| The Internet |
[Nov. 11th, 2009|09:50 pm] |
The internet is out to get me. I am currently sitting in my place listening to an unsolicited broadcast from the Chinese internet. The internet has started talking to me. I didn't ask for this. There is some interview between a few experts drowning out my Husker Du - Zen Arcade. I'm currently worried. I have started using Chrome and, well, last time I went to Yahoo Image search...you see Google Image Search is all but garbage in China due to most images being blocked (anything hosted on blogger). Google is fucked if it can't get its services back up in China. I love and need Google but how can I rely on them when YouTube is down rendering their video search useless, the photo search turning up nothing and Chrome letting random advertisements hijack it
I do mean random. What do Chinese Chat shows have to do with streaming videos from southparkstudios.com? What does hardcore porn have to do with Yahoo Image search? You aren't even supposed to have access to porn in China, yet when I go to search album art for my coverflow BOOM a flash video starts playing in my browser. That's the thumbnail that pops up in Chrome for Yahoo Image Search...no! I was just going to capture an image to show you and now it has been replaced by LiveJournal. I'm sure it will happen again.
The internet sucks in China. I would recommend everyone to try and use Chinese internet for a week. It will kill your soul. I have a VPN but I can't really get torrents while it's on so I rarely use it. It's alright for getting Facebook...Facebook.
Think of it. How many of the internet links you see on a daily basis are YouTube or "Share on Facebook" links? You don't know until you are surrounded only by the ability not to click on them.
I just engaged my VPN to read this.
The internet in China sucks.
By
Adam Matthews
PS. But seriously, Chrome is awesome.
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| Halloween |
[Nov. 1st, 2009|02:45 pm] |
I love Halloween. It's super fun. Super fun. Halloween is super fun.
So my face is nakeder than usual at the moment. Kind of interesting. I have a biting chill on my upper lip. Currently rocking the Anti-Hitler (or is it Le Continental?). I like it but will shave it for the perve during Movember. Lost of people seem into Movember. It'll be funny to see all the guys with staches. There are some greasy moustaches already. I find it funny how the moustache is mounting a comeback based on its position as a facial hair reject. Irony is a bitch - unless you're a moustache.
I wrote something a little while ago. Let me go get it.
Here it is. I have it here right now. Let's begin.
Adam's Pervy Chinese Girl Journal Entry number 73 Tonight I walked my motorized bicycle into the tiled, marble interior of my apartment building. The guards have been griefing me about the gas smell and don't want Muffy stored in the downstairs hallway anymore. I escorted her up to floor number 13 and rolled her into her service elevator hallway. It truly is a great place to store a motorized bicycle. Dirty diapers in a garbage can don't make for the most pleasant company, however. All the while, I am wearing my JinLu uniform. A style of jacket, Sun Yat-sen, that only a few old men wear. A vestige of Mao. A smashing coat, indeed but many Chinese people are incredulous as to why anyone would wear it. A coat that stands in the way of modern China. And we think Chinese people are weird... The push to modernize China is annoying. So much culture destroyed through leaping forward. At least we have the pharmacology, philosophy and food. That's hip. Thousands of years of history and one crazy bastard attempts to purge it. Though his methods were barbaric perhaps the result is necessary. China is on the verge of world domination. White pop stars need to learn to perform glorified karaoke on cheezy television shows or get ready for the Rain.
The place I live is a total model of Western ideals. McDonalds, IKEA, Metro, Tesco are all sinking their greasy hooks in. Making the world more and more homogeneous. I'm not sure if I really would like to live in a rural, donkey kart city, however. I like to think that I would. I miss that part of Jinshitan. The chuar restaurant where the bathroom was the back yard, Tudoni where one can eat dinner sitting on the chef's bed - these are the things I miss. I do like my faux big city apartment, however I need to get a heater.
My landlord gave me a heater. It is a picture on a stand. One side a delightful river scene and the other awash with forest. Sandwiched between the two pictures are a series of elements providing glorious heat. The kind of thing that begs for a house fire.
Went to Shenyang on a hockey trip. Hockey is great.
Shenyang (7.4 million, the national city of forest and so on. Follow the link and watch the movie...it paints a different picture.) is "China." It's dirty, there are almost no tall buildings and quite possibly only one McDonalds. It resembles a really big village. It's what I would imagine Pyonyang to look like. I need to travel China more. I live in a bubble. I suppose things that are novelties and make cities more interesting aren't necessarily the most efficient city planning.
Chinese funeral procession the other day in Jinshitan. An elderly woman unable to walk through grief, men with stiff white sashes around their waists and one wrapped as a turban slowly followed a bicycle with two megaphones strapped to the handlebars and a tape recorder on the rack belted out a funeral song. It was beautiful. The perfect song of grief.
The saddest music in the world?
I am now convinced the guards were just concerned Muffy would get stolen. The speedometer definitely got swiped. Thieves are dicks. I was pissed when I thought they were telling me I couldn't keep Muffster inside. Misunderstanding, didn't understand. Wait a minute. Now the guards are my friends again. La la la la la... |
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| You People |
[Jun. 17th, 2009|11:12 pm] |
Hosted a fight night. It all came crashing down. The revelation.
Bryon offered to help us clean up. He said "you have any big garbage bags?" We said "nah, we'll get it and the cleaning lady comes tomorrow." He laughed. "You better pay her extra."
We don't.
I realized. You. Yes, you. You come to my house, mess it up and leave. "Oh shit! Luke and Adam's cleaning lady has to clean up a biiiig mess." You're not at fault. You aren't doing this to your cleaning lady. It's Luke and Adam.
Well, well, well. Guilt. Shame. Nay! Double shame. On you. |
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| The Cleaning Lady |
[Jun. 7th, 2009|03:51 pm] |
Many of you would think, "man, I'd like to have a cleaning lady." It sure sounds sweet doesn't it. She just cleans and never asks no questions. You come home to a lovely clean apartment and you didn't do it. In fact, you almost did everything you could to make your apartment dirty and leave it that way until cleaning lady comes because you hate her. She throws out your birthday presents, new credit cards and other such things while leaving dirty dishes, open beer bottles and garbage around your house.
She's not a cleaning lady at all! She's a garbageing lady.
For example, I'd like to give you an example. We ordered pizza. This pizza had ham on it. One of the pieces of ham fell into a glass. The apartment was surprisingly messy. You and your roommate feel bad. You clean this apartment in preparation for the cleaning lady. You feel a glow in your heart, a "hey, she's not so bad, that cleaning lady." Maybe you even feel bad that you don't actually know her name or what she looks like. Then you get home and find your clean dishes all arranged nicely.
All seems well, of course until...
What's this?
You fail, cleaning lady. I constantly live in fear of getting diseases from eating and drinking off of the things you clean. |
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| I'm moving |
[Sep. 22nd, 2008|10:44 pm] |
It's a little depressing. It seems that Google's grip on China allowed them to keep blogger from being blocked completely. Something LJ is not. I've lost too much crap trying to post through proxies and now have moved over here: http://swehttyinchina.blogspot.com/.
I plan on still posting stuff over here but probably not as regularly. |
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| More Happenings |
[Sep. 7th, 2008|03:42 pm] |
A thing. A thing that pissed me off yesterday. That thing? Writing a long, detailed, intricate and beautiful LiveJournal post only to have it stripped from my hands when I tried to attach photos. A whole lot of wasted time. And now for an inferior reconstruction.
Yesterday was a beach day. A day for relaxing and frolicking in the jellyfish and other such sealife filled waters. Yesterday was also the day of going to a punk show in Dalian. The punk show didn’t happen but a decent night out in Dalian was definitely had. Funnily enough it ended up in skinny dipping again. Funnily enough the ladies refuse to get naked. I suppose it is that for full coverage they require a more committed submersion. The water was much colder in Dalian. Very refreshing, more phosphorescence. I entertained thoughts of going Segal and swimming out to some of the large boats in the harbor but didn’t.
Friday night was a little get together focused on making the new teachers feel like special little someones. Good times were had. Ended up heading into Dalian afterwards to the Love Club. More stage dancing and sweating were to be had. Clubs in China are hot, smoky dens of dance and sweaty people. This one was about 3 floors underground with a balcony overlooking the tiny dance floor and DJ with his digital turntables mounted on a construction crane kind of deal. It was full of people from all over. Russians dudes with wicked mullets, twins who seem hot because they are twins but really aren’t and other such nefarious types populate the clubs.
Friday night was Team Golden Deer’s Introduction to the Golden Deer motorized bicycle. What is team Golden Deer? It’s the greatest thing of all time. It consists of Mike Bishop, Luke Abbott, Kristopher George, Dave Ballentyne and I. We fearless warriors will oppose the other 4 teams in the mighty 300km grueling race to DanDong. If all goes well we’ll be able to take the bikes for a spin into North Korea. I’m doubting we’ll get in but if I go missing in May tell Steve to send in the troops.
The bikes are awesome. You have to pedal them to get up to speed and then pop the clutch to engage the motor. Stopping is done through the classic back pedal manoeuvre. As a team we are required to design our uniforms, customize the bikes and just be super awesome. A documentary will be in the works and we should be able to hire a crew for our team for only 2000 rmb. Just over 300 dollars. Sweet. The bikes cost about 1000 rmb. They are quality machines.
Anyway. Lots of good times which would have been so much better to read about before. Sweet dreams |
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| Ni Hao from China |
[Aug. 30th, 2008|12:02 pm] |
It turns out that LiveJournal is blocked by the Chinese authorities. Pretty interesting, I think. How am I typing this here, then? I'm illegal! Or perhaps not. I am not sure.
Last night we were in KaiFatChu or some spelling like that. It was pretty great. Ate a whole bunch of chwaur - kebabs of meat - and drank some beers while playing quarters with 1 yuan coins (worth about 15 cents). As the place had no bathroom we were forced to pee in the streets. I chose a nice secluded spot beside a parked van which at one point seemed to be not a good idea as, when I was peeing, there were cops chattering away and starting up their car and driving away. I figure they were probably peeing on the other side of the van but that foreigner fear of cops is within.
Went up to a guy's place and rocked out some ripped Xbox 360 games. It's amazing how great a system is when it is cracked to allow for unlimited free or 5 yuan games (about 75 cents). That's on the list. I bet I could buy a chipped Wii here and make the one I brought over a foolish thing indeed. I haven't been able to get a voltage converter to work with it. Stupid Nintendo and their non-universal power supply. I totally dominated in the video game playing department. Not used to that.
Crazy times in China for sure. I just got the internet at my place. Been missing it. I'll probably be online more often as a result and my social life will dwindle into a vat of nothingness. I've purchased a wicked knife for 99 yuan that was on sale. I don't know the quality of it but it came with an instruction manual and tips for knife users in English. I also purchased a very nice wok. It's not super nice but very nice will do for now.
So much great stuff has happened over here. I can't list it all. It's been an amazing start and now work is about to get underway. Yesterday was our first day and we didn't have class assignments and thus couldn't do the introduction lessons we had planned. We instead took the kids on a walk, made them do relays, introduced ourselves to our homeroom, and made them write an essay about the olympics. Good times. It was so hot and at one point I think my entire shirt was drenched with the nasty sweat of 1000 camels. My tie looked very sharp, however. The night before was Sherman Jen's welcome dinner where we ate until we couldn't eat anymore and then ate a bit more. That seems to happen in China. I'm going to be fat by the time this is over...well not if I keep on hiking to the top of the UFO in the wee hours of the morning.
After videogames, we saw this road as we were on our way to get a taxi and Brent pointed out that the UFO was up this road. I decided that we were to head up to see the UFO. Turns out it was far. About an hour later we were being chased away from the UFO by the security guard while being surrounded by elderly Chinese people making their early morning ascent in order to yell as loud as they could then slap themselves at the peak. I love old people in China. Many were not very returning of our morning greeting but many did. I'm just glad they didn't come upon us as we stood inside of the bell and made sweet music on its walls. It was a huge bell. At one point the desire to venture off into unknown territory up the steps on the side of the road was too great but also very scary without a flashlight. Very scary. Got to go and learn to count and laugh with old ladies who will sell me fruit for exorbitant prices.
Love,
Adam |
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| Days! |
[Aug. 14th, 2008|10:22 pm] |
Since my last update. Amazing. I'm totally going to update more since I'm supposed to be packing for China. I'm kind of packing right now, though. I'm ripping vinyl that I don't really want to take physically. That's electronic packing. I'm futuristic.
News item:
I passed my motorcycle road test with one thing that I did wrong but I don't remember. I think it was a shoulder check but I can't read the writing. My driver test went the same way. Demerits on the last right turn before parking at the driver place...and not setting the parking brake after parallel parking in a flat spot. The lady this time didn't even give me points off for saying that "yes I would leave my bike like this overnight" when the keys were in the ignition. I'm not good at pretending under a test situation.
I also almost died. I was 1 block from the test being over and following a large gravel truck. Turns out I was in the blind spot. The truck also had no reverse lights or signal. I thought I was hallucinating when it started backing up towards me. The lady screamed into the visi-vest walkie-talkie "he's backing uuuuuup!" She was quite concerned for my health. I just backed the bike up and thought "what a dick! Oh christ. I failed." About 5 minutes prior to this I had thought "ah! Heading back to the place. Hopefully nothing horrible happens on the way." I didn't fail and the lady was very concerned and thanked me for being a "strong rider." I've only ever thanked ladyfriends for that before. I thought it was very nice.
The news is now over. I went fishing today. Well reading and fishing. I even waded across a vicious, flowing river to read on the other side in the shade. Very pleasant. I caught a few fish and did it illegally since my licence was actually expired. It's not illegal until you get caught, I guess. I hope no officials are reading this. Soon they will be. Soon I will be in China and all my stuff will be read by the billions of commie spies. I can't wait to be checking out some nefarious internet content and have those cute little internet cops come up on the screen. Perhaps I'll get a screen capture of me checking out some innocent tubgirl with the little cops in the corner.
Oh yes. I now put out an open question regarding China. I've gotten a few good responses already so to you, my many readers (4?), what would you bring to China? |
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| For Dan |
[Aug. 10th, 2008|11:48 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | amy, cabin, camping, fishing, greg, margaret, matek, motorcycle, sarah, vancouver, victoria | ] |
Hey Dan. I know I haven't posted in a while but I just posted the post that I had meant to post a while ago. That means I just put a new post up. This is an even newer post and I hope you enjoy it more than most.
My Life for the Past Few
Today:
I was a mechanic today. I took the battery out of my bike and charged it because it's not charging on my bike. I then went even crazier by cleaning the air filter. This got my hands suitably dirty and so I grabbed a rag. I then proceeded to clean my hands using only the rag. This felt good. I kind of wrapped the rag around each individual finger and twisted it while holding it tightly and pulling. My fingers got surprisingly clean using this technique. One by one. I then took out the spark plugs and saw that they were doing very well. I got to clean my fingers after this. I then saw some wires that weren't plugged in. I plugged them in and my fingers were a little dirty so I cleaned them. I then wandered around the garage cleaning my fingers and feeling very mechanic-like. It was fabulous. Later on in the day I started my bike and it started perfectly. Flawlessly. I am incredible. I don't know why it's not charging but if I take it off the bike to charge it again for Tuesday I'll get to use the rag again.
Yesterday:
Drove a lot as for the previous few days I had been fishing with my dad. I am a pro fly fisherman. I caught me some fish and released them. One I probably could have kept and cooked but we had a shitty fry pan with us so I didn't bother. You can't disrespect a fish by cooking it in a shitty pan. I think I killed a few of the fish I caught. I'm not so sure catch and release is all that great. One fish was caught through the side of its mouth and it was a big fish and the side of its mouth kind of separated from it's head in the fight. I pushed it back on with my finger before releasing...fixed! I only caught cut throat so I guess I shouldn't care too much as they have such a mean name.
Before That Trip:
Lived with Matek and Margaret for about 2 weeks. What a fabulous visit it was. I figure it's a great accomplishment to be able to spend almost 24 hours a day with people and not ever really have problems. We are awesome and the best friends ever. Way to go Matek and Margaret! I got to go on a party boat with Greg and Matek, a camping trip to Sombrio with Matek, Margaret, Amy, Sarah and Jeremy, and a cabin trip with Matek and Margaret with special guests Mairen and Andrew. The camping was great...highlight was Amy rolling in at 10:30pm wearing flipflops and carrying 100 pounds of stuff but no flashlight guided by 2 girls who were with the crazies who set up camp right beside us. Who the hell sets up camp right beside another camp when you have an entire beach to camp on? I suppose they just wanted to be friends.
The cabin trip was where the magic happened. We had fires, were lumberjacks, wore cabin jackets and canoed to the beaver's house while chasing ducks and listening to that classic Canadian call of the loon. A-looooooooooooooooo-oo, a-wa-ah-ah-ah. We had our loon calls down at the end of the trip. We also had 4 tracks from our new cabin folk album down. It rocks the cow's behind.
Before the Trip that Was Before the Fishing Trip:
I gradded from the Education program of UBC's WKTEP. Great. Yay! Then I partied. Oh god. Sweet drumming action at Anna's place. What else? I don't really recall. Great times in Rossland. All that good stuff combined with more good stuff. I helped Mike build a deck. I didn't help much as I can't build stuff but I sure did stain some boards and paint some house and carry some stuff and say things like "yeah. Sounds good." and "yeah. Looks good!"
There you go, Dan. All up to date. Hope it was both informative and fun.
I hope Canada starts getting some friggin medals at these Olympics. I have been enjoying the women's beach volleyball and volleyball quite a bit.
I'm off to China in 8 days. I need to pack. Somehow I have to pack 3 suitcases of 32 kilograms each. How the hell am I supposed to do that? I didn't even have 2 filled to capacity for Japan. The main problem is that I already got to send 2 boxes to China. I have managed to pack stuff I'll never use and I do have a lot of vinyl to bring. Oh! I bought a lot of vinyl in Vancouver. My last Audiopile adventure for a while. I bought a pre-amp that rules and will probably be picking up a Project Debut III for my listening pleasure. Speaking of China, I had my "leaving to China party" in Vancouver and it was rather poorly organized and entirely done on facebook. Never again. Kat came, though and it was great to see her. Wasn't sure how that would go. Even had a splendid visit the next day. Matek, Margaret, Christine, Christina, Alana, Erin and I then partied with the gays on Davie for the beginning of Pride. Those homosexuals sure do know how to rock out. I then became a homosexual for Saturday night. I tricked a few lesbians, was frightened of people on the street and got drunk. A lesbian even said I could share a bed with her. The life of a gay man sure seems great overall. I don't think I could wear pleather pants and tight camo tops all the time so I guess it's not for me. I also learned that to dress like a majority lesbian in Vancouver all you have to do is wear a rugby shirt. |
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| Sasquatch Festival |
[Aug. 10th, 2008|11:28 pm] |
So...this happened and was written a long time ago...longer than I can even remember. I believe it was May sometime.
Last weekend I ventured out of the warm clutches of my dear, sweet motherland and into the harsh reality of the violence-encrusted United States of America. I am happy to say that I did not once get shot or killed in other, more vicious ways. In fact, the trip was rather fabulous. The trip actually being two trips.
The drive down to George from GF is amazing. It starts out as a winding drive along an equally winding, lush river and ends up as a high speed burn through the badlands. The drive took under 4 hours one way but seemed much shorter thanks, in part, to Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds as well as Pimsleur Mandarin. Actually Pimsleur made it a little difficult at times. Wo huey shwo idyar putonghwoa. Oh Mr. Pimsleur, how your loving voice coaxes the World's tongues from mine.
I left a little late, made later by forgetting my tickets at home and remembering just before the border. I got turned around once and blame Google but I made the best of this situation by heading into a grocery store. How interesting it was. They were so friendly. In fact, in every store I went into the staff was way more friendly and involved than in the local stores here. Perhaps it's because they knew I was foreign. Well, actually one lady thought I was from Omak. I figure she just said that to be polite, though. Once again with the politeness, thanks America. Holy crap and the accents. Yeehaw.
Getting into the camp area, since I was late, was hell. There were cars lined up for years and for some reason it took equally long to get in. There was no real reason other than that the people guiding cars had no idea what they were doing. I suppose that's the reason. Missed most of Beirut due to sitting in the car but I did walk through the gate, after calling Margaret twice and getting the Elephant Man instead, to find Brie, Mary and Aurel. I didn't even know they were going so we did the whole "holy crap" thing. We caught the end of Beirut and I said I was going to catch Destroyer at the Wookie stage and Mary was looking for a friend who would also be there for Crudo.
We got to the Wookie stage and Kathleen Edwards (whom I just heard on DNTO) was playing. She was extremely decent and I used my super spy camera lens to seek out Matek. I looked like such a dork that Margaret, Matek, JR and Kyle instantly found me and insulted me. Yes. The violence I had been fearing in the USA came from some Canadians. In its worst form: emotional violence. We did the greeting thing and I was offered some M&Ms. Joy quickly overcame the hurt feelings as we chatted and waited around for Destroyer.
Destroyer was good. I like their songs and they played them well. Nothing super great was achieved though the drummer was a radical dude for sure. The Sasquatch sound systems were crap for the most part. Many errors in mics not being turned on and just some nasty ass distortion when there wasn't meant to be. Crudo was innnnnncredible. It was amazing to see Mike strut around and scream lots. The first thing he did was a healthy scream. He's a great performer. Dan was also quite radical as was the rest of the band...from the Gonna Make You Sweat dance break by the guitarist to the beatbox talents of Butterscotch. She was amazing. Mike also got some little girl up on stage with her dad and serenaded her with some Lovage. Felt bad for the girl as it appears she had no ear protection but, then again, she had one solid rock experience at a very young age. Missed the New Pornos fully reunited for Crudo and don't really mind as I'm pretty sure their show would have been much like the other indie rockers (Destroyer included) at the fest - lacking stage presence or ability to play the crowd.
With Crudo definitely making the festival for me I was happy, relaxed and able for enjoyment of all things fest. REM played the first night as the headliner and...well REM kinda sucks. The show kinda sucked as well. All it was was a constant "trippy" video effect applied to the lead singer's head. The sound was rather crappy as well and it started to rain so we ventured back to the camp. Things were a little stormy that night but nothing major. The next day we injected vodka into some oranges, shot vodka into our mouths through the syringe and listened to some Nick Cave. Matek also window wiped my granola off the car to humorous results. The early day lineup was weak but I enjoyed it well enough. We even played frisbee with a world famous comedian who had kooky hair. There was rain causing fright in the early afternoon but all the raiding of the plastic bags was for naught. The Presidents of the USA, yeah that band that sings Peaches, were on the bill so we headed over to hear Peaches. They didn't play Peaches first. They did play Lump but that didn't matter to me so much. I had to leave disappointed as they didn't play Peaches before I had to start my trek home.
Awesome things I missed that day due to Terry not allowing me to take the day off:
- World premiere of the Flaming Lips' Christmas on Mars
- Some other stuff that doesn't matter that much.
Awesome things I missed while at work or driving back out to catch the Lips because Terry didn't allow me to take the day off:
- Battles
- Thao Nguyen and the Get Down Stay Down which was apparently very good
- Some tasty Comedy
I took time out of my busy commute on my way to the fest to gas up and the friendly guy at the station with the cheapest gas along my route (just outside of Republic) came out and washed my windshield while I filled up. Amazing! I also grabbed a beefalo burger at DK's Drive In in Ephreta. It was delicious and had just 50% of the fat and 30% of the cholesterol of regular beef patties. Amazing! This was the highlight of my day, unfortunately. I had been looking forward to the Lips and the burgers for approximately 3 days. I got to the fest as the Mars Volta was uhhh rocking? I got there and thought "hey, the Mars Volta is great." I waited around at the designated meeting spot while watching the Mars Volta and after a while thought "my god. What a masturbation fest." The Mars Volta really like the Mars Volta and seem to think that they are some sort of Led Zeppelin when in fact they are the Mars Volta. Nobody is going to squeeze his lemons until the juice runs down his legs...well not this guy.
The Flaming Lips show started off pretty great. The UFO came down and the Flaming Lips, through trickery, climbed down from it. In fact, I believe Wayne climbed onto the UFO and into his plastic bubble thing which was inflated as he stood ontop of the UFO. I thought. "Oh shit! He's going to roll down and kill himself. This will be the best show ever!" He proceeded to look quite uncomfortable and slowly inch his way down the ramp. I think he had a look of genuine fear on his face. He rolled around the crowd a bit and then gave birth to himself up on stage. He walked up to the mic and started the show. The show was good. The Flaming Lips are good performers. The unfortunate thing is the performances, give or take a UFO, are the same. Streamers, balloons that don't work in an outdoor venue with wind blowing them off a cliff, audience members on stage dressed as things, megaphone singing. One thing that was fab was the cover of the Led Zeppelin song. Highlight of the show. It came with some...discomfort, though. Wayne was all "get naked and dance" they then had 5 young, nay, really young looking girls naked on stage for the song. I think Matek said it best: "I like my Lips asexual." The creepy hug and lack of "inclusive fun" (where were the naked dudes for Wayne to hug?) vibe brought on by the over-use of naked girls kind of dampened the show. The rest of the show also featured a naked girl up on the screen dancing for most of the songs. I'm not against naked girls but...it felt forced. The show also broke crowd energy repeatedly. Wayne constantly stopped the show to get the crowd involved. The problem being that the crowd was quite involved. His desperate pleas for participation from a group who were already doing a good job of singing along and enjoying made the show drag. Not the music part of the show...the dragging drag part of the show. We were also lectured on the evils of George Bush and the need for people to vote. I would say the whole "come on, you motherfuckers on the hill" and "George Bush sucks" combined with a down-tempo keyboard only singalong version of Yoshimi and the intro to the Yeah Yeah Yeah song was about 15 minutes. That's a lot of drag. The end part of Yeah Yeah Yeah was great and almost got my energy back up to previous levels and the ending with Do You Realize was fab as well. I never did recover from that dreadful middle section and the feeling of betrayal with the sexualization and possible child pornographination of the Lips.I loved them in Japan and enjoyed the Gorge show over all but I'm a jaded old man and can't say it was worth the drive. The burger on the other hand...I'm heading back this weekend. |
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| Firsts |
[May. 15th, 2008|11:28 am] |
Just took my kids on my first nature walk around town. The mission was to get flowers that we would be dissecting later. It went really well. Yesterday, as class wound down I hit the students with a little bit of Nick Cave. They were grooving like a bunch of little groovers. I have a hypothesis that it is impossible not to like Call Upon the Author. Even if it became a crazy radio hit and Paris Hilton did a cover of it, I'd still like it. We've been growing beans and have now begun to feed them undesirable things for the most part. Seems the plants don't like living in salty or acidic environments.
Bought my first motorcycle. First vehicle, actually. I'm glad the first vehicle I've ever owned is a loud and unpractical means of transportation. The green flames on the tank are decent but the skulls on the air valves really make it badass. GF has failed me again by not having a skills test within the next month and a half so I'm exporting my skills test talent to Castlegar on the 30th.
Went down to 50% today. One of the girls in the class I lost came up to me and said "Mr. Matthews, I think Grand Forks needs you a lot more than China needs you." I was very touched but I promised her I'd be around for a while. I also let her know that GF had no jobs but China did. Was given my first 2 teacher cards. One from a student and one from her mom with a little stone that says "hope" on it. I definitely wasn't expecting anything. It seems that even the little troublemakers who kept telling me they wished Mr. Nuyten was teaching them are going to miss me.
It's a rather sad time, leaving all the students. It's definitely tempered with excitement, though. I can't wait to finish school. Everything sucks a little more when it has that school umbrella shading out part of the fun. Something I've got to keep in mind when doing fabulous things with my students. It doesn't matter if the experiences are life-defining and unattainable anywhere else...it's still school. |
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| The flow of it all |
[Apr. 17th, 2008|11:08 pm] |
Life seems to be rolling along quite nicely at the moment. I have come closer to my dream of having a wicked audio setup. I have basically been guaranteed a job in China making more than my Japan wage by just under the cost of my education program. A couple years there should fix that up. Egypt sounds like an opportunity as well. Feeling like hitting Japan for a couple years before I'm out of the Asian school zones, however.
Got invited by one of my students to his band's gig, watched said band, had to deal with kids being drunk and saying hello to me and thinking they were rad by doing so. The first act was super great. I think they were the Taberfucks or something like that. They swore a lot. I found it amusing that they were so all about swearing due to their punky nature. They also said "I hear kids from GF are fucking insane! They just go crazy in the mosh pit!" No one really went crazy, however the kids seemed to enjoy that their crazy reputation preceded them. I knew the show would be good when the drummer taped the mic to his head with electrical tape. The student band was amazing as it should have been as it's that band with the drummer I was raving about back in the day. There was a little hardcore pudgy kid at the show. He rocked out and said "If any of you pussies aren't in the mosh pit I'm going to come over there and write pussy on your forehead." It was an empty threat. He did steal my change of glory. After the intense as hell drum solo the drummer threw his sticks into the crowd. The crowd wasn't deep enough so I bent down to grab the stick that had slid near me and hardcore did a full sliding dive from about 5 feet away and snagged it. Reminded me of the oil scene in Shoot 'em Up.
Other great stuff has happened as well. I'll tell you about the greatest thing, my stereo. My sponsor teacher, being the god-like man of awesomeness, felt pity on me and gave me his Sansui 7070 amp. It's got the best lights ever and great little power meter things. The radio dial is also really smooth to turn. It's amazing. The even better thing is the Energy Reference 22 speakers he threw in due to his wife wanting them out of the house. She's pretty rad too but not really as she didn't like the speakers. The downside is the fact that the right tweeter is blown and I need to get it fixed. The only guy in Canada that does that is in Nova Scotia or something. It'll all be worth it in the end.
I bought some radical shoes thanks to Matek and Margaret who both kind of have the same shoes. I have been told they look like bowling shoes twice now and, thus, the fabulousness has been reinforced. Larry David also likes the shoes.
Teaching is going well, up to 75% now and only have 6 weeks left of practicum. Past the half way point. Am doing an evolution unit at the moment and most of the students aren't really getting it. Some think that evolution is a baby growing into an adult. Some just are religious nut-jobs and others just don't care. Got to bust out the Van de Graaff again in my second Sci 10 class and, well...it's really not as exciting the second time. It's still pretty great. |
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| The Rezurn |
[Feb. 24th, 2008|02:03 pm] |
Dear Diary,
I have not written in you for a very long time. I feel as though I should summarize my recent life in a few words.
Teaching: viruses, remember names, shadow
School: car pool, PE, Camptown Races, break, interviews
Recreation: Birthday, WHAM!, hot fingertips, snowshoes, snowboard, darts
I just got my motorcycle learners license. I now need to find a motorcycle and a person to watch me ride my motorcycle before I can weave around a parking lot and drive by myself. Hung out with Jason a lot this weekend. Great to see him but sad circumstances. Rocked out some guitar hero and made a character in World of Warcraft on his account. I killed some wolves and put on the clothes they dropped. Don't think I'd be purchase it unless I could find an Eric Cartman to converse with. |
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| Old and New |
[Nov. 30th, 2007|05:05 pm] |
Old Stuff:
Holy jesus christ have mercy.
I just got back from the lunch hour talent show. I remember being in battle of the bands. We were the only band. We won. After grad we were replaced by Pall and whoever else was in that band. Perhaps this started a band tradition at GFSS. The talent has definitely increased from the meagre beginnings of whatever the hell we were called. I know Pall's band was good but don't remember how good...anyway the story is this:
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| My Life = Complete |
[Oct. 29th, 2007|12:08 pm] |
I have finally completed everything I've ever wanted to do in life. Last night I finished the Rubik's Cube that Dan gave me. After months of messing around with it and realizing that there was no way I could complete it without the help of something I turned to my friend the internet. What a friend it was. Some Rubik's Cube champion from the 80s and again in the 00s has a wonderful web page that teaches you the steps to completing the cube. I made a 2x2x2 square then expanded it to 2x2x3 then fixed my edges then completed 2 rows and then...I don't know what the hell I did. I figure at that point you can either memorize and understand all the steps this freak of cube has figured out or you can just follow the animations on the site. I chose to follow the animations and completely messed up the first time and had to start all over again. My second attempt met with success.
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| Amount of Life |
[Oct. 21st, 2007|04:57 pm] |
There was a large amount of life last night. Night life, that is. The Spirit Bar was host to the Wassabi Collective. I disagree with the spelling of wasabi in their name but I suppose it is their name. Some of us WKTEPpers went in to Nelson for good times.
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| The Things |
[Oct. 9th, 2007|07:53 pm] |
Oh the things.
Thing the first.
School.
Going well.
Tomorrow I am all day at a high school observing and grabbing awesome teaching skills from the people in charge. Last Wednesday I got to watch a Chem 12 lab, a Chem 11 damage control class, a Bio 12 review of DNA and a Sci 10 class involving a group project and a test of these electronic answer inputters. The electronic inputter things were pretty great. I even got to wear a guest ID tag. Oh! I also got to sit in on a teacher meeting at lunch. There was even a complainy lady who, once talking, caused everyone to moan inwardly in pain. It was amazing. I didn't hear anything but it was like the air got a grumbly tummy.
I wore my brown pants to a different school and this one girl totally said "nice pants." I thanked her and that was the end of that. I feel I handled the situation quite well. When she wasn't looking I did a victory dance. The students are totally all my friends and love me. All that is left is for me to kill their love and mould them into hateful creatures ready for the vile and competitive world outside the crumbling lead-based paint covered walls. First I need to graduate and get a job, however.
I also had sushi in Nelson at this sushi place. I was thinking "sushi in Nelson? How could it be good?" I then thought "don't be such a prick." Then I thought "oh, they're speaking Japanese. This is going to be awesome. Oh and look! I went to that sake brewery." Then I thought "how can you mess up edamame? This sushi is terrible! What the hell? At least the sake is warming my cold heart." Apparently the sushi in Castlegar is better. I'm not really holding out hope for good. Expensive, maybe.
Thing 2.
Activities.
Going decent.
Activity the 1st: Dance, Senegal based dance. It's quite rad. I'm pretty horrible but it's fun. Don't think I'll continue through the winter as I have to drive pretty far but I figured I might as well give it a try.
Activity 2: Pilates. Decided "hey, why not? I'll try some pilates. It's cheap." It sure is cheap. No hope for any actual exercise at this rate. Lady is really nervous about a "token male" being in her class or seems to be. I decided to look up pilates before relegating it to a worthless waste of time that I'd probably continue because I paid 15 bucks for it. It now seems less a waste of time but will remain so if the instructor continues to suck.
Activity 3: I played squash for 2 minutes. I might play it again at some point for longer than 2 minutes. It was a pretty fun 2 minutes. I also did some weight lifting but the gym just wasn't the same without Dan laying down the encouragement during the bench press. The gym here also sucks arse. They do have a climbing wall so that is a possible activity if I ever get around to it.
Thing 3.
Thanksgiving.
Was great.
Ate a whole bunch. Walked on the roof. Took pictures of deer. Hit fawn with apple (barely and I didn't throw it hard). Felt bad for actually trying to hit fawn with apple but also a bit amazed that it didn't run away. Felt justified with the knowledge that perhaps it gained a bit of fear for humans.
Scenario: Adam, with pellet gun in hand, goes to shoot a can because it's totally fun. Group of 3 deer see Adam walking towards them with gun. Adam starts talking to the deer. They look and continue eating grass. Adam keeps getting closer. They slowly start to move away.
The scenario can only end in disaster for these girls. They'll be out in the forest. A hunter will come along and hit them with apples before talking to them and finally shooting from about 10 feet away. I sure hope I get a percentage of the meat.
Watched 2 movies over the weekend. Harsh Times: Worst movie ever. It's horrible. Absolutely horrible. You should watch it Matek. Don't watch the whole thing but at least watch the first 20 minutes or so. Delightful.
Bang Bang Action Spy Bang: I think I got the title wrong but Ben Affleck is in it and so is Ari from Entorurage and Michael Blooth from Arrested Development. Ari is the only guy of those with a big part. The whole middle of the movie has nothing to do with anything. It's just a wacky conglomeration of wacky hit people trying to kill Ari who does lots of coke. Finally at the end they reveal that nothing you just watched mattered as it had nothing to do with the plot. It's fabulous and those three crazy guys are pretty rad and the death of that one guy is awesome. Also, who doesn't like a guy that totally feels like Kevin Spacey in Seven. And the other guy with the stabber things and the girl with the really big gun. Oh man. And Ben Affleck. There's also a front desk guy with zits. Classic. Super Action Sky Thugs is definitely a must see.
I also listened to some vinyl back at the pad. Popped on one of my random Japanese pawn shop purchases. The one with the guy pointing off into the distance and it's amazing. The disc is scratched to hell but the contents shine through. I can't believe I didn't check the disc before purchase. No way I can take it back now. Listened to my double Porchella LP and it's good but I think the CD is definitely a better presentation. The extra tracks aren't bad but I don't think they add much. I do like the surprise of the different order mixed in with the extra tracks as opposed to just lumping all of them on the last disc.
I'm sure there's much more to relate but I need to go pee. |
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