Drewfasa's Blog

2008-02-17T22:26:00.002Z

It's been a good weekend, got a bit of work done today and had some good workouts at the ol' LSE gym while Beth's been up in Scotland for a hen party. At the mo' I'm working on my second pint of Old Speckled Hen, a bloody good beer. I bought the new Radiohead album at the grocery store on Thursday, it's pretty good. Like the last three of their albums, you have to listen to it a few times before your start really enjoying it. I think it also helps to be slightly under the influence. Interestingly, as I get older, I find that chemicals really aren't necessary to produce altered states. Reality is far more bizarre than the constructed world presented to the inebriated mind. At least, it is in London. I love riding the tube, it is always a trip (excuse the pun). Especially on Friday and Saturday nights, I need to start bringing a diary to record the things I see on the tube. Last night when I got on around 11 to come home from a friend's house, there was a group of girls that looked like hookers making a lot of noise, then a really strange pair stepped on. The first woman was quite androgenous looking, was wearing a a cap with furry earflaps buttoned down, had coke bottle glasses, and a bright yellow vest with reflector patches on it, like the kind worn by road works crews. To top the outfit off she had two enormous yellow teeth sticking out, and a baby doll. Her companion was an enormous dragon of a woman with a sloping forehead and close set eyes that gave the appearance of a cave woman. Her ankles were so fat that her feet looked like elephant feet. The hookers went into raptures over the baby doll carried by the road-works lady. This had a knock-on effect on all the other drunks (the train was full of drunks), who all started yelling, laughing, falling about, etc. I had my ipod on as a soundtrack and really enjoyed the whole scene.

When I've got enough money to feed myself and keep a roof over my head, I really love London. It's got so much stuff going on. People everywhere of every language, breed, and class. Imposing Victorian architecture mixed with awful functionalist towers. Crazy traffic always buzzing. It's like white noise. So many significant events heaped on top of each other that its almost hard to disentangle the hodge-podge. It has too much history, it's almost like it all cancels itself out. A real post-modern atmosphere.

I've really gotten into Star Trek lately, of any variety. Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, whatever. Science fiction always ends up being utopian or dystopian or more often a mix of the two. The world of the Federation sounds great. No money, everybody wears the same thing, and the Prime Directive protects a pluralism of cultures that keeps life interesting. I'm really starting to appreciate the multi-cultural environment of Canada. I don't care what the scare-mongering Islamaphobes say. Multi-culturalism is great. No truly free country can help being multi-cultural. And it makes life more exciting, just like living in the United Federation of Planets. Richmond BC and the surrounding area is a lot like Deep Space Nine, people speaking funny languages, wearing funny clothes, and doing funny things. Right now everybody everywhere is all up in arms about tighter immigration. Whatever. I can't imagine anything more hellish than a country full of white Anglo-Saxon protestants. I'd be on the first plane to Abu-Dhabi, seriously.

With the rise of China and India (however exaggerated) the world will soon be returning to its usual multi-polar state, much like antiquity. This promises to be much more interesting and is a very exciting development, a sort of return to reality maybe (and hopefully even more like Star Trek).

Thoughts on a Friday afternoon

2008-02-15T18:55:00.003Z

I hate middle class people. Not anybody who reads this, you guys are cool. And maybe things are different back home in North America, I can't remember and I don't follow the news over there. But I'll tell you what drives me nuts about the English middle classes - ethical causes (ie. fads). There's a few going around right now that I just can't stand hearing about. I hardly ever read the paper or watch the news, except maybe the Economist or Financial Times, they don't make me mad because they don't usually give a crap about the stupid things middle class people care about. That's because it is the newspaper of the rich, and they just care about making money. I like that about rich people, they will pretty much leave things alone and are content to just get on with making lots of money. They have this in common with poor people, who are too busy trying to feed and clothe themselves to care about stupid bull-crap. As for that residual underclass of criminals and welfare scroungers, I hate them too, but it is tinged with a miniscule amount of sympathy, I don't know.

Anyhow, back to middle class people. They have a few 'causes' right now that really are annoying. One such cause is the campaign against battery chickens and the related obsession for organic food and against additives, 'chemicals', etc.

For those who don't know (I didn't) a battery chicken is basically a caged chicken, as opposed to the free-range or barn chicken. Now, I don't care if people want to live solely on organic food, more power to them, I would love to be able to eat solely organic food, it tastes better. However, I can't afford fancy-pants chicken that have been provided with opportunities to express themselves creatively or some junk. I, like many others in my financial situation, need cheap protein. That's why industrial farming and agriculture rules. I don't care if the chickens don't like it, screw the chickens. They don't even know where they are anyways.

Another thing going right now in England is this demonization of the big grocery stores for selling cheap booze. Apparently, this is a terrible problem which troubles middle class people. The poor are getting drunk and being uncouth to their own detriment. The solution: to make booze expensive enough so that only people of the correct social standing can afford it. Grrrr!!!

It's much the same with every sort of environmental campaigns. If I hear one more middle class person telling me off for not recylcing my piddly amount of waste or for not using energy efficient appliances I'm going to snap. These people spend all their time flying everywhere and buying tons of junk and then what time they have left they spend whining about how much they waste, fly, etc. etc. and how nobody else should do it. I am poor, and your carbon foot-print is bigger than mine, so bog off.

Honestly, these people have the stupidest problems - they have too much, they have wrinkles, they fly too much, etc. This all boils down to a preoccupation on their parts with minding everybody else's business. "We already chopped our forests down, but your dirt poor country musn't do that because it makes us sad." Or, "stop clubbing seals" because they are cute or something. The singer Morrissey won't even come to Canada because Canadian club seals, what a tool. Who cares about the stupid seals. I could understand if they were going extinct or something, but their not.

This busybody trend is supposed to be an effort at transcendence or something, but it ends up being just a bunch of loudmouths squabbling over stupid garbage and screwing things up even worse. Case-in-point: humanitarian interventions. These are motivated in large part by the same sort of concern to make the world perfect that drives people to ban smoking, raise the price of booze, and all sorts of other crap that general does nothing but add to the existing level of human misery. Some government starts killing its citizens, usually incited by some rebels who were hoping to achieve exactly that result. In a small minority of cases, once enough stupid celebrities get concerned, a Western intervention begins - a NATO or UN force breaks in to the country, undermining what little authority the state's government had been clinging to. Sometimes, like in Iraq, the government is taken out of the picture completely. Now, instead of eeking out a miserable existence under some oppressive government, they get to live in the hell that is stateless/government-less anarchy (eg. Iraq, or Afghanistan). Now they pay tribute not just to one bloody tyrant, but a myriad group of gangsters, warlords and criminals. Depending upon who the 'liberators' are, the people of the oppressed country may also have to deal with being bombed, tortured, incarcerated, etc. etc. in addition to being harassed, kidnapped, extorted, etc. by local gangsters. If the 'liberating' powers do finally manage to impose democratic processes on this unlucky country it usually takes the form of factional parties aligned on ethnic divisions. The majority ethnicity then sees that advantages lies in kicking out the minority ethnicity so that they can consolidate their 'democratic' advantage.

Anyways, that's enough ranting for one afternoon. Time to start drinking my cheap beer before some well meaning temperance group manages to jack up the price and take away my cheap chicken.

Crikey, I've lost me mojo!

2008-02-05T05:27:00.000Z

Well, it's been awhile since I updated my blog. I was a bit worried that google might have cancelled it actually. Anyways, I suppose an awful lot has happened since I last updated this thing. I haven't felt the urge to blog for ages because I've been on a nice high dose of SSRIs. Last spring and summer were pretty rough. After finishing my coursework I ended up with nothing to do except work part-time at the vegetarian cafe, which was nice, but left me with a lot of free time and not a lot of money, a bad mix. Thankfully I had some good friends in Leeds to hang with and they made sure I never went thirsty (or hungry!). I played a lot of cards and pool, and it was all good until I moved to London in July, then things went downhill. All sorts of things went wrong, we had no money, no furniture, etc. etc. London is a terrible place to be poor. Anyways, with no friends, no money, no job and nothing to do, I found myself smoking way too many cigarettes and drinking way too much whiskey so I figured I better start pulling myself up out of my tailspin, this involved upping my dosage significantly. I meet lots of people who tell me (very innocently) that they don't believe in treating psychological problems with medication. That's fine. Personally I have no scruples about it. Anyone who has ever been on a bad drug trip knows that mental fortitude and strong will can be blown away like whisps of smoke with the help of a tiny amount of chemicals. I'm not a solipsist, I believe in an objective reality, but if your brain is screwy it can be mighty hard to see. If you've never taken drugs, the best illustration is probably the feeling you have when you half wake up from a really weird or scary dream, imagine feeling like that all the time. People who are against (legal) drugs usually point to its addictive nature and are in favour of psycho-therapy or counselling. Having tried both, I can attest that people get at least as addicted to counselling, which is both far more expensive and far less effective. People spend their whole lives trying to resolve their 'issues' or face their 'problems' or some crap. For some this is what the really need, for many it is a total waste of time and money.

So anyways, the medicines did what they are designed to do and my life took a very positive turn. I got a fun job, uni started, and I've been exercising at the gym instead of drinking and smoking, life has been great. Unfortunately, the meds also caused me to lose my mojo. My academic performance has been lacklustre and I knew exactly why it was. So I've had to lower my dosage significantly in order to get back my intellectual fire, the effect has been almost instant. The world is no longer the beautiful place it was a couple weeks ago. Yesterday, as if to bring the point home, I saw one of those sights that really drives into your brain how screwed up the world is. As I walked across St. Clements chapel to LSE I saw a fat man with a white beard sprawled on his side. He was wearing a huge backpack and was quite inebriated so that he kind of flailed a bit like a turtle on its back. He was cloaked in a Union Jack flag, which he was wearing like a cape and on his face he had clown make-up but it was all smudged up and greasy. He also had a stuffed clown tied to his back pack. He was laying across the foot of a statue of Lord Gladstone, trying to open a can of tuna with a crappy tin-opener. Man, that whole scene was just so sad, irrational, and generally screwed-up that I almost turned around a went home.

So anyways, my serenity is gone, and once again life is strange and sometimes terrible. However, I'm getting my mojo back. I've learned that, at least regarding academic work, I can either be happy or productive, and right now I have to be productive - which often makes me quite happy. Also, I've got some raging insomnia to boot. Insomnia is a form of madness all its own. I don't know what it is but at 4 in the morning life seems very different. It's a sort of zombie existence.

So there it is, the blog is resurrected. Who knows how long it will last!

It's good to be me :-)

2007-05-11T12:36:00.000+01:00

Hello friends and family,

well, it's been a hard slog: 3 years and some 50,000 words or so of essays and dissertation, but as of yesterday, it is finally over. On Wednesday I broke a personal record, penning a 3,500 word essay in one evening. I didn't procrastinate or anything, it took me a heck of a long time wrap my head around the subject (the social theory of Jurgen Habermas).

I handed it in yesterday, along with another essay which isn't actually due until Monday. I met a friend at the old 'hand-in box' and we headed down to the student union for a pint. He had more work to do so I made my way down to one of my favourite 'solitude' pubs. I had a coffee and a pipe (something I won't be doing after July 1st thanks to certain fascist b*&%^$rds - sorry) and started reading Robert Louis Stevenson's South Sea Tales. Then came home, had a lamb korma from my local takeaway (only £2.99 - comes with home made nan). Chowed than down, kissed my pretty wife, and then I went and called on my neighbour, and good buddy, Jakob. We headed down to the pub where we met another neighbour, Matt, and we all played cards and drained pints, and smoked pipes (July 1st, I can't believe it, goodbye liberty - grrr) until we got kicked out (the pubs here close at 11 or so, cuz all the Brits are staggering drunk by then).

So here it is, Friday at 1pm, and you'll find me in my pyjamas, coffee in the mug, pipe in the mouth, Jorge Ben (the father of Samba) on the stereo. After I get off my computer here I'll go through the Economist which just came through the letter slot and then pick up where I left off with Robert Louis Stevenson on the beach of Falesa. Then a bit later I'll go up to Matt's apartment and we'll play FIFA 2007 and Star Wars Battlefront II on his Playstation for awhile. Then work at the Cafe at 5 (which I positively enjoy these days). We had so much fun playing cards last night that I think we're going to repeat the experience this evening.

Most of the past three years have been lonely and draining, but since yesterday afternoon I can definitely say that it's good to be me. :-)

Ranting and Raving pt.3

2007-04-23T23:59:00.000+01:00

I'm sick of hearing about global warming, and people who want to 'ban' stuff. I'm really sorry to continue on this theme, but it seems that - at least in the UK - all people ever talk about is banning stuff. It's as if political progress is rated by how much stuff is banned. Universities have 'banned' Christian Unions because they won't let non-Christians sit on the elected board of leaders. What a load of crap. The Co-op bank recently closed down the bank account of my brother in law's church because they preach that homosexuality is wrong. Everybody is so damned busy minding eachother's business, and it's driving me crazy.

The inspiration for this post was a BBC story which reports that Cheryl Crow and Laurie David (wife of Seinfeld's Larry David) are on a campaign to ban toilet paper, or rather to impose a limit on its use to one square per 'session'.

Anyways, I'm think I'm going to stop reading any news aside from the business press. I am just so tired of 'causes'. The long term goal is to move to Montana or Idaho and where there won't be any chance of my neighbours spying on me to see if I am recycling properly and using biodiesel.

I've got to say, I don't even know if I believe in global warming. If it does exist, there's not much to be done anyways. Like I've said before, a world of 6 billion people can't live on wind power and organic food. I say just use it up until it's gone. What I can't stand is anymore celebrities jet-setting around the globe and consuming 1000 times more than me telling me to stop hurting the environment. They should be fired out of a cannon into the sun.

Don't forget - big brother is watching you.

2007-04-20T00:09:00.000+01:00

Sometimes I'm glad I'm too poor to pay taxes. Apparently, in an effort to enforce the smoking ban which is coming into effect in England on July 1st, city councils have been given 29.5 million pounds to hire and train secret agents to scour pubs, garages, and workshops, catching out deviant tobacco smokers. These anti-smoking spies "will have the power to enter premises undercover, allowing them to sit among drinkers, and will even be able to photograph and film people." I hope I'm not the only one who gets the chills from reading that story. Next it will be mandatory calisthenics in front of the televiewer every morning. You'll be sitting in a restaurant and a plain-clothed police officer will bust you for putting salt on your food. I'm not kidding: another public health story on the BBC website stated that "The ideal daily intake of salt is no more than six grams and ministers want everyone to achieve this by 2010". Come 2010, you may find that salt is a contraband - after all, reducing salt intake lessens your risk of cardiovascular disease by 25%. At what point did it become a government mandate to monitor my salt intake?

I hate to belabour the point, but I don't know anyone who has died from the effects of 'passive-smoking' (to use the ridiculous phrase). Actually, statistics indicate that about one in 60 thousand die from 'passive smoking' each year. One in 60 thousand!!!!!!!! I see at least 3 or 4 advertisements on my daily bus ride into town, alerting me to a risk which affects 1 in 60,000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is psychotic! (statistics taken from this article) On the other hand, I know a number of people who have died or suffered very serious injury from automobile accidents. My boss nearly died last November when a 4x4 backed over him. He is still bedridden. Was he a victim of 'second-hand driving' or 'passive-driving'? Ridiculous. Nobody is allowed to get sick or die anymore. If you die, it is because of some abnormality which needs to be identified and controlled. Somebody or something must be held responsible. "It's the tobacco lobbies!". "It's the automobile manufacturers!", "it's the smokers!", "it's the additives in our food!". I shocked and offended my 'green savvy' classmates the other day when I suggested that a world with 6 billion people can't live on subsistence farming or organic foodstuffs.

Another funny thing I saw the other day - a poster in a pub with a very alarming picture of a person caught in a fire. The poster said that "40% of people who die in a fire were consuming alcohol that day". Basically, taxes are being expended to put up messages in pubs which say "if you drink, make sure you don't set yourselves on fire, you dumb plebs." There's a great website dedicate to exposing and ridiculing ridiculous scares like this called spiked. Check it out. Basically, since politics is dead we now have a political class with nothing better to do than monitor the minute details of our lives.

Here's my new slogan - "Passive driving kills!". "Second hand driving seriously harms you and those around you!". "Protect your right to clean air: ban farting!".

You will be happy

You will be healthy

You are being watched

Have a look at this article if you want to get an idea of how crazy this anti-tobacco trend is.

Anti-tobacco, get stuffed. Smoking is cool.

2007-03-18T19:08:00.000Z

Today we went out for a meal courtesy of my lovely in-laws. We went to one of our favorite place in Leeds, the Sahara. For for £7 you get turkey platter piled 6 inches high with lamb and couscous. Awesome. It is a delicious restaurant and also a 24-hour sheesha bar. Sheesha is a tobacco/fruit mash that you smoke out of these massive hookahs (like the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland). It is tasty and immensely relaxing to have a sheesha and recline on the dumpy sofas and listen to Arabic music. They also serve a delicious mint tea.

However, because of the current tobacco paranoia (funded largely by pharmaceutical companies who sell very expensive nicotine patches) the UK is going to have a tobacco ban starting in July. That means that a whole industry of sheesha bars in going to be shut down in a Nazi-style clamp down. That is lame, really lame. The sheesha bar was a sort of weekend safe haven for normal folks in Leeds. Downtown Leeds is a scary place on weekends, the best comparison I've heard was my lecturer who compared it to the opening seen from Space Odyssey: 2001, when all the apes are smashing each other up with rocks and bones. Anyways, prohibition sucks. I am beginning to seriously worry that things like milkshakes and cheeseburgers might soon be contraband. I have no desire to live forever (at least not in this body), so public health should leave me alone dagsnabbit!

Hooray for prisons

2007-03-17T10:31:00.000Z

My German friends in the flat above us were a bit depressed this weekend. For the second time in three days their car was broken into in front of our house. The person broke in by pulling at the top of the door and pushing at the middle of the door with their boot. The result is a significantly screwed up door. They had just gotten it fixed, and the exact same thing happened again. The boneheads didn't even bother to steal anything the second time. The first time they simply stole her umbrella and then threw it into our neighbours' garden two doors down.

This is a big bummer for them. She's had to leave her car at her sister's house on the other side of the city because she is tired of getting it fixed. It's a pretty big difference from what I'm used to in Canada. I remember one day at my last flat I came home and there was a car on fire underneath my bedroom window. My other neighbour also had his car set on fire a couple years ago in front of his house. I can't remember if I already blogged about it, but we had to move from our last flat because the alcoholic psycho lady next door kept threatening to kill us, and was always trying to break through our wall into our flat (we shared a wall with her, yippee!). We had to sneakily move out because we were afraid our landlord would steal our stuff, he had once moved somebody out of their flat without telling them. Crazy.

Anyhoo, off to work now at the veggie cafe. Peace!

My gosh, I hate this awful country...

2007-02-28T21:00:00.000Z

Today a bank machine robbed me of 250$. I cannot afford to lose this much money. I've been trying to call the bank who robbed me all day but I can't get through. I really, really hate this country. Seriously.

Hell in a handbasket: Pt. 17

2007-02-25T18:33:00.001Z

Well, a fairly uneventful but still enjoyable weekend. Dinner party with all my buddies on Friday, and work on Saturday; complete with apres work pints at the Wrens Inn across the street.

Anyhoo, in my effort to recount at least 10% of all the crime I experience in this country, I can relate the following two (three?) incidents from the weekend. 1) Although I wasn't there, on Friday night some people came into our cafe and tried to sneak out with an old lady's purse. My boss, an assertive (but lovely) Indian lady, smelled something fishy when the thieving couple tried to leave without buying anything and demanded to search their bags. Cowardly as most of the English thieving class of scumbags are, they relented and gave back the handbag - saying they 'accidentally' stole it. 2) Saturday morning while I was walking to work, I stopped to watch a busker playing the sax, while I was watching, a little kid (read: street urchin) came buy and stole some of his money out of his tin. The saxaphone player shouted for someone to help him and catch the kid, but this being England, nobody gave a crap, even though there were thousands of people and at least a score probably saw the kid steal the money. Myself being not-English, I followed the kid and when I caught up with him I grabbed him by the neck of his coat and made him give back the money (although he said it was only 50 pence and I had no way of proving otherwise). 3) On the way home from town today somebody threw or slung something at the window of our bus and smashed it, scaring the crap out of everyone and giving the poor old lady sitting by the window a near heart-attack.

This raises my point about England, the so-called 'land of hope and glory'. By and large, it's really crap. The problem is the people. They can't be bothered to do anything, ever. Over the two years I worked at the call-centre, I became very well acquainted with the English national motto: "I can't be arsed". It's what English people say whenever you ask them to do something that might benefit someone other than themselves. Whenever I got a call from one of our customers whom we had screwed over through some error on our part (a common occurrence) my managers could never be "arsed" to right the situation. Bus drivers often "can't be arsed" to stop and let you on the bus (last week I saw a bus-driver close a door in the face of a paraplegic rather than get off his fat 'arse' and put down the ramp. Many people in my neighbourhood can't be "arsed" to raise their kids properly, or go to work, or pick up their dog crap (or even go for a walk with the dog: English dogs, usually some type of pitbull or Rottweiller, walk themselves - makes for a really safe neighbourhood for kids and small women).

Anyways, I'm thinking of designing an alternative flag to the St. George's cross. Instead, it will have a hand giving the two-fingers (England's equivalent of the middle-finger), and underneath it will say "I can't be arsed".

There, just had to vent some spleen. Thanks for reading.

Happy (?)

2007-02-20T16:47:00.000Z

Hello friends. Have been feeling 'good' today for the first time in a couple months. Having gradually tapered off my anti-depressants until I was completely off by December, by mid January I felt like absolute crap. I've said it before and I'll say it again, there is just no way to describe a massive depressive episode, it defies human language. It is a constant gnawing. You stop sleeping, you don't enjoy anything, and in fact nice things almost make you feel worse because the fact that you get no joy from them highlights how awful you feel. I don't know what causes depression, but there is absolutely no way to reason yourself out of it by rational thought, you feel absolutely insane and reel around through your life in a feeling of unreality which is also quite creepy. The most accurate way to describe it (at least in my experience) is like living in a nightmare, it's the same feeling. One thing that has truly amazed me is the mind's capacity for pain. A major depressive episode feels much worse than dying, in fact dying would be a positive relief, I pity the non-believer who finds himself in such a place.

Anyways, thank God for SSRIs. They cost only £3 a month from the NHS (UK social healthcare) and although they seem to take at least a month to start working, when they finally kick in it is magic. Anyways, I wasn't going to write about this because in a way it seems like vulgar self-indulgence and narcissism. But I decided to write about it because maybe one day it will help someone else who is feeling mental. I was struck out of nowhere by a serious panic disorder mixed with major depression when I was 18 and I thought that was it for me. I thought I'd spend the rest of my days in a straight-jacket looking out a window from a rocking chair in a psych ward. Anyways, to my great surprise life has gotten much better, and God has blessed me. I've basically come to accept the fact that I might well be on pills the rest of my life, oh well, if that's the worst thing that happens to me I will consider myself lucky.

There, that's my take on mental illness. It's the crappiest thing I can imagine, but being a Christian helps, and so do meds. Also, it may have been triggered by smoking pot and excessive drinking, which I don't recommend to anyone.

On a much brighter note, I got my last semesters marks and they were all firsts, which really lifted my spirits. Beth did very well on hers too, thank God. I also really enjoyed church on Sunday. I have a truly special group of Christian friends here, I need to post some pictures of them. Now that I have a nifty camera in my phone I will make sure to take more pics. Speaking of which, here are some more pictures I took of Leeds today. Leeds is somewhat interesting for its role as a major centre of industry in the Victorian period. It has many old and beautiful (if perhaps a tad ostentatious) buildings, here's a few of them I snapped today:

Leeds town hall is so massive you can't get it all in one shot, even from across the street. The clock tower on it dominates the city's skyline.

Double decker buses are fun, especially when they whack tree branches overhanging the road and scare the crap out of everyone upstairs.

Leeds city library is also a really nice building with a huge chessboard in front with big chess pieces. I should get Beth to hustle people there and bring us a bit of income. Last year she beat the president of the Leeds University chess club. I've only seen her lose once, to me, and the incident has never been repeated.

The court building in millennium square. They often have concerts and stuff in millennium square, and there's a massive tv screen that's always playing BBC news.

Photo Journal

2007-02-18T00:07:00.000Z

Well, I decided to take some photos on my way to work today. Partly because I was early, partly because I thought some people might find pictures of Leeds interesting, and mostly because I wanted an opportunity to use my new camera. Actually, it's just a Nokia phone that has a camera on the back, but dang, it's a pretty good camera for a phone. It even has a Carl Zeiss lens. Anyhoo, you can be the judge of whether or not it is an acceptable camera, for my part, it's the only camera I have/can afford because it was a free phone upgrade from my mobile carrier.

Anyways, here's the photos. Enjoy!

Here's the entrance onto the high street shops. In England, the 'high street' basically means a down-town shopping area where cars aren't allowed. It actually consists of quite a few streets. It's where you do your shopping (except maybe for groceries, which are down the road).

This is the Grand Opera House in Leeds, next door to my work. We cater to the Opera patrons, who always fill our restaurant before a show. Last week Prince Edward was at the Opera so there were cops hanging around. I didn't see any royalty though, not that I would know if I did.
Here's the Grand arcade. I work inside.

Inside. If you can see the little chairs half way down, that's the outside of my restaurant: "Roots and Fruits". It used to be a gay vegetarian restaurant.

Some churchy place across from my work where junkies and drunkards sometimes like to relax/whack up.

Hmmmm...

2007-02-11T08:55:00.000Z

So Beth has been bedridden the last few days with an awful flu. Yesterday I was at work and I get a call from a very, very upset and scared wife who tells me that she has just encountered someone who broke into the flat through the window.

She was in bed sick and heard something in the living room. She went in to see and found somebody bending over our television. She started screaming (she said it wasn't even in any particular language), and ran into the bedroom with the phone and started trying to push the bed against the door. Realizing the phone had come out of the wall (which was outside the bedroom), she ran out again into the office and called the cops, then me. I ran through town to catch a cab and when I got home I found her talking to a cop who had arrived. Beth still had our big carving knife beside her which she had grabbed, while she waited for the cops to get here. In England when you lock your door from the outside, it means you need a key to open it from the inside too if you want to get out. So when the cops got here that had to search the apartment to make sure the guy wasn't still in here, but he must have left through the window again. They're coming to check for fingerprints and stuff today.

Anyways, sometimes England seems like a totally rubbish country, where people break into your flat while you are at home, in broad daylight. It's a country full of drunks, smackheads, and racists. Beth's fine though, thank God - now she just has her awful flu to deal with. And she scared the guy so bad that he left without stealing anything.

Seriously though, it's getting so bad that we can't even open our windows in the middle of the day when we're sitting in the same room. I mean, sheesh, this is the second time in a month!

New semester

2007-01-25T10:59:00.000Z

So classes finally started up again this week, and they're really interesting ones. I have a module on Social/Political Movements (eg. Green movement, Civil Rights movement, Landless Peasants' Movement, etc.); a module on Antonio Gramsci (Marxist philosopher, leader of Italian Communist Party, Jailed by Mussolini); and perhaps most interestingly - a module called "The Sociology of Death and Dying". This last one is pretty intense. It's all about the role of death in historical and current societies. Some people are already dropping out. I don't blame them, I might too if I wasn't a Christian. The whole thing gets you to focus on death in society, and it seems like it will be darn interesting.

Anyhoo, that's it for now. God blessings to all my friends in Canada and elsewhere.

We wuz robbed! (the sequel)

2007-01-18T17:45:00.000Z

Well, this time we were actually robbed. Or at least Beth was, and mostly her dad. Her card (or card number, we're not sure which) was stolen and the person spent all her money on online gambling.

Normally it wouldn't have mattered, as she never has money. However, her dad had just deposited money in her account because we were picking up a suit for him in Leeds. Lame hey?

We wuz robbed!

2007-01-09T00:24:00.000Z

Well, almost, at any rate.

I was sitting in my armchair playing a little xbox after a long day of essay writing, and all of a sudden I see an arm coming through my living room window. I ran up to the window, flung open the curtain, and saw about 5 or 6 people in the little garden in front of my window. I stuck my head in the window and started yelling obscenities at them, then I ran out of the front door in my sandals and chased them (about 6 or 7 of them now) into the grave yard at the end of my street where it was all dark. I got to the gate of the graveyard and hurled more obscenities at them. I don't really believe in swearing but I think it was a natural reaction.

When I got home I called the cops and they came and took a report. Beth and her friend were here and were a little shaken. They had no idea what was going on.

I hope I scared though people, Beth said I must have done and that I sounded like a man possessed.

Whew!

Happy holidays

2006-12-30T00:02:00.000Z

Hi everyone,

It's been a good Christmas for Beth and me, I hope you, my friends, are all well and are enjoying your holidays.

We have spent that past week at Beth's parents' house which has been lovely. The days were occupied with eating, walking along the canal in Carnforth (there was a beautiful swan family - mother, father, and teenager). We saw Beth's brother and his family on the 21st which was also a treat.

I had a pretty good haul from Santa this year: a couple pairs of desperately needed blue jeans, a winter coat, some candy, soap, etc. and two excellent bottles of wine, as well as a portable wine bibber's kit, complete with shoulder-strap, handkerchiefs, corkscrew, plastic wine glasses, etc.

We did a lot of reading by the fire as well, and I read Dostoyevsky's The Idiot. Unlike Crime and Punishment, it starts of happy and ends up very, very sad. For this reason I prefer Crime and Punishment.

Finally, I had a very good piece of news arrive the day before I left for Carnforth. I was accepted for the postgrad program I applied for at the London School of Economics. I can't remember if I've already blogged about applying there, but it's an MSc in Comparative Politics, with a focus on Nationalism and Ethnicity - my favorite subject. This was really exciting because LSE is 'the business'. Thus, if the Lord wills it I will be moving to London in July and starting classes at the LSE in September. I'm now going to do a bit of bragging about it because when I lived in Canada I didn't have a clue what the London School of Economics was and this way you all can understand why I'm excited. Something like 13 nobel prize winners have gone there and around 40 world leaders including JFK and Pierre Trudeau. The professors there are basically celebrities, and the course leaders for the degree I've applied for are the best there is.

Needless to say, nothing is ever set in stone. There are a number of very large hurdles, and like I said, it very well might not be in God's plan. Anyways, it was exciting just to be offered a place. Hopefully though, things will work out, pray for me about that if you will.

Gettin' by

2006-12-11T22:34:00.000Z

Hey friends and family,

suppose I better hurry up and do a new post so that my last one doesn't continue to leave its depressing last word in cyberspace.

Since my last post I've dedicated serious time to the enjoyment of my great friends here in Leeds. I've had the blessing of seeing them a couple times a week since I last posted, and had some great times. Last Saturday was really fun, we had a few pints in Headingley, and then went dancing at the Hi-Fi club which was smashing. A truly therapeutic evening.

This Friday just past, our Christian club met up at my favorite pub (also in Headingley) called 'Arcadia' which serves up the finest selection of real ales in Leeds. These babies are hand pumped and served just slightly chilled. To most this would sound gross (warm beer, and flat too), however, the reason most beer tastes like crap when its warm and flat is because most beer is crap. A good cask ale (my favourite being one brewed right here in Yorkshire by Caledonia) has nothing to hide and no "pee" flavoured aftertaste. Mmmmm, there is, I'm afraid, no North-American equivalent, although I've had some damn good local stuff from Micro-Breweries there.

Flash forward to Sunday where Beth and I spent a leisurely afternoon once again at the Hi-Fi club. They serve up some bad-ass jazz/blues there on Sundays and some really awful food. I had remembered it being alot better, but my roast beef and yorkshire pudding were totally freezer burned and nasty. When the waitress asked me if the food was all right, I was like "no, it totally sucked, but whaddya' do?", well, she gave me a free drink, so I chose the most expensive beer. A German Wheat Beer served in one of those crazy tall pint glasses that they serve Belgian and German beers in.

Anyways, I've changed my outlook. Optimism has become a matter of survival. If life gives you lemons, you use them to chase tequila shooters, right? I bet someone has said that before, but to the best of my knowledge it is a Drewfasa original. Please feel free to tell me if I have plagiarized it, otherwise, hurray for me!

Beside beer, I have also been medicating myself with the Miles Davis' Kind of Blue, Dave Brubeck Quartet, and Ben Harper.

Blessing to all my friends in the blogosphere! I miss you all very much :)
Ciao!

hey dudes

2006-11-18T16:28:00.000Z

Hi everyone. It's been awhile hasn't it. Well, I just haven't haven't had anything interesting to say. I think another major reason why I haven't been able to bring myself to blog is because I have been lonely and the prospect of blogging has only served to confound that loneliness. What a poor substitute for the company of friends is blogging. No faces, no laughter, no visceral pleasures of any kind. You can't share a meal or a drink over the internet, or a hug or handshake.

I am sick and tired of being deprived of family and friends, and I am tired to death of England sometimes. I really miss home comforts like freedom of movement (in the form of a car and safe neighbourhoods); and especially all you friends and my family. Living an isolated life in another country is quite simply bollocks. My only friends are students and my meetings with them are fleeting and ephemeral, always too short and far too infrequent.

I may end up compounding my misery next year. I've applied to do a masters' degree in London. I don't know if I'll get accepted, I should know by January. If I do get accepted, it will mean an undesirable move to London and the possibility of even greater poverty and squalor. This is a worst case scenario, but it is the default in a lot of ways. It could turn out much better: Beth could get a good paying job, I would hopefully enjoy my studies, and we could maybe afford to come visit our friends and families more often than at present. Either way the future is riddled with uncertainty, which is growing tedious.

Well, there you have it. Life is currently boring and regimented, with few punctuations of excitement or novelty. Although I am enjoying my studies, and am very grateful for the opportunity God has given me. It is not overly difficult right now, for which I must be thankful, however it is not really fulfilling - my cup is not brimming over. Thank the Lord though for passing moments of happiness and distraction which do still occur.

I try to get perspective by thinking of this time as an interregnum between the carefree years of adolescence and whatever the hell comes after university. The problem is that I harbour two conflicting desires: I want to continue my studies which I find so rewarding in some ways, but I also want to have freedom and resources to spend much, much more time with family and friends. Doing stuff I dearly miss like snowboarding and going on road trips, etc. Crunching through the snow with my dog, and all that kind of thing. I feel alienated from my real desires.

Well, if it has not been made apparent enough, I miss you all my friends and family. I don't know if I'll blog again for a while. Maybe this post will mark an upturn though in my blogging habits and I will blog more, however I am inclined to doubt it.

God bless you all.

A most unusual lunch-break

2006-10-12T18:51:00.000+01:00

So today after one of my classes I was invited by a classmate to the Student's Union for a drink. He was an older student (45) and I had struck up a conversion with him in class about motorbikes. This conversation led to the fact that he had once been a Hell's Angel, had 9 kids, and used to live in Beeston. I told him I live in Beeston, and from there the conversation took its windy course until by the end I had learned that this fellow was a former Hell's Angel, roadie for Motorhead, and was currently living in Armley under the protection of the London Terrorist Prevention squad. Since the July 7th London bombings he has been in constant contact with MI5 and been receiving death threats from Muslims in my neighbourhood. There was way more to the story, but more on that later.

When Beth came home I told her about what an interesting fellow I'd spent lunch with and passed on what he'd told me. After repeating his story to Beth I realized it did in fact sound like a load of crap. Out of curiosity I did a google search from the information I could remember from his story: I knew his name was Martin; he had said he wrote an article for the Guardian; and that he was receiving death threats from Muslims in Beeston - so I googled "Martin", "Guardian", "Beeston", "Muslim", "death threat", and sure enough, I found loads of stuff about this interesting fellow relating to the July 7th bombings, confirming exactly what he had told me. Stories by big names in journalism, which appeared in big international news stories. I really can't do justice to his story so I've posted a link here to an article about him that appeared in the Guardian. The story is written by one of the most famous journalist in the UK, and probably the world. The article is called: "The IT man who tried to stop the London bombers." Please read it, it is truly remarkable. The places mentioned in the article are about a 1 or 2 minute walk from my front door. Right across the street from where I catch my bus every day. I've been laughing in disbelief all night

What a truly unusual lunch-hour!

ps - Hehe, it calls my neighbourhood "a poor enclave of terraced housing on the road from Leeds to Dewsbury". Hehe, my neighbourhood sucks :p

My dissertation...and the worst sound in the world.

2006-10-02T23:47:00.000+01:00

I met with my dissertation tutor on Friday (my birthday, in fact!) and we hashed out a topic for me to do a dissertation on. I'm going to do my dissertation on the thought of John Gray, which will be very interesting, I think. I'm reading a book by Gray right now called Straw Dogs. Gray's main argument is that humanism is a secular religion with its own dogmas, based on a fallacious idea of human progress which has no scientific or historical basis. Whether or not one agrees with the ideas it certainly makes for an interesting book. I have read parts of his other book False Dawn, which is also very interesting, and says that Globalization isn't going to be the Panacea that we were hoping for, but not for the same reason that stupid hippies and Trotskyites think.

Regarding the second part of my title for this blog, tonight I went to a play. It was called How many miles to Basra?. I was apprehensive about going to a play with that title because I was worried that it might be a crappy play, that relied on the charity of ardent left-wingers and anti-war people, rather than on its own merit as a piece of drama. The play was actually not bad, and avoiding appeals to the audience's political colours almost entireley. There was one stupid part where the playwright tried to compare the invasion of Achaemenid Persia by Alexander to the US/British invasion of Iraq, with references of "you Westerners" against "us Easterners". I hate that bull-crap. The wars of the Greek Empire are as unlike the wars of today as they could be. There is no continuous narrative leading from then to now, and there is no point in comparisons.

Anyhow, what I'm trying to say is that the worst sound in the world is what I experience whenever I go to the theatre: the forced laughs of theatre patrons. These can always be heard from the same people, at points that are meant to seem 'clever' or 'enlightened'. These moments are almsot without exception not-funny. Political correctness isn't funny. The most grating part of the forced theatre patron laugh is the self-righteousness and "in the know" enlightedness. The tool forcing his chuckle seems to think he is in on a secret joke shared only by him, the actor, and the playwright. He thinks that everyone else is thinking "hmmm, I wonder what was funny? That fellow laughing must be very clever and well educated." Anyways, that's what you get for going to a play that is so topical politically I guess. My brother in law gave me money for my birthday to go see a play with Beth. I'm going to go see one called Wolves in the Walls. It's about a house with Wolves in the walls. I'm hoping there will be no opportunities in it for fake laughing. Just the good kind of jokes, the ones that reinforce stereotypes, or else slapstick. Perhaps with some abstract craziness.

P.S. - My birthday curry was AWESOME! I can't wait to go back. £6.99 for all I could eat of the most delicious food I've ever had. In England a Big Mac meal costs $5, so £6.99 is a bargain! The effect on my digestive systems was exactly that described by Ryan Jeffries: noxious fumes from my butt; but certainly worth it, just like he said. I will be going back ASAP!

My week

2006-09-28T20:27:00.000+01:00

So this was my first week of classes. It was great. I have three modules: Nietzsche; Social Futures; and Neo-Nationalism and small wars. They are all awesome. I have been reading Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy and I'm really enjoying it. It is basically an essay which asks where Greek tragedy came from, and how come it was so moving. And it blames "The demon,Socrates...that logical despot" for bringing down the Dionysian beauty of the original tragedians (like Aeschylus and Sophocles). The other modules are cool too.

Also, last night I went and saw Imogen Heap perform at my university. It was dope. The whole thing was very aesthetically pleasing experience. She was damn good live and basically did live DJing/mixing while also singing, playing the piano, and multifarious other crazy intstruments. She was very tall and thin, and fair and she had a really cool hairdo. Imogen Heap used to be in a band called Frou Frou, which was on the Garden State soundtrack, and her solo album's really good too. It was so cool because she was one of a very small group of artists I have wanted to see and then not only did she come to my University, but my neighbour and his wife had two spare tickets and they took me along for free!

PS, tomorrow is my birthday and I'm going to an all-you-can-eat curry buffet. I don't know if that is safe. Has anyone ever completely gorged themselves on curry? And if so, how did they put out the fire in their butt the next day?

Hope you are all doing great, friends.

I'm a dish-washer

2006-09-14T21:58:00.000+01:00

Hi everyone,

It's been awhile I suppose since I've updated, here's what I've been up to:

Since I got back from Canada I had that awful fllu for two weeks and I swear it almost killed me. I was so constantly and unrelenting ill that I think it permenantly altered my consciousness and perception. I can't remember ever being so ill in my life. It was the first time I've ever been so ill that I couldn't sleep, at all. For two weeks I was sitting in pure misery watching the sun come up at 6am with bloodshot eyes wishing that sleep would finally come but getting no relief. It was seriously so bad that you realize life is not quite what you thought it was and you end up re-evaluating the world in light of your misery and the knowledge that many others feel much worse and that you may well feel worse at some point in the future.

Once I finally got better I really felt appreciation for good health and I feel like I have lived more vigorously since then. I've been eating, drinking, loving and skateboarding with new passion. I've really gotten back into my skateboarding and am enjoying it alot. I have to skate a few miles to the skateboard park but really enjoy the excercise and there's lot of fun stuff to skate on the way. There's a skateboard park closer than that, but it is occupied by a camp of Gypsies. Since they have moved there the place has become un-skateable as it is covered with junk food, rotten vegetables, dirty kids, and all sorts of other garbage. I don't care what anyone says, gypsies are parasites. While I was there one of the gypsy girls took an quad-bike [or ATV] into the half-pipe. The park is made of woody stuff and I'm worried that when the gypsies move on there will be nothing left but a smoldering pile of garbage.

Also, Beth's bosses at the Vegitarian Cafe asked her earlier this week if I could fill-in for some shifts washing dishes as their regular dish-washer is on holiday. So I've been washing dishes the last couple days and its been swell. It's nice to work. Today one of the cooks threw all the rubbish into a cardboard recycling bin that belongs to the furniture shop next door. The furniture dude came over and raised hell so I had to go and jump into this dumpster thing and lob all the bags out into our proper trash-dumpster. I thought it would be quite clean, being a recycling thing only, but for some reason there was about two inches of noxious liquid trash on the bottom so the operation was a bit smelly. Still, it was fun to go and jump in a dumpster and lob trash. Seriously, what is not to love about jumping into a big dumpster and throwing trash? I realize the preceding sentences seem to sound sarcastic (and this one has alot of "ssss" in it too), but I really did enjoy it. It was the end of the day, and I was wearing kitchen scrubs which I simply peeled of and threw in the laundry bag.

Hmmm, what else...Oh yeah, I also dowloaded all of Sufjan Stevens CDs, minus one which I had to buy from Amazon Jersey (at £5.99 it wasn't too outrageous by British standards) and have really enjoyed them immensely. I would say that his album Come on Feel the Illinoise is one of the best and most interesting I have come across and there are some truly beautiful songs on it. He sings about God alot, but in a way that I actually enjoy (I usually find most Christian music seems as though it could be written by a machine). One song is about a girlfriend of his who gets cancer and they pray for her and lay hands on her or something but she never gets better and he feels that God doesn't make sense. The song is called "Casimir Pulaski Day". The other really good song is called Decateur. But there's alot of good songs, and alot of weird songs, which I like. His other albums are really good too, except Enjoy Your Rabbit which is electronica and I pretty much hate most electronica.

Ironically, after acquiring all of Sufjan Stevens's albums, the one I'm most disappointed in is the only one I didn't download illegally via Bittorrent (ie. via the internet) but paid for in full. I have just decided a few days ago that I won't download anymore media illegally off the internet. It's not that I feel guilty really. I was just worried that one of the various recording organizations (MPAA, RIAA, or in Britain, the BPI) would sue me, which they apparently do alot (although any one person's chances of getting caught are still only about one in 10 thousand or so, at least in Britain). So there you have it, sometimes fear of punishment has to fill in where guilt will not. The thing is, CDs cost usually around £14-£18 and often over £20, which is like 50$ Canadian! And seriously, I find that, unfortunately, lots of CDs just totally, completely suck. Add to that the fact that you can download perfect copies of these CDs off the internet for free, and buying ripoff CDs that may well be garbage just doesn't seem like such a great deal. To be honest I think the 'anti-piracy' ads they have over here just make things worse. They always go something like this: "You wouldn't steal a car, would you? You wouldn't steal a purse, right? You wouldn't mug your poor old nextdoor neighbour for their bus fare? Well, downloading CDs illegally is stealing, and is just the same as all those things we just said!". Ummmm, no, it's not I'm afraid. And anyone who can't tell the difference between making copies of copyrighted material and breaking and entering their neighbours house is a sociopathic psycho who probably shouldn't be free in society. Have you ever photocopied something without getting permission from the author? Have you ever watched a DVD in your classroom, oil-rig, or prison? (to quote the FBI warning at the beginning of my Futurama DVD) If you have then you are an evil criminal like me, only probably not as bad. Anyways, like I said, I don't want to get sued so I'm not doing it anymore. I suppose I also agree with the economic arguments in favour of intellectual property rights like those which make it illegal to download CDs and Simpsons episodes for free.

Mmmm....I got to take a nice break in the middle of writing this to eat a yummy mixed-berry crumble, with custard, that Beth made. She is a damn good cook. Also, I just watched an interview with former US president Jimmy Carter, and he was really cool! I am so suprised. I thought all former presidents were kind of lame and stupid, like Reagan. Maybe Jimmy Carter is lame and I just didn't realize it.

I'll shut up now. Bye friends!

What's up dudes

2006-08-28T00:36:00.000+01:00

Hi friends,

I really like my computer. I'm watching a skateboard video I borrowed off the internet and blogging at the same time. Wow, I feel so futuristic. Seriously, 10 years ago I was a nerdy boy imagining such coolness.

Anyways, I had a really cool holiday with my fam in Canada and also in the USA. My dad bought this cool thing called a Wake Skate, and it was super fun. It's basically a smaller version of a wakeboard but without bindings and a soft rubber top for standing on with bare feet. It was really addictive and I couldn't get enough of it.

What else was cool....hmmm...oh! I musn't forget how nice it was to visit my friends: Martin and Danielle, and Aubrey and his girlfriend Rachelle (Rochelle? It's the frech sounding one with the soft 'ch'). I also got to meet my sister's (Dallas') boyfriend, Dan. He was good fun and added to the enjoyment of the holiday.

I also ate steak at least once a day, and Dan and I got to play steaks one night (as seen in 'Scrubs') which was awesome. Dan ate 4 steaks and I tapped out at 3, but they were big-ass steaks. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!! I also had a big 20 ouncer at this super delicious restaurant on the lake called Elkins. Last year the fat guy from NYPD blue was sitting at the table beside us when we ate there.

Now I have gnarly jet-lag that I can't seem to get over, which is compounded with some kind of heinous virus that had me literally moaning with agony today. Yech!! I feel better now though, and tomorrow we're going to see the in-laws in Skipton which is always a treat (the in-laws that is, although Skipton ain't bad either, except that last time I went I was served a dirt sandwhich at the French Cafe and then told it was salad dressing.)

Hope you all are doing well. I need to get my knees fixed because they complain when I skateboard, stupid knees.

Ciao!

Here's a photo of me trying to get respectable air. It was fairly respectable, however since the advent of digital cameras it seems like action shots are always too early or too late. I suppose the trick is to use sequence (aka rapidfire) settings on digi cams and then you will get all the action, either that or just video record it and then make your own still shots. Oh well, next time.

Here's another too early photo.

Because the wake skate is so small (113cm compared with 136-142 on a wakeboard) you can't see the board, all the better I suppose since by the end of 4 days use all the paint was coming off. By the last day I was able to really ollie on it and it was sooooooo fun! This is the best photo unfortunately, the air is not yet respectable because I just got it that morning and was getting used to no bindings craziness.

England is pointless and it smells like poo.

2006-08-05T13:44:00.000+01:00

I just waited over 20 minutes for my prescrition hay fever medicine at my local pharmacy. It really shouldn't even be called a pharmacy, more of a methodone dispensation kiosk/pregnancy test clinic. While I was waiting for my nasal spray and eyedrops 3 smackheads wizzed in and out to take their methodone. Seriously, everytime I go to a pharmacy in Leeds I see at least one or two junkies go up to the side of the counter and drain the contents of a little brown bottle that the pharmacist gives them.

The sidewalks and streets are basically covered in rubbish, beer cans, take away boxes, vomit, old chips, etc. Seriously, I don't even notic puke anymore but there's always a couple fresh ones when I walk to the store. Right now my street smells like a garbage fire too because someone set a construction skip on fire like two weeks ago and it still hasn't been cleaned away - smelly melted plastic and stuff smeared all over the street and sidewalk. On any given Sunday morning if Beth and I walk through the community-regeneration park there will be drunks passed out everywhere. We always see people peeing, no matter what time of day it is. Seeing people barfing their guts out is also quite common, and we don't go out at night so I'm talking morning/afternoon.

On the way to the pharmacy I watched some little girl get chased around by 3 dogs (her dad was with her so I didn't feel I could intervene). In England the rule is as follows: the poorer you are, the more mean, huge dogs you get and the more you let them run around 24/7 rampaging through the neighbourhood. At our last house Beth got chased a number of times by two very mean Rottweillers that often ran wild around our streets. I called they cops and they were like 'ya, we don't care unless they bite her.' Another bonus of this situation is having dog-crap everywhere to complement the beer cans etc.

Another telling anecdote: a couple days ago Beth and I were walking to the Co-op and saw two lads who looked at least 20 running around the graveyard, bare chested and throwing pieces of broken tombstones at eachother as if it was a game of dodgeball.

To top it all off I can't get a summer job 'cuz the economy sucks and the only jobs available are long-term (1 year min) contracts for call centres. The temp agencies won't even look at my resume becaue they are all overstaffed and I can't even do what I did in Canada when I needed easy cash - temp at warehouses, moving companies, labour, whatever - because the jobs simply aren't there and even the ones that are require a special certification. I'm not sure what this certification consists of ('How to tie you steel-toed boot laces; why you shouldn't stick high-pressure air hoses up your mate's rear-end; etc.').

Anyways, whatever you do don't ever move here unless you are rich. And even there doesn't seem like much point because you will be much richer if you stay in Canada because the ppp (purchasing power parity) sucks in England (which means that even after allowing for exchange rates, your money still doesn't go as far, and that is really saying something because the exchange rate is usually about 2.2$CAD to £1GBP).

One thing I've learned is why poor people vote conservative. It's really easy to be a soft-hearted liberal when you live in a gated community, but when you live in this rat-infested heck-hole (hehe, heck-hole) you just want a govenrment that will throw your smackhead, dog pooping, street barfing neihbours in jail and kick out crazy imams from Pakistan that hate England yet continue to move here. I should say that I don't think there's that many of them (there may be, but I would prefer to err on the side of caution) but this neighbourhood has produced a disproportionate amount of insane Islamic crazies (the redundant adjectives are necessary to describe the level of craziness), have I mentioned that those guys who plotted to chop off our Canadaian Prime Minister's head were mentored by a guy from my neighbourhood? And most of you I think know how the July 7th London bombers were from just around the corner, literally a stone's throw away from our house.

By the way, regarding this whole Israel Lebannon thing, Israel is obviously guilty of a war-crime here having basically destroyed an entire country, and they are unlikely to do much in the way of a 'Martial plan' to rebuild it, but seriously, what a bunch of dunder-heads hezbollah are too! They have sacrificed their entire country and have gained nothing but notoriety from sane people and street-cred with other muslims crazies. What a bunch of nutters they are.

Anyhoo, I'll tell you one thing that's for dern sure: I'm stroking and cherishing my Canadian passport like you wouldn't believe. I mean me and my wife are OUTTAHERE as soon as we finish these educations we've started, I'm serious dudes! Yikes!!

Just needed to say this stuff, thanks for listening. Beth and I are doing good though, and we're coming to Canada tomorrow! Yippee!

Bye! :p

P.S. - Beth's brand new (one day old) digital camera and ten pounds got stolen out of her bag when she was at a coffee shop yesterday. I blame the smackheads (although they may not be to blame).

Welcome to MacJournal!

2006-08-04T23:09:00.000+01:00

Big fat update

2006-07-06T12:46:00.000+01:00

Hey dudes and dudesses,

I all of a sudden had the urge to blog stuff so here goes.

Since I last wrote a number of things happened which are only of minor interest to anyone but myself but immensely interesting to me. For instance:

9 days after I bought my new ibook back in May (my Sony laptop died an ignominious death while I was scrambling to finish my final essays) Apple discontinued it and released a newer, better one in its place. I tried to make them take my ibook back and give me a newer, cooler one. They told me to screw off. Flash forward to mid-or-late June and I am still complaining to a friend who indirectly encouraged me to try again. Her idea didn't work, but I once again started harrasing the store I bought it from. My saving grace came from the fact that the ibook I had purchased was a bit wobbly when sitting on a table or surface, like a bad table leg that you need to put a coaster under.

Long story short, I used my constitutional rights and wrote a bunch of threatening emails to KRCS Apple Centre and finally, after taking my ibook to the Apple engineers and finding that it was indeed outside of Apple's product tolerances KRCS humbly gave me what I wanted, a sexy new Macbook, with widescreen, built-in web cam, 20GB larger hard-drive (60GB total) and the new intel duo processor. Score 1 for me.

The next cool thing was this. The new Macs with Intel processors let you run Windows XP as well as Mac OS using this free software you download from Apple. The only thing is that you need to have a non-OEM XP installation disk that includes Service Pack 2. I actually had my own non-OEM disk, but it only had Service Pack 1. D'oh! However, I amazed myself (and no-one else unfortunately) by finding out a way to slipstream a downloaded Service Pack 2 into my Windows XP disk and create a fully-bootable Windows XP disk which included Service Pack 2, saving myself over £100 and allowing myself to install Windows XP on my Mac! Seriously, it was some complicated crap. And probably the most complicated, bonafide-computer-geeky thing I've ever accomplish. Score another for Drew.

Also, my sister Dallas came out and we got to chill with her for a week which was super-dope. It was so fun to sit with her in Hyde Park (Leeds, not London) on a 30c day drinking beer and watching the skaters (that's right, in other non-puritan countries you can sit in the park and drink your beer and no morality-enforcers pester you while you're trying to enjoy a cold-one in the park!). Totally awesome week.

I just finished the book War and Peace last night, which was no small accomplishment. It is a 1443 page bohemoth of a book. It's really good though and super educational, I learnt lots about the wars between Russia and Napoleon, and Tolstoy adds alot of his own philosphy and theories of history. Totally excellent book.

And today I've started a new book which I bought from the Economist book shop: Economics - Making Sense of the Modern Economy. It is a totally awesome book that explains anything and everything a person needs to know about global economics in a really interesting and exciting way. If you read this book you will be able to answer back to stupid hippies who constantly regurgitate lines from the one book they read about "the cor-po-ray-shunsss, maaaan" and tell them why they are just ignorant and stupid hippies who should drink less fair-trade coffee and read a newspaper (not that I have anything against fairtrade coffee [but I do hate hippies]).

Another happy thing - I got my marks back a couple weeks ago for my second year modules and they positively rocked!! Let me now apologize for the bragging I have just done and am about to continue doing...sorry. Anyhoo, I got such high marks I couldn't believe it and I have been riding high on that ever since. I have never put so much work into something and it is the first time I've felt really good at something. Here's a scan of my report card so that you all can see it too! (click to enlarge:)

It might not look like much by Canadian standards of marking, but the UK grading system works like this: a mark between 40%-49% is a pass; 50%-59% is a 2.2; 60%-69% is a 2.1; and anything over 70% is 1st. A 2.1 is what you need to get a good job or to get into post-grad programs, most people get 2.2s. A 1st is said to be publishable. I'll stop my bragging short here, please forgive me, I've just never had grades I could show my parents before :)

That basically brings us up to present where I am now desperately trying to find a job and pay my bills. I have handed out so many resumes, emailed so many resumes, and looked through so many webpages and newspapers and all to no avail so far. You rich Calgarians don't know how lucky you are to live in the fastest growth area in North America (according to the Ecnomist) with high-wages and low unemployment. People here won't even take my resume: they all say they have too many employees and not enough work. Boo-urns.

Beth managed to find a job (she applied to loads of places too, and only one place called her back) working at a vegetarian restaurant downtown part-time, so good for her.

Hope you are all doin' fab, my friends.

-Ciao!

News

2006-06-10T23:13:00.000+01:00

Came home yesterday afternoon from a little five day trip to Milan. We were staying with our friend Lucy, who is a wonderful lady and was doing a semester abroad there. It was a really nice week, spent eating pastries, drinking espressos, and a little bit of beer. I even got a bit of culture, the night we arrived we attended a free pianon concert at a conservatory in downtown Milan and it was totally awesome. I also attended the opening of an exhibition in which two of Lucy friends had pieces. I really hate modern art. It seems to totally reject any notion of objective evaluation. Previously I had hated modern art (maybe I should say post-modern) because I thought that at the very least a University educated person (in a subject other than art) should be able to understand and discuss the work. However, I was suprised to find that the insane (and utterly pointless) level of subjectivity that artists now work on means that even the 3rd year art students (who are very good students who get top marks) could not understand, engage with, or discuss the work being displayed on a meaningful level. I can't see how anyone could have actually enjoyed it or found anything to appreciate unless they were a self-deceiving, pretentious fart-head.

Fortunately that was only 10 minutes of a wonderful week. I meant a few very nice people, and got to know our friend Lucy better and appreciate what an excellent lady she is.

Milan is crazy, everyone rides bikes that were designed in the 1930s that make you sit up totally straight and people cruise by on Vespas with long cigarettes hanging out their mouths and leather briefcases between their legs. I won't bore the reader with anymore details, but I have posted a boatload of pictures at http://web.mac.com/drewfasa which are really nice actually.

I hope you my friends are doing well and enjoying life.

Ciao!

Sup homies

2006-06-02T21:24:00.000+01:00

Hi everyone. Beth and I have just gotten back from a little holiday and I have a few interesting things to say and some pictures too. We left on Saturday for Carnforth and visited the in-laws, which is always really nice and relaxing. Beth's parents are really laid back and we all enjoy each other a lot.

On Tuesday we went up to the lake district because Beth had a voucher for a free night at a hotel. It was super cool and the weather was great. We walked all around, rode some open-top buses and ate lots of yummy food.

Then on Wednesday I came down sick on our way back to the Stamford's which was a bummer, I'm still feeling like crap now. We stayed with Graham and Viv for a couple days more which was really fun.

Anyhoo, here are some photos. Also, two more short things: I finished reading Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, and as a result all books will now seem crummy in comparison. It is by far the best book I have ever read, and I can't imagine it possible to write a better book. It is so good...well, its just really good. I also read The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway (I decided to read it after some earlier blogging activity) however it seemed like absolute crap after Crime and Punishment. Upon reflection though it was probably an okay book, not great, but so-so. I was a little disappointed with the Nobel committee who decided it deserved an award for literature, but after all, Henry Kissinger won a Nobel peace prize so perhaps Nobel prizes are stupid (Kissinger was one of the main architects of the Vietnam War). Anyways, I'm reading John Milton's Paradise Lost now and we'll see how that goes.

The second thing is that I watched most of the first season of Scrubs over the week and really liked it, Beth and I both enjoyed it.

Well, I feel like death as my sicky-ness is being compounded with deadly hay-fever right now so I'm going to go away. But before I do, here's some photos. Oh, and also, Kyle, if you're reading this, turn off comment moderation on your blog maybe, nobody can leave you comments and it makes us sad.

Lambs are really funny, when I come to Canada I'm going to bring lambs (no sheep though).I'm quite proud of this picture I took of Beth.

I rowed my bride around this little lake near the grave of William Wordsworth. It's cool because he totally did the same thing I bet. I don't know why I have the sour face though, I really enjoyed it.
Here's Beth enjoying her ride.
Here's a swan we saw on the lake.
Here's a picture we took on a hike behind our hotel.
Here's a funny little dog we saw on the same hike. His owners took him camping out along the ridges of the hills and made him carry his own food. He was really sure footed for a little terrier, and it made me laugh.
Here we are on the open top bus on our way home.

USA is so gay *WARNING - RANT ALERT!!! SOME READERS MAY BE OFFENDED.

2006-05-26T02:29:00.000+01:00

Well, I think it's finally time. We've all known it for a while now, it's been on everyone's mind for ages. I'm talking about the United States. It's full of a lot of really nice people and we all have many friends there, but it's time to disband the United States of America. The majority of the planet rightly sees this country as the planet's most serious threat to peace and international stability. Case in point, besides all sorts of hints and allegations regarding new governments in South America and their 'revolutionary' ideas (even if it does turn out to be empty rhetoric) about using their oil wealth to help their own citizens instead of US shareholders, some numb-nuts video game company has just released a new game ('mercenaries:II') based on the not-at-all farfetched scenario of a US invasion of Venezuela.

Perhaps it would not have caused such a stir if the game had come out of a less bellicose country, and if Pat Robertson, the leader of America's biggest lobbying group - the Christian Coalition - had not been recently heard on national christian radio calling for the assassination of Venezuela's democratically elected president (wanker!!). I'm sure, for instance, that residents of Nicaragua would fail to see the innocence of such a game (seeing as their population still hasn't regained its pre-Reagan levels after he punished them for electing the wrong government).

Anyways, because everytime I read the news I get P.O.'d, and I'm totally sick of it- because hating the USA is cliched and facile (yet I still can't help it), I've decided that the simplest thing to do is just break the country up into its fifty component states (Hawaii will become independent, and Alaska will join Canada as it will make our map nicer; the territories stolen from Mexico will be returned, thus solving any so-called 'immigration' problems).

Like I said, anti-Americanism is stupid (although understandble if you have been or are currently being invaded or are facing the prospect of invasion). However, since I find it so difficult to overcome these feelings, I feel it will be easier to disband the country in question, thus eliminating the possibility of feeling 'anti' it.

The easiest way to put my plan into action would probably be (to take a well-read page from the CIA's protocol book) to arm a group of religious fanatics so they can overthrow the government and impose a state of general chaos a-la-Afghanistan. (The prime candidates would likely be Christian fundementalists of the Pat Robertson variety who would jump at the chance to begin stoning homosexuals and bombing abortion clinics with the aim of a return to the dark ages. Heliocentric astronomy would be banned, to say nothing of evolutionary theory or other subversive sciences.)

Well, I think I've worn myself out....seriously though....I need to find a newspaper that will just tell me that everything is okay. I think they sell USA Today at the train station...d'oh!! there I go again!

With a view to equality I should mention that if the USA is to be disbanded then its only fair that all other countries disband as well, which is fine by me and will prevent any further immigration difficulties to myself and numerous others. However, many (if not all) will not share my eccentric anarchist's point of view as this will make international hockey tournaments less exciting (although in light of Canada's recent performance at the Turin Olympics it may be an attractive idea after all!)

P.S. My good wife has rightly pointed out that, myself being an anarchist, I shouldn't use the word 'anarchy' in its pejorative sense "...general anarchy a-la-Afghanistan...". I have therefore replaced it with the word 'chaos', so as not to defeat my own cause.

Update

2006-05-20T01:10:00.000+01:00

Hi. Thought I might as well update the ol' blog, these things don't look after themselves now, do they? Well, let's see...on Wednesday morning when I woke up I was greeted with the news that Apple has just discontinued my laptop and replaced it with one about 10 times better. D'oh!!! I put mine back in its box and went to the store where I bought it: "I would like a refund please." Long story short they told me to get out before they released the hounds. Now I know that computers are known for becoming so quickly obsolete, but dang man! I have my new shiny machine for nine days and then suddenly 'BAM', Apple turfs it and I'm back to being the caveman I was 10 days ago. I feel like Charlie Brown, "good grief".

Oh well, I'm back to enjoying my shiny obsolete laptop and Apple can just take their new stuff and sell it to someone else. After the episode at Apple I met up with Ben and we once again had a couple beers and smoked cuban cigars. You may be thinking I am a bit samey, but I invite you to come to Leeds and find a better way to distract yourself (an interesting side note, I read recently in the Guardian that individuals who study in Leeds are more likely than anyone else in the UK to become 'goths'). Anyhoo, I went home, had a kip (ie. nap) on the couch, and was off again with my friend Tom to see this comedian called Dylan Moran. We had some pasta and then went to the Leeds City Varieties, which is where said comedian was doing his bit. He was an Irish guy and he spoke in a way that reminded me of Sideshow Bob from the Simpsons. He was actually quite funny, which is rare among comedians, at least the ones I've seen. Apparently Dylan Moran is quite famous and was in the movie Shaun of the Dead, if that movie even made it over the pond to N. America.

I've also been trying to find a job, however Leeds basically consists of call centres and fast food kiosks so finding something new is proving tricky. The task has been made all the more difficult by the wave of depression that has rolled in these past few weeks. May is always a hard month for me (I have no idea why) and as I have cut the dose of my prescription by over two-thirds since last May, I have not been suprised at the "black dog's" sudden appearance or its decision to stay and hang out for a while. "Good boy, sit...stay."

Fortunately I have a wonderful wife and enjoy a life of relative comfort and affluence compared to the majority of the planet's residents, or so I have been told. I play tennis, read, and have discovered an internet jazz station that is pretty good, besides playing the occasional song that is completely insane (in the song which just played a guy shouted "Pyramids!! Pyramids!!" While his band tried in vain to tune their instruments or empty their spit-valves or something). One thing that I do (I imagine most people with less-than-optimal mental health do this as well) is think about other historical figures who were/are depressed. "Hemingway was depressed! Maybe that's why he was so cool!" (although I am patently not Hemingway, and he killed himself - hmmm...someone more encouraging perhaps.)

Well, on that melancholy note, adios! Don't worry though, I'm in good hands.

hi

2006-05-16T18:00:00.000+01:00

Hello again. Not much to report I'm afraid but that seems to be the way of things for most people right now. I did indeed go and have a few beers on Friday after handing in the last assignment, a beer which was complimented nicely by the Cuban cigars my friend Ben brought along. Went to my favorite pub last night too with Beth and we read together. It is a super pub because it has the best hand-pumped ales in Leeds and there's no smoking or students (besides us). It is all nice hardwoods and there's old hippies and Yorkshiremen who bring their dogs which sleep at their feet while they do the crossword. It has been a Sunday night ritual for a year or so now (after 2.50£ pizza at gangster's little bistro) and yeah, it's fun.

Anyways, I have nothing worthy of writing to mention really, but I will be coming to Calgary in the first week of august and will have a party with punch and pie. Or something. I better stop now before anyone gets too bored.

Bye!

Hello!

2006-05-12T10:45:00.000+01:00

Hi everybody. I am officially back from the dead. For the last 4+ weeks I've been manically putting together my coursework for assessment: seven pieces, 18 thousand or so words, 5 of which are due today (one was due Wednesday, and one a couple weeks ago). Throughout it all I have crossed over the brink of insanity many times. My previous laptop is no longer with us (well, it is, but it is basically a vegetable), and I am now on a nice new computer that works. These computer problems were only resolved within the last few days though and added considerable stress to an already stressful past few weeks.

In a couple hours I will go drop a stack of assignments, 5 months intense effort on paper, and then probably wander around feeling aimless and disoriented, at which point I will see who else has made it to the Union bar and have a beer or two.

I think it will take a few days now to get my life back. I don't remember what it is like to think about things other than theoretical academic problems. I will also have to learn to get to sleep before 3am.

Anyways, I will probably use this blog to chart my return to normality and (possibly) sanity. I'll tell you one thing though, I'm liking this new apple computer, mac os really kicks windows butt. I think my favorite part is that it works (for now at least, fingers crossed).

I'm looking forward to getting back in touch with all my friends (you guys) and reading all your blogs, which I haven't been able to do for a while now.

God bless.

Drew

We got death-star

2006-04-19T00:48:00.000+01:00

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

2006-04-17T22:24:00.000+01:00

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

2006-04-16T21:44:00.000+01:00

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

2006-04-14T23:27:00.000+01:00

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

2006-04-13T21:31:00.000+01:00

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

2006-04-13T19:51:00.000+01:00

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

2006-04-13T19:41:00.000+01:00

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

2006-04-12T22:52:00.000+01:00

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

2006-04-01T23:03:00.000+01:00

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.)

ps

2006-03-25T19:30:00.000Z

Beth has told me that I should say something nice about Christians, and since Beth knows best, I will.

Christians are the nicest people available and my best friends are exclusively Christians. The individuals of the very highest quality are Christians and if they did not exist they would have to be invented. I just have the following issues with us:

1) Christians should stop caring about gay-marriage and abortion until we have taken care of war, poverty, injustice, and ignorance.

2) Creationism should not be snuck into classrooms under the dubious auspices of intelligent design. The world is not 6,000 years old. Sorry, it's just not.

3) Christians should not vote for a politician who a)rigs elections, b)rigs wars, and c)hurts the poor while d)helping rich people get richer, simply because he says he is a Christian.

Anyways, I love Christians, but many of them (particularly those represented by Pat Robertson and the American Right) need a hard kick in the buttocks. We should be the ones bringing warlords and robber-barons down, not the ones propping them up.

Photos!

2006-03-25T18:30:00.000Z

Hi again, I was going to include this post in my last post, but the mood was too different so I figured I better separate them.

So this is the story: since Beth and I moved into this flat last June we have suffered with the worst couch and chair set that ever came out of the dark pits of hell. They were far less comfortable than simply standing or sitting on the floor, but we for some reason felt compelled to sit on them because they were there and we were in denial. Anyways, it was becoming too much so I asked Beth if she would call John, our landlord, and tell him that we needed new butt-holders. I asked Beth because she has charms to which our landlord is by no means immune. This was proven by the fact that within two-hours of her picking up the phone, our old couches were sitting beside our house in the rain, and she was sitting on a brand-new leather sofa!! DAMN, these things are comfy. I mean really comfy. Yikes!! We are so happy we don't know what to do (so we sit down). Anyhoo, I took some photos of the house, the couches, and Beth and her crocus. Enjoy!

Nice house eh? Unfortunately we only occupy the basement, although it is a large flat by crummy English standards. Our door is through the gate by the blue car and down some stairs. The bay window on the left at the bottom also belongs to us.

Here's my wife standing in our doorway.

Here's me smoking my pipe in our little front area (I have since quit pipe smoking as I hear tobacco can be addictive).

Here's my beautiful wife showing off her crocus which she planted last fall.

Here's a closeup of her crocus! Nice heh?

Here's me on the new leather couch. Aww yeah.

Here's Beth on the other couch, she is holding a copy of The Poison Wood Bible.

Here is she-who-pours-the-gravy sitting down to one of the many delicious meals she cooks for us.

My wife is excellent.

random comments

2006-03-25T17:22:00.000Z

Hi, I was reading a bit of Nietzsche today - Thus Spake Zarathustra. Christians are supposed to not like Nietzsche, because Nietzsche often ridicules Christianity. I don't really mind, sometimes I agree with his criticisms, some times I don't. Somethings he says are refreshing, some mistaken. Anyways, I'll see after I read some more what I think. If nothing else he is interesting to read, although possibly not interesting enough to justify its existence (his writings).

I read something really funny today in the paper that made me laugh. You all have heard of Thomas Kinkade and seen his paintings (even if you don't know it, you have. Here's a picture of one to refresh your memory).

He calls himself the painter of light, or something like that, and his paintings can always be found in good Christian homes and even on the cover of bibles etc. Anyways, apparently he is a drunkard and a lout, with a penchant for urinating in elevators and other public spaces, as well as fondling strangers' (females') breasts. As for his motivation, he simply wants to be really, really rich. Not much in the way of artistic integrity, although he is a shining example of art as a capitalist enterprise. Here's a link to the article if you want a good laugh. Here's a quote that particularly tickled me:

"A Kinkade painting was typically rendered in slightly surreal pastels. It typically featured a cottage or a house of such insistent cosiness as to seem actually sinister, suggestive of a trap designed to attract Hansel and Gretel. Every window was lit, to lurid effect, as if the interior of the structure might be on fire. The cottages had thatched roofs, and resembled gingerbread houses. The houses were Victorian and resembled idealised bed-and-breakfasts ... "
Joan Didion

Funny stuff! Anyways, I don't have any problem with artists being bastards, what I mean is, one can often detach the art from the artist. However, I do prefer them to be slightly more honest about their bastardliness. Miles Davis was surely a bastard (woman beater, junkie, egotist, etc.), but he never marketed himself as a family-values, loves-Jesus-and-America-too pillar of virtue.

When I told Beth about Thomas Kinkade, she made the excellent observation that Christians get taken advantage of a lot. I agree: George Bush, the political Right, crummy books, crummy art, crummy music, all targeting the poor gullible Christians of North America (oddly enough, British Christians seem to often be immune to these worthless trinkets. I think it is a result of Christianity's relative unpopularity in the UK; they are not an important market.)

You might notice that I ridicule Christians a lot. This is true. I always find myself being embarrassed by the fact that secular-humanists seem to have the monopoly on common sense, rationality, and compassion. Don't agree? Go to a pentecostal church next Sunday morning.

I'm a misogynist, patriarchical bigot

2006-03-23T23:37:00.000Z

I watched the movie Three Colours Blue last night. It's a French film starring Juliette Binoche (the lady from Chocolat). It categorically sucked, big time. It required a huge investment of patience and attention, and paid no dividends of coolness.

I also opened myself up to being called a sexist bastard in a seminar today because I said that pay-gap statistics were the crappiest measure possible for inequality between men and women. Let me illustrate why (although no-one understood me in class, and I merely ended up being assaulted with poorly understood, dogmatic opinions, regurgitated from comment pieces in newspapers.): The statistic we were presented with today was this - men earn 17% more than women, or the pay gap between men and women is 17%. This obviously sounds unacceptable, and rightly so. However, there are problems with statistics, and this is what I was trying to show my classmates, although they were too dumb to think for themselves.

The problem with this statistic is this: it is obtained by simply taking the average salary of all men and comparing it to the average salary of all women, which again sounds fine, but please suspend your outrage for one more second. Because in the UK the nuclear family model still prevails (heterosexual couple with a mail breadwinner), more men occupy positions of full-time employment than women, and women are more likely to work part-time menial jobs. In this type of situation a pay-gap of zero would actually indicate unequal pay towards men.

By focusing on this particular statistic, which most media studies do, the likely policy outcomes are many times facile solutions like positive-discrimination, which ends up only benefiting rich yuppie families, while poor nuclear-style families actually slip further into poverty. What we end up with is the current position where women don't merely have the chance of equal employment opportunities, they must work full-time, and their partners also, in order provide a decent life for their children.

What I think is necessary is a better solution that actually ensures women (and men for that matter) the greatest possible freedom of action and opportunity in work and family life so that if they want to work, they can achieve their career goals (and have child care provided if that's what they prefer), but if they don't want to be in the workplace, they will have sufficient means to stay home and tend to their family (if that's what they prefer.) This would involve a substantial restructuring of welfare and education, not just a simple act of positive discrimination.

For saying these things (although my voice was almost drowned by the outrage of my classmates) I was termed a sexist-bigot who wanted to chain women to stoves and roll back the clock to the stone-age. Perhaps sometimes it's better just to let people hold their cherished dogmas and avoid the holy wrath of morons.

Peace

My weekend

2006-03-21T23:53:00.000Z

Sup. I had a weekend of sorts. Went to Londres on Saturday for an anti-war demo. It was pretty damn big. I've never been to London before, it was really something. Trafalgar square was a sea of people who didn't want any war.

We are tremendous bastards for destroying these countries, how will we escape judgment?

Here's some photos, including a really cool mural that was there by Ralph Steadman (famous for illustrating the novels of Hunter S. Thompson and Pink Floyd's The Wall album art).

-Peace

Here's a link to the Stop-the-war coalition if you care. It addresses the key issues and also has links to some other anti-capitalist/human rights/anti-corporate type sites. Also, here's a link to an excellent article by Robert Fisk which appeared in the Independent yesterday regarding the folly of the war, if you are going to read anything about the war in Iraq, read this. Fisk is probably the most respected middle-east correspondent who has ever lived. This guy really understands.

Funny

2006-03-19T18:34:00.000Z

I had the following conversation with Beth last night which really made me laugh. It is typical and lets the reader understand better why I have so many laughs in this marriage.

Beth: "I had wheatgrass today. It's good!"
Drew: "Gross! Why?"
B: "I had it in my smoothy-"
D: "There's no reason to call it 'wheat grass', it's just grass. Like on your lawn."
B: "It doesn't taste like grass."
D: "Yes it does, besides how would you know. Have you eaten grass?"
B: "Yes, didn't you ever play sheeps and cows when you were a little girl?"

Maybe it's not funny, but I cracked up (for starters, I was never a little girl).

My day is full of funny conversations like this, I live a very surreal life. I chose wisely when it came to my female.

-drew

Nothing to report

2006-03-16T07:20:00.000Z

Hi all,

Nothing much to report personally. Hence the endless movie reviews and propaganda.

I've been studying and not much else, but that is fine by me, and it certainly beats the pants of working at the call centre. Right now I'm reading The Age of Revolution by Eric Hobsbawm. Hobsbawm is a historian (just like I want to be!) and this book is the first in a series starting in 1879 (year of the French Revolution and around the start of the English Industrial Revolution) and ending in the 1990s.

I have mentioned this book for lack of anything else to write. Sorry!

-drew

Hooray for Capitalism! movie club

2006-03-11T00:13:00.000Z

Greetings and salutations!

I watched two great movies today (I borrowed them off the internet). The two movies were Good Night and Good Luck and Syriana, Both starring George Clooney, and in fact I believe he produced the first one and co-produced the second.

Good night and good luck was about Ed Murro's confrontation with junior senator Joe McCarthy on his CBS show (Murro's). McCarthy was busy tossing out civil liberties and calling everyone communists. Your basic witch-hunt. Anyways, Murro and his news buddies took McCarthy to task on it and helped bring him down. It's a pretty new movie I believe, and it was likely written in response to George W.'s wonderful USA PATRIOT ACT which has just been renewed this week actually! Who needs democratic process when you can hand over all power to the most insane and dangerous executive-branch in the developed world?

Syriana was a superb movie, ostensibly based on the memoirs of some CIA guy, the book is called See No Evil, and I imagine it must be pretty interesting. The movie was directed by the same guy who did the movie Traffic. Anyways, this movie does such a good job of showing how the world works and everybody gets screwed. Again, my watching of this movie coincided hilariously with the referral of Iran to the UN Security council (the movie is largely about Iranian oil). Syriana was a good movie, damn good. So good I would actually consider paying to see it if the cinema industry hadn't priced themselves out of the market, or at least out of my market. (note: the big cinema chains all jacked up their prices long before the advent of the downloadable pirate video, although they keep trying to tell us that it happened because of pirate dvds - which apparently also lead to heroin, prostitution and murder; or so I'm told at least).

I was really surprised to learn that George Clooney was somewhat political (the good kind of political that is), especially after what I would consider one of the worst movies I have seen, ever - Ocean's Twelve; second in crappiness only to Memoirs of a Geisha (*shudder).

So anyways, I thought Syriana did a great job of showing what a fantastic mess the world is in. I'm pretty sure we're going to blow ourselves up (Israel and Iran rolled highest, so they get to go first).

Adios!

SOME say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,	5
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

What up!

2006-03-08T22:52:00.000Z

Hi
I'm feeling extremely elated today, I hope it won't be followed by a period of depression.

I had a class this morning which was extremely enjoyable, then I killed time until a meeting with my lecturer who is supervising my dissertation. I was going to do my dissertation on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but I got sick of that issue and of the real world.

Instead, I'm going to my dissertation on...you guessed it...Anarchism! Actually, it will probably be about the anti-capitalism movement and other alternatives to capitalism ie. cooperatives, the Israeli kibbutzim (before Israel became a state and they lost their all their soul), maybe Fourier's communes, or whatever. Anyways, that will hopefully provide me with reasons to be happy and hopeful, whereas the Israeli-Palestine conflict made me depressed. Who knows what my narrow, laser-focused dissertation question will be though in the end. It will have to be something that interests me though because I have to write ten-thousand words and read a million. So far, anarchism and anti-capitalism have maintained my interest for 2 years or so, so it seems to have good staying power as far as my interests are concerned.

What else is new...hmmm...well I can't think of anything. Except that I did have such a wonderful day today. The cafeteria had this delicious beef stir-fry with rice and spring rolls...mmmm!! The whole meal-deal including drink and prawn-crackers for only Â£3.50 or so. And the hot sweet, which is often some delicious pudding, is only 80p! Yowza!

Happy days! Here's some more anti-capitalist propaganda (click on it to see it in all its large funniness - or rather, sadness).

Disappointing

2006-03-06T17:58:00.000Z

Today in my Social Research class my lecturer reminded all the students that there would be no classes tomorrow as the teachers are striking. He explained that the strike is just for one day, and that classes will resume again on Wednesday. He also explained that after Tuesday, the lecturers will still do their work and even mark assignments, but they just won't be giving results back to University administration.

To my amazement (actually, I wasn't amazed at all - my coursemates are dum-dums), the students let out all sorts of groanings, wailings, and gnashing of teeth. John, the lecturer, explained why they were going on strike (because they make less money than even bus drivers, but need a PhD to teach), and how that would affect the students. The room instantly became hostile. I couldn't believe how selfish everyone became (the students that is).

Quite frankly, I was amazed at how much the lecturers were looking after our interests at their own expense. They continue to do all the work, except on strike pay! It was unbelievable. "How will we know our marks?!" shouted someone. "How will we know if we passed?!" etc. etc. As if not knowing your marks for a couple months changes the outcome!

Needless to say, everyone reacted in an incredibly un-radical, self-centred way. Basically, like a bunch of good little individually consuming capitalist children. I can't help but feel sorry for these lecturers: I have noticed many times how worn out their shoes are; many of them have tatty trousers - seriously! - who is so poor they have to wear tatty trousers!?! Not any of us students, that's for sure. Their clothes are all super old looking, I mean seriously, these guys look poor. And some of them have more than 10 years of post-secondary education!! Would somebody please give them a few extra pounds so they can at least put some leather patches on the elbows of their tweed jackets?! Yes: they actually wear old tweed jackets - poooooooooooooooor!

Anyways, people should try to be less selfish when others are striking. After all, if it wasn't for people striking our parents and ourselves would all be working 14 hours a day and living in shanties - kind of like the other half of the world.

Here's some worker's movement propaganda from the days of the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World).

-TTFN

elaboration...

2006-03-05T17:49:00.000Z

Yes, to elaborate, I take everything back which I said last night in praise of capitalism. I will say this, it is an improvement upon earlier situations, but a better situation is certainly not inconceivable. When I think about the fact that people have to work for 14 hours a day doing imbecile labour for 2 cents an hour, and that the world was almost blown up by Russia and the USA in 1962, I take back what I said that liberal democracy is a better goal than anarchism. Anarchism is better, and at least has the ostensible aim of freeing humanity from hunger, war and oppression. Liberal democracy has the sole aim of preserving capitalism as an institution with as few concessions to the environment and humanity as are absolutely necessary. If one's goals do not include human freedom and happiness (for everyone, not just the minority) then these aims will surely not result as a side-effect (as is preached by free-market types, especially by my beloved Economist every week), will they ?

Nope, anarchism presents the best ideals, and that is certainly a good starting point. If you fail to set a target, you won't hit it. Or something like that.

Anarchy forever, capitalism never.

My wife is funny

2006-03-05T13:59:00.000Z

I am lucky, for a few reasons. One of them is that my wife is such a cut-up. She's the best kind of the funny, the kind that isn't trying to be funny. That results in her often feeling that I'm laughing at her, which is true. Here's a picture I took of her that was funny.

Seriously though, she's the funniest person I know, and I would consider myself an expert on funny.

Funny.

I take it all back

2006-03-05T10:09:00.000Z

I take it all back. George Bush is signing nuclear treaties with India, most of the world lives on like a dollar a day: Democracy sucks - Anarchy forever!

Two cheers for democracy

2006-03-04T23:08:00.000Z

I have been plugging Anarchism a lot lately, so I feel that I should make clear its defects. They can be summed up in two points:

1) Capitalism seems to be the least worst system of economic organization. Anarchism, socialism, and communism all suck compared to the economic organization of the free-market (subject to qualifications; such as not killing people, making them miserable, or destroying the environment). This is hard to admit sometimes, but it seems true.

2) To be governed by the norms of your community (as advocated by Anarchists), rather than by laws (as advocated by everyone else) would likely be far more restrictive and oppressive, as George Orwell rightly pointed out. This is because people often seem, unfortunately, to be stupid bigots.

I think anarchism is important though because of its subversive spirit and its relentless criticism of the action of the state. Anarchism would be the best form of government if we were all perfect, but we're not. Not even me. So in the words of E.M. Forster:

"...two cheers for democracy: one because it admits variety and two because it permits criticism. Two cheers are quite enough: there is no occasion to give three."

Buh-bye!

Happy Saturday to you

2006-03-04T21:25:00.000Z

Here's what I did today:

I woke up and studied until about 1:30 and then got ready and went out. It snowed yesterday so there was about an inch and a half of snow on the ground which is quite unusual for Leeds but reminded me of Calgary. I took the bus into Headingley, which is the student neighbourhood on the opposite side of Leeds from me. I had a footlong sub for lunch, mmmm! Then, I went to my lecturer's house to get some books from him for a project I'm doing.

This is all quite boring, sorry.

Anyways, tonight I read a section in this book I have called The Essential Writings of Anarchism, the section I read was written by Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910 - pictured below - wrote the book War and Peace) and was under the heading of 'Christian Anarchism'.

Tolstoy basically says that Christians shouldn't submit to military service or swear allegiance or pay taxes to a state that is violent and murderous. Mahatma Gandhi was heavily influenced by Tolstoy's writing. It's quite a moving tract. Apparently Tolstoy has written a few books on such issues. Another similar character was Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862 - below), who wrote against the institution of slavery and refused to pay taxes to the US government that supported it.

Ciao!

Two minute rundown

2006-02-28T21:36:00.000Z

Hello. I'm working hard on all this course stuff right now; managing alright though. Beth is now back at home where she belongs, so that is nice.

Nothing much else to report right now. Our friend Kelly West called which was thrilling. I got to monopolize all the phone time too as Beth was sleeping. Yippee! Kelly is getting married on July 14th to a police officer name Chris. We really want to go.

Well, gotta keep my nose to the grindstone, whatever that means.

On Ilkley Moor all by myself

2006-02-26T22:23:00.000Z

I'm on my third day of solitude today (Not complete solitude, I was with friends last night, more on that later). Today I woke up feeling crappy after a night full of awful, beer induced dreams. I really don't like drinking very much, and I don't mean to say that I drink very much, I only had about 4 drinks or so yesterday, over the course of about 7 hours, which really is not a lot for me.

So anyways, I had my morning latte, which seldom fails to lift my spirits, then after pissing around for a few hours I finally got my act together and walked down to the train station, where I had a sandwich for lunch and then caught the 3:15pm train to Ilkley. Two pounds return trip, great deal.

I got to Ilkley and really huffed it up the hill until I reached the trail up onto the moor. It was pretty damn enjoyable. A cold day, gray and muddy. I kept hiking up to the ridge only to find another ridge still higher (not so much higher, but farther). I got sick of trying to get to the top, and I was getting the impression that there wasn't really a top anyways, so I made my own trail straight down the hill, past some wooly sheep and into the Cow and Calf Pub. They were out of Turkey and out of Roast Beef so I sat down, looked at the menu, and decided to take my custom elsewhere.

I went down to Betty's tea room and ordered what I always order: Yorkshire cream tea, which consists of a pot of tea for one (damn fine tea), and two sultana scones (raisin scones for us North Americans) complete with clotted cream (we don't have this in North America, but it's like really thick whipped cream and it is delicious) and strawberry jam. Mmmm! To my irritation they were out of sultana scones. I have been to Betty's four times now, and they have not once had sultana scones as far as I can remember. So, once again, I had the date and apricot wholemeal scones as a substitute, which I did not mind.

What I did mind though, was the oppressive atmosphere of Betty's. The place was full of Conservative voting white haired gits. All of them looked exactly the same, husband and wife, husband reading right-wing newspaper (the Daily Mail in fact. A fascist rag of a newspaper that ran a headline in the 1930s that read "Three Cheers for the Nazis!" and has not changed much in the last 70 years. Seriously.) and both idly chit-chatting about nothing. I felt a hundred pairs of creepy country snob eyes all staring at me, just waiting for me to not have proper manners. To make it worse, Betty's has about 11 members of staff at any given time (and it's quite a small place), all standing around waiting for one of these white haired, grey-poupon eating weirdos to beckon them.

When I've gone before with Beth I didn't notice all this because I was enjoying her company, but by myself it was downright unnerving. The place was thick with superficiality, snootiness, and xenophobia. Seriously creepy.

Anyways, I ate my scones, drank my tea, and made my escape. I'm sorry if that was not exciting.

TTFN!
-drew

In praise of: The Economist

2006-02-25T12:37:00.000Z

I would like to take a moment to extol the virtues of my favorite news magazine. Every Friday morning I lie in bed waiting with baited breath for the sound of the postman opening my gate. My heart skips a beat as I hear the sound of my two magazines (Economist, and New Statesman - more on NS later) drop heavily from the mail slot onto the carpet.

Now let me tell you why the Economist is great. It offers excellent no BS coverage of world events. And it covers everything. Every issue follows the exact same format, and you always no where to turn to find the news item you are looking for. The magazine starts with a summary (1 page each) dedicated respectively to politics and business. If you only have 5 minutes to catch up on everything that has happened in the world that week than this summary is your answer. After that there is about 5 pages of half page leaders that look more in depth at the most important events of that week, starting with a full page comment on the cover story. Then follows the reader letters, which are always quite good and often antagonistic. After that the news is divided up by country and continent, everything that has happened, in every country, is reported in detail with excellent commentary.

This should be more than enough one might think, but no friends, there is more. After exhaustively covering the news of the entire world (for the period of the preceding week), there is then a huge section on financial markets and business etc. (which I admittedly don't understand) and then a large section of the magazine is dedicated to book reviews, science and technology, art and whatever else you want.

My subscription to the Economist is my most cherished possession today (my wife being in London ['how chauvinistic' you rightly say, 'he considers his wife a possession'.]) I recommend that next time you are perusing the magazine rack at the train station (or for my North American comrades - the station where you fill your vehicle with petroleum distillate) instead of buying some heinous tabloid or 'lads' magazine, you buy the Economist, and treat yourself to a view of the world.

I am such a loser.

Bye!

Good news everyone!

2006-02-25T12:32:00.000Z

I am extremely happy these last couple of days. Let me tell you why. I have been looking for an MA program to get into after I graduate (not until 2007, but for many places I would need to apply this Christmas, and it helps to have an idea as I am already beginning work on my third year dissertation which will affect my eligibility for different MA routes).

The neat thing is, I have found exactly what I want, at the University of my first choice - Simon Fraser University (I can move back to Canada!). I have made a contact there who is an Anarchist historian which is quite unusual. This presents me with an opportunity to study under this person with a view to an MA in history - with a focus on workers' movements and Anarchism in particular. Yippee!

I am going to be lonely

2006-02-24T12:19:00.000Z

Today at 4:00 Beth is going to London with some friends until Monday. How sad. I will be here in Leeds all on my lonesome, studying like a maniac.

'ey up! (that's northern for 'hello, how are you doing? I am fine thank you'

2006-02-24T11:38:00.000Z

What is up? I will tell. Last night I went for a curry to this place in Hyde Park (Leeds, not London) that used to be a public toilet. The British always say toilet, if you ask where the washroom, bathroom, or restroom is they will look at you like you are a pretentious loser. I must admit that I prefer it, after all, I am not asking because I want to have a bath, wash something, or have a rest, so why not can the euphemisms and ask where the toilet is?

So anyways, we went for a curry in Hyde Park, the restaurant is called Akmal's, and it is the finest curry in town, and it's a big ol' town. I had what I always have, a Lamb Dopiaza (I think that's what it's called) which is Lamb in a creamy curry with strawberries and almonds (mmmm...). I ate it with a Peshwari naan, which is a Naan, but loaded with sugar, coconut, and pistachios. Needless to say I did not need dessert.

Peshwar, the area in which my naan was from, is in the North Western Frontier Province of Pakistan, and borders with Afghanistan. So it is very possible that at the same time as I was enjoying my delicious naan, Osama Bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri were doing the same.

Probably not though, what with the different time zones and everything.

Welcome to kindergarten (for ever)

2006-02-24T00:12:00.000Z

Another evening, another historical documentary on TV and guess who it's about......Hitler! There you go, lap it up you stupid masses: the world is nicely divided into Goodies and Baddies, light and darkness, etc. The English speaking people are Goodies, and the non-English ones are Baddies. History only goes back 60 years, and God made them Hitler, Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt.

Here's the ultimate question, a real case of chicken or egg: is historical teaching limited exclusively to Hitler because people are dumb, ie. is it a result of consumer demand? Or are people dumb because their media doesn't perform its role as a public educator and merely produces years worth of Hitler documentaries. Let's open up a forum. Perhaps I will petition the BBC.

Robert Michels - boring post, don't read.

2006-02-22T23:41:00.000Z

I've been reading a book by Robert Michels called Political Parties in preparation for a seminar presentation I'm working on. It's a study of the German Socialist party, and Michels basically goes about showing how undemocratic the internal workings of the party are (his proof is excellent); even less prone to democratic processes, like rotation of office, than the old Aristocratic regimes (he was writing around 1913 or so). Anyways, Michels point was this, if the revolutionary democratic parties are entirely despotic in their internal organization, what hope is there for a democracy to result from their forming a government. This is basically the exact same thing that the Anarchists were saying at the same time, except that whereas the Anarchists said the solution was non-hierarchical federation, Michels is (I think) drawing towards the conclusion that one might as well just be ruled by an openly oligarchical government. This conclusion was carried out practically by his leaving the German Socialist Party and joining the Italian Fascists. So there you have it, the two choices for rational people, Fascist or Anarchist. Well, perhaps there is some room in between.

Socrates was a top bloke

2006-02-22T10:47:00.000Z

I've been reading Plato's Symposium and The Death of Socrates. It's quite an easy read and very interesting, short too.

It sounds like Socrates was quite the fellow. He could drink all night and not get drunk, he was also apparently quite brave when he served in the army. Anyways, the Athenians all got pissed at him for making them look stupid when they were trying to look smart, so they killed him.

Oh, another interesting thing is that apparently in 5th century B.C. Athens everyone was totally gay and straight people were looked down upon as vulgar and lustful. Nevertheless, Socrates was very clever and quite funny.

-drew

Back amongst the living - and it's not a purse, it's a European carry-all!

2006-02-21T11:55:00.000Z

Feeling much better today, thanks for asking. I was only 60% or so when I woke up but I had two esspressos (thank you mum for the machine, it has paid for itself many times over) and now I feel stupendous!

And, Kyle, the handsome leather satchel you see strung over my shoulder is actually the height of fashion here in Europe. It is also tremendously handy to have all my necessities sitting ready at my hip, rather than out of reach between my shoulder blades. Thirdly and finally, it avoids the condition known as 'swack' (noun. vernacular, meaning sweat of the back and/or sweat of the crack ie. butt-crack), which is the inevitable consequence of prolonged backpack wearing. It is my most treasured accessory and I fully intend to liberate men in Canada when I return, with the introduction of man-bags (ie. purses for men) into the category of acceptable heterosexual male attire .

Now that I am feeling better, and before my esspressos wear off and I feel worse than ever, I am going to go claim my pecuniary reward for my labours on Saturday, and then I had better get cracking on my State-theory presentation for next Wednesday. I am presenting on Elite theory. Basically the idea is that the stupid masses should have nothing to do with the running of the state, and that they never really do anyways. In its purist form it is basically the ideological base of Fascism and also of the American constitution (see Madison's preamble if you don't believe me). Cool hey!

On Ilkley Moor ba' tat

2006-02-20T16:58:00.000Z

Greetings and salutations. Today, I am sick. Sick as a dog who has eaten a bag of chicken fat (see earlier posts). Well, I don't have pancreatitis, but I do feel very sick all the same. Some kind of flu. That's what you call it when you are sick with anything non-specific right?

Yesterday, however, was a better day (at least until about six o' clock when I started to feel sick.) The wife and I met some friends up on Ilkley moor. Ilkley moor ba' tat is an old British song, and the translation from Yorkshire into English means 'on Ilkley moor without a hat'.

Anyhoo, the best thing about Ilkely moor is this big inn/pub called the 'cow and calf' (named after the cow and calf rocks, under which it sits). I had a Norfolk turkey roast with mashed potatoes and Yorkshire puddings. It was bloody lovely.

After that we went for a walk. Here are the pictures.
-Bye

Anarchism.net are weirdos

2006-02-18T23:23:00.000Z

I was on Anarchism.net again today and found everything there to be stupid. I therefore retract my endorsement of the website and will look for one that is not full of, what the English call, 'bollocks' (stupid stuff).

Saturday

2006-02-18T21:05:00.000Z

Hello there,
Today I woke up bright and early (8:30, early for a Saturday) and went to help out my lecturers with their open day for prospective students. What a little keener I am. I had a great time though. Their were loads of people that turned up, and it was fun to give all the little high-schoolers a tour of the University.

The open day was for all applicants to the school of Social Sciences, one of my jobs was to hand out information-booklets relating to different courses to the prospective students while they waited in line to register at the beggining of the day. The overwhelming majority of applicants were applying for criminology. There were tons of these aspiring criminologists, so many that we ran out of criminology leaflets. I mentioned this to one of my lecturers and suggested that everybody wanted to be a forensics expert on CSI or 24 and he agreed.

I volunteered to help out today with 3 other friends which made the work even more enjoyable, but as well as that, two of my favorite lecturers took us out for a pub lunch and we later found out we could go and claim payment from the School office for 6.50£ an hour. This was pretty cool, since 3 of us (including myself) thought we were working pro bono.

To top it off, I finished my day's work just when Beth got off for her lunch break (she works 9-5 whereas I worked a much more leisurely 10:15-3:00).

It was a beautiful, sunny day here in Leeds, in fact our pub lunch was eaten on a roof-top patio at a place called the dry dock. The dry dock is an old-tug boat which sits on a crappy piece of grass between the two sides of the motor way across from my Uni.

I thought some more about my society for Anarchists which I am hoping to start at my university next year, and I thought that perhaps if I made it an Anarchist book club then not as many freaks would join. We could read cool anarchist books like War and Peace. Now I just have to make enough friends to start a society in the Students Union and then convert them into Anarchists. I will tell you all how this goes and what progress I make, as I am sure everyone who reads this can see the importance of a project like my book club for Anarchists.

Many of you are likely wondering how my dog Toby is doing, and after talking to my mum yesterday I can reassure my readers that he is making a speedy recovery back to full health. For those of you who didn't know, two weeks ago Toby at a bag of old chicken fat which he found in the garbage of my parents' neighbours and as a result of this excess he screwed up his liver, pancreas, etc. and had to go to the hospital. But he is now quite well and happy, so thank you all for your prayers. I will leave you all now with this picture of my special dog.

Ciao!
-drew

For a free humanity. For Anarchy.

2006-02-17T17:19:00.000Z

As of today I am doing a project to look at the Anarchist movement of Catalonia during the Spanish civil war. I have read about it in Noam Chomsky's collection of essays On Anarchism and it sounds like it was awesome. George Orwell wrote a book about it called Homage to Catalonia. Orwell fought among the Anarchists against General Franco and the fascists, and in the process was shot in the throat by a sniper. I bought Homage ages ago, and I was able to arouse my tutor's curiosity about the issue in my Nationalism module today at University. I persuaded him to let me do a presentation on the Anarchist movement as long as I tied it in with the Nationalist movement. Needless to say I am very interested in Anarchism and Anarchist writers like Chomsky, Emma Goldman, and Alexander Berkman. I was thinking last night as I lay in bed about starting an Anarchist society at University next year, but I'm worried that only idiots will join. However, it is something I really want to do, so I'll have to see what possibilities may exist. I have taken a cursory glance at this Anarchist website and it seems to be a good introduction for anyone who is interested, or (more likely) just bored: www.anarchism.net

I'll let you know if, through my research into Anarchism, or just through everyday life, I become disillusioned and espouse myself to right-wing neo-liberalism (unlikely while I am a poor student, but becoming increasingly more likely if I ever rise above the poverty line and become a rich bastard who forgets the poor and oppressed). Until then, I remain Andrew Johnston - For a free humanity. For Anarchy.

I am hijacking this blog!

2006-02-15T22:23:00.000Z

This is Drew's wife Beth, who is compelled to respond to drew's post dated 14th Feb. Here my darling hubby lists 20 things he hates (on valentines day of all days!) Well, to restore the balance
and to show that drewbear (despite a plateful of chips on his shoulder) is, in fact, quite a jolly chap- I will list the twenty things that make him happy.

1) Spagetti Bolonase
2) His wifey who makes him Spagetti bolonase
3) Noam Chomsky
4) back scratches
5) Napoloan Dynamite
6) tea and scrumpets
7) finishing books that are over 800 pages long
8) coming first in his class at school (some thing that happens alot)
9) his dog toby (more so from a distance)
10) singing 'burning ring of fire' while on the toilet the morning after a curry
11)skateboarding
12) sub of the day
13)the fact that the bible withstands critical reading
14)flexing in frount of the mirror
15) having his wifes attention while she is on the phone
16)red wine and good quality ale
18) writing letters to newspapers
19) sticky toffee pudding
20) wearing socks with sandles and getting ridiculed in the streets of leeds

Drewfasa's STUPID HUMAN(!) awards for January/February 2006

2006-02-15T20:32:00.000Z

Over the past month or so, if you've followed the news, you have likely been amazed by the circus of human stupidity on display. Let us take a minute to reflect so that me might learn from nature's mistakes. It is with great horror and shame that I present the first ever STUPID HUMAN(!) AWARDS...with 2 awards up for grabs this evening, and possibly more to come (I wish in vain that there won't be).

The STUPID HUMAN(!) prize for idiocy as a group goes to everyone who resorted to violence over the publishing of the following 12 cartoons in a small Danish news-rag:

You may not have seen these 'forbidden' cartoons before, I was very surprised at how innocuous they were. I'm aware that images of the prophet are forbidden in Islam, but I think the reaction was a wee bit over-the-top. In the country where I live (the UK), the publishing of these stupid, reactionary, fascist cartoons led to this:

Pretty, no? The nice chap in the first picture, who is apparently in fancy-dress as a suicide bomber, later turned out to be a crack dealer out on probation. A very devout Muslim I'm sure.

In the Islamic world, the publishing of these stupid cartoons led to this (and much, much more):

Words seem to fall short. Perhaps these people need hobbies, like collecting stamps or birdwatching, or even what is called 'peaceful protesting'. I can even admit that I understand (although I might not necessarily agree with) the motivations behind violent protests over certain, even many, issues. However, the individuals involved in these protests seem to have no sense of proportion, or concern for the lives of their fellow protesters (apparently a few of them ended up dying in the fires they started). For that reason, anyone involved in violent protests over the Mohammed cartoons wins the Drewfasa STUPID HUMAN(!) award. Jyllands-Posten (the Danish rag/newspaper which originally published the cartoons), deserves honourable (ie. stupid) mention for publishing these cartoons with the sole intent of provoking outrage and for giving so many people a headache.

The Drewfasa STUPID HUMAN(!) award for a stupid action by a holder of public office goes to Dick Cheney (seen here holding his fire-stick).

As you have probably heard, on Saturday evening Dick Cheney accidentally shot a 78 year old guy called Harry Whittington while he was out Quail hunting. I think Maureen Dowd of the New York Times put it best:

"With American soldiers dying in Iraq, Five-Deferment Dick 'I Had Other Priorities in the 60s Than Military Service' Cheney gets his macho kicks gunning down little birds and the occasional old man while W rides his bike, blissfully oblivious to any collateral damage...Shouldn't these guys work on weekends until we figure out how to fix Iraq, New Orleans, Medicare and gas prices?"

On top of Cheney's problematic itchy trigger finger is the fact that he is under investigation right now for other shenanigans (leaking the identity of a CIA operative to get back at them for dissing the Iraq war). What a loser.

And just when you think it couldn't get any worse for poor ol' Dick, it was revealed that the old codger he shot suffered a heart attack as a result of the incident. I would feel sorry for the guy, if it wasn't Dick Cheney.

Uninteresting update - don't read.

2006-02-14T12:20:00.000Z

I've been reading a book by Norman Finkelstein called Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering. It is an amazing book. Basically, Finkelstein is saying that the Nazi holocaust, since the 1967 Israel-Arab war, has been and is being used to deflect criticism of Israel and to garner support for certain political interests. I recommend it to everyone.

And now for a rant: 20 things I hate, by Andrew Johnston.

1. The fact that history, as usually taught, is limited to World War II, and every villain since has been called Hitler. (This is related to the book I just mentioned.)

2. People who say that you shouldn't criticize the government but should be thankful for what you have.

3. People who get worked up about gay marriage.

4. Christians who say that Israel is right and Palestine is wrong because they read it in the Bible or heard it at church.

5. Muslim extremists, as seen recently burning Scandinavian embassies over the publication of 12 fairly innocuous cartoons which were published in a few small, unremarkable, facist, reactionary newspapers.

6. Religious fanatics.

7. Christians who fall down at church for any reason that is not medical.

8. Zionist fanatics.

9. Pat Robertson of the Christian Coalition, recently in the news for calling upon the USA to assassinate populist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

10. George Galloway.

11. Born again Marxists, Socialists, and Communists.

12. Neo-Liberals.

13. 'The Man'

14. Working for 'The Man'.

15. Hippies who live off of trust funds.

16. Giggling-stoner hippies.

17. Drum-circle hippies.

18. College know-it-all hippies.

19. Anyone whose ever blamed anything on Marilyn Manson.

20. The Chinese Communist party, Vladimir Putin, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Rupert Murdoch, Tony Blair, Richard Branson, Stephen Harper, the CIA and Al-Qaeda.

Walk the line

2006-02-11T00:40:00.000Z

Saw walk the line today, I thought: Joaquin Phoenix? Reese Witherspoon? Welcome to crapsville. However, it was very good.

Listening to Dylan's Ballad of a Thin Man. My favorite Dylan song.

I quit my job

2006-02-09T23:44:00.000Z

So I returned to work today after missing 9 shifts and was sat down by my 'team-leader' (nice euphemism) to fill out a back-to-work report. We got two minutes into it when she said to me "now apparently there has been an incident. On Monday you called in sick, but we received a conflicting story from Beth. Your stories don't add up. Therefore, we've decided not to allow you any sick pay for this time."

The way my boss was looking at me made it clear that she thought I was lying. At Privilege insurance they always think you are lying.

"okay." I said, knowing that Privilege bosses have problems comprehending simple situations. "Could you please elaborate?"

"Well, when I talked to you on Monday you said that you were poorly and wouldn't be coming into work. But when Beth was asked [who was already at work] she said that you were better and would be coming in."

"Right...You seem to have missed the point, Mavis [real name changed to protect from libel suit]. Let me try to explain this to you, as you seem to have found it quite complex."

"On Monday morning I said to my wife 'Wife. I feel better today, I shall go to my 3-5 lecture and see you at work.' [Beth starts at 5 on Mondays, I start at 6. We work at the same place.] Now, Mavis, during my 3-5 lecture I began to feel quite wretched and experienced a number of anxiety attacks. By the end of this session I was feeling thoroughly distressed and did not feel well enough to come into work as I was worried I might have a freak-out. At which point, you rightly remember, I called you to tell you that although I had thought I would be able to return to work that evening, I no longer felt up to the challenge and would hopefully come back on Thursday. I then asked you to please pass this information on to my lovely wife, because I had told her I would be coming in to work and she might be worried. 'Actually, I can't' you replied, 'I'm not at work right now'. 'Oh well,' I said 'she will figure it out'. "

"Now, my dear Mavis, one can only assume, based on the information we have come up with together, that at some point (probably between 5, when Beth came in, and 6.15, when I called in sick) someone at the office asked Beth how I was doing and whether I would be coming into work that evening. Having not seen or heard from me since that morning, she would have replied 'he is better, and will be in at 6'."

"Simple Mavis, I hope I haven't moved to quickly for you, but perhaps you can see that Beth gave the information she thought was correct, whereas I had told you different, and also, had asked you to pass along this information to Beth because she did not know my circumstances. Perhaps, now, you can see that our stories do not actually conflict or prove any guilt? What's that? You're not capable of abstract thought? I can see that that would be quite a difficulty. Perhaps you would be willing to take it on my authority that these two accounts don't conflict."

Anyways, you get the idea. My bosses at Privilege had called me a liar before and infuriated me so that I took it up with my floor manager, who, of course, was patronizing and thick. Long story short, I kept trying to stay calm, but my two bosses kept calling me a liar about many issues [very unimportant issues, about which I never the less was telling the truth]. I had had all that I could stands, and I couldn't stands no more.

"I think I don't want to work here anymore" I said calmly.

"Really," replied Mavis, "what do you want to do then?"

"I think I'm going to go home."

"Right, I'll just have to go talk to Ruddiger [real name changed] so he can sign you off."

I sat for about 5 minutes fuming in my emotions, while my two superiors paced and made phone calls from their white manager phone. After a while the floor manager asked to speak with me:

"I'm afraid that you can't just leave right now, but will have to give 4 weeks notice like everyone else."

"Okay." I was beginning to calm down.

"Besides," he added, "you should know that if you are away sick for more than 5 days you need a sick note from a doctor. It's no wonder your team leaders don't believe you."

"Actually," I replied, starting to feel unrelaxed again, "I did not know about this 5 day rule. But I can get a sick note for you, that is no problem". [I have been seeing my doctor regularly about this problem and he is quite sympathetic.]

"Of course you know that" my boss said, telling me with his tone of voice that I was again lying. "They tell you that at your induction".

"I never had an induction"

"That's rubbish, how long have you been working here?" He snarled.

"2 years" I said. "And I'm not lying. I started working here through a temp agency and just never left. I never received an induction."

My boss then explained to me that I was lying again.

"You know, this is the sort of thing I'm fed up with" I said, "I'm going to be leaving now."

"I'm afraid I can't let you do that" said Ruddiger.

"Right" I calmly replied, weighing up my options and eyeing the fire escape. "Let's say that I don't give you four weeks notice, but instead leave right now. What would you do?"

"Well, you wouldn't get paid." He replied.

"Right, as in I wouldn't get paid, because I wasn't working here anymore?"

"That's right" he answered, seeing the weakness of his threat "and you wouldn't get a reference from us."

"Well" I thought to myself, trying to weigh up the situation, "they clearly think I'm a lying scum-bag. What kind of reference could I hope to obtain anyways."

"I can live with those consequences" I told Ruddiger. "I'm leaving."

I then had to write a quick note of resignation with shaking hands, and sign a disciplinary document for my 'sickness shenanigans', which seemed quite pointless, considering I was leaving.

I then cleaned out my locker, and gave my floor manager my key and pass. He then escorted me down 3 flights of stairs and out the front door to beautiful freedom.

I walked away carrying my belongings (work clothes) in my arms, and reflected on the bittersweet emotions coursing through me. I wonder what my co-workers thought? It was probably exciting and uncomfortable. I was well liked by a lot of people at my work, but I will keep in touch with them.

New beginnings, that's what it is. The crap rolls down hill and the screws tighten until another person just can't take the pressure anymore. The great wheel of capitalism keeps on spinning.

Hello

2006-02-06T23:16:00.000Z

So anyways, I still haven't been back to work. I went back last Monday (or was it Thursday?) and my boss asked me if I felt well enough to be back at work, and I said no. So she sent me home. I have had some more panic attacks (for the treatment of which I am on this medication) so I didn't feel like going to work as busy, stressful situations seem to set off panicky episodes. They are not sever, but are certainly uncomfortable and undesirable.

On a brighter note however, I received my marks from last semester's modules and was so happy/excited by them that I did not know what to do with myself.

Basically, I am the top student on my course, which, as I just said, makes me so happy I don't know what to do with myself. My overall marks were as follows:

Europe, Exclusion, and Ethnicity - 68%
Introduction to Marx and Marxism - 75%
Philosophy of the Social Sciences - 70%
Political Theory - 75%

So overall, that's about a 72%, which is a 'First'. While these marks don't seem good by North American standards, in the UK the top mark achievable is usually 75%, and most tutors won't give a mark higher than this. So while these would be very average marks in Canada, they are extraordinary marks in the UK.

Thank you for indulging me this opportunity to boast unashamedly. I am soooooo happy about this. Just absolutely thrilled.

Also, I found out yesterday that my dog, Toby, ate a bag of chicken fat which he found in the neighbours garbage and as a result suffered liver trauma and pancreatitis. He had to spend a 600$ weekend in the hospital but is now apparently doing okay (ie. he is happy and back at home). There is some concern that he may have a tumor on his liver so he is going to get some more bloodwork done in a few weeks after his pancreas gets better. Please pray that my little puppy is okay. Here is his picture:

I finished The Pyschopathology of Everyday life a couple days ago and enjoyed it immensely. Basically, Freud's idea is that things like forgetting names, slips of the tongue, and other such mental screw-ups which happen to everyone so often are not the results of random chance but have their origin in unconscious mental activities and if analysed can reveal unconscious activities to the observer. All very interesting. Also, I'm almost done The Interpretation of Dreams, I'll probably finish it tonight. It has been extremely enjoyable as well and I must say that Freud is quite the genius when it comes to philosophy of the mind.

I have to present a seminar on the concept of Oedipus as used figuratively by Freud and which was over-exaggerated by subsequent critiques (ie. taken literally as an assertion that all men are planning to kill their fathers and sleep with their mothers if the opportunity presents itself). I chose this question because it presents the opportunity to read the Theban Plays of Sophocles (Antigone, Oedipus the King, and Oedipus at something-something), which are supposed to be quite interesting. I will also get to re-read Hamlet, as Freud also draws a point from this play. I will let you know how this progresses.

Well, there it is, a big juicy update for my blog. But who will read it?

-dj

2006-01-31T11:13:00.000Z

Today's update

2006-01-31T10:54:00.000Z

Feeling much better today, waking up wasn't nearly as difficult as it has been the past five days. My boss was much kinder when I called in sick to work yesterday, I imagine I shall be back at work (aka hell) on Thursday but in the meanwhile I might look for a new one (job).

Listening to Neil Young this morning yet again, this morning it is On the Beaches, last night it was Ragged Glory. I'm really into Neil Young right now, I wonder if this will last and how long? I find his music really enjoyable and expansive, and he has so many recordings.

I've got a lecture for my Feud module today so I will now go and read some more from The Interpretation of Dreams. By the way, if you want something extremely hilarious to read, might I recommend The Time Waster Letters, and The Return of the Time Waster Letters by (alias) Robin Cooper.

Yet more photos

2006-01-31T10:42:00.000Z

Some photos

2006-01-31T10:26:00.000Z

Star struck

2006-01-30T10:41:00.000Z

Had 3 highlights already this morning. Woke up at 8:50 and called the clinic and arranged 9:50am appointment. Doctor said that since I experienced withdrawal symptoms I should go back onto 10mg a day for 2-4 weeks and then go down to one 10mg tablet every second day for a month or two before stopping altogether. So I'm sorry to say there may not be any interesting accounts of bizzarre withdrawal symptoms on my blog, but let's see first what tonight brings.
As for the highlights, when I came home I found that I had received two emails. As I suspected, my nice friend Hannah Price did indeed visit my weblog and posted a nice comment, so did my dad, which pleased me immensely although it did not surprise me as he is so nice. Those are Monday morning highlights 1 and 2, highlight number three relates to the picture below which is of Tariq Ali. He is a political writer whom I admire very much and an editor of New Left Review. I sent him an email on the 20th of January and today received a reply. It was quite enjoyable to receive an email from someone who is famous, and only the second time it has happenned. The first time was went I sent an email to Labour MP for Rotherham Dennis MacShane regarding an article he had written in the Independant and I was scathing of his hypocrisy regarding this and that and he was kind enough to reply politely.

Anyways, my correspondence with Tariq Ali went like so:
January 20th, 2006

Dear Mr. Ali,

I enjoy your writing and have learnt a lot from it. I was wondering if you could suggest a book on the history of the formation of Israel, as it seems like it would be a controversial topic about which a lot of rubbish would be written.
Sincerely yours,
Andrew Johnston

And today, I received the reply:

Norman Finkelstein's 'Image and Reality' would be a good start......

And that's it. I shall be visiting the Library at the soonest possible oppurtunity in order to follow his suggestion. It's funny how enjoyable it can be to receive a sentence fragment from someone who is a hero of yours and is also somewhat famous.

Once again today I am enjoying Neil Young's After the Goldrush. I have been told that Bruce Springsteen is also well worth a listen and will be checking out some of his stuff later today as I continue my musical odyssey.

Ooh, one more thing. I today received in the mail a book I had ordered of Amazon market place by Freud entitled The Psychopathology of Everyday Life and it seemed quite fitting in light of my recent mental state.

-dj

Bedtime

2006-01-30T02:35:00.000Z

After starting this blog in an effort to combat my symptoms of SSRI withdrawal tonight, I now feel better and will thus be heading to bed. First however, I will email my link to Hannah Price as I think she is most likely to read it, even though I will also email it to my family in Calgary, although they may well try to read it out of kindness despite its boring nature.

Peace out, I will post an update after my visit to the GP tomorrow.

-Drew

Media

2006-01-30T02:10:00.000Z

Reading:
So what else is going on in my life that I may kick-start this blog? Let's see, I'm reading Freud right now. I'm just over a third of the way through The Interpretation of Dreams and I'm enjoying it immensely. Freud must be one of the most misinterpreted, misquoted, misjudged, figures around. His ideas, whether correct or not, are brilliant, and are easily accessable as his writing is crystal clear and quite plain.

Listening:
Neil Young - After the Goldrush
As I mentioned in an early post, I've been listening to Neil Young's After the Goldrush. I was under the impression that Harvest and Harvest Moon were the quintessential Neil Young CDs; at least as far as his more mellow, Western sounding stuff is concerned. But After the Goldrush is by far my favorite of all his albums I've listened to, I heard it in Starbucks the other day and since it was only 3.99£ at Borders I picked it up (especially since it wasn't available illegaly as a bittorrent).

Coldplay (blush) X+Y
I've also been suprised by the non-crappiness of Coldplay's X+Y. As with the other two Coldplay albums, I have the feeling I will listen to it intensely for a few weeks only to then banish it forever to the unplayed nether-regions of my ipod.

Imogen Heap - Speak for Yourself
Lastly, I've really been enjoying Imogen Heap's album Speak for Yourself. I found Imogen Heap on the O.C. soundtrack, and have never heard or seen her mentioned anywere else. I am slightly embarrassed to admit how much I enjoy this CD. It sounds alot like any other well produced piece of top 40 rubbish, only more human. In keeping with the theme of shameful pleasures I might point out my embarrassment at the fact that I once spent two weeks addicted to The O.C. when I watched the first season everynight on DVD in a blitz of fake tan and plastic surgery. I have since made a full recovery and resumed my stance of intellectual and moral snobbery/superiority to the O.C.

Ratatat - R-A-T-A-T-A-T
I downloaded this album after hearing the first track seventeen years on a skate video called Skate More. The first track is probably one of the best songs I've heard in a couple years. The rest of the album is good but I don't enjoy it really.

Movies
Napoleon Dynamite
Everybody has already seen and loves this movie. Nothing more needs to be said, it is an instant classic; consistantly funnier each time you watch it. The first time you watch it you are most struck by the way that a movie which moves so slowly and unexcitingly can keep such a constant level of low interest. It's just interesting enough to keep you from moving or turning it off. The funniness doesn't strike you until afterwards.

The Chorus
I watched this movie under compulsion by my wife, it is a testament to the excellence of this film that I enjoyed it so much after swearing to Beth that I would make it my business to not enjoy it at all. It is a French film with English subtitles. This movie is the best film I've seen yet in 2006. It is extremely sweet without being saccharine - like Baklava, rather than Butterfinger. This movie is like Amelie, only less pretentious and more good. For that reason, the Guardian will not like it as much.

Review: Memoirs of a Geisha - worst movie of 2006 so far.

2006-01-30T01:53:00.000Z

What an awful experience, 3 hours of very, very, bad drama - if one can call it that. Sure enough, the pretentious wankers at the Guardian gave it a very favorable review. That is because their reviewers have no soul, just a pretensious loser checklist: non-western? check (or so they thought, the movie was actually a Hollywood offering); anti-American? check (very lame jabs at Americans - "these American men are bastards!"); so called artistic beauty? check (the movie is liberally sprinkled with shots of ostensibly Japanese villages and mountain scenes which make you wish you were outside and not in the cinema enduring the third hour of a story that would have been told better in three minutes).

So anyways, I hated this movie passionately. I can't remember a movie arousing so much anger in myself through sheer crumminess. And it is long. Looooooooonnnnng. Needlessly long too. It is as though they said to themselves "lots of good, serious movies, are long."

Basically, this movie is far worse than what one imagines would come out of George Orwell's imagined script writing machine from 1984. "Prole-feed" entertains you, even though you are ashamed to admit it. Memoirs is a case like that of the Emperor's new clothes: pretentious people have been told it is good, and will tell others it is good because they don't want to look as though they didn't 'get-it'. Blech!

First entry

2006-01-30T01:15:00.000Z

Feelin' ruff today. Quit taking SSRI (citalopram, aka. Celexa) on Tuesday of last week. Experiencing gnarly withdrawal symptoms: chills, nausea, shocks etc. Pretty weak. Listening to Neil Young's After the Goldrush to make myself feel better. Also Coldplay X+Y although I'm ashamed to admit it. Something lame about the way Chris Martin preaches eco-conservativsm while flying around the world in a private jet. He probably pollutes more than all the guests of a Coldplay concert put together as a result of his jet setting.

Anyways, like I said, quit SSRIs, feeling bad, looked up symptoms on internet and found many testimonies of others who have had the same problem. I'm going to head down to the doctor's tomorrow first thing and get some citalopram. I'd been dropping by ten milligram doses with no problem but found dropping from 10mg to 0mg to be quite a different story altogether. YIKES! Feel like a crap sandwhich.

As a result of crap-sandwhichness I called in sick to work on Saturday, will do the same tomorrow (Monday). My boss was a wanker about it which was not suprising. Apparently my employers have "a very strict policy regarding sickness". How sweet of them, may they all be poxed with sores and boils. Of all my symptoms right now these shivers are the worse.