"I got a plan to get us out of here..."

"I am the master of my fate.

I am the captain of my soul."

I happened to watch Invictus the other night. It was good for what it was. The tale of greatness personified and how Nelson Mandela was able to bring a country together through the inspiration of sport. I enjoyed it. I didn't love it. But, if you were unaware, the title "Invictus" is taken from a poem by William Ernest Henley. In the film, it is used as a plot device to help connect the rugby captain (Matt Damon) with Mandela's (Morgan Freeman) time in prison, demonstrating the words that can help "set you free" and whatnot. Those two lines above are the poem's concluding two remarks. While watching the movie, I could not control the chill that went up and down my spine when Morgan Freeman's voice-over emits those final words. And I thought about how beautiful those two lines are, and how undeniably true they ring. I adored this little moment in the movie, and then the week that proceeded was just abysmal. And no, I don't mean that in the Joey Tribianni definition. I went from being moved and inspired by this poem, to not wanting to leave the comfort of my bed the entire week, in literally one night. It took a single sleep for me to admit the wall that I'd hit, and since then, I haven't been able to climb over it.

Last week was Reading Week, and as much as I enjoyed seeing everyone else who was home, and spending some nice quality time in front of the TV watching, and actually being interested in, the Olympics, I just came out of it feeling that I didn't accomplish anything. I started the break hoping and wishing for something to drag me out of the minimal funk that I was already in. And during the actual break, I felt fine, as though I was well on my way to come back to school and chew bubble gum and kick ass. I was relaxed and ready to make up for a below average (for me I mean, so you know how bad THAT had to have been) semester that I was having. Didn't happen. Instead I was tormented with thoughts of having a useless Reading Week. I didn't touch any of the books I had to read. I didn't go to the movies once. I made absolutely no effort to do anything but sleep late and eat junk. I came back to school feeling sluggish, overweight and useless. Not the best state of mind for trying to overcome a semester full of mediocrity.

I think the thing that triggered the start of the shitty week was the realization that I had left the charger for my phone at home. Don't ask me why, but I think subconsciously I felt disconnected from the world around me. How stupid does that sound?? Pretty damn stupid. And yet, I'm quite sure that that's exactly what happened when my phone slowly began to die. The feeling of knowing that I might be missing something. It is one thing to not have a phone at all, but it is something totally different to have one that isn't broken or messed up in any way, but isn't charged. It was a useless object for the whole week, and I genuinely think that's where my crap week started.

The next moment that helped with the downfall was on Monday evening. I had been getting a little bit anxious due to a presentation I had on Tuesday morning which I hadn't even started a little bit on. So I was prepping to do some nice "all-nighter" work with the rest of my group. Once I was basically raring to go ahead with my work, I become informed that this presentation which I had been fretting for more than two weeks, is actually NEXT Tuesday. Relieved?? Yes. Frustrated?? Outweighed the relief. Don't ask me why, but I became pissed more than anything. I can't even explain it really. I just was not happy that I had deceived myself. Cue the darkness.

It was a couple of days later, still in a foul mood, isolated indoors whenever possible, unable to sleep at regular hours (as per usual), when I realized that I had indeed come to some sort of metaphorical road block in my University life. My road had been winding this way for a while, and it was my admission of this fact that really made me see how far down in the hole I had dug myself (that is so many metaphors in one sentence, jeez. It's even affecting my writing). I found myself sitting and "stumbling" on the net, becoming so entranced by some of the sites that I decided not to "favourite", and I actually became a little sad when they I would click away from them, enamored with the thought that they were gone forever. As though I wouldn't see them ever again. It was a little messed up. The entire last semester for me was a major bust, and this new semester, with acts like this pitiful display, seemed to continue the trend. I was not and have not been helping myself. And that led to the really bad week I just came off of.

Luckily, I foresee a way out of this situation. I can see a way around the proverbial wall. I started to take steps tonight to try and get myself around it. A trip to the grocery store to restock my empty shelves with food that is actually GOOD for me, served as both a work-out (you try and carry $100 worth of groceries back home via the bus) and a refreshing interaction with the human public (the first real encounter in a week...I know. So bad). My time tonight has been taken up putting together a graphic for the Oscar feature we'll be doing for the newspaper this week. Despite the fact that this isn't really "school work", I'm hoping that it serves as a bridge between my ability to do something non-essential and my inability to produce good work when it counts. I'm crossing my fingers that one corrects the other.

There have been a few more things that I think are helping me to be put back on the right track. For one, I have begun to listen to my music again. For some reason (I honestly can't even figure why) I just have not been playing music in the background any more. Maybe it was due to my plowing through "The West Wing", or maybe I just needed time away from it, but since I've started again over the last day and a bit, I have been feeling better.

The Olympics is the other thing that I've been able to fall back on. I'm certain that the men's hockey loss to the U.S. on Sunday night didn't help things for me at all, and probably contributed to a lot of my angst and whatnot, but since then, I have been thoroughly enjoying our little winning streak we have been going on. Sure, I took a turn for the worse when Cheryl Bernard missed two chances to win the women's curling Gold last night, but the men's hockey team brought me right back. I don't think it will be good for me if we lose to the U.S. tomorrow, considering how much this game means now. If they win, they will push the Gold Medal count for Canada up to 14, the most ever for a single country. And the fact that we have the opportunity to halt a revenge plot for the U.S. who want to win Gold on OUR home ice against us, like we did to them in 2002. And now I have my own personal dependence on the outcome of the game. If they win it will be glorious. If they lose, it will be Disappointment City. Still though, we have done really well, and I would love the bragging rights to still be on our court. It helps as well that about 95% of our female athletes are quite babeliscious. Seriously, I'm proud of Canada for producing so many good looking people!!

Either way though, I will need to get past the thought of winning/losing that hockey game and/or use it to push myself forward. There is just so much that I need to get done and acting the way I have been so far this semester is helping none. I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul. And I will damn sure come out of this downward spiral alive and kicking.

Starting now.

Rant: The Day After...

(I posted this on Facebook, but I wanna remember it, so I'm putting it on here as well)

Even in all of my lividity after the game last night, I surprised myself by actually getting a rather decent sleep, skipping the expected notion of tossing and turning and just getting right down to the slumber that I desperately needed to get the bad taste of that game out of my mouth. But despite the solid 9 hours that I registered last night, I still awoke to the expected praising of the now interested-in-hockey American media and the unbelievable amount of Canadian Brodeur bashers that surfaced upon my daily ritual of surfing.

Now, as I said, I expected all of this, but it was still a little bit more than I can bare. Having serious work that needs to get done, I felt that this was a suitable way for me to get this whole situation off my mind just long enough so I can get more important matters completed. So, just be aware that this note is filled with a lot of complaining and not much more. It is just to help put my mind at ease, and to give me a little closure...well, at least until tomorrow night's game.

And we're off.

Last night's game was not reminiscent of "The Miracle on Ice". Do you hear that American media?? They weren't even close. The 1980 team was made up of a bunch of amateurs who no one believed would be able to MAKE it to the gold medal game, let alone handle themselves against the Soviets who a pretty damn stacked team. Also, in case you didn't catch that, it was a GOLD MEDAL GAME. This years USA team, were in the very least, expected to make it to the semi-finals. Yes, Canada was a favourite to go all the way, and hey, they still have a chance to, but last night's game was NOT a miracle. It was the work of some damn fine American goaltending, and a Canadian team who has not meshed as quickly as we anticipated. I don't wanna go off on this for too long, so just read this article for a better idea of what I'm getting at. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bd-gallof/us-hockey-win-was-no-mira_b_471325.html

So, putting aside the fact that I've now had to deal with the swarms of the American public who, before the win last night, never cared for hockey in their entire lives, I've had to deal with something much more frustrating, and that is the Canadians who are blaming everything last night on the decision to put Brodeur in net over Luongo.

I will say it now, and I will not say it again: STOP. YOU SOUND LIKE AN IDIOT.

Brodeur did not lose that game last night. He did not play his best, but he damn sure didn't lose it for us. The first goal went in off of Crosby's stick. Not much you can do there. The second goal should have been cleared out of the zone by Dan Boyle, but he coughed it up and allowed the scoring chance to happen in the first place. The fourth goal took an unfortunate bounce off of Langenbrunner's skate (which, by the way, Brodeur almost SAVED, despite it's flukiness) and the empty net goal was completely at the mercy of Corey Perry (but I'll get back to that in a second).

So really, Brodeur allowed one goal at the fault of his own. Two, if you want to argue that miscue of batting the puck up the middle after Boyle turned it over. That's two goals. A decent performance. And had the unfortunate circumstances not happened, this would have made the final score, 3-2 Canada. (I know, dealing in hypotheticals is not really valid, but I'm just using it to convey a point. I know it wouldn't have turned out that way, but bare with me).

And don't even try to tell me that you would have pulled him after one of these goals. Again, they were mostly all so unfortunate, that Babcock obviously realized he couldn't be completely blamed for them. And Brody was playing great hockey towards the end of the second period anyway, proving that the man can bounce back pretty quickly from mistakes.

I will reiterate again though, that I do not believe that he had the goaltending game of his life. Absolutely not. Hell, it was one of his weaker performances in recent memories. But he was not downright awful like a lot of people are claiming, and a lot of the onus should be placed on the shoulders of the rest of the team too, and not just Brodeur and "whoever decided to start him."

I hear it over and over again. "This is Sidney Crosby's team." Oh really?? Then how come it took him until the last 5 minutes of this game to actually show up and attempt to start giving a damn?? The right players on the US showed up last night (Rafalski, Drury, Miller), and that's why they won. Where the hell were our leaders?? Crosby has a goal in the entire tournament, one which he waited a damn long time to get last night, and yet he has 42 in the NHL. Yes, you're right, he did score the shoot-out winner against the Swiss, but it took a shoot-out miss before it made him mad enough to actually WANT to tally the game-winner. And what were the veteran defencemen doing last night?? Neidermayer and Boyle were giving pucks away like they were playing for the Americans. Chris Pronger was doing the same thing, all the while backing off from every play, seemingly refusing to use his massive 6' 6" frame to do nothing, except knock the opposing team into his own goalie from time to time.

And can anyone tell me how Patrice Bergeron, Mike Richards, Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf have contributed to this team thus far in the tournament?? It seems that Bergeron can only win faceoffs and then skate off the ice. Richards, who was supposed to be the guy who "would get Crosby going" lost that spot rather quickly last night, and Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry continually seem to show that they couldn't care less that they were on this team. They have combined for just two goals in the tourny so far. If I could, I would take Perry's away from him though, after allowing Kesler to reach that puck and secure the win for the US. Like what the hell was he thinking?? HE HAD A STICK LENGTH ON THE GUY!! All he had to do was put his stick ON THE ICE and the puck was his. Nope. Instead he just tried to block the guy from the puck, and a lotta good that did.

These so called "star" players better start to earn their spot on this team, and they better do it quickly.

Anyway, all of that was just to put further emphasis on how last night's game was not Brodeur's fault. Yes, he was to blame to a degree, I will whole-heartedly agree with that, but in retrospect I still think that Babcock made the right decision in starting him. Seriously, think about it. Brodeur played a solid game against the Swiss. Yes, he let in a weak one, but the second goal was just bad luck in the deflection off of Marleau's skate. Not much you can do there. And the very last thing that we saw of Marty was his saving grace during the shoot-out. He had a solid game. Combine that with the fact that he won us a gold medal in 2002, was the ONLY good thing to come out of the 2006 games in Turin, and the fact that Luongo simply wasn't challenged enough in the game against Norway to get a clear sense of how he was playing, and you have your reasoning behind the Brodeur decision. I mean, it's not like either guy is outplaying the other this regular season anyway. So, yes. I would have started Brodeur too. It was the sensible choice.

That being said though, Luongo starts the Germany game. No question. I do love Marty, and he is one of my favourite players of all time, but you have to turn it over to Roberto, and see what he can do now. If we had won last night's game, maybe it would be different, and again, it's not that he played badly, but the fact is, he didn't give us his best, and now we need to see if Luongo can do that. It's a tough call, but that's what I would do.

So that's pretty much it. I hate it as much as anyone that we lost that game last night, and I am going to have to hold my tongue when taunted by the millions of brand new hockey fans who want to gloat that they are now superior to Canada as far as hockey goes, but the bottom line is, not enough people showed up last night. Nash and Doughty had spectacular games. Weber continues to prove himself in this line up. Iginla, despite the shockingly short ice-time he is putting up, is a force (I am still not 100% sure why he has been basically demoted on the team), and the San Jose line is the only one who seems to be able to move the puck. But we need every player to step up to the plate (because they are playing baseball, right guys!?!?).

It's games like last night that make people yearn for the Mike Green's, Shane Doan's, Dion Phaneuf's and Steven Stamkos' who didn't make the roster.

Things That I Love Today: Tom Hanks on Jonathan Ross

This is a little more than awesome.

"She'll have fun, fun, fun 'til her Daddy takes the T-Bird away."

Despite my own reluctance to post something on here, I figured that I should if for no other reason than to just get myself into a "work" mode again.

I'm not even sure what I wanna write about. I don't wanna be negative, so I talking about my lack of productivity over the past week won't work. It wasn't even a "lack of productivity" actually. I think that implies that there has to be some sort of work going on, but alas, there really was nothing. Well, I guess there was SOME, but it has honestly felt very unappreciated. By me, I mean. Jeez, I am less than a paragraph in and I'm already rambling. Normally it takes me a couple paragraphs to get that going.

I am officially done "The West Wing". The Complete Series, a full 7 seasons, is finished. Actually, that is partially a lie. There in an episode that begins the third season which I chose to skip. You see, the third season began right after the 9/11 attacks, so they decided to film an episode pertaining to that, in order to help bring the country together, but they had to run it at the beginning of the season (which would have been really close after the attacks) so it had nothing to do with the series storyline, and was just an extra episode. Either way, I was WAY too in to the happenings of the White House at this time, so I opted to go back and watch that episode once I had finished everything else. So, I still have that to do.

Anyway, my response to finishing the series... well, let me put it this way. I finished the series really, really late last night, and then when I woke up today, I felt relatively sad that I didn't have any new episodes to watch. I just finished this TV Show, and I want there to be more. I wanna watch it all with fresh eyes again. It was amazing. Incredible. Coming from a guy who really couldn't have cared less about American Politics going into the show, I think that it's pretty remarkable that a show can do that. It doesn't require an interesting subject matter to make it interesting. It was one of the most brilliant shows I have experienced.

I did have a couple of complaints though, which, I think is inevitable with anything that you watch. The first thing that I would have to admit about "The West Wing" is that the "Sorkin" seasons are definitely superior to the 3 that he wasn't involved with (he left after Season 4 due to a number of reasons). That is not to say that the remaining 3 seasons are bad. In fact, they are still better than almost anything that I've ever watched. But I there was something noticeably lost in those years, and Sorkin's presence was missed.

Another complaint that I had was that some of the casting just didn't work. I have decided that there are certain people who are perfect for Aaron Sorkin dialogue, and there are certain people who can't pull it off. Originally, I felt that Josh Malina (who replaced Rob Lowe when he left) was one of those people, and I actually quite hated him, but he grew on me and I saw that he was a nice addition to the cast. However, Jimmy Smits and Teri Polo, who joined the show at the end of Season 5, they just didn't have that "something" that was needed to mesh with a show like this. They just never really fell into that "cherished" category that the original cast fit into immediately. And if you've ever seen the show, you know that it's not like their characters are just a couple of people we can ignore. No, they weren't hated by any means either, don't get me wrong. The couple were charming and prominent. But they were both so overshadowed by the actors who REALLY made the material work, and I couldn't help but want Jimmy Smits' character to just leave in favour of Alan Alda's (who was a great addition to the cast... but then again, when is he not??).

But other than small observations like this, that probably only I noticed, I adored the show. It was fantastic. Funny. Intelligent. Phenomenally acted, written and put together. Season 4 is my favourite season I think. It holds my favourite episode of the show, which happens to be the season premiere, and ends with an episode that literally had me yelling at the TV screen, cursing myself with everything that I had because I didn't have the Season 5 DVDs with me to keep on going with the watching. It's an amazing season, and pretty much the pivotal demonstration of what the whole show is about and what it represents.

Man. I just really wanna watch another episode. It is such an inspiring piece of writing and acting and directing and basically everything, that I just want more and more of it. It actually makes me angrier that "Studio 60" didn't make it to a second season. What could have prevailed was most certainly genius, and yet we're stuck here never being able to know. I know it doesn't sound too appealing, but you have, have, HAVE to take my word for it, that it does not let down. Now how exactly to I suffice this "West Wing" fix I have now...

(If you answered "chicken wings", then you are probably closest to the correct answer.)

"I just want to wish you well."

Elevators always smell better in the morning. In the evenings, they endured a host of dirty and disgusting boots and shoes, treading through God only knows, and people have been in and out of these things, coming and going, sweating and smelling and leaving their end of the day body odour like it's their duty to make sure that every person who rides these things know that they have had to make it through a day full of working out and tussling with customers at the office, booking it from meeting to meeting, and spending the last hour and half in traffic, awaiting to come home.

In the mornings, the elevators have had the night to cool off. They have been put under limited stress, helping only the stray drunkard at 4am find their way back up to their abode. Then, after all the hustle and bustle of the previous nights work, they start fresh, and immune of any stink that they had been put through before. Its patrons all enter it for the first time in the day, showered, perfumed, with a vague scent of a spring meadow and the odd scrambled egg with bacon. They start smelling like a morning should.

By the end of the day, they just aren't as pleasant to ride in. I enjoy the smell of faint perfume as I go to class in the morning. It's a tiny reassurance that the morning has the potential to be a good one.