Monthly Archives: April 2004

But I Should Really Be Studying Instead Of Writing This

I’m almost cer­tain that I’ll be fail­ing the class­es I’ve tak­en this term. The exams are in a few days, and I only start­ed study­ing, no, learn­ing the mate­r­i­al yes­ter­day. It just seems so point­less to try pass­ing a class when the cred­its will expire any­way. Sure, they don’t expire for a few years, but I don’t plan on going back to school with­in the next decade, if ever. This would­n’t be a wor­ry if I was­n’t work­ing almost full-time and mov­ing in the same week, but that does­n’t real­ly seem to mat­ter. I have a his­to­ry of fail­ing stuff at the right time. The two core cours­es I failed dur­ing my comp sci degree did­n’t hold me back and I was able to make them up with­out a hitch. Now I’ll be fail­ing two cours­es I don’t need. As long as I try my hard­est to pass, giv­en the cir­cum­stances, I won’t feel guilty what­ev­er the out­come.

The Awareness Of Freedom

Thumbnail: Lincoln Fields bus station

OC Transpo buses

Freedom.

Freedom from what has been a shroud, not a weight, on my mind for as long as I’ve known. Tonight con­firmed what was sus­pect­ed for weeks, when I stepped out into shad­ows and lights, and walked through a dry field against the dark­ness.

A rush. The feel­ing of hav­ing every­thing to gain and noth­ing to lose. That I can start liv­ing now.

Freedom in the soli­tude.

The Worst Band In Canadian History

I don’t like Nickelback. I don’t like them so much that I don’t even both­er cap­i­tal­iz­ing the name of their “band” or putting a link to their site. That’s because they suck. They’re pris­sy fucks play­ing watered down rock. All their songs sound the same, and this is proof.

Listen with head­phones because it’s two dif­fer­ent Nickelback songs, one on each chan­nel. And yet, it’s not two dif­fer­ent songs. Why? Because the tim­ing, chord pro­gres­sion, even cer­tain melod­ic parts are exact­ly the same. Both start with a voice and gui­tar, both end with a fade out that last the same amount of time. The list of sim­i­lar­i­ties go on and on.

Usually, play­ing two dif­fer­ent songs at the same time, even if they’re both by the same band, will sound all messed up if only a sin­gle part is dif­fer­ent, even just a sin­gle note in the bass line. That’s because good musi­cians take the time to devel­op songs, come up with new motifs, maybe even exper­i­ment. But not this. This is just Nickelback with a fuller sound. It’s so sad that it’s enter­tain­ing. I can’t stop lis­ten­ing. This should be hap­pen­ing at every show.

Once I was dat­ing some­one who bought a Nickelback album when we were com­ing up to the 1.5 year mark. I did­n’t see it com­ing at all. I mean, she liked David Usher, which is under­stand­able because he’s hot and comes out with decent mate­r­i­al, but there was no warn­ing of Nickelback. I was dev­as­tat­ed. I was crushed. Heartbroken. She might as well have said, “HEY GUESS WHAT I BEAT THE FUCK OUT OF SOME KID TODAY BUT ONLY BECAUSE SHE WAS OLD ENOUGH TO UNDERSTAND WHAT WAS HAPPENING AND TOO YOUNG TO DEFEND HERSELF”.

This Is Where My Tax Goes

A tongue-in-cheek bill was passed here recent­ly which says that any­one wear­ing a Leafs jer­sey at a Sens game will be asked to donate to the local food bank. The city was orig­i­nal­ly dis­cussing a com­plete ban on Leafs jer­seys at the games, but some­one must have real­ized how idi­ot­ic that would have been. Supposedly, the bill was passed to show that the city is 100% behind their local team, although it was more to curb the num­ber of Leaf fans, which dwarf the num­ber of Sens fans, at the Corel Centre.

I think the entire idea is in poor taste and com­plete­ly unsports­man­like. If some­thing like this must be done, then I whole­heart­ed­ly sup­port the fact that a char­i­ty is being ben­e­fit­ed. However, putting a con­strain on the sup­port­ers of the oppos­ing team is as imma­ture as boo­ing them. Imagine this being done at a lit­tle league game, where the par­ents wear­ing the jer­sey of their kids teams are asked to donate mon­ey to the league. I believe that one should nev­er, ever, do any­thing neg­a­tive towards an oppos­ing team, no mat­ter what the oppos­ing may be doing. The only hock­ey that I fol­low is the Leafs-Sens rival­ry, and even though I’m a Leafs fan, I don’t go around say­ing that the Sens suck (and shame on the Leafs fans who do), I just say “GO LEAFS”. Which brings me to my next point, where shirts are on dis­play at the front of stores here, sim­ply say­ing in a large font, “LEAFS SUCK”. Do the Senators con­done this? Do peo­ple think that the Sens would be hap­py that peo­ple are walk­ing around with these child­ish shirts? Have the Ottawa fans become so inse­cure about their team that they have to lash out like this?

Are my tax dol­lars going to peo­ple who sit around and come up with shit like this “char­i­ty bill”?