"And now we bring you a segment called 'What the Hell are those guys doing?' sponsored by Sam Adams Light and apple butter. Dirty, dirty apple butter." - The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn.

Admittedly I've been in a bit of a weird mood lately, not really sure why, but I'm feelin' a bit more normal tonight. Which is a good thing because I think people were starting to worry about me. Tonight was pretty good despite the noted absence of one of the most important members of the crew. (Oh who am I kidding, the only important members of the superfriends are me and mike, the rest are expendable!) Just joking of course. For the love of God I'm just kidding! I can afford to take cheap shots like that when no one else is around to brutally assault me, either by poking me in the arm or hitting me repeatedly with a large jug.

Tonight we watched a really good movie, Road to Perdition (the scene near the end in the rain is one of my favourite scenes in a movie ever) And besides that I got an email back from my Hockey Now editor and it looks like I might be working there for at least part of the summer. David, the editor, is going on vacation for a month or so, so i'm applying to be his summer replacement. So hopefully I'll be there anywhere from 1-4 months. Hey, if I kick enough ass then maybe I'll get a full-time gig outta this deal. Who knows? Also, on a related topic, I finished my 3rd Blazers feature tonight - it's on Wade Davis if anyone cares (and has a photo by Matt Silver). It should be out on Mar. 8th.

Won't you be my neighbour?

Sad day today, because I just found out that Mister Rogers died.

The Friendly Giant died in 2000. Ernie Coombs, aka Mr. Dressup dies last year and now this happens.

It's really too bad.

"I don't want to get inside a pedophile's mind." - me, talking about some talk show where they interviewed a pedophile.

"I want to get inside a pedophile's mind...but I'll use a saw and a spoon." - Lorne.

"Everyone who goes into 7-Eleven is a potential criminal." - Me.

I know, its sort of lame of me to quote myself, but it brings up something important that I realized tonight: I've starting talking in sound bytes. You see, me and Mike have become so obsessed with writing funny stuff on our respective web logs, we are constantly listening to conversations just so we can pick up a funny sentence or two to use as a lead quote in the blog. It may be getting a little out of hand.

Don't believe me? 2 examples:

1)_Mike's notes from his 457 Arts writing class consisted only of a sketch he made that he is going to scan and put on his site, and quotes that people said in class that were funny and could have possibly made their way to the web log.

2. Tonight when I made the comment seen above about 7-Eleven, I realized right away, even before Meghan suggested it, that it was a potential blog-moment. Which brings me to how I only speak in captions and sound bytes. It's spiralling out of control. I must be stopped.

Anyways, tonight we went and saw Old School, which was a great flick. Friggin' hilarious in many parts. I recommend it. The best part of the night though, happened after the movie was over. In the parking lot, on Mike's car windshield, was a flyer with a coupon for a free hour of pool at Executive Billiards. But not just any coupon. A coupon with no expiry date. No limit one per customer. No restrictions at all. So we did what anyone would do in our position. We ran around the parking lot until we had enough coupons for 33 hours of free pool. We're thinking of using them all at once. Executive Billiards will never know what hit 'em.

"I have an increasing urge to kill a lot of people." - Meghan.

Melissa - I agree. drinking is a fine idea.

Also, as a side note: I was reading random blogs today on Blogger and a fellow blog-writer came up with this sweet quote, "There is a time and a place for the truth." It just reminded me of the marathon MSN conversation I had last night with Melissa when we were talking about truth and lies and all that kind of stuff.

It has been a bad day so far and the only thing that will make me feel better is to drink. I feel that all my friends need to drink with me.

Newest BC Hockey Now story is out now - run, don't walk, to your nearest hockey rink, McDonalds or Canadian Tire to pick up a copy. Or if leaving your house frightens you, just go here and read it online you lazy bastard. Just scroll down to the second story and there it is.

Things at BC Hockey Now are going very well. My editor is really happy with my work and might be giving me some extra work in the next month or so. So I'm branching out from the Blazers features to other stuff. I don't know how I'll balance this new work with my old work plus school, but it's still kind of exciting.

"Food is good. Almost as good as something else." - Lorne.

It was a weird day yesterday, for the following reason. Except for the day last week when I drove to Vancouver a day earlier than everyone else, yesterday was the first day in a really really long time that I haven't seen Mike, Meghan or Melissa. I felt so alone. Well, okay, not really, because I still talked to both Melissa and Mike. It was just odd that I didn't see anyone.

But on the positive side, I have discovered the wonder that is Space Ghost. When you have guest stars that include Macho Man Randy Savage, Busta Rhymes, and Bob Costas, how can you go wrong? The answer? You cannot.

Well, we're all back now from our trip. It was a lot of fun, even though we didn't do everything that was originally written on the Boston Pizza napkin - we didn't go to Seattle because some of us didn't have birth certificates and with the USA on "Orange Alert" we pose a threat to National security. So instead we went to Vancouver and went to Robson St, Science World, The Commodore, watched a whole bunch of movies one day....it was a good week and it was nice to get out of 'loops for awhile.

Because I drove up a day early and stayed a day late, I missed some good adventures like the pissing bear statue in Hope and checking Chilliwack hotels for vibrating beds, but thats okay because Mike's got it all on video.

"I'm not dumb!" - Bucholtz.

"I keep spilling stuff down my shirt and pants." - Meghan

We went into Vancouver today - Robson to be exact. It's amazing how such a small area can be heaven for some people and hell for others. Stupid Robson and all the damn clothes stores. We found a couple good stores though - like the hologram store where we bought the Sneaky Spoon - possibly the greatest invention known to man. nobody else really gets the joke except us but that's ok, its sweet. Tonight we all drank at my place, it was the coming together of 2 distinct groups, the J-School Posse and the Hometown idiots, namely my brother Chris, Scram, Bucholtz and Steph. It's pretty fuckin' great. It's great because I'm drunk right now. Woo!

One of the funnier parts of the day occured when Meghan and Melisssa were laughed out of one of those pompous, expensive, $2000-dollars-for-socks kind of stores. Apparently they weren't worthy of mocking the ugly rich people clothes. But we love them anyways. Stupid rich people and their expensize ugly clothes. Fuck you all.
Also, on a totally unrelated topic, Mike and Shaun stole two garden gnome type things from houses in my neighbourhood. Not sure why, but its' still funny.

It's been a crazy crazy week. I finally have a few minutes to post something. We haven't been hanging out much this week because we've all been so damn busy with midterms and various other stuff. I finally got my Blazer story done - it was written under a little more stress than the last one - interviews didn't originally work out as I had planned, but it's all done with and now we can get down to the real important business - partying for a week in Vancouver.

No worrying about school or anything else for a whole week. Fuck off J-School. Fuck off interviews. Fuck off CP Style. Hello Reading Break.

"I'm only taking notes to keep me from stabbing myself in the eye with my pen." - me.

"Kill me. Kill me now." - Matt.

Both the above comments, written on notes that were passed between us, illustrate the sheer pain that was our lives from 7:00 - 10:00 tonight. Worst class ever. Longest class ever. It was just non-stop babbling about Latin American political science and blah blah blah. The main problem was IT WAS A FILM CLASS!! I didn't hear the word "film" or "movie" for the better part of 3 hours. Then with time thankfully dwindling down, he puts on this documentary about the vietnam war. The movie was going to run past 10 when he showed us all mercy and turned it off.

The part that really sucks is that Ron Smith, the prof, is a super intelligent, nice guy, who is generally a great teacher with a good sense of humour. I know this from having taken a previous class with him. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

I felt like all my energy had been sucked out of me by the classroom, which I think must've been some kind of evil black hole/vortex type thing that just sucked my will to live right out of me. I was beginning to feel jealous of some of the Vietnam victims because at least they were resting in peace instead of suffering in Old Main 2621 like we were. ( Ok ok I guess that's exagerating a lot, but you get the point.)

Kevin and Al, who decided to skip the class, are the smartest people I know.

----- The following post has been modified from its original version because after reading it over I thought it seemed whiny, which was not my intention. Also, because of the verbal mocking I received from everyone when I "invented" these new plans, I got the impression that people thought I was complaining about the original plan. Also not entirely true. Either way, I'm taking at least partial credit for these plans, just because I can.

---------------------------------------------

Melissa: I have a brilliant plan.
Shaun: Oh crap.

Our reading break plans that were once brilliant are now.....different, and maybe not as brilliant, but definately cool. Our grand plans of mexico/las vegas/ were derailed due to everyone's limited cash flow. Reasons for this cash flow problem - we drank all our money away, and in Meghan's case, we can only assume that Gordon Campbell himself drank away her money. I could go off an anti-student loan rant here, but I'll leave that to Meghan. If you really want to hear a good rant though, go talk to her. She's the one wandering around angrily mumbling "Three business days. Three business days. Three business days."

So now our plans are to go and wander around Vancouver for awhile. My parents said we could all crash there. I don't think they realize what they've got themselves into. Oh well, they'll find out soon enough I guess. So it should be good. We all get to hang out for awhile in a different town, and I get to see my brother and some other friends too, which is nice. Now if we could just get this stupid week over with and get on with the show.

My first Blazer's story for BC Hockey Now was published today. Check it out here

"LEAVE NOW." - note left on the back of a certain person's car.

You know how when you were a kid your parents told you never talk to strangers? Well, that's a lot harder to do when you wake up in your own house and - wow! there are strangers sitting at the kitchen table.

Strangers can sometimes turn out to be cool people once you get to know them. But usually they aren't. Often times they turn out to be gun-wielding maniacs with a crack habit. Other times they are murdering, ex-con greyhound passengers who just won't leave you along. But yes, there is the slight chance that strangers could be "friends you haven't met." But usually not.

Usually they are people who show up unexpectedly, don't talk to anyone, make a mess of your living room in the middle of the night, pop pills like they're going out of style, and drink all your Malibu.

Remember that show from the 80's called "Perfect Strangers" ? The perfect stranger is one who stays as far away from you as humanly fucking possible.

"Fuck you sandwich!" - Meghan (sorry Mike, I'm using all the good quotes.)

So tonight our hard partyin' ways finally caught up to us. We fell asleep for awhile at Meghan and Melissa's and, despite our tiredness, we went to the bar where we didn't even last until midnight before packing it in and going home to sleep. But on the plus side, kleptomaniac partners-in-crime Meghan and Mike stole a napkin dispenser and a soup bowl from Tim Horton's for no particular reason.

"What we need to do is torch the classrooms, burn down the clocktower, and murder our teachers." - MW.

Chaos. Panic. Anger. Maryanne.

Another typical Friday.

Tic-Tacs have changed completely, and it's messing with my head.

I bought some Orange tic-tacs today. Or at least I thought I did. I mean, the box was tinted orange, thus making the individual tic-tacs look orange, which of course, they usually are. But not anymore. I dumped a couple 'tacs into my palm, expecting to see orange coloured mints. But no, they were white. Those bastards put the wrong mints in the box! I thought. So I ate them and sure enough they tasted like orange. So my question to the tic-tac people is, "What the hell is going here?" Why make orange flavoured tic-tacs white? I mean, the name of the flavour has a built in colour - ORANGE!!!!1

Idiots.

The tic-tacs are also bigger than the last time I bought them. Not a whole lot bigger, not mentos big, but bigger. I don't know when these changes were made but it's definately weird. I don't mind the bigger size, after all, you get more mint for your money. But what I do mind is Making orange tic-tacs white!!

The Tic-Tac slogan is "Breathe Friendly." But you know what isn't friendly? Fucking with orange tic-tacs.

Wow, thats a lot of rants lately. You can tell I've been hanging out with Mike and Melissa lately can't you?

"Hard work often pays off after time, but laziness pays off now."

So I've just come to the realization that we are quite possibly the laziest people around. And by "we" I mean "me." I've got to eventually start working because in the next week or so I've got a 3-5 page film review due, as well as the first draft of my freelance article and my profile on Blazer D-man Nikita Korovkin. I get the feeling that I'm going to be pulling some all-nighters soon, which I guess won't be much different than now except that, instead of just watching Mike work frantically into the night, I'll be the one up until 6 oclock the night before something is due.

But I should get back to checking my email and playing online Flash games - it sure beats the hell out of working on stories.

"Facts schmacts! Facts are meaningless, they can be used to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson.

I know, I know, that's two consecutive posts starting with Simpsons quotes, but they just come in handy you know?

::start rant::

You knows what's been bugging me lately? Scientific studies. They're all the same: "A new study proves that Thing A causes Thing B." And the two "things" they're talking about are always so unrelated its not even funny. Hey science guys! I can tell you something already. Aids causes death. Cancer causes death. Start figuring that stuff out first then worry about shit like this.

I can just imagine a bunch of PhD's with clipboards sitting around going "I wonder what two completely different things we can match up today to make us look smart." I wonder if they're keeping score.

"Well Dr. Smith proved that eating peanut butter any time after midnight decreases your chance of getting pneumonia, so that's worth 50 points. But it's not quite as good as Dr. Suess, who proved that walking ten miles per day causes the soles of your shoes wear down, which deserves 100 points."

Why do people waste time and money to prove things like this?

Stupid scientists.

::end rant::

"I believe that when you die you get to come back as whatever you want. I'll be a butterfly, because no one every suspects the butterfly." - Bart Simpson.

So much for sleep. It's 4:23 A.M right now and I'm having a pretty deep conversation with Mike and Melissa about religion and reincarnation, school, and other topics that we don't talk about often. Or as Melissa puts it, "Life, love, and journalism." Either way, It's pretty interesting, but I'm still wondering when I'm going to get some sleep. It's not going to be tonight, that's for sure.

Testing yet another new layout/template.

For some reason this blog won't load on Melissa and Meghan's computer, and it wont accept other people who I add to my "Team" of posters, so me and Mike have been messing around with templates and settings in an effort to get it to work.

So far, no luck.

Just watched Global Sunday over at Melissa and Meghan's place, where the topic was media bias and whether or not the media could be trusted. It had potential to be a good show but the Global people spend most of their time bashing the way CBC covers news. It was brutal. The show just seemed like an excuse for CanWest to discredit their competitors for a half hour. I mean, CBC is certainly not above criticism, but at least make it sound like intelligent conversation.

"Journalism training is fairly light." - Norm Spector, on Global Sunday.

Yeah right, Spector. You try dealing with Shawn, Maryanne and company for a couple of years and then tell me how light it is.

Also, I'm going to follow Mike's lead and place a publication ban on any further information regarding the weekend.

Testing new colors......and sidebar!!

Breaking News: Newly appointed Omega News Editor Matt Silver gets drunk off one beer.

As is becoming the norm, last night was a good one. We started out at Heroes playing rock trivia, which the J-School Posse won in dominating fashion. We won some free beer and a $25 bar tab for next time we're there. Much credit for the victory goes to Tara for her inspiring, call-to-arms email, as well as to our appointed captain, Matt Silver, who's knowledge of cheesy 80's songs knows no bounds.

Also on Friday Matt decided that with all the free beer that was flowing he might as well break his month long no-drinking streak and have a glass or two. Welcome back to the dark side, Matt. Drink up.

After that we headed to Rivers where most of the night becomes a little hazy although I do remember seeing Neal, Adam, Kevin, Katharine and Taylor just before we were headed out.