Spatch's Spatchtastic Splatterings!

Testing .. testing ...

2009-09-26T13:44:00.000-07:00

Yes , this thing is on still.

Call me a little lazy (or a whole lotta lazy) with my updating (like, all of two years ... yowza!). I know, I s*ck for neglecting this piece of internet blogdom for as long as I have and I shall do a much better job of keeping it updated.

In the meanwhile you can enjoy this fine piece of video humour (or maybe a ode to me? not likely since this was done in 1989) and maybe I should try landing a job at this place.

Enjoy.

Sens Joke (appropriate for this time of season)

2007-05-26T22:59:00.001-07:00

After Buffalo Sabres coach Lindy Ruff passes away and enters the Pearly
Gates, God takes him on a tour. He shows Lindy a little 2-bedroom house
with a faded Buffalo Sabres banner hanging from the front porch. "This is
your home, Coach. Most people don't get their own house up here," God
exclaims.

Lindy looks at the house, then turns around and looks at the one sitting on
the top of the hill. It's a huge two-story mansion with white marble columns
and little patios under all of the windows. Ottawa Senators flags line both
sides of the sidewalk with a huge red and black Senators banner hanging
between the marble columns.

"Thanks for the home, God, but let me ask you a question. I get this little
2 bedroom house with a faded Buffalo Sabres banner, and Bryan Murray gets a
mansion With new Senators banners and flags flying all over the place. Why
is that?"

God looks at him seriously for a moment and then replies, "That's not
Murray's house, that's mine!!!!!"

Blizzard update (a little late but ... )

2007-03-14T20:54:00.000-07:00

JUST a quick (and way late) update but I wish I could say that the news out of Missisauga a few weekends back was good but unfortunately for the 2006/2007 edition of the London Blizzard that was not the case.

The Blizzard fell 3-1 to the Missisauga All Blacks that morning in what was seen as a very valiant effort all around by the team.

We got off on a good start by scoring the first goal of the game late in second period (yours truly scored it on a nice pass from my linemate Cam on a 2 on 1 break) but shortly thereafter Missisauga scored to tie the game and then go ahead 2-1 by the end of the period. A late goal in the third by the All Blacks sealed the game for them and their advancement in the OSHA playoffs.

While the disappointment was high amongst the team afterwards you could feel that no one felt the season was a waste. As I see it, it's all about taking steps to that next "level" so we as a team can get THAT much better and use it to our advantage for next season. Maybe next year when we make the playoffs again (yes, I am going on record as saying we WILL make the playoffs again) this lesson that we learned today will serve us well.

We perservered all season when the odds were against us and faced the challenges presented to us head on and never backed down. I know I have faith in my team and I know we'll be that much stronger next season.

We can do it and way to go Blizz!

We're Playoff Bound!

2007-03-01T13:17:00.000-08:00

That's right folks .. THE BLIZZARD ARE PLAYOFF BOUND !

This past Sunday my beloved sledge hockey team the London Blizzard clinched a spot in the Ontario Sledge Hockey Association (OSHA) playoffs with a hard fought 1-0 over the Fraser, Michigan Ice Dogs.

It came down to the last game of the season and we had to win our game to make it because we had to forfeit our first game against them due to limited man and woman power. Essentially we couldn't ice a full team to play so we had to pass on the game.

We were told that we had to win this game or else we were through for the season so as you can imagine the Blizzard came out, played hard and smart and were justly rewarded for their efforts! It was pretty satisfying to come off at the end of the game knowing that you gave everything you had and worked hard especially since the week before you lost a game you felt you should have won (it was exhibition but still ... ). There were ALOT of happy faces in the locker room for sure!

For myself, it was great to be back on the ice skating and playing after a month off due to back problems and it was nice to be a part of something so special. I told my guys that if they could win that game and get us into the playoffs I'd be back with them. Well what would you know .. I was (no pun intended) back sooner than I had thought!

Tonight we had a good practice and we seem ready.

Who is up for the London Blizzard? We're off to Missisauga to play the Missisauga All Blacks. I have no idea what this team is like to play but when you see their season stats and finsihing second in their division and with 28 goals for and 10 against you can get a good idea about what this team is like. You can also be assured that we will have our hands full.

We have a challenge ahead for us and I believe we can do it. We worked hard to get to this point and I think my guys (and gal) aren't quite ready to go home yet.

I'll post the results of Saturday's game here.

Wish us luck!

What a ...

2007-02-19T20:55:00.000-08:00

... day today (well at the time I wrote this it was Sunday morning .. late so I suppose I will say yesterday. Oh wait, I guess until I go to bed it will still be Saturday? Oh whatever) was for me.

I was up at 7:30am and was on a bus to Buffalo, New York with my sledge hockey team by 9am. All I could do was veg, eat an apple, drink a Diet Dr Pepper and eat a bag of Swedish Berries (which I bought specifically for this trip the night before at the theater when I went and saw Ghost Rider ... that's another entry) with my team mate Tony and just not think since I was still a few hours away from hitting my "stride" (you know how late risers are)

We stopped along the way in Burlington to pick up some folks from the Kitchener Sidewinders who were supplying a few players for our junior squad for a game against the junior Buffalo Sabres. Once we picked them up we were on our way to Buffalo!

We made the Canada/US border by 12pm, right on schedule but we had a problem w/someone's passport and that held us up for quite awhile. It seemed like US immigration saw something on her passport that they needed or didn't like so they took her off the bus to their office of sorts and made her wait while there were eight others who were in the same or near boat and coincidentally enough on a bus also. Long story short, our driver got and wanted to see what he could do to help move things along to ensure that we made it to Buffalo for our games and within 45 minutes she was out and were on back on the road. From what he told us he used teh story of that he had a bus full of special needs kids who play hockey and it's important that they be there on time. Apparently the supervisor heard that and moved the lady ahead. Some ahead of her weren't happy but we sure were! And who says being handicapped DOESN'T have it's priviledges or benefits? ;)

We made our way to the HSBC Arena, unloaded gear and equipment and headed to our locker room to gear up and take the ice. Of course I wasn't playing due to an injury but I still cheered my guys on and hoped that we'd come out on top. Unfortuneately it wasn't meant to be because the intermediate London Blizzard fell 4-1 to the intermediate Buffalo Sabres. A littled disheartening I am sure but I know my guys will rebound just fine for our game next weekend.

The junior London Blizzard lost to the junior Buffalo Sabres 3-2 but was a very entertaining game all around. I tell you, those Kitchener players that came would so look good in Blizzard colours I tell you. They complimented our guys so well.

After the games all players went out to dinner at a well known grill (the name escapes me) but we had the chane to part take in a Buffalo Sabres fan tradition which is to take advantage of this $14.00 (WTH?!) buffet that had pasta, salad, chicken wings (Buffalo style of course!), rolls and pizza. Of course it was all you can eat but still .. $14.00?! Anyways, it's a tradition I guess so I had the chance to talk with quite a few die hard Sabres fans in the line up. When I told them who I cheer for the answer was pretty much "Senators? I'm really sorry" or "Ottawa? my condolences".

Smart asses.

We made our way back to the HSBC to watch the Sabres and Boston Bruins game and to head up to (yes you will be reading this right) our suites to watch the game. I must saw it was pretty "SUITE" (yes, a bad pun I know) to have these seats. Not bad for what I paid too. What made it ultra cool is that you had a server who would take your orders for you so you don't miss anything. Honestly, how cool is that? I could tell you how the game went by giving you a play by play but I am sure you'd get bored with that so I will just give you the score:

Bruins: 4
Sabres: 3

What a beauty. The Sabres lose and the Sens beat Atlanta 5-3. Gotta love that sound the Sens are making now. Look out behind you, here come the Senators, Buffalo! (should make that game next Thursday pretty interesting). For highlights go here

The game ended and we all got back on the bus. It took awhile to get out of the arena area just because of all the gridlock of some thousands of people trying to leave. Eventually we got on the road and crossed the border and into Burlington again to drop off our Kitchener players and then back home for us.

It's now 3:23am and I have been up for 20 hours and I'm just beat. I've been home since 2:30am and yes, sleep is good. Why did I stay up to add this? I just thought I'd share the lengthy day today has been with you all.

Mmmmm .. bed.

GO SENS GO!

J

Just a thought ....

2007-02-12T23:13:00.001-08:00

Arguably one of the most thought provoking pieces I have seen in awhile. It most certainly makes you look at people a little differently and even maybe even just realize how much we take what we have for granted when others may have so little. Also it goes to show much just someone talking to someone, a total stranger, will make a world of difference difference to them.

Words can hurt but they also can heal.

11/28/06: Where Has The Time Gone?!

2006-11-28T15:09:00.000-08:00

Gah! Has it almost been a month since I last posted? Oh brother!

Not too much to report other than (and I will refer to her just by a letter because she asked me to) "J" celebrated our 4 month anniversary 13 days ago. I can't believe it's been that long since I first met her and what a wonderful difference she's made in my life since that day. It isn't often (or rare for that matter) that you find someone you are that truly compatible with. She's one in a million and I love her so much for her and what a great 4 months it's been. I look so forward to the next four months and hopefully beyond!

What else?

It looks like that "battle of the bands" really caught on with the lack (ok, none) of votes that came. Maybe people were too embarassed to put their names next to the videos they voted for. Come to think of it, I'd be embarassed too also to have my name next to a bad video. Smart move everyone! smart, smart move!

Can you believe Christmas is almost here again? neiher can I. It's hard to fathom that it was July and I was complaining about the heat and now Christmas is just 27 days away. That's so insane! Who started their Christmas shopping already? or better better yet, who has it done? Over the summer I had shoppers coming in and doing their holiday shopping and taking advantage of the (I guess) lower prices. I looked at them sort of odd but at the same thought "I don't blame you". Which reminds me, I should get a jump on my shopping really soon and also email my Christmas list to my mom and my aunt and uncle. Did you ever notice too that the older you get the less you really think about your Christmas list much less even have a clue as to what you want versus when you were much, much younger? I'm drawing blanks on my list again this year.

Sledge season is in full swing now. We lost our three pre season games a few weeks back but the upside is that when our regular season started on the 19th of this month we tied Windsor/Sarnia 3-3. It's my understanding that this team had quite a few winter Para-lympians from last seasons regional sledge team at the winter games. Not too shabby if you ask me! The next game for the Blizzard is on December 10th when we play Kitchener here at home. It should be noted that Kitchener recently beat the same Windsor/Sarnia team that we tied 4-1. I believe our tie speaks volumes about the team I play on!

Finally ...

My sister recently celebrated her 30th birthday and it was a real joy to be a part of my baby sister's milestone. For dinner we went out and had Ethiopian food and that was truly a one of a kind experience. I should preface before we go any further by saying that I am not one for spicy food so if I go out for dinner somewhere that isn't familiar I will usually take the high road and have something which appears to be more "normal".

So on with the story ...

As I had said already, it was truly a one of a kind experience and what was really cool is that you can eat it without utensils. I was naturally puzzled that there were no knives and forks and was waiting for them for quite awhile but my sister eventually informed (ok, she didn't informed me, she clued me in) that was not the case.

You see, your food is served on a big dish/platter of sorts with what looks to be some kind of flat bread underneath with your main choice(s) of either (spiced or not) vegetables or meat (lemmon chicken,beef,goat) on top. So all you do after is tear around the edges of the flat bread and then make little pockets, dab into whichever choices you want and you eat it! voila! I will say I was hesitant so I had a small corner but ultimately loved the taste and texture of the bread and the meat (I had the chicken). I will say that the two pints of .. *gasp* .. beer that I had with dinner (Steamwhistle ... very, very good stuff!) definately added to the pallet.

In the end it was a DEFINATELY cool cullinary experince in ethic dining and one that I was really proud to be a part of. I reccomend that wherever you live that you try some Ethiopian cuisine!

Oh, and if you're ever (or live) in Toronto try where we ate that night, the link is:

http://www.ethiopianrestaurant.com/canada/addisababa.html

Until next time everyone ... take care!

2006-10-15T13:49:00.000-07:00

... I wish I could say that "the hits keep on coming" but I can't.

Why?

That'd be lying to you all.

Of course the same disclaimer from before STILL applies BUT there's one more added:

- MAY cause extreme laughter (esp. for me at the ending with the girl rolling all over the floor)

Now on to the "show" (and I use that term loosely):

You have been warned (see at own risk)

2006-10-15T13:23:00.000-07:00

I don't know what to add to this update (finally) since I am not feeling all that great about myself at the moment. I did however think that this would be worthy of posting material (since it's been posted elsewhere) here.

However though this does come with the following though:

DISCLAIMER:

I hold no responsibility for what you're about to see and hear.

Possible side effects may include:

- Loss of hearing (a good thing I guess in this instance but can resume afterwards)

- Nausea (obviously)
- Public embarassment (if you're at work watching this and having someone say "what is this crap?!" or if you're at home with the volume cranked from watching other videos and listening to music)

Now that you have been warned ... on to the "show" :

Time Out Of Mind

2006-10-01T02:08:00.000-07:00

Just to borrow a song title from the Steely Dan album "Gaucho", I figured I'd use it as a way to say "whoops! sorry I forgot about the blog!".

I just haven't had too much to write about as of late really so that's why there has been no real update of late.

Of course I turned 33 on the 10th of September (the date of my last update oddly enough) but I won't bore you with the details of that day except to say that I had a fantastic day and those involved made it special. So if I haven't said "Thank You" enough to those people let me just say a big (and I mean BIG) Thank You to you all here because your contributions made it one to remember.

What else?

Sledge Hockey season has started up again (first practice was the 13th of September) and the last few practices have been extremely grueling to say the least. You never expect that after four months off you'd feel so out of shape much less even feel the least bit tired considering that you don't you could lose what you gained from October to May. But either way the push (both actively, figuretively and litterally) towards our first regular season game on the 22nd of October is under way.

I must say that I am pretty excited to get that first game under my and the team's collective belt and see how we stack up again this year versus everyone else. I really believe that we have a strong team again this year with everyone pretty much back and a few new players from our Junior team making their way to Intermediate. I'm curious to see how the new Juniors do but I also think it will be an adjustment for them but they'll fit in and contribute well.

Of course this year all our points we score and the game we win or lose will count now that we start our newly started league with other sledge teams within our area. I fully believe the competition will be top notch since there will be a championship to play for now. Naturally, I'm thinking we'll win it of course! We'll see what the verdict of spring time is.

And back on the Dan front, here's my ticket from the show that ANSJ241 and I went to. Of course you can read the review of the show in the entry down below.

Till next time!

Showbiz Kids ("they got the Steely Dan t shirt ...")

2006-09-10T02:24:00.000-07:00

The title of this entry (and quoted portion) is borrowed from the song "Showbiz Kids" by Steely Dan so you can guess correctly that this intro will be about my experience at my FIRST Steely Dan concert. And all I can just say is ... WOW .. and it was better than I had ever dreamed/hoped/wished for/imagined it would be.

Just this past Saturday (ok, to be technical it was September 2nd, I am a bit tardy on this one), myself and my good buddy Boogers went to Clarkston, Michigan to see Steely Dan at the DTE Energy Music Theater and what I experienced was .. well ... just as I introduced up above. I will say again that it was beyond and above what I thought my first Steely Dan show would be after all these years of listening to their albums and seeing whatever live video bootlegs I could see and even what was on TV in the past. They say that you haven't experienced a band until you see them live and even afterwards you become a BIGGER fan of them

Well folks, I can safely say that I am now a BIGGER fan and it was a surreal experience. Also it's one I am still stunned and in awe by that I finally saw them.

The musicianship was just simply amazing. It seems as though this version of the band is the best touring band that they had ever assembled (and that's saying alot considering the members who have been in their touring bands in past). They had people who made you think you were listening to the original recordings and even musicians who just made your jaw drop (drummer Keith Carlock in particular and guitarist Jon Herington was his equal). If you're going to perform the music of Walter Becker and Donald Fagen you had better have the best musicians and background singers you can get because it's no small feat.

I am sure you're wondering if I got the tour shirt. And to that I say ... absolutely! I got the black shirt with the AJA album cover on the front and on the back it says "Steely Dan Summer Tour 2006". They had another shirt that was beige and had the Steelyard "Sugartooth" McDan (and the Fab-Originees.com) tour logo and what not on it but I just thought the one I wound up with was way, way, way better in the end (plus much cooler looking and it's one of my favourite albums by The Dan).

So what did they perform? Well here's the setlist from the show:

Turtle Talk or Night In Tunisia (I can't remember but both sound somewhat similar) - Stan Kenton (Instrumental)

Bodhisattva
Time Out Of Mind
Aja
Hey 19
Home At Last
Black Friday
Chain Lightning
Green Earings
I Got The News
Dirty work
(Instrumental introductions and Micheal McDonald joins Steely Dan on stage)
*Show Biz Kids
*Do It Again
*Peg
Dont Take Me Alive
Kid Charlemagne

Encore:

FM
My Old School
Hanks Pad - Henry Mancini (musical jam outro)

* Indicates songs performed by McDonald and Steely Dan together

Also I wish that I could give you my full thoughts on the supporting act, Michael McDonald's set but I arrived about 15 minutes late and was rushing about to find our seats and get something to drink. I will try and provide what I can but from what I heard it was simply amazing. As a matter of fact as I was waiting in line to get my t shirt I heard McDonald perform his biggest hit with The Doobie Brothers, "What A Fool Believes" and it was awesome! I was sitting in my wheelchair grooving along to the song and lip synching the words as he sang them.

To close McDonald's show he did another Doobie Brothers song called "Takin' It To The Streets" and for this he had a full church choir out with him to provide the back up vocals and they sounded awesome too. The McDonald band was solid and the execution also had me thinking I was listening to the original recordings.

All and all it was a magical night of excellent music.

The Contrivable Purpose

2006-09-09T23:40:00.000-07:00

I had to post here my sister's most recent blog entry. My sister has a pretty observational sense of humour and I just found this entry so funny that I had to post this. Also, I had to post my response too (you know, plug plug plug .. ):

The Contrivable Purpose

I live in Hipsterville.

You know, it’s halfway between Insecureville and Smugville.

Oh? You haven’t heard of Hipsterville? Please, it would be my pleasure to give you a tour!

Over to our left we have a rather thin 5’10, 25 year old male with a faux mullet wearing white high tops and tapered jeans. Notice how those jeans are oh so effortlessly tucked in behind the tongue of those snazzy high tops. I’d bet he’s in a band. What do you say we try to track him down on myspace when we get home?

Now look over there! Isn’t that maaaaaarvelous. I know it’s not 1950, but just look at how that young lady on the bicycle with the basket –yes her- is dressed just as if she’s going to a 1950s picnic! How charming!

And to our right – uh-huh, just over there on the sidewalk, we have a young lady with flowing blonde hair wearing a Slayer t-shirt. Slayer! Now they knew how to rock. My! I do believe that is a faux jog she is attempting. Take note of the knee socks. Fabulous! I bet she is dating a guy in a band! Wink wink.

They are…
Clearly trying…
Way…
WAY…
Too hard.

My neighbourhood used to have True Grit. Now it has Faux Grit.

As I sit writing, staring out my front window, I have a shotgun view of The Death of a Neighbourhood.

I used to live around the corner from a large mental health facility - complete with a massive rooming house across the street. There were blocks of bars made for alcoholics who had only a few bucks to spend on their habit. Three dollar beers, and an all-day breakfast for $2.50 at the Friendly Sports Café. It was a neighborhood full of little old Portuguese people shuffling around to the local fish markets, and retiring to their homes. Homes painted white, with little wrought iron fences and fountains in the front yards.

With little knowledge of Toronto, I was lured to this neighborhood 5 years ago by a ridiculously cheap apartment and a lovely old Portuguese landlord. My first night walking home, I remember thinking….geez, where the hell did I move to?

One night, biking over a bump, the light flew off my bike. A friendly hooker helped me track it down. And I came to expect the blinds on the last window on the main floor of the rooming house to always be open – the blue light of the flickering TV washing over the sidewalk. I came to rely on “Bob” to be sitting, in his jogging pants, staring out that bedroom window. “Hello Bob,” I’d say mentally as I passed by.

Now I live in Hipsterville.

The mental hospital is still there. But it’s changed to a largely out-patient facility – though ironically, the massive rooming house across the street is abandoned and for sale. The alcoholic-friendly bars are being turned into coffee houses, organic grocery shops, ‘alternative’ movie rental stores and boutiques. Old Portuguese folks are selling off their homes for small fortunes and moving to gawd knows where.

Hipsterville is small, but it’s a rapidly growing ville.

Hipsters crowd my next door café. All day. Every day. Don’t hipsters have to work to buy all that 80s clothing and pay for all those concert tickets? My favourite local drinking hole, The Communist’s Daughter, is a write-off. I know it’s packed every night before 7pm. The Vatikan, a dumpy, gritty goth/industrial hangout, closed its doors for good in July.

So why is this phenom so troublesome to me? Because it’s a scene full of people seething with the desire To Belong. A profound craving to Fit In, a habit who’s fix has a very obvious outward fashion/lingo manifestation. Because it’s contrived. Insincere.

I can’t wait until the obnoxious 80-unit loft development next door to me is complete.

And yes, I know, I’m some sort of Nouveau-Hipster…by very virtue of being repulsed by the Hipsters, I am a new breed of Hipster. A judgmental Dipster.

Jay sez

I often get that feeling too when I am out and about or even at work. I mean, I see what the kiddies are a wearin’ these days to be all fashionable and or whatever the trend du jour dictates.

However though I do feel that at times that some people try too hard to be fashionable and in the end just end up looking like the next guy/gal who walked by. It’s almost as if they are cloned at the “fashion hatchery” or they have the same stylist (Much Music/MTV influenced by those hip hop/emo bands they so love). I will say too it’s good for a laugh esp the hip hop kiddlins’ and their all urban slang … ya feel me dawg? ya feel me sista?

Right … word … peace home girl .. whatever.

Now having said that I am all for individuality …. but to a point until you look like the aforementioned clones.

Hmmm .. a gal in a Slayer T shirt? To quote Paris “I So DUI’d” Hilton … “that’s hot”

One of these pondering things/deal-ios.

2006-08-27T11:02:00.000-07:00

Yes I know, two posts in under 24 hrs and you're all stunned (like I am) and in a state of shock and awe and quite frankly, if you are .. I appologise. If you plan to sue me for whatever damages this may have caused I am affraid you won't get much except for a "I'm sorry" (and isn't a heartfelt sorry worth more than a monetary settlement anyways? No? you'd take the money? don't worry so would I!) and a bottle or Gatorade (you will have your choice between Blueberry, Orange, Fruit Punch and Lime) from my 24 pack that I have downstairs in the kitchen (if you want Fruit Punch you better hurry up because I have one left and chances are I will drink it soon).

Anyhoo ...

I find this hard to figure out let alone understand and maybe, just maybe I may be in the minority here (and if I'm not ... well THAT ain't a bad thing!) . It's simply this:

Am I the only one that seems to be at their creative best around this time of night/morning? It was like that as far as I can remember during my earlier days in either public school, highschool or even (when I actually chose to and believe it or not applied myself) in college.

I can't seem to put an exact finger on the whys and hows but again, maybe .. just maybe it could have alot to do with the enviroment that I'm in. Could it be because there's no outside distractions such as the phone ringing? excessive traffic? screaming kids outside my window that distract me and derail my train of thought? (yes, I know that was a cheesey joke .. you know .. train .. derail .. train off the tracks .. get it? no? you didn't think it was funny? crap!)

Now having said that I always did (or rather, do) have music on but that for some reason doesn't distract me from doing what I am doing. Usually I hum along with a song that I like or even maybe will put it on repeat and get whatever it is that I am writting or throwing ideas about done or down on paper as clearly as possible. The (I guess) weird part too is that I am dead focused on getting what I want done (it's like tunnel vision) but whereas during the day that doesn't quite happen.

The strange part however is that if I do follow the exact pattern from the night time during the day the ideas don't flow as well or at all. Could it be that my mind isn't as alert during the day whereas my mind during the day has to be and that allows my mind to flow freely? It'd be great if I could get some kind of answer to this question.

So I guess my question to you all is this: Am I alone on this? Yes? No? Whatever?

Flashback To The 80's Pt2 : Playlist 8/26/06

2006-08-26T21:46:00.000-07:00

"Planet Earth" - Duran Duran
"West End Girls" - Pet Shop Boys
"Too Shy" - Kajagoogoo
"Poison Arrow" - ABC
"Train Of Thought" - Ah Ha
"Pure Energy" - Information Society
"Little Red Corvette" - Prince
"Head Over Heels" - Tears For Fears
"I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)" - Hall & Oates
"If You Leave" - OMD
"Don't You (Forget About Me)" - Simple Minds
"One Thing Leads To Another" - The Fixx
"Dance Hall Days" - Wang Chung
"Eyes Without A Face" - Billy Idol
"Doesn't Really Matter" - Platinum Blonde
"She Sells Sanctuary" - The Cult
"Flippin' To The A Side" - Cats Can Fly
"Photograph" - Def Leppard

Question

2006-06-26T12:59:00.000-07:00

Does anyone read this? If you do just let me know. Post a comment ... anything!

Playlist: 6/22/06 - 80's Retro Edition

2006-06-22T13:24:00.000-07:00

Playlist: 6/22/06 - 80's Retro Rewind

"Destination Unknown" - Missing Persons
"(Keep feeling) Fascination" - Human League
"Tainted Love" - Soft Cell
"Breakout" - Swing Out Sister
"Heart and Soul" - T'Pau
"Shattered Dreams" - Johnny Hates Jazz
"Perfect Way" - Scritti Polliti
"I Can't Wait" - Nu Shooz
"99 Luftballons" - Nena
"Wouldn't It Be Good?" - Nik Kershaw
"The Warrior" - Scandal
"Obsession" - Animotion
"Suddenly One Summer" - The Motels
"Voices Carry" - 'Til Tuesday
"Ball Of Confusion" - Love & Rockets
"Let's Go All The Way" - Sly Fox
"Cuddly Toy (Feel For Me)" - Roachford
"The Cult of Personality" - Living Colour

A Whole Whack O' Stuff

2006-06-22T13:23:00.000-07:00

Hey there everyone! It's that time again .. yup! The ol' blog update! Of course where do I begin? that therein is the question! Let's hope that somehow or another this will be a good entry. So on with the show shall we?

First things first. I hope somehow I can get that MRI/Ultrasound for my shoulder moved up. I tell you, this is just getting annoying not being able to have full range (and or) use of my arm. It's not until something like this happens do you take the simple things for granted. I will say that nothing hurts really (well, with Sensory Neuropathy you don't quite feel the pain that "normal" people feel) badly but just being able to wash my hair without having to use my left arm to lift it up would be nice or even brush my hair without doing the same thing like I do when I wash my hair would be great. It's all just a real inconvenience borderlining on nuissance now. All I want is this fixed and looked so I can get on the ice at the start of the hockey season! And even that is doubtful if I need surgery because a early prognosis by my doctor says it could be my rotator cuff and that can take up to 6-8 months to heal (of course that depends if I get booked for surgery in October and **assuming** that I require surgery).

I know I shouldn't just to any conclusions until I know the facts but let's hope for the absolute best but I am fearing the worst. Bummer.

The 2006 FIFA World Cup of soccer is in full swing and so far I am really enjoying the quality of soccer played and the different countries who have made this tournament with their different (or same as years before) styles of play. It's pretty cool to see a little country like Ghana beat a Super Power like Czech's (who are ranked second in the world by FIFA) like they did on Saturday. Of course I'm cheering for England (and as I type this I am wearing my 2002 white England jersey with my fave player David Beckhams' number 7 on it) like I always do whether it's World Cup or the Euro Cup. I'm thinking England can get past Equador on Sunday but I am not sure past that. The game against Sweden yesterday showed the best 45 minutes they have played all tournament thus far but the second half of thegame wasn't too fantastic despite the fact that they got a 2-1 lead with about 5 minutes or so go in the game until Sweden scored at the 90 minute mark. They have to play a full 90 on Sunday or else it will be a long and disappointing wait for another 4yrs. I think they'll pull this one out Sunday.

Not too much happening at the work front really. Mind you though I did travel half way across the city to only find out that I didn't have to work last Saturday. For some reason I misread the schedule before I left the week before. I just didn't look at the right name on the sheet. Of course I did check very carefully for the following week and this Saturday I don't work as well. You just have to love that down time during the summer in retail when the hours get cut back by head office. I suspect I will be in next week but I will just go in anyways to check and maybe go to the movies too if anything good comes out this weekend (which I suspect will not be too much until Superman comes out on Wednesday).

And speaking of movies ....

I went and saw "Nacho Libre" last Friday. It's no secret that I am a wrestling fan so this film was right up my alley. In general the film was okay and was entertaining to some degree. I thought it was a cool concept to use Lucha Libre as comedy fodder and the idea of Jack Black in tights was funny while all the while being a Mission chef on the side but for some reason I didn't burst outloud but more so a guffaw than anything. If you enjoyed the "Napoleon Dynamite" style humour (which I loved) then you will enjoy this. But for some odd reason it didn't work too well with me. Was it bad? No it wasn't bad at all. Was it good? Somewhat. I think it's one of those films I will have to see again and see if I wasn't in the right frame of mind to see that day.

Anyways, that's all I can think of for the time being. I'll get around to posting my playlist some time very soon!

Pictures, pictures and more pictures!

2006-06-03T23:28:00.000-07:00

OH WOW! two updates in less than a few hours. I am not sure if that's a "Spatch's Spatchtastic Splatterings!" record or not but if it isn't, let's make it one!

So, I just checked my email and one of my sledge team mates, Maricyl, sent a bunch of us who went to Ottawa for the Ottawa Carelton Sledge Hockey Challenge pictures from our opening game. The photos in themselves were pretty cool and I thought I would share a few.

So let's get to posting!

This picture that you are looking at was taken by Maricyl before I headed out the locker room door to go get my sledge and hit the ice for our opening game on the Friday night. I think I remember her saying "Jay .. smile .." so I turned and looked and here's the reaction she got. You know, I thought before a game athletes weren't supposed to be all smiles? You know, the intensity of the moment, preparing to go out there and wage war against the enemy and show no mercy. I guess I had a lapse in "intensity" before I went out. But have no fear folks! The intensity came when the puck was dropped and the game started.

Which by the way leads to this .... (great transition huh?)

This is taken as well from our opening night game against a team from Ottawa called the "Bandits". They were a replacement team made up of inexperienced players and a few experienced players from the senior version of the Bandits if I remember right (and who we played later .. the senior version). What you see here is my team mate Jim and I going in on a 2 on 0. I had recieved a pass from Jim and I broke in towards the net and got a shot on goal. This was taken right at the moment when I recieved the pass from him and as I said, headed in towards the net. From what I remember I managed to get a pretty decent shot off and scored on the far left side and netted the second goal for us and were up 2-0 at this point (Jim had scored the opening goal). This was also my only goal of the tournament!

How about another action photo? Here's me circling to go in and defensively cover a player. I couldn't believe that it took me up to this point in the season to figure out what the heck I was supposed to do when I play left/right wing. I always hear that when I turn about I get my sledge too low to the ice. I guess that explains why I peel out so much! ;)

*note to self .. don't get down so low when you circle about ..

Lastly here's a great team picture taken during the final 2 minutes of our Gold medal game with our coach trying to calm us down after we got flustered by a late goal by the team from Conneticuit. We wound up winning the game 3-1 but it was a tense and long two minutes to say the least!

So there you go folks! A bonus update here in the ol' blog!

Hotness prevails/the worst video ever

2006-06-03T14:48:00.000-07:00

It's that time again folks .. yup .. it's blog update time! (YAY!)

For this installment it's another video. No, I am not posting up video because I can't think of anything to write but rather because > yet another video has caught my eye and is deserving and worthy of a posting.

What you are about to see is probablly one of the funniest rants that I have heard in a long while. I wish I could tell you who the guy is that did this video and where he's from and what not but you just have to listen to this rant.

And no .. I am NOT a sell out! (you'll get the joke at the end of the video)

Enjoy and until next time!

J

Gotta love it!

2006-05-26T01:31:00.000-07:00

As many times as I see this the facial reaction at the start of this interview it will never get old.

You have to love mistaken identity!

My God ...

2006-05-25T13:47:00.000-07:00

I have seen this video before on a few occasions and I just had to post it. This is a fantastic take on the theme and the fella who performed it, Ben Litchman played it on the show just this past Tuesday. It was unreal.

Enjoy!

All smooth , all the time ... Smooth FM!"

2006-05-25T00:35:00.000-07:00

Just the other day my pal Jay and I thought of the perfect prank to pull on local radio for "April Fools Day" (a little late I know).

You see, both Jay and I have been recently listening to a "smooth jazz" guitarist by the name of Jeff Golub and we both became fans of his music (sure we both like metal, 80's New Wave and a wide assortment of other styles but it never hurts to branch out) and I jokingly said in a slow and smooth voice "that's Jeff Golub with "Drop Top" on Smooth 96". What makes the station ID funny is that it's the spot where the local rock radio station, FM 96 sits on the FM dial .

I guess half the joke too is that FM 96 is a bad rock radio station (according to Jay and I anyways) that just stays with the same rotation of songs (aka: crap and most noteably the popular stuff of whatver band is hip du jour ) every day and doesn't really go too far out of it's way or do too much to break new musical ground. Sure there are some people who call in every day during the lunch hour show to request stuff that I haven't heard in a long while .. like .. 2 hrs? But to the credit of SOME listeners they request 90's songs that I haven't heard in a long, long and I mean LONG while.

But I digress since this isn't what the original angle of this entry is about.

The joke in theory is to convert "Londons' Supposed Best Rock" FM 96 from 5:30am to 12pm into "Smooth 96", a "smooth jazz" station.

So what do you do? Here's what you do:

You do is hype up the "format change" weeks in advance getting the word out through print and your own station that you're changing formats all together and the new station ID's in between songs to herrald the "new sound" of 96. Get the DJ's in on the selling of the switch by saying that it was purely a business decision by Corus and that this is their last week on the air or what have you (and I am sure the frantic calls to the station would be PRICELESS!) . Of course on that last day you have all the staff making their tearful farewells and how they enjoyed being in London and that London is a great radio city and well respected across Canada etc etc and etc.

Finally the big day comes and "Smooth 96" hits the air for it's first (and last) broadcast day after a really epic rock song ("Stairway To Heaven" anyone?) followed by one of those station ID's I spoke about earlier and the new sound hits the airwaves! Of course for staff you will need a whole new morning show host, a 10-2 person and a drive home person (assuming you want to really go that long till 5pm if you want to drag the agony out) to round it out and make it legit (I can already imagine how potentially expensive this prank could be in media coverage and in man/woman hours).

Finally at some point you let the public off the hook. You let them know this was all a prank during a newsbroadcast of some variety and bring in who was supposed to be in at that time slot.

Would the public fall for it? Maybe. Would you have upset your new listeners who thought this was a legitamate format? most definately! I can however imagine most of all the backlash against the station and how angry some of those nubile pre teens and 25+ folks would be. But if you ask me, I think it'd be pretty freakin' funny.

Cruel I know but as April Wine once sang:

"Isn't it a pity, Isn't it a shame?
No one ever warned the boy
Rock and Roll is a vicious game"

We are the champions

2006-05-10T22:34:00.000-07:00

What can I say? My first sledge hockey season ended on a note that not even I could have imagined. You see, over the weekend myself and the rest of my beloved sledge hockey team, the London Blizzard were in Ottawa playing in the 2006 Ottawa Carelton Sledge Hockey Challenge Cup. And as you can tell by the heading of this blog entry we won our pool that we were entered into and that was Group "B".

In our group there were so many amazing teams that have so many great players and to have beaten two of the best that were entered in our pool was an amazing achievement unto itself. I shouldn't say that we're a bad team because we simply weren't! As a matter of fact, I think I have a pretty amazing team too. But in the end we just proved to be the cream of the crop. Any of the final three games that we played (including the championship)were just ... wow! Heck, I will even go on record as to say that those last three were barnone the best three games I have been involved in this year.

Now having said that, going into this tournament I had no idea what to expect or how we were going to play. But by the end of the weekend I had the chance to be on a team who gave their absolute all and were justly rewarded for their efforts. To sit on the ice with my team mates and have that trophy in front of us was an amazing feeling and one I am still feeling 4 days later. It was indeed a total team effort with everyone doing what needed to be done to get the job done and the character of the Blizzard was shown when we had to clamp down defensively or get those crucial goals that we needed to stay in gold medal contention.

But in the end the Blizzard prevailed and it was without a doubt the best way to end the 2005-2006 season on! My thanks goes to my wonderful team mates for being such great new friends to me and for also making my first season one to remember. I'm looking forward to next year already!

Oh, just one more thing before I go. I would like to just thank my family for coming out to my games this weekend. You have no idea how much your being there and your support meant to me. To have been able to play in front of you is something that most athletes dream of and I got to realize that dream. So again, thank you for being there and for enduring those cold arenas. Hey, at least for the gold medal game they finally had the heaters on the bleachers going right? So it wasn't all that bad! ;) But thank you again.

Here we are ... your 2006 Ottawa Carleton Sledge Hockey Challenge Champions ... THE LONDON BLIZZARD

GO-LF LEAFS GO-LF!

2006-04-17T14:37:00.000-07:00

WHAT a sledge hockey season it's turned out to be for me. In my first year I have exceeded any sort of expectations that I had right from the get go. Yes, I went to Texas (which I never thought I'd end up going to EVER in my lifetime)and had a TOTALLY amazing time but never did I think I would end up playing a game on NHL ice in a NHL building. It was without a doubt one of the greatest thrills that I have ever experienced in my life and also in my sledge hockey "career" thus far.

The day in itself started early for me at 5:55am since I was leaving at 7:15am. My ride arrived at 7:20am and we made our way to the near by Tim Horton's for coffee etc. Once we picked up our food and drinks we were on the go to Buffalo! The traffic in itself wasn't all that busy at all considering how early we left. We had thought that with it being Easter Sunday things would be a little busy but thankfully we were wrong. About a hour and a half or so into the trip we stopped at .. yes .. Tim Horton's somewhere near the Canada and US border (it wasn't Niagra Falls but come to think of it I think it was Fort Erie).

About two and a half hours later we arrived in Buffalo and along the way ran into no severe traffic coming into the US (as a matter of fact the traffic was extremely brisk). I believe we made it by about 10:15am or so and had a little time to kill so myself and the Smiths went for a bit of a walk at the near by marina where a couple of retired US battle ships from the WW II sat. I wished I had my camera with me at the time because those ships were absolutely beautiful. It's amazing how quickly the time passed too and we walked on back to the HSBC arena because we had to be back there at 11am at the main foyer to meet with my team mates and the Sabres sledge team as well so that we could be directed to our locker rooms.

And ah yes .. the locker rooms!

When we got led through these BIG double doors and were told to stay straight and take the first left I had no idea what to really expect. Ok, maybe in my mind I had a **bit** of an idea and what to expect and needless to say it didn't disappoint! When we entered the locker room all we saw were these really cool sit in type lockers complete with our own fold out seats. Not to mention there were also these small key boxes where you can store your valuables in. I will say though that the really cool touch was the TV so that we could sit and watch "Hogan Knows Best" and "The Surreal Life" while we changed. To sit in something so professional really made us wonder "who did we tick off at the Western Fair to have us sit on wooden benches?".

So once we got ready and left the locker room and took the long walk (or roll) past the Sabres locker room and the Leafs one too you got that game time feeling that the players get when they take the walk to the ice. Sure we were playing to a almost empty building but this was out "big time" moment for us to be a pro athlete for one day. But once we got to where the Zamboni comes off and we got into our sledges and hit that ice .. wow .. ony then did it truly and fully hit me. As I looked around and saw the Sabres scoreboard above me and all those blue seats in the stands and felt the (yes) heat of the lights above me I couldn't believe still I was there.

Regardless of that fact I did my pregame skate and shot a puck around to get ready.

Game time came and the puck was dropped. All I could think about as I picked about the ice was "man, this is a big surface" and this point my arms were giving out since this Buffalo team was very good and we played them this past January in our tournament and I knew we'd get turned inside and out again by these guys. Of course we were short staffed and lost the game 4-0 but it was a good effort by us consiering the number of players we had and the short bench we had to run and rests were at a minimum. Of course our goaltending was exceptional and he made three amazing saves to keep us in the game.

But once we went back to our ultra plush locker room and got changed and watched more TV we all went and had lunch and got ready for the othe rpart of our day and that was to take in the Sabres and Leafs game at 5pm!

As you can see I am sitting in the upper bowl of the arena and I thought that before the game I would take one picture of the championship banners that didn't hang so far away from me. I wished that I could get a better picture of the banners but that was the best that I could do given my distance. Nonetheless I thought that it turned out well.

The game in itself was a total disaster if you were a Maple Leafs fan. But if you were a Sabres fan (like I was for 60 minutes since I dislike the Leafs lots and HAD to cheer against them since I am a Sens fan as you all know!) you had to like the fact that they exacted some revenge against the Leafs since they got beaten badly by them the last time they played a mere week ago. There was a lot of bad blood between the two teams since Buffalo lost one of it's star players when he was allegedly gooned by Darcy Tucker of the Leafs. So as you can imagine it was quite chippy and Tucker was a marked man. Yes there were a few dust ups but nowhere near the full brawl that people had expected or wanted.

Here's a picture that one of my team mates took for me while I had to use the bathroom. I like this picture alot because it clearly shows where you're supposed to go after the face off and not to mention it's a great action photo! Way to go Claire when you snapped this! I have a few more that she took and I will post them at some other time but as I said, this was the best one of them all.

The game was done by about 8:30 or so and we were out and on the road back here to London. As you can imagine traffic was unreal since most of it was heading back to Toronto since so many Leaf fans came to Buffalo for the game (you should have seen the ratio of Leafs jerseys to Sabres jerseys but Sabres fans were loud!). Of course a good deal of it too could have been post Easter holiday traffic as well so it was expected that it'd be super busy when crossing the border. Amazingly enough we weren't that held up when it came to crossing the border. All we wound up doing was answering a few questions and paid our toll and we were free to go. The ride down with the Smiths was enjoyable and the way back home was just as enjoyable also.

By the time it was all said and done I was home by 11pm or 11:15pm and had one HECK of an exhausting day to say the least! For once I couldn't wait to get to bed and just sleep and that's what I did. Amidst the fact that I was up so early and played a really tiresome game of sledge hockey and saw a great game I had good dreams when I slept. And what did I dream of? I dreamt that we were the ones that beat Buffalo 4-0!

We'll beat them .. one day .. yes we will! :)

Oh and before I do go .. I would just like to express my most sincere thank you's to the Smith family for taking me with them to Buffalo and being so good to me during the entire trip. Your kindness was most appreciated. Thank you again!

I never ...

2006-03-29T12:59:00.000-08:00

Well, I always said that I would stay away from the "fart" jokes and try and bring to you some standard (or semblence anyways) of intelligence here in my blog. But it seems like in this instance I have failed miserably and have fallen to a new low but I just couldn't resist!

Maybe it's me that I find this image highly amusing. Don't ask me why because I just can't tell you .. I have no clue.

Decide for yourself!

Yippee Kai Yay!

2006-03-23T15:57:00.000-08:00

Oh boy it's been awhile since I updated the blog but I just thought that I would save this update for when I got back from Texas with my sledge hockey team. I figured too that this one could be a little more entertaining than previous entries since I always thought that reading people's travel logs are more interesting than the usual banter you read in other blogs online. So without any further ado here is my trip to Texas which occured on the week of March 11th to 19th.

Enjoy!

Saturday - Left London for Detroit to catch my flight @ 7am. The flight didn't leave till 12:01 pm but we wanted extra time to make sure that if there was excess traffic at the border we had that time to use. Of course once we got to the airport we had to get through security we had to try and find and (eventually) meet up with the others who are flying with us too. We were in Detroit some time maybe close to 9:30-10am. The flight left at 12:10 or so and then it was off to Memphis for the first half of our flight!

I don't really remember what time we arrived in Memphis but it was definately late afternoon. I can safely tell you though that Memphis was unusually hot for this time of year because it was like summer temperatures. I was told it was somewhere in the high-high 80's maybe near 90 degrees but the humidity was awful. I only felt it for the few moments I had when I walked off the plane to go get my wheelchair and then into the airport. We were only in Memphis for an hour and then we caught our connecting flight to Austin. We borded an hour later and this time our flight was going to be late because there was some kind of minor issue with the plane so we were sitting with the door to the plane open, no AC running on the plane and the sweltering heat from ourside getting into the plane .. it was awful! No matter, the inconvenience didn't last that long but it felt like forever though. Despite the problem people were still joking about and goofing off with the stewardess. Once everything was sorted out we took off to Austin and everything was back on track! I believe we arrived in Austin some time about 5:30pm and didn't make it back to the hotel till some time around 7pm. Why did it take so long? well, the directions we got were sort of hard to follow and the road system in Austin was confusing at first but the more we travelled the less complicated it seemed. I would imagine that's par for the course to any new city but nonetheless we made it to the hotel and we ordered a late dinner and sat on the hotel patio (with that late night warm weather to boot) till late in the night. Needless to say it was an exhausting and long day!

Sunday - No rest for the weary (or for those who stayed out late on the patio!) since we were up early and on the road to San Antonio for the day. Of all the places I had always wanted to visit in Texas, San Antonio was one of them and now I have my wish! It was pretty neat to travel outside of where we were staying in Austin and see other towns along the way to San Antonio because well .. it just is! It was another warm day in Texas, more summer type heat but who cared because it was all about adventure. Anyhow the gang made it to San Antonio and we had the opportunity to wander about. Myself and my crew (Cameron, Claire,Lane) went and checked out the MASSIVE shopping mall called the River Center Mall . It's probablly unlike anything I had ever seen before. Of course while I was there I bought myself my new San Antonio Spurs jersey and what made it ultra cool was that it was on sale! I believe I paid maybe $55.00 when it sold for $75.00 normally. No complaints here really!

But before that I had the chance to check out the famed Alamo. I didn't wait the near 2hrs to get into the main building but I did explore the outer walls and checked out the displays that they had at certain points within the compound. It's hard to believe that I rolled on the grounds of one of America's most historical and well known battles. The story of the battle for the Alamo and Texas's independance and how it was told was simply amazing.

Monday - A free day today. A day to sleep in and take advantage of the really great weather that we had that day. Of course the summer type weather kept rolling along and it was a really beautiful day. That day too we had our first BBQ in Texas and the BBQ was fantastic! We had the usual fare for BBQ (hot dogs, hamburgers) but our hamburgers were made out of Longhorn! And I must say it was tasty! Later on in the afternoon myself and some of my team mates played some wheelchair basketball on the hotel court and had a pretty good time. However for the evening's entertainment the gang all saddled up and went to the near by rodeo to take in the sights! While at the rodeo I am proud to say that I bought my cowboy hat!

So here I am with my hat. It isn't quite the best pictures ince I had pretty much been up for 12hrs and the growth was starting to grown in not to mention I had a sunburn going across my brow from playing basketball that afternoon.

Shortly after I had bought mine, one of my team mates, Cameron, bought his as well. Shortly after that a good number of other team mates and coaches bought theirs as well! The hats turned into a pretty good investment because when we went out we all wore our hats. The rodeo itself wasn't too much because they were just bringing in the animals so I gues you can't call it a rodeo .. ok .. scratch that! I have no idea what we were at really .. maybe a fair then? who knows but everyone really seemed to have a good time regardless!

Tuesday - Off to Corpus Christi we go for the second leg of our journey across Texas! We left some time early in the morning and made it at some point in the early afternoon. It's quite the trek to Corpus, almost 3 1/2 hrs away. Quite the trip but pretty and once you get to Corpus you will see the the oil refineries lined up along the side of the freeways. I see why when Hurriance Rita hit Texas they were so concerned! It's quite the site to see though when you come in. But once you get into the city of Corpus Christi it was absolutely GORGEOUS! A really beautiful city by the Gulf of Mexico. I must say too that if you want really good food at cheap prices when in Corpus, try this place it's called The Executive Surf Club and try the "Executive Burger" .. you won't be disappointed .. TRUST ME! Oh and go Tuesdays because it's $2.00 pint day! ;)

Oh and here's a picture from outside of our hotel in Corpus Christi. I had said that I wanted a picture of a palm tree so I got what I wanted. Actually, I got the Holiday Inn flag, the state of Texas flag, the US flag and a palm tree and a truck. Yeehaw! :)

Wednesday - It was team dinner night and we tried this really great place called the Water Street Seafood Company. If you like seafood this place is for you! Oddly enough it's right next door to where I went to lunch the day before. Some really tasty food and kick butt desserts! After that myself and a few others walked back to the hotel and then a little later it was off to bed and then ready for the trip back to Austin.

Thursday - Today we drove back from Corpus Christi to Austin to get ready for our game against a team from Austin and Dallas. The game was at 9:45pm and at all places .. yes .. a shopping mall in Austin! It felt odd to play a sledge game in a shopping mall but as long as it has ice who cares right?

But either way it did feel odd and the Blizzard prevailed 4-1. Once the game was done we were back off to the hotel and to bed with another long day ahead since we had a game at the same venue tomorrow moring at 9am but had to be at the mall .. err .. rink for 7:30am (UHG!).

Friday - The early day started at 6:30am for myself and my roomies. Thankfully the .. ah .. mall .. wasn't that far away from where we were staying. The team made it's way down and were treated to a nice breakfast provided by the Austin team. For the first time ever I had a breakfast taco and it was pretty tasty! I had the egg and ham taco w/orange juice. We got ready for the game and played at 9am as scheduled. I think the final score was 3-3 at the end of it all. We all changed and whoever wanted to stayed behind and shopped at the MASSIVE Sports Authority store at the mall. Of course myself and my roomies stayed and we shopped. I picked up a pair of matching shorts for my Spurs jersey that I bought Monday in San Antonio. After that it was back to the hotel for me and a nap and get ready for another BBQ! (YAY!) The BBQ was just fantastic again.

Saturday - Our last day in Austin or Texas for that matter. It was another one of those days when you can do what you liked. I chose to sleep in but went and did a little shopping later on in the afternoon. The weather was a little cloudy and a little wet too but it was still pretty warm. We didn't stay too late shopping because we had a final team get together for dinner at this great placed called Rudy's . It's supposedly called the "worst" BBQ in Texas but I don't agree with it. I would go as far as to call it some of the best BBQ that I had ever had. If you ever want to try a interesting dining experience you must try them out when you're in the southern states. Why is it so unique? I wish I could express it clearly here but I just can't because it's something I hadn't done before. What I can say is that if you ever wanted an excuse to eat with your hands this is it! Here's the link again: http://www.rudys.com/index.html

One more thing to mention .. whoever was staying on the 4th floor at the Staybrige Inn and burnt their popcorn and was DUMB enough to open your hotel door and figured that is the best way to fix problem .. way to go! (yes, that was sarcasim) You did a great job! But hey .. it added to the final night in Texas and a great trip. Oh, and trying to carry a wheelchair down three floors isn't really suggested especially when you're trying to get out as fast as humanly possible in case where you're staying is burning to the ground. To one particular person (she knows who she is!) the image of me carrying my chair down the stairs and out the side door was funny. I'm glad you got a laugh out of it! ;) :P

Sunday - It's time to go home. It was one of the same things as the Saturday before .. a long trip home except this time the weather wasn't anywhere near as sunny and warm but rather just overcast and rainy since there was a storm that passed by the Austin area overnight. I was up at 7:45am and we left the hotel at 9:30 en route to Austin International airport. Our flight was alittle late because of the weather but our flight attendant, Angel, was pretty entertaining and she helped pass the time while things fixed up with the weather. Once the flight got going everything was just fine. It's funny how the flight to Memphis went by so fast. But once we got to Memphis we didn't have that much time to sit and relax like we did before because this time the trip to Detriot was going to be on a much bigger plane and obviously, more people to board. So we boarded the plane, it took off and within a few hours we were landing back in Detroit and then the drive back to London. I will say though that I was amazed that there wasn't any traffic at the border since you would have though with all the Spring Breakers coming back that day. I guess we must have missed them by a few hours I guess.

No matter! We were on the road back to London and arrived in London at 9pm and I was home by 9:45pm and in bed probablly by 11:30pm that night. I didn't think I would be in bed taht early but ah .. after a long travel day it would be suspected that's for sure.

Overall: It was sad to leave Texas because I really enjoyed my stay in the "lone star state" but at least myself and my team mates will have memories of a fantastic trip and a great time had by all! I look forward to the next trip and the plan has it that the London Blizzard in two years would like to travel to where the great game of sledge hocky was born in ... NORWAY! Would be very interesting to say the least!

Last but not least ...

I will just say right now that I really like Donald Fagen's new CD "Morph The Cat". Would it surprise anyone that I do like it? No? didn't think so! At the moment my favourite two tracks are "Security Joan" and "H Gang". It's hard to imagine I missed Donald when he performed in Toronto on the 13th of the month when I was in Texas .. darn .. hopefully this fall if Steely Dan tours I will be able to catch them if they come to Toronto or maybe (or am I dreaming here?) come to London. I'm betting more Toronto if they tour in the fall. Anyhoo the new Fagen CD is great and I reccomend it!

The sun always shines on TV

2006-01-26T11:23:00.000-08:00

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/health.jsp?floc=ns-tos-toda-h-06&feature=newz_0106tv_sexlife

Sex and TV can hurt your sex life? who knew right? I never knew that! Well in either case you learn something new every day. And here at my blog I am here to lend a hand where ever I can!

Read, digest and apply!

News from Kitchener

2006-01-23T00:58:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone! As promised here's the news from over the weekend with the game from Kitchener!

The good news is that we beat the Kitchener Sidewinders 2-1 but the bad news is that we didn't play well and were lucky to come away with the win. It was one of those games where everyone knew we didn't play that great and we were making mistakes left and right. We did have a few moments where we did some pretty good things but on a whole lost focus of our positions and plays that allowed the Kitchener team to their thing and turn us inside and out. You can tell people weren't happy because there was alot of self critisism on the bench .. alot of "man, I blew it" and our Coach reminding us (continually I may add!) of what we should be doing in order to turn it around.

Even though we held on for the win and didn't play great, I believe we'll be okay for our opening game in our second annual "London Blizzard Invitational" this weekend. It's great to have something like that (a bad game) because it gives you that chance to see what it's like when things don't go right and can step back and look at the bigger picture and make the necessarry adjustments.

We're a pretty good team and I have every confidence we'll be okay this weekend. The only thing I think we all dread will be the two games on the saturday afternoon! But either way it will be a fun weekend of sledge hockey that's for sure.

Hopefully I will have some pictures of the weekend for you all!

Not too much!

2006-01-16T13:33:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone!

I just thought that I would update the blog a little here and let you know what has neen going on. And to be totally honest not a whole lot is happening here at the moment. Nothing new to report other than I was back at work last weekend and it was nice to actually be back at work (yes, I assure you I am feeling just fine thanks!). It was a nice and steady day and it was over before I knew it. I think the co workers are what make it fun and the right gang was out on the floor Saturday.

What else?

Well, I have a sledge hockey game on Saturday afternoon. On Saturday we're off to play Kitchener before we have our tournament the following weekend. It should be a great game in Kitchener because the last time we played them it was really close so who knows what it will be like this time around. Let's hope that we keep our regular season record perfect and be 5-0 as we head into the tournament!

Outside of that thereisn't much to report. I will be sure to let you all know how we did in Kitchener and I hope it was good news!

Happy 2006!

2006-01-11T23:33:00.000-08:00

Well hey there everyone and welcome to the year 2006! I hope that you all had a happy, safe and fun holiday season and spent it with those that you love and care about!

Sorry that I haven't had the chance to update since last month but I was away in Ottawa for the holidays visiting family. I will say that I had a really good time with everyone and I must say that when the family has fun they have fun! There were alot of laughs to be had with everyone and it was great to see those in my family that I hadn't seen since over the summer. Of course my sister came home for the holidays too and it was nice to see her because I hadn't seen her since she left for work in Ghana in July. So as you can imagine everyone was happy to see her. Of course the surprise was under wraps for a few weeks as they worked out the kinks and what not but the looks on everyone's faces were ***priceless****. I kind of wished I had taken pictures when she showed up at my Aunt and Uncle's place on Christmas Eve because that would have been a definate Kodak moment! Of course my Grandmother's facials were quite funny too! I almost would have thought that she was going to faint from the shock of when we arrived two days before Christmas Eve. It brought alot of joy to people and was a definate Christmas moment!

So yes I had a great holiday. As I said I went to Ottawa for Christmas and we left on the Thursday before Christmas Eve some time late in the morning and arrived some time after 5:30pm that evening. We thought that the traffic through Toronto was going to be congested but thankfully it wasn't and we went through rather fast. Is it me or does a trip to Ottawa always seem to go quickly when you drive down? It seems like every time we do it seems shorter and shorter. Either way it was great to see my Grandmother and have some of her fantastic cooking! (and you can be sure that when you're at Grannie's you're well, well fed!)

Let's fast forward to Christmas Eve. For that night we went to my Uncle Brian and Untie Pauleen's and met up with family and friends of my Uncle and Aunt's. It was a good time of course and as I mentioned earlier there were lots of good laughs and lots of great jokes shared with people. If memory serves me right we didn't stay too too late and came home some time close to midnight but it was a fun and good evening! But the next morning, Christmas Day was good. It appeared as though everyone got what they wanted and was happy. Of course for Christmas Day dinner my mom, dad, sister and I went to my Uncle Andrew and Auntie Soo-nim's place and met up with the other side of my family. Of course it was odd not having my Grand Dad Morgan not there this year for Christmas because he was away in England for Christmas visiting a friend of his. No matter though we did end up having him on the phone and we got to speal to him but not physically having him there was odd.

Now let's go to New Years Eve! Again, we went to my Uncle Brian and Auntie Pauleen's place. Of course the gang from Christmas Eve was back together again and more fun was had. All we really did was sit about and talk, played a DVD game called "Scene It" and had a pretty amazing pot luck dinner. It should be noted that my Aunt did a fantastic job in assembling both the Christmas and New Year's get togethers and she always outdoes herself every year and this year was no exception! So Auntie Pauleen, if you're reading this, THANK YOU for your hard work on those two days! Both were alot of fun and made for two great nights!

So in the time between Christmas and New Years I managed to find time to go do some shopping at Bayshore Mall and even managed to take in a Ottawa Senators game! (gee, what a surprise there eh?!). It's great that the Ottawa transit is so accessible both in terms of wheelchair access and that they cover the major destinations within the Ottawa city limits. It was just great as well that to catch the bus to the Corel Centre (now Scotiabank Place) I had to take one bus from Bayshore Mall and go right to Kanata. The ride up to Kanata was pretty neat but once I got into the Corel Centre .. wow .. bedlam!

Yes, inside the Corel Centre it was pure bedlam! You see, there was a 700 team hockey tournament called the Bell Captial Cup (which by the way I did take in a few game from the sledge hockey division during the time the tourney ran and it was good stuff!) going on in town and most seats were snatched up well in advance and whatever seats were left were for folks like me, tourists, out of towners, whatever term you'd like so you had best try your luck and see what you come away with! But once I did get a ticket and was settled in my seat and what not the game itself was pretty good! The Senators beat the New York Islanders 4-3 after trailing for the better part of the game and early in the second period Ottawa Senators captain Daniel Alfredsson was injured. The hush that fell over the crowd was stunning because at this point the Senators had already lost three other players to injury and to lose your captain and (arguablly anyways) best player would have been a devastating loss. Thankfully he's okay now and is back in the line up.

Anyways here are a few scans of some of my souvenirs!

This is a copy of my ticket from the Senators game that I went to over the holidays. I wasn't too sure if I was going to be able to get a ticket considering it was the Holiday season and there was the aforementioned big hockey tournament going on and most seats were picked up by different hockey teams. Thankfully I was able to but at quite the cost at $75.00. Oh well, at least for my $75.00 I got a meal with my ticket (I sat in a place called "The Penalty Box" a sandwhich bar!). There won't be any complaints from me because I was lucky to get the ticket. Mind you though I needed wheelchair seating and that was harder to get in the end. But you know, you would have thought for a game against a team like the Islanders that the prices would be lower instead of the usual raised prices for games against teams like the Boston Bruins and Toronto Maple Leafs. Like I said I won't complain!

Ah yes here's a look at the program that they handed to you once you went through the turnstiles to get to your seats. Not a bad souvenir really to have considering that most of the things that you can buy at the Sens gift shop, Sensations, is kind of pricey if you want something small. I had my eye on a few things at the store but held off until some other time when I am down there and can shop about. So yes! my wonderful program and I wished I could have got a few autographs for it but I would have missed my bus. Either way it's a great keepsake! :)

All the fun came to an end when we got back in the car and left on January 2nd so that we could get my sister back to Toronto for a day or so before she had to head back out to Ghana for a few months before she comes back home in the spring.

So there you have it everyone my first entry of 2006! I look forward to more entries through out the year and I hope you enjoy reading them!

Take care,

J

Playlist 12/19/05: "Rock the halls ... "

2005-12-19T00:04:00.000-08:00

Just as I had promised.

I promised a far more upfliting play list instead of something so down, dark and unfestive. While the intent of the last one wasn't meant to make you feel all "Blah" and down I just had this need to play some songs I hadn't heard in quite awhile. But in the end I thought that I would redeem myself with this list to reflect the holiday season .. in true Jay style!

So here you go .. a holiday list that will make you want to don your most rockingest apparel, get your Partridges out of the pear tree and into your garage (Shirley,Keith,Laurie,Danny,Christopher,Tracy .. ah take yor pick!), rock your halls and make your ball ... errr .. bells of holly .. ah I have no idea what they will do when you play these songs. But what I DO know however is that they will for sure be a part of a rocking cool Yule! :)

If I don't update before I leave for Ottawa for Christmas, let me take this time now to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a fantastic New Year!

Take care everyone!

"Christmas Time Is Here" - Steve Vai
"Christmas Time (Don't Let The Bells End)" - The Darkness
"Christmas In Hollis, Queens" - RUN DMC
"Do They Know It's Christmas?" - Band Aid
"Snoopy's Christmas" - Royal Guardsmen
"Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" - U2
"Christmas Jam" - Trans-Siberian Orchestra
"Santa Looked a Lot Like Daddy" - Buck Owens
"Jingle Bells" - Brian Setzer Orchestra
"Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" - John Lennon
"Deck The Halls" - Red Hot Chili Peppers
"12 Days Of Christmas" - Bob and Doug McKenzie

Playlist 12/12/05

2005-12-12T11:33:00.000-08:00

Just another playlist for this week. I can't really think of anything to add to the blog so I thought I would throw up what I am listening to this week. As you can tell it's in the hard rock/metal genre. In this installment I have two cover songs. Can you name them? If you can, just leave a comment with who did it originally!

I wish I could hand out prizes for the first correct answer but I can't! But either way, leave your answer!

Enjoy.

"Welcome To The Fold" - Filter
"Hallowed By Thy Name" - Iron Maiden
"Super Charger Heaven" - White Zombie
"Dyer's Eve" - Metallica
"Cum On Feel The Noize" - Quiet Riot
"The Chauffeur" - Deftones
"Souls Of Black" - Testament
"Blackmail The Universe" - Megadeth
"Don't Care" - Obituary
"Enemy" - Sevendust
"Seasons In The Abyss" - Slayer

Playlist 12/6/05

2005-12-06T14:02:00.000-08:00

I thought that I would post up this week's playlist. I thought that I would include one track from one of my favourite newer bands, The Darkness from their newest abum "One Way Ticket To Hell ... And Back". I also thought that I would put a couple in from one of my favourite periods of hard rock/metal the early 80's and even the late 80's and even into the WAY early 90's (which is also a cover song of a Tom Waites song).

Enjoy!

"English Country Garden" - The Darkness
"Madalaine" - Winger
"Hanging High And Dry" - Brighton Rock
"Here I Go Again" - Whitesnake
"Too Young To Fall In Love" - Motley Crue
"Hang On St Christopher" - Bullet Boys
"Little Suzie" - Tesla
"I Won't Forget You" - Poison
"Crazy Babies" - Ozzy Osbourne
"Foolin'" - Def Leppard
"For Whom The Bell Tolls" - Metallica

Fraser, Michigan

2005-12-05T10:40:00.000-08:00

This past Sunday was my first road trip with the team. There was a game in Kitchener earlier on in the season but due to work commitments I had to back out of the trip. Anyways, this is our furthest trip of the season and we all went off to Fraser, Michigan to play.

Of course before I do get to the game I should at least cover the trip to Fraser right? Well, at around 11am AnsJ241 dropped by the house because I had invited him along for this trip to see us play. I was in the process of getting ready when he came but once I was dressed and such he and I went outside to load the car with my wheelchair and he brushed off my dad's car since it had snowed the night before. At about 10 to 12 we were on the road and off to Michigan!

My guess was that we made it to Sarnia some time close to 1pm and my game was at 2:25pm. When we made our way to the Canada/US customs and immigration we were greeted by a doorknob of a Officer that we will call .. oh .. Gunter .. yes, let's call him Gunter .. anyways .. the guy was less than pleasant as I answered his questions and explained the nature of our business to go into the US for the day. Apparently the guy couldn't put together the concept of "sledge" and "hockey" and "amateur sport" when I answered why we don't travel together. Whether or not he was playing stupid or he was being ignorant or just being a tight @ss I will never know but after we played his game of 10 Stupid questions we handed him our ID and it satisfied the almighty Gunter and on we were into the US to play sledge hockey!

We made our way into Fraser and were there maybe some time close to 2pm. I thought we made some pretty good time and myself, AnsJ241 and my dad made our way into the arena to find my team mates and hook up with them so I can get ready for the game. We found out where we were to go and were given a change room. What's most astounding is that the room that we got was the sole change room for that particular rink and was offered to us by the Fraser team. So once I got into the change room and saw my yeam mates and joked and kidded about like we always do before a practice or game, I got my gear on it was time to play. But before we left the room we were welcomed by the Fraser coach and wished us a great game (a VERY classy act I believe).

The game started later than the 2:25 start time due to a practice going over time and then the ice having to be resurfaced. But as we waited we had the chance to talk with our opponents for the afternoon and each guy that myself and others on my team spoke to we were really friendly and thankful that we came down to play them. In the end the game started at 2:35 instead of the aforementioned 2:25. All the players took to the ice for warm up shortky thereafter.

It's really hard to describe the game because everything happens so fast. It's even hard to describe my goal that I got (I'm still surprised as well) because everything was happening at a million miles an hour. All I know is that a shot was taken, it hit the left cross bar, I slipped past the defender and moved to the front of the net and got the rebound and put it past the goal keeper who couldn't make the slide across. The second goal was scored by Mark on a in and out play and shot for the top right corner (and you had to see the zig zag move he made because it was awesome!). The third and final goal of the game came from Jim late in the 3rd period when he used me as a decoy at the far right hand side of the net when he faked the pass to the far side and the goalie moved and Jim went left hand side low. It was a play we had set up, a "triangle" play where two players are low and a defence man is high at the "point" (with the option to pass up high if there is a problem) and it worked to perfection. It's great to see what we had worked on in practice last week be used in a game situation.

So how about a few pictures? everyone loves pictures right? So here's a few photos snapped by the official photographer of the day by Mr. AnsJ241 . I think the captions will pretty much sum it up:

What you see is my line being given more instruction by my coach. We had talked in the locker room about what we were to accomplish in today's game but he also needed to add in a thing or two more. I am the furthest to the right, #46 sitting next to Ted our trainer.

Now it's time to get it on! This is from the opening face off of the game. I must say that the start of the game was pretty rough as everyone involved jockeyed for position to try and gain control of the puck. It's a interesting picture because prior to the face off all of us who were lined up were joking about and talking but once the puck was dropped .. look out .. keep your head up or else you may lose it.

All in all the game itself was a whole lot of fun as usual. As I said earlier we wound up winning the game 3-0 with goals coming from myself, Mark and Jim. I thought we played well enough but you would think a little differently coming from our coach. We won and that's what mattered. Of course the real test for our team comes next Sunday when the team from Missisauga comes to town. From what I have been told they are quite good.

If you're interested in coming out to see us play you can as always check the website. The address for that is: www.londonblizzard.com

And just a fast note about coming back. The way back took a little while longer but this time we weren't sub - jerk- tected ... err .. subjected .. to any jerk border crossing officials.

23 more days!

2005-12-01T10:29:00.000-08:00

Hey there everyone! Can you believe it's almost Christmas time? It's hard to believe as well where the time has flown as well. It seems like last week that it was the start of a new year and here we are almost at the end of it.

Anyways, I figured that since all shopping malls (and people with their houses) have put up their decorations I thought "hey! why not me?" so here I am putting up my lights on my "home" here on the world wide web (aka: "wuh wuh wuh"). I don't know about you but I think they look pretty.

Also if anyone has no idea what to get me for Christmas I can give you a few ideas! :)

Until next time!

One full year!

2005-11-21T21:19:00.000-08:00

First things first, HAPPY ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY of blogging to me here on blogspot.com! Yes, the actual anniversary was on 18th but much like anything else I tend to forget those important dates! It's hard to believe it's been a full year already. My how has the time flown that's for absolute sure!

So how do I kick off the next year of blogging? How do I commemorate it? How about a long posting!

Well, some of you who read my blog may or may not know this but I have taken up the sport of sledge hockey . I will tell you all that it's alot of work but it's also a lot of fun. I've been at this since the second week of October and have been at quite a few practices to get into the swing of it all and just recently played my first game EVER this past Sunday afternoon. The team that I play for is the London Blizzard , a local team here in town. A pretty good bunch of people and pretty supportive towards rookies like myelf.

I'd be lying if I said learning how to "pick" (it's what you do when you propel yourself in your sledge) keep your balance on your sledge was easy let alone learn how to pass and shoot. It's been frustrating but at the same time I know I am new to this sport and shouldn't expect so much from myself so soon. But in a lot of ways you do feel a certain pressure to learn fast because when you are called upon to play you want to make sure that you know what you're doing on the ice and at the same time appear somewhat proficient/competent. I'm slowly getting the hang of what I am supposed to do in my drills and skills and developing the other muscles I need in order to play this sport (the muscles you use for "picking" are way different from what you use for rolling).

As I said, I played my first game this past Sunday. We had a team come in from Windsor to play us and man, what an experience that was! They say that when you play in a game situation things go faster than what happens in practice. I never really believed that claim but things do go at a MUCH faster clip when you play and I found that out about 5 minutes into the game. But once I got used to the pace things seemed better but as a rookie to the game it's harder to pick up on certain things like timing for passes, anticipating plays, picking up your man, assuming your forward position, line change on the fly and of course command of your sledge let alone shoor whne you get the puck. Needless to say I think I did okay given how little I know about actually playing the game but in one instant that changed ..

About 10 minutes or so into the third period and the game was tied 3-3 I was on the ice in the Windsor end. I had managed to get past the other forward defending me and headed to the front of the net. All I heard was "front of the net!" being called by the Windsor goal keeper. The next thing I saw was the puck slide by me but a little out of my reach. The pass seemed like it went went further than it was supposed to and probablly because I was off my position. So in one movement I reached for the puck, fell over on my side and took a swipe at the puck with my right stick and contorted myself in such a way that I was able to look at the last second and see the puck laying across goal line. I suddenly couldn't believe what I saw .. I scored .. I heard the referee's whistle blow and it reaffirmed that I did indeed score my first sledge hockey goal*. A sudden feeling of absolute bliss swept across me, I got up on my sitting base, pumped my arms in the air so happily and I started to get that weepy choked up "oh my god I am going to cry feeling".

(*the account of the goal that was given to me by my Dad afterwards was that I was on my side when I took a swipe at the puck but managed to get it up enough for the goalie to make the intial stop but it turned into a "knuckleball" type spin and handcuffed him and he lost control of the puck)

As I made my way back to the bench my linemates were coming off the ice with me and all I heard was Jim, the fella who passed me the puck say kiddingly "you owe me a beer Jay!" and the fellas on the bench were asking who scored and my other linemate Tony said "Jay did!" followed by more teasing of "Jay can't shoot!". My Coach was pretty happy I scored but at the same time our play we had designed fell apart and where I was shouldn't have happened. It came on a broken play but he said we'll take it anyways but now we must defend the lead. In the end we did hold the lead and won 4-3 and my goal was the game winner.

After the game in the dressing room during a post game ceremony I was presented with something. I recieved THE puck that I scored my first game with. Apparently our trainer/equipment manager Ted asked the ref for the puck and gave him another. He explained to the ref what had happened and he readily agreed to it.

So here it is .. here's the puck I scored my first goal with:

It's a pretty beaten up piece of hard rubber but it sure looks cool! I'll treasure this puck for as long as I play. I hope that a goal or two more come this season but if not, that's cool because I did say when I started this year all I wanted was at least the chance to score let alone play. I achieved one of my goals by just playing a game but scoring is a added bonus. Let's hope this puck signifies a long and prosperous "career" as a sledge hockey player and just maybe one day realize my dream of being good enough to play for the national program! But I think for now I'll just focus on the rest of this season and get used to my "picking", my sledge control and learn how to ACTUALLY shoot!

What else?

Well, some of you will also know that I am a fan of loud, hard music and wrestling. Well, what a better combination of the two when wrestler (my "hero, your party host, your rolemodel, one bad mamma jamma, the Ayatollah of Rock and Rolla") Chris Jericho and his band Fozzy came to town this past Saturday night. This was my first Fozzy show and my second time meeting Chris Jericho. But what I will say is that Fozzy just absolutely rocked the stage and put on one amazing show. I have had friends tell me that if I do see Fozzy live I will NOT be disappointed and by no means was I disappointed at all. The musicianship was first rate and lead guitarist Mike Martin's solos were mind blowing! The rest of the band was just amazing as well. When he had the chance, bassist Sean B Delson's bass playing really shone through and showed that he wouldn't be upstaged by Mike Martin's solo work as well. Of course the rythmn guitar player Rich Ward held a down a steady beat and drummer Frank Fontsere was BLISTERING on the drums.

The show started off with "Nameless Faceless" the opening track from their most recent CD "All That Remains" and then went right into the track "Don't You Wish You Were Me?", a track that appeared on the WWE album "Originals" (which was also Chris's entrance music for a short spell when he came to the ring). For the most part the show bounced between their second CD "Happenstance" and the aforementioned "All That Remains" album but they also threw in a few cover songs such as Judas Priest's "Free Wheel Buring" and Motorhead's "Eat The Rich". The final song of the night however was the song "Enemy", a song from "All That Remains" but was also the theme for the WWE Pay Per View "No Mercy" about a year ago. The song was done in memory of wrestler Eddie Guererro who passed away last weekend. A loud chant of "Eddie! Eddie!" broke out (you could tell who the wrestling fans were in the crowd) when Jericho reminded us all of what a great friend Eddie was to him and how he misses him but he (Jericho) reminded us to live every day to the most and make the most of the time you have. A very fitting way I thought to end the show.

Here are a few pictures post show. The first one you will see is myself and Chris. I kind of look dorky and not too great here but I think I was in the midst of speaking, telling person who shot the picture that the flash was about to go off. I should have told the person in advance however andm aybe the picture would have turned out better. Anyways, the last time I met Chris he was very cool, really polite and very classy and he was the same way again this time amidst the other people wanting his attention. Either way it was great to meet Chris again!

Here I am with the lead guitarist Mike Martin. He was a really cool person to talk to and was really humble. When I thanked him and the band for coming he just said "no, thank YOU for coming!" and bowed to me after he said that. We had alot to talk about in the time he spent talking with me. A really classy guy and really funny too!

I also had the opportunity to talk to Sean B. Delson and Rich Ward. Both of them as well were very cool, very down to earth and took the time to talk with me as well. Both of them had fascinating stories to tell about their touring experiences and upcoming musical projects. I couldn't thank them enough for capping off what was a great night of music!

I would be remissed to say if I didn't mention the opening acts Papa Fogals Chair and Reason Disappears . Both bands put on amazing sets as opening acts for the night. You had the crushing hardcore off tempo beats of Papa Fogals Chair (a Mudvayne meets System of A Down type sound) to the progressive electronic rock sounds of Reason Disappears. All I can tell you is that by the end of their respective sets I was a instant fan of both bands!

So ther eyou have it folks the big one year anniversary blog installment. I look forward to another years worth of blogging and I hope that you enjoy what I do here in my little corner of blogspot.com.

Until next time, take care!

Surely you jest!

2005-11-15T14:07:00.000-08:00

After I sat and read this article I couldn't believe what I just read.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051115/ap_en_tv/tv_reality_protest

You're telling me that "reality" television has writters? Get out! Since when?

But seriously. Why is it called "reality" TV when you have something like "Survivor" when it's no more than a glorified primetime TV game show? Is that real? NO! The only real thing are the people and the events. What about "The Great Race"? same premise, a glorified game show. Don't tell me that in some ways the outcomes are rigged. Don't tell me it's rigged for target markets or who would make a more "interesting" or "intriguing" winner.

Anyways, doesn't it defeat the purpose of something being real? you know, unscripted and unplanned and flying by the seat of your pants? Isn't life as real as things get? I don't see writters writting out my day's events for me and putting cameras in my face along directors and producers telling what I should say or what event should go after another.

I've always taken exception to the term "reality TV" anyways so it just strikes me as funny when writters want to get paid more for what they're doing. But ultimately the most REAL form of reality TV is what you see on the news is what's real and no one is asking for a pay raise there!

PLAY LIST 11/12/05

2005-11-13T21:28:00.000-08:00

It's amazing what music can do when you're in thought. It's amazing how some songs can reflect what's on your mind or in your heart or reflects your life at that time (either past or present).

Just today, I had some time to sit and ponder things in my life (or in general or what's happened in the past week or so). I like being able to sit and think about things actually. I enjoy a good thinking session every once in awhile becaise it helps me make sense of things.

The play list below reflects where my head was at today when I was thinking. The list is a tad more mellow than what the usual fare is here in my blog (but it doesn't hurt to take things down a notch every so often). It feels good to let the guard down and be able to talk about things if need be .. in fact it feels good .. liberating in fact.

But before I do go for this installment, let me ask you, the reader a question.

What song(s) do you listen to when you think? or what song has had the most impact on you when you've had to make a decision?

PLAY LIST 11/12/05

Lucky Man - The Verve
Pink Moon - Nick Drake
She Talks To Angels - Black Crows
Let's Say Good Bye - Richie Kotzen
Summer Breeze - Jason Mraz
Neon - John Mayer
Song To Sing When I'm Lonely - John Frusciante
Solace Of You - Living Colour
Year Of The Cat - Al Stewart
Mandolin Rain - Bruce Hornsby
Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own - U2
Bother - Stone Sour

NASA + Guitar = Roar

2005-11-09T22:39:00.000-08:00

Leave it to the folks at NASA and Clint Black to figure this out. I had never thought about this EVER in my life.

To find out what the heck they're talking about just click the link below:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20051109/tc_usatoday/guitarsandrocketshavesurprisingsimilarities

I'm Lester the Nightfly Hello Baton Rouge Won't you turn your radio down Respect the seven second delay we use

2005-11-02T22:28:00.000-08:00

I just thought that I would try and follow up my last entry about my top 10 Steely Dan favourites. I said in the last entry that I couldn't seem to do (or attempt) a top 10 (or any varation of a list anyways) of Donald Fagen or Walter Becker's music since I wasn't really familiar with their solo works per se ...

Well .. until now ..

In order to do this list I did a search for complete track listings for Donald's two solo albums 1982's "The Nightfly" and 1994's "Kamakiriad". I then managed to download both albums (I had most of "The Nightfly") and listened to them both. After heavy consideration and painstaking thought, I in the end determined that these are my top Donald Fagen solo songs (and I should note that the one marked with an asterik * was written for Jennifer Warnes but Fagen did his own version of it).

This list is:

"The Nightfly"
* "Big Noise, New York"
"New Frontier"
"I.G.Y. (International Geophysical Year)"
"Confide In Me"
"Tomorrow's Girls"
"Greenflower Street"
"Trans-Island Skyway"

How do you define "Best"?

2005-10-31T08:33:00.000-08:00

Recently I was at my friend Sara's blog . In this particular entry she wrong one on "The Best Ever" where a local radio DJ proclaimed that "Sunset Grill" by Don Henley as the greatest song that he had ever recorded. Surely what's the best is open for critisism and debate when it comes to a band or artist.

I ask the same question as she does .. what are the parameters to this question? What makes it such? what makes one song or bunch of songs "the best"?

Some of you may know that Steely Dan is pretty much my favourite band. Yes I do love the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Van Halen (and id anyone hear about the rumour going about that they will be appearing next season on that show "Rock Star" to find their new lead singer like INXS did? what's the freakin' deal with that?! How could they screw things up with Sammy this time?!)but Steely Dan is my above all favourite band.

The problem with narrowing it down to at least 10 is that the Steely Dan catalogue is so wide because of the demo songs that are bouncing about online and the various songs from their entire album catalogue (and yes, I do like some of the demo versions of some of the well known tracks ove rthe finished product). Also I can't ask the same questions that Sara can because both Donald and Walter equally wrote the music and lyrics and save maybe for a few songs Walter sang lead vocals. Yes they both put out solo albums while "the Dan" was on hiatus or "retired" (that's the common word used to describe their status post 1980 until early 90's despite working together on solo projects in a production capacity but not known as Steely Dan). So in fairness I never really had the chance to listen to their individual works (save maybe for "The Nightfly" by Donald Fagen).

But as it is, here they are my 10 favourite Steely Dan tracks:

Peg
Reelin' In The Years
Time Out Of Mind
Do It Again
Pretzel Logic
Dirty Work
Home At Last
Kid Charlemagne
Haitian Divorce
Pixeleen

Honourable Mention:

Don't Take Me Alive
Everyone's Gone To The Movies
Dr Wu
Black Cow
FM
Midnite Cruiser

Favourite reading material

2005-10-20T22:23:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!

I just thought that I would post up a few links to some other blogs that I really enjoy reading and I hope you do too. The two of them are unique in their own rights and tell some really great stories.

The first one that I am posting is written by my dear friend Sarah. She has such a great style, very eloquent and very well spoken. Her journal entries are very reflective and also quite current. By all means drop by and see what's going there because like I said, I know you will enjoy it. To check out her blog you can just click the link below:

http://randommentalmesses.blogspot.com

Secondly, this is written by my younger sister Rachel. Some of you may not know but she's currently in Ghana working as a human rights reporter. The stories that she conveys are quite eye opening because it's all first hand accounts on what she's seen. It astounds me that people do what they do to each other, that we're capable of such atrocities but through her writting on her blog she tells stories that must be told or else these things will keep on happening and no justice or change will happen.

To read and open your eyes you can go to the next link at the end.

http://www.rachelreporting.com

Again, these two blogs are ones I like and I hope you do as well. If you think there's a blog that deserves recognition leave a comment and I will post it up next time I do a entry like this.

Take care everyone!

J

Finally ....

2005-10-17T10:59:00.000-07:00

Hey there everyone!

I hope that everyone is doing well and had a great summer. As you can tell I haven't updated the BLOG in awhile and that's because I couldn't think of anything all that witty to add or to say ... until now.

Unfortuneately sad circumstances have prompted me to write this entry to bid a sad farewell to someone who was a huge part of my life for the past 19yrs ... my cat .. Snowball.

Our dear Snowball was put to rest just this past Thursday after deteriorating health. It wasn't a easy decision that my mom had to make but Snowy's health had dropped off so severely that it had to be done. There were a myriad of health related problems that plagued her but it's hard to believe that it was May that I saw her last and she appeared as healthy as I could remember her being in a long while. It looked like the diet she was on had worked well, she was full of energy, lost some weight and then suddenly she was gone. I can remember the day when she was brought home by my sister and a friend of hers after finding her. The moment you saw her you couldn't resist those big eyes that she had and the grin she'd give you. Of course you couldn't resist her friendly and overprotective nature as well because if you were hers, she's stand by you and wouldn't let anyone get near you.

The one other thing you couldn't forget about her was that her stomach was bigger than the rest of her. You couldn't get over how much she could eat! If you had scraps of whatever meat product there was for dinner .. give it to Snowball .. she was the kitty version of the Hoover (tm) and in moments it was gone!

In the end I will always have fond memories of my dear Snowball but I will also have regrets about certain things through the years as well. Lots of "I woulda coulda shoulda" moments but towards the end it seemed like Snowball buried those problems and forgave me (after I asked her) and we grew closer through the years. It was nice to know she forgave me and we developed that element of closeness that both pet and owner should have. And in the end as well I should thank her for her love, compassion and closeness that she gave me for all these years.

Thank you Snowball and I love you

Anyways, at the bottom is a picture of Snowball from last Christmas. This is the way I will always remember her .. a cat with a marvellous sense of humour and wonderful personality! (and I bet she hated the bow but was being a good sport about it)

I could have been sitting on a fortune!

2005-06-24T12:36:00.000-07:00

Hey all!

Sorry for the long delay but I was going through that "dry spell" when it came to coming up with a (I hope) interesting blog entry. I believe I found something so here goes!

I was watching the "Antique Roadhouse" a couple nights ago on PBS and a lady who appeared to be in her mid or early 50's had a collection that was being appraised.

What was in the collection?

She had about what looked to be around 40 HotWheels cars still in their boxes from around 1967 to 1969. Of course they were all in mint condition (both the boxes and cars) but what made them so unique was that they were some really short run models (and) featured some reather gaudy colours . It seemed like the dude who appraised her really knew his stuff on Hotwheels and in the end gave her collection a value between $2000 - $4000.00. Of course needless to say the lady was estatic.

So that got me thinking about the toys I had when I was a kid. I had ALOT of the big name toys .. Transformers (which I keep a couple standing on my the top of my desk), GI Joe and heck, I even had most of the Star Wars stuff when it came out. You name it, I had the Millenium Falcon, the Death Star, X Wing Fighter, Tie Fighter, pretty well half of the Star Wars figures that came out from the late 70's and early 80's. Needless to say I destroyed most of the stuff because I didn't know better as a kid.

About 10yrs ago I went to a classic toy shop and bought a couple of my beloved Star Wars figures back. I managed to buy a mint Luke Skywalker (in his X Wing figther suit w/weapon), a mint (and in pure white!) Stormtrooper w/weapon and a mint Han Solo (w/weapon and wearing his black vest w/white shirt .. the classic Solo). In the end I spent maybe close to $200.00 on three figures .. yep .. TWO HUNDRED .. dollars.

I suppose it's a small price to pay for reclaiming part of my childhood. But if I knew now what I should have known then .. I could have been sitting on a fortune!

MuzzaK?! (nah!)

2005-06-10T01:48:00.000-07:00

Your Taste in Music:

Heavy Metal: Highest Influence

Hair Bands: High Influence

Progressive Rock: High Influence

80's Rock: Medium Influence

Punk: Medium Influence

80's Alternative: Low Influence

80's Pop: Low Influence

80's R&B: Low Influence

90's Alternative: Low Influence

Adult Alternative: Low Influence

Alternative Rock: Low Influence

Gangsta Rap: Low Influence

Ska: Low Influence

How's Your Taste in Music?

The Last Hurrah

2005-06-04T00:24:00.000-07:00

I just thought that I would post up a picture from the open house that the Knights had yesterday (June 4th). As you can see, I have my digital camera working again (stupid battery!) so needless to say I was elated that I didn't have to buy another disposable camera.

Anyways, what you see here is ateam picture taken at the end of the awards ceremony for the squad at the end of the night. What they did was have all the players come to the front of the stage (the over age players whose careers are done with London wore their team jerseys one last time)and the hardware (trophies) that the team had won (the OHL championship, Memorial Cup and Divisional championships) were held up by various players and was met with another thunderous applause and loads of cheering.

I call this photo "The Lasr Hurrah" because it really is for this edition of the London Knights. As I said already, alot of these players will most likely leave and go to the NHL teams that they were drafted by and start the new phase of their playing career. It's sad to see the team disband now (with the exception of some up and coming 2nd and 3rd players remaining for next season)because they were special. But such is life in major junior hockey, the cycle continues. But this season will always be special.

So one last time ... "The Last Hurrah"

7 Drew Larman
10 Josh Beaulieu
11 Trevor Kell
17 Robbie Drummond
23 Kelly Thomson
33 Brandon Prust
44 Robbie Schremp
49 Danny Fritsche
57 Jordan Foreman
71 Harrison Reed
79 Dylan Hunter
87 Adam Perry
91 David Bolland
94 Corey Perry

2 Frank Rediker
3 Marc Methot
4 Matt McCready
16 Steve Ferry
25 Danny Syvret
27 Ryan Martinelli
52 Jeff Whitfield
55 Daniel Girardi
74 Bryan Rodney

28 Adam Dennis
37 Gerald Coleman

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS!

2005-05-31T22:11:00.000-07:00

What a interesting time it is in London. Not a whole lot happens here alot of the time but today we celebrated an event.

As the banner says the London Knights are the 2004/2005 CHL Memorial Cup champions. That's right, the London Knights are officially now the #1 major junior team in all of Canada (and North America too? of course it should be noted that they were the #1 team in the rankings all season but this victory just cemented that position) after defeating the Rimouski Oceanic 4-0 and capping off what was a dream season for many Knights fans in London. Of course along the way the Knights went the perfect 3-0 through the tournament and rewritting the CHL regular season record books in the process as well.

What we had in London will never be duplicated and I highly doubt that anything like this will be seen again in the CHL. A team of such character and dominance was a joy to watch every Friday night on TV and even through this spring's playoffs. Of course I should note that I am a Ottawa 67's fan and they crushed my hopes of a OHL championship and a Memorial Cup title at every available turn (but I am also a Knights fan so I was conflicted). Of course common sense said that I should cheer for my boys from Ottawa but I couldn't help but cheer for our boys in Green and Gold at the same time.

In the end the right team won. A team that boasts future NHL talent is one to be reckoned with and you can be sure that next year will be hard to follow this past season. What will the future hold? Who knows but you can be sure that Knights fans will remember the 2004/2005 season always.

Thanks boys for an amazing season and one I will never forget!

Anyways, I thought I would post one of the pictures that I was able to take at the parade before my digital camera battery went kaput. I did get more photos though and as soon as I get them developed (that's right .. DEVELOPED .. using this weird thing called "film"! what's that?!) I will post them up. I am pretty excited about what's on that roll.

About the picture. The players came out in trucks and people were able to approach the vehicles for autographs. This is the first truck that came out and in that truck was (Goaltender #37) Gerald Coleman, (Forward #7) Drew Larman, (Forward #49) Danny Fritsche and (Forward #91) Dave Bolland.

Crayola Cray-Jay?!

2005-05-25T22:42:00.000-07:00

You are

What Rejected Crayon Are You?

NERDS!

2005-05-11T23:35:00.000-07:00

Simply incredible! (and I don't mean this in a good way either) Some people are just stupid and can't live in denial ..

http://film.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,12589,1456984,00.html

In brief: Chinese whispers for Star Wars fans

Staff and agencies
Monday April 11, 2005

Star Wars fans who have begun queueing outside Hollywood's famous Grauman's Chinese Theatre in the hope of catching the first screening of the new Star Wars film have been told they are in the wrong spot. LucasFilm has opted to open Episode III: Revenge of the Sith at the nearby ArcLight complex, next to Hollywood's Cinerama Dome. However some fans have failed to accept they have made the wrong decision and are refusing to budge.

Spatch-a-san ..

2005-05-04T13:10:00.000-07:00

Your Japanese Name Is...

Taku Nanba

What's your Japanese Name?

Taku Nanba ...

Sounds like a deadly snake or a Japanese electronics company .. either way it's cool! :)

And thanks to AnsJ241 for the link .. again!

Playlist: 05/02/05

2005-05-02T11:46:00.000-07:00

1. "Goin' Crazy" - David Lee Roth
2. "Wasteland " - Warrior Soul
3. "On The Loose" - Saga
4. "Sink The Pink" - AC/DC
5. "LoveCrazy " - Wild T & The Spirit
6. "Back For More" - Ratt
7. "Wake Up Dead" - Megadeth
7. "A Drug Against War" - KMFDM
8. "Keep Away" - Godsmack

You have great genes ....

2005-04-21T02:30:00.000-07:00

.... errr ... jeans rather ... wanna .. ya know?

Some fashion tips from me to you! (and trust me, they work! I love my Wranglers!)

Hot Damn ...

2005-04-20T01:34:00.000-07:00

I LOVE these guys!

Check them out.

DANGER! WARNING!

2005-04-18T00:21:00.000-07:00

CAUTION! LOOK OUT! PELIGRO! PERICOLO!

I ALWAYS wanted to use one of these somewhere but never found the perfect graphic. So here it is ..

I wish I could think of something witty like "PARENTAL ADVISORY: Reading Spatch's entries may cause irrespirable harm" or something .. darn .. I can't think of anything witty ..

Ah heck ..

Dear Lord

2005-04-14T15:03:00.000-07:00

You Are 55% Normal

(Somewhat Normal)

While some of your behavior is quite normal...

Other things you do are downright strange

You've got a little of your freak going on

But you mostly keep your weirdness to yourself

How Normal Are You?

Thanks to AnsJ241 I have managed to psycho analyze myself and this was the conclusion that was made (well, according to the questions that were asked anyways).

Yep! This sounds about right!

All too mobile .. still home ..

2005-04-11T13:04:00.000-07:00

Just to follow up the earlier posting from today. I thought that I would provide the link to the that all too mobile home that I love.

Leave me a comment, let me know what you think of the song! :)

This All Too Mobile Home ...

2005-04-11T01:45:00.000-07:00

" I get four or five miles a gallon in this old car
I don't care as long as it takes me to where you are
You ain't leavin' no tracks to follow
It's driving me mad but what else can I do

This all too mobile home is crawling after you

You get thirty miles out of Phoenix on a three-day drive
When you left the body there brother number five
When you slammed the door behind you
You walked out on the line that we once knew

This all too mobile home is crawling after you "

These are just a portion of the lyrics to a Steely Dan song called "This All Too Mobile Home". It's a unreleased song and one that they often closed their sets with back in 1974. It's also a shame too that this never appeared on a CD but did appear in a bootleg format though and it's immediately one of my favourite 'Dan tracks.

I'm thrilled too that I have found more songs to add to my Steely Dan collection. It's hard to believe that with such a back catalogue exsists and that they never used a good portion of these unreleased tracks that I have stumbled upon. Of course the majority of these songs are more rock (again about 1974 or 1972) than the "smooth jazz" or the pop jazz sound they later evolved into but I'm sure they could have revamped or reworked them.

I also wonder too if they did one of those A&E "Live By Request" shows with Steely Dan and someone asked of they could play (and for example) "This All Too Mobile Home" they would remember it or it would even be in their catalogue? I wonder sometimes what's in Donald's lyric book that sits in front of him on his keyboard when he plays live.

I also now have some alternate versions and mixes of certain well known Steely Dan tracks too. I can't decide if I like the polished and finished versions now or the rough and raw works in progress. Or maybe I should just enjoy each version as they are. It astonishes me too that these tracks it in the vaults and labels don't release this stuff. Then again maybe they are better off left that way so they are more "collectable".

Anyways, I'm just over the moon happy about what I have added to my collection and it really shows to me than an artist can and truly evolve through the years. These guys for sure have taught me lots as I listen to them play for me.

I love Steely Dan.

Rollin',Rollin',Rollin

2005-04-06T22:22:00.000-07:00

As much as I hate to start this entry with a Limp Bizkit lyrical reference (or song titl for that matter) in the title head, that's what this entry will be about ... Rollin'!

Today (or yesterday now as of this writting) I got my chair back from the shop. It really needed some repairs and new pieces badly. I had made a list on Tuesday of the things that I needed replaced and thought "well, that'll do it!". I wrote down that I needed new back wheels (both tires and tubes actually since my tires are shredded to bits and the tubes were just about toast .. you can only repair those things so many times!) plus I needed new bearings for my smaller front wheels. When George (the repairman who I have been dealing with for almost the past three chairs since I moved to London in 1988) came by to pick it up. All George could do was just shake his head and couldn't believe how badly it looked and was more so amazed that I was able to roll on the shot bearings on my right hand side to begin with and my nearly dead hind wheels. He loaded my chair into his van and took it off to the shop and said that he could possibly have it back by 5pm.

I got a call almost a few hours later saying he couldn't deliver my chair because of an "emergency" of some sort that needed immediate attending to and appologized for it. The good news he said was that he could have it to me on Wednesday early in the morning. I could go with that, doesn't really seem all that bad really. I mean what's a day without wheels? it won't kill me! So as I said at the start I got a call and said he was dropping it off while on his rounds and other service calls they had him doing that day. Well when he dropped off my chair I couldn't believe what I saw.

What he (George) did was nothing short of a miracle. What he did was replace my back wheels with new and better tires (some new type of tire made by the company Primo) and gave me new tubes. Also he replaced my top bearings in my casters and even my front wheels. But the greatest thing was how he reset my back wheels! It turns out that he re cambered by back ones by 8 degrees (which I haven't had set like since the day I got it almost 8yrs ago!). I couldn't believe it when I sat in it .. it felt like a whole new chair!

I can't even begin to fathom the $ amount that was put into this chair for all these repairs .. I just can't. The sad part though about all this refurbishing is that this is supposed to last me for the next five-six weeks till my new chair arrives. It's kind of a shame though because I LOVE how the chair feels now. I guess I could have had that "new" feeling if I properly maintained it for all these years. But alas, this chair has been my workhorse,my most dependable and above all most travelled chair I have ever had! (I can't count the mileage this thing has put on and not to mention the places this thing has been).

What you see below here is what my current chair, my Quickie GPV looks like. Mind you though keep in mind that it's in black and has black spoke protectors on it. If you can imagine that, that's how my chair looks.

<--- Not shabby eh?!

So after I marvelled at the repairs I took my chair for a spin since the weather was so nice today. I can't tell you how many miles I rolled today but it sure felt nice to roll far without having to worry about my chair breaking down. So I took it for a roll again this evening and went further than I did before. It felt nice, the weather was cool during the evening and my chair and I took one of our many spins around the neighbourhood like we always do when the weather gets nice!

But as I said though this chair's line is coming to an end soon and a new one will take it's place. What you see in this picture below is what my new one will look like.

It's a really snazzy looking piece of equipment and at the moment it's the Porsche or the Ferarri of the wheelchair world. It's pretty slick, pretty expensive and can go pretty fast from what I have been told. It's made out of titanium and is pretty light. I can't wait for the new chair to come ... but it's a shame a old "friend" has to be retired to make room for it.

Axe this!

2005-03-24T23:43:00.000-08:00

Just recently I went to mall to buy some showering supplies. On my list of things to get were the usual: toothpaste, shampoo, deoderant and shower gel (yes, I made the switch from soap to shower gel). I also chose to try a new shower gel .. something different .. since I have been using the Old Spice shower gel for quite awhile (and they say change is always good).

So what did I get to replace my old faithful you ask? (and thanks for asking by the way)

I chose to try that new Axe Effect "Touch" scent. I mean, I saw it on TV and the persuasive ad told me that I would have lots of luck with the ladies. Forget the fact that you're a good person, a funny person and a kind person. No way! The only way you will attract (and as the kids say today) 'da ladies is to smell great. Throw everything out the window. It's how you smell .. bottom line! ... end of story, 'nuff said! So I thought "what the heck! if it works for those dudes on TV it'll work for me!". Plus if it's on TV it's got to be true .. right?

So I rolled down the aisle, picked it up and thought I would try the stuff and that I will so do well. I was anxious .. I paid my almost $13.00 for the two items and stuck it in my bathroom when I got home and eagerly anticipated my showering experience the next day.

The next day came .. I was eager .. I hoped in the shower, lathered up and thought "this will fix everything .. all thanks to the Axe Effect! Oh yeah!". I got dressed, did my hair and all the while was so optimistic. I then rolled off into the night thinking I smelled great (again all thanks to the Axe Effect) and problem solved. I arrived at my destination and assumed my usual sitting position at said destination. I was feeling it, smelling good and man this is going to be the shiznit, off the hizzle fo' shizzle yo and what a night it will be!

So has it worked? Did it work? Has Jay finally found the love of his life based off the notion that he smells good and that the Axe Effect people told me I will attract the ladies in droves? (again throwing every other personality trait you have out the window)

Uh .. no

So I have to ask: Can I sue for this? is this false advertising or am I just THAT inept? (I plead the 5th on the last choice and which is the most suitable answer I am sure but I'll blame the Axe Effect people anyways)

Draw your own conclusions?

I think so!

Just a question

2005-03-21T12:29:00.000-08:00

Are you sexy?

A interesting read all courtesy of our friends at Netscape.com

Spatch's Sounds Of The Seventies: Pt 2

2005-03-16T05:21:00.000-08:00

THIS IS NOT a infomercial for Time Life's "Sounds Of The Seventies" .. I assure you. What this is though is just my own playlist of 70's music that I have been listening to.

So per request .. VOLUME #2 of "Spatch's Sounds Of The Seventies"!

Enjoy!

1. "Low Down" - Boz Scaggs
2. "Midnight At The Oasis" - Maria Muldaur
3. "Listen To The Music" - Doobie Brothers
4. "Shine A Little Love" - Electric Light Orchestra
5. "Pilot" - Ian Thomas
6. "Spooky" - Atlanta Rythm Section
7. "Doo Run Run" - Shaun Cassidy
8. "Moonshadow" - Cat Stevens
9. "Saturday In The Park" - Chicago
10."I'm Every Woman" - Chaka Kahn

Playlist 3/10/05

2005-03-09T23:17:00.000-08:00

By special request for this installment of the playlist.

Playlist for 3/10/05 .. Seventies Edition

1. "Jive Talkin'" - Bee Gees
2. "Sir Duke" = Stevie Wonder
3. "Come And Get Your Love" - Red Bone
4. "How Long" - Ace
5. "Baker Street" - Gerry Rafferty
6. "Brandy" - Looking Glass
7. "Appalooza " - Gino Vanelli
8. "Jackie Blue" - Ozark Mountain Daredevils
9. "Last Child" - Aerosmith
10."Aja" - Steely Dan

Playlist for 3/3/05

2005-03-03T14:23:00.000-08:00

Play list for 3/3/05 80's Edition #2:

1. "Destination Unknown" - Missing Persons
2. "Ball Of Confusion" - Love and Rockets
3. "This Is Pop" - XTC
4. "Eyes Without A Face" - Billy Idol
5. "Let's Go All the Way" - Sly Fox
6. "Perfect Way" - Scriti Pollitti
7. "I Can't Wait" - Nu Shooz
8. "Funky Town" - Psudeo Echo

I wonder

2005-02-24T12:11:00.000-08:00

Can someone explain to me please why some things always seem to taste better the next day?

I'm just wondering this right now because as I type up this entry I am sipping on a bottle of A&W Rootbeer that I bought last night. Yes I had a little as I was watching Conan O'Brien the other night and put the cap back on and now am finishing up the bottle. The taste is a little more crisp and maybe a little more "syrupy" than I remember it being the other night.

Of course this doesn't just include soft drinks but also food. Why is it that when you heat it (food) up the following night it has more flavour? Why is that? is it because it stews in it's own juices? What's the deal?! It's just something that I have always wondered about through the years. It's not like I am complaining, I like flavourful drinks and food but I just wonder why this happens.

If anyone knows ... get back to me!

Home Depot .. where are you?!

2005-02-17T18:05:00.000-08:00

Ok .. as you can see I am trying to do some touch ups here on ¡La casa del amor de ol bueno' Spatch! (great spanish eh?!)

Anyways, I wanted to try and improve the overall "look" since I opened this blog in November and FINALLY I am getting around to doing this (key words being "finally" and "around"). I thought too a more personal touch was needed and there's no better time than now to get this sucker looking like I know it can!

Through the transition of the Blog I'm sure some things aren't going to look right and at the same time not seem right (well ok, no worse than usual). So I appologize in advance for this monstrosity that's going to happen.

The good news though is that the mistakes and short circuitings (yes, I know bad joke) won't last long since I know people who know more about this "HTML" thing than I do (yes, I am a HTML simpleton). So thanks to them I will be able to have (and save) this place all the while making this place look about as normal as possible.

In closing I will say this .. HOME DEPOT .. WHERE ARE YOU?!

Thanks all! :)

PS:

If anyone can think of anything that would look cool up in the .. I have no idea what it's called .. "Spatch's Satchtastic Splatterings" area let me know! You know, a graphic .. something! Let me know! :)

Renovations brought to you by the fine people at Home Depot .. and did I say yet what a fine car PORSCHE is?! *hint**hint*

Blah ...

2005-02-13T23:37:00.000-08:00

Valentine's Day ... blah ..

How do I feel about it? exactly what she said

Of course I would be remissed if I didn't include my top 5 anti love songs for Valentine's Day 2005. Here they are:

1. I Hate Everything About You - Three Days Grace
2. F-ck It (I Don't Want You Back)- Emon
3. Love Bites - Def Leppard
4. Love Stinks - J Geils Band
5. Love's A B-tch - Quiet Riot

Honourable mention:

I'm Not In Love - 10 CC
Stripped, Raped, and Strangulated - Cannibal Corpse
Hate Love Song - GWAR
Song For The Dumped - Ben Folds Five

Flack?!

2005-02-13T01:46:00.000-08:00

You know, people used to say that I never updated my site and gave me all kinds of flack for not doing it. I mean, I was bad but was I really THAT bad? Could I have been? Surely you jest! Well, I managed to find a site that is on the verge of beating my inactivity record for lack or updating. I mean, is it even possible that it be done? is there such a website?!

Well ... look no more!

I give to you ladies and gentlemen the website of that great distinction. Oh how we envy you website for your lack of updates and your lack of new content .. period! To find out who it is that now holds that dubious honour you can do so by clicking here to find out.

Congratulations on seldom being updated! ;)

A step forward ...

2005-02-10T16:30:00.000-08:00

AnsJ241's article made me think.

I'm really a sucker for nostalgia. I really enjoy thinking about or reminiscing about things that I really enjoyed doing or was a part of. The one thing that I can say I am 100% proud to have been affiliated with or say that I have been a part of artistically and musically plus will happily reminisce about ad nauseum (no, not nausea!)about is finally coming back and that I am looking forward to as well to see where it leads us to from here.

The thing that I am talking about is Uncle Beer .

Uncle Beer is a band that AnsJ241 I had some years ago as an attempt to try and share the same stage that our mutual friend (and who I met AnsJ through) Jeff had formed called the Messiest Toast Eaters. I can say unabashedly that we were influenced by their musical style, thematics and diversity and from that we decided to try our own brand of music inspired by the Toast Eaters. Along the way too Jeff would critique the cassettes of the work AnsJ and I did and would help us refine ideas or just do away with whole ones all together. It was an extremely valuable tool for us since Jeff was a graduate of the MIA (Music Industry Arts program from Fanshawe College)and had a pretty good ear for ideas and music so why not take advantage? Not to mention Jeff had his own home studio so AnsJ could record his ideas there since he was a roommate of Jeff's.

From the years 1995 to about early 1997 we played and recorded a vast amount of music (and stuff to this day I wonder how we came up with the ideas that we did). But the more music played and other styles we listened to as well, our scope surely widened as did our musical abilities and we were probably making some of the best music of our lives .. we were on a serious roll! Nobody could stop us .. no one ..

But then it went quiet …

A crazy thing called life happened. I was starting to learn life lessons that I should have learned years ago started to happen. I met a girl, fell in love and spent as much time with her as much as I could (even though it was a ULTRA severe long distance relationship). The music suffered but I needed to learn I suppose and as a result my guitar playing abilities that I had worked so hard on for years to attain suffered and as a result I didn’t play as much as I should or probably should have. I suppose too that the Internet exploded around '97 or so and I had to become more computer litterate as well and needed to adapt so I spent more time in front of my computer learning what I could. Of course too on a personal level still since that break up I did learn more lessons, had met another wonderful girl and loved her to death, the relationship ended and yet again learned more valuable lessons that I am still applying to my life, to this day and I suppose in the scheme of things everything is happening as it’s all supposed to. Of course too along the way I should note that through the years AnsJ241 and I hung out a lot and did things together that friends should do but the issue of making Uncle Beer music never came up … until now.

For the first time in years it appears as though Uncle Beer will be returning very soon and I am EXCITED about making music again with AnsJ241. If there was anything I could be not more proud of it’s when I listen to AnsJ play his keyboard and say “I have this idea”. There’s nothing more fun than making art and sharing that time with someone who is truly your best friend. There’s no better feeling than to watch AnsJ play and listen to what he’s playing and listen to what is coming out of my guitar amp. I am really looking forward to what’s ahead for us and what we will create now since we did what we did last. I don't regret the things I have learned or experienced, it's helped turn me into a better person I hope and in that last 8yrs that has passed we've grown and evolved as people (yeah right! who are we kidding?! .. about the evolved part anyways) and I’m sure it will be very unique and special plus every musical influence we have heard since will some how make it’s way into the music.

Like I said .. I can’t wait!

The playlist for 2/6/05 .. 80's Style!

2005-02-06T01:32:00.000-08:00

The playlist for 2/6/05 .. 80's Style!

1. "Too Shy" - Kajagoogoo
2. "I Can't Wait" - Nu Shooze
3. "Perfect Way" - Scritti Politti
4. "West End Girls" - Pet Shop Boys
5. "Oh Sheila" - Ready For The World
6. "Don't Stand So Close To Me" - The Police
7. "Cuddly Toy" - Roachford
8. "Let's Go All The Way" - Sly Fox

Bonus tracks

"Owner Of A Lonely Heart" - Yes
"Love Plus One" - haircut One Hundred

How true?

2005-02-02T15:47:00.000-08:00

How true can this be? I just read this article and I often have wondered why after seeing a billboard, magazine clipping, ad campaign at the mall I work at or a TV ad with men who are muscle bound or are viewed as being "hot" by society's standards that I feel so insecure with myself? It's nice to see I am obviously not in the minority as this article suggests.

So my question is this:

Why is it that the concept of image these days is more important than the concept of self? Why is it that people will judge you by how you look more than by your personal merits, belief core or how YOU are as a person? Why does it seem like at times that if you don't look the part no one will take the time to get to know the real you?

All of what you see in print and various other mediums are meant for show and promotion but don't they realize the potential harm that's being to some people's self esteem and self worth all because they don't look like what they see and read? Has that not been given any thought at all? Simply because you may not look "hot" or fit into how you should look like in today's society make make you feel like a social outcast or feel unattractive? It shouldn't. Be proud of yourself and who you are. All because you look "hot" or are deemed as being "hot" by societal standards doesn't really mean much if you don't have the heart and personality and depth to go with it. In other words the inner qualities are what really makes a person.

I can speak for myself. I know I'm a good person, I have a good heart, I do have my flaws (I get cranky, irritable some days .. don't we all?) but shouldn't I be judged on the first two criteria? So what if I don't look the "part". What's the big deal? If you seem polite, treat people with courtesy and really show that you go against the preconceived image by doing what I had just mentioned shouldn't that help sway a decision and make someone think "hey, he/she seems pretty cool! I should get to know them even if .."? The only "deal" that will be lost is that someone would be missing out on getting to know a pretty alright person in the end (I should note however that this isn't necessarily meant to be a rant or self imposed pitty party, the total contrary actually). But this is a topic or something I have always wondered about and the link provided at the start made me think about this a little more. I should note (albeit a little late) however though I have met several people who could be deemed as "hot" but were total jerks in the end. Of course too I have met a few "hot" people as well and they were pretty cool people as well. While there may be people who are "hot" and have the criteria I listed above it to me doesn't mean much if you don't have those "little things". Looks will fade but personality, heart and a good attitude will not.

Some people and society need to wisen up in general and not look at the external so much.

My own personal 4min 15sec hell?

2005-02-01T13:01:00.000-08:00

SCENE: Outside, sunny, bus stop with buses passing in background, various medium POV shots used:

Girl: So what are you doing back?

Fabrice: Well I sat back and thought about the things we used to do. It really meant alot to me. You mean alot to me.

Girl: I really meant that much to you?

Fabrice: Girl ... you know it's true.

And so it began. What I thought would be a nice trip down memory lane turned out to be a trip down video hell. The video and dialogue in question is from Milli Vanilli's craptastic 1989 hit "Girl You Know It's True". I have no idea what possesed me to think of the song or the video or even for that matter want to see or hear it again. Maybe it's the nostaligia in seeing something from years ago since the concept of "retro" is in these days. Maybe I'm a sucker for punishment and that's all there is to it.

Or maybe too I needed to see and hear something funny and shameful (I have no idea what's more shameful, my hearing this or the fact that so many people bought into what they were doing (all the while they KNEW they were decieving the public at large). What's the more unforgiveable notion? I heard this or cheated the folks out of money? Ah well, what's done is done and I saw and heard some bad,bad,bad,bad,music of the 80's. I'm sure there was worse and that this wasn't the epitome of the worst and what there was to offer from that byegone era but it sure ranks up there though! (and to think, I remember where I was in teh summer of 1990 when it all came crashing down!)

Well .. time do what I should have done a long time ago .. highlight the item .. right click .. send to "recycle bin" .. and .. DELETE.

Playlist

2005-01-31T13:46:00.000-08:00

I'm not too sure what to write or to add for this installment but I thought that I should post up something anyways just to let everyone know I am alive and kicking!

Hey wait, how about my play list for this week? Not a bad idea! (and gee, it's music related .. what a shocker eh?!)

Jay's Playlist 1/31/05

1. "That's The way I Want My Rock and Roll" - AC DC
2. "Living After Midnight" - Judas Priest
3. "Over The Mountain" - Ozzy Osbourne
4. "30 Days In the Hole" - Kick Axe
5. "Madelaine" - Winger
6. "One More Try" - Brighton Rock
7. "Don't Turn Away" - Whitesnake
8. "F#9" - BulletBoys

And I just always forgot to add this to my "Cover To Cover" lists (and why I always forget about it is beyond me!) is the Fozzy rendition of song #2 on this list, "Over The Mountain" by Ozzy Osbourne.

Hmmmm ..

2005-01-28T14:34:00.000-08:00

Ok, I just should add a note to the "Jayapalooza 2K5" set list. It should be noted that I had been working on that list for the last few days (and in particular the 21st of Januray as posted) and for some reason it posted the 21st instead of today's date. That should be my most recent posting actually.

Sorry as well for the lack of posting in between as well. I just for the life of me couldn't think of anything worth posting (except for maybe this here but does that count as entry? something to think about!). I'll work a little harder on getting stuff posted as frequently as I was before! :)

Jayapallooza 2005

2005-01-21T13:41:00.000-08:00

I was just shifting through my mp3's and I thought of a pretty cool concert involving a few bands that I really like. Some I guess you can say are established "old school" bands and one is a up and coming band that I don't think many know about but should. Anyways, these bands are ones that I like and I suggest that you try listening to their music because you may end up liking maybe one or two of them (or hopefully all!). Some have the same sound and lyrical vibe to them but musically, how could you not want to see these all on the same bill?!

Here's the band list and set lists to "Jayapollooza 2005" (and let's hope Perry Ferrell doesn't sue me for title infringement!) and rock on!

311

"Do You Right"
"Transistor"
"Creatures For A Little While"
"Who's Got The Herb"
"What I Got"
"Down"

24-7 Spyz

"John Connelly's Theory"
"Grandma Dynamite"
"Love For Sale"
"Racisim"
"Break The Chains"
"Earth and Sky"
"Jungle Boogie"

Skindred

"Firing The Love"
"Drop"
Brainkiller"
World Domination"
"Pressure"
"Falling Down"

Living Color

"Pride"
"Funny Vibe"
"Ignorence Is Bliss"
"Glamour Boys"
"Solace Of You"
"Cult Of Personality"

Bad Brains

"At The Movies"
"Rock For Light"
"Rise"
"I Love Jah"
"The Big Take Over"
"Salin' On"
"Quickness"

Whoops .. there I go!

2005-01-20T13:43:00.000-08:00

What a day I had yesterday.

I woke up at 9:30am for my Dr's appointment at 10:45am. My dad and I left about 10:20am just because the weather was so crappy from all the snow that fell earlier on in the morning and the plows hadn't been out yet. Anyways, I made it to my Dr's appointment on time and sat in the waiting room for about 20 minutes and then when I finally made it through the doors, I sat waiting in a examination room for 15 minutes. All in that 15 minutes I was sold on the fact that BOTOX is a great short term answer to the concept of aging and remove fine lines. Also too I managed to read some more real persuasive litterature on some skin cream that will take care of any skin problems and that UV rays are evil and that "this summer" (in January?) I could become a "SPF agent" by visiting "X" website.

It's kind of odd how you spend more time waiting than you do with your actual doctor. All my doctor did was wander in, she gave me my results (nothing to worry about!) and the treatment and WHIZBANG! I was out the door in less that 9 minutes. I mean, what the heck? no shooting the crap and asking how I am before we got to my results? Sheesh! Anyways I was out the door in no time.

This is the portion of the day that has made a few people laugh at my misfortune. I wind up leaving the main doors and my dad heads to the car to warm it up. All I hear is my dad say "go slow!" and I do .. I heed his advice and I proceed VERY slooooooowly down the wooden stairs. So as I watch my steps I suddenly feel my feet get taken out from under me. I think the best way to describe it is lik ethe Looney Tunes cartoons where the famed bannana peel is on the ground and the bad guy runs across it and they slip and slide and wind up on their keishters. Well, guess who did it this time? Yep! ME! I slid down two wooden stairs and landed flat on my butt and looking up at the eavestroph amidst blowing snow for a few seconds. Thankfully Dad didn't see anything but needless to say my a++ hurt!

So I got into the car, my butt hurting and off to Westmount Mall to replace a pin in my watch I lost. With the pin in my watch and not hanging by one sole pin we went grocery shopping. As we got to the grocery store it never ceases to amaze me how people can be so lazy and not bring their carts back to where they got them to start with. I mean, how hard is it to bring something back? is it that much more of a inconvenience towards you? what's the deal, man?

Finally we get home and it's time to bring the groceries into the house. Mind you though the plows had come in and done our parking lot so getting in and out was kind of a stretch. So I get out of the car, grab the two items I can carry and make my way up the snow bank and towards the front porch. Of course though a flashback of a mere short while ago at my Dr's was replayed in mind and .. well .. twice in one day .. yep! I fell on my keishter twice in a day. However though I am thankfull that a 12 pack of Diet Mountain Dew and a large variety box of yummy hot Oatmeal was there to break my fall!

What a day it was and my left cheek still smarts 24 hrs after the fact!

It's the .. EYE OF THE TIGER!

2005-01-18T15:55:00.000-08:00

I just downloaded some tracks from the 1982 rock (in my opinion anyways) classic album "Eye Of The Tiger" by the band Survivor. It's amazing to me how these songs sound after all of some odd 20 years of not having heard them. The last I did hear that album was around 1984 so it's been awhile since it's graced my record player. But after dowloading a few tracks something occured to me .. it's amazing now to hear them in digital format instead of the crackling and scratched vinyl format that I own it on and to listen to them in their full stereo beauty. Some songs have never sounded so good or better!

The only sad part is that I don't have the tracks that I love most from that album and they are: "Feels Like Love" and "Hesitation Dance". I tried Limewire again to see if anything would show up but to no avail and where I got the tracks to begin with, on WinMx after several attempts again to get them again have proved to be useless. I suppose that I'll have to check my TRACK system at work and order the album through work (assuming the CD is still available). The tracks that I DID get are:

"Eye Of The Tiger"
"The One That Really Matters"
"I'm Not That Man Anymore"
"Children of The Night"
"Silver Girl"

Not bad! Just not the tracks I wanted but it's a start anyways. I should note that I'm not complaining that I can't get the tracks that I want online and that I'm going to most likely have to order the CD. It's just the fact that I have had these two songs running through my mind for the past few years is kind of annoying me and for nostalgia's sake I would so love to crank them up and revisit that part of my youth all over again.

I need to say too that on the back of the album there was a picture of guitarist Frankie Sullivan wearing a leather jacket. From my earliest recolections I can say that was the picture that inspired me to want to have a leather jacket (with the exception of the guys in Motley Crue or any other hair metal band of the day) just because Frankie stood there smiling with his leather jacket and his black and white stripped t shirt. Don't ask me why but it just screamed "bad ass" and oddly enough I did get my first leather jacket .. well kind of .. a vinyl jacket from my then babysitter who was a motorcycle riding kind of guy (and was also one heck of a River Raid player for the ol' Atari 2600!)

(Frankie is to the left of vocalist Jim Jamison, the dude in the red coat)

It was nice to hear what I found anyways and go down memory road. It may sound hokey by today's standards that's for sure but it still sounds like music that I fell in love with back in 1982. It's amazing what the music of our youth will do and what memories will flood back with it.

And on a total side note, if ANYONE owns the CD and can hook me up with those tracks PLEASE get in touch with me!

I wonder ...

2005-01-15T01:37:00.000-08:00

Just like Ansj241 I got this survey off my dear and close friend ~*Silky*~ . I thought that I would try my luck as well and see where I scored in the undermentioned categories. Whether or not if I scored my responses right I don't know, but I did find the results very interesting however!

Here they are ..

You scored as Musical/Rhythmic. You are sensitive to sounds in your environment, enjoy music and prefer listening to music when you study or read. You learn best through melody and music. People like you include singers, conductors, composers, and others who appreciate the various elements of music.

Musical/Rhythmic

89%

Bodily/Kinesthetic

68%

Verbal/Linguistic

64%

Intrapersonal

61%

Visual/Spatial

46%

Interpersonal

36%

Logical/Mathematical

29%

The Rogers Indicator of Multiple Intelligences
created with QuizFarm.com

All I can say is ... interesting!

For Shizzoing Your Nizzo To!

2005-01-13T14:04:00.000-08:00

A song that Ansj241 and I like and now we can finally get the words right when we try to freestyle it!

J's to the izzay!

A whole new meaning ..

2005-01-13T02:44:00.000-08:00

This will kind of makes you look at any of the Super Mario Brothers games a little more differently now.

I was laughing really good at this and thought that you all would get a kick out of it. My thanks goes to Lewi for providing me with the link and thanks a million buddy!

Let's Talk About The Weather

2005-01-13T02:12:00.000-08:00

I must say that right now we are having some strange weather. I had just checked the weather network website and it said a moment ago that it was about +12 degrees celcius outside (I'm sure you're wondering why I am up at 5:14am though .. can't sleep .. that's about it!). So to verify this claim, I grabbed my new leather jacket and sat out on the front porch and took in the windy conditions and looked up at the sky and saw a spattering of stars up in the early morning sky.

I did however though find it odd that within a week we went from freezing and frigid weather to what feels like spring like weather. It's hard to fathom that because as I mentioned in a previous blog, myself, Ansj241 and Artsy all went skating and it was pretty cold last Saturday night. What's more amazing too is that the snow that I had been cursing up and down about and having to roll through is almost non exsistant. It felt really nice to take the long way home from the Palasad last night and just be able to roll and listen to my mp3 player and rock out and just enjoy the weather. It felt nice to roll without my jacket on as well (which I guess must have stunned whoever saw me rolling about thinking "is he nuts?" .. no comments please, I already know I'm nuts!)but the sole drawback were the wet gloves that I had when I got home. Sure it's a small price to pay but one I am willing to pay nonetheless!

I can't believe it's going to rain heavily all day with the chance of a thunderstorm today too and go up to +13 (that's what the weather network channel says but there is a discrepency between the website and the channel .. odd .. who do I believe?!) and then get down to about +4 by evening time and then about -6 on Saturday. It's hard to wrap my head around that this is happening in January and that it's been warm for the past two (or will be two anyways) days. Maybe it's that whole Global Warming trend that's throwing things out of whack. Or maybe it's just the way the high and low pressure systems have been going. I have no idea what to make of it. Oh well, it was a nice relief to the usual drudgery that has become winter and that the REAL spring is only 3 months away! :)

Now that I am refreshed from the wind blowing .. great .. I can't sleep! :|

Coolness!

2005-01-11T22:59:00.000-08:00

How cool is this?

And I can safely say that I have now seen almost everything Transformers related. Also, I never pictured Soundblaster to be able to do the moves he does. What about Blaster? Why didn't they involve him?! Either way it's cool. Check it out! :)

A first?

2005-01-09T02:14:00.000-08:00

Tonight I did something that I hadn't done since I was probablly about five or so and never thought that I would do again.

Tonight with my pal Ansj241 and his girlfriend Artsy I went skating. Well, not skating, skating in the traditional (or normal?) sense but as close to a semblence of it as I could be able to given my physical condition and/or abilities.

Just how did I do it? very simple. All I did was roll my wheelchair onto the ice and propelled myself forward as I would normally roll. All I did was in between rolls is let my momentum take me and use my hips to guide me in any direction (or maybe trick?) that I can go or do. Sure I had to contend with all the (and I use this term loosely) "hockey players" who were cluttering up the ice by being inconsiderate at times of other less able or younger skaters. It was probablly one of the most exhilerating feelings that I had ever had or experienced in my life and one that made me feel like I was physically able to do it again. I enjoyed being pushed by Artsy at full speed (and boy can she fly!) and being the support rail for Ansj241 (which I think I did a pretty good job of if I may say so myself .. THREE CHEERS FOR SPATCH!).

It was an enjoyable experience nonetheless and one I hope to do again with Ansj241 and Artsy some time soon. Thank you you two for inviting me and making it a wonderful evening last night.

Oh, on a total side note. I can guarantee that the next time we do go there will be pictures posted afterwards. It was one of those things that I thought of when I got to the ice pad and went "ah crap!". Hopefully when there are pictures there won't be as many of Jason flat on his butt! :P

Brrr .. baby brrr ..

2005-01-06T21:49:00.000-08:00
Hooooey ... that's cold out there!

I just got home from seeing Martin Scorsese's newest film "The Aviator" which is based on (or about) the life of US billionaire Howard Hughes.

It was a interesting story to say the least. It was interesting to see how a man with so much money and such creativity could do so much. This is a man who revolutionised the aeronautical industry (and made films about aeroplanes)through ensuring that there is no one set airline company to service the world (and skies) and also developed the areoplane technologies that we have today. Also too it showed the other side when towards his later years in life (most notably after and how he dealt with his excentricities and also his developing mental illness (which I believe was schizophrenia or perhaps a mental breakdown?)that followed.

It's a great story but the sole drawback is the length. The film runs at about 3hrs so it's a little long for a biopic I think. I guess too for the period of Hugh's life it's hard to miss the important parts too since they cover his relationship with Audrey Hepburn and it was (or so I can gather) a significant portion of his life.

So check it out if or when you can. I didn't really know too much about the man but I came away from the film realizing what he meant to avionics.

Oh yes, I forgot, another cool feauture out the film is the musical appearance of one Rufus Wainright III (he plays a 1930's singer at Coconut Grove and does a pretty cool song!).

And on a total side note .. man .. 3 months till spring .. hurry up getting here .. please! :)

GOLD

2005-01-04T23:06:00.000-08:00
What a great day for the country. What a great moment of national pride. What a great time to be a Canadian and a already great feel good story for a early 2005.

Some may not know but last night the major junior Canadian hockey team defeated the Russians in the final 6-1 to claim their first GOLD medal in junior men's hockey since 1997. This makes up for last year's meltdown against the US when Canada was leading in last years Gold medal game but only to see the lead and victory slip away (the Marc Andre Felury rebound mean anything to anyone?). It was just so rewarding to watch what I feel is undoubtedly the greatest junior team that our country had ever assembled and sent to these World junior hockey championships.

I guess too it was nice to win the gold on US soil but it was equally as amazing to know (and hear!) that the support for the Canadian team was there since it was in Grand Forks North Dakota (which is 2hrs south of Winnipeg) this year. I suppose to in some ways they were all "home" games since the majority of the fans who did attend the games were Canadian (it was said some came from as far as the East Coast for a few and the next closest was Regina in Saskatchewan) and helped make the tournament a success.

No matter what they made us all proud and even for about two weeks people were able to rally around a team of young men who played hard and represented our country well.

Congratulations to our boys .. you made us proud!

"Now listen up, she's razor sharp ... "

2005-01-04T14:05:00.000-08:00
OH HELL YEAH!

April 26th 2005

I was so ticked off when the tour dates were announced and London wasn't even on the list of places that they were coming to. I mean, how can Whitesnake,Vince Neil and (of all bands!)Dokken, Yes and Dream Theater come to London (you can say Cher but who gives a crap about her?) but THE Motely Crue wouldn't? All I could think was "what's up with that?".

So as you can imagine I am one happy camper at this moment. I am thinking that if it's within the budget I will be sure to pick up tickets this Saturday. Mind you though I don't work on Saturday but I'll see if I can book Para and take a jaunt up to Masonville and get my tickets. I will say too that it's nice to see these tickets are far cheaper than the Metallica ones in October (I'd have seen Metallica if they were cheaper and put aside my loathing for their newer music .. *gag*) at the JLC. You know, I am also wishing too that Steely Dan and Van Halen would make stops here as well. I mean, it's a long shot that the almighty 'Dan and 'Halen would stop here but it never hurts to dream right? I know I'd love that but I somehow think that is happening any time soon.

But at this moment though I am 100% thrilled. A band that I was a fan of as a kid is coming my way in their big "farewell" tour. I hope these guys don't stay on the road as long as Cher has been in her apparent "farewell" tour also. How long has this been? two years for Cher? Enough already Cher! Anyways, not a bad thing to come home to after being away for almost two weeks over the holidays don't you think?

Right now though, happiness is ... Motely Crue in April!

Top 10 Of 2004

2004-12-20T22:56:00.000-08:00
I won't be near my computer for the next few days as I am getting ready to leave for Ottawa for the Christmas and New Years holidays. So why not assemble my "Top 10 Of 2004"? So here it is! Discuss it amongst yourselves and if you like, submit your own Top 10 below! So here we go!

Jay's Top 10 Songs Of 2004

10. "Somewhere Only We Know" - Keane
9. "Float On" - Modest Mouse
8. "Idiot walk" - The Hives
7. "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" - Green Day
6. "Mr Brightside" - The Killers
5. "Have Mercy" - Loretta Lynn (feat. Jack White)
4. "Take Your Momma Out" - Scissors Sisters
3. "Tell All Your Friends" - Projet Orange
2. "Vertigo" - U2
1. "Flawless (Move To The City)" - George Micheal

OPINION PORTION AND THOUGHTS:

As you can see, there is no Velvet Revolver in my top 10 and there's a reason. The reason is this, boy am I sick of Velvet Revolver.

You would almost swear that on FM 9SUX that they are the next greatest rock band who will reshape rock and roll as we know it. I am so sick and tired of hearing the same bloody songs and their offshoots (G N'R and Stone Temple Pilots) ad nauseum. In my mind, both 1989 to 1995 and 1991 to about 2000 were fine .. leave the bands be. Don't suddenly start to play their whole freaking back catalogue (I exaggerate .. it's the SAME bloody hit songs) because they assembled a band that plays songs that sound like either G N' R or Stone Temple Pilots rejects. Do us all a bloody favour and stop .. please. And don't get me going about Rage Against The Soundgarden .. I mean, Audioslave either!

And still on a rant about my rock station. Can you PLEASE stop playing Nirvana! 1991 was fine and so was 1994. In my mind, Nirvana puts out two albums and a live album before Kurt kills himself and they get so much play it's unreal (not to mention they play the same freaking songs over and over .. just like G N' R and STP above). If you ask me anyways Nirvana is over rated anyways. Yes, I do own "Nevermind", but I got a promo copy at College and didn't buy it. The fall out from Nirvana has been brutal! Now we have pop punk bands (or EMO) who sing songs about loss and how bad they have it and how lousy their childhood was. Oh great, look what you did Kurt! Good on you.

Despite the drek you hear on the radio (pop punk and EMO bands aside) there actually has been some pretty good bands that have managed to save the day. It's good to see some new bands that are trying to forge their own sound and carry the torch and evolve music.

The two bands that come to mind are The Killers and Franz Ferdinan. Even though a Franz song didn't make my list, they are still a band that I like and band as well like The Killers maintain that 80's retro sound but keep it fresh in the rock/pop idiom. I am curious to see where both Franz and The Killers go from here. I hope that they evolve their sounds and make it their own and not fall victim to the "one album wonders" that so many have seemed to have done in the years gone by.

I will say too that it's nice to see bands like U2 and Green Day continue on. To me it shows that all becaue you're getting older doesn't mean that you can't rock out still in your latter years. Both bands issued real solid releases this year and I was pleasantly surprised when I heard them for the first time. I will say too that it's nice to hear U2 go back in time and go old school in some respects. Both bands should be happy with what they put out and I hope that people can take some of what these two bands did this year and apply it to their own work instead of just being "there".

Also the new Loretta Lynn album is DYNAMITE. It's nice to hear a lady who is 70 and can still belt out the songs. It was also produced by White Stripes front man Jack White who kept the sound new and at the same time in it's most pure style (a fine example is a revved up and bluesy track called "Have Mercy"). I am not one for country music but this album blew me away. DO check out the album .. you won't be disappointed.

Finally, my number one for 2004 wasn't rock in nature but more like pop/rock dance. I am sure that it threw you all for a curve. I'm not really a fan of pop dance music but this song just has a catchy beat and some interesting lyrics. By using the backing song "Flawless" by New York City dance group The Ones, George managed to craft his lyrics with the music (a song about 5yrs old and was a mainstay in the club scene) and managed to tell a story about being involved in the fashion industry and it's downfalls and how you have to do what's right for you. The lyrics are somewhat depressing but they suit the music just fine.

Anyways, that's this installment and my thoughts on the year in music and what it was alongside my picks. Like I said at the beginning, I look forward to hearing your own opinions and your own Top 10 lists!

I hope everyone has a AWESOME Holiday season and that everyone will be happy and healthy in 2005.

Take care! :)

A Happy Ho! Ho! Story.

2004-12-16T14:37:00.000-08:00
I am very sure that everyone has got this email at some point through the years. But you know, I still augh at it when I get it. I hope that it gives you the same laughs as I do. Now if you have never got the email, I hope you laugh.

Enjoy!

A Christmas Story for people having a bad day:

When four of Santa's elves got sick, and the trainee elves did not produce
the toys as fast as the regular ones, Santa was beginning to feel the
pressure of being behind schedule.

Then Mrs. Claus told Santa that her Mom was coming to visit. This stressed
Santa even more.

When he went to harness the reindeer, he found that three of them were
about to give birth and two had jumped the fence and were out, heaven knows
where. More stress.

Then when he began to load the sleigh one of the boards cracked, and the
toy bag fell to the ground and scattered the toys.

So, frustrated, Santa went into the house for a cup of apple cider and a
shot of rum. When he went to the cupboard he discovered that the elves had
hidden the liquor, and there was nothing to drink. In his frustration he
accidentally dropped the cider pot, and it broke into hundreds of little
pieces all over the kitchen floor. He went to get the broom and found that
mice had eaten the straw end of the broom.

Just then the doorbell rang, and irritable Santa trudged to the door. He
opened the door and there was a little angel with a great big Christmas
tree. The angel said very cheerfully, "Merry Christmas, Santa. Isn't it a
lovely day? I have a beautiful tree for you. Where would you like me to
stick it?"

And so began the tradition of the little angel on top of the Christmas

Hmmm ....

2004-12-11T01:27:00.000-08:00
What to write .. what to write .. what to write!

Generally I am not one to be lost for words but at this moment I am. Don't you just hate when that happens? It's like some days you know what you want to say and how to say it and everything flows so well but then .. then .. then .. well you know what I am getting at!

It seems like as if the mouth is engaged but the brain isn't quite working in gear. It happens to me all the time actually. What seems like one of "Jay's great moments of clarity" suddenly turns into one of "Jay's moments of utter confusion and stupidity so you better stop while you're ahead .. SERIOUSLY!". It seems like I run in these strange cycles of where I do make some sense, then make sense and then leave you scratching your head going "where'd that come from?". I suppose too that I can apply that logic here to my blog or any other of creative endevours. Sometimes after I put together a piece of music or a journal entry and it flows or sounds real nice I often think "I put THAT together? AMAZING!". Maybe I'm not giving myself enough credit and should give credit to myself where it's due but don't WE ALL get like that from time to time?

Maybe I should credit my last bout of clarity to that potent mixture of Red Bull and Pepsi that I had Wednesday night. I guess it is true that Red Bull does help you increase your concentration and allow you to focus and think more freely. Whatever the case may be, I love Red Bull end of story. I get a feeling that tonight will be another one of those "Red Bull nights" at work where I will need every ounce of energy I have since I am very sure that we WILL be swamped at the store tonight!

Also, I just checked the weather network website and they say that we're supposed to get snow on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

Isn't that just ducky? It seems like the annual tradition of me rolling out in the snow and cursing under my breath about how people SHOULD shovel their sidewalks will be in full effect. That's right, me cursing under my breath and uttering certain 4 letter words that I normally don't say. in public or at all. I guess it's amusing to some but nobody has yet to feel the "wrath" of Jay.

And if I can just add to the topic of shoveling sidewalks .. how hard is it to get up off your butt and go excert some muscle power? How hard is it really? Don't want to leave your home because it's all warm and toasty? or is it because you're so lazy that you assume that the city willl look after it for you? Think about the health benefits too ...

All I can say to that is this: It's common courtesy. It's common courtesy to maintain your property and give people clear passage so that they can go about their normal business during the inclimate periods. I for one like to get out during the winter and go to the places I enjoy going to (my bowling alley and the theater) and not get that case of "cabin fever".

Anyways, I am all done with this entry. Whether or not if it was a moment of clarity I don't know but I do know one thing is for certain ... it's time for this guy to go to bed!

Ps: The Knights did it baby! Undefeated in 30 games, a new Canadian Hockey League record! Congrats guys!

R.I.P "Dimebag" Darrell

2004-12-09T05:24:00.000-08:00
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/12/09/nightclub.shooting/index.html

The metal world lost an amazing guitar player yesterday evening and I lost one of my all time favourite guitar players.

It's tragic and senseless and makes you wonder why people do the things that they do. It also makes you realize just how short life can be and why you should try to make the most of any time you have.

Thank you Darrell for being a inspiration in my playing earlier on and thank you for every piece of music you put out there for us to hear.

Random Stuff

2004-12-06T13:48:00.000-08:00
Here I am yet again with another entry.

I'm not too sure about what I will throw into this installment other than my well documented mp3 player problems have now been finally resolved. It's finally up and working and I have my buddy Jay to thank for getting it to work. The whole process was pretty amusing (and amazing) to say the least.

Did you ever (or do you hate) when it's something so obvious that in the end you slap yourself in the forehead and go "oh yeah! why didn't I think of that?". Well in this instance I was in no position to think such a thing but leave it to Jay to think of it. It was quite clever actually. All Jay did was look at me and say "did you ever think about reconfiguring your drive?" (or whatever it was).

Oh why didn't I think of that?!

But anyways, I have it working and it's been great so far. I can't thank Jay enough more than I have (aside from onion rings and coffee from Harvey's) but public acknowledgement is the best reward.

At the moment I am listening to Pat Boone's rendition of "Enter Sandman". And you know, this is the first time I had ever heard it and I have this big cheesey grin on my face. I'm a big fan of flakey remakes and this sure is flakey! I love it! (even though I also like his version of "Crazy Train") I was told though that he does do "Strairway To Heaven" and it's equally as bad (or good) so I guess I'll have to check it out!

It snowed last night too. We didn't get as much as they did in Ottawa or even in parts of Alberta (or from what I saw on the weather channel) but it's enough to lightly cover the ground. Mind you though they did say that were supposed to get some freezing rain as well but I don't believe we did. They also said too that it's supposed to get up to about +12 tomorrow and rain so all this snow and ice will be gone by tomorrow night at best. Of course after having said that, they said it's upposed to snow by Sunday and Monday as well.

Ah well, you can't avoid winter right? time to start getting used to it!

Happiness suddenly is ...

2004-12-02T14:17:00.000-08:00

To further what I posted woments ago .. and this makes me so darn happy! (they must have read my entry .. thanks Gary and Bob!)

About time! :)

Irritation!

2004-12-02T13:15:00.000-08:00
Most people may not care about this entry (or maybe a few will if you enjoy the topic that I will be elaborating on today) but man, I have to say something!

ENOUGH ALREADY!

I have had enough of the lack of discussion in regards to the NHL Players lock out that's robbed me and many others of our favourite sport .. HOCKEY!

So what gives? Why is it so hard to get the players around a table in one room and owners in the other and throw ideas around as to how they can mutually satisfy one another and get a happy medium so that the players can make enough, small market teams can survive and owners make money. How hard is this really?

How hard is it to sit (in a room, obviously!) and go "okay, we really need to talk so let's call Gary" or "Let's call Bob"? (we're on a fist name basis with the Commish and NHLPA Director) and get these talks going? Is it THAT hard? is it THAT taxing? Are they both being THAT lazy while the apathy of the fans grows worse every day? Are they willing to lose their fanbase much like Major League Baseball did back in 94? (and MLB has only started to regain it's base after TEN years). Are they willing to sacrifice that so they can both say "well, it's a business and we're all business men in some ways Jay ... so let us take care of our business .. thank you and be sure to buy our jerseys in the meanwhile .. good day!".

If they want to do that then they can be both my guest. I know that when hockey does return I'll be watching because I'm a diehard. But don't count on the vast majority of people watching though. Because I think the annoyance over the whole situation will do irreprensible harm to the game and should they choose to use replacement players (much like the NFL did in the early 80's) I think most may end up watching anyways since it seems as though most (and according to polls I have seen and read) fans are siding with the owners this time around.

But no matter though, the owners are just as guilty as the players in not getting these talks going and save what's left of the 04/05 season. What I believe though will satisfy people anyways will be just the mere mention of them wanting to talk. I think too just the mere idea of that they want to get this resolved and not resort to the public name calling and number wrangling (and dispute there of) will make most fans happy.

So owners, players ... get in a room, get talking and get this sucker solved! (I'll personally sit at the door and monitor pee breaks by everyone so they can get back into the board room and get it done!)

The digital age has begun ..

2004-11-29T15:05:00.000-08:00
I know I wrote a entry earlier on today but I just wanted to say that I have now OFFICIALLY ushered in the digital era with my personal music carrying situation!

Finally I picked up my mp3 player (a "Creation") and it's currently charging. I must say too though that it was a deal at what I paid for it. I must say too for 256 MB (or 4hrs worth of music) it was decently priced at Best Buy. It took me awhile to decide upon what I wanted but I believe in the end I made the right choice so I'm elated at the moment!

What else is on it?

- 256 MB
- FM tuner
- Built in mic for voice recording
- 5 band EQ for custom equalization and 4 presets for rock,pop,jazz & classical
- Displays ID3 tags for songs

As I said, alot fr so little I think. So when it's done charging I think I'll drop a few tracks on it and take it for it's maiden spin!

Try and try again!

2004-11-29T02:10:00.000-08:00
Welp! The last attempt at posting a link didn't go so well (apparently I was told the site got "laid" .. impressive!) so I'll try this again.

I should thank my friend Faye however for gracing my inbox with this link. I thought "try and try and try again!" and that's what I am doing. So here's to hoping this works and I hope you all get a kick out of it!

http://www.starterupsteve.com/swf/rake_bush4.html

And musically at the moment I am listening to one of my favourite guitar players, Eric Johnson. I haven't put on one of his albums in a long while let alone listen to any of his mp3's. It's nice to sit and listen to something that you haven't heard in awhile. At the same time too it really re-enforces why you like this song or this artist in particular. Now that I am listening to this track called "Manhattan" it reminds me why I like him so much. It astounds me just how fluid his playing is and how he manages to easily use jazz in his playing to formulate a pop/rock/jazz rock lite instrumental sound on this particular track. It just blows my mind away!

I think I'm going to do one of the following:

A. Give up my guitar playing
B. Burn my guitars
C. Practice 24/7 365

I think option "C" is the best one. It's amazing how inspirational Eric is! (and so are Jimi, Eddie, John, Walter & Donald!)

Blog blog blog I go!

2004-11-28T01:16:00.000-08:00
What to write, what to write, what to write!

I think that I should start my entry this time with the sad news that my beloved Sony CD Walkman finally kicked the bucket after 4yrs of dutiful service. It managed to provide me with countless hours of musical enjoyment that I loved every day when I was out and about. This Discman accompanied me on trips to Ottawa, New York City (on more than one occasion), Toronto and also those routine trips to work. Let's all remember my Discman as it should be remembered .. a giver of music and I took everything it gave me.

Farewell thee Sony Discman!

What will replace the Discman now? I think I'll go to Best Buy today and go cash in that $200.00 gift card my dad gave me last Christmas and buy a MP3 player (w/FM tuner) and get with the "digital world" of 2004!

Anything else?

Oh yes . I should note that I was at work today .. again .. and what a wild night it was. I had stumbled into the store earlier on in the afternoon to see if anyone needed liquid refreshment but the store was way too jam packed. I had never seen teh store like that and the parking lot as well. It was a pretty nice afternoon so I guess people had the urge to shop that day. But you know, it was nice to see the store thriving this afternoon while it died down some when I started later on that afternoon/evening but when we had our waves of people come .. it was crazy! ( we had moments when it was laxed but when we had to work .. WE WORKED!)

So other than that, nothing too cooky or zany to report at all at the moment (other than the fact that I just got home from going out after work). At the moment however, I'm a little damp after I got rained on pretty well. You see, I can only push the ol' wheelchair along so fast (as fast as I can .. whatever that is described as!) but I can't avoid getting wet.

Sometimes I wished I had "Matrix powers" and be able to dodge the raindrops .. yeah! .. that'd be cool! :)

Till next entry .. take care!

Happy Turkey Day!

2004-11-25T02:21:00.000-08:00
http://www.liquidgeneration.com/poptunes/martha_turkey.asp

I'm not quite sure how to get the link abilities to work on here yet but here's a cool link anyways that you can check out.

Anyways, HAPPY THANKSGIVING to my American friends and readers!

I hope you don't "do" your turkey the same way "Martha" did hers!

Play List

2004-11-23T14:29:00.000-08:00
It's time for the (I hope) ever popular "Jay's Playlist" for November 23rd 2004

1. "Low" - Testament
2. "A Small Victory" - Faith No More
3. "Cure Eclipse" - 36 Crazyfists
4. "Seasons" - Life Of Agony
5. "March Of The Fire Ants" - Mastodon
6. "Magdalena" - Perfect Circle
7. " Bullet Ride" - In Flames
8. " Calling Dr Love" - KISS

As always, any songs you can think of that I should check out? (genre not important) Just leave a comment as to why I should at the bottom and I will check it out!

Customers .. Customers ...

2004-11-22T15:07:00.000-08:00
Oh how I love the Holiday season already.

All I can tell you is that it was ABSOLUTE BEDLAM on Saturday at the old store. I could not believe just how jammed the parking lots at Masonville were and just how hard it was to actually get my Paratransit bus into where they drop me off. It was indeed THAT packed and to think, it's going to get that much more crazy as this month comes to a close and we get later into December (and closer to Christmas no less!)

I'm not one to say this either but for the first time ever at my work I felt mentally exhuasted. I couldn't believe that I was mentally drained by the end of the night. I know it's only 3hrs but to use this analogy, it was like water crashing onto rock but with more volume of water (I liken it to a ocean!). Mind you though it was nice to get a unexpected visit from my friend Corinna and her cousin so that provided a bit of a "pick me up". I will say though that it was awesome to see her even though it was just for a few moments.

Allow me too for one moment to sneak in a few pet peeves that I do have about the holiday period though. The one thing that I IMMEDIATELY AND TOTALLY hate is this:

1. I will assume that you have a college or university education before you come into my store (or at least have your GED or anything that allows you to figure out your alphabet). So how is it that you can miraculously figure out hwere something is but yet you can't be bothered to use your acquired knowledge to PUT IT BACK? How hard is that? really?

2. Don't treat me like I'm stupid when you're stressed over the holidays. We all have our days and we're all entitled to have one but please .. don't take your frustrations out on me all because you're wound up and you're at the end of your leash. After all, it's just a music store and that quite isn't the best place to go blow off steam. Try and find ways of releasing your frustrations (ie: basket weaving, crochet, bowling or walking) BUT having said that though, if you're going to explode at a music store (and especially at Masonville!) GO DO IT AT MUSIC WORLD! (they deserve it and they air that insipid "burning Yule log" video on their video screens .. what's the deal with that?!).

Please don't get me wrong, I love my job and I like people but please .. it'd make it easier on us all .. wouldn't it?

All I can hope for is that next week I won't be mentally drained by the end of my shift. Let's hope though too that we hit our targets and we all can reap the benefits of those big holiday "pay days"!

Back at it again ...

2004-11-19T23:52:00.000-08:00
I just thought that I would throw in a entry before I go to bed.

I have a hard time believing that it's been a full year already and that the holidays are almost upon us again. Mind you though along with that comes people whose tempers will be shorter than my left leg and are set to "explode" at any given time (which I am also happy to say that my leg WILL NOT explode at any given point too!).

I also have a hard time believing that this will be my 4th Christmas with HMV and also our second Christmas at our present location at Masonville Mall and our second "trial by fire" after our move by head office from our old location to (again) our present spot.

Hopefully it won't be as crazy as last year but I get that feeling that it will and that today's shift will only be the initiation into what's bound to be another zany holiday season at HMV Masonville. I do think that we have the right staff to handle the situation so there's no need to worry! We're all grizzly vets who can handle any situation ... well .. almost .. ok .. how about as best as we know how? I think that sounds pretty good to me!

Anyways, time to hit the sheets and prepare myself for what it bound to be a interesting day!

#2

2004-11-18T14:32:00.000-08:00
I just thought that I would throw in another "blog".

Not too sure what to add but I think that this is a pretty cool (or "kewel" depending upon where you're from) concept. I like the fact that I don't have to manually do the HTML like I do over at the ol' website but at least this will make the entries far more easy to do considering that half of the time is spent HTML'ing anyways.

Should I link this to my website and do away with the "journal" as it is now?

Leave me a comment, share your thoughts etc!

And before I get the heck on outta here, I should thank my good buddy AnsJ241 for this link. So thanks AnsJ241! You da man! :D