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IvanF's Windows9x Tweaks & Dweaks for Your UI! - Saturday, July 7th, 2007 Y2kk Update: A Happy Belated Canada Day, a Happy Belated Independence Day… And most of all? A Happy 07-07-07 of a goddam coincidence… The luckiest day of the year? Or the day I finally get lucky? I think not… It is special for another reason though. Today is my sister’s birthday. Go sister go then, or some shit like that… We’re not doing much for it. Just a plain ol’ BBQ, really. Though I do dread the sensation I’ll get when I ask her what she actually wants for her birthday. It’ll probably have something to do with her upcoming wedding, which means while I may get to pay the piper in this case later on in life, I’ll be fucking paying in both blood and goddam interest down to the fucking bone… That’s what family is for, afterall… … a pound of flesh and the true measure of a man, at the Tuxedo Tailor that is, so to speak… But besides these little BBQ and Sushi soirees and shit like that of recent years? I have been trying to remember parts of my own past, as to how the fuck I could’ve survived twenty-five fucking years of my own birthday parties and that of my cousins without ever going fucking insane. Seriously, WTF?… I have officially been part and parcel of one of the dullest, most boring families on the face of the planet. Not that I’m really complaining, but in this case, I guess I sort of am. For twenty five fucking years of my life, twenty four of which I no longer have any real recollection of, what the fuck did I do at all these parties?… The same old shit, really. Or so I doth recall… We would always go over to my cousins’ place, or the rest of my relatives would visit my home for my own birthday supper, with the same shit every single fucking year. I have no fucking clue what the parents were doing each and every day, since we children were always restricted to the goddam kiddie tables, but I do remember what we young whippersnappers were forced to endure for the vast majority of hours… There was Monopoly and Hungry, Hungry Hippos. Remember that shit? I tried to get other board games involved, simply out of boredom, such as Clue and Mouse Trap, but nothing would ever fly. Fuck, it still temps me to this very day, to buy those shit-ass special-edition Monopoly boards, just so I can play with Star Wars money or Star Fleet Federation credits or some shit of geekdom variety like that… Videogames wise, things just haven’t changed a damn beat either. Back when the NES was around, at my house we played Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 as Bad fucking Dudes for God knows how many years, leading to some of my most embarrassing childhood moments might I add. When the SNES finally rolled around, I think it was just TMNT4 and Super Mario Kart go-arounds with go-karts for years on unending, with me playing the odd RPG or two just to wow and awe the geek-filled audience now and again… When it was finally time for the N64 to step up to plate, I literally remember four fucking years of just goddam Mario Kart 64 and Goldeneye, in which case I kicked so much fucking ass simply because my cousins were too fucking dumbass to ever learn how to strafe or snake. I tried to get them into some of the other multiplayer classics such as F-Zero X and WWF No Mercy, but the kids were always too fucking stupid to even grasp the basic concept of grappling. WTF?… And with the Nintendo Gamecube / Xbox era, things just didn’t change much. It’s been four years of Super Smash Bros. Melee and Mario Party more or less at my house. And at my cousin’s crib, they have absolutely nothing to play there on their own non-Nintendo systems but goddam Fusion Frenzy and Star Wars LEGO. Sadly, Star Wars LEGO is actually pretty damn entertaining, enough so that it’s been in his Xbox 360 two fucking years now and running. My fucking God… Nothing ever changes. I’ve literally just rehashed the past twenty five fucking years of my life in terms of family parties in just a few fucking paragraphs, if you add in some Warhammer 40K and LEGO fort shit there in the process as well. Now sure, there were a few LAN parties of Starcraft and Counterstrike, sure there was the odd ripple or two in the space time continuum whenever I played Star Trek or Star Wars card games, and of course in recent years, we’ve taken up the mantle of some kickass balls of fury in terms of fucking goddam ping pong. I guess that’s gotta be worth something, at least… But really, after twenty five fucking years? It’s still just the same old Nintendo multiplayer games and the same old shit. The more things change, the more things fucking stay the same… And sadly? Why am I even writing this shit on my sister’s birthday an hour before she and guests arrive?… It’s because I fucking miss Goldeneye, that’s fucking why… … and it’s because I’m starting to feel the fucking effects of the goddam quarter life crisis… … sigh… I’m getting too old for this shit, I guess… … Not much has changed in twenty-five fucking years. I’m sure besides the usual mingling and boring ass speeches we’ll get at the party tonight, the only thing I’ll have going for me are goddam sports on television (Toronto FC plays the Chicago Fire on Sportsnet this evening), and the latest goddam shit from Nintendo systems (since they’re the only real company that gives a damn about offline entertainment at parties any longer)… Yes, I did manage to get my Nintendo Wii. After months and months of searching and coming up completely dry, after being fucked over for the console by Rogers Video and tons of other stores out there, I finally lucked out by just asking some random Blockbuster Video guy if anyone had reserved the one single Wii that they had hidden behind the counter… … for some fucking reason, nobody fucking did… And then and there, in the middle of February, I had lucked out and gotten my goddam fucking Nintendo Wii… … much to the chagrin of each and every single parent in the store, might I add… The system isn’t bad. It’s not a revolution by any real means, but it is a nice extension and evolution of the path that arcades have followed, or the niche that games like Guitar Hero have carved out for themselves in the industry. Just like back in the ages when everyone wanted SNES because it could reproduce the kickass effects of Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, and just like how everyone wanted the PSX at first since it was full 3D like the Tekken and Time Crisis arcades at the time, the Wii really does feel like a new age arcade system… My Xbox 360, aside from backwards compatibility with the original fucking Halo, was already feeling old and outdated in my eyes. Even the eight hours I spent finishing Gears of War in all of its graphical glory, still felt like an age old, archaic gameplay system that I enjoyed much better in the past when I first finished Freedom Fighters. The Nintendo Wii is far from a true revolution, but at least it offers something that feels a bit different than the previous generation of consoles could provide. And Wii Sports really is the only decent goddam multiplayer game for parties out there these days, in my honest opinion at least… … so no wonder Nintendo has reclaimed the throne and is currently kicking everyone’s ass and taking fucking names in this generation’s so-called console wars… It’s ridiculous, the NPD and Japanese numbers for the Nintendo Wii above all the other next gen consoles, that is. While both the Xbox 360 and even the PS3 struggle to make it past the 10K mark in Japan in terms of sales each and every week, the Nintendo Wii routinely sells 70-80K in the same timeframe (which is still nothing compared to the 160-200K that the Nintendo DS somehow manages to shell out in the same time period, but that’s a story for another day). It’s amazing how it’s like every single fucking country in the fucking world just forgot how much they loved Sony in the past, and so quickly jumped on the big ass hump known as the Nintendo Wii bandwagon… I searched months and months for the system, and it’s ridiculous to hear that in some parts of America (and in some few parts of Toronto) even to this fucking day in July, that there are still line-ups happening in the morning at stores each and every fucking time they get a new Nintendo Wii shipment in. All this from a pack-in game of Wii fucking Sports and a bunch of shit-ass commercials in iPod white? WTF?… Finally, for the first time in ages, today I saw real Nintendo Wii boxes at a Best Buy on a weekend, when previously since May I could only see them briefly on store shelves on the most remote of weekdays (and before that, never ever in stores period). It’s amazing the kind of momentum that Nintendo has, heading into the E3 show this coming week… The Xbox 360 had a one year head start on the Nintendo Wii, yet the Nintendo Wii has not only become the fastest selling console of all fucking time (outpacing both the NES and even the mighty PS2), but is just one or two months away from beating out the Xbox 360 for first fucking place in next gen sales worldwide. All this from a console that is literally nothing more than a fucking overclocked Nintendo Gamecube with a brand new outer shell and a Harry Potter waggle-wand for support? WTF?… There’s still nothing that I care for on the system. I bought Super Paper Mario and was disgusted with it five minutes later, I picked up Resident Evil 4 but haven’t found the urge to play it after beating it twice on the Gamecube before, and it’s not like the launch titles of Red Steel or even Wii Sports have kept me awake at anything but the most boring of parties. Which is why the system, even after all those months I was waiting in frothing anticipation for the goddam console, is laying there on my basement floor bare and lifeless and unconnected to the goddam television itself… It’s weird how things turn out. I loved the SNES so much back in the day, from classics like Super Mario World, Zelda: A Link to the Past, and Super Mario Kart, even in the early times when I was ridiculed by the mass amount of Sega "Nintendon’t" fans out there (Blast Processing, my ass). Those truly were the golden days of gaming lore, and I still have so many lingering battle scars and cries from that long lost epoch of an era… I stuck by the N64 even when it was on life-support against the PSX, as titles such as Super Mario 64, Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and Goldeneye were just too damn amazing to ever give up on the system. And even when all the PS2 and Xbox fans were bringing up convincing arguments how Nintendo would go third party after the goddam Gamecube, I still fell in love with Zelda: Wind Waker, Metroid Prime, and Resident Evil 4 on the goddam purple lunch-box… Yet here we finally have the first Nintendo system since the goddam NES that has a clear numeric superiority over its goddam current generation counterparts… … and yet it’s just sitting there in my basement, disconnected and unplayed and goddam unloved even in my eternal darkness of a bout of goddam boredom?… … WTF?… Is there any real explanation for this?… Fuck, perhaps so… … sigh… I guess I’m just getting too old for this shit… … There was one other game I have fond memories of playing at so many family parties in the past. NHL ’94 for the SNES really was the best fucking hockey game ever made, as the simple joy of the one-timer in that sole incarnation of the series simply has yet to be surpassed. It also helps that NHL ’94 featured the true glory days of my precious Toronto Maple Leafs. My hero of Doug Gilmour had how many points that season? 127 or something, en route to the Eastern Conference Finals?… It’s been more than a decade since that long lost golden age of Toronto sports (the beginning of the Toronto Raptors, the grand slam of a World Series victory by the Blue Jays, etc…), and things have just more or less gone downhill from there. In this year of 2007, my expectations for the Toronto Maple Leafs have been at an all-time low. Sure, I watched the vast majority of their games this past season, but the toll of missing the playoffs two years in a row thanks to the GM’s complete inability to function in a salary-capped league of a world, has whittled and worn down even the most die-hard of a fan in me… … although 07-07-07 must really be a lucky day and a lucky week, because for the first time in ages, I haven’t been disgusted by this team anymore… Jon Ferguson was able to achieve two good deals this week. After trading away our fucking draft picks for Vesa Toskala a couple weeks ago (a move that wouldn’t have been considered so bad in my eyes except for the fact he wasted our prospect of Rask on Raycroft last year), he signed his new goalie to a two year extension worth about four million a season. If Toskala can even remotely keep up his stellar play from last year, then he is worth far more than the $1.35 million owed to him still next season, and definitely worth four million a year as a top tier goalie. How the fuck did Jon Ferguson actually manage a decent fucking contract, even keeping it short enough so that we get real use out of our new 30-year old net-minder? WTF?… Then apparently, Ferguson signed Jason Blake of the New York Islanders to a five year deal worth $4-$5 million a year. While I have my reservations of signing an aging playing like him who just happens to be American (which rarely gets over with the crowd here in TO), there’s no doubt in my mind that he is a great offensive minded grinder who is worth that kind of money for now. While I disagree with a five year contract being given to a 30+ year old, it definitely helps that his money is front-loaded and that he’ll be costing us much less down the road… With rumours still abounding that our GM might be able to trade Kubina away for cap space to sign both Michael Peca and Alexei Yashin to small deals, for once I am absolutely shocked, awed and quite frankly flabbergasted that Ferguson is doing what I consider to be a good job here. If these final potential moves of his pan out, we will for the first time since the golden Gilmour ages be armed with two awesome scoring lines and a damn decent penalty killing group out there on the ice. WTF?… Fuck, I know the Leafs will forever still be far away from being true contenders. But a team like the one Jon Ferguson is making right now is not only capable of at least winning one fucking playoff series, but definitely still has the youth and cap flexibility to be real competitors for years to come. For once in my lifetime, I actually have to congratulate the goddam asshole on his goddam plan and vision. WTF?… And for all I know, maybe NHL 2009 too will really become the next great hockey game to come from EA Sports or some shit like that, with the Toronto Maple Leafs finally back on top?… … or am I just getting that goddam false sense of hope all over again?… … fuck, I really am getting too old for this shit… … I must be going senile as well, since my mind is obviously playing tricks on me. Because it is just me, or in recent days has Jon Ferguson of the fucking goddam Toronto Maple Leafs actually seemingly outshone Bryan Colangelo of the Toronto fucking Raptors? How is this even remotely possible in the grand scheme and natural order of things? WTF?… But it definitely feels true, considering how disappointed I was in Bryan Colangelo for not getting a single real pick in this year’s NBA Draft. Sure, we managed to waste away our 2008 second rounder on some noname long-shot from Greece, but where were his clever moves to get into the first fucking round? For the second year in a row, Portland showed us up by buying draft picks from that cheapass Sarver in Phoenix, stealing Sergio Rodriguez last year and now Rudy Fernandez from our snatches this year. Hell, Colangelo didn’t even try to go for any of the potential gems leftover in the early second round. WTF?… And then what is the next move that Bryan Colangelo does, but overpay Jason Kapono of the Miami Heat to sign with the Raptors? Now, don’t get me wrong, I really feel that Kapono is a good fit on this team, not just from his amazing 3-pt field goal percentage to prevent Bosh and Bargnani from consistently getting double-teamed, but his age of 26 years isn’t so old or shabby either… But seriously, we offered a one-dimensional offensive threat a lengthy contract of almost six million each and every fucking year? How the fuck are we fans supposed to swallow this as some sort of Bryan bargain-basement of a deal when this guy won’t even have the tenacious D to become our goddam SF starter?… We still have a hole to fill at that spot, and BC wasn’t even able to address that need of ours in the goddam NBA Draft. Now sure, Jason Kapono definitely could’ve helped us beat New Jersey in the first round in terms of matching Bostjan Nachbar shot for shot, but what about after then? How the fuck would this signing ever help us against the Lebron James or the Detroit Pistons of the world, unless Jason suddenly becomes a 20PPG+ scorer? WTF?… Because if I was Bryan Colangelo? There was a simple set of goddam obvious moves that I would’ve pulled off to improve this team of ours, starting right from the NBA Draft… First, drug the Miami Heat GM into taking Morris Peterson and Kris Humphries for a signed and traded Jason Kapono, the 20th pick in the draft, and the filler of Dorrell Wright (…). Then use that fucking first rounder to pick up Marco Belinelli, after dosing the GM of Golden fucking State into an ecstasy coma through an entire war-room of crack and crackling whores, more or less… Finally, do the even more obvious and easy moves of picking up the unused garbage from other teams around the league, by trading Pape Sow for the long forgotten Pau Gasol, Uros Slokar for that caveman asshole of Dirk Nowitzki, and maybe even sign the human victory cigar of Darko Milicic to the LLE… And then what do you have, but the Toronto Raptors’ true contender of a team in 2007-2008… … ahem… C: Dirk Nowitzki, Pau Gasol, Darko Milicic … or at least, that’s the team I’ll be having and using in NBA 2K8… Either way, I don’t see any goddam reason why we can’t have that as our real fucking team in this goddam city of ours… So Bryan Colangelo? Make it happen… How hard could it be? How hard could it possibly fucking be? BC, make it happen. Make it fucking happen… Or I fear, if the Raptors once again fail to get past the first fucking round of the playoffs, after having screwed their future by fucking themselves over in one of the deepest NBA drafts in goddam history?… … then yeah, maybe I will be getting too old for this shit… … Bah, just from the tone and topic of this goddam useless Tweakui update of mine, you two remaining readers out there can easily deduce that I really have nothing better to talk about. There simply is nothing of interest going on in my life, with the Toronto Maple Leafs and Raptors nothing more than distant memories until October finally rolls around again… Summer has been a bore of a chore for me. Has there been really anything for me to do? I keep thinking I should pick up a new hobby or something, only to find that I really have no ambition in life. My only goal right now is to find the urge to set for myself a goddam actual goal, yet I’m too fucking lazy of a procrastinator to even pull that kind of shit off. Can’t even purge myself off of this goddam cheapass seat of mine, really… Then again, thinking back to the way things were and always have been, since when have I ever had an exciting summer worthy of note in my lifetime? It’s been twenty-five fucking years of boredom and shit, more or less, the only difference being I now have money thanks to being stuck in a job that I wish I was skipping for a goddam summer vacation… … a vacation where I too, just like I am now, would be sitting on my ass doing nothing but writing the same old shit… Because the more things change, alas, the more things stay the same. … and ay and alack, there lies the goddam fucking rub… Twenty-five years. Twenty-five fucking years later, I finally encounter the one and only true time there will ever be in my goddam lifetime, to find out just how lucky of a date 07-07-07 really is… … yet I waste it all on a gas shortage, a flock of seagulls, and as always, the same old shit… And with that, I bid thee two remaining readers a long lost and nostalgic adieu… … with a God Speed, a Good Will Hunting, and of course, a God Bless Us, Everyone… |
Whine to the no-name whiner at: flamemycrowsoft @ (hotmail.com)
- Well, since my cool little ivanf@flame.mycrowsoft.com e-mail address
only works every other day (just like a good copy of Windows95...), I'm switching you guys
over to my hotmail account. I only use my hotmail one for unimportant stuff like e-mails
from new friends, flames from not so new friends, and other insignificant stuff like
mandatory online lessons from my university... So go right on ahead, and flame away,
because as soon as I get enough piss-off letters, I'm opening my own flame IvanF section @
flame.mycrowsoft.com -
[ c. bored visitors who will never return...]
Tuesday, June 26th, 2007
Y2kk Update: Ah, yes…the things you do for family…
… and the things I do for Father’s Day, apparently…
It doesn’t happen every year, but more or less for almost every Father’s Day, I accompany my parents to the Dragon Boat races at Centre Island here in Toronto. There’s absolutely nothing to do there unless a) you’re a five year old enamored with running around the giant green maze, or b) you’re a Chinese FOB who’s absolutely obsessed with taking pictures of the most useless goddam things…
Some things just never change. At Centre Island this year, my brother and I ran into an Australian visiting couple who wanted us to take their picture. We gladly obliged and soon started chatting them up about tourism and their travels and shit like that. But that’s when my mother barged in with her goddam camera, asking the Aussie couple to take a picture of our fucking own family with the goddam CN Tower and Ferry in view.
Naturally, after that pointless photo (and several more) were taken, the Australian couple started discussing with us about where we’re from and where we’re visiting, being talked to by foreigners like I’m a goddam tourist myself. God, it’s so fucking embarrassing to admit that you actually live in fucking Toronto after all the shit that my mother just pulled. But still, even so, I know it’s just that taking pictures for goddam novelty runs in the fucking Chinese blood. Why though, why? WTF?…
There’s absolutely nothing to do over at Centre Island for a person like me. My dad desires to go every single year because of the Dragon Boat races, the stuff he loved as a kid before he became smart enough to realize just how pointless that traditional shit is. There is absolutely nothing to do while watching random shit teams from the University of Waterloo and Toronto duke it out on the lake, as quite honestly, Dragon Boat racing is the Chinese equivalent of goddam NASCAR racing. You only have something to watch and cheer for once every fucking go-around. The difference here is that it takes about fifteen fucking minutes for the boats to fucking return to where we fucking are. Slow as fucking molasses. WTF?…
Besides the shitty overpriced food, there’s only one thing I actually enjoy about my annual trip to Centre Island here in Toronto. Because in order to even get there, now that the bridge idea was nixed by the municipal government and fickle voters, you need to take a Ferry. Now, these ferries are older than my fucking grandmother and they for certain don’t have nearly enough life jackets on board in case the fucking thing shits and sinks (like the one in Long Island). But yet, I dunno, maybe it’s just blind and rose-coloured nostalgia? But I happen to actually enjoy the ferry rides to and fro from that noname island in the middle of nowhere…
Afterall, it’s really the only time of year when I can officially say I’m "fresh off the boat"…
Well, no matter how I feel about all this shit, I still do go to Centre Island by choice. It’s one of those few random things each year that you do for family, that makes you feel like a kid again. Sort of like Christmas, only with shitty ass lawn chairs covered in Chinese sweat instead of egg nog and presents. It’s what my dad wants to do every year, to spend time with my brother and I, so that’s what we did this year. And at least sitting there on my ass doing nothing was still more productive in comparison to my usual sitting on the ass here at home…
… sigh… the things you do for family sometimes…
…
On the way home, as we were traveling on the QEW highway en route to a restaurant of my father’s choosing, we passed by Exhibition Stadium and saw the new BMO field in full glory. It belongs to MLSE more or less, the same company that owns the Toronto Maple Leafs and Toronto Raptors. And that stadium, fucked up with Astroturf that it is, is now the official home of the Toronto FC…
… I just never thought in a million years that a shitty ass team like theirs could become so damn beloved in this hockey of a hogtown city, that’s all…
Now, Major League Soccer is a shitty ass league. It’s embarrassing how Toronto FC has basically just signed a couple of dejected free agents from overseas to inch closer and closer to a fucking playoff spot. We’re a fucking expansion team; it’s embarrassing how we actually have a chance to make it past the first fucking round of the playoffs. WTF kind of shit league is this? WTF?…
Yet the fickle mob here in Toronto really has taken a liking and loving to that good ol’ football club. There are tons of soccer fans here, from England and Italy and Spain and whatnot, and it seems they don’t give a shit about the quality of the game they’re watching. Guess it’s like how so many morons here live and die free for the battles between the Toronto Argonauts and the Hamilton Tigercats. Doesn’t matter how shit of a football league the CFL is; people just give a shit anyhew. WTF?…
The crowd here in Toronto is a foobar, fake English-copy at best, but I gotta admit that they make matches exciting to watch. Even for a shit league, it’s amazing to witness twenty thousand plus fans all chanting and singing along with whatever crap songs get passed around the internet. Our team here always plays well at home, and for a damn good reason. As much as I have a complete disinterest in soccer, even I’m contemplating going to a Toronto FC game, if only to experience the atmosphere they have there.
And I admit too, that even as piss poor of a team that Toronto FC is compared to the premier leagues in the world? They’re not so boring of a team to watch in terms of the MLS, or what we get here in North America at least. If anything, the owners definitely do keep things interesting with a tirade of trades here, for better or for worse…
Our forwards consist of Danny Dichio, Jeff Cunningham, and now Collin Samuel, all three of which would suck shit anywhere else in the world but have found a nice niche here in Canada. And hell, not that I’d know really, but apparently Carl Robinson and O’Brien aren’t that damn bad on this team as well. Our defence corps isn’t even that damn horrendous by MLS standards apparently, with guys like Wynne and Marshall now backing us up, not to mention the fact that TFC fans were only half-mockingly chanting "MVP" the first time Sutton here made a save. And our future doesn’t look that damn shameful either, as both Maurice Edu and Lombardo have shown flashes of being at least somewhat decent, even by international standards perhaps, if properly developed that is…
Now sure, management is trading away most of our young talent away for old farts, as if we were talking about the Toronto fucking Maple Leafs here. But in a shitty ass league where just signing the goddam unemployed, usual suspects from Europe is a sure-fire way to make the playoffs? Then who the fuck cares about youth and the draft? Get us the fucking championship every fucking year through noname free agents, and then this city will be shitting with raucous energy every fucking goddam night…
… even for the fucking MLSE in the fucking MLS…
… sigh… the things that some people do for football...
…
Speaking of MLSE though, while I don’t particularly mind their trigger-happiness in the land of Toronto FC, what the fuck is Jon Ferguson thinking when it comes to the Toronto Maple Leafs? WTF?…
Did I hear right, that they traded away THREE of our fucking draft picks (including our first and second round picks this year), for a 30-year old backup goalie and a young guy who completely flopped and failed Antropov style in San Jose? I know that we need a goalie to fill the void until Justin Pogge can take the reins, but seriously, wasn’t that why we gave away our most promising prospect of Rask last year for goddam fucking Raycroft? And now we’ve done the same sort of shit again? WTF?…
I don’t get the management here at MLSE for the Maple Leafs, I really don’t. It’s so fucking sad how narrow-minded they all are, trying to just make the playoffs each year (and failing miserably, might I add) instead of properly rebuilding around a strong youth corps through the draft. If teams like San Jose in the past, and even Nashville now could do it, then why the fuck won’t the Maple Leafs ever give rebuilding a chance? WTF?…
And speaking of Nashville?… if there is any fucking organization out there even more moronic than the Toronto Maple Leafs, it’s the fucking goddam NHL run by Gary fucking Bettman…
My fucking God, what the fuck is his problem? He screwed RIM CEO Balsillie when it came to the purchase of the Pittsburgh Penguins, thanks to some ridiculous seven year rule of no relocation, but at least I can somewhat see his point of view there. Pittsburgh has had Stanley Cups thanks to one of the Top 10 players of all time in hockey, so there’s some history there in the city, even if there is no real interest any longer…
But Nashville? Fucking Nashville? Where the fuck is the hockey love and history there? Why the fuck is the NHL refusing to let Balsillie pay almost TWICE the market value for Nashville and move the team to Ontario? The Hamilton Predators would be an awesome rival for the Leafs, so yes, of course I know that the greedy sons of bitches at MLSE have some blood on their hands here as well in the decision.
But ultimately, it’s up to the NHL to decide to let this buy-out go through. Yet Gary fucking Bettman, as fucking obsessed with conquering America as he is, is refusing to let the team go anywhere but Kansas fucking City…
Kansas fucking City? Say again? WTF?…
Gary fucking Bettman is certifiably insane. You want proof? How can any sane man honestly have believed that ice hockey could prosper in Phoenix, Arizona? Why the fuck would any football fan in Nashville give a fuck about a goddam hockey team? And how in the blue hell could Gary fucking Bettman still believe a team in Kansas fucking City would do better than one in the crazy GTA region here in Canada? WTF?…
Nobody here near Toronto and Hamilton could really get behind the Ottawa Senators’ push into the Stanley Cup finals. Don’t ask me why, but somehow ironically for a team in our country’s capital city, I had complete disdain and disinterest in their march over the penguins. But literally everyone here in the most populous (and important) part of Canada is rooting on Balsillie in his holy quest for the goddam Stanley Cup…
All I ask for are NHL teams back in fucking Winnipeg and Quebec City, along with a fucking real team for the people here in the GTA. Is that too fucking much to goddam ask for? WTF?…
… fuck Gary Bettman…
… sigh… the things that some people do out of greed and insanity…
… my fucking God…
…
Strangely enough, the outrage over the Toronto Maple Leafs not making the playoffs for the second year in a row was muted. And you can thank the basketball god of Bryan Colangelo for that, quite honestly…
Who would have ever thought that he could pull off magic and a lightning strike with the Toronto Raptors after we sucked so fucking bad last year? He didn’t even bring in many good new players, sans maybe Anthony Parker who became our real glue guy. It’s all about chemistry apparently, and even having Uros Slokar here as the smiling bench warmer seemed to turn our team around…
Colangelo definitely lucked out with Jose Calderon becoming one of the premier pass-first point guards in the league (though he has a long way of getting to be a top tier PG period), not to mention the gold mine of getting Andrea Bargnani with the first overall selection in the draft. Jorge Garbajosa contributed more than I thought he would, and it certainly helped that TJ Ford remained healthy for the most part for the entire year as well...
… what a lucky son of a bitch…
And it all led to our first ever playoffs in God knows how many years for the Toronto Raptors. I was shocked that we got ourselves a 47-win season, but alas, I was shocked again when we couldn’t get past the first fucking round. It’s not like it was completely our team make-up’s fault, even though we just didn’t have the perimeter defence to guard a revitalized Jason Kidd who could somehow nail every fucking three point shot that he took.
It wasn’t our fault we lost Jose Garbajosa to garbage time, or Andrea Bargnani to an appendicitis. Though of course, I sure as hell wish that Bosh didn’t look like a clear deer in the headlights the whole goddam New Jersey series. But considering he was constantly double-teamed and roughed up without any help from his teammates at all, I’m willing to give him some slack for this year at least…
The thing is, what about next year? This is the first season where the Toronto Raptors don’t have even a single fucking draft pick. Or at least, not until Bryan Colangelo works his mafia magic once again…
And as a result? Goddammit, I feel so damn naked. As a Toronto Raptors fan who followed them throughout their horrible years of misery, the NBA Draft was the only thing I ever had to look forward to. It led to some dismal misfortunes in Rafael Araujo and perhaps Joey fucking Graham, but it’s surprises like Charlie Villanueva and Andrea Bargnani that just always made this time of the year so damn special and cult-like to me…
Honestly? As bizarre as this sounds to say, I would’ve preferred a high draft pick here than the fucking first round exit we got from the playoffs to Vince fucking Carter. As a Toronto Raptors fan, I live and die for the draft. I feel so fucking naked right now without a pick in this year’s lottery, goddammit…
… well, until Colangelo works his magic once more, like I said…
Because once he does? Well, if I was him, what would my personal master plan be?…
First, trade TJ Ford to Atlanta for Josh Smith and the 11th pick. Then out of pure cheapness, the Atlanta owner will just randomly waive TJ into limbo, and we pick him back up for free. Conceivable, no?…
Then we trade Rasho Nesterovic, Morris Peterson, Pape Sow, Juon Dixon, the 11th pick in the draft, and maybe a big IOU card to the LA Lakers for Kobe fucking Bryant. As much as I hate the man, his stay here in Toronto next to Chris Bosh and Andrea Bargnani would be legendary at worst, Jordan-esque at best. All reasonable, no?…
Lastly, we buy a mid-first rounder pick from a dumbass GM to get Julian Wright and maybe an early second rounder to get Tiago Splitter off the table (I wish). We then focus our MLE in picking up our own human victory cigar of Darko Milicic (using voodoo on Orlando in the process to not match the deal), and then you have a perfectly capable team through just three or four completely realistic trades. No?…
So here you have it, I give you the Toronto Raptors championship team of 2007-2008…
… ahem…
C: Andrea Bargnani, Darko Milicic, Tiago Splitter
PF: Chris Bosh, Jorge Garbajosa, Kris Humphries
SF: Josh Smith, Julian Wright, Joey Graham
SG: Kobe Bryant, Anthony Parker, Carlos Delfino
PG: TJ Ford, Jose Calderon, Roko Ukic
And what? You don’t think that this can all happen on goddam draft day?
Fuck you then. Bryan Colangelo is a god. He’ll get it all done, done in a snap of the flame alchemist fingers.
BC, make it happen.
I know you can. Fuck, I know you will.
Make it fucking happen.
And why? Because Toronto Raptors fans, we indeed are his family.
Plus, we’ll kick his ass if we suck Raptors dick this year…
… ah, yes… the things we do for family…
… and our sports…
…
I still remember it clearly as daylight, or twilight really. The Toronto Raptors were in the first round of the playoffs, home-court advantage to boot, and I had failed miserably in my attempts to get tickets to Games 1 and 2. I was just sitting there at my computer at work, watching the seconds tick down until the very moment that tickets for Game 5 would go on sale…
I had a game plan, a real play that would knock the socks off of any NBA coach. I knew exactly from experience how the search engine on Toronto’s ticketmaster worked, that if I actually chose Sprite Zone tickets in my query, that I’d actually get a placement reserve sooner than with any other way. And how the fuck can I ever resist the allure of playoff tickets for just fifteen fucking dollars each? How the fuck can anyone? WTF?…
And I got them. Just four fucking tickets, but being so damn quick on the buzzer, I got them…
… which resulted in loss and heartache in some respects, but that’s a story for another day…
The end result though, was that I did go to Game 5 of the NBA playoffs. The atmosphere there was astounding, with massive chants of "Jose, Jose" and "Let’s Go Raptors – VC Sucks". Watching the game again off of taped television, we were fucking monsters with our cheers and voices on nearly every single play. Weirdly enough, being so high up in the nose-bleed section, it didn’t sound nearly that loud to my brother and I. But whatever, it was still an amazing atmosphere to behold, and an experience I would never want to replace…
… ‘cause I got them… victory was mine… I got four fucking tickets…
… kept only one for myself though… the other three went to my brother…
It was a great night. Just wish it could’ve been better…
… Go Raptors Go… oh, who am I kidding?…
But he had a great time. Him and his friends. It was an overall amazing experience.
And I was the one who got the tickets. My hands were sweaty, consumed and possessed with ambition for the first time in goddam years, but I got them…
… not for me… not just for me, but quite honestly for him…
… ah, yes… the things I do for the Toronto Raptors…
… and the things I do for family, apparently…
Sunday, December 31st, 2006
Y2kk Update: The year is finally coming to a close...
... thank fucking God...
And to be perfectly honest? I don’t even remember what the fuck happened in 2006...
I mean, sure there’s a bunch of recent news. Saddam Hussein was hanged in Iraq for his crimes, the Democrats took Congress and the Senate away from George Dubya Bush, the new Pope was caught on camera looking like the goddam Emperor of the Empire, and Belinda Stronach up here in Canada proved yet again why she is indeed the goddam devil incarnate when it comes to Tie fucking Domi...
And what else happened? The Toronto Maple Leafs fucking sucked ass, Team Canada in the Olympics choked hard, the Toronto Raptors continued to stink up the goddam joint...
... and oh yes, there was a gas shortage and a flock of seagulls...
... but seriously, that’s about it...
When it comes to 2006? Maybe I’m just getting old here and my memory has gone all hazy and shit like that, but really, there wasn’t a single goddam thing that was fucking memorable. Not from the top of my head, at least, and I’m too goddam lazy at this point in time to go rummaging around the newspapers for any real damn news...
As far as I’m concerned though? 2006 was simply the first year where I really was a goddam working man. Sure, I employed in the government as a .NET programming at this point in time last holiday season, but there’s just something more special and distinct about the way the working force has gone for me in 2006...
This was the year I graduated from university. This was the year where I was essentially fired for the first time from a job. And this was the first year where I got full time employment, even if the company that I’m currently working at seriously should not fucking count...
Basically, this was the first year where I officially became an adult...
... an adult still living at home, essentially dwelling down in the basement with his goddam fucking toys, but an adult nonetheless...
I mean, this was the year where my so-called "childhood dream" came true, as I officially became a goddam engineer...
And this, might I add, was also the goddam year, where finally?...
... I actually had enough money this holiday season to fucking go around...
... or so I thought...
...
This was also the fucking year where my motherfucking computer died...
Sure, that doesn’t sound like anything out of the ordinary when it comes to the noname whiner over here. But believe me, considering I treat my computers with the "utmost respect" (...) in this day and age? I was fucking shocked and betrayed as hell when the newest of my goddam PC’s just decided to roll over and die on me...
Wasn’t it just over a year ago where I was celebrating the new birth of my AMD 64 3200+? With a fucking GB of RAM, a 160 GB SATA hard drive, and an ATI X600 Pro video card, I finally had what was for the most part a beast of a machine. For once, I wasn’t really behind on the times (even though I knew the dual core processors were right on the horizon). For once, instead of my old goddam AMD K6-450MHz, I finally had a computer that I could finally goddam trust...
But, heh... guess what computer I’m now typing this Tweakui shit on instead?...
... motherfucking irony...
I don’t have any fucking clue what the fuck happened to my AMD 64. One day, it was working fine, and the next the motherboard seemed to fucking fry. I tried replacing the RAM, the video card, and the fucking goddam hard drive, but nothing would fucking solve the mystery that was my fucking cunt of a goddam piece of shit computer. It definitely wasn’t the power supply either (as I’ve had power supplies die on me before, and this was not the same bullshit), so it was either the motherboard or the CPU or goddam both. Either way, I was too damn pissed off from all the goddam shit I put up with at work to give two more fucking shits about the crap my PC was shoving up my ass back at home...
It was around this time that Staples (Business Depot) was having a fall clearance sale on half of the new PC’s they had in stock. Now, I have no fucking clue what possessed the company to start liquidating half of all their goddam assets, most of which were damn fine computers (hell, they even had a brand new Sony VAIO laptop of a model on sale for $499 CDN... WTF?...), some of which I could’ve definitely used considering my fucking AMD 64 had just sunk to the sixty-fourth level of fucking hell...
When I went into my local Staples, I immediately saw one computer that caught the corner of my eye. It was an HP Media Pavilion with a built in TV Tuner and PVR, an Intel Pentium4 3.2 GHz with a GB of RAM, a 250 GB SATA hard drive, and a decent integrated X300 video card to boot. The exterior wasn’t in the best of shape, considering this was the last of these specific computers that they had (and it was probably a floor model too), but as soon as I saw the price, I knew I was in love...
$290 CDN...
... wait, umm... what?...
Two hundred and ninety dollars? That’s it?...
Isn’t that already the fucking price of the CPU, mobo and RAM alone, let alone the rest of the high octane shit in the package? How the fuck could Staples sell a brand name computer (with a legit copy of Windows XP to boot, with a free upgrade option to Vista) for this fucking low of a goddam price? Are they fucking insane? WTF?...
... well, their loss and my gain, or so I thought...
I immediately went over to a Staples sales rep to claim my prize. Problem was, it was already goddam taken. Apparently, somebody over the goddam phone had already reserved the fucking computer for the goddam day. I was right there in the goddam store with my grubby paws all over the HP itself, and yet they were still going to wait on the return of some nobody who called into the store so casually and leisurely more than five hours ago in advance?...
Apparently, nobody else was allowed to touch this computer until the very end of the day. The rule was, according to the Staples sales reps I talked to, that if somebody puts their name down on a computer? Then they have until the closing time of the store to claim their prize. If they don’t show up by then, the next person on the list gets dibs...
So what else could I do? Rules are rules, so I put my name down. I became fucking second on the list...
... keep that in mind...
... fucking second on the list for the goddam computer...
And shrugging my shoulders at my complete lack of luck, what else could I do but just walk away, hoping that the person over the phone was too damn dumbass to show the fuck up...
Now, the next day at work, I called in from a pay phone at noon to my local Staples. Keep in mind that I work in Toronto, which is two cities away from both my home and the fucking local Staples store that I was at the night before...
I called into the Business Depot and asked if the HP computer was now up for grabs. And lo and behold, to my complete fortune, the guy who had reserved the computer the day before never fucking showed up. Huzzah!...
I told the guy that I was the next on the list, that I had reserved the computer in store the day before. He then looked me up on the list, acknowledged that my name was there, and then said that if I wanted the computer, I had until the closing time of the store to get my ass back to town and pick it up. Otherwise, I’d lose my place in line...
Five anxious hours later, I finally arrived back home. I tried calling the Staples store just before I left for it though, to confirm whether they really still did have the HP computer left in stock for me, since it was raining freezing buckets outside at the time. I was already a tad bit sick with a cold, and the last thing I would’ve wanted was to make myself goddam worse by going out into the torrential sleet for absolutely nothing. But fuck, nobody ever fucking picked up the phone at Staples, no matter how long or how many times I tried, so it was off to the races and the buckets of cats and dogs outside...
Well, I finally get to Staples, frozen stiff from the shitty ass weather outside, and I proceed to the fucking HP computer that I knew was rightfully mine. Only to find that...
... umm... WTF?...
... it wasn’t.... there... anymore?...
WTF?...
I say again, WTF?...
I immediately raced over to a goddam sales representative and asked about the fucking HP Pavillion that used to be sitting right there on the shelf. And guess the fuck what?...
He told me that he himself had sold it to a customer earlier in the day...
... umm... WTF?...
I told him my name. I even showed him goddam ID to prove that my name was fucking on the list for this computer. I told him straight to his face that I had not only showed up the night before, but called during fucking lunch hour (before he sold this computer to some fucking random stranger, he later admitted) to reserve the fucking machine for myself...
... at first, he didn’t believe me, claiming he knew nothing of the sort...
I then demanded to see the list of names of people who reserved the fucking HP clearance model, the very same sheet of shit that I was shown by the other sales rep the night before...
... and guess the fuck what?...
... the fucking sales rep claimed that for clearance models, there was no goddam fucking sheet...
... that there was no goddam list?...
I say again...
WHAT. THE. FUCK?...
WTF? WTF?...
I say yet fucking again...
WHAT. THE. FUCK?!?...
... I should’ve called his manager, as I had and still have no fucking clue what the fuck was going on...
Who the fuck lied to me? Was it the person who showed me the list and had held the HP for the man over the phone the night before? No, it can’t be, considering the other sales rep that I talked to over the phone at lunch time claimed that he saw my name on the fucking list as well...
Then was this new sales rep simply fucking me up the ass, probably selling the system to either himself or a friend, and ripping the fucking list with my name on the top to goddam shreds? I honestly couldn’t tell. And honestly, I was too goddam tired and pissed off from what had happened at work earlier that day, that I didn’t even think about calling over his goddam manager at the fucking time...
... the HP Pavillion was gone...
... alone, cold... and gone...
... there was nothing more I could do, and I just didn’t have the spirit in me to actually try to fuck this goddam Staples asshole up the ass for what he fucking did to me that night...
... I was fucking screwed...
I had to go home with something, just anything though. My AMD 64 had been dead at my house for the past three fucking weeks, which resulted in me using the goddam internet off of my goddam ancient computers instead. I needed something, just anything to be my new machine at home, and so I took one last look at the clearance PC models that they had left...
But there was really only one machine they had left in stock...
... jeez, I wonder why?...
Something called an...
... "Xplio"...
... as in...
... "Xtreme"?...
... best known for...
... "Xploding"?...
But bah, whatever... it was only $297 CDN...
... and the specs themselves didn’t seem so bad...
... well, not that bad... I think...
I still have no clue what the fuck an Xplio computer is, whether it’s Staples’ own private brand or some shit Canadian one. Either way, for $297, ignoring the brand name, it didn’t seem like such a bad deal...
I mean, an AMD 64 Dual Core 3800+, with a GB of RAM, a 250 GB IDE hard drive, an integrated X200 video card, and a legit version of Windows XP? For that price, I couldn’t help but give into my desperation and bite the big one of ponying up the cash...
... Dividend Card, fuck yeah...
Now, am I still pissed off as fuck for what that fucking stupid ass "Stooples" employee did to me? You’re fucking damn right I am...
Then again, except for a few random times where the CPU fan on my "Xplio" has absolutely gone berserk (and sounded like it was going into a nuclear holocaust of a meltdown)? The computer has been surprisingly sturdy and shockingly stable, especially after I put in my ol’ X600 Pro DVI video card to go along with my brand new Samsung 941BW 19" LCD monitor. The computer really hasn’t crashed on me once yet...
... knock on wood, of course, considering I could have said the same thing about my old fucking AMD 64 for the first fucking months of its life, right up until this year of fucking 2006, that is...
And am I ever going to trust the fucking Xplio with my new copy of Company of Heroes or Neverwinter Nights 2 or any shit like that? Hell no, it’ll probably crash and burn before the first fucking stages are over and done with...
But for everything else I do need a computer for? I can’t really complain...
... I mean sure, except for the shitty ass P4 CPU, I still wish I could’ve gotten my mits and paws on that goddam HP Pavilion like I should have in the first place...
... afterall, I earned it... it should’ve been mine...
... but bah... it seems to me, that these days in my life at least?...
... I never get the grand prize...
...
It barely made a dent in my wallet that month, to spend $297 on a new PC and another $49 CDN for a Game Boy Micro (from Zellers), but alas, that was really only the first month of "real" purchases for me...
Before that date? I was just using my cash and credit card to buy whatever rare video games I could find. Death by a thousand cuts really, as a $20 DVD here and a $30 game here eventually started eating up half of my fucking monthly paycheck when combined with the new computer and all the news toys I was getting on the side...
... my poor, poor fucking Wallet...
... Wallet May Cry...
... and yet still, even now, I wish my wallet was bleeding some more...
It was around this time that the Nintendo Wii was approaching store shelves. I had already put the brand new spanking $449 Xbox 360 on my credit card for my brother (expecting him to pay me back... though that never really panned out as first anticipated...), but all I had my eyes really set on was the goddam Legend of Zelda on the goddam Nintendo Wii. I had waited in breathless anticipation for the system for over a goddam year at that point, and I was goddam determined to fucking take a system back home with me at fucking goddam launch...
... pfft... some dream that turned out to be...
... made my peyote vision Toronto Raptors trades seem fucking realistic in comparison, sadly...
As honestly, who the fuck were the morons who specifically told me that the Nintendo Wii would be so damn hated by North America, that I could literally walk into a store in the middle of the launch date and just pick one up off of the goddam shelves? Motherfucker goddam cunts...
I mean seriously, I woke up at 7:30 am that Sunday morning...
... already too fucking late...
I got to Wal-Mart around 8:00 am. Already there was a line-up there of about 80 patrons. WTF?...
Well, fine. How many Nintendo Wii’s were they expecting? I remembered a report off of RedFlagDeals, claiming that my town’s Walmart would get 150 Wii’s in stock. So I was good and safe, right?...
I went into the store and lined up. As I did, I asked the store employee how many fucking Wii’s that they had in stock...
... and he claimed anywhere between fifty and one hundred...
Wait, that’s it? That can’t be right...
... but I asked a couple of more employees, both confirmed his numbers, and one even claimed he was sure that the line-up was already too long for the number of systems that they had in the back...
But that can’t be true, can it? The store was supposed to get 150 of these things. Where did the other fifty, or even the final one hundred go then? Were the store employees trying to hog and stash them all for themselves? WTF?...
Now sure, the line-up was "only" 80 people at Wal-Mart, and if the place really did have one hundred Wii’s in stock like some guessed, then I could have gotten my system by just biding my time and staying in line...
But no, in my fucking infinite wisdom? I decided that the risk was too great, that if I stayed at fucking Wal-Mart for the entire fucking morning (as the line was moving slow as molasses, afterall), then I’d have no fucking chance at getting the system anywhere else...
So yeah, in my infinite dumbassness, I left the cozy confines of Wal-Mart to try the rest of the fucking freezing ass city with whatever remained of my fucking dumb ass luck...
I went to The Real Canadian Superstore (Loblaws) first...
... no line-up... but?...
... all twenty consoles already sold out...
... oh... that’s why there was no line-up...
... motherfuckers...
I then went to my local Best Buy...
... huge line-up... huge fucking line-up...
... 120 consoles... 200 people in line...
... yeah, no fucking thanks...
I then tried Future Shop...
... 50 consoles, and the line-up seemed tiny...
... I then took a closer look...
... and noticed that the line-up wrapped around the rear of the store all the way to the opposite side of the fucking parking lot...
WTF?...
... fuck...
Then tried Toys R’ Us...
... seemingly small line-up there...
... a wee line-up for the Wii...
... but eventually asked someone how many Nintendo Wii’s the store was actually getting...
... only 30 apparently, and they had already all been sold out at midnight...
... as everyone still in line already had a goddam ticket...
... motherfucker...
... mother-goddam-fucking-fucker...
Tried Zellers. No luck...
... tried another Zellers... and another... and another...
... no luck... no fucking luck...
Tried another Wal-Mart...
... tried another Best Buy...
... tried another Future Shop...
In total, I checked a total amount of stores that had a grand sum of over half a thousand fucking Nintendo Wii’s in the Tale of Two Cities that bordered my own. And guess the fuck what? By nine fucking AM, every fucking store was already sold out, if they weren’t already sold out by fucking goddam midnight...
I tried Blockbuster. No dice there, since they apparently didn’t even get any of the consoles they were expecting...
I tried The Source (Circuit City). Turns out, they wouldn’t be getting any systems for the entire damn month...
I tried all the small, local shops which claimed they weren’t getting the Nintendo Wii in the first place (fucking liars...). Whatever few they had, they sold out to assholes smarter than myself right before I fucking got there...
It was ten o’clock by then, and I was still fucking Nintendo Wii-less. In my desperation, I noticed that a local Rogers Video store that I already knew would be getting only two fucking Nintendo Wii’s, still didn’t have anybody in line. I had asked them the week before about pre-ordering, and they claimed it was a first come, first serve basis, that I couldn’t put my name down to reserve a system...
So I camped out there, and finally the store opened. I asked about the Wii, as I should’ve been able to get one then and there, right? Rules are rules. I was the first fucking person in line, afterall...
And guess the fuck what? The store manager claimed that in recent days, their two Nintendo Wii’s had been reserved by other customers. Even though he shut me down just a fucking week before. WTF?...
But what else could I do? I tried to protest that I wasn’t given the right to reserve before, but it’s not like I had any damn proof besides my own word. What else could I do, but simply ask him politely to put my name down for the first goddam Nintendo Wii available from the store? And this time, he actually did oblige and wrote my goddam contact information down. Motherfucker...
.... it was almost 11 AM by then... and I was fucking frozen from the Canadian fall, and tired as fuck...
But this was also the weekend that I promised my parents that I’d absolutely go to Church with them. 2006 was the year where my mother was first baptized, and I had promised her that I would go to Church this weekend for sure, even though I wanted to spend the entire damn Sunday morning on the Wii hunt instead. So what else could I do but suck up my pride and try to find some rest in the goddam Church for the morning?...
I had tried to go on Saturday afternoon instead, but thanks to a surprise visit from my mother’s friends, I was forced into prematurely ending my Nintendo Wii run that goddam Sunday morning instead...
... with goddam unfortunate results in the end, might I add...
... disastrous results that even I could not comprehend from the fucking goddam Fates...
As after Church? My parents and I arrived back home, only to find a message on our fucking answering machine...
The manager from Rogers had called, and somebody who had reserved one of the two Wii’s from the store got one from somewhere else (motherfucker), and left it available to the next person on the list...
... that person was me...
I was so fucking happy and delighted, as if this was some unexpected gift from God or something. A Nintendo Wii had just fallen into my lap from the heavens, and all I had to do was drive five fucking minutes to pick it up...
So since I was still dressed in my Sunday finest, that’s exactly what I did. I raced right back to my car, drove straight to Rogers Video, went right up to the manager, and asked straight up where the fuck was my Nintendo Wii...
... he paused... conflicted... confused...
... WTF?... WTF was the problem?...
... "oh, sorry...", he murmured beneath his breath...
... "I sold it to someone else"...
Umm, wait... say again?...
... "You didn’t answer the phone. So I sold it to someone else..."
Wait. What?...
What the fuck?...
... I say again...
WHAT. THE. FUCK?!?...
I explained to him that I was only at Church for a fucking hour. I told him that since I was first on the list, shouldn’t I have been given some sort of amount of time to pick up the Nintendo fucking Wii? Yet instead, he pulls a fucking Staples-Stooples on me, and sells it to the next highest goddam bidder? Was there some sort of extra cash incentive deal going on here behind my back or something? WTF?...
It’s like Fate deliberately fucked me over in the ass and went back for seconds or some shit like that...
... I mean seriously, I meant to go to Church on Saturday afternoon, only for my parents’ friends to show up from out of town, completely out of the blue, with no warning or phone call whatsoever...
... WTF?...
... and I goddam meant to spend my entire Sunday morning shopping for the Nintendo Wii with an active cellphone in hand, but as a favour to my dear old mother, I shut the fucking cell phone off when I was fucking in goddam Church with her...
... WTF?...
WHAT. THE. FUCK?!?...
And since then? Every single fucking weekend, it’s been the same old story, week after week, time after time...
How many stores have I checked? How many annoyed employees have I called? How many times did I check for availability online and shit like that? And yet here I stand, still without a goddam Nintendo fucking Wii...
My cousin is being a real bitch about this, rubbing it in my face that all of his friends and their little brothers and sisters already got Nintendo Wii’s from their goddam parents...
That’s just the thing though. How the fuck am I ever supposed to compete against goddam soccer moms? When the gloves come off with them, there’s nothing you can do but motherfucking run and hide...
I never expected for the line-ups for the Nintendo Wii to get worse after the weekend launch. But as soon as word spread that the system would actually get kids to be active and exercise, it was all over for my Legend of Zelda dreams. With Christmas right on the horizon, I not only saw line-ups of hundreds of people at fucking Wal-Mart and Best Buy during those weekend searches in the mornings, but also mothers and fathers duking it out like fucking cats and dogs in the goddam freezing rain. WTF?...
It’s past Christmas now, and even so, this past Friday? I still saw parents shoving and clawing one another in line over the Nintendo fucking Wii at stores. The system can’t be anything but a fucking New Year’s present anymore, and yet still the line-ups were goddam worse than I had ever seen for a console launch before. WTF?...
And as for me? Well, I got and beat my Legend of Zelda alright, although it wasn’t quite on the system I had hoped it would be for all those weeks ago...
Either way though, Wii-less or not? I’ve spent a hell of a lot of money over the past few months. Whether it be on personal computers, the Xbox 360, Toronto Maple Leafs games, Toronto Raptors games, or fucking Christmas presents for the family and friends?...
... either way?... oh, my wallet...
... my poor, poor fucking wallet...
... yet I wish it was bleeding even more...
... with a fucking Wiimote in hand, to shove it the fuck up the goddam Rogers manager’s ass...
... mother-goddam-canucker-of-a-fucker...
...
God, this holiday season has been depressing...
First, I get royally fucked over when it came to my fucked over PC at home. Then I get screwed by the employees at Staples, only to get the same fucking treatment again by the manager at goddam Rogers for the Nintendo fucking Wii. What the fuck?...
Seriously, what the fuck?...
... and, well...
Truth be told, it’s times like these that I turn to sports for any sort of goddam relief, vindication and redemption...
... but recently, in the city of Toronto?...
... well, hell’s bells, the sports here have been anything but a goddam sigh of porous relief...
As, well?...
I went to my first Toronto Maple Leafs game in my life. My brother got tickets from my sister for his birthday. I have no clue how she got them, but even if they were only upper bowl, I really do still appreciate the thought...
... the only problem was, she picked the wrong fucking game to send us to...
I forget the exact date, but the game was against the Boston Bruins. And any current Maple Leafs fan knows the horrors, oh the horrors of any of the recent games we’ve had against motherfucking Boston in recent weeks and months...
... and the game I went to?...
... was the first...
... the goddam first...
... the first of the motherfucking losing streak...
The game was a dagger to the heart to any fucking Leafs fan watching in person. Seriously, I would now pay not to go and watch this fucking game, knowing how it all turned out...
It was the return of Mats Sundin. I knew we would lose, since the Maple Leafs always cave in and cradle into the fetal position every fucking time Mats Sundin returns from a fucking goddam injury...
But my brother didn’t believe me though. The Leafs at the time were riding a five or so game winning streak. Why would it ever end, especially at home against a hapless opponent like the Boston Bruins, right?...
But now? Now, both of us would do anything to fucking unsee this fucking atrocity of a game...
Because aside from a single Darcy Tucker fight, the whole thing was just fucking pathetic in every fucking way. Just goddam hockey at its worst, reminding me more of goddam pansy ass Lacrosse than anything else. The Leafs were playing like absolute goddam shit...
... or worse yet, like the Canadian fucking Olympic team, really...
... or fuck, even more worse?... the fucking CFL... shudder...
So yeah, without going into details, it might be safe to say that my brother and I are fucking goddam bad luck when it comes to the motherfucking Toronto Maple Leafs. The two games that he’s managed to get to this year have been both fucking horrific losses. And now my cherished memories of the goddam hockey team have been completely stained and tarnished, by the simple fact that the first and only game I went to, was the start of the fucking eight or whatever game losing streak for the team...
... a streak that in essence, is still going on this very day, two fucking months after my brother and I had already left the game in goddam disgust...
I didn’t even pay to see the game (aside from parking). And yet I still demand for my motherfucking money back...
I want my time back. Can they give me back my time? Fuck...
I have seen the deepest level of fucking hell. And it is called Toronto Maple Leafs hockey at its goddam fucking worst...
... no life... no hustle... no soul...
... they didn’t even make me laugh with how fucking pathetic they played...
Thank God I instead choose to root for a Toronto "winning" team, thank you very much...
... Sam Mitchell, "The Smitch" is the house...
... even if I don’t necessarily want them to win, mind you...
...
If anything, 2006 was the year for me of Toronto Raptors games, with the weirdest streak in history when it came to games that I goddam attended...
Up until the other day, I had been to eight fucking Toronto Raptors games this year, the only eight fucking Toronto Raptors games that I had ever been to live. And each and every single one of those eight fucking games, I came out of the arena listening to that "Celebrate Good Times" music, to the tune of a victory and the marching band playing...
Seriously, what are the chances? WTF?...
It’s not like I attended games against awful teams or anything. Minnesota and Orlando were both on hot streaks when they visited, the Cleveland Cavaliers are always a team to watch out for in the playoffs, and Vince Carter of the New Jersey Nets always finds a way to cut a swath of a fucking dagger right through the back of our hearts...
... until we made him crawl into the fucking fetus position with our fucking massive chants, that is...
"CARTER SUCKS!!! CARTER SUCKS!!! CARTER SUCKS!!!"
My God, was that a spectacular game to go to...
I was sitting in the fucking pathetic Sprite Zone, almost in the very back of the benches. I was literally in the nosebleeds of the fucking $15 nosebleed section, although it definitely did have its moments there...
It turned out that I was right in front of the guy who eventually started all the "CARTER SUCKS" chants that night. And as a result? I guess you can say that I was to first guy to really second his opinion, as our screams echoed throughout the arena to the point where the entire Air Canada Centre shriveled Vince Carter into a wincing little baby every time he made it to the free throw line...
I’ve never been to a game where a chant was that fucking overwhelming, and I’ve never been to a game where the crowd actually had a measurable effect on the opponent they were heckling. Yet every time we screamed out his name at the top of our lungs, Carter fucking choked and missed the easiest fucking shots he normally makes in his fucking sleep. And that just made us Toronto Raptors roar even louder...
Seriously though, eight fucking games I attended, resulting in eight fucking wins? For an NBA team that was so fucking bad in 2006, that we literally won the first overall pick in the goddam draft out of goddam league pity, what the fuck are the goddam chances of that? WTF?...
Alas, the streak was bound to end sometime. And while I’m trying my ardent best to block the game out of my fucking memory, record will have it that I was there when the Chicago Bulls came to town the other night, where the Toronto Raptors continued their streak of fifteen fucking games lost to the goddam Windy City team. It just can’t be explained, why Toronto was able to beat the Bulls sixteen times in a row before (including during the Michael Jordan era... WTF?...), and yet even when the Bulls were the bottom feeders of the league, we still couldn’t beat them on our fucking best night. WTF?...
Well, it’s not like the winning streak at games I attend would’ve continued either way. My brother and I have tickets to the Phoenix Suns and Dallas Mavericks games as well, and we all know how well the Toronto Raptors did against those two this past goddam year, now don’t we?...
... but fuck, I could’ve at least had a perfect record in goddam 2006...
... fucking Chicago...
... I hate Chicago...
... I hate Deng...
But besides that one black hole of an anomaly of a game? Well, grit and hustle have been the key damn words for this city and team, and normally I’d consider that a good thing...
With Chris Bosh out of the line-up and TJ Ford silencing all his critics with his recent all-star calibre play (myself included, considering I was only half on his bandwagon at the start of the season...), the Toronto Raptors have done exceptionally well as of late, almost approaching that .500 mark that differentiates between a decent squad and a piss poor mess of bullshit. We’ve pulled out huge wins out of pure grit, hustle defence, and of course a huge amount of goddam luck. It’s given a lot of fans a hell of a lot of hope and optimism for a playoff run in 2007, and it sucks how I’m pretty much the only one left on the logical bandwagon, who knows in the pits of his gut that what’s happening to the Raptors right now is just too good to be goddam true...
Our losses earlier in the season to Phoenix and Dallas, and even games against average teams like the Chicago Bulls throughout the year, all prove to me without a shadow of a doubt that this Toronto Raptors team is just not good enough to compete against the best. Or at least, not quite yet...
And this off-season, we really can’t look forward to the free agency list, considering we extended Kris Humphries contract beyond the NBA salary cap. It’s hard to determine whether our current line-up of players would be good enough to compete next year for a playoff run either, even after a new coach has finally replaced "The Smitch", as the team as a whole tends to be too damn streaky at shots for its own damn good...
... 200 SHATS, goddammit...
There is really only one real course of action then, as the Toronto Raptors are simply put, just not ready to leave the rebuilding phase just quite yet...
... it’s time to tank...
... for just one season more, it’s time to tank...
Because there’s been absolutely no NBA draft since 2003 that has been this damn stacked and worth it to fucking tank. We can’t possibly miss out on a draft that will contain Kevin Durant, Joakim Noah, Corey Brewer, Thaddeus Young, Brandon Wright, and who knows who the fuck else at this point...
... especially the man the Toronto Raptors should’ve gotten been able to get with their first overall pick in 2006...
... Greg Oden...
... Greg fucking goddam Oden...
This here is the next super-draft. Just like 2003 and just like 1998, there are just too many superstar, marquee-type players here to be snatched up in 2007, to simply give up on for a goddam worthless first round exit in the playoffs...
I want to see the Raptors make the playoffs just like everyone else, but just not this year. I implore Toronto for just one more year of patience, otherwise we will never have the goods to truly compete against the titans in the Western Conference, or the best in the East for that matter. We’re just not good enough to be anything but a decent treadmill team at this point, as it’s absolutely pointless to be at .500 since every other team who wants a credible chance at a championship always must aim a hell of a lot higher...
... and Lords knows we can’t let either Chicago or fucking Miami build a dynasty around Greg fucking Oden instead...
... motherfucker...
And now, this is where I normally get high on Peyote visions, and start demanding ludicrous trades...
... lucky for me though, I’m too fanatically depressed thanks to the Maple Leafs right now to actually believe that any of my Raptors demands are actually goddam ludicrous any longer...
Because, I mean, didn’t Carmelo Anthony just get into a fist fight? With Allen Iverson now on the team, do the Denver Nuggets really need two go-to-scorers? Honestly, who throws a shoe?...
We’ll do them a favour then, taking the bonafide lunatic off their hands. How ‘bout Morris Peterson and Rasho Nesterovic (the three-point specialist, booyah) for just ol’ Carmelo Anthony? If anything, Denver is ripping us off with their garbage...
And what’s this? Chicago has been phasing out Kirk Hinrich in favour of a combination of Luol Deng and Ben Gordon? Don’t they need extra cap room to resign Andres Nocioni anyhew? What if we traded them Kris Humphries, Uros Slokar and the ghost of Rafael Araujo for Kirk Hinrich then? They don’t need him. We’d be saving them a ton of cash on Captain Kirk’s ludicrous salary then...
In the off-season, sign Darko Milicic to the MLE, just in case the bust ever does break out, draft Greg Oden after winning the lottery for a second straight year in a row, and then hope to God that Morris Peterson is such a fucking die hard Raptors fan at heart, that he comes crawling back to us for a contract at the lowly LLE...
... you know, just because he and the NBA cares...
... it takes five, baby...
And then what would we have here? But the true Toronto Raptors team of 2007...
... ahem...
C: Greg Oden, Andrea Bargnani, Darko Milicic
PF: Chris Bosh, Jorge Garbajosa, Pape Sow
SF: Carmelo Anthony, Morris Peterson, Joey Graham
SG: Kirk Hinrich, Anthony Parker, PJ Tucker
PG: TJ Ford, Jose Calderon, Roko Ukic
... hmm... there’s just something I like about this line-up here...
Wait, what? Is somebody out there trying to tell me that this is impossible for Bryan Colangelo to accomplish?...
Pfft, yeah fucking right. The man was able to trade Robert Archibald for something...
... Robert fucking Archibald...
... and Rafael Araujo, to boot...
This man is a trading genius. And to this genius, dare I state?...
Make it happen...
Make it fucking happen...
And then? Only then really, will I ever again fork over my hard earned cash for Toronto Raptors fucking playoff games. As only then will we ever fucking stand a goddam chance at a credible championship run...
... and only then, will the winning streak of games I attend return once more...
... for my wallet shall cry out...
... a cry of?...
... "CARTER SUCKS"...
... "CARTER SUCKS"...
... "CARTER SUCKS"...
... sniff sniff...
... great game...
... great fucking game...
...
But my fucking God, have I ever fucking used a ton of cash this goddam fucking year of 2006...
Whether it was $500 on Toronto Raptors tickets, $300 on a new PC, $500 on a fucking Xbox 360, the long lost shattered dreams of spending another $300 on the Nintendo fucking Wii, the New Year’s wish of getting a fucking LCD HDTV, or throwing away God knows how much money on fucking video games for the current generation of systems (Nintendo DS, GBA, Gamecube, Xbox, and yes, even the PS2)?...
Fuck, thanks to my fucking fetish and my utter fucking failure-ton to secure a Nintendo Wii, I not only bought The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess at full fucking price for the Nintendo Gamecube?...
... but also for the Nintendo fucking Wii as well...
Yes, even without the latter system, I still bought the fucking game...
... at full fucking price...
... TWICE...
Seriously, WTF?...
No, seriously...
WTF?...
... my poor, poor fucking wallet...
... Wallet May Cry...
... and yet I still wish my wallet would bleed some more...
Though seriously, absolutely nothing really happened in 2006 that I can actually goddam remember, besides the fact I’ve used up more cash here than I think I ever did before...
But if anything? Perhaps 2006 will simply stand out as the year of absolutely nothing being remembered, of the noname memory kicking into high horseshit gear or some shit like that, and for damn good reason beyond my control...
As soon as a person starts working, their memory starts fading. Days and months go by before you can even blink an eye. I honestly don’t remember a single thing that goddam fucking happened to me in 2006, simply because I spent most of my waking hours at goddam work, where everything is just so fucking monotonous and mundane that I literally have learned to block it all out of fucking memory. I mean seriously, don’t we all?...
... it’s call adaptation... fucking goddam adaptation...
... from the fucking goddam office...
And my only saving grace from the repetitive, harsh bullshit of reality, has always been my fucking video games and goddam sports...
... though obviously here in Toronto in recent years, the latter sheaths me no fucking relief whatsoever...
... and I just can’t win when it comes to goddam video games either...
... I just can’t get what I motherfucking want...
... Nintendo Wii then for the win?...
As here’s hoping, that I can remember something, just anything when I’m raving and ranting as a pathetic loser here yet again, writing as the noname whiner on New Year’s Eve 2007, just like I am right here and right now during the final goddam moments of 2006...
... alone, cold...
... confused... conflicted...
... in the twilight of the pale moonlight...
... with wolves and a flock of fucking seagulls after me...
Because it all just sounds like so much goddam fun, now doesn’t it?...
... as oh, my wallet... my poor, poor fucking wallet...
... prick it doth it not bleed, tickle it doth it not laugh?...
... wrong it, shall I not revenge?...
And with that? As always, right on cue, I just can’t help but wish you all galore...
... a goddam Happy New Year, nevermore...
... and a God Speed, a Good Will Hunting, and of course, a God Bless Us, Everyone...
...
... except to Staples...
... and Rogers...
... and you too, Sony...
... for no reason really...
... fuck you, Sony...
... fuck you...
Sunday, October 29th, 2006
Y2kk Update: Okay. I’ve had it.
What the FUCK is wrong with my computer?
Now, yeah yeah. It’s been ages since my last Tweakui update. It’s not like I haven’t had anything to write about, with the political world going to Korean and Tie Domi hell and all. And it’s not like my fucking busted ass computer is the cause for my perpetual laziness either...
Do I have a reason for my ever so noticeable absence besides pure procrastination? Probably not. But right now, I don’t give a fuck...
My computer pretty much keeled over and died on me the other week. Two weeks ago, really. But what pisses me off most is that while the goddam 486 that I’m typing on now hasn’t freaked out on me in years, it’s my fucking "new" AMD64 3200 that’s gone screwy to hell for God knows what reason...
... and believe me, I’ve tried to figure out the goddam reason...
What the FUCK is wrong with my computer? WTF?...
Basically, two weeks ago, I started getting blue screens of death from my Windows XP. Thinking nothing of it, considering as an old skool computer gamer I used to always get this kind of crap back on Windows 95, I just ignored it and moved along. Problem was, my computer refused to let me just live my life of goddam using just the goddam internet, and FireFox later just absolutely died on me one day. I was merely using that internet browser when a system error occurred. I tried to reload the program, but Firefox apparently didn’t exist anymore. WTF?...
I did the usual thing of running ChkDsk to see what the fuck was going on with my hard drive. Problem was, as soon as I started doing my goddam error check of the local disk, that’s when a blue screen of death occurred. I rebooted my computer to try again, only to find that... umm... say what?...
... Windows XP... doesn’t exist anymore?...
WTF?...
... umm... I say again...
WHAT. THE. FUCK?!?...
So what else could I do? I tried to reinstall Windows, but even that crashed halfway through with a bloody hell blue screen of death. Every single time I tried to load something even remotely relating to a Microsoft kernel on my goddam machine, I’d get some random blue screen error. Sometimes it’d tell me my Windows files don’t exist, other times it’d give me an IRQ warning about fucked up computer hardware, but most of the time when trying to load my goddam garbage computer files, I’d get a fucking virtual memory page-file shit fuck of a message. Which to me meant really one thing...
Well, normally I’d assume that my hard drive had just died. But if that was the case, why was I getting so many different types of error messages, and always at random times? I tried running Chkdsk again, and this time it went through and told me that it couldn’t find anything wrong with my bloody hell hard drive. Considering all the random shit that was going on with my computer, I just had to assume that it was the Random Access Memory that was fucking things up, right?...
So I did a little test (after doing MemTest in safe mode, which said nothing was wrong with my goddam RAM modules). I went into my BIOS (which was fine by the way, or seemed to be at least) and downclocked both my system bus and DDR memory speed. I then tried to boot Windows, and what do you know? I still got random errors and crashes from time to time, but at least fucking Windows actually still did exist on the fucking hard drive. I could actually use my computer at minutes at a time before it died a complete and utter horrible spanking of a death. So the culprit just had to be the RAM, right?...
So this past weekend, I went to a store to get some new RAM. I had an old 1GB DDR400 module in my system, and it pained me as hell to just purchase a mere 512MB replacement, but what other choice did I have? Sadly, my credit card had already been pretty much fucking maxed out by fucking Toronto Raptors tickets earlier in the month, and I had no real cash left considering I now also have to buy my fucking GO train ticket for the month of work in November. What choice did I really have but to go cheap and just see if the RAM really was the problem?...
You know what the real problem with my purchase was though? Even though RAM is technically goddam hardware, no fucking place out there would allow me to refund the product if need be. Sure, I could exchange it for another slab of RAM, but what the fuck would I do if the system memory was not the issue with my goddam computer? I’d be out of seventy more fucking dollars, and for what? A still fucking busted as ass PC? What the fuck is wrong with all the stores in Canada here? Even the major corporations won’t take back RAM with a bloody hell receipt for some goddam reason. WTF?...
Either way though, what choice did I have? I sucked it up, bought my 512MB DDR400 module, and slotted it right into my computer, praying that everything would be just fine. Earlier this weekend, I had and yes, still have a fucking mountain of work to do that I didn’t finish at my company over the course of the week. And I absolutely can’t work on that high performance programming shit on the fucking 486 that I’m typing this very update with as I speak...
So anyhew, as soon as I slotted in the RAM? I sighed a heavy sigh of relief...
... as Windows was slowly but surely ever booting up...
... oh yes...
... oh fucking hell yes...
... until?...
... until the screen...
... until I saw the blue screen...
... blue screen of death...
... more like the blue scream of death...
And then I screamed...
... oh hell yes, I screamed...
Fuck
FUCK.
FUCK FUCK FUCK.
FUCKITY FUCK FUCK FUCK.
FUCKITY FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!
FUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!
It was like pissing out a goddam fucking cactus.
WHAT. THE. FUCK?!?...
And you know what the real kicker was? After I had put in the new RAM, that’s when I got the worst of the blue screens of death that I had ever gotten before. Prior to this weekend, I had gotten IRQ or Iraq conflict errors and fucking page-file backflips on screen. But now? Now, I had one real whopper of one...
... ahem...
"Your computer has suffered a serious issue. <no comment>"...
Literally. The Windows debugger didn’t even have a guess as to what the fuck the problem was. WTF?...
So yeah...
... not the RAM...
My hard drive was then and there officially dead. I don’t know whether it was already dead before, whether it was the original cause of all of my PC’s problems, or if my corrupted RAM had somehow taken my hard drive down with it. Who the fuck really knows?...
As I’m typing this, this is the second time today that I’ve tried to format my Maxtor SATA 160GB hard drive, but of course it will be to no avail. As soon as I try to load Windows XP, I get a fucking blue screen of death that would even give my former Windows 3.1 and 95 hardened self a goddam nightmare of fucking Halloween...
The thing is now, even when strapped for cash and even after wasting my money on fucking useless goddam RAM? Yes I am going to do the goddam dumbass thing and buy a new hard drive, this time going for a 200GB EIDE ATA133 rather than the SCSI RAID type that I have now. I just want to play it safe, but it burns me to hell of not just the fact that I’m now wasting a ton of cash on a PC that’s only one fucking year old, but that I still don’t think I really know the source of the goddam problem...
Is the dead hard drive a cause or simply a symptom? Because even before I had installed anything onto my goddam hard drive after reformatting, I was still getting random flashes of goddam blue screens of death...
But the new 512GB of DDR400 didn’t make a damn dent in my problems either. It was brand new and completely tested, or so I was told. And if neither my system memory nor my hard drive are the real culprits of my goddam predicament, then that really only leaves one last cause and effect...
... the goddam, fucking CPU and motherboard...
Along with my system RAM, when I had tested my PC3200 by downclocking and shit like that, I had also fucking downclocked my front side bus in the BIOS as well. And as for my current hard drive problems, it seems to me that I really only get the blue screens of death either when my motherboard is trying to access the RAID drive at high octane speeds, or when the goddam Windows setup is trying to goddam detect the onboard RAID controller on the fucking mobo in the first place. WTF?...
And that can’t be good for business...
... that can’t be good for anyone...
What the fuck is wrong with my computer?...
Because if my motherboard is really dead, and has possibly taken my 1GB RAM and 160GB SATA hard drive down with it?...
... then for all intents and intensive purposes, my computer is flat out deceased...
What’s the point in trying to save it anymore, if every fucking part of it has fucking blown a fuse?...
What the fuck?...
... I say again...
WHAT. THE. FUCK?!?
How the fuck did this happen?!?
WHAT. THE. FUCK?!?...
... this is so not fair...
I’ve had it.
The hard drive I’m getting later this week better alleviate all of the world’s goddam woes...
... or there’s going to be fucking hell to pay...
Hell fucking yes.
... or so I can only hope...
...
It also wasn’t fair when the Ottawa Senators absolutely manhandled my Toronto fucking Maple Leafs in two fucking straight games in a row this past week. But then again, when is life fair in the world of sports, especially in the goddam NHL and the Battle of bloody hell Ontario?...
I live in Oakville, which is actually a little suburb between Toronto and Hamilton in the Canadian province of Ontario. We have absolutely nothing of interest or significance in Oakville whatsoever, so don’t even bother to fucking ask...
What I would love though, is a fucking different NHL hockey team around these parts. Sure, we’ve got the Toronto Maple Leafs to the East, and I love them with all my heart. But I’m sorry, the team is just shit. My poor bandwagon of a heart can only take so much of brutal heart-attack hockey before I can do no else but simply sigh and give up all fucking hope...
... of course, I could always become a complete traitor and cheer for the Ottawa Senators up North instead...
But no.
Just plain no...
And then there’s the Buffalo Sabres to the south, who just tied the Toronto Maple Leafs’ record of ten straight wins to open an NHL season. But I don’t cheer for the fucking Buffalo Bills, so why the fuck would I ever pull a reverse Benedict Arnold and cheer for a fucking goddam American team? WTF?...
It would be perfect if the area of Hamilton was just able to get a goddam NHL team already. The city itself may not have the money or the fanbase to support a professional team of their own, but all the towns and GTA suburbs around it sure as hell can help finance that sort of shit. There are hundreds of thousands of desperate fans like me out there, who can’t afford fucking tickets to the goddam corporate Maple Leafs games in downtown Toronto. We’re dying for some real NHL hockey here, enough so that half of us are willing to venture an arm and a leg to invade Toronto Maple Leafs games in Ottawa, Buffalo and even fucking Detroit...
Of course, the Maple Leafs are governed by a board of goddam directors who want nothing to do with winning and nothing to do with the fans. They’re perfectly content with the situation of supply and demand right now, as corporations literally pay their own version of an arm and a leg to secure for their clients season fucking tickets at the Air Canada Centre. Of course, it completely ruins the atmosphere of hockey games, to have half of the fucking stadium in goddam suits as they spend the entire night chatting in silence with their goddam Blackberries. But whatever, money talks, right? And companies pay millions of dollars for the rights to those seats, so how the fuck can I ever fault Maple Leafs Entertainment for simply following their wallets rather than their hearts?...
But I wish at least, that they would just allow fucking Hamilton to get a fucking team already. But Maple Leafs Sports Entertainment is just so damn jurisdictional and fanatical about their goddam NHL territory, that they simply refuse any city within the whole of Ontario (with the exception of Ottawa, since it is the nation’s useless capital) to have another fucking NHL team. It’s been this way for decades, as Hamilton and suburbs like my own town of Oakville have been lobbying for ages for a second team in the Greater Toronto Area. Whether it be in Hamilton or Guelph or even fucking Waterloo, we don’t give a shit...
... and thankfully for us, the CEO of that latter city’s Research in Motion just happens to be one of us...
I’m sure Pittsburgh Penguins fans are pissed and peeved off as hell right now, that their team was just bought out not just by a fanatical and rich hockey fan born from Hamilton, Ontario, but also a guy who’s desperate to bring a hockey team to his little corporate city of Waterloo. See, RIM basically owns the entire university city of Waterloo west of the GTA, and the two Canadian universities there have enough moronic Leafs fans with enough cash to support any fucking hockey team that gets situated there...
Hell, even if Waterloo students do instead manage to cheap their way out, not only is there Kitchener and London (Ontario) right in the area for even more hockey fanatics to fork over their hard earned money, but Waterloo is also within direct striking distance of cities like Hamilton, Brampton and yes, even my fucking town of Oakville. Hell fucking yes...
Am I salivating over the mere prospect of having such highly touted NHL prospects as Sidney Crosby, Andre Marc-Fleury and Malkin coming North of the border? Hell fucking yes, I am...
Now, I’m sure I’d still be a Leafs fan at heart, considering I grew up with the team and fell in love with the sport thanks to Doug Gilmour and the ’92 line-up. But you can also bet your ass that I’ll be lobbying and petitioning every damn moment of the day to bring the Pittsburgh Penguins to either Waterloo or Hamilton, and that I’ll be spending every damn dime I’ve got in securing my goddam seats at fucking goddam hockey games...
Is this fair to the fans of the Pittsburgh Penguins? Probably not, but that loser of a city doesn’t deserve a hockey team anyhew. They have an NFL football team there when we don’t. Fuck you, Pittsburgh. Fuck you...
Canada needs another hockey team. The Toronto area needs another fucking hockey team...
Hey, it’s My NHL.
And now? It’s RIM’s Blackberry team.
Oh hell yes, bitch.
Oh hell fucking yes.
... or so I can only hope...
...
Until the day that I actually spend thousands upon thousands of endless dollars a year on NHL hockey games though? I guess I’ll have to settle for going bankrupt from Toronto Raptors NBA games instead...
My credit card has been fucking frozen. Fucking goddam frozen. I didn’t know I only had about a thousand dollar limit there apparently, as it’s not like I spent that much cash for the goddam new NBA season or any sort of crap...
But yeah, even if I had only bought goddam Sprite Zone tickets and that sort of crap? I bought them in huge bulk and not just for myself. In order to secure seats for myself, my brother and all his friends that wanted to go to the games? Then hell yes, I ended up burning a hole in my credit card, and now I’m stuck with no fucking money left to buy my fucking replacement computer parts...
Not that I’m really complaining. I’ve got tickets now to Cleveland in November, New Jersey and Chicago in December, Dallas and Phoenix in fucking January, and Houston and Orlando in March. Sure, I was pissed off that even on the first day of ticket sales, I was too late in getting the Milwaukee home opener, the LA Lakers game and especially the motherfucking game against the motherfucking Miami Heat. But I think I have more than enough to tide me over for an entire goddam season still, considering I also have a game lined up against Boston when it comes to my university friends (although I haven’t bought the tickets for that yet), and I’m also thinking about ponying up the cash for games against Sacramento and the New York Knicks later on in the year as well...
And considering I wasn’t just buying for myself but three of my brother’s fucking friends as well? You’re damn fucking right, even with fucking nosebleed section tickets, that’s a hell of a lot of moolah down the rim shot of the toilet bowl...
... talk about a fucking money shot...
And who knows what other games I might go to, right? My brother works at a company that already has offered him one pair of Leafs tickets come Christmas, and they’ve already given him corporate tickets to the New Jersey exhibition game a few weeks back. And naturally as a favour to me for essentially "lending" my tickets to his buddies until they can pay me back (which may be never... uggh...), I was given the green light for the New Jersey game in top notch lower bowl seats...
And what can I say about the new age Toronto Raptors? Now that I have RaptorsTV on cable as well, I managed to watch nearly every exhibition game that they had. I suppose I should’ve been impressed by their 7-1 record in the end, considering it was their best ever in franchise history. But sadly enough, I just saw more fault in their game than I ever saw promise...
Andrea Bargnani has been absolute shit on offence and the boards. Now, don’t get me wrong. Every now and again, he shows pure brilliance and flash, the kind of potential in his shot that even Dirk Nowitzki doesn’t have. But Bargnani right now is just so damn raw, not just on the defensive end but also at driving to the hoop and setting goddam picks for plays, that I’m sure he will be booed to hell by the impatient fans here in the GTA. See, we’re all NHL puck heads here who are used to seeing the development of players in the fucking minors rather in the fucking big leagues. And it’s just embarrassing right now to see Bargnani out there looking as goddam lost as a deer in the headlights...
... or even worse?... like Hoffa...
We traded Rafael Araujo in the off-season for Kris Humphries, who has been an absolute banger of a beast on the boards. He’s also been a bit of a ball-hog, but considering his shot is good enough to beat scrubs at least, I haven’t had an issue with his performance in exhibition at least. The problem was, when competition actually showed up in the game against Chicago, Kris Humphries sure as hell didn’t rise to the challenge. He completely disappeared as a non-factor after his shots were swatted away like flies by Ben Wallace, and it soon became obvious why the guy was traded straight up for Rafael fucking Araujo in the first place...
The major off-season acquisitions that I was most excited for were actually Anthony Parker from overseas and Fred Jones from the Indiana Pacers. The two of them have actually been quite the opposite of each other in terms of success, with Fred Jones picking on scrubs so damn easily in the first half of exhibition but later cooling off, while Parker seems to be so damn clutch that he sucked against the nobodies early on and started decimating the starters in the final games of exhibition. While it’s still too damn early to call the verdict on either of them, considering they both have been rather inconsistent with their offence and defence, I do like the fact that finally a Toronto Raptors team actually has goddam depth...
Two of our rookies besides our so-called first overall draft pick prize of Bargnani are PJ Tucker and Jorge Garbajosa. I expected good things from Jorge Garbajosa, considering he had just won the fucking World Championships with Spain overseas, but I see nothing positive in his game except for being a rich man’s Matt Bonner. He simply camps at the three point line where his Euro-background barely has any real ability to nail a fucking jumper, which accomplishes nothing except to juxtapose and contrast with just how hard PJ Tucker has been working on the team as a goddam mule...
PJ Tucker really has the heart of Alvin Williams at his prime, but also the goddam talent of the injury ridden point guard at worst. I’ve loved Tucker’s hustle on the boards and on defence, as Toronto really does seem to love any undersized fighter for their city with the respective last name of "Tucker". The problem is, you can tell that if he struggles at times against scrubs, he’s going to get absolutely decimated by starters in the regular season. I could see him trying so damn valiantly against the big boys of Chicago, but it just didn’t work out for him in the end...
But the biggest damn disappointments of exhibition season have obviously been both Rasho Nesterovic and TJ Ford. Now, Rasho we can all understand, considering the huge man could barely even find time on the bench when it came to San Antonio’s lack of a decent centre, and Nesterovic has certainly proved in his time here that he’s no Shaq. Or hell, he ain’t even a Eric Dampier. What the fuck is he good for then? A white man’s Magloire? WTF?...
But TJ Ford? WTF is wrong with him? He was completely out of control and seemingly out of shape during the New Jersey game I attended, and he certainly hasn’t shown the brains that a pass first point guard needs in any of the other exhibition games either. Combine that with the facts that he’s been injured half the time and that Jose Calderon has been playing intellectually and under control for the whole of the 7-1 preseason, and then what do you have? But perhaps proof of just why we should’ve never traded Charlie Villanueva away to Milwaukee in the first place...
I was watching Behind the Draft 2006 on Raptors TV last night, and it was really a well thought out and revealing show. I was shocked that the war room footage actually had the guts to show the GM, Bryan Colangelo, opening up the lines of trade discussions with Milwaukee. He half-assed his suggestion to them of trading for Mo Williams, only to sit up and perk up Mitchell in the corner when for some goddam reason, Milwaukee rejected the offer and immediately gave up TJ Ford instead. WTF?...
Doesn’t that say something? Just like Marcus fucking fatty Williams dropped twenty fucking stories like a brick in the draft for a reason (I was heckling him about that all New Jersey game long...), there just has to be a reason why Milwaukee offered up TJ Ford to us without Colangelo even having to ask. What the fuck does this mean then? Is TJ uncoachable? Will he never develop a shot? Is he permanently disheartened and disfigured from his goddam spinal injury a year back? Why the fuck would Milwaukee just flat out give up on him? WTF?...
Now, I’m not going to "panac" or jump to conclusions, claiming that we got fleeced in the trade or any shit like that. Perhaps TJ Ford was simply not a good fit in the slow as ass tempo of the Milwaukee games, and their GM simply had that much goddam respect for Bryan Colangelo to offer him the perfect point guard for an uptempo type of NBA game? I still adore TJ’s speed, as it really can only be experienced live to get the full damn impressive impression...
But still, I’ve seen him chuck and brick how many goddam shots in a row now? What good is a fucking point guard if he can’t even making a single fucking shot? It’s pass first, not pass only. WTF?...
... suffice to say, the jury’s still out on him...
... and the jury’s still out on the Toronto Raptors team of 2006-2007...
But you know what I personally would’ve preferred to do if I were the General Manager of this team?...
Because you know, with NBA 2K7 released about a month back? I am the GM, as far as I’m goddam concerned...
... and you know who and what my team consists of through logical, realistic and fair trades?...
... ahem...
I give you the real Toronto Raptors line-up of 2006-2007, with their contracts...
C – Dwight Howard - $5.00 million / year (5 years – fronted contract)
C – Paul Gasol - $5.00 million / year (5 years – fronted contract)
C – Rasho Nesterovic - $1.05 million / year (5 years – fronted contract)
PF – Chris Bosh - $5.00 million / year (5 years – fronted contract)
PF – Charlie Villanueva - $5.00 million / year (5 years – fronted contract)
PF – Andrea Bargnani - $2.40 million / year (5 years – fronted contract)
SF – Morris Peterson - $2.25 million / year (5 years – 10% back contract)
SF – Joey Graham - $1.90 million / year (5 years – 10% back contract)
SF – Rudy Gay - $2.20 million / year (4 years – 10% back contract)
SG – Anthony Parker - $1.25 million / year (5 years – 10% back)
SG – Fred Jones - $1.45 million / year (5 years – 10% back)
SG – Brandon Roy - $2.70 million / year (4 years – 10% back)
PG – Chris Paul - $5.00 million / year (5 years – fronted contract)
PG – TJ Ford - $5.00 million / year (5 years – fronted contract)
PG – Jose Calderon - $0.43 million / year (5 years – fronted contract)
Development: Jorge Garbajosa, PJ Tucker, Roko Ukic
Now sure, I caved in out of sheer Raptors loyalty and kind of overpaid both TJ Ford and Charlie Villanueva a bit. And maybe 5 year contracts for everyone was a bit too much, especially for Rasho goddam Nesterovic and all...
But c’mon, you’ve gotta admit, if only the real General Manager of the Toronto Raptors had pulled this shit off? I’d be shitting in my pants (again) right now, don’t you know...
And seriously, if I’m ever going to get my fucking money’s worth out of my fucking frozen credit card and my goddam Raptors tickets for the goddam season?
... Bryan Colangelo, make it happen...
Now sure, you failed miserably at getting Marcus Williams in the draft, and you probably got fleeced in the TJ Ford trade too...
But still, I believe in you.
I believe.
BELEAF.
Make it happen.
Mats Sundin, make it fucking happen.
Hell fucking yes.
... or so I can only hope...
...
My wallet... my poor, poor fucking wallet...
Seriously, WTF is this? Kobe Bryant rape time? WTF?...
I can’t afford to put anything on my bill anymore. Literally, even with the train ticket for my month of work coming up in a couple of days, I can’t afford any shit right now, simply because my goddam credit card has been goddam maxed out and frozen. WTF?...
I didn’t know I had only a thousand dollar credit limit. With my fucking salary, who the fuck has ever heard of a thousand dollar limit on a goddam dividend card? WTF?...
I spent it all on the Toronto Raptors. Well, that along with NBA 2K7 with the godddam Microsoft Xbox 360 I got, but I guess that’s a story for another bloody hell day...
... because ay, there lies the rub...
... my poor, poor fucking wallet...
Short story short, this NBA season better be worth it. Starting on Wednesday, this fucking goddam NBA season better be worth it...
... or else I’ll be back to begging for fucking Leafs tickets every single fucking night...
... or pleading my case to the court and jury, that Hamilton or Waterloo get a fucking NHL hockey team already...
And it all sounds like so much goddam fun, now doesn’t it?...
... well, at least a lot more so than all the chuckles I’ve been having with my goddam computer right about now...
Because hi, I’m a Mac.
And I’m a fucking PC...
... for all intents and intensive purposes, my new computer is dead...
... dead to me...
... nailed to the cross...
... and now I’m back to typing on my goddam forsaken 486...
Oh, the irony of fucking cold steel and iron...
... the circle of goddam mediocrity is complete...
BELEAF.
I’ve had it. I’ve fucking had it.
What the FUCK is wrong with my computer?
WHAT. THE. FUCK?!?
... oh, my wallet...
... my poor, poor fucking wallet...
Sunday, July 23rd, 2006
Y2kk Update: Oh my God, it’s World War 3!...
... or World War 4?...
... or is it World War 5 by now?...
... I really can’t tell...
The thing is, if only I had a fucking million dollar nickel every time that I heard somebody freak out about the next great World War, the very damn moment that even a tiny little conflict starts up in some remote location in the world?...
Then, well?...
... then I’d be a millionaire, but that’s besides the point, the way the world is supposedly going at least...
Because let’s face facts here. Since my last Tweakui update, a whole hell of a lot of things have gone wrong with the world, and I ain’t disputing that. If anything, the recent train bombings in India (which were probably fueled by the ever-lingering Kashmir situation) proved that terrorism is not limited to just America or London or Spain or wherever. It’s a global pandemic of a problem that must somehow be dealt with...
The million dollar question is, how?...
North Korea has recently gone off the deep end. They continue to threaten the Western powers of the world (and its neighbours of Japan and South Korea, of course) with nuclear bomb facilities and fucking missile tests supposedly aimed at Hawaii. Why the hell Kim Jong Il is feeling so damn frothy and saucy when it comes to pretending like he still has a purpose in life right now? I really don’t know. All I do know, is that if he ever does develop a fucking nuclear bomb, America will go medieval on his ass before he ever gets a chance to sell it to a rogue state of the highest bidder. Make no mistake, that the US will make no mistake...
Iran in the meantime was making huge headlines for the longest time, because just like North Korea, they have refused for the past half year or so to back off from their nuclear armament program. The UN has time and time again demanded that Iran cease and decease their uranium enriching practices, but what the fuck is a few wussy words and a piece of paper for an appeasement really going to do when it comes to Iran trying to prove that they can be the nation to go one on one with Israel in the future?...
And of course, we have the whole Lebanon situation going on right now, which really makes no fucking sense to me whatsoever. I understand that it was dumbass as hell of Lebanon to capture two Israeli soldiers in the middle of the night, just to basically hold them hostage as proof to the rest of the world that Lebanon should now replace Palestine as the spiritual ring leader of the fight against Zionists or Israel or any of that bullshit...
But no matter Lebanon’s stupidity throughout all this, did Israel really have to declare war right away like they did? WTF are they on anyhew?...
Why the hell would you invade a country, first with carpet bombing and now with a fucking land assault, over just two soldiers captured and held behind enemy lines? Where the fuck was the initial negotiating process? Why the hell didn’t Israel even wait for the UN or even fucking America’s blessing before stepping foot on Lebanese soil? Talk about jumping the gun here, quite literally actually. WTF?...
I know that the new Israeli president or whatever wants to make a statement that he won’t back down from no terrorist bullshit, especially after the whole Gaza thing once again started up this year. But really, is a full-out war with a Muslim nation really what this world needs right now? Didn’t the occupation of Lebanon about a decade ago really royally suck ass for both sides of the conflict as well?...
So of course, all the anti-Bush rhetoric spouters and all the dumbass conspiratists out there are calling these the first signs of the onslaught of World War 3. With Iran, Palestine, North Korea, and now Lebanon all pretty much taking the same side, I’ve definitely heard my fair share of paranoid delusional people (who have far too much free thinking time on their hands, even by my standards), believing that China and Russia would somehow take the Axis of Evil side as well and go to fucking war with the US...
And to that I simply state, WTF?...
WHAT. THE. FUCK?!?...
... sigh... if only I got a million dollars every single frickin’ time I heard the World War 3 line...
Because I used to hear it all the time back in high school. I heard fucking dumbass students raving and ranting about the situations in Bosnia and Somalia at the time to be the first fucking moments of the next true World War. People were even fucking paranoid that we would be conscripted and drafted for the fucking war in Kosovo. Drafted for fucking Kosovo of all fucking places? WTF?...
It’s like saying the war in Grenada was as badass as the one in Vietnam. WTF?...
And of course, I heard all the rumours and conspiracy theories about 9/11, that as soon as America was attacked, no Muslim country would be safe. While obviously Afghanistan and Iraq were bowled and paved over into fucking US parking lots, has anything really happened with the rest of the world? If anything, except for the recent spats from Iran and Lebanon, I actually think the Islamic Jihad community has been quieter as of late almost everywhere in the world but for the new Iraq. At least, relatively speaking...
So what if North Korea is trying to test their goddam missiles? They may have the capacity and the knowledge to build nukes, but Kim Jong Il isn’t that damn dumb or desperate (yet) to actually ever finish a bomb and go to war...
Too many people assume that China would have North Korea’s back, yet these same people never realize that my ancestors’ home country now cares more about the fucking stock market of Shanghai and the goddam economics of the Beijing Summer Olympics than to ever bother going to war on North Korea’s side. If anything, I fully expect China to start policing their little northern state if push comes to shove, like a big brother finally kicking some ass and sense into his retarded little brother...
So what if Iran is trying to build a nuke? Most likely, they’re just trying to carve out some extra benefits for themselves from all those UN appeasements and nothing more, rather than actually prepare for war against the US. But if Iran actually does build a nuke? Then yeah, for better or for worse, you better as hell believe that the US will partially withdraw from Iraq to kick some Middle Eastern ass all over again...
Sure, I would not approve of this move, but when presented with a rogue dangerous country that they themselves confirm to have weapons of mass destruction? Then yeah, war would start. But even still, it’s not like a "World War" or any crap like that started from even the baseless invasion of Iraq, now did it? Nobody was drafted back then, not that I can recall at least...
And as for Israel, I really don’t know why the hell they’re so damn gung-ho about invading Lebanon. I can understand some of their choices when it came to retaking the Gaza Strip (and to think, people in my high school used to state as fact that if only the US and Israel gave back Gaza to Palestine, that world peace would ensure... what fucking crack heads...), but when it comes to their choices and military decisions about Lebanon? What the fuck can Israel really get from a full out ground invasion? Honestly, I doubt any of us will ever know...
But even with this new invasion, do you really see any other countries stepping up to take a bullet for Lebanon is what so many people are claiming will be World War 3? If anything, Muslim countries are surprisingly denouncing the capture of the Israeli soldiers (at least officially...), and even Iran is staying quiet about aiding their spiritual neighbour (despite Israel stupidly pointing fingers in their direction). And it’s not like Russia would ever get involved to help these two countries out, as Russia cares far more about their own problems against the Chechens back at home to ever give a shit about the goddam middle east (oil be damned...)...
Now most certainly, it is indeed a fucked up time in the world right now. I ain’t disputing that. But to ever suggest that these are all the first signs of the start of World War 3? WTF?...
Now, if I’m wrong, may lightning fucking strike me when I’m standing still in the fucking Canadian conscript draft lines. I’ll happily eat crow I guess, when I’m pushing up poppies and daisies in Flander’s Fields....
But goddammit, if only I had a fucking million dollars for every fucking time I heard the "World War 3" line in my goddam life?...
... then, well?...
... then obviously, I would be a millionaire...
...
Some of the biggest fucking millionaires in the world are fucking soccer players. Or "football" players, as the rest of the world so describes...
I admit though, that I did have a good time watching the World Cup this year. I normally don’t give a damn, since as a Chinese-Canadian? I really never have any team to cheer for. God knows Canada will never qualify...
... and if they ever do?... then you know it’s World War 3 and the end of the fucking world...
But to be honest? Ironically enough, the soccer match that was so damn boring to me that I couldn’t even bear to watch, was the goddam World Cup finals between France and Italy. I don’t know why I didn’t give a shit about the game, whether because both sides were too defensive or whatnot, but I barely even had the drive and determination to turn the television back on for overtime...
Though heh, thank God that I did...
... because I think we all know what happened there...
... the headbutt heard across the world, I mean...
The thing is though, I’m not here to judge the man...
No, wait. I am...
Honestly, what the fuck was Zinedine Zidane thinking? Now, I know what that Marco Materrazzi guy from Italy was thinking, since he obviously knew Zidane had a history of being easily provoked. And what better way to provoke a man of pride and faith, than to claim you’re going to fuck his mother and wife at the same time in a sex sandwich while they’re both sucking IV’s and cocks in the goddam fucking hospital? Or at least, that’s what I would say, and throw a hot sister or two in there at the same damn time, just for saucy good measure...
Now, if it was I myself who was hearing that my mother was a terrorist whore? I’d just nod my head, smile, agree with the guy, and give him a ticket to the long line-up waiting for the daily chance to spread her legs. I don’t care when somebody calls my mother a motherfucker, simply because if my mother in her youth (in which sadly for me, she was actually kinda hot...) did fuck MILF mothers back then? Then even more sadly, as a Oedipal Complex kind of fan over here, I might beat off to the actual thought of my mother and sister experimenting with experienced lesbians in their goddam youths...
... but, umm... maybe that’s just me...
A regular joe smoe would have the right to fucking tackle and take it to the man who insults his mother and wife’s honour. But Zinedine Zidane is not a regular guy. Because I’m sorry, but when you’re paid all those millions of dollars as an athlete, you’re not just paid to play the sport. You’re paid to represent your team, your country, and all those morons out there who worship you and the ground you walk on. He was meant to be a hero, and his team and country needed him above all else for the shootout at the end. Yet he got completely selfish, putting his own pride and macho bullshit on the line above that of his nation, and I just can’t sympathize that...
But like I said, I’m not really here to judge all that...
... I’m here to simply state one simple thing...
... because, umm... seriously?...
A headbutt?
A HEADBUTT?!?
Who the fuck headbutts?...
WHAT. THE. FUCK?!?...
Now, I know soccer players never use their arms, and a swinging punch from his atrophy-sickened wrists probably would’ve done as much damage as a bout from my goddam weak and pathetic own. But that’s besides the point...
... because, still?...
A headbutt?...
Honestly...
A HEADBUTT?!?...
Who the fuck does a headbutt when they’re pissed?
WTF?
It’s like throwing a shoe.
Honestly.
Who the fuck headbutts a person when they’re pissed?
It’s ridiculous...
It made him look like a fucking sissy.
It made him look... French...
... and that’s just bad...
Who the fuck would pay millions of dollars to an athlete to fucking headbutt an opponent in a fight?...
Sure, I may be a Canadian hockey fan. Sure, I may have high standards, but really?...
A headbutt? Just a headbutt?
Not even a six hit combo?...
... that’s just pathetic...
Even the fucking NBA at least got a good brawl between Ron Artest and Ben Wallace the other season.
And yet the World Cup gets capped off by?...
... a headbutt?...
A HEADBUTT?
Honestly, who the fuck headbutts?...
What the fuck?!?...
... what a prissy wuss...
... uggh...
Now this is why we North Americans never watch the fucking sport of "football"...
... we prefer a "real" man’s sports, thank you very much...
...
It’s been a weird and wacky world of sports lately, especially here in Toronto when it comes to the Toronto fucking Raptors. There’s just never a dull moment in the off-season, with Bryan Colangelo at the helm...
God, is he ever gung-ho trigger happy, and I’m not so sure anymore if that’s such a good thing...
I wish he actually did pull the trigger during the 2006 NBA Draft though. If anything, I was disappointed as fucking hell at what happened for the Raptors at the draft. Not that I’m upset at who we drafted in the end, but rather how we absolutely got nothing out of the luck of the draw, of getting the first overall draft pick for the first time in franchise history...
I was expecting at least one fucking minor trade. Like, say, we trade the first overall draft pick to Charlotte for their third overall draft pick and our own future draft pick back. But absolutely no trades transpired for us on draft day, as Bryan Colangelo refused to budge when it came to even the thought of not getting Andrea Bargnani from Italy, as he was apparently worried that either Chicago or Portland would’ve taken the 7-footer if we had traded down with another team...
Sure, I am happy that we drafted Bargnani. I’m just not happy with the spot that we picked him at, that’s all...
I mean seriously, what the fuck was the point of getting the first overall draft pick this year then, if we weren’t even willing to get some extra assets out of it all? I’m just not convinced that either Chicago or Portland would’ve taken the international guy based solely on potential, especially when both teams were being pressured to win now (more or less, at least). It was probably all just a smokescreen to prevent BC from bothering to trade down, and now we got stuck with an international prospect with a rookie salary far larger than the one we could’ve paid him for with our original fifth pick in the NBA draft instead. WTF?...
I watched Andrea Bargnani in summer league though, and he did impress me in a few ways. He seems to have the potential to be a rich man’s Pau Gasol with a three point shot (which is pretty damn good), but the key word here is potential. His jump shot has an amazing quick release, and he can even sink turn-around and fadeaway jumpers as if he was Dwayne fucking Wade. That’s all amazing for a seven footer, but it’s not like he was up against any real competition in summer league. If anything, his lack of ability to pull down rebounds and get any real defensive blocks against summer league scrubs more so than Darko Milicic ever could, definitely is a goddam red flag...
Our second round choice was PJ Tucker (or "Trip" Tucker, as I would prefer to nickname him...), and I was very happy that he fell down to us. As a huge rebounder in college, the only reason why he wasn’t a Top 20 pick in the draft was because he may be too damn short to pull off the same kind of feats and miracles in the NBA. Either way though, watching him in summer league, while I did see that he has some problems with his shot against stiffer competition (as he’s about as high as an average SG but nothing more)? Still, I was amazed at just how active he was around and beneath the basket, as he really can prove to be a decent rotation man when it comes to cleaning up the mess in the paint as a guard...
And now onto the rest of the Toronto Raptors’ goddam off-season moves...
... ahem...
... as in, Charlie Villanueva for TJ "fucking" Ford...
... uggh...
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’ve always been interesting in TJ Ford, especially after he returned from back surgery to almost average a goddam triple double in the first ten or so games of his sophomore season. He’s an amazingly quick and poignant pass-first point guard, who has barely slowed down a single damn iota from a big time injury. More than that, he’s a close friend of Chris Bosh, which may have helped convince our star PF player into resigning in Toronto at his press conference with a genuine smile...
But my fucking God, did we really have to trade Charlie fucking Villanueva for this guy? I know that Charlie is inconsistent as hell on offence and still quite the goddam pylon on D. But seriously, when the fuck is it ever wise to truly trade "big for small"? I know Bryan Colangelo has a real hard on for point guards, but unless TJ Ford can somehow become the next fucking Steve Nash? Then I know this trade will just come back to bite us in the ass, even if Charlie Villanueva "only" becomes the next Antoine Walker or the next Lamar Odom. You’re just not supposed to ever trade a big man for small...
... not without extra assets coming back, mind you... in which we got none...
TJ Ford is amazingly quick and has great basketball IQ when it comes to the passing game, I won’t dispute that. But his mid-range game is suspect at best, and he really doesn’t have a decent three point shot. Without the ability to fucking consistently knock down the J, opponents can just play off of the guy, and then what? We would have yet another Jose Calderon situation on our hands, where we love his passing feats but just never get to see them anymore the moment that the defence adjusts. And the defence definitely adjusted to TJ Ford during the rest of his sophomore season on the Milwaukee Bucks...
TJ’s defence is horrid as well. He tries hard, but he’s just too damn short to match up with most of the stronger point guards of this day and age. It is really so wise to have such a fucking gaping hole in our D? I know that Colangelo is trying to turn the Raptors into some crazy hybrid of his beloved Phoenix Suns and the Dallas Mavericks, which puts offence over defence. But you still can’t just let your man get to the hoop for an easy lay-up, and unfortunately TJ Ford just doesn’t have the lateral quickness or strength to truly stay with his man...
Now, as much as I can’t stand the fucking fact that we traded Charlie Villanueva for nothing more than just TJ Ford and a bag of chips? The fact of the matter is, I don’t technically disagree with this trade, as it was just something that I guess had to be done...
Sure, you never draft for position. And Rafael Araujo was fucking huge proof of that...
... but you often times do have to trade for position...
And in this case? We desperately needed a competent point guard. And with Bargnani and Bosh manning the 4 and 5 roles on this team, Charlie Villanueva sadly was the odd man out. It’s just too bad, considering I loved the guy...
Hell, the day before he was traded, didn’t he claim on the radio that he wanted to be like Reggie Miller, and spend his entire career on the one team that gave him a chance in the first place and drafted him?...
... well, so much for that pipe dream...
But seeing Bryan Colangelo’s follow-up moves to the TJ Ford and Charlie Villanueva trade? As much as it pains me to admit this, it was a good trade not in terms of talent, but in terms of bettering this team. Because as much as I love Charlie Villanueva as a player, and as much as I believe he will be a borderline all-star at the very least in the future? This team really did need a decent point guard to run things, and because of that? TJ Ford may have less value than Charlie talent-wise, but he has far more value when it comes to the Toronto Raptors franchise as a whole...
Bryan Colangelo immediately followed up this move with the unofficial signing of Jorge "Porno-player" Garbajosa from Spain. Now, I have no idea right now why the signing of the Spanish Euroleague MVP hasn’t gone through yet, but I’m willing to guess that it has something to do with either the World Basketball Championships or due to a future big time trade in the works by BC...
Either way, I like the fact that BC went for Garbajosa. I’ve heard him compared to an older but more of a banger-type PF than Nocioni on Chicago. And since I’ve loved Nocioni right off the bat and wished that our GM at the time had made an offer to him? Then obviously, I love the fact that BC essentially has replaced Charlie Villanueva with a rich man’s Matt Bonner, as a true backup to Chris Bosh at power forward who will work hard every minute of the game to prove that he truly belongs in this league...
Bryan Colangelo then sort of read my own mind (or my Tweakui updates) and got Anthony "Tony" Parker from Tel Aviv Maccabi in Israel. I’ve wanted this guy ever since he absolutely destroyed the Toronto Raptors at the buzzer last year in the most embarrassing exhibition game ever told, as I really did see that this guy was the real deal. He may never be a starter in this league, but he indeed had the hops and silky smooth shot to really be a candidate for best sixth man. I have been putting Anthony Parker on my dream team Raptor squads routinely for almost a year now, and it’s great to know that Bryan Colangelo really does see the same level of talent in him that I and so many others seem to perceive as well...
I just wish Anthony Parker was a) younger and b) came with a smokin’ hot wife to gawk at, just like Tony Parker does with Eva Longaria. But sigh, I guess you just can’t get it all here in Toronto, the great white North of exile in the minds of most goddam NBA players...
Take John "Fish-stick" Salmons for instance. I’ve never really liked the guy, and God knows that I abhorred that horrendously huge and long contract that we offered him. But I really do see a hidden gem of tons of potential in John Salmons, as he really is the "MJ" of goddam summer league at least...
... and that’s "MJ" in terms of Michael Jordan, not fucking "Mike James", thank God (who I wish we had gotten back something for in a goddam sign and trade, but that’s a story for another day)...
John Salmons absolutely kills the league (in terms of short term stats, at least) whenever he gets the chance to get out of Allen Iverson’s shadow in Philadelphia. I really didn’t like the fact that Bryan Colangelo offered him almost five fucking million per year for five straight fucking years in a contract, but I was definitely willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. I see so much potential in John Salmons, that he really could’ve turned out to be the Boris Diaw surprise of the year for the Toronto Raptors...
... if he wasn’t such a goddam pompous ass, that is...
I mean seriously, is he retarded or something? How the fuck could he turn down that much fucking money from a squad that is almost guaranteed to give him at least stable back-up minutes at the SG and SF positions every night? Does he expect to be a starter or some crap like that? Does he hate the city of Toronto? Because really, how the fuck could a player averaging five fucking points per game in his career, ever turn down almost the entire MLE in terms of a contract when he has absolutely no other offers currently on the table? WTF?...
I would’ve loved to see his potential realized as a 6’6" crazy hybrid of a PG, SG, and SF. Because that’s what he is, a more guard oriented Boris Diaw, diamond in the rough who has actually developed a decent defensive game while desperately trying to earn minutes in Philadelphia behind Allen Iverson. Yet the guy fucking snubs the Toronto Raptors, even after we give him a fucking massive contract that he doesn’t yet deserve, and for what? Why the fuck did he just dismiss us so?...
Because we’re Canadian? Because the Toronto Raptors have Canadian winters and taxes? WTF?...
... or is there simply something he learned of, that we do not yet know?...
The new rumour from the reports this morning, is that Fred "Indiana" Jones (obviously, from Indiana) is almost ready to sign with the Toronto Raptors as an unrestricted free agent. This is yet another move that I’ve been predicting from almost a year now, when I was putting Fred Jones on my Toronto Raptors dream team lists as a potential back-up. His three point shot is shit, but his mid-range game is decent enough to go along with his amazing slashing and dunking skills. And if only he wasn’t just a 6’2" guard who can play nothing more than the SG position, I would be loving this acquisition. He’s a sound minded defensive player, and a huge instant spark-plug on offence...
The only question I have left lingering in my mind is, why is Bryan Colangelo in such a fucking rush to sign a SG with our only remaining cap space? Why was he so desperate to lock up John Salmons right away, and now that that deal has fallen through, he jumps right on Fred Jones just a couple of days later? Why is he so desperate? What does he know that we don’t?...
I can feel it. A huge trade is brewing. Something that will consume more than all our cap space, and will send out either a SG or a SF or both from Toronto. And I can sense it, in my gut at least, that we’re just desperately trying to use up our remaining cap space room now, just so that we can have depth at the position before the big ass trade he has planned finally happens...
So seriously? As much as it pains me to say this?...
... well, I think it’s safe to say... that either Morris Peterson, Joey Graham or both... are on their way out...
Joey Graham so far has been shit, but still shows potential. And as for Mo? Mo Pete, I just wish that he and his Mo Baskets would be a Mo Raptor for life...
... but that will be a story for another day, and another Tweakui update I suppose...
But until then though? Well, I can always dream that we could get Ray Allen and Luke Ridnour from the Seattle (or Oklahoma, now) SuperSonics...
... for, just... umm?...
... ahem...
... Alvin... fucking... Williams?...
... umm, yeah...
... right...
And then, as the Toronto Raptors team of 2006-2006? We shall have...
... more ahem...
C: Rasho Nesterovic, Andrea Bargnani, Pape Sow
PF: Chris Bosh, Jorge Garbajosa, Kris Humphries
SF: Charlie Villanueva, Anthony Parker, Joey Graham
SG: Ray Allen, Morris Peterson, Fred Jones
PG: TJ Ford, Luke Ridnour, Jose Calderon
Development: PJ Tucker, Roko Ukic, Uros Slokar
And did you notice something there, Bryan Colangelo?...
... as in, Charlie fucking Villanueva?...
That’s right, BC bitch.
Fuck you and your fucking man crush on Andrea Bargnani.
FUCK YOU.
... but alas, like I said, I do understand why the TJ Ford trade had to happen...
But still, even so? If there was ever one fucking player I would be willing to pay millions for, just for his heart and soul and dedication to everyone on the squad and this city?...
Then yeah, I wish there was some other way to get the point guard that we needed...
... if only this was a great year for free agency...
... if only Mike fucking James hadn’t opted out of a fucking sign and trade...
... and if only we had spent a few million dollars more...
... for this "real man’s sport" that I love...
...
It definitely will be a huge coming year in terms of sports in Toronto. With the Toronto Maple Leafs acquiring Mike Peca, who obviously still has either a fight or a fling with everyone’s hardcore NHL hero of Darcy "Trip Jr." Tucker? Well, I for one will be tuning into Maple Leafs games this year, even though it’s not like I would ever stop, no matter how much the Toronto Maple Leafs fucking suck ass this year...
The Toronto Raptors, as stated above, have definitely made a ton of moves and changes in the off-season. For better or for worse, the Raptors so far have only kept Chris Bosh, Jose Calderon, Morris Peterson, and basically Joey Graham as our original goddam core. And I think even those latter two are on their way out, paving the way for yet another teen angsty Tweakui update of mine...
I am excited though, that finally the Toronto Raptors have gotten themselves some real clutch closers. Anthony Parker may amount to nothing more than just an average SG/SF hybrid in this league, but hot damn does the guy ever excel at the fucking buzzer beater money shots. He stabs you with fucking daggers to the heart, which is obviously something he learned so damn well from his time in goddam Israel...
Heh. Guess he picked the perfect time to leave the Tel Aviv team in the Middle East, eh? A mere coincidence, I think not...
And as for Andrea Bargnani, our first overall draft selection? Sure, his name sounds more suited to be competition against Anthony Parker’s superstar sister in the WNBA, but damn was the guy ever clutch in all those Euroleague finals of his. The only question is, will he be yet another softie European that no Toronto fan (Raptors, Maple Leafs or even the new FC soccer ones alike) ever seem to appreciate?...
Or will he full out be the hardcore hero that we all want, as the next time we meet up with Tony fucking Parker?...
... he headbutts the fucking Frenchie...
... for all the pain and misfortune and stupidity he’s brought into this goddam world...
... and for taking Eva fucking Longaria away from the goddam rest of us...
... damn fucking straight...
France versus Italy. It’ll be World War 3 all over again. I shit you not...
But seriously? If even a fucking headbutt between nations during the World fucking Cup couldn’t start a goddam global war? Then quite frankly, nothing ever will...
Because it all sounds like so much goddam fun, now doesn’t it?...
... but even so, just in case? Just for the sake of the goddam world?...
I wish you all a God Speed, a Good Will Hunting, a God Bless Us, everyone...
... and if God permitting?...
... an Eva Longaria...
... and a million fucking dollars...
Sunday, June 25th, 2006
Y2kk Update: So, this is how I spend my weekends?...
In pain?
In agony?
In fucking goddam labour...
I know I only have a summer job right now which basically entails no intellectual responsibility whatsoever. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t deserve my weekends to myself, now does it? Afterall, I do declare that there are at least two things that I think everyone instinctively learns as soon as they start an over-glorified 9 to 5 desk job...
Call them the Laws of IvanFian Working or some shit like that, I don’t care...
All I do know, is that they’re real. And they’re a bitch...
The first thing is that no matter how late you stayed up in school, no matter how fucking hardcore you thought you were with all the all-nighters you pulled when you had part time jobs, your brain just starts shutting down at 9 or 10 pm every single fucking night when you have a full time office position.
I don’t know how or why, but that kind of shit programming just starts up within our brains before we even know what hit us. Sure, I still routinely go to bed at midnight or 1 am despite having to wake up at 7 am in the fucking morning every single goddam Monday through Friday. But that doesn’t mean I’m actually still awake by the time I decide to finally hit the fucking sack...
And the second thing? The second monumental moral we all learn, is that our weekends are our sanctuary. Work is the vile place where we force ourselves into enduring and spiting and hating our lives, just to make sure our bank statements are all in check by the end of the month. But it’s the weekends where we can finally be ourselves again.
And without them? Without the weekends to look forward to, I have absolutely nothing to keep me going through the rest of the goddam week. Absolutely nothing. I might as well jump in front of the motherfucking bus I take every morning for all I give a shit about if I never got my release another way...
The thing is though, especially with this weekend at least, despite having a 40 hour work week at an office two cities away from my home? I still have my own family business to contend with. And sometimes, duty fucking calls on the fucking goddam weekends...
So yeah, that’s how I spent my goddam Saturday...
... with fucking manual labour...
And in pain...
... fucking pain...
The pain!
My arms! My skin!
They taste like burning!
Zee goggles! They do nothing!
Because unfortunately for me, my fucking white-washed yellow skin is absolutely fucking allergic to sunlight. Who would’ve thought?...
My job yesterday was plain and simple. It would’ve costed a thousand fucking bucks to hire an outside contractor to repaint the fucking yellow lines for the goddam parking lot at our complex. So because both I and my parents are goddam cheapassess, I actually sadly volunteered to do the fucking manual paint job myself. I’ve done it two years now and running, so why not make the third time the charm?...
The thing was, the last two things I did this kind of roadkill shit, I had my brother there to help. We took turns sweeping away fucking rocks and dust and redrawing the lines in the goddam pavement of sand, making sure that neither of us were stuck in the fucking direct sunlight for that many hours straight at any single goddam time...
Unfortunately for me, my brother wasn’t here this time...
Now, I didn’t think it would turn out this bad. Not the parking lot mind you, as except for the fact that pot-holes and fucking potheads fucked over everything, I did a pretty decent job with the fucking industrial strength road paint I do declare...
That didn’t turn out bad or rough. But rather, I’m talking about my skin. And my fucking sunburns...
I was working outside for six hours straight. Six hours straight of fiery, inferno hell. Or 6.66 hours exactly, if you want to be fucking completely accurate for the goddam record books, that is...
I had no sunscreen. I had no shade...
Now I’m in pain...
And why?
Because I’m baked.
I’m baked.
I’m so fucking baked.
... and sadly, not in the fucking Amsterdam sort of way...
I need drugs.
Drugs.
Drugs to ease the pain.
Because just look at me. Look at me!
My arms, they’re now entirely crimson and swollen like a goddam tomato.
I was roasted and basted, copied and pasted like a fucking goddam turkey in the oven...
And it stings! I’ve been tanned and obviously burnt before, but this is just goddam ridiculous.
My skin wasn’t just burnt to a crisp, but actually sizzled to a goddam cinder.
... I feel like a goddam pizza crust here, for crying out loud...
And this was my punishment? This was my reward for actually volunteering to work on my fucking weekend, my fucking sanctuary away from the horrors of my 40+ hour work week? How is this justified, the fact that I could barely sleep last night because it fucking left me in agony to even rest my barren arm on a fucking pillow as I tried to rest? I literally can smell the scent of fucking bacon from my goddam wrists. WTF?...
... uggh...
Remind me to never go to a tanning salon in the future, alright? I’ve had enough UV rays to already last me a lifetime, thank you very much...
Lung cancer and AIDs, here I come?...
... and oh, just a mental note to myself...
... next time, I should probably wear a hat...
...
While I’m fucking sitting here at home like an overcooked rotisserie chicken, I’m sure my brother is whooping it up and having a great time in the Mediterranean Sun...
You see, while I’m doing slave labour on my weekends here, the reason why he wasn’t there to save me from the fucking scorching Sun this year around was because he was off doing the whole cliche, graduate backpacking thing over in Europe...
He started off in England, got baked himself over at the Netherlands, had a stay in Germany before the World Cup started, broke a few dishes at weddings over in Greece, scouted the Italian basketball players in Italy, laughed at the Portuguese over the fucking World Cup, ran with the bulls and the pick-pocketers in Spain, and finally now he’s having a relaxing final week in fucking Marseilles in France and Nice...
Nice.
Now, like I pointed out before, he’s probably just as baked as I am, but not in the same fucking McDonald’s American apple pie sort of way. Well, if there is pie, he won’t tell me about it, because what happens in Europe stays in Europe. All I do know is whenever you’re in a nation where wine and champagne and fucking vodka are cheaper and more readily available than even water, then you know you’re going to be flying with the angels in the outfield sooner rather than later...
... and don’t even mention all the nude beaches to me... not when it comes to my brother...
... uggh...
The thing is, it’s not like he’s completely oblivious as to what’s happening here in the good ol’ ordinary North American continent. While the rest of the world is absolutely obsessed over the World Cup in Germany, my brother actually feels left out from the fact that he completely missed the Cinderella story of the Edmonton Oilers in the NHL playoffs, and the Miami Heat and Dwyane fucking Wade overcoming all stereotypical odds in the NBA Finals...
First things first, let me just get off my chest the fact that Jon Ferguson of the Toronto Maple Leafs is a fucking turd. What the fuck was he thinking, trading for Andrew Raycroft of the Bruins by sending away our best goalie prospect, Rask? We’re going down this fucking same shit road all over again, even without Pat Quinn? WTF?...
I know that Rask is far from being a sure thing, and we already have the Canadian hometown hero in Justin Pogge moving up to the Toronto Marlies. But seriously, Rask showed in the Junior Championships by willing his Finnish team through the tournament with his own bare hands, that he probably has the highest damn potential of all our Leafs prospects. Finally, after so many fuck ups with our prospects over the years (Nik Antropov for instance, or trading away both Alyn McCauley and Brad Boyes for Owen fucking Nolan...), I was actually content that the Leafs had a bright future with both Pogge and Rask as our future #1 and 2 goalie options...
But now Rask is gone, just completely wasted away on Andrew Raycroft of the Boston Bruins. Now, I know Raycroft is a former Calder Trophy rookie of the year winner, I know he was astounding before the lockout, and I know that he’s still only 26 years old. He very well may prove to not be the next Jim fucking useless Carrey in net, and properly replace Eddie Belfour the way that both Mikael Tellqvist and Aubin just couldn’t really muster until the end of the season. But is the risk on Raycroft, who absolutely sucked shit on the Boston Bruins last year, really worth the risk in giving away our BEST FUCKING GOALIE PROSPECT EVER? WTF?...
This deal just screams out that Jon fucking Ferguson only has one agenda in mind, and that is to secure his future as GM of this team by throwing out the window our long term future. Raycroft himself is a huge gamble, but if he pays off at least in the short run thanks to a change of scenery (which did wonders for Joe Thorton)? Then Jon Ferguson may starve off yet another firing from MLSE, and stay on as GM of the Maple Leafs for another fucking year, no matter how much we fans cry for his head on a plantation platter...
But no matter whether the Leafs can make the playoffs or even make the second fucking round in the coming NHL season? I will never, ever forgive Jon Ferguson if Rask truly pans out to be the star goalie that almost every fucking GM in the league thinks he will eventually become...
I know Raycroft is young and still has potential, and I appreciate that the Leafs for once
tried to buy a player when their stock was low instead of fucking baked way too high. But
I absolutely know in my heart that given years down the road, this trade will come back to
bite us in the ass. I mean seriously, how many of those fucking prospects have the Toronto
Maple Leafs actually traded away and turned out to be serviceable players or even decent
superstars in the league? Do we have the record of surprise successes as soon as they
leave the team or some shit like that? WTF?...
... uggh... at least I have Bryan Colangelo and the Toronto fucking Raptors to look forward to in the coming season...
... and yes, I know how sad that sounds to say...
...
Now, I always knew Dwyane Wade would be a great guard in the league, even when I was debating between him, TJ Ford (uggh...), and Chris Bosh for the 4th spot in the 2003 NBA Draft. And to be honest, I still believe in my heart that Chris Bosh will have more "value" than Dwayne Wade five years down the road in the NBA league, as a 20/10 PF is normally more intrinsic and worthwhile than a 25 PPG, injury prone shooting guard. Although obviously, my opinion has been skewed by the Raptors’ history with Vince fucking Carter...
But hot damn, I never did foresee Dwyane Wade truly becoming the very definition of clutch in the goddam NBA finals so early in his career. He was a fucking god on the court against the Mavericks whenever the fourth quarter lights chimed and shined in his face, the first mercilessly lord of which I’ve seen late in the playoffs since Michael fucking Jordan all those years ago. I know that Lebron James has more overall talent than Wade, but it was just so fucking spectacular to see Dwyane literally will his team to victory (yes, I know he had Shaq and Zo as sidekicks, but still...), that I almost do wish that I could revisit the fucking 2003 NBA super-draft at times...
The only question is, even with no high school players allowed in the draft this year, is it finally time for another NBA super-draft class to be born?...
God, I hope so. Considering the Toronto Raptors for once hold all the cards...
I’ve been waiting the whole fucking year for the season to be over and done with and for the 2006 NBA Draft to finally get it on. Because honestly, as a Toronto Raptors fan, can I really be blamed for not giving a shit about the playoffs in the end? We all know that the real post-season is the fucking off-season as far as the goddam draft lottery teams are concerned. Bring it on...
Hell, I’ve been so damn hyped and frothing in anticipation of this Wednesday’s NBA fucking draft, that I even watched the NHL fucking draft the other day in goddam preparation...
Fuck, that was boring...
... so, that’s how I spent my weekends, eh?...
But either way? Bryan Colangelo truly has the luck of the Irish, even if he’s fucking Italian, by pulling the number one overall pick in the 2006 NBA draft out of a fucking "mago" hat. Either that, or like I said in my last Tweakui update, David Stern set this all up in a "weak draft" just to shut all us Toronto Raptors fans up for the Allen Iverson and Lebron James first overall fiasco’s...
I still think that 2006 is a weak draft, but that’s mainly because I have no fucking clue right now who the fuck deserves to go first overall. Back in the 2003 draft, everyone knew that Lebron James would be the next Magic Johnson at the very least, while guys like Dwayne Wade, Carmelo Anthony, Kirk Hinrich and TJ Ford were tearing up the NCAA Final Four in ways that are still fucking legendary to this very day. But in the 2006 NCAA tournament this year, the only true standout was Joakim Noah and he didn’t even decide to declare for this year’s draft (fucking rich, spoiled, "educated" bastard....)...
Still, the more I read and research about this year’s draft picks, the more I am convinced that perhaps there will be more surprise successes than I ever could’ve predicted months before. But short story short, there are basically five players that I would look and lean towards drafting if the Raptors keep their first overall pick or trade down within the Top 5 of the draft, although obviously my opinion got fucked over by all the Gerald Green GM smoke-screens from last year...
First and foremost, I would still pick LaMarcus Aldridge. Not only is he practically best buds with Chris Bosh, not only does he now seem sold on playing out his career in Toronto, but he has the fucking skills to be a great back to the basket player in the same mold as Tim Duncan. He also has a jump shot that is almost as good as Bosh’s was in his first year in the league, and some pretty damn fine footwork when it comes to defence in the paint. LaMarcus Aldridge would be a beast on defence, considering that his fucking massive wingspan and his body frame’s potential ability would be intimidating to any future PF or C in the NBA league...
Of course, LaMarcus’ agent made him do the fucking dumbass thing by refusing to let his prospect work out against other draftees. Not only does that make LaMarcus seem like he has something to hide, but it leaves at least the rest of us onlookers wondering whether LaMarcus really has what it takes to compete at the NBA level against real athletes. He was pushed and bullied around like crazy by Big Baby in the NCAA tournament, and it just looks weak willed and hearted on his behalf to not be willing to risk it all by facing the other prospects in workouts. I’d still take him first overall, but only if I can at least see him play in practice against his best buddy, Chris Bosh (even if Bosh fucking lets him win)...
My second choice would be none other than Italy’s own "mago" (magician) and national jewel, Andrea Bargnani. I’m not quite sold on his ability to be worth the number one overall pick, but he’d be a great top five pick if only because of how much damn interest he’d bring to an Italian infiltrated community like the GTA. Not only that, but he’s a legit 7 footer who has just led and won for his European team a fucking league championship. He proved himself to the world by playing against "real men" and real competition, and doing it all well with solid stats for the past month while the rest of the draft prospects were doing their own thing in private workouts...
Of course, I at least have seen plenty of videos of Bargnani in action over the course of the past month. And if he’s playing against "real men"? Then sign me the fuck up for the fucking Italian leagues, because their version of "basketball" was just plain embarrassing...
On defence in all the videos I’ve witnessed, Bargnani looks just as lost as fucking Rafael Araujo did when he was on the Toronto Raptors. On offence, it’s obvious that Bargnani was beating up on the equivalent of NBA scrubs, as none of his competitors had the speed nor athleticism to really take on a guy like him. That won’t be the case in the NBA though, and I just don’t feel confident in Bargnani’s ability to be the next Dirk Nowitzki or Pau Gasol unless he really learns to play with his head. Then again, he’s only 20 years old and still fucking clutch from the Euro 3-point line in the playoffs already, so maybe he won’t be the next Darko Milicic afterall...
My third option for the NBA Draft would be none other than UConn’s Rudy Gay. I’ve been watching this guy for something like three years now, as he absolutely has all the skills to be the next Vince Carter or a poor man’s Lebron James. He’s good friends with TO’s own Charlie Villanueva (CV even called him his "little brother" on the Huskies team), and he definitely has all the talent in the world to be a star in this league. His shot and ball handling skills were more than impressive in the few workout videos I’ve seen of him so far...
Problem is, I watched him in the NCAA tournament as well. And there, he played like he was half asleep. I can accept Charlie Villanueva looking lazy as hell on the court, considering he was a darkhorse of a pick who’s talent actually lies in making everything he does look easy. But Rudy Gay had chance after chance after chance to fucking slam the ball down and make a fucking impression, yet it was Marcus Williams and Denham Brown leading his team to victories instead. Rudy Gay may have all the potential and athleticism in the world, but he may also end up being the prototypical Atlanta swingman pick that goes nowhere in the league until he finally screws his head on right...
For my fourth pick in the draft, I have to look at LSU’s Tyrus Thomas. I wrote a few weeks back that he would be my second choice for the first overall pick, and I had good reason to state that. He was the only player besides Joakim Noah in the NCAA Tournament to really make an impression on me, to clearly make me go, "yo dawg, this guy will be a playa in the NBA, fo sizzle", or something to that effect. His will to win and his sheer Ben Wallace tenacity on defence was amazing, as his shot-blocking wing span is second only to LaMarcus and maybe Sene I believe in this draft. Couple that with his extreme athleticism, and you’ve got yourself an almost guaranteed star in the NBA league...
Problem is, he’s got an attitude. Now, I know a good player always needs to be cocky to be successful (Michael Jordan and Gary Payton for instance, were infamous for their trash talking). But I just don’t like how Tyrus Thomas is already badmouthing people and places in his interviews before even getting drafted. Sure, my kind of thinking is what led the Toronto Raptors in drafting the safe pick of Michael Bradley over Zach goddam Randolph. But after the Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady incidents on the Toronto Raptors, I think that I have due cause to be more than just a bit cautious in this regard at least...
And finally, for my fifth and final possibility for the Top 5 of the 2006 NBA Draft? While obviously, teams like Charlotte and Portland are drooling over a guy like Adam Morrison, I am not. While obviously I could be wrong about him, considering the critics think he has the potential to be the next Larry Bird, I just see a great white stiff in him. I do see him being a potential rookie of the year, scoring 20 PPG or some shit like that, but he’d become just another plain chucker in this league as the years go by, and I want no part of that.
I’d almost prefer Randy Foye over him, if only because the former fills a PG need. Now, sure I’d be the first in line to eat crow while it’s served hot and spicy if "Ammo" (as he’s called) does turn out to be a true superstar in the league five years down the road. But the way I see things now, Adam Morrison just doesn’t have the speed to be anything but a spot up shooter against real pros in the NBA. And I certainly don’t want to be left with just a pure shooter again after the whole Mike James fiasco on the Raptors...
My fifth pick then instead would actually be Brandon Roy of Washington. To a lesser extent than Tyrus Thomas, he really showed in the NCAA tournament that he can be an outstanding player in the league. While he definitely doesn’t have the drive or skills to be the next Dwayne Wade as some are predicting, I do see him as being a great shooting guard in this league who can play a few minutes a game at point as well. I think he’s definitely underrated in this draft, and I do think that he will prove to be one of the most steady and guaranteed successful players from this year’s selections. He can definitely turn out to be the Kirk Hinrich or TJ Ford at least of this year’s draft...
As for the second round of the NBA Draft, I don’t particularly care at this point, considering how surprised I was at how many decent players dropped to the second round in the NBA draft last year. It’s almost impossible to predict this shit then...
But still, for our #35 pick? I’d look towards Tiago Splitter (I wish) as a solid backup defensive centre, Dee Brown as a potential backup point guard, and Hassan Adams as the poor man’s Andre Iguodala to get dunk-fans back into the ACC seats. For our #56 pick, I’d consider Bobby Jones first for his SG potential defensive prowess, and Denham Brown both because he’s Canadian and because he certainly did prove something in the NCAA tournament at least...
As for the rest of the Toronto Raptors off-season? Bryan Colangelo has been a busy man already, trading Rafael Araujo to the Utah Jazz for Kris Humphries and Robert Whaley. And since we already waived Whaley for a few extra bucks of cap room, the trade basically boils down to the #8 pick in the 2004 draft for the #14 pick of the same draft. Except that Kris Humphries was predicted to go before Hoffa originally, before Rob fucking Babcock intervened...
I don’t mind this trade. It was a bust for a bust, with Araujo going back to his beloved state of Utah, and the Raptors picking up a darkhorse who potentially could still turn out to be decent in the end. I will miss Hoffa and his determination to prove something, just anything of value to all his booing fans, but he just didn’t show much in his second season here. I’m actually surprised we got any player of value for him in the first place (let alone a PF who may turn out to be a poor man’s Boris Diaw), but I just wish we could’ve gotten a better filler prospect in the trade than Robert goddam Whaley in the end...
So I propose this.
Rafael Araujo for Kris Humphries... and the filler of Andrei Kirilenko...
Done.
Yeah, I would’ve preferred that contract filler instead of the shit we got... but sigh...
Then Bryan Colangelo got busy on the phones again, trading away Eric fucking useless Williams, the New Orleans 2009 2nd round draft pick (who cares?), and fan favourite Matt Bonner to San Antonio for a legit C in Rasho Nesterovic. Now, I will miss Matt Bonner since I loved his personality and his money 3-point shot (at least in his rookie season), but he just wouldn’t get much playing time here in TO anymore if we did draft another PF or C. And at least this removes the problem of Sam Mitchell forcing countless minutes on Matt Bonner, just because he loves his goddam effort on the basketball floor (and perhaps on the floor of his condo as well...)...
I just don’t like the fact we got Rasho Nesterovic back, you know? He’ll be our starting centre for sure, as he’s the best we’ve had since Marcus Camby, Kevin Willis and Antonio Davis for sure. But he’s still a softie for the most part, not nearly aggressive enough to get more than five rebounds or a single blocked shot per game. He’ll take up space and clog up the lane for sure, but wasn’t that what Hoffa was for?...
He’s a decent role player of a centre, but I just hate the fact that we’ll be paying him $7 million a year for the next three seasons. Trading for him saves our cap room for 2006, but his bloated contract ruins whatever chance we have at the golden free agent pool of 2007. Sure, it would’ve been a pipe dream anyhew to lure Dwayne Wade or Dirk Nowitzki over to the Raptors as free agents next year, but we did have a serious shot at least at convincing Paul Pierce or Kirk Hinrich (sort of) at taking a max contract on the Toronto Raptors. Now we don’t have that option, except through a potentially expensive and expansive sign and trade...
There are a couple other trade offers supposedly in the works right now, if rumours can be believed. The main one being with the Charlotte Bobcats, in which we trade the #1 pick and Alvin Williams for the #3 pick and Brevin Knight. I don’t mind this trade, even if Brevin Knight is just a stop gap, 30-year old solution for our PG woes. But I’d definitely do this trade for a 8 or 9 APG player if only we could also get own future 1st rounder back from Charlotte in the process. Or obviously if the Bobcats would throw in a further incentive like Gerald fucking Wallace down the road as well...
The biggest trade rumour right now (besides Mike James in a sign and trade with Dallas for the underutilized Marquis Daniels) is the idea of #1 and Charlie Villanueva to Seattle for Ray Allen, Earl Watson, and the #10 pick. I don’t mind getting back Ray Allen, Earl Watson or their bloated ass contracts for the most part, except for the fact we’d be giving up both a chance at LaMarcus Aldridge and Charlie Villanueva. Ray Allen may be clutch as hell, but he’s an aging veteran who I just don’t see as being worth both the #1 pick and CV...
If we could take Villanueva out of the equation and replace him with Joey Graham or even Morris Peterson, I’d probably pull the trigger. I’d prefer an offer of the #1, #35, Joey Graham and some other filler for the #10, Ray Allen and Luke Ridnour, but I know that half baked pipe dream won’t ever happen. And since it won’t happen, I’d be just fine and dandy with sticking to the tried and tested route with the Charlotte Bobcats and the number three pick up above...
So assuming that we do trade for Brevin Knight, and assuming that thanks to magical smoke-screens from BC himself? The Italian magician of Andrea Bargnani slips to the 10th pick or something after the Raptors pick LaMarcus Aldridge with the third, and we pick up the international wonder by literally buying a draft pick from a financially cap-strapped franchise (say, the Seattle Supersonics...)?...
... please, oh pretty please?...
Well then, if all goes to plan? Then say hello to my little friend of the fucking Toronto Raptors of 2006-2007...
... ahem...
C: Rasho Nesterovic, LaMarcus Aldridge, Pape Sow
PF: Chris Bosh, Andrea Bargnani, Kris Humphries
SF: Charlie Villanueva, Gerald Wallace, Joey Graham
SG: Morris Peterson, Marquis Daniels, Denham Brown
PG: Brevin Knight, Dee Brown, Jose Calderon
Development: Roko Ukic, Uros Slokar
Now, there’s a team I wouldn’t mind...
... but the Toronto Raptors can still do so much better, right?...
Because with Bryan Colangelo at the helm? With just a few roster tweaks here and there, with a few more off-season trades, and perhaps an extra bit of luck or two? I honestly do think we could have this line-up starting out the fucking 2006-2007 NBA season...
... more ahem...
C: Dwight Howard, LaMarcus Aldridge, Pape Sow
PF: Chris Bosh, Andrea Bargnani, Kris Humphries
SF: Charlie Villanueva, Rudy Gay, Joey Graham
SG: Morris Peterson, Adam Morrison, Marquis Daniels
PG: Chris Paul, Brandon Roy, Jose Calderon
Development: Roko Ukic, Tiago Splitter, Uros Slokar
Well, okay. So maybe that’s the line-up I’ll be starting in NBA fucking Live ’07 and not the one we’d have in real fucking life...
Hey, I said I’m baked, alright?...
But if Bryan Colangelo can pull off at least the first roster set up above? Then I’d be fucking happy with goddam Gay glee...
So Bryan Colangelo? Make it happen.
Make it happen.
Make it fucking happen.
DO IT.
Or else as far as I’m concerned? Well, then?...
Light from the Sun takes 8 minutes to reach the earth.
In the Phoenix Suns universe, the ball reaches the net in 24 seconds or less...
It gets hot in Phoenix. Real hot.
And if you don’t get me the fucking dream job roster I want, BC?
Then your ass is toast. Your job is roast. And you better suck my cock.
Rob Babcock loved the cock. And so shall you.
... well, maybe...
As I may be baked right now, but I’m not fucking insane...
... or am I?...
Either way, starting with the NBA draft this Wednesday? It’s Gay Pride Week right now in Toronto, isn’t it?
We’re all gay for Gay.
So make it happen.
Make it happen.
Just suck his cock.
Suck everyone’s cock.
Just do it.
I don’t care how.
Just make it fucking happen.
...
In the meantime though, I’ll just be sitting here, agonizing in pain over the shit I was forced to endure over this goddam weekend...
I mean honestly, how fucking embarrassing will it be for me to waltz into work tomorrow morning, sporting a tan as bright red as an apple or the fucking Sun itself, on just the select few sections of my arm that I’m fucking burnt to a crisp? It’s like I’ve got a fucking bikini line or some shit like that, except it wraps around where I was wearing gloves and a fucking T-shirt on my shoulders, as if my arms were strangled by a fucking strawberry Roll-Up or some shit like that...
But if there’s one more thing that 40 hours of work a week has proved to me? It’s that after every fucking work night, a true 9 to 5 worker just feels so fucking wasted and so fucking baked in the brain? That the only thing that truly makes sense to any of us, is to sit our asses down right in front of the zombification television and waste away the rest of the night...
For the past ten working months of my life, I have wasted away my entire existence with television and goddam sports, with fucking NHL hockey and NBA basketball and all that other beautiful man-made Gatorade shit...
Hell, I even watched Lacrosse once. Man, I must’ve been so high...
But now even that’s gone. The Edmonton Oilers choked in game 7 of the NBA playoffs, and it’s not like I had anyone to really cheer for in the NBA Finals. I hated both Shaq and Alonzo fucking Mourning, and especially Mark fucking Cuban out of all the Maverick assholes. Honestly, couldn’t both teams have just lost?...
Damn, I even miss Lost as a show. Now that’s just plain sad...
But right now? There is only one thing and one thing alone left on television that I look forward to as a fucking fried and baked, tried and toasted and true, burning epidermis of an asshole of a potato sitting on the goddam coach...
... and that is the NBA fucking Draft of 2006...
I’m fried, both from work and from goddam weekend overtime in the Sun. I’m so fucking burnt out, that I can’t even fucking touch air without my goddam pain receptacles sounding off fucking Goldeneye alarms. WTF?...
I’m so fucking mind-numbingly brain dead, that I even enjoyed this morning reading the goddam Toronto Sun. WTF?...
But even so, I don’t really give a shit. Because the Third Law of IvanFian Working clearly states that as long as I have sports to watch, and the hopes to perchance to dream? Then alas, anon, I will stay sane. And ay, I will continue to Dare to just say no to drugs...
... drugs to ease the pain... oh, how I wish...
Either way, Wednesday will be both my homecoming and my reckoning, my servitude and my salvation. All the cards of the deck are on the table once and for all for the Toronto fucking Raptors, and I swear to God I will be there the very goddam moment my team selects their first ever, first overall NBA draft pick...
Coincidentally enough, June 28th is also the day my brother arrives back home in Toronto from his goddam cliche, backtracking trip in Europe. What a coincidence, am I right? Synchronocity from the goddam continent of Carl Jung? Who would’ve thunk?...
Horrible timing. Horrible fucking timing...
Because if he actually expects me to pick him up before the Toronto Raptors fucking make their pick?...
Then hell no.
HELL NO.
Say hello to hell fucking no...
... because after six long, arduous hours of fucking roasting in the Sun?...
HELL. FUCKING. NO.
... let him bask in the glory of the sunshine of the goddam airport instead...
... let his skin crawl and bubble and cyst like my own while he goddam waits...
Now that’s how I’d prefer to spend my own fucking weekends.
Because it all sounds like so much fun, now doesn’t it?...
... well, if only I finally got the NBA rosters that I actually do crave for my goddam Toronto Raptors, then maybe it finally all will be in the end?...
But until then? I’ve got nothing to go for, absolutely nothing to strive for, except to wish you all a God Speed, a Good Will Hunting, and a God Bless Us, Everyone...
And oh yes, God?... one more thing...
... or even better yet?
Superman, if you can hear me?...
Please help the Toronto Raptors.
Divine intervention, please.
K Thx. Bye.
... because Lord knows they need it...
Saturday, September 28th, 2002
Y2kk Update: Well, I'm spent, with my hands feeling soiled after spending more than a fair share of hours turning bread into butter, and wine into, um... more butter, so to speak... And oh, nevermind. I never manage to get my metaphors and smiley similes to work out properly anymore. I'm just lucky that I managed to get my brother's DVD-ROM working a few hours ago, all thanks to a very old friend of mine. You see, my brother bought the Pioneer 16x about a month ago so he wouldn't be reduced to watching pathetic VHS tapes at his university suite. The only problem was, he was still reduced to watching pathethic VHS tapes, simply because his PentiumII 266MHz and its Matrox G200 card were simply unable to run a single DVD movie at more than 10 bloody frames per second... And since I've always been the frames per second kind of guy, I was determined to get PowerDVD working at all costs, even at the cost of my own wallet...
So because I had absolutely no personal use for it anymore, I gave his computer my blessed be, S3 Savage 4, a card so ouvertly obscure, that even the videophiles in my computer engineering class still haven't heard of it to this day... and they dare call themselves hardcore computer gamers, but I digress... Anyhew, short story short, I was shocked as hell as anybody when my useless Savage card, the one that can't even run NHL 2000 properly on my Duron 1GHz, was able to run DVD movies at nearly 60 fps. Sure, there was the occasional milli-second jump in framework, but it's true when I say the S3 had rekindled and regained my brother's moviephile secular existence in just a matter of mere minutes... and now he's taking all my DVDs with him to university, even the ones I plead with him not to, but that's besides the point. Because lo and behold, at least I can finally feel smug that my $150 Savage4 card actually does something right... and what, it only took me about three years to find it? Will the wonders of the world ever cease?
And God, if only I was able to build those wonders of the world, maybe I wouldn't have been slaughtered so badly the other day at school... You see, the newest novelty for me at the University of Toronto is the network Civilzation game installed on every computer. And what really sucks the Big City apple, is that after three games against friends and the not so friendly, I have officially concluded that I suck, what? I suck, what? Hell, my only strength in the game is typing in messages, telling the enemy where I am, so they can wipe me out and put me out of my goddam misery...
So just because I had nothing better to do on yesterday (except study for my tests this week, but that's besides the point), I downloaded Free Civilization for myself, just to experiment with the game mechanics... And you know what? You know bloody what? In my first game against the "easy" computer, they were killing me with Howitzer tanks by the time I had just researched bloody hell horseback riding. And God, sure my little archers managed to beat back the enemy aircraft carriers for a couple centuries or so, but it really stung when they started launching cruise missiles at me in the 17th century... And you know why I sucked? Besides the fact that I just suck at every computer game that is... It's because my friends told me that researching new governments was useless, yet I figured out by watching the computer on Friday, that if you don't upgrade to a Monarchy or Communism right away, your tech development slows to a Cro-Magnon halt. And, well... what? My friends and not so friendly couldn't have told me that just a little bit sooner? Because God, if I didn't know better, I'd swear that were actually setting me up for a can of ass whooping, entrenching my folds in the art of trench warfare every single life wrenching game, but that's besides the point... Because I'll get them back someday. I may sound like a cliche cartoon villain right now, but it's true. I shall have my revenge, and show them the very bread and butter that I'm made of, although that doesn't exactly sound too good...
Well, anyhew, enough with the senseless, endless, pitiful whining and, um, buttery emancipation, whatever the hell that's supposed to mean... Let's just cut right into the bread and, um, more butter of the story of the week, that my Mycrowsoft.com redirection services have been down for the past two weeks or so. As far as I know though, as of today, the servers are finally working again, although there's not really any point anymore, considering my hits for this site have reached a stunning peak of less than ten hits... If I can bitterly recall properly, the last time my Mycrowsoft.com servers inexplicably shut down without warning, my hits dropped from 200 a day to a bloody hell 50 a day over the course of just a couple of weeks. And now? And now? It looks like my hits have been cut into a quarter pounder yet again while factoring in the Subway diet, because nobody, and I mean nobody is buffering and bothering to visit my noname sites anymore... just great... just dandilion, God-awful Mandolin great... I'm officially the Neil bore of the internet. Welcome to the web.
Anyhew, because none of Mycrowsoft.com sites were working for about a week, I decided to procrastinate from homework for quite a while by setting up a backup redirection server at Ulimit.com. It's a French company, and although they still might go out of business just like so many American sites have from the dotcom crash, I've got my fingers and feet doubly linked list crossed that my new Com02.com redirection will serve as an auxiliary address when push comes to Great Depression shove... Anyhew, for those of you who actually care, here's a semi-evil list of my new internet redirection addresses:
http://ivanf.com02.com = http://tweakui.com02.com =
http://tweakui.mycrowsoft.com
http://ivanftweakui.com02.com =
http://tweakui.mycrowsoft.com
http://ivanfnoname.com02.com =
http://noname.mycrowsoft.com
http://ivanfdownload.com02.com =
http://download.mycrowsoft.com
http://ivanfmsn.com02.com =
http://download.mycrowsoft.com
http://ivanfoffice.com02.com = http://office.com02.com = http://office.mycrowsoft.com
http://support.com02.com = http://ivanfsupport.com02.com =
http://support.mycrowsoft.com
http://flame.com02.com = http://ivanfflame.com02.com =
http://flame.mycrowsoft.com
http://ivanfarchive.com02.com =
http://archives.mycrowsoft.com
http://development.com02.com = http://ivanfdevelopment.com02.com =
http://development.mycrowsoft.com
http://cows.com02.com = http://ivanfcows.com02.com =
http://cows.mycrowsoft.com
I doubt anybody will remember them, considering my download site is reaching critical hit lows each day, my noname site has yet to get even one microparsec of recognition, and my msn site has never exceeded the mark of five visitors a day... But sadly and strangely enough, a bunch of people now seem to remember me in the computer labs, simply because of one dandy trait of mine: I tend to walk around a lot, roam about, and simply pace back and forth, as if I was some important person, with something important to do... Now, any Y2kk reader will know the exact opposite is true. Afterall, I have literally nothing better to do in my life than rant and whine on this website of wine and, um, more butter, so help me God... But you see, since nobody ever reads this website, nobody at my school realizes know how much of a no-name loser I truly am. And strangely enough, that's why people actually seem to notice and remember my face... in fact, a least five people in the past week have asked me about that big black smerch on my face. Nobody's ever asked me about this bruise if a birthmark since Grade 9, when students were alerting the authorities that at home I beat myself up...
The thing is, I pace around the computer labs a lot, and I especially paced a hell of a lot this week after I finished my computer assignment early Monday. The thing was, since I was walking around, trying to help my friends before the deadline, it seemed like everyone else in the lab was taking notice how I was the only one in the room with the decency to help someone else out... You might ask where the TAs were, considering this was our lab session. And, well, leave it to U of T to pay a bunch of graduate students to leave their classes unattended and leave an idiot monger like me in unofficial charge... And to be honest, it was quite a funny sight. As I walked from friend to friend, there would always be a person inbetween who would cut me off, ask if I was the TA, and even when I would reply no, they would still jar-jar and beg me for hours and oodles of help... Most of the time, the questions were basic. A couple inquiries were about Java from the course I took last year, I had to give my own little tutorial on how to print in Linux a half a dozen times or so, and I especially admired the amicable guy, who even after I laughed in his face when he asked if I was the TA, still felt obliged to force upon me the big O question: where oh where, has the stapler gone?... and wow, that sounds good. That sounds wily. I feel so important...
But my favourite of the favourites has just got to be that one guy, that one first year guy who spotted me helping out one of my friends from across the room, and slowly began to raise his hand, imperial inch by inch, standard centimetre by centimetre, when he finally saw me lift my head up... Delighted that somebody out there had to decency to not tug at my hair for attention, I screamed out with a smile, "I'm not the TA!", and realizing that the dozen of so people that I've already helped didn't give a damn whether I was the TA or not, I just said screw that, I'm going to help this guy anyhew, and marched on over across the room, just to give him a tutorial on how to submit his project... Short story short, by the end of the week, I was used to be being asked for assistance from pretty much every able body out there, although that's still no excuse for standing up a certain friend of mine, but that's besides the powerpoint. And to be honest, when I first walked into university last year, the only thing that was on my mind was how I really wanted to be a TA sometime. Because I could never be a professor, since I barely had enough smarts to pass my first year. And yet the likelihood of becoming a TA is also as high as the Hood sinking the Bismarck, simply because unless I find some friends in high places, I need at least a B average in school just to sit idle in a tutorial classroom, like a screen saver on crack... or worse yet, butter...
But still, I've always had the innate desire to rant my ass off to anybody who demotes themselves to having to raise their hand. Basically, I want to be a TA just to deservingly lecture my students with God-awful Y2kk Updates, and watch them fraudily applaud at the end... just like how so many professors use their jobs to promote their books and papers, I guess I want to be a TA just to promote these sites... And to be even more honest, I did feel a certain element of power after helping out at least a dozen people on Monday. Because when it comes to life, when it comes to existence, it's not about right or wrong. It's not about better or worse. It's about standing high above the other's head, ready to give a stern lecture, when you suddenly and stubbornly realize, that the only thing that seems to come out of your mouth, is foamy, frosty, frothy butter... mmm, timbits covered in piss-poor, metaphorical butter, whatever the hell that's supposed to mean...
And okay, scratch one off. It looks like I'm never going to be an English TA...
Friday, September 29th, 2000
Y2kk Update: Geez, me haven't updated this page in a while. I've been too busy, um, doing nothing and, uh, thinking about doing nothing... I updated the Advanced Windows9x Tweaking guide with something about a Mapped Cache, but it's a crappy tweak that I just put on there for no reason... I do have a story to tell you about Future Shop, which is the equivalent of Circuit City if you doubled all of their prices... I bought a CL ModemBlasterUSB 56k V.90 from them for $150 Canadian bucks, brought it home, and it worked slower than my old Motorola 33.6 worth $25 bucks or something. So I repackaged the goods and prepared to return it a few days later to where I bought it. Afterall, I had bought RAM at Computer City before (which is owned by the same guy as Future Shop is) and I was allowed to return it with no problem... But that was because Computer City has competition here. Future Shop has no such thing like that... can you spell MONOPOLY?
I stood in the refund line for 40 minutes, gawking at that stupid, yellow sign that said "Satisfaction Guaranteed". And for crying out loud, there was just that one person in front of us, trying to return a Cordless Phone that didn't work... and, well, that guy in front wasn't really happy with the service, and I didn't know why at that moment, but... When I finally got up there, I was greeted by a phony hello and smile. I told my problem, that the modem wouldn't connect past 26400 bps, and she didn't understand a word so she called a computer sales rep over. He didn't understand a word I said either, so with those blank, staring eyes of his, he asked me if the modem worked at all. I honestly said, "yes". It just didn't work because of an incompatibility with my computer, and I'd like an exchange please. And how does he respond? He tells me I can't exchange it. He shows me my own receipt, and dimly in that spot where it's folded, it says in faded print I can't return any product that's been opened. Doesn't matter if it's worth $1 or $1000, I just can't return it. That's when my brother started screaming that he just lost $150. I called the manager over, and she looked like she didn't give a damn. She had probably had gone through this routine a million times that day alone. She told me the same stupid thing that I can't return it, because if I did, she wouldn't know what to do with an opened box... well, for a buck she could've just repackaged it for someone that it can work for, but I guess she ain't very managerial literate at all... so I tested her computer IQ, and started spouting out all the crap that I did to try to get it to work. Told her about the MTU, the RWIN, the Firmware Flash bios, and even the bloody 3Com V.90 protocol test site. No response. Not even a flinch in their eyes.
They then asked me which server I used. I said I tested it with Freewwweb, NetZero, Freei, iFreedom, 3Web, HomeFreeWeb, blah blah blah and another one I can't remember right now... heh, the two of them just stared at me with blank faces and told me they heard the modem works with AOL and Sympatico... geez, like I didn't know that... Eventually I revealed to them that the only smart guy actually sacrificing himself by working at Future Shop had opened the package for us to look at & inspect, therefore we had bought the modem with an open box. That's when she went into the back, pretended to talk to herself in a mirror, and then came out saying we can finally get an exchange - and that because of her generousity, she could get fired... Yeah, sure.. she should get fired for arguing with us for an hour and a half already... I was going to use that $150 to buy a 128MB module of Pc-100 RAM which should've costed $190 according to the weekly flyer... and what RAM does the manager bring me? A 128MB module costing $290... hmm... con-men, con-women all in little, red uniforms... We then decided to take the credits at the store and come back another day when they don't remember us and can't take as much advantage, but when we got back to the refund stand to get a new receipt, a new employee (actually, the 8th person I saw at that spot over those 2 hours) was gossiping on the phone. When we asked for our credits, what does she do? She asks us our story again, and we waited yet again for the manager to clear things up. It's a good plan though; keep switching the refund employees so their cluelessness can piss us customers off even more...
Future Shop took nearly 2 hours out of my life. I think I'll give those 2 hours to Best Buy, Circuit City, or even, if I'm that damned, CompUSA when they all storm the Canadian gates... heh, when I was leaving, I noticed a guy was bringing a defective DVD playing back to Future Shop... I sure wish I had stayed to see that machine wrapped around that manager's head...
Friday, August 11th, 2000
Y2kk Update: Well, today's the big day. I just uploaded a list of almost 100 Free Web Space Servers and a whole bunch of new advanced Win9x tweaks like how to double your shutdown speed and how to break through every Poledit security feature there is. But that's not the big news. Let the Armada community know that I, IvanF - the bloody no-name modder, am now submitting my resignation for modding retirement. Today I release my final mod: IvanF's No Name Brand Mod 0.60 for Activision's Star Trek Armada. The main new features are I increased the Z-axis space, I made the AI even harder, I added a complete uninstallation batch file, & I added in the Borg Tactical Cube to give every race at least 13 combat vessels. To install my mod, just extract all the files to your root Star Trek Armada directory. If that doesn't work, extract it to a temp dir and move all the files yourself.
Fragaday's VISE Exe Installer for IvanF's Last Mod: IvanFragaday-NoNameBrandSTA060.exe
Mirror Site for IvanF's 0.60 Mod Zipped: IvanF-NoNameBrandSTAMod060.zip
I have been modding for 4 to 5 bloody, long months now. Go ahead and read the bottom of this page if you don't believe me, but my first official mod came out on Friday, April 21st, 2000 with an update coming out every 2-3 weeks or so. I've given my sweat to this game. I skipped out on studying for my Physics exam just to get a new mod release out. As far as I could tell, I am one of the first modders; I released a full conversion mod while James Bryant was wowing everyone with his Cobalt Defiants. I added in the Romulan D'Kazanak not long after Jc did it to become famous. I was the one who made Scube a household name; it's not a SuperCube! It's a Scout Cube! And I paraded online for weeks back in April, telling all Borg players to try my Scube. Scube this, scube that... And yet no-one remembers me. No-one even bloody knows my name. The Sandman may complain about not getting instant responses, but I complain about getting none at all. I was the first to improve pathfinding. I was the first to introduce incredibly hard, cheating AI. I was the first to create a new detail level where even Pentium 166 users like me can play with good graphics. And you know what? I have gotten nothing out of this experience. Well, not much at least.
I cried out for game balance; the players cried out for sods. I had a dream for All Experience RTS Players to settle their differences out online with my mod; whenever there was a balance issue, I would be right there to fix it. They were to give me feedback, and unlike any computer game company out there, I would make their balance suggestion reality. But goddam, I can't even play hearts properly. What makes me think I can make a game more fun for others? I don't have the brilliant reputation of Jc. I don't have people drooling at my AI like Capm does. I don't have the legacy of James Bryant. I don't have the Sods of Sulu777. I don't have the hype of the Millenium Project or the Generations Project. I don't have the loyalty that binds together the Midas Array. I don't have the realism of the Ilu Maris Project. & I don't have the originality of Futility. I dedicated my mod to balance, not sods. I thought I released a damn, good mod, not just a flashy one with cute little advertisements.
But goddammit, no-one hears me now. No-one knows the name of IvanF. Very few care... But I'm sick of being a bloody whiner. If anyone wants to try my mod, please go ahead and accept my thanks in advance. I'd love it if you played it online with your buddies; it was meant to see the light of the net. I'd love it if you'd have the courage to post in the Official Armada forum and tell me how to make my mod more balanced. But what I won't do anymore is whine, complain, or grovel for feedback. I've spent too long on my knees, and now I'm just plain bitter. Kaleb, Marrel, Tim, Ares, the Prophet, Brazza, the Sandman, & all the other greats; geez, they're all so talented and all so very lucky for getting the feedback that they get. As for me, I'd die just for cynical criticism that would kill others or some other crap like that. But I'm releasing this last mod for 4 reasons, 4 horsemen: for fbrg, for Fragaday, for my cousin, and for you, Victor. Yes, you...
You know, I'm not really upset... I'm sorry if I offend anyone; I have a real habit of doing that. I'm just frustrated & if you ever take the time to read my websites, you'd know I love to go on tangents. No matter how pathetically down I may feel, I also know that at least a few of the 39 people who downloaded my 0.56 mod enjoyed it as much as I did. I remember that it felt good to hear that some of the 90 people who downloaded my 0.20 first mod had fun playing with the special weapons... and just because of that, I promise I will make sure I will not vanish in to the bitter cold night. I will write. I will respond. I will be remembered. I will bloody be known... Geez, aren't I the melodramatic or what? I'm really going to laugh at myself sometime for writing this all...
Um, and uh, oh... thanks for listening to me...
Sincerely, _________IvanF, the no-name modder, August 10th, 2000...
Thursday, March 15th, 2000
Y2kk Update: Welcome to the grand opening of IvanF's Tweak 'n' Dweak homepage at Tweakui.mycrowsoft.com, just one of oh-so-oh-so many sites on the Mycrowsoft Network! So far, the only thing that I have online is a S3 Savage page with Quake3 tweaks. Go check out the console commands and yadda yadda yadda on the left. Now who's better than IvanF? Everybody!... but not for long.
... Tweaking and Dweaking for the broadband-impaired since March 15th, 2000...