Matsam's Coiffure Madness

How I pleasure my ears

2010-11-09T14:03:00.002-05:00

J'ai découvers que la seule grosse différence entre des Sennheiser HD-555 et des HD-595 (à part $100+), c'est un p'tit bout de tape qu'ils mettent dans les HD-555 pour boucher l'aération du speaker, ce qui lui donne moins la chance de vibrer, donc moins bon son. Ça fait peur de défaire ses écouteurs de $200 comme ça, mais ça a valu la peine. Y sonnent en criss là!

End of an Era

2010-10-15T22:33:00.004-04:00

Surprise! I did it. Got rid of the hair for a much needed change, as the poll seemed to indicate (merci pour TES votes, J-P). I kinda like my new clean-cut look, but I still can't get over how different it feels. I feel the air rushing over my ears when I walk, I can finally stop worrying about eating my hair when I have a meal, I don't have to worry about pulling them, and showers are going to be super quick now! I'll get used to it I guess, but as a few people said on my facebook: Holy shit!

Unavoidable Battle - a tribute to the hair decision

2010-10-14T22:38:00.001-04:00

I've wanted to record this song for a while now, just haven't played with my guitar much lately. I've gotten all rusty and my fingers hurt when I play, it's like I'm learning how to play all over again!

But anyway, here's my rendition of Persona 3's "Unavoidable Battle". This video will also serve as a souvenir...well, you'll see!

Soul-searching

2010-09-13T16:10:00.004-04:00

A time comes where you question your own identity. I guess that’s a phase you’re suppose to overcome by the end of your teenage years. If that’s that case, that means I have to work on myself quite a bit…

As silly as it may seem, I feel like cutting my hair would me a great way to launch a domino effect that would help me get my life back on the tracks. You know, get a part time job, move out, and eventually finish college. Is that the answer, though? My hair is very dear to me, it’s how people pick me out of a crowd, it’s how people remember me from a party. It’s also an object of jealousy among girls (that volume, they say!) and a great way to keep warm in the winter.

I’ve been trying to decide if it’s a good idea to keep this ridiculous amount of hair on my head. It’s not just a haircut to me, it’s a heart-breaking change to who I am. This is not an easy decision, by any means! Obviously, the best way to solve this is to ask the internet for advice. I will therefore put up a poll, and the result will help me decide.

The Hair is on the line!

...or maybe I can just blame everything on this guy

Don't mess with the professor...

2010-03-07T06:17:00.003-05:00

Oh my…

I’ve been reluctant to participate in the expansion of the interwebs for the past few months! My apologies, dear readers. It’s kind of ironic I would procrastinate towards a method of procrastination…nuts!

Many things have happened since November. I’ve celebrated Christmas, getting the awesome Beatles’s Mono boxset during the process. I’ve been to Plattsburgh with my girlfriend, to get Wild Cherry Pepsi, no less! I’ve bought expensive jewellery, I’ve beaten a few games, and successfully passed my Japanese class. I also went snowboarding for the first (and second) time in two years, when I broke my arm (see oldest post!).

I’ve also decided to get in shape, if that’s even possible. A year of physical punishment at the local gym. Yes, I let one of my friends convince me that I needed it. I can’t be frail forever, after all. So far I don’t hate it, except when I realize that every single woman in the place can lift at least 3 times more weight than I can. These women probably beat their loved ones. Every night. Just before they rape them. Okay, maybe that’s not what happens, but I just want to show you how scared of them I actually am!

Advice of the day:

Don’t mess with a professor in college; he’s probably better than you at most things. He might even humiliate you publicly for trying to prove him wrong. True story!

Oh and I also found a weird picture of myself, almost have straight hair in it, coiffure madness!

The source of my DOOM!

2009-11-22T22:07:00.004-05:00

Some things in life just aren't meant to go well together. For example, cats don't go well with matsams.
Recently, a very smart cat found its way into my girlfriend's house, by fooling her into buying him for 20 bucks. Now that she has developed and unconditional love for the beast, I can assume it is my arch-nemesis.
If you didn't know by now, I'm really really really allergic to cats. To the point where I can't breath anymore. So yes, technically, cats can kill me if I'm not careful.
Just look at the thing, 5 months old and so cute I'll never see it coming.

Pea Coat Madness

2009-11-12T03:05:00.005-05:00

Yes, shopping madness again, I know. I can't help myself! Browsing through the weird clothes from H&M while shopping with my girlfriend, I fell upon a rather nice garment. In my defense, the item was 50% off and I've been known as quite the deal-sealer, lately. I have to live up to the reputation, right? Right.

As I looked across the internet for pictures of it, to show you guys, I came back empty-handed, so I will have to model for the cause: touching the ceiling with my hand, standing up on my couch.

~FASHION STATEMENT~

Old folks had the best chairs

2009-09-20T22:05:00.009-04:00

There has been a situation. One I've had to deal with, because it was essential to my well-being. You see, there are two positions in which I like to express my laziness. One of them is lying down, either on my back or sideways. The second one is by sitting. Of course, sitting on a bed can be nice, but without back support, you can't be comfortably lazy for more than a few hours at a time.

My point is, you need a good chair, and mine just broke.

This piece of crap I've had for a few years now, has been the support behind those long nights working on regretting the excessive procrastination. It has broken down a few times before, nothing serious until now though. It was usually the armrests, being loose to the point of falling appart. This week, the back of the chair, consisting of a large plastic piece, ended up snapping in two, right in the middle. The result isn't quite comfortable, as it hurts my back, and I can't see myself using this chair any longer. The search for a new chair is on!

First of all, I had to consider what kind of chair I wanted. Leather is out of the question, sticky in the hot summer days, ends up cracking after a few years. I'd much rather have another fabric chair! The problem is, after shopping a bit online, the only chairs I could find that were of higher quality than mine were over 200 bucks. Kind of expensive for a student budget. That's when I remembered. I love chairs with metal frames.

Wait a minute...do they even sell those anymore? Not if you don't want to pay thousands. All plastic, everywhere you look. God damn plastic. Well, there's always the used market, right? Right.

Thanks to kijiji and a very nice guy from Brossard, I present you my recent aquisition:

I must have a thing for old furniture, but this chair suits me well. I don't see it breaking for another 25 year, even if it probably is that old already. And for 20 bucks, who can complain! I love my old chair.

Nachos à la matsam

2009-07-19T00:13:00.003-04:00

Little food experiment I tried out: I love eating nachos, but can you that as a meal? Not really, because it won't fully satisfy you, there's no meat! Well, that's where my food experiment comes in.

Ingredients

Preparation

Now this is pretty simple stuff, but I still want to get it right. Only the tostitos, the cheese and the meat need to go in the oven, the tomatoes are better fresh and cold, they'll be added after everything heats up.

The food is ready to eat!

This experiment was quite tasty, the salsa and sour creme are always good dips for nachos, especially together. The pepperoni made it more of a meal than an appetizer. Add a hint of cock sauce, along with your favorite soft drink and you've got yourself some great nachos. I give this experiment a 2 out of 2.

Lazy Job - End of the Embarrassment

2009-07-10T14:36:00.002-04:00

The busy moments at my job are at the very beginning and at the very end of the shift. When the day starts, it doesn't really matter because everyone is still asleep, still (no wonder, they get here at 5:45am). When the shift is over, however, this is when things get wild (not really). I don't know if you even noticed, but schools are fucking scary at night, when there's nobody else in it. One of the schools I worked in (École Secondaire d'Oka) served as a set for the horror movie "Gothika", to give you an idea.

So when all the construction dudes decide it's time for them to hit the road, I have to be the last one to get out, and I need to check every window, every door, every light after they're gone. You're going to tell me it's not a big deal, but it can really turn into a complex situation, sometimes. Here are a few examples.

Yesterday, as I was getting ready to go, I closed the few last doors, as I always do. Here's the thing though, it's not very often that they have fresh paint on these doors. So what do you know, as I held the door to close it, my hands became blue. The sort of paint they use for these schools is the mean stuff. It doesn't go away with only soap and water! So I ran around the school, trying to find paint solvent to get it off my hands(painters always carry a few bottles because it's a messy job, after all), as I learned when I was painting schools last year. My hands ended up smelling horrible, but at least they were skin-colored again.

Two years ago, as I was closing up the thousands of windows in this horror movie-themed high school, a freakin' bird came inside the school! I couldn't let the thing inside, as there would have been bird shit all over the freshly waxed floors the next morning. So I spent about half an hour chasing the winged one through the corridors, progressively blocking its way deeper into the school, towards the nearest exit. That day, I learned birds didn't have a very good knowledge of what exits look like, and what they mean when a human is chasing you. Damn you, bird! Oh well, I guess I got paid overtime for dealing with that silly business.

The same year, I was unlocking the elevator for some construction dude, since he had to get his equipment up a few floors. Usually, to call the elevator, you need to insert the key, turn it, and press the button (so that regular students can't mess with it), then, to lock the doors open, you have to turn the key in the lock inside the elevator. For some reason, when I turned the key inside the elevator to lock the doors open, they closed as I got out to ask the construction dude if he needed anything else, locking my keys inside the elevator. Of course, there was no way to call it back, since I needed that key to do so... So I started freaking out, desperately trying to find another key set. No luck. I then told the construction dudes I had no way to get their stock back down at the end of the day, as I locked the keys inside the elevator. One of the guys said he might be able to help me. He got his tools and opened the button plate. Turns out he was able to rig the wires to make the setup think I just turned the key. The elevator arrived and I got my keys back. These construction guys are awesome.

Last year, I was doing late night shifts in another high school. As I was turning on the alarm systems, I suddenly felt like the floor was moving a little under my feet. Fuck. I was walking on fleshly installed tiles! Of course, they moved a lot, and I knew they would have to start over if the cement hardened like that. I had to lie down and meticulously replace each tile, which is crazy hard to do, especially when you have no experience (hello!). All I have to say is, I must have done a pretty good job, as they never noticed the following morning.

I seem to screw up a lot, even with an incredibly easy job, but it's never anything really bad, thank Robotsk!

Lazy Job Dream

2009-07-09T22:37:00.002-04:00

For the first time in a while, I remembered my dream last night. It was nothing special, mind you, but I'm just glad I recall what my brain created during my beauty sleep. I was doing my thing, just being a cooldude, hanging out with friends. Everything was perfectly normal, until I noticed one of my legs was noticeably longer than the other. I also observed I was walking around with an awkward posture for a while, compensating the fact one leg was longer by bending the knee. Of course, in my dream, it seemed perfectly normal for everyone, until I acknowledged it myself. Suddenly, people started asking me why one of my legs was shorter than the other, and every time someone asked me, the other leg seemed to grow a bit more. I think I was about a foot taller, standing on my long leg. I had to tell everyone that's how I was and they couldn't do anything about it. Except the more I was questioned about it, the more I had to demonstrate how I dealt with it, the more it ended up hurting. Flexing my knees makes them ache (that's a real life problem I have), and my consistently bending it, I ended up resenting my condition.

It surprised me how easily I was able to lie to people about the problem being normal for me. I mean, I knew my two legs were suppose to be the same length, but I kinda convinced myself I was wrong. As a matter of fact, I convinced everyone around me, which is not very hard to achieve in real life.

That raised a few questions as soon as I woke up. Why are people so naif and unquestioning once they've been fed a decent explanation? Are we raised to be so gullible? Aren't we taught to always use our critical thinking skills? Or maybe it's just easier to take the first thing that resembles to common sense and make it your own truth. Maybe that's how rumors can flourish in such an impressive way these days (I guess the mass-media exposure and the the internet helps).

I guess it's just weird that today's society is a mix of ignorance and obsessive knowledge. The advent of specialization, I would think. Not that it's always a bad thing; I do think it actually helps to have the possibility to learn about anything at any given time. It's a double-edged sword though. How much time I've sunk into useless bullshit, I lost count a long time ago. For me, it's a way of retiring into my own little space, taking a bit of my time to escape to another world, where the wonders of knowledge aren't restricted with grades and final exams.

Dream on.

The Fifth Element

2009-07-08T19:40:00.003-04:00

Sunday, I went for a car ride, I was going to get my birthday present. A present partially from my parents, partially from me. That's what happens when you ask for expensive gifts. Parents sometimes prefer to spend money on floor-heating systems or pool-cleaning robots instead. But they offered me a good deal, one that I could not refuse. So we went to FutureShop to get one of these Xbox 360 bundles. After a lot of research, I noticed they had newer hardware revisions that consumes less energy and has a better chance of surviving more than a few months (I'm sure most of you are familiar with the scourge of the Red Ring of Death).

Unfortunately, it seems all the cheaper models had older chipsets, being at a higher risk from the get-go. I found out that some higher-end models had the new ones, the mythical "Jasper" units. FutureShop had a special on everything in store over 50 bucks, shaving 10 bucks off. Well, it's better than nothing, right? But they didn't have any in stock. They had up to 10 units in all the other locations of the province, but not where I went. Dammit.

I decided to try my luck at BestBuy, giving up on the 10 bucks I wanted to save. I looked in the Xbox section, didn't see the bundle I was looking for...dammit. I asked the clerk if he had any left, and after about 15 minutes of "intense" research, I saw two units on the very top shelf in another section of the store.

Negociation time. This is where I try to seal a deal. I start by showing off the coupon from the other store, telling the clerk I need a better source of motivation to buy the bundle at his store. I says he's not sure he can do anything. Dammit. Suddenly, I remember they have an offer on the Pro models, which nets you 3 free games when you buy the hardware system. Unfortunately, this deal was only available for the Arcade or Pro units, and the one I had in my hands was an Elite unit. The thing is, the Elite model costs a hundred bucks more than a Pro unit and two hundred bucks more than an Arcade unit. Supposing they don't really make huge profits on the sales of video game hardware, I don't see why they don't apply the promotion on the higher-end model.

After a long discussion, not knowing what to do with an insisting guy with too much hair, the two clerks nervously called up a floor manager. He asked if they still had Pro models in stock, looks like they didn't have any more of those, so he said the promo would work on the model I wanted. The power of the manager. It barely took him 5 seconds to decide that. Immediately, a huge grin showed up on my face. I was getting 2 games inside the bundle, and 3 more games with the promo. I think that's a decent deal. I was satisfied and decided to seal the deal. It only took about 20 minutes to find all the games included in the promo, their fault for being disorganized. I didn't mind, because I was getting the best deal, in my opinion. My mom, on the other hand, was not quite happy, as I was ruining her plans for the day.

I ended up buying the console + 5 games for the price of the console. Surely, I would have been too excited about it to do anything else but open it and try all the games, right? Wrong. I spent a splendid night with my girlfriend. We tried a new sushi place and went to see a movie. Lovely, isn't it?

When I got back, with the help of public transportation, I noticed I didn't have my home key and that nobody was home. Dammit. I tried to bang on the doors, in case someone was sleeping or something. No luck. I decided to check at the back, and found an opened window, by which I entered the house. Lucky me! Seting up the beast wasn't very hard, until I tried to connect it to the internet. You see, it doesn't have wireless capabilities, and the only official way to connect it that way is to buy a $100 dongle from Microsoft. No thanks. People told me "Why don't you just run a cable between the router and the Xbox?" Well, it at the other side of the house and crosses a bunch of rooms, it wouldn't be practical at all. I read about another solution which would allow my laptop to serve as a network bridge, taking the wireless signal received by my laptop to transfer it through the ethernet cable from the laptop to the Xbox. Sounds simple, right? I wish.

The problem is that people make instructional videos for everything today, but for whatever is computer related, the videos are only showing ways to get around with the most commonly used OS. So I found instructions on how to make the network bridge with Windows XP, Windows Vista and even Mac OS, but what do you know, I'm using the RC version of Windows 7! It's not much of a difference with Vista, but once you try to mess with control pannel settings, a tiny name change can screw you up. I basically spent all night trying to figure this out, until I read about a related problem someone had on a weird forum. All the official Windows and Xbox boards were no help. You have to dig deep into the dark realms of the internet to find the most simple answers. I ended up making it work, allowing the 360 to update to the NXE interface and allowing me to download the games and themes my Xbox came with. Because, of course, why add a game disc when you can download the damn thing into your humongous hard drive? I'll miss physical media formats. The end seems near, but until then, I'll listen to my newest cd. Arctic Monkeys' debut album: "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not".

I just like to touch.

Lazy job 2009 – day 1

2009-06-26T15:05:00.002-04:00

Another summer, another school, it’s lazy job time again! This year, the school is close enough for me to use my bike, but, you know, it’s still the same old. So here’s how my first day went:

I wake up at about 5:45, as I’ve been told to get there at 6:30. I get there at 6:25, but what do you know...people are already in the school...and the freaking alarm system has gone off. So I get in there, try to figure out what’s going on. I’m greeted coldly by a group of painters. They’ve been given access to the school, they have a full set of keys, but they didn’t know how to disarm the alarm system... Well here’s a chance to do something, right? Way to be lazy, matsam. I called the security place, told them it was a false alarm (that had gone for half an hour before it was reported!), but they already called the school director to inform her that something was wrong. I had to explain that when she arrived at the school, but she wasn’t surprised about the painters being there, but me...! It seems she wasn’t expecting a school guardian this year. Plus, I was told the job in this school was an electricity job, so much for communication between the school and the head office. Anyways, since all the janitors are still here, there’s really not much for me to do here. I offered help to the janitors, since the painters don’t really need anything after all the doors are unlocked. So I ended up spending most of the day talking with the janitors, small talk, but it sure is more interesting than spending 8 hours alone doing nothing. Plus, I couldn’t really help them; they were mopping the floors with super duty detergents and cleaners. My shoes probably would’ve melted if I stepped on it, and you know how much I love my shoes!

There was a bit of drama while I was talking with the janitors. A professor came up to them, to ask for some help, but she didn’t know they were using dangerous products, probably, so she stepped right into it, while the janitor was mopping and her shoes got splashed. She said it didn’t matter at the time, but then she told the other janitor she wanted to punch the other one in the face because she thought he did it on purpose or something. It ended up to the director’s ears, and then she had to try to resolve everything between the two mainly concerned.

It’s silly, when you think about it. When you work with other people, you just have to try to get along, no? Some of us can’t get a grasp of that concept, it seems. We get highly offended with little things and go cry to our syndicate. I get it when it’s about sexual harassment or violence, but little accidents, hiccups you could forget two seconds after they happen? Individualism at its finest, people, that’s the problem. Although...the concept of self-reliance isn’t well shown here. It seems hard to stand for ourselves these days. Every time something bad happens, you have to report to the authority, and people who will stand up for themselves will be schooled because they didn’t follow the protocol. But hey, we have to be politically correct at all times these days.

Anyway, I ended up surviving the day, got home, went to BestBuy to seal some deals, and went to my girlfriend’s place to help her put all her stuff in a bunch of boxes. She’s moving out in a few days, after all! I decided to use my bike once more to get there. It’s not that far, really, 15-20 minutes tops. The only think I didn’t think of was the weather. The day had been hot and sunny, why would you worry about a perfectly normal summer day? The crazy storm had something to say about that. Halfway there, it started raining a little bit. But I thought I’d have enough time to get there before I got soaked. Wrong. It was raining so damn hard I was having trouble seeing where I was heading. I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t feel so great when I get somewhere and I’m soaked from rain. I was lucky enough to be at my girlfriend’s, as she gave me dry clothes, for my personal comfort. I ended up dozing off while watching a movie, so I decided I should go to sleep early. I was probably sleeping at 11pm, which is crazy early for me, as most of those who know me should know. The next morning would start at 5am.

Musical emotions and other thoughts

2009-06-03T01:20:00.004-04:00

There's something about music...it can make you experience a variety of emotions. It's a common technique used in movies. Then again, music can make you insensible to pretty much everything around you. It's not hard to notice these days: everyone has a pair of headphones plugged right into their ears if they're not expecting to engage in any social act of communication. I am part of the phenomenon myself, as I have trouble reading on the bus or in the metro, I'll often decide to take out my mp3 player and put on my headphones. Times passes more quickly, public transportation becomes less awkward. In an attempt to indulge yourself in the comfort of loneliness, are you not insulting our progress as a society and a community? Perhaps are we just preventing ourselves from getting involved with stupid people. They seem to be a common breed in public transportation.

In other news, I've seen live footage of E3, and I have to say Nintendo, as a company, has found the secret route to success, even in this economic crisis we seem to be stuck in. Funny thing is, this year, both Sony and Microsoft decided to copy Nintendo. Every major player in the gaming industry is now into this motion-control business. Funny how the stereotype of a gamer is usually the lazy teenager who just sits around all day, yet the most popular console encourages you to get your ass up and movin'. From my point of view, it started with music-oriented games such as Guitar Hero. Then came Rock Band, with the now iconic drum set. That got many lifeless arms and legs moving again. I don't know if it's a healthy situation for three major companies to be heading in the same direction, although I must admit I'm intrigued with what they'll come up with.

*Warning: Shoe lovers. This part of my post if for you. Shoe haters, carry on.
Have you ever had two or three pairs of new shoes at the same time? If so, how do you decide to manage them? One at a time, until they fall apart, one by one? Separate the amount of time you wear each one so they individually last trice as long? I didn't figure out the best option yet. I feel that I want to keep them new as long as possible, but then, I'll end up scarifying one pair and not wearing the other pairs! This is a terrible dilemma. I might spend endless nights thinking about it.

As I finish typing this, my laptop's music player keeps pumping out good music. Oh yes. Life is good. Rock on people, rock on.

I like this song...

2009-05-06T03:57:00.003-04:00

Michael McDonald - I Keep Forgettin' (Every Time You're Near)

Quite a revelation from my last SingStar acquisition: SingStar Legends. The song might be 27 years old, I think it's brilliant.

Playtest time.................NOT!

2009-05-05T21:31:00.002-04:00

This week was going to be awesome. Both Ubisoft and Electronic Arts contacted me to go try out some new game they were working on. Playtesting is pretty cool, you get to give feedback on games nobody else played yet. Gives you the impression you can help the game suck less, you know? Plus, they give you a free game for all your “hard” work.

Well, it didn’t quite work out the way I thought it would. It started with a call from Ubisoft. They had to ask me a few questions to see if corresponded to their target group. The conversation went along these lines:

Ubisoft guy – I’m going to name you a few games, tell me if you played them.

Me – Alright.

Ubisoft guy – Prince of Persia?

Me – Yup.

Ubisoft guy – Splinter’s Cell?

Me – Yeah.

Ubisoft guy – God of War?

Me – Oh yeah.

Ubisoft guy – Tomb Raider?

Me – No...uhhh...well, like just the older ones, PS1 era.

Ubisoft guy – Uncharted?

Me – Nope.

Ubisoft guy – Assassin’s Creed?

Me – Yeah.

Ubisoft guy – Um, you played Assassin’s Creed for how much time?

Me – Well, I beat it pretty quickly, so about 20-22 hours.

Ubisoft guy – Oh. You beat it. Okay. Well, that focus group is already full, so...tell you what, we’ll put you on top of the list for next time, alright?

Me – Yeah, no problem, bye.

And so the first deception was over, but I said to myself “hey, at least you have another playtest with EA tomorrow, right?” Right... So the next day, I go to the place, had to get there early to get my monthly pass for public transportation. As I came up to the lady to buy my pass, she looks up to me, as I ask for a specific one. Then she kinda started yelling at me for some reason. I didn’t really understand what she was saying, because she had this huge accent. I ended up showing her some ID. That seemed to calm her a little bit. I ended up buying the damn thing, finally.

On my way to the building, I passed by a few stores, and since I was early, decided to check out some of them. SingStar bundles are 30 bucks at La Source, might have to get one of those, as one of my microphones is dead (yeah, I sing a lot, got a problem with that?). Checked GameBuzz, saw used copies of Bust a Move 2, Bust a Move 4, Resident Evil 2 and a few others priced between 200 and 300 bucks each. Ridiculous. I took a mental note to never buy games there.

Arriving at EA’s suite, I took a seat, waiting for them to come and take me to the testing room. Well that never happened. A guy came up, told the secretary they had some computer problems and to refuse people who came for the focus group. Great, they were supposed to give us pizza. There goes my dinner! I went back home talking to this other guy about how lame the situation was. We were told we’d be called first for the next playtest though. Like that compensates for getting us to travel all the way there.

DENIED. Twice. Dammit.

Party time!

2009-04-25T04:13:00.001-04:00

Yo, danced and got drunk.

Pizza experiment

2009-03-22T21:50:00.002-04:00

This is probably the site that inspired me to try this experiment. I wanted to mix two foods I enjoy eating. One of them is pizza, which I didn't bother making it, since I had a frozen one I could use. So I started by ripping all the healthy ingredients off the pizza. Then, I decided to cook my second ingredient, Pogos (corn-dogs, you silly Americans). But I only half-cooked then, since I wanted to put then on the pizza while it was cooking, so they both could integrated each other's flavor.

I started cutting slices of Pogos and put then on the pizza, then put the whole thing in the oven for a while.

This is the result.

This is the result, half-eaten.

I couldn't even eat everything and didn't feel very well after having done so. It was tasty though, you just can't eat tons of it. I give this experiment 3.5 out of 5. I still prefer eating both separately.

Chocolate madness

2009-03-21T06:51:00.005-04:00

Chocolate. Who doesn’t like chocolate? I like chocolate. I enjoy all kinds of chocolate. Dark chocolate is my favourite, it’s like classy chocolate. Well, unless it’s extremely pure...ever tried 99% pure dark chocolate? If you did, you’ll agree with me that it’s disgusting. The packaging even tells you to eat it with something else, like tea or coffee. I only like chocolate with milk, or maybe fruits, which might be why I like chocolate fondue.

Milk chocolate is so overrated. The sad thing is most people refer to milk chocolate when they talk about “chocolate”. I consider it cheap chocolate, the one you always get for Christmas or Easter, and you get tons of it, it’s not even a treat anymore.

White chocolate is the unsung hero of the chocolate family. It has lost popularity in recent years. I remember getting some when I was really young, and it was always the special chocolate, the one you wouldn’t eat too much because it was so rich, also because you only had a few of them, next to the huge pile of milk chocolate.

[random food]-flavored chocolate is overdoing it. You know those chocolate oranges you have to hit on something before eating them? Yeah, that’s not so good. I’ve had raspberry-flavored chocolate too. The concept it good, because chocolate is usually good with fruits, but the flavors mix up too quickly, and it ends up ruining everything. I don’t recommend it.

Kinder Surprise. Admit it, it’s awesome. I think I asked for one every time I went shopping with my parents, as a kid. This one isn’t so much about the chocolate though; you get a free toy inside! Oh my god! Although Kinder chocolate is still milk chocolate, I have to say it’s really tasty. As I grow older, the toys also get lamer, but you can’t beat the nostalgic aspect of this one.

Oh, I almost forgot about chocolate covered food! For example, when you get an ice cream and decide to treat yourself with something special? Yeah, dip it into the liquid chocolate and you have upgraded your ice cream from good to great. Also, the chocolate-covered cherries they give at Pacini with your bill? Genius. That’s a tip booster right there.

On a side note: PK, chocolate eggs are okay, but as long as the eggs are made out of chocolate. If that’s real egg covered in chocolate, that’s just gross, dammit!

(The picture if from a chocolate hotel room where everything is made out of chocolate. Godiva and The Bryant Park Hotel in New York teamed up for this. Madness.)

Exploring foreign sounds

2009-03-14T00:47:00.002-04:00

I love this song. It's amazing how you can like something without even understanding it. The subtitles help, though.

Bump of Chicken - Karma

Voler de ses propres ailes

2009-03-12T16:40:00.003-04:00

I’ve been a college student for almost 2 years now. Having to travel a few hours just to get there makes one wonder: is the comfort of your parents’ home worth all the trouble? Of course, some might say it’s just a bad moment you have to endure, but then again, aren’t college years supposed to be one of the best parts of life? I feel like I’ve been missing out because of the current situation. Example: I can’t hang out until 4 in the morning because public transportation ceases all activity after 11:30pm. Sure, Kevin will offer me his couch once in a while, but I can’t always rely on that.

So I’ve been thinking of moving out for a while now. Just the thought of not spending 3 hours a day in the bus/metro gives me the impression I’ll have so much more time on my hands that I won't even know what to do with it. Yet the parents don’t seem to think it’s that simple. It’s kind of ironic though; after getting yelled at for years, threatened to be kicked out if I didn’t help out around the house enough, suddenly, when I became serious about the idea of moving out, they confronted my ideal with everything they got. Their arguments ranged from the economic situation of our country to my tendency to procrastinate. I don’t blame them; I can understand being worried about someone who has never had to deal with complete autonomy, but god dammit, I wouldn’t be the first idiot to dive into unknown responsibilities.

Anyway, I think my parents just don’t want to be responsible if I fuck up and can’t pay the rent. They seem pretty confident that I can’t make it on my own. I guess I’ll have to prove myself. We’ll see.

In other news, I just finished Tales of the Abyss. That took a while!

Third time's the charm

2009-03-10T22:26:00.010-04:00

I got my good ol’ laptop back in September 2007. Back then it came with Windows Vista. Little did I know back then that this eye-candied OS wasn’t meant to be on this mean machine. The “Windows Vista” sticker was a trick! Although it wasn’t the best computer ever made, it was fully capable of running a mainstream OS with basic applications, or so I thought... an Intel 1.67GHz Core2 Duo with 2GB of RAM is still a decent laptop, a year and a half later, but it wasn’t enough for Vista. Oh, but I can already hear the nerd hoards, blaming me for not tweaking my settings and cleaning my registries and unused program files. Shut up, I always took care of my computer like and semi-skilled computer nerd would. The OS was unusable on Power Saver settings (what can you do when you’re in a class with no electrical output for 3 hours?), Windows Explorer crashed every now and then and most of my peripheral simply wouldn’t work with my laptop, because pretty much every company gave up on Vista support from the start. I would try to plug in my HP scanner and my computer would send me to their website, thinking I would find a driver for it. But no, the only solution HP found for my Vista/scanner problem was something like this: “No driver has been developed for the OS you are currently using. Please consider our new Vista-compatible line of products [link]”. Thanks a lot, HP. Heck, even one of my optical mouses wouldn’t work with Vista. And no, Service Pack 1 didn’t fix anything.

So I ended up thinking about how happy my life was when I was using Windows XP. Sure, XP might not be as pretty, but at least it’s fucking functional. I decided to switch from Vista Home Premium SP1 to XP Professional SP3. That was probably the best decision I made that year. Suddenly, all my performance problems disappeared, explorer didn’t crash anymore, all my peripherals worked right out of the box. No problems at all. How could Microsoft create something they call an “upgrade” if it actually feels like I have upgraded from Vista to XP? All went well until about 2 weeks ago. I started getting blue screens, right when I was studying for my mid-term exams. I did try to fix the problem by looking up the blue screen error numbers. It pretty much came up as “You have a software and/or hardware file and/or driver malfunctioning and/or corrupted.” Good luck trying to find what it was. The blue screen problems disappeared as soon as I finished my exams. Ironic.

Windows 7 has been in public beta stages for a while now. I know a few people who have been using it, and I haven’t heard anything really bad about it yet. The deal is that the OS in beta is free to download and use until the 1^st day of august. Of course, they stress out that Windows 7 is still “for testing purposes only”. What the heck, it can’t possibly be worse than Vista, right?

I have been using Windows 7 Build 7022 for a few days now. A new build came out, but that also means a new Windows install, so I guess I’ll pass until they get a major update out. The OS is a mix of Windows XP and Windows Vista, with an interface that strangely resembles to Mac’s OS. The Action Center makes any problem you might have disappear in an instant, probably the only feature that made Vista look like a more user-friendly OS compared to XP.

I have to say, having made a fresh install of Windows Vista, Windows XP and Windows 7, the later is by far the easiest. The only concern about installing XP or Vista is dealing with driver installations. You basically need another computer to get the drivers online if you didn’t get a CD including them with your computer (most laptops don’t come with them nowadays, companies like to pre-install all the crap) for XP or Vista, but with 7, the OS automatically detects available networks, asks for the password, and a few moments later, the OS works its magic and everything is fully functional, nothing to install, no drivers to mess with. Windows 7 wins at being user-friendly. Most people don’t like to mess with computer settings, so why not? Action Center detected a problem for my Bluetooth driver, but the “Fix it” button really did fix it. 30 seconds later, I pretty much had the same computer I had merely 3 hours earlier sans blue screens, thanks to my backed up data on my external HDD.

Compared to XP, some programs are faster on Windows 7, some are slower. I noticed Skype started up in a fraction of the time it use to take on XP and Firefox 3 (3.0.7) is a lot slower. The minimum requirements for Windows 7 are a lot higher than the ones for XP, but with my 1.5 years old laptop, it’s fairly similar. I think Microsoft finally got it right this time, but it’s still a long way until they make a final release. To quote Kevin : “ils ont encore 6 mois pour scrapper ça avant de le sortir”. Indeed.

One laptop. One year and a half. Three operating systems.

AC/DC - Black Ice, why the exclusivity?

2008-11-28T04:00:00.007-05:00

AC/DC basically representing everything I love about music, they almost had me begging for this new album, the first one in over eight years, the last one being Stiff Upper Lip in 2000. I have to admit that I was a bit doubtful at first, AC/DC might be a legendary rock band, but they’re getting pretty old, as Angus Young is the youngest at 53 years old and Brian Johnson just hit 61. Now we all know what a life filled with sex, drugs and rock’n roll can do to you. I mean, that’s why people retire, right? Well, I’m glad to hear that I was wrong to doubt them: Black Ice is good, very good.

Black Ice sounds exactly like what AC/DC has been since Brian Johnson joined the group in 1980. At that point, the band lost its punk approach (just listen to “Let There be Rock”), led by ex-signer Bon Scott, to move towards a more musically-refined style (check out Stiff Upper Lip). They didn’t lose their legendary raw energy, they matured. Black Ice is still pure AC/DC, just don’t expect something from the Bon Scott era!

Most of the songs are original enough, although “War Machines” sounds exactly like “Given the Dog a Bone”, but that song came out 28 years ago, on Back in Black. (You can literally sing “Given the Dog a Bone” during the song’s chorus. ) Another hint of unoriginality: 3 songs on the album have the words “Rock ‘n Roll” in their title. On the other hand, “Stormy May Day” features slide guitar riffs, which are refreshing enough, considering Angus Young usually doesn’t like to add any effect to his guitar playing; he prefers raw intensity to pedal effects and whatnots. Also, "Skies on Fire" is one of these instant classics songs from which you can feel the badass attitude AC/DC is capable of, but doesn't demonstrate very often.

By listening to each and every song they have to offer on their latest output, I’m impressed by how well every band member experiments with their instruments. Just take Cliff Williams, for example: when you think “AC/DC”, you usually think “easy bass lines”, 2 or 3 notes max. Well, I don’t know if he took lessons or something, but he definitely improved since last time. Songs like “Skies on Fire” and “She Likes Rock ‘n Roll” have pretty interesting bass patterns. He follows the guitars a lot more, instead of following the bass drum like he used to. Brian Johnson delivers some pretty good vocals on this album, and although his voice is either a hit or miss for most people, his performance is great, almost touching, on “Rock ‘n Roll Dream”, as the softer song allows more focus on the vocals. As for the rest of the band, Phil Rudd is as tight as always, holding the same beat for over 4 minutes each time. Malcolm Young’s rhythm guitar is perhaps one of the best in the genre and the sound of his brother’s guitar blends perfectly with his. Angus Young is still the little devil he’s always been. He doesn’t neglect the guitar solos either, and that’s where he separates from the rest. Most older lead guitarists often end up not putting the effort, relying on their popularity to sell albums. Angus knows intensity sells.

Talking about selling, this is something I just can’t take out of my head… Black Ice ended up being a Wal-Mart exclusive in the United States. Now, as a Canadian, that doesn’t affect me, but it’s just the fact that consumers don’t get the liberty to buy the band’s latest album at any other store just doesn’t sound right. You might know by now AC/DC is one of the only bands not showing up on iTunes, along with The Beatles (although both of them are ranked #1 and #2 for republished album sales), but I can understand that, as Angus said himself that AC/DC doesn’t make singles, but albums, and that each song deserves to be on the album (as iTunes users often buy single songs instead of full albums). Yet, the multi-album deal AC/DC signed with SonyBMG Music not only keeps them from selling singles this time, but limits them to a single nationwide store brand. This is clearly sound like a paid exclusivity from Wal-Mart’s side: “hey, let’s piss off the consumer, it doesn’t matter, he doesn’t have the choice anyway and he’ll still come here to buy the album!” At least indie stores can sell the vinyl version of Black Ice. I don’t think AC/DC cares much for the exclusivity deal, as their record label has the final word in this kind of business. They rely a lot more on world tours anyway.

That being said, the album isn’t exclusive to any store in Canada, so go grab the album at any store you want to go to. If AC/DC fits your musical tastes, I recommend it.

Rock on!

Btw, the first picture is the "Yellow logo" version of the album, which I have. The most common one is the "Red logo". There is also a "White logo" and a 4th one, which is exclusive to Wal-Mart in Canada, the "Blue logo".

P.S. J'ai été quelque peu influencé par Le Kevin qui, à côté de moi, passe pour un maître de la critique musicale.

The art of operating a cash register

2008-08-15T17:08:00.010-04:00

I've been playing this game on my PS3 lately, it's called SingStar. My girlfriend and I decided to buy it because we both like karaoke. I got quite into the game and so did she, but what I didn't know was that my whole family would soon become fans of the game. It even has it's own online store (SingStore) so that you can download additional songs for it (I spent a few bucks on those, 1,49$ at a time). So the game costed 59.99+tax for the game and 2 microphones, which isn't a bad price for a game that comes with peripherals. The mics have audio jacks that you plug into a USB adaptor, so I could plug them into an amp, good stuff.

Here's the thing, you've seen the PS3 Eye camera in that little YouTube video, right? Well Future Shop had this sale going on: SingStar+PS3 Eye for 79.99+tax. Now I don't really need that camera, but it's usually 40-45$ everywhere, and everyone knows I can't resist a good deal when I see one. My plan was to buy the bundle at Future Shop and return the newly acquired SingStar game at EBgames, since I bought the game recently, I'd still get a refund for a sealed game. The PS3 Eye camera would end up costing me 20$ instead of 40-45$.

My mom woke me up at 9am so we could finalize our passport forms and finally get them in time for my trip to NYC (August 20-21-22), and the building where we had to hand them in wasn't far from the stores, so when we got out of there (around 2pm, gah!), we headed to FS. I got both the game and camera and went to pay for them. The girl who worked there didn't seem to be in total control of the situation, but heck, anyone can operate a cash register, right? Or so I thought anyone could! First she scanned both items, total came up to 90$ (79.99+tax, right), but the receipt didn't print, so she had to start over. Second time she scanned the items, she must have missed the game, because the total came down to 45$ (39.99, the price of the camera). Of course, I noticed, but I kept my mouth shut, d'uh. While walking out of the store, I almost felt like running, in fear of having to race to the car, followed by the clerk.

Next up was EBgames. That was quite simple, went up to the clerk, took out my receipt, said I bought it for someone and he already had the game, asked for a refund, got it, walked out.

So I ended up paying only for the PS3 Eye camera, getting the game for nothing, which is almost 70$ with taxes. Sweet deal!

Lazy job - day 4

2008-07-04T09:09:00.004-04:00

You guys all know I have one heck of a lazy-ass job. I come in at 6:30am, unlock the school's doors, take off the alarm system and sit my ass on a chair. All. Day. Long.

Well today, I've done more than what they usually ask from me. I was walking slowly in the corridors when I saw the Contractor and the Janitor talking. Suddenly, the janitor started pointing at me. Intrigued, I went closer. The contractor was looking for someone to help him mesure things. Since he's an old fashioned guy, he had an old tape mesure tool. Of course, the young guns in here mesure things with lasers. So I went with him in the basement and we mesured walls together. I have to say, this school's rooms aren't rectangular. No. They have weird angles everywhere. You know what's weird though? This room in the basement, with no windows and far away from any exterior door, will serve as the school's kindergarten. Is it just me or is this a bad idea?

Anyway, now I have nothing to do again, and for a long time. These days I do almost 12 hour shifts because the cool dudes mesuring things with their lasers go home at 6pm.
Thank god I found an ethernet cable running down the wall, plugged into an IP phone. I can always play with my DS or my PSP also. Oh, and I found a tv in the music class the other day. I could plug my PS2 into it, like I did last year, in a different school.

Financially, things are looking good, I'll be getting my first paycheck in...months! Since it happens to coincide with my birthday (the 6th, this Sunday actually), I'm thinking about buying a PS3. The Metal Gear Solid 4 bundle, which includes the 80GB model, for those who care. That would set me back 568$ including taxes, but there's a game with it (two, actually, you can download "Pain" online once you buy the bundle). Besides, with the ridiculous amount of money on my paycheck, I surely can afford it.

Matsam will be on the PlayStation Network very soon. Let's just hope the username "matsam" isn't already taken!

Van Halen - Jump solo madness

2008-06-20T21:29:00.003-04:00

I wanted to post something a little more impressive than Roadhouse Blues, I think this might be. I didn't play the whole song, because there isn't a lot of guitar in it anyway, except the sweet solo halfway through. Well, tell me what you think! I know it's not perfect, but I think Eddie would be proud, rock on!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P22uY2hhyi8

Random madness from the closet

2008-06-17T16:09:00.017-04:00

So I was cleaning my room (it's been a while...) and I found cool things, one of them being a drawing Francis did way back in high school. It's me as a superhero.

I present you, Touffeman!

Roadhouse Blues

2008-06-08T01:10:00.004-04:00

I fell in love with The Doors once more, I began playing their songs again. Yes, I can still play on the guitar after that major wrist accident. Don't believe me? Check out this video then!

By the way, it took me 9 hours to upload this video. Seriously. 8 hours to upload it and another hour to process it. I think YouTube doesn't like big .VOB files.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDaSW0m3avM

Hate to say I told you so... [Update]

2008-06-05T05:06:00.004-04:00

The Detroit Red Wings just won the Stanley Cup. Let's see, my prediction was...Detroit in 6? Well, that's exactly what happened! After most of you guys told me the Penguins would cause a big surprise, I kept telling you the Red Wings were a better team.

Matsam was right. Again.

To rub it in:

UPDATE:

Evil Red Wings Owner Wario Lemieux Steals Stanley Cup

Source: The Onion

Pop-Tart experiment

2008-05-30T00:44:00.000-04:00

Ok, I just found a Pop-Tarts in my backpack. It must be like 6 months old, I don't even remember putting it there...
*Note: the package was already opened, so it definitely wasn't fresh or anything...

I'll be doing a little food experiment here. I'll eat it, and keep you informed.

12:33am: Starting to eat the Pop-Tart.

12:36am: Found yellow spots on the white icing, but I'm already 3/4 through eating it. Oh well.

12:40am: Finished eating the Pop-Tart. The jelly inside was kind of hard and it didn't taste as good as a fresh Pop-Tart. It was bitter and sort of spicy, but still sweet, for the most part. One small piece was too hard to chew.

12:52am: Feeling a little sick to my stomac, but nothing serious. I am stronger than the Pop-Tarts.

12:58am: Not feeling any better, I'm eating a Mr.Freeze to make the old Pop-Tart taste go away, yuck.

1:11am: I'm starting to burp a lot.

2:02am: Unusual amount of saliva.

1:24pm: Have not been sick.

Experiment conclusion: Matsam is stronger than old Pop-Tarts.

Hooker-barmaid

2008-05-18T18:16:00.000-04:00

Ok, so yesterday we decided to go party at the Café Campus. On that night, they had some deals going on, such as free entrance for girls and 1$ beers until 11pm.

Right after we got in, we decided to go get a beer, you know, especially since they were so cheap. So me and my buddy Kevin go and order ourselfs something to drink. We ordered, got our beer and gave the lady one dollar for each beer. That's when the barmaid looked at us and said "Le pourboire est pas inclus hein!" (Tip isn't included eh!)

What the fuck, barmaid? Look, I know how tipping works, it's 15% of what you order. I know it can be a bit more, at a bar or in a club, but what did she expect for a 1 dollar beer!? a few pennies? a "generous" 25 cents? C'mon.

Furthermore, the person serving you shouldn't expect more tipping from you if they ask you for it, espcially in such a cold and bitchy way. She didn't even open a beer bottle, it was in a glass, don't tell me that's hard to do. Sure, I would've tipped her, after maybe 4 or 5 dollars/beers. Heck, tip is optional, I give some if I enjoy the service. Bitchy barmaids aren't getting any money from me.

Anyway, just after she said that, me and Kevin looked at each other, stunned. We didn't know what to say, what kind of barmaid "asks" for tip? I guess he felt more guilty than I did, she ended up getting a tip equal to 100% of what his beer costed. Good job, bitch.

Only hookers should be allowed to ask for tip, as far as I know, that barmaid had quite the attitude to be one.

Hockey madness

2008-05-11T21:10:00.001-04:00

By popular demand (and with people threatening me, merci Mélina!), I realized my blog really needed an update. Jeez, I’ve been a lazy bastard.

First of all, I have to express how I feel about what happened to my favorite hockey team, les Canadiens de Montréal.

After one hell of a season, Montreal finished 1^st in the Eastern conference for the first time since the 1988-89 season, and 3^rd in the NHL with 104 points. Was it a surprise that the Habs had to face the Boston Bruins? Not really. It was actually the 31^st time in NHL history that the two teams met in the playoffs. The series still ended up lasting 7 games as the Bruins proved to have some kind of incredible survival skill. Montreal still managed to win against Boston in the playoffs for the 24^th time with a glorious 5-0 score.

Now, we all know hockey is pretty popular in Canada, even more so for Montreal, since the Canadiens are literally part of our cultural heritage (24 Stanley Cups isn’t nothing). But when a sport becomes almost as important as religion under certain circumstances, things can go horribly wrong. Allow me to explain.

Monday, April 21. The Montreal Canadiens just won the series against Boston. People are so happy about it that they get out and celebrate, screaming and shouting in the town’s streets. There’s nothing wrong with celebrating publically, I did it. I was watching the game with some friends and we all got out, expressing our joy. But here comes the resemblance with what’s wrong with religion. Similar to some religious extremists, some enthusiastic Canadiens fans (one can wonder if they can still be called “fans” at that point) decided to express their joy in a peculiar way, as this photo can show.

Worthy of the 1993 Stanley Cup winning game, this riot was quite impressive, for a first round win. The Police said fans did around $500,000 of damage to the police cars only. That’s not counting all the other cars, the shops’ broken glass showcases, the letter boxes, signs, etc. After looking at all the damage that had been caused, I couldn’t help but to wonder: “What the fuck does that have to do with winning a hockey game?”. Then again, sports aren’t the only place where such things happen. I surprised myself thinking about religion (tied in with politics) and what it causes people to do. The war in Iraq, for instance.

Closer to us, religion ties into hockey in many ways. It goes from praying that your team will win to climbing the St-Joseph’s Oratory’s stairs on your knees.

Yeah, me and my buddies did climb the stairs before and after the game. We had nothing to do and were a bit drunk, actually.

Of course, this meant the Canadiens were going to Round 2 against the Philadelphia Flyers. At that point, everyone thought Montreal had the team to win the Cup. That was about to change. After winning game 1, the Canadiens were to lose the 4 next games, causing fans to react with their usual bipolar disorder: the Canadiens win a game? Stanley Cup! They lose a game? It's all over. I don't think Montreal did a horrible job in that series. Actually, they pretty much dominated all the games, getting beat by the Flyers' unorganized playing style. Counting the amount of posts hit by Montreal’s player, the mediocre referee work and the ugly goals Philly’s players scored, I can clearly say the Flyers were very lucky, 4 straight times. We asked a lot from our rookie goalie Carey Price, and even though he didn’t take us as far as we would’ve hoped, he certainly gained experience, and there’s always next year. I just hope the kind of riot we just had doesn't increase exponentially as the team goes through the rounds, as a Stanley Cup win would probably push the population to burn Montreal down to ashes.

For now, I hope the Pittsburgh Penguins destroy the Flyers in Round 3. My prediction? A Penguins Vs. Red Wings final in which Detroit wins. Hockeytown deserves it this year. May the octopus be with them!

Dealing with arachnids

2008-04-20T14:54:00.000-04:00

I don't like spiders

Yesterday, I was happily procrastinating, when suddenly I saw something move in a dark corner, near my 4 port USB hub. Intrigued, I decided to turn on the lights. Just as I feared: it was a spider.

I decided to throw everything off the desk, to get a clean hit at it. I looked around, I needed a weapon. Laptop? Not worth destroying it. A fork? Might be hard to actually hit the spider. My hand? Eww. That's when I saw the water bottle. Perfectly shaped to kill a spider, if you miss on the first shot, you can always roll over it, squeezing the life out of the beast. I prepared myself mentally, having a plan for each and every direction the spider could go if I missed my first strike. I killed it. Yes, finally.

Just as I came back from throwing out the kleenex with the dead spider in it, I put back some of the things I had tossed earlier. What's this...? Another fucking spider. Great, just great. But this spider was wiser. It decided to go under my laptop, a fragile object I couldn't just toss away. I had to study its movements, to have the avantage of the surprise attack! I tried to move the laptop just a little bit, so that the spider would run away. Nothing. I lifted the laptop, expecting a similar reaction. The spider had some nerves, just standing there, mocking me. So I killed it, with the SAME water bottle.

Matsam 2, spiders 0.

"The spider is mugging you, it wants crack."

Memories of a dance floor

2008-04-14T01:59:00.000-04:00

Since nothing really interesting is happening these days, after all, it's the point where the semester comes to an end, everyone is busy studying, working on papers or, like me, procrastinating.

So let me tell you about something that happened last semester. Might have been the mid-term party (or some other excuse to make a party). I have to say that, before going to college, I wasn't exactly the crazy party boy you think I might have been (it's the hair, I know), so I was still new at this. All I knew is I could have fun, and I could dance. Dance like I had never danced before.

Unlike my first college party, this club was going to play alternative rock music. Awesome. Also, since that kind of club doesn't want a male-exclusive population (who wants that...? Seriously), drinks were free for the ladies until 11:30 and the admission was free for college students. I also decided to bring a friend of mine (free drinks surely convinced her).

So as I was getting ready to go, I suddenly remembered I had just bought these awesome green Converse shoes. Yeah, I was going for the rocker look. After carefully lacing my Converse, putting on my AC/DC t-shirt, I was on my way to party.

After a few minutes of where-the-hell-is-this-club, we finally saw some familiar faces. As we came closer, the gang's Converse specialist immediately recognized what kind of shoe I was wearing. After some shoe-talk, we got in the club. At first, things are a bit uncomfortable, you ask for a beer, sit down since nobody is dancing and engage a quick conversation (which is actually hard to do since the music is already so loud). Most of the girls were at the bar, absorbing as much alcohol as they could before 11:30. At some point, some other people noticed my new shoes, and for some of them, having clean Converse just wasn't right. That's when I got attacked by two of them. Their mission was to get my shoes to look dirty...and I must say they did a good job. They rubbed the bottom of their shoes on the top of mine, the white part. I now had the perfect look of a rocker, at least shoe-wise.

After a few beers, still nobody was dancing. Suddenly, the dj decided to play some AC/DC. Being the AC/DC fan I am (who other than me would dress as Angus Young for Halloween?), I basically duck-walked to the dance floor. Of course, everybody followed and the dance floor wasn't empty anymore. From this point, music got a lot better, classic after classic, we were starting to show off our best moves, such as "put-your-hands-on-your-knees-and-cross-your-arms- so-that-your-hands-go-from-one-knee-to-the-other". Of course, some of us were feeling more willing than others, and that's how four of us, including me, climbed on the stage and started dancing so that everybody could see us. The choreography was pretty awesome, and since the beer we had must have been diluted, we had good timing and coordination. We even did the "put-your-hands-on-your-knees-and-cross-your-arms-so-that-your-hands-go-from-one-knee-to-the-other" dance.

After the club closed, some of us suggested we'd go to the 24/7 Bagels shop next to the club: St-Viateur Bagel. I have to say, those are some fine bagels, the best in town. The bagels are only 50 cents too. One of us decided to buy some cream cheese to go with it, so we all shared a well deserved snack, at 3:30am.

I slept at a friend's house that night, I dreamed of shoes, dancing and bagels.

Cast art [update 3]

2008-04-03T13:36:00.000-04:00

Having a cast sure does provide a lot of attention. The frenzy often sounds like "OMG, can I sign/draw/write on your cast!?" and since it's kind of hard to turn them away, because I am an attention whore anyway, I ended up with writings over half my cast in a matter of minutes.

Considering most of the comments are nice and pleasant to read, I thought of keeping my cast after I wouldn't need it to hold my bones together anymore. My inexperience came as a disappointment, as my friends all came to the same conclusion: Old casts stink.

Although I love material possessions, I'm not a fan of smelly objects. Therefore, keeping the cast after it is cut off sounds like a bad option. Good news! I can write all of the nice (and mean) things some of you wrote on it, as this blog will probably live on forever in the immensity of the interwebs. So here it is, I'll update as more people have urges to write on my cast.

Prompt rétablissement. Si tu veux te ré-incarner en Angus Young, je ne suis pas une référence.

-Anh Khoi Do

Soigne-toi bien Frisou! Si t’avais besoin d’aide pour te branler, t’avais qu’à me le dire! Je t’aime! HAHA

-Mélina la frisée =|

Bon rétablissement, si tu as besoin de te branler et que Mélina est pas là, bin pense pas à moi, force toi prend l’autre main!

-Danick « bassiste »

Friséé! Tu vas avoir ben du retard à reprendre dans Guitar Hero! Courage!

-Caro

Une chance que t’as pas une Telecaster, pauvre gars!

-Le gars qui a une Telecaster

J’espère que tu vas bien prendre soin de ton bras parce que moi j’ai bien hâte de t’entendre jouer de la guit :) J’tm

-Ninnie

Ce plâtre va valoir autant qu'une Telecaster.

- Sébastien Bordage

PS: Réponse d'exam: Mer Rouge!

Comme un sage me dit: "Maintenant, du sexe sans forcer!"

-Beeman
bzzz

Le Dove, c'est un shampooing FÉMININ!

- Caro

/use item Phoenix Down
...error... Phoenix Down value 0
/cast Cure
...error... MP value 0
/equip Smelly Cast
STR -3, Armor +1, 3 months countdown

- Félix B.L.

Guérit bien Frisou! Ça aurait pu être pire...tu aurais pu te fracasser la tête et ils t'auraient rasé les cheveux! Quelle horreur!

- Millie a.k.a. Maman -xx-

Je suis lucide.

- Caro

Après la pluie le beau-zo le clown!

- Félix B.L.

Snowboarding madness

2008-04-01T17:39:00.001-04:00

Snowboarding being considered an extreme sport, it's only normal to hear about people getting injured from time to time. The thing is, although you know about the risks, you would never think it would happen to you, especially after 5 years of uninterrupted enjoyment of the sport. Well, I am glad to announce that I am no exception. After all this time thinking my glorious hair provided me incredible luck, I finally got my very own injury.

It was a Saturday morning, me and my buddy Mathieu (same name, don't get confused here) agreed to go to Ski Morin-Heights, the ski resort I work at as a snowboarding instructor for 3 years now. It was one of our last "ski days": as the summer was getting closer, the snow was melting and the time had come to hand in our bright red instructor jackets (which is our uniform). Since it is quite a drive to get there, we decided to spend the morning there and leave early in the afternoon.

The conditions were decent, but the snow was hard since we didn’t get any snowfall in a while. It wasn’t the perfect day to attempt any crazy tricks, but there’s always this uncontrollable will to nail something special before the season ends. So being the freeride type of snowboarder I am, unlike those freestyle riders, my “crazy” objective was to do some 360s and maybe try a few jumps in the snowpark. I did succeed when it came to the 360° rotation. The jumps, however, were a different story.

Although the jumps at Ski Morin-Heights may sound ridiculously small for some, I find them to be quite a challenge. A new jump had been built the week before. Not only was it the biggest in the snowpark, but it was also what you would call a “step-up” jump. The particularity of these jumps reside in the fact the landing is actually higher than the launcher, with a gap between the two. Knowing that, it’s obvious that you need to take the jump with a lot of speed to get to the other side. So after doing pretty much every other jump in the snowpark, I actually thought I had what it took to take on that step-up jump of hell.

After letting my friend try it, I decided to take my chance. Picking up my speed and going downhill from at least two hundred feet away, I was preparing myself mentally, as my snowboard was taking me closer to the jump at blazing speeds. When it was finally time to takeoff, I took one last breath and flew through the air. It was an incredible feeling, until I realized I was turning sideways, now facing the landing. After this 90° rotation, I also started rotating in a way you would want to if you were trying to do a backflip. Sadly, that’s not what I was trying to do. As I was losing altitude, out of balance, my body’s natural reflex was to try and stop myself with my hands, the result being that the first part of my body hitting the ground was my wrist.

Having wiped out quite a few times before, I knew this exploding sensation in my wrist wasn’t right. The temperature being cold and the adrenaline still pumping through my veins, I still didn’t realize how serious this was. Wrist injuries being quite common, I decided to get it checked out by someone more qualified. After taking off my clove, my buddy asked me if I could move my fingers. After hearing my positive answer, he told me it probably wasn’t broken. I decided to believe him. At the resort’s clinic, they quickly checked my wrist, told me to apply ice and made me a cast out of carton boxes and ripped clothes. They also suggested I’d go to the hospital, just in case.

Since I took my car to get there, my buddy asked me if I would let him drive. Excellent idea. As we drove back home, the heat of the car made the trip quite painful, as the cold weather would rather freeze my wrist. He dropped me home and I called my girlfriend so that she could drive me to the hospital.

I ended up spending a total of 6 hours sitting on a somewhat uncomfortable chair with other sick people, kids throwing up and old ladies complaining about everything. Luckily, when I got there, I found a ticket with a smaller number than mine, on the floor, it allowed me to pass in front of a few people hehe…After 4 hours, I finally got to see a doctor, who took a whole second and a half to look at my wrist, tell me “Oh, that’s broken, no doubt about that!” and send me to radiology, to take X-rays. 2 hours later, I’m being called again: “Mathieu Lavoie, Cubicule 3”. As I enter the room, I can see the doctor enjoying her sandwich as a nurse quickly closes the back door. The doctor comes back, 25 minutes later, and tells me “So, like I told you, it’s broken, right here (points on her wrist), your radius and also your cubitus.” “…both?” I ask doubtful? Her positive answer left me and my girlfriend speechless, as the doctor gave me a little paper, filled with something a 4 year old hyper kid could’ve come up with. She also told me my bones had to be repositioned, which could require surgery. Great…

The thing is, the specialist, who would reposition the bones to their original emplacement, wasn’t there until Monday. So I go to the secretary to get a rendez-vous. Some painful times in perspective… I still got this semi-cast though, which was so uncomfortable, my fingers ended up hurting more than my wrist, but that might have been my loose bones messing with my finger nerves/muscles.

So after two nights of unsuccessfully trying every position/pillow combination to make my arm stop hurting, it was finally time to get that thing back into condition. Back at the hospital, I present myself at the counter, give my hospital card, and say my name, only to be told that she doesn’t have any rendez-vous for me. Tabarnak… I reach for the little piece of paper filled with gibberish the doctor gave me and hand it to the secretary, who finally decides to put my name at the end of the list.

After a decent amount of time passes, I finally get called. I go in the room and a doctor with a strong accent starts asking me questions. After I answer them all, I go sit back in the corridor, as I can also get a peak of what is going on in the room. The doctor seems to be a bone repositioning specialist, as I see a number of kids get in, scream, cry and get out with a freshly made cast. It’s finally my turn, I’m being asked to lie down in the chair as the nurse cuts my semi-cast. At last, liberty! Not for long.

After the nurse cleaned my arm, the doctor came back and pokes me 3 or 4 times, injecting me some kind of anesthetic liquid into my now double-sized wrist. Then came the time to reposition the bones. The nurse’s job was to hold my arm down, as well as pulling my hand so that the bone would have some space to move. The doctor then secured his grip by putting his fingers behind my wrist and pushed with his two thumbs to put the whole thing in its original position. The feeling was similar to having a tooth removes with poorly done anesthesia, except 10 times worse, since the bones are obviously bigger. I couldn’t help but to let go a huge nervous laughter, making the doc say the anesthesia did its job. 3 nurses then gathered around, making me a nice cast going from my elbow to my fingers.

So here I am, typing with one hand, I can’t play guitar anymore, I can’t play video games, it takes me forever to type things on my laptop (I don’t count in hours, but rather days now, for this entry). The doc said my wrist will never be the same, because it broke too close to the articulation. It will deteriorate with time and I’ll probably feel the temperature change. Hopefully I’ll be able to regain those guitar skills in 4 to 6 weeks…

I'm going back to the hospital next week to see if I need surgery.

Prologue

2008-03-31T20:08:00.000-04:00

So I finally decided to start "blogging". It's not much of a doing-like-everyone-else-on-the planet thing, but more of a little experience, something I wanted to try for a while.

To start things up, might as well describe myself as of now (perhaps this could serve as a comparison point in a distant future). I’m a 19 year-old dude and a full-time student. I study History at Université de Montréal, it’s my first year and I love it: people are nice, classes are interesting and challenging. People mostly recognize me with my ridiculous amount of curly hair, it’s my pride and joy, perhaps an obsession, but hey, live with it; it’s not going to be cut anytime soon. I also have a few passions, which include snowboarding, playing guitar, music, gaming, buying stuff, shoes, hair, and talking about FLs. I would also consider myself to be a chronic procrastinator. Not that I don’t like to work, but wasting time has such a strong appeal to me, what can I say! All these things didn’t prevent me from having a girlfriend, surprisingly. Her name is Virginie and she’s a gem.

I had to make a choice regarding which language I was going to write this blog in. I chose English (obviously) because I think it’ll give an easier time to my English-speaking friends (who suck at speaking French) and it probably won’t matter to my French-speaking friends (most of them are perfectly bilingual anyway). If not, excusez-moi, je vais surement lâcher un “tabarnak” pour vous une fois de temps en temps! In addition, doing so will give me a chance to practice my written English, a thing that I don’t do often enough, in my opinion.

I think that’s all I have to say for now, I hope some people can actually enjoy reading this, if not, at least it’ll serve me as a personal journal, recording my hair’s crazy adventures.

Matsam

PS. I want to thank RedSlime for giving me the idea of doing this, I follow his example. You fucking bastard.