A Billion Civilians

What the blog is going on here?!

2012-02-09T18:09:00.000-08:00

So, I've realized a few things over the last year or so regarding this site.

1. I really like to share on it. I know that people are reading (almost 10 000 views), but not a whole lot of dialog, which was one of the reasons why I wanted to take this blog seriously and get into it.

2. Not a lot of dialog is probably my fault. I spend a lot of times complaining about China or ranting on and on about a hockey team that nobody really loves as much as I do. I've not a whole lot of topics that allow for discussion, nor that provide the need to comment. I've gotten feedback from more than a few people who say that they really enjoy the blog, which is nice, but the very fact that they do not communicate their feelings through the blog exposes an obvious shortfall that I would like to improve upon.

3. The Internet is a very dangerous place, in more ways than one. The battle am going through now is that I seem to be spreading myself too thin.

The blog is one thing. I am writing every day to a mysterious following. Seemingly spewing out every little tidbit about my life for the Internet to swallow up with the rest of the noise.

I visit Failblog a lot, and I've found it less and less funny. I am less and less impressed with the funny photos or videos that they post. I feel frustrated by it, by it's addiction and how unsatisfied it makes me, yet I go back for more. 10 years ago, if someone caught something amazing on film, it would be on America's Funniest Home Videos and that was the only place you could see it. How things have changed.

It's gotten to the point where it's going beyond impressing and straight to shock value. I came across a video the other day of a guy going through something called the "Challenge Gauntlet" or something. He ate 6 habanero peppers, 10 Warhead candies, some Mentos, a 2 liter bottle of soda, and a gallon of Milk. Once he started barfing up the milk I turned it off. Curiosity took me that far, but my eyes and heart had had enough. This poor sack of human being was just trying to get famous on the Internet. Is it really worth risking permanent heart and intestinal issues to became famous for 5 minutes?

I need an intervention. I think that most of us do. Being in China, feeling isolated can be a big problem and the quick fix is to go to something familiar, Facebook or whatever, and stay there for 2 or 3 hours. What a waste of a life!

4. Since feeling like I cannot be spread any thinner, I've come to a point where I need to do something about it. Prioritizing things is a start.

5. A way to combat this thinness is to find ways to go deeper. As if an answer to prayer, my friend invited me to join a discussion on a blog that he has started. There will be at least 4 of us discussing a wide range of things. I'm looking forward to a change or scenery in regards to blogging; new people to talk with, new audience, more people contributing their ideas, time, and interest.

It's a different angle of the view I've been trying to get a glimpse of ever since deciding that a blogging community would be a good place for me and my sanity. I'll dip my toes in at first, and if the water is warm enough I'll let you know the details.

So, in conclusion, I'm going to cool it for a while on the blog. If I can do that for, lets say until after Valentine's Day, then I am a stronger man than I thought I was. After that, who knows? I know some people that don't even have Facebook accounts. Could you imagine that?

This week in Xining: Number 1, Number 2 or Number Barf?

2012-02-07T00:26:00.000-08:00

- You know that you're in a cold and stinky bathroom when, once your pee hits the urinal, the steam rising up gives off a smell that provides temporary relief from the rankness of the rest of the room.

- With the temperatures on the rise, it was nice to go outside the other day and pretend that Spring is coming, and then, when I peaked my head out the window the following day, it was nice that I pulled it back inside just before it had a chance to freeze off and drop 10 floors down onto someone's Volkswagen.

- If anyone remembers the story about the Grass Police, I ran into him again. If you forget the story, here's the applicable part:

Exhibit B
Today we had a little picnic in the grass behind our building. We had about 8 adults and 6 kids there. We had blankets spread on the grass and were trying to enjoy ourselves before a storm rolled in overhead.

A few local people, as they usually do, stopped to admire the kids and guess what kinds of strange foreign foods we were eating. After a while, one of the neighbors came up to us. He might have been in his 50's and he was out walking his dog. He went out of his way to tell us how rude we were being for having a picnic. That we were making a mess and that it was very rude. That we should not be on the grass wasn't really the point, as he said that it is fine that the kids play on the grass but that to have food on the grass is very rude and inconsiderate to the rest of the people who used the yard.

Time out.

First of all, there is not a lot of grass in this country. When someone plants grass they usually put up a cute little sign which translates into "We are tiny blades of grass, please don't hurt us". What they really mean is "stay the %@#* off the grass!". So, as it goes, there are little patches of grass in a lot of areas in this city that just sit there. The only thing you will ever see on a patch of grass are dozens of piles of dog crap. I joke that the grass is only for looking at and for dogs to crap on. So, when we went to picnic, and knew that there were not any signs prohibiting going on the grass, that the kids could play on the grass, that dogs could use it as a bathroom, we figured in our ignorance that it would be okay to enjoy what little piece of grass we could find that had yet to be defiled.

Anyways, it got a little weird. The guy asked where Dustin was from. He said America. The man asked if we would do something like this in America. He actually asked if we would have a picnic in America. Dustin said "of course" and the man laughed in disbelief. "Bu Ke Neng!" he laughed. "There is no way!".

Anyways, we packed up and got out of there. We were basically done eating anyways and it was starting to get colder out.

The other day, I saw Mr. Grass Police walking his dog. While a ways off, I saw his dog crap on the sidewalk. Then, when I passed them, the dog crapped all over the edge of the road one more time. He might have been sick.

The 2 prominent things to see on the road these days are piles of dog poop and piles of human barf.

These days, the city is buzzing with parties. I mean, the local store is sold out of the good yogurt, so you know people are having a good time. A lot of people find themselves over eating and over drinking. I guess the taxis have been busy pulling over and the people have been busy tossing their over eats onto the street. At least it's cold enough that the piles are left as just frozen splotches of color. Kind of artistic, in a way.

Anyways, I think that Mr. Grass Police needs a lesson on training his dog not to poop all over the community. It's at least comparable to eating a chicken wing on grass, right? No matter the culture? Maybe even a little grosser? I've done everything to hold my tongue, and besides, there are a million other perpetrators. If he calls me out for any more grass violations in the future, at least I have some ammo.

Super Bowl Recap

2012-02-05T21:25:00.000-08:00

The First Half

After the first few minutes of the 1st quarter, I was very happy. Ma' Man Victor Cruz juggled in a nice little TD pass and the Giants had a cozy little 9-0 lead. Later on, Tom Brady did his thing and made things exciting going into the second half.

Halftime

Despite some people's opinions, I actually enjoyed most of the halftime show. I thought that I heard a little swear in there from M.I.A but I'm glad the 'bleep' was subtle as to not draw too much attention to the artist's marketing ploy. I mean, what other reason is there to swear and give the finger to the camera then to just up your quickly fading profile? She might sell a few more albums because of it.

Madonna was good because the show was snap,snap quick. I liked most of the dancing and the choir and that fat guy, CeeLo Green, is it? But basically, the entire theme of the halftime show can be summed up like this:

Familiar hit, leg kick to show she's still got it, grindy dance to show she's still dirty, telling you she's still sexy to show that she thinks she's still sexy, emotional religious icon and song w/choir... World Peace.

To break it down even more, she starts out old and sexy and then makes sure everyone knows that she's religious and that... World Peace.

When she sang the lyric "I'm still sexy" I misheard it as "I'm still sixty". I think that it would have been more impressive and even 'sexier' to say that she's still sixty. Though, I don't think she's quite that old.

The whole thing was much better than some old geezer band pretending their young again. An old geezer pop star is a little more interesting. Plus, she was great in Evita.

Miles main comment about the half-time show was that he didn't know that adults could give other adults piggy backs and shoulder rides.

The pivotal must-see 2nd half

I kind of missed the 2nd half. Though, I saw Ma' Man Bradshaw roll into the endzone for the winning score. My keys to victory went something like this:

The Giants defence must knock Tom Brady out of the game. Seriously. They must hit him until he can no longer throw the ball down the field, and then, when nobody's looking, hit him again.

I think that they did a good job at that when it counted.

The Giants must play RB Bradshaw the whole game... Bradshaw is a beast that can rumble over anyone no matter how New England Patrioty that person may be.

Well, he scored the winning TD by rumbling up the middle.

"Pass it to Victor"

Again, he caught the game's first touchdown. Though, that dance that those NY Giant receivers do in the end zone is pretty self-degrading, don't you think?

As far as I know, Madonna didn't hurt her hip, so I was wrong there, but the Giants pretty much looked up my blog and did just as I told them to do. I'm expecting the check in the mail.

Gagner means 'win' in French

2012-02-03T00:07:00.000-08:00

View from my seat, opening night 2009.

Here at the blog, it's turned into "sports week". I wanted to do a post about the Oilers to add to the excitement, so I gave Sam Gagner a call and asked if he could score 4 goals against the Chicago Blackhawks on Groundhog Day. Well, he ended up adding 4 assists to the mix, and in the end, it was nice of him to acknowledge my request by producing the first 8 point game by an Oiler's player in 23 years.

It is also worth noting that the Oilers won the game 8-4. So yes, that's right, Gagner either scored or assisted on all 8 Oiler goals. It is safe to say that that has never happened nor never will happen again.

The other thing I heard about this magical night is that the line of Gagner, Eberle, and Hall scored on 5 straight shifts in the 3rd period. You can't even do that in a video game. Believe me, I've tried many times. They put special computer codes into the games to prohibit you from scoring every time so that you don't get bored with the game too fast. Tonight, Gagner was better than Steve Yzerman from Nintendo's NHL 92. That's the one you could do 'one-timers' in.

In 2009, my loving brother bought me a ticket for the Oiler's opening night game against the Flames. After enjoying the first 2 periods I decided to go to the merch boutique and pick up a nice souvenir for my brother... a thank you gift. Since most of the pre-season excitement centered around the Oilers signing a new goalie, I thought that it would be nice to get Barry a nice shirt with that goalie's name on the back. Moments later, I purchased a Khabibulin shirt.

I put the shirt on (a game worn shirt is worth more!), got back to my seat and took in the rest of the game. The Oilers scored late to tie it up. Then, with about a minute left, Khabibulin himself gifted the puck away and the Flames scored into the empty net to steal the game. It was a bitter way to end such an exciting event, and it marked the beginning of yet another crappy season.

This is pregame, but the puck in the net makes sense

Lost in the that game was 20 year old center Sam Gagner. He is supposed to develop into a reliable scorer, but since the coaches don't have the patience for such nonsense, they put him on the 4th line with the goons. He fought Craig Conroy that day. I remember it. Craig Conroy was 18 years older(!) than Sam and a heck of a lot bigger. Sam lost the fight, but it proved that he was willing to do whatever the coaches wanted him to, even if the coaches were idiots.

Fast forward to tonight. Sam Gagner was on the top line with 2 shiny linemates and together they combined for 6 goals and 10 assists.

He's come a long way in 3 years. He's not going to score 8 points again any time soon. But, if he can combine that fighting attitude I saw back in '09 with the scoring touch, I sure hope the management and coaches realize that it's a good idea to have one of these Sam Gagner types on the team, especially when he's only 22 years old.

I mean, look at me. I'm almost 31 years old and I feel like I'm just entering my prime. All of the things I've learned in my 20s make me the 30 year old I am today, including the very fact that I had to get through them to get to here. Heck, I still play touch football. Sometime even quarterback! And I'm 30 years old!

If Gagner still needs 3 or 4 more years to develop consistency, size, and confidence, then that is just fine and dandy for this little Oilers fan.

Interesting Super Bowl 'facts'.

2012-02-02T03:53:00.000-08:00

As it is Super Bowl Week, we continue our look at the World of Sport.

First of all...

Okay, then. Here are some interesting tidbits to get your motor running for the big game:

1. 80% of the tickets go to corporate sponsors. So, most of the people at the game this weekend more than likely won't be Giants or Patriots fans. They will be ridiculously rich, non-football fans and they will be snobby and they will not eat nachos. This is all in my imagination.

2. Typically, antacid sales are up 20% during game day. This is great for the folks at Pepto but not so good for anyone else and kind of disgusting if you let yourself think about it for too long.

3. Super Bowl Sunday is the biggest eating day for Americans after Thanksgiving. When people eat things like this, you know that they take their eating seriously.

I would also say that this day would be the best day to indulge in a 'nacho hat'.

it kind of makes you want to brainstorm of things to put on a giant edible hat. Here are a few:

- Any dip would work in the middle. For the brim I'm thinking some sort of chip layering system, similar to a bird's wing with feathers.

- A 'Ribeye hat'?

- A soft tortilla hat with a bowl of ground beef in the middle?

- Pancake hat with syrup in the middle. You could layer bacon and eggs on the brim and they would stay warm in the sunshine.

But the winner, in my book, is the cheese fondue hat.

4. 43.9 million Americans will attend Super Bowl party.

As for Canada, Eugene's family and cousin Sue's nephew's family will be in Estevan, Saskatchewan at the high school, which will be broadcasting the game for the community. All of the Newfoundlanders living North of Lacombe, AB and a couple of the guys from the oil field are invited to parties at their local Lion's Club Legions. Bryce will be watching the game if he's not working down at the firehall. That's all I've heard about so far. Feel free to announce your party on this blog.

5. One year, Kathie Lee Gifford sang the national anthem. I dare you to watch it.

6. According to the organizers of the event, All football fans love a halftime show which includes one of the following:

- The latest pop sensation.
- Rap music.
- Some old band that was famous in the 70s.
- Some old musician that was famous in the 80s.

The general rule of thumb is to steer clear of any music that is awesome.

7. As everyone knows, they show cool commercials during the Super Bowl... except for in Canada.

While the Americans watch Justin Timberlake's latest cute thing that he does we Canadians will be reminded that North of 60 reruns will continue to be shown every Wednesday morning at 230am. Also, Tim Hortons has yet another kind of breakfast sandwich.

8. There have been almost twice as many Grey Cup games (Canadian Football League) as Super Bowls, yet some how it's still not as popular. Next year will be the Grey Cup's 100th game!

9. The NFL's current agreement (which runs out after this season) says that the winner of the Super Bowl is to get paid $88 000. That's each player, so to crunch the numbers.... that is about 5 million dollars going to people do don't need it. On top of that, most players have bonus clauses in their contracts that will pay them even more cash, even if they lose.

It's pretty fair, when you think about it. It's like when you work hard at building a snow fort with your kid and then you share it with the neighbour and his kids, then someone gives you a million dollars for it because you're doing what your supposed to do as a father. It happens to all of us at some point.

10. There is more to it here, but basically the game was named 'The Super Bowl' temporarily while they all thought of the better name for it. They're still thinking, I guess, but I really like the name Super Bowl. It's very American.

As for Canadians, the name 'Grey Cup' works great because it was named after Governor General Earl Albert Grey and the cup itself is pretty grey looking. The Super Bowl is a trophy, so I think that they need to work on that a bit.

Are you excited about the Super Bowl yet? I am.

Sports quotes that don't make any sense

2012-02-01T08:02:00.000-08:00

Some things to think about the next time you tie up the laces, strap on the cup, or pick up the curling broom.

If someone shouts out a cheer as you are participating in a sport you love, more often then not, they are flat out lying to you and should be immediately ejected.

Hopefully Tom Brady and Eli Manning are listening.

1. "Give 110%"

I tried this and it doesn't work.

2. "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing."

I played in a basketball game once and lost. That was something. 'Cleats' are also things.

3. "When I go out on the ice, I just think about my skating. I forget it is a competition."

Katarina Witt

I knew a guy who forgot it was a competition once because he got hit on the head with a bowling ball. He never played competitively again.

4. "I'll let the racket do the talking."

John McEnroe

If his racket was talking then he was definitely cheating. I also argue the fact that he did, in fact, do a lot of talking himself.

5. "My thoughts before a big race are usually pretty simple. I tell myself: Get out of the blocks, run your race, stay relaxed. If you run your race, you'll win... channel your energy. Focus."

Carl Lewis

I ran my race many times and still lost because the other guys were much faster and skinnier than me.

6. "In the end, the game comes down to one thing: man against man. May the best man win."
-- Sam Huff

This guy was an obvious chauvinist.

7. "Victory belongs to the most persevering."
-- Napoleon

This guy, whoever he was, never played a game of 'heads up 7 up'. Those things are over quick, especially with a small group of people.

8. "Good guys are a dime a dozen, but an aggressive leader is priceless."
-- Red Blaik

The average pro sports team costs the owner 56 million dollars annually. How would they know what an aggressive leader was if they could never be able to afford one? It's all hearsay and supposeds. There is no room in the game for that nonsense.

9. "If you are going to be a champion, you must be willing to pay a greater price."
-- Bud Wilkinson

The Yankees play a greater price every year and yet they lose more often than they win.

10. "Of all your troubles, great and small, the greatest are the ones that don't happen at all."
-- Thomas Carlyle

If troubles don't happen... you win!

Super Bowl Preview

2012-02-01T00:40:00.000-08:00

Getting your Super Bowl preview advice from a Canadian guy living in China is probably not the smartest decision you've ever made, especially if there is money involved, but believe me, I consider it a kind gesture worthy of gratitude and reverence.

First of all, I hate the New England Patriots and the New York Giants. The only way that this game could be a worse matchup would be if the Yankees and Vancouver Canucks could play it. The Patriots are the team that always beats on and laughs at my beloved New York Jets. The Giants are a team that seem to be riding on a giant surf-worthy wave of momentum and luck juice, so I'm sure that they believe that they cannot be stopped. Up until the emergence of stud WR Victor Cruz, I would have called this team the most boring team to every make it to the Super Bowl. As of now, they are quite an exciting team, Mr. Cruz is just THAT GOOD.

Anyways, the game should be a good one, and because of the said Mr. Cruz, I am slightly rooting for the Giants to win. Here are some of my keys to the game, or as I like to call them, "Super Spoons to the Super Bowl":

1. The Giants defense must knock Tom Brady out of the game. Seriously. They must hit him until he can no longer throw the ball down the field, and then, when nobody's looking, hit him again. Their backup QB is Doug Flutie, but he won't play because he's retired, but next in line is Brian Hoyer. A name like that would never lead a team to win the Super Bowl, so you can bet donuts to dollars that this is the biggest spoon of the game.

2. Ron Gronkowski, even with one of his ankles taped to the rest of this leg, needs to score at least 3 touchdowns in order to give the announcers something annoying to talk about the whole game. If he can get 3 in the first half, then you can be sure that the announcers will gawk and ramble on and on about how great he and Brady are together. While watching a replay of the game, this kind of talk will make poor Wes Welker cry a little inside.

3. The Giants must play RB Bradshaw the whole game. Staple Brandon Jacob's butt pads to the bench if you have too. Bradshaw is a beast that can rumble over anyone no matter how New England Patrioty that person may be.

4. Madonna needs to throw out her hip while gyrating during the halftime show. This will do more for her career than she will ever know.

5. With Kelly Clarkson singing the national anthem, us music lovers will be left out in the cold once again. Oh, what's that? Wait just a second...

According to the Washington Post, Kelly Clarkson isn’t the only big celebrity named to grace the field before the game Country singers Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton are going to be singing America the Beautiful in the pre-game show as well.

Well, never mind. Looks like all the bases are covered. I am a huge Bill Sheldon and Missy Lambeard fan. The hugest! And 'America the Wonderful' is my favorite national anthem of all time!

6. Then, we have this guy:

From Mark Herzlich -

2 yrs ago I was told I might never walk again. Just WALKED off plane in Indy to play in The #SuperBowl. #TakeThatSh*tCancer

Now, I'm not a tweeter. I don't know if the # means that he is sending it to a computer that can sort out what TakeThatSh*tCancer actually means and who the deserved recipient should be, but quite a nice story to say the least.

I mean, I walked to the store today, but I don't even have cancer. My father-in-law has cancer and he walks his dog every single day. I'm sure that he could play in the Super Bowl if he felt like it, but according to him, he's rather watch it on TV. Good choice.

I am predicting that Mark Herzlich tackles Tom Brady, causing a fumble, picks up said fumble and rumbles it into the endzone for a score. Then, he will drop the football and dance around the endzone as one final spit in Cancer's face. Then, he'll tweet about it in the locker room.

7. For the Giants to win, when they are in the huddle and the coach asks "now, we need a big play right now, what should you do, Eli?" Eli must respond with "Pass it to Victor". Any other response deserves a benching and a public verbal put down session following the game. Everyone knows that they need to pass it to Victor. If Eli can't do it, then someone else will. And that 'someone else' might as well be Victor Cruz.

And Finally...

8. If CCTV ends up showing the game then I am happy, and that, to me, is the most important thing.

We'll see, maybe they can find a dart or ping pong competition that will turn out to be much more important for the comradery and over all health of The People. If so, good for them.

Final Score Prediction:

New York Giants 30

New England Patriots 24

New Madonna Album 3

At least she can kick a field goal. No shame in that.

Movie Review: Perfect Sense

2012-01-31T09:24:00.000-08:00

This evening I watched a movie called Perfect Sense. It came out last year and stars Ewan McGregor and that Bond chick from Casino Royale.

I wasn't expecting much, but I have to say that it was pretty interesting all the way through. The main thing about it is that it's a rather unique twist (if there ever was one) on the whole world-infected-by-virus craze. And, while they were at it, they threw a love story in there.

The love story is fine, but not the focus. The focus is the curious diseases that keep popping up all over the place and, eventually, how they will effect society and, more close to home, their effect on the love story. It was nice.

As usual, I'll give a little bit of a nudity warning. Completely unnecessary nudity, but you know how those indy films are these days, right?

There is definitely a lot to unpack from this one. I don't want to give it away, but the way that the movie unfolds is a very interesting look at fear, uncertainty, survival, and a swack of other stuff. It's a twist on the expected. I like movies that make me think about things I've thought about a million times before, but in a completely different light.

It's only 90 minutes as well, so it gets over itself nicely. Lately, I've been trying to drag myself through 2 hour films and I am becoming more and more convinced that it can no longer be done. That might have something to do with my drastically disappearing attention span.

In the end, it's not my favorite movie, but I am really glad that I took that time to watch it.

Flickering Pixels: the medium is the message

2012-01-25T18:46:00.000-08:00

Ever since buying a second-hand Kindle from my friend, I have been loading up that thing with as many books as I can. As a result, I am often reading 3 or 4 books at a time. Right now, I am making my way through:

Writing Fiction for Dummies

Sounds silly, but it's been great so far. I am really learning a lot from it and how writing narrative fiction compares to and differs from writing screenplays.

Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets

Ever since watching his show The Wire, I've wanted to read this one from David Simon, a former crime journalist from Baltimore.

I've barely into it, but it is pretty good. Truthfully, it's kind of slow so far, and it's pretty much more of the same from the show. In fact, I think that this book might have inspired Simon's 2 television series. Nevertheless (!), it's still really interesting.

Flickering Pixels

This book, from Shane Hipps, is really interesting. In fact, this is my second run through it. One thing the Kindle does is tempt you into reading books multiple times. I mean, they're all just sitting right there on the list!

Flickering Pixels is somewhat of a theory of a book. The basic idea is that, throughout history, the way that we communicate has been changing over and over with the invention of new technology, and as a result, the way that we collect information has changed over and over as well. In the end, one might be trying to communicate a certain message, but it is in fact the way that the message is being communicated that speaks the loudest to the listener.

An example:

I've noticed this to be true in pretty much every day I've been reading this book. In fact, right now my boys are watching a DVD called 3,2,1 Penguins. It is from the makers of Veggie Tales and it is just as much, if not more annoying that the little vegetables walking around.

The premise, as far as I can tell, involves 2 little kids helping a group of Space Penguins solve problems throughout the Galaxy. Every show has a lesson, like how being envious is bad for your soul. At the end of the show, the kids are back at their grandma's house. They talk about the lesson of the day and pretty much confess that they learned it the hard way. Then...

Their big, fat, probably diabetic grandma brings them a giant piece of cake to eat... in bed... right before bed! Every freaking episode!

In the "envy" episode the little girl gets her cake and then starts to say, "Hey, his piece is bigger than..." then she stops herself, remembering the lesson. The problem I have with this show is that the message of the episode is lost right at the end of it when the kids are busy chowing down cake. The pieces of cake are the size of their heads! Obviously, the Veggie Tale people want to shake off the image of healthy eating. The best way to do that is to give your characters giant slabs of cake before bed.

Anyways, this is a small but relevant example of the medium (cartoon TV show with characters eating cake) is more powerful than the message (do not envy).

The TV itself is a medium that speaks louder than any message communicated from it. The technology involves providing the viewer with what to see and think. It dulls the imagination and, as most people would agree, is very addictive. While our kid's minds and creative juices are developing, it is all too easy to just plop them down in front of some crappy show with some sort of 'moral message' to justify it.

I'm not saying that I will prohibit my kids from watching TV. I think that the main thing is to be aware of the dangers of relying on it, and that the threat of addiction is always there. It will effect you if you're not proactive in finding other ways of nurturing and building up your child's imagination.

Back the the book...

Hipps talks a lot about how the printing press changed the way we use our brains. With it, people started to use the left side of their brain, the part that likes to organize and make logical sense of things. Then, there was an overuse, and anything that wasn't in print was considered to be not quite right. Then, later on when someone invented the camera, people started to use the right side of their brains. Reading a book is one word at a time, page by page, where as looking at a photo requires taking in all of the information at once. Thus, these two mediums involved using both sides of the brain.

His issue is that, as a society, we go through shifts in balance of the 2 ways of taking in information. When you apply it to the bible, we find that we are very much 'left-brained' in the way that we share the message of the gospel. The 4 spiritual laws is the example he gives. A plus B plus C equals D. Now, I don't think that he's saying that this method is totally wrong. It seems to be that he wants to open up other ways of sharing that different people might be more receptive to

The 'flickering pixels' of TV are all around us:

People sit in giant office buildings, getting paid thousands of dollars to figure out a way to make you want to buy a vacuum.

The world tells us that they have developed way that we can be healthy by working out less.

The Tim Horton's radio commercials that I hear while listening to hockey games talk about "eating healthy" by ordering an egg white English muffin.

Facebook is a way to have shallow relationships with hundreds of friends.

And what about Blogs? Well, I have to agree that blogs are a part of the shallow world of the Internet. As Hipps puts it, "The mind is the flat stone that skips along the surface of an infinite amount of information."

I try to write things that would be interesting to people so that more people come and read them. There is nothing wrong with that, it's just that it contributes to all of the other noise of people trying to get your attention.

While a book is often times 1000 pages of depth, a blog has a couple hundred words one day that are completely unrelated to the previous entry. I am challenged to give this blog a little bit more of a direction. Eventually, I want it to go somewhere. I would like to look back on it as progression and growth. I want to be able to visually see differences between posts from 2008 and now. That is the goal.

So, please be patient. I want you to stay interested, and if at all possible, more interested in the things going on. I will brainstorm. Also, if you have any favorite posts or topics of mine that you like to read and want to read more of, then give me some feedback. brettgitel@yahoo.com

In the meantime, I would suggest taking a look at the book.

EDIT: The medium for me is a relatively quick read of a blog post. The message is to encourage you to read more books and watch less TV. What one came through for you?

January

2012-01-24T00:06:00.000-08:00

It has been a good month. Outside, the weather is cold, but inside there is love in our hearts. The city is full of smoke in the aftermath of New Year's Eve. The trash from that night has been photographed and cataloged on my flickr page. We live in the East end of town, and it is a pretty quiet neighbourhood this time of year. A lot of families and students from the University have all gone back to their hometowns to celebrate the new year and to welcome each other in a Spring Festival kind of way.

Spring Festival is a big deal here in China. How many metric tonnes of sunflower seeds will be consumed this month? How many hours of overtime will it take to transport everyone across the country and back? How many drunk uncles will safely and peacefully fall asleep on the couch? It is a crazy time. We've just gotten through almost 24 hours of fireworks and firecrackers. It hit a climax on New Year's eve at around 11:55pm.

As per usual, our tradition is to venture over to the Lete Youth Hostel, located on the 16th floor of a downtown building. We partied with friends, set off some of our own fireworks, and to took in the spectacle of hundreds of faithful Chinese men and women who must spend thousands of dollars on fireworks. For well over 30 minutes, the sky was full of light, bouncing in and out of the buildings and streets.

One rather experienced pyromaniac in our group successfully tossed a lit firecracker down onto the main road below us. It fizzled and twirled like a tornado of sorts, and a taxi drove over it like it was an ordinary occurrence.

Miles, Jonas and a few other kids were able to stay up until midnight to take in the show, but their enthusiasm was waining. I feel bad for keeping them up that late, but it's only once a year and I feel like it is one of those things that we can tell them about 10 years from now and they'll think of us as cooler parents for it.

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On a completely different note, at the end of the great month of January there will be a new Leonard Cohen album available to us all. At this moment, it is available for previewing at this site.

I would say that some of the songs seem to hit and others, for different reasons, seem to miss the mark. It seems like a journey; like the album should be listened to in one straight sitting. There is very little reason to dance to this record, so sitting is preferred and almost universally accepted.

While I'm talking about music, I would like to point out another record that is worth sitting through. It's by a band called Gungor. My wife has been listening to this music a lot and lately I have been "picking up what she's been putting down". Take a look at this viddy to get an idea of how nice this music is to listen to and inspire.

Dance Dance Brotherlution

2012-01-16T08:02:00.000-08:00

I am blessed to have 2 little guys that love to dance. And, the thing about these guys is that they really know how to move.

Keep your eye on Jonas somewhere in the middle of the video. He has a little trouble with the flashlight.

Colour Contacts: the continuing saga

2012-01-13T21:50:00.000-08:00

While visiting in Canada for a few weeks, I had kind of completely forgotten about the black contact lens trend here in Xining. Then, I came back.

The trend has turned into a zombie-like epidemic. It wouldn't bother me so much if I didn't have to live here and see them every day. And, to tell you the truth, I have been able to tolerate the black contact lens. However, as with most diseased fashion trends, there are new strains appearing here and there. It is getting out of control. I have yet to see red contacts, but I can imagine that they will eventually make an appearance by the time the weather warms up.

I am against this trend, and I don't want to see it spread to other parts of the world, though I am sure that I am too late. In any event, I will continue to fight. This is the hill that I have decided to die on. Fight with me.

The latest issue for me is summed up in this article:

Here it is

Do not be deceived. There is more to this trend than 'meets the eye';) Seriously, this article fails to mention the most dangerous issues. Forget eye irritation, forget that the junky product is still made in China, forget that you need to squirt a lot of eye drops down your ducts in order to survive the day. The real dangers, in my opinion, are as follows:

1. As the article mentions, the 'circle' contact lenses are slightly bigger than normal eyes. The obvious problem with this, that the article fails to mention and everyone seems to be unaware of, is that having seemingly dilated eyes is NOT something nice to look at. It could mean that you're high, it could mean that you've been spending too much time in your garage painting fence posts, it could mean that you've hit your head and are suffering from a concussion. The last thing that most people will think is that you look much more beautiful than you would be without them.

I don't care if you hate the color of your eyes, covering them with fake colour is a bad idea.

2. The latest 'strain' of this trend is that there are now different colours besides black and brown. Take a look at this:

Now, I have sympathy for old people. They have a lot of issues with their health. One of those issues is something called glaucoma. Glaucoma occurs when the optic nerve is damaged. In many cases, the issue results in a milk-like color that covers the eye.

When I see a grandma that has trouble seeing, and I see that she has greyed over eye balls, I feel really bad for her. When I see young Chinese women wearing glaucoma coloured contact lenses I also feel sorry for them, but for very different reasons.

3. I think I've said it a lot already, but the 'the eye is the window to the soul'. One of the first things that attracted me to my beautiful wife was her eyes. Big, beautiful and blue. Natural. Exhibit A:

I understand that I am in a special situation where my wife is very good looking. I also understand that a lot of Asians seem to be into trying to make themselves look like Caucasians. In a strange twist to their struggle it is funny that a lot of white girls that I know think that Asian girls are the most beautiful girls in the world. What does not work is trying to be something you are not. If my wife got some sort of eye surgery to make them more Asian looking, I would be very upset.

With the contacts and the fake eyelashes and the white powder make-up, and the blond hair dye that turns their black hair orange, the actual person is completely covered and in disguise. I find myself staring at these girls as I walk down the street. I wonder if they think that I am impressed with their costumes. I hope not.

The other thing to consider in all this is the lens less glasses trend. I am sure that a lot of North Americans have seen this, especially with people stealing the 3D glasses from the movie theatre. This trend is offensive to me. I wear glasses and contact lenses because I NEED to wear them. I am also bald. To me, this is like someone with hair shaving the top of their head, then slicking a patch of some from the side over the top, walking around with a fake combover and trying to pass it off as a respectable look.

Would it be acceptable for me to roll around in a wheelchair as a fashion statement? If I got some jewelry for my cell phone and plastered it all over a pair of crutches, would it be acceptable for me to limp around with those hip crutches? Maybe.

I am in no way against people trying to make themselves look nice. I just think that, as a society, we need to hold each other accountable to this kind of stuff. I mean, the whole baggy pants trend seems to slowly be dying out thanks to the fact that most people realized that it was stupid and an improper way to utilize a perfectly good pair of pants. Maybe these contact lenses will die out too.

The above article basically says that they, no matter what the trend is, follow it. Instead, I would say something like "use your own judgement and find the trends that you think will help you look your naturally best."

Hey, I'm 30. I'm not out there 'clubbing', or whatever it's called these days. I'm not out on the prowl for someone to date. Maybe younger guys are into this kind of trend. If that's true, then that is weird.

Music Reviews to listen to

2012-01-12T21:52:00.000-08:00

Hi kids!

If you haven't noticed, there are some tabs to click on up there ^. To make things easier for everyone involved, except for maybe me, I have decided to post all of the reviews here on the home page first. Then, later after you've all had a good read I will store them up there ^ so that you can look back on them with fond memories, if you'd like.

MUSIC REVIEW

Today, I'd like us to dip our toes into something completely different. Now, If you're like me, you don't always like the music player blasting into your ears. Sometimes, when we have people over or when the kids just want to groove, we like to throw on some music that would be considered tame compared to the good ol' rock and roll.

So, I bring us to the latest thing that I've been listening to.

Washed Out's Life of Leisure

For starters, this song is nice.

The whole record is nice to have on in the background. If you are a hipster I am told that this is the kind of music you should listen to these days. I know, I know, it all changes so quickly that it's hard to keep up. Their music is even featured on every one's favorite show Portlandia.

The one thing that I really like about this album is that it keeps the kids calm. Miles likes listening to it while he's reading a book in the window seat. Actually, he's bobbing his head right now. They both like to dance around it it.

Give it a listen.

Now, if you've liked what you've heard so far, then I encourage you to push it a little further with this one.

Nicolas Jaar's Space is only noise

Once again, the focus of today's review is to find stuff that you can throw on while you're reading or doing the laundry or playing a game of scrabble, perhaps.

This is what would be called 'electronic music' or 'electronica' if you think that saying 'electronic music' takes too long. I don't listen to too much of that kind of thing, but I like this. It's obviously very experimental, but not enough to be just a bunch of noise thrown together. Miles thinks that the noises are kind of cool. I also understand that some of these songs are not as good as others. Yet...

This is my favorite part thus far.

Is there even a little bit of Tom Waits in there? Maybe on the track Too many kids finding rain in the dust? No? Okay... but, maybe?

Maybe it's not you're cup of tea. I know that if my brother Bryce has made it this far in reading this post then we are witnessing miracles today, people!

If you've heard me out and you hate this stuff, then thanks anyways. If you like what you're hearing then go ahead and look them up on emusic.com. I have restarted our account. It's $99 a year for what works out to 24 songs a month. It's a pretty good place for finding new stuff that you might not regularly listen to. I think that itunes costs $1.29 per song now. No thanks! I never would have thought that prices would have such a big influence in my musical tastes.

The New Year is here

2012-01-10T22:01:00.000-08:00

A few things for you today:

While telling Miles that most cars use a lot of gas, he added that most cars also use coins. Tigers also use coins.

I had my first ever article will be published this month. It is a short piece for Geez Magazine about my apartment compost. Geez is a cool little Canadian magazine in print and online. Their tag line is "holy mischief in an age of fast faith". I suggest that you take a look at it and be sure to look for my little blurb in the next issue. Though, I think that it will only be in the print version. In that case, you might want to subscribe to it.

As all of North America settles back into normal life after the holidays, China is just starting to rev things up. Most of the students are leaving the University with little roller suitcases to migrate back to their home towns for about a month and a half. The University turns into a ghost town. I kind of like the break in the action and it just might motivate me enough to head out to the basketball courts for the first time in about 8 months.

Speaking of sporting events, a few of us foreigners have been making regular trips to the soccer field to play American football. I say 'American' because we use 4 downs and our salaries are grossly inflated.

A couple of the local guys want in on the action. They are also on the baseball team that a few of us are involved in. Something tells me that football might eventually be a bigger draw than the baseball team. Yet, I hope that they both flourish this Spring.

Anyways...

New Year's eve is on the 22nd, and the real highlight for for me is when the whole town lights up at midnight.

In Canada, there is a big firework show on New Year's in the middle of the city. In China, there are thousands of small firework displays all over the city. It's a sound and sight that cannot be duplicated without being in the real danger of being in a war zone. At least, that's how I imagine it.

I've been watching a lot of Ni Hao Kai Lan these days. In it, she makes up an annoying dragon dance. Lucky for you, I cannot find it to show it here. In any event...

Happy Year of the Dragon!

And Then He Spoke

2012-01-04T04:33:00.000-08:00

I am currently making my way through an amazing book. Actually, this is my second time through this particular book. It is called The Orthodox Heretic by Peter Rollins. It's a book made up of dozens of short stories, or tales, or maybe even parables in a few cases. I read one or two of them each sitting and then I think about them all day. You can get the Kindle edition for about 8 bucks.

The following story is inspired by a 'parable' from the book.

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I opened my eyes, remembering that I need not close them in the first place. I had learned that rule in Sunday School and now I knew that it was just a rule to stop us from giggling. It's just a formality and, these many years later, has the opposite effect as I find that there are more distractions with them closed.

Now I'm praying for a sick friend. "Why is she sick?" I ask, lost in a mind of unanswered questions. These days I live in the continuous wonder of 'why'. The only way I can snap myself out of the wonder is to ask it.

Asking for keys to doors.

Praying for miracles to be normal.

My view of you to be something as beautiful as you seem to be.

My daily bread.

Suddenly, a noise shot out of the wall like a cannonball.

The door bell!

I remembered that I was to have a guest that morning. I moved my feet and crept to the door. I lifted the phone, clicked the 'open' button and listened. Someone was there, down below at the front door. He was humming. I heard the door open and close. He would be up to our floor shortly. Our building has super fast elevators.

Sure enough, there he was, knocking on the door like a pelican pecking on an annoyed turtle. I opened the door and smiled. He bowed, removed his hat, and greeted me with a beam. I reached out to shake his withered hand and he received mine as an old friend's. I took his hat, it's felt brim stuck to my fingers like sandpaper. I placed it on the hook and it sat there as master of the house.

His jacket drooped a little in the shoulders but it clung on faithfully. He slipped his shoes off and nestled them next to each other in the corner.

He took a seat at the table. His scent and his charm filled the room. I sat across from him and we sat in silence for what seemed like 3 weeks. Finally, I offered him some tea. Upon hearing these words, he spoke:

"The morning, soft and scandalous, aroused by the sun and the sound of the kettle's whisper.
It's curly lips, parched like a drunk, begging for one more taste."

I moved to the kitchen and moments later returned with 2 mugs of tea.

We sat, and sipped on the heat. It was strange. We sat there and stared at each other. At first I felt like I was imposing on his space, staring at him like a pillar of salt. But after a while, it was just normal; him looking into my eyes and mine having no other choice but to return the favor. From his watery blue, he looked at me like he was looking through me, only he wasn't looking through me at all because I felt his compassion resting on me. My breath left me for a moment and I lost his gaze. He smiled, sipped again and spoke:

"It's strange, the places that the mind can take you. It's almost as if it has a mind of it's own. You spend a lot of time lost in the mind. You're in there, like a moth, fluttering your wings on the walls. The mind is no place for the heart to dwell. The hurt and pain can't be reasoned with."

I froze. I understood what he saw when he looked into me.

"It burdens and haunts you. When you are of old age, it picks on you. It threatens to steal your loved ones and to set your house on fire; to strip you of your security. It tries to shame you like a holy one."

He continued:

"Security; that's a noble idea. In order to find Truth you must first seek it. And it is only when you continue to seek it, that you will find it. If you ever stop seeking you will never find it, even if you think you've found it."

His words flashed in front of me like a mirror and all I could see was me. That uneasy feeling of faith. Is faith really faith at all without doubt, without the very thing that forces you to call it faith and not truth or certainty? I'd wrestled with this all for so long, trying to find certainty and then testing the idea of life being okay without it.

"You're there right now. Lost, looking for the answer." he told me.

For a moment, I forgot where I was. Is there an answer for all of this mess? Is there really a reason for death and disease?

I returned to the moment and let go of my cup; it sitting there like a dead dog. My feet were flush with heat and my heart was hurting the way that it hurts.

This one who could creep into my soul stepped out for a moment to acknowledge the tears on my face.

"What I know," he continued, "is that there is a reason for it all. There is a reason why people die, and suffer through it. It all makes sense, when you look at it from where I'm sitting. I understand your desire to know."

My eyes perked up.

"There is a reason for the suffering and pain."

I knew it! I've seen his shadow on the locked doors. The veil. The hem of his garment. The faith. Why all the mystery, the sneaking around? Why the disease? Why the pain?!

"Why?" I asked.

I hadn't noticed until now, but his patience had grown over time. I could feel it like a blanket.

He moved his cup to the side and leaned in like he was going to tell me the secret. I looked around slowly and then leaned in as well, my chair creaking in anticipation.

There we were, sitting in silence, alone as any two people could be, telling secrets. Nose to nose. I could hear his breath forming at the back of his throat. For the moment his eyes were turned down, as though he was trying to translate his thought from a foreign language. He was trying to find a way to put it.

Finally, he looked up at me, his eyes reaching in. I flinched for a moment, but I held my ground and stared into the eclipse.

And then he spoke.

Leo

2012-01-02T00:50:00.000-08:00

I've said it before, but now that I've figured out how to post videos onto these things I thought that I should share this with you.

It makes me laugh every time. This guy does it all.

The Funk to get you out of the Funk

2012-01-01T20:51:00.000-08:00

Now that it's January 2nd and you've already failed at half of your resolutions, it seems like a great time to pump up the jams. And pump up the jams we will!

Last time (click here), I left you moping in your bed, your eyes closed, yet with tears dripping out of them. You were hugging your blanky and snivelling into it. Your headphones were on, yet through them you could hear the faint sound of your mother knocking at the door with concern in the way that she gently rattled her fist on the wood. You ignored her and turned up the music. Wallowing in the sound of the dumps. There was weeping and perhaps, yes, just a little bit of teeth gnashing.

Here we are, half of your resolutions flushed down the toilet, but the glass is half-full, my friends. Today I bring you music to pick yourself up with and at tunes to dust yourself off with.

And hey, if you don't have any of these songs in your collection then get some of them.

Or, find songs in your collection that sound like these. If you can't find any, then get a new collection and cross off one of your resolutions!

Neighbourhood #1 (Tunnels) - The Arcade Fire

Slow & Low - Beastie Boys

7/4 (Shoreline) - Broken Social Scene

Sunken Waltz - Calexico

Tea for the Tillerman - Cat Stevens

Friday I'm in Love - The Cure

First Breath after Coma - Explosions in the Sky

I Feel it All - Feist

The Yeah Yeah Yeah song - Flaming Lips

Sounds Like Hallelujah - The Head and the Heart

Face of the Earth - Joel Plaskett Emergency

In the Beginning - K'naan

Just Dance - Lady Gaga

I am John - Loney, Dear

Roll Away Your Stone - Mumford and Sons

This is the only song of these guys that I actually like.

The Laws have Changed - The New Pornographers

It's the Sun - Polyphonic Spree

Just listen to it once. Listening more will ruin it.

Life is a Highway - Rascal Flatts

Miles says that this one always cheers him up. I bare witness to that.

Inni Mer Syngur Vitleysingor - Sigur Ros

Dragon's Lair - Sunset Rubdown

One of my favorite songs.

Down in the Hole - Tom Waits

Fireworks - The Tragically Hip

New Theory - Washed Out

Baba O'Riley - The Who

Impossible Germany - Wilco

Of course, my definition of 'funk' might differ from yours. Nevertheless, these are the jams to raise your hands, the bees to weaken the knees, the boat to float that late night gloat, the sun to shine on the gloomy devine.

Happy 2012!

Fantasy Football: Thou Shall Football wins big!

2011-12-27T22:10:00.000-08:00

If any of you have played in a fantasy football league then you would know just how unpredictable it can be. You can draft perfectly, and dominate your league, and still, in the end, lose badly to a team like mine.

That's what happened this year. In the annual Lao Wai Fantasy Football League I had never made the playoffs until this year. My team slipped into the playoffs and ended up winning 3 in a row to clinch the Championship! In a league that's been running for 8 or 9 years, it feels pretty, pretty, pretty good. But how did I get there? What brilliant move did I make during the season to end up on top?

It all started sometime back in September at the draft. I picked Jamal Charles, running back for the KC Chiefs. Well, within a game or two, Mr. Charles hurt his leg and missed the rest of the season. When you lose your first round pick in the first week, it can make you very frustrated. I felt frustrated, but not really surprised. The whole set up is luck. This year, I had a truck load of luck on my side. Or, if I were Tebow, then maybe it was God, but then again, I think that no matter what you believe, God always cheers for the underdog. So, maybe I had luck AND God on my side.

Anyways, the rest of the season when on and I managed to get lucky by having Reggie Bush on my team. He had never been good, or even worth having on your team, until this year. He ran for over 1000 yards for the first time this year on a crappy Dolphins team.

The other thing I had going for me was Matthew Stafford. He had a break out year and, when his team was fighting for a playoff spot in the last few weeks, he was at his best.

Other than those two, I had a great kicker in the 49er's Akers. In the Championship game he kicked a bunch of field goals and finished with 16 points. Aside from those 3, I really had nothing. Desean Jackson had his worst year, Steven Jackson played okay on a horrible team. All of my Jets underachieved. I mean, Dexter McCluster was on my starting roster.

That's all I had to work with.

The key to winning in the playoffs was to have the other teams suck while they played my team. This is very difficult to do. Of the 3 teams I played in the playoffs, their average score was 63 points. That is awful. One of the teams scored 54 points on me, and then the next week in a consolation game scored 142!

My average score in the 3 games was a decent 101. Though, with my team, scoring 101 is an amazing accomplishment.

All that to say that it feels pretty good to win. Though, winning the fantasy baseball league would mean much more to me since it involves more skill and strategy than football. We shall see.

Anyways, with the risk of sounding already too boring and uninteresting, I will leave you here.

Music to listen to when you're sad and want to stay there.

2011-12-25T21:32:00.000-08:00

About a year ago, we awoke to find Jonas asleep like this.

Not sure what happened to him that night, but all I know is that he's over it now.

I read recently about a woman who suffered from depression. Through all of the talk of dealing and working through it there was one thing in particular that caught my attention. The woman said that, at times, your depression is the thing that you rely upon to help you through it. It's weird to think about the thing that has a hold of you is the very thing that can help you break free.

I think that there is some truth to this. I've had my bouts of depression. I think that at times, and very many different reasons, being depressed can act as comfort for you in a time of crisis. I think that most of the time, this is a dangerous thing. But in some cases, what I have found is that being alone can be a good thing for your soul.

Whether it's listening to sad music or watching a sad movie, sometimes it is necessary to walk a desolate way through 'the winters' of our lives. I also understand that there is a difference between being sad and being depressed. I just feel that there are a lot of times when it's tough to tell them apart.

Now that Christmas is over and all of the presents are opened, it's freezing cold outside, and you've gained weight from eating all of the joy, have a little cry if you'd like. Or better yet, share your sorrow with a loved one and wallow in it together.

The following are songs to listen to when you're sad and want to stay there. Let's all have a good cry and wallow in each of our own self-pities. What color is yours? Mine's blue.

Ben Folds - Late

I heard someone mention this song when the Oilers lost game 7 in 2006. Never had there been a more accurate song reference for the Oilers of those days.

*I left Elliott Smith off of this list on purpose.

Bob Dylan - The lonesome death of Hattie Carroll

Poor Hattie Carroll was brutally murdered by a rich man. No justice, no compensation. Just Bobby singing this song for her.

Dan Mangan - Jeopardy

This Dan Mangan one is at the top of my list.

Death Cab for Cutie - Transatlanticism

I used to listen to this song a lot. It's a nice song to walk around town to. The line 'I need you so much closer' was a lyric that my heart would sing out to everyone I missed back in Canada.

Faunts - It Hurts me all the time

Guggenheim Grotto - Port Marnock Beach Boy Blue

Nick Drake - Way to Blue

I saw a documentary about Nick Drake and how he died. It was pretty sad. The film was beautiful, but the story was sad.

Ryan Adams - I taught myself how to grow

Samamidon - Saro

Samamidon - Tribulation

Samamidon has some nice little songs. Simple guitar and a sweet, crumpled voice.

Sufjan Stevens - John Wayne Gacy, Jr.

Sun Kil Moon - Ocean Breathes Salty

Modest Mouse plays this song so well that you can't even tell that the lyrics are so very sad. Sun Kil Moon reminds us all that they really are.

Tom Waits - Time

Tori Amos - Smells Like Teen Spirit

Uncle Tupelo - Black Eye

Weezer - The World has turned and left me here.

The Who - Behind Blue Eyes

This song goes along with the movie Donnie Darko.

Wilco - At least that's what you said

This could be my favorite song. It mixes up my feelings. This video rules all videos and is working on expanding it's reign into other spheres of influence.

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Sometimes the worst thing a person can do for you is try to make you feel better. I've heard that it's good to just sit with someone, or to listen to things that they might have to say. There's a lot to be said to a beating heart when another one enters the room. Another thing that people might like you to do is to play some sad music for them. It's a good way to say, "I know" without saying it.

And finally.................

Fear not!... I will follow this up with songs to listen to when you've been sad for long enough and need to snap out of it. I mean, gosh, it's Boxing Day!

Christmas Time is Here

2011-12-23T22:49:00.000-08:00

Happiness and cheer.

Here in China, they celebrate Christmas by getting ready for Chinese New Year. A few places sell crappy Christmas decorations, but along with the Christmas stuff they get a jump on the Chinese holidays by selling all kinds of red things to tape and strap to your doors, walls, and cars.

Outside the ground is brown. And, I am pretty sure that Santa's not going to make it past Chinese border security this evening. Around town, there is very little evidence that Christmas is upon us.

Even though there is no snow, it's nice to not be overrun with commercialism; at least not the 'Christmas' kind. After 4 or 5 of these, I'm actually having a good time spending Christmas in China with a small group of friends. We eat and drink and laugh and it's all just a great time.

Blessed Christmas to all of you! I pray that all of you have loved ones to eat, drink, and laugh with as well.

Health Check in China Pt.9

2011-12-18T20:18:00.000-08:00

Yup, that's me up there on the gurney. 2 gun shots to the sternum. But you should see the other guy! I also have a belly button.

Actually, that's me getting a quick ECG scan at the health check office here in Xining. It's probably the 8th or 9th health check I've had in this city. It continues to be one of the weirdest things about living here in China.

Before getting started, we need to go to the cashier to pay for the tests. The total price per person is 227 yuan, or about 37 Canadian dollars.

The whole process flows pretty smoothly. If it's not busy, you can be in and out within an hour. The first place they take you is to get your blood drawn. Instead of a private room, it is a room where anyone can gather and wait to get their blood drawn. They all stand around the table with their sleeves pulled up past their elbows and they watch your hairy Canadian arm get jabbed at by a poor health worker who probably stands there drawing blood nonstop for 3 or 4 hours before her lunch break.

I hate getting my blood drawn, so this is always the worst part for me. I am glad to get it out of the way at the beginning. I am also careful to make sure that the poor overworked lady, with a dozen people by the table distracting her, doesn't make a mistake and stick me with a dirty needle. That would be a tough way to go.

After this, a quick chest X-ray. Not too bad. Then we move upstairs to measure blood pressure. You stick your arm (the one with the blood still drying) into the automatic machine and let it do it's thing. Height, weight, no big deal. Other people were there getting ultrasounds and lung capacity tests, but for us we just had to move on to the ECG before leaving.

I'm not really sure what an ECG is, but the test for it sure is weird. Basically, the health worker rubs iodine on your extremities and just below your nipples. Then, she puts a bunch of suction cups on your body. They quickly unstick because of my chest hair so, for an awkward moment, the worker must hold them on my chest with her hands. Anytime a stranger is holding suction cups on your iodine lubed nipples, you know that it's going to be a little awkward.

After that, we head down to the office with the forms and we can pick up the results the next day.

It's one of those experiences here that I actually look forward to with fondness. With so many little, annoying culture things to deal with every single day, for some reason, the health check is still very funny to me. Just as funny as this random poster of 'American Beauty' they have hanging on the wall. She has a belly button, too!

Oldish Married Couple

2011-12-16T03:34:00.000-08:00

Today marks 10 years since the first day that I was married to the lovely 18 year old Barbara Mae Gitzel.

It's pretty funny to think that we got married so early on in life. I guess it's true that it could have been a disaster, just like a lot of other marriages that start out so young in life. In my mind, the way things have gone, it could not have worked out better.

I am very thankful that we celebrate 10 years this year and not, lets say, 4 or 5 years. Something happened 11 years ago when I met Barbara. We had a lot of time to spend together that summer; learning about each other and trying to figure out what we were going to do with our lives. The more we learned about each other, the more we realized that it would be a pretty good idea to figure it all out together.

Out of our 15 months of dating, 9 were spent apart. It was a weird thing to do. We wrote letters to each other and mailed videos to each other documenting our lives apart; the sorrow of distance and all of the drama of a couple of kids in love. We'd used phone cards to talk to each other, often 4 timezones apart. In the dark, cold lonely Montreal nights I would talk to Barbara on the phone. The sound of the birds and sunshine in the background would bleed through the phone from Honolulu. I could actually hear the sunshine. It was like Barbara was calling from Heaven.

We grew close during that time. We wrote our feelings down and we talked about them as well. It's hard to make-out over the phone, so we were left with simple conversation.

Then, when we finally got back together and Ron gave me the thumbs up, I proposed and we were married 4 months later. It takes a lot of trust to give away your 18 year old daughter to a 20 year old guy. I am very thankful for that trust and that it grew into a wonderful relationship that I now share with Barbara's family. I could not have asked for my in-laws to be kinder and more loving than they are to us.

We've been to a lot of places together and we've been in China for a long time now. All the while still uncertain about those dreams and plans we had originally agreed to figure out together.

We've got 2 kids. We took our time. All of the planning and deciding of our boy Miles seemed to be a carefully thought out process. It seemed to be the smart way to do things, to plan ahead. Well, Jonas was an accident. We were not planning to have another one. A happy accident, indeed! I only have the one instance as an example, but I would say that I could not imagine a situation where I would not be ecstatic about having a "surprise" baby. After Jonas I realized that all of the planning ahead and carefully thought out ideas didn't really matter. Kids are truly a gift that cannot be measured, no matter where or how or why they show up.

It's been a fun decade. We survived listening to ska and punk music. We evolved through all of the weird fashions and phases of youth. Now we are both quickly settling into the idea of being in our 30's. I know that I would not have been to the places I've been and I would not have known all of the beautiful people that I know if it wasn't for joining my life together with hers.

And now, here we are, seemingly on the brink of something that might fit into the plans that we dreamed of in 2000. I am sure that no matter what happens here in China and no matter what sort of security and certainties we arrive at in the future, we will always have mystery and wonder to walk through together. I am very thankful that Barbara understands me and knows me. In life, you don't get a lot of opportunities for people to know you, I mean really know you. I am thankful.

Lame NBA and mamed NHL

2011-12-13T21:24:00.001-08:00

Well, it finally happened. The NBA is back for another boring, yet thankfully shortened season.

This month is a special month in the Association where players from all over the league complain about their current situation and demand to be traded. Any sort of allegiance that remains for any of the players in this league gets wiped out faster than Doc can say "Great Scott!".

A couple examples...

All around nice guy Chancey Billups was released by the Knicks last week. Upon his release he stated a warning that any team that picks him up off of waivers will have to deal with a hold out and a lot of complaining. He said that he was sick of being the nice guy and that he wanted to have a say in where he was going to play. A day later, he was picked up by the Clippers. He is expected to report to practice on Monday. I guess he was just blowing smoke.

Then you have Chris Paul. To no fault of his own he gets traded to the Lakers. Then, the league says that the deal is not good enough, so they veto the trade. Then, a week later, he gets traded to the Clippers. It's weird stuff having the commissioner of the league say what a fair trade should look like. Apparently, the league owns Paul's former tea...

Agh...

Can-not-talk-about-boring-NBA-any-longer.

I will say that a lot of players say that they feel "disrespected" by teams that either trade or release them. These players include Billups and former Laker Lamar Odom. The thing to remember when whiny millionaires complain about being disrespected is that, just maybe, the fans that pay to watch the games might feel a little disrespected by not being able to watch the games because of the rich players and rich owners arguing about who is being disrespected.

Because of the now present risk of sounding like I care about all of this, I will now stop talking about it.

On to a sport I care about. The NHL is a mess, but for completely different reasons. Their leading scorer is out with a concussion. Their best player is out (again) with a concussion. Every other night someone is getting concussed. This is a mess. Are there more concussions happening now or do there just seem to be more because we are looking out for them now?

I'm glad that they are taking this seriously, after such a horrible off season of players dying of a lot of crazy reasons, one of which is related to concussions. It also seems that there are still a lot of players that don't care at all about other players well being. There are a lot of dirty hits still happening in the league, even though the league is suspending the culprits left, right and center.

At the same time, there are still a bunch of loser hockey players playing the game as if it were a soccer match. Flopping, diving, whining, and biting should not be apart of the game. I dream of a day when players respect the game and their fellow players by playing the game hard, tough and clean.

If the illegalities keep going down this road, I think that we really need to be worried that someone is going to die out on the ice. I am serious about that.

Country Drive on Film: the way that we bonded, the way we became friends.

2011-12-11T19:15:00.000-08:00

The cold, Canadian winter settles into existence. But fear not!... I have...

Maxima; the ginger ale of the Nissan family.

I hop in and melt the leather seat. It only takes a few moments for me to gain the feeling back in my jeans.

The grid of the country, like tiles on a cold kitchen floor, carries me back towards the city.

The white banks of snow keep the road clear, but for the swirling that rolls in through mailbox stands. The tires crunch and we both laugh as we roll over top of the pathetic drifts.

The windshield is smudged, but the fluid is still warming in it's little tub next to the engine. I wait and drive slower than I'd like. There is tension between us. Like a confused camera, I have trouble focusing. I adjust as my vision bleeds through to the road. The cold air from the heater continues to stream through to my hands. The tension builds.

In the West, the sun is curled up like a cat. The warmth soothes the side of my face. I turn a little for it to touch both cheeks and my red little nose. My pink, raw hands held up to it like a campfire.

As a row of trees interrupts the warmth, the sun flickers through like an old film. The smudges persist and at the end of the previews I switch on a swipe of the wipers. The blue juice squeaks on the lens and we're in focus now for the feature. I smile, look down, and pat the wheel like a puppy. The heater changes it's tune, warming my achy bones.

As the sun flickers on, I look to the East and watch as the shadows traipse on the snowy screen. The cattle and horses of the fields do their part as the extras, though every character is just as important as the next. They all play a part in telling the story.

The Nissan. The Beast. The hero, roaring through battle. It's shadow dark and mysterious, but on my side. You see, It is I at the controls! The Beast does my bidding. Busting through the animals and trees, the shadow makes it's escape towards the city.

We turn East and the scene shifts. The curled up cat is now at our back. The Nissan crawls further into danger. Far worse than the animals and trees of the previous act, our nemesis is now the long road stretching on and on.

Unlike before, this battle is in the mind. The shadow of our hero races forth, seemingly without resistance. Ah, but you see, it is a trap! The shadow is unaware that I, the puppet behind the curtain, am bored to death of this stretch of road and prone to falling asleep.

Slowly, the drug sets in and we downfall towards the drifts. We drift towards our downfall. In a last ditch effort, the Nissan breaks the heater. The noise blasts through, into the belly of The Beast. I come to, gripping the wheel for my life. Sliding back onto the road, we survive.

Stunned and shaken, with a sexy scar on my cheek and my wardrobe tousled like Keanu's, I pull over at the first possible chance. In a move of humble appreciation, I pop the hood and toss handfuls of snow on the engine. It sizzles like Burger King.

I slip back inside and The Beast kicks the heater back on. The engine humming like an old man, I know we are on the same page now. I click the clicker, The Beast rolls out, and together we march on into the sunset, so to speak.

There and back again

2011-12-09T13:52:00.000-08:00

Here is a run down of our trip from Edmonton to Xining.

It all started on Tuesday morning. It was 530am in Edmonton, on December 6th no less, yet it smelled melty outside. I was sure that it was going to be a nice day in Edmonton but we weren't going to be there for it.

We checked in at 630. I've tried checking in with the "self check-in" machine about 76 times now and it's worked once. I remember that day. On this day, it did not work. As I usually do, I worried that our bags would be overweight and we'd have to pay. Well, for some blessed reason the lady did not weigh our bags. She just told me to toss them on the belt.

7am now and plenty of time for some breakfast at Harvey's. I didn't want to challenge my stomach to that kind of thing this early in the trip so I just shared Miles' peanut butter sandwich. Soon after, we hugged the grandpa and grandma McClelland and headed for security. I reminded Barbara to take the toothpaste out of her bag because it is illegal to carry toothpaste on the flight. As the sign says, " Some things just aren't meant to fly."

Around 8ish we hang out at the gate. A lady recognizes Miles' Nakamun shirt and we find out that her daughter worked there in the Summer.

We fly to Vancouver. Flying to Vancouver is super easy. It's actually easier to fly to Vancouver than it is to drive out to Camp or Stony Plain with the kids. The in-flight TVs keep Miles and Jonas' attention the whole time. We even get ginger ale and pretzels.

In Vancouver, we meet up with Bryce and Krista and the kids for some Timbits. The girls chat while Bryce and I watch the boys. Miles and Jonas found there way into climbing in between two rows of carts. Jonas cries. I pace over and try to pull him out. I notice a couple of airport workers sympathetically laughing in our direction. I discover that Jonas' pants got caught on the cart and exposed his blue and green underwear. He cried more. I apologized.

At 1155am we get on the plane to Shang Hai. Once again, it was a pretty smooth trip. Miles watched way too much TV, but I allow it on airplanes so that I don't lose my sanity. I watched Planes, Trains and Automobiles and I also watch Horrible Bosses. The former is a classic that I always enjoy. I love John Candy. The latter was funny, but way too crude for even a laid back guy such as me.

Our flight attendant friend was on board for the flight. She took good care of us. We got 4 blankets, 2 helicopter toys, 2 coloring books, 6 full cans of ginger ale and a cheese plate from first class. Thanks, Grace!

We arrive in Shang Hai around 6pm on Wednesday night. So, we skipped a day in there. I try not to think about it too much; makes the jet lag more tolerable. We arrive at the hostel that we stayed at when we left China 2 months earlier. They are glad to see us. I go out to buy food for the train ride and come back and we all sleep.

7am on Thursday. We lug our luggage outside and wait for a taxi. After 20 minutes, I worry. Finally, a guy pulls up and we make it to the train station at about the right time. We get on the train at 846am and then the real trip begins.

Around 9am the boys get bored. They run around the car. Barbara and I are sick from breathing in the airplane air for 12 hours and we spend most of the time fighting off head colds and telling the boys to be quiet.

Eat some instant noodles. I realize that I did not buy enough food. We starve for most of the trip. You can only eat so many packs of instant noodles.

The boys make friends with a lady who lets them play Angry Birds on her iPad.

Naps.

More noodles.

I am making my way through Deathly Hallows. It is so good that I want to pace myself.

We sleep pretty well in the night.

We eat noodles for breakfast.

I decide to tell the boys some stories. "There once was 2 little muggle boys named Miles and Jonas... They were walking in the snow when they heard their favorite Christmas song Jingle Bell Rock coming from a store... They went in and saw a giant Santa made out of chocolate..."

Later, Miles had his own story that started out like this, "There once were 2 muggles named Miles and Dad. Dad's real name was Brett..." It was a good story.

Finally, we spot someone selling fruit at a stop. I buy oranges and we eat. The first fruit or vegetable any of us had since the flight some 45 hours earlier.

At 5pm on Friday, 32 hours since we got on the train, we arrive in beautiful Xining. Our gorgeous friend Dustin is there to pick us up. After driving for 10 minutes we realize that the back hatch of the jeep is wide open. Thankfully, everything was still inside.

We get home around 6 and I go out to buy a ton of Chinese food for us to eat. Only here in China, it's just called food. The restaurant has one of those tall heaters that are so popular these days. It had an English label on it that said "for outdoor use only".

We eat, and eat some more. The boys run around the apartment. They get tired. They go to bed by 8. We are all asleep by 930.

Right now, it is 630am on Saturday. I got up a couple of hours ago but the boys are still asleep. Barbara is quietly organizing stuff in the bedroom. I love my family. I don't really like traveling that much. I love my family.

Hugo: I am more than an automaton

2011-12-03T08:03:00.000-08:00

Well, we fell for it. All of the talk about the film Hugo got to us and we had to go check it out for ourselves.

James Cameron saw it and said it was the best 3D movie to date, including Avatar. IMDB has it at 8.7/10 stars. Martin Scorcese directed it, so that's a plus. Barbara has a crush on Jude Law, so I didn't have to ask her twice. Reviews and critics hailing it as "Outstanding" and "An instant Classic" were expected. Someone called it the "Filmmaking Achievement of the year" and "The clear front runner for Best Picture". All of this from a PG rated 3D movie? I had to check it out. So, on Wednesday night at 1010pm Barbara, myself, and 4 other people in the theatre took in Hugo.

As is usually the case, when something is hyped that much it more than likely turns into a giant let down. The 3D was cool in some situations, like the opening scene at the train station, and it was annoying in other situations, like when the characters are standing around talking to each other, which happens a lot.

I've seen some real crap 3D. The Last Airbender was crap, post-production-added 3D. Literally, the most frustrating and annoying thing I've ever seen on a screen. It gave me a headache and the only relief I had was when I fell asleep in the middle of it.

Then, on Wednesday, we had all of the previews to watch in 3D. Of course, the preview were pretty cool to see, except for the post added stuff, like the new 3D version of Star Wars: Episode 1. The 3D added to that movie looks like crap. Will it make a billion dollars? You bet, but just when you think that they couldn't ruin Star Wars any further, they go out and find a way! It's really rather impressive, but also sad.

Side note. Someone said it best when they compared George Lucas' obsession over Star Wars to a sandwich he might have eaten back in the day. Here is the quote.

Anyways, the 3D in Hugo was pretty impressive, but I will say it again: watching a 2 hour movie in 3D, while wearing those glasses, is very distracting. Aside from the opening sequence I would have liked to watch Hugo without the 3D.

Driving home, Barbara and I discussed the film. The story was cool. The visuals were amazing. Sacha Baron Cohen was funny, but not too funny, which was perfect.

The problem was that the character's weren't developed enough. The movie seemed to flip flop back and forth between focusing on Hugo and Georges Melies. That was fine, until the end when it all ended up being about Georges Melies. I wasn't satisfied with how they ended it with Hugo. And, as it turned out, I didn't really care about him or George or anyone else for that matter. Well, I cared about George because they focused on him in the end. The problem was that there was too much going on for them to go deep in any area. This problem usually stems from the difficulty of turning a book into a movie. That is the case here.

I'm not talking about the whole "the book was better than the movie" argument. I've never read the book in this case, but I could tell that it was a book. All of the character development and detail of the book is squeezed out onto the screen in 2 hours. In order to have the movie make any sense they must follow the story. Working that way, the story is heavily leaned upon and the other areas of storytelling, character and theme, are to a certain extent ignored.

As far as Hugo goes, the theme was there but character development was ignored. The story was there but the emotions seemed hurried.

It almost makes me want to avoid film adaptations from books altogether.

Everybody!: "It almost makes me want to avoid film adaptations from books."

In the end, I will say that I am probably being too hard on little Hugo. It was an entertaining movie. I liked that about it. I liked the 3D in it better than Avatar even though Avatar had more movement and action in it. It was nice to see good 3D go along with a good story.

However, I am a human being and humans are emotional. I wanted to care about all of the characters in the end, not just Ben Kingsley. Because of the lack of character development, I went home unfulfilled. All of the glamour of 3D and all I wanted was a little bit of a connection.

Christmas Music 2: a reminder of the beginning of new

2011-11-30T16:00:00.000-08:00

It is almost December 1st. It's officially okay to listen to Christmas music, though I have been listening to it constantly for over 3 weeks now.

A friend reminded me this week of a great collection of Christmas songs. In fact, I would say that they are the standard and the foundation for my Christmas music collection.

Sufjan Stevens Christmas

When the songs first came out they were free for the taking. Now, you can go to the link and buy all 42 songs for 12 bucks. That's a great deal! Almost as cheap as stealing them, but with less guilt and more yuletide.

Anyways, of all of the songs included, my favorite is Sufjan's version of "Holy, holy, holy". The fact is that most people would not consider it to be a Christmas song at all. My response to this is that any song can be a Christmas song if it's got the kind of falalalala that comes with Christmas songs.

I am a big fan of The Trinity; Father, Son, and Spirit in one. Most Christmas songs focus on the Jesus part of the trinity, but what is so beautiful about Christmas is that it came about in cooperative fashion.

3 in 1 usually leads to people talking about the components of an egg or the different states that water can form. These are curious metaphors and, to me, are cute at best. At their worst, they attempt to label and leash the mysterious like a puppy.

I prefer to ignore these explanations and simply try to sit in the wonder and beauty of it. It's comforting to know that even though I am small, there is something much bigger out there and, in fact, that big, mysterious thing out there that I can wonder at loves me.

Jesus is the one that we can get a glimpse of this love. I am guessing that this is why we sing all of the songs about him at Christmas. It's really great to look at his birth as the beginning of something. It's the beginning of the new creation. The beginning of the new way of living. To steal another quote:

"In Jesus, the gospel tells us, a fundamental break has been made in the human situation, in view of which scepticism, vacillation, indifference, uncertainty, fear, hopelessness and joylessness have all been taken care of, set aside as things which do not match up to the new situation in which the whole creation has been placed." - John Webster

It was a new day. It became a new age. The age of trading sorrows. Hope came to us, and people didn't even know it, many still do not know it. The secret is still very hush, hush even after all of these years; the situation that we all find ourselves in has been shifted to a hopeful one.

"There is a sign at the sight of thee; merciful and mighty."

It is through the Christmas revelation that we have a faint idea of what this lyric means. Merciful and mighty aren't typically traits that go together. It's like that verse about the lion and the lamb hanging out by the river together; it's beautiful but how does it work?

"Though the eye of sinful man, thy glory may not see."

I'm reminded of that scene in "Field of Dreams" where the sceptical fellow looks up at the seemingly empty baseball diamond and says, "When did all of these ball players get here?" The new situation we are in is something that is not thrust upon us. We are allowed to ignore it and wallow in the old ways; the fear, the loneliness, the hopelessness. Even though I believe in the new creation I still find myself stuck in that fearful state a lot of the time. Or I forget about the Trinity and fill up my life with emptiness. I am thankful that Christmas is a constant reminder that there is good and it is really, very, honestly good like we hope it would be.

Christmas is a time to be together with loved ones and to forgive old debts and to celebrate jubilee. At least, that's the way I see it. I am thankful for the Blessed Trinity and it's desire to share the joy of their communion with us. I am thankful for the reminder of Christmas.

Kind Sounds: an evening of good music

2011-11-27T00:02:00.000-08:00

The thing that sucks about society is that it tells us to accept empty, hollow entertainment as something that will sustain and satisfy the things that call out from deep inside of us. Society taps it's foot and the beat is steady, echoing from the inside of the dance clubs. After a few hours of mindless trancing, Society spits us out onto the sidewalk. Later on, we get our friend to pull over his car so that we/society can puke out all of the alcohol and trashy music that we force fed ourselves all night.

To combat this evil, it was with agreeable consideration that we decided to go out and watch a few acquaintances perform their latest songs this past evening.

We may have won the battle but the war goes on.

The evening was made possible because a couple of dudes opened up their business's office so that their friends could play music for more friends that wanted to listen to it. It was a beautiful thing. There was a spirit of community and friendliness flowing the whole night. Hotdogs were on sale the whole night and the good people at the refreshment table were very kind to make sure we were always aware of it. They also had wine, beer, and scotch available for 2$. The drinks came in plastic glasses, which was nice because it meant that no one needed to stay too late to do dishes.

Baby Driver opened up with some nice tunes. The band played a nice, tight set and the main man of the group was charming and inviting to the 100 or so people that had gathered at a safe distance in front of him. It is kind of awkward to watch a show standing on the same eye level as the singer and only a few feet from him, but everyone did well in this make shift situation.

Paul Fuellbrandt was nice to listen to. From the last time I had seen him perform, at the old High Level Diner, I remember his strong voice and splashy piano keys. It turns out that my memory was spot on. It was a great set.

After Paul, some of the crowd seemed to disappear. It was about 11pm at the time and people have kids and dogs to attend to, so it is kind of understandable. At the same time, those sorry sacks of souls missed out on Brock Tyler and his band. It was fine too, I mean, we were all pretty tired but Brock let us all sit down on the floor to rest our legs. I discovered that the blood must have settled in my legs during the long night of standing. When I finally sat down I realized that I was going to have a hard time crossing my legs because of the snugness of my pants caused by the collection of blood and the fact that I have gained some weight in Canada leading from the fact that my "tight fit" jeans have a hard enough time dealing with me in the first place.

But other than that, everything was nice. The band played some songs off of Brock's new EP titled You Can't Keep the Sun Down. I've tried, and it's true.

However, there were other songs as well. About 4 or 5 beautiful little songs that were nice to listen to late at night. I look forward to hearing those songs again sometime soon.

All that to say, go to Brock's website and buy the EP for 4 dollars. There is also a new single on there that can be downloaded for free. Go there. Go now. Go often. Tell your friends and your dog's friend's cousin.

Click here to go to Brock Tyler's website.

If you are new to his music, then also pick up his first record, Unclosing, for 12 bucks. It is good to listen to. I've listened to it in many different situations for many different reasons and, in the end, they all were justified.

So, a great night it was. Do yourself and the artists a favor and support them. They get a few dollars and you get some nice music for your collection or library or whatever you'd like to call it.

Dashing through the Snow

2011-11-22T14:54:00.001-08:00

Some things I've noticed in and around:

Businesses are marketing things now that are complete lies. I understand that they've always been lying about things, but it used to be creative. Now they just seem to think that the lying is good enough. Some examples:

McDonald's McCafe. The commercials invite you into some sort of 'dream of escape'. The beans being crushed, the milk being stirred. Go to McDonald's and they'll serve you a cup o' trash latte or the fudge sundae's equivalent of a mocha. It's trash; they know it and you know it, I know it. Yet, they keep telling us it isn't so we all just agree and buy it once in a while anyway. I mean, hey, when Starbucks gets a children's play place then we can finally commit to abstaining from silly McD drinks.

That being said, the regular coffee at McDonald's is not bad, and pretty good when you get to play the monopoly game with it.

I was watching the hockey game the other night and the commercial was for Boston Pizza. It said something like, "There is nothing quite like bringing together that timeless combo of hockey and pasta." Since when was that a timeless combo?! I, for one, have never purposely eaten pasta while watching hockey.

--------------------------------------------

Anyway, I seem to whine and complain a little too much these days. Let's move on.

Barbara, the boys and I have been listening to Christmas music pretty much nonstop for the last week or so. She pointed out that it's still a month until Christmas, and I pointed out that that is awesome. I love Christmas music! Sometimes I think that I'd like to listen to it all year long, though I doubt I'd ever want to try.

To me, listening to Christmas music is like eating food during the holidays; you indulge a little too much, but by the next day you're ready for the next round. I get sick of the songs, but when I wake up I'm ready for more Rudolph.

My favorite Christmas songs at the moment are:

1. Wonderful Christmas Time by Paul McCartney

The synth in this one rules!

2. White Christmas by Bing Crosby

I'm already dreamin'! Though Xining will not be white this Christmas.

3. Jingle Bell Rock by some lady

The boys like this one and argue about it's title. Miles calls it by it's true name while Jonas screams that it is in fact just called Jingle Bells. Another week or so will set him straight.

"No! It's Jingle Bells!"

Merry Christmas!

Unused used car lots.

2011-11-17T12:19:00.000-08:00

These are in no way original thoughts. Basically, I just wanted to get this down so that I can look at it if I ever think of buying a new car. I can pull up this blog entry, hold the computer up to my head, and punch myself in the face with it over and over again.

Being in Canada for a few weeks, I've had the pleasure of being able to watch a lot of sports on TV. During that time I have seen that there are a lot of car commercials. The main message for the viewer seems to be that things are getting cleaner on the streets.

There is one commercial in particular that I found interesting, yet misleading. You can watch it by clicking in this area.

I'm not a genius at all. Nobody pays me to think. There is no "I" in "team. But from what I can gather, most of the things in this commercial are made out of plastic and it takes oil to make plastic. Hence, everything in that commercial really is "running on gas" if you want to get technical.

So, if we really want to stop using oil and gas, I guess we can just stop making things altogether.

"Stop making things."

That is silly talk. We need things. I love things! I use things all the time, you say. Well, yeah, that's pretty straight forward. But back to the car...

The other day we were on our way to the football game when I realized that there are 50 billion used car lots between Londonderry and Commonwealth Stadium. There are a lot of used cars in this city that are not being used.

I also heard that at some car lots, they will not accept cars that are older than 10 years, no matter what condition they are in. I am told that cars such as the one I am driving at the moment, a mid-ninety's Nissan Maxima, are sent straight to the scrap yard when they are traded in. Yup, sent to the scrap yard to be turned into scrap. The machines that do this dirty work are actual things. These things contain plastic and run on oil and gas in some cases.

I also hear that people are really into leasing cars, rather than buying them. Then, in a few years, they upgrade. Some folks are getting new cars every few years or so. But don't worry, they say, they only lease hybrids. Well, now you have the Leaf and all of the other low-emission/electric cars are being manufactured by the thousands so that people can lease them to save the environment.

I wonder how much good they are doing, building all of these new factories to build all of these new cars. Probably not a whole lot of good, I think. Meanwhile, the used car lots fill up with "old" cars that no one wants to drive anymore because they are bad for the environment.

Well, I think that the whole picture needs to be looked upon at a little further distance. Someone in this whole scheme is trying to trick us all into thinking that making use and taking care of the cars that we have now is a wasteful and dirty idea. The truth seems to be that they just want you to buy a new car now, and not only that, but to get a new one again in a few years. Sneaky little fellows, aren't they?

So, future Brett, please remember that there are a lot of cars, enough cars for everyone, already in existence. Please, please buy one of these cars. There are enough to go around.

More SN thoughts

2011-11-14T09:27:00.001-08:00

Challenged by the book Flickering Pixels, I wrote here about some of the problems with Facebook. After being continually bombarded with confusing status updates, I think that there is even more there than I had initially thought.

Everyone knows that, to some extent, things are getting worse on Facebook. The way they "upgrade" the site could have something to do with it as it seems like Facebook has it's very own Facebook it the top right corner of the page. This is only skimming the surface of the problem. Every time I sign on to my page, which for everyone now is an everyday addiction, I cannot seem to find too many things that make any sense to me.

A big problem since the beginning is this. Everyone has problems, personal problems, and a ineffective way of dealing with those problems is to post them in a non-specific and vague way on their Facebook status. This brings momentarily but ultimately empty feelings of being loved and needed when a few friends ask for more specifics. Their questions are never answered, at least not publicly, leaving everyone else to imagine the worst possible scenario, making the situation, for the initial poster, that much more confused sympathy. And, most of the time, it is left at that.

"What am I going to do?"

"Why did this have to happen?"

"Really, God?! I cannot believe this!"

The roots of these problems range from being diagnosed with a disease to a barista getting your drink order wrong. The real problem is that no one ever knows what the problem is. Even when people ask for elaboration, they are usually left with their inquiries unanswered. Sure, maybe the victim sent private messages to a few close people, but the other 400 people are left to wonder as to what's really going on. Speculation fills the air and that leads to all kinds of unhealthy things.

I think that the problem here is that we shouldn't be telling people our deep, dark issues or concerns unless we lay it out clearly. Some people want people to pray for them, so in that way it is a good idea to clearly communicate the issue. Yet, others obviously don't want everyone to know the issue, they just want sympathy for the speculated circumstance.

"Oh, that's too bad that they got your order wrong. That happened to me last week."

"Sorry to hear that. We are praying for you."

Who knows what people are really thinking? This system that allows us to teeter on the brink of spilling all of our hurts and needs to everyone is a system that confuses us and brings about even deeper feelings of loneliness and isolation.

It's a situation of constantly 'beating around the bush'. Without any clear, direct communication, the whole situation gets frustrating and ultimately annoying. At least this is the way I see it.

I would hope that people would take advantage of this great way to communicate; use the Facebook addictions to your advantage. Personal messages can be sent to a group of people, just like how email used to work in the old days. Actually, you can even send email to someone's inbox on Facebook. Apparently, my Facebook email address is gitzel@facebook.com.

I diverge and digress. The point is that I would hope that people would still have the desire to actually connect with their friends. I know that people are hurting and I know that people are angry that McDonalds has run out of chicken nuggets, I just can't tell the difference.

Must Mention Dan Mangan

2011-11-07T13:27:00.000-08:00

Before it gets too yesterday's news I must mention this fellow. Last Thursday, we caught his show at McDougal United Church here in Edmonton.

I had heard a few of his songs before, even covering one at Open Mic in Xining. But in general, I was not very familiar with his music, so my expectations weren't that high.

I must say that he killed it. His band played the seemingly slow album on stage like it was on fire. I made up a term in saying that they "Wilcoed" every song that night. They built up the pace and then they tore it down. It was beautiful.

A few days before the show I purchased his new album, Oh Fourtune. The first song caught me off guard after one listen; these were some of the best lyrics I'd have heard in a long time. It emotionalized me, after just one listen... on my iTouch... without the headphones... just that crappy little speaker.

Here is the song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdk_STriHl4

Here are the lyrics:

Both feet together, slowly progressing
Always in time, don't count the feathers, just count the wings
Everyday counting, everything's changing
I almost forgot it, but then I remembered.

I was thrown in the boat
Cast out to sea friendly with waves, there were sharks below
Hungry for me
So I dangled my legs
And I lit up like a match, coz I bled gasoline
Made a torch of myself, to the moon was mine
Stars made of me, oh I lit up that sky

Both feet together, slowly progressing
Always in time, don't count the feathers, just count the wings
Everyday counting, everything's changing
I almost forgot it, but then I remembered.

I'm not sure what it is about those lyrics. There is a challenge there somewhere. I feel that at times it seems like I'm learning to walk again. There is a helplessness in almost forgetting and an unstoppable force in suddenly remembering.

The sea is angry, but the waves are friendly. The images I see when I think of the stars being me. Everything changing for a melancholy chap such as I, it's hard to look forward when so many things behind me are stuck in my mind.

For me I think of my life and the confusion that bottles it every day. The frustrations mount up and I wonder what I'm doing it all for... but then I remember.

Something isn't right here

2011-11-05T08:29:00.000-07:00

The news is multifaceted. If it wasn't then we could probably label it as just plain old head scratching and "what are the odds" jargon. But the facts are facts and we're wondering who made up these crazy rules in the first place.

So, I could come at this from 3 different angles. Since I am Canadian and just came back from a CFL game last night I will attack it from the one I am sitting in. If you are an NFL fan and you enjoy Thanksgiving football then you have your own angle. If you are a Winnipeg Jets fan then you're on board as well. Here is the the question of the hour...

Why the &#@% is Nickelback being hired to play at all of these sporting events?!

The other obvious question that goes along with this one is...

Who the blank likes listening to Nickelback anyway?!

And finally...

What in Sam Hill's name is going on here, dag nabbit?!

I understand that a mass of misguided fools liked listening to a couple of their early hits about 10 years ago, but what the crap are we doing getting them to play at the Grey Cup now?!

The truth is that they apparently opened at the Winnipeg Jets first first game in 15 years. And just when you think that that was weird and somewhat disgusting we all find out that they are playing the halftime show at the Lions-Packers game on Thanksgiving Thursday. To top it off? Well heck, they've decided that we'd all love to seem them on TV one more time a week later at the 99th Grey Cup in Vancouver.

Yes, organizers, please fill up the sporting world's schedule with this bag of expired excrement. Please let Chad and the boys "Cowboy Up" onto every stage so that they can "git 'er done" for us all with their droopy, lopsided post grunge diseased mess of a performance. And why stop there, I am sure that we can get them to play the Christmas special as well.

The fact that every one of these proposed events has been met with an online petition to stop them is a good testimony of the fact that this crap from Alberta needs to be shovelled out with yesterday's trash.

Is there one soul, one football or hockey loving soul over, let's say, the age of 13 or over that actually likes this band?

It angers me. It saddens me. It nauseates me. And if I had more time I'd tell you how I really feel about this. In a word, abused.

Banff: the land of moose, deer, beavers and... wait for it... Australians!

2011-10-27T06:22:00.000-07:00

Dear Barbara with deer

Barbara and I just came back from a lovely time in Banff, Alberta. Banff lies about an hour west of Calgary in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. We were blessed with some $ to spend to celebrate our 10th Anniversary and Banff was how we decided to spend it. We made a great choice.

And besides the romance, the roaming around, the shop browsing, and the eating and drinking of delicious food and beverages, there was a lot more to Banff. I could talk about how we walked down Banff Ave. past Beaver Street to get to where we were going on Caribou Ave. I could also mention the serene sounds of nature, like the calling of a hawk that flew overhead while we were waiting to cross an intersection; nature meets urban in a glorious burst of Canadian stereotypicalism. I could almost hear the hawk call out my name, "Welcome, Brett! Welcome to Banff! Caw!" If you listen carefully you might be able to hear it too. Shhhh. Listen. Can you hear it?

But the weird thing about Banff is that there are a freaking lot of Australians. Don't label me a hater, I love Australians. At first I figured that there were just a lot of tourists from Down Under. But then when I was ordering my coffee from an Australian and shopping in stores filled with workers from Australia I started to think that it must be pretty easy for these blokes to get a work visa in Canada. Well, it turns out that it is even easier than we thought.

Barbara asked an Australian barista why there are so many of them living in Banff. The girl said that the skiing is better there and that it's easy to get a work visa. Once again, how easy?

"I applied for my work visa online and I got it within a week."

It must be a Commonwealth thing. At least 40% of the workers we encountered in Banff were Australian. There are swarms of them. I think it's pretty cool that they can come up here and work and ski. The question I have is where are all of the Canadian ski bums? I figured that there would be more home grown hosers and ladies that would want to work and ski in the National Park.

Then I wondered, does it work the other way? Can Canadians find work in Australia so easily? What about the other Commonwealth Nations? Can I get a job in Delhi? If I can keep a straight face am I allowed to work as a guard outside of Buckingham Palace? Could I, Brett Gitzel, drive William and Kate around like one of their own?

Australians in Banff. Online visa application. Tell all of your Pakistani friends that they can serve coffee in Banff and snowboard Norquay all winter.

I would compare the process of, as a Canadian, attaining a Chinese visa with an Australian stumbling over a Canadian one, but that would be a little silly and frustrating and heart breaking.

My Hometown and the town where I live

2011-10-22T13:38:00.000-07:00

I was born in Edmonton, where this photo was taken last week, but I grew up 15 minutes west of it in the 'I never use this word but I'll use it now' quaint town of Stony Plain. We spent the summers riding bikes and slurping slurpees. In the winter we would go play shiny hockey at Forest Green until it got dark at around 430pm. Even though the town has spread out a little and changed a lot it is still full of all of those memories.

Being back from China for a few weeks here I have had the chance to visit Stony a few times already. As I turned left at the McDonald's and past Safeway what do you think I would see? Well, of course, the first thing I see is a group of about 6 or 7 Chinese young people J-walking across the street towards the Petro-Canada. I laughed and looked back to tell Miles about it but he was fast asleep in the car seat. I can never get away from China, no matter how hard I try.

Being back has been nice. The air is crisp and fresh. Out at my parent's acreage the silence drifts in and out of the trees. Their dog barks at an animal in the forest. I look up to see that it's just the neighbours cattle nestling up on the other side of the fence. I can actually hear them chewing on their cud and kicking at the grass.

The city of Edmonton is what seems like a stark contrast to our city in China. The downtown dab of towers and skyscrapers are surrounded by countless houses, trees, grassy parks and the like. I cannot believe how much grass there is. You can sit on it and walk on it, and if your dog craps on it you need to pick it up.

Driving back and forth from my parents place to the city I have had a lot of time to think about what this trip home means to me. The truth is that I really needed a break from China. And despite the J-walkers it has been a nice break. I've been reminded of why I love Canada so much. I knew that I would feel this way and I look forward to someday making Canada our home again.

At the same time, I am a little surprised with how much I miss China. I didn't think that I would really miss it at all, besides the friends that we have there. But I think that this break from China has been great to help me hit some sort of refresh button and I think that I'll be able to go back there and be a better person because of it.

I'm not sure how much longer we'll be in China, and I'm not really sure what kinds of things we would get down to if we ever move back here. One thing I do know is that we have a lot of great things happening for us in China right now and we're determined to see them through.

Stony Plain is where I'm from, but I don't think that I'll ever live there again. If we ever came back I am sure that we would want to live in Edmonton. So, in a way, my Stony days are over, and have been for quite some time. I tend to get overly melancholy when I think of what I great childhood I've had. It's always good for me to challenge myself to move on in life; to not get stuck thinking about how good yesterday was compared to today. In reality, it's more than likely just my mind tricking me into thinking that the past was greater than it was and today is lamer than it actually is.

4 more weeks in Canada for the family and I. We'll enjoy it the best that we can, we'll say goodbye with some tears and the like, and we'll go back to China for a while. I'm pretty happy that I can say that, not only am I looking forward to the next month, but I'm also looking forward to what lies beyond that flight back over Siberia.

Edmonton Oilers Update... for people who know nothing about anything about nothing.

2011-09-29T08:24:00.000-07:00

The Hockey League, National Edition...

First off, click for a little something to whet the palate.

It's the most wonderful time of the year.

The grass is brown. The dust storms are swirling trash and little bits of human manure from the nearby farmland. The leaves fall from the trees and the street sweeping ladies quickly swoop in and scoop them up before anyone can frolic. Yes, it's hockey season in the middle of China!

Nobody cares but me!

October is one of my favorite months. In fact, I love the smell of the death of nature. Or, I guess I should call it hibernation. The grass looks like it's dead, but really, it's just waiting until things warm up again.

The same could be said for Oiler fans. We've been waiting 5 long seasons. Waiting for things to get warmer. The team could barely be called a team for 2 or 3 years there. Then a strange thing happened. There was a strange noise. That noise was the sound of the bottom of the ocean. The very depths of terrible. This season, that strange noise returned, only this time we were all used to it and actually kind of happy about it. Kind of like when random firecrackers blast away the silence of a summer Saturday morning in Xining. If it's because of a wedding or someone just moving into the building, the firecrackers are a tradition, warding off the evil spirits of bad luck.

Speaking of bad luck, the Oiler's best defense man is still injured. His ankles can't seem to handle the weight of his awesomeness. Ryan Whitney will start the season on the sidelines.

Speaking of ankles, Sam Gagner's is sprained. He'll be out for a while. Word has it his foot speed is up this year. Hopefully he can recover from this little speed bump and come back strong within a few weeks.

The good news is that they have an 18 year old rookie to keep Sam's seat warm for him while he recovers. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins will be on the team come opening night. He's played really well in the preseason and, for me and Kevin Lowe, that's good enough to make this team.

If the Oilers were a nerd, and that nerd wore pants, you could hold him upside down and the lunch money that would fall out would be quite a balanced group of forwards. Ryan Smyth is back, so bring your tissue. Shaun Horcoff can play his natural role for the first time in 5 years. Ales Hemsky might be able to play a few games before his shoulder caves in on itself. And finally, Eric Belanger is the new good french guy who can replace the old sucky french guy known as J.F. Jacques. Yup, these guys just might be able to lasso a few more respectable performances this season.

The real excitement, thanks to this team being so horrible for so many years, are all of the talented young guys. Taylor Hall, Eberle, and Paajarvi are all back for their second seasons. I noticed the other day that Taylor Hall's hair is longer this year, so that's a good thing. Paajarvi kind of reminds me of Evgeni Malkin, so we'll see where that goes. I like to set the expectations bar too high so that nobody can accidentally hit their head on it.

In goal, we have 67 year old Nik Khabibulin. Being in jail this summer aside, the man is old, so let's not expect anything too exciting this season. There should be a lot of rubber pucks bouncing over, around and through this man all season. The other guy, Devan Dubnyk, looks pretty good, so let's hope that they let him play once in a while. A hip tweak here and a pulled groin there and we should see Double D playing significant minutes come November.

The defense is horrible.

So there you have it; everything you need to know, wrapped up in a tight little package. Toss it on the ol' zamboni in your brain and when the puck drops next week, remember that the best time of your life is about to begin.

Everybody's really excited!

2011-09-18T22:00:00.000-07:00

"And Sanchez takes the sn..."

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"...eller inside the 20. 1st down Je..."

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"Your video will continue in 15 seconds."

Insert annoying JLo Fiat commercial. JLo proceeds to drive around in a Fiat while singing her new single, Papi. Meanwhile, men from all walks of life hurry and push their way past each other to be able to catch a glimpse of the aging has-been star. Brief cases fly in the air, the papers falling out and dancing in the wind. For some reason, there are men on skateboards doing kick flips off of the stairs to try to catch up to JLo in her affordable ride.

Now I don't claim to be a Spanish linguist so I could be wrong but, is it a little strange that she is singing this song about her Papi? Isn't that her father? Is she calling him 'baby' in this song?

Back to the NFL.

This is how it's been for quite some time here in Xining. In fact, I am sure that the world is full of thousands of men, and perhaps women, who stream NFL games in the middle of the night. The stream is usually pretty choppy and there are a lot of pop-ups and commercials that you have to look around, but it's all we have.

The good thing about watching football at 1am is that it is a quiet time of day on the Internet, meaning the connection is usually a little faster than usual and the stream is not as choppy as, say, when you want to watch Monday Night Football on a Tuesday morning.

The bad thing is that you are actually up all night watching football, which, depending how you look at it, might not be the best way to start the week.

This past weekend I bought a special imported beer to watch the Jets' game with. At around 2am I realized that drinking a beer at 2am isn't the smartest thing to do. It remains unopened in the fridge, to be utilized at a later date.

The Jets ended up playing pretty well and easily won the game. The game ended at 4am.

At this point I decided that it was time to get 2 hours of sleep. The problem was that at the same time I realized that the Oilers' website was streaming the Joey Moss Cup, a sort of inter-squad scrimmage between all of the players trying out for the team. Well, I watched 2 periods of that and then fell asleep just in time for Miles to wake up crying. His problem?

"Dad, I can't see."

"Miles, it's 530 so it's still dark out."

"Oh."

I got back to sleep and then Jonas decided that it was time to get up for his milk. I muscled him back into bed and slept for 30 minutes.

The 3 stars of the night are....

3. The Jets Defense. Played really well and gave the offense time to make mistakes and still dominate the game.

2. The stream was smooth for most of the game. It was nice to watch football.

1. Barbara, who left with the boys around 830am and let me sleep in for a while.

God Bless the loyal fans who stay up to watch their team, no matter what time that might be; though, the smart thing to do would be to only do that once in a while.

But who am I kidding, I'm talking about football! A familiar North American cultural tradition that, though it takes away our sleep, infuses us with something much better and more reliable than sleep... magic good-feeling sentimental over hyped excitement.

T-shirts, basketball, and NFL Predictions

2011-09-15T19:09:00.000-07:00

They sure like their English here in China. Everywhere you look you will see people wearing t-shirts with English on them. Most of the time, the English doesn't make any sense. Here are a few that I have cataloged over the last few months:

"Sometimes I hate you."

"Bring back ma prime."

"Fetishism"

"Easy your life."

"Smart only ever had one good idea and it was stupid."

"I'm not easy but we can discuss it."
(An older lady was wearing this one. In any event, there was no discussion.)

I guess they kind of make sense. But, more so than in North America, the wearers of the shirts have no idea what their shirt is saying. Much like Americans getting Chinese tattoos.

--------------------------------------------

It looks like the NBA is not going to happen this year. This is good for China, which looks to capitalize on the opportunity to sign more American players away from the league. Notable players who have already agreed to contracts are J.R. Smith and nobody else worth noting.

For me, the key to all of this is the CBA (Chinese Basketball Association). I have watched my fair share of this league on TV. Most of the teams have 1 or 2 import players already. The import players are usually big, slow American guys that weren't good enough for the NBA. There are never any flashy players in this league. The Chinese players are small, quick guys that can shoot and hustle on defense. So, basically, what you have with the CBA is a bunch of Chinese guys zipping up and down the court with a couple of big and slow import players trying to keep up. If there is ever a slam dunk in the game, the crowd usually makes one of those strange noises that signifies that most of them are unsure as to what has just happened and if it was legal and, if not, are they themselves going to be in trouble for it.

The crowd itself is much different over here. They all wear their black, brown, and grey jackets to the game. For the most part, they sit and politely applaud when a basket is achieved.

You're not going to see the speedo guy at the Dragons vs. Beijing Ducks game.

What I hope happens is that guys like J.R. Smith and whoever else plays there will inject some life into the crowd and get people excited about going to a sporting event. The Chinese love basketball and I think that they deserve some of the excitement that the world's best players can provide. It will be good for China.

On the other hand, what will happen to the NBA if they don't play this year? I, for one, am done with the NBA and all of it's marketing schemes. It's all about Lebron and I simply don't care enough to focus on him and perhaps the 3 or 4 other players they tout who apparently are much better basketball players than the 300 other players in the league.

The NBA seems to play the Lebron or Kobe card every time. How many points will Lebron score? Can Kobe win 10 Championships? Who cares? Do we ask the same questions about the Yankees? No, because nobody in their right mind would want to see the Yankees win another Championship... ever!

Well, I guess the one thing that the NBA has, much to their disappointment I would guess, is that Lebron and his buddies lost last year to a German guy. I think that stuff like that is good for the league and I just might keep one eye on things just to see stuff like that happen again. That is, if there even is an NBA this year.

---------------------------------------------

And finally, the NFL season has kicked itself off!

I want to get you all excited for the season by offering you my top 18 moments of this year even before they happen. Are you ready?

1. Tom Brady throws for 500 yards in each of his first 3 games. In the forth game, someone in the opposing team's secondary holds up a giant mirror just as Tom is throwing a deep pass to Chad 85 and the ball goes through the mirror, back out where it came from and hits Tom in the groin. He misses 3 games due to the injury and the Patroits regroup by signing Doug Flutie, who in turn kicks the winning field goal the second week he is back.

2. Doug and Darren, The Flutie Brothers, will not reunite for one last show at this tailgate party.

3. Plaxico Burress leads the Jets in receiving yards. He goes out to the club to celebrate, but this time he is smart and puts his Glock 9 into the secured holster that is strapped to his leg.

4. The sports players of America agree to give this year's salaries to help pay off the national debt. I have no idea how much that would help, but I have a feeling that it wouldn't really help at all. But hey, thanks anyways, guys!

5. Randy Moss unretires and returns to the Patriots in time to demand a trade to the Raiders.

6. Mark Sanchez officially changes his name to Mark Seis.

7. Joe Flacco, QB of the Baltimore Ravens, takes time during his bye week to join forces with the Baltimore Police Department's Western District to help put Marlow behind bars for good.

8. Jared Allen takes up piano lessons.

9. At some point this season one of the players will order a Big Mac.

10. The Superbowl halftime show will be cut in half and broadcast at the end of the first quarter.

11. In order to curb amount of concussions caused by head shots, the league will require that all players strap a new device to their helmets. The new device is called the 'Con-cushion'. It is a big pillow that slides over the helmet and makes everyone look safe and, if you can believe it, even more sissy looking than Rugby players.

12. Not sure where it came from but happy it's around, players all around the league partake in the new trend of making a nice jello mold for their teammates and coaches. It isn't until week 4 that players realize that you can also put tiny marshmallows in the mold, and that the best time to do that is before you put it in the refrigerator.

13. Rex Ryan's brother Rob gets a haircut and is immediately fired by the Cowboys when they realize that he was actually just Rex all along. Meanwhile, the Jets sign their real coach,Rob, to a contract extension when he decides to grow his hair out and speed up the process with hair extensions. Extension is the key to this one.

14. Sebastian Janikowski kicks a football 'clear over those mountains'.

15. The Steelers start 0-5 and turn to other ways of making a living, most notably, stealing.

16. Someone in your fantasy league who is not paying attention all year long will end up winning the whole thing.

17. Lady Gaga will sing the national anthem at the Superbowl while sitting in a bowl of ground beef but nobody cares abo...

18. The New York Jets will win the Superbowl exactly 10 years before they select Boomer's son Gunnar Esiason in the first round of the draft. Gunnar plays half a season and then decides to pursue a career in broadcasting instead. 2 seasons later he is discovered and starts his late bloomer modeling career at the age of 26. 10 years later, on the 25th anniversary of this year's Superbowl, Gunnar announces that his new clothing line, Gunna, will be available at all Target Stores excluding locations in Canada.

Amazingly enough, 5 years later, Mark Seis is seen wearing one of the brand's t-shirts while strolling in downtown New York. It is believed that a witness claims that Mark's Superbowl ring's colors and design go so well together with the t-shirt that they could have almost been made for each other. Later on, when the media tracks down Mark for a comment, all he does is smile. Though, the joke was on him, for when he smiled he revealed a golden cap on one of his teeth. The color and the design of the tooth testified to the reliability of the witness and the rest, as they say, is history.

Pavol "Nice" Demitra: is there any hope in the loss of an entire sports team?

2011-09-09T19:32:00.000-07:00

First of all:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0H2PSw7dP4

It's overwhelming. If the KHL doesn't matter to people, could we imagine the Boston Red Sox just dying like that? The effect that it would have on the families and the fans? The void it would leave? The questions we would all have? Why? How?

-----------------------------------------------------

I've always loved hockey. Anytime, anywhere. Growing up we would play a lot of street hockey. I always wanted to play more than everyone else and, yes, at times I would actually play by myself. I would get the goalie gear on and 'flick' the tennis ball at myself and try to make some sort of elaborate save. My brother bugs me about this all the time, but I am proud of my commitment, dang it!

Growing up I loved the Oilers but I was also a big St. Louis Blues fan. The reason for this is Brett Hull. Besides sharing a name, we got a long great. He scored a tonne of goals and I watched him from the other side of the TV. His book, 'Brett Hull: Shooting and Smiling' was one of the first books that I read that didn't have any pictures in it. It was also a hard cover. Mom would help me read it and I would use a ruler to keep my eyes on the line I was reading.

Brett Hull scored 86 goals one year. That was quite a feat. He got together with Adam Oates to form the 'Hull and Oates' duo that ripped apart the league for a good number of years. So it was a sad day when The Blues traded Oates away to Boston for Craig Janney. Janney was good, but not 'Adam Oates' good. Brett Hull's number started to decline and the excitement surrounding him and the Blues faded with each early playoff exit.

Eventually, Hull left St. Louis and won a Stanley Cup with the Dallas Stars after scoring a very controversial goal. Around the time Hull left, and myself and other Blues fans were wondering who would step up for the team, the Blues traded Christer Olsson to Ottawa for a young Slovakian named Pavol Demitra.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvVlw5iDaaM&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL9BD940C4692924E6

Almost immediately, Demitra became a star. During his second season with the team, Demitra was the leading scorer. A few years later he won the Lady Byng Trophy for being voted the most sportsmanlike player in the league. It's one of the trophies that Gretzky used to always win. A few years later he finished 6th in league scoring. After the NHL lockout, he signed with the Kings. Demitra finished his time in St.Louis with 493 points in 494 games.

Demitra was my favorite post-Hull Blue. Besides the fact that he was my Slovakian twin, he was also an amazing hockey player. I had hope that he would finally take the team deep into the playoffs. That never happened and since the time that he had left St. Louis the Blues have been pretty mediocre.

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When Pavol was 17 years old, the USSR's strangle hold on his country finally let up. In an interview he talked about how strange that was to finally be able to watch NHL hockey on TV. He started to believe that his dream of playing in the best league in the world could be a possibility. A few years later, he began what would turn out to be quite an amazing career.

I had heard that he wasn't coming back to North America this season, that he had signed in the KHL. When his plane went down last week and I found out that he was on it, I couldn't believe that he was really gone. The tragedy of an entire hockey team being killed all at once is magnified when you grew up following one of the players so closely.

I think that often times I am not interested in a tragic news event unless I am somehow connected to it. I used to feel guilty about it. Like how North Americans followed the New Orleans flooding event so closely because it literally 'hit close to home', yet when I was in Hawaii this past year and a massive earthquake took place near my home in China, not many people in Hawaii, at an international missionary school, even knew it took place. People had died, people I knew, and nobody seemed to care.

I heard someone say that this is why we love our hometown. This is why we will always feel strongly connected to things that are familiar. Because it is our responsibility to care about what is close to us. Whether it is a place or people or even a Slovakian hockey player, we are put in a certain situation and we are told to take care of it. We have a responsibility. So, when there is an earthquake in China and nobody knows, at least I know and can tell people about it so that they will know. On top of that, you can be sure that there were a lot of people here in China that cared a lot about the people in the quake. They were taking care of what they were given.

So, when a hockey team dies in an instant, I take part in the responsibility in remembering and praying for him and his family. I cried for the guy. This is a strange thing, when someone you never met nor thought about for a long time dies. Suddenly they become dear to you. When I think about Pavol and his wife, Maja, the news that they lost a son (Tobias) in his infancy, it is all very heartbreaking knowing that his other two children, Lucas and Zara, are left without their hero of a dad. And for Maja, besides with her own health problems, the pain of losing a child and then sticking together through it all, only to have the one you stuck close to be taken away as well.

There is nothing good about a plane crash, No, "God is in control" kind of talk can convince me that this is a good thing or that I should feel okay with it. Yet, despite all of the horror, there is always hope.

I don't know what Demitra's personal beliefs were, but there is always hope for us. In believing that God never gives up on his creation I can know that there is hope for Pavol. There is hope that he and Tobias are reunited, or someday will be. It would be a much more sorrowful situation if I had to say that there is no hope. That God has given up. That once you die and don't know about God, that his love for you is distinguished, like a candle.

I used to believe this kind of thing because it seemed to be what everyone else believed. Then I remembered the stories. The stories Jesus used to try to tell the people about his Father's love. The stories of the coins and the sheep. The lost son. The father never giving up on his son, the Shepherd leaving the rest of the sheep to venture off to seek and find that stupid, confused, 'free willed' little lamb. I started to make a little more sense of the whole thing. I will always love my 2 boys, how much more does God love every one of his children?

Every tear will be wiped away. Every sorrow a distant memory.

I'm not sure how it all works, but I believe in hope. That there is hope for everyone and that that hope never burns out.

So when I picture Pavol growing up playing hockey, following his dreams, falling in love, raising children, and being a gentleman about it, I think that it would be my prayer that this guy would one day know the lover and creator of it all. The way he passed the puck was a beautiful, God-given gift. Someday, because of a loving God, the grief and misery of death will lose it's sting when the lost are found.

'Lord let your kingdom come.'

Black Contacts: Part 3

2011-09-07T18:55:00.000-07:00

An update on the black contact lens trend...

You know when you are watching a cartoon, like say the Care Bears, and you look into the eyes of those friendly little guys? Well, if you look closely you will see a dot of white in there, circling the center of the black. I recently found out why that dab of white is there. It's there because without it the cartoon would not look alive. It would look like a lifeless drawing, which it is, but with that splash of white it magically transforms into a life-like little friend.

I noticed this while watching Xi Yang Yang with the boys. It's a Chinese cartoon and there is a bad little wolf who continuously tries in vain to catch all of the happy little goats. Well, this wolf actually works for his wife, who scares and threatens him into doing her dirty work. She is kind of like No-Heart, the villain from the Care Bears that I was so scared of when I was little. The thing about the Wolf's wife is that when she is angry her eyes turn completely black without that life-like little shtickle of white. She looks very scary in this state and her poor little husband runs away to find a way to make her happy. Well, No-heart's eyes are actually red and the rest of his face is covered by the shadows of his purple cloak. But make no mistake, there aren't any dabs of white within the red. Not at all. A complete goner, over to the dark side with Sideous and The emperor.

The Point...

I've made this point before, but the black contact lens thing makes it look like you do not have a soul. If the cartoonists have figured it out I can only hope that the fashionably desperate will figure it out soon enough.

I must continue to look into this until i find peace.

New Series

2011-09-01T18:38:00.000-07:00

I've dusted off the ol' blog. Born in the month of May is back. I look at other people born in May and I try to learn a little bit about their lives and share a little bit of what I learn.

There are not a whole lot of rules to the format, but I'd like to shed some light on things that I have forgotten or never knew in the first place and I hope to appreciate and find some sort of inspiration from them.

More or Less Fortunate : After 2 Days

2011-08-27T19:59:00.000-07:00

Zi Wei acting for the first time.

Yesterday we completed day 2 on set for my short film tentatively titled More or Less Fortunate. The story follows a 11 year old girl in her struggle to provide for herself and her alcoholic father. I won't say any more than that at the moment.

The way things work for making a short film in China are surprisingly similar to the way things work in Hawaii at the film school. Once you get the script sorted out you need to roam around trying to find someone to act in it and a place for them to act at. I did a lot of scouting for this one, trying to find locations where there wouldn't be 100 curious Chinese people getting in the way. The 3 main locations are a field by a river, a building complex, and inside a friend's modest apartment. After 2 days, we have completed the river side part. The other areas will be a bit more tricky.

As far as the first two days, things went really great. We had 2 actors working, myself directing, my friend Brian as Assistant Director, our local friend helping with the actors, and her husband as an actor and a production assistant as well. Different hats worn by a variety of people.

As we went out to shoot I couldn't help but wonder how the neighborhood would handle us being there. As I've said before, some people around here react and communicate in very strange and unexpected ways. And although this neighborhood is sparse in population, I knew that we would run into a few people here and there.

In the above photo, the lady in the background is getting in the way. It was no big deal for me though. They were all very interested in what we were doing. When we arrived I asked if we could "take some pictures" and they smiled and said of course. They all gathered around the tiny LCD monitor as we filmed Zi Wei (the little girl) walking up the road. They all thought that it was very interesting. I am very thankful that they were all so hospitable in opening their tiny little road to us.

We had another old man without teeth talk to us in English. I've always heard that you should expect the unexpected when you go out to shoot a film. If a location is quiet every day you go to scout it out, it will more than likely be busy and difficult to work with when you arrive with camera in hand. The fact that in 6 years I've never met a man this old who could speak English proved the point with an exclamation point!

As far as directing goes, things went well. None of the actors could speak English. It was hard to give them "results driven" directing; the kind where you get a reaction or emotion out of them that looks and feels natural. I think that the cultural differences and lack of acting experience left me a little empty in this area. In the end I was basically saying stuff like "now smile", Now, raise your eyebrows. You are surprised.". This, we were taught, it a bad way to work with the actor because there is no context to it and it ends up looking fake. I'll need to figure out how to get this communication going a little better for next time. Directing is not really natural for me. Directing in Chinese goes without saying.

The other big thing that I have had to work around is schedules. As of tomorrow, all of the actors will be really busy as summer vacation is over and it's back to work and school. I need to try to squeeze in at least 2 more shooting days on a Saturday and perhaps one of the holiday days that takes place around the 10th of September. Of course, this is a threat to the continuity of the whole thing. That is why we finished up the river side stuff. If the weather gets colder then it's not so bad because we will be in a different location which will not need to match up as much.

My hopes going into this project were very low. I was not expecting to makes a killer movie right off of the bat here. I am mostly just happy and excited that we have actually shot something already and I have a few people interested in the hobby and donating a substantial time commitment.

After the first 2 days I am pleasantly surprised. I can say that, if all goes well and we actually get to shoot the rest, it will be a lot better than the first movie I made in Hawaii, which actually isn't saying that much. Saying it will be much better is saying something and I will not hesitate to say that.

"It will be much better."

The other thing I keep affirming is that my favorite things about film making are the writing, the location scouting, and the camera work. Directing will grow on me as my confidence increases. I don't really like producing at all.

The indoor scenes will prove a challenge. Without lights I need to get creative. I don't think that there is anything available in this city and if there is it is way out of my tiny little budget's range. I will load up the apartment with lamps with high wattage bulbs and go from there. I am looking forward to the challenge.

Come September, I will get some of the guys on Campus who have expressed interest in learning stuff and I will teach them. We'll see how that goes, but having more people would be great.

All in all, I'm very happy to be working on a project and to be learning quite a bit even after 2 days.

Continously on the hunt for their own self esteem

2011-08-25T17:47:00.000-07:00

A reference:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-wGbCEaCmE

A few of us have translated Douche Bag into Chinese as 堵车袋子 "Du Che Dai Zi", which really only means traffic jam bag. Though it is not accurate, it has stuck. Up until recently, I thought that the only person in this neighborhood worthy of the term was my American friend Dustin. But yesterday, that all changed...

I saw them yesterday, with my own eyes... Chinese Douche Bags!

They were 'comin' right at me, Bro!', or '过来就到我，哥哥！’.

Actually, they were walking down the road at the same time as me. Let me explain how I was able to spot them:

1. There were 3 of them. As far as I know, Douche Bags don't travel in groups smaller than 3. Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I can gather, if they would travel in a group with less than 3 peers in it then they would all fall over.

2. They had their collars 'popped'. One of the shirts was pink. It was at this tell tale sign that I could definitely confirm that they were genuine. Pink is very 2005, which is, if I'm correct, the year of Jubilee for the Douche.

3. Even though there was plenty of space on the sidewalk, they walked on the road.

4. One thing that I noticed with the Chinese Douche is that they spit a lot, even more so than regular Chinese men. At least one of these guys was spitting every 10 seconds.

I can only hope that I am lucky enough to come across more of these guys. I'm curious as to the qualities unique to Chinese douche bags that I might have missed the first time around. My hypothesis is that they have evolved in a uniquely Chinese way and it would be very interesting and enlightening to see just how that has worked out for them.

Man, I wish I had a camera yesterday. These guys were straight out of an episode of "Shang Hai Shore". Fascinating specimens, they certainly are.

Woody's Round-up

2011-08-16T02:07:00.000-07:00

This week we've been up to a lot of things. I will try to give you the spin that you are looking, dreaming and hoping for.

Firstly, I followed the sunset the other day and came up with some nice little nuggets of gold. The above is my favorite. I call it Leaves ordained by their creator.

Selah

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I signed up to Google+. So far I am friends with Bill and Joel. Joel seems to like it and I have enjoyed looking at the pictures that Bill has posted.

It kind of feels like the frame of a large building in there. I see that the foundation is poured and that there are beams holding each other together, but other than that I think that I will probably need to wait a while before we see more builders in there.

Meanwhile, Facebook has slowed down quite a bit over the last few months. Either that or people just don't like talking to me anymore. As I've mentioned here, I had a feeling that it was coming to this. I just cannot stomach the updates anymore. People telling me what they are doing every second of the day is boring for me. I can't imagine how the Twitter people do it. In fact, I can't quite figure out why I signed up to Google+. I'm not sure why, but I have a feeling that a sort of 'fear of the future' was involved there. I'm not sure what that means, but it tends to prompt and direct me into numerous things.

I have just found out that Google+ is a word on Blogger and Facebook is not. This is of course because Blogger is owned by Google. It's getting pretty scary, isn't it, when Google tells me what qualifies as a word. What's next... anal probes?!

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In other news, we spent the weekend in the mountains. We stayed at a sort of hotel thing with a bunch of other foreigners. It was a pretty good time. We even had a cookout with hotdogs. Someone cooked giant beef ribs on the fire. It was quite a scene.

Through all of the fun and good times I couldn't help but notice what a dump the place was.

Wait, first of all let me say that the national park that we were in is beautiful. This whole country is beautiful, and it was nice to go into the mountains and sort of pretend that we were back in Alberta listening to the river roar and the Moose getting it on.

There are no Moose in this national park, but they do have roaming pigs. This place is a pig paradise. There is trash everywhere. It would be so much better if they cleaned the place up a bit. Throw a little money at the problem. There are thousands of unemployed people that could come in and get paid to clean the place up. They could teach children to care about this national treasure and that throwing plastic trash out of your car window is bad for your grand children's health. The future is important for all of us, and especially for the Chinese. If there are going to be 2 billion people living here, then keeping it kind of neat should be a priority. They definitely have the man power to do it.

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Speaking of dirty, Jonas is basically potty trained now. He doesn't like speaking much, so we kind of have to guess on when it's time to do his thing. But compared to Miles, Jonas sure knows how to hold in the urine. He can go hours at a time. The problem is that if we are too late after those hours of holding it, then there will be hours worth of urine on the carpet and a bashful looking Jonas with wet tighty whiteys and legs.

Nevertheless, nevertheless is my favorite word. It's like a run on word.

Nevertheless, it's nice to rid ourselves of the diapers for a while. We might have another kid or two down the road, but for now it's nice to save a little money in that area. Also, being in China we can limit the amount of eternal garbage (a wrapped up diaper) we contribute to this place.

Finally, my other blog will be added to more and more as the days go by. It will have some stories, poems and other things. Originally, I was not sure why I started another one but now I see that I can differentiate between the two based on the topical differences and the like. Sorry to make it complicated but it feels good to make it kind of organized on here.

So keep your eyes open for that kind of jazz over here.

And another thing!

2011-07-31T09:56:00.000-07:00

Lime juice from the import store + Chinese beer = cheap imported beer.

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The best way to shake off a significantly annoying and arrogant image is for a football team to sign a guy who went to jail for accidentally shooting himself in the leg.

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Did American Apparel really go bankrupt? This would be a significant blow to the future survival of my closet. They're running a few men short as it is. Their t-shirts are very comfortable. I am wearing 2 right now.

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The Norway thing is very sad. Horrible stuff. I think of my Norwegian friends and my heart goes out to them and their country. No words can express. There is a scripture that says that the Spirit intercedes for us. I think of that scripture in times like this.

At the same time, it is also sad that Amy Winehouse died. It is no less sad. It can be just as sad. There is enough of us to mourn both situations, no?

As a society, we have a bad habit of trash talking dead celebrities. As if that will make us feel better about our non-celebrity selves.

"Oh, she was a drunk and an addict. And all those tattoos? What a waste."

From what I've heard, it would be pretty easy for anyone to get caught up in all of that junk when they reach the big time. The sad thing is that she is dead. The other sad thing is that, with the way the whole system is set up, there will be many more celebrities dying from substance abuse.

The truth is that Amy Winehouse had an amazingly powerful singing voice that is now forever silent.

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Chinese labor workers usually wear army camouflage clothing. I am not sure why but they do. Despite the camo my son Jonas can still see them. He calls them "bad guys". I am not sure why. Maybe because they're wearing army camouflage clothes.

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Cars 2 is an entertaining movie but I can't help but think that they pushed things a little too far too quickly. Mater equipped with fully automatic machine guns? A female car named "Holley Shiftwell"? Cars trying to kill other cars? Turning James Bond into a cartoon?

Whatever happened to us all laughing as Chick Hicks makes a fool of himself in the winner's circle? It seems like Pixar has things geared more and more towards the parents rather than the kids.

For me, the truth is that I'm kind of sick of all of the side jokes aimed at adults. Make a kids movie for kids and make it completely in the way that would make the kid understand and enjoy all of it.

And another thing! Why can't there be a lesson of reconciliation in there somewhere? Maybe the bad cars can somehow become good cars. Maybe the evil guy in Toy Story doesn't have to be carted away in shame and humiliations all of the time. Anyone can see that Stinky Pete just wanted to be loved just as much as any of the other toys.

Maybe the lesson could be to work out your differences. We could all learn from that lesson, though kids retain information better and learn faster than adults so it would be especially important for them.

Or I could just turn the TV off I guess.

Your tee time is at 6:27am

2011-07-26T05:26:00.000-07:00

Barrhead, Alberta. 2009

Through the glowing, heart beating race of life there are so many things to keep us entertained. I feel like most of the world is centered around entertainment. "I can't see a meaning in all of this so entertain me until I die."

Funny faces, play pen, Little Einsteins, show and tell, video games, making out, going to the movies to make out, going for a drive just to make out, football games, golf, strippers, chess, going for a walk at an age where holding hands is equal to making out, watching TV, making funny faces to grandchildren, watching more TV, death.

Somewhere in there is golf.

According to my friend/The Internet, golf's origin is debated muchly. Like everything else, it's either from the Romans or the Chinese, though the modern game originated in Scotland. King James the 2nd banned the game because he said that it distracted people from their archery lessons. Where as Lebron James is a basketball player who took his talents to the beach.

That thing about archery made me think that there is more to the story if I were to use logic and push it back a few years. Somewhere along the line someone was sick of archery. This person was probably high class, therefore he had a lot of money and time to figure out exactly how to invent the modern game of golf. This person was more than likely a pre-enlightenment douchebag. Actually, he would probably be more famous for being the first douche than the inventor of golf if his identity were known today. No doubt that when he stepped up to the tee and would pop his collar everyone in the group would secretly roll their eyes.

"But Brett, why are you so negative towards this unknown golfer? This nameless hero, if you will?"

I don't mean to speculate, but from watching movies and reading Anna Karenina I can decipher that anyone who did anything significant back then had money. These people were usually selfish 20 to 40 something year old men who spent their time trying to steal some innocent peasant's virgin wife. Along the way they discovered things like golf and polo and all kinds of things that take time and patience to play. These guys were so rich and bored that they actually invented complicated and time consuming games to play on large areas of grass that some poor fellow needed to cut with his bare hands.

"That's an interesting theory, Brett. But where are you going with this? I've got a tee time at 6:27 tomorrow morning."

Exactly! 6:27 am. Because by 6:31 you better be down the fairway. This is another example of the European aristocratic influence on western society. The same stain is found in baseball, though I don't know how it seeped into the American pass-time. "The first pitch is at 7:05 so we should leave around... 6:22."

My caddie and me in Thailand, 2008

The point that I am not trying very hard to get to is that there is supposed to be a golf course somewhere around here. I heard that they had built it an hour or so outside of Xining but I have not heard if it is finished. The other more pertinent point is that even if this golf course does exist I do not have clubs and I am sure that playing at this course would be far too expensive for anyone to play besides the 0.05 % of the population that they built it for.

"But Brett, aren't you considered 'rich' in China? I mean, you have food to eat, right?"

Yes, we are rich. We are definitely rich here. We have an apartment and we can make food with import store products.

That being said, there is a tennis court in town that we can play at if we pay 140 yuan an hour. That is a little over $20 Canadian an hour. That is why I don't play tennis. I don't have a whole lot of hope that I will be playing golf this year either.

I was reminded of golf the other day when I was walking through our complex to our building. After walking past the stench of the giant garbage can my senses were overwhelmed by the smell of fresh cut grass. They cut the grass about once every two months. Needless to say it is an event I look forward to each and every time.

Fore!

So, I popped in the DVD and then what happened was...

2011-07-22T00:31:00.000-07:00

Some of you may have noticed a little area to the right that tells you what movies I have enjoyed recently. They are not limited to new releases.

I have a hard time tracking down new releases. I know that there are ways to watch on the Internet but more often then not I find that the quality of the movies and speed of the connection are not as 'spot on' as I would like. Therefore, I am basically limited to watching whatever I can get my hands on. This usually means Classics, 80's Action, Oscar winners that I've never seen, Hitchcock, cartoons with cars or some sort of talking animals and Chinese movies..

Now with this approach, I am actually quite surprised that I have not enjoyed that many movies lately. I saw one called I am Love staring Tilda Swinton. There are parts that I loved about this movie but there were more parts that I did not like at all, including the parts where they show too many people parts;)

I watched a Chinese movie called Yi Yi. It was really good, but not "3 hours long but it's so good so I'm going to keep watching" good. Actually, at the point that I gave up I started to fast forward thinking that I was near the end. Well, the fast forwarding took a really long time and I think I gave up on that and just went to scene selection and found the last one.

Then we have director Kar Wai Wong. I watched In the Mood for Love and Chung King Express and loved both of them. To my delight I found a few other of his movies. I soon found that I was not a fan of all of his work. The look of his movies is very interesting, but the topics* seem too drab and empty to maintain my attention for the duration of the film. Needless to say, after crawling through My Blueberry Nights I have left both Ashes of Time and 2046 unopened on my shelf for quite sometime now.

*Something about a wandering woman or man who gets lost in the confusion that is life and the big city.

Brothers was okay. I like the story. I had a hard time believing that Tobey, Natalie and the gang were actually adults with real families and problems and stuff. Maybe Natalie can gain 5 or 30 pounds for her next "mother of an 8 year old" role. She looks like she's heading into 10th grade. I will say that the movie was interesting and that Tobey even took it to a slightly higher level in this one, despite the fact that he still looks so cute and teenagery.

I've seen True Grit a few times now. I think that most people have seen that one. I don't know anyone that didn't like it.

That's about as new as it gets. I look forward to seeing Tree Of Life within the next 3 or 4 years. I heard that Super 8 is entertaining.

This week we had a good time with Scott Pilgrim verses the World. Have you seen that one? I had pretty low hopes for it. Not MacGruber low, but low enough as not to be expecting too much. I found it to be entertaining, funny and very creative. I would recommend that people of a reasonable age watch it. Or maybe you're all over your Micheal Cera phase. He is timid and awkward and such, just like all of his other roles, but somehow it still works for me.

That is about it when it comes to movie watching. Lack of good movies has given me more time to tweak my fantasy baseball team, write, and read on my Kindle. As always, I also anticipate the upcoming NHL season with great... anticipation. Only 2 and a half months away!

This is pretty much the extent of my exposure to a fabricated western culture. I get home sick quite a bit, but these kinds of internet hobbies help take the edge off. I also eat a burger at Bill's Place once in a while. Also, I hear that The Greenhouse has 'pour over method' coffee now.

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Regarding my movies, today I had a little meeting with a prospective actor for a short film I want to make next month. It looks like it will work out. She is an 11 year old girl that I need to look like an 8 year old. When I met her I thought that she was 9, so that's good enough for me. I have a few other parts to cast and I need to confirm a friend's apartment for use as a location. It's fun being back in the pre-production phase of things. I have faith that it's going to work out. In any event, it will be fun and educational to at least give it a try.

More on all of this later.

Swimming with the fishes and other happenings

2011-07-17T23:49:00.000-07:00

We went to the park last week. The People's Park, in fact. It's really nice this time of year and we figured that Friday would be better than the busy weekend. We figured correctly.

The boys went on some rides, the train, and played in the playground. They even got some ice cream!

Miles Waiting patiently.

Miles reaping the rewards of patience.

They also tried to catch some more fish friends for our pet fish Flowerduna, whom Miles caught and won as a prize on our last visit to the park. Well, this time it didn't work out so well but we ended up buying 2 more fish anyways.

Miles with Flowerduna, April 2011

Fast forward 24 hours...

A sad day in the Gitzel apartment this week. Our first pet, Flowerduna the fish, passed away. She was far too young. Oh the places she could have gone to.

The cause of death seems to be the arrival of 2 new fish, Fireduna and Sunny. We think that the new fish were not eating the food, thus Flowerduna gorged herself on too many little pellets of food. Or... it just might have been murder. Fish on fish murder. We don't know these new guys that well at all. In fact, Fireduna and Sunny might not even be their real names!

The new guys getting used to the spacious territory

Jonas didn't really notice too much of what happened. Miles on the other hand learned something new. When we told him that she was dead he laughed, not really understanding the situation. Then we said that we had to flush her and that she could never come back. He thought that that was strange, but was more curious than broken up about it.

Do I hate the new fish for killing Flowerduna? Do I hold them responsible for Flowerduna's death? Do I think that they might be racist fish with an agenda? I do and I don't.

We gathered around the toilet and flushed her down. That was it. The other two fish continue to survive and I think that they are eating alright. I still step lightly around their bowl, not wanting upset or aggravate them. I mean, they've already committed one murder this week.

But poor Flowerduna couldn't cope with new environment.

"So long, golden little fish. You will always be our first pet. You did a good job, kid. Swim on into that vast ocean of eternal sewage."

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I ordered a hat online and had a friend bring it out. My regular hat is faded pretty bad from the hot sun up here and I've always wanted a San Fransisco Giants hat. I ordered an XL. Well, as the story usually goes, it does not fit. It sits hanging from my lamp, as a reminder that I am not a normally sized headed person and I never will be.

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Two more things.

I ate the first fruits from my pea plants. Crunching into those bad boys took me back to the days when we would pick peas in our back yard. Or in particular, I remember picking peas in Uncle Randy and Auntie Janice's backyard before they built their garage.

The sweet basil is also growing nicely. I put it on pizzas and in spaghetti sauce. Very nice touch. I love Basil. Heck, maybe we should name our next fish Basil. Basilduna...

basil on the left, cilantro in the back, and mint in the foreground.
That's how they roll.

The mint is also growing well. What do I do with mint? Manufacture chewing gum? Mojitos?

The cilantro is soaring to new heights. I am trying to figure out how to use the stuff since Barbara doesn't like it at all and I only like a bit of it with Mexican food. Why did I plant it in the first place?

My worm bin has been around for over a month now and thee little guys are still chewing away. It's working pretty well. Worms and fish are about the only pets I am interested in having in this apartment.

What an emotional week.

So long, Min Yuan

2011-07-14T06:41:00.000-07:00

participating in the Sports Day Parade, 2008

There are many things that I hate about Min Zu Da Xue here in Xining. If I get overwhelmed by the pressures of culture and differences all around me then I often indulge in complaining and whining about them. It's one of my favorite pass times.

Thursday was my last class at Min Da. I had been going to the school to study Mandarin off and on for over 5 years. This landmark on Brett Gitzel Highway is proudly hoisted and planted, and through all of the frustrations and anomalies I can't help but feel a sort of fondness towards that place. The people, the buildings, the changes over the years all give me a sense of belonging. If you've been a student at Min Da (or Min Yuan as we all call it) then you would agree with me on a few things:

The smell of the bathrooms waifing into the classrooms.

There's nothing quite like it. Sitting there, trying to figure something out in those white-washed walled caves. Suddenly, the stench of death arrives. The strange thing is that, after 5 years, it doesn't bother me at all anymore. In fact, the smell of other peoples crap and urine actually brings back fond classroom memories. It makes me think back to that first semester with Chris, Rachel, Alicia, and Tyler. We all thought that it was the strangest and grossest thing. I have heard that smells had the ability to trigger memories, I just never thought that this would be one of them.

Like most students, we have had some great times with our teachers.

I love the teachers. All of them. I've said it before, but I accidentally punched one in the face, causing swelling and a black eye, and she still interacts with me! What a great/forgiving person.

They have all been great. Comedy runs naked and wild in the classroom. It's nice to know that humor speaks many different languages.

I remember have one semester where it was just me in the listening class. The teacher was a lot like my grandma Derman. She was in her 50's but grew up on the campus. She was full of stories and liked listening to mine.

Bai Lao Shi has been a true friend to the family. She was our first teacher when we arrived on the scene in 2006. Yesterday, we all took her out for lunch. Great bookends to a 5 year run.

Presenting Bai Lao Shi with an orange I drew on, 2007

The sacred grounds of Min Yuan.

Many students would remember the large, brown dirt field that sat behind the library. It just sat there. There might have even been poop on it.

I remember playing baseball on that field and running for my life when a ground ball came my way. The ball would be hopping like a bunny rabbit. I remember when someone hit the ball into a yard and smashed some bricks. No big deal.

These days, the field has been replaced by 100 yards of cement, trees and bushes, and a giant rock in the middle. There is also an elaborate fountain system that they never turn on. Because of a lack of benches and tall trees, the place lays deserted most of the time. As I have found out, it is also illegal to ride your bike on the cement. In fact, it is a downright crime against the Great Wall itself.

All around the campus, there are beautiful grassy areas. The local students, who mostly grew up on the grasslands of Tibet, are not allowed to sit on the grass. The foreigner who is typing right now was verbally assaulted for going on the grass. The grass is God at Min Da. No one knows why, it was just that why when they got there.

The Foreign Student's Office

There are some great people that work in the Wai Ban. Mr. Bai is one of them. We've known him for over 6 years now and he is always helpful, friendly, reasonable, and caring.

An example. The last apartment that we lived in before this one was owned by one of the presidents of the school. We never saw the guy. He was busy. Never ever met him. Mr. Bai was the go-between. Anytime we needed to pay rent or if we had a question we would ask Mr. Bai and then he would relay the message on to "The Man".

Last year, about 2 months before we were going to leave to go to Kona for 6 months, we asked Mr. Bai if he could ask the landlord if we could extend the lease. We wanted to stay there and we wanted to figure it out because our current lease would be running out while we were away. Mr. Bai got back to us with a "He's thinking about it." About a month later we heard that he thinks that we might be able to work something out, but he's still not sure. We told him that we needed to know soon so that we would have time to find a new place and move our stuff. Well, 2 weeks before we were leaving and the guy tells Mr. Bai that we cannot extend the lease. Miraculously, we found a new place.

The worst thing was that, while we were away, people like Dustin and Morgan had to do a bunch of stuff to the apartment to make it acceptable to the landlord; repainting it and putting in a bathtub were just some of the things that these guys needed to do and repainting and putting a tub in are some of the things that foreign guys like us hate to do. It was great they helped us out, but I was kind of annoyed at the landlord, especially because we paid so much money make the place livable when we moved in. He got all of that for free and on top of it he wanted us to pay for painters and a tub? I am annoyed.

Well, fast forward to this last Christmas. We were at the school Christmas party. I was chatting with Mr. Bai as he was pouring me a glass of wine. He comes out of nowhere and says, "Listen, Brett, I just want to apologize for all of the trouble that you had to go through with the old apartment. It was not fair to you." I told him it was no big deal and that communication is always a problem. But that was beside of the point. The point is that I had never had an person in his position apologize to me. The other point is that it wasn't his fault. Just an example of the kind of guy Mr. Bai is.

There are others in the office. They all work hard for the students, though I will say that some of them don't really know how to relate to foreigners very well. This can make for some frustrating communication problems. I have heard of verbal arguments between some of the students and staff. This is not a good thing.

My opinion is that the school would do well to hire a foreigner who would relate and communicate with the 130 foreigner students that are registered with the school. This person would also work closely with the staff to make everyone happy with the foreign student's role in participating in school events. It seems that the school has high aspirations for the foreign students and it also seems that none of the foreign students have any interest in achieving these heights. We just want to learn.

That being said, this is a different country and they do things differently here, so there could probably be a compromise somewhere in there. It just needs to be toned down a bit. It's at the point now where the staff are recruiting any white person to represent the school by dancing and singing in traditional minority people group clothing. The contest is in Beijing. I don't know about you, but I don't really have the time, desire, or skills to learn a dance, sing a song, and travel across the country to pretend that what I am doing is a true representation of the kind of people we have at our school. That being said, maybe someone else is into that kind of thing. Good luck to you.

In any event, I will mostly have good things to say about the school. I'm sure that I will miss it some time down the road. The Brett Gitzel Highway. Next stop... studying with a tutor, which I am sure will usher in a brand new flavor of interestingness.

July 4th - America Day!

2011-07-04T07:31:00.000-07:00

Hello, America!

First of all, this is for America the country, not the band and not the actress.

You shelter my native land from the south. You are my Prime Minister's Inspiration. Your muscles make him blush.

I have spent a considerable amount of time in America. Most of that time was spent in Hawaii, which is technically America, but it often does not feel 'Americay' at all.

We are also friends with a lot of Americans. We spend a lot of time with that kind of people... Americans!

To celebrate this day I would like to share some of the things I love about Americans:

Firstly, Americans love Canadians. At least, they pretend to. I think that this is neat. I once had an American bake a cake for my birthday. I needed a ride once, and an American picked me up in his jeep. One time, an American was playing basketball and he let me play basketball with him. Great stuff! Great people... Americans!

Secondly, if there is something wrong with me, like if I don't speak English correctly or I say kilometer or centimeter or spell kilometre of centimetre, an American will laugh at me. It's great because it's deserved. The trick is to pretend that they are laughing with me and not at me. That way, I feel like one of the gang, like an... American!

Thirdly, Americans want to know about Canada. They like to ask us questions about Canada, like "Is there really a place called Saskatchewan?" and "How many kinds of maple syrup are there?!" The great thing about these types of situation is that, because I am a Canadian, I can just make stuff up.

"Saskatchewan's coastal cities are legendary."

"I love that, back home in Canada, we use beavers as remote controls. If there's one thing I miss, that would be it."

Forthly, Americans look like Canadians. So, when I am hanging out with Americans I can just pretend that they are Canadians.

Fively, I can say that I am very cultured because I hang out with people from other countries. Those countries are China and... Americans!

Americans smell like money. Americans have nice teeth. Americans shop on-line. Americans drink copious amounts of coffee and get their Canadian friends hooked on it as well. Americans have iPhones. Older American men have peppery, gray hair. Americans wear sunglasses. Americans have American children and I think that that is great.

I am thankful for my Americans. They are all around me and they have yet to kick me out. My gift to you is pronouncing "out" properly and trying to make sure I use the word "with" when it needs to be used. I also made a cake for an American once.

America is cool because it owes somebody trillions of dollars. I don't know who it owes but that is pretty cool that America doesn't really give a crap that it owes all that cash.

Speaking of Americans, Handy Manny is Spanish-American. He is the sexiest cartoon on tv right now.

Most of my favorite baseball players are Americans, or Latin American. There are very few good American Hockey players, but that is better than 10 years ago when there were 2. Most of the Canadian Football League is made up of Americans. Americans!

America is cool because it's also the name of a band. There could never be a band called Canada or East Timur. No, just America!

You say that Canada is your hat, so I will say that you are Canada's pants. You are very comfortable and you make our butt look great. I hope we can wear you forever.

So, thanks big brother. You have never ceased to love me whether I am in America, up on the hat, or over here on the wrist watch. Thanks for being everywhere for me. I love you, America!

3 cheers for America today.

U - S - A !

The Trifecta!

2011-07-01T02:23:00.000-07:00

July

Today is a special day for a lot of people for a lot of different reasons. It's also special for anyone that celebrates 'April Fools Day' in July. Though, they might just be fooling around.

When you think of 'the trifecta' you might think of this. But today there is another...

Back home, it is Canada Day. And no, it is not a day that Canada made up to copy the American’s July 4^th. This year, July 1^st is Canada’s 144^th birthday! Happy Birthday, Oldtimer! The day will be filled with barbecues, sprinklers, parades, fireworks, NHL free agency and much more festivities. Rumor has it that there might even be a bit of hullabaloo too. However, it cannot be confirmed.

Also, today is my mom’s birthday. It a shocking twist, it turns out that Mom is 29 years old today in mom years. How that works out in human years is anyone’s guess, if they dare. Happy Birthday, mom!

Finally, in China, it is officially the 90^th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party. I’m not sure how they will celebrate, but so far I have noticed a Chinese flag hanging from just about every store and restaurant in town. More could be said here, but I will refrain. Well, I’ll just say that I hope that the next 90 years are even better, way better, than the first 90.

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Last night we went for dinner at our friend’s house and low and behold, a famous person was there. His name is Benny Prasad. He is a roaming musician and inspiration. He has been to every country on earth. His stories of how he, an Indian, has been to every country without or asking for any money are nothing short of miraculous. How he got into North Korea and Pakistan to play his guitar are amazing examples of faith in God and an expectation to see His promises come to fruition. ‘Fruition’ is a great word. There is more to his story, of course, but most importantly he is a very friendly and humble man. It was really nice to get to know him a little bit and I wish him well as he plays some songs for people in and around the city this weekend.

Check out his videos. He invented a guitar and called it the ‘bentar’. It is a guitar with bongos in it and a harp on it. For extra entertainment watch him on the 100 Huntley Street videos. David Maine is hilarious!

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I just found out that China is ranked #39 in the world in Hockey. My goal? Bring it up to 38!

This blog is now mobile. Carry it wherever you go. Let it ride your bike. Let it mow the lawn. It's mobile! Apparently you can view this blog on your iphone now. That is, unless blogger is blocked in your country and you are vpn-less. In that case, continue to enjoy it on your 电脑 now!

Today, I miss my culture. My sweet Canadian culture

2011-06-28T05:31:00.000-07:00

Becky, My sister-in-law, worked at Smitty’s Restaurant for a few years. One day she needed a ride to work. On the way to work I put Radiohead’s “Creep” on the stereo. She kindly asked that I wouldn’t because she didn’t want to start her day with that kind of language. I agreed and put something else on. Thus is the cool way that my sister-in-law goes about life; trying to keep things positive, trying to get the day off on the right foot. I admire her for that kind of stuff.

This week, after much confusion, Ryan Smyth aka “Smitty” has rejoined the Oilers. I didn’t get that much sleep for a few days there because I kept checking to see if the trade really went down or not. But sure enough, he’s on the team again.

This is a really nice thing. He is a really great player, a nice guy, a good leader with experience and his mullet flows like a flock of doves over the morning dew on the prairie wheat fields. But we all know that. Tell us something we don’t know, Brett.

Well, that’s a difficult thing to do for a bunch of know-it-alls, but let me take a stab at it.

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Did you know that there are more tennis courts in this city that are not used than there are ones that are? Actually, throw basketball courts in there as well.

I was reminded of this today while on a bike ride. I rode through Kai Fa Qu and saw the 6 beautiful tennis courts that sit empty all week. The guard said that they are for the workers of a nearby China Mobile building and that they are used on the weekend. I highly doubt that they are used on the weekend.

Then I came around the corner to some sort of Police Academy. They have the nicest outdoor tennis court in town. All fenced in, filling up with dust. I am sure that in 50 years, that tennis court will be in a museum. The oldest, untouched tennis court in the world. I would encourage them to get American/Chinese tennis legend Michael Chang to do the ribbon cutting.

In that same yard is a really nice basketball court that sits. The hoops even have mesh on them. Really nice stuff. Wouldn’t want to ruin it.

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But what can you do? Things work differently here. I think that I am at a different place than I was a while ago. Here is what I think:

You never get used to another culture. I don’t care if you get dropped off of a boat as a baby; you are not made for the Jungle. This was confirmed when we watched Tarzan with the boys last night. Sure, Tarzan and Jane stayed in the Jungle (sorry for the spoiler) but the main problem that started the hold mess was Tarzan being mad at his “gorilla mom” for not telling him that there were other people like him. He got curious about his own people, since there was something in him that could connect with that.

So, you never get used to it, but things do seem to get better. Slowly you start to expect certain things to happen. When they do, like the traffic and other things they do differently, you start to think that you are slowly getting used to the culture.

But the main thing I have noticed is that all of the things I enjoy about this place are the things that I get used to. The things that I do not enjoy are the things that actually grate on me more. So, eventually, there is this great chasm between things that I enjoy and things that I don’t. That is why I can go out on a nice bike ride and then suddenly get angry that at police car just cut me off and has now decided to park in the middle of the road that I was trying to ride on. I enjoy bike rides but I don’t enjoy getting cut off by police.

What I need to do is to not let the crappy driver take away my bicycle riding enjoyment. This is the battle. This is the key. The struggle. This is why it’s so hard to live in another culture. It’s not because they eat different food or because you don’t speak the language. It’s because they are spoiling my bike rides. It’s because there are misunderstandings that go beyond language.

It’s because there are misunderstandings that go WAY beyond language.

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I’ve talked to people that have lived here for 10, 15, even 20 years. These are the people that usually laugh it all off.

“Oh, you want to pick up my kid and put your dirty hands all over his face? No biggy”

“Oh, you mean that your pizza comes with corn and cauliflower? Sounds good.”

“Right; I forgot that the grass is for dogs to poop on. My bad.”

I admire these “legends of Xining” that can let it all roll off their duck backs. I, on the other hand, often feel like a duck swimming in motor oil. Though, I guess, eventually all of that oil can get hosed off. Actually, wouldn’t the oil help with the stuff rolling off my back?

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Sister-in-law Becky is also very prudent with going to bed on time. If she goes to bed too late then she will usually tell us about it in a Skype conversation. Maybe she even has a bedtime, I don’t know. But why do I stay up until midnight every night? Who made me the boss? Sure, it’s nice to stay up late but it’s not nice to look like you stayed up late. And, most importantly, it’s not nice to feel like you’ve stayed up late. Staying up late is for rockers and I am 30 now so I guess I’m more of a folker.

We people need sleep. We need nice sounds entering our ears, like birds and coffee percolating. We need these things so that we can survive the bike rides.

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I told Barbara the other day that I am restructuring a few things. I’m going to add going to bed on time. I don’t think that I can just start going to bed at 10:30, so I’ll need to work my way to that type of goal. My music is usually “rap free” so I don’t need to worry too much about the language. I’ll have to put a limit on how often we watch The Wire though. That will be tough.

Other things I am restructuring?

Well, praise the Lord, I will be finished with school in 2 weeks. New work visas next semester mean that I don’t need to cross the “Death Zone” cross walk twice a day anymore. That kind of stress should melt away like a big brick of butter. Serenity now!

I am also going to battle the bike ride twice a week. It’s my favorite sport at the moment and I need to stay active in order to keep this locomotive a’ chuggin’.

My local friend, who is a teacher, said that his boss told them that they cannot spend all day inside, so he took them all outside to play volleyball. Volleyball is lame, but bless his heart he cares about his workers. I admire that man. He should be in charge of this place.

Now, I’m not really a “label guy”, but I am a pretty introverted fellow. I fight it now and then. I think it’s good to socialize with people so that they can know that you don’t hate them. I find it nice to get personal with people, one at a time, and often avoid the big group get togethers. I am not a regular at “Club Socialize”, their drinks are too expensive and their music is too synthasizery.

So, part of the restructuring involved some more “me time”. I am working on another script at the moment. I am also getting things together to take a stab at writing a book. These kind of things are in the “me time” category.

My favorite author is Douglas Coupland. My favorite artist is Wilco. May favorite movies are Coen Brothers made. I find that I admire these people not because they are famous, or successful, or even creative. I admire them because I feel like I know them. I’m going to work towards letting people know who I am. What am I waiting for?

So, if more sleep and more "me time" can help me enjoy my bike rides a little more then I think that it’ll be worth it. Thanks, Becky.

In any event, I look forward to listening to Ryan Smyth play for the Oilers this fall.

Fruit Salad for the Lao Wai soul

2011-06-23T05:13:00.000-07:00

First of all, I love fruit salad. The season is upon us and I have made a batch of the sweet stuff no less than 10 times since my birthday. Delicious, healthy, colorful, fresh. Like eating a rainbow.

The more you make fruit salad the better you get at it. Your senses zero in on the important parts. You quickly learn that there is no room for bananas in a fruit salad. They soak up too much of the juice and they dominate the flavor of every bite. They are like a stinky friend in a long elevator ride. "I'll catch the next one."

Mangoes, strawberries, apples, cantaloupe, honey dew, peaches, nectarines. I would add grapes but they are a little too pricey right now. cherries are nice, but way too much work.

Watermelon is the lettuce of the fruit salad. It holds the whole thing together and keeps it from just being a large bowl of cut up fruit. Thinly sliced, it is easy to take the seeds out of watermelon. After the seeds are removed you may proceed with the cubing of the melon.

Finally, a dash of lemon juice. You want citrus, but not too much. Let's be honest, your going to be eating multiple bowls of the stuff until it's gone. There is no need risking a canker sore to put you out of commission.

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It had been sunny for well over a week. plus 30 degrees Celsius. Beautiful stuff.

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Yesterday it rained all day. Today was nice but, as we were driving to the park, it started raining again. I like rain, but I think that along with the rain I have started to see a few bad cases of "the grumps" here and there, and even all around the square.

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So, let's conclude with a little bit of frustration. You might want to grab a bowl of fruit salad for this one.

Last week I was riding my bike through the campus. Suddenly, I heard some nice music coming from the far end of the square located behind the library. Well, I made a sharp turn, hopped the curb, crossed about 2 feet of grass and rode on the square towards the sweet music.

At this point I started to hear the yelling. I could tell that someone was very angry. Soon enough, I realized that the man was screaming, "Lao Wai! Lao Wai!" from the very bellows of his being. "lao wai" means "foreigner" in Chinese. So, I stopped my bike and turned around to see what all the fuss was about. The man, in his 40's, was standing over where I had cut across the tiny patch of grass. He continued to scream, pointing down to the grass like Jon Gruden might have done when pointing out a discrepancy with the referees while he was coaching the crappy Raiders of the NFL.

He screamed that I could not ride my bike on the grass. I knew this, though at the time I figured that it wouldn't be a big deal to cut through such a small section of it, and would most certainly not endanger any political ties that there may have been between my country and this beautiful one. I might have underestimated things a tiny bit.

Once I knew what he was talking about, I waved and called out "Dui bu qi", to him, which is "sorry". As I turned around to continue I realized that he wasn't finished with me. No, he was even angrier. I wondered what I was going to have to do to make this right. A public spanking? I don't know. Stranger things have happened.

In the end, the problem wass that I should definitely not ride my bike on the grass OR the square. The square in question is about 150 yards long and 100 wide. It is mostly cement with a fancy looking rock in the middle. Because of a lack of benches and tall trees for shade, the square is usually deserted. On this day, the only people I saw on it were the people in the choir on the other side.

So, needless to say, I was stopped again by the very angry man. It took me a moment to understand that I could not ride my bike on the cement. It took me longer to calm him down. Furious, he continued to berate me as though I was a 3 year old child. I held my own for a while, apologizing and explaining that there are not any signs prohibiting bikes on the square and that I am a foreigner and have yet to completely memorize the rule book of this country. On his part the cursing continued. I laughed a bit, which was not good.

I wanted to know what happened to him that day. I wanted to know why cement was more important to him than manners and courtesy. I wanted to know why this guy hated me for such a simple, understandable misunderstanding.

A couple of local guys I knew came up to see what was going on. I asked them why he was so mad. They simply said, "Because you can't ride you bike on the square."

Exhibit B

Today we had a little picnic in the grass behind our building. We had about 8 adults and 6 kids there. We had blankets spread on the grass and were trying to enjoy ourselves before a storm rolled in overhead. A few local people, as they usually do, stopped to admire the kids and guess what kinds of strange foreign foods we were eating.

After a while, one of the neighbors came up to us. He might have been in his 50's and he was out walking his dog. He went out of his way to tell us how rude we were being for having a picnic. That we were making a mess and that it was very rude. That we should not be on the grass wasn't really the point, as he said that it is fine that the kids play on the grass but that to have food on the grass is very rude and inconsiderate to the rest of the people who used the yard.

Time out.

First of all, there is not a lot of grass in this country. When someone plants grass they usually put up a cute little sign which translates into "We are tiny blades of grass, please don't hurt us". What they really mean is "stay the %@#* off the grass!". So, as it goes, there are little patches of grass in a lot of areas in this city that just sit there. The only thing you will ever see on a patch of grass are dozens of piles of dog crap. I joke that the grass is only for looking at and for dogs to crap on. So, when we went to picnic, and knew that there were not any signs prohibiting going on the grass, that the kids could play on the grass, that dogs could use it as a bathroom, we figured in our ignorance that it would be okay to enjoy what little piece of grass we could find that had yet to be defiled.

Anyways, it got a little weird. The guy asked where Dustin was from. He said America. The man asked if we would do something like this in America. He actually asked if we would have a picnic in America. Dustin said "of course" and the man laughed in disbelief. "Bu Ke Neng!" he laughed. "There is no way!".

Anyways, we packed up and got out of there. We were basically done eating anyways and it was starting to get colder out.

I wonder why these two men chose to yell and insult before asking politely. I wonder why they decided to be so hostile in such a simple situation. Maybe they had a bad day at work, who knows? But, the simple fact that we needed to dance around dog crap to eat our food and then have a grown man yell and call us rude for using the grass in a far less destructive way than most dogs would is something that I will ponder on this evening. Ponder I will.

After a few moments of pondering I realize that, at times, I am just as unreasonable as these.

But still...

Father's Day... the 4th!

2011-06-18T23:47:00.000-07:00

Happy Father's Day to all of the Dadeos out there. This day is a unique day in that most fathers probably forget about it until it actually arrives. Mother's Day, on the other hand, is an important day as everyone knows, and one that is anticipated and planned for many days in advance. Father's Day is a little sneakier.

For me, it sneaks up after my birthday. I have come to appreciate the day as they are slowly being tallied up. Today I was given these beautiful gifts from Barbara and the boys:

Beer and paperweights make my day.

This is my 4th Father's Day, even though Miles isn't quite 4 yet. I remember it being this time 4 years ago when a close friend sent a Father's Day greeting to me. Barbara was just 2 months pregnant but our friend was kind enough to point out that it has already begun. At the time I already had fathering responsibilities. The primary one was to make sure that Miles was well taken care of. The only way to do that, at the time, was to take care of Barbara.

I have friends right now in the middle of the long process of adopting. I've only heard a few of the many things they've had to do in order to get ready and "qualified" for this child. It's amazing to see them already mothering and fathering this child without even knowing him/her yet. The love and care that go into filling out forms and buying fire alarms are all ways of expressing their love to this child. Happy Father's Day to Justin!

Adoption has always seemed like a beautiful thing to me. When a movie has adoption in it, or when I meet people who have adopted, I am just in awe of how amazing and loving the whole thing is. Someday, lord willing, we will also be able to provide a home and family for someone who needs it.

Not only was it important to take care of Miles' mom at the time, but it was important to get into the mindset that I was going to be busier. I was going to have to sacrifice time and energy for this little guy. At first, it was easy to take care of Miles. He slept a lot, weighed about 10 pounds, and his mom did all of the feeding. I changed diapers, but even those weren't that bad at the beginning.

Now, Miles is 3 and a half, but I think that his smarts is more around a 5 year old's level. He's doing math now! I've got more responsibilities, and not only that, but when they get older it is easy just to put a movie on. It is easy to not play with my kids all day. It's easy to feed them instant noodles every day. It's easy to do all that because it's not right and the easy thing to do is usually the lazy thing. They need even more input and wisdom from me than they needed at the beginning. On top of that, they want to play with me. They are people and they actually like me. Who am I to ignore that kind of love?

Anyways, I am pretty, pretty happy that we had these two little boys. I am thankful that they are growing strong and that they love their mom and dad. I hope that I can limit my father screw ups to the minimum and that they won't hold them against me when they become cool teenagers.

Happy Father's Day to my dad, my mom's dad, and my wife's dad and the other dad's that I know.

To misquote Bruce McCulloch:

"These are the dads I know, I know, these are the dads I know."

Respect for the real losers

2011-06-16T07:54:00.000-07:00

I kind of dreamed about this post. Like it would never come true so I might as well have thought about what I would say since it wouldn't come true and a dream is all I had. Now that it has come true, I forgot about everything I was going to say.

I am referring, of course, to the Vancouver Canucks being upset by the Boston Bruins in their own building in front of a sell out crowd inside and a rowdy sum of 100 000 outside. I often look at such instances with a skewed brow, poetically fulfilling. I'm not quite sure why I think this way at all. It is similar to when I was rooting for the NY Giants to ruin Tom Brady and his perfect season. There is a deep, raw, and curious taste to these kinds of events that I, for some reason, enjoy.

I am by no means a Bruins fan. I don't hate them, I just don't really care. The truth is that it's kind of nice that they won the Cup. They hadn't won it since 1972 and the last time they were in it I was watching it at my piano teacher's house for reasons I cannot recall. I took piano lessons for a few weeks and it is strange that I remember watching hockey on one of those evenings.

So, when the Canucks unexpectedly forgot to show up to game 7, I was at a loss for words. The fight in the dog was thrown a bone. Make no mistake, Tim Thomas was a human magnet. Unbelievable goaltending that was ultimately, but not exclusively, the reason that Canada remains cupless since 1993. The Bruins came out onto the ice and willed the cup into their hands. The Canucks stood around and watched them take it out of their own building. I actually think that they had a hand in presenting the award.

I thought that I would feel joy. They could finally take the "Canucks Cup Quest" sign off of the TSN.ca website. The 1st round comments of "Ryan Kesler being in the Conn Smythe trophy conversation" are put to bed. All of the anticipation, all of the biting and diving and whining and game 5 post-game trash talking are all whispered away in the salty Vancouver sea winds. But the feeling remained... I felt really bad for the Canuck's fans.

I'm not talking about the people in the streets with the jerseys on their backs and the weapons in their hands. I'm not talking about the thousands of bystanders who did nothing but Youtube the whole thing to death. I am talking about the Trevor Linden fans, the Cliff Ronning and Pavel Bure fans. The ones that have had to sit around and listen to Oilers and Flames fans talk about the cups they won many decades ago. These are the real losers. Well, the players are the real losers, but they get paid millions of dollars and have a nice 3 month break starting tomorrow.

And by 'losers' I don't mean 'losers'. The real 'losers' are the ones that were taking turns beating up a helpless Smart car, or the teenage girls who were trying to bash a Sears store window in. The real 'losers' will hopefully be getting punished for destroying their city.

Now, the criminals are the ones who beat up a helpless security guard, like a page out of Douglas Coupland's Hey Nostradamus!., only the security guard didn't shoot anybody. These people should actually see jail time. You'd think that with thousands of cameras circling the mob there would be ample coverage to throw a lot of these guys in the slammer.

Anyways, back to the 'losers', the true Canuck fans. The one's who watched it at home because there is no way they could pay $8000 for a ticket to a sporting event, and if they could, they would do something wiser with the money. The ones who are sad today, but not hungover and incarcerated. The ones who look forward to next season with optimism and, hoping for a few tweaks and a bit more muscle, will most certainly enjoy their own celebration within the next few years.

If there is one good thing to come out of all of this (and you really have to look for it) it would be that a lot of people that don't really like the Canucks will feel sympathy for their real fans. It will take a while before the dignity that was stolen from them will be restored. Stupid riots. Go to a country that needs more rioters and protesters because all of theirs are dead and go riot there. They need more help.

After the dust settles, for Vancouver fans, I see a fresh start rising over the nation towards the West coast. New sympathy that will hopefully lead to a mutual respect between all Canadian fans.

"Sure, I hate the Canucks but man do I feel sorry for their real fans."

Like my sister-in-law, Krista. She's been a fan since she was little. She used to have a crush on Trevor Linden, maybe she still does. She felt pretty horrible that they lost, but definitely more horrifying for her was to see the ugliness that took place in the streets. She is embarrassed for her city. She deserves better than that.

Or Jim Hughson, the CBC's "homer" announcer. You can't blame a guy for being born in a city and then cheering for that city's team, can you?

I would mention other Canuck fans here but, quite frankly, they aren't the kind of people that I regularly associate with so I can't think of any others. But for Krista and to a lesser extent, Jim, I respect you as real hockey fans.

But now that the dust is settled, I have to say that I like the Canucks a little more than I used to. Maybe it's seeing their broken hearts in the locker room, slowly pulsing away all of the hope for a championship. The tears in Luongo's and Kesler's sexy eyes. The Sedin twins showing the emotion of two Swedish robots. Or 1 Swedish robot standing at an angle next to a mirror.

Thus begin the post-playoff traditions; packing up the locker room, All of those beard shavings littering the dressing room floor, scooped up, stuffed into a commemorative pillow and sold on eBay. Sweeping up riot trash and boarding up windows. The Value Village aisles, full to the brim with $150 jerseys. People starting to pretend that they care about the CFL.

I am an Oilers fan. For me, the season has been over for at least 2 months. Actually, it's technically been over ever since Ryan Whitney went down for the season sometime in January. I listen to the games on CHED's website. They lose every freaking time! And, I come back and listen again. I'll be there again in October. The team will most definitely continue to be horrible for years to come. But cheering for a team like that somehow gives me the same feeling as cheering for the Bruins or NY Giants does. In the same way, No Country for Old Men is my favorite movie. There is something about the carnage and tension that draws me in.

I stand with the real Canuck fans because I know what it is like to be a loser.

And, if one day the good Lord and the Oilers find themselves cuddled around the Stanley Cup again, I will celebrate all of the years of heartache culminated into one sweet moment of contentment. Then, and only then, will I check the baseball scores.

Strollin'

2011-06-09T05:35:00.000-07:00

This city is a beauty!

Yesterday I walked from our complex all the way down to the road where the train station used to be. It's a decent distance, I strolled and it took about an hour.

Our city is changing at a break neck pace. If you are in a taxi and zoom by some new developments, be careful while you look or you just might break your neck.

Along the river is just one of the places where there is a huge contrast between the old and the new. Sitting below the giant apartment buildings being constructed are old ping fangs made of brick that would surely crumble with the slightest of earthquakes.

There are still farmers living in the middle of the city, herding their sheep. There are still old style coal ovens firing away on the family meal. These people will soon be gone, replaced with the new developments. In the end, with the safety factor, this is a good thing. Though, as it usually is with change, this is kind of a sad thing. Where will these people go? What will they do with all of their sheep? Will they know how to use a gas stove without blowing themselves up?

I took some photos along the journey and I have added a few descriptions here and there. If you want to read them, and see the photo set on Flickr, then please click firmly on this area.

Check out the other photos while you're at it. More to come.

June

2011-06-02T07:26:00.001-07:00

June is here. Jonas turns 2 next week. I am still 30.

Last night, plenty of my relatives went to see U2. From my research I have concluded that Mom, Bryce, Barry, Cousin Rob, and sister-in-law Becky were all at the concert. Maybe that isn't so many after all, but at the time it seemed like everyone this side of Uncle Roy was at the party.

This is funny:

Friend Curtis and cousin Rob taking almost identical photos.

When Miles and Jonas found out that their Uncles went to U2 they asked if we could put in "The Bono DVD". It is a U2 concert DVD that the boys are quite fond of. It was almost like being there. Almost.

U2 is interesting in that everyone likes them. If someone says that they don't then they are lying and they secretly sneak a little Joshua Tree every once in a while to let loose on the drive to work.

I once read a Biography about Bono. I went in expecting to read about all of the amazing stuff the guy is apart of. Basically, I went in expecting it to be good, but nothing that I did not already know. Well, the book blew me away. A great read. I'm not sure which Biography it was. All I know is that the interviewer/author was a guy that has known the band since the beginning. He could have been wearing sunglasses and a black hoodie as well, I'm not sure. With that information I am certain that you can track down the title.

The thing I have that all of the concert goers do not is that I "See China right in front of me." So, even if I don't always feel like it, in a way, everyday is a beautiful one.

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How about those Canucks? They were 'biting' and clawing their way to a victory earlier this morning. What can you say about a player like Burrows? Everyone who has ever played sports can think back and remember there always being a guy like this in the league. I guess it wouldn't be the same without them.

I coined a new phrase in the Gitzel home today. Whenever Jonas gives Miles a little push or a shove and Miles overreacts by having a fit, which happens a lot, I say that Miles is "Pulling a Sedin." I think it will stick.

Barbara from the other room: "What's all of that crying and whining that I'm hearing?"

Me with the boys: "Oh, Miles just got Sedined again. He'll be okay."

Seriously, this could be a good series if everyone stayed out of the penalty box. Actually, I think that the Bruins could be the stronger team 5 on 5. If they keep giving the Canucks powerplays then this will all be over very quickly.

One final hockey note. Luongo is playing lights out right now. Someone once called him 'Jesus with pads' and I tend to agree.

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Every night we sing the boys some songs before they go to sleep. The boys have a new favorite song for me to sing. I sang it once and they immediately got hooked. Why I sang it once? I have no idea what it was doing lounging around in my mind. But, now that it's out there, it's pretty funny:

This is the song

This Winter, Canada will be a lot cozier

2011-05-31T09:37:00.000-07:00

It is very late here in Xining. Let me check... yup, it's 12:41 am. But when I heard that they were going to make it official at 12:15am, I needed to stay up for it, even if it was only by refreshing the TSN.ca website over and over again.

Winnipeg, a city that most people have never heard of, a city with a crappy CFL team, a city that, amazingly enough, I've never been too, is getting a hand-me-down NHL team!

"Sorry, Atlanta, but at least you still have Peachtree TV."

I don't know what it is. I am very happy about this. The Atlanta Thrashers are officially moving to Canada. A professional sports team from a real league (That is at least somewhat recognized in America) is moving to Canada. Someone with money said, "Hey, lets move a team from America to Canada."

This is a foreign Language in Canada. More people speak French. After losing The Winnipeg Jets, The Quebec Nordiques, The Vancouver Grizzlies, and numerous other teams that are too insignificant to mention, not to mention the Grizzlies, this is such a great thing.

For a moment, this made me forget that the Canucks are going to win the cup. It was a nice little moment that I enjoyed.

Most people want the new team to change their name to The Jets, of course. Moose and Falcons have been a few of the other suggestions. I have a few suggestions myself.

The Winnipeg Sexy Legs (because it rhymes)

The Winnipeg Winners

The Lake Province Hockey Badgers

The Prairie Area River Patrol

The Manitoba Tubas

The Winnipeg We have a team agains

The Winnipeg Winnipeggers

The Atlanta Thrasherpeggers

The Manitoba Mans

What does this whole thing mean for me? Well, not a whole lot, but it sure will be nice, this October, when I can listen to the Internet feed of the Oilers getting the crap kicked out of them by a real hockey team... from Winnipeg!

Goodnight Everyone.

Book Review: Photo Phonics

2011-05-29T01:10:00.000-07:00

I am reading a lot of books right now. Thanks to the Kindle app, I am cruising through a lot of interesting stuff... at great prices!

The one I would like to talk about is a book about photography. Actually it is called '25 Lessons I've learned about Photography... Life' and it is by a guy named Lorenzo Dominguez.

The first thing that I noticed was that it sells for 99 cents. I can't think of too many things that sell for 99 cents anymore. I remember a time when it seemed like every little thing was 99 cents. You could get a hot dog for 99 cents. There was the 99 cent store. You could go to the dollar theatre and watch a movie for just over 99 cents. The big Slurpee at The Red in Stony Plain used to be 99 cents, which would be $1.06 with the GST. I remember how annoying it was to always have to carry a dime along with my loonie while I rode my bike to the store. I was always worried that the dime would fall out of my pocket.

The next thing (this is usually the clincher for me) was all of the positive reviews. People took this for more than a photography tip book. It seemed like the author told a little about his life as well. For this little Phonics hooker, this was the ticket!

Some of the reasons why I like this book included:

The man lives in New York and tells about running around the city at night to capture interesting things on his camera.

He uses a Canon PowerShot, which is just a little point and shoot guy that allows for spontaneity and convenience. I love my DSLR camera, it takes great pictures all of the time and makes me look like I know a thing or two. But it's sometimes too bulky to carry around and be spontaneous with. Kind of like George Costanza's wallet.

The guy loves taking photos. He takes photos just because it makes his life better. He talks a lot about getting out there and living while taking photos. He likes to be able to see moments and then capture them while all of the New Yorkers are busy with their lives.

He is honest and open with the struggles of his life. I won't get into the details because you can get into them yourself for the price of a Slurpee 20 years ago.

Through it all, I have been inspired. The other day I walked all the way to downtown, snapping here and there along the way. We have a smaller littler Sony camera that I have been having fun figuring out. I took it along for the day. I have to say that it was a lot of fun.

A lot of people in this city don't like getting their picture taken. I figure that they own it to me since whenever my kids go out they are usually bombarded by camera phones in their faces. But, alas, if someone refuses a photo opp then I just dust off my feet and move a long. Others love to get their pictures taken. Others wonder why I am taking pictures. I am sure that some of the back streets that I walked are foreign to picture taking. I guess I'm sort of doing my part to document this ever changing city.

Another thing about Lorenzodom's photos is that a lot of them are nothing special. He has over 30 000 photos up on his Flickr account. A lot of the photos are amazing and composed very creatively, but a good amount of them are pretty normal. I am sure that he just likes sharing the whole experience with the viewers. A lot of the photos have a little story to go along with them. A lot of his photos seem to be experiments. Sometimes they don't always work out, as he suggests in the book, but that doesn't stop him from storming out there the next day.

I think that the main thing I have learned is that taking photos is mainly for the photographer himself. If you take photos to just be awesome then you will often times be too picky to see great opportunities. Moments are happening right now that should be captured. As we sit, beautiful photos are going unclicked.

I think Lorenzo is a great example of someone who saw this and decided that he was going to do something about it. I'm going to join him, and if you like taking photos, then you should too.

To see my photos, go to my Photostream.

This week in the neighborhood

2011-05-26T06:38:00.000-07:00

I've been taking a lot of photos of the area, along with the kids and such. Check them out on flickr if you'd like:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brettgitzel/

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Miles likes to walk around the apartment in a t-shirt and underwear. Yesterday, when I noticed that there was a small wet spot on the side of his underwear, I asked him about it. He said, "Well, dad, I think that it's from when the sunshine came out." I'm not sure what that was all about.

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I know that people love olives. I know that some of you can't put enough cilantro on your Mexican food. I've heard that there are people out there who actually like playing Volleyball. There is a fashion trend now where people without the need for glasses still wear them but without the lenses. I like Hip-Hop music as much as the next guy who doesn't like Hip-Hop music. This, the preface for...

In hockey, the Canucks are into the Stanley Cup Final. I wish them all the best and hope that they can treat the whole event as a learning experience for when they really win the cup long after I have passed away. Olives, Hip-Hop, diarrhoea, melted ice cream, The Yankees, dead bunny rabbits and the Canucks. No offense, Towel Power Nation.

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Back in China, my teacher is still wearing the black contact lenses. I guess that I've kind of gotten used to them, just like how I've gotten used to the bathroom smells that waif into the classrooms. There are just so many annoying things about that school that have slowly turned into slightly fond familiarity.

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A few weeks ago I had a trifecta of unfortunate pant malfunctions. 3 of my top 4 pairs of pants are ripped in the crotch, all on different days in the same week. Can you believe that, Harold Camping?! Anyways, I have 3 other pairs of jeans that I could wear if I lost a little bit of weight. I got them as hand-me-downs from some skinny guy who moved away. Lately I have considered to trying to slim down into those bad boys and there has been slight progress. I am down from 229 lbs to 220 in the last month. I am not insecure about any of this, and besides, my friends insist that I am not fat but just a big and sexy man.

The icing on the low fat cake is that some friends bought be some new jeans off of the Internet. They are cool and they almost fit. So, I am going for it. More bike rides. More sit ups. Less Coca Cola and a few more stair climbs and I should be good. Actually, I might need to construct a more concrete plan. Maybe lifting concrete on a construction site would help?

It's not a midlife crisis, I just don't want to buy another pair of pants when I have 4 perfectly good ones waiting for me all cuddled up in the wardrobe. And, I am still planning for my midlife crisis. I think that I still have 5 or 10 years to come up with a good one.

I think that I just might try to track this on the blog. It might help keep me committed to it. The goal? I would like to tumble all the way down to 200 by September. Impossible you say? I like those odds!

Black contact lens Mystery: update!!!

2011-05-13T20:01:00.001-07:00

I wondered if my teacher would show up to class wearing the black contact lenses again.

If you don't know what I mean, click here.

Well, on the way to class I stepped into the elevator of my building. There was a lady in it already and she looked familiar. I looked again and she was quietly laughing at the fact that I did not recognize her. It was my teacher... with the lenses in!

Well, there was more to it. The usually flashy dresser was wearing a track suit. She had just gotten back from playing basketball. But, facts are facts, and the fact is that with those contact lenses in I could not recognize her.

On the way to class I asked her if her husband liked her new look. An emphatic "no". Then she figured that I didn't like them either. I backtracked and said that I had just never seen them before.

Also, a confirmation that they are for style purposes. She could have gotten clear ones or even brown ones, but she went with "midnight" black or "Is there a soul in there" black.

Here's the whole situation explained for us by a bunch of idiots:

Scary, scary stuff. Soon enough we will be seeing horns and antlers as an acceptable fashion trend. Or, maybe a furry tail? How about gills? Maybe rabies; people foaming at the mouth? Or maybe letting boogers trail down your nose will help give a little "drama" to your look.

Okay, too much. Where is the "delete" button. Oops, that's the "publish" button, let me see if I can fix this before it l

Pack your bags!

2011-05-08T00:26:00.000-07:00

what goes on in that brain behind those beautiful eyes?

Over on my other blog Born in the month of May I will be going on a journey to celebrate my 30th birthday. The journey will be in my memories. Join me as I take a look at the first 30 years of my life. Click over there to find out more.

And the hits just keep on coming!

2011-05-05T01:04:00.001-07:00

As mentioned somewhere around clicking in this area, I have had a difficult time getting to school. Besides red lights, there have been other strange things going on as well. They include:

1. The size of my class fluctuating from 8 up to 12 and then down to 1 and now leveling out at around 6 most of the time.

2. A Korean student brings their kid to school. This is great because we can her him/her crying in the hallway while we are studying Chinese. Did I mention that this is a University?

3. Instead of "Sincerely" or "Regards" the foreign student liaison ends every bulletin board announcement with "I hereby notice that!". He also sends me invites to "Netlog", some sort of Chinese social site. Oozing professionalism. I might have to ask him to stop attaching my email address to the other 130 foreign students that attend the place.

The latest in the humor department showed up in listening class （听力） today. We were going through the usual; listening to the dialog tape, filling in the blanks, etc. when I noticed that my teacher was at the desk in the corner with her contact lens case out. She said that she rubbed her eye and that it irritated it. That is a reasonable enough excuse, and if it were true that would be fine. But, my friends, it was not true at all. You want to know how I know? Well, I'll tell you.

When class started everything was normal. I have had my teacher for 2 semesters and I know her quite well. Sees a really nice lady. Her family lives in our building complex. I even complemented her on her haircut one time, something that I usually do not notice on most people, especially my wife since she is always beautiful and that is unchanging, therefore, not noticeably different. Anyways, something was different when she returned from her contact lens case in the corner. Something in her eyes seemed darker. Black, actually. She had put black contacts in her eyes halfway through class! The craziest thing about it is that she thought that we wouldn't notice. I almost jumped out of my seat. Noticing that she was trying to act casual about it, I was able to calm down and act casual with her. But for the rest of the class I could not look her in the eye. She looked like one of those creatures in the scary movies.

Maybe she got the order in the mail and couldn't wait until she got home to try them on. Maybe she was bored. The question I had at the moment was why on earth would anyone want to put black contact lenses in their eyes?

I went home and went straight to Yoda... Um, I mean, my American neighbor Joel.

My neighbor told me that he's seen this before. He asked the lady about it and she said that some Chinese women do it because they think it will make their eyes look rounder. I would disagree with that idea. More demonic? Yup. More like a souless robot? A little bit. Rounder? Not really that much. He then figured that, in the US, if a cop pulled someone over and the driver was wearing black contacts the cop would take them in, assuming that they are high on goofballs. I did the math and, yes, he figured correctly.

So, now people are wearing black contacts to try to improve their appearances. I thought that the earrings and makeup was complicated enough. I wash my face and brush my teeth.

Now I wait and see which one of my teachers shows up on Monday morning; friendly fashionable lady or friendly fashionable scary lady.

MMA in Toronto: a Lamentation

2011-04-30T21:29:00.000-07:00

If I could care any less about mixed martial arts then I would have to write a book about it. Not a book about mixed martial arts but a book about not caring. I would have to write this book because when people figure out new and more effective ways of doing things, they usually honor the rest of us with the pleasure of being able to peer into their world by writing a large volume on the subject. The person is then considered an expert in the field. Awards follow them. Praise is showered down. Some very important people send expensive gifts to there house. Touring the globe giving readings. Moralists would debate the benefits of knowing about not caring to such an extreme degree. Yet publishers would flock for a chance to be a part of the sequel and all of the guaranteed success that will go a long with it.

That MMA is seriously considered to be along side such treasured sports as hockey, football, and baseball would be funny if it wasn't so sad. If I could be sadder about it then I would make a documentary about my sadness. I would call it "Peering into the eyes of sadness: Just how deep is the darkness?". If I could get a crew together and capture this on film in just the right light, perhaps delve into alcohol to truly capture my emotion, then it would be sure to sweep the awards. I would need to buy a tuxedo. There would be a car that would drive me to and from my hotel. I would give speeches.

The government might insist on taking me into their laboratories for study. I would get prodded. It would be uncomfortable if I wasn't so sad. There would be people standing outside of the window with protest signs. In between treatments I would roll my wheelchair to the window and glance out into the nothingness that is my reality. The people would see it and they would mourn. Oh, how they would mourn! But not as sad as I. No, not like this. That year, I might pass away and I might not. But make no mistake, there would be a photo of my face on the cover of Time magazine when all is said and done.

The sad truth is that after a few years, my memory would be all but forgotten. Sure, people would hold vigils for a while. I might undeservedly by knighted, but all of this would be after the fact that sadness had a new name. Scientists would do their best to put the puzzle pieces together. Along with the Saints they would do their best to lock up this discovery and make sure it never showed it's face again.

Hockey players fight. I'm not a big fan of it and in fact it is slowly being taken out of the game. Concussions have a lot to do with it. Fighting for the sake of fighting is something that should be left on the fringes. If you like that kind of thing go ahead and watch it. But don't put it on the front page and call it "Sport". Don't compare your minions with Wayne Gretzky. This is a slap in the face that hurts more than any man could bear. To bear it would be like lifting the earth with human hands and tossing it into a sea of stars and supernovas. To burden this load would be like lifting the sun in one's mortal breath and blowing on it until it turned to ice. Please, please. No more. Mercy. Go back to where you came from. Please MMA popularity, listen to Bieber or Gaga. Rethink this. Have a nap.

Compassion for a Monster

2011-04-25T09:23:00.000-07:00

On October 9th, 2002, Aileen Wuornos declined her last meal and instead settled for a cup of coffee. Her last words were,

"Yes, I would just like to say I'm sailing with the rock, and I'll be back, like Independence Day with Jesus. June 6, like the movie. Big mother ship and all, I'll be back, I'll be back."

Shortly after, she became the 2nd woman in the state of Florida to die of lethal injection.

Google the details, if you'd like.

The main points are that she lived a very horrible life. Abuse of all kinds, abandonment, prostitution since she was a teenager. You can easily begin to feel sympathy for this woman. Then, you read about what she turned into. Horrific.

So, when I watched the movie Monster a few days ago, I was half expecting to turn it off half way through; which is something I actually did when Jonas woke up early from his nap.

The movie stars Charlize Theron and I heard that her performance was memorable in it, so I figured that I'd take a look. It turns out that the rumors were true, at times I forget that it is even her. I could imagine someone watching the whole movie and then finding out that it was Charlize Theron in it. "Wait a minute. The girl from Arrested Development was in that? Which one was she?"

After the movie I was quite disturbed. I was confused. I have a hard time dealing with these kinds of stories these days. This woman lived a miserable life and it turned her into a desperate monster in the end. I'm not saying that she was an innocent victim, there was definitely good reasons to punish her for her crimes. She said herself that if they don't kill her then she would go out and kill again.

But at the same time, Writer/Director Patty Jenkins and Charlize Theron herself saw that there was more to this woman's life. On the special features of the DVD there is a featurette that follows the filmmakers into Wuornos world, asking questions, doing research and the like. Through it I started to see why these women wanted to tell a more sympathetic side of the story, with all due respect to the victims.

An example of what the filmmakers saw was the above photo. the media played it out as some crazy killer trying to choke herself with her handcuffs. When the truth was that she was just finding a way to brush back her hair.

This woman obviously had a lot of problems. Acting out in court and for the cameras probably caused a lot more laughs and cringes than sympathy. But the one thing that the makers of Monster wanted to do was tell the "greater truth". For that reason, I have to hand it to these ladies. This film has some crazy content in it, but the fact that they were able to give this lonely, crazy, and confused woman a small amount of dignity after death is something that I truly admire.

The thing that I love the most about those little featurettes found in the special features of DVDs is all of the set up and behind the scenes stuff they show while they are making the movie. It gives me a better idea of how a movie is made, and a greater appreciation for the filmmakers and actors as well. A scene from this featurette had such a profound effect on me that I am sure that those few moments stabbed at my heart more so than the entire movie. It doesn't do justice for me to tell it to you, you need to see it, but since the movie is so disturbing I don't want to recommend it. So, I can just try to tell you about it.

First of all, Aileen was at the stage of the movie when her killing spree was in full force. She would hitchhike, then offer the driver sex for money, as she was trying to save up money to run away with her girlfriend. Well, she would get the victim to drive deep into the woods and then she would kill them and take the car and money. In this one particular instance, a man picked her up and offered to help her out. She was very drunk at the time and the elderly man offered her to stay with him and his wife. He was being very nice to her, which bothered her because with all of her other victims she as able to justify her actions because they were perverts. Anyways, she tells him to pull the car over and gets out. He sees the gun drop out of her bag and she, not wanting a witness, gets back in the car and tells him to drive.

They make in into the woods and she tells him to get out. He pleads with her. She tells him to get on his knees. He tells her that his daughter is having a baby. She begins to weep and wail. Internal torment. She is convinced that she cannot let him go and suddenly Bang! End scene.

In the featurette, we have a look at this scene from the side. After the scene ends, Charlize Theron falls to the ground, weeping uncontrollably. Later, she is sitting in a chair away from the camera, bent over with cigarette smoke rising from her hand. The director is kneeling next to her, rubbing her back, consoling her.

This is where I lost it. I want to be on a film set someday soon and it is for performances such as this. Something in this moment made me think of love. Aileen died alone in 2002, in 2003 Charlize Theron is bringing her to life again. Telling the story. The unbelievable moment when an innocent good Samaritan is shot down in the coldest of blood.

I see mercy in there, somewhere, for Aileen. And the barer of it is Charlize Theron herself. She chose to play this character, to carry the burden of Aileen and her story. Whether or not she knew that it would affect her like this is anyone's guess. I have to believe that she knew the cost and decided to do it anyways. If this story hadn't been told on such a grand scale, the world would never have seen this "greater truth". There is something really beautiful there. I'm not sure if I am getting it across to you, but I needed to put it down somewhere so that I could at least look at it and remember it later.

Do I think that a favor given to a dead person has an affect on their soul? No, and that's not the point I am trying to make. The point of calling it mercy is that it is just that. This woman deserved nothing more than to be forgotten. Now, there is room to remember her not only as a murderer, but also as a victim in a place where it is impossible to grant justice.

Regarding the craft of acting, the behind the scenes look at an amazing actress dress herself in her character is something so mysterious and wonderful it makes me want to go back and watch it again and again.

Finally, one of Aileen's wishes was to have Natalie Merchant's song "Carnival" playing at her funeral. The song was later added to the credits of a documentary about Aileen's life. When asked about this peculiar connection, Merchant said:

"When director Nick Broomfield sent a working edit of the film, I was so disturbed by the subject matter that I couldn't even watch it. Aileen Wuornos led a tortured, torturing life that is beyond my worst nightmares. It wasn't until I was told that Aileen spent many hours listening to my album Tigerlily while on death row and requested "Carnival" be played at her funeral that I gave permission for the use of the song. It's very odd to think of the places my music can go once it leaves my hands. If it gave her some solace, I have to be grateful."

To hear the song click here

I remember when that song came out. I liked it too.

What to make of it all? An unwarranted favor for a dead woman? An Academy Award? I don't know. I cannot get away from the attraction of mercy and grace. The bigger the better. How does it tie in with justice? How can you be merciful and just to someone at the same time? When someone is completely guilty of the most incredible crime, I find it quite breathtaking to see a Hollywood actress come out and defend that woman's legacy, to carry the burden to it's completion. Once again, to tell the "greater truth".

This week in the News

2011-04-23T03:54:00.001-07:00

A few things recently:

1. I am having a terrible time dealing with cars that run the red light in front of our school. It is a pedestrian crossing with University and High School students crossing all the time.

Often times, the light will turn red and a car will zoom right through. I am fine with that. I mean, it's not a perfect world. But take today for example, Barbara the boys and I are crossing the street. I look both ways and all the cars are stopped in a 4 lane two-way street. The line of cars goes pretty far back as it is a busy road. As we are near the middle of the road I look right again. In the distance, I see a car doom out of the lineup into the wrong lane, bypassing all of the cars and then swerving around to get by us. Mind you, the light is still red. Well, I move in the way and he slows down and tries to go around me. At the time I was holding a cup of milk tea. As he swerved to go around I slammed my tea on his hood, splashing it a bit, and perhaps scuffing his car. He rolled the window down and yelled at me. I yelled back, pointing out the red light, every other car stopped, and the fact that I was with my kids. He drove off.

My theory? If someone has an expensive car, then they think that they are above the law. Most of the cars that drive through the light are nice, expensive cars. This particular car was an Audi. In the past, I have kicked cars as they drive through. In their guilt, none of them have ever stopped on confront me about it. I've even kicked police cars that drive through. The last time I kicked a car I sprained my toe, so I really want to stop kicking them.

Anyways, the issue is that, in the morning I cross to go to school and often times a car will drive through. I once saw a girl dive out of the way. I go into class pretty angry. Then, I leave class, happy after a good lesson, and then cross the street. If I see another red light runner then I end up going home to my family angry again. I know I should be able to deal with my emotions; the way I feel isn't always someone else's fault, but it sure would be nice if these few cars that think that their grandpa owns the road would start to think about other people for a change.

2. On a lighter note, today on the street I saw a Muslim woman wearing a full burka talking on a Motorola flip phone. Though their are a lot of Muslims in our city, the kind that wear this dress is rare. Even so, it was funny that, as she was talking, a Hui Muslim man and his granddaughter were walking by. The girl, in her teens, saw the woman and a look of surprise came to her face. She nudged her grandpa, he looked, and both of them smiled in curiosity and disbelief. It seemed funny to me.

3. Finally, I keep up on the Canadian news out here in China. I regrettably read a little piece on the allegations that the NDP party is secretly in cahoots with the Bloc. Now, I'm not making a statement about my political beliefs, I am making a statement on how crazy politics are. Here is the issue:

1 political party is defacing another with allegations of the other secretly dealing with the federal party that only represents 1 of Canada's provinces.

The party leader is encouraging the population of Quebec to go out and vote so that they will have a big impact on the Conservatives not getting a majority government. What that means is:

That tiny little party that only a small amount of Canadians can vote for is encouraging that small amount to vote so that they can change the way things turn out for everyone else. And, by the way, like America, we are talking about only half of the entire country (at the most) being happy with who ends up winning.

What a mess! If there is anything that needs reforming, its the process. Every couple of years the same old guys spend a few months talking about how stupid everyone else is. Then they go on TV and in English and French, spend more time yelling at each other. Then, in the end, we all vote for none of them, but the local person who represents their party.

These kinds of things are embarrassing. When at times North America thinks that it is head and shoulders above the rest of the world, I think of stuff like this. Other examples I think of?:

1. A kid breaks his arm in a playground and the playground gets taken away.

2. With all due respect, people from all over the world come to Canada for freedom, and then demand that Canada change it's definition of freedom, it's traditions, and it's culture, so that these people can feel more comfortable and "at home". I don't say that out of intolerance. I just think that Canada is a country and should have it's own identity, and the right to make it's police officers wear standard uniforms, etc. Blend in a little. Be Canadian!

3. Canada lists Lacrosse as it's national sport.

4. Tiny little Canada and it's aspirations to be some sort of Global power. Do we really want that responsibility? Don't we have big brother to help us out? Can't we just help them when they need it?

5. Equip every Western Canadian town with a Wal-mart, Starbucks, Home Depot, Mc Donalds, Old Navy outlet near the highway and no one will ever know where they are. Slowly but surely, every Canadian town and city is eventually going to look exactly the same. Am I in Saskatoon or Red Deer?

I could say more, or I shouldn't say more, whichever it is. But these are just off of the top of my head.

I wonder what things would be like if...

2011-04-12T01:42:00.000-07:00

Instead of last week, Bob Dylan played Beijing for the first time in 1967?

Smoking cigarettes in the elevator made you smarter.

The Coen brothers directed The Matrix.

Women in politics didn't wear suits, but nice dresses instead.

Your need to obey traffic laws was inversely proportionate to how expensive your car was when you bought it.

Pixar/Disney outlawed the use of the Scottish accent in their movies for the next 500 years.

Instead of a social network, Facebook was actually a nice pair of socks. You could still sign up for free, and every once in a while you would have to stitch an advertisement in the ankle of the left one.

Instead of rock bands, teenagers were into forming small orchestras in their garages.

Capitalism wasn't so enticing.

Old, fundamental, traditional church goers loved to dance and play rock and roll.

Lost wasn't a TV show but a situation.

As the internet got better, video players would be quicker and clearer to use, regardless of how fast your connection was.

Instead of jogging, people just had a 20 minute cry, with their energy drink and their iPod strapped to their pants.

Not one single person had a long term memory.

Writing did not exist.

Instead of 2 brothers I grew up with 2 sisters.

Instead of drinking 8 cups of water, we had to run 8 piles of dirt through our fingers every day.

Instead of hugs, we gave people little packets of ketchup. We'd all need purses to carry all of that ketchup. Though some people wouldn't need to carry any at all.

Left handed people were considered equals.

Everyone, and I mean everyone, had a secret handshake.

All elderly people liked to be tickled under their chins.

Babies grew beards.

Instead of a ball, football players kicked around an actual foot.

Instead of depression, constant rain made people extremely happy.

Instead of saying 'thank you', it would be considered appropriate to scream an octave higher than you would normally feel comfortable doing.

Grey was the most colorful color.

Picking your nose was a pick up move at your local bar.

Falling came before the pride.

Your rich uncle was my rich uncle.

You searched through the baby name book and you've settled on 'Mildew', and it works for either a boy or a girl.

Humming skills were equal with cooking skills.

If a protest was an actual test that you took. If you passed, you would be a 'pro'.

Instead of people protesting at a gay person's funeral, they were actually just selling hot dogs to the people across the street who were walking around completely unconnected to the protesters and the funeral itself. It was just a nice day.

Instead of recruiting people to go fight in the Middle East, the Government recruited people for a nation wide bake off!

Fred Savage and Keanu Reaves' careers traded places.

Euthanasia was actually youth in Asia. People would wonder what the controversy was all about.

My house had a fridge in every room, and in those fridges were different kinds of ice cream to eat and friends to hang out with.

Instead of riding horses, John Wayne and Clint Eastwood rode around on Alligators.

Instead of thinking outside the box, we'd strive to get outside of it and then run around warning others about the box.

Instead of giving a man on the street a dollar, we instead gave the man on the street a minute of our time.

Instead of just in football games, 'butt pats' were a completely heterosexual way of greeting your friends.

The coolest trend amongst kids between the ages of 10 and 15 years old was Snakes and Ladders. In fact, this summer, they would make a 3D movie of it. It would be called "Snakes and Ladders: the journey to the top 3D"

Hmmmm.

Beithings I learned while in Beijing.

2011-04-02T00:33:00.000-07:00

This past week we went to Beijing. My mom and dad came over for a visit so we decided to pick them up in the Capital and give them a little looksy at the sights and sounds. In all, we spent about 4 days in Beijing. As always with life, I learned a few things. Or, did I learnt them? If I find out the correct spelling of that word then it will just be one more interesting thing that I learnt this week.

1. When a 20 hour train ride turns into an 18 hour train ride, it is still a long haul and tough to do with 2 little boys. Plus, if they are going to ban smoking in this country, then the little waiting areas by the bathrooms on the train are "ground zero". Bring in the tear gas!

2. Just because there are short urinals for kids in some places does not mean that you should encourage your kid to use them. If you are in the habit of bending down to help your kid pull his pants down to pee, then you must remember to stand up before he starts peeing. I learned the hard way when I had to wash "splash back" out of my eye.

3. If you go to Beijing on a budget, then get used to eating McDonald's and walking everywhere.

4. The inside of the Forbidden City is pretty cool, but not really "40 RMB cool".

5. Normal looking citizens can still try to steal things from you. I was standing in line at Ikea and a normal, self-respect-looking dude tried to swipe my ipod from my camera bag. I noticed the sudden shift in the strap movement and put a stop to that nonsense.

6. Do not expect any taxis to want to take you anywhere. In fact, avoid taxis any way you can. Ride the Subway. It is great.

7. In China, no one tips. In Beijing, everyone expects you to tip them. So, since there is no foundational rule, yet there are thousands of ignorant over-tippers filing through the city every week, I think that the best thing to do is not tip. Of course, this causes great outcry. We were at TGI Friday's and the waiter waited for my dad to tip him. My dad, not sure of the custom, did nothing. The waiter walked away, and I caught a glimpse of him as he looked back in disgust.

"What? You want a tip? Well, maybe if you knew that the custom for tipping is to put the tip on the table you wouldn't have gotten so angry when we didn't hand you a tip. You're not a bellboy. You are a waiter. Google "how to give and receive a tip" and learn something. Then, when I ask you what the custom is, don't say "If I do a good job give me a good tip" because millions of your fellow Chinese in all different parts of the country never expect a tip, so your definition of 'tip', though correct and relevant in other countries, mainly means nothing to 99% of the population and people in your country. Also, refill our waters a little more often, will yeah?!"

8. Then, we settle on a 40 RMB per person price for a rickshaw ride. The kids ride free. At the end, I give the boss 160 RMB and he says that that is the "boss's fee" and that I still need to pay the drivers. Well, you can pay the drivers out of the fee we agreed on. Or, next time, drive the friggin' rickshaw yourself and I'll pay the driver!

To summarize, don't ruin a perfectly nice situation by demanding all kinds of money that you have no right to demand. Do a good job and ask a reasonable price and you will have a happy career. Heck, I might even take your phone number and recommend you to my friends. My friends might even grossly over tip you. There, everyone is happy.

9. If you have 2 kids, bring a stroller.

10. Hai Nan airline is much, much nicer than any other Chinese airline I have flown with.

Seriously, Beijing is cool and I feel like if I had a ton of money I could get a small sliver of a glimpse of what some of the cool stuff is like. In Xining, we pay a couple bucks at the most to take a taxi somewhere. In Beijing, you wait for 45 minutes, get a pissed off driver, and pay 6 or 7 dollars. Living in the city I live now, I cannot justify spending so much money and time on just getting somewhere where things cost more than I can afford to spend.

The best deals in Beijing, I have found, are the subway and the McDonald's cheeseburger. Sure, you could probably eat some cool/cheap local food, but you'll need to get into a taxi to find it.

Want affordable food, friendly people, culture, beauty, hilarity? Ladies and gentlemen... Xining.

After further review...

2011-03-07T21:32:00.001-08:00

I must admit, that if you watch it with a loved one, and tune out the poor secondary characters, the confusion of why they are even in the movie, and a lot of cliched jokes/situations spread throughout, then you might just find the heart of The Kids Are Alright.

Also, be warned that this movie has way too much Mark Ruffalo backside in it. I still question that Academy Award Nomination. Not the backside, but the whole character. Not that he did a bad job, but I think that his character was pretty ordinary and boring. There was nothing at stake for him, at least he acted that way. In the end, it all... well, you can watch it if you want to.

So, my overall decision? It could have been Best Picture material if more time was taken to raise the stakes for everyone involved, aside from the couple. Even though it was erroneously nominated for Best Picture, it would have stood a chance with a little more care. This was a very important subject, which a lot of people would respond to. I thought that they missed a golden opportunity to tell a touching tale, and instead seemed to expect people to be effected by it just because of the content. They assumed that it would work. They should have worked a little harder at it.

Still, upon further review, this is a worthwhile view. Though I must warn you that there is a lot of needless nudity and crude content.

And, once again, this is just my opinion.

2011 Tom Hooper = 1990 James Cameron...

2011-03-01T09:51:00.000-08:00

Seriously. Look it up!

I finally was able to watch the Oscars. I'm not sure if it was the hassle of finding it online combined with the lateness of the evening and the fact that Barbara and the boys are away for a few days, but I kind of got a little emotional while watching this one.

A couple thoughts:

- The hosts were good. James Franco seemed like he thought that everything was lame, but it was funny that way. The opening was cool; how they were in every movie inside Alec Baldwin's dreams. Then being "Inceptioned". Creative, entertaining stuff. The show could have used a bit more of that, actually.

- Was that Kirk Douglas on stage or my Grandpa Derman? Similar in a lot of ways, but not every. Kirk's a little closer to the finish line. Great comedy, though. I really thought that he was 'on', and it was great considering I had to hold my breath to make sure that he didn't die on stage.

- I thought that it was nice that a wide variety of films won awards. King's Speech was the big winner, but with 4 it wasn't a run away like other years. I mean, Inception won 3 or 4 as well.

- If you take a look at my previous post you will see that I was pretty much spot on for all of my picks. That helped me enjoy it a lot. I was really happy for the writers, especially David Seidler. I love writers!

- Again, Tom Hooper looks EXACTLY like James Cameron when he was younger. Crazy exactly!

- I was so happy that Portman won for Black Swan. That movie deserved a little more, but it was nice, and really, how do you pick a winner in some of the categories?

- Everyone must admit that Christian Bale is an amazing actor. Why? Because I bet half of the people watching the show found out for the first time that he is in fact not an American, but from the UK. Come on, admit it. I'll admit that I found that out about a year ago.

Seriously, watch The Fighter. It's a great movie.

- I vote that Timberlake sticks to singing and Paltrow sticks to acting.

- I also vote that Ryan Gosling gets nominated over Jesse Eisenberg.

And finally, for those people who think that it is stupid and wrong to have a bunch of famous and rich people pat themselves on the back while there is so much going on in the world I have a few things to think about:

1.) If you like the Superbowl then you are a hypocrite.

2.) These people work hard, and they make great movies. One of the goals for them is to win awards. If there are no awards, then that competitive spirit slowly fades and we are left with Transformers 8 and whatever else that makes 100 mil.

3.) It's a tradition, and it's cultural. That's the way the world works.

4.) Show's over. Back to hockey.