Champion Robertson

This is a News Story in whatever the hell era we live in now a days.   The numerous insanities rain down like anvils in a 70's cartoon episode... but that was violent... we can't have violent cartoons... our kids might grow up to be idiots.   Is it too late?

Basically the news story is saying a stupid idea is failing because people are getting wise to that kind of stupid, so we have to change the way we deliver stupid.  It say's people are tired of seeing some lying jackass in a suit and briefcase push some cause that will put the public in great peril.  Remember this is a big PR firm hired to SELL THE IDEA THAT A OIL PIPELINE IS A GOOD THING FOR THE PEOPLE WHO MAY ONE DAY NEED TO LIVE OFF THE LAND THAT IS BEING DESTROYED FOR SHORT TERM GAIN FOR A FEW.

Right the NEWS STORY is how some big PR firm is going to win the hearts of the citizens.  Basically saying THIS IS HOW WE SHALL DUPE THE SHEEPLE.

First background checks on those who oppose you... well of course it is a "campaign-style approach"... perhaps if you can dig up something on somebody that liked a facebook page you could extrapolate that into a big story on how opponents to your great "family values" cause tend to be serial criminals.

The PR firm believes that there needs to be a "perpetual campaign to protect and enhance the value of their pipeline".  You start to wonder if the taxpayers will be on the hook for any of this "perpetual campaign"?

Then you get the usual nonsense where they use the "three pronged approach" card... you know promote your angle, attack the opposition and then hire some shills to message on your behalf.

The real killer here is the "targeted messaging" section... this is where they will track citizens online behaviors and lead them to their individualized "trigger points" with the ultimate goal of turning them into activists, and then of course "champions".  These people will then be willing to testify during hearings, or share their personal stories for various advertising campaigns.  Believe it or not 50 people have already given "on camera" testimonials to this cause that a PR firm got them excited about by pushing their buttons.

You would think it would be amazing that a news story like this could exist, but these types of things are very common... hell it's on the CBC a bunch of left wing pinko's always trying to throw dirt in the wheels of progress.  You can probably safely bet that anybody who reads the whole article, and understand it for what it is, is not the kind of citizen that the PR firm is targeting to turn into an activist and then champion... we need more buzz words around here!

It is terribly disturbing however to see that beyond a shadow of a doubt, wright or wrong, for good or ill, companies will do whatever it takes to push their financial interests.  It's just a game and this is how we will win it... on a dead planet, money will be moot.

Maybe I'll just call myself Champion Robertson and skip on the button pushing and lending my person for an advertising campaign... yes yes that is much more sane, and you know I'm right.

Leaf report... for JK

Here we go again... another Toronto Maple Leaf hockey season is upon us, and the obvious question is...  do we have faith?  Well hey faith was made to be broken, so as per usual I'm all in.

I believe i can say with a very sane mind that this team is one of the better ones in recent memory...  not that any Leaf teams in recent memory have set the record books on fire (in a good way), but i like the direction.

A young team gets a bit older, but yet there are decent prospects in the pipe, for the first time in ages there was no overpriced free agent "savior" signing in the off season, only a few decent players with hockey sense and possible upside.

We know that former Leaf Leo Komarov will hit every body in sight, and former Leaf Matt Frattin will do the same and has speed to burn... Mike Santorelli has put up good numbers and i thought had a great season in a disastrous Vancouver Canucks campaign last year.  Daniel Winnik comes from a winning team where he played 76 games, put up 30 points and took only 23 penalty minutes... and he is from Toronto.  It could be that the Leafs 3rd and 4th lines can play hockey and compete with other NHL opponents rather than take a shift here and there to try and intimidate the opponents.  This could be huge... perhaps a line like those could play in the opposing teams end of the ice and wear them down a bit to give some space for the more offensive players.  Remember that scoring goals has not really been a problem for the Leafs, rather the fact that they get scored on more often.  It will be interesting to see what the smaller "spark plug" player Brandon Kozun will bring... he is 24, seems to possess a high hockey IQ,  has speed and skill.  Sometimes smaller players who get overlooked because of their size but have the heart of a lion, can prove to be great assets (see Martin St. Louis).

The absence of a pure enforcer currently on the NHL roster is an intriguing move, and one that might pay dividends... perhaps the Leafs will try to beat the opposition by playing hockey... one can only hope.

Of course as we mentioned before, the Leafs problem has been keeping the puck out of their own net with their patented "fire drill" defensive strategy.  Hopefully the new forwards can help bring a hockey sense supporting roll to getting the puck out of their own end... but what about the defense?

Well Jake Gardiner and Morgan Rielly are a year older, and hey they are dynamite players, perhaps with some proper support they will be able to shine further.  Roman Polak comes from one of the better defensive teams (St, Louis), so at least he has had some experience playing in a successful defensive system.  What about the veteran Stephane Robidas? Perhaps a risk signing given he is 37 years old and coming off 2 bad leg fractures, but i believe his experience, competitive spirit and game smarts are just what the Leafs need if they want to try to turn the way they play defensively around.

Of course it is Toronto and the first mistake made by a player will be front page news, which makes it harder to shake a monkey Omen like that.  If the captain and best player of the Nashville Predators makes a mistake in a game the world goes on, and if Jake Gardiner makes a mistake there will be poles in news stories on how soon should he be traded...  And idiot readers will take the pole and leave their ass brained comments at the bottom of the article under some anonymous name... cause that's how we do it in Toronto.  Remember this is the city that elected Rob Ford, a known partisan buffoon who claimed cyclists who got killed "had it coming" for using roads, and then opposed bike routes, and then got elected.

But i did make a grilled cheese sandwich and one could clearly see the image of the great Johnny Bower making a scintillating save... i was going to put it up on ebay but i was kind of hungry and i realized that if i ate it it might give me the power to "will" the team on to victory this year.  Never take signs that come to you in the form of a grilled sandwich lightly.

This year of course the Leafs are using advanced statistics... it is the way of sports these days and you have to think of the old adage "if you can't beat them then join them".  Hey when a certain player is on the ice our team has the puck a lot more of the time... this is a good thing right?  Sometimes there are blind spots where you like a player, and are blinded to their weakness... but the fact's don't lie.

Say you were a partisan political coach and you believed evolution was a crock, and invading countries to secure Oil was God's work, and in no way was capitalism and industrialization responsible for the decimation of the planet and all those pinko tree huggers are a negative drain on progress.  And say half your team believed that and the other half thought you were a brain dead bigoted loon.   Well you might end up liking the players that shared your views and disliking the ones that didn't (that's how humans work), so perhaps you give more ice time to the players you like and less to those you don't... now perhaps the players that you are playing are not the best for winning hockey games, but you want them to do better so they can make more money to reward them for their belief system.  In your press scrums you sight all kinds of remote bible passages that show that your decisions were the ones that needed to be made and you challenge any opposition to your plan as a terrible unpatriotic bias.

The along comes the stats, that show the players you are choosing for certain situations are not the ones that are yielding the best results... what do you do?  Well i guess if you are a partisan political coach then you immediately challenge scientific method as a biased and erratic measuring stick, run commercials espousing "family values" and eliminate scientific funding... but alas you get the point.

For the record i like Randy Carlyle as a Coach, and in no way am i trying to say he is a partisan political coach... i just pulled an incredibly extreme and hyper hypothetical scenario out of my ass to try and make a point about the value of having a quantitative statistic on players value and considering it in your assessment of how the team plays. Obviously you need gut feelings and the opportunities to allow players to play through slumps and such, but the data doesn't lie... unless you can hire the stats keepers who have no data gathering experience, don't believe in it and just fudge the numbers (it would be like a stepping stone job to minister of finance).

But seriously, lets dream about the best case scenario... dreams should be fun right?
The JVR, Bozak and Kessel line continues to put up "world class" numbers, and the 2nd line of Lupul, Kadri, and Kozun gets even hotter glowing like a Blacksmith's poker in a kiln fire. Now should we have the 3rd line scoring every shift and the 4th line come out and rather than drop the puck the ref just throws it in the opposition net to save time on the clock... It's probably not going to happen like that, but remember we are in the dream part of the story.  It's really not a good dream, because the real excitement comes winning close fought games where big plays are made at both ends of the ice.

Lets get er going...


Projected line up for opening night given injuries and such.

Forwards

James van Riemsdyk -Tyler Bozak - Phil Kessel
Joffrey Lupul - Nazem Kadri - Brandon Kozun
Leo Komarov - Mike Santorelli - David Clarkson
Daniel Winnik - Peter Holland - Matt Frattin


Defenceman

Dion Phaneuf - Stephane Robidas
Jake Gardiner - Roman Polak
Morgan Rielly - Stuart Percy



Golatenders

Jonathan Bernier
James Reimer

 

And so you know i wasn't making up the bit about Johnny Bower making a big save on my Grilled Cheese... don't want anybody to think I'm crazy.

What is cute?

The Yellow Garden spider (Argiope aurantia) was the one that patrolled my fathers garden back in Toronto Canada.  It was a mean looking spider that would bite if disturbed... now i don't ever remember being bitten but i was warned, and knowing that it could was enough for me.  I was also taught that this spider is a great ally for the garden for it's ability to remove pests.

Now there were also a lot of grasshoppers in Toronto... my friend Tom and I called them "clings" because when you caught them they would cling to you and as a defense mechanism would release (or spit) what we called brown junk... seriously. 

One of our favorite pastimes back in those summer days was to catch a grasshopper and throw it into a spider web... it was a grand old time to see the grasshopper struggle in the web and get wrapped up in silk and then bitten causing a final kicking of the leg.  Dad thought that was great too, nature in action, kids on pest control... a good thing for sure. You know grasshoppers are locusts right? They also have ears on their bellies if you want to get into bizarre facts, but the fact is they are garden and plant pests and a wise gardener takes these threats seriously.   So if you are thinking it's mean and evil to kill garden pests then you should go read another blog... back in those days people would douse their gardens with insecticides killing all kinds of beneficial insects and essentially poisoning their food... but they didn't actually kill anything physically with their hands or their feet so in some way were absolved (in their head) of killing.  Most farming now is done on an industrial level and incredible resources go into pest control often at the cost of sustainibility and overall environmental health.  So the person who spends their time physically culling pests is in some way really doing it right.

I learned a lot of things from Dad, some of them i have unlearned, others i have adapted but a staunch opposition to garden pests is one i keep close to my heart.  I was once asked how i could kill slugs by a person who then went and put slug bait killer in her garden.

As you can imagine we had some pretty enormous Yellow Spiders in the garden fed on a steady diet of clings. Kind of a weird thing to have a healthy population of large spiders that bite and then your father sends you out to pick beans for dinner... carefully you move around the garden your hands disturbing the beans to reach under to where the bounty lies... will there be any surprises?

Now there is a serious pest in our neighborhood... a little ass hole squirrel with a stubby tail that just reeks havoc on the local food producing plants.  This bastard will go into a fruit tree grab a fruit, and taker a bite and then drop it on the ground and then grab another fruit and do it again.  It will eat beets and chard and chew new growth off of blueberry plants, but some of the locals think it is fucking cute.  I want that thing dead, but i kind of made a deal that if somebody stopped feeding the squirrels peanuts then i would stop counterattacking.   And in fairness the peanut feeding has stopped and this has made a huge difference to the squirrel's annoying factor.

Anyhoo out in my front yard the bastard started to build a nest in our tree... this cannot happen, so i did what any sane person would do and grab a long bamboo pole, climb the tree and poked that fucking nest down.  I made sure to do it before there were young in the nest as i can just imagine the horror of one of the squirrel friendly neighbors coming by and seeing little baby squirrels hitting the ground like hackey sac's and then looking up to see old man Robertson poking the nest with a long pole.  I though i was being fair.. the nest goes up, the nest comes down, and the squirrel finds a better spot learning that this spot is a very bad spot indeed.  No way does the bastard that ate all of my plums get to have a "safe" home in the view of my relaxing porch... that would be like giving a terrorist an apartment in the Bronx... insane. 

But they are cute and furry and people like them and will defend them to the hilt.  Now I'm sure if a person went into somebodies yard and fucked up their fruit tree there would be a full on hate for that person, i guess the lesson is do it in a squirrel suit and you will be OK. 

I remember at our cottage we had a bluebird nesting box and a family of tree swallows nested it it... it was great watching them until a red squirrel climbed up there and chewed the entrance hole bigger, destroying the nesting box and then ate the birds...  real cute.

Toilet humor

Well the night started off with a trip to the local Home Depo to return a toilet paper roll holder i had bought earlier.  I managed to fix the old one after closer inspection but not before a quick impulse purchase where i thought i was "doing things".

You see i meant to look for fire mortar, but again my brain remembered something, and that was that we were out of toilet paper.  Home Depo has toilet paper but  i know where i can get it cheaper, and I'm not really the kind of person who thinks "well I'm here now, I'll just pay this"... No no, i have already justified the gas it took me to get there and my alternative route home that will put me by the place that sells cheaper toilet paper.

So i leave the store after eyeballing a few tools and forgetting about the fire mortar...  So i get to my other large store and grab my toilet paper... the big ass 36 double roll all wrapped in enough plastic to kill a small marine colony ( i do recycle it thanks to New Seasons).

So I'm walking around the store with a big ass pile of toilet paper under my arm and i kind of remember a few people i know who feel uncomfortable buying toilet paper in public.  So i do what we all do in that circumstance, and that is of course go into a dream sequence where you are doing a stand up comedy routine on the subject... "you know some people get embarrassed about buying toilet paper... what's up with that?  you know if somebody were to see me carrying toilet paper and they are looking at me... what are they thinking... Is it, this guy cares about having a clean ass?  If that's the case I'm OK with that..." It's different in a dream sequence because in the dream sequence you are always really funny and the comedy club is at capacity and they are laughing and you are on a roll... next thing you know your eye catches a blowout sale on ice cream bars.

The kids will like the ice cream bars after a hot day of school... and then i remember the kids lunches.  They made their lunch for tomorrow and we are short on fruit, and also the neighbour down the street gave us some Italian Prune plums the other day and the kids loved them.  A nice plum in the lunch would be a great thing i think to myself.  So i get some apples (honey crisp) and i see braeburn and gala apples and i chuckle to myself about a song i wrote called Robertson's dream orchard, and then i look for the plums... and i can't find them.  There i am pacing up and down the plum isle  with the biggest load of toilet paper a man can get.  Luckily there are 3 people stocking produce so i ask one guy "do you have any prune plumbs"... "Prune Plumb?  What's that?" he said.  Now my first reaction is a little shock... how could you work in produce in plum season and not know what a prune plum is?  But i say with clarity "Italian prune plum a little purple plum shaped like a little football"... hint: when talking to Americans, if you can work in a football analogy you might get somewhere.  "Prune plum" he said loudly and we go back over the plums and each plum pointed out to me is not a prune plum, so he asks a lady stocking peaches... "prune plum!" she exclaims... by this time a small crowd is gathering.  Oh maybe in Organics... alas i think perhaps we are getting somewhere, but no there are no prune plumbs in the store... only me with the equivalent of 72 rolls of toilet paper and 3 store employees yelling "prune plum"! The one yells "do you need some prunes!"  It is around this time I realize that beyond a shadow of a doubt i have become the main attraction in this part of the store and even a kind older lady quietly tells me where the Metamucil is stocked in another part of the store.   "Are you sure these big purple plums won't work for you?" the first guy asks... "No thank you, the Damson plumbs are not the kind of plumbs my children would like in their lunch" i reply trying to salvage what bit of dignity i may have left at this point.

Anyway i saved money.

economic thoughts

Just watched some economists argue over "what is good for the middle class consumer"... old tax cuts, inflation, union bashing, free market baloney we are use to.  An elaborate finger pointing scheme where everybody is their own worst enemy.  Textbook economic solutions to emotional and human problems.

Now I'm no economist, but I've done alright and i think one of the keys to my success has been a staunch refusal to be a consumer.  Funny how in the news story photo they have some rube in one of those big stores that sells everything and they have a big cart full of plastic and Styrofoam and some things edible and the headline runs to the effect "price of goods going skyward". 

To me, accepting that level of consumerism is just insane in the first place, so arguing over how to keep this status quo is a point not worth making in my non humble opinion.  It's a shame that nobody would ever get hired, or elected with the idea that economic growth itself could be the problem.  Rather than arguing over how to keep people, who are referred to as consumers, able to keep purchasing plastic garbage at a rate suitable to expand "growth", shouldn't we be seriously rethinking the source of the problem.

This is crazy talk of course, but crazy is the new sane... haven't you heard.  I think there was a social media thing people were sharing and i expect it to make a difference.  It's like the voters choice doesn't coincide, electing business is always suicide, status quo knows, sad suckers stand in sympathy.

It's kind of like were all just losing our minds, as if serendipity came calling, I'm like you and your like me, can we live together.

OK enough with the song lyrics, but you know there is a point there... clearly humanity is not going to come to it's collective senses.

So what to do? Time to start following Superenomics... don't be a chump when it comes to spending your money.  Chump fools whine when they are broke... they don't see the wheel has a spoke.  They are observers of nothing and students of none.  They set out to see, but they do not see what they need to see.  Think about it in terms of a board game... you want to finish the game in a good state... you don't want to be mauled mid game by the debt avenging society.  I must state, if you think that the government will be there to help you in a time of crisis, you thought process needs to be re-examined.

For me it's all about living within my means with the focus on a secure tomorrow... kind of sounds like a good conservative election press release.  Of course the only person you can trust for your  good is yourself.   That's what an MBA in the Music Industry taught me... MBA standing for Me Being Awesome as the Music Industry insists upon.  The Music industry would have you climb a flag pole in a jackass suit on patriot day to get some press to sell some records, and then charge you for the stunt.  Sorry, didn't mean to get off on a tangent, even though it was marginally relevant to our little discussion here.  Discussion or man with a drinking problem sending his thoughts into cyberspace... i can live with either... i don't need to be important to the world, it might actually cramp my style, and these cold IPA's are singing my tune.

But seriously, don't be a moron with your money... you money is your security.  Squirrel it away rather than waste it on things you don't really need.  In time you may find yourself on the right side of the interest equation and when you are older and not able to do the work you can do now, it will pay plenty dividends.  Did i just use "squirrel" as a positive? I would delete that but it's kind of funny for some... right?

OK, seriously i want to help you... I'm a 44 year old civil servant/ child caregiver/ artist with a dozen albums, who is living the good life.  Did i mention i still don't have a cell phone, or is it called a smart phone, cause i can't really afford it... i drive wife and 3 kids camping in a Toyota matrix... we need a bigger vehicle but we can't afford it... so we do without.  It's that line you need to be able to walk... what is really important.  It's so easy in life to think you really need something... but what you really need is freedom.. freedom from bills that just keep piling up.  When you relate to yourself as a consumer, clearly you think of somebody who consumes goods before the person.

I can't tell you how many times when i was young (20's) and making music how many people i knew where buying gear the couldn't afford thinking it would push them over the top.  I caught a break in that our drummer worked at a studio and we got free time, and although I'm happy how things turned out i can't help but think that the other option was the 4-track, which in our case might have been more productive.  If you are in a band then learn to play great and learn to record great before you start spending your money.   That said, spend the money on a good engineer when you are ready... that money is better than any pedal or amp can buy.  The proper team with efficient operation should be able to make a decent record in a few weekends for about 5 grand.  If you are in a band that can't raise 5 grand then don't do it.

Funny how the points around here always come back to band dynamics... but this is part of our economy lesson.  It's like buying a house to live in, not one that you think will gain value... maybe it will maybe it won't, but is your living good?  Common economic policy is to buy the worst house on the best street, but then you walk home to that house every day of you life... why not for cheaper buy the best house in an average neighbourhod?  Then you come home every day to your nice house and your neighbours are less money grubbing maniacs. 

In my life experience,  i have found living with poor people far more gratifying than living with rich people... mind you i currently live among the dwindling middle class.  Poor people can have fun with very little where i find rich people have a deficit in that decree.  Poor people throw fun potlucks where you learn things about cooking... rich people have catered parties and comment on the catering service.

Sometimes i dream about being rich... driving around in my Toyota Tacoma collecting free firewood... wait a minute, a rich man would have his firewood chopped and delivered.  But if i were rich would i want to rob myself of the action of chopping my own firewood?  Perhaps i could send a text message to a fire wood delivery guy because i could afford a smart phone... being rich and all.


Even in my dreams of being rich I do most of the work... it comes from the idea that if you want something done right then do it yourself.   I think an important component of life is that ability... and when the shit hits the fan, as it will i believe, that skill will pay in spades.

Rules of Supereconomics:

1) a dollar you save today will be worth more in the future
2) fuck with telemarketers
3) own your identity
4) free fun is always better than paid fun
5) if somebody comes to your door try to sell them an album
6) don't buy what you don't really need
7) be fluid
8) grow your own food
9) become proficient at fixing things
10) don't be a sucker
11) never feel bad for yourself
12) rest is better than work... understand that for all it means
13) 13 is an unlucky number to superstitious fools
14) the list is too long for an internet conversion

like old times

I remember when i use to write blogs about nothing... what was i going to say... i don't know, i guess i would figure it out after a few pecks.   Pecks of course was a shot at my typing ability.  I had a band and a website that i thought needed content for some reason... it's one of the few things i had right in the music business... keep something going to bring people back to the website so you can sell sell sell.  Of course we couldn't sell things on the site back then, you couldn't even put music on the site or video back then.  You could put a link to your MP3.com site of your CBC ZED site and hope for the best.  I also wanted to learn how to write, and the way i learn things is by doing them.  No doubt i was literacy impaired at the time, significantly more than i am at this point in my life, and i took some heat but it didn't really matter to me, because i knew i had to get better.  As much as i was doing right by adding content i was doing wrong by exposing weakness, but i have never been one for business models.

I hate business models because they focus on monetary profit often at the cost of the long term health of the system.  And since the system is me and i value my health over my fame or my bottom line financially it was an easy choice.  Music and art is a therapy and hobby and a chance to connect with other "like" or not "like" minded people.  I got a steady day job before ever venturing into the "game" and saved my money so i didn't have to be molded into something i was not in order to survive.  Perhaps that was a mistake and maybe the idea was to go "all in" and figure out a way to win at "the game".  I was just never much of a gambler, and i liked eating and sleeping in warm clean beds, and i could even argue that i was in a position to "gamble" more on stage because i could afford to lose... if you know what i mean. 

There is a guy who has sold a lot of records who came to some of my shows and enjoyed them immensely telling me "i love watching you because you can do what i can't".  I can live with that.  In some ways i kind of feel sorry for people trapped by their success... the mind can be a big place if the imagination is free, but if the imagination has an accountant putting up walls finding "sweet spots" i can see how that might be frustrating.

Competition is a weird thing in the "music community", and yes i scoff at that statement... every music scene is like a replay of Lord of the Flies.  The margin for success is so thin that you need every advantage, people do it without even knowing they are doing it.

I have been on serious music scene hiatus for a couple and a half years... now just an observer of things, releasing songs quietly from time to time, but more interested in watching things from afar.  I lack nothing in life essentials and really on a financial scale i am rather well off, but i do long to make a difference in the world through art.  Am i foolish enough to think that might happen?  Of course I am.  As unrealistic of a goal that is i will continue... now i won't sacrifice my well being or the well being of my family to make a  "serious run at it"... but then again what is a "serious run at it"?  There is art and there is the marketing of art... these are two different things.  What if i told you i wrote and recorded a ball stomping anti war anthem, but it stopped no wars and made no profit... is it still a ball stomping anti war anthem?

So it stopped no wars and made no money and made no difference and wasn't heard... does that mean you should stop doing it?  The business model would say yes but the fire that drives the artist would say no.  What one do you listen to?  I guess it depends on what raft you jumped on at the head of the river.   My path is sealed... i choose to enjoy my music experience and not die under the weight of it's economic failure.  It is the making of the music i enjoy, dialing the words just right... feeling the groove and running with it without the fear of failure.

Let's be honest, i have failed on some small levels, i have released thing that shouldn't have been released, but i needed to do that to truly understand why.  Sometimes in life you are in situations that are the sum of a great many equations and the math just doesn't add up and you can choose to fold of put the cards on the table and take the heat.  I come from a family of perfectionists and i grew up seeing the error of the perfectionist way... i probably went too far the other way with a mind to keep the ball rolling.  Everybody has their way, and I'm stuck in mine so this is the way it will go.  I like the analogy of the inventor who fails a thousand times before he is successful over the person who completes little for fear that it is not perfect. 

When i look back on all of the songs and the records i think of the song "with a broken hand" which was a 4-track song that had me on piano (that i can't really play) with my hand in a cast (due to hockey injury).  The song was recorded on the fly in an hour lyrics were written while bass was laid down... a nice little number where perfection was not the goal but rather getting it done was the answer.  Sometimes i listen to that song and think with the wrong mindset that song could have been deleted from existence.  I like the tune, and for me when i hear it i remember the moment in time and the feeling of what we thought we were doing... it's not a thing that commercial success or lack thereof can take from me because i am invested in the moment and not the critical or popular view of the product. 

One thing now i practice now is compassion for famous people... it is so easy to hate and judge them and to ridicule the things that they do.  The things they do are conditioned responses to market forces or insane outbursts caused mostly by the cages they are locked into.  Of course i am a famous person myself... just on a smaller scale.   Try being the only beard man at the baby group filled with grandmothers and nannies... maybe not fame but just that guy.

Ben Johnson, disgraced Canadian sprinter, to be part of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s re-election campaign. Like an Arrested Development episode

I mean I liked Ben Johnson, in a way that you like a guy in that you feel sorry for him because everybody cheated but he was the only one that got caught and paid dearly.  He was disgraced while others were heroes, but he was the one that ran 100 meters in 9.79 seconds.  They were on drugs too, but they couldn't beat that time, but hey when you are a Canadian you get to the back of the line.

So Ben Johnson cheated (like most others in the field), got caught, lied, continued to lie and became "disgraced".  He could run like the wind, but intelligence perhaps wasn't his strongest suit. 

He has now joined Rob Ford's re-election campaign.

That half sentence has to be a paragraph of it's own given the pure insanity of it's merit. I was in a grade one class making up a song about a fat cat siting on things and smashing them down while a tone deaf kid added a whistling solo through the whole song, and that paragraph is the most bat shit crazy thing i have heard in a long time.

So a mayor who gets caught using illegal drugs and repeatedly lies about it, and then comes clean when the evidence is too overwhelming, has taken on to his campaign team one of the most famous drug cheats (who repeatedly lied about it until coming clean far too late for respectability).  It's so crazy it just might work?   The old 180 degree logic...  and hey people like Ben Johnson, and many feel he was unfairly treated.


Check this:

In 2008- Disgraced Olympic sprinter Ben Johnson planed to sue his former lawyer's estate for $37 million, alleging that Edward Futerman took advantage of his "diminished mental capacities"
The lawsuit contends attorney Ed Futterman took advantage of Johnson. The suit also contends Johnson was incapable of understanding complex legal documents. Johnson’s own lawsuit contends, psychiatric experts concluded in 1989 that “there is overwhelming evidence that Mr. Johnson is intellectually retarded.”

Believe it or not the case was thrown out of court. 

Clearly always good to fill the campaign team with people previously declared as "intellectually retarded".  It's not like politics is a blood sport that relies on deft cunning, attacking perceived weaknesses, even creating them if need be, right.  That's where the person with diminished mental capabilities comes in to "right" the campaign team.  People will be looking at their T.V's thinking Rob Ford looked really intelligent next to that famous drug cheat... i think I'll vote for him.

I feel bad, I don't want to stomp on Ben Johnson, i guess  he needs money, and Rob Ford has money, so you get hired on to do an event and use your celebrity to get some attention.  That has to be it right?  I guess you can do the Rob Ford gig and if somebody gives you a hassle you can play the "diminished mental capacity" card.

But does intelligence matter in politics anymore?  There is no point answering that question... because the answer is depressing and enraging at the same time. It's the human condition where people can be highly intelligent and capable of amazing thing but together we are dumb as a post.

If you were writing a comedy sketch and you were doing the Rob Ford re election campaign, Ben Johnson would be the person you would put on his campaign team.  The person who is most famous for the traits you have that you are trying to dismiss as something that happened in the past and is over.  I could be wrong.. i see irony, a thick slab of it, but perhaps others will see an "average" and "likeable" guy who made an honest mistake and carried on to do good.  Which is absolute gibberish of course, but who gives a shit... if you can get elected. 

76 Game Leaf report... For JK

Egad, wold be a fine one word report, perhaps with the d backwards and the fresh ink smudged across the paper.  But that would be high art, and we are in the business of sports reporting... maybe not even in the business at all, perhaps change the word "maybe" and replace it with a word more absolute  towards the idea of NOT.

Obviously i am hesitant to dagger my team... there are many that could be easily buried with words that aren't kind.  But i digress, there is pain enough in this latest "epic collapse" that there are plenty of daggers already stabbed into this lifeless corpse, and few more from me aren't going to help.  Not only that.. it's important to stick with your team... bandwagons are for charlatans.

How do you turn it around Leafs?... it might be too late, but like the heroes in movies they always look done before they pull one out of the coals at the last second.

I suggest this.  Make the safe plays and get on the body.  The fancy stuff aint working so say to yourself "i will put the puck here and then remove the puck from my man".  Focus on that and not goal scoring or losing.  Wingers; every shift say to yourself "my point man does not get a chance to shoot the puck because he will not get the puck because i will and i will get it out and focus on that and only that.  Rather than thinking of winning or losing the game attack every battle... "my man will not get position".  Win a few battles and then get a streak going.  A shot on net is better than a risky pass so say to yourself "i will get this shot through" and your line mate will say "I will recover the rebound".   I will get the puck by sheer will and i will put it in a good spot and if i have to take it back i will.

Seems simple right.. that's why you play the games.  Don't be afraid to lose because you are playing a game of battles with a new chance to win every play.  Use your speed skate the puck but when closed in on make sure the puck gets somewhere safe and you know your team mates are ready to compete to get to that safe puck.

You might not win, but you might not be defeated.

SR

the way i see it today...

I played music in a bar the other night, something that on some levels i am against, and most of those levels have to do with respecting your music.  It's a long knotty one that can be dealt with in another blog, or perhaps has been dealt with in another blog over a long period.  To each their own, but the big problem comes with ridiculous views on what various people look to get out of it.  I am at peace with my participation in the game, and truth be told i had a good time, played pretty well and enjoyed all that was played by all involved, but i got more out of it than that.

You see i got into a good alpha predator discussion with the good doctor down the street and we talked about how goats have large tufts of fur on their neck and the evolutionary idea behind this is that a wolf, or wolf like predator might just come up with a mouth full of fur instead of a bite to the neck.  I found this  a spectacular and relevant insight to my current internal debate over whether or not to shave off my king hell sideburns for an upcoming tropical vacation that will have me snorkeling in shark infested reefs.  Clearly beyond any reasonable doubt a body in the ocean with massive pro sideburns has a clear survival advantage in the event of a shark attack using the goat model.  Not only will i be looking good but i will be applying evolutionary tested defense mechanisms... can you hashtag #doublewinning yes, i think you can.

And the day before i had another great side burn victory... you see i was @ the local Trader Joe's with two of my daughters who have the unfortunate attitude that big sideburns look really bad.  As i got to the checkout i was greeted by a young and eager beardman, who immediately complimented my sideburns and inquired about their evolution.  He then turned to my daughters and pointed out how pro i was looking... they kind of recoiled but hung in there looking for treats.  Now i had bought some beer and wine and the man asked to see some ID, as i believe they are cracking down... clearly i am old enough, but you know they probably had a store meeting telling them to ID everybody... i understand, and told the young beard man it's kind of flattering, to which he replied the sideburns are kind of a give away, to which i replied the 1969 should do it as well and handed him my ID.  Now my drivers license has me in a massive handlebar moustache, which floored the young man and he said "well you are just total pro all the way", and then for sport i started flinging him all my other ID's that happen to catch me sporting all forms of aggressive facial hair growth... he was blown away and started bowing to me which caused all kinds of confusion for my daughters who later described him as a not smart guy with one of them bushy beards that was combed parted in the moustache region and you couldn't see his lips only him gums.  It didn't matter we got ice cream and i scored  a fairly large victory.

This morning i went into a grade one class and engaged the kids musically for a half an hour... it went really well, but it will go better next time.  We wrote a song about their teacher and what they like to do in class, and we did some call and response songs, some action songs and we did some mouth trumpet solos.  My big mistake was asking kids to shout out ideas for song parts... i mean it's a good idea, but when you ask 34 kids to call out ideas you get more ideas that you can deal with and they don't stop coming.  For example, if you are doing a song and you need the name of an animal to cue the direction of then next verse the smart play is to pick somebody who's hand is in the air and let that kid and that kid only give the answer, rather than the way i set it up which was a ill timed free for all.  It's OK, you have to like the enthusiasm, as the leader you need to keep your hand on the valve that controls the flow of ideas.  I think we made great progress and i look forward to going back in two weeks to further work on our song titled "Mr. O", and play some other interactive numbers.

Another thing that came out of the bar gig was that i played the song "Cesar Chavez" a song i wrote about the man who has the street named after him and a teacher was in the audience who worked with Mexican children and she was wondering if i would like to come into the class and play that song.  Of course i would be glad to and suggested perhaps we could work to translate the song into Spanish as a language exercise for all.  That idea seemed to go over pretty good and entered into the concept of right brained learning, which a certain school is looking at furthering.  This is all good stuff, as a maker of music, who tries to make music that is important, there is no better feeling than having the music hit home and make a difference to somebody, but of course following the music industry model the game is about gaining and maintaining popularity with things that really make no sense when you look at them with an unbiased eye. In the future i shall try to engage children through music for the purpose of fun, confidence building and learning without concern for financial gain for myself.  Now truth be told the last time i came out of retirement i did it with the idea that i would not try to make money with music as i felt that cheapened the experience for myself.  I never minded working hard so i always went to work, took care of my kids myself, had good wife to share fair duties and did music because i know it is important for my sanity and a chance to express my views.

I feel i have written many relevant and good songs about political injustice, protest apathy, environmental destruction, hockey, self awareness... yada yada, and on the grand scale i really don't think that any of the songs have had their voice heard to the point where they ever came close to having an impact on the society i care about creating due to the fact that i wasn't a good promoter to get the songs into the ears of those whom they could positively influence, as songs can do.

I'll give you an example... I wrote the song When the money's gone last year a song i have been thinking about writing for many years:

Beside a tailing pond, a businessman sings the same old song
We got to destroy this place and move forward to win the race

Oh when the money's gone, can you catch fish in a poison pond?
Oh when the money's gone, do we look like the moon?

The words of a well written lie, the future Prime Minister did deny
Things that we put in the air, could ever harm anyone anywhere

Oh when the money's gone, can you grow food by a poison pond?
Oh when the money's gone, do we look like the moon?

A mighty enterprise fails, all you citizens get out your bails
We got to stick together, they'll flog the mules and then sell the leather

Oh when the money's gone, can you drink from a poison pond?
Oh when the money's gone, do we look like the moon?
Oh when the money's gone, do we breath the stench that lingers on?
Oh when the money's gone, do we look like the moon?

It is an important song, i think and i put it out there in hopes to bring discussion out of the obvious folly of the Tar Sands development.  Now it's not like i am the only person in the world who didn't see this glaring error, but my hope was to get a point across... the point is i don't have the star power to make points like these and have an affect.  That's why we have Neil Young, bless his wonderful soul, and all the power too him, he is using his star to make that exact point and a few others right now. Even he admitted he was late to the dance on Q the other week, and he is... we all are... too much damage has been done already for the sake of international corporate profit. But then again "nothing is heard".

I love Neil Young and i wish i was there with him singing my song, because i think it fits, not because i want fame, but that ain't gonna happen and that's OK.  He is doing the work, and taking the attacks on his character by the government and the industry lobby, but he can take it, cause he has the truth on his side, and he doesn't care what people think of him.  I get that, I'm just a jackass in a bar with a guitar playing songs nobody wants to hear.  Now i say this with all seriousness looking for no sympathy at all... yes i wish my music could make a difference, but really I'm not in that position, and in truth the position i am in in life is a pretty good one, and perhaps i can make a difference after all.  I have the power to go into a school and share the gift of music with a group of youngsters who may need somebody to do that for them.  I can live with that, and in the meantime i can keep cataloguing the protest songs just in case.

I had a great idea for an Internet meme the other day, and i think i might just do it, because i think it is really funny, we will have to see if i can get some co-operators to do it.  I think Kevin Smith will be highly amused if i can pull it off, but i won't tell you what it is as to spoil the comedy, and that's all it is, it's just funny.  Which means many will be offended if i can pull it off... it is that weird thing for it to work you need it to become viral which relies on more factors than the idea itself, but i have always believed that just because an idea isn't popular it doesn't mean it is not worth doing.  There is a real double edged sword there for one to fall on... doing things you think people might like rather than doing the things you feel are right, and having fun with it of course.  

Leaf 49 game report... for JK

Better to get another report in while the getting is good, our hero is better on the heels of a 3 game win streak than in the gutter after a 4 game losing streak.

Notice the crafty little play that has been happening from time to time... on an icing they send a winger in to take the face off and that winger gets in too fast for a couple of attempts and then gets thrown out so that the center man, who they want to take the draw comes in.  The whole process eats up some time allowing the team some rest, because of course you cannot change on an icing.  A neat little way to exploit the rules and take advantage of overzealous linesmen who are more than happy to take forever to drop the puck and niggle over the process.   I probably shouldn't have pointed that out, but i'm sure most teams do it and will continue to do it until the league comes up with a new rule to stop teams from taking advantage of another rule.

Now with all of the armchair GM's out there calling for trades, i have to say the Leafs would have to be crazy to trade either Morgan Reilly or Jake Gardiner, the two young speedster d-men who have elements to their game that very few that come along do.  Sure they still need some development on the defensive end of their game, but as they say, you can't teach speed.   Just keep playing them.

Now Tyler Bozak is proving all of the naysayers wrong... he has this silent ability to do so many things right making those around him better and constantly winning key possession battles.  He is not a big man, as they say you need to be, but if you measured his heart he would stand about 10 feet tall.

Joffrey Lupul seems to be in a bit of a fog lately with respect to his defensive coverage, which in turn affects his offensive contributions, but is deadly in the shootouts helping the team get points. A  big help has been the  play of the Holland, Clarkson, Keulimun line that spends a lot of time in the oppositions end of the ice grinding things out down low.  New defense man Tim Gleason is quietly taking care of business in his own end of the ice and both goalies have recent wins under their belts.  These are all good signs... did i mention Dave Bolland was skating this week, but truth be told he didn't look that strong...  This is to be expected.  Remember that after you sever a tendon you can't even move for a month so the conditioning you lose in that time must be incredible, not to mention finding out how important certain tendons are in controlling  slight and deft foot motions.  From everything i have heard the recovery from injuries of that sort require incredible physiotherapy work... good news is that Bolland is a natural workaholic on that level... truth be told it will probably be a long time before he is back to 100%, but lets face it,  Dave Bolland at 80% is better than some other options.

Keep it going boys
The dog days of the season
Robertson goes ape

The Doing

When i was an assistant hockey coach on my daughters team our head coach had motto, if you are going to do something then it's better to do it out here with the kids than standing in the cold seats drinking coffee and trying to stay warm.

Wise words,  but then you make it and get through it which is always easier than the  thoughts of getting through it.  It's always amazing what a human can survive, but yet we bitch about the simplest and most beautiful opportunities in life.

I found myself in this dilemma the other day... you see i have been teaching kids cooking class once a week since the fall.  Well it's after the season and we are into a new era, or term so to say, and i kinda wasn't feeling it... i actually went for a huge walk up Mt. Tabor in the pouring rain to sort it out.

lets go into an aside...

When i was a kid i got hired as a tutor to a younger kid across the street, now i didn't understand a lot, and i came from a very critical culture, and in the end i didn't think i was getting through to the kid and so i felt bad in charging this money... i was making good money btw.  In the end i quit on that kid, without really realizing that's what i was doing.  In the end i sent the message "you are hopeless" that came from a voice in my soul that said "you can't do this right".  Now that i am older and have seen things, i know that just sticking with the kid would have meant more than if he learned what i though  people might think he should.   It's a sad story but the moral is don't quit on things, even if you don't see development it doesn't mean it is not happening, you might just be looking in the wrong places.

But the reality is that after school is a weird time, mostly to do with an effort to try to talk to my mother who is suffering from a good dose of dementia but refuses to understand that which lands the kids in the house to scatter on me and set up various decoys to a structured outdoor activity... but then i thought... that's what we will do! We will all walk to the grocery store down the street and get the ingredients for the dinner, because a shopping trip is actually part of good cooking (clearly a trip to the garden is much better)... it got my head turned around from the fear of being trapped in a house full of kids for too long, and i felt better and began to get excited again.  Of course on the day of our cooking class it was raining cat's and dog's so we bypassed on the trip to the store, and made a fine dinner none the less.  Something my brain might not have been capable of had it not had the freedom of an idea that never happened.  That is a key... everything is mental, if you believe you can you can, and if you believe you can't then don't bother fake trying.

You gotta be bad to be good said some jackass somewhere in some song.  When you get involved in things there is always comedy.. sometimes it's not good to laugh at it when it happens, but in time you get a feel for these things... not being involved is not good, never comment on things you are not involved with, it's petty.  As if to say... "If i wasn't layzing on my ass here i would have done things differently".  Nope... you missed it, it just was what it was and those that were involved were involved and those that weren't have their opinions.  I guess I'm lucky, i have no fear of interaction, to me it serves a purpose to engage ideas... clearly using this method sometimes you have to slam it in reverse, but that's part of the deal, just don't be afraid to.

We all want to be important, and often times we can be important without actually feeling that way.  The fact that you are there doing it is often more important than any micro goal you see yourself failing in... it's not the failing it's the doing that is important in these times.

Leafs 44 game report...

It seems like the intervals on these reports has a logarithm pattern to it, but here we are anyway.  Clearly this would have been a much more positive effort had it been a Leafs 42 game report.  You know... fresh off a Winter Classic victory and a mild 3 game win streak there was a sense of greatness, like dane fortune finally came to the dance.  Goalie stands on his head and they win the game... that was the formula, and when the formula fails there is a goal tending controversy.

That said i really don't know why Reimer didn't start in the Islanders game, i honestly thought that before the game... Now i didn't think Bernier would play badly, I just thought in terms of the idea of earning your spot in the line up, like they have been preaching all season, would have been a good opportunity to reinforce that value to the team.  Who knows what happened, perhaps an injury, perhaps they might have been working on a trade and didn't play him on account of injury risk.  I'm not saying that has any basis to it besides the fact it would explain a situation where an idea that looked like a gut decision might actually have been a decision that was made by another factor.

Alas, a few stories in the CBC understandably one was about a "goalie situation uncertain".

 Soundbites, news creating news, trying to create interest... It's got to be weird... Hockey use to be real great when it was one team just hating the other. 

There is a classic story of Montreal Canadian's great Rocket Richard who was on the train after a game vs. a loathed rival.  Now apparently there was a screw up and both teams had to take the same train, and apparently the opponents were in between the Montreal Canadians car and the dining car.  The Rocket would not eat because he hated the team so much and couldn't stand to even see them.   Where was I... just Googled a fact and ended up watching this .  Which is kind of odd linking a video of a hero of the loathed  rivals in a blog apparently titled "Leafs 44 Game report..."

As my mother said many a time... "if you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all".   Mine is more of a bastard version where the "don't say anything at all" gets mutated into go on a bizarre tangent. 

I think the Lupul - Kadri - Raymond line has potential and started, near the end if the Islanders game, to create things more regularly.   It's true Kadri has been in a fog for a while, and not the game changer we have seen glimpses of in the past. Poor kid trying to live up to the Toronto Media first line center trap.   Truth be told Kadri and Lupul were great last year... kind of like a second first line.  If they can keep playing together it could give the leafs a real nice one- two punch that is always good for winning games.  Injuries, suspensions have forced situations where Kadri and Lupul haven't spent a lot of time playing together... i think there could be a loss there that might be worth investigating. 

I play center and if i could mold a perfect winger it would be very much in Joffrey Lupul likeness.  Big guy who can snipe, pass, dangle and play it rough in the hard areas... I think the leafs almost need Lupul mentoring Kadri and helping him bring out the inner Kadri.

I thought Phil Kessel was pretty hilarious in the 24/7 Road to the Winter Classic series. His keen understanding of what a moron he could look like depending on how they edit the footage and his plea to the camera crew to not make them look like fucking idiots was pretty good in my books.

Bottom line... the need Dave Bolland back... off all of the people to miss time he is the most versatile... he can play anywhere so when you have a hole in the team you plug it with Dave Bolland. 

It all started out fairly innocently... I went to the pool to run some shark attack drills to prepare for my upcoming trip to tropical shark infested waters.  Unfortunately there was a geezer aqua-fit class sharing the pool who claimed to be distracted by the honest and hardworking shark drills being run by our hero.   Simple drills... holding breath, circling underwater remaining calm striking precise strategic blows to an imaginary four foot sensitive snout.  Then there was the escape from the area as quickly as possible as quietly as possible... no need to give the sign of a struggle.

Apparently you are not allowed to film in a public pool, which of course puts a real thorn in the concept of studying your stealth escape technique.  Once again some of my great "outside the box" thinking was being stomped on by loose rules and senior unrest over the idea of a shark in the pool.

If you can't beat them join then right?  Now don't get me wrong, i feel old, there is no doubt my decline is well underway... but in the senior aqua-fit class i was a superstar... hell i could lift my arms out of the water.  And they actually really liked me... i was providing energy to the group and there were smiles all around... i was deeking around the class bouncing in the water flapping my arms like a chicken... everybody was having a ball, smiles all around.

Of course in my mind there was a shark stalking me and i was using the senior citizens as plump decoys in my evasive escape.  Maintaining control and momentum in the water is a hard game and it can only get harder when one factors in the rip tides and fire coral.  But hey dancing around the blue hairs in a pool is good for the confidence.

My real problem was later in the hot tub when we were all just palling around and they started attacking Obamacare.... the problem is they don't know what the fuck they are talking about.   You see Obamacare doesn't affect me because i have good health care... really for the U.S.A. i have good health care.  It kind of happens that way when your wife works for one of the leading health science centers in the country.   Now, i don't know everything, and i know that Obamacare could be much better, but these people, they don't know anything.  They are trying to organize a protest in the hot tub but they haven't heard anything.  For example old man is on Kaiser plan and on Medicade... now I'm pretty sure he is not affected and so is he as he has not heard anything but he was at home depot and there were cop cars everywhere and of course he had to ask why and apparently it was because they had to lay off 10 full time employees because of Obamacare.  So i took that bait arguing on the fact of "how much money Home Depot makes", and they really can't afford health care, or is it the shareholders that need profit, more of it.  It was a silly uninformed debate that ended with them telling me i was lucky to have Canada, but then i reminded them that you pay more taxes in Canada, and remember paying more taxes is worse than anything no matter what the outcome... i think they missed that point, but i had to leave anyway.

So it was cloudy the next day so obviously i went out to the airport for some eye training... i figured spotting a plane trough a cloud would be analogous to spotting a shark far off in the shadowy ocean.   The only problem is they want you to pay for parking in the discount lot, and truth be told you can hear the damn planes before you can see them which helps the eye cheat.

 Moving on to other things what do we have?  Oh yes in the news some Tory MP made a direct link between climate change and extreme weather events.  This is kind of incredible given that the Canadian Conservative Party has been a staunch denier  of clear scientific thought for such a long time and has spent much of it time in power dismantling and decimating scientific information.

Now you have to wonder what the play here is?   Might be a safe bet that a winnable majority of the voting public might forget the past and think that if the Conservative government were to be elected again they could fight climate change by putting more middle class workers out of work and funneling more money into oil exploration, TV adds and security scares.

It's hard to know, it makes doing shark attack drills in a public pool during a senior citizen aqua-fit class look sane.

So what else...  Watched the last 3 Vancouver Canucks games and it is incredible how that team can blow a game.  I mean at least the Leafs get their balls stomped in games they have no business winning, but the Canucks, they deserve to win the game and then they goat it away with some weak play at the very end.

For me, been keeping off the Facebook... now i log out and i find myself so often at the log in page... i don't even know how i got there.  It's a hard nut to crack...  but when i get to the log in page i just don't log in... part of me wants to complain about how little good comes from it, but there is some good and i feel like i need to take responsibility for my Facebook. My Facebook friends are a collection that is unique to me, right?  So it's kind of something that represents me... taking careful strides here... I don't know if it's a cultural thing, or a human thing or a we have been on the Internet for a while thing, but i have to say, i see little comedy and little of interest bloated around rare instances of things i care about.  And that's the thing, i think napalming the facebook account is a bad knee-jerk reaction to an unsatisfied experience.  Why not just control yourself from not wasting your time there, because it is you that is there looking for something that does not exist... I'm talking to myself here of course.


Sure it's nice to see things, but it's the same argument as having cable TV and a big screen TV or a smart phone.  And my point is that is you at home watching TV , or you in the park checking your phone, or you in your house checking your Facebook to see if anything interesting is happening.  You see the thing is my kids are getting older and are starting to call me out for spending time on the computer.  Hell they are right! Obviously if i had the skills to operate a smart phone in discretion i would be OK but i missed the boat. As a parent it is unacceptable for me to be looking online at something that doesn't really matter when we could be doing something different.

That's why I'm throwing down with twitter... i hated the name originally and wanted to blood any bastard that felt the need to tweet,  it sounded weak given my Scarborough upbringing.  We are all just stardust in this other universe, and i think the trick is to not lose your life in the pastimes in which you spend them.  Of course i am talking about myself an myself only here... i spent too much time on facebook last year and while it was nice to see some things and have some interactions, on the whole my participation was a net negative as far as i can see.  Clearly i need to control myself, so that's what i will do.  As for now i can tweet without much repercussion, it's faster and i like the character limit, makes one think.  Not sure i care if people follow me, to be in a game is all i really ask.

Clearly i prefer blogging, but people don't have time for that... apparently. That's fine, i never really wanted to change the world, i just wanted to change myself.  When you post something on the Internet it becomes part of you, or at least your image, and i prefer the idea of an explanation of why you feel the way you feel over a status update any day.  Not to say that it's not fun to pass notes in the class of life, but i think i need some time in the principals office, just like the old days.