the expatriated

Top Albums

2006-12-21T15:45:00.000-08:00

It occurs to me that I haven't posted anything in awhile. Things have been a bit hectic lately so thats the word on my side. So I thought I would post up my top album of 2006. This is mostly for my own purposes.

1)The Arctic Monkeys - Whatever people say I am that's what I'm not
2)Kasabian - Empire
3)Corinne Bailey Rae
4)Emily Haines - Knives Don't Have Your Back
5)Hard-Fi - Stars of CCTV
6)Morrissey - Ringleader of the tormentors
7)The Arctic Monkeys - Who the Fuck are Arctic Monkeys (it's an ep but I don't care)
8)The Streets - The Hardest Way to Make and Easy Living
9)Ali Farka Toure - Savane (I think I do this a real classic I just haven't been listening to it a lot lately, but this is the album her went out on and damn if it's not deserving)
10)Jarvis Cocker - Jarvis

I promise more updates in the new year, happy christmas to all.

LA weekend and Marks Visit

2006-11-20T16:35:00.000-08:00

So Mark arrived on Saturday afternoon and it was straight off to the zoo. Mark was a little beat from being out late so clubbing was a write off. We got through most of the zoo in under 4 hours. We headed to Fashion Valley to show him an outdoor mall. Lets face it outdoor malls are just cool. Unfortunately parking was a bloody nightmare because Bloomingdales had just opened so it took 30 minutes to find parking. Showed him the mall and picked up 's Christmas present. Then we dropped off Marks stuff at my place, picked up Mike and Jenn and headed for Fidels in Solana Beach for dinner. After dinner we hit Extrordinairy Desserts downtown and to my surprise I found that they had 'Diptyque' candles. Quiet night in mostly as Mark was exhausted.

Sunday morning Erin, Mark and I hit up IHOP for breakfast and then picked up Mike and Jenn for a day in Hollywood. We got into LA pretty easily and tripped of the La Brea tar pits and spent a bit of time there going over the actual tar pond and the museum. Interesting stuff actually even if Mark and I were able to find loads of historical inaccuracies. We then headed for Hollywood because at some point everyone has to see it. Hollywood is just disgusting there is nothing glamorous about the Hollywood strip, it's slimy and a bit off puting. If it can be avoided I would. We did the walk of fame and the Chinesse Theatre. I wanted to get a picture of myself with Cary Grants hand prints (he's a personal and fashion icon of mine). No luck that way with the place being too crowded. We grabbed a quick but disappointing bite at Wolfgang Pucks latest franchise 'Vert'. Vert pretty adequitly describes it, the whole bloody thing was a bit green. Then we made our way to the Chinesse Theatre to see the new Bond Film. More on the Bond film at some later post. After the move we did a quick spin around Sunset blvd and then back to SD by 12:30.

Giant Land Sloth

American Lion

Mammoth

More Mammoth

Bison

Camel

Baby Mammoth

'Commonest' really? Not in the Queens English it's not

Mike and Jenn sans the Hollywood sign

Bad Hollywood sign picture

The courtyard at the Kodak Theatre

Seattle in picture form from a camera phone

2006-11-15T11:17:00.000-08:00

Steve at casa del Steve

Seattle skyline from Salty's

more skyline

Sculpture at Experience Music Project

Vivienne Westwood Sex Seditionaries outfit (the best part of emp)

Anthony Hopkins costume from Titus

Red Dwarf portal opener from series 8

The Croc

Pike's Place Market

original Starbucks

best photo ever taken with cel cam

the day I realised I like California ... or Dan visits Seattle for the weekend

2006-11-13T14:57:00.000-08:00

Oh Seattle. It wasn’t that I didn’t like you it was just that you were too cold and rainy for my taste. At some point during the trip I started to refer to San Diego as home, perish the thought. Although I don’t know it may be fast becoming that. After speaking with mother the other night and complaining about the cold and rain she flatly said ‘you’re not coming back are you?’ My dear mother is a terribly perceptive woman.

It was good to see the boys even if I am seeing them again in two weeks, and it did remind me a lot of home. It was cold, raining, the trees were dropping their leaves etc etc. It also felt like Waterloo had somehow made its’ way to Redmond. It was like nothing had changed but we were all making a lot more money.

Friday was a quiet night in and some nerd games with Steve, Chris and Ian. I also introduced them to the wonderful world of ‘How I Met Your Mother’ and all parties involved are now hooked. This is also how Chris got the nickname of Swarly.

Saturday was IHOP followed by two games of poker with the boys and two of their friends. I won both games and pretty easily at that. Turns out not playing for a few months is good for me. This all occurred to a steady backdrop of me leaving sales pitches to get Steve to move to San Diego. The logic is if we can get Steve, Ian and Chris won’t be far behind. Its funny how much more tolerable the world is when you have your friends around you. That night we went to Salty’s for dinner, and while I am not a big fan of shellfish the crab was amazing. We walked around the park a bit and had a cigar while just talking in general. The intention was to go to the Crocodile Café but by the time we would have got there it would have been packed.

I crashed at Chris’ place all weekend. The place itself is very nice and Chris has added his own touch to the place. However, the terms hotel and Spartan have both been used to describe his decorating style. Sorry Swarly I had to give you a hard time. As one would expect though old Swarls’ was a great host and his place was immaculate.

Sunday we played a little nerd games, Swarls and Ian went back to work and Steve and I headed downtown. It was too dark and rainy to do the Space Needle so we tried out the Experience Music Project\Sci-Fi Museum. Now let’s begin with the building itself. This was another Frank Gehry eyesore; it looks like a mess of melted crayons. It’s the sort of thing you know will look moronic in 10 years. The museum itself was an even great disappointment. There were a few neat exhibits like the evolution of the guitar and token showing on the birth of mcing and later hip hop. Otherwise it was attempts to make Seattle’s contribution to music seem more important than it was. To borrow and expropriate a phrase ‘Hendrix never meant shit to me.’ I personally never fell into that cult of his guitar genius, it’s not that I dislike him it’s just that I’m indifferent. This is mostly the same way I feel about grunge which was also well represented.

The Sci-Fi museum was a bit better but not much. I am not really a Sci-Fi fan and while I do enjoy say Red Dwarf and Dr. Who that is pretty much the sum total of my interest in the genre. There were some neat displays there as well, the best being on the comparative size of all the star ships from George Jetsons car to Star Trek and Star Wars and they even included the Red Dwarf and Starbug. They also had one of the cat’s costumes as well as the device that opened the parallel universe in series 8(wow that really sounds nerdy but Red Dwarf is a comedy). I was amazed at how much of it came from Paul Allen’s personal collection. I suppose that means he really is a geek at heart. I was a bit disappointed that there wasn’t anything on Dr. Who at all. I mean come on just one scarf or one Dalek, cut me some slack here.

We tried to get a late lunch/early supper at the Crocodile but no dice, it only opens for lunch. So I took a picture for Carly and left. The reason I wanted to go to the Croc was because it’s owned by Peter Bucks wife. Yep I’m that lame, I didn’t care that Nirvana played some uber secret gig there, that didn’t matter.

Decided in stead to do some very touristy things like Pikes Place Market, which was, well it’s a market not a lot should be expected by this. I also tried out the original Starbucks, which as far as tourist locations go was probably the most packed one I saw with in Seattle. It was pretty amazing to see and wonder how it ever became the power it is now.

On the whole Seattle is a fun town and I liked feeling like I was in a proper city again with a proper skyline and downtown core. I did really enjoy the sort of melancholy grays and rain that came along with Seattle as it is something I don’t get often around here.

The weather did leave something to be desired but what can you do. The only real snag was the 2 hour delay of my flight back to San Diego. I sat talking to a couple of girls who went to UCSD and managed to get a phone number out of the cute redheaded one amongst them. Granted getting in at 1:30 AM is no joy but I’ll live. Now to prepare for Mark’s visit on Saturday.

Getting over being the music kid in high school or my review of killing yourself to live

2006-11-06T19:55:00.000-08:00

There are a great many things that sound profound in childhood and early adolescence that you realize are absolutely worthless as you grow. Well, I’m not entirely certain everyone see’s these as worthless but at some point you should for the betterment of your mental development. There comes a point when being able to argue the finer merits of Pink Floyd’s ‘Piper at the Gates of Dawn’ seem like an embarrassingly futile if not endlessly childish. This point I believe happens when you get to the age where beer pong is no longer an acceptable athletic pursuit. Sadly not all of us reach a mental state where we are able to see Morrissey lyrics for just that and not some sort of transcendental act of depression caused by the weight of his genius. This seems to be the fate that has befallen Chuck Klosterman and his piece ‘Killing Yourself to Live”.

The novel itself is a rough take on a cross country trip he takes on while writing a piece for Spin Magazine in which he visits the locations where musicians have met their demise. The book is part ‘On the Road Again’ and part ‘Hi-Fidelity’ and sadly it is the worst parts of both. The work itself is basically an autobiography/confessional in which he unburdens his soul about past loves and childhood experiences.

The book careens recklessly between genres with the sort of deep identity crisis that normally befalls a schizophrenic. It’s not sure whether to be a road trip novel, music criticism, passenger seat psychology text or autobiography. Unfortunately it is all and none at the same time. Klosterman speaks with the sort of cocky self assurance of a high school newspaper editor who has just discovered ‘The Velvet Underground’ and is dying to show off how much more advanced he is for knowing them than anyone else he knows. One such painful passage is where he ambles on for a few pages describing in agonizing detail how Radiohead predicted the attacks of September 11th with their album ‘Kid A’. He pores over each track and relates them to a time during the attacks. It is the sort of sentiment that one has when trying to pick up a girl in college by explaining the note for note nuances of ‘The Birth of The Cool’ but not the fodder of journalists past the age of 25.

The hardest part of the novel is that you genuinely feel bad for Klosterman who even though he is generally a feckless narcissist of the worst and most exploitive kind, you know he can do better than this. You get the feeling the shadow of Nick Hornby looms large over him and he can’t get out from under it. He even tries to cop his writing style and cadence to lesser degrees of success, which is unfortunate because there are times when he truly shines on his own. Sadly it all feels like you are reading someone who used to be a great writer in college but never gained the maturity and authenticity to develop into a great writer in adult life. The sad part is I fear he will never realize that this is the case and keep writing for high school students with punk rock pins on their used leather jackets.

Griping about Alaska Air

2006-11-03T12:14:00.000-08:00

So I am going to Seattle next weekend to celebrate my birthday with Chris, Steve and Ian. I originally booked my ticket for Thursday night taking the Friday off to get more time puttering around Seattle. This was minutes before I heard of and found out I would be attending an exclusive Noel Gallagher and Gem Archer acustic set in LA on the Thursday night. There is no way I am missing Noel Gallagher the day after my birthday playing to a small crowd.

So I chose Alaska Air because they were one of the only airlines with direct flights to Seattle from San Diego. San Diego has a tiny runway and can barely handle the load it has being well undersized for the amount of traffic it receives. Anyways the flight was originally pretty reasonable at $314 return. So today I went to change the reservation and boy did I learn a lesson.

Firstly I booked through Expedia so I knew they would charge a fee to change the flight and I also knew that Alaska Air would charge yet another most likely $50 fee to change that flight as well. These all turned out to be true. However, what I also learned is that Alaska Air has a very strange system of calculating how much you owe. So they my original purchase price of $315 and subtracted it from the new roundtrip price of $435 (not taking into account that I was not changing the return leg of my flight) so add an additional $120 bringing the cost of changing this flight up to $200 and the total cost of the flight now $515, which I don't need to tell you is more expensive than I would have paid if I booked today.

So after hearing this I decided to see if I could just get a one way out there for cheaper and take my return home. I knew I was only going to save about $50 at most but it was the principal of the thing. So turns out the other flight was cheaper but unfortunately Alaska Air would have cancelled my flight on the return should I have missed the first one.

This sort of thing enrages me. Where is the customer protection here for your average person? This ensures I will never fly Alaska Air again.

Best Birthday present ever

2006-11-01T10:08:00.000-08:00

So I just received confirmation that on Thursday November 9th I will be one of 50 people who get to witness Noel and Gem from Oasis play an acustic set at the el rey in LA. At this point it should be a well known fact that I am an Oasis fan, I grew up in the 90's with Gallagher as a last name. I have seen the band no less than 12 times, including a 4,000 person intimate show at the start of their 'Don't Believe the Truth' tour at the Koolhaus in Toronto. This will however be the smallest show I have ever seen them play it also helps that it's the day after my birthday. I haven't been this truly excited about a show in ages.

Having a Lost in Translation moment

2006-10-24T10:03:00.000-07:00

If I had to sum up my entire time in California so far I think I could do it with one quote from Slapshot.

Denis Lemieux: Fuck. I lose my blouse.
Jim Ahern: Shirt... shirt.

I think it means you're Canadian if you understand that.

Shoot the runner fuck this town ... Kasabian in San Diego

2006-10-12T10:42:00.000-07:00

Kasabian in San Diego, well I suppose I need to write about this. Since I picked up their debut album after hearing 'ID' I was hooked. To my mind they are the best of the new Britpop crop (with the arctic monkeys coming a respectable second) and their new album 'Empire' while not as instantly infectious as their debut is a real grower in the truest sense of the word. Cuts like 'Shoot the runner', 'empire', 'doberman' and 'seek and destroy' are all brilliant in the same way 'club foot', 'processed beats' and 'reason is treason' were. Now that you're familiar with the back story I am sure you could all go for a bit of narative thrust here.

I have only seen Kasabian once in concert and that was at the KoolHaus back in Toronto, after they sold out their show at the Pheonix so fast it had to be bumped up to another venue to meet the demand. They were brilliant live putting down a blistering and energetic set. The crowd was well into it in Toronto and sang along with every song including an amazing response during 'Processed Beats'. Now let me say for the record I have no faith in San Diego music fans, since my time here they have been proven to be absolutely useless. This town is completely devoid of any sort of real musical movement or scene. I didn't expect much after what I had seen at Esthero, Arctic Monkeys or Massive Attack. So I wasn't at all surprised when I showed up to the house of blues (see George Carlins comments about this chain for an acurate articulation of what should happen to these places) to find that not only was the venue roughly the size of a postage stamp but it was also at best half full. That even got worse after the musical abomination that was the opening act Blue October left stage and took a sizeable chunk of the crowd with them. Not the worst thing in the world as it seemed to be mostly teenaged girls who left.

So I and my date put back a few drinks up on the balcony and just generally tried to to get trampled upon. The crowd was really surprising as I was the lone noticable eurotrash there. Not one mod, not a single britpoper or eurotrash to be spied in the whole crowd. Quite a bit of khakis and golf shirts though. After a short break the band took stage and I headed towards the front of the stage.

They opened with the explosive 'Shoot the Runner' which although not quite as good as 'ID' was a great way to get the show moving. The band was in rare form ripping through new and older material. I really can't complain although I think Tom had a bit too much fun saying San Diego. I would have liked to hear 'Butcher Blues' 'ID' and 'U Boat' but thats just me. The band was once again amazing but the crowd sucked. Then again I can't say why I would ever expect more from a show out here. San Diego continues to prove to be a cultural wasteland

Dante's Circles of Housemate hell ... or 'I have met the enemy and her name is Andrea'

2006-10-10T17:15:00.000-07:00

I have always heard horror stories about roommates from hell and I always found them to be a bit over drawn and hard to believe. That is of course until I moved in with Andrea the mid 30’s, unemployed paralegal from Dante’s third circle of hell. After the relatively short period of time I have been staying here (4 months) she has driven me to spend as little time at home or in contact with her as humanly possible.

Andrea is a dumpy looking thirty something who one can only visually describe as having the dress sense of a liberated Mennonite. She reminds me a bit of one of my grade school French teachers who gave off airs of being a spinster in that sort of fashion that she wore clothes that one might find for retiree’s in their early 70’s at JC Penny. Now this is not entirely true of Andrea, she does have a boyfriend, a creepy specter of a man who to borrow a phrase from Hemingway ‘had the look of an unsuccessful rapist’ although he is much more tolerable than her.

Andrea is the type of passive aggressive annoyance that makes my blood boil. She has taken up every available inch of storage space in the house with her tacky nick knacks and text books. It’s bloody infuriating, and it took my using the entire section of the counter in order for her to give me a second cupboard in the kitchen. She leaves a clothes drying rack in the kitchen I am convinced mostly to annoy me and make me feel like I am sharing a home with a group of early 1930’s American immigrants from ‘the old country’.

All of her available time seems to be devoted to getting caught up on every episode of The Cosby Show, Mad About You and Friends that have ever aired. She sits in front of the television all day and night at a rather infuriating interval. She manages to also use it when anyone else wants to watch it, not that Alex and I ever venture out of our rooms to watch it lest we have to endure a conversation with her or worse still smell her cooking. This woman has about all of the gastronomic sense of a decaying garbage heap. I have at 9 AM smelt her burning onions and on occasion cooking curry. Now make no mistake about it I love curry like few others who share my skin tone but before 9 AM is a disgusting abomination. But this should come as no surprise from a woman who finds Easy Mac with tuna and peas a delicious if not designer meal choice.

Now let us move on to the subject of cleanliness and other matters as presently that is what is annoying me. Andrea has always been suggesting I clean more but in her own passive aggressive sort of way. This is a strange fact as I am the only one who has seen fit to vacuum or mop a floor since I moved in. The fact remains they didn’t have a mop or broom when I moved in. Now this is no fault of Alex’s he keeps his things impeccable and never causes a mess. Andrea on the other hand is a walking disaster leaving piles of dishes next to the sink for days rather than putting them in the dishwasher.

Now Andrea has been unemployed for some time a fact that I doubt likely to change given that she spends every hour God sends watching terrible TV reruns, seriously people I am waiting to walk down the stairs and hear the Keatons any day now. So she came to me and told me she had planned out every day of her life for the next year and created cards and ordered them. So I looked and sure enough she had, hey whatever fine I mean for the sake of her parents I hope finding a job is on a couple of those cards. Anyways she then said ‘Now all I have to do is find a way for you and Alex to do some of these chores’. I walked away in disgust at this point having next to no interest in further discussing this matter with her. Firstly she called them chores and then had the nerve to talk down to me.

You can imagine my surprise when I walked downstairs this morning to get my morning cereal to find she had printed out a list of chores and tacked them onto the fridge with a date and sign off sheet as well as how often they should be performed. All of this smacked me a bit too much of a bathroom in a fucking Denny’s. Now I haven’t said anything but this is just the last straw. Should she mention anything to me I will drop the polite veneer I have been employing for the past few months and tell her straight up what I think of her and her list. I mean its bad enough I have to pretend to be on the phone every time I come in and out of the house so I don’t have to talk to her but this is too far way too far. I am going to start writing a sitcom soon it’s getting that bad, well maybe more of a murder mystery, well less mystery and more obvious case of who did it. I assure you Sherlock Holmes himself would be impressed at the thoughts I am having.

I am Canadian

2006-10-05T10:13:00.000-07:00

In the nearly 6 months I have been in California I can safely say I have done what I swore I never would, I have become more Canadian, well except for how I pronounce house and about. I suppose I have realised how much I miss Canada and specifically Toronto. I guess it was bound to happen I came here looking for a future and realised that it was back in Toronto, I suppose the grass is always greener.

It’s funny the things I have noticed about myself since moving here, I continually rip Americans about their pronunciation of the letter z (it’s pronounced zed), or why the Queens English was good enough for the founding fathers but not them (sad to say American English doesn’t exist, it doesn’t even qualify as a dialect). I have also bought and worn a Maple Leafs jersey in public which is something I never did while living in Canada, not one day in my life. I have also discovered that listening to the Tragically Hip is essentially the same as eating comfort food. Mike and Jenn concur with this one, having both never been Hip fans while in Canada but they are now. For example last night I absolutely could not miss the first Leafs game of the season and I had to listen to ‘Fifty-Mission Cap’ before the game.

We do all of these things to stand out, to prove if only to ourselves that we are not like the rest of you, we’re just here on vacation and I’d rather be a tourist than a resident. I intentionally make sure I don’t look like anyone else around here, I don’t dress like them, I refuse to act like them or bend to their mentality for life. Even if it means I feel like a walking Molson Commercial for my attitude I will not bend. Granted I’m not about to get a Maple Leaf tattooed on my arm or start actually trying to figure out why people watch the trailer park boys, but it’s comforting. I listen to Canadian radio, I watch Canadian tv online whenever possible and I read Canadian newspapers. Essentially I am in San Diego in location only.

Granted there are things I love about not being in Canada. The weather goes without saying and the lack of shoveling snow will be a big plus in a couple of weeks. Not having to endure a conservative government and that idiot Harper and his prairie dog cabinet is a plus, as well as not having to put up with that insufferable, white boy posturing as a journalist, fake George Strombo-lo-botomy.

Electronica that doesn't disappoint live or Daniel attends Massive Attack

2006-09-26T09:02:00.000-07:00

The art of going to a techno show is an interesting one. Now to your average fan of electronica you normally know what to expect. However, since the days of Moby, car commercials and movie soundtrack techno is now ubiquitous so there is a chance for the odd person to walk into a show and not know what to expect. This problem plagues the so called ‘titans of techno’ the most. How can Moby, The Chemical Brothers or Crystal Method recreate the pristine sounds of their records in a live space, especially when they are so heavily dependant on samples and guest vocalists?

Let’s face it our baseline for concerts is set by rock shows, where we pack around the stage and bask in the presence of our rock idols as much as we do enjoy the music. This is where techno throws a wrench into the works because by its very nature it is electronic and faceless; a DIY art form that is about the music and not the performers. This is how it started for most people with Kraftwerk blazing the trail of machines making music for people. I have seen Kraftwerk and to this day the approach stays the same, four impeccably dressed, older gentlemen standing in front of laptops programming their music in front of a live crowd to a backdrop of beautiful visuals. You can understand how this presents something of a problem for the rock fan that has no means to mosh or rock along with the tunes in the same usual fashion and the closer you get to the stage the less you gain from the performance.

By its very nature it is difficult to recreate your average electronic ‘song’ live because they are as multifaceted and complex as your average symphony. In order to create this live you basically need a few people twirling switches behind laptops which makes for a very boring show indeed. The groups I have seen that pull off the best live performances seem to make you feel like you are experiencing something live and make a connection to the audience. It is very easy to feel like you are simply listening to a tape while people mime behind computer screens.

For example Underworld have Karl Hyde out front singing and playing guitar from time to time, Prodigy have the vicious physical and lyrical assault of Maxim and Keith Flint running over the stage as well as Liams glowering from behind the belly of the beast, even Delirium when they toured employed two female vocalists to cover the body of their material. This merges the best aspects together and engages crowds that normally aren’t used to the icy cold approach.

Why bring all of this up you ask? Well the answer is very simple, this past week I finally got the privilege of seeing Massive Attack live. This was a group I was convinced I was never going to see. In fact they hadn’t been to Toronto since the “Mezzanine’ tour which I wasn’t able to attend being in high school. Although Mezzanine was one of the big albums that filled a spot in my past, I can even recall watching the now defunct Symphony of Fire from my Uncles old apartment in Mississauga while listening to Blue Lines (if you ever get a chance to hear Massive Attack soundtrack a fireworks display I suggest you give it a try its pretty fantastic if not a bit trippy). So when I heard they would be playing the musical wasteland of uncultured idiots that is San Diego I was excited.

The venue left a lot to be desired, it was essentially a concrete bomb shelter at SDSU, the only thing it had going for it was that it was open air. What you really want for a show like this is something with a lot of grass so the dancers can dance and sway about and you can just enjoy the show in your own fashion. The crowd was the sort of social outsiders you expect out here. A few Goths, some lost punks, American eagle trendies who read that ‘Mezzanine’ was an excellent album in Rolling Stone, techno hipsters and Eurotrash wearing clothes 5 years out of date. I won’t lie the Eurotrash attendants were hysterical, given that most of them hadn’t the bloody foggiest what the style even looks like.

If there is one thing you can always count on from a techno show its great visuals and Massive Attack did not disappoint. Although it took them awhile, they overcame the venue and a crowd with little to know exposure beyond ‘Angel’ and ‘Teardrop’ and won the day.

The equipped themselves with a group of the original performers of most of their songs and managed to exceed expectations. The best part for me was that they used Liz from the Cocteau Twins to perform all the vocals she has done on the album for the band. At one point after Angel a friend who had gone to the show with me turned to me and said ‘I’m really amazed at how well they did that’. He is also a techno fan and is aware of the many bitten and disappointed moments one has at these types of shows. But he hit the nail on the head. Massive Attack pulled off a flawless show and did not disappoint.

San Diego the mediocre

2006-09-18T11:25:00.000-07:00

If anything the last month in San Diego has been much harder than any since I moved here. This is my favourite time of year in Toronto and I can feel the pull of longing play on me. I have not only missed my friends cottage, a yearly retreat that is an excellent way to relax and reconnect with friends, I also missed the Toronto International Film Festival for the first time is six years, as well as the Canadian Opera Companies staging of Wagner’s Ring Cycle.

I was out on the beach getting ready to do some surfing with Michael the other day when he mentioned that because we hadn’t been to the beach in awhile he started to get bored of San Diego. This raises the point of San Diego and southern California in general. If it wasn’t for the weather and the beaches it wouldn’t be worth staying here at all. Remove the beaches from California and you’re living in Arizona. I think I have found that this is just not enough for me.

I know it seems like I heap a lot of scorn on San Diego for it’s lack of cultural interest but it’s true, and the saddest part of it all is that this city doesn’t seem to care. It feels as though this city is happy to have a beach and with that out of the way it has nothing to do with itself. San Diego is a town lacking a purpose and it seems very happy with this distinction. The citizenry of San Diego are more than happy to accept what little they have in the way of cultural relevance and just push forward.

In Toronto I was always hearing about architectural or cultural projects to make Toronto a world class city, San Diego seems to have no interest in this. Maybe this is better; the city has no delusions of grandeur it is content to play a clean if not boring vacation destination that feels no need to enter the pissing match that is the quest for international relevance. This is also a tragedy because it is things like this that make cities great and define them and their people.

I should be happy, I should enjoy this. I make very good money, I live in a clean and safe neighbourhood, the weather is fantastic all year round and there is hiking to be enjoyed everywhere. I suppose this is the great problem I expect more from life. I expect stimulation of some sort, or conflict, or a goal.

There is also one thing I have noticed about San Diego that really bothers me. The homogeneous nature of this town extends to the actions of the citizenry, no one wants to stand out or be proud of anything they are beyond Americans. The Mexicans who make up a large chunk of the population be they legal or otherwise seem to want top hide their heritage and culture. Even the ones I have met who are second and third generation keep that fact behind them like a personal shame. It’s terrible if not a little bit sad. One of the few times I have felt at home was when Michael and I went to eat at a South Indian restaurant and we were the only white people there. There was an unabashed showing of cultural pride, women were in saris and speaking Hindi, it was fantastic. This is what a city is to me and always will be. It is also why in my mind San Diego will never be anything more than a clean and safe if not boring tourist destination.

Sad to be Canadian .... again

2006-09-12T09:28:00.000-07:00

One can only suppose this picture is less embarrassing for Peter McKay than his most memorable publicity stunt which included a one day flight out to PEI or Newfoundland or where ever the hell he’s from to dig potatoes on his family farm and cry to the media about being dumped. How can anyone take this man seriously when he is most famous for getting dumped by Belinda Stronach and not for his work in parliament? Personally, and I say this as a man, Peter McKay is a pussy and an embarrassment. God forbid he ever becomes prime minister then we would constantly have to worry about this sniveling dimwitted pussy running the office. Yes I said it and yes he is. If waging a war for sympathy in the media includes putting on a pair of Wellington boots and some old overalls and leaning over the fence to tell the CBC how broken up he is about getting dumped then I think pussy fits the tag line. God forbid we forget his first act of political genius which was folding the Conservative party into the Alliance after signing a document swearing he would not do this, so we know where his values are.

If it is of any consolation to me it is that I know when I return to Canada the Conservative Party will no longer be in power. I think the ‘winds of change’ that blew Harper and his motley crew of anti-intellectuals and bored prairie housewives into power have already switched on him. Watching his trip to Washington on CSPAN a few months ago I was forced to try and keep my lunch down as I watched him cow tow to Bush and basically see how far up Dubya’s ass he could get his tongue while keeping his pants on. I will give it one thing though, I didn’t know that Bush was such a skillful ventriloquist; I actually believe I saw him taking sips of water when Harper spoke. Hats off to him for that one.

Yet another snobbish restaurant review

2006-09-04T06:09:00.000-07:00

Ever since arriving in San Diego I have been on the search for new and interesting food and restaurants that do different versions of the favourites I have enjoyed back home. This has been a touch problematic as the food in California is considered by most gastronomes to be what you scrape off your shoe after walking through a dog park. Either way I thought it would be worth trying out. I am now in a much higher tax bracket, which affords me a few additional luxuries. So far the results have been mixed. While the Mexican food has been fantastic, with Fidel’s in Solana Beach clearly leading the way, there are only so many times in a day when I crave authentic Mexican food. I also don’t feel that in general it is a very broad cuisine.

Saturday night we went to the Wine Sellar and Brasserie. We have gone to the Wine Sellar very frequently but most for wine tasting on Sundays and picking up a few choice bottles of wine. The staff has always been phenomenally helpful and have rarely steered us wrong. As a result I am finding myself becoming something of a wine snob. They have yet to really steer me wrong and I have enjoyed quite a few tasty wines as a result.

Now Michael and Jennifer had told me that the Brasserie portion was something of a French restaurant. This had me very excited as I had yet to eat at a French restaurant since arriving here and I love French cuisine. This was not something I held out a lot of hope for finding in San Diego as no one here truly takes food seriously. But trusting to my friends and the reputation they had built by my experience I was excited to try it out.

The restaurant itself is actually above the wine shop and you walk directly through the shop to get to it. Michael picked up a bottle downstairs to bring upstairs. I don’t remember the name of it but it was of an upper range of white wine and quite enjoyable. The setting itself is posh if not slightly dated. Brass accents and frosted glass should give you an idea of what I meant.

We were quickly seated and our host managed to find a chilled bottle for us. The menu is limited which is always a welcome sign, it means they have determined what they do very well and limited the menu to fit only that. There were a few options on the menu the piqued my interest but I think it was always clear that the filet mignon was always on the list. With a cut like a filet mignon you always order it rare so that the superior cut of meet is allowed to stand alone on your pallet. I also ordered the summer squash ravioli. Michael and Jennifer are always limited when easting out as it is very hard to find a lot of kosher options but luckily they seem to manage.

My first course the ravioli arrived. The presentation was well done. The flavour of the ravioli seemed to be buried too much in butter and salt, which is unfortunate because it ruined the natural contrast of flavours. It was not entirely without merit but I think the most disappointing part of this was the fact that it could have been easily improved by simply limiting the amount of butter and salt put in the meal.

The second course made it to our table very shortly after we had finished. The pacing of the meal was kept brisk without feeling rushed, which I appreciated. My filet arrived sitting on a medallion of potatoes and caramelized onions, surrounded by gravy. The filet was perfectly prepared and the cut was perfect. The meet melted like butter in my mouth. The medallion was very nice and quite a compliment to the filet. The gravy was again a little bit more salty than I would have liked but on the whole not exactly terrible.

In the final analysis a meal is roughly $50 a person and up. The food itself is good but lacks the artistry of an excellent restaurant. However, there is something to be said for safe restaurants in San Diego where there are so few to be had in the first place.

I'll find a day to massacre them all …. Or Daniel attends Shakespeare in San Diego

2006-08-28T11:20:00.000-07:00

Now this story does require some background information. The first of which needs to be the explaining of the special place in my heart that Shakespeare’s “Titus Andronicus”. At some point during high school my parents gave me a compendium of Shakespeare’s works, it seemed fitting since even then I was something of a literary elitist (reading the better part of Hemingway’s cannon will do this to a young man). So as I decided which play to read first I skinned the contents of this very large volume and came upon ‘Titus Andronicus’. Now this to me looked like a good place to start, I had never heard of this play much less knew anyone who had ever read it. Even at a young age I realized it was impossible to know everything so one must esoterically select the works one reads in a fashion that leaves most people with little to say on the matter. The play was wonderful especially in the mind of a teenage boy, murder, death, rape and all manner of villainy afoot. This is what Shakespeare had been lacking during the ‘A midsummer nights dream’ years the sort of potent tragedy that ends with the lead feeding the villains in pie form back to their parents, now this my friends is Shakespeare for the everyman if not the NASCAR fan.

My interest in the play blossomed further with Julie Taymores’ amazing film rendition ‘Titus’. The cast could not have been better assembled with Anthony Hopkins in the title role, Jessica Lange as Tamora, and Harry Lennix as Aaron. The rest of the cast was filled out with other fine actors like Colm Feore, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Angus Macfadyen and Alan Cumming. The film was beautifully executed and lovingly kept to the script. I have to say that while some of the staging was over the top it was done with great aplomb. While I do have friends who dislike the staging and costume design of the film the one thing we can all agree on is how fantastic the acting performances are in this film. This brings me to another point regarding Shakespeare; his plays require nothing but good acting to succeed. A Shakespearian play can be staged with no more than a cast of capable actors and sufficient stage space for them to move about. They do not need costumes or props, Shakespeare is written for the virtuoso performer, one who can blend stage and scene together as one. The worst thing that has ever been suffered upon modern Shakespeare performances has been the ‘clever’ director, one that feels the need to ‘embellish’ or modernize the production. Most of these end poorly because the director over reaches their grasp and falls flat on their face after missing the context of the event rather wide. Keep this point in mind; I’ll get back to it.

Now I also have fears about San Diego which is, and I speak plainly, woefully uncultured. Now it is possible that I have been spoiled by living in Toronto so long and from an early age having relatives who were more than willing to drag me around from art gallery, to museum, to film festival and eating some of the fantastic ethnic food Toronto has to offer along the way. It’s not that I’m a snob per se it’s more that I have a higher standard because I am used to much more. San Diego is not a cultured town and I suspect it has something to do with the beaches. The beach seems to suck everyone’s will and bend it to its’ own. The pace of life moves slower, it seems, the better the weather gets. San Diego has a wonderful park that masquerades as a cultural center but the truth is Balboa Park is what you walk through on your way to the zoo. There are no significant museums or art galleries in this town. This may be part of the reason for my interest in leaving the city as soon as humanly possible.

Now with all this in mind Michael, Jennifer and I went to see Titus Andronicus last Thursday at the Old Globe Theatre in Balboa Park. Now the theatre itself is open air which made me curious as the park itself is right in the flight path of the airport, but one assumes that these sorts of things are taken care of. Also the theatre is very close to the zoo and judging from the noises it is specifically close to the gorillas. The stage was set simply which gave me some hope as to the nature of the performance. I was to be greatly disappointed. Let me first begin by taking issue with the costuming. The characters were dressed to look like modern day power brokers and Saturninus was clearly dressed to look like George W Bush. Now like I have said in the past I am no great fan of his but, I feel that this sort of costuming is a neon sign stating ‘get your cultural relevance here’. It’s tacky and embarrassing and offers all of the mature direction that one would expect from the local high schools socialist players club.

My issues with the direction of the play go well beyond the costuming; in fact they extended to the entire length of the performance. The play is very bloody and violent that’s simply the nature of it. This director decided to play all of the dark scenes for laughs. Now I am open to some interpretation but playing ‘Teddy Bears Picnic’ during the rape of Lavinia is beyond distasteful it is in it’s most basic nature grotesque, yet he did not stop there with his amateurish lampooning of the play he furthered it with playing ‘I Wanna Hold Your hand’ while Titus cuts off his own head in an attempt to save the lives of his two sons. There wasn’t a serious moment in the play that he didn’t not attempt to add some sort of Loony Tunes-esque comedy to, to the point were I was wondering who was going to die via an Acme anvil. I’m surprised he didn’t go further I mean once you have decided to pillage a play why not go the whole way with it. Wouldn’t it have been much funnier of Lavinia held up signs with ‘Oh No!’ or ‘Ouch!’ written on them like the Roadrunner? Surely this would appease this barbarian of a director, who can rest safely in the knowledge that were there enough of Shakespeare bones remaining to spin in the grave they surely would. Oh but wait he did do that didn’t he? He had poor Lavinia now handless and tongue less yell ‘Hello!’ in the manner of a petulant and ignored 12 year old wanting for attention. Yes your two syllable addition to Shakespeare’s great work was highly appreciated.

The less said of the act the better, I have never seen so many people miss wide of the mark of Iambic pentameter. Now I had always assumed that speaking in this way was something that one learned in High School if not sooner. Instead of doing this properly the actors seemed to think that impersonating William Shatners speech patterns was enough. Now there were two truly gifted actors who stood out as being up to the task of reverently performing Shakespeare. Owiso Odera aptly handled Aaron with a good amount of spite and malice suitable to the character even if he did have to play most of his scenes for gags. He was no Harry Lennix but I did not expect him to be and he shone over a mediocre cast. Charles Janasz also had an excellent turn as Marcus and seemed to be the only one amongst the cast who took the part seriously.

On the whole this performance was a reprehensible waste of money and time, though thankfully not talent. As a director Darko Tresnjak seemed to be of the impression that he was much more clever than his own execution seemed to be. He attempts to add comical layers which only have the effect of making him seem like he is above the bard and is mocking his own work. Clearly this man is either delusional or ill adept to handle Shakespeare.

On the whole this has given me yet another reason to want to get out of San Diego as fast as humanly possible.

Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much

2006-08-24T10:08:00.000-07:00

You know it’s strange the way the internet works, you make one post about a small satirical experience at a nude beach and suddenly you get hundreds of visitors. Somewhere during the course of all of this I became a topic of conversation at Full Disklosure. Not entirely sure how that happened but it has seemed to draw a lot of light on this post. I made this post purely out of a frustration I had been feeling with Canada for quite some time, long before my move here. How anyone ever stumbled upon this tiny post at some far corner of the internet is beyond me but it is funny the sort of furor it seemed to ignite with a good number of the blog happy arm chair politicians amongst us.

Now I don’t mind the torrent of insults which were rained down upon me, I have been called much worse by far better people. Although I do love the conclusions people have jumped to based on one entry I made a few weeks ago and it is further proof of the sort of thing I was talking about. Without any further reading an assumption was made about me and my politics, which is fine but also comical. Now normally I would address these insults and slights personally but instead I will forgive these little people for what they said. I don’t blame them for having strong opinions in fact I encourage it, unfortunately theirs is sadly misdirected.

As for my politics I thought that it would be useful to explain a few things and further broaden my point about this. I have been accused of many things, and a few of them have been correct but others mostly amusing in how far they are off the mark. Some of the reviewers basically stated that I was a traitor to my own cause being Canadian and all. This concept in and of itself is funny, mostly because Canadians are always preaching their tolerance and understanding of diversity, I suppose not so much when the political view doesn’t match their own. So let’s get the basic facts out of the way so we can move forward.

1) I’m a card carrying member of the Liberal Party. I am a party man and always will be. I find the diverse range of thoughts and ideas that come together under the Liberal banner. Granted this does not mean I will toe the party line at all costs. I believe in the value of my own opinions and quite often find myself sitting on the outside of my own parties’ ideas or policy initiatives.

2) I did not support the war in Iraq. I do not support globalised military action or the military industrial complex. However, I also believe that we can not pull out now. We as a planet now owe the people of Iraq some sort of future as we have shaken up their past and present. Does this mean I think the troops should remain, yes? I believe it is criminally near sighted to suggest that now because we have lost our appetite for this war that we should pull out and leave the people of Iraq in the lurch in what was essentially a power vacuum. As the English how this worked out the first time they attempted to install their leader in Iraq. I feel that there is still a cost the first world has to pay for this war and we have yet to pay it. As for those who tell me about the cost in lives of all of this, that is true there is a real human toll in all of this. It is regrettable that people will die because of a war started on specious grounds but we owe the Iraq people more than simply abandoning them. Is there something to the idea that Bin Laden wants troops out almost as badly as the left does? Of course there is that sort of turmoil will allow the warlords and fanatical groups to fester and grow stronger, once again taking the country back from the majority of Iraqi’s.

3) I do not support Bush. I don’t know how clearly I need to explain all of this. I do not support his policies or the man himself. I do however; show him the courtesy of a democratically elected President of a free country. I see no need to insult the mans intelligence or his beliefs as it insults those who voted for him. Beyond that I find it to be petty and childish to discuss issues that do not concern his job as President. I think more people need to show this consideration as well. Now if you want to attack his policy decision by all means do so. I think the Iraq Invasion was poorly planned, ill conceived, and worst of all based upon a calculated pretext of lies. I can not speak for whether he himself was lied to in all of this, that I am uncertain of but either way he put those people in roles and selected them so ultimately the responsibility is his and his alone.

Now as for being antiCanadian that may well be true. I may be long sick of the sort of armchair academic approach that I had thrown back at me. This is the sort of passive aggressive and willfully moronic response that is sadly all too common. What happened to the level of discourse amongst people or does the internet simply bring out people in their most base form, angry snarling dogs.

Now that I am done with this I can return to mostly updating this blog for my family and friends back home who wish to know that I am still alive.

Adventures in surfing ... and naked beaches

2006-08-21T15:21:00.000-07:00

So I have been taking it easy the last little while. Michael and I have begun a relatively intensive workout regime coming up to his wedding next fall. Lets be honest no one wants to look terrible in wedding photos and those things last forever. Even his fiancée Jenn is thinking of bleaching her teeth and has been working out a lot more in preparation. The fact of the matter remains that both of them are in amazing shape in the first place. Jennifer enjoys a models figure without having to limit her diet at all and Michael’s borderline vegetarian diet due to allergies and the riggers of a kosher diet have kept him very lean. Either way though everyone wants to look their best so I don’t blame them at all. Michael and I have been working out after work at the Qualcomm gym, as it is free for him and I just follow behind him so it’s gratis for me as well.

Now I used to go to the gym fairly frequently and I loved it. I loved the increased flexibility in my joints and general improvement of my physical health. The problem is once you get out of the habit its brutal getting back to it. Not that I’m telling you anything you don’t know mind you. However, I forgot how much time had lapsed since my last series of gym visits. So upon resuming my workout schedule I decided to lift 20% lower than what I had been lifting a good 7 months ago. Turns out that number was a bit too optimistic. Now anyone who has ever tried to get back into weight lifting knows there is a certain amount of pain involved with this endeavor, but as a man you can shrug it off and chalk it up to the sort of problems one is supposed to have whilst becoming all manly and masculine. Unfortunately I really over did it, and couldn’t unbend my arms for two or so days straight. This was a tad embarrassing and what made it worse was the first time it had happened when Justin and I started working out at the gym at the YMCA back in high school. Luckily this time it wasn’t nearly as bad or as cripplingly embarrassing but it didn’t exactly make me feel good. Finding myself struggling to curl 35 pounds was a wholly emasculating experience.

Due largely to these aches and pains we had neglected surfing for the week. Well Sunday rolled around and it was getting on past 3 and it was decided as per usual that it was time to get some surfing in. We have yet to get to a beach for 4 on a weekend for reasons neither of us can figure out. Luckily we decided that we would just body surf and thus save us on lugging heavy recreational implements around with us. It was also decided that we were going to go to Blacks Beach. Now we had been before when Steve was here and the waves were amazing. The hike was a bit daunting but Michael said he had found and easier climb. One of the main problems with getting to Blacks is that there is no road access to the beach well that and there is a ten storey cliff that one needs to hike down in order to get to the beach. Now past experience had taught us that the waves were worth it. The last visit gave us some amazing left handed breaks and clear crisp water with few people on the beach. However, we did know that there was a nude beach somewhere in the general area, although not having seen it or any evidence of it we assumed it was a small cluster hidden away somewhere.

So this particular journey we decided to park at the San Diego Glider Port. This is really neat just watching people on gliders and parachutes jumping off the side of a fairly sizeable cliff. A bit crazy sure but it awakens the 12 year old boy in me who is amazed by these stupid risks. The hike down seemed shorter from the top but soon upon beginning the descent we noticed that it was much more challenging than it looked. Large portions of it had been eroded leading to 3 foot drops between steps and oddly winding uphills. The trail seemed to be fairly packed which gave me some hope that the waves would be decent.

Now let me make this clear I hold no delusions about nudist beaches. There isn’t even one sliver of hope that nude beaches would at all look like a girl’s gone wild video. I would like to consider myself a fairly rational man in this matter. I honestly didn’t expect to be surrounded by nubile frolicking women in their early 20’s. My real expectations were more akin to large amounts of gay men and a few European minded families. I also wasn’t sure if we would end up in the middle of the nude beach given the amount of families we saw ascending the stairs as we headed down. But in the back of my mind I had the feeling that we had dodged it before and were thusly due for it this time.

Well sadly my hunch proved to be correct. The second we came upon the beach we were greeted by a topless woman in her mid 20’s playing Frisbee with some friends. This I thought was a promising sign. Alas, it would prove to be the exception and not the rule. The second Mike, Jenn and I lay our towels down and got ready to soak in some rays before we headed out to catch a few waves we realized we were completely surrounded, mostly by older single men. Now I would like to think that I am a fairly open and understanding person about this whole experience and that my mind has evolved past giggling at the mention of the word penis in sixth grade sex ed. And while for the most part it has there still remains a certain sense of juvenile hilarity at the sight of so much unwanted nudity. Laughing helps you get through the initial shock of being surrounded by a good share of people you would never want to see naked on your worst day. Apparently when gravity starts to pull so dissolves the urge to keep your clothes on.

Now if this behaviour were limited to people simply enjoying the feeling of being naked in the outdoors I could probably understand it. I mean I am willing to accept that the internet, strip clubs and my relatively good taste in women does not by any stretch hold true for the rest of humanity. Sure I have seen mostly only attractive people naked so I was bound to in my time see a few unattractive and if it had to be on a public beach rather than in my bed after a night of enthusiastic drinking then so much the better. However, there were certain behaviours that take place on a nudist beach that prove to some extent it is about showing off even more so than straight beaches.

On your average clothes beach you will not find nearly as man single men. Most men come in groups and even in San Diego and places like Pacific Beach and Ocean Beach where the intention is to cruise for members of the opposite sex it seems less predatory. The lone naked man who gravity seems to have quite literally ‘by the balls’ strutting up and down the beach is a disturbing image at best. Now this sort of behaviour would be strange at a normal beach and raise parents’ suspicions, it has the same effect at a nude beach. So does jogging naked. Regardless of your sex or age jogging naked seems to be a painful experience one that I would never wish to attempt on my own. Something just felt off about the whole place.

Michael and I decided to man up about the situation and head into the water. I mean surely we have witnessed in our time many naked members of the same sex in gym showers and nothing seems out of place so we have to be mature about this. This of course means that one has to man up sufficiently enough to get in the cold water. For some reason the water was colder than usual yesterday, not that it changed our reaction. Each time, just before dipping our first toes in the ocean the usual banter takes place.

Daniel: So are we going to be men about it this time?
Michael: We haven’t every other time.
Daniel: Fair point
*commence shivering and screaming like little girls at the water temperature*

This happens each and every time we get into the ocean and there is nothing that can be done for it, it just seems to be inevitable. So we waded out into the water and inevitably into a small kelp forest. Look I am perfectly aware that there is all manner of vegetable, animal and mineral exist in the ocean. But there is something really disgusting about walking through the wet salad that is a submerged kelp forest. There is also a disconcerting feeling when after freshly stepping down you feel a slimy writhing underfoot, occasionally it swims away and other times you just slide on it. Either way not the best feeling. The waves themselves were mediocre to subpar at best and I was getting annoyed waiting to catch these tiny waves. Michael was growing tired of it to but became even wearier of it after we were joined by naked body surfers. Now let me quickly detour to explain the etiquette of surfing or body boarding. The basic nature of this is that we all wait out in the same area waiting for waves to break. We wait just behind the imagined break line and hope for a decent wave, one that we can get enough jump time on a paddle up to catch. This requires a large portion of time spent next to your fellow surfer. In body boarding the issue is a little different as multiple people can catch the same wave, many more than when one is surfing. So on a busy day you may end up body surfing next to three or four people in close proximity. Well this is where the problem of naked body surfing rears its’ ugly head. As you spend most of your time lying down on the board waiting for a wave you essentially see a lot of naked ass. I could tell Michael was getting tired of it after almost having bumped into said unprotected ass a few times. Mercifully I went wide and stayed out of range of this spectacle. After a few jokes to Michael and warnings ‘don’t look into the eye’ we were done for the day. We packed up and headed out all feeling a little dirtier for our efforts.

A few aerial shots of the cliffs overlooking Blacks

The view from space thanks to google earth and mspaint

pictures of the hike stolen from the net

not exactly inviting

don't know who this dude is, like i said i stole this

Friday Quotes

2006-08-18T12:28:00.000-07:00

So Bobbys dog got bit on the balls which led to an entire series of to crude to be posted quotes. Although today I get the quote for this one;

Me - Wait how did we get from Kraft Mac & Cheese to anal beads?

We also had a conversation about why you always see people shaving accross their jaw is razor commercials. I asked the guys and none of us have ever shaved that way so I am trying to determine exactly who does this.

Back on the ranch

2006-08-16T23:03:00.000-07:00

Well I have been less than diligent about writing in my blog. Times have become exceedingly busy at work and it has become all consuming of most of my free time and energy.

We are currently in the process of moving to a remote office situation using a collocation site to house all of our servers. So we decided to add a series of wrinkles to the whole plan by deciding that we should migrate to a new domain, phone system and crm. So it hasn’t been easy.

The new phone system we are getting from my old company back in Canada, the entire thing is web enabled which is quite nice and should make life much easier than having to move to a Packet8 solution or the like. The really glorious thing about this is that it frees myself and the other coworkers up to be much more mobile about where we work. My current boss loves the idea also having a massive cost savings attached to it isn’t half bad either.

Microsoft CRM has also been really usefull, so has having a bestmate who happens to be a developer on the product. So installed and squared away mercifully. Unfortunately I did realize a snag I had not anticipated which was that I had installed Microsoft SBS on the machine. However, as the machine is not set to be my primary domain controller it shuts down every 4 hours or so as per Microsofts eula. Lovely, this should be remedied within the week.

So off the geeky matters and on to real life. The waves have been miserable the last week or so as we are enjoying some interesting ‘fall like’ weather. This is clearly a euphemism as in San Diego we don’t really have weather. The sway of temperature from winter to summer is roughly 15 degrees so not much can be made of any real changes.

The sort of flux at work has freed me up to write a lot more now when I have free time. This has resulted in an artistic output on pace with when I was writing in High School, my only wish is that it was at the same caliber, but alas it is not to be.

I have also been toying around with the idea of moving to New York City in a year. Right now it is nothing more than a passing fancy. However, I would love to live in NYC and get through that experience as well while I am young. I haven’t discussed this with my boss or anyone, although I do not imagine it being too much bother as we will have all been working remotely for quite some time by then.

In other news I am missing the cottage with the Lavers and the rest of the gang for the first time in years. I will miss the cottage greatly as it is a fantastic source of relaxation and time to connect with your friends. Not having road access seems to slow down the pace of life greatly almost to the point where it hardly passes at all. Next year though I swear that I will be in attendance. Have a blast without me boys and do my share of drinking.

Bloody Canadians

2006-08-10T10:49:00.000-07:00

OK I was listening to the CBC and reminded of why I'm not in Canada anymore. I am sick and tired of the American bashing, constant self righteous, 'we're better than you', worlds peace keepers, everything is part of the American Propaganda machine rhetoric that I dont have any time for. I am fucking sick and tired of the geopolitical arm chair politicing that goes on in canada, the looney left seems to be looking to criticise everyone but themselves for everything first. The NDP and the radical left back home annoy the shit out of me and it bothers me even more that they have standing in my party.

Matthew and I were having this conversation this week. Canadians are ignorant as a whole. We are not some great peace keeping nation that we like to pride ourselves on being and finally this reality is dropping. I think most Canadians are desperately in denial about our place in the world. we are not the world's protectorate, we are not a bastian of free rights (for this to happen we'd actually have to do something, which we don't seem inclined to do at all), we are not a super power. What we are increasingly becoming is a low rent France without the history. We bitch and snipe about the rest of the world yet forget the problems we have ourselves.

Look I'm a Liberal and will be until I die but this has to stop. I was opposed to the war but it's happened and we have to move forward we have to help the Iraqi's get ahead and if anyone thinks that pulling up stakes is going to help well then they're simply wrong, you stay until the job is finished. Show me one person who didn't think Saddam needed to be gotten rid of, just one. What we argue about is the terms of how it was done. Either way its done, and we cannot keep talking about it. Why are we so intent to dwell on the past, how many times have you heard Canadians discuss or joke about how 'we' burned the white house in 1812? first reminder it was the Brits not 'us' at all and the war was a draw with no decisive victory on either side.

Canada is a great country with honest good people and a real future, I just wish we could as a nation get over our penis envy with America and move forward it does us no good.

Strange Search Results

2006-08-03T08:28:00.000-07:00

So I have found that you can get to my blog via some truly bizarre search routes on Google. I also found them so funny I thought I would share a few of them.

The New York Dolls
Hate Jose Mourinho
Who the hell can afford Ralph Lauren (this ones my personal favourite)
Geopolitics in Switzerland (I don't even remotely understand this one)
Michael Rooney Torrey Pines
Cristiano Ronaldo faux hawk
Reason for Zidanes red card
pictures for toti the italian football player(this leads me to believe people don't know how to search at all)
Engurland
Pictures of Toronto Portugese Soccer fans on the streets 2006(yep thats how to turn a run on sentence into search criteria)
Come on you boys in green song

The odd thing is that there is no chance you would ever find me if you looked for me here. I mean you could sift through google pages for days after sreaching for Daniel Gallagher and never find me. In some ways I really like that because it gives me the freedom to write with impunity. Though my family reads this space they don't do it often so I am fairly free to write what I want. Although it would be sort of interesting for someone I knew years ago on say the red board at nin.com to be able to find me if they were so inclined, but alas those were the old days.

Currently I have been listening to a lot of Bowie. This song is really well secured in my head at the moment.

Crash Different

2006-08-02T09:21:00.000-07:00

Did a little surfing yesterday after work with Michael. The waves at Torrey Pines were 6 - 10 feet. This is insane for this time of year and the location. We both left battered and bruised but we enjoyed our time. I was sent on a few spin cycles after getting crushed by some 8 foot waves. Still it was fantastic.

I have to return my Mac at some point. This over priced paper weight seems to crash without the slightest hesitation and take 10 tries to fully boot without crashing. This isnt a virus I can assure you, it's terrible hardware.

street scene

2006-08-01T12:48:00.000-07:00

So this weekend is street scene and I am quite excited now that a few key additions and subtractions have been made to the line up for Saturday. I have no interest in going Friday. Now my main problem is that the shins and the new york dolls are playing at the same time. Fuck it i'll see the dolls. I mean why can't one of them play at the same time as tool. I have no time for their prog rock wankery, watered down less talented version of Rush anyways. Oh good I can see the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and skip Tool. So here is the stages and lineups for Saturday, I've bolded the ones I'm going to see.

Zarabanda Stage

Tool 10:30 - 12:00
My Chemical Romance 9:00 - 10:00
New York Dolls 7:30 - 8:30
Subways 6:00 - 7:00
Tapes N' Tapes 4:30 - 5:30
Margot and the nuclear so and sos 3:30 - 4:10

Fulano Stage

MEW 8:15 - 9:30
Ska Cubano 6:30 - 7:45
West Indian Girl 5:00 - 6:00
Dirty on Purpose 4:00 - 4:40

Time Warner

Yeah Yeah Yeahs 10:30 - 11:45
Bloc Party 9:00 - 10:00
The Shins 7:30 - 8:30
Editors 6:00 - 7:00
The Futureheads 4:30 - 5:30

Captain Morgan Stage (i'm done with the formatting)

Snoop Dogg
Sean Paul
Bedouin Soundclash
G Love and special sauce
donovan frankenrietter

Also I will be seeing John Foggerty at embarcadero. Embarcadero is in a cove out on the bay its a really wild venue this

Friday Quotes

2006-07-28T09:15:00.000-07:00

Fridays are the best days for quotes than other days.

Bobby: Dan Adam you know about my Condoleeza Rice fetish
Me: Dear God
Adam: I didn't need that!
Bobby: So if you ever find her panties on Ebay I'll buy them, I'd sniff them.(he was laughing this was at least partially joking)
Me: Dude, they're boxer briefs!

From a totally seperate conversation about Conrad being late, and Stuart had joked he was out partying, somehow we got into our heads that he was at a rave.

Me: Can you picture Conrad out there with the glow sticks?
Bobby: No not unless they were made of suasage
Bobby: I can sort of picture him at a rave in a giant oscar meyer weiner suit.

Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition

2006-07-27T11:17:00.000-07:00

This is one of those days when I need humour more than anything else. Steve the sales manager and all around solid guy is in town and I am trying to get the CRM installed this week to review it with him. Unfortunately I am very popular. I am currently on the phone with a customer who requires an extraordinary amount of hand holding its disturbing to think she runs the network at a large company. I mean this is moronic. It's just been a annoyingly weird week and painfull in a lot of ways painfully strange. I would explain the weird ebay story i have that involved being threatened with a law suit only to have his employee calling me in tears to beg me to remove my negative comment, but I'm just to exhausted from it to go into further detail. I also will have a post of some substance for tomorrow. But today there was a Spanish Inquisition quip which kept me from hurling myself over a bridge.

“NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency.... Our *three* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency...and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.... Our *four*...no... *Amongst* our weapons.... Amongst our weaponry...are such elements as fear, surprise.... I'll come in again.”

Le Weekend

2006-07-24T09:12:00.000-07:00

So Steve got in around 11 on Friday, we shot the shit and played a quick game of settlers, a quick game that I won and then swam some laps in the Qualcomm pool. It was good just shooting the shit and you forget how close you are with your friends until you don’t see them for 3 months. Steve also brought me my new copy of Mac Office:Pro. Thank God for his Microsoft discount it came in at $70 and included on top of the usual office suite a copy of Virtual Pc for Mac and Windows XP Pro. Really sweet deal because all told that package is $450.

Saturday we got up early and decided to head downtown for Comicon. I’m not really a fan of the geek arts but there was a big Simpsons display and Ray Bradbury was speaking. Plus I do have a semi geeky connection to his novel “I Sing the Body Electric”, 10 points if you know why. The lineup to get in took an hour and a half and was over a mile long. Add to this the fact that it was roughly 110 degrees downtown so we decided to skip it. We took Steve around Seaport Village and past the midway and back home. Home included a quick change of clothes and then off to the beach for some body surfing. Steve was a natural and caught his first wave. That night it was off to Fidels for dinner and then back home for a surprise anniversary party for Mike and Jenn. MMM Extraordinary Desserts white chocolate cake yum yum.

Sunday we got a late start on the day, headed to IHOP and had breakfast. Steve had to fly out of Santa Ana so we didn’t have much time knowing he would have to leave around 5. So we decided to hit up La Jolla cove to do some swimming with leopard sharks. It was too packed so we decided against it. However, we did have the boards in the car so we headed to Black beach to see what the waves were like. I had heard a lot about Blacks Beach mostly from surfers. There is something about the massive size of the waves there as well as the fact that it is very secluded. It requires a 15 minutes walk down the side of a very steep path to get to. The beach itself is lovely and the waves are amazing. We didn’t have much time so we caught a few waves and hiked out. The hike is a disgusting vertical incline which really exhausts you after any amount of surfing.

Steve left for the airport and I went home to shower. Mike, Jenn, Steph and I decided to head to Solana Beach for some sushi at Nobu. It was the best I’ve had since I got out here.

Here are some pictures of my bedroom.

my bed and my biggest moment of buyers remorse sitting on top of it. For the record I have named the new laptop 'rosebud'. i know its unorigional as hell

bookcase that mostly holds anything but books and largely my beauty care products like the assortment of designer colognes I have. you can also kinda sorta see my orchids.

Insert desk here

hallway and yes thats my beach towel. the beach is a life sucking force i spend all of my time trying to get there

please note the small ass size of my closet. when i cam down here i only brought three weeks worth of clothes, now with rebuying the damned things almost full again

Culture of Entitlement

2006-07-20T11:07:00.000-07:00

The last few days have been fairly uneventful, just going through the motions more or less. I have also found out that my old company isn’t doing so well. A former coworker of mine told me this, and although it makes me grateful I left when I did I am also very sad to hear of it. Although my old boss and I fought constantly while we worked we got along very well outside the office and still do to this day. Also I was with that company 4 ½ years so I do feel a sense of loyalty to them that may be unwarranted. Still you never wish that someone loses their livelihood, it’s a terrible thing.

Moving along I was reading these statistics published by the San Diego Housing Commission. It’s interesting in that it lists the actual median cost for a home in San Diego at over $500,000, compared to real wages and household income being somewhere around $66,000 yearly. The report estimates that household income needed to afford a house at the median range in San Diego is $133,000 give or take. Now this is just staggering when you try to imagine how difficult it is to start a family or stay here.

The report also mentions a rather staggering thought that of all new homes being built the vast majority of them are higher end or luxury homes. How much longer can you mortgage your future to look flashy today? Hell people can barely afford the homes they’ve bought with the interest rates rising. Now granted I was never the best at saving money or being decent with it but being in San Diego has made me watch the purse string much closer. I want to pay off my remaining debt and then begin to look to saving for a home (not in San Diego of course). It’s amazing how quick one can get their finances together if you just stop spending money. We live in a culture so obsessed with having the designer things and the finer things in life without ever having to work for them. This is a problem that has slowly gotten worse over time to the point where 75% of my generation believe they will be millionaires before they’re 40.

The general sense of entitlement is almost staggering amongst people of my age and I am no exception. Granted I suppose I am lucky because for the most part my friends are all very hard working, down to earth, educated and successful. However, even they do not have the sky high expectations that most people in my age bracket share. I would be more than happy to have my own place that I paid for, I mean that’s the sum total.

In other news Steve is coming down from Seattle for the weekend. I really can’t wait to see him. I think I forgot how reliant I have always been on my close friends, Justin, Matthew, Chris, Steve, and Catherine. When one would not be around another would pick up the slack. So being out here on my own has been tough. Thank God for Mike and Jenn being here otherwise this would have been impossible. I am going to return the favour for Steve and go visit him and Chris in October up in Redmond.

Strange look-a-likes

2006-07-18T15:51:00.000-07:00

My life would have been made much easier if Adam had not told me that our boss bares a striking resemblance to Hermey the dentist from the Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer claymation. I can't stop laughing. the bastard

Strict Machine

2006-07-17T09:35:00.000-07:00

Well the weekend was full and eventful, well not entirely. Saturday was a lazy day, did some cleaning and got caught up on the fourth season of My Family. Hopefully I’ll get through it at some point this week so I can finally watch Tristram Shandy. I also need to order more Dylan Moran and Eddie Izzard stand up. Mike and Jenn were unfamiliar with half my Eddie Izzard jokes and they’ll need to see the movies before they start thinking that’s original material.

It was disturbingly hot all weekend so Michael and I have been indulging in late night swims which I am quite a fan of. I have been swimming laps a lot lately with the hopes of toning up much more as it’s a total body work out. I have to say though the lap pool at Qualcomm is really nice.

Sunday we hit up the designer outlets in Carlsbad. What can I say I needed some new threads, so I picked up two new pairs of Prada sunglasses, a new CK military styled jacket and a few shirts and some jeans at Ralph Lauren. I have to say the Prada glasses really up the whole Eurotrash factor.

I have also been contemplating buying a car. I am basically looking for something flash and insane. I’m making good money, I live in a warm climate and I’m single in my 20’s/ So it will defamatory be a convertible but I think I’ll surprise a few people with the actual car I chose. It’s going to be a few months before I can afford it because there is no way in hell I am financing it, not in this market.

The Eurotrash is back

2006-07-15T21:11:00.000-07:00

random bytes

2006-07-15T14:59:00.000-07:00

-Joe Strummer was right 'I'm so bored with the USA'

-Juicy track suits still make you look like white trash

-Boho chic has been dead for years let it go

-Even without the DH the AL is still better

-The AL East is still the best division in baseball

-If you lack a decent art gallery you're not a proper city

-English specialty shops have made my stay much more tolerable

-The novelty of outdoor malls still hasnt worn off

-Next weekend I am doing the nerdiest thing I have ever done, attending a comic book convention

-My Family sort of dies a little bit after Janey goes to Manchester but it's not nearly as bad as when Jeff left Coupling

-Rodeo drive shopping trip in two weeks

-I love my job

Best Office Conversation Ever

2006-07-14T09:23:00.000-07:00

Jim: Hey Dan how well do you know Sophos?
Me: Pretty well
Jim: Well enough to help out a semi retarded guy set it up?
Me: Sure who's the customer?
Jim: G****** Special School
*bursts of laughter around the office*
Jim: You remember this is the guy whose server caught fire.

Oh California

2006-07-12T14:57:00.000-07:00

My coworker Adam showed me a list he wrote when he was drunken one day. The list was essentially a series of complaints about living in Southern California. Adam being from Boston has higher expectations from a city. So in light of this I thought that I would post my own.

1) The Driving – Now I know this has been said to death and mentioned at great length but native Californians just can’t drive. They lie and try to defend themselves but the simple fact remains California is the Special Olympics of driving. Any change in barometric pressure is usually accompanied by an onslaught of accidents; these people hit the trees with greater frequency than Sonny Bono on a ski hill. Rain out here should be accompanied by the Benny Hill theme music then at least it would be comical.

2) The Food – Wrapping food in a tortilla shell that does not belong in a tortilla shell does not constitute fusion cuisine. The Mexican food here is fine but its Mexican food, we are not talking about the height of haut cuisine here. Personally I chose to believe that a ‘San Diego fish taco’ is some sort of code for a sea faring hooker who services military personnel fresh out of basic rather than a palatable food option. This is a state best known for homogenizing other cuisines (i.e., San Francisco Chinese and the California Roll) so I’m not sure what I should have reasonably expected. There is no place to get decent Chinese, or Indian take away and the less said about the sushi selection in this town the better.

3) The Women – Ok so I have since decided that the Beach Boys must have been on crack, or they were speaking of a class of woman that has since gone extinct. Sure the women out here are attractive, well in that sort of deeply homogenized way you would expect the bottle blonde with the beach body to be. It’s almost sad what a stereotype they are. I have met maybe 4 redheads since I moved here, I’m drying up. Now on the face of it there could be many worse things and you know that’s true. However, the one thing that pushes it over the top is the general sense of entitlement every girl I have met out here has. Whether they are aware of it or not they all expect the world to be handed to them on a silver plate with as minimal work as humanly possible. Every girl out here wants to be kept and if not kept lets say vastly subsidized by some sort of Adonis husband who rakes in the cash and is a caring compassionate husband and father by night. It’s almost staggering that I have yet to meet more women than Erin who seems to show any interest on making it on her own.

4) The Men – They aren’t exempt either. Maybe this is just San Diego but all of the ‘locals’, and I use the term sparingly as I have yet to meet one native San Diegan, but it seems like all the men are on this sort of semi permanent vacation. They seem to be less interested in actually living than how to weasel out of life faster to make time for the beach. I am now convinced that the beach is the greatest life sucking force known to man that drives everyone into living for it and it alone. Chivalry, what chivalry dude seems to be the order of the day.

5) Culture – What culture? This came up when we were trying to name 5 great California bands and I couldn’t get past 3 CCR, The Beach Boys and Janes Addiction.

Racism shows itself again or The Tête Offensive

2006-07-11T10:29:00.000-07:00

Experiences really have a great way of shaping you. Yesterday for example was the last piece of proof I needed to know that California and America in general will never be my permanent home.

I was waiting for the train yesterday as I always do; talking to a few of the cyclists I ride the train with every day mostly discussing the World Cup. I’m not sure when I noticed them but at some point they were everywhere. Those being the US border Patrol, which seemed odd because we were forty miles from the nearest border. They began summarily searching everyone who looked Latino, rudely barking orders and demanding information. Oddly enough the first thing one thinks with faced with a situation like this is how strikingly similar this looks to something one can imagine the SS doing. A large group of white men in authority positions pushing around a clear ethnic group. The imagery is frightfully similar.

A few of them were rounded up and placed in the back of squad cars while a second team decided to set up some sort of sting at the buss station across the road. One of the officers standing next to me at this point looks at me and with a certain degree of disgust that can only be described or understood if you’ve ever seen someone speak with true hate in their soul, says to me ‘fucking immigrants’. This was the exact moment when I realized that America wasn’t for me. Now granted I didn’t say anything because my Visa status is a touch on the complex side and I am sure there is little chance this authority figure with his tenth grade education would have been capable of understanding the subtle nuances of the NAFTA agreement. However, the smart ass in me wanted to verbally undress this thug with everything in my soul.

Granted they never asked me for identification or information at all, and why? Because I’m white. I have no doubt that had I been any colour beyond my burnt over lily white I would have had a problem. This was of course compounded on the train ride when I heard others voice their opinions about the issue. For some reason being white seems to allow them to see me as a safe confessor for their racial arrogance. It really astounds me to see these descendants of immigrants forget their past so quickly and rush to heap scorn on the backbone of their economy. It just disgusts me.

In other racial news it seems that there is more information on what Materazzi said to Zidane. Apparently according to several forensic lip readers (this term is still quite funny to me) it seems Zidane was called ‘the son of a dirty terrorist whore’. You know now I think I feel safe in saying that if this is true Zidane is totally justified. I don’t know that I would have been able to restrain myself from just head butting him, knowing my temper I would have likely driven cleat to throat when he was down. There is more information in this article on what transpired. They also discuss Materazzis various other attacks on Zindane during the match such as a nipple pulling incident.

Weakest Winners Ever or Daniels last post about the World Cup

2006-07-10T15:19:00.000-07:00

Now it has been said that to win the World Cup a team needs to be as lucky as they are good. This is undoubtedly true about most things in life; sheer talent does not live in a vacuum. This World Cup seemed to bring together a perfect storm for team Italy. While Italy was itself reeling from match fixing allegations that have rocked Italian football domestically, they seem to have created a big enough storm with this win that no one will care.

As I watched the game and even after with the outcome known a thought occurred to me, could Italy be the weakest side to win a World Cup in recent memory. This is by no means a slight against the Italians, sometimes luck is all you really need. World Cup history is spotted with such footballing perfect storms that have lead lesser teams to World Cup victories, look at Uruguay as a prime example.

Through out the World Cup Italy were thoroughly average not producing the flashes of a top flight team much less one worthy of winning a world title. There was of course the disappointing inability to put away a beleaguered and under staffed USA team who was 2 men down for the better part of the second half. Their victory over Australia was plagued by a terrible call that never should have been and once again brought up the question of diving. The Italians have long been known for their on the pitch theatrics and diving talents, in fact it’s something of a joke in international soccer circles.

The Italians dumped a beaten up Ukraine who had played their heart and souls out to beat Switzerland in their previous match. The Ukrainians on paper should have been no match for the Italians and on the day they weren’t. The German match was the first time you saw a glimmer of a team they could be in a very thrilling over time winner. They showed a great deal of strength and skilled play to get them past the Germans.

The final is another story altogether. The second half saw France dominate the Italians and to their credit the Italians didn’t dive as much. I was sure Zidane was going to win it with his head in the first over time but it was not to be. Then with the second over time came the stroke of ultimate luck that Italy needed to win. First Henry cramped up and had to be substituted and of course then came the incident, Zidanes head butt on Marco Materazzi. Now I could never justify what was done but I knew from the instant it happened that Materazzi had said something. Turns out that he called Zidane a ’dirty terrorist’. I am not entirely surprised by this, I am sure horrible things are said on the pitch every day and none of them lead to this but for whatever reason Zidane could take no more. It’s just unfortunate that he chose to end such a distinguished career in such an unfitting manner.

As for the penalties, that is the way it’s supposed to be done. A good number of people believe that it is a coin toss as to who wins it and that it cannot be practiced for. This belief is moronic. Sure penalties are a lousy way to lose a match and there is nothing great about it for goal keepers who bare much of the burden of it. This penalty session proved how it should be done. The Italians had clearly practiced for it and they took their shots perfectly despite some very good instincts by Barthez. Both the Italian and French penalty takers did so perfectly almost textbook in their execution.

This is life, the bad guys don’t always die and sometimes the best team doesn’t win. But then again this is why we watch the beautiful game, if we didn’t believe in luck and chance we would automatically assign Brazil the winners and be done with it until the European Cup.

On the whole it was a great tournament full of surprises and twists. I was a little disappointed that this time around it seemed wholly dominated by European teams. Hopefully this next go round in four years in South Africa will bring out some of the colour and talent of African football. I still long for the day when the African nations take their place at the upper table of football and are no longer content with making it to the knock out stages, plus it would be a nice change to hear a ref cursed out in Swahili rather than English, Italian, French of Portuguese.

On an interesting side note I found that Steve Nash and I share one thing in common, we are both Totenham supporters. I didn’t realise it but Nash played in the Spurs youth system.

A day in the life, when nobody laughed

2006-07-07T00:17:00.000-07:00

The sunburn is healing much faster than I expected, even if it does look like someone visited a biblical plague upon my shoulders. The long weekend was a great one for licking wounds. Especially given England crashing out of the world cup. I do have thoughts on this but I'll get to them later.

In a great twist on of my best mates Steve is going to be coming down to San Diego for a visit in a couple of weeks. He is coming for the massive Comicon on Saturday and then Sunday possibly the zoo and the beach. It'll be nice to see one of the horsemen again. I will have to return the favour and visit Seattle sometime soon. I'm sure I will as the twins are both up there.

Now on to the world cup and England's performance. Wayne Rooney is a hot head always has been, always will be. I sadly picture him going the same route as George Best, burning hot and bright and above all else fast. The red card he received was most likely justified and I hate people who second guess the refs calls. Some will turn in your favour some will not. Now that said I have always admired the way Rooney plays, he runs hard and plays flat out. The man never dives regardless of whether or not he should. This in my eyes makes him a very honourable player even if he sometimes doesn't get the calls he deserves. If Rooney had dove and gone down during that play he would have most likely not have gotten the card and had a penalty awarded in his favour.

Now as for Portugal I think they were slightly confused as to what the world cup is and what sport is played as instead of bringing a mens football club, they brought the womens diving team. This is to say nothing of that rapist Cristiano Ronaldo. I mean I know he was named after the father of trickle down economics and that in and of itself is a sin, but he is such an insufferable prat its disgusting. I have never been a great fan of him, while he is a capable player with great skill on the pitch it is match and surpassed by his abilities as a thespian. Lets face it he hasn't been playing football lately so much as he has been giving 90 minute performances of 'Madam Butterfly'. Portugal got more than they deserved.

As for the final I think I would like to see France win it, if for no other reason than to cap Zidanes beautiful career. Also it would make me feel better about Ireland getting bumped off by the eventual winners. ZiZou is unquestionably one of the greatest players of his era. He has a talent and a class on the pitch that makes him a natural leader and his presence in the footballing world will be missed.

July 4th

2006-07-04T21:14:00.000-07:00

I can hear the fireworks going off now but I think I have something of a cold from the brutal sunburn i got myself today. I have been shivering and chattering since I got in, and have been covering myself in aloe ever since.

The beach was packed but luckily Mike and Jenn found one stretch of virtually abandoned beach. Mike and I spent most of the afternoon body boarding which was a bit diffiult because there weren't really any waves it was mostly chop. However, the best part of the day was when Mike and I were out past the break waiting for some of the bigger waves. All of a sudden I saw something moving really quickly under the water. It was about 6 or so feet long and looked a little like a human body. Out of nowhere it popped its' head up and low and behold it was a sea lion. We followed it around as best we could and watched it dive and play in the waves. It was one of the most interesting experiences i have ver had. Well worth risked the almost asured pain i will feel for a few days.

OW

They're going to revoke my heterosexual club card for this

2006-07-04T00:23:00.000-07:00

So the girls and I went to see The Devil Wears Prada. I am fairly certain that any glimmer of heterosexuality I may have had previously was shattered in their minds after that. Bah then again Erin and Steph are more like sisters anyways and I am sure to them I seem about as sexually ambigious as Elmo to them anyways. I just wanted pretty and Gisele Bundchen was in it. Lets face it I could watch Gisele sit around and look post modern in a Lars von Trier movie for four hours and enjoy the numbing in my ass and temporal lobes. Look I wanted to look at pretty things for a few hours and eat popcorn without the slightest stimulation of my pesky higher function brain.

The movie itself was a lot of fun, the clothes were even better. It had all the visual and style appeal of a runway show. It also made me miss the pace of life on the east coast. The world just seems to revolve on shorter rotations out there. I was also reminded of how dreadfully lacking fashion is on the west coast. That boho chic crap needs to be tossed. The freshest look to come from the west was either plaid flanel or the trucker hat. So you see what I'm up against here. But I'm not ragging on cali, at this rate i will have the perfect body by christmas and god help me I will fit into designer clothes properly again.

this is what paradise feels like

2006-07-03T12:35:00.000-07:00

I was still a little down over the results of Saturdays game and Matt and Vasco calling to taunt me didn't help. Sunday however, tipped the balance of the universe in my favour. I decided to call Matt and return the favour. Mike, Jenn and I decided to hit up Torrey Pines yet again for some much desrved beach time. The beach itself was packed which was to be expected. We got wise this time and brought the BBQ down so we could eat on the beach.

The waves were really choppy and strung which made for some great body boarding. There were a few 6 footers which made me wonder what the surf was like at Blacks Beach. Blacks is about a mile north of Torrey and is supposed to be one of the five best places to surf in all of North America. I see it every day on the train and it's always packed with surfers regardless of the time of day.

Once we were finished and thoroughly exhausted from getting tossed around like rag dolls in the surf we decided to head in to shore and fire up the BBQ. Ah yes hotdogs and beer on the beach at the end of a long day is amazing. This was only suprassed by the pod of dolphins that swam by. My assumption was that there were about 15 to 20 of them. It was a really great experience. It was just one of those moments when everything was perfect and I remembered why I moved out here

I Daniel Gallagher of sound mind and body .... for now

2006-06-30T09:50:00.000-07:00

So the long weekend approaches and it's a bit of the best of both worlds situation for me. Our boss in his infinite kindness has decided that Monday is also off for us so I will be enjoying a lovely four day weekend. Apart from the move down here and the week I took off before moving here I haven't taken any time off since the cottage last August. Now things have been going well so I hadn't noticed but it is still much needed.

Interesting office humour for today was Bobby in his great patriotism decided to wish everyone a happy Fourth of July. This of course included the Marshal financial team which is located in London. Imagine wishing the Germans a happy D-Day. It really is funny and has got most of us laughing.

Speaking of the fourth we have some interesting plans. To be honest it won't be much different from a regular weekend for me as it will be spent largely at the beach. Saturday I am going to get up bright and early to watch the England vs. Portugal game. I find that the longer this tournament wears on the less I care about games that don't directly affect me. Granted at this stage I will watch just about anything because the level of play is so high. After the game is over I have a hair appointment which of course means the return of the faux hawk. No one has one down here so it isn't as played out as it is at home. Then later in the evening we are off to celebrate Canada Day with the large contingent of Canadians that live in So Cal.

The rest of the weekend should be some sort of mix of drinking and partying at the beach. I will have to hit up Pacific Beach at some point with the guys from the office. Both Adam and Jim live there and Bobby isn't too far off in Claremont so I will have to eventually go there and have some beers with the boys.

The rest of my time is pretty open as I don't have much to do. I will probably hang out with Erin and Tony a bit because they are just a load of fun. Erin is great and reminds a lot of my sister, you know except this Erin and I hang out together. Tony is, well, hmm, Tony is Tony and he's a lot of fun.

I forgot to post the pictures of my hike last weekend. Last Saturday I decided to go for a little bit of a hike around the valley across the street. So here are some of the pictures.

-Google maps and ms paint makes for some fun times

-The climb begins

-Halfway up and all of a sudden I can see the office parks

-My complex from the other side of the valley

-The complex from down the street

Now it's time for links of the week

Badger Badger Badger, England football editions. If any of you remember that annoying Badger, Badger, Badger, oh a snake website, well this is it modified for the English run at the World Cup.

Italian instructional video on how to dive for cards. Yes that dirty little secret that comes around every world cup, diving. Well the Italians have always made it into an art, there is nothing like someone sneezing in Toti's direction to cause him to go into a full half gainer and finish it with a swan dive. Yes the beautiful game indeed.

Google search results for 'Engurland'. Humoursly enough yours truly comes up in the rankings for this. See I knew my chronic mistypes would make me famous.

Canadian US relations

2006-06-27T15:45:00.000-07:00

In an effort to better educate my American friends and coworkers I have decieded to enlighten them to certain facts that aren't really obvious to them. The first one is that Canada was the US' largest supplier of oil and natural gas. This got a lot of surprised looks. Secondly I decided to show them 'Talking to Americans'. Who would have thought that I would become that smug bastard Canadian.

Defend your iPod

2006-06-27T08:26:00.000-07:00

So a friend who reads this blog fairly regularly was asking me what was on my iPod. So I am indulging her. Here is how this works, I hit shuffle on my iPod and explain the first ten songs that come up.

1) Kylie Minogue - On a Night like this
OK so it was bound to happen, 6500 songs on my iPod and the first one that pops up is an embarassing one. Alright so I like Kylie Minogue what of it. I mean I love 'Wild Rose' her voice with Nick Cave's is pretty amazing

2) Marvin Gaye - Stubborn Kinda Fellow
Show me someone who doesn't love Marvin Gaye and I will show you someone without a soul. He was just a harmonic genius and an amazing writer.

3)Black Sabbath - FX
So I loaded my iPod with some old Black Sabbath because from time to time you need to reconnect with the music you loved as a child. Plus compared to todays stuff it really doesn't sound metal at all

4)Goldie - Angel
Not a bad dj and producer for a geezer with gold teeth. Although he is a terrible actor and not even Bowie could have salvaged that movie.

5)Wolfshiem - Find You're Gone
Probably the best of the synth pop crop these days. Saw them in Detroit a few years back, well worth the drive.

6)Peter Tosh - Stepping Razor
I was never much of a Bob Marley fan but Peter Tosh seems to blend that reggae sound with a much more angry almost punk sensibility lyrically. This song is probably some of his best writing.

7)Dr Dre - Still D.R.E.
I won't lie The Chronic is still probably one of the best hip hop albums of all time and now that I'm on the west coast you knew I had to give love to Dre for that big bass sound.

8)The Stone Roses - Your Star Will Shine
I have decided that if listened to on its' own The Second Coming is a fairly solid album and a bit of a grower. The problem for the roses was that they had to follow the best album in Brittish music history with an average offering. '10 Story Love Song' is still an excellent cut.

9)Oasis - Wonderwall
My love for Oasis is well documented.

10)Ani Difranco - Both Hands
I still love Ani I just can't listen to her with the same frequency I did 5 years ago. Stil a fantastic live performer even if her preachign does get a little tired.

I'm a lad and thats that

2006-06-25T22:49:00.000-07:00

Youtube has been a fantastic source of distraction. I have quite enjoyed looking for obscure Oasis interviews and performances. The best of course being their shot at Blur at the Brit Awards in 96. This is what the Grammys need, free liquor during the events

Musical Journeys are always less direct

2006-06-23T11:17:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking a lot lately about music and how it has the power to define moments in your life. I was also thinking about my life in the stages in which I liked certain types of music and certain genres. I have always had a fairly eclectic taste in music and I think that has a lot to do with how I was raised. My first conscious memories of music or ‘adult music’ are very vivid and clear to me even though I was young at the time.

My first conscious memory of music happened sometime around kindergarten. I was driving with my aunt and uncle in their Colt (yep it was that long ago) along the North Service road in Oakville just past Oakville place. My Uncle Bruce had put on a tape of new romantics music. I distinctly remember this is what he called it. The first song I remember hearing was ‘Modern Love’ by David Bowie. It was an epiphany to me; I had never heard anything like this before.

I suppose a lot of my early taste in music can be traced to Kathleen and Bruce in that way. They had always been more than generous to me as a child and a lot of my most cherished memories of childhood were spent with them. I can recall seeing a lot of movies with them and trips to Centre Island and other places. This was the advantage of being the first nephew, everyone wanted to spend time with me and in this way I was culturally spoiled. Kathleen and Bruce used to take me to the Toronto International Film Festival when I was in the fourth grade. It really did leave its mark. On future car trips with them I was introduced to the Eurythmics and Madonna. Strangely enough the Eurythmics sort of six degrees of separation back into this later.

Through high school I suppose I could have been defined as a Goth. Yep I admit my mistake and to atone for my sins I have destroyed any pictorial evidence of this. Don’t get me wrong a lot of the most fun high school experiences involved sneaking in to Toronto to go dancing at the Catacombs. Granted at the time I was a die hard REM fan and Justin used to joke with some regularity that there was no way I could explain my love for a band who wrote ‘Shiny Happy People’ to the side of me that wore all black and sang along to Bauhaus.

In the end my little Goth phase ended although it had nothing to do with my all abiding love for REM. Matthew you and I still talk about it because it was one of the more defining moments of our early years. April 5, 1999 at the Guvernment in Toronto is a date I’ll most likely never remember. If you’ve never been passionate about music it seems very stupid for one concert to be life altering but it was. Matthew and I went to see the Love and Rockets, which includes all the members of Bauhaus except Peter Murphy. I hadn’t to that point heard much of their music apart from ‘Sweet F A’ so I wasn’t sure what to expect.

They were touring in support of their last album ‘Lift’ which as the concert went on we found to be a mix of trance and dance floor pounding deep grooves. This was our first real introduction to techno. Of course being Goths meant we had listened to a fair amount of Nine Inch Nails and KMFDM so the synth wasn’t a new sound to me. I suppose there was just something about that show and the fates aligned and it was everything in the world to me.

This is the point where Matthew and I joke about leaving the Goth ‘scene’. Something about this show made me intensely interested in techno and electronica, and Matthew got interested in synth pop and industrial. These were the days when The Edge was playing a techno and trance heavy diet for their live to air shows. Crystal Method, The Chemical Brothers, Sneaker Pimps, Prodigy and Underworld were the order of the day.

I was instantly fascinated and began to gravitate towards Underworld. Like everyone else I had heard ‘Born Slippy Nuxx’ in Trainspotting and loved it. I began buying albums in quick succession starting with ‘Beaucoup Fish’ and then ‘dubnobasswithmyheadman’. I just couldn’t get enough.

Now I had always been aware of Underworld on some level. I can recall rumours about Michael Stipe singing on an Underworld track for the Batman and Robin soundtrack. I had obviously heard ‘Born Slippy’ and ‘Push Upstairs’ on different live to air broadcasts.

Underworld opened up a new world for me. I was listening to dj’s like Richie Hawtin, Plastikman, Sven Vath, and Carl Cox etc etc. I was listening to bands like Portishead, Delerium, The Crystal Method, Euphoria, Skindive, Royksopp, Lamb etc etc. It was all a very exciting time for me.

Behind all of this though was Underworld. I began getting interested in new styles of creative design as pioneered by their creative design firm tomato. They did the opening and end credits for Trainspotting as well as a host of new media design. In my estimation they brought about the new era of typography. This was all so new and fascinating. I also became very involved with the dirty list an Underworld mailing list run by dirty.org. As opposed to some of the other fan sites and message boards I had been to this one was very different. The people back then just seemed interested in getting the word out; they were artists and designers as well as dj’s. What really impressed me was that most of them were living the dream and doing what they loved rather than talking about the dream and working at a McDonalds like I had seen rather often on other sites. These people were pretty amazing.

Underworld slowly became the soundtrack to large chunks of my life. I mean even Matthew will tell you it’s not a night of clubbing if it doesn’t end with ‘Dirty Epic/Cowgirl’. I can remember being at Darkrave and hearing ‘Cowgirl’ so Matthew and I went sprinting to grab our mates from the top level to bring them down for it.

I have only seen Underworld once live but even then it was head splittingly amazing. October 16, 2002 at the Kool Haus (which is consequently right next door to the Guvernment where I saw Love and Rockets) I finally had my chance, sure Darren Emerson had left the group but it didn’t matter. The show was amazing the band were electric. If you ever get a chance to see Underworld it is worth it for the visuals alone. Tomato are very slick when it comes to this as witnessed by the display video for Cowgirl.

I’m not sure if there is much point to all of this beyond explaining to my dear readers, both of you, what my musical education was like.

Vampires might be a bit strong but

2006-06-20T09:52:00.000-07:00

It’s all I can do to keep focused today between the June gloom which has returned and the England football match. My general malaise towards life is more or less extending this week. I’m not entirely sure what it is these past few days but I can’t commit to focusing on anything. My mind is just putting everything on trying to focus on work and I’m finally starting to feel worn down for the first time since I moved here. I suppose the adrenaline has finally washed away and I have now settled into a routine, one that involves a 6 am wake up call, but a routine none the less. Life has returned to the medium tedium that one expects it to once you’ve planted your feet for long enough.

All this aside I have been thinking a lot about where I want to be in five years and all of that. Once I am done my first major project we will be able to work from where ever we want provided it has an internet connection. So this gives me the ability to travel and move around quite a bit. As it stands I am considering moving back to Toronto at some point, not sure exactly when but I am certain it will happen. Now it is all down to disciplining myself and saving the money for a down payment on a house. Realistically it would take me two years to bank the 45k or so needed for a down payment on a place I want so that’s not happening but we shall see where we get with this.

Ultimately I would love to move back and buy a place in Yorkville but on my own that’s a little out of the budget right now. I figure something in the 275 to 350k is more reasonable for a starter condo. This more or less what I can afford plus condo fees, taxes, and increasing interest rates. I never realized what a sweet deal condos were in Toronto until I moved here.

Now make no mistake about it I love it out here, the weather is amazing and the scenery is gorgeous. However, I don’t think I would ever want to raise a family here. I have noticed since I arrived here that there is a wave of ignorance and racism that permeates everything. Now I’m not calling Americans ignorant or racist, almost every American I have met is actually no different than any other race of people I have met in the world. What I mean by this is that the mechanism in America is generally one of racist exclusionism and one needs to look no further than the current immigration woes. Now even my coworker Bobby who is the most sincerely patriotic American I have ever met here is kept out of the dark on a lot of world news and it’s not for his lack of trying. The problem is that living in America has a very insular feeling to it. The world outside only matters when something violent happens. For example Bobby was giving me a hard time about Canada not joining the war in Iraq. When I explained to him that we had most of our troupes in Afghanistan and were picking up the international slack caused by the war in Iraq he was shocked. No one had ever informed him of this, all he knew was what Bill O’Rielly and these other right wing pseudo fascists had told him.

I don’t blame Americans for their world views because as I said America is a very insular country, the world just lives in a bubble and September 11 did very little to change that. It’s not that people are willfully ignorant of geopolitics and the world around them it’s just that it’s not reported here. The mechanism of the media here is slanted worse than I have ever seen, the sort of Republic toadying jargon that gets passed off as news here is little more than a thinly veiled political advertisement for the ruling right. When all of your options are CNN, Fox News and MSNBC you are left with very little to no choice as to your media consumption. Ultimately there is something engrained in all of us that keeps us watching the 6 o’clock news. The problem is here there are no viable options, no real outlets for people to hear news and not constant editiorialising. I don’t see this changing and in this environment of jargon and jingoism I can’t see raising a family here.

Wow that was a long micro rant. I promise I am done I will not talk politics for at least 3 entries.

Jumping the shark on Monday

2006-06-19T10:43:00.000-07:00

It’s Monday and the weekend is over, but I can’t help the feeling that I’ve jumped the shark in all aspects of life. So as to not sound like a miserable bastard here is what the weekend was like for me.

Saturday was a scorcher so instead of trying to squeeze in that tennis match Michael and I have been talking about all week we decided to hit the beach instead. I’m still not tired of Torrey Pines or the whole beach experience. Granted I still have a damned farmer’s tan which is apparently worse than death out here. It doesn’t really matter how much the salt water stings I just love going out and swimming around in the surf. Michael and I are also on the hunt for used surf boards, I mean if we’re living out here we might as well learn to surf. I’m looking at long boards first because they are much forgiving to learn on. The rule of thumb is the more surface area on the board the easier it is to catch a wave. I’m looking at about an 8’ board which means I could surf a ripple in a pond.

Convocation in the US seems to be a much bigger deal then I ever remember it being for any of my friends. Now granted I’m a drop out and never quite made it to my graduation. I went to Erin’s graduation party yesterday. Erin is Mike and Jenn’s room mate and just generally a lot of fun. Erin and I quickly slipped into a sort of brother sister relationship where we rag on each other pretty hard and constantly. It’s funny because that kid can give the insults pretty well.

Anyways yesterday was the day for her convocation. Mike and Jenn (mostly Jenn) decorated the house while everyone was away at the ceremony. Once everyone arrived there were a good 18 people over. There were gifts galore and the usual sort of things. Then for dinner we went to this Italian place whose name I can’t remember, there was a Boca in there somewhere.

The restaurant itself was actually a lot like Old Ed’s in Toronto back in the day. We actually sat in what can only be called the papal room as we were surrounded on all sides by various pictures of various popes. This included a bust of a miscellaneous Pontiff (he looked sort of like a generic pontificate) in the center of the table under glass. This was actually really creepy. The meal though was very good and Erin’s family was a lot of fun. I was talking with her father about how they would never dream of holding it on Mothers day. Very nice man I can see where Erin gets her ambition from. Dr Healey is a gp with a few offices, and Erin will be office to medical school in a year.

I’m also in the process of restarting some semblance of a fitness regime. I have been doing a lot more swimming lately and now that I realized that through Mike I can have access to the Qualcomm lap pool I will be swimming laps much more frequently. Walking absolutely everywhere lately has also been a huge advantage in my general state of fitness.

Engurland

2006-06-15T08:47:00.000-07:00

Pre match prediction 2-0 for England. If I were a betting man I'd lump some more money on Beckhams right leg.

Yes well I hate José Mourinho too but ....

2006-06-13T12:43:00.000-07:00

I have been noticing a trend so far this World Cup and it looks like I'm not alone. Of all the players playing out of their skin this World Cup so far they all seem to be from Chelsea. Don't get me wrong I hate Mourinho and Chelski as much as any other self respecting Spurs fan but I suppose credit is due here. Players like Drogba, Crespo, Robben and Essien are all playing with amazing skill. Much as I don't like the man and his style he seems to be doing something right. It sure beats Sir Alex in Manchester playing the role of a worried mother about all of his stars off to play in the World Cup.

There is actually a very good synopsis of this by John Nicholson on football 365. A few years back my friend Jarlath tipped me to his columns and I have been reading them religiously ever since. The man is clearly very northern and if you must know a bit of a Geordie but he has a wit about him that most people miss with football commentary, especially the English. He takes the mickey out of the English footballing obsession and to his credit makes some fairly valid points about football. Plus he has some hysterical column titles such as 'Thierry Henry Is Like My Ex Carly...' and the ever popular 'Stand Up...If You Don't Want Piles'

It's the little things I miss about the World Cup tradition. First and foremost having a large group of mates to discuss the matches with. Secondly is the total and outright lack of decent pub culture. Toronto has an English or Irish pub on every corner and you can at any time of night or day find yourself a place to watch whatever obscure team or country you follow play in the presence of like minded nutters. There is nothing so reassuring as huddling together with fellow fans at 10 am to raise a pint and toast your teams performance. I will most definately miss watching the games at Scallywags with the rest of the Toronto Spurs Supporters. I am also a little bit sad I just found out the spurs supporters will be having a match against the toronto ~~scum~~ arsenal supporters and I won't be there to twist a few scum ankles.

The other thing I will miss about Toronto during world cup is the impromptu block parties that are held. Because of the multicultural nature of Toronto you are gaurenteed to find a neighbourhood celebrating if their team wins. That was the best part of it, there was always a party. I was reading The Star online yesterday and saw the pictures of the Portugese celebrating their win on College street. Oh Toronto in the summer I really miss you, but you're all alone come winter time.

2006-06-13T12:02:00.000-07:00

I had an amazing Sunday. I was up at 6 am to catch all of the matches of the day. Then it was off to Ocean Beach with Mike and Jenn for a little surfing and laying out. Not a great fan of OB, it’s basically a hippy party beach. Granted Mikes’ coworker does have a sweet apartment. He is essential 5 feet from the beach. Also playing against OB is the fact that there is a kelp forest in the area so the water is covered in kelp and it feels disgusting. I think Torrey Pines and Del Mar beach are the place for me.

So back to the world cup, you didn’t really think you were going to get a post from me that didn’t involve it right? I was watching a clip on my ipod of Robbie Keanes best goals and it included the goal in the World Cup against Germany. I think that was the most intensely happy I have ever been, just watching him slot that shot home past the invincible Oliver Kahn. I remember running yelling with joy in the office when that happened. Sure I looked like a loon but it didn’t matter.

1-Denial - The ref blew the call - if only we had put in such and such - if the ball went into the net instead of off the cross bar it would have been a completely different game - who knows maybe we can beat Germany - The brazilians aren't that tough I mean they've lost a game in the past three world cups and that was to the french - the azzuri are the best in the world - michael owen will eventually show up at a world cup match

2-Anger - that bastard ref - that idiot coach - it's a conspiracy against us - just give me five minutes alone with the opposing team and we'll see whose boss

3-Bargaining- OK so if we beat this team by 4 goals we can make it through - All we really need is for every other team to lose by 5 or more goals - All we really need is for Kasey Keller to be a better goalie

4-Depression-overwhelming feelings of hopelessness, frustration, bitterness, self pity, mourning loss of person as well as the hopes, dreams and plans for the future. Feeling lack of control, feeling numb. Perhaps feeling suicidal. And thats just waking up in the morning to find you're an England supporter

5-Acceptance-there is a difference between resignation and acceptance. We;ll get them in South Africa and so begins the cycle every four years.

Don't sweat it unless you're Brazillian chances are your team is going to lose more times than it wins so sit back and enjoy the spectacle.

2006-06-11T21:23:00.000-07:00

Updated list of things I miss. I have realised that the food here is awfull, and this has been agreed upon by everyone i know from the east coast as well as the mid west. So I have started to remedy these things by buying them off eBay.

Red Rose Orange Pekoe Tea - MM delicious proper orange pekoe tea just like granny makes it.

HP Sauce - I miss brown sauce with such a passion

Aero Bars - The chocolate bubble bar mmm damn.

I suppose you forget all the little advantages you get whilst being part of the commonwealth. A few touches of home and I'm set

2006-06-11T10:02:00.000-07:00

I can't wait until the American team is elliminated in the first round so the announcers will stop talking about the team at every opportunity. I think that Americans should not be allowed to discuss football because they live up to the ugly idiot American stereotype everytime. They talk with a confidence and arrogance that is completely undeserved.

I have seen interviews with the team talking about how they can beat anyone. Now this is either amazingly stupid or or just dimwited. The American team as I explained to Bobby has a moronically high ranking. They have yet to so much play another team in the top 10 outside Mexico. Not a single friendly against a top 20 ranked team beyond Mexico, how can you say with any confidence that you are any good if you havent played any top flight teams. Secondly none of your players have any signifigant European experience, and the MLS is not nearly the same as the English Premiership, the German Bundesliga or the Spanish La Liga.

I say this because I care, I say this because better football in North America is good for everyone but the second these idiots open their mouths and spout off I start hoping that the American team gets spanked by every team they face and crash out winless. I want Americans to see that Landon Donovan is not a world class striker, and that Keller didn't make it in the premiership for a reason. Arrogance in football is something reserved almost exclusively for the losing team.

I am going to make a suggestion to all american players, watch some tape of the Brazilian team speak in interviews, they are humble and forthright. They never once claim to be the titans they so clearly are. This is Brazil the prohibitive favourite of every world cup, who has won it 5 times 3 times more than any other team. This is not some arrogant up start of a footballing nation that has never made it to a semi finals.

So in shrot America it was nice to have you in the world cup but next time bring the humility the sport demands and stop acting like a bunch of drunken college frat boys on a european vacation.

2006-06-10T14:01:00.000-07:00

Match Day Musings

Beckhams right foot is still deadly even if the rest of his team is not. Anyone who was surprised by England playing off their heels after getting ahead in a game they knew they were going to win. Roney wasn't in and you knew they weren't giving it their all.

Sweden is in trouble based on how they played, but it may have been a fluke. Sweden always plays to the level of their competition. We saw this in qualifiers.

Argentina are going to get spanked if they play like they did today against the Nehterlands. The Ivory Coast really impressed me and just got some bad bounces. Drogba looked amazing

2006-06-10T07:07:00.000-07:00

So I had heard about how terrible American soccer announcers were but I did not believe it until I heard it. They treat it like its a bloody basketball game, talking about size and athleticism like this is some sort of sport where muscle memory is all that counts. These people have no concept of the beautiful game and how it should be announced. Would it kill them to listen to a few Brit announced game. It is really bloody amatuer, and I mean high school.

Here is a list of the stupid mistakes they have made since the start of the England game;

1. Steven Gerrard - His last is pronounced Jair-ard not jur=ard. Watching a few matches of Premiership football would have alerted you to this fairly cursory fact.

2. Paul Robinson - plays his club soccer for Tottenham Hotspur not Chelsea.

3. England - are in fact the men in the white shirts and not Germany, he has made this mistake 3 times so far. Now this is just cursory and shows the level of amateur they have announcing the match

4. Through balls - Not every touch of the ball is a cross there are occasionally what we call through balls.

5. Seating Capacity - Please do not announce the fact that the stadium is at capacity, this is the world cup it is assumed that the event is sold out.

6. Colour Commentary - Stop for the love of God stop, no one cares about what Ashley Cole wanted to do professionally if he didn't play football. More to the point it doesn't matter this is the beautifull game there is enough on the pitch to talk about.

These announcers are amazingly amatuer and generally terrible. Just because you played on the American national team in 94 does not mean you are qualified to announce. Please for the love of God this is the World Cup and it is not acceptable to take your MLS announcers and port them over.

I just heard the following exchange between the announcers:

-it's hotter here today than it was yesterday how does that effect the play?
-well when it's hotter you sweat more and are exhausted easier

HOLY FUCK! In all of my years of watching the sport it had never occured to me that the hotter the temperature got the more exhausted one becomes easily. I'm watching this with the sound off for the rest of the game.

Wow that didn't take long they mentioned the war and managed to show Hitler. I am getting a satelite so I can watch the Canadian coverage

2006-06-09T08:40:00.000-07:00

Less than half an hour

Ok so don't expect the updates to be very concise for the next month or even very interesting. They will mostly be random, racist and generally agitated. Anyone who has ever seen me during international football knows what I'm talking about.

When Britain first, at heaven's command,
Arose from out the azure main,
Arose, arose, arose from out the a-azure main,
This was the charter, the charter of the land,
And guardian angels sang this strain:

Rule Britania!
Britannia rule the waves.
Britons never, never, never shall be slaves

2006-06-08T14:26:00.000-07:00

Tonight I am off to see the last surviving Madchester band, The Charlatans. Well the band isn’t technically from Manchester but close enough. The Charlatans are early 90’s baggy in the same sort of way that The Happy Mondays and James were. The sound is sort of a deeply psychedelic throw back with a bit more funk. Sadly I have completely missed the Charlatans every other time they have toured, including tours with The Stereophonics and JJ72 as openers.

I have a deep love for the Manchester music scene I would easily compare it against any other cities. I mean a town that spawned Oasis, New Order, Joy Division, The Smiths, Morrissey, The Charlatans, The Happy Mondays, and the best of the bunch The Stone Roses. This is the town that invented the rave so there is a lot of history there.

I also have my full predictions for the world cup first round.

Group A
1. Germany
2. Poland

Group B
1. Sweden
2. England

Group C
1. Holand
2. Argentina

Group D
1. Portugal
2. Mexico

Group E
1. Czech Republic
2. USA
* a huge risk predicting that Italy will go out in the first round

Group F
1. Brazil
2. Japan

Group G
1. France
2. Swtzerland

Group H
1. Spain
2. Ukraine

2006-06-07T10:24:00.000-07:00

So I had my first taste of California politics, or I suppose it would be more accurate to call it California voter apathy. Granted I have yet to figure out the intricacies of the American governmental system, but I get the sinking feeling very few people would ever be able to explain this to me. Although I have the feeling that more than anywhere else the electorate here have more to be apathetic about than anyone else. If the 2000 election showed us anything it was that your vote doesn’t count, now sure that’s a little snide and this has basically been covered but in general no one candidate seems to be interested in engaging the electorate. The attack ads were so vile and off putting I couldn’t imagine wanting to vote for either candidate regardless of political affiliation.

I am still working out in my mind what it means to be a Democrat or Republican. Sure I have a general sense of what it means but there is such a great polarization I have seen since I arrived here. Is there such a thing as a moderate centrist Republican, well other than John McCain? What happened to the days of the Liberal Republican movement and leaders like FDR? Scanning a few of the news stations here and the odd talk radio station I hear I have found that Liberalism has been considered the scourge of the modern world by every right leaning personality I have heard. In the decade plus that Canada was Liberal our economy out performed and we prospered so I have no complaints.

I begin to wonder what it will take to force the groundswell that is desperately needed in America. The future is changing quickly and the road America is on is narrowing and there seems to be absolutely no concern for it. The American dollar is weakening, oil prices are increasing, the auto industry is suffering in the wake of better made imports and the country is running a record deficit. Now this is not Bush bashing, make no mistake about it I strongly dislike the man but this is more a series of questions regarding the general nature of America these days. Can the course be changed or is it just inevitable that all great empires must fall under their own weight. I am quite enjoying my time down here but make no mistake about it I’m not about to stick around on a sinking ship for the sake of nobility. The second the market starts to sour here I’ll be gone.

Granted all of my opinions could be based on the fact I am simultaneously reading John Ralston Saul’s ‘The Unconscious Civilization’ and Heath and Potters The Rebel Sell: How the Counterculture Became Consumer Culture. I like this time I am having not worrying about politics or even thinking about it but thinking about ideas and concepts of social societies. I think once I am done this I am going to take a crack at reread John Nashs’ Essays on game theory

2006-06-06T12:36:00.000-07:00

The housing situation

Alright so I am sure a few of you, mostly mother, would be interested in seeing what the neighbourhood looks like. I currently share a house with two other people, Alex who is a software developer for one of my competitors (I have been very quiet on this fact), and Andrea who is finishing up her legal clerk certificate. When I moved in the place was a mess and I have spent the last week and a bit cleaning it up. Also the landlord who used to live in the house left his furniture and effects at the house. Lets just say he didn’t have the greatest flare for interior decorating.

So for now here are some pictures of the neighbourhood. Granted none of these pictures were actually taken by me but rather found in a google search of the arear.

2006-06-06T07:56:00.000-07:00

6.6.06

Ok so this holds absolutely no meaning to me, I mean ultimately why would I be afraid of the Emperor Nero. Granted it is fun to watch the superstitious around here twist a little bit. I mean it's silly to get excited over a day that no one is precisely sure how it came about. There is as good a chance that 616 is actually the number as it was stated in the early bible first. No I will not be seeing the Omen tonight, not because of some fear but largely because horror films bore me. It takes a lot to really scare me or put me on edge so we shall see.

"Woe to you, Oh Earth and Sea, for the Devil sends the
beast with wrath, because he knows the time is short...
Let him who hath understanding reckon the number of the
beast for it is a human number, its number is Six hundred and
sixty six."

There is an interesting article on the BBC explaining the phenomenon. It is also a really good way to find out how stupid your average satanist is.

2006-06-05T11:51:00.000-07:00

Oh My God I Can't Believe it I've Never Been This Far Away from Home!

I have started writing again, I suppose the travel and no solid sense of home has triggered a flood of artistic thought in me. It has been great, I have been putting my brand new macbook through its’ paces and so far it has come out alright. Granted I may still install windows on it yet.

There are a lot of differences I have noticed since moving here. They also become much more pronounced since with the World Cup looming. All of the marketing for the World Cup here has been aimed squarely at the Mexicans and South Americans living here. Granted I have seen a few adverts for the coverage on ESPN but by and large not a whole lot. That was the nice thing about the little ethnic enclaves that make up Toronto. Regardless of what teams remained in the World Cup back home you could always find no shortage of people willing to take to the streets and celebrate.

Here is my small list of grievances with Southern California so far;

1) No HP Sauce. I really miss HP Sauce, I have been searching high a low for it.
2) English Pubs. Southern California is bordering on completely devoid of English pubs. I like the relaxed atmosphere and the decent beer
3) Bad Driving. No one in Southern California knows how to drive, this is a fact that I have had verified by the Boston boys. Maybe it’s just the lack of snow that causes them to drive like idiot whenever someone sprays the road with their lawn sprinkler.
4) Illogical Chip Flavours. Seriously no dill pickle what the hell is that.
5) Spelling. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again speak the Queens English. Here is a fast run down of the correct spelling of the following words cheque, favour, neighbour, colour, humour, flavour, recognise, and patronise.
6) Decent Beer. If Sam Adams is all you people have it’s time to quit trying and except that American beer is as Monty Python put it ‘American beer is like making love in a canoe. It's fucking near water’

That said I really love the weather the beaches and the attitude out here. Granted I am sure at some point I am going to really miss proper culture and have to move somewhere that has it.

2006-06-01T15:23:00.000-07:00

World Cup 2006 Germany

Well it's that time again when my thoughts drift to the world cup. I was really disheartened when Ireland didn't qualify and I have yet to forgive the French for that (yea call up everyone and their mother to play against Ireland and barely win). So I have to throw my support behind England.

New Order - World In Motion

Sure the song is a bit tacky and dated but what can you do I still love that song. So I will be trading my 'come on you boys in green' cheers for the decidedly more gutteral 'Engurland' and 'Rule Britannia' chants. So I'm not as dillusional as your average limey so I don't expect them to actually win the world cup but placing would be good. Actually I like the Dutch, the clock work orange are due one of these days.

2006-06-01T09:24:00.000-07:00

The Office. I thought this may be a good opportunity to enlighten everyone as to what my work conditions are like here in Encinitas. I am trying to get the back story out of the way so we can dive straight in.

I suppose everyone’s office is meant to feel like a bit of a sitcom or it has always been that way for me in the past. This one is absolutely no different except the accents are different. The side of the office I sit on does not host one native Californian of the five of us. The office breakdown works like this;

Stuart, Owner/CEO – New Zealand
Bobby D, Sales Rep – Boston
Adam, Sales Rep – Boston
Jim, Sales Rep – New Hampshire
Steve, Sales Manager – Boston

There are advantages to working with a bunch of chowds, the main ones being that my accent seems slight by comparison. Granted I still hear about it every time I say ‘out, about or house’ which I suppose is to be expected. The team is actually a lot of fun to work with and we get along like a house on fire. It has also been really great to watch my Jays smoke the Sox so far this season. I think the best moment in all of this was when Bobby and I were in Vegas. We were walking next to each other down the corridors at the Mandalay Bay, him in his Sox hat carrying a Budweiser and me in my Jays hat carrying a Moosehead. To steal a phrase from the chowds ‘they’re a wicked smart bunch of guys.’

The other main perk of working here is just generally the level of respect I get treated with. In one of our first lunches Stuart called it ‘coming off the plantation’ and he wasn’t far from the truth. Here my opinions are listened to and taken into consideration which is a nice change. I also have my own office with a window, imagine that. My first major project will be to roll everyone in the company over to a work from home situation. We will be closing down the Encinitas office and moving into a smaller one in La Jolla. Most of the sales reps will work from home as well as the tech teams. This is a huge amount of work for me to do on my own but I’m up for the challenge. Granted the time line has been accelerated from October to the middle of July, so challenges abound.

So here are some office pictures.

'the beatings will stop when morale improves'. You can see on the map how far I am from home, a 7 hour flight is a bit deceiving.

2006-05-31T09:48:00.000-07:00

First entry in this blog and already I feel like I am off to a less than auspicious beginning. I suppose this is sort of the new millennia’s answer to the blank first page. I used to think of myself as something of a writer but I have found over time that definition becomes fairly fluid and can be used to describe all manner of failed literary enterprise. In this way I can remember the fear of the blank page. This is also of course tempered with the fact that this blog is for public consumption, which is something altogether new to me. I have written these sorts of things before but never with the intention of family reading it. So I will try not to be overly verbose and egocentric because at the end of the day I know at some point everyone knows me as a son, brother, nephew or cousin first and I’m from an Irish family so there will be no end to the teasing at Christmas if I get above myself here.

So the purpose of this mostly blog cum travelogue with an intent on updating my family on the goings on in my world now that I am an expat living a decent distance from home. This also saves me the relatively tedious process of e-mailing out pictures and updates which always leaves me forgetting someone’s e-mail address.

So I thought I would offer up some basic information regarding my new life here in Southern California. The main reason I moved out here was for a job with NWTech USA Inc. in Encinitas. I was hired on as a Systems Engineer which is a clever way of convincing techies to talk to me with the intention of doing technical sales. In other companies the role is called Sales Engineer or some such. Apart from that this is a small company so I wear many hats. So far I really love the job and the people I work with. We are a loose collection of east coasters and led by another expatriate this one being from New Zealand so we all get to talk about how much better things were back home. That’s the funny thing I find about people who leave there home countries even the less patriotic ones like me, we find ourselves comparing everything to home and ultimately it comes up short. Well I’m not sure that short is the right word but different, and we all miss the food.

As for living arrangements I am living in north San Diego in Sorrento Valley/Mira Mesa. I live in a fairly large townhouse complex flanked completely by Qualcomm buildings. Generally decent place, close enough to Mike and Jenn that I at least know a few people in the area.