resolution

I got an electric guitar last week. My first one. A beautiful, absolutely amazing, absolutely perfect black Fender Stratocaster. Like everything else in my life, I feel like I absolutely, have done nothing in my life to deserve it. But like everything else in my life, I will do everything I possibly can to convince myself otherwise. I resolve to respect and honour and cherish everything I am given the opportunity to do, because if I don't, then I definitely do not deserve to be doing it.

Come back, DT!

I've never been one for major holidays. As someone who has spent pretty much his entire life trying to avoid being clumped into a specific type of person, and who doesn't really want to be associated with his entire race (or the stereotype of it), major holidays kind of feel like that to me. That doesn't really make sense. What I really mean is that I really, really like avoiding the norm. I don't want to be easily defined. I'd be a hipster if I did anything more than think like one. I'd be an engineer if I didn't do art. I'd be an artist if I wasn't in engineering school. I'd be a writer or a musician if I actually had the time or drive to focus on honing that (those) craft(s). I guess that kind of makes me a non-committal, endlessly distracted kind of person who's good at a few things but never great at anything. But I really don't want to be that either.

Anyway, that's not really the point.

I avoid major holidays because to me, it's just a day that everyone does the same thing together. If everyone else is doing it, I don't wanna. It's the same reason why I'll automatically disagree or find another side to any widely-held opinion (which, I admit, is mostly when my father tells me I should or shouldn't do something).

Everyone celebrated new year's tonight. I spent it in an elevator, tired and getting home from a trip out west. I knew about a few different happenings, but didn't act on any of them. I avoided facebook and twitter because I know what every single tweetpost is going to be about, for at least the next 18 hours. Instead, I played some music by myself and tried not to think of all my friends having fun somewhere in the company of their other, cooler, closer, more genuine friends.

In reality, I don't avoid holidays because I don't want to be associated with the endless number of people who all celebrate it. I avoid them because I've never been good at making or being friends, and any time a large group of people get together to do something just makes me feel left out. I've always felt like all my friends are better friends with someone else, and holidays do nothing to disprove that. Well, here's to another year.

Akbar Zeb is a love machine.

Dear Blag,

I saw this link on facebook and thought I'd share it with you, totally without commentary or analysis.

Sincerely,

W. Bag.

"In an unfortunate result of translation, Pakistani diplomat Akbar Zeb will not become the next Pakistani ambassador to Saudi Arabia. Zeb’s credentials seem in order: He is the former ambassador to the United States, India and South Africa. He held the post of High Commissioner Designate of Pakistan to Canada and is the former director general of Pakistan's Foreign Ministry.

But despite Mr. Zeb’s impressive career, the 55-year-old diplomat’s name proved to be the immovable hurdle. When translated into Arabic, Akbar Zeb means “Biggest Dick.” In a region that stresses modesty, particularly in public, this could not stand."

"Moon" was a great movie, even My Mom Thinks I'm Funny enjoyed it.

Tonight, on my way home, I found myself and some friends walking behind a sizable group of hooligans. You know the type: loud ("...as a motorbike, wouldn't bust a grape in a fruit fight"), crass, obnoxious, rude, and generally unfriendly people, far too caught up in their own hive-minded arrogance to be of any use to anybody, at least for the night. At one point, they stopped to yell obscenities at some girls and verbally abuse a hipster with a skateboard. As we passed them, they took his skateboard and threw it into the street. We followed in front of them for a block, and just as we crossed the street, they were apprehended by two cops waiting for them around the corner.

Thank you universe, turns out you do play by the rules sometimes.

My very basic belief in life is that it works on a simple feedback-control system. You do bad things, bad things happen to you; you do good things, and good things happen (or at least, bad things don't happen to you. As much.).

Sometimes, I think we loose track of that. I mean, aside from being (unhappily) single, life's been fairly good to me, I suppose. Here's to hoping that the universe will fix that problem once I've got the rest of this stuff figured out.

7am inspiration

every morning, i start my day with a great, fantastic, life-changing idea.

"i can make my life so much better if i just..."

every morning that thought ends differently.

usually, it becomes some sort of romantic gesture: "... asked her out," "... sent her flowers," "... called her," “…talked to her,” “…told her i have a huge embarrassing 12-year old crush on her,” (ie. a crush a 12-year old would have, not a crush that has lasted 12 years), etc.

occasionally, it becomes about aiming my life in a different direction: “…studied art” “…studied design” “…played music for real” “…made movies” “… lived in london for a year” "...wrote a play", and so on.

whereas it’s easier to brush off the latter category as just whimsical thinking outside the realm of possibility or practicality, the girl-related thoughts seem at least… plausible.

either way, the outcome is always the same:

by the time i finish breakfast, the idea will be a vague curiousity. by noon, it will have become an impossibility. once night comes around, the same thought will have seemed so crazy that nighttime-me will have reprimanded morning-me for ever thinking it at all.

(i’m omitting super late-night daydreaming here; nothing good happens after 2am, kids)

here's the problem:

is it the idea itself that was crazy and wrong to begin with, and it just took me the whole day to realize it?

or, is it that the idea is apt (and that it could indeed make my life “so much better”), but it only seems possible when one foot is still in the dream world?

spaghetti's gone cold

today i'm going through my old artwork in an attempt to find something that i can include in my portfolio.

it's funny how every little thing holds a memory. there is a lot of stuff that, at the time, i thought was pretty good. looking back on it though, from two years in the future and with an unbiased eye (or at least with a more unbiased eye), most of it's shit.

i think if you're not constantly hating your past self, you're not growing anywhere.

Curing loneliness with even more loneliness

Just over a year ago, I found a plastic card on the street. It was all black except for the words "EB GAMES" in big red type on the front. I put it in my wallet and assumed I would use it later. I had since forgotten about it.

Passing by an EB today, I remembered that the card had been taking up space in my pocket almost every day for the past year and a half, so I stopped in and asked how much money was on this dirty old gift card.

Turns out I've been carrying around a hundred bucks in video games for a year and a half.

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Since returning to the T-Dot from my formerly gregarious lifestyle of Maritime university friends and Quebecois high school friends, I've been able to literally feel the loneliness seep into my life. I recognize this feeling: I lie in bed until just after 12:00, I run the few errands I've set aside for that day, maybe perusing the city's many ludicrous fashion stores and revel in the disgust I can't help but feel when looking at mannequins wearing silly and colourful clothes worth more than my rent.

With any luck I'll start work soon, , but that won't fill the gap created upon leaving my cozy Halifax nook. Maybe I took for granted the ability to call any number of my friends and take the five-minute walk down to the Wardy for a $2.50 Keiths, but the knowledge that I could was what stripped me of the social void I fall into every summer.

That's what kills me: I know this feeling. Every summer, for as long as I can remember, I spend time alone in my basement, replaying old Zelda games, renting four movies a week, spending heinous amounts of time on Facebook. Wishing I could bring myself to read all the books I've been telling myself I ought to read, only to find that my copious lethargy makes me immune to sitting still and concentrating for longer than ten minute intervals. I get so clinically lazy that I can't bring myself to do something that requires any sort of disciplined investment.

I'm not depressed, just aimless.

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I bought six video games today, all used, sort of on a whim--short of buying Rock Band for absolutely no reason, I figured it was the best use of the hundred dollars. I could feel my summer degenerating into arthritis as he told me I had $15 remaining on the card.

This post turned out indulgently long only because I've literally nothing else to do. (I played two of the six games already; I'm just taking a break.)

Granted, I finished university a bit earlier than almost all of my friends; I anticipate the shared two-fours and Banquet Specials that will inevitably precede shouting "BRUUUUCE!" in a car to Manchester, TN. This summer will not be horrendous, and I know I have friends here.

Mostly, I'm just fucking bored.

There's Something Absolutely Ridiculous About Watching Face/Off In the Library

"It's for school, I swear! I'm writing a paper on the evolution of transnational cinema and face/off is a really good example of...

Oh, Fuck it."

All Hallow's Erev

Happy Purim, Everybody!
(It was on Monday)
Favourite part from the evening:

Stranger: Hey, Buddy, you're a week early!
Thug Wrangler (who is dressed as a leprechaun): It's Jewish Halloween!
Stranger: Come On! There is no Jewish Halloween!

There is, and it has a two-drink minimum.

I was once, like every good yid should be, in Israel on Purim. It was magnificent, my ten-shekel child's soldier's costume served me very well. what a party that holiday is.

We had a great night this week, partying with the good people at Chabad, who reminded us that we too were good people, and we should be celebrating. Those religious freaks. So they gave us food, and booze.
Thanks for the Chocolate, Judaism!

Dessert Tickets Life Enhancement Programme

The very next time you get a chance, take a new route home. If you find something new and interesting, post it here.

Compliment a stranger today.

Take the subway to a place you've never been.


Go to a lecture which is not required for a class in which you are enrolled. Tell us an interesting thing you heard.

The next time you see an old man shoveling snow, ask him: "Est-ce que je peut vous aider, monsieur?" (If you are in an English-speaking clime, like Toronto or Westmount, adjust accordingly.) If he declines, politely insist once.

The next time you give money to a homeless person, tell him your name and shake his hand. Wish him good luck.

Cook something new.

Tell someone you love them. Mean it.

Write something.


Make a quick list of things that make you happy that of all possible lives you might have lived, the decisions you made have brought you here. If you have regrets that make that impossible, consider the lessons you learned from those mistakes.


Learn how to say "hello" and "thank you" in a language you do not now speak.

Tell us a story.