The end of an era

To my great relief, I put in my final eight hours with that game store earlier today. My key is returned, and I've removed my comics and Santa hat from the back room. It's now official - this chapter is closed and no more shall be written. I felt a hint of sadness as I distributed handshakes and stepped outside the store for the first time as a non-employee. However, for something to begin certain things must be brought to an end. Of course, I'll still be shopping at the store regularly and keeping in touch with past and present crew, for they be a great bunch of folks.

So that leaves an entire week open for me to do whatever I please. I plan to fill up these next few days playing some classic Megaman, Spider-Man 2, and Ratchet & Clank with a little Disgaea mixed in. Wednesday is the big game between Holland and Portugal, so I'll be glued to the tele for a few hours there. Thursday is Canada Day, so I expect to be celebrating in typical fashion at the Forks, then maybe watching the Czech vs. Greece match. Friday may or may not bring camping depending on the circumstances, and Sunday is the Euro 2004 final. One evening I'm going to have to spend shopping for new work clothes, and I also have to take in Dodgeball and Spider-Man 2 (again) at some point. All in all, I've got stuff to do up to and beyond when I start on Monday!

That's what's going on. Now that all these life updates are out of the way, I should get back to ranting and social commentary pretty soon. Of course, I won't have stupid customers to make fun of now so I'll have to hunt for idiocy in different, unexplored places. Sounds like an adventure!

In other news, The Streets have released a new album that I hadn't found out about until last week. I picked it up and it's very nearly as good as Original Pirate Material. It's entitled A Grand Don't Come for Free if you feel so inclined to check it out. It's unique and quirky, something that will truly expand your musical tastes after a few listens. A refreshing change from the North American music norm!

qotp: "Know the difference between the faith in your heart and the politics of looking dumb."
- Matthew Good, from Empty Road

- Colin (invincibleironman@hotmail.com)

The eventual, blissful rewards of patience

Finally.

After a challenging, frustrating 10 months on the job market I am officially withdrawn from it. Yes, I have found a place for my skills to call home for what will probably end up being a very long time. After receiving an official offer today, I immediately gave my notice of resignation and set a start date in my new surroundings for July 5th.

As you can imagine, I'm thrilled about the opportunity to move upward and onward to a position that utilizes the education that I've been through. Not only that, but saving wildlife is decidedly less evil than rotting the minds of children with Grand Theft Auto. In fact, I'm really excited about being part of something that is just so inherently good.

From those that I've met so far, the people seem great - as you would expect from a group of conservationists. The location, though located a fair drive away in Oak Hammock Marsh, is gorgeous and the working conditions are excellent. The facility itself is top-notch, with various niceties to keep its many employees comfortable and happy. I know I'm happy, and I've only spent a total of three hours in it!

To those that I must part with at this particular fork: I have enjoyed and learned from every experience that we have shared. I will always have fantastic memories of our glorious times and I will even look back with a strange fondness on our not so glorious times. The experience that I've had with each one of you has helped me through education, graduation, and a long career search - for this I am forever grateful. These last four years will always be a part of who I have become. Life's paths have a way of being winding and long, so I'm sure we'll cross paths before you know it.

So there you have it: big changes are happening as we speak. I hope to have more things ironed out before the end of the summer. For now though, I'm going to take some time to settle into this new role and establish myself well enough to get the security that I want. After that, who knows?

qotp: "Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him."
- Aldous Huxley, from Texts and Pretexts

- Colin (invincibleironman@hotmail.com)

This week on Clerks: "Update-a-thon" or "Badgers are Scary, Guy!"

I vowed to keep this going at a more reasonable rate and damnit I'm going to stick to it. Sorry about not being here for the past little while. Contrary to popular belief, I wasn't playing Disgaea for the whole time. I did stop to eat some cake once in awhile. So here I am now, comin' at ya front and center.

Has everyone seen this yet? How is this popular? What the bloody hell is going on? Seriously! I don't get it! If someone can explain it to me, please do so. I'll even give you a cookie.

I had the pleasure of camping with Lina the weekend before last. We had fun, despite the difficulty we had pitching the tent and keeping the air mattress inflated. I returned exhausted and sore as hell from sleeping (maybe sleeping is too generous a word) on rocks for two nights, but somehow it was a relaxing experience. I think we're going to do it a few more times this summer, but this time we'll make sure the accomodations are up to snuff.

As long as we're talking about weekends, I should mention that Burtonium's grad BBQ was held this past Saturday. Mr. and Mrs. Mikolayenko were gracious enough to allow a few of us hooligans to come down and celebrate with our buddy. Not only did they throw a kick-ass shindig, but they served up some great BBQ-style eats with a lot of beer. Burton was in the finest form I've seen him in, two-fisting his beers all afternoon before finally passing out around 11-ish. Dan and Lina both tied one on as well, but both managed to stay awake. Yours truly was the last one drinking of us youngins, taking part in traditional Mikolayenko-strength rum and cokes with Mr. M until 1:30 or so. All in all, everyone had a blast and made sure Burton passed into this new phase in life with all the style and grace of a drunken, rampaging wombat.

Tonight was great! Ragnarok FC completed a comeback of epic proportions in Southport, Manitoba. With us down 4-1 only ten minutes into the second half, things looked grim at best. However, something lit a fire under us, our midfield started clicking with our attackers, and we played a fucking synergistic 35 minutes of footy. There was no way we would drive an hour out of town to get thumped and that showed in every pass we made. We bombarded our opposition with runs and shots, scored five unanswered goals, and ran out eventual 6-4 winners. So now we have a goals for that sits at a staggering 13 in four games. That's pretty impressive for a team that barely scored 35 all of last season.

On the topic of footy, the Euro's are on right now and I'm enjoying them immensely. So far, I've felt many emotions that only these world soccer events can bring out in me. I laughed heartily at the expense of the Portugese when they were beat 2-1 by the lowly Greeks. I was both enraged and saddened when England (!) gave up a 1-0 lead in the 93rd minute to France, only to have the French come back and score a winner two minutes later, seconds before the final whistle. I've yet to watch Sweden vs. Bulgaria, but I'm sure it'll be a doosey as well. Tomorrow is another clash of Titans, with Holland taking on Germany. No matter the outcome, I know I'm going to shed a tear for one of my favorite teams.

In non-football news, I will be in new music glory come tomorrow. Matt Good's new album is finally here, accompanied by a new Beastie Boys record that managed to slip undetected past my tunage radar. This is shaping up to be a great month!

That's all for me. Time for some more footy!

- Colin (invincibleironman@hotmail.com)

Mother Nature hates me.

Alright, this is going too far. What the hell did I do to piss her off anyway? I've always been for the environment. I don't think I've destroyed any ecosystems or crashed any oil tankers into Baffin Island. Why then, am I not able to get my nutmeg on and my volley on? Soccer tonight was cancelled not because of heavy rain, lightning, snow, or hurricane winds. No, it seems the last three days of downpour have saturated the fields, which now resemble vast planes of muck with some sporadic grass patches poking up here and there. Bollocks to that mate, I'm going to the bookie's!

So I decided to check out IGN's review of Front Mission 4, which I was actually quite looking forward to. Of course, IGN's reviews have been spotty at best lately, with certain companies beginning to exert their pull on review scores. However, I was surprised to see that it earned a measly 6.8 on their scale. I read on to see if it might be a niche thing that I might enjoy, but the review pretty much tore it down for me. I had planned to pick up FM4, but I've turned my strategy-hungry attention to something a little more interesting.

I'm glad you all like the new look. It seems that I have spurred others into action as well!

Tomorrow night is the CIP banquet at River East Collegiate. I haven't attended since I graduated from it in 1999, so it should be a fun time and a trip down memory lane. I have a few strong ties to the program itself, and I have connections that still may help me down the road. Needless to say, I'm puttin' on the Ritz tomorrow night. Super duper!

I'm off for a little Disgaea now. I at least want to get a start on it tonight...

qotp: "In a world of captains baby, ship of fools"
- Matthew Good, from Near Fantastica

- Colin (invincibleironman@hotmail.com)

A sort of re-design...

What do you think of the new look? I think it looks really dapper with my styling profile on the right over there, my new layout, and a much-improved colour scheme. Please, do leave a comment to tell me your opinions.

So don't even bother asking me about how my soccer season is going. I mean, this is just ridiculous already. Two weeks ago, we had this to deal with:



That lasted a few days at least and cancelled out a weekend of soccer. Then came one co-ed game, followed by a forfeited win for our men's team. Of course, mother nature wasn't through taunting us so she gave us rain for the entire weekend and left us with another cancelled co-ed game and the prospect of a cancelled men's game for tomorrow night. So in total, I've only played one game out of a scheduled six. To make matters worse is that I'm away camping for the weekend, so I'll be missing our Saturday men's game as well. Oh, the slings and arrows of outdoor soccer!

Thank you to everyone for the well-wishes in my job hunt. Sadly, there has been no change in the situation and as far as I can tell everything is the same. However, Lina's got a good job now so I must be doing something right! I'm starting to think that I'm a bad luck sponge, absorbing crap so that those near me can live their lives untarnished and squeaky clean. I guess it's not so bad, and really does help to work toward the greater good.

Recently, I had the chance to take in Van Helsing and Troy at the Silver City in Polo Park. Sadly, neither really lived up to the hype for me although Troy was definitely a better movie than Hugh Jackman's creature feature.

I suppose Van Helsing is alright if you go in expecting something so cheesy that it actually leaves you smelling like Gouda when it's all said and done. I was actually expecting something a bit more on the serious side and was extremely put off by the God-awful Transylvanian accents that run rampant through the film.

Troy was a well made film that really only let me down because I know that it could have been so much more. Brad Pitt was excellent as Achilles, although the character himself veered far from what mythology portrays him as. In fact, if you were expecting mythology at all from this flick, you would have been better served sitting at home and watching The Mighty Hercules reruns. Other than constant banter about the wrath of Apollo, there is no involvement, appearance, or trace of any Olympians. Of course, it was nice to see a movie representation of some great Greek heroes like Achilles, Odysseus, Hector, and Ajax. I should also mention that the action was top-notch and Pitt's fighting style is nothing short of mesmerizing. However, it really fell apart for me when the film made no mention of Achilles' origins and completely left out the mythology surrounding his death, despite the fact that he did take an arrow through his heel.

In other news, June is going to be bringing not one, but two (!) new albums to my music collection. First up in about two weeks is Matthew Good's new offering, White Light Rock & Roll Review, which sounds a little more upbeat than his last record. The new single, entitled Alert Status Red is pretty awesome and is mandatory enjoyment for any Good fans out there. Go listen! The end of the month bears sweet, sweet fruit when the Tragically Hip release their much-anticipated new album, In Between Evolution. If you haven't already heard Vaccination Scar, you need to get thee to a website and watch the video. For those of you who are out of Canada this summer, you have some great Canadian music waiting for you when you get back!

Before I run off for the night, I have a new feature to add: The Quote of the Post! Each post (which will hopefully be more frequent than as of late) I plan on finishing each post with a quoatable phrase from music, movies, literature, or even real life around me. No context is needed, for these are good enough to stand on their own.

qotp: "It's people like you who keep Jesus from coming back!"
- Peter to Alex at work tonight, after an odd conversation about samurai honour suicides, ghosts, and databases

That's all for now folks! Soccer tomorrow, woo! (Weather permitting, of course)

- Colin (invincibleironman@hotmail.com)