Events

Okay wow. I still can’t believe it.

I was on Facebook yesterday, and since I’m a fan of HuffPost, some of their news clips come into my Facebook feed. Yesterday they posted, “TMZ reports Michael Jackson has died,” or something like that.. I didn’t take it seriously, I actually chuckled. I never really trusted TMZ.

But then I saw that all the news sites were reporting that he had died, but it still didn’t kick in, because I don’t always trust the news. My best friend even called me up to tell me Michael Jackson died and I told her it was probably just rumors.

Evidently, they weren’t. Yesterday we lost the King of Pop.

Michael Jackson has had a tough past couple years, and the media didn’t help. But no one can argue how great he was, and how much of an influence he’s had, on music, and even just the lives of normal people. I remember the first time I learned the Thriller dance, during my dance class when I was really little. I remember trying to learn the moonwalk in sixth grade, failing miserably.

Billie Jean was my favorite song.

I still can’t believe it. I still don’t know what to say.

Earth Hour just ended about half an hour ago, and I’m glad that I participated this year. From 8:30 to 9:30, I turned off all the lights in my house.

I first heard about the idea last year, but I didn’t participate in Earth Hour ‘08 because my family had friends over from Calgary and we were out for dinner for the duration of the event.

I’ll admit that I don’t think that an individual turning off the lights for an hour makes much of a difference. I don’t feel guilty about not participating last year. But I love global events! I was so inspired when I heard that even the Empire State Building and the Eiffel Tower, prominent structures in their respective cities’ skylines, were turning off the lights too.

I was hoping on participating in the local lantern walk, which is basically walking a couple kilometers with a bunch of other people, and you bring your own candle or lantern to guide the way. Though it’s not like the street lights won’t be on. However, I discovered that the route was too far to walk to, and didn’t have much parking along the way.

So what did I do for Earth Day ‘09? (not much, really)

Took a walk in the park with my mother. It’s not very Earth-Day-ish because we do this all the time anyway. The not so bright park lights were on, and so were a few lights in the houses by the park. We kept making sarcastic comments about this.

Took a new route. We ventured off into the road less taken towards the shopping plaza. And I discovered a pretty cool tunnel. It looks like a nice place to have a small party.

Walked around in the brightly lit shopping plaza. I guess they don’t celebrate Earth Hour. The shops were all closed, so it was only me and my mother in the whole plaza. It felt nice. I don’t think that the point of Earth Hour is to hang out somewhere with light, but what the heck. I turned off my own lights.

I also struggled to find the right keys and my sneakers in the darkness of my house, before heading out.

Did you participate in Earth Hour ‘09?

As every local newsstation repeated about 175 times today (and continues to do so), Toronto turns 175 today! That’s older than Canada itself. Well, obviously.

I love Toronto. I am so happy to live near such a pretty city.

Photo from nomadsland.ning.com

Note: This post was written at 7:21pm ET

The wait is over, and election day is here.

I personally support Obama, but in general I love watching political elections and analyses on TV. While some are saying that the race will be called early, I think it’ll go until midnight at least. If it weren’t for a special event I have tomorrow morning, I would watch the television all night if it were necessary.

Interestingly, the anchorwoman on CBC News just informed us tv-watchers of a “recent study” that says 97% of Canadians would vote for Barack Obama, if they could vote. I guess that means I know a disproportionate amount of McCain supporters. How odd.

I’ve also recently learned that polling stations in some states close as early as 6pm. Isn’t that a tad early? Quite a bit of people work 9 to 5 jobs, and judging by news reports, there are long, long lines for voting today. Here in Canada, or at least where I live, polling stations for the last federal election closed at 9:30pm. Lots of time to vote. Now that’s a democracy.

Today, or early tomorrow, we will find out of America has its first African-American President. Or will McPalin prevail and disprove the polls? I’m so excited, only a few more hours!

(P.S. If there’s a repeat of the 2000-election Fox News scandal, I will not be a happy person tomorrow)

I should have been studying last night, but I really do love being a part of election hype (and thus, I will be spending more study-time watching the Obama-McCain debate tonight) so I decided to go to the results party of my riding’s (Liberal) Member of Parliament, Maurizio Bevilacqua .

While he did win, Harper gained twenty or so seats in Parliament, for a slightly stronger Conservative minority government. Despite all of Stephane Dion’s ads that said “Only the Liberals can stop Harper,” in reality, it was the Bloc that stopped Harper from gaining majority. Because of the Bloc’s dominance in Quebec, Harper didn’t get the nine more seats he needed.

A lot of people think Dion should resign now, for the sake of the future of the Liberal Party. The fact that his English sucks was a huge turnoff to voters. Having heard him speak two weeks ago at a rally, I can verify that - you have to really focus on him when he’s talking. I’m sure a lot of people would have voted for the Liberals had they had a leader who could speak English fluently, considering English is the predominant language in Canada and also one of the most important globally. A lot of people probably can’t picture their leader not speaking the same language as them, and most of the rest of the country. As great of a language French may be, English is just the more official official language.

But anyway, I am still glad that I went to the results party. I met some new people, met some old people, shook hands with Maurizio, talked to the Rogers cameraman who got kind of annoyed at me…

Oh and more thing. Free food.

That’s not to say I’m not into politics at all, I am. I’ve spent a weekend or two volunteering for Maurizio’s campaign. It’s just free food is such a nice addition. A couple old ladies that sat at my table were just packing up those sandwiches like crazy. They took loads of napkins and just kept on wrapping the sandwiches, put them into plastic bags they brought, and finally stuffed it into their handbags, coat pockets and pant pockets. Who doesn’t like a little free wine, free beer, free pizza, and free sandwiches?

Here are some pics from Bevilacqua’s results party, last night at some banquet hall in Woodbridge: