Temptation

One of the hardest things in life is to not do nothing.  Maybe some people find it easy, but I sure as hell don't.  To me, the difficult thing about temptation is that it is always there and for the most part is always there.  I can handle the short term type willpower things with ease, like studying for a test or anything that may be deadline related.  Because there is an end date, and after that you can relax.

But oh that isn't true for everything.  Many times you just want to better yourself in some way, like eating a particular diet or exercising or not drinking or not throwing up or whatever your particular challenges happen to be.  But the temptation to go back into your old ways might never go away.  What if it is a struggle the whole rest of your life?  What if you just decide to give in and do it once, or on special occasions.  It's extremely easy for you to go back to the old patterns you were living by, and for a good reason, why you did in the first place!

Of course severity always varies, and I wager it's much easier to walk 20 minutes a day then say quitting hard drugs for the rest of your life.  But there are people that can't make themselves get regular exercise.  I can't understand it, but it is a real phenomena.

I read an article at eurekalert.org that willpower is like a muscle and the more you use and work it, the stronger it gets.  Maybe so, but on the other end of the spectrum I don't wanna be the square that stresses out over every little thing.  Life is supposed to be fun.

Ripofflandia

This weekend I got to see one of my favorite Canadian artists, Buck 65.  However, the downside was that I paid the ironic amount of $65 for it.  Not that I dont' mind paying to see Buck 65.  I think $30 is a reasonable amount to see Buck 65, as long as he played for a long time.  I can't remember how long he played on Saturday, probably like an hour and a half.  He is a great performer.  He was by himself, with a turntable, mixer, scratch device and laptop to work with.  Last time I saw him was with DJ Skratch Weezil who did all the non singing work.  That was a great show too.

Besides that however, I wanted to see another great band, Holy Fuck.  We  were at Element where Holy Fuck was playing, and the opener DonkeyDong was already halfway through the set.
My friend Dave jumped in front of me wielding a Canadian, the cheapest beer at the bar.
"Hey I was talking to my niece, and apparently people were waiting for Mother last night for 2 hours and still didn't get in"

"Oh shit."

"Yeah.  I'm thinking if we need to see this show, we need to go before the Holy Fuck set ends, because other people are going to try the same thing."

"Shit man, we should leave right now then just to be sure."

"Okay just let me finish my beer"

We stuck around another 15 minutes and then headed over to Market Square.  There was no lineup, but the venue immediately filled up as soon as we got there.  We were there before 9 and we just made it under the wire.  We ended up drinking in the beer garden for the next 3 and a half hours, which wasn't so bad, but we missed Holy Fuck and none of the bands proceeding Buck (especially Jets Overhead) were terrible and deserved nothing less than being wholly ignored.

Point being, music festivals are not worth the cost, unless you are guaranteed to see all the shows you want to see unhindered.

Also, Final Fantasy didn't play because he was sick, or maybe he was "sick".  He canceled last time I went to Victoria too.  Anyways, I didn't get my moneys worth and a refund would be nice.  $60 * 2000 tickets = $120,000

Free money ain't free

Applying for a student loan ain't what it used to be.  When I applied for my first student loan, it seemed pretty easy.  Of course I was fresh out of high school and maybe I just didn't have to fill out most of it.  Now they want every little detail about everything, your name, your address, your email address.

That wasn't a funny joke, but I said it anyway.  Seriously though, they want all your dependent and marriage information, how much money you're making, how much money you'll be making, how much money you made last year, how much school you are taking...and some of the questions, I have no idea how you could possibly answer...how much money will you be making your first term in school.  I dunno am I employed?  Full time or part time.  But then if I'm employed full time how can I be in school????

Anyways, I mostly just wanted to complain because it took way longer than it should have.  And between getting partway through the form then getting distracted, it times you out of your session and you have to start over.  What, I need my gross income from 2008?  That's in a box in the bottom of a pile of other boxes.  Anyways this is just a heads up that if you have to fill out a student loan application, give yourself a lot of time and have all your paperwork!!

Beerfest!

I went to Beerfest this year with one goal in mind: bankrupting Bavik.  This was because in the hours before, while I waited at work for my shift to end with baited breath, when I ran into Anton.  Or maybe I walked over to Anton's desk.  I don't remember that part.  Anyhow, I rubbed it in that I was going to be drinking beer and having fun at beerfest while he was looking after his children and maybe having sex with his wife, or whatever the hell else married couples do.  And he being also bored and liking beer read about this brewery from Belgium who apparently was losing money showing up at beerfest because the cost there was cheaper than what they would normally charge for their beer.

Well hello Bavik, and so when I met my friends at the gate, I told them my plan: I would drink all of their deliciously overpriced beer all the while celebrating the fact that Bavik was making somewhat less profitable business soliciting in my country.
Well after that we waited in line and got some tokens, and looking at the map set my scopes on booth 49.  But WOOOOAAAH!  We get there and what is going on, but their beer costs 2 tokens ($2.50 for 4oz of beer).  Everyone decided that getting beer from here would be nonproductive compared to all the 1 token beer they could drink.  So I conceded to the economic reality and we went off to drink some perfectly good one token beer.  And we did.  But of course, after a few beers I became disillusioned by the one token beer.  And I got all introspective and shit about what beerfest is all about...drinking really good beer.  So I went to the Bavik, alone, and got me a double bruin.  And guess what - even in my drunken state, it was some of the best goddamn beer I ever had.  It didn't even taste like beer.  All other beer I had had up to this point was piss before it.  I let the word out (and shared my beer with a lot of people) and it turns out everyone liked the beer so much we headed over there.  I had Witterkike Rose (made with fruits and vegetables, apparently) and that was awesome too.  I had other good times at beerfest, but I guess the lesson to be learned is that it pays to try and screw over breweries.

The best part of Beerfest was the last hour.  Much like the last hour at a bar, it is as if alcohol lets loose the hounds of hell.  I was tokenless by this time, but a friend of a friend, Lee-Anne had bought way more tickets than I think she could possibly spend without needing to ride out on a wheelbarrow, so I decided to see if I could buy some off her.  When I found her she was with this other guy we knew, Chris.  I offered some change and she said she would give me a token if I would hug copper cowgirl and get my picture taken with her.  I happily agreed, and we were off in search of her, which we eventually found talking to plaster man.  She wasn't posing like a statue anymore, but agreed to the picture.  Lee-Anne got caught up in the moment and decided instead to get her own picture taken with both copper cowgirl and plaster man.  The dude took the photos and I just hung out awhile admiring the spectacle, when after the picture he looked quite dismayed.

"Aw crap" Chris said with a note of shame "I put down our beer glasses to take the picture, and someone took them!  I put them down for like 30 seconds!"

"Bastards" I cried.  Who would do such a thing?  Not wanting to leave these nice people without a glass, I gave them mine to share, while I would track down my friends and share one of theirs.  They thank me and I wandered off, token in hand.

Around this time I finally ran into my buddy Kyle.  Now I had seen him earlier, but decided not to approach since at that exact moment a girl had her hand up his shirt.  Now, he was alone, and I needed a glass.  We exchanged pleasantries and I explained my glassless situation, flashing him my lonely token.  He was happy to help out.

"What do you wanna drink man.  I know where every single good beer is in this dump."

I suddenly decided I wanted an espresso stout.

"Yep I know exactly where the best one is" and we were off to Steamworks at booth 26.  I got my drink, but out of devious desperation I palmed my token, and noone asked for it.  So, I still had a token!  Yes, more beer was in my future!

I decided to go to get some Maple syrup beer from Bravo Brewery.

"That's 2 tokens man" he said to my rapidly falling face.
"But wait...I still have 2 tokens, lets go talk them into doing 2 for 3.  Its the end of the night, they'll go for it."

"Ah good idea." Normally I wouldn't have that much faith in talking a bartender into free beer, but Kyle has magic powers.  The man can sell arms to an octopus, so we marched over to booth 2.
Waiting in line, we realized we only have one cup!  This will make convincing him to give us 2 drinks great difficulty.  As we were fretting over this, this jovial pot bellied man passed us his cup.

"Here guys take this one.  I dun need it no more" he slurred.

We thanked him profusely and forged onward in line, a look of determination in Kyle's glassy eyes.  At the front of the line was our server, a nice enough looking chap, tall, long hair and glasses.  He gave us the "What'll it be" in a not unpleasant voice.

"We were after your maple syrup beer" Kyle said as the bartender cracked a beer to start pouring.  Kyle started fumbling around and looked surpised.

"Oh crap.  I guess we only have three tokens.  Can you do 2 beers for 3 tokens?"

The guy, still having a neutral expression, looked up from his pour.

"I can't do that man, it doesn't work that way, we got rules..."

He drawled on a bit, and Kyle, not exactly cutting him off and not talking over him started to speak as well, while fumbling through his pockets some more:

"We can give you some money...do you want some money...can you just do 2 for 3...come on man, 2 for 3, can you do it?"

This probably went on a lot less longer than it seemed, because the glasses dont' take that long to pour, and the guy, still looking down, started hissing in a stage whisper

"Gimmie your glass.  Forget it, just gimmie the other glass quick"

He filled the glass and we thanked him profusely.

I still had one token left.  I decided to spend it on a Lindemans Peche from the nearby booth one, and it was okay, but it didn't taste as good as the maple beer!  That beer was awesome and I would actually like some more.  

Twenty Minutes with Mr. Tarantino

The place where I work at, the mens washroom on my floor has a magazine rack.  Thats right, there is a holder in our bathroom that holds magazines to browse when you're on the can.  This is a genius idea and makes me think that maybe some companies aren't all bad.  It is possible that upper management doesn't know about it, but they don't read this blog.

Anyhow, because of this rack I feel the urge to buy a new magazine for it from time to time, mostly because NOBODY ELSE EVER BUYS MAGAZINES.  Don't get me wrong, I understand why noone would want to waste money on what is most often essentially the paper equivilant of junk food.
 However, some magazines can be fun (until its read, then its not good for much else but the pictures, which i think is why many people prefer trashy teen mags with girls in tight clothes.  magazines can also be used for collages or making funny pictures by mixing and matching)

Oh man I am off topic again.  So I started looking through magazines at Chapters, upset over the fact that magazines are either overpriced or devoid of content (Vice is the only magazine where the ads are actually better than the content, for some reasons advertisers don't even try to make good ads for the majority of mags).  Fortunately, I keep looking and find that Quentin Tarantino does an interview in Esquire to promote Inglorious Basterds.  Now I can't wait for the next time I have to shit at work.

I read most of the article in one sitting, it's enjoyable.  I end up reading some more interviews afterwords, and I find out that when he finished writing Basterds, he had about 30 hours worth of screenplay.  THIRTY HOURS!!!!!!!  Holy crap, that guy can write.  Obviously when you are seeing a Tarantino film you are getting the cream of the cream, but I am blown away by just the sheer volume he can spout out, most  of it likely dialogue, what he seems to be good at, and which I fail hard at every time I pick up the pen.

I don't consider myself a writer and I will probably never get anything published, but good dialogue is something I would really love to get good at.  I immediately remembered that book Stephen King wrote and how his books get rewritten so much the end product does not resemble the original product at all except in idea.  It made me think, what if Quentin already wrote something similar on how he writes and what he finds works and what doesn't.  I would pay a lot of money for a book like that, but sadly it doesn't exist.  Then after that I started daydreaming about what kinds of questions I would ask Quentin if I were interviewing him, or preferably just hanging out with him.  Then I realized all the questions would be about him telling me his writing techniques, how he gets started and the periods he spends writing, and how he does rewrites.  He might think I'm an idiot or that I need to learn to just do it on my own, but I'd ask him anyway.

we can get you what you want, but you cant get it for free

Apparently the entire nation of South Korea is addicted to the internet.  According to this article from 2003, when the Slammer virus shut down the internet for several hours, the entire country went into withdrawal.  It was estimated then, 6 years ago, that 10% of the population was addicted to the internet in some form or another.

More recently, in 2007 there was started a boot camp for kids dealing with internet addiction, the Jump Up Internet Rescue School where they do the usual boot camp things like grueling outdoor excercises but also teach hobbies like pottery.

The signs of internet addiction, as opposed to casual use, is an inability to pull away from the computer, and anger and craving when they are somehow prevented from using it.

I've always believed video games are addictive like hard drugs.  They are escapism and usually make you  feel good, or at least feel not yourself.  Obviously this is becoming a bigger deal elsewhere, like the United States where they opened the first internet rehabilitation centre.  Its the same rehashed rehab type stuff, holding hands, crying, whatever the hell else they do there.

I dont' think there is any point in 'blaming' technology or whatever is related to it you could blame.  It is just an exceptionally good form of escape, comes in a lot of different flavors, and is relatively cheap compared to any hard drugs.  The problem is real life, at least for a lot of people sucks.  There are a lot of reasons and angles to take for this, but like the other addictions in our society its a symptom that we want something more or different from what we have right now.

 As for people addicted to texting each other and using gadgets every 2 minutes when you're trying to just talk to them about normal human things or anything else, I don't quite get that yet.  Its some sort of physical manifestation of our speeding up culture, and people seeming to think this is the best way to run their lives or maybe this is how they have to live their lives because they don't have as much time as people used to because hey they are busy.

TELL ME TELL ME TELL ME TELL ME

I had a pretty awesome dream last night.  I don't have a dream journal.  Rather, I have a pen and pad of paper under my bed which I would like to use for a dream journal.  The facts however, are that I like sleeping a lot - so when I wake from an intense dream - say where I am chosen by aliens along with 2 other humans to consume a potion, and, after a period of meditation I am able to read strange alien languages and am beginning to be told the secrets of the universe...well the thought to write it down just doesn't occur to me until I'm dressing for work, long long after the dream had past.

I've always had bizarre, crazy and disjointed dreams - And to be honest I don't know what kind of dreams you have, maybe they are more similar than I imagine - but this one grabbed my attention not only because of the subject but the dream was intensely vivid.  Sometimes my dreams have the same intense intensiveness, but the content is simple, like flying an old fashion airplane through a barn, but this one had a similar theme to one I had a few years ago.  Once I took too many Tylenol 3s and the next thing I knew I was standing in a desert type place with A hooded figure like that death guy.  He told me his name was Time and he had something very important to tell me...yep.

Anyhow, either he was just stalling for time or I forgot what he told me.  When I woke up I was on the floor and people were standing over me saying "What happened to you Eric?"  Maybe they said it too many times and made me forgot.  Or, maybe that was the point, that the secret is I need to remember things better.  If not maybe I'll get another shot at it.