oh radio, and wait forever...

Aurora

i really like the way the two guitars are interlaced with the slight echo effect.

StreetView - Peg edition

So street view made itself to Winnipeg. These are the three places you will probably find me:

My appartment building:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=2130+Main+St,+Winnipeg,+MB,+Canada&sll=49.918018,-97.195226&sspn=0.001205,0.003484&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=2130+Main+St,+Winnipeg,+Division+No.+11,+Manitoba,+Canada&ll=49.948094,-97.108562&spn=0,359.996516&z=19&layer=c&cbll=49.947944,-97.108763&panoid=mCdH2KtzqEgqt-5P56WZXA&cbp=12,309.6,,0,4.45


The Bidness:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=28+Keewatin+St,+Winnipeg,+MB,+Canada&sll=49.947944,-97.108763&sspn=0.001165,0.003484&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=28+Keewatin+St,+Winnipeg,+Division+No.+11,+Manitoba,+Canada&ll=49.918,-97.194988&spn=0.001202,0.003484&z=19&layer=c&cbll=49.918065,-97.194987&panoid=x4H2T9plyR30VzdlluSDhw&cbp=12,240.76,,0,5

The Y:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=ymca&sll=49.923873,-97.093552&sspn=0.001202,0.003484&ie=UTF8&radius=0.08&rq=1&ev=zi&hq=ymca&hnear=&ll=49.924054,-97.093434&spn=0,359.996516&z=19&layer=c&cbll=49.924102,-97.093574&panoid=kUl8KZl9ezvvNkQFNDLAbg&cbp=12,173.32,,0,-1.31

How gorgeous is this...

I wish i could take the old minivan to Romania and let loose...

Re ee wind

kickin' it old school

dropkick

so on monday night, i thought i'd get a boost of youthfulness and memories of high school (this nostalgia seems to be contagious latly.)...went to see the Dropkick Murphy's. Admittedly, i remember about two of their songs (which they played in epic fashion) but still thought it would be a good night out.

as concerts generally go, i ran into lots of drunk people, and a surprising number of drunk teenagers, who were totally hilarious because they were trying to act tough and start fights. the lyrics, "you know the type, loud as a motor bike, who wouldnt bust a grape in a fruit fight" come to mind.

i made a couple of drunk friends, two guys who were sitting next to me in the second balcony, three rows from the top of the theater. at one point, one of them put his beer down on this seat, to hold up his friends dropkick murphy's scarf...and then proceeded to, very predictably, sit down on his beer.

this was the first time i'd ever seen anyone play the air bag pipes...pretty awesome.

the flatliners and the mahones opened for dropkick. the mahones had some tall punk girl in leather boots and fishnets rockin the accordian. and the flatliners, well, lets say their album is wayyy better than they are live and that most of the crowd were not shy in showing their disgust.

dropkick was pretty awesome tho, a really high energy band that really gets the crowd involved. i've never been to a theatre show like this before, but a bunch of people started a mosh pit down by the stage. and then during their last song and during the encore, a plethora of people jumped on stage and let all their white dance moves out...good stuff.

anyways, here are some video's of how the action went down:

What do you do with your hands?

When your sitting at a bar, what do you do with your hands. If your not drinking, are your hands on the bar? are they by your side, on your lap, in your pockets? one hand in the pocket and the other on the bar? are you holding a random object like a cell phone?

what do you do with your hands?

Today I found out why boxers need cardio...

warm-up: 10 mins sprints
post warm-up: 5 mins skip, 5 min crunches, 5 mins skip, 5 mins crunches, 5 mins skip, 5 mins leg rolls
bags: 25mins punching bags - land a 7 punch combo in less than 1.5 seconds, repeat
bonus round: 3 x ( 2 min jumping jack squats, 2 min pushups, 2 min leg pull ins )

ouch.

tomorrow will be fun.

Why cant my van do this?

iPhone Controlled Mini-Van in Berlin.

Wise Words

Because if it doesn't have tits or tires, it ain't worth having.

But if it does, it's going to give you trouble.

stupid van

i want a clair huxtable y'all

Firsts

today at the gym i witnessed several firsts:

• two black guys going to play basketball...however, in the locker room they were talking in an educated dialect. And the topic of discussion? comic books and robots. 
• some crazy crackhoe jamming to her music instead of actually using the machines. woman was gettin dowwwn, rap video style.
• two 13/14ish yr old highly self concious girls hell bent on getting hypothermia. While sitting in the hot tub they were comparing the size of various body parts and complaining they were fat. Then randomly decided to run to the steam room, and then dive into the cold pool.

eavesdropping is probably a bad thing, but i do it well, just pretend to take a quick nap in the hot tub - eyes closed, ears open. creepy, maybe. out of context conversations, defiantly hilarious.

i dont know anything about fashion...

but for serious, some girls should not be wearing skinny jeans. and for that matter, why do guys wear them?

Radio

The one thing i rather enjoy about this city is the radio - especially the student radio stations from Red River College and Uni of Manitoba. The stations play mostly indie, otherwise unpopular tunes. Check them out!

http://www.umfm.com/

http://kickfm.blogspot.com/

My new desk

Its already snowing and people are still commiting crimes

i really do hope the "two assailiants" take the drugs with lots of alcohol. 

Also, maybe this is a bit harsh, but isnt a really simple solution to crime in Winnipeg winter very simple? Make winter clothes really expensive. Bling and drugs are already expensive and are probably the motives for a majority of the crimes. However, if you make a commodity item expensive, how are they going to go around committing crimes? Probably a violation of human rights, but just a thought.

Robbers take man's medicine

Last Updated: Saturday, October 10, 2009 | 3:25 PM CT Comments0Recommend1

CBC News

A backpack full of medicine was taken from a 33-year-old Winnipeg man Friday night after he was jumped by two assailants.
Winnipeg police say the man was assaulted but not seriously injured.
The attack took place around 10:40 p.m., near the intersection of Sargent Avenue and Spence Streeet, about a block north of the University of Winnipeg.
Police said the stolen medication could be very dangerous if taken alone or in combination with other drugs or alcohol.
Police are asking anyone who finds the medication or has information on the case to contact Crimestoppers at 204-786-TIPS.

gym tv

so i went to the gym tonight because i didnt feel like watching monday night football on a crappy stream. during one of  the commercial breaks i was flipping the channels and out of the blue, i see the guy from work with the 65 mustang being interview about his car. There are 5 other people at my work, and one of them was on tv. what are the odds.

also, favre killed it.

Driving thoughts

I wonder what will break first

• My window, after being broken in to find 32 pennies and a box of kleenex
• the suspension because of the absoluttly terrible roads
• the steering because it seems like you have to make at least 3 U-Turns a day to get anywhere on the other side of the road
• my mind, because the fastest i've driven in the last month is 65 km/h

Singh is King

Saw this sticker on this guys truck on the way home...

Free Food, Power Tools, Nice Car. I'm happy

Today I saw a crazy cracker on crutches cross the street while traffic was coming full speed (thought i'd mention that because of the alliteration)

I also didnt take lunch to work. But somehow, the guy who doesnt really say much asked if i wanted to go get free food and check out some tools at a hardware store. Sold.

Go outside and see a new car in the parking lot. Sheepishly, I ask, "who's car is this?". He says "mine". 1965 orange Mustang.

and then i got paid at work.

SAWEEEET.

Wasalu to you too

so last friday i was browsing the intrawebosphere to see what was up in the W-peg. Turns out Lupe, yes, Lupe Fiasco was making an appearance at the University of Manitoba. So i checked ticketmaster and there were still tickets available. So after work, I rushed straight to ticketmaster outlet to try and buy some tickets...but the tickets had been taken off the system about 20 mins before i got there. crap

but, the girl said there were still going to be tickets availble at the door. Getting my hopes up, i rushed home, ate and then drove down to the UofM. The line was huge. I asked around to see if there were still tickets, but no one knew. I asked this one girl by accident on two different occasions and she tried to ask people too, but no luck. anyways, i kept asking people in line if they had an extra ticket just in case  someone had bailed, but nope, these winnipegers are committed people.

after 1.5hours of asking around, and almost convincing a guy to go home and selling me the ticket, i ditched. It was 30mins past the time the doors were supposed to open and the mosquitos were becoming a bit of a pain.

somehow, i thought of watching a movie and the movie timing was perfect for the time i got home. when i went to the cashier, she asked me for $3. WTF, thats the cheapest movie ticket i've ever bought at a cineplex - the cheapest drink was more expensive than the ticket. Watched Funny People, had a good laugh and went to sleep. Solid night.

1 Egg, 2 Yolks

In Rainbows

On my drive home last week, the weather couldn't make up its mind, sunny, rainy, windy, cold, hot...everything. Perfect recipe for Mr Roy G. Biv:

I'm goin for gold

2 Rainbows!

Step into my office

Everytime a bus or truck goes by the building, everything inside shakes and pieces of the paint fall off.

My workstation. Pentium 4 rockin AutoCad 2010.

You'd have to film mtv cribs for a week

...here's a 5 second condensed version:

Thanks for visiting, now GTFO!

Drive through Downtown

To kill some time yesterday and get a feel for the city. I live in the north party of the city on Main St. Turns out that the city is so small that you can drive across the entire the city in about 25 minutes (on city streets). In this short stretch, the city changes drastically.

My area is pretty nice, not awesome, but not totally sketch either. The view from my parking lot:

Golf Course

Motel and Beer

Drive a few blocks down and get into the sketchiest and most dangerous part of town:

Why are there classes in an alley?

If you zoom in, they Pawn Shop (the first of many in this city), sells GHETTOBLASTERS!

Then a few minutes later, start getting into downtown:

Ok, these signs are EVERYWHERE. Is child pornography really that big of a problem in this city?

Union Station

The fancy hotel downtown opposite Union Station. Copy Toronto much? Last time i drove by here, i saw the only fancy car in the city - a white lambo.

Crossing the Red River

Wish I could afford to go here...

Then made a random turn into a neighborhood to come across some more doll houses. All the houses here are so cookie cutter and tiny. 

The "little italy". The only thing Italian i saw was several Galleto stores. 

Ha, theres a building with the word Rice on the side

The MTS Center. I think its like the ACC in Toronto. 

After making some more turns and adventuring around, I ended up in the south side of the city at the University of Winnipeg. It is nicer than Waterloo. That is all.

Awesome. Cereal Research funded by the government

Wet Socks

I had no idea that drying wet socks out of the wash on a wooden chair would stain the chair. Whats going on here? 

Weekends are kinda boring

Last weekend I had no internet and the 25 channels i was getting on TV were kinda meh (now 4.5 channels - they removed my TV privileges when they setup internet) . After watching Melanie Oudin in the US open beat some russian girl, i hit the links (across the street from my apartment). It was a solid way to kill 4 hours and played with two random guys. As it was getting dark, i got to ride around on the back of their cart. Just a heads up, its fun, but freaking dangerous, especially after the guy who's driving has had about 6 beers during the game.  Also, got eaten to death by the mosquitoes - vicious little bastards they are. No joke, got bit over 15 times in the few hours i was outside.

Hit a very solid drive. Maybe around 250 yards, straight. 

There's a lot of chairs but not enough tables

So i built a table using two Trail Mix boxes i picked up from Costco and then taped it together with Packaging Tape. To weigh it down, i used 12 containers of apple juice. Not glamorous, but functional. 

Day 2

This day was filled with adventure. Never have I seen the sights that I saw this day. We drove through the great states of Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota and Manitoba. As we progressed north, the less and less of civilization we saw - it was just farmland as far as the eye could see. Even the horizon line was farmland.

There really isnt much else to say. Pictures say a thousand words i guess (maybe a a bit less in this case, they're kinda blurry, i was driving and taking them):

Not sure what this. Its only significant because its a feature thats not flat, in otherwise very flat lands.

YOGI BEAR'S JELLYSTONE PARK!

Entering Minnesota

Sunflower fields

Spinach (?) - It looked cool with the wind blowing because it looked like different shades of green were moving through the field. 

For lunch, we stopped in Fargo, ND (we were the only colored people in this city). We ate at 

It was basically a hybrid between Taco Bell and Subway. Better food than Taco Bell, and they assemble your food in front of you. Outside this restaurant, there was another restaurant called "Space Aliens - Earthlings Welcome" - i just found the name and tagline interesting.  

Just because.

More driving, the more scarce people became.

The speed limit was approximately 120 kmh (75 mph). I decided to push the van to its limits. I pushed to about 155 km/h before feeling it shake, and found out an interesting thing. The car will not go into cruise control above 148 km/h. 

Ah, the Canadian border...the first building in miles!

Crossing into Manitoba was not more exciting than driving through North Dakota, in fact, more depressing - mostly because it hit hard as to what my reality was going to be. And any plans of getting away to the States for a weekend were not going to happen because North Dakota isn't exactly a happening place.

What I found hilarious at this point was this sign:

There's just something about that sign and its surroundings that didn't add up. Funnily enough, the first "attraction" of Manitoba that was marked was a fossil museum.

Well there you have it, over 2000 km later, finally arrived in Winnipeg, aka Winterpeg aka The Peg aka Peg City aka SHIT I MIGHT GET SHOTOWN aka IM GOING TO GO OUT OF MY MIND CITY

As we drove into the city, things got a bit better (there were people around). Drove by the Canadian Mint:

And then right after that (at 6pm, Saturday), there was a road blockage. Wondering what it was, as we approached, it turned out to be a spot check by 6 cop cars. Who is drunk at 6pm on a Saturday!? Winnipegers i guess?