February 28, 2011
Too many times for comfort I have expected to reap good when I know I have sown evil. ~ Maya Angelou (from "Wouldn't Take Nothing For My Journey Now")
February 27, 2010
People will wrangle for religion, write for it, fight for it, die for it; anything but live for it. ~ Charles Caleb Colton
February 26, 2010
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people are so full of doubts. ~ Bertrand Russell
February 21, 2011
Only two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. ~ Albert Einstein
February 20, 2011
I believe there is a god, but I don't believe that to truly believe you must sit with other believers one day a week for two hours. If God is god then I'm sure he/she will not mind if I choose to believe in him/her in my own way. ~ Rudiger Rapin
February 17, 2011
Give me the strength to change the things I can, the grace to accept the things I cannot, and a big bag of money. ~ Unknown
February 15, 2010
No man or woman born coward or brave can shun his destiny. ~ Homer (from "The Iliad")
February 14, 2011
I just want a woman who can sit me down, shut me up, tell me ten things I don't already know, and make me laugh. And if you can do that, I will follow you on bloody stumps through the snow. I will do your windows. I will care about your feelings. Just have something there. ~ Henry Rollins
February 13, 2011
A clarification of Christianity: Thou shall not kill, except in the name of God, Jesus Christ, or the Holy Ghost. ~ Xavier Cross
February 12, 2011
Having a horrible start to your sex life was a great advantage to a girl. It meant that your expectations were low and the temptations were fewer. -- from "Ladies Night At Finbar's Hotel"
February 10, 2010
You might have to suspend some of your own programming in order to get to know something besides yourself. This is being open. This is what real education teaches. But this hardly suggests that you need to "believe" something in order to understand it. Such "belief" is not really belief. It's more like practicing something to see if it works. ~ Joe Baxter
February 08, 2010
Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the Earth with your eyes turned skyward. For it is there that you have been and it is there that you will always long to be. ~ Leonardo da Vinci
February 07, 2010
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. ~ H. L. Mencken
February 06, 2011
Are you under the delusion that life and history are about justice and that societies, through some divine intercession, pay for their past atrocities? Throughout human history, no "divine" agency has ever interfered with the infliction of suffering by one culture onto another... not once. Good never triumphs over evil, it exists in spite of it. ~ Jack Kilmon
February 05, 2011
Dear Gossips,
We are in Whistler with our families and many of our friends. It’s Day 99 of the 2010 Torch Relay and I will be running the Olympic Torch tonight at 6:40pm in Whistler Village, the Host Mountain Resort of the 2010 Winter Olympics. Someone said to me the other day – there’s only ONE flame. I will be carrying That Flame. And it’s the flame that will eventually light the Olympic Cauldron in one week, February 12th, to commemorate the beginning of the Games. Canada’s Games.
Still don’t really believe it. They told me last Fall and I haven’t wanted to share it because I’m so superstitious, I thought I might jinx it. Then the package arrived from Coca-Cola in December with the Torch Relay uniform – pants and jacket and toque and the red mittens – and a comprehensive guide and little flags for my cheering section, a plastic sign for them to hold up, a night light in the shape of a Coke bottle, a marker, and a confirmation letter about my location... this is when it became real. As for the torch, it isn’t presented to you until just before you run. Afterward you can take it home.
Today I’ll be meeting with other runners, we’ll attend a briefing, then we’ll climb onto a bus, and rally each other as we get dropped off one by one at our stop points. The torch route is marked according to each runner’s segment. Every runner is assigned a number. So our loved ones will look for those numbers and wait for us to pass by.
My father will be waiting for me at the start point. He moved here from Hong Kong, the 6th of 10 children from meagre beginnings, raised on a farm even though they were not a farming family, so poor they had to share turnips for dinner some nights with no light. Dad is a quiet, introverted person. He doesn’t say much. He wasn’t much when he arrived here: barely educated, no money, and not much motivation for more until I came along, at which point he worked 2 jobs, put himself through night school, and somehow finished high school equivalency before continuing on and completing an accounting degree.
My mother will be waiting for me at the end point. She recently learned how to use her camera by nagging a service person at an electronics store for 2 hours. She’ll be asking everyone around her to take pictures of her. Because this is her moment. Mother has been broken by betrayal, a bad kidney, saved by a transplant, and is currently battling some kind of thyroid issue. I try not to worry. Because Mother is the Chinese Squawking Chicken. She will smack a bitch before the bitch even knows. But she became that by circumstance and she fought hard for 30 years to make sure that circumstance never defined me.
Their story is no more, no less than most Canadian immigrant stories. And those stories are no more and no less than the ones belonging to the 12,000 other torchbearers on the relay. We’re all doing it for more than just ourselves. I’m doing it for two people who had nothing, who busted their asses to make sure that I did not end up with nothing, who will watch me running with the torch tonight and proudly declare, as they have declared every day of my life, that I am the best thing they ever did.
And they did it here, in CANADA.
Please forgive my corny. It’s been an emotional few days. My mother hasn’t yelled at me once, and she keeps giving out hugs. She has us a little freaked out. I feel very sorry for the innocent bystanders who have to be near her later tonight.
As you imagine, it’s an extraordinary day for our family. So I will not be blogging after Tingles. A thousand apologies for the inconvenience and so much appreciation for your understanding. Will be back strong and smutty on Monday...
Yours in gossip and in Olympic spirit,
Lainey
~ Elaine Lui, celebrity blogger
We are in Whistler with our families and many of our friends. It’s Day 99 of the 2010 Torch Relay and I will be running the Olympic Torch tonight at 6:40pm in Whistler Village, the Host Mountain Resort of the 2010 Winter Olympics. Someone said to me the other day – there’s only ONE flame. I will be carrying That Flame. And it’s the flame that will eventually light the Olympic Cauldron in one week, February 12th, to commemorate the beginning of the Games. Canada’s Games.
Still don’t really believe it. They told me last Fall and I haven’t wanted to share it because I’m so superstitious, I thought I might jinx it. Then the package arrived from Coca-Cola in December with the Torch Relay uniform – pants and jacket and toque and the red mittens – and a comprehensive guide and little flags for my cheering section, a plastic sign for them to hold up, a night light in the shape of a Coke bottle, a marker, and a confirmation letter about my location... this is when it became real. As for the torch, it isn’t presented to you until just before you run. Afterward you can take it home.
Today I’ll be meeting with other runners, we’ll attend a briefing, then we’ll climb onto a bus, and rally each other as we get dropped off one by one at our stop points. The torch route is marked according to each runner’s segment. Every runner is assigned a number. So our loved ones will look for those numbers and wait for us to pass by.
My father will be waiting for me at the start point. He moved here from Hong Kong, the 6th of 10 children from meagre beginnings, raised on a farm even though they were not a farming family, so poor they had to share turnips for dinner some nights with no light. Dad is a quiet, introverted person. He doesn’t say much. He wasn’t much when he arrived here: barely educated, no money, and not much motivation for more until I came along, at which point he worked 2 jobs, put himself through night school, and somehow finished high school equivalency before continuing on and completing an accounting degree.
My mother will be waiting for me at the end point. She recently learned how to use her camera by nagging a service person at an electronics store for 2 hours. She’ll be asking everyone around her to take pictures of her. Because this is her moment. Mother has been broken by betrayal, a bad kidney, saved by a transplant, and is currently battling some kind of thyroid issue. I try not to worry. Because Mother is the Chinese Squawking Chicken. She will smack a bitch before the bitch even knows. But she became that by circumstance and she fought hard for 30 years to make sure that circumstance never defined me.
Their story is no more, no less than most Canadian immigrant stories. And those stories are no more and no less than the ones belonging to the 12,000 other torchbearers on the relay. We’re all doing it for more than just ourselves. I’m doing it for two people who had nothing, who busted their asses to make sure that I did not end up with nothing, who will watch me running with the torch tonight and proudly declare, as they have declared every day of my life, that I am the best thing they ever did.
And they did it here, in CANADA.
Please forgive my corny. It’s been an emotional few days. My mother hasn’t yelled at me once, and she keeps giving out hugs. She has us a little freaked out. I feel very sorry for the innocent bystanders who have to be near her later tonight.
As you imagine, it’s an extraordinary day for our family. So I will not be blogging after Tingles. A thousand apologies for the inconvenience and so much appreciation for your understanding. Will be back strong and smutty on Monday...
Yours in gossip and in Olympic spirit,
Lainey
~ Elaine Lui, celebrity blogger
February 04, 2010
So you can make me come
That doesn't make you Jesus
~Tori Amos (from "Precious Things")
That doesn't make you Jesus
~Tori Amos (from "Precious Things")
February 02, 2010
You must be prepared to accept that the foundation for all that you believe is not only possibly wrong, but probably wrong. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
February 01, 2011
Tell a man there are 300 billion stars in the universe and he'll believe you. Tell him a bench has wet paint on it and he'll have to touch it to be sure. ~ Unknown
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