...And now for something completely different.

A Boy Went Over the Mountain - 21 Days to Santiago: Part I

2011-10-15T00:43:00.001-03:00

I shrugged off my backpack and sat on a nearby bench, drawing in a long breath before taking in my surroundings. The slope I had just climbed was framed with conifers, which followed the path all the way down to the base of the mountain, giving way to the expansive pastures where cows grazed, clanking the enormous bells that hung around their necks. Having just emerged from the silence of the countryside, I was now enveloped by a cacophony of voices, chattering along excitedly in German, French, Spanish, Korean and English. Some sipped tea, others smoked cigarettes, but each seemed united in the fact that they were cherishing this brief break in the morning sunlight before attacking the mountain once more.

I loosened the laces on my hiking boots and wrestled them off my feet, laughing to myself as a thick steam escaped from the tops of them. As I rummaged around in my backpack, trying to find my map, I mentally calculated how much farther I had to walk. “Well I’ve been walking straight uphill for basically three hours,” I reasoned. “I must be at least halfway there.”

That morning I was beginning the Camino de Santiago, a trail that, each year, leads thousands of pilgrims from southern France into the Pyrenees, through northern Spain towards the end point, Santiago de Compostela: roughly 800km away from where I now sat.

The evening before I had boarded a train in Bayonne, France, which had slowly made its way to St. Jean Pied-du-Port, the traditional start point of the “French Way” of the Camino. The train had snaked southward through lush valleys and quaint villages, passing by fly fishermen on placid rivers and past ancient monasteries perched on jagged mountains. On that small train I had sat beside an Englishman named Jim, who was beginning his second trek onto the Camino, and across from Jorge, a Frenchman born to Spanish parents who had fled Spain during the Civil War in the 1930s. However, I would not meet either of them until days later, and none of us made eye contact or spoke a word to each other for the entire three-hour journey to St. Jean.

And so, after a good night’s sleep at Maison Itzalpea in St-Jean, I had trudged out of the village in the early morning sunlight, taking my first steps of a journey that would extend about 475km on foot, taking the better part of May to complete. A mere forty-eight hours prior, I had vacated what had been my home for three months in Arras, and now I found myself 1000km south, climbing a slope into the Pyrenees Mountains. Having finally fished my map out of my bag, I realized that I was nowhere near halfway to the first stop of my pilgrimage. In fact, now sitting in Orison, France, I was barely a third of the way to my destination for the day.

Looking back on it now, I am very thankful that I was as fresh and ambitious as I was that first day. Surprisingly, for that time of day, I was also in a tremendously good mood. Those 28 or so kilometers between St. Jean and Roncesvalles, Spain, contain the roughest terrain of the whole Camino, guiding pilgrims through mountain passes for most of the trek, and then sharply dropping off on the other side. My mood and general exuberance carried me most of the day, buoyed by the pastoral beauty of the cattle and horses grazing on the rolling hills and the spectacular views from mountainside vistas.

Of course, my mood couldn’t do all the work. My body bore the stress of the steep inclines and would later feel the punishment of the constant drag and pull of my heavy backpack as I trodded over the kilometers. The enthusiasm I felt that morning reminded me of many other instances in my life where I had taken on a new challenge or headed down a new proverbial path. Many times I have undertaken new commitments to growth in many facets of my life, be they relational, physical, academic, intellectual, spiritual, etc., and often I face these tasks with a new outlook, attitude and ambition. Overtime, however, that novelty wears off. Blisters form in relationships. Excessive ambition gives way to lethargy and avoidance. People irritate me with their quirks and I allow my attitude or temperament to change. Negativity oh-so gradually slips in, growing without me noticing, all the while bringing me further and further from where I want and need to be.

This type of gradual slippery slope, caused by passive inaction or indifference, can only be reversed by renewed resolve to change and growth: a new commitment to take back what we have lost, step-by-step. Only this time, we have to fight and claw just to get back to our starting point, to override what we have become desensitized to, to lose the biases that our own passivity has allowed us to build up. Only enduring a steep, painful climb, persevering through bumps and bruises, and standing back up every time we fall will allow us to progress.

On this day, however, my literal climb is still new and fresh to me; my major challenges and bumps in the road were still far in the distance. I am astonished by the powerful winds that whip around the tops of the hills and mountains over the course of the day. I am surprised by a hillside full of daisies, (which always remind me of my Mom) this early in the spring. I am shocked when the descent from the mountain is actually much more difficult than parts of the climb. Overall, it is a day filled with new experiences and pleasant surprises. At some point during the climb, I cross the border into Spain, and as 300 or so pilgrims descend out of the mountains and invade Roncesvalles (a village with about 30 residents) I am all too happy to find a bed, to shower the stress out of my shoulders and rush peacefully into sleep. And there was evening, and there was morning. The first day.

The Vimy Shuffle - Part IX

2011-05-12T07:25:00.001-03:00

Once we hit April in Arras, time started to fly by, partly because most of us were in the process of doing exchanges to either Vimy or BH. This gave us each the opportunity to spend a few days working at the other site and to learn more about the history there while honing our guide skillz. Meanwhile, the sites were getting busier, and special events throughout the month contributed to the quickening pace of our session.

The April 9th ceremony at Vimy (the 94th anniversary of the battle) was an especially poignant event, with delegates from the local, national and international political community present, as well as Canadian officials, soldiers and visitors. While each of us had über-important duties for the day (such as pointing at the parking lot when cars drove up, taking wreaths from one vehicle and placing them in another, or telling older women that they weren't allow to lean on the monument), special props are certainly due to both Lisette, who gave a moving speech about her great-grandfather's involvement in the war, and Sahar, who sang O Canada and La Marseillaise so amazingly well that she was invited to sing them again two weeks later, this time at a preliminary World Hockey Championship game between Canada and France in Paris. Regardless of our special job that day, (including that of Laura and Kariane, our two lone guides at BH) we took advantage of the fact that everyone was, for once, in town, and headed out that evenings for dinner and some drinks. As per usual, the drinking delved to different depths for different individuals, and the night ended with me being confronted by an angry Acadian, several items being mysteriously hidden around Vauban, and a particularly memorable walk down Maple Lane for me the next day.

Over the course of our three months in Arras, many of us took the opportunity to use Northern France for a jump-off point to visit other European destinations. A lot of us explored more of France, some made it as far as Morocco, and two even made it to the Royal Wedding in London. Still more of us used up several days off drinking at The Great Canadian Pub in Paris (once with special guests MJ and Thomas), although the Pub itself was met with varying degrees of satisfaction. (Although I'm sure everyone would agree that any night someone doesn't follow through on their threats to jump into the Seine is probably a good night).

In early April, following up on the jaunt Sahar and I took up to Mont St-Michel, I flew to Lisbon, Portugal to meet up with John Thomson, a friend that Meghan and I had met on our whirlwind Eurotrip in 2007. During our trek through Eastern Europe, and hazy after a night-long train ride through Serbia and Bulgaria, Meghan and I were astonished to hear someone (namely John and his travel mate, Richard) speaking English in, of all places, the Sophia train station. They joined us for lunch, we mocked the Bulgarian menu mercilessly, and the rest is history. (And could certainly warrant a blog post of its own). Anyway, upon my arrival in Lisbon, John guided me through the streets of the city, stopping at mny of the requisite tourist and historic locales as we went. Over the course of my two-days in Lisbon, we visited many sites, including (but not limited to) Castelo de São Jorge, an eleventh-century castle that figures into much of Lisbon's history, the Monument of the Discoveries, dedicated to Portugal's rich past of discovery and conquest, and Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe. It was such a thorough tour that at one point I had to buy new €12 shoes at a Chinese corner store after tripping over my own feet and busting up the sandals I was wearing. After a great but exhausting weekend with John, his Mom cooked us a Sunday evening dinner, and I gunned it to the airport in order to get back to Arras in time for work the next morning.

In addition to watching time speed by, we were also becoming adept at two very important occurances at Vimy and BH: delaing with stupid questions and telling people to stop doing stupid things. By this point we were all used to the usual "Are you actually Canadian?", "Who won the war?" and (by far the most common) "Where were the toilets?" kind of questions, but there were also some astoundingly ridiculous queries made over the course of our three months. My favorites:

(noticing the number of Indian gravestones in one of the Commonwealth Cemeteries on-site) "So, where were all the Indians from?",
"Did all lieutenant-colonels have to be left-handed?",
"So these craters were caused by glacial retreat, right?",
(pointing at the figure of Canada on the monument) "Is that Jesus?",
"What was going on in South America at this point in time?",
and, my favourite,
(pointing at the pictures of all the guides in the Visitor's Centre) "Are those all the people who died here?"

Unfortunately, the ridiculousness at the sites was not isolated to questions, and that meant that a large part of our duties included yelling at people who were being morons on-site. Again, the usual biker or unleashed dog is to be expected, but I would say about 75% of my time on the monument was spent dissuading people from inappropriately posing with the figure of the mourning woman. Then there were people like the parents who would give plastic AK-47s to their kids and get them to run around the trenches shooting at each other. Or the bus driver who did do doughnuts around the parking lot trying to dislodge a sneaker from the roof of his bus, while the kids from his bus rans around the parking lot and the bus. (He got such a stern talking to that I almost made him cry).

But just in time to serve as a relief for all the yelling and tears, the canival came to Arras! Now, I am not much of a carnival type of person, but I'll have to say that one night with my favourite Canadians in France, a couple beer, cotton candy, bumper cars and walking around in giant inflatable balls on water goes a long way to help forget even the worst Sunday at Vimy.

Then, all of a sudden it was Easter. And then it was ANZAC Day. And then Kariane got conjunctivitis. And then, as suddenly as it began, the session was over. Fourteen new guides invaded the sites and took away my beloved Galaxy while we finished out Lame Duck Week while the newbies were getting fully trained and ready to take the reins. While our last day wasn't until Monday, May 2nd, the wheels started to come off the Saturday previous, when a thunderstorm ended our tour day early, and we all got a little hyper. The next day was a typical Sunday, with French people just crawling all over the place (I had to tell people on an unprecedented five occasions to get down from the Mourning Woman, and then tell two teenagers to 'degage' themselves from the site, after I caught them throwing rocks at the kiosk). On Monday, Vimy had a full staff of eighteen, with the newbies shadowing the pros as we went into the tunnels once last time. That night Vauban had one of its most memorable parties of the session (other honourable mentions include Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Easter and that random night with the blue-haired pansexual and native headress), this time in the basement, theoretically to cut down on the mess made in the house. André and Kristie showed up, and Arlene even put in a strong performance during our Vimy-BH version of King's Cup. A good night was had by all, although my memories of later in the night are about as blurry as Kariane's photos.

Unfortunately, the next morning I found that my theory about the basement party to mess ratio was invalid, and I was left holding the bag... actually, 12 garbage bags full of cans and bottles and food and garbage. Luckily I had the time to waste given that my train was at 12:10, while pretty much everyone else had flown the coop, and were already on their way to Greece, Portugal, Corsica, etc. Of course, I was only too happy to help my fellow co-workers out, and hardly even cursed once when I woke up and realized that every one of my roommates had ignored even the mildly threatening email André had sent regarding our final clean-up.

I was the last to leave Vauban, and as I walked through the streets of Arras for the last time, now carrying my backpack with the customary Canada flag sewn onto it, I had a renewed (or 'renaissance' à la Reta) perspective on why Canadians like being identified as such in Europe. Over the course of the session we had certainly learned a lot about the sacrifices of Canadians on those fields in Europe, and setting aside the multitude of half-baked factors that led to the First World War, Canada punched far above its weight in the European theatre, in war that certainly wasn't their own. At St-Julien, Vimy, Passchendaele, Canal du Nord, during the last 100 days, etc. the 600,000 who served in the Canadian Corps had earned respect for a country that was only 50 years old and, a few years earlier, many had never even heard of. And more than a million Canadians would do it all again less than 25 years later. While the reasoning and justification for these conflicts remain a dicey issue in a lot of respects, the nobility with which these men and women signed up and served is not to be underscored. Along with everything else, it was the generations of Canadians that preceded ours that earned, through their service and sacrifice, the right for Canadians to walk across Europe with our flag proudly sewn on our backpack.

However, three months at Vimy also changed my perspective on war in general. The senselessness that led to the slaughter of a generation of young men and the staggering loss for all involved is so heartbreakingly palpable at Vimy, BH and at all the memorials, battle sites and cemeteries that we visited over the course of our three months in France. After the session, I could certainly go on about the war for hours, but I will instead simply sum up the futility of that war with this Longfellow quote: 'If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.' Every man in those trenches and tunnels was a victim of a world bound by oligarchs and greed. Every one of them deserved better.

And while back home we often speak of Vimy as a moment of pride for Canadians; a major stepping-stone to nationhood, I see it now more as a monument to a necessary evil. A memorial for 3,598 Canadians who fell in that field. For 11,285 who fell in France without a trace. For 67,000 fallen over the four years of war. For 600,000 who, even if they survived, were never the same again, and for their countless loved ones, families, communities, villages and towns who suffered equally through that four years and beyond. Vimy Ridge and the mournful caribou at BH were also most certainly erected as hopeful beacons for peace.

Meanwhile, as I left Arras for Paris via train, I tried to switch gears. The journey I was about to embark on would have very little to do with pride, nationalism and war, and a lot more to do with humility, universalism and peace.

The Vimy Shuffle - Part VIII

2011-03-29T04:06:00.001-03:00

It seems unlikely that I will ever take a train without being reminded of Meghan and our trip around Europe in 2007 (http://on.fb.me/gs2VNP), that is, of course, unless we're talking about a VIA Rail trip, which more just reminds me of some combination of a cattle cart on the Oregon Trail and Chinese water torture. My trip with Sahar to Mont St-Michel was no different. From Arras, our train took us west through the north of France to the city of Rennes, where we boarded a bus for Pontorson. From there, a short transit bus ride took us towards our final destination. I was pretty interested to see the old fortified city for myself, but as the bus wound down the country roads near the French coast, I realized that I, after three months away from PEI, was actually excited just to see the ocean.

Mont St-Michel rises like a fairy tale from the waters just off northern France. The site of l'Abbaye St-Michel since the 8th century, it is built on a peninsula that protrudes about a kilometer from the mainland, connected only by a narrow causeway when the tide is high. At the top of the imposing mount stands a church that was constructed in the 11th and 12th centuries, and then partially re-configured in the 15th century, leading to a combination of Romanesque and Gothic architecture. From there, a fortified city (current population of less than 50) spirals all the way down to the base of Mont St-Michel where, today, millions of visitors flock every year.

Sahar and I blended in well with the tourists that bound the streets when we arrived, as we settled into the business of taking pictures of every corner and angle that looked even halfway interesting. As is true any such attraction, the passageways of Mont St-Michel have become over-run with tacky souvenir shops stocked with the usual cliché fare. But once you make your way further up and out of the fray, the town offers spectacular views of both itself and of the surrounding tidal flats and waterways. After clambering up and down stairs for an hour or two, we headed down to walk around the island itself, renowned for its merciless tide. They say the tides here race to fill the void left in their departure like "galloping horses", which, at 14 meters is no match for Fundy's 17 meter tidal boar, but is still pretty frightening. Sahar and I didn't end up getting swallowed up in the tide, but we did get pretty muddy, which I'm sure did not impress the staff at the restaurant we went into immediately afterwards.

After dark, we headed off on foot in search of our chambre d'hôte, taking the opportunity to see Mont St-Michel lit up at night. About six kilometres later we stumbled into 'la Bastide du Moulin' and claimed our beds for the night. As far as I can recall, this was my first bed and breakfast experience, (although some hostels I've been to may technically be considered B&Bs) and it more than exceeded any expectations I may have had. Our room had a four-post bed and a double bed on the loft, as well as a newly renovated bathroom and a window/door that led into the backyard. Exhausted, we took a few moments to gush over the place before passing out for a solid eight hours of sleep.

After breakfast we headed back on foot towards Mont St-Michel to see the museum, but were also able to catch part of Mass in the ancient church, celebrated with the monks and nuns who still live in the monastery there. From there we continued back through the streets, where Sahar bought a few of the aforementioned cliché trinkets, and we headed back the six kilometers (that's 18km total, if you're keeping track) to our chambre d'hôte to retrieve our bags and to catch the bus back into Pontorson.

Fast-forward to about six hours and a couple broken down trains later, and Sahar and I are sitting stranded in a Paris train station, still many miles away from Arras, with Monday morning and another day at work ticking ever-closer. Tired from a long day of sight-seeing and traveling, we shuffled into the long line-up where all the passengers whose journeys had been disrupted now stood. Given my past dealings with VIA Rail, Air Canada and the like, I have come to accept such a low level of customer service that I assumed what awaited us at the front of the line was a lengthy argument, resulting in us getting a voucher or some other meaningless coupon that did nothing to resolve the predicament we were in. Fortunately, they do things differently in France. While in line, we were given a free boxed lunch which included a letter of apology from SNCF (Société nationale des chemins de fer français). However, we didn't have time to eat it, because the line moved very quickly, and when we reached the front of the line, we were dealt with efficiently and professionally. As the last train for Arras had already left, he offered us train tickets the following morning so that we would get back in time for work, and a complimentary stay at a hotel next to Paris Nord train station. And we didn't even have to yell or anything.

As the train schedule was fairly extensively messed up by whatever was going wrong with the engines or signals or whatever in France that day, it turned out that about 35 of us were all staying at the same hotel. We were given instructions on how to get to the hotel and then our convoy was set loose on Paris, rolling through train and metro stations like a well-behaved street gang with well-appointed luggage sets. When we came to the RER (Réseau Express Régional) turnstiles, each person politely held the door for the next, chivalrously enabling them to jump the fare while the rest of the group patiently waited for everyone to get through. When we reached Paris Nord, our posse took to the streets, and people stopped or slowed their cars at the sight of us, probably wondering what kind of protest we were mounting at one in the morning. After walking for about a kilometer (stopping occasionally so stragglers and those caught at crosswalk lights could catch up) we arrived at our hotel... or so we thought. But we were turned away and told that the hotel we were actually looking for was ten minutes in the opposite direction. And so we bravely spilled onto the streets of Paris again. We arrived at our hotel and crawled into bed with about 5 hours to go before we had to be back up at Paris Nord. After walking about 14,000 kilometers that day we were very tired and drifted quickly off to sleep.

In the morning we got a free breakfast along with our free hotel room, both of which were actually pretty good (especially considering the price) and made our way back to the train station. After a mishap where Sahar nearly got blasted in the face with a water hose by city workers, we got on the train. As our tickets were actually for the night before, we had not been assigned new seats and so we decided to just take a seat in 1st Class and see where that got us. When the ticket guy asked for my ticket, I silently handed it to him, again, expecting to be land-basted again for having the audacity to sit with my social betters, here in my light hikers and jeans.
"Did they put you up in hotel last night as well?"
I nodded.
"Very good." he said, as he handed my ticket back and continued up the aisle.

What a country.

The Vimy Shuffle - Part VII

2011-03-23T14:52:00.001-03:00

Every evening since July 2nd, 1928, a Last Post ceremony has taken place at the Menin Gate, a First World Memorial standing at the entrance to the city of Ypres, Belgium. Containing the names of 54,896 men, it commemorates men of the British Empire who fell during the Great War who have no known grave, including 6,983 Canadians. On March 4th, we had the opportunity to take part in the ceremony and lay a wreath in remembrance of the men commemorated at the gate. Also present were 200+ members of the London Regiment, who marched in full procession under the gate to the beat of drums and the drone of bagpipes.

Two days later, the same regiment visited us at Vimy, getting the full tour of the tunnels and trenches before changing into full parade dress for a Drumhead Ceremony at the Memorial. After giving all the Regiment a brief 5-minute crash course on the Monument, I stepped back to watch as they took time to commemorate the history of the battle and the war, but also to highlight the on-going importance of service and sacrifice, a concept which struck a chord with me. In contextualizing the First World War, it is often difficult to find meaning or sense in the ill-conceived notions that led to war, but on the individual level, the idea of service and sacrifice is one that I believe permeates to all facets of society.

After spending a very busy day with the Regiment and at the site, a few of us decided to go out for dinner, and then took the opportunity to visit Vimy at night and to see the Monument lit up by lights that were, apparently, designed by a Canadian theatre company. Impressive in any light and at any time of day, the dramatic effect of lights provided yet another perspective by which to view the Memorial.

The following week, which took us into Canadian March Break territory, was also the beginning of Lent meaning Pancake Tuesday and Ash Wednesday, and the end of swearing and chocolate consumption for me. On Tuesday we had a feast of pancakes before heading out and having a few drinks to properly celebrate Mardi Gras, France-style. While the next day was not awfully rough, I was charged with the task of waiting for waiting for a new internet box from our provider (which took most of the day) and then setting it up (which was not as easy as it may sound) and then driving one of our cars to some random garage to get a headlight changed. By the end of the day, my Lenten swear jar tally stood at $11.

On the morning of March 17th, 2011, while across the ocean Canadians were just beginning their day, one of our Canadian soldiers of the Great War was laid to rest, nearly one hundred years after falling on the battlefields of the Great War. The somber ceremony at Pozières, shrouded in a morning fog that clung to the thousands of headstones at Pozieres Cemetery, was the second funeral that took place that week, the first honouring another soldier, identified as Private Thomas Lawless, who was laid to rest near Vimy on March 15th. For all of us guides who were able to attend, and I am sure the same was true for all Canadians in attendance, it brought home the importance of remembrance and of honouring the generations that have gone before us, forging a path through far rougher terrain than we have tread. It was certainly a once in a lifetime experience, and not one I will soon forget.

After participating in both funerals that week, the Loyal Edmonton Regiment had gotten well-acquainted with our staff, and so that night (St. Patrick's Day for those of you playing the home game) 30+ Canadian soldiers and 14 Canadian guides congregated at "The Irish" in Arras to properly celebrate the memory of Ireland's most famous alcoholic and Saint. While latter parts of the night became fuzzy to various people for various reasons, most agree that a good night was had by all, and that the gusto with which 'Barrett's Privateers' and 'O Canada' were sung was bested only in their frequency and volume. Understandably enough, guides and soldiers alike were in slightly less fine form when the Edmonton Regiment showed up for their tour at Vimy the following morning.

Canadian March Break translated into a slew of tours for Canadian school groups and tours over the course of the week, and by Saturday, after about 50 or so tours and about 4 billion photos taken by Canadian students, we were well-prepared for a break. After work, five co-workers (Sahar, Maxine, Colin, Marc and Lauren) and I headed for Paris for a night of unwinding. The Great Canadian Pub, located in the Latin Quarter just south of Notre Dame, was my final destination, providing one or two Moosehead beer and a much-needed Leafs-Bruins tilt to ease the lack of Canadian beer and NHL in my life in Arras. The next day necessitated another trip the the Pub, this time for a bacon-saturated breakfast, before heading back to the streets for a lazy sunny Sunday around the streets and riverside of Paris.

Our second round of March Break groups showed up in full-force Monday, with groups of hundreds of Canadians anxious to take another billion or so pictures of tunnel walls and what-not at Vimy. On Tuesday, fresh from the snowbanks of PEI, 23 Colonel Gray students showed up at our front door, floored by the sight of the Vimy Monument and site, but equally stunned by the sight of green grass, sprouting trees and daffodils that are exploding from the ground at an alarming pace. Indeed Spring has struck Northern France, with double-digit and sunny days dominating the forecast for the past week. Many of the guides have ditched their jackets and have taken to wearing only their shirts (most notably of which is Riggs, who is already sporting a painful sunburn). As if by clockwork, a package sent by my parents and aunt sent on February 7th (when it was still quite frigid) arrived today, complete with my gloves and a pair of new mittens. Such is life.

The Vimy Shuffle - Part VI

2011-02-23T17:41:00.009-04:00

You know you've been in France too long when walking home from the store with a baguette under your arm no longer seems cliché.

Most of my housemates have gotten onto an intense baguette and cheese routine, to the point that there are literally 7 types of cheese per person in our kitchen. This isn't a bad thing in principle, but every now and then someone will get adventurous with their cheese selection, and then our fridges end up smelling like a poorly-managed waste treatment plant for a few days. And as the French have made the odd choice not to sell baking soda in their stores, the rest of are completely at the mercy of the stench. Fortunately, just as the baguette and cheese stereotypes hold true, so do those regarding chocolate and beer. Though I have always liked chocolate as much as the next guy, I have never eaten it to the extent that it consumes a significant portion of my disposable income. It seems I have developed a full-blown chocolate addiction here and am, by times, flirting on the edge of a diabetic coma. While I hope the same doesn't hold true for my booze intake, beer is ridiculously cheap in France. Last week a 12-pack of Stella Artois was going for 3.66 Euro (roughly $5) at the grocery store. And while the locals consider Stella a small step above Listerine or turpentine, I have absolutely no shame in buying it by the case. The bottles are slightly smaller, so we've done the math, and it turns out that a 12 of Stella here is about 1/3 the cost of a 12 of Tremblays or Boréale in Montréal... and lets remember that once you buy it, you don't have the misfortune of having to choke down 12 Tremblays or Boréale. That's a win-win-win by my count.

Back on the Western Front, our education on the First World War and the commemorative efforts here in Northern France and on behalf of Canada and the Commonwealth continues each Monday. Last week we had the opportunity to visit the Commonwealth War Graves Commission headquarters here in Arras. The Commission was established in 1917 (then the Imperial War Graves Commission) as a result of the concern that there was no coordinated plan in place to facilitate the construction of cemeteries and memorials for the hundreds of thousands of men who were dying in the war. Through the two world wars, the Commission worked to secure land for cemeteries and memorials, standardizing the design of gravestones and cemeteries to ensure some regularity, as well as somewhat of a comforting atmosphere for the families visiting the graves of the men who never came home. The final construction efforts were completed just a few years before the outbreak of World War Two, and then their work began anew. Funded by the governments of Commonwealth countries, their work continues today, maintaining the cemeteries where the soldiers who fought and fell now lay. In France alone, the Commission maintains graves in some 2991 cemeteries, and around the world is responsible for around 23,000 sites in 150 countries. In all, they are responsible for the maintenance of gravestones and memorials that commemorate about 1.3 million individuals.

Needless to say, their work is cut out for them (so to speak). Stones have to be replaced in the thousands each year due to age, and each must be carved in the stone originally chosen for the cemetery in which it stands. The same is true for the aging gates, fences, doorways and metalwork in each of the cemeteries. While the stones are now carved mainly using computerized machines, the wood craft and metalwork is still done very much by hand, and visiting each workshop to speak with the artisans on-site certainly gave a better idea - and an appreciation - for the amount of work that goes into maintaining such a massive amount of aging, yet none-the-less important, sites.

This Monday half of our group drove through Northern France to Belgium and visited several memorials and battle sites where Canadians, Australians, Indian and other Allied and Central Power forces were engaged during the First World War. We visited sites associated with the Battles at Ypres, where Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae wrote his poem 'In Flanders Fields', St. Julien, where Canadians suffered and endured the first poison gas attack of the war and held the Allied line, and Passchendaele, a costly victory for the British Forces, where Canada lost almost 16,000 men in just over two weeks.

The most sobering sights of the day were perhaps Tyne Cot Cemetery, the largest Commonwealth cemetery in the world, where over 46,000 men are buried or commemorated, and the Langemark German Military Cemetery, where more than 44,000 German soldiers lie, mostly unknown. The sheer numbers associated with the battles and memorials was certainly astounding, but it was even more incredible to see how extensively the men who fought and died are commemorated and honoured throughout the villages and the countryside. In Ypres, for example, Canada's contribution and losses during the war are still remembered today. Canadian flags hang from several buildings and mark the entrances to some of the stores and pubs along the cobblestone streets of their main square.

Back at Vimy, things are starting to pick up as Canadian University students and families take a mid-semester break, and as March break approaches. In proportion with the increase of visitors, we also get an increase of trouble-makers. Last week I had to yell at some 20-somethings who were trying to take rather inappropriate pictures with one of the female figures on the monument, which is meant to represent a mourning Canadian mother or wife. And on two different tours I was forced to stop the entire group of British school kids to stop them from a. pretending to shoot each other in trenches and b. making the Nazi salute while posing for pictures. In each case I remind them that hundreds of thousands of men died in the surrounding battlefields, many of whose bodies were never recovered. That Vimy is a very important and solemn commemorative park for Canadians, as well as for those countries whose young men died there as well. "So I would appreciate it if you would refrain from making gun noises or making the Nazi salute," I said. "Not only is this the wrong war, but it is also incredibly inappropriate." The sheepish looks on their faces suggested that they got the message, but I was assured they had when one small British boy came into the Visitor's Centre to apologize to me after the tour. "I'm sorry for giving the Nazi salute, Sir," he said in a very quiet voice and with a very British accent. "I looked very foolish."

Perhaps not as foolish as I looked a few nights later when I was charged with the task of getting gas. Usually a fairly simple task, to be sure. However, being a Canadian boy with very little use for diesel, I brashly thrust the first gas hose I grasped into the tank, and, predictably, gassed up our diesel van with 35 Euro worth of gasoline. Stupid as I was, I did recognize the difference in the smell of gas to that of diesel, and luckily had the sense not to start the van, which would've been fairly large problem, instead of a relatively small one. And so, as I sit here writing this, our staff of 14 has been without our much-needed van for four days, and has instead had to jerry-rig an exchange schedule for all the Canada vehicles at the disposal of Veteran's Affairs here in Arras. Swift move, Gallant.

The Vimy Shuffle - Part V

2011-02-11T08:09:00.006-04:00

As with any new city and any new job, we have all slowly slipped into some semblance of routine as our surroundings have become more familiar and as the once-steep learning curve has slackened. While I still found new ways to get lost on the drive to work every morning, and while many helpful criticisms were shared amongst co-workers in our first week (which were received on a scale varying between gracious and contemptuous), inevitably we have all begun to settle into life in France. (This also means that our fridge is filled with anywhere between 20 and 30 types of cheese, all of which stink.)

For those of us at Vimy, our workday is centred around the Visitor's Centre, where our schedule for the day is coordinated and where tours are booked. From there we take turns guiding or following tours of the tunnels and trenches, answering questions or talking with locals at the monument, and walking around the parking lot waiting for someone to show up or for someone to step on the grass so we can yell at them. Typically the tours of tunnels and trenches take about 50 minutes, and represent the fruits of our in-depth training session we received in our first week here.

At Vimy, the 172nd Royal Engineers dug a series of 13, sometimes interconnected, subways and tunnels that at the time of the battle snaked for 10-12 kilometers under the surface. The tunnel we now have access to was the second longest on that day in 1917, stretching for 1.2 kilometers, of which about 200 meters are accessible to the public today. Tours consist of explaining to visitors how the tunnels were dug the purpose they served and the risks inherent in the operations and maintenance of them during the time leading up to the battle. The tour takes us into an underground battalion headquarters that consists of five rooms (that at the time housed officers from Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry) to the mouth of a deep-fighting tunnel (that would've been used to blow massive mine craters in No Man's Land or under German defenses) and in view of the tunnel where one of the Black Watch of Montreal Battalions would've waited before shuffling out onto the battlefield in the hours that preceded the Arras offensive. The end of the tunnel tour brings us out the original exit of the tunnel into the backside of preserved Canadian trenches where we continue to explain the tactics that were used at Vimy, the awesome power of the rolling barrage that helped secure victory that day and show examples of the effects that the underground mines had on the surface.

The tunnels and trenches are quite impressive, but this is hampered once one realizes that this battle and war was fought for practically no reason, and had few redeeming results. For all the lessons learned from the Somme and Verdun that made Vimy a success, millions of men died. Millions more would die before the end of the war. Some were mowed down my machine-gun fire or smothered by poison gasses, many were vaporized by the exciting new technologies of the day, and still others in the trenches, beaten down by the pneumonia, dysentery or other diseases that come with living in frigid holes in the grounds for months at a time. As one of my co-workers emphasizes in her tour, today the whole nation mourns where one or two soldiers dies in a war zone. On April 9th, 1917, 3,598 Canadian died in a field in foreign land, thousands of miles from home, and mostly just because some oligarchical heads of state had bruised egos.

If I was nervous at all about my first tour (I was), I didn't have to wait long to face my fear. My first tour was a group of 25 French students, the morning of my first day. We had been warned that many groups of French students were very badly-behaved, would make fun of our accents and just be general assholes. That did not help my confidence. Nor my already sketchy French accent. However, this particular group was very well-behaved and were also very attentive, and it was instead my french that failed me. One would think that after nine years of French semi-immersion in a classroom with a chalkboard one would remember the word for "chalk". However, pressed for the name of the material the tunnels are dug in, my ind drew a complete blank, and I had to rely on Jenna, my follow on this particular tour to bail me out. (She also says that instead of saying "messenger" for some of the tour I instead said "mailbox", making for some very confused French kids I would assume. "How did they get the mailboxes to run through the trenches?"). In the end, the tour wasn't a complete disaster, but it definitely sent me back to the books and humbled my "know-it-all" demeanor for a day or two. By the end of the week I had led another half-dozen or so tours and they were starting to come together.

Our week of training and of getting a lay of the land during the battle is also very helpful when stationed at the monument, probably the site that most people would identify with Vimy Ridge today. One look at the land surrounding the monument and the view that spans out from its position atop Hill 145 makes its importance to military strategy immediately obvious. The monument itself, however, has a history of its own. Carved from 6,000 tonnes of Seget stone from a Croatian quarry and built on a base of 11,000 tonnes of concrete, the monument took eleven years to complete, and was unveiled at a huge ceremony on July 26th, 1936. After the breakout of the Second World War, accusations were leveled against the Nazis, alleging that soldiers were vandalizing WWI sites in occupied France and Belgium. In response, who had served on the Vimy front as a messenger in the First World War, visited the Vimy Memorial on June 2nd, 1940 to prove that Germany was not desecrating the war memorials of the Commonwealth countries. Later in the war two Nazi soldiers committed suicide by jumping from the memorial after receiving word that they were being transferred to the eastern front.

This is of course not what I think about in my one or two hours a day that I am stationed at the monument. Most of my time is spent greeting people as they walk up to the monument, and then chasing them around to see if they have any questions about it. Though I am a guide, I feel more like a retail salesperson, whose queries of "Can I help you?" are to be dodged at all costs. The only people who do not seem completely annoyed with giving me the time of day are Canadians who have made the long trek to Northern France just to get a glance at the monument, and old French couples who talk on end about their lives here during the Second World War and the coal mines that dot the landscape over the expansive kilometers in view from the top of Hill 145. As the Battle of Vimy Ridge is for Canadians, the monument is symbolic for those who have lived their entire lives in its shadow, and they teach me more about the region and the effects of war than I could ever hope to convey after reading about it in a book. And I am very much content to listen.

The Vimy Shuffle - Part IV

2011-01-30T14:38:00.009-04:00

It is early on a Saturday morning, and I am standing in the middle of a field in Northern France. The morning sun, high above the clouds, has not yet dispersed the mist, and it clings to the trees scattered around me and floats just above the green grass that reaches out in all directions. As the piercing cold stings my hands, I perceive the profound silence here, miles from the closest town. Usually being enveloped in such an environment would be peaceful, but the scene before me today is, in contrast, haunting. Planted around me are thousands of black crosses, marking the final resting place of over 44,000 German soldiers from the First World War. This is the German cemetery at Neuville St-Vaast. It is our first stop of the day in a week that has been filled with site visits and orientation on the battlefields of the Great War in France.

Our training started Monday, five days before, with a whirlwind of administrative processes and briefings on the Vimy and Beaumont-Hamel sites, as well as all Canadian memorials maintained by Veterans Affairs Canada in Europe. Much of our direction was delivered by VAC Admin in France, but also via teleconference from various people back home at Veterans Affairs in Charlottetown. Over the course of two days we filled out tax and employee forms, toured both the Vimy and Beaumont-Hamel site, received instruction on how to drive in France and for over an hour, with much trial and error, were outfitted with our bright green and red uniforms, complete with a couple golf shirts, a dress shirt, dress pants, belt, fleece sweater, rain coat, wind-breaker, splash pants, toque, and neck-warmer, with ties for the guys and scarves for the girls.

By Wednesday morning, most of the formalities had been dealt with, and we settled in for a couple days of solid classroom instruction. What followed could be described as a two-day ultra-intensive University-level WWI course. We covered, at length, the ranks and structure of the Canadian military, with a crash course in HQ organization and logistics on the front. This was followed by instruction on the range, technical issues and evolution of guns, artillery and weapons during the Great War. Then we tried to keep up with a four-hour brief on the First World War in general, focusing on major battles, campaigns and strategies of all sides on all fronts. Then the French Red Cross took an hour of our day to explain how to dial '18' (European '911').

Thursday consisted of eight more hours of classroom instruction, this time with more specific focus on the Battle of the Somme, including Beaumont-Hamel, and the Battle of Arras, including Vimy Ridge. Although the instruction on both Wednesday and Thursday were phenomenal, I still struggled to stay awake, as the lingering effects of jet-lag were allowing me only 3 or 4 hours of sleep a night. Either way, by the end of the day Thursday we had more info and background on the First World War than we know what to do with. The next two days would help us put it all in context.

On Friday we visited close to a dozen sites involving the Battle of the Somme. Braving the biting cold, we took a full tour of the remains of the battlefield at Beaumont-Hamel, before driving to different cemeteries, towns and random fields to get a lay of the land as it stood on July 1st, 1916; the first day of the four-month battle. Seeing the lines as drawn across the miles of countryside, the size of the craters that were blown that morning to initiate the attack, the extensive German fortifications behind their 2nd line at Pozières and the countless war cemeteries that dot the countryside of Northern France were all eye-opening experiences. To trudge through the mud in the path of these soldiers and to visit the cemeteries where they fell (some as young as 16 or 17) quickly brings the reality of war into focus. I am doubtful that a higher-quality tour of the battlefields of the Great War exists.

And so, when I found myself in the middle of a massive cemetery on Saturday morning, I felt better-equipped to comprehend the context of where we stood and the events that led to these men being buried in this foreign field. Over the course of the day we would visit several Canadian memorial sites and get better oriented in how the lines were drawn at the Battle of Arras. By 5:00, as we gazed at the imposing rear slope of the ridge that Canadians had fought and died capturing, we were all freezing, exhausted and hoping that, somehow, all of the info that we had been taught over the past six days would somehow be absorbed into our brains. Most of us were also ready for a beer.

Sunday was a near-carbon copy of the one before, with late mornings all-around. In the evening, I walked through Arras with Reta, Kristina and Becky for Mass at the beautiful L'église St. Jean-Baptiste. It seemed a fulfilling conclusion to what had been an extremely busy, but incredible week. One would expect our next week, however, to include a another steep learning curve, as we would begin to put our training into action. The next day would be our first in uniform.

The Vimy Shuffle - Part III

2011-01-24T23:29:00.008-04:00

Sunday started slower than most for the crew both here and at the other guide house at St-Aubert. The sleeping endurance title went to our most recent arrival, Jenna, who clocked in at 14 hours of sleep, on her way to extinguishing some of the jet-lag that we had all incurred over the past week. My roommate Colin, Jenna and I spent our last evening before training walking the cobblestone streets and seeing Arras by night.

When awoke early the next morning to get ready to head to Vimy Ridge, the house was freezing. The stone floors felt like ice, making getting out of both bed and the shower and extra challenge at such an early hour. At some point during the night our heaters had shut off, leaving the house barely warmer than outside. We made it out of the house on time, but to no shortage of grumbled complaints. We, along with the guides from St-Aubs, jumped into two white cars with "Canada" emblazoned on the side for the trek to Vimy Ridge, some 20 minutes outside Arras.

The Battle of Vimy Ridge was part of the larger British offensive known as the Battle of Arras, undertaken on April 9th, 1917. It marks the first time that the four Divisions of the Canadian Corps fought together, taking on three Divisions of the German Sixth Army in order to secure a ridge that had eluded both French and British troops in past attempts. After an extensive artillery barrage and meticulous planning, the Canadian Corps advanced at 5:30am on Easter Monday, 1917. By the evening of April 12th, three days later, Canada had firm control of the ridge and the surrounding countryside. The battle established Canada as a formidable fighting force, one that lead the charge in the defeat of Germany the following year, and has been known for generations as "a nation-making moment". Said one veteran after the battle "We went up the ridge as Albertans and Nova Scotians. We came down as Canadians."

The costs were heavy as well, however, as Canada suffered 10,602 casualties with 3,598 killed and 7,004 wounded during the battle. As a result of Canada's incredible success in the battle at Vimy and unprecedented contribution to the war, it signed the Treaty of Versailles as an independent nation, and would later gain complete independence from Great Britain in all matters, including foreign affairs, with the Statute of Westminster in 1931. In gratitude to the Canadian people, France granted a 260-acre parcel of land on the site of where the battle occurred in perpetuity to Canada, where the breath-taking Vimy Ridge Memorial was completed in 1936. As well as a commemoration of the Battle of Vimy Ridge, it stands as a memorial for all Canadian soldiers who fell in France with no known grave, their names engraved in stone around the base of the structure. The site today is also comprised of the remains of trenches and shell craters, as well as 500 metres of underground tunnels that once snaked for kilometres under the battlefield on both the Canadian and German sides.

Vimy remains a watershed moment in Canadian history, and as a proud Canadians and a historian at heart, the battle has interested me since I first heard about it in Grade 6, and my interest has only deepened as I studied it further through High School and during my undergraduate degree at UPEI. Part of my job will be informing visitors about the contributions of Canadians here, and of those of the Newfoundland Regiment at Beaumont-Hamel during the Battle of the Somme. Monday morning, however, was to be my first time seeing it in person.

The Chemin des Canadiens snakes into the commemorative park between convolutions that fold the landscape into mounds around pits and pockmarks carved by artillery and explosives long ago. The soft green grass and trees that have grown in the 94 years since betray the story of the brutal battle, but also create an eerie silence amidst the fog that often clings to the forest here. This is the final resting place of many Canadians whose bodies were never recovered, and there are untold numbers of unexploded and undiscovered shells that hide somewhere deep in these mounds. The impact of this sight was perhaps stronger than that of seeing the monument itself, which is no small statement, as the two white pillars of the Vimy Memorial reaching 40 metres above the French countryside is a spectacular sight.

We began the day with introductions and then progressed through the usual administrative and introductory work to familiarize ourselves with our roles and responsibilities as guides with the Government of Canada. This was followed with a brief tour of the memorial itself, and then of the tunnels used by Canadians during the battle, some eight metres below the surface. We then drove to Beaumont-Hamel to visit the Newfoundland Memorial, about sixty minutes away.

The Battle of the Somme represents for many the senseless and brutal slaughter that was the Great War. In the first day of the battle alone, the British Empire lost 60,000 men - and this was a battle that lasted nearly four months. The Royal Newfoundland Regiment, made up of men from the Dominion of Newfoundland (independent from Canada until 1949), has been transferred to the Western Front from their post in Gallipoli in March of 1916, and was part of the 29th British Division on the first day of the Somme. It remains an infamous day in British military history, but particularly for the people of Newfoundland.

When the Newfoundland Regiment advanced the morning of July 1st, 1916, they faced barbed wire defenses and artillery fire, and struggled to advance over the bodies of the dead and wounded men who had faced the same perils minutes before. Pinned down by heavy machine gun fire, the Newfoundlanders relented in their push and moved back towards their trench, only to be gunned down as they retreated. They suffered a horrendous casualty rate of 90% and of the 780 Newfoundlanders who had gone over the top, 68 answered roll call the following morning.

A lone caribou stands watch over the remains of the battlefield today, representing Newfoundland and the caribou on the crest of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment. The land it overlooks is the largest section of the Battle of the Somme that remains, the rest now stretching out as tranquil farmland in all directions.

After visiting Beaumont-Hamel, we returned to Arras, only to find that our house was still frigid. As it turns out, we were out of oil, and none could be delivered until the following day. Mercifully, several space heaters had been dropped off for our use. We plugged in a few of them and began to cook supper. Meanwhile, as we turned on the electrical heaters around the house, we threw the circuit, leaving the house in complete darkness, and our meals cold. Unable to fix the problem with the usual fuse box-flick, we called in a repairman, and went off in search of fries via fry wagon, or some other such French delicacy. We found one down the street and, after ordering, returned home and sat down for our first family meal together at Vauban, bonding over heaping portions of fries and croque-monsieurs, or other such sandwiches.

With the power restored, we re-set our alarm clocks and climbed into out cold beds in our cold house. However, our grumbling complaints from that morning were perhaps somewhat muted after having walked through the fields where Canadians had suffered far worse conditions and awaited far worse fates so many years ago.

The Vimy Shuffle - Part II

2011-01-24T16:37:00.006-04:00

Friday started with what I have come to accept as the typical hostel breakfast: tons of bread, Nutella, bland cereal and coffee. I shared it and stories of home and travels with a Vancouverite named Sarah, who was just beginning her own 3-month adventure in Europe. From there, I packed my bags and headed to Paris Nord train station for my trip north. Being as I had left Montreal in -30 temperatures, the +3 Parisian climate seemed balmy by comparison. I entered the station in a long-sleeve t-shirt which was met with some very cold stares from some very cold commuters who were huddled around space heaters, bundled up in what seemed to be every piece of winter clothing they owned.

The beauty of the Northern French countryside as viewed by train is bested only by the small towns that dot the landscape. A 50-minute train ride brought me into the town of Arras, a small town (at 48,000, slightly larger than Charlottetown) in the Pas-de-Calais department in northern France, approaching the Belgian border. Arras was founded by Belgic tribes and later became an important garrison town for the Roman Empire. The modern form of the town took shape around the Benedictine Abbey of St. Vaast sometime in the 5th century. Situated in the path of pivotal battles of the First World War, Arras was devastated by the bombing and warfare, and much of the original Gothic architecture of the city was destroyed, though much has been restored, making the two large squares, Grande Place and the Place des Héros, along with the imposing town belfry, some of the most picturesque in all of Europe.

At the train station I was met by André, the Visitor Activities Support Officer here in France, and Lauren Johnson, another guide who arrived on the same train. André gave us a brief overview of Arras en route to one of the two houses occupied by guides here in Arras, and gave me a tour of the house that I would be living in. The house at Vauban is a three-storey residence owned by the Government of Canada that is leased to guides during the duration of their stay here in Arras. The ground floor has a small kitchen and pantry (with 3 fridges and a freezer to accommodate all our food and drink), a large living room and dining room, as well as a large back patio area, garage (for bikes and garbage) and laundry facilities. (It also has a toilet in a closet). Upstairs there are, in total, four rooms, two large bathrooms, another toilet closet, and a very odd hallway filled with abnormally large closets. For my three months here, I will be living at Vauban with 6 other guides (split between those four bedrooms), with the additional 7 guides living at a large 3-floor apartment a short distance from here.

Throughout Friday, my co-workers slowly trickled into Arras with each arriving train, so that by that evening, all but two had arrived. We spent Friday night talking and getting to know each other, but as jet-lag set in, all of us crashed early and hard and retired to bed, where most of us stayed until early the following afternoon.

On Saturday I took my first walk alone around Arras, visiting the town squares and the massive Cathédrale Notre-Dame-et-Saint-Vaast d'Arras, which was built on the site of a 1000-year old Cathedral in 1833, after the original basilica was destroyed in the French Revolution. Over the course of the day, Jenna and Sahar, the last two components of our 14-member team, arrived in Arras. The full roster congregated at Vauban for some additional introductions and an animated game of Sociables. And so, along with seven Ontarians*, one Newfie, a Nova Scotian, a Manitoban, an Albertan, a British Columbian and an army brat from all over (but primarily from Ottawa), I headed out on the town in Arras.

*I feel it important to note here that while there are seven Ontarians in our group, not one of them identifies themselves as being from Toronto. (Although, for all intents and purposes, Pickering is pretty much downtown Toronto.)

The Vimy Shuffle - Part I

2011-01-23T09:09:00.005-04:00

There is a time and place for changes of pace, and as I fought through the tedium of third-year law this past semester, I felt one was inevitable. Thankfully, I was presented with an amazing opportunity to apply to work as a guide for the Federal Government at Vimy Ridge and Beaumont-Hamel in Northern France, educating visitors on Canada's (and Newfoundland's) contributions and sacrifices during the Great War. It was certainly a chance that was too good to pass up. And so, after an interview process, a request to take a hiatus from law school, and a lengthy visa application process, I found myself standing in line at Charles de Gaulle International in Paris, clearing customs after a long flight where I had accrued all of 30 minutes of sleep, ate the typical airline microwaved chicken dinner and had lost six hours somewhere over the Atlantic.

"Do you like McGill Law?" a lady beside me queried in French, gesturing towards my red McGill hoodie. "Ummm. It's alright." I replied, mustering as positive a reaction as I could in regards to the institution that had helped facilitate much of my aforementioned tedium. We talked about McGill, Montreal, the French language, Acadians, PEI and so forth, as the line slowly snaked towards the sole customs officer. France may have the most ridiculously lax customs process that I have ever seen. After barely looking at each passport, the guard stamped his approval, and each traveler was unleashed on France on their own recognizance without so much as a bag search, metal detector scan or even a question. After a train ride and a crash course in the metro system, I stumbled into St. Christopher's Hostel, claimed my bunk bed, and effortlessly slipped into sleep.

At 5:00 the next morning, however, I was deep in the throes of a bout of jet-lag, and was strongly regretting my mid-day nap. The smell and snores emanating from my bunk mate below certainly didn't help either. Relief from my insomnia and headache finally came at around 6:00 and after two hours of sleep, I promised myself that I would stay awake all day and try to reset my circadian rhythm as soon as possible. I spent the morning reading up on Vimy Ridge and the Battle of the Somme, before falling asleep by accident for a couple hours in the afternoon. At around 17:30 I headed out into Paris to visit Notre Dame and meet up with a friend.

Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris towers over the edge of the Seine on the Île de la Cité in Paris. Construction of the French Gothic Cathedral began on the former site of the first Christian church in France, Saint Etienne, in 1163 and was not completely finished until 1345. The impressive, humbling edifice is famed for its stained glass, and attracts 13 million visitors each year, more than even the Eiffel Tower or the Louvres. Although I had already visited the church in 2007, I was still staggered by its grandeur. This grandeur was heightened as they ushered visitors out and turned off the lights to the exhibits for the beginning of evening vespers and Mass. Complete with clouds of incense and the Latin chants of the choir, the stately basilica is all the more incredible when clothed in the ceremony and celebration for which it was designed.

My next stop was to meet up with Thomas Vignal, a native of Paris and one-time exchange student to UPEI. Having met on the plane from Montreal to Charlottetown, I was the first Islander Thomas has met on his trip, so it seemed fitting to be able to spend a few hours with him and his mother during my first full day in France. He met me at the steps of Charles Michel metro, a short walk from the apartment shared by him and his mother. We spent the evening enjoying a magnificent meal prepared by his mother, and talking about everything from great sites to visit in France, to old memories at the Wave. I was especially thankful that the cheese Thomas' mother served after the tremendous meal was, mercifully, mild enough to suit even my unsophisticated palate.

As I laid down to sleep, more or less on schedule for my new circadian rhythm, I tried not to psyche myself up too much for the following day, one that would take me north to Arras and my new home for the next three months.

There Is No Such Thing As A Stupid Question. Usually.

2009-03-11T18:36:00.004-03:00

While the pages of The Quid are consumed by the Cégepian inferiority complex and a debate over the shortage of social conservatives, I find that each day I walk into this building something about one of my classmates amazes me. Everyday. Since September I have met students who speak myriads of languages, come from a multitude of cultural backgrounds and whose lives prior to McGill Law include everything from acting to police work, from working in refugee camps to fashion design. Being in complete awe of these classmates has more than a few times caused me to wonder what the hell the Admissions Committee was thinking when they let me in.

And yet, despite such an abundance of diversity, somehow everyone seems absolutely blown away with the fact that I am from PEI. If there is such thing as a positive stereotype, I have certainly been the victim of one over the past few months: “I love people from PEI!”, “My parents were there in 1982!”, “I’ve always wanted to go to PEI!”. The twelve-hour drive from PEI to Montréal has brought me closer to being a foreign-exchange student than I’ve ever been in my life.
By the questions I get on daily basis, it is obvious that the knowledge most students here have about PEI is limited to the ‘PEI Potato Marketing Board’ decision, so I figured that a poorly written article in The Quid would be better than nothing. So here is a crash-course on P.E.Islandology. These are all actual questions that I have been asked.

“Do you know Anne of Green Gables?”
Actually no. She is, in fact, a fictional character, and her stories are set in the early 1900s. So if she were real, she’d be dead.

“Is Anne of Green Gables a bigger deal on PEI than it is everywhere else?”
Actually, Anne is a lot bigger in Japan than she is anywhere else: thousands of Japanese tourists flock to PEI every summer to see Anne’s (fake) house and watch her (fictional) musicals. It is a pretty big deal on PEI though, at least economically. Dozens of my friends have played Anne, Diana, or some other character in some capacity at some point in their life. This total immersion in Anne culture explains in part the angst that myself and a lot of us Islanders have for her.

“Can you jog around PEI in, like a few hours?”
Eff sakes. By area, PEI is about 11x the size of Montréal. Depending on how heavy your foot is and on how well you know the speed traps on the Trans Canada, you can drive from tip to tip in three hours, give or take.
But you would be right if you guessed PEI has a small population. The most recent census sets PEI with a population of 139,818 (139,817 now that I’m gone).

“Why the hell does PEI have four seats in the House of Commons?”
Good question, seeing as with that population, PEI is only slightly larger than a city like Trois-Rivières. After refusing to join Confederation (after a meeting about Confederation that we hosted), we figured we’d shop around, maybe join the States, build an insolvent railroad and I guess whatever else they used to do back in 1870 (growing potatoes would likely be a good guess). But then John A. and the other Upper Canadians came down for another visit, and among other things, promised to assume the colony's debt, basically buy all the land on PEI from absentee landlords and give it to us, build a bridge (or use ferries until the bridge was built in 1997) and to give PEI what is probably the most ridiculous disproportionate representation in Parliament. Not exactly a hard sell. So Islanders said “To hell with this,” (a common Island phrase) “why work if we can get it all for free?” (also a common Island phrase). The Island has been drawing pogey and equalization payments ever since.

“Is there much ethnic diversity on PEI?”
Not unless you include species of trees as ‘diversity’. Ninety-nine percent of PEI’s population is of European descent. In the absence of racial tension, Islanders have adapted by having the Catholics make fun of the Protestants and the Protestants make fun of the Catholics. Then collectively we all make fun of CFAs (come from aways). Upper Canadians are a favorite target of ours, as some Torontonians in the Faculty have already found out from me.

“How are Islanders different from Mainlanders?”
Well that’s a bit more complicated. We all grew up being subjected to the same fads, watching the same TV and listening to the same music as everyone else (we just got them six years later than the rest of you did).
There are some differences of course. Dialect for example. My parents ‘warsh’ clothes instead of washing them. My Dad wears short pants in the summer. When we were kids, they bought us ‘kitbags’ to carry our books in, and when there is ice on the driveway it is ‘slippy’.

There are some paradigmatic shifts as well. The concept of ‘open bars’ that is so prevalent here in Montréal would be completely lost on most of my friends and family. No one is stupid enough to advertise ‘free alcohol’ at any event on PEI. None of the bars have a capacity of 139,818 anyway.

When it comes to politics, there are only two options PEI: only one person who wasn’t Liberal or Conservative has been elected, ever. And your last name and hometown is usually a good indication of how you voted. Seriously.

I also feel that PEI has a good hold on old-fashioned, family-oriented community-ness. I mean, I am sure there are strong communities all across Canada, but the Island seems unique. The bar scene, for example, is a million times different on PEI than here in Montréal. Stumble into any one of the thousands of bars here and you’ll run into the same bunch of non-descript douches and ditzes who scowl and push and curse at you, often in a language you don’t understand. Stumble into any of the five main bars in Charlottetown and you’re suddenly at a party with a ton of your friends: the kids you went to elementary, junior and high school with, undoubtedly some family and that cute girl that was in your first-year History class. Sure, there are drawbacks if you have a penchant for macking randos on the dancefloor and therefore seek anonymity, and sure, some fights break out now and then, but it’s all a lot less serious. No one is going to get knifed or anything.

PEI is the kind of place where anyone who can comes home for Christmas and for at least a few weeks in the summer. It may sound a little morbid, but people keep informed by listening to the obituaries on the radio every day. In my mind, that’s how it’s supposed to be: you are welcomed into the world, spend your life among, and are bid farewell by you friends.

So go ahead. Call me backwards and backwoods. I’d trade a thousand CN Towers for a good bag of potatoes, a day at the beach, a night of camping and a few beer with friends at a PEI bar.

...And now for something completely different: Une Session à Québec

2008-01-26T13:58:00.000-04:00

"Ryan!"
It was like déja vu. An early morning wake-up in my sister's living room.
"Ryan!" Ugh. My eyes adjusted to reveal my sister standing beside the couch.
"Ryan, it's ten after 7:00." She said.
My flight was scheduled to leave at 6:55.
"WHAT?"
"Oh, I mean ten after 6:00."
And so began another long day.

By the time my plane began its descent into Québec, the lack of sleep, as well as the glasses of wine and beer from the night before, were beginning to catch up to me. As I dozed on and off and thought about how I was going to live out of two bags of luggage for the next four months, that age-old question slipped back into my mind: ""What the hell am I getting myself into?"

Well, first of all, I was getting myself into a semester of French as a Second Language courses at L'Université Laval in Ste. Foy, Québec, just outside of the capital city. Laval has over 37,000 students, studying everything from Philosophy to Languages, Dentistry to Medicine, and the Languages Department in la pavillon Charles-de-Koninck was to be my home for the next 15 weeks. After landing at Jean Lesage Airport, I hopped in a cab and arrived outside my dorm, la pavillon Alphonse-Marie-Parent, at about 11h00 on Saturday January 12th.

Suddenly I was and eighteen year old all over again, signing in to residence for my first semester at a new school in a strange land. After getting all my stuff packed away, I slept away most of the day on my sheetless bed, and, waking up around 18h00, I decided to check out the nearby mall and to buy some essentials for my room. Like sheets. Of course, no one had told me that the Québécois shut 'er down at 17h30 on Saturday nights, which seems ridiculous. I mean I know that Confederation Court Mall kicks mall rats and prostitots out at the same time, but that's, well, Charlottetown.

L'Université Laval is connected underground by a 15-kilometre network of tunnels, which makes walking around in the winter a lot less of a pain in the ass. And so, even though I had classes in Koninck on Monday and Tuesday, by mid-week I still had no idea what the building actually looked like from the outside. As we started courses we were placed in different levels based on preliminary testing, but some of the placements were messed up, leading to a confusing week for everyone in the program. I somehow started in the 'Débutant' group, where we working on phrases like "Hi, my name is Ryan. How are you today?" (In French, obviously), all of which I had done in about, oh, Grade 2. By the end of the week I was up in 'Inter-Avancé', the most advanced class. Though I'm still not sure if I belong there, you have to admit that's pretty good progress in the language in one week. Haha.

In the class I finally ended up in, there are only three other Canadians, the rest of the class being mostly made up of Thai, Chinese, and Spanish-speakers from various countries. One of the other Canadians and I, along with a bunch of other residents have become the unofficial drinking team of the program, which has been a lot of fun, but which has also taken its toll on the studies, and perhaps also the health, of each of us. We represent a variety of provinces from across Canada: Scott Pickup - Nova Scotia (Or Republic of Cape Breton... and yes, Pickup is his real name), Gillian Irving - New Brunswick, Luke Moyer, Laura McDougall, Debbie Lobbezoo, Barbara Ciochon - Ontario, Sara Lechasin - Manitoba, Tammi Viney - Alberta, and Kirstie Bagshaw - British Columbia. The main topic of discussion is making fun of each other’s pronunciation of different words (I apparently say 'peanut butter' wrong), and sharing regional sayings (Pickup's "Not dat bad... not dat goood, but not dat bad." is an oft-repeated example). Our Mexican buddy Gerardo Sistos Sescosse hangs out too, but his regional diction is in a totally different ballpark.

Designating a different room for pre-drinking each night, one soon notices that the thermostats in many of these rooms are set way too high. The residence has over 900 rooms, and each series of three or four have one shared thermostat, with one lucky resident given the power over the heat of all the rooms within his immediate vicinity. For some people, well for me anyway, this is a problem when it is -22 degrees outside, because there are a lot of Franco-Africans on my floor who like the keep the temperature set at a balmy 30+ degrees all the time. More often than not though, we drink in Tammi's room, first of all because she has candy, and also because from there you can see all the action going on outside. One night last week, for example, four cop cars rolled up with campus security, followed shortly by a media SUV from TQS. Another night, no less than six cop cars sped into the driveway, with an ambulance following close behind. I don't know if some serious shit is going on in Parent on a regular basis, or if there is very little action going on in the rest of Québec. Either way, I don't wander around when the cops show up, just so I don't get caught up in a shoot-out or something.

There is a lot of interesting stuff going on in Québec this year, as it's the 400th anniversary of the city's founding, which adds to the usual Carnivale de Québec, l'Hôtel de Glaçe, and the Red Bull Crashed Ice competition. There is literally too much to do, but so far we have been taking in as much as possible, and enjoying as much as we can without freezing our faces off. One of the big misconceptions that I was wary of before coming here was the idea that les Québécois are rude. I have not found this to be the case at all. If anything, I would say they have been more polite than most people back home. They politely say hi and bye as they get in out of elevators. As far as I know they don't talk about you behind your back or make up rumours about you. As a perfect example, on the third day of school I was stopped in the tunnel by a girl, and I had no idea who she was. She introduced herself as one of the sisters of the kids from the Explore program that I worked with last summer on PEI. She recognized me from Facebook pictures and offered any help that I may need. Now, I would say it takes balls to pick out one student out of 37,000 that you sort of recognize from your sister's pictures to introduce yourself to some random.

Of course once they discover that you to be an Anglophone, all bets are off. Haha.

Half-Assed and Clueless - Across an Ocean

2008-01-16T20:43:00.000-04:00

The next morning Meghan and I heisted on our backpacks one last time and lugged them across the huge bridge towards the cruise dock in Barcelona. After going through some security checkpoints, we boarded our ship that would take us across the Atlantic: The Legend of the Seas.

This ship is a Royal Caribbean-owned, offshore-registered cruise ship in a huge fleet of luxury liners. It was certainly a sight to behold. The ship had 11 floors, with a 7 floor-high atrium, and with grand marble staircases with glass elevators spanning the distance between. The ship has an internet café, coffee shop, library, study, two pools, spa, casino, fitness centre, photo gallery, hundreds of rooms, 7 bars, a huge cafeteria, and an 1000-seat restaurant.

Basically everything is jammed in there along with about 2000 old people who will go home and describe the ship like I just did (perhaps with not so vivid a memory), and all of it seemed so gloriously meaningless. This ship has no real purpose other than to cart old people around and sell paintings and photos and internet and phone time ($0.50 and $7.95 a minute, respectively) to their captive audience. It was truly a monument to Western civilization. Luxuriously cruising from poor country to poor country, blissfully ignorant to everything else in the world. Imagine living in an impoverished country and watching a five-star hotel pull into the harbour every other morning, discharge a bunch of rich tourists, who come and haggle about the price of whatever trickets you are trying to sell, and then as you go home to feed your family, the tourists sit up on deck eating all-you-can-eat dinners as their hotel sails off for some other 'exotic' location. Imagine what that would do to your view of the world... and of the people of the West. But I digress.

After some guy died on our ship while in the Canary Islands, we headed out across the ocean, mostly hanging out with our table mates from the dining room; Les and Zoiey, a fourty-something couple from Britain, and Ed and Linda, a sixty-something couple from the US. We partook in a lot of trivia games during the journey, but the majority of our time was spent on the deck in the sun, reading books, or eating. The days at sea themselves were quite uneventful, but it was a good oppurtunity to reflect on the past month. Those five days at sea were really the culmination of my trip, allowing me to read the books and think the thoughts that were hard to get through while we were jumping from train to train and checking in and out of hostels.

One might say that the thought of being 2000 kilometres away from the nearest land and that the ocean floor is seven kilometeres below the bow of the ship is quite unnerving, but what I can certainly say is that the colour of the ocean in the middle of the Atlantic is so beautiful that it is hypnotizing. At first it looks like a black but after looking at it for a moment, you will see that it is actually a deep deep blue, and even as I stared at it, I could hardly believed that such a colour could exist. It was in view of this water and in the presence of absolute solitude (save for the other 1999 people on the ship) that, in many ways, my journey concluded.

I asked myself at the beginning of my trip: 'Why does one leave their home?' It is quite obvious to anyone who knows me that I am comfortable among the people I know and within a community where people know me, but over the span of the two months abroad, I realized that sometimes, one must see for themselves that the world is more than a sum of its parts. That for its beauty, nature reveals most of herself in its variety. That human kind is most gifted in its rich cultural mosaic, and that we share in our own cultural experiences not by insulated ourselves from all others, but in understanding that societies naturally complement the amazing aspects of one another.

One must also travel to understand that beauty exists in many forms, and that everywhere and everything is beautiful to someone, somewhere. Stare at a captivating landscape or at the world's most amazing masterpiece for long enough, however, and the colours will meld, and the lighting will become unremarkable, even commonplace. And so, one must step back, re-focus, and realize that just as the people of the netherplaces of the world are incredible and beautiful, so much more are the captivating and amazing people that we care about, the same people who, over time, have come to seem commonplace.

In that, upon seeing the immensity of the world, one must come to understand that the incomprehensible size and scope of the world does not make one insignificant, but instead, highlights the careful and beautiful intricacies of life and creation, wherever it is found.

For all their adventures and experiences, travel is as much about coming home and seeing it anew. My trip affirmed for me one thing in my heart: there is no place quite like home.

Half-Assed and Clueless - Eurotrip 2007: Switzerland and Spain

2008-01-11T17:18:00.000-04:00

After 28 days on the road, carrying our lives on our backs and jumping from train to train, hostel to hostel, Meghan and I were pretty tired out. After a week in Greece and Italy, with a lot of bar-hopping in between, I was about ready to sleep for seven or eight days. Once we reached Bern, the cold temperature didn't help our ambition to walk around, but we did the best we could, seeing much of what the very small, very beautiful capital city of 120,000 has to offer within the first few hours of our arrival. We checked into the hostel at 15:00, and spent most of the evening sitting around, doing laundry, and reading. On our way to the train station that morning, I remarked that Switzerland was the only country in our travels that didn't have any pigeons. We also noticed that Switzerland is the only country where McDonald's serves 'chicken' wings. Coincidence? Probably.

Anyways, this was to be a long day on trains, switching threes times as we made our way through Switzerland, France and into Spain. It was an uneventful journey for the most part, the only events out of the ordinairy being that there were tons of police at one of the train stations in France and a long delay once we crossed the Spanish border. I have no idea why there were so many police and emergency vehicles around but they were controlling the flow of traffic in and out of the station and had some of the exits cordoned off. I didn't really feel like sticking around until I found out or until a bomb went off or something. As for the delay, we were told in broken English that the tracks up ahead were 'broken', which is a great comfort after a long day of traveling, but we eventually were back on our way, and made it into Barcelona after nightfall.

As we hopped in our cab on our way to the hostel, I smacked my head off the side of the cab and then my head bounced back and smacked the door. I yelled a quick combination of interesting words, grabbed my head with both hands and thought: "Wow, what a great end to a great day." It took us a bit of walking to find the hostel once we got dropped off, but once we did we went into the office, and I shrugged off my backpack and... that was it. My leather folder (with my Eurail Pass, Passport, insurance info, cruise ticket, etc.) was defintely not in my hand anymore.
"Could I see your passport please?" (Hostel lady)
"Uh oh." I said
"Don't say uh oh." said Meghan
"Uh oh." I repeated.
And then I remembered grabbing my head WITH BOTH HANDS after I smacked it off the side of the cab. "Wonderful." I thought. The folder was still in some cab, roaming the streets of Barcelona. To make matters worse, the hostel lady told me there was no way of tracking down who had dirven us there from the train station, even if we called the cab company. As soon as we had finished checking in I told Meghan I would be back, and I headed down to the streets, determined to somehow find the cab that had driven us to the hostel. Just as I stepped down from the last step to the ground floor, a familiar face stepped through the door: Mr. Cab Driver, with my folder in hand. I could not believe it. He had driven around the city, and returned once he had found my folder in the back seat. He asked for some cash, so I gave him 10 Euro... which is quite a lot, but after making a dumbass mistake like that, I didn't care.

As I sat on my bed the next morning (Friday), with a stuffy nose, applying nasal decongestant with instructions that I could not read, and listening to Meghan cough her incessant cough, I remarked about how sick and tired I was of walking. Back-packing around Europe was interesting and all that, but by this point, my legs were ready to tell me to eff off and just quit. And enough of these old buildings and sights to see. And I realize that a lot of people would be pissed at me if they somehow heard me thinking that, while they dug out from 20cm of snow back on PEI. But I was done. And I guess that is an good place to be at the end of a trip.

With the consolation that this would be our last day of walking around and looking at random stuff, we headed out to the streets to see what we could see. It was a warm sunny day and we toured around the waterfront and the sidestreets and bought some supplies for the cruise ship that we were getting on the next day. On Meghan's insistence, we jumped on a dumb over-priced tour bus and went around the city. It was a huge waste of time, and after about an hour I told her I would meet her back at the hostel, jumped off, and walked through the city by myself. It was the first time I had had the chance to go off on my own in a long time, and it was damn near exhillerating. By the time I got back, it was dark and Meghan was just getting back from the bus tour. We found a little place for dinner, and ended the evening (our last in Europe) by having an argument in hushed tones over dinner at the restaurant. Good times.

Half-Assed and Clueless - Eurotrip 2007: Greece and Italy

2008-01-11T16:46:00.000-04:00

On Friday we headed for Patra, Greece to catch our ferry to Italy, but we got off at the wrong station, and consequently missed our train. And so myself, Meghan, John and Richard found ourselves in speeding taxi, racing against time to catch our connectin train at the next station, but we missed it by about 2 minutes. (Either way we appreciated our taxi driver balring 'Bohemian Rhapsody' on the radio and the fact that he was far more interested in telling stories about his trip to Italy in 1972 than to what was going on on the road in front of him).

We were therefore stranded in some random town, with about four hours to kill before the next train. We headed into the town to see what we could see, and we found a beach, which is usually boring in mid-November, unless you're in Greece and it's 25 degrees. I decided to go for a swim while the others wandered the beach and after an hour or so of skipping rocks and other mundane beach activities, we ate at a seaside cafe (except for Meghan, who fed most of her food to a hungry cat), and then I had a nap on the beach. Probably the best nap ever, making the missed train the best mistake of my life. Eventually we got on another train and headed for Patra, this time we were much calmer than we had been during the early morning dash for Patra, and we arrived just in time caught the last boat to Bari, Italy. On the ferry we shared a 4-person cabin for the 16-hour journey, complete with a bathroom and a shower. After sharing some Bulgarian liquor and having gotten up at 6:00 that morning, we all slept tremendously well.

We stuck around waiting for a train in Bari until 13:42 and headed for Rome, and took the time (after John insisting that he wanted to be able to say "I've done Bari"... pun not intended), to tour the city of Bari. After looking at all the fishing boats that Bari had to offer, we headed for Rome where Jared, having flown earlier that day, was waiting for us. Jared and I made a laundry run for the five of us, before we headed to dinner, this time with Phil, student from Niagra, Ontario. Again, dead tired and filled with Italian food, wine, and ice cream, we were all asleep by 1:00.

The next day was Sunday and we all rushed off alll the way to St. Peter's Sqaure in time to see mass (mostly in Latin) and to receive a blessing from the Pope. We got a hell of a lot closer to him than I ever did in my entire trip to Germany for World Youth Day, and we didn't even have to sleep in a field with 1.2 million people. We then found a small Italian restaurant that ripped us off severely, and then wandered more of the city, visiting the Pantheon and the Coliseum. As that would be our last evening with John and Richard, we went to the grocery store and bought a bunch of food, and made a massive meal for ourselves (for a fraction of the price of the meal we had bought earlier), and drank and the five of us played Risk until 2:00 with another two Aussies that we had met.

Despite the late night, we got up early the next day and went back to the Vatican so that we could tour the inside of St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican Museum. Both of these were, as you would expect, absolutely incredible, except they get real pissed if you take pictures of the Sistine Chapel. Before Richard and Joh headed for the train station, we found a greatItalian restaurant and had lunch together one last time. We saw John and Richard off, I got my hair cut (finally) and we all prepared to go out. It was Phil's (the guy from Niagra) birthday, and as 23 of his Canadian classmates had just arrived, we had been invited out on a Roman pub crawl. It was a great night, (complete with the 'I Am Canadian' speech in one bar), and it ended with us carrying poor Phil back to his room, where he spent a very painful morning the next day.

Our train left at 20:40 on Tuesday, and so we had most of the day to see what we had missed so far in our visit to Rome. We dug deep in our pockets and paid the entrance fee to the Coliseum, and I walked around with my iPod headphones on, listening to the soundtrack from Gladiator the whole time. It was awesome. And dorky. After some lunch we sat around the hostel and hung out with the Canadians for the rest of the day.

We left Jared and Rebecca (one of the other Aussies) behind in Rome, and for the first time in a week, Meghan and I were once again on our own. Our train was another night car, which we shared with an elderly Swiss couple. The husband spoke German, Italian and French, but no English. So him and I chatted about a few things in French (including a debate on stem cell research) while Meghan and his wife sat in silence, awkwardly smiling at each other every now and then. Another couple joined the car in Milan, and we all took up residence in our bunks for the night, somewhere between Milan and Bern.

Half-Assed and Clueless - Eurotrip 2007: Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece

2008-01-11T15:44:00.000-04:00

The next morning in Budapest, (well technically the same morning), we got up at 11:30 and headed over to the train station to catch our train to Belgrade. At this point I was ready to jettison any thought of staying in Eastern Europe any longer than was absolutely necessary. I just wanted to get the hell to Greece. We hopped on the train and seven hours later ended up in Belgrade, Serbia. We stayed on the ground in Serbia for about, oh six minutes, and hopped on another train for Sophia, Bulgaria. Now this train was the sketchiest vehicle that I have ever travelled in. Imagine, if you will, the old dental mobile home they had around PEI back in the day. (If you don't remember that, imagine the old bookmobile or one of the old replacement school busses. If you don't remember either of these, you are probably a townie, and would not understand the state of anything beyond the Peter Pan Corner anyway). Now imagine any of these structures experiencing traffic upwards of 300 people a day, smoking, drinking, eating, etc. And now imagine that it is mid winter, the heaters are broken, as are many of the windows, and that it hasn't been cleaned since 1987. It was pretty ridiculous. Some guy came to me and asked for 6 Euros so he can get on the train too (God knows why he would want to). I pulled out some change, and he informed me that they wouldn't take Euro coins, so he needed a 10 Euro note. Of course he promised to pay me back. The benevolent heart that I am, I obliged and spent the rest of the night thinking... they don't take coins... riiiight.

I made that money back though, kind of by accident. The tickets booths were closed in Belgrade, so we just hopped on and figured we'd pay on the train. Every time a ticket person barged in (which was several times during the night, usually when I had just nodded off) I wordlessly handed him my Eurail Pass (which is totally not valid in Serbia or Bulgaria) and he would frown at it, and then pass it back to me and mumble something under his breath. I don't know which was the funnest part of the journey, feeling like I was going to get robbed (and keeping my long heavy flash light handy just in case), trying to use the washroom without a proper door or toilet, or being questioned by Hungarian border guards about smuggling. When he pointed to my bag and asked (I think he said something about cigarettes), I just shook my head no. Not five minutes later I read in my guide book that: "Bulgarians shake their head 'no' and nod their head 'yes'." Wonderful. There were about 25 border guards on the train, poking holes in the walls and ripping stuff apart looking for... God knows what. Thankfully they didn't seem to care too much about a dumb Canadian with an invalid ticket and who may or may not have had contraband cigarettes in his bag.

Our original plan was to arrive in Sophia at 6:25 and have 35 minutes to get on another train to Thessaloniki, and then to head for Athens, arriving by 19:50 tthat night. But seeing as our train was a full two hours and fourty minutes late, we didn't quite make the 7:00 train out of Eastern Europe. You know what they say: don't set your watch by Bulgarian trains.

We found the ticket office in Sophia so we could reserve beds on the next train to Athens, and ran into two British guys, John and Richard, who were in a similar predicament to us... that is, wanting to get the hell out of Eastern Europe. Our introductory conversation went something like "Holy shit it's good to hear someone else who speaks English." They agreed, and after we hung out at the hostel, walked around the city and had some lunch (with no meatballs), we made plans to meet up with them in Greece once they arrived the next day. Meghan and I then headed for our train. After being harassed by a bunch of husslers to carry our bags and what not, (I gave one guy $5 Canadian. He gave the blue bill one look and he got really pissed at me. Should've just gave him Canadian Tire money), we reached our sleeper car, locked the door, and slept the night away on a much more comfortable and much nicer train than we had encountered... nay, endured, the night before.

Somewhere in the night we finally crossed the snow threshold as we passed into Greece, and arrived in Athens shortly after 6:00 to somewhat more temperate weather. We found our hostel and ate, then headed off to a landromat to do some laundry until our room was ready. It was a fairly uneventful day, but we did meet an interesting guy at the laundromat who was absolutely obsessed with California, saw some of the city, and the many stray dogs that inhabit it. Even though most of the dogs that roam the street are strays, many of them have collars provided by the locals, and are fed by people around the community. More on this later. Tuesday night we stuck around the hostel and hung out in the pub, meeting more Canadians and Americans, along with a Mexican and two Brazilians. We had a lot of interesting conversations. (I met one girl (Cynthia) from Ottawa who went to middle school with a friend's roommate at UPEI. Small effing world). Before I nodded off to sleep, the Aussie in our room (Jared, who would become one of our travel companions) threw up all over himself and the floor. I dozed off to the sound of him apologizing profusely to the Ohio girl whose bunk was directly below his.

On Wednesday we headed out to see the sights in Athens, you know, all the usual ruins you would see on pictures of the city. It was all very nice, and we ran into a lot of our hostel mates on the hill, most of whom were slouched on benches or drinking water in an effort to recover from the intake of Ouzo the night before. The ruins were beginning to look an awful lot like each other when we randomly ran into John and Richard at one fo the sites, and they had met Cynthia at the hostel, and so, reunited in a more comfortable climate, the five of us went out for lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around Athens.

That night was much the same as the night before, but considerably more rowdy, as England was playing Croatia for a berth in the EuroCup 2008. England lost, and so there were a lot of pissed off backpackers and staff. In the midst of the angry post-game drinking, Richard, John, and I headed up tp the top of Acropolis (a plateau in the middle of the city with the most prominent ruins on it) to see the view at night. As we left the hostel, as if followed by body guards, three dogs who always hung around the hostel led/followed us to the hill, barking and intimidating anyone or anything that they perceived as a risk to us. By the time we had reached the hill, there were five dogs guarding us, and as we sat down on the rocks talking about history and other boring stuff, the dogs each took a sentry point in a circle around us, alert and ready to take down anything. It was amazing.

On Thursday the weather got a lot nicer, and we (myself, Meghan, John, Richard and Jared) headed to a monastery on a hill in the centre of the city to catch the view from up there. It was beautiful, and by mid-day, the temperature had climbed to 25. We made a final effort to see as much of the city as we could before sharing a traditional Greek meal together, finishing off some random drinks in a trendy local bar, (where Richard, John and I met a couple from the US/Taiwan, and a bunch of Americans, one of which was a girl from Iowa who hated Canadians because one had asked her if Iowa was where all the potatoes come from [that would be Idaho]), and getting set to take off for Italy the next morning.

Half-Assed and Clueless - Eurotrip 2007: Austria and Hungary

2007-12-16T17:17:00.000-04:00

After dragging myself out of bed following a late night in Prague, we made our way to the train station, by which point I was incredibly thirsty. I stopped into a sketch grocery store that devoted about 80% of their shelf space to liquor and cigarettes. (They sell liquor absolutely everywhere; news stands, McDonald's, etc. and people smoke all the time; in restaurants, trains, church... it is very hard not to slap people in the face.) With a few shady characters roaming around the store, I bought some bananas, an apple, carrots, bread, iced tea and a huge bottle of water. Came to a grand total of 66 Koruny (about $3.50 Canadian). I thought it was a pretty good deal. Plus the water was probably the best water I have tasted in my life. See, they carbonate everything here in Europe, even their water, so when I took the first drink of cold water and realized that is WASN'T the gassy crap, I almost cried with joy. Meanwhile, Meghan wussed out and got a Happy Meal at McDonald's.

We made it to Vienna and immediately got lost once we stepped off the tram. While Meghan ate at McDonald's (yes, for the second time in one day), I trudged around in the snow, trying to find our hostel. Eventually, after tracking down streets with no names and getting confused by streets with the same damn name, we found our hostel by about 19:00. This hostel was decent, but the bathrooms were a huge pain in the ass. They had both an automatic light sensor and an automatic shower faucet. What this meant was that once in the shower, one has to push the faucet every 20 seconds to keep the water running. Meanwhile, the lights go off in the room every minute or so, so you have to open the shower door, wave your hand around in the dark until the sensor turned the light back on, get back in the shower, and push the faucet again. Showers therefore take about 3 hours.

Other than being the country that spawned such notables as Mozart, Freud, Hitler and Swartzenagger, Austria boasts tons of national history, as indicated by the number of museums in Vienna: about 3.2 million by my count. We toured around Vienna and decided to check out four of the museums, the largest and most interesting of which was the Natural History Museum, which had thousands of pieces of rock and thousands of stuffed birds and fish and animals. It was pretty intense before it got boring. We also continued our search for ethnic food by getting Chinese for lunch.

When we stepped off the subway in downtown Vienna, we were stopped to help a Japanese girl who looked lost and was looking for some monument or something. Although I obviously had no idea what we were looking for and didn't speak her language, for some reason I figured I could help her out. Then some Austrian lady stopped and asked if we need help. So out came HER reading glasses, and the four of us were standing there, staring at a Japanese map, while I tried to explain to the Japanese girl what some lady was telling me in German. God knows if she ever found what she was looking for.

The next day we took the plunge into the Eastern European states of the former Soviet Republic. I can imagine you may be wondering "I wonder if you can tell the difference between Eastern and Western Europe." Oh yes. You can tell. While we had seen some sketch areas in the Czech republic and in Austria, the journey from Vienna to Budapest was like a trip back in time, a trip from a modern, clean city to a... old,dirty city. Buildings became increasingly shabby and our surrounding were likened to something out of a seventies-era James Bond movie (minus the lair). More than a few times Meghan was prompted to tell me that we weren't in Kansas anymore. I've never been to Kansas, but we sure as hell weren't in downtown Charlottetown anymore either.

And so, of course the first thing we decided to do in this former Soviet Republic was to stand around outside in our bathing suits in 0 degree weather. Yes, with nothing better to do, we checked out the famous thermal baths, and they were awesome, though very very crowded. It took me a while to get oriented in the thermal bath complex, mistakenly walking into a few rooms full of naked men before finding where I was supposed to be. Once we got outside though, the baths were phenomenal. It was basically a hot tub as big as a swimming pool, naturally heated by underwater springs. There were old men were playing chess with other men stood around and watched with eager anticipation, most only able to communicate through the game, as everyone here is from any number of different countries. There were a few couples macking out in the pool (as they do everywhere in Europe), but overall, it was a good relaxing afternoon, and a fitting rest period for what is more or less halfway through the European adventure.

Now comes the fun part of our Hungarian advernture. We had planned on sticking in Budapest for the day and then catching the overnight train to Belgrade, Serbia. And so, after dinner we headed back to the train station and waited three hours for our train. Finally, when we got on our train at 23:25, we settled in for the 7-hour journey to Belgrade... except that about 45 minutes later we were told that we weren't going to Belgrade. I don't know who screwed up, but our train was apparently going to Hatvan, a small town about 80km outside of Budapest. I awoke at 1:20 on the train with Meghan and I the only people left on the train as cleaners were going through the car, which seemed to be parked in the middle of nowhere.

We got off the train and walked through the tunnel into the station and discovered that it was completely empty. Well, realtively so. It was an old Soviet-era stone building, with the door wide open, broken and barred windows and garbage all over the place. When I went to blow my nose, there was no toilet paper in the bathrooms, but there WAS a homeless man sleeping on the toilet that I scared the hell out of when he woke up as I walked into the bathroom. We got to hang out in Hatvan until 3:05, when we got to catch a train to go BACK to Budapest, which I was real thrilled about. Once there, were would wait until 13:15 to catch the next train to Belgrade. When we got back to Budapest, it was 4:00, and I slumped down on a bench, tired, cold, and totally not looking forward to sitting there for the next 9 hours waiting for the next train. To hell with this, said Meghan, and went across the street to rent a room at a hotel. I have never checked into a hotel at 4:00 before, and I'll have to hand it to her. I did not have that much initiative by that point. A bed has never felt that good.

Half-Assed and Clueless - Eurotrip 2007: Dresden and Prague

2007-12-05T11:31:00.001-04:00

Towards the end of the Second World War, when the Allies were looking to bomb the hell out of any remaining Nazi strongholds, they decided to fire-bomb Dresden, a German centre of military industry. Not a very proud moment for the RAF and the USAF. This attack, with arguable logistical purposes, killed roughly 30,000 civilians and destroyed most of the city. Keeping the good times rolling, once the war was over, Dresden was taken over by the USSR a half-century or so of Soviet rule.
And this is where we ended up after riding the aimless train away from Berlin, thanks to my stupid mistake. As we were headed for Prague (just a couple hours south of Dresden) we rolled with it and hung out in Dresden, ate the atypical German breakfast of bread, random meat, Nutella, and some dumb cereal, (reminiscent of the two weeks of World Youth Day 2005 in Germany), did some laundry (the first time I had had clean clothes since London), and hopped on another train headed for the Czech Republic.

We found our hostel, Sir Toby's, by 17:00 in Prague after jumping on the tram and, as usual, walking around for a bit. Sir Toby's is in an incredible old building with a huge kitchen and great dorm rooms, with a pub, common area and chapel in the basement. It was, by far, the best hostel we stayed at throughout our travels. Though it may have been a bit of an exaggeration, I later wrote in the guest book that if I had nothing better to do, I could live there for the rest of my life. Meghan and I hung out in the pub the first night and played Scrabble (I won all three games, if you count the first two, which she quit because I was doing too well). Eventually the basement pub filled, and by the end of the night we were into some deep convos with a bunch of Canadians and some Americans who liked to pretend they were Canadian (so they would get treated better in Europe). And then there was some Brazilian dude, but he didn't say much.

After a lot of snoring from our roommate, and apparently some sleep talking about the Canadian Dollar exchange rate from me, we got up the next morning and took off on the tram to tour Prague. We took a bunch of pictures, ate at Subway (again), and then headed up the hill to see the castle and cathedral. When we reached the top the view was incredible. My first reaction was "Wow!" (Meghan's was "Holy shit!"). The trek up the 287 steps of the spiral staircase to the top of the cathedral tower was incredible too. I was all like "Yeah, no big deal" but even after walking around with a back-pack for 2 weeks, that climb was rough. But again, the view was unreal.
After buying my new favorite t-shirt ("Prague: Czech it out"), we headed back for another night at the pub.

We had intended on going out on the town in Prague, but by 3:00am we were still all in the basement (six Canadians, six Americans, five Brits and a Mexican... I don't know where the Brazilian dude was) telling stupid stories and making fun of each other's countries. After sampling the local beer once or twice, and a traditional Czech shot a few times ...and then the local beer a few more times, I was sufficiently uncoordinated. I remember sitting at the computer completely no longer able to type any word in the English language properly.
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Needless to say, the 10:00 check-out time came and went the next morning without myself or Meghan noticing. Eventually we got it together headed for the train station, on our way to Vienna. Ibuprofen is your friend.

Half-Assed and Clueless - Eurotrip 2007: Belgium, Netherlands, and Scandinavia

2007-11-30T09:12:00.000-04:00

One may be interested to know how Bruges came to be included in our travel plans. After spending a day and a night there, I'm still not really sure. And as I am many tourists think when they visit PEI in the winter, I am inclined to ponder: "Who the hell would want to live in Bruges." Not only that, how could 120,000 people simultaneously think: "HEY! You know where I wanna live?! BRUGES! Yeah! In the middle of BELGIUM! Yesssss!"

Don't get me wrong, Bruges is a nice little town with tons of old buildings and quaint little cobblestoned streets (just like every other town and city on the continent) It received its charter as a city on my birthday (July 27th) in 1128 and was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000 (probably because of the aforementioned cobblestone streets and the like).

Quickly becoming our number one activity, we spent the afternoon and evening walking around Bruges, checking out the town and settling for some local cuisine at Pizza Hut. When we got back to the hostel, I destroyed Meghan at Scrabble twice (which would become an on-going theme) and we headed off to bed. On the way out of Bruges the next morning we stopped for some traditional Belgian waffles. Meghan has not shut up about them since.

Amsterdam wasn't too far of a trek from Bruges, but by the time we arrived at our out-of-the-way hostel it was 16:00 and getting dark in the already dreary city. (We were sharing our room with three Spaniards and a Dutchman, half of whom liked to stay up late and take noisy showers, and the other half of whom liked getting up insanely early. It was wonderful.) The hostel was a brand-new hostel with all the amenities of a hotel, a welcome change from some of the dingier accomodations that we had seen.

Ok, so I know that there is a lot of near-hysteria in the mind of any young traveller on their way to Amsterdam. It is almost like a popularly conceived anticipation, which the city works hard to propogate. In my mind, Amsterdam was ok to visit, and even on that note I was a bit tedious about the child-like fervour that it seems to work some travellers into. Aside from the beautiful canals it is a city trying in every which way to be shocking. I don't know if people like it like that, or if it is just an exagerated sense of Western 'LOOK AT ME!' culture. Either way, after spending the night and much of the next day walking around the crowded streets filled with smoke and red lights, I had had enough. Next country.

Well, I guess it was good that I was ready for a change of pace, as the next leg of our journey brought us the Malmo, Sweden. Malmo was nice, but getting there required a train journey back to Brussels, through the night to Hamburg, onto another train to Copenhagnen, then to Malmo. The trip took, by my watch, just under 19 hours. And if you're keeping track, that is 5 countries in one day. Hostels were pretty expensive in Malmo, so we splurged and rented a hotel room for the night. After 19 hours on trains, we napped away much of the next 24, with the bitter cold not being condusive to exploring the city streets. We took some time to walk around Malmo the next day and then hopped back on the train for Copenhagen.

By this point we had not washed clothes since London, had been through seven countries in as many days, and had logged more hours on trains then I cared to count. Weary as I was, we walked around Copenhagen in search of a laundromet for about an hour, realized that none of them were open on Sunday, and with that, I returned to the hostel and collapsed on my bed for a few hours, exhausted and dirty. Meghan tried to pry me from bed to visit a museum, but I would have none of it. By the time she returned, I had effectively re-charged my batteries and we headed out for some local cuisine. This time at the Hard Rock Café.

We once again walked through the streets of Copenhagen the next day to the train station and headed back towards Hamburg with the destination of Berlin. Unfortunately, as we arrived in Berlin that evening, I missed the right stop, figuring we could get off at the next station, closer to our hostel. The 'nest' Berlin station never came, and instead, the train went for another two hours. Southbound on a German train in the middle of the night, no known destination. Fun times.

Half-Assed and Clueless - Eurotrip 2007: Britain and France

2007-11-29T18:51:00.000-04:00

"That will cost about £300."
I stared at her, incredulous.
"Each?" I asked.
"Each."
"Um, we're going to go think about it." I smiled.
Bullshit we were going to go think about it.

We were standing in the middle of London Waterloo train station, trying to get from London to Paris on Eurostar that afternoon. For anyone not up on currency exchanges, £300 is about $617 Canadian.

"So, what do we do now?" asked Meghan, looking at me with eyes of a child looking to a teacher or parent to answer all their questions about the complexities and mysteries of life.
"How the eff should I know?" I thought.
"We´ll figure it out." I said.
And we did. By noon we were Dover-bound, where we would catch a ferry to Calais, and with with luck, catch the last train out of Calais to Lille, and then on to Paris. It was a hectic day, but the beaches of Dover seemed to calm Meghan down quite a bit, and a drink and a good book on the hour and a half crossing to France had a similar effect on me.

Even though we nearly missed the last train of the night in Calais and had to sit around in the train station in Lille for a couple hours, traveling went pretty wel. Pretty well, that is until we started looking for our hostel. See, European cities have this fun little habit of not putting up street signs at each corner, and so a visitor gets to guess which street he or she is on. To make matters worse, the directions that I had were very basic, telling me that the hostel was on a street just off 'Clichy'. And so, in search of the this elusive 'Clichy' we emerged from the 'Place de Clichy' subway station, which, as it turns out, comes out on the intersection of the 'Rue de Clichy', 'Avenue de Clichy', with 'Boulevard de Clichy' interseting about 100m up the street. Further up 'Rue de Clichy' is a side street called 'Passage de Clichy' and further still is the 'Quai de Clichy'. Over the next hour or so my map and I had a few choice words until I threw it away in disgust. Just then a friendly French couple stopped and tried to help. The guy, who had seen the Canadian flags on our backpacks, told us that he had spent some time in Canada (well, just Toronto) and figured he'd give us a hand. He pointed us down one of the Clichys that we had already walked down twice, and by 0:30, we were in our room at the El Dorado Hotel.

Other than being a complete bitch to find, El Dorado was an amazing bohemian four-story hostel on a pituresque Parisien side street, with a colourful victorian staircase, incredible rooms, and the best showers ever. Within a few minutes of arriving, we had already decided to extend our stay by a night.

The next morning (Tuesday), after sleeping a little late, we did the typical tour of Paris, taking in l'Arc de Triumph, and Notre Dame Cathedral in the morning. In the afternoon we discovered that the Louvre is closed on Tuesdays (which I was real thrilled about) and then, of course, we went to take the requisite look at the Eiffel Tower. Once again, jumping from sight to sight almost seemed like we were cheating the city's history and culture, but I slept off the guilt with an evening nap, and then, paying homage to Parisien culture, we had dinner at an unreal restaurant. It was, and remains, one of the best meals I have ever had. With a price to match.

The next day we hopped on a train to Belgium, and as I turned on my camera to check out my pictures form the last few stops, I found out that they were all deleted by a memory card error. Yay! And that pretty much set my mood for that day.

Half-Assed and Clueless - Eurotrip 2007: London

2007-11-27T10:06:00.000-04:00

The trip from Stansted Airport to London was our first introduction to subways in Europe, and it took a little getting used to the set-up of the infamous London Metro. By the time we reached the tube stop closest to out hostel, it was coming on to 19:00. We emerged from the empty station into darkness, and as we got our bearings on our surroundings, it quickly became apparent that we were in the ghetto. Run down houses lined the streets and graffiti decorated the walls of the buildings and abandoned rail cars around us. As we walked down the streets, passing a few shady characters, fireworks exploded in the above and around us, giving the search for the hostel an added sense of urgency.

We walked around for about half an hour, getting lost down dead-ends and on streets I would have rather not travelled. By the end of it, Meghan was none too pleased with being out in a random ghetto of London in the middle of the night. We finally found the 'Bridge Park Hotel', which, as it turned out, was only slightly better than being stuck on an unknown street in a foreign country. Joseph, the Middle Eastern clerk took our info and led us upstairs and through a maze of hallways, passing a few characters that sported the same greasy mullets and strange odours of the randoms on the street. When we arrived at our room, it had none of the amenities that we had been promised, and the window over-looked a garage and an alley, with fireworks popping like gunfire in the background. All she could do was laugh, but by this point Meghan was about ready to ditch the whole European trip thing, and check-in to the nearest hotel for the month. Because we had booked two nights at the Bridge Park Hotel, we left the room (making sure to lock it) and went to search the internet to see if we could or should switch hostels for the next night. As we were sitting there a man off the street ran into the lobby and asked Joseph to call the police. A man was being beaten by some teens outside. We decided against staying a second night.

Like a Hebrew fleeing Egypt or a soldier on the last chopper out of Saigon, we fled the London ghetto the next morning, getting lost a few more times before finding the tube station. Our new home for the night would be Piccadilly Backpackers, which was in downtown London; a few minutes walk from Trafalgar Square. It was an incredible sunny autumn Sunday that greeted us as we emerged from the Piccadilly Circus metro station.

The old stately buildings of downtown London were a welcome change from the crumbling outskirts. As would become common practice on this trip, we walked around and looked at stuff all day, starting with Trafalgar Square, and down the mall to Buckingham Palace and the adjacent park, before heading towards the Thames and Westminster Abby, the Houses of Parliament and the London Eye. After some fish and chips at a local pub, we toured the National Art Gallery. One pattern that began to emerge here was our tendency to only skim the surface of each country by checking out the biggest tourist traps in each country and skimming the surface of culture (leading me to dub the trip as 'Half-Assed and Clueless') but hey, we only have a month. Give us a break. Satisfied that we had seen enough of the city, Meghan gave the now oft-repeated command "Next country!" and so, the next morning, we set off for France.

Half-Assed and Clueless - Eurotrip 2007: The Beginning... and the Republic of Ireland

2007-11-22T13:11:00.000-04:00

I awoke suddenly to an alarm at 4:30am and thrashed around in the dark to silence the beeping. I had been sleeping on a large air mattress between Tory and Winston, two friendly dogs belonging to my sister and her roommate. They stirred slightly, but as I forced myself out of the warm bed, they snuggled back down for a few more hours of sleep. It was Wednesday, October 31st, what was the first day of my trip to Europe. In an hour Meghan, my traveling partner, would pick me up and we would head to Halifax to catch our plane to Washington D.C. with the eventual destination of Dublin, Republic of Ireland. My sister Sheri made me some tea as I showered and bid farewell to me as Meghan pulled up the driveway. The two things going through my mind as I trudged towards the car was "Holy shit it is cold," and "What the hell am I getting myself into?"

Meghan Price is 23-years-old, like me, and works as a nurse in Miramichi, New Brunswick. We met about nine years ago at a conference our parents were attending and have kept in touch off and on ever since. After being frustrated by several plans falling through and by several potential travel partners changing plans, I asked her half joking on MSN one day if she wanted to go to Europe. She immediately thoguht it was a great idea, set about getting leave from work, and so, here we were, at about 5:00 on a cold Halloween morning, driving off to Hali and beyonjd in her beloved Tiburon.

After the usual procedures at Stanfield International and after various jokes about what we should have dressed up as for Halloween (ex. terrorist, tourist), we arrived in Washington D.C. at about 11:30 and headed into the city to see what we could see. Playing the role of tourists well, we walked along Pennsylvania Avenue and saw all the requisite buildings and sights that are comprised in a visit to D.C., Capitol Hill, the Canadian Embassy, George's House, etc. After an eight hour lay-over we boarded an Aer Lingus flight at 20:00 and were off to Dublin. Undersatndably, we were both very tired by this point, but the six and a half hour yielded little rest for either of us. Between the dumb shows on TV and the screaming baby we didn't get much sleep through the night, and so by the time we landed in Ireland, I was pretty damn tired.

We arrived in Dublin at 7:00 Thursday morning and hopped on a bus to head downtown. Under the shroud of over-tiredness I felt a pang of excitement that we were well on our way. Of course we were by now over 24 hours into our trip, and any feelings of excitement were soon over-taken by the severe desire for sleep. We arrived at our hostel at 9:00 so that they could tell us that we would have to wait until 13:00 for our room. Yay. We then made the first mistake of our trip, and ate breakfast at Burger King. They've concocted some kind of sausage burger sandwich, and it is absolutely disgusting. I was, however, satisfied that I was able to exit the restaurant without throwing up, and so off we went to see where our titred feet could carry us before 13:00. The one thing I could see about Dublin right away was that it was exactly what I expected. The row-housing, the multiple pubs, the Irish-looking people. Anyone who has traveled Europe will also tell you of the near overwhelming age of the buildings and communities in comparison to those in North America, and as we wandered around the soaring spires of churches and old castle walls, my interest was at least half peaked.

Once we got back to the hostel, our room was finally ready and we almost immdiately fell asleep for at least six hours. At 20:30 we again made our way into the downtown core and roamed the crowded streets, stopping at a restaurant and a pub.There was a huge mix of people of all languages, whjich surprised me, as I figuring Dublin to be more homogenous, like PEI. As it turns out, Ireland has exploded economically (in a good way) over the past few years, and as a result, the immigrant population has sky-rocketed. Though enthralled by the atmosphere of the streets and the diversity of people crowding them, there was much sleep to catch on, so after a meal and the requisite pint of Guinness, we headed back for our hostel where I snored the night away.

Coming from rural New Brunswick, far away from a metropolitan centre of any kind, Meghan was a bit overwhelmed by the size and intensity of Dublin. That, along with the draw of Blarney Castle and its famous stone prompted us to leave Dublin on Friday and to head for Cork. We caught the free breakfast at the hostel and then walked along the Leffey River through Dublin to the train station (just adjacent to the 250-year old, 64-acre Guinness Brewery). We got our Eurail Passes validated, picked up a couple post cards, and got on the train... just in time to see the last seat taken. We had the pleasure of sitting on the floor beside the bathroom, between a baby carriage and some garbage for much of the three-hour journey, but once an entire troupe of girls and their over-enthusiatic mothers (living vicariously through their daughters) got off to compete in a dance competition, we found ourselves sharing an entire car between ourselves and a young mother with her toddler. She was very kind and candid and through our conversation, gave us a bunch of tips on what to see and what to avoid in Ireland and London, and told us several stories about her life living in the area.

Cork, on the south shore of the island, is the second largest city in Ireland, and yes, was where Peter Petrelli was found in a freight container in the first episode of 'Heroes' this season. Cork was another beautiful town with tons of old buildings, blah blah blah, and such. Hoping to have the same luck with dinner as we had had the night before, we walked around looking for a restaurant, but after along fruitless search, Meghan ended up eating at McDonald's as I sat there watching, wishing I could find decent bowl of soup somewhere. (As an extended note, Meghan is absolutely obsessed with McDonald's and will sometimes go on little rants on the merits of chicken burgers vs. double cheese burgers. - ex. "Sometimes when I can't decide, I just get both." - Myself, on the other hand, not being keen on fast food to begin with and having just read a book on the industry, am about ready to give up processed food for good). When we got back to the hostel, Meghan took off for bed, and I sat downstairs in the bar, worked through our itinerary and travel plans for the next few days, and tried some 'Murphy's' (the local equivalent to Guinness). It was very good.

The next morning (Saturday), we headed off to Blarney Castle (a 600 year old fortification in Cork County), walked around the castle grounds, which were super cool, and kissed the Blarney Stone, which was super disgusting. (I was impressed that I didn't catch any major diseases, although it is possible that it is just dormant.) We stopped into a pub in Blarney before hopping on the bus back into town, and I finally got my bowl of soup. (Along with another pint of Murphy's).

We caught the bus back to Cork with a bunch of 30-something rowdy women celebrating a stagette or something, and then took another bus to the Cork Airport for our RyanAir flight to London. After another few hours of sitting around and waiting, we boarded the no-frills flight and bore the wrath of flying on the cheap for the next couple hours. The lethary of jet lag was still bearing down on us as we arrived in London that evening, but we felt ready for anything. Little did we know what awaited us in London at the now-legendary Bridge Park Hotel.

Patty and Eugene Do UPEI: Episode 6

2007-09-14T09:07:00.000-03:00

Coming on the end of the school year, St. Patrick's Day hits UPEI, and it's time to party. Patty finally convinces Eugene to accompany him to The Wave, UPEI's campus pub to celebrate, but not before Eugene gets a few pointers from Derek on how to be a smooth operator.
After appearing in four videos about UPEI and six episodes of this, their very own mini-series, 'Patty and Eugene Do UPEI - Episode 6: The Hair Flip' is the final installment of the adventures of Patty and Eugene. Eugene insists that he will keep in touch with all of the loyal fans of this series. Patty says he doesn't really give a $#&!, and that he is going to The Wave to get "blitzed, and [he doesn't] care that he and Eugene aren't roommates anymore and [he is] glad that they aren't and life will be so much easier without a caring friend looking out for [him]."

Click To Play

A High School Graduate - Five Years Later

2007-08-27T18:38:00.000-03:00

June 24th, 2002

Greetings fellow Graduates. Finally, after twelve years of countless tests, projects, and exams, after a lot of bus rides and way too many Monday mornings, we are done. After tonight, no one can force you to write about aerobic respiration, or to tell them where Yugoslavia is, ever again. Our compulsory education is over, and while this is exciting, we must also remember that these are our last moments together as a class. Though you will see many of your friends and classmates over the next couple of years, it is unlikely that we will ever completely assemble as a class again. All of you in front of me here, will, after tonight, take different paths and follow different dreams. As we move on and, consequently grow apart, we will no longer be together at, nor connected by, the physical building of Bluefield. However, we will always have our experiences from our time at the Blue, both good and bad, all have which have hopefully made us better people and stronger individuals. My three years at Bluefield, and I'm sure many of you can say the same, were among the best three years of my life. Every day was an adventure, and meeting each one of you was an honour.

As relieved as we are to be free, our freedom from scholarly responsibilities will come at the cost of having to leave behind the best High School on Prince Edward Island. I'm sure many of you won't see a problem with having to leave behind the overcrowded cafeteria or the smell of manure in the morning, but Bluefield for us was not only a school, but also a community. A community where we worked and laughed and studied and played much of the past three years away. From this point on we will move onto new communities, as we move out into the world and find our own places in it. Whether that place be at university or college, in law offices or in hospitals. Maybe at a farm, or in a bank or at a church, maybe at Burger King, or, God forbid, maybe back in Mr. Cameron's good old Math 621, once again learning the intricacies of trig and logs and sigma notation. Wherever you find yourself, we all have the common education of Bluefield, where, if nothing else, we have learned to work hard, and to have fun.

Many of us have also experienced loss and pain along with our great memories. Many students lost parents or guardians, relatives and friends while at Bluefield, and we as a class lost a great classmate and friend who would've been sitting with us here tonight, but, I am sure, is watching from above. I think the community at Bluefield, the friends who were beside us through both highs and lows and everything in between, were always there for us when we needed it. High Scholl presents many obstacles for students, and the people of Bluefield, especially this class, helped make transitions at least a little easier. Twenty years from now, it won't be the falls we remember, but the friends around us that picked us back up.

Graduates, look around you. This will probably be your last chance to ever see all these brilliant faces in one place again. Chances are you have gotten to know most of these students around you over the past few years. In three short years, these strangers have become teammates, allies, and friends. Whether you played on a team, went on a trip, or whether you just attended some classes or parties with them, all have become familiar faces and the memory of these people will be with you for years to come.

Behind your brilliantly smiling faces of course, there are our families. We owe a huge mount of gratitude to our parents and guardians, whom we didn't, and don't always listen to, agree with, or obey, yet whom we have always respected. They were there on the first day we went out the door with our new Ninja Turtle or Barbie lunch boxes, and stand behind us still, relentlessly pushing, but always offering support. Brothers and sisters were there too. Whether scribbling on our homework, stealing our clothes, or just beating us up, they supported us in their own little way.

Also, to our teachers, who provided direction and guidance, or at least comic relief, throughout our High School lives. Thank you for a world of knowledge, even if we choose not to use it. Mr. Coady, even though you explained it very well, I'm still under the impression that when using the Chain Rule and Power Rule, that they are the... SAME. And I'm sorry Ms. Gillan, but most of us will not remember what the mercantile objective of the Hudson's Bay Company was, nor recall, Mrs. MacDonald, the symbolic and complex differences between Greek and Elizabethan theatre. But I will always remember some of our discussions, about everything from weather to the playoffs, from politics to who was getting kicked off Survivor next. Hopefully the educational tools you have armed us with will stay with us and propel us to new heights, but if not, we have awesome memories, and your guidance and insight was appreciated.
...And stay in your seats until I'm done.

Graduates, through our interactions and experiences together at Bluefield, we have been forever shaped into the individuals we are now. We leave behind out High School tonight with not only enlightened minds, but also with incredible memories. Mostly good, memories made with friends and classmates, and all looked upon with some nostalgia, and with some relief, but also with the hope that someday, we will see each one of our classmates again. Tonight the separation is real. For the first time I'm beginning to realize that these certificates mean that next Fall, the big yellow bus won't be waiting for me at the end of my driveway. Tonight we leave it all behind: The fantastic yellow lockers and the greasy pizza. The Blue Cross Relay and Oktoberfest. The excitement of the Electric Circus dance and the glamour of the Christmas dance. Our contaminated water and explosive sewer system. Chicken Match and ball hockey playoffs. Cramming for exams and playing cards in the cafeteria. Field parties and the now illegal Bluefield Midnight Movies. Band trips, rugby victories, field hockey champions. Soccer with Mr. Steele, Des's riveting lectures on isotopes, Mrs. Blanchard's analogies, Ms. Gillan's debates, and Mrs. MacArthur's proud tradition of 'To Kill A Mockingbird' every semester since 1978.
And of course, tonight we leave behind the proud, the strong, and the mighty, Bobcats.

Before we do leave tonight, I want to share some insight and thoughts for our future. First of all:
You only live once. So live each day of your life with nothing undone, nothing unsaid, and leave no regrets.
Gandhi once said: "There is more to life than increasing its speed." So take time to stop and reflect, or just to have a good time.
I'm not sure exactly what he meant by it, but in his eternal wisdom, Des Murphy was once quoted as saying: "Life is a series of polymers," and that "We're all heterogeneous mixtures."
"The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall." - Nelson Mandela. Always remember to never give up, to never give in, and that it's better to lose than know that you never tried at all.
And finally, on the path of life, "Always keep your crayons sharpened, your sticky tape untangled, and always put the caps back on your markers." - Mr. Dress-Up

Tonight fellow Graduates, Class of 2002, we leave Bluefield tonight to pursue higher learning, and to join other schools and companies and institutions. But no matter where we go, I, for one, will always be proud to be a Bobcat.

After tonight, we will move on ahead, expanding our horizons. Sadly, some of us will lose touch, but best friends are forever. And though I may never see you again, everyday, when I look back at my three years at Bluefield, I will remember something about you. A smile, a joke, your friendship, and you will always be there: in my mind, and in my heart, back at the Blue.

Cheers Bluefield.

Thank You.

The Dominican Republic Faith and Justice Experience 2007: Day Seven

2007-06-16T02:19:00.000-03:00

Day Seven was intended to be spent in the mountains, but as a result of our premature descent, there was little else to do than prepare for the next day. On Day Eight, we were to embark to cities and villages all across the Dominican Republic to spend a week and a half with Dominican families and communities. After a group exercise we all went off to do our own thing, write in journals, sit around in the sun, pack, play cards, etc.
Five of us, however, drove to the Canadian Embassy in Santo Domingo, so we could cast our vote for the upcoming PEI Provincial Election. Now anyone who knows what a geek I am would somewhat understand how pumped I would be to go to a Canadian Embassy in a foreign country. I didn't even care that it was a small-ish building, an English/French bilingual service sign, a Canadian flag, a recruiting poster for the RCMP; I was home.
To back up a little, our ride into the city was quite different from any other previous. Usually as a group we would travel in a 15-passenger, air-conditioned van, but today, we had a 4-passenger truck, meaning 2 of us travelled in the back of the truck. The heat and sun are the first obvious differences to riding outside a vehicle in the Dominican, as are the whistles, waves, and above all, the lingering stares from the thousands of people we passed. After one week in this foreign country some of the different or once shocking things were already fading into the background: the sight and smell of pollution, the scores of street vendors at every intersection, horses in the middle of bumper to bumper traffic, live chickens on the backs of mopeds and motor cycles. But I continued to be constantly reminded of cultural cleavages that existed both between social classes, and between this country and our own. As we headed back to the centre we stopped at a gas station; arguably THE symbol of Western power, and while walking through the air-conditioned, security-protected store therein, I could see in the distance the shacks and sheds of a poor barrio crowded on the side of a mountain. No better analogy could illustrate the the contrast between the first and third world than in this physical proximity between wealth and poverty.
That night we were asked to think about the trip thus far and to write down a few things that we were touched by thus far. I'm not usually big on soul-searching exercises, but as I sat down to think up some acceptable answers, it was evident that we had seen a lot more positive initiatives than I had anticipated. Micro-credits helping out the empoverished in poor barrios, youth teaching their peers about HIV/AIDS, the building of schools in the batays, community re-investment by the coffee assocation, the youth street home getting kids off the street and on their feet. As we were given our marching orders for the next and told about where we would be living for the next ten days in various locations around the country, it honestly seemed like we had been there for far longer and learned far more than I had expected to over the course of the entire experience. I don't remember what time I got to bed that night, but I know that by the end of the next day, culture shock had me in bed by 9:00pm. Stay tuned.

The Dominican Republic Faith and Justice Experience 2007: Day Six

2007-06-14T15:13:00.000-03:00

While most of our days had begun by traveling into Santo Domingo and surrounding areas, today we started our morning by heading into the mountains to the North-West of San Cristobal, to the community of Los Cacaos. There we were to meet with people from La Esperanza, a coffee-growers' association, and be billeted with a local family for the night, before trekking up a mountain trail near the village. In two days we would be placed with families in different communities across the country for a week and a half, and this one-night billet would be a chance for all of us to get our feet wet in Dominican culture.
The journey up the mountain was a couple hours long, up a windy road around steep curves, often feet from the edge of plunging cliffs. As we moved further into the mountains, the vista over-looking the surrounding valleys became more and more magnificent, with greenery flowing out into the distance, back dropped by the staggered peaks of mountains on the horizon.
I was astounded by the infrastructure in this incredibly remote area of the country, the roads were well-maintained, and an intricate system of rock and mortar ditches winded along with the road, while stone retaining walls held back erosion. Periodically we would pass groups of men working on the ditches and walls, collecting stones, building new sections, and repairing damage. It was evident that this was an on-going project, and that there was a constant and concerted effort to maintain this path into the wilderness in the best possible condition. And for good reason too. In 1979, Hurricane David, a Category 5 hurricane, ripped through the Dominican Republic, wreaking havoc and killing close to 2000 people. In this region, where coffee is the main industry, communities were devastated. This road was rendered impassable by the torrential rains that accompanied the storm and by thousands of felled trees, cutting off Los Cacaos from the world. A group of citizens from the community were forced to make the same trek we were now, on foot, to reach civilization and to get aid air-lifted into the village. Re-building efforts took an understandably long time, but for the coffee industry, recovery would take years.
This is where La Esperenza comes in. A group of young people gathered together shortly after the disaster, trying to pool together the resources to develop a coffee collective in the Los Cacaos area. Through the years, while facing the challenges of building a sustainable business model and sporadic lulls in the coffee market, the association developed their product, accreditation, and processing facility to the point that today there are nearly 900 members of the collective.
Aside from fostering an evolving operation, the association has begun to put resources towards supporting the community. Scholarships established by the group allow for capable students to attain post-secondary education, whether in the Dominican Republic or abroad in Cuba or Costa Rica. The hope is that these students will someday return to carry on growth and help re-vitalize their small and remote community. As the collective recognizes how taxing the cultivation of coffee and other agricultural processes can have on the environment, they are working to diversify the industrial base of the economy, and putting research and resources towards ecological preservation and tourism. From a progressive business perspective, their goals are to promote the Fair Trade brand, and to begin exporting more of their product.
As we ended our meeting with the management group of La Esperanza, I was stunned. Coming from PEI, where we are constantly wringing our hands worrying about the sustainability of communities and watching youth fly off out West or to the States to find new jobs; it was incredible to see a small community in the middle of the mountains of a developing country creating solutions to their own problems. This wasn't a rich business venture propped up by government; it was a small community effort, for the people and by the people, quite literally built out of the ashes, from the ground up. I lauded the group who presented to us about their company, some of them who had been there from the beginning, telling them that their passion and awareness was encouraging, and that I wished the people back home were as proactive and passionate about their communities as the people of Los Cacaos obviously were. The La Esperenza experience in Los Cacaos is a prime example of a small community creating and filling a need. It was certainly light years away from Polar Foods anyway.
After some more rice and beans, we toured the coffee processing facility where the beans were dried, roasted, separated, and packaged. In a room just off the main road through the village, women were seated at tables sorting through the beans, separating the 'good', basically beans with no blemishes or discolouration, from the 'bad' beans (those possessing the aforementioned defects). Seemed simple enough: sit around and sort beans. Wicked. So we sat down to try it out, and other than turning to the woman next to me to confirm if a bean was good or bad every 26 seconds, it was about as exciting as my days packing diagnostic kits at Diagnostic Chemicals. We sat there for about half an hour, and between the 8 of us, logged about a quarter crate, thus about a quarter box for a collective 2 hours. The women, we were told, could fill a crate in about the same amount of time. Of course instead of wandering in and messing around with a pile of beans for half an hour, most of them work 8 or 9 hour days, some of them doing the same thing everyday for the better part of the past few decades.
Our trip into the mountains was cut short at that point. The son of one of the Administrators had been in a motorcycle accident early that afternoon, and as we were sorting beans, the news arrived that he had since died from his injuries. The townspeople were obviously upset as we thanked our hosts and offered our condolences and piled in the van for a long and silent trip back down to San Cristobal. It was an abrupt and disappointing end to our excursion into the mountains, but it was clear that this community, so accustomed to coming together to face adversity, would be totally focused on embracing the family and friends of the young man, and they sure as hell didn't need a bunch of Canadian on-lookers wandering and gawking around.
Instead, some cheer-up ice cream and a trip to the call centre to call home marked the end of our day.

Patty and Eugene Do UPEI: Episode 5

2007-06-14T15:08:00.000-03:00

After nearly six weeks of no Patty & Eugene to entertain you, the newest installment of everyone's favorite campus duo is back. Episode 5: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun comes in at a whopping 15 minutes of pure Patty and Eugene entertainment.

Click To Play

The Dominican Republic Faith and Justice Experience 2007: Day Five

2007-06-12T10:56:00.000-03:00

The wake-up call came 5:30am on Day Five, sparing me the joy of being awoken by the melody of the barking and crowing from the neighborhood animals. After a carb-orific breakfast of bread and cream of wheat (which I loved, but several others definitely did not), we were off to Santo Domingo for Sunday morning Mass. While one would expect a two and a half hour church service (with a pause of about 45 minutes to allow for the Baptism of about 70 parishioners) in a foreign language to be incredibly boring, the phenomenal music ministry made it seem like a concert, party, and celebration all at once. (And it certainly wasn't the longest Mass I've sat through, at World Youth Day in Germany in 2005 Mass was in German, and then had to be translated into English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian.)
One may also expect that in a country where poverty is rampant, that our group would be the best dressed of the bunch in the church. Not so. All of the parishioners were dressed to the nines, hair done, dresses, shirt and ties, sometimes full suits (which seemed a bit much on a hot Sunday morning). Meanwhile the tired looking 13 Canadians were sweating profusely, hair looking about as good as you'd expect after several days without proper care, and were sporting whatever wrinkled garb remained clean from our luggage. My bright green John Deere t-shirt, grey manpris, and hiking boots didn't quite cut it.
Afterwards, we gathered with the youth from the parish, ate some bananas (they're big on bananas down there), and ran through some random Ice Breakers and then showed us around their community. Seeing as this was our first opportunity to interact with some Dominicans that were our age, we were pretty much instant BFFs. As we made our way around the community, you would've seen us all laughing at each other and ourselves as we attempted to break down the language barriers. We hugged and waved bye as if we had known them for years instead of the better part of an hour, and jumped in the van, chewing on our new addiction; sugar cane.
On the way to the Casa de la Juventud (Youth Program for the Arch-Diocese), and in between us laughing our asses off while relating stories of home and doing impressions from Anchorman and MadTV, Cathy told us about the subway that they were building through the centre of Santo Domingo. As we drove, gaping holes were visible right through the centre of Av. Maximo Gomez, a major north-south thoroughfare of the city. Cathy related how many different contractors had been awarded tenders to build the metro, each allotted a couple hundred meters of the project. Without a whole lot of imagination, one could easily imagine the inconsistencies and costs that this could present to the project. Further to this, no compensation was afforded to the businesses along this main artery of the city to offset the consequences of the dwindling traffic as a result of the construction. Bankruptcies and closures were now commonplace along Maximo Gomez, adding to the mounting opposition to the costly project. In a country where we had seen crippling poverty and social services in dire need of attention, it seems the government may be in need of a priority shift. That, of course, will at least in part be up to the electorate in next year's Presidential election, for which there are already billboards erected everywhere across the country.
After a tour of the Casa de la Juventud, which is the centre for administration and planning of Youth programming, we moved on to Yo También, a home for street kids. This home was run by volunteers of the Arch-Diocese Youth Ministry, and provides shelter for boys of all ages, as well as an opportunity for education and training before they adulthood. Coming from a family that used to take care of Foster children, I could only imagine the backgrounds each child came from as we went around the circle and introduced ourselves. Several were scarcely 10, but the age many of them wore in their attitude and posture was much more advanced than that. After introductions and explanations about how the home operated, we ate together in the dining room. Having seen the basketball court outside, Kurtiss scarfed down his rice and beans and hurriedly pumped up the basketball that he had brought for the kids there. The deadened eyes that had been bored throughout the introductions suddenly came alive with excitement as we took to the court in the blistering sun for some 4-on-4. Now being 6'2", I am doomed for the rest of my life to be asked whether I play basketball, and when I answer no, "Well why not? You're so tall!" Well, I don't play basketball because I suck. Yeah, I ran around the court and tried to make a couple plays, but after a few laughing fits at my expense, I retired to the shade. Kurt, however, being the borderline pro that he is, played until he had schooled every opponent and his clothes were soaked with sweat.
We gathered once again as a group to hear more about how the home operated and what type of schedules the boys abided by. The most effective feature, in my mind, was the fact that the directors of the home themselves were in their twenties and thirties, and therefore young enough to relate to the youth and to be considered somewhat "cool" in their eyes. Despite the tough facade and the joking back and forth, one director told us that their primary modus operandi was love. A boy named Johnny pulled out a guitar and played a few of his own songs. He was unreal, and each time a song ended, the room erupted into raucous applause. That being the Dominican contribution to the gathering, Kelsey stepped it up with tap-dancing, of all things. While I rolled my eyes, half of the young boys stared intently at her tap shoes, wondering where the noise was coming from, while the other half stared at Kelsey's hair, wondering if it was going to jump off her head and attack someone (This is kind of an inside joke, but you'd probably understand if you have ever seen her hair. For those of you who have not, imagine a lion's mane. Then multiply it by 12 and tangle it all together in a disorganized heap. That would be Kelsey's hair. On a good day.)
After we all got up and made an attempt at step dance, we had the opportunity to talk with the kids and take some time to get to know them. Kurtiss took to the basketball court again, Kady and Amy played guitar and sang with Johnny, and a few boys dragged Kelsey over to teach her how to 'really' dance. Everyone from the group has their own story of that afternoon, but we all really enjoyed the chance to actually spend some time with them, rather than just sitting around in a circle and boring them to death.
When we left, some people exchanged gifts, a young boy named Samuel taught me a new handshake, and Kurt posed for a pic with the guys on the basketball court. And as the van pulled away amid cheers of "Gringo!" and "Marry me!" (I think that was directed at the girls), we were all smiling ridiculously wide, goofy smiles.
We spent the balance of the afternoon along the Malecon Libre (basically a boardwalk or promenade) in Santo Domingo. Being a Sunday, families were out and a mini relay of some sort was being run along the Autopista 30 de Mayo. The City has a habit of naming streets after important dates and after prominent foreigners. In fact, the 30 de Mayo used to be a part of George Washington Avenue (There are also streets named for John F. Kennedy, Winston Churchill, Jonas Salk, etc.), but was renamed after the brutal dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo was gunned down along that stretch of highway in 1961.
Now a haven for tourists and dotted with hotels, bars, and shops, we were given a couple hours to see the sights and to relax. Kurtiss, Debbie, and I found the nearest bar, a few Presidente beers, and spent the time chatting, laughing, and watching the world pass us by. The perfect ending to what had been, by far, our best day to date in the Dominican Republic.

The Dominican Republic Faith and Justice Experience 2007: Day Four

2007-06-11T19:41:00.000-03:00

I wasn't exactly sure what to expect in visiting a Dominican Hospital, my limited visual indications of what to expect being from movies or TV shows. I was pleasantly surprised to find the facility that we toured on Day Four, The Robert Reid Cabral Children's Hospital; to be quite modern, and while Debbie (she's a nurse) had a few questions and concerns, for the most part, it was clean, well maintained and well staffed. As it turns out, the First Lady of the Dominican Republic had thus taken a special interest in that particular hospital after a tour of her own, and money had been earmarked to ensure that it was re-fitted and renovated properly to respond to current needs and specifications.
We toured several areas of the hospital, seeing children of all ages in all stages of treatment, from newborns to adolescent youth and everything in between. As one would expect, there were several kids bawling their eyes out as they were injected with needles or intravenous, others quietly slept in hospital beds or played busily with toys while hooked up to dialysis machines or respirators. Every child, whether crying, snoozing, babbling, etc. was accompanied by their parent, usually their mother, and each of them wore on their face and in their eyes the concern on their mind and the hope in their heart.
It was honestly difficult for me to walk through each room and see the children sitting with their parents, each struck by some disease or affliction, without averting my eyes and hurrying my pace out of the room. After four days in the DR, I was struggling with the feeling that these people saw me as nothing more than a tourist, someone coming to simply consume their poverty and pain, only to fly off back to my home of comfort after a brief stay. There is no comfort in admitting your own child into a hospital, though these families were lucky to be able to do so. And as heart wrenching as it was to watch children in pain while their parents looked on, there was little consolation in knowing that in leaving the hospital many of these children would return to the impoverished streets and communities that we had already seen. My glances into their eyes, as a result, remained brief and sheepish.
The highlight of our visit to this hospital for me was in touring the feeding area where newborns were being fed by their mothers. A new mother was bursting with pride as we entered, showing off her three-day old daughter, already sporting a full head of jet-black hair. When she told me how old her child was, I exclaimed to the rest of the group that she was precisely the same age as Madelyn Elizabeth, Jason and Steph's daughter, who had been born with hours of our departure from Canada.
As we moved back toward the entrance, we were shown the newly renovated kitchen that rivaled any in size or caliber that I have ever seen in Canada. It was a final example of progress being made, but also that great change could be initiated simply through a single act of political will. At the same time, while the children at this hospital received excellent care and benefited from the use of state-of-the-art equipment, if work was just beginning at this central hospital, it also suggested that there is more work to be done. This was in the centre of Santo Domingo, and while this hospital served a large area, this is a country of nearly 9 million residents, with many spread out in rural and remote areas.
The importance of this one hospital is reflected in the fact that while one entire floor is currently under renovation, the remainder of the hospital remains in operation, as there is simply no other facility capable of taking on its day-to-day operations. The progress being made was encouraging, but there were many indications that we would see in our own communities, that many Dominicans aren't able to seek proper medical attention, allowing for the worsening of what would otherwise be easily curable afflictions.
After briefly visiting a public session on HIV and AIDS put on by a NGO that works to support Dominican-Haitian women, we headed back towards the Santo Domingo Airport, near Boca Chica, where, off the main highway, we drove slowly down a dusty and bumpy trail between fields of sugar cane for what seemed like forever until we arrived at a collection of houses, clustered in what was, quite literally, the middle of nowhere. This community was built around the sugar cane fields, and the poverty we witnessed in this 'batey' was beyond anything I have ever witnessed or would care to witness again. As we walked among decrepit houses, a curious group of barefoot children followed our group from building to building, gnawing hungrily on mangoes from the trees above. Our host pointed out the single-rooms in which entire families lived, the pair of out-houses that serviced the entire community, the small pipe that served as running water for everyone who lived there. An elderly man on a wheel chair peered at us suspiciously before struggling to get back in his shack, out of sight. Another man in his fifties returning from the fields stopped and talked to us for awhile, telling us that someone had been burning the fields and destroying the crops. Apparently not fazed by the development, he smiled a toothless grin and nonchalantly swung the machete in his hand as he walked to his hut.
The workers in the sugar cane fields do not own their own land, and so, as is wont to happen in any like situation, they are at the mercy of the companies that employ them and to the markets that determine prices of the cane they produce. The result is extreme poverty, leaving the people to work on developing gardens and maintaining livestock, although at some points in the year, there is nothing to eat but the sugar cane from the fields or the mangoes that fall from the trees when they are in season. Obviously struck by the extreme conditions we were witnessing, a member of our group was prompted to ask our host: "What brings you joy?" The young woman named Natasha who had been escorting us from house to house and to the community's place of worship where we now sat, smiled her beautiful smile and told us that watching her children grow and having hope for their future brought her joy. I have never been as humbled as I was in that one moment.
Here too however, amidst the poorest of poor, there are signs of progress. A school that boasts attendance of over a hundred children of all ages stands at the edge of the community. The walls inside are lined with what you would see in any classroom, the alphabet, a map, a flag, and the names of each student. The teacher told us briefly about the instruction of the youth and of how they could move on to High School at communities further down the road. As Natasha had expressed, it seemed there was indeed hope for her five children and the others in the community to begin the process of ending the cycle of poverty in their community.
As we headed back to our van, the group gathered for a picture with our host and with the children of the community. I snapped the picture and then showed the image on the digital display to the children. As they realized what I was showing them, they were absolutely thrilled, flocking around me, nearly knocking me off my feet and tearing the camera from my hands as they pointed to themselves in the picture. It was almost a relief to be able to make them giggle and just be children in a place that seemed so forbidding. Children lose their innocence young here, and are often sent to the field before they ever get the chance to finish school. The path out of poverty for these communities will be a long-term battle, and the burdens and obstacles facing these children seem huge, almost insurmountable, but in that moment, they were just children.

The Dominican Republic Faith and Justice Experience 2007: Day Three

2007-06-11T10:19:00.000-03:00

It seems that after three days events and routines that once seemed mundane become habitual. This rule was no different during our stay in the Dominican; crazy traffic jams, annoyingly loud roosters, stares from randoms on the street were now as normal and commonplace as red soil is to Islanders. Even the habits of the group, Kelsey's near-narcoleptic sleeping tendencies, Kurt's t-shirt/do-rag, Debbie's frequent bathroom breaks, became, while perhaps not normal, at least familiar tendencies.
After breakfast at the Centre, we headed back into Santo Domingo for the day. We began the morning at INTEC, a University within the Capital, for a discussion on Gender Issues. The talk covered areas of concern for Dominicans, most specifically within poorer communities of the country where sexual and physical abuse are rampant problems, exacerbated by high levels of HIV and AIDS. Worse, in the minds of many, this domestic abuse is considered the business of the household and of no one else. The abuse endured by many people within the country is absolutely atrocious, and stories were related to us about spouses who had their hands cut off, acid thrown in their faces, or whom were murdered, often for little or no reason. While the two hours spent on this topic were certainly enlightening to the plight facing the country in terms of domestic violence, it was difficult for me to remain focused on the issues at hand. When any type of domestic abuse comes up in discussion it often turns into a generalizing and man-bashing fiesta, which in my opinion is totally counter-productive. Violence is a societal problem and thus requires a society-wide solution. It is crucial that everyone be included in working against cultural and political beliefs that allow for it to continue. This will not be accomplished so long as narrow opinions and ideologies continue to characterize and generalize all men as the source of the problem. As soon as discussions attempt to make me feel ashamed for being a man, my interest checks out.
Following a short tour of the INTEC Gender Studies Department, we traveled to the Botanical Gardens, where lunch and a tour allowed us to re-charge and to take some time among the trees and ponds to process some of what we had heard and seen over the past couple days. Indeed, after several tours and sessions, it was beginning to seem that a myriad of insurmountable obstacles faced this developing country. Every facet of society that we had seen contained a plethora of issues and problems, and solutions seemed few and far between. Our visit that afternoon would be the first ray of hope that we would see in the work of Dominicans to build a better society.
In a poor barrio outside of the city, we rolled through dusty and dry streets, lined with poorly constructed houses, with mangy dogs on their last leg staggering around, and infants happily playing wearing nothing but a smile. We were headed for a school in this community where students had organized and coordinated a day-long session on AIDS and HIV for their peers and classmates. When we arrived, we sat down across from the room from them and introduced ourselves before they began to barrage us with questions. While the laughter and joy of these children was exhilarating enough in this, our first direct contact as a group with Dominicans, there were also two very important undercurrents to remember. First of all, these were kids teaching other kids about the hazards of unprotected sex in a country over-run by sexually transmitted diseases. As many are aware, it is both incredibly daunting and empowering for youth to take on such a task and succeed. The fact that youth had taken such a strong interest in this issue and recognized it as important enough to devote time and effort to was commendable. Second, while the community surrounding this building was falling apart in many ways, this school was well established. As we would see over the coming weeks, schools are one institution that even the smallest of the small and poorest of the poor communities contained. It seems somewhat cliché to mention the ancient adage 'scientia est potentia' (knowledge is power), but in the development of this country and in the throwing off of the chains of poverty, I see little that is more important than this advancement of education.
It was a brief and exhilarating encounter, but within those 30 minutes spent at the school, coupled with the work of the micro-credit NGO the day before, I began to see the parts of the puzzle coming together, the first signs of stepping-stones out of the mire of poverty and injustice.
We made it back to the Centre considerably early, and used the additional time to decompress with a game of Frisbee down at the community baseball field. While some of the children who flocked to us as we began to play had a bit of a rough time throwing the Frisbee for the first time, and others seemed hell-bent on beating the sense out of each other for a turn with it, the smiles on their faces seemed to indicate it was all a welcome escape from everyday monotony. When we left the field to return for supper, we got some pics with the incredibly cute kids and told them in our broken Spanish that it was great to meet them. Except that little punk that stole my Frisbee.

The Dominican Republic Faith and Justice Experience 2007: Day Two

2007-06-09T12:30:00.000-03:00

Awoken by a melody of crowing roosters, barking dogs, and passing street venders blaring their horns, I dragged myself out of my bunk, checked the floor for bugs before stepping down, and had my first of many cold showers.
One cultural nuance left me a bit amiss my whole time in the hot southern country, and that was everyone's tendency to always pants. On PEI, at the first sight of spring (any day after February that is above 3 degrees), people are done with pants until the cold winds of November. I therefore expected Dominicans, who endure temperatures in excess of 40 and 50 degrees to opt for shorts (or 'short pants', as my father calls them.) Instead, shorts are frowned upon, even strictly prohibited in many areas. Not wanting to die in the heat, Kurtiss and I, the only two guys on the trip, opted instead for 'manpris'. Laugh if you will, but would far rather be called metrosexual (as I was many times) then to slowly roast in jeans.
After a hearty Dominican breakfast, we headed off to Santo Domingo for the day, about 45 minutes to an hour from our Centre, depending on traffic. I need not repeat the state of traffic as covered in my initial post, but our first foray into morning traffic gave us a whole new respect for the car horn. Our first couple experiences of crossing multiple lines of on-coming traffic made for a few nervous passengers and generated a fair number of yelps, mostly out of Christine.
Our day consisted of touring some areas of the city where more wealthy residents lived, impressive houses that rival anything here on the Island, several guarded by an assortment of attack dogs and men carrying massive shot guns. This was starkly contrasted by the heaps of houses crowded onto the hillsides that we would visit later that afternoon.
In the late a.m. we had a walking tour of the Colonial Zone of Santo Domingo. The Zone is a designated UNESCO World Heritage site, and for good reason. As the landing point of Christopher Columbus in the New World in 1492, and established in 1496, it is the oldest European city in the Americas. It is also heavily steeped in history, starting from the Spanish conquering and decimation of the aboriginal population, the enslavement of Africans, and the military involvement of several conquering nations, from Spain to France, Britain, to the United States.
Our afternoon included visiting an NGO that works with poorer entrepreneurs and small business owners, primarily women, in helping them get back on their feet by means of low interest loans, educational seminars, and support. After speaking with some workers within this organization, we went for a tour of a poor barrio (community) to visit some of the entrepreneurs they had aided. This walk-through was our first immersion into the poverty on the streets. It was tempting to focus on the children who were incredibly cute and very excited at the novelty of having white people in their community, but there was a lot more to mentally process in this single experience.
The houses were built on a steep incline, sometimes a 45-degree angle, and were of simple construction; mostly cinder blocks and corrugated metal roofs. The narrow streets and stairways were filled with people, and though there was a lot of garbage, filth, and poverty surrounding us, another presence was clearly evident, and that was the sheer vibrancy of this community. Though they had very little, the people we visited were fiercely proud of their accomplishments and their homes. It was slightly humbling; these weren't people that wanted us to come build their houses, indeed, they had built their own houses and businesses from the ground up, brick-by-brick, wall-by-wall. They wanted only to share their story of successes, the pride in their families, and their hopes for the future. It was also light years away from our Island home, only about 6 hours away as the jumbo jet flies, where people were no doubt going about their lives a usual in our suburban, fenced-in lives of isolationist luxury. On the way back to the Centre I realized that in this, my first day in the DR, I had discovered many of the things I expected: poverty and an extreme shortage of what we would call essential services, but also something I did not expect, an aspect of society within that poor barrio that I envied: true community.
It had been an exhausting and ridiculously hot day. By 10:00pm I was snoring loudly from my bunk, much to the chagrin of Kurtiss, my roommate.

The Dominican Republic Faith and Justice Experience 2007: Day One

2007-06-08T14:27:00.000-03:00

With the Provincial Leaders' Debate that I helped coordinate at UPEI over with at about 9:00pm on Tuesday May 15th, I headed home to pack and prepare for our three-week trip to the Dominican. It was a rather daunting task, but with an incredibly busy week under my belt, I was more concerned that I was about to embark on a 15-hour journey to San Cristobel, Dominican Republic, having only had about 6 hours of sleep in the previous three days.
Leading up to this experience, I was not sure what to tell people, and was reluctant to call this trip a 'mission,' because everyone I met expected us to be building houses or churches or schools or to be working somewhere for the duration of our stay. Instead, our group would be attending info sessions, visiting NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations), and living with Dominican families for a portion of our stay. Frankly, I was not entirely sure that this was the most fulfilling way to spend three-weeks in a third world country, but as I came to know, and hopefully as you will understand through this series of blog entries, our trip was one wherein we learned that the Dominican people are not in need of our pity and charity. Nor do they need me to go down and build houses; they can build houses much better than I will ever be able to. As we were told many times, the challenge is to understand what the obstacles are for individuals in impoverished countries; to hear their stories and as Westerners, to work in whatever capacity we are able to ensure that the injustices of our own culture, in our own communities and around the world are not propagated in the future.
So with these and more questions in mind, I packed my clothes, along with some toys and gifts for the people I would meet, while my roomies cooked me my final Canadian dinner for 21 days. Shortly before midnight Gillis picked me up and we headed to the Charlottetown Diocesan Centre, from where our group assembled, some friends came to say goodbye, and we departed via van for Halifax Airport. After 15 hours of travel, we had been through three provinces, three airports, and three countries, and were on our way through Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic (also the landing site of Christopher Columbus and the oldest Eurpoean settlement in the Americas) on our way to San Cristobel.
The traffic in the DR is almost beyond explanation. In a city of about 2.2 million people, I would guess that maybe 3 of them have read the actual traffic laws of the city. Rush hour consists of thousands of cars weaving in and out of lines at high speed with inches to spare, and with apparently no notice whatsoever of the lines on the road, nor of the hundreds of motorbikes, mopeds and scooters that zip in between the already volatile lines of cars. Being from PEI, where honking your horn is either used to greet someone on the street or as the equivalent of telling someone off, the constant symphony of blasting horns was a bit over-whelming. Several times I caught myself looking to see the honker, fully expecting someone I knew or someone waving at us. After awhile the honking would meld into the other thousands of sounds in this incredibly loud country. One will also notice once they leave the Santo Domingo airport that many vans and trucks have bars mounter on the front and rear of the vehicle. After scoffing at these seemingly unnecessary accessories, after being hit or hitting other vehicles on three separate occasions within our first week we soon discovered that their are two types of vehicles in the Dominican; those that have these bars, and those that are severely dented or missing parts.
Seatbelts are, however, little more than an accesory in these vehicles. In a country where a full Public Car (Dominican version of the Taxi) is anywhere between 5 and 10 people, motor bikes often have 4+ passengers, and the beds of trucks are additional passenger space, seatbelts are few and far between. Our group was driven around in a very nice air-conditioned van by an unreal driver/body guard names Anez. Within my individual community, however, I had little choice but to abide by the 'When in Rome...' adage, as my choices consisted of accepting a certain degree of risk, or being left wherever I was, alone in a city I didn't fully understand, and in a country where my 6'2" frame and freakishly pale white skin made me stand out like a Conservative in the new PEI Legislature, thus attracting the stares of pretty much everyone I came with a half mile of.
By 9:30pm on May 16th, I was exhausted, and as I laid in bed trying to overcome the heat, I thought of how different a world I was in than the one I had left only that morning. Somewhere between imagining how I could single-handedly fix a broken world and going over Spanish phrases in my head, I drifted off to sleep. And there was evening, and there was morning. The first day.

...And now for something completely different: The Rants of a University Student (#45)

2007-02-10T22:03:00.000-04:00

So, along with the usual questions (“Ryan, could you shut up please?” “Can you get down from there please?” and “Holy frig, you’re a little full of yourself aren’t you?”) about 407,036 people have randomly accosted me around campus to ask me where the the rant has been for the past couple weeks. Well, the rant writing was pretty slow for while there because New Year’s resolution season hit our house pretty hard this year. For awhile there, instead of a bunch of crank-ass alcoholics crawling out of bed at the crack of noon, everyone was bounding out the door at 5:00am, munching on brussel sprouts, and working out at the gym for 7 or 8 hours a day. It was as if we were all hopped up on endorphins and happy pills. It was disgusting. To make a long story short, I was too much of a happy person to come up with enough stuff that was pissing me off to write a whole rant. (Causing some of my friends to encourage me to start writing a new article: ‘…And now for something completely different: Positive Observations from Ryan Gallant.’ Riiight.) Of course the whole little New Year’s happiness nonsense crashed pretty hard after three or four weeks, as mid-terms screwed up schedules and sleep patterns, February blahs killed our joie de vie, and everyone just decided that staying in bed was a whole lot funner than freezing your face off in minus 348 billion degree weather.

Which brings me to another question. If it is -47 degrees out with the wind-chill, who the hell cares what the “real” temperature is? Like if my skin is going to freeze in two and a half minutes, then that is the damn temperature. And who are we measuring the non-wind-chill temp for anyway? Are there people out there somewhere in vacuum-sealed bubbles? Are there scientists conducting temperature-sensitive experiments in the snow banks? This is about as stupid as the time students complained that the high pressure sodium yellow lights on campus didn’t give off enough light and some engineer told us that they were fine. “Oh yeah, they give off plenty of light. It’s just not visible to the human eye.” Oh good. Idiot. On another random note, it’s a good thing cars are just spontaneously bursting into flame in our parking lots too. I mean it’s been at least 2 months since we’ve had a decent fire on campus anyway. I guess we were due.

Uh oh. Irving got into some trouble with IRAC (Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission) last month. As per provincial regulation, corporations can own no more than 3000 acres on PEI and IRAC suspects that Irving may have exceeded the limit. They were ordered to submit all documentation by the middle of this month OR ELSE face a fine of up to $10,000. Well shit. Oh all bow to the awesome power of the IRAC. I can just see the Irving Execs pacing around the office wringing their hands in fear. Ten grand. Imagine. I’m sure they’ll have to dip into the Irving Emergency Fund to pay that one down.

Oh, and don’t believe a word of Kristi Kelly’s article in the Cadre. Where in the World is Kristi Kelly? I’ll tell you where the hell she is. She’s about 15 feet away from me in the next office chatting away on her ever-present cell phone. I can hear her giggling from here. Every week I see the same damn articles. She’s in Budapest, she’s in Kuala Lumpur, she’s in Tuktoyaktuk. Bullshit. She’s been here all along. It’s all a little part of her house of lies. Kristi, come clean about your whereabouts. Your lies are weakening the integrity of The Cadre.

The Guardian asked a couple weeks ago if readers thought drivers on PEI are getting the message about drunk driving. What the hell do you think? I’ll give you three guesses, the first two don’t count. What kind of message are we supposed to be getting? A few weeks ago John Alvin Gallant was sentenced to 18 months house arrest for driving drunk and killing Charlie Campbell of Souris. Eighteen damn months to sit around home. Wonderful. Does this not sound ridiculous to anyone else? Is this how we strike fear into the assholes who decide they can down a case of beer and then drive around? Of course the Judge tried to justify the sentence by saying that John Alvin’s family would be worse off without him at home. Yeah no shit. I’ll bet Charlie’s family has a bit more to deal with than that. And the Judge figured he should be let off easy because “he feels sorry”? Who gives a shit? He’s responsible for someone’s death, and he’s part of a larger trend of people driving drunk and more and more Islanders getting killed every year as a result. The Provincial Courts have to grow some balls and get their shit together. Enough of this bleeding heart bullshit.

On a brighter note, it appears as though old Saddam won’t be making his big comeback in the next Iraqi election. Of course, as I’ve said before, I think his political career took a pretty big dive when they found him in a hole under a Styrofoam brick. Like, I mean, your army deserts you, and they don’t even give you a real damn brick to hide under? As one of my great professors would say, stick a fork in him; he’s done. Seriously though, if I was Hussein, (which for the record, I am glad I am not), I would’ve just faked a cough or something. I mean it worked for Augusto Pinochet. He was on trial for hundreds of atrocities committed during his reign in Chile, and he got sick, so they let him go home. So while Pinochet died peacefully at home in December at the ripe old age of 91, they took Hussein out for a good old-fashioned necktie social. Tough break Saddamy.

Have a good one!

Episode 4: Boys Will Be Boys

2007-02-06T14:54:00.000-04:00

Eugene starts to work up the courage to talk to his secret crush as Patty grows more and more frustrated with that "guy from the library.

Patty and Eugene Do UPEI: Episode 3

2007-01-29T18:39:00.000-04:00

Patty gets a little edgy after flushing his pills, so he and Eugene head to the gym to burn off some extra energy.

What's that? You didn't subscribe to the podcast yet? What's wrong with you?!? Click on the link at pattyandeugene.com or search "Patty and Eugene" in the iTunes Music Store to subscribe.

Patty and Eugene Do UPEI: Episode 2

2007-01-25T14:46:00.000-04:00

In this, the second episode of Patty and Eugene Do UPEI, Eugene wakes up after a visit from the hair fairy, Patty give a tour of the washroom, and the boys pay a visit to the library.

When you subscribe through iTunes, you'll also receive occasional extra clips of Patty and Eugene not posted on any other site. Sounds like it kicks ass? It does.

Visit pattyandeugene.com to subscribe to the video podcast.

Patty and Eugene Do UPEI

2007-01-22T14:20:00.000-04:00

Here's the first episode Patty and Eugene Do UPEI. You can check it out on YouTube or Google Video. If you click on the link to subscribe to the show through iTunes, not only will you have the show delivered to you every week, but you'll also get the first and second episodes today!

When you subscribe through iTunes, you'll also receive occasional extra clips of Patty and Eugene not posted on any other site. Sounds like it kicks ass? It does.

Visit pattyandeugene.com to subscribe to the video podcast.

...And now for something completely different: The Rants of a University Student (#44)

2006-12-03T21:56:00.000-04:00

While writing papers last week, (and by writing papers I mean talking on MSN and updating my Facebook), my procrastination was interrupted by a phenomenal new website designed for the hippest people in town. Yes, brownscourt.com has hit the web. This wonderful little website has vowed to allow anyone and everyone to post any shit they want with complete access and anonymity, taking the full brunt of any legal ramifications, one presumes. Words cannot express how flattered I was to be featured as the topic of the very first post to this new site. It is such an honour to be recognized by such an innovative and essential part of our community. And not be out-shined, the first post: ‘ryan g. doesnt know shit’ [sic] was quite an amazing piece of work. So amazing, in fact, that I decided a complete replication of the article was warranted, and so here it is (with my own accompanying commentary, of course):
Note: I apologize for the incredibly terrible spelling and grammar. Everything appears as it was originally published online.

“Anybody ever read the SU president’s blog in the Cadre? Dude doesnt know jack shit.”

As you correctly noted, my rant is published in The Cadre. Although I apparently do not know “jack shit,” I at least know that this form of publication would be what we in the English language commonly refer to as a ‘newspaper article.’ ‘Blogs’ appear online, and are not always, (but, having visited brownscourt.com, are apparently sometimes), written by people who "don't know jack shit". Further Note: As I am not exactly sure who this phenom of an author is, and assuming that the author is a male, given the fact that he referred to me as a “F***ing woman” at one point, will be referred to as Mr. Jack Shit for the remainder of this article.

“Why doesnt US invade North Korea?” Well, since the last invasion hasnt sparked that much love on the president… I dont think invading another country is the thing to do right away.”

I see that along the inability to spell half of the words in the English language, you are also unfamiliar with sarcasm. That’s terrible! Here’s an early Christmas gift from me to you, Jack: www.dictionary.com. Check it out sometime.

“As for your brilliant breakdown of magic 93…just because you dont like the damn music makes you a f***in expert or what? I’m not a Timberlake fan, but he is out there making millions while you are in uni making shitty columns for school papers.”

Sigh. You had to bring up Magic 93. So I hate Magic 93, get over it. I’ve explained many times where this irrational hatred of Paul and Anne comes from. So sue me. A little angst never hurt anyone. Anyways, what’s your beef with Timberlake? While you seem to think I am a huge Justin-basher, he hasn’t been mentioned in any of my rants since February 2004, and that was for ripping off Janet Jackson’s bra at the Superbowl. Get with the times kid. Do you have a little obsession with Mr. Sexy Back or something? And holy frig, if you’re referencing my articles from three years ago, are you maybe a little obsessed with the rant too? That’s kind of scary, Mr. Shit. But yes, I get your point, many of the people I satirize in my rant are richer and better looking and more talented than me. What a travesty. And yes, I am sitting here like a damn fool writing my rant for The Cadre and not making millions of dollars. In fact, I’m not making any damn money for them at all. Imagine. But you’re the moron sitting around writing blogs devoted to bashing my rants and my bullshit opinions. Your rant is about how my rants about other people are stupid. Look in a mirror, there moron. And how do you have this much time on your hands? If it’s because you skipped out on English 101 all semester, that would explain a whole hell of a lot.

“About the whole “music is blood…” ordeal: Shakespeare said shit close to that or even more wacked out and they call him a literary genious.”

I’m gonna have to stop you there, cowboy. The direct quote from the band ‘Dead Celebrity Status’ was: “Music is blood, blood is oxygen, breathe it in.” Um… no. Pretty sure Shakespeare didn’t say shit like that. You see, he was at least aware of the technical aspects of the English language, and was likely at least vaguely aware of what a proper metaphor was. And I have absolutely no issue with them saying “Music is Blood” or “Music is Oxygen” or “Music is Crack Cocaine” or whatever, because bands say stupid shit like that all the time. My problem is with the dumb-ass bands trying to make themselves seem more profound or emotionally thoughtful by referring to mundane and morbid objects or making lame attempts at dark poetry. But yes, you’re probably right, Dead Celebrity Status is definitely in line to follow Shakespeare into artistic infamy. Idiot.

“Im sure is isnt as easy as putting on eye shadow or getting tatoos to be musicians, otherwise I may as well say f*** this, prick my skin, and go get myself a record deal from Sony rapping about how I just lost my girl to a chimney sweep named Moe. What makes the shit legit is that the phrase “lying is the most fun a girl can have without taking her clothes off” is pretty much true. Think about it.”

I have no opinion on this paragraph. Maybe if it made sense and I could actually understand what you were trying to say, I would be offended, but I honestly have no sweet clue how you manage to communicate on a day-to-day basis. And I agree; it takes more than eye shadow or tattoos to be a musician. And it takes more than breast implants and eating disorders and metaphors and references to death, blood, and suicide. So yeah, I don’t know why you decided to agree with me on that point, but sure. And the chimney sweep named Moe was a nice touch.

Anyways, Jack Shit, I guess my point is that there are many ways to contribute to a campus community, and whether you agree or not that my rant is a part of this university, your rant about my rants is in itself a recognition that it is, and I was not kidding when I said I was honoured to be mentioned on your special little website. Imitation, they say, is the sincerest form of flattery. I would suggest two things, however. First, that you maybe show some more respect towards the women on campus, mostly because they deserve it, but also because they constitute 65% of the student population, and could kick your ass. And secondly, that if you’re trying to make a contribution to this community with your website, try and recognize the hundreds of students who have gone above and beyond to build and maintain this community before you came along. Be it through any organization, group, program, initiative, article, protest, ceremony, or whatever, I know many who have been tirelessly involved in innumerable things here at UPEI and have done them all to the very best of their ability. I am most comfortable in criticizing stupid articles like your own, because I am fairly confident that without any like contribution, you have no leg to stand on in terms of critiquing the work of those around you. So Merry Christmas to you, Mr. Shit, and have a wonderful New Year’s in Brown’s Court.

And if you’re going to keep ranting in competition with mine, I suggest you catch up first. This is number 44. Good luck.

Have a good one, and Happy Holidays!

...And now for something completely different: The Rants of a University Student (#43)

2006-11-07T20:42:00.001-04:00

What the hell is with this weather? In the past week I’ve seen hailstorms, torrential rain on sunny days, green sheet lightening and some crazy-ass fog. It’s ridiculous. But don’t worry. For all of you who blame the irregular weather patterns on Global Warming, have no fear, our savior is here. Yes, the Tories have decided not to put up with these Global Warming shenanigans any more, and have pledged to slash green-house gas emissions by 45-65% ...by the year 2050! 2050? Great! By then I’ll only be... well, dead. Morons. Someone needs to tell these people to get their shit together.

For those of you who don’t read The Guardian on a daily basis for it’s wealth of information on the local deaths and riveting tutorials on Contract Bridge, the paper has over-hauled their old design. But don’t worry, their proud tradition of printing dumb-ass stories and making themselves look like complete idiots continues. On October 13th, for example, there was a front-page story about the new high-tech PEI Licenses. Accompanying it in front-page, full colour 5x7 detail was a teenage girl holding up her shiny new license, complete with her name, her address, birthday, height, everything. Brilliant. What Privacy Act? It’s a wonder those geniuses over at The Guardian aren’t awarded a few more Pulitzer Prizes every now and then.

You know what pisses me off? (“Yes, Ryan, we know, we know. A lot of things piss you off.” Shut up.) It pisses me off that people don’t go out anymore. And sure, maybe I just got a little too attached to the Wednesday night Peake’s phenomenon this past summer, but nowadays, no one seems to want to go out. At all. Ever. And they all have stupid excuses. “Oh, I have a test next Tuesday.” “Ok... You know this is Friday right?” Now schoolwork aside, what pisses me off even more, are the people who figure they can’t go out or do schoolwork or anything because they have to watch a damn TV show. They have this dumb-ass idea that they have to be on the couch, at the same time every week, and they adjust their schedule accordingly. This is ridiculous. Watching some TV now and then never killed anyone, but putting your whole damn life on hold so that you can watch some stupid fictional life of some moron living their fictional life and interacting with other morons is bullshit. Tape it, rip it off the internet for frig’s sake, maybe even miss an episode. It’ll be on a friggin DVD in a few months anyway. Heaven forbid you try and live your own life once in a while.

Global National reported last week that the Tim Horton’s that will be opening in Afghanistan to bring a taste of home to Canadian soldiers is going to cost Canadians four million dollars. In the article they stated that operating the franchise coffee shop will cost an additional two to five million a year. Who cares how much it costs? The merits of any war being fought in the region now aside, we have sent thousands of young men and women across the world to fight a war. We will almost certainly watch some of them come back in flag-draped coffins, and Global thinks we should be pissed that they’re getting some coffee? Who gives a shit? It’s only $4 million. Down the street they’re spending 4.5 million to put in a few traffic lights at the Peter Pan corner. Build the soldiers a damn Disney Land for all I care, they do a job that most of us don’t have the balls to do, let them drink as much damn coffee as they want. They deserve it infinitely times more than some bureaucrat or dumb ass news anchor. Yes, I was referring to you Kevin Newman. Jackass.

There was a huge uproar last week when the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Peter MacKay allegedly called Liberal MP Belinda Stronach “a dog.” A little history here for those of you who don’t know; Belinda and Peter used to be a couple, in the romantic sense, back when Ms. Stronach had just broken onto the political scene as a member of the Conservatives. In 2004 she dumped MacKay by, get this, joining the Liberals, and she kind of neglected to tell MacKay this was all going down until about an hour or two before news of her desertion was made public. More recently, Stronach has been accused of being involved in an affair with former Toronto Maple Leafs enforcer Tie Domi, which, in turn, led to the break-up of his marriage. Now if any other woman was caught doing shit like this, MacKay may have called her any number of names; a dog, a home-wrecker, a skank-dragon. He could have said Fuddle Duddle for all we know. Does it really matter? Well the critics think so. They’ve been throwing conniption fits from here to Vancouver, screaming “this is an insult to all women everywhere.” Why? He didn’t call ‘every woman everywhere’ a dog. He just called Belinda a dog. Get a life. And sure, maybe Parliament is not the best place for this type of insult to be thrown about (not like they aren’t every other day anyway), but seriously, we’ve all seen break-ups worse than this in High School. You know, someone screws up, a few names get thrown around, maybe MacKay and Domi have a little tussle in the playground, and everyone goes home scarred for life. People need to stop pretending like this is some huge travesty that is beyond the means of comprehensibility. We’ve all been through shit like this. It’s just another story about a pretty girl and a guy with a broken heart. One journalist recognized Belinda for what she is and called her a bitch. As a result, he was ripped to shreds by other members of the media who said he should never get another job anywhere ever again. Overkill much? Here’s a couple quotes in reaction to his comments: “I find it shocking that people would use him now that he has displayed such horrible language around women.” Around women? What is this? 1877? “What he has done is absolutely unforgivable. It hurts women everywhere, and there is no place for that kind of language and that kind of attitude in our society today.” Screw off. Listen, she’s a rich drama queen, she dumped a boyfriend without telling him, deserted her whole political party in exchange for a patronage cabinet post, broke up a marriage, and says that her being accused of adultery is an impediment to other women who want to run for political office. Belinda IS a bitch. Chrétien was a bastard. I’m an asshole. Get over it.

Have a good one!

...And now for something completely different: The Rants of a University Student (#42)

2006-10-23T18:25:00.000-03:00

Well, my the Thanksgiving break was short-lived. No sooner had I finished off about 45 pounds of Thanksgiving turkey when I found myself smack-dab in the middle of mid-term season. For many of us, this means logging in hundreds of hours in the super-quiet room in the Library or in Kelley’s good old 24-hour computer lab, for others, it means memorizing stuff to the point that you forget where you are, who you are, and how the hell you got yourself into this nonsense in the first place. For still others, such as myself, the massive amount of work piled in front of us means fretting about it constantly, while simultaneously ignoring it completely. Yes, procrastination is upon us. This made for an incredibly unproductive weekend for me, with the days broken up by random 3-hour naps in the middle of the afternoon, constant web-surfing through emails and blogs and Facebook, not to mention endless searches for obscure and useless information that has nothing to do with anything. It got so bad at one point that I resorted to cleaning the house, at which point I dug out an old juicer that Mom and Dad had bought during a mid-eighties health craze, and started making juice out of all the fruit in the refrigerator. Needless to say, I am pretty much screwed, and yet, instead of doing actual work, here I am writing a damn rant.

Liberal leadership contender Michael Ignatieff got into a bit of hot water last week when he stated that Israel had committed war crimes during the Hezbollah-Israeli war this past July. There was an uproar following these comment, prompting a former co-chair of his campaign and Liberal MP Irwin Cotler’s wife to withdraw support. Prime Minister Stephen Harper weighed in on the debate as well, accusing all the Liberal leadership candidates as being ‘anti-Israeli’ and shaming them for not standing up for the Jewish community (which is really smart, seeing as Bob Rae’s wife and kids are Jewish). Jewish groups from across the country also expressed outrage at Ignatieff’s comments. Why? First of all, we’re talking about Israel here, a nation-state, not a religion. It is an undisputable fact that during the war Israel used cluster bombs and destroyed electrical, water, and sewage plants, as well as Beirut International Airport, thus making civilian evacuation extremely difficult. Under the Geneva Conventions, these could all be considered war crimes.
Now I wouldn’t even try to suggest that Hezbollah is not responsible for war crimes, indeed as a terrorist organization, they are engaged almost exclusively in illegal activity, but this in no way exonerates Israel. The Israeli attack was responsible for the deaths of many Lebanese civilians and for the destruction of non-military infrastructure, including schools and hospitals. I don’t have a problem with people trying to dispute these facts, they certainly have that right, but I definitely have a problem with the suggestion that anyone who questions Israel is somehow anti-Israeli or anti-Semitic. It pisses me off when the popular media implies that suggesting any wrong-doing on the part of Israel is somehow taboo or racist. This is endemic of the past decade, and especially in the period since September 11th, in which our society has begun to accept the destruction of non-military infrastructure and civilian lives in foreign wars simply if we feel that the attacker has “a good reason.” That’s bullshit. The Geneva Convention was put in place for a reason; so that the rules of war would apply to everyone. A war crime is a war crime no matter who you’re fighting, what colour your skin is, or what religion you are. They are war crimes because they recklessly and needlessly endanger the lives of innocent civilians and non-combatants, and in this regard there are no ‘if,’ ‘ands,’ or ‘buts’ about it. We need to start rationally considering the laws of war, rather than using real or apprehended threats as justification for writing blank cheques to political leaders so they can wage war and wreak destruction without recourse or criticism.

On an unrelated note, if Weapons of Mass Destruction were reason enough to invade Iraq, then why the hell isn’t the US headed to North Korea? I mean, you wouldn’t even search through caves and shit, they march their WMDs right down Main Street, Pyongyang. Just a thought.

So, I got stuck in a car that had Magic 93 on the radio during the Top 9 @ 9 last week, and I am getting pretty worried about music these days. I figured I’d try to make the best out of a bad situation and give the countdown a chance, seeing as I hadn’t heard in about 5 years. So, song number three was announced, and this random song comes on about sleep and psychosis and cockroaches laying dreams in some guys brain. Of all the crap that’s out there, THIS is number 3?!? I have no idea what the name of the song is and who sings it, but holy crap it was terrible. And I mean I’ve heard some pretty bad songs on Magic over the years; Blue, Tub-thumping, Don’t Cha, Sexy Back, but for the love of everything sacred, is the whole industry going to shit?

I thought we had done pretty well making it through the bubblegum pop nonsense of the late 90s and the brief Latin craze, all but this emo-screamo-faux-urban-grunge -think-you’re-profound-because-you-talk-about-suicide bullshit is ridiculous. Who the hell are these people? And I don’t know why these bands think that if they swear and wear eye shadow and get tattoos that they’re all suddenly become legit musicians. More baffling is why the hell all the 13-year-old prostitots accept their allusions of grandeur as “good music”. Some band named ‘Dead Celebrity Status’ was recently quoted as saying: “Music is blood, blood is oxygen, breathe it in.” What the hell is that supposed to mean? Sure, we could consider music essential and metaphorically refer to it as either oxygen or blood, but using both in hopes of sounding hardcore, also renders this analogy flawed, redundant AND incredibly stupid. Of course some 13-year-old boy going through some puberty rebellion is going to be like “Shit yeah! They talk about blood, they’re awesome!” No, they’re not. They’re just dumb asses.

And who the hell are these ‘Panic! At the Disco’ morons? I’ll tell you who they are, they’re a bunch of damn kids who were born between 1985 and 1987 and have therefore never been to a damn disco and wouldn’t even know what a roller rink is for frig’s sake. These geniuses have managed to write a few clever little ditties however, like: ‘Lying Is The Most Fun A Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off’ and ‘The Only Difference Between Martyrdom And Suicide Is Press Coverage.’ Brilliant. A thousand monkeys typing on type-writers for 4 billion years couldn’t come up with such bullshit. Their lyrics are equally ridiculous: ‘“What a beautiful wedding!” says a bridesmaid to a waiter. “And yes, but what a shame, the poor groom's bride is a whore.”’ Awesome. Good Charlotte is still impressive with their skillfully written lyrics: “Motivate me, I wanna get myself out of this bed.” Lofty goals boys, lofty goals. And Mario continues to swoon the ladies with his love ballads: “C'mon and braid my hair, back in my hood” and “Where did you come from, I wanna thank your Moms for bringin' you into this life, and makin’ you my type.” Wow. What depth of character. Idiots. Oh, for all you skank-a-trons out there, the Pussycat Dolls are looking for a new lead singer. Apparently lead vocalist Nicole Elikolani Prescovia Scherzinger wants to go solo. Wonderful. I cannot wait.

And finally, don’t drink the water or make out with randoms at Mount A or St.FX. The Norwalk virus has rendered hundreds of students at these campuses as useless as, well, they’ve always been kind of useless. It kind of makes up for all the snobbish uppity-bitch comments about UPEI that I’ve heard from Mt.A and St.FX jerks over the past few years, like “At least we go to a real school.” Yeah well, at least we know how to wash our hands and shower now and then. I think it was all summed up fairly well when one of my friends at Mt.A said last week: “It’s really bad because everyone’s touching everyone.” Indeed. ‘Welcome to Mount A: Everyone’s touching everyone.’ Wonderful.

Have a good one!

...And now for something completely different: The Rants of a University Student (#41)

2006-10-10T10:13:00.000-03:00

You wouldn’t normally think of a Pub Crawl as an educational experience, unless of course you’re doing research on how many juggidy-jugs you can drink before you pass-out on the floor of some random bathroom or about how much force is needed to jump through a plate glass window at the legion. The Big Ass Pub Crawl however, taught me a few things about the downtown night life that I wasn’t aware of before. See, I come from a time when downtown used to be the place to be, a time when people actually went to Myron’s. No seriously, people would actually pay to get into Moron’s, and on their own free will at that! You younger students probably think I’m crazy, but it’s the truth.

Anyways, the Kent Street I encountered the night of the Pub Crawl was much different from the one I remember. I first noticed that, a) Kent Street is pretty damn sketchy. Random fights were breaking out here and there and there were some pretty some shady characters roaming around, not to mention a few too many prostitots to be out that time of the night. Of course back in the day Kent Street saw its share of rowdiness too, as, every now and then, the crowds from Moron’s, Melon’s, and Breaker’s would converge on Kent, along with a small fleet of cabs, 10 or 12 City Police vehicles and a couple RCMP cruisers shuttling patron after patron off to Sleepy Hollow. You didn’t, however, have to fear for your life, unless, of course, you had hit on some random girlfriend of a guy hopped up on E. Need more proof that Kent is becoming increasingly ridiculous? 3 words: Myron’s Chem-Free. Sketch. b) Source Security is absolutely and utterly useless. I came out of a bar that night to see some guy getting his head bashed in, and not like a few love-taps to the face, this was hospital-trip-in-an-ambulance kind of bashed in, and all the while some Source Security guard watched on from about, oh, 6 feet away. Not 3 minutes later me and another guy had to break up two other guys in the exact same place. Now, in case you’ve never seen me before, I am not exactly what you’d call the most buff guy on campus, and though I went to school in the Crick for 9 years, I am definitely not qualified to break up two drunken idiots arguing over some bar star or cigarettes or whatever. We intervened because these two guys were about to rip each other apart, and we were slightly concerned, which is more than I can say for Mr. Shit-for-brains security dude. Finally, c) The Dining Room of Piazza Joe’s is a ridiculous place to host a dance party. Call me crazy, but a place with slippery wet floors, broken beer bottles and a massive head-bashable fountain right in the centre of the room is not the best place on earth to have a couple hundred very drunk and very stumbly students rocking out. As a side-note, girls, please start wearing more practical footwear. I know you think the heels and the hours of pain are worth it to look a little bit taller, but honestly, I don’t think you’re really fooling anyone. “Hey look Ted, Mary grew 3 inches since yesterday.” “Wow, she is so hot now.” Here’s a little test, if the shoes are so uncomfortable that you have to take them off before the end of the night to walk home barefoot, or worse, around the glass-covered dance floor then those shoes are very very stupid. Go get your money back.

The Guardian reported last week that as a result of the collapse of a 35 or so year-old overpass in Laval, Québec last week, PEI’s Department of Transportation and Public Works has sprung into action, inspecting all 4 overpasses on PEI. Yep. All 4 of them. Thankfully each structure was given the stringent “two-tier” on-site inspection. The first test is a visual test, which consists of some guy looking at the overpass and noting if there are any “sagging beams or missing parts.” Missing parts eh? “Hmmm. This one seems to be missing a 7-tonne pillar. I wonder where that got off to now?” I was told that the second part of the test is an auditory test. Yes, and auditory test on an immovable structure made of tons of concrete. Wonderful. Why the hell does The Guardian feel it necessary to make Islanders look like the biggest morons on the face of the earth. Also last week, instead of using the front page to report on actual news, like Canadians in Afghanistan or North Korea’s nuclear testing, they had a story about some poet writing a poem about this lady peeling carrots somewhere up west. Honestly, what the hell is wrong with them?

Last week the U.S. House of Representatives was advised to invest in some new Coast Guard vessels for the Arctic, prompted by reports from scientists who suggested that global warming could result in a completely ice-free Arctic passage within decades. “We must conduct surveys of our nation's extended continental shelf in order to support our claims of sovereignty.” said advisor Mead Treadwell. Does no one else see anything wrong with this? So the Americans want to exert their control and sovereignty and superiority and yeah, blah blah blah. Same old. But the North-West passage may be ice-free within a matter of decades? Um. I think we should maybe get some priorities figured out here. Instead of working to combat global warming and the catastrophic results of having the Arctic ice melting, we’re going to buy a couple boats so we can sail around up there when it’s all thawed out? Brilliant.

In other news, in response to the tens of thousands of terrorists that row across Lake Superior to get into the US every year, the US Coast Guard has begun to patrol the Great Lakes on boats with mounted .30-calibre machine guns. This would be funny if it weren’t so sad. Everyone realizes the gravity of 9-11 and its fallout, but this is a bit of an illogical over-reaction. As an old proverb puts it: “Why are you out on your lawn wildly waving your arms?” “I’m keeping away all the tigers.” “There aren’t any tigers around here.” “See how well it works!?”

Finally, I would like to apologize for my previous rant in which I criticized the extravagant spending on the redesign of Peter Pan Corner. I had stated that I thought the $3.5 million was a bit excessive, but see, I didn’t realize that by “fix Peter Pan Corner” they actually meant “rip up everything within a 5-mile radius” and “push mud around randomly for a few weeks.” My bad.

The Official Video of NSO 2006

2006-09-23T19:37:00.000-03:00

The critics agree:

"This is the best thing i've ever seen."
-Maria

"I love Eugene ...I wish [Ryan] was like him all the time."
- Laur

"Your video made my day... It was awesome."
- Erica

...And now for something completely different: The Rants of a University Student (#40)

2006-09-17T20:34:00.000-03:00

Well, summer’s over. It’s again that time of year when you can feel the impending onslaught of the coming fall and winter. A time when the fresh scent of frost greets you in the morning, when school busses resume the transportation of young minds to and from their places of education and a time of year when, if you try camping in a tent, it feels like it’s about -367 degrees outside, and you are pretty sure that you are going to wake up dead. Unfortunately, camping last week, for me anyway, was not all that fun, as a few successive “welcome back” rounds of tequila at The Wave forced me to spend much of that night, and the balance of the following day, holding onto the floor for dear life. Oh it’s good to be back.

Now I don’t know who the came up with this brilliant plan, but someone apparently thought that it would be a good idea to wait through the entire four months of summer break so they could paint the Student Centre on the first day of school. Now I understand that there’s a lot of work to be done on campus in the summer, but perhaps it would make more sense to paint BEFORE 4,000 students return to campus. Oh, and paving the roads and pathways around campus on day one was definitely a good idea too. Not like it isn’t a huge inconvenience or an unflattering portrait of incompetence and disorganization to present to our students on the first day of school or anything. Speaking of pave and stuff, why the hell is it going to take $3.5 million and three months to re-design the Peter Pan corner? Now I know some engineering students may disagree with me here, but as far as I understand, all they really have to do is bulldoze some dirt around, put down some pave, and throw up some traffic lights. A million bucks, a couple 2-4s, and some friends and I could have that done by lunchtime tomorrow. And they’re only a million dollars over-budget. Even though they just started. Wonderful.

The elite forces of the Charlottetown City Police have once again displayed their superior abilities as a crime-fighting force. Now, I wouldn’t say that it would be incredibly stupid to deploy the entire City Police force for the Black Eyed Peas concert, especially given the ridiculous reactions of the citizens of the City. Maybe a little over-dramatic, but all-in-all, a pretty good precautionary measure. However, I would say that it would probably take a fairly severe bout of brain damage to come up with the brilliant plan of telling the whole world that, “Yeah, so our entire police force is going to be down at the CDP for 6 or 7 hours on September 3rd.” Good one. Idiots.

Of course the Dudley Do-Right antics of the City Police are matched only by the incredible ignorance of the residents of this city. When it was announced that the Black Eyed Peas would be at the CDP, the people of Charlottetown reacted with all the grace of an irate pack of rabid Balinese monkeys on crack cocaine. By the letters and horror-story scenarios sent to The Guardian, you would think that instead of a Black Eyed Peas concert, Charlottetown was playing host to a Hitler and the Third Reich tribute concert, complete with the 10th SS Panzer Division and live grenade launcher demonstrations aimed somewhere into the downtown core. One woman told the CBC that she was pissed that no one had come to ask her how she personally felt about the Black Eyed Peas coming to town. (“Well m’am,” someone should have told her, “no one really gives a shit.”) She continued, telling the CBC that this wasn’t just any old concert, “This concert is going to take 13 to 25 (year olds). A lot more alcohol, drugs, needles - whatever can take place at any concert.” Wow, what faith this society has in its young people. Yeah, those 13 year-old prostitots are definitely a huge threat to this city eh? And needles? When is the last time you saw heroine addicts scrambling in line to buy tickets to a concert? Pretty sure they’re saving up their cash for other things than Black Eyed Peas there dear. People need to lose a little bit of their anal retentiveness around here and calm the hell down. Maybe worry a little less about your pristine lawn, about your boat down at the yacht club, and whether or not we should have pop in cans, and worry a little more about whether criminals are going to break into your house while all the police are down at the CDP.

This was a busy summer for the airwaves on PEI, with a ton of changes in the realm of radio. Most notably were the end of the CHTN era and the beginning of Ocean and K-Rock. (By the way, if you are reading this and you are the new K-Rock 105.5 $10,000 Fugitive, you owe me.) With the popularity of the new stations however, there are some who can’t help but feel sorry for the old hapless and embattled Magic 93. They were there for years, pumping out the pop beats of a generation, and people are starting to miss, or at least feel sorry for Paul and Anne. I guess somewhere in everyone’s psyche there is a little twinge of guilt for switching over to a new station and some nostalgia of the Top 9 at 9 that pulls at our heart strings. Yeah? Well not mine. Paul and Anne and the whole Magic 93 fun bus can go straight to hell. I’ve had enough Great Lite Rock Hits to last four and a half lifetimes, and if I never hear a story about Paul Allen and his damn addiction to chocolate Easter bunnies again, it will be too soon. I don’t think anyone can understand how much I absolutely despise Magic 93. It took me roughly 3,800 hours of forced listenership on a School Bus and 12 years of Paula Cole and Shawn Colvin and Billie Myers to develop a hatred this severe. Good riddance I say. All the over-played songs that Magic killed are now avenged.

Can someone explain to me why parts of Brown's Court have been re-named Island Dale Estates? I’m not even sure what to say about this one. Sure, I can deal with the “Island” part of the name. Ok, so we’re on an island. Not all that original, but whatever. I can even overlook the “Dale” part. Mind you, by definition, a “dale” is a low-lying area or valley, and Brown’s Court happens to be on the top of the highest hill in Charlottetown, but whatever, I don’t care. Seriously though, “Estates”? Honestly. If I were asked to make a list of 4 billion words to describe Brown’s Court beginning with the most appropriate, all the way down to words that don’t even remotely relate to the premises, “Estate” wouldn’t even be among those 4 billion words. It is more likely that I would resort to words in Swahili and Mandarin Chinese before “Estate” would even cross my mind. This is, remember, the same area that prompted one of my friends, after seeing it on New Year’s Eve, to exclaim: “Oh my God. Brown’s Court is like Rwanda!” Of course, as I've said before, there are far fewer drunken idiots in Rwanda.

Have a good one!

...And now for something completely different: The Rants of a University Student (#39)

2006-03-20T00:10:00.000-04:00

Well, the unthinkable happened last week. Yes, Canadian Tire did what every Canadian has been wanting to do for the past 7 years: putting the Canadian Tire couple to death. Figuratively of course, the actors who played them are still alive, but for all intents and purposes Ted and Gloria have been put out of their suburban-minivan-complete-ratchet-set misery after terrorizing the airwaves for 7 years. 7 years? Wow, that’s not beating the life out of a marketing ploy or anything. I never really understood how any marketing agency could come up with such a lame attempt at selling off screwdrivers and pressure washers. It was always like those damn condescending infomercials where their trying to sell some new-fangled spaghetti strainer, but they first have to show a few morons using an old-fashioned strainer, flailing around like rabid zombies, throwing pasta and boiling water all over the place. Yeah, Ted’s idiot neighbor would always show up: “Ted, help me, I need to drill a hole. Ted, help me, I need to see better out of my windshield so I don’t die. Ted, help me, I’m an incompetent moron.” See this is why men hated Ted. While every other man in Canada was fixing problems with duct tape and baler twine and fixing their car’s engine with a hammer and a butter knife, Ted was always working at something with his new tools with his eerily happy family and his RV and his boat and his cottage and his ATVs. The man made Inspector Gadget look about as technically inclined as Michael Bolton. To add insult to injury, the punch-line endings to the commercials were always stupid and were never funny.

Ted: “Look at these new windshield wipers!”
Idiot Neighbor: “You really should shave your beard!”
Together: “Hahaha!"

Ted: “Look how clean my boat is!”
Idiot Neighbor: “Ted, why do you still camp in tents when you already own an RV and a cottage?”
Together: “Hahaha!”

Ted: “I just realigned my tires and braking system so we don’t crash into trees the next time we go on a family adventure!”
Idiot Neighbor: “Wow. I should borrow that for my car so we don’t drive into any trees either!”
Ted: “Too bad, you’ll have to get your own. Only at Canadian Tire!”
Together: “Hahaha!”
Ted: “No seriously. Get your own.”

The worst all-time commercial was when Ted was proving how rugged he was by packing for a day on the trail with his ATV, but his wife took off on it before he got the chance. I half expected him to turn to the camera: “New, from Canadian Tire, the long-range assault sniper rifle.” Where the hell did they get the money to buy all that shit anyway? I mean once they got started I’m sure their income in Canadian Tire money alone was comparable to the economy of an emerging Eastern European country, but unless Ted was robbing banks on the side (with the Motomaster Vault-O-Matic no doubt), I don’t see how he was making enough cash to support his wife, deadbeat son, a few cars, the cottage, RV, boat, ATVs, etc., not to mention spending upwards of $200,000 a month at Canadian Tire. Ahwell. Love them or hate them, Ted and Gloria are gone now, but they will live on in Canadian Television infamy, along the old Norwich Union couple, (“It’s Patrick! He took out life insurance!”) The Canadian Legal Will Kit, and Hal Johnson and Joanne MacLeod.

In keeping with recent events in the Middle East of late a Canadian, who works for a U.S.-based humanitarian agency, was kidnapped by extremists from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in the Gaza Strip last week. The 57-year-old Ottawa man was taken at gunpoint, held in a basement, and was forced by his captors to record video for the media. As they went through his belongings, however, the kidnappers found Adam Budzanowski’s Canadian passport, and were immediately disappointed. They had thought they had kidnapped an American and therefore had leverage to negotiate an end to Israel’s attack on a West Bank prison. Obviously disheartened at the discovery, the kidnappers made sure Mr. Budzanowski was Canadian by asking about stores near his home in Ottawa before exclaiming, “We love Canada!” “Which is a wonderful thing to hear when you have guns pointed at you.” Budzanowski said later. Yeah, I’ll bet. What a bunch of morons.
PFLP 1: “All we have to do is kidnap some Americans and Brits so we can stop the Israeli attack on that prison!”
PFLP 2: “Yeah, because kidnapping people in the Middle East has certainly forced them to stop bombing us in the past!”
Can you imagine them when they found out he was Canadian?
PFLP 1: “Canadian? SHIT! What do we do now?”
PFLP 2: “Well, we could stop kidnapping people and instead turn our focus to instilling democracy and…
Nan: SLAP! “Say you’re sorry.”
Apparently one of the kidnappers even gave Mr. Budzanowski his phone number before they released him in case he ever needed help with anything. “Say hello to Canada!” Yeah. I’ll get right on that. Moron.

This brings me to another issue; it was brought to my attention this past week that some people on campus hate me because I, and I quote “Hate Americans.” This, first of all, is not true. On the individual level, most Americans I know are great people. My sister and her family, as I’ve said before, are American, and obviously if I ever said I hated all Americans, by association they would be part of that group. Granted, I do hate the government that is now in power in the states, and I hate Dubya as someone who is grossly incompetent, incredibly stupid, and is not exactly the person I would want to leave in charge of a pair of sharp scissors, let alone the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. I realize as well that many people share this sentiment, including a great number of Americans. At the same time, there are also many Canadians that I hate, Kalan Porter, Steve Moore, Theory of a Deadman, Stephen Harper, but I would never even attempt to group all Canadians in to a similar group, and it’s the same thing for Americans. Sure, there are some Americans that I hate, but I am not stupid enough to group all 300 or so million of them into a single homogeneous group. Mr. Dressup was American for God’s sake. In fact, I would guess that I hate at least one person from every country in the world, but most of the 6 billion people on earth aren’t that bad. The ones I’ve met so far anyway.

I think a more accurate thing to say would be that I hate stupidity and incompetence, and I’m sure that we can find plenty of people that fit this description, on both sides of the border: George Bush, Bad Drivers, Paul Allen, Kenny G, Steroid Ben, Lucille Poulin, Ron Popeil, that guy who does those Yoplait commercials, the Ottawa Senators, the KKK, the Burger King king, the 2000 Flushes guy, Richard Simmons, Lou Bega, Jared from Subway, the entire cast of “Touched by an Angel,” the list goes on…
Have a good one!

...And now for something completely different: The Rants of a University Student (#38)

2006-03-05T21:55:00.000-04:00

What the hell are people doing with Christmas decorations still up? It’s March for God’s sake. And I don’t care if you leave your lights on your house all year because you’re a lazy ass, but holy shit, after mid-January maybe you could stop turning them on? I swear, like 75% of the houses on my street still have some sort of decorations on their house. And call it illogical, call it an overreaction, or maybe call it the sign of an impending massive stress-related heart attack, but I actually became physically angry when I saw the number of houses that still had wreaths on their doors. How hard is it to take down a damn wreath? So why have the citizens of Charlottetown become such a bunch of slack asses? Well, if I recall correctly, fifteen years ago the city asked people to leave their lights up to give Charlottetown “a more festive look” for the 1991 Canada Games. Evidently everyone took this as a license to throw as much random shit on their houses as possible, and to leave it up until the 5th of never, or at least until another Juan rips it off their house. That or until I go insane and start going door-to-door and punching people in the face.

Adding to a list of randoms, which include Pierce Brosnan and McIver, Paul McCartney has become the latest celebrity to crawl out on PEI ice floes in the dead of winter to yell at Canadians about seals and hunting and global warming or whatever. Islanders, in typical fashion, reacted by reading The Guardian to hear every detail of what he did, what he bought/ate/said/touched (“Then he went into Roots. Then he bought a sweater. It said ‘Canada’ on it.”), the same thing that happens every time Lucille Poulin or Steroid Ben or Prince What’s-his-face and his wife show up. Of course the average Joe Blow doesn’t give a rat’s ass whether he’s here for the seals or for a drink at the Legion. All they want to know was if their brother’s wife’s cousin’s daughter was working at Cow’s (which is right next to Roots) when he bought the sweater. Through this unique and complex “Oh yeah she’s related to my third cousin’s bus driver” scheme, I am convinced that an Islander has been involved in every major world event since the beginning of time including Noah’s Ark, the French Revolution, and the Kennedy assassination (Lee Harvey Oswald’s mother stayed at Blue Jay Cottages once.)

Following the visit to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Paul and his wife, Heather, appeared on Larry King Live and faced off against Newfoundland (or New Finland according to Larry) Premier Danny Williams. The problem with that, first of all, is Sir Paul had no idea what the hell he was talking about and looked about as comfortable on TV as he would be during a rectal exam. His loudmouth wife, on the other hand, was far too preoccupied with not shutting up that she didn’t allow any time for oxygen or reasonable thought to make it through her brain. Oh ok, the money the sealers make is inconsequential? Yeah, maybe for you and your husband’s $1.5 billion bank account. What? You think the guys who spend their winters freezing their asses off walking around on the ice killing adorable little seals are just doing it for kicks? By the way, who the hell do you think is buying all these furs? I think you’d be hard-pressed to see anyone in this part of the world who can afford that extravagance, let alone one who would be stupid enough to wear that shit. It’s on the runways of Milan and Paris and London that you find the yield of this hunt, so maybe you should go home and talk to your pop-star friends rather than preach to bunch of Islanders and Newfies who don’t really care what your point is anyway. My favorite part of the whole trip was when dear old Lady McCartney scoffed at Prime Minister Harper because he didn’t meet with them because he had meetings all day. Imagine! Well excuse us. We’re sorry that the Prime Minister of our country doesn’t drop everything he’s doing every time some two-bit celebrity and washed up rocker climbs out on the ice to harass seal pups.

Now I know already that people will be pissed off that I seem to be erring on the side of the seal hunters, but that’s not exactly the case. I am not going to stand here and defend the act of beating the life out of a seal pup, God knows I wouldn’t have the heart for that kind of stuff, but I also think it would be a tad bit inaccurate to suggest that the hunters themselves are having a blast out there and are beating seals for the fun of it. For them, it’s money in the bank and food on the table. I don’t endorse the seal hunt or its methods in the same way that I don’t endorse factory farms or slaughterhouses. My issue is mainly with the celebrities who come from around the world where there are many problems of their own I’m sure they could be solving, yet insist on getting pictures with the cute furry white baby seals (which have been illegal to hunt since the 80’s). If you want to advocate for humane treatment of animals, fine, but I don’t see any of them mucking around pig farms or chicken factory farms bitching about the conditions or about how they kill the animals. Today there are 5.9 million seals out there, almost 3 times the number there was in the 70’s, and that in itself is wreaking havoc on the cod fishery, not to say that that is a justifiable means, but it’s a hell of a lot more compelling than the McCartney’s arguments against the hunt: “Because they’re cute, because it’s mean and the money doesn’t really matter.” Well if the money doesn’t matter, then shell out the $20 million these families need to survive on. That way you can have peace of mind and these hunters can stop spending the dead of winter freezing their asses off. Actually, why even piss on our rug when in Britain, seals are culled on a regular basis to stop them from destroying fishnets. Maybe, try fighting the hunt back home before coming over here and telling us how to run our own country. Ah well. Live and let die.

Well the Olympics are over, and other than Team Canada’s Chokefest on ice, Canada’s Olympic Team, all-in-all, came out in good standing, poised to have the strength to actually win the games in 2010. With the exception of Jeremy Wotherspoon and Chris Pronger, who may as well just not come home, Canada’s athletes kicked a lot of ass and defied the typical Canadian pessimistic expectations. Stephen Harper was so impressed with the athletes in Turin that he released a special statement specifically to the men and women who contributed to Canada’s record medal haul. The official statement read: “Congratulations to Team Canada in Turin.” Wow. No wonder everyone was so keen on getting this brainwave into office. Idiot.
Have a good one!

...And now for something completely different: The Rants of a University Student (#37)

2006-02-19T21:14:00.001-04:00

How’s this for a morning line-up with Paul and Anne? Mariah Carey, Ryan Cabrerra, and Kalan Porter. I am not making this up. I don’t even know how the hell Mariah Carey is singing again. Didn’t her record company pay her off with like $8 million a few years ago to never record a CD for them again? Of course this is after she had went clinically insane, but still, her music remains as mediocre as it ever was. She has, however, apparently tried to educate herself in the ways of the world, a marked improvement I must say, and one made most evident by her comments after she had heard that King Hussad of Jordan had died. “I love Jordan. He was one of the greatest athletes of our time.” Classic. And for God’s sake Paul, stop incessantly playing Nickelback’s 'Photograph'. Words cannot express my hatred for this song. I mean I’m used to you ruining good songs by playing them every 7 minutes, but this was a bad song to begin with, and if you keep playing it every morning at 9:07, I’m going to have to kick you in the nuts.
Eminem continues to play the role of a cutting edge musician, with his new song 'When I’m Gone'. This is a follow up to his earlier hits, such as the incredibly politically correct 'Christopher Reeve', the grammatically impeccable 'No one’s Iller than Me', and 'Shake That', whose video features naked Olsen Twin puppets, dancing prostitots, and that never-gets-old gag: Eminem puking on Michael Jackson. With linguistic talent second only to that contained in the legendary Chapter I album of The Moffatts, he continues his poetic prose with his newest song, skillfully creating a conversation between his daughter in the audience and himself from the stage:
Daughter: “Mommy’s wrists are bleeding.”
Eminem: “How’d you get to Sweden?”
Honest to God. You can’t just change the setting of the song just so it rhymes with “wrists are bleeding”. With the exception of Lou Bega and Remy Shand, Eminem is perhaps the worst singer in the history of mankind.
Well, perpetual whiner Steve Moore was back in the news again last week. Levying civil charges against Todd Bertuzzi for his infamous hit during a Colorado-Vancouver game. Ok, let’s set aside the fact that Bertuzzi has already been punished by the NHL, the IIHF and by the courts for his hit. Let’s set aside the fact that it happened years ago, the fact that Bertuzzi has said sorry, that the media has ripped his reputation apart and that he’s lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost salary because of Moore. Hello! Moore! It’s the Olympics! Bertuzzi is trying to win a gold medal for our country, so whatever problem you have with him, for God’s sake, wait until the games are over just so your selfish lust for an extended 15 minutes of fame doesn’t screw up our chances at defending our country’s legacy. You and your pain-in-ass antics owes us at least that much. Jerkass.
American defenceman Angela Ruggeiro criticized the Canadians Women’s Hockey team for “running up the score” against other teams after a 16-0 rout over the host Italian squad. “There was no need for that. They’re trying to pad their stats,” she said. And you know she’s right, Canada’s team should definitely stop scoring so many goals. Just score one or two and then skate around and toy with the other team for the remaining 40 minutes. In fact, everyone in the Olympics should stop being so damn competitive. It’s not like the point of the games is to do the best you can or to win or anything. If you get too far ahead in speed skating, slow down! You should let the other guy catch up so he doesn’t feel bad about himself. Or if you’re winning the biathlon just fall down once or twice or miss a few shots to even up the field a bit. Or, if you’re American snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis and are way ahead in a race and you’re a sure bet for the gold medal, show off with a fancy jump, fall on your face, and let the Swiss win. When is the last time you saw an American intentionally slow down or impede their game because a wave of compassion and pity for their competitors swept over them? Never? Yeah that’s what I thought.
To use basketball as an example, you don’t exactly see the American Dream Team trying to ease it up a bit to keep the score close in Summer Olympics. Even against teams like Uruguay, Angola and Lithuania I seem to remember them actually trying to score as many points as possible against their opponents! Imagine! Ruggeiro, just because your country isn’t as good as another does not mean that they have to stop being good and wait for you to catch up. But of course, in their ultimate wisdom, the Americans went out against the Swedes in their next game and to show us Canadians what a great and compassionate team they are, refused to run up the score against Sweden, and, in a remarkable show of self-restraint, lost the game. Good show! Now that’s sportsmanship, keeping the score so close that you actually lose the game.
I’m sure at least some of you are thinking I shouldn’t be such a jerk to the loser Americans, you know, just like everyone else they trained for 4 years to get where they are now, only to see it all swept away by the underdog Swedes. Yeah, that’s too bad. Does anyone remember in Nagano in 1998 when American Sandra Whyte made fun of Danielle Goyette’s father, Henri-Paul, who had died two days before? How about at the last Olympics when American referee Stacey Livingston assessed 11 penalties against Canada, with only 4 against the US? No? Well I do. And how about in Salt Lake City when the Americans had a Canadian flag on the floor of their dressing room? How’s that for Olympic spirit? How’s that for sportsmanship? So do I feel bad for the American squad? No. Not one bit. They are still the same cheating losers they’ve always been.
Oh and Ruggeiro, way to go 0 for 2 in the shoot-out. Loser.

Have a good one!

...And now for something completely different: The Rants of a University Student (#36)

2006-02-07T19:46:00.000-04:00

Well the attention of media from across Canada was attracted to UPEI last week as a developing issue on our campus, that could potentially affect every student at our University, caught the nation’s attention. Yes, for the first time in modern memory, UPEI actually closed school for an entire day. Despite this, the world kept turning, and elsewhere in the world other stories grabbed headlines as people got on with their lives following the long-fabled full-day UPEI cancellation. This is a comprehensive recap of other headlines from last week:
1. Headline: Man Killed After Stripping Naked
So apparently some guy, after driving his over the median into on-coming traffic and crashing his truck on the highway in Washington State, flew into a fit of rage, stripped off all his clothes and stood in the middle of the I-90, jumping up and down and waving at passing cars. After several minutes of this, in freezing temperatures no less, the 35-year-old was hit by a pick-up truck and died instantly. What the hell is wrong with people? Has our society devolved to the point whereby ripping off all your clothes and running into traffic is an acceptable expression of anger? Again, I wish the people who run across University Avenue in the middle of traffic and the cars that brake for them would learn from stories like this, but learning from this would of course require you not be a moron in the first place.
2. Headline: U.S. Fires On Car of Canadian Envoy
An American envoy of five armored Humvees opened fire on a Canadian diplomatic vehicle in Baghdad’s Green Zone last week. The US version of the story states that the Canadian vehicle, complete with Canadian flag, refused to stop when they repeatedly waved at it. Feeling threatened, “the American convoy vehicle defended itself by firing a three-round burst” at the front of the vehicle, “away from the passenger area.” The American government has stuck to this story despite the fact that the vehicle was driven by a Canadian soldier who was fully briefed and took a two-week course on the rules of the road in the Green Zone and that the Canadians were only going 20km an hour at the time of the incident. The official statement from the U.S. Military by Lt.-Col. Barry Johnson’s that “Clearly these warning shots weren’t aimed at the occupants,” seems questionable, as it is quite evident that a bullet did indeed pierce the passenger side of the vehicle, given the large bullet-shaped hole in the windshield. In contrast, on CNN, it was reported that unruly Canadians had tried to speed past the convoy. As reported in The Globe and Mail, in the minds of many in the Canadian Foreign Service, this has painted a picture of the U.S. soldiers as “trigger-happy Americans needlessly firing on a well-marked vehicle.” This is the second time in recent months that the conduct of American soldiers has been called into question by foreign diplomats. An Italian diplomat was killed when the vehicle he was driving in was shot at by American soldiers when, according to the U.S. Military investigation, it refused to slow down. What did the Italian investigation deem as the cause? The “stress and inexperience of the soldiers.” Surprise, surprise. While the American government has called the incident “regrettable,” they have not apologized for it. Niiice. Just once, the next time the Americans shoot down an Allied plane or drop bombs on their friends or shoot foreign service officials, I’d like to get Nan go make George say he’s sorry. Just once.
Nan: “Say you’re sorry.”
Bush: “It was regret…SLAP!
Nan: “Say you’re sorry.”
Bush: “We didn’t know that…SLAP!
Nan: “Say you’re sorry.”

3. Headline: Karate Experts to Fight Parrots
Yes, some Ninjas have been hired to fight any parrot that tries to mess up the 140 classic cars that are visiting Mount Cook in New Zealand this week. The 40 or so Karate experts will evidently take-on any Keas Parrot head-to-head if it tries to damage the vehicles with their sharp beaks. This may well be the stupidest thing I have ever heard in my life.
4. Headline: Child Groom of Wife, 37, Runs Away
In this story, an Atlanta-area 15-year-old boy ran away from his grandmother’s house, “without shoes, jacket or money,” just weeks before his 37-year-old wife was due to give birth to their baby. At hearing about his disappearance, the wife was reportedly “surprised and concerned.” Yeah. No shit.
5. Headline: Hussein’s Trial: New Judge, New Concerns
Well the Hussein trial took a bizarre turn last week, as a new judge, the third since the trial began on October 19th, kicked Saddam’s brother-in-law, Barzan al-Tikriti, out of the courtroom for yelling expletives at him. He then kicked out Barzan’s lawyer, and then when the other defence lawyers left in protest, he expelled all of them too. When he tried to appoint a new lawyer for Saddam, Hussein went berserk and had to be physically restrained as he protested this appointment, so the judge kicked him out too. No Saddam, no trial, court adjourned. This describes the events of only the third day that court has actually been in session since the trial began four months ago. Since then, seven people, SEVEN people, have been assassinated for their involvement in the trial. Let me ask one thing. Why the hell are we going through the song and dance of a trial for Saddam Hussein? This is the man that the Americans sought for decades, chasing him out of Kuwait, cleaning up his messes around the Middle East, and wringing their hands in fear about. Finally, old Bush Jr. decided to go in and find the old dictator. After killing tens of thousands of Iraqis in an effort to…well, free them, the Americans found Saddam under some Styrofoam brick. Did they shoot him then and there? Did they bomb the shit out of his hole and chalk him up as “collateral damage” as they did with the other 30,000 Iraqis that were killed in the process of finding that hole? Nope. He, of course, gets a fair trial. Riiight. Should we see if he’s actually guilty before mowing down 30,000 Iraqis to get to him? Guess not. And not only does he get a trial, he gets a farcical rendition of one, like he’s some kind of Middle Eastern Michael Jackson or something. Why? Does anyone think that the judge is going to be like: “Actually, we got the wrong guy. It was some guy in a Saddam suit the whole time. Turns out this Saddam Hussein actually runs a deli in suburban An Nasiriyah and helps bake cookies for the CWL.” CNN News: “…And the former Iraqi dictator has pledged to spend the rest of his life searching for the real Butcher of Baghdad.” No. They’re going to hang this man no matter who comes forward and speaks on his behalf, no matter how many lawyers and judges and witnesses get murdered in the process. And sure, I know we have to stand up for international justice and give him a fair trial and blah, blah, blah. But this isn’t a fair trial to begin with, and all this courtroom madness is doing is making Saddam seem a little more human and a little more like a martyr to the Islamic world. As I’ve said before, wouldn’t it have been a hell of a lot easier for American soldiers to treat Saddam like they did every other Iraqi they killed and just drop a grenade in his little hole? And Ka-boom! Abdullah’s your uncle.
Have a good one!

…And now for something completely different: The Rants of a University Student (#35)

2006-01-24T17:47:00.000-04:00

If there is one thing in the world that pisses me off (and obviously, there are very few things that piss me off), it’s vandalism. This incredible angst just sort of crept up on me last week when I was told that people won’t live in downtown Charlottetown because they are scared of the graffiti down there. Now, admittedly, this is kind of stupid, and anyone who is scared of graffiti should be living in Stanley Bridge or something, but the fact remains that there is a disproportionate amount of graffiti downtown. People somehow find it necessary to scrawl stuff on walls to tell the world what is going on in their head. Why? Because nothing says ‘I love you’ like spray paint on a rock face along the Cobequid Pass? Because you’re Straight-Edge? OoOoOo. That’s special. Oh. You’re anti-establishment? Wonderful. You know what? No one cares. Plus, if you believe in something so strongly, you shouldn’t need the attention of the general public to be validated as a person. You should also possess the common sense to discern how truly useless graffiti is. Some random business guy is not going to walk down Queen Street on lunch and see "Down with the system!" or "Screw ‘The Man’" written on a wall and think "You know what? They are SO right! What a great idea!" and then quit their job and leave their wife and 2.5 kids in suburbia and go live in the woods and become a vegetarian and eat roots all day. So what’s the point? Keep your stupid opinions to yourself and if you want to complain about the world and share your ideas that no one cares about, write an article in a student newspaper or something.

Vandals have been busy all over this city in recent months, ripping cords out of ATM machines here on campus, kicking over gravestones, defacing election posters, trashing statues at churches, etc. etc. Over Christmas people even cut down lights at people’s houses and, in Nova Scotia, someone stole a lot-full of trees that a youth groups was selling for charity. What the hell is wrong with people? Like fine, if you want to rob banks, steal cars, jump off buildings, snort crack-cocaine all day, go ahead, whatever. It’s still damn stupid, but at least you’re getting money or high or adrenaline or some sort of rise out of it. Painting up a wall or kicking over gravestones? Frig right off. I’m generally not a big fan of capital punishment or prison torture, but these are definitely the types of people that we should bring it back for. And Paul Allen.

Speaking of capital punishment, the California government executed another death-row inmate last week. Now, I am not going to criticize the death penalty in the US, hell I’m not even going to point out that capital punishment is largely counter-productive. They’re an independent country, they can make their own laws, and God knows, judging by the number of high-intensity debates we had in Junior High about this issue that it will likely never be resolved anyway. I do, however, sort of balk at the idea of executing a 76-year-old man who is in a wheelchair and legally blind after he waited 23 years on death row. I mean, if the very point of capital punishment is to punish felons and have the families of victims placated, what is the point of having the families of victims wait around for 23 years and meanwhile spending money to keep some guy alive so you can kill him? In September, this old guy, Clarence Ray Allen, nearly died when his heart stopped, but prison officials were like: "Oh no you don’t!", revived him, and put him back in his cell. Niiice. That’s another four months of room and board to pay for, plus health costs for a 76-year-old blind guy in a wheel chair. This is almost as bad as the system that the Americans have set up in Iraq. Remember Abu Gharib prison? Yeah, the one where American soldiers were torturing Iraqi prisoners? Well it was back in the news last week when the Americans decided to make the prison a, and I quote: "highlight [of] the progress toward democratic governance and the rule of law, demonstrating the involvement of Iraq’s government in the effort to provide both security and justice for all Iraqis." Wow. That sounds like a pretty sweet plan. How did they do this? Well by releasing 500 prisoners of course! Were these prisoners found innocent? Nope. Had they served their full-term? Heck no! They just opened the gates and off they went. The prisoners who were released, 500 of a full 1300 releasees in an apparent American ‘catch & release’ program, were asked to renounce violence and to pledge to be "good citizens" in the new "democratic Iraq".

Guard: "Do you promise not to do anything BAD?"
(Prisoner nods head)
Guard: Now Abdul, are you SURE you won’t do anything bad again?"
(Prisoner shrugs)
Guard: (chuckles) "Oh ya little kidder. Get outta here."

I don’t know, it just seems a bit contradictory to me. People being imprisoned without charge? Executing seniors? Prisoners who, in any other situation would be referred to as potential terrorists, being spontaneously set free? Riiight.

So some idiot sent me an email the other day telling me that MSN is shutting down for good (they’re serious this time!) and that I had better damnwell send it to my entire contact list unless I wanted to be screwed royally. Here, word-for-word, is that email:

Hey it is Andy and john the directors of MSN, sorry for the interruption but msn is closing down. this is because too many inconsiderate people are taking up all the name (eg making up lots of different accounts for just one person), we only have 578 names left. If you would like to close your account, DO NOT SEND THIS MESSAGE ON. If you would like to keep your account, then SEND THIS MESSAGE TO EVERYONE ON YOUR CONTACT LIST. This is no joke, we will be shutting down the servers. Send it on, thanks. WHO EVER DOES NOT SEND THIS MESSEAGE, YOUR ACCOUNT WILL BE CLOSED AND YOU WILL COST 10.00 A MONTH TO USE. SEND THIS TO EVERYONE ON YOUR CONTACT LIST. NOW YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO. PLEASE DO NOT FORWARD THIS or REPLAY. COPY THE WHOLE EMAIL. GO BACK TO YOUR INBOX AND CLICK ON NEW. AND PASTE
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION

I am dead serious. Someone actually sent me this in fear of losing their MSN privileges. Listen there Andy and John, you idiots. Even if you are real people, do you think that people are going to believe that the entire MSN system is left in the hands of two dumbasses who can’t even spell words like ‘message’ and ‘reply’ and who don’t even have a simple grasp of the mechanics of the English language? Who the hell takes the time in their day to write this shit? There is absolutely no gratification to this, unless you’re the type of person that gets a rise out of having gullible idiots are sending this message on in perpetuity. Newsflash! You know those emails about some kid in Bolivia who got trampled by a herd of sheep and needs a billion dollars cash by this tomorrow or he’s done for? Yeah, didn’t happen. I mean I am impressed with the imaginative bullshit these people come up with, but even if there was some truth to any of these stories, sending an email to your contact list isn’t going to do a damn thing for them. It’s not going to propagate a miracle, it’s not going to force the Bolivian government to invest in Health Care or in better sheep fencing, and Bill Gates sure as hell is not going to give the kid a buck everytime some moron sends the email. Never mind that there is no accurate way of keeping track of how many times the email gets sent, it is just, plain and simple, a stupid idea.

Has anyone watched Family Feud in the past 7 or 8 years? That is the most obnoxious and seizure-inducing half-hour on television. It’s even worse than that stupid King Cole Cup of Cash draw. Are these people on crack? No matter what stupid answers these jerks come out with, the whole bunch of them go completely berserk, clapping their hands and shrieking. It’s like Tourette’s Syndrome on speed. "GOOD ANSWER! GOOD ANSWER!!!" No. No it wasn’t. You didn’t get shit. Shut the hell up. Where do they get these people? Unit 9? Utah? The Church of Scientology? And who the hell hired Al Borland as host? Yes, the infamous Richard Karn has replaced the massive Louie Anderson, a man whose voice could stun and kill a deaf ox at 50 yards, as host. Of course Karn isn’t much of an improvement. I think his only qualification was the fact that he was also a fat aging white guy. If my grandmother didn’t enjoy the show so much, I think I’d have to fly down to L.A. and punch Karn in the face. Him and the Golden Girls. And listen Dick; it’s SUR-vey, not SHUR-vey. Moron.

And finally, election time has come and gone in Canada once again. Well yippee-ay-oh-kay-eh. I am writing this before most people have cast their ballots, so obviously I can’t say for definite sure who our Prime Minister is as you are reading this, but my guess, judging by the "shoot ourselves in the face" campaign strategy of the Liberals, I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess that good old Stephen Harper is at the helm. And not that this scares me all that much, per se, it’s just that his stupidity during the campaign kinda weirded me out a bit. We need to give seniors tons of money because "seniors fought for us in two world wars for us…" Well Stevie, this is partly true, but seeing as there are only four guys alive in Canada that were actually enrolled in the military during World War I, I wouldn’t try to go ride that World War I wave too much. Sigh.
Have a good one!

...And now for something completely different: The Rants of a University Student (#34)

2006-01-10T21:55:00.000-04:00

Well, the New Year came in with a bang this year, particularly for those of you who happen to live in the general area surrounding Brown’s Court and Queen Street. For anyone who was not present that evening, I think a friend of mine described it best when he said “Oh my God. Brown’s Court is like Rwanda!” This was almost entirely true, except for the fact that Rwanda is not filled with drunken idiots. Yes, the large hordes of youth who chose to ring in the New Year by hanging around Brown’s clearly drank responsibly, as indicated by the hundreds of broken beer bottles on the ground the next morning, and to act in a civilized and mature manner, insomuch as ripping the door off building 17, throwing a mattress in the hallway and somehow causing a ceiling leak can be considered as mature and responsible behavior. As always, the wonderful long arm of the law, personified by the elite Charlottetown Police Department, acted valiantly in controlling the situation as the officers in the sole squad car on the scene opted to stay in their car and do absolutely nothing. Wonderful.
Christmastime on PEI was once again a joyous occasion, a time for love and joy and trees and turkeys and for relatives to tell you how bad they had it when they were kids. I heard some Baby-Boomer going on about it the week before Christmas: “Kids today get the Gameboys and the iPods and those cell phones. We only got oranges and socks. And we were damn happy to get it.” Well aren’t you all just paragons of virtue and unfettered selflessness? How can my generation ever possibly meet the impossibly high standards of your oh-so-wonderful and possibly greatest generation of all time? Give it a rest. We don’t care about your damn oranges. It sort of loses its’ quaintness after you whine about it for 40 or 50 years. Hey, at least you didn’t have to fight and die for your own freedom like the two generations did before you. And at least your parent’s generation didn’t totally screw you over by depleting pension plans and social programs to the point that there was no money left by the time you got to retiring age even though you had to pay for it through the nose for your entire career like we’re going to have to do. Phht. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me.
Other than whining, the other great Canadian Christmas tradition continued this year. The World Juniors, were held in Vancouver, as Canada beat the snot out of every team they faced, with only 6 goals scored against them.
Of course all of this could not have been done without the gracious aid of the American coaching staff, who, when tied with Canada late in the third thought “I know! We can pull our goalie!” Uh huh. Good one. Canada of course scored an empty netter, clinching first place and a bye to the semis. Even though the US needed the win, it was still probably the stupidest move in modern sport as a) their goalie was by far the best US player on the ice, and b) they were playing Canada, the World Cup, Olympic, and World Junior Champions, who, believe it or not, are pretty good at scoring on a net that has no goalie in it. No wait, I take that back. The stupidest move in sports was during last year’s semi final in the World Juniors, when the US was losing 4-2 to Russia, and, (surprise, surprise) pulled their goalie. Russia scored two empty-netters, and then after the Americans had the sense to put him back in, the Russians scored on the powerplay with one second left. Final score: USA 2 - Russia 7. God Bless America.
This year’s series culminated in a 5-0 Canadian win over the Soviets, who before the game predicted that mother Russia would “dominate” Canada. Riiight. The Russians were pretty peeved that a goal they scored went uncalled because no one saw it, with their coach arguing that they would’ve probably won had it been called. Um no. Then it would’ve been 5-1. Idiots. Some people felt that Russia was cheated in the non-call and that it could’ve changed the game, but for myself, I consider it payback for the 2003 Gold Medal game that we lost, where the Russian netminder hit the net off its moorings with 10 seconds to go in the game, a move that should have resulted in a penalty shot for Canada. Of course the Russians and Canadians put this all behind them, shook hands after the game, and drank Smirnoff and beer late into the night while making fun of the goalie pull-happy Americans.
Well I was informed after my last rant that some people were offended by my attack on the efforts of the Charlottetown Transit busses to decorate for the holidays. In that article I commented that the trolley-busses looked ridiculous by saying, and I quote “Ding ding! Here comes the shit-mobile.” Well, I am sorry for anyone that offended, but that is exactly what the bus looked like. I was not attempting any sort of attack on the bus system as a whole, indeed I am well aware that Charlottetown needs a transit system, I know the schedule is getting better, and that more and more people are using it. Hell, I wasn’t even all that pissed off when the first time I tried to get on the bus that it drove right past me. Jerks. My question is more me wanting to know why the hell we had to get busses that look like trolleys. For once, could we please just get something normal? Not something named after Anne or Confederation or potatoes or any of that nonsense, nothing to do with history or heritage or tradition: just normal damn busses. It would be more environmentally friendly, they wouldn’t have to use pine benches for god’s sake, and we could actually ride them with a bit of dignity. For some reason, one model that has been decided on for our fair city is one that is supposed to look like trolleys from 1608. What in the hell? 1608? This has absolutely no historical basis in Charlottetown. First of all, I’m pretty sure we didn’t have a mass transit system in 1608, seeing as our first transit system was developed in, yes, you guessed it, 2005. Secondly 1608 is about the same time that Samuel Champlain founded a little village called Quebec, while Black Plague and scurvy is still killing off the Brits, and John Smith is getting his ass saved by Pocahontas. Seeing as nothing was established anywhere near Charlottetown for another 111 years, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say we didn’t have a fleet of trolleys messing about the forest in 1608. Maybe a few Co-op cabs, but that’s about it.
Have a good one!

...And now for something completely different: The Rants of a University Student (#33)

2005-11-29T10:23:00.000-04:00

Ah yes. Christmas season on PEI. Snow is in the air, our anally retentive Province has opened the doors for shopping on Sunday, and our beautiful trolley-busses are sporting festive holidays boughs. Ding-ding! All aboard the shit-mobile! Meanwhile, amidst our piles of final assignments and exams and papers and labs, us students are left to ponder how big of an explosion we would have to concoct before they cancelled the remainder of classes and delayed exams for 30 or 40 years. There’s a somewhat joyous concept to consider over the festive season. By the way, just for curiosity’s sake, how damn long does it take to build a friggin Nutri-Science Building anyway? Like holy slack-ass construction Batman!
Well, on Monday Islanders had their chance to vote for a system of Proportional Representation. Did they go for it? Well, It’s Sunday evening, so my opinion is purely speculative, but my guess is: No. Part of the reason for this is because no one knows what the hell is going on, another being that old Patty Binns, a man with the foresight of a carrot, raised the bar of democracy to 60%, presumably to protect us poor voters from being represented by any party other than his own. Of course he doesn’t even have to do a damn thing if it passes anyway. But the main reason it didn’t pass, of course, is because Islanders just don’t like change. “Well yeah, no shit Ryan.” That’s why no one knows how to sort their garbage yet and why we didn’t get a 911 system until 2000. Islanders cherish their backwards and antiquated voting process: you go to the polls, you cast your ballot, your get your pint of rum and you go home. This opinion has been enunciated clearly in the letters to the editor in The Guardian over the past few weeks. These morons would have you believe that the proposed system is equivalent to that of Communist China, which is like comparing my 89-year-old grandmother to 50 Cent. Mind you, the proposed system was likely the stupidest version of Proportional Representation I have ever seen, but the fact remains that somewhere along the line we are going to need electoral change here on PEI. For example, while the rest of the country is going nuts about the Sponsorship Scandal, freaking out that the Liberals gave money and jobs to their friends, Islanders are sitting around thinking: “Yeah...on PEI, that’s called good politics.” Still, some argue that Political Patronage is a thing of the past here on the Island. Oh sure. And if you believe that I have a Little Christo’s Factory and some Polar Food stock to sell you. I’m sure it’s not coincidence that after Catherine Callbeck won a landslide in 1993 that my road was paved for the first time since 1961, nor is it by mere happenstance that every damn mailbox on our road has been blown to shit by Conservative plow operators since Binns took over in ‘96. Binnsy, by the way, has decided to stick around to run in the next Provincial election. Well good. I was wondering who was going to continue funding ridiculous business ventures and driving our economy into the ground. Ahwell. In the era of the quasi-democratic 60%+1, you get what you ask for. Or at least what Binns tells you to ask for.
Have a good one!

...And now for something completely different: The Rants of a University Student (#32)

2005-11-15T18:42:00.000-04:00

Well, good old Air Canada has decided to discontinue serving complimentary snacks on their flights. Fine! Keep your damn sesame snacks. It’s not enough that we have to pay $200 to get off this damn island on those Dash 8 Puddle Jumpers, (which, by the way, are not the best plane to fly, take-off, or land in, during rain, wind, snow, or basically in any flight that the plane has to actually leave the ground) but now I get to starve in-flight too. This whole flying experience pisses me off. It doesn’t make it any better that flight attendants talk to me as if I was a 3 year old with ADD and smiles, while her eyes suggest that they would much rather stab me with a fork than get me another water. And when flights are over, no one ever seems to be in any kind of rush to get off the damn plane. Suddenly seemingly simple tasks, such as picking up a briefcase and walking, take the average air traveler upwards of 4 and a half months. (The wait was so long on a recent flight that a friend and I took the time to compose an entire song entitled “Pick up your shit, and get off the plane.”) Of course, I guess it’s not only Air Canada that has recently “sucked ass” in its customer service. CanJet, in addition to allowing 3.4 square inches for legroom, also provides perhaps the most unprofessional flight crews in the industry and aircraft that are about as comfortable as a refurbished Soviet bomber.
The al-Qaeda came out last week to justify bombings last summer (which is stupid to try to justify to your average mentally sane person in the first place) by telling the world that one of the most severe enemies of Islam is, you guessed it, Queen Elizabeth II. Yes, Osama has apparently fingered Queen Elizabeth as one of the “severest enemies of Islam.” Yep. An 80 year old woman is a “severe threat” to the entire Islamic community. I think I speak for everyone when I say: “You are out of your mind.” What the hell has she done to Islam? I’m pretty sure all she does is drive around and wave at people. The Queen is about as much of a threat to Islam as Lamb Chops is. And she’s dead.
Yay! Ricky Martin is back! Wonderful. Does anyone else give a crap? I thought we were done of this nonsense. And the ridiculously obnoxious pop/dance is really improved by the incredibly imaginative lyrics of this genius: “Shake your bon-bon, Shake your bon-bon, Shake your bon-bon, Up in the Himalayas, C’mon I wanna lay ya.” The complex videos with that moronic hack Enrique macking it up with famous teenage girls are pretty classy too. “You can run, you can hide but you can't escape my love”? Stalker much? Real healthy there freakshow. Frig off.
Canadians came out and celebrated Remembrance Day this past week in honour of veterans who have fought for our country in conflicts around the world. I am always touched by the thunderous applause for the increasingly aging and increasing small number of veterans as they march through Charlottetown. Sadly, this year also marked the first time that there were no World War I veterans at Ottawa’s Remembrance Day ceremonies. Not only is this a shocking reality check to see that the young men who fought and won at Vimy and Passchendaele and the Somme are all but gone, but it is also a compelling reminder of why it is important for us to remember those heroes who gave much of themselves for us.
Apparently, however, some people are dumbasses about the whole Remembrance Day thing. Myron’s, as a shining example for ethical businesses everywhere, deemed it tasteful to erect a display in their window complete with GI Joe action figures in US Marines combat gear and with Desert Storm camo. One of the figures was in police riot gear. What the hell is he supposed to represent? The Souris Wharf conflict? I’m sorry, I know people think that it’s the thought that counts and all that crap, but I take the remembrance of fallen Canadians very seriously, and I don’t think it is something to be taken lightly or to make fun of. Veterans didn’t fight and die for their contribution to our country to be trivialized and no one has the right to disrespect their honour.
Lest we forget.

Have a good one!

...And now for something completely different: The Rants of a University Student (#31)

2005-11-01T22:12:00.000-04:00

Well, it’s that time of the school year again, when midterms finish and finals appear as an impending, yet distant nightmare, and students turn from their studies to what they do best: drinking and making idiots of themselves. There is no better example of this than the behavior at last Friday’s Halloween Pub at The Wave. Among the sell-out crowd was Carlton Banks of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Body Break’s Hal Johnson and JoAnne McLeod, a disproportionate number of bumblebees and bowling pins, and at least two Shaun Coadys. Other than the Ron Burgundy wannabe who I saw throwing up quite violently, fun was had by all. I think the festive mood was best described by one student who, in the crowd, cheerily told Sponge Bob Square Pants “If you push me one more time I am going to smash in your face.” Nice.
The Guardian conducted a Web Poll last week asking Islanders if they thought a roundabout traffic circle or a ‘T’ intersection with traffic lights should be constructed at the Peter Pan intersection. Come on now. Installing a traffic circle anywhere in Charlottetown is like jumping off Robertson Library into snow banks, fun to watch, but also very very stupid. A traffic circle would cause many accidents, and within half a week would end up killing, by my estimates, everyone on PEI. You see, conducting a motor vehicle on a traffic circle requires that the driver a) has at least marginal motor vehicle operating capabilities, b) can merge with traffic, and c) uses a signal light, all of which Islanders have consistently indicated they are grossly incapable of. Having said that I’m sure everyone is just tickled pink with the idea of installing a tenth set of lights on University Avenue, but thankfully, a compelling solution dealing with this very problem was brought up in The Guardian just a few weeks ago. Some genius wrote in to tell Islanders that we should try to save energy by removing a bunch of stop signs from intersections around Charlottetown. That’s awesome! This is easily the smartest thing I have heard in years. We just rip up some stop signs and maybe some traffic lights downtown and suddenly no one has to stop anymore. I’m not exactly clear on how removing traffic controls is supposed to save energy, but who cares?
Gilles Duceppe of the Bloc Québéçois told the world last week that he thinks Québec should have its own army and spy service if it separates from Canada. “Do we need nuclear submarines? We say no. Maybe multifunctional boats to transport troops.” Multifunctional boats? Whoa. Critics agree that this proposed Québec military already sounds better than Canada’s current force. Duceppe continued to say that the Québec Army would be able to take over existing Canadian Forces bases. Hold the phone there Gilles. So, you’ll secede completely from Canada and be totally autonomous, except you want to still use the Canadian Dollar, Canadian Passports, and use our old Army Bases? Uh, can’t see it. If you leave, you’re gone. You don’t get our money or passports or NAFTA or our old Sea Kings. OK, maybe you can have the Sea Kings. A Québec Spy Service though? I can’t see that being all that successful. In my experience with Québec tourists they do not integrate all that well with local populations. Sure, many of them can speak impeccable English, and I’m sure spies could be trained to adopt local customs, but there’s something about the way they look at non-Quebeckers as if we bathe in our own feces that would blow their cover. Although Duceppe argued that a Québec Army would have no trouble recruiting, I again would have to disagree. Québec has lost every major war it has ever fought in, and ever since has bitched about joining with Canada in any international conflict, World War I, World War II, etc. It is worth noting that the Québecois are descendants of the French, and as was once said about their ancestors, “Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without an accordion,” is much the same for them. Check you stats Duceppe. I’ll bet your sovereigntists would be much happier sitting at home smoking cigarettes and complaining about Canada than running around spying on their cultural inferiors.
And finally the Notorious BIG released a song last week with some of his best rapper buddies and apparently is not at all discouraged by the fact that he still dead.

Have a good one!

...And now for something completely different: The Rants of a University Student (#30)

2005-10-25T22:14:00.000-03:00

Myron’s has certainly learned its lesson and has classed up the joint after being put out of business for six months this year. Not only has it performed the business-savvy maneuver of re-hiring the managers that took the whole place under to begin with, but it has also reverted to more tasteful entertainment, such as the Mr. Naturally Hard Body Pageant that will be going on over the next few weeks. Mr. Naturally Hard Body. Oh wow. Sounds like yet another reason to frequent the pristine sanitary premises of Moron’s. Now 17 year olds will become increasingly torn between feeding their heroine addictions at the Velvet or dancing the night away at the infamous Foam Parties at Myron’s, which in my opinion must be at least one of the top ten ways to catch the Chinese Chicken Flu.
Sylvester Stallone has heeded the calls of his tens of fans and has announced his intention to make another Rocky movie. Well thank god. That plotline has certainly not been beaten to death yet. The 59-year-old actor will once again return as Rocky Balboa, this time as a boxer reluctant to return to the ring. Well no kidding. When you’re pushing 60 you can only take so many cracks to the face before you’re laid-up in a hospital like one of the Lindros brothers. Stallone has said that Rocky will reluctantly return to the ring not to win, but only to compete. Well, what a great message for today’s geriatrics. “You can try all you want, but you sure as hell can’t win.” Good one Stallone. Idiot.
Here’s another brainwave from the wonderful City of Summerside. (Actual slogan: “Garden of the Gulf,” which wouldn’t be that bad of a slogan, except for the fact that the Gulf of St. Lawrence happens to be on PEI’s North Shore. “Hey morons! Other side!”). Yes, all-around genius and general pain in the ass Mayor Basil Stewart suggested last weekend during a meeting of Atlantic Mayors that we make a bid for the 2016 Olympics. Splendid. I wonder why no one has thought up this little jewel of ingenuity before. After a quick look at other potential bids I would have to say our major competitors would be Tokyo, New York, or New Delhi, not only because they actually have a hope in hell of actually effectively running Olympic-sized events and of being able to construct facilities and host a couple million people, but probably also because the combined population of these three cities is roughly 23,000 times that of Summerside.
But you know, when you’ve been mayor of a city like Summerside for 20-odd years, maybe you know a bit more about our region that some smart ass University student like me, so let’s consider his proposal for a minute. I mean Summerside already has a stellar ad campaign going that they could present to the IOC: “…downtown Summerside, bring the family, downtown Summerside, we need University…” and so on. Of course, if we did, by chance, win the Games of the XXXI Olympiad, Charlottetown could help out a lot by driving people around in our fleet of trolley busses. In fact, if the new residence is done by then we could probably even host some athletes right here on campus! We could hold darts and competitive shuffleboard events at the Legion, run track and field down at the CDP. Hell, we could even drag some benches up from the Soccer Field and let them use our existing beach volleyball facility. Plus I’m pretty sure the Engineering Department has a Ping Pong table we could probably borrow.
Now to raise the 10 or 12 billion we’d need to put on the Olympics: we’d likely have to organize a golf tournament or two and so we’d have to get the support of all PEI’s celebrities; Lori Kane, Brad Richards, Paul and Anne, Lucille Poulin, that lady who does that cooking show on Channel 10. If we’re really lucky, maybe we can get Steroid Ben to come race against a stock car again. And I’m sure those geniuses at Meteor Creek could probably throw together some kind of propane Olympic torch.
So I guess you were right Basil, we definitely could hold the Olympics, and you are definitely not the stupidest person I know. Now maybe if you and your city could get half a clue you could figure out that no one likes your stupid Lobster Carnival, and that we have about as much chance of bringing the Olympics to Atlantic Canada as you do in getting a University of Summerside. ZING!

Have a good one!

...And now for something completely different: The Rants of a University Student (#29)

2005-10-12T22:16:00.000-03:00

Do the Pussycat Dolls not piss anyone else off? “Don’t cha wish your girlfriend was a freak like me? Don’t cha wish your girlfriend was raw like me? Don’t cha? Don’t cha?” Uh, no. Not really. Shut up. That’s actually quite disturbing. And gifted lyricist 50 Cent is once again back on the charts with the remix of ‘Outta Control’ with Mobb Deep (From the poetically entitled album “The Massacre”). Mr. Cent discusses in this song his difficulties with alcohol and vice (“…drink till the burn is gone, hit the dancefloor like a scene from soft porn…”) and shows how tough he is by threatening violence and displaying his fearlessness (…I'm known for Gat poppin’, when I got problems, I don't run, I just gun you all up…”), but at the end of the day, he emphasizes his belief in strong parental and family values (“…But we ain't come here to start no drama, we just lookin’ for our future baby mamas…”) Wonderful. Who the hell is this guy? I mean, I’m sorry, but I still do not understand how someone lacking core essentials, such as the ability to communicate in a spoken language or to string together words to form complete, coherent sentences, can somehow be recognized as a great rapper. I mean listen to k-os or Kanye or Kyprios or even Will Smith for god’s sake, and you can at least piece together the point they’re trying to convey. 50 Cent seems intent on focusing on three key issues 1. Gettin’ hoes up in da club, 2. Living in da hood, and 3. Shooting bruthas, doing drugs, and just being a general asshole. Not since Vanilla Ice (“…quick to the point to the point no faking, I'm cooking MC's like a pound of bacon…”) have posers pulled off an attempt at rap, or at art in general, so badly. Well I be hatin’ 50 Cent, that shit is whack. In da club. Word.
Ah yes, Week 6 at UPEI. You can see the desperation on the faces of every student you pass in the hallway. Oh sure, everyone still smiles at each other and greets them with the generic “What’s up?” (Usually the greeter does not give a damn what’s up and just has nothing better to say.) But if you look into our eyes you can tell that each and every one of us is quite literally well on our way to clinical insanity, if not there already. First years, who were only weeks ago blissfully ignorant and aimlessly wandering around campus without a care in the world have now caught a glimpse of what it is to be a University student, and as mid-terms approach, are scared shitless. They now run from class to class eyes wide open in fear, hair unkempt, and papers flying everywhere. Second and third years, who by now accustomed to their collective impending doom are either burrowed away in some yellow cubicle, studying obsessively, or are sitting around laughing it up with friends, knowing all the while that they should be studying, or, at the very least, researching for that 20 page paper due at 4:00. Fourth year students march across campus with a certain purpose, as if they are very important people and are headed to do something very important, like address the United Nations or assassinate Osama bin Laden or something. But they too meet those they pass with an uneasy half smile and a vacant look on their face that tells you that inside they are shitting their proverbial pants. They are haunted by the notion that this year really matters, that every waking moment should be spent studying, that these upcoming exams will determine whether they will get into med school or law school or in a corner office somewhere or if they will end up a hopeless loser or a bum on the street, or even worse, like Paul Allen or something. Of course when we find ourselves freaking about school this much, we should all remember that the life of a University student is not all that bad, that soon we will be paying mortgages and sitting in some office or cubicle 8 hours a day and going to parent-teacher interviews and driving mini-vans and drinking Diet Pepsi. Life is full of tests and challenges and all that nonsense, so try not to freak out too much about that next paper or lab or mid-term. It will all be ok. Of course Science students are by now thinking “Ryan, you are the stupidest person I know. If I do not pass my exam I will die.” Well maybe you should stop wasting your time reading the damn Cadre then. Moron.

Have a good one!

...And now for something completely different: The Rants of a University Student (#28)

2005-09-27T22:20:00.000-03:00

An era came to an end on September 25th when Subway Restaurants finished phasing out their stamp coupons. Now, instead of stamps, in return for enduring the long line, paying for obscenely expensive subs and reeking of Subway for the rest of the day you get...nothing. No free cookies on Friday, no super value meal on Wednesday. Personally, I’ve been pissed at Subway since they switched from Pepsi to Coke, but really, this is ridiculous. Eat Fresh? Kiss my ass Jared.
Relief came on international front last week as Canada and Denmark agreed to sit down and talk about who possesses sovereignty over Hans Island in the Arctic. Tempers had been rising in both countries since Canada’s Defence Minister Bill Graham landed on the disputed island in July with Canadian Forces troops to plant a Canadian flag. In retaliation the Danes sent a warship to sail around the island for awhile and to erect a Danish flag on the island. “We put one up before but it blew down.” was their reasoning. World leaders were shocked and the US Military reportedly went to DEFCON 5 when they heard that the great military powers of Canada and Denmark were having a dispute, especially after hearing that at least two Canadian submarines were almost operational. “Thank God that’s over.” Was reportedly the reaction of Saddam Hussein from his jail cell upon hearing the news. Hans Island, by the way, is 1.3 square kilometres and is entirely uninhabited. Oh yeah. And the North Koreans are giving up their nuclear weapons program. Riiight.
Elections were held for the German Bundestag last Sunday, and no one seems to know who won. Both leading parties were considerably shy of the 307 needed for a majority. Negotiations have been on-going with other parties in attempts of establishing some sort of governing coalition, but the two major party leaders have going postal on each other all week, everyone refuses to even talk to the Left Party (successor of the old East German Communists), and one of the coalitions has been dubbed “The Jamaican Coalition.” Oh those crazy Germans. They’re not that good at this democracy stuff. Or at taking over the world.
Residents of Newark, New Jersey became mildly concerned last week when it was reported that three mice infected with the Bubonic Plague had gone missing from a University of Medicine and Dentistry laboratory, prompting University Officials to spring into action and do...absolutely nothing. According to them the mice posed a “scant” threat to the general public and besides, since they had already been missing for about two weeks, they were “probably already dead anyway.” Now, I have a great respect for the research community, don’t get me wrong. But in my opinion, it’s pretty stupid to handle test subjects so haphazardly that they go missing for two weeks without you noticing, especially when these subjects happen to be infected with the BUBONIC PLAGUE. Yeah, it only killed like 137 million people back in the day. No worries. Morons.
Speaking of incompetence, the Charlottetown Police asked the public to be on the lookout last week after a 12-gauge camouflaged shotgun went missing from the gun cabinet at the Charlottetown Canadian Tire. When? “Oh, sometime between the 10th and the 19th.” (Apparently Canadian Tire does not have the best shoplifting detection system). According to a report in the always non-biased and über-professional Guardian, there are only two people in the entire store that had access to the cabinet. Do you think these two people should be possible suspects? Of course not. “I think they just noticed it was missing.” Constable Gary Clow was quoted as saying. Hey went on to ask the public to keep an eye out for the gun. Thanks Gary. And sure, I’ll get right out there on the street tonight and do you job for you. Jerks.

Have a good one!

...And now for something completely different: The Rants of a University Student (#27)

2005-09-13T22:19:00.000-03:00

Yes, its that time of year again. Time for tuition fees, student fees, sports fees, parking fees, admin fees, and residence fees. Time for new roommates, new friends, new classes, new profs and new things to piss you off. Time for togas and 2-4s and a good drink-on to forget about all the money and time that you don’t have. And of course, time for reading my column in The Cadre and then sending me e-mails about how much you hate me and my stupid opinions.
Well the geniuses in the email protest community have done it again. September 1st was deemed as "Stick it to Them" Day, which was, as I was told in about 3,086 e-mails, aimed at getting everyone to stop buying gas for a day, the theory being that if no one bought gas for an entire day, the big oil companies would freak out, collapse under pressure, and be forced to drop oil prices. Despite the fact that this scheme is fundamentally flawed, substantially delusional and that the people who conceived it are evidently complete idiots, the protest went off without a hitch. That is of course except the small fact that gas prices went up 36 cents that day. Wow, what awesome power those fearless email vigilantes wield. Morons.
It seems the NHL and the NHLPA finally got their asses in gear, signing a CBA after their bickering led to the cancellation of the 2004-05 NHL Season. Following the ratification of the agreement, teams around the NHL scrambled to sign new players from the massive pool of unrestricted free agents. Pittsburgh signed John LeClair, Mario Lemieux, Zigmund Palffy, Sidney Crosby and Sergei Gonchar, Edmonton signed Mike Peca and Chris Pronger, and Atlanta signed Bobby Holik, Marian Hossa and Greg de Vries. Meanwhile, continuing in their tradition of being very well-intentioned, yet also very stupid, the Toronto Maple Leafs signed Eric "Concussion" Lindros, who is about a headache and a half away from eating through a straw and Aki "The Pylon" Berg. Oh wait, this just in. Toronto has just signed Mariusz Czerkawski. Great. Whoever the hell that is.
On a brighter note, another one of our Canadian teams has had considerable success with signings in the off-season. The Ottawa Senators, have been able to sign Dany Heatley, the young phenom from Atlanta and have replaced Patrick "The Choker" Lalime with Dominik "The Dominator" Hasek, the only drawback of this, being, of course, that everyone hates the Ottawa Senators.
An era ended last week as Rainbow Valley closed its doors forever. There was extensive uproar from the public about turning the forty-acre park into nature trails for the National Park, but for me the closure is a more positive move. I was always kind of weirded out by The Witch’s Cave and the whiplash-inducing Bushwacker. And what the hell was up with that weird-looking robot fisherman from the "Dark Ride"? (Original name by the way). I will, however, miss harassing Mrs. Owl and asking why she already had a baby at the age of 14, or being yelled at by Rainbow Valley staff telling us we’re not supposed to get of the boats and walk around on the islands in the pond. Oh the joys of being a delinquent pubescent boy let loose at Rainbow Valley.
So, once again, welcome back to another (or perhaps first) year at the U of PEI. A particular welcome back to the worst-maintained, yet most-spirited building on campus. Yes, Marion Hall, who we had all thought had seen its last days as a residence, has proved us all wrong, and, back from the dead, will carry on the tradition of holding some of the loudest and most random parties this side of Tignish.
And so, as the year goes on, remember to work hard, and to have fun; to embrace the good times, learn from the bad, and whenever possible, to raise a glass in celebration of another semester in the company of friends.

Have a good one!

...And now for something completely different: What I Learned This Year at University (#26)

2005-04-05T22:24:00.000-03:00

Well, this is it. The last Cadre of the 2004-05 school year. For some of you this will be an emotional moment as you ponder this, your final year here at UPEI and how it has compared to your first 4 (or 5. or 6. or 8.) years here. For others it will be an opportunity to look at the past year of challenges faced and victories won. Of highs and lows and in-betweens. For still others you will be thinking “Shut the hell up Ryan. I hate you.”
Point taken.
What I learned this year at UPEI:

- I learned this year that the sole duty of some workers in Kelley Building seems to be standing outside and smoking 7 out of 8 hours every day.
- That being incredibly stupid is an asset, especially if you happen to work for Magic 93.
- That climbing over buildings instead of walking around them, while a time-saver, is also probably not the best idea, and when drunk, is at least twice as hazardous.
- I learned through word-of-mouth that jumping through windows at the Legion is neither as enjoyable nor as rewarding as it may at first seem.
- I learned that Backstreet’s back and that puking is not restricted to the sick.
- That renovating a building can take longer than it does to build another one twice its size, and that the most important part of a renovation project is to ensure that noise and inconvenience always takes precedence over doing actual work.
- I learned that high school students are at least 10x stupider than when I was there. And they’re getting worse. I learned that I can come up with at least a dozen ways to stop them from throwing snowballs at restaurants. I learned that most of these were illegal.
- I learned that acting as a sledding ramp does not work and can be tremendously painful.
- That many students feel that getting to class on time is more important than crossing University Avenue at the crosswalk, like a sane individual.
- That only through ignorance do we hate. I hate the French language.
- I learned that as much as I often resented Moron’s when it was open, since it closed I now have a pain in my stomach telling me that something inside me has died. Either that or I have an ulcer.
- I learned this year that the UPEI Student Union is corrupt and full of power-hungry individuals who care about nothing more than screwing with the lives of all students. Either that or someone has an over-active imagination.
- I learned that raising awareness about pedestrian safety by pretending to get hit by a car and laying on University Avenue for half an hour and getting hauled off by an ambulance pisses people off.
- I learned that complaining about tuition, parking, George W. Bush, the weather, etc. pisses people off.
- I learned that using an ‘R’ with a little circle around it as a representation of your signature pisses people off.
- I learned that no matter how well-intentioned your actions, no matter how hard you try, someone somewhere will get pissed off at you for not doing enough. Or for doing too much.
- I learned that I no longer care.
- I learned that I can go to a class for 3 hours a week for 4 months and not learn a damn thing.
- That an all-nighter and some quality bullshit often yields the best papers. That hard work pays off later; sometimes, procrastination pays off now; always.
- That “It is better to do little well than a great deal badly.” (Socrates). While this may be true, I learned that I am much better at the latter.
- I learned that it won’t be the failed exams or that book you didn’t read or the 8:30 classes that we’ll remember, but rather, Trivia Wednesdays and Fajita Fridays. Those random friends you made on that Pub Crawl. Those idiot car-parkers they made fun of in The Cadre. The night class they cancelled because everyone was too drunk. That jerk that kept on shutting off the lights in the bathroom, the crush in your class, or the people that just made you smile, like that kid that jumped off the Library.

And so, with all we’ve learned, and as we leave our school for another year, perhaps this time forever, let us remember to embrace the good times, to learn from the bad, and whenever possible, to raise a glass in celebration of another year gone, another course earned, and another summer break in the company of friends.

Have a good one!

...And now for something completely different…The Rants of a University Student (#25)

2005-03-30T22:27:00.000-04:00

Armed rebels seized control of President Askar Akayev’s Headquarters in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan last week, raising international fear of instability in the region. As a university student concerned about such issues, let me be the first to say: “What the hell Kyrgyzstan?”
Spring has sprung here on PEI and us students are right into the books, finishing up term papers and studying for the infamous final exams. Right on cue, Daylight Savings Time will kick in next Sunday to take away an hour of sleep and to give us that extra little kick in the junk that us students need so badly at this time of year. And to help out all that much more, construction workers have jumped into high-gear, banging around metal on the roof of the Library and hurling large chunks of concrete from the top floor of Duffy, just as if they had saved their loudest projects especially for our exam studying time. Ok, sure, I know renovations have to be done on Duffy, especially given the asbestos and the leaks and all that, but do they really have to start dragging new trailers onto campus and making massive trenches of mud during our busiest and most important time of year? Seriously, you don’t want to start pissing off students that are short on sleep, deep in work and that have potent chemicals readily available.
A bus driver from Charlottetown Rural was suspended last week after refusing to drive a bus that he said was too full. Upon inspection by the Vice Principal, she decided that it was not too full, as there were only 56 students on a bus she said was designed to hold 72 students, so she suspended him. Ok, this is the first clue that she is, with all due respect, an idiot. Having spent around 4000 hours on school busses between Kindergarten and Grade 12, I’m pretty damn sure that there is no way in hell that 72 high school students, plus kit-bags, musical instruments, ghetto-blasters, etc. are going to fit in a 24-seat bus safely. Someone’s ass is gonna be on the floor. This policy of punishing bus drivers for being concerned about the safety of the bus they’re driving is a dumbass move. There is no way that some administrator, who obviously has no idea what the hell she’s talking about, should be telling an experienced driver to do something that could very well be unsafe, a driver, who by the way, they pay something like 50 bucks a day to be responsible for the lives of all the children on his bus.
Speaking of high school punks, the owners of the Noodle House came out last week saying that they are thinking of selling their business after mobs of students from area schools have started pummeling the side of their restaurant with snowballs. I was shocked, first of all, to hear that the Noodle House is not run by the Mafia, as I’ve been told for years, and secondly, that kids could be this stupid. I always wondered why we were never allowed to leave school grounds back in junior high, and now I realize it was because little pukes like these do stuff like that. Now, no offence to any of you who may have once graced the hallowed halls of Queen Charlotte or Colonel Gray, but you don’t see Souris punks pummeling the Blue Fin at lunch or kids out at Bluefield launching attacks on Bobby Clow’s. Snowballs are for throwing at the faces of friends and at girls that you have crushes on, not for terrorizing restaurants owned by immigrants. Honestly, get a life.
Well, my little heart was broken into a billion little pieces last week. Yeah, it’s true; Moron’s has closed its doors and no one seems to know when they’ll open again. Sure, many feel a great deal of angst towards the city bar, with its crap techno music and 50 Cent remixes and incredibly over-crowded dance floor. Having entered the premises about a month ago, I was confronted by one angry (and rather inebriated) such student who let me know how pissed off she was with the crowdedness, saying “I got a damn photo survey for your Cadre! How much does Myron’s suck!?!” And most of us would have to agree. We’ve all visited the less-than pristine bathrooms, seen the broken bottles, and experienced the occasional rough night and rougher morning that often accompany a trip to Moron’s. And we’ve all seen the fights. Hell, even I’ve been punched in the face a couple time, and I’m like the nicest guy in the history of ever. Perhaps the scariest thing I ever did was to try to survive a sober night at Myron’s while babysitting my ridiculously drunken friends. “No, no, leave her alo…no, put that down, that’s not yours…take that out of your mouth. Take it out. What the hell is she wearing? Frig it’s hot in here! And…oh my God what is that on the floor?”
Still though, I can’t help but thinking, if it weren’t for Moron’s, would there ever be the good old 2 a.m. Kent Street block parties? Where are we going to meet our long-lost buddies now if not in the line-up or on the stairs or in the bathrooms of Moron’s? Where are we going to get our pizza for pub-crawls? Where is everyone that’s back from school for Christmas or Thanksgiving going to meet up? We can’t just go straight to China Garden or Blossoms at 11:00 p.m. Velvet Underground? Sportspage? J.R.’s? Yeah, no thanks. Come on now. Love it or hate it, there’s a place in all of our hearts for Moron’s, a void that will not soon, or possibly ever be completely filled. Sigh. See you at the Wave!

Have a good one!

...And now for something completely different…The Rants of a University Student (#24)

2005-03-22T22:28:00.000-04:00

Well top o’ the mornin’ to ya, and a Happy St. Patty’s Day. UPEI students flocked to the Wave in droves this past Thursday, filling it to capacity and showing their Irish pride in fine form. While the names of many student seemed to indicate that they were not, in fact, Irish, this did not seem to hinder them from celebrating in a traditional Irish fashion by singing, dancing, and drinking themselves into oblivion. The chugging of green beer led to many a drunken stupor, leaving a lasting effect here in campus, where at least one class was cut short due to “student extracurricular activity” and 8:30 Friday morning classes were sparsely attended, making for eerily empty classrooms.
Across the pond in Dublin, Ireland, the Irish celebrated St. Patty’s Day in a similar manner, starting off by getting a good drink-on in the morning, and ending off by having 714 people carted off to prison by dinnertime. The following day businesses reported that less then half their regular staff showed up for work, as the nation nursed a collective hangover. In what could very well be the understatement of the year, one pub manager described the crowd as being “Very, very, merry.”
In fact, with the violence and arrests that resulted from that “very merry” crowd, the entire day devoted to the drunken memory of Saint Patrick could have been a complete write-off, had it not been for the parades that had taken place during the day, with a special appearance by Boyzone star Keith Duffy. For those of you who do not recall Boyzone, they are the Irish boy-band that sang When the Going Gets Tough (The Tough Get Going), which, next to Mambo #5 and Who Let the Dogs Out, is quite possibly the worst song ever conceived by man. Boyzone were called “the most promising band of 1995” by a British music Magazine, which is quite a ringing endorsement, until you remember that the mainstream music scene in 1995 consisted of Cotton-Eyed Joe and The Macarena.
Unfortunately Boyzone’s most recent appearance in North America was in Phoenix, Arizona on July 31st, 1997, with no upcoming dates yet announced. But hardcore fans take solace in the fact that their US Fan Website states that “Once again, rumors of a summer USA visit are circulating the internet!” Cross your fingers!
A Newfoundland man who was convicted of driving under the influence last week blamed his inebriation on his consumption of liquor-filled chocolates, but for some reason the judge saw it necessary to penalize this candy-lover (and previously 3-time convicted drunk driver) for his victimless crime of having a sweet tooth. When stopped by the RCMP, his blood alcohol level was approximately double the legal limit, the accumulation of which, by my estimates, would have taken at least 168 liquor-filled chocolates, an amount of alcohol that would have left him feeling nauseous and disoriented, and an amount of chocolate, that by all estimates, would have left him feeling bloated and dead.
Well, a new chapter was added to Pat Binns and the Adventures of his $125,000,000 Deficit last week when the province decided to give $400,000 to Garden Province Meats after already blowing $275,000 in unsecured loans into the firm in September and helping buy $140,000 in new equipment. What is their friggin obsession with throwing money at bad business? When Polar Foods lost money despite making $150 million a year, the government insisted on stepping in and saving jobs, losing about $31 million in the process, and then putting 1,200 jobs in jeopardy anyway. But wait, good old Agriculture Minister Kevin MacAdam made a good point in backing up this government’s moves, saying “I feel bad, I really, really, really feel bad.” Wow Kevin, when you put it that way…
Newsflash! A news release out of Ottawa last week revealed, that among other things, people are not allowed to pack brass knuckles, nunchuks, tear gas, spear guns or gas torches in airline baggage. Well, why the hell not? I think they may be taking this terrorism stuff a bit too far. I mean how is having road flares or hatches or cricket bats in your carry-on baggage in any way detrimental to other passengers? Actually, who made up this list, and when was the last time some moron tried to get on a plane with this kind of stuff? Also, large quantities of homemade liquor-filled chocolates will no longer be permitted on any flights within Canada. Idiots. And listen. Those stupid “Jetsgone” jokes are not funny. Give it a rest.

Have a good one!

…And now for something completely different: The Rants of a University Student (#23)

2005-03-08T22:30:00.000-04:00

Well Paul Martin’s Liberals made a not-so decisive move recently, deciding to opt-out of the US Missile Defence System. Why the hell would they do that? Would it have something to do with the fact that the Chinese, with an army of 2.5 million people, are not exactly enthralled about the idea? Or maybe because it could spark an arms race which is nicely accented by the fact that North Korea has nuclear arms, are quitting disarmament talks, and are testing long-distance nukes? Not to mention that the American interceptor missiles, that is, the core function of the system, do not work. Some may see it as a drawback that the system, aimed at protecting the US against terrorists and ‘rogue states,’ costs billions of dollars and that will be worth absolute jack if terrorists are flying planes or carrying suitcase bombs.
Of course, there’s not a hell of a lot Canada’s military could do with a nuclear missile heading at us, other than to fling Sea King helicopters at them and hope they get in the way. But I honestly don’t see the need for a multi-billion dollar missile shield, especially in today’s world where the threat comes from terrorist factions, a threat, which in no way includes long-range ICBM capabilities. I’m not saying it’s a good idea to let the Canadian military to continue treading the line of mediocrity and uselessness, but seriously, no one’s gonna nuke us for minding our business, so why stir the water by pissing off all the crazies on the block?
Well, after months of negotiating and arguing and after a threatening resolution was passed by Charlottetown City Council, the NHL and NHLPA may have the issue that is going to force them to get something done. Yeah, that’s right, unless they get a deal done, Dominik Hasek is going to retire. Again. The 40-year-old Dominator made the threat last weekend while Gary Bettman was busy trying to sell the entire league off for a couple billion dollars and Bob Goodenow was off doing…well who the hell cares what he was doing. Hasek first retired in 2002 after winning the Stanley Cup with the Red Wings, but decided to return to the NHL after being charged in the Czech Republic for cross-checking a player in his local amateur league, sitting on him, and then hitting him in the back of the neck repeatedly with his stick. Hasek faced charges of up to $145 for his attack. Wow. That’s only $501,855 less than Bertuzzi got charged for hitting Moore. Poor Hasek. It’s a good thing he’s not Canadian or the NHL might have banned him from hockey too.
The protest ship The Farley Mowat belonging to the environmental group The Sea Shepard Conservation Society was detained by Transport Canada in Halifax last week after it was found that the ship was not environmentally sound for sea travel and that it did not meet oil pollution prevention standards. Calling the detainment political harassment, the captain left port with the Mowat on Friday en route to the Magdalene Islands to film the harp seal hunt. By Sunday, it was publicized that the Mowat, with 28 people from 10 countries on board, was stranded and taking on water in the Cabot Strait. It then had to be towed back to Halifax by the Canadian Coast Guard. At the cost of the taxpayer of course. This ridiculous story about a bunch of morons on the high seas is made even more idiotic by the fact that the group is represented by the always-suave Richard Dean Anderson of MacGyver. “MacGyver! The boat is sinking!” “Oh no! Quick, get me a fork, WD-40 and a cow!”
Legendary rapper and humanitarian 50 Cent has found his way back into the Much Music Top 30 Countdown this week with the romantically poignant ballad ‘Candy Shop.’ For those of you who have not heard it, a sampling of the poetic verse, seemingly directed at his one and only love, or at least his flavour of the week, reads “If you be a nympho, I'll be a nympho.” and “In the hotel or in the back of the rental.” Listeners who are intellectually engaged and intrigued by the riveting lyrics, can visit 50’s website, which features a picture of him leveling an automatic rifle at the screen, which tastefully fires at the viewer as the page loads. Despite his gun-happy tendencies, I am rather quite amused by Mr. Cent’s attempts to prove how ‘gangsta’ he is, as I am with that of his good friend Lloyd Banks (author of the lyrically-rich ‘If You So Gangsta’). Some may think there is something wrong with promoting a lifestyle that results in the deaths of thousands of people every year, most notably among men within their own demographic, but hey, boys will be boys right?
Having said that, I am getting pretty sick of artists who insist on complaining all the time about how bad they have it and about how mentally strenuous it is to make millions of dollars for singing songs now and then. Does this not piss anyone else off? I mean J. Lo never shuts up about how real she is, i.e. ‘I’m Real,’ and ‘Jenny From the Block.’ I mean sure, she was born in the Bronx, but given the $1 billion insurance policy she took out on her own body, I doubt Jenny hangs around the block all that much anymore.
And who is this Lindsay Lohan character? I mean come on now, her voice is so digitally altered she may as well not sing at all and just dance around to an old remix of Cher or something. And talk about whiney. The very first single from her CD was Rumours, a song about how hard it is for her to deal with the overwhelming media attention everywhere she goes. Awwwww. Muffin. You know, if it’s so damn hard to deal with, then just shut the hell up and do something else. And not that I’m condemning your career direction or anything, but if you’re looking for an Amish-style peaceful life, dancing around in your underwear is not really the way to do it.

Have a good one!

...And now for something completely different: The Rants of a University Student (#22)

2005-03-01T22:31:00.000-04:00

Well, clap your hands for the dancing morons. Yes, good old Gary “I left my self-respect in my other pants” Bettman and Bob “My head is way up my ass” Goodenow could not save the NHL season. I mean, come on, here are two guys that don’t have enough combined brain cells firing to figure out that the game they’re destroying is the same one that employs them. Nice one brainwave. The players don’t really have a valid argument to stand on either, I mean sure it’d be nice to have a few more bucks to gas-up your Hummer now and then, but if there’s no hockey, forget salary caps, there’s no salary, period. Idiots.
It’s not like the average salary is below the poverty line anyway. No player in the NHL makes under $180,000 a year. Yeah, good luck making that with a BA in Political Studies. I don’t know how much hockey you watch, but Aki Berg made $1.4 million last year. Aki Berg! He’s like a friggin pylon on skates. Jaromir Jagr made 11.3, which, if anyone’s counting, is roughly 100 times what our Prime Minister makes. I think its time to sit down, shut the hell up, and make some damn concessions. It’s pretty hard to collect $11.3 million in pogey.
Steve Moore, the Colorado Avalanche hockey player that was hospitalized after Vancouver Canuck Todd Bertuzzi sent him to the ice with a cheap shot was back in the news last week filing civil charges against Bertuzzi and others within the Canucks organization. OK Moore, we get it, you got hurt real bad in a hockey game and you want someone to pay for it. You’d think though, after Bertuzzi was banned from the NHL and the IIHF, was forced to pay over half a million dollars in fines (more than Moore would make in and entire year), was demonized by the media and in tears, publicly apologized to Moore and asked to speak with him personally, that Moore would have the common decency to give him a break. But no. Moore decided it’d be much more manly of him to deny Bertuzzi a personal audience with him and instead heap civil charges of assault, battery and negligence on Bertuzzi. Let me just say something here: Newsflash! Hockey is not for wusses. I should know, as a self-proclaimed wuss, I do not play the sport. Steve Moore knew damnwell when he elbowed Canuck captain Marcus Naslund in the face, giving him a concussion, that retribution was owed. When he wouldn’t face Bertuzzi man-to-man in a fight, Bertuzzi took him down. Granted, he took him down in an illegal and vicious manner, which was uncalled for, but this isn’t Peewee, Moore knew the rules, both written and unwritten. Although I don’t think Bertuzzi should’ve hammered Moore to the ice, I also don’t think Moore, a player-for-hire from the AHL, should’ve elbowed Vancouver;s finesse player Naslund in the face, nor should he be portrayed by the media as some innocent angel while Bertuzzi gets compared to Hitler and bin Laden. Participants in NHL hockey agree to certain inherent risks just by playing the sport. Alex Mogilny broke his femur, Ace Bailey fractured his skull, Clint Malachuk had his throat cut by an errant skate, Norman Lévillé suffered brain damage, Howie Morenz, perhaps one of the best ever players in the league, died at the age of 34, 6 weeks after breaking his leg in a freak accident on the ice. I’m not saying that violence is justified, but injuries do happen, intentional or otherwise, and Moore was under no illusions when he laced up his skates. Like flying or jumping off libraries or driving into oncoming traffic, these are the realities and risks that are associated with sport.
I think it was Toronto star Ace Bailey that said, after Eddie Shack hit him, fracturing his skull and ending his career “That’s alright Eddie, It’s all a part of the game.” So yeah Moore, it sucks you got hurt, but crying won’t change that. Try and get on with your life, and maybe salvage some dignity in the process. After the lawsuit was announced, Marcus Naslund came out and told the media that this move was nothing more than a money-grab for Moore, saying, “he’s suing everyone because he wasn’t a good enough hockey player to make a lucrative earning in the NHL.” Since I can describe Moore’s character no better, I will leave it at that.
And finally, for all you die-hard lovesick Valentine’s Day people, a man from Los Angeles, California landed in Manitoba hospital last week suffering from severe frostbite after attempting to walk from North Dakota to Winnipeg to see his girlfriend. The two had met online and the love-stricken man was so intent on meeting her that he decided to sneak across the Canadian border on foot. When asked for comment he said that he was unaware of what the weather conditions would be like. Hmmmm. Western Canada in February. What are the chances this guy voted Bush?

Have a good one!

...And now for something completely different: The Rants of a University Student (#21)

2005-02-08T22:33:00.000-04:00

In a stunning ceremony last week, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) released official government policy stating that long-haired men are immoral and that long-hair goes against the spirit of socialism. A new public announcement campaign now runs commercials entitled: "Let us trim our hair in accordance with socialist lifestyle." Yes. Let us trim our hair you wacky communist bastardy. Apparently the enlightened totalitarian regime of North Korea has discovered, through legitimate scientific sources of course, that long hair consumes nutrients and deprives the brain of much-needed energy. Now, I’m no Science Student, in fact, the only thing that I remember from high school biology is that ducks are arachnids, (Just kidding. They’re molluscs.) but I’m pretty sure that hair is made up mostly of dead cells and that it takes very little ‘brain energy.’ But you know, this theory could go a long way to explain the mental deficiencies of people like Billy Ray Cyrus and Ozzy Osbourne and Kenny G. While I would more likely attribute Ozzy’s lack of brain activity to years of his ‘recreational activities’ and Kenny G’s to multiple school-yard beatings as a child, who am I to argue with the science geniuses of North Korea? Either way, I say those old commies can’t be all that bad. Maybe it’s time we shook hands and got over all this nonsense about nuclear warheads and human rights violations and adopt some of their ideas. Hell, maybe we too should outlaw men’s long hair in North America and see what we can do about getting Michael Bolton executed.
His majesty Ralph Klein of Alberta has approved an initiative that will give tax-breaks for people who join fitness centres in the province, saying: "I think it’s a wonderful idea because I happen to belong to a gym." Yeah right Ralph. Klein has up to now been an exceptional role model for others in his province and right across this country, most notably in tearing apart the health care system, belittling easterners and in wandering into homeless shelters in a drunken stupor and calling the men there out-of-work slobs. No word yet on if people will also be offered tax breaks for joining AA.
Lock the door! The Hazelbrook disposal site is on fire again! Just in case you thought that things like the Springfield tire fire on The Simpsons only happened on TV, The Guardian reported last week that the infamous garbage pit in Hazelbrook is, indeed, once again aflame. Before the fire was extinguished, it had burned through December and into January, but one man reportedly said that he had smelled smoke as early as summer 2004 and saw smoke in September but "figured it was just steam." The heart-stopping drama seized the community once again last week when one eye-witness confirmed that he had seen actual flames coming up from the pit. "I think that’s the first time they had real flames." Well congratulations. Next week - "Hazelbrook: Shallow Gene Pool or Tainted Water?" Morons.
It was like a very bad dream. "Studios are going to make another remake!...of Footloose!...starring Britney Spears!" I don’t know whether to kick off my Sunday shoes or to run into on-coming traffic. Now typically I would assume that movie producers would have the common decency to only re-create those movies that contained the semblance of a logical plot and would try to improve on the original casting by hiring capable actors. I mean you don’t see them planning a remake of Battlefield Earth with Clay Aiken. These plans for Footloose, however, do not seem to follow my logic. Spears would not know acting if it punched her in the face and a story about a community that outlaws dancing on the basis that it is morally and physically dangerous was not plausible in 1984 and is not plausible now. That is, unless you live in Hazelbrook (‘Home of Burning Garbage’).
I received quite a few comments last week saying that my remarks about a student who was injured after jumping off Robertson Library were insensitive and cruel. I tried to explain that in my humble opinion, that anyone who does stupid stuff deserves what they get. One of my friends then reminded me of a time we went sledding a few years back when a member of our group, intent on inspiring excitement, came up with the brilliant idea of laying down on the hill and creating a human ramp by placing a sled on an angle and resting it on his head. Slope and angles, however, were not his strong suit, and so when someone came barreling down the hill, they hit the human ramp, which was not-so-conveniently placed at a 90̊ angle, at great speed, hit the ramp and stopped dead, thus transferring all the inertia in to the human ramp, delivering crushing pain to his head. To add insult to injury, after writhing around in pain on the ground for awhile (he later found out that the collision had torn many of the muscles in his chest) the human ramp decided it was time to go, jumped in his car, slid through the ice on the driveway, and drove directly into the ditch. If memory serves me correct his name was Ryan Gallant. Oops.

Have a good one!

...And now for something completely different: The Rants of a University Student (#20)

2005-02-01T22:36:00.000-04:00

It would seem that when snow starts falling from the sky here on PEI drivers everywhere randomly lapse into a collective state of dementia and irrationality, almost instantly forgetting how to operate a motor vehicle and how to perform the simplest of tasks, namely using a turn signal. It is my theory that with each 10 centimetres of snow, the average Island driver drops about 34 IQ points. Except for hockey Moms driving mini-vans and SUVs. They drop at least double that.
Speaking of which, why do non-students who use the Sports Centre and CARI facility get to park wherever the hell they want on campus? We students, who pay upwards of two left arms to come to UPEI and have to deal with the UPEI Parking Gestapo every damn day, and after paying $80 parking fees, are still not guaranteed parking places anywhere within the same time zone as our classes. A large reason for this is because the CARI facility and UPEI Administration figured it would be a good idea to take out a few existing parking lots and build a massive 300-space parking lot that goes, for the most part, unused, as it is closed off to students during the day. I would like to meet the brainwave who came up with this stellar idea. It wouldn’t even bother me that much if the CARI lot was put to good use, like maybe as a parking area for people that utilize the facility. But nooo. It seems that they would rather park along the road and in the no-parking areas in front of the Sports Centre, impeding traffic and taking away spots for students who have night courses.
Now, you would think that, given the near-orgasmic joy that Security seems to get out of towing student cars away, they would simply explode into psychotic fits of senseless euphoria at the sight of so many vehicles violating every known parking regulation at UPEI. So what do they do? Not a damn thing. Whether they are just making another coffee run to Tim Horton’s or are too busy not answering the phone, it seems that Security only gets their kicks out of penalizing people who least deserve it and can least afford it.
Proof that PEI drivers do not have a monopoly in snow-induced stupidity, a UPEI student was hospitalized last week after jumping off the roof of Robertson Library into a pile of snow that just happened to be located over piles of concrete bricks. Nice one genius. In addition to losing a great deal of his dignity, this student came away from the jump/fall with a few broken vertebrae, thus requiring a plough to create a path in the middle of a storm so as to enable an ambulance to get to him. For once, I truly am sorry. I do feel your pain and hope that your recovery is a rapid and complete one. Just don’t expect to win any Brightness Awards for 2005.
Hold the phone! Jenny from the block wants a name change! No more J.Lo! Riiight. So you use your fame and fortune to shamelessly parade around in your own corpulence while insisting you’re still as ghetto as everyone else and then decide you don’t want people to call you by the nickname that you made up for yourself anymore? Listen dear: you’re about as ghetto as my family out in Rustico. Besides, hasn’t anyone ever told you that it’s not cool to make up nicknames for yourself? You may be able to push around your little husband Marc Anthony, but the general public is not at your mercy. When you swim in a talent pool as shallow as your own and when your 15 minutes as Jenny or J.Lo or Bennifer or whoever are quickly ticking away you should remember that the entertainment world is a fickle place. I would suggest that you stop ordering people around before they get tired of your antics. Sure, maybe they’ll stop calling you J.Lo; but instead they may start calling you what they’ve been calling good old Marc Anthony for years: Done.
The number one cause of migraines and road rage seems poised to rear its ugly head again. Yes, you guessed it: The Backstreet Boys have announced that they will release another album sometime this year. Does this not seem wrong to anyone else? First of all, nothing about these guys denotes anything “backstreet” and the oldest “boy” is now probably closer to his first pension cheque than to his brush with puberty. Now that their original hardcore fans are now pushing 30, I think a name change, if not death by packs of rabid wolves, would be the very least they could do to improve their image. It seems a more apt name for them would now be The Suburban White-Trash Middle-Aged Yuppies That Should’ve Been Put Out of Their Misery a Good Ten Years Ago.
Oh, but don’t get me wrong, if you have no problem letting 12 and 13 year old girls worship 48 year-old alcoholics, you’re entitled to your own opinion, just as long as you realize that I’m right and that your opinion is totally wrong. And I know I am going to get at least 94 emails saying, “Ryan, you idiot, the oldest Backstreet Boy is Kevin ‘Kevy-Kev’ Richardson and he was born on October 3rd, 1972 and he’s only 32 and he had green eyes and he loves Elton John and his favorite dessert is Reese’s Pieces Sundaes.” Yes. These types of people scare the hell out of me. Just don’t expect to see many people waiting in line for tickets other than prostitots and 26-year-old fans still living somewhere back in 1995. Well, them and Paul Allen.

Have a good one!

...And now for something completely different: The Rants of a University Student (#19)

2005-01-25T22:38:00.000-04:00

Well student loans are back in season and once again and university students are being told, among other things, that they make way too much money. Riiight. Tuition has quadrupled in the last decade and students are trying to get more money to pay for it? Damned students. Yes, you’re right, we students are dirty little monsters hoarding our piles of part-time employment money under our beds while we throw away their precious loans on any filthy pleasure that strikes our fancy, like food. God forbid. Since when is living near the poverty line “too much money?”
The seemingly impossible occurred this past week when UPEI Administration decided to cancel classes at UPEI first thing in the morning. Weird. It is usually customary to wait until everyone is at school already, and THEN cancel classes so that students will be able to experience driving in the worst possible conditions. There is a rumour on campus that in the event of the impending apocalypse, the cancellation announcements on Magic 93 would sound something like this: Paul Allen: (in his infinite wisdom) “The world has come to and end…Classes will continue as scheduled at UPEI.”
I was shocked to hear, that last week, for the first time in human history, that the Eastern School District was closed for the day while the Western District remained open. Back in my day I recall trudging through driving snow, following behind ploughs, even having the bus ditched once or twice, but we never just up and cancelled school for no damn reason. Meanwhile, over in the Western District, anything more than a slight breeze blowing the Canadian flag above TOSH would incite the declaration of a disaster area and close the entire Western District for days on end. Times have changed I guess. Take THAT Westisle. Punks.
Once again the British Royal family has shown that they are way ahead of the intellectual curve, as Prince Harry decided it would be a fantastic idea to dress up as a Nazi for a costume party. Good one Harry. Pursuant to his actions, the European Union is now considering banning Nazi symbols. What? Already? You think you’d give them a chance to redeem themselves. Or, and this is just a suggestion here, maybe they could’ve banned them back when the Nazis were tearing across Europe and systematically murdering 8 million people. But I mean, come on, that was 60 years ago right? I guess Prince Harry thinks we should just get over it already. Dumbass.
Well those in the upper echelons of the Bush administration celebrated their extended four years in the White House last week, re-iterating their lofty ideals of world peace and democracy by announcing that “America stands with the oppressed people on every continent, in Cuba and Burma and North Korea and Iran, and Zimbabwe.” Although Bush mentioned ‘every continent’ it is yet unclear what oppressed people he was talking about in North America. It is assumed he was not referring to the poverty stricken and destitute Americans who are still suffering from his first term in office. In his speech during his $40 million inauguration last Thursday, he also stated that “All those who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: The United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for liberty, we stand with you.” Given the deaths of 100,000 Iraqi civilians since the beginning of “Operation Enduring Freedom,” the “oppressed” of the world are beginning to wonder if they really want the Americans standing with them. Never before has freedom been so aggressively forced on the “unfree” of the world.
Finally, Charlottetown City Council passed a resolution last week stating that the NHL and the NHLPA should get back to the bargaining table to resolve the current lockout. Oh no! Not the incredible power of the Charlottetown City Council! I can just imagine the meetings called after word reached both sides of the disputing factions, with Gary Bettman and Bob Goodenow wringing their hands in despair. “Oh no! We’ve pissed off Charlottetown,” and “Seeing as Charlottetown City Council has so much bearing on world events we’d better do what they say!” What can only be assumed to be a direct result of the Council meeting, negotiations re-opened soon after. Following this success, Charlottetown City Council now intends to tackle the issues of global terrorism and nuclear arms proliferation.

Have a good one!

...And now for something completely different: The Rants of a University Student (#18)

2005-01-11T22:39:00.000-04:00

So I think I’ve had just about as much as I can stand of people I don’t know and relatives I’ve never seen pretending that they care what is going on in my life. "How’s school going?" "Was Santa good to you?" Who the hell cares? Obviously you don’t know enough about me to formulate a half-sensible question, so don’t think I’ll be offended if you spare me your stupid-ass and redundant questions. Frig.
Well, the Russians certainly had their asses handed to them last week as Canada decimated those communist show-boaters in the final game of the IIHF World Junior Championships. Canada once again showed that while we may suck at a lot of other stuff (i.e. NBA basketball, running a military, Celine Dion, etc.), that we are still the world super-power when it comes to hockey. Canada dominated the opposition throughout the tournament out-scoring them 41-7 and capped the final game by demoralizing the Russians 6-1, winning for Canada its first World Juniors title in 8 years. "Eight years?" you say. "That doesn’t seem like much of a super-power to me." Well that may be true, if Canada did not also hold the Olympic, World Cup and World Champion titles now as well.
It was announced this past month that Tom Ridge, the first ever director of the Department of Homeland Security in the US, will be stepping down rather than sticking around for another kick at the can with the administration of Bush n’ friends. It has been said that Ridge’s most decisive accomplishment in the 3 years since he took the position was creating the Homeland Security Advisory System, a system that indicates, based on intelligence, what the level of threat is of a terrorist attack in the US. Wow. Good job Tommy! You may as well retire, few get to savour the glory of creating a national colour-coding scheme. And apparently it works. Not one foreign-sponsored terrorist attack has taken place on US soil since he took over the DHS. This could mean one of three things, 1) The "Elevated" (or "Yellow") level of Ridge’s precious scale means squat, 2) assigning pretty colours according to threat levels can truly unite the US, in fear if nothing else, or 3) bombing 3rd world countries into the Stone Age works.
Anne McRae showed up her counterpart Paul Allen last month by proving that he was not the only dumb ass on island radio. I swear, I could not make this up: "The temperature was minus 7 degrees this morning but has now apparently gone up...to minus 8." Niiice.
Alright, so 9/10ths of the people that live on this island are totally insane. I mean, driving around town on a regular day is bad enough with the lack of signal use, with seniors driving Queen Vics at .2 kph and high school punks revving souped-up Civics and Neons up and down the Ave. But try dumping 50+ cm. in the middle of Boxing Day and you’ll find the true meaning of semi-demonic morons. Inside the stores it went from bad to worse, and the peace and joy and love that people were preaching only the day before seemed to somehow get lost as they beat each other senseless with boxes to save 10% on wrapping paper and toaster ovens.
Well, in the midst of the recovery effort following the tsunami in Asia on December 26th, the world showed an out-pouring of support for the victims of the disaster, sending money and aid to the region by the billions. By last week foreign aid workers were scrounging the rubble, manning field hospitals and helping in any way they could in the stricken regions. I certainly salute the grand gestures of the western world over the past few weeks, but it also makes me wonder, where the hell do we go when the disaster’s over? Seriously, when CNN shuts off its cameras, how long will it take for us to stop caring? Last Friday, as the death toll in Asia was rising above 150,000, already notable news organizations...and the Guardian, were already turning to "more pressing" local issues. The front page Guardian, instead of pursuing the "old news" story of killer tsunamis, chose some guy in the Crick whose shed moved in a tidal surge and a picture of two guys in Stratford spraying hose water erratically on some outdoor rink. I mean come on, sure its hard to stay focussed on a disaster thousands of miles away when we could just as easily turn the page or switch the channel to Survivor, but this is a reality that millions of people live every day. I have heard many questions over the past week, "How can our government find $80 million to send to them when we have problems here?" "Why didn’t Asia just build a warning system?" It is an insult to compare shortfalls in healthcare or issues such as high tuition to the day-to-day lives of these people. And you’re saying, "Yeah, here goes Ryan again, that commie bleeding-heart liberal." But I am not just talking about the pain in Asia. I am talking about the people who lived in huts on those beaches before the waves hit. The people who weren’t even affected by the tsunami, and still have nothing. The millions of people in Africa who have died of AIDS, the thousands of people who will die today, who will die tomorrow and the next day of starvation and disease. What about Rwanda or Somalia? What about Sudan, where thousands have died in the past few months? How many people remember the earthquake in Bam, Iran in 2003 that killed 40,000 people? Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking the relief effort in Asia, nor would I trivialize an event as significant as September 11th, but thousands of people die needlessly every day. The out-pouring of aid in times of disaster seem oft more aimed at settling our guilt than actually fixing the problem. Getting off our asses to donate once every few years may placate out diluted conscience, but it doesn’t feed the hungry nor save the dying.

...And now for something completely different: The Rants of a University Student (#17)

2004-11-30T22:41:00.000-04:00

Well, it’s that time of year again. When the sight of snow turns the thoughts of young children to what they’ll be getting for Christmas (or Hannukah). When the smell of an evergreen tree reminds grandparents of holidays of old. When the crisp morning air is broken by students asking why the hell someone built a damn fence down the middle of campus. Ah yes, final exams and term paper time at UPEI a sure sign of the holiday season, when a young student’s fancy turns from booze to books, and from partying to considering calling up someone in Bulgaria to see how much it would cost to hire an old Soviet bomber to carpet-bomb the University ($964,000).
Who needs the NHL? Ron Artest showed last week that the NBA player can incite an impromptu riot just as well as any Tie Domi or Theo Fleury. Hell, he went one step further and took the fighting to the fans. You know, someone should’ve done that years ago. They’re paying big bucks for those games and Artest made them feel like part of the show. Bravo Ronny. A full-season suspension? Phht. Amateur. If he was Tie Domi he’d only get a game misconduct and a pay raise. If he was Kobe Bryant he’d get off scot-free.
Did anyone hear about the Halifax woman that flipped out after the snow storm a few weeks ago? She barged in at a news conference at the Legislative Buildings and went on for a good five minutes in front of the camera about how Nova Scotia power has no business letting the power go out for more than 24 hours and should make sure that towers don’t fall down during storms. You know what random crazy woman? You’re right. After all it’s their fault when we get hit with unseasonal storms with 50-odd centimetres of snow and a nice blast of wind. We may as well start firing road crews for letting snow fall on the road and arresting those stupid air traffic controllers for grounding flights when the wind is too strong. Assholes. Frig, while we’re at it, why not take Peter Coade and Boomer out back and shoot them. It’s all their fault anyway. It’s probably also their fault that you have six kids under the age of twelve and have to deal with them all day and that you didn’t get prepared when they called for the storm right? Listen lady, you live in Nova Scotia, snow falls, power goes out. Get a life.
Well, from what I have heard and seen over the past few weeks, apparently some people do not appreciate the "anti-Americanism" in my articles. Well that’s interesting, because I do not recall any anti-Americanism in any of my past articles. Come on now. I have never said anything that would suggest that Americans are bad people that would steal candy from children or kick adorable kittens or fly halfway around the world to bomb other countries...oh wait. Seriously though, I have never said that I hated the United States of America. In fact, my sister and her family live in the U.S. and I have no reason to believe that they are any less human than...um...Paul Allen.
Now what you may have read was something where I may have criticized the government of the United States, or took exception to the actions that the U.S. administration has taken in the past, oh, let’s say, four years. Although many of you may be unfamiliar with differing perspectives, or even unaware that they exist, these, may I point out, are not "anti-American" comments. They are simply an expression of my views dealing with the U.S. political system. As this is an editorial, I would assume, perhaps wrongly so, that the average reader would take my opinion with a grain of salt, and realize that perhaps I am not trying to be an objective reporter when I say things like: "[Bush is a] right-wing nutjob behind a hugeass nuclear arsenal," or when I jokingly suggest that he should eat more pretzels. It may surprise you, but I do not, in fact hate President Bush. In fact, I do not even know the man. I do, however, think he is the biggest moron to ever walk the face of the earth, let alone occupy the Oval Office. So no, I do not hate George W. Bush, and no, I do not hate the American people, but I do have concern for the political system in the United States, and believe it or not, being a Political Studies student, I am not just some idiot ranting my opinions by any means necessary. Ok, maybe I am, but that being said, this is a student media open to all student opinions and views. The fact that I choose to use it should neither make me the target of unbridled hate and criticism, nor should it discourage others from expressing themselves through their own submissions, opinionated or otherwise, to this paper.

Have a good one!

...And now for something completely different: The Rants of a University Student (#16)

2004-11-19T22:42:00.000-04:00

Well the shorts certainly came off Boomer in a hurry this week. Yes, the hellish winds of mid-fall have arrived and soon enough it will be minus 43 billion here on campus and our walk from class to class will once again become a death race between buildings. And Halifax was ripped apart by wind and 45 centimetres of snow on Sunday. Oh joy oh joy, oh bliss oh bliss.
But not all news is depressing here on P.E.I. Oh no, some of it is just downright stupid. Last week good old Binns decided to sue the federal government. Wonderful. Yeah I know, I was excited too, because we certainly have ample resources to waste on a lengthy legal battle with the federal government. Hey Binns! Were you not part of Mulroney’s federal government when they changed the law so that seiners could come that close anyway? Either way, regardless if you’re on the side of big business and the seiners or if you’re on the wharf getting your head bashed in by the Souris SWAT brigade, my guess is the herring will all be gone anyway by the time old Binnsy and the feds get their acts in gear anyway.
All points bulletin: a man robbed Swiss Chalet/Harvey’s last week with a knife. City Police have warned citizens to be on the look-out for the suspect. So head’s up everyone, we are looking for a man who was wearing “baggy pants with paint on them”. They could have been, and we don’t want to make any assumptions here, sweat pants. So you or anyone you know has pants that fit this description, contact Crime Stoppers immediately. Honestly, we know we don’t have the brightest cops on the block, but do they have to prove it every damn week? Paint covered sweat pants? Frig. A good 75% of my Dad’s clothing is covered in paint or dirt or grime of some kind. I mean I’ll ask him, but I’m pretty sure he didn’t hold up a restaurant last week.
On a list Popular Science released last week, it was stated that testing polluted water in Newfoundland’s St. John’s harbour is a bad job. No really? I love how scientists do these studies to tell us things like this. Newsflash! Drinking paint thinner can reduce brain cells. Attention! Shooting yourself in the head greatly reduces your life expectancy rate. They also rated the position of “Iraqi archaeologist” as one of the worst jobs in science. Idiots.
According to conflicting reports last week Yasser Arafat passed away, then lapsed in to a coma, made a full recovery and then died again. Officials do not now expect his condition to worsen. George W. Bush, in his typical statesman form, extended condolences to the Palestinian nation by telling the world that we are better off without him. Wow Dubya, I didn’t know you could be so sensitive. Sure, Arafat may have made some questionable moves and had some nasty habits, but it used to be you’d wait until the man was in the friggin ground before you start pissing on his grave.
Magic 93 has certainly classed up their prize give-aways. Where ordinary stations over across only give out like concert tickets or trips or something, now during Paul and Anne’s birthday trivia in the morning they give away, wait for it........silk scarves. Yes, I am not joking. Silk scarves. Is this supposed to make me want to stay tuned to listen to Clay Aiken all day? I mean unless I was Liberace (or I guess Clay Aiken), I see no way in which I could get even remotely excited about a silk scarf. I mean seriously, Paul must get up every morning and think, “Hey, how can I make myself that much more of a dumb ass today?”
Who the hell decided it was a good idea to form a trailer park beside Duffy? Seriously, can we not come up with a better system during renovations than moving the Biology Department into a mobile home? Now Schurman’s have decided to throw a bunch of trailers back there with ‘Private Property’ signs on the side. Private Property? Whose? Last time I checked Irving doesn’t own our campus. You know what, Mr. Irving Big Corporation Guy? You can’t just drop stuff on my campus and call it ‘Private Property’. And if you have a problem with that, you can move your G.D. trailer to wherever the hell you brought it from. If I want to walk up to your trailer, knock on the door, walk in and grab a cup of coffee, I will damnwell do so. And that folks, is my prerogative.

Have a good one!

...And now for something completely different: The Rants of a University Student (#15)

2004-11-09T22:44:00.000-04:00

Well they've done it again. Americans have proven that there is no stereotyping when it comes to selecting a President of the United States. In fact, anyone can be re-elected nowadays, even if they're a total dumb ass with no concept of democratic rights and who wouldn't know a grammatically-correct sentence if it slapped him in the face.
Yes, my good friend Dubya has been re-instated as the commander and chief of the most powerful nation on the face of the earth. Does this not scare anyone else? Well yes, of course it does. Israel and Russia were the only countries looking forward to his re-election. Hmmm... I wonder why.
This is a man who in his first four years has thrown his military all over the world, destroyed the U.S. economy beyond recognition and who is partially responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people. The only thing different about this term is that this time he knows that he'll never have to face the electorate again. That's a comforting thought, isn't it? Well, the quasi-democratic federation of Russia thinks so.
Well, either way I guess it's four more years of this right-wing nutjob behind a huge-ass nuclear arsenal. Personally, I'm cheering for another pretzel.
Results aside, what the hell is wrong with that electoral system? Hint: When designing a voting system in any conventional democratic society, there should not have to be legal intervention every damn time there's an election. I mean come on, even Belarus couldn't screw it up this bad. There are 50 states and 50 voting systems, each with their own unique problems. Wonderful. Here's an idea. Forget punching cards and computerized voting and all that crap: mark an 'X'. People who cannot read and who cannot merge in traffic can even mark an 'X', hell, I bet even Bush could do that.
Downtown Charlottetown. Make it your own. Riiight. Here's an interesting note about downtown Charlottetown. Can someone tell me why the Confederation Court Mall closes at 5:30 on the weekend? I mean the Charlottetown Mall is bad enough with its' prostitots and teenage rent-a-cops and Shaun Desmond wannabes, but 5:30? Come on. And yes, I know, Charlottetown is a great place to raise your kids and grow a garden and blah blah blah, but if I don't happen to be one of the people that goes to bed at 7:30 on the weekend, then how the hell am I supposed "make Charlottetown my own"? Jerks. I know, I sang the praises of our fair city just a few weeks ago, but those commercials are driving me nuts. And don't get me started on those parking kiosks.
Usher, could you please tell me what the hell a Boo is? Because your damn song with Alicia Keys is driving me insane. The kind of insanity that sends me into random fits of rage while I'm driving. And Britney, do you even know what a "prerogative" is? Can you spell it? Yeah, didn't think so. Your prerogative is to shut the hell up. Pop quiz
Lloyd Banks: Spot the subordinate clause in this phrase: "...fresh out the gutter, too smooth to stutter, the cig a melt a brother like two scoops of butter." Forget that. What the hell does that mean?
Simple Plan is getting ridiculous with their frigging tortured soul ballads Honestly guys, what were these terribly traumatic events and oppressive obstacles that you had to overcome as four white guys growing up in the middle class suburbs of Montréal? Daddy wouldn't buy you a new car and you had to go to parties in a wood-paneled station wagon? Awwww, muffin. Magic 93 is killing me.
Well, other than the trailer park forming on campus-south and the random things that I choose to complain about, not all is bad here at UPEI, nor all across this great country of ours for that matter. We have one reason to thank for this, and that is the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of Canadian soldiers who fought and gave their lives, and continue to do so on a daily basis, to ensure that out freedom and ideals are protected. So for all you punks that I overheard this week complaining that you didn't want to wear a poppy because it was "dirty" or because you didn't want to pierce a hole in your precious jacket, suck it up and show your appreciation for the men and women who gave up their right to enjoy their youth and to an education so that someday we would be able to partake in those same benefits.
Lest we forget.

Have a good one!

...And now for something completely different: The Rants of a University Student (#14)

2004-10-26T22:45:00.000-03:00

You may find it hard to believe, but something pissed me off this week. Subway has gone over to the dark side, switching from Pepsi to Coke. I am not an emotional person per se, but that one near put me over the edge. I don’t ask for much in life, and call me a corporate whore if you will, but honestly, is a glass of Pepsi with my sub too much to ask? Sigh. I think mid-term stress may be getting to me.
Prince Edward Island has once again proven itself to be the seat of intelligent thought. As reported in The Guardian last week, two businessmen were forced to duck for cover when pellets from a hunter’s gun in an adjoining field began hitting the side of their place of business. City councilor Bruce Garrity said that this was “pretty serious.” No way Bruce, really? Do you really think that the fact that people firing off shotguns in populated areas and having fragments flying across the Sherwood Road and hitting business complexes is really a problem? Noooo. The worst part is, city police Const. Gary Clow stated that the hunter was hunting LEGALLY. Yes, in the city of Charlottetown it is apparently entirely legal for a hunter to fire weapons that could consequently impede and seriously deter the driving ability of passing cars. Does this not seem a bit weird? That because someone wants to shoot at ducks, you could be driving along and shotgun fire could hit your car and that is a-ok with the Charlottetown Police? This isn’t Baghdad you know. This story was almost as bad as the one in The Guardian last week about the guy who won’t get his picture taken for his license because he believes that digital photo databases are the work of Satan.
God bless those BoSox. Now if we can forget the goats and Bill Buckner and keep that damn Steve Bartmann out of Fenway Park, they should be alright. The idiots of the week? A-Rod for whacking a baseball out of Bronson Arroyo’s glove and Houston GM Phil Garner for benching Roger Clemens in Game 6 of the NLCS.
So finally, after the deaths of over 15,000 Iraqis and the tearing apart of their country by the American-led “coalition” in search of non-existent weapons of mass-destruction, Saddam Hussein is finally set to stand trial. I don’t understand this. It doesn’t make sense that civilian homes continue to be indiscriminately bombed, killing thousands of people just going about their daily business and then Saddam gets a fair trial. It has always been my policy that if you’re gonna drag your country into a foreign war killing thousands of civilians and losing eleven hundred of your own troops in the process, when you finally do find the dictator that you tore apart the country trying to get to, that you may as well pick up whatever Styrofoam brick he may be hiding under, drop a grenade in, and badda boom badda bing, game over. But of course, don’t blame any of this on old Dubya. This week he was quoted as saying in a meeting before the war began “Oh, no, we’re not going to have any casualties.”
In Hussein’s trial, they can’t really charge him with possession of WMDs, for obvious reasons, but he will be charged with the gassing of ethnic Kurds and for the invasion of Kuwait. Using illegal weapons and invading countries for their oil resources? Wow. That doesn’t sound familiar at all.
Well everyone in Canada had a collective conniption fit last week when they found out that Don Cherry had made it onto CBC’s final top ten list on The Greatest Canadian, to which he responded “I love it when we get those left-wingers going.” Smooth Don, smooth. In fact the entire top 100 was an odd mix. Numbers 1 through 17 were all white men and only six women made it into the top 50. The white male parade was ended at number 18, not by a Canadian woman who has made relevant difference in the world like Louise Arbour (#97) or Emily Murphy (#74), but rather, by Shania Twain. There was not even a hint of any ethnicity until Tecumseh, a native-Canadian who helped repel American attacks in 1812, weighed in at # 37. This, however, is not an example of the media blatantly ignoring ethnic groups or women; this list wasn’t even made up by the CBC. The candidates were nominated and voted on BY CANADIANS. So everyone that was freaking out were really just a bunch of hypocrites. This vote is perhaps little more than a sad narrative to our own opinions and lack of knowledge as to what a “great Canadian” is. I have no idea how Pamela Anderson trumps Glenn Gould or Roberta Bondar nor how Nellie McClung, the woman who fought for woman’s rights and the franchise to vote, was bested by Stompin’ Tom Connors. I don’t even know how Brian Mulroney, Bret Hart or William Shatner made it to the list at all. On a brighter note, Mr. Dressup did make it to the list in 36th spot, well ahead of former Prime Ministers Sir Wilfred Laurier, Jean Chrétien and John Diefenbaker.
I think residents of the new Brown’s Court apartments may wish to re-consider their habit of crossing University Avenue wherever the hell they feel like it. I mean sure, pedestrians have the right of way in most situations, but when I am in a 1000 pound vehicle that’s doing about 80, the laws of physics kind of specify that the car has a fairly good advantage, especially when drivers cannot see students sprinting between vehicles. Is it really that difficult to get up 45 seconds earlier in the morning so that you have time to walk to the crosswalk at the lights? That crosswalk, by the way, was put in place a few years back after a student was hit by a car and killed. Do we have to wait until that happens again before we stop being dumb asses?
According to several media outlets, the days of the US Ambassador to Canada, Paul Celucci, are numbered. Celucci has become an out-spoken diplomat in Ottawa, criticizing Canada for not going to war in Iraq, complaining about Canada’s lack of help after September 11th, disapproving Canadian review of policy on marijuana laws and deriding indecision about the proposed missile defence program. Let me be the first to say: Get out of my face Paul. He apparently didn’t get the memo that ambassadors are supposed to be diplomats, not liaisons with political agendas; not many people really gave a damn with what he has to say about stuff that he doesn’t understand anyway. Celucci, a former governor, will likely run for the Senate after leaving the US Embassy in Ottawa. Good luck and good riddance Paul. They deserve you.
Myron’s has declared Wednesday night Holland College Night. Say what? I mean I wouldn’t be caught dead down at Moron’s on a Wednesday anyway, but why a Holland College night? So what if they don’t have their own bar? Neither do those poor students at the Academy of Learning and Compu College. Where the hell are they supposed to drink? Out on the street? Those jerks. Well they can keep their damn Discrimination Wednesdays to themselves, I’ll keep my trivia with Matt and Lenny thanks.
Finally, our sports editor landed in some hot water and became the target of the ire of the entire UPEI Field Hockey team after writing an article that they perceived as portraying their sport in a negative light. As an employee of The Cadre, I feel it is my duty to stand up in his time of need and say: “You’re on your own man.” I have my own controversies to deal with, and pissing off a bunch of girls with big sticks is not my idea of a good time. Now I hear they want you to come out to a practice to see what you’re made of. Lucky you. Shave your legs and strap on those cleats man. You better wear a cup too.

Have a good one!

...And now for something completely different: The Rants of a University Student (#13)

2004-10-19T22:46:00.000-03:00

Well the journalistic geniuses at Magic 93 have done it again, using the cunning news reporting technique of ignoring whatever the hell it is that’s going on in the world, and pretending that Jumbo Movie Trivia and Paul Alan’s social life are the most important things on earth. This past Thursday, when every other self-respecting media organization was reporting the crash of a cargo plane in Halifax and the deaths of seven crewmembers, Paul was telling some incredibly amusing anecdote about his life, a life that is perpetually fascinating, being as it is that of a radio broadcaster. The crash issue was ignored completely, and the only time I heard anyone mention anything about an airplane was when Paul, again recounting moments from his über-exciting life, talked about how he had watched Lost on TV the night before. But who am I to judge? How can I expect Magic 93 to report every single little story? This is the same radio station that on September 11th disregarded the small little detail that terrorists were flying passenger jets into random buildings. To their credit however, they did report that: “Um…apparently flights are delayed or something…for some reason…Back to our incessant replaying of N*SYNC and Britney Spears right after this.”
Your prayers have been answered. Yes, sources tell me that now available for sale are, yes, you guessed it, PEI Rocket Thongs. Wicked. Now, does no one else see a problem with this? Perhaps something to do with ethics or morals or something? Now we all know that there are several people who follow the Rocket around to all their games and, dare I say, idolize the guys that play for them, and I mean, who wouldn’t, you know, with their to-die-for pick-up lines. (“Hey, you wanna be famous?) But I certainly don’t think that the marketing team of our friendly local sports team should be playing into this. Personally, correct me if I’m wrong, but the last time I checked, the objectification of women, specifically those under the age of 16, was not a commonly accepted business practice. But hey, those Rockets are good boys, I hear they’re always very well behaved and humble and are never confrontational, even when they’re drinking. (Not that I’m suggesting that they drink or anything) Nooooo. (Insert thick sarcasm here)
Just a random thought: does anyone know why the hell there is a meat market on University Avenue called the Queen Street Meat Market? That does not make any damn sense.
The CDP was torn down this week. In a few months a so-called “racino” will rise from the rubble of the historic building, creating a new place for Grandpa to go bet on the ponies and now, through the innovation of our wonderful government, will also have the option of gambling away his pension cheques on VLT machines. Now I’m not sure how many people, but it was Binns’ government that initially placed restrictions on how many VLTs could be in operation on the island, but I guess now they have reason to believe that VLTs provide great benefit to the community and the social fabric of PEI as well as contributing to the vibrant horseracing industry. Yeah? Bullshit. Either that or dreams of dollar signs danced in their heads. I hate to break it to the people involved, but horseracing is not struggling because we don’t have fancy racinos or VLTs or multi-million-dollar purses, it’s struggling because no one gives a rat’s ass about horseracing, save, of course, for four or five old men and the people that go to the Gold Cup and Saucer Race every year. All the VLTs in the world won’t change that.
Last year, the provincial government decided to give a million dollars to the horseracing industry to increase purse sizes and to spark interest. What did that do? Not a damn thing. (At the same time, government announced that it was cutting $750,000 in funding that had been promised to UPEI, due to “budgetary constraints.”) Now they want to increase the number of VLTs to increase revenue, a move made on the whim of racing industry lobbyists and the Atlantic Lottery Corporation. This is an irrational decision that will indisputably lead to an augmentation of the number of problem gamblers on the island. These same problems contribute to many social problems; broken families, chronic debt, increases in crime, and in comparison to other jurisdictions, numbers suggest that this problem alone will directly cause two suicides a year on PEI. Now does that sound like a government with its priorities in order? Money and gambling ahead of education and societal well being? I mean I’m sure we would all like our roads paved now and then, but when it comes to public policy, the ends do not always justify the means, especially when the means include cheapened morals, rising crime rates and death. I don’t know, again maybe it’s just me, but when a private corporation tells my government to jump, I’d rather hear them say “Piss off” than ask “How high?”
Reality TV pisses me off. Number one, it is not reality. Reality is me sitting here on my ass writing papers and studying and getting 3 hours of sleep. Flying around the world for free and eating bull testicles and cleaning other people’s houses is not. And trading wives? Yeah, we already invented that. It’s called BIGAMY. Don’t even get me started on The Apprentice. If “the Donald” wants to wear his hair à la rabid baboon, that’s fine by me. Go right ahead, hire people, fire people, I don’t care. But why on national television? And who watches this? I’m sorry, but is there not something possibly more meaningful that we could be doing with our lives? I’m sick of Jeff Probst and William Hung and Vanilla Ice and Sass Jordan and Mark Cuban and Joe Rogan and Swans and Idols and Bachelors and all those friggin idiots. Here’s a reality show for you, it’s called a reality check, and instead of spending millions being idiots and eating bugs and jumping off buildings and shit, you give the money to charities. Maybe do a show called Survivor: Hurricane Jeanne in Haiti, or Food Factor in Ethiopia or Who Wants to Win an AIDs Vaccine? in Zimbabwe. Seriously, can our society be that self involved that we’d rather watch Simon crush the dreams of some tone-deaf high-schooler than see people live to see tomorrow? Apparently so.
Finally, on par with D-Day and Christmas, this week marks the 128th anniversary of the first shipment of 857 bushels of wheat from Manitoba to eastern Canada. God bless those western Canadian jerks.

Have a good one!

...And now for something completely different: The Rants of a University Student (#12)

2004-10-12T22:48:00.000-03:00

It was this week in 1977 that the Amazing Psychic Romark, through a public display of his incredible psychic power, attempted to drive a car blindfolded and would have been completely successful, had he not smashed into a parked police van. Idiot.
The Guardian reported this week that the Summerside man who barricaded himself in his house last August in an armed standoff with police was finally sentenced last week. For those of you who are from away or who don’t watch Live at 5, Summerside police went to the man’s house, whose name is, I am not making this up, Robert McRoberts, to speak with him regarding his failure to pay child support. The 51-year-old man came out onto his patio and told the deputy chief of police that he wasn’t coming out unless he came out “boots first.” I guess “boots first” is a bad thing, as that comment kicked off a 39-hour armed standoff and resulted in the evacuation of the entire residential area. So, basically, police went to McRoberts’ house to get him out of his house, and when said he didn’t want to come out of his house, they waited around his house with guns until they could force him out of his house. I guess McRoberts has the last laugh on this one however. His punishment for telling police he didn’t want to come out of his house? Nine months of house arrest. Chalk up another one for the fine individuals of the Summerside PD.
Well the Canadian Navy showed off our submarines’ incredible stealth and superior technology to the international community last week by… stranding one out off the coast of Ireland without power for a few days. Now I know what you’re thinking: “We have submarines?” Yes, astonishingly enough, we do. But only four. Plus they’re 24-year-old diesel subs, and are “technically” not “operational”; so don’t freak out too much. Now you’re thinking: “Hey, the Canadian Navy must be smart, spending what little money it does have on old subs that haven’t been used in decades.” I agree. Thumbs up to the Canadian Forces. Helicopters that don’t go up, submarines that don’t go down, and now thanks to those good old Brits, new and improved subs that also spontaneously burst into flame and kill the people that work on them. So Osama? Saddam? Who cares? Between being killed by our own equipment and our allies dropping bombs on us, who needs enemies?
Evidently the accuracy of my articles needs improvement. I was told in a letter fired off by a student last week that some of the points in my last article were incorrect. Well, let me the first to say: shut up. No no, just kidding, don’t get out the pitchforks just yet. Let me first defend myself by saying that most of my research consists of making things up. So the journalistic integrity of my articles amount to somewhere around jack, and as such, you can trust the info in them about as much as you can trust a George W. Bush speech or your average Fox News broadcast. May I remind you that this is the same reporter that spent an entire afternoon exploring thirty-odd bathrooms on campus so I could critique them, and who once advocated that we sell Quebec to the United States.
Having said that, I also have a problem with some stuff getting printed up in The Cadre. In the last issue, one of my counterparts, who I will not identify, other than to say that he’s a reporter and his name is Jon Smith (AKA “Hey! Isn’t that the name of the guy from ‘Pocahontas’?”) wrote an article criticizing UPEI and the city of Charlottetown. Who the hell does this guy think he is? I mean, sure, I’ve done my fair share of criticizing, but I’ll be damned if I’m gonna sit here and let some yahoo tell me that my UPEI is not ‘a GREAT small university’. Jerk. Anyone who knows anything knows that this is the best university in the Western hemisphere, and with the exception of Bluefield, is quite possibly the best school in the world. I rue the day that I have to trade the hallowed halls of the W.A. Murphy Student Centre for the corridors of some cold, impersonal graduate school and my professors and classmates who know me, for a bunch of uppity mainlanders. (Kidding. Put the pitchforks down. Or whatever it is that you mainlanders use for angry mobs.) I’ve been here three friggin’ years, and as I’m sure many of you can say, I’ve walked this campus on a -50° day. I’ve spent 15 hours straight in Kelley computer lab during the term paper rush, I’ve slept in Society Lounges, gone on my share of Pub Crawls and I live for Fajita Day. Hell, I’ve even ventured into the Music Building once or twice. Being a UPEI student, I think it’s awesome that the biggest problem we can find to complain about on a consistent basis is parking (or lack thereof) and those security jerks. I think it’s awesome that Cathy and Terri in the cafeteria know how I like my breakfast and that a good number of Accounting/Student Services/Library staff know pretty much every student by name. Now if that is not “a GREAT small university”, than I don’t know what the hell is. SMU or X or Dal or anyone else can shove it.
Now as far as his comments go about Charlottetown, I’m inclined to partially agree. But where else in the world do people still go nuts for Hootie and the Blowfish? And where else do old people have nothing better to talk about than whether or not Boomer is still wearing his shorts? Whether counted to its’ credit or to its’ faults, the most exciting thing to happen in Charlottetown, other than ‘Juan’ or ‘White Juan’ or whatever, was when some guy who called himself Loki 7 tried to blow up the Legislature, and even he failed miserably. (Coincidentally, Loki himself used to teach math at Bluefield.)
I guess this city hasn’t really been the same since they cancelled Compass and bulldozed “the house that Christmas threw up on” to build that new Shopper’s, but hey, we’ve still have Civic Nation in the BK parking lot, and who can resist the repulsive charm of a crowded night at Myron’s? Who doesn’t adore listening to Paul Alan and Anne MacCrae every morning on Magic 93? No wait. I hate them.
So what if our mass-transit system consists of a single bus? Or that there are only two or three possible answers to “what are you doing tonight”? And so what if the most famous people around here either play hockey, used to star on Soup to Nuts or have tried to blow up major buildings? Charlottetown, for now, is our city. Anyone who has taken over the downtown core on a Pub Crawl or has made their way down Kent Street 2:30 on a Sunday morning knows this. And, well, a couple years down the road we’ll all be off to the bigger and better, in some big city, foreign country or Tignish, so we might as well quit the complaining and party it up at Brown’s and cruise the Ave. while we can.
Take that Jon.

Happy Thanksgiving.

...And now for something completely different: The Rants of a University Student (#11)

2004-09-28T22:50:00.000-03:00

Well it appears as though the UPEI custodial staff were busy again this summer, once again putting up an incredible amount of signs, in attempts of aiding students in their everyday activities. If you’ve been in any bathrooms on campus, chances are you’ve already noticed the brilliant “Press slowly OR paper towel will JAM!” sign on every last paper towel dispenser. Sadly, the “In an effort to curb another outbreak of SARS, wash your hands” sign has been retired, but has been aptly replaced by a “Flush after use” sign on some of the toilets on campus. Just in case you happen to forget exactly how they operate.
That was quite a friggin summer wasn’t it? Yeah right. We had like what? Three beach days? Sweet. And now we’re back for another year on the coldest campus on the face of the earth. Not to mention home of the most intolerant and unforgiving security personnel this side of Beijing. Parking the old Saturn outside the gym at in the morning just ain’t what it used to be. And even after having paid a whole friggin dollar for an hour on the wonderful new parking meters, there was the good old security van that we all know and love at 8:55, two minutes after the time ran out, ticketing my ass once again. The worst part is though that my Dad recently got one of those new Canadian Forces veteran license plates put on the car. Who tickets a veteran? Honestly. Yeah yeah, I know, we’re all tired of people complaining about parking and security in ‘The Cadre’ and stuff, but I mean come on, this is a man that fought in some far-off country so that we could park wherever we damnwell pleased. Not so that some half-pint security guard could drive around in a cute little mini van and charge me $10 for two minutes of parking. What the hell is this world coming to anyway?
So yeah, a pretty crazy summer all around. The United States Judicial System broke with tradition and decided to actually send a celebrity to jail. Granted, it was just Martha Stewart. Yeah, that’s what we need to do, send the real menacing bastards to prison. Forget O.J. and Kobe and Wacko Jacko. They're just murderers, rapists and child molesters. But Martha, oh man, she screwed with their money. OoOoOoOo. Man were they caked at her. I guess money just ranks a little bit higher on the priority list than a real justice system.
And what about that American jerk-off that dropped the bombs on the Canadian soldiers a few years back? Do you know what sort of decisive punishment he received to make an example of soldiers like him that disobey direct orders and drops payloads of explosives on allied soldiers that flew half-way around the world to fight the US “War on Terror”? They took half of his salary away for two months. Wow. You punks better watch out! Next time you ‘accidentally’ kill a bunch of Canadians maybe we’ll take three quarters of your pay. That’s right. Don’t screw with us.
Let me put this in prospective for a minute here. Todd Bertuzzi was suspended for an undeterminable amount of time from playing NHL hockey and was fined the equivalent of $501,926.23 for his cheap shot on that Moore kid from Colorado, not to mention of course the media being at his throat for months. Major Harry Schmidt of the 183rd Illinois Air National Guard however, lost $5700.00 off his pay for dropping bombs on Canadian soldiers on a training course after being ordered NOT to drop anything and to get the hell out of there. Oh but sure, Bertuzzi’s hit was dirty and Moore wasn’t expecting a cheap shot from behind. Yeah well I doubt that the Canadian troops were really expecting a USAF plane to drop a couple 225 kg. bombs on them. Oh the poor pilot though, he must’ve got lost in the moment. Yeah, well we don’t accept that as an excuse for Bertuzzi, so why should it for Schmidt? Funny that the NHL would have a more comprehensive and suitable justice system than the American Armed Forces.
And finally, again following a totally logical story line, this week marks the 102nd anniversary of the Rocky Mountain Development Company striking oil in Alberta. Well, isn’t that special. If that doesn’t call for a Bud Light, I don’t know what does. Have a good week, keep your stick on the ice and keep flushing those damn toilets.

Have a good one!

...And now for something completely different: A University Student's Guide to Drinking (#10)

2004-04-06T22:51:00.000-03:00

(by Ryan Gallant and Adam Carragher)
...And suddenly, it’s that time of year again. Students, either out of celebration, sheer desperation, or just as an escape from the inevitable final exams, flock to the doors of their faithful pubs to meet with friends, to talk quietly (albeit incoherently) over a few drinks, or to drink to the point that they forget who they are, what they have been doing for the past few hours, and why they are making out with some random person in an abandoned alley adjacent to Myron’s. Whether you enjoy the occasional drink yourself, or would rather just watch other people make idiots of themselves, drinking is an integral part of a university student’s life, a way for the late-paper depressed and the final exam-stressed student to kick off his or her proverbial boots and to have a good time. Given our extensive experience in this particular field, we, Adam Carragher and Ryan Gallant, the authors that brought you such infamous articles as ‘The Bathroom Edition I & II’, have decided to write an article on alcohol and it’s effects on the average member of the UPEI student body. I think that Homer Simpson put it best when he declared, "Beer: The cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems." And so to this, our wonderful friend, our despised enemy, we highlight the great things it has done, and the idiots that it brings out.

1) The Emotional Drunk: This is your average recent break-up, the lost dog or the failed course. This could be someone you’ve never spoken to in your life, but someone who, through the influence of alcohol, feels compelled to share his/her life story with you, a story most certainly racked with tragedy and with helpful doses of nostalgia. Contrary to what you may believe, this is when this person is the most honest. Most of what any emotional drunk says is the honest-to-God truth. Warning: It is not permissible to use these revelations against them on Monday. Just listen up and take notes. How to deal: A hug or a pat on the back and a sincere "Everything will be alright" usually does the trick. If you want, they can often use a shoulder to cry on as well.

2) The Socialite: He/she is everybody’s best friend. They could have been in one of your classes back in high school, or maybe you went to camp with them back when you were 7, but you are now their long lost buddy. Everyone gets a handshake (though anything other than a high five is often too elaborate for those inebriated), a hug, or even a kiss. Bathroom conversation, usually taboo (in the men’s washroom anyway), suddenly becomes a grand show of comradery. "Hey! You’re my neighbour’s friend from Biology 101's cousin!" "HEY! No I’m not! But who cares?!" High fives all around. These people make everyone’s night that much better, either by their stumbling around like a moron down Kent Street or around Brown’s Court with no known destination, other than to the next new best friend that they’re about to meet. How to deal: Just smile and nod, and let them have their fun.

3) The False Start: This is a trooper. Someone who has fought the battle well, but has ultimately lost. This is your typical chugger, someone who does not know the meaning of the phrase "cut off." For a minute there, this person is king of the world, running the race and winning. They’re social and interesting, perhaps a bit overambitious in terms of intake, but they seem alright. And then suddenly, it’s K.O., flat on their face and out for the night. By the time they wake up, often in a flower bed or a pizza box, everyone’s gone home, the party’s over, and the pounding of the previous night’s music has taken up residence in their head. Perhaps it was exclusive only to Bluefield, but these are the people who were found half in and half out of the tent, often with parts of their sneakers burnt, or was the guy who always wound up in the middle of some farmer’s field, missing some key articles of clothing. How to deal: Clothe the naked, feed the hungry. Shave an eyebrow? Optional.

4) Ten Feet Tall and Bullet-Proof (T.F.T.B.P.): Ever hear that song "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better?" Yeah, well so did this one, and they actually think that it applies directly to them. They can dance better, run faster and fight tougher than anyone on earth. They are obviously drop dead sexy and 10x more charming when they’re drunk, a fact that they enjoy showing off by throwing snowballs at cops or by telling hilarious jokes, often recounting the same ones 10-12 consecutive times. How to deal: They are the best there has ever been or ever will be at anything and everything in the world. Don’t bother telling them any different. They will not believe you.

And finally:
5) The Horny Bastard: This is your ass-grabber and the cheesy pick-up line user. They may have had a crush on you for awhile, or perhaps their alcohol-induced state has just changed their perception. They think you’re hot, and they don’t mind telling you this. Perhaps normally the shy and subdued type, this person often loses many of their inhibitions, with varying results. They often have interesting stories to hear about themselves the next day. How to deal: Tell them you’re not interested. Unless of course you are. If all else fails, a good punch in the face or a kick to the groin usually goes a long way to bringing them back to reality.
And so, as we leave our school for another year, perhaps this time forever, let us remember to embrace the good times, to learn from the bad, and whenever possible, to raise a glass in celebration of another year gone, another course earned, and another summer break in the company of friends.

Drink Responsibly.

Have a good one!

...And now for something completely different: The Rants of a University Student (#08)

2004-03-30T13:55:00.000-04:00

Oh look. It’s spring! The birds are ‘chirping’ and the leaves are budding. Hold on a sec there Boomer. Uh, no they’re not. I don’t know why the Weather Network insists on calling it spring, but personally, three feet of snow in my back yard and minus a billion degree weather does not constitute hauling out the lawn chairs and the old slip-and-slide. As a popular PEI joke puts it, we have 4 unconventional seasons, Almost Winter, Winter, Still Winter and Construction. I’m no groundhog, but my bet is on a few more weeks of the former.

Todd Bertuzzi. Sigh. Really now, how many people in the media actually knew who he was before he hit Steve Moore? Forget that he’s an awesome hockey player and an all-around nice guy, I guess it takes a cheap hit nowadays to get any attention.

And what the hell is Regis Philbin doing flipping out about this? He’s probably never seen a hockey game in his life, he certainly never paid attention or talked about hockey before, and I doubt that he bothered to do some background research on the game or on Bertuzzi before he land basted him on his show. Listen Reg you don’t know what you’re talking about. Do us all a favor and stick to what you know, namely being an idiot and giving money away. CNN jumped on the bandwagon too, taking a break from spewing out propaganda to take a hit at Bertuzzi "The Goon." That’s the thing though, he’s not a goon. He’s a leading scorer in the NHL. He’s been an All-Star the last three years running. Sure, he’s 245 pounds and you don’t want that riding your back onto the ice, but the fact is, he made one bad decision in attempts to avenge Moore’s hit on Canuck’s captain Marcus Naslund. He deserves the suspension he got, but that does not automatically make him Adolf Hitler. One of the women on The View went as far as to compare what Bertuzzi did to Moore to the Vietnam War. THE VIETNAM WAR. Yeah. Pretty much the same thing. Three million dead versus a hockey players cracked bone. Wow. That’s not insensitive towards the people of Vietnam now is it? The View is stupider than I thought. And for all of you that are wondering, with all the over-blown reports of a "ruined life" and "near-death," Moore is expected to be back in his skate