Yesterday I went to my friend Phil Vicente’s place for a BBQ. Mid exam breaks and BBQs in the spring. Awesome. We achieved dominion of fire and mastery over the lesser beings known as cows and pigs (we cooked alot of meat).

I like these sorts of partys because they aren’t huge and out of control; you sit around with maybe 10 other people and get to talk to everyone, goof around, and have a good time. They’re a great opportunity to catch up with people who you don’t see too often.

I had one such experience yesterday night. My friend Carly (I hope I spelled your name properly) was at the BBQ with her boyfriend Dave (from the wonderband The Roamers: the hardest working band in rock and roll). We all talked about random stuff like food, school, music, etc. But here’s where things became really awesome (not that the stuff before now wasn’t awesome or anything). I actaully forget how it came up, but Carly started talking about Pleasant Interruption! And apparently she’s a fan. This only really the second time that someone who I haven’t known for more than a year (ie: a NEW friend) has told me that they read the blog. And it gets me every time. We talked about a few posts, like Hiro’s iPod shuffle post and my Bloc Party one. I can’t really think of a word to describe how I felt when I heard about someone reading the site and enjoying what they saw here.

Sorry to get all mushy on your guys and stuff, but I felt that should write about it. Thanks to everyone out there who reads the blog (especially Carly and Bradley, who I haven’t even talked about to you guys before so you have no idea who he is).

To get back to absurdity, here’s a picture of me from St. Patrick’s Day.

#5.) Bloc Party are from the UK.

#4.) Upon listening, you gain instant indie cred.

#3.) “Banquet” by the aforementioned, played during last week’s episode of The OC.

#2.) They’re putting out some insanely danceable indie rock. Yes – DANCEABLE!

#1.) You can get free songs (legally) here and here.

(note: Abercrombie are my enemy… but if they like Bloc Party then I have to give them temporary props.)

Oooooh yeah. Sexy. Oh and the Shuffle is pretty sweet too.
(Yes, that’s really me)

So a few days ago I caved in and bought an iPod Shuffle.

I’ve been wanting a nice, small mp3 player for a while now so I can have music while I workout or go for a run or do karate. I have a Sony Minidisc that I carry with me everywhere and it’s awesome(mainly because it can go like 30 hours on 1 charge) but I figured it’s a bit too big and heavy for running and kinda hard to hold/carry while working out or doing karate. Then when I heard of the Shuffle I knew I had to get one. But being that I’m lazy and that they were(and still are) in crazy demand, I hadn’t been able to acquire one for quite some time.

About 3 weeks ago I went for a run and I thought screw it, I need music and took my Minidisc out with me. I had always figured it’d bounce around too much in my pocket or something and be annoying but it kinda sat snugly and I didn’t really notice it. So then I figured ok, maybe I don’t really need a Shuffle and my Minidisc will suffice. I brought it last week to Halifax for karate nationals and yet again it delivered. Stuffed it in my track suit and was just fine for warming up.

So then a few days ago I went to the mall here with Tom to go eat dinner. Ah, we’ll swing by the computer store and see if they have any Shuffles in stock(they’ve been sold out for as long as I can remember) I thought. Sure enough, they had a bunch. But I don’t need one, now that I’ve realized my Minidisc does the job. Right? Well, that thought never really entered my mind. I was held mesmerized by the humble green box. All previous decision-making conclusions were abandoned. I was drawn in. Look at me. Buy me, it spoke to me. Then another thought entered my brain. Ah yes, hunger. I’ll be back.

So we went to go eat, which was originally why we had gone to the mall. Got some Teriyaki Experience. Ooooh yeah, delicious. Loaded it up with hot sauce. I always overestimate my hot sauce tolerability. Definitely paid for it this time. My mouth was on fire. But it was still delicious. Anyway, we headed back toward the computer store. I was no longer contemplating whether or not I would buy a Shuffle. No, that decision had been made long ago. I never really had changed my mind to not buying a Shuffle. I only told myself that. Deep down inside, I was always destined to buy one. So now it was a matter of picking either the 512 MB or the 1 GB version. Given that I probably wouldn’t be away from my computer for more than 8-9 hours(which is about how much music 512 MB holds) as far as the Shuffle’s use was concerned, I didn’t see the need to spend an extra 75 bucks to have all that extra space since I can just switch songs so easily through iTunes. 512 it is.

I’ve had the Shuffle for a few days now. And it’s simply awesome. Granted, there are limitations that some may not like. It of course doesn’t have the signature iPod wheel, nor does it have a screen or in fact any features aside from being able to play songs(either in order or in shuffle mode) and changing the volume. However the fact that it’s basically the size(and weight) of like 3 sticks of gum makes it uber in my books. You cannot actually fathom how tiny it is until you actually hold one in your hands. It literally feels like I’m carrying a pencil around in my pocket.

In conclusion, the Shuffle is damn sexy. Not in a dirty, animalistic way but in a sleek, stylish and attractive sense.

And it’s damn practical. And I love practicality.

So here it is, a new era in Iraqi democracy, revived after 50 years of “tyrannical” rule, a good part of those 50 years by our dear friend Saddam Hussein.

Every American news internet site you go to (possibly television as well) is showing how Saddam watches as the new Kurdish president is elected to power by the Iraqi government, even though the role is mainly ceremonial, they make it out to seem that this is a slap in the face to Saddam Hussein, because Saddam “hated” the Kurds.
Saddam sees new President’s election. (CNN)
The info was basically the same for Fox News, Yahoo news, ABC news, and other sites.

As many people know, during the 1980′s Hussein’s regime gassed the ethnic minority, killing hundreds upon hundreds of Kurdish civilians. But what seems to be conveniently forgotten, is that before the Iran – Iraq war, the Kurds were actually given limited autonomy by Hussein’s regime, and some were even allowed to hold office (I wrote about this before).
Because Iraq was at war with Iran, the United States supported Iraq so that they could continue with the war against their neighbors. The US really didn’t like Iran because they overthrew the American installed puppet government, during the Iranian Revolution.
And the Embassy deal in Iran didn’t make things better either…Oh well!

(Side Note) During the Cold War the United States installed anti-communist, and ultra-Nationalist regimes all around the world in order to prevent communism from spreading, so instead of creating democracies (like they are now) they installed and aided anti-communist governments to get rid of any communist sympathy (this included genocide). Examples of this would be the situation in Chile under Augusto Pinochet, Pol Pot in Cambodia, and many others including Saddam Hussein.
When communism fell, the United States took it upon themselves to remove the “tyrants” that they put in power in the first place, thus making them the “savior’s of the world!” in the post Cold War era.

Anyways, the Kurdish minority during the Iran – Iraq conflict, sided with the Iranians, pissing Saddam off and in turn, he felt a little bit of genocide would make him feel happier, because those Kurds were traitorous bastards in his eyes. Saddam did this WHILE the United Sates was funding the Iraqi campaign, and Saddam even met with high level officials from Washington in Iraq (you know, good folk like Donald Rumsfeld, even though he wasn’t a member of the government at the time), to talk about the future relations between a Baghdad and Washington, and about Iraq giving oil and such to the US, while the US openly supported Iraq, even gave Iraq military assistance, along with Intelligence, even though they knew damn well that they had Chemical weapons, and were using them. (An Article by the Washington Post, It’s the question by Wheaton, Md, and the answer the analyst gives, is what’s important, the others are interesting as well.)

Alright, so Saddam is gone, enough already, its not like we *Don’t* know about what he’s done, and why he is in this position in the first place.

The root cause of the conflict in the first place, is the short sighted American foreign policy during the cold war, and the attempt to prevent the expansion of communism around the world. It only led to a world with smaller countries causing more problems in the long run.
Unfortunately we have to deal with these mistakes and poor judgments that were made, “in the name of Freedom” way back when. Its like fighting the same war, over and over again, just with a different name.

Same shit, different pile.

Tomorrow morning I leave for Halifax to compete at the National Karate Championships. This is what I’ve been training for over the last month or so along with my teammates Tom and Arjun. It is also my excuse for not having been very active with this blog.

Anyway, a few weeks ago we had to send in some passport sized pictures to be used for our competitor’s id tags. So instead of doing the ordinary and getting a picture taken at some photo booth at the mall or cutting out our faces from some pictures, we decided to something a bit more fun. We took some pictures with a digital camera and after I spent a bit of time in Photoshop, voila! I now present to you our id photos:

Tom	Hiro	Arjun

Oh yeah, you wouldn’t wanna mess with these guys huh?

Anyway, I’ll be gone for a week so you can bet I’ll be out of sight during that time but once this is over with I should have a lot more free time to hopefully start putting out some more pleasant interruptions.

Peace.