AHH yes, the weekend was splendid indeed. two nights of broken social scene in concert, in which andrew whiteman kept posing, feist kept winking, strutting her cute little frame & the music was ever so lovely. the second night was better because it being front row rather than off in the periphery where tall people ahead of you somehow manage to collectively obscure any chance of seeing the concert proper. but it's the music right??

even misty queen, the casual fan has been bugging me since last night to make copies of the concert bootlegs i've got.

its so sweet to bring another one into the tent of bss lovers. so sweet indeed.

today's election day; nothing really to predict another than conservative government with about 130 seats and liberals probably hovering around 100 or so. seeing as the results aren't going to be much of a surprise i'll vote how i want, not strategically to keep the conservatives out of power. i've got this philosophy you see but maybe another time i'll let you in on it.

just vote and don't bitch that it doesn't matter.

this video clip from last night's french version of the debate was probably the most exciting part of the evening. it's a classic "oh no you didn't!" but out of the mouth of a fat white bald guy. duffy v. duffy. guesss which duffy is the tool?

and sort of adds fuel to the argument that media is trying to decourse the liberal campaign. don't buy it. simply, martin's campaign has been a mess from the get go. nothing they said has had any has stuck beyond the day's news. the only liberal story that was in the news for more than 24 hours was the ministry of finance being investigated into whether last year's income trust changes were leaked prior to the announcement causing a flurry on activity on the stock market. not a way to get your message out during the campaign.

speaking of leaks, martin's "red book" is available via a conservative blog prior to its official release. wasting no time and rightfully so, the conservatives already attacked martin's proposals. story of the day: liberal plans attacked before 99.9% of the country even heard them. brilliant. and why did they wait so long to launch the official platform? certainly, the strategy of holding out is a wise one but at this point anyone paying attention to the campaign cannot possibly look it over without thinking of what the conservatives already said. clearly, it puts the liberals on the defensive of what's supposed to be their offensive part. then again, no one really pays attention to election campaigns till the final weekend so team martin still has the potential of selling their platform.

again, is the media undermining the liberal campaign? no, moles within martin's team are.

no resonating message, controversial liberals ads compared to the 1993 personal attacks, "beer and popcorn" quotes about liberals' preception of those on welfare, and the tightness of the conservative campaign which kept its more conservative voices away from television cameras and reporters. until today, when the story of an ontario conservative candidate said adam and eve set the standard for marriage. mind you, his comment was a year ago and probably little power to have the media take notice. the image of the moderate of the conservatives has given liberals very little sticking ground because it seems their entire campaign was going to be based on this proven strategy.

i'm not counting the liberals out. there's another 12 days and last election was a testament of the magical work of the government's strategists. they've stumbled into victory last time and the potential of another garbage winning goal is still in the air.but finally, the campaign has something worth talking about.

and in more important news, brad pitt and jolie are expecting a child this summer. let's all hope it's half as attractive as i am.

during the break of the election as politicians paused for christmas and new year's, all was quiet on the forefront except for liberal blog gaffs and a rcmp investigation whether someone in the ministry of finance tipped off the business community prior to next morning's budget announcement which plenty of activity on the stock market.

yet again, rhetoric of liberal arrogance and corruption makes its way around political circles.

let's not count out the disgusting death of a pretty 15 year old torontian girl whose story made national news and quickly made guns and crime a campaign issue. toronto's gun violence put liberals on the defensive and harper's tough on crime tone resonated among ontarians. maybe it took the death of a white girl and not the usual gang related shootings among toronto's poor black community, but liberals' past in this area came back to haunt them and at the wrong time. young girls being shot dead during christmas and an election campaign is time for incubment government's to enter damage control.

now as the election enters its second and potentially more exciting half, liberal follies o have cost them in the current polls. latest EKOS numbers show harper's conservatives flirting around 40% and the wisom of our system suggests the idea of a majority conservative government isn't as far fetched as it once was.

what?! harper having a majority government?! that cannot and must not happen and suddenly sitting-on-the-fence voters throw their weight behind liberals curbing the conservative momentum. arguably, that's what happened in 2004 when conservatives collapsed in dying days of the campaign as potential voters bought into the scare tactics of the liberal campaign.

so a single poll indicating such a surge is notoriously dubious and could have the counter effect of bringing harper's support down. and no surprise, that pro-liberal toronto star splashed that article on its homepage while rightwinged papers like national post keep it quietly tucked away. no doubt, harper has yet to fully shed his fear factor but is becoming more softer. sure, his constant fake smiling is creepy but proves he's not android, just a little socially awkward to no fault of his own. and last week's image of harper in a pub with a pint of beer watching the canadian juniors win gold was a stroke of genius. beneath it all, he seems real and image framing has worked to a pulp.

how is the image of paul martin being set up? yeah, i dont know either.

but other than clever photo ops; where's the conservative support coming from? the conservatives gains in ontario and quebec are fueling the party's latest surge. qubeckers are listening to harper's vision of a decentralized federation that would give quebec a greater international voice. the gain in quebec is surprising as going into the campaign, harper's party was nothing but a fringe organization and now about 20% popular support and ahead of the once second liberals. though of course, the anti-canadian bloc are going to elect a shitload of sovereignists and the lack of quebecer conservative MPs in parliament means harper is blowing hot air with his ambitious plan for quebec.

if conservatives form the government without a single seat in quebec, blah blah blah, decentralization, blah blah blah, i know we said but no one really likes us there anyways. the sovereignist support is unchanged and the conservatives are gaining ground at the expense of liberals. thus, the major issue in quebec and federal politics remains unchanged. battle for second place is irrelevant. yawn. conservatives have hopes for something like three seats in quebec, while the bloc is poised to collect onward of 50 sovereignists.

in the last parliament, martin did not have single quebec liberal and what good is talking about an agenda for the province going to do if you have no credible voice in the province. martin as PM did squat about the quebec issue in 2004/05 and harper's plan of decentralization will see the same fate.

whoever wins, quebec will continue to be the black hole of federal politics.

i spent the entire morning, afternoon, evening glued to my chair and eyes on the radiating morning writing what i thought was a stroke of genius. i believed this little humble mind of mine and plethora of ancient news articles figured why between 1985 and 1995 ontario politics were schizo as they were.

i had right logic.

referenced the right thinkers whose grandiose ideas matched my little thoughts.

dismissed silly pundits who thought they knew what they were talking about when really they did not. i didn't care if they were liberal or conservative. they didn't have the vantage of looking at the 80s and 90s issues from the year of 2006.

then i read a peers' paper and began to re-evaluate why i am in school to begin with. look out for another academic hack carrying a bachelor's degree in the next 10 months and possible grad school ambitions.

however, but the point of my once-assumed brilliant paper was to look at political spin of an issue as its shaped through the media and different political actors.

this meant reading old hashed up articles from political observers between the years of '85 and '95 who tried to make sense of why ontarians voters just didn't know what they were doing with each ballot cast. one government today, another one tomorrow. one day you've got socialists, the next day radical neo conservatives run wild with whopping majorities.

and not surprisingly, in retrospect, all were wrong and maybe even added to the mess. and by wrong, i mean, predicting bob rae's going to be re-elected in 1995. when in fact, he suffered a whopping defeat and potentially killing off the idea of ontario, or canada for that matter, ever having another socially democratic government. and certainly no one ever expected mike harris would be elected and alter the nature of ontario's politics.

f'ing pundits. good as weather people.

with this year's election preparing to make its last dash, political observers are going to go into overdrive to make sense of whats at stake and to woo critical votes. and judging by the latest polls showing strong conservative gains, liberal supporters such as my beloved toronto star, are going gearing up for mad spinning. bold article titles, stiff tones and reviving the shadowy dimension of stephen harper.

and so, if you're one of those who reads a bunch of political columns on the morning of the election, there's a good chance will be doing the exact dance next year.

granted, i read them too. nothing like the wacky minds over at toronto sun writing for the everyday torontian. and when i get tired of their rubbish, i have the priviledge of looking at semi nude teen girls they decide to put pictures of in their esteemed paper.

don't listen to pundits about this month's election because in 2220 their articles are going to going ring on the loonie side of things. a columnist make may a "good point" today but they're all card carring members of party x, y or z propagandizing self fulfilling prophecies.

they're the pajama media on a payroll.

i'll admit it, not everything that comes out of my mouth is worth hearing. chances are much that comes out of my mouth is not worth it. at heart of it, this may be the problem; may am i of interest to others outside the circle of friends but my weak self worth fails to see beyond the shadows and walls i've built around myself.

but i've learned to handle this problem by working towards conversations that are structured to my liking and within particular parameters. usually, this means cheating the other party by preparing all the witty and clever things i'll say the next day or later that day. this fixation of mine ensures that conversations will have some level of flow, i'll contribute something worth while with anxiety twisting my tongue into mindless, "mmhmmm"s "oh yeah"s, and "right"s.

surely, this process isn't easy to pull off. while my end of the conservation can be scripted to whatever liking i want, i can't predict the other's responses and sudden decisions to throw in something completely out of the blue in which my rehearsed dialogue is not ready for leaving me treading for dear life. then we get back to the problem of anxiety. that's why multiple directions need to be laid to prepare to for possible directions of the conversation. sort of like a "choose or own adventure" book where i know what will happen if you choose page 24 instead of 95.

or in other circumstances, i use complete control of the conversation to avoid uncalled for occurances. as a result, much of what i say is more a dialogue and the keen mind would be able to pick up on its earlier preparedness.

in a group setting, i simply cannot function because i cannot effectively prepare what others will say or do. at poker games, i'm often to referred stoic one and is mistaken as my gaming tactic. ironically, it's led to a few victories along the way. in any group social setting, be it at a bar, class discussion, etc, i become trapped with the belief all eyes are on me. in class, i think about those around me as they watch me take notes. at a red light, i believe i'm being watched out of the corner their eyes. on a street, everyone's thoughts stop to watch me instead.

i finally have a name for it: social anxiety. my own insecurites may stem from a psychological problem.

once i diagnosed myself as bipolar, but that may have been a bit of an exagerration.

first step is knowledge and this felt surprisingly well.

first day of the year. always an excuse to make changes i should've done months, maybe even years ago.

nonetheless, the change of the year on the calendar is a worthwhile marker that profound changes or initiatives need to be taken. 2006 will probably the year the i finish my undergrad. in a drunken haze, i lay in bed way into today's hours thinking the next 12 months will be like no other. accomplishments call for drastic changes and an opportunity to lay out resolutions worth sticking with.

it's high time to get out of the mcjobs and get my foot into a door of a potential solid career employer. mcjobs have been fun for the past, ooh let's say, 6-7 years but now there's added pressure to get serious and realize that working in restuarants as a prep cook or my dick part time grocery job is no longer as cool when those around you are securing opportunity filled internership etc etc etc.

those coincides with getting out of the suburbs that fun seems to have forgotten. while mooching off the parents has avoided the student debt trap, it's made me restless as never before. each night i drive through the mundane bland streets realizing this is not where i belong, at least not yet. simply not ready to lose my life in a backyard. there's a great desire to live like a straving artist in several urban centres for at least weeks on time. whether it's toronto, new york, seattle, london or whatever, nothing here is holding me to stay beyond this summer. more so, getting rid of the car so needed to in these 'burbs will make room for added cash. move out, somewhere, anywhere but here. at last there is nothing left here for me.

get in shape. thanks my employer i get a decent back sratching deal on their gyms and dirt cheap personal trainers. as long as i am with my current McEmployer, why not sculp myself into something misty queen goes ga ga about. when our once scrawny brother and scrawny friend are turning into beefy monsters and you continue to glorify the 10 months of ancient high school what you called working out is not enough to grapple on their par, it's time to do something about it.

and most of all, misty queen. in these times of the changes are going to occur in both our lives, have her continue to be the shore to my sea as she's my sea to my shore. this year something's going to give--we both know it--but if on december 31st 2006, she's still kissing me on the lips, she'll be kissing me till our hearts expire.

ah yah, and work on the whole world peace thing if i have time.

and all these are more realistic than idealistic. once the world was big and i was small. now it's the other way around.

and that sounds way gay.