Death to Winter

Dusty Springcleaning

When I undertook the notion of renovating my room, I neglected the lack of space elsewhere in the house for my crap. Two days later I think I've cleared out all that is going to find a temporary home elsewhere, without moving bulky furniture up or down stairs.

In cleaning up the attic so that I can clear the wool insulation (with a high proportion of high R factor mouse droppings) away from my ceiling to rip it down, I am across a bunch of old crap my parents had stored away and time forgot. My dad was a notorious packrat, and so amongst the crap he left behind I found a yellowed copy of a newspaper from the first day of the 1990 Gulf War, and a box of 24 empty Coca Cola World Series commemorative cans with the scores from the games in the Jays 1992 title over the Braves.

Amongst the other random boxes, I found a box of my mom's old dolls, all of them staring up to greet me as I removed the lid, and a number of old beer coasters from brews that likely are no longer available to add to my bottle collection.

But a trip to the LCBO to feed the thirst of inhaling two days of dust and spiderwebs provided me with four new flavours to explore during poker tonight. Two germans, a french, and finally a true aussie. Maybe a review with their names pending.

Exhausted

The eggs are scrambled. The noodle's cooked. The brain's fried. But my last exam ever for my undergrad degree is done and gone, and hopefully passed. But instead of being full of energy to go to Toronto, and get some things done around the house that have been a long time coming, I'm absolutely drained.

The miserable, cold weather sure isn't helping the situation, but its slowly shaping up for the long term I think. Hopefully by the time May rolls around when the Jays have their next discount game I won't have to wear a coat to the game and it will be easier to get some other people on board with the idea.

During my last exam yesterday, for the first time in the 6 years I've been on campus, some assclown pulled a fire alarm, forcing everyone in the building to drop their exams and saunter outside into the gusting wind, snow and rain. At the time I was absolutely pissed at the idiot, but then I came home only to look at the news and see the loose details coming out on yet another school shooting tragedy. Something about the animal killing of 32 people will quickly put a fire alarm inconvenience to get out of an exam in its place.

Once again some kid loses control of reality, whether you blame it on the 'system' failing to be there for him, or video games, or TV, the fact of the matter remains that if there isn't such easy access to guns, every disaffected youth out there can't go run out and grab himself a semi-automatic weapon to relieve some stress. Now instead 33 are dead, and there will likely be a series of copycat threats and attempts across North America like those that followed Columbine.

People will be living in a heightened state of anxiety on campuses for weeks to months to come fearing that their school will be added to somber lists with Columbine, Dawson College, and West Nickel Mines Amish School.

People kill people, easy access to guns just facilitates it in large volume mass-destruction. Its time that governments do something more serious about gun control, particularly those governments that fail to even restrict assault weapons.

Bubble Machine

One exam down, three to go in the next 65 hours or so. That's 100 carefully shaded in scantron bubbles so far, and too many more to go. Since its finals time again, my nose today started emulating the outdoor faucet on the side of the house that froze and cracked this winter. I'm sure the people sitting next to me absolutely loved my sniffling tonight.

I don't feel the least bad for it though after all the sniffling, rustling, inappropriate questions and cell phones I've put up with over the years.

And in less than 3 days it will all be over, and time for some relaxation and a trip down to Toronto on Tuesday night where I won't have to worry about undue traffic around the ACC. I wonder what Mats is handicapping these days?

In more worthy Toronto team news, both the Jays and Raptors pulled off huge wins over Detroit tonight. If you asked me, or any honest person, in October if I could imagine the Raptors with a shot at 2nd place in the Eastern Conference, there would of course have been an emphatic 'no', but what a show these guys have put on. And with the average age of this team, things should only be looking up for the next 3 or 4 years. Bryan Colangelo deserves most of that credit for pulling together the talent pool he has, but Sam Mitchell also deserves an apology from me for being very much a skeptic of his coaching ability. Ultimately he's the one that's gotten this team believing there is no 'I'.

And now I have nothing except psychology terms and bacteria names plying into the little folds of tissue in my head so its time to climb back into my hole, grab some vaporub, throw on the tube and get some sleep.

Endless Distraction

Around this time of year every year is like christmas for all the sports networks. With the NHL and NBA winding down their seasons with tight playoff races, the Masters kicking off the golf grand slam tour, and baseball and auto racing starting up for the summer, there is no need for the fluff pieces on some local phenom who never comes to fruition, or annoying banter between hosts.

All that sports activity also serves as a major distraction to the tri-annual studying season. Being a resident minority here in Leaf nation, I get sucked into the whims of the vast blind majority and all their uneducated devotion to a shitty hockey team. And so last night saw me crammed into an overcrowded bar, packed with blue and white jerseys, as well as the disgustingly tacky pink alternatives whining about every possible bullshit non-call or call against possible.

And then what do you know, the Leafs get some absolute shit luck garbage goals as are so typical of their teams over the years, and they keep themselves alive in the playoffs. To top the evening off, the Avalanche dropped the ball on their playoff run, only to get the help they would have needed from the Oilers beating Calgary and leaving the control in the hands of Colorado.

So where does that leave me today?

After actually managing to get some productive studying in, its left me channel surfing between the Jays game, the Masters, and the New York Islanders game hoping beyond hopes that the acquisition of Ryan Smyth from the Oilers pays dividends, if only to be eliminated in the first round of the playoffs.

Right now the Isles are up 1-0 and holding tough, making it look like those Canadian teams that aren't in Ottawa will soon get a whole bunch more blind bandwagon hopping support from the large proportion of Leafs fans who actually know nothing of the sport. At this point I don't become much better throwing my support towards the Sens and Canucks, but not so much blindly as hoping to get a cup in Canada for a talented team that isn't the Red Wings for example. The best possible outcome being a Sens cup win just to incense all the Leaf fans that much more.

With that I wish you a happy easter if you celebrate it, and a happy playoffs which you definitely should be celebrating.

Update: In the same vein as last night's fans: na na naa naa, na na naa naa heeyyy heeyyy heyyy, goodbye. What's another year to wait after 40 anyways right?

Pride by Division

I was browsing through the local AM news radio station's website this morning, which I find to be one of the better sources of timely local news, despite its less than insightful writing typically filled with grammatical and spelling errors.

On occasion I look over at the national and international columns to see if there's anything I missed in the bigger news sources, and I did so this morning, to see a mention of the first annual North America Outgames, which apparently slipped past me earlier in the week on CBC.

Now I've made it known before that I have no issues with people's lifestyle choices, so long as they don't adversely affect others, in ways beyond just making them uncomfortable for whatever reason. But when groups of whatever minority or belief go out and bitch to society about not being more broadly accepted or feeling segregated, and then create for themselves an event like this, you have to wonder what they really want.

Are they saying that being gay makes them uncompetitive in sports on other levels? The valid (and correct) argument is that gay people are no different than anyone else save for their lifestyle choice. Are they intentionally trying to draw parallels between themselves and those that truly are disadvantaged, for whom the Special Olympics was created?

If you want to do a better job of being accepted rather than shunned by certain communities, it would seem like a good idea to stop perpetuating mentalities of difference where really none exists. If you can't hack it as an athlete, you can't hack it, go on and find your calling elsewhere. Its not prejudice that's keeping you from Olympic gold.