Dec 19, 2007

dinosaur eggs are baller

thoughts on the best regular season game of the season: 

- much like when the raps played boston, the atmosphere was simply rabid. this is playoff level basketball, no matter what anybody says. 

- there was an article on ESPN today by JJ Adande about how black people need to stop hating on the celtics for being a white team. well written, but in crunch time, after a giant game-tying 3 by rayray, detroit takes a timeout with under 30 seconds left to play. what song is blaring through the arena? 'rock you like a hurricane' by the scorpions. would you like some grey poupon? 

- hubie brown noted during the game that deron williams reminds him a lot of chauncey billups, which i agree with entirely. if that's the case, then is cp3 vs d-train even a debate? would you rather have the future chauncey billups, or the future isiah thomas? thought so.

- there's no such thing as statement games, but if we learned anything, it's that big game experience still makes the pistons the team to beat in the east. boston is a beast, but in the clutch, detroit was calm, poised, and executed exactly what they wanted. the celtics have three future hall-of-famers, but seemed confused about what exactly to do and who should take over down the stretch -- particularly KG. if they're going to go anywhere, he needs to demand the ball in the clutch, he's unselfish to a fault and was nearly invisible in the last two minutes of the game.

- i was supposed to go out tonight, but i'm jumping from this game straight to suns/mavs and in 5 minutes, the raptors game. if i were to estimate, i'd say i've chosen watching basketball at home over going out with friends at least five times in the last two weeks. please help me.

Dec 18, 2007

"morning" musings

simon's twitter train has finally left the station. i didn't even understand how it worked until this week. apparently my problem before was i had no friends. please, refrain from making the easy joke on that one, i'm delicate.

been picking up my poor neglected guitar with my recent freedom from school. i missed her so.

and finally, when it rains it pours, and in this case it's pouring engagement rings. 

congrats to wictor and gorphanie, may your weddings have as much or more booze than vanessa's. 

good. times. ahead.

Dec 13, 2007

quickies

wakey! wakey! has probably recorded the best weezer cover these ears have ever heard.

"say it ain't so" on piano = tasty-delicious.

by this time next week, i am probably going to be complaining of boredom. either that, or catching up on about three straight months of sleep deprivation. i've been averaging about 4 hours of sleep a night, and have the eating habits of kate moss. 

if it weren't for coffee, i think i might have just dropped dead weeks ago.  still, the holiday break cannot come soon enough -- i have so many "to-do-list" type things i would like to accomplish but simply haven't had the time. for example, i wish barbershops were open 24/7, i am in dire need of a trim. 

i think the worst part about working for real is that you no longer have summer and winter vacations. i mean, in all honesty even the year i took off to work, i worked full time through the winter, then only part time from january through to the end of my contract.

i have never not had a summer vacation. the thought of not being awarded 3-4 weeks off for my concerted efforts every winter is depressing. to not have 3-4 months off to travel in the summer? that's just going to be downright cruel. 

maybe i can get away with freelancing forever. 

maybe. i'll probably have to get used to sleeping in my car though.

Dec 10, 2007

huzzah

published! multiple-times! 

the only thing that could ruin my day is if i were trying to write five stories at once and nobody called me back about any of them. 

oh wait, that's happening, and i'm still in a good mood.

awesome. 

Fiction(alized)/Insights

not necessarily an actual event as much as a description of my state of mind during about a five minute span of time, fictionalized at some points and reorganized chronologically for the sake of narrative composition.  

I open my car door and step into the cold winter air.

The bustle of traffic fills my ears as I pull my jacket close to myself, walking briskly across the small parking lot and pulling open the door to my brightly lit destination.

The acrid but comforting smell of cheap coffee embraces me, warming me almost as much as the warmth does itself. I pull up a chair at a table by some large foggy windows, sitting down opposite a familiar face.

“No, press the middle button,” says my friend embarrassingly into his cell-phone. He looks up and waves sheepishly before averting his gaze again, returning all his focus to the conversation at hand.

He is taking a call from his fiancĂ©, meticulously talking her through the nuances of playing a movie on his new Playstation 3. I remove my wool coat and stuff my blue gloves into its pockets. Attempting to settle into my chair, my mind notes that they are made of plastic and an uncomfortable yet seemingly durable metal. As I hang my coat on my stiff seatback, I wonder briefly if the lack of ergonomic design is a matter of cost or merely a strategy to dissuade loitering in this fine fast-food establishment. Trying not to eavesdrop, I take a deep breath of Tim Horton’s air and proceed to survey my surroundings.

In the corner to our left, studying under the familiar fluorescent glow of the donut shop, an Asian couple sits with their noses buried in textbooks. The girl’s bright red pencil case is shaped like a cartoon ladybug, laying sideways on the table and spilling out a collection of multi-coloured highlighters. It has always baffled me how compulsively some girls choose to colour coordinate their notes. I attempt to think of a male who might share this academic trait. I cannot.

To the side of coloured pen girl is a male companion who seems equally engrossed in his own textbook, twirling a pen around his thumb as he stares distantly at the page. His eyebrows are severely furrowed, and it is difficult to tell if he is either completely distracted or completely focused.

Turning to my right side, there is another Asian couple sitting diagonally from each other at a four-seat table. I find this odd. A magazine about computer games sits open on the table in front of the male, completely engaging his attention. Meanwhile, the girl (who is mildly attractive in the protypical suburban Asian female manner -- petite and well dressed, with smooth pale skin and large eyes) types away at the keyboard of a black laptop that completely dwarfs her tiny delicate hands.  

I return my gaze to my friend, cracking a wry smile as his Playstation tutorial continues.

“Not that menu, no, go down to video…”

He gives me a look and shrugs, shaking his head as if to say that he had long ago acquiesced in the fact that conversations such as this were to be part and parcel of a stable long-term relationship. It was the compromising price that accompanied being accompanied.

As I sat there listening to a conversation that bore a striking resemblance to one I once had with my mother about how to send an email, I come suddenly to the stark realization of how foreign to me that price actually is.

There in a coffee shop, book-ended by couples and staring straight ahead at another, there comes to me a rush of tacit fear accompanied by possibly the only emotional response that has ever truly concerned me: loneliness.

I wonder why I haven’t met my perfect match; I wonder if there is ever going to be the right girl for my life; I wonder where things went wrong with all the girls that I have cared for in the past. I wonder if I will ever grow up to be an adult along the lines of those peers who increasingly are getting married and proceeding with down payments and mortgages while I scrape up enough cash to buy a soft-taco for my midnight snack.

I wonder these things in the blink of an eye, and snap back to reality as my friend gently closes his cell-phone and returns it to the pocket of his puffy black down jacket.

“Sorry about that, she’s never used the Playstation before.”

“It’s all good,” I reply, laughing while being genuinely impressed by his completely normal domestic conversation, yet at the same time feeling almost unbearably alienated by it.

“It’s part of the territory right?” I ask, and watch him nod his head in agreement.

“Yea, I guess,” he replies.

We laugh, in a moment of awkwardness, and pause to consider my words.

Whatever territory I’m talking about, he is clearly surprised to wake up some days and actually find himself standing there.  And it’s a territory I’m not sure I’ll ever even step foot upon myself.

It’s remarkable how completely opposite scenarios can result in the exact same paralysis.

I find this realization strangely comforting, and it assuages my personal panic from code red to mellow yellow. All of this happens in only the smallest fraction of time, and now I am back to the more pressing matter at hand: namely, do I want a large or medium coffee?

Dec 3, 2007

28 weeks later

i know i'm way behind the times on this one, but i finally got around to watching 28 weeks later tonight, the follow up to 28 days later. 

as for as zombie flicks go, it's at the very least as tense as it's predecessor, with lots of jumpy moments and anxious scenarios. 

i found however, that i could not enjoy the pacing or action or direction, because the movie asks you to root for the survival of the main characters, who, surprise surprise, are responsible for the problem at hand. 

i'm all for forgiveness, but really, the kids in this movie drove me insane. they just tra-la-la through the world's most unimaginable catastrophe as if they don't know any better, but for god's sake, they're basically teenagers! i couldn't watch this movie without thinking how utterly stupid these kids were, and frankly, that they kind of deserve to die seeing as how their ignorance is completely unabashed. 

i realize this is harsh, and i know logic is suspended when watching a b-movie. but GAH! i just found it so frustrating that they were not only responsible, but unapologetic, and ignorant. i mean, you kids are DIRECTLY responsible for the death of thousands if not millions of people. where's the part where they think "do you think maybe this was our bad...?" 

argh. of course, that's just part of the stupidity. like how a civilian caretaker has access to the most privileged of military installations. but that's the type of stuff that i can forgive in these types of silly horror flicks.

stupid people who make their own bed however drive me insane. i guess i'm just not one for merciful sympathy. if you make your bed and refuse to apologize, you should have to lay in it. even if that means being eaten by zombies. i've never had a movie force me to root for the death of children so much in my life. i feel dirty.

i'm going to be the worst parent ever.