This is off my Tumblr.

This could also probably be titled, how to be an online hypebeast.

One of my friend who majored in communications said I have an uncanny eye for cultural capital. When I was in Beijing my friend showed me this website called MCC where kids post ridiculous photos of their lifestyles and gear pickups. Their lives would be documented on low-resolution cell phone cameras, crappy photos taken by drunk people in clubs, and the occasional photoshoot if they worked for a clothing store or did make up and style professionally. I still browse these photos today asking myself, “Damn, these photos are completely awful, they’re all self taken, most of them are just showing off gear, but why do they look so cool?”

I concluded that it wasn’t the gear or crappy photos of R8′s and Ferraris. When you live a lifestyle of high glamour and polish, it doesn’t matter what you use to capture the steeze. A crappy cellphone pic of you and your friends at a photoshoot, eating in restaurants with frivolous amounts of decor, drinking at fancy bars just because you can, stepping out of cars wearing the most impractical clothing: all produce the most eye catching snapshots of conspicuous consumption. I dig it.

Below is a set of instructions to create the same sort of illusion, or at least generate the characteristic hype photos that snap necks.

Here is how you create the illusion.

1.) Get an I-Phone or a Blackberry with a decent camera. Start taking photos of all your gear and random shit. In fact, everytime you see a mirror in an elevator or in a store or on the street (if you can get shots using the mirrors inside Bape or LV stores this gives you more creditability): take a photo of yourself!

2.) Dress cool 24/7, I’m talking going to the grocery store completely decked head to toe in gear as if somebody was about to street snap you any minute, wear a hat if you don’t plan to do your hair. You never know when a street snap photographer is gonna jump out and shoot you.

3.) Get friends with SLR’s that take really vintagey candid photographs all the time and are always up in your personal space. The more sketchy and candid the photo the better. Have these people follow you around 24/7 documenting everything you do. Now the issue is: if you live a boring life, these photos will be awful. You don’t have to be a celebrity, but you will definitely at least have to be a scenester and hang out at cool places just to be “seen”. But hey the photos will beg the differ for you. Nobody will know the difference, they will just see you, steezed, candidly looking away from the camera on your phone while some paparazzi friends suck your soul into the camera. If you live an interesting life, you can stop reading here you’re done.

4.) A key element is knowing other people who are really into fashion, or at least dress as cool as you. Incorporate these people into your photos as much as possible. If you’re legit, these people will be your friends, models, girlfriends, personal photographers and PR Agents lol. Get group shots of sneakers and make it look NATURAL. It’s ironic that it feels very unnatural to make a photo look nature.

4.) Photoshop the photos so they’re shitty looking but are at least visible enough to highlight the details you want to stress. Post them online, write some bullshit underneath them. Wait for the comment sharks to take a bite out of you.

If you have successfully done all of this, you are now cool! Or at least portray an extremely convincing illusion of being super cool.

I’ve seen enough kids fail miserably at this lol.

Monday October 18th 2010

I’m going to write this in a way that logically proves this shit works.

Conclusion:

The first few days of the tea made my body feel cooler.  It definitely helped.  My face still appeared flakey, irritated, itchy.  In fact by day 3 my skin was the most flakey and more  in need of an exfoliation than it’s been in months.  I continued drinking the horrible tasting tea.

Premise:

Now this sounds awful, but to SERIOUSLY prove this tea is is effective (this wasn’t planned, it was just a side bonus) I went out on Friday, got smashed, drank, smoke, ate spicy food, did everything that normally makes my skin go completely horrrible.  But I needed to know if this was the tea, or the detox.  I’ve actually been on a detox for the last bit anyways.  I only do that shit once every few months.  But if this TRULY extinguishes the fire, then I should be able to consume as much crap as possible and still see little to no damage (like when I was younger).  If this shit truly works, I should be able to dump toxins into my body and have them extinguished immediately by the tea.

AND I WAS RIGHT!! WHOOO!!  I woke up this morning all flakey, towards the end of the day the flakeyness sort of dissapated.  The colour in my face turned from irritated red to a normal colour again.  I hoped in the shower, rubbed some of the ezcema soap they gave me on.  Hopped out, still a few flakes.  Moisturized.  Bam, I look like a just got shot full of acupuncture needs.  (I should post a photo but I’m not that vain).

Subpremise:

This is normally how I would look after 4 weeks of taking Chinese herbal pills 3 times a day.   That’s right, I used to pop about 30 pills a day total trying to achieve the same effect.  Except the heat would come back and I’d appear all flakey a few months later.

So! This tea is supposed to be like 10x as strong as the pills and completely extinguish all the heat I should be okay for a while now.  The acupuncture and pills were a temporary solution and I’d begin feeling irritated again a few days after.  I’ll have to do a part 2 of the Miracle Cure a month later to see how long this effect lasts.  Questions and Comments are welcomed.

Friday October 15th 2010

So I took the advice of a friend and went to this random sketched out Chinese acupuncture an herbal place in East Chinatown.  I’m usually over at Dupont for this sorta thing, but I wanted to see if I could get my fix for $20 instead of $80.  I walk in, he tells me that acupuncture is only really good for muscle relief, and cupping is only good for colds.  Pills don’t work either.

Normally I go in, get acupuncture, then get 3 weeks worth of pills and go home.  Not today, he gave me a special bar of soap for my ezcema.  Then he splayed out five sheets of paper and started rummaging through the wooden cabinet doors for herbs.  He had this weight scale with a plate on one end that he was using to scoop all the herbs.  He dumped five portions of them all across the papers.  He had about ten different kinds of random sketched out vegetable looking things.  He bagged em up, said take em home, boil em for two hours and drink it twice a day.  Within five days I’ll be cured.

I’m boiling the leaves now.

If this actually works, this is the cure I’ve been looking for for almost three years now.  I have too much internal heat and it irritates my skin, and I’ve been trying to cure that.  He said these herbs are hella strong, and within five days I should feel like a changed man.

He also said sleep before 12 so my liver can expel toxins.  He didn’t tell me to stop eating spicy food and booze although that probably would help.

Let’s see what happens.

Tuesday June 1st 2010: Continued cleaning out the backyard.  Had my first POL200 tutorial which was horrible. Got a haircut.  Class and stuff.

Wednesday June 2nd 2010: We had a guest lecture on aging for Sociology.  Booked my G2 class.

Thursday June 3rd 2010: At 2AM we went up to this KBBQ place in Markham to get our eat on with Terrance and Ray, then we went to go talk shit at Timmy’s afterwards.  It was very suburban for us.  BRING ON THE DUBSTEP!!!  More about that later.

Friday June 4th 2010: I have a bunch of stuff written here in my agenda but I can’t even figure out what I did on Friday.

Saturday June 5th 2010: Terrance’s birthday.  So Terrance’s original plan was to go to Wasaga for his birthday, but it rained so the morning plans got cancelled.  I had no way of getting up to Terrance’s for 6pm and getting back down for 8PM for Mohamed’s 60th birthday (serious).  I feel bad I couldn’t make Terrance’s birthday, but Mohamed is my god father, so I had to prioritize.

Mohamed’s party was a surprise party so we all jumped out and surprised him. It was catered so the food was pretty good.  It was my first time trying out my dad’s Canon S90 which inspired me to get a better point and shoot when I had the cash.

Sunday June 6th 2010: Promise Sundays at Cherry beach had started but I didn’t have time to go. Cherry beach Sundays is another great example of the city of Toronto providing a wonderful service for us to all enjoy if we just took more advantage of it.

Monday June 7th 2010: Drove my mom around at 7 in the morning, went to go get some medicine.

Tuesday June 8th 2010: Ordered the printing machine.

Wednesday June 9th 2010: Started calling companies and getting quotes for shirts and stitching, registering the business and getting a tax account etc.

Thursday June 10th 2010: School, PLD, Work.  More paperwork and hustling.

Friday June 11th 2010:  I was driving down the street in the minivan and saw a leather chair so I popped the trunk and jooked it.  I’ve never felt so hood.  For some reason I was craving Viet buns like crazy that month.  I went over to Hello Velo to get my tired fixed.

At this point in time I believe I was on another detox.  It says I went to Mana nightclub for Becky’s birthday.  I ended up cabbing there because I woke up so late.  I got her some Godiva chocolate for her birthday.  Mana was a pretty fun club, it was full of Ginos.  Becky instructed her lady friends not to wear heels so they wouldn’t tower over the short gino guys (huh?) lol.  Cabbed back pretty late.

Saturday June 12th 2010: Dillon’s Secret Beach Party was cancelled by the rain again, sucks.  I love that place.  Went to go hang out with Winston at night, showed me his crazy jazz skills.

Sunday June 13th 2010: 11PM went to Mix2 with David Ray and TL but they didn’t have any sort of open mic night.  Went to Springrolls to grab Aney, then went to Tbones to get some food.  I got back around 2AM and watched Oliver Twist which was really well done.

Monday July 14th 2010: Paid tuition.  Went into class and announced the ISSS conference to my whole class which was SUPER STRESSFUL because I hadn’t presented anything infront of anybody for a long ass time.  Picked up my business cards.

Tuesday July 15th 2010: I slept from 9PM to 4:30AM that day.  It’s either I’m up super early or I’m up super late.

Wednesday July 16th 2010: 11:30-4:30PM read Jenna Jamesons’ “How to Make Love Like a Pornstar” book.  A wonderful piece of pop culture.  Super entertaining and ridiculous.  It gave me a real insight into female psychology.  I went to go download Zombie Strippers afterwards.  Ryan took some photos of me for the fit battle I will never participate in.

Thursday July 17th 2010: 6:30PM ISSS Meetup.

Friday July 18th 2010: I was on antibiotics at this point.  Went to go hang at Jennifer’s for the first time.  She was living in Ivan’s basement apartment for a while before she got a new place over near Broadview.  It’s pretty nice, big open living room, high ceilings, back patio.

Saturday July 19th 2010: So I went to go see Winston perform at the Annex Live with James and his friend Felicia.  Pretty sick performance, he had a lot of Japanese friends there drinking.  Ran into Eri.  After that we went over to park downtown and walked to London Tap house which had nothing going on, then we went to XS and waited a long ass time for them to show up.  They came around 1AM.  We got shooed inside where we had a table saved for us all the way in the back.  These guys were nuts, they ordered two magnum Goose  bottles and drank them both.  We were there until 3AM or so.  Went to go grab some Chinese food afterwards.  I backed into some guy’s Audi and bumped it a little and there was almost a scrap lol.   James was explaining his friend was notorious for walking into Chinese restaurants, ordering a shitload of food, eating a little bit then dumping cash on the table and going home.  Drove everybody home afterwards, crazy shit.

Sunday July 20th 2010: Had dimsum with my grandparents.  Came home afterwards and made sushi for everybody.

Monday July 21st 2010: School.

Tuesday July 22nd 2010: Political theory paper due.  Slept from 8:30-5am.

Wednesday July 23rd 2010: Had training for our printer at 10AM.

Thursday July 24th 2010: School.

Friday July 25th 2010: More training with the printer.  Passed out at 10PM.

Saturday July 26th 2010: Went to go test drive an Integra we found online, I really don’t get why people like that car it feels super racey but it’s really not comfortable to drive.  8 to 10 went to go print stuff.  Jackson came over at 1AM to work on some stuff for his project, put together some videos and pictures.

Sunday July 27th 2010: Nothing eventful.

Monday July 28th 2010: Installed some print drivers on the machine.

Tuesday July 29th 2010: More PLD stuff.

Wednesday July 30th 2010: 7-12AM Ryan had a party here in the garage.  We set up the garage like a lounge and had everybody party inside of it.  The speakers weren’t too loud, we couldn’t get anybody to dance really and it was sorta cramped but it worked out in the end.  I left at 12 to go to Social with James.  It was my first time there it was pretty cool.  I like these bars because they’re not too crowded and you can sorta just relax in the back.

I’m going to be in rehab before we know it.

Wednesday October 6th 2010.

I thought I’d write this helpful guide because I’m all about helping people and educating people.

1.) Decide why you are detoxing, is it for health reasons or are you slowly slipping into the land of substance abuse?

2.) Try to hang out less with enablers. Enablers are people who tempt you to do the substance.   If you’re like me, these will be your best friends so explain to them what you’re doing and tell them not to pass the crack pipe in your direction.  They will respect your decision, and if they don’t then you’re fucked and you’ll never be able to quit.

3.) When at parties or clubs, go to the bar and ask to drink coke in a glass, or sprite, or ice tea.  Anything that resembles booze in a cup.  You’ll be standing with your friends with a glass in your hand that resembles alcohol, this is some sort of social cue, nobody will question you.  I went to a kegger and drank a beer cup full of water the whole night and my friends freaked out when I got in the car and started driving.  Dumbasses, did you forget who the designated driver was?

If girls ask, tell them you’re the designated driver.  Responsibility is sexy.  Plus, girls prefer to talk to the mature intellectual sober guy over the drunk ass frat boy throwing ping pong balls around and cheering with his shirt off.

If you don’t want all the sugar you can actually ask for water in a cup, or a water bottle.  Whenever I see people in the clubs drinking water, I automatically assume they’re high on MDMA or they’ve snorted a large amount of Ketamine.  If you’re drinking water in the club, you are hardcore.  That, or you’re so drunk you need to drink water to stop yourself from puking on your shirt.  Good job buddy!

Don’t forget to dance and hit on as many girls as possible.  This is what we do afterall when we’re drunk, so act like it.  You don’t need liquid courage.  That’s why god gave you testicles.   Grab that girl’s ass, she’s probably sober too she’s just pretending to be drunk so her friends won’t call her a slut for dancing with you.

If guys are running around pouring 26′s down your throat, get the hell away from those guys.  If you’re asian, you won’t asian glow in any of the photographs.  And if you’re smoking, roll the smoke in your mouth and blow it out.  It looks the same, might take some practice if you suck at that.

4.) Use delicious food as a reward instead of drugs or alcohol. This one was very helpful.  Smokers sometimes chew candy instead of smoking, it distracts your brain or something.  Every time I felt like going partying or drinking, I would go and get sushi, pizza, chicken wings, KFC (KFC is Satan’s food), anything that gives you a crazy bomb ass rush then a crash afterwards.  The rush and crash is similar to what we experience when doing drugs, therefore we feel satisfied.  I figured this one out myself, it works for me most of the time.  Besides, most of us do drugs and go eat afterwards anyways.  Just cut out the first part.

5.) Stop drinking and doing drugs unless you absolutely have to. Wooo! We’re in some piece of shit house for some guy’s birthday we don’t even know and we’re celebrating that by getting smashed! If you’re like me and have to attend parties to save face or meet people for whatever reason, it’s detrimental to be drinking three days a weekend every weekend.  Unless you are TRULY celebrating something amazing, or seriously need to drink, don’t drink because everybody else is doing it.  That’s not a reason.  For my age I’ve seen a fair share of this,  we do not need to legitimately impress most of the people we meet at parties by drinking with them.  Occasionally you’ll have a business meeting where Rick Ross will over you a shot and you’d have to be a complete moron to tell him you’re detoxing, in that situation YOU MUST DRINK.  I don’t care if you were in AA for ten years, it’s Rick Ross.

But if you’re in some dingy ass environment with bad music and ugly people, why bother?  Drive home without the cops RIDE checking you, let your friends get smashed, and save your liver for another night.  There are three days a weekend, and a Wednesday and Thursday for warriors.  You can attend all five and feel totally fine if you do them sober.

I had a friend named JP in China who clubbed five days a week, was totally involved in the electronic music scene, hung out with the DJ’s from Acupuncture records (super cool).  I asked him how he did it?  He didn’t drink or smoke anything, and he only drank coke when he was out. He got home everyday at 4-5AM or so, went to class from 8-11, passed out.  Woke up at 5PM or so, studied a bit and ate dinner and went back out.

BAUCE.  Learn from the Germans.

6.)  Cut out other crap like coke, pepsi, caffeine, processed sugar. Or if you really crave an alcoholic beverage, have a really cold glass of coke instead.  Remember back in the day when they used to have soda jerkers, and a soda was a delicious liquid treat that would only be served at a soda bar per se? You need to enjoy every carbonated beverage on that level. These days we drink pop like it’s water.  It was designed to be a TREAT.  What is wrong with us. Start working out again, get regular sleep, get some work done.  You want to achieve high grade stimulation that you work for and truly appreciate.

7.) When you relapse, do as many drugs as possible to really satiate that hunger. Get drunk for the whole weekend, get so drunk you never want to see or smell liquor ever again.  Then quit for another three months or so, it’ll be easy after that.

The September 2010 detox was MUCH easier than the January 2010 detox because it was at the end of summer and I was frankly completely sick of partying.  I broke the detox after 28 days and now I’m back onto a moderate partying every now and then sort of schedule.  The lessons I learned this month in how to effectively party while detoxing proved to be the most valuable component of this month’s detox though.

Saturday May 1st 2010: Woke up at 6PM, went to go meet Matt for a meeting.  Cleaned my room, took bottles back to the LCBO.  Researched the printing processes for PLD, created the google  group, researched small business grants for small businesses in Canada.  Skipped Bill’s party at XS (sorry Bill i was way too tired.)

Sunday May 2nd 2010: Went to go see Colin.  I call it basement therapy.  Colin is one of my few friends that doesn’t club or drink or do drugs, which is a good thing because all my other friends love that stuff.   I consider it an evening out without actually going out.  Colin said a lot of his friends have really fast paced lives, and he becomes sort of the vacation.

Monday May 3rd 2010: Meetings, nothing much.

Tuesday May 4th 2010: Exchanged some money into US dollars, wrote James a proposal for the Yankee Lady cruise party which didn’t end up happening. Not enough man power this year.

Wednesday May 5th 2010: Went to go buy the Bape book, found it on the bottom shelf at Chapters.  These things are super hard to find, it had apparently been sitting on that shelf for years and nobody wanted it.  Afterwards I went to go speak with one of the sales reps at Noise, she makes jewellery.  After that I went to go speak to some of the people at Bang On and Logomagik to see what kinds of machines they used.  They used either heat transfer or silk screen.  All of them said a direct to garment printer clogs too easily and is too expensive to use.  (This was BS because that’s what we ended up buying).

Thursday May 6th 2010: to Sunday May 9th 2010: New York! Seperate blog entry about this.

Monday May 10th 2010: First day of school.  So I couldn’t get a summer job so my dad said I should enroll in summer school instead.

Tuesday May 11th 2010: Went to go buy my books.  Popped by the tailor, kept researching the printing machines.  I called Hilife about my birthday because I had about 30 guests coming with me to the club, and more showing up there.  They offered me 20 free VIPs, a free limo from the club back to my house, and a free bottle at the club if I just brought my party to Embassy.  I agreed.

Wednesday May 12th 2010:  Stolen Bike Story: So I bought a 24 inch BMX on Craigslist for $175, super pimped out.   I brought it into Core the next day to get pieces of it fixed up.  The owner of Core said he received an email about it a month before and that the BMX was stolen from his friend’s store at Cycle Therapy, and that they had to repossess it.  The owner showed up and agreed to buy it back from me if I agreed to surrender it.  Can you believe that?  I called the guy back and he said his friend had sold it to him.

Never trust ghetto ass kids on craigslist.  Spent three hours at the cop station with no luck.  Gave Selwyn a call that evening to catch up.

Thursday May 13th 2010: Went to go get cash back from Nathan.  Went into class.

Friday May 14th 2010:  Snapping necks on Bloor and my Birthday. Went shopping for my birthday and bought myself a sick new bandana, Ivan drove me up I ended up paying his parking ticket down for him lol.  I was wearing an Roar Tshirt and Visvim slippers when we walked into the store, I asked the clerk for help and thought I mistook her for a customer, she said she was a clerk and I could be helped upstairs.  This fobby guy at the counter gave me the dirtiest look like he wanted to suck my dick or something.  I went upstairs and got the bandana and came back downstairs and this fobby guy saw what I was wearing and actually got out of my way to let me through.  I didn’t even notice this, Ivan pointed it out for me afterwards.  I snapped that  guy’s neck thoroughly. Most people in Toronto don’t have any appreciation for these brands.

I’ll blog more about my birthday seperately.

Saturday May 15th 2010: Woke up the next day, can’t remember what went down.

Sunday May 16th 2010: Woke up with my shoulder hurting like a motherfucker.  Turns out I inflamed the joint, and while trying to stretch it out I did some chinups which hit a nerve or something.   The pain was so unbearable I couldn’t stand straight or walk very well.  It just hurt like hell.

At 1PM that day Matt and I went over to Kensington to look at vintage tees we could print on.  My life sometimes resembles an episode of “How to make it in America”. Afterwards we went to go buy some fruit to take pictures of for our new release.

I got home at 8 that day and biked with Kevin to see Tiffany’s friends on the beach for a BBQ.  After that we all went to go sing some karaoke.  Shoulder still hurt.

Monday May 17th 2010: Went to go buy my textbooks.  Cleaned my room up, got the business cards printed, went to go photograph some graffiti, decluttered the house a bit.

Tuesday May 18th 2010: Went to get a custom grill made. This was hilarious, I’ve always wanted one.  The guy who makes them is pretty hard to get a hold of, but does an amazing job.  I  had to go back to his office about 15 times because the moulds didn’t fit properly.   Went to go hang out with Becky and Fraser in the evening.  They had a friend from Katimavik visiting from Calgary, so after dinner we drove around the city a bit to show her what Toronto looks like.  University Avenue and King street are pretty nice areas to drive through actually.

Wednesday May 19th 2010: More research for the company.  We’ve been going to this new crackspot called Tbones.  Basically you can get a steak dinner for $15, with fries and gravy and a drank.  It’s open all night at Midland and Steeles, worth checking out. That’s probably the only reason we eat there, because we’re hella sketched out.

Thursday May 20th 2010: Exam in ECO. Went to go see the registrar again because I couldn’t get into ECO100 because it was prioritized towards RSM people.  I made some calls in the morning to some companies regarding printing machines.  While on Facebook I randomly found a Canadian distributor who were way cheaper, BAM.

Friday May 21st 2010: C Lounge: Met  up with Ren in the evening and went skateboarding with him.  Ren is the only Asian guy I know who can actually do difficult tricks, it’s really impressive.  Got my grill back finally.  In the evening it was Brittany Chan’s birthday at C Lounge.  Showed up with David and Ren.  C Lounge is nice because they have this nice swimming pool like thing in the back, and there’s plenty of places to sit.  Bought some shots for the birthday girls, CC organized a surprise bottle service for Brittany but not enough people were there to throw down, so Ren and I ended up drinking most of the bottles ourselves LOL.  We were smashed afterwards, and headed to Basement to get our freak on.

Basement is a ridiculous place, that was my third time going I think.   Ran into a few sketchbags.  The novelty of going to basement is just seeing all the sketched out people all high on drugs, it’s just the most sketched out place I can think of with decent music.

Saturday May 22nd 2010: Got up at 4Pm that day totally ruined.  Went to go get some sushi, then cleaned my room.

Sunday May 23rd 2010: Justin and Donald’s birthday at Rockwood.  Ivan’s friend Isaac shows up and starts talking to me, he explains hes also into clothes and was wearing some pretty intense gear at the club that night as well, and heard all from Ivan about my retarded Beijing journey.  The tables at Rockwood were pretty cool, they were actual wooden tree trunks converted into tables.  We finished off the bottles, chatted up the pack of girls Justin and Donald had invited out, and sorta wandered around the club.  It had a wonderful top floor smoking patio.  About half way through Laura grabbed Donald and gave him the dirtiest kiss in front of everybody sitting in a row.  We of course were screaming our heads off, I felt like I was in middle school again.  Donald ended up puking his guts out and getting driven home by Justin.  Wonderful evening.

Monday May 24th 2010: Teddy F House Video Shoot. Woke up at 3PM (rockstar lifestyle shit yo).  At 9Pm we went over to Wellington and Church to meet up with the group that would be in local rapper’s Teddy F House’s first music video.  His brother Marcus Fantu directed it on the Canon 5D MKII.  They explained whatever was shot infront of it would look amazing.  It was set in a dark alleyway, a bunch of people brought some silly props like a Megatron helmet and a giant Panda mascot hat.  We waited for our turn to go on at the end.  We got a clip of Antz (skateboarder we’re sponsoring) doing a tray flip in slow motion infront of the camera with us standing wearing PLD tee’s next to Marcus.  And we got another shot of me right up near the camera with my grill in grilling the camera lol.  Lots of fun.  They shot it over two different tracks he recorded to see which one looked better.

At the end we went to the Bun2K skateboard film team to go shoot some videos in cloud park.  These guys were nuts, they would use every chance they had to do a trick down a staircase or across a bench.  Hung out in Cloud Park a bit more, it had a nice little waterfall, listened to the guys spit some freestyle for a bit before heading back.  Being in a rap video was one of the things I wanted to do before I die, it’s cool because it’s another party recognizing you for your steeze.  Having my own photoshoot, being in a magazine, and being interviewed are also on the list.

Tuesday May 25th 2010: Got up at 1PM, did a bunch of work, went to class and stuff.  Got a haircut.

Wednesday May 26th 2010: Had a Sociology exam.  Chilled out afterwards.

Thursday May 27th 2010: POL208: So now I was enrolled in POL208 which is Political Theory.  We would be studying the ancient texts of Greek philosophers and 18th century contemporary political scientists.  The course was overall extremely boring and brutal to read through, but those six books we read are referenced like crazy in my current classes so it did sort of come in handy.

One of my goals this summer was to get my G2, I called Tom to get some classes in.

Friday May 28th 2010: Fancy Footwork. Went in to buy books again.  The  Discount Textbook store had the most awful store hours this summer, I would always come in too late or too early to get my books.  It was crazy annoying.  They were kind enough to give me a store credit on a book I returned late recently though, and I appreciate that.

At 9PM Ren came over and we hit up the skatepark.  I bust myself pretty bad but it felt good to feel the concrete again.  Made me feel young again.  At 12PM we got to Footwork thinking we arrived there on time.

Footwork is a pretty funny nightclub because it’s at the end of this really sketched out alleyway.  We were walking down the street completely lost, dodging into random alleyways trying to find this mysterious afterhours nightclub, and bam there it is.  All the way at the end of an alley with a raised fence, three bright red lightbulbs illuminating a red velvet rope and a shitload of people standing outside smoking.  No dresscode, a little bizarre, but totally cool.  I love these on the low sort of hidden places in Toronto.  We need more of them.

Raves start around 12AM but heat up around 3AM when everybody gets back from the bars and feels like sketching hardcore.   From 12 to 2 it was a little slow in there, and around 3 it really picked up.  Apparently there’s a huge black drug dealer in there who calls himself Panther, I just thought that was really silly lol.  He had these huge dreads and walked around wearing this bright orange LV shirt with a huge Gucci strap bag over it.  Talked to a few people.

Saturday May 29th 2010: Sausage Fest Hotel Party: Ren somehow left at 9 in the morning the next day.  I woke up at 5PM and went to go grab David Tu. I picked Tiffany and her friends up from the club, they were all smashed, it was a birthday that day.  I dropped them off at the hotel and went to go park the car.  It was Tiffany, her sister Kim, and like ten dudes in a hotel room with no booze.   I hadn’t seen Tiffany in a few years since then so it was good to catch up with her.  Kim was inside playing this game where she got all the guys to slap each others asses.  I refused to participate.

Kim left without notifying Tiffany so I ended up driving Tiffany back up to her house at 6AM or so.  I didn’t know the fastest route was Gardiner West then take Jane North, so we drove local and it took a while.  Once I got up there I chilled with Tiffany from 6 to 9AM or so and just caught up with her before taking David back downtown with me.

Sunday May 30th 2010: Sex and the City 2 At 2PM Terra came over with sushi.  At 6PM we drove over to the movie theatre and parked underground.  We got a little lost finding Frances whom we haven’t seen in a while because she’s been studying at USC.  They both wanted to go see Sex And the City 2, which was full of cougars and gay men.  The movie was actually super entertaining, it played on themes of female empowerment in the Middle East which I thought had some real value.  Afterwards we went to go eat Katsu, and I managed to convince the manager to let me take the leftover sushi home (because these girls ordered way too much and couldn’t finish it, hoes!) I dropped everybody off afterwards.  I haven’t seen Frances since.

Monday May 31st 2010: Got my G2 Exit exam scheduled.  Cleaned out the backyard because there was a large accumulation of random furniture there.  I was fiending for some Viet buns so I went over to Chinatown to cop some.  Ordered a bunch of shoes online.

And that was May.

Wednesday October 10th 2010:

And the award goes to Eric Ing for continuing this blog for the last five years or so nonstop.  Okay so since May a lot of things have happened, it was a pretty crazy summer, I’ll get to that as soon as I figure how out to upload all these photos faster.  Because I know everybody hates reading text I’m going to continue writing entire sections with text then blogging the albums separately.  I’m going to continue my tradition of blogging what I’ve done EVERY SINGLE DAY.  It’s thorough and makes sure I haven’t missed anything.

I’m writing this out of order but I feel this entry is an introduction to the next six months you’ll be reading about.

Realizations since May?

Combat Laziness

I listened to a bunch of hypnotic audiotapes about how to combat laziness and help solve your bad habits.  I’ve learned that in order to maximize your appreciation for life, you must work hard and sweat.  The harder you work (let’s not overdo this of course) the more you will appreciate the other aspects of your life.  So for example, you decide not to drink for an entire month.  Right before you have a relapse you smoke half a cigarette.  It’s the best half a cigarette anybody on this planet has ever experienced.  Smokers who are completely addicted will still not experience the level of ecstasy you will experience after a month of being completely sober.

How to Appreciate Appreciating Things

One thing China taught me was that if you constantly spoil yourself and live it up, you will no longer appreciate even the most expensive and fine things in life.  This is why a lot of rich kids pretend to be poor, and force themselves to live in squalor.  Spoiling yourself makes you numb and unable to feel.  Spoiled children want to feel so badly that they pretend to live like poor people.  It’s really sad.

There is a better solution.  It’s called moderation, and when people say the phrase “everything is okay in moderation” I think a lot of people are full of shit and really do not really fully grasp the concept.  This ties back to what I was saying above, practice minimalism, work hard, conserve, be more, consume less, and when you REALLY earned it and would very much so appreciate it at that moment: you can have what you desire.  And I promise it’ll be the biggest rush of ecstasy you’ll ever experience.

For example: Save money and eat at the student cafeteria five days a week, then on the weekends go and eat whatever you want.  Not only will you save money and eat healthier food more often, but when you do go out for that Friday night chicken wing buffet -  it’ll be the best one you’ve ever experienced.

Another example: Studying. Sam Ferguson once told me that when humans have a lack of stress in their lives, they become depressed.  I did not realize this was even possible, I thought a lack of stress in life would be liberating.  Too much stress will obviously plunge one into depression.  So when all these rich kids spend all their money trying to buy some sort of meaning into their lives, I argue it is to due to lack of dress.

Another example:  Buying stuff. There are a million sneakers out there.  I’ve seen most sneakerheads get up to 10-30 pairs depending on how much disposable income they have.   You will appreciate your sneakers more if you just save all your money and buy the sickest 6 or so pairs, and just love those to death everyday.  When it comes to being a consumer whore it is truly quality not quantity that will somewhat satiate your hunger.  Sam also mentioned the concept of conspicuous consumption.  Consuming to prove we have money to people who don’t even know us.  Back in the day everybody knew who was the baller in town, nowadays we need to buy products to prove it on the street.  Street fashion evolved out of that, it’s sort of awful in a sense.

Another example: Partying. You’ll hear at the end of the summer that I went to Montreal for a birthday, then the cottage, then had Ivan’s birthday back in Toronto.  It was ten straight days of partying, after that I quit partying completely for a month and went to socials sober and pretended to drink if I had to.  If you’re going to go clubbing, work your ass off, and when you get inside it’ll be the best time of your life.  I’m at that stage in my life where clubbing isn’t even fun anymore, it’s a chore, it’s work.  It’s “oh shit do we have to go to Wetbar tonight? Ugh, get my dancing shoes out.” There is something so wrong with that.   We need Jigsaw the serial killer.

Another example: Appreciation takes hard work and patience. Playing guitar is crazy fun when you’re good at it because there is so much more you can do, you gain the ability to express yourself through the instrument, that itself is a wonderful skill.  It takes a lot of hard work and patience but that is the sort of high quality stimulation that makes life more wonderful.  Low grade stimulation would be watching TV or playing counter strike or something.   A lot of people cheat themselves out of the higher grade stimulation in life by not being willing to work for it.  Biking is another example, it’s really fun to go fast but you need to peddle faster.  I really do not enjoy videogames that you need to really slave over.

Okay so those were the big realizations I’ve had, I have huge realizations like this every few months or so.  It’s mostly me realizing the same stuff, but seeing it when a newer more mature perspective.   A cycle of epiphanies.  Here we go onto the text blogging.

Thursday April 1st 2010: Armin Van Buuren Concert at Guvernment

My buddy Ren and I got tickets, got in line, got inside, arrived just in time to hear the evil voice “YOU ARE NOW ENTERING A STATE OF TRANCE”.  I got a few pretty good videos.  We saw David Guetta play (really fucked up version of hip hop imo) and walked around the club a bit, took some photos with random people high on drugs, jammed, and got some decent shots.  Cool night.

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Thank god I got presale tickets.

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Friday April 9th 2010: Guu and Tiffany’s party.

Yay I’m carrying around my camera again.  So we get to Guu which is this Japanese izakaya restaurant all the Japanese people in Toronto are hitting up (that’s how you know it’s bomb) and we end up waiting two full hours in line to seat a table of 8.   Food was good, everybody was insanely drunk and rowdy and singing happy birthday and stuff. Afterwards I went to go see Tiffany at her hotel birthday party.

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Afterwards I waited with Michelle for her bus (she bussed all the way back to Toronto just to eat at Guu, that’s how I know Toronto is the place to be) at Yonge and Dundas square which gave us a good opportunity to shoot the place.

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After Tiffany’s party I hung out with David and Jason a bit before dropping dead.  Long ass weekend.

Friday April 23rd 2010: Janice’s hotel party.

Happy birthday Janice if you’re reading this bs lol.  Johnny and I bussed it to Jackson’s old crib, got picked up, then got dropped off at the hotel.  Janice bought way too much booze for that many people.  Lightweight asians + that much booze + small hotel room proximity = death.  I got owned, I was also drinking on an empty stomach.

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Okay this next shot is hilarious.

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Yeah son.

Sunday April 25th 2010: More graffiti.

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Thursday April 29th 2010: Riverdale Talent show.

OH GOD I’m finally done this blog.  Took 2 days to blog the last 4 months of my life, seems fair.  I went with my family and David to go see RCI’s talent show.  Noah and Ryan had a routine and at the end with Fiona.  The routines up to that were pretty shitty but there was some decent singing and dancing here and there.

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I am putting all the photos together in one piece because all of them are not worth taking up the space of an entire independent entry.  Plus, when I put all the photos together like this all the viewers are suddenly convinced my life is fascinating and so much more interesting than theirs.  You don’t even wanna know what I’m up to this weekend. Straight evil shit.

See you at the end of the summer.

PEACE

March 3rd 2010: Jelly Fish Tank

Don’t ask, don’t tell.  They’re sick though eh?

March 12th 2010: David Hu’s birthday

I really should have brought my own camera to this party lol.  Screw it, after these few events I started carrying my camera around again.

Popular guy eh?

March 13th 2010: Jimmy Chiale Show with a performance by Capital Stacks at Proper Reserve, then an A-TRAK concert.

Matt invited me out to Proper reserve to see his friend (also a graffiti artist) do a show, then to watch Capital Stacks (a group he did some art for) perform.  We got picked up in his friends beamer and hung out there for a while, had a few drinks.  I unfortunately didn’t bring my camera so bear with my crappy cellphone pics. I ended up copping a pair of 10deep jeans after talking to the owner for a bit lol.  Afterwards he scored tickets to an A-Trak concert (Kanye West’s DJ).  It was also a Redbull DJ mixing competition so everybody was very confused and definitely not dancing to the beat.

March 29th 2010:  University of Western Ontario’s CAISA Fashion Show. So I met Johnny at TNT, Derrick drove us to Waterloo.   We crashed upstairs.  I ended up talking to Ivan for most of the night about his sports career and how he excels at things faster than most people.  We slept, got up in the afternoon, got some pho, went over to the fashion show.  We got it, lots of models poorly doing choreography with some cheesy MC’s.  Jackson and I enjoyed the final part which was the choreographers show case.  Some other random people came out and performed but nobody was really notable.  Oh, and Team Ryuoku was there.

Our tickets let us straight into the club event afterwards where I was wearing my shades indoors because I am just that cool.  Everybody got into a fight as usual, Ivan didn’t get thrown out. We ended up at McDonalds afterwards with these two girls we were going to crash with but Ivan got into a fight with one of them so he couldn’t crash and Derrick had to drive that group home.  Johnny and I stayed there and both of them were pretty cool.  We had lunch with them the next day and caught a ride back with Jackie.   Grabbed some bubble tea at Pmall, chilled here for a bit before driving Johnny home.

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March Randoms:

Burton poachers.

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This exact pair with the red selvedge is insanely hard to find.

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View from behind my house, this would look good in HDRI lighting.

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Spartacus is dope.

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New tees from the company.  They actually fit better than most of my stuff.

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Thursday April 1st 2010: The turning point. I stayed up all night that day and went into school at 8AM to get in line for the late withdrawl office.  I used two of them up, and had the registrar tell me that if you’re not good at the subject DON’T TAKE IT. Drop out, change courses, change majors, do whatever it takes to get a high GPA and actually learn something.  This aint highschool.  Called my dad afterwards and hes said it was fine, university is about playing up your strengths as much as possible.

Happy April fools bitch.  Spent a whole year sweating and struggling and worrying just to discover you don’t have to take these courses if you don’t want to.

Went to go see Armin Van Buuren’s 450th episode of A State of Trance at Guvernment that evneing with Ren.  Seperate blog post will be issued.

Friday April 2nd 2010: TOtally dead tired.  Woke up at 7PM with Ren and went with David Tu and two random JnF girls he brought out and Matt Adam to the party.  We rolled in mad early and went to the beach to get chased by cops before heading back and staying there until 3 or so.  Mad random drunk Irish dudes MMAing on the floor.

Saturday April 3rd 2010 – Wednesday April 7th 2010: Pure exam prep.

Thursday April 8th 2010: I got a distress signal from Anna and had to drive to Lawrence and Bayview to scoop her.  She was in Toronto for a one day funeral and her dad got pissed and wouldn’t grab her.  After  we dropped her off David and I went over to Java to grab pints and talk about clothes and shit.  (Yeah cus were gay like that.  Get over it you dress like shit.)

Friday April 9th 2010: Tiffany’s birthday party and GUU.  Seperate post about this.

Saturday April 10th 2010: Drove David home. Went to go see Colin for the first time in a long ass time.  His girlfriend Hannah moved out and she’ll be here for a few more months before returning to university in the UK.  Colin, being single for the first time in FOREVER was very excited to have his friends be able to come over, crash, play videogames, be nerds etc. It was cool.  It felt like grade 7 again.  I like Colin’s basement because it is a place no judgements.  And I don’t mean that in the 4chan porn star shit eater kind of way.  I mean it in where we don’t gotta care what we’re wearing (in fact everytime I go over there I always bring a change of pajamas), and we can kinda just do whatever we want and be nerds and watch pretentious films and not give a shit what anybody thinks.  We spend most of our time having philosophical discussions about life though.  That’s one friend I have who isn’t obsessed with all this bling and substance abuse.  Did I add Colin is also one of my few friends who doesn’t drink or do drugs? Well he’ll drink occasionally but not like my party crunk animal friends.

Sunday March 11th 2010: Colin’s parents invited us to dinner with them.  It was good to catch up with them.

Monday March 12th 2010: My mom made note of this IKEA futon mattress we found on the street.  We brought it home and after realizing that it made a real piece of shit futon frame, we bougth some cut dowling and turned it into the illest shoe display rack ever.  I can’t wait till my 15 pairs arrive, it’s going to look like something out of GoodFoot lol.  Total cost? $10.  Totally customized.  Fits like 35 pairs, and you can display them in really  creative ways. My mom is one crafty woman to turn a frame into a contemporary art shoe rack.

Tuesday March 13th 2010: Johnny came over to watch Glee.  The basement feels a lot better with the new big ass TV (am I supposed to be saying this shit online lol).  Hooked up to the oldschool stereo, it’s very nice to stare at.

Wedneday March 14th 2010:  Last FLC dinner. Short seperate blog post.

Thursday March 15th 2010: Craigslist bicycle.  Okay funny story time.  I bought a 24″ BMX off Craigslist for $175 cold cash.  Two different coloured pedals, no breaks, oversized tires. totally fucking pimped out.  I brought it into CORE the next day to get parts put on it and get it overall pimped out.  The owner told me it was his buddies, it was freshly stolen last Monday, and showed me the email he received last week as proof.  The description matched the bike perfectly.  It was enough evidence, he called his friend over.  I surrendered the bike to the guy on the condition that he’d reimburse me my cash because I willingly surrendered the bike to him. He agreed.  I spent 3 hours in the cop station afterwards to get a description down but all the squad cars were out and no officers were avaliable to take my word down.  That’s police for ya, only so much man power, high and low priorities.

I walked, I sent the guy a text talking mad shit to him.  He probably paid money for it himself, aint much anybody can do it about it.  He denied everything

Friday March 16th 2010: History exam. I think I did pretty well. Went to the dentist afterwards.

Basement. David Tu and I spent the most of the nigth debating whether we were gonna go or not. At around 12 we just said fuck it lets go check it out.  We get there around 1AM, it’s packed with old Viet dudes gambling pool and dancing to shitty house music.  We knock over a few beers and chill.  You can blaze inside and do mad drugs in there and nobody gives a shit, it’s sketched. Around 3 the younger kids show up and the place heats up.  Random gogo dancers hopping out of the bathroom in stripper gear (lol). At 3 our friend showed up (right time).  Around 3:30AM we were all piss tired so we dipped.  I made a joke about going there after Embassy on my birthday if enough people were down to do some all night raving SKETCHYNESS.  I think Ivan said he’d go, lol.  PERMAHIGH!

Saturday March 17th 2010: Woke up at 5PM (duh) and went to TNT to grab sushi before picking my mom up from Yorkville.  From 1Am to 7AM me and David were talking mad shit, planning my birthday and stuff.  I asked David if he wanted to merge his birthday with mine but he said screw it becuase then he’d have to invite a whole nother whack set of mets.  I resolved to have my birthday at Nami in the gangster-ass tatami room in the back. 22 seats only, mad exclusive.   Fuck everybody who I invited personally who isn’t going to show.

Sunday March 18th 2010: I booked Nami, called everybody personally.  Then I bid $40 on this Bearbrick from Staple that’s probably going to be worth over 200 in a while.  I bid on it as a joke just to see if I would win, and I WON AHHAA.  I got the invoice a week later.  I was confused, I didn’t remember buying any huge ass bearbrick, oh wait, I did bid on that.  Wow I won? Sick.

I tried playing Assassins Creed 2 which involves pressing LR+X in any direction allowing you to freerun at human body crippling speeds.  It’s all about shanking mens.  It’s just a game where the world is a prison and your hand is a shank and you run around shanking people all day long.

At this point in time since I dropped 2 courses and my final courses I felt I was very strong in, I was just totally messing around all the time with plenty of time still saved over to study and finish work.

Monday April 19th 2010: Whoops, I just read that my dinner was in fact rescheduled for the 19th.  I’ll blog about it later.  That day Noah and I went across to the neighbor who was moving and jacked a bunch of furniture (this was straight iron man shit) and chucked out our old piece of shit blue beat up piece of shit couch that’s been decomposing in the basement for the past five years.   A lot of girls have been completely mirked on that couch. I’m going to miss it dearly.   I took a final photo of it and put it on FB.

Monday April 20th 2010: I was looking at jewellery from Complete Technique the whole night then figured if I was EVER going to spend that much money on a piece of hip hop bling, I may as well get a grill done because that is by far the most balling hiphop thing you can do next to sticking 21′s on a Lamborghini.   Found some new shades from 9five.  Kids, if you are reading this blog you are inadvertantly drinking my steeze with a bubble tea straw right now.

Terra wanted to be picked up from work so we ended up eating sushi together at Newgen.  I was in my pajamas but Terra thinks thats hilarious.

Wednesday April 21st 2010: Adam told me to move the car so he could get something out of the garage.  I ended up vaccuuming the shit out of that car, cleaning the mats, and spraying it with this nice smelling odour so now when I drive it around I feel so much less ghetto lol.  I then ordered XGRA realizing that XGIII seemed like a lamer version of XGRA. XGRA is actually XG 4, not 2 lol.  I tried playing metroid too which apparently is the best game for GameCube.  I don’t play games often because they’re a huge waste of time.  Anytime my mom sees me playing games (like twice a year) she starts telling me how I’m wasting all my time.  Yo, I know guys who play 18 hours a day.  This is nothing.  At least I’ve never played WOW before.

Thursday April 22nd 2010: LAST EXAM. GEOGRAPHY! This was pretty easy, I studied for it but I also read blogto.com so I smashed the gentrification questions lol.  Don’t try to be, just be it and you’ll rape every exam.   Now that exams were over I had to two things, update my music, update the photos, and update my blog.

Oh, I got a new flickr account becuase Artie told me to get it. www.flickr.com/silkyred Those are all my best and or favourite shots so far using a panasonic lumix.  I’m working on using an SLR.

Friday April 23rd 2010: This day involved doing all my accounting for the year, getting the xbox working, a bunch of other crap I was supposed to deal with before.  It’s a week later I’m still working on all of these things.  Today was also Janice’s hotel party which I will post pictures from (I got totally destroyed).

Saturday April 24th 2010: I left my phone and camera in Jackson’s car so after sushi with Johnny at Sushi Bar we both tried to get up there to get our stuff back.  Traffic was awful, the phone ended up being handed off to Matt, then Terra. I had dinner with my grandparents with the LowKong society and my grandfather came up on stage and announced in English that the society is dying and needs young people to sustain it.  We got ten years. Immigration laws and ESL programs have come a LONG way in the last 80 years.  I’m down to help, but it can’t just be me and the bros.  We need some insanely skilled and motivated go-getter bilingualists to be on this with us, at least like 10 others or so.   I could feel my grandfathers stress when he was giving the speech.

Sunday April 25th 2010: Started blogging this day lol.  Met up with Matt, ran some errands around town, took some photos of his art.   Had dinner with his friend Cory over at Newgen.  Afterwards we went to see YukYuks black comedy night which was INSANELY hilarious I was laughing so hard I started hurting.

At the beginning to warm the audience up they did a little open mic shot and this guy came up and gave the most flamboyant rap performance ever (really gay lol).  I was joking to Matt, “Matt I’m going to laugh if he comes up and gives some emo rap performance”.  After that they had a comedian from Montreal who brougth up pictures of Tintin in Congo and the completely black caracatures of the Congonese and their huge pink lips.  One of the hosts beatboxed for 15 minutes straight while MCing the event at the same time.  The lineup at the place almost felt like we were in line with Toronto’s sort of high-class elite black folk.  Everybody looked very well to do and successful.  I swear the black people in Toronto are probably of higher class, everything is just more fair in Canada.  There were a couple of female comedians.  Some of the comedians got through their performances just by using a lot of energy.  And some of them got through it just by completely humiliating themselves, and often being INSANELY disgusting like really going over the edge.  Talking about losing condoms in this one girl then pulling them out all at once like a clown hankerchief.

Drove Matt home afterwards, we were both piss tired.

Monday April 26th 2010: Woke up, spent 3 hour assembling this gazebo with much difficulty with Adam.  Cleaned up my room (filthy lol), put up a new corkboard with all the cocky business cards I’ve accumulated (including my own), put bumfights on my 7″ digital photo frame.

Tuesday April 27th2010: Went into the doctors to get a filling.  They gave me gas.  Honestly last time I was there with James Sugarman, he didn’t give me gas, I experienced a little bit of pain but it wasn’t too bad.  He said it was too small.  This time apparently it was a huge chunk of melted tooth that needed to be extracted and she highly recommended gas.  Canadian dental care is awesome.  They make everything so painfree, because you know in China as Don said they got the foot pump operated hand drill on the corners ready for you when you got some cavities.

Called Terra, picked her up from Anna’s then drove her home and got my phone back.  Her new haircut makes her look like SUCH an anime character.  She said she cut it herself.  You know some girls can actually do that quite well?

Wednesday April 28th 2010: I got my whole mp3 loaded.  The newest music I’m listening to lately is actually dubstep.  After seeing DJ Zeds Dead perform at 751, I started to understand the scene, and how you could possibly dance to something so drugged out.   If I started listening to goth music I could with confidence say that I listen to every kind of music except classical.

Thursday April 29th 2010: Today I woke up at 3, went to the Riverdale talent show which I’ll post a few photos from.  Hung out with David a bit, went to go eat, and came home.

April review: So as you can read, I’ve been getting out of that shell I was stuck in a lot more these days thanks to my friends and my health improving.  I’ve felt as I’ve been spending the last 8 months or so building up all the resources and stability in Toronto to give me the strength to pursue the next challenge.   This is the healthiest I’ve been in a long time.  Was it the detox?  I don’t know what it was, it was just moderating everything a lot more and not being so stupid about life.

I took inventory of all the goals I completed in the last year and most of them weren’t academic or self improvement related, they were simple things like fix your room up and clear out the bathroom or get a new bike.  Now that I’ve set up a sturdy Toronto foundation, I’m ready to take on the next challenge.  I’m popping into New York with Matt sometime next week for a few days, crashing his buddy’s condo on Broadway.   Scope the scene, party it up a bit, figure things out.   This summer will be an epic one to remember.  I have a positive feeling a lot of things are going to happen that are going to move my life in another direction once again.

Music videos: So I started downloading cool images and cool videos off hypebeast.com  Hypebeast has a lot of contemporary art pieces that involve skateboarding, fixed gears, flatland bmx.  A tonne of interviews with designers and artists.  It’s cool when your friends to come over just to hit the sex-lights, turn on some music, and fully utilize your monitor just by playing random pieces of eyecandy.

Then I took it to the next level after I downloaded Drake’s “Over” video and realized I could just play really cocky music videos off the monitor too with my own music in the background, so then before we go clubbingn or whatever we have something nice to look at.  It’s an ill conversation piece.

Then to overkill that I figured out I could put one monitor as a skate video and the second monitor as a music video, then just mute both and have bumfights playing on my 7″ screen, the trippy lights and lasers and jelly fish tank with the music.  I swear to god somebody is going to have a seizure in my room.  I don’t know, I just really enjoy the eye candy.  Colin called me a straight graphics whore.  It’s definitely from all those years of staring at PS art and eyefucking all the users on DA.

Music: I’ve recently downloaded the billboard top 100 from 1999 until 2010.  That means I have every pop song since I started listening to music in grade 4 or 5 or so.  My dad calls me a digital packrat.  To me it’s more about being able to enjoy that part of my life again when I’m older by capturing a certain moment.  Plus, I dig the music, and I dig the piece of cultural history.  My dad has a seriously deezed music collection, I  got it from him. I offloaded 280 gigs worth of movies onto Noah’s server drive and I’ve clocked over 160gbs on my external harddrive.  It’s really fun to be in the car then to start bumping a 1999′s jam which would be considered a way back at this point in time (lol), it really freaks most of your friends out.

My style of blogging: Some people blog about really petty things, okay, I don’t want to call them petty but things like posting music videos (which become dead links), what happened in this that, pop culture current events etc: it just aint my style.  Most of the  hypebeast.com blogs are super entertaining to read because they have a mix of their day to day grind and they throw in a random music video here or there or some stupid clip.  I’ll leave my collection of music to remind me of the songs and pop culture I experienced as a younger person. And as for current events, if it REALLY struck me that deep; I’d blog about it.  I gotta improve my grammar, mind you I write most of this stuff as a first draft and don’t bother editing it because I post 4 months worth of material all at once.  It’s a pretty easy filter, I wait 4 months, anything SERIOUSLY worth mentioning will be recorded here.  The rest of the petty stuff comes and goes.  There will be even more interesting balling stuff to discuss 50 years from now.

Okay onto the photo part which will be much more interesting to gawk at.

Monday March 1st 2010: Got my jeans back.  Today was James’ birthday.  I got him a Visvim wallet, a Wtaps dress shirt, a peacoat, and a pair of Visvim shaman FBT’s for his present.  They haven’t arrived yet, they’re STILL in the mail from China lol.  For his birthday Cody and Brandon and I took him to Nami to have some sushi.  Food was pretty good.  Waitresses were in kimonos, that was pretty cool.  I decided to book the back room for my birthday.  $10 sapporo cans lol.

Tuesday March 2nd 2010: Went to go see Dr. Lam and get acupuncture.  At this point in time I wanted to rid myself of all these negative energies (this sounds like BS, I had just recovered from mono I aint taking any chances lol).  He said my skin looked way better (probably from incubating and sweating like crazy).  I had fatigue from the mono so he prescribed me some alternative uber ginseng pills (the same kind given to Bush for his astronauts when he visited China).   Went to the tailors, then Filtech to get my laptop back, then to Steves to buy a guitar rack (carried that shit to the PARKING OFFICE on my back), paid my ticket, then went home. Tiring ass day.

Wednesday March 3rd 2010: Called my grandfather in Vegas to leave him a happy birthday message. At 10 I went over to Matt’s to bang out some ideas. Ya bumboclot bang dem ideas boi.

Thursday March 4th 2010: Went to go eat Mariko with Terra because I said I would once my tonsilitis was gone.  I realized when I’m with Terra I sorta turn my brain off because I’m so comfortable talking to her.  It makes the conversation stupidly entertaining.  I spend so much time focusing hard on other converastions, it’s refreshing to just turn your brain off. Got a haircut.

Friday March 5th 2010: Bought Dylan’s macbook off him for $100 lol I couldn’t say no that’ so fresh, gave it to my mom. I was supposed to go to Thisislondon with Vince but I decided not to come out. I called Selwyn, Tiara, and Jimmy to check in.  Selwyn is back up his old evil ways and crashing cars and making so much money he can buy new ones.

Saturday March 6th 2010: Woke up at 8pm.

Sunday March 7th 2010: Homework.

Monday March 8th 2010: Called Tiara to say happy birthday.  I realized I called twice and I fucked up lol.  She was just happy to hear that because she didn’t expect me to call.  You shoulda known better Tiara I don’t forget my friend’s birthdays.   I only have like 3-4 friends overseas I’ll actually call to say happy birthday to though, everybody else can get one on facebook.  Tiara is back doing her modelling ting with Trisha.

Tuesday March 9th 2010: Around 10 that evening I went with Noah, Becky, Fraser, and David to eat Mariko.  David Tu has been coming out to chill lately, getting back into the circle.  It was a hilarious dinner.

Wednesday March 10th 2010: Went with Malcolm, Owen, and his girlfriend to Andrew’s house.  Got lost along the way, went through the one-way portion of High Park twice.  Then had to backtrack to go pick up Andrew from some other place.  Andrew is the governing councellor at UofT, he represents 80 000 students, manages to implement some positive changes, genuinely gives a shit, photographs professionally, and survived a shooting and a 3 month chemical coma.  Pretty interesting guy to meet.  He made me want to try my hand at student politics again but the BS headaches I can already feel when uttering those words tell me to work on PLD instead for now.

His roommate Dylan was complaining about how shitty the corporate world is at Jack Astors.  Working in the kitchen, unfair wages and hours, overworked staff, injuries.  It sounded really scary.  We ended up staying there until 5AM or so talking about science fiction books, urban exploring, being post human etc.  It was a very eye opening evening, it was quality discussion. I drove everybody back at 8Am it was a brutal night lol.

Thursday March 11th 2010: Woke up late.

Friday March 12th 2010: David Hu’s birthday. This is where the shit gets funny. Ivan comes over and we go downtown to get my jeans from Sydneys.  Ivan shat his pants when he heard our denimhead speak because it made absolutely no sense.  I copped two pairs and just wore them all wrinkled up, I almost didn’t get into the club because of that.  We hit up the LCBO then parked and took a cab over to CC’s condo.  I saw Steve in the other building having his party.  CC let us into her condo which had no furniture becuase she was moving.

CC: Okay guys make yourselves at home there’s nobody up there but 15 other girls.

Haha. So we got up there, mingled a bit, stalled some time, then when David Hu came in we all jumped out and took pictures.  Surprise motherfucker.  Afterwards we finished off our drinks and cabbed down to Embassy.  This was a good night at Embassy because EVERYBODY was there.  Even Danny Chan. A lot of the Riverdale guys were randomly there, and some other sketched out mens.  It was going great, we were all dancing on stage and getting crunk and spilling liquor everywhere until some guy pushed Van Hai.  Ivan jumped in and socked the guy.  Then Ivan got stomped on by 8 guys at a time when we were on the otherside of the club.   David Tu and Zi jumped in to push the guys off, I came out of the bathroom just in time to see Ivan getting pulled off the floor.  I grabbed his coat for him and we got out there.   Basically Ivan was got stomped on by 8 dudes before any of us could aid him.  He was pissed off about that, I don’t blame him.  We went back to my house afterwards and had a meeting.

Saturday: Capital Stacks performance and an art show by Jimmy Chiale @ Proper Reserve, will be blogged about.

Sunday March 14th 2010: Human genes. I don’t know why I wrote this in my agenda but in March I wanted to remind myself to write this shit.  It is a miracle that we as human beings have been the most dangerous, dominant species on the planet since day one.  I was watching Planet Earth and observing what gives animals advantages over others.  Whatever allowed humans to evolve and be the most dominant bacteria, then the most dominant water form, then allowed us to continue to evolve until now is amazing.  It’s amazing to believe that we are the product of millions of years of owning other smaller, weaker life forms, and out surviving any plague or disaster that may have killed off entire other races.

Friends since I was a kid: I’ve been making gangs of guy friends since I was a little kid.  I did it in grade 3 when we played tag.  I called us the Masterminds and we can a secret test to get in.  Then in grade 4-5 I hung out with Dillon, Jonathan, and Essay which were my most typical shit talking macho bullying kinda friends.   We wrestled a lot, played games, cussed each other out, talked shit to eachother about our clothes, tried to learn to skateboard.  Then after that in bowmore I was sorta stateless until BUFU was made in grade 8 with GG and James and Simon and Zhu and Brendan.  Then they got into a fight at an RCI internet cafe and went straight gangster with it lol.  In highschool I would hang with the duke kids until I met the BBC mens, and then the OVC mens.  These little groups form up wherever I go. From grade 4 to 7 or so I wasn’t quite bullied more of I had really shitty friends with self esteem issues that they liked to vent on everybody around them.  It was only in grade 8 I made some serious friends that I still chill with to this day.  Then in grade 9 I went to Riverdale and kinda lost eveything, but made it all back by grade 10 or 11.

I feel my experience in having to make friends and lose friends at a speed like that made me a really jaded asshole about making good friends with people, and changed the way I treat my friends.  If we’re boys, we’re in this shit until the end and by holding back on my good friends, I’m only harming myself.  If you’re not of that status yet, you’re being used.   You’re being used just the way I was used and abused growing up.  I’ve grown up with a lot of super deep insecurities from those kinda friends.  I used to get made fun of a lot for not being able to speak Chinese – by white people! That’s absurd.  My friends in Dundas would also talk shit about my clothes, like everyday.  Our insecurities form us as people.

But hey look at me now.  Most of those kids are whack losers now.

Monday March 15th 2010: I started hitting up Rose cafe because they’re the only place that serves dem Vietbuns all night long.  And by that I mean they’re 24 hours, so for sketched out guys like me it’s a food haven.   My blackberry phone started bugging out, I spent a good three hours fixing that.  I stayed up till 5AM to wish Tiara happy birthday officially.

Tuesday March 16th 2010: School, I’m on exams at this point.

Wednesday March 17th 2010: I was supposed to go to St. Patty’s day with Johnny but I was too tired. I wrote my resume out to go apply.

Thursday March 18th 2010: Car is back after I thoroughly put $1000 worth of damage on that shit. I hit up that bakery again to get me some sandwiches.  That’s what you do when you’re a sketched student, you just get like ten sandwiches and put them in the toaster one by one throughout the night to sustain yourself.   I have it written in here that I was supposed to go to Hogtown and grab a deck but Terra asked me what I wanted for my birthday and I just told her to get me a new deck and wheels which is pretty cheap.

There was also a systems science meetup that night.

Friday March 19th 2010: Kamaris math told me they were booked solid and couldn’t teach me. I got a job interview at Bell at Gerrard Square.  I’m pretty sure I didn’t get hired because I couldn’t start immediately.  I had dinner with Matt that evening at a Thai restaurant.  I was being so serious I had a whole bowl of coconut rice to my FAUCE.

Saturday March 20th 2010: Jeff had his birthday dinner that nigth but I wasn’t able to come out. Had dinner with Ivan and Johnny at 11PM ended up going to bed at 6AM.

Sunday March 21st 2010: woke up at 3pm.

Monday March 22nd 2010: Handed in my history essay.  Went to Eaton centre to get a copy of Banana boys, ended up going over to World of Posters, got screwed on buying the Armin Van Buuren ticket.

Tuesday March 23rd -Thursday March 24th 2010: School, exams.

Friday March 26th – Saturday March 27th: UWO CAISA fashion show. Seperate blog post.

Sunday Marhc 28th 2010: Was supposed to help Matt take photos of his piece but I was too rinsed.

Monday March 29th 2010: Tried to get a job at Bell or Rogers but they don’t seem to be hiring, or I missed the rush.  I’ll be in summerschool this year instead.

March 30-31st: School exams.

Monday February 1st 2010: Being a depressed bum, school.

Tuesday February 2nd 2010: School.

Wednesday February 3rd 2010: Chucked my urbanization assignment on the table and dipped. 9PM took James out with me to grab pints with Becky and Fraser at McCarthys near bowmore.  Afterwards we went to go eat Vietnamese food with Prentice and his girlfriend.  Becky said Prentices girlfriend was eyefucking her because they had some classes together lol. Becky and Fraser had never had pho before.  I hated that shit first time I had it, I couldn’t figure out why my dad kept making me eat there.  Then I figured out the SAUCE nigga.

Thursday February 4th 2010: Missed skating with FLC. School.

Friday February 5th 2010 to Saturday 6th 2010: Drove up with James (doing the 401 for the first time during rush hour was a BAD idea lol) arrived around 8, everybody predrank and hung out. Last time  I went to Waterloo I couldn’t even get in the club.  We got inside, everybody was drunk and falling over, but I think Lisa had a good birthday.  Crashed at Jacksons, had breakfast, then drove back.  I just realized I didn’t take any photos of this so there’s no point in posting.

Sunday February 7th 2010: Dinner with the grandparents.  Karaoke machine microphone wasn’t working. Played some pingpong, went to the supermarket, got mirked the massage chairs.

Monday February 8th 2010: I borrowed this guy’s book and I couldn’t find him for like 3 weeks because I was being so sketched out.  I felt SOOO bad about it.  He laughed it off saying he wasn’t studying economics anyways lol.

Tuesday February 9th 2010: Bought this fake Swiss Chalet card that didn’t end up working lol.

Wednesday February 10th 2010: Got a haircut.

Thursday February 11th 2010: School

Friday February 12th 2010: At 2PM I went over to Matt’s house to bang out some ideas. I think this was when he was seeing what I could do.  We banged out a bunch of retarded ideas for teeshirts and other stuff.  Had dinner, then dropped him off at a station. I think I did that that day.

Went clubbing with Tiffany, Vince, and her friend Diana. Lineup was friggin FREEZING.  Thank god we got inside quickly.  Ran into a bunch of other random kids in the club.   Promoters these days gotta host it up so hard in there.  It was Chinese New Year in the club so they had dudes running around dragon dancing.  I appreciate the effort.

Afterwards Tiffany joined Johnny and Jackson and I at Pho.  They all ended up staying over pretty late chilling and shit.

Saturday February 13th 2010: Played badminton with Kevin and Dongling at pape.  Went to a random house party at 70 Baldwin with James, Sylvia, and Tai.  Lucile lived there with her friends, it was a pretty cool party.  Got a parking ticket for a zone that said I could park there (annoying).  Drove everybody home.

Sunday February 14th 2010: At this point in time I was on a really bad schedule so I went to go get gas at 9AM before crashing.

Monday February 15th 2010: School

Tuesday February 16th 2010: My mom went to Vegas to take care of my grand parents. No parents whoo!

Wednesday February 17th 2010: cleaned my room.

Thursday February 18th 2010: 6PM ISSS Meeting. Helmut Burkhardt gave a speech about systems science.   My dad ran out of distilled water so I was gunning it around at 1AM looking for it.  I had to go all the way to Main and Danforth.

Friday February 19th 2010: Went to the Ecoman prep session.   It was very tiring to sit through but he’s really good.  I’d recommend it.

February review: Okay everybody, up to this point in time I was so whack.  I was really lazy, lethargic, somewhat depressed, being a total bum all the time.   I was hating school, hating the weather, hating waking up at fucked up hours and literally feeling as if I was sleeping my life away.  I needed change.  I needed some new inspiration to give me a reason to get out of bed everyday.  I felt like I had lost faith in life.  After the next couple of days I got my swing back.

Afterwards I went to Ultra with my friend Ren whom I met in Montreal. He was with a bunch of girls.  Ultra was pretty cool, I saw Ron Jeremy on the way to the bathroom.  Food portions were good.  I had a filet on this bed of miso or something ridiculous lol. We went back to one of their condos to predrink before going to Tryst.  Cool bunch of girls.  We spotted a bunch of shit level PUA’s in Tryst lol.  Got super duper drunk with Ren. Saw Jeanette Quach on the vomit comet on the way home.

Saturday February 20th 2010: Met up with Ivan Johnny and Jackson.  Everybody came over, had pizza, chilled out, order some clothes and shit.  It was that day when we all agreed we would improve communication between eachother and helped eachother succeed.  We went to Guvernment that night to see Cosmic Gate.  I hadn’t been to Guvernment in years.  It was crowded, way too dirty, and full of old Vietnamese gangsters and their wives on the floor grinding.  We met Jacksons family friend.  Everybody came back to the crib afterwards to crash.

Sunday February 21st 2010: got my jeans back.  You can see how shitty the stitching is on my other pairs compared to how good her stitching is.

Monday February 22nd 2010: School

Tuesday February 23rd 2010: Discovered that Evening Primrose Oil is proven to help people with ezcema.   I read that whole ezcema book.  I told Robert about it and he stopped eating dairy and saw a huge improvement in his skin.  Help the world Eric.  I brought my laptop back into Filtech to have the fan put back in.

Wednesday February 24th 2010: Urbanization midterm.  This was pretty easy.

Thursday February 25th 2010: Met the TA to discuss my paper.

Friday February 26th 2010: Tonsilitis STRUCK.  Turns out I got contact mono from some fucker I shared a waterbottle or glass with.   This might be the most interesting story that month.

Anyways I didn’t make out with anybody.  I picked it up off a glass or something.  I told all my friends that I shared drinks with in the last month (because I’m a retarded clubboy) to go check if they have mono as well. Nobody had it, I guess I just got bad luck.  Luckily you can only have mono once.

That weekend was the most painful weekend.  I couldn’t swallow, eat, or sleep because everytime I swallowed I felt like I was chewing glass.  My tonsils were totally covered in pus.  I went to the doctor and got a shitload of drugs.  I came home and I was totally doped up watching movies and TV for a few days straight.  I felt like a zombie.  I was starved, dehydrated, and sleep deprived.  It was  like Beijing all over again.  I got an excusal slip from both of my exams.   I was strung out all weekend long, filling up buckets with spit, and gargling acid.

Monday January 4th 2010: School, still on the detox.  Being a crackhead with Diana everyday and driving her to work at 7AM all sketched out lol.

Tuesday January 5th 2010: Asked Dr. Faiers about these magical anti itch pills.  He said just use reactine.  Some people are addicted to it.  It’s totally fine.  He said acupuncture for ezcema sounds like BS but it if works for you go for it.

Wednesday January 6th 2010: ISSS meetup.  Went in and did the usual thing.

Thursday January 7th 2010: School.  Went to grab Diana after work.

Friday January 8th 2010: School

Saturday January 9th 2010: My friend Hiss died in Japan.  He had a shotgun marriage with this woman and I think he was gang related.   He was only like 25 or something, there’s no way he died of natural causes.  His funeral was that day but Noah nor I went.  His body is in Japan.

GG’s birthday was that morning.  We went to go have dimsum with him.  Cold winters day walking around looking like Asian Kanye.

Sunday January 10th 2010: Went to go get a car wash for the first time in my life.  Holy shit it was like getting scrubbed down by Optimus Prime.   I drove Eri home at 9.  She said she thought I was a huge asshole when she first met me (I swear only conservative Asian girls hold this opinion of me, white people love my first impression).

Monday January 11th 2010: School

Tuesday January 12th 2010: School

Wednesday January 13th 2010: School

Thursday January 14th 2010: ISSS meeting.  Found a fridge on craigslist and went with Noah to bust into this woman’s apartment to get it.  I can tell she was insanely nervous because these two small Asian dudes were totally about to jack her for her fridge.  Hauling that thing back into the car felt like what it must feel like to be a crackdealer.  I also started measuring my clothes that day so I can order clothes off line for a sigificant discount.

Friday January 15th 2010: Went to the shelter to drop some stuff off then went to the tailor.

Saturday January 16th 2010: Not much

Sunday January 17th 2010: Went with Diana to go find her cat at the shelter.  The cat had ear mites.  Diana was trying to explain to me why pets are such a joy.  To me they just looked like a chore.  That’s probably why I got plastic jelly fish with an on and off button.  The cat needed a pregnancy test.  Diana’s ex gave the cats to a friend and he just let them loose on the street.  How responsible.

Monday January 18th 2010: Went over to Sydneys and had to wait for them to open.   They didn’t have the jeans in stock so I went and bought a bunch of blunt wraps for Noah’s birthday.  Jennifer and Diana called so I went to go eat pho with them.

Tuesday January 19th 2010: Bought a book holder from Indigo because Terra had one.  Went to FLC and had lunch at ONoir which was a trip and a half.  You order outside, walk in touching eachothers shoulders, then eat completely in pitch blackness.  The food was pretty good, not amazing.  Lunch was $40.  I had the calamari salad, a steak, and sorbet for dessert.  Everybody was completely tripping balls in there the whole time.  You start to see things because your eyes are so deprived of light.  If you don’t say anything during the meal you seem to completely dissapear from the table.

Wednesday January 20th 2010: School

Thursday January 21st 2010: I wrapped Matt’s gift as if it were worth a bazillion dollars lol.  Crocodile skin box, nice tissue paper, a deezed bow.

Friday January 22nd 2010: Went to Matt’s birthday.  We had to wait a while at Alice Fazoolis but ended up getting a table after shopping around a bit.  Food was good.  Pretty chilled out night.

Saturday January 23rd 2010: Nothing much.

Sunday January 24th 2010: Went to grab a few drinks with Fraser and Becky at their local pub.  A bunch of Irish guys were there TOTALLY smashed, like I can’t walk sorta smashed.  The bartender was cool she was dancing around and stuff, everybody was getting jiggy in there.  All the old people thought it was pretty funny.  Went back to Beckys after and she made us sandwiches (yeah motherfucker) and continued the angry drinking.

Monday January 25th 2010: Brougth in my laptop and got that fixed.  Shit ended up taking them 3 wekes to finish.  They had to order my fan from California.

Tuesday January 26th 2010: Went to go chill at GG’s condo for a bit, caught up with James and stuff.  Grabbed some popeyes.

Wednesday January 27th 2010: School

Thursday January 28th 2010: This day was just a shitload of walking. I went to factory direct, dropped my laptop off at Filtech, went down to Eatons to look at snowboarding gear, went to Hogtown, bought all my shit there cheaper and IN SIZE, then cabbed back to Coast Mountain Sports.  Coast Mountain Sports had no selection and no sizes.  Hogtown had everything half price. That day was so tiring.  I tried a pastrami on rye for the first time and it was amazing.  I think that’s my new favourite sandwich.   Matt came to grab me that night.

Friday January 29th 2010: Woke up, had breakfast at Matt’s house.  Went snowboarding at Skyloft which was a cool local place.  No lineups, pretty cheap. The snow as a little icey so I was falling on my ass like crazy.  It was also insanely cold so we were having to take breaks and stuff.  Overall good day on the hill.  Had dinner with Matt afterwards then got dropped off at STC.  At this point in time I didn’t have a laptop.

Saturday January 30th 2010: Went to Factory Direct and Staples.  I was running around downtown trying to avoid parking tickets.  Didn’t get ticketed.  I’m so awesome.  Then I realized there’s free parking at the bank next to Factory Direct.

Sunday January 31st 2010: Diana decided she didn’t want to be in a relationship (I’m not even supposed to be writing this shit on my blog, this isn’t a drama blog, but I got nowhere else to record it so I don’t give a shit), threw my ass out. I was pretty depressed so I went to go have coffee with James where he convinced me that Diana did the same thing to me as his ex, which wasn’t the truth.  He actually made me go completely insane for about a week after that conversation until I called Diana and cleared things up.

January overview: A lot of being a Season Affective Disorder bum.  Hating school, hating classes, being a bum with Diana and driving her to work first thing every morning before I passed out.  I am so thankful to be past that stage in my life.  If you’re ever depressed and think a girl is going to fix it for you, you’re wrong.   Skin was feeling better but not so much.

Wednesday April 28th: I am on a seventeen day vacation from the end of my exams until the 10th.  What’s going on in my life right now?

Failed some courses first year.  I am not giving up.

After failing math and having my dad explain that yes, you can force an individual to do something entirely against their nature for an extended period of time (China for example), you shouldn’t because it’s rather counterproductive.  University is not about trying to correct your weaknesses.  It’s about discovering what you’re good at and playing up your strengths.  So I’m officially not doing any math courses in university anymore.  I admit it.  I suck at math.  I always have.  And I’ve never really wanted to get good at it.  My mother argued I could have gone to tutoring for most of the year and scraped by in those classes.  However, at the age of 21 I believe I should be mature enough to decide if I hate something enough to not bothering doing it at all.

Pardon Le Dopeness

Sometimes in life we must step out of our comfort zones and embrace pain and suffering. And other times you can throw in the towel, say fuck it, drop math, and start a ludicrous sneaker collection.  On that note, I’m doing some work with Pardon Le Dopeness (www.pardonledopeness.com).  I’m doing a little bit of creative directing and fashion consulting.  That’s right guys.   Matt Adam pointed out to me that I know enough about this stuff to consult somebody while making clothes.  I thank him for helping me realize how much time I’ve wasted trolling blogs and websites and getting a really good feel for what all the brands are doing out there, and  allowing me to find a practical application for all this crap in my head.

Before, I used these sites and blogs as a place where I could stare at cool shit all day long and procrasinate.  In retrospect I realized that my obsession with this culture came naturally to me.  I love the aspect of design, the bling, the flash, the celebrities, the cockiness.  It isn’t just clothing.  It’s a piece of wearable contemporary hip-hop culture.  This came as an epiphany to me because I fought these feelings for a long time, in the same fashion a homosexual would fight his urges.  Where do all these gravure models and sneakers and retardedly expensive clothing fit into my life as an international relations major?

They don’t.  They were never supposed to.  And I was only making it worse by fighting it.  My interest in this culture has naturally consumed my soul.  And it feels very comfortable to admit that, and embrace it.    I want this shit forever.

My highschool World Issues teacher told me that most people end up doing what they liked doing as kids.  What was the most awesome part of my childhood? Travelling, going to Modern Art museums and staring at bizarre sculptures and paintings.  What am I doing now? Designing bizarre things you can wear.

I’ve realized that blogging + the photoshop art I used to do + photography + ridiculous clothing + hip hop culture influences = awesome foundation for this job.  These were all hobbies I’ve accumulated over the years just by living in Toronto and doing what I like. And I’m happy to see they’ve all sort of come together and amounted to something.  Michael Alig once said, “Don’t work  or try to be anything, just be it.”

China being the best school for street fashion

I thank Selwyn Chen for teaching me about the brands and getting me into it.  Most people only get to look at the $2000 jeans.  I got to spill coke on them when he would leave them in huge dirty piles of laundry in my room.   Ever seen a dirty pile of laundry worth more than most peoples cars? I have.  It’s the most balling thing you’ve ever seen.  It’s like wiping your ass with money.

I will state in my blog that I know more about street fashion (East and West, thank you Beijing) than most of the people who own clothing stores in Toronto.  If you could get a degree in  this, living with Selwyn in China for two years and working hands on with OVC and all the affiliates would have been my certification. I’m ready to go somewhere with this.  Plus, guys who work in this industry get to go to all these fun graffiti/art openings/street fashion expos/random club parties/sexy travelling/running around mine tunnels with a tripod and spray cans as perks.  It’s a cool scene to be in.  I get to be creative, my opinion is valuable, I will get paid (when I do something worth being paid for lol), and the best part of all is that for the first time in my life none of this seems like a job.  This is just pure retarded fun.   I do this shit for free. That’s how much I love it.

And I thought working at the Docks Nightclub would be the most retardedly fun job I’d ever have.

1.) Get street toys. I’m supposed to go cop a new deck or something. The most fun part about being a downtowner is the methods of transportation that are available to you. 3 in the morning? Burning a ting? Lets go get Wendys! We can take the car, we can skateboard there and fuck around in the parking lot, we can mountain bike, we can BMX and double ride each other. I actually gotta go buy another BMX so whenever I have a buddy down here we can roll dolo. I don’t even skateboard anymore really but yo Hogtown’s got decks from last for $50, may as well cop and just have a fresh skate around when you feel like going up to the top of the park and rolling around in the kiddy pool. It gets us outside, it’s something to do in the middle of the night, it’s a fun activity. It’s kind of like a frisbee.

2.) Go sketch out at Basement or Film Lounge. I wanna see what these sketched out 12-8AM clubs are all about. They’re so intense I’d probably have to make sure I didn’t have anything to do in the following 24 hours after visiting each club. I wanna see what all the rage is about.

3.) Go to Kensington market and Roacharama and the sketched out places. Buy a huge AK47 BB gun or something. That’s just pure silliness and fun.

4.) Run a grafitti mission and get gas mask and do some urban exploring in abandoned tunnels and other scary places. Bring the camera!

5.) Get some work done with the camera. There’s a lot of stuff I gotta learn how to do.

6.) Get some work done on the guitar. That’s a work in progress, I’m putting in hours everyday I gotta keep going. I should play with some friends instead of doing it solo. Learn chilli pepper songs for the chords and solos, learn 3doors down for the finger picking, and learn tool for the rhythym metal guitar.

7.) Get a job and put all that money into the bank.

8.) Finish a uni course.

9.) Probably do a cruise with Yankee Lady depending on how the Jay Greezy feels about it this year. We can probably get it off the ground.

10.) Work with PLD a bit, see what I can help with.

11.) Finish my G.

12.) Spend more time outside, at Cherry Beach (oh yeah they got that rave on Sundays), do a party at the beach or something.

13.) Systems Science conference in Waterloo! I’ll be seeing plenty of the BBC crackheads.

14.) Trip to the States (because I’m 21 now and I’ve been waiting to revisit the States for sometime now).

The Toronto Scene

When I hear about how other people get down in other cities around the world, it put Toronto’s club scene into perspective for me. Toronto attempts to have this pseudo high-society feel to their clubs. They use red velvet ropes, they have a “VIP” line that for the most part isn’t reserved for celebrities or figures, they use bottle service tables that turn into public liquor dispensing stations, and enforce a dress code that makes the clientele somewhat resemble a 25+ mature stock broker sort of crowd: when in reality most of the clientele are simply young universitiy students trying to let loose a bit. These clubs spend a lot of time trying to look fancy and polished, because nobody wants to promote for a dingy has-been nightclub.

Flipside

I was looking at my buddy’s photos. He resides in Singapore. I noticed the clubs they visit still maintain a sense of polish and glamour without looking cheap and trashy (like most Beijing clubs lol). The weather is kinder to the club goers, allowing them to wear shorts and t-shirts to the club and save on the annoying coat check. All of the clubs have an open air balcony concept, which saves on air conditioning and lets everybody smoke inside (more annoying Toronto by-laws, remember when you could smoke inside bars and clubs in Toronto?). Drinks are affordable, but not cheap in the frat party sense of the word. People can kinda just show up, mingle, and get drunk, and grab some street food afterwards. Oh street food how I miss you dearly.

I wish Toronto had something like this. I was listening to Jennifer tell me how in Jamaica they take an afternoon nap, then get up at 2AM and party from 2AM-5AM. Well, Toronto does have places like that but they mostly cater to the toilet seat k sniffing kinda crowd, and host the events in dark, secluded basements with no windows. Wouldn’t it be nice to get up at 2AM in Toronto and take the street car downtown, pop a chair and grab a few pints off the street with some food to pad your stomach, and walk into a bumping nightclub with no line up? To be able to get a REAL bottle service table? And by that I mean a table in some cocky location in the club that would be worth throwing down the big bucks for like how it was in the OLD DAYS. I used to work at the Docks in 2007, that was before all this club promoter squabble allowed everybody and their grandma to get their goose on on a private booth. I’d like a table without drunk people spilling their liquor all over me and dancing on my couch. But no, that’s not Toronto style. You gotta punch some holes in that leather couch with those stilettos. Punch dem holes!

I feel Toronto’s club scene has become a little too formal. The Asian scene in particular is very formal, we all know that, but the mixed scene, and the strictly white/gino party scene (fight the music!) has also become exceedingly strict in terms of what shoes are appropriate and what consititutes a high and polish club.

Shit hole clubs

Has anybody reading this ever been to Sneaky D’s? That was actually the first 19+ club I’ve ever come out to when I first got back to Toronto. The place is honestly a hole in the wall shithole club, lol. No dress code, $2 drinks, hipsters and drugged out people everywhere. It’s a real let loose kinda place. So what would you prefer? A dingy, low key place where anybody who gives anybody cut-eye can’t be taken seriously? Or a “high polished” club with clown mask facades, giving everybody in the club a sense of high-society entitlement? Why can’t we have something in between? This city is so black and white sometimes. I blame the clubs using the dress codes as a quick filter to attract the market share that apparently has more cash. Because in this city, if you don’t look like you work at Deloitte at the club, you’re definitely a delinquent who’s gonna start a fight once you get inside. I feel REALLY bad for the girls who buy a new dress EVERY SINGLE TIME they go clubbing just because that’s the norm and it kinda matches what the guys are wearing. I wish there was a little more room for wardrobe creativity in club dress codes.

This is why some people feel Montreal is a better party city. Montreal has drink discounts such as “$10 drink free to 12AM”, or “every girl gets 3 free drink tickets”, and other deals that would probably end in bar fights and squallor in Toronto. I feel the club-goers of Montreal are a lot less tense and stuck up than those of their Toronto counterpart.

I wish Toronto had some better late night places to eat. The only really cool thing about Toronto though is that our party scene is designed to run under ANY weather conditions. Our clubs are close to airtight. You can do a Richmond club then Chinatown any day of the year. I think Mink and Skybar are the only two that have no ceilings.

Summer club season is coming up. I’m on the prowl to find that perfect spot to jam.

Okay I`ve been doing some research on this whole horoscope psychology thing. It turns out if you`re born about a week before one star sign transforms into the next, you can end up being influenced by the next star sign in order. So my birthday is on May 15th, and it transforms into a Gemini on May 21st, so I`m six days away from being a Gemini. I did some research on it and found this.

The Taurus Sun/Gemini Moon combination produces a character with an affinity for sociability and a definite air of simple pleasantness. The contrasting elements of slowness afforded by Taurus coupled with the speed of Gemini, generally makes for a Taurus subject who is more apt to make errors of judgment than would normally be expected of a Taurus native. The inherent stubborn trait may still be present, but the Gemini Moon frequently provides a tendency to jump somewhat quickly to conclusions…something not usually quite so apparent in the Taurus personality. Trouble can sometimes arise in this combination when opinions are formed quickly and the individual insists on holding onto that opinion, no matter what. There is mental alertness here, but the magnificent memory customarily associated with the Sign of the Bull may well be lacking. The Taurus Sun/Gemini Moon person tends to be far too critical of others, and this blend is indeed the most restless and fickle of all the Moon and Taurus combinations. These individuals are likely to jump into friendships or romantic relationships and then find a multitude of reasons why the other person is not suitable. Continuous challenges and stimulation is necessary here in order keep the undivided attention of this Taurus native. Taurus Sun/Gemini Moon persons are prone to require more education than most people because study and learning will steady the nature. The capacity for attainment by these individuals increases in direct ratio to their interest in study and learning. Fortunately, the intellectual tendencies of the Taurus Sun/Gemini Moon native will endow him or her with good abilities and/or talents and there is apt to be exceptional verbal skills…speaking or writing. With education, the nature of this blend can be less restless and more contented, but the mind is in constant need of something tangible and concrete with which to relate. It is important that the Taurus subject governed by a Gemini Moon keepmentally busy.

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Taurus is the second Sign of the Zodiac, and moves forward from Aries’s self-focus to begin to explore the world physically. Gemini, the third Sign of the Zodiac, moves beyond the physical exploration of Taurus to examine the world through intellect. Taurus/Geminis tend to be richly sensual, enjoy the good things in life and are fascinated with gathering as much information as possible. Their facility as communicators is unmatched. Taurus/Geminis display great imagination and tend to be very expressive, both physically and verbally.

The astrological symbol of Taurus is the Bull; Gemini is the Twins. The term ‘bull-headed’ applies to Taureans in both its positive and negative connotations, and Taurus exemplifies the Fixed quality assigned to it. Like twins, Geminis often have a dual nature and are skilled at seeing both sides of a problem, but they may also be fickle and restless. They are changeable and sometimes noncommittal. In this way, Gemini exemplifies the Mutable quality assigned to it. The Taurus/Gemini is a pair of bull-headed twins. They are adaptable and able to tackle multiple tasks simultaneously, and they know how to reason with people. When it comes to meeting goals they are also among the strongest Signs because of their reliable persistence.

Taurus is ruled by the Planet Venus. In ancient Roman mythology, Venus (and her Greek equivalent, Aphrodite) was the goddess of love, beauty and pleasure. She represented joy, happiness and appreciation of beautiful things. On the negative side, her appreciation for sweets and luxury could result in overindulgence. Gemini is ruled by the Planet Mercury. In ancient Roman mythology, Mercury (and his Greek equivalent, Hermes) was the messenger god. He was associated with travel and transportation. He was a communicator, quick-witted and inventive, but he could also be a smooth-talker and get bored easily. A Taurus/Gemini individual is most likely a brilliant conversationalist. Mediating or speechwriting would be excellent outlets for these people, as they possess the gift of beautiful, soothing speech that can produce harmony and good feelings. Taurus/Geminis are charming and congenial, and they often have many friends and acquaintances in all areas of their lives. These people have learned to focus and use their intellect; they tend to be very successful.

The Element associated with Taurus is Earth. Earth Signs are practical and grounded. The Element associated with Gemini is Air. Air Signs are intellectual; Taurus/Geminis respond to the world through intellect and by examining the merit of each possible course of action. When presented with a new project, their mental abilities kick in. They tend to be leaders; their facility for abstract reasoning and broad-minded outlook enables Taurus/Geminis to make strong contributions to projects. Their ambition ensures that they are both hardworking and helpful to others.

Taurus/Geminis often remain youthful and light-hearted their entire lives, but their need for physical pleasure can lead to an overemphasis on money and accumulation of possessions. They may often invest in fast cars and other material means of stimulation. They are tolerant, gentle and dependable, but they may appear to be scattered and high-strung. Their many interests make them entertaining, loyal friends with a carefree and unpredictable twist.

In their leisure time, Taurus/Geminis tend to enjoy pairing up with a partner for recreation. Outdoor activities that allow them to get close to the Earth are favourites. Their love for conversation and good food ensures that leisurely dinners with friends are highly enjoyable for them, and their inquisitive, literary orientation means they enjoy mentally challenging pursuits as well.

The great strengths of the Taurus/Gemini-born is their stability and perseverance and their intellectual and conversational skills. They can analyse difficult ideas and communicate them clearly to others. Their methodical determination enables them to be productive when others have long since given up.

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Okay then here are some descriptions of both, this makes sense because I`ve never bothered to read about Gemini but it would explain a bit more.

Gemini

The third sector of the zodiac, Gemini is all about intelligence and communication. You’re born under this sign and have a talent for and love of using your minds and expressing yourself fully.

As a Gemini, you are a bower bird, mentally, and take an interest in all sorts of different things. Anything that gets your mind ticking over will grab you. You constantly try to challenge your mental abilities and will make extra efforts to understand anything you put your mind to.

You can’t understand why other people don’t feel the same way. To you, this kind of stimulation is your life blood. Anyone who engages you in quick-witted and thoughtful banter will win your heart for sure.

Some great communicators are born under your sign — actresses Helen Hunt and Marilyn Monroe, for instance. Like them, you take interest in anything that requires a little brain power. Reading and ferreting out information on the internet are a perfect way for you to unwind. Communication would have to be one of your favourite pastimes.

Taking up acting classes wouldn’t be a bad idea either, even if you don’t fancy yourself as an Emmy Award winner. Meeting new people and sharing your thoughts and feelings with them is enough of a blast for you.

Not all Geminis have brains on the brain, though. Anna Kournikova, the tennis superstar, proves that — she puts her focus into physical exercise. She is a superb tennis player which requires physical dexterity and mental agility as well.

Gemini is also on the top of the list of achievers in sport. But the sport you get into will be one that requires a strategic and intellectual approach. If it doesn’t, it won’t sustain your interest. Tennis, chess, golf and card games like bridge and canasta appeal to you.

If you could be accused of anything, it would be that you spread yourself too thinly, by being interested in too many things. To some people, you seem superficial and flighty. It’s the ‘rolling stone gathering no moss’ thing — doing a bit of this and a bit of that and not getting deeply into any one thing.

You see it differently, of course. To you life is a smorgasbord, and you’re going to taste everything. Trying just one main course, so to speak, isn’t your thing. Variety, diversity and experimentation are some of your key words. And you can always say, ‘At least I’ll never be boring!’

The fact that you take on so much also means you risk wearing yourself out and letting your vitality engine slow down. It is not easy for you to pace yourself, but if you can get your self-discipline working on this, you can achieve more than most. Make sure you have enough fuel in your gas tank to get you to where you want to go.

People always love your company — your adaptability makes you interesting. People are amazed at your versatility, at the way you manage to juggle so many different activities. Is there anything you don’t try your hand at? They wonder.

Learning will always be one of your passions — you don’t believe there’s ever a good time to limit someone’s desire to improve their mind.

You have a great love of the written as well as the spoken word, and will often put pen to paper — or hands to keyboard — to get your own thoughts down. Sometimes this is just so you can work out what you think about a particular issue or event. Lots of journalists, writers, and advisers are Geminis; their way with words is their best tool for making a lasting impression.

You also have a strong connection to travel and short journeys. You’ll often feel restless, and your itchy feet will set you wandering. These journeys may not be long, but there will be plenty of them — you’re always on the go. You are thirsty for new experiences, and even on short journeys or in transit, you’ll throw yourself into meeting new and unusual people.

You’re fascinated by psychology and the way human relationships work, so you will seek a life partner who is as into communication as you are. You will need this sort of person if you are to achieve emotional fulfilment.

You are the type of person friends and relatives turn to for advice on their love life. This has an upside for you too — it helps you understand what’s going on in your own life, romantically speaking.

Geminis seem to grow younger rather than older. Physically, you will maintain a youthful glow, and you will never lose your fun-loving liveliness. You’re really not into that ‘growing old gracefully’ thing.

Vitality and constant stimulation are what you are about. A peaceful old age is definitely not your cup of tea (even if you happen to be over 60).

Taurus

If you were to describe the typical Taurus temperament, you would probably use words such as ‘cautious’, ‘practical’ and ‘purposeful’. One word you definitely wouldn’t use is ‘impulsive’.

When you are making important decisions in life, decisions about things that are vital to your security and the welfare of those you love, you spend a long time on them. You want those decisions to be rock solid.

Once your mind is made up, you have amazing persistence and follow through, plus tons of energy — you rarely give up on a task once you’ve decided on it. And you’ll stick to your guns, even if you’re being provoked, tempted or ridiculed. This will be a blessing at some times and a curse at others.

Sometimes this ability to hang in there can turn into pride and obstinacy. At other times you refuse to accept another opinion or suggestion, even though the advice is reasonable and the person offering it has nothing but good intentions. What if the person is right?

Those who love you and offer you constructive criticism don’t mean to hurt you — they have your best interests at heart — and what they offer can be useful to you. Try to remember that.

If you look inside yourself, you’ll see that sometimes the reason you hold on to your position or opinion so fiercely is that you fear change.
Because you take such pride in your ability to see things through to the end, people who try to meddle with what you have set out to do, or change the rules of the game, are likely to hear from you, loud and clear. You really, really want to finish what you start.

Also, people will not have much success if they try to push something onto you and leave you no room to control your destiny. Then the bull in you really starts to make itself heard and felt.

On the other side of the coin, you also like to take it easy. This goes back to liking to leave things as they are. You may need to keep an eye on this — complacency and apathy are down the end of that path.

Change is the only constant in life and you may need to remind yourself of this every now and then; trying to resist all change leads only to stress and dissatisfaction with your life and relationships.

You also have a great love affair with the finer things in life. If you could find a servant to help with all the boring jobs you hate, you could live the luxurious life you dream of!

You are a great mate. When you agree to help someone, you go to any lengths to keep your word. You’ll never let yourself or others down. You are extremely dependable.

You’re also exceptionally sensitive and very patient. You’re prepared to wait as long as it takes for the right moment to act and you seize the opportunity when it wanders anywhere near you. Patience is one of your greatest virtues and it usually pays off.

Having honourable intentions, plus your patience and perseverance, are what others see as your finest — and most recognisable — character traits.
Your one-track mind about doing a job right— either at work or at home — has a good and a bad side. It means you’re very focused on what you’re doing, which is good but it also means you drive people crazy by showing them the ‘correct way’ to do things. Your family may not appreciate lessons in how to clean and stack the dishes or drive the car!

Actually, simplicity is what appeals to you — you can’t stand pompousness and look-at-me behaviour. You know that beauty is not about what you wear or what hairstyle you have.

You enjoy getting your hands dirty with gardening, practical hobbies and odd jobs around the home. Hard work doesn’t scare you in the least.
Taurus is a touchy-feely sign, which means you rely on your feelings rather than your mind when you try to understand your experiences.

You trust your own intuition about others — and you are usually right. However, you have terrific reasoning skills as well, so don’t dismiss your sensible nature; balancing these two sides of yourself will increase your success in life.

If you are a Taurean born between 20 April and 29 April you are under the double influence of Venus. You are sensual, loving and destined to be lucky in love. Try to curb your appetite to have the biggest and best of everything however. Learning the art of contentment is one of your main life lessons.

Born between 30 April and 10 May? Well Taurus, I see you have a very active mind are sometimes overly critical of yourself and others. Rely on your intuitive feelings rather than analysing every detail. This will bring you far more happiness in your life.

As a Taurean born between 11 May and 21 May you are prone to a more serious financial attitude in life. You like the idea of being practical and saving for a rainy day. That’s fine but don’t forget to enjoy the fruits of your labour. Your financial sense is very strong and is one of your best assets.

Conclusion

I`ll exhibit about 70% of the traits of a Taurus but they completely clash with the other 30% of the Gemini traits I`ll also exhibit. I was reading couples horoscopes and realized there`s a large part of me that would the Gemini description matches perfectly.

Monday morning, January 18th 2010.

Physically: I feel a lot more energetic! I started exercising again, I woke up this morning and just starting hitting the chin up bar and doing pushups just to get my blood circulating.  I’ve been exercising regularly just at home you know pounding out crunches and pushups doing stretches and stuff on the exercise mat.  I’m not really into gyms.  I’m more into that kill yourself P90x rigament (I haven’t actually P90x’d myself yet but you get the idea)

Sleep: Since it’s been three years of hard boozing and drugs and all sorts of horrid stuff, my sleep schedule without any substances to keep me awake on weekends and make me pass out accordingly have totally thrown my sleep schedule out of whack. For example, on Friday I was awake from 8PM Thursday night to Friday Morning 12AM, woke up at 8AM Saturday morning, passed out 4PM Saturday afternoon, woke up at 10PM Saturday morning, went to a karaoke party, went to bed at 7AM, woke up 9PM Sunday, went to bed at 3AM and now I’m awake at 7AM on Monday.

The week before that I was waking up at 8PM every single day.  Then again my skin was killing me as usual and I just felt so tired and lethargic.  You know when your body tells you to seriously not push it? I listened and took it really really easy that week.  I suffered a bit in terms of skipping class and stuff but SERIOUSLY my health is more important. I feel a lot better this week I’m going to get alot of stuff done in class. Thank god there were no tutorials or anything serious last week.  This week our FLC group is going to O’Noir (the blind people restaurant that popped up here).  I’m going to kiss one of the girls without them knowing who did it!

AHAHHA

Emotionally: I went to a party on Saturday and jesus christ I have never been so intensely serious at parties.  Everybody knows I’m a pretty intense guy, well imagine that plus a full nights sleep, no drugs or alcohol, no caffeine, and a well exercised body with blood coursing through my veins, AT A PARTY!! WHOOOO!!! I don’t get bored at these things but I was a lot more at ease emotionally.  I was kind of just able to waltz in there and chill and sing songs, talk to my friends a bit.  I just had a glass of coke and everybody thought I was getting crunk along with them.

School: Well last week school was a serious joke but this week I’m starting to get some more clarity upon it.  My program is boring as hell, drugs and alcohol made my program more fun to live through, but now I’m going to have to find the real beauty and passion in my work the old fashion way.  By reading deeper into it.

Time Management: I have so much time.  Holy.  You know all those hours I spent sleeping in Saturday mornings and staying up extra late on the weekend nights due to caffeine and nicotine and other horrid drugs? I get all that time back now.  What am I doing with that time?  Mainly dicking around, spending time with my lady friend.  Well I suppose that’s more productive than what most guys would use that time for.

Video games = drugs.

Most guys who game a lot just use their drug abuse time to play videogames instead.  They are both brief departures from reality and are relatively low stress and entertaining.  I better start playing games again, or pick up my guitar or something productive.

Competance: I’m doing things for myself now like eating breakfast.  Last week I got outta bed, made ham and eggs for the whole family, had some baguettes and jam, a deezed bowl of cereal with an entire banana cut up into it. (I think I’m going to have one of those now). And a deezed cup of coffee.

I read somewhere that coffee and dark chocolate actually weaken your immune system, so great now I gotta cut that out too.  Despite the fact Doctor Lam said 2 cups a day is fine (I don’t drink that much anyways).

Yeah I’m a lot more effective at completing tasks because it’s either that or be bored, so get up and go do something.

Pardon Le Dopeness: I’ve scheduled time with Matt Adam every Friday 2PM to 6PM or whatever to work on his clothing label.  Normally I hate on most guys in Toronto who think they can do this, but Matt Adam has his head screwed on firmly and is going to take this somewhere. I believe deeply in his ability and drive as an artist, and he values my creativity and unique knowledge of street fashion which I learned from Selwyn while studying this for two years in Beijing.  Who knew it would come in handy?

So instead of getting wasted every Friday and complaining/bragging about it the next day, I get off class at 2PM from Economics 101, I know I don’t study on Friday afternoons anyways I’m usually too tired for it, so why not do something productive? I am sick of promoting for parties and working on other dumb business ventures.  This one allows me to use my creativity, and be involved in a project emerging from the grass roots.  Plus, how cool is it to work with one of the illest graff artists in Toronto? There’s a lot to be learned and said with PLD.  Let’s see where this takes me.

Ezcema and Skin: You know my skin does still feel a little dry and itchy (it is afterall winter in Toronto) but it doesn’t feel hot and inflamed at all like it did before.   A little luke warm showering and moisturizer will fix anything in this situation.  My face is still a little red and irritated but not nearly as bad as before.  In brief, I am seeing gradual improvements in the overall quality of my skin.  And compared to three weeks ago, even when my skin gets itchy it’s not NEARLY as bad as it was before.  Before I was on the verge of wanting to kill myself over how irritated my skin was.  For the first time in a few years my skin is coming to look normal again.  In the summer my skin looks way better and heals alot faster, but this is the dry cold winter so I can only expect so much.  As the Doc said, when you see noticeable improvements in your health, it will inspire you to want to continue.  And he was right, I feel inspired to keep this up.

I dealt with a  minor skin infection this morning, hopefully the last of it’s kind.  I haven’t found any more random ones popping up anywhere so let’s hope this is the last EVER time I find any on me. I always pray and wish, but it always returns and haunts the shit out of me. It hurts so badly, if words could only express how badly I want to rid myself of this ailment. I want to rid myself of this ailment so badly I am willing to club and bar hop sober for the next 6 months or however long it takes to completely rid myself of it.   And I LOVE bars and clubs; such artificially created environments promoting  male and female interaction hold great interest with me.  I love the bass dubbing through the walls. I love the euphoric feeling you receieve when you step out of the harsh noisy environment into the complete silence of the Toronto streets late at night. I’ll do it all sober if I have to!

Mental Clarity: I have the will power to do what I want again, and the will power to force myself to do what I must to do succeed.  I know myself, usually within the third week I am the raging bull I was before.  You know what? In grade 11 and 12 I had decent health, definitely no skin infections, a slight cough every now and then (lack of sleep mainly) I could drink and party all the time.  But I only drank and partied maybe like once every three weeks at most.  After I went to China it came down to like every single day.

I think it would be a good idea if I put myself back on that same diet once I’m off this detox period. I’ve been trying to reconfigure at what rate I can consume substances without making myself sick and maintaining productivity.  In highschool it was once every three weeks, or once every time I finished a semester.  I was a celebration substance user.  I have a good feeling I’ll end up something like that later on.

Things I’ve had time to do after I quit substances

- make myself proper breakfasts

- get out of bed on time

- organize trips like snowboarding for myself and friends because I am actually awake (not hungover) on weekend days

- practice more guitar

- see girls and hang out and not be a dumbass

- speak to the other ingboys in my house

- clean things

- get my ass out of bed in the morning and exercise

- appreciate eating food, because now that the other vices in my life are gone, food has never tasted so good

- watching movies

- no I am not bored enough to start reading, I read a tonne everyday online everyday though, not to mention the books I have to eat for school, I usually just listen to audiobooks on the street car to give my eyes a rest

- blog

Okay I’m going to go eat breakfast now enough of my BS. Lets all pray I’m not going to have any more skin infections, I’m going to be healthy and productive and strong and sexy and beautiful.