A Day Late...

But certainly not a dollar short... Here's the Ten Things I Learned This Week!

1. FINALLY!
Everyone is booked and confirmed for the Dominican. While this was also the case a couple weeks ago when the carrier pulled out, I'm trying to stay positive and believe that we're all good to go now.

2. A-Rod Cheated
Just like so many other baseball players did during the same span, Alex Rodriguez used Performance Enhancing Drugs. I don't know why this was a surprise to me at all, but it was. I will say this: even though his interview with Peter Gammons was rehearsed and full of half-truths, kudos to Alex for getting out in front of this now and taking whatever lumps may come his way.

3. Found a New Favorite Restaurant
The Old Baurnhaus is just down the hill from our place and is awesome. It's the quintessential sit and relax for a two hour dinner kind of place that I love and the food is incredible. To put it into perspective for you, I ate beets. I hate beets. I never eat beets. But the way the Baurnhaus did beets, I ate every last one.

4. Tougher Than I Expected
Being one of the editors for The Love of Sports is a harder job than I actually thought. We're currently publishing about ten articles a day, three of which I write myself near the end of all the sporting events of the day. On that pace, we're looking at around 300 articles a month, give or take or as Sarah pointed out, about less than 50 cents an article. It's fun just getting started and making no money...

5. Some People Get It, Some People Don't
I work at a ski resort and fully expect the weekends to be a complete madhouse from the time we open the doors until I am told to go home. I know I need to come in ready to get slammed by customers all day long. Unfortunately, some of my colleagues still don't get this and come in hung over to the gills, uninterested in doing any work whatsoever and just generally pissy and it makes me want to choke them.

6. So I Got Me a Weekly Column
While it's true that I'm not getting paid to write said column, I personally don't care. I also don't care that it's in the smallest newspaper known to man. It's still a weekly column and it's still something I can cut out and add to my scrapbook. Relaying the Message comes to the Kimberley Daily Bulletin starting next Wednesday.

7. Chris Brown is the New Ike Turner?
Not to make light of a possible assault or anything like that, but I never would have pegged Chris Brown as the type to get booked on assault with a deadly weapon charges. And I would have bet less money on Rihanna playing the part of Tina...

8. You All Failed Your Homework Assignment!
A couple weeks ago, I asked for some book suggestions. Newt told me he's been reading stuff I most certainly had already read (and I had BTW) and no one else said boo. You all fail. Big old F's all around... and I'm calling your parents too!

9. I Missed the Grammy Awards
Do you know how long it's been since I missed the Grammy Awards? Well, it's only been a year, but the Grammy's used to be a staple on my Awards Show viewing schedule. For the most part, I've stopped caring because the winners are generally crap to begin with and I just don't care about most of the music being made right now. Outside of a handful of acts, it's garbage...

10. That Being Said...
M.I.A., Kanye, Jay-Z, Lil Wayne and T.I. absolutely killed "Swagger Like Us" last night. For all of you who still have no clue about M.I.A., you need to go find out... she is insanely good.

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The Rundown: Book It

In looking back over the numerous Rundown's we've shared together in the year and change I've been writing them and you've been reading them, I realized that I have skipped out on one major, major Rundown.

My Favourite Books.

See, I consider it major because reading is what turned me on to writing. I was always decent enough at it in school and once considered pursuing an English degree in University, but that never happened and entry into the working world involved shaking hands and settling disputes, not writing essays on the character interactions in King Lear or my views on abortion.

But that foray into the world of customer service did provide two important components that led to where we are today - a bunch of disposable income and fairly decent amounts of time off to lay around the house doing nothing.

In my case, nothing often meant playing PlayStation 2 and watching movies, but sometimes it meant reading.

One of the books I read during those years changed my life and started me down the path we're on together today. The gentlemen pictured above who looks like a Gap mannequin is to blame...

Top Five Books

5. A Million Little Pieces by James Frey
I know it was partially fabricated and Oprah hates him, but I'm not a suburban housewife so I don't have to do everything that Oprah tells me. Outside of the controversy, this is an incredibly powerful work. The way it's written in disjointed sentences, more staccato than prose and the violent, vivid images that Frey creates for the readers hook you in to the point that you don't want to put the book down for a minute. The book about overcoming addiction becomes your addiction. At least it did for me.

4. Thank You For Smoking by Christopher Buckley
The movie also made my Favourite Movie list a while back, so you had to know that I was a major fan of the source material. This one goes along with the longstanding belief that the book is always better than the movie. As outstanding as the film was - and don't kid yourself, it was outstanding - the book is even better in delivering more background on protagonist Nick Naylor, his insane boss B.R. and his relationships with his family, his friends and a back-stabbing bitch that never really showed up in the movie. This one got me through my stint at the Marine Atlantic Ferry Terminal.

3. The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green by Joshua Braff
I actually read this book because I love the author's brother - Zach Braff, he of Scrubs and Garden State fame. Thankfully, incredible talent is a trait both Braff boys hold (as does their sister...) as Joshua crafts a beautiful tale of a young Jewish boy growing up with some truly unthinkable thoughts. As I write this, I'm eagerly awaiting Braff's next effort because if it's anything like Jacob Green, it'll be on the next incarnation of this list.

2. High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
This is the fictional version of "That's me!" Hornby's Rob Fleming - later turned into Rob Gordon and dumped in Chicago by Cusack & Co for the outstanding film version - encompasses everything that I am and everything that I was at the time I read the book. He has no idea what to do with his life, I had no idea what to do with my life. He was a moron with women, I was a moron with women. In the end, it worked all worked out... for the both of us.

1. Sex, Drugs & Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman
This is the non-fiction version of "That's me!" Everything Klosterman put down into words in this collection hit on something I had thought at one point or another in my life. And we're not talking brilliant, Earth-shattering developments here either, we're talking shit like, "How are there so many naked housewives in the world?" and "Is the Sim version of me happier than the real me?" I own everything the man has ever written now, having gone back and read what I had missed and bought everything that has come after it, save for his crappy fictional effort...

So if you need to blame someone for getting me started down this path and making me think I could one day be a real, live writer, blame Chuck Klosterman.

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Anyone Know a Good Publisher?

I went to bed at 12:30 last night.

At 12:45 I was tossing and turning, thoughts racing through my head.

By 1:00, my ass was parked in front of this computer, tapping away at the keys, feverishly firing out the first 1000 words of what I think will be an outstanding book.

No - not the one about me and my old man. Another one. A different one. One that is a little more - how shall I put this? - marketable.

And there is a market for it. I know. I checked.

Problem is, I have no idea who to contact about said idea and making it a reality.

I'm so confident in this idea that I want to shop it before it's even complete, that's how confident I am that someone else will recognize the idea as the original, exciting and potentially lucrative concept I think it is.

I've started flipping through the Interwebs looking for publishers and have stumbled across a couple, but none of them appeal to me. Maybe I'm thinking too big, but some small town press in Nowhere, Ontario isn't who I see putting this bad boy out.

This concept is worthy of the big boys, only I'm not sure who the big boys are and how I would get in touch with them.

If you've got more insight into this than me, fill me in would ya?

In the meantime, I've got some more writing to do...

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10 Things I Learned This Week

Back on my own computer, sitting in my newly established "office" and ready to deliver.

Come and get it, bitches!

1. Patience
Seriously, I learned to be patient this week. Actually, somewhat overnight. Yesterday I was in a funk, stuck with the lingering thought that I won't ever get off my ass and write my book and might not amount to anything more than a movie jockey at Blockbuster who does a little writing on the side. Then I got off my ass this morning and hit Staples to get my portfolio put together and wrote two pieces for Bugs. Now I'm here doing this little number and it's not even 1:00 yet. I needed to feel miserable in order to remember that things aren't going to happen overnight and I can't control the written universe. I know - I'm a bit dramatic sometimes, eh?

2. My Head Isn't In It
There is no part of me that is conscientious about working at Blockbuster now. It is merely a distraction that interferes with every other aspect of my life. Case in point, I drove to work yesterday without my keys to lock up at the end of the night. Normally, I'm an anal retentive, overly prepared freak show who turns up for work 20 minutes early to see if there is anything I can help with. Now, here, I show up totally unprepared five minutes before I go on the clock. Not a good sign.

3. A Must Read
I started reading John Howard Griffin's Black Like Me earlier in the week and though I am only a handful of pages in, I feel obligated to tell everyone to read this book. Griffin, a white man, dyes his skin and lives a year as a Black man in the South, starting in October 1959. This could be one of those life changing books for me.

4. Tomorrow, I Relax
And by relax, I mean grab a seat in the upper deck of the Rogers Centre alongside my one-time roommate Beast and a couple friends watching the finale of the Blue Jays - Tigers series. I'm looking forward to this for many reasons: (1) "Beer and a Dog," (2) Beast is one of the funniest people I know and always entertaining, (3) it gives me a chance to price out a retro Blue Jays jersey so I know how much it'll cost when I try to convince Sarah that I really, really need one.

5. After Today, I'm Flying Solo
That ironic twist I told you about a couple weeks ago gets triggered today, as later this afternoon I'll be dropping Garry off at the airport in Hammertown for a three week jaunt to Calgary and Vancouver. While we haven't gotten the month of "bond building" I initially aimed for this to be, we've had a solid ten days and there is no doubt in my mind that this is going to be a smooth and enjoyable summer.

6. What is it with London and Homophobia?
One of the people I work with has insinuated twice that things I do - or don't do - are gay. My owning and drinking from a pink Brita water bottle caught me an awkward glance and curious questions. My refusal to move the two awareness bracelets that have adorned my left wrist for the better part of four years over to my right to cover my tattoo was met with the remark, "Why is it a gay thing?" That one got Person A the stink eye. It's 2008 and for chrissakes! Get over yourself and your hangups already...

7. Dinner Monday Night...
Harvey's! It's been too damn long since I sank my teeth into a bad-ass, made just the way you like it Harvey's Hamburger and Monday is going to be the end of that drought. Bacon Cheeseburger with ketchup, mustard, relish, tomato, hot peppers and pickles... Delicious!

8. Apparently, I Have a Talent for Unpacking
Garry was quite impressed with how "industrious" (his word, not mine) I was on Thursday once my stuff arrived. We bombed it into the kitchen around noon and by the time he came home at five, I had pretty near everything unpacked, the room totally realigned to best optimize space and many of the little "feels like home" touches already in place, like Sarah's Mini Christmas Tree and a couple of framed pictures. This is what happens when you've moved as much as I have.

9. My Name is Spencer and I Have a Caffeine Dependency
Friday on the way to work I declined a coffee. I wasn't feeling well and just knew that a large double-double wasn't the cure that I needed. In my head, not having to go to boring-ass work was the cure I needed. All day long, my headache persisted. Ate food, drank water and nothing. Sitting after dinner, Garry tossed me the keys and told me to go to Starbucks. Twenty minutes later and three chugs into my Venti Komodo Dragon, headache gone. Good ol' caffeine to the rescue. The moral of this story: Coffee has healing powers!

10. How Cool Would It Be...
If I got to interview Ellen Page for the next issue of Passion? We're doing a Celebrity Issue next and in Spencer tradition, I started pitching assignment ideas to my editor a couple weeks ago. Then I watched Juno Tuesday night (and again Wednesday night with the Commentary) and got to thinking, "Hey, Ellen Page fits everything we're looking for. Canadian, celebrity, relevant, even buzz-worthy..." So I sent Nicole an email saying the same and am sitting here clinging to my pipe dream of picking up the phone in the next two weeks and having a conversation with Juno MacGuff. Is it going to happen? Probably not, but shit, what's the harm in hoping?

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