England Photos...Lots of Them

hallo again. I know it's still today. Pfft. Obviously. That was a stupid thing to say.

Anyway, just thought I would put a few choice pictures of mine from England up in here for my friends. If there's anyone else who reads this, well, you can enjoy them too, I suppose. Haha.

Also, I don't understand why some of them are so far apart, but I don't care enough the change that.

Yes, I know it's old news

Oh my goodness. It has been a while since I blogged! I have been meaning to so much. I started to yesterday, but my computer was being all screwy and whatnot so it didn't happen.
Anyway! So this is oldish news, but
OBAMA WON!
Yayyyyyyyy!
I was so happy when I found out. This is incredible! I still can't get over it. I'm living through our future's history. It's incredible. I just can't even describe how much it means to me, and how much it must mean to everyone else, considering I'm not even an American. Oof! Best news I've heard in a while! I'm thrilled! This exciting and invigorating and unique! It is a first, and hopefully not a last. Obama was truly the superior candidate. I'm glad I kept up on this
election.
In much less global and interesting news, at my dance class tonight my ex showed up. He just waltzed in and said he was "looking around". Hmm. It was unusual and very unexpected, and a little awkward considering that as soon as I broke up with him he started badmouthing me and here he was, watching me prance around in my tight little dance outfit. He left after a few minutes and there was mutual relief among us.
In even less intersting news (yes, there is such a thing), I bought new strings for my bass. Finally. My other strings were so dead and blah. They sounded terrible. Awful. Horrific, even! Ah, but now the sweet sound of fresh nickel rings pleasantly in my ear every time I plug in. It's a nice sharp, clear sound, compared to that awful muffled roundness I was getting from my very old, very exhausted strings.
I was jsut about to say good night, but I remembered that I just revived my vocal lessons again today!
Oh, Velma. She's such a sweet woman, and a fabulous teacher. I improved considerably in only half an hour. Of course, I was rusty and not really up to my standards, but there was improvement nonetheless. Velma Cook, you are a doll! An extremely talented fiend.
Goooooooooood night!

I Love You, Mom

Because of your birth, a young man needed not endure the entirety of his life without finding a true love.

Because of your birth, the ground has been blessed with two perfect feet that step with confidence and assuredness.
Because of your birth, the wind has been blessed with the chance to blow your blond hair about, creating wisps of unique beauty.
Because of your birth, the eyes of the world have been blessed to gaze upon your genuine smile.
Because of your birth, the needy have been blessed by your sincere and continual generosity.
Because of your birth, the sorrowful have been blessed by your uplifting spirit and words of support and kindness.
Because of your birth, the preyed upon have been served justice.
Because of your birth, your children have been blessed with a mother like no other, whose heart is in all she does and whose thoughts are insightful.
Because of your birth, the world has been blessed.
Today we celebrate your birth, an event indeed worth celebrating.
You are a vibrant, caring woman, whom I love and am eternally thankful for.

Happy Birthday, Mama.

CH-beware, it's contagious

Goodness! It has been over a month since I have posted to nobody about my escapades.
Well, in October I went to England. Hoooo! What a good time that was. I went for only a week, I'm afraid, and even more unfortunately, the trip was very "touristy" overall. I would have much rather just gone and experienced it for what it is rather than seeing the sights and flashing photos and wearing the ugliest, smallest matching backpacks with everyone else on the trip that you could ever imagine. Well, perhaps they weren't that ugly, but they were ugly nonetheless.
Alright. So. In England, we had many adventures, and despite my disgust at tourists (whether it is I or someone else who is touring), I rather enjoyed myself. We went to London, and it has such old, magnificent buildings all over the place. I loved looking at the architecture and as absurd as this may seem, I also rather liked feeling the old stone and walls and such. It made the buildings more real to me, I suppose. We saw all the sights one is supposed to see: Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, London Tower, Westminster Abbey--but what I enjoyed the most was when we simply had free time to roam the city for an hour or so. I usually went with my brother when we wandered, and we both ditched the backpacks so as to blend in and not be labeled as sickeningly touristy tourists. I love the cobbled streets and twisty-turny markets.
We also visited Bath for a day, seeing of course the Abbey there and the Roman Baths. My brother and I wandered a little too far and got lost for a short time, but we managed to swing on by the coach bus just in the nick of time.
Stonehenge is not as thrilling as they make it out to be.
Our hotel was "dodgy", as our Tour Director Gavin would say. Everyone else (eg. Collingwood Hicks, all of whom suffered from Collingwood Hickism) called it "sketch" and the name for our week there was "Sketch is the Word". It was sketchy, though. Really shady and dirty. It was a cheap hotel with pink walls, unchanged sheets, hairy bathtubs and all-around disorganisation. The Continental breakfast was horribly bland.
I liked taking the tube around. It was a good experience and I can now confidently negotiate my way around London's subway system, something most Collingwood Hicks would be proud of, but which I am merely stating. It's just a stupid subway, after all.
I had a lot of fun on this trip, I really enjoyed being surrounded by accents and the lingo worked it's way into my writing quite a bit while I was there. It's very cute to look back on that writing and see all the uppity British slang wriggling next to the casual Canadian slang. I made some new friends, met some babalicious men and learned a lot about the history that I don't much care about, but was valuable regardless.
While I was there, I was desperately missing my best friend and nonsexual love, Katelyn. I was alone in my hotel room, an atrociously atypical girl surrounded by supremely typical girls with nothing on their minds but having perfect hair and backstabbing. I so longed for Katelyn's companionship, I cried a little. I wrote her a sappy love letter. I wanted her to be there so bad! I didn't realise how much I do indeed love her until I was without her. However, I made the best of my situation and hung out with my brother and some people he knew. I was happy, but I could have been happier (I love you Katelyn!).
I also really missed my dog.
Anyway, when the time came to leave, I didn't much want to, and wrote about my longing to remain in London in my writing book. I captured it well. I was truly unhappy to leave, but I'm also glad to be home with my family and friend and dog. And the cats too, although I have a different relationship with them than with the dog. I'm a t peace with leaving London, and Collingwood still sucks. Everyone here still suffers from Collingwood Hickism (CH), surrounded by their quaint little bubbles that will more than likely never be popped.
I feel for you, Hicks. I do.
Thankfully, I've never been limited by a bubble, and I can't wait to get out of this crap town and get a life.
What else?
Hm.
Oh yeah!
I went to Wonderland yesterdayyyyyyy! Woot! That was also a lot of fun! We didn't get a chance to go last year for some reason, so this was my first time back in a while. The last time we went, Paramount still owned it, and we went during Fearfest, which is just Wonderland but Halloween-y and spooky. It was reasonably spooky.
But now that Paramount doesn't own it any more, all the ride names have changed, which isn't a big deal, and Fearfest has changed to Halloween Haunt, and it's WAY better. That's what we went to, obviously, as yesterday was Halloween.
It's a night, from 7-12-ish. Very spooky indeed. My brother's girlfriend almost made one of the actors who would come up to you and scare you at the entrance laugh because of the face she gave him. He smirked and had to turn away. One of the actors came up behind me and I knew he was there, and I turned around to look at him, and he made this ridiculous noise at me which I guess was supposed to be frightening, but it really wasn't. It was hilarious. It was this high-pitched squeaky screech thing and all three of us (my brother, his girlfriend and I) all started laughing our heads off. I imagine he was embarrassed and turned away. It was sooo funny. He did a bad job of scaring me.
But that was not always the case! The park was very spooky indeed, with lighting effects and decorations and dry ice and scary music and such. It was definitely very well done, the atmosphere was realistic and impressive. The Mountain looked particularly good with the moving spotlight.
Oh, Wonderland is a huge amusement park by the way, for those who don't know. I think it's the biggest in Canada.It used to be Paramount Canada's Wonderland and a lot of rides were named after movies, but they sold it so now it's just Canada's Wonderland and the ride names are different. Well, the movie ones are, anyway.
The newest ride is the Behemoth, which truly is behemoth. It's SO HUMONGOUS it's hardly believeable. It's the biggest coaster in Canada, and it greatly surpasses Darian Lake (or Six Flags)'s Superman. The drop is so steep it's craziness! And there are six drops in total. While the average roller coaster takes about 5-10 seconds to go up the initial hill, the Behemoth takes 30. 30. That's a big difference. I wanted to go on it sooo bad, but we didn't get the chance and the lineup was ridiculous. Next year, next year. It looks so fun! The other roller coasters don't cut it any more. I want a bigger thrill.
So, Wonderland in al it's greatness, was even greater on Halloween night. Super scary, super fun, super HUGE rides. Excellent, excellent. I love that place!
Anyway, so England rocked, wonderland rocked, and CH continues to plague our town with resilience.

I am Underrated as a Musician

Ok. I was writing a note on facebook (for i have returned to that wretched site-it has mad new facebook prowess) and it was directing me to look up the definitions of my answers to the questions in the note on urbandictionary.com. This website is full of definitions written by regular people, some of which are quite ludicrous, others of which are straight from wikipedia. The definitions are entertaining either way. Anyway, I wrote the note, and afterwards, I decided to continue procrastinating by searching random words on the urban dictionary. I looked over at my bass guitar (I am a bassist through and through) and searched that. There were some decent definitions, though none particularly remarkable. I then noticed one of the related keywords was bassist, so I clicked on that and came across some fabulous material. Some of it speaks of the united oppression of we the bassists, by the bassists, for the bassists. Some of it was just stupid guitarists pretending they have a place in our sacred ground. Don't get me wrong, I love and respect guitarists. Hello Jimi Hendrix. But face it guys, you're guitarists. You will just plain old never feel the way about bass as we do.
Wowza I can get off-topic pretty quick. More on my bass sentiments later.
OK so here is the funny stuff I got from urban dictionary on bassists.

A passive aggresive musician. One who plays the bass guitar, an instrument with more influence than most non-musicians are actually aware of.

they are generally tall, to seem proportionate to their bass (this made me giggle). they usually have a large stance while standing, large hands (yeahhh), and long, skinny, callused fingers.

a person who crosses over from guitar to bass is not a bassist, they are a bass player.

The bass is more or less the instrument that makes the girls shake their booty.

Many bassists are classically trained or inclined (this is true).

That bassist is really groovin'

Bassists like...Les Claypool (Primus) have the ability to outshred and outplay even the best guitarists (props to Les Claypool-I love thee).

Comparative to guitar, a bass is much harder to play because of a wider neck and more pressure needed to be applied to the neck (I gots strong hands!). Those who are impressed by guitar players tapping...don't be. It is much more difficult on bass because it takes strength to sound the notes while you can barely touch the string on a guitar and it will sound the note. No matter what technique used on the bass guitar, it is always interesting to watch a good bass player.

A bass player is a musician, and should be held in the same esteem as all other musicians.

Guitarist: Dude! I am the leader of this band.
Drummer: *obscure mumbling*
Guitarist: What'd he say?
Bassist: He said you're a douche, dude.

Due to simplistic and unimaginative musicians taking over the rock mainstream, the bassist is often looked at as the guy in the background thumping along on the E-string, playing root notes and doubling the rhythm guitar. Anyone who thinks this cannot rightly be blamed; after all, there are so many "I play 4 notes per song and contribute nothing" bassists out there such as Paul Thomas, Brent Wilson, Pete Wentz, and David Desrosiers (to name a few) that the instrument hardly gets any recognition among casual music fans. The aforementioned, however, are actually not bassists but something called "failed guitarists" who had too much trouble with bar chords but decided they wanted to be in a band anyway, and switched to bass. Such "musicians" have no business being in the same category as Les Claypool, Victor Wooten, Flea, and even nu-metalers like Fieldy and Ryan Martinie who gave something to music.

What goes unrealized is how the right bassline, played by a true bassist and not just a failed guitarist, can make an otherwise average song extraordinary. ---props to the guy that wrote that definiton. he pretty much sums it all up while bashing fallout boy simultaneously. bravo.

Many uneducated cretins believe that is 'just like a guitar, but its easier, cus you only have to play one string at a time... drool, slather...etc'.

Anyway. I know that was a lot definitions from a dictionary site that isn't an actual dictionary site, and I don't expect you to have read them all. However, if you will do me the favour of reading the last big, long one and the one after that, you will know how it is.
I like that the uneducated cretin was drooling.
:)