Pretty Good

When the finance minister of our provincial government uses a quantifier as ambiguous as, “pretty good”, in relation the the budget, you can rest assured that our elected representatives are reluctant to provide the electorate with an accurate picture of how the books really look here in Alberta.


“Pretty good, eh?”


Yeah. It looks pretty good if you’re raking in a handsome tax-funded salary to hide the real numbers, I’m sure. At any rate, I don’t really give a hoot about their surplus-busting agenda because I lead a boring life of debt-free stagnancy. My life is a miserably unfulfilled life in many regards, but at least for me, having a job is an option rather than a requirement. I’m a non-contributor to the economy and I have no plans to ever become a productive citizen. I feel no sense of entitlement to provincial services. I don’t drive on municipal streets or provincial highways, and I don’t have a family physician. I haven’t set foot in a library in over two years, and I obey the law of the land. My sense of non-entitlement also encompasses my right to vote. Being that I do not contribute in any meaningful way to my community, province, or country, should I feel entitled to vote in respective elections just because I’m an eighth generation Canadian? I fail to see how my life even counts except in a census. It’s too late for me to “make something of myself” and I really don’t care if I live or die.


I think most people don’t pay very close attention to political and economic trends until it catches up with them personally. In this day and age, it should come as no surprise if your job at the factory suddenly migrates to some shit-country. Then again, anyone who finds themselves with their hand out after twenty years of making premium wages for pulling the same levers and pushing the same buttons under the din of whirring machinery between union sanctioned breaks and holidays, might not have much capacity for things like long-term planning or deep thought regarding macro economics.

The shareholder could care less how long you’ve behaved as a loyal and honest worker bee, or how much consumer debt you’ve taken on. If you don’t understand why, you’re probably the sort of person who thinks that nobody should earn more than six figures in a year.


Accept it, Mr. unionized worker and Ms. retail stooge. You create nothing new and provide no real solutions other than being there to fill a temporary void. You’re willing to sacrifice your autonomy for a comfortable arrangement. You spend all your discretionary income on entertainment and depreciating assets. You’d sooner complain about perceived betrayals and blame successful innovators for your declining worth than make an effort to adapt to a rapidly changing economy. You fail to understand that in a global economy, you are merely a temporary plug-in for brighter minds who profit from your acquiescence, your predictability, and your inability to ever get-ahead.


You wonder why your real market-worth in a global economy amounts to little more than that of any other replaceable cog in the machinery. Your vote is a reactionary and emotional one. You’d vote for a socialist promising a magical utopia and fail to understand that such a vote will ultimately compromise your job security and opportunity in the long run - a cheering section for deceitful politicians who will use your own tax dollars to make your life even more irrelevant to the big picture than it already is. Keep ignoring the small print, living beyond your means, and wondering why you’re still toiling for survival as a senior citizen.


I hope I’m wrong, but it looks to me as though Canada’s kids are being gently ushered into accepting a future dystopia of corporate fascism and debt slavery.

Saturday Meanderings

I'm not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV. Once upon a time, I think I introduced myself as "Professor Rock" to one of the fellow attendees at an open mic night off Whyte Avenue. 

As a once-in-a-while entertainer, I'm accustomed to hearing at least a smattering of applause for my rock & roll antics, but I doubt my musical performances are anywhere near as entertaining to anyone else as they are to me. These days, I just want to write and record stuff. Doing shows requires a considerable amount of overhead expenditure from the unsolicited artist's own pocket. Do I really want to spend my days delivering building supplies or punching clocks and rubbers'tamping already duplicitous statements in some sterile setting, making  barely enough extra money to fund weekend performances at local bistros in a small city? Duh... okay boss! Where would one ever find the time to rehearse? 

The way I see it, crafting a single super-hit song could generate enough capital from royalties to fund a proper production enterprise. From there, the stars are yours to embrace. Cash is, if anything, breathing room to seek out some leverage to plan successive ventures. Entrepreneurs need to perpetuate their own relevance in the service of mankind in order to thrive.

Maybe I've been rooting from the sidelines for too long. Ashtrays might as well be permanent fixtures at my writing desk. I've been thinking about cutting-back on my cigarette smoking. If I'm going to smoke tobacco at all, it should be fine cigars and aromatic pipe tobacco. Cigarettes are a great fix for someone on-the-go, but sitting around and chain smoking them while I work is pretty NSP: Nasty; Smelly; Pricey. Considering the amount of money I spend on smoking cigarettes, 

I could smoke one big boss of a $60 cigar every weekend! 

I've allowed myself to be lulled into an acceptance of a lifetime of mediocrity. Why bother with a Rolls when you can wear a Rolex while driving your Lexus? The difference? About $130,000.00 and 3000 lbs. of automobile weight. Just a rough estimate on my part. I can't afford so much as a used bicycle right now! Doing without "toys" is the price I pay for not forcing myself to "get a job", eh?

Quite honestly, I feel extremely fortunate to be well-fed and living in a region where I am free to peacefully pursue my interests in a part of the world not ravaged by war and famine. Enduring extremely cold temperatures and a minor 

blizzard or two every ten years is worth it to not worry about things like flooding, tropical diseases, or typhoons. Of course, with the inherent unpredictability of what tomorrow will bring, even the brightest prophets and seers among us can never realize a mindset of absolute certainty about all things. Never a more unscientific misnomer have I ever heard uttered than, "the science is settled on the matter."

I have to wonder if the scientific community at large are unaware that we're actually trapped on a giant ball of water and rock zipping around in orbit around an imperceptibly massive orb of imperceptible hotness that creeps along some largely unknown path through a mysterious cosmos of penultimate beauty. I get the impression that many of today's so-called climatologists cannot even see the rain for the water: 

"uhhh, our expensive computer models indicate that rainfall and hot sunshine is obvious evidence of impending catastrophic climate, so pay-up North America - you're making more than enough money as it is."

As far as I can tell, whatever environmental committments China entertains are trumped by demand for electricity. They build a new coal plant every time I take a hot shower. It's my fault, right?

  

        

   

Witnesses of Evil

Last night I drank a six pack of Sam Adams lager and then sipped back about 3/4 of a 26 oz. bottle of vodka while sharing my thoughts online until I started puking around 4:00 A.M. this morning. I slept until noon. Now I'm having a hair o' the dog... a big splash of Banff Ice in my coffee as I slowly write-out who-knows-what on my little blog here.

I drink alone mostly. Chopping firewood and walking to the liquor store a couple of blocks away with my adorable little dog Mila in tow comprises the bulk of this 36-year-old's gross total of physical activity. It's my life and I'm fairly content with it. Maybe I have what some psychiatrists would call a complex. I'm always looking for an argument. I don't currently have a job, and I'm in no hurry to get one thanks to my parents generosity. It's doubtful that any serious organization would even consider my application given my penchant for sharing details about my personal life online. All that's left are employers desperate to hire anyone for the most basic grunt work.

The way I see it, if I'm going to do grunt work, I may as well do it for my elderly folks rather than someone with an enterprise who expects you to be on your toes 40 hours a week and provide your own transportation using whatever pittance they can afford to pay you. It all seems counter intuitive to me. You end up lying prostrate before the interest rates. Working for a living is expensive these days.

My dear old Dad who's looking pretty good for someone pushing seventy years of age is still working full-time. Last week he mentioned that a local car dealership is looking for a lot person. Every car dealership is seeking lot people due to the acute labour shortage around here. Every restaurant is looking for dishwashers. Every truck driver is looking for a swamper. Every bank branch needs another teller. I really don't care. My last job was as a part-time dishwasher. I can't handle the humiliation of being a stooge any longer. Thank goodness I have no dependents to worry about, because clipping coupons and driving a payment-sucking minivan around on errands as your ungrateful kids criticize you from their booster seats seems a modern system of survival for the unwealthy that never appealed to me.

I see the faces of the oil patch workers as they exit the bus and shuffle into the strip mall's grocery store to buy cigarettes and convenience foods to take back to their $1200 / month closets. They don't appear to be happy... in spite of their $20 - $28 / hour wages. I bet they don't know what Boolean algebra is. Hopefully I'm wrong, but I'll bet most of them don't have over 10,000 Tweets to their credit. For most of them, credit is a score they'd rather not discuss. Do I really want to surround myself with such personalities for sixty hours a week? It's not that I have contempt for hard working people.On the contrary, I admire the resolve of anyone who chooses to make an honest living. While they might struggle with the written word, at least they have integrity.... unlike our shills in the legislature.

I've done it before. I've proven to myself that I can do the heavy lifting... despite my ability to type 100 words a minute, form a proper sentence, write original music, design a website, solve complex equations, and use control-key functions in a Microsoft Windows environment, I'm simply not interested in toiling for a petro buck while the parasites and vampires get a free lunch. I'd rather keep playing the You Tube lottery...

 



   

Ripping Off Neil Young

The first track I put down for this song a one-take live guitar + vocals. I subsequently layered the following tracks respectively: lead guitar; cardboard box; vocal harmonies (X 2). When I record these songs, I like to do each track in one take.

I don't believe I enabled the 'monetize' feature on my two latest uploads... there's no money in what I'm doing anyway! Still, it's interesting to see the nature of the advertisers Google associates with my music videos.

I shan't go into names, but I was a little surprised to see pro-industry corporate propaganda before my video, "If I Ever Get Off The Sauce". I have to wonder if they're of the misguided notion that I'm somehow opposed to the exploration and development of hydrocarbons for energy and manufacturing. I'm most definitely not! Nor am I of the anti-big-corporation mindset... I'd be a hypocrite given the binding agreement I've entered into voluntarily with Google.

Anyway... as any real fan of old Shaky could tell you, "my" new song is actually a shameless ripoff of an old song by anti-industry advocate, "Neil Young". Of course, given my lack of viewership, it's about as likely to be summarily challenged as it is to become the next cult classic?

Where did September go? I sure didn't spend it standing around at the bandstand! When I'm not at my job, I'm drinking, and when I'm drinking, you might find me writing, and when I'm smoking, I'm playing my 12-String guitar and maybe even recording new songs. That's about IT. You can download a few of my somewhat recent tracks right here on this website.

"So, What sorts of qualifications should a webmaster have?"


My definition of a webmaster is simply thus: one who has a mastery of authoring web content. I sometimes consider embarking on a quest to evolve this website into something others might find useful, but it's hard enough finding enough uninterrupted time enough.


For whatever reason, I've always felt a certain urgency to at least try to keep up with trends in computer technology. In elementary school, I was the go-to-guy. I believe it was in grade five, my school's principal saw fit to have me oversee and help instruct a computer course that was held in the school over the summer. In a classroom with a row of IBM terminals with indestructible trackballs, and UNIX-based operating systems, the participants were given a quick overview of the lesson and if you finished the assignment early, you could get-in some time with Oregon Trail, a compelling build-up-your-homestead simulation.

There was also a Commodore 64 connected via its serial port to a "sandbox" full of robotic servo motors and linkages. The summer of 1987. I was ten, and I divided my time between taking my bicycle to the rapids for an exhilarating swim, building forts in the woods, and plugging away at my Commodore 64. Twenty-seven years later, and I'm experimenting with Linux operating systems and setting-up mini-networks. I'd like to eventually shift the physical web hosting to my end of the phone line, but I'm in no hurry to do so. It's often impossible to get an uninterrupted block of time long enough to try and do a bit of recording in this madhouse I call home. Of course noisy renovations are going on. Of course my folks try to suck me into their chaotic vortex of busy work.

Many people might say I should be grateful at the age of 37 to have free room and board, but it comes at a price. I don't care much what's under my feet be it carpet or tile or lino... so long as my feet aren't sticking to it. I have a high threshold for clutter, but not filth. I don't spend my time looking at baseboards or pieces of furniture, so why would I obsess over them? I take great care to remain unseen when my folks are in busy-busy mode... locked in my bedroom computer zone / recording studio.  DIY renovations are a tremendous pain in the ass. Why my folks put themselves through it at their age baffles me. They're always making noise. Every day I endure listening to the creaky back door open and close nine dozen times a day. Intermittent vacuuming, banging boards, my Mom's soap operas or Dr. Phil at a volume that defeats my closed door, table saws, arguments, shouting, stomping around, coughing fits,  suddenly urgent requests to do something like fold-up some towels in the next five minutes.


The point I'm trying to make is that this psychotic zone of perpetual chores and irritating noises going-on, until my folks finally go to bed, is hardly conducive to activities requiring deep thought. I think my parents dream-up sporadic requests just to interrupt my "he's not doing anything" time. I'm getting better at tuning it all out (got a new set of stereo headphones) but their needling and dissatisfaction with my sedentary proclivities is slowly driving me bonkers. They don't know what they want from me, but they want to interfere with my sanctity  When I make a recording, I do each track in one take. Imagine trying to lay down a complicated track that you've already botched twelve times over the last half hour and then... finally you're about to nail-it.... only four bars left now....

"BLAKE! BLAKE! Come here, Blake! I need you to bring all your empties to the garage!"

Foiled again. THEY JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW TEDIOUS RECORDING CAN BE. I'm always on edge... waiting for the inevitable summons to the work-planning table. I wonder sometimes if their middle-class seniors' brains haven't been addled by so many years of exposure to the fumes and dust that go along with renovations. They seem to be addicted to noise and angry emotions. I live in on a different plane altogether. They're obsessed with keeping material changes in flux and are engaged by passive forms of entertainment, while I prefer the ephemeral and creative pursuits. They tend to belittle my passion for writing and music as a fleeting hobby, even though their own down-time is nearly always spent glued to a television or radio. Doesn't this pair of consumers on auto-pilot, my dear old Mom and Dad, understand the scale of ACTUAL work that goes into a television program? The writers, the set design, the talent... and all the support roles at the epicenter or on the periphery of the production. The sound engineers, the musicians... the dozens of contributors that don't appear on the screen... these people don't work for free, and people like my parents PAY FOR IT every month via their satellite provider. They don't seem to make the connect.

I almost think Mom & Dad would rather see me with a heavy load in my hands than a guitar... in a pair of coveralls, banging away at something all day rather than building a website or practicing my writing and music. If it's not physically exhausting, it's not work! The TV shows us how to live!    

It's not my intent here to diminish the accomplishments and works of those who make their lives around menial labour or gritty jobs here. I've held enough low-skilled positions throughout my working history to know that the expectations and the pace often demand a great deal of organizational planning on the fly if you expect to remain employed at them. It can be gratifying to look over the end result of one's artisnal efforts - the tidiness of one's handiwork and the aesthetic pleasures of attention to form and detail. I appreciate it... just not enough to allow my blood pressure to become elevated over something like replacing a set of perfectly good stairwell fixtures or making sure my floors are always spic and span.  Nobody's going to remember you for how much you struggled to install five different god damned floor coverings in your average house, or if you'd enter a state of mental paralysis over too much clutter and dust before company arrives. Any God Damned asshole can putter around with a tape measure and a bucket of bits, yelling at shit and gluing stuff down, but it takes a real man to write about the futility of it without spelling mistakes!

I'm beginning to strongly suspect that my parents despise me for my radically different mindset and elevated thinking. I haven't bogged-down my life with serious obligations like owning a home or having kids. My priority is art. I'm more interested in winning arguments than toiling away in the material world. I've always been a dreamer and a thinker, and I'm sick of apologizing for my inability to embrace the burdens of busy people. Just because I happen to be pretty good at estimating things like angles and foreseeing inevitable problems, or doing precise work that requires a steady hand, doesn't mean I'm going to put my editorial on hold to assist you with your ambitious projects. I'd rather play a piano for six hours straight than listen to someone bitching and cursing because they forgot to pick-up a crucial cog on their last errand. Don't be upset with me because I enjoy doing things far beyond your own capabilities, Mom & Dad. The world isn't going to end because I'd rather drink beer in my room and write down some words than feign enthusiasm for your own vanity projects. I don't really care if you have granite counter tops or nickel bath fixtures. I don't drool over home depot flyers. It's just exceedingly boring for a guy like me.

DDIY - DON'T Do It Yourself!

My folks are at it again with ambitious home renovations. Yesterday, my Dad ripped-out the solid wood bannisters, spindles and railings around the two-stage stairwell with a landing at the front entrance. This forty-year old bannister might not have been a jaw-dropping focal point as you enter the front door, but it wasn't showing any signs of deterioration, and it was continuing to function well for its intended purpose.

Today it's time to install the new bannister. About one hour into the project, Dad was cursing-up a storm over some inevitable oversight. I don't know why some people insist on endeavouring to tackle expensive and complicated DIY projects with so many experts around. By the time it's complete, a layman who pretends that they're a finishing carpenter for a week will probably end up buying everything twice, and spend twice as much time and money as they first anticipated. Why not just hire a true professional and see it done right the first time? After factoring-in your own labour equivalent and elevated blood pressure, the extra money is more than worth it.

I have to simply lie or bite my tongue whenever my parents ask my opinion. They don't want to hear my rationale concerning what I see as futile vanity projects. I don't like to paint walls if I can help it. I don't like messing with power saws or sand paper. I find noisy machinery, banging hammers, and pungent solvents to be irritating. I don't share their enthusiasm for making cosmetic changes to the inside of a box. If my folks derive satisfaction from the process and enjoy the end result, then that's just great, but I acutely avoid being drawn into their vortex of menial toil. For me, being right is gratification enough. Saying, "I told you so," when things go awry and they find themselves forced to spend more than they thought they could get away with is strangely uplifting after enduring their scornful onslaughts in response to my pragmatism.       

My prediction is that the new installment around the stairs will be flimsy and dangerous. I don't know why so many ordinary folks like my parents can't simply be content with what's already in place if it's not posing any problems. I think it might have something to do with my Mom watching back-to-back episodes of Love It Or List It and mistakenly believing that she can realize a substantial return on Dad's time and labour investment. What she conveniently neglects to address is that these shows have seasoned design experts making the calls, and the top-drawer tradespeople doing the work can easily foresee potential obstacles before they start dismantling something.

The home-owning couples participating in Love It Or List It are typically high-earning professionals with budgets of between forty and a hundred thousand dollars. I'm no exert on real estate or interior design, but is it not wishful thinking to believe that spending five hundred buck here and a thousand bucks there on things like paint, mouldings and flooring will miraculously inflate the value of your house by any more than the cost of the materials and the sweat equity? I suggested doing away with the popcorn ceilings and installing cedar or something nice. Nope. We'll just paint over it for a third time. They spent the time and money and it looks just as tacky as ever... only whiter. I don't really care one way or another what the ceiling looks like, as long as it's not on the verge of falling-in while I'm under it.

I think serious home buyers look beyond the colour of a wall or texture of a floor. Almost anyone can paint a wall or cut a piece of trim and nail it in. Home buyers are looking at things like layout and structural integrity. How high are the ceilings? How big is the bathroom?

My parents' house was built in the early seventies. It's a compartmentalized rectangle both upstairs and down. The three upstairs bedrooms are small, and the hallway leading to them is narrow. The bathroom is tiny. The powder room off the master bedroom is tinier. It wasn't intended to be a show home. It's just one of many basic and utilitarian raised bungalows on the street with a big backyard and a separate two-car garage. It's got plenty of room for a young growing family, but is far from spectacular when juxtaposed with the big dollar character dwellings popping-up around the neighbourhood.

Only drastic renovations, such as structural additions or major installations like jacuzzi tubs or fireplaces can realize significant returns on an investment: making a basement into a granny suite; installing a sauna; making a home theater room. You can put so much lipstick on a pig. Spending twenty grand over twenty years on trendy colour schemes, trim pieces, carpeting, paint, tools and various supplies will keep you in a perpetual state of toil and mess, but won't substantially increase the value of your house. Why not just save up all those nickle and dime expenses for a major project that will surely impress?






      

The Kinks - Low Budget

I don't know that I can handle working another month in a crazy short-order kitchen. I'm pleased the joint is so popular, but the pace of work and tedium is really getting to a guy like me, but at least my private life is pleasant enough, and my worries pale in comparison with the recent flooding of catastrophic proportions. home province's recent catastrophic flooding.

It's frightening and intriguing that the jackboots participated in such a wide-scale break and enter scheme. I could never invade a series of strangers' sanctuary.

The still unanswered question: Who gave the orders that saw RCMP Officers kicking down the doors of the vacated homes of High River (all but two doors on one street... hmmm) and removing property belonging to law-abiding citizens- I think without as much as a court order. Such actions deliberately spit in the face of Canadian Rights, and demonstrates a lack of cognizance in regard to the most basic precepts of a nation that prides itself on a strongly democratic mindset stemming from ancient benevolent values. Nope. Get the battering ram, boys, we've got orders!
     
Personally, I strongly support the right for law-abiding citizens of sound mental health to own firearms for recreation, the protection of personal and property interests, hunting and sport shooting, or simply collecting for interest's sake.. Of course, loaded firearms are a particularly dangerous machine- designed to inflict killing wounds. You could argue a bulldozer was designed for the same purpose, but a bulldozer can't be carried in your pocket like a pistol. It's a gun, which is why Canadians have enacted a massively tangled series of policies around the purchasing and ownership of guns in this vast and great land.

Anyway, I like that responsibly-minded Canadians with licences to do so, have a right to own firearms. I don't like to see our institutions flagrantly violate the rights of my fellow citizens. What do you think?

I'm expected back at the scullery tomorrow morning- the Holy Sabbath Day. Is nothing sacred anymore? Since immersing myself in the culinary service industry, I vow to never patronize a food establishment ever again! I keep telling myself it could be worse, but I'm missing out on far more lucrative opportunities. Since I've always been a confidence man, and I've blown all the money I've ever earned from crap jobs. I need to save my coppers-up for a motorcycle, and that means making a far better wage behind the wheel of a big gravel truck.

Wage work is almost always gritty or humiliating to one degree or another.

Sharing Some Thoughts From Oil Town

The region in which I currently reside is an economic powerhouse. While it's a reasonably nice place to call home, I'd commend you if you're shrewd enough to find a decent little house for under a quarter of a million bucks. Rather rent? I've got a walk-in closet a few of my friends have expressed interest in... it's next to the high-efficiency furnace and has a bit of black mold, but I'll give it to your for $200 / week!

By all accounts, a single person, wanting to call this paradise home, shall require a minimum net income of around $1800 / month to expect to get by. It's arguable. Depends on one's standards, but whatever. With so many unskilled, unfilled positions to be had in the area - many jobs reluctantly and begrudgingly offer starting wages as high as $18 / hour - to any hood off the street willing to put their back into it.

$1300 for a decent basement suite doesn't seem altogether unreasonable in this neck, but you better ensure you can maintain a gross earning of at least $2100 / month... partying after work can be a real hit to the pocketbook too, and you'd be surprised what you can get up to in a small city full of party-people.. $200 is gone in a few drunken blinks of your eyelids! Good thing a great many hard working folk easily earn twice that amount if they have the wherewithal to put-in some overtime sweat to get 'er done.

Why not put-in some overtime? You're evening's already shot because you're nearly exhausted from busting your ass all day anyway- if all you gotta do is sweep-up some bits and pieces or finish-up some minor odds and ends of a proper installation - getting the milestone items checked-off on the blueprint on schedule is often money in the bank for the big-bucks-capital-boss. Leaving loose-ends for a brand-new crew to tie-up on a Monday morning can't be the best practice. A stitch in time saves nine. Some poor initiate, first day on-the-job and negligent in regard to some Jerry-rigged maneuver made half-way through the assembly of some God-damned pocket-sprocket assembly the night before, and boom!

The whole springy-mess of a project has an explosive party in three dimensions... a thousand-and-six pieces on the workbench table. I'm thinking of someone with a job on the scale of watchmakers or small engine mechanics. In larger-scale industrial work-settings, most aspects and elements present pose a far greater hazard to your health than would the mere threat of some tiny watch-spring gizmo snapping you in the bridge of the nose. Heavy oil = heavy * machinery = heavy * potential energy = heavy * magnitude of disaster?

No matter how big a man or woman you might be, the dimensional differences in human mass become almost negligible in the shadow of massive mining equipment.  In Canada, safety concerns tend to be integrated into engineering designs, rather than acted-upon as an afterthought. At least, most Canadians I know are on the cautious side, and sincerely do (when it comes to initiating large-scale, potentially dangerous projects) tend to give things a thorough thinking-through before calling upon the warp-speed engines.

Once having worked a job as a vac-truck driver, I was privy to access the drilling platform to have a peek at what goes on... with the big-boss-drill-boss's permission, of course. Talk about nearly intolerable! You've gotta be pretty rough to subject yourself to such a noisy and noxious environment. I'm sure I'd live through it, but these guys who manage to endure have gotta have some thickly skin - to endure more than one season... I'd swear to never go back! Plus, the operation where I was hired to dump sludge was just a small, exploratory drilling operation.

Still, I can see how the heavier deep-drilling operation would be far safer overall. The giants only come in after the leg-work has proven satisfactory enough for them to roll out of bed, I think. With less operating headroom, and more to lose, I imagine exploratory drilling operations to be a bit more renegade and risky when compared alongside the big-boy conglomerates who contract them out to find the gas.

Being the driver of a big truck can be a fairly laid-back gig - provided you have a good 'swamper.'

Big trucks usually imply big jobs. If I were the proud owner of a big truck, I would be wise to offer top wages for a real-keener- a top-notch footman with extra moxie. I'd let him do all the unloading while I sit in my plush king cab environs, smoking top-drawer cigars as I update my blog on my gold-plated notebook computer. If only good help weren't so hard to find! In all seriousness, my point is that you need to accept any risks associated with owning capital for the sake of enterprise. What I'm trying to say is that I'd be willing to take a $16 / hour haircut to help create a win-win situation. My boy is happy running around for $20 / hour, it's a substantial wage for a menial worker, but he's really fast, and I know he'd be eye-balling my $2 coin cup if I only paid him $16 / hour. 

Professional-company-man driving gigs in the city often suck. Not only are you expected to deal with invariably congested city traffic and all its hideously ridiculous commuters; jot-out your route; navigate around unnecessary construction shim-shams; answer the mobile phone while doing all this, and... get there on-time... it's also expected: you're to always be cordial in your negotiations with clientele... even when some complete stranger is screaming in your ear because his lonely wife left him. Then the real work begins. Maybe you deliver furniture? Let's hope the temp worker didn't call in "sick" again! Small wonder there's so many "good job opportunities" in the transportation sector!

I would do it again... but only part-time. Some of these companies won't stop at subjugating your very soul if you're someone who can't say no to extra hours. These managers are practiced in the arts of diplomacy. Once they know you can deliver, bosses will exact every pound of your very flesh they can get away with- just to further their own numerical interests. You're now the footman. I like to play the footman sometimes, but not all the time. I'm dynamic in that way. Some might call it a personality disorder, but I call it bliss!

















      

The Unauthorized Author

Kangaroo courts, dragnets, and new-speak. I give enough of a 'fuck' to post this outright violation of my internet given rights! I like to document these little 'you can't do that' obstructionist hurdles I sometimes find in my pursuit of what's really real, bro? 

Anyway... check out my website: bandstandaround.com

Twitter UNAUTHORIZED

I have a good deal of fun on Twitter. As you can see from the screen capture above, My attempt to respond to my challenger is "unauthorized," but I prefer to call it: winning.

Presumably, the fellow blocked me. Why? Why shut-out someone like me who just wants to be argumentative while drinking some vodka-spiked coffee on a beautiful Sunday afternoon? What a pussy! I bet he sits down when he pees. I bet he has an insurmountable debt load and spends his weeks toiling away for some rich banker who hits the sauna at 2:00 p.m. every day. What a wanker!

Maybe he never got his dick sucked in high school. I would better be able to sympathize if I wasn't the guy who didn't nail hotties in my senior year. Block me? I'll put you on the chopping block you piece of piss! 

Scrabble Nights, Scrambled Dayz

My best Scrabble game in years! I go by the moniker, "Astrosmash" and my tiles are the ones with the red font.

"UNENDING" tallied a whopping 80 points in my favour" as it used all seven of my tiles and began on a triple-word-score square.

Good board-spanning action in this game. I like when both players make lengthier words.

Yep. Scrabble.

Self-Publishing can be a bitch. I like to self-publish because of the inherent exclusivity
of doing so. I like everything locked-down reasonably well if possible. Allowing yourself to rely upon too many 3rd parties for your operations can leave you vulnerable when the going gets rough. At least, that's the crux of my own business acumen.


Calculated gambling. That's what business is. The dollar cost of Virtual space on the web is nothing compared with maintaining a physical premises for your operations. I wouldn't dream of divining along the boulevard for a commercial lease on studio space without first having a strong, plausible game plan decided upon, and plenty of reserve capital for the inevitable overlooked expenses that will surely arise over time as it's cheaper in the long-run to pay the piper up front, rather than have a reputation for incurring expenses.


Ultimately, however, channeling my nerd-energy into this online endeavour has provided me with my very own internationally accessible, virtual kiosk. From behind this digital facade, I get to peddle my exclusive music exclusively. Of course, they're free for you or anyone else to download, and there's more singles on the way!


Personally, I'm surprised by the overall mixing quality of "TTYL BABY" because I made it using a cheap generic condenser mic... the kind that's sitting next to an ten year old IBM laptop. I wrote and recorded the song after a beer-swilling, chain-smoking session. The guitar parts were played on a 12-String Yamaha acoustic, and I overdubbed my own vocals. That's it, so let me know what you think.

blake@bandstandaround.com

Alberta's Highways

A sober and alert confident driver, travelling purposefully along a major two-lane highway at twenty or thirty kilometers over the speed limit in good visibility is not a likely safety concern.

A sober and alert nervous driver, travelling mindlessly along a major two-lane highway at five or ten kilometers over the speed limit is a likely safety concern. Seemingly oblivious to the traffic congestion and jockeying resulting from their apparent willful ignorance of lane etiquette, these drivers seem content to occupy a PASSING LANE for an entire two hour trip. This is an aggravating factor for the scores of other drivers who enter into their sphere throughout the duration of their trip, and interferes with what would otherwise be a smooth and natural flow of traffic on Alberta’s highways.

Putting planes in the sky to catch the odd speed demon will not result in any substantial improvements to public safety on our asphalt corridors. It’s my opinion that something should be done to address the issue of those commuters and highway travelers who insist on blocking passing lanes. How about more signage reminding drivers that the outer lane is not intended to be an option (...gee, I'm in the mood for the left lane today) but as an effective means to get around slower moving vehicles? While lane etiquette should be obvious, (...how come whenever I'm behind the wheel, everyone around me starts going crazy? I'm doing the speed limit!) certain drivers simply might not grasp the concept. Perhaps more emphasis on this crucial element of highway travel should be included in driving license exams? 

Creating a buffer of space around your vehicle as it hurtles down the roadway is perhaps one of the most overlooked measures of good driving practice. Consciously adjusting your speed in a way that you're striving to put a mile ahead and a mile behind anyone else on the road only makes sense. Slowing down well before the red light to conserve momentum will save on brakes and fuel. It's simple physics. Tailgaters who are heavy on the brake pedal only contribute to accordion-like traffic flow that ultimately impedes everyone's commute. 

Addressing these sorts of safety issues makes more sense than fueling-up an aircraft every day to write-up a few hundred dollar fines.

   

  

Slushfund!

It's my very own Slushfund!

What You See Is What THEY Get?

I'm beginning to worry if all the shit I say via big dot-coms on the internet is in vain. I wonder if these enterprises are somehow keeping me in an alternate reality where I just think I'm publicizing stuff when the reality is that nobody else can read it. A sort of inverted Truman Show paradigm. Well, whatever. I've got Go Daddy.

Forget 'Street Cred'... here's some 'Tweet Cred', suckers!

This is the sort of unexpected glitch you expose yourself to when you have exchanges with Mr. Todd Kincannon on the Twitter machine! LOL!

Modulating & Deriving

Software. When I was just a wee little lad, my father gave to me a Commodore 64 computer. In those days, there existed a different kind of internet. Sure there were telecommunications, but I wasn’t privy to data over telephone until I was eleven. That was in 1988. The internet has been around since before my time.

I was a pretty clever kid – naïve and too trusting, perhaps. I haven’t changed much. I loved that computer. The software it brought to life was nothing short of astonishing. I remember waking up early before school just to load some silly new game into memory… my Dad, on his way to work, scolding me for being so helplessly beholden to the pixels and programming.

In those days, programmers were my rock stars. They were all male. Men made computers, and women were more comfortable with a Rolodex.   

It’s easy to laugh at some of the dense graphics inhabiting the software showpieces of yesteryear, but as a layman I must say that even a barely functional computer program takes a certain level of genius to conjure. My hat is off to those programmers of yore. Thank you for bringing a little magic into this drunk’s childhood. Keep on modulating and deriving, ye overlooked mages of bits and bytes!

  

Turban Wearing Witch Doctors

I found this in an obscure corner of the internet and thought I'd share:

"Nobody gets me down more than my own Mom & Dad most of the time, but there's also all those God Damned Muslims who are always getting in my way with their veiled threats. Scheming. Perpetually scheming Arabs who are so hard to satisfy. They're like a bunch of girls.

Another identifiable group that pisses me off are those turban wearers. Please don't get me wrong... I do appreciate their struggle and their strife, and I could never be critical of anyone's fashion choices, but quit making false accusations against me. I can hardly take a cab ride without some turban wearing witch doctor insisting I've stolen their map. It makes me think they just want to fight or some shit.

People who wear their glasses too much infuriate me to no end. Take those God Damned things off your face, for Christ's sake. Glasses-wearers. Get a gosh-darn monocle if you always need to refocus; for Christ's sake."

You God Damned Serfs

The City of Edmonton ate this small-town boy alive. I almost "made it" though. I once had a fairly decent blue-collar job that started at $60K / year. Not too shabby for someone with few credentials and a chip on their shoulder. But alas, my fervent hatred of work-working merited a reluctant dismissal after only three months.

In the six years I lived downtown, I made some bad music videos that totally bombed. The earliest entries on this blog are a vestige to the fruitless turbulence of my futile experiences.

Tonight I made some worthless art:

Done using Microsoft Paint

I drew this one freehand and then scanned / coloured it.

Today, each meaningless day I awake to do meaningless things is more painful than the last. I no longer care who gets elected to whatever public office, nor how many thousands of Middle Easterners are being slaughtered. I don't care about sports, girls, cars, money, friends, or prestige. Today, all I care about is whether or not I have another tasteless beer to drink.

Revenue Canada can go and suckle the meat flaps of their co-workers for all I care. I don't care. I don't care that hard working people without a pot to piss in are coerced into paying tax so some well-connected kid can get a nice job designing bad logos for $90K / year.

Abortion is the number one antidote for pseudo-Christianity. Certain media outlets will try to convince you that it's radical Muslims, but really it's all those doctors - the practitioners who are so busy planning their own vacation time that they're above properly washing their own hands - who are too willing to switch-on the baby vacuum.

I don't care. I don't care if you feed your young to the family pet. All the power to you. You could nail your unborn child to a hubcap and I'd probably laugh.

So eat your young, buy some running shoes, and file your taxes you God Damned serfs. Make sure to pay your abortionist with a credit card so it's not so painful.

Good night, and God bless.


  

Letterheads and Better Heads

What's in a name? Are we strolling through some specific campus of a specific post-secondary educational institute of Alberta, or shall we just say, "Meh. Campus Alberta," and leave it at that?

Change that letterhead or else!

Or else what? We'll no longer get a piece of all the funding you've already taken away?

It's not that I really have a stake anyway, folks. I've no intention of ever enrolling in university classes, nor do I have any kids who might one day attend to worry about yet. Maybe there's good reasoning behind homogenizing post-secondary education across the province. I just find the whole thing laughable. It's like the wild west. Brand that cow, Chuckles! Either that U of A sow gets a searing hot Campus Alberta mark in its rump or I'm not the Deputy Premier!

Whatever. I don't think the U of A should worry too much. It's just a stamp on a letterhead. It's not as if Hon. Thomas Lukaszuk can erase a century of geo-academia by simply redesigning a logo. The important people won't forget. If the alumni of the U of A are as resourceful as I know them to be, they'll conjure-up all manner of adaptive strategies to counteract such pettiness.

So have have fun with your power trip, Tommy Boy, and keep telling yourself that: Campus Alberta ROCKS!

I May Not Always Be Right, But I'm Never Wrong

Sure I've tossed the odd cigarette butt onto the avenue outside of a bar on occasion, but more often than not, I make a point of seeking out a trashcan or public ashtray to appropriately dispose of the wretched smelling things if I'm smoking as I'm walking along some sidewalk. I'm the sort of person who will seek approval from those around me before lighting-up. I like animals... people even more, and I'll go out of my way to help an old lady across the street... even if it'll make me late for work.

Work. I finally have a job again! In fact, I almost look forward to this particular job because it's the kind of job I call a work-job. Though it doesn't pay much, and the tasks expected of me are often menial, it's with a busy Mom & Pop outfit... the kind of outfit where it doesn't go unnoticed when I go the extra mile. Unlike a corporate environment, there's a real humanistic understanding to the ongoing's - as opposed to a mandated simulation of "we care" written into organizational policy. 

When you're employed as a time-unit liability within a corporation, everything becomes secondary to the corporation. They don't see you as being late because you helped spare some hopeless drunk a shred of dignity by helping him out of the gutter and onto a bus bench on your way to work- if you're just a mere foot soldier in the ranks, they only see you as being late. Indeed, the corporate entity often has its own separate division to show especially just how much they... really... care. In this way, they only need to care when caring can be recorded in the ledger. "Viablecorp" expects... yea demands recognition... and tax credits for any and all time spent caring. By no means am I anti-corporate or anything like that. I understand and even sympathize with the ever changing complexities - the onus of responsibility - that large, publicly traded organizations are forced to contend with in a global marketplace... unfortunately to the point that it requires a sickening level of micromanagement just to    

compete when your firm is saturated to the level of corporate crotch-rotch.

Of course, even Mom & Pop have their bottom line. Fortunately, as a part-timer, it's easy for me to exceed expectations without getting burnt-out, and I feel like a real team player these days. Very much unlike my experience working for Canada's Department of National Defense where the operating budget seems to magically appear, efficiency is encouraged and idleness is frowned upon. It's just an honest to goodness enterprise that like me, (or anyone else) has its imperfections and idiosyncrasies. 

Such natural elements of life are inherent under any context where interpersonal interaction need present itself- a reality that not government, nor corporate, nor private enterprise could ever hope to immunize themselves from. Unpredictability - the human clause.

  

   

It'll Never Happen To Us

Oh... it'll never happen to us!

The good people who built this country need to get serious about defending it from the growing ranks of useless trashbags populating the streets of this once relatively safe land.

  

Seems some old folks are oblivious to the desperation lurking around every corner in today's society. For the cost of a dog house and some table scraps, you've got an effective security system in the form of a German Shepherd or Rottweiler. A peephole at the front porch might have allowed this nice couple to see that it wasn’t their son coming to visit, but a strange miscreant having no business being on their property.

It's really too bad, but peaceful Canadians need to get vigilante. These kinds of cowardly crimes will only escalate until a strong message is sent... in the form of criminal brains being splattered by shotgun wielding grandmothers, or the legs and necks of desperate piece of pukes getting ripped apart by family pets. 

Legislators need to step-up and table bills that will help to indemnify property owners who are simply defending all that they have worked a lifetime for. The justice system doesn't seem to be concerned enough with creating disincentives. In Canada, we've seen punitive measures exacted against good people simply because they weren't willing to lie down like victims and let some group of fuck-sacks throw firebombs around their back yard. These types of repeat offenders seem to like being in prison a little too much. I say it's high time we let Smith & Wesson reside on the bench!  

Fatty-Acid Deprived Bitchcraft Network

Alex Jamieson vs. Fatty Acid-Deprived Bitchcraft Network

I can almost picture the teeth grinding behind pointed goatees as monocles popped out of their deep eye sockets! The thin, emaciated fingers unable to keep up to the turbidity of rage sparked by one woman who suddenly realized that it’s not a crime to put a bit of feta cheese on her pasta salad… might even brighten her day and improve her overall health!     

After eating a couple of pieces of toast covered in a three-meat homemade chilli with mozzarella cheese melted on top, I caught a moment of Charles Adler discussing the backlash over Alex Jamieson’s recent switch to camp omnivore - where the food is more satisfying, and the constituents more easy-going. Myself being a proponent of the ‘your own body knows best’ approach to diet and nutrition, I relished in learning of the explosive outrage from members within the anti-meat sect over one former vegan’s decision to begin reintroducing animal products into her diet. Before this afternoon, I hadn't heard of the lady.

Just because I have always been someone who eats basically whatever looks or smells good at any given time – as often and as gluttonously as I like (listening to my own cravings as it were) - does not incline me to feel even the slightest shred of hostility toward someone who sees fit to avoid animal products at all costs. It’s up to your own personal tastes, and your particular physiology will usually tell you if something’s amiss: gee, that artichoke dip never seems to sit well in my stomach; or, gosh, too much hamburger always makes me feel tired and bloated. There exists a complex symbiosis between the plant and animal kingdoms, and all foods don’t harmoniously jive with all people. Paul McCartney claims to have a strict vegan diet, and he seems to be charging into his 70’s in good health, and with vigour to spare.  

Experience has shown that for some people, relying on the bounty of the sea for the bulk of their nutritional needs will see them to a ripe old age. For others, dietary staples might be primarily comprised of bugs and wild berries. For me, everything from shrimp to almonds to wild game and everything in between is on the menu. There’s likely some sound biologically explicable reasoning behind choosing foods according to the traditions of one’s ancestral geography.

Prairie people have for generations thrived on cattle, wheat, and corn as the modern Inuit people still stay warm and happy eating whale and seal meat as their ancestors always did. Is such an obvious logical approach to dietary requirements so hard for the vegan agenda to fathom? Would they feel better about themselves if they persuaded the great hunters of the arctic to put down their harpoons and spend a several hundreds of millions dollars to drill hundreds of feet into the defiant permafrost to build geothermal greenhouses so they might more correctly subsist on sprouts and mushrooms?  

This article wasn’t cooked-up to impart any dietary advice, but to point out the broad base of intolerance toward individuality in the online community - as evidenced by the trove of hate mail our hero Alex purportedly received after her 180º dietary approach was made public. I haven’t seen any of the sentiments directed at her, but I can imagine they stem not from a genuine subjective disagreement over dietary choices, but rather from a mindset that embraces ideology out of condemnation for the mainstream: most people include meat in their diets, so I’m going to distinguish myself from most people by publicly attacking them for their ordinary choices and making life difficult for myself.

It tickles me to think of all those hard-line vegans who idolized Ms. Jamieson when her stance most conveniently helped facilitate the advancement of their secret communist plot under the guise of anti-meatism - how they now must feel a sense of ultimate betrayal! It’s hilarious to think of the ensuing panic leading to outrage over one spokeswoman’s change of heart, isn’t it?

The backlash only suggests to me that the vegan community must be short on adherents articulate and charismatic enough to make the movement seem fashionable. It makes you wonder if veganism is even a worthwhile pursuit when so many of its practitioners seem so broke, miserable, and incapable of lifting anything weightier than a bag of pre-washed carrots if their life depended on it.

Though I like to think that a strong majority of non-meat eaters are well-adjusted, happy people who would never chastise someone for sitting down to a plate of asparagus and mashed yams because it also includes a medium-rare steak au poivre, a little hyperbole to illustrate archetypes; while completely imaginary, are fun to concoct, and indeed plausible enough:

  

I can vividly picture some smarmy twerp with non-existent biceps, angry about his student loan for feminist studies not quite covering the cost to fill his pantry with enough couscous, walnuts, and granola to last until his first pay check from Planet Organic. The dried apple chips and granola bar he had for breakfast didn’t even provide him the stamina to make flax seed porridge at noon. Too tired and hungry to care, he glances over his shoulder and skulks into a Wendy’s franchise. Directing his mounting frustrations at the Wendy’s counter attendant he delivers a chirpy discourse in the evils of agribusiness before oh-so reluctantly ordering… a fish burger. He slinks low in the plastic seat, praying to Guyana that one of his vegan peers from neo-nutrition class doesn’t catch him in his cantankerous moment of weakness. He strolls through the park on his way back to the campus. Our fictional Marxist now has enough food-energy to muster a good long sneer at a happy family innocently eating cold-cuts and cheese at a picnic. It’s going to be a long four nights with only three sachets of alfalfa tea left!

Sitting In My Tin Can

I didn’t spend all my time sitting before a computer screen when I was a kid, but let me tell you, my Commodore 64 home computer was truly a fixture throughout my preteen life. The depth and complexity of some of the software titles defied programming logic of today by their astoundingly efficient design, and made for endless hours of intrigue and entertainment due to the ingenuity of their programming.

One such program I remember vividly was “Project: Space Station”, a multifaceted simulation of sheer brilliance that was somehow crammed onto but a single 5 ¼ “ floppy diskette. For those of you younger than thirty years old, a 5 ¼ “ double density floppy diskette could hold about 700,000 bytes of data. To put it into a more modern context, an optical CD-ROM has the data storage equivalency of about 600 of these now obsolete magnetic media units.

    

From keeping your rocket-bound shuttles on invisible rails throughout the launching, to determining which materials and personnel are crucial to the continuance of your orbiting research facility, Project: Space Station put you in the Chief’s chair. For me, the most fun was to be had in arranging the various modules in space using the “Orbital Constructor Pod” – a one-man vessel that gripped the pieces and maneuvered around by farting-out nitrogen. Solar panels, habitation quarters, radiator panels, and laboratories could be connected like Lego blocks in arrangements limited only by your imagination… and most importantly, your budget. Keeping everything within the money was the most challenging aspect of all, and rightfully so – as for any viable, worthwhile simulation, approximation of reality is the penultimate ideal.    

Seeing the awe-inspiring and surreal treatment of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” as performed by Canada’s own Chris Hadfield reminded me of Project: Space Station. There he is, “sitting in a tin can” for real! Being a guitar player myself, it was evident that Mr. Hadfield knows his bar chords, and his vocal performance was indeed, out of this world. It was nothing short of beautiful. Project: Space Station was beautiful in its own right for being ahead of its time. Looking at the International Space Station, I can’t help but think that its designers must have tried their hand at this astounding piece of software history.  

Those old stone and brick educational edifices of the past aren't crumbling fast enough. As a province with a progressive mindset, we should take a more ephemeral approach to the school buildings themselves.

The building of new schools in Alberta should be approached considering their eventual dismantling and ease of disposability in mind. As they continue to stand, old schools in old neighbourhoods pose a significant threat to Alberta’s progress by their very defiance to crumble over the centuries. They make our modern structures with their space-age materials and cookie-cutter designs look cheap by comparison.

In light of dwindling student enrolment in these old neighbourhoods, we face the risk of seeing empty schools hijacked by community leagues as desirable and cost-effective public meeting spaces. We need to tear them down before it’s too late – before too many young professionals and growing families begin to see the merit in establishing themselves in old, centrally located, “walkable” communities.

If Alberta is to move forward and truly embrace the 21^st Century, we need to keep the heavy machinery running at all costs. I propose that the ideal lifespan of any school structure should be no more than seven or eight years - to avoid stagnancy in the growth of Private Public Partnerships. Building contractors love building and demolishing schools, and they're not shy about making political donations. Is it not it time for disposable schools?

  

   

Korean Telecaster Copy - No Strings Attached

Korean Guitar: No Strings Attached (until I came along)

It’s a great day for a barbeque, and I can’t wait to have a big juicy burger with all the fixings. By a landslide, today has so far been the very warmest and the very sunshiniest day.

Dad’s in charge of the grill, and I just returned from the almost stifling atmosphere inside the two-car garage. It was so hot and stuffy inside that stick-built structure I figured all the mechanisms of my vintage Olympia typewriter must be more than sufficiently thawed to endure hammering-out a few dozen, unfrozen letters. It’s probably not a good practice to subject a good many things to freezing and thawing conditions, especially things with complex allotments of intricate parts like typewriters, and even more especially those spools of inked ribbon that carriage key style typewriters employ. Yet I’m pretty sure it survived the near-arctic temperatures from inside the unheated garage. It’s a tough old bird, that German made, multi-colour Olympia fully mechanical typewriter.

Okay… this article was originally supposed to be about my new electric solid-bodied Korean-made guitar. It’s been my thing lately: finding stuff in the garage to take digital snapshots of for an online show-and-tell. I didn’t find this “SLEDGEHAMMER” guitar in the garage, but I did find some acoustic strings to string it up with.

As far as I am concerned, there is only one correct way to wind the string of a stringed instrument onto its peg, and it’s a somewhat exacting thing to do -- in that you don’t want to “wind-up” with too many or too few complete wraps around the post when the string becomes taught. Overlapping a string in a pointless attempt to, “lock it into place, man” is beyond the pale to anyone who knows better, and stubborn people who cannot grasp the sensibility of not ‘locking’ a string - by stupidly overlapping the windings (tension continuity and freedom of movement) are just the sort of guitar players who fruitlessly, unwittingly perhaps, insist on keeping their guitar strings in jail… locked-up. It’s not my bag, dig? Any serious jazz guitar player will agree, and it’s my charge to bring other guitar players to the light when it comes to metal dynamics.

Even a super-expert like me slips up sometimes, but that’s a good thing for the illustrative purposes of this article. I just about nailed the E-String with three complete turns around the string. The A-String has too few, and the D-String is overkill. More than three complete turns is just an overkill of kinetics, but too few complete turns can be sketchy:

While it might be true that I may not be the best guitar player in Canadian Canada, other people would consider me to be very, very, very good at playing guitars really, really, really well. For your listening enjoyment, I have included an off-the-cuff video of my new electric guitar being played acoustically... plus me: badly singing a little impromptu verse at the end!

   

   

Optimal Way To Ship Vinyl Records

Everything is so complicated. I'm not that adept at balancing sweat equity with returns. I am a natural estimator who becomes easily excitable when he hears sixties and seventies music on vinyl in a permissive setting. Lately, I've been looking into international shipping costs: namely; a smart way to ship out some of the 7" vinyl singles I have decided reluctantly to divest myself of, in the name of commerce and start-up capital.

I see emerging markets. I am a nobody-visionary. I know this simply because my intuition sometimes proves to be at least partially correct. The older and wiser I become, the higher the accuracy of my predictions. I like developing models and plans by unraveling complexly twisted obstructions. I admire the pencil-to-paper people. I bounce ideas off them like a built-in eraser.

All I want to do is drink as much as humanly possible. From recording a musical album, to setting-up a profitable niche / boutique... import / export operation that generates trust. My chosen / prescribed lifestyle somewhat accommodates the pursuit of such whimsical endeavours (yes, e-n-d-e-a-v-o-U-r-s) as spending all my free-time away from work-job writing a screenplay.

I'm not that two-speed, however. I mainly like every day to transcend more than a couple of gears in the box. Variety. Dip my fingers in a few different pies and separate my eggs into multiple baskets. Spreading the wealth. Routinely rediscovering your own uniqueness. What can't I do in this life - so long as it respects the proper inalienable rights of others. What can I build? Who do I want to break the ice with? Of all the familiar day-to-day situations I find myself involved with, which of these situations are most important when figuratively placed within the context of our ever expanding universe? It's impossible!

Brand Recognition

 

Brand recognition. See my branding ability? I made-up a record company called, "His Records" to distinguish my trustworthiness from all the fly-by-night operators who wouldn't even blink while shim-shamming their own Grandmother out of her silverware!

His Records: They're NOT yours... they're *his!

*His may refer to hers' as well as its' in reference to any salable item belonging to either HIS RECORDS or any affiliate thereof.


Diabolical Speculative Analysis

Excuse me while I bust-out my vintage typewriter.... 

Speculation

Contemporary technology will grow ever more obstructionist due to unanticipated rival competitors in growing markets. In considering the notion of "reverse obsolescence" as it applies to multimedia, we feel that certain technologies that are now popularly considered to be obsolete, and only worthy of an eclectic nod, may eventually find a significant market resurgence borne not as much of rarity as of interest in the necessity of overcoming dwindling digital permissiveness in the multiplex of information exchange.

Analysis

Given the millions of units of licensed media for sale online and in actual shops, we feel that media formats considered by and large to be 'antiquated' by the seething majority, analog forms of licensed collectibles is an emerging market. 

Diabolical Twist

Buy everything. Consolidate. Get the best price. Corner the market. Assimilate any rogue talent. Squash the competitors. 

It's Never Too Late To Take Up Wine & Smoking

Pimp My (Alberta) Campus

Just to be clear, I think Thomas puts the Progressive in the Alberta PC Party, and I don't really give a dog-damn about what goes on in post-secondary institutions so long as they're not concocting legions of microscopic death machines in the nano research facility of Campus Alberta.

Though I don't have any fancy letter designations after my name like our Provincial Deputy Czar, I did sort-of complete nearly one-third of a program at S.A.I.T. once upon a time. I dropped-out. Not only because the programming seemed awkwardly archaic, as though spit-out by some freakish abomination of a 1950's robotic engineering firm, my unenthusiastic instructors (I'm sure it was just my exceedingly bad luck in timing) mostly sucked, and at the time I was so highly confused by my self-imposed impoverished lifestyle that I just couldn't bear to suffer the stupidity of fighting the whole system on a diet of oatmeal and cabbage. Still, I think it's safe to say I know a thing or two about how higher education relates to getting higher and higher, and I don't need a diploma to rock the piano well enough to convince a certain typecast of art-chick that I'm not altogether unworthy of a good snogging, so.... uhh... drop me a line sometime?

Hopefully this latest institutional excision by the PCs will be enough to coerce the cadre of registered geek sympathizers into descending the staircases of their ivory towers long enough to tighten their belts a bit. His excellency, Czar Thomas, shouldn't hesitate in using his new found super powers stemming from his freshly minted status as a magic fulcrum in extorting some useful intellectual property from the entitled clutches of the pampered, directionless egg heads. These absent-minded professors with their dope pipes and their gaggles of art-fag groupies for audiences. Let's get serious here and break-out the filmstrip projectors; unlock the old listening lab for a dose of reality when it comes to reporting cutting-edge technology as an appreciating asset.

It's high time post secondary education dollars started garnering greater plus-money returns in their legacy role of twisting innovative thinkers into well-respected industry serving cogs with important shiny pins on their lapels. Czar Lukaszuk should use his elevated title like a trump card in as many backroom deals as possible and pimp the brain trust behind closed doors to key industry players - to the benefit of all Albertans, of course. If there were Alberta Legislative Member trading cards, I'd have only Thomas Lukaszuc and Raj Sherman cards in my collection because even during the Ed Stelmach daze, I thought them to be pretty cool operators with fine speaking voices.

Whatever. Get rich and have some fun at taxpayer expense. Who cares what the peanut gallery thinks. Most of them couldn't see the trees for the forest if they had on a pair of extra strength tree/forest-vision goggles. The unigeeks will always take care of developing innovative ideas because most of them need to resort to distinguishing themselves intellectually in order to get some action on a Friday night. You don't need a degree with distinction to figure out that the cart needs to go BEFORE the horse if you expect to lug those textbooks from the printing press. Now that the toothpaste is out of the tube, we need to get on with trying to put it back in by awarding some sweet contracts to some loosely organized firms who are willing to make every piece of empirical knowledge on record accessible through Kindle. Let's move forward already and turn over some serious one-sided coins.


The way I see it, the people who enroll in University can be divided into one of three camps: the methodical careerist who views higher education as nothing more than a necessary step in their pursuit of a normal, professional lifestyle; the gifted academic who wants to play a part in the advancement of universal knowledge for all of humanity; and the clueless hot chicks and hammerheads who see no option other than going to Campus Alberta so they can party and be with their friends. All three camps form a perfectly equilateral trinity of equilibrium in balancing the natural course of human progress against the intentions of God almighty.

Time is money, money is power, and power is maintaining an iron grip on the regulatory agencies that broker our lifestyles through their patents and their procurement of intellectual property. Let's pimp that campus post haste!

Get a Hobby, Mr. Expert

I could not more strongly disagree with anyone who proposes to unreasonably tax lifestyle choices. Of course, I do happen to be someone who happens to enjoy drinking, and I also smoke far more tobacco than anyone should, but this land wasn't built into the marvel we see before us today by a bunch of non-smoking teetotalers. Despite our sometimes drinking a bit more than we should - our society as a whole - from time to time, we continue to be functioning members of communities and folks who are loved by significant others. We sometimes contribute generously to the advancement of noble causes or help our friends through challenging times. We should not be treated as some endless source of revenue for a bunch of nitpickers! 

Everybody groans when prices go up, and we know that getting clobbered on spirits isn't always the wisest thing we choose to do, but seeing your wallet always being clobbered can be far more detrimental to one's well being than one's liver. Canadians continue to make whatever concessions in order to purchase all kinds of tasty alcoholic beverages and packs of smokes. It’s a tradition for many good people to go out and party with friends or meet new people with a little help from liquor. They go out on the weekends to fraternize with co-workers, and somehow manage to drink responsibly enough to have a grand old, uninhibited time under warm influence of good old-fashioned booze: a glass of wine with dinner and one following... before going to an outdoor patio for as many beer as one can handle while listening to good tunes. What. A. Great. Time. Something to look forward to after the monotony of a dreary week of working, and an enjoyable way to discuss current affairs, gossip, and sports or other interests and personal tastes.

One should simply drink as much as one sees fit. That’s my motto. So long as you’re relatively safe and don’t step on anyone’s toes. I see no good reason to penalize everyone who just wants to have a good time, and for some people coffee with cigarettes is a fun and relaxing thing to do. S 

"Would you care to have a cigarette to go with your crossword, M'am?"

"Why yes please! How kind of you to offer, young man! Let me buy YOU a drink!"

Of course I would never recommend that someone take up drinking or smoking necessarily, but let's face it - certain personalities seem to have a stronger inclination to become addicted to nicotine or booze for whatever reason. Cigarettes are very portable, and can be incredibly comforting for someone who smokes. A liter of Vodka can provide about six people with a great time, and in Alberta, a well-stocked boozemart is never too far away.

For me, nothing compares as a means to melt away life's nagging stresses than a smoke break, and basically, you're not hurting anybody other than yourself by inhaling a few puffs of smoldering tobacco. Nobody wants to see a loved perish from unhealthy lifestyle choices, but tell me, oh scholar, what would be worse: someone who suffers a complete emotional breakdown and uncontrollably lashes out at the world because tobacco and alcohol is so ridiculously taxed it becomes out of reach without cutting into their staple necessities, or a strong personality in demanding circumstances who manages to keep from going off the rails thanks to something as simple and mostly unobtrusive as having a smoke once in a while? I say, let us smokers smoke! I don't admonish others for their choices even if whatever they do doesn't suit me and I hate to see nice people be made out as pariahs. 

As overwhelmingly harmful as excessive tobacco and alcohol can be to one’s health, many smokers do indeed live to be a ripe old age. Drinkers too. Granted that it is highly unlikely that you won't develop a litany of health problems from decades of nicotine or booze addiction, one can always quit smoking or drinking. A terribly high percentage of the cost of packages of cigarettes and cigars, or bottles of liquor and beer, is already quite prohibitive anyhow, and yet people pay it. Why? They like it. Partying with booze is most often a joyous occasion. It’s tradition and it’s fun. It gets people dancing and singing; celebrating a wonderful life.

Not everybody is cut-out to drink and / or smoke, and booze especially can lead to peril and precarious situations. It is well known that alcohol often precedes violence and can spurn incredibly destructive behaviours to be exhibited by certain individuals. It has always been a negative societal reality, and it will always be a symptom of any free and just society. Fortunately everyone is typically well aware of booze-abuse realities, which is why in our benevolent western society we fund so many outreach services and therapeutic initiatives. I have no quarrel with any organization that relies upon attraction through good example. Interventions are sometime warranted to prevent hard cases from going over a cliff.

I like that people care about each other and some want to help people avoid a crash course. What I don’t like, are so-called experts who think they know what is best for everyone else – so much so that they see fit to coerce the government to penalize everyone with ever heightening sin taxes. It goes against the spirit of the free market, and it cheeses me off to no end!

With inflation what it is, and the stagnancy of wages, low-income earners can scarcely afford the simple pleasure of having reflective smoke-breaks throughout the day in the True North Strong and Free. They have to resort to inferior products if they drink routinely, and I think that’s almost criminal. One fringe benefit of being a smoker, from my own perspective, is that it provides a rock-solid excuse to remove oneself from any situation for a spell and to change the scenery momentarily. Most decent people can empathize with the gravity of a powerful craving. For this writer, smoking is like granting oneself little stimulating rewards throughout the day for a job well done. After work, there’s no better way I can think of to unwind than to have a few beer. I’m no expert, but I think that someone who routinely drinks beer might be far less concerned about health issues than someone who relies on, shall we say, strange concoctions of OTC drugs to get them through the night? Since we're being frank and honest here, let's admit that many people are habitually or occupationally exposed toxins far worse than those of a burning a dried, shredded-up plant leaf.

I like to write and to play guitar. I love having conversations with friends over a few drinks in a pub or a backyard. Getting blotto on a camping trip. Wine, beer and spirits taste good to me, and it’s an amazingly relaxing, beautiful thing to feel the glow of an alcohol buzz settling in. I like smoking a few cigarettes or cigars with my drinks. I like to get moderate amounts of exercise from walking the dog. I like my job. I seriously do not like these so-called experts who always seem to be sniveling to higher authorities in hopes of convincing them that I deserve to keep even less of the money I earn because they deem fit to see my little pleasures in life get mad-soaked in unnecessary, and unfair fees. Campaigning against fun. I have a good mind to give any pickpocket a good cuff upside the head! Stay away from my lifestyle choices, Mr. Dr. Expert Punk M.D.! Go and snort a crushed Advil you sack of unfun, cantankerous worms! Enough of the madness and the bleating. Get a hobby.