Can’t Sleep

I received a phone call earlier this evening pertaining to my job application with Kiewit in Calgary. I received an offer, and I start whenever I want. I get to choose between Calgary and Edmonton with moving expenses paid. For the first time of my life, I’m considering purchasing a vehicle. I’m thinking about finally being able to pay off my debt. How much I’ll miss my family, not to mention pets.

I was told by the recruiter to take a vacation between before I start work. Therefore, I think Heidi and I are going to spend a week somewhere near the equator, and then maybe making a detour to NYC, before I move away in February. She’ll join me about a month or two later. This company has a reputation for being demanding of its employees, and it’ll be a good idea to relax a bit.

Speaking of relaxing…I can’t sleep for the life of me.

My Family And The Military

My family has pretty much always been in support of Western military. My father’s father served in the end of WWII, my mother’s father was in the army. My father was absolutely fascinated with fighter jets, and regularly took me to airshows. I was dead-set on becoming a fighter pilot until age 14, when I discovered I needed glasses. My dream was, in essense, shot down (pun intended).

I was always told by my father and CNN that Israel always has to defend itself against people who just hated them for no reason. When 9/11 happened, I was pretty sure I was still going to join the Air Force. I got my glider pilot’s license the next summer, and my private pilot’s license the summer before 12th grade. I was not uncommon for my father to have a military themed wallpaper on his office desktop background.

Tomahawk-launched-from-battleship

This is a tomahawk cruise missile warhead delivery system being launched from a naval vessel. It can deliver over 1,000 lbs of explosive over 2,500 kilometers. I’d see things like this on Extreme Machines and love it. I can just picture the narrator saying something along the lines of “With technology like this, the bad guy doesn’t even have a chance to fire a single bullet.”.

Nowaways, my perspective is a little different. I see Israel as a bully, I question our involvement in Afghanistan, supporting a false government, when only about 100 taliban are actually in the country (they’re all in Pakistan now). I can understand if we’re making money off of their drugs, which is what it seems. Funny they don’t tell you that Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, is the brother of a major drug lord. It’s also funny that the Allies only burn southern opium crops, not northern ones.

I see this senseless violence, and greed that is to a level no different than telecommunications companies screwing over the public, or ticketmaster charging you $25 in “convenience fees” per event ticket, and wonder where we’ve gone wrong. We’re all just greedy motherfuckers, it seems.

Now when I look at a photo of a tomahawk cruise missile, I see the real result:

This child was at a distance from the target. I think its safe to guess that whoever was in the blast radius could now only be poured into a vial. This shit happens nearly daily in Iraq. How about if one cruise missile were to hit a rural community in Pennsylvania?  It would be a massive tragedy. Hit a few brown people in the desert? Meh.

Let’s pretend that is a photo of a child in Canada who died at the hands of, say, the Chinese. Would they be winning our hearts & minds, or would we sign up to kill those invaders at any cost?

My point? I do not believe that our tactics are helping us at all in reducing the threat of terrorism.

I Feel It’s Appropriate to Be Reminded

Science just asks for your eyes.

She Isn’t One To Mess With…

Watch my girlfriend kill this poor soul with one of her typical volleyball spikes.

…Fear her.

Another Music Discovery

I was with Heidi and some friends last night. Some guys were playing Need for Speed: Undercover on the PS3, and a song came on that Heidi and I flipped for. A little bit of googling later, we found out it was a song called Genesis by Justice. Checked them out some more, and these guys are frickin’ awesome. They’re just like Daft Punk.

Here’s my fave song I’ve found so far:

This is the song that played in the game:

Headlines Must Be Fun To Write

Tip of the hat to Matt for this:

Headline

The Ghost Of Great Music Past

Back in the day, music made you want to live. Take Black Sabbath in 1970 (40 effin’ years ago). Just watch them play. Nobody is this intense anymore :

Now what do we have to covet? Music that does the opposite; make you want to slit your own wrists:

Where have we gone wrong? I’m not one who only listens to rock (as a matter of fact, I’ve been on a classical kick lately), but just look at the sheer energy of a young Ozzy Osbourne in Paris. They sat down and wrote this themselves. Nobody has the balls to write like this anymore! No company wants to pay or promote people who write like this anymore! Nobody wants to buy good music anymore!

This is where you say “Touché, Andrew”, and I say “I know…and I’m just as guilty”. Guys, let’s make an effort to buy music that deserves the money, ok?

On a tangent, Bill Hicks said it best:

See I think drugs have done some good things for us, I really do, and if you don’t believe drugs have done good things for us, do me a favor: go home tonight and take all your albums, all your tapes, and all your cds and burn ‘em. ’cause you know the musicians who made all that great music that’s enhanced your lives throughout the years…. rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreal fuckin’ high on drugs.

More Bullshit Of Olympic Proportions

Since my last rant about the Olympics, (that has Canadian police possibly fining and jailing Canadian citizens for protesting the disgusting treatment of the homeless, not to mention the mountain of debt), I had heard about other violations of free speech.

Amy Goodman is a well-known reporter in alternative news. A shit-disturber, so to speak. Regardless, she was going to Vancouver to give a talk about healthcare, and Canadian border guards clearly mistreated her on the grounds that she was possibly speaking against the olympics.

I don’t care if you’re pro or against the olympics; this is fucking disgusting.

Too Busy – So I Leave You With This

An Open Letter To Université De Moncton

À qui de droit,

Garde, ça fait 5 ans et demi. Chu su mon “victory lap” de mes études en génie. Please, juste donne moi mon bacc.

Jfais right on dans toutes mes cours jus’qu’à steur. Jget la matière, trust me. C’est une friggen de joke. J’ai déjà donnée mon rapport de Projet de fin d’études. la j’ai inque des bird course de reste (well, p’tête pas hydraulique, but jfais alright là étout). Chu juste tanné. Riiight tanné. Please, ayez un peu’d pitché pour un gars d’la place pis donne-lui son diplôme. Lets just get it over with. I swear j’dirais à personne.

For the love of Christ. Chu fucking tanné, la. Please juste vas dans la backroom pis fais cque t’as à faire pour printer ca out, pis change une couple de choses dans ton database pis thats it. Tu va rendre la whole vie à un autre homo sapien sapien friggin’ glorious. Donneras-tu 20$ à checkzun qui souffre pour 5.5 ans à l’hôpital? Welle juste quadruple la paye de ton I.T. guy pour faire c’q'y a de bezin pour que’j puisse spreader mes wings comme un awesome oiseau libre, pis ça sera la même chose.

Juste envoye-moi un p’tit email pis on a worker out les détails. Smooth pis toute. Fuck, j’te ferai même mes famous BBQ Chicken Nachos – pis I swear que ca serait all worth it pour toi une fois que tu goûte ça. Amazing, oui; but même pas comme une crotte as much que ça serais pour que tu me donnes inque mon bacc.

J’te beg, please, juste donne-moi mon godamn baccalauréat’d marde. Chu juste tanné.



Marci là,

Andrew


P.S.: J’te jure que c’est les best nachos que t’aurais ever mangé de ta vie. Trust me.