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Word Wednesday – An old word that has new life in the Internet Age

Word Wednesday – An old word that has new life in the Internet Age

It’s been an interesting week here. Had an amazing time out with friends Friday, went up to the cottage on Saturday, and returned Tuesday. Oh… and last Wednesday I watched the ESPYs (ESPN Awards) to see Caitlyn Jenner get the Arthur Ashe Courage Award and unwittingly stepped on an internet landmine when I tweeted that I thought she looked great and that I thought she deserved the award. A few people took umbrage at my choice of pronoun and decided to tell me all about how it is a crime against nature and / or God – both privately via DM or in a Twitter conversation. I disagree wholeheartedly, and think that views like that are exactly why she deserved the Arthur Ashe Courage Award. Bruce Jenner could have easily faded into obscurity, becoming a footnote in Olympic history, but chose to make the metamorphosis into Caitlyn Jenner public. She knew there would be backlash, and a lot of it, yet chose to do it anyway. To me, that is what courage is all about. She is using her celebrity to raise awareness and I applaud her for that. As she said last Wednesday night, “If you want to call me names, make jokes, doubt my intentions, go ahead, because the reality is, I can take it, but for the thousands of kids out there coming to terms with who they really are, they shouldn’t have to take it”.

Caitlyn Jenner at the mic at the ESPYs

It seems like some people on the Internet took the first part of that sentence as a challenge. I broke the first rule of the internet last Thursday when I read comments about the award. Wow. Huge mistake on my part. I was simultaneously flabbergasted and disgusted with many commentators. Comments ranged from “Jenner is an ‘it’ not a ‘she’”, to “Bruce Jenner was the one who won the medals, Caitlyn Jenner is a nobody”, and even to “if you say you were born as a woman in a man’s body, you are accusing your Creator of making a mistake. Only depravity and ignorance can bring someone to THAT conclusion!”. I understand that there are people who don’t agree with Ms. Jenner’s choices – the good news is, nobody is forcing them to become transgender. Nobody forced any of these commentators to watch Caitlyn Jenner get the award. I’m fairly certain it wasn’t a surprise to anyone that she was getting the award, so if they were that bothered by her choice, then why watch it in the first place? There were some commentators bashing their heads against brick walls and trying to refute the worst of the comments, but they were very much outnumbered by people who make the case for bringing back this week’s Word Wednesday word: Anonymuncule.

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This word was coined in the 19th century, but I think it should be revisited and brought back into common usage today. The word means: An Insignificant, Anonymous Writer. It’s a compound word, made up of anonymoyus – not identified by name, and homunculus – little man (used in the maturity context instead of the physical one in this case). I think it’s a great word for the Internet age – who amongst us has not encountered anonymuncules online? People who hide behind the anonymity the world wide web gives them and pass judgement. Yes, we could call them a troll but I’m not sure that’s fair to trolls. The classic Internet definition of troll (as in not the ugly creature living under a bridge) courtesy of dictionary.com is “to post inflammatory or inappropriate messages or comments on the Internet, especially a message board, for the purpose of upsetting other users and provoking a response”. So to me, there is a difference between an anonymuncule and a troll in that the latter is deliberately being provocative while the former may not be trying to start a fight, but just stating an uninformed view. I think I’m going to start using anonymuncule whenever I need a good word for someone on the internet.

Anonymuncule: (anon·y·mun·cule) Noun

an insignificant anonymous writer

I’m going to put in a usage, lest you think I made up this word…

Who, after all, that I should write of him, is this scribbling anonymuncule in grand old Massachusetts who scrawls and screams so glibly about what he cannot understand? ~ From Miscellanies by Oscar Wilde.

So I guess, maybe, that sometimes breaking the first rule of the Internet (Don’t read the comments), isn’t the worst thing ever – not when you get to learn a fun word like anonymuncule.

July 22, 2015
Word Wednesday – VI

Word Wednesday – VI

Well, I had to turn to the internet to help find a word for this week. I still have my list but none of them felt right today. Sometimes that’s just the way words work, at least for me. So I went on a word hunt to remind me of neat words I liked that I don’t see used very often. I was reading a thread on Reddit about words to use when playing Scrabble – particularly when you have a lot of vowels in hand. That’s when the idea came to me.

It’s not a word I’ve ever played in Scrabble but it is a word I’ve loved because it’s the shortest word possible with ALL the vowels (a,e,i,o,u,y) in alphabetical order. There are other words with the 5 main vowels in order – but I wanted to include the often neglected y in my word. As a note, the shortest word that contains all of the vowels in alphabetical order (excluding y) is aerious which means “airy”. There are other words that contain the 5 vowels in alphabetical order but I’ll let you find them for yourself. It behooves me right now to stop with the Perendination (yeah, I couldn’t resist that set up) and get down to brass tacks to reveal today’s word without further ado.

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Today’s word is facetiously, meaning “lacking serious intent” or “concerning something non essential” and “not meant to be taken seriously or literally”. As in “the man facetiously said that he was the Queen of England”. In recent years, the word has taken on a tone that deviates a little from this definition – one of deliberately inappropriate humour about a subject. Take this e-card from someecards as an example:

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It’s a fun word to have in your back pocket and I’m sure one day it will come in handy when I’m playing Scrabble. I’m back to the Latin origins with this one, though it’s via French. It’s one of my favourite Latin roots too – Facetus – an adjective meaning witty, elegant, fine, or courteous. From Facetus we jump to the noun facetia meaning jest, witticism, or humourous remark. That’s it for the Latin, but French gave us facétieux meaning “a joke”. From there it wasn’t a huge jump for the English to coin facetiously in the late 1500s. (What can I say? I have a thing for old words)

Facetiously: (fuh–see-shuh s ly) Adverb

i) Meant to be humourous or funny – not meant to be taken seriously

ii) In a manner that threats serious issues with deliberately inappropriate humour.

So the next time you feel like being deliberately silly on a serious issue, go ahead – you’ll be treating it facetiously! (Of course there are some issues that shouldn’t be treated facetiously, but I trust you will know where to draw the line.

July 15, 2015
How to ruin a friendship in one easy step – look in their fridge!
How to ruin a friendship in one easy step – look in their fridge!

Forget snooping in the medicine cabinet (where you shouldn’t actually ever keep medicine anyway because the humidity in a bathroom is bad for storage conditions), if you want to get to know someone, check out what they store in their fridge. One of the hardest things about moving in with another person, be it a friend or a significant other, is figuring out when to protest or give in on their strange food storage habits. Does he put peanut butter in the fridge while she prefers it in the pantry? Uh oh. That could spell trouble. Many of our food storage habits are learned from our parents, so when they are challenged, we tend to get defensive about our choices.

If your fridge looks this nice, kudos to you.

Some foods are fine whether you leave them in the fridge or put them in the pantry, but others are just not meant to be out of their preferred environment. I have a friend, who shall remain nameless (and I’m pretty sure she doesn’t read my blog anyway), who claims that ketchup MUST be stored in the fridge. For her, there is no wiggle room. “It says refrigerate after opening on the bottle” she insists. I’ve never been a fan of cold ketchup on hot food, so I’m firmly in the storing ketchup in the pantry camp. Pointing out to her that diners across the country have ketchup on tables are aren’t likely to be putting every bottle in the fridge overnight has done little to persuade her that it’s safe to leave ketchup in a cool, dark, pantry cupboard. I’m as unlikely to change her mind as she is to change mine. The US FDA does agree with me – so long as it’s consumed within a month and is in a squeeze bottle instead of a jar you’re sticking implements into, but they also say for longer shelf life, keep it in the fridge. Peanut butter is another area of contention. Not the really good organic stuff – things with no preservatives need to be refrigerated, but the guilty pleasure peanut butter – the one loaded with sugar and fat and salt and all the not so good for you stuff. That stuff, I’m told by people who know this kind of info, doesn’t need to go in the fridge. Of course, All of this is assuming you consume it in a relatively timely fashion. I don’t want to think about 2 year old peanut butter sitting in a cupboard somewhere. Use that stuff in mousetraps. My friend and I continue to be friends because we have stopped looking in each other’s fridges (although I admit that the temptation to move the ketchup out of her fridge when I’m at her place is hard to resist), but there have been some seriously heated arguments on the issue of fridge space and what *needs* to be refrigerated vs what doesn’t.

I was curious as to what foods need to be refrigerated for food safety reasons and which ones just say “refrigerate after opening” but don’t really mean it, so I went looking around the internet, to figure out which foods are taking up space in my fridge that don’t need to be there. This is my list so far:
- Non Organic Peanut Butter (as long as you eat it within a couple of months, you’re fine)
- Ketchup (the high vinegar and salt content make it unlikely to spoil as long as it’s not sitting there for months on end)
- Mustard (vinegar acts as a preservative so it doesn’t need to be refrigerated if it is used in a timely manner)
- Coffee (Putting coffee in the fridge is actually really bad for it -the US coffee association explains why here)
- Soy sauce (the high sodium content keeps it from going bad)
- Green Beans ( learned this the hard way – they can suffer cold damage and lose flavour in the fridge – cool dry spot is best)
- Tomatoes – they go mealy if you put them in the fridge (if you’ve cut one, it does need to go in the fridge)
- Pineapples, Kiwis, Mangoes (as a rule of thumb, if it grows in the tropics, it probably does best without refrigeration until it’s cut)
- Basil (I learned this the hard way too – it cringes and gets black spots when put in the fridge)
- Honey (putting it in the fridge won’t damage it but it will speed up the crystallization process, and it doesn’t need to be cold)
- Bread (store it either in a breadbox or, if you won’t use it all, freeze it. Putting it in the fridge makes it go hard)
- Potatoes (refrigeration converts the starch in potatoes to sugar which makes them taste weird)
- Uncut melons (this one is huge for me since melons are such space hogs – once you slice it though, you need to keep it in the fridge)
- Onions (these need a cool, dark place but shouldn’t be put in the fridge since they’ll go soft, but keep them away from potatoes too or they’ll go bad quickly)
- Bananas (though Anne of Food Retro says that keeping them in the fridge during fruit fly season is a good idea and that the outside will turn black but the inside will be fine)
Just say “NO” to putting tomatoes in the fridge.

For better tasting coffee, store it in an opaque container, away from direct sunlight. Don’t store it in the fridge!

I’m going to leave eggs off the list, though if they’re farm-fresh, ask the farmer how they store their eggs. Eggs bought in North American grocery stores should be refrigerated. I’m also wary of saying too much about butter – I have a butter bell dish from France and keep a small amount of butter (made from pasteurized milk) in it for easy spreading. I only keep enough for a couple of days out and store the rest in the fridge. I know some people who swear that all butter must be kept in the fridge at all times and others who put a whole pound of butter in a dish on the counter. I’m quite happily in the middle on this issue. I keep some out for convenience (because I hate spreading cold butter on bread and tearing it apart) in my Butter Bell but only as much as will be used in the near future.

Oh, and don’t store batteries in the fridge. I had a friend who swore that batteries needed to be stored in the fridge or they’d lose their charge. This isn’t true. Batteries don’t like being exposed to cold or hot temperatures as both extremes can damage their performance. Keep them in a drawer and note the expiration date on the package – the batteries should be fully charged until at least that date.

So, what about you? What’s the weirdest thing you’ve been told to keep in the refrigerator or have seen in a friend or loved one’s fridge?
July 10, 2015
Word Wednesday 5th edition

Word Wednesday 5th edition

Another Word Wednesday is upon us, and this time my problem is picking which word I want to do – I had 3 words lined up and then I read Alexander McCall Smith’s book The Sunday Philosophy Club and I picked up 5 or 6 new words whilst reading. I am always pleasantly surprised when a book in a new series not only gives me great entertainment but also challenges my vocabulary. I’ve put sticky notes in the book for when I come around to needing more fodder for this feature. I’m also going to review the book on here at some point because it wasn’t what I expected, and yet it was more than I expected.

Plus the book cover looks really cool.

The cover combines elements of the book

The best thing about a novel set in Edinburgh is that you can imagine the characters speaking in a lovely Scottish accent. In fact I haven’t stopped thinking in a Scottish accent since I finished the book. Today’s Word Wednesday word sounds really awesome with a Scottish accent. In fact I can hear the main character, Isabel Dalhousie saying the word. So without further perendination on my part, today’s word is behoove. It behooves met to note that it is appropriate that I picked a word that is Old English in its origins instead of Latin or Greek.

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Behoove comes from the Old English word behoof which means use, advantage, or benefit. Behoof is one of those wonderful Old English words that comes from stealing bits and pieces of other languages – in this case Dutch, Middle High German, and German. The origins are as follows: Dutch behoef, Middle High German bihuof “useful thing,” German Behuf “advantage, or benefit”. The first known use of the word was before the year 1200, so it’s definitely Old English. I find behoove a fun word to say in either a fake (and really bad) Scottish accent or in my regular un-accented voice. I should note, that the word rhymes with move or prove and not with rove or grove as is commonly thought. It makes me feel regal to use the word, “it behooves one to wave to the Queen when one is in London”. I’m going to try and insinuate behoove into my everyday conversations as often as possible.

Behoove (bih-hoov) Verb (transitive and intransitive)

i) (transitive) To be necessary, proper, or advantageous.

ii) (intransitive) To be necessary, fit, or proper.

July 8, 2015
Word Wednesday Part IV

Word Wednesday Part IV

So I’m feeling a bit of pressure here. I’m told that the fourth installment of a series should be the best. Many of my geeky friends argue that the fourth Star Wars (Episode IV: A New Hope, which was actually the first one released… so now I’m not sure if it fits my point) is the best one[Yes, I know, some of you beg to differ]. The fourth Harry Potter book (Goblet of Fire for those keeping track at home) was a change of pace from the first three, marking not only the era of longer books but also a darker tone to the series, and is definitely a favourite of mine. If something is going to continue on, the fourth installment needs to be great. Plus, having missed last week due to some website moving /hosting issues and a few life events, the fourth installment falls on Canada Day. Well let’s hope I hit it out of the ballpark with this week’s word.

I mentioned this word on my Facebook page last week and one of my friends, Laureen (who, incidentally, has a great blog over at Tempered With Kindness) was very much in support of me using this word for my Word Wednesday post. Even though it’s technically 2 years too early. On the other hand. it’s good to know about this nice and early-like so we can all be prepared when the event happens right? Yep. That’s what I’m going to go with. In 2017, Canada will be celebrating it’s sesquicentennial, meaning the country will be turning 150 years old; so today’s Word Wednesday is sesquicentennial.

The word just rolls off the tongue

Sesquicentennial – I love the way the word sounds. Six syllable words have a way of rolling off the tongue that makes them amongst my favourite words to say (see also the word amongst which, despite what WordPress seems to think, is a legitimate word). The ‘squ’ trigraph (a phoneme with 3 letters that make a single sound) is one of the word sounds I find really easy on the ears. So any word that has 6 syllables and the ‘squ’ trigraph is doubly awesome.

As a note, sesquicentennial is relatively young as a word – though the components are old. The word comes from combining the Latin words sesqui, which means one and a half times, and centennial, which comes from the the Latin word for 100 (centum). Putting them together we get sesquicentennial meaning the 150th anniversary of an event. According to the Mirriam-Webster dictionary, the first known use of sesquicentennial was in 1880 for the city of Baltimore’s 150th anniversary.

Canada’s sesquicentennial celebration is going to be awesome, with lots of events already being planned. I remember the celebrations for the 125th anniversary of the creation of Canada, and the sesquicentennial celebrations promise to be bigger. Maybe not as big as the centennial in 1967, because there’s no Expo ’67 like event going on and I’m not sure if the provinces are going to create ear-worm like songs (Ontari-ari- ario anyone?) for the sesquicentennial but it’s going to be a great party.

Sesquicentennial (ses-kwi-sen-ten-ee-uh l) Noun – A 150th anniversary or its celebration.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t include a few quintessentially Canadian pictures in honour of the day.

The CN Tower lit up in our National colours

The giant Canadian flag that was unfurled on the field at the 100th Grey Cup game in Toronto.

A loon swimming on the lake

July 1, 2015
Word Wednesday – Again!

Word Wednesday – Again!

I swear I’m going to get a non Word Wednesday post up soon – life has been hectic and I’ve got a bunch of drafts started but haven’t managed to finish any of them. I’m also working on a new site so watch for that announcement coming very soon!

I make no secret of the fact that I’m a bibliophile. I LOVE books. I love holding them, reading them, reviewing them, talking about them, pretty much anything to do with books. In fact, today’s Word Wednesday word came out of a book I read recently. I keep a notebook beside me when I read and write down any really cool words I read so that I can use them in my own writing. (I know, I’m a giant word nerd and I’m proud of it!)

I loved the fact that I had to go look up what this word meant – I had pretty much figured it out from the contextual cues but I still like to look up new words to ensure that they mean what I think they mean. (*Said in my best Inigo Montoya voice)

Without further ado, today’s word is:

Infandous – isn’t it an awesome word?

Infandous – the word isn’t even IN most dictionaries today, it’s that out of use. Of course, having a subscription to the Oxford English Dictionary comes in really handy at times like this. (To be fair, the book I found it in was pretty old so I’m not surprised there were some words that are obsolete in it.)

Infandous – another word with a Latin root. This time the root is infantus – meaning abominable or unspeakable. This is also the same root as infant (or one who does not speak) which makes me laugh since the definition of infandous is “too odious to be expressed or mentioned”. Which is not what I think of when I hear the word infant!

Infandous – (In-‘FAN’-dus) Adjective. Something too odious or abominable to be mentioned.

So if you’re looking for a word that is no longer in use and need to describe something that is too horrible to mention, try using infandous. Sometimes, the old words are better than anything we have now.

June 20, 2015
#WordWednesday: The sequel

#WordWednesday: The sequel

Okay, So it’s looking like this may stick. At least for the next little while. Today’s word is one that I love using and as many of my friends will attest, I have been known to seek out occasions to use this word. Granted, sometimes I have had to shoehorn in in but it’s such a fun word, it’s totally worth the effort. You might say that playing with words is my thing. It’s my happy place, something I do for my own personal enjoyment.

In other words, playing around on the linguistic jungle gym is my bailiwick.

Today’s Word Wednesday is Bailiwick

There are plenty of synonyms I could use, wheelhouse, domain, even ‘thing’ – as in ‘it’s my thing’ but bailiwick just sounds so cool. It rolls off the tongue. I was surprised to learn that the word bailiwick isn’t as old as I thought it was – it’s late middle English so not exactly new but not a Latin based word either. It does have a secondary meaning (which used to be the primary meaning) which is the one that it literally translates to. The original meaning of bailiwick was “an area under the supervision of a bailiff (this could be a mayor, sheriff, or other official instead of the bailiff we think of today – though I still picture Bull from Night Court whenever I hear that word).” The origin of the word is partly French – the word bailie refers to the official who was ordered to supervise an area.

Not this kind of bailiff…

In France, this area was called a bailliage but the English never liked to steal a word outright, they always made a few changes. When they adopted the use of the word bailie, they added the word wik to the end. Wik in middle English meant village (it’s also the root word for a town name like Greenwich – literally ‘green village’) so bailiwick became the area or village that fell under the supervision of the bailie. Surprisingly, there are still a few official bailiwicks left in the United Kingdom today – the islands of Jersey and Guernsey are legally bailiwicks.

With only two bailiwicks of the traditional sense left, it is the new meaning that has me using this word whenever I can. The modern definition of bailiwick is a person’s “specific sphere of interest, or area of expertise”. So, really, writing, and more specifically, grammar is my bailiwick. What’s yours?

Bailiwick – (bai·li·wick ) Noun

i) A person’s specific sphere of interest or area of expertise.

ii) The area in which a bailiff has jurisdiction.

June 10, 2015
#WordWednesday

#WordWednesday

Okay, So I know that #WordlessWednesday is a thing, but I’m a writer by trade and I love using the perfect word for the situation so I’m going to try to do some #WordWednesday posts where I talk about a word and how it is used and / or misused. Maybe it will be a regular thing or maybe it will happen once a month. I’m not sure – but I love words and I love learning more about my favourite words.

Some of the words, I’ll choose because of the way they sound, others because I like the usage, others because I’ve stumbled across them and either had to look them up or work out the meaning for myself. This one I think I first learned while perusing (another fun word), Wordsmith.com ’s Word of the Day archives a few years ago.

Today’s #WordWednesday word is perendinate

Okay, so I’m a total Latin geek – I took it in high school and in university simply because I love learning new words and Latin is a great basis for that – and any word that makes me think back to those Latin root words is going to make my day. I remembered when we learned that in Latin, cras means tomorrow. Suddenly the word procrastinate made a lot more sense – it literally means to put off until tomorrow. Which is all well and good, but what if you want to put something off until the day AFTER tomorrow? Surely there’s no English word for that right? Except there is! You guessed it, that word that means to put something off until the day after tomorrow is perendinate. The Latin root of this word is obviously dies or day. From there we get perendie which means “on the day after tomorrow” and ta-da – to perendinate is the action (verb form) of this, which means to put something off until the day after tomorrow.

What’s on your to-do list?

So, to butcher an old proverb, never procrastinate when you could perendinate instead.

Perendinate – (puh-REN-di-nayt) Verb. To put off until the day after tomorrow.

There you go. Now use it wisely and impress your friends and family.

June 3, 2015
A great night out with Art Tonite

A great night out with Art Tonite

When I was invited to check out Art Tonite by my friend Hollie, I was excited but also somewhat trepidatious. I’m not an artist, not by a longshot. I prefer to do my painting with words. My grandmother, now she was an artist. We have some of her paintings hanging in the house and they’re stunning. People routinely ask who painted them, expecting a famous artist’s name and I love telling them that it was my grandmother who painted them. The artistic gene seems to have been passed down to one of my cousins, but it missed me completely. I had a miserable time in art classes in school. They usually required copying a drawing or technique which was all but impossible with my learning disability. The only way I copied anything was by memorizing it (it is still the only way for me to copy information reliably) and while I was very adept at memorizing words, and to a lesser extent numbers, but paintings? Not so much. I remember being in tears trying to follow a “Learn to draw Archie” page in a comic book when I was 10 or 11. I was trying my best, but it looked nothing like America’s favourite red-headed teen. I recruited a friend to come with me to the event, and she conveniently lived just down the street from the venue. I had a nice dinner with her and 2 of her kids before heading out to Art Tonite. We entered the venue and followed the signs downstairs to where the basement of Pappas Grill had been transformed. There were easels, paints, and blank canvasses on all of the available table space. There was also an exemplar on display. My heart sunk. There was no way I was going to be able to copy it.

This was what we were supposed to paint.

The event included food and drink, so I grabbed a glass of white wine to stop me from turning and running out. I said hello to some people I knew from different social media events (mostly BlissDom Canada), and got caught up and tried to convince myself it didn’t matter if my painting sucked. Except it did. After about 40 minutes of socializing, the announcement was made to make our way to a canvas and get ready to paint. I started to panic on the inside. I felt like I was about to commit a crime against art. Then the lead artist took the microphone. I was expecting everyone to paint the same thing at the same time, with the instructors helping as needed. I was half right. The first thing our lead artist did was introduce the team of artists who would be wandering between the tables helping us create our ‘masterpieces’ . There were more of them than I thought, which was good. Then we were told we could either re-create our own version of the painting on display or, if the muse struck us, paint something else. I was saved. Well, sort of . I knew I couldn’t copy the painting, but I also didn’t have a clue what I wanted to paint. I love nature scenes, and have taken some really nice photos up at our cottage in Haliburton, so I reached for my BlackBerry and started scanning through photos until I found one I wanted to base my painting off of. I know the landscape around the lake very well as I’ve been there for part of almost every summer since I was born. I figured if any location had ingrained itself in my memory, it would be a lake / cottage picture. Having chosen the image upon which I wanted to base my artwork, I sat and stared at the blank canvas for a good five minutes. It was *so* white, and blank, and ohmygoodness what if I made a mistake? Luckily one of the assistants came by and asked if she could help. I explained that I’d chosen a different route than what most of the room was doing, still not quite believing that this was kosher, and she was very enthusiastic about it. She helped me figure out where to start and assured me that there was very little that I could do that would completely ruin the canvas, or that couldn’t be corrected. I painted, nibbled, sipped, and chatted for the next hour and a half. There were a few points where I got stuck – like how to do the water properly and how to make the clouds look like clouds instead of white blobs – but one of the instructors or assistants were always quick to come over and offer advice or demonstrate a technique and help me out. I got frustrated a few times, but that was more with my own artistic limitations and the fact that I couldn’t get an aspect of my painting to look the way I wanted it to, but didn’t know how to describe it to the instructors for help. At the end of the night, this is what I ended up with.

My finished painting. It has a tree, like the exemplar, and some clouds, but that’s where the similarity ends.

Once I was done, I got up to move around and check out everyone else’s paintings. I was one of 5 or 6 people (most sitting in my row) who had gone against the grain and painted something completely different. Many people had their own take on the exemplar though, such as the ultra talented Christella whose lovely additions really brought the painting to life.

I love how Christella added flowers to the tree and swapped the colours around to make it feel softer. The motion in the swing makes me feel like a child has just jumped off and out of the picture.

Everyone had made the painting their own somehow. We’d all had a great night, had some drinks, some amazing food, and created something with our own hands. I wish my art classes in school had been more like Art Tonite; if they had been, I might have taken some art classes in high school. If you’re in the Toronto area and are looking for a fun night out with friends, go to their website and check out the dates (and art) for the next public event, or book a private event as a celebration.

May 24, 2015
I’m All About That Case…

I’m All About That Case…

I love my BlackBerry Classic and my BlackBerry Z30 and I am very excited to be getting a BlackBerry Passport this month. What’s that? I have a phone addiction? It might be more of an obsession than an addiction, but I do love my BlackBerry devices. When I got my BlackBerry Bold 9900 years ago, one of the first things I did was get a screen protector. I didn’t want to scratch the screen or, even worse, chip it. I also made it awesome with some stickers that made it look like a TARDIS (yes, I’m a giant geek).

My Beloved Bold 9900 – as a TARDIS !

When I got my Z10 at launch, thanks to the BlackBerry Elite program, It had a custom back on it, with a tiny silver spark in the top right corner. I couldn’t bear to cover that up so I left it naked and put on a matte screen protector to carry it around. There are a lot of great screen protectors out there – I like the matte ones better because they don’t show fingerprints as easily.

Then I got my Z30. There wasn’t a special back on it and I actually found it a little slippery. Thank goodness BlackBerry devices are built tough – I dropped it 3 times in the 2 days after I got it. I tried out 3 different screen protectors for my Z30 – before finally settling on the BlackBerry screen protector. It was easy to install, looks good, and works well. I have a couple of cases for my Z30 too – one for everyday use and one for special occasions. The daily driver case is another OEM gem. I guess it stands to reason that products made by BlackBerry fit BlackBerry products well. I have the White Transform Hardshell case and I love it. It also comes in black which looks sleek and a little sexy.

I like the way the transform fits the Z30 without making it feel bulky. It gives me a little extra grip, a bit of colour and it can act as a stand when I’m watching Netflix or another video. For those times when I’m going to be using a bag or a purse, I have the black flip shell case which gives me a little more protection since it covers the screen so it doesn’t get scratched by stuff in my bag. I went with basic black, though I was tempted by some non BlackBerry made cases that were more colourful. The Trident Aegis case shown below was a serious contender until I learned that it didn’t ship to Canada. (If you’re in the US though, you should seriously look at this – click the picture to go to Amazon.com – it’s really nice and comes in 4 colours and I could live vicariously through your phone case.)

When I got my Classic from “Bob”, it included a great Soft Gel Case, which I loved. Then my dad got a Classic and complained about it being hard to hold, so I lent him my beloved case and haven’t seen it since. I let him keep it because, well, he’s my dad and went looking for another case. Not being one to do things halfway, I ended up ordering two from Amazon and really like both of them. I have the screen protector that came with the BlackBerry soft shell case on the phone right now and it’s doing well.

For my Passport, I asked around and got 3 very different suggestions, then looked and came up with a 4th of my own. I’m not sure which one I’m going to order yet. The first is the BlackBerry Hardshell Passport Black case- It looks good, is thin and has the BlackBerry logo on the back (which I really like). The second contender is the GMYLE Wallet Case because I loved the transform case’s ability to stand up, this one is a real contender. I’m not sure I’d use the wallet slots though.

Help a girl out – I can’t choose!

May 11, 2015