bagpipe solo

So pretty much at this moment I'm beside myself with joy because I just listened to the first new single "Icky Thump" off of the new White Stripes album of the same name, but I'm going to contain my joy and just post a link to it. Unfortunately no video yet, just fan videos. enjoy some awesome bagpipe solo's people. cheers.

pipe smoking professor

where is my mind

Wow... I just noticed that on the last post, if your font is set right and you half-cross your eyes and scroll up and down, you can see the outline of a single flame in the middle of the post, and the post was all about burning things... that is soooo cool...

zen master

Will Montag

okay seriously folks, you need to comment on that poem. And I mean that in all seriousness. The fact is that I simply don't know if it's a good poem because no man is a good judge of his own work (exept that pols250 essay a while back... that was freakin awesome). And please don't spare me your most devastating criticism... criticism is really the only way you can tell the quality of something. I'm serious. if you are not critical of it I will remove your comment and burn it... like actually burn it... like as in write it down on a pice of paper and throw it into a blazing fire and watch it get obliterated by the >454 degrees levels of heat. speaking of burning, I attended my first book burning yesterday... actually it was a private book burning... and by private I mean just me... so anyways I hosted my first book burning yesterday... yes... it was very exhilirating, my back yard has never seen so much excitement. Anyways, the books burned were Tim Lahaye's "Mind Seige" and "Not an Ordinary Joe" by someone... seriously the book was so bad I don't even remember the guys name... actually I never read either of the books, but I had them in my collection and while I was packing up to move back to Burnaby I realized that I would simply never read them and neither should anybody else... but unfortunately I hate to throw away books because it just seems so disrespectful... I mean the books sucked... I didn't read them, but I know with all certainty that they were well below the level of crap. Anyways, they roasted pretty nicely (especially"mind seige" and I think it's because it was hardcover... or maybe because it was fiction... because fiction is better so logically it must burn better) and at the end I smelled like smoke and I thought to myself that now I have finally felt a small fraction of what it must be like to be a fireman (not an ordinary firemen stupid... one of the firemen from "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury).anyways I'm just finishing off the last few words of my last essay so I need to go write it like write now so I can be free. chill folks.

park ranger

A groovy poem I just wrote

You come from mired moors and tired times
And walking through the mist at night
You reach a garden full of trees and light
In through the gate into my life
And I the fool am taken by the sight

Your beauty drew me in toward your hell
And grasping at your love I fell
Into the deepness of our body's well
We broke our vows and lived to tell
and grasping groaning we turned back the veil

But lust can never take the place of love
And so we burned our household gods
And took our place in hallowed empty halls
And went to places none have gone
But left alone the corpses and the bones

And thinking you had left your mud and weeds
To come and spend your life with me
With flowers turf and parties no one sees
I sat down sipped my milky tea
Forgot that all along you were not free

You're like a woven basket case
Your heart is made of tangled lace
I call your name and you awake
And slip back in to your old state
And this the thing I just can't face
I turn away and wait for better days

we're not free yet

automatic niece

HOLY CRAP MY BROTHER'S MARRIED!!!! ya... seriously it was intense... in so many different ways. There were actually points that I was sick to my stomach and close to tears. I mean it's just a wedding right, weddings don't usually do that to me, but I guess it just got a little closer to home today. Anyways I'm pretty psyched about the whole thing, like especially my new niece. As Dave Matthews would say, she's an "automatic niece", which is pretty sweet. so yah, I'm thinking this whole marriage thing isn't such a bad thing and maybe I should jump on the train... well actually maybe I should just jump on a train and head out of the province, and like leave this whole marriage thing alone for another few years yet. seriously, it's scary stuff. anyways congratulations my newly married brother.

Park Ranger

eccentricity

Are words enough to describe the depth of emotions that I currently don't feel... hahaha, I love emo blogs. Speaking of emo though, I just finished this really crazy paper. I don't even know what I think of it because I totally went out on a limb for it. seriously, it was supposed to be a research paper, but instead I wrote this crazy third-person account of a poet writing a poem that I wrote a couple of months ago. I know, I'm crazy. I already came to that conclusion. now that I've completely lost all credibility, it's time to direct you to a completely insane site... I know, it's insane. if you look around I think there should even be a video of the skycar in action. I mean seriously folks, the man is either completely insane or he is a complete genius. Given the remote possibility of me one day flying in a skycar, however, I think I would like to opt for the latter. Not only is this man a genius though, he's also a dreamer, the type of people who have some obscure dream that no one else thinks could happen, but he goes ahead and turns that dream into reality anyways. And lastly he is an artist, and he appreciates the aesthetic of a flying car. most people would pass it off as impracticle, but he sees it for something more. the only reason why the skycar actually is so practicle is that the only way you could get the money to do something like that is if it has a serious potential commercially (or you meet an eccentric billionare, but I'm sure there's only a limited number of those and they're all being milked for as much crazy-money as they're worth). Anyways, the world needs more people like that, but I have to go write another essay so I guess that's it for now. you never know, next time I might just blog about something worthwhile and life changing.

zen master

my violent summer plans

wow... and I thought it was lame when I didn't get the internship in Ottawa... and like don't get me wrong because it was lame, but now I guess it's not so bad because I'm joining the army. the reserves to be specific. I'm definately currently in the process of applying online, but I need to physically test myself so I'm going to a track tommorow morning to run 2.4 km as fast as I can and then I can finish filling out the form. I'm joining the reserves because there isn't a certain time period you have to sign up for except for boot-camp which is probably all that I'm going to do because I want to go back to Trinity next year. boot camp lasts about two and a half months and you're paid $80 a day, which works out to about $6000 at the end. This is probably my most financially viable option for the summer as well, but mostly because it's 7 days a week. So yah, there we go. I'm joining the army. I'll have to cut my hair, but hey, in return I might just get a spiffy uniform. My reasons? my reasons for joining the reserves are many and complicated, but I'll try to sumarize a few of them.

1. it pays good
2. I'll be ripped when I get out of boot-camp
3. I support our troops overseas
4. if I'm ever in politics and I have to make a decision to send our soldiers to war I want to know what I'm doing (although I wont be going overseas or serving in active combat, boot camp is the closest it comes to actually serving overseas)
5. I don't want to do construction for the summer. Being as I didn't get into the internship I was scrambling for work options and my best option was working construction with Remdall... and construction is the bottom of the line... I don't care how many of you are doing it or how many of you dissagree, but construction is a mindless job where all you are doing is grunt physical labour... which isn't to say boot camp wont be worse but at least you get respect.

so those are the basic reasons. although there are plenty of other reasons why I want to enlist (like childhood fears of failure, a desire to die on a battlefield, so I can finally beat up that bully, to impress my father, because girls dig a guy in a uniform, and so that I can spread anti-war literature in the ranks). yah... pretty much... actually only one of those is true, but I'll leave it up to you to decide which one it is. I'm definately going to miss the people that I regularily see, but I wont miss the Kelowna people because I'm probably going to still make it out to Fintry and Paul Lake (yay). cheers y'all, time to get my POLS250essayonpoetry groove on.

zen master

musical procrastination

So at the moment I'm supposed to be writing an english essay. actually I'm supposed to be writing a POLS234 essay and I was supposed to finish the english essay last night. However, I am currently doing neither of those. I was just browsing youtube and what the crap was that I just stumbled across. how on earth did I go so long without knowing that Jack White and Pete Townsend actually played together. I mean it was just an impromptu thing for a few minutes, but still... I mean Pete Townsend is one of the greatest live performers of all time and Jack White probably one of the best creative forces in music currently and one of the best new guitar players in a long time... and then of course The Seeker is just a plain awesome song. I know I've already blogged about the White Stripes new album Icky Thump, but they've released a short preview video for one of the songs (though it's purposefully obscured by random keyboard noises). also they've released the full track listing and happily there's a song called 300 M.P.H. Torrential Outpour Blues. it may be a little early to say, but I think this is shaping up to be an awesome album. In other news I've finally been published. if you pick up the latest issue of Mars Hill you'll find my awesome student playlist in the arts and culture section. or you could check out the website and read it there. or you could just go to the blogchive and find the playlist that way. but either way you get to it you should listen to pretty much every song on the list. now to get back to work on my essays.

park ranger

grow old

how does a man grow old. does it happen in a day. do you wake up one morning and realize that you're past your prime. time is money, but we can't buy time, there's no exchange rate. but it's not just one day that you wake up, it's a slow process for most. every day we lose a bit of our youth and take a few more steps or a few giant leaps toward the grave... but not just the grave, to being old... do i want to grow old without ever having lived? have i lived? if i died today would i look back on my life and say "you did good man, you lived life to it's fullest"? or would i look back and say "what the hell was i thinking, why did I not take life seriously"? How will my life count before it's too late? From now on, every day I live will be lived like it's my last, i'm giving up apathy for lent. let's see what a free man can do.
fool sitting here typing

apathy

that last post was really wierd and it didn't really make sense... in other news i found out today I probably wont be going to ottawa this summer because i didn't make it into the internship program... that sucks... but in other news that means i'll most likely be coming to family camp and paul lake this year... yay, party on... then again, all this really means is that I can't really bask in moroseness and drown my sorrows in alchohol, but I can't really party either. it's like the two emotions cancel each other out... boy that is really lame. wow now this post is really lame too. at least I could point you to some good music. go look up the Electric Prunes and their song Too much to Dream Last Night. yes I didn't include a link. why? you ask. I'll tell you why. because I'm basking in apathy. being as the two conflicting emotions were so intense, they just cancelled each other out and left this huge empty void of nothingness and lack of feelings so I don't think I can move my mouse around to the extent that i could research the song and come up with a coherent link. how can i type? you may ask. to that i would have to say that typing is like riding a bike. it becomes rote muscle memorization. when you say to your body "ride a bike" it automatically responds with certain muscle movements and when you say to your body "type", your fingers automatically start moving in a certain way. that is if you've actually learned to type properly like me (even though I still can't write properly). but seriously folks: Electric Prunes, check them out.
Park Ranger

I had too much to dream last night

so i had a dream last night. a very, very trippy dream... and although nobody likes to listen to people tell dreams because they can never remember how they actually were and they're usually totally irrelevant, and even though I can't remember much of the dream, I'm going to recount it anyways because it was really trippy.
Anyways the first part of the dream that I remember was that I was in this huge building (like world trade center tall) and i was on the bottom floor and I wanted to take the elevator to somewhere near the top, so me and a few sharply dressed businessmen that were with me got into the elevator and started it up, but it was some kindof freakin insanely fast elevator and it started accelerating like nothing else and the pressure starting getting unbearable and then I suddenly noticed that because of the pressure (at this point I had been pushed to the floor by it) the hemp necklace that is a permanent fixture on my neck started tightening insanely and choking me and I trying to keep it from killing me but I didn't want to break it so I like almost died. and then I don't remember what happened after that.

fool sitting here typing