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.

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.

Staying Clean While Travelling

My brother finally returned Thursday evening. The first thing he did was take a shower. The second thing was eat mama's congee. The third thing was take a nap. (Thus sums up my brother.)

When we folded the laundry earlier today, he held up his white shirt and said, "Oh wow, it's clean."
"Why didn't you guys have time to do your laundry or shower while on tour?"
"That's because we didn't have time. There wasn't a shower on the bus."
"Well, I mean when you have a day off you could rent a motel room and just shower or something."
"That's because we had too many expenses on our off days so we didn't get any."
"Well, I figure one of your expenses could have been, oh, maybe... do your laundry, and another one would have been, um, take a shower? I'm sure your fans would appreciate a non-smelly band when you perform."
After a pause, I mentioned that they could have gone to a science lab somewhere along the way and get a free shower that way. "You know, the chemical showers?"
"Where would we have time to go to a science lab?"
"A school... you know, just step in there, ask to use their shower of some sort..."

[On second thought, they have showers at a gym and in the locker rooms at school as well so you could just go in there instead. I didn't think of that at the time because I spend all my time teaching science for chrissakes.]

Anyway, his very nice girlfriend is also visiting this week, so they're out picnicing at the moment. It is finally a sunny day, after weeks of rain rain rain RAIN cloud rain rain cloudrainrain SUNrain. In the meantime, I have completely opened my windows and am right now experiencing the hayfever that I should have been going through weeks ago when everyone else had it.

SCHOOL SAVED THANKS TO THE GOVERNMENT

In other news, I was called to go up to the school yesterday morning. I had arrived after a press conference given at the school, stating in much pomp and pagentry that the school will finally receive money to build its extention for the high school, thus saving these students from being shipped out downtown in the future for years to come. (That is, until all these elementary school kids get up to high school and then there may be even more problems.) As for the lack of news coverage online... well, there was apparently a communiqué sent to everyone but only Global news came by and there was a short 2 minute segment yesterday at 6pm.

Tour of My Neighbourhood

Following my habit of reading the SA forum, not joining because it costs $10US (although that might change into $10CA at this rate) and then posting about the topic here, I give you a Tour of My Neighbourhood (versus "Tour of My Town" because I really, really don't know that much, come to think of it).




WARNING: large file size (~2 MB)
Goddamn let me fix this problem... >:( Picasa won't let me send large photo sizes :(

EDIT: OK, I've made the above image into an image map, so you'll have to click the different quadrants to get one part at a time.

Those of you who aren't too familiar with Quebec, there's very little public transit going out to the really boonie-like places. For instance, the movie theatre does have a bus line going there... once every two hours or something equally as ridiculous. Also, the entire city is white so there's not much reason to put "REDNECKS LIVE HERE" everywhere.

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Yet another article about Islands. Hilarious (and at the same time, NOT hilarious) if you know what is going on there, and you know who the article is talking about...

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?