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03/04/02-
Welcome...
canucks play basebalL? (thanks uncle kc)
  
31/03/02(9pm)-with the exception of a few pages that arent so important cause they're picture pages that i dont have all the pictures for, a few broken picture links to pictures that i dont have on my laptop, some older reflections pages that will be done in the next day or so, and some .doc files of reports ive written, The Smalrus Web Site v.7.0 is in full force. all of the links should be corrected back to smalrus.com instead of nbci.com, and to the cleaner php page instead of html. more later...
30/03/02(1am)-so early in the week, saku koivu and donald audette practiced with the team and both men are working on returning just before the playoffs if they feel up to it. and not a moment too soon. just at the end of preseason, saku was diagnosed with non-hodgkins lymphoma- a malignant cancer in his stomach. and through the season, he underwent chemo and now the cancer's in remission. meanwhile, donny got traded to the habs in december and within 5 games, the tendons in his arm were sliced and the doctors had to perform microsurgery to repair it. both injuries ended up sitting both men out for the most of the season and both men were to be key to getting the habs to the playoffs. but currently, the habs are in the last playoff spot and both men are looking to return to help in the playoffs. and ill be damned if saku hasnt become a hero of mine. heres to a run to the cup...
so sunday dave and i went to the iga in westmount to pick up goods for passover. namely stuff that we couldnt get here, since its 45 min on the metro to get there. good lord, this is the most expensive holiday. we got 150$ of just passover food, no milk, eggs, cheese, nothing. spent 1 1/2 hrs in the store. but i think we got what we needed. monday and tuesday were regular old days and that brings us to wednesday. if you havent noticed, this is basically a rundown summary of the week. wednesday was done with everything, called home briefly and started cooking for the seder. seth went home so david and i were cooking. made chicken soup and apple matzah kugel, and charoset. and got some kosher for passover wine. and so the two of us had a complete seder with nick and john. it was really nice because doing holidays is hard when you're not home and passover is one of the hardest, but atleast this year, ive got some jewish friends, so it eases up a little bit. then yesterday, dave and i went to lorne synagogue to celebrate second seder. it was quaint- there was only about 15-20 people there, but we had a good time and it was the full seder.
every passover for the last 4 years, ive put this up on my
site and i'm going to do it again this year and make it tradition. part of
passover is that we retell the story of the exodus and remind ourselves how
through the millenia, we are a religion that has survived religious persecution,
slavery, genocide...and that through all the bad that has happened to us, G-d
has still makes us free men. as for the exodus story itself, i'm not going
to repeat that here. anyone could just watch "the ten
commandments" on abc on easter sunday for that. it's plenty extensive
to tell. i still have yet to understand why they show it on easter sunday
if its the passover story, not the easter story, but whatever, its the higher
ups that run programming and somehow there's logic and showing it on easter
:P anywho no, what i'm going to repeat is what passover is about.
Wednesday night
started Passover. So because this is the page owned by me, I'm going to
share what passover is. Many people know of passover as Jesus' last supper, but
that's purely coincidential because passover the holiday has nothing to do with
jesus whatsover.
Passover is a celebration
of jewish freedom, but perhaps most important because it dates back to biblical
times. The story of the exodus is told in the Torah, which many gentiles know as
the old testament. The story recounts the jewish plight from egypt to escape the
pharoah, who was using the jews as slaves to build his cities and pyramids. Most
people have at one time heard about or seen the Ten Commandments. (after all,
they show it every easter). but the celebration of passover goes beyond the
story of the exodus. i guess you need to have an understanding about some of the
symbolism in the objects we use during this time.
The passover meal is
called the seder. seder means order i believe that's in hebrew, not yiddish. the
reason this is is because we follow an order the whole meal using a book called
a haggadah. the meal is not just sit down and eat, but there's stuff we do. for
example. there are four glasses of wine that we drink. we spill 10 drops of wine
on our plate for each of the 10 plagues inflicted on the pharoah. there's some
other stuff we do, all as we follow along in this book, and recount the exodus
story. and just as with the holocaust, we do this so that we never forget.
On the table, there's a
seder plate, with parsley (karpas), which is symbolic of spring and new life, a
hard boiled egg (baytzah), which is symbolic of life, bitter herbs (maror),
which is symbolic of the bitterness that our people went through as slaves in
egypt, charoset-a mix of crushed walnuts and apples and cinnamon and wine- which
is symbolics of the mortar used in the bricks. (that's the best tasting stuff),
the last thing is the shankbone of a lamb (zaroah) which represents the lamb's
blood that was put on the houses of the jews to spare their firstborn son's from
the angel of death, which was the last plague brought upon the pharoah. the
pharoah had a son, who was firstborn and he was taken. so....unfortunately, i
didnt get to go to a siyum this year with my dad because we're both the
firstborn males, and i also forgot that if you dont go to the siyum, you're
technically supposed to fast on passover eve day.
we eat matzah. this is
symbolic of the unleavened bread our ancestors had to eat in the wilderness. for
fear that the pharoah's army would catch up with them, they were always on the
move and didn't have time to let the bread rise. this is what makes it seem like
a cracker, but it isn't. nothing we eat during the 8 days of passover can be
made of bread products of anykind. everything we eat has to be kosher for
passover. special passover cookies, candies, cereals, all made out of matzah
derivatives. matzah in a factory has to be made and cooked in less than 17 min
otherwise, it's no longer matzah, because the dough starts to rise at 17 min.
so today i dropped off my laundry and its not ready today so i gotta pick it up tomorrow. i also saw panic room, which is directed by david fincher- the same guy who directed fight club (my alltime favourite movie) and se7en. so it was pretty good. ill probably write a full review tomorrow. i think id give it 3 1/2-4 stars. not as good as fight club, still rather intense and psychological, the acting was good, the cinematography was good, but the script was a little...i dunno what. definitely if you're a fincher fan like me, go see it. i think thats about it for me right now, im not sure what else is doing, and i cant think of anything else id like to talk about right now.
25/03/02(1150pm)- congratulations elise on getting your braces off finally :) beaven ;)
(1am)-why did i waste my time watching the oscars. 4 hours of movies i havent seen and probably dont care much about. indie films are so much better and their underrated-ness usually tends to show they're more artistic and meaningfull than some of the mainstream movies. true, some of those such movies are good, i mean i liked lord of the rings. but i could safely say that theres tons more movies that are better all around than moulin rouge, regardless of if ive seen it or not. i dunno, the grammys are my thing cause its music, but even with that, its the same as oscars. its just an insiders award show and it doesnt matter what you think of the movie, its what the academy thinks. robert redford was talking about his sundance festival- those are the kinds of movies i'd rather see. not to say monsters inc or royal tennenbaums wouldnt be entertaining. im just a sucker for a good ol artsy indie flick. and that, is why i love cinema du parc. artsy flicks for 6$ wit sinch the student card. so yeah, basically i wasted 4 hrs to see lord of the rings get 4 oscars and amelie get none. atleast whoopi made for some entertainment. it was black night: sidney poitier, halle berry, denzel washington, and a bunch of black jokes that only bruce villanch could write and whoopi could deliver. anyways, thats all i have to say about that. that is until i read andrew's wrap tomorrow and find something to disagree with :) tomorrow maybe ill talk about westmount IGA and passover foods.
24/03/02(140pm)-guess its back to the "wait for a few days to accumulate before updating." tonights herbie hancock/new deal show at metropolis. id like to go, but i dont really have the time to do so. i got herbie's new album. its pretty interesting, i like it. but there just isnt time to do it all. i just found out that the chemical brothers are playing montreal in april- something not registered on pollstar. lets see. hillel is bombing out for me, but we'll just leave it at that and see how it goes in the weeks leading up to the DMB concert. i went on friday night and not much happened, but its still a good time, even if i walk away every week bitching to myself about it.
backtracking to wednesday, i dunno what went on. this is what i get for putting off my updates. i mean obviously there was classes, but who wants to hear about those. unless something interesting actually comes up worthwhile writing about. unless you want to know about french superlatives or how world war I started, why bother. save myself the server space. same went for thursday. and i dont even know what i did on friday. oh right, services. then watched the game. lucky tie. of course we blew it with last nights 5-1 loss to nashville. nashville! how did mr. josé théodore let 3 goals in 7 shots in!? he's 1st in save percentage! anywho. so that was basically yesterday, doing some work, looking for a book at the store, and then watching the habs game. i was gonna call my parents last night but they were going to a play. gotta talk to them about summer courses here. ive already signed the lease again for next year. id eventually think id like to do immersion. plus theres a couple other courses id like to take.
so later, debbie and a friend of hers (orly i think her name was) from home came over and debbie, orly, david, and i went out. they wanted to go to tokyo but that wasnt gonna happen and i didnt wanna dance. so we went to le swimming. a canadian jam band (canjam), burt neilson band, was playing. they were really good, completely my musical scene. so i was kinda surprised that those were le swimming's kinda bands, but whatever, it was a really good show, and we shot pool for an hour cause we had to wait a while for the table. we're trying to book a gig here for the end of this summer, so le swimming is the recommendation. we're gonna be seeing how this is. their album is pretty good, they got the bluesy jam going on. they were also jambands.com's june 2000 groove of the month. unfortunately, they're disbanding next month. oh and apparently, there is a jambands.ca.
and, according to jambands.com, "The following definition [of "Jam Band"] appeared in the program for the first annual Jammys at Irving Plaza on June 22.
What Is a Jam Band?
Please cast aside any preconceptions that this phrase may evoke. The term, as it is commonly used today, references a rich palette of sounds and textures. These groups share a collective penchant for improvisation, a commitment to songcraft and a propensity to cross genre boundaries, drawing from a range of traditions including blues, bluegrass, funk, jazz, rock, psychedelia and even techno. In addition, the jam bands of today are unified by the nimble ears of their receptive listeners."
so thats about it i guess. not much else i think i had to say. today is more work still and perhaps calling the rents again. plus theres the uconn game. i hear they're in the so-called elite eight. like i say, i wouldnt really be following and probably not watching if not for the fact that jon has courtside seats behind the net for the game. so.... thats it for now, ive got a busy first half of the week, french test, another 15 page european history paper on the EU... so that'll take me right up to pesach. im probably gonna have sedars here at the house, possibly with david. seth's going home tuesday evening. last year i think i was at the abramovich's for a sedar, but since the end of last year, i never heard from them again, so im just me and david. and i gotta do a bunch of baking for it. ah well. i dunno, could be going better but we'll get to that point wed evening...
19/03/02(1150pm)-alright, im gonna try and do this again as quickly as i can cause im kinda tired again tonight. not much happened today and not much happened om monday after the guys left. so basically ill start back on friday and just talk about the weekend with the guys up here. for pictures up til sunday afternoon go here.
friday was standard fair friday, although i could have done without the modern european history conference on feminism during world war I. most boring conference topic that could have been picked. first off, i cant stand talking about things like feminism because it all annoys me. maybe its a status quo attitude that i have about the subject, but thats just that. let alone to talk about it 85 years ago...so i dropped my clothes off at the laundromat to be washed, dried, and folded. meanwhile, i went back to the apartment and started vacuuming my room and the house. didnt get to clean the bathrooms though but oh well. was kinda tough cause i didnt knowhappexactly when the guys would be there, depending on if they were driving faster than my dad, if there was snow, etc...so they called around 7 and i had just gotten my clothes from the laundromat. the thing was, i was still doing some stuff with refolding since the guy did it funny. plus i wanted to take a shower. but i figured a) they wouldnt be able to read the rest of my directions in the dark b) my directions might have been hard to understand if you didnt know what i was talking about. so they called and i guided them from the highway (they missed one of the bridge exits) and straight to my place. not bad timing- bout 5 1/2 hrs. like i said, i wasnt sure what eric was gonna be like, in the sense of not having really met him other than at lunch at uconn one day. but he was pretty cool all weekend. there were cars parked at jon's spaces, so i wasnt sure where to have them safely park the car and ended up having them park at the pay lot behind jon's place for all weekend. came back. they each had a bottle of sleeman's honey brown and found out why its my favourite beer. and i didnt know eric was 21, so that kinda clarified it up. i finished up with my laundry and went into the shower. then i tried to think of what we might do for some dinner. the guys were kinda exhausted, but it was kinda too bad for them cause we were ending up having a house party here that night. so we ended up just going some place close: Main on st. laurent. the weather had thrown us ice pellets earlier in the day, so the sidewalks were a sheet of ice. went back home, jumped in the shower while the guys were watching the uconn tape. we came back and there were a few people already here for the party. namely the party was an overall disappointment in my eyes. there was a bunch of people who didnt show that we all invited, and a bunch of people that showed whom we didnt invite. it was really kinda boring as far as i could tell, and i felt bad cause the guys didnt really know anyone and i couldnt introduce them to more people, but there weren't so many people i knew myself. so the 3 of us went to frappé to shoot some pool, only the guys werent comfortable with their pool skills, so we didnt challenge anyone and left after our smirnoff ices to go back to the party. a bunch of people had already headed over to frappé as well- nick being one of them. oh well, katherine and kristin and zoya were back here, so after everyone left, we were all chilling in my room with everyone else, playing music, etc...i think there was one point where we all crashed in my room for like 5 min and then woke up. they started leaving shortly after that. of the 3 house parties we had here this year, this weekends was a disappointment.
saturday afternoon, we went walking around the city. went to brunch at jack tooneys and there were a bunch of other spring breakers there. namely it was just walking around. eric wanted to get a MFD shirt, so we went to the fire station, but they didnt have any for sale and eric didnt have any to trade. so we did a lot more walking, and basically covered the entire downtown area that i would normally be walking around. from as far west as guy, to as far east as st. denis. sunday night we went north to duluth. but after walking around the city and just going through the underground, we took the metro to olympic park so i could show it to them. i felt bad cause i was just trying to show them the whole city, but i didnt have time to do it all and neither did they. so we took some pics, hopped the metro and went to the centre molson. jon bargained some tix down and we each got in for 30$ to see the habs-canes game. i wanted them to see what a canadiens game was like here in montreal- hockeytown. so we got in, took some pics of the pregame warmups, and then made our way to our seats. we were supposed to be in the very last row, but we didnt end up there til about 10 min into the first period. the game was really fun, rather exciting and we won it, 3-2, putting us into that final playoff spot. its looking good again. théodore was on his game and even the guys were amazed at how well he did and some of the saves he made. thats our josé. i had a lot of fun. i hadnt been to a habs game since december, and i love habs games, particularly when i go with people. couple times this season, id gone by myself to games. so going with the guys was really fun. afterwards, we went down near the ice and took a couple more pics.
after the game, eric called his friend from mcgill, dustin. so he and his friends that were up came and met us at sharx for some pool. the irony was, dustins friends, neil and katie, were from uconn and were friends with jon and eric. so after waiting an hour for our table to be called, it was me and katie vs. eric and dustin vs. jon and neil. katie was rather cute and from north southington, which is near foxwoods. but they were only staying in montreal for the night, so...i kept talking to her, but i couldnt tell if she was interested at all. turns out also that she is roommates with val pare from swhs. so it was like one big night of irony there. myself, i was kicking some major pool ass, with the exception of the 8 ball, which i have a track record of blowing. at one point, i broke and had a 6 ball run, before i lost it for us on the 8 ball. it was still good times, good times. jon and eric i think had a few too many beers, although they insisted it was only a buzz. it was all good though. like i told them all weekend, no ones here to binge drink or be crazy or mess with other people- its about having a chill atmosphere.
sunday was the next uconn game and we were waiting for benny and nick to come by to resign our lease for next year, but they're gonna come this sat at 11. so the guys were watching the game around 230. we ended up leaving the apartment around 4 so i could take them to la belle province for lunch. jon had the poutine and it didnt kill him. he said he couldnt really taste the cheese chunks. from there, we walked down ste. catherine street. i think we saw the sketchiest thing i know ive seen since ive been here: a guy with a gasmask in a black robe was walking down with a satanic book or something, and behind him was 3 people in a rubber cow skull's mask, a croc mask, and some other mask. weird. finally, we got to mckibbins pub on crescent. or is it mckay? i forget which street is which in that area of downtown, i just go til i get there. we were gonna meet david, nick, and debbie. after waiting, we got to the front and bouncer was playing complete favourites, letting people in who werent in line and everything. he was gonna let us in and not pay the 5$ cover if we gave him a 20$ bribe and i was like, no thanks we'll wait. so we only were waiting like 7 min more and we paid 15$ less. whatever, i wasnt in a hurry. so we got in, the guys each got a pint of guinness (found it vile), and i got a black velvet (wiser choice ;)). of course it was jam packed cause montréal is supposed to be the second biggest st. paddy's day party down in north america. so we finally made it upstairs and found everyone. dave and debbie had to leave early to work on papers due the next day, so i just hung around with the guys, since the band just came on. i love irish music and everyone was dancing around the pub, so i was dancing too. i think i scared the guys, but it was just one of those cultural things and a lot of fun, cause those songs like "home for a rest" and "what do you do with a drunken sailor" are fun. so we were there for a while, then we walked home, stopping by rez on the way back. so i showed the guys where i lived last year, how much of a bitch the hill was, etc... i switched cooking nights with john so he didnt have to cook for 2 extra people. so i made lasagna- one meat, one meatless. id never made lasagna this year, so jon was giving me a couple tips cause he'd made it. it actually came out well, although he was right in that i should have made the meat in the sauce instead of a separate layer in the lasagna. still was good though. we all ended up watching waynes world. and then me, jon and eric went to frappe to shoot some pool for 45 min. again, if only i stopped chokin on the 8 ball, id be winning at pool more consistently. also showed them old crack guy. no one else was there really but him and his cronies.
monday morning we parked and i dropped off my film. the guys went shopping for whatever and i went to class. met them around 1 at shatner for a final lunch. went to dawson to get my exam conflict letter and we met nick. they decided to hit the road, particularly since it just started snowing (we ended up with about 6-7 inches). so i said goodbye to them and nick and and i shot 3 games of pool before he went to class. that was about it for the weekend. overall, i had fun. i didnt know what eric would be like, but he was really cool and im glad jon brought him up along. to be honest, i wasnt sure jon was ever gonna make it and he really surprised me. i got a response to number 14 on my last survey and i wasnt sure how to take the response. but having someone from home come up and visit here, it really meant a lot to me. like i always say, i love being here, but sometimes you just want to see a familiar face from home. so im glad he was able to take a weekend and do that. plus, now like, he knows stuff that im talking about here- the clubs on st. laurent, the underground, the big o, what the shatner building is, etc...all the little things like how the softcore porn comes on tqs on saturday nights, or my favourite radio station being 98,5 cool fm, which is in french, what a dep is and what poutine really tastes like. basically, what my daily life here is like. what my apartment is like, what my roommates are like, what my street is like, what the people here are like, what the girls are like ;-D . i think some of it was culture shock since they're not used to it in uconn. what mckibbins was like was not something that you see at uconn, and in a city like this, it adds to you. they were in constant amazement over the amount of places to chill- coffee shops, chill bars, etc....its part of the euro-canadian mentality. they were amazed by the liberalism of it all- the fact that the guy smoking weed on the sidewalk of ste. catherine wasnt arrested by the cop who pulled over; all of the strip clubs and sex shops, etc... all of these things that i spent the first semester last year adjusting to, they were getting just a taste for a weekend. but im glad and im happy they came.
anyways, im well overtime and so ill just briefly mention that theres rumours amongst of rane here, but i'm not sure. got herbie hancock and puddle of mudd. interesting. and so another day tomorrow.....
(1230am)-it was an awesome weekend having jon and eric here. dont really have time to elaborate cause im kinda tired tonight, but ill probably get to it tomorrow night. was really fun, from the mediocre party to the game, to pool, to mckibbins...i'll get to it. in the meantime, check out some pictures from friday to sunday. im trying a new format for the picture gallery: slideshow with a list of captions. more on the weekend tomorrow.
16/03/02(330am)-"Ideally we should try to book something before you leave school for the semester." fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. here we come canada to fuck you up with the ranefall...
15/03/02(9am)-well the bad news is that seth lost the election :( i dont know too much of the specifics, but they went to gerts around 1130 to wait for the results to come in and we got a call around 2am from nick that kathleen morrison won. which was more surprising that she wodo considering wit saw rod as the main computhietition. like i said, i dont know much about how the voting went other than that seth lost :( so tonight's party will be a sorrow party instead. but hey, its not like we didnt run a good campaign eh? monday we all went out to dinner at this indian buffet. it was pretty good, although i wasnt much in the mood for spicy foods since i already had the anxiety of my paper on my mind. but i think that in 7 months, it was the first time that ALL 5 of us went out TOGETHER. usually some people are going out and some arent, but we all went out. so that was really nice, especially since dave and john arent gonna be here next year. then the rest of the week was mainly paperwork and whatnot, and last night me, seth, nick, veronica, and karine went to dinner at thai express. of course nick was going nuts with the pepper sauce on his food cause hes going back to thailand for part of the summer and needs to recondition his stomach to the hot foods. allison was there and the guys were ribbing me about that most of the dinner, and trying to make me all the more conspicuous. i got some good advice from andrew later that said something like, "you know what happened when hamlet thought too much? he ended up going psycho and killed everyone around him, so for the sake of everyone around you, stop thinking and do it!" i guess we are our own worst enemies. so we'll see. tonights a hillel shabbaton, and my guess is that she wouldnt come to the party and she'll be there instead. hm...party tonight...
now that the race is over, lfe can somewhat get back to normalcy. especially for me, since my 30page paper is done. i ended up missing russian history to turn it in. john said we got back our impossible midterms and that he did pretty good. since i had a copy of the exam with the answers i wrote, he just kinda skimmed it and said it looked like i probably did really well and that i probably got atleast 4 out of 6 chronologies (john got all 6). so thats comforting albeit still nervous news. maybe i didnt do as bad as i thought? if youve got a chance, check out my paper on microsoft. i obviously put a lot of effort into it and despite how my parents thought, my time at uconn did help tremendously. and i thank andrew and nick for reading my paper over. ive got one more paper due in european history in about 2 weeks, but i plan on readapting my paper on the EU and making it more historical rather than political. that one's only gotta be 15 pages though, so its not as bad. plus, since ive already done the topic once before, i know more about what im talking about.
thats mainly what ive been up to the in the last week or so. right now i dont have too much longer since i gotta start getting in the shower for class and everything but heres whats on tap. tonights victory/sorrow party for seth turned into a sorrow party, but we invited almost everyone we know. dave was just handing out flyers to people he knew, so we should get a lot of people up here. jon and eric are gonna be here around 6 tonight, so thats gonna be awesome. im looking forward to introducing them to a bunch of my friends. depending on whats doing, we'll see what they wanna do. i gotta do laundry today, also straighten out the apartment a bit. so that'll keep me busy til they get here. im looking forward to it, particularly since we didnt get to do new years last year and ive been anxious to have visitors up again. anywho, yeah, i dunno if ill get around to updating this weekend, but hopefully things will be good and now i HAVE to get in the shower...
14/03/02(3pm)- War on Windows: Regulating Microsoft's Monopoly. coming soon to pdf format. (note: will open in MS Word if using Internet Explorer).
12/03/02(1050pm)-some inane survey from jeff to ease the pain of this paper. its okay, its almost done. ish. doneish. that means tomorrow is fix-it day so that thursday is hand-in day.
Have you ever...
01. Fallen for your best friend?: yeah. that made things turn weird. nothing happened, but our relationships never been 100% ever since.
02. Made out w/ JUST a friend?: no
03. Been rejected?: enough times...
04. Been in love?: yeah
05. Been in lust?: yeah
06. Used someone?: yeah, but it ended up backfiring and turned into a 16 month relationship instead
07. Been used?: no
08. Cheated on someone?: not really. if expressing interest is cheating, then yes. but im inclined to believe its human nature during the teen years, and even later, to meet new people. but break up before moving on, not moving on before breaking up
09. Been cheated on?: yeah there was that one time, it was big time. next time, pick up warning signs and bail yourself out before she bails you out. cause then it dont get pretty between anyone involved. man that was like so long ago and yet feels like yesterday. maybe i should move on to the next question....
10. Been kissed?: yeah
11. Done something you regret?: with someone? yeah, probably. ive made an ass out of myself before. i also think that whenever you're being pulled by emotion, you do things you regret and in that respects, yes i guess i have.
*Who was the last person...
12. You touched? i shook hands with some people at services last friday. i think thats about it.
13. You talked to? nick came in my room and said no pool tonight cause he's got work too. i think he's downstairs instead chatting with everyone else. on the phone? i called jon the other day to tell him about a few things about this weekend.
14. You hugged? to be honest, i think it was my mom when i left to catch my plane on march 3rd. thats how much love i get around here. maybe thats why im always feelin shitty all the time.
15. You instant messaged? sam faraci. he was asking me if i have mp3s of either of the 2 new rane songs yet. but he had to leave
16. You kissed? now thats just been too long my friend
17. You had sex with? now thats just been too much longer my friend
18. You yelled at? possibly david. hes a good guy, but weve got different approaches to doing things and sometimes i cant see eye to eye with him. but its all good.
19. You laughed with? probably one of my roommates.
21. Who broke your heart? rejection
*Do you...
22. Colour your hair? ive done it twice, thinking about it again, but i dunno
23. Have tattoos? no
24. Piercings? no
25. Have a boyfriend/girlfriend/both? pshaw
27. Own a webcam? yes
28. Ever get off the damn computer? no. ive even dragged it on campus to work on this paper during the week
29. Sprechen sie deutsche? i think john does. atleast hes taking intermediate german or something like that
30. Habla espanol? como?
31. Quack?: quack quack
*Have you / do you...
32. Stolen anything? lets bring this back to the sponges that expand when you put them in water. i took some from a box of shoes but i didnt by the shoes. it was rather minor, but my parents found the sponges when they told me not to take them, drove me back to bobs, made me apologize to the manager and not realising it was rather petty, i still felt like a fugitive. and ive been running from the law ever since.
33. Smoke? ive tried cigars a couple of times when i was drunk, you just dont let yourself get addicted and dont inhale.
44. Schizophrenic? not so much.
45. Obsessive? yes. stalker, no.
46. Compulsive? impulsive
47. Obsessive compulsive? sometimes. depends what im OCDing about
48. Panic? we're talking about my paper here, arent we? ill get it done by the 5pm thursday due date, just relax. a couple of pages, a few editing jobs and we're good to go. yes? no? maybe? anyone want to write my paper for me?
49. Anxiety? a lot. particularly with women
50. Depressed? yea sometimes, but i'm a pretty upbeat cheerful person, so i get through things well..
51. Suicidal? no
52. Obsessed with hate? no
53. Dream of mutilated bodies, blood, death, and gore? no. there once was a dream where it was the apocalypse and i just about died from a bolt of G-d's lightning, but luckily i woke up.
54. Dream of doing those things instead of just seeing them? yeah, women ;) hahahaha
55. If you could be anywhere, where would you be? i said it once, i say it again, i wanna backpack europe from spain/england into moscow. and id like to be with my family. and id a girl would be nice too.
56. Who would you be with? see above question
57. What would you be doing? well if i was in europe with my family, the trip would never end, and id definitely get a lot out of it. same as with a girl, but id approach it more laid back, definitely would probably get to relax more and enjoy all the countries more romantically.
58. What are you listening to? im guessing the tunes in my discman right now. well its either the rane 1.30.02 house of blues show, or its Llorca's Newcomer
59. Can you do anything freakish with your body? no
60. Chicken or fish? i hate seafood
62. Is ice cream the best thing in the world? possibly. although poutine and pepe's pizza are right there with it.
10/03/02(320am)-just when it doesnt get better:
1.Do you find yourself caring a lot about online people, even if you haven't met or spoken to them off of the computer? yeah, ive talked to a few people online only, still havent met to, but would like to sometime.
2. Think about your best friend...what do you like the most about him/her? his organisational skills. that kid's got 10 times more organisational skills than me and maybe thats why he's actually doing better than me. that and his time management is impeccable. only kid i know that can do his homework by the next day, even though its not due for 2 1/2 weeks. plus, hes always open to listening to a lot of my shit even if im just babbling and dont make sense. and even though theres been times when shits gone down between us and theres things he does so opposite of me they sometimes confuse me, hes got enough respect out of me that i could call him my brother.
3. What color are your eyes? hazel
4. How many people are on your list of OD favorites? i dont have an OD. here at smalrus.com, we keep it real.
5. If you had to be trapped in a room for 48 hours, and you had to listen to one CD on repeat play for 48 hours...what would it be? you may think id be most inclined to put rane here. honestly after 48 hours on repeat, even id get sick of it. believe it or not, i listen to stuff other than rane, even if rane cds make up about 15% of my collection. to be honest, the cd i could listen to repeat is st. germain's tourist. like when i study, ill stick it on repeat and i could seriously listen to that for 48 hours if i had no choice.
6. What kind of clothes do you usually wear? anything that doesnt smell like its been worn after it was washed
7. Do you judge people at all based on what they look like? ive contemplated that, being in this city. theres a lot of people who arent what they look like at all, especially bums. but then again, the opposite is true. ill have to say im in the middle on that
8. If you had an entire day to do whatever you liked, and money was not an issue, and you could go wherever you liked and do whatever you wanted to do...how would you spend your day? i really cant cover europe in a day.
9. Would you ever volunteer yourself to be in the Big Sister house? is that where the big macs are made?
10. Name three things that you are obsessive about: rane, music, being online
11.When a stranger drops something, do you attempt to pick it up? Wait, pick up the something or pick up the stranger? both.
12. Name one thing you would never eat: seafood.
13. Did/do you have a crush on any of your teachers? possibly at one point, its not out of the question, but it was probably way back before university and she was probably fairly young. honestly, i dont remember.
14. Do you live near your birthplace? no, i live about 300 miles away.
15. When you hear the song puff the magic dragon what do you think? marsh-mallow man from ghostbusters
16. Do you ever eat food right out of cans and jars instead of using plates or bowls? as much as i can. who the hell wants to do dishes if they dont have to?
17. Does your mind ever go blank? my mind is always blank. thats why i never make sense.
18. Do you have a washer and dryer? no, i gotta haul my clothes at the fuckin laundromat 5 blocks down.
19. Have you ever met anyone interesting at a Laundromat? nope. most of the people at my laundromat are people around various other neighbourhoods, all speak quebecois, and its a small laundromat (8 washers/dryers), so no one really sticks around.
20. Would you give a needy person the shirt off your back? depends if they're really needy. like i say, people arent always what they seem
21. Have you ever been slashed with a knife? no.
22. Do you notice cracks in the pavement? yeah, im always tripping in them.
23.Do you think it is acceptable to live with someone before marrying them? sure.
24. Are you more attracted to oceans, rivers, or lakes? rivers. i live on the st. laurence.
25. Do you have dirt under your fingernails? i dont think so...
26. Have you ever been to a Six Flags theme park? theme park? does the one in agawam, mass count? then yes i have.
27. Do you like the smell of cigarette smoke? no, but in this city, you have to accept it. its a fuckin chimney.
28. When was the last time you went to a concert? well i went to my roommate john's band's concert today, but if you're talking real concert at real venue (other than the rane equator show in december), then id have to say the string cheese incident concert in october. but we might see herbie handcock/new deal later this month, theres also daniel bélanger, and noir desir to see, plus ive got my dave tix coming soon in the mail
30. How many toothbrushes do you own? one.
31. Does it bother you when fingernails scrape a chalkboard? i dont pay attention
32. Do you like almonds? yeah, they're one of my favourite nuts.
33. Have you gone on many blind dates? no, but i keep telling david he should set me up on one.
34. Do you know which signs in the zodiac you are compatible with? the zodiwho?
35. Do you like your nose? i guess so
36. Did you drink anything with caffeine in it today? coke. no coffee today, its saturday and i dont have to be awake for class.
37. Do you have a picture of yourself scanned? yeah, exciting, aint it?
38. Have you ever met anyone you like on the internet? well i got this survey from jennys page, i havent met her yet, but shes a friend of jeff. theres brandee from michigan whom i still talk to. we started talking randomly online in one of those internet gaming rooms a little over four years ago and we still talk from time to time.
39. Do you wear a lot of jewelry? i have my nice timex digital watch, whoopdeefuckindoo.
(140am)-well ive got a few minutes now before i head to bed. classes been okay. the russian history midterm was impossible and it seemed like most of the people who took it found atleast one section of it really difficult. and to top it off, he was kinda talking about it in lecture on thursday and he started shooting down answers that other kids were tossing out that seemed correct but he found flaws with almost every one. i didnt find it cool at all.
to be honest, not too much has been going on here, its been a hectic week with the midterm and then this paper. the paper's due this thursday, my goal is to have it completed by tuesday and then meet with my TA during office hours to figure out of theres anything that'll need to be changed on it. i was in the library on friday, got about 4-5 hours work done on it, mainly going through my notes, cutting and pasting and editing. i got done 10 pages, so at that pace, ill definitely have it done by tuesday. friday night, i went to services at house of prayer, talked with a few people... then came home. seth was in bed by like 730 or 830. campaigning definitely wiped him out cause he slept til noon today. not a bad nights sleep eh? then friday evening, nick and i went to frappe to shoot some pool cause the both of us havent shot in weeks. as usual, i played fairly inconsistent. fairly well, but fairly inconsistent. then doug and dre showed up, so we were playing doubles and then the guy that we played against a few months ago after a habs game that nick and i went to, christian, he and his friend were playing us for the table. i won it for us, but i decided to head home. it was pretty much my first night out in a while while, even though i played it fairly laid back. we also saw where the set was for billy bob thorton's movie, levity, was. i was about 5 blocks away and they made fake snow. but they stopped shooting at that location last night so now we dunno where. i heard that they asked to put snow on our street this week so maybe they're filming here too. cool.
today was just one of those days where you couldnt do anything. period. the weather up here was 15, and considering 10 hours later and its now slushing, the weather was rather anomalous. it was a rather calvin and hobbes day, where you calvin sits in his wagon with hobbes, looks at him, and gets philosophical about having to take advantage of such a gorgeous day. we havent had much snow and the winter was milder than last year, but it's been fairly cold up til today and tomorrow returns to being cold- which is one reason why its great having a hellish winter- because on days like this, you rave about the nice weather. it makes it special. so, i sat on the balcony and played my guitar for a while. to be honest, i dont have a repertoire of stuff that ive got memorized, mainly rane stuff, but thats because i play it and play with it the most over anything else ive got. but unfortunately, not enough people know rane here, so it almost makes it sound like its my work. its not like im saying its my work so people should just have to find out and buy cds :)
quite frankly, playing on the balcony blew my mind. it was really spiriting for me in a weird way. first of all, on our street, its not uncommon to hear musicians outside when the weather is warmer, after all, theres no cars so its only people walking by. so they actually pay attention to you cause you're adding to the atmosphere that is rue Prince Arthur. but even though i was on my balcony, a bunch of people were looking at me (including the girls from my floor last year). after all, not all the musicians were out and people usually look at us on the balcony anyways, let alone when someones playing music. so it was default getting attention. of course by the time i hit the second verse in "where we come from", i started to get that stage fright freakout i got when i did open mics and even when the concatellis listened to me in december before the open mic. but after like 30 seconds more, it just relaxed. i dunno what it was, but the people were just going by and looking up and kinda slowing down to watch, and even though i knew it, i still was playing as if i was giving a show...for myself. its a weird thing to babble about, but it really made my day, and the nice weather helped my mood and everyone elses mood a lot. i dont think ponytail lady appreciated it cause i think i cut in her business, but whatever. i rent property here, she doesnt, and if im playing on my balcony, aint nothing she's gonna do.
so the feeling i was getting from playing was beautiful and my awareness of people watching became a little less frightening. so i started to open my eyes and actually watch the people below and it was neat. first a girl was walking by with her boyfriend (round my ageish?) and the girlfriend was kinda looking at me and he kinda looked pissed offish and threw his arms up at me in disgust as they finished passing by. then, two hot girls took my picture within like, 5 minutes of each other. that also freaked me out cause they were probably tourists and now im in their photo album, but i never actually talked to them :( i shoulda invited them up, shown a little montreal hospitality ;) maybe another time, there'll eventually be enough good days to do that. but that was an esteem booster as well. a little later, a little girl, probably 4 years old, was walking by with her mom and she kinda stopped and her mom kept going but she asked to watch me. not the esteem booster of the hot girls, but just being able to attract attention like that was cool. then there was an old lady rocking out. i could say less about an older person, lol. around the end of my playing, the guy in the apartment across the corner, he had brought out his tam tam, so he was beating on that, and he saw i was kinda strumming to it across the street, so that was fun. i went over after and introduced myself.
this was on the way to john's concert. i hadnt seen them play since the show in november at mora judd's art gallery (she's now running as a student rep to the mcgill radio stations board of governors). so there were two opening bands from ottawa, both kinda punk. not bad. it wasnt like hard core punk, but it wasnt bad. then parka 3 was on, and things got crazy when dave's friend emily did an acoustic guitar duet with him. anyways. at the end of the show i saw mora. we chatted, then i headed back here.
was dark out but still nice, so i was out on the balcony doing it again. this time, there was a crazy lady yelling "joues! joues! c'est bon!" and mora and her boyfriend passed by. the habs-leafs game was on, so it was a bunch of torontonians here in montreal as usual to see the game. so i went with nick to get food and then we watched the game, which ended in a 1-1 tie, putting us in a 3 way tie for 7th place in the conference standings. meanwhile, i couldnt get tickets to the habs-canes game this saturday for when the guys come up. all weekend games til the end of the season are sold out except for 115$ seats, or buying from a scalper :/ so either we're gonna get from a scalper or find something else to do. so after the game, i talked to sarah concatelli for a while online about balcony playing, guitar, rane, montreal movies, etc...
by then though, it was time to see pink floyd's the wall, which i'd never seen, but i know its classic. let me say this. in order for me to understand it all, id need to see it atleast 5 or 6 more times. it was so graphically and aurally intense that i couldnt get it all. like the imagery was all interconnected and all the music was relevant to what was going on with the particular scene, and some of the images were woven to backplot (if there really is a plot, per se). ive seen some difficult movies to take in (requiem for a dream, clockwork orange, etc...) and those are the kind of movies i like, but this requires the brain to process so much that i couldnt do it. i was trying to find metaphors, themes, all of it, but i couldnt get it all in. so thats what i have to say about the wall
tomorrow is the premiere of the star wars: episode II trailer between malcolm in the middle and x-files. and on may 31, the sum of all fears movie comes out. the trailer is already out on yahoo movies. and it was filmed in montreal, i'd seen the shooting locations for that too. tomorrow im also getting a lot more work done on my paper. thats about it for now i think. i thought i had more to say, but i forgot as im going. oh yeah, and david and john are officially moving out and into david's sisters place when she graduates this year. yin is going to be one of our new roommates. and we dont know about the fourth. meanwhile, we're having a victory/sorrow house party here this friday (since we wont yet know the outcome of seth's election), and im psyched because the guys are gonna be coming up. this upcoming weekend its really gonna be great and im really looking forward to it. anywho, i spent way too long on this for now. i think in the meantime, im gonna move from the balcony to the street and maybe make a few bucks, not to mention actually be on street level with the hot girls ;)
07/03/02(1240pm)-if you dont see me online for the next week, im not dead. im just working on my 30 pg. govt paper on US v. Microsoft. ive done so much research on antitrust and havent even cracked the case yet. tomorrow im going to nahum geller law library to get some research done there. meanwhile, the final settlement has been brought into court today. seths debate was tonight- he did a good job and seemed to blow everyone away. meanwhile, dave and john are moving out of the apartment next year and into dave's sisters old place around the corner (she graduates this year). we're now looking to find two new roommates and we think that we have yin as a likely prospective. that grammy wrap up might not get to be done cause im too busy. the paper is due thursday, jon and eric are coming friday. im still working on research, so the paper itself isnt really started enough, but after tomorrows trip to the library, hopefully it'll be headstrong into the writing and spend a lot of time this weekend on it. good thing is that my notes are typed and pages cited, so i can graft from that straight into the paper. with 36 pages of notes for a 30 page paper and still more research to go, eventually the paper wont be so difficult. i know, im all over the place with my thoughts here. mainly cause im just trying to get stuff out so i dont forget because i dont see myself updating atleast til the 15th. and even then, i wanna clean the apartment some, do laundry before the guys get here, and they'll be staying til monday. so monday the 18th, my life will have some semblance again.
ive added lyrics to the two newest rane songs, straight from the source itself. i havent even heard them yet, but the lyrics seem to be stylistically different. "From the Vine" almost sounds like it could be something Keats or TS Elliot or Dylan Thomas. the thing im not sure about is the stanzas, since i got the text in one big block with no line breaks. i hear the songs are musically different as well, using a lot of the newer instruments they got like the keyboards and they bring the cello back in one of the songs. also, be sure to take a listen to rane at the house of blues on www.projectflood.com. the sound quality of the live stuff just gets better and the show itself is a blowaway.
thats about it for now i think. if you need to talk to me, either shoot me an email or call the phone (that thing with numbers that rings)
04/03/02(940pm)-look at the date: 040302. heh. anywho, ive been mad busy since i got back and tomorrows my russian history midterm. plus theres my paper due in a little over a week and a half. theres been recent news developments about final settlements in the case, etc...anywho. i dont really have time to write right now. maybe after the exam ill get a chance...
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