Soundtrack of My Life

Song: Yellow Ledbetter
Artist: Pearl Jam
Album: B-Side to Jeremy (1992)

I don't have the foggiest idea what Eddie Vedder is actually saying for a minute in the song, but I've always loved it. It's one of those songs that mellows me out and I could use a little mellowing out...

It's not very often that you get to be around for the entire lifespan of a band like Pearl Jam. Lots of bands have come and gone from the time Ten came out until now and many more will before the boys call it quits, I'm sure.

While my interest and support of Pearl Jam has ebbed and flowed over the years - from complete adoration during the Ten / Vs. / Vitalogy years to just a general appreciation since - there is no denying the impact they have had on the music industry, other artists and millions of kids who were in the mid-teens like me when they dropped into our laps.

They are the last true survivors of the Grunge Explosion and the Seattle scene and don't really show any signs of stopping. They've slowed down, but the band formerly known as Mookie Blaylock will be be around for a while still and even when they're gone, we'll have completely indecipherable tracks like this one to remind us of them...

Just for fun, today's link is the Misheard Lyrics video and it's pretty entertaining.

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The Sean Avery Saga

I've written a piece on the Sean Avery drama that'll be coming out soon at The Love of Sports, but I just wanted to bring it here too since this is where we've discussed pretty much everything that has crossed my mind in the last year and change.

For me, it shakes down like this:

What Avery said was sophomoric and crude and classless.
He's a jackass and probably yapped his way out of playing in the NHL this season.
But was it worthy of a suspension and all the uproar and attention it's gotten in the media?

In a word: No.

Access fucking Hollywood was waiting for Avery outside the NHL Offices in New York today, where he met with Commissioner Gary Bettman. While I'm sure this isn't the attention Bettman necessarily wants for the NHL, tell me the last time anything related to hockey was on Access Hollywood?

And for all those people who are climbing up on their soapboxes saying how disgusted they are with Avery's choice of words and the message it sends and blah blah blah blah blah, please tell me how this is even remotely as bad as Plaxico Burress toting a loaded weapon in a nightclub?

Bottom line: I can't wait to see what the NHL does here because if they suspend him for any length of time, they're showing they're more worried about PR than players and I'll have me a field day with that.

Random Note - I sure did use a lot of colons in this piece... weird...

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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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It Sure Took A While...

But we're in the midst of our first serious snowfall of the winter here in Kimberley and I couldn't be happier.

For one, I don't have to shovel. Like never. Maybe the odd time here and there when Sarah has to work days and the plow hasn't come around at 6 AM or something like that, but even still, it's only enough to get her out the driveway and on the way. Not like I have a driveway to do or anything.

Secondly, snow equals money and I could surely use some of that stuff!

As the powder piles up, the vacationers and locals who frequent the Kimberley Alpine Resort start to flock in and with them comes added business for Kelsey's. Added business for Kelsey's means more hours for me, as opposed to the 11 I managed over the course of four days last week...

It also means a chance to start down my path to snowboarding stardom, or at least the ability to remain standing for extended periods of time without injuring myself and others. As much as I'm looking forward to the money, there is a small part of me that is equally looking forward to the challenge of a new sport, even if I'm 0-1, having suffered my sole loss via vicious TKO at Blue Mountain a few years back.

I won't be chronicling my alpine exploits here though - seeing as it's a sport and I fancy myself a bit of a sports writer, you'll have to tune into The Snowboard Chronicles at The Love of Sports for the regular updates on my progress or lack there of.

Have fun shoveling suckers - I'm going to sit in the hot tub!

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Stupid People Make Me Angry

Why are some people complete morons?

Can someone answer that for me please.

You have high profile idiots like Plaxico Burress (read the piece below if you're unaware) or Sarah Palin or Paris Hilton, but there are stupid people everywhere you turn in everyday life too.

We live above one.

Since we moved to Kimberley, the guy who drives the white Dodge that lives in the lower left condo - our building is like a Tic Tac Toe Board and we're the Center Square! - has parked in the first space on the right in the lot for the unit next to us that is currently 100% empty. We've generally parked just offset from the stairs up, next to the guy who lives below us' truck. It's worked out perfectly.

Until the other day.

We went out to get groceries and do some running around after I got home from work and when we came back, to our surprise, there was the white Dodge in our parking spot. Not a huge deal as the parking area isn't assigned or anything like that, but when you do something the same way for 42 days, you expect Day 43 to be the same, right?

Wrong.

We parked where he normally parked, unloaded and thought nothing of it. We're flexible, a little change isn't that big a deal.

Then today happened.

We did some running around and when we turned down our street, I noticed the white Dodge rolling in behind us and told Sarah.

We both had the same idea: park in the spot and see what he does. We're flexible, but we're also pains in the ass who like conducting social experiments evidentally.

So as we rolled towards the lot and I signalled my turn into the spot, the strangest thing happened...

Super Genius pretty much drove up behind me as if he too was going to turn into the spot, stopped and then begrudgingly backed up and parked beside us. It's as if we had offended him by taking the spot he had parked in for one night.

We were up to our level by the time he got out of his car which was probably good as a verbal confrontation would have invariably taken place with me using the words "Ya fuckin' moron" at least once.

I don't get it, people: Six weeks, same spot, no problems. Then all of a sudden, homeboy decides to change things and thinks we're the morons for parking in the spot we've parked in since we moved here.

Some people's children... I tell ya!

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