Misc.

I seem to have caught the bug that's going around many of the other mama bloggers. I knew viruses spread across the Internet but this is ridiculous. I'm not miserable yet, but fear I will be soon.

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Remember that styrofoam material that breaks up into a million tiny little pieces? Well today when we finally got out the door to go to the Farmers' Market, that shit started falling from the sky, only it was ice, falling with more force -- well falling really isn't the word, more like pelting down -- and it hurt more. So we decided to turn around and go home instead. Is October the new November?

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Last night CBC started showing a new show that I think I could get into, if only for the eye candy and accents. Another medical drama -- yay! -- but this one is set in South Africa -- double yay! It's called Jozi-H, and is basically ER set in Johannesburg, although perhaps not written as well. Along with the South African characters, the hospital has two Canadian doctors, one of whom has an attitude problem, so it looks like they're trying to tackle stereotypes of Canadians abroad. Of course, the guy with the attitude problem is a neurosurgeon who has to wear a wrist brace because of an old hockey injury, so they're not doing so well on dismantling other Canadian stereotypes. The other interesting part of the show is related to the health care issues facing the country: high HIV infection rates and large rural populations who don't trust western medicine, instead relying on Sangomas and muti.

The other nice thing about the show is that there are many recognizable scenes of Jo'burg, where I get to cheer, "Hey, we were there... we drove across that bridge!" I had been hoping that we were getting a taste of a tv show that is popular in SA but I have just checked out the show's website and the show is the result of a partnership between Canadian and SA production companies, likely made for Canadian audiences. Last night I wasn't able to pay a lot of attention to the dialogue, but it did feel rather like a Canadian tv drama; and Canadian tv is only good for sketch comedy and documentaries. Oh well. I still love hearing South African accents.

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Mad Hatter has written a thoughtful post about the website stealing our blog content. If anyone reads this who doesn't read her blog, go there now. I'm still not sure what to think about all this... but Mad Hatter makes some excellent points.