Happy 141st Birthday!

As you may or may not be aware, July the First is celebrated every year in Canada as the founding day of our glorious constitutional monarchy. Essentially it is akin to the American Independence Day, but we celebrate it early and typically drink more. We didn’t gain our independence through rebellion. We gained it through careful and sternly worded letters! The origins of our nation are no secret and some of our fiercely independent neighbours may look upon them as weak-willed, but Canadians never demand anything of our friends. Nor do we shun the origins of others.

I say ‘we’ because, and this may or may not come as a shock to you, I am a Canadian. I’ve been Canadian since the day I was born and I will patriotically remain a Canadian until the day I die. Where does the Canadian identity lie? It lies within the heart of every single person who left their homelands and emigrated to the ‘Great White North’ in search of a better way of life. We are a nation of tolerance and understanding, our national attitude has always been one of ‘live and let live’. Canadians have always been a fixture on the world stage and our numerous contributions to the Earth are understated and rarely bragged about.

That’s not to say that Canadians retain no sense of national pride, in fact quite the opposite is true. Canadians are fiercely patriotic and we are more than proud to tell you about how great of a country we are fortunate to have when traveling abroad. A Canadian need never fear hatred or persecution around the world because our conduct as a nation on the world stage has never been less than civil and excellent. Our military has been scoffed at in recent years but we’ve been instrumental in peacekeeping campaigns worldwide and retain a strong sense of pride in our nation’s Forces. Our country isn’t perfect though, but if you examine our history you will find that our mistakes are far out-weighed by our successes.

For all of those reasons and more, I am proud to be a Canadian citizen and there’s no country in the world that I would rather have been raised in. Here’s to you Canada; Happy 141^st Birthday! May you have many more to come.

Two Years

It has been nearly two years since the last time I updated this sorry excuse for a blog. If I were to make a brand new promise to keep it active, it would be an empty one. I have no intention of closing this place down because that would be giving up. If nicotine addiction is any indication, then I’m no quitter! In retrospect some time off from the Internet was just what the doctor ordered, but don’t go thinking that I took a full two years off. You probably know damn well that’s about as insurmountable of a challenge to me, as is breathing in the vacuum of space. I can tell that you’re eager to learn more, so I’ll fill you in a bit.

At lot has happened in the last stretch of my unreported life. I’m a different person now, no I didn’t get gender reassignment surgery or anything to that extent. I’ve grown and learned new things, had new experiences and have had to re-evaluate some aspects of my so-called life. When last I wrote on the subject of myself, I was working weekends as a bouncer and going to school. Thankfully I’m out of the bar game and don’t have to deal with the bullshit that it entails. Before the move away from the club I’d quit school for reasons of boredom and a general sense that making a little bit more money was worth it in the short term. Financial reasons are never good when your education is shunted to the wayside.

I stopped working as a bouncer in the summer of ’06 because I found an easy job that offered more hours and a wonderfully lonely midnight shift for the introvert that I am. I went to work in a convenience store. The happy little crutch was that I had the experience and the know-how enabling me to make the adjustment to a new job quickly and effortlessly. I lasted through three management changes and was pretty much the employee with the most seniority for a year and a half. My life was once again a Canadian version of the movie ‘Clerks’, except that I had only reading material and drunk vagrants to converse with. I really did enjoy working there and upon reflection quit for asinine reasons, but I needed to know something about a certain individual in my life.

This little ‘deadbeat test’ was mostly concocted retrospectively from what I now recognize were subconscious feelings of doubt. I won’t go into the details of my past relationship with this woman, but things didn’t end well. She was unable to deal with me unemployed and I was never really sure what kind of future there would be for two personalities as opposing as ours. I was off of hard drugs (not that I [did/or now] do them often), I was mostly off of the Buddha, but mainly I was off of the market. The distance in any long-distance relationship usually proves to be the destructive element and that’s what I can look back on and recognize. I thought I knew what true love was, but surely any true romantic will tell you that ‘true love’ cannot be so easily rescinded but such trivial things. And to be entirely honest, I cannot discount the fear I had over getting into such a “serious” relationship at, what I perceive to be, a young age. I’m no expert in the matter but if you want to call it commitment issues, then it’s your prerogative.

Also during this time period the PSM Forums were shut-down entirely. I assume that most, if not all, of the people reading this prose were, at one time or another, members of that failed attempt at a community. Either way I was part of the team trying to keep the community together at a new, and unaffiliated, address. We succeeded for the most part, due largely to the leadership and tenacity of one Mr. Nobles. He is a man whom I would like to consider a friend, but who has largely made it clear that my friendship is no longer warranted. It is sometimes best to let sleeping dogs lie, and in that regard I chose to leave the community of which I had been a part of for six years. I would prefer not to speak further of the matter publicly, but if any of you reading this consider me a friend, you are more than welcome to inquire in private.

Sufficed to say; with no more Internet community and no more long distance relationship and no more employment or future opportunities for meaningful ventures therein; I went back to school. And here I sit, a few days away from my third term back in an adult education high school. The facility is essentially a regular high school, only the students are generally older by a mean age of about 5-8+ years. I attend classes with folks who have children my age and I attend classes with guys and dolls as young as 17-18. I attend classes with foreign-born peoples and with delinquent kid Canadians. It’s easy enough, I’m still working on trying to shuck off the latent introversion and continue living in the real world. I don’t have to be contained within the self-imposed exile and subsequent social outcastery that followed my original dropping out of high school at fourteen years. I can firmly say that things really are going a lot better in my life then they have been.

I’d like to post again in the near future on a more generalized topic than my own personal history. Maybe wax philosophical, chew out ignorance and incompetence in our society, and generally continue to make a nuisance out of myself again. I hope that won’t be an empty promise and I hope that any of you that do take the time to read up on my last couple of years will drop me a line, lest the bridge of contact grow to far to cross.

And by god if you want a look at what sort of bad state I was in, take a look here:

Lots of Delicious Reading About Me!

Truth be told I ran a blog out of the motivation of love at the time and that is probably why everything sounds so damn whimsical and cutesy. I may have to read over it and find out exactly how fucked up I was back then, but there’s a good chunk of my life in there. Read at your own risk.

I suppose I shall draw this entry to a close, even if no one reads it, it has been a therapeutic retrospective.

‘Til next time.

/Kristoffer

Unreliable People

If there's one thing I honestly hate in this world, it's unreliable people. I've been dry for more than a week because no one in this damned town knows how to conduct a decent drug deal. My regular guy apparently became a crack head and hasn't answered his telephone in weeks. Friends that keep saying they'll hook me up aren't getting back to me, I'm just plain miffed.

It's not that I'm even that big of a junkie that I need a green fix, it's the principle of the matter. I should be able to get drugs when I fucking want them. None of this waiting around bullshit!

Happy belated Dominion Day, btw.

Warez

I love warez.

When you're like me and you have a piece of shit computer that can barely run a game released in the last five years, warez really comes in handy for trying out games to see if they'll run. If they don't run, fine, delete the files. When they do run however, it's the sweetest pie in the whole wide world.

Just thought I'd mention that.

Been Awhile

It certainly is rude of me to go ahead and put up a nice looking blog like this and then leave it inactive for weeks or ever months at a time. To be quite honest though, since I dropped out of school I haven't been doing a whole lot besides smoking pot and not looking for that full time job that I dropped out of school to find... yea...

Anyways, I found out that some old friends of mine are going to be having their first child, so I'd like to express my congratulations to them. If you're reading this, then you know who you are... corrupters.

I'll once again attempt to update this thing more often, but don't bet on it.

C'mon Edmonton

Nothing pisses a Canadian off more than seeing a canadian NHL team lose a playoff game, nothing except maybe a long line at Timmy's in the morning. If you don't follow hockey, tonight the Edmonton Oilers got their asses handed to them by the Carolina Hurricanes in game two of Lord Stanley's Cup Finals.

Edmonton just took way too many penalties and by the last half of the third period when they were down 5-0, they just sort of lost interest. Hopefully they can pull something out of their ass for the next game in Edmonton and actually win, though without Roloson it doesn't look good. I gotta say, Carolina's defensive tactics are amusing. Their strategy of falling all over their goaltender to block the net seems to have paid off.

My time spent living in Calgary seems to have engraved a vehemont hatred for Edmonton into the soul of my being, but you know what, as long as the Cup comes back to Canada, I don't give a shit what team wins it for us. So pick it up boys!

The next two games are in Edmonton, so I hope the hometown crowd can rally the troops. If the Oilers don't win the next game, I predict a Carolina Cup victory.

What's News?

Well, since I've posted that little article of writing in other places around the 'Net, I certainly don't feel bad about making this post to replace it. Just wanted to give a little heads up on the current Kris situation.

I've sort of gone and done something that I shouldn't have: I dropped out of school... again. Sorry kids, but reality gave me a swift kick in the junk when I realized that I can't support myself if I'm going to school full time and only working on the weekends. So it's back to the newspaper ink sniffing for me as I rifle through the classifieds. Unfortunately, being that it's summertime and all of the students are out (including the high school kids shortly), the job market will be slim pickings.

Switching to a lighter note now, I recently, well a week and a half ago, attended a staff party. You all remember that I work as a bouncer at a country-themed night club right? Well, this wasn't just any staff party, it was an 'Industry Night'. Export A (a tobacco company here in Cana-duh!) spent 80 grand throwing us this blast of a night. I do believe that I left 20lbs of me on the dance floor after that continuous four hour shuffling of the feet that I was doing. Well, not continuous; I had to stop for smoke breaks and tequila shots.

Speaking of work, has anyone ever heard of a band called Disturbed? They played at our bar last Sunday, and I'm not big on the whole heavy metal music genre, but the kids seemed to really like them. However, loading up a 53-foot tractor trailer at the end of the night was not fun.

Anyways, that's about it, I remain, as always: apathetic and looking for (more) work.

Awakening

Part One

Something flashes in the corner of my eye, as I turn my gaze I catch a fleeting glimpse of a long passed memory, slipping from the outermost edge of my subconscious, yearning to break free into the realm of thought. Vague shapes and shadows dance on the wall as I stare, ruminating for a thread of familiarity, my mind twists, trying desperately to draw out the hidden memory locked within. The dainty aroma of a fine perfume caresses my nostrils, my eyelids grow heavy; they lower as faint sounds tickle my eardrums into activity. The world around me swirls into a pit of darkness and becomes distant; the body is there, but the mind dances through the global circuits of consciousness.

Bodiless, my mind flies through the open plane of human consciousness, feeling my way along the highways of thought and emotion. A metamorphoses, much like the dimwitted caterpillar becomes the elegant butterfly, I am aware of things. For the first time in my life I am aware that there is more to existence then the wretched confines of the physical world. I feel myself being bathed in the emotional warmth of the infinite plane, my mind pulses with excitement. Shifting realities wrench and bring me to a level that I recognize, stars and blackness surrounds me. The vast universe stretches before me like a grand buffet, where to start? So much to try, so much to see, to taste, to smell, to hear, to touch, it 's overwhelming! Yet I feel a serene sense of calmness, the perspective of my mind wraps itself around the concepts of ethereal life.

I become aware of direction, distance and speed, though in comparison to the infinitesimal void, these concepts have little weight. In an instant there is a presence, someone calling out to me. The presence dissipates, I can't feel it anymore. I feel cold and alone, so distant from everything. The universe fades out of existence as a wave of emotional loneliness washes over my mind, it is dark now. Time slows, fizzles and stops, but what is time if not a measurement of conscious existence? There is nothing, I am alone in the void.

A blurry white cloud of dust approaches me, at least I perceive it to be approaching. In the void, direction has no meaning, time has no meaning, there is only the void, the cloud, and me. The cloud sharpens and takes shape, blurry images dance and contort, what does it say? I strain my mind and try to focus on the cloud, thinking, reaching, stretching my curiosity towards it within the void. I can almost make out the form, the shapes almost begin to carry meaning. Focusing harder, my thoughts race through the confines of my mind, and the cloud suddenly materializes into the most simplistic of commands: “Don't Think”.

A massive grumbling and suddenly I lurch back to consciousness, the familiar confines of my apartment surround me: home. What had just happened? A faint tint of dark blue light gives my apartment a gloomy appearance, is it the evening? The room gives no reply. I notice that my large, oak grandfather clock seems to think that it is 7PM, the wrist watch on my coffee table is more than happy to agree, in spite of my perceptions. Impossible! I had just gotten out of bed less than ten minutes ago! A cup of cold coffee on the table appears to further defy my perception of time. Did I fall asleep on the couch? Did I dream my whole day away? It wouldn't be the first time that I'd slouched about all day, but what of dreaming? I can't seem to recall anything! My mind feels like a blank slate, unthinking, rested.

I rub my eyes trying to make sense of the lost time. A nagging sensation grips my being, the addiction, the habit. Fiddling about for a match, I light up a cigarette and take a long drag. A deep breath and the smoke burns my throat. The warm, relaxing burn takes my mind away from the mystery of the day, inching my consciousness back to reality. The answering machine light is blinking, if I was sleeping on the couch all day why didn't I hear the phone?

Taking another drag of my cigarette, I thumb the button to playback the messages. The mechanized voice of the machine barks out the time stamp on the first message, 9:21 AM. “Hey Erik,” I recognize the voice on the message instantly, it belongs to a coworker of mine named Melinae, “it's me, Mel. Well, you haven't shown up for work yet, did you party too hard, again, last night? I think the old man's getting a little pissed so I just thought I'd give you a heads up if you're even planning on showing up today. See ya later. BEEP”

****, the 'old man' in reference is none other than my boss! Another drag from the cigarette calms my nerves; I can always find another job if need be. How considerate of Melinae to think of me like that. She's pretty cute too as a matter of fact, the kind of girl that probably has some secret sexual fetish but acts completely normal on the surface. Bondage perhaps, she reminds me of a catholic school girl. I'll have to remember to thank her tomorrow at work, assuming that I haven't been fired yet. The answering machine's soulless voice sparks to life again, the next message was received at 12:48 PM: “Erik? This is Mr. Andrew Miller calling.” Double ****; the boss! “Erik, I've decided that your services to our organization are no longer required. You can come in and pick up your last paycheck on Friday. Good luck in your future endeavors. BEEP”

No big deal, it's not the first time I'd been fired, and it probably won't be the last. Regardless, the mystery of the lost time was still ebbing in the back of my thoughts. I returned to the couch a butted out my smoldering cigarette in the ashtray. I sighed, thinking, wondering, am I going insane? Bah, you are either insane or not insane, there's no 'road to insanity'. Where had the time gone?

A pain numbs my temples the instant I realize that there remained one message on the answering machine. I rub my face, vigorously trying to remove the tingling pain from my temples, as I approach the answering machine to divulge the contents of the last message. I wonder why it didn't play through when I was listening to the other messages. Ominously the red light blinks, the apartment is completely dark now, the last few rays of sunlight having slipped beneath the horizon. Time evidently stands still as I approach the machine, before I can press the button to play the message the machine once more sparks to life: 'Message received at 6:55 PM'. The room grows silent, the city outside my window appears to be draped in a blanket of darkness and silence. I feel a presence in the room, a somehow familiar presence, my mind twists and contorts itself trying vainly to understand what's happening, and then a voice:

“Don't Think.”

The room begins to spin as the throbbing at my temples becomes unbearably painful, I cry out in terror and agony as I collapse into a heap. Consciousness slipping from my grasp and I go numb...

So... comments?

Depression

Ever been depressed?

I'm sure you have, certainly all manners of people have been depressed at some point in their lives. I'm not so much depressed right now as I am angry, angry that the obligations of life outweight my enjoyment of it. Let me set the stage for you, I go to school full time throughout the week and I work Fridays and Saturdays until 3AM at a bar called Cowboy's Ranch here in London.

Such a schedule leaves me with no 'party nights'. Meaning I have no evenings free in which I can drink my face off without the reprecussions of responsibility draining my happiness. I find myself faced with great effort if I want to continue this lifestyle; my neglected social life most likely cannot survive.

I'm frustrated especially with people who seem to coast through life without a care in the world. Welfare people; there are so many of them here in London that it's astonishing. I'd never seen so many lazy people in my life before moving here. I hate this city; wish I was back in Calgary...

Signature Gallery

Well, as most of the people who visit this blog will no doubt be aware, I live for Internet Signatures. I love to make them and improve my talents, and I've been doing it for quite a number of years. Unfortunately I've lost 70% of my past works because of moving, changing computers, etc, so in an effort to keep everything in one place, I've decided to add a gallery to this place.

Enjoy:

Signature Gallery

Moving Day

I happen to be moving houses tomorrow and I thought I'd just give a little heads up to anyone who still reads this crap-ass blog. It's nothing major in the way of relocation, we're only moving a couple of kilometres away, but still right within the city of London.

The thing that sucks is that I have to work tonight, which of course means I'll be at work until 3AM, minimum. Then I have to trek over to the new apartment and sleep there for the night, at which point I'll have to get up around 8AM to let the damned movers in.

It's going to be a rough, exhausting weekend; I've already decided that.

Am I Wrong?

Am I wrong, or does the government suck?

Recently in Canada, Parliment Hill chose not to lower the federal flags in memorium of the four Canadian soldiers that recently died in Afghanistan. They cited their reason as being that we have a day of Remembrance on Nov 11th every year, in remembrance of the end of WWI, and to honour all veterans who have died in the service of Canada. Good, I understand and wholly support Remembrance Day and I'm proud to have a day where we get to honour our veterans of past and present, however what the Government did was hold a vote to see whether they would lower the flags to half or not. The indecision made their answer seem like a slap in the face to the families of those recently deceased soldiers.

I believe that the Government should be unyielding in the upholding of the laws of state, it's the fact that they had the internal rumbling enough to have to hold the vote, like some the members of Parliament, don't know their own laws. Whenever our government is featured on the news, I'm almost embarrassed to be Canadian.

Shape up guys, or we'll ship you out.

Abstract Signature Tutorial

Spending Money is Fun

So I got paid yesterday, and of course the first thing I did was head to the mall to cash the cheque and spend as much of it as humanly possible before work this evening. I picked up a couple of shirts, a pair of shorts, and some new Reeboks to replace the falling apartness of my old sneaks. I also picked up The DaVinci Code and Robert Sawyer's Hominids, along with some assorted school supplies.

Does anyone else find it odd that a Canadian based fast food chain called Harvey's just introduced a new sandwich called the Texan Burger. I guess it lets all the dumb Americans feel right at home when they come up here for a bite to eat. I don't know, there's really not a whole lot of substance to this post, I just felt like rambling a bit.

I've been getting some demands to post up some more Photoshop Tutorials, so if anyone else would like to see some more things of that nature, please let me know with a comment or an email. And let me know what you'd like to learn how to do in Photoshop, so I can get some ideas on what subjects to post tutorials on.

Belated 420

Happy 'late' 420 everyone, sorry I haven't been around much, but work keeps me pretty busy and when I'm not working, I'm drinking. Hopefully you'll understand. Anyways, the point of this entry is just to hope that everyone had a safe and dissentful Marijuana Smoking Day. In case you're not a toker, you should know that April 20th is Marijuana Smoking Day because of the fact that the date can be read as "420", which is a common slang for the time of day kids used to smoke up after school/detention.

Unfortunately no one really knows the origin of the term exactly, but it's believed to have been derived from LA kids who would spend all day in school and not be able to puff any chronic until 4:20 in the afternoon. That's the theory anyways.



Happy smoke everyone!

Chris Slate, PSM Magazine

I recently had an encounter with the editor in chief of the publication PSM, based in California. After having been requested to make a banner to voice the concerns of one moderator over nothing being fixed around PSM's Online Discussion Forum, I put the banner into my signature. After returning to the forums the next day, I found myself banned, over calling someone a tool over the Internet. Well apparently the "Personal Attack" I made on Chris Slate, didn't sit too well with Chris Slate, and I was promptly banned without even being notified, or going through the forum's 3 strikes and you're out policy.

After some rabble rousing from my friendly forumites, I was reinstated to previous forum status the next day. Although I hold no grudge against Chris Slate personally, he needs to grow up and get a sense of humour.

Also, I'd like to thank all of the forum members that came to my defense over the unfair banning of the forum's most prominent member... me. It would take too long to list all of the names who supported me, but I want to personally thank Stephen P. Nobles IV for sticking up for me the entire time, after all, he was the one who asked for the offending banner to be made. I'd also like to personally thank Aimee (faerietalegoddess) because of her staunch words to both Steve and Chris who got a little off topic with all of their cock waving.

Once again, thanks guys, except Kgod, the biggest bitch on the forums.

Note to Self

STOP GETTING DRUNK ON SCHOOL NIGHTS!

Once again, I chose to go out and get drunk on a Sunday night and once again I was much too sick to get to school this morning. Luckily for me, it was only slated to be a halfday today, but it's still the principle of the matter. Although beer is great, getting up 6 hours after getting sloshed and realizing that if you ride the bus to school, someone's going to get a really good look at what you ate last night, isn't. So once again I resolve never to drink on a school night.

We'll see how long that lasts.

20 Tips for Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse

Tips for Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse:

1. Do as many drugs as possible. (This doesn't necessarily ensure survival, but you'll be a lot more accepting of the situation.)

2. If possible, attempt to reason with the zombie hordes; they might be more understanding of not eating you if you can explain why you don't want to be eaten.

3. DO NOT SHOOT THE ZOMBIES; that will only make them angrier, and you probably have bad aim anyways.

4. If at all possible, run. Unless you're a woman, then you'll probably just trip and twist your ankle.

5. Zombies are drawn to large population centers, so move to the country if possible, unless you live near one of the following: cemetery, crematorium, ancient burial ground, noisy, shuffling, moaning neighbours.

6. Do not lean against windows.

7. Make sure to travel with a large group of 'feeders', people who run slightly slower than you to ensure your survival.

8. Molotov Cocktails are good for splash damage, but the undead hordes don't feel a lot of pain, so while you may feel "cool" throwing a Molotov, don't.

9. Wal-Mart sells machetes for $7.99, stock up before the Apocalypse.

10. Realize that it's unlikely you'll be able to cut through the undead hordes, as an alternative, you can try to escape, but stay in the open for fuck's sakes.

11. Do not fall asleep.

12. Should any member of your party become infected, be sure to kill said individual immediately; there is no cure for zombie, so don't waste time.

13. Don't assume that the government will rescue you; more likely than not, they were the first ones to be evacuated to the Moon.

14. Compassion will get you killed, be ruthless.

15. In the event of coming across some top secret research facility, don't assume that it's safe to go inside; if you do, you're already dead.

16. Unless you're British, don't think that you can "blend in" by imitating the zombies.

17. Get as drunk as possible; you'll need to do something to take your mind off the end of humanity.

18. Don't assume that everyone you meet is friendly, instead shoot everyone you meet in the kneecaps and run past them laughing. This will slow the zombies down.

19. If you get the chance to have sex, don't; she might have a disease or something.

20. Run.

A Photoshop Tutorial?!

Faber and MxPx

As a bouncer at a night club, there's the odd once or twice a month when a name band will come in on tour and play a show. It helps when your club is affiliated with House of Blues which basically handles all concert bookings in Canada. So after working last night's Hedley show, I just want to extend a warm hand of thanks to my new buddies, the members of Faber and the members of MxPx, you guys had an awesome show and it was great partying with you afterwards.

A huge thanks to Faber for the buds, and as for MxPx's Mike Herrera, you only won the game because I scratched the cue ball on the last shot bud...

Now let's talk Hedley...

Hedley is a band that was formed when the lead singer dropped off of Canadian Idol (Yes yanks, we have one of those shitty reality shows too) because he didn't like the style of music that Idol contestants were into. Now as a band, they're pretty mellow, pushing on the side of bubblegum pop rock almost, let's just say that there were mostly young girls at their show last night. To be honest though, they don't have the greatest reputation; I've actually heard that the lead singer once doped up a girl at a club here in London and proceeded to rape her. Scary stuff, but just like any young headlining band, they were quite arrogant and were pretty much totally ignorant of the world around them.

Let me just finish off by saying that Hedley sucks.