What the fuck is with the Toronto Raptors...

... the NBA Draft...

... and Rob Fucking Babcock...

... when it comes to drafting lottery picks with last names that I can’t even goddam pronounce?!?...

Seriously...

WHAT. THE. FUCK?!?...

... although for once, just for once...

... I mean that in a good way...

... well, sort of... at least...

... I hope so... at least...

...

Guess who the fuck my precious Toronto Raptors drafted with the 7^th pick in the 2005 NBA Draft last night?...

... and my reaction at the time? My goddam first reaction? What the hell else could it have been?...

WHAT THE FUCK?!?

We drafted Charlie Villanueva?

Charlie and the chocolate, what?

We drafted fucking Kane from the WWE? WTF?!?...

Seriously, that lottery choice definitely raised some eyebrows...

... and singed a few clean off as well, just for good measure...

But the thing is, I will admit one thing though...

I may not have agreed with Charlie V at the 7^th lottery spot at the time of the draft...

... but at least I have a better gut feeling about him, than I ever did about goddam Rafael Araujo...

... but that sure ain’t saying much...

... uggh...

...

Last year, I kept my mouth shut about sports on this tweakui website of mine. Although I was literally going berserk after what Rob Babcock had done to our franchise on his goddam first day on the job...

My picks last year went something like this...

At the 8^th pick? I wanted Deng first, Ben Gordon second, Jameer Nelson third, and Andre Iguodala fourth...

And how did each of those supposed picks of mine turn out in the league?...

Well, Deng and Ben Gordon were both off the board at the time of the 8^th pick, and it’s really no wonder why... Deng had an amazing season going for him in Chicago until his injury. And Ben Gordon was just so clutch as the go-to-man in the fourth quarter, that he’s been garnering comparisons to a certain other Chicago player with a last name that rhymes his own...

But by the 8^th pick, Toronto still had the goddam option of picking up either Nelson or Iguodala...

Now, I admit that Nelson didn’t turn out to be the star studded point guard that I expected him to become. But he did have a decent rookie season in Orlando nonetheless, despite being buried beneath the Cuttino Mobley and Steve "piece of shit" Francis guard system for pretty much most of the season... and at least Jameer would’ve been a better damn choice than picking up goddam Rafer fucking Alston on the Raptors in the free season...

And Andre Iguodala? I had a good feeling that he would be a diamond in the rough, but I never really imagined that he could become one of the best damn rookies of the year outside of the big men... His overall game while playing in Phile was just awe-inspiring at times, reminding me of Vince Carter on offense, and Mo Peterson on defence... While technically, Iguodala would’ve been redundant on a team with Vince Carter and Mo Pete at the time, there’s really no question that he was absolutely the best overall player available at the Raptors 8^th draft spot last year...

... but God, the Sam Bowie complex...

... fucking Babcock... fucking Sam Mitchell... and the fucking Sam Bowie complex...

We drafted by need...

We reached all the way to the end of the first round mocks for the year, and selected fucking Rafael Araujo as our goddam 8^th pick...

Seriously, what the fuck?!?

I knew even back then in my gut, that Hoffa would turn into a pure bust of a player, until at least his third or fourth year in the league... And so far, my gut has been proven absolutely right. He has only one more damn year to prove me wrong (though I expect him to become at least an 8/5 guy by his third year...)...

This guy can’t score. This guy can’t steal. This guy can’t block. And fuck, how the fuck can't a 7-foot monster rebound?... All he fucking has to do, is fucking box-out and grab the ball when it fucking comes his way... and yet the motherfucking moron just keeps jumping early like a lunatic hyped on pez, each and every time the opposing team shoots the damn ball...

Seriously, an angel loses its wings every single fucking time Araujo can’t fucking figure out how to catch a goddam ball...

I absolutely hated this pick last year. I booed the hell out of Babcock every single fucking time he showed up on the television screen...

And then WTF? Rob Babcock fucked us up even more?

I didn’t mind him trading Vince Carter for scrubs... I did mind however, that the draft picks he got back were pure crap. And the fucking worst part of that trade in the end, was that we should’ve at least gotten the fucking Clippers pick from New Jersey, for fucking buying-out Alonzo Fucking Mourning for them...

I mean seriously, WHAT THE FUCK?!?

Babcock brought in THREE FUCKING CANCERS into this team. One can’t play, one still refuses to play... and we will still be fucking paying Alonzo Mourning to play for fucking Miami, for the next fucking three years or something... out of the generosity of our own goddam hearts and wallets...

Goddammit, we are not the Atlantis Hawks!

So stop whispering in your brother’s fucking ear, Pete Babcock!

... goddammit...

But at least, there was a light at the end of the tunnel...

We had three meaningful picks in this year’s NBA Draft 2005.

And considering the new CBA had made 2005 into the deepest draft since the year of Lebron James and Chris Bosh?...

... then maybe, just maybe, Rob Babcock could fucking redeem himself afterall...

... or not...

...

These were my four choices for the 7^th overall draft pick by the Toronto Raptors:

Chris Paul, Gerald Green, Danny Granger, and Joey Graham... in that order...

... and we picked fucking Charlie Villanueva, a guy who was projected by some to not even get picked in the goddam first round...

I mean seriously, did Babcock know something that we didn’t?...

... and I suppose he did...

... because the more I learn of what was really going on behind the draft scenes...

... the more I’m actually starting to like this shocking pick...

Chris Paul would’ve been amazing to have on the Toronto Raptors. His point guard skills are right up there with Jason Kidd’s and Steve Nash’s as the best in the NBA. But there was no way in hell he would drop to us at 7^th, so it was just a wild, wet dream to ever take him and run...

Gerald Green was my real consensus pick at 7^th. The thing is though, he should fucking fire his agent as soon as possible, and fuck him right up the ass for making him lose almost a fucking million dollars this year alone... I mean, why wouldn’t Gerald Green work against other players in team workouts? And how the hell could this guy ever be taken seriously, when he literally sounds on the mic like he’s a complete moron of a high school failure or something?...

Still, his mad ass talent in high school couldn’t be denied, as he dominated the game like nobody but Lebron James has ever done before... I saw some real talent in the kid in his videos. He may have taken years to develop, but I was willing to give the Raptors another year or two in the lottery, to rebuild this team the way it was meant to be rebuilt... and by then, Gerald Green would be ready...

But then the truth came out about Gerald Green last night...

Supposedly, his agent specifically told the Raptors that Green would not play for them if they drafted him...

And his family actually clapped in unison when we didn’t?...

WTF?...

So let me get this straight... This kid was willing to lose a ton of extra money, by potentially dropping out of the damn lottery, just to make sure he didn’t play for the goddam Toronto Raptors? WTF?...

Yeah... real great, kid...

Guess you got your wish, considering you fell from the Top 5 of the draft, all the way to the goddam 18^th spot...

I mean, just like Dorrell Wright and Josh Smith last year, there has to be a real reason why every single team, from the 1^st pick to the 17^th pick, passed over Gerald Green for some other player, right? Last year, the mock drafts all were convinced that Wright and Smith were the real things, and yet both have absolutely sucked in the NBA so far (with the exception of the dunk competition, of course)...

There has to be reason why both Charlotte and Toronto passed on Gerald Green TWICE...

Picking him probably would’ve ended up as a Kobe Bryant situation at best, and a Steve "piece of shit" Francis situation at worst...

... I just hope this decision doesn’t come back to bite us in the ass, that’s all...

And as for Danny Granger? His overall game was simply unparalleled, as both his offence and defence would’ve been absolutely priceless for the Toronto Raptors... He was the no brainer of a pick, if you asked me a day ago. He has all the offence of a Tracy McGrady, and the footwork on D that we really needed to be a contender down the road...

But it seems that both Green and Granger were just smokescreens from Rob Babcock, making sure that other teams had no clue who he was actually going to pick...

Because if the inside sources are telling the truth, and Granger’s MRI scans showed that his knee really is too damn busted to last in the NBA? Then it’s no wonder why Babcock didn’t take Granger at the 7^th spot, or even the 16^th spot...

He didn’t want another Vince Carter situation on his hands... he definitely wouldn’t want that in Toronto of all places, at least...

... then again... those three or four years with Vince at top form, was the golden age of the Raps... kinda miss the golden days, with the crap we’re getting now...

... as we got Charlie Villanueva as our draft pick...

Out of completely nowhere, we picked goddam Charlie Villanueva...

A guy that all the scouts said was lazy ass as hell. A guy that scouts thought would be second to Lebron James in the draft two years ago, before Charlie dogged all his workouts and dropped to the second damn round...

This is a guy who plays absolute zero defence... This is a guy who’s too small to play the center position, and not quick enough to play the small forward spot...

This is a guy, who can really only play the power forward spot...

... and... WHAT THE FUCK?

WE ALREADY HAVE A FUCKING POWER FORWARD.

HIS NAME IS CHRIS FUCKING BOSH.

CB4.

And now we have CV3? WTF?

Why on earth would Babcock draft a noname player, at the only position that we have locked as an allstar?

It was as if Babcock wanted to prove once and for all, that he will draft by best player available, and not by need... completely unlike last year...

So he goes ahead and picks a guy who plays THE EXACT SAME GAME AS THE ONE GOOD PLAYER THAT WE DO HAVE ON THE FUCKING TEAM?!?

WHAT THE FUCK?!?...

... and yet...

...

I dunno... Despite my initial gagging, I’m kinda warming up to the kid...

He may be too small to player center by himself... but rotating with Bosh could make nightmares for traditional defensive pairings in the NBA...

He may lack upper body strength... but there’s no denying that he can run the floor with Bosh and the best of them, if we ever got a Steve Nash sort of point guard to push the ball up...

There’s no denying this guy has talent... He may play no defence whatsoever, but our 16^th pick should take care of that...

And the thing is, it seems that CV3 was really the hidden gem for almost all teams in the end, while Green and Granger were simply smokescreens to ward everyone off...

Inside sources now report that while mock drafts had Villanueva going around the 20-30 mark (or 15 to the Nets at the highest), teams like Charlotte and New York actually rated him going as high as 5^th in the draft... and supposedly would’ve taken him in a heartbeat...

Apparently, behind the scenes, this guy just had the most amazing workouts for a big man, that most of the lottery draft teams have ever seen...

Who would’ve thunk, right?...

... but I dunno...

What was really the smokescreen? Before the draft, or now?...

... I mean, I guess I do have a gut feeling this guy will become big in the NBA...

... the same kind of gut feeling I felt, when we selected Chris Bosh over Dwayne Wade, Kirk Hinrich, and TJ Ford... a decision I still stand by to this very day, since Hinrich is only above average for a PG, TJ Ford got injured, and Dwayne Wade (as amazing as he is) will break down VC-style from injuries one of these days...

And at least I’ve been instilled with some confidence of this CV3 guy, simply because of the way Sam Mitchell sounds so damn ecstatic about coaching him next year... as if he was really the next Kevin Garnett...

Still, the bust potential of this Charlie CV3 guy is just too damn glaring to bare or ignore...

Sure, the more I hear about him, the more I seem to like him... but still...

If he doesn’t provide at least 10ppg in his first season?...

Then fire Rob Babcock.

Fire his fucking ass, with Kane’s flaming pyros for all I fucking care...

Team America, fuck yeah...

...

At the 16^th pick, before the draft, these were my choices:

Joey Graham, Antoine Wright, Jarrett Jack, and Roko Ukic... in that order...

We chose Joey Graham.

While I was still baffled a bit at the time, as to why we didn’t select Granger or Green who shockingly enough, were still on the board at the 16^th pick, I was still rather satisfied with who the Raptors got...

Antoine Wright would’ve made a fun addition to this team. And I’m still hoping Toronto can somehow trade for him from New Jersey somehow (perhaps with Denver’s pick next year that they gave us in the VC trade), since there is absolutely no reason why NJ would need another shoot-first guard...

Still, Wright would’ve been our own Morris Peterson back-up. Antoine would’ve made a great Jamison-type of 6^th man, with great instant offence and great instant defence off the bench. I still think he can... But he wasn’t my top pick for the 16^th draft spot. And he was taken by New Jersey anyhew, to my approval actually...

Now, if only we could’ve gotten the rights to Jarrett Jack at the 22^nd pick from Denver, I’d be hailing this NBA draft as a complete success for Toronto... Because even if Jack wasn’t nearly as good as Felton or Deron Williams in terms of point guard calibre, he would still be a huge asset for this team... He’s still one of Chris Bosh’s best friends in the entire world. And if anyone would give Bosh more touches on this team, it would be Jack... but we didn’t get Denver’s 22^nd pick. Portland fucking did instead, so...

And Ukic, I’ll get to later...

Joey Graham however, was definitely the right choice for the Raptors at the 16^th pick... from both a political and long term rebuilding point of view...

With Green off-limits thanks to his goddam idiot of an agent, and Granger too banged up to produce in three or four years, Graham was absolutely the steal of the draft at 16^th. I honestly can’t believe he wasn’t taken sooner...

This is a guy with mad strength, mad hops, mad dunks, and most importantly, the stamina and endurance to grill it out on D for 48 damn minutes a night... He was by far the most athletic man in the entire draft. His workout results are simply off the charts, and no smokescreen could’ve ever covered that up...

I am concerned for his offence. He was solid in college, but that’s never enough in the NBA... But as a pure defenceman, he is the perfect compliment to choosing Charlie Villanueva at the 7^th pick. We got one man of pure offence, and one man of pure defence... not bad, if you ask me in the end...

I admit now, if Babcock had chosen Gerald Green, chances are things would’ve turned out like T-Mac. Green would eventually leave us for nothing, since so many American players just seem to hate Canada. And we all know how much Toronto Raptors fans hate the T-Mac...

And if Babcock had chosen Danny Granger? After a couple years of success, we would’ve been right back into a Vince Carter situation, with a banged up player getting paid too damn much for his own good... and we all remember just how much Toronto Raptors fans welcomed back Vince Carter his first night in the ACC as a New Jersey Nets, you know...

Graham was by far the safest bet. No injury concerns, no bone-headed head on his shoulders, and arguably the best current talent amongst the three choices...

He may have limited upside for now, but still...

Rob Babcock redeemed himself as hell with the 16^th pick.

He’s just lucky as hell that Graham fell into our laps like that...

...

... or if you really want to talk lucky, then how ‘bout that 41^st draft pick of ours?...

My choices were Roko Ukic, M. Ellis, Simien, and Nate Robinson... in that order...

Ellis was good, but a high school PG, and wouldn’t contribute for years... Simien was a strong post-up man, which we could’ve used. But didn’t exactly fit into our team philosophy right about now... Nate Robinson was probably the player I expected to take with the 41^st, yet some team idiotically took him in the first round. I mean, he’s good... but he’s not that good...

He ain’t Ukic good... not by a longshot, if you ask me...

Only two teams wanted Roko Ukic from Croatia. The Toronto Raptors, and the Boston Celtics...

... brilliantly enough, Babcock actually knew that the Celtics wanted Gerald Green more... and the leprechauns, eager to get rid of Paul Pierce sometime this year, decided to opt for a future replacement for him instead of the PG they desperately needed...

Which left Ukic to us...

A player who was once projected to go in the top 15, managed to drop all the way down to the Toronto Raptors at the 41^st pick? WHAT THE FUCK?...

... talk about fucking lucky...

Ukic may never fit up to his billing that we TO fans see in him. We envision him as the next Manu Ginobilli, flopping and driving his way through every single play, but the chances of that are slim to almost none...

But he is a tall point guard. Tall enough, to really be able to pass the ball against the best of guard defenders. This is also a point guard, with tons of pro experience in Europe... and if only we got Jarrett Jack this draft too as a second guard compliment, I would’ve given Babcock a stunning Grade A for the NBA Draft 2005 actually...

...

At the 58^th pick, it didn’t really matter who we picked... but I might as well waste some time mentioning my ideas anyhew...

I wanted Juan Mendez... and that’s about it...

The Montreal native...

With his dunks and his Canadian background, he would’ve brought people into the Toronto stands...

I didn’t trust that Mendez would go to the Toronto summer camp if he went undrafted... Turns out my gut feeling was right, as he opted to go to Miami’s summer camp instead... Too bad for him, since I doubt they’ll give the kid a real chance, while we definitely would’ve taken him just for the marketing value alone for this team...

But besides him at the 58^th, it didn’t matter who we really drafted...

... so we drafted Slokar... an Italian or something, who was once projected to go in the first round of the draft...

Not bad for a 58^th pick, actually...

Now, I don’t expect this guy to ever really contribute to the team as anything but a back-up to Chris Bosh, Pape Sow (as long as we keep him...), and now Charlie Villanueva... It was weird drafting yet another power forward in the draft, afterall...

But there’s one thing I do love about this kid.

He wants to be in the NBA. And he wants to be in Toronto.

Hell, there were almost tears in his eyes at the press conference today, as he was so damn happy to be drafted by an NBA team...

He loved Toronto.

And if that ain’t worth a 58^th pick, then what is?...

...

Now, maybe it’s all smokescreens or something... afterall, even Gerald Green mentioned to the press that he would’ve loved to play in Toronto thanks to fellow Texan Chris Bosh... and we all know the truth behind his gracious words now...

But really, if Babcock succeeded in one thing in this NBA Draft 2005?

He may not have drafted the brightest blokes on the block, but he definitely picked men who were all well spoken...

And if anything is truly promising about this draft? It’s that he really drafted players who wanted to come to Toronto...

... or at least, I hope he did...

Charlie Villanueva may never really love the city like he currently claims. But I can see in his eyes, that he really does respect Rob Babcock and his scouting team, for believing in him when all the other NBA scouts scoffed and wrote him off two years ago...

Joey Graham was always touted by the critics as the next sure thing. So he really had no need to suck up to the big TO... But still, there’s just something about him that looks sincere, whenever he talks about how Toronto feels like the city that he’s meant to be in for now... (then again, Vince Carter said the same thing many times, and still does... fucking lying, son of a bitch...)...

And while Ukic may look high on life and smoking weed, there’s no denying that he and Slokar are just so damn thankful for the Raptors taking a chance on them. Their dream was to make it to the NBA, and nobody but the Raptors gave them that goddam chance...

If only we could get Antoine Wright from New Jersey, Jarrett Jack from Portland now, or even Danny Granger from Indiana or something, I’d call this draft perhaps the best in the Toronto Raptors’ decade-long history... even above drafting Chris Bosh and Matt Bonner two years ago...

I still have a terrible feeling in my gut, that Charlie Villanueva may be a complete and supreme bust in the end, just like Rafael Araujo... as even Araujo last year had tons of fan support defending him, until we all saw him first play...

But Charlie and Graham are just perfect compliments to each other. There’s no denying that...

And there’s one thing that I will give major props to Babcock for, even if his draft picks do turn into complete and utter, goddam embarrassing busts...

I mean, he called it. He knew that all the big men would be drafted first, and that the talented swingmen would all still be available by the 16^th pick...

He called it. And he was right.

I was absolutely shocked when New York, Golden State, the LA Lakers, the LA Clippers, and hell, even Charlotte with their second pick, all picked the only decent big men left in the draft... while completely ignoring every single small forward or smaller, no matter what kind of superstar potential they had whatsoever...

Graham and Ukic fell right into our laps.

And sucked our cocks.

I was shocked.

Apparently, Babcock wasn’t...

... lucky son of a bitch...

Graham and Ukic may have just saved his job...

... but we’ll see about that...

...

I wasn’t on the record last year, when it came to my opinion of the Toronto Raptors and the 2004 NBA Draft...

And I still doubt that the Toronto Raptors will be a good playoff team this year... although I can pray that they do turn out to be as sound and exciting to watch as last year’s Chicago Bulls were...

But until next year’s draft, when I’ll probably be freaking out at Rob Babcock’s insane and unorthodox lottery picks yet again?...

... then I suppose there’s really nothing more for me to say here, except?...

"Mats Sundin is to blame for all our problems..."

"Tie Domi is better than Peter Forsberg..."

"Next year for the Leafs. Definitely. Next year, it’s our time..."

"Look at that fucking shoelace! I tied that shit! I tied that shit, motherfucker!"

"Rob Babcock is a fucking moron. All goddam Babcocks are..."

"Pete! Stop whispering in your brother’s goddam ear!"

"Rob! Stop sucking on your brother’s goddam cock!"

"Sigh... I wish we were as good as the LA Clippers... I’m a closet Clippers fan, you know..."

... and just to get ahead for next year?

I think I speak for all us scant, few, remaining Toronto Raptors fans out there, when I wish to us all a...

... ahem...

... a God Speed...

... a Good Will Hunting...

... a God Bless Us, Everyone...

... and seriously...

... a WHAT THE FUCK...

I finally got my new computer. To help ease me through my engineering projects at school, that is...

... of course, it’s kinda ironic now... considering I finally got my new computer after I did all my goddam Java projects on my old AMD K6 400MHz and AMD Duron 1GHz computers instead, but... still...

... well, just for the record? The stats down below outline the computer that I finally got to pick up for $800CDN + tax...

... ahem...

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3000+ 939
Motherboard: ASUS A8V-E 939 Deluxe PCIE Chipset
Memory: 1GB Kingston DDR400 Dual Channel RAM
Video Card: ATI Sapphire Radeon X600 PRO 256M PCIE
Hard Drive: 160GB Maxtor 7200RPM SATA HDD
DVD Drive: 16X LG DVD-RW +/- Dual Layer
Network Card: Asus Gigabit and 802.11G WiFi LAN
Miscellaneous: Onboard Sound, Sony 1.44MB Floppy Drive, and front USB Case

Sure, it ain’t nearly close to being a top of the line model... but with a SATA hard drive and a decent video card, I figured that it would be good enough for all the usual shit I do at home... especially considering to this very day, I still manage to accommodate my needs on my goddam ancient, AMD K6 400MHz system (that I’m using right now to type this update, by the way...)...

It was a tried and true piss off though, the day I got to pick up the damn computer that is...

I drove all the way across three cities to get there. Or a tale of two and half cities, if you will...

Sure, my Asian family and I were on the way to buy Chinese groceries anyhew. But that doesn’t change the fact that I gave the store a fucking THREE day warning that I was coming... I told them exactly when I’d arrive. I told them exactly what I wanted. And they told me exactly the price they’d give it to me for... $810CDN, with all hardware installations included (not that I wanted them to do the work for me, but it was supposedly free of charge... and I’d get no discount if I did all the work myself, so...)...

When I finally got to the store though, what the fuck do I find? But the lazy ass, Chinese guy there having a coffee and donut in his right hand, a phone call to his girlfriend in the other, and guess the fuck what?...

... he still hadn’t started to make my goddam computer yet...

... the fucking lazy bastard...

I did my usual thing, and threatened to leave. He kept repeating that he would make the computer right now in about twenty minutes flat. But I kept pointing to my damn watch like some bad used car salesman or something, arguing that I drove an hour to get here and I need to get the fuck back to my hometown right now...

He wouldn’t budge much on the price like I had hoped he would, but eventually I got at least another 10 bucks off of the agreed price for his incompetence... So what else could I do, but just do nothing for the next half hour? I drove to First Markham Place, got weird looks for not having fucked up hair from all the fucking FOBs there... and for not having a girl chink on my hand and shoulder... and then drove back an hour later to find that the guy still hadn’t finished building my goddam computer...

... what a fucking joke...

Either way, it didn’t take him long after I arrived back for him to finally finish the job... He tested the parts with his little crude DOS prompt programs, and then just shoved the big beige and blue thing into some cheap ass box, and let me haul the goods away for $800CDN... which was a steal in my opinion, considering if I bought the same parts off of Canadian websites, then the shipping and tax would’ve been even more than I paid...

... of course, there’s probably a hell of a lot of US and Asian sites out there that would’ve been cheaper if I had just forked over my Canadian dollars right now, with current currency rates I mean... Newegg is probably a good example... but I was too fucking lazy for that, so...

Now, when I got the computer home, I was a bit fucking clueless as to what to do... I never had a SATA hard drive before. I’m still stuck in the good ol’ IDE days, if you know what I mean... And even though I knew about the whole ‘press F6’ thing during Windows XP installation in order to install DOS drivers for your SATA hard drive, I was still fucking clueless about the whole process, and why?... Because I couldn’t find the damn SATA drivers on the goddam motherboard CD in DOS, that’s why...

To be honest, I don’t know why I was so blind... I love DOS, but really – directory structures are a real pain in the ass to navigate and search through in the end... I think I copied the wrong drivers to floppy disk at least three bloody hell times until I finally got it right. And by the time I figured out what I was doing wrong?... fuck me sideways... How the fuck didn’t I see the directory that was essentially called RAID FUCKING INSTALLATION DRIVERS right in front of my face? Guess I won’t know until the next time I get some new hard drive technology...

The computer worked like a charm once I booted it up and installed everything. Routine loading of Windows XP, from the RAID bios all the way to when you don’t hear a peep from the hard drive in use, literally clocked in at only five bloody hell seconds flat. Even after all my standard apps were installed... Now that’s bloody hell fast.

The computer stays mostly cool the entire damn time. The onboard thermometer never really exceeds the 40C and 45C marks, which is decent... then again, I am in the ice cold basement, so I still don’t know if the CPU will ever fry if I brought it upstairs into the summer blazing heat of the Sun...

The fan gets a bit annoying. It’s not much louder than the old one was on the Duron 1GHz, but it seems to have a distinct different frequency to it all, that’s really started to freak me out... I guess I could try that AMD Cool ‘n Quiet technology, to whirl down the fan whenever I ain’t playing CPU intensive games or shit like that. Since I never play goddam crappy PC games, mind you... I’m just too lazy to ever try anything new though. I hate new technology. Afterall, I am the no-name nostalgic...

I formatted my SATA hard drive into one big, mammoth 160GB NTFS partition out of sheer laziness and curiousity, however... Now, I know all about potential fragmentation problems, when using cluster sizes large enough for 160GB partitions and everything. I knew that doing so would have some effect on seek time performance sometime down the road, if I ever even used half of my goddam hard drive (the max I’ve used so far is just 25GB)... But since the NTFS file format can go up to about 2^64 bytes in size? I really didn’t think a paltry 160GB partition in comparison would really matter much...

... and it hasn’t... I haven’t noticed the hard drive skipping a single damn beat, not once...

... although one of my computer conscience friends from high school keeps warning me to stay the fuck away from large partitions... maybe I’ll heed his warning someday... although splitting partitions in the past before has given me splitting headaches, splitting hairs, and fucking bad clusters almost every single time, but that’s a whine and rant for another day...

As for gaming performance? I dunno... I’m kinda disappointed to be honest...

Now, I only overclocked my CPU using Asus’ AI NOS system by 5%. Which is barely anything in this day and age, but that’s besides the point... so essentially, I’m now running a AMD64 3200+ or some shit like that. Although I have no clue what that is in real CPU clock speed, since AMD keeps fucking up the system with their "Athlon equivalence plus" scale, but I digress...

I still haven’t used FRAPS or anything to see the actual framerate in first person shooter games that I’ve been trying on my computer. But either way, my eyes don’t seem so pleased...

I know I only got a crappy ATI Radeon X600Pro 256MB. And I suppose for the value price of $120CDN, it ain’t so bad...

In FarCry with everything set to medium details and at 1024x768x32, the game is clearly running at 45fps locked at least. Which is mighty damn impressive, considering the backgrounds and water effects in that game... And considering old benchmarks in Quake 3 on my previous computers, clocking in at even 80 fps, still looked choppy to my eyes when I actually played the damn shitty game? Then maybe FRAPS would show a constant 60 fps whenever I play Far Cry on default settings, which I’d be pleased with... if I ever got off my ass and installed FRAPS, that is...

But alas, freedom isn’t free. And neither is even 2xAA apparently... Putting that on, or setting texture details and particle densities or Ubisoft’s infamous shadows to very high quality, seems to cut the frame-rate down in half at least... I can see some Vsync tearing on the screen then, and firefights tend to slow down to near Xbox framerates at times (25 fps to 30 fps, according to my colour-blind eyes). And without scanlines?... I dunno, but I was kinda hoping for a bit more muscle out of my new computer...

I guess my AMD64 3000+ is still a far cry away from being the perfectly valued computer that I wanted it to be...

... granted, my old Duron 1GHz with a crappy ATI Radeon 7500 64MB PCI card couldn’t even manage to run FarCry in minimum graphics mode... but that’s besides the point...

... of course, why does it even matter?...

I never play games on my PC.

PC games suck ass.

So why even care, right?...

So what if Half Life 2 only runs at a stable 40fps at medium quality, right?

Shame, shame...

But at least, I’ll always still have Paris...

... and seriously, I don’t use my computer for anything else these days but Java programming, Word documents, and the goddam internet on an hourly addicted basis...

... and you see.... umm?...

... that’s what’s been bugging me the most about my new computer...

... the one thing it can’t do right... is ironically...

... the fucking goddam internet?...

WTF?!...

...

... explain this one to me...

... for the past two weeks with my new system, whenever I left my computer idle for an hour or two?...

I would then go back to surf the net some more... only to find that...

... umm?...

The damn internet wouldn’t work anymore? What the fuck?!...

... what the fuck?!?...

And it happened every single frickin’, goddam time...

... and it had nothing to do with the power saving mode of the computer. Or at least, it shouldn’t after all the things I tried...

I’ve tried enabling all the power saving features in the bios. I’ve tried disabling them all there, and turning them off in Windows XP... I’ve disabled the power saving mode on my network card. I’ve tried letting the computer bring it out of sleep mode and shit like that... I’ve tried everything I can think of, assuming that my network card is going into some sort of standby shit without my permission, or some crap like that...

... and yet, nothing...

Every single frickin’ time I left my computer on for an hour or two, I would come back and load Firefox 1.04 or Internet Explorer 6... only to find that I can’t even contact any goddam websites anymore...

... the thing is though...

Most of the time, I also have files downloading off of Bittorrent when I come back an hour or two later for the internet...

For some damn reason, I can’t access any websites anymore. But everything just keeps downloading off of Bittorrent, as if nothing was wrong with the internet in the first place...

So I thought that maybe I had a DNS lookup problem, right? Maybe something gets fucked up with my DNS cache after a while or something? Sounds logical, doesn’t it?...

But no matter what kind of programs I downloaded off the net to help with this, no matter what administrator privileges I changed in the system XP settings... No matter what I did to my internet browsers, or to my network protocols when it came to DNS look-up tables? No matter what I fucking did, the goddam internet still wouldn’t work for me if I let it sit idle for an hour or two...

What the fuck was the problem then?

I then thought that maybe something was wrong with my DSL modem itself... I mean, sure it never gave me problems with my old fucking Duron computer, as I could let that computer sit idle for days without anything getting fucked up or any shit like that... but still, times change...

Perhaps my broadband modem wasn’t renewing my IP address properly? Maybe it was shutting down ports on me thanks to its firewall system, or some shit like that?...

So I checked my router settings... and I checked my XP network settings again...

I tried to repair my connections. I tried to renew my IP licenses. I tried to disable certain port restrictions on my DSL router, and I tried to do a whole bunch of shit with whatever settings I could find on the Bell Sympatico thing...

... I’ve disabled firewalls... I’ve enabled software ones...

... and yet nothing fucking worked still...

... no matter what I tried, one or two hours later? My fucking internet would freeze up on me, no fucking doot aboot it...

... well, all websites would freeze up on me at least... while Bittorrent just kept happily downloading along, completely oblivious to whatever the fuck was happening with my network connection...

I tried everything in Windows XP to try to figure this crap out. I tried everything with the bios and the DSL modem that I was connected to... I tried different software firewalls, enabling and disabling the shitty one built into XP, and trying everything I could with ZoneAlarm and other free ones off the net...

I tried to actually apply all the fucking knowledge I learned about networks in all those shitty ass network engineering courses I took and passed at the University of Toronto...

... and yet still, after one or two hours of idle time? My internet connection would still just fuck itself down the drain...

... until I rebooted the computer, of course...

... every single fucking time...

I thought that maybe it was a virus. I thought that maybe it was spyware... I used MsConfig, Regedit, Adaware, Spybot, and about three damn scans with the latest virus definitions for Antivir Virus Scanner to try to find the goddam problem...

... and yet nadda... rien... zilch... and a fucking zero hero...

... my computer was clean...

... except for, oh...

... the fucking insane problem, where the internet wouldn’t fucking work for me!!!...

And it was driving me insane! Why the fuck couldn’t I figure out why?!...

...

... guess I never will either...

Just a couple of dog pile days ago, when all hope was finally lost...

... guess the fuck what?

As if my computer was just AI fucking with me the whole time...

... the internet suddenly worked like a charm for me...

It’s been three days now. Three days of letting my computer sit idle for even entire nights at a time...

Whether nothing, or Bittorrent or Emule or Firefox or any other program is downloading in the background, my network connection stays perfectly stable no matter how many hours of goddam power saving go by...

Everything is fine now...

... and I fucking don’t know why...

I didn’t do a goddam thing. Nothing that worked at least...

And seriously...

... say it with me...

WHAT. THE. FUCK?!?

...

... well, whatever...

... life is like a box of chocolates...

... and don’t kick a good ol’ gift horse right in the motherfucking ass, my momma always used to say...

Either way, that’s my computer story of the week for ya...

Because after six long months of careful deliberations, revelations, premonitions, and ever fateful procrastinations? I finally got the computer that I finally don’t need anymore, thank ya very much...

And it all sounds like so much goddam fun, now doesn’t it?...

It's finally time to kick ass and chew bubblegum...

... and if only I can figure out what the fuck was wrong with my internet in the first place?...

And quite honestly?...

It was quite possibly one of the greatest movies ever made by men...

Right up there with Wing Commander the movie, actually...

... and yes, I’m that damn bored...

...

It’s been a hell of a long time since I last updated this Tweakui website of mine.

And it obviously shows just how bored I am, if I am actually willing to write on this former flagship page of mine...

It’s summer vacation for us University folks over here. Been that way for a while, although I certainly don’t feel free just quite yet...

If you two remaining readers out there haven’t checked my past month of download updates yet, then you’ve probably missed out on the oh so exciting fact, that I kinda fucking slept through the last of my final exams...

All my other exams I passed... not well... but I passed every single fucking course so far...

... except the fucking one course that I slept through...

I was sick though with the stomach flu that day, either by sheer luck or coincidence or whatever sort of crap... And I filed a petition for that missed exam a long time ago. The results should come in this coming weekend...

... it’ll make or break whether I pass the entire damn term or not... that one damn petition alone will determine whether I pass fourth year of fucking computer engineering or not...

So yeah, I don’t exactly feel free quite yet... not until those final results come in...

But at least, with my future hanging on a Java thread, I won’t be bored for a while, now will I?...

And then I guess this week will be just chock full of surprises left in store for me...

It’s the week of Star Wars: Episode III. It’s the week of E3, the Mecca for video game enthusiasts like me...

It’s the week of season finales of god-awful shows like Smallville, Lost, Charmed, and Apprentice... all shows that I wouldn’t watch if I had any common sense... if only I wasn’t the kind of guy to honestly enjoy films like Boa vs Python, but I digress...

And it’s the week that I finally get my new computer... the one that I was supposed to get about six months ago... but I’ll get back to that a little later on...

The thing is though... after this week?...

What do I really have left?...

Without television, without any good movies, and without university studies to piss me the hell off, then what the hell do I have left?...

... I still have no job yet... I never realized how goddam hard it would be, just to get an interview for a decent full-time job without the word "graduated" on my resume...

I still do have my driving test for my final, permanent driving license up here in Canada? That’ll be in June, eh... not like I really care, mind you...

I’m still a horrible driver though... Now, this technically wasn’t my fault or anything, but I seriously almost got into two goddam accidents on the road the other day, by just going to the goddam bank after a 10 minute drive....

The first mistake was really somebody else’s, I swear it... I was turning right at a red light like we Ontarioans can (suck on that, Quebecois Poutine Frenchies...), when some asshole decided to pull a 180 and do a complete U-turn at the major intersection we were at. I completely didn’t expect it, and I almost ended up slamming the side of my car right into his fucking windshield... And then of course, he did the polite thing, smiled, and gave me the right of way...

The other near accident that very same day was not my fault either... I was just driving down a road by my local Wal-Mart (and I did not have a stop sign), when some young Chinese bitch at a stop sign didn’t see me coming and almost drove right into my path... Of course, I slammed on my brakes, looked over at the fucking chink driver behind the wheel (which I allow myself to say, since I’m a chink myself...), and what do you know?...

Typical, bad Chinese, woman driver...

With the squinty eyes, the daddy rich car, and the FOBish haircut along with that Helly Kitty kind of innocuous smile...

... the thing is, she didn’t even seem to acknowledge her blindingly obvious mistake to me... Instead, she sort of just smiled, waved her hand, and then drove on her merry way... as if it was my fault for having the right of way there...

... the thing is though... she was kinda cute...

... wouldn’t have minded if she did run into my car... and sort of... you know... owed me a thousand or two...

... a thousand of what, would be up to me alone to decide...

...

Well, during the up and coming video gaming and television drought, where literally the only thing I’ll have left to watch is fucking Toronto Blue Jays baseball, at least I’ll have my new computer to tinker and toy around with...

To be honest, I still write all my website updates on my ancient AMD K6 400 MHz computer, where the 64MB of SDRAM that I use can barely even run the text editors I use most of the time... I dunno why I keep using my old computer for writing documents. But then again, I’ve always been the no-name nostalgic, now haven’t I?...

Of course, I have a faster computer, on which I do all the Java and C programming I have in computer engineering...

Something like a crappy...

AMD Duron 1GHz (yes, a Duron... a shitty ass Duron)...

A crappy, integrated SiS Motherboard of some kind...

... 256 MB of useless SDRAM-100...

... an antiquated ATI Radeon 7500 64MB PCI (since I love the PCI... standing for "Pussy-with-Cock-from-IvanF, of course... or some shit like that...)...

... an onboard sound card, since I was too cheap to even take a $10 Sound Blaster Audigy from my cousin...

... an Asus 802.11G PCI adapter... which doesn’t fucking work, since I bought it on sale from TigerDirect...

... and I added a 52X AOpen CDRW/DVD and a 16X LG DVD-R DL drive along the way sometime...

... obviously wasting my cash there, since I rarely ever have broadband in my house, let alone anything to ever record onto a DVD... but I digress...

... and oh, a 30GB Maxtor ATA-100 used hard drive... although that wasn’t always there, you see...

Afterall, if there’s anyone who knows how to fuck up a decent computer, it’s good ol’ IvanF...

... hell, I can’t even use USB memory sticks on my computer without it crashing upon insertion for some damn reason... hence the reason I still love all those goddam floppy disks lying around my house...

But whatever... I may not have been able to support multiple Java GUI programs running on my computer simultaneously for testing. But my prompt based automation scripts worked well enough on my Duron, so I had nothing really to complain about...

... well... until the great computer crash of 2004...

... because yes, I had another one...

... some things never change, now do they?...

...

How much data did I lose this time? About 20 GBs worth... although thank God, at least I had backed up all my school projects onto a CD a couple of weeks before...

I still don’t know what really happened...

I was having problems with the DVD-R that I had bought at the time. It could record to DVDs, but for some damn reason, it would freeze near the end of almost every CD that I tried to record with the damn thing...

So I checked out the firmware updates for the DVD recorder. I eventually downloaded one through my beloved $2.95 CDN/month dial-up internet connection and tried to install it...

The thing is... mid-way through the firmware update, I got a fucking error message from my USB ports... the same fucking, useless USB ports that won’t even let me use goddam USB pens without royally fucking up my entire computer...

The firmware update froze. At the 90% progress point, I think...

... fuck...

So I rebooted my computer...

My DVD-R still seemed to work fine, but...

... but?...

... umm?...

My 20GB hard drive...

... it, umm...

... no longer existed?...

... or so my bios and OS claimed...

... fuck...

...

Yeah, I could never solve that problem.

I had tried to update the firmware on my DVD-R... only for my 20GB Maxtor hard drive instead to fuck up on me royally, and not even register as a drive in my fucking motherboard bios...

I tried everything. I tried connecting the hard drive to other computers as slaves, and still nothing would go... I tried Partition Magic, hoping that it would detect the hard drive at least, but nothing would goddam show up...

I was going ballistic at the time... If I hadn’t backed up my latest projects on my school network accounts the day before, I would’ve literally lost the last fucking two weeks of programming work that I had done for my goddam university projects at the time...

The hard drive just wouldn’t read, no matter what I tried, no matter what kind of computer I would put it in...

I don’t get why. I still don’t get why... But the fucking hard disk would not goddam spin.

No whirling sounds = bad motherfucking mojo for yours truly...

... so I was stuck programming the rest of the term on my fucking AMD K6 400MHz, the shitty computer that can barely even run Wordpad properly without crashing somewhere in the middle of a phrase...

Now, that sure as hell was fun...

... and yet I still did better in programming last term than I did this term?...

What the fuck?...

...

... and, well...

I was supposed to get a new computer for Christmas after my royal fuck-up...

... of course, I never did tell my parents exactly how my computer became the vegetable that it was...

I was all set and ready to build the computer from spare, cheapass parts I could find around College Street in Toronto...

... until I found a few Markham stores not so far up north, that had prices even better than the ones I was finding downtown...

The thing is though, I asked my parents to pick up the parts for me in Markham the next time they went...

... bad move, Ivan... bad fucking move...

In December, my parents were ‘too busy’ with work to bother going up north for anything but their Chinese pirated DVDs... I just shrugged and let it go of course, since I had no school work during the Christmas break anyhew...

In January... the weather was just so damn harsh that my parents refused to go up North, since they were terrified of the ice and blizzard conditions here in Canada, or some shit like that...

Now, my parents were all set and ready to pick up my computer parts in February for me. But goddammit, they waited one week... then delayed another... and by the fucking time they would actually go to Markham? There was only one damn week left until the new month was set to begin, and the store would update prices... So I told them to just wait one fucking week until the start of March...

March hit... my parents never went to Markham...

... and keep in mind I had no car at this point... my brother took it to university starting from January... and I sure as hell wasn’t going to lug all those computer parts home with me across four cities of public transit, so...

April hit. I was all set to get my computer for my fucking depressing birthday...

Then my mother got sick with the allergies from a motherfucking infection antibiotic......

I stayed at home to nurse her back to health...

... then she left with my father on their trip to China...

... go figure...

... and came back home motherfuckingly, morbidly sick...

... go figure again...

... details of which are on my download site, by the way...

...

... and, well?...

It’s now May. Soon to be June...

... but I ain’t waiting any longer...

I phoned the place. It’s a done deal.

For $800 CDN, this is the computer I’m getting tomorrow afternoon...

... ahem...

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ 939 (decent enough... I’m almost tempted to get the 3200+ though...)...
ASUS A8V-E Deluxe (PCI-E motherboard... since I fucking hate AGP...)...
1GB DDR 400 Dual Channel (should’ve gone for 2GB, but I ain’t that fucking spoiled, so...)...
ATI Radeon X600 PRO 256M (PCI-E) (I wanted the X600XT 256MB PCI-E... they don’t have it though, and I ain’t paying for the freakin' X800XT, so...)...
160GB 7200 HDD SATA (... decent enough... sort of...)
16X +/- DVDRW DL (another LG DVD-R for now... just for the memories...)...
Sony 1.44MB Floppy Drive (fucking Sony...)...
Onboard sound & 10/100 LAN (WTF?... Where’s my motherfucking Gigabit LAN?... aw, hell naw...)...
And a front USB Case (that will hopefully fucking work this time around...)...

... not the greatest, I know... but for the cost?...

Whatever... it’s a decent computer, considering it’s about only $500-$600 US if you convert...

... and I’ve waited a damn long time to get it...

I’ve waited so damn long, that in January? I literally just bought for myself a cheap ass, used 30GB Maxtor hard drive for that busted computer of mine... I fixed it up, used it to program my Java shit all second term long...

... and ended up getting fucked in the end in marks anyhew, but that’s a story left for my download site...

Either way, it’s finally time for me to fucking get my new computer... and get a fucking new PC game to christen it or some crap like that...

... well, if there are any PC games left out there in the market, I mean...

Either way, I’ll still be bored as hell for the next few months.

I’m goddam unemployed, and I’ve already bought and watched pretty much every TV DVD boxset that I want (sans my precious Star Trek Enterprise... sniff sniff... of course...)...

I might see a Toronto Blue Jays baseball game live with my university friends...

... so yes, I will be goddam bored...

Now that’s just goddam desperate...

...

And let’s see if I somehow fuck up my new computer, with just a few short months of fucking it up, now shall we?

Because it all sounds like so much goddam fun, now doesn’t it?...

... and, well?...

... if I just had a fucking job to do the things I want...

... and watch the movies I want...

... then maybe it actually would be fun?...

... maybe I wouldn’t be so goddam bored?...

... well...

... nah...

... aw, hell naw...

Nothing can compare.

I’ll forever miss my precious Star Trek Enterprise...

And who am I kidding?...

... nothing’s better than Boa vs Python...

... or Wing Commander...

Wing Commander kicked ass and took names...

One of my friends at university, after listening to one of my completely incoherent ravings and rants about nothing, commented that I should start and write myself an internet blog, or some sort of crap like that...

... and, well?...

... pfft...

... as if I would ever sink myself to the level, of actually writing a goddam web blog...

... pfft, indeed...

...

... well, I guess you had to be there...

... because that’s just old news and new news from here on in, now that 2004 is finally being swept away by the giant tsunami known only as 2005... which of course brings me to the biggest news story of the entire year, which only happened about one week ago...

Yes, I feel horrible for the countries affected by the tsunamis that ravaged Sumatra... Hell, I even feel guilty about it, as a lot of my friends from university all hail from the countries of India, Indonesia... and with one close friend of mine in particular from Sri Lanka...

... the thing is, I’ve been trying to get in contact with these friends of mine. Most of them are on co-op positions right now, and I fear a lot of them went back to their home countries to visit family for the holidays (even if they don’t believe in Christmas). And so far, while I admit I haven’t written any e-mails or anything, I’ve been completely unable to get a hold of any of these Asian friends of mine, through either MSN Messenger or ICQ... and since I sadly lost their phone numbers once their co-op placements started, I guess I won’t know what happened to them and their families. Not until well into the New Year, at least...

... some New Year for mother earth, indeed...

Yes, there have been much worse natural disasters in the past generation than the current East Asian crisis, scientifically speaking at least. But in my own lifetime at least, I have never seen anything like this, that caused so much humanitarian destruction on a continental scale... I mean, fucking hell, the death count is almost up to 150 000 people in those countries, with 80 000 of those alone coming from Indonesia (where the 9.0 earthquake hit the hardest). I can’t even begin to imagine what the survivors of the massacre are feeling... hell, I can barely even hold my lunch down when the news even shows all the dead, rotting bodies that they do on screen (since they actually seem to be showing all the corpses, unlike the 9/11 crisis, for God knows what reason...)...

To be honest, I wish I cared more... my worst fear right now is that my small words of condolences will mean nothing to those friends of mine, with families who were affected by this monumental tragedy... I mean honestly, in the case that something did happen to people they cared for, what the hell can I possibly say to comfort them? I’ve never been good with words. And to be honest, considering most of them haven’t talked to me in months? I don’t think they’d even give a damn what someone like me has to say to supposedly cheer them up... I’m just afraid that since nobody that I cared about (family and direct friends, I mean) were directly affected by the earthquake or the ensuring tsunami, that my friends would just brush me off as someone who simply cannot understand the sheer magnitude of the situation at hand...

But probably my worst fear, is that they’re right...

... but at least I wouldn’t be the only one, to be unjustly callous towards the destruction of so many cities and villages on the Sumatra coastlines...

There’s one thing that I really can’t stand about my fellow Canadians at times, and I said it before on my goddam website...

I just can’t stand how fucking anti-American we are at times, no matter the ire of the dire situation...

...

Here we have a huge natural disaster, that wiped out more people in just a single hour than we can possibly even fathom... and yet whenever I hear people (or trendy people, at least) talking about the Asian crisis, they always manage to shift to geopolitical politics, and just how damn "evil" America was being, about the whole damn thing...

By now, everyone on the net has seen the article about how "stingy" the US has been with economic aid. And to be honest, I completely agreed with the editorial’s comments, to some extent at least... But I knew one thing that none of my other fellow Canadians seemed to understand...

America and pretty much every other country out there, purposely started out small with their aid numbers. And why?... because sadly, "aids" and "donations" to ravaged countries in need, always turn out to be races against every other country for PR bragging rights in the end...

I mean seriously, every country started out small in their initial donations, not because they’re cheap. But because they wanted to see what every other country was going to donate first... So what if America only gave $15 million at the start? I knew that the race would begin, that as soon as a place like Australia gave $40 million, then like a Poker game, the US would match their bid and ante up... And then countries like Canada and Spain, not to be outdone, would donate $40 million and $68 million respectively, just to make sure that they look better than America...

... and just today, America upped their bet to $350 million... this new reasonable sum may be the result of a PR struggle between nations, but at least eventually it’ll lead to billions of dollars of aid to the countries that actually need it...

Now, I wouldn’t mind criticism in Canada against the whole PR bidding thing. The damn thing is though, while countries like Australia and Spain get praised over here, every single fucking person who thinks they know shit about politics, keeps flaming on and on about America... First, they all complained that America was damn cheap, using billions of dollars on the war in Iraq rather than give it to countries that "need it". And then after America finally anted up, those same damn critics up here in Canada just lambasted the American states ever further, claiming that it was only public outcry from countries like Canada that made the corporately obese and greedy America give even a fraction of the money they should’ve forked over in the first place...

Whether or not these critics I meet in my University of Toronto are right or not, doesn’t excuse the fact that they’re sadly using the deaths of almost 150,000 people, as yet another miserable excuse to ridicule America with all the goddam anti-American hate we have frozen in our stone cold little country of nobodies...

... and the sadder thing is, I’m so pissed off at all these fucking trendy loudmouths in my country, that I think I care more about them than I do about the countries actually affected by the disaster themselves... as terrible of a thing as that is to say...

... it’s just sad how the circle of hate goes around here up in the North, where we’re never hit by natural disasters like the one that hit the day after Christmas...

Don’t get me wrong – I love my country of Canada, for all its freedoms and securities, and hell, even its damn taxes... it’s just that, I hate people who claim to follow politics, yet only spit out mindless, trendy, fucking iPod rhetoric when it comes to anything in the world, relating to anything actually... as they always find a way to somehow blame America...

... they’ve all lost faith in America, understandably so...

... but the thing is, when people stop believing in one thing, they’re prone to start believing in anything, but the one damn thing they stopped believing in the first place... hell, I’ve even heard whacked out conspiracy theories the past few days, that the US somehow triggered the tsunamis themselves to take flack off of their Iraqi crisis...

... now that’s just low if you ask me, but that’s Canada for ya...

...

... but then again, I think I complained enough about this shit back when the American presidential race was still hot between George Bush and John Kerry...

Yup, if there’s anything that 2004 will be remembered for, besides the devastation of so many in Sumatra far away, it’s the election that the entire world cared more for than their own. Since everybody seems to care about America (although the Ukrainian democratic crisis came a close second, but that’s a story for another day...)...

I’m not going to go into my own pathetic and misguided, political beliefs again. I think I embarrassed enough with my last Y2kk Update, thank you very much... But I will say one thing: the US presidential election was definitely fun, fun, fun for the whole family... both before the actual election day, and long after it as well...

John Kerry was an idiot, with absolutely no personality, no charisma, and no damn real opinion on anything but "I was in Vietnam"... No wonder he was never voted in...

George Bush was the same damn idiot he’s been for the past four years... but somehow, he pulled a true magic trick on us all, and convinced pretty much all of rural America, that same-sex marriages were the real enemy of the nation, and not the terrorists that killed 3000 people back in 2001...

... hell, you gotta give ol’ George credit for that one... well played...

What I found so damn amusing about the whole presidential race though, was how damn bitter both sides were against each other, on the streets of urban America and especially Canada... Up here in the North at least, if I ever mentioned my slight favourable bias towards the Republican party, I would get trendy (though normally hot... and easy...) university girls fucking me up the ear in anger. Afterall, Bush was absolutely the most unpopular guy in Toronto, up until Gary Bettman and Goodenow thankfully took that world wrestling title away from ol’ Dubya...

And just watching all the anti-American activists go to work up here in the North, was probably the most entertaining thing I got to watch all year long...

... because you know something is wrong with modern liberialism, when they claim to support "democracy"... yet cry foul that the US elections should be redone, just because "urban" America (the only US that counts, according to some...) voted Kerry in when the "dumb hicks" in the South all voted for Bush instead...

Hey, I can’t say I disagree with that, to some extent. Afterall, I still will never understand how George Bush painted gay men and women as the true enemy of North America, making more than 50% of all Americans seemingly forget about the billions of dollars that Iraq was putting the country into debt with... But what I just can’t stand, is how even I (with all my spam filters on) managed to get about a half dozen e-mails from people, with pics outlining the average, dismal IQ of the rural areas that voted Bush back into power...

... hell, I haven’t even received one damn e-mail about the Asian crisis yet, and yet I somehow got six or seven e-mails from people I don’t even remember from high school, about the fucking IQ of red and blue states? What the fuck?!...

... oh well, AOL... even if I never liked Bush to begin with, it’s still going to be a kickass ride in 2005...

... just to wait and see how all the anti-Americans up here take to Bush getting a second term in office...

... yup, good times ahead... maybe not for the world, but for entertainment value?... well...

... if only the Asian crisis didn’t happen, maybe that last line of mine wouldn’t sound so cruel...

...

And, well... it’s not like any part of the world noticed or not, but 2004 was also the year of the Canadian prime minister election... of course, nobody in Canada itself cared about the damn thing, and I think I already posted that on my website a long time ago, so...

Anyhew, just to inform the two of you out there who do care about Canadian politics, Paul Martin and our Liberal Party of Canada (the equivalent of the American Democrats) got voted in as a minority government... I voted for the Liberals, since Harper of the Conservative Party of Canada was pretty much as exciting as a robot... or fuck, as bad as iRobot... Hell, I think he even fell asleep during one of his own damn speeches, but I digress...

I hated our election though. I mean honestly, what the hell is the point of a minority government?... Because ever since that election of ours, the Canadian government has accomplished absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things, and simply embarrassed ourselves more and more... maybe not to the global community (who still seems to think of us as godsends compared to America, for some damn reason), but we at least are seriously shaking our heads at ourselves...

Let’s see here... going back through the year of Canada 2004...

Our immigration minister wouldn’t let a refugee into our country, even though he was going to be executed on the spot back in his own nation... We had a lovely sponsorship scandal, with a stripper from outside of the country, if you can believe that... We bought god-awful submarines for way too much money from the UK, that literally were being held together by fucking duct tape until the electrical systems blew and killed its own crew... Our Governor General (our representative of the Queen) wasted more money on fucking vacation trips that we’ve given out as aid during the Asian crisis... And oh yes, I almost forgot Paul Martin pulling a George Dubya Bush, spending his time on vacation in Paris while the rest of the world in the past week has been at least trying to pretend like they care about what happened to Sumatra...

As the Toronto Star put it rather succinctly, Paul Martin’s New Year Resolution, is to simply have some resolve for damn once...

Now don’t get me wrong – I do love our Canadian government... I mean, the subs and sponsorship scandals alone may have costed us hundreds of millions, maybe billions of dollars...

But our Canadian government as a whole?... absolutely priceless...

I still do like our Prime Minster though... He did a fine job as our Financial Minister a long time ago, and if it wasn’t for his waning on the Star Wars Missile Defence Issues, all the anti-American activists up here in Canada (meaning all of Toronto and Vancouver... the only cities that do count, if you ask me...) would still be in love with the man, for defying a nation when it came to Iraq...

... and for legalizing same sex marriages...

... yup, nobody in Canada cares about that... yet the rest of the world for some damn reason, is praising us with no end for our Charter of Equal Rights...

... and, well?...

... it’s great being Canadian...

... we do everything wrong, but...

... we never get blamed, and all because...

... simply put, short story short...

... as least we’re not America...

...

Now, when I started planning to write this whole morbid Y2kk Update of mine (before Christmas, mind you), I expected it to be full of supposedly witty, lameass jokes that only a fool like me or Jon Stewart would ever choke over... But then the Asian crisis hit, and to be honest? Even if it is hypocritical of me, to care more about those countries than I do about all the African ones plagued by civil wars and diseases, it still doesn’t change the fact that I do care... if only because of all the dead bodies shown on television screens, and if only because I know so many friends from university, who came from those very areas devastated by the quake and tsunamis...

Still, guilt aside, I must admit that sadly (and rather superficially), as a Canadian, there was really only one other thing in 2004 that I actually gave a damn about...

... the NHL fucking lockout...

... uggh...

It’s just completely moronic, how damn stupid both sides of the hockey debate are still being...

The NHLPA refuses to accept the fact that hockey is not a popular sport in anything but Canada and Scandinavian countries. They continually insist that the NHL team owners in America are lying through their teeth when it comes to finances, when anyone with half a brain can see that the teams have all been in the red for a very long time... And don’t the damn NHLPA players even realize how damn selfish they look in the public’s eyes? Sure, they may make not as much money as NBA players, or god-awful baseball players and crap like that. But don’t they realize how damn stupid it makes them look, demanding more money for the players, when the average NHL salary (for a sport barely anyone but Canada watches) is already above $2.2 million US?...

And as for the NHL itself?... Well, it was obvious from the start that Gary Bettman was an idiot. A very short, growth stunted idiot... He’s slowly killing the NHL, by believing Americans would actually give a damn about the sport, even if and after it goes the full two damn years that the lockout is now expected to last... He wants replacement players who are willing to actually accept reasonable salaries under a salary cap. But if the US last year already didn’t care about the sport, despite all its marquee players, then why the hell would audiences fill the rafters for no-name nobodies? Hell, I might as well just pick up a stick and play...

Honestly, I wouldn’t mind if the NHLPA won out, considering if the NHL does go bankrupt, at least all the good players from god-annoying Southern teams, like Florida and Dallas, will finally make their way back to the North... where maybe the goddam Toronto Maple Leafs could finally get a chance at winning the Stanley Cup...

... if there’s only six damn teams left in the league, at least...

And while from a business standpoint, I agree with the salary cap idea of the NHL, I really hate the fact that it’s a "hard cap", considering the NBA (even with their "soft cap") pretty much prevents crappy teams like my Toronto Raptors, from ever landing decent enough free agents to actually become a good team in the league... I mean seriously, with just a $38 million salary cap per team as the NHL wants, what the hell are the Toronto Maple Leafs going to do? Pay just our goalie, and line the bench with fans, just to pay our one damn star player’s salary?...

... hell, I think we pay our Zamboni guys more money than $38 million a year...

... pfft... well, at least one thing’s for sure...

... even with the NHL lockout, the Toronto Maple Leafs still have the same damn chance of winning the Stanley Cup, as they do every damn year...

... sigh... some things never change...

... and, well... either way...

... fuck Gary Bettman...

... fuck Bob Goodenow...

... fuck them sideways, and fuck them right up the ass...

... I mean seriously, do they really want to make me cry?...

... hockey, please come back...

... I mean, without the NHL, the only damn things that guys get excited about, up here in the North...

... are rowdy, misplaced Detroit Red Wings fans, brawling with the NBA’s Indiana Pacers...

... and gay, same-sex marriages...

... somehow, no longer just of the lesbian type...

...

And that pretty was much was 2004 in a nutshell...

... to be honest, without the terrible misfortunes of the nations surrounding the Indian Ocean, as cruel as this sounds to write, 2004 would’ve been quite the bore...

... or not...

Ukraine did have a fun time with their completely undemocratic democracy...

Israel and Palestine are once again going to war over Yassar Arafat’s death...

Iraq has now experienced more US military deaths than any war since Vietnam, I think... or at least, since the last Gulf war...

Greece went billions of dollars in debt over a summer Olympics that at least we Canadians didn’t give a damn about...

France surrendered to terrorist demands... again...

China nicely crushed democracy in both Hong Kong and Taiwan, while building lovely suburbs for themselves as Shanghai sinks into the swampy lands below...

Korean stars now kick ass in Japan.

Alexander absolutely got its bisexual ass kicked in America...

Harry Potter, the Da Vinci Code, and Jon Stewart made every fucking literate girl impossible to stand...

The fucking iPod and the god-awful Blackberry cleaned house up here in Canada, if not in sales, then at least in fucking trendy demand...

... the 2005 Ford Mustang is a sweet ass retro ride... and as a 22-year old male in a mid-life crisis, I definitely want...

Spaceshipone possibly accomplished more for space-flight (as pathetically low as its "orbit" was), than America and NASA have done since the last damn Apollo moon landing...

America missed the mark with its Missile Defence Shield... again...

... the Calgary Flames, the Detroit Pistons, and the Boston Red Sox all defied the laws of physics and logic, in actually providing entertaining finales to their respective sports for once...

... the Nintendo DS is absolutely massacring the "limited release" Sony PSP in Japan... very nice...

... and oh yes, the Canadian dollar completely skyrocketed against the rest of the world’s...

... and yet every damn electronic up here that I want, still costs a damn arm and a leg, at least compared to Japan and America...

... almost as high as fucking gas prices...

... go fucking figure...

... that’s 2004 for you...

...

So before I sign off, let me once again send out my heartfelt condolences, to every single man, woman, and child who was affected by the Asian crisis that’s still vacating entire towns and cities to this very day...

... and to them, and to everyone else on the face of the planet I guess (not that anyone will ever read this Y2kk Update of mine, mind you...), I guess for 2004, I shall bid you all an IvanFian no-name adieu...

... with a very heartfelt God Speed, a Good Will Hunting, and a God Bless Us, Everyone...

... and oh yes, a very merry, Happy New Year...

... for what I’m sure, will be a very interesting 2005...

...

... because, who knows?...

... maybe I’ll actually start up a blog?...

I mean, you know your country is a superpower... when everyone in the world seems to care more about your election than their own...

And it’s certainly true up here in Canada. I mean, just ask anyone about anything up here, and you’ll always get one firm answer back:

George Bush sucks.

Doesn’t matter what you asked. Doesn’t matter what the topic of the day is... That’s the answer you’ll always get back. Because that’s what the hip generation of Canada has been trained like otters to say...

It’s like the fad with iPods. Or just bloody hell how Japanese cars practically took over the world... It’s just that, once one person says something, everyone says the same damn thing... It’s like innate knowledge up here now. All of Canada, even those with no knowledge whatsoever of politics, now all seem to just somehow intuitively know...

George Bush sucks.

... because it’s true.

We Canadians have become damn racist of Americans...

... well, we always were in the first place... at least in my lifetime...

I mean, the prejudice up here is simply astounding. Just name anything even remotely relating to American politics, and then you’ll get an earful of a lecture, of just how imperialism and capitalism are the worst things the world has ever goddam seen... I get bitter mouthfuls from otherwise attractive chicks, giving me endless rants how Bush has made the world an absolute distopia to live in, how every single fault in the world can be all traced back to America... Hell, even my sister has fallen on the American-hating bandwagon. Especially my sister, considering she always follows the latest trends... She fell for the Atkins diet. She fell for Supersize Me. And she sure as hell has fallen onto the American hype of a hate train up here in Canada...

... hell, even the nicest people I’ve ever known on the face of the planet... and some of the friendliest girls I have ever met... all seem to share one collective conscious of a hive mind...

... one sure thought... one clear dogma... one sordid truth above all else...

George Bush sucks.

...

... which is precisely why it was just so much goddam fun the other night, to tell a girl I know... that if I was in America?

I’d vote George Bush...

...

It was utterly predictable the first thing she said back... just one dumbfounded, cliche of a question...

"WHY?"

... though that’s not the question I quite cared for...

Now, I still feel a little guilty over this, considering I kind of threw her into a endless while loop over what I retorted back, but still... it still doesn’t change the fact that it’s true... oh, it’s true...

If you tell anyone that thinks they’re hip and jiggy and in with it up here in Canada right now, that you’d vote John Kerry if you could, all you would get back are a bunch of "Hell Yeah’s!" and a chorus of cheers, resounding your name, as everyone dances naked on the burly bandwagon...

But I swear to you – no matter who you tell it to up here in Canada... as soon as you say that if you were given a chance, you’d vote George Bush?... there’s always one thing and one thing alone that everybody would ask back to you...

"WHY?"

...

... heh... Does it really matter why?

I mean, let’s face it. Everyone who thinks they know anything, all somehow know that George Bush is a complete dimwit of an idiot... And while I’ll mostly attribute that to so many news outlets and the internet, printing up every dumbass pretzel choking thing he does in his tabloid of a sensationalized life, the fact of the matter still remains...

George Bush is a complete, dimwit of a moron.

No doot aboot it.

But I’d still vote for him, goddammit...

... and of course, people up here in racist Canada, will only answer my answer with yet another original, aboriginal question of their own...

"WHY?"...

...

Let’s get the facts straight here. We all know George Bush has made his fair share of geopolitical bunglings, and you don’t have to be some elitist, existentialist, bullshit artsy at the University of Toronto to figure that one out.

I mean, where should we start?...

On the warfront, wasn’t it Bush that told the Iraqi insurgents to "Bring it on!", only to regret the loss of over a thousand American troops as of the November 2^nd election? Wasn’t it Bush who claimed that the war in Iraq was not over oil, and then shot himself in the mouth with a bunch of rich ass speeches to businessman, completely contradicting what he earlier said (even if it was all in zest... afterall, newspapers don’t capture sarcasm very well...)?... Wasn’t it Bush who said there were weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, only to admit a year later that his intelligence was based on the word of a few Iraqi despots desperate to get rid of Saddam?... And wasn’t it Bush who said he would do everything in his power to capture Osama Bin Laden, only to completely ignore all intelligence on Al Qaeda by the Pakistan/Afghan border, and end up putting the US yet another trillion dollars in debt over some pointless and completely spontaneous war in Iraq?...

Wasn’t it Bush that said and did all these things, only to slap his Texan forehead a year later in stupidity?...

He couldn’t save the economy. He couldn’t save Iraq... Unemployment is at its highest in decades in America. There’s still no real sign to the end of the dotcom crash crisis... He can’t even pronounce grade school words properly. And he really, really ridiculously did paint himself a complete idiot, as he was staring like a deer caught in the headlights on September 9/11...

... yeah... you gotta love Bush...

... he really fucked up...

... and that’s why I would vote for him...

...

I mean, to paraphrase the makers of South Park (and Team America)...

... ahem...

‘If you walk out of Fahrenheit 9/11, with a completely changed opinion over who to vote for in the election...

... then...

... you’re stupid and shouldn’t be voting anyway...’

...

Ah, Confucius says that the South Park creators are geniuses...

George Bush obviously is not...

But let’s get some more facts straight here as well...

Was George Bush a complete idiot during his first two debates against Kerry? Without a shadow of a doubt, I think his forty second pauses in between words were a dead giveaway... But I honestly can’t believe that people are still complaining up here in the North, that Bush was wearing a wire or some crap like that... I mean, people complain that he’s cheating, yet complain that he was an utter dunce in his debate? I mean honestly, WTF?... If Bush actually was wearing a wire during the debate, then he should just fire and shoot everyone he had working for him in the fucking back... There is absolutely no way he could be that damn dumb on national television with a full think tank of geniuses both in his ear and up his ass. And if he was?...

... then God help America...

Was George Bush an idiot, for thinking American troops could be anything more than just sitting ducks and cannon fodder in Iraq as Al Qaeda bombs them to hell with hundreds of new suicidal recruits? Obviously... The war in Iraq perhaps never should’ve happened... especially after the UN turned it down (though that’s worth an French oil debate in its own right, but I digress...)...

But why is everyone suddenly forgetting about Afghanistan? Didn’t they just have their first democratic election, which actually went off without so much of a hiccup from the insurgents all across the big blinking board?... Sure, not everything is peachy over there in the Middle East right now, but Afghanistan today sure as hell seems a hell of a lot better than it was under the wrath of opium warlords everywhere... Are the warlords gone? Of course not. But people there have far more freedom than they’ve ever had in decades. And they showed up in droves for the election for a reason (some people multiple times...), if that proves my point at all...

Could the invasion of Afghanistan have been for oil? Maybe so, especially with all the pipeline conspiracy theories out there, but why the hell should that matter?... Afghanistan today actually has the hope of becoming a better country, where the people could at least share the freedoms that Turkey and Malaysia seem to have... Shouldn’t that count for something? Shouldn’t that count for anything? And yet as soon as I ever bring that topic up with people, they either complain about oil robber-baron conspiracies, or they simply shift the attention back to Iraq...

And as for Iraq... Did Bush lie about weapons of mass destruction? Probably... considering the only weapon of mass destruction found in the country, was his own damn personal army...

He may not have had "real" proof of WMDs in the country... as evidenced by those god-awful pictures of blurry trucks of nothing before the invasion... But has the world completely forgotten, that Iraq DID HAVE weapons of mass destruction? At least a couple of years before the war?... Wasn’t it only around 2000, that UN inspectors found tons of anthrax hidden away in warehouses, only to be banned from the country by Saddam until they forgot all about their discovery?...

And goddammit, WE ALL KNEW that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction! And how did we know that?...

BECAUSE AMERICA FUCKING SOLD IT TO THEM! That’s why!

Ask any environmentalist freak up here in Canada... and they’ll blame America for selling WMDs to Saddam in the 90’s, and yet completely contradict themselves by saying Saddam was peaceful and WMD-free by 2004...

I mean honestly... seriously?... WTF?!

Is every fucking Bush hater completely naive or what?...

The question is NOT whether Iraq HAD weapons of mass destruction or not... The question is, what the fuck happened to the ones we fucking sold them?...

...

I gladly admit that George Bush is probably the stupidest man alive today...

... and yet I’d still vote for him. In this American election anyhew...

... so the question still remains, since nobody can ever get a fucking clue...

"WHY?"...

...

Just take a look at the competition I say.

Senator John Kennedy...

... and while it’s tempting to get him into office, if only to see what the first Catholic candidate since John F. Kennedy could accomplish in power... the thing is, Kerry is pretty much as lameass as they come...

... because to paraphrase Canadian Air Farce...

... ahem...

<John Kerry/>

"I have been blamed for not having a backbone!

But I am here to say, once and for all,

I do not change my opinion on things!

... well, maybe I do...

... well, it depends on which day of the week...

No, I have convictions! I have a vision!

... well, sometimes... sort of...

... should I?...

... I was in Vietnam...

I will balance the budget, in two years!

No, three!

... well, maybe four..

... sometimes five...

... no, six at the most...

I believe in our American soldiers! I believe in our commitment to Iraq!

... well, maybe I do...

... if you want me to...

... depends how they do...

And oh, did I mention I was in Vietnam?...

..."

</John Kerry>

Let’s face it. John Kerry is all talk and no action. He simply tells the American public (or the Bush hating half of it at least...) exactly what they want to hear, no matter what he actually believes...

I may like hypocrites. But not those who make it so damn obvious of who and what they are...

Take Vietnam for example... Why the hell would he claim he was proud of fighting in the war, when he came back after four months, only to protest his government and claim that the war was pointless and futile in the first place?... And suddenly, he’s now trying to paint himself a proud war vet all over again? Pick a fucking side, you pussy...

What about his take on the Israeli wall? One day, he claims it’s an impediment to world peace, and the next, he was quoted as saying it was necessary to stop Palestinian suicide bombers?... And honestly, WTF is up with his opinion on Yasser Arafat? One week, he was quoted as saying he was a great man, and the next he sounded like he hated his guts for what the people of his country were doing to next year in Jerusalem...

I mean honestly, WTF is John Kerry thinking?...

... well, at least he didn’t claim he invented the internet...

... no wait, he did... well, sort of... no, maybe...

... well, depends on which day of the week it is...

... and oh, did I mention he was in Vietnam?...

...

John Kerry is a rich bastard who’s trying to suck up to all the damn artsies in North America, who try their very best to reject their own wealth for the idealist, communist good of the nation... Now, George Bush may be a rich asshole too, but he never really tries to hide it... Meanwhile, John Kerry goes from coast to coast, hugging babies and jet skiing at the very same time... Sure, that’s what an election is all about. But why the hell do we Canadians flame Bush over his wealthy antics, yet seem to give Kerry the free green light of an American green card?...

Let’s face it – even if we Canadians all knew "Dubya" Bush was a moron when he was first elected, we didn’t really hate him... It was only a year after 9/11 that we got so sick of playing nice to the Americans, that all the artsies let loose with their propaganda against the newly formed Patriot Act... And suddenly, even to people who don’t care about politics in our own country, every single fucking Canadian who thought they know shit, suddenly realized that the Democrats are God and that the Republicans are horrendously playing God...

... not that they’re wrong, but...

But how the hell could we have forgotten all the past mistakes the Democrats have done as well?...

Bill Clinton right now is riding a wave of fame over his new book, along with the nostalgia over the economy during his early years... But did we completely forget just how much of a complete, bungling asshole he was in power?... He slept with interns, he bombed the hell out of Iraq just for fun, he let the Cole get destroyed, he fucked up the world economy, and he did it all while playing golf and wearing the most smug of smiles! And yet Canada suddenly loves this guy after an autograph round at Ingido books?!...

... honestly, WHAT THE FUCK?!...

Let’s face facts here: deep down inside, we DO NOT really hate Bush up here in Canada...

We hate America.

We always have been jealous, and we always will be jealous.

No matter who is president, no matter who is in power, we hate them... No matter what America does, whether run away from Somalia, or start a new Gulf War, we hate America... No matter whether we need them to protect us from Al Qaeda, or help our damn economy with buying all our exports, we fucking hate America. Always have, always will... and having John Kerry in power will not change that...

... a change in government, will not change a fucking thing...

... rinse, cycle, and repeat...

... and now finally, we’re getting to the real reason why I’d still vote for Bush...

...

... wait for it...

... ahem...

...

There’s always been one thing and one thing alone that I’ve always hated about the human race since day fucking one... or at least, society as we North Americans know it today...

Because seriously...

WHAT THE FUCK is up with our fucking obsession with change?!...

Ask anyone who thinks they’re hip and in with the new crap in society, and they’ll always give you the same bullshit answer...

That change is good. That change makes the world work. That change is what everyone and everything should be about... That change in the workplace is ideal. That change in business competition is for the best. That change in your clothing, in your hairstyle, in your resume, in your manner, and speech, and slurs, and sex, is all just somehow fucking progress...

That change, period... is progress...

... that change, period... is good...

I mean honestly, how fucking short are our memories anyhew?...

The people up here in Canada, who think they’re more than people, just want change for the sake of change... We do it with our own fucking governments. After four years of one party completely screwing up, simply because it takes four years to change all the shit the last government put into power, then we just change the government again... elect a new government for four years, to completely negate all the changes that the last party was trying to implement in their four years... Then we hate the new party for making no progress, elect a new one to fuck the books up even more, and the cycle continues...

... on and on and on, the endless cycle always continues...

... and no-one ever notices...

... that maybe democracy is pretty fucking stupid at times...

... or at least, the people are...

...

People are motivated by hate. And spite. And trends. We all know that...

People always seem to fail to see the big picture...

To them I ask, exactly WHY is change good?...

By getting Kerry into power, do people just magically believe that the past two years of hell in Iraq could suddenly be wiped out? That no more soldiers will die? That just getting out of Iraq will suddenly make Al Qaeda and all the terrorist groups out there play nice with America? That Kerry would even leave Iraq in the first place?...

Hell, thousands of people in the Middle East were cheering on 9/11 for a reason...

People hate America, period...

Hell, even we Canadians hate America, period... a new president ain’t going to change a damn thing...

The thing is, of course Bush is a moron. But why the hell do we only care about Bush? Sure, he’s the commander-in-chief and everything. But why not think about his party?... Sure, they have their own fair share of morons. But the party as a whole is not that damn dumb...

Yes, America invaded Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of lives were potentially lost. I get that. But that already fucking happened...

And while it would be nice to punish the government in power that caused all this to happen in the first place... the fact of the matter is... That’s just hate talking. That ain’t a solution.

Do people ever care for solutions?...

...

Unlike Kerry, Bush actually has a plan for Iraq...

Is it a good plan? Will it work?... Who really knows, right?...

But he does have a plan. Kerry just keeps saying he’ll half ass make one up one day...

... or not... or maybe... or sometime in the next ten years, perhaps?...

We Canadians are so damn blinded by our American racist hate, that we ignore the fact that a change in American government, will cause God knows what else to happen to the people in Afghanistan and Iraq... These countries don’t really have infrastructures yet. They’re only surviving right now on the goodwill of the United States of America... and who fucking knows what will happen if Kerry gets into power, right?

We as a democratic nation demand stability in these countries.

Yet we demand instantaneous change and progress as well.

Change is good, right? Change is progress, isn’t it?...

But how the fuck is stability ever going to form, if the government keeps changing its 10 year plan, every four fucking years?...

... answer that one for me, artsy bitch...

...

Now THAT is precisely why I’d vote Bush if I could on November 2^nd, 2004.

Because in all honesty?

I hate change.

I’m a fucking racist against change.

And change is absolutely the last thing countries on the brink of destruction need right now...

Now, in his potential second term, if Bush chooses to ignore Afghanistan and Iraq in order to go fuck the asses of Iran and God knows what other countries, then of course I’ll bite my own words, and bite my own cock maybe as well...

But right now, all that’s sure, is that if the Bush government continues, the plan that his party has going right now (for Iraq and Afghanistan) will continue... And even if it’s an imperfect plan... Hell, even if it’s a fucking mess of a plan... The fact is, it’s already underway. The fact is, the plan is already in motion... And the fact is, if the plans are changed in the country of Iraq, before they even get a chance to work, then who the fuck knows what the fuck is going to happen to the millions and millions of people who suddenly find themselves with no government?...

Sure, I can see the obvious contradictions in my opinion... I know Bush fucked up and fucked up bad. And yet I’m rewarding him for it, by saying he deserves a second term in office, just for the chance to fix up the world that he fucked up?... And sure, this may go against most common sense beliefs (aka Canadian racism against Americans...)... But the fact of the matter is, we have no damn assurances whether Kerry can fix a damn thing or not. He hasn’t shown a single iota of conviction in all his years as Senator... Doesn’t matter who’s in power. People will die in Iraq anyways. Terrorism will rampage across the globe no matter what, just like it always has, long before Bush ever showed up...

Bush may be the greatest idiot to ever disgrace the Oval Office. But at least we know where he stands. At least with him, you know how the next four years will go... There will be sweat and bloodshed, but at least there will also be a direction... and at least with him?... heh... well, at least we Canadians can keep laughing at you poor sons of bitches down to the south...

Sometimes it’s better to stick with the devil you know than the devil you don’t know....

And if that devil you do know, starts fucking the rest of the entire world up the ass?...

... well then...

... maybe they can make it look like a pretzel attack or something...

... Now watch this drive...

...

... in the meantime though, I’ll just go on harassing hot university, arts and science chicks with the simple and very annoying question... simply out of spite and Jedi revenge...

"WHY?"...

...

... ah... good ol’ fashioned American politics and pie...

... sounds like so much goddam fun, now doesn’t it?

... because seriously...

... this is why I've never had a girlfriend...

... I’ve honestly got nothing better to do with my day...

...

... so to all Americans, I tip top my Canadian beer hat of hate to you... no doot about it, eh... and simply sound off a small semblance of a timbit goodwill to every single American out there...

... a God Speed, a Good Will Hunting, and a God Bless Us, Everyone...

... hiding in shame, actually...

I’ve been around... my friends haven’t...

... that’s what I’m really shamed about. I never really left...

What has it been now? Four months? Four bloody months... and I’m still really the only one leftover, cocooned, imprisoned and forgotten in his own goddam house?

Who am I really kidding? I keep rationalizing things to myself... but the truth of the matter is...

This just plain sucks...

I’ve probably complained about it all before. That most of my university friends all got jobs? And I was the one who didn’t even get a single goddam interview, all thanks to the fact that I’m a goddam loser at my university...

Honestly, which company really wants some little shrub of a Chinese man, who barely manages to pass his engineering terms with 60% averages... when there’s a huge fucking boatload of Chinese immigrants fresh off the boat, all still thinking that anything less than a 99% in university is just a goddam failure?...

So many of my friends got seemingly great jobs at companies I can’t even remember anymore... Is the pay great? Not exactly. Not even RIM was offering much, considering they were just hiring my friends to be co-op sex slaves... well, without the sex part of it all... or at least, I hope without the sex part...

... the job description just talked about hand jobs, that’s all...

That doesn’t make me feel any better about it though. Life’s still a bitch for me, knowing that I was left behind... knowing what I left behind... And I know that if anyone ever did read my website, they’d just roll their eyes at how many times I just whine and whine and whine some more, about how my life is crap and nobody else’s is...

Well, the fact is, I know my life isn’t really crap... especially compared to most of the other people on the planet, the way they tell their life stories at least... But it certainly doesn’t help that my own goddam family keeps reminding me left and right, about what kind of failure I am...

... when you keep getting reminders, you sort of start believing the tales...

They do try to be polite about it though... Just the other week, my sister sent me an e-mail, telling me to apply to a company called CIM, to be some sort of Microsoft Software salesman at my university or something. And the job sounded alright I guess, but I just freeze up whenever goddam presentations and spontaneous events are involved... That’s just not my thing. That’s hers. And I hope to God, I am not her... And it certainly didn’t help that I’d have to do this CIM job during the goddam school year... so I simply sent her back a polite, "thanks, but no thanks" sort of deal. And I was hoping that’d be it...

... not with her, of course... She cares so much about me, that she just loves to talk behind my back and all... It just gives her so much self esteem of course, thinking that she’s being a good Samaritan by helping me out and all... especially when I turn it down...

And so the lecturing began... My parents learned of the job offer from my sister. And since she was probably vague on the details, my parents simply heard the word "Microsoft" and assumed I had turned down a goddam programming job of the highest caliber... You know, the type of which I would’ve begged to just have gotten an interview for this summer, just to feel equal to my friends...

So what did my parents do? Well, my mom gave me that "I’m not angry, just disappointed" sort of talk. She then gave me a whole rant about work ethics, how I should be able to work 40 hours a week with school on the side, and still manage that 4.0 GPA that I can only wish I somehow could get in fourth year of engineering... And oh, then my dad just had to cut in. I think I had to listen to him for an entire hour, lecturing me about his first job experience, back in the day, uphill and downhill both ways while shoveling the snow... Even when I tried to argue back, claiming that I didn’t want to bother with a goddam salesman job (since it doesn’t even count towards my required engineering experience component), he just kept on yapping and yapping and yammering on, how I was an idiot for not accepting a programming job from Microsoft... for over an hour, I had to hear him berate and grate my brains across the floor, that I must have no class, no drive and no ambition whatsoever, to not go for a top level Microsoft job like this one, all because it was during the school year...

... he has a thing against people who are lazy... Yay, capitalism...

... and of course, he wouldn’t listen to me about what the job was really about... and the next day when my sister came visiting, I had to hear a speech from her too... although at least she actually knew what the real job was about... and in my goddam frustration, I just gave up on the whole debate, and agreed to just sign up with the bastards...

I called CIM a couple days later, asking questions and not caring about the answers... Mostly, I just got generic website replies anyhew. So I just went to their online site, applied my ass away, and never looked back... I probably wouldn’t even accept a job offering if they called me up one day during the school year. I just applied to get my parents off my back, since they still seem to think that this salesman pitch sort of job was a top of the line, Microsoft programming ticket to their goddam Redmond headquarters...

... I’d love to go to Redmond... Nintendo being there and all... but that dream ain’t flying anywhere fast...

The thing is, I understood my sister’s point: how can I honestly expect to get a job I want, when I won’t even take the first steps to get the jobs I need for my resume?... I understand all that. As much as it pains me to say that, I even agree with her point... But do I really need to take goddam jobs during my penultimate year of university, just because she’s so goddam "concerned" about my future? Do I really need to listen to hour long rants from my parents, about how lazy I’ve been all summer, when really I already knew that when I was left behind by all my friends? Do I really need so many damn speeches, that my four months of nothingness have been all my fault, when that’s all I really complain about on my goddam websites?...

I get it already. I’m an unemployed bum, who probably won’t even manage to make it through my final year of goddam U of T computer engineering... I just don’t need to be reminded of it, every single damn time my sister feels an itch to scratch, that’s all...

... besides... I’m sort of having a fork in the road dilemma over here...

The thing is, my goal in life right now is to just somehow fucking graduate from University of Toronto engineering, and just get a decent programming job for a couple of years... But that’s not what I really want to do in life. And to be honest? I’d really love to learn what the hell to do with my life... I’d love to stay in school, taking up history this time or maybe going for a cheap ass MBA. Just to say I have an MBA at least, and get my fellow arts and science coworkers in the office to show me how to use those damn FedEx websites...

But after those two years of programming jobs... after maybe even getting a two year business degree or something?... then what?...

... even if it’s not really what I want to do in life, it is pretty much what I want to want in life...

... I may hate the family business... but I love my family... and if nobody else in this family is willing to take over the apartments and townhouses we own, simply because they’re too busy with the social status of the corporate life?...

I’m the first born son in a Chinese family. I’d never be able to forgive myself, if I ever let the family business go...

That’s what my father has really been lecturing me about... for the past twenty years of my life, I think...

He’s always wanted me to be an engineer (although he much would’ve preferred electrical over the computer I chose...). And, well... he's also always wanted me to be a doctor, a lawyer, an accountant, a priest, and a rabbi too I think... but that's besides the point...

But I’ve always known, pretty much as soon as I was born, that all my father really cared about, was that I appreciated him for all that he was worth... and I do... but to prove that, as the first born son, I know what I have to do... Even if I hate the family business itself, it’s my role in life to take the reigns of the company. Otherwise my parents would have to sell... sell everything they’ve built with their own sweat and blood and tears over twenty bloody years... And I could never let them do that... not with a clean conscience, at least...

... and especially not with the company being so damn profitable...

But money has never been my concern, believe it or not. I rather concern myself with happiness... with contentment... with tranquillity and goddam personal peace...

I may get some reprieve, by taking over the family business like my parents have always dreamed that I would... like my father has been lecturing me about all summer long, whether he realized it or not...

... but I also know, that being the landlord of a goddam high rise apartment, will make me a complete and utter bitch after a while... Landlords are evil. I know that, because I sort of am one... Because if I had to deal with the shit that my parents deal with, each and every day of the fucking week? I know that I’d lose my humanity as well. I know I’d lose my faith, in whatever kind of hope I had for the goddam human spirit in the first place...

... when it comes to money... when it comes to business... people have to be cruel, to get what they need...

I’ve been going to work for my parents every single week during my four month hiatus from school... I’ve painted a ton of units. I’ve repaired a lot of walls... I’ve cleaned out a hell of a lot of leftover furniture. I’ve washed a hell of a lot of fucked up carpets... and I even, umm... watched at least, while my brother was replacing an entire washroom in a unit... But none of this manual labour shit ever really phased me. Hell, I even enjoyed it, simply because I got to spend some quality time with my brother for once...

... plus the fumes... fumes are cool, bro...

... but in the end though... it was the people that I remembered most... the goddam tenants... because I knew that even if I didn’t have to deal with them now, I knew I would have to some day... and if I don’t get an engineering job right out of university, that some day will be pretty damn soon...

There was this girl, a rather pretty woman who was living in a townhouse, next to the unit I was hard-wooding at the time (umm... if that sounds good...)... When I stepped outside into the townhouse hallway for a break, she just immediately came to me, begging me to talk to my parents for her...

... it’s become obvious to all the tenants now, that I was going to be one taking over the family business. Why else would I always be there?... besides the fact I had absolutely nothing better to do, of course...

I took one good look at this woman, and realizing she was preying on my fetish for girlie pajamas, I could see she really was a woman... a real woman at one time at least, a long long time ago... She looked like she had been a queen in high school or something. Hell, she had the kind of look to her, that just screamed out that she could’ve been an absolute cutie in freshman year of university... until something happened to her, of course... and now her hair was all ruined... now she looked worn out, used, and maybe miserable with her life, no matter how popular she might’ve been at one time... And now? Now she was living in a dump. My dump... my townhouses...

I hate to say this, but yes, the townhouses I own are pretty much a dump... For bad prices, you get to live in a terrible part of Toronto. And unless we completely get rid of our tenants, there’s really not much we can do about that... Every time we fix up a fridge, replace the windows, or sand the floors, the new tenants just tear it all up... I’ve literally had to squeeze out dog manure (or at least, I hope it was dog...) from basement carpets that were no more than a month old, more times than even I would like to tell... and I certainly ain’t proud of the fact that tenants leave whatever broken furniture they have left, for me to clean the hell up, whenever they feel like running away without paying their last months of rent...

Well, this pretty woman that was talking to me? I got the distinct impression she was getting ready to run.... Like I said, I knew she was a queen in high school or something. And then something happened... that something happened... I saw in her townhouse, a four or something year old daughter. But no man. No husband... She was a single mom. Yet another product of this day and age of chivalry gone wrong...

And this mother... this worn out, used, and broken down mother... She was begging me to convince my parents to give her just one more week to get the rent. I could really hear the desperation in her voice... She was really ready to run away from the place, because she really didn’t have the money. She didn’t know what to do. I don’t think she’d ever have the money... and I knew I really couldn’t talk to my parents about her. How the hell could I ever hope to defend a woman, who probably was ready to run away from out townhouses, having owed us thousands of dollars of months of rent?...

... and I was right... I talked to my parents afterwards, and it turned out she owed us pretty much two thousand dollars at that point... She hadn’t paid the rent in three months now. My mother was about to try to take her to court... until she ran, at least...

... this woman... this goddess from a time long ago... she tried to play me... and that’s the thing, isn’t it?...

This is the kind of shit I’ll have to deal with as a landlord. This is the kind of crap, that is going to turn me into the bastard that I know I am inside... I mean, what else could anyone have done in this situation? As a human being, I’d love to sympathize with the woman. I mean, she was single fucking mom, for Christ’s sakes. She had a four year old daughter, who needed a home and shelter and food... Childhood is the most precious thing in this entire goddam world. And as a landlord, I would’ve had to take this woman to court... if she hadn’t run away into the cold of the void of the goddam despair of the night, at least...

As a human being, I would’ve loved to play the hero and saved the damsel in distress... But that’s why people absolutely hate people in charge. That’s why I fucking hate people in charge... and I’ll have to be one of these people, one of these days... the people in charge, to take over the goddam family business... And as a landlord, I will have absolutely no choice but to bring these kinds of people to trial... If I ever willingly allowed a person to live in a townhouse with three fucking months free of charge, I would get complaints from almost every single other tenant. I’d probably get fucking sued if I didn’t give the same deal to everyone else... I simply cannot play favourites when it’s my own ass on the line... when it’s the company’s life on the line...

And you see?... a lack of humanity... equals a fine line of leadership... goddam, fucking worthless leadership...

... and a hell of a lot of cash in the end, I’d wager...

But how the hell am I going to pull this off?... I absolutely hate being the cruel bastard. Just the other day, I accidentally scratched up someone’s car. And because I didn’t leave a note and offer to pay for all the damages, I’m still hitting my fist through walls in guilt... I can barely live with myself, over such a small, fucking, trinket of a thing in everyday life. So how the fuck am I supposed to deal with the fine fucking line, between ethics, fairness and goddam capitalism?...

... yay, capitalism...

And yet how would I feel, how would my father feel, if I didn’t take over the family business?...

...

I admit it... at times, I do like being in charge... My parents hired some help the other month for me. I got to boss around some guy my age, when it came to ripping up carpets and heaving heavy furniture leftover in tenant basements... And this guy, he treated me with respect... It was kind of funny - I could tell he was pretty damn racist against Chinese (or anti-racist, maybe...), the way he would talk about my people and everything. I mean, he was always so damn careful with whatever he said, absolutely making sure he didn’t offend my feelings, that I almost laughed at how subservient he was being... I mean honestly! I’m a 110 lb. computer geek! And he was about double my fucking size... Since when has anyone sucked up to me, ever?...

... yeah... I enjoyed being the boss for one day... but what about the days I have to fire someone? Or what about the days I have to evict a tenant for fraud? Or one of those days, when I even just have to ask the tenants for the money they owe me, fully knowing that a single mom or a broken down child could be the one to pay? How could I ever do all these things to another living being, just for the fucking money?... just out of the fucking principle?...

How the hell can I ever be a landlord, when I’m a fucking wimp of a pansy... who writes like a lame ass poet on the goddam internet?...

... and yet, this is my dream...

... dare to dream, I always say...

... not to be a landlord... but to be the son my father wants...

Western society may call me misguided or some crap like that, claiming that I should follow my own dreams and not those of my parents... to be an engineer. To be a doctor. To be a lawyer. To be an accountant... or a fucking priest and rabbi, I don’t know... All I know, is that dreams can be funny things at times...

I don’t want a job that will change me into a monster. But I do know, that I will already feel like a monster, if I don’t take my father’s job...

Damned if I do, damned if I don’t... and I’ll regret whatever decision I’ll make in the future, I’m sure...

... sounds like so much goddam fun, now doesn’t it?...

... it is... after being lectured about it for four fucking months in a row...

...

... but I don’t need to make my decision just quite yet. Like I said before, I gotta finish out my university career, and get my fucking iron ring from the goddam University of Toronto... and in order to do that? I have to test the waters of the engineering job market anyways... I need a couple years experience, and figure out where I stand...

And to be honest? Probably my brightest dream right now, is to simply hire a small company to manage my parents’ properties for me... while I sit in a goddam cubicle, reading Dilbert comics as I administer some no-name company’s network or some laid back shit like that... That’d be a win-win situation, wouldn’t it? I’d only have to deal with the evilness of a property management company, and I can still feel like a goddam equal to my friends by having a real day job for once... and I’d still get to be lazy. That’s always a goddam plus, even if I have to wake up early in the goddam morning...

... the only problem, would be the goddam profit margins... and my money loving mom would disown me for that... but since when have I really cared about money?...

... then again... since when have I ever needed to afford anything?... I still use free goddam web hosts, you know...

... Landlords love money... or so the spiteful stereotypes claim...

... and I will be a landlord one day... hell, I’ve already got the stereotype part down pat...

... yay for me, I guess...

... but for now, the four months of summer hell are finally over...

... finally, I can be lectured by professors again instead of my own goddam family around the clock...

... or both actually... if memory serves me right...

... and honestly, I don’t really need to think about this family business crap yet. I still have a few more years until final jeopardy takes a stand...

... I still have my whole life ahead of me... life is very long afterall, even if memory serves me short...

... my only problem now, is just feeling like a goddam useless bint of bum... like the runt of the litter... while my friends are all off... supposedly learning what life is all fucking about... not like that means anything, but still...

... I’ve been around... and my friends haven’t...

... that’s what I’m really shamed about... I never really left...

... and what’s even more shameful... is that I’m still scared of leaving...

... I mean, who am I fucking kidding?... this just plain sucks...

... when will I take a stand?...

... well...

... Canada, I guess...

And a happy, somewhat belated Fourth of July to...

... well?...

... the best place in the world to live in...

... Canada again, I guess...

That’s the joy about living in the Great White Polar Bear North, and having two major national birthdays so close together... I mean, every single fucking Canadian but me got shitfaced on July 1^st, since the whole world knows that Canadian beer is like moonshine... And then why bother ever calling the party off? With the weekend just around the corner, people were too damn hungover to even bother going to work on Friday. Which means what?

Which means Canada was still party hardy central. For four straight days. For everyone who actually gave a damn about not giving a damn...

... which explains why I didn’t do a damn thing...

... and, eh?... oh, yeah...

... happy fourth of July to all Americans out there too...

...

... the saddest part of it all, was that I didn’t even spend my Canada’s Day whining about old friends drifting apart, or new friends ditching me for Spiderman. I didn’t even spend the night staring at the neighbours’ pathetic drunken attempts at firework shows, pining about what could’ve been with all those girls that could’ve been a could’ve...

And you know what’s really sad?

I spent my Canada’s Day... whining about politics...

... and about the goddam Toronto Raptors making an embarrassment of themselves at the NBA draft, but that’s a story for another day...

...

Since the entire world probably didn’t notice Canada had a federal election the other day (and why should they? It’s not like I give a damn when the King of Australia calls for a damn election either...), I might as well vent and swell and broadcast the big news out, to the couple of people who still actually give a damn about this website of mine...

While America is mainly a two party country, Canada is essentially three: the Conservatives (Republicans), the Liberals (Democrats), and the NDP (left wing extremists believing, well... you don’t want to know...). The NDP have never gotten into power, and for damn good reason... Because whenever they take over in provincial elections, they ruin the entire damn country! How the fuck could Bob Rae put my province of Ontario into so much debt, I will never know... And how the fuck could the 71% Marijuana-supporting British Columbia motherfuckers actually want an NDP government back, I really don’t want to know...

... and just for the record, Ontario is the big "state" north of New York... BC is the weed producing state just north of Seattle... and Canada? Well, I understand if some people out there can’t find it on the map, all tucked away down there with America always on top... like a big fat, red white and blue cherry...

... eh?... now I’m hungry...

The thing about the Canadian election, was that it was two tier painful for me in the end... On one side, I had my father. Obviously, I’m a grown man and should vote exactly as I see fit. But let’s face it – with the Canadian riding system, one vote really doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things... My vote in Canada doesn’t go towards which party gets elected into government power or what not (although it does decide party funding). It simply elects a party into power in my single "riding" or community of 100,000. And whichever party gets more ridings into parliament power is counted the winner in the end, even if some other party manages to beat them out in the total number of popular votes across the country...

So I was in a bit of a dilemma... On one side, I had my father. And even though he owes the Liberals everything for their easy immigration policies, allowing him and his family to enter this country decades ago and pretty much amass a decent fortune, he’s switched sides over the years. Hell, he even yells at me whenever I even try to argue against the Conservative Party these days, since all he really cares is about how much money he can save a year on taxes... And considering I knew my one, little vote wouldn’t mean very much in this election? Would it really have killed me just to vote Conservative to please my dad, even though I’ll never really agree with their right wing policies compared to the Liberal Party of Canada?...

... well, if the Conservatives had a hot bitch as their leader, I’d definitely be more inclined to vote in their favour... but things didn’t exactly happen that way, now did they?...

... eh?... now I’m definitely hungry...

... the thing is, while I was terrified of backstabbing my father in the, um, back, by just canceling out his Conservative vote with a Liberal one, the thing is... My friends at university would’ve killed me if they ever figured out I voted Conservative! I mean, on one side, I had an angry father, telling me stories of how I was raised out of the womb, that pies used to come a dime a dozen (quite literally I’m sure off the streets of China... poontang for a nickel... now I’m really hungry...), and that I should do everything he says while I’m still under his roof... And on the other side? I had an entire army of Middle Eastern friends from, well, you know... the Middle East... all condemning any policy even remotely resembling anything that America or George Bush ever uttered out of their foul, potty mouths...

I sure as hell didn’t want to go back to a home where my father would shake his head in disgust at me... and I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be the one to tell my friends that I’ve been a closet Bush follower all along...

... I don’t wanna come out of the closet, dammit...

... so since one and one canceled one another, I really had no choice but to actually pick the party I wanted to pick in the first place... sigh... To actually vote in what you believe in... How sad is that?...

... yeah, well...

I stuck with the party for people who simply can’t make up their minds...

I chose Liberal...

... and they won in my Canadian riding without any semblance of doubt...

... and when I got home? Well, my dad just shook his head at me...

... and when I tried to tell my friends about the election? Well, they sort of just ignored what I was saying and changed the subject... for Spiderman 2, I see...

... ah, the lesser of two evils, I see... the best of both worlds...

... but that’s not what I was actually pissed about the other day...

...

... We have a little problem up here in Canada now.

We voted in a minority government...

Now in countries that go by proportional popularity vote (aka – not the Canadian riding system), Minority Governments are the most common damn things on the face of the planet. Because it’s almost impossible to get a country to vote at least 50% in favour of one party or the other, minority governments happen almost everywhere, and screw up the countries almost every single damn time (at least, from a Canadian point of view)... But here in Canada, with the riding system, even when the Liberals only get about 30% of the total votes, we still get majority governments here, where one party controls everything with an iron commie fist. And as much as we complain about majority governments when we have one, it’s nothing compared to the bitchings we make when we have the complete polar bear opposite...

Short story short, boring politics be damned, with a minority government here, nothing can ever get goddam done. When the head party votes for some sort of law to pass, every other party out there will vote against them, regardless of whether they believe in the policy or not. Why? Because the policies don’t matter to the politicians. Image in the eye of the voter does... and by completely making life miserable for the minority government in charge?... With the little parties outnumbering the party elected into government, Parliament gets nowhere in its lifetime. The country becomes stagnant. The NDP look like heroes. Dogs start living with cats. It’s the end of the frickin’ Canadian world as we know it (not like the rest of the world would ever notice, eh...)... And naturally, it’s the party in charge that always gets the blame...

It’s been said that Winston Churchill discovered it best... It doesn’t matter whether you win for your country World War 1, World War 2, or hell, even House Party 3... All that matters to the voters, is what kind of so-called "progress" will get done in the next four years. And with a minority government, the answer is pretty much a goddam guaran-damn-tee...

... hell, I’d even point at Europe right now as an example, if it wasn’t so damn cruel...

... let’s just hope France doesn’t kill off ten thousand more of its people from a heat wave this year around, eh...

...

So yeah, we’re stuck with a minority government up here. The Liberals, NDP, and that one, iddy biddy independent kind of guy, together make up a majority government... provided they can all bribe each other and work out a new deal... And I’m sure the Liberals will try their best to appease the NDP and that one iddy, biddy guy, if only so they can get stuff done in parliament, and avoid that inevitable re-election kind of shit that will cost our current Prime Minister, Paul Martin, his job and obviously his legacy to boot...

... for God’s sakes, he’s no better in the public eye right now than Kim Campbell...

... hell, in the world’s eyes, no-one cares that Paul Martin balanced out the budget, paid off billions of debt, and slashed tons of taxes... Heaven forbid, the record books only care that Kim Campbell was the country’s first ever female Prime Minister...

... and she wasn’t even elected, goddammit! What the fuck is the world’s problem?...

... ahem...

...

I wanted a reelection right away. I also wanted the Liberals to be forced to work with the Conservatives in order to save some sort of face... I wanted a Canadian government that didn’t sound insane with the current trend of being as completely anti-American on the fourth of July as possible... dammit, I didn’t want us to become France...

... and I sure as hell didn’t want us to become Michael Moore...

... but even with just 15% of the popular vote, the NDP somehow managed to get enough seats in government to ensure they can blackmail the Liberals into doing whatever they want. Because without the NDP, what power do the minority government Liberals actually have in parliament?...

... and while it gnashes my bones to finally see the day when the NDP get into power, without even being elected thanks to a goddam minority government, I must still admit... that’s not exactly why I was pissed the other day...

... I was pissed...

... because the general consensus on the net...

... around the world... with people who don’t know shit about Canada...

... including Canadians...

... and even on the news, was...

... that this was good?!...

WTF?!

...

... now I hate to be a sore loser, like half of American still is from Bush getting into power... But c’mon already! Who in their right minds would actually think a government, led by a psychotically left wing NDP party blackmailing the Liberals in the middle, could lead to anything else than political chaos, economic debt and goddam terrible comedy sketches on CBC?...

I fully believe in my heart, without a shadow of a doubt in my mind, that if every single person in this country was forced to vote (like an order from the King of Australia or something...), then I’m sure the NDP would get into power in this country, even with the riding system... If all the people who think voting is useless in Ontario would just get off their asses and vote, then I'm sure the NDP party could really give a thrashing to the Liberal party (provided that left wingers don’t switch to the Liberal party out of being a realist or sane...). And if only all the people in BC could forego their bongs for a day, actually remember which day it is they’re supposed to vote, and actually stay off the mile high club long enough to resist voting for the Marijuana Party of Canada, than I’m sure the NDP could’ve made a killing out West as well...

... so thank God that only 60% of people in this country actually voted...

... and yet the West blames us Ontarians for the election results?... HA! Damn right! We’re the only province that matters, dammit! We should have more power, goddammit... Toronto IS Canada! Suck on that, bitches...

Because the fact is, Ontario didn’t vote NDP. Hell, even fucked up BC didn’t really vote NDP. And WTF? Even hockey-pathetic Winnipeg and all the unemployed farmers in that useless city of Calgary didn’t even seem to vote NDP...

SO WHY THE FUCK ARE THE NDP NOW RUNNING THE WHOLE FUCKING SHOW?!

...

Is this democracy? European democracy maybe... fucked up French Revolution, reign of terror kind of democracy maybe...

But true democracy? Canadian democracy? Chinese democracy, for all us CBCs?...

Free Tibet, dammit!

Free Hong Kong.

Free Hongcouver.

And dammit, please call a reelection, Mr. Prime Minister Paul Martin... even if it costs you your job...

... I don’t normally talk about politics. Hell, this is probably the first ever time I’ve whined about it on this website of mine. And it’s sadly taken me five whole days just to muster up enough courage to write this sack of shit for those two, measly remaining readers of mine out there...

... guess they won’t be readers anymore, eh...

But dammit! Listen to the King of Australia!

Minority governments are bad! They never get anything ever accomplished.

So why the fuck does everyone in Canada keep thinking it’s a Martha Stewart good thing?

Dammit, Martha Stewart is evil! We knew that before, we definitely know that now... but we sadly probably won’t give a damn about it in a year or two...

Do we really have such short, fucking memories that we don’t remember when the NDP last got into power in Ontario? Or when Joe fucking Clark became Prime Minister?...

... who’s Joe Clark?...

...

... exactly...

... my point is, it’s just driving me nuts how fickle and fucked up the people across this country seem to be... Quebec is now raising their terrorist flags again, with newfound hope of a separatist movement thanks to the Bloc Quebecois taking up so many pointless seats up in parliament (and even some left wing Americans are cheering them on... Do they even realize what the fuck is happening in our country?)... Ontario seems to think that having the NDP in minority government power will keep the Liberals hot on their heels, preventing them from ever doing a money laundering scandal ever again. But news flash, eh – with the NDP in power, the Liberals will be prevented from doing anything period, goddammit! Is that really a good thing, for a country obsessed with progress?... And BC? All the people over there are probably still too damn high to notice what the fuck is going on... And all the provinces inbetween? Sorry, but we in Ontario just plain don’t give a damn about all you...

... except for the Calgary Flames bandwagon this year...

... though WTF was wrong with Edmonton? You fucking traitors. You sucked ass...

Go Leafs Go...

...

Well... that was a long enough, pointless Y2kk rant for the year...

I must be really bored...

... and hungry too...

... no doot aboot it, eh...

And has anyone even learned anything?

99% of the world still doesn’t know Canada had an election. 99.9% of the world still doesn’t give a damn... 99% of this country still thinks that the results of the polls were the best results possible. And 99% of us Canadians will be damning and bitching and complaining in just a few weeks, when we have a second coming of the Joe Clark fiasco...

Joe Clark who?...

... you don’t want to know...

... hell, we don’t want to know...

And call me when the King of Australia wipes Kim Campbell of Canada off the face of history, please...

Kim Campbell who?...

... exactly...

Canada what?...

... oh, right... sorry... all tucked away down there, eh...

... easy to miss... and easy to misunderstand too, I’m sure...

And why? Because I still haven’t passed the goddam year yet. That’s fucking why.

I just don’t understand how this university term went as bad as it did. It looked like it was going to be my easiest term, my best term yet, even right up the final exams... and, well... all I do know now, is that I’m slowly learning and sadly coming to grips with how to goddam live with my goddam embarrassment...

... well, almost...

I went back to my university the other day. One of my friends who had submitted a medical petition like mine already got his marks changed last week for the better, so I was interested in my own... Now, there still is hope for me – I just won’t know what the results of my petition will be until I finally get a bloody hell e-mail... but it scares me what the woman behind the Registrar’s desk just told me the other day, that pretty much all the petitions have already been considered. And if my marks still haven’t been changed online? Then quite honestly? I’m screwed...

I’m an assclown of a fucktard, getting fucked right up the ass. And no, it doesn’t sound as good as I make it out to be...

But bah... I wrote all about this crap on my download site last week. And simply because my Tweakui site is ever so slowly and painfully slipping into complete and utter obscurity, I thought I’d just copy and paste whatever the hell I wrote onto this goddam website out of sheer boredom and mercy... Most of what I wrote last week still rings true, except that I forgot to mention that even without television or video games to play, I still managed to procrastinate just as much this year during final exams as I did the last year where I got fucked over supremely... I guess some things I just never learn...

There is one thing I want to understand though, and it doesn’t exactly pertain to university... You see, for the past half year, my friend at his university campus has been complaining that he hasn’t been able to access my websites through my "mycrowsoft.com" redirection domains. I just scoffed it up to some messed up firewall routines at his university then, because I could perfectly access Tweakui.Mycrowsoft.com and Noname.Mycrowsoft.com from both my personal dial-up connection and the engineering LAN connection at my University of Toronto. But then I got cable internet back at my house just a couple weeks ago (thanks to two handymen bastards who had no real sense of humour, except for humouring me into shutting the hell up at least... but that’s a story for another day...)...

And short story short...

WTF?...

With or without the new wireless 802.11b router that I’m using, I can’t access anything from my bloody hell Mycrowsoft domains with my broadband connection! The real urls work, along with the secondary redirection addresses (eg: http://ivanfnoname.com02.com) that I set up bloody hell last year in bored desperation. But what the fuck is wrong with Mycrowsoft.com? As if Bill Gates himself had lifted a geeky finger, and twirled it forth into a vast pillar of God as a Grapes of Wrath against anyone who dares spoils the loins of his name, I can’t bloody hell access any of my sites with my cable internet connection using any of the tried and true mycrowsoft nicknames... and I honestly don’t get it! I don’t have a bloody hell firewall installed – hell, I don’t even use Windows XP, so there’s absolutely no threat of locking any websites out. So what the hell is going on here? Tweakui.mycrowsoft.com was still working with my dial-up connection the other day, so why not with bloody hell high speed? Why are my sites the only damn sites on the internet that I literally can’t access? I really don’t know, and I really don’t understand...

I guess I don’t understand many things in life anymore... except that I now have a real penchant for excessively swearing...

... I mean, wow... I really do feel clueless... sick to my stomach, in fact... I just don't understand anything...

Or rather... I feel like everyone else around me did... but as for me?...

I feel like I’m stuck in the middle.

I feel like I’m stuck in the mud.

Because truth be told, clear as mud...

... I feel like a failure.

Because you’d think... you’d at least assume... that after three years in the engineering corps of one of the world’s most recognized universities? That at least I’d feel like I had a future.

But I guess that’s always been my weakness... I’m always living in the past...

... and always appalled by my past...

Because you see, I’ve stumbled across a sort of crossroads as of late. It’s usually around this time that I get into menial, meaningless contact with old high school friends of mine... Take for instance my old childhood best friend. For almost three straight years now, I’ve been the one who calls him, only to have him refuse my messages. He’s given me excuses why he ignores my calls, whenever I’ve seen him in person - that he’s afraid I’m mock him for his love life, that I never take up his offer of a dinner with his friends, none of which I have ever met or whatnot... But nevertheless, despite all the times he’s ignored me, despite all the times that he’s desperately shown that he wants nothing to do with me, I still always call him. The last time being around Christmas actually, only for him to never return the call... And you know what kind of sucks right now? For once, just for once, I actually don’t want to call him... I really don’t see a point in doing so. He doesn’t care... and I only care that he doesn’t care, and nothing more... But he was my goddam best friend in high school! He was my only remaining friend from elementary school. I can’t just hide from the fact that I know him... I just can’t shy from the fact that I knew him... I can’t just run from the fact that he knows me... and yet?...

And yet for so many others from my past, for so many of my other high school peers from the past, even when we meet, I pretend like I’ve never known them before. Before high school ended, I swore to myself that I wouldn’t be one of those asshole, elitist college pricks who ignore everyone from the past, simply because it doesn’t conform with the goals of the present... But the fear – the fear of something intangible – eventually gets to you, you know? And breaks your naive heart in the process... A while back, I got a call from one of my other close high school friends, and he was looking for a reunion of some sorts. He invited me, which was kind of him, but... Yeah, there was a ‘but’. I responded with a ‘but’... Not just because he asked to see me during my goddam exam time (after he was done of course, though I was not), but because? Well?... because I was scared of seeing him. I didn’t know what to say to him, honestly. It’s not that our conversations would be meaningless, because I simply can’t do meaningless small talk with a straight face. But rather, I’d try to put meaning into our conversations, and it’d just end up awkward like always, because I always try to pretend like he’s still my friend.

I always try to convince myself that he’s still my friend.

But he’s not. Friends don’t just say hello. They talk. They walk. They smile. They fucking keep in contact. And I’m just as guilty for all the above as any of my friends are, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m trying to keep friendships that simply haven’t been there for years.

And now I’m afraid... I did the same damn thing to my elementary school friends when I left for high school... and I forgot all about everyone I knew and promised to remember in high school long before my first term at university was even up... And now I’ve reached a similar crossroads all over again, and I know, I just know the history will end up repeating itself. And I don’t like the fact that it will one damn bit...

And I don’t like the fact that so many of my friends are leaving. But what the fuck can I do?

...

There’s really only one friend that I’ve kept in contact with since high school. He calls me every week, making me feel guilty that I’m never the one who pays for the phone bills... He’s probably the closest friend that I have. Hell, the mere fact alone that he’s the only damn person in the entire universe who regularly reads my updates makes him automatically the best person in the world in my eyes... But the thing is, he’s moving away. Technically, I shouldn’t find that a problem – afterall, we do live in different cities already, with me around Toronto and him in Waterloo... But he’s moving out of the country this time. For good. And to be honest, every time in the past when he did stay in the good ol’ US of A, it kinda got lonely and frosty up here in the north. We still talked over e-mail, but it just wasn’t the same. He still called whenever I wrote a ghastly movie review that he refused to agree with, but it just wasn’t the same. And now the problem is, I’ll have to change the meaning of my words, and twist them around in ways that I simply do not wish to see fit. Because from now on, e-mail will be the same. Rare telephone conversations will be the same. Because goddammit Powell, they’re going to become the norm... I hate to sound oversentimental, and in many ways, I’m trying too hard to be sentimental, if only in the hopes of redeeming myself for all those lost years where I simply haven’t given a damn. But honestly... If there’s one constant in the universe I’ve never liked, it’s change. And I’m going to miss him. No doot aboot it. Regardless of how often I still hear his voice, I’m still going to miss him. Because dammit, things just won’t be the same.

On more than one front, actually...

The battlefield lines... it’s war in them trenches, you know?...

Because it’s not just him that’s leaving. My best friend, or at least the nicest friend, that I’ve made at university is moving away as well... Hell, I still remember the day I met him. I really don’t need to reiterate it, considering I wrote about it more than enough the day it happened on my download site, but still... just for the memories... just for the memoirs... I was banging my head on the concrete wall outside of a tutorial room at the time. I had tried making new friends at university that week, and ended up getting stuck with a bunch of guys who didn’t give a damn about me, and thus I couldn’t give a damn about them (including the bastard from this year, but that’s a story for another day...)... But as I was banging my head senselessly against the wall (since there were no high school lockers in the area really, like I always banged my head on in high school), an innocent-looking guy from Pakistan started snickering at me. And when I looked up, I asked him what was so funny? I mean, I had honestly forgotten that mashing my brains apart on walls could be strange to somebody else... We talked a bit, then we left when we learned we had no goddam tutorial that week (God, we freshmen were dumb... obviously, I haven’t changed...). I met him on the subway ride back that same day actually, finally caught his name, and what do you know? I made my first friend. And through him quite honestly, I met all my other friends in university, or at least the ones who have actually impacted on me. I owe him a lot for that... not to mention all the papers and projects and studying he’s helped me with like a brother. Ditto on that, but that’s besides the point...

And now he’s leaving. He and another friend of mine got jobs at RIM in Waterloo this year. And because they’re on the 16-month Utoronto co-op system, they’ll be leaving tomorrow for a foreign place to stay and an entire year off from university... And they’re not the only ones. Almost half, if not more, of the people I care about in university are leaving for greener pastures, at least in terms of minimum one year co-op positions at least. Another good friend of mine is going to work at Celestica, another will be working at MD Robotics, and one of my other friends is actually going down south to California to work at Actel for the entire damn year... And congratulations go out to all of them. Absolutely. I can only wish them the best of wishes, and a God Speed, a Good Will Hunting, and a God Bless Us, Everyone... But of course, my true motifs belittle and belie my not so diligent wording. I mean, I’ve tried being happy that they all got great positions. I’ve tried being proud of them, for working so hard at interviews and getting the job done. And I’ve tried, I’ve really tried just to want to be able to smile a genuine smile whenever they discuss their travel plans or when they say their goodbyes to their friends. But as the selfish, fucking bastard that I am, everything I want to be, and everything I want to believe, is a lie.

I mean, what happened to never leaving a fucking man behind?...

...

I have only myself to blame. It’s my fault and only my fault, and yet I’m sort of relieved that it is... I’m still in the hunt for a job, but co-op positions are pretty much now out of the question, meaning I’ll be most likely going back to an empty shell of a school next year... I’ll have little to no friends left over, with my only good friend remaining in another Engineering division than mine. I’ll have no-one to help me in labs, no-one to study with in the libraries, and no-one to complain about the fucking Maple Leafs to. I’ll have nobody to mock the Pakistani Cricket team with, nobody to nip coffee with, nobody to sip global politics with, and nobody – and I mean nobody – to listen to me rant and whine and cunt and complain about all the crap things I only release on these goddam webpages of mine... I’ll have little to no friends left, period. And if I want to stay sane in this university, I’ll have no choice but to make new ones...

... and ay, there lies the rub...

...

... replacement friends...

...

Fuck you, replacement friends.

...

Because the cycle of my life – of all life, perhaps – is repeating itself, like the sands of time and the gusts of God’s wind... My friends were once considered in my eyes as replacement friends. But no longer... they’re all I have, and they’re all I care for right now... and once again, my friends are moving off, and I’ll try to keep contact with them. I’ll try to keep e-mailing them. I’ll try to keep messaging them over ICQ and MSN... But it won’t be the goddam same as it used to be, now will it? I won’t be dragged to the International Student Center anymore, and be forced to smell the feet of fifty praying Muslim men who took off all their shoes at once... I won’t be carried off to foreign restaurants anymore, where the ethnic owners mock me for being a Chinese devil with no good taste in foods (but that’s a story for another day...).. Hell, knowing me, I probably wouldn’t even study anymore. If it wasn’t for our study groups, I don’t think I ever would’ve even cared enough for most of the midterms I passed or whatnot in the past (the ones I failed are an old testament to that...)... To be honest, I don’t want to make new friends. Because undoubtedly, they’ll make me forget all about my old friends, the ones right now that my mind refuses to lose. The ones my mind simply cannot come to grips with, of simply slipping out of grasp... And who knows? Perhaps just like that one close friend of mine from high school, maybe I and my university departees will be keeping in touch? Maybe I’ll even get lucky enough to fail fourth year and rejoin them back in the graduating class of 2006?... yeah... if only I were so lucky...

I can win the fucking lottery then. By sheer dumb luck, with dumb being the key word...

In a way, I know what would’ve been perfect. If only I had gotten a co-op job at RIM, I wouldn’t be feeling this sense of loss, worthlessness, and indictment that I am right now. Not as badly, at least... If only I could’ve moved to Waterloo with a job in hand, I could’ve stuck with two of my closest university friends, while getting to watch all those movies I’ve refused to watch with my close high school friend in the process... that is, if he was staying in Canada. And that is, if only I had gotten a fucking job at RIM... But I didn’t, and it wasn’t because of anybody else but me. It’s my fault and only my fault, and you know why?...

Because I didn’t even apply...

Not to RIM at least... and every place else just shut me out...

...

You know what’s really been haunting me as of late? It’s that damn graduation formal night of high school of mine... In my early university years, I couldn’t close my eyes without seeing my obsession just standing there, silently and stalkingly weeping in that torrid dress of hers (note to myself: never tell her that if I ever see her in person again...), all alone, waiting for a man to sweep her off her feet for a final dance at the ball... and I goddam dropped the ball... But to be honest, while I still think back to that moment from time to time, it no longer guts me inside as much as something else does... something that I never would’ve predicted...

I got voted as person most likely to succeed and be rich in life...

At the time, I just shrugged it off. If the class knew me, they would’ve known that money was the absolute LAST thing I wanted in life (although I obviously am obsessed with all material possessions other than my checkbook)... But you know what happened to me that night, because of that one damn meaningless trophy?... I started wanting to be somebody that I simply cannot be, nor want to be... I wanted to become rich, not because I wanted the money, but simply so I can live up to the standards of my fellow classmates. I sadly wanted to become successful, if only because five years down the road from then, I wouldn’t feel terrible for letting everyone down, for not being the person that thought I would be... Fucking retarded of me, eh? But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s been plaguing my mind for the past goddam month or more... Because almost four years down the road, I still can’t live down the fact that people expected me to be somebody that I’m simply not... and that I’m simply not the person that everyone expects me to be. It’s my eternal weakness – not just of living in the past, but of living vicariously through the eyes of another... I don’t want to be rich, because I don’t want to know the pain and toil and turmoil that does along with such a desperado fate. And yet I can’t stand being myself anymore, if only because of goddam peer pressure from friends that I no longer have! From ghosts of graduation pasts... from friends that were never even friends before in the first place! Just misguided bigots... with a meaningless ballot in the end that like everything else in life, I took far too much to heart...

But the fact that so many of my friends are leaving soon... that so many of my friends will be gone... for jobs, for personal gain, and for other reasons that I simply do not know.... well then... I just can’t shake the damn feeling of a mid-life crisis already creeping up and down my goddam shallow excuse of a spine...

Leave no man behind.

But I guess, I’m no man...

...

Take it like a man, I always say. And eventually, I will... The cycle shall repeat itself. The circle of life shall go on... My friends will leave me, and make new friends and alliances of their own. I’ll stay behind, regardless of whether I can still find an engineering summer job or not, and end up making new friends in fourth year from all the students returning from their co-op job positions... My close high school friend from Waterloo will still call me from time to time from America, and I suppose once I get his phone number, I’d put a few hits on my own bill, if only I paid for my phone bill that is... I’ll eventually forget all about some of the friends that were never that close anyhew, and perhaps realize that some of my friendships with some of the lost were stronger than I ever realized when they were by my side... The cycle of life shall repeat. Over and over and fucking over again... yet things just won’t be the same...

I’m going to miss them. All of them. I really am... things just won’t be the same...

... and, ay... well... I sure as hell have a lot of wanton years to go on, to not only get a fucking job, but to just try to figure out to myself, what the fuck do I really want?

What the fuck do I want with my future?

... blah blah blah... yadda yadda yadda... you know the drill... Change is the only fucking constant in the universe, and surprise, surprise, change in the only thing that I hate in this goddam world (... next to Sony, FOBs, and just about every single movie out there, but that’s besides the point...)... I’ll deal though, you know? Right now I shudder at the fact that a Y2kk Update just two years down the road, will be of me complaining about ignoring my university friends the way I ignore most of my high school friends right about now. No doot aboot it... But if there’s anything I’ve learned from the past. If there’s anything I’ve gained from living in the goddam past... it’s that I always end up becoming the person that I fear most. It’s almost as if I always end up becoming the person that I absolutely hate most...

As if I know the future...

Which means... why, who knows then?

Maybe I will become rich and successful someday then...

... someday, maybe...

...

... I mean, "somebody’s gotta graduate at the bottom of their class. How do you know it’s not your doctor?"...

...

... yeah, well, in the meantime, time to send out some more job applications then...

... and time to wish my friends – all my friends, especially those who can’t hear me – a God Speed, a Good Will Hunting, and a very meaningful, God Bless Us, Everyone...

... leave no man behind, lest we ever forget...

... fuck, I feel like I just graduated...