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| Monday, July 10th, 2006 | | 11:47 am |
Overdue update
I'll try to go light on the details. Here's a capsule of the past two weeks or so: - Had a nice farewell weekend. Special thanks to Katie for the party, Maryanne and Carly for the Adios Amigos collage, and to everybody else that bid us adieu. - Picked up the U-Haul/Loaded the U-Haul with minimal effort. Special thanks to Scott and Nick. - Played with an automated turtle.. "Gotta take it slow.." Special thanks to Arturo the electrical engineer for shorting its circuit/rendering it inanimate. - Had an emotional late night send-off, and then another in the morning. - Mastered truck driving on the 401 with only radio rock. When did arena rock become "psychadelic" ?? - Pulled into our new neighbourhood just as Portugal advanced to the final 8. - Realized there is a strong Portugese community present in the neighbourhood, as evidenced by the relentless honking and cheering that carried on for hours after the game. - Moved into the new place (second floor of an old house with a fantastic balcony). - Took it easy for a day -- biked, walked, subway'd around. - Went to first day of my new job. Did random office stuff for first 1/3 of day, then travelled up to Jane and Finch in an attempt to do some community organizing. Visited apartment buildings showing evidence of gunfire. Continued on; though somewhat jarred.. tried to remain positive. Unfortunately, three more days of long hours and insanely difficult work cemented the fact that I needed a new job. - Felt not a little put off by first week in Toronto - Saw Matt Gale and his special lady friend. Enjoyed the company, did not enjoy the hiccups. - Canada Day: went north to Brampton to visit with Tara's family. Witnessed Uncle Murray's "shocker" hand-signal. - Overall had a great holiday weekend. Decided I would quit my job Tuesday morning. - Quit Tuesday, found a new job by Friday. New employment is the polar opposite of community organizing in neighbourhoods vilified, stereotyped and exploited by, for example, the media. - New job is still with a non-profit, this time the Internet Archive (check out archive.org) ... I will be scanning books which are to be available for free online. Stable hours, weekends off, free U of T library card, and ability to listen to music while working all meant I accepted the job without hesitation. We'll see about the repetative nature of book scanning. Working in the U of T Library will be a positive work environment as well. - Contacted a few people about jamming/providing bands with drum help. Supposed to meet up with people today and tomorrow. We'll see how it goes. It'll be hard to replicate (certainly can't replace) the jams/amazing times that were had in Ottawa. - Warmed up to the kitty (fatcat!) that lives in our sublet. Barbongo is an independent cat that shits outside. Just the kinda cat I dig! - Have constantly been thinking about returning to school. Have found a few programs of interest, in both Political Economy and Social Geography. Trying to figure out exactly what I want to be working on... have a few ideas that need to be narrowed down. - Overall just enjoying the sheer size of the city. Love the fact that Anglo culture is dwarfed by all the other cultures present in Toronto. I guess that's about it.. we love the fact that the Ice Cream Man comes by every night, and that a sugar cone is ony $1.50! Finally -- we want guests, so come on down! | | Thursday, May 25th, 2006 | | 2:05 pm |
"Found a job"
Hot on the heels of the end up my undergrad, I have found (seemingly; hopefully) worthwhile employment. Community Organizer with a non-profit called ACORN Canada. Pays an ok salary, and a housing subsidy while training in Toronto. Job options in Ottawa, Vancouver or Toronto. Can't complain about it so far... only issue is lonnnnnnng hours. But hey, it's in my "field", so why not give it a try? Plus, I've been a professional bum/student forever, so I guess it's time to put in some real world work. That said, anybody (JAY and MATT, I'm looking in your directions) know of people looking for roommates/sublets around central Toronto? Preferably with a basement for a drumset... Goddamn, I have a feeling that's going to be a tough sell. | | Monday, April 10th, 2006 | | 4:34 pm |
| | Friday, February 24th, 2006 | | 9:18 pm |
geomorphic event!
okay i was sitting in this very seat studying for some lame stats exam that i obviously don't want to be studying for on a friday night, and low and behold the building starts to shake! i got a little anxious, and then over it because i figured perhaps it was a jet or something flying overheard. also i figured the bowl i had smoked about 10 mins before probably affected my perception of the event. BUT! other people also felt it... weird Current Music: bassline from song playing upstairs | | Thursday, January 26th, 2006 | | 3:36 pm |
a lot has been said about baby eating..
this sums it up pretty well. taken from http://fafblog.blogspot.com/2006/01/q-our-omnipotent-president-q.htmlQ. Can the president eat a baby? A. If that baby has suspected ties to al Qaeda, then it's the president's duty to eat it - for the sake of national security. Q. The president doesn't want to eat sweet, delicious babies. He just wants to protect America from the growing threat of a rogue baby insurgency. A. Exactly. And nobody will have more compassion for that succulent baby barbecue than him. Q. How many non-terrorist babies would it be acceptible for the president to accidentally eat in the course of enforcing a rigorous terrorist baby-eating program? A. First of all, the president would never ever eat a baby unless it was reasonably suspected to be affiliated with possible terroresque program activities. Second of all, do we really wanna start tyin the president's hands when he's tryin to protect everybody from jihadist babies? They could be Islamifying our country's drool supply as we speak! Q. Sir, I demand the immediate establishment of a cabinet-level Department of Baby-Eating! A. Just til we win the War on Terror, of course! Q. And with our sophisticated baby-eating technology we should be taking the Terrorstani capital of Fearlamabad any day now! A. Of course! But the actual occupation could last quite some time, you understand... Q. Well, yes. But the fight has to be won. These people want to use terror to destroy our freedom. A. And that's just un-American. | | Thursday, December 8th, 2005 | | 12:18 am |
guy shot in miami
if you haven't heard about this, i imagine you will soon. a passenger was shot by a US marshall on a plane in Miami, after apparently uttering a bomb threat (his mental health was implicated in this "miami mayhem"). the war on terrorism has now explicitely become a civil war..... and it seems to me that most americans don't know, don't care, or support the spread of fascism, based on the supposed need to reinforce 'security'. yeah, i can see how shooting private, domestic citizens contributing to an already fucked-up airline economy will foster feelings of security -- especially related to air travel. i guess this is as good a piece of evidence as any proving life's absuridity. live it up, butternut! | | Wednesday, November 23rd, 2005 | | 1:18 am |
colour printing @ carleton
does anybody out there know where/if i can print documents in colour ?? it seems like there has to be.... | | Thursday, July 7th, 2005 | | 1:24 am |
if you don't like it when people cut and post things they have found on the internet don't read on
from author james kunstler's 'blog' http://www.kunstler.com/mags_diary13.htmlFebruary 28, 2005 America is, after all, the world's most powerful nation. This sentiment has been boinging around the major media lately, especially in stories and columns about the health of the dollar. But what does it really mean? We have the world's biggest nuclear arsenal for sure. We could vaporize every world city if it came to that. But Russia has enough nuclear warheads and ICBMs to stop the world's clock, too (while standards of living and life expectancy there continue to decline). For that matter, Britain, France, Israel, and China have enough atomic military juice to seriously fuck up the current order of things. What America definitely doesn't have is enough oil and natural gas to run the nation's economy as it currently exists -- as a chain of realtors driving SUVs to tanning booths to impress house-buyers borrowing money from lenders who flip the mortgages to government sponsored entities who can't add up a column of figures, even with the help of computers. Speaking of math, I did the oil figures a couple of weeks ago, and it's worth repeating. Of the the 80 million barrels a day the world burns, we burn one quarter of that, or 20 million barrels a day. Every five days we burn a hundred million barrels. Every fifty days America burns one billion barrels of oil. Every year we burn seven billion barrels. The US has 28 billion barrels of oil left. If we burned every last drop of our own oil, and somehow lost access to foreign imports, our oil would last four more years. Four more years of easy motoring, bargain shopping, RV vacations, and trading up to bigger houses farther out in the rural gloaming. If I was a young economist, I would reflect on this situation and perhaps conclude that the American economy doesn't have great long-term prospects. In fact, I'd have to imagine the American standard of living falling of a cliff within the lifetime of a TV sitcom. I'd have to wonder about American "power" and the actual value of the dollar. It's a good thing that friendly nations like Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Venezuela are willing to sell us oil. That way, we don't have to use up all our remaining oil in four years. And its a good thing we can pay for that oil in dollars. What else could we trade for it? Tanning booth hours? Back episodes of "Sex in the City?" Free day passes to Six Flags? Of course, the global oil peak implies that all the nations of the world will have less total energy to divvy up. I just don't see where the United States is in a particularly favorable position on this. Have you heard of any plans to reduce our extreme dependence on cars? I don't think our supreme leader has even uttered the world "railroad" since he came on the national scene. Are we going to subcontract the Jolly Green Giant to go around America moving things closer together so we don't have to burn so much gasoline? Excuse me for saying this, but I don't think we have any idea what we're going to do. It causes me to wonder how powerful we really are, apart from our ability to blow things up. | | Saturday, May 14th, 2005 | | 2:29 am |
born under punches indeed
ok.. so what happened tonight. oh yeah, there was the incident with the cop... who just happened to be the brother of a girl i am no longer dating. i suppose it was karma.. for many things, that could and should have been much worse. here's hoping the residual karma doesn't bite my ass tomorrow. anyway, i have now experienced force in an excessive manner. and it's true that my mouth triggered, or at least contributed, to the event. even so.. there was no need to be dragged out by my collar. suspicion is one thing, however smashing one's face on the back of a squad car for no reason other than despair resulting from the fear that comes with life is inexcusable. still, i have lived another day.. and am honestly happy that the events of tonight occurred. the parts that i have mentioned are the most noteworthy, however what i have passed over undoubtedly makes my life really fucking good. the end. Current Music: talking heads - born under punches | | Friday, May 6th, 2005 | | 3:14 pm |
question: does anybody know of someone trying to get rid of a DFA79/controller controller ticket for monday? all the 15 year olds must have bought up all the tickets. | | Wednesday, April 27th, 2005 | | 12:47 pm |
| | Thursday, March 31st, 2005 | | 1:46 pm |
this one's for malcolm
from grassroots postmodernism, p. 191: political leaders, corporate managers, and the expertocracy "ruling" international institutions are increasingly following the nazi example: legitimizing their participation by declaring that they cannot but follow the rules of a game they did not formulate. they obviously prefer to ignore the dignity of saying "no" to their global horrors; accomplices who prefer to mask the technological and economic "bluff". | | Thursday, March 17th, 2005 | | 9:58 am |
obligatory (read: cliche) lyric post.. somewhat relevant?
Religion doesn't mean a thing Its just another way of being right wing I think sex films are okay I don't dig that pope no way I've got nothing against church Only people who go there and show they're Plain ignorant and don't understand a congregation at weekends won't change their behaviour So many people are weak enough to have to seek answers from the peddlers of hope I should know I had to go there myself Not since the day I became antipope | | Friday, March 11th, 2005 | | 4:19 pm |
fridays rule, okay!
my day is friday. so far my day has been just splendid. woke up, without the help of an alarm, listened to great music, hopped on the bus, ran into maryanne. got off the bus, walked to my mom's, put laundry on, went to work. i got to work, and the first thing i did was walk into a grade six classoom. what were they doing? karaoke. since i was the guest, i got to choose a song and go first -- naturally i chose 'you really got me' -it was the van halen version.. too bad! this was absolutely hilarious. i even got to 'karaoke' the guitar solo! the kids were picking songs like 'complicated', 'girls just wanna have fun' and 'addicted' (simple plan? .. oh who am i kidding, i know it's simple plan. but why do i know that??) anyway, no one chose 'bizarre love triangle'. that would have been a good choice. so after the karaoke good times, i worked with 4 grade 5 girls on multiplication facts. i had to play this ridiculous tape with a 'multiplication rap' on it. seriously -- funniest lyrics ever. i'm trying to find them on the information super-highway right now.. okay, these aren't the exact lyrics, but for joke's sake, i'll share what children are exposed to these days - Some kids pretend they're really cool And you know that they're just fooling 'Cause there's nothing quite like schooling To get you to the top. These little tunes will get you there To where you want to be. There's nothing quite like rapping rhymes To memorize those things called "Times Tables" Times Table.... who needs fitty and the game? i predict that the church is next to jump into the rap game. they've been losing children (and molesting them) for a while now. speaking of molesting, (good seque, no?) did anybody catch michael jackson showing up to court in pyjamas yesterday?? he was definitely thinking outside the box on that one. ok well, i guess talking about MJ signals that i should wrap this rap entry up. see yous guys soon. | | Tuesday, March 8th, 2005 | | 10:42 am |
| | Friday, February 11th, 2005 | | 5:04 pm |
i've read some good entries today.. as a result of this i feel that i should add something myself, rather that simply taking, taking. umm, ok.. so where to start.. internal dialogue... rant.. gush.. prose.. ? i had the pleasure of calling bingo once again this afternoon.. was able to listen to lots of good music on the bus.. almost got hit in the face by a swerving pigeon - that would have been trouble. what else? looking forward to drinking tonight! sometimes it's hard, but i've been trying to not drink during the week. i find that in doing so my friday nights out become just a little bit more satisfying. and messy. ok, so clearly this entry needs its lights turned out in order to have its cradle rocked. nonsense.. really thought, who wouldn't want to get some free music? i suppose we know that the answer is 'metallica' - yes, yes.. lame, a stab at metallica. ok, didn't paul get banned by roy orbison? was he even alive? it must have been his estate. my dad recently shared with me some of the concerts he had attented as a young lad -- chuck berry! the animals, roy orbison.. also - apparently some band lived in the basement of the house he lived in when he was about twenty.. oh ya, and he was part of a 'crew' (i guess) called the yohawks. their rivals were the squirrels. i asked him what the squirrels' deal was. he said they had elvis hair and wore leather jackets. so from there, i guess we know the rest. tonight i am being taken out for dinner by my mom.. thanks mom! okay, that's all i hope to see everybody soon.. (i feel like mr. rogers saying that. nice cardigan!) | | Wednesday, February 9th, 2005 | | 11:11 am |
oh what a wonderful world
while citizens in iraq are attempting to forge some sort of new lifestyle, and communities in SE asia recover from devastation, the 'leaders' in the great USA are busy using vast amounts of time and money passing bills like the one described in this http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4249831.stm article.. "droopy drawers" bill.. wow.. life is absurd. | | Friday, December 24th, 2004 | | 5:26 pm |
i have enjoyed a whirlwind tour of ontario since i wrote my last exam.. ottawa to toronto to mississauga to toronto to mississauga to toronto to ottawa and now finally kanata. monday evening i helped tara et al decorate their tree.. the best part was the waterloo dark we enjoyed. tuesday we toured around, then went to see garden state at this mammoth AMC in woodbridge (i think).. i could tell that i was in the GTA because there were full length mirrors in the washrooms. garden state was really quite good.. well developed characters, etc, further description really isn't needed, as most people out there have most likely seen it. wednesday we ventured from the suburbs into the city for some pre-xmas personal shopping. i spent money i really don't have.. but there will always be more money to be made! thank you market system.. then we went over to tara's friend vanessa's house just off queen street. a very nice place, we enjoyed copious amounts of red wine and sake before going out to a place called supermarket for the local edition of mod night. familiar music (yes, mirror in the bathroom was played), but some other not so familiar (to local djs, at least) songs were played.. all in all it was a good night. plus, there was at least 20 cms of fresh powder to be enjoyed. ramble, ramble, i arrived home and reluctantly completed my xmas shopping, with only having to re-gift one present! now i'm sitting typing this scatterbrained entry. see everybody soon! all praise jesus/alcohol/the aforementioned market system, commodity fetishism, and last but not least, hubble's proof of the expanding universe. i was riding a (city) bus; these lyrics struck me.. so i'm sharing. "Oh love of mine, would you condescend to help me/Cause I’m stupid and blind Desperation is the devil’s work, it is the folly of a boys empty mind/Now I’m feeling dangerous, riding on city buses for a hobby is sad/Lead me to a living end/I promised that I’d entertain my crippled friend/My crippled friend" | | Saturday, November 13th, 2004 | | 11:56 am |
does anybody know of good torrent sites other than indietorrents, oink, suprnova and youceff? | | Sunday, November 7th, 2004 | | 10:38 am |
dear online journal:
i've gotta give big-ups to peter for working with me yesterday at zeller's meadowlands. together, we alternated duties wearing the giant phallic crest spin-brush costume. not to be outdone, sponge-bob squarepants was there. peter and i were in awe of this man's professional knowledge of mascotting. he claimed that he made $200/hr for appearances, and noted that not long ago, he was onstage with avril lavigne in toronto. BUT, this was not his finest moment, for that came when he was onstage with AC/DC at SARSfest in the raptors' mascot get-up. geoff and i watched blue velvet last night. dennis hopper's character (or should i say dennis hopper himself) is fucked. all i can think of is him yelling "mommy!! mommy!!" with velvet in his mouth. whatta guy. that's all i've got. byebye online world. |
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