Merry Atheistmas!

So for Christmas my brother got me the book "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. I loved the irony of celebrating an imaginary God's hypothetical son's birthday by getting a book about how he doesn't exist. This morning my good friend/relative/boss Bryndis sent me the link to Bill Maher's new documentary "Religulous" I love Christmas for all the wrong reasons.




...and I got a 120 gig ipod. Life's pretty sweet.

My fuck that guy of the day is every jerk, myself and Yeshwa included, who piled into the mall on boxing day (today). I only wanted new pants. My old pants that I bougth when I was 18 finally wore out and ripped all over the place so I had to. Josh made me buy a TV.





At least it's snowing!!!! YAY!

I am become death.

There are few things in the world I hate more than malls during Christmas*. I've had a history of falling victim to my own misinterpretations of what could be called "normal" mall behaviour by mindless consumers, which, subsequently, has lead me to want to set off a pipe bomb in the busiest sections of West Edmonton Mall**. But that's a whole other story. In fact, I'd more than likely be just as content doing so at Prince George's shining star, the Pine Center Mall***. Only not as content.

Anyway, I had to spend roughly and hour in the mall today. Generally speaking, there are only three reasons I go to the mall:
1. To visit Yeshwa
2. To vandalize the bathroom stalls
3. To see if there is any yarn worth stealing at Zellars.

Other than that, I usually have no reason to set foot in there. But, everytime I do go there, there is a new reason to be disgusted with people and want to wash myself in bleach. On my last visit, my blood boiled for one reason: Christmas Shopping.

SERIOUSLY WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH EVERYONE? Everyone at the mall today (minus my friend Jon I ran into who was buying a phone from Josh) are my official fuck that(those) guy(s) of the holiday season. But don't worry, that's subject to change because Christmas fucking pisses me off. You know what, fuck it, I can have multiple fuck that guys per entry, so I declare the prick who owns Pine Center my other official Fuck that guy of the day.

I just had to get that off of my chest. Now that that's over with, here's a photo for everyone's enjoyment. So please, enjoy!



Author's Notes:

*Whacky fundamentalists aside...
**I aint no terrorists, and I'm not going to bomb no mall. Or anything for that matter.
***Not even this one.

RAAAAR

Fuck people in love. Including myself. It's the worst idea. It's just a trick to make children. Don't fall for it.

Love is my official fuck that of the century.

NAZIS!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0V7JpgXQvk&NR=1


Here Jeremy, you always wanted to see more Double-ya double-ya two loonie toones cartoons.

Women are stupid and I don't respect them.

Do you know what's worse than punk elitists? Feminists. And do you know what's worse than feminists? People who feel they have to be feminist for you.

If you read my last post, you'll know I was at a punk show on Sunday. What I failed to mention was before the show had started, Grace and I were watching youtube videos with a group of other people waiting for the show to get going. We watched things like the Washington Rap, among other things. But we found out that someone we knew had never heard the wonderfully satirical Jon Lajoie song "Show me your Genitals" In light of this, we found it, plugged our computer into the P.A. and listened with great joy to his mock-mysogynistic masterpiece.

Grace and I sang along gleefully, unaware that apparnetly we were being offensive? Apparently, in a room full of adults, two independant, informed, empowered women can't laugh at this song without being frowned upon. It turns out one of the members of the headlining band were offended at our sense of humour. Now, unless I'm wrong--because I did not hear this first hand, but through an e mail from the promoter which I won't even begin to describe because it was such a farce--it seems that this member of the band, who happens to be a man, found it sad that we would demean ourselves by finding the content of the song funny. When I read this, I nearly puked I found it so funny. If anything, I find his comment mysogynistic. Am I too simple minded to understand why this is offensive? Maybe I should go back into the kitchen and bake me some bisquits and not concern myself with things like IRONY and SARCASM. Pardon me for being sooo offensive to myself. I'm really ashamed that my behaviour was so immature...not.

My Dad has a really great saying that he probably heard from someone else:

"If you can't laugh at yourself, you're the only one."

It's sad that some people can't seem to laugh at anything. At least I can say I've had more than a few laughs today.

So, in closing, would be feminists are my official "Fuck that guy" of the day.

Punk elitists ftw.

So I keep going to punk rock shows with my pal Grace and her dude man Geoff. Anyway, so the other night we were at this show, and Geoff was doing sound check for this lady who was unknown to us.

Now, I mean no disrespect, but this girl was hands down the most disrespectful performer I have ever seen. She was unnecessarily insistent about particulars about her sound (that, in my opinion made no sense). She demanded to just play guitar through her amp, and Geoff insisted micing it, which she insisted would ruin her sound. Geoff insisted that he could make her sound good, and she insisted she didn't want to sound good, she wanted to sound "raw".


Then, [perhaps] verbatim, this is what she said to Geoff: "I don't want some elitist punk kid taking over my sound and telling me what to do"

Pretty fucking bitchy considering Geoff was being the most reasonable sound guy in history.

Anyway, so the night goes on, and Geoff's band is doing their sound check, and this girl decides to interrupt them, and tells them they're doing it wrong. At this point I was completely floored that this n00b would come into a venue these guys have played in since they were 15, and demand they do their sound differently. She said they were too loud, and that they were trying too hard to make themselves seem bigger than they are. (they are a punk band....pretty much) What was funny is Sheldon, The Throwbacks' guitarist, kept calmly talking to her exclusively through a microphone even though she was 5 feet away from him. It was a ridiculous scene.

So that ridiculousness aside, she goes on stage for her set. I'm hoping I'll be completely floored by her performance, so I stand off to the side, ready to snap some photos.

But here comes the kicker. The great punchline to all of this. The first thing she says when she goes on stage:

"Hi guys, I'm new to town and this is my first time playing in front of people."

...

In case you missed it, she not only pushed everyone around about sound engineering, generally tried to cause havoc and displayed a dauntingly huge ego, but...she'd never EVER played before? At all?!

I think this goes without saying, but this lady was my official "fuck that guy" of the day.

Oh, she also got upset when a girl hurt herself moshing (moshing, what?) and proceeded to turn off the sound board and tell the band to stop playing. This ended in a screaming match I unfortunately was not present for.

Those pricks ruin everything....

Whoever owns this Christmas tree farm is my official "Fuck that guy" of the year.

Ughhhhh

Fuck everyone who sits on the fucking CFUR couch and talks like a bunch of douches about douchebaggery.

These people are each my official "Fuck that guy" of the day.

Fuck the drive thru

This angry man who obviously couldn't read a simple sign freaked the fuck out at me today. He took a completely wrong entrance into this drive thru and then got pissed at me when I went in front of him. He drove up beside me and rolled his window down and proceeded to explain how much of a cunt I am, and then forced his way in front of me. His female passenger was also very insistent about my cuntness. They went so far as to tell the manager to give me a hard time. I saw her walk towards their window, so I rolled mine down to listen, and she pretty much told him he went in the wrong entrance and to deal with it. I felt very vindicated and enjoyed my cheese croissant with great pleasure.

He gets my official "Fuck that guy" of the day.

Inlitterati lumen fidei

Fuck the Theologians. They don't know nothing about anything those fucking pricks. I just wrote a paper on Augustine and Aquinas and lets just say I'm a tad bitter because I don't believe a single word either of them said. My brother sent me a great link from Pharyngula's blog, so I'm posting it here in case anyone will read it.

School is going well. I got 5 assignments back and they were all A's so I'm celebrating by doing more homework! As you can plainly see, I'm even more boring than ever before...

Scratch that last post...

People who encourage voting conservative piss me off more :( Sometimes I think there should really be IQ requirements for voting...

People who won't vote piss me off.

I'm sitting on the CFUR couch listening to some guy rant about how he's exercising his democratic right by not voting. He claims hating every party as his excuse. If every asshole who told me they weren't voting would vote against Harper maybe his stupid arts funding cuts WOULDN'T happen. I'm so choked about that. Enough people are stupid enough to either a) vote FOR him or b) NOT vote at all? No wonder North American politics are such a joke. If there two conservative figure heads in power by the end of this year, I will have pretty much lost all faith in this continent. Harper will stop giving artists funding, Sarah Palin will ban homosexuality and abortions and make every woman wear make up, compete in beauty pageants, and shoot fully automatic assault rifles in bikinis, and I'll probably resort to complete hermitude or leave.

haha whoops

So I pretty much suck at keeping up to date with things. Last I checked, we came home from tour in one piece. Though, some of us in different vehicles. It was a fun trip for the most part. Shit really hit the van on our way to Vancouver when our van broke down and someone we took on tour with us decided to be a prissy asshole. That's okay though, because as Josh put it, it was bound to happen anyway, so why be that bothered by it. We had an amazing trip to Ucluelet. Swam in the ocean, illegally camped on a beach by this gorgeous lake, and cooked fresh sockeye salmon on a fire. It was beautiful. Wells was also amazing. Though I spent the better part of it drunk, dreading having to talk to/play with certain individuals. It wound up being pretty comical, despite probably not being my proudest moments ever.

Being home has been weird. Having to get used to not driving for 8 hours every morning was harder than I thought. Also, my bike was stolen so I have no means of transportation. Tonight, Josh and I are taking a red eye bus to Merritt to get our van. The transmission SHOULD be fixed, unless the mechanics forgot to drive it before calling us LIKE LAST TIME. But that's a whole other story.

In other news, I've rekindled my love for the Rolling Stones. If you ever doubt their greatness, just look up "Girl with the Far Away Eyes" on youtube, and you will understand.

July 19th - Medicine Hat

So we didn't die getting to Brandon, and are now roosting in Medicine Hat. We're playing at a former strip club turned music venue. The stage is made of lights and it's pretty nifty. Not many people came but it's okay. Tomorrow we go to Lethbridge, where we play a show and get to see Joyce Kwan. I am excited.

July 12th in Montreal

So yeah we're in Montreal now. I don't speak any french, only Justin does. We played an awesome show in Winnipeg, and managed to not run out of money until two days ago. We are playing at Le Cagibi tonight, this wicked cafe that I am currently sitting in. Sushi in Ottawa sucks if you go to the first place we went to and spent too much money at. We stayed in the van last night, and camped the two nights before. We also slept in the sketchy basement of the Townehouse in Sudbury. It smelled like urine.

July 5th - Edmonton

We just drove here from Grande Prairie. It took a long time and our van was slow again. A huge truck full of liquid nitrogen passed us and made me feel very anxious. I generally don't like it when crazy truck drivers who have been on the road since 4 that morning, and are potentially hopped on up on some sort of uppers, pass me in a vehicle with canisters filled with pressurized and potentially explosive gases behind it that are lager than my van. But that's just something I'll have to get used to. For now we have to figure out how to make some money in Edmonton before we leave for Saskatoon tomorrow.

July 4th - Grande Prairie

First tour update. We played at this place called Better than Fred's. It paid really well and they got us a hotel room. We are going to sleep well tonight and then cry tomorrow because we don't have a show in Edmonton :( But our pal Jeff is going to take cool pictures of us which will be awesome!!! Our van costs much in fuel. It is hot out. We saw a bear, a deer, and a moose today. Everyone passes us on the highway because we are slow.

Jesus Fuck

So it's mid June and my feet are getting really itchy. In just over two weeks we're leaving on a cross Canada tour. This one I really sincerely intend to document more fully than our last tour. We might even bring a video camera. And I'll of course be taking many many pictures. We'll even meet up with some friends along the way too, which should be very very fun. But there are still things to do before we leave. The recordings are nearly done, the band is practicing, and the VAN HAS BEEN BOUGHT!!!! It is a 1989 Ford Club Wagon and it cost us $800. I am entirely too excited. I've been obsessed with cleaning it, and it actually is a respectable tour van now. All it took was a bit of vacuuming, some spot shot, and Armour All. Armour All seriously does wonders. All that's left to fix is the stereo, because we can't drive over 10 000 km without music.

The tension of leaving is seriously starting to get to me. There are only 5 more July band rehearsals before we leave, two more local shows. 17 days and counting. Seven TEEN DAYS. I've never even been east of Saskatchewan, and we're going all the way to Montreal!! I am so so so so excited!!! If any of my readers are unknowns that are from out of town (which I kind of doubt but I'll put it out there anyway) here are our tour dates in case we're coming to a town NEAR YOU!!

July 3 Grande Prairie
July 4 Edmonton
July 5 Saskatoon
July 7 Winnipeg
July 8 Thunder Bay
July 10 Sudbury
July 12 Montreal
July 15Peterborough
July ?? Guelph (maybe?)
July 17 Brandon
July 19 Medicine Hat
July 21 Lethbridge
July 22+23 Calgary
July 24 Kelowna (maybe)
July 25 Vancouver
July 28 Duncan
July 29 Vancouver AGAIN
July 30 Kamloops and Wells (Aug 3)!!!!

SO EXCITING HOLY COW!!

<3 )~ a mouse for Mitch.

It's a beautiful day outside, and right now I'm trapped in my basement dungeon office pretending to be doing work. It's technically lunch time right now, so I think it's okay for me to be blogging. It's a shame I'll be too busy the rest of the day to get out and really enjoy it.

This morning I actually got out of bed almost at a respectable hour and hastily biked to work, neck and neck with a vicious rain storm that insisted on spitting on me. I've been biking a lot lately as my car is no longer insured or registered in my name. Also, I like to think I'm environmentally consciencious. It's been fun though, and I feel a lot better being active. Also, my bum looks different which is a perk I suppose.

Yesterday was pretty fun, as Josh and I went on an epic quest to find a tour van. We found two pretty good candidates so it was a worth it. Meanwhile, the tour is looming like a frighening goliath that still needs to be tackled. Tour dates are coming together, recordings are getting underway, and other plans are being planned (such as beer and wine production) but much work is yet to be done. The anticipation just kills.

I finally bought a new notebook. It wasn't that long ago that I would consistently write something in a notebook every day. Lyrics, poems, rants, observations, what have you. It's still completley blank. New notebooks are kind of intimidating if you haven't written in a while. I used to love that feeling of getting a new one, I went through them so quickly. Fresh pages are so beautiful, and smell so clean, I just love it. It's almost a shame to write on them, but it's completely worth it when you finish it, and every page becomes soft and worn, with ink blotches and finger prints and words and words and words and words.

I think I broke my cell phone. I dropped it on my bathroom floor and it exploded into three pieces. I snapped it all back together, but it's not taking every call I receive, and I keep getting random voicemails out of nowhere. Nick might be getting a new phone from My Josh the cell phone salesman pretty soon, so I might buy his for $50 and some romanian shortbread. I dug out the recipe the other day. I feel prepared to bake a storm of deliciousness.

I hate writing when I can't rant about things that are actually on my mind, so I'm going to stop here. It's a good start, see if I can get back into the swing of things.

Just to piss off Jeremy....

YAY RELIGIOUS PROOFS ON SATURN......

Slow posting.

But this should totally make up for it:





Thanks to drunken Marcy for sharing it with me.

Travels!!

So I'm in Vancouver right now on a family trip with my family. Obviously I'm super busy with incredibly fun activities to keep me busy which is why I have absolutely no time to write on my blog. In actuality I'm sitting in a hotel room waiting for someting fun to happen. Since I eat meat again we're going to go to Samba's and indulge in a lot of flesh. It's pathetic, I've only been gone 8 hours and I already miss Josh, and want to be on tour again. We'd at least be doing fun things together. I'm pretty sure my brother doesn't find looking for old records and used books particularly interesting. Tomorrow should be more fun I'm sure, and Sunday is going to be great because I'll get to see Marcy probably and Alycia for sure. Anyway, I'm going to try and find soemthing fun to do, which will probably be watching cable, but hopefully

Life on the Fringe....

This weekend saw a huge change of scenery for me. Josh and I moved from our cozy comfortable home in Footsville, so a larger, less stylish abode a stones throw away from Cracktown. The previous tenants having been evicted--they sold crack, didn't pay rent, and were involved in a police raid that ruined several parts of the house (namely doors and drywall)--and later shot outside of a Moxies ("supposed" gang hit (as if this warrents any speculation....) Also, I doubt any romanian gangs were involved, in case Marcy was wondering) So after all of this, the house was left in the hands of the insurance company to fix up.
Needless to say they didn't do the best of jobs. The house reaks of linolium and latex paint, and the cupboards were full of mice feces (until I cleaned them last night with the help of Josh's unbeleivably nice Mom)
So I'm afraid of being shot, and I don't like being home alone, so I've been spending a fair amount of time in the basement. At least we can steal a strong internet connect. Suh-weet.

Oh no....

I'm facing the possibility of having to get rid of my car soon. I'm saddened by this. I've had many good times in that car, and I'm sadly very attatched to it...but it's also a Grade-A P.O.S. and I'll save money by not having to pay insurance and fuel....ho hum, what to do.

Okay...

...so La Boheme wasn't that bad. It's finally over, and now I have the new stress of this Coldsnap catastrophe to deal with. I'll probably talk more about this later, but it's a huge headache. But it's jump started the band into getting full arrangements started. We have a wicked drummer (Justin Arding) and an equally rad bass player (Robin Miller) We are impressed and happy. Josh just said the drums in one of the songs is like sex. I agree.

List

Things I like:

-Ferry terminals
-Watching vinyl spin
-Eating just enough food to be full, but not feel gross
-Josh
-Reading my brother's blog
-Cold beer on a hot day
-Dry wine on a cold night
-Fuzzy slippers
-Summer
-Evenings when I don't have rehearsal

Things I dislike:

-Playing in a pit orchestra for ANY opera. No exceptions. I don't care how well bathed everyone in the orchestra is, when you cram 50 people into a tiny sunken box below a stage and make them play La Boheme for three hours, it won't smell nice, and it will be unpleasant for everyone involved.
-Shoulder cramps from playing cello