so now ive got a lot to cover and im sitting here in second cup doing so before tonights kol nidre services. its been quite a while since my last update so lets get to it. first off, the roommates are all moved in now and the apartments shaping up nicely again, although im not happy about the food situation but i guess ive gotta deal. so its me, nick, seth, yin, amanda, and claire, sharing the same apartment as last year (well yin, amanda, and claire are new this year). things have been going well although weve only had one house meeting. anyways. classes started the wednesday after labour day. basically my schedule goes like this:

mwf=canadian history to 1867>oral and written french II, art of listening; tu,th=arts computing>developing areas:arab politics (side note: being in the coffee shop is distracting, too many cute girls :-P second side note: second cup's ristretto crème brulée is fantastic)

classes are going real well and i think im doing better than last year. its like i feel so motivated that ive been doing a lot more work and just getting a good feeling about things. ive been going to coffee shops more often to read (ok so i brought my laptop this time) and also been getting out more to mingle with the people. ite going really well this year and this could possibly be one of the best years. so yeah, thats a lot of the reason why i havent updated in a while. ive been so busy that i havent even really had time to sit in front of my computer for extended periods of time to write anything significant. maybe ill get back into writing short posts daily instead of having to sit in a coffee shop for 3 hours trying to remember three weeks worth of material. ive got a lot to say but the details arent there, so its probably going to be fairly brief.

ok first off, frosh went okay for seth and kristin and i got to meet a couple of their froshies. during ssmu frosh, the new deal was playing at the dome. yeah, the dome. not the best place to play, but i just wanted to see their sound live. phenomenal. if you hear their record, you kinda wonder how they perform like that live, but they do it and they do it excellently with an energy level that is so through the rook that you cant help but dancing. of course, i woulda been dancing anyways but whatever (getting distracted again :-P). so it was me, david, zoya, and tamarah (sp?). and we met yin there as well. oap went really well too. went there a couple of days. nick's band, nearsight played on the first friday. they're not exactly fully my type of music but its something i could listen to- heavily metallica influenced, even though they covered radiohead's "just" and the who's "my generation." jumping ahead a little bit, the band just recorded their 5 song demo LP yesterday and if i can fit it on my server, ill put up some of the tracks. it sounds really tight, although my personal opinion is that the vocalist's tone is a little too bassy for my liking. but it sounds good nonetheless. good job guys.

ok, i got myself a new guitar pedal. i was borrowing johns over the summer and although im not hot on multi-effect processors, it would atleast give me a jumping off point at which i know what i can do with different effects and how to work them so that when i can afford multiple individual effect pedals, i have an idea of what im doing. its a zoom 505 series II with 24 effects and 30 patch spaces, built in tuner, lead effects, etc. one of the coolest effects is the lead attack, which lets me play a note and exponentially increases the volume of it from 0 to full. not a delay in the true sense, but the way it comes out of the amp makes it sound inversed- one of the effects that i wanted most. now i can pseudo do it. speaking of music, if you havent heard the new coldplay album, get it.

speaking of music, i saw this pretty good movie, 24 Hour Party People, starring steve coogan. its a historically-grounded fictional account of the manchester rave scene starting from the sex pistols to new order, happy mondays, etc. its hillarious in a dark british humour sort of way- similar to that of spinal tap, which wasnt real, but went through all the motions. party people covers about 20 years working from punk to djs and theres a lot of themes dealing with selling out, drugs, and trying to shape destiny. if its playing near you, i highly recommend seeing it.

speaking of manchester, i saw this band, doves, last week at club soda. they were a really good band from manchester. that same britpop sound, but a little edgier. definitely put on a good show. i first saw them on conan and then decided to go to the show. the opening band was really good as well. doves' latest album, the last broadcast made it on this year's short list of music. the shortlist is the top 10 new, alternative albums of the year, selected by a panel of 24 judges (different musicians). the shortlist comes from the longlist- a longer list of albums (50-100?). anyways, winners of this years shortlist were aphex twin, the avalanche, bjork, cee-lo, doves dj shadow, flaming lips, the hives, N.E.R.D, and zero 7 (bands in bold are albums i have). surprisingly, wilco's yankee hotel foxtrot made the longlist twice, but not the shortlist. weird. oh yeah and sigur ros is coming to montreal on halloween, so that'll be awesome cause their cd is phenomenal. i cant wait to see them do that one live also.

speaking of music, i tried to put in for the lottery to see phish at madison square garden on new years eve. i was so hoping to have some decent nye plans this year, but it looks like another year in south windsor, going to dennys at 2am cause thats the only thing open on nye at fucking 2am. no joke. last year, me and sarah d were looking for a place to go, but the only things open at 1am were dennys and the vernon diner. boo. theres still a shot on ticketmaster, but im more inclined to think its not happening. maybe ill either come back to montreal or pray theres a rane concert.

birthdays that happened last week- margaret and brandee (19), sarah d and john(20), katherine (21). yay!

julian called me from siena the other week. it was pretty cool because i would have overslept my class cause he ended up being my wakeup call. so it was good to hear from him. his walk in europe is going okay and i guess he's seeing a lot of girls, but feeling bad that he doesnt know the native languages. (speaking of girls, this one girl sitting across from me.... :-P) anyways, im looking forward to my shot at getting to europe and julian if youre reading this from another internet cafe, have an authentic italian pizza for me.

speaking of calls, the girls at SBM faxed me yesterday which was really sweet of them. then about 5 minutes later, i get this phone call from denise and right away i picked up that it was her voice, and surprised her right back. so i talked to her, deb, and amy for a bit. jess and renu had customers, but it was a really nice surprise to wake up to. (funny how everyone always wakes me up with the phone :-P). anyways, guys if you're reading this, i miss you too... speaking of calls...my wakeup call got me up today- in time to watch my new favourite cartoon: SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS! thats right, nick got me into spongebob and ive been loving it. if you havent seen it, you should. i can definitely see why they put it on the tv guide top 10 cartoons of all time. its a cute cartoon, not dumbed down for kids, but not sophisiticated for adults. its not stupid (like ren and stimpy), but not cheesy (like tweety bird). and although its relatively new, its definitely entertaining.

anecdote time: so me nick david and katherine went to upstairs on friday to see the kevin dean quintet. they were pretty good and upstairs is always a realy cool place to go to. live jazz is great. so we're on our way home and stop for burger king and these americans sit down next to us. this kid is telling this girl from mcgill that his brother taught him how to drink and that he'd been drinking since he was 15. and then he goes over to the garbage can, sticks his head in it and starts tossing his beer. HAHAHAHAHA funniest thing and everyone was laughing at him. he was so drunk and after saying what he said, the girl left and this kid's head is in a burger king garbage bin. life really cant hit much lower for that kid :-P. i mean over a garbage can is one thing, but when you have to stick your head in a BK can, thats problems.

yesterday started intramural soccer and i somehow got roped int playing for nicole's team, the HSA (history students association) Allstars. so since im afraid of intramural sports and since i suck at soccer, i was kinda worried about how it would turn out. ended up turning out pretty nicely. we lost 4-1, but we were undermanned 11 people to 8. and they had mostly guys too, whereas we were coed. anyways, i was playing right midfield during the first half, but found i was doing better as defence, so i switched there second half and did the same thing without getting as tired. made quite a few good blocks altough my eye-foot coordination isnt always there. ah well, i never said i could play soccer. but it was still a lot of fun and we're playing again next sat. i'm mainly doing it to train for hockey season. i bought myself a cheap pair of bauer rollerblades at sports experts and every other day ive been skating 10 miles to olympic park and then back. its been pretty good and my legs are getting a little steadier on skates although i could stand to learn how to skate backwards better. im hoping to join some D league intramural team this year, so between skating and some soccer, it should get me back into better shape. maybe once soccer is over, ill end up going to the gym once a week to supplement skating and then when its too cold to skate, ill go to the gym every 2-3 days. hockey season starts for the habs on oct 9 and here at the bell centre on oct 12. training camp started last week in vail for high altitude training and mike komisarek, the defenceman who went to my high school for a year and was in one of my classes was invited with the rest of them. if he plays this year, that'll be awesome cause from all scouting ive heard, he's going to make a formidable asset for our team. go habs!

anyways, ive got stuff to do before kol nidre services and my time here in the coffee shop should be expiring now so i can do other, more productive stuffs. maybe ill talk about all my political stuff some other time if i get a chance. such as 9/11, iraq (big mistakes to make a unilateral decision on that), netanyahu's cancelled lecture at concordia which caused riots in montreals streets... anyways. ill be jetting now. will update at a point in the near future. and hopefully, ill get my smalrus.com back dammit!

11/09/02(120am)-ok, i know its been almost forever since ive updated and i promise i will update later today on the last couple weeks. its been sooo busy that ive been able to finally do what ive always wanted- break myself away from the ball and chain i call my computer. but its a good thing that ive finally found a life outside my computer (although my parents sound pissed that i havent been home to return their calls the last couple of days). anyways, lets just take some notes of things i need to talk about in my update: my classes/schedule, netanyahu's visit to concordia, the roommates, the doves concert, oap/frosh/new deal concert, phish tix, julian's call, guitar pedal, one year anniversary of smalrus.com, one year anniversary of 9/11/iraq, the holidays, 24 hour party people, happy birthdays to sarah d, margaret, john, katherine, and brandee, and 28 days til the start of the hockey season. as you can see, ive got a lot to talk about so ill sleep on it and somehow, someway, finish it tomorrow. and probably forget a lot more things i was thinking of saying. more later...