they see me trollin'

Alright, guys, I've told most of you this, so I figured I would just say it here. As you undoubtedly have read, a lot of the recent posts have been fairly inflammatory. The philosophy post, the baseball post...and, let's face it, while I don't care for either philosophy, baseball, equity studies, dogs, a bunch of other things too, I don't dislike them to the degree that I come across in my blog posts/blog comments. I really just enjoy getting after you guys and pushing people's buttons, nooooot going to lie. So, I've decided I'll stop making inflammatory posts and comments, unless it's something that I ACTUALLY feel strongly about, not just a way to get people riled up. I mean, take the baseball one for example...yeah, sure, I don't like baseball, I'm just not interested in it. But...I don't dislike it THAT much, hehe, I really just did it to get a reaction out of a certain someone...and, clearly, judging by the comments, it worked! But, still, I should prob stop doing that, so I will. I still think it's boring, don't get me wrong, but...well, baseball gets a meh/10. I just don't care enough. Truthfully, many of the issues I've spoken about gets a meh/10 from me, I don't care THAT much. I'll still post about the things that I really care about, and you guys know that I'm opinionated enough to post about it/tell you about it...so, it's all good.

Anyway, back to normal stuff. In sports news, the NBA is finally done the first round of the playoffs, with the huge surprise coming that the Memphis Grizzlies beat the San Antonio Spurs. Apparently that's only the second time since 1985 that the no. 1 seed has lost to the no. 8 seed...much less a no. 8 seed that had never won a playoff series in the team's entire existence. The Spurs must feel like crap, but, well, they played like it too, so ah well.

Politics really have been inundating all the social media lately. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, mind you, because everyone is always spouting the message that the young people need to get out and vote, and they're obviously targeting my age range. That's fine with me, and I DO believe that people our age should probably care more about the future of the country. Still, I can't go an hour without logging onto Facebook or Twitter or something, and seeing my other friends post every single link that comes across is just a little annoying. I GET IT, the elections are happening, thank you, you're not the only one who can read the news. Here are some of the links that I've found (and that have since been re-posted many...many times):

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/983246--ndp-support-continues-to-climb-poll-shows?bn=1

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/article/983376--toronto-star-endorses-the-ndp

It's a little unfortunate, in my opinion, that the Conservatives, who really HAVE shown a ridiculous level of contempt and disdain for democracy in the past, will likely win the election with the most seats...though I think the majority is out of reach for them. It's also a shame that the NDP is going to be probably gaining more seats than even the Liberals. Let's face it, no one is voting for the party based on principles....well, okay, maybe SOME people are. But the vast majority of voters who go out are voting on the LEADER of the party, aka, on Harper, on Layton, and on Ignatieff. Harper has been villanized by everyone, Ignatieff has been villanized by the Conservatives (being framed as someone who is less than 'Canadian', who is more American, as someone who doesn't truly care about what the Canadian people want)...and Layton is reaping the benefits. It also helps that Layton DOES come across as a pretty genial, likable guy...and that's what people are voting for. Along with the ridiculous headway he's making in Quebec (not the NDP, that JACK LAYTON is PERSONALLY making in Quebec/rest of the country), the NDP has subsequently pulled to within 2 percentage points of the Conservatives. I didn't really trust the polls when it was just the EKOS polling, but now it's being said by the Angus Reid polling data stations, and those stations are actually fairly accurate, to within a few percentage points of error. Indeed, they're saying that the Conservatives are at 33%, the NDP at 31%, and the Liberals at 19%. I genuinely wonder if a coalition parliament is in the works, should this come to pass next week, or if Layton will be happy just being the Official Opposition. But, as I have said in the past, my riding has always been a Liberal one, and probably always be a Liberal one. I'm going to vote Liberal, like I always have intended, so....well, chalk at least ONE riding up for Ignatieff and the Liberals, haha.

I wonder if the Liberals will dump Ignatieff at the next leadership convention. It's funny, they haven't really had a strong leader since Paul Martin, and I didn't even really think he was THAT strong of a leader. He WAS great with the economy, I will not say anything to the contrary, and before him was Chretien, so...yeah, for many years, the Liberals had a strong party base. Now what? People have misgivings that the corruption and scandal of the past has not completely been eradicated; Stephane Dion happened, Michael Ignatieff happened. It's really unfortunate, but, alas, that's the way politics works. I'm sure that in the years to come, the Liberals will rise again, but not for THIS election, that's for sure.

I suppose we'll find out on Monday, though. I'm going to go vote sometime tomorrow, whenever the polls open...it's nice, the chapel right down the street from my house, that's where one of the polling stations for my riding is, so I literally just have to walk there, vote, and walk back, and it'll take probably 10 minutes, or less. I was going to talk about other things, but, I'll save that for another day. Might as well the political rhetoric sink in for now, hehe.

there's no place like home

It's great, these NHL (and NBA) playoffs have really seen the use of home-court advantage go up in recent years. The idea behind home-court advantage is that your crowd will be a tool in helping you disrupt the opponents. After all, there's nothing quite as daunting as having literally tens of thousands of people yell obscenities at you when you're dribbling the ball up the court/bringing the puck up the ice. Imagine how Zdeno Chara feels whenever he visits Montreal...everyone in the Bell Centre boos the CRAP out of the Boston Bruins captain. Ah well...after tonight, he must be pleased, with Montreal (lololol) being ousted of the playoffs. I have to admit, as a hard-core Leafs fan, I'm glad that the Habs (Scabs?) lost....now I can move onto hating the other teams, hehe. Just a few moments ago, the Lightning also beat the Penguins....so, the second round is set. The second round: Capitals/Lightning and Flyers/Bruins in the East, and in the West, Canucks/Predators and Sharks/Red Wings. I predicted, months and months ago, for the Pens and Sharks to be in the Stanley Cup Final. I also did not, however, predict that BOTH Crosby and Malkin (and Staal, for a large part of the year) would go down with serious injuries....I feel bad for them (and for my predictions). I have since revised my predictions in the East to having the Bruins go to the SCF, so....here are the predictions for the second round: Caps/Bolts, Caps in 5; Bruins/Flyers, Bruins in 6; Sharks/Wings, Sharks in 6; Canucks/Preds, Canucks in 6. Should be an interesting set of games.

The NBA is not as far along as the NHL, having started a little later. Having said that, three of the four winners in the East have been determined: Chicago Bulls, Miami Heat and Boston Celtics(the 1, 2 and 3 top seeds, respectively). They're waiting on the 4th series to be decided: Orlando Magic (4th seed) vs. Atlanta Hawks (5th seed). Atlanta is actually up on the Magic, 3 to 2, so Orlando needs to win out if they're to move on. In the West, every matchup has a team that is on the brink of moving on to the 2nd round. The Lakers and Hornets have Kobe and co. up 3 to 2; Oklahoma City and Denver have OKC up, 3-1 (Game 5 is being played right now; it's at halftime, tied at 50); Dallas and Portland are sitting with Dallas up one, 3-2, and Memphis and San Antonio are sitting at 3-1, with Memphis surprisingly up in the series. It's funny, because San Antonio have been far and away the no. 1 team in the NBA this season, and now they're choking...to the Memphis Grizzlies, a team that had (before this series) never won a playoff game in their existence, and the 8th seed, to boot. It's crazy! I'm kind of rooting for the Grizzlies...because, I honestly doubt any of the other teams in the West can stop OKC when it comes to team basketball, other than the Lakers. Again, months ago, I predicted Lakers/Heat to be the Finals, and while both teams have given up shaky performances these past few weeks, I think that's still possible, so I'm going to run with that. Ah well. I love basketball...nothing quite like the thrill of watching someone like Ray Allen sink the go-ahead shot with no time left on the clock, or watching someone like Dwayne Wade throw down the nastiest dunk on someone's face. D-Wade and Ray Allen are probably my two favourite individual players, even though they're not on the Raptors....man, I wish. Still, one of my favourite moments in basketball EVER is this dunk right here: D-Wade absolutely destroying Anderson Varejao last year. Not only do I love Wade, but I also fairly dislike Varejao, so it was the best of both worlds. Soooooo goooood.

Another reason I mentioned home wasn't for sports. As many (all) of you know, I live in Scarborough. I will readily admit to most people, Scarborough is somewhat of a rough neighbourhood. I feel it gets a bad rap sometimes, I mean, sure, I've seen a few violent things happen, and yes, I've been involved in a FEW negative things (not my fault! Just wrong place at the wrong time), but still. It's pretty nice where *I* live, and a lot of neighbourhoods, if not all of them, have their rough parts. I mean, heck, on my street, there's old people, and then older people. There's perhaps one or two families on my entire street that have kids my age, and I never really see them anyway. Still, Scarborough is awesome. I was walking through the mall today, Scarborough Town Centre, and I realized that if I were ever to move away from this place, I would miss it terribly. Scartown is probably one of the few places I have ever seen such a huge amount of diversity; just walking through the mall, I saw as many different races and religions that I could name. People from every part of the world, walking and talking, mingling...it's strange, but I feel very at home in a place like that. I doubt very many other places have such an outpouring of diversity; goodness knows that while UofT is diverse, I often do not see a LOT of it at Vic. Heck, on VUSAC next year, of the elected people thus far, apart from myself and ONE other guy, everyone there is white. Exec? Apart from myself and ONE other girl, everyone there is white. I'm not complaining, not even a little bit, don't get me wrong...most of the people on next year's VUSAC I am friends with, and ALL of the people on next year's (this year's, I guess) exec I am friends with, so, I mean, it's not something that I dislike.

It's just that, having lived nearly my entire life in Scarborough, I've gotten used to seeing such a huge range of humans being around me, that I think I've come to just expect it. I'm not going to say I've traveled THAT much, but I've driven from Toronto to Orlando with my family more than a few times...our routes have taken us through the southern USA, which, let's face it, is not exactly diverse. Indeed, there were times where we were getting out of the car in a place like Kentucky or Georgia, to fill up on gas/food, and I'd feel as if people were legitimately stopping to stare, as if they had never seen someone who wasn't white before. They probably hadn't, but still, it was weird. I could never live in a place like that, and honestly, I could never really live in a place that wasn't like Scarborough, a place where there were several races and religions. Toronto in general is great for that, but I notice it way more here in Scarborough. I could also never really live in a country area; I think I'll be living in cities (or at least very close to a city) for my entire life. I can't stand being out in the open...I feel as if I have nothing to do. Even if I'm just IN a city, I feel as if there are more options open to me, and I don't feel as if I'm stranded out in the middle of nowhere.

But, those are decisions I have yet to make, and decisions I probably won't make for several years to come. After university is when I have to decide where I'm going to live...and that's still a year or two away from now, SO, I guess we'll put that on the backburner for now. Wooooo hockey and basketball (Game 5 of Memphis/San Antonio just went to OT, soooo, gonna go watch that! w00t)!

the power of love.

Man, music nowadays...it sucks. What's with that, anyway? I mean, don't get me wrong, I like some of the new things as much as the next person...it's interesting hearing a new rap single, or something like that, but all I seem to be hearing (especially from my friends) is weird indie music or....well, actually, that's it. I mean, here's an example of something that has a nice sound in terms of the guy's voice/actual instrumental music: Loving You Tonight by Andrew Allen It has a nice, calm, pleasant sound. I'm not CRAZY about it, but...it's pretty good. Jack Johnson is also pretty interesting, in terms of his music. There's that song, Upside Down, which seems to have some sort of weird link to Curious George...but, ah well. It's still pretty nice to listen to. Again, not crazy about it, but it's cool, I guess.

But other than that? Weird indie music is why I listen to radio stations (when I'm driving) like 99.9, or 98.1...stations that, for the most part, play 'popular' music. It's not that I avoid other music BECAUSE it is unpopular/new, it's just that for the most part, 'new' music is pretty crappy. There are some bands who have attained critical success, such as Arcade Fire, for example, who are pretty new...and that's awesome! It's great to see new faces succeed. That doesn't mean, however, that I have to like their music. In fact, I think their music is pretty crappy...though, again, it's nice that they're successful (way more successful than I'll be =P).

I perhaps am looking at things through nostalgia-tinted glasses, but then again, I just can't get over how music of decades past was so much better than the music of today. If you were to ask me my favourite musicians/bands, you'd get a list that would probably be more appropriate coming from someone ten years older than myself. Duran Duran (they're ALRIGHT, def not in the top of my list, but still pretty good), Huey Lewis and the News, Billy Joel, Madness, Frankie Valli, Queen, Michael Jackson, AC/DC, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Elvis Presley, Guns N' Roses...now those were musicians. My goodness, if I took the music from those musicians alone (and I'm sure I left some out), I could listen to nothing else for the rest of my life. They were supremely talented, and their music is pretty much nothing short of legendary.

I've said this in a previous post, but, here are some of my favourites again:

The Power of Love, by Huey Lewis and the News

Thunderstruck, by AC/DC

Piano Man, by Billy Joel

Crazy Little Thing Called Love, by Queen (I'd put Bohemian Rhapsody, but man that song is long...I still love it, though)

A Little Less Conversation, by Elvis Presley

Sweet Child O' Mine, by Guns N' Roses

Start Me Up, by The Rolling Stones

I could go on, but, you get the point. I'm not opposed to ALL new things, though. This song, 'Change' by Daniel Merriweather, is pretty good. It's still two years old, but, meh, that's still 'new', as far as I'm concerned. If only music was as good now as it was back then....sigh. Ah well.

elementary, my dear watson.

I've read a lot of books in my life, but honestly, the tales and adventures of Sherlock Holmes are probably some of the most interesting stories I've ever read. I have several versions of them, but for Xmas I had gotten a huge thick book that contained ALL of the Sherlock Holmes stories published in 'The Strand', back in the late 1800s. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle sure was a fantastic writer; it's engaging, funny, and very intelligent. I always get wrapped up in them, and they're also pretty short, so you can blaze through a few every time you pick up the novel. I've recently started to re-read them, and they're all soooo goooood. The Hound of the Baskervilles is probably one of my favourite novels, period. If you have never read them, I definitely recommend it.

Sherlock Holmes definitely has seen so many different incarnations over the years. There are three that stand out to me, personally: the Disney version ('The Great Mouse Detective'), the cartoon television show ('Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century') and of course the most recent version, the movie with Robert Downey Jr. in the titular role, simply titled 'Sherlock Holmes'.

The cartoon, even though I look back on it fondly, was pretty bad. Holmes was a cyborg of some sort, and so was Watson, I think....I just remember everything they did involved lasers and being able to fly. It was quite ridiculous, though I'm sure 'elementary, my dear Watson' was used more than its fair share of times. Ah well. The Disney movie, though, was so awesome. Because it's the Great MOUSE Detective, the movie focused on the animals...the main detective was Basil of Baker Street, and Basil had his house (which is very well furnished) underneath Holmes' actual house on Baker Street. We even get a glimpse, via their silhouettes, of Holmes and Watson, though the story focuses on Basil and Dawson (Watson's mouse-counterpart). Of course, where would a Holmes story be without its Professor Moriarty? Again, there is a mouse role for Moriarty...the dastardly Professor Ratigan, who is, as the name might suggest, a rat. Funnily enough, since this movie came out in the 80s, there weren't very many famous people to voice the characters, like later Disney movies so often did. Indeed, Ratigan had the only truly famous voice, with Vincent Price (if you don't know who he is, you need to look no further than Michael Jackson's 'Thriller'; he's the creepy voice at the end of the song, hehe) giving him life. It was pretty awesome, I have to admit, and was definitely one of the movies I've seen the most, in terms of Disney movies, right up there with Aladdin/Lion King/Beauty and the Beast/Rescuers.

Finally, the recent Sherlock Holmes movie. Robert Downey Jr. really has been cranking out the blockbusters since Iron Man, eh? IM, IM2, Sherlock Holmes, Tropic Thunder...soon to be in the Avengers, Sherlock Holmes 2, it's crazy. The Holmes movie, though, was pretty good. It focused more on the analytical aspect of Holmes while still keeping in line with the character who loved to drink and smoke, and who was also a fine actor/person of creating disguises, as well as someone who was more than a capable fighter. It combined fantastic acting (Jude Law was also great as Watson, and Mark Strong is just always a fantastic villain, in this capacity as Lord Blackwood) with a great set piece (we got to see London Bridge being built!), and awesome music as well. We even got Rachel McAdams (yeah, wasn't going to forget her), who is ultra fine, as Irene Adler, and were introduced to a certain Professor...the moment I saw him, even though he was wreathed in shadows, I got even MORE excited for the next movie. Moriarty has long been one of my favorite literary characters, and I can't wait to see how they portray him. I hope he doesn't get ruined, though the movie was good enough that it gives me hope for the next one to be, at worst, alright.

I was going to talk about bunch of other things, concerning girls and all that...but, you know what? I'm done talking about that. Clearly, it does no good, since the results are all the same ANYway, soooooo, I'm just going to end that train of thought once and for all, at least on the blog. I'm sure there are more interesting things to talk about, anyway.

Completely unrelated, but, if you've never heard 'Start Me Up' by The Rolling Stones before, then I highly encourage you to go listen to it. w00t!

baseball is the most boring sport in the world.

Is that my longest title so far? Probably not. But, regardless, it's one of the longer ones. I also decided to get straight to the point with this one, but first, I should disclaim and say that while I think baseball is super boring and is the worst sport, I love the Blue Jays because they are a Toronto team, and I would never support any OTHER baseball team over them, so....woo.

Having said that, we go back to the main point of this post: baseball is the most boring sport in the world. Let's look at other sports first, shall we? Basketball: it requires skill to be able to dribble, shoot, pass. Football: it requires skill to be able to make a catch/interception, to recognize a play and dissect it, to evade defenders. Hockey: well, first it requires skill to just be able to skate, then it requires skill to be able to both defend AND laser a puck through a tiny space. Golf: it requires a TREMENDOUS amount of skill to be able to use what is basically a steel/iron rod to hit a tiny little ball hundreds of yards and actually place it where you want it. I think golf requires the most skill out of ALL of those sports, actually. What skill is required in baseball? Hand-eye coordination? Sure, but, let's face it, EVERY sport requires that, so baseball is not unique in that regard. Strength? To be able to blast the ball out of the park? SO many sports require raw strength; football, to launch the ball down the field; hockey, to slapshot a puck so hard it breaks the glass, etc etc. So, again, baseball is not unique in that regard. Where IS it unique, then? I'll give you a hint: it's not.

Baseball is truly the world's most boring sport. I can appreciate the boring-ness that comes with golf, because it requires a mind-boggling amount of skill. With baseball, however, I cannot; where is the excitement? I can see where people get excited when Jose Bautista smashes the ball out of the SkyDome; yeah, sure, that's cool. Is he going to do that EVERY time he swings the bat? Of COURSE not. So, where's the excitement in popping the ball out to left field, only to have the guy slowly jog towards it, raise his hand, and catch it? Again, I'll give you another hint: there's none.

The ONE area of baseball that I respect is the pitching. These are guys who can throw a ball to within inches of an area they mean to place it, from quite a fair distance away. Not only that, they're throwing the ball upwards of 90 km per hr. Finally, in addition to BOTH of those things, they can place curves on the ball, or spins or what-have-you...it's quite impressive. THAT requires a lot of skill, and that I respect. Everything else? Not really so much. I mean, I dunno, it's just so intensely boring. Sure, recognizing when to bunt, or to FAST bunt, or to steal a base, or all that other nonsense? That requires some skill. The true allure of baseball for so many are the home runs, and like I said earlier, every swing of the bat does not result in a homer; if it DID, that would be sweet, but, alas, it does not.

I think another situation that makes baseball dumb are the finances. Every other sport has agreements in place that allows any specific team to only have X amt of money being spent towards player salaries at any given time, aka, salary caps. The NBA, the NHL, the NFL...they all have salary caps, and there are penalties for going over that limit. The MLB, however, does not. That's why the Yankees are always so badmouthed; because they're so obscenely rich, the Yankees can afford to literally buy the best players, by paying them tens of millions of dollars, maybe even hundreds of millions, to come play for them for a decade or so. How on Earth is that fair at all? The answer, once again? It is not.

If I had to rank sports, they would probably be as follows: football, followed by a respectable second place finish by hockey, with a close runner-up for third in basketball...and here's where it gets muddy. I'd probably say, in no particular order, curling...golf.......chess....swimming....lacrosse, definitely....soccer.....horseshoes....cards (you know, like poker and stuff)....horseback riding.....running, jogging, walking.....sleeping (man, sleeping is awesome)....thinking......and then probably here, after 'existing', would I put baseball. It's the worst. I'm not saying that existing is bad, mind you...I quite like existing! Iit's just that I would rather do all those other things before I do baseball. Because it sucks.

who let the dogs out?!

So, let's see. Madden NFL 12; I am definitely getting this game the day it comes out (or at least, the week), contingent on if I have a job. There's going to be a bunch of new features, most of which you guys probably don't care about...all you need to know is that not only is 12 Tom Brady's jersey number, but now I can play AS Tom Brady, and watch him throw game-winning TD pass after game-winning TD pass in suuuuuper high definition! It's going to be legendary. Because, you know, Tom Brady is a living legend.

ANYway. The cover of the Madden games generally have a super good player on it (Brady has never agreed to let his likeness be used for the cover, weirdly enough, even in his MVP seasons); Brett Favre, Larry Fitzgerald, Troy Polamalu, Vince Young...all fantastic players at one point in their careers, and all cover players. They're usually just chosen by Electronic Arts (EA), in terms of who gets to go on the cover; Madden 11 was Drew Brees, QB of the Super Bowl champions New Orleans Saints. He had a pretty fantastic season, culminating in a SB win, so he definitely deserved it. EA decided to do something a little differently this year, though, and put the choice of who would appear on the cover in the hands of the fans; you can go to a certain site and vote for your candidates. They had 32 ppl, going 'head-to-head' with each other, and you would vote for each battle, until there was only one. Well, we have two finalists...and it's probably not who you would think. You would imagine that the most popular players would be in the finals, and I expected Michael Vick, QB of the Philadelphia Eagles and convicted criminal (he's a reformed man! more on that later, lol) vs. Aaron Rodgers, QB of the 2010 Super Bowl Champions Green Bay Packers, former backup to legendary Brett Favre.

Nope. Well, I was half right; Vick is there, but in the semi-finals, Peyton Hillis, a relatively unknown running back who had a pretty stellar season this past year, beat Rodgers for the chance to face Vick. People are crediting the internet fans of Hillis and the Cleveland Browns (the team he's on) for this weird phenomenon, but you can't help but think this is bad business for EA. In an article by IGN (which can be found here), the author writes how EA screwed itself; now they HAVE to put either an unknown random (even though Hillis is gaining notoriety, he doesn't have as much star power as Rodgers or someone else might have), or a star in Vick...but someone who has been convicted for a criminal offense, and who will have animal rights activists up in arms about having him on the cover.

Now, if I had to choose (I voted for Hillis just to spite EA, because, honestly? eff those guys and their awful games...but I'm going to buy Madden 12 anyway, hehe), I would actually choose Vick. Why? Because apart from Rodgers, he's probably the only candidate in that list of 32 candidates who had any sort of credence to being on the cover (that's a lie, Drew Brees, Philip Rivers and Adrian Peterson all have legitimate claims too). He WAS on the cover before, actually, before he went to jail, back when he was the QB for the Atlanta Falcons. Still, though. He would be a fantastic choice.

I should also say, I brought this up today with a friend of mine. He seems to think that Vick should not be on the cover, if only because he IS a convicted criminal, convicted (conVICKted? lolol) of an offense that is horrible beyond belief...creating and running a dogfighting ring. Oh, wait, that's not horrible at all! Seriously, I don't understand why Vick's crime (and it IS a crime, I'm not saying it's not) is so bad. He didn't murder a human, another one of our kind. Again, he did commit a criminal offense. Yes, he did. He abused the fact that he was a bajillionaire, and lost the respect of so many millions of young people (myself included, at the time), by basically throwing everything he had away. And guess what? He served his time, a 23-month sentence in a federal prison, and tried his best to regain his status, giving one of his best seasons as an NFL quarterback this past year. Still, though. He did not murder any dogs himself; he financed the operation (duh, he's a millionaire). He funded/facilitated/promoted it, but didn't kill any of them himself...and he still served time for it. I just don't get why people are STILL up in arms about this. The purpose of prison (or, more tellingly, a 'correctional facility') is to, well...correct the bad behaviour in people. From what I can see, Vick is a changed man; he's done so much good since being released from prison, and being on the cover of Madden isn't going to suddenly cause more dogs to be killed.

I mean, had he killed a person, I would understand people saying 'oh, this inhuman monster! How dare EA put a murderer on their cover?'. But...he didn't. He was somewhat involved in the killing of dogs in a fighting ring. Yeah, that's bad...but not that bad.

Ah well. In the end, I'm going to buy the game, regardless if Vick or Hillis is on it.

Here are some links, btw:

Vote for the Madden NFL 12 Cover Player

2007 Article on Michael Vick's arrest/trial

why so serious?

No, this is not a reference to Batman...I'm actually surprised with myself that I hadn't used this thing as a blog post title before. I was watching that UBC video again, and one of the songs used in it is 'Raise Your Glass' by P!nk (is that really her name? must be a recent name change, then), annnnd one of the lyrics in it is, you guessed, 'why so serious'. Not a huge deal, really.

I recently broached this next topic with a friend of mine (two friends of mine, really); philosophy. I will be the first person to denounce it, all the time, and say how its dumb and all this. I'm not going to suddenly have a change of heart here, though; I really dislike it. This is despite the fact that one of my childhood friends is studying it at McGill, that one of my best friends is studying it here at UofT, that many people I am good friends with enjoy it greatly....I mean, yeah, you can't allow others to influence you, but you can at least tolerate it for their sakes. In my case, this is not what is going to happen.

I will readily admit that my dislike for philosophy came in high school, where it was ruined by my god-awful teacher. He was probably in his 60s, and he had clearly done a LOT of drugs as a youth. He had been a former RCMP officer, and now he was a guitar-playing philosophy high school teacher. He also taught ethics and something else, but really, no one cared about that...well, no one cared about ANY of his courses, but still. Anyway, he was really just a poor teacher; we ended up just watching the Matrix, and he had this ridiculous system of marking where you could not do ANY work the whole year, and just hand it all in at the end of the year, not suffer any late penalties, and indeed still submit OTHER work and get extra credit! I kid you not when I say my friend, the one from McGill, got ONE HUNDRED PERCENT in this class, despite having done LESS work than I. My summative assignment for this class? Write an essay on 'the meaning of life'. What the hell? I just wrote things about Hakuna Matata and other abstract garbage like that, referenced a few philosophers on the subject of nihilism, and took my 85 in the class, graduated from high school, and never looked back.

But, truthfully, I really dislike philosophy on a more fundamental level than a crappy high school teacher. It is just not practical in any way, shape or form. What can I possible learn from philosophy that I can apply to real life? Not much, I'll tell you that. I can learn a bunch of abstract concepts on what an 'object' is, or 'what time is', or what an artificial construct is. What IS an artificial construct, you might ask? The answer is: no one cares. I mean, I will also admit that I study something that is almost as useless: english. I am majoring in English, and minoring in Political Science and Music History. When am I ever going to apply anything that I learned in Canadian Fiction from a super boring book by Margaret Atwood in real life? When am I ever going to say 'well, damn, I'm glad I know the sound of Beethoven's Symphony no. 9 by heart! Thanks, university!' The answer is, probably never. To be fair, the professor of the Beethoven course I took said at the outset of the class that semester that if we could whip out a few facts about Beethoven at a dinner party to impress a few ladies (or gentlemen), then 'a job well done for him', but still (I kid you not, those were his exact words).

Still, though. I don't learn anything useful from philosophy. Matteo told me that philosophy teaches you to think critically and logically, and another friend told me that philosophy was good because it led to the advent of psychology, more or less. I have to say, I disagree with those assertions. I'm not disputing the fact that philosophy led to psychology, b/c it's probably true, but I'm just saying I don't think it's good BECAUSE of that. I mean, as a student, I don't need to have studied philosophy in order to have learned how to think critically and logically. MOST subjects will teach you THAT; even with my useless English major, I can honestly say I've learned to think both critically and logically, from learning how to write a better essay, to critically analyzing a passage of text/novel, to understanding the deeper meaning behind both the author's words and the professor's words. I've done the same with political science, and to a lesser degree, music history. At least with those three subjects, I also learn something else; I learn a policy or history of a country, or I learn a piece of music, or I've read a sweet book or bettered my writing skills. What do I gain with philosophy? A bunch of abstract garbage that is not applicable to real life in the slightest. To be fair, a LOT of the stuff you learn in university is never going to be directly applicable to real life (let's say I eventually work for Obama or something like that; he's never going to ask me 'What would Machiavelli do in this situation?' He'd ask me something wayyyy more relevant), but philosophy just seems to be even MORE irrelevant, especially in this day and age.

I don't HATE philosophy, don't get me wrong. I just think it's really silly, and somewhat of a waste of time, especially for people to be studying in university. But, hey, at least I'm not talking about Equity Studies. Now THERE is something I could rail on forever; who needs a professor to teach me what is right and what is wrong? I'm sure there are SOME people who need to be educated in these things, but I mean, it's really just common sense, don't you think?

Anyway. I was woken up by an inadvertent facebook message (my blackberry reset, and when it turned itself back on, the fb application turned on the notifications again...so when someone posts on my wall, it buzzes), and couldn't sleep. I feel sleepiness setting in again, so...off to bed I go, once more!

baby, it's cold outside

Is it? Is it REALLY? No, not any more! I feel as if I'm jinxing the nice weather merely by talking about it, but...ah well. A fair amount of things have happened since I've last updated my blog, soooooo, I guess this will be a long post, unless I avoid my usual amount of hyperbole...which probably won't happen.

Anyway, first things first. Class is over for the summer, and New Leader Day (a day where all the new leaders, go figure, go to Vic and learn a bunch of workshop things. I don't think it's particularly very useful, as a lot of work is hands on when you're a leader, but it's fun hanging out with friends/people you'll work with next year, who will ALSO become friends) is also done. I have exams on the 18th, 19th and 27th; after that, I'm essentially done. I'm kind of taking a few days off before I go on a studying binge; my brain needs to relax, and my body needs to stop being so stressed out (hey, I learned about that at New Leader Day! Guess it wasn't so useless....no, wait, yes it is. Just kidding!), so I decided to just chill for a bit.

So what have I done since then? Nothing, really, which is nice. The night of New Leader Day, I got home, talked to my friends in Scarlem, and we proceeded to stay up until 4am playing video games. We play NBA 2K9, and we all made players in the NBA, and made them go to the same team (the Raptors, obviously). Because they're human controlled (oh, and we made them A) super tall [my guy is 6'7, my friend's guy is 7'4, and my OTHER friend's guy is 7'6], B) crazy athletic [all of our guys can dunk by just jumping up, vertically, instead of taking a running start, like real humans], and C) super accurate [they have a 99 rating, the highest, in everything from shooting to dunking to passing to dribbling]), we're scoring like crazy. For some perspective, Kevin Durant (in real life), averages 27.8 pts a night, according to NBA.com. Also, Steve Nash (a Canadian!) leads the NBA in assists per game, with 11.8, again according to NBA.com. In the video game now, my character and the 7'4 character both average over 35 pts a game, and the 7'6 character averages over 20 assists a game. We are, literally, better than the best players in the world...and our guys are 21, 20 and 19, respectively. As a result, Toronto is the best team in the NBA, and we're GOING to win the championship. Unfortunately, this is virtual reality, rather than actual reality...how I wish it were the opposite.

But, to continue onwards, I dropped them home, and then played Halo: Reach until it was light out...and got a bunch of challenges. I'm trying to get my character in THAT game up to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel (or Lt. Col), and I have about 34,000 more credits to go before I rank up...that's about 6.7 days in terms of going solely by challenges. I'd explain what that means, but only one reader of the blog would even be interested, and he already knows what I mean, soooo, going to move on.

Glee! I have to admit, I've been sucked into listening to its music. I'm kind of reluctant to get into the show, if only because I can see myself wasting even MORE time on my computer if I do. I've so far contented myself to watching the first few episodes, as well as looking at all the songs that are currently on YouTube. I have a few favourites: Baby, It's Cold Outside (Dean Martin covers are always awesome, if done correctly, such as this one is); Hey, Soul Sister; Teenage Dream; Bills Bills Bills (I've never actually heard this last song before now)...wait a second, the two main guys in ALL of these songs are the same! I have to admit, they're pretty fantastic, though I'm mainly referring to the guy who sings the main part in Teenage Dream. He's a pretty awesome singer (although the other dude, the guy who he sings to in the Dean Martin cover, kind of creeps me out...I dunno, he freaks me out for some reason). I wouldn't feel right if I mentioned Glee and did not mention the character Brittany; I do not watch the show, and probably will try not to, if only to not waste time like I mentioned before...but, after watching a bunch of videos on 'How to Dougie', I saw this blonde girl as part of the teaching...and I have to admit, she is smoking hot. Of all the women on Glee, she is definitely the most attractive. Yes, I have a slight bias towards blonde-haired girls (I think they're, for the most part, attractive! Sue me.), but good god this girl is fiiiiiiiiiiiiiine.

Ahem. Today wasn't really that eventful either; I played some basketball, some more video games, and that was really it. I helped my mom with some stuff (her and my dad, as of this Wednesday, will have been married for 25 years; she wants me to help her with some stuff for the Wednesday, like setting up a bunch of things. w00t!), and I helped my bro and sis with stuff as well. What does tomorrow hold? Probably a bunch of more nothing, really...I offered to edit a few friends' essays, so, I'll do that, I guess.

Well, this is an anti-climactic end to the post. [edited for content] Huzzah!

school is out for summer

Well, that's not entirely true. I do still have class this week (let's see, class from 1-3pm, and then 5-8pm on Wednesday, and then 4-5pm and 6-8pm on Thursday, for a total remaining hours of 10 hrs of class this week), but no assignments to hand in, not after today! I handed in what is easily the longest essay of my university career thus far, clocking at EXACTLY 4000 words before the bibliography/title page at 9am on April 5th, and then got back my highest scoring assignment of my university career: a journal thing worth 20% of my total grade. My end mark? 100%. At least I'm guaranteed 20% in this class now =P

Note: In between these two paragraphs, I had about three other lengthy things typed up...and then I realized that it was about the Leafs and Raptors, and that the regular readers of this blog (i.e. my friends) are simply not as interested in that as I am. So, I deleted it, and decided to talk about something else...candy! But, moving back to the next paragraph:

Whatever, though. It's 5am right now, and I should probably be sleeping...except for the fact that I went to bed at around 4am on April 4th, woke up at 10am that day, and then didn't sleep again until 3:30pm on the 5th. I was up for...let's see....29.5 hrs? I think that's right. Anyway, not sleeping made me a bit wacky, so I skipped my tutorial (probably not a good thing, but, I dunno, I wouldn't have been able to deal with anything) to go home to sleep. It was definitely a good thing that I went home to sleep, because I was crashing even from before I left Vic. I fell asleep several times on the subway, and since I had driven to the station earlier this morning, my eyelids were closing as I was driving...not a good thing. I seem to recall that I had a conversation about when/if I wanted to have kids, and me not thinking I'd be a good father...well, that decision is several years off, so...yeah, don't have to worry about THAT! [edited for content]

Anyway, now to skip to the candy bit. To make a long story short: I don't eat that much candy. I never really got into it, you know? I didn't really eat ice cream as a kid, because of lactose intolerance, and somehow that translated to never really wanting to eat a candy bar. I did, however, have a few favourites, like any kid. Crunch is easily my favourite candy, bar none (candy BAR none? yeah? yeah?)...I dunno what it is that makes it so tasty. I often will have a candy bar when I've had little sleep/done a lot of work that day, to keep my energy up/so my blood sugar doesn't drop too much. I don't have diabetes, or anything close to it, but it doesn't hurt to be careful.

The reason I ended up talking about candy is because my friend Matteo (zomg first name used in the blog...well, first real name. I guess I can start doing that for non-sensitive stuff like this) told me that Mars bars are his favourite (or one of his favourites, at least) candy bar, and I said 'well, I've never had one'. Well, we went to Shoppers Drug Mart, and lo and behold, Mars bars were 99 cents. I will say they are tasty, but not my thing. Really, I would only say that the candy I even like a little would be Kit-Kat, Coffee Crisp, and of course Crunch...and for the first two of those three, I wouldn't really care if I never had another one again. Even for Crunch; if I never ate a Crunch bar again, I wouldn't die, because candy = meh in general. However, it's still good enough to be my favourite of the ones I DO eat, so...w00t! M&M Peanuts are also up there, but I don't consider those to be candy BARS, just candy in general....but still, Crunch is the best.

Anyway, since I deleted part of the post I had previously written, the timeframe for this post is weird. It's now 7am, and I'm still wide awake...I guess I DID sleep from 3:30pm to about 1am, straight, so I think I'll just try and stay up until I come home later today (class ends at 8pm, at which point I'm going to head home, not sticking around at all), and sleep at a normal time. w00t for fixing sleep schedules and another w00t for candy (well, a semi-w00t)! You know what they say, carpe diem and all that!

nerd-dom ftw!

In the last post I made, I spoke at some point about how people deal with things that bother them, and I said that I deal with things that bother me by either playing video games or writing on my blog. I just remembered...I have another way of dealing with things, which is actually way more interesting (I think, at least) than video games or blogging, which is essentially playing in an RPG. An RPG, which stands for role playing game, in the sense that I'm talking about involves the nerdiest way possible of dice-rolling and playing 'in character' and all that stuff. I have yet to do something like that in person, because I feel a little intimidated by all that stuff, but the anonymity of the internet allows for a lot of really interesting things like that. I am a huge fan of Star Wars, so I frequently take part in campaigns where you essentially create a character, name him/her/it whatever you want, give said character some skills, and then (along with everyone else in your party, who are other characters created by other people participating in the campaign) embark on your adventure as laid out by the Game Master (GM, for short).

It's definitely super nerdy, but whatever, I'm not ashamed. It being on the internet allows for some awesome things...you can post whenever you want, since it's on a message board; you can talk 'out of character' to other players, to plan certain things such as the composition of your party; the dice rolling aspect has been turned into an electronic thing! You can go to http://www.invisiblecastle.com, and create an account, and it basically stores all your dice rolls since forever on your account. That's good, because dice rolls basically affect the things you can do in the world of the game.

For example, I shall give you one of my characters, who I have been playing for the better part of three years. His name is Vil Gaath, and he is a Gen'Dai. Gen'Dai, the name of his species, is a species that is very long-lived; indeed, Vil is over 3000 years old! He's a gunslinger, but is actually quite gentle...right now, the ship that he was traveling on, along with about seven other people (who are varied in terms of their species composition), had crash-landed on this arid desert planet, and he was almost killed several times (one near-death experience coming from being cut nearly in half by a huge dude with a sword!), and most recently helping the townsfolk beat back a droid army assault. Now, he's trying to figure out how to get the hell off this planet, before the agents of the Galactic Empire reach his location and arrest him! All such good fun.

Another reason I really like RPing (or role playing) is because it actually develops your creative writing skills quite a bit, something I am fond of. I have a book that basically only I have ever seen the contents of, and inside it holds about 20 to 30 ideas for stories, ranging from magical fantasy lands to futuristic worlds, to stories about knights and dragons and wizards to bounty hunters and laser guns and jetpacks. As you can tell, I greatly enjoy writing fiction...non-fiction stories bore me, and even stories set in 'real' worlds bore me, too. I think the fun of fiction is that you can have characters whom you relate to placed in these settings that are entirely fictional, that do not exist in any way. One of my story ideas follows this knight who becomes one of the elite royal guard...but shortly after his ascension to the rank he has wanted his whole life, the Emperor is assassinated, and the Empire over which he ruled splinters into several factions following his death. So, you now have this character who wanted something his whole life, got it, and then immediately failed at it...so the story finds him exploring the issues behind his Emperor's death, and I've actually written so much of the story that at this point, the knight has found that the leader of the Imperial Army has fled to an ancient city in the far north, taking the bulk of the Army with him, and has begun excavating something sinister buried deep underneath the snow and ice, something that was hidden there for thousands of years...yeah, this is one of the fantasy stories, rather than a sci-fi one.

I love both, though. There's something compelling about forbidden magics and lost secrets and ancient ruins that makes for a good story. It's always difficult to write, though, if only because fantasy is inevitably compared to Tolkien and the LOTR books, even if you're just a fledgling writer and Tolkien's works are essentially stuff of legend, as far as literature is concerned. Sci-fi is the same way, although instead of Tolkien, you're being compared to Asimov or someone awesome like that. I've tried to write stories that take place in the present, but it always just ends up being super boring. Writing for a time and place that you have no idea about, only your imagination....well, that's WAY more fun! I have an idea for a story that could potentially be a play, so I might try to work that into submitting for a Drama Festival play for my college next year. That'll be a lot of fun, I'll tell you that much.

To go back to the RPGs, though, they're still super fun. I've played multiple characters, in multiple stories: I played Commander Samuel Sata, the officer in charge of a squadron of pilots in the service of the Imperial Navy; I've played Vil Gaath, as you've already heard; I've played Leo, or LE-001, a medical droid onboard a huge ship when the ship is hit by Rebels, and Leo is taken prisoner; I've played Rik Zarel, a Jedi who skirts the line between being an annoying prick and actually turning fully to the Dark Side of the Force....so many characters, and they're all so unique, with their own reasonings for doing things, their own backstories, and their own relationships with other characters. I've also written several stories in conjunction with other people, also set in the Star Wars universe...there's Shoal Zaala, an elite fighter pilot with a propensity to play practical jokes on his squadmates, there's Commander Jerek Dunes, an officer who saves the capital planet of Coruscant with the timely arrival of his fleet, and is (at the war's end, which the Empire wins, w00t) promoted to Admiral, and later on, Grand Admiral. There's also Vocell, a one-name assassin who does the behind-the-scenes dirty work. It's kind of cool, actually; I've been writing these stories in conjunction with other people (the same 'other people') since literally 2007. It's been over 4 years since we started doing this; I think if we compiled all the work we've done, you'd actually get a pretty interesting novel. It has epic space battles, character development, tense moments where you're actually not sure who would win or lose...the people I've written these stories with are actually quite talented, despite the notion that people on the internet are idiots, haha.

I love writing, when you boil it down. I learned to read when I was 2 1/2 years old, and now I love to write. I would much rather write an essay than do a test, now that I'm in university, and I love writing stories. Poems, short stories, longer stories, plays, screenplays....you name it, I've probably written it. My dream is to, eventually, become a published writer (okay, yeah, I've been published in The Strand and The Varsity, but that's not the same thing, haha), so I guess we'll see. I have yet to finish a story from start to finish, as being a student (with the many assignments and tests and whatnot) is not really conducive to writing for fun consistently...but, one can dream.