Runaway Future

The office is having a Hockey Pool. It’s 10 bucks to enter. You should all do it. See Sportnovascotia.ca for more details.

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Casino Taxi brought back their jingle! I saw it while watching the “What’s On TV” channel (ever so exciting). It’s awesome to see the jingle being poised to imbued itself into the brain of a new generation. I can’t dial 429-6666 or 425-6666 without singing the words. Granted I don’t know the whole song, but I’ll find it. Man they should have it on CD.

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The kid from the MasterCard I want to drive a Zamboni commercials has had his commercial career take off. So far, I’ve seen him in a Mr. Sub commercial and the ones by Pepsi about the two guys breaking into stuff to see musicians. Too bad he didn’t show his face in Moncton during the MasterCard Memorial Cup. We just got to watch him three times a game.

The Decline of the Newspaper Industry

Joseph Pulitzer invented the idea of the journalism school before 1900. These institutions spread over time but didn’t really take hold until the 1960s. By 1970, newspapers had begun to decline. Coincidence?

Publish.com

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Frank McCourt on Writer’s Block

Steve Martin said that writer’s block is just an excuse people use to go out and get drunk.
I don’t believe in writer’s block either. You never hear about it on the other side of the Atlantic [i.e., back in Europe]. You never hear about English or French writers talk about writer’s block. That’s here. [...]
I have elevated scribbling to an art. Young people are always asking me, ‘how do you write, how do you go about it?’. I say, ‘well, scribble! Sit down and scribble! Put down whatever comes to your head’. I have lists of neighbors back in Limerick, and in New York, lists of students I’ve had in New York City high schools, schools I’ve been in, meals that I’ve had (that was a very short list in Ireland: tea and bread!).
One of the big words going around nowadays is ‘resonate’. I could put down the name of a street in Limerick, or I put down the name of a street in Grenchwich Village, and there’s a story attached to it, something happened there, so that there’s no reason or writer’s block; you can recall the past or characters, you can keep working all the time, you don’t have to go off and get drunk.

I got myself caught up in the 9/11 stuff a little too much. It would be easy to say that it was everywhere and forced down your throat, but I sought it out. Searching for coverage, looking for articles, I drowned myself in the remembrance. It affected me, which I found kind of surprising. I was pretty bummed out about the event for the whole week. But even dealing with that isn’t as cut and dry as it should be.

I spent a lot of time looking into the abundant conspiracy theories about the terrorist acts. The missiles to the Pentagon, the Towers rigged to explode, the planes not actually having people in them, Flight 93 shot down. There seems to be a lot of possibility in it at face value, but when you look further and realise who is advancing these theories, it starts to really lose the ability to hold an possibility of the truth. I suppose, in the case of an event so tragic, adding mystery and myth to the story only heightens the intrigue.

On a related point, the whole anti-US stigma is a little too popular now. A seperation needs to be made between the country and the government there, both in the eyes of themselves and the eyes of their critics. It’s like a cool thing to hate on Bush and the States: “oh he’s ruining the world”, “oh he’s evil”, “oh he looks like a monkey”. I’m all for political criticism, but I think the whole anti-US movement has grown stale, because it’s the same statements being dredged up. I dunna, I’m not trying to defend the States, but I just feeling like hating on them has reached the level that it’s now “popular” and so it loses some of the intelligence behind the argument. It’s one thing if you can engage in political debate, quite another if you’re just saying Boo Bush, because Jon Stewart, or some band or a comedian or all your friends say so.

It’s my belief that governments, all governments are at their base, self-serving creatures. The amount of credit that some people give them for trying to ruin the world is a little far reaching. It’s not that they might or might not be capable of such acts, but it just doesn’t make sense in the scope which they operate.

I don’t know, it seems like I’ve been having this argument in my head and with things I’ve read and heard. It probably doesn’t make sense, but I feel like it makes sense.

It’s been quite the couple of weeks.

I saw Hollywoodland with the guys. Murf and I liked it, Derek and Chris not so much. Ben Affleck really plays a believeable actor who has big dreams and limited talent. You can all make your own jokes from that comment.

Went on a brewery tour last weekend. It was pretty sweet, held at Garrison so I got to sample all different kinds of beer. All you could drink for like three hours. Afterwards, we almost got the $445 fine for drinking in public. Close, but luckily no cigar.

Daniel was up yesterday, he had media creds for the Pitt-Ott game. Not a bad idea for his article, the influence of these exhibition games on hockey development in the Maritimes and just the general growth of hockey in the Maritimes. From what he said, he got a number of good quotes. Anyway, Dan and his buddy stayed with me and as usual, it was an experience after the game:

Daniel and I went to the Split Crow to meet up with Chris and Ryan. We’re sitting on the balcony (because this city is insanely humid and muggy) and all of the sudden there’s a crash from the other part of the balcony. Look over and see a guy laid out on the balcony. Someone yells that he got decked and the bouncers start to run. I don’t know what happened to the guy that hit buddy, but he was down for a while. Out cold. His friend helps him up and buddy comes up swinging. Sadly, he’s like five minutes too late. So he flips a table, and the bouncers are there. He gets thrown into a sleeperesque hold and is carried out. But the night isn’t over for our battered boy. The bouncers let him go with his friends and he immediately comes after one of the bouncers. So back into a restraining hold and the bouncers get a few nice shots of their own in. Then the boys in blue show up, first it’s one officer on foot, followed by a police car, then the paddy wagon, then two more police cars and another paddy wagon. Seems like HRP was a little bored last night. The situation diffuses soon after that and buddy and his mates head off into the fog, but geez, nothing like hitting the liquor hard on a Tuesday night.

This weekend should look to be pretty decent including Jackass II, a Slowcoaster show, two hockey games and Word on the Street. Next week, I’m going to Cape Breton for Sport Fair. There’s an anticipation at the office, like everyone is looking forward to it. I don’t think anyone is looking forward to actually doing Sport Fair, but just to get out of the office and spend some time away from it all. It’s almost like a vacation. I’m driving a rental van with pretty much everyone from work, I’ve never driven in Halifax before and I don’t know how to get to Cape Breton. Should be interesting.

My writing stuff seemed to figure itself out. I need to get in touch with the Mooseheads PR guy to arrange my creds for the games. I hope to go to the October 1st game, but so far I haven’t heard back from him.

I really should go to the gym sometime soon. I need to re-dedicate myself to taking care of myself. I guess it wouldn’t be a normal week if I didn’t have something to worry and fret about. I’m eating a lot healthier though (I think, at least). BBQ is now my second favourite acronym, after SCUBA of course.

I’m very afraid that I may be near the end of my writing career at Hockey’s Future. There’s a lot of bullshit flying behind the scenes and sadly, I’m in the middle of it.

Earlier this week, I got confirmation on my press creds for the Mooseheads this season.

I very anxious (scared?) to see what happens.