If you're going to the coffee capital, you should at least have coffee. There is of course an obscene number of Starbucks (it's Starbuck's hometown after all), but there are also numerous independent coffee shops serving their own roasts or a local roast.

I really like Seattle. Next time we go, I'll take more pictures. I guess you can just go to Google Maps and wander the streets on the street view, but I like the personal photo better (not my photo by the way).

Of course it wouldn't be a fun vacation without the girls. Prima and Gigi loved having mom here.

Prima sometimes gets a little overwhelmed when there are too many people to keep track of. It's mostly just db and I so she hops from one lap to the other. She likes to be the center of attention all of the time. With mom here, she wasn't the center of attention, but did still get a lot of pets from all of us. She's very needy. 

Gigi particularly liked having the sofa bed open in the living room. Some days we never made up the sofa because we knew we'd be out all day, and the girls liked having the bed out to lounge on.


Even after mom left, I kept the duvet out for them to sleep on.

The cats had a nice vacation as well, and they really deserved it after the craziness of the holidays with trees in their room, people for dinner. They really needed the break! Ha.

Juicing fun

Mango, apple & banana. I tried the puree disc option that came with my juicer. We had one overripe mango, and one perfectly ripened mango; it was a perfect opportunity to try the puree disc.

The mango pureed pretty well. The smaller portions stayed pulpy so there were some chunky bits in the juice, but that was expected and we didn't really mind. The banana went through very smoothly. Blender? No thanks.

I switched to the juicer disc and added some apples to make our juice. Very tasty.

So, the puree disc was a nice surprise. It made a very creamy smoothie.

My next creation was an empty-the-fruit-bowl juice.

Our fresh produce box gets delivered once a week, and was on its way, so I decided to juice the rest of the fruit we had left. It was all pears left over in the bowl, and just one apple. I zipped some fresh ginger through (we love the zesty ginger flavour in our juices), and then added a carrot, a beet, and the fruit.
The beet gave the juice the beautiful colour. The picture actually doesn't bring out the full red colour that it really was. The beet was a little tougher to juice. I am reluctant to put any force on the food plunger since everything pretty much runs through by itself, and they recommend that you don't use any force, but the beet needed a little push. I think that's okay. Bottom line, the juice was refreshing, and felt like the pick-me-up I needed.

(P.S. db thinks I might be working for Breville because I take photos of the juice next to the juicer. I assure you I'm not working for them, I just like the backdrop.) 

lemon cashew crepes

This is the brunch book. You saw my photos of the Tofu Benny? Let me refresh your memory from my Christmas Day post.

There's been a recipe in the book that I've wanted to try, but was a little intimidated at the idea of making crepes. It seems silly because I've made injera, tortillas, and canneloni crepes. So could crepes be that much different? Yes.

I did have some success, but I think I would have had better success if I had the proper tools i.e. a thinner spatula, and maybe even a crepe pan. Yes, my regular frying pan worked okay, but it's a bit too large, so I couldn't get a uniform size to the crepes.

That's okay though because they were delicious.

The filling is a lemon cashew cream, and they were topped with a blueberry sauce. I put the traditional dusting of powdered sugar to top them off. I have to say it was all worth the effort.

Michelle Obama featured in fur-free ad.

Woo-hoo! I was so glad to see this, and very happy to see that it made the news.   It's great to see powerful and influential women say no to fur. You can also read more on PETA's site.

Run Holiday Vegan Run update

I'm running, I'm running. I haven't written about my running much lately, and that was mainly because I wasn't running much lately.

I did take a solid 2 weeks off from running, and just did a little yoga to still feel like I was making some sort of attempt to keep in shape. Since Christmas day I've been back at it, building up my endurance again (how quickly it goes). Christmas morning was cool and beautifully sunny outside. There weren't many runners out that morning, and the one I did see wished me a Merry Christmas.

It was a little icy in parts. I had to watch my footing when crossing the creek bridges since they ice up a little. It was a glorious run. I hope to make it a Christmas tradition from now on.

We had such dry weather that I really was trying to take advantage of our luck. A couple of days after Christmas I ran, and it was another clear and frosty morning. I decided to run to the bottom of the hill towards the inlet because I suspected that the ground would be drier there. However, once down by the inlet, I discovered the sidewalks were more slippery that they had been at home. I tried to run on the crunchy grass until I went into the park where I could run the trail. The trail was hard from the ground freezing, but the traction was so much better. I ran until I thought I'd had enough, and then even managed to run up the hill home. That's the first time I've done that, and it felt fine! It took me almost 10 minutes to run up it, but I did it.

New Year's Day I wanted to have another run like I did on Christmas Day, but it was pouring. I stayed in, hoping to run later in the day, but the rain never eased up.

The Sunday after New Year's (oh that's this past Sunday!) I had better luck. Even though it looked pretty dark around our place, I could see the sky breaking up down at the inlet. I loaded some new music onto my ipod (Transglobal Underground), and headed out. It was one of those tough days when my legs feel heavier than they are, and all I want to do is stop.

I ran to the inlet with plans of running the trail again, but once there I had an achy calf and achilles so I thought I should ease off and stick to the paved trail with the strollers & cyclists. Without planning to, I ran further than expected. I knew I wanted to do a long run and went for it, forgetting that I should just increase by 10%. Oops. I was too far into my run to stop, so I kept going.

I'm a little sore today. Tomorrow I'll try to take it a bit easier and do a short run before going to the wildlife rescue.

CBC News - Canada - Setting the stage for a spring election

What do you think? Is this Harper's plan?

CBC News - Canada - Setting the stage for a spring election

Juice Vegan Juice

Here it is. This was the best gift ever. I've been juicing since I took it out of the box.

db got an excellent deal on the juicer, and jumped at the chance to bring this into our home.

It has a puree disc and a juicing disc, so I can do softer fruits as well (like bananas, mango, berries etc) and make smoothies right from the juicer.

This afternoon I felt like a little pick up so I made us some juice from pineapple, apple, cucumber and ginger. Delicious.

I love this machine. Is it possible to love a machine? Well, I love what this machine can make for us. 

A simple New Year's resolution is to make more juice!

I can't wait to make my first all veggie juice!

Happy New Year!

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year!

CBC News - Politics - PM seeks Parliament shutdown until March

Excuse me, but what is going on here?! This government is out of control...no wait...it is taking too much control. I can't believe this is going ahead. Surely, no one is really going to let them shut down Parliament until such a late date.

I know I'm going to write my MP about this.

CBC News - Politics - PM seeks Parliament shutdown until March

Christmas Day

I hope everyone had a nice Christmas, and are all very stuffed with their favorite foods. Um...I forgot to take pictures of our dinner last night, but I can assure you it looked as delicious as it tasted. We had wild mushroom & butternut squash ravioli with a simple spicy tomato sauce. db brought out a Super Tuscan wine he's been saving for a number of years. It was smooth and warming. We also had a spinach salad with pear and balsamic. It was a nice simple dinner.

I do have a photo of our Christmas morning breakfast though.

I know, I know. You're saying, "what is it?" It's from my Vegan Brunch cookbook, and it's called Tofu Benny! I marinated the tofu, pan-fried it. The bottom is home fries with green pepper and onion. I opted for the home fries base over the English muffin, because I love potatoes and could probably eat them every day. I also didn't have any English muffins. There is also some tomato in the middle with a little liquid smoke, and on top is the hollandaise sauce, which was a little strange because it really tasted like hollandaise sauce! The texture of it reminded me of that non-vegan eggy sauce, but the flavour really was so much better.

db was impressed as well, and I always know I've come up with something good when he's impressed. He's such a good cook. 

It was a nice way to start our morning, and a great breakfast after my run.