Blog Email List

Hello once again. Today, I have been hard at work enhancing the blog. Since it was a nice day outside, I sat on my balcony and programmed a mailing list for you all. If you guys would like to be emailed everytime I add a new entry to the blog, just fill in the form in this entry, or add your email in the box on the right side of the blog and click on "Join". That way, the next time I write something, you will know within a few minutes!!

Ain't life grand?

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There is no place like the pool

Another day gone by. And I have done an amazing job of doing nothing. I should be working on my assignment, but I cannot get myself in that schoolwork zone. I did however manage to haul myself to the pool. I did 80 laps, which is ok. I was doing 100m in 2 mins. Thats actually faster than what I could them last summer when I was training like a mad man. I can only attribute the improvement to a better technique in the water. I know for a fact that I am not in a better shape. The weird thing about swimming is that I find my performance varies greatly from one session to the next.

While I was swimming today I couldn't help by wonder why more people dont swim. The pool was practically empty, there were only 3 or 4 other swimmers there. That meant I had an entire lane to myself. Hey, I am not complaining, I just don't understand why more people don't swim. I took a look at the pool schedule today, and it seems there is a free swim in the evenings during the week. So, I think I am just going to swim in the evenings.

Tomorrow I am going to try and get some indoor running done. I know it sounds stupid, why run indoors when there is a whole world outside just waiting to be ran on. Well, its all about controling the elements. I know what the conditions are on the threadmill, I can control the speed, the incline and I don't have to worry about finding water to drink or how hot the temperature is going to be. Lately my asthma has been acting up and I can't afford to be in the middle of nowhere. Actually, I don't remember my asthma ever beeing this bad. I know Patrick thinks its lame to be running indoors when I live on the Mountain, but the fact is, I like the privacy of the treadmill. I don't really like running outside where people can see you. I know it sounds weird, but its my preference. So too bad.

Now the next thing I need to work on is my hill-climbing abilities on the bike. I just can't climb hills. I suck. Completely. I could go for miles and miles on flat courses, but hills freaking kill me. Patrick suggested I do some hill-repeats. That should be easy considering how I live on a big huge mountain.

As for the Profanity Poll. THE POLLS ARE CLOSED! Mouahahaha. FUCK FUCKETY FUCK FUCK. Can you guess what the results were? Go see for yourself

My big TV Premiere

Its happening. I am finally going to see my speedo clad butt on TV. Aren't you excited? On Friday july 2nd and july 9th 2004, if you tune into the French-Canadian channel "Canal Vie" to watch Out in The City II, you will have the pleasure of seeing me in my daily life. Oh yeah baby!

I am not sure how to feel about this. The filming of this series went on over a period of 4 months, and it was brutal. They had me doing the weirdest things. I don't want to give away the story line, but at one point they had me dressed up in my triathlon gear, in a phonebooth in downtown montreal calling family members. Ok... The only thing real about that was that it was on the corner of the street where I live... but in reality, I have a telephone in my appartment, and a cell phone. Why the hell would I be calling long-distance in a phone both during rush hour in downtown Montreal? Oh, the beauty of it all, is that while we were filming, my cell phone rang. HA HA! I bet they edited that part out.

Another thing they made me do that I thought was absolutely ridiculous, was when my brother Joël came down to visit. They wanted shots of Joël and I hangin out and doing stuff and have us do a little interview. Well... I can garantee you that Joël and I don't normal sit in a coffee shop on an Oprah like stage (i kid you not) talking about existential meanings in our lives. *puke*

Most of my friends and family have not been told very much about the whole filming process. There will be some interesting shots of New-Brunswick and people I know from there. Unfortunately, I have no control over the production. I have no idea what did or didn't make it past the cutting room floor. I did however get to see a preview of what is coming at the premiere a few weeks ago. I saw 8 seconds of footage from my segments, and I was embarrassed enough to be speechless the rest of the evening. At the première, when they were showing the preview, I was so nervous, I thought I was gonna hurl. Thankfully I didn't. It might have something to do with the free Cosmos they kept pouring into my martini glass.

Remember that if you havent voted for the profanity poll yet, vote now. The polls will be closing on Friday. There has been way too much voting going on these days.

Also, I have been thinking of adding a feature to the blog. Auto-emails sent everytime I update the blog. That way, people who wish to receive alerts everytime I add a new entry could opt-in. I was surprised to hear from some of you that you read this regularly. Pleasantly surprised, but surprised.

I really enjoy spilling my guts on here. Thanks for reading y'all!

Metroid Prime

In 1986, some brilliant people came out with a new game for the Nintendo Entertainment System: "Metroid". At the time, this was what I thought the coolest game ever! I played and played and played and eventually beat the game. Then came Metroid Fusion for the Gameboy Advanced, after almost 15 years of no Metroid. I was so excited! Then Metroid Prime came out for the Nintendo Gamecube, I was in heaven. I told you before, I am nerd. I nerded out again on Friday and Saturday. I spend hours playing Metroid Prime. I got this game almost a year ago, and since I am not a teenager and I cannot spend all my time playing video games, I am only 41% done... But I will not rest until this game is beat! Oh no. I will not.

The fringe Festival

In Montreal, we have what we call "The Fringe Festival" every Spring. It is basically a reason for giving exposure to local writers, directors and actors so they can showcase their crappy plays. This year was no exception. I went to see "Wanting" on Saturday evening. YACK, CACAC! First of all, the venue was an old abandoned building that was recently sheetrocked, unpainted and way too hot for early June. The lighting sucked, the sound sucked, the actors were horrible and the script VERY weak. Oh! Did I mention nudity? Every five minutes someone was taking off their clothes, then putting them on again. Its been done. Frankly, NOTHING about this play warranted that kind of artistic expression. So the guy was hot but he was only naked for like 10 seconds, however the two girls were practically exposing their muff all over the stage, for no apparent reason. People don't normally put their clothes on and off every 10 minutes. Yet, that's what happened in this play. Wanting left me wanting more. More of a script, more of a venue, more direction, more acting and more of my money back. Just because you took a creative writing class does not mean you should be writing plays. I have been to amateur produced plays before, and I have really enjoyed most of them... But this....

But that's par for the course with the Fringe Festival. Usually the stuff is crap. The idea is great... I mean, what a great way to put local artists on stage, but do we have to produce every piece of artistic drool that is coughed up by granola munching "plateau residents"?

Rent

Now, Sunday, I went to see RENT. For the first time ever, translated into French. If you don't know, RENT is loosely based on Puccini's La Boheme and revolves around a bunch of squatters in a loft in NYC, most of which are HIV positive, some gay, some straight some bisexual and some questionable. The show was very well executed and had immense production value. It did not get great reviews and will probably not be extended. The major problem: the main character, Mark, could not sing, dance or act. HELLO THIS IS A MUSICAL you need to be able to do all three!

Thank god, the rest of the cast was stellar. The show was stolen by the Collins and Angel (Angel the African-American transvestite/drag queen). These two had a chemistry on stage that grabbed the audience by the heart. I was deeply moved when Angel lost her battle against AIDS in one of the final scenes in Act Two. The second act was very strong, only brought down by that prancing "Mark" who just got on everyone's nerves. I felt like getting up and screaming : "Give me a gong!". (Remember the Gong Show!) It was a good thing we saw less of him in Act Two than Act One.

The audience gave the cast a standing ovation, it was well deserved. The actors did a tremendous job. However, I would like to smack the director, casting director, sound director and lighting director in the face with a smelly rotten herring. What were you all thinking? In a lot of the numbers, the sound was horrible, the band muffling the singing. In some of the scenes, the actors chests were lit up while their faces were in the dark: Bravo! There was too much fighting for attention on stage, actors upstaging each other. Director HELLO! And who the heck casted Mark? You get 3 smelly herring slaps, whoever you are.

Now my last beef... Why did this production flop you might ask? Easy: something got lost in the translation. I mean, seriously, they translated "The cow jumped over the moon" literally. This metaphor was the focus of the musical and many references were made to this... But this means something in English. I MEANS NOTHING IN FRENCH. Bravo. Beautifull translation. I hope you never translate anything ever again! 5 smelly herring slaps for the translator!

BY THE WAY : HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOEL :) Your big sister loves you! ;)

Phew.. I feel better now :)

GMAIL - EBay? Is there a connection?

Many of you have asked me : "Gabriel, do you have any GMAIL invites left?" Well, I did, and now they are all gone. Ha ha! No soup for you! Before I tell you the secret to getting your very own Gmail account (and yes, if you really desperately want one, it is possible), I must say something to my fellow bloggers from the blogging community:

Recently I was asked by a fellow blogger if I had any invites left. This left me wondering why this bloggerite was asking me for an invite because most active bloggers have received invitations from gmail. Blogger was purchased recently by Google. Gmail is also owned by Google. See the connection? Naturally, Gmail asked Blogger users to join GMAIL to help in the beta testing. So, shame on you bloggers! Shame on you for trying to scam me out of my GMAIL invites. I guess that you got your invites as well and are trying to get mine!!

Why would she/he want my invites? Well the answer lies in the search for Nirvana, or like I said yesterday, EBay. See, people are selling their GMAIL invites on EBay. You don't believe me? Go see for yourself. Last time I checked gmail account invitations were selling for about 80 to 100$ US a couple of weeks ago. Folks, that's almost 150 Canadian clams. That's a lot of clams. So shame on you bloggers, trying to get my gmail invites. As for those of you without GMAIL accounts, If you desperately want one and have money to through around, just go buy one on an EBay auction. The good news is that the price of Gmail accounts has gone down dramatically on EBay, and you should be able to get one today for 5-6$ Canadian.

However, if I ever have more invitations for gmail sent my way, I might consider giving you one if you drop me a line... Or maybe I'll make a capitalist out of myself and sell them on EBay.

Thanks for reading!

Ebay is evil... Or is it nirvana?

Why you might ask? Because, I actually sat there, clutching my mouse, counting down the minutes to my Ebay auction. I felt like a mad man. Slapping the refresh button with a passion than can only be found in the deepest cackles of the Douglas Hospital (the local funny farm). When I finally got the bloody Zelda Collector's Edition that you can't buy in stores not for resale Nintendo Gamecube Game, for a brief minute, a heartbeat of time, I think I transcended spiritually to what some have described as nirvana. No, not the 90's grunge band lead by Kurt Cobain (god rest his soul), but that ultimate state of being that spiritual leaders around the world have searched for millennia!

So, I am telling you my dear readers, Ebay = Nirvana.

What is it with this city?

Its like 30 degrees. I am dying from the heat. *ugh* I don't know what it is about this city, but yesturday morning I was freezing my butt, and today its so hot I can't bloody sleep!!

5 Pounds Later

Well, Dr Phil's low-cost high-yield foods are paying off! I have shed 5 pounds in about a week! Wooo hooo! I went swimming again yesturday, and I did a decent 2 hour bike ride thursday morning. So things are going in the right direction. Just need to keep the effort up! The hardest part is not binging on everything I see. I took Dr. Phil's advince and dug up my knitting needles from the bottom of my closet and started knitting again. It helps keep my mind off food. Since knitting requires the use of both hands, its not like I can eat and knit at the same time.

I am doing a very good job of staying away from sugars and chocalates. I had to make an exception this weekend though, it was JR's 33rd birthday on Saturday. So there was plenty of chocolate and cake to go around. Well over the course of the entire weekend, I had 2 peices of cake and 6 chcolate truffles. I guess thats ok. It doesn't happen. I got JR a nice wooden chess set, truffles and Monopoly. Last night I ruled at Monopoly! hehehe.

Thursday evening, Adrienne came over to spend the night since she is working in Montreal again. It was fun to just sit with her and chat. I dont think the two of us have had any alone time in at least 3 years. There usually is people around and so it was refreshing to chat with the candor we did back when she was living on Holy Cross St. She has always been a great friend, and I am very happy that she is working on the Island again, this way I will get to see here more. I know, its selfish, but I don't care.

Tonight I have to go to my Curling Banquet. I dont even feel like going. I am not a big fan of the people in the group, but I said I was going, and made them prepare a vegetarian meal for me, so if I don't go, they will notice that I am not there.