Harmer & Hayden

I saw Sarah Harmer & Hayden tonight (As well as last night). What an awesome show, the crowd was much better tonight. Hayden also had a much better performance. Sarah rocked the house with two encores (Again something that didn't happen last night). Thx for the music, kids.
Anyway. I decided to blog this since I can't sleep. No Foolin'. None.

"all in one move, you
changed my way of thinking
bopping away, all that kept me down"

-Hayden

Soooo negative...

My last few ramblings have been quite negative. Hmm.. did I really have to put that entire quote on there from Matt Good? I guess I've been cursed with a touch of the winter blues the last few weeks, I believe it is the lack of sunlight mixed with poor air quality. Could also blame my recent diet. I've eaten absolute garbage since I started my new consulting Gig, along with creating more than my fair share of garbage: let's see, avg of 2 styrofoam Second Cup coffee cups a day, sandwich wrapper, bag for sandwich, usually a salad (+1 more styrofoam container) plastic lid, plastic utensils, etc... It really is disgusting... I shall try to be a bit more enviro-friendly from now on.

In keeping with my yearly average, I received a traffic ticket on Friday night. The humorous part is what it was for - going the wrong way on a one way street. Unfortunately, there were a few people waiting for me at my house and I was rushing home from downtown, it was snowing, dark. I turned onto what I thought was a shortcut, and instantly realized that I was on a one way. Several cars were coming towards me and I stopped and put my car in reverse. Then I saw some pretty lights on the first car in the line. Yes, a cop - that folks is what we call "A kick in the Gnards". Anyway, I'm going to take this one to court, as my insurance is already violating me in many different ways. I do not need to give them any more reason to increase their violating tendencies.

I saw Kevin Smith later that Friday night at Roy thomson hall. That cat is damn funny. He talked for almost 3 and a half hours and didn't lose my attention once. Unfortunately, as we (T.O. / Canada) did with Conan, the Ryerson crowd came off as less than intelligent. Even mr. smith started knocking the shitty quality of the questions being posed. I shouldn't complain as I didn't exactly contribute, but c'mon people...

I have been informed that I have been granted a ticket to see Sarah Harmer on the 26th(?) of april. My Sarah withdrawal will be diluted once again.... this will be the 5th time I've seen her.... Hmm.... Is this considered stalking yet? I am also considering getting tickets for the next night too.... there isn't much quality live music around these days... must take advantage while you still can....

Wish me luck with keeping my vehicle.

"and wait for it
there are only two things now
this great black night
and the fireglow "

- sarah harmer

Nostalgicism... Is that a word?

I went for a drive tonight, visiting a few places where I grew up.

Life is very strange.

"You know today I was only asked one question. And that one question all day ya know what that was? "Do you want this supersized?"
You know, come to think of it, I'd like the whole fucking world supersized. Supersized guns. Supersize planes. Supersize satellites. Think about how many more channels you could get with supersize satellites. Supersize sales. How do you supersize a sale? How 'bout we supersize third world debt relief. Supersize love. Supersize honesty. Supersize government. Come to think of it... actually, nah... let's not supersize the government. I'd like a supersize death. Can I have a supersize of death. I'd like a supersize of death with a coke. You know what we need? Some backup singers... we'll have like a little jingle. Kinda like that! You know. Supersize this song. Really, that's the goal isn't it? We can supersize the record. We'll sell more records! It's a supersized record. That is, afterall, our ambition.

Ambition. Ambition's a tricky thing. It's like riding a unicycle over a dental floss tightrope over a wilderness of razorblades. Ambition can backfire. Ambition means more. Ambition means faster. Ambition means better. I wonder if you can super... can you supersize ambition? Does that make you ambitious if you supersize ambition? Around here our ambition hurts more than it helps. Around here our ambition throws a non-perishable item in a donation bin at Christmas then it pats itself on the fucking back because it thinks it's done something decent. Yeah, we're supersizing ambition, make no mistake about it. Ambition will televise the revolution, and it'll sell more commercial spots than the Superbowl, the Olympics, the World Series and the tragedy du jour combined. We're supersizing. We're supersizing the record. 'Cause we're ambitious."

-Matt Good.

Arrgghhh....

When you peel away our formalities and niceties, we're all just a bunch of pricks.

An infinite number of pricks competing for a finite set of resources.

I believe this may be some being's idea of a cruel joke.

Well Ha, Ha. Very funny. Go fuck yourself, being.

"Tell me are you satisfied with fucking love?" - Dave Matthews.

Hello Blog..

Wow. A lot has happened in the last 4 months. As you can probably tell, I've been lacking in the blogging dept.
Anyway, here are some new things with me:

• I finally got a new car which is the best car EVER. A fully loaded Audi A4 to be exact.
  
• I got a new job which I started today. It is awesome so far.
  
• I just got back from a week in Cuba on Saturday. I am now brown.
  

Well enough blogging. I should really expand on the last 4 months, but life is calling.

Can't forget to quote though:

"if you could keep me floating for just a while.." - Dave Matthews.

It's been a long time now....

Hello Blog.
My apologies, I have been away for a while.
I will try not to neglect you again in the future.

"Ever since your fingertips
Ever since your eyes
Talking with the light on
Blue skies" - David Gray

Money on my mind........

I've been preoccupied with money the last few days, trying to beat the market, pick the right stocks, etc.... But in the end I realize it all comes down to luck. There really is not much difference in throwing ten grand into a company or putting it all on black at a casino. So I'll try my best with this accumulation of wealth thing, but I won't let it consume me and miss the important things in life.

"Can't buy me love" - John Lennon and Paul McCartney

Evil Vehicle

My car is dying.
For the record, it is a peice of shit.
I am convinced that this car, despite being an inanimate object, will eventually end up in hell.

Although I am thankful for it's countless a to b jaunts it has fulfilled for me, if it does indeed end up in hell it will not be completely undeserved....

I am looking forward to getting a new car.

Humans are quite silly beings.

We are supposedely the most advanced species yet we are the only ones who let our possessions and pursuit thereof consume the majority of time in our lives.....

My car is still a peice of shit though.

And I'd still like a new one.

"Attention to health is life's greatest hindrance."
- Plato

DMB solid show...

Just got back from the DMB show at the Ampitheatre. What an amazing band, jamming like no tomorrow. Dave was on point tonight and I couldn' t have asked for a better setlist:

1. When the World Ends
   
2. Rhyme and Reason
   
3. Ants Marching
   
4. Crash Into Me
   
5. Warehouse
   
6. What You Are
   
7. The Stone
   
8. If I Had It All
   
9. Help Myself
   
10. Where Are You Going
    
11. Spoon
    
12. Two Step
    
13. What Would You Say
    
14. Grace Is Gone
    
15. Stay
    Encore:
    
16. The Maker
    
17. All Along The Watchtower
    

Fantastic, Thx to my friends for the good memories - watch that age thing boys :)

"She broke my heart, my grace is gone" - Dave Matthews

Treelines that captivate

Just got back from a four day trek in Algonquin Park. Although tired and sore from some hefty portages, I feel refreshed and content.
Events of note:

• Massive tree falling
  
• Exploring bog/swamp canoe trip.
  
• Day portage to Redrock Lake, Cliff climbing / jumping
  
• Ode to Barry, strange buckets
  
• Fun quoting game, dice
  
• Fantastic food, crumbly cookies.
  
• Late night drunken Jam sessions / Freestyling
  
• Mars in the night sky
  
• The two seagulls and loons
  
• Unbelievable sunsets
  
• Good friends, laughing till it hurts
  

"Hey hey I guess it hasn't hit me yet
I fell through this crack and I kinda lost my head" - Jim Cuddy / Greg Keelor

Perspective, Perspective, Perspective......

Yesterday, I jumped out of a perfectly good plane at an altitude of 14,000 feet.
I plunged toward the piece of land between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario at a rate of approx. 200km. for over a minute .
I saw Niagra falls, St. Catherines, Port Colborne and in the distance, Toronto from a rare view.

This tends to put a little perspective in one's life - both figuratively and literally. And we all need to put our lives in perspective now and then, to make us remember what truly is important. My family and close friends are important to me. Being a good person, growing and enjoying life are also things I hold in high regard. I'll try not to forget these things.


"No dress rehearsal - this is our life" - Gord Downie

No news is good Gnews with Gary Gnu

Man, is it me or is does it seem like shit has been hitting the fan lately? It's like mankind is chugging along the exponential curve and today was the day that we got the part where it starts to be a real bitch to climb. Anyway, it's been a crazy few years and it seems to me that catastrophes are happening more and more frequently. (Or maybe I'm just listening to 680 news too much). Here are some of the major points along the "cultural" curve (botom ones are most recent and closer together, hence exponential):

• 9/11 and Anthrax


• Bush II - Return to stupidity


• Iraq II - Return to Bagdad


• Strange weather


• West Nile


• SARS


• Blaster virus


• Northeastern Blackout


• SARS II in Vancouver?!


• Good Samaritan Virus


• Bus bomb in Jerusalem


• U.N. Bombed in Iraq (The world lost a good man)

The last six points or so happened within the last week!
Sheesh, I'm trying to see the glass as half full here, but our fragile little species seems to be fucking up quite royally on an scale unheard of.
Or at least unheard of in a long, long time :)

We are kicking our flaws up a notch. BAM!

So the best thing to do is enjoy your time here. I believe that DM said it best:

"Eat, drink and be merry, for life is short but sweet for certain" -Dave Matthews

New & Improved! All quotes - No Blog! This Sunday Only!

"and my favorite guitar was between us to hold" - Hayden

Religion is fucked...

I grew up going to the Anglican church and hated it. I stopped going as soon as I was big enough that my parents couldn't drag me to the car on Sunday mornings - ever since then I have sort of steered clear of Religion. I guess the closest thing I've had to a religion in my life is music (I think I even wrote a song called 'Music, My religion' a long time ago) Don't get me wrong, I'm a spiritual person, and I believe in good not evil. I also believe there is SOMETHING out there more than us, that perhaps even created everything- but I don't have the narcissistic attitude that our minds could possibly comprehend it. Let alone think that it was a dude that looks like me with two arms and legs, etc. Anyway, I won't get into that now.

The point is I'm not Anglican. I'm not Christian. I'm not Aethiest either. I'm me.

Recently though, I've had some interest in Religion, partly out of curiousity, and partly because I like to be educated on the things I disagree with (which is sort of arrogant in and of itself - oh well)
So I checked out the scientology online tonight to see what they're all about - I gotta admit they make some good points, but again, like most other Religions I've seen, it comes down to the almighty Dollar. They were really convincing me in with all this talk of the spirit having a body and mind, dianetics, and anti-pollution. But I had this inkling that something was just a little off - apparantly I might be right.

I guess organized religion will never really be for me, it's always just a little too fucked.... I'll just try to be a good being and find my own way.


"It's these little things, they can pull you under
Live your life filled with joy and wonder
I always knew this altogether thunder
Was lost in our little lives

Oh, oh, but sweetness follows" - Berry/Buck/Mills/Stipe

Some good ol' fashioned bitchin'.....

First off, if you are 1) Male, and 2) go to a fitness club then here are a few pointers for you while getting prepared for your workout:

- Minimize the Naked-time. I'm not interested in seeing or smelling your naked ass. Neither is anyone else.
- The sinks are for washing your hands in - not shaving, brushing teeth, mixing power-shakes or puking in.
- The change room is like a library: brief conversations are tolerated, as long as you are fulfilling your main goal for being in the change room - CHANGING.
(One-leg-on-the-bench-check-out-my-unit exhibitionists are excluded. You people shouldn't talk. Period. You belong at HEDONISM II - Not the men's change room at the local Fitness club)
- I must re-iterate: MINMIZE the naked time. For example, use a towel. Again, nobody there wants to see you naked. Accept this and move on.

The above comments were inspired after a nasty experience in the change room at my gym yesterday. I had ingested a good dose of chinese food for lunch and unfortunately for me, my colon decided to get active about the time I arrived at the gym for my workout. So I grudgingly obliged and entered one of the stalls to do my business (An activity that should be avoided outside of your own residence unless absolutely nessesary) The stalls in my particular gym's change room happen to be directly accross from the sinks, of which there are 3, with a mirror behind them. Thus when exiting these stalls, one can see themself exiting, as well as anyone who happens to be at the sink, washing their hands (I assume - see note 2 above.) On this particular occasion, I finished my business, annoyed with the timing of my colon, and exited the stall - hoping to proceed to the sink, wash my hands, and then exit the change room.

Unfortunately, this was not to be the case. When I exited the stall, what I saw was not my reflection in the mirror above the sinks, but an massive, sweaty, hair-covered ASS directly in front of me. I quickly looked away, but it was too late. The image was engraved in my memory; no doubt to be the root many a nightmare in the near future.
The worst part was, that in my haste to get to the sink and wash my hands an ever more terrible image in the mirror was revealed: a full frontal of obesity, hair and sweat corresponding to that disgusting ass.

This dude had decided that THIS was an appropriate place for a shave, BEFORE he showered - can't forget to seep one's stank into the walls first. Oh, and of course - butt naked. No towel. No Underwear. Just an oversized birthday suit.
To further solidify his prick-like behaviour, he HAD to select middle sink of the three. Trying desprately not to let myself say a few derogatory comments to this fucker, it went unnoticed that the sink I approached was covered in a substance that can only be described as what looked like pulp from grapefruit juice. I didn't even want to give my imagination an instant of time to contemplate what the substance was, I moved to the third sink absorbing some more stank from the glutton in the middle, washed my hands and exited the change room, scarred for life.

For fuck's sake people, you should know better.

Now my bad experience didn't end there. Oh no, this was just the beginning of the madness.

After the gym I was driving home and was trying to decide whether to take the Gardiner or Lakeshore. The sign always says that the Gardiner is slow, which usually doesn't indicate jack-shit, but just to be safe I decided to take the lakeshore anyway. I knew as soon as I had gone beyond the point of no return, that I had made a major mistake.

Keep in mind that it was 38 degrees outside and my air conditioning doesn't work.

In the back of my mind, I was slowly recalling my lunch hour jaunt in a co-worker's automobile where playing on some garbage radio station was an interview with some band with a bad British accent and how they were playing the amphitheatre that evening.

I was also remembering the broken water main that had yet to be fixed which had reduced the lakeshore down to ONE lane right at the amphitheatre’s parking lot. Fantastic.

Oh - and there was also the fact that this was the day that the entire population of Carnies from Utah, Oregon and the shitty part of Florida had decided to converge on Toronto, towing their highly unsafe & crappy rides, shitty rigged games and edible oil product booths behind their underpowered Ford trucks (Circa 1979) for the Canadian National Exhibition which starts in a few days.

I hate the fucking Ex. It always smells like vomit.

Anyway, it was stop and go (more stop) for the next 52 minutes to get to Strachan (Usually a 10 minute drive). My undershirt at this point was serving no purpose at all - thank-you, whoever coined the term business casual. It's just business attire without a goddamn tie and it still sucks.
While playing catch-up and fall-back with a car full of pre-pubescent head bangers, seeing the countless shirtless gut-ridden men, semi-shirted balding men (A.K.A. Wife-beater ridden) and the uncanny concentration of mullets coifed by the pedestrians on the sidewalk beside us, it dawned on me that tonight was all about the Def Leppard. (Good god, don't even THINK of clicking on that!)

"Yes Dorothy, this IS hell - now come here and pour some sugar on me"

Boy, what was really astonishing was the fact that there are kids half my age not only listening to - but also attending a Def Leppard Concert. THIS - not war in Iraq, not the crumbling of the U.S. economy, or new diseases such as SARS or West Nile - should be scaring the FUCK out of us.

Well, after all that I eventually got home.

Just felt like bitching - gotta let these things out now and then.

"We'll drive like bandits on the Queensway" - Martina Sorbara

PointFormBlogging...

Not much time now so I'll expand next entry:

- Horrid Gym Experiences
- Worse stop and go encounters of the Mullet kind
- Name changes: balirBlog
- New Potential Blog, "blog:response"
- Letters to important Googlers / Bloggers regarding Canadian Gouging.



"Time is more fun to play with than LEGO" -JBM

Underwater grass?

I spent the day on a lake wakeboarding, boating and generally having a good time. It was my second time wakeboarding and took me 3 tries to get going - I was soo frusterated. It's funny how you get to know yourself and predict your own habits. I had a feeling that I'd have some trouble this time as I tend to follow this behaviour pattern. The first time I ever tried this, I actually was up and going and did a pretty good job of it, these sorts of things sometimes come naturally to me. However, I started to over-analyze my technique from the first time and was not getting it. Sometimes there's good reason to say screw-it, don't analyze and go with your instincts. On the 4th try today I realized that I was following my predictable behaviour and then said screw it - from that point on, I was having a blast and doing pretty well at the whole thing.
There was this underwater grass throughout most of the lake which I had never seen before. I guess it's not much of a threat to the props, but it's quite strange when you bail into a load of the stuff, kind of like swimming in seaweed.
Anyway, thanks again friends for the good memories.

"Just 'cause you feel it, doesn't mean it's there" - Thom Yorke

Blocked?

I guess I'm having trouble thinking of something to write in my blog today. Could this be what it feels like when a writer get's the dreaded writer's block? Perhaps. Perhaps not, maybe I just don't have much to say today. Maybe I'm losing interest in this blogging thing and maybe I'll end up ditching it like so many other trends and dead-end paths I've curiously explored in my life. Who Knows? I should stick with this though - it's at least forcing me to flatulate mentally which can only be good for the soul. I really dispise these damn pop-ups from live365 - I suppose that is how their business model works. Hook them with some decent non-commercial music, then annoy the hell out of them with pop-ups till they cough up some dough. Nice. Nothing is for free, this is true.
I looked into the franchise fees for a certain unnamed franchise today. The fee is quite steep, but worth considering as it would be a good business, I think.
Legs are still achy, although went to the gym and they felt a bit better. Looking forward to weekend - it's just around the corner.....


"We have art to save ourselves from the truth" - Friedrich Nietzsche

Achy legs - You think you know, you have no idea...

I thought my legs were sore on Thursday. Man was I wrong. I went to the gym on Thursday, then headed home to build a deck at my parents place - Now my legs seriously hurt. I think it was the repetetive squatting to drill the deckboard down that got me. Anyway, enought on that.
Bjork is blasting on Utopia vibes right now, I had forgotton how much I used to dig her. She's coming to the city at the end of the month and I'm thinking I should really go to the show. I also want to go to Radiohead, but tickets are sold out I think I'll see who wants to go and we'll just walk down and buy some last minutes from the evil scalper-people.... Well back to work demain, so I should really get going.

"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws."
- Plato

Achy Legs and Salmon

My legs were hurting today - not in a bad, complaining-sort of way - but in an achy-feeling good sort of way. It was from the long walk home last night, probably close to 5km. Just for kicks I'm going to see how close my guess is on mapquest. We walked from downsview park along Sheppard to Bathurst, South on Bathurst then east on Wilson then south on Avenue for quite a while until we picked up a cab. Well, apparently it was about 5.4 Km, so I wasn't too far off. Anyway, we had it pretty lucky catching that cab as there were thousands of people trying to do the same thing. As for the concert, I think I'll leave it at what I said last night, I've had far too much time to form an opinionated view on the whole evening, whereas last night's post was raw and unbiased.
MMmmm Salmon fillets. In another attempt to better myself, I am trying to eat healthier, so today I picked up a Salmon fillet after the Gym and kind of created my own recipe. It wasn't half bad so I'm gonna throw it down here so I don't forget it:
Cucumber-dill dressing: Cucumber (finely chopped), chopped fresh dill, Mayo, lemon juice (Add sour cream next time.)
Poached salmon: Fill skillet with water, wine, fresh dill, chopped shallots