Woop! Less than 3 weeks away from this year’s opera production…and this year I’m actually in it…cover your ears now. I play Guccio, the dyer (who is, yes, usually a man, but hey gender bending is required in desperate times) and have approximately 5 (very short) lines.

This is an Opera Klass production, meaning that the entire cast (except me…i just do the website and flyers and stuff) is composed of students from Heidi Klassen’s voice studio. And they’re all effing BRILLIANT singers. They pay tuition to cover production costs and to develop their roles with Heidi over the course of several months…and the results are pretty darn good. If you’ve never been exposed to a wall of sound coming from a full cast of operatic singers, you’ve got to come see this show.

Tickets online (paypal) at http://theoperaproject.org or at the door (cash only).

Poor cow.

I feel slightly sickly every time I cook meat.
So I’ve been cooking meat less and less.

I really don’t feel bad for tofu, but I do feel bad for animals, especially because of the conditions in which they are often raised.

I wonder what they think about while they are alive
I wonder what sort of hopes and dreams they have for their children

So my totally morbid thought of the day is this:

If in the future there exists a species higher on the food chain than humans, I hope that it will grow us in free range, organic circumstances, and in the end, find us very tasty and satisfying, cooking us in a multitude of different ways, before eventually going through this existential crisis on the whole whether or not to eat meat thing because it’s cruel and inhumane.

Vampires excepted.
There will be no talk of twilight silliness on this blog.

I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough
Others may stumble but not you,
On hiccough, thorough, laugh and through.
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps?

Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird,
And dead: it’s said like bed, not bead –
For goodness’ sake don’t call it ‘deed’!
Watch out for meat and great and threat
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt.)

A moth is not a moth in mother
Nor both in bother, broth in brother,
And here is not a match for there
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,
And then there’s dose and rose and lose –
Just look them up — and goose and choose,
And cork and work and card and ward,
And font and front and word and sword,
And do and go and thwart and cart –
Come, come, I’ve hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Man alive!
I’d mastered it when I was five!

The idea was to make a content-based video on the topic of food that could be easily incorporated into an ESL lesson. Each of the members in our group then has to create a mock ESL lesson plan incorporating this CALL technology for the second part of this assignment.
 

There are a few simple lessons that this video could be used for:

1. Introducing imperative verb forms
2. Food vocabulary
3. Food preparation verbs
4. Reviewing numbers (eg. “Step Six: Dice The Onion”)

Total runtime: ~4 minutes.

Feel free to use this video as part of your own ESL lesson planning.
“Lettuce” know if you find it useful!

Thanks to Lauren and Andrea for being really great to work with for this project.

March 30, 2012 | Lauren & Andrea, "Let's Make A Salad" Video for LING 480 @ SFU

I’m tired of them ripping people off.

I and 50 other commenters on this forum had Qualico NO-SHOW to our appointments without warning, and for those who got an apology and a “credit”, a no-show to their re-booked appointment:
http://getbestdeal.org/2011/12/23/canada/edmonton/qualico-cleaning-service-scam-or-not-scam/

I originally blogged about my experience in passing on January 20, 2012:
http://beverlywu.com/2012/01/20/what-i-have-been-thinking-about-lately/

• I don’t believe that they EVER had any intention of showing up to clean my house.
• I don’t believe that they have turned their business around, doing over 1000 cleans since last summer as Groupon claims (see below).
• Because It sucks that I booked with them in January 2012 and NOBODY SHOWED UP (I waited over an hour), NOBODY EVER answered my email (anxiously waiting at home concerned the cleaners had gotten into some massive car wreck or something), their phone number is an out of town voicemail box that was FULL (no surprise there).

What’s the game, then? You just want all my address and personal information? Money?
Are these deal sites happy to keep their cut of these phony deals their unwitting customers bought but are lazy to redeem or too shy to complain about?

I bought my voucher from LivingSocial Vancouver, but similar deals have now been offered on DealFind, LivingDeal, TeamBuy, and Groupon.
The deal I bought: http://www.livingsocial.com/cities/57/deals/202092-four-hours-of-house-cleaning

I tried to post a message on the Groupon Q&A “about this deal” section yesterday (March 28, 2012). My message DID NOT GET POSTED on the site. Here’s Groupon’s reply via email:

March 2012 | Qualico Cleaning Services Scam Groupon

Mark Luciak’s Email is mluciak1@telus.net, eh? Readers, fire off those emails!

March 2012 | Qualico Cleaning Services Scam Groupon

“over 1000 cleaning since last summer”? None of those 10 crews showed up to my house on January 17, 2012, that’s for sure.

March 2012 | Qualico Cleaning Services Scam Groupon

The rest of the Groupon Q&A for this deal in Vancouver is at
http://www.groupon.com/deals/qualico-cleaning-services-3/discussion?campaign_id=qualico-cleaning-services

Qualico even sent me an appointment reminder email the day before my scheduled appointment.

Though LivingSocial issued a refund, they have lost my business, permanently. Why? for not properly vetting this business before offering a deal on it.

I thought Groupon was better than this. It appears not. They have now lost any of my future business as well, until the reviews of this Groupon come in saying extremely positive things about the service from this thus far SCAM company.

I dare somebody to prove me wrong, that legitimate people actually showed up to your house to clean it, not rob it (hopefully not literally and just invisibly, through the middlemen of the internets known as deal sites!)

Go on, readers, trash the comments section with your stories proving otherwise.

I will add your positive notes to my completely negative retelling of my experience in the body of this post.

I have not had a good experience, and am EXTREMELY ANGRY they have the nerve to go out and and do it again to a brand new set of Vancouverites.

The SHEER NUMBER of people with no-show experiences with this “company” are staggering.

Employees don’t get into emergency situations every other day, and if they do, I expect you to at least contact me, your client, within a reasonable amount of time (so far, 3 months and counting), by phone or email if something happens.

Their “$200 guarantee” is as absolutely and utterly worthless as the paper it’s not printed on.

STAY AWAY.
They’re asshats and they’re trying to turn you into one too.

XOXO

(p.s. anyone think this is possibly related to Javan King, of Qualico Capital (investments)? Vancouver area scam artist…time for another google! Anyway, he/they all know where I live now anyway, so if this website disappears and I turn up dead next week you know why)

March 23: There’s this picnic-appropriate patch of grass at SFU by the Robert C Brown Hall that I walk past almost every day. Last week was all sorts of weird adolescent can’t-decide-if-i-want-to-be-winter-or-spring growing pains, with all sorts of snow and rain and such, but then there was this one sunny warm day on March 23th, and suddenly, said patch of grass was covered in daisies.

March 24, 2012 | And suddenly, the field exploded with daisies, overnight.

March 24: Went to go see The Hunger Games at The Dolphin Cinemas with some friends on Saturday night. Yes. Saturday night and tickets were only $6.95 including tax. So to reward them for their reasonable prices, I bought the biggest popcorn I could (the profit margin on popcorn is very good). First time ever going to The Dolphin. I like it. It’s one of those older style theatres with only 2 screens, and a shallow incline (not stadium seating) with the screen up high. Like being a kid again, getting all excited for a movie, going out with a bunch of girlfriends, getting popcorn (I’m so stingy…when I pay $15 for a ticket at Cineplex/Silvercity there’s no way I’m overpaying for junk food). Note to go back on a Tuesday for “Toonie Tuesday” when movies are $2! I really hope they can make enough money to stay in business for a good long while.

March 24, 2012 | The Hunger Games @ The Dolphin Cinemas, Burnaby

And here we are in our Katniss Everdeen bow and arrow poses (yes, we are first in line, not so much for geeky reasons but because we just happened to go for dinner beforehand and were super early getting back to the theatre)

March 24, 2012 | The Hunger Games @ The Dolphin Cinemas, Burnaby

March 25: Trekked out to Cap’s Westwood Cycle in PoCo to pick up a pair of Skins brand spandex shorts. Loved their sign. Brilliant sunny day for it, seeing as March 26th turned rainy again.

March 25, 2012 | Cap's Westwood Cycle, Port Coquitlam

Then drove out to Surrey to watch Steve’s football practice. Here’s a 3 second accidental video of an uber-patriotic car driving over the Port Mann Bridge:

March 20, 2012 | Why Am I So Hungry Today?

I have this class on Tuesdays that goes from 11:30-2:30. About an hour into class I start fading fast, and my concentration diminishes. And I start drawing.

And the answer to “Can you pass the salt?” is funnily neither “yes” nor “no”. It’s physically picking up the salt shaker and handing it to someone.

March 20, 2012 | Can You Pass The Salt?

Speaking of hunger, look what I got in the mail today from Cafepress:

March 20, 2012 | The Hunger Games Panem District 5 Identification Card

Fun. I’m now on the grid, very much so. That’s more information than my doctor has. That photo of me on the card is from 2008. I haven’t really aged much in 4 years, have I?! Going to see the movie Saturday night with a bunch of friends. Not sure why people are comparing The Hunger Games to Twilight…well, yeah I can see why but DUDES hello Katniss Everdeen is a kick ass awesome survivor whereas that Bella Twilighty poor exemplar of a human female needs to stop swooning and blinking and generally being a doormat damsel in distress.

Ahem. Anyway.

March 19, 2012 | Last Day of Winter

It snowed today. Then it melted. Heather finally hit full bloom today @ SFU.

iPhone photo edited w/ Camera+ app.

March 18, 2012 | Big Sky over Vancouver

It appears that something tumultuous is going on there, weather-wise, in Vancouver.

Panorama taken with Photosynth for iPhone, edited in Photoshop on my Mac. Photosynth seems to only save low quality versions of files, which is disappointing. I think it would be fun to take a bunch of panorama photos from your neighbours’ balconies, and giclee them to canvas for the living room walls that aren’t windows. Voila! Instant awesome.

*EDIT*: March 19th – I think I may have found something better. Autostitch app for iPhone gives better resolution (check it out if you’ve got one of those godly big monitors like mine…much better than the dinky Photosynth business above!). Here is another version where 3 pictures were taken using the normal iPhone camera (could’ve gotten wider angle but wasn’t thinking of it at the time) then stitched using Autostitch, then edited on-phone for colour using the sunset setting and thick black border using the Camera+ app. You can use the Autostitch app to take pictures too but I didn’t have that app last night, now did I?

March 18, 2012 | Big Sky over Vancouver | Autostitch for iPhone & Camera+

You probably don’t need to be told, but click on the thumbnail to load full size for full effect.

I like it.

My apartment gets awesome sunsets…many more big sky photos to come this year!