strings

from the BBC:

French President Jacques Chirac said the Israeli air strikes were "completely disproportionate" and the Vatican described them as an attack on a sovereign and free nation

the french, no one cares. but you know it's bad when the catholics are telling two other religions to stop fighting. they're like "whoa jews, whoa. calm down there, lets not get all loco here".

does anyone else find that hillarious? they pioneered the holy war man, they're the OG gangstaz.

that's like duchamps looking at someone's art and being all like "dude, wtf? you call that art? lets have some standards here"

anyways, in all seriousness, watching CNN work around the clock to make a bad situation seem even scarier is making my afternoons pass so much faster. i realize i'm watching a potential war unfold the likes of which we haven't seen in decades. but still, you KNOW they're pressing for those family dinner tv neilsons.

i may be imagining things, but if you look carefully, i swear every time a new report of rocket launches into israel reaches the studio, i see wolf blitzer wet his pants a litte.

the coast is always changing

i normally don't make a habit of posting pictures of my underwear for the world to see, but this is truly a case worthy of encyclopedia brown (and trusty old sally, the brawn behind the brains). we'll call it: the case of the destroyed drawers.

this morning when i put this pair of boxers on, they were perfectly normal. i did nothing out of the ordinary in the morning and afternoon, some sitting, some standing, some walking around the house. in the evening, i went to play basketball for about 3 hours straight. i do feel compelled to note that the gym was insanely humid -- as in, we had to wipe the floor down a few times to keep the condensation (and twisted, mangled body parts) at bay. it was a long run, i didn't sit at all during those three hours.

upon returning home, i proceeded to take a well deserved shower. as i disrobed however, i noticed that my underwear had for some reason transformed from normal boxer shorts, into the textile equivalent of the black guy in a freddy kreuger movie.

how did this happen? was the friction from my muscular (and frankly, greek god-like) legs simply too much for the fabric to handle? was the humidity and sweat combined simply a recipe for material disaster?

encyclopedia closed his eyes for a minute, as he always did when pondering his most difficult cases.

"put those questions away yau. it's clear that the reason those shorts are ripped is because...."

turn to page 76 for the answer to: the case of the destroyed drawers.

trains to brazil

something i will never understand is why people would have both a xanga and a blog that they update regularly. who has so much to write that they require two websites to keep track of their life and thoughts? strange.

sake

the following things are some of my simpler pleasures.

- close and timely parking spots
- sports movies
- microwaveable tupperware
- discovering a new kickass band
- good conversations
- anything that was free
- high download speeds
- my bed

a constantly updated list. what's yours?

truck driving man

one of my hobbies is playing sports. any sport. i'll play them all, and even better yet -- i'll play them all competitively. i spend five of my seven days a week playing some sort of organized sport.

this has often caused me to make some difficult decisions concerning how i allocate my free time.

on top of playing an absurd amount of sports, i am also the type of person who spends a lot of time with friends. sure, i have some mild introvertive tendencies, but by-and-large my car is usually tooling around the city hopping from place to place meeting people.

up to this point, i've always figured that i have all my life to hang out with friends. but i'm only young once, and as such i should do all the things my body still allows me to do while it lasts. this includes playing every sport i can find.

as the summer ticks away however, i find myself increasingly feeling guilty for not spending enough time with people. for not keeping in touch with old friends, bothering to reach out to new ones, and perhaps not caring for the ones i already have quite as much as i should.

i realize i am no one's saviour. i don't claim to be that egotistical or naive, though i may feign it at times.

but i still feel that God has blessed me immeasurably. with health, with friends, with a wonderful situation in life. someone recently reminded me of the thought that we are expected to give back to God what he has given us. that it is our responsibility to take the talents and resources we are blessed with not for our own satisfaction, but for the purposes that He has set out for us.

i've been putting myself first for so long. and to what end?

reality slap in the face.

so long coming. so badly needed.

lightning blue eyes

is it possible to have had a simultaneously productive, and yet unproductive week? many awesome things, yet not some simple things that i promised myself i'd get done.

also, i should be asleep now, and yet i'm awake early on a saturday morning. painfully early.

illuminate was good times. much fun was had and i'm so blessed to have a church full of talented and open hearted young people. i learn so much more than i am willing to admit from them, and i'm starting to feel like i have a purpose for being home -- for having this burden to help them grow and mature in ways that i did, and so much more. church is exciting again, and that in itself is amazing to me.

church is encouraging. personally, i have seen better days.

i often think about whether being in a cave is a bad thing. i've heard the cliches, that God does good work in caves, that we can't always be on the mountain top.

my worry is that i'm using this rationale to dwell in the cave when God is actually calling me out of it. that perhaps i am using struggle as an excuse to not strive for more. it's the wrong kind of struggle right now -- its not the passionate struggle to find His will. it's more simply a struggle to give a damn at all.

i pray not just for discipline, but to thirst for discipline.

not just to show love in action, but to know intimately what love truly is.

such a thin line. such a huge difference.

the professors here

it is a dry time in sporting news. basketball and hockey are done, baseball games don't matter yet, and football has yet to start. no good sports on tv make for long, slow, lazy days. fortunately the free agency market for both hockey and basketball have been frantic, and major moves are being made by teams and players alike.

toronto actually has a bit of sports buzz going this year. the leafs have a solid defense for a change, the raptors are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and the jays are hanging in there despite injuries. this fall will probably be exciting for all the major teams here, something we haven't experienced for some time now.

it's pouring outside right now. it looks like typhoon season has hit southern ontario.

a few years back, i remember having a discussion with people about how realistically people can only have like, 15 close friends, and any more then that and you start to replace people. something about us only being able to handle so many relationships at any given time.

i've concluded that my number is probably somewhere closer to five.

since i've moved back home to SCAC, the kids just keep growing on me. watching them grow up and learn, take on responsibility, mature and eventually teach you a thing or two back. that seriously makes the days that much more worth waking up for.

finally, i just got an email about an H&M warehouse sale this thursday and friday.

doesn't that store already sell stuff for like five bucks? this might be like the cheapest warehouse sale ever. but its in brampton. that may be a good thing however, since if it were a toronto sale, the lines would be several hours long.

i guess if i'm willing to drive there for an ikea dinner, dirt cheap clothing might be worth the trip.

maybe.

worlds apart

i find i'm purposely vague an awful lot.

especially on the blog. i wonder what people actually think when i type stuff out, and really, no one but me has any idea what i'm talking about.....

oh well, here's a picture to change the topic. click on it to see all the gory details.

strawberries

insight into my thought process when seeing a cute girl:

gut: whoa, she's a cutie. you should talk to her.
brain: what should we say?
gut: i dunno, anything. just say hi, who cares! look at her!

"uh, hello"
"hi"

gut: you have to say something else now. you can't *just* say hi you retard!
brain: i....i don't know what to say! you said just say hi! you got us into this mess!

"so...."

gut: so?! so isn't a topic! talk about something, anything!

"what's up?"
"do i....know....you?"

gut: i hate you.
brain: i'm not good under pressure alright. i can feel myself shutting down already....

"um.....i'm going to stand over there now...."
"duhhhhh......"

reason to believe

you know what's awkward? when your friends say things like "what are you getting so-and-so for their wedding?" and so-and-so is a mutual couple of friends who are getting married soon. obviously, they ask because they assume i am going. but alas, i am not invited.

yea, that's awkward.

i don't take it personally, (maybe i should?) but still. it's like lining up at a swimming meet and not being picked to be on a team. i know its for a good reason, but still.

everyone thinks i'm strong. but sometimes i do cry a little inside.

just a little.

tigers not daughters

notting hill is on tv.

i loathe this movie. but since we stayed there for a day, i am somewhat inclined to watch it and see if i can recognize any of the places we may have walked by. also, i'm curious as to this wall that they apparently climb over in the movie to get into the park. we never did find it in real life......

on a different note,

letting down people you care about only serves as a fresh slap in the face. am i guilty because i'm selfish? or guilty because i actually let people down? the fact that this is unclear to me only perpetuates my consternation that i am....deep down....a robot.

watching this retarded movie only reminds me how trite our concepts of love can be.

nervous in the light of dawn

all goes out the window

personally, i can't help but feel a little slighted when a place that doesn't have any ice takes home the cup. this makes two years in a row now that's happened.

not that there's anything wrong with it! i'm just saying....you don't see toronto collecting any deep sea diving awards.....

in other news, i have decided. putting my foot down. drawing a line in the sand.

baby steps champ. baby steps.

postcard of a painting

you could see it coming. after 36 minutes of pounding the ball inside, the first play of the fourth quarter was a flattened isolation for dwayne wade to go one-on-one with devin harris. never mind that he was shooting somewhere in the range of thirty percent from the field at that point. he drove, stopped on a dime, went straight up and camly stroked a 16 foot jumper.

nothing but net.

everyone in the building knew it. dallas knew it. hubie brown knew it, and everyone watching at home knew it. most importantly, dwayne wade knew it -- it was his time, and he wasn't going to pass the rock.

watching wade blossom in these playoffs just makes you excited to be a basketball fan. this is the stuff legends are made of. as wade continues to blaze his own trail into the annals of NBA greatness, we see glimpses of those that came before him.

slicing through the defense like earl the pearl, making it look effortless and graceful.

a shoulder fake and turn around fadeaway from the elbow that is positively jordanesque.

drawing fouls and pump faking his way through a bad shooting night like reggie at a spike lee roast.

the only thing more fun -- more amazing and humbling -- than knowing that we are witnessing the long awaited renaissance of the L, is that #3 is not alone.

#41 on the other team was less impressed by wade's clutch performance. he knew better. struggling through his own shooting woes, dirk came up big when his team needed him, draining clutch jimmy after another in the final minutes just to keep the game close.

to those who questioned his heart -- who thought he might be soft -- he replied by sinking an off balance rainbow over a double team in the corner. immediately afterwards, he ripped out his mouth guard and gave the crowd a (now patented) angry-dirk sneer, daring the haters to keep doubting him.

even better than that, as the cameras followed dirk into the locker room after another heartbreaking loss, he was clearly not dissapointed. he was pissed. he was kicking everything he saw, punting the ball into the stands, trashing a stationary bike, pushing over a table. one can only imagine what must have been going through his head -- the last minute timeout mistake by Jho, or his missed free throw towards the end of regulation -- either way, dirk was angry. dirk smash.

i loved it.

and the great thing is, it doesn't stop with these finals.

you don't think lebron is watching these games, growing even hungrier with every off-season jumper he shoots? every windsprint he runs?

that stat isn't watching, rehabbing, more anxious than ever to get back to where he was and help his team back to the cusp of the finals?

that the pistons aren't doing some serious soul searching? determined to come back with a chip on their shoulder?

and thats just the start of it. the league has more young talent right now, more guys with the tools to be legit champions, than it has had since the bird, magic, mj, zeke era.

we're not just watching the climax to an amazing spring playoffs -- we're watching the start of something special.

promiscuous

oh come on.

Apple - Nike iPod

i'm poor already you corporate bastards. you can't do this to me.

WHY DO THEY HAVE TO MAKE SUCH COOL (expensive) CRAP?!

the search

you ever have the feeling where you feel like you should be doing more, but you can't seem to find the time to be everywhere you wish you could be?

it's kind of a helpless feeling. where the spirit is willing, and even the body is willing, but reality itself is kind of weak.

all we can do is try our best i guess.

at the end of the day, that's all i can claim to have done i suppose. and perhaps one day, i'll learn to accept that as good enough.

your letter

so my friends have been in a matchmaking mood the past year and a bit.

nothing involving me (they know better), but it's still amusing watching the gears turn. candidates analyzed and proposed, rejected and catagorized systematically. it's funny because i know that at least for me, the whole concept of matchmaking is fun not because i want my friends to be happy -- it's fun because it's like playing the stockmarket.

all you do is try and back a winner. you want bragging rights -- to be able to say at their wedding "well, i remember i met so-and-so and thought they'd be perfect. and i was right!" i mean, i owe cam like a hundred bucks, but if i introduce her to her husband, she's going to owe me a lifetime of favours. forget bluechips, you can only cash them out once. i'm investing in relationships.

sadly though, we should be pragmatic. who actually knows what they want? and if we don't know what we want for ourselves, what are the odds someone else knows what we want?

my proposal is if you cannot consistantly think of a good present to buy for someone, you have absolutely no jurisdiction to try and set them up with someone. that should be like the general rule of thumb for friend matchmaking.

bankrupt people should not be day-trading, so why should lousy gift givers be able to matchmake?

we needs standards people, standards!

the downfall of this however, is everyone thinks they're a good gift giver.

oh world, how cruel you can be at times, making a cosmic joke of our ignorance.....

silently leaving the room

i went to a vocal recital today. when i was told it was a recital, i was expecting it to be in like, an auditorium and stuff. nope.

i walked into a small classroom where we crammed about 40 people in. the class went up to sing one by one accompanied by nothing but a piano track piped out of a mini-stereo system. it was an absolute treat.

you could just tell they were nervous, and it made it all the more endearing to me. it takes so much courage to just go up and sing in front of a group of family and friends, especially when you've spent so much time preparing for it. karaoke is one thing, because it's spontaneous and whatever -- but with a recital there are expectations you heap on yourself. i would never have the courage to do what those students did, it was awesome.

i find a lot of times we're just scared people won't like us for who we are if we show too much of ourselves. or perhaps we don't actually like who we are, and we hide it from others.

i suppose learning to be proud of our gifts (and who we are because of them) is part of this whole growing up business.

am i officially too old to say i'm still growing up? maybe i should just say i'm growing.

fatter.

for the record, my friend knocked 'em dead. she has an absolutely gorgeous voice. up to that point, all i had heard of it was a stream of girlish chatting and the occasional giddy cat noise.

crazy kids. they certainly do make a guy proud.

mushaboom

so i guess alot can happen in a month after all.

belated congrats where congrats are due. may God continue to bless you two crazy kids as you continue your journey together!

maybe sparrow

the world is amazing. there's so much to see out there.

but for now, i only have one home. and how sweet it is to be back.