Well I think I just set myself a new record for the longest time between posts. Granted, I’ve been the busiest I’ve ever been in my life but I really do need to find more time for this poor ol’ blog. Anyway, enough excuses, and on with the stories!

So a lot has happened in my life since I last made a post back at the beginning of the month. I’m now doing my 2B term and it’s a real bitch. If there ever were a time that I absolutely hated being in Computer Engineering, it would be now. They call it the “2B or not to be” term. And they weren’t joking. I have 5 engineering courses (so no bird courses!) of which 4 have labs! My schedule’s pretty nice, being that my lectures go from 1:30 pm to 4:30 pm, monday to friday with a 1 hour tutorial afterward that I usually skip. Ironically, last year in the fall I had 8:30 am classes everyday and I’d sleep in til noon or 1 pm whereas now that I have afternoon classes I get up at 8 or 9 am! Now this life would have been too easy so they decided to give us 8:30-11:30 am labs so I have anywhere from 1-4 of them in a week.

Outside of classes – which already take up way too much of my precious time – I’m playing intramural ice hockey, trying to get involved with the Engineering Society, I’m an exec of an organization called The Crew (we basically put on big events, shows, parties, etc for the students) and I’m also the assistant main stage manager for the Canada Day celebrations here in Waterloo. And I’ve been trying to go running and workout too but that’s been neglected a few too many times.

All in all I’ve been ridiculously busy, but I’m loving it. Now at this point you’re thinking to yourself how lucky you are for having a summer holiday while I’m toiling away at school but I swear that school in the summer is the greatest thing in the world. Life is just so awesome.

As eventful as this month has been, the last week has definitely been packed with the most action.

My long weekend was one of the most absurd weekends ever. Ramesh, who was one of the guys subletting from us over the last 4 months, rented a cottage up in Sauble Beach. Himself, my roommate Mariano and 2 other friends Meghan and Caustan all drove up to the cottage on Saturday morning. My friend Lisa and I decided we’d go up later that night as we both had things to do back in Waterloo that day. So apparently they found out the hard way that there could only be 5 people staying at the cottage and only 5 people. No friends hanging around, no visitors, nothing! I guess the afternoon consisted of 2 cars of people arriving at the cottage on 2 separate occasions, making tons of noise, getting kicked out by the landlord and also having the cops called in the 2nd time. There were also 7 dollar packages of hamburger buns and a barbeque from hell that spewed fire out the front panel. True story.

Anyway, by the time Lisa and I arrived we couldn’t both get into the cottage officially since that would make it 6 people, so Mariano told us to unload all our stuff and to go find a place to stash the car then sneak back into the cottage. We of course could not find anywhere to park the car overnight. Over the course of driving around town, I also witnessed a massive brawl with like 10 guys just beating the shit out of each other. As tempting as it was to hop out of the car and join the fray, I decided it was best I enjoy the shenanigans from afar. Our alternative plan consisted of finding Lisa’s friend’s cottage and crashing there. However we only had an address with no directions and no map. We first went to the local Subway because we saw 2 police officers and figured they could tell us where to park overnight or help us find the cottage. They definitely didn’t give a shit and didn’t provide any help. We later returned to the same Subway to get some food but this time I noticed a stash of maps of the local area. Luckily we managed to find the street and we were on our way.

Upon arrival at the friend’s cottage, we realized that everyone inside was passed out and there was no way for us to get inside. With our options dwindling and it being 2 am, we went with our last resort and ended up sleeping in the car out on the front lawn of their cottage. It was a cold night and just to make sure it would suck, we had left all our warm clothes and 2 sleeping bags back at the cottage. Lisa ended up sleeping with 1 foot inside of a car-interior-cleaning mitt, the other leg in the sleeve of her sweater and herself wrapped up in a tent (the only thing we didn’t unload). Yes, the tent itself. It was pretty funny and I would have taken a picture but oh wait, we left that at the cottage too! I just slept half frozen wearing shorts and a t-shirt.

By 7 am we were ready to get the hell back to the main cottage. We figured we hadn’t stayed overnight with more than 5 people, and we would just be visiting with 1 extra person so it would be fine. Now keep in mind that since 1) our cellphones barely worked, 2) there was no phone at the cottage, and 3) that we had only briefly talked when we first arrived at the cottage, Lisa and I were unaware of the events that took place the previous day nor were we aware of the fact that they weren’t even allowed visitors at the cottage. Anyway, we made it back to the cottage while everyone was still asleep. Not to disappoint us, the inside of the cottage was colder than the inside of the car. Fortunately though we now had our sleeping bags so we managed to not explore further into the world of hypothermia.

The next day the 6 of us decided we’d make the best of this trip and somehow enjoy the day. Sure enough, while we were discussing our plans, the landlord and his sidekick came over and asked us to show him all our bracelets (the 5 “tenants” were given bracelets to wear). Of course, we now had 6 people and only 5 were wearing bracelets. Without any discussion he told us that we had until noon to move out. And just to make sure, he called the cops on us again.

After leaving the cottage we drove over to the main beach area to try to at least enjoy the rest of the day. We were clearly dreaming the impossible as we stepped foot on the beach and it was bloody chilly. I couldn’t believe some people were actually in the water while maintaining consciousness. Needless to say, we were on the road back to Waterloo shortly afterward.

To summarize, we learned one valuable lesson that weekend: Sauble Beach is earth’s manifestation of hell.

Well, you are 21 today, which means you are now legal in the U.S., but that doesn’t matter, because alcohol sells there like opium in Afghanistan, (il)legal, and anyone can get their hands on it. Anyways, you are a year older, and posses more knowledge now then you did a year before.
But let me say one thing…Congratulations! You are one year closer to death! Yes, my pessimism comes in handy. Birthdays should be times of celebration, but for some reason, they mark the unfortunate progression towards old age, and the eventual conclusion/culmination. So enjoy your day of celebrations, even though you are in Halifax, so if you do “partay”, do so in moderation. BOOYAH

Prepare yourselves for the second coming! No, no, no…it’s not the apocalypse yet, actually Audioslave’s new CD is out today, it’s their sophomore album called “Out of Exile” if you haven’t already read the title of this post, and right now, I’m shaking in anticipation to listen to the entire LP. Their first single “Be Yourself” came out sometime in April, and to my knowledge, and what I heard once on the radio, that it topped the Billboard Rock charts, which is pretty fucken awesome.

Now if you have been living under a rock, or in a protective bubble, that shields you to all things foreign, and you don’t know who Audioslave are, they are made up with members from two of the Nineties most successful bands: Tom Morello, Brad Wilk, Tim Commerfold from Rage Against the Machine, and Chris Cornell from Soundgarden.

The members came together sometime in the early part of this half decade, and began jamming together, they were introduced to each other by some producer guy that worked with both of them (I don’t remember the chaps name…Rick Rubin I think it was…oh well), and before you know it, their first self titled debut album was released in 2002.

In my opinion, Audioslave is a lot better then Velvet Revolver, when comparing “Franken-Bands”, Velvet Revolver is a good band don’t get me wrong now, it’s just that to me right now, at this present moment, their music just doesn’t appeal to me, maybe it does to those who listen to classic eighties rock, but not me.

Audioslave on the other hand, is just plain amazing, their sound is refreshing compared to the generic radio friendly whiny pop punk (or as I like to call it “Corporate Rock”). They also give a more modern sound, compared to Velvet Revolver, who sounds like it’s still the eighties.

Also I personally believe that Tom Morello, is one of the best guitarists in the world, when you watch and hear him play his solo’s, it’s just insane how he plays, and the sounds he gets is just…mystifying, It’s like going on a heroin trip, without the heroin*. (FYI: Morello attended Harvard University and got a degree in the social sciences. Trent Reznor the lead singer from Nine Inch Nails, also attended the school, I don’t remember if they were friends or not.)

Audioslave recently played a live show in Havana, Cuba, and became one of the first American Rock & Roll bands to play a live open air show in Cuba since….ever! They just wanted to put the politicking away, and actually play music. I loosely quote Tom here, he said that music transcends politics, and people should not let politics get in the way…something along those lines.

This CD is going to be worth buying, because I like their music so damn much, I just have to support the band. Now I advise anyone who likes a band a lot, don’t download their music, go out and buy it, either online or in stores. The more people buy, the more the numbers go up, and it’ll motivate them to make more music, not because we are feeding those fascist bastards at the RIAA, but because the band we are supporting are amazing, and deserve our cash money.

Oh yeah, speaking of generic radio friendly whiny pop punk, I was watching “Much On Demand”, on our nations music station “Much Music”, and they had one of those insanely fluctuating polls, and they had Audioslave up against Avril Lavigne, and some other band or singer…I don’t know. Anyways by the end of the poll, Avril won by a lot, the other band came second, and Audioslave came last. I actually began to curse and I waved my archery fingers angrily at the television, in a failed attempt to get some kind of reciprocation from the incredible embarrassment they had to endure at the hands of pop culture mass marketed music icons, who just play for the money and to force feed their corporate image to us in today’s society. Just because certain bands and singers get marketed so much, it doesn’t mean that they are good, it means that they just want to make money, and with radio friendly singers/bands, it’s easy money, very easy money.

It’s just pathetic how much people idolize these figures that just sit around and talk aimlessly about how their last shopping spree went, how their photo shoot with some random magazine went and how they are “bad asses” by putting up a show in front of cameras. They also epitomize excess, because I associate punk with not being corporate tools, unfortunately with today’s pop punks…yeah, they are corporate whores. (“Look at me! It’s time to start a clothing line!”)

So to sum up this article, Audioslave is one bitchin’ band, and corporate rock, even though they can make “okay” music, they should market themselves under a different image, maybe it’ll make them more palatable for a wider audience, rather then vulnerable teenie-boppers.

* Disclaimer: I do not use heroin, nor do I condone the use of heroin, Listen to Audioslave instead, then you’ll know what I mean.

Other things…

I’ll write a review for the CD later, because as of right now, I’m trying to get a good feel for all the songs, before I start rambling on about garbage.

Good to see that I’m not the only one trying to keep this going strong through the summer (thanks Nana), but if Hiro, and Nana go dormant again, I’ll have to use this internet site for propaganda purposes.

So far, 24 season finale, and Smallville Season finale, actually, destroys government infrastructure…they were just that amazing, Oh yeah, OC as well….I’ll be a pompous son of a bitch, and review the season and finales of shows I’ve been watching…why? Because I have nothing better to do then, talk about nothing (joy!).

I guess that the media is somewhat liberal, because the environment around us is, but when one starts attacking the media, because they did something wrong and isn’t willing to admit it, and begin to blame it one the “Liberal Media” because they(the media) are trying to report what they hear, is compounding the problem. Conglomerated news media…is the devil, and makes people stupid. (Let’s have a 5 minute segment where all we talk about is why this one person is funny, and neglect that people are being killed in a war, in a country where I can’t even point out on a map! Oh yeah, not to mention that it’s ok to talk about why my religion is better then your religion.)

So I just got back from my friend Arjun’s place, where we watched the season finale of 24 (which was amazing!). I had a good walk home in the rain. The Walkmen were playign in my headphones and the light drizzle set the tone for some serious introspection. I flagged down a taxi by accident when I twirled my umbrella.

Sadly it seems like my P.I. counterparts have neglected this poor ol’ blog, but fortunately, you have me, always dedicated to the cause, even though I have 56 K internet, which as I like to say, brings about the destruction of mankind, and all things awesome (IE. Me), plus it’s really slow.

But anyways to the story, It started with a slow day of work, running left and right trying to find something to do, because donations were slow coming. Besides being bored to the death, I just ran in circles to try and pass the time. When I got home it was 5:30ish, and I was damn tired, so I washed up and expected a quiet night, topped off with an episode of “Lost”. But that day, I lucked out, my friend Chris from Napanee, who went to Holy Cross for all those Kingston folk out there, but now is at Guelph University, was in town for the whole week for work, so he calls me up and asks if I wanted to hit up the grand Quinte Mall, and as fatigued as I was from the day I agreed to this random adventure, considering I really haven’t been out and about for leisure since I got back to Belleville in late April.

So I was thinking we’d drive up to the mall, because it’s quite the way away from where we lived, but surely enough, we ended up walking about 45 minutes to the mall. It was great though, I got to see the quaint town in a more relaxed state…no difference from before sadly. It was a good walk, and I made many observations as I progressed along North Front Street towards the mall. There are a bunch of stock cars, which kids get paint jobs, loud mufflers, and subwoofers, just to make it look awesome, when really it’s still a piece of shit car. They race around town acting like their car is the shit, when really it’s a piece of shit…you know what, they should just say they are redneck yokels, and join NASCAR, because it’s the same stupid thing. Oh yeah, and kids with subwoofers in their next generation Kay Cars the Chrysler Neon, and all you hear when they drive by, is that annoying vibration for their license plate, and inside driving the car is a Belleville gangster (obviously Caucasian) driving around like his car is awesome, and he owns the road. Ok you know what, get your redneck piece of shit car of the damn road, and shut the fuck up, you car is not amazing, no matter how much you try, you are NEVER going to be a gangster, because if you come from Belleville, you need your friends to gang up on someone you don’t like, considering you are a pussy, and can’t fight one on one.

Anyways, it was a fun walk, we went to the mall, and upon seeing a small Audioslave poster advertising its release date, I immediately got excited, not giddy or anything, just stoked. Walking around the mall saw some old high school people, but unfortunately, 2 years passing, they don’t fucken remember who the hell I am, I don’t give a damn though, shit happens, and there’s nothing I can do. Except be an arrogant bitch about it.

So Chris got birthday presents for his younger Sister and Brother, and we walked around the mall a few more times before hitting up Chapters, then out of nowhere, we are in the LCBO, buying beer. I ended up buying Steamwhistle, and let me tell you, it is awesome, an easy drink, smooth, and micro brewed in Toronto, just like how Alexander Keith’s was micro brewed in Halifax (I think), before it became a big company.

Anyways, this was still at the mall when I brought it, so we had to walk all the way back to my pad, which was a 45ish minute walk, so first while I was walking home with a 6 beer case of bottles, it was kind of awkward at first, waking around 2 clicks with beer in my hands, but after I really didn’t care, you always see other people walking around with 2-4’s of beer and they damn well look like rednecks, so I came to the conclusion that I look like and awesome Asian redneck, considering that there are none, then it makes me just awesome (you know it). We ended up hanging out on my porch drinking beer and reminiscing about the latter days, and the greatness of previous adventures.

So the day was salvaged, and the excursion turned out to be pretty fun, and the beer culminated a great day.

Other things…

Unfortunately no crazy people to talk about, there were some strange happenings, but nothing noteworthy, more soon hopefully.

I really “dislike” 56 K internet, I think its time to get high speed.

AUDIOSLAVE’s new CD is out on Tuesday! YEAH!!!!

GREEN DAY CONCERT IN SEPTEMBER….I tremor in anticipation.

“The Hour” with George Strombolupolous
Ok everyone, I’m going to recommend everyone to watch The Hour on CBC, because it is a great show if you want to keep up with things happening in the world today. He even talks about things that the mainstream media tend to gaze over.
Mondays to thursdays on CBC at 8.

Well this might become a regular piece for me, as some people I meet in Belleville tend not to be the brightest people around.

So this week, my first week back to work and my second day on the job (May 4th), this one middle aged lady and her mid twenties son, they purchased a sofa bed from the store. It was pretty crappy, but they bought it anyways.
It was a heavy son of a bitch, so a co-worker and I carried it out to their car to load it on, unfortunately the car was a mid-nineties Chevy Cavalier, in rough condition. The lady told us to just throw it on the top of the car, so we did, and the top apparently dented inwards, then we asked if she needed any rope or twine or whatever so that she can tie down the bad mother of a couch. The lady declines and says:
“My son is going to hold on to it”, now I don’t know about you readers out there, but this thought of someone hanging out of a car holding on to a couch, reminds me of some backwoods redneck yokels driving around in an overloaded truck or car.
So my co-worker and I walked back into the store, and the reality of the situation hit me…this isn’t the backwoods….this is Belleville…such a sad reality which I must face everyday.

Anyway, the next day another co-worker commented that the store was mentioned on the local radio station. I thought to my self “oh, must be some community thing”. I couldn’t have been more wrong. It turns out the lady who was driving with the couch on her roof was pulled over by the police because her son was hanging out of the car holding onto the couch and to add insult to injury, the lady was drunk! Seriously now, how terrible was this, the lady was issued a 12 hour suspension while her son wasn’t charged with anything. All those images of crazy redneck people hanging off overloaded cars started to flood my imagination all over again. The only satisfaction this brought me, was that I (from a certain point of view) was directly involved in this flagrant violation of the law, and that the drunk woman was punished for her crime. (It was reported in the Belleville Intelligencer on the Friday of the same week).

Hopefully I’ll run into more people who can do equal to even more ridiculous things in the upcoming weeks, cause it’s just so much fun to talk about.

Other things…

-I’ve noticed that some people in Belleville talked in a peculiar dialect, and it reminds me of many American dialects that come from the “Deep South” of the US. Now I’m not being prejudice or anything, it just sounds that way, and it freaks me out sometimes.

-People who blame things on the “Liberal Media” are insecure, and want the world to conform to their ideas.

-Smallville is the best show ever…even better then The O.C. this season…

Whew, it’s been a week now since I’ve moved back to Waterloo (and since I last made a post!) and it’s been one BUSY week. I think I’ve spent like 5 hours on my computer over the entire week. So now it’s a nice quiet Sunday afternoon and I finally have time to sit back, take a breath and write a post.

Sunday was a loooong day, having moved out of Ottawa, stopped by in Belleville to drop stuff off, pick up summer things, then continue on to Waterloo. Not to mention being slightly hung over from the night before. Speaking of which, Saturday night was a blast. Got together with my roommates(Kat, Amanda, Justin, as well as Adrian and Steph the honourary roommates) and my friends still in Ottawa(Tony, Nana, Uzo) at headquarters(Brooks res). We made 4 delicious pizzas, and we finally had the bread dipping party that Nana and I had been planning on doing for over a year and a half since the days when we worked at Freeman’s Winemaking(which is where we got the bread dipping herbs). It was a solid night of food, wine, beer, and playing guitar and singing. I wish we could have done that every weekend, but alas it was not meant to be but I am happy we got to do it at least once before I left.

We ended up going to Lower Deck in the Market but we didn’t leave til pretty late so we didn’t stay very long at all. The rest of the night can be described with the following picture.

These are the kinds of interesting pictures I find on my camera the next day after a night of much drinking. I love digital cameras.

Fats forwarding back to Sunday, that night we celebrated the reunion of The House (Myself, Mariano, Mike, Tony and Dave) in Waterloo with a BBQ. What a great way to kick things off.

Moving on to Monday. The only real way to get the ball rolling with the new term would be to have a party resulting in a ridiculously messy night. The house was in full force that night with 5/5 drinking and going out to the bar. We also had about 15 other people come to our house to party and most came to the bar as well. Last year, while totally wasted we made Dave(aka Daveed) dance to Trick Daddy’s big hit Let’s Go. Since then Dave has been known as Trick Daddy. Trick Daddy is like a hidden alter-ego that is buried deep within Daveed’s modest outer shell and can only be coaxed out to the surface after a relentless barrage of alcohol. Trick Daddy is also a dancing machine, a mac daddy and overall the life of the party. As such, I use every opportunity available to me to summon Trick Daddy. I was indeed successful that night.

All in all it was a solid night of drinking ending with a new nickname for Daveed: The Ambassador of Southeast Asia.

Wednesday morning we finally got the internet. It was also the first Bomber night. The Bombshelter pub is 1 of 2 bars on campus and is the place to be on Wednesdays. We didn’t end up going until 9 pm and the line was ridiculously long. I know! 9 pm! Ridiculous! We waited an hour and a half and barely moved closer to the entrance. Luckily though, while we were waiting in line we were treated to some magic tricks by my good friend James Goh from my comp eng class. He is sick, you just have to see him perform. Anyway we were a good 40-50 people away from the entrance and it was 1-in-1-out so we decided to leave. My roommates Mike and Daveed decided to go home and I kinda wanted to as well but I got dragged along to Phil’s(another popular bar on Wed) with other friends.

All I remember was wanting Pizza so badly. So we ended up dancing there all night long and we finally left at like 2:30 am. We gravitated toward the Pizza Pizza across the street. They were closing soon. They had like 2 pizzas left. The 1 whole pizza was tiny! It was literally a medium being sold slice-by-slice. So we’re about to leave and Choo Chon1(another buddy from comp eng) comes to me sayin he managed to get the whole pizza for 5 bucks! So I went back to the cashier and asked how much for the rest of the other slices. 4 bucks for half a pizza and then another massive slice. Deal. Best pizza EVER.

Thursday morning was glorious. A couple of days earlier we had gone to Office Depot and purchased a whiteboard. Not just any whiteboard. The largest whiteboard they had available. 4′x6′ of glory. It came to 135 bucks after a student discount. We tried to fit it into Mike’s Jeep but it wouldn’t fit. We had to end up getting it delivered(for free!). Today it arrived. Tony employed his carpentry skills and mounted it on the wall. It now occupies an entire wall of our living room.

Friday was B.O.T. It stands for Beginning Of Term. It’s an engineering thing. There’s a Beginning, Middle and End every term of the year. It is just a party at POETS, the engineering bar on campus and chance to meet everyone. However before every O.T. there’s an unofficial kegger called a Batch Party at a townhouse(known as Unit 36) nearby. They serve batch(which is ice tea and vodka) and beer. It is always an extremely messy affair and loads of fun. The night consisted of getting totally wasted at Batch then going to a bar.

Saturday morning I had to get up at 8 am so I could catch a 9 am train to Oshawa, where my dad picked me up and we drove to Mississauga to put on a karate seminar. This took up my day and the afternoon. I was back in Waterloo by 8 pm and by 10 pm we were at another kegger.

Finally today(Sunday) I got to just relax all day. The weather was just gorgeous. Had lunch out on the patio of Frontrow, sat outside on a picnic table all day at home, played catch with the roommates, had dinner outside, and finally got to unwind.

This was an insane week but it’s only the beginning. Half the things I’ll be involved in haven’t even started yet. I think I’m off to a decent start though, given that I went to EVERY class this week. We’ll see how long I can keep this up.

Til next time…enjoy your summer everyone.

Kat, Adrian, Me, Justin, Amanda

…and Kat, Amanda, Justin, Nana, Tony, Uzo, Tom, Arjun, Steph and Adrian. (and Dan and Jeff although we didn’t really get a chance to hang out much), (aaaand everyone at Natural Resources Canada, even though I highly doubt any of you actually read this blog)

Today I’m saying goodbye to my beloved Ottawa and will embark on a looooong journey back to school – first stopping by good ol’ Belleville then finally moving back into my house in Waterloo.

Before I continue I would like to bring to everyone’s attention the fact that the Pleasant Interruption crew will now be fragmented completely, our physical manifestations strewn across the globe (or rather, within a 6 hour stretch between Waterloo, Belleville and Ottawa). Fortunately for our readers our quasi-superpowers are not affected by physical constraints and thus we can continue to combine forces to deliver to you pleasant interruptions.

I’m currently packing up all my belongings and cleaning out my room to get ready to move out so I don’t have much time to write a lengthy and detailed post, so I’ll be recounting the events of this weekend sometime later this week when I have time to actually sit down and take a breath.

As I sit here typing this I have a smile on my face as I look back at the last 4 months and finally have a chance to reflect on how great of a time I had here. The prospect of being reunited with all my boys from Belleville alone was an exciting thought but the moment I moved in I was embraced by 3 awesome roommates and I’ve felt right at home ever since.

Another chapter in my life has ended. A chapter I wish did not have to end, but just like any good novel, you can’t just have 1 chapter (in fact, this could be generalized to apply to any novel, good or bad). That would indeed be silly. And so I reluctantly and excitedly turn the last page to embrace the next chapter. One that will be filled with much growing, fun and Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo’s (for The House!). [This last bit is an inside joke with my family in Waterloo that will eventually get explained]

Thank you everyone for an awesome 4 months! I promise I won’t forget even once I am the ruler of the world. You shall all be handsomely repaid.

So long, everyone…and may our paths cross again.