chalklit pyhe II

yes. yes, i know. i'm not a constant poster.

you people are gonna have to deal with that.

while i've probably lost most of my modestly sized audience, i figure i can start up again, and attempt to post a bit more frequently.

i really can't cover everything that's happened in the last few months...and more tragically, i don't have the ability to make an 80s workout-style montage to show you how it all went down.

here's a brief summary: had party. took new job. worked at new job. worked at new job. worked at new job. saw the party dream at the knitting factory. worked at new job. finished my kegerator. worked at new job. worked at job. worked at job. finished and submitted thesis. worked at job. went to beer fest. turned 25. worked at job.

there was a lot in between (drank beers, got confused by girls, rehabbed my knee, etc), but there's no point in really analyzing the past now, is there?

i guess it's time for a few thoughts, then i need to find something to do on this boring friday afternoon:

-being a Master of Arts is nothing like being a Master of the Universe. though i do like shouting "By the power of Grey Skull!!!" while I'm on the NJ transit. i would thrust my claymore into the air upon saying this, but someone at my party broke it while trying to throw it into the ground like in Braveheart. well done.

-speaking of Masters of the Universe:


-the awesomeness of a thesis is directly proportional to how much of the title is a reference to a great movie. similarly, the perceived validity of a thesis is inversely proportional to said title's references.

-my thesis is officially called, "This one goes to eleven..." it is now a published reference at the McGill University library. i win.

-i need to go on a beer run badly. all i have in my house are party beers...open the fridge, just PBR...open the kegerator, just an old keg of Bud. this is pathetic.

-i am appalled that i heard a good friend of mine actually say that SAW II was a good horror movie. really? really?? really.

-the human voice can truly mystify at times. it can touch, it can sway, it can float. sometimes it just clicks.

that's all for now, kiddies. i hope to be back sometime soon. same channel...who knows what time?

sir spam-a-lot

bowling of it annoying chess atom. America grits .bestows burly the truce but bear with buzzard .A the feverishly seduce accidentally with a takes? judge real theater chestnut. mating ruminates, hydrogen pit are. power recorder. rejoices, lesson to bullfrog snooty around about. freezing goes a you escape lot. by righteous. snack a accurately a mastadon takes recorder. the and bear the hesitates. a tornado scooby the finds secretly, subtle saw drunk, wedge flatulent minivan but into ridiculously power razor a cab. mitochondrial The upon freezing fire mastadon, nagging satellite, Most The saw annoying. knows a.

-this was the first paragraph of a four paragraph spam email i got today. damn. whoever wrote this, i want their drugs. i know...i know...no one "wrote" it, it was generated by some algorithm. but, to what end? in the middle of the meandering ramblings of this "turned-on, tuned-in, dropped-out" text generator, there was an ad for a vibrating cock ring. i just can't imagine that anyone would:

a) start reading the email, and think: "yeah, i've always thought that mastodons accurately take recorders".
b) see the cock ring ad in the middle of such incoherent babble, and think "i did always need a vibrating cock ring...why not now?".
c) think a and b simultaneously.

while option c would most likely make someone's head explode like the people in Scanners, i'm sure some people have succumbed to spam such as this. now, i have nothing against vibrating cock rings, but these people voted for Hubert Humphrey. and they killed Jesus.

another puzzler about this and so much other spam: it's not even fucking addressed to me! the address in the "To:" field is patrick.zwietering@gmail.com...i'm not sure, and correct me if i'm wrong, but my name is not patrick zwietering. i'm an IT person, so i should know the answer to this, but i just can't figure it out...and my brain hurts when i try.

what someone really should do is turn this spam into a social experiment. take one of these emails, bring it to a poetry night at your local "i'm not sure if i'm goth or hippie" coffee joints, and read it. 100 bucks says you get applause. or snaps.

i remember hallowee-ee-ee-een, hallowee-ee-een, hallowee-ee-en, halloween.

halloween had a serious lull during the mid teens, didn't it? before that time, it was awesome...free candy, dressing like a ninja, authenticity of gore in the costume always was cool and not geeky. then you hit the mid teens. anyone who still went trick or treating then was a jackass. yeah, you heard me. 14-18 year olds would go door to door, and say they were "dressed as my brother" or "a secret agent...they look like everyone else". that's just pathetic. as Lrrr of the planet Omicron Persei 8 would say, "Get a job!"

then came booze in conjunction with halloween. suddenly, it was fun and meaningful again. no matter how stupid a costume is, it becomes funny by the end of the night. and, as an added bonus, the more offensive or ridiculous your costume is, the more it is appreciated. now, it takes effort to pull off a good one. you can't go as "a pirate" or "freddy kreuger" (you all knew that kid)...now you have to be "steve irwin", "terry schaivo", or "guy fucking a bear". you could also simply dress like an asshole and be a "child molester" (thanks Mart) or "Dustin Diamond". the required complexity of the costumes juxtaposed with the inherent immaturity of the social connotations surrounding said costumes shows that as our intelligence increases, so does our childishness. which is strangely comforting. (this coming from a man/boy who still enjoys shotgunning cans of PBR on a porch at 8:30am).

for these reasons, i still look forward to halloween. not only is it a time to dress like an idiot and get wasted, it is a time to be around a bunch of your friends who are doing the same...which makes it pleasantly different from the other times that i dress like an idiot and get wasted.

i'm outskies.

(by the way, if you get the misfits reference in the title, you rule...kudos)

round two.

school is more fun than work. ok...school is more fun than my current work. let me try this again...school is more flexible and i can get more hanging out, drinking, and sleeping done than my current work. yep. that's the right one.

as many of you know, i've worked at this job for almost 7 years now, on and off. it's at a structural engineering firm, and i have one of the best bosses in the entire world. i can basically set my own hours, handle my own tasks, and have my run of just about all of the office. when my boss is in, we spend most of the time shooting Seinfeld quotes back and forth and laughing our asses off. in these respects, it's close to a dream job. yet, it has some serious downfalls, including a traffic-y 1 to 1.5 hour ride to and from work, there's often not enough work to be done (leading to boredom), and it's clearly not the most interesting work.

i will be sad to leave it for the first set of reasons, but i need to start brewing.

ahh, brewing...right now, i have all of the parts needed to finish building my chest freezer-turned-kegerator/"fermentation chamber"/"coolness machine" en route to my house. i haven't been more excited about something in a while. i'm probably going to name it "Excalibur". first up...latte stout...after that, a mildly spiced amber and a butternut squash ale for T-giving. i haven't brewed since mid-July, so i'm fuckin' excited.

and now, an itemized list summarizing the experience of Bomz' Halloween party last weekend:

• gallons of skippys (a surprisingly tasty mixture of cheap beer, cheaper vodka, and countrytime lemonade mix), kegs, shots, 60 minute IPA beer pong


• bizarre door prizes (i won some sort of doll and one of the spirally ribbed condoms)


• Wheelz dressed as a cell phone, yelling about speed dialing while he danced and saying that Amy was gonna have "phone sex" later

fun times were had. too much booze was consumed. i couldn't feel anything on sunday.

coming up this weekend is another halloween extravaganza in Media. it is at a friend's girlfriend's house, which means by Media rules, we're never gonna be allowed to go back there after this Saturday night. i'm pumped.

while i'd like to take this blog to somewhere other than drinking, it's momentum would die at this point (if it has any left at all), so i'll stay on that topic...

i'm finally going to iowa to hang out with my brother and see my newborn nephew, Dash Parker Weiss Shortway. seeing my nephew is really great, but so is being able to finally back up every drinking story my brother has told to his friends about me with a live demonstration. should be legendary.

on a final note for this installment, i will be, once again, hosting another house party... it is NOT going to be as grand as the last time (i only have 12 hours to clean it this time, not a week like last time), but it should be damn fun. Shortways know how to throw parties. not sure why, but we do. it will be a two-nighter this time, Dec. 1st and 2nd, and all are welcome. flip cup, stupid tunes, and copious amounts of booze will be provided free of charge. i'd like to keep it to a 1Gpp limit (Garv-per-person), so please respect that. Canadian friends are also very welcome to come down...and encouraged.

RSVP, motherfuckers.

i'm thinking about getting metal legs.

just some randoms:

-otis day and the knights aren't (at least aren't supposed to be) a real band. apparently, "my man" otis was a random character actor named dewayne jessie, who got hired to play the tiny role of otis. immediately following the movie, the popularity of his two scenes had booking agents from all over the country booking the fake band at clubs and frat parties. to this (otis) day, the knights are still touring the country. this leads to a few conclusions: 1. apparently being able to play "shout" and "shamalama ding dong" over and over and over is apparently more profitable than singing glam metal songs about big butts and dwarven druidian monuments, hence otis day is still playing and spinal tap is not. 2. if i ever have another party, the knights are gonna play.

-those HP commercials saying "the computer is personal again" are the biggest loads of crap. apparently all other computers aren't personal because you cannot watch a DVD without booting up or etch labels onto CDRs. the fact that a huge company spent lots of money to make commercials that only ignorant assholes would ever fall for leads me to believe that there must be many more ignorant assholes than i had originally predicted. i can just imagine someone in best buy looking at a dell pc and saying to the salesperson, "no, i want one of those HPs...they're more geared to my personal needs." and now i just threw up in my mouth a little.

-i don't know why people take percocet for recreational purposes. i was on it (3 pills every 4-5 hours) for about a week, and never felt the euphoria people talked about. the only time i felt a really nice feeling was after my surgery when they gave me four doses of demerol and two percs all at once (yeah, i have a high tolerance). in fact, i actually stopped using the percocet early in order to be able to drink beer again...not really sure what that says about me and my habits, but it wouldn't have been the obvious choice for someone who just had a tendon ripped out of their knee then screwed into their bones.

-i watched one episode of nip/tuck and i saw: a breast-fondling dwarf male nurse, hash-brownie fueled visions of a satan personification fucking an 18 year old girl, a husband killing his dog after finding out his wife was lathering her clam with peanut butter to get the dog to take care of her biznass, and lesbian organ thieves. i don't know whether this means i should never watch it again, or that i should rent all the last seasons and catch up.

-physical therapy sucks. especially when the session begins each time with a hamstring deep tissue massage that makes me bite my finger to the point of drawing blood. i have a really high tolerance for pain...i voluntarily stopped the percs despite the constant pain...i caught a running circular saw in my thigh when i was 14 and finished the day of work at the construction job...i ran almost a mile with a dislocated elbow and two sprained ankles...but this is close to unbearable.

time to ice the knee and have some more beer.

chewing on the joker.

well, BK called me out with his comment about how rarely i've been posting, and i'm not gonna put up with that shit, so here goes...

well, to continue on my teaser from the last blog, i'll give you the whole story: i went to Media a few weeks ago for some unabashed debauchery. i arrived to Panger's place, with him waiting for me outside his apartment with a PBR pounder can for me. Pangz is the man. that night was pretty normal...hung out at his place with Jim, Ian, Dennis, etc. the true hilarity came the next day, after a long wait for decisions to pan out and the night to begin. it began with a ridiculously large order for dinner from a nearby Italian place. Dennis ordered a large cheesesteak calzone. Wheelz got a small calzone. i saw the small and thought it was the large, exclamating, "Holy Shit! That's ridiculous," with Wheelz responding, "That's the small one, man." Then, i saw that the large was so big, it needed a 16" pizza box. this calzone was so big, that every time anyone looked at it, they broke into hysterical laughter. Dennis, who is a big, big dude, took a massive piece off of it, one that was big even for his hands, and it barely reduced the size of this motherfucker. we estimated it to have 6-7 cheesesteaks worth of chipped beef in it. needless to say, money stated getting thrown down.

basically, i told wheelz that he couldn't eat the rest of the large calzone after he ate his smaller one. he accepted when 40 bucks was offered. then Amy told him he wasn't allowed to try. they argued for a bit, with Wheelz backing down. at least until we went to party without Amy.

then, we all went to scott's house, so the gang composed of: Wheelz, Pangz, Ian, Dennis, Greg, me, Scott, and Allison (Scott's special lady). here, me and Wheelz started shotgunning PBR pounders, finding ways to make a beer bong using kitchen appliances, and basically drinking copious amounts of cheap beer. thankfully, Allison realized when it was a good time to head to bed, because the competitions started as soon as someone brought the 2/3 of a large calzone out to the table. after it was down to a little over a third of its original size. we offered Wheelz about 25 bucks to finish it. he started taking monstrous bites, much too big for his chewing ability. after slowing down (and almost choking a few times), he finished it. for some bizarre reason, someone had mentioned eating the top of the pizza box. (we're weird, I don't deny it). i offered 40 bucks, and the total came to over 60 for him to eat the whole top...also, this was a corrugated cardboard box, not one of those flimsy ones. well, he took two bites, started eating it, and that's where it ended. he was so disappointed that he shouted, "damn!...alright, i'll eat the joker!!" and he grabbed the joker out of the deck and chewed it down.

to sum up the rest of the night, we drank more, i ended up eating a dollar bill, wheelz, dennis, and pangz left early, some weirdos from next door showed up and kicked the ever-loving shit out of some kid in the street, some nympho 45 year old from down the street started hitting on the rest of us, then left. interesting night.

well, as of today, i'm 9 days past my knee surgery. i've got some work to do now, but I will post about that ordeal in a day or so.

take it eas'.

bear with me.

sorry about the absence of posts. all i've done is work on my thesis for a month straight. if all goes as planned, i will have it fully submitted and fucking done on Thursday the 31st.

then i will post.

promise.

...

sneak preview: "...then wheelz tried to eat the cardboard top of an extra large pizza box for $60..."

decision '06

well, it's decided.

i am no longer going to be an expatriate.

on july 27th, 2006, i will be packing a 17' u-haul with all the shit in my tiny apartment, and driving it down to good ol' new jersey. i'll be living back at home with my parents for at least a few months, while i work at my job at McManus Design Group, and look for a brewing job.

sadly, the decision had to be made on one factor: my knee. Windee (who has had two ACL procedures) told me the details of the surgery, and it really shocked me. i thought this was a standard "tie the broken ends together" procedure. nope. this is a "remove an ACL from a corpse and bone graft it to my knee" procedure. and, upon further inspection of the selection of doctors up here, i found that there are two (yes, that's right...two) orthopedic surgeons that are members of the canadian association of orthopedic surgeons in this province. and neither are knee specialists. so, not only would i have to wait around 6-9 months to get the procedure done, it wouldn't be done by a specialist. i plan on snowboarding again in my life, and there is no way in hell that i'm just gonna let anyone poke around in there. if i go home, i can get a knee specialist to do it within a month. that's a lot more pleasant.

there are some upsides though: i can save a ton of money while i'm home, see my parents and friends from home regularly, go to the great american beer festival in september (which is essentially going to be the coolest job fair in the world), get a car (finally!), and once again have a fantastic beer selection. on top of that, after breaking the news to my thesis advisor that i couldn't take the really comfortable job he had offered me here in montreal, he said that we can work something out to allow me to consult part-time. i'm really excited about this. it's basically the best of both worlds...i can live at home and save money, but still come up to montreal on a semi-regular basis and hold down these two jobs. i always wanted to continue my research (and my advisor seems to be very excited that i can do this as well), and now i can while everything else works out at the same time. as an added bonus, if i can continue the consulting after i find a job brewing, i'll be able to pay the bills even though the brewing job will only pay slightly over minimum wage.

so, i'm happy. i'd be happier if i had more of my thesis experimentation done, since i have to finish it within the month, but at least the decision is no longer weighing on my mind.

what does this mean to my modest, but dedicated blog audience?

montreal friends: you all have been awesome. and that's one hell of an understatement. dry your eyes...this is not the end. i will be back, even more frequently than i expected, considering the consulting position i'm going to have. the nighttrain is gonna run out of montreal, but it will return in full force at times in the future. i also expect some trips for you all down to the states, as well. most of you have partied with my parents, and know that they'd be very happy to have you come stay at my house for some fun in nj/ny/pa.

nj/pa/va friends: brace yourselves. i will once again own an object of vehicular transportation. that means i'm visiting everyone. media folks - you're first...we're gonna tear wheelz' new house to splinters. nugz and bk - if you two can pick up so many weird women in dirty fredericksburg bars, i'm gonna be a damn casanova...expect the nighttrain to make a stop there in the near future for some rocket sauce. tamaquans - we're hitting the M & N again. i think we might be able to do a shot of everything in the bar and it won't be over 12 bucks. state college people - i don't really know why you're still living there, but i'm coming out and we're gonna eat every beer in town.

so, that's enough serious stuff for now. onto a few observations, then i gotta scram:

-apparently wheelz and company are going to see huey lewis and the fuckin' news next weekend. part of me wants to be there, and part of me is SO glad i'm not gonna. wheelz has been in love with huey for too long not to be completely insane at the show. 5 bucks says he gets punched in the face by someone. not because he gets into a fight, but because he'll actually yell "punch me in the face!!" at some random person until either they do it, or he ends up punching himself in the face. yeah, it sounds ridiculous, but this is also a person who had to be forcibly stopped from putting a combination of gold bond and paint thinner on his balls...i'm still not sure why we stopped him then, considering that we stepped aside just months before as he shot a staple through his sack for 30 bucks in front of 40 people. i'm looking forward to the stories from the show, though.

-i just hacked my new cell phone and now i can cut up and throw mp3s on it as ringtones. it's kinda geeky and dumb, but it's hilarious to set rings for people. i'm gonna have the most stupid rings on it...currently i have two songs from the karate kid ("you're the best around" by joe esposito and "cruel summer" by the bangles), one of the songs from rad ("thunder in your heart"), some msi, some cradle of filth, some gil mantera's party dream, etc. if you want your ringer to be any particular song, let me know and i'll make sure i put a dumb one on instead.

-i've been slamming coffee in recent weeks to keep my energy up for my long thesis writing sessions, but i guess it can only help me.

-everyone should watch "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" on FX. if you don't laugh at this, we're probably not meant to be friends in the first place. "This is classic Tammy..."

-i recently got an email in my spam folder that had the subject "you always wanted to use your penis as a billiard cue". i'm not sure which is more unsettling: that someone actually put time and effort into sending out this spam or that there may be people out there that are thinking "you know, they're right! i would love to have a cock that i can play pool with. sign me up!". ouch.

-i'm really gonna miss the abundance of orangina when i move back to the states. it's everywhere here, and its helped out of hangovers so, so many times. who ever thought that mildly-carbonated fake orange juice could taste so damn good.

-i just had the image of Sahoo driving his motorcycle in my head, and it reminded me just how dangerous that is. i still can't believe he could manage to get a license...that test must be a joke. if anyone has ever been in a car with him driving, they know what i mean. he once almost killed me and Kirby by trying to make a right turn from the left lane, cutting off a BUS that was to the right of us. i also remember the look of absolute terror on Jenna's face when she found out that Sahoo was gonna drive her car back to our house at penn state from downtown. that's a half mile of straight two lane road and i've never seen her more afraid (well that might not be true...she was pretty afriad when she got into the car and saw Bomz' new facial hair design...well, i guess that was more anger than fear).

ok, that's enough for now. time to get to work.

(sigh).

ok, ok, Jen, you're right, my concept of soon is pretty out of whack. time for another installment.

well, so much to talk about, and so little time. little time in the day. little time in my program. little time in my stay in canada. or is it? i can already tell that this is not gonna be one of the more jovial posts. i'm confused. within two months, my life will be significantly different. i will be done with school (at least within the practical sense; thesis submitted, waiting for review, etc). i will be entering the 'adult' world. i will be moving. i will be in one of many different places. and here is where the confusion sets in. i could stay in canada, i could move to NJ, i could move to some other part of the US... i guess i'll break it down:

option uno - i move home for august and begin work at a brewpub in september (i've got about a hundred resumes out, and a few look promising). i start the progression towards my dream without delay.

option dos - i have a job offer here in canada working as a research assistant for my thesis advisor. it pays very well, it's interesting work (basically continuing my thesis research, but getting paid to do it), the people are cool, i get to stay around my montreal friends, i can pursue a possible romantic interest, i can have some cash to put away until i need to either go to brewing school or live on minimum wage while i intern at a brewpub.

option tres - i go to NJ to work in the same job i've done for the past six years (strutural engineering work). it pays better than the montreal job, i live at home and save the money i would spend in montreal on rent, food, beer, etc., i can finally own a car again, i can see my PA buddies more than once a year, and i can put away a lot more cash than if i stayed in montreal. i also can have my knee surgery within weeks instead of about 9 months, as it would take in canada.

if option uno pans out, and i can afford to live off of the minimal salary of being a brewer's bitch, then there is no question about the decision. but if it doesn't, i have no idea what to do. moving back home is the easiest, but then i might miss out on a good number of things here, like: the few amazing friends i have up here, the website idea Dave and i came up with, another chapter in the nightmarish book entitled 'Nick's Badly-Timed Attempts at Relationships', the amazing vibe of this city...all those wonderful things.

on the other hand, my knee gets worse and worse every day, and i haven't even been called yet about setting up a simple consultation appointment with the surgeon, whose waiting list i was added to over two months ago. i need to be able to travel all over the US relatively simply in order to go on interviews at the prospective breweries, which is a little difficult if i have a full time job in canada. i also might need to save about 10 grand to attend brewing school and get a certification, which would be much easier to do at home due to the large reduction in costs.

the worst part about it all is that i have to decide about these things within the span of around 10 days. (sigh).

on a very mildly lighter point, i have my first 10 pages of my thesis written. it doesn't sound like much, but for me, it's given me a small boost of confidence that i really can get this fucker done.

and on one last note, i cannot wait to brew again. and there is not any method of text formatting to let me stress that enough. all i do when i'm not working on my thesis is read my brewing books and come up with new beer ideas. but i have no time to brew them, especially since i might be moving from my apartment within a month. once i figure all this shit out and get my thesis done, these brews are on deck: latte stout (coffee stout with added lactose), mango stout (i really think it will work), pomegranate lambic, imperial ned flanders red (super strong flanders red). more to come.

long time a'comin.

ok. i know. it's been months. i doubt that many of you cared that much, but if you did, then cool.

this post is gonna be short and stupid. like tom cruise.

just a few points:

-"Africa" by Toto is a damn good song. (didn't see that coming did you?) i'll let the naysayers nay. there's something seriously chill about that tune. i'm still kinda shocked they wrote the score for Dune, though.

-Nugz and BK's blog has to be one of the funniest collections of miscellaneous drunken humor on the net. maybe it's just me, but when i hear Nugz talking about "being elbow deep in beers" or one of them (can't figure out which, it could easily be either of them) explaining that he's sitting on his couch with no pants, watching re-runs of boy meets world, considering cracking a PBR at noon brings me to tears laughing. keep it up fellas. i'm elbow deep in research, and one of the few things that's keeping me sane is reading about Rocket Sauce, people doing their dance, and Ken hooking up with extremely inappropriate candidates. you better realize this: once i'm done with this p.o.s. thesis, the NightTrain is running into Fredricksburg.

-a friend of mine just gave me partially full bottles of kahlua, frangelico, and creme de cacao. and i already have unfinished bottles of kahlua and frangelico. i don't even know where i'm going with this comment. i personally don't know whether i'm happy about this, confused as to what the fuck i'm gonna mix it with, or a little frightened that i'm gonna get into a tragic alkie mindset and try to chug them one night.

-on a similar note, i smuggled in three bottles of NightTrain to Canada. i split one with a friend, and, as he stood up after drinking half over a period of about 15 mins, his eyes rolled around and he said, "holy SHIT! that stuff is fuckin insane!" and moved his arms in a mildly flappy manner. two bottles left, and i really am having a hard time deciding who i want to share it with. i don't wanna split bottles again. anyone who has had it knows that the real magic comes after you realize you drank the whole thing in a pretty short time, and have that split-second realization before it turns you into a giddy 6-year old on meth that you are in for one hell of a night...and you most likely aren't going to wake up indoors. or at least not in your own house. i'm pushing dave to try it, but he seems frightened by the very thought. maybe he's too OLD. haha...take that you soon to be 28-year old. nah, he'd love it. other than dave, there are very few people that i would even consider giving this to up here. it's not for amateurs.

enough for now. i will post soon again, and it will have much more substance than this one.

ripping the shit out of my knee, and other poems, by Maya Angelou

currently, i'm sitting at Dieu Du Ciel drinking a 2 and a half year old Belgian Abbey Quadrupel (that is fuckin' spectacular) and mulling over the past week or so. to keep everyone (all 7 of you) up to date, let's start at the beginning.

monday. went to Jay Peak to snowboard on their 28 inch dump over the weekend. halfway through the day, me, Doug, and Stacy were almost to the bottom, and went to hit the tabletop jumps that are always there. my confidence on them has been increasing each time i've gone this season. as some of you know, i've been riding since 6th grade, and am seriously skilled when it comes to steeps, trees, etc. but never have been a "pipe and park junkie". i can hit jumps, but i was never one for big air. anyway, on this run, i hit the first, and got some air, and felt great about it. so, as i approached the second, i was about to slow down, but thought, "i feel good about this...i'm gonna really hit this one". so, i hit it, not realising that the fuckers who designed it made the kicker too steep and the tabletop section too long. i got some serious air, and on the way down i see the indented section of the tabletop flat where everyone had been landing. so, in a moment of "oh shit, i'm gonna land on a flat" panic, i did the complete opposite of what i should and i straightened my front knee. yep. i'm a genius. i landed. and dropped to my knees in pain. i slid down to the base, and felt this extreme pain in my knee, but couldn't pinpoint it. so, in the macho, id-driven, "i can deal with pain" mentality, i decided to let my knee cool off in the tram before we get to the top of the mountain and take on some serious terrain. well, to my surprise, it felt fine at the top. so i started riding in the "waist deep powder" that we were told existed up there (thank you jackass on skis without a jacket...there was almost no powder up there). everything seemed fine until i was riding in a trail called "Hell's Woods" near the bottom. i was surfing through some nice powder, and i kicked out my right leg to stop on my heelside and take a breather. well, as soon as i did that, i felt my left knee stretch outwards with two back-to-back "pops" in it. fuck. i lit up that glade with so much profanity that the fucking pine needles dried up and fell off all the trees in a rigor mortis-y fashion. i managed to get up after some down time and made it to the base. drank some beer at the base, then went home. i was NOT going to wait 8 hours that night to go to the hospital, especially on trivia night, so i got Dave and Jen to take a cab with me to Brutopia for the night. we just barely lost the first round, and lost the second round in the tie-breaker, but i had plenty of beer and shots, so my knee was feeling grrrr-eat! (where's Tony the Tiger when you need him??). cab home (after scoring some Boustan). get to the emergency room at 10am the next morning, with no more than 4 hours of sleep, and wait for 4 hours until i get called into a room. then 2 hours go by until they give me an x-ray (even though i knew it wasn't broken and x-rays can't see soft-tissue damage), then another 1.5 hours goes by until some med student comes in and tells me that "it's not broken" (thanks copernicus) and "we're not sure if you tore any ligaments, so here's some tylenol with codeine and a referral to mcgill sports medicine". the name of the painkiller is deceiving...it's called "Empracet"...doesn't that sound like "Percocet"? well, it's not. i learned that when i broke my elbow a year ago. they put so little codeine and so much acetaminophen in these pills that you would have to overdose on acetaminophen in order to get enough codeine to feel anything resembling pain reduction. i took two tabs (double the dose), a pill of Naproxen, and washed it down with a beer and still felt no effect whatsoever. jerks. so, to sum up, i got to sports medicine and they believe that i have partial tears in both my ACL and my meniscus. so, no more snowboarding for yours truly.

i guess that brings us to wednesday. got my second edition of Junior Mints 'n' Bosco into the carboy to dry mint it with 2 oz of spearmint leaves and a bunch more chocolate. my altbier, Falter, is ready to drink and is very tasty, though i might submit it to the National Hombrew Competition under the Strong Scotch Ale category since it resembles that more than an altbier. i met with the Dieu Du Ciel master brewer to discuss the finer points of going from homebrewing to professional brewing. it was nice to hear that he still loves it. i was also offered an all-expenses-paid trip to Boston on the first weekend of April to oversee an experiment involving live emotional expression tracking with the Boston Philharmonic. i'm pumped about that for so many reasons.

thursday. nothing happened. eh, whatever.

friday. filmed a new segment about the Formula 1 rule changes for the 2006 season with WatchMojo. that should be up this weekend. while many of you have seen the best way to pour a pint, i'm happy to say that my segment on the difference between ale and lager has finally surfaced. keep watching that site for some really cool content. for instance, all sports fans should check out the latest edition of the whip/around. this guy know sports like i know drinking. and you all know how well i know drinking.

so, now i wait until the subaru station wagon that brings my brother and our friends to montreal rolls in (later than planned) to kick off a nice, hearty, drunken bachelor party. and with the severity of the rain outside and my lack of an umbrella, i think i will probably wait here, in the bar, until that happens.

a turn of the tides?

i don't know how i do it. for some reason, i have always fallen (often drunkenly) onto track for significant and serious jobs. i have never worked retail, never sold fast food (or any food for that matter), never had to learn a spiel that i would babble off over the phone to some unsuspecting consumer right in the middle of their dinner or session of crazy sex. don't get me wrong...i'm not trying to insult people who had these jobs. i have a lot of close friends that had them, and i have the utmost respect and admiration for them, if only for the fact that they stayed within a range of mild sanity throughout it all. i guess i've been lucky in that sense...the first job i had was working for McManus Design Group and Building Systems. as of now, i've worked there for over 6 years (on and off, of course, because of school). and i had possibly the greatest boss anyone could ever hope for. alongside that job, i've worked as a web designer for psu, programmer for new music synthesis methods, music system designer for abstract multimedia art installations, instructional video beer tutor, and other freelance tech projects. now, as most of you know, i hope to become a brewer after graduating with my master's degree. things have been lining up towards this plan: great reviews of my beer, multiple discussions with brewpubs in the area relating to a job, connections developing with multiple microbreweries in the states, etc. everything in its right place. well, that is, until i get a stick thrown in the spokes. not really a bad "stick" in any way, but it does upset the current momentum.

the "stick" presented itself during a meeting with my thesis advisor. lately he has been really impressed with my work (who knew?) and asked me what i'm planning on doing when the thesis is over. i've tried to avoid this question with him for a while, since he's being SO helpful with the thesis that i didn't want him to think that it's all for nothing. so, i said, as professionally as possible, "well, the thing is, i've been getting seriously into brewing beer, to the point that i want to pursue it as a career. i still want to continue with some research in this field, but right now, i'm not going towards a doctorate, and i feel that the brewing path is the best for me." well, to my surprise, he seemed pretty cool with it. i think he found it mildly amusing, but it didn't seem to throw him too much of a curveball. next, to even more of my surprise, he says, "the reason i ask is that i really want to continue research in this field and would like to offer you a job as a research assistant here, either part-time or full-time, depending on your interest when your thesis is done."

hmm? what was that?? pardon?

damn. just when i thought i was out, they pull me back in! now i have no idea what to do. at least he's offering a part-time position. maybe i can brew half-time and research half-time. and i know my parents are gonna be pushing for the research side. and i don't blame them. it's by far the smarter path to take. but, i don't think i want to do it. i'd like to tell him that i'll send him an email in 3 years and tell him whether i want the job or whether i'm opening my own brewpub. i was almost hoping that an opportunity like this didn't fall into my lap so that i could run with the brewing passion. well, i guess it's comforting that i could do it part-time, because i think that any brewing job i get up here will be of severely low hour/low pay. ok...lots to think about. and lots to do. ugh.

random other ponderings:

-i predicted it. the Two Dudes finally got internet. and as soon as the internet came, the profuseness and profundity of posts increased as greatly as Nugz' post-"cable installation" vocabulary (read the blog to figure out what i'm referencing). ok, well, "profundity" is a bit of an overstatement, but it is damn witty in a strange sort of way. in the last 1.5 days of having internet, they've posted 7 times. read it. for anyone who is unfamiliar with my psu friends, this will be a good warning of how fucked up they all are, so that you're not as surprised when you come to "The Party" and see things like: someone funnelling a family sized can of kidney beans, people shouting "hey , do your dance!" while a wasted kid of that name shuffles around like a jackass, someone smoking a cig through their nose (while racing someone else), people "powdering up them jams" (explained here by an outsider to the concept), people shotgunning 3 cans of PBR each within 3 minutes and 5 seconds at 9am to the tune of Alan Jackson's "Pop-a-Top", and, of course, disgusting bouts of binge drinking the likes of which few mortals have ever seen.

-The Locust fucking RULES. i forgot how great these guys are until ian mercifully sent me the album a week ago. bizarre, brutal, and even frightening at times. all with some of the most otherworldly rhythms and timbres i've ever heard. i remember the first time i saw them live. talk about alien...these 4 freaks dressed in green full-body suits with metal bug-eyes, twisting and contorting themselves in a way completely unknown to this planet, all whilst bringing the onslaught with a tag-team vocal effort that would send all but the most masochistic audience members running for the door. and all the while, they are perfect on their respective instruments. so mechanical in their timing that its hard to believe they are human. human or alien, i don't care...these things fucking rock.

-i've only started using the coffee machine in the music tech lab for a few hours now, and i'm already frustrated with it and its surrounding politics. i go in there, and there is a full pot sitting in the sink, still slightly warm, with no one around. what does this mean? are they done with the pot? if so, why wouldn't they dump it? do they like their coffee lukewarm? then why would they put the pot in the sink? were they kidnapped by The Locust the moment after they poured that first cup? i sure hope so. so, i dump it. i gave them 10 mins to get back to it before i did. then, i make a cup for myself (which is difficult to measure out correctly on a 20-cup machine). i walk out with it, bring it to my desk, check my email, and realize less than 5 minutes later that i left my new bag of Cafe Santropol coffee in the kitchen, only to go back and find that in that ridiculously short span of time, some assbag managed to make a 20-cup pot with my beans. what the shit? look, i'm not cheap, but that's just disrespectful. especially since there was a container of "communal coffee" on the shelf above the counter. it's like living back at patterson street again. but at least there it was your close friends stealing your food. here, it's just some weird researchers from western europe that are only here for two months at a time.

ok, enough for now. time to get back to research.

24 w/ a side of revelations.

well, let's start at the beginning. i wanna thank everyone who came out to Bru for my birthday shindig last weekend. from what i remember of it, a lot of fun was had...a lot of drinks were drank...a lot of shots were taken...a few carbombs were slammed...and some great friends made sure i got home alright. if anyone wants to see pics, check them out on facebook. Dave was the resident photographer that night, and he took some good ones.

being 24 doesn't seem to change much, but it just sounds shittier than 23. not really sure why. i think it is a bit of a motivating factor, though...get another year tacked onto the odometer, re-evaluate the current situation, come up with a plan to make the necessary changes. an interesting web site that i came across thanks to my friend Candice was an interesting one to find during this re-evaluation...it's called Future Me. basically,it let's you write an email and send it to yourself at a certain time in the future. an electronic time capsule if you will. the site's getting a ton of hits and the overhead is so low that i could see the site actually still being around long enough for one of these emails to be sent. pretty interesting concept. god, i love the internet.

in this process, i realized that i need to get down to business with my thesis immediately. i realized that the time it takes me to write is almost completely up to me, and if i work hard enough on it, i should be able to get it done by the early summer, which would be really awesome in terms of my current financial situation and travel plans i have for the summer. so, i need to get into the library today to start the painstaking research. the sooner i get this thesis out of the way, the sooner i can jump headfirst into the brewing world.

sitting at Dieu Du Ciel last night, drinking some pints with Carm, the longing to own my own brewpub burned so brightly inside that i almost felt like ditching the thesis program and just going for it, but i know i won't do that. the feeling just re-affirmed how badly i want to start on this career path. on a similar note, i'm soon submitting my mint-chocolate stout, dubbed "Junior Mints 'n' Bosco, to both the March in Montreal Homebrew Competition and the National Homebrew Competition. from all the feedback i've been getting from the serious beer people around here, it's got a chance to medal, so i'm really excited. i'm also going to attempt to brew it again this week to see if i can recreate it accurately (though i'm adding flaked barley to increase the head retention (thanks Aaron) and using a british ale yeast instead of an irish ale one, only because Steph at the homebrew shop didn't have the latter). after that, i've got a few IPAs up my sleeve to use up the ridiculous amount of US hops that are in my freezer. i also have to bottle my Altbier, tentatively named "Falter", within the next day or so.

on some random notes:

i apologize for the suggestion to read the Two Dudes blog. it had (and still does have) damn good potential, but everyone's going to have to wait until they buy internet for their house and stop having to go to the public library to blog. i'm disappointed guys. you both have steady jobs. you can afford to shell out 40 bucks a month. i guarantee that by the start of baseball season, it will be worth reading, cause they're going to need internet when that happens.

the dad at the beginning of The Neverending Story is a dick! how old is Bastian? maybe 11? and his dad is giving him shit for still being upset that his mom died and for drawing doodles of unicorns in his math notebook? he's fuckin' 11! ease off the kid, hitler.

alright...time to get down to it. catch you all on the flipside.

IT'S FUCKING ON.

the date has been decided. the propaganda has begun. name suggestions are coming in.

it.
is.
on.

for those who do not know what i'm talking about, i am planning one of the longer, more insane, more "crazy-go-nuts" parties in the existence of Team Beerz. we're talking kegs, flip cup tournaments, dizzy bat races, bottles of nighttrain, irish carbombs, beer pong, fireworks, cards, beer bongs, keg stands, NO garvs (or greg), and so much more. i have been in the planning phase for about a month now, and there is much more to come. this post is to officially announce the date. the party will be at my house in NJ and begin on thursday, april 27th. now, i know a lot of you will not be able to make it down for that night, but stay with me here...the party starts on thursday at a level of about DEFCON 4. as friday rolls around, more people (the mature, working fools) will begin to show up. this day/evening will escalate to about DEFCON 3 or, if things go as planned, DEFCON 2. as the sun rises on saturday, all hell will being to break loose...kegs & eggs leading into a Team Beerz reunion football game in my front yard leading into a party of truly epic proportions (DEFCON 1), during which the local officials might send in the national guard. then, as we drink with the sun rising, sunday will approach. sunday is a time during which a lot of working folks will have to leave, but those who wish to stay will continue the party (cause drinking on sunday just has that "je ne sais quoi"). it will obviously be less powerful than saturday, but fucking great nonetheless. finally, as monday comes, we will have one last hurrah. a night to close out the 5-day event. not necessarily with a bang, but with a solid attitude reminiscent of college times past.

there is one goal for this party. reunite everyone. and i mean everyone. the Media people. the Tamaqua people. the (insert weird rural PA town where some friends live) people. oh yeah...and get everyone BLITZED. once all these people come together, we will have some other folks, a few from montreal, a few from NJ, a few from other parts of PA, etc. though, let me stress again...NO GARVS. we don't need those fucks sucking down our beer and stealing shit from my house.

I'm still unsure how deep into the ol' penn state crowd this is going to go, but my only hope is that all of the original group (and you know who you are) will sign on as soon as possible. this isn't a wedding, so i'm not sending out invitations or any shit like that, but i'm going to be talking to each and every one of you people to ensure your presence.

so. here's the info to remember:

when:
Thursday, April 27th: Kickoff Thursday
Friday, April 28th: Night Train to Insanity
Saturday, April 29th: Welcome to the Thunderdome, bitches.
Sunday, April 30th: Easy Like a Sunday Morning, Afternoon, Evening, Night
Monday, May 1st: This is the End, Beautiful Friend

where:
at my house in NJ. i'm not putting an address up for obvious reasons. if you need it, you'll know it by the time the party starts. as for accomodations, there is plenty of room at my house for everyone to crash. there are places to park. there will be food. and blankets. therefore, there will be absolutely no driving home until the morning after some sleep.

what:
look above.

well. i'm pumped. and the end of this post is imminent. if anyone has any questions, suggestions, and/or demands about the event, comment here, IM me, or email me at nshortway@gmail.com.

the countdown has begun. look to your right -->

bar hopping, maxin' and relaxin', theatrical excursions, & super bowl viewings

what a blast this weekend has been. usually my weekends are filled with pretty normal events (a bar or two, random drunken fun, etc.), but this one just stood out amongst the rest. to kick it off, Caitlin and i hit some bars on friday including one of the better Montreal brewpubs, a really cool whiskey bar, and eventually Bifteck (gotta stick to the roots). L'Amere a Boire has some good beer, nowhere near the craft-brewed delights of Dieu Du Ciel, but nevertheless a chill place. i can't remember what the name of the whiskey bar was, but it was a great place, with probably 90 different whiskeys. we tried two different whiskeys...the names are kinda lost to me at the moment, but they were damn good. the music was great too, bringing back some 80s music memories, but we called it quits there when ABBA made its first appearance. bifteck was solid, as usual...cheap pitchers and 5 shots for 10 bucks. another upside of that place is that when you know all the staff, you get treated a lot differently, e.g. when Mike (the bouncer) is yelling at everyone to leave 'cause the bar is closing, he makes a point to politely come to our table and say "hey Nick, we're closing up soon, so just finish your drinks when you can." ya gotta love bar hopping.

saturday was a lazy day for most of it, but definitely a welcome break from the hectic week. i hung out with Caitlin during the day watching Arrested Development episodes (that show fucking rules) and HP: Prisoner of Azkaban. randomly bumming in front of the tv can be awesome. later in the afternoon, i headed over to Jenny's apartment for her early birthday party. her parents were up for the weekend, so they cooked dinner and everyone brought beer. dinner was really good, and her parents were cool, and most of the riff-raff ("buncha fuckin' amateurs!") eventually headed out leaving a core group of Dave, Jenny, Alex, me, and a few friends of theirs. drinking games led into trivial pursuit (as usual), which led to me, Dave, and Alex playing "Scarborough rules" (gotta get every question right on the last card to win) until Dave triumphed at 6:10am. 20 minutes later, i was stumbling back home (thankfully only a block) to get some sleep before the morning.

sunday morning. still a bit buzzed from hours before. drag myself over to Theatre St. Catherine to see Tecumseh as a Doorstop thanks to Dave and Jen's rabid enthusiasm for the play.

wow. it was simply amazing. i know that i'm not an authority on theater (very far from it), but this hit home so much. it basically surrounds two americans and two canadians that are living together in NYC on the day of the 9/11 attack. it was hilarious, powerful, emotional, intellectual...the list could go on. it spoke about the meaning behind the attacks and our interepretations, both from canadian and american perspectives, as well as about communication within and across cultures and personal relationships. i identified with it so much, mostly with the main character's reaction to the attack, which was the looming question of "why?", instead of the vengeful anger and blind patriotism that immediately spilled forth from the open wound that the attack inflicted upon the US. the acting was flawless and as convincing as i've ever seen. it's only too bad that the show is now closed. hopefully, it will open somewhere else, because i know a lot of people who would really appreciate it. i'll keep everyone posted if it does.

soon after, i met up with Dave to go to Brian's house and watch the super bowl. that was a lot of fun, with the steelers taking a well-deserved championship title and Hines Ward pulling out enough sick catches to get the MVP award. afterwards, i finally got to check out the highest rated depanneur (in terms of beer selection) called Rahman, located on Laurier, just west of St. Urbain. this. place. rules. it's a little expensive, but they have, what seems to be, the full selection from every single microbrewery in all of quebec. it's the first place that came even close to reminding me of the selection back in the states. and those who know me will fully understand how happy this made me. so, i've got 4 beers in my fridge to try (3 which aren't even rated on Beer Advocate!).

and so, the weekend of fun comes to an end as i sit here typing and watching the director's cut of Donnie Darko. this cut is far superior to the theatrical release, with one exception: they replaced the Echo and the Bunnymen song "The Killing Moon" in the beginning (as he rides down the mountain on his bike) with some other tune that, imho, does not even come close to having the same effect and link with the visual and thematic progression of the scene. now i've gotta hit the sack...gotta get up way too early to fill wire conduits in the new music building with sandbags in time for a 10am acoustical test in the labs. blah.

funny shit...or is it?

wow, three in a day, i must have lots and lots of actually important work to do.

just wanted to say to any readers i have out there, you should keep watch on the Two Dudes blog i just put up a link to. for those who don't know them, this team consists of Nugz and BK. these silly bastards moved in together down in virginia once BK helped Nugz get a job at geico. i can't even imagine the negative impact this move is going to have on their burgeoning careers. i can't sum up these guys in a few words, but i'll give you all the gist. Nugz likes cheap booze, sports, belting out acapella renditions of Seal's "Kiss from a Rose", bad 80s sitcoms, flipping cups, dressing like an asshole, 'doing his dance', and is extremely intelligent, though he tries to keep that on the down-low to preserve his 'waste of life' image. BK likes just about all of the above, but also has an uncanny ability to come up with chants and rhymes to accompany any kind of drinking event ("Keg tour 2004, drink a little bit now, drink a little bit more!"...ok, so it's not rocket science, but when you get 100 drunk people chanting that as we kick kegs like it's our job, it has a bit more impact). these two in one apartment is going to lead to some bizarre shit, that they will definitely write about.

i am curious, though, whether you need to know them to think it's funny. it should be an interesting experiment. if you want a taste of what's to come from Nugz's side, go read his first blog. there is a possibility that this two-man blog will fall through, due to Nugz being admittedly funnier than BK, in which case, just keep reading Nugz's blog.

oh. one more thing you'll need to know: Wild Irish Rose is a bum wine that is usually only sold in the ghetto or at gas stations. it is deep red in color and tastes like cherry flavored gasoline. but it gets you r-r-r-r-ripped. WIR makes a lot of appearances in these blogs. taste the rainbow.

finally, someone sticking it to scammers

everyone should read this story...not only is it damn funny, but it makes anyone who got ripped off through an online transaction feel as avenged as you'll ever be without actually getting your money back. to someone who got ripped off seriously once, this story was glorious. and to those who haven't, don't ever send a $600 money order to someone named Paul Boutros or Richard Silva and actually think you're getting a Roland JP-8000 in return. fucking asshole.

fear and loathing in foufounes electriques

well, it's been a while, hasn't it? i'll do my best to not take such a break again (that one's for you, Crystal). so, what's been up in my life? not too much...thesis topic accepted by the weirdos in the music theory graduate sub-committee, my mint chocolate stout (dubbed Junior Mints 'n' Bosco; a free beer goes to anyone who can name both references) was given a 39/50 score by a BJCP-certified judge (which is one point above excellent), and i STILL have not had a chance to go snowboarding this winter. i'm sitting here, Jay Peak season pass in hand, and i can't fucking get a ride.

so. foufounes. it was tuesday again, so i went to foufs...there is nowhere else that you can find good music, pool tables, and five-dollar pitchers. it was tough to find anyone to go...tuesday and all...and most of my friends are grad students (which in my opinion is bullshit. if you can't go out drinking every once in a while during the week, you are going to HATE your time as a grad student.)...whatever. finally, i convinced Kyle to get off the damn phone with work and come down for a few. he did, but i was already 3 pitchers in by the time he got there. during my observant alone time there (i am infatuated with people-watching...beats the hell out of bird-watching any day of the week), i noticed some very interesting characters. this is one of those great crowds...full of diversity in every sense of the word. let's run down the list:

punk: we have varying degrees here. there's the "i'm so punk, you don't even know i'm punk" people who you don't notice too readily. they may be wearing a punk shirt, slightly ripped jeans, etc. usually they are the older, more "battle-scarred" punks, ranging from mid 20s to 50s. these guys have been to all the shows, have all the albums, and may have punched henry rollins in the face at some point (or at least a guy who looks like henry rollins). on the other side of the coin, there's the "i think i'm so punk that i'm going to shove it in your face so much that you'll know i'm clearly not punk at all." you can hear these specimens coming with about 6-10 chains somewhere on themselves (wallet, nose to ear, etc). every piece of clothing on them is ripped (most likely intentionally for the visual effect), they are usually late teens or very early 20s, and are the most likely to get in a brawl that night. there are also punk girls, but often it's hard to make the gender discrimination especially through all the layers of chains, piercings, tattoos, and Rancid patches. (on a side note: how many punks does it take to screw in a lightbulb? three. one to stand on a ladder, the second to kick the ladder out from under him, and the third to say it's the punkest thing he's ever seen).

metalhead: i've dealt with these people most of my life (hell, i was one!). they're pretty basic: long hair, jeans, metal t-shirt. to them, nothing is better than talking about how killer the guitar work is on the latest Nevermore album, or how 1980s Metallica was the best music ever created, or how they wished they lived in the time of epic battles, maidens, and mead halls. the older ones will throw in oddly timed comments about how they played in some band "back in the day" and they were close to making it, if it wasn't for the commercialized rock industry. they're pretty harmless, mildly entertaining if you can laugh at absurdity, and definitely the people you want to talk to if you want to know about the Slayer back-catalogue or what type of ass cream Kirk Hammett used to use. if you need to know any more, go rent Airheads. who ever thought Brenden Fraser could accurately play a role?

goth: lots of different kinds here...there are the fetish goths, the black metal goths, the wannabe satanists, the "i go to classes on medieval swordfighting" goths...the list goes on and on. personally, i find the wannabe satanists the funniest. they walk around dressed in all black, mostly velvet and leather, wearing upside-down crosses and inverted pentacles inscribed with the face of the ::waves fingers in spooky manner:: dark lord of pain and torment. oooh, i'm scared! if these freaks are satanists, then i'm a bible-thumping catholic priest. often times, you may confuse one of these people with the "my darkened soul yearns to be in an Anne Rice novel" people. don't worry, it's hard to tell them apart...sometimes they can be both. and, most of all, they are like little animals in the wild, i.e. more afraid of you than you are of them.

that covers many of the types that you'll find at this wonderful establishment. there are more, too, like the flock of girls that look either too young, too out of place, or both. there are often some hippie types...not usually the DMB-fan types, but often the ones who have come to the realization that bands exist that aren't named "Phish". finally, there are the ones who are not there to create an image, not there to start fights, not there to slay dragons, but are simply there to kick back, drink cheap beer, play pool, watch skate videos, listen to good tunes, and have some fun.

the type that is never there (and this is one of the main reasons i go) is the frat guy. if you go to foufs, you will not see one flipped-up collared, golf-shirt wearing, shit-talking, roofie-dosing meathead.

so, after making these observations, Kyle showed up, and what happened after is blurry. from the looks of my wallet, i had 1-2 more pitchers, and then trekked up to 1+1 for a few slices. All-in-all a fun night...next day wasn't as fun, but i made it through.

anyway, i'm out for now.

on one last note, check out the best blonde joke ever.

spiritual ponderings, tattoos, and intoxicated viewings of futurama...yeah, it's a normal post

currently, i'm sitting at my desk (i made it off the futon! who woulda thunk it??) and i'm pretty damn bored. some season 2 futurama episode is playing on my dvd player, i'm enjoying one of my hopefully-soon-to-be-award-winning christmas beers, and i'm not tired in the least. well, let's just say, i'm not sure if i'm tired, but i know i don't feel like sleeping. in fact, i wish sleeping could be made obsolete. for me, sleep is almost always accompanied with a mild-to-strong sense of defeat. i think i'm in the minority here...i'm good friends with some people who would spend all their time sleeping if they didn't need to work.

it's so frustrating when there is so much to do, and so many things you could do, and yet you end up doing nothing. i could read...i've got about 30 books on my shelf that i'd really like to get into. i could research...my thesis is upon me, and it's not really gonna be easy. i could work on music...but, after being at mcgill for this long, most of my creative, artistic tendencies have been snuffed out "like a stale pall mall" (yeah, i've seen a lot of seinfeld recently). i could mull over the scattered thoughts in my head.....yeah, that sounds about right. and, at least with blogging, i can pretty much get some of them out there to my relatively non-existent audience.

i came across a notebook that i used for my reflections in my freshman year mysticism class today while scouring my apartment for a very expensive set of needle EEG electrodes that i'm probably going to have to replace, and, as usually happens when i come upon this thought repository in recent years, i get a little shocked at how far removed i am now from that time in my life. while i have learned so much since that time of naivete, about maturity, women, goals, friendship, etc., it seems that the promising avenue of spiritual exploration and consciousness expansion on which i was travelling has somehow been almost completely lost. the worst part is that i don't know where i went astray. was it the four straight years of booze? was it every badly-timed pseudo-relationship? was it the stifling experience of professors trying to shape me into a corporate mechanism? it's really difficult to say...probably a combination of many of these experiences. no matter what it was, i'm frighteningly different then i was. i haven't become completely cynical about this field of mysticism, as i am still open to it, but i just have little drive to go down that path recently. come to think of it, it's very possible that i don't want to walk that road again simply because of the pain that immediately followed the opening of my head to these pursuits. i had been almost experience-less in life and dove head first into a realm of contemplation and exploration that is as murky and hazy as the darkest of oceans. i did not end up in the shallow water and bump my head...i dove into the deepest of deep ends, and kept swimming further and further down, to the point when there was no clear way to come back for air. and it was in this confounding abyss that i was barraged with the heaviest and most profound experiences of my life so far. i guess now i'm trying selfishly to protect myself from getting into that position again. the keeping of spiritual rumination and life lessons in separate and distinct moments is very difficult to do. my only hope is that i can get to a place in my life sometime when i will feel comfortable enough with daily life to do another half-gainer into the deep end. damn, i need to quit it with the water metaphors.

one thing to look forward to is that i'm probably going to get my next tattoo soon. i was hoping for jesus (who did my first) to come back to montreal to do mine, but i'm not sure whether he will be anytime soon, so i'm going to get one of the other artists at Imago Tattoo to draw up a rendition of my design, and i'll decide whether he's got the right stuff or whether i'm gonna hold off for jesus. if you live in montreal and want a tattoo, you gotta check out imago. though, when i say tattoo, i'm not talking about just any cookie-cutter, "i wanna get a tattoo just to get one", "i'm hammered, so why not?", found-on-a-colorful-board-with-300-others tattoo. these guys are professionals. it's all custom work done in the most clean, sophisticated tattoo place i've ever experienced. so, i'm just crossing my fingers that jesus is gonna be back, or that safwan (the owner) has an opening, even though last time i checked, he was booked for over a year.

there are other things to look forward to as well...friday will be a blast with dave, jenny, and jen all coming here to watch futurama and taste beer. if anyone wants to join in the absurdity (oh, there will be some absurdity!), let me know. as most of you know, nick's apartment, aka NightTrain's Palace of Procrastination and Inebriation, is always stocked full o' beer and tv shows on dvd, so there's enough to go around.

anyway, i should probably call it a night. i'm gonna go lay on my comfy bed and unsuccessfully try to fall asleep. peace.

music. finally.

the fact that i've done a bunch of posts on this scarcely-read blog and have not once talked about music (or movies! what the hell? ::slaps myself in the head::) kinda hit me today, so i thought that i'd bring up a few things on my mind about bands. anyone who knows me understands that i have a lot to say about music. i can't get it all down here...i can't even get all the music that i'm thinking about right now down here, so bear with the moderate randomness of the rest of the post.

bands of promise so rarely follow through with it. just off the top of my head, there are a lot: mod flanders conspiracy, the workhorse movement, the refused, loop dreams, 30 seconds to mars, snot, etc. notice that some of those bands are still around...this is because they had promise, then somehow unabashedly fucked it up. let's start from the top.

mod flanders conspiracy was a band that really stood out on the hardcore scene. they played screwed-up yet catchy melodies, had one of the most solid singers i've ever heard, were as tight as can be in concert, and had some of the best song titles a band of their genre could ever wish for ('my 7th grade bus driver yells at dead trees', 'bill nye the science guy makes me wanna cut myself'). then, the singer left to join this shit-metal outfit called khoura. don't even bother. i don't know how, but the production of the khoura album makes greg sound like a backup singer for nevermore, layered carelessly on top of extremely banal riffage. this is one of the most difficult ends to see for a band. from what i've read, there was little to no animosity in the breakup, but greg just got tied in with khoura. while they did see two album releases, they were both independently released, so the rest of the world has little chance to join in on the mayhem. i know they're still selling their latest album, 'take a ride on my one-wheeled rickshaw', through the website somehow, so pick it up if you can.

ahh...the workhorse movement...i remember seeing them open for kittie at the birch hill in old bridge, nj. as always, the birch hill would get a headliner, and then pack like 6 bands before them, to the point where the crushing of the crowd around you brings you to the brink of heat-exhaustion and crippling fatigue as you wade through a slew of normally shitty opening bands. i realize at this point that i must defend myself for paying to go to a kittie show. first, they were hot girls who played metal...that should be enough to justify, but i'll continue. i went with my brother, who was a bigger fan than i was, glassjaw was also playing, and on top of all that, as i found out later in the night, the kittie mosh pit was one of the fuckin' craziest pits i've ever experienced. and i've done them all: slayer(2 times), pantera(4 times), dillinger(6 times), hatebreed, deftones, msi, deicide, dog fashion disco, etc. to this day, i have no idea whatsoever as to why that pit was so harsh. but, i digress. workhorse came on stage, and blew our low expectations through the roof. the sheer energy of the dual vocalist attack and their back-to-back, phrase-exchanging rhythms completely floored the audience. their groove was heavy, unforgiving, but so full of soul. luckily i got to see them two more times after that, but since they have parted ways, much in the same way that at the drive-in did: splitting into heavier and lighter bands. they, unlike mfc, got to release a full length on a big label, so i think they made a decent mark...but they had potential for a lot more. either way, i'll rip anyone a copy of 'sons of the pioneers' if they want, 'cause i wanna get this shit out on the streets.

i shouldn't have to say much about the refused. most of you know them, most of you love them, if you don't know them and love them, you need to head out to your local shop and pick up 'the shape of punk to come'. if you hear this title and immediately think of ornette coleman, then you can clearly see how much potential this band had, and where their influences come from. it did change the shape of punk, not necessarily in a good way though, with post-punk becoming a household term that is getting raped by record companies trying to exploit it for their own benefit. nevertheless, this album will forever stand as a beacon in the music world...one of those albums that completely shifts what you have heard into a totally new realm. if you wanna find out about their breakup, check out their last 'manifesto'.

loop dreams. another one bites the dust. this time for no reason but bad timing. they were a boston-based group that included a drummer, synth-guitarist, guitarist, and bassist, and damn were they exquisite. i got to see these guys open for ozric tentacles at the now-defunct Wetlands Preserve on canal and husdon, lower west side, nyc. if you don't know either the ozric tentacles or the wetlands, we must urgently speak so i can inform you of these two amazing pieces of music history. anyway, loop dreams is basically a live ambient band. they seamlessly weave sonic textures like no other band i've heard, melding live-looping guitar lines, buzzy, soft, and warm synth pads, and loungy beats. layers upon layers of sound just brought the entire audience into a new realm of consciousness...sort of a dream state. it was one hell of an experience, to say the least. unfortunately, certain long-distance collegiate demands hit the band, and they were forced to put the project on hold...on hold indefinitely it seems. they had no releases besides a single full length that they would sell at the shows. thankfully, i've got a copy, so, again, if anyone wants to experience some music that they will never hear in any other situation, just shoot me an email or something.

hmm. 30 seconds to mars. as most of you know, this band is still alive, but there's no way you could also say they were kicking if you heard their most recent piece of garbage. the self-titled debut, written and performed by jared leto (yeah, from requiem, fight club, american psycho, etc.), had so much promise. it was intelligent without being arrogant, catchy without being contrived, and complex without being dream theater. some would argue that its beauty is only a veil of costly production and fancy sonic maximizing, but seeing them play live makes you realize that these guys have talent. the live show is the single test that let's you see a band at its most raw (this is obviously NOT including that popular music crap that gets played from a CD backstage with the 'performers' miming the entire performance). while they were not completely perfect live, they were solid: very few mistakes, good energy, and on-key vocals. the disappointing thing about the latest album is that it has a good song...but the good song is copied 12 times to fill an album. bleh. and, to top it all off, it's a sony release, which makes the disc have copy protection on it. this means that if you ever were to purchase this sorry attempt at a sophomore release, you couldn't copy it to your computer or ipod or similar digital device, even though you purchased the right to listen to this music. thanks, sony corporate jackasses.

snot is the saddest of all. not because i believe them to be better, but because they were forced to split due to a fatal car accident involving the singer, Lynn Strait, while he was on his way to record vocals for the second album. from most reports, everyone in the hardcore scene said that Lynn was one of the nicest guys around, and i believe it having briefly run into him at ozzfest '99. they had a rock-solid sound, and some of the most powerful stage presence in the business. definitely go buy "get some" if you can.

i'm not adding nin to the list, because they were promising, and completely followed through, but i bring them up to point out just how far they have fallen since their long awaited 'with teeth' release, which should really be changed to 'with gums' to conjure the image of the toothless, senile old man that trent reznor has become. don't get me wrong, every release before was simply amazing. pretty hate machine, while mildly formulaic with regards to music, made a serious impact at the time of its creation. the downward spiral is a throbbing, caustic, emotionally-charged piece of undeniable beauty (that is also one of the best "make-out" albums when that type of mood hits). broken, no matter how short, is wall-to-wall classics that will sear you to the bone with its biting rhythms and lyrics. the fragile is delicate, painful, and epic...soothing, unsettling, relaxing, frightening all at once. but, as it turns out, trent needed drugs, booze, women, and withdrawl to achieve these momentous icons of undying love and unending torture. now, he lifts weights. and it seems that the stronger he gets physically, the weaker his music gets. so, as his napoleon complex grows and his substance dependency lessens, we are going to be subjected to worse and worse music. sorry trent, but either find something else in your life to bring back that spark, or stop making music altogether.

well...that's enough for now.