Thanks for the good times, folks.

Blondie says there’s 24 hour shopping in rapture. I’m in.

I consider this a weather-induced stroke of luck because damn did I get some good sh*t from Value Village. It’s one of those places that is not for the impatient or the non-creative. I am only sometimes those things.

Usually when I go to VV Boutique, I come with a game plan but can never find what I’m looking for. This time around, (I swear it’s the Spaghetti Monster) I hit the nail on the head. My top summer item is maxi-anything (maxi dress, skirt, pad…no, not that). VV was to deliver me maxi skirts and did it ever do me right.

3 skirts, 1 blazer, $40.

Damn.

Want to see them?

No?

Too bad.

$9.99

$6.99

$6.99

$14.99

Why can’t North America be this kooky?

Moldova’s entry into the Eurovision contest was robbed of 1st place. Sadly they were bumped down to 12th. Seriously, robbed.

"oopsies!" - John Cummins

Background: Soon to be leader of the B.C. Conservative party, John Cummins, in an interview with a radio station said that homosexuality is a choice and the provincial Human Rights act should not expand to include / protect based on sexual orientation. And then – he backtracked and said everyone is has the right to live how they want and EVERYONE is protected under the HRA so why expand it further?

Shocking, I know. Always a conservative pundit making an ignorant comment, usually about homosexuals followed by the realization that a big chunk of Canadians (read: potential Conservative voters) don’t buy into the no-homo approach to politics so they issue a half ass statement regretting a word or two but keeping the overall sentiment of their initial message.

“I don’t really know if it’s a choice or not, actually. Maybe we should leave it to the experts.” Copy and paste that into any “That’s not what I meant” speech by any politician (celebrity, public figure etc…). Because of this, I know this is a ‘tell me something I didn’t know’ kind of news item, but it doesn’t make it any less frustrating to hear about on the basis of the following:

- Every word uttered before, during, and after the remark was made was most likely intentional and purposefully insincere. Vague, fuzzy language keeps the Right adequately happy, while trying to avoid pissing the Left off too much.

- People are still saying ignorant things about homosexuals citing tradition and lack of empirical evidence, causing severe eye-rolling and a lot of “really? again?”s.

But despite the unenlightenment of some, situations such as this highlight the power of public opinion and pressure. Look how protest to the words Cummins initially used pulled him closer to the Centre and farther from his party’s beliefs and perhaps his personal beliefs.

And this aint just a CPC thang. Check this adorable PSA out:

That’s hockey pro Sean Avery. Those who know me are WELL aware of my opinions on what I call ‘hypermasculine sport’ (football, hockey, ultimate fighting and so on…).  Heck, even if you don’t, it was the topic of one of my first blog posts on Romi Says. What I find when challenging the notions of heterosexual masculinity in sport, is a lot of people defending their heterosexuality in relation to the sport.

Case and point: After Avery was featured publicly supporting gay marriage, there was an outcry from the professional hockey community and from sports journalists criticizing him for his views. How dare a participant in the manliest, most heterosexual sport on the planet support GAY MARRIAGE?

One sportscaster spat this gem out:

UGHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

this too happened:

But that comment didn’t fly as well as Goddard thought it would. In fact, Toronto’s Sportsnet decided to give him the boot (but cited other factors in addition to the tweet that lead to his dismissal).

And why should these comments fly? It’s 2011, people.

Cummins, Goddard – different people, same dangerous message. I say keep the public pressure on, and figures of influence using their, well, influence because when this stops happening, we lose big time and so do our gay best friends, family, coworkers, neighbors and children.

I’ll leave you with wise words from Sir Charles Barkley:

So after months of limiting my internet persona to the Twitterverse I’ve decided to get back into the blogosphere (I will never use either of those words ever again. Ever) because to be honest, I kind of miss it.

I want to keep this post short and sweet. A quick hello. A plea for you to love me again. And as a gift I give you this:

And by gift I mean it was in my head, and now it’s in yours.

Later, punks

There is, however, one thing that has gone on to trump all other holiday goodness: A cupcake-making competition. The Ironcupcake, that is.

Like the Iron Chef competitions, there is a secret ingredient all contestants must include in their cupcake recipes. And the ingredient is…..drum roll please……  Christmas. Shocker. It seems like a cop out as far as ingredients go to do something more conceptual, but I’ll have my resurrected candycane cupcake and eat it too. You betcha I’ll be there.

Dec. 5, who’s in?

click image for link to video

Considering I have the attention span of a squirrel, only shiny things and flashing lights keep me interested in something for more than five seconds. Thankfully, this vid by filmmaking duo Stellar Citizens [Alex Ordanis + Chris Yurkovich], has enough colours and lights to hook me in for over two minutes.

My usual low standards of entertainment value need not apply here. The video is genuinely well done, well shot, and gives me this weird urge to fist pump.

The vid features live footage from French DJ/producer (and on his website, a self proclaimed p.i.m.p) Brodinski’s set at the Mod Club.

It’s on Vimeo which can’t be embedded into WordPress (booooo) sooo to watch it, click here (or on the image).

Happy Movember, everyone!

I secretly (not so secret anymore?) have a thing for ‘staches. And for a good cause? Nothing can go wrong. Absolutely nothing.

Okay, maybe this…

Oh Chad….

Donate or register alone or with a team at movember.com.

It seems as though there are a lot of fence-sitters, people who aren’t planning on voting, or haven’t decided yet who is worthy of their endorsement.

Most people are having trouble picking between candidates they don’t completely believe in, but publications are urging them to vote regardless, citing the direct effect of voting towards electing an appropriate, representative leader.

I recently reported for Humber TV news on the pre-elections atmosphere on campus, and I was disappointed to find scores of students who weren’t planning on voting. Not one student out of the dozen we talked to was heading to the polls today.

I want to echo the sentiment communicated by the media, and encourage everyone in the GTA to vote in their respective elections. Find something you believe in and the candidate that speaks closest to those values and stick with it.

Good luck at the polls.

If you want to see my report, watch below. It’s the first story in the newscast.

Happy voting!