Blue skies and big shit on the horizon

Quickest weekend recap ever:
· The Sutherland – crazy busy, barely saw anyone I knew
· Winston’s – mellowed out
· Brooklyn’s – closed early
· O’Shea’s – for about half an hour
· The Hose and Hydrant – got challenged to a fight
· Some house party – still don’t know anyone who was there
· The Pat – still sucks
· Decisive lack of video games – mostly my fault
· Mean Girls – top ten movies ever, especially cos of Leon Phelps
· Various meals – I still like restaurants in Saskatoon
· Lack of seeing people I should have seen – Hopefully next time I won’t be such a drunk jerk
· A debaucherous ride home – I blame Chris

I have a France post half typed up, but I am having a hell of a time figuring out where we went first, Versailles or L’Ouvre. Hopefully I can straighten this out in my head before too long and post that giant thing.

Things are definitely looking up here, what with being able to leave work at 5 or 6 and all. Having daylight definitely makes my days better. It was so bright this morning when I woke up that I may have to start shutting the blinds so as not to get woken up so early. That is a good feeling.

Last night Ev, Chris, Tim and I went out to the Hitmen game, expecting some exciting playoff action. This was not the case as the Hitmen decimated the poor Lethbridge side, who were never really in the game in the first place. Plus we were sitting in the highest possible seats, bar the parts of the arena that are closed off. This is what you get for buying tickets right before the game. I do have to hand it to the designers of that rink as they were able to blend style and function. Not that I think rinks should be designed to look like saddles or anything, but people in Calgary seem to like it and you pretty much always have a decent view of the ice.

This weekend is the EY office ski trip up at Nakiska. Yup, goddamn Nakiska. I really have no idea why we hold it there, or why we have it so late in the year, but I am still somewhat looking forward to it. I think the deal is you get a minor discount on your lift ticket and free supper and brunch. There might even be a deal on a room, but I wouldn’t know because I didn’t book one. I have every expectation of crashing on someone’s floor. Either way, I actually got my board waxed yesterday and after my solo day up at Sunshine I am feeling in fine form. Nothing is going to stop from hitting the mellowest rail the park has to offer. I am going to go that big. Good thing I wear a helmet.

I think it should be an entertaining at the least, as all accounting shindigs end up with drunk people who don’t drink very often. Hilarity ensues.

Ok so that was a bad post, but I felt bad having nothing put up seeing as Dave is Mr. Prolific these days. Expect something of marginal quality in the near future.

Crushed up the Tylenol and ate it with a dipstick

Work is getting better. I am finally on a job that doesn’t make me want to nail my foot to the floor board of a Ford. I am able to leave before it gets dark out, and I have very little responsibility. This makes my life exponentially better. Hell, tonight I even went to the gym (in the basement, but still). Things are slowly turning around. Tim and I started cooking suppers now that we have a bbq, and the apartment doesn’t even look that messy. We got D’s shit moved out of the old house and might even get some of our damage deposit back now, which will help me pay down some of my substantial debt. I even cut up my credit card (ya, things were getting that bad). In any case, I feel like shit is a lot more under control and hopefully I can keep it this way for the next little while, or at least until the summer. I think I start CASB in a couple weeks, which sort of puts a damper on things, but minimal effort has gotten me through these courses before, and maybe having to spend some time studying means I won’t waste entire nights on beer as often. I gotta keep my sights set high.

If you fuck up, I’m telling Tim

Completely without reason, I am posting my rankings of NOFX’s albums to date (that I own, so no Ribbed, S&M Airlines, Liberal Animation, The Greatest Songs Ever Writter (By Us), or the EPs):

1 – Punk In Drublic – This is number one for a plethora of reasons. First, it was the first NOFX album I heard, owned, and was pretty much my intro to punk rock. All personal reasons, I suppose. It was also the most cohesive of their albums with almost all the songs leading into each other. The album contained probably the most loved NOFX song of all time, Linoleum, but you would be hard pressed to pick out any other standouts (Happy Guy, Jeff Wears Birkenstocks, Don’t Call Me White (an honest turning point for me), Dying Degree, Dig, …I’ll stop now) as everything on it was spectacular. I really can’t say enough good things about this cd as this album is probably (in my opinion) the pinnacle of punk rock. I am a fanboy.

2 – I Heard They Suck Live – This is far and away the greatest live record ever made. They recorded it because they were sick of the shitty quality of the bootlegs of their floating around (plus they probably figured they should be getting paid if people are selling their live shit), and they definitely put out a great sounding album. They play pretty much all their classics up to that point in time, and it was before Fat Mike got overtly political, so the stage banter isn’t so much about killing Bush as it is about pierced assholes and getting railed up.

3 – So long and thanks for all the shoes – I remember when Dave got this cd I was super jealous, because I have always been too lazy to make money and couldn’t ever seem to justify buying it. That is a stupid reason to not to own this cd. Luckily Napster was getting going around then (I think) and either way I got it pretty quick. This is another album filled with crazy classics, like It’s My Job To Keep Punk Rock Elite and I’m Telling Tim. NOFX kept their style consistent, but seemed to slow it down a little more than on previous records. Still it was fucking brilliant.

4 – The Decline – This wasn’t so much a real cd as it was a twenty minute long song. An amazing 20 minute long song. The song is pretty much 4 or 5 songs all tied together, with a general message that the world sucks these days. Hella good writing, and probably the best bass work seen from Fat Mike. I don’t have too much else to say, other than I am really glad that they released this.

5 – White Trash, Two Heebs and a Bean – It gets kinda hard to start distinguishing the albums around here, but I’m going to do my best. This cd had Bob on it. Probably NOFX’s second best known song, mostly due to the video of the fat guy on the scooter. I don’t know if this was the album where they tried to break commercially, or if I just know more videos from it, but it had more videos than others. Once again it is hard to pick out standout tracks, so this time I really won’t try (ok, Please play this song on the radio, Bob and Soul Doubt). This is a solid album from start to finish, but not one I ever picked up until later. I suppose that is why it is down here on the list.

6 – The War On Errorism – This is their newest cd (unless one has been released since I entered my auditing bubble), and in my eyes a step up from Pump Up The Valium. The band hasn’t really gotten slower, but Fat Mike has been writing different kinds of songs (see Whoops I OD’d, 13 stitches). The humour is definitely still there, and the songs are still catchy as all hell. I really don’t think any band in the world (possible exception is Bad Religion) has stayed this consistent over this many albums, without sounding played out and tired. My favourite tracks on this one were 13 stitches, an account of Fat Mike’s first three memorable punk shows, and Mattersville, a song about a retirement community for punks. Solid material all around. I have no complaints about this album.

7 – 45 or 46 songs that weren’t good enough for our other albums – A 2-disc collection of b-sides, compilation songs and all the songs from their 7-inch club. I really like the 7-inch songs, songs I believe were all recorded live in one take. Awesome versions of songs that later made it onto albums with a little more polish. The other disc is the songs that made it onto the punk-o-ramas, Fat compilations, and others I’m sure. These are some of my favourite songs (We threw gasoline on the fire, Drugs are good, Timmy the Turtle), and a bunch of other songs that are really fucking good. My only complaint is the lack of a cohesive sound on the album, due to the random recording dates of the songs. This is better than any other b-side album I have ever picked up (although only Insesticide comes to mind).

8 – Heavy Petting Zoo – This is the album with the painting of the guy fingering a lamb on the front. I can’t believe I just wrote that. Anyways, a solid album (I sound like a broken record, must invest in a thesaurus (that word looks like a dinosaur’s name) but not one that registered at the same level as others did for me. If you are looking for standouts I would say the first two tracks (Philty Phil, and Hobophobic) are my favourite.

9 – Pump Up The Valium – I really do have to say, that this is the one NOFX cd I really never got that into. I don’t listen to it much, and it was the shortest out of all of them. On the plus side it had Theme From a NOFX Album, and Bottles To The Ground. Both great songs. Not too much else to say about it really.

10 – Maximum Rock and Roll – I traded License to Ill and Ill Communication for this cd. Needless to say I got royally ripped off. The cd was recorded when they were 16 and I think Fat Mike and Melvin are the only members of the band on it. Sweet cover of Iron Man (first song I learned on guitar) and Ant Attack. Really it is just raw 80s punk, which isn’t so bad, but nothing compared to their later albums.

That wraps up my NOFX collection. Moral of the story is listen to this band and burn your goddamn Green Day cds and concert tickets. I’m talking to you Mike.

Peace.

Her mother called me a thief

Ugh. I hate going drinking on work nights but I can't seem to help it. Goddamn. It all started when Tim bought a bar-b-que yesterday and then went to Safeway to get some steaks to grill up. We ended up getting potatoes, corn and a bunch of other little things we could cook on the grill too. It was actually quite an awesome meal. But during the meal we all drank beer and one thing led to another and before you know it you end up at the Roadhouse, getting hit on by 18 year olds (who were likely pulling wingman for their friends who were trying to get Chris). Home at 2:30 up at 7:45. Half-hour late for work. Feel like ass until around 10 when I start to wake up. Will likely work until 9 or 10 tonight. One more day in my ridiculous life.

I get the cocaine, it cleans out my sinuses

I feel like throwing rocks at windows tonight.

I’m trying to use my time in a productive way

I am currently seated down in the laundry room of the apartment building were I now reside, and a few moments ago I was trying to get some work done. I then wondered if I would be able to bill hours that I worked while doing my laundry and thought probably not. Since I am sitting here in front of a computer anyways, I thought I would try and get back on the blog train.

Now that we are pleasantly situated I really don’t have much to write about since my post this afternoon (please note that the fact that I posted at work was cleverly disguised by messing with the timecode). As such this post will be filled with foggy recollections of my time in France. I am hoping that Dave will be able to fill me in on any pertinent details I have omitted or simply gotten completely wrong. I sort of doubt this though as apparently Dave has ceased to exist following his trip to Costa Rica. If anyone else who went to France with me happens to read this please fill free to tell me I am wrong. I am so used to hearing that at my job that I kinda like it now.

On to France. The trip was a school exchange with French students from various parts of Tours, a city in some valley that had lots of castles (details such as this will not be fleshed out as I have no access to the internet here in the laundry room). We applied for the trip in Grade 10 and actually got to go in Grade 11 (turns out this is actually just an exercise in me not remembering things). Whenever it was, there was a solid core of kids from Grosvenor (the crew I went K-12 with) and a bunch of people from random other schools (of note were Janessa Lepp, some girl named Mandy, the girl twin, and Tess; all worth mentioning for the ease with which they spoke the French language). The flight out to France saw us stopping through Toronto, home of sweet layovers on every trip I have ever been on, and Montreal. From there we made our way to Charles De Gaulle in Paris. On the flight I sat next to Jord, and right near Erin Bare (or some name like that) and had excessive nosebleeds due to the thin air and general dryness. I really don’t remember much about the flight, but probably spent a large portion of it listening to the sweet sounds of Bush and the Smashing Pumpkins, while creepily staring at girls.

My first memory of this new country was the giant golf ball structure we had to walk through to get from our plane to the airport. From there I believe we boarded a bus and made our voyage through roundabouts and weird French streets (I think I should point out now that it is word that continues to capitalize the word French. If I had it my way it would stay lower-case, but Microsoft and my languor have prevailed). From here we made our way to the Hotel Isis Place D’Italie to drop off our stuff and start sightseeing as we had landed in Paris early in the morning, and Mme. Dube did not want to waste a minute of our short stay.

The first thing I remember doing is making our way down the Loire en route to Notre Dame de Paris. Some people were stopping to get bread and whatnot to eat, but not me, I got suckered by some creepy street vendor who drew a crappy caricature that he bullied me into paying for. I was so embarrassed by this that I threw the picture out and never told my parents about it. Fortunately, it was the only time I got burned that trip. After wandering around in front of Notre Dame and meeting up with everyone by some statue of a guy on a horse (I may have totally made that up), we actually got to enter the cathedral. I think it was palm Sunday when we were there, so there were actually people attending some kind of service in Notre Dame prior to us entering. I am hazy as to the specifics, and am relying on memories of pictures I took, but I don’t think we ever did a full tour of the place. Now I realize this is stupid, but I recall being dumbstruck by the size of the organ inside the cathedral, and since this time have had somewhat of a fascination with them. I would really like to go back and hear what the thing sounds like, because Good God is it huge, and beautiful.

Upon leaving Notre Dame things get hazy, and I am unsure as to the exact sequence of the next set of events, but here it is. I recall spending time wandering through Paris, following Mme. Dube until we found a place to cash our traveller’s cheques. This happened to be right near the Opera, where I seem to remember having a small session with the hackey sack. There may have been lunch somewhere in here, but I could not tell you where. Also around this time I took a picture of an Audi TT. I have no pictures of the Opera. Obviously, I was appreciating my surroundings. From there (or before arriving there) we walked past one of many Egyptian monuments in the city, which I believe were put there by Napoleon. Now I have no idea when Napoleon ruled, but I’ll bet it was sometime a long ways back. Seeing a pillaged obelisk that had been sitting in a city square for longer than the country in which I live has been founded makes you feel kind of small.

Wow, my laundry is done and I didn’t get anywhere near as far as I thought I would. No where even close. Turns out this is going to be an epic journey through the recesses of my skull, so please bear with me. Or if you don’t want to bear with me, you can always quit reading for a couple months and come back when I am done. Ya, I said a couple months. This took me damn near an hour and half to write and I am still on the first day. I was there for three weeks and probably remember more from my time in Tours than I do in Paris. So I guess I’m sorry if you are only interested in hearing me write about how dumb I was the previous weekend, but I really want to try and get this story out of my head and on to paper before I drink it away.

That being said, next time we might even get to Versailles.

All we need is some trick photography

I figure this is as good a time as I am going to get this week to write something, so here you go, a post almost as short as Stern.

I was in Saskatoon this weekend doing taxes and generally being real lame. It was nice because it wasn’t Calgary and there was no one leaving me nasty messages about how I had to come in to work to clean up a file so the partner could sign off. Actually there was, but I didn’t check them until this morning so it was all good.

Highlights from this weekend were eating home cooked food 2 days in a row, being able to watch the food network, and my dad telling me that I am getting fat/need a haircut. It seems that three of those four items work together. Weird.

Another highlight was watching the Huskies track team’s rookie video with Mike. It’s tradition for the seniors on the track team to make a video making fun of the rookies and then they watch it on the bus to some meet (maybe it’s always CanWest, I dunno). So I think in previous years they had done a video that sort of lampooned all the rookies, but this year the guys focused solely on Mark Baron. The premise was a CSI ripoff where they find Baron dead under the bridge from excessive anal bleeding and then recreate his final hours, something I am guessing they do on the show. Either way it was full of incredibly disturbing imagery, like a naked Iain (playing Baron’s corpse) on the pathologists table with a condom full of something in his mouth and between his ass cheeks. Only Iain could pull that off. There was also the gay swingers party and the graphic sex scene with Mo and Creepy Marc (playing Mark Baron) which is how Baron died (think about it). All in all I would say everyone on that team has way too much time on their hands and I should never have gone in commerce and focused on running, because then: A) I wouldn’t be at work all the time getting fatter, B) I would get to make excessively homophobic/latently homosexual movies with those other dorks, C) I would have a degree I like where I couldn’t get a job, but I would be big enough to just go work the rigs with Tups, and D) I would still get to hang out with track girls (who always stay the same age).

Another thing Mike let me onto this weekend was the ultimate poseurific punk collection. See in high school Mike and I used to make tapes for each other (mostly him) where we would try and introduce the other guy to new punk bands. This collection of tapes was my introduction to many of my favourite bands now. On Sunday Mike was telling me about his plan to try and recreate those tapes on a 5 cd set. As none of the tapes exist any more this will be a painstaking process of going through old mp3s, samplers, and long-term memories. The end product will be incredible and if you like punk in the least this will quite honestly be the best recap of the past 10 years in punk music that will ever exist.

There Evan, I posted. I hope you’re happy.

Turns out this post was like way bigger than Stern. I just wanted to make sure I didn’t give anyone the impression that Stern was a big dude.

Also, my next post will likely be a few random pictures from the weekend. I need everyone to gaze in amazement at Mike's filthy facial hair. It's really filthy.

I never told you what I did for a living

I stole these from Sob Stories, but I think they explain how I am feeling better than I ever could.