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
Tuesday, August 26, 2003
Tuesday, August 19, 2003
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):
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
- 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
Sunday, August 17, 2003
New & Improved! All quotes - No Blog! This Sunday Only!
"and my favorite guitar was between us to hold" - Hayden
Saturday, August 16, 2003
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
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
Wednesday, August 13, 2003
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
- 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
Tuesday, August 12, 2003
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
- 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
Sunday, August 10, 2003
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
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
Wednesday, August 06, 2003
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
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
Monday, August 04, 2003
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
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
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