Boring things. And nipples.

Every year it seems that Christmas loses more and more of the meaning it used to hold when I was a kid. This year was no exception.
Over the past few years my parents have acquired the annoying habit of picking up a tree on Christmas Eve. So for the first few days that I was home it just felt like any other day. Add to that the fact that it was so bloody warm this year right through til January, and you've got the makings of a meaningless trip home.
Not to say that it wasn't good to see friends and family and everything, but the season is just losing its lustre.

Because of the weather it suddenly seems that every single person in the land believes in global warming. Probably a good thing, even if it was just a freak year that won't be repeated any time soon.

As soon as I got home I was greeted with an array of cats that set my allergies off. My parents have 3 cats and my bro has 2, so there was no avoiding it. That was one reason I was itching to get back home, the other one being the boredom that goes along with my hometown.


A bonus from my time at home was the day that I was checking the weather on TV while the weather girl was doing the national forecast. She was a large-chested girl, and I almost bore witness to both of her nipples, I swear to god. It was just a combination of the shirt she was wearing and the angle of the camera I suppose. Good stuff though.

Only killers call killing "progress"

Yesterday it was announced that Saddam Hussein's partners in crime (Barzan al-Tikriti and Awad Hamad al-Bandar) were sent to the gallows like their old friend was a short while ago. And wouldn't ya know it, they fucked it up again.
Considering the debacle that was Saddam's execution, the hangmen really should've appealed to common sense (to keep the "peace" between factions in Iraq if you will), the calls from the global community, and mercy itself in this matter. But more fundamentally, these executions should've been held of until all of the trials were finished. Even Saddam should've had his execution at least postponed until his other crimes had been put before a court. (And not just a clown court.)

But justice isn't really what anyone wanted in this case, is it? I mean, these three men were put to death for the murder of 148 Shias back in the 80s. But that's hardly the extent of their crimes. Everyone just seemed to want these guys dead, especially Bushy. After all, if you keep Saddam out of a legitimate trial and get him dead ASAP, odds are the US won't be made to look like the hypocrites they are. Let's not forget Saddam was funded by the US back when he was considered an ally, and Hussein committed some of his worst crimes while the US just turned a blind eye. Now that Hussein is just a scapegoat for the hatred and greed of helluvalot of Americans, all anybody cared about was seeing him dangle.

Or in the case of al-Tikriti, seeing his head pop off as the floor fell out beneath him. Apparently the whole thing was filmed again, but this time it was done so in a controlled manner. Nothing like the Saddam disaster, which lead to international criticism and deepened divides between those fighting in Iraq right now. No no, this time the video was only shown to a few reporters to defend the fact that the decapitation was "accidental". But from what I've read, the length of the rope is related to the weight of the person being hanged. So unless these fools can't do math, you pretty well have to assume it was done for effect.

As an interesting aside, I guess you could say the US got what it wanted out of Iraq - the governemnt has agreed to forfeit control of their oil to Western companies. All's well that ends well, right?
Oddly enough, back home we're still willing to spend $1.49 at Mac's on a bottle of flavoured water. It's a mad mad mad mad world kids.

In other news.... Over the break America reached the 3000 tally in lives lost in the battle on terror. Sounds impressive, but a number is only a number and you can't put a value on any of that. Still, it is strange to think that not even that many people were killed in 9/11.

Also, Bush is taking alot of flak over his new plan for Iraq, not to mention his idiotic plans for Iran. Olberman does a fantastic job of ripping the asshole out of that idiot, so I'll let him do the talking. (There's also a synopsis of his show if you can't watch the video)

Oh, and over the break James Brown and former President Gerald Ford also died. At least those events took up some air time in between the special reports on TV that were showing exactly how to hang a dictator, and how his neck will actually break between vertebrae X and Y rather than the rope strangling him. Interesting stuff! Not...

That's all I've got time to say for now, but I do have some news from my own life over the Christmas break and such, so I'll have to update that later.

News

So classes are done, and exams are here. My fingernails are already gone so now I have nothing left to chew off. And I don't bite my pens, so I've turned to candy. And maybe I'll look into some beef jerky. God do I ever love beef jerky...

The other night we got hit by a shitstorm of snow here in London. Cars were snowed in, buses all around town were off the roads, and without a lie we were wandering around balls-deep in it. A few of us in the house got out to play some football in the wee hours of the morning, which was fun.



From the BBC I've come across some interesting tidbits lately:

• Apparently size does matter.
  

• Thankfully this asshole is getting the boot.

• I wouldn't feel comfortable letting my jubblies near these things.

• Just a single domino in the line doesn't mean much.
  

• The U.S. of A. -- bringers of freedom, democracy, and... oh wait.

• The U.N. -- bringers of peace, stability, and... oh wait.

Anyway, it's getting late. Really late...

It only took the better part of 4 months...

At long last I posted my Top 5's of the year.

And here's what I'm currently listening to:





































In other news, I've had a headache for the better part of a week, and it's generally in the same spot. Plus I've been having some pretty weird and bad dreams lately. Dunno what it all means.

KKKramer and "How to Get Away With Murder"

No doubt everyone has heard about the unbelievable breakdown Michael Richards recently had onstage at a comedy club. When I first saw the clip I: A) didn't believe it was him, because the video quality was shit B) couldn't believe the words he was saying, and C) thought instantly that he was either wasted or on some sort of drug.

But it's pretty damn clear now that it actually was him. And apparently he wasn't on anything, he just snapped.

Now everyone's up in arms, people are disgusted, yadda yadda... (no pun intended)

You see black social leaders standing on soapboxes holding forks, in reference to one of the insults Kramer yelled that night; everyone's asking Jerry what he thinks; Richards is on Letterman apologizing with the audience laughing; jokes are being made at his expense, etc etc.
It's the talk of the day and everyone's pitching in their two cents.

Personally I don't even care anymore. Cuz let's face it - everyone's at least a little bit racist. Yes, even black people, including the guy at the club that night that called Richards a "cracker-assed motherfucker". Nothing quite like fighting fire with fire.

It's sure as hell not going to stop me from watching Seinfeld or buying the DVDs.
He made a mistake, he's sorry, let's move on.


Another story of late has been the upcoming release of OJ Simpson's book "If I Did It". And if you haven't heard of this yet, you will soon.
He is actually publishing a book that details how he would have killed his wife back when it all happened.

If this isn't an indication of just how sickening the money-hungry West has become, I don't know what is. The moral character of the United States in particular is going to be held up to the barometer when the book hits the shelves - and no doubt it'll sell like crazy. First of all to the celeb-idolizing idiots; secondly to the sickos who actively seek circumstances in life that are gory or morose; and thirdly to the flat-out curious.

Not only is this a sad attempt to profit from a tragedy (much like that movie about Paul Bernardo), it puts all of his ex-wife's family through torment again - as if OJ getting away with murder wasn't enough in the first place.

Oddly enough he's probably just trying to make enough money to pay off the civil suit that actually found the fucker guilty of the murders! And we call this justice eh? Apparently she's not only blind, but deaf and dumb too.

Contrary to my comments about buying Seinfeld DVDs, I'm not even going to give a second thought to this bullshit.

Today we take the Whitehouse and paint it a poor man's grey

"I never vote for anyone. I always vote against." - W.C. Fields

I've been wearing a shit-eating grin for the past week. At least on the inside anyway. After all, who actually eats shit, then smiles about it? No one, that's who.

Of course I'm referring to the recent changes that have taken place in the US government.
Not only did the Conservatives lose power in the House of Representatives, they also lost the Senate (a rather impressive feat considering the relative stability of the Senate compared to the House).

Democrats took hold of ridings that were considered GOP strongholds for years and years; for the first time in American history the speaker of the House will be a female; Rummy is finally out of office; Bolton will likely be prevented from any further advancement towards the UN.
And there are no recounts to save the Neo-Con's this time around.

After all of the bullshit and lies the Bush administration has fed the American people and the world beyond, the people have finally awoken from their slumbers to say "enough of this shite" in their best Irish accents.

A blow that the Republicans could've done without was the recent admission of Reverend Ted Haggard that he bought meth from a male prostitute, and had sex with him. He was once quoted as saying, "We don't have to debate what we should think about homosexuals, it's written in the Bible."
A man of God eh? Leader of millions of evangelicals you say? Friend of the President huh? Asset to the Right for securing the church-going God-fearing voters?

I guess not.

So now Bush is at the mercy of his opposition. At long last the reigns have fallen from his hands, and his dictator-ship like control of the country and military have evaporated overnight. After turning the country's largest surplus into the largest deficit they've ever seen, and letting the real perpetrators of the WTC attacks go free, he's left to scratch his head and wonder why everyone turned on him. (Well not everyone, I'm sure he still has alot of followers who believe that bombing someone into loving you is an effective tactic.)




And though all of this makes your average socialist weak in the knees, there's still a massive amount of problems to be addressed -- the debacle in Iraq, the ever-mounting anti-American sentiment around the globe, the disastrous Katrina response, the scandals and fake documents, the opaque wall of red tape that Bush has been hiding behind, the potential for another war with North Korea or Iran, the lies surrounding 9/11, the condoned abuses in Abu Ghraib and Gitmo, the recently passed "Torture Act", the horrific state of the media in North America, and the economy that's circling the drain -- just to name a few.

Impeaching the President and his constituents for the illegal war that lead to the murder of thousands upon thousands of innocent Iraqis, and indirect killings of thousands of American soldiers, must be addressed as well. German lawyers have already jumped at the opportunity to hold Rumsfeld accountable for multiple abuse cases - hopefully this is only the beginning.


After all, Bush is man who was ushered into his position by far more intelligent, evil, and greedy people than he -- all on the purchased say-so of Fox News. So don't believe for a second that these people had anything but self-interest at heart. No rich kids go to war, and no amount of money in the pocket is enough to satisfy.

And the Democrats are no exception in this joke of a political system we must endure. Now that the people are awake, let's hope they don't swallow another placebo and let the same old shit happen again. The Dem's allowed for the Patriot Act to be passed, and did little to stand in the way of the Rep's after 9/11. Just because the powers that be say we ought to be very afraid and trust every last word of the government says, that doesn't mean we ought to.

To end with another quote... "Mother should I trust the government?"

I emphatically reply "FUCK NO!!!"

It sure will be interesting to see what changes do happen though.

A Mediocre Rant

I've noticed a few things lately that have got me thinkin'.
And considering I'm inherently a thinker anyway, these things stood out so much that I decided to do a mini social-commentary on here.

A few weeks back I was watching TV in the midafternoon with my roommate, and while flicking through the channels he decided to stop on the Ultimate Fighting Championship reality show that basically leads to a student in the class being inducted into the UFC as an official fighter.
We watched the fight, which was incredibly boring, and one fighter came out the victor, while the other was left to pout about his loss. Let's call him "Cement Head".
In an interview, Cement Head was devastaed. He was crying. He was raving that he would rather have left the ring in a bodybag, than lose the meaningless fight. He was quoted saying "There were two ways I was coming out of there - the winner, or dead."

Guess what friend, you came out the loser. That's right, the LOSER. And you're still alive to bitch about it and claim that you'd rather be wiped off the earth than accept the fact that your opponent was a better fighter.
Ignoring the fact that being a UFC fighter is hardly something to aspire to in life, it's even more baffling that Cement Head would prefer death over life. I guess his life must be pretty horrible if the only thing keeping him going is a reality TV show, and a shot at a picosecond of fame.
I find it very difficult to believe that this toolbox actually meant what he said. But come to think of it, maybe society would be better off if such idiots were actually forced to fight to the death. Then again, that might be a little harsh.

I was in one of my 700-student classes a few weeks ago, and above all other voices and even the music from my headphones, I could hear a girl proclaiming idiocy at the top of her self-involved lungs. I overheard her talking to two of her friends (both of whom seemed utterly disinterested with her) about how great she was.
"I am SUCH a nice person!" she said, referring to the fact that she had wished her friend a happy birthday on facebook the previous night. She followed this up with a rundown of exactly where she had purchased all of the clothes that made up her outfit for the day. "I got this at the Store For Idiots, and these pants came from Slut's R' Us. Oh, and you'll NEVER believe where I got this bag from! That cute little store called Daddy's Money at White Oaks!!"

Well done you selfish bitch. Well done indeed. You have solidified the thought in my mind that the world is worse off now than it was 5 seconds ago. Now, I realise this girl is about 3 years younger than I am (considerig it's a 2nd year class and I'm the older of the double cohort), but is that really any excuse? When did it become alright to become so disconnected from reality that you can't even wish someone a happy birthday without asking for recognition of your kindness? That's not to say that youth is the excuse for this mindset - I see it everywhere at this school - but it's amazing that at an instutution of higher learning you can find some of the stupidest and most self involved people anywhere. I thought we were supposed to be intelligent people aimed at the betterment of society here?
I almsot felt like throwing my coffee at her (ruining her Daddy's Money leather bag), but I realised I'm even more frustrated with her parents. I'd like to slap them silly until they reevaluate their parenting practices and straighen their bitch out.

Last week I had stop-in at the pisser in our North Campus Building. I saw two guys already at the urinals, each at the farthest end of the 5 that were there. Naturally I went to the middle one (as to allow for elbow room), but I noticed the douchebag to the left of me was having a conversation. Confused, I looked around to see who he was talkign to. A few other guys were washing their hands behind me, and another was at the hand dryer, but they weren't even lookin in this guy's direction.
That's when he finished up, and it all became clear - he was on a fucking cell phone.

"Don't worry about that sound in the background John, I'm not standing in a public fountain. That's just me having a piss while I talk to you. I'm just too damn busy to wait two minutes. Fuck am I ever cool."
I don't even know what to say about this scene that I witnessed. I guess respect for other people (not to mention self respect) have gone out the window. I hope he drops his phone in the toilet next time he's taking a shit.

I have a pin on my backpack that says "If you're not pissed off, you're not paying attention." My roommate said if he had a pin on his bag it would read "Don't worry, be happy!"
He thinks I'm too pesscimistic and I should look on the brighter side of life.

I think he just proved the point that the pin is supposed to be making.

Lastly, there has been a fair bit of controversy on campus lately about the privatization of education, in the sense that corporations are trying to influence universities by offering donations and other incentives in order to have their needs satisfied. Such an example is the involvement of UWO Engineering in the research and development of the Stryker armored vehicle that is currently being employed in Iraq and Afghanistan. A company by the name of General Dynamics is producing this "light armored vehicle" under contract with the US Army, and utilizes students to help with the design of the machine.
Interestingly, I have a friend who worked on the project this past summer. I had a talk with her about it (in which I criticized her for working for warmongers), and her response was just what I expected - a shirking of responsibility.

Besides the obvious dangers that corporate influence can have in the education system, the issue here is the morality and accountability that every person must own-up to if they choose to work within a program that ends in something immoral. My friend is not a bad person by any stretch of the imagination, but when a thousand pieces of the puzzle assemble into a killing machine, each part should be evaluated. It's all-too-easy to say "Well, it's not ME that's shooting the bullets at those people", and much harder to say "I'm not going to take this job because it might involve innocent people being murdered."
At the root of this is self-interested people who fundamentally don't care what happens after their job is done. It's kinda like eating the burger, all the while knowing that the cow had to be grown and killed for us to eat it.
And it's best not to consider how the cow feels. Otherwise we might choose tofu instead...

We will (we will) rock you

It's 9:15 and I'm already on campus when I should still be at home asleep.
Why, you ask?
Because I was so damn tired this morning that I didn't even notice that it was 8:30 when I jumped in the shower instead of 9:30. And I really coulda used the hour of sleep.

Last night we started our hockey season for intramurals, which is part of the reason I'm so tired. I had a brutal game, but it was better that I expected, considering I haven't hit the ice since that game in the spring when I fucked up my foot. We ended up in a tie, which isn't bad for the first game.

We had a few new additions to the team this year - one guy we knew from first year, one guy's brother, and some guy who apparently used to play in the OHL. We also lost a few from last year, but the base of the team is still the same. The hilariou thing about last night was this guy who bragged about playing for an OHL team - he was complete trash. Just horrific. I bet he regrets bragging now, and we all know the guy who brought him in feels like a complete idiot now. I guess we're stuck with him for the year though; it's too bad my roomie Steve bitched out this year.

He played last year and did fine, but this year his main excuse for not playing was the fact that he didn't want to look bad in front of the new guys we brought onto the team - somewhat ironic given the current situation. He also claimed that because he has a job this year he won't have the time for it. Even though it's about a 3 hour commitment per week. He'll just stay at home playing Score Poker or Perfect Dark anyway, so what's the difference?
He'd better not show his ugly mug in the dressing room, because everyone thinks he's a huge pussy for not playing.

In other news, I'm swamped with work right now. I've got 3 exams next week, then a two week break before my next two. And this weekend my bro, dad, and some cousins and uncles are down for the Western football game and drinking. So I know I'm not gonna get much done in the way of school work. And my lab work is ensuring that I never get to sleep in past 9:30 (and some days it even gets me to campus an hour early... fuck). I did take a four hour nap yesterday though, which was pretty sweet.

I guess I'd better go get a coffee and something to eat.

I'm tired of waking up tired

Well that puzzle experiment didn't work exactly as planned, but I think I'll leave it on the site cuz it's still pretty cool.

It's been awhile since I've said anything about what's shakin in my life recently, so I'll give an update now.

I guess the biggest news is that I'm no longer a single man. During frosh week things came together (no pun intended) with a girl named Jenn that I barely knew before this summer. There were a couple of drunken nights when we flirted in the summer, and obviously more happened in frosh week, so here we are now. She's a really cool girl, and so far she hasn't complained about any of my stupidity or drunken actions, so things are looking good! Then again, things usually start out just peachy before the problems arise.
Regardless, it's been a couple fo years since I've been in anything serious, so I'm looking forward ot a consistent piece of ass. haha

In other news, I found out last night that the Work Study program rejected me, so it looks like I'm gonna be nothing but a volunteer all year long in the lab. Not necessarily a bad thing I suppose, as it'll still look good on my resume and give me alot of practical experience. Hopefully that'll lead to a full time summer job next year, either with the prof I work for now or another option. We'll see I guess.

Last night I also watched ther movie "Unforgiven", a Western with Eastwood, Hack-man and Mrogan Freeman. It was pretty fricken dynamite.

Last night the boys and I all did our annual hockey draft for the upcoming NHL season. I did reasonably well in my forwards and goalies, but my defence is questionable. Two big question-marks are Kim Johnsson and Niklas Kronwall; the former is supposed to be headlining the PP for the wild, and Kronwall should put up some good stats in Detroit. I got Ward and Kipper in net (along with JS Giguerre as a sub) and my boy Ovechkin on forward, along with Gagne, Forsberg, Nash, Bell, Tanguay, and a few others that I can't rememeber at the moment.

I've been much better about staying on top of my school work this year, but I'm seriously fucking tired of waking up groggy as hell, wishing for a nap all day long. One thing that I've let slide badly is my physical activity. I basically did fuck all for a solid month after I finished work, and now it's gonna be rough getting back into things. Last Sunday's baseball game was a prime example of how out of shape I am, seeing as I'm still sore in the legs right now. Then again, I was hungover as shit, which probably didn't help. Thankfully the weather led to the cancellation of our ballhockey game that night. I'll be back soon enough tho, I just need to get over this cold and get our running a bit, then hit the weights again.

I'm still happy as hell to be back in London, but it's starting to sink in that after this year almost everyone will be gone. I know a few people sticking around for another year, but the majority of my friends will graduate this year and start into real life. I guess there's no time like the present, so we'd better enjoy it. I'm also gonna do my best to take a few more pics this year, since Mather wants to do a slidshow/video thing at the end of the year to catalogue all of our years here. I'll be sure to insist that we include that Vitamin C song in there somewhere. I don't remember what it's called...

Around the homestead there's news as well - our landlord fixed our decimated balcony railings, and it cost us $400 to fix the thing. On the plus side, we got a new deep freezer a few weeks ago, and just yesterday we got our new fridge. 6 guys in one fridge was a little ridiculous, but now it seems that we almost have too much space. Oh well, that just leaves more room for beer when we have our next party.

Another thing that's been on my mind (and pissing me off) is the fact that even though I've got my lists together for top 5's of the year, I have yet to post them on here. For future convenience, I'm gonna post them in the August records, that way I'll be able to look back next year and find them. When I finally do get them up I'll just link it from a new post.

Speaking of computers, I finally swithced over to Firefox and away from Internet Explorer. But for this reason, you may notice the title and some other aspects of this blog are totally fucked up. I don't pretend to know fuck all about codes and shit on here, I just figure things out by trial and error.
I highly recommend you switch over as well, as IE is harder on your computer, and much less convenient than Firefox. Plus Firefox just flat out looks better. The change-over isn't without problems though, as you have to reset all of your passwords, preferences, and re-allign all of your favourites.

I guess that's all for now. I'd better get back to the books.

Neato Bandito