dammit!

ok so i hand wrote a blog. ya. that's right. oldschool handwritting. I had some time on my hands when i was away from my computer last week so i wrote something down. A full page single space even! And i keep friggin forgetting it at work. Its a good one too! I have very valid points as to why i dislike McNabb and a little about Ben. I was proud of it, no AM proud of it! Because i'm a douche tho i keep forgetting to bring it home. Since the games were this past weekend, it seems a little silly to post the blog now, (go Zona) but if at all i get a hint of smarts tomorrow i will bring it home and put it up. My bad.

I'm a lot like you so please, hello..

I will start this entry by apologizing to my faithful followers. I have been rather lazy with my blog entries and vow to make up for it! I vow!! Vow! That being said (and all is forgiven i assume) I have a new game to play for my readers, all 3-6 of you, it has to do with the title. I will try to put in a quote from a song as my title. Hopefully it will relate somewhat to what i'm talking about, then again it could be just a song stuck in my head (as this one is) Let me know what you think it is by leaving a comment.

So you know what i like now? Talk radio. This is huge for me because of my obsession with music. You see, as most of you know, i can't go anywhere or do anything without some form of music playing. It has no doubt contributed to people's assumption of my having ADD. Anyway, because of the morning show with Jeff O'Neil, which is hilarious, as well as the afternoon Buzz with these two people Patrick and Val something rather i have a new love/appreciation for talk radio. This also means that i am getting old. I haven't listened to my ipod in my car for almost a week. They have a fun radio contest on there where they play a few clips from a certain year, then you guess what year everything takes place. I called in today, guessed 1977, the producer dude said i was right.....and then told me how someone already had the answer. Bastards.

Now to talk a bit about how much it sucks planning wedding stuff. I mean, we have barely even started planning anything and it sucks already. We started to tackle the guest list one night and i think i got two or three uncles and aunts in and i was wanting to do anything else. We've decided to go to Mexico for the wedding. That way, we can invite a ton of peeps, and it won't cost us an arm and a leg. (sorry, i couldn't think of a funnier expression) I'm also pumped about being able to go on vacation at a five star joint! We're thinking December of this year or March of 2010. *This just in!* MJ's sister and matron of honour, (she hates being called a matron, did you know that a woman is only called a maid of honour if she's single? huh? did ya?) contacted one of the resorts we were looking at and it looks like we have a good chance of having a free wedding, depending on a small amount of rooms being booked. Sweetness i'd say! *back to you!*

I'M CALLING IT: continuous stress will ensue, all for a good cause though

Busy!

I have been so busy this past week and slightly before that. Aside from this past week being Christmas, i got engaged! That's right, i popped the big one to my special one. She said yes too so that helps tremendously! I asked on the 18th, and my parents came on the 21st, so we had to keep it a secret until they got here because i wanted to surprise them. It all worked out and everyone is super happy. We had a busy week with my parents here. The craziest thing was the weather. We got sooooooooooooo much snow, which is not the norm here in Vancouver. Other than the weather sucking the week was great and i miss my parents already. Jeff and Emily got engaged as well, which will make the next year quite an expensive one. I don't even want to think about it. I'm already stressed just thinking about planning my own wedding, let alone having to save to attend another one. Oh yea, did i mention that we both want a destination wedding? Christmas tree it is going to be an expensive year. Help me. Oh ya, not a bad prediction about the Colts so far if i do say so myself..i call things for a reason!


I'M CALLING IT: Next year will be crazy expensive and stressful, but also contain the happiest day of my life.

5 days

Only five more days left before Christmas vacation. I'm pretty pumped. It is unreal how fast the first part of the school year has gone by. I honestly feel like summer just ended a few weeks ago. A little of that has to do with how busy i am at work and how i sort of feel like i'm not getting enough done. Last night MJ and i started the evening by going to Peter's for an Xmas dinner/gift exchange. I got a puzzle. Of a tiger. A white one. With a frame. Thanks Peter. After that we went to Eric's to meet up with some people from work. The actual "staff" party was Friday night at some restaurant in New West. It was 50 bucks a person just for the food alone, so that would have run me 100 bucks to eat chicken souvlaki that i could have got at the food court for 6 bucks. Along with others we decided to skip that and Kim organized a little party at Eric's place. Good times were had. Aside from work friends there were some friends there that worked in Korea with us this summer. We played Cranium, and the guys won, natch. My parents are coming on Sunday, i'm pretty excited, i haven't seen them in over a year and a half. It doesn't seem like it has been that long because we talk so often. I get two weeks off that i'm looking forward to tremendously. I hope this week goes by super fast and that i spend a lot of my time helping students eat all the cupcakes, candy and other assorted goods that they bring in for classroom parties. Last week was the grade 6/7 dance, hilarious each time. Nervous boys and girls too scared to talk to each other, others who aren't so scared, a good mix. Time for Family Guy. Have you heard? You haven't heard? I thought everyone had heard. Don't you know about the bird? Everybody knows that the bird is the word. BA-BA-BA BIRD BIRD BIRD! BIRD IS THE WORD!

I'M CALLING IT: This week will go by extremely fast and all i will eat a ton of food that will make me sick. The end of the week will be awesome and i will rock at ball hockey tomorrow night.

the phone is ringing..oh my god

Congrats for those of you who got the Beastie Boys reference there, way to go. I was listening to the Beastie's on the way home today after work and MJ made a joke about how i only like them because i'm white. I laughed and realized that i couldn't think of any black people that i know who like the Beastie's. I thought of their live dvd i saw called "Oh my God i fucking shot that" and it was a crowd full of white people, including Ben Stiller. Can you get whiter? I'm not trying to turn this into a racist thing but i just find it interesting. Now the title of this entry is from "Get it Together" which is a duo with the Boys and Q-tip, my fav Beastie song, and i wish there were more of these collabo's. I think it would be cool to hear a Beastie song featuring Jay-Z, Meth or Biggie back in the day. I'm also curious as to what those rappers think of the Beasties. You never hear anything about what other rappers think of them other than oldschool people like Tribe, Biz Markie, Doug E. Fresh and guys like that.

The Beasties original roots lie within punk rock. There are some cool vid's on Youtube of the Boys back in the early 80's, and even some in the 90's that show them rocking out, doing cover tunes of Minor Threat songs even. (check the vid below) I forget the name of their first punk album, its something silly but its really raw. I'm not quite sure how they got into hip hop but i know they never forgot about their punk roots. On "Ill Communication" they do a couple great punk tunes (Tough Guy and Heart Attack Man) and i've been trying to find the video of their SNL performance of Tough Guy for so long. Recently Adam Yauch produced the return album of the Bad Brains, a band who is highly influential in the punk scene from the 80's. (a band of black punk rockers...guess i was wrong about black people not liking them!) I didn't get a chance to check out their last instrumental record but i doubt it was punk-like. I think maybe they're a bit old now to rock out like they used to for a full length. Who knows tho, maybe hanging around with the Bad Brains influenced them a bit and reminded them how fun it is to rock out.

I'M CALLING IT: The Beasties are done with punk rock and will continue to focus on hip-hop whereby they ALL REPEAT every OTHER WORD in their RHYMES like they do on almost every song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0NJD7TsfII

I have a sick feeling

I have a sick feeling that the Steelers are going to win the Superbowl. Their defense is really good this year and when i watch their games and Ben Rosafjaldfajsd-burger always seems to get away with things. I don't think he is as good as people say he is. People shouldn't use his Superbowl win as any indication to defend him either because we all know that Seattle should have won that game, it was the worst ref'd Superbowl game, playoff game, whatever game ever. You know what else bothers me about the Steelers? The fact that people like them just because they're "the Steelers". These are people who if i told them Terry Bradshaw was their quarterback they'd be like "Who's that?". You know these people. These are the same people who like the Yankees and the Lakers. And if you ask them their other favorite football team they'd say the Dolphins. These people bother me. Don't cheer for a team because at one point, years before you were born they were good, or so you heard from the other douche beside you who is similar to yourself. This is right up there with liking a team because your favorite colour is blue, so go Giants!

The Titans won't go far in the playoffs, they're playing well but reality will kick in. The Giants will probably make it pretty far, if not the Superbowl for sure the NFC title game. The Jets won't make much of a run cause remember, Favre will have a heart attack as i predicted.

I'M CALLING IT: The Steelers will win the Superbowl and i will be visually upset especially because they'll beat the Colts along the way on some stupid ass play involving Heinz Ward, whom i also dislike very very much. He's named after ketchup. That's just dumb. (i hope I'm wrong about calling this one)

Toblerone

Well, i was trying to think of a funny way of starting this entry, maybe a catchy title and Toblerone was the best i could come up with. This week is the week (i say week because we're not 100% on what day it happened) that our good (sweaty) buddy Rob Toby passed away three years ago. Tobes was part of the group back in the day. Towards the end of high school he sort of started to separate himself from us. We weren't mad at him, he was doing his own thing and we were getting ready to go to University. When i say 'we' the people who know me will know who i'm talking about. The University years went with seeing Tobes only a few times each summer and at Christmas. We talked about him sometimes like he was Pokeroo from Polka Dot Door. Remember that thing? We'd get together for drinks and someone would say "guess who i saw at the mall tonight, Toby!" The rest of us would be jealous and then wish it was us who'd seen him. The same would happen at the bar. We would all run downstairs to see him if we knew he was there. And there he'd be, standing in one place, sort of bouncing back and forth with a smile on his face, happier then hell to see us.

I can only speak for myself but while at University i didn't do a very good job of keeping in touch with him. He didn't make all that much of an effort either but it was different at the time because he stayed in Timmins and i was 8 hours away in Waterloo. That's what happens when you leave home, you tend to lose touch a bit with the people who stay. Of course i never thought that we had a really short time span with which to catch up. The last time i saw him was at Walmart in 2004, just before i moved to Korea for a year. He was there with his girlfriend and he was waiting for her to try something on. When i saw his big bald head i knew it was him and i was super pumped to see him. I told him where i was going and he was so excited for me. I knew that he would have loved to do something like that and i wish he had, i know it would have changed his life.
There is so much more i could talk about with him. His white pants, his sweaty ass on Anth's driveway after playing basketball, the fact that he didn't grow after grade 8, having his first cigarette in like grade 6 probably right after his first sexual experience...lots of stuff. Rob took his own life for a reason we'll never know. He was into things that obviously he didn't feel he could deal with. Things we wish we could have helped prevent. Personally I still think about that fat bastard quite a bit. I never thought that i would be dealing with a friend killing himself. I didn't really handle it very well when it happened, his funeral was one of the worst if not the worst day of my life. I'll never forget his bald head in that casket and the way his parents were just so calm. It was creepy. I was angry, i am angry still.
I think of him when i hear "Run to the hills" by Iron Maiden because he loved showing me how cool the drum parts are. I think of him when i hear "Beer Goggles" by Lagwagon because he would always say "ya man its true, when i drink i totally think ugly chicks are hot". I think of him when i see a mosh pit because in 97' at the Warped Tour he came out of the Lagwagon pit with a bloody mouth and a smile saying how fun it was. I think of how when i went in for an interview for a job at the grocery store he had one the same day and how pumped we were to work together. I think of Danny on the handlebars of his bike screaming "woo woo woo" on the way to Anth's. I know i'm forgetting some things that will be obvious as soon as i post this but that's ok. I won't ever forget them. I know if that son of a bitch is up there (with shmerbe and momma's wodden leg) he's bouncing around in white pants listening to the Fushnickens, smoking a cigarette and waiting for us to join him. Peace Tobes you sweaty bastard. (clearly sweat reminds me of him as well)

I'M CALLING IT: Toby's legacy of what went down in Tayo's basement during "lockout", the 7 hour smell will go down in history.