Thursday, October 28, 2004

Quarter Life Crisis

So I turned 20 the other day. It was mildly exciting.

Three Things I Learned This Week:
1. Dominic and I are the only ones who don't like Clockwork Orange .
2. Hal Johnson and Joanne McLeod of Body Break have been married for six years.
3. Bio Sci building = worst building EVER.

As promised, here are Mr. Stroumboulopoulos's thoughts on a subject from his talk at Grant MacEwan. I will not quote him directly in most cases. He is cool.

George on the subject of the "Mrs. Stroumboulopoulos" t-shirt:
The first time he saw it, it was on a man. Also, he said that he wanted to get one for his mom. If he had his way, it would have said "Mistress Stroumboulopoulos", although I'm assuming not on the one that he'd give to his mom.

That's all for now, so until next time, keep fit and have fun.


Saturday, October 16, 2004

Yesterday was chilly. Today is freezing. Tomorrow...the white plague.

The white poo is again upon us. It's too early for this kind of behaviour from the heavens.

I worked at El Factory last night. I was in the printing department (aka the domain of BAD and Tito). I was paired with someone good though, so the time went pretty quickly. I find myself in printing a lot these days. Ah, and good news for me. Ding dong, the Human Resources queen is gone.

Getting to the point (or tentacle as they say in some cultures) of this post...
If you are an eligible St. Albert voter, click here.
If you are an eligible Edmonton Ward 5 voter, click here.
If you are aware that there is a country called "The United States of America", click here.

Good snowy day to you all.

Tuesday, October 12, 2004

Doesn't Anybody Ever Know That the World's a Subway?

Those, of course, are the lyrics to Superman's Dead by Our Lady Peace. That is the song that came blaring out of my clockradio on Monday morning.
"That's weird," I thought to myself, "CKUA (the station that my clockradio has selected for itself this month) never plays Our Lady Peace."
Then I learned the morbid reason for which it was playing. Superman did die. I felt sad as I finished listening to OLP, then to The Crash Test Dummies (Dummy or Dummies, I don't know which)'s Superman. That one was a little bit more appropriate for the circumstances, seeing that OLP (or"wolves' " if you will)'s song doesn't really have much to do with Superman himself. It's about the loss of childhood innocence, as far as I can tell.

Christopher Reeve, may people continue to push for spinal cord research.

Friday, October 08, 2004

I'm Guilty of Theft. Also, I Still Have Writer's Block and I Suck at Formal Debating.

"Stripped of the right to be a human in control. It's warmer in Hell, so down we go." -The Distillers, City of Angels

The Writer's Block: You'll have to excuse me, I'm playing with colours. It's sometime at night. Time is creeping closer to the time that I leave for school. I don't feel like sleeping at the moment, so I'm working on my English essay (Ok, not right at this moment. I'm taking a break). I've had a block on my thoughts for over a week now. My essay has been suffering, and although I attend Gateway opinion meetings religiously, I have yet to submit anything. There are projects in the works. I got one of my ideas from spotting someone's crude attempt at spray-painting male genitalia on a wooden fence. It's in the works.

The Part Where I Suck at Formal Debating: I debated for the first time ever on Wednesday. I got schooled. Slaughtered. Owned. But I did it.

The Part Where I'm Guilty of Theft: I could also call it "An Evening With George Stroumboulopoulos". That's what it said on the posters we took from the walls of Grant MacEwan. But it was technically after The Evening with George Stroumboulopoulos. Photos of George and I are coming soon to a blog near you, provided I can locate some kind of scanner. Seriously though, this guy is a freaking awesome speaker. He's extremely intelligent, knows all of his facts about many, many bands, he's funny and really interesting. He talked for about 2 hours, including questions from the group. I could have listened to him for hours. He had conversations with every person there, I think. He signed autographs and posed for pictures. He is a friend of Jeremy Taggart, or "teacart" if you prefer (Who he says was an amazing drummer, even at the age of 14), of OLP. And his favourite Edmonton band? The Wednesday Night Heroes , although he said that he liked The Mad Bombers Society too. Jo and I went, and I think we both had a great time. Holy shit, I met George Stroumboulopoulos.

"I remember that it rained for years, and the blood had left a stain."




Thursday, October 07, 2004

Do You Ever Have the Urge to Rap in French?

This one is for Dominic (that's Dr. Cinnamon Sticks to you).

La tribu de Dana

Le vent souffle sure les plaines de la Bretagne armoricaine.
Je jette un dernier regard sure ma femme, mon fils et mon domaine.
Akim, le fils de forgeron, est venu me chercher;
Les druides ont décidé de mener le combat dans la vallée.
Là où tous nos ancêtres, de géants guerriers celtes,
Après de grandes batailles se sont imposés en maîtres.
C'est l'heure maintenant de défendre notre terre
contre une armée de Simériens prête à croiser le fer.
Toute la tribu s'est réunie autour des grands menhirs
pour invoquer les dieux afin qu'ils puissent nous bénir.
Après cette prière avec mes frères, sans faire état de zèle,
les chefs nous ont donné à tous des gorgées d'hydromel,
Pour le courage, pour pas qu'il y ait de faille,
Pour rester grands et fiers quand ne serons dans la bataille.
Car c'est la première fois pour moi que je pars au combat
Et j'espère être digne de la tribu de Dana.

[refrain:]
Dans la vallée (oh oh) de Dana (la li la la)
Dans la vallée (oh oh) j'ai pu entendre les échos
Dans la vallée (oh oh) de Dana (la li la la)
Dans la vallée (oh oh), des chants de guerres près des tombeaux.

Après quelques incantations de druides et de magie,
Toute la tribu, le glaive en main, courait vers l'enemi.
La lutte était terrible et je ne voyais que les ombres,
Tranchant l'enemi qui revenait toujours en surnombre.
Mes frères tombaient l'un après l'autre devant mon regard,
Sous les poids des armes que possédaient tous ces barbares,
Des lances, des haches et des epées dans le jardin d'Eden
qui écoulait du sang sur l'herbe verte de la plaine.
Comme ces jours de peine, où l'homme se traîne
à la limite du règne du mal et de la haine.
Fallait-il continuer ce combat déja perdu?
Mais telle était la fierté de toute la tribu.
La lutte a continué comme ça jusqu'au soleil couchant,
De férocité extrême en plus d'acharnement;
Fallait défendre la terre de nos ancêtres enterrés là,
Et pour toutes les lois de la tribu de Dana.

[au refrain]

Au bout de la vallée on entendait le son d'une corne,
D'un chef enemi qui rappelait toute sa horde.
Avait-il compris qu'on lutterait même en enfer
et qu'à la tribu de Dana appartenaient ces terres?
Les guerriers repartaient, je ne comprenais pas
Tout le chemin qu'ils avaient fait pour arriver là,
Quans mon regard se posa tout autour de moi,
J'étais le seul débout de la tribu; voilà pourquoi
Mes doigts se sont écartés tout en lâchant mes armes,
Et le long de mes joues se sont mises à couler mes larmes.
Je n'ai jamias compris pourquoi les dieux m'ont épargneé
De ce jour noir de notre histoire que j'ai contée.
Le vent souffle toujours sur la Bretagne armoricaine
Et j'ai rejoint ma femme, mon fils et mon domaine.
J'ai tout reconstruit de mes mains pour arriver là,
Je suis devenu le roi de la tribu de Dana.
-Manau

Ah, the horrors of war.

Sunday, October 03, 2004

Oh Dear

Well, if there's one motto I live by, "Always get ridiculously shitfaced in front of people you don't know all that well" would be it. And still am. But by myself now. Oh dear.

Well it was a Saturday. Wait. I played "bingo" with Molly yesterday night. Then I woke up this morning (LATE...9:30) and went to university for a debate tournament. It was a smashing good time. After that I went home, got ready, and Molly and I went to Scholar's. 50 cent highballs. I love to love them. There was a Gateway gathering there. In comes the drunk in front of people I don't know part. I was feeling the love, but others probably were not. It was sad. I also yelled at
him about leaving his blog to the wolves. "You realize I'm sober, right?" I did not realize.

It was suggested by someone that my brother and I enter a debate tournament, to create a Smith team. It's funny, because I've never debated in my life and Stephen used air quotation marks when calling himself a pro. Clearly we're going to be the underdogs. If there's one thing that movies have taught me, it's that the underdogs always win. Perhaps they will make a movie about it, to the tune of Cool Runnings or The Mighty Ducks. I'd watch it. The room is spinning. I'd like disembark, please.