so i've gotten over a hump that's been holding me down the past week.

midterms? no of course not. actually, i've been fortunate to miss out on all that fun this year.

with all hallow's eve rapidly approaching, i've developed a schtick of dressing as contemporary figures for the shits and giggles. all are bound to recognize these personas from richard simmon's last year to bin laden the year prior.

for a while i considered how a terri schiavo outfit might look but figured thoughts of that costume alone carry eternal damnation. so that would be plan D at best.

waldo from the popular where's waldo serious? yeah; cute.

time was running out before saturday's upcoming festivities and figured i'd rely on the always lovable panhandler. a prime opportunity to get tanked as well.

but reading someone's random blog, i got the idea of a hurricane katrina survivor. it's perfect; very relevant that everyone will get, somewhat prick-ish and borderline insensitive and excuse to loot the guy's house and be able to blame it on my getup.

whatta fun time of the year!


pitter patter goes my heart


as i sit here in front of a blank word document and nearby are some some crazy books i should be talking about, all i can think about is my misty queen.

it's been one year and one day since we embarked on this romance of ours.

it's funny how a year can go by and everything changes without changing at all. some things just stream right through becoming the fabric of daily lives that i need to stop and think how good i really have it. how some certain calendar intervals set the difference between the now and then. only then do i stop and ponder. the past year seemed like a blur but this morning as she slept in my arms, i thought long and hard what's gone on the past 12 months and how still get opportunities of waking up and first i see is her.

first off; i'd be lying if i ever thought this romance would ever stretch as long as it's had. but in some ways, i am not hardly surprised. it's always been relationship on a rather mellow side. free of drama. free of blissful highs and free of destructive lows. we've always gone with the flow and both being rather "safe" people, no dramatic schisms to ever report on. no oceans of tears. just feelings of content and not that i really need anything more than that. but within the feeling of a couple where fire is just a burning ember are moments that only the two of us can bring about.

she isn't like anyone i've ever gotten involved with. nor would i think i ever would. maybe it's a british thing but they aren't afraid to be blunt. she'll lick my chops with witty colloquialisms but never leave me frowning like i would with anyone else. constructive criticism, if you will. others' bluntness and my own insecurities never seemed to in hand, but she has a way of saying, you ain't the messiah, pal but in an entirely loving way. i've always preferred girls who have a way of coaxing everything and expect nothing more than a, "awww shucks" as our fleshly bods share a midnight snack. i guess that's what i love about her the most (apart from the sexy accent, of course). she doesn't mess around, coddle my heart and skip through fields holding hands and writing bad love poetry. you see what i'm getting at. an entirely girly girl but in ways more manly than i'll ever imagine being.

maybe one day, she'll started her own blog and write all these things more much proper and english and all, but in the meantime, blogs are retarded and only for pseudo writers and for those with too much time on their hands ripping off other people. she's abso-bluntly right but it's all out of love. and her readership keeps this going.

so last night to mark the one year of this rather unexpected union, like in the old days, we strolled the streets of toronto like a couple of mundane suburbanites that we are. we waltzed down queen in the light rain, hopped down yonge sipping foreign coffees only she could ever describe what's in them and giggled through church street. just like in the old days; where walking the streets and simple words that were sparked by the sight of a cigarette butt on the side walk that spawned laughter hours on end. like a couple of children really. for the thousand time, she'd tell me how london is more lively and exciting and i'd roll my eyes and mutter some objections but know that she's right.

i'm afraid of writing anymore without the need to get all emo-ish much to her objection.

you know the words, i won't have to say them. and you know they are always there.



dear university,

over the past few years i've sent your supposedly prestigious institutions thousands and thousands of my hard earned dollars that could've gone into empty consumption had i chosen not to pursuit what you have to offer.

sometimes i like this thinking thing and thought to myself, ah what the hell why school not? another few years of school will put off all those real world stuff one day i'll have to deal with.

nothing in the world is free and neither is knowledge, so i've made a few sacrifices in this supposed priceless investment.

however, there are professors, if you want to call them that, who are simply lazy. or maybe they find their students not be nearly as intelligent.

but some of us are somewhat intelligent or at least hide behind memorized facts and an academic prose to divert attention from our stupidness.

i go to class to learn from you, not to be given a summary of the readings from that week. you've all done the research, critical analysis mumble jumble, ph d theses, blah blah blah, surely you must have more to add to what you make me read outside of the class. we all encounter these sort of profs but this year half mine do nothing more than neatly sythensize the textbook.

this presents a problem on several fronts; in that the overpriced books are useless or for some, that going to class serves no purpose at all if you're able to read.

am i paying all this money per class to have someone repeat what i read or make the classroom experience something more than acquiring information out of a book.


turn up the horns


out of all the schools. out of all the programs. out of all the courses. out off all the lectures she had to get stuck in mine. not one class but two of them. on the same day. when the shit storm comes, it's no storm, it's a shit tornado. meaning four hours a week i am certain to come across her. i thought i made it out and wouldn't come across her ever again but why dear almighty god do you punish me like this? i thought that was all behind me few years back.

i hate the ways she talks. acts. eats. drinks. walks. writes. runs. skips. dresses. always carries that travel coffee mug.

i hate the way she sits beside me and refers to me by name as if i actually want to know her. i came to learn, not to listen about all the exciting guys in your life and you're (not so) exciting summer job you just didn't want to leave. so blah blah blah then blah blah blah and oh by the way, blah blah blah is all that i am getting on my end when she opens her mouth.

i try to care, i really do because one time i thought she was quite a decent girl until i spent more than three consecutive hours with her. and now i've got potentially four hours of it a day.

you can tell her that you've had the best year of your life with misty queen but it's all irrelevant because in her mind, i'm a fool for not wanting to be near her therefore, she goes on to assume these things. i know this all because her type is easier to read than an elementary school book.

i thought she got the clue when i didn't return her calls that summer but actual contact seems to have buried that concept.

how do i get through the next seven months seeing as i cant drop either class?

i sound like a child i know


virtues of human right violations


call me if a facist, if you will. i've given this some thought and came to the conclusion that ten years of human rights violations by a country isn't such a bad thing.

take china for example and its human rights violations. they've been attacked left and right by groups like amnesty, human rights watch, the UN, the US, the EU, i could go on. china has been called out on all sorts of things; torture, forced confessions, forced labour, limited freedom of speech, no assembly rights, its approach to tibetan autonomy. again, i could go on. these are things we've known about for years but do little more than issue reports condemning the nation and while china doesn't ignore their violations; they see things as improving but in the meantime certain measures are needed to protect safety and social stability. basically, china is telling the world; look we know we treat our people like crap but us some slack, we provide you with inexpensive crap, you don't want us to cut that off do you? no one is exactly making full blown effort to make china commit to international standards of human rights at the expense of economic losses.

and things are improving no doubt. as the american economic empire is beginning to show cracks and crumble from within, red china is emerging as the new economic superpower with its cheap products and cheap labour. in turn, china's society is facing unprecedent social mobility and continued economic growth for china will require greater personal freedom and restraint by the state. whether continued growth can occur within the single-party communist state is debatable. can capitalism and state-control function together? can full political control while continiously relaxing economic regulations sustain the people's republic of china? most would say no. economics and politics go hand-in-hand and you cannot change one without affecting the other. china has managed to strike a balance between the ideas and compromise both to a certain extent.

but the idea of human rights violations being good for china gives them the ability to pretty much do what it wants to its people. biomedical technology is the way of the future. while in the states, bush is severely putting limits of things like stem-cell research which are being used in the exploration of cures for conditions such as parkinson's, diabetes, and blindness among others. the states have chosen to dramatically politicize what is a scientific issue and drastically limit what biotechnological companies and research labs can do. in the long run, the nation is shooting itself in the foot by controlling the scientific community. the rest of the world appears to be embracing this research with greatest spending by the likes of sweden, israel, netherlands, uk, south korea, and even brazil jumping on board. and of course, china.

china enjoys an advantage over the rest of the world in that its human rights conditions are suitable for crude forms of research. while the brits have to be cautious and try stuff on rats or place petty newspaper ads for the lowly to get paid to be drugged up with all sorts of unknown chemicals, china can pull anyone off the street into its labs. the limits of their forms of research are ultimately, well, limitless. is it right though? from our perspective, certaintly not. by no means, should we advocate clamping down on human rights in the name of scientific research. in the states, the republicans take issues with embroynic cells being used for research so people being rounded up into labs will probably never happen. and nor should it.

so amnesty or whoever can issue all the reports it wants about human right violations but nothing is going to change in china without overwhelming international pressure. giving beijing the 2008 olympics may have been some vague pseudo-political attempt by the international community to make china more transparent to the rest of the world. maybe the attention of the nearing olympics will expose the social conditions of the chinese but who knows. in the meantime, china will continue to grow into the new economic hegemonic empire because its conditions are ripe for such expansion.

shit luck for the rest of us


charming the heart of a lady


a friend of mine is considering placing a personal ad to meet girls...in order to get to their sisters. he figures chicks that look at personal ads probably have hotter sisters. it's an interesting logic, if you want to call it that. it goes in greater detail as to why that is so but whatever. if he can't meet these hot sisters, he might across some hot brothers.

i figure if i ever placed a personal ad, it goes something like this: mom says i'm cute, funny & tall. find out if she's right

the nhl season gets going tonight. or as the leaf nation refers to as "preparation for eventual failure." you wouldn't know the season is going unless you've been under a rock for the past months. the overwhelming commercialization of hockey's return has buried last year's sentiment that we would never watch hockey again. it's another story in the states, of course, and it'll be interesting to see whether anyone in places like atlanta or nashville gives a shit hockey is back in their cities. what? it was gone for a year? getouttahere

however, this time, i predict the collapse of the maple leafs way before the 1st or 2nd round of the playoffs in that they'll struggle to even clinch a spot. the new rules are encouraged to speed up the game and leafs are too slow/old to keep with the new environment. they'll either give up plenty of offensive opportunities or get penalized in attempting to stop the new speedy design of the game. and giving up power plays means giving up goals. they're only hope is that guys like alison and lindros are healthy throughout the season otherwise the prepetual disappointment of being a leaf fan might bring the sorrow sooner than the typical later.

ottawa is going to eat up the northwest division as they look like a solid team. they finished 7-1 in the preseason and going into the season are loaded with firepower: hossa, havlat, alfredsson, and recently added dany heatley. also, don't be surprised if spezza has a breakout season. the new system is suitable for younger and flashy teams which is what the sens are. the only question is whether hasek can do what lalime couldn't do and give them stable goaltending in time for the playoffs. i can't stand ottawa, maybe as a result of those bitter ottawa-toronto playoff matchups, but they look to be one team to be reckoned with.

my heart is divided between supporting the flames and canucks. like everyone else in the country, jumped on their bandwagon in the near cindrella playoff run. i like this team and plenty can be said about them in similar fashion as with ottawa: young, fast, and proven to be a club with lots of heart. they've added power with the likes of amonte and hamrlik without giving up much of that memorable 03-04 roster. though both in the second half of the careers, guys like amonte has the strength and physicallity that made the flames so effective two years ago. anothher cup run? let's hope so.

then there is the vancouver canucks. they have all the ingredients of team to make a decent run at the cup but goaltending has proven to their weakspot as the season wears on. plenty of elite talent on this squad with the likes of naslund, morrisson, and bertuzzi. my heart is behind this team.


teachers teach that knowledge waits


today i had the whole day planned out to every little last detail: wake up, go to school, maybe learn something, trek down to the local music store, pick up the latest self-titled release by broken social scene, go see misty queen for a bit, come home, possibly smoke a little bud and then enjoy the sounds of this record. nothing was going to break that.

everything was going great; in fact i cut my last class half-short because the waiting drove me mad. like a good audiophile that i am, last night i scraped together enough loose loonies and toonies to make this purchase. nothing in the new release section, nothing under the "broken social scene" tab in the tastelessly categorized pop/rock section. i figured the band's presence is big enough that music chain stores carry their latest release?

so as it turns out, the release date was pusheed back by a week according to some manufacturing mumble gumble. the whole night, maybe even week ruined by this delay.

the broken telephone of intrawebs forums says that i should've known about this delay for sometime now but haven't bothered to look. also, it appears that the album is readily available for download of programs like SoulSeek. i looked it up and there it is to be transferred through wires, into my computer and into my ears. though ive heard considerable parts of the record live in concert, i'll try to avoid the temptations of the evilness of downloading music for another week.

it'll be like trying to hold out masturbation for a week, meaning failure written all over it.

instead i've opted for amazon (for now) to send it to me! also, they lured me with their $39 shipping scam which is without a shadow of a doubt the greatest marketing ploy in the history of marketing. now i know i'm not saving money by being forced to spend more than 39 bucks to get free shipping but i like the idea of getting something FREE. case in point: the broken social scene disc is listed as $12.99. after all the taxes, shipping fees, the total would be over $20. but i'm thinking, so i'm paying some five dollars because i'm buying it off amazon as opposed to my local music store?? nofuckingway! so according to this brilliant rationale of mine, i went from spending $20 to something like $51 throwing in an old modest mouse disc and the arcade fire ep. that's me showing amazon i will not let them charge me shipping costs! this is why i did not excell in math but at least know the errors of my way as with this indulgence.

i've really looked forward to this release for some time now as their previous album, you forgot it in people, was simply stunningly beautiful. not only for its music but for opening the door to the thriving arts & crafts label, which is home to artists such as apostle of hustle, feist, stars, and jason collett. the strength of the toronto music centres around these acts and to see our little community get trust into a wider audience is promising.

in the last five years or so, pop music has been well.. poop. the folks over at arts and crafts have shown pop music isn't about carefully choreographed dance moves and a flashy public image but pop music can actually be about the music. though some may think it is a sin to ever think of bss as a pop act, their beautiful melodic music and catchy sing-alongs are fit for mass comsumption. they've consciously steered clear of that route knowing once this gets too big, it seizes to represent what it is to be.

the thing of broken social scene as a band as that is not a band per se. rather a fragile collection of musicians/friends with own music projects coming together to make music. it is more pet project that has garned a degree of attention which can break at any point in time. seeing as the members accommodate the schedules of their full-time bands to give broken social scene some attention, but nothing is committing them to keep it going. this, of course, has its ups and downs. on the bright side, the group isn't obligated to anyone or any contract but create music at free will. however, those of us who have grown to love this robust collection of music know that it could end with the release of this record and the upcoming tour.

whatever; this post is getting to be lame and i am not a music critic (...yet...HA!).. point is; buy the record when it comes out or be a sucker like me and buy it on amazon along with other albums just to get $5 dollars off shipping by spending an additional $30.



i've never realized what a caffeine addict i truly am until seeing a tea cup, coffee mug and coke can sitting beside my keyboard. all of which were consumed in the span in three hours. sadly, no work was done. this is uncalled for however; it's only october and already i have a 10 page essay due in a week. i figured i'd have another good month of dicking around, sporadically attending class and all that usual going-through-the-motions before the mid-term season dawns upon each and every student.

i'm poor. that's been the recurring theme around here lately but i'm the star of the show so bare with me if you must. so poor i can't even afford a haircut or an oil change. well truthfully, i never did pay for haircuts and get my mom to do those for me. in fact all my life, i've spent a grand total of $20 on getting my hair done. it was last year when i needed one pronto on the spot and mommy dearest wasn't around. the beauty of mom hair cuts is that in the morning i look like a seven-year old with the ugliest bowl cut ever, but with the slightest tweaking in the mirror, i give myself a chic-y look which other suckers pay onwards of $100. pity the fool who doesn't have a mom who gave haircuts to her 4 younger siblings. the only thing she asks for in return that i continue to be her favourite son. sadly, she can't do oil changes.

the other day i was helping my younger brother get ready for his first job interview. the poor clown's closet consists out sk8ter boi outfits and one-liner shirts that aren't even remotely funny. though i find the idea of dressing up to impress minimum wage employer laughable, sad reality is you have to start somewhere. i myself haven't got the slightest sense of style or of what makes professional attire, my recent job called for some attention to these sort of things. in the past four months, i've amassed mounts of second-hand clothing that have no real use other than my brother using it for job interviews. he's slightly taller and well, better-looking i think. but it's got to be the height because other than that, we're brothers right down to the moles. after dressing the guy, i came to the conclusion people really must think i don't have the slightest idea as to what i'm doing when i dress myself in the morning. it's another thing all-together to see yourself in a mirror as opposed to having someone where your favourite golf shirt. come to think of it, i need a make-over a la 2005.

now that the school season is back on, i've resumed smoking pot habitually. the responsibilities of my summer job needed a clear-head and frankly, i just didn't have the time to fit into the schedule. i didn't make a conscious effort to stop but rather those people who i associate in those times sort of fell of the radar. i love them to death but it was too much where i needed to function like a good nice worker the morning after. i longed for those nights at times but realized i can do without. however, now that i am back to my seemingly drivel dead-end McJob with the occassional class here and there, i've got plenty of spare time and idleness is the devil's tool. or however that chestnut goes. so those folks are back in the picture and so are the circles of petty dealers. i tell myself this drift among these misfits is to provide research for a future project in social inequality but really, i've missed listening to funky ambient music while under influence. it's got its perks like getting drunk and then playing football in the nearby park in pitch dark.

things with misty queen are odd at this time as we approach the one year anniversary of our relationship. over the summer, she started working in a highly ambitious environment with highly ambitious individuals. these folks have highly ambitious social lives as a result. i have no problem with her making new friends but these friends aren't just part of my crowd. they all know someone that knows someone that knew someone and yet, in this circle, i am no where to be found. she's in the loop and trying to drag me into it as if it's some infinitely cooler world that i'm missing out on. this social circle is the elitist clubber type of the toronto scene that know club owners, promoters, and so forth. it's like my drug crowd but this one is legit. i've tried to pretend i care about getting to know these people but i'm just not into it at all. sure maybe there are some benefits of riding the coattails of these folks but it just isn't me. each of these nights begins with a desire for it to end already. misty queen loves it but i reminisce the old days and the quiet nights of movie watching and inane coffee shops chats in which i fall in love with her british accent at each syllable. i guess realizing what a polar pair we actually are signals a capricious future. we both see it, don't really confront it because of our non-confrontial characters and desperately try to accommodate to it. but lately we haven't been spending as much together. i can't seem to figure out whether it's growth of committment or growth apart. i have no problem letting her do her thing while i drink and play football. but at a same time, when she calls later that night, i immediately regret not being with her and should've just trudge with her new uber-cool friends. missing out on her happiness and as sappy as it sounds, makes me worrisome that i should be there to enjoy it with her. besides, there's plenty of good looking fellas with a little bit of money to swoon my fair lady. neither of which i came to flaunt. the persisent but restraint (for the sake of sanity) jealous nature of me continues to linger at such occassions.

i guess the old adage of "we'll see what happens" is a fair way to end this post.


Dailies

old thoughts become new revelations