Stoked On Life

I had a dream Sunday night that Mark Hoppus gave me a high-five for wearing a descendents shirt. Then he said he liked my vans and dedicated "Online Songs" to me. Pretty rad dream.

Anyways, update? Yea update on my boring-ass life.

The biggest thing is that it's almost time to head back to the University of Guelph. I could not be more happy about this. Our new crib is incredible and seeing all the people from school again will be great. Plus there's O-Week before classes. And classes are a joke for the first month. Which means that it will be party time all the time. Seriously though, I should buckle down this year and actually do some work. I really feel like I've been coasting through my program so far, mostly because I have. I know I can do a lot better than I have and I am going to.

Coming home from school I was really looking for a fresh start and leaving all my problems behind me. I am positive that I've done that. I like to generally think of myself as a positive person. I'm back to being that way. At least I'm pretty sure I am.

Being a lifeguard at Ontario Place is fun while you re-connect with work friends, make new work friends and don't really do much. Then eventually you get to a point where it takes too much energy and you stop giving a fuck about anything that happens there. I'm way past that point and don't really care. Almost done and the reprieve from the water park will be welcomed.

Everything seems to be going right in at least some way. It's nice.

Leave with this. They did it the best, hands down.

All This Time I Figured You'd Be Here

LIFETIME IS SO GOOD!

FINALLY!!!

I Love Jeff

I sat along the rocks and watch the cold Maine water rush away.
The sun and my guitar and I knew what you were doing yesterday.
You broke those promises but I’ll get over it.
‘Cause as long as I’m breathing fresh air I don’t really give a shit
So I’ll complain for the next ten years, but remember that sometimes things are great.

I didn’t have directions and I hadn’t eaten anything all day.
We sucked a fat one and wasted a hundred dollars just to play.
I ate a bag of peanuts right before the windy road.
And I couldn’t drink a thing all night ‘cause of the vomit in the back my throat.
Then you gave me your number and your sweatshirt so I didn’t give a shit.
So I’ll complain for the next eleven years, but remember that sometimes things are great.

You don’t own me! You don't own me!

I worked my ass of my entire life to accomplish one dream.
It started happening and everything was bastardized my greed.
I said “pull this shit over and let me out
I swear to fucking God I’m fucking giving up right now”
And now I’ve got a brand new start, I remember that something are great.

Scream it in apartment halls -
Scream it loud in shopping malls -
Take a ball point pen and paint the inside’s of your eyelids with the constant reminder:
You don’t own me. You don’t own me.

Then I was underground without food or sunlight or encouragement.
Depression set in ‘cause I was a product of my environment.
Then the other day, I got in my car.
Pick Glenn Tillbrook up from the hotel, drive him to the bar.
He wore a t-shirt just like me and wasn’t on his phone
and for fifteen minutes I had a conversation with a hero.
So I’ll complain for the next ten years...
And after that we’ll go drink beers until the bar runs out of beers
prepare for the next twenty-three years.

‘Cause if I wasn’t a fat kid in high school, I would have never listened to punk rock.
And if I knew how to throw a football, I would have never played any music.
And if never got my heart broken, I would sing “blah blah fucking nothing.”
And if you didn’t fuck my ex-girlfriend, I would still owe you three-thousand dollars.
And if I never lived in that van I wouldn’t have met Chris or Steve or James, Alex or Middagh.
And if I never worked in a basement I would have never moved out of my house.
And if I had a big emo band or dropped out of college, I would have never met you, man.

"It was all written in Long Island and it is very expressive of my hope to go around the country playing stupid songs for people who will forget me again."

You fucking changed my life Jeff, I won't forget who you are for the rest of my life.

They're Baaaaa-aaaack

Any doubts I had about the blink-182 reunion are gone. While they aren't my absolute favourite band, they're definitely up there as a top 10. Plus there's no way I can deny the influence that they had on me while I was younger.

"Like the special time you have in the shower. With your dad."

"Goddamn you're a weird guy Tom"

"This song is for all the Canadian males. Who have to deal with the cold and your wiener gets small. And ladies don't like it. Anyways this is All The Small Things."

"Come on let me hold you, touch you, FUCK you"

"The U.S. pentagon says that Toronto is it's favourite place. That was the worst joke I've ever made, so we're starting the next song."

Hey Bub

So I finally got around to reading "Wolverine: Origin" despite all the bad things I had heard about how it was received. X-Men is the main comic title that I read. I enjoy the story-lines thoroughly and I find that each of the characters have been developed extremely well. Usually each has a contradiction in their life that seems impossible to overcome, but drives the story line. Cyclops doing everything he can to be a great leader/Xavier's protege but failing, Nightcrawler being a monk but looking like a demon, Wolverine's introverted personality ruining his relationships.

Wolverine also happens to be one of my favourite characters (come on, beer swilling, cigar smoking, canadian badass who beats villains to a pulp with no weapons?) so this line intrigued me. However, Wolverine's true past has also been shrouded, adding to the appeal of the character. We know he was working for the Canadian government, and Alpha force before that, and Canadian special forces before that. A life in Japan was in there somewhere, but other than that it was anyone's guess. Many argued that revealing/creating his past would destroy his character and for arguably Marvel's most popular personage this seemed like an awful idea. It's one thing to ruin a character like Boom-Boom, but Wolverine? Come on!

After reading the six issues of the title, I found myself extremely disappointed. The story certainly had potential but was nowhere near developed enough. There is a huge jump in time around issues 3 and 4 and he just sort of transforms from a sickly Canadian rich kid to the Wolverine we know now out of left field. The entire story takes place in 19th century Alberta and the effort made to recreate the type of dialogue used at that time was just subpar. The artwork also leaves much to be desired. I would think that for a project that bears as much influence as this one, Marvel would have gotten the biggest names in the business to work on it.

It hasn't affected the line of X-Men that much, other than Wolverine reverting to his 8-year-old self for a while in astonishing X-Men, but seriously it does fall very short of what it could be. Even if they had saved it for a few years until the comic market picked up again, I'm sure it would have been much better.

But hey, at least it's not as bad as the movie. Pretty close though.

In Case of Party, Break Glass

Family Values

I have concluded that the following things run on the male side of my family:

-great ability to grow facial hair

-an appreciation for a good plaid shirt

-enjoyment of beer

-appreciation for the fine arts

-at least some artistic ability

-undying love for Bill Murray

Shred The Gnar

I can safely say that skateboarding changed my life.

The first time I stepped on a skateboard was in grade 2. Now I don’t want to say I’ve been skateboarding since then, but that was the first time I tried it. My friend Chris and I would see older kids skating near us all the time and we wanted to be like them. He had two really shitty boards and I had the time of my life kicking around on it. Of course when I was 8 years old I had the attention span of a goldfish and moved on. But the important part is that I distinctly remember loving the feeling of riding around on a skateboard.

Sidebar: I also remember that both of these shitty skateboards had wicked graphics on the bottom. One was a big mutant bat thing screaming. The other was a skeleton playing poker and was called “The Higher Roller”. I didn’t appreciate them at the time, but I would do terrible things to come into possession of these boards now.

The next time it came back was when the video game “Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater” came out. The game was everywhere because it was so fun to play and really thrust skateboarding into the mainstream. This game changed my life. My brother and I would play it non-stop. It looked amazing to me. The idea of doing all these manoeuvres on a skateboard was just mind blowing and made me want to do the same. The soundtrack was full of punk that, to me, sounded like the only possible sound that you could skateboard to. I bought the album “Hang Ups” by Goldfinger, only because the first track on it was “Superman”. Other bands on it like The Suicide Machines and The Dead Kennedys are ones that I still enjoy today.

Sidebar again: I would get heavy into ska later in my life. “Hang Ups” and “Destruction by Definition”, which were both featured in this game, became some of my favourites. In fact, I would say that next to only “Three Cheers for Disappointment” “DxD” as it’s known, is my favourite album ever.

So I guess I had the “attitude”, more just a constant willingness to skate, and the soundtrack, all I needed was a board. So with my 11^th birthday money I went and bought a skateboard from Wal-Mart. I spent that entire summer skateboarding with my best friend. I didn’t get much better. All my friends got better boards while I just stuck with my piece of crap. This would be important, because seriously this board was god-awful and very hard to get around on. So I stopped skating because my board was such a pain. But my undying interest in the sport never died.

During my teenaged year my high school’s art department had a project where students would paint skateboard decks. They would also sell blank decks for $20. This seemed ideal for me to replace my boat from Wal-Mart. So I bought a blank, painted it black and white checkerboard, reflecting my undying love for ska in high school, and put on my friend’s old trucks. It was far from a great set-up, but I loved it. It also didn’t suck that bad. It also had neon green grip tape. Once I had a deck that I could actually get around on, I was once again freed up to spend countless hours skating in the parking lots of the convenience stores near my house.

I would skate on and off for the remainder of high school, but it was a moment after first year university that really got me going again. I was home from university and had nothing to do, so I went through a bunch of skate videos I had on my computer. Almost’s video “Round 3” immediately inspired me to go and skate and try and become the next Rodney Mullen. Once I had enough money I went out and finally got a pro deck. I also discovered The Bones Brigade around this time, which changed the type of skating I liked forever. “The Search for Animal Chin” is hands down the best skate movie ever.

Now skateboarding is an essential part of who I am. The only time I leave my house without my skateboard is when I know for a fact that I will not be able to bring it into somewhere, or having it will become a huge hassle. The stuff that Koston and Reynolds can do with their skateboards still impresses me more than what any other athlete can do.

One of the things I like most about the sport is the sense of camaraderie between skaters. You immediately have something in common that is a large part of your life. You also immediately have something to do with this person when you hang out. No one cares how good you are, because they were at that point in their skating sometime in their life as well.

The simplicity of the sport is also what keeps me coming back. I’m definitely one of the least technical skaters I know. But that doesn’t matter, because to me, going incredibly fast down a hill on your deck is one of the greatest things that life has to offer.

At least in my mind, I will skateboard for the rest of my life.

Helllllllllz Yea

www.qwantz.com remains to be solid comedic gold every single day. especially today's (July 3rd).

Also I don't give a fuck what you say, this is one of the best love songs I've heard in my life. Maybe because I think that I'm a pretty similar person to Mark Hoppus? Or maybe because it's back when bands could just write honest songs and try to make overly poetic lyrics.

"she laughs at my dumb jokes when no one does, she brings me Mexican food from sombrero just because"