|
29/05/02- Welcome...
  
29/05/02(900pm)-im not updating the next few days. i didnt get to review star wars, i know. theres been some more pressing matters here at the house. my grandmother passed away monday morning and so everyones here. tomorrow morning is the funeral and so there's been a lot of planning and coordination going on. its just been really hectic, and ive also been at work. i feel weird about it, but mostly stress for all my thinking and knowing what my dad and aunts and uncle and grandfather are going through. maybe next week, ill be a little more introspective, but im not sure if nows the time. (please see the meriden record-journal for more info.)
friday evening is the cheney hall rane concert. im not sure if im going. id like to go because ive just been having this feeling of stress all week. not feeling stressed, but having the feeling of stress- or atleast i know the difference in what im talking about. i kinda feel that i need to get out to get a little stress off, but i want to be here for my family at the same time. so on that matter, ill have to see how things are here on friday and i probably wont be able to make the call on that until friday evening. my grandfather and aunt are going back on saturday, so im not sure whats doing friday night. thats about it for now though.
26/05/02(650pm)-saw star wars on friday with dad. the more i thought about it afterwards, the more i liked it. ill do a full review on that within the week. last night went to xando with julian. good times to catch up, particularly with him leaving june 2 back to school. looking into doing a french immersion program in chicoutimi. rane this friday. thats been about it. the leafs won. the avs won. i restrung and cleaned my guitar. have been working on playing the gauge, mirage, and bownicity. thats about it i guess. figure ill do a survey for shits and giggles. i was gonna do a quiz on which star wars character id get it on with, but the answer was yoda and i find there being something wrong with that. enjoy the above comic.
[name] Smalrus
[home] Montréal, PQ (better than being from South Windsor, CT)
[age] couple months from 20
[birthday] August 21
[grade] U2 (third year university student)
[class of] '04
[sign] Leo
[eye color] Hazel-green
[hair] Brown
[bf/gf] hah
[parents] SmalrusDad and SmalrusMom
[school] McGill University- birthplace of ice hockey, and home to 99cent pizza and poutine
[clothing style] going for the typical dress-casual that you find in a city
[pets] the bird grover and some fish. one of the fish is Nuala III, but the other two are yet to be named
*favorites*
[band] rane
[music genre] jam/funk/electro/new alternative (not grunge or raprock)/britpop (but ill listen to anything but country)
[color crayon] lime green
[juice flavor] pineapple, orange
[cereal] anything sweet, but no marshmallows
[jolly rancher flavor] watermelon
[skittle flavor] all of them
[color m & m] all of them
[kind of cookie] pinwheels or those chocolate crunch with carmel
[hangout] in CT, theres nothing. i like xando. in montréal, frappé
[day] thursday
[month] january
[season] winter
[shoes] shoes
[restuarants] ct- pepes pizza. montréal- nothing like la belle province for a quick burger/poutine
[cars] volkswagon passat or volvo c70 convertible
[star wars character] padme amidala. woo woo woo ;)
[simpsons character] ooh, tough question... probably either sideshow mel
[kitchen appliance] nuker
[color of lava lamp] blue
[person to talk to online] anyone
[person to talk to on the phone] see above
[memories] talk about a vague question eh?
*this or that*
[boxers or briefs?] briefs
[plaid or striped?] white
[urban legend or the faculty?] the what legend?
[star trek or star wars?] both
[alt or rap?] alternative (or rather, the new alternative)
[ska or punk?] both
[classical or country?] classical. country makes me nauseous
[salt or pepper?] salt
[coke or Pepsi?] either one if its cold. just dont try the vanilla coke. tastes like shit
[dr. pepper or mr. pibb?] ill try a mr. pibb
[sprite, slice, or 7-up?] 7up yours
[skittles-original, tropical, or wildberry?] mixed
[m & m's-regular, peanut, peanut-butter, or almond?] almond
[hershey's-hugs or kisses] kisses
[jolly ranchers or jolly rancher bubble gum?] jolly ranchers
[v-8 or hi-C?] hi-c
[ken or barbie?] barbie
[bleh or blah?] meh
[okay, ok, or o.k.?] k
[mono or stereo?] stereo
[shake or stir?] stirred
[pens, crayons, pastels, or colored pencils?] all of them
[bright colors or dark colors] dark
[snap,crackle, or pop?] snap
[half-empty or half-full?] even
[adidas, nike, fila, or reebok?] adidas
[sunshine or rain?] you are my sunshine you are my rain, you are my sunshine you are my pain
[rain or snow?] snow
[sun or moon?] sun
[silver or gold?] silver
[frogs or toads?] frogs
[cds or cassettes?] cds
[wild or mild?] wild
[rupaul or dennis rodman?] rupaul. if youre gonna be a transexual, atleast make it look right, worm
[bsb or nsync?] rane
[keyboards-the normal kind or the separated kind?] normal cause i dont have an ergo one
*short answer*
[left handed or right handed?] righty
[are you smart?] sure
[whats your middle name?] mitchel. thats where the "m" in 'smalrus' comes from
[how many personalities do you have?] 17. 17. 17. 18. hey, shut up you
[how many piercings do you have?] none
[tattoos?] none
[do you like v-8?] never had it, but it seems disgusting in concept. i want to eat vegetables, not drink them
[what was your first word?] no clue
[are you superstitious?] depends on the superstition. thats why the habs got as far as they did. what ruined it? the games they lost, i didnt watch on CBC.
[do you read your horoscope?] once every 6 or 7 months. after the fact.
[do you believe in that stuff?] never
[can you do a cartwheel?] all the time
[do you have bangs?] no
[can you drive?] all the time
[what do you drive?] my dads maxima or my moms 850. all the way home
[do you lick your envelopes or use a sponge?] lick it
[do you keep a journal?] the smalrus web site has been used as my journal for about the last 3 1/2 years of its 5 year existence
[what languages do you know?] english and french. like i said, im thinking about french immersion for next year, so ill be fluent in my speaking
[what's the best awards show?] grammys. sort of
[do you like cotton candy?] yeah
[do you like pina coladas?] had one. but thats a kids drink
[what do you sleep in?] shorts and shirt
[how many pillows do you have?] one
[how many cds do you have?] 250?
[how many times have you moved houses?] 3 or 4, plus twice at school
[is your room messy?] no, i straighten it out atleast once a week
[how many people go to your school?] 18,000
[do you like your handwriting?] no, i cant read it. its horrible when i take lecture notes and try to study from them
[do you like to fingerpaint?] sure
[do you sleep with a stuffed animal?] sorta
[do you sleep with socks on?] depends if the room is cold
[are you ticklish?] yeah
[is your house 1, 2, or 3 stories?] i forget what you call it, but theres 3 floors. my apartment is 2.
[do you have a basement or an attic?] both
[did you go to preschool?] yes, temple beth shalom preschool
[are you a morning person?] once ive had my coffee. but im more of an evening person nonetheless.
[do you like classical music?] yes.
*hard questions*
[would you rather be tall or short?] give me 3 or 4 more inches
[would you rather burn to death or freeze to death?] freeze. youd be numb and wouldnt feel the pain. heat would be painful until your nerve receptors were all burnt off and then you wouldnt feel it.
[are the best things in life free?] no way jose
[do you think guys or girls have it easier?] guys
[would you eat a bowl of live crickets for $40,000?] sure. if i was assured the money. ive heard they taste like peanut butter and i know theyre high in vitamins
[if you had a band what would you name it?] socrates (pronounced "soh-crates") johnson. its from bill and ted's excellent adventure and sounds like an ideaL bandname
[gonna go to college?] sure
[where do you want to live?] vancouver, bc
[if you had to dye your hair right now, what color would you make it?] blond
[if you had to get a body piercing right now where would it be?] wouldnt want it, but id say maybe eyebrow
[if you had to get a tattoo right now, what would it be?] cant get it, but id say a chai
[if you were gonna be stuck on a deserted tropical island forever with one other person who would you want it to be?] anyone from "the dream orgy" and if you dont know whos in "the dream orgy" thats unfortunate.
I'm exceptionally artistic!
Find your soul type.
24/05/02(650pm)-lets see. the past week has been relatively boring. saturday, mom, elise and i went down to new haven to see fran and dave and to go get some pepes pizza. mmmmmmmmmmmmm..... pepes pizza. fun times fun times. came home but it was kinda too late to do anything. sunday, probably didnt do anything either. and this week, i havent done much except go to work all week. thats right, started teller training at sbm on monday. woo hoo. im getting paid 7.50$/hr as opposed to 8$/hr last year. i hate the computer system at sbm. theres too many surpurfluous papers to put in the machine. and all the rules and regulations i already know. plus, i dont need people to tell me how to be good at customer service when i did fine at first federal. and im surprised everyone else needs training in that too. they all seem like nice people. its just...weird. i miss first federal. and definitely im gonna miss my first fed co-workers like jess, denise and krista. they made working at the bank fun. from what i know, the people at the sbm branch are all older. :-/ its gonna be a loooooong summer :-/
after work, my main thing has been coming home, going online 15 minutes, playing guitar for an hour, then going back online/watching tv the rest of the evening and being really bored. really really bored. tuesday had a break in the action by going over to andrew's house to go watch 24. im not gonna say anything in case any of the roomies read this but it definitely was a great ending, action packed to the last minute, and in the last 2 hours, they didnt slack in their scriptwriting. other that 24, i didnt do much else this week at all. quite frankly, im disappointed in hockey. true, colorados up 2-1 over detroit, but carolina's up 3-1 over toronto. im pissed because every team ive been rooting for and watched the game on espn has lost. just my luck, the final will be detroit-carolina. no matter because the west will win. the east is no match at this point :-/
so this weekends memorial day weekend. got nothin to do but mow the lawn and get a haircut. gramma's doing better since my dad was out there last week. not much better, but bits and pieces are incrementally getting better so thats definitely good. and the rest of the weekend, im bored. im bored even writing this. thats why my summer entries get fewer. anyone got any plans to put in my hands?
18/05/02(1235am)-well its a stressing time. its also been a while since i updated for real. when was it? basically, theres been a lot going on in the last week and a half. first off, we'll go back to when dad and i went back up to montréal. fun trip and we still got done what we accomplished. left around 130, got up around 7. dropped the stuff in the apartment, took the metro straight to the expos game. they played the san francisco giants and lost 3-2. we sat in the vip seats and got a game ball thrown to us at the end of the inning, but we gave it to the little kids. and to think, we didnt even take our picture with the ball. oh well. everyone in the section was clapping for us giving the kids the ball so, i guess we were small heroes. then in the 7th innning, this guy in a gold g-string started streaking to second base, slid safely into second, and then literally stole it before getting tackled. as the "no spectators on the field or they will be evicted and prosecuted" sign showed on the jumbotron, two other idiots in habs jerseys went running around the outfield for a bit. so we went back to st. laurent, got dinner at fattouche's and then the guys met us and we went to frappé.
frappé was cool cause my dad got to see what a guys night out is like for us. introduced him to our usual bartender, katherine. we ordered a pitcher and played pool for a few hours. i think the bigger surprise was my dad getting the second round and then doing a shot with us when nick got a round cause my dad's not a drinker and id never had a drink with him. but we werent drunk, so it think it was good that atleast he could see that we could all go out, have a few beers but not get drunk. so we played a bunch of pool and my dad had to handle some strangers for table control :-P but it was fun. then my dad and i faced off and i beat him the first game. then he beat me by 1 ball the second game and 0 balls the third game. ive definitely improved a lot at pool this year, and im glad he got to see it. so we headed home just as i was starting to slightly feel the buzz, but fell asleep before anything hit. slept on the floor, but all the shit was in my room from claire, and so i was next to the window, it was usual 3am drunk people outside, and i kept seeing the light from the streets. lately, ive had trouble sleeping if there's light pollution in my room. anywho. we woke up, got some breakfast at place milton, and that was about it. shipped the stuff in the car and took off at 130. got into ct around 730 after a couple more stops than on the way up, plus it was rainy on the highway. that was montréal. it was fun.
thats been it for most of the week. ive been sitting at home, drastically bored. i mean seriously bored. i cant stand south windsor. even with a car, i hate having to drive all over the place for 1/2 hr and then back. i hate being alone cause things are more boring. it sucks cause things with the most of my friends have changed and its hard to do stuff cause im looking to make more friends, but theres no one left here to make friends with. i was told i need to put myself in more social situations. thats all nice and great but south windsor is not a place where college kids hang out. and as jon pointed out tonight (went out with sarah d and jon to shoot pool and go to vernon diner) this is gonna be his last summer in south windsor. it sucks cause id rather not be here. its just plain not the same. i spend my nights and weekends either online, or keeping occupied by doing nothing but a movie here and there, and shooting pool. granted i shoot pool at school, but i find montreals still different, and its different people. i feel like im growing out of sitting in basements for hours and a lot of the old stuff. its weird, i hang around differently at school even though its doing a lot of the same stuff. i dont know if its because its differnt people or what. just something.... i wish i could work in canada like university students do- work where they go to school, but i cant. but i also cant stand being here. its good to be with the fam, but theres other stuff i gotta do for myself- make friends, get a girl, all that stuff that requires me to have more a life than i have. i dunno. i think im just rambling because im bored. a couple people here i connect with and no matter where i go, i'll always have them and they'll always have me, but the rest of them are "moving away" from me and the same is also happening with me...ive said it here for 3 years, but SW is not for me.
starwars came out yesterday, but i didnt go cause i promised my dad that id wait til he got back from phoenix to go with him to see it. hes out there cause my grandmother isnt doing so well. conditions have compounded and she fell off the bed and got in the hospital. the trip my dad was going to take got bumped up a month, two weeks, and then a day, so i took him thursday, 4am to the airport. and so hes there til monday. i dont know what to say. i feel bad cause i dont have the typical relationship with my grandparents. we were never the spoiled grandkids. but its moreso my dad. obviously it being his mother, i see how hes taking it and i know what he goes through with his worrying because ive gotten it from him. and im not sure what to do other than be supportive if something happens. shes stable now, but who knows. so things here in the house, on the phone lines, are fairly hectic. i just hope she gets better for everyone's sake and improves to better than stable.
i took this personality test online that finds your starwars twin. its a psychological test developed by Oliver P. John, Ph.D at UC-Berkley but it doesnt necessarily find the one character who is your twin. but heres my results in the short list. openness: ewok. conscientiousness: han solo. extraversion: "old ben" kenobi (the alec guinness one). agreeableness: boba fett. neuroticism: tusken raider. sounds pretty much like me. they work the quiz on a percentilage basis. and you can do a sibling and input how well you get along with him/her, what your birth order is, etc etc. so elise got: openness: astro mech droid (hah!). conscientious: han solo. extraversion: "old ben" kenobi. agreeableness: qui-gon jinn. neuroticism: r2-d2. interesting results eh? atleast mine are cause they pretty much fit (although i wonder how many characters were used and what the alternatives were, but if tusken raiders and astro mech droids were on, its gotta be pretty wide.
anyways. im not sure whats on tap tomorrow but it better be something other than boredom. im sick of it. like i said, i need a band, a girl, and more friends to occupy myself with. i start work back at sbm on monday, but even that wont cure the rest of the boredom. its sad, its second week of may and im already counting down in anticipation for school to start. id rather show my friends montréal than be stuck at home in sw. let me know if you're in for cheney. :-/ :-/ :-/
13/05/02(915pm)-dispicable. utterly dispicable. im not even gonna write about it, but lets hear it for not watching habs games on cbc. and if i was michel therrien, there's a lot id have done differently, starting with not getting a bench minor. meanwhile, if i could speak to therrien, id have a few words to say. now it looks like ill have to root for ottawa. and if they dont make it, then toronto. id rather ottawa, but whoever plays the hurricanes next should demolish them. no one thought we'd make the playoffs, we did. no one thought we'd beat the number one team in the first round, we did. but theres only so many nights for josé. in september, no habs fan would've guessed the playoffs but we made it farther than year two projected. next year we'll go farther. no more on hockey. go sens go....
09/05/02(940am)-you know what i was thinking about the other day? how much it sucks for the local music scenes. theres all these big name record stores and none of them carry any local artists cause "its not worth their while." i think in the last 2 years, ive started to buy a lot less from pop-radio bands and formulaic pop music. maybe its the result of some evolution in my music tastes from the generic music i first started liking (you had to read my ellis y wyllys column on ranetides.com to hear my music appreciation story). heres my example for this little schpeil: apparently theres a new music chain in the states, fye? gye? something like that. i went in to one in enfield looking for the new renata lp cause i figured a record store in enfield might have it. nope. and it was at that point where i realised that thats why the record industry is going down the tubes. no one cares about the locals anymore. and this isnt just a rane push here, we're talking about all the local bands. you cant go into a record store anymore and see anything other than your classics, or the mtv trl top ten crap. its downright disturbing. its disturbing that radio stations feed us what we need to here, its disturbing that people want to listen to the same stuff over and over again, rather than seeking out music for themselves and it shows our laziness in being entertained. the interesting thing about it is that the record labels seem to be making it into the indie side of things. just look at john mayer for example. completely word of mouth success. however, while i agree his album is good and worthy of some listening to, its still relatively poppy, sounds a lot like dmb, and is definitely "radio-friendly." i also think that the majority of his album sounds the same in a lot of places. so, it gets picked up by major label and now hmv canada drops its price from 26$ to 18$. thats all said and good, but not everybody's making formulaic pop-rock. and quite frankly, theres a lot of good stuff out there thats not being picked up by major labels.
since i couldnt bring my cd rack on the bus, lets have a look at whats in my travel case for shits and giggles. kermess (quebecois rock i wouldnt expect to be here), burt neilson band (ottawa defunct jam band i wouldnt expect to be here), moses mayes (winnipeg jam band i wouldnt expect to be here), yelomolo (quebecois rock i wouldnt expect to be here)... how bout super furry animals? good group from uk, sounds like earlier radiohead meets travis. here in limited quantities. the new deal, a big jamband from toronto- here in limited quantities. sigur ros- one of the best new sounds from iceland- here in limited quantites. wilco- now how come i never heard their stuff before? string cheese incident- great band, and its obvious that jam is not radio-friendly since this album never gets played. antibalas? good lord if something like string cheese cant be played, why should afropop? trey anastasio? if he wasnt riding on phish, this would never have been a hit in the least. and the strokes. well by some modern miracle, someone decided that they liked these guys enough to put them on the air. and now theyve got girls drooling all over them. im not saying its not fair, but come on according to modern music, they shouldnt be on mtv or the radio at all. and if they are, wheres all the other bands? where's "..and you will know us by the trail of dead" or "godspeed you black emperor!" ?
now ive got some errands to run and try to go to uconn for a bit. maybe ill continue later or you get my point now.
08/05/02(9pm)-tuesday 8am was course registration for next year. i neglected to put my next year schedule up:
Fall 2002
MWF 1130-1230 HIST 202 Survey: Canada to 1867 [history]
MWF 1330-1430 FRSL 321 Oral and Written French II [semester 1]
MWF 1430-1530 MUAR 211 The Art of Listening [music]
TR 830-1000 ACOM 150 Elementary Computing [aka arts computing, aka easy A]
TR 1000-1130 POLI 340 Developing Areas/Middle East [polisci]
Winter 2003
MWF 1130-1230 HIST 203 Survey: Canada since 1867 [history]
MWF 1330-1430 FRSL 321 Oral and Written French II [semester 2]
MWF 1430-1530 PHYS 204 Planets, Stars, and Galaxies [aka science for arts students]
TR 1130-1300 POLI 360 Security: War and Peace [polisci]
TR 1430-1600 MUAR 392 Popular Music Since 1945
couple of easier courses just to learn a few things, get a few good grades, etc. elementary computing is gonna be a joke for me, but an A would be a help. we'll see how things with all that go. looks pretty balanced. decided also that id ease up on having two polisci courses per semester, wracking my brains out trying to get work done.
(1030am)-here goes. Friday afternoon, got picked up by brian and drove to boston. went to his friend's place in somerville and took the T into downtown to kenmore square. there we met up with nate, i went with nate and dropped my stuff off at his place. then went to burrito max for a bite to eat. talk about big burritos. better than taco bell. after that, went to his place again so he could get his camera shit and then left to paradise. the paradise show was awesome. i kinda wished i didnt go to the uhart show for the sole reason that uhart seemed typical for its crowd, so the guys were playing sub-par and goofing off, etc. but the paradise show was definitely pumped. despite an error we found out from the guys that doors were 830 and not 9 and rane was on at 9 and not 930, we got there with plenty of time.
setlist went something like castles, from the vine, feeding the machine, the words (you and i), mirage, secanendo maldanado, goomba, center of ourselves. they opened for this band called jump, little children, whom i didnt particularly like at first- i found it to be somewhat formulaic- but they werent bad and their fans were great. many of them signed the mailing list and have already started to get into rane. which was definitely great because paradise was 20 tickets away from being a sold out show (apparently when they played the met cafe in providence on saturday, it was another good show). you could definitely tell the guys were amped about that though and it reflected back in their music. mirage was one of the best and fastest ones theyve played yet, the new songs like secanendo maldanado (and my lesser favourite) from the vine were high energy and as always, the ending to center of ourselves was pure emotion. in my opinion, thats a song that needs to be seen live to be felt cause even the live tapings dont do it justice. anyways, they're playing lupo's heartbreak hotel the saturday before cheney (lupos is like providence's webster theatre) and then the cheney hall show is may 31. also, they're returning to HOB cambridge on july 7th, so it should be a great show.
anyone reading this: i am trying to reserve a block of tickets to the cheney hall show on friday, may 31. they are selling rather quickly and so i'll just get wade to reserve me some if he can. tickets are 10$ in advance and 12$ at the door. please email me to let me know that you want a ticket (which you should because its a friday night show- no school the next day- at the oldest performance hall in CT). and if you know anyone who wants to go or anything, let me know and ill add them into the count. right now i know its just me and julian for definite.
so after the show, went to mels house, watched the end of the cubs game with her and her roommate jarod, then tried to find the score to my hockey game (2-1 canes :( ). mel lives in winthrop, right across the bay from downtown boston. her house is right on the water across from logan airport. might i say, her house is pretty sweet for its location. but then again, i think that not much can really top my apartment in montreal :) anywho, woke up the next morning, took the the commuter rail to the 128 stop, the fam picked me up there and we went to some relatives in canton. when we got there, we found we had a flat tire :-/ and no one was open to fix it when we left so we ended up driving 55 all the way home. didnt do much in the evening.
sunday was pretty much a do nothing day. right now im not working cause im waiting for the banks to get their shit together. but i was, in so many words, offered a position at the bank i worked at last summer (well, the merged bank, that is). but it turns out that as a result of the merger, everyone that was working there when it was first federal has fully moved to other banks (mainly tolland bank). so i dont know any of the sbm tellers. apparently rockville also offered me, but i havent heard back from them since they called here in ct 2 weeks ago. and yesterday i found out that tolland bank doesnt have openings at the moment unless some of their other summer help doesnt come back, but i cant wait on that. i wish i could work at tolland bank though cause thats where most of the people from first federal moved to :-/ so sunday was doing some yardwork, getting mulch and weeding and mulching beds. monday was two doctors appts, and yesterday was a few bank errands.
andrew came over lastnight, which was cool. i was watching game 3 of the hockey playoffs and he came over around the start of the second period. it was pretty cool. we had a lot of scoring chances, despite being outshot. the koivu goal was nice. wasnt into the game as much cause andrew was over, but it was still cool cause we won 2-1 in OT. i wrote an email to espn though cause they were pissing me off, particularly for not showing the OT goal. ill save that letter for the end. then we watched 24 (9pm) and it was a pretty good episode. the next two are really gonna be great episodes and its definitely been the show to watch. and to think i almost didnt- it was a fluke that i decided to stick around to watch that first episode with the guys. and 22 weeks later, its brought us all closer together...hehehe
anyways, thats it for now. ill close off with the letter i wrote to espn and if theres anything else i need to say, it shall be said. kinda like mtv news: "you hear it first."
To whom it may concern:
I'm writing this email to express my disappointment in the ESPN broadcasting of the Montreal Canadiens-Carolina Hurricanes Stanley Cup Playoff series. During the year, I am a student in Montreal and am used to listening to games broadcast on CBC. Now that I am home in the States for the summer however, I am relegated to watching my hockey team, the Canadiens, covered on your network.
Over the course of the past few games, I have noticed the commentators have tended to be biased towards the Hurricanes. While I understand that CBC might naturally bias towards Canadian teams (they are partially government funded), I'm not sure that the coverage in this series has been particularly balanced. ESPN's mistake in not showing the final overtime goal of tonight's game (May 7) was perhaps the biggest throw-off for me. Instead of getting back to the action, clips coverage of the Hurricane's wins in games 3 and 5 of the first round were shown, thus pre-empting the goal. For a network that I assume cares to provide quality sports programming, this err was the turning point for me.
In addition, the colour-commentator repeatedly referred to Montreal goaltender José Theodore as pronounced "Ho-say" instead of "Jo-say." Mr. Theodore was the NHL's leading goaltender during the regular season and a contender for both the Hart and Vezina Trophies. His name is not unknown and yet it is still being mis-pronounced.
Unfortunately, ESPN is the only station in Connecticut that is carrying Montreal Canadiens playoff games on TV and thus, is the only station I'll be able to watch the games on. Being an avid Canadiens fan, I will continue to do so, however I just wanted to express my dissapointment in the broadcasting of these games.
Thank you for your time.
(1am)-ever notice how when i say im gonna update, i dont? ill keep my mouth shut, who knows? :)
06/05/02(130pm)-i have to update. boston, habs, all the other fun things going on... have to fix the counter up top to actually display the right countdown. and i have to work my schedule out for next semester since registration opens online for me tomorrow am. but for now, its off to drs appt 2 of the day. more later...
03/05/02(950am)-you'll have to excuse the fact that i havent changed the picture yet. im not on my laptop so i dont have a picture to put up. actually, im home. as in home for the summer in ct. so basically this is just my brief update since the last one. i cant get my laptop to work with the internet and i dont feel like taking the time to fiddle around with it now. this happens everytime i come home. so im on the main desktop for the time being.
wednesday was basically a sleep-in, do the packing sort of day. woke up, goofed around, took my laundry in and started cleaning up my room to figure what i needed and what i didnt. at the same time, the girls were moving in next door, so seth nick and dave (when he got out of class) were helping them. hehe, we're living next to the girls next year. :) they're getting rid of those girls that were there before that never talked to us. and.... no more dj bass through the brick walls in my room and the living room! actually, i was talking to the guy who was living there before- the dj, théo- and he ended up giving me a pair of rca speakers he said he didnt need. they're fairly nice rca speakers- actually a bit bigger than the ones my aiwa bookshelf system uses now. so what i may do is try and work on putting rca ends on them and putting them into the tv so weve got better sound for the dvd player... or i can put quadrophonic sound in my room :-D unless im missing anyone, i think the count over there next year is kristen, jess, debbie, leslie, and kristy. :-D anyways...
two of the subletors moved in and david essentially moved out for good. didnt really meet the subletors much- pascal and jon. but im not staying there over the summer and my room there is locked so didnt matter to me really that i became friends or anything. i think seth's leaving the 7th and nicks leaving the 13th. pretty much finished up the packing and the 4 of us got a couple bottles of wine and went to dinner at eduardos. so the wine is starting to hit, this lady bumps her chair back against davids and then starts going off in french to him about how if you bump someone and cause them to spill, you're supposed to say you're sorry. and i dont think anyone even knew what was happening. eh, i think she was the rude one if you ask me. after dinner, we went over to the girls place while they did a little room-set up for themselves and i hit the hay early.
yesterday, i did another of those things i did tuesday morning. i woke up at 630 and couldnt go back to sleep. so i got ready to leave and was on time and at the bus station at 915. bus left at 10. this kid from my canadian politics conference was on the same one so he ended up sitting with me. then there was the spanish guy who had his violin and was yelling at me in french to watch his jacket while he filled out his luggage tag. he looked like one of those guys who was either in ricky ricardo's cabana orchestra or one of those guys in madrid who seranades you at some spanish restaurant with the slicked hair, white shirt, white shoes, grey suit... long bus ride. i hate the bus. id rather fly. montreal to albany was about 4 hours. it was another 3 to springfield. and they did springfield to hartford in about 25 minutes. and its an extremely uneventful ride through the mountains on a bus. i brought a book, and didnt even read it cause i was just thinking and staring out the window. but i read the goalies'world magazine and relix. and read the paper and did both crosswords. only thing that really happened was customs.
they have you line your shit up on some table and then you go inside to the officers for the questions. im not sure if it was cause i said i had a guitar case, but they decided to have me pull my suitcase and everything inside. yes, because everyone with a guitar case is presumably bringing weed into the country. so they went through everything in my suitcases, guitar cases, document bags, laptop case... which was nerveracking cause im holding up the bus and i didnt even have anything. and 4 guys were doing the searches. when we're talking extensive, we're talking the guy looked through underwear, my meds, even started rifling through the pictures. ?!?!?!?! what the fuck! hes like "hm...car show...people...[gets towards the end]. whelp, nothing illicit here." and im thinking, no you moron, does it look like there is? do i look like im smuggling child porn in my guitar case or something? the only thing i was worried about was an alberta license plate i bought at a tag sale for 50 cents that i had in my backpack. which is what i told him. apparently though his powers of observation are so keen that he didnt see the fact that it had an 1996 expiration sticker on it! or how bout the fact that they'd already looked at my passport and my student authorization, then went through my checkbook and asked why i had a canadian checking account? by the time the last guy finished looking through rolled socks and i had defeated him, he had realised it, and was almost indignant with the fact that he had to do the search and found nothing. damn, no spring bonus for him. i suppose i cant blame the poor bastards, after all, when that picture of george w bush with the shit-eating grin is hanging on the wall, it all becomes scary when university students go home for the summer. hm, sounds like the next FOX special- "when university students go home for the summer 5"
got into hartford 645. same as it ever was. mom picked me up at the bus station, went home. elise has her braces off now. looks good. hehe i remember when she got them put on 3 years ago unexpectedly while i was in france. so i was half unpacking, but not really cause i just wasnt motivated to do it. had dinner with the fam, then went to uhart to see rane. setlist after i got there 1/2 hr late was something like: words, castles, circus ride, cat stevens, jam>center of ourselves, goomba, sun lays down, apple, minutes. talked to the guys after. went home, somewhat finalized plans for today/tomorrow. im going to boston around 3-4. meeting nikhil at unos for dinner at 7. rane plays paradise at 9. they're opening for this nationally touring band, jump, little children, whom i havent heard, but they're repeating the deal in providence on saturday. paradise is the first place U2 played on their first north american tour in '80. anywho. then im probably going wherever everyone else is going (since i wont have a car) and then go to mel's house in winthrop to crash. meeting the fam in canton saturday afternoon and thats bout it. looking forward to tonight since i really havent seen rane outside of hartford/springfield. and i havent been to boston in like 3 years. havent seen nikhil in about a year and a half. and i get to be here, but not here. plus thats it for rane that i can go to until the cheney show 5.31. meanwhile, no ones responded to me to that. :-/
and theres a playoff game tonight, so ill probably tape it and watch it saturday evening. all predictions are habs in 6 and id have to concur. could be 5, but probably 6. and ottawa-toronto? cujos on a horrible cold streak, the team is getting highly undisciplined, i say ottawa in 7. as for the west, i havent been too keen on whats going on but detroit in 5, and colorado in 7. thats what i think. oh yeah, amelie was a dissapointment. it was the original french version, no english subtitles. which was fine for me but meant that i was the only person who could watch it, which defeats getting it to watch with other people, so ill have to get it when its out in july then. thats it for now, time to get ready for boston...
01/05/02(1225am)-well im finally done with exams. to be honest, thats where ive been at the past couple of days. that and a mad case of hockey fever. now that we've defeated the bruins, im bringing my habs flag home when i return to ct. couldnt get tix to any of the playoff games here against carolina. its damn near impossible. :-/ but the city was going insane. if the habs make it past toronto to the cup, i hope to atleast visit the victory celebration here. they may not beat the western team, but it'll be a helluva ride. if im skimping out here, its because a)theres not too much to say b) im tired from exams. stupid mcgill had 2 of my exams at the same time and place, so i had previously filled out a conflict request form. essentially todays exam schedule went like this:
i went to bed at later than i wanted, had a horrible sleep where i kept waking up every 10 minutes thinking i overslept my 730 wakeup calls. ended up just getting up completely at 630 for fear that going to sleep would mean i would really oversleep. left for the exam at 830am, picked up a coffee and a muffin, went to the exam conflict room in wilson hall at 845. there, they gave me the first exam at 9am- 3hrs. this was for modern european history. basically in studying for that, i didnt do much cause it was a broad overview of 400 years of all of european history- meaning that anything on the exam would be general themes that i already knew, either from prior knowledge or other courses. so when the time came for ids, i did charles darwin (didnt remember hearing him mentioned in class or in reading), giuseppi garabaldi, battle of stalingrad, pan-slavism, collectivization of agriculture (gee, i wonder how many times ive dealt wit those in specific detail in boss' class), and i cant remember the last one. for the primary source text, i knew that one of the choices would be the communist manifesto and having read it for class and knowing its historical implications, that was fairly simple. and then was the essays- one i did on louis XIV (french history) and the other on european integration (term paper and last years polisci class). this exam ended at 12pm- 3hrs.
then we were confined to the room til 115- this was our "lunch period." but i was stressed from going from one exam to the other, so i wasnt even hungry for my muffin. ended up drawing a doodle and writing a song. i think this is one of my better songs lyrically- getting to stylistically reflect the direction i want to be in, not just expression. i end up doing verse chorus verse chorus bridge chorus rut, but thats not what i want to do. anyways, ill put the lyrics down at the end of this. gotta come up with some music, but i think it works for a song. so...that one room- 4.5 hours. they then escorted us to the gym at 130, to take the second exam at 2pm- government and politics of the us. it was weird because unlike the midterms that i struggled immensely with, the questions on the final were rather nebulous. example, the first part was basically short answers questions. heres what i did: 4) George W Bush became president by the narrowest of margins. How does that affect his ability to govern? 5) Should one worry about civil liberties issues in time of war or great national crisis? Why? 6) If interest groups are such an integral part of the system, why do critics worry about them so much? part II was the main essays: 8) It can be argued that the 1990s were a particularly turbulent decade, one characterized by intense partisanship. What caused this situation? How was the political system affected? 12) How have events since September 11 affected your understanding of how the American political system works? (I was truly trying to figure this one out because not only was it rather broad, but it was a personal question and usually you don't write using "I.")
and the ids: equality of results, term limits, newt gingrich, budget resolution, substantive due process, incumbency edge, elite, reno v. aclu, james jeffords, "switch in time that saved nine." not so bad, but then, i suck at ids
by the time i got to hmv, sleep started to kick my ass and i literally hadnt eaten all day. amelie was supposed to come out but when i got there, i found it was the original french version. meaning for francophones. now granted, i can understand it, and would in fact, like to see it without subtitles, but if i cant watch it with non-francophones, then whats the purpose? plus, the english subtitled one is a 2 sided disc with more special features and i can show it to people, so i guess ill wait til it comes out in july then. why spend the 30$ otherwise? so i got trey anastasio's solo album out today. havent been that big a phish listener, but his solo album is really good. musically diverse, but very unique. then came home, was sick, took a nap. and so tomorrow ive got work around my room to be done. and thats about that. john left for dc at 6am this am and since hes no longer living here, his room is essentially bare. since hes leaving his guitar at his new place, he's letting me borrow his boss 505 effects compressor for the summer. so that'll be really sweet to be able to try some new sounds. ive said i want to get another effect or two so we'll see what i like. dunno what else to say right now and im kinda tiredish. no real partying tonight i guess, even though i should be celebrating finals over and habs victory. tomorrow night we might go out or something, but i dunno. gotta be up early thursday am. hey, 8's fairly early :P
"Revolver"
lyrics by Spencer Ross 30 Apr 2002
Compounded
In this life
I'm living double
I'm living double
Vision
Of a path so vague
For you and I
And the world revolved around us
Fractal patterns
All around reflect chaos
Theory that we're all unknown
And the world revolved around us
World revolved around us
Revolved
Like the merry-go-round
It's coming full circle
And I am not alone...
Something I can't describe
Painted a picture
Of blue
And green
Grass bent back by the wind
Shifting the sands
Of the canvas
And the world that revolved around us
World revolved around us
Revolved
Like the giant glass doors
It's coming full circle
And I am not alone...
I stirred my coffee left
Instead of right
Beside me
You will be there
For its been quite sometime
Since I became
Myself
And the world revolved around us...
|
