M^3

The tradition continues: went to Masala! Mehndi! Masti! this year but this time, they’ve moved from Harbourfront Centre to the Ex. I’m still on the fence whether this was a good move.

Pluses:
• food value is way better here than at Harbourfront. Even though the food at HC is good, they always have the “Watch your portions!” rule in full affect. Funny moment: so I’m ordering some chicken kababs for myself and Alison. She happens to stand besides me as I mention to the vendor that whatever he put on the pita was good. He wraps it up hands it to me, then I had it to Alison. In pseudo protest she says “but that has relish on it!” “no, that’s chutney” Hahaha! >cricket< >cricket< (I guess you had to be there)

• free parking! We were able to find a free spot off Dufferin. Ai would be proud!

• free jam in one of the buildings after the concert. Sure we didn’t go (damn you Alison and Chris!), but I’m sure there were lots of “Combiens!”

• More seat-age. Although I enjoy the CIBC concert stage more than the Bandshell, I have to say the opportunity to sit down is always a plus! (sure, we didn’t get a seat, but still. It's the theory that counts, right?)


Minuses:
• lots of grass plus rain = mud. Oh my poor shoes!

• since the Ex is so spacious, M3 seems a lot more open/empty. Its definitely less intimate than The Harbourfront Centre.

• less loiter friendly - what's better than chilling out by the lake? Not chilling by the Ex's casino, that's what!

All in all, a great time. I mean, what’s not great about lining up for food and making new friends who offer to drive me home on the roof of their car? That and well, yknow >wink<… My sincere apologies to Chris and Alison for being so easily distracted, but it’s like I died and went to brown heaven!

WAR Summer Festivals

Adds to Resume

This past week, my cousin’s lola passed away (RIP). I’ll save my “love each other/appreciate your time here because it’s precious” comments for now.

Instead, I’ll mention that I was asked to be one of the pallbearers for the funeral. Decked out in my finest barong, I felt it was an honor to be asked. The funny thing is that the coffin is pretty heavy! You know when you carry something heavy with one arm? Then your body naturally tilts away from that side and your opposite arm slightly lifts up? Yeah, that. I was trying to avoid being that “yo, that guy’s weak” guy.

This in turn made me think: when I die, and if I somehow get TeamID to carry my casket, I’m going to write in my will that my coffin be lined with a whole shit load of 45lb plates and shit. Lead and steel and all of that! Then when that one person loses his grip – which would then cause the rest of everyone else to drop the coffin, it’d fall crashing to the ground with my limp ass body rolling out of the lid. Everyone starts screaming! Hahaha! Just the thought of seeing Shaun and Al trying to ‘poke’ my body back into the box makes me laugh!

Punkage4LifeAfterDeath

PWND

Shaun's younger brother Brenden messages this to me:

- bren says:
shaun got owned

- bren says:
his flight got cancelled so hes stuck in buffalo

- bren says:
lol

- bren says:
i had kitty say owned to him

- bren says:
its nice, im staying with my aunt right now in their apartment, but its bigger then shaun's condo

wicked!

You Don’t Want Any

They say that an entertainer who can sing and dance is a ’double threat.’ Add acting to that, then they become a ‘triple threat.’ Oh, you can produce, too? ‘Quadruple threat.’ But what if they’re really good at Tetris? I mean, REALLY good at it?

Check out the two videos below. It’s some Jap pop chick who totally fucks up this guy who won a chance to play her. The best part is when he loses and throws his controller down. I don't know who she is, but maybe he was nervous. I mean, what if she was his "Nalini" or "Kristen Kreuk"? If i was up against either of those two, i wouldn't be able to concentrait neither! Plus it didn't help that the studio audience was on her side... and she's really effing good! Still, his ass got straight up ether’d!!!

I Miss, I Miss, I Miss… (Chin Summer 2K6 Remix)

I’m enjoying my halo halo outside. Just thinking about stuff… and about all the stuff I really miss. This in turn reminded me of Chris’ “I Miss” post he had on his old website

I miss, I miss, I miss…

- Friday Night Dinner’s (the poor boy version we used to do. Not the “we can afford to eat out now” version…)

- Monday being my favorite day (and night) of the week.

- Waking up at midnight twice a week just so I can tape underground and college radio Hip Hop shows…

- … then listening to those tapes for a whole week on the subway. Not knowing who the artists were, or what the song titles were. Just appreciating the music as is.

- tobogganing

- playing basketball, taping our games, watching our games and counting stats thinking we were cool and shit…

- everyone’s Punk Lists and Respect Lists

- making videos. Adventures of Chin? English OAC presentations? Random JARCK Films? (These needs to be YouTube'd!!)

I miss, I miss, I miss…

- putting on my chef’s jacket and feeling like part of a team. I really miss the comradery…

- … and the creativity of cooking. The artistry. Being really impressed by someone’s work

- hard work. Feeling like I actually *earned* my $11.00 an hour (and then some)

- sleeping without having really fucked up dreams

- the purity of punkage

- caring …

- … and not caring

- “going out”

- that feeling i get whenever i'd see Hawaiian Silk

- wearing my Dennis Rodman Detroit Pistons jersey

>sigh< Missing all this stuff sucks... but i guess it also ain't that bad. I mean, it gets replaced with more fun(ner) stuff... that'll also get missed eventually... then replaced... then missed... (repeat x infinity)

HOLY FUCK!!!

You know when you watch those old concert videos of Michael Jackson in far off countries like Romania? And you see girls going crazy, screaming and crying and shit? Well, that's gonna be me on September 23. Why? This is why:


***DEAD***

Nalini and Me/Cruisin’

So this is my new desktop background at work. Surprisingly, when I asked my co worker if he knew who she was, he said with a LOT of excitement “NALINI!!” That’s what’s up!

I’ve had a lot of time to look at this picture (read: all day) and y’know what? I can see it on her face, she’s just as excited to see me as I was to see her! I’m also guessing that’s the reason why we had to keep our distance from each other. Our mutual attraction was so great, we didn’t want anything bad to happen. She is married after all…


* * * * *


And the soundtrack I had playing in my head during this epic encounter was Cruisin’ by Smokey Robinson. I ***SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO*** <3 this song! D’Angelo does an excellent cover, too! (His live version from the Jazz Café in England is included in the .zip).

My favorite part is when D sings “and inch by inch we get closer and closer/to every little part of each other. Ooooh baby!” (1:47 mark) Oooooooooooooooh snap! That’s some lover’s rock right there! It’s like he’s singing to his girl at the same time, and they’re so into the moment, that he can’t really articulate his words. Getting all mush mouthed and shit. This song easily makes it into my 20 Favorite Songs of All Time (a work in progress. This shit is NOT easy!) and it also makes it into my “If I Ever Get Married and Had to DJ, I’d Play These Songs” set list. It’d be played either before dessert, or as the house lights were about to come on.

The only exception to this song is the Gweneth Paltrow & Huey Lewis duet. It is soooooooo asstacular! Just thinking about it makes me upset (no really, I’m getting a little mad) The Soul Kru version pretty much sucks, too.

Captain’s Log

Stardate -317538.81*

I was pretty excited for the Third Great Neighbourhood Race by The United Way. This has become a new yearly event, hope we can keep it up! Erm, yeah, i was excited, so much so, I woke up at 6:00! Since I had some extra time on my hands, I decided to iron my team’s shirts. That’s what good captains do right? (Sure Cathy’s was wrinkled, but trust me, I ironed it good! I shouldn’t have rolled it up so much I guess…)

Despite a poor showing by Team Indecision, I’m still proud of what we were able to accomplish. It was frikkin hot but we kept keeping on! I was only THIS close to yelling at John for *almost* losing our passport. (hahaha!) We never gave up and we didn’t mail it in. Sure we didn’t win the trip to New York, the gift certificates to The Drake or Oliver Bonacini restaurants, or any of the other draws, but we did win something else… or at least I did. Can’t wait till Chris gets me them pics! Cmon Chris, where they at?!?! Hubba hubba!

Also, in total, the whole event raised $20,000! Twice as much as they expected!

Oh, and I give props to The Natty’s team for finishing 8th! Great job! What I don’t give to, is you trying to run smack on me when you were leaving The Drake. Why? Because I didn’t/couldn’t hear what the fuck you were saying! A combination of me not caring and loud music (but mostly me not caring) led to me to only hear “Something something lose passport something last year something something!” Sorry The Natty, your punkage got pwnd due to my indifference.

See yalls next year!

-CaptainChin



* Big thanks to “call me Lt. Commander” Shaun for calculating Sunday’s Star Trek Stardate for me!

Happy Birthday Navjit!

Since I don't have any embarrassing pictures of you Ruby, I'll post a picture of Dr. Ruby Dhalla, Liberal Member of Parliment for Brampton - Springdale instead. Oh punk! Happy 29th!

GNR

No, not Guns N Roses, but The United Way’s Great Neighbourhood Race. Yup, it’s this Sunday and as this year’s team captain, I’m here to provide some inspiration via Coach Vince Lombardi:

People who work together will win, whether it be against complex football defenses, or the problems of modern society.

I Believe we can win. If we work with our brains and skills, we can do it.

Sunday is calling for 32° and sunny. We take care of each other and we’ll be good.

We got this!

Reason No. 136 Why I <3 the Interweb: Lily Allen

Heard of her through Giles Peterson’s weekly show. Absolute brill! She’s some up and coming Brit Pop singer which I find very nice indeedy. Even though her style is poppy and really girly, I still like it… a lot! Great first single with a hilarious video. As far as ex-girlfriends - getting - revenge - on - their - ex-boyfriend videos go, it SO pwns that "Since You’ve Been Gone" video by Kelly Clarkson. (An example of what happens when you don’t let The Machine control your art!) I’m not really down with album snippets, (who really wants to check out 1 minute of a song?) but I’m making an exception just this one time. I really enjoy Everything’s Just Wonderful >sigh< and Littlest Things >super sigh<

Check it!

Webspace: http://www.lilyallenmusic.com/
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/lilymusic

CONGRATS!!!

I'd like to be the first (site) to officially congratulate CathyAl on the little bun in the oven! Al, get those cigars ready!

>whispers< can i be a ninong?

WAR Godfather Chin "kiss the ring boy/girl"

Race Relations Pt. 2

This past Sunday, The Toronto Star had an awesome feature on Toronto’s multi ethnicity, marriage and the mixed children that become of said unions. If you missed it, here’s what I found interesting:

- there is only a 0.1% genetic difference between different races
- although being mixed is relatively new here, its not so in places like Brazil. The “what are you?” question doesn’t show up over there. This point really emphasizes the “mixed people are more attractive” theory too! (by the by, I’m really mad that I couldn’t find those pictures of that random Brazilian girl who sent me her pics over ICQ years ago… ah, ‘member those Shaun?)


WAR ICQ’s “uh oh!”
WAR Brazilian pictures
WAR love fest

While Yalls Was Away at the Wedding...

...this is what I did on Saturday:

- took CathyAl’s metro pass (thanks!!) and headed to the Distillery District. As I hopped off the streetcar, I had a hard case flash back to last year’s Great Neighbourhood Race. I walked along the path we ran… or at least, half of us ran. >shakes head in disappointment< Ah Ruby and Al… you couldn’t run and give me the last 500 or so metres? >sigh< that’s okay... redemption this year...

- Was kicking it in one of those fancy pants stores. It was awesome! I wish I had lots of money. They had the fly Adidas Color shoes. I wanted them all! … they also had a really nice picture of John Lennon and Paul McCartney smiling together from the Sgt. Pepper days I think … the best part of the store though was the song they had over the system. When it started, I had a pretty big grin on my face. When the “Rudy” part came on, I was pretty much laughing out loud!!

- Headed over to my favorite Summer time weekend spot: The Harbourfront! This weekend, it was the annual Beats, Breaks and Culture festival. They had a nice Bboy competition. One of the musical guests – Jamie Lidell – had all the hipsters dancing (real funny). Even old wanna be hipsters! (Old as in “Hi, my name is Craig. I used to drop acid a really long time ago. Now, I’m a mid-manager at a bank. See my gray hair?” old) After him was a group called Konono No. 1. Apparently, they’re from the Congo or something. They rocked out pretty good though. Everyone was up and dancing! It looked like everyone was having a good time except one of the guys on stage (the guy in the picture above). To me, he looked like someone’s grandfather who was kinda mad at all the noise the band (which included him) was making. As soon as they were done, he broke the fuck out! I found that funny. At the exact same time, they had fireworks from the Symphony of Fire going on at Ontario Place. I swear, it was like a ginormous party! … canNOT wait for next weekend! It's the Roots:Remix Festival - Capoeira, Jay Douglas and D-Scratch? I know where I'm gonna be. Who wants to come with?

Celebration, bitches!

Congratulations to Sara and The Dooch for their wedding coming up this weekend. Unfortunately I couldn’t find an embarrassing picture of the two of you, so I had to MSPaint this myself. Wishing you two the best of luck, wishes and happiness!

Now join hands, and with your hands your hearts. - Billy Shakespeare

(btw, I hope there’s some of that “Bye! I love you!” punkage)

WAR sitting on old video for just the right occasion

PANTHERSWIN PANTHERSWIN PANTHERSWIN

Thanks all for coming! Hope it was entertaining.

Random comment from co-worker:
“do you have any other siblings other than your sister? Cuz that guy with the braids looks like your brother” op!

Better luck next time Shaun… errrrrrrr if you weren’t too scared to play that is. That’s right, I’m calling you out homo.

You Have Been Cordially Invited

If you’re reading this, then YOU my friend are invited! Wednesday marks the first time Shaun’s TechDizzle Microchips vs. My Pay-Teon Panthers meet in our softball beer league. In the preseason, even before Shaun’s company had a team, him and his cronies decide to run some smack on me:

Shaun: See that? MEGABYTES son. Expect to get owned.

Me: Maybe, but we’ve had our second practice yesterday

Shaun: Laugh. If our stars play .. you guys are done.
Think about it. Just think about it.
TD peeps: This guy thinks he can beat us!

Dustin K: I will Mange on Maningas.
I predict I will strike him out too!

Kevin G: I drink. I drink lots and try to eat at least 1 bag of chips a night.
Think I'm scared?!
I will out run all those "in shape" cats with a smoke in my mouth.

LETS ROCK!

As any sports person knows, you NEVER give the other team something to tack onto their cork board. You think I forgot about these emails? I’ve had this date circled on my calendar, son!

Tale of the Tape – League standings as of last week:

Panthers
6th
Games played: 9
Wins: 2
Loses: 5
Ties: 2 (we tied the second best team in our division twice)
Avg Runs per game: 9.9
Runs For: 89
Runs Against: 96

MotherBoards
8th
Games played: 7
Wins: 0
Loses: 7
Ties: 0
Avg Runs per game: 2.6
Runs For: 18
Runs Against: 119

I cannot wait until tomorrow night.


Time: 9:15. At the South Common diamonds - the smaller of the two. To get there, you’re heading west on Burnhamthorpe away from Square One towards South Common Mall. Go past ErinMills. After one or two lights, you’ll see Layola HighShool on your left. Go in there. The diamond is right besides the church on the other side of the portables. If you’re on Burnhamthorpe and pass Glenn Erin, you’ve missed it.

Reason No. 135 Why I ♥ the Interweb: "a loser is a loser"

Coffee is for closers right at my fingertips? Done and done.










WAR "'Fuck You' that's my name"

My Right Hand of Fucking Anger/Chris is Right!

On Thursday, I was *supposed to* see the great Roy Ayers and friends for the Jazz Fest at The Harbourfront. What happens? It gets cancelled. I don’t get to see the performance of one of my top 25 favorite songs of all time? That’s fucking bullshit ref! Bullshit!! Everybody loves the sunshine. And that includes me! Pissed? Yes, yes I was. But that also meant I was available for our last week of beach volleyball for the spring session. Whoever we were playing that day, well, to quote the Korean store owner from Menace II Society: “I feel sorry for your mother” because I was going to take out my fucking anger on their asses! All day on Thursday, I kept looking at my right hand, just throbbing, pulsating. Irradiating with fierceness. Infected with Rage, just like the chimps in 28 Days Later.

So team Major League (the gayest name in the world) came in and went to work. Scoreboard? 4 out of 5 games won. My right hand? Two blocks with a notable one on Ice Ice Baby. Earlier in the game, he spiked it right at me (revenge I suppose for an earlier meeting in the season where I drilled one right onto his numbers). My hand and I didn’t like that, so the next time he went up to unleash some fire, I jumped, put my right hand up and held it there while he tried to power the ball through. I blocked that shit like my name was Hakeem “The Dream” Olajuwon. I blocked it with such force, that Vanilla Ice fell onto his back when he landed. “That’s right, bitch!” I said to myself. (I couldn’t really say that out loud. It’s quite unsportsman-like. I’ll just brag about it here.) My hand and I were satisfied. We humiliated this puny mortal who tried to step to us. Laid on his back in the fetal position where he belongs… >insert arrogant evil laugh here<


Anywho, it also marked the last time we’d play with Barbie on our team. And I’ll give to Chris. He was right about her hotness. He said it wasn’t just because of her physicallities: she has an excellent body or because she pretty. Not just because she dresses nice or loves to play sports (vball, baseball (not softball) and basketball? Nooooo way!) But because she’s nice. In our weeks playing together, she never once did she show any attitude that you’d expect from someone with such physical hotness. She was friendly, supportive and pleasant. I’ll miss her for being able to go up for blocks during games, but I’ll also miss her for her personal qualities as well…


















…that and her hot short shorts. Gat Damn she got sexy legs!!

"C'est la Vie Brazil"

Wow, who would've thought that Brazil would get touched up by France like that? Not me, that's who. Not because I'm deeply into socc-errrrrrrrrrrrrr 'football' but because I just don't care. Luckily for the Portugese though. They still has their real team in the tourny. I must admit though I will miss them jumping onto Brasil bandwagons this time around with their 'Brazil is a Portuagl colony' nonsense. Sorry Joga Bonitos, maybe next World Cup.