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

An ocean of human beings...

Just returned from the Rolling Stones concert for Toronto. I've got to keep this short as I work in about 6 hours and I really should get to bed. All I can say is that it was it was indescribable. So many people - It's so funny to see how we act in that context. All our emotions are put through a magnifying glass in situations like that - joy, humour, paranoia - all is love. This will definitely be one of the highlights of my life. Thank-you friends for sharing yourselves.

"One thing I know about the rest of my life, I know I'll be living it in Canada" - Sloan.

Procrastination is fun for everyone!

Procrastinating is something I tend to do. I have perfected this rare art form to the point that it can be self-destructive. I think I will try to improve myself in this respect - I'll start tomorrow.

I guess procrastination at it's core relates to that primal part of the brain that gives us instant gratification. When we procrastinate, we are foregoing long term benefits for short-term benefits (Usually milder in nature) to avoid the initial effort needed to realize the long-term benefits. However, I'd like to propose that this isn't necessarily all bad. Statistically, once in a while, taking the short-term benefit will lead you down a different path that will ultimately result in greater long-term benefits than the initial ones that were cast aside. I will give an outlandish and overtly biased example:

On some particular day in the future, a person (Let's call Him Rudy) decides to study for an exam at some remote location (other than his home). The day rolls around and Rudy realizes that he really doesn't feel like going to the library / park / chapters / etc to study and decides to stay home to watch some DVD's instead. Rudy knows that he only has a few days left to study, and he will no doubt fair better on the exam if he studies on this day and each of the remaining days until the exam. This will no doubt land the better job (Long term benefit), however, the (mild) enjoyment they get from staying home to watch the DVD's (Short term benefit) overwhelms him and he decides that he will put off studying until tomorrow. More importantly the underlying cause to stay for Rudy to stay home (whether he knows it or not) is to avoid the studying (effort) required.

Now, on this particular day, the doorbell happens to ring. A little startled, Rudy jumps to his feet and hurriedly runs to answer the door. Aware that his appearance may not quite be up to par on this lazy day of indulgence, he checks himself out amidst his quick jaunt to the door. As a result, Rudy doesn't pay as much attention to the large coffee table in his path and trips over it - fracturing his arm in several locations. The Religious crusader at the door hears all the commotion and concerned, opens the unlocked door to find Rudy and his gnarled arm curled up in agony on the floor. The Good Samaritan takes Rudy to the hospital where he falls in love with and marries his nurse Sally. Sally is an amazing woman. She has no need to work, but does so out of the goodness of her heart. You see - Sally is the daughter of a middle manager who won the lottery in his office pool. I could go on, but you get the idea.

So I guess one could argue that hard work pays off. I say that hard work usually pays off, but that procrastination will eventually pay off BIG TIME.

Yeah, that's it - BIG TIME.


"I've been talking drunken gibberish" - DG

Clickety-Click Barba trick....

Remember the Barbapapas? Those funky blobs of ectoplasm that could change themselves into whatever shape they wanted? As a kid I always wondered how the hell those things functioned - where were their organs? What about skeletons? How could they stand upright? Talk? It was against the laws of physics. (Not that I knew the laws of physics at age 6, but one tends to extrapolate these laws from observations around them. I.E. The swing goes up - it comes back down. Hmmm... Gravity. I fall off my bike and slide to a stop on the pavement -> Friction. Cool) So how the fuck could these things mold themselves into whatever the fuck they wanted and not have to abide by the same rules of nature as the rest of us?. Things like this that were fed to us as children had a knack for pissing me off. Man, I really needed to relax as a kid :)
I thought today would be a good day to be a barbapapa. I'd just mold myself into a helicopter and clickety-click barbatrick - I'm home. No QEW. No Gardiner. No near death highwary experiences. Then I'd mold myself into a quality meal and proceed to eat my fine self. This wouldn't do to much harm as I'd just integrate the food back into myself. I know, I know - your thinking but he doesn't have a stomach! I'm a freakin' barbapapa, I'd just make one. One could just imagine how being a barbapapa could have it's advantages in the bedroom as well :0
Anyway, check this out for some solid Barbapapa pics and info.....

"If you complain once more you'll meet an army of me" - Bjork

Short Post

This is a short post. I am falling asleep. So tired. Still... must hang.. on... neeed... to quote....

"It's the last laugh of the laughter
Sur la dernier page du chapitre" - Travis

Good times...

I met up with some old high school friends tonight.... Life is strange - people who know people, we're all intertwined somehow. It's too cliche, but it's a small world. Anyway, it was good to see them. I realized how much I missed that place when I moved... We always knew how to have a good time.
I'm pretty hammered so I'll keep it short as I probably won't make much sense. A few things:
- The DVP was closed today. That really sucked as I had a meeting in Markham, I took Warden out and the Allen back. I should take public transit.
- Met a girl & friends who went to Waterloo. They were all teachers who work right near me. Weird.
- Woody - You rock. You always put a smile on my face.
- I'm proud of my Roomie - I wish I had the self-discipline he's got. He is the shit.
- Strange weekend - many familar faces...

Almost forgot, I need a quote.

"Bonita Applebum, you gotta put me on" - Tribe called quest.

Melancholy 2

2nd attempt - IE crashed. Fuck you Micro$oft.
I don't know why but I've got the blues today. I was just reading vice - highly disappointing. A old issue was left at our house a while back and it was mildly amusing and I thought I'd take a look online. You know your dealing with a poor effort when the first thought that emerges from the depths of your mind while you are absorbing the initial paragraph is "I am really wasting my time here".

Anyway, I need an epiphany in the very near future or I feel my life will (and has) become dull. I did have another one of those "ideas" we all get from time to time on the slow-motion commute home today. Perhaps this was an initial ray of light (string) with a sunshine (yo-yo) to follow. Who knows. I tend not to act on these things (except for perhaps the songwriting department, in which I must say I am becoming quite accomplished.) This one happened to be a story idea, still too vague to define as a movie script, short story or book, but an idea none the less. SO, in an attempt to thwart my normal procrastination and hence loss of the idea, I think I will enter it here. (If anyone actually reads this - don't steal the idea. I would then be forced to hunt you down and kill you. The idea sucks anyway :)

It's the story of a man in his mid thirties who has come to worship the almighty dollar. He has an O.K. paying job that eats away at his inner being bit by bit each day. He has a amicable wife that he thinks he may have loved at one point, but is positive he doesn't anymore. He has a kid that is in their early and teens with whom he can't relate and who abuses our character on a regular basis. He drives a used North American car that keeps breaking down and smells like sour milk no matter how many times he tries to clean it. After some character introduction, the man has an epiphany. He finally recognizes the fact that he puts money, possessions, and the pursuit of the american dream above all else. He somehow knows this isn't right, but believes that if he can aquire these things that happiness will follow anyway. He does some quick self-education on religion and learns there is one common factor accross all faiths - that those who are worshipped reward those who are faithful to and worship them unabashedly.

So he says fuck it.

If this is what his deity requires, This, then, is what he will do. Time to go balls-to-the wall with it. No more fucking around.
He withdraws all his life's savings from his moderate portfolio, leaves his shitty job, Nice wife and kid and heads for (atlantic city or vegas?)
Here's the cool part - he actually wins. He wins pretty big - in the millions.
The remainder of the story takes place in the casino. He is there alone, and nobody knows who he is. At first he is treated like royalty by the staff, but this doesn't satisfy him. He spends a few days/nights in his room. He ponders what he can do - buy the fancy car, get the hot girl, get a boat, the mansion. But he quicky realizes that he can't really get all that. The money he won really isn't that much. He must worship harder.

So he returns to the casino floor for the remainder of the night gambling away all his winnings. by 4 pm the next evening he's lost it all. Several sub plots occur in the casino during the night - the good-hearted girl who can see the good in him and is attracted to that. The war veteran he talks to for several hours with at the slots who is now a gambling addict. The billionaire oil tycoon who he sits with at blackjack who tells him the new rules he will live by.
The character has no doubt gone through a major transformation - he has changed. However, into what remains to be seen and is left up to the audience. There is no moral to this story, no happy ending, nothing saying what he did was wrong. Just that he is human in it's purest form. To be elaborated....

"It's not going to stop til you wise up" - aimee mann

Rain today... Heavy at times....

I don't know why, but I still enjoy superbad now and then. It's been around for a while but it's still the best at it's purpose.... Radiohead's site tried to rip the idea off at one time or another. I think today I'll use a quote from a radiohead song.
So I almost fell asleep on the drive home today. I had this brutal headache and was beyond tired, nodding off in the stop and go and rain. I should really be more careful, I could hurt myself or worse yet someone else. Christ, I sound like my mother. Anyway, it was like driving in a semi-concious state. I was aware, but not quite awake, somewhat like sleepwalking, I imagine. (I haven't had the pleasure to experience that.) I don't think much of my brain was active during that hour long commute. The constant sounds of raindrops on my hood were soothing though, and just when they were on the brink of annoying, an overpass would break the cycle. It was that same feeling you got as a child riding in the backseat of the car, watching the waves of telephone wires pass you by on a back country road. A wave of motion eminating from motionless things....

"Ambition makes you look pretty ugly... Kicking and squealing gucci little piggy" - Thom Yorke

Hello World

So this is my first entry... The excitement and anticipation of something new... Isn't technology fun... Snippets of -Stupid White Men- by Michael Moore are dancing around my head. Plenty of provocative facts are provided, but the proposed solutions are a bit too black and white. However, the world needs more people like him to shove a big-ass mirror in our faces now and then, no matter how painful it is to look at. Does this thing spellcheck automatically? Oh well, there's always the good old-fashioned dictionary to fall back on.... Listening to live365.com a lot recently - dialed in on chill factor 100 - a good collection of ambient / Jazz / soul tunes.... Davids (Gray and Matthews) are still providing me with my acoustic needs.... indulged in adaptation the other day... Nic Cage nails anxiousness and floundering in an anti-Face Off kind of way... Brilliant film.... Hung out with my brother yesterday - he is good people - the best. Well... I like this. I will return quite soon.... I think I'll sign off with quotes... From me.. From Others.. From Songs.. not picky, but new traditions are a good thing.

"Some people are just good at life..." -JBM.