The Fine Art Of Falling Apart

Open Letter

2012-01-12T10:57:00.002-05:00

Dear OC Transpo,

Have you ever heard of the horror movie “The Human Centipede”?

To summarize, a demented surgeon kidnaps and incapacitates unsuspecting victims. He then surgically grafts the mouth of one victim to the anus of another. He does this procedure twice, linking three people together in a chain, and the human centipede is born.

A short while ago I was waiting for the 101 in morning rush hour. This is a bus that’s supposed to come every 10 minutes. After 30 minutes of waiting (something that happens regularly), I finally saw my bus roll around the bend. I then noticed that another 101 was right on its tail. As the first bus pulled up to my stop, I noticed a third bus following the first two. All were showing the same route – 101. And there wasn’t a single car separating the buses, they were just sucking on each other’s exhaust pipes. It was an angering sight for every passenger on that route, let me tell you.

The look of this ridiculous string of buses reminded me of The Human Centipede, and I came up with the following analogy: The buses are the human bodies from the movie, with the drivers being the brains of the people trapped in the terrible situation. OC Transpo as a whole is obviously the demented surgeon. And the passengers? Well, we’re the ones that get on at the front and get off at the back. It’s hardly any wonder everyone hates OC Transpo when you treat us all like feces.

Good day.

Late 20's Now

2011-08-22T22:13:00.006-04:00

Top 5 Albums

5. Gaslight Anthem - American Slang
4. Dan Mangan - Nice Nice Very Nice
3. Serena Ryder - Is It O.K.
2. Joel Plaskett Emergency - Ashtray Rock
1. Arcade Fire - The Suburbs

Top 5 Songs

5. Lady Gaga - Born This Way
4. Ray Lamontagne - Empty
3. Arcade Fire - Mountains Beyond Mountains
2. Joel Plaskett - Soundtrack for the Night
1. Queen feat. Bowie - Under Pressure

Top 5 Movies

5.
4.
3.
2.
1.

Hats off, flags down

2011-08-22T22:12:00.000-04:00

Dear Friends,

Tens of thousands of Canadians have written to me in recent weeks to wish me well. I want to thank each and every one of you for your thoughtful, inspiring and often beautiful notes, cards and gifts. Your spirit and love have lit up my home, my spirit, and my determination.

Unfortunately my treatment has not worked out as I hoped. So I am giving this letter to my partner Olivia to share with you in the circumstance in which I cannot continue.

I recommend that Hull-Aylmer MP Nycole Turmel continue her work as our interim leader until a permanent successor is elected.

I recommend the party hold a leadership vote as early as possible in the New Year, on approximately the same timelines as in 2003, so that our new leader has ample time to reconsolidate our team, renew our party and our program, and move forward towards the next election.

A few additional thoughts:

To other Canadians who are on journeys to defeat cancer and to live their lives, I say this: please don’t be discouraged that my own journey hasn’t gone as well as I had hoped. You must not lose your own hope. Treatments and therapies have never been better in the face of this disease. You have every reason to be optimistic, determined, and focused on the future. My only other advice is to cherish every moment with those you love at every stage of your journey, as I have done this summer.

To the members of my party: we’ve done remarkable things together in the past eight years. It has been a privilege to lead the New Democratic Party and I am most grateful for your confidence, your support, and the endless hours of volunteer commitment you have devoted to our cause. There will be those who will try to persuade you to give up our cause. But that cause is much bigger than any one leader. Answer them by recommitting with energy and determination to our work. Remember our proud history of social justice, universal health care, public pensions and making sure no one is left behind. Let’s continue to move forward. Let’s demonstrate in everything we do in the four years before us that we are ready to serve our beloved Canada as its next government.

To the members of our parliamentary caucus: I have been privileged to work with each and every one of you. Our caucus meetings were always the highlight of my week. It has been my role to ask a great deal from you. And now I am going to do so again. Canadians will be closely watching you in the months to come. Colleagues, I know you will make the tens of thousands of members of our party proud of you by demonstrating the same seamless teamwork and solidarity that has earned us the confidence of millions of Canadians in the recent election.

To my fellow Quebecers: On May 2nd, you made an historic decision. You decided that the way to replace Canada’s Conservative federal government with something better was by working together in partnership with progressive-minded Canadians across the country. You made the right decision then; it is still the right decision today; and it will be the right decision right through to the next election, when we will succeed, together. You have elected a superb team of New Democrats to Parliament. They are going to be doing remarkable things in the years to come to make this country better for us all.

To young Canadians: All my life I have worked to make things better. Hope and optimism have defined my political career, and I continue to be hopeful and optimistic about Canada. Young people have been a great source of inspiration for me. I have met and talked with so many of you about your dreams, your frustrations, and your ideas for change. More and more, you are engaging in politics because you want to change things for the better. Many of you have placed your trust in our party. As my time in political life draws to a close I want to share with you my belief in your power to change this country and this world. There are great challenges before you, from the overwhelming nature of climate change to the unfairness of an economy that excludes so many from our collective wealth, and the changes necessary to build a more inclusive and generous Canada. I believe in you. Your energy, your vision, your passion for justice are exactly what this country needs today. You need to be at the heart of our economy, our political life, and our plans for the present and the future.

And finally, to all Canadians: Canada is a great country, one of the hopes of the world. We can be a better one – a country of greater equality, justice, and opportunity. We can build a prosperous economy and a society that shares its benefits more fairly. We can look after our seniors. We can offer better futures for our children. We can do our part to save the world’s environment. We can restore our good name in the world. We can do all of these things because we finally have a party system at the national level where there are real choices; where your vote matters; where working for change can actually bring about change. In the months and years to come, New Democrats will put a compelling new alternative to you. My colleagues in our party are an impressive, committed team. Give them a careful hearing; consider the alternatives; and consider that we can be a better, fairer, more equal country by working together. Don’t let them tell you it can’t be done.

My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.

All my very best,

Jack Layton

Saccades

2011-08-05T14:50:00.005-04:00

Winter was here, went skating. It got mighty cold.

Shannon left, came back, then left again for the heat of Honduras.

Sub-letter moved in, progressively grew weirder and weirder. Boyfriend is cool, but constantly present.

Quit the sign shop.

Finished up my cancer course.

Soccer wrapped up.

Started the Masters at Ottawa U.

Summer came, baseball with it.

Then came the heat, then came the air conditioner, then came the hydro bills.

Black Ops arrived on the scene, heavy pwnage ensued.

Searched forever for a new apartment.

Found a sweet new pad with the wife.

Gradually moving in, waiting for our roomie Shannon to return and party down!

27 next week. Damn I'm getting old.

The Alzhamburglar

2011-01-29T15:26:00.005-05:00

As Alzheimer's awareness month comes to a close, I wanted to comment on a book I recently read, titled "Dying for a Hamburger - Modern Meat Processing and the Epidemic of Alzheimer's Disease"

Looking back through history, reviewing scientific literature, and examining the practices of various cultures around the world, the authors make a complelling case that the processed meat industry is directly linked to the growing epidemic of Alzheimer's disease.

It's generally accepted that as people get older, they naturally become foolish and forgetful, having "senior moments" and things like that. Senility is assumed to be a natural development - but until about a century ago this was not the case. All of the great documentors and physicians of the past infrequently reported cases of dementia in the elderly. Yet today we are literally seeing an epidemic of the disease, and the majority of people over the age of 85 develop some form of dementia. And this disease is unlike any other - it robs people of who they are and who they were, not to mention the emotional impact on their friends and families.

Looking to the past, it appears that Alzheimer's disease only became prevalent as modern meat processing facilities developed. And the fact that all parts of the animals we slaughter are put to use - be it for human consumption, animal feed, or a plethora of other uses - it's hard to find many products that don't contain processed animals. (It's in your make-up ladies.)

A correlation is also found between countries that use these mass produced meat products (mainly Western cultures) and those that don't (i.e. India). Basically if you don't eat alot of meat as a society, you don't get many cases of Alzheimer's.

On the scientific front, a new theory has developed in the past few decades that aberrant proteins called prions can interact with normal proteins and convert them to prions as well, in animals and humans alike. This causes a cascading effect that leads to more and more prion production, which eventually leads to the destruction of cells. And it seems that the most susceptible cells are those in the central nervous system, which explains the shrunken and "Swiss cheese-like" brains that are found in Alzheimer's victims.

Coming from a scientific background, it's fairly easy for me to understand the fundamentals of the theory, but to lay it out simply, prions are tiny compared to viruses, which are generally accepted as the smallest infective agent known to the Earth. And viruses are thousands of times smaller than bacteria, which are the smallest organisms we can see through a basic microscope. Viruses can be readily sterilized using known methods, but prions are a new threat that can survive these precautions taken by doctors and scientists. Such evidence for this includes the fact that scalpels used to dissect the brains of Alzheimer's patients have been sterilized and reused on live patients, but still confer Alzheimer's to the living patient.

Scary shit eh?

A parallel is also drawn that shows how similar Alzheimer's disease is to Mad Cow disease and variant CJD - diseases that hit Britain especially hard, and was traced to the practice of feeding dead animals to live ones, in effect creating cannibals out of grass eating ruminants. And the goal here is to increase yields for farmers and make more money - make a cow eat a cow, and they become bigger and fatter. Always with the money...

Speaking of cannibals, the book also examines cannibalistic cultures and discovers dementias are directly related to eating your own friends! So don't eat your buddies, especially their brains.

The end result of the British follies was to prevent cows from eating other cows, and laws were passed to ensure this rule would stand (though mistakes are often made, and sometimes rules are ignored). But here's the brilliant part - you can still feed these extra cow parts to chickens and pigs to make them bigger and fatter. And then you can slaughter the chickens and pigs, and feed their remains to cows! So the prions flow everywhere, and the holier-than-thou race of humans can pat itself on the back. Well played sir...

One point that I found particularly unsettling was the argument against eating ground meats. Imagine 1 in 100,000 cows has prion disease - if you only buy steaks, your chance of getting those prions into your system is 1 in 100,000 right? But if 1000 cows are ground up in a large vat and hamburgers are pumped out, your chance of getting that prion just skyrocketed to 1 in 100. I'm not a big fan of those odds, especially considering how many hamburgers the average Joe is going to plow back in a lifetime.

So I've basically summed up some of the arguments, albeit not so eloquently as the book does, but it's certainly made me reconsider my food choices. And it also makes me want to visit an abattoir and become a vegetarian, but that's not likely. Though I will stick to the solid cuts of meat more often than I used to.

My main criticism of this book is the lack of alternative theories offered for the Alzheimer's epidemic. Many, many things have changed in the past century or so. Countless factors could be involved in this phenomena, but not much is offered beyond the apparent culprit of the meat industry.

Regardless, I highly recommend this book.
Read it, and I guarantee you'll grow a serious case of paranoia about your future in the old age home. Not to mention the paranoia we're bound to feel about our parents who are all getting to that age when the baby boom hits the age of senility, right?

It's just one of those days

2011-01-19T20:42:00.004-05:00

Without the alarm going off, I woke up the the following sight:

Because my life is so awesome, I didn't get that extra hour of sleep. It was fucking twenty-to-seven.

Last night was just as rough - the drive home took three times longer than usual since it was snowing and people can't drive in snow. Computer files wouldn't load. The wife wouldn't stop complaining. All the lights were red. And sleep was lacking for the past week.

My stress level was through the roof since I had to give a 45 minute presentation today in my cancer class. After almost 3 years of hiatus, I'm thrown back into the fray with a week's notice. I fell pretty good about it, but there were definitely some questions that left me scratching my head. Plus the guest prof was a complete cock, but then again I already knew that since I had met him before. The guy is only here for two weeks, and I get stuck presenting to him. Typical...

I'm glad it's over though, and I'm glad that I have almost 2 months before my next presentation. And the next prof has got to be better than the one I just had. You can't really get much worse - arrogant, socially defunct, wild mood swings, and worst of all, FRENCH. Couldn't even understand some of the things he was saying as he looked down his nose at me. Prick.

Anyway, this weekend should be good. The bro and old man are in town, and we're hoping to catch some football and hit the canal. And I'm also looking forward to catching up with my cousin Sean tomorrow. Maybe check out some tunes somewhere, who knows.

They made a movie about me and you - it was half good and half true

2011-01-04T20:31:00.005-05:00

Last night I had a dream that I was partying all over the US with Anthony Kiedis in the mid-90's. Bitches, blow, booze, etc. Crazy times we had! And for some reason I called him "Tony" instead of Anthony. We were buds tho, so whatever.

It probably came to mind because I read his autobiography a few months ago. Although I found it pretty entertaining, about halfway through it seemed like he was stuck in an endless loop of behaviour that went nowhere. Despite his alleged recovery from drug addictions as the book wrapped up, I was left thinking "this guy is probably ramming a needle in his arm right now", since the book was published a few years ago. And it also occurred to me that half of it was probably true; the other half bullshit.

I also read Heath Ledger's biography a few months back. Boring, boring, boring. Poorly written too.

Xmas treated me well this year.

Sidenote: The wife hates it when I don't call it Christmas... and yes, it has to be capitalized. Yawn. It's all about the money these days anyway. Plus Jesus was probably born in March anyway, so there's no use getting excited about things.

I finally got an Xbox, and it came with a couple of games. Halo 3 is alright, but I'm hankering for COD. And the racing game, Forza Motorsports, is surprisingly entertaining. I haven't played a racing game in years, but this one is pretty solid.

I also got some sweet new sheets and towels for my pad. Never thought I'd see the day that I'd be excited about fuckin linens. But I suppose everybody's gotta grow up sooner or later.
Also got a couple of books - Vonnegut and Bukowski (mint), new headphones, liquor, some custom coasters from my sis-in-law (one of which sports a studly-lookin pick of me), new gloves and scarf (yuppie), awesome new work boots, and a few other things that escape my memory at the moment.

On a melancholy note, I think I just saw our old wise cat for the last time. He was looking mighty frail, and he's definitely taken a turn for the worse in the past two months. But I also got to hang out with my bro's new cat, Ollie Williams. He's got a double set of fangs right now since his adult teeth have come in before the babies fell out, so he looks menacing... if only he weighed more that 3 pounds. Even still, he's something to be feared at the moment with those claws.

The break was busy with travel, but I got to see a bunch of friends and family along the way. TO, Barrie, Chatham, Sarnia, London. And I even wrote xmas cards to the aunts and uncles I didn't have a chance to see. Look at me, all grown up and shit.

My workplace packed up and moved on the 29th/30th, and we had two brutally busy and tiring days for that task. Even now we're still setting up and unpacking like mad.

New years was spent at The Velvet Room, aka the geriatric farm. Actually it was only an old crowd when we first showed up, then the younger crew took over. It was alot of fun, and it was nice to be away from the stupid undergrads for once. Though I could've used a little more cleavage bouncing around cuz I'm a pervert.

And now it's back to the normal swing, with a twist of a "Biology of Cancer" grad course in the mix. I'm looking forward to it.

In conclusion - xmas, xmas, xmas.

The state of love and trust

2010-12-12T18:24:00.004-05:00

As far as I'm concerned, the whole Wikileaks situation is one of the most influential occurrences of the internet generation, and for some reason people are really missing the point.

To summarize, the US had established a sort of "2nd internet" system (disconnected from the web as we know it) sometime before 9/11, and it was designed to be kept quite small so only vetted sources could access it. But since that time it's expanded to include almost 3 million users. And now it's happened that one or several of those users has allowed hundreds of thousands of classified documents to be released to the public.

From what I've read, well over 95% of the leaked documents have yet to be released to the public, but the small fraction that has been released has been embarrassing, if not damaging, to various governments. And I have no doubt that the best is yet to come. But the content itself has taken a back-burner to the various spins that have been generated by the media. The most obvious one is the Julian Assange arrest/extradition situation.

When you kick a hornet's nest, you've gotta expect a few stings. So it's no surprise to me that he's being persecuted right now. It's awfully timely that these women have come forward to accuse him of sexual misconduct (I'm not totally clear on the charges), but I think it was wise of him to turn himself in, rather than make a spectacle of his capture.

Regardless of the outcome of his case, the key point should be noted that it has absolutely nothing to do with the leaked documents. (And if found guilty, you have to question the validity of the verdict. It's probably not that hard to cook up a few witnesses or documents, especially if you've got the power of the US gov't to do it.) But the US would love nothing more than to draw the spotlight away from itself in this situation.

Nothing is more damaging to US foreign relations than the truth.

I absolutely love the fact that governmental policies and diplomats everywhere are having their masks removed. These jokers are being shown for who they really are, without all of the political correctness that has passed as the status quo for so long. And I expect that countless people will be fired or removed from their positions once all is said and done.

But I do have to feel for Obama. He's struggling to account for ideologies that have been in place for decades, most of which he had no power over.

On the other hand, I don't have any compassion whatsoever for the gutless companies (MasterCard, Paypal, etc.) that have been the victim of cyber attacks by the Anonymous group after doing all they can to cut Wikileaks down. If you side with the powers that be, be prepared for the day when the masses unite against you.

And I think that's the point we should all look at more than anything - for too long people have turned a blind eye to the deeds of the governement, but recent events have shown that we should've been paying more attention before. And now that the lights have been turned on, we don't fucking like what we see. And if enough people see that light, viva la revolution baby. The future of transparent governments, the interwebs, and society as a whole might hang in the balance. Exciting times we live in...

The Girl in the Green Bugatti

2010-11-23T19:42:00.003-05:00

For the past 6 years I've been dragging this painting around with me, moving it from house to house, always hanging it in the bathroom.

It originally came from my undergrad house, but I have no idea who put it there. And strangely enough, even though they look nothing alike, the girl in this painting always reminds me of my old friend Joc. She actually bailed on her room at the last second in that house, leaving only 5 guys, myself included. So I suppose this picture took the place as the lone female.

I always assumed it was one of those generic print that you'd buy at Walmart or Winners or something, and I had no idea it was a famous painting. That is, until I stumbled across it on the cover of The Great Gatsby at Chapters last month. Having never read the book, I decided to pick it up because it was on cheap, and it was a hardcover.

The book itself was decent, but didn't live up to my expectations since I've heard the name dropped many times over the years.

And even more surprising was my discovery that this very painting hangs above the kitchen table of the legendary Hank Moody from Californication. Apologies for the poor quality screenshot of Karen and the painting, but thar she be:

Just another prod in my ass that I should start into my own epic writing career...

Shitter

2010-11-21T19:35:00.005-05:00

In an act of pure gutlessness, I have joined the most jokeworthy of all social networking sites, and it's even worse than MySpace...
Against all common sense, I am on Twitter.

To be clear, there are three simple reasons that I've joined:

1) If, by some miracle, this terrible system sticks around and becomes an important part of the interwebs, I don't want anyone stealing my name. Mintvis is as Mintvis does.
2) Apparently employers are starting to use this thing to post jobs, and I'm always in the market for an upgrade.
3) I'm so fucking funny, that I've had a few prods from friends to join, just so they can read the brilliant BS that I spew forth.

I've never liked the system from the beginning. I think it reflects of terrible self-importance that pervades our society these days. Anyone can post their bowel movements, their dog's bowel movements, and various other forms of crap. And for the most part, nobody else gives a fuck, but people think that if they post it online it somehow gives them meaning in their lives. Guess what? It doesn't. Despite your mother's assurances, you're not special, you're just another goat in the line of a million other identical goats. Get the fuck over yourselves.

And secondly I fear that this thing will further decimate the English language as we know it. With such a limited amount of space with which to convey your most intelligent* thoughts, it's hard to imagine that the use of short-forms will do anything but expand in everyday speech.

Thus far I have made two tweets - one tester to see how things work, and one inadvertent tweet that happened as I commented on one of the less-than-exciting tweets my brother seems to be making on a regular basis. I don't know how the system works really, but I'm sure I'll catch up soon. All I see is a bunch of @ and # signs, and they don't mean jack at the moment. Just more noise in an already noisy-assed world.

I don't see myself using the thing much, but the one thing I will admit is that it takes alot less energy to post on there than it does on here. So keep an eye if you like, it might become more useful in the future. Personally I'm not holding my breath.

*Stupidest

We all need a little more Meat Loaf

2010-11-09T20:42:00.003-05:00

For the first time in over a year I am gainfully employed!

Unbelievable, I know. I'm just working part time for now, and it's at a small sign shop down in the west end. I worked for Owen Signcraft back in Barrie for a couple of summers in the past, so I've got all the skillz to be useful here too. And although it's been a number of years since I've done the work, I'm amazed that after only two days it's all coming back, all coming back to me now. Standing all the time is damn hard on the legs though...

My list of financial priorities as of now are:

1. Buy an Xbox 360
2. Buy COD Black Ops
3. Subscribe to Xbox live
4. Buy groceries
5. Pay the rent
6. Buy a new laptop
7. Buy flowers for J
8. Pay back my broheim

A man can dream, can't he?

You might cast around forever, and never find the peace you seek

2010-10-26T23:34:00.006-04:00

I went out to see Josh Ritter Last night. I had high hopes, since the only other time I saw him it was at an awesome show back in London.

And last night he didn't disappoint.

Basia Bulat opened, and despite one of her strange instruments (she probably played 4 or 5 through half a dozen songs) being off-tune, she was pretty solid. Great voice and a talent for playing many different types of instrument, half of which I can't even name.

I was surprised how much old stuff Ritter played, especially from the Golden Age album. It's especially weird since his new album just came out recently. You'd think he would be focussing on that stuff. But realistically it's a pretty toned-down album energy and volume-wise, and he seems to put a ton of energy into his shows.

He did a few from the albums in between too, and besides Thin Blue Flame I don't think he missed any of my fav's. And it was a pretty long show too - had to be a 2 hour set for him. And his bassist Zack Hickman is still rocking the incredible moustache:

The one thing I notice even more in live shows than I do on the albums is that Ritter is a fucking incredible writer and lyricist. I'd probably have to say he's the best I've ever seen live.

I gotta say that he seems to have slipped a little towards the crazy side in his banter, a la Joel Plaskett once he got more confidence in public. But it makes it more entertaining. And my favourite part of the night was the final crescendo came, the whole band was rocking out, then looked back to the drummer for the final beat. But instead of hitting it, the whole band froze in their positions like mannequins and stayed like that for about half a minute until the drummer decided to let loose.

And the crowd goes wild...

No electricity and no hot water make Mintvis... something something

2010-10-19T19:40:00.006-04:00

Yesterday our building was privileged with a 13-consecutive-hour electricity blackout while the city did god-knows-what to our wires and breakers. These fools seemed to think that 9 am-10 pm is the optimal time for most regular people to go without electricity. And the hot water ran out in a hurry considering we're a pretty big building, which is also ideal for an entire day. Fucking clowns...

Last weekend was the end of the hectic life for awhile. The 16th was the last day of wedding season for me this year, and we headed down to Chatham for my cousin Kelly's big day. Despite leaving Ottawa in cold wind and rain, the weekend weather was amazing down south.

Unfortunately I was absolutely exhausted on Saturday night, but we managed to party it up anyway. On Friday morning, the fire alarm went off on the floor above mine, and we had the brutal sound echoing through our hallways from 5 am-6:30. Despite the fact that the emergency was done at 6 o'clock, the alarm went off for an extra half hour. A few weeks ago there were drills all through the day for about a week while the whole system was checked. Unfortunately the doormen (despite these countless tests) were unable to shut off the alarm on Fri morning. Even after 6:30, they just put the PA system on the cancel off the fire alarm. So instead of raging beeps we got incoherent mumbling and humming for a few extra hours... fuck.

Friday night was just a long drive to my dad's place, which ended at 1:30 am and resulted in minimal sleep again since my bro came to get us at 8 am to head down for the wedding.

The wedding itself was good, not too long or anything. We had some lag time in the afterrnoon to have some beers at my aunt and uncle's place, then hit the dinner around 5:30. The venue looked like a barn from the outside, but they did a great job of renovating the indoors to make it a perfect spot. It was on a vineyard, and one wall was completely windows that overlooked the fields of vines with the lake in the background.

On Sunday we stopped off in some little town with a really cool rich-man's B&B for all you can eat brunch. It was basically a bday celebration for my dad (a bit early since I won't be back down there anytime soon) but it was really nice. I mostly stuck to the extravagant things - crab salad, lentils, calamari salad, etc. They even had a chocolate fountain for the strawberries and pies. Mmmmmmm.

The rest of Sunday consisted of non-stop driving to get back home for my first indoor soccer game of the year. It was at 10 pm and I was exhausted. I haven't played soccer in years, and I've never played indoor, but I got into the rhythm pretty quickly. Despite my bro's shitty shinpads and socks that kept sliding down my damn legs, and the brand new shoes that had yet to be broken in, I think I did pretty well. We ended up beating a team of Ital's 3-0. Not too shabby for a bunch of hacks that have never played together! Our jerseys are uglier than sin - maroon and white. I feel like a fucking 5 year old out there.

And somewhat surprisingly (due to my relatively consistent workout regimen lately) I am still completely incapacitated from the waist down. Two whole days and I can barely walk, I'm so stiff. Hopefully next week I fare better in the aftermath.

I meant to note that the previous weekend was Thanksgiving, but it was pretty uneventful really. Just saw the fam, drove for countless hours, and read and slept and ate alot... and rocked some seriously stylish duds:

I am le tired

2010-10-08T20:23:00.005-04:00

It's Friday night and I finally feel like I have enough energy to function normally.

Last weekend was a big one, but at the start of this week it felt like someone took a sledgehammer to my energy level. It's not like I was sick or sore or fatigued, I was just completely exhausted. My eyes kept trying to close all day Monday, and as the week went by it finally subsided. Thankfully I've been able to sleep alot, and each day I've progressively felt better.

I gotta say I haven't felt anything like this in years, back in highschool when I had mono. Except this time I felt much healthier.

Last week I took off early to Toronto on Weds and met up with KP for dinner downtown. Hadn't seen her in awhile, and it was great to catch up. It turns out that a buddy of mine was at the same place, but rather than come and say hi, he just creeped on me from a distance, then sent me a text afterwards. Fucking weirdo... but I ended up seeing him at the wedding on Saturday anyway.

Thursday I went down to London for homecoming, and I had a hilarious plan for my arrival. I was in desperate need of a haircut, so I went to my old-school barber by the gates. Fortunately for me, I had forgotten to return my keys to Betty when I moved out of the sublet, so I took it upon myself to just show up at her place, let myself in, and have a nice shower. Needless to say she was a little surprised to find me half naked in her house, just coming out of the bathroom.

I chilled there for a bit, then hit up the Wave for dinner with Yakob. Young hoors galore, but none of them could drink. It was priceless.
It was actually my buddy Ty's bday, so we ended up boozing pretty hard that night. We had some serious discussions on how the world is falling into ruin, and I woke up with a brutal headache on Friday. Ended up chilling at Tys for half the day because my car was blocked in at the back of the building.

I spent the rest of day pwning at Jake's place, and that afternoon I hit the GC for some beers with the old lab rats, and it was good to catch up with them too. We got these wicked 1L beermugs full of Sleeman, and you got the keep the huge mug. All for $9.50 - can't beat that shit.

That night was Betty's kegger, and it was a pretty rockin time. Got nice and boozed, pwned some more noobs, and I actually ran into some old faces from Pano. Jeff Gordon (aka Dupont) lost his shit when he saw me at the party. I hadn't seen him in two years, but it turned out that he had been working in Betty's lab all summer and neither of us knew it. What a waste of good boozing days, he's a solid guy. It was good to catch up with Binnsy too, and despite the fact that I'm finally in Ottawa, it turns out that he finally left. He did give me the heads up on the copious amount of outdoor hockey games that take place in this town come wintertime, and I'm definitely gonna hit them up.

I woke up decently early on Saturday to head to Waterloo for Laura and NVP's wedding. Despite the rain, it was a really good day for everyone. The service was long but wasn't unbearable, and I'm rather impressed that the poor bastard didn't faint or something.

My third night of boozing in a row called for a wide variety of booze to be mixed together that night. The dinner was great, the music dancing was good, the speeches were solid, and the venue was really nice. It turns out that Calderon was also celebrating his 27th bday that night, so we did more shots than I can possibly remember. The bride happens to have prominent bangs, and apparently I was yelling "Laura Bangs! Laura Bangs!" about 5 feet away from her mother. Just my luck.

They had rented a photo-booth for the wedding, and rather than have a formal guestbook, you'd get two copies of the pictures and tape one into the book, then sign something beside it. Naturally we abused this right, and had tons of photos just for the hell of it. Bunn and I were flying solo, so we had a solid set with forearm flexing and nipples included. Great times!

My wedding gift was an absolute debacle, since I forgot to get a card. I ended up using the wedding invitation envelope that my brother had randomly brought in his luggage. I crossed out his and Mangela's names, put in my own, and wrote "return to sender" on the front. The boys made me stuff the envelope full of teabags for some reason. What a joke... classic Mintvis??

Mangela was quite pissed at me that night since I was drunk and stubborn about some fucking thing, and she was extremely unimpressed with my slowness the next morning as well. I drove back to TO and during my massive hangover I agreed to help my old buddy Findlay move into his new pad downtown. We had the most incredibly heavy shelves to lug up from the parking garage, and I almost tore my arms off in the process. It's a pretty sick place, with a view of the ACC and the waterfront. Tres badass. Fin bought me a beer for my struggles, and we hit a pub for dinner.

I went home, crashed, and woke up super early to catch my train back to Ottawa. And so began the week of le tired.

Tough questions, tough answers

2010-09-20T13:08:00.005-04:00

I've recently been contacted by several governments and NGO's to sort out the "10 Unanswerable Questions" that currently plague the interwebs. AskJeeves (somehow still relevant?) came up with the following questions, and I'm here to set the record straight:

1. What is the meaning of life?

Procreation.

2. Is there a God?

3. Do blondes have more fun?

Yes, but mostly because hoors bleach their hair as an excuse for their stupidity and sluttiness.

4. What is the best diet?

A balanced one. Idiot.

5. Is there anybody out there?

Yep!

6. Who is the most famous person in the world?

Hitler.

7. What is love?

8. What is the secret to happiness?

Pornography.

9. Did Tony Soprano die?

Who the fuck cares? It's a TV show, get a life.

10. How long will I live?

Until you die.

Remember how many of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi Arabian? Yeah...

2010-09-14T12:20:00.004-04:00

From the BBC again:

The Pentagon is set to notify the US Congress of a $60bn (£39bn) weapons sale to Saudi Arabia, reports quoting US officials say.
...
Congressional officials warned that lawmakers could try to block the deal, but analysts say the prospect of job growth in the US defence industry could be another encouragement for lawmakers to approve it.

Money makes the world go round. Remember ol' Saddam getting the key to the City of Detroit?

"If I roast marshmallows over their books do you think God will still find their souls?"

2010-09-13T17:00:00.009-04:00

So here we are, nine years after the fact, and this one will be remembered for some crackpot from the south who threatened to burn the Qur'an circa Fahrenheit 451.

I mean, the freedom of religion is all well and good, so long as you support the right one in the U,S, and A.

It'll also be remembered as the year that those devils from overseas had the audacity to attempt to hold out an olive branch near the site of the twin towers. It seems that the veil of America's so-called multiculturalism has been lifted to show that the fear-mongering and hysteria provided by the media has really worked after all! Hooray!

Back to the Florida story, it really is remarkable how a tiny church, with one bigot at the helm, can draw such global attention. The account of how this Terry Jones fool became an international news story is laid out by the BBC. The man is clearly off his rocker, but kudos on the moustache. Then again, I'm sure a great many people in the south consider him to be some kind of hero...

Tell that to the 1.5 billion (give or take) who were offended by his plans, some of whom have rioted and been killed in the past few days.

This all reminds me of how a small fanatical section of one particular religion can have such a profound impact on others half a world away. Be it Osama or Jones, if you jab people in the right spot, they'll be more than happy to paint a mass of people with the same brush.

Oh, and you know what this year won't be remembered for? This.

I, for one, can't wait to see what kind of hype can be worked up for next year, the big decade anniversaire!! How about some commemorative coins? Flags with Bush's signature perhaps? Or how about some flashy new posters and bumper stickers with that lovely slogan "Never Forget". Oooh, ooh, and I almost forgot - we gotta have some kinda catchy country tune about "America the Brave!"

What a load...

2010-09-11T12:48:00.002-04:00

Had a terrible sleep last night.

Damn shoulder was acting up again, and I couldn't get comfy. Probably over-did it a bit at the gym yesterday. 2 months off is bound to make a difference.

For some reason Vin Fucking Diesel et al. are out on the Ottawa streets every night testing how fast their cars can go from zero to sixty. Every night they're out there burning rubber in the wee hours. But it's not like they're racing because it's only ever one car at a time. Probably woke me up half a dozen times last night, 4 am being the last one I remember.

Pricks.

Running the 4 minute mile

2010-09-09T23:42:00.006-04:00

At long last, the chaos in my life has reached an end for awhile.

For the past month everything has been moving a mile a minute, between house hunting, Masters stuff, cottages, the old lab, my bro's whitewater bachelor weekend, his wedding, the new apartment, and the Boston bachelor party for NVP, it's been pretty damn ludicrous. And expensive as hell.

Hardly any wonder I haven't written much lately.

I'm sad to have left my normal crew, and I'm definitely gonna miss the days of pwning noobs with ol' Betty and Yakob, and the good times with the "new" London crowd. Poker nights with the drunken rowdies will be missed as well (but at least I'll be in bed before 3 am every Tuesday night). But onwards we go, and I'm sure we'll all stay in touch. Hopefully I can make it down for homecoming in London this year.

After a long and frustrating hunt for a new place to live, Shano and I have a sick pad at Chapel and Rideau up here in Ottawa. It was clutch to find a place with two bathrooms, but the rent ain't cheap. We've got a sweet pool and gym, our rooms are awesome, and besides the small living room we can't ask for much more. It's my first time living in a highrise, but the view is pretty cool. We can even see the Canadian Parliament buildings, if only the tips of the rooves.

The weekend up at Meg's cottage was incredible, even if it was in France... er, Quebec. With any luck it'll be an annual thing, cuz everyone had a wicked time.

My bro's whitewater rafting weekend went off with numerous hitches. First of all, Matty had to bail, then we all got so shitfaced that some guys had to cut the trip short. Not to mention the brutal weather that forced some more pussies into leaving early. My bro and I stuck it out with a few lads and has an awesome second day in the smaller raft. Got flipped and smashed a few times, but all around it was a great time.

The wedding, on the other hand, went as smoothly as silk on a baby's ass. Despite calls for bad weather, it was a pretty solid day, if humid. My bro was sweating bullets during the ceremony (who wouldn't, if you had to marry Mangela) but he kept it together.
I was nervous as balls for my speech, but overall I think I did really well. I'm still getting random compliments on it. Kinda fucked me over for dinner though, with the nerves ruining my appetite. We had a hell of a party afterwards, dancing it up to Kelly Clarkson and whatnot.
I'm glad that day is behind us, cuz it was a looming star on the calendar for months beforehand. And I'm really happy it went well and Ryan and Angela had a great time.

Masters stuff has been frustrating as hell lately, but that's another story all together. I'm sad to have left all of my friends from the old lab. We all got along so swimmingly...
But I'm sure I'll keep up with them too!

Last, and certainly not least, was the last big-spending weekend of the chaotic month - Labour Day long weekend in Boston.

Went down with 11 of us in total, with Earl the hurricane being the 12th man. And we all had an incredible time. The horrible Harpoon Brewery tour, the growler, the fog, BoSox double-header, pregnant Darcy, soiled $5 bills, Burt's stupid camera, both Cheers bars, Lou Bega and the trumpets, chow-dah, the hit-and-run, American Girl, Tenacious D, the bathtub, the mom-and-daughter, and tons of brutally offside jokes.

Can't ask for much more.

Now I need my beauty sleep. Spent my first night ever in my new room last night, and I gotta say it was good, but the sun was brutes magoots. Thankfully I hung my curtains today.

Cheers.

26er

2010-08-25T17:54:00.005-04:00

Top 5 Albums

5.
4.
3.
2.
1.

Top 5 Songs

5. Sweetheart Like You - Bob Dylan
4. Bed Intruder Song - Antoine Dodson
3. Little Secrets - Passion Pit
2. Hurricane J - The Hold Steady
1. Empty's Theme Park - Matt Good

Top 5 Movies

5.
4.
3.
2.
1.

Oranje

2010-07-09T14:58:00.004-04:00

After rolling through the round robbin stage, and taking down the formidable Brazilians in the quarters, the Netherlands has made it to the World Cup final after taking out Uruguay in the semi's.

I think that last game was a little closer than it should've been, especially considering the ref gave an inexplicable extra two minutes for Uruguay to sustain pressure at the end of the match. I can only imagine the uproar if they'd managed to tie the game at that point...

But three goals off the post, including the best goal of the entire tournament from our captian van Bronckhorst, has pushed us forward to the big match.

I have to say that I don't think Holland has played its best game yet, and I'm hoping they can pull that game off in the finals. I hope Robben stops diving, van Persie wakes up, Kuyt keeps rockin, and Sneijder plays a full match instead of just a half.

The Spain/Germany game wasn't what I expected, and it was pretty damn boring to be honest. Spain has wicked ball control, which I hope we can overcome. And on the plus side, our fullbacks should all return from suspensions and injuries for the final.

Should be a hell of game, can't wait.

Ke$ha $uck$ Donkey Ball$

2010-06-24T21:34:00.002-04:00

Baish can't even sing, she just talks. But this video is absolutely money...

Hawks. Mark it dude.

2010-06-10T17:49:00.004-04:00

Last night the longest drought in Stanley Cup history was ended when Patrick Kane sniped the most unlikely and anticlimactic goal in recent memory. It had shades of Crosby's Gold Medal winning goal, but this time it seemed like Kane was the only one in the arena (or even on the continent) that knew the thing went in.

Chicago did something remarkable in that game too - not only did they beat the entire Flyers team, they also beat the 4 man team of referees. The bias shown last night was an absolute joke, and I'm somewhat surprised the Hawks made it out with a win. In many games this playoff season it was blatantly clear that there was an agenda being sought by the NHL, and it's a shame to see such favourtism come into play in our sport.

I'm incredibly happy the 18th ranked team didn't win the cup (and thank god that plug Pronger didn't get to hold the Cup), and it goes without saying that the Hawks deserved this after such a long and miserable drought. It's amazing what the death of an old tightwad can do for a team, its fans, and an entire city.

Toews was incredible this postseason, despite the lacklustre score sheet in the final series, and absolutely deserved the Conn Smythe. Kane lit it up when he needed to, Big Buf was money, Hossa finally got the Cup in his third try, Keith was brilliant, Niemi was serviceable (rebounds were brutes magoots, I must say), Sharpy stuck it to his former team, and all the backing players pitched in. JR was even in tears in the broadcast booth during the celebration.

Now, a little recap with music by Chi-town's own Smashing Pumpkins...

I don't wanna talk about it anymore, cuz I'm startin' to lose my temper

2010-05-13T14:51:00.008-04:00

In the realm of unamusing jokes, the Montreal Canadians have got to be up there right now.
First they take out the regular season's best team, now they knock out my beloved Penguins.

Granted, the Caps and the Pens didn't really find away around the suffocating blockage of passes and shots, but there is no question that the Habs don't deserve to be where they are right now. It's actually a travesty that the worst team in the playoffs is now in the final four.

On the plus side, this now means that the Cup is almost assuredly going to the West. It's good to see that San Jose has finally pulled their shit together - maybe Heater was the last piece they needed. And the Hawks are going to be going full tilt as well, so it should make for a solid series.

The East, on the other hand, is a nightmare. It's going to be 8th vs. either 6th or 7th. And at first I was pulling for Boston, because they'd be the easier prey for the Pens, but now I just cringe at the thought of two incredibly boring teams dueling their defenses in the Conference Finals. Plus it would be badass to see the Flyers come back from a 3-0 deficit. And I'd absolutely love to see somebody beat the living piss out of Maxim Lapierre. What a spineless bastard...

Aside from the laughable East, the most glaring thing in this year's playoffs is the absolutely atrocious refereeing. And it's not just the head refs either, the linesmen are making brutal call after brutal call to go along with it.

From non-calls to waived-off goals to penalties for incredibly weak reasons, this year is really one to remember. Hell, had Ovechkin's goal counted in game 7 of their series with Montreal, we wouldn't be looking at the scrapheap that is the East. Jokeworthy!

Maybe Las Vegas is flexing its muscles this year... who knows? hahaha

See how good he miiiiiiiind me

2010-04-19T23:15:00.000-04:00

When the flying carpet fails, go ride a camel

2010-03-31T18:08:00.006-04:00

Last week the highly intellectual and pleasant "Ms." Ann Coulter (see: Adam's Apple) visited Western to give a talk. Since then there's been a bunch of letters to the editor et cetera, and arguments from both sides saying that she's either a hate monger or a free speech activist.

If you look at some of the liquefied human excrement that comes out of her mouth, you can see that it ain't about free speech. Using the guise of an opinionated woman simply pushing the boundaries of acceptable social vocabulary (odd, being a conservative) she spouts off her baseless biases and prejudices with inflammatory bullshit designed to excite the masses who don't know any better. She espouses racism, sexism, and most importantly ignorance.

To me, that's the big difference between the "gun toting hillbilly" and the "liberal elite": Ignorance.

I think it's pretty fair to say that in order to be classified as "elite"when it comes to political views, be it left or right wing, you have to look at both sides of any argument, or at least be willing to admit when you're wrong.

Having watched FahrenHype 9/11, the conservative response to Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, it's plain to see that one of these film makers was completely wrong. They got the wrong information, preyed on people's ignorances and fears, and played opinion as fact.

Needless to say, it wasn't Michael Moore who got it wrong. Coulter is featured in Hype, and amazingly she's also a best selling author. This woman has actually become quite rich by spitting in the face of common decency, and selling her conscience to the highest bidder. It's hatred-for-hire, and I'm amazed so many fools buy into it.

I'm also amazed that Western allowed her to speak. At least Ottawa had the right idea and told her that if she wanted to challenge the hate speech laws of Canada, she'd best not do it in the nation's capital.

One thing that does bring a smile to my face (and probably causes Coulter to lose alot of sleep) is the recent developments in US health care. Although the rest of the civilized world has enjoyed a good laugh at the mighty Americans as they bicker over a completely watered-down form of socially responsible health care, I think it's a huge step forward for them. I honestly never thought I'd see the day that the common American citizen would be giving a single penny to another person in a time of need, but here we are.

Not that there weren't a large number of morons who protested the current changes. These are the same morons who, if confronted with a monumental personal problem when it comes to the health of their families or themselves, would be entirely f.u.c.k.e.d. without a socialized system.

Then again, foresight is rarely a virtue of the fool. (See: Housing Crash)

Papa always said...

Pwning the Odium

2010-03-01T22:32:00.010-05:00

So it turns out that I watched a shitload of the Olympics. Here are my personal high- and low-lights of the games, presented in no particular order:

Jon Montgomery: awesome celebration, better podium entrance, and an unforgettable beer march through Whistler. It's a crying shame he wasn't our first gold medalist.
Melissa Hollingsworth: living proof that no matter how much you believe, you can still come out a failure.
Lindsey Vonn: way to finish your races, you betch.
The Chinese womens curling team and their hilarious screeching.
The German two man bobsleigh team. One guy celebrates a dangerous Canadian crash, while the other makes the universal body-language sign for "wtf man?!?"
Norwegian curlers and their pants. Champions don't wear that kinda shit.
David Pelletier's commentary in the figure skating events. Especially the ripping of that skeleton costume in the men's singles. This ain't fucking Halloween man!
That cross country skier falling into the ditch. I think shes suing the IOC...
Cheryl Bernard: showing us all how to butcher an almost-guaranteed gold medal in the final end of a curling match. Nice tits though.
Kristin Stormer Steira: came in 4th place again in Olympic cross country skiing. Her fourth time finishing in this not-so-coveted spot, and this time it was by 0.1 seconds. Ha!
Nodar Kumaritashvili: at least he went out doing the thing he loves... _____ing into a ____ at ____ kph. (Too soon??)
That US downhill skier who screamed like a banshee to hype herself up before the race.
"Siren Head", who somehow managed to get tickets to every single men's hockey game, not to mention some women's games too. How does a bum like that even afford that many tickets?
The Norwegian authorities' ridiculous claim that the natives of BC had put a curse on their team, and that's why they weren't winning more medals. You really can't even come up with that kind of shit.
The Canadian men's ski-cross dude who was a recovered drug addict. Nothing like butchering your medal shot to send you back into the sweet and loving arms of addiction.
The howler monkey: Meng Wang
Sven Kramer and his stupid coach. Fucking sissy + fucking retard = me smiling. (Also he looks alot like Crosby eh?)
Gretzky's horrific awkwardness.
The Olympic flame debacle. Granted, they made up for it in the closing ceremonies.
Pierre McGuire's incredible comment that "in alot of places children are crying right now" regarding the cheer for Luongo that sounds like booing from the crowd. Astonishingly idiotic.
14 gold medals baby!!
Crosby coming out of the hole he was hiding in to jumpstart the party of the year in Canada.

THIS IS CANADA!

In Soviet Tajikistan, flag waves you!

2010-02-13T15:20:00.005-05:00

So the much-hyped Olympics have finally arrived.
Thank god for small blessings. These damn comercials that we've been inundated with for the past year are finally going to shut the fuck up and get off the tube.

I thought the opening ceremonies were kinda weak, aside from the wicked light show that took place on the main stage, transforming it into a variety of scenes and landscapes.
It was heavy on the French, heavy on the Native, and heavy on the Don Sutherland (not that I'm complaining about the last one.)

Those 4 dildos that rose from the stage we pretty hilarious, and I was amazed to see Shane Koyczan doing his poet thang on the pedestal. Haven't seen him since Hillside a few years back, cuz the rain was too heavy to tolerate during his set last year. Pretty damn big stage for a relatively unknown dude. Plus he's lost some weight. Good on him.

I woulda liked to see Shatner carrying that Olympic flag into the arena too. That woulda been epic. Greztky was a good (and obvious) choice for the final torch bearer, and it's a shame they fucked up the most important moment with those faulty hydraulics. And that drive through the nutbar crowds was a little strange as well...

Overall I don't have much interest in the games, though I'm sure I'll watch my fair share. Like most Canadian men in the age group of "3 to 97", the only thing I'm really interested in is the men's hockey. Gold or bust, but there's some damn tough competition, namely those wickedly fast and shifty Russians. Should be an interesting tournament.

Oh, and I have no doubt that we'll get that elusive gold on home soil. We'll probably rake in a few actually.

Linked Out

2010-01-20T15:45:00.003-05:00

Hmmm...

Many things happening these days, and as usual I don't have the energy to comment on them all.

I wonder what would happen if one of these things was used to kill a Christian? I guess racism has no foresight when God is on your side.

Speaking of God, I particularly like the comment section of this article.

Teddy Kennedy gives up his seat to this guy? Considering his dying wish was to see health care reform put through, I guarantee you he's rolling in his grave as we speak.

Haiti is in complete disarray (see photo 5 in particular), as would be expected in one of those places that sophisticated folk need not think about on a regular basis. Though it is interesting to see how quick the US response has been. I bet the people of New Orleans et al are angrily scratching their heads.

And if anyone cares enough to think about the reasons for, and financial toll of, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, this is definitely worth a read.

Oh, and suspend this donkey for life.

Brilliant, yet lazy

2010-01-14T17:47:00.005-05:00

For a while now I've been plotting out a novel in my mind. Honestly I think it's a pretty fucking solid one, but then again I am the eye and thus far I'm the only beholder.

But before I get my lazy ass in gear and start to write the thing, I've got a few obstacles to overcome:

I've never been big on reading. Not that I don't pick something up the odd time, but I really haven't read many things in my day. I was listening to the radio the other day, and some jazz musician was being interviewed about her work. She said that she never listens to any artists, only instrumentals. Apparently she never wants her music to be compared to anyone in particular, so that her work will always be hers alone. I have a friend who writes her own music and she always seemed to be the same; she never listened to much of anything. I tend to agree with that vein of thinking when it comes to writing... the only problem being that in order to improve your skills, you need to learn the rules and find out what actually works in the real world.
The book will have to be written from the perspective of a woman. Anyone who knows me can say with absolute certainty that I have no damn idea how a woman thinks, so that's an issue.
I hate the idea of coming up with names for characters. Whatever I settle on will probably always blow dead bears in my mind.
I need a laptop so I can escape the creative vacuum that is my room. More importantly, I need this laptop to be completely disconnected from the internet. Noise is noise is noise.
Some parts of the book will need some research. Fiction doesn't mean nonsense after all. Mind you, the lack of internet connection could pose a problem on the ol' lapper.
Finally, I have never written a book, and the last time I wrote anything that wasn't a structured essay was probably back in high school. And that was what... seven years ago?

Aside from all this shit, I have ample time on my hands at the moment and I really oughta get started on it. Odds are, this is just a pipedream that'll never see the light of a bookstore (even if I do get it written) but you never know.

You get busy livin', or you get busy writin'

Eye of the Tiger

2009-12-07T15:48:00.002-05:00

After months of dicking around, I finally hit the eye doctor last week.
I'm convinced that the plug I used to see up in Barrie was an amateur, since the contacts he ordered for me were allegedly useful in both eyes, meanwhile each eye definitely has a different prescription. Figure that one out.

The dude I saw last week was pretty good, though his office was tiny and his receptionist was a joke. I had to laugh that he had a poster on the wall of Tiger Woods plugging for Lasik eye surgery. Too bad it wasn't a poster of him plugging some cocktail waitress. HEY-O!
What's his tally at now? 8 or 9?? Those endorsement deals are gonna dry up faster than a puddle in the Sahara. Sheeeeeeeit.

Fortunately I didn't get the blast of air in my eyes like I always used to, but this time I did get a test done that I'd never had before.
I've never had any drops put in my eyes, but he did one set to test for internal pressure and one to dilate my pupils so he could see inside. I looked like I was stoned out of my mind on shrooms all day. Not to mention the fact that I had to drive home in the bright sun right after the exam. I was squinting like a Chinese welder, let me tell ya.

And with the brightness problem comes the inability to focus on things that are close to you. So I sat round in the dark all day watching shitty tv.

Anyway, I'm gonna test some new contacts out this week, and my 2 new pairs of glasses are due in sometime this week as well. So I'm all set. too bad I'm also all poor now.
Pissin me off...

Far enough wasn't far enough

2009-12-01T16:40:00.007-05:00

A few weeks ago my step-brother Brandon got married down in the U.S. and A.
Orlando, Florida to be exact. So my bro, mom, and step-dad went down for a few days to relax and meet the new family and obviously hit up the wedding.

My plug brother actually had to cancel the first two days of the trip to stay in Barrie for a job interview, which meant that I had to head down to Buffalo to fly out on my own. My parents ended up driving down to do some different things along the way. Not to mention my mom isn't exactly cool with flying, and I'm sure that had alot to do with it.

So there I am at the border, with minimal information on the flight and absolutely no info on the wedding, and I run into a prick border guard asking me if I'm going to the States to find a job. And he didn't believe me about the wedding either, probably because the other tool on the flight info wasn't there. After extensive questioning and being pulled aside to have my car x-rayed, then came the strip search.
I actually pooped in the girl's hand during the cavity search. Talk about embarrassing...

Just kidding of course, but that one prick did hold me up for a long time, which meant that I barely made my flight on time.

Upon arrival in FLA (cool airport btw), we went to grab some food and buy the wedding gifts at a nearby mall. And the fat fucks down there were errrrvrywhere. It's unreal how bad it is, and it's encouraged me to hit the gym pretty much every other day since I've been home. Not that I need to lose weight, but it's a reminder how unhealthy most people are.

With Orlando came one guarantee for the trip -Disneyworld!! Yaaaay!

I was surprised to find that it was actually broken up into a bunch of separate parks, and unfortunately I only had one full day free while I was down there, and it happened to be the day that everyone was hitting the Epcott Centre.

It was pretty cool, and we got to ride most of the cool rides and everything. It kinda sucked that daylight saving had just come a few days before, and it got late really early. But it was kinda cool to see the whole countries-of-the-world things that was set up around the lake in the park.

I also met the whole Welsh crew that was there, since Brandon's wife Sian is from Wales. Lots of cool people, and some interesting characters in there too. Met a bunch of my stepdad's family too, most of whom were from the states, but a few Canadians made the trip too.

My bro and I spent some serious time mackin' on some bitches when he finally arrived:

But seriously the park and surrounding area was unreasonably devoid of women, not counting the 60 year-olds of course. And there were only two possibles at the wedding, one of whom disappeared at about 10:30, and the second one ended up fooling around (and thensome??) with her cousin. I even made the comment, "So... you guys are cousins right?"

Anyway, the weather was relatively shit, so I couln't get a tan. Thank you very much hurricane Ike. Ya prick. And it's too bad we weren't on the coast, because all of the weather reports said there were huge waves on all the beaches due to the pressure changes caused by Ike the Dyke. Fucking landlocked city...

I was hungover as fuck the next day for the flight home, and traffic home was a hoor and a half. All around it was a good trip though. Too bad they won't be paying my EI while I was away. Rats.

Poor Dottie

2009-11-05T14:37:00.000-05:00

Keep rockin, and keep knockin. Sucka.

2009-11-03T09:55:00.005-05:00

Amazingly I'm awake before 10 a.m. for once. Yesterday I didn't drag myself out of bed until noon, and didn't take a single breath outside of my house for the entire day. What a lazy waste of a day. Brilliant.
I literally woke up, had some sushi for lunch, then napped the afternoon away.

This weekend was a full one, and I made some solid rounds in TO and Barrie.

Since I'm such a fucking swell guy, I offered to take a full carload of stuff from KP's storage unit up to TO for her. So I loaded all sorts of shit into the old Subi on Thursday and headed to Barrie for a few days. Grabbed dad's iPoo-ed from the UPS store on the way into town.

Went out to dinner at Boston Pizza with Shan, then hit up some glow in the dark mini-putt followed by drinkin. Got wasted and ended up crashing at her pad, but not before waking her mom up with my rendition of Keri Hilson/Kanye's Knock You Down. The following morning I got chirped for my singing skills.

Had lunch with "Flo" on Friday, and wouldn't you knowit, she was hankering for a certain salad found only at Boston Pizza. So I strolled in again, hungover as fuck, with a different girl. And since I didn't make it home, I was fully clad in Thursday's attire. TLC's "I don't want know scrub" was running through my mind. Money.

After that solid catch-up I dropped in and saw Jay for a few hours. It had been awhile since I'd seen any of those 3, so it was good to catch up.

Friday night was Big Al's 60th birthday dinner in TO. We hit a Greek joint somewhere down on the Danforth. We showed up right on time for our 7:30 reservation... and stood around for 25 minutes waiting to be seated. What the fuck is the point of a reservation??? Assholes. The meal was good, despite our server's rack of ingrish. Greek styles, of course.

Stopped in at a gig for a couple hours after dinner. The band was called The Mason Rack Band. The lead singer/guitarist was impressively good. Recordings don't do this guy justice.
A ~40 year old woman was clearly on some sort of drug, and dancing her ass off in front of the the tiny little audience. Side-embarrassing. Then some d-bag dressed up as Jack Sparrow showed up, but claimed to speak very little English. He did say "my bitch is coming" though. Lo and behold, his bitch was the crazy black woman from the Pirates series. They made assholes of themselves on the dancefloor too.

Stopped in and saw Jenny that night after the gig, and caught up with her for a few hours.

The following morning, my brother blew a tire on his car, so I had to follow him to the dealership and drive him back to my dad's place. This all delayed my dropping-off of KPs stuff, which had been severly restricting my rearview vision for days. Finally got down to her place and her family helped me unpack the car. I think everyone was a little surprised just how much shit I had in there. She's got an impressively cute and cool new roomie, but unfortunately she's off the market. Rats.

After that I ran down to meet Findlay for lunch at a place called Utopia. Pretty cool little restaurant. I ate an awesome Bison burger. Mmmmmmm. Dropped him off at home, then made my way back to my dad's in order to follow my bro down to the Halloween party in Guelph.

I was the Incredible Hulk this year. Nothing too interesting happened that night, since we just hung out with the usual suspects at Thompo's place. Got nice and shithammered though.

Then Sunday I made my way back to London. All in all it was a pretty solid weekend.

p.s. I love this look. Especially the chocolate brown squeezer!

The Schwiggity

2009-10-28T16:00:00.003-04:00

Swine flu, swine flu. It's here, it's queer, it's going to kill your babies.

I'm already tired of it. The news, the fear, the confusion, the shots. Borrrring. Karma might tell me otherwise if I end up puking and shitting at the same time, but what can you do? I'm pretty much a hermit these days anyway - spending 90% of my time in my own house doing sweet fuck all.

As much as I love sleeping in, it does get a little boring. Not to mention the lack of income. Thus far I've done a good job of spending very little money though, which is good. And I'm EI eligible in a few days so that'll be gravy.

A new "law" came into effect the other day - no more cellphones in cars in Ontario. Good riddance. I can't count how many times I've had hoseheads fucking up my day by typing or talking on phones. There's a ton of shitty drivers out there anyway, and cells turn those problem drivers into catastrophes. Too bad the fuckers aren't gonna get ticketed for it for another 4 months or so. I'm gonna start writing down license plates once tickets are the norm.

Pops turned 60 the other day too. Happy bday maaaaaan.

Takin' pictures of a tidal wave, on the shore grinnin' a hundred feet away

2009-10-18T22:59:00.002-04:00

Welly welly welly, changes are afoot young grasshoppa's.

First things first, in three days I am out of a job. I've always said that this whole economic crash thing hasn't changed the way I've rocked out, but karma's a bitch I guess.
My company just lacks revenue at the moment, and for a few weeks I'll be unemployed. Hello EI!
But by the look of things I'll be back in the game soon with a contract at the university in the engineering department. Always looks good on the ol' resume... and after the contract is finished it might be time for me to get my ass back to school. Time will tell I guess.

Last weekend was a good one, got to see a bunch of old friends back home, got to install some flooring with my brother (fun times. ugh.), got some good thanksgiving eats, and had about 400 loonies dropped on some badass additions to my wardrobe. I'll be big pimpin' for Vegas.
Also went out to some album release thing for a band my dad likes. Pretty good show, and even though we showed up after the opening act was done, we got front row seats cuz my dad knows guys at the venue. Sick shit.
Unfortunately I didn't get to see everyone I wanted to back home, and I was actually planning to head back to Barrie this weekend, but it didn't happen.

Went out to see the band boys at the Frog on friday, met some interesting characters and got absolutely shithammered. Even played chess that night for the first time in years. Drinking chess of course. Then I nursed an atrocious hangover all day saturday (thought I was gonna blow chunks a few times, but survived) and went out as a wingman for a buddy that night. Interesting evening to say the least. Predrank at a pad with some fine lookin ladies, a rambunctious dog who nearly bit through my jeans, and two fucking cats who sent my allergies off. Then we took off to another predrink for a bday party, and it was a raging vagina monologue of about 20 girls and 4 guys. Can't complain though. *Visions of that sea of tits from that shitty Josh Hartnett movie* Bling bling.
I can complain about the bar of choice though. Up On Carling - never been there before, at least not since it was Old Chi-cougars back in the day.
Let's just say there's a first and last time for everything... and that was it. Shitty music, not chill at all, and those creepy weirdos on the side of the dancefloor reeked of STDs.
They even put that fuckin black guy in the bathroom for my pity change. Go fuck yourself buddy, I'm the least interested in your squeegie-kid-come-affirmative-action-but-actually-just-embarrassment-and-humiliation bullshit. Fuck.

Went to the mall today and finally got 4 pairs of pants shortened. They were just sitting in my closet forever, longing to be cut. Sitting there, fucking staring my in the face - day in, day out. I feel so free now hahaha.

Won all three games of dodgeball today, despite massive amounts of cheating on the other side of the court. Taped up my shoulder again, and it helped alot. I was on fire today, just picking people off left right and fuckin centre. Literally balls of smoke and flames were coming out of my hands and into the gunts of unsuspecting opponents. Sheeeeit. Didn't take any shots to the face or head today, but alot of my teammates did. Suckas.

Hot damn its almost midnight and I gotta get some sleep.

Take the good wit the bad, happy wit the sad

2009-10-08T22:58:00.007-04:00

Ok, so I was flicking channels to find a good football game on sunday, and I came across the Discovery Channel showing a documentary-style show about wild hogs in the US. And the hunters they were interviewing were such yokels, they actually had to put subtitles on the screen so you could decipher their jibberish. Fuck da south.

Then I came across "In the Womb" which is a completely badass show about the development of different fetuses in the animal kingdom. Incredibly cool. Saw one a while ago about the kangaroo - hands down the most disgusting display of nature in motion that I've ever seen.

Let's see, what's new...

Two weekends ago there were a ton of plans, most of which collapsed entirely. Didn't make it to TO for the 80s party on the friday; didn't get to TO on time saturday to do anything but swim in a saltwater pool for half an hour; didn't make it to St. Kitts for the golf tourny (which got cancelled due to the shitty rain anyway); didn't make it to Grape and Wine; didn't get into the Factor's pad for hours that night cuz he bailed to the rippers. Got a hot girl's number though... what what!

Lots of hockey drafts in the past few weeks. Got some solid teams methinks. Hopefully that'll pay off with some cash money at the end of the year.

Last weekend was homecoming down here in Londontown. Went out for a casual beer on the friday night, which turned into a casual dozen, and an atrocious hangover the next day. Solid night though.
Started drinking at about 11 am at the pancake kegger on saturday, but had to take a nap midday. Woke up in a panic at about 7 pm, thinking it was 7 am on monday. Ugh, the life of a working stiff. Got shithammered again that night, and saw a ton of ppl from the old school era. Good times.

Work has been killing me for about a month now. Tons of OT on the books, which explains my lack of posting. It wears me out like it's nobody's business, and without a nap today I'd be screwed for tomorrow. Today was go-go-go from 8-430. Barely had time to breathe.

Went out to see Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs last night. Pretty funny. Went with my one-and-only 3D girl - never seen anything in 3D without her... weird.

Sidenotes

The Ugly:

My $400 dollar glasses got shattered off my face in dodgeball last weekend. Adios Buddy Holly.
My iPoo'd drained completely this week and couldn't be recharged.

The Bad:

My shoulder is a complete wreck from dodgeball. Tried taping it last time, didn't help.
This makes me laugh uncontrollably. Bad times for that mofo! "Long Live Berlusconi" - direct quote from Berlusconi himself. hahahaha classic.

The Good:

Found $5 on my driveway this morning.
Won a McGriddle (whatever the fuck that is) on my Monopoly from McShits today.
iPoo'd is currently charging! Fuck yeah!! No idea why it started working again...
Flintstones Vitamins = Happier Mintvis. Direct correlation, I swears.
Bitches ain't shit but ho's and tricks.

All Fire on the Inside

2009-09-16T23:22:00.000-04:00

I haven't had Dunkaroos in about 10 years or so. Had a pack today. Almost puked.

Work has been sucking the life out of me lately. This damn presentation that was supposed to have been last week, was rescheduled to this afternoon, but yesterday my boss realized that neither she nor I was ready for the thing.
The clients are pissed, but we had to push it back two more days.
And I've been slogging alot of overtime to get the thing done.
I had to go in on Sunday, and put in OT every night this week so far. And I still have to go in tonight for an hour or so to work on stats and shut down some machines.
Fack.

What else is new...

Matt Good's new album is streaming, and it sounds pretty money.
Concert dates announced = partial in my pants.
Massey Hall again? London? Both?

Last weekend was pretty solid. Went up to TO for Em's housewarming party. Good time, ended up just staying in and partying, but I met a ton of new people. There were some highly suspect people, but the bevy of cute chicks made up for it. I even talked to some of them. Shocking, I know...

My old man came down to London for Saturday night. During the day we went down to Port Stanley to set up plans for his 60th bday party. Never been there before, but it seemed pretty legit.

Yakob, my dad and I checked out a band called An Horse from Australia that night. The chill Music Club wasn't the right venue, and I have a feeling they're used to bigger crowds. Decent show though, and afterwards we checked out another band playing in the Club.
It was some rag-tag throw-together that consisted of a grizzled old bastard that looked like Willem Dafoe (kinda looked like he might've killed a man too), a fat child-porn possessing bassist, a fat country singin' woman with a wicked voice, a semi-legit looking trumpeter, and a talkative drummer.
Entertainment baby.
Got pretty boozed, I must say.

Last week I was really energetic and edgy, and the weekend actually calmed me down a bit. But after my dad took off on Sunday I got that old feeling back. The week has since worn me out, but I'm still feelin it.

This weekend should be solid. I've got a dinner party in TO on friday night, then a big hockey draft on saturday in Guelph, followed by golf and boozing.
I've gotta get back to TO on sunday to go birthday shopping with my step-mom, and then bolt back to London for the first games of dodgeball in the new league.
Followed by fuckin Kings of Leon that night.

Thankfully I'll have finished up that presentation on friday, cuz monday might be a wee bit hungover.

Anyway, off to work I go...

The Edge of Western Civ'lization

2009-08-30T20:38:00.003-04:00

Well slap me in the face and call me a lesbian.

I never thought I'd say it, but today at the grocery store I bought... tofu.

Life has been boring lately, so I figured I'd try something kinda new, and kinda gutless. The shit was really cheap actually, much cheaper than I thought it'd be. I'll have to mix it into some dirty asian meal that already has beef or chicken in it though. None of that vegetarian shit for me.

I've been watching alot of Californication lately. Hilarious show, and Duchovny is completely badass. Can't wait for the new season to start. The kids used to say I looked like him, back in the day when the X-Files were in their prime.

I pretty much want to be Hank Moody when I grow up.
Writer. Alcoholic. Sex Machine. Hopeless romantic.

On the topic of writing, I've started reading a book that outlines how to become a freelance writer. I'm hopefully going to start a little moonlighting in the next month or two. If not for the money, then for the challenge and the time-consumption.

Can't wait for another exciting week at work!
Yawn...

Beefcaaake

2009-08-24T22:20:00.004-04:00

So my new plan to gain weight is as follows:

Option #1
Follow fat people around the grocery store to see what they eat. You know, get inside the head (or in this case I guess it'd be the stomach) of a fat person and really see what makes em tick.

Cheetos - check
Mozza sticks - check
6 different kinds of greasy potato chips - check
40 gallon tub of No Name cola - check
Fresh fruit - IXNAY motherfucker

Option #2
Eat even when I'm not hungry. This is clearly healthier than the first option, and has mad potential for positive results. Just gotta make sure the food is worth putting into my belly.

Option #3
Consume less fluids. I've always found that I tend to buy too much liquid, probably because I usually go shopping on Sundays when I'm hungover to the Nth degree. Not to mention that alot of the foods I generally eat are full of water - i.e. those tasty bell peppers.
More pasta, less water, more Mintvis.

Option #4
Work out more while concurrently following through with #2 and #3.
So lazy though... fuck.

The Year That Wasn't

2009-08-12T18:57:00.005-04:00

Quarter Century.
Looking back now, it's hard to believe just how shitty the past year has been.
Far more was lost than gained, I can tell ya that much.

Top 5 Albums

5.

3.
2.1.

Top 5 Songs

5. Stars - Barricade
4. Ryan Adams - Two
3. John Butler Trio - Better Than
2. Fred Eaglesmith - Water in the Fuel
1. The Stills - Being Here

Top 5 Movies

4.3.
2.

1.

All the other girls here are stars, you're the northern lights

2009-08-04T21:39:00.008-04:00

At long last, we got a summer weekend. Too bad the first one of the year came in fucking August.

Friday started out with a damsel and myself checking out D's gig in the park, then hitting the Josh Ritter concert, followed by a trip to the Frog to see Hines and Doyle do their musack thing too.

D was good, I haven't seen her in forever. Ran into an old floor-mate who was with her too, and met her parents. Her old man had a hilarious story about the Ceeps. He was money.

Ritter was much better than I expected. There were only a few songs that I didn't recognize, which always makes concerts more fun. As the opening act was finishing up, I ran downstairs to take a piss, and coming out of the washroom I almost walked right into Ritter himself. Tall man. I was side-boozed by the end of the show, considering we had only split a pulled pork sandwich for dinner at ribfest. My lady friend was tipsy enough to think that she knew the names of all the songs based on the first line of lyrics. It was pretty entertaining and hilarious.

i.e. Snow is Gone
Opening lyrics = "birds beneath my window, dustyin their wings upon the lawn..."
Female input = "Oh this song is called 'Birds' right!?"

No dear.

We grabbed some food on the way up Richmond, and made fun of a brutally awkward and creepy kid who was hanging out alone at the park. Until his friend arrived, that is, and they shared a weird embrace...

We only stuck it out at the Frog for a beer, then met up with some really *cough* cool people *un-cough* that my roomie was chillin with for the night at another bar.

Saturday started out and ended with a hangover. I ended up boozing in the park across the street while KP tanned and read a book. We were supposed to go out to a party that night, but Jake-hole mixed up the nights and it turns out the party is next weekend. I did get those two hosers out to D's second gig, and I finally grabbed her CD. Haven't given it a listen yet.
We three roomies split some ribs for dinner, and they were absolutely brutal.
You'd think they'd have decent ribs at a thing called Ribfest. Guess not...
Passed out early that evening. Borrrrrrring.

Sunday a few of us finally managed to get together and hit up Grand Bend for a day at the beach. It was pretty sweet, not to mention the beauty drive through the country. It had been awhile since I could let the wind rip past at a buck-forty with the sun shinin'. Felt good.

That night I was rudely stood up by a friend (bitch, hahaha) who later bought me a few drinks at the bar to apologize.
I ended up partying with a bunch of lads up near Masonville, which involved too many tequila shots and a bit too much flip-cup for my liking. I just can't hack it with beer, it's gotta be the fuckin Merlot baby.

We got booted from Jacks after a beer, and ended up at Jim Bobs, scoping out the jailbait. $2.50 Jagerbombs were devestating.

I finished the night off with a brutal convo with a certain girlie. Classic drunken Mintvis...

Monday I recovered, and nursed a sore ankle from jumping off of the roof from Sunday night's pre-drink. I also bagged myself on that same jump, but it was fine by the morning.

I even dragged my sorry ass out to the tennis courts with Jake for a little exercise. He hilariously whacked himself in the face with his racket and was bleeding pretty badly for awhile.

And today work sucked. What else is new?

We all squeezed the stick and we all pulled the fuckin trigger

2009-07-29T20:26:00.004-04:00

I find it amazing how you can go for years without hearing an album, then listen to it again and remember every single word. Just happened with Phantom Power by the Hip. Back when they used to rock out with their cocks out.

Fuckin Fireworks baby.

Last weekend was Hillside, and it was pretty decent. The big downside was the fact that I had never heard of 95% of the acts at the thing.
It was good to get back though, since I missed it last year while I was out west.
The weather was pretty brutal for most of the weekend too. By Sunday we were ankle deep in mud, in our hippie-assed Birkenstocks of course.
It was good to catch up with the usual suspects. Every year it seems to feel like we were only sittin around the campfire the weekend before. But I actually only see those guys once a year.
My cuz and I got brutally drunk and stoned on the Friday night and passed out in our chairs. I woke up in the back seat of my car (for some reason) the following morning.

I have to say it kinda sucked that I missed two gigs that I really wanted to catch. One was due to the pissing rain, and the lack of a beer tent over the stage. And the other was caused by the beer tent, and it's stupid capacity rules.

Didn't buy any mirch this year, but I guess that kinda follows the problem of not knowing any of the damn bands. Tokyo Police Club was solid, even covered Tom Petty's American Girl.
And this year was a little less social than most. Usually meet a few interesting characters at those shows, but not so much this time. I did meet one cute 5 foot chick hangin out with her 6 foot friend. Both were pretty cute. But that was friday night, and my high level of intoxication probably turned them off pretty quickly.

My old man and step-mom showed for the saturday lineup, and I finally got my huge poster in the mail from Britain. Gotta assemble the thing now, no idea how I'm gonna do that...

Josh Ritter this weekend.
D-bomber this weekend.
Golf this weekend.
Beach this weekend.

Fuckin work tomorrow.

The ones and the zeros bleed n' make some noise...

2009-07-21T21:10:00.003-04:00

I'm starting to think that technology is taking over my life. It seems lately that I always have to have something going on, be it on the computer, the TV, the cell, or through a pair of speakers.
It's like I want to watch a movie while listening to a new record at the same time, and play a computer game at the same damn time.
Not that I really play many games beyond the odd free cell or spider time-waster.
And I sure as hell don't take it as seriously as this kid does:

Seriously people, is this the best we can do?
If that kid didn't need therapy before that spectacle, he sure will now.

But for me this whole dependence on ones and zeros is starting to become a noticeable nuisance. Where I used to read the paper at lunch, I now find myself playing Texas Hold 'Em against a computer in my phone.
I'll sit around surfing the internet for hilarious photos rather than keep up on the BBC News.
And hitting the refresh button on yahoo sports a million times is a good replacement for oh, say... learning to play the guitar.

It all feels like filler for something that should have some meaning. Not exactly sure what that something might be, but whatever it is, it's missing in my boring-assed life lately.

On the topic of boredom, I spent a solid half hour rolling coins on Sunday, and cashed in $510 today at the old TD. Got me a new card too, the old one was becoming another techno pain in my asshole.
That shit's going into the Vegas fund. New Year's is gonna be a beauty this year...

On Sunday night, due to the terrible weather we've been getting lately, Kpizzle and I decided to spend the $25 bones to go catch my boy Steve Earle downtown. Walking up to the gates, as we were counting our cash (go figure I was short, and left to mooch from her) a dude just walked up and handed us two spare tix he had! Fucking mint that!
So we had a few beers and took in a solid show. No bitches barking in our ears this time around. And the crowd had to be at least twice what we had in Massey Hall. Lots of old people again haha. And I didn't stand a hope in hell of getting close enough to yell requests...

I forgot to mention in my last post that one of his best lines from the Massey show was, "I gotta say with Obama in the White House down south, it sure makes this asshole you've got up here look alot worse."

Touche.

Anyway, it's time for a run...

You go to school and you learn to read n' write, so you can walk into the county bank and sign away yer life

2009-07-17T16:24:00.001-04:00

My floor and bed are absolutely covered in tiny little silver sparkles.
Fucking Heath Ledger and her goddamn glitter glue... living proof that if you let a woman into your bed, your life will go to hell. If not your life, then your sanity at the very least.

Work has been shitty this week, nothing seems to be working right.
Add acid and the pH fucking rises - things like that.
At least my boss finally took my suggestion to pass along certain files so I can do my job effectively, so I suppose that's a small blessing.

Saw Steve Earle last weekend at Massey Hall in TO. The audio could've been a little better, I have to say. And go figure, the loudest most ignorant bitch in the place was sitting two rows behind us. The phrases, "You go boyfriend!" and "I love you Stevie" were said far too many fucking times. I think it kinda ruined the show for my step-mom, unfortunately.

Ol' Steve looks more like a washed-up roadie than a legendary pioneer of the country-rock world, but damn he's solid live. Wicked on the guitar, and it looks absolutely effortless.
The show started off a little slow with a few too many Van Zandt tunes, but picked up big time after he played Tom Ames' Prayer. Highlights included My Old Friend the Blues, Jerusalem, Devil's Right Hand, Someday, Goodbye, Guitar Town, and of course Copperhead Road.

Jason Collett as an opening act was pretty good too. Maybe a little too mellow. And get some fucking pants that fit properly, you asshole.

I'm debating hitting up Bluesfest this weekend to see Earle again, and repeatedly requesting Angry Young Man. Might be roped into seeing the new HPo though, so we shall see if that pans out...

I always think of tons of things to write about during the day, then I get home and forget everything.

Typical.

C'mon Kumon

2009-06-23T20:45:00.004-04:00

I always seem to have trouble writing on here after I write a eulogy.
I remember when Mike died it took forever for me to get something up here to take the place of his picture. I guess I just don't feel like writing much in times like these.

But I have to say that recent events have cheered me up alot. I'm still pretty pissed off about alot of things in the last 6 months or so, but in the last week things have taken a turn for the better. For awhile there it seemed like bad things kept happening, and I kept saying well it can't get much worse - only to see things get worse... and worse.

I actually applied for a job up in Ottawa last week, but the following day my boss offered me a substantial raise along with full time status, so it looks like I'll be stickin around London for awhile. I was thinking it might be time for a change, but I suppose a change that big will have to wait.

I've also had an unexpected rise in the female presence in my life. It kinda came out of the blue on me, to be honest.

In completely unrelated news, I find it incredible that this is the logo for a fuckin learning centre for children:
Are kids supposed to be proud that they attend this fucking place??
It looks like a bewildered and retarded kid without a nose. Who the hell though that up?

Not much else to say beyond "holy shit it's hot in my lab".
27 degrees today. What a piss-me-off...

The loss of an icon.

2009-06-10T20:26:00.007-04:00

This past weekend my family, and the town of Penetanguishene, lost a great man.

My father's older brother, Henry Bisschop, passed away from cancer.

It was his third battle with the disease in the past five years, and each time he beat it, he couldn't come back as strong physically. But he always remained positive, even in his final days.

Henry was the type of man that everyone respected.
He was a straight shooter; always completely honest with anyone he came into contact with.
He was also a no-nonsense kind of man; very practical, and always productive. Even in his retirement he was extremely active in the community and with his family.
He was compassionate man who didn't discriminate or judge people.
He was a man of high morals and values.

He was the kind of man that had no enemies.

Henry was a teacher, a principal, a hockey coach and referee, a family man, a member of the church, a Mucker (the Mucker, in fact), a great story teller, and man that people loved to follow. And he was an amazing uncle who taught me many lessons as a child and as a man.

My dad was probably his closest sibling, and I know he's going to have many tough days ahead of him dealing with this loss. But my brother and I are very proud that our dad was able to give a heartfelt speech at his funeral. I really can't imagine how tough it must be, but I know it affects me too. I'm usually a rock with this kind of thing, but I've never lost someone this close before. I guess every rock will crack if you hit it in the right spot.

I could go on about how many people loved him, but the short list is as follows:

And that doesn't even scratch the surface of how many people's lives were touched by the man.

I can only hope that I'll have hundreds of friends and family members standing in line in the rain (because the funeral home was too full) just to pay their respects when I die.
I hope I'm able to raise my children as well as Henry did.
I hope I'm able to live my life with the same character that he always showed, even in the tough times.

Henry used to laugh that I never called him "Uncle Henry", it was always just "Henry". He used to say "I've got 45 year-old nephews that call me Uncle, but not Travis!"

Well I have to say Henry, I've never been anything but proud to be your nephew.
I hope you're resting peacefully now.

May Two-Four

2009-06-02T19:23:00.003-04:00

Before it escapes me entirely, I'd better make a quick post about this year's May 24 weekend.

The weekend was supposed to have started on Thursday up in Bayfield at a couple of friends' cottage. I had taken the Friday off in preparation for two nights up there, followed by two nights up near Honey Harbour with the Muckers up at MacCrae.

But with all the knife-in-the-back bullshit the week before, I decided to hold out and come up on Friday with a few buddies who weren't involved in all of that shit (a few people who actually were involved were at the cottage Thurs night, so I think it was a good idea to hold off).

Friday night was good, but after a long day of drinking, and a big game strip flip-cup (in which I was crushing red wine instead of beer) I got blackout drunk and ended up falling on my ass when KP tried to grab a piggieback ride from me. I was put to bed shortly thereafter. hahaha

The next day James and I had a devastating 3 hour drive to Barrie, which started at about 8:30. Once we got there, he had another two hours to his cottage, and I had another hour or so in my parents' car followed by a 20 minute hike through mud and rock to meet the Muckers.

Fortunately the rain had only come on the Friday night, and held off for the rest of the weekend. But fuck me was it ever cold. So cold you didnt want to touch many of those cold beers. The wind was the worst part of it. Add up all of the bullshit back home, and I really didn't drink much at all for the rest of the weekend. Wasn't really in the mood...

Caught a ton of fish though. One little ballsy mofo was about the size of my lure:

My Bro ended up winning the trophy, but it was a small crew of guys up there this year, so the winning fish wasn't exactly a behemoth.

If I can remember now, I think we had: myself, my bro, my old man, Sean, Pun, Pun's bro, Neil, Baz, Overdrink, Zif (and his badass dog Aero), Anders, Jamie Doe, and Eddie who had to leave early cuz he got sick.

Scale of mintness for your typical May 24: 4 out of 10

2009-06-02T07:42:00.001-04:00

We had some massive highs... we had some crushing lows

2009-05-24T12:55:00.004-04:00

Every now and then I wake up after a night of heavy drinking and I feel fucking invincible.
It's a great feeling, let me tell ya.
It usually comes on when I don't have a hangover. And today is just one of those days. Yesterday I was brutally hungover from a ridiculous night of drinking on friday, but today I feel like a million bucks.

Speaking of, I did not win the lottery last week. Not even close.
But I feel like I'm due to win someday. $50 mil sounds like a nice round number to me.
I'll play the next big one.

This weekend was full of ridiculous conversations and terrible moments. At the same time it's the most fun I've had in awhile. I'm pretty much all over the map.
Massive highs.
Crushing lows.

If I hadn't received a phone call from a certain hungover girl on saturday I'd be on depression row at the moment. Fortunately the call came and I'm alright.

Last night ol' B-rad and I partied it up on the roof of the downtown Starbucks, at a friend's apartment. I had actually only met the girl once before, but she seems pretty cool. Too bad she's moving out of that pad in a week. It was sick. We had to squeeze out a window and climb on top of AC units to get to the rooftop. Lots of bitties at the party.

I made some terrible comments to the "cushy-ab girl" and I really need to call her to apologize for that. I might've just put the last nail in the coffin with her. We shall see...

I've come to the realization that once I get some booze in me, I'll pretty much say anything. And I mean fucking anything. My normally weak-sauce brain-to-mouth filter dissolves completely and I say whatever I want, regardless of the consequences. I should really work on that.

Saw Terminator yesterday, and that 3D Monsters vs. Aliens the other night too. Both were about as good as I expected. Gotta hit up Star Trek this week.

I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now

2009-05-21T23:17:00.002-04:00

I always was better with a pen than I could ever be with the spoken word.

She told me I should be a writer, so here goes...

Tonight I've started writing the book I've been thinking about writing for years. It's going to be a memoir or sorts, running through the first quarter century of my life. All the regrets, the self indulgence, the stupidity, the great moments, the tragedies, and all the little things that piled up to spit out the over-analyzing fool you see before you today.
I'm gonna call it My Back Pages, circa Bob Dylan.

At this point I feel like it's going to end up as a mess of incoherent rambling and anecdotes that come out in no particular order. But organization can wait.
And once I get this behemoth written, I'll start into some fiction. Maybe a novel, maybe a collection of stories like Doghouse Roses. Get published with that, then bust out the personal shit.

Sell a million copies.
Make a million dollars.
Get the girl.

Who's the pitchers in this game?

2009-05-21T18:08:00.001-04:00

Life never bothered to give me lemons. I just got onions instead.

2009-05-12T21:58:00.003-04:00

Most days that I'm feeling shitty, I try to remind myself that we're all just tubes of meat held up by bones with blood rocketing through our bodies to keep us breathing.
We all have to eat, we all have to shit.
We're all just animals with overblown emotions that evolved into the things we now know as love/hate/fear/trust/jealousy/etc.

But some days it's a little harder to just accept that life as an animal ain't so bad. Some days things are as bad as they seem, and it's next to impossible to convince yourself otherwise.

Today was one of those days for me.

Everything may be coming up Millhouse, but nothing is coming up Mintvis.

And I think tomorrow is going to be one of those days that I just won't want to get out of bed at all.

I'll have to face a friend who's currently digging a knife in my back, a job that has turned into something it was never supposed to be, and a myriad of depressing realizations about my life that are pretty hard to take.
Then to top it off, in the evening I'll be seeing the girl whose heart I tore in two, for no apparent reason. And I still haven't made peace with that. Not by a long shot.

I already watched I Am Legend tonight, and I think it might be time for a little Cast Away.

Another day of decomposin' light

2009-05-06T20:37:00.003-04:00

I have to say the recent change of scenery has done alot for my mood.
The past few days have been much less shitty, I do say.
I think the nice weather is helping too.
For the record, I think that bogus "disease" called seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is complete shit. James and I were talking about it the other day, and we got to thinking... if everyone feels shitty and depressed cuz it's cold, miserable, and dark all the time, how the hell can you call that a disorder? If we all have the same problem, it's not exactly special when one person bitches about it more than the rest. They're just complainers.

Anyway, the party last weekend was pretty solid. Killed a Texas mickey of Wiser's, which is kinda surprising, considering we had about half a dozen people at our place when the clock hit 9 p.m. I guess everyone was saving themselves for later in the night.
I can't say that I remember much beyond midnight, mainly due to the porchcrawler effect.

If you wanna make a porchcrawler, empty a can of frozen lemonade into a jug, fill that can with whiskey (or vodka if you choose) and toss it in, and then add 3 beers. Tastes like lemonade and it'll get you proper fucked.

My bro was gooned by the time anyone really showed up, and he paid for it in puke the next day. I think a few people ended up puking that night too, and apparently some dude took a wicked tumble out our front door and onto his face.

We even had birthday cake for James and Jake-hole.
It was kinda sad to be missing a few key members of our crew, but we had a great time regardless.

I thought I'd have trouble getting back into the work cycle this week, since every other time I've moved it's meant a change from school-to-job or vice versa. But it wasn't bad at all. I'm fairly motivated despite the lack of results I've been getting, and I'm hoping we sort some shit out in the next week or two. Mind you, a new project is starting up, so I might get pulled away from my main focus for awhile.

Back to the weather thing, I do love the summer dresses (see above) but when April ended I noticed a drastic drop in the amount of bitties running around this town. Sad tale, but I'm not exactly surprised. I'm sure there'll be a ton of girlies out on the patios this summer to gawk at.

I, myself, have even pulled my ass off the couch for a few runs already (hard to believe, I know). They last about 12 minutes since I have the endurance of a geriatric, but it's gotta improve. Can't get much worse than it is right now...

Exercise makes me hungry for secondary dinners.
Adieu.

Roll Out

2009-04-29T22:23:00.002-04:00

It never seems to fail that I'm the last one to move out of a house.
All through university it was that way, and again I'm packing up alone.

It's kinda depressing to wander back and forth through this place while all the walls are bare and the rooms are empty. It's also a pain in the ass not to have a TV, but luckily there wasn't any hockey on tonight anyway.

I have to admit I'm glad to be leaving my current place.
Granted it was a good location, the price was sweet, and we dangled an 8 month lease out of the landlord, but the house itself is in pretty rough shape. The walls are crooked, the rooms are kinda tight, and the ants have begun to come out of the woodwork. I swear I've killed 20 in the last week.
Not to mention the whole "half an address" bullshit, since the house is actually behind the main strip along the road.

Plus this house has some shitty memories attached to it. I haven't exactly had the best time here, so I'm glad to be startin fresh in a new place.

Our new pad is pretty sweet, and it's definitely got more class and character than most of the places I've lived in. I'm lookin forward to throwing our party on Saturday, which may or may not involve a Texas mickey of rye. It's kind of a joint bday for James and Jake, plus a housewarming party for Mike, Jake, and I.
Should be a solid shit show.

I have many things to talk about, but for the moment I've gotta get back to laundry, dishes and packing.

It's all giving me mad AIDS right now.

2009-04-28T17:46:00.001-04:00

It's kinda like laying down a bunt to Jim Abbott...

2009-04-25T13:35:00.006-04:00

I've decided that I have way too much faith in people.

A few weeks back I took a huge suckerpunch at the bar, while trying to break up two meatheads who were drunkenly shoving each other. (Honestly, who blindsides the skinny kid wearing glasses?)

Last weekend an old buddy of mine was ready to knock me out over something I said to his girlfriend two and a half years ago. I basically said something to her in confidence back then, and I'm just finding out now that confidentiality ain't what it used to be.

All the little things are bothering me about the world lately.

I really feel surrounded by people who've been raised by televisions and gameboys. And the undeserved air of entitlement is nauseating. Where the fuck are the morals and decency? Where's the depth of character? And where the fuck were the parents in these peoples' childhoods?
It's kinda like looking around expecting to see lakes and oceans and all I see is filthy puddles. And it's goddamn depressing.

The world's not what I had envisioned as a kid. Everyone's in it for themselves.

I'm starting to think it might be time to join the party. Nice guys really do seem to finish last, and I'm the nicest asshole in town.

Maybe it's time to take the girl home even if she's too drunk to stand.
Maybe it's time to stab friends in the back and smile to their faces.
Maybe it's time to stop expecting people to do the right thing.
Maybe, just maybe, it's time to just lay down that gutless bunt, and wear a shit-eating grin on 1st base.
It seems to be working for everyone else...

A Breath of Fresh Air

2009-04-08T18:16:00.004-04:00

I grabbed a coffee at around 9:30 this morning from the lunch room, and knowing that my boss was out doing errands around town, I didn't expect anyone to be in the lab when I got back.

But when I walked through the door I just knew somebody was there.

I couldn't see anyone; couldn't hear them. I couldn't feel any vibrations in the floor; couldn't taste their presence. But somehow I knew they were there.

I could fucking smell them.

And you guessed it, it was that stanky hoor Rezwana.

"The Due" has really been getting to me lately.

She can't tell the difference between mass and concentration.
She shuts down my computer files for no reason at all.
She wears the same clothes for five days straight.
She is a skidmark on Canada.

She perpetually asks "Tra-fus vare ees Erin?"
"I don't know you stupid bitch, probably out in the world doing something productive. Imagine the antithesis of your life - she's out there doing that!"

But today I received good news!!
Not only is she heading back to India due to "health reasons" (aka she can't hack it here), she's left our lab forever!!!!
My boss got to the end of her rope at the same time that Rezwana's supervisor did, and they both agreed that she wasn't accomplishing anything at all in our lab. So now the prof has to watch her every move back on campus, to ensure she isn't just mooching a paycheque anymore.

I'm all smiles.

For once I don't have to breathe through my mouth for an entire day straight.

Tired of waking up tired

2009-04-06T16:57:00.004-04:00

Whenever I get home from work I feel incredibly tired.
I dunno what it is about this place, it just has that effect on me.

I can't say I've been sleeping much lately though, and a big reason for that is my old friend alcohol.

Two of our old roomies returned from South America last week, and crashed with us for a few days. They dragged us out to the bar on Thursday night, but I ducked out early. (As if 12:30 is early.) Like most normal people, I do have to get up on Friday mornings. Rat bastards...

At the bar that night our boy Pegs could barely speak, he was so drunk. We all did a dirty shot of tequila on James' dime. Nobody really wanted to do it bedsides James himself. Pegs took a half shot then threw the rest of it over his shoulder. Bender took it, then started drooling like an idiot back into his shot glass for two minutes. I just cringed with mine. James was unimpressed with our lack of masculinity.

Work on Friday sucked, even though I wasn't all that hungover.
But the night was a solid one. We hit up the Ceeps for old time's sake, and danced like fools to Kelly Clarkson and Katy Perry. As usual.
Bender, James and I bailed with a friend to get high, and left Pegs to his own devices. Turns out he got into our place through a window. We kinda forgot about him to be honest.
I was yelling at our friend's cat, calling it "Zherdev" all night long. As usual when i get near a cat...

Woke up at 6 am with Ben and James passed out in bed with me. Joy.
Apparently we were rocking out to Taylor Swift into the wee hours of the morning.

On Saturday we got rid of the boys at Ben's grandma's place, and then had to wait around all day for my wallet to get dropped off. Forgot the damn thing on a table when I got stoned...

That night we had a solid predrink with the crew on John, and ended up hittin Barneys. Not all that interesting, but I did get to see my old garage-mate from the summer. Farva stopped by to say hi, cuz we were supposed to have partied in the daytime but it never panned out.
His hand was all mangled from a fall on a beer bottle a few weeks back, and interestingly I cut my hand on a bottle at our predrink.
I have this handy little twist-off-helper-dealie on my keychain. Gomer's wife was trying to open his beer and couldn't, so i grabbed it and gave it a go with my device. Turns out the thing was on there really tight, and I ended up just shattering the glass off the top of the bottle. A piece about the size of a dime dug a good quarter inch into the pad of my index finger. I plucked it out right away, and the bastard bled like a mofo all night.
Stupid Sleeman Clear. Inferior shite.

The afterparty at Ty's made the night though. In a mix of about 10 of us, somehow 2 random girls showed up. They were cool and everything until we all came to realize that nobody knew who the fudge they were. Then they insulted a buddy of mine and I totally lost my shit on the one girl. hahaha. "Get the FUCK out!" I yelled, using huge arm gestures to indicate where the door was. Pretty hilarious. But they didn't leave, then 5 minutes later we were all talking as if nothing had happened. Can't really remember all the details (by any means) but we were boozing til about 5 a.m. Or so I'm told.

Ty kicked me awake at 2 p.m. Sunday, and I stumbled home with my fly down. Ran into KP and Em on the street, who politely informed me that I was a complete mess.

But it was such a beauty day that we ended up playing softball in the park for a few hours. James and I even felt compelled to smoke cigars and crush beers in the park. And until 5 o'clock or so I didn't eat a damn thing.

Had me a fat steak, and watched Broken Arrow that night. What a mint movie.

I had a horrendous sleep last night, and the snow and shit today just made the day that much worse.

I think it's time for a nap.

News

2009-03-25T20:05:00.003-04:00

Haven't updated in a bit, gotta get on that more often...

This past weekend I got ridiculously drunk on Friday night, said some stupid things, danced to Katy Perry. Good times.

Then headed to TO for my step-mom's 55th at a fancy restaurant on Saturday night. Scaramouche. Interestingly, after the dinner I was watching sports highlights with the old man, and I saw the commercial for that new ap for the iPhone, the "dinner shuffle" or whatever.
And guess what came up on the first shuffle?!?! Why it was that very restaurant, Scaramouche. Weird...

I got to hold my niece for the first time that night. She's dead weight mostly. And she sleeps alot, which is boring.
Someone at the restaurant was also having a bday party, and one awkward woman sang "Happy Birthday"... only the lyrics were all wrong. In fact, it wasn't even the happy birthday song.
She just kept singing "Happy Birthday... Happy Birthday.... Happy Birthday!" Fucking bizarre.

This Monday I got all fancied up in my brand new lab coat in the Ivey atrium on campus for a set of speeches and a photoshoot. Unfortunately my lab coat was a XS in size, so I couldn't even do the pig up.
Tony Clement was announcing a $5 Million investment for a new partnership between Ivey and Health Sci. I had to clap and smile and run our cool machine and pretend to be happy I was there. Davenport was all fuckin smiles.
It was actually really good exposure for our little company, which only bodes well for my job security and the possibility of a raise. Mint that. My boss was even in a pic in the London Free Press with the "honourable" Mr. Clement.

What else is new...

The Pope has lost his fucking mind.

Our Science Minister kinda sorta thinks that God lives in mini-microscopic particles.

And Barack "El Duderino" Obama speaks in public as if he's having beers with buddies:

The Rezwana-due

2009-03-18T16:25:00.003-04:00

So a couple weeks back, a prof from campus worked out a side project with my boss, and decided to send one of his masters students down to our lab for awhile. It's kind of a part-time thing where some work will be done on campus and some in our lab.
Anyway, her name is Rezwana.
And she is fucking terrible.

I consider myself to be a pretty good judge of character, and when my boss said to me after Rezwana's first day, "I think she'll work out just fine" I had some serious, serious doubts.

She's roughly forty I'd say, has some sort of background in food sciences, has at least two sons, and is short and fat. And fucking terrible.

First of all I noticed that she seemed baffled by the concept of a lab book. And it's showing right now, since she has very few records of the work she's done at our lab. Needless to say, my boss and I just shake our heads.

She's utterly useless without my boss holding her hand through ever step of this project, which is supposed to be handled primarily be Rezwana and the prof on campus. And if my boss isn't around for any period of time, she literally sits there doing nothing, or maybe she'll check her emails or something. Utterly useless.

She also just wanders around aimlessly if she's confused, rather than ask where something is, or how to use a particular piece of equipment. Plus she seems to be flat out stupid. Today she struggled with the lid of a bucket for about five minutes before asking me to help her open it. Turns out it had a locking mechanism (in blatantly clear view of anyone using said bucket) and I opened the fucker in about 3 seconds. What a goon.

And then there's the language barrier which is pretty rough with this one. Not exactly her fault, but still.

But worst of all is the smell.
Imagine garbage water mixed with some sort of terrible middle-eastern food, mixed with a soiled diaper and sour milk.
I felt bad saying anything to my boss until she said to me last week at lunch "Boy you really notice it when Rezwana's in the lab don't you". I laughed my ass off and we've joked about it since.
But it's not really that funny when she puts her stank-assed parka on top of my coat, leaving it unwearable before being washed again.

Honestly how do you handle smelling that bad? She just emanates this terrible stink all day long, and it fills the lab.
How did anyone decide to marry or fuck you? Shit.

I have an associate, more like a friend of a friend, who's name is Reza. Good guy, but he smells like crap too. A buddy of mine has labelled the stink "The Reza-due". Hence my name for the new stink, the Rezwana-due. (Aren't we clever??)

On top of all of this, she seems to feel that my desk is her place to set up shop all the fucking time. She has her own desk, but the odd time she needs to use my computer. But rather than use it and leave, she establishes herself there for hours on end. Get the fuck out of my chair!

And lately she's been claiming some sort of bizarre illness, though we've seen no symptoms at all. Apparently she's debating whether or not she wants to go back to her home country. I have my suspicions that she's in way above her head and needs a serious excuse to bail out of this whole "education" thing.

My boss is also getting pissed that Rezwana constantly wants a lift to an from campus, which is maybe a 10-15 minute walk of a 5 minute bus ride. Get a grip woman, normal people have to walk and ride the bus sometimes. Pull you shit together.

Today I said to my boss, "I think she really got you off your game, didn't she."
She responded with an emphatic "That's an understatement."

I wish it was Rezwana's birthday tomorrow.
I would buy her the following things:

Deodorant
Perfume
A plane ticket home

Fullstride wristshot from halfcourt with a cigar hanging outta my mouth...

2009-03-16T17:00:00.004-04:00

This past weekend was a pretty solid one. Best in awhile actually, and it's definitely got something to do with the weather switching from pure shite to tolerable.
Sunday was actually a t-shirt-on-the-patio day. We rocked a couple of Caesars, but they weren't all that great. I can make a solid Caesar, and I kinda wanted to jump behind the bar to make my own. Get some skills, honestly.

Friday night started with my friend Em and I scoping out costumes for a 5-person flip cup team that we were putting into a tournament that evening.
We were pretty much stuck for any ideas regarding a team name, or even costume ideas period, but as soon as we walked into the Goodwill, I had a mad brainstorm.
After seeing the large rack of bright pink women's shirts, I decided that we should have four of us dress in pink and one in brown, for the epic team name of "4 in the Pink, 1 in the Stink"
I even found a wickedly terrible sweater made by "The Helen Keller Foundation of Jerusalem". Obviously I was geared up to wear that one.

Needless to say Em was not so pumped for that idea. And after several phone calls to other team members, and a change of venue to the ol' Value Villiage, my idea was deemed "too offensive" and officially murdered.

But another look down the women's shirt aisle gave me another brainstorm. We scoped out the most horrific looking women's turtlenecks and declared ourselves "Team Foreskin". Em got a nice rose-covered one, I got a pretty little number covered in turquiose flower-like things, Jmath ended up with the white and red snowflake look, we got Kris got a disgusting purple POS, and Ty was forced to wear a nice white one covered in candycanes and xmas gifts. Even had little penguins and snowmen on the cuffs and collar...

We looked like complete assholes. James had man-titties, since his shirt was so damn tight, and I actually looked somewhat like a tranny. Not flattering.

And this party was being hosted by people that we barely know, which was part of the reason Em didn't want the first team name to stand. What a pansy.

Anyway, there were 10 teams in the tourny, and I had very little faith in our abilities. For starters I'm terrible at chugging beer, so I had to rock the one thing that I can chug - red wine. I started out with a nice 13.5% Merlot and ened up on some terrible mixed bag of "house wine", whatever the fuck that means. Thank god that crap was only 7%.
Add to that James' terrible flipping skills, and the fact that we had two girls on our team (no offense), and I thought we were going to get killed for sure.

Turns out we made it all the way to the finals! I nearly puked in the semi's, but held 'er together. So after losing the first game of the best-of-five finals, we won two and were a shoe-in for the trophy. But that was the point at which Em decided to fall apart at the seams and start taking 3 decades to flip her cup. So we ended up losing, but it was a close second. And I was probably the drunkest asshole in the place, courtesy of my poorly chosen beverage.

In fact, at the bar afterwards, I was chatting up one of the girls who beat us in the finals, and used the line "your sister is cuter than you." I dont really remember saying that, but apparently she made me repeat myself, probably because she couldn't believe that anyone would be stupid enough to say something like that... then she walked away angrily.

Fastfoward to 10 a.m. Saturday morning and envision James and I crushing Caesars... I followed that with a nap, only to wake up around 1 for some catch out in the yard with the boys.
That led to garbage can ballhockey in the street, which is apparently a ridiculously busy little road these days. Who knew? We had a good go of it though, and Baldy and I scored a few mint goals to take the title (unofficially of course, those other hosers would never admit defeat).

We all dressed up in our St Patty's day uniforms, and went to Molly's for the night. We got nice and wasted, but there wasn't any green beer at all. I guess they're saving it for tomorrow.
The night was semi-filled with stupidity and drama with friends. But we had a great time.
I dropped yet another gem of a line a girl - "Your abs are cushy", after poking her in the belly. Not cool apparetnly, but I honestly thought she'd laugh her ass off at me when I said it. Girls are too worried about that kind of thing, she has a fine body. Fiiiiiiiiiine. hahaha

Anyway I bought her a drink and offered to take her to McDonalds to prove to her that she needed to actually put on some weight. So I hope I did reasonably well to recover, she's a really cool girl.

I grabbed an entire pizza from Georgio's for $20 flat, which soon became the envy of everyone in the street outside. The girl even had to ask her manager if she could sell me an entire pizza, which was funny in itself. I just pointed and said "gimme that whole thing right there".
Ended up passing out on Em's livingroom floor that night.

Didn't get much sleep through the weekend, so I'm pretty spent. It'll probably be an early night tonight.

This week looks busy, both at work and in the evenings, so hopefully it goes by fast in the lab and slow in the nights. I'm actually debating whether or not I wanna hit the road for a jog right now. Unfortunately my legs are sore as hell from ballhockey, so I'll probably just loaf around.
Fuck I'm outta shape.

So Jesus came to visit Canada today....

2009-02-19T19:40:00.003-05:00

Betcha he didn't count on this:

(Not that it was Canadian or anything. Leave it an American to be that racist)

The minto from the real story has a wicked name though!

I read a quote in the Globe today saying that the first officer on the scene got on the radio for help and said,

"There's a man down. He doesn't look good," he says, referring to the disfigured Ms. Nash. "We've got to get this guy out of here. He's got no face."

The whole thing is horrible yet strangely intriguing. And also hilarious in its own way.

The lonely end of the rink

2009-02-16T16:54:00.004-05:00

I just watched the Penguins lose to the lowly Islanders.
What a fucking disgrace.
Not to mention the two recent losses to the Maple Leafs, who are a complete joke these days.

I think there's a number of problems that have led to this sorry state of affairs, beginning with how well the team did last year. Let's face it, they overachieved. And now the pressure of repeating something like that is just weighing down a young team too much.

Having Whitney and Gonchar out for so long certainly didn't help, and both of those guys have returned quietly, without making much of an impact. Hopefully they step it up soon, cuz the clock is ticking.

Fleury is overrated. He doesn't look comfortable out there, he's perpetually injured, and he's getting lucky most of the time he does have good games.

More importantly is that plug they call Malkin. This douche thinks he can take on the entire opposing team each time he touches the puck. And it costs the Pens tons of scoring opportunities, which is something that doesn't show up on the old plus/minus.
They should've traded him for some solid guys rather than sign him to a contract. Just look at the way he collapsed last year in the playoffs. He gets hit a few times and then he's a ghost. Very European, I must say.

Get rid of the fucker, and to hell with the stats he puts up.

And that's all I have to say about that.

"Never have I seen a man so excited about deodorant"

2009-02-10T22:19:00.004-05:00

Fuck I hate getting my second wind at 10 p.m.
Had a nap after work, lazed around all night watching hockey and playin Perfect Dark with Jmath, and now I get a full head of steam. I actually wanted to go for a jog earlier, but I was far too lazy. Maybe some weights will tire me out enough to put me to sleep. Not likely though.

Work was ridiculously busy again today, but I probably accomplished the most in a single day thus far at my job. Thankfully tomorrow will be more relaxed. I just know I'm gonna be dead tired cuz I'm so wide awake right now. Always goes that way it seems...

On the good news front, I found something so elusive today at the grocery store that I almost crapped my pants.

You see, about three years ago the good people at Gillette decided to stop producing my brand of pit stick. Needless to say, I was fucking fuming. At first I thought maybe just a few stores had run out of the stuff, but after looking for months I figured out that they had flat-out fucked me.
As most of you children out there in radio land know, pitstick is a very personal thing. I had settled into my very specific type and when they killed it I was lost. I had been raving for years (old man-esque) that I was going to write a letter to the company and chew them out. But my laziness got the best of me and I just pissed and moaned to anyone within earshot.

But today I found it - that unmistakable shape with that oh-so-sweet consistency of solid gel (none of that shitty goop that Gillette still makes for some fucking reason) and that oh-so-important word "antiperspirant" - but it was under the name Right Guard, and being pitched as a "New" product.

Eat me, that shit ain't new.
And ten to one says Right Guard is owned by the same damn people that own Gillette anyway.

But I can't complain, I've got my baby back.
And the next time I'm up at Loblaws I'm going to buy the entire shelf of the stuff, no word of a fucking lie. You just can't trust the bastards anymore.

So my bill at the beer store was $145...

2009-02-05T19:24:00.004-05:00

Goddamn TD.
I've never had insufficient funds in my life.
But these bastards put a weeklong hold on my paycheque that I deposited last Friday, and my stupid landlord took out a G-note on tuesday for last month's and this month's rent. Pricks.

So my burrs had to go on the old mastercard.

Fortunately my rent cheques cleared by $1.37, which is my current balance (sans cheque).
Mint that.

Anyway, I'll have to mooch money for boozing tomorrow night. But I did have a gander at my change collection (terribly exciting I know) and found that I have $263.50. And that's not even including my little "Niglet" who holds all of my smaller coin-age. I have no rollers though.

So fuck.

In lighter news...

2009-01-28T22:20:00.002-05:00

Changed the layout, like it better now.

And has anyone seen that Single Ladies music video by Beyonce?
James and I sat there and stared at this thing the other day without saying a word.
Who knew somethin as simple three girls (one borderline man-face) dancing in a round room couple be so mesmerizing??

For some reason it won't let me embed, so here's the link.

They say you don't have a problem until you start bringin it home

2009-01-28T20:22:00.004-05:00

Work is killing me lately.

I used to be a slave to the autoclave on the last project, but since we've started this new contract and sterility isn't an issue, I'm frustrated by less tangible (and hate-able) things.

The most stressful aspect of everything is the fact that neither my boss nor I have done any of the protocols we've been starting. Hell, I still haven't read over everything that was supposed to have been started last Monday. Not to mention the fact that I'm not even close to a fucking biochemist, so I'm sort of out to lunch on most things.

On top of the basic frustrations, the fact that before today all of my data was strewn all over countless sheets of paper has also been killing me.

I have no time to even think about the next steps as I'm racing to complete the current things.
The breath is down my neck for what always seems to be the least important thing at the time.
I jammed my wrist trying to bash apart a glass vacuum chamber.
My shit is going wrong all the time.
I'm working brutal overtime. 11 hour days are fint.

I guess that means I officially have a problem.

I got a left front tire throwin' thread, by tomorrow mornin' I could dead

2009-01-26T19:17:00.004-05:00

Somehow I haven't updated on all the news that came over the Christmas break, so here goes:

Mintvis became an uncle (again). My step-sis Jess had a baby girl "Jahnavi" on the 28th of December. She was actually born about a month early, but her weight was good and everything worked out fine. It was just a bit unexpected, as my step-mom, dad and I had to race back to TO from Chatham the day it all went down.
My friends Mike and Erin got engaged on the 24th (I think... either that or the 25th)
My brother and his girlfriend Angela got engaged on the 28th, 29th, or 30th in Cuba. I dunno. Mangela is gonna be a part of the family now, so maybe I'll have to be nicer to her. Probably not though.
My buddy NVP and his girlfriend Laura got engaged too. No idea on the date of that one.
My cousin's youngest son swallowed a penny in Penetang and had to be rushed to sick kids in TO via ambulance to have the thing removed. Apparently he dropped some shreddies and when he scooped em up to feast, he took a penny with em. He then started puking all over the place so they had to get him help. But it all worked out. Unfortunately I had to vacate my bed at my dad's place to crash on a love seat at Findlay's downtwon. But it was good to chill with him so I can't complain.
I got coma-worthy drunk twice over the break (new year's included), and had at least a beer everyday during my time off. My boss gave me 2 solid weeks which was mint.
I saw Fred Eaglesmith with the old man. Jahnavi was actually born during the concert. Eaglesmith is mint.

The anecdote ends at about the 5 minute point. Solid fuckin tune.

Itchy toe

2009-01-19T20:10:00.005-05:00

Today was a rather shitty day.

Woke up at twenty after five with a hangover and couldn't get back to sleep.
Car got stuck in the driveway, which made me late for work.
Forgot my keycard again, which makes booze pooz much harder to sneak in during the work day.
My gut was rotting all day long from a 3 day bender.
And I got home to find another terrible snowplowing job by our sketchbag landlord. Instead of actually clearing our driveway, he seems to think that plowing all of the snow into our parking space is a great plan. Not to mention he half covered our damn BBQ which I had to dig out of the snow bank just to use for dinner.

And on top of that I'm still hacking up a lung from this bloody chest cough.

Gotta love self pity eh.

The weekend was entertaining. Met some interesting characters and made a complete asshole of myself at the bar on saturday. That's what a hangover day without food gets you on the second night of boozing - raging drunk on only 10 beers or so.

Speaking of, I went to Cole's place yesterday for the NFL playoffs and we ordered up some Domino's for dinner. He raved about the wings but I was too hungover (again) to eat anything but the pizza. Worked out nicely for me tho, cuz Cole and his buddy felt like shit last night from the wings, and they might even have food poisoning right now, by the sounds of it.

Cards game (save the third quarter) was entertaining, but the Steelers win was a snooze-fest. Almost passed out with a beer in hand. Those two hits in the late game were fucking spectacular though, don't get me wrong.

Anywho, off to KP's place for a little 24 action. Hopefully Jack delivers the goods tonight.

These dreams seem to cost money, but money costs some dreams

2009-01-13T20:14:00.003-05:00

It seems to me that most people are glad the year 2008 is over with and done.
Most people are probably just pissed off due to the economy, but alot of friends have legitimate claims that it was a shite year for all sorts of other reasons.
My year was, if nothing else, interesting as hell.

In 08 I,

finally graduated from university

took a trip to the mountains (never to return)

drove the best relationship of my life into the ground for no apparent reason

got my first real job

sat in the front row, and sat in the bleeders

could've died a few times

met a ton of new people and made some solid new friends

lost alot of respect for old ones

spent way to fuckin much money, and saved none

did more in one year than the past five combined

Even though it's an arbitrary mark on a calendar, lets hope the new year brings more good than bad. This last one was a little rough.

Please tell me there isn't another election on the way

2008-12-03T19:23:00.006-05:00

I just finished watching Stephen Harper address the nation, and I've decided one thing from it:
politicians are robots

Did ya see how he seemed so warm and wholesome at the start, then moved through what appeared to be the pre-programmed straightening of papers, followed by some oh-so-timely Italian hand motions to emphasize his points? Then he turned back into a human being again a mere two seconds before the speech was over? Did ya see it?

Flat out embarrassing.

It's pretty amazing that only two weeks ago he was happy (I use that word with a heavy dose of sarcasm, since we all know he wanted a majority) with his strengthened minority government. Now he's pretty well screwed. Either be ousted by the hated Liberals taking the helm, or resign because nobody has any trust or confidence in him.

In the speech he noted that the people voted him into power. Yes, I guess they did, but is it just me or did 62.4% of the country vote against you? Did 55% of the seats not end up in the hands of other parties? Gotta love our system... so long as a minority government is elected, most of the country hates our leader. Ya wonder why voter apathy is so rampant...

Harper also did a great job of painting all Quebeckers with the same brush: the separatists.
Funny, those were the same evil people that you Conservatives were in talks with back in 2000 there chief, back when you were toying with the idea of aligning yourself with the separatists to take on the Liberals.

Hell, back then you even said that it was against the idea of democracy for the Liberals to freeze parliament to avoid being taken down. Now you're planning the same thing?? Pot.kettle.black.

Fucking politicians, always saying whatever is convenient at the time. But in our system, why not bullshit your way through 4 years (oops, I mean less than 4 years... but isn't it now against the law to call an election whenever the powerful parties decide to? guess not...)

But let's face it, Harper fucked himself.
Making it illegal for federal workers to strike?
Presenting no ideas to help the economy, instead looking for a barely-above-water surplus that had us selling assets to appear to be breaking even?
Telling the other (poorer) parties that their $1.95 (not exact on that) per federal vote would be eliminated?

Did this cocksucker really think he'd get away with this?
That's just arrogance, plain and simple. You can only pull that sort of BS with a majority.

And now, without reaching out a hand to say "hey guys, let's all look for a way to sort this out and actually help Canadians", he instead decides to get his back up in order to save his own ass. To this date, parliament has done sweet fuck all in since the election, and ya just know he's gonna ask Jean to prorogue so we can sit on our hands while the world economy crumbles. Great plan...

And now on to the coalition:

This is just stupid.
Do you really think that Duceppe isn't licking his chops at the idea of feasting at the big-boy table? Not to mention Layton, who's eager as hell to get his foot in the door of power. And the Liberals seem to be pulling all the stops just to get back into power. You don't go that long in the land of milk and honey without getting pissed off once it's all taken away.

Not to mention the joke of a leader that they elected. So now what? Wait for the Liberals to elect the new Prime Minister, while Dion runs the show for a few months. Pretty strange that it would come to that.

This whole plan may look good on paper, but in action it'll probably falter like a Ford Pinto.
And the alienation of the West is a huge factor too. Much like Harper has thrown in the towel in Quebec, so have the Liberals in any province west of Ontario.

Nothing like a little national unity in a time of crisis, right?

I'm hoping to see Dion's response to the Harper address. But there will be one major difference: Dion won't look or act like a robot. He'll look confused as hell. That's why he's such a shit leader... he's only pretending to be a robot!

Stay Positive

2008-11-24T21:41:00.003-05:00

Today started out pretty rough.
I've got the old man's car for the week, so after pulling into work (on time for once) I almost took a huge spill on some ice in the parking lot. I managed to catch myself, but not before stomping on the bag that had been on my shoulder. Once I got up to the lunch room I saw that during my tumble I had crushed the shit out of a juicebox that had been in my lunch bag, and it was all over the damn place. A garbage can of paper towels later, and I was finally headed for the lab.
Then I realized I had forgotten my keycard so I had to creep around the access door until this asian chick went in, and I grabbed the door behind her.
Plus the weather was shit, which didn't help with the ol' Monday blues.

But besides that I had a good day. Busy at work, but I got some shit done tonight so that was good. Most nights I just bum around these days.

My friend Kristen actually called me out on that last week at the bar. Apparently I used to be fun, now I'm just shitty and tired all the time. Can't say that I disagree really...

For the first time in about half a year I picked up a CD tonight. The Hold Steady's Stay Positive. Pretty mint from the first listen, I must say. Plus my cuz Sean said it was solid, and I generally trust his opinion in matters of music.

Pretty hilarious that the album is titled as it is, and one of the more notable songs on the disc is called "Lord I'm Discouraged". Mint them!

I also scoped out a sweet winter jacket tonight. The thing is pretty classy, and running at almost three hundo, but it'll be a grad gift from my dad and step-mom so I'm not too concerned about the cost. haha.
It's Kashmir too. ooh-la-fuckin-la...

This past weekend was pretty fun. Went up to the dirty 'Shwa to watch a hockey tourny that a bunch of buddies were playing in. Plus there was a pretty solid bday party for a buddy up in Barrie on Saturday night. The boys ended up taking 2nd place, which is pretty amazing considering we all slept for about 4 hrs each night, and drank like fish. It all caught up with me last night though. After watching the mini-movie thing of 24, I crashed early. Might do the same tonight.

On that night, better get some grub and get some shit sorted for the morn.

Tupac rolls in his grave...

2008-11-17T23:49:00.004-05:00

If he is indeed dead. Considering the amount of material the guy has released in the past decade and a half, it's a little fishy in my books.

Anyway, as we all know, a black President has been elected.
The night of the election I had planned on staying up all night to watch the results roll in, but I passed out around 10 and didn't hear a word until I read the Globe the next day.
And I must admit it's pretty exciting. In our lives we've seen some pretty historic shit, especially in the last 8 years. From 9/11 to the worst world leader in history, and now onto an unprecedented new beginning.

But there are a few things to be remembered about how this all fell into place. The following is a short list of circumstances that helped Obama do his thang:

George W. Bush had the worst approval rating ever. Ergo, the people wanted him out, and his policies along with him.
McCain picked an absolute wreck of a running mate. Is "maverick" hillbillyspeak for "idiot"?
Barrack ain't all that black.
People are tired of the wars, so a the title of "crippled war vet" doesn't hold as much water as it used to.

Those things piled together, mixed with a healthy dose of people getting off their lazy asses and actually voting, and you've got yourself a drastic change in the country, and the world along with it.

That was really something to behold, wasn't it? Worldwide celebrations for the leader of a country that hosts less that 5% of the world's population. Pretty damn ridiculous if you ask me.

But Obama's got a hell of a challenge ahead. Horrific economic problems, war, a terrible American reputation around the globe, the housing crisis, the Gitmo problem, etc etc.
Should be interesting...

Oh ya, and I forgot to mention my thoughts on the Canadian election. In short, it was fucking pointless, against the law (that Harper himself brought in), and a waste of 300 million of MY dollars. Well played you assholes.

Never underestimate stupid people in large masses

2008-11-04T19:00:00.005-05:00

I just got in the door from a brutally long day at work (2.5 hrs overtime fack) and before I turn on the TV or look at any news websites I'd like to say this:

I would not be surprised in the least if the next American president is a god-fearin, nigga hatin, pro-life, pro-war, pro-Bush, anti-freedom geopolitical disaster.

The American people were stupid enough to vote Bush into a close 2nd place 8 years ago, stupid enough to re-elect the goon for a second term, and you can be damn sure they're racist enough to replace him with yet another republican fuckup.

Here's hoping Obama wins in a landslide. Imagine how pissed the republicans and McCain would be. Not only to lose, but to lose to a black guy. Oh the humiliation!! hahaha

I've got ot my fingers crossed...

As a little aside, I flipped by Boston Legal on TV last night and Spader v. Shatner was quite an interesting battle/conversation. The episode was about election day, and both main characters went off on each other about Obama, McCain, and Palin. I thought it was pretty strange to see that kind of thing the day before an actual election, not to mention the fact that they actually used the names of the real politicians involved - no beating around the bush.

Ballsy play by the writers/producers, I liked it. Needless to say Shore kicked Crane's ass, though I can't help but hope that Shatner would support Obama, were he to actually vote in this thing.

Here I am back home again, and I'm here to rest. All they ask is where I've been, knowin I've been west

2008-10-30T16:55:00.004-04:00

It's funny to think back on all the places I've called "home" in my day.
This year between April and September I used the word for six different houses or rooms, all told. One of which included a drafty garage for three months, but that's a different story all together.

And my newest home reminds me of the good old days. AKA it's got slanty floors, questionable windows, beer bottles galore, and a mint balcony to boot. Toss in a couple of couches that we picked up off the side of the road in a rainstorm and you've essentially got my old undergrad house.
Except now I supposed to be grown up and shit. But I'm still clingin to that dream...

Anyway, after a month of being home from BC, I finally landed myself a job back here in London. I've been at it for about a month now, and so far everything has been pretty good. I'm working in a microbiology lab that's close to the university, and fortunately my roomie drives to campus every day so I catch a lift up with him. The money isn't great but it's decent enough coming straight outta school.
More than anything I'm getting a ton of good experience so far. It's so damn hard to find jobs that aren't posted as needing "a minimum of two years experience" and whatnot. And once my contract runs out at the end of February, it looks like another client might be in talks with my boss, which in turn means I might get extended. Fingers crossed that I don't fuck things up...

Can't think of much else to say at the moment, but I can guarantee I'll be writing on here more often. I wanna get some of the summer's stories on paper before my booze-riddled brain forgets all the sordid details. Not to mention all the other shit I'd like to rant about these days.

Poli-ticks

2008-10-14T17:12:00.003-04:00

Which of the bloodsuckers shall I vote for... hmmm....

Considering I can't even imagine anyone but Layton actually being a reasonable leader of this country, and there isn't a chance in hell he'll even come close to winning, I still haven't decided. Hell, I've heard there's a little box you can check off that says you don't like any of the candidates so you'd rather vote for thin air.

Maybe I'll do that.

She said yer pretty good with words, but words won't save your life and they didn't so he died

2008-09-30T11:34:00.008-04:00

This year's top 5's, and as per usual I'm too lazy to describe any of it.

Top 5 Albums

Top 5 Songs

5. Kings of Leon - Fans

4. Tegan and Sara - The Con

3. Against Me - Borne of the FM Waves of the Heart

2. The Hold Steady - Stuck Between Stations

1. Billy Joel - Only The Good Die Young

Top 5 Movies

Top 5 Pictures

5.

4.

3.

2.

1.

2008-08-03T11:59:00.001-04:00

It's 9.8 straight down. I can't stop my knees

2008-07-03T00:13:00.006-04:00

It's hard to believe it's been half a summer out here already. Time flies when you're having fun I guess. And it flies faster when you're boozed up 4 nights a week...

For a few years now I've been itching to head out West to have some time away from the everyday humdrum crap back home. And after 5 years of university, the world had honestly fallen into two dimensions. And what spells 3D like a shitload of mountains?

And so far it's worked pretty well. I'm honestly having the time of my life out here, with only a few negatives being outweighed heavily by all of the fun and wicked memories. My boss is awesome, he has the coolest dog in the world. My job starts early, but we get off at two so the day is never killed by work, even if we have to a nap. And I've met a ton of new people, with more showing up all the time. And the golf is amazing, even though I haven't been out in a couple of weeks.

One of the big negatives of my time out here has been the fact that I got evicted from staff residence along with three other guys. The story is absolutely ridiculous, and basically comes down to the fact that a girl cried and a sexist bitch had the authority to overreact to an innocent misunderstanding and kick us out.

But like I said, my boss is awesome. So three of us have been living with him in his garage. It's actually not as bad as it sounds, and once Bryan leaves this weekend Danny Boy and I will have more space. But it absolutely sucks being distant from all of our friends, not to mention the fact that we have hardly any fridge space and limited privacy. I hope we can find a place to rent soon though, cuz I'm getting pretty tired of living out of a suitcase and sleeping next to snoring fools.

This weekend we're heading to the Stampede, which should be amazing. Especially since we'll be meeting up with some old friends to party and check out all the hillbilly events going on.

Anyway, there's far too many stories to write about, and I'm far too tired to tell em at the moment. So here are a few pics worth a few thousand words.

A lifetime in an instant

2008-04-20T22:12:00.006-04:00

"There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy."

- Albert Camus

Tonight I returned home from Toronto, after spending the day at the funeral for an old friend. Apparently he answered Camus' question. Just not the way we wish he would've...

And right now I'm kinda left with a blank feeling. Obviously it's sad as hell, that was abundantly clear with all the sorrow in the funeral home today, but besides that I just feel a sort of void about the whole thing.

I can only imagine what his father and brothers must be feeling right now. That had to be the hardest part of the whole thing - seeing his dad. The loss of his wife less than a year ago, and now this... it's aged the man so much. And I know he was always close with Mike, which probably makes it that much worse.

And though Mike had a harder time in life than most people, I'll always remember how he always wore that fuck you smile, giving the world a big middle finger even when he was down. He always had enough fire to stand back up, but I guess something happened last week that made him make the choice not to stand up anymore.

It's just so strange, this was the kid that led the school soccer team with me when nooone else had the stones or know-how to do it. Not even the bloody coach.

This was the kid that taught me the value of a lunch that consisted of a jumbo bag of skittles and a box of chocolate milk.

This was the kid who showed me the fine art of foosball, back in the days when games were more important to us than the future or responsibility.

And though we had drifted apart in the past few years, I always had the feeling that we would connect later in life, somewhere and somehow. And I don't think it's even sunk in yet that that's never going to happen...

I just hope that now he's resting more peacefully than he ever could've in life.
But at the same time, I can't help but feel that he would've made a different choice if only he'd known how much he was loved and how much he'll be missed.

hey now, hey now, don't dream it's over

2008-04-11T14:13:00.004-04:00

Yesterday on the bus ride home from campus it finally set in that I'd never have another class or write another undergrad paper ever again.

I had just pulled an all-nighter (the first one ever in my 5 years at university) finishing two big lab reports. Let me tell ya it was a rough night. Probably wrote up close to 35 pages in the final 24 hrs before the deadline. Handed in my 29-pager with 2 minutes to spare. Talk about down to the wire. Then I just had to drop off the second report and it was all gravy.

I grabbed a disgusting "souvlaki" (I can't believe they can call it that) from the Pita Pit just before getting home, and promptly fell asleep for 18 consecutive hours. And I woke up feeling tired as hell... weird.

The birds living in my wall are doing their best woodpecker impersonations lately. I tried ramming some pop cans into their access hole below my window, but they got around my blockade. At this point there's no point in even trying to get our slum landlord to fix the damn thing. It would take them months to get around to it.

Anyway, it's time to study up for exams.
translation - slack off for a few days and then cram like hell.

Some things never do change with time or experience...

Like a fucking sailor...

2008-04-02T01:18:00.002-04:00

Came across this little gadget over at Grouchy Old Cripple.

For the record, I only read that blog for the sheer comedy.
Plus the saturday boobage, but that's a different thing altogether.

Maybe I oughtta tone it down a little...

Nah, fuck it.

They're not yelling "boo" they're yelling "boo-ush"

2008-03-31T00:30:00.002-04:00

What a difference a few years, a few thousand dead Americans, and a few billion dollars can make...

I'm the stocks on the day of the crash

2008-03-28T17:44:00.001-04:00

Woke up this morning feeling pretty good.
Just came off a solid ten hour sleep, and a big 18-0 victory in waterpolo last night in our first playoff game. It was a huge upset considering we had 1 sub and they had an army. Plus they did this big hardcore chant thing before the game, so we thought we were toast. I punched a girl's fingers pretty hard, kinda felt bad about it. Overall our preconceptions were way off, and they were brutal players.

Anyway, just before heading to campus I got a call from my mom informing me that a letter had arrived back home to tell me that I wasn't accepted into the micro/immu masters program for next year.
To be honest I'm not entirely surprised, since my marks are just below the cutoff. But I am surprised that I heard back so soon. The deadline for applications isn't until June, and if there are spots available at that time they contact the people who were just below the cutoff line. So to hear in March seems kinda odd...
I'm still going to look into the details of applying to different faculties though, since the micro guys might just be pricks.

Once I got to campus and had something to eat, I instantly started feeling like a bag of shit. I had to leave class early, and I still feel terrible. Gut and sinuses. Hopefully it's just gonna last for today.

Details are still coming in for the summer out west, but by the looks of it I'll have to look into a job or an internship come the fall. I'd like to stay in my field, and maybe in a few years I'll come back to do the masters thing. As for now I've gotta buckle down like crazy to get some decent marks this semester. The next month is gonna be brutal, so I'm gonna get at it early for once to hopefully lessen the burden.

Support the troops...

2008-03-13T20:22:00.002-04:00

I came across this video by chance yesterday.

I guess when you teach someone that human life has no value, what's a puppy?

Nobody remembers the runner-up

2008-02-08T14:55:00.001-05:00

I've got a fair bit to report on lately, but I've been so damn busy I haven't had time to even sit down and think about things for awhile.

First off, I'm ecstatic that the Patriots lost the Superbowl. If they had won, everyone would rave about how amazing and how epic their season was. Undefeated/perfect/never see that again blah blah blah...
It's not perfection when you cheat. It's not perfection when you get favourable call after favourable call, just because the refs don't want to see the Pats lose. And it sure as shit ain't perfection when your quarterback saves his worst performance of the season for the only game that matters.

Go fuck a dozen models and leave em once they're pregnant you arrogant bastard. See if Mintvis cares.

If the Giants had lost the game after that amazing play where Manning miraculously escaped the crowd of defenders just to throw a Hail Mary of a ball to be caught in highlight rel fashion, I woulda been some pissed. Those are the plays that are supposed to win Superbowls, and I'm glad it turned out that way.

Next up, our trip to Montreal last weekend.
Eight of us in total headed up to frenchfry land for some good old boozing and hockey. We arrived in a brutal hail/snow storm, but the weekend turned out pretty well. The Habs beat the Isles, we got wasted two nights in a row, and had first class tickets on the train for the whole trip.
It was too bad that we didn't get to see much of the city though, since the hockey game was in the 2-5 pm slot, which essentially killed the only daylight that we had on the whole trip up there.

And I was supposed to be heading back to Montreal in a few weeks, but plans fell through for that. I can't say I'm heartbroken, considering I'll be going to Ottawa next weekend for the Family Day long weekend, and I've got no damn money to spend on an extra trip anyway.
It is too bad that I won't get to see my good buddy from TO, but I'll probably just head down to see him sometime in reading week anyway.

As for school, I've been swamped to the Nth degree lately. Lab reports, assignments, online quizzes, exams, and plain old lab work is starting to kill me. Add my actual job to the mix and I don't have much time for anything.

I did get my Masters application in last week, and I'm hoping to hear back from that soon. I'm kinda borderline with my marks, and I doubt this semester is going to raise them any, so I'm not too sure about my chances. But I guess if that fails I'd just try to find a job in my field around these parts.

As for a summer job, I just found out last night that I got the job out in Panorama, BC, working at a golf course with a bunch of buddies. So far Bender Stevo and Eddy are 100% hired, and we're waiting on 4 or 5 others to get their asses in gear and find out.

So as of May I'll have a nice change of scenery for a few months. Thew wife isn't too pleased with the whole idea, but she's been supportive of my choice, which is awesome. I just feel like I've gotta get away from Ontario for awhile, especially if I'm gonna be in school for an extra two years down here. And if I don't do it now, I doubt I'll ever get the chance again.

Anyway, it's time to hit the ice so I'd better be off.

If you don't know me by now...

2008-01-27T19:41:00.001-05:00

There are few commercials that make me want to try their product. This is one of em.

Pointless Drivel

2008-01-09T14:08:00.000-05:00

If there's one thing in this world that I don't give two sweet fucks about, it's gotta be celebrities.

The news feed on my MSN window came up with a title the other day saying something about the custody battle between Britney Spears and K-Fed.

Like, oh my gawd! I can't, like, believe she could, like, possibly take care of a child. Like, shah...

And ya gotta wonder...

WHO GIVES A FUCK ABOUT BRITNEY SPEARS

It's unbelievable how much time and money some people will spend on this type of shit. Just look at all the tabloids, all the magazines and newspaper titles, and all the pictures of Joe-Fuckhead and Sally-Slutmaster. It's all a fucking illusion that average people are taught to buy into.

If you buy this product you'll get more sexy women to rub themselves all over you.
If your hair looks like this, you'll land yourself a nice rich businessman and live happily ever after.

Everyone's sent chasing the American dream and watching the goings-on of celebrities instead of trying to actually accomplish something in their own lives. Are we really that boring that we need to live vicariously through someone on TV or in a magazine? Do we really need to live up to these ridiculous airbrushed standards of the world? Should we be dedicating our time to looking at the cellulite piling up on some movie star's ass? Is Tara Reid's nipple all that entertaining? Does a photograph of Lindsay Lohan's snatch improve our lives in some way? And are the perverted photographs of the paparazzi something we really ought to be supporting here people?

Honestly, what the fuck. Try getting your own life.

Write a book.
Volunteer for something.
Read the news paper.
Plant a fucking tree.

At least better yourself or the world in some way, rather than waste time on the mental midgets we're supposed to idolize.

Don't worry Paris, I wouldn't dream of it...

New Year, Same Old Crap

2008-01-06T19:19:00.000-05:00

This new year, I have complied a short list of resolutions for everyone that is not me:

stop wearing those fucking bluetooth earpieces. you look like douchebags.

if you think of yourself as a big tough man, and attend sporting events, don't drink light beer. light beer is for americans and pussies

enough with the fucking facebook applications

start wearing clothes that fit you. especially you muffin-toppers and gangsta whiteboy thugs.

stop buying shitty music. pap bullshit and mindless dancefloor music only exist because somebody buys that crap

enough with this "support the troops" bullshit. if you really want to support the troops, either a) join the army or b) bring them home before any more get killed

stop watching pointless shit on television. reality tv is not real so stop kidding yourselves; entertainment tonight has no fucking impact on the real world; and Sally Perfecttits from the OC is never going to fuck you. hell, even Jerry Springer's lead security man's got himself a show now people - don't you think we've gone far enough??

don't even bother going to the gym. we all know you're gonna show up twice in january and then quit, so save your money

Convictions

2007-12-11T20:39:00.000-05:00

Over the past few days the courts have handed down some noteworthy decisions:

Michael Vick was sentenced to 23 months in prison for his role in the dog-fighting ring that he helped to organize. It's a step in the right direction to show the rich and famous that they're not above the law, and also a good stride for animal rights. But you have to wonder why Vick acted so foolishly during the court case when he was only looking at 12-14 months. (And you also have to wonder how he even faced a prison term as low as 12 months in the first place, given the brutality of the crimes.
"Lord" Conrad Black was given a sentence of 78 months in prison and ordered to repay over $6 million of money embezzled from shareholders in his company, Hollinger International. This is a light sentence again, considering he could've faced a couple of decades behind bars. At least the US courts proved he wasn't entirely above the law...
Robert Pickton was convicted of 6 counts of 2nd degree murder for the killings of prostitutes on his Vancouver area pig farm. He still awaits trial for the murders of 19 other women, and has been implicated (but not charged) in the murders of even more. At the end of the day this guy is going to be behind bars for the rest of his life, but I find it pretty amazing that he wasn't given 1st degree murder convictions. After the first time, he had obviously established what he was doing - hence it was premeditated. I'm also somewhat surprised that Ontarians haven't given nearly as much notice to this case as they did to the Paul Bernardo/Karla Homolka case back in the 90's. This guy is probably Canada's worst serial killer ever (caught?) but he hasn't received nearly as much attention.

Delta

2007-12-06T18:22:00.000-05:00

For the first time in months I was able to wake up on a weekday without an alarm clock forcing me out of bed. Granted it was 2 pm, but that kinda made it all the better.

Yesterday was the last day of classes for the semester, and fortunately it was also the last day of work until the new year. And for the first time ever I have less that 5 exams in December. Granted, I had to write two big essays in the last two weeks, but that leaves only 3 exams, which is nice.

And after my exams are done on the 18th I'll be heading to the wife's to stay for a few nights before my dad and bro pick me up on the way to Chicago. Rather than buy each other gifts this year we figured we'd take a trip together and get out to a few hockey games. It's going to make for some tight travel times to make it home for Christmas eve, and I hope the weather holds out.

On a different note, for years I've been trying to figure out how the hell people can make pictures look like this:

A few weeks back I got off my lazy ass and decided to find out how to do it. In reality it's not that hard to do, but I think I gave myself the 24-hour carpal tunnels syndrome due to my ceaseless mouse movement for a few days there.
But after doing a bunch of pictures and putting them up on my flickr page (as seen cycling on the sidebar), I only ran into more questions. One girl on there claimed she could make her camera select only specific colours without having to do any work by hand, but I can't figure out how she does it. She claims that every Canon can do it, but as far as I can tell mine can't. And the damn thing is fairly new, so I'm a little confused.
I'm also pissed off that the program I used to make the changes to the pictures was only a trial program on my computer that has subsequently expired.

Then again, tis the season. So I might have to ask for a decent program to screw with more photos in the future.

Trouble

2007-12-05T20:24:00.000-05:00

A few months ago I came across an article on the BBC saying that a billionaire American businesswoman had left $12 million to her pet dog, Trouble.

For the sake of justice, I can only hope that hell does exist...

In brighter news, the dog has now received death threats! I understand the reason for the threats, but what the fuck people? The selfish bitch you ought to be more concerned with is the one that just died. The dog is just a bloody dog.

I can't imagine what this poor woman's life must have been like. How could someone like that have any friends? I just keep picturing a female Monty Burns sitting in her empty mansion fingering away at that glass of brandy...

"Astonishing"

2007-11-26T20:59:00.000-05:00

"The Saudi's are ever our friends and our allies..."

Here's the sequence of events that I've gathered about the case of a 19 year old Saudi Arabian woman who was raped last year:

1) A recently married Saudi woman was having an affair with a man.

2) She met this man in a car in order to retrieve a photo of the two of them together (it's against the law for a woman to be seen in public with man to whom she is not related.)

3) Two men somehow enter the car, and drive them to a secluded area somewhere in the province of Qatif.

4) Both the man and woman are repeatedly raped (the woman 14 times) by several attackers.

5) In court the two victims were each sentenced to 90 lashes for their crime of "illegal mingling". (Seven attackers received sentences ranging from 10 months to five years in prison.)

6) Upon appeal, the woman's sentences were increased to 200 lashes and 6 months in jail, because the courts felt that she and her lawyer used the media to sway their influence and aggravate the judges. Her lawyer was banned from the courtroom, had his legal license taken away, and awaits a disciplinary hearing.

7) The attackers' sentences were also doubled.

The Canadian government has openly condemned the case, calling it "barbaric".

The US state department, however, is against any "foreign interference" in the case.
They did, however, call the case "astonishing".

You want astonishing??? Try a little foreign interference in a little place called Iraq.
Or hell, let's get give a little interference that other evil country, Iran!

It's always astonished me that although most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi's, Osama bin Laden himself is a Saudi, and even though Saudi Arabia is not a democracy, the American government (or average voter, for that matter) never looks down upon that particular country. For an explanation why, you need look no further than Bushy's comfy relationship with the royal family.

Sans-oil, you can bet America would hate their living guts.
Because America loves to hate people's guts.

2007-11-17T17:59:00.001-05:00

The Animal Years, V for V, and C'Mon C'Mon

2007-11-13T12:49:00.000-05:00

As usual it took me about 3 months to get my ass in gear and figure out my top 5's for the last year. I try to do it near my birthday, but it never works out.
I'm just too fuckin lazy.

In other news, I read an article on the BBC today that looked at the cost of the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Current estimates put the average cost of the war on terror at $20 000 per 4-person family. But thankfully every American will be saving huge at the gas stations...
Well at least everyone has a place to live...
And the American economy as a whole is surging...

I remember getting in an argument with an American kid one time, maybe 7 or 8 years ago, and I told him that every great empire that has ever existed in the world has fallen. And the USA is no different. It's becoming more evident by the day that America will not be the dominant world power in 20 years, and that fills me with a sense of satisfaction.
At the same time it makes me wonder how China and India will run the world once they've got the power. Let's just hope the US doesn't get pissy and start nuking everyone.

At long last, I'm finally off my disgusting antibiotics. I drank heavily about 5 or 6 times while I was on them, but I survived the pain in my liver. I did get a good lecture from the wife about it though.
She's probably right... after all, nobody wants hepatitis!

Poppies... don't they grow those in Afghanistan?

2007-11-11T23:50:00.000-05:00

The only thing that I remembered this morning at 11:11 was a clip from a dream about myself falling asleep. Not that I slept in on Remembrance Day on purpose, but it just so happened that a good buddy of mine was in town from BC and we had to celebrate with a few brews.

I think it's funny how quickly people can forget why we have a remembrance day in the first place. To me, it represents a day that we should reflect on why all wars should be avoided, not just that single day of the year that we pay our respects to the soldiers of the past.

But you don't see many people in the streets protesting our involvement in Afghanistan. Canada's reputation as global peacekeepers has been transformed to American lapdog, and we all seem content enough to accept that. We've got no business in a "war" that is designed to be self perpetuating. All it does is create an atmosphere with more killing and more occupation and oppression.

And isn't that what we're supposed to remember today? The vets don't show up to parades in their wheelchairs to sing the praises of current soldiers - they're there to remind us that there ought not to be any more soldiers in the world. They remind us of all the terrible things they had to live through in order to preserve our lives and freedoms, in hopes of persuading our generations to make the world a better place. I'm sure they wish that the war they fought in was the last one the world would ever see. And it's all too easy to dismiss their ideals because we've never been in their shoes.

a thousand kids will fall in love in all these clubs tonight.

2007-10-30T23:32:00.004-04:00

Halloween this year was a pretty good shitshow.

A bunch of friends dressed up in homemade costumes (Kate's specialty) of the Flintstones. They even won a prize of free money to spend at the bar. Naturally a mooched on their victory...

I kept wandering around all night slurring "I'm a fuckin pirate". And I was probably the worst pirate in town, let me tell ya.

Oh well, we had a good time, and we saw some kickass costumes. Of note were the real-looking Batman, Spawn's ridiculous suit with glowing eyes, and the Halo character. Didn't get an pics with em, but probably shoulda.

a thousand other kids will end up gushing blood tonight.

2007-10-30T23:32:00.003-04:00

I watched Michael Moore's Sicko last night, and I gotta say it was pretty fucked up.

The fact that insurance companies are literally killing people (knowingly) is absolutely ludicrous. I can't see how it's legal to call life saving surgeries "experimental, and therefore not covered by your policy" when the operation has been a proven success. That's defacto murder in my books.
Not to mention the people who don't even have insurance in the first place...

I also have to say that I'm growing less and less fond of Moore's tactics. I think he's a plug. A plug who makes a hell of alot of good points and does a service to the country with his work, but a story-spinning plug nonetheless.
The whole thing of sneaking into Cuba with the boatloads of people while yelling into a megaphone at nobody? Come on...
But still it's pretty telling that the allegedly evil people of Cuba go out of their way to make the Americans feel at home. Plus the Cubans sell them drugs at a ridiculously small fraction of the price they're paying at home.

See, the problem with America is selfishness. Selfishness, and the idea that they are the best country in the world, a view that self perpetuates ignorance through patriotism.

"We're the best because we say we're the best, hence we're the best" is just bullshit rhetoric that doesn't apply to the real world. And it's detrimental both at home and abroad, because people of that mindset generally exert very little effort into making the world a better place. Afterall, why would we need to fix the greatest country int he world? After all, it is the best, so don't fix what h'aint broken ya'll.

It all stems from capitalism, but the US takes things to the extreme. Instead of healthy competition, they view competition (and capitalism in general) as such: how can I get mine, regardless of how many other decent people I fuck over in the process.

See, in the examples of the Canadian and British systems, everyone uses the democratic idea that no matter who you are or how much money you have, you deserve to have good health care. American zealots of the opinion that the aforementioned ideal amounts to socialism (oooh, scary!) are obviously making a mitt-load of money from the current system of fuck the poor, heal the wealthy. Either that or they're just plain ignorant.

But Canada and Britain are still democracies, and they're doing a hell of alot better in a great many areas that Americans could ever hope to do. And the reason for this...? -- we see ourselves as part of a whole, not merely selfish little individuals who must hoard all of the resources we can.

And the French example hammers home an even more important point, albeit a political one. The French government fears their people, and American people fear their government. Very V for Vendetta-esque, I know, but it's an extremely important idea. The people in true democracies shouldn't be repressed and scared half to death all the time, just because their government says so.

But again, for a plutocracy that has fooled it's citizens into believing that they live in a democracy, it's not a hard sell when the people believe that they're actually free. Not to mention the usage of that ideal to export a whole buncha democracy around the world at the barrel of a gun and the tip of a missile. Ain't it grand?

Bah, it's all disgusting bullshit.

two thousand kids wont get all that much sleep tonight.

2007-10-30T23:32:00.001-04:00

My stomach feels like complete garbage.

I'm finally on drugs for this bloody cough I've had for the better part of two months.
I told the doctor at the clinic that I'd had it for awhile, and he chirped me by saying "Wow, I guess this is a last resort then, eh?"

Anyway, we put me on this shit called Biaxin and I also got hooked up with an inhaler.
Unfortunately the Biaxin is children's formula since I can't take pills, and the shit tastes absolutely atrocious. But the steroid inhaler is even more disgusting, and I gotta rinse my mouth out after I take it cuz it'll probably give me cancer or something otherwise.

Anyway, the shit is rough on the gut and I'm none too pleased. Hopefully it'll cure my SARS though.