Shakespearean?

I recently got around to renting The Departed , Martin Scorsese's oscar-winning film, and was impressed. Many go out of their way to put down this movie just because of the violence or the use of the 'f word'. Both seem to fit in the culture that is displayed here. Jack Nicholson's character (forgive me - I have a terrible memory for the character names, so I'll use actor names) says something to the boy he's training to be an insider (cop) for him, something like: "You can be a cop or a criminal. Is there any difference?" That's the main idea of the entire movie there. Is there really any difference? I was struck by the tragic ending and couldn't help but think of how the continual battle, the struggle to be insiders (Matt Damon vs. Leo DiCaprio) seemed to be so like a Shakespeare tragedy. I don't know how else to describe it except to say I felt the same way after seeing any of Shakespeare's plays, such as a Hamlet or, perhaps this movie better reflects: Macbeth. Some of the reviews talk about how long the movie was, but, I must admit, I was so caught up in the story of how Matt Damon was leaking info to Jack Nicholson while Leo DiCaprio was an undercover cop leaking info to the police from inside Jack's own organization - that I was surprised by the abruptness of the ending. However, in reading some reviews for Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, I recognized the kind of violence: realistic. In reality, people live their lives, can be quite happy and BANG! violence intrudes brutally on their reality, shattering the moment. This is a movie to meditate on and think about. This is real film making at its best!

Best Burger in Abbotsford

The thing is burgers are a matter of taste. If you're really into lots of goop and sauces on your burger or you like a good, meaty patty. Now the tricky part of being an American in Canada is that Canadians have an intense love-affair with mayonnaise. This is probably a youtube clip somewhere, but in the movie The Whole Nine Yards, Bruce Willis has this great scene in a Montreal restaurant ordering a burger. He goes to extreme lengths to describe that he does NOT want mayo on the burger. He threatens, etc. Then the burger comes back later with mayo.

Another movie, the classic A vs C movie, Canadian Bacon (by Michael Moore - who would do well to think about making more funny movies like this to make his point rather than ridiculous ones like Farenheit 9/11). In CB, there is a scene of a news anchor describing the results of a Canadian takeover and one of his points is 'there would be mayo on everything'. My father-in-law likes to put mayo on his hot dogs. Can you handle that, Americans????

Now back to the best burger, which is what this is supposed to be about. What does that ridiculous newspaper vote as best burger every flippin' year? White Spot!!! Now these are good burgers. If you like tons of mayo that you MIGHT be able to convince them to leave off. I gotta admit, if you ask for no mayo, it's about a 50-50 chance it will come WITH mayo. So the goop lovers rejoice at White Spot, but the meat lovers, like yours truly, go good, but not BEST!

What's best? In terms of a good, satisfying burger with lots of styles of burgers to choose from. Not just goopy, but blue cheese, Hawaiian, avocado, etc. or a fantastic cheeseburger, then the hands down winner is Red Robin's!!! They are by far the best here in Abbotsford. So go down to South Fraser Way and order yourself a Blue Ribbon Burger!

Shopaholic!

I gotta stop, but it's sooooo much fun! I've 'discovered' both ebay and amazon to have such great deals on DVD's that I can't stop. It's amazing how overpriced things are now in Canada with the Canadian dollar stronger. I think it was Ruth that said that it seems that Canadian retailers are so used to marking things up, that they are still doing it, even though they shouldn't really need to.

I'm really spending most of my time looking for good deals on the sets of the Star Trek TV series. They're still all over 100 dollars for each season here. Then, over Christmas break, I was in a Wal-Mart in Bellingham, Washington and I saw the first season of Star Trek: The Original series sitting there for only $54! Well, I've waited long enough for the prices to go down and I bought it. I then began looking on e-bay and amazon (NOT Amazon.ca - the prices are still too high!!). I have a PO box in the US, so I have everything sent there. Another annoying thing about Canada is that the postage is so high, it's never worth buying things via mail here. I used to belong to book clubs, but I discovered that it can cost around $10 to mail just one book! I don't think that Canada post believes in 'book rate'. I even talked to a guy at a used book store around here and he says that it's cheaper for him to go to Washington state to mail his book orders TO CANADA! Canada Post is gotta be the biggest scam....grumble, rumble.