Clearly, The Studying Goes Well

Back Like That - Ghostface Killah feat. Ne-Yo

A couple of YouTube things I forgot to bring up last time:

Here's another failed pilot, Super Nerds. It stars Brian Posehn and Patton Oswalt. Don't watch the whole thing, it kind of sucks. It's pretty amateurish and just not that well written. It has its moments though. I don't know why I'm even bothering to post it. Oh yeah, Sarah Silverman is in it. There ya go, Brian.

Here's a funny video of a top baseball prospect throwing a bat at an umpire. I read about it before searching for it on YouTube and it was reported that the player threw the bat underhanded and it hit the umpire in the chest. I thought, "Well, maybe it was an accident." Two things: 1) No, it was not. 2) That's one of the most accurate and most vicious underhand throws I've ever seen.

Unfortunately, my neck does look like a vagina.

4/30/2006 10:14:00 PM | Comments (0)

The End Of An Era II

Nothing Compares To You - Sinead O'Connor

I can't believe it. I can't.

There are things in life you love so much...things you care about so much. And these things are gone so suddenly. You get used to seeing something every day, exactly where you expect it to be. Suddenly all the laughs you shared, all the tears you cried, all the emotions that were felt become so magnified, so enormous that you're afraid just the thought of it will devour you. You think to yourself, "I can't go back there. It will never mean what it used to." And it won't. Why do things have to change? God.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you didn't already know:

McDonald's has abandoned the McDeal. I only wish I'd just read an article about it, but no, I had to get it thrown in my face today before I went to work. I walked into the McDonald's near Food Basics, with exactly four dollars and twenty seven cents in my hand ready to order a Filet O' Fish combo and what happens?

"There's no McDeals anymore, sir."

Despair.

Also from the "Ladies and gentlemen, if you didn't already know" department:

The Death of EmoKid21Ohio. Indeed, it was a hoax. Honestly, I'm both impressed and relieved. This guy did a great job, I was fooled until people started calling him out in the comments section. There's a lot more compliments I could throw out there, but it's all been said by others in the YouTube community so I'll leave it at that.

So, um, do you date immature men?
Almost exclusively.

4/29/2006 03:20:00 AM | Comments (0)

YouTube, YouTube, YouTube - LINKS THRICE OVER.

- Here's one of those "My Life. My Card." commercials for American Express featuring Wes Anderson. That guy's so cool.

- Juggernaut Bitch (I felt it would only be right with bold font) was a once-in-a-lifetime, lightning-in-a-bottle deal, but those guys soldier on with Spider-Man: Fellowship of the Lube - Part I and Part II.

Classy.

And why not? Even if you know you'll never hit perfection again, why stop doing the things you love? You play for the love of the game.

But thank God that Jordan retired forever in '98.

An added bonus is being reminded of just how bad that show sucked - that whole blotched Secret War bit in particular. ...I mean Madame Web? SHIT SON.

- This is some crappy video footage of the original Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers set. Not very long, but it's worth it just for Billy's (I'm just assuming those were their real names) weird reaction when Tommy comes in. I want to watch a Behind The Music type documentary of this show so badly it hurts.

I don't know about you, but I got some weird weekday morning flashbacks from this. When this show came out (Grade 4?), I used to wake up at 6:55 AM everyday and run over to watch in on the television in my parents' room. But I would always miss the last five minutes of it because the yellow school bus to Crosby came right before 7:30. And now...I wake up at the same time...but now there's no Power Rangers to motivate me into getting up out of bed. Too bad.

And just in case you were wondering...here's that where are they now? page I posted like seven months ago. Just thought I'd point that out for absolutely no reason.

I KNOW EVERYTHING!!!

Someday...you'll come visit this site only to get redirected to YouTube.com. We've already begun the process...it's only a matter of time.

4/25/2006 10:54:00 PM | Comments (0)

Today marks the beginning of my four days of exam hell


... as well as Garbage Day in Kingston.

4/25/2006 03:51:00 PM | Comments (0)

"You're Not As Lowly As You Think You Are," She Said

Letters From The Wasteland - The Wallflowers

It's another post about Adriana.

She asked me to check the price of this haircare product today. Instead of calmly strolling over to the health and beauty section of the store, I did a running vault over some railing. "If you think I would have done that for anyone else," I wanted to say, "you're crazy." If anyone had actually noticed that impressive feat they would have assumed that I was trying to impress her. This is untrue. I don't do these things in front of her because I want her to think I'm great, I do them because I think she's so great. There's a difference there.

I get jealous when she talks to the dairy guy. His name is Kenny and they go to Father McGivney together. He's also a lanky Chinese guy. I wonder if he's interested in her. She was on her break trying to talk to him, but I was conveniently right next to them changing a garbage can and being a general nuisance. I think she likes me better, but as far as I know they might be best friends at school. This is the sort of thing that keeps me up at night.

In fact, I spent most of the day finding excuses to be near her. This was strange because I swore to myself last Saturday that I was going to cut ties with everyone at work, since I was planning to quit soon. I can't with her, though. I mean, I will, but not now. At the end of the day, I knew she was going to leave as soon as her dad showed up (as she always does) and I was hoping to stay near the store exit so I could say, "Bye". My manager sent me to do something in the back and when I came back, she had already left. I often, often wonder if it is as difficult for her to leave as it is for me to see her go.

I'm not telling anybody that I'm leaving in August. Not because I'd be embarrassed if people made a big deal about it, but because I'm afraid nobody will care. Especially Adriana. I mean, I'd love it if she found out I was leaving and she begged me to stay. If she said something like, "You're the only reason I haven't quit this place," or, "You're the nicest, sweetest guy I know! Don't leave." That isn't going to happen. I think I'll just discreetly sneak out the back door, so to speak.

The people have spoken. Allow me to bask in the glow.
J.D.! Guess what?
Not now Turk, I'm glow-basking.

4/23/2006 09:04:00 PM | Comments (0)

I Got Home Late, Otherwise There Would Have Been THREE Woefully Insubstantial Posts In One Day

Somebody Else's Song - Lifehouse

I went to my cousin Cynthia's wedding and other than the weather, it was nice. It was short and I could see the groom, Kevin, squirming because he's a non-Catholic being forced to have a distinctly Catholic wedding. He's a good guy. The whole thing was weird for me because I've been to a few weddings, but this is probably the closest I've ever been related to a bride or groom. She's like a sister to me. Her and her family used to visit us in Avon all the time. We used to do all kinds of kid stuff, though nothing in particular comes to mind. We're part of the same generation and when someone from your generation takes an enormous step forward like this, it is, to say the least, jarring. I was happy for her because she's someone who has always looked out for me and who has always worked hard at everything she does. She deserves all the good things that come her way.

The after party was kind of a drag because I'm suffering what appears to be a combination of a scraped ear-lobe and the common cold. When the dancing started, I didn't particularly want to move. I'm not sure whether it was because I felt sick or because I'm tired of dancing by myself.

I don't know if you guys have read the Wikipedia entry for "Juggernaut Bitch", but here it is. The synopsis is handled with just the right amount of sarcasm. The quotables section is both necessary and unnecessary. Necessary because it reveals even more stuff that you might not have heard the first time; unnecessary because it's pretty much every line in the damn video. Two of my favourite bits I didn't hear the first few times are the brainwashed astronaut's saying, "Must shoot nigga", and Rogue popping out of the floor and saying, "End of the road, dick eata!" It's such a beautifully layered production.

I'm nobody. Nobody special. Not like you.
Everybody is special. Everybody. Everybody is a hero, a lover, a fool, a villain, everybody.

4/23/2006 12:39:00 AM | Comments (0)

Two (woefully insubstantial) posts in one day?

A FOX-rejected 1999 pilot that starred Jack Black and his talking motorcycle voiced by Owen Wilson, directed by Ben Stiller?

Insanity, thy name is Heat Vision and Jack!

4/22/2006 09:54:00 PM | Comments (0)

The Medallion is playing on Spike TV right now. I watched it for a couple minutes before finally recognizing what it was, and the realization actually caused blood vessels in my brain to rupture.

I'm going to go and lie down in the middle of 16th Avenue and hope for an instant death.

4/22/2006 02:52:00 PM | Comments (0)

I don't know how many people I've told, but if you haven't been keeping up on The Yakville Times, you should know that I started my first fulltime JAY OH BEE this week. Four days in, and despite what I was thinking earlier, it turns out that it actually wasn't the best idea I've ever come up with in deciding to jump into the fulltime gig just a weekend removed from school to "minimize any possible adjustment period" (Yak's Mind, May 2006).

Still...I'm hardly in a position to complain about anything right now.

The life I've lived so far has been good to be, and has afforded me the chance to experience a wide range of different types of depression. Now I'm not going all British on you now, because to say that you've experienced depression isn't the same as being depressed. Although it is indeed a fine line, like the difference between being a wine connoisseur and just a regular old alcoholic.

I've had a chance to taste many types of depression, but I have to say...it's an entirely new type of depression you feel when you wake up at 6:45 AM and know that you won't be home again for another 12 hours...and you realize for the first time this is how it's going to be for the rest of your life...if you're lucky. I mean...with the level of job security in this industry in this day and age...you never know.

But once they pay me, I'll be back to walking on sunshine again. And don't it feel good. See, I'm a simple man, I really am. Just directly deposit a lump sum of money into my savings account every so often, and all my problems vanish into the air, Shinobi-style.

So I'm proud to say that I've tasted a new vintage this week. A bittersweet melody of tastes - one that starts off with the promise of sweetness, quickly replaced by a flat, dull, bitter taste...and ends in a delightful splash of mint every two weeks.

A strong crop, really.

Also, today a bunch of people in my department went out to lunch, and since The Bossman invited me too, I decided to tag along. Though at this point, he could have strewn a box full of paperclips on the floor and asked me to pick them up with ma anus, and I would still have gladly done it.

I held my own on the small-talk end as best as you could expect, but I just don't have that much to work with when they start talking about gas prices, Canadian politics, and real estate values in GODDAMN BURLINGTON. Still, I got some clean shots in against The Bossman, developed some comradery with my fellow fish-out-of-water chinks, and the dude who sits in the cubicle next to mine seems solid. Like when I eventually snap and decide to steal everything before burning this motherfucker down to the ground, if I ask him if he wanted in on this action, there's a 30% chance he'd do it.

But after listening to where some of these guys commute in from everyday (I don't even recognize some of the places that were mentioned - I think they were just making shit up), I couldn't help but feel a bit better about my own (relative lack of) commute to and from work. It was a bit like having a conversation with a terminal cancer patient or MaxSnax from Ajax...but like seven times over. You can't help but feel better about yourself.

Anyway, due to some people arriving late, retardedly slow service, and insane amounts of inane conversation, my lunch break for today took AN HOUR AND A HALF. And my grilled chicken sandwich and glass of Coke cost me TWELVE BUCKS!!! You fucking white people - so crazy, I love you.

So work is good. I hope they don't fire me until after I manage to steal a couple more highlighters and crappy spiral notebooks from the supply closet.

"PC Load Letter?" What the fuck does that mean?"

4/20/2006 09:10:00 PM | Comments (0)

Something Has To Change. Everything Has To Change.

Lightning Crashes - Live

I was in the hospital today visiting my grandmother and the above song was playing in the cafeteria. My cousin noticed it and I was like, "How appropriate." He didn't know what I was talking about and I explained to him (as you all surely know) that the song is about a woman dying and a child being born and yada yada yada. Watch the video. Then I remarked that whoever chose this song is either being obvious or being funny. Or both. I thought it was part of some preset playlist, but when it was over I realized it was another random song on the radio. Lightning Crashes in a hospital cafeteria. One of God's little jokes, I suppose.

*****

I woke up the other day and realized that there isn't a single area in my life that I'm even somewhat satisfied by.

School: I'm going to let you all in on a little secret. I'm probably one or two bad assignments away from being put on academic probation. Or as I like to call it, "Ack-Probe". Even worse, my motivation for improving is so low because I genuinely fear that the things I'm learning in my courses have no use in the real world.

Job: I still work at Food Basics. There's nothing else to say here, really.

Girl: Girl? Girl?!? Seriously, what girl would I be talking about here? It's depressing. You know what kills me? Having so many female friends. It kills me, I'm not going to lie. Part of my unwillingness to find some new girl is that the girls that I know are already freaking incredible and whoever I one day decide to pursue is going to have to live up to those lofty standards. Everytime I sing the praises of one girl I know to another girl I know, the question of "Well, why don't you ask her out?" inevitably arises. I don't have a precise answer, but there are many theories which, luckily for you, I am choosing not to lay out here. Let's just move on, shall we? This is a whole other post.

Friends: My friends are amazing. They treat me with the utmost kindness and respect and affection. They surround me and support me no matter how often I fail, which is often. I repay them by being a drag, being unreliable, just generally acting like a prick.

Julius has been trying to help me meet new people so he convinced me to join Frosh Committee. We had our first meeting today at 1:00. I woke up at 1:15. I swore at myself several times before thrusting myself out of bed, into my clothes and onto a bus. When I got there it was past 3:00 and everyone was leaving. I was so ashamed and embarrassed even though, as you might expect, people were telling me it wasn't a big deal. It wasn't, but it was indicative of my behaviour lately. It's one thing to wake up late and hate yourself for it, but when it messes with the expectations that others have of you that's when you've got a real problem on your hands. Afterwards, we went to get coffee and I couldn't even muster up the effort to try and talk to The Ice Queen or Chris or anyone else besides David. I was going out of my way to be rude and anti-social. It was almost cartoonish. I don't know why, I truly don't.

You know what's even more messed up? I couldn't fully enjoy the Franz Ferdinand/Death Cab For Cutie concert because I was actually thinking about all this stuff. I couldn't even enjoy The Clipse and their performance of Grindin' was AWESOME. That's when you're officially a drag, when you're letting yourself be brought down by all the negative things in your life that have nothing to do with whatever activity you happen to be engaging in. I feel like this guy. Christ, just knock on the fuckin' door! Unbelievable.

My mother walked into my room at six in the morning yesterday and for whatever reason, I was still up. She was understandably horrified.

Damn it, it is hot.

Here comes Dax.
Can he hear us?
Are you kidding? He's functionally retarded.
I'm thinking about having an affair with him.
Are you kidding?
I'm just so fucking bored.

4/18/2006 11:17:00 PM | Comments (0)

I don't have an update for you. I'm sorry.

Please accept my apologies and take this retarded YouTube video in return.

4/16/2006 04:08:00 PM | Comments (0)

Lately it's become the popular thing nowadays to make fun of "emo" kids on the internet. And I'm conflicted on the issue - aside from a luleelurah video or two, I've stayed away from that comedy mine. It's a cheap laugh, but I'd think it'd be a bit hypocritical considering all the teenage angst on this site...even though we aren't even really technically teenagers anymore.

I mean, baiting them is one thing (I can't stop guys. I can't.)...pointing and laughing is another.

Plus, I find it hard to believe that we don't all go through a teenage angst phase in our lives. I mean, everyone's entitled.

But when you find a delicious morsel like this one here...there's really nothing you can do. You're looking for any break in character so you can dismiss it as a well done joke...but there aren't any...and so you're faced with the truth.

Be sure not to miss the comments either.

Also, I cannot take my eyes off the television in the background. I need to know what show he was watching before suddenly deciding to do his video confession. I can't make any characters out, so the only way to identify it is to recognize the scene in all it's context...but I don't watch enough television to be able to make that connection. It fascinates me to no end, I must know.

When we eventually make a movie...I want this guy.

Do you ever wanna run away?
Do you lock yourself in your room?
With the radio on turned up so loud
That no one hears you screaming
No you don't know what it's like
When nothing feels alright
You don't know what it's like to be like me

4/13/2006 10:28:00 AM | Comments (0)

Oops, almost forgot. Just recently, through a bizarre series of strange events and the cashing in of many sexual favours, we were able to luck into some ridiculous Platinum Tickets for the Raptors game against the Heat.

Here are some pictures from that magical night.

And just to round out this post, here are the links for all the other pictures I've uploaded.

Toronto Raptors vs. Miami Heat
Toronto Blue Jays vs. Minnesota Twins season opener
Kanye West concert
Toronto Blue Jays vs. New York Yankees

I realize that the first two links are a little redundant, but it's so that I can copy and paste this post for later on when I eventually make that pictures page so I don't need to look up the addresses again.

And I was saving this YouTube link for tomorrow's post so that I could spread out what little material to had to maintain the illusion that we actually do semi-regular updates...but I figured that would be cheap.

So here it is - not brand new, but I figure none of you neophytes have seen it yet anyway.

Rolling Bomber Special!!!

Just brilliant on every level. Man, that heavy beat is so awesome too. God, I wish I had the money, the brains, the effort, the talent, the inclination, and the people to pull off something like this. The posse shot kills me every fucking time.

AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!1

4/10/2006 02:46:00 PM | Comments (0)

Some random bits for you today.

- Everybody's favourite first-left-handed-bat-off-the-bench-in-Milwaukee Gabe Gross has been tearing it up in what little action he's seen so far. In four at-bats, he's hit a game tying two run single against Arizona in a game that they eventually won 5-4, and hit a two run home run in his first at-bat of the year which was the turning point in a 7-5 win over Pittsburg.

- Do-it-yourself laser eye surgery just screams "disaster" to me, but so far I cannot find any indication that this is a joke. I suppose though, in this day and age, this is the closest thing to a ray gun you can buy.

- This video is just delightfully entertaining. I have no idea what this is - is this just like a Japanese show that airs nothing but this stuff? I could sit here and watch stuff like this for hours. ...actually, I think I have. My favourite is the one that hits the glasses of water to sound out that stupid little jingle.

- I also now feel obligated to link to these two.

- Honestly, what's up with this? Give man's greatest enemy - the one that is most likely to out-survive us and one day challenge us for the dominance of the Earth - access to our greatest advantage; technology. COME ON! It's like we want to be enslaved by an overlord race of insectoids.

Ah want Tong Po! Give me Tong Po!

4/09/2006 01:55:00 PM | Comments (0)

Here are the pictures from the Blue Jays season opener on Tuesday. Nothing entertaining - just posting pictures for the sake of posting pictures. This is what normal blogs do right?

I finally figured out how to dynamically add jackass comments to the pictures in the Gallerizer now. It took me way too long to figure that out.

I think I'll make a new section for just the pictures...as soon as I remember how to add links along the top there again. After three years, I've also realized that the main blue page doesn't really work that well with Firefox - there should be a vertical black border that separates the posts from Superman and the tagboard section is spaced weirdly. I made this layout during a period in my life where I could not write a webpage without using at least fifteen tables. I realize now that I should have probably been using <div>'s...but it's not my fault that Firefox acts all homosexual towards tables.

So maybe some site tweaking or maybe even a new layout or two to come, probably right during the middle of exams when I'm looking for ways to procrastinate.

Anyway, so that this post isn't a complete letdown, here is an obligatory YouTube link that seems entirely capable of setting back the Civil Rights Movement a good, fifty, sixty years. At first, you don't really believe it's an actual news report...

...but it is.

4/08/2006 01:21:00 AM | Comments (0)

I've said it before, but I consider it a personal failure whenever Big AL manages to string together two straight posts - much less three straight. I can't even visit this site when I know there's no updates and I haven't replaced the standby post I keep in the emergency glass case for exactly such a time as this. I makes me sick. I mean, honestly this isn't whinerack.com we're talking about here - we aspire to be a bit better than that. (Not much though.)

I've been legitimately busy this last little while, but if anything, that would probably make a post more probable, since normally I'd try to hold off on the actual work by struggling to find every other possible thing to do before it. And I'll be honest - that second Cereality article caught me a bit flat-footed - took the wind right out of me. It was hard to come back from a hit like that and just immediately go right back at it. Holy handbasket of hellfire...now that's there's actual documentation that The Philly Trip actually happened, I don't know how to proceed. Up until this point, I had just assumed it was a collective hallucination we had while we spent 40 consecutive hours in the car in the Markville Mall parking lot while we licked brightly coloured poisonious South American tree frogs. Now we have to deal with the fact that those things actually happened. And I don't know how to do that. Right now, I'm thinking of just repressing those memories all over again.

It's always awkward here when nothing changes in over 48 hours - the tagboard stops and you're left staring at the last comment there and if it's yours, you're probably wishing for someone else to say something to take the attention off it. The vibe in here is really great - it's like daddy just hit mommy at the dinner table, and we're all still trying to eat. "Mommy's fine honey, just eat. Mommy's fine - Daddy just got a little angry, that's all."

Ah, Dane Cook.

In case you haven't realized it already, this is the "break glass in case of no updates" emergency post that I'm trying to hammer out on the fly right now. I'm going to ramble on for a bit about nothing and then I'm going to end it with an Ahnuld quote, and all will be back to normal. It's really that easy.

Let's talk about luck. Because I feel like I've been riding a minor good luck wave recently. And I know that even thinking about it and consciously acknowledging it's existence - much less blogging about it - will blink it out of existence, but I'm okay with that. It's not a huge wave. Have you ever been in a wave pool? The biggest waves are in the deep end, where they're made. And by the time it reaches the other end, it's pretty much gone. That's the wave I had - the little pitiful tide-like thing at the shallow end. At no point was I filled with enough self confidence to be ready to pull some Ferris Bueller shenanigans - though as a youth my self esteem has been so completely shattered that I don't think I'll have a "I'm Keith Hernandez" moment in my entire life, even if I had a four leaf clover tattooed to my stomach. I wouldn't be able to walk into Vegas and throw a chip on a random number and thirtyquintuple(?) my money, but betting red or black wouldn't have been so bad.

If you asked me now, I don't think I could remember specific instances of good luck during my supposed streak. But I felt good, and I guess that's all it is. To be honest, even with all that said...I don't really believe in luck. I might believe in bad luck, but only as a pathetic excuse to explain personal failure from time to time. I've always subscribed to the belief that luck is just something we've come up with in an impossible attempt to rationalize the randomness of the universe and the apparent meaningless of our lives. That's what OAC Finite taught me when Mr. Esche broke my spirit and my dreams of winning the lottery, and although I remember some vague Chaos Theory mentions from when I read the Jurassic Park books, that's pretty much my "worldview."

That's not to say I think believing in luck is silly. I'm a baseball fan, and baseball players are the most superstitious people on Earth. I'm not saying that it's silly not to talk about a no-hitter, or that it's silly that they always have to touch their cap before every pitch, or that it's silly to keep lucky rabbit's feet or whatever. Luck is confidence. And it doesn't matter how you get that confidence, even if it's not washing your uniform or growing a beard during a playoff run. Even I had lots of little routines during prehistoric times when I used to play in house league back in the hood, known to some people as "Markham." Tap home base three times at the start of every at bat (right before grounding out to third 80% of the time). Punch the glove three times before every pitch (right before seeing the ball shoot right under my glove into left field). I never did it because I thought it was lucky, but your life is built upon your little routines and habits. The chair you always sit in at the dinner table, the first five things you once you wake up, eating every food group of your meal seperately in succession like a faggot...stuff like that. And sometimes when you don't do those little things, you can't get fully comfortable. And if you're uncomfortable, you can't be fully confident in what you can do. And maybe you slip up because you're spending too much time thinking about it.

Or you can write it up to luck. In the end, it doesn't really matter what idea you subscribe to or how you get there. Just find out whatever works for you and just do it.

That's luck.

Now would be an appropriate time to end it with a luck-themed quote, but I can't think of any right now, so I'm just going to go with my bread and butter - jumping roundhouse, crouching roundhouse, jumping roundhouse, crouching roundhouse! This one's from everybody's fourth or fifth favourite Ahnuld movie: True Lies.

"Is there anything you'd like to tell me before we start?"
"Yeah - I'm going to kill you pretty soon."

4/04/2006 11:01:00 AM | Comments (0)