Friday, March 6, 2009

How it came about...

Jay figured I should post how I came up with the name for the blog. I was sitting on the john reading an interview with Pharrell and voila. I thought his interview was candid, and I knew we were all stars.

Oh, and this hat in the heather grey is all mine.

Round One Part Two. Intro

Jason Simmons-Cabral chillin in east...

Well I guess as one half of this blog I should introduce myself as well. I recently turned 22 and have been attending the University of Waterloo since 2005. I could graduate this April in theory but, with the shitty economy and a lack of really wanting to grow up I'll be back in Waterloo for another year of school come September.

However, between now and then should be fairly interesting as i just took a summer job as a bike mechanic at Panorama Mountain Resort in BC. Basically what that means is that while my partner in crime is out getting in touch with his hippie side and meeting hairy women while tree planting I will take on full responsibility for entertaining you all! And I won't disappoint!

I like Graham found team sports a pile of crap. Just because of some stupid kid who can't skate or some meathead getting stupid penalties why should I be subjected to the travesty that is loosing. Sure, that might be a very conceited view of team sports but if I am going to loose it sure as hell isn't going to be because of someone else! Oh and jocks piss me off. Just because you can throw a ball doesn't mean you get to walk into my bar while everyone else has to wait for 2 hours. (I'm a bouncer) Get that through your thick head!

Unlike G (as he will henceforth be refered to as) I have not been able to make the move to the left side of the country. I have to make due with little mountains and riding cross country instead of downhill. As I have mentioned I will be in BC this summer but only for a few months then back to the flats and more education!

I currently work at the University of Waterloo campus bar, The Bombshelter Pub or Bomber as it is known around here as well as Loop Clothing in Uptown Waterloo. Bikes, cloths and music take up pretty much all of my free time right now, substituting bikes for snowboards during the winter months and I wouldn't have it any other way!

Some people have described my life as being worthy of a reality TV show... hopefully this blog lives up to that reputation!

keeping my eye on the west...
Nibs




Jay's on board.

Ok, so.
Slight change up. There is now going to be two of us updating this blog, hopefully on a somewhat frequent basis. Jay will be throwing down with all things Onterrible and I will be keeping it real from BC. Two friends posting from very far away.

I will figure out how to get direct links to MP3s eventually, but for now zShare is gonna have to do the trick. Without further ado, here is an older track by Pinback - Penelope.

-Graham.

Another post soo soon...?

I figured this would be easier than repeatedly sending links to these two tracks to people. I have been 'overplaying' these two tracks by Ellie Goulding for a while now. It's what the girl next door sounds like when she picks up a guitar and adds a wicked synth track underneath. enjoi.

Ellie Goulding - Guns + Horses
Ellie Goulding - Wish I Stayed

-Graham.

Round One. Intro.

Graham Michaelson here.

For starters, I will be 23 this spring. Gemini all the way. I'm a West-Coast Kid, but not born and raised. I'm originally from Ontario and my move to the West was inevitable. Vancouver specifically.

Realistically, (optimism here folks) I have no idea who will read this, but we will see how it plays out. I figured that I was sorting through my browser favorites yesterday and happened to realize that pretty much every site I frequent these days is or has a blog of some sort. Blogs are in a sense becoming part of our daily culture, for much of our generation they seem to be like personal newspaper. While I do have a life, I spend waaay to much time on my computer. Its a problem.

Anyway, I guess, I am starting a blog to chronicle not necessarily my trials and tribulations out here, but rather many of my daily interests and happenings. By that I mean everything from music to clothes, to snowboarding and cycling, to parties and bars or my general hatred of statistics.

I will try and post up photos as well showing the beauty of my daily surroundings. In regards to music, I will try and update with new tracks and links as often as possible. We will see what happens.

On that note, here is the first music link. Little Boots - New in Town (Fred Falke Vocal Mix)

Lastly, I am certainly not a poet or always the most eloquent of writers, but I wrote this at one point last year for a mandatory English class. While it is over written in a few areas, it gives a gist of me and why I am in Vancouver in the first place.


Just as with much of our population of young adults, sport is rooted deeply in my psyche. To call it just a passion, would be unfitting of the grasp it actually has on me. Instead, to me, sport is an obsession.

I remember when I was young and dreamt of being that sports hero who could make or break the dreams of thousands of people in a single instant. But I was six. Yet, whether I was managing to stride ineloquently across the local hockey rink or stampede down the soccer pitch in behind my school, I always had an announcer in my head proclaiming my small victories.

However, the time came when I no longer felt that rush when playing these team sports. Truth be told, I was an only child, and the day soon came when I realized that I was not made for team sports. Quite simply, I hated sitting on the bench and even more, I hated leaving the fate of my mood up to fellow teammates.

After all of these years, I still undoubtedly have fond memories of playing hockey and soccer. Except, it took only one sudden avalanche of discovery to transform me into the obsessed athlete that I am today. Thinking back, my obsession was quickly derived from the dramatic conjunction of freedom and speed working in unison, and showing me for the first time, what the hills had to offer. It was almost without warning for those around me, to see me now wanting to spend every waking moment of my winters on ski slopes rather than ice rinks and bike trails in place of green grass and goal posts.

For the past decade, I have based all my significant decisions about my life around these two new loves. I truly believe that I can still call them new, year after year, because of what I both learn from and achieve from them.

Even today, instigation of my obsessive-compulsive behaviour happens like clockwork. Twice a year, I get an itch, one that is deep inside my psyche, and refuses to go away. It first happens during the spring when the ground first shows its colours and again it always happens again during the fall when the trees become bare. To me, the change of seasons is much more than just a change of scenery.

Up until two years ago, my bikes and my snowboards had controlled my social life, my finances and much of my derived pleasure from life. It was that serious of an obsession. Just as many other teenagers choose cars, I chose bicycles. Unfortunately they even had the same monetary value.

Yet, the fact remained that no matter how much I invested in my obsessions, I still lived in Ontario. It is flat, very flat, and the sports I loved needed mountains.

Certainly, the hardest part about my move to the small mountain town of Vancouver has been tearing down 20 years of life at home. Thinking of Vancouver as a small mountain town helps me to feel it is possible to build a life here while conquering the isolation of feeling alone in a new city. Clearly, the city also looks much smaller when you spend much of your time above 6000 feet.

The days which make every sacrifice worth it are always spent moving swiftly through the glades or thundering down the trail, spraying snow and slashing rocks far and wide. The underlying theme of my obsession has been finding those serene places amongst the mountains that no hockey rink or field of green could ever have given me.

When I am up high, I still always glance eastward as to not forget where my obsession began and where it has taken me to, today.



G'nite.
 

fleet lawsuit