journal.

blast, from past

Thu, 26 Oct 2006 22:49:08 GMT

oh hello livejournal!

I haven't posted on here in like a billion years but I wanted to give some updates.

Moved in the Milap and Matthew Fingas over the summer. Jake from Saskatchewan and Trevor are living with us now.

Went back to work at La Pasta during the school term. It is still a great job.

Student loan was smaller than I expected so I didn't go on my $1000 record spree, but I did get a great new winter coat and a nice wool hat.

This term I am taking Farsi, pop asian cinema, and some sociology. Right now I am proscratinating on a film term paper that is already late. whoamg.

Sun, 12 Mar 2006 02:29:37 GMT

surprise update!

I was not shortlisted for Production/Design Editor at the newspaper. My interview for Opinion did not go really well as I didn't get enough time to put forward my most important points, but they probably will not have mattered as the hiring board thinks I am an idiot with no useful skills. I doubt I will be starting my career any time soon.

HOORAY FOR ANOTHER 783945 YEARS OF WORKING MENIAL JOBS AND DESPERATELY SCRAPING FOR RECOGNITION

Sun, 27 Nov 2005 08:37:33 GMT

fucking goddamn, guys. I'm not posting on livejournals anymore. I'm putting this stuff on myspace.

I need to consolidate.

myspace.com/sundancekid

Thu, 24 Nov 2005 08:50:19 GMT

Man, I was going to get so much work done today but then there was this whole hoopla with the new patch coming out for World of Warcraft and I kind of zoned for like a million hours. I am feeling kind of sick.

I need to give up computer games and start smoking again.

Fri, 18 Nov 2005 23:32:32 GMT

Gilbert,
Charles Frederick
August 2, 1915 –
November 10, 2005

With great sadness the family announces the passing of Charlie Gilbert on Thursday November 10th 2005. Beloved and devoted husband and friend of nearly 64 years to his wife Betty. Loving father to sons Charles, Robert {Christol} and daughter Susan {Larry} Cyr.

Loving grandfather of Christine, Charles, Alexandra and James and great-grandfather of Will and Acadia.
Charlie was a career soldier in the BC Regt. and RCASC from 1935 to his retirement in 1970. He served overseas in World War 2 and numerous peace time postings in Canada and NATO duty in Germany. Upon his retirement he became an active member of the Quadra Island community where he has lived for nearly 36 years. He was the senior Trustee of the Quadra Island Cemetery from 1974 to 1999 and a 35 year member of the Royal Canadian Legion, Quadra Island. He was a qualified gunsmith for over 50 years. As a member of the Campbell River Gun Club and the Shooting Federation of Canada he coached shooting teams and officiated at many international shooting events. He was also a life member of the Knights of Columbus. With his wife Betty, they climbed many mountains as members of the BC Mountaineering Club.

Charlie will be greatly missed by family, nieces, nephews, cousins and many, many friends.
Memorial Service will be held at the Quadra Island Royal Canadian Legion on Sunday 20 November at 1 pm. If desired, donations can be made to the Campbell River Hospital Foundation.

Wed, 16 Nov 2005 01:18:18 GMT

I just made like five pounds of the awwwwesomest hummus.

Sun, 13 Nov 2005 08:24:49 GMT

Matt Simmonds took me out drinking twice in the last two nights, which was good of him, because I heard my grandfather passed away on Friday and I am not happy.

Mon, 07 Nov 2005 09:42:02 GMT

My grandfather is dying and I am very upset.

Tue, 25 Oct 2005 00:17:12 GMT

My attention span is getting a bit frayed, so I'm going to take a brief break from essay-writing to talk about WPN-CUP.

WPN-CUP was the regional conference for CUP, a university journalism organisation of which the Gateway is a member. It was held this year out in Vancouver so we rented some vehicles and zerged the thing.

Yes, I am a big nerd and I did say zerg. It applies! We flooded thing. Nobody else brought as many delegates. I had a very good time. The design and newswriting workshops in particular were very good and picked up some good tips. The dinner was all-vegan(!!!!) and delicious. Rex Weyler was the keynote speaker and he was very depressing/inspiring. Some nice newspaperwomen hung out with me for a while at the after-party and if they lived in Edmonton I would want to date them (but they don't). Plenty of people pushed hard to hook up at the conference but I thought the idea of driving out to professional conference just to get drunk and laid was a bit pathetic, so I just chilled and had a good time.

Heather Watson and I had a long talk about whether or not gonzo was relevant anymore and I'm unconvinced, but she likes it. Personally, I think I'm hitting on something new, a sort of post-gonzo approach where you don't bother making a point at all. Trying to sway someone's opinion seems, in a sense, a bit immoral. Rather than making an argument, isn't it better just to make someone think? Zen koans, a ridiculously granola thing to bring up, do this. They challenge your preconceptions but don't suggest easy alternatives. They present things as ridiculous. Things are ridiculous. I like being ridiculous. New paradiiiiiigm?!

Fri, 21 Oct 2005 16:55:26 GMT

I shook hands with Damo Suzuki last night.

Sun, 16 Oct 2005 00:33:42 GMT

Free router: entirely done setup 100%!

Mon, 10 Oct 2005 04:35:57 GMT

Hey, what's up, livejournal?

It's Thanksgiving weekend but I'm not visiting my folks because we didn't get plans worked out on time. I don't have any money until Tuesday and nobody's around. Laziest weekend ever!

Lately I have been hard at work on James 5.0, which is nearing release. There is, unfortunately, a critical fault that I need to somehow address. For now I am calling it 'the hump', as in 'man I can't get over this hump.' I'm not exactly sure what it is, but basically it is like this sort of compulsion to not accomplish things. I'm totally serious, too. It is sort of like an obsessive compulsion except instead of being forced to do things, I have a lot of trouble not not doing things, even things I like. A good case in point is my Black Dice interview a couple of weeks ago. I was totally looking forward to transcribing this and getting the article all whipped up, but when I sat down I had to fight to get to work. I am not sure what the deal is. I've heard that obsessive compulsions are caused by anxiety, but I'm not really anxious about anything. If anything, the concept of even being anxious bothers me - but can you have anxiety about having anxiety? Well, anyway, I'm trying to figure this out, but it's tough. I figure if I can solve the hump and get rid of it for good, I can accomplish a ton, and really excel at what I set myself to. I just can't remember things not being this way - I've always had this sort of self-defeating impulse, even when I was a kid. Is it an identity thing? Am I anxious about accomplishing things and then being an 'accomplisher', which I'm currently not? I am generally pretty confident so I don't think I'm worried about failing. Maybe the anxiety thing is a red herring and the cause lies somewhere else. I guess I could go talk it over with a counselor up at the university. They probably know this psychology game better than I do.

Dave and I have been running our mixtape club and it's pretty awesome, although I'm not sure who will come to the meeting tomorrow because it's Thanksgiving Monday and all. We're still meeting at the usual place and time (La Pasta in HUB Mall, 6 PM) although I think La Pasta is closed for the holiday so we might meet there and go somewhere else. Or maybe just have the meeting outside the place, since the meetings are totally short. Nobody comes anyway. Pretty awesome, though.

I have a crush on someone. She's a volunteer at the newspaper. I don't know her but I bet once I do get to know her I'm not going to like her.

I get my GST cheque and my prosperity bonus this week, so I can finally catch up on my bills. I haven't paid phone or utilities lately because my ex-landlady is illegally withholding my damage deposit. At least I finally get my phone service back! Also: going to Vancouver on the weekend of the 21st for a weekend-long journalism conference. Are there any shows going on? Hey?

Mon, 12 Sep 2005 08:56:54 GMT

This year I'm taking matters into my own hands.

Fri, 09 Sep 2005 03:09:15 GMT

I am so hungry, and all the groceries I got is All-Bran.

I'm going to have to write myself a cheque or something for food money.

Mon, 05 Sep 2005 22:44:41 GMT

The print centre was closed for Labour Day so I'm doing that postering tomorrow instead.

Well, time to go take some pictures of buildings!

Mon, 05 Sep 2005 09:55:42 GMT

I am supposed to be writing cd reviews but I think I'm just going to go smoke cigarettes instead. I'll do them soon.

I'm not getting any sleep tonight at all. Tomorrow I need to be up fairly early to go take photos of the university administration for Dan's feature piece and then I need to print up my mixtape club posters and canvas campus. Details tomorrow!

Frog Eyes are coming to town next week. I'm not writing the story this time because I think I'd have trouble coming up with questions, really. Amanada Ash took the story and she's never heard them before, so I'm going to burn her a couple cds so she knows what's up. At any rate, I shouldn't grab all the stories I want right now. I gots to save up. Black Dice. Damo Suzuki.

Sun, 04 Sep 2005 11:05:12 GMT

I saw my internet crush at Jordan's party last night and she's not my internet crush anymore. It was just internet disease all along. Damn you, internet disease!

I did some thinking about my dating criteria last night and essentially I am looking for a paragon. Like, the ideal human being. Now, I know no one's perfect, but some people approach perfect. Qualities are, after all, distributed pretty randomly, and sometimes you find people who have them all: people who are kind, smart, fun, interesting, attractive, etc. People who are ideal.

I'm having trouble reconciling this conclusion with my distate for objectification. Evaluating someone on the basis of a finite series of properties is totally objectification. Are the properties finite? Are they really evaluated on a separate basis, or is being ideal more of a gestalt kind of thing?

Paragons do exist. I've met somewhere between one and two dozen of them so far, I think. Granted, about half of them have been guys, and I just don't dig. This might be easier if I was down with the cock, but I have to operate with a restricted dating pool. And then there is of course the matter of me not being a paragon myself. So I'm looking for someone who's incredibly rare, and then there's a %50 I won't want them anyway, and on top of that they have to be willing to slum it. Oh, well.

Hey, school starts this week! I am postering for the Society for the Preservation of the Mixtape on Monday. Details to come soon, but all available Edmonton people should be attending. Bring mixtapes. No CDs.

I missed Champion, Alberta tonight because the Sidetrack starts shows early (and because I was playing Mega Man).

Finally, but probably most importantly: sucks to hear about all this hurricane stuff, totally. I hope shit starts getting done soon, because this is pretty fucking terrible. I don't know. I'm not even an American. Can I feel bad about New Orleans anyway, or is that just white guilt? Liberal guilt? Canadian guilt? Sorry!

Thu, 25 Aug 2005 23:54:15 GMT

ok, I haven't updated my journal in a long time, but I'm not going to cover any of the stuff I missed, which is plenty.

I moved down to 114th, across the street from Milap. It's an okay place. The other night when I sat up in bed the wall behind me collapsed. There was a bug on my bed yesterday and I think there might be a few more living in the rotten wall. Good location, though. Rent's cheap.

Chris wants to charge me rent for the extra time I spent in the last place, the bastard. He's like, because you guys didn't clean enough my roommates couldn't move in. But we did steam-clean the carpets and all that the day after Kim called us to. If he'd called us earlier, we could have done it earlier: we didn't know he wanted it done. While we didn't exactly leave the place pristine, we left it cleaner than we found it. But whatever. As long as it's not a lot of money, I'm not going to fuss too much.

Still no internet, and none until the 30th. Shaw is backlogged, I guess.

A new guy started working at La Pasta, the husband of one of the nextdoor hairdressers. Seems like a nice guy, is kind of awkward.

Doing some writing and photos for the Gateway this year, but less than last year on account of how I had trouble juggling everything then. The letters I sent to 5rc and DFA last year paid off: they're sending us promo stuff now. I have a copy of the new Robot Ate Me and a copy of the new Juan Maclean to review. Also some other stuff (Shout Out Louds, a couple of hip-hop mixtapes). Finally, I need to do up reviews of some of the local stuff released this year: APVH, SO4, Lazersnake, Cadence Weapon. Ok.

Shit-broke for a while, until the end of the month. I really need my damage deposit money - that Kim was legally required to give me weeks ago - soon so I can pay bills. Have very little extra for food or anything.

In the past week I've read a lot. Solzhenitsyn's Ivan Denisovich, some Miracleman and Ex Machina trades, some of Ulysses (ugh), some assorted Gaiman comics. Going to borrow more from Dave, I guess.

Starting a new campus club: the Society for the Preservation of the Mixtape. Doing posters next week. Will have to see how it turns out. Also planning on writing a zine. First feature idea: my flirtation with World of Warcraft. Dull a bit maybe.

Big on sentence fragments this week. Subjects are lame.

Thu, 04 Aug 2005 02:34:39 GMT

My old landlady isn't all that happy that I'm living here and not paying rent. Whoops.

I think I'm going to move out f'realz on Friday. That way I can stay up late watching Batman on the big TV.

Mon, 01 Aug 2005 08:58:52 GMT

After I move out of this house I am never buying potato chips ever again.

Mon, 01 Aug 2005 04:39:59 GMT

Coollllummmmmmmbiaaaaaa!!

Sun, 31 Jul 2005 08:56:10 GMT

I feel like a seeerious entry.

I feel old. I know that plenty of my friends are older than twenty-two and will think this is a bit stupid, but I feel very old. Larry is apparently going off to Vancouver to stay with some girl for a bit, and it reminded me of how I went out to England to stay with some girl for a bit. Four years ago.

Four years is a really long time, and I'm not sure if I've done much with myself since then. Yes, I like myself more than I did now, and that's a sort of accomplishment, I guess. If you don't count that, though, I don't know what I've done.

There are a handful of people I really look up to these days, like Nik, Raymond and Eli, and yes, they've got a few years on me, but I think they were past where I am when they were my age. Even Kevin is promoting his own shows, and releasing records, and he's years younger than I am. What am I doing?

Writing is a flop. I don't even really look up to the people who are doing better at it than I am. I really do find a lot of what's written - even what's professionally written - to be horribly shallow. A year ago I wanted to be writing for the alt-weeklies, and maybe the cynicism is just kicking in extra because I was rejected, but I don't want to be writing five-hundred word pieces by rote. I don't want to come up with some metaphor about boating or whatever comes easily, plug in some quotes and give superficial explanations for the uninitiated. I don't want to be churning out these commodified fill-pieces. If anything, I want to explore in depth, to write in length: Believer, Maisonneuve. But I can't do that, either.

Am I going to somehow make this magazine idea work? I don't know what else to do, if I don't. I can keep comfortable, employed, and keep my bills paid, but that's never appealed to me. I have this insatiable drive to be above-average and yet the older I get, the more I fall behind the pack. In five year's time, will I have done anything more with my life than I have in the last four? Will I have lived up to the example my friends have set? I just get this horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach: every day that slips past is gone and wasted.

I'm moving out this weekend but David and I haven't found a place for September yet. At the rate we're going, we'll be sleeping on couches for the rest of the year.

Sun, 31 Jul 2005 07:46:03 GMT

i need a haircut so fucking badly. i swear to god.

Fri, 29 Jul 2005 23:40:35 GMT

okay, after the apvh show (awes new record!) i hung with larry and jaime for a bit. we were walking across the top of the high level bridge when about halfway across something spooked me and i suddenly got vertigo real bad and had to walk really slowly across. the lights were on really bright and i couldn't see the rail tracks well so i kept almost sticking my leg through and slipping. the helicopter kept swooping by and i thought they were going to see us.

anyway after we got off we went and got really trashed and then went to ester's place and smoked some pot. not a really eventful night, but i only cross the top of the bridge maybe once or twice a year, so there.

this weekend i'm moving.

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 02:48:19 GMT

if i had some money right now, i'd buy a pack of cigarettes.

damn, do i ever want some cigarettes.