I guess thats what you call Karma

Just a touch of the homesickness, I guess it will really settle in when I am playing 360 alone for the millionth time.

Re: Re: Post

Food for thought

Re: Post

Ok, hardly visible in the background is a MOUNTAIN! King Mountain, October 25-30... discussions?

What is in store for this Friday

Just a little something I doodled today after work. I see Ninja Turtles involved with my last day of work plans somehow, Turtles in time? or possibly a marathon, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Secret of the Ooze, TMNT movies?

When I Die Don't Make a Facebook Group

When I die please don't make a facebook group, don't plaster my profile wall with messages. I'm not going to get them, whats the point, I'll be dead! Don't put R.I.P. and then a flower icon on your MSN messenger name. I do not want an electronic footprint that I ever died. Wear an armband, go to my funeral, have a beer in my honour, but don't go bandwagoning with internet 2.0 forms of sincerity. Tell tales about my demise at the hands of the man eating ants from mars, about the time I boxed a kangaroo, or when I was listed as "super badass" in the credits of Point Break. Wait no! Make a facebook group when I die! Tell the stories of my life! Who says I didn't climb K2? are you really going to insult the memory of a dead person? And call it, Andrew MacDonald, a spark beyond time! James, I charge you with this, and if you don't do it I will haunt you for 4 score decades!

fantastic

My god,

lets go to new zealand for a few weeks...
screw work, screw school, screw winter 47 weeks of the year...

wake me up when we reach auchland

the first of last

The first day of assertion and all I feel is tired, everything today has gone well (with one exception in the form of a delicious rice crispy square). except for the extraordinary tiredness.

I would like to however reiterate the advice I was given yesterday from an unusual source; The father of a friend. "It's only money, and you'll have lots of worries and time to worry about them later." He thought I should leave and do something before I end up fifty and have kids and a mortgage.

I hope I'm intelligent enough to listen his wisdom

McK

10 in 125 for 25

I have compiled a list of ten things I would like to accomplish in my last 125 days in the first quarter century of my life. They are as follows
1- pray, meditate, or yogafy daily
2- get in scary shape
3- survive with out putting anything harmful in my body (thats a big tough ass list)
4- finally climb that damn mountain
5- take a photo a day
6- make a post a day
7- get in the habit of flossing daily
8- make plans to expand my current sphere through travel
9- fire the genocide gun with paco
10- give something thoughtful and beautiful to everyone I love

so tomorrow will mark day one in this process... lets hope its a good one

McK

Why the world needs Hemmingway!

Let Me Share With You a Story

I have never liked first wave feminism, the elementary level binary opposition of Man Bad, Woman Good that exists at the heart of a high school study of the subject should be embarrassing to any true educated feminist. Of course, this as a foreword to my tale could immediately turn some off. Well so be it.
Weeks ago now, my pals were sitting around a campfire, doing what over educated-under employed (or over educated-unemployed) people do--wax intellectually about mundane things. We are all readers, we began to discuss "great" books, and after one of them listed some "Only I have heard of them so they've gotta be good" titles I said, Old Man and the Sea. And you know what he said to me? "Hemmingway is rubbish." If there is one thing I can't stand, its English majors thinking they are English, I HATE when they use words not in common speech to appear superior. But I realized, his girlfriend there as well, is quite immersed in feminist literature, so my pal from high school is a bit different than his current post masters self. No problem in it, just not the answer I was hoping he'd say. I thought, then said, "Hey! We need Hemmingway! If not for his kick ass stories, then at least to man up our future sons!"

Part B: Cardigans Aren't Just for Hipsters

As I sit, weeks after the initial conversation with a glass of Jack Single Barrel in my left hand I have finally decided how to post. I don't fish often enough to say that I'm a fisher, I have never hunted, though, as I get older the yearning to conquer wild animals pulls stronger. I camp, but never off a designated camp site. I haven't been to Nam, or Korea, or Germany, I will never see "action" in the battlefield sense. And to that effect, neither has my father. But even my father hunted, fished and camped in the wild. Living where we do I have been offered a broader male, bildungsroman, as the Germans call it, than people living in larger cities.
Still as time trickles away and our fathers and grandfathers give up their guns because of paperwork, young kids get too freaked out about putting worms on fishing hooks (modern young fathers are no better), and the bears(or bugs, or whatever) keep fathers and sons from camping trips, where does the strong male role model come from? Males are subjected to pacification for so many reasons they can't be counted. There is nothing wrong with spending a weekend in the woods and giving a yell to hear your real voice, to know you are still alive. The Canadian Tire flyer, every week finds a new way to make some manly task less manly, portable camp kitchens, grippy, self locking wrenches, self inflating air mattresses.

III: The Fewer Blades on your Razor the Manlier

I admit my softness... well compared to a lumberjack. But I feel as part of the boy to man experience one must experience the conquering of something, and if not in the first person, as can rarely be done nowadays, then through a book, and no book captures the half grumpy grandfather you always wish you had better than Old Man and the Sea. Its not "rubbish" to me, its basically a blueprint to understand what being a manly man is all about.

UFC 100.5: Retracting Statements

4 out of 5 aint bad. I admit that possibly my picking of Bisping might have had something to do with the brutal way Pride fighters have injured each other since that company's founding. Unfortunately for the sport, which is slowly winning more acceptance, Hendo's second knock out hit, a flying forearm smash to the chin of an out cold laboured breathing Bisping sent the event, which was supposed to garner new fans straight back to the brutal roots that it has climbed from. Henderson admitting that he knew he was out was the least classy thing of the night... that is... until Dumptruck opened his mouth. Lesnar, giving the finger to the fans pretty much solidified zero growth in fanbase from the event. Someone should put a collar on that dog before he insults the center ring sponser... oh wait that happened too, well Joe, now would be a good time to take the mike away from him before anything racey happens -- oh, good he's going home to have sex with his wife, drunk on coors light. And now we all know.

GSP Fights, and wins with a pulled groin! Thiago Alves proved to have quite a bit of power, still the considerable reach advantage of GSP kept the fight from being a knock out night. Georges proved that superior skill in all martial arts trumps a one trick pony everytime. In his post fight GSP was very gracious for the oppertunity to fight on the 100 card as well he said that Alves was a challenging opponent and that GSP lost his first fight over Hughes but learned from the fight and in their second meeting won, and that "who knows" about Alves' progression over the next few years. Leave it to the Canadien to put a classy spin on a fight bookended by 2 brutal displays of historic UFC brutality.

My Picks

Well UFC 100 is tomorrow night and my Tapout shorts are wrinkle free and my Extreme Couture shirt freshly washed. Though I have never done it before I'm posting my picks before hand, so I can tell how wrong I was.

Yoshihiro Akiyama vs Alan Belcher

going with the odds on this one, I really am not too familliar with either


Michael Bisping vs Dan Henderson

I think Henderson has taken one too many in the melon and bisping needs it to become more than the guy to get through to get to the top.


Jon Fitch vs Paulo Thiago

I think fitch has a shot to stop Thiago's streak... but he's been rocked pretty hard the last couple years.


Frank Mir vs Brock Lesnar

Frank looks in the best shape of his life, he has trained very hard for the battle but I am sure Brock has been doing his JuJitsu homework and the last thing he is going to want is to be embarrased the same way again.


Thiago Alves vs Georges St. Pierre

Thiago may be a roid monkey with a lot of power but GSP is pound for pound the best god damn fighter on earth and a student of true mixed martial arts. And he's the Canadian (or Canadien) boy

p.s. noone wants to watch Mark Coleman fight, Dana, so please stop putting him on cards

From June of 6 years ago...

I have started to work out cleaning my room and in procrastination I started to look through the highschool yearbook. I can't say I've changed that much. I would like to share a couple things however.

Tyler
NN: Doug
BKF: Jerk (being one?)
AMB: Hibernian to a Champions League cup
PD: World's Dirtiest old man
FE: What? You can't back that
BM: Haunted Tacos and Christmas Trees
PP: Arsenal fans jerks
LW: I got a little game here called connect 4, the Dougler

C Nev
NN: Neveu, Velcro, Jarvis, Christophero Sly
AMB: Forensic Science
FE: Its all semantics
BM: Michigan road trips, Haunted taco bell & Christmas Tree
LW: Don't take life too seriously, you'll never get out alive.

Jimi James
NN: Squirmy, Segway, Yegway, Joe Speed, Squiggy's Brother
BKF: Vast Vocabulary
AMB: World Domination
PD: the mague (? morgue maybe?)
FE: For unbenched reasons, I'd like to hit up some of that.
BM: Little's antics with JP and JL
PP: Shoulder slings and ditches, idle death threats and stub arms
LW: As I leave these hallowed halls for the last time and my friends spread to the winds, know this... you are the forge that has moulded me and I am forever indebted to you, I will look back on these days with softness in my heart and a fondness in my head. I bid you adieu.

Andymac
NN: Andymac
BKF: Sandals in cold weather
AMB: Superhero / Couchmonster
PD: Sidekick / Couchmonster
FE: Most excellent, bogus
BM: Mr Santana's History class
PP: People who chew ice
LW: I know what the meaning of life is!

I still know what the meaning of life, though I still cant find anyone to listen! We all ended up with university degreesand still we are the same four guys. Pretty good if you ask me! And finally on the back page of my yearbook is something that is still relavent as we drift into the mundane minutae of 20something life.

I would just like to say
todays been one of those days
this weeks been one of those weeks
this year has been one of those years
so why stop rocking?
- Tyler Plaunt

One Week

This is my stolen picture tribute to our 4 celebrity deaths this week, may they rest where they rest... you get my drift

Blockbusted

Chances are when I get out of school, for the umteenth time, I won't be reviewing films or flims for the New Yorker, New York Times, LA Times or any other of the countless higher brow periodicals, But if only I were. As in music, there is not just one style of film, and these styles must be addressed by someone fluent in their presentation. I dont need the narrow minded view of a God fearing goofball from some christian science review telling me not to see I Love You Man because it is "offensive on all levels". In that same sense I don't need some quasi feminist from the New York Times telling me my summer blockbuster prefers "action over introspection"

Well I could have told you that! Its a summer blockbuster after all! Holy Hell. Its not No Country for Old Men , or Gran Tourino! Its Transformers 2! The way I figure it, the summer is really just starting, so as celebration you go and light some fireworks, but why spend $50 on 20 minutes of fireworks when you could spend $10 on 2.5 hours of em!? Just as chick flicks and buddy movies are not put through the same high brow filter that an "oscar hopeful" must meet, so too summer blockbusters dont deserve criticism from people who have obviously made up their minds before even stepping into the movie. Not every movie needs an Oscar to do what it set out to accomplish.

Jaws - Rubber shark plagues Amity Island for 2 hours (kicks ass)

Terminator 2 - GOOD terminator travels through time to protect JC from another BAD terminator, who's arms become hooks (kicks ass)

Jurassic Park - genetically engineered dinosaurs go nuts when the power goes out and eat people (super kick ass)

Transformers 2 is definately far from these films, hell I wasn't impressed with it for the most part, but I got what I paid for, giant ass robots kicking the bolts out of each other, Megan Fox and another explosion loaded FLIM. Cheers for the fireworks to kick off the summer!

2.5 stars

touch this!!!

15 staples, and 3 cell phone photos... man I'm dumb, but I told Goo and the the cute nurse he works with that it was all Flatmates fault for possessing said chair as part of an evil plot to ruin my gorgeous looks forever

And the laundry list of fiascos gets longer

I have no post other than this... It had to be touched upon and then forgotten... but why at 12:30 at night? oh tyler tyler tyler. Youtube and boredom don't mix well with office chairs.

my current project

an Excerpt

" Don't ever settle...you deserve nothing but the exact same thing that you are...wonderfulness.

I'm sorry that I resorted to e-mail, but I guess I was just scared....and
thought it would be easier to just get all my thoughts out this way. "

another:

" i was wondering "i wonder how charlie brown is these days?"

one more for luck:

"Call me when you get up. Love mom""

I have 3207 emails (compared to 6 hand written letters I have kept over the years), in my account, and since I dont keep spam, forwards or anything directed to more that 1 recipiant for more that 4 seconds, that means I have 3207 messages that I have seen fit to keep... thats 3207 sentiments ranging from everything from 331 notes from former love interests, 4 notes that are actual life eviction (break up) notices to 1178 school related notes, 109 from my self, 477 from my mentor. I have 0 from cnev, andymac, the flatmate, 1 from yegway and 1 from the gypo.

See now the reason I am going through all this is that Im pretty sure that If I delete these sentiments than they never really existed, tearing up and letter doesnt mean it doesnt/didnt exist... but if all it ever was, were bit of disc impregnated with some sort of electronic witchcraftery, than it doesnt really exist unless its on the screen now does it... and if it can never be recalled than it just doesnt exist.

on the other hand why the heck haven't I deleted all these notes from old flames?

probably because I am a jack ass or maybe my personal correspondence will be great reading one day for my heirs... who knows

McK

Relax Its Just the Endoftheworld

Facebook's Graffiti flash program has to be one of the coolest applications to come out of the online profile sites. I love being able to put down in a couple of minutes what would take me hours of preparation if I were to actually paint it, and it still looks professional.

Well this is where my head is this evening, I spent the whole day cleaning and preparing for school in September... Two and a half months thats coming up in an awful hurry.

I Know you are... But what am I?!

The world over loves the underdog, the natural growth of boy to man (Bildungsroman) is probably one of the most popular forms of literature. The Story of David and Goliath of Biblical times, and even the American dream posses that primordial kernel of the underdog rising to greatness. In that same vein people also like to see evil defeated, obstacles conquered and Goliath slain.

Watching an Anderson Silva fight combines none of the traits that make up the elemental story that appeals to almost everyone. Instead, like Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown's kick for 50 years, Anderson Silva has danced and taunted his way across another opponent. It was nearly 2 minutes into the fight when the first punch was thrown and that really set the pace of that 25 minutes I wish I had back.

We all know Silva did not need 5 rounds to finish the much lesser opponent in Leites, I am not going to argue with his abilities, he is the best in the world. In the last two fights he has waged he has shown little respect for his opponents and begins to take on a cartoony Frank Shamrock "come and get me" attitude and stance. Its a shame a David can't be found to knock down this Goliath. Now that would be a story.

Joe Rogan, when searching for a reason for Booing at the worst title fight I have ever seen in the UFC current or past don't place blame on an "uneducated" French Canadian fanbase. Blame it on the middleweight champion who goes out and does nothing for 25 minutes of an event that the UFC made millions on. Silva can keep defending his belt but why waste his name as the main event of another lackluster event.

GSP UFC100!

33.3 Revolutions Per Minute

Hows that for Po Mo?! Seth Grahame-Smith takes a classically dry book they make you read in some highschools and turns it into the book you want to do your 3rd year university Post Modern Literature term paper on. The author of a couple of books I already own, How to survive a Horror Movie: All the Skills to Dodge the Kills and a favourite of mine The Big Book of Porn: A Penetrating Look into the World of Dirty Movies comes up with his next project. I can't wait to get my hands on this one. Aparently it does contain much of the original text with passages of zombies tossed in. So maybe I'll finish reading this one.

Here here for Zombies!

HAZAA!

Everythinger

Well fair city, after a year of, "You should come boxing, it'll kick your ass!" nearly once a week I finally broke down and decided to try it. I was nervous so the only thing I could hold down was a triple thick protein shake and half a redbull cola. And it didn't take that decision long to become a regret as I skipped, pushupped ran and jumping jacked. Its been almost 6 weeks since I was involved in anything anyone would call labour so needless to say I was a little rusty. I managed to make every bell although my supper was reminding me to keep my mouth shut. I felt unbelievably great afterward, I don't nescessarily subscribe to the healthy and active lifestyle, though God had granted me with the tools. This decision has already had a positive impact on my life. Why even today, Monday I made myself a pastrami wrap with lettuce and cucumber instead of reaching for old faithful HUNGRYMAN to crave my lunchtime hungers.

"you can lead them into a better way of life,
a fruitful conformity."
- Sloan - She Says What She Means

Later days
Andymac!!!

declusion, its a hell of a word

So, how about that summer, I cant believe there are still schmucks up north who still have snow in their yards.

That being said, I am dieing to return to the north. The siren song of lakes, trees, and other peoples couches. Oh and hills... the closest hill to this cow pasture turned campus is several kilometers away and is a sickly bump, so hopefully our triathlon is relocated the the cobalt slag flats or something. whats worse is the only source of water is a drainage creek behind the school, and for a city of 433,000 that's some filthy murk. I'm sure it was cleaner when it was just cattle run off.

So safe to say, I am completely enamored with the very thought of summer. There is much to be accomplished adventures of all sorts to be had in the days of sunshine. so my brothers let us complete our spring harvests so we can spend the summer watch our rye grow.

McK

For the Last Time its NOT an Energy Drink!

But it's by Red Bull, how can it not be? I refuse to ever believe that. Come on, why would you buy Red Bull if there is no Red Bull stuff in it?

I believe this issue has given me more flack than any of my "comment" comments. I try to explain... Sure, I can't afford to drink it on a regular basis. I would have to go across the river once every two weeks. The flavour is something different. But tasting like what I believe cola tasted like once upon a time is an experience I couldn't give up when I saw the blue and red cans winking at me last Thursday.

Its like Fiji water as opposed to Evian. A status thing I guess, if you pay double for your refreshment you are cooler. Thankfully it tastes good too. I could see a college aged me stocking a mini fridge with this and Innis and Gunn. not just because they tasted good but because my expensive outsider tastes would surely arouse the curiosity in some good taste outsider artsy chicks. at $4.99 american for a 6 pack I won't be making that transition any time soon, but the option is always there, near the back of my fridge I think I'll make sure I have a few cans on hand, if the oppertunity ever comes up where I need a cool bonus multiplier.

100% Natural, caramel coloured translucent cola. If nothing else it looks refreshing.

For the Times They are...

Almost one full year, one year of the blog's dominion. Biz is set to return to the greener half of the UK for school in the coming fall, I am set to return to school, this time at Sheridan for journalism. McK and Jimi James are still trucking in their respective programs. And as the summer begins to pulse in warmer days like the deathbeams of flying saucers, I am content. There are plenty of adventures to be had in the coming year, professions may not allow the whole of us to unite for more than mere hours at a time but it remains. Mountains must be climbed, rivers must be tamed, waves must be surfed. McK, I'm probably coming down to see you as part of my pre-summer wages vacation time. Jimi James, I don't know if I'll make it that far, but I'll see what I can do.

I keep coming back to the Watchmen as I interpret the current state of the union. The opening credits were by far the greatest part of that film, 40 years of alterna-verse super hero history played out in a couple of minutes. Photographs that the camera can move within. Beautiful film making. Nostalgia by Veidt. 10 years and change, since C nev's fateful leg breaking call to McK, nostalgia by our own supervillan.

McK and I have decided that this Blog is just about due to grow up. In the coming months the site will be removed in it's current form. It should reemerge to serve our dual professional purposes. He will use it to foster his business plans (something about the new gentleman) and I will use it to post my Journalistic exploits as school demands. These 102 posts will be archived in both print and digital copies and will live on as our own photograph we can move through, one year captured, unedited and framed by the talents of the authors, photographers, artists, our friends and our muses.

As the present now will later be past.

Andymac...

Killing the watchmen (and yourself)

Well, I unlike that unwashed mass I know and love as Andymac have to side with Alan Moore. The truth is that films kill.

There will never be another 16 year old who is woefully out of the loop when it comes to the opposite sex, parties, sports or the inner workings of the cool circle at school, who can get some modicum of pleasure from reading it. (I very uncoolly didn't read it til I was 23 and hadn't been a virgin for a while.) There will be no sense of being part of an elite group, those who are in the know about something culturally significant and more importantly subversive.

Instead, the watchmen comic book has lost all this value to him, infact I am so far from being cool in that sense I have no idea where this kid can now turn, maybe drinking Delsym cough syrup and reading faust. All I know is that now that the kids who are having all the sex and the good grades are watching it in a movie, there is no pervasive value to it, its simply a relatively alright movie (-5 from V for Vandetta, +5 from Sin City.)

The only value it has left, are to those who have some nostalgic memory of reading it on a winter saturday night while everyone you knew was out somewhere doing things you wished you desperately were too. So if you fall in that group congratulations, you are part of the greatest scams in our culture. Take something you love for being private and subversive, Co-opt it in a more palatable form and sell it off. Than you have effectively destroyed what you loved about it so that way no one after you can ever love it as you did.

You are the last consumer...

congrats, cherish it, cause now when you stop loving it for all those reasons you do, no one will...

Mc +5 from Andymac

100th Post! Lost Film Frame of Watchmen's Original Ending

Kraken wasn't attakin' in the film version of one of my favourite comic series. It was a much more subdued, and ultimately easier to swallow cataclysmic ending to the film installment. Somewhere in the film I noticed the omission of some of my favourite lines, it was then I really understood that this was not a Superhero movie like Batman or Spiderman (something I hadn't considered previously). This 12 issue graphic novel was in fact all the watchmen there was, there could never be a Dr. Manhattan or Comedian movie that takes place outside of the mythos created in 12 comics. Whereas Frank Miller understood the comic to film adaptation process leading to the amazing 300 movie, Alan Moore and his crazy hermit beard were uncompromising, nowhere have I seen his name in the credits, only co-created by Dave Gibbons, it would be like if Frank Miller had said, You can't put clothes on my spartans! I drew them naked on purpose! I quit!" Then the credits would have said Co Created by Lynn Varley.

In truth the artist does co create the story but for someone clamouring for creators rights in the comic book world Alan Moore has really walked away from a lot of creator royalties that would have gone along with those rights.

The film itself was great. I enjoyed every frame of it. The comedian was more than I could imagine for my favourite character. And the opening credits, I could watch over and over again. I question however the music selection. once or twice juxtaposition of tone in the music to the tone on screen would have been sufficient but I felt that every song was in direct contradiction to the screen and the theme of conflict beaten into my face became tiring.

My only other real detracting concern in the film was Nixon! In the comic he is only shown in a couple of frames and they are more dramatically lit. If the filmmakers had taken this approach I wouldn't have snickered every time they showed him on screen. He looked like Craig T Nelson with a penis attached to his nose. And he was alot more pale than I would have had him, alcoholics have ruptured capilaries in their faces as they get old, and Nixon's third term would certainly have seen a fair share of drinks as he won the Vietnam war.

The film was entertaining on the whole but lacked sufficient depth to keep Allen Moore(ites) happy and was apparently too deep for the reviewers at yahoo to understand.

Now here comes my strange and twisted ratings system (+ points means better than between 1&5 and - points mean worse than between 1&5)

Batman Returns (+3)
300 (0)
Iron Man (-2)
Sin City (+2)



or...
2 thumbs out of 3

It did the comic justice, was sometimes fun, but ED is never comfortable to watch on screen

Cabin Fever

An Adventuring Hat, Foreign Correspondence and Bi-Partisan Pop

Well McKelvie... I'm ready for adventuring. Picked up a crushable wool Stetson across the river last week. Made in the USA. For the last week I have also been drinking cans of American re branded pepsi. The cans have a really sleek no BS design that reminds me of the pre-blue cans Pepsi used. Before the design got muddled with advertisements and Superbowl tie-in packaging. Coke has also revamped their labels, by increasing the size of the fonts and offsetting them to float into nothingness. Honestly it looks like a grade 10 kid's Media Arts project.

Finally in the realm of soft drinks, I tried the new flavour of Mountain Dew "Voltage" and to be honest it really reminded me... You know when you make blue Kool Aid and you forget the last cupful in the back of the fridge, a month goes by and you end up mixing the rest of the Kool Aid with the rest of the Sprite, and it tastes like stale sugary carbonated sludge... (with blue raspberries) That's basically what it was. HEY POP PEOPLE! Ginseng isn't for everything!

Today I got the paddle for my new Surfboard. Not only is the 10 foot monster board really cool but the carbon fiber paddle is pretty impressive. As soon as the ice starts breaking up for some shorebreak I'm going to be out there. I've got a bad case of cabin fever. I've got a new pair of 6.0 Nikes, A new Board, clips for by bike.

Hey McK you had better get an adventuring hat for snowshoeing.

We Are Still Ugly on the Inside

Beauty... not beauty of character but visual beauty isn't just skin deep. The mutations that cause full lips, larger breasts on a thin frame, big doe eyes and strong masculine jaws come from the genes. And these genetic beauty mutations can pop up in some of the strangest places on earth.

For instance, when a young beautiful girl meets a young handsome man, have a kid, and never make it out of their small isolated community and their beautiful child meets another beautiful child, the concentration of attractive people can thrive in a backwater community simply because that full lip gene never makes it past the county line. When they do they become models, possessing traits that the rest of us do not have.

In the pursuit of emulation things are cut out, skin tightened, stuff packed in and ground away we have copied the beautiful... but! these beautiful people are breeding with fake beautiful people because they believe they are equal. It is thinning the beautiful blood stream. On the family tree branches are turning to twigs and twigs into leaves. Eventually there will be no genetic super enhancements but mediocrity.

My own jaw and teeth are surgically altered by an orthodontist and orthographic surgeon to emulate the genetic perfection. but I'm not going to pass straight teeth and a symmetrical jaw onto my children. Their teeth are going to be just as misaligned as mine were.

It seems the only answer is to subject myself to heavy doses of radiation. Thus altering my genes for the better... but if not... and I die, at least I will come back as a nuclear powered zombie.

Non-Toxico

I'm sure by now you have seen these actual hacked road signs that serve no purpose beyond costing money to purchase and maintain. But this post has nothing to do with that. It deals mostly with that crazy idea I had way back when I wrote And Here Come the Pretzels which I have now linked back to twice.

In the dead of winter... on the last day of college applications I got my first official "big envelope" acceptance letter from a Post Secondary institution (post-post in my case (and the case of every contributer to this site)) You see my acceptance to Lake State came in a phone call and my "acceptance" to Algoma was really just "give us money, you learn stuff" one summer day. Cambrian College has granted me a final application to their Print Journalism program. Of course I am still waiting to hear back from Humber, Mowhawk, Sheridan, Algonquin, Ryerson, UofO and somewheres else. But it is looking good.

I wouldn't mind the Sudbury experience. I have family there, could easily be set up with a job and hell, C Nev might still be there. And since its college and not university the tuition is half, and not in toronto. so if I got bored of studying I wouldn't be out $10,000. The odds are in my favour. Deluxe Fries anyone?

Thoughts from the deep

well another semester is fully underway, and I suppose that the bigger flip is the whole calender... so here a quick jot of all the things on my list to accomplish this turn of the vinyl

1- keep the 4.0 going- GPA's are overrated anyways, but it is always nice to be top dog at something.
2- Find an accomplice- I need something to do. Plain and simple, I really want to get the ball rolling on my own business, hence the schooling. I find my self increasingly anxious to build something worth while. The only problem is that I still have no ideas, or atleast none that meet my standards on ingenuity and adventure.
3- Climb that damn mountain- Year six for this one... still haven't found the mountain. Man I wish this was a metaphor, its not, I just want to climb something.
4- Get me a nice cushy summer gig to pay some bills and change it up.

mc

Grab Your Torch and Pitchforks

Photo Courtesy of Elizabeth "Biz" Edgar 2009

Last night was the Oscar Nominations. I have watched the Oscars like the film nerd that I am just about every year I've been old enough to know what they were. I have heard their bellyaching over the last several years that viewership is down and that no one really cares about the show that now goes way past midnight on a "school night". Well with this year's nominations I've no doubt why no one cares.

Best Picture

• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• Frost/Nixon
• Milk
• The Reader
• Slumdog Millionaire

Of those five films I have not seen any, and I only have the slightest inkling to see one of them, Frost/Nixon because I hate Nixon so much but find his evil life so interesting. Before the golden globes I had never heard of the almost-straight-to-video Slumdog Millionaire -- and to be honest with you I have never heard of The Reader. It seems to me that maybe The Dark Knight should have been nominated for best picture. Even if it didn't win I'm sure a film that nearly everyone in North America saw twice would have increased viewership ten fold. The film was an outstanding achievement. One of the largest scale and coolest crime dramas ever and oh yeah, it has it's roots in detective comics.

The character of batman has always had a relationship with cinema. From the serials that played at the beginning of motion pictures in the 40s, to the crowning achievements of The Dark Knight Batman deserves to be nominated. Some will immediately say that "oh well, just 'cause Heath Ledger died you idiots think that it should be nominated for everything" Not true! I thought that everyone's performance was great. I liked Aaron Eckhart's Harvey Dent/Two Face just as much, if not more than Ledger's Performance and I think that my favourite character in all Batman comics, Commissioner Jim Gordon was played brilliantly by Gary Oldman.

Obviously from a messy bedroom in Northern Ontario they aren't going to listen to me but believe me. In many of the past years I had seen all movies nominated in all main categories. Come February 22nd, Of all the categories of importance I have no feeling one way or the other how any of them turn out. I guess I just must not be as much of a film snob as I used to be.

One category... Visual Effects must go to Iron Man. The 3 iron man suits and the Ironmonger suit are among Stan Winston's greatest achievements and a fitting tribute to a life served making movies better.