I've been tagged...

My stamping friend Alison got me...

A - Available or Taken: Taken
B - Best Friend: Wisty
C - Cake or Pie: Pie (raspberry is my fav)
D - Drink of Choice: Gingerale
E - Essential items you use Everyday: toothbrush... ok, just kidding... my laptop and coffee mug (usually together)
F - Favorite Color: Dark Blue
G - Gummy Bears or Worms: Worms... more substance :)
H - Hometown: Sarnia, ON (with the VERY impressive sign)
I - Indulgence: bubble baths
J - January or February: February (more likely to be warm)
K - Kids & Names: n/a
L - Life is incomplete without?: family, friends and sports
M - Marriage Date - September 3, 2005
N - Number of Siblings: 1 sister
O - Oranges or Apples: apples
P - Phobias or Fears: open water, small spaces (I know, totally weird)
Q - Fave Quote: too many to choose one
R - Reason to Smile - I can see the light at the end of the thesis tunnel... almost there...
S - Season: Fall
T - Tag 3-4 people: Todd, Bill, Gaby
U - Unknown fact about me: I had spinal meningitis when i was 3 days old (although, some of you already know this)
V - Vegetable you don't like: squash
W - Worst Habit: nail biting
X - X-rays: mouth (at the dentist), ankles, feet, neck (sports injuries)
Y - Your Fave Food: right now? Blizzards, the chocolate explosion-type ones.. mmm...
Z - Zodiac Sign: Gemini

Kesler's out... will the slump begin?

I know he's only one player, but news from Vancouver says that Ryan Kesler's out with hip surgery for the rest of the regular season. Here's the article from the Sun:

Vancouver Canuck centre Ryan Kesler needs hip surgery and will be lost for 12 to 16 weeks, which essentiallly puts him out for the season unless the Canucks go deep in the playoffs.
The Canucks announced today that Kesler will undergo the surgery Monday in Denver.
“After further consultation with one of the leading physicians with regard to hip injuries it was decided that surgery was the best course of action,” Canuck general manager Dave Nonis said in a news release. “The best long term decision for Ryan and our hockey club was to have the surgery immediately.”
Kesler had only six goals and 10 assists in 48 games this season but was a prime penalty killer on Vancouver’s top ranked man-short units.

Only one man, but a significant part of the team particularly one of the better defensive forwards ... let's just put more pressure on Luongo to stop the pucks. :( Boo.

My other obsession

For those of you who don't know, I'm a figure skating nut too (not just a soccer freak!). But this movie is ridiculous! Blades of Glory?!?

Like that would ever happen...

One of the most embarrassing hockey plays ever?

You be the judge...

Youtube link

Is this one of the most embarrassing hockey plays ever?

Supervillian test results

Gotta love the things others find (thanks Bill!)...

My results:
You are Dr. Doom

Dr. Doom 56% Mr. Freeze 54% Lex Luthor 49% Apocalypse 46% Poison Ivy 44% Green Goblin 44% Magneto 42% Mystique 40% Dark Phoenix 38% Kingpin 37% Venom 36% The Joker 36% Catwoman 34% Juggernaut 32% Riddler 23% Two-Face 16%

Blessed with smarts and power but burdened by vanity.

Click here to take the Super Villain Personality Test

Property Assessment... the good, the bad, the ugly

So BC home-owners got their property assessments in the mail this week. For the most part, everyone who lives in BC saw their land/housing values increase substantially. In BC as a whole, the average increase in value was 23%. According to the Vancouver Sun:

"A record amount of new construction and the sixth year of a hot real estate market pushed the value of British Columbia real estate to $808 billion, according to BC Assessment's 2007 property roll."

But that's only the half of it... in the Okanagan Valley, the increase is pretty much the same:

"A typical single family home that was assessed at $356,000 in the summer of 2005 was assessed at $436,000 in the summer of 2006, up more than 22%."

So you'd think that our property assessment would have increased accordingly, yes? NOPE! Our property assessment came back with... get this... an 82.7% increase!!! Crap! I mean, the good thing is that our house is of greater value and if/when we do sell, we'll make a pretty penny off of it. The bad part is that our property taxes will undoubtedly go up this year - we must have gotten quite the sweet deal last year! And the ugly part is that they're projecting that the property assessments will only continue to increase... perhaps not up to the 22% we saw this year, but the market keeps going and going... meaning if we wanted to move, we'd just have to pay more for our new house anyway.

SO ya... the good, bad and ugly of property assessment statements. Time to start saving for tax season in July.