You've got to hand it to Canada's military. Not only were they marching in the Gay Pride parade ... they were actively recruiting during the day:
To mark its place in the festivities, the Canadian Forces set up an information booth in an area of the city where thousands of people gathered for the start of the parade.
Got some pictures of the clouds just before it started pouring on Sunday evening. I was barbecuing at the time. I got quite wet, but managed to grill everything to completion.
This is indeed a very strange co-incidence: I'm currently finishing up The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, and I've just gotten to the chapter where a Bulgarian peasant woman celebrates a saint's day (Sveti Petko) by firewalking at her village's local church.
Later today, while going through my National Geographic feed, I come across this photo of a Bulgarian fire-dancing ritual ... something performed on the day of the village's patron saint.
A Nestinari dancer performs barefoot over red-hot embers during an ancient fire-dancing ritual in central Bulgaria.During the ceremony—often held on the day of the village's patron saint—a large fire is lit in the afternoon. After sunset, once the fire dies and the embers are smoldering, dancing begins to the accompaniment of a drum and bagpipe.
Traditionally, Nestinari dancers pray for health, prosperity, and a rich harvest.
OK, so there may be many saints' days in Bulgaria, so presumably the firewalking picture could have been around any day/week/year, but this was very surprising. I just started reading the caption below the image, and it was all so familiar -- still fresh in my head, and described almost exactly the same way in the book.
By the way, The Historian is a great novel. It's essentially a lengthy travel log, told through letters, books, and first-person accounts, on the quest to find the "resting place" of Vlad The Impaler. The historical accounts and cultural/geographical descriptions are surprisingly accurate (for those non-fiction aspects of the book), and the rest makes for a kind of scary, if somewhat plodding, vampire story.
This is a harder quiz than you might think. Luckily, there were no dead Canadian Scientologists listed in the test.
And frankly, I'm a little miffed that Canada's referenced at all in this quiz (although, it's very funny).
You may not be on top of who the deadliest of celebrities are, but you've got an excellent handle on things. Watch out for Beck, though. He may make great music but it's only because he's reached higher Operating Thetan levels!
| Link: The Dead, Canadian or Scientologist Test written by elliecation on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test View My Profile(elliecation) |
I didn't do too badly. I actually thought I was going to fail it miserably, so there you go.
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