Bairstowaways

2008-08-20T19:56:00.000-07:00

Before I start, let me say that this is now like some sort of bizarro-world or some kind of strange freaky alternate parallel universe world, or some sort of tear in the fabric of the space time continuum... world, or maybe something on the level of the union of interstellar Herbig-Haro objects and Bok gobules at the exact occurance of a Syzygy in our very own solar system. The point is, it seems my back-to-back championships/double blog posts now make me the triumphant"quote-unquote" (yes i just did that) lead blogger on what has become a neglected site.

I guess i don't much to say other than show off some space vernacular that i looked up on google 5 minutes ago to impress you. Life is good, i dunno. Here are some top things:

1. I ate some Ontario peaches and cream corn. Also some Ontario peaches and cream, MMM!
2. Annie lives in Waterloo now!
3. I got accepted into a part time MBA program!
4. The profanity-screaming lady across the street doesn't wake me up in the morning anymore!
4. I learnt some space words today!

I have hidden some gramattical gems, or easter eggs, or rather, glaring errors in this post. See if you can find them! IT'S A GAME!

Newfie-land

2008-07-15T17:33:00.000-07:00

"Welcome to the Rock"

So as some of you folk may know, I recently went away for a week to Newfoundland. A good friend of mine from home worked in Africa for a few years at a college, and met this Newfoundlander gal there (of all places), and they got married! I stood up in the wedding as the best man, and since my parents were also good friends with theirs, they came too.

It was a fun trip... here are some highlights:

St. John's:

I flew in to St. John's late Saturday morning (early?) without a hitch. After getting some much needed sleep, my parents and I decided to explore the city. We visited signal hill, a pretty neat site outside of the harbour, where the first wireless signal was sent across the Atlantic (such a nerdy family):

Standing on signal hill, St. John's. Coolness tip: my "hands in the pockets" stance.

Later that day, we went whale watching. There were a bazillion whales, and I was kind of hoping one would jump out of the water and eat another jumping whale, but it just didn't happen. We were lucky to see so many, and saw some porpoises (dolphins) as well. I tried to capture them on film, but the combination of my slow camera and their breakneck speed made that incredibly difficult:

This is a whale. Well... its tail. To my surprise they didn't jump all the way out of the water or eat each other.

We also toured the city, and visited George Street, allegedly the place in the world with the most pubs per square foot. I maintain that Hess Village in Hamilton would give that a run for its money, but we enjoyed the atmosphere, great folksy music, and some good food and drink.

Cape Bonavista:

After visiting St. John's, we traveled through many small villages and towns along the coast up to Cape Bonavista. We visited local museums, and stayed at a Bed and Breakfast in a place called Harbour Grace. To our surpise, in this town of probably a couple hundred, Stockwell Day was coming to this very Bed and Breakfast that evening for a press conference to discuss a possible prison build that was promised to the town in the 80's. After the moratorium on cod fishing in the '90s, many Newfoundlanders had lost their livelihood, and towns like this struggled to survive economically:

Fishing village. Probably mostly shrimp and crab in this place.

After a long day of mulling whether or not to pie Stockwell Day in the face, interspersed with enjoying the coastal scenery, I had to decide against such a noble charade for the sake of the town, and not getting a record for assaulting the Minister of Public Safety. We had a chat before his presentation, he seemed like a decent guy, but he is still a lil' bit evil for writing a letter to the Wall Street Journal condemning Canada's decision to not go to war in Iraq in 2003:

My Dad and I with Stockwell Day, whom I was tempted to pie in the face.

Lewisporte and the Wedding:

The wedding was a lot of fun. The guys had a bit of running around to do, but things weren't bad, and we managed to enjoy the driving range. All of us aren't golfers, but it was fun to whack our balls. Ha:

Bobby (L, groomsman) and Andrew (R, groom)

Things went pretty smooth with the wedding. Ceremony went well, lots of good food and stuff, and I did a speech. Usual wedding fare I suppose, and a really good time.

Twillingate:

Allegedly the iceberg capital of the world, and known for whales, we saw neither in Twillingate. I guess it was just bad timing, but we actually managed to spot an iceberg along the way in our travels, and we got our fill of whales in St. John's. It was a beautiful town, and we enjoyed a hilarious dinner theatre that was put on by the locals - a home cooked meal with lots of crazy Newfie skits, probably one of the funniest things I have ever seen... i highly recommend it.

Probably the iceberg that sunk the Titanic.

Twillingate at Twilling-ight..

Conclusion:

So this is kind of a long post. In conclusion, Newfoundland is pretty neat. A lot of the small towns are neat to see, but they are hurting for tourism as the closing of fisheries has devastated many communities. This means you kind of get some makeshift museums in 50-person villages that are a bit lacking in substance, and towns promoting themselves as things like 'the root cellar capital of the world'. A lot of young people seem to leave or go to St. John's. I didn't notice too many of them. It was still a great time though, Newfies are friendly if you can understand what the heck it is they are saying, and if you avoid to pick up their accent, you are lucky. I think I would really enjoy going to St. John's again, and if you love nature or seafood like myself, then the Rock is pretty awesome-sauce:

The most easterly point of th'Americas. East is relative anymore these days.

Another picture, from a camera. This one is in colour.

Wall-E

2008-07-07T11:09:00.000-07:00

So Krista and I went to see Wall-E this weekend and we loved it. Loved it. I had every intention of writing a review but then I thought about something, so bear with me if this seems a little preachy.

The idea behind Wall-E is that we’ve consumed ourselves into oblivion, at least as far as Earth is concerned. The planet is literally covered in garbage and is now a desolate landfill that Wall-E spends his time compacting, stacking and sifting through for little treasures. The message is (theoretically) clear: waste is bad and will make things worse very soon if we don’t do anything.

The question is, is this a message or a plot device?

I was hoping for the former, I really was, because waste is a problem, especially here in good old North America. Yet in the credits there are ads for the new Wall-E video game. And one quick search for Wall-E over at toywiz.com give 40 results.

At shopping.com, you can get one of 22 shirts.

In ten minutes of searching I found 200+ Wall-E products including books, toys, clothing, posters, treat boxes (?), temporary tattoos, piñatas (ola, señor Wall-E!), magnets, costumes, invitations, and so on.

Think any of this will end up in a landfill?

Is it right to hold Pixar to task for producing these products? Many of these products are reusable and/or recyclable: clothes, paper, cardboard, etcetera. But realistically, much of it will be thrown out within two years. How many kids do you see running around in Toy Story shirts? Or even Monsters Inc. shirts? Technically, this isn’t Pixar’s problem: they’re in the movie business, and these days a lot of the movie business is merchandising (especially animated films, which are intrinsically seen as “kid” movies and have access to the lucrative parent market). But I would hope that a studio using the perils of overwaste as a plot point would do more to lessen the load.

I also tried running a search on Google using keywords like “wall-e” “environmentally friendly” and “merchandise”. I only got one hit back that noted any effort by Pixar to “green” the merch push for Wall-E: a cardboard recyclable slip for the soundtrack.

Like I said, I’m a big fan of the movie and will more than likely buy it on DVD when it comes out. I just wish Pixar had taken the concept past the screen.

Caleb's Plums (or, Kristi has 366 Days To Think This One Over)

2008-06-19T20:32:00.000-07:00

I should also mention that after the camera turned off, Caleb drooled those plums all over the bathroom floor. HYGENE~!

The Magic Is Gone, Dear One (or, Why I Didn’t Like Prince Caspian)

2008-06-18T09:39:00.000-07:00

I would make a terrible movie reviewer, if only because there are very few film genres that I enjoy. I don’t like horror, or thrillers, or most action, or dramas, “art” films, or anything with a lot of gore. Mostly I like comedies, sci-fi, fantasy, and the occasional rom-com. So if you liked Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, please don’t be offended that I didn’t I do not represent movie viewers as a whole.

Also, there are some big ol’ SPOILERS ahead, so if you don’t want the SPOILERS to SPOIL your movie experience, don’t read the SPOILERS.

SPOILERS~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~!

Middle East = BAD GUYS
All the bad guys are Mediterranean-leaning-towards-Arabic looking, except for Caspian, who is for some reason Spanish. Could the actors not have got together ten minutes before shooting and decided on one accent for them all to use? Caspian has Spanish and all the other guys are vaguely Middle-Eastern. You can actually tell which of the “nice” bad guys will turn out to be BAD bad guys by how Arabic they look (the baddest bad guy looks just like Saddam Hussein). According to Wikipedia they were going for a Spanish/conquistador vibe with the armor, etc., so I don’t know why they can’t all speak in Spanish accents. Not that it would have been much better to typecast Spanish people, but at least it’s not jingoistic.

Yeah, THIS is what Lewis was thinking…
I’ll be honest – I think I might have read this when I was a kid, but I don’t remember a lick of it. I have been talking with some friends who have read the books recently (Jenna, mostly) and they confirmed that there is nowhere near the amount of time devoted to battle in the books that there is in the movie. In fact, the whole castle attack was made up for the film, based on an offhand comment the mouse had in the books about wanted to attack the Telmarines. There seemed to be a real desire to turn this into a Lord of the Rings for kids, complete with a straight up theifing of the arrow stabbing scene in Fellowship (check Susan during the castle siege ). To my understanding C.S. Lewis was less about conflict and more about relationships. And I know, I know, a totally faithful adaptation of the book would have made a terrible movie since the Pevinses’ aren’t even around for the first four chapters, but then why would you want to make a movie of a book that wouldn’t make a good movie in the first place?

(PS – and don’t get me started on bringing the White Witch back. What purpose did that serve, aside from bringing back the best performer from the first film? Also, look for a cameo of Tilda Swanson near the end as a centaur)

Where’s Edmund?
From his first line in Caspian I was excited to see what Edmund was going to be about in this one. He’s a very rogueish and watchable character. But he gets thrown aside in this film and does very little aside from swordfighting a dwarf and playing with a flashlight. I understand they wanted to give the lion’s share (HIYO) of the screen time to Susan and Peter since it’s their last kick at the can for Narnia, but watching Peter throw hissyfits every fifteen minutes while Susan moons over Caspian didn’t really excite me. It sucks that Edmund’s (and to a lesser extent, Lucy’s) screen time suffers, especially since they’re going to be expected to carry the next film.

We get it. Aslan is Jesus.
SUSAN: “Why couldn’t I see Aslan?”
LUCY: “Maybe you weren’t looking for him”

Oy, vey. Caspian reaches into the Bucket o’ Popcorn Theology pretty consistently and pulls out handfuls vague sampler-worthy quotes that are disingenuous at best, out-and-out incorrect at worst. I showed you at best, and here’s at worst:

PETER: When’s Aslan going to prove himself to us?
LUCY: Maybe we need to prove ourselves to him.

That’s right. Jesus is Emilio Estevez’ dad in The Breakfast Club. You must win a wrestling meet before he gives you his love. There are no losers in God’s family.

So who liked it?

How I stopped the use of 'or' in blog post titles (or, how I just made an ironic mockery of myself but still managed to save Christmas)

2008-06-12T17:51:00.001-07:00

And isn't it ironic... don't you think?

Yep, i just posted an overused quote. Who would have thought, it figures.

Ah well, can't say I don't post.

Bat Signal vs. Bat Phone (or, Batusi vs. Bat-Dance)

2008-06-04T07:45:00.000-07:00

So I grew up with the Adam West Batman (remember when Batman used to dance?). As we all know, that series is considered to be the stupidest possible representation of Batman there has ever been. But there is one thing it has over almost every other Batman in every other medium: NO BAT SIGNAL. In those days, Batman was summoned by use of a translucent red phone known as the Batphone. Which made sense to me (and was cool looking when it went off).

I started thinking about this last night at the movies when I saw a trailer for The Dark Knight. There’s a quick cut of a scene where the Joker caves in the Bat-signal with an axe. And I was all like” hooray!” because the Bat Signal made no sense.

Like for example, what if someone decides to commit a crime on a cloud-free night? What is the Bat-Signal reflecting off of then? It’s just a beam of light in the sky. What if it’s a club night and they’re all using those Hollywood sky-spotlight things?

More than that, Batman’s whole thing is to stop crime in Gotham with his rep. Having Gordon throw up the bat-signal is a good way to tell every criminal in the city “hey, Batman’s gonna be over here for a bit so, uh, just…just try to not commit a crime or anything, OK?” He might as well hang a “back in 5 minutes” sign from the front door of the police station.

I have too much time on my hands, I think.

$$$ or Blang-blang

2008-05-24T20:33:00.001-07:00

I have been waiting to post these bad boys for quite a while now.

Class Action Lawsuit #2 or Bite the Hand that Feeds

2008-05-15T14:32:00.000-07:00

So, I am currently eligible for payment in a class-action lawsuit. This is my second one, and sadly, the second one that I can't claim because I cannot prove it.

The lawsuit is for early iPod adopters of the 2nd and 3rd generation iPods. I had a third generation. I am eligible for an Apple Store credit of $49, but have no receipt to prove my eligibility.

The first class-action suit was against Columbia Pictures. Why? Because they made up a bunch of critics and gave some of their movies praise. If you went to one of those movies and still had the ticket-stub you were eligible for a refund. The movie in question for me? A Knight's Tale.

I know it's been a sparse time in hlogging for me, but I now have a PowerGlove and that takes up most of my time.

I recently sold my Nikon D50 dSLR, bought a Nikon D200 then just sold it and bought a D60, so here are some pictures I've taken on the way to work with it this week.

Recording (or, Kerry > Li'l Jon)

2008-05-13T17:09:00.000-07:00

So you're probably wondering why we haven't updated in a while. No idea. I've been doing lots! In fact, I've been recording for a couple of projects so I thought I'd share with you. Last week I was at AME studios in Kitchener, recording a couple of tracks for the upcoming Critical Mass album. Here's pictures!

The guys in the last pic are Scott (top left, bass), Lawrence (bottom left, keys) and Andy (bottom right, producer, smiled the whole day until we took a photo, seriously).

The a couple of weeks ago I was in Brooklyn ON, recording some drums and vocals for the Runaway. Here are some videos! The first one is me doing my vocal tracks and scaring Krista the camera operator cause she couldn't really tell when I was going to yell.

I don't know why they liked my other take better. This one is clearly genius. Clearly.

This one is me doing a drum take in a darkened room for ambience. Kinda samey all the way through, but that's recording for you.

And this one is self explanatory.

Finally, WEEKS before that I was in Arkona doing recording for Michael Bannerman's solo album! I only have pics of my drums from that one, so I hope that's cool.

And that's it!

Addendum (or, additional info)

2008-04-29T16:15:00.000-07:00

Here are some pics of the guitar incident just after it happened. Pam took the pics.

Why Does It Always Rain On Me? (or, The Week Fate Punched Me In The Junk)

2008-04-28T11:22:00.000-07:00

So this has been something other than my best week. Last Sunday, On the last play of the last game of basketball at Lincoln Road, I took a hard pass off the tip of my right pinkie finger. This happens a lot, but hurts more than normal. I looked down to discover that my finger, instead of looking like an “l”, looks more like a “z”. I pop my finger back into place and it’s not broken, but doctor says I’m to be in a splint for two weeks (also, no more monkeys jumping on the bed). I should note that the week before I took a hard pass to the temple and was knocked out cold for ten seconds. I’m starting to feel like Mr. Glass from Unbreakable.

Then, this past Friday, I was at Out of the Cold at WMB. There I was, just talking to Steph and Pam as my guitar rested in a corner by itself. Suddenly, and for no discernable reason, my guitar tipped and fell forward, shattering the headstock. Unwarrantied! Unfixable! GUITARLESS’D!

Then today, I’m coming in to work from Conestoga mall and there’s a ginormous backup on King Street. Turns out that there was a huge power outage and the cops are having to reroute away from the area, car by car. I was worried at having to explain to the cop that I have to get through because I work in the affected area, and it turns out that the cop is Sniddy! I was still late though, so it counts.

I leave you with a picture of me and my guitar in better times. Mourn with me, please.

Are you kidding me? (or, I'm going to punch the weather in the face)

2008-04-25T12:21:00.000-07:00

Are you kidding me?

Muffinball or What to do With Muffins of Unknown Vintage

2008-04-16T20:08:00.000-07:00

Lüke had some mighty old muffins. How old you say? Well, I can't for the life of me remember a time when those muffins weren't a furnishing in the haus. This is what Kristi, Lüke and I decided to do with them.

We're also considering a bring your own produce baseball league.

I Can Has Puffington

2008-04-16T08:15:00.000-07:00

He's on icanhascheezburger, maybe soon we'll see Mittens and Socks.

Rock Star OR: The people who usually want my signature are clerks with my credit card

2008-04-07T12:31:00.001-07:00

So I'm a rock star again, apparently. This weekend I went to Michigan to play my first of two shows with Critical Mass.

The show was at a high school and I was iimediately hit by how much sportier American high schools are. I spent some of the pre-show time looking over the team photos and they had every sport you could think of (except Curling): Football, volleyball, basketball, baseball, tennis, golf, soccer, bowling (!), track, field, wrestling, swimming, and so on. And with the exception of football and wrestling, every sport had men's and women's, and each gender had three teams per sport. This with a student population of just over 500.

the only other notable differences came at dinner time, when we were offered chili dogs.

ME: (looking at dude-ahead-of-me's hot dog, which looks like someone literally threw up on it) Uh, can I have one without chili?

SERVING LADY: Oh, you're one of the Canadians, aren't you? Guess you don't want this either (points at case of Mountain Dew).

I'd say she was culturally stereotyping me if she wasn't TOTALLY RIGHT. Gotta love the land of the free and the brave and the vomit dogs with a side of chilled urine.

The show itself went really well. Due to usual border anxiety we didn't bother trying to haul my kit over, instead bringing my breakables (cymbals, snare, kick pedal) and hoping the opening band had some decent gear. Fortunately the promoter had asked a friend of his to bring her kit, a Yamaha Stage Custom. She showed up halfway through soundcheck and I almost cried with joy. I should mention that the openers were really, really nice guys who said I could use any of their stuff I wanted. I totally forget what the first band was called, but the second band was called Obsidian Crush and they were very fun. Extremely nice guys, too, especially the drummer, Josh. Check them out if you be diggin' on the pop-punk.

Our set went pretty well. I hadn't played that hard in a long, long time (too many small venues), so I wound up with a cramping hand, three broken sticks and a mild case of whiplash. My ears were also ringing as we were having some monitor problems.

the best part was afterwards. It's been a while since I got to do the post-show schmooze thing and I totally missed it. I signed a bunch of autographs and chatted with fans who were really cool. The Critical Mass guys were super nice about it -- they included me like I had been in the band ofrever and asked me to get in pictures and all that stuff (our bassist, Scott, later told me I "looked the part" of a rock star. I blush). I'm really excited to keep doing this stuff! Someday you'll hear of me, I'm sure.

IN OTHER NEWS: Luke's dirgible race is not going as planned. Somewhere over Tanzania he lost some ballast and wound up having to ground himself lest he float into the atmosphere. Fortunately for him, he met a small primate named Pepe, who weighed just enough to increase his ballast! He has since taken back to the skies and is in search of the race leader.

Caleb can be found dancing in front of the Orange Julius at Fairview as he asks for napkins.

END TRANSMISSION.

Random news (or, my tomato doubles as a cell phone)

2008-04-03T06:27:00.000-07:00

So downstairs in the basement of infamy (and percussion), there is a leak that threatens our very way of life. Right now it’s tiny, but with the ridiculous spring thaw that we’re in for I’m willing to bet that the water will sooner than later have us in a Pharaoh’s-army-in-the-Ten-Commandments kind of situation. And not just trickle down our drain. Clearly.

In other news, the Leb’s soft bigotry towards non-fruit-oriented computers reached a new high this week when he discovered that the non-Mac monitor he had purchase in order to…uh…feel more like a security guard (that would also explain the grey uniform in his closet and why he’s always carrying around a flashlight and a coffee) was not what he had wanted. That is to say, its whites were off-white and the text was garbled. At any rate, Caleb has now sworn off any non-produce related technology and has already started plans to grow himself an iPod in our backyard.

Mook is currently embroiled in a dirigible race around the world against Lord Figguris Southampton III of Yorkshire. I think? Details are sketchy.

I am currently preparing for a hopeful return to school this summer, and for a return to the stage with various rock and roll combinations. I’m also enjoying the sunshine and trying to figure out what to do with my holidays this summer. Thoughts? I also spent an inordinate amount of time writing up my thoughts on the prequels of Star Wars, since I just watched them over the last couple of weeks. If anyone’s actually interested I’ll post them. If not…WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME??? Or something.

Oh, Krista has a blog now!

END TRANSMISSION.

Food Court Musical

2008-03-26T13:52:00.001-07:00

Caleb Is (or, Luke is)

2008-03-26T09:21:00.000-07:00

Caleb started playing this game in the comments of my last post. You type "(someone's name) is" into Google (with quote marks) and see what comes up. Here we go!

Caleb is not presented consistently.

Caleb is a young man taken into the employ of the local squire Falkland.

Caleb is quick to point out that rugby is not a popular sport in the United States.

Caleb is a Horite.

Caleb is playing flag football this year and may try gymnastics.

Caleb is evidence of primitive totemism.

Caleb is a very flashy, fancy, brave 8 year old grey large pony.

Caleb is an arrogant, misogynistic, defrocked priest who is allied with the First Evil .

and of course:

Luke is the world's greatest cowboy.

Luke is way off the mark on more than a few of his assumptions.

Luke is detached toward police when they arrive at the scene and arrest him .

Luke is releasing an box set entitled Luke Campbell's Soup for the Freaky Soul.

Luke is the oldest and the least important employee of a dismal company.

Luke is a consumerate historian, to be ranked in his own right with the great writers of the Greeks.

Luke is being a tool, as always.

Tour (or: You Know You're Getting Old When You Meet At the Retirement Home

2008-03-24T07:39:00.000-07:00

So much for once a week, eh kids? Ah well.

Thought you might like to know all about my week. Don't know why I thought this. But you're here, so I have a feeling you'll read it. And hopefully like it. This last week felt like I was on tour. Here is a not-so-brief (yet entertaining) travelogue:

Tuesday, March 18: Drove to London with Krista and Steph Andrews (my brother's girlfriend) for the Tokyo Police Club show. My brother Kevin was supposed to come but he was wicked sick, so we managed to get the awesome Fiona Jack to meet up with us in London and take the ticket. Show was good! It was Call The Office so the sound wasn't great. The Knaves opened and were fairly unremarkable, but we were so annoyed at having been out in the cold and rain for an hour (doors were at 8, but they didn't let anyone in until 9:10) that we were waaaay nasty about how much we didn't like them.

Will Currie et le Pays Francais were on next and, despite APPARENTLY being influenced by Elton John, they were enjoyable. I've heard them play better, but Krista was up front and apparently Currie was having mad moniter problems and was somewhat upset by this (understandably so, as there's nothing harder on a singer).

Tokyo Police Club were great. We only saw a third of their set at Winterfest so it was nice to catch the whole thing. They have an album coming out April 22 so a lot of stuff was new to my ears. Krista got a great video of a new song that I will post if/when she gives it to me. Their guitarist couldn't make it so their sound tech filled in and was indistinguishable from the genuine article (sound wise, that is; he kind of looked like Ron Jeremy). The only knock I could have is that they just kind of played songs end to end: no segues, covers, crowd interaction, etc. I give the entire show a B+.

We got on the road late and the 401 was coated in fog, so much so that we couldn't go more than 60 in some places. I wound up falling asleep (Steph was driving) and am apparently hilarious while I am sleeping. I woke up every so often to ask Steph if she was OK, and then would go right back to sleep. I also snored. Yep, I rule.

Wednesday, March 19: Drove to Ikea in Burlington with Krista to check out some possibilities for the Haus. Since I'm not moving anytime soon I want to make it a little nicer to live in. Didn't buy anything of note (except a wok to replace the one that has been adding tefloon to our stir-frys), but I eyeballed a new computer desk, some poster frames and shelving. More to come! Stay tuned.

Thursday, March 20: Drove to Oakville with Krista to play a show at Abbey Park Secondary School with the Runaway. It was a sweet show. A couple of students opened, and I didn't get to talk to them or I'd link to them here. Nifty was also on the bill and he was very cool. I didn't know any of his stuff aside from his guesting on Runaway's A Brief Word, and he was amazing. A super cool guy, too, please go check him out. I hype-manned as per usual and also busted out the Popcoustic Medley v3.0, swapping in Beyonce's "Crazy In Love" where I had previously used "I Will Survive" or Whigfield's "Saturday Night". I also debuted the "Will Ferrell Rap" that I wrote in ten minutes the night before. I'll post that video too, but later. LATER, I said! The crowd was super responsive and fun, which is always helpful. The weird thing was that the show was done at 5 PM and I was baffled as to what I was supposed to do with myself. I'm used to leaving it all on the stage, so to speak, so when I have to stay awake for another six hours it's weird.

Friday, March 21: Drove with Krista to Stouffville to do her family Easter thing. I thought it was just going to be her immediate family, but found out that her aunt, uncle, cousins and grandmother were all coming to dinner! Yikes, that's a lot of people to meet. Played Egyptian War again and won my very first game...Joyce, I'm coming for you. Also played and lost a close game of Crokinole. Also ate an amazing ham dinner. Dead pig FTW!

Saturday, March 22:, OK, this technically counts as Friday cause we didn't travel and you're supposed to do a Travellogue based on place, not on time, but ANWAYS.... In the morning we visted Krista's paternal grandparents and maternal grandmother in the retirement comunity they all live in, and I was walking throug hthe cafeteria and ran into my great Uncle Karl, who has been living there a couple of months. I had thought that he was still living in his own apartment. This is either

a) an amazing coincidence, or

b) a sign that I am now old enough to run into people I know inside retirement homes.

I'll let you know.

ANYWAY, we then drove to Toronto and did a bunch of shopping. I picked up three t-shirts at Black Market, finally spent my Sunrise Gift Certificate on Arrested Development Season 2, and bought an X-Box game I've been wanting. Krista got some earrings from a designer she really likes. It was a pretty day and warm enough to be fun walking around the downtown. Not like the 10 FREAKIN' CENTIMETRES OF SNOW THAT WE'RE GETTING TOMORROW. Ahem.

We then had dinner at Krista's friend Lydell's condo. He's this wizard chef who made (MADE!) bread bowls, and then we chose between a Lemon Pork stew or a Wild Rice and Mushroom chowdah (say it, Frenchie!). He topped it off with this amazing Oreo cake that had a brownie base with cheesecake topping. Ridiculous.

Sunday, March 23: Drove to Guelph for my family Easter thing with Steph A and my newly recovered brother. For the first time in my 28 years with this family we had dinnner out, which was kind of weird. We were at the Cutton Club in Guelph. The meal was good, but intorducing Krista to my extended family was the highlight (especially my grandmother telling me I should stop "shopping around". I think my grandmother thinks I'm a bit of a player. Holla!).

OK, 'twas ridiculously long. Now I don't have to update for weeks. But I should let you know that the Haus renovation project (i.e., painting my room, framing some posters, recovering my dining room set) is underway. Be afraid.

Be VERY afraid.

Kerry

The words of the mighty Onion

2008-03-19T09:18:00.000-07:00

Report: 32% Of Prayers Deflected Off Passing Satellites

The Return of Gleb or I Run Made In...

2008-03-17T16:53:00.001-07:00

So it has just come to my attention that I filed my taxes once as Gleb A. MacDonald. If you hear that I've died and there's a similarly looking fellow by the name of Gleb, shhhhh it's me.

Iron Maiden was amazing! Pyrotechnics, a set that looked like an Egyptian tomb, guitar solos long enough for the lead-singer to go backstage and change costumes and a 15ft tall fully walking version of Eddie!

Just When I Thought I Was Out, They Pull Me Back In -OR- Henry Rollins > Elton John, Will Currie > Me

2008-03-12T07:19:00.001-07:00

OK, so it’s been a while. Sorry. I’ll try and be better at the internets.

ITEM 1:
I saw Henry Rollins a week and a half ago, the same night Elton John was in town. Giant “who cares?” for Elton John, but I digress. Actually, I must continue to digress. Crocodile Rock is possibly my least favourite “classic” song (right next to “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” by Meatloaf) and Sir Elton’s popularity baffles me. Friggin’…”Rocket Man”? “Candle In The Wind”? “Circle of Life”? Like, quick, name one relevant artist from the last ten years who you could safely say was influenced by Elton Friggin’ John (except maybe whoever did that “Gene Kelly” song, but if “Gene Kelly” was my inspirational legacy I’d probably contract some convenient amnesia).

Ahem. So, Henry Rollins! My bruvva Kevin had gotten us both tickets as his Christmas gift to me. Which is a pretty self serving Christmas gift on its face, but it’s worth remembering that he did give me the very first Sno-Cone from his Snoopy Sno-Cone machine that he got for Christmas, so I really can’t complain.

It was non-assigned seating so we got there nice and early (me wearing my WWHRD T-shirt [in the spirit of gratuitous linkage, here's one of my favourites], which my brother said was the spoken word equivalent of wearing a band’s shirt to that band’s show) and were rewarded with third row dead center seating. Rollins hit the stage and started talking at 8 PM sharp, and didn’t stop until 11:15 PM. He covered everything from his home life in LA to his travels to his interactions with other punk legend types like Jello Biafra, Iggy Pop, Captain Sensible, et al.

I’d be lying if I wrote that there weren’t parts that dragged, but those were few and far between. I should also note that the first few rows were all in folding chairs on the floor. Padded folding chairs, but still folding chairs. And since folding chairs are meant to be on a flat surface and NOT the sloped floor of a theatre, by about the halfway point my arse was screaming for mercy. But Rollins was an amazing storyteller and kept the audience laughing or transfixed the entire night. A+, Mr. Rollins!

ITEM 2:
I’m a rock star again! Well, as much as I was before, anyway. I’ve been offered a couple of dates with Critical Mass. The cool part is, they’re both in the States! I do one date in Michigan in April and another in Indiana in May. I get a rider and everything! Forgoet you, life of working drudgery! Forget you for two separate days!

More rock star related news coming for April. Stay tuned.

ITEM 3:

Caleb tried my recipe for Kraft Dinner (boil noodles for 45 seconds, pour minimal milk, add cheese-esque mix, eat) and he liked it. In your face, al dente Kraft Dinner playa-hatas. Also, in your face, Caleb’s gastro-intestinal tract.

ITEM 4:

I’m going to see Tokyo Police Club with Will Currie and the Country French next week! You may remember TPC as being my favourite band over the last year or so. You may remember WCATCF as being the band who we beat in Last Band Standing finals last year, and who have since gone on to sign with Murderecords (Sloan’s label). Yep, we sure showed them. Actually, I loooove WCATCF and am really happy to see them doing well, cause they’re nice people and an awesome band. And maybe if I’m nice to them they’ll introduce me to Jay Ferguson and I can finally ask him if he’s ever going to write another single, cause he hasn’t done that since “Lines You Amend” (useless fact: my friend in high school Phil was in the video for that song). Ah, Jay, I keed, I keed.

I think that does it. I promise to update once a week, unless I don’t, in which case I don’t promise.

END TRANSMISSION.

Use My +2 Coffin or a Nerdy Moment of Silence

2008-03-04T19:25:00.000-08:00

Today the beloved Gary Gygax died. He is remembered as the creator of Dungeon s and Dragons, but he is bettered remembered for his role as himself in Futurama.

00:15

"Take my +2 Mace"
"It's...a pleasure to meet you"

While writing this I must also mention that Kerry is currently watching "Pride and Prejudice". It's really amazing what us guys will do for our lady-friends.

The bracket buttons on my keyboard are broken, so I have to cut and paste them

2008-02-27T19:06:00.000-08:00

Last week, i had a f'n awesome time enjoying some rays and escaping the daily grind for a good chunk of time: I took a cruise to the Eastern Caribbean! I went with my girlfriend Annie, and my family, which includes my 3 sisters, 2 brothers in law, and my lil' baby nephew Ben:

My nephew playing with his Woody at the dinner table.

The Friday night before, my parents picked me up, and in typical Allen fashion, we arrived crazy late to pick up Annie and my sister Rebecca in the Hammer. We then went to Mexicali Rosa's for dinner to prepare us for southern-ish style food to come in the days ahead. We had a flight to Miami early in the morning, so we decided to stay at a hotel near the airport to make things easier.

After a few lineups and checking baggage getting on to the ship (not unlike getting on a plane), we finally got to check out the ship!

The foyer with multiple levels and fun, neat-o lifting devices

First day: Half Moon Cay:

Sorry Annie, I stole this picture from you :)

Half Moon Cay was rad. It was kind of different cause it was owned by the cruise line for people to go to, lie on the beach, do activities on the island, and eat. So it was pretty awesome... the water was so clear, and we just layed around. Annie got burnt pretty bad, even through the sunscreen! We certainly did roast on a hot beach (it's a few posts down).

Second day: "Fun Day at Sea"

So on days when there is no stop and the ship is going, Carnival Cruises call it a "Fun Day" to try and cover up for the fact that you are really in transition between places. This caused my bro-in-law, marcus mallarkus... aka mark, to refer to it as "Mild Amusement Day at Sea". Don't get me wrong though, there was lots of fun things to do on the ship...... uhhh.... eat.... uhh... drink..... uhh... haha. Just kidding, there were awesome live shows and music, karaoke, little stores, pools, beach chairs on the deck, a waterslide, hot tubs, and all sorts of activities going on.

My dad suggested we play "a rousing game of settlers of catan", to which various snickers a-rose for whatever blessed reason. So instead we played Apples to Apples. Also, here's a picture of us eating in the dining room.

L to R: Annie, Rebecca, Mark, Esther, Chadwick, Ben-wick, Sarah, Kathryn, Stephen

Third day: The crappiest band ever* or the awesome day at the Virgin Islands

I think most of us agreed on this trip that the US Virgin Islands were probably one of the most beautiful places we visited. Unfortunately, it was the US, and as many of us are familiar, customs is a nightmare. Since we were in international waters and coming back on US soil (even though we left from Miami), we were subjected to a 1.5 hour lineup getting our passports checked. Some people had it worse.

We had signed up for a kayak/snorkel/hike excursion that day. It was really cool, we got to see some natural sights, hear a bit about the history of the island, and got to check out some sweet underwater fishes. We also enjoyed the beach for about 10 minutes... unfortunately due to our lack of time with the lineup and having to get back on the ship by 5ish, we didn't have enough time to stay. A good day nonetheless though.

My sister Rebecca @ Magen's Bee-ach

*Edited for use of the cursive... er... swears. However I don't like the revised edition, it just doesn't describe how bad the christian answer to creed is (ironically, the previous christian answer to pearl jam), but i shall digress and accept it for the sake of prudence/being polite.

Fourth day: San Juan, Puerto Rico

This place was rad. An old spanish-founded city, open air market stuffs, a big ol' spanish fort, awesome picturesque views of the atlantic, and a killer beach. We did a lot this day, and even managed to walk around the old part of the city.

The big ol' fort in San Juan.

Fifth day: Mild Amusement Day at Sea

My memory is a bit foggy as to what we did this day, but I remember seeing a killer magic show. Except I forget the name of the magician. The only disappointment was that there was no Aztec Tomb. I did think he was actually going to die with some of the tricks he pulled.

Also there was a hypnotist, check him out. His show was hilarious. The best part was when he asked only the guys to wake up and believe that he was naked, and one of the girls also woke up. Would have been weird to be her boyfriend.

Sixth day: Nassau, Bahamas

I had a great time here. My sister Rebecca and I did a couple scuba dives, saw some crazy fish, lobster and skates - a smaller version of a stingray. Some of the fish were surprisingly huge, others had stingy spines that would send us to the hospital so we avoided them like stingy spine fish that would send us to the hospital.

After the dives, we tried to catch up with everyone else at the beach. Apparently their day consisted of driving through slums, running into a guy pimping on the beach, running in to a guy dealing, really old men with gold diggers, and the like. We didn't find them or the people they ran in to, but hung out at the beach for a bit, which is just down a little ways from where the likes of Oprah, Michael Jordan, the Lloyd's of London dude, Nicolas Cage, and some other famous people who have houses.

Our experience of the beach was pretty killer

Seventh day: They rested.....?

It was sad to see it end. The trip was awesome, except for my disappointment in not seeing any carnies on the Carnival Cruise. hardy har.

Our trip home wasn't actually all that restful. We were paranoid we weren't going to get on our flight as we found out our travel agent had booked us on standby. We barely got on. More unfortunately, the more westerly-habitation-endowed portion of my family ended up traveling in 3 different groups. They had a flight to Denver that was delayed, which caused them to not be able to get on their flight back to Calgary. Additionally, the later booked ones were mostly booked. I think while we got home on Saturday, one of my sisters didn't get home until Monday morning. It sort of makes me laugh though, I guess that's not very nice of me. Ah well, it'll build character.

Trip rating: 8.1/10, killer time.

Sincerely,
Luke

Total Eclipse of the Nerd

2008-02-20T19:19:00.001-08:00

So tonight, there was a lunar eclipse, and who was out there (and had set his calculator watch to alert him) filming it? ME!

Here's the best picture I got. It's a shame I don't have some 600mm Prime 2.8f lens, so my wide-angle will have to do.

Biznizz

2008-02-20T10:30:00.001-08:00

Weather II

2008-02-20T10:24:00.000-08:00

Welcome back, me! Party platters of cold cuts for all.

not much from me today. Just wanted to point out how computers aren't always smarter than we are.

Weather or Whether to go outside

2008-02-15T13:42:00.001-08:00

If I was a weather icon, what icon would I be? Or better yet, what the heck icon is this?!

I am definitely not leaving the house that day for fear of falling triangles.

May 22!

2008-02-15T13:20:00.000-08:00

96 Days left!

http://www.imdb.com/video/user/me705352951

I am so excited!

Lüüüke UR Bed 2 Big or A Selection of Luke Faceplanting onto his bed

2008-02-10T18:09:00.001-08:00

Luke has a huge bed (The Soprano - "You know the one from that movie, The Sopranos") sold by the one and only Angelo ("Short Italian, uh, I don't know, eager, I don't know, hard to say" - Luke).

In order to make this bed, he must climb on top of it!

Here he is doing the ever-necessary face test for any mattress to get a 4-Mook rating. Click to see.

Here are some stills for you.

Thus Begins Year Three or How Kristi put up with me for two years

2008-02-10T17:31:00.000-08:00

Kristi and I had our two year anniversary this past week (yes I remember the day, it was Wednesday). I was a little afraid because there always seems to be weather-related obstacles that wreak havoc on my plans.

Last year the restaurant that I planned on taking her to (Thai Sun) decided it was too cold and decided to close, not that the weather was bad, in fact it hadn't snowed for days, nope it was just too cold.

So this year, I was hoping that nothing would go bad, so much so that I labelled my plans "fool proof". I took the day off (secretly - at least from Kristi, I had to tell my boss of course) and surprised her at work with two dozen roses (one half (pink) meaning friendship, and the other dozen meaning passion (red) to keep her good and confused about where we stand - hence the Facebook status of "complicated"), then we went out to East Side Mario's for lunch. Which was quite the ordeal in itself:

a. They put pepperonis on my pizza instead of pineapple, causing for a mulligan on the pizza.
b. I had to wait for my second bowl of unlimited salad because the container they keep it in (which is allegedly outside) was frozen shut/hobo-proof.

Then we were supposed to go out to a fancy restaurant for dinner (Benjamin's in St. Jacob's - of which I had made reservations for (under my real name) a month prior), instead it was too snowy to leave town, so we had to settle for Ben Thanh. It was strange to be at Ben Thanh that night because it was very empty, when usually one has to wait a long time to even be seated, and our food came ultra-quick.

I guess things turned out alright, but I am left with one thought. I think that we should change our anniversary to the summer. In fact I have started a petition to do so. With your support we can make change!

Many times when told that I got her something, Kristi would ask "Is it a pony?", well I got her a pony, well a grow-a-pony, but the thought is there. My days might be numbered.

Bairtow-away or How My Chevy Lost to this Dreaded Season (Winter)

2008-02-10T17:24:00.000-08:00

The plow came yesterday. For most streets that wouldn't be out of the ordinary. But for us - sadly - it is. The city seems to have forgotten about our street. Google Maps admits we exist, why won't the city?

We were privy to two of our neighbours figuring that they could power their cars over their plowed in driveways, only to get stuck and floor it and dig their wheels in beyond hope.

We also had both neighbours have to get towed out. One needing a flatbed trailer (as seen below).

Winter - 2, Domestic Gas-Chariots - 0

Zombography or Blank of the Dead

2008-02-09T13:23:00.000-08:00

So I have just (mostly) finished watching every zombie movie one could imagine (actually really just those that end in "of the dead".

I'll list them all and give some trivia/ratings.

Night of the Living Dead: A classic movie that breaks racial stereotypes and sets stereotypes for Zombies. The first movie to include flesh hungry self-directing zombies (in the past they'd always just done the bidding of witchdoctors - as coincides with Zombie lore). Trivia: It's a public domain movie - so you could release your own dvd copy. IMDb has 26 different "versions" allegedly.

Dawn of the Dead (1978): Awesome zombie movie about survivors holing up in a mall and living it up while the world outside dies. Great social commentary and character relationship development. Don't go shopping at a mall right after you watch this (as Luke and I did) you feel like everyone is a Zombie. Trivia: It was filmed in a mall at night since they couldn't just shut down a mall to film a small scale movie. So they needed to clean everything up before the muzak would come on (which they couldn't figure out how to turn off). They also needed to take a break from filming when the Christmas decorations went up.

Day of the Dead: I was disappointed by this one. It was boring. It has a cult following and I can't figure out why.

Return of the Living Dead: A satire of the whole Zombie movie craze. A good movie. I wouldn't recommend watching it with with your parents (as if you'd watch a Zombie movie with your parents) because one of the main characters spends the whole movie naked (did I just spoil the movie? At least I didn't tell you they turn into a zombie, oh crap). Trivia: The first Zombie movie to feature fast moving zombies and the whole "Brains" thing.

Dawn of the Dead (2004): Definitely a good re-make of Dawn of the Dead. I think that at this point of being a Zombie-snob I prefer the original. Trivia: Sarah Polley from Road to Avonlea is the main character. If Road to Avonlea didn't have enough of her killing Zombies this movie is for you.

Shaun of the Dead: Great parody on the Zombie horror movie. A good zombie movie in itself. Interesting in that it made people who would never watch a zombie movie or a horror movie watch it. My favourite review of the movie is when people are upset by the gore in it. YOU RENTED A ZOMBIE MOVIE! WHAT DID YOU EXPECT?!?! Well the paper told me it was good. IT'S STILL A ZOMBIE MOVIE!

Land of the Dead: Return to the Romero slow moving zombie. After the Dawn of the Dead / 28 Days Later "Zombie" made it cool to have running zombies.

All this was done to prepare me for Diary of the Dead, which is coming out soon and is another foray of Zimbie-king George A. Romero into the genre he created. I am very excited, but doubt that any of my friends will want to go and see it.

I wonder what the movie would be like if it was Dairy of the Dead? Maybe zombie cows? Zombie farmers? Somesort of new trendy milk commercial that we'll see for the next 5 years like the skateboarding farmers. Hmmmmm. Trivia: Mike Paglia's band from Waterloo did the music for the skating-farmer commercials. Wally lived across the hall from them.

What have I gather from all of my "research"?:
a. I prefer the slow-moving Zombie, they add more to the suspense.
b. I find myself judging the buildings that I am in on how zombie-proof they are.

"They're coming to get your Barbara" 6:10

Retreat! or A Message from Down Below.

2008-02-03T12:16:00.000-08:00

This weekend started on a low note. We were all ready to go and see the world's greatest wrestler Reggie Marley in action, but due to the snow, the show got cancelled.

But we'll always have the memories of when we met the man himself.

Friday had to be one of the lamest snow days of all time. We got 5cm of snow and they cancelled school. Back in my day...

Then on Friday night I received and unexpected email:

11:45pm? I was brushing my teeth then. I wasn't even near my computer. But I guess that's what I deserve for having wi-fi, emails anytime, anywhere, from anything?!

Saturday Kristi and I had the treat of getting up at 5:00 to go skiing with the youth. Surprisingly everyone was on time and we left shortly after 6:00. Arriving at Talisman at around 8:15 only to find that Talisman had no electricity!

We then hung around while we tried to figure out what to do, then decided on driving the two vans and a bus full of 65 youth to Blue Mountain, getting there around 10:00.

The day of snowboarding was amazing. One of the youth (Jesse) had only boarded once before but by the end of the day was riding on the blue squares (mid-level difficulty) tracks and riding in the glades (off-track). I also felt a lot better than I had snowboarding before. It felt much more natural this time.

Then we drove to a hotel, ordered 18 pizzas (they got annihilated), spent hours in a pool/hottub and crammed as many guys as we could in a sauna (complete with mystery shorts - thankfully we never met the person in the hotel sans shorts - and emergency exit snow dives).

We also made the mistake of watching "Pros vs. Joes" with Shaykhan. Who promptly decided that we should come up with our own game. This involved having to run from one side of the hotel room to the other past an opponent who wanted to make sure you didn't make it. There was many a rug burn and many a shattered dream (a hit to the garbage also entailed). Today I ache much more from the hotel room challenge than snowboarding.

It was a great retreat!

Tonight is the Superbowl. I am unsure of who I wish to be victorious. I'd like to see the perfect season, but there's also something satisfying about seeing the underdog defeat the undefeated super-team, mostly so that Disney can make a movie about it.

N64!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-02-01T07:13:00.000-08:00

This brought me much lol-age. I wish that I had the joy that this child is experiencing.

Now watch this classy remix, for all you METAL fans.

Detecting Movement

2008-01-23T15:24:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I'm done the Office (until those writer's get their act together and write me some more episodes or I find the British version somewheres around here) and now I can start posting on here again.

I've begun to hang out with a couple of the guys from work - which has been pretty sweet - except that it means that I have suffered great financial loss from an underground gambling ring that we started. You're probably wondering what shady sport we might be gambling on: pit fighting, cock fighting, crab racing... NOPE, none of those. We were betting on Wrestling.

Not Olympic Wrestling. Pre-planned scripted wrestling (don't tell Kerry). FROM 1991! That we'd all read the results from (but couldn't remember - or at least that's what we claimed - I $1 because I remembered that the Mountine beat Tito Santana). With all that said, I'm down $9. It's been a rough week, payday couldn't come soon enough.

Everyone needs to see Hercules The Movie / Goes Bananas / In New York. It's the one and only movie by the Thespian Arnold Strong (later Arnold Schrawhjhgahnegger). It's one of the funniest things that I have ever witnessed. Just ask Coffey. You'll learn a lot about the bible (like the lesser-known crossover adventures of Greek Mythology and Bible Personas).

The Great Wireless Hunt.

So today the wireless at work was acting a fool, so a few people were looking for it. That's right. No one at work knows where the wireless hub is. They spent hours searching for it. They even had one of the IT guys looking around with a laptop to see if he could find it, to no avail, he even found it to be on the move - it must have been swallowed by a rat or sewer gator. It kind of reminded me of some of the tense motion-detector scenes from ALIENS.

Later we received a company-wide email asking if we had any information about the location of the router. I feel like doing a ransom note up for it.

Was it really that great? No.

Sorry

2008-01-11T14:06:00.001-08:00

I'd write more but I am addicted to the Office.

"Christmas" report

2008-01-05T09:51:00.001-08:00

Lord Kerrance here (that was for you, Annie). You may be wondering why no one has posted in a while. That's probably what you're doing if you're here. Or perhaps you're drunk and were looking for the Barstow blog, and you were really excited since the last time you were there they hadn't updated since 2001. Sorry friend, you've stumbled into the wrong place. But stay! We have party snacks and Twister.

Anyway, us Bairstoaways have been busy. As I sit here I can hear melodiuos strains from Caleb's room as he multitasks doing some freelance work AND installing a Mac OS on a non-Mac laptop (which is akin to stuffing prime steak with stale pretzels, but that's my opinion. The right opinion, if you're wondering). Luke is off in Tha Hamma, meaning we're sure to get 200 cm of snow. I have been feverishly learning two songs on guitar while memorizing a new verse for a hip-hop show I'm performing at tonight. But I need a break, so I thought I'd let you know the results of the 1st Annual Bairstow Celebration of Roughly The 1040th Anniversary of the Completely Arbitrary, Decidedly Fake Birthday Of Jesus Which Was Put In Place To Compete With A Pagan Festival Happening At The Same Time Thereabouts (ABCOTOAOTCADFBOJWWPIPTCWAPFHATSTT for short). Or as the less historically-savvy call it, Christmas Gift Exchange.

First up was a chocolate selection from our landlords, who are awesome. The chocolate almost lasted a week.

Then it was time for The Leb's gifts to me and Mook, both wrapped in suspicious manila packages. We opened it up to find that we had been granted a joint subscription to Modern Drummer magazine (stop laughing, it's a real magazine. For serious). Although I appreciate the gift, I can't help but wonder if this is a sinister plot on Caleb's part to slowly turn Luke and I against each other each months as we fight over who gets to read about random session drummers and drumkits made out of trash cans and old refrigerators first.

Then came my gifts to Caleb and Luke. I got Luke an Iron Maiden mug, which immediately became known as "The Chalice of Metal". Elaborate rituals shall abound on Metal Mondays. I got Caleb and anti-theft device in the form of a $20 iTunes card. I had hoped to derail his Interweb Piracy for a little while, but as of this writing he has already spent the whole thing, mostly on Gary Neuman.

Finally came Mook's gifts to me and the Leb. We both got DVDs: Caleb got a set about space, furthering his dreams to one day be an astronaut. I got the Simpsons Movie, furthering my desire to one day have jaundice.

Yes, the first ABCOTOAOTCADFBOJWWPIPTCWAPFHATSTT was a success. Many happy returns to you and yours.

Hermit

2007-12-30T21:27:00.000-08:00

So with Christmas comes loneliness. At least it does if you're like me and your stupid housemates decide they want to spend holidays with their families (italics in this case indicate a snivelly, nasal tone reserved for mocking someone for choosing something pansy-like [ballet, let's say] over something manly-like [Ultimate Fighting, per se]). They chose family instead of chillin' like a villain with me at Casa Bairstowaway with me. So, here is the complete list of things I have done in my utter solitude these last two weeks at home:

*Cleaned my room
*Cleaned bathroom
*Vacuumed living room
* four loads of laundry (including bedsheets)
* Watched the entire Star Wars trilogy (not end to end, but in my proudest moment I spent the tail-end of Christmas Eve watching Return Of The Jedi after church. Stupid Ewoks).
* Thus inspired, played through and beat Jedi Knight II: Jedi Academy for X-Box (on Jedi Knight difficulty. I've only ever beat it on Padawan before).
* Played the longest game of online Scrabble ever with Paddy (it's been like the full two weeks)
* Learned how to play "Brick" by Ben Folds Five, "Breakaway" by Kelly Clarkson, and "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley on guitar
* Watched the Conan O'Brien 10th anniversary DVD my brother got me for Christmas
* Watched The Commitments
* Watched Ocean's Thirteen
* Watched various episodes of Scrubs and The Office
* Made a survey about "An Acoustic/Indie Christmas" on createsurvey.com and had fun cross referencing the results
* Wrote rambling blog about car thieves and why I stole thumbtacks from Zellers
* Made nachos
* Made Kraft Dinner (2x)
* Ate a whole box of Mini-Wheats
* Made banana-orange smoothies
* Watched and re-watched videos of "An Acoustic/Indie Christmas" so as to over-analyze my harmonies and facial expressions

I think that covers it.

Word of the Year

2007-12-26T19:06:00.000-08:00

Can you guess what it is?

A little message

2007-12-25T08:26:00.001-08:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!
Bets wishes to all of ye during Christmas. Hopefully you can all enjoy it with your family and friends.

Why I Should Never Be On A Jury (or, Kerry Is No Better Than A Car Thief)

2007-12-23T18:58:00.000-08:00

I have a new obsession. Over the last couple of days I've watched every video on http://www.baitcar.com/. Allow me to explain. British Columbia has the highest rate of auto theft in Canada. To combat theft, the police have started placing "bait cars" in high risk areas. When a bait car gets snatched, the police can remotely cut the engine at any time, making it easy to catch the offenders. Baitcar.com posts videos of these offenders as they steal the car, converse, and occasionally smoke crack until the engine is cut, when they invariably freak out (actually, it's not invariably; there's one where a guy starts reading a book, waiting for the police to call him out of the car. You have to be impressed by that kind of stoicism). A lot of the videos are played for laughs, including one where the theives joke about how funny it would be if they wound up on baitcar.com (while assuring themselves that the car they lifted is too "teenager-ed out" to be bait).

I'd like to say that the process has been educational, but it hasn't. Aside from a new verb ("gumping", the meaning of which I have yet to grasp) I haven't learned much. I had high hopes that maybe I would get a small glimpse into what drives (HIYO) these people to steal. Baitcar correctly identifies the link between drug use and car theft, but that wasn't quite what I was looking for. Drugs are the end that these people have chosen. I was wondering why they chose stealing cars as their means.

I'll be honest: I have stolen. When I was around 13 I had a summer of petty theft that was ridiculous. I stole stuff I wanted, like magazines, tapes (which were way easier to steal than CDs), video games and chocolate bars. I also stole stuff I didn't want just for the thrill of it: shoelaces, coin rolls, and at one high point, a box of thumbtacks (which I only just recently threw away). I understand the rush of stealing something, but for some reason there is a marked difference between stealing what I stole and stealing a car, and it's something besides the obvious fact that a car costs a lot more than a box of thumbtacks (unless, of course, you drive a Geo).

Honestly, and this is something I'm not particularly proud of, what makes what I did more acceptable in my mind is the difference between stealing from someone and stealing from something. If I steal a car, I'm stealing from a person (like me). If I steal from a store, I'm (more than likely) stealing from a corporation. And this is what I'll never understand about car thieves, or muggers, or home invaders: how they can so brazenly impose their will on another person and not feel bad about it (or at least, bad enough to stop what they're doing; I do plenty of things I feel bad about, just not bad enough). Do they not think about the inconvienience, the sense of impotence, the fear they put into people? What safety valve in their brain do they close off in order to allow themselves to take a car, a wallet, a television? That's what I was hoping to discover on Baitcar: the root of a car thief's self-entitlement.

I guess what I have learned is that I do not have a perfect compass of morality. I have personally committed the same act as the people on these videos and even though I understand why both my and their acts are wrong, I still do not understand why they do it as opposed to why I did it. There are a lot of reasons I did what I did, none of them any good. Sometimes it was becuase I was hungry (or, I should say, the North American suburban teenager version of hungry, where I casually wanted something to eat because I wanted it), because I was bored, or because I couldn't afford something I wanted. And I've seen some similar reason on Baitcar: some guys were going to strip it for parts to sell, some guys needed to get somewhere, and one guy even did it so he could give a buddy a lift home. Just because I can say with (relative) safety that I wouldn't or couldn't do what the people on the site do doesn't mean that I am free or clear, or better than they are. I have just as much self-entitlement as they do; I just express it differently (mostly by imposing music on people in the car, but in other ways too). If I wanted to be super philo-ma-sophical, I could ask if having a car means you have a sense of entitlement to that car, but considering that generally someone has paid for you to have that car, that entitlement is somewhat earned.

My point is, I think I was hoping to identify and discover what the difference is between me and the people of Baitcar, and since the only difference i could find isn't really a difference except in the way I react to it, there isn't much difference. I can either try to deny those feelings of self-entitlement, or I can start getting good with a screwdriver and find me a sweet Lexus.

Kincardine?!

2007-12-21T13:33:00.000-08:00

So I decided to check out the weather for Kincardine (where Luke is from and where my grandma lives). And usually you're greeted by a nice little sunshine, some rain, flurries maybe. But I was greeted with something far more odd, intimidating and downright confusing, this.
As it turns out that's the Weather Network logo. I was afraid that there was going to be a spherical tornado in Kincardine and I'd have to dump my poor Grandma there for the holidays.

Top 5

2007-12-20T16:18:00.001-08:00

Yup, you knew this was coming. Instead of going with my top 5 CDs of 2007, I'm going to go with the Top 5 CDs I listened to in 2007. That, I think, will paint a more accurate picture of what I was like this past year.

1. White Rabbits -- Fort Nightly (2007)

This is a band I discovered from a random video ad I saw online. I went from a thirty second clip to buying their disc in a matter of hours, and it didn't leave my player for four months. The most accurate way to describe them is calypso-rock, but they're so much more than that. The vast amount of rhythmic variance makes me love it as a drummer and the high energy makes me love it as a driver.

Best Song: "The Plot"

2. Tokyo Police Club -- A Lesson In Crime (2006)

I used to be able to say this sounds like nothing I've ever heard before, but that's no longer true: it turns out there a lot of skinny jeans'd kids doing the jittery indie thing. However, there's a certain indefinable quality to this CD that sets it apart. Maybe it's that I heard it first, but there's a lot of layering here that betraysan attention to detail that can get lost in a genre with such marked simplicity. I love how energetic it is (even when it doesn't mean to be) and there's a lot of creative tones, in the instrumentation, rather than in the writing (although the writing is good, too). I just wish they could do it live...

Best Song: "Cheer It On"

3. Stars -- In Our Bedroom After The War (2007)

A late entry, but this was almost my favourite disc this year. There are a few throwaways ("Personal", for one), but even those tracks I don't enjoy I respect as honest attempts that didn't strike me personally. It's a pretty mellow disc, but covers a lot of ground, from the sublime ("My Favourite Book"), open drive ("Midnight Coward"), and the epic ("In Our Bedroom After The War")

Best Song: "My Favourite Book"

4. The Junction -- The Junction (2007)

I played a show with these guys this year and was blown away with how nice and talented they were (which unfortunately tend to be mutually exclusive terms in the music business). Another one that covers a lot of music ground, with everything from rootsy stompers to screamo climaxes. Definitely not a radio friendly pop album but one that I never seem to tire of listening to, and one you can definitely sing along to.

Best Song: "Components Of Four"

5. Phantom Planet -- The Guest (2000)

Going waaaaay back, this is an album I slept on for a long time and am kicking myself for doing so. I loved their self-titled disc in 2003 but never thought about pursuing their back catalogue since everyone had told me how each of their albums was like listening to a different band. WHy check out another phase of the band when I liked the phase they were in? I wish I'd known what an amazingly listenable pop album this is. "California" is here, of course, but there are also unrequited ballads, chewing gum pop songs about girls walking by, and a wee bit of angst for variety.

Best Song: "One Ray Of Sunlight"

Honorable Mentions:

The Dandy Warhols -- 13 Tales From Urban Bohemia (1997)

Will Currie and the Country French -- Will Currie and the Country French (2007)

Sufjan Stevens -- Illinoise (2005)

Tapes n' Tapes -- The Loon (2007)

We Are Scientists -- With Love And Squalor (2005)

Mute Math -- Mute Math (2006)

Arcade Fire -- Funeral (2005)

Golden Dogs -- Big Eye little eye (2006)

Please discuss amongst yourselves.

You Might Be A Canuck

2007-12-19T08:42:00.000-08:00

Usually office forwards are pretty lame. But this one actually had me lol-ing (laughing out loud - ing?!).

It's from Jeff Foxworthy (of You Might Be a Redneck if fame) who has turned his sights on Canadians.

I have bolded my favourites

If your local Dairy Queen is closed from September through May, you may Live in Canada.

If someone in a Home Depot store offers you assistance and they don't Work there, you may live in Canada.

If you've worn shorts and a parka at the same time, you may live in Canada

If you've had a lengthy telephone conversation with someone who dialed a Wrong number, you may live in Canada

If "Vacation" means going anywhere south of Muncie for the weekend, you May live in Canada.

If you measure distance in hours, you may live in Canada

If you know several people who have hit a deer more than once, you may Live in Canada

If you have switched from "heat" to "A/C" in the same day and back again, You may live in Canada

If you can drive 90 kms/hr through 2 feet of snow during a raging Blizzard without flinching, you may live in Canada

If you install security lights on your house and garage, but leave both Unlocked, you may live in Canada

If you carry jumper cables in your car and your wife knows how to use Them, you may live in Canada

If you design your kid's Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit, you May live in Canada

If the speed limit on the highway is 100km -- you're going 110 and Everybody is passing you, you may live in Canada

If driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with Snow, you may live in Canada

If you know all 4 seasons: almost winter, winter, still winter and road Construction, you may live in Canada

If you have more miles on your snow blower than your car, you may live in Canada. What are miles?

If you find 2 degrees "a little chilly", you may live in Canada

Hullaballoo

2007-12-17T21:08:00.000-08:00

I'm kind of stuck on this one. Can someone give me a tip, please?

Aside from playing infuriating puzzles, I played infuriating sports this evening. I have an arranged play date every week with some other neighbourhood boys at the ol' hockey rink... it's a really good time, but tonight we lost really bad, 6-1. I swear the NHL had a day off and showed up in Waterloo at 1030 pm to play on the other team, in front of nobody, for kicks.

My favourite moment of tonight though was attempting to break up a potential fight..... ON MY OWN BENCH BETWEEN MY OWN TEAMMATES. HAHAHA, oh sports! They bring out the best in people! My favourite quote of the night "Want me to come over there and punch you in the f****** face?!?" AHAHAHA.

In my head I started to wonder what would happen if our team started fighting itself. I bet the other team would just get a good laugh, I'd think it was pretty funny. Especially if it was a bench clearing brawl, you know, haha, how wierd would that be? We'd all come over the boards and it would look like we're coming to fight them, then we just fight each other. What would the league do? Would we get suspended from future games?

Really, words can only say exactly what they represent using alphabetized linguistic symbols that some may tell you are quite clear and simple to understand. However, in summary, here is a picture of what happened tonight:

Spare the rod, spoil the child, so they say. I don't really get that one at all, but it seems to me that it means that the child is preferential to this rod, so...your guess is as good as mine

Winter Wonderland

2007-12-16T12:37:00.000-08:00

Today the Leb and I shovelled the driveway. More than once, actually. And between pushing passing cars through the drifts and watching said passerby stare jealously at the Leb's neon-green onesie, we couldn't help but notice that there was one Bairstowaway absent from our winter travails: Mook.

Now, what I don't want you to think is that Luke was upstairs sleeping, or drinking hot chocolate, or anything like that. Luke is an awesome housemate: he does everyone's dishes, he's tidy, and he gives amazing backrubs (we've heard). But Luke has this uncanny ability to be in Hamilton visiting that Annie girl, no doubt enjoying gluten-free treats, going to gluten-free parties and watching gluten-free movies, whenever some mad shovellin' needs doing. To wit, here is a chart describing attendance for th last two mad weekend storms:

Please note that there is a 2% margin of error. It's almost like he knows what's going to happen weather-wise.

We need an old priest and a young priest

2007-12-12T18:52:00.001-08:00

This is a true story of 415-5 Bairstow.

Tuesday started off like any other day. I answered phones, Luke played with Blackberries, and Caleb made posters of women punching barefoot male ballerinas in the junk. Little were we to know that we would soon unwittingly host a guest from the afterlife.

After playing at From Jesus With Love, my friend Jenna from Hamilton came to stay the night, as she had to meet someone in Waterloo the next morning and didn't want to drive home. I extended hospitality to Jenna and offered her our couches for the night.

When we got home we were looking for something to do, and being an English major I naturally suggested Scrabble. in what can only be described as a shocking upset, Jenna leapt out to an early lead, with her first turn netting 78 points. Only the combined literacy of myself and Mook kept her at bay, and I was able to help Mook eke out a win by sacrificing myself on the last turn. Curious indeed that Jenna, a supposed music student, was able to so handily squash an English major at his own game.

Whatever, people had beaten me at Scrabble before. Jenna and I said our goodbyes as she was leaving early and we weren't sure whether we'd catch each other in the morning. So when I woke up and came downstairs the next morning I wasn't shocked to find that Jenna was gone without a trace; the couch cushions were neatly arranged, no dishes, not even a wet spot where her shoes were. What creeped me out was that all the doors were still locked. We all had our keys, no windows were broken, nothing. She had simply vanished. I called her cell to find out how she had done it, but received no answer.

I thought about it all day at work, the evening during supper, later that evening at rehearsal, and that night while at the pub. How did she do it? Where was her exit point? Jenna was small enough to fit through certain spaces, but she had a guitar with her! What had become of that? The questions yielded no answers, however, and the matter had begun to slip to the edges of my mind when I got home. I chatted pleasantly with the Leb and Mook whilst standing in the stairwell, as is our wont after a long, tiresome day of labour. Suddnly, we noticed that the bathroom light was flickering on and off randomly. The same thing happened with the basement light. There is only one workable conclusion:

Jenna never left the house.

We quickly tried to rally our minds to determine in what form Jenna continued to inhabit the house. Was she a Black Christmas-style psychopath, waiting in the attic until we fell asleep? Was she a collection of smaller animals, mice, let's say, who had learned to create in tandem a lifelike represntation of Jenna before dispersing throughout our domicile? Was she like the Sandman in Spiderman?

After much deliberation we fanned out into the house to see if we could discover where and in what form Jenna might still be in our house. The Leb, brave soul that he is, boldly volunteered to check the basement. Armed with only his camera, he headed downstairs among the flickering lights . Minutes later we heard a scream and saw a flash. he ran upstairs to show us the image he had captured:

The spectre of Jenna.

We will spend the next few days trying to find proton packs online and equpping our dryer to contain netherworldly spirits. In the meantime we ask that if you happen to run into the spectre of Jenna at our house, please do not agitate it. The spirit seems to have control over the bathroom lights which makes things difficult for us if it's angry.

The Haus is warm

2007-12-08T22:00:00.001-08:00

Today was the official Haus warming! Thanks to those who came out to celebrate with us, it was a good long day of fun.

We started it all off with some birthday Nachos for Lord Kerrance.

Then it was dinner time. So we went and got pizza, chicken, wedges and such.

And then we played some NES. Following an extended annihilation in Dr. Mario by Pam, we went tobogganing at "Naked Dead Guy Park".

After limping back to the haus we went for dinner. Which consisted of pizza, chicken, wedges and the likes. Mr. Coffey and I decided to have some (uncut) medium pizzas rolled up as "Burritzzas", they tasted good, but it's now 1 a.m. and I am still full and regret my choice of consumption.

Thanks again to everyone who came out, it was a good time. We hope to have many more celebratory events in the future.

K O' Bday

2007-12-07T13:49:00.000-08:00

Sorry the audio is a little offset.

COMBINE-nation

2007-12-06T19:32:00.001-08:00

So last night Gus and I went to the Raptors game against the Phoenix Suns. We sat in row 11. No not level 2 row 11. Row 11! From the court! The seats were amazing. You could tell which player was which by what they actually looked like, not by squinting and trying to read jersey numbers as we've had to before.

The Raptors lost, but the game was amazing. Steve Nash is amazing. He can pass the ball to anyone, anywhere, anyway.

The half time show was an act that went by the name "Quick Change", so they announce that they're coming on and my dad blurts out "RICK JAMES!?! I thought he was dead". Even though it wasn't the Superfreak himself, Quick Change was amazing.

I found out about a local hockey team that was around for two years in the 60s called the Hensall-Zurich Combines. Now you might be thinking "Steve would love that team!", however the name combine comes from the COMBINE-nation of the two towns for one team.

Steve would probably love them anyways.

We discovered the team because my friend Jared and I were making fun of the Wellsley Applejacks at lunch. Good times.

Be sure to check out Kerry and my duet below.

Duets

2007-12-06T19:07:00.000-08:00

Caleb and I made th mistake of listening to Phantom Planet on the way home tonight and this is what happens. We'll be releasing an album soon.

Mookasso

2007-12-02T14:09:00.000-08:00

I caught Mook painting his room today. Gone is the cat.

What is your favourite part of the word...

2007-12-01T21:42:00.000-08:00

Here's a classy part of our mission to Costa Rica last summer.

Today was my grandfather's memorial and burial (of his ashes). So everyone is very solemn and some are crying and my uncle had borrowed my late grandfather's hat. So he dropped the hat on the ground and then he started laughing, which seemed quite out of place for the situation and so I asked him what he was laughing about and it turns out that there was a note inside the hat that read "Like Hell it's yours, but it back" followed by my gramps' address in case his hat got stolen at the Legion.

I wouldn't even use this book!

2007-11-30T13:20:00.001-08:00

hehe

http://flickr.com/photos/pbjellayfish/1733139871/

Story Time!

2007-11-24T20:11:00.000-08:00

So I used to get upset at my parents because my brother* and sister* were in their wedding photos and I wasn't.

*Both from my mom's previous marriage and significantly older.

Bairstow Haus vs. Columbia House

2007-11-21T19:11:00.000-08:00

So I finally got around to canceling my Columbia House DVD club membership. It turns out that it's much easier than I thought.

You just call the number and after you choose English you're presented with the following options for reasons why you're canceling your membership:

1. You're moving out of the US
2. The membership owner is a minor (or is it a miner)?
3. The membership owner is diseased (Luke told me that it might actually be deceased - the automated person had a thick American accent) - he did however admit that if he was diseased he would probably watch more DVDs.
4. All other reasons.

So finally after a long time, Columbia House and I are planning on seeing other people. It's tough. I hope that I don't run into it in the Super Market with Amazon.ca

2007-11-21T16:04:00.000-08:00

I have Gmail. One thing Gmail does is come up with ads based on your mail subjects. So for example, if I get an email requesting my drumming services, the banner ad is for used kits or music community sites. This morning I signed in and got this:

I need to stop talking about my inverted nipples on Gmail.

Black Mondaze

2007-11-20T13:50:00.000-08:00

Let us get the sad news out of the way. My grandfather died on Saturday just shortly after they removed him from life support. It was very tough but most of us stayed by his bedside until after he was gone. He was 93, he had been married for 63 years to my grandmother

If you're interested in the information for the memorial service, please let me know.

This past week for Friday night youth events we played Live Monopoly in which you roll dice and go around the neighbourhood "buying" people's houses (they know you're coming in advance, it would be funny though if they didn't). Our place was supposed to be Boardwalk and Parkplace (we needed to have each place be a colour). But sadly I couldn't make it so the oh so classy portable at the church was the expensive-blues.

Here are a couple of stories I was reminded of this past weekend:

My mother the boxer: My family was sharing all sorts of skipping school stories and so my mom told the story of when she skipped school to help her friend with her prom date. You see, her friend didn't want to go with the guy, and so she had my mom spend the day punching her in eye so she would have a black-eye and he wouldn't want to go with her. It didn't work. She just had a really redeye and he wanted to go. They're married now, well I don't know that, but it could've happened.

Steve vs. The Vatican: So my brother decided that he would take his girlfriend (now wife - from Sweden) to go and see Niagara Falls. It was a Wednesday and he figured there wouldn't be too many people. Except for a special visitor that was there that day. The Pope. So there was a ton of people there to see the Pope and get in my brother's way.

We got some mail today that was addressed to Swiss Chalet Fan, must be Luke, man that guy loves his chicken.

In addition to METAL MONDAYS we're entertaining the idea of having Black Fridaze.

The garbagemen finally stole our dishwasher, so if you come looking for our haus don't look for a dishwasher.

I got to stay at a Bed and Breakfast for the first time ever this weekend. So I think that once Kerry goes to Teacher's College Mook and I will open a Bed and Breakfast of our own called Brunch S. Allen. It's going to be awesome, and mostly be toast and cereal.

Grandfather of all updates

2007-11-15T20:28:00.000-08:00

Today I got a call from my dad letting me know that my grandfather isn't doing well, and tomorrow after my aunt from Australia gets to see him they are going to be taking him off of the life support system.

I took it pretty harshly and ended up leaving work early. I'll be taking the day off tomorrow to be with him and with the rest of the family.

It's seems messed that after 93 years of living his death is "scheduled".

Pray for him, pray for me, pray for us.

2007-11-14T16:19:00.000-08:00

Bring your daughter...

2007-11-13T13:35:00.000-08:00

Make sure that in reading this post you do not forget about Kerry's awesome re-telling of the first official METAL MONDAY!

Many of you have seen the movie Donnie Darko.
Some of you know that I enjoy that movie quite a bit.
However,
Few of you know that I ordered it on Amazon.ca from the toilet at work.

In moving we seem to have generated quite our fair share of cardboard refuse, so much so that the city won't take it unless it's properly bound with twine. Something we just don't want to do. So, in exercising benefit #3 of living so close to the church we decided to present the cardboard back to God, in the way of using the church's cardboard dumpster. A very hand thing to be near.

Speaking of garbage (heh), we have a dishwasher on our lawn. A dishwasher that predates out very existance at this house. We are guessing it came from somewhere in here, but none of us remember it and cannot figure out where it would've been from. So, I guess for now it's the marker for our haus (similar to Kristi's bike, the Pink Flamingo or the Pink Monkey), maybe it needs a pink paintjob. Well, what I am getting at with this story is on Thursday morning I heard the garbage truck and since we were discussing whether the garbage men would take it or not decided to watch from the bathroom I was occupying. So I looked through the blinds and watched the garbageman (I say that because he was a man) examine the appliance quite thoroughly, then look up frustratedly at our haus. I then acted on instinct and closed the blinds and hid up against the wall, from the garbageman!?! Why was I hiding, what was he going to do? Later talking to Mook, I found out that he was doing the same from his room and also hid from the murderous gaze of the man of garbage.

You know how you see alarm stickers on houses and you wonder whether they actually have an alarm? Well to put your mind at ease when you visit us, our sticker is a lie. Please don't rob us. We should also get a fake "Beware of Dog" sign.

I always like talking with people at dinner. It's a good time to talk. Especially about bodily functions and their weaknesses. The other day Mook and I had a great conversation about things that "go right through you" since I had been eating a lot of sunflower seeds around that time, and it was on my mind and in my...nevermind.

So my nephew has been quite the little talker (he's nearly three and lives in Sweden), and his new favourite thing to do is to inform my brother and sister in-law that they are running low on things, such as cereal. He's pretty much a food alarm.

If you could all keep my family in your prayers my grandfather (93) is not doing well. He went in for surgery last week to repair a blocked intestine and the surgery went fine but he suffered a heart attack pre-surgery. So they have him heavily sedated and aren't too optimistic about him recovering. It's tough for me. I've never had anyone as close as him die. So if you see me give me a hug, because chances are I could definitely use it.

In much better news. Mook S. Allen and I are going to be going to see Iron Maiden in Toronto on March 16!

Metal Monday I

2007-11-12T17:06:00.001-08:00

Today is a special day in the Haus. Today is the inaugural Metal Monday. It became even more special when we found out the Gino's Pizza has a pizza special whereby you get a large pizza for $5.55, walk in. We thought it would be a good idea to each get a pizza so that we could all have leftovers. Our supper looked like this:

After about 20 minutes a large pizza seemed to be too large, and dangerous. It's scary what urges a cheese-addled brain will succumb to. Witness my despair and Caleb's dairy-drunk decision making:

We also went to Canadian Tire and picked up shovels and salt and a vacuum, making sure to buy a shovel with a METAL EDGE!!!!! to stay consistent with the theme of the day. We also got a rare glimpse of Caleb's dad in action at said Tire. We met a woman and her daughter in the vacuum aisle near a display for a really nice vacuum. There were two of those flip signs with the sale price (you know, the kind that the creepy Wal-Mart happy face is always messing with). Apparently Senor Wal-Mart Face had been there because while one sign read $229.99, the other read $29.99. The woman approached a clerk and asked to get the vacuum for $29.99. When the clerk went to check the price, I helpfully pointed out that the other price was probably correct. She responded with "Yeah, but if they don't give it to me for this price it's false advertising." I could barely squeak out an "OK" before going back to the guys to let them in on it. We wound up hovering around the section trying to look like we really interested in bikes/gravy boats/GT Snowracers (well, the GTs we were interested in) while trying to listen to the conversation. Basically, Mr. Mac said that the store has the right to refuse to sell anything to anyone, and he was invoking that right to not sell her the vacuum for $29.99. Is it bad that I feel good when the customer loses an argument?

That is all.

2007-11-07T18:56:00.000-08:00

so after constant nagging, i've finally posted on here.

that's all i have to say. until next time...

just kidding... har har har.

things are grand, the house is for the most part moved in, and i feel totally relieved. sure we had our worries moving in.... fears of one of the tenants staying a little longer than they were supposed too... hot water troubles... painting... renovations done later than expected... but it's been good. after 'transition living' for the last 5 months, i'm happy with the place, and especially my BED:

now i know what you're thinking: "Isn't the bed from that movie... The Sopranos???!?!?"

YES, indeed! Or so I have been told by Angelo at Bad Boy Kitchener. Or at least the model of the bed was called "Soprano". Hahaha I just looked at Angelo and Caleb and I tried to hide the laughter building up inside! Oh Angelo.... I miss him, being a bed salesman would be a killer job. I had gone bed shopping with Caleb that day... not that you should read into that... although i wondered if the salespeople did when we both got on the same bed. also, i need a ladder to get up in that thing, cause i swear it's like 10 feet tall. anyways, enough about the bed, more about the AMAZING CAT DRAWING IN MY ROOM:

Now it might be hard to see in the picture, but there is a beautiful pencil outline of a cat face with a diamter of about 3 feet on the one wall of my bedroom. Being the kind of person who doesn't like to see things unfinished, I took the liberty of ensuring that our unknown artist's original intent was fully captured with painstaking detail and accuracy:

i hope you are as pleased as i. oh, if only the artist could see their dreams come to fruition! What would they say to us? We may never know...

also, i work and stuff right now. it's good. and i'm listening to QUEEN. Awesome.

PIECE

Comparison Esteem

2007-11-06T15:40:00.000-08:00

I moved this week, which necessitates a number of distateful tasks (cajoling people to help you, renting a truck, cleaning your room ,etc.) The onne thing I love about moving is going through boxes and boxes of my own stuff. It's at once an exciting and depressing experience. Exciting because it's fun to see pictures and items that remind me of where I've been and people I've known, and depressing because there's just so much of it. I can understand wanting to keep pictures, since they are an excellent misdirectional tool to convince people that I am more popular or better-traveled or generally cooler than I actually am. Same goes for newspaper clippings (by or about me), yearbooks, etc. These are all things I can point to and say “I was awesome in the past, and you therefore have reason to believe I am awesome now and will be awesome in the future.” They (kind of) serve a purpose.

What I'm trying to understand is why I feel the need to keep all of this other stuff that, while certainly connected to me, has very little value. Random essays, notebooks, schedules, nametags, and everything else inhabiting the wasteland of minutiae that is every 27-year-old North American’s past. For example: I threw out a terrible 3-page essay from 2001 that I got a B on and I felt a twinge of regret the moment it hit the can. Why? I am not particularly proud of the mark. The information contained therein is useless: I will be surprised should anyone ever again ask my thoughts on Albee’s Three Tall Women, and doubly surprised should I care enough about the question to research my response, and triply surprised should the essay I threw away have contained any information that a quick trip to Wikipedia couldn’t provide. My point is, recyclable properties aside, those are three functionally useless pieces of paper.
I think the reason I keep the useless essays (/nametags/schedules/doodles/and so on) is to misdirect myself into believing how awesome I am now. I look at that B six years later and I know that B would be an A if I were to write the same essay today. Nametags allow me to compare where I used to work compared to where I work now. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a certain sense of nostalgia connected to many of these items (and a wild, narcissistic hope that someday a team of O’Brienologists will need this stuff to completely understand me, their life’s study). But realistically there’s no need to have more than one paper saved per course (or per term, depending on how scholastically dedicated I was for those four months) because the best paper of that course represents the peak of my abilities at that fixed point in time. Anything else is an attempt to justify who I am now by comparing myself to who I was then.

Many of my friends post downright embarrassing photos of themselves on Facebook with captions like “OMG, look at my hair” or “pizza face” or something equally self-deprecating that would be downright fiendish if said about any other fifteen-year-old. These are the same photos that, as teenagers, they begged their parents not to give to their grandparents because it would then make the family newsletter and be seen by 50 relatives (who had likely seen them do much more awkward things already, like running around naked save for an Optimus Prime mask). All the tragic-haired pizza faces have turned it around are now willfully spreading those pictures to hundreds, maybe thousands, of people who don’t understand the poster’s childhood as a backdrop to laugh it off. They are submitting their past into the public record not to explain their present self, but to enhance it. It’s not enough to be an indie kid wearing brands no one has ever seen and being tired of bands no one has ever heard of: you have to be all that and have recovered from wearing Hypercolor with perma-stains under the pits, while swearing that Color Me Badd would be around forever. This is no different from saving B essays. In fact, by inviting (at best) friends and (more often than not) total strangers into the process, it goes from personal self-appreciation to worldwide adulation-seeking.

On its face the practice of comparison-esteem seems very self-centered and, having done no research in support of this theory, I wouldn’t be surprised if it is almost exclusively a North American pursuit. I don’t think it’s unhealthy, unless you become obsessed with proving you're a smarter, cooler, better looking, more tasteful you then you were at 15 (and if you can't do that, then you're really in trouble). I think it's important to remember that the cyclical nature of comparison-esteem requires you to make mistakes in the present so that your future self has something to gloat about. So go do something stupid. You may need it after a rough day ten years from now.

And then there were none

2007-11-05T15:02:00.000-08:00

So this is the day. The day where all three of us now reside in the haus. Before I talk anymore about that though, I will finish up with some more goingson at the convention.

I had a person from WMB who knows me, come up to me and comment on the suit I was wearing the one day (the one I ripped the crotch of) and say "you look great, remember back when you used to wear those thrift shop suits?", little did he know I was wearing a thrift shop suit, just not a 50 cent one (I've moved up into the $15-20 range nowadays).

On the last ever the under 30 MEDA crowd was hanging out in a room at the hotel and the one girl decided that she wanted some wine but didn't want to go all the way to the lobby for it. So she ordered it from the fine Hilton room service folks, so a while later we hear a knock on the door and sure enough there's a service person with a single glass of white wine on a platter for her. The cost for such a lavish glass of wine? $15.23!

As you all know we set the clocks back an hour this weekend, so being the responsible individual I am I decided that before I went out for the night on the town that I would set all my clocks (including the hotel alarm clock). I then went out for the night to a jazz club. Returned. Then went to bed. I had a great sleep and even awoke to beat the alarm clock, feeling as though I had a sleep greater than what could be offered by the number of sleepable hours, but alas I had been pro-active and compensated for the change so I went back to bed, awoke to the alarm and took my time getting ready (as I had planned on arriving fashionably late to the buffet breakfast to take pictures well ahead of the Sunday service). I took the elevator down to the Convention level only to find it strangely quiet. Then I found the service folk putting away any remnant of the buffet, and heard worship music!? What could've happened? I had been so careful! As it turns out the Hilton has some way of getting all the clocks to change, so when I broke into it to manually change the time, I screwed with it and ended up getting up an hour later (I still have no idea how that worked). Grrrrrrrrrr.

I have a painted Mexican-esque border in my room. It's very nice. Kerry has matching glassware.

Ask Mook about the cat in his room :oD

Stay tuned for the date of the house-warming party and for my "best movies of 2007" night.

Come visit us. Email me for the address.

Whether you like soccer or not this link is pretty funny.

Day three: electric boogalii?!

2007-11-03T13:41:00.000-07:00

today was the big day, the event that everyone came for, the Annual General Meeting (featuring my majestic Powerpoint masterpiece).

Turns out there's another Steve Martin here. No not the funny one from Hollywood, or the farmy one from Listowel (I must say I am a little disappointed myself).

In one of the speeches a man made mention of the CNN tower, that got a good snicker from the crowd that got it. But don't worry ted turner still doesn't own our beloved former-tallest-building.

I got really hungry late last night and upon discovering that none of the places around were open I tried to order something to go at the hotel restaurant, the man said no, but that I could go to my room and call down and order room service so that they can charge me extra for it.

I just ran into senor coffey (johns older brother), he's singing tonight for our enjoyment.

MEDA has a product called Microvest which is a Micro-investment service. Guess the only thing i can think of whenever it gets mentioned? It's a good thing that i wasn't around to have to design that logo for them.

I had an older gentleman ask me today if i was canadian, he then followed it up by telling me i looked like Prince Charles' son, then he told me i was handsome (I was deceivingly wearing a suit at the time giving me a +4 Handsome +2 Dashing and -3 Agility. If it wasn't for the loss in agility I would wear more suits). Watch out Kristi I am apprently the biggest thing since Matlock and big band music.

Yard tomorrow be the last day

...and on the third day...

2007-11-02T19:31:00.000-07:00

28 hours in two days, that probably is a good way to start this entry. The camera is back I'm business and I am 2/3 done my appointed goal of 1,000 pictures of Convention. Tomorrow is the big day, the Annual General Meeting.

At the Hilton we use those magnetic entry keys and I had to go and get another because I managed to de-magnatize mine; maybe it was the swim, hottub or sauna I don't know, but I am going to chalk this one up to the man.

MEDA is on the front section of the KW record Etc. section tomorrow, check it out. Speaking of being published a guy from a Mennonite magazine (no not the Herald) approached me to use some of by photos, that would be the time any of my photos has gotten published (kristi aren't you proud of your non-Menno?)

Apparently I are lunch from the forbidden table of sandwiches (of the knowledge of good and evil) today at lunch. They had told most of the staff not to eat there, but neglected to tell me.

We had our Windows Vista laptop that is hooked up to the projector go nuts and make the desktop icons enormous, now it's fixed but it was hilarious at the time becuase they were probably 20
feet across on the screen.

Another day, a few more dollars.

I think Mook moves in tomorrow, go visit him.

Convention day 2

2007-11-01T19:06:00.000-07:00

300 Pictures in our brand new Canon Rebel XTi may be dead. We should've gone with good ol' reliable Nikon. That is my first convention frustration. There'll probably be more to come stay tuned.

Where else other than a Christian Microfinance organization's Convention would you have a guy singing hymns that talk about finances and investments? Don't get me wrong, I think that they're good and make sense I just think it'll be a while before we have them in the regular line-up at WMB anytime soon.

I got to mwwt up with my sister for dinner and attempt some shopping at American Apparel (blasted Value Village ruining my abilty to shop at regular stores)

In haus news: it turns out that our current furnace is toast (no it's not made of toast), and we need to get a new one. I guess it's better it happen now than in the dead of Winter (late February). We also have a squatter (harass Mook to post the story).
Thus ends another day of Convention 08.

Goodnight and Godspeed (you! Black emperor)

convention update - day one

2007-10-31T20:18:00.000-07:00

good evening everyone (as I once again pretend that people read this hlog) i am currently sitting the basement of the swanky Toronto Hilton ( they claim Paris doesn't work at this one - i don't think she woeks at all).

So far today has been good, I arrived at work only to shortly thereafter be greeted by a stretch explorer limo ready to take us to Toronto, equipped with ita very own British-accent equipped driver (a sort of mobile butler-like chap).

One of the speakers at the event is bringing along her dad (no big deal right? Wrong!), his name his David David! I am glad that they let me know ahead of time so that I can stifle my surprise when/if I meet him. I guess it's an Anglicized equivalent of a double Mohammed (probably not at all).

I room news I have a room with two double beds to just me. I think that I should push them together to make an über-bed (emperor-sized?).

That's about it from convention 07 (for now). In case you're wondering, yes I did work today, just not as much as a usual day and not as much as I will in the following days.

The long, hard road to Bairstow

2007-10-30T14:33:00.000-07:00

So, as the Leb noted earlier, we are moving in this week. Huzzah! Roadblocks we have encountered thus far:

Internet: Apparently there was some massive fraud at good ol' 415-5 in the past, so much so that Rogers out-and-out REFUSED to set us up for the Interweb until they ran a full credit check on me. I thought to have one of the other guys do it but reconsidered since between the two of them they've downloaded 2/3s of the Interweb illegally already. I also got made fun of by Corinne, the CSR who I called to get this straightened out, because the boys insisted we go with the more expensive EXTREME Hi-Speed Internet rather than the Express version, which is exactly 1 MBPS slower for $7.00 less monthly and she thought it was silly to pay more for that little. Forget you, Corinne, I will sleep better knowing that, despite me losing $2.33 a month, my connection to the internet is EXTREME like Paul Heyman (wikipedia.org will help you there, friends).

Gas: Tell me if this seems weird to anyone else. Tenant leaves house. Next tenants are moving in immediately. Union Gas cannot just come and check the meter for the last billing, oh no; they must also turn OFF the gas, so that we have to schedule an appointment three days later for them to come back and turn ON the gas, therfore leaving us (well, Luke) without hot water and heat for three days. Thankfully it's only three days as initially it was going to be a week. While it would have been undeniably cool to live like hobos in the church for a week (I would have loved to see Paul Atkinson find us in his office with a barrel-fire), maybe we're better off this way.

Electricity: Luke is taking care of this, which means it's going fine. Unless, of course, it's not? I don't know.

My stuff: OK, I have a lot of stuff. a LOT. I spent the better portion of this week going through hundreds of old CDs that I haven't listened to in forever, cherry-picking the two or three songs I like so I can throw out the ones I don't want. Unless, of course, there's someone out there who wants their very own copy of Running Season by Flashlight Brown? or perhaps the X-Treme Tracks compilation that I was so hot for in 1993, featuring Toad The Wet Sprocket and Ned's Atomic Dustbin? I think I may set up a box in our front hall full of these CDs that says you MUST take one if you stay more than 15 minutes.

Enough for now. Anyone who can help me move on Sunday, that would make my life a lot easier. See you soon!

Lord Kerrance

The hlog and the best thing ever

2007-10-27T13:50:00.000-07:00

Huzzah, finally the oft-spoke about (by us at least) hlog has finally materialized! I for one am excited for it's appearance and for what it's mere presence means. It signifies that the date that Lord Kerrance (Kerry), Mook S. Allen (Luke S. Allen) and myself (the Leb (Caleb)) move in together.

You might ask yourself, why do you keep spelling blog with an 'h'? Well my peers, it's because it's a log of the goings-on at our haus, so I've decided to call it a hlog.

In case you're curious we move in to our new place at varying times between October 1 - November 4, so come by and visit soon after. Also news of a hauswarming party will come soon. My suggestion is that it be NES themed. Any other suggestions will be mulled-over by the Haus Council.

In other news, I bought an iPod Touch (16 Gb) this week, and it's the greatest thing of all time. So whilst I am in Toronto at a work convention I will be able to keep up with how much damage I cause to my room while jumping on my King-sized bed. Or mayhaps play some NES games on it while I am supposed to be working.