We got death-star

Sup!
I was watching my Star Wars DVDs (thanks mum and dad: Birthday, 2004) and it reminded me of this hilarious Star Wars rap video my cousin Jason sent me. Guaranteed funniness, click here.

Ciao!

The lusts - I got 'em bad

Hi!
Stupid capitalism. Every once in a while (for some reason it always happens in spring) I get desirous for consumer goods. Today the object of my lust is the Schwinn Stingray Coppertone bike.

Damn, what a sweet cycle: banana seat, ape-hangers, and peddle-brakes. I think my lust springs from all the nice weather we've been having in Leeds and thinking how nice it would be to ride bikes around the park in Beeston. My desire can only be described as lust, it is intense, painful and irrational.

Anyways, perhaps now I can get this bike out of my dreams and into my blog instead.

Hope y'all are having a stellar weekend.

Peace.

Easter greetings

Happy Easter everyone. Hope you had a nice day. Beth and I played tennis, had a nap, and went to church (with coursework liberally sprinkled throughout).

Anyways, the purpose of this post is to put up a link that my dad sent me for an online wedding photo album he compiled. Click here to check out our wedding!

I'd also like to congratulate Aubrey on his recent birthday: April 14 (same as my wedding anniversary!).

ps

Today is Beth and my wedding aniversary!! We have lived in conjugal bliss now for two years and still life gets better. So, if I do say so myself, hooray for us.

Peace.

Baby photos

I was looking through some photos with Viv (my mum-in-law) over the weekend, and was struck what an incredibly cute baby my wife was. Damn she was cute!! I included one photo of me because it is rude and kind of funny.

Actually I just found a couple other pictures of myself which I will include as well. Although they are not as funny.

I love this photo. The funny things is how much baby Beth's face looks like grown up Beth (at least to me).

Beth was born 11 years after her sister Jill, and 15 years after her brother Jon. She was the family pet (literally, her parents asked Jon and Jill whether they wanted a dog or a baby!), and she turned out sweet from it.

Rude. Fortunately for the viewer, the glare from the scanner has covered most of my shame. My parents couldn't afford diapers that fit I guess. Either that or I was such a tremendous pooper that they need extra large poo-carriers. (I seem to be trying to make the 'bloods' symbol with my left hand. Perhaps I am trying to get out the door to go pop some punk-ass crips.)

I wasn't as cute as Beth

Here's a good photo my dad took of me flying a kite. My head was so big that when I was being born they had to call in a specialist with somekind of eleborate tongs to pull me out.

Welcome to my hood

A very nice friend of mine named Brier recently replied to a comment I left on her blog which was to the effect that her photos of Thunderbay seem nice, especially compared to my city, Leeds (which I referred to as a rat-infested slum). She replied very respectfully that Thunderbay has its moments, but that she thought Leeds was charming too (while acknowledging that it might be different if one lived there). "Charming?" I thought. "Could Leeds - and more specifically, Beeston - really be considered charming?".

Because I know that I am a miserable sod, and that Brier is a nice lady with good taste, I set upon a walk around the block with Beth's digi-camera to gather some photo-evidence. We live at the top of Beeston Hill, which is the highest point in Leeds. We also live a few doors down from a dillapidated and ancient graveyard which has been made famous in Tony Harrison's poem V. (click here to read the poem, it is excellent. Also it really gives the reader a feeling for the atmosphere here in Beeston, even though it was written years ago. I'll add a bit of commentary for the poem below for those who read it.)

Anyways, upon further consideration I suppose Beeston could be considered charming, in a bitter-sweet way. It certainly looked pretty today, it was one of the sunniest days of the year. Well, there you have it, Leeds is charming, but in a rather sad way. The neighbourhood is incredibly poor, and mostly inhabited by immigrants and refugees. There is a Carribean/African section, a Muslim section, and a poor-white section. We live in the probably the nicest street in Beeston, tucked away beside the cemetary. Here's the photos I took today on my walk.

The view from my corner
At the other end of my streets lies the graveyard, this is the view from the edge of the hill, looking over downtown Leeds.

In the Tony Harrison poem he mentions the 'dead of the Somme' (WWI), here are their graves.

Also in the poem: many, if not most, of the tombs are graffitied, vandalised, or simply sinking into the earth. Quite weird to walk through.
Seriously.
Some street near my house, on the way to the Co-op.

Notes on Tony Harrison's poem V:

• He refers often to 'United' and 'Harp'. These are a) the local football team, Leeds United; and b)Harp Lager - a beer.
• The poem was written during the notorious shut-down of the mines in the 80's (see Billy Elliot or The Full Monty for an idea).
• Ulster/Eire refers to North Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. This poem was also written amid the violence in Northern Ireland.

Well, that's all for now. I really recommend reading the poem, although I'm sure that part of the reason it resonates so much to me is because I live in the place about which he writes, and feel much of what he is saying firsthand. Weird heh?

Peace.

The friendly duvet ghost

This is something funny I get to do every once in a while. Whenever we wash the duvet cover, at some point Beth will call me to help her put it back on. I hate doing it, but she makes it worth my while by pulling the cover over her head (inside out), at which point she sticks her hands in the top two corners and makes lobster-like grabbing motions which is my signal to put the corners of the duvet into her claws. This is what she looks like while she waits (which is sometimes a couple minutes, as I enjoy the spectacle so much):

Hee hee! Anyways, after she gets the duvet corners she starts flapping her elbows (while still holding on to the corners) in order to get the cover over her shoulders and head, and onto the duvet. I find it really, really funny!

Sup

Hi all!

I have spent the last 48 or so hours trying to fix my damned computer. It had just gotten to the point where it was crashing/being slow and so I decided there was nothing to be done but format the hard-drive and reinstall everything (I had exhausted all the other possiblities). Anyways, it was hell. I don't recommend it to anyone. Buy a mac instead.

Before that I was in Carnforth visiting Beth's parents for the weekend. Here a some snaps of the weekend, which was delightful.

Beth and me.

Here's my nephew Josh in a Thunderbirds outfit he got for his birthday. He's saying "Thunderbirds are go!!"

We had a fire on the beach in Silverdale (the other guy is our friend Dan), it was beautiful. Unfortunately the tide came in rather quickly and we were hemmed in by cliffs so we had to make a rather dramatic escape down the beach to an area where we could get out.

Here's me and the in-laws. Viv has chronic fatigue syndrome so she rides in a wheel chair. Graham hates the wheel-chair, however, that could be due to the fact that occasionally Viv will jump out and run after something, to the astonishment of the onlooking public.

Here's me sitting on a bench, looking like a bum. I'm drinking ginger beer (something we don't have in Canada, but darn tasty!)

So that's my story. Also, I finished a book I was reading, which I really enjoyed, and I am about to embark on the fourth (second to last) book in the series, which is a historical series on the 19th and 20th centuries. If you think of me, pray that I will finish these essays. They are hard!

Dead Man Walking

Hello. I watched a very sad movie tonight: Dead Man Walking. Whew! Sean Penn is one good actor, that's for sure. Anyways, I really liked that movie, and I think it's one of the best I've seen.

Hmmm...what else is new? Well, I finished a book today. The Age of Capital by Eric Hobsbawm. It's the second book in the history series I'm reading and it covered the period from 1848-1875. I've now started the third book, Age of Empires which covers from 1876-1914. The last and final book is Age of Extremes which is from 1914-1994 or thereabouts, just in case you were curious.

Also, I got the first edition of my new journal which I recently suscribed to: New Left Review. It's really good and I am enjoying it immensely.

I'm sorry about how boring this post is. I'm up to my ears in coursework at the moment so I have no life about which to write on my blog here. I am now on spring break which means I have to start working even harder as my coursework is all due in a month. Here's a picture of me from my webcam, notice the long hair and crappy stubble:

I'm trying to grow long hair and a beard so that when I one day move back to Canada and buy a motorbike to ride to Mexico with Kyle on I can have long hair to blow in the wind and a long beard to catch flies and small birds. Also I can listen to The Band and look cool.

Well, maybe I'll have something better to post tomorrow.

Peace.

(ps - I will make sure to have a sidecar which my wife can ride in.)