The ALEX Show

My mighty brother is having his graduation recital at McGill on the 16th of December. I don't know much else besides this at the moment, but I'll be updating this post when I get more details other than "PLZ COME TO THE MOST IMPORTANT DAY IN MY LIFE."

Anyway, he wants everyone to go to this event. Absolutely everyone. So if you're in Montreal on this day, please go for me, because if I can't make it (which is possible) I will be very, very, very sad, and I want everyone to tell me that he played like the genius he is. :(:):):)

EDIT: So he finally sent me the details. It's in Pollack Hall, 8:30 p.m. on the 16th.

EDIT 2: My, how terrible is this? He didn't even invite me to his Facebook group until I asked him where the thing was. >:(

Islands in the Junos, That is What We Are

Stephen pointed out that Islands is nominated for a Juno, for Alternative Album of the Year (2006, I presume, tho the album came out 2005). Of course, as I pointed out before, bro didn't actually record with them, which makes it kind of a pity. Nevertheless, it is a nice recognition, and should they win I will still be very happy for him. (Tho for some reason their website is down... @_@ )

While looking for info on the Juno nod, Jorgh found an interview my bro did for some website. I'll let you decide who was being more facetious and who was being more of an ass.

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So finally I have a bit of time to write about some other dull things about Waterloo than food and... food. For instance, the smell. (Yay for a nose that picks up everything. And yay for a topic that will ensure that absolutely no one will come visit us here.)

It smells like something different every day when I walk out into the hallway and to the rear-facing apartment stairwell in the morning to get to the car in the parking lot. Sometimes it smells like someone's cooking. Sometimes it smells like someone's butt. Once in a while it smells like absolutely nothing. That is the day when they clean the carpets.

But for some insane reason, it smells like dog pee more than anything else. And cigarette smoke. And then a mix of both. And other things I fear to mention.

You'd probably say, "Why not just avoid this stairway to stinky hell?" Well, I am a creature of habit and thus after learning of this particular exit leading to the parking lot is the easiest way to the car, lugging two heavy textbooks all the way around a 50+ apartment sized building every morning doesn't strike me as an acceptable tradeoff.

Anyway, if you do come visit (which by now you might say "OMGNOWAI"), with a method of personal transit be it automobile, moped, or bigfoot, you can avoid the corridor of perpetual stink and you are welcome to park on the street.

Merry Christmas!

I wish you all very happy holidays this season, and hope you are spending time with your loved ones and enjoying your time together, despite the less-than-white weather on the east side of the country and pretty awful dumps the west was blessed with.

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And without furthur ado, here is the year-end round-up. I will probably forget to do this later this week from the miscellany of things to worry about - like getting a car and figuring out what I'll be doing in Chicoutimi after Christmas.

The many things (or lack of things) that happened this year are more or less well documented on my blog. Thus, dear readers (new and old and in-between) can peruse the archives and get the gist of each moment from A to Z - agony to zen.

January
Had weird dreams, and was also introduced to supply teaching at the adult education center. Posted some interesting art, along with a first foray in vectorizing. Douchebaggery continues.

February
Started to regularly supply teach at a school where it felt like total chaos. Most likely not my fault.

March
Stopped supply teaching at the school because it was total chaos. Not really my fault. Also: whining about taxes again.

April
Uploaded some cover songs/music on Tindeck produced by myself on violin and a shitty microphone on a headset. Surprised the bejeezus out of Norm. Somehow a minor internet celebrity stumbles upon this blog. And my brother starts becoming more of a real life celebrity.

May
Start of gardening season because the snow didn't melt until then. More douchebaggery occurs.

June
Actual training for Run for the Cure began, when I could have started earlier. The school year wound down with a good note, with the first foray into supply teaching French for elementary school, involving a violin...?

July
Wrote some short stories, attempting some creativity. Went to Boston! And Waterloo. But Boston! Sorry... Bwawston.

August
Focused on running some more, and attending the third wedding of the summer. Some more vector photoshopping!

September
Sketch that turned into a t-shirt (idea). Ran a bunch more. There was some sort of birthday in there somewhere.

October
Ran the race! Revisited Waterloo with Jorghnassen to help him move in. Hives. :(

November
Went to Montreal for the teacher's convention, and ended up staying two weeks due to being sick and losing my voice. :(:(

December
Spent some time in Montreal to help Jorghnassen become a doctor. ;) On a whim, I answered an ad for a teacher needed in Waterloo, and surprisingly enough I got the job. Now agonizing over getting a used car.

And to end on a cute note, here is a flash game about a bunny. Snow included!

Still Goddamn Si-*koff koff koff*

I spent the last two nights in various states of unsteady sleep and coughing myself awake every hour. My lame treatment of doses of cold water, and attempts at just keeping my eyes open until fatigue set in, don't seem to work, but I am convinced that I will be better soon.

In a surprising twist of fortune, the contact at the EMSB told me to email her my CV "ASAP" this morning (after admitting that she had almost given up on me but then realizing that I had been sick all week), which led to a phone call a few hours later from a principal out in Montréal-Nord, which now leads to an interview tomorrow morning out there. I will probably capitalize on Ian's idea on getting a 100-pak of Fisherman's Friend and at least stumble through the interview without hacking up spittle or whatnot.



In yet another piece of (old) Islands news, my brother published an article in Chart Magazine, September 2006 (page 62). I remember my sister showing us the article earlier this year, and yesterday she had just sent me a pdf scan of the page. It's not about anything in particular (... it's called "Who I Have The Hugest Crush On") but it does have that popsicle picture and a sketch by his friend Sinbad at the bottom of the page.

O, T.O.

Gone for a while, eh? I'm still hiding from the real world in Toronto, at Eddie and Rebecca's place. I attended a wedding (second cousin's, if a godfamily even counts in the first place) and spent some time being driven crazy by my sister, mother, and brother all at the same time.

Also, I had spent a day with Davy and Stefan up in Chicoutimi before leaving for Toronto, but I won't talk about that much for the moment because I feel all of the following:

1. Bloated from the 9 day long EATASTICFEST called "meeting with family and gorging ourselves."


2. Bloated, having forgotten my running shoes at Jorgh's, and my mother forgetting to bring my running clothes after I told her to bring them.


3. Sleepy because it's fricking 2 a.m. after running around the EX all day and eating.


4. Irritated because I can't sleep.


5. I think my eye is infected because it's been very hard to not gouge it out from pain.

I'll be back in the province (at least) tomorrow, if weather, road conditions, car condition, driver condition, and hair condition permits. Meanwhile, VOTE FOR ME! VOTE pledge for me.

Islands in the Magazine That is What We Are

For chrissakes, don't buy this magazine if you're not gonna read it. 

Islands

My brother, in his infinite wisdom with computers, messaged me last night with the most urgent and legal message, "I NEED WINDOWS XP I FUXX0RED MY LAPTOP THERE'S A VIRUS I NEED THE ISO NOW." (Actually, he's not that direct - it's condensed from a hundred questions of "Why do you need it?" and "What the hell happened???" to which he replied "I NEED IT NOW AND FAST.")

Well, I'd gladly help with less crazy solutions if I were in the same country as him, but he is on tour right now for a whole month (yet again). He was in Washington DC, and he also mentioned that this month's SPIN magazine had a small feature on the band. I asked him if it was this feature, and he promptly replied, "No, that pic of me sucks." Agreed. He said, "GO GET THE MAGAZINE AND SHOW MOMMY OUR PICTURES."

So today I went out to go hunt down the magazine (an english magazine in a french redneck neighbourhood, figures), but it's $5.50 for a compilation of music bands I'm sure to never hear about nor be familiar with ever. And on top of that, I stood there for about twenty minutes in Archambault scanning it and I couldn't find the article, so I left without buying anything.

On the plus side, I did take a look at their instruments, and they have a cello for 800 bucks. :) and :(

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Thus ends the day of yet another unemployed bum in this city. Tomorrow, featuring a second run to Archambault and buying the stupid magazine because I missed the damn thing.

I'm finally home

I called up my sister on Wednesday, and the following conversation ensued:

E: Hi, it's me.
M: Oh. Hi.
E: What are you doing on Friday?
M: Why?
E: Well, I was wondering if you had already planned something, or whatever... So...
M: Why? What's happening on Friday?
E: Um... cuz it's your birthday?
M: ... Oh yeah... I forgot.

It's not typical that she would forget such things, unless there is something even more pressing on her mind that she deems more important. Like furniture shopping in Toronto this weekend. But she claims such days are nonsense or useless, in the sense that gift giving and celebration shouldn't have an artificial reason. (Like turning a year older, or because a certain religious icon was born on some random day in winter, for instance.) Nevertheless, I had a quick supper of Indian take-out at her house that evening, just before she took off with her boyfriend to Toronto.

Other events this March Break included making sushi for Lil V, Stephen, Jorghnassen and his brother. For this purpose, I had the distinct pleasure of walking to Parc and Mont-Royal with Jorgh, finding no fish store, hunting for the fish store up to St-Joseph and Parc, then walking back home, in the rain. Who would believe that just a week before, there was a pile of snow that fell on QC, when at that moment inches of rain ran wildly through the streets of Montreal? The raw tuna in the maki rolls made it all better.

Norm had recommended the fish store on Parc, although in his defence he didn't remember which intersection it was on. I would usually double check such things in the Yellow Pages (or the Telus Pages, their machiavellian rivals), but in our drooling haste we neglected to do so. Just the description of his fish excursion that he gave us earlier this week was enough to entice us in our own journey. It may have been part of his evil plans. Curses, you fiendish rapscallion!

On the subject of my odd writing styles of late, it is a plan to craft a fantasy novel with Jorgh. I have attempted to commence (read: slept and ate and avoided) personal projects that I have listed often. Draw, record, work on... Well, with Jorghnassen's collaboration, I think co-writing a novel would probably be the only one I could complete properly. If only it were that easy to start...

We thought that this week we could take some time to look for fantasy novels to inspire and guide us on our own attempts. Jorghnassen and I spent a day wafting through book stores and their sections of fantasy novels and titles only to come up with rather mediocre or stupid collections. Then he got tired of searching and asked me to order stuff online.

One of my career aspirations, forgotten long ago for more concrete goals, once had been to become a writer (of short stories, actually). It is exceedingly difficult, though, to believe that this person, having not cracked open a non-comical book in years, could become such a writer. I used to write in high school, but that sappy and nonsensical trite that I spewed could not have held much water in the cutthroat writers' world. In CEGEP, I was introduced to the deeper and more satisfying aspects of reading and writing, much different from the high school book report or recitations of Animal Farm.

But I had forgone the path of languages, due to the overwhelming pressure from without and within to pursue the sciences. Then I had no idea what to do with it (as such things happen often to us science students), so I became a teacher. On the other hand, I do appreciate being a teacher and spreading the merits of being scientifically literate. (So, why fantasy novels? I'm not sure... but I'm certain it's more fun to write.)

Another career aspiration was to become a math teacher. Indeed, I am.

And yet another career aspiration was to become a musician. My brother is now fulfilling this in my stead, so I don't feel so bad. On the other hand, he was rather upset that my mother is upset that he would prefer this than to return to regular studies, I imagine. And he called me while I was at Jorgh's place to loudly make his point.

But such are the pressures of a life where East meets West. Is it too much to make a career change when everything is uncertain?

Everybody was Kung-fu Fighting!

T-5; 12:00 p.m. on the dot ++ 33 minutes - felt like i was gonna throw up in the middle of it ++ 500 paces from home ~150 m!

I gave up on the song names. Unless you have ideas.

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"Ah yeah, ah yeah, you gotta believe!" Nostalgia is always a big seller. For instance, Ghostwriter, the series that was on PBS and not the "new" one on CBS, was one of our favourite shows in our pre/early teen days. At least for some of us. Ok, maybe I was the only one who watched the dang thing. Anyway, it was uncanny how sometimes when you look too hard, you find people in reality who look like those on television. Which happened at my school, actually. Well, I thought he did anyway. Not only that, but B also thought our friend's best guy friend in another country looked like Jamal (Sheldon Turnipseed). Should we actually ever get another look at the photo, I would highly doubt it anyway.

I digress. It was a thread on the Something Awful forums a few days ago. But they mentioned on that thread the absolute best math show ever for kids was on PBS, the wonderfully 90s quétaine SQUARE 1. My brother would even watch the "Mathman" segment where a Pac-man clone with a football helmet would mouth-flappingly wander around the board looking for specific numbers or shapes that would satisfy the quest of the day. It was an extremely rare skit where he would actually not fail, since every single other skit he would defiantly eat something wrong and get pulsated to bits by a tornado. We all gasped in unison at that miracle.

What does that have to do with me? Sort of how I expect people to react when I tell them I finish the 5 km run without stopping.

Typical attention whoring brother.

No One Wants to Know What We Think.

Besides getting up and hearing that those votes were still being counted, I spent the last hour shivering in my room. Where's the heating, dammit?

A piece of good news; the Quebec buses are no longer on strike as of today. So I can technically go outside and enjoy the autumn in old city... but that would require 4.20$ and I need that money to go sub at DDO tomorrow. :) (On the other hand, the fact that the bus drivers are getting a 15% raise is not settling well in my poor-assed commuter belly.)

In other news, my brother and sister should have arrived in HK yesterday evening. I hope they bring back lots of pictures and things because I'm tired of being left behind. :(

Gross

So I was minding my own business this morning, shuffling around preparing for my family to arrive later this evening. (At this moment, Eddie, Rebecca, and Alex are stuck in traffic out in Montreal, being Thanksgiving weekend and all...) I had just cleaned some dishes, and satisfied with chores at the moment. 


Then suddenly I heard a loud noise, equivalent to a belch. I was unsure what happened so I investigated the sink. It is as you see here. Needless to say, I was not amused. 


I tried to flush it out with water, but as you see here, it didn't help. So I took the plunger and made one mighty plunge... which promptly released the water and crap, but broke the plunger. So much for being handy-dandy. By the way, it smelled as bad as it looks. I don't even want to know what it was.