I watched Evil Dead last night, after hearing so much about it. I had no idea how many people have devoted web sites to the adulation of this masterpiece of cinematic horror.
So many of my childhood fears, of basements and of carnivorous vines seem to have stemmed from this film.

I just started rereading Erich Fromm's Escape from Freedom, which I first read in my last term in univeristy, Theories of Totalitarianism. Since I spent much of my time hungover or in some state of daydreaming, I picked up little from the chapter summaries I read, and put it down without truly understanding the fear of freedom.
It was only when I was entering my fourth fall season in Whistler that I realized I was afraid of the responsiblities of being free, so I chose to be bound instead.

Bound by what, you may ask. Bound by the comfort and security of belonging to a small community, where everyone knows who you are; a place where advancement is difficult if you work for someone else, in fact it is likely you will struggle to develop professionally and personally. Leaving Whistler terrified me, because I was leaving a world that I had figured out, and there was comfort in that familiarity. I may have been driving a cab and lifting rocks for a living, but I knew how to interact within a certain framework. It was strangely comforting to be able to exist in the white bubble that is Whistler, like lying in bed late into the afternoon, with a pathetic satisfaction in the warmth of your cocoon.

I was heading towards a failing grade in this class very late in my final semester. A failure would have meant either summer school (not a possibility) or taking a course part time in the fall. It came down to one final exam and one final paper. The night before the paper was due I ran into Professor Tucker in the parking lot of the Provigo. He told me we had a 4 day extension. We also watched Swept Away and Seven Beauties, both Lina Wertmuller

Somehow I scraped by with a 54. Thank you, Dr. Tucker.

Why am I writing this? Why do i feel the need? Sometimes I refrain from posting to the blog because what i put here is lacking in hmmm....literary quality?

My wife is watching Memento. I have already seen it, and have even watched the scenes in reverse order. (Thank you for the DVD player, Jim)

This weekend I'll be helping Jim with his film, Helliwell, in the capacity of Transport. Actually, I will be all the transport there is. Hey, he's doing this on a credit card.

Reading the Sunday NY Times this morning, I came across the newly expanded wedding announcement page. Each couple's description had the same format. Bride and groom's name, alma mater, occupational status, parents occupation. In some cases, it seems the only reason they placed the announcement was to show that their father is CEO of this or that company. So very American. It reminded me of an article I read in the now defunct Spy magazine, which revisited these announcements several years later. Few of these marriages had survived.

I am slow today. I was slow yesterday. In fact, yesterday, I should not even have gotten up from bed. Monsoon season has hit Vancouver hard, and it poured all day. I wish I lived above ground so I could stay indoors all day and not feel like I am living in a bunker.

Sneaky little worker I am. In times of chaos and confusion, there are a few who prosper greatly. However, I am only doing what they tell me to do. My moves are going to benefit The Business more than myself. Besides, I am quicker than most people. A lot of the new hires are just here to work, and think that it ends every day when they leave. They don't realize that what we have is a situation that comes along a few times in a lifetime. It is the opportunity to become the #1 of #2 in a fast growing industry. I suppose they would rather go home and work on something more important.

My company recently hosted its sales conference, which was concluded with a "motivational" speaker. This speaker is always scheduled for the last slot of the conference, after everyone has been subjected to 5 days of all you can eat and drink on the company dime. Attention spans wane during this slot. Last year we were treated to a school board superintendant who espoused us with the wisdom of Wayne Gretzky: "You miss all the shots you don't take."

This year we are lucky enough to listen to a man who fell off a ferry while vomiting over the side (he claims he had sunstroke) and turned it into a motivational speaking career. It seems this man floated in the Straits of Georgia for 8 hours. The water temperature in this strait is rarely above 5 degrees Celsius, yet he still maintains that he was immersed for 8 hours, until rescued by an off-duty Washington State cop. I find this hard to believe, having fallen in this water and nearly frozen in 5 minutes. Whatever...

My neigborhood is becoming gentrified. I don't want to sound like a whiner, but I liked the way it used to be. Now Black Dog Video is crowded with aimless souls staring at the walls, unable to select their 4th video rental of the week. How superior I feel when I march through them to the nearly empty DVD section (thank you Harry and Barb and Jim for the DVD player). And these same people comment on why my dog Shrub is in the store. Why do you think they have dog biscuits on the counter? If you don't like dogs in your video store then go to Blockbuster.

I really noticed it last night, as I was in Choices, a store I normally don't patronize, but had to because I needed to replace the overpriced natural cheezy puffs that I had taken from Anya's arsenal of snacks. It is 8:30pm and the store is full of "good white liberals" that have moved into the neighborhood to pay $500,000 for a shack that was built in 1962 and has retained all of its original features, including plumbing, wiring and heating. Now they are in front of me pushing their strollers and talking on their cell phones, looking for the best organic chocolate, debating which flavor of Ben & Jerry's to eat while watching PBS, discussing various cleanses and generally getting in the way of one very aggressive and hungry young man. There are two young lesbians sitting cross legged in an aisle,in the aisle, examining which flavour of organic chocolate to buy.

As I place my groceries (curried lentil wrap, Barbara's All Natural Cheezy Puffs, 2 green peppers) on the check out counter I have to push out of the way a raggedly dressed couple who are deep in discussion about their diets. Raggedy woman confesses to raggedy man that she has been eating tomatoes, who responds that tomatoes are "bad food".
"I know", whines RW, " but my aunt grows organic tomatoes and I just couldn't say no. Secretly I have been eating them for a while."

I turn around and look at them. These people are worrying about their diets to the point of excluding organic tomatoes because they are "bad food". What do these people eat? They are both dowdy and dumpy in appearance. The woman looks overweight, despite her strict diet.

The cashier wants to roll her eyes, but she can't because she is facing them. So I roll my own for her and she nods in agreement. God I hate this place I think. These people are so soft that I relish a confrontation with them. I get back to the car and turn on Physical Graffiti.

Ever since Napster's servers became unreliable, my MP3 file growth rate has stabilized. Declines are leading advances in almost every sector and genre. However, all is not lost, as I have started using this thing called KaZaA. There is something creepy about it though; for some reason I don't like it, I don't trust it. Whatever. I actually had to buy two CDs last week, but I don't mind paying for quality.

For the first time in years, I actually played Physical Graffiti. I was on my way to Thanksgiving dinner at my in-laws (well actually, my wife's aunt's second husband's family made up most of the diners) and was feeling like I needed to rebel against something, so I went with something tried and true. Dinner was as predictable as a Swiss train schedule. Guests sat and made awkward conversation about cruise ships, Puerto Vallarta, and Osama bin Laden's speech. An attempt at debate was made, but one loudmouth, who always feels the need to show that he is smarter, and always, always has to have the last word made me so angry that I had to leave for a breath of fresh air. I just want to have a normal family.

I recently bought myself some new shoes, about which I have received many compliments. I don't have very many pairs of shoes, but the ones that I do own are the product of quality work and should last a long time. As I was checking my Campers for scuffs and stains from the bar I had been at the night before, I noticed a gum-like substance stuck to the sole. It looked like a tobacco flavored gum, only with raspberry seeds in it. I took a whiff of it to ensure it wasn't produced from the end of a dog. The gum was an olfactory collection of tobacco, alcohol and sweat. To inhale its pungent, filthy odor made you feel as if you were waking up on the floor of the bar, your nose mired in the putrid carpet.

This gum made me think about a substance known as "pubscum", which was the ruin of many pairs of pants when I was at university. The dance floor in the student pub, which was simply called "the Pub", would get covered in a viscous gray liquid that caused indellible stains on any clothes. This was known as pubscum, and its composition we could only speculate, but it was safe to assume it was a mixture of beer, hard alcohol, sweat, urine, vomit, tobacco and blood. You would come home from the pub with gray stains at the bottom of your pant legs, which is why everyone simply wore jeans to the pub.

Hotmail staff sent me an email telling me that my account is too large, so I went looking for emails to delete. I came across this email I wrote to a friend in November of 1998. It was never sent, and it has been sitting in my "drafts" folder for almost three years.

Well folks across the water, I have lost Nic's email address sine I left Victoria and I hope this is the correct one Sarah. If it is not it might make for some interesting reading for one of your coworkers. "Struggling young Canadian finds love and bliss in late millennial escapism," they could conclude before relegating it to the trash can. Or do you call the recycling bin something else, like the rubbish folder, or the dustbin file? Life on the mainland is incredibly different. I have to work much harder for the same pay, and answer to a boss who can see through my entire productive, nose to the grind charade. How long can I keep it up before I am let loose, cut adrift to float with the jetsam on Main and Hastings? I have started having nightmares about work, and my weeks are 45 hours of sheer torment. I know how much contempt you must have for whining little fucks like me, but I’m just telling you what is going on in my head. I have a good opportunity across the street to work for a software company that has positioned itself globally to really go big. I have passed through all the hoops and tests and the only thing that remains are for my references to be checked. I wait anxiously, checking my messages hourly for the call that will set my soul free.
My point is this: when I don't care, I just don't care.
Don't get me wrong, life is stellar here. On Halloween, sometime around 6 in the morning, at a dangerously overcrowded rave underneath the Second Narrows Bridge, Anya and I decided we must spend the rest of our lives together. I could write volumes about it, but suffice to say that she is what I have been waiting for all my life. I have no doubts about her. You must meet her soon. But I figure that is one of the more important puzzles in life. When I sit back and think about all the roads I have taken in life, and how by some fluke I ended up driving to Penticton with her, it really makes me wonder why I worry about little useless details like how many new leads I have every Monday morning. When I met her for the first time I knew that given the right environment it would happen. And sure enough did. So the rest of the life puzzle is all detail I think, now that I have this sorted.
Sorry to go on about MY personal life and MY problems, but hey, we Canadians like to whine. Right now it is popular to whine about the PM, APEC, the lack of choice in our federal parties, the fact that hockey is boring, I mean what a pathetic country eh? The problem with Canadians is they get so concerned with minor details that they forget they have not been around long enough to worry about shit like that. I mean where is the long term thinking? It is nowhere; it is what is missing from our society and what makes us mediocre. We could be so much better, and all it would take would be for most people to cut there TV watching or nosepicking time in half and devote it to something else. I hear people say all the time "Oh we're so busy right now." Bullshit you are, you spend 20 hours a week watching TV. You got time for Ally McBeal? Then you have time for something productive. We are keeping files.
And what is with the architecture? I have learned that if you spend about 10% more effort and/or money on a given project you reap unlimited amounts of increased enjoyment/profit. Would it really be that difficult to make buildings that are aesthetically pleasing? or ban neon awning from the face of the earth. In my regime there will be Cultural Ministers whose task it will be to shut down the businesses that refuse to take pride in their own surroundings. Windows will be smashed and family run business will be destroyed, "I m sorry, but your storefront does not meet building codes, and you have been ugly for far too long." At the risk of long debate, Yes I do think that it is possible to debate taste. Some is good, most is bad.
I must go now and buy Anya a book. This is Canada out>

A visit from the Three Houseketeers has given me a new lease on life. The apartment has never been cleaner. I realized when looking at the bill, (which was completely reasonable) that one could make a reasonably easy living if one had the right clients and right employees in a cleaning service. I am not talking huge dosh here, just enough to live moderately without having to work too hard for it.

When I first moved to Whistler my girlfriend at the time cleaned construction workers' temporary apartments. She charged $40 for a 45 minute visit, or what was suppose to be 45 minutes. Most of these guys never ate a single meal in these places, either eating out or ordering pizza, so the "cleaning" of the apartment usually meant vacuuming the floors and running the dishwasher. I think the most time consuming task was sorting the beer bottles, which we kept of course -times were tough back in '93.

She even had a "collector" friend who was a plumber, as well as a karate blackbelt and blow monkey, who also worked with many of her clients. Any customers who forgot to leave the money on the counter were quick to pay up once Eric found out about it. Well, it's not like he hurt anybody. It was a good gig while it lasted I suppose.

Tomorrow is the end of the quarter, and possibly the end of the first part of my career...

Canadians are often guilty of complaining that Americans know so little about us, and I have to say that it can be annoying. While I understand that Canada is a relatively insignificant and provincial country ( and becoming more so every year), I do expect our neighbours to have at least a general knowledge of our nation and of the world at large. Right wing sycophants in Canada are quick to point out that we have an inferiority complex, that we are self obsessed, and that we are more concerned with what Americans think of us than what we think of ourselves. It is reassuring to read that some Americans recognize that now is a great time to correct their collective ignorance.

cereal box prize
a jungle book cd rom
only for windows

Mike returned from Montreal this week, fresh from a 3 day trip cramming as many urban pleasures into those 72 hours. Of course the trip included a visit to Sona, Montreal's infamous afterhours club. Having grown up in Montreal, I know how much they love to enjoy life, but a night at Sona proves they take partying to a world class level. Mike was lucky enough to drop by on a night when Anne Savage was playing.

When I asked him how it was, he had to stop and think presumably about some way to emphatically describe just how hard the music was. That is what Sona is about- Hard House with capital Hs. You never here that hear in Vancouver, and I think it must have something to do with the climate. Surrounded and spoiled by a temperate climate, we like to hear uplifting anthems, funky deep house, anything with some "natural" or human sound in it. Since we don't need the music to forget our surrounding, it often complements and celebrates our surroundings. The hard house in Montreal, however, is a completely urban and industrial experience. A cavernous darkened room, corrugated steel staircases, gangstas, strippers and prostitutes,sanctioned dealers ( 18 year old up and coming players wearing white ball caps) all contribute to a totally industrial experience. Hence, the music is as inhuman and industrial as you can imagine. There are no vocals, no acoustic instruments, no emotional sounds. Just hard, loud, repititive beats that you can only assume were created using some audio equation working with a chemical equation to achieve an hallucinatory effect.

So if you visit Montreal, drop in but be prepared.

So I guess we are gearing up for a long, drawn out war that will have much of its operations remain covert forever. As GWB says, this new type of war has new rules, a vague enemy and requires different tactics. To me he is saying that the rules can be made and changed as we go along, the war will target anyone, anywhere, and that this one is going to be dirty. "Terrorism", or the threat of it, will become the bogeyman of this century, one which we haved learned is all to real.

I support the capture and persecution of those responsible for these WTC terrorist attacks, and as well the capture of any perpetrators of terrorism. What worries me about the mood in the Western world is that our military leaders can easily use this situation as carte blanche to assisisnate any uncooperative leaders in any country. I feel like we are in a time warp, and the US and the British are embarking on some crusade to spread the freedom of Western society. This is a war that could last for 20 or 30 years, and see an decrease in the level of the freedom we are trying to defend.

But to win this war, we have to understand the terrorists' view of the world. I don't support their tactics, but I can see why are frustrated with the status quo. The West has to face that its lifestyle screws over so many countries so hard and that efforts to change that through diplomacy have never been a serious priority, and are nearly always subordinated to profits and power. Deals have been made by the US and Britain with the Kurds, the Palestinians, the Iraqis, the Afghanis, only to reneg on the deal once the other party had held up their end of the bargain. So there are bitter people all over the world, seething at us as we complain about the price of gasoline, or moan about poor internet service providers.

If we are going to end terrorism we certainly need to bring these people to justice, but we alsoo need to be aware of the consequnces of our actions.

Enough of my rambling. Feeling like today I shed my old skin......

How Not to Be a Leader, by my VP Sales
VP:Hey schoolboy, how are your customers reacting to the tragedy?
Schoolboy:Well VP, they are putting things on hold.
VP: Well, what are they telling you? What do you mean on hold?
Schoolboy: Well there aren't many in the office, and I can't get a hold of any project managers.
VP: What about the ones you can reach? What are they telling you?
Schoolboy: To be honest, I am not pressing the issue. I'll wait until next week.

VP nods head, as if to say " if you think you can use this time to slack off, you are wrong.
Schoolboy turns gaze to monitor as if to say "f*** you

I am becoming convinced that the worst is yet to come. There will be many more people dying all over the world. In the midst of this I am searching for some good. I am looking for ways to show that we are better than this, that the one unstoppable force in this world is the human spirit. If there is any good to be found, I think it will be that we have been brought together by this horror, and it is my hope that we will stay together knowing that if anything is to change, we must be the ones to change it. This sounds trite, but when everyone is caught up in working, earning, spending, surviving and consuming, we forget that what is important and enduring. Jobs come and go, fashions are replaced every year, but our relationships are what endure. Hopefully this will be the wake up call we need to bring more decency to a world that was getting cruel and smug with its success.

The attacks on the U.S. have produced much rhetoric from all sides. Always able to find the gems in the rough, textism comes through again.

Selling business intelligence solutions is not what I feel like doing today. The world has other things on its mind, and our management should not be encouraging us to contact customers.

I thought for a long time that we would never have to live through anything like this. I thought that we had evolved beyond this, and that my life would be free from mass slaughter and thoughtless, remorseless murder. Nic, Lucia and Chris are all safe. I don't let many people know this side of me, but I was on the verge of tears all day, until I finally packed it in and went home to play tennis.

But this is just so sad. Hopefully, this will be the worst tragedy in my lifetime.

Now here is a job with upward mobility! All you must endure are football hooligans, rioting strikers, drunks, addicts and shoplifters. You could be a super in only 5 years.

Yes! I can make more than Cheerios for dinner! On Saturday night I actually made sofrito lamb. It took about 4 hours and I made a mess, but it came off wonderfully, a surprise hit actually, as I am known for not being able to make anything. Maybe I feel that way because so many people around me are great cooks.

On Sunday we had Sean and Shelley over to the lighthouse. Shelley was on her way to the airport, en route to Denver. Now I have not paid attention to the NFL in several years ( I don't have cable and I cannot even get CBC), but I joked to Shelley that she should check if there is some Monday Night NFL happening in Denver. Well lo and behold today I get an email from a Broncos fan inviting me to watch Monday Night football at his place.

I had not done this in years, but it was so enjoyable to sit and watch football and eat chips and drink cold Stellas.