Installment #6

10:28 PM, Sunday 27 February 2005

Today while surfing channels I stopped briefly on the Oscars, not that I care about their opinion but nothing else was on so I watched for a few minutes. I was just in time to catch best actor and see Jamie Foxx win for Ray. Was a little disappointed that Don Cheadle didn’t win for Hotel Rwanda, looks like the academy could care less about Rwanda like the rest of the world did in ‘94. Anyway back to what I was trying to talk about, and that was during a commercial break there was a commercial that had some mock award ceremony giving away different awards. The commercial was paid for by the teachers association of BC and was basically giving awards to Gordon Campbell for cutting our educational system. I think the last award was something like “Million Dollar Babies, because if you’re not one good luck in trying to get an education in this province.” Anyway I thought it was a great well timed ad.

So Lemieux speaks out against the players misleading him into thinking there would be a deal on that dark Saturday and the ducks have been sold for the same price they had to pay to enter the NHL. Meh, when will the NHL just die. I mean I don’t want to hear anymore stories from the NHL anymore unless it is, “Deal reach”. I really can’t wait to see the Flyers in action, they have some much talent that is on the verge of starting, it is exciting times. Also I think it is about time I go to a WHL game. Even if I have to drag either Lorne and Bernie to it and pay for their damn tickets.

So tomorrow night I get to attend a YES reunion. YES being the Youth Employment Strategy, those wonderful tax dollar givers that sent me off to Africa. Well hopefully the food and drink are good.

Stefan

9:08 AM, Monday 28 February 2005

Well, Klopp, as much as I’d love to see the Academy make a nice political statement, the award was for best acting performance, not most politically important performance. Based upon that criteria, this award could have been predicted six months because appently Jamie Foxx is just uncanny as Ray Charles. Also, the fact that you even took time to mention an award show in a post is hilarious because it’s trying to quantify a subjective artistic experience. Who cares? It’s a bit different with a sports award or something because you can quantify a sporting acheivement.

As for the ad, sounds like that’s a pretty good one. Not really being around a TV I’ll probably never get to see it. I love how all of the Lower Mainland MLAs are all up in arms over the mismanagement and corruption in the Fraser Health Authority. Wait a minute! Weren’t they the ones that created the Fraser Health Authority in the first place? That would be like a chef baking a bunch of pies, telling you for years how great his pies are and then suddenly saying the ingredients in these pies are all rotten.

I can’t believe you have dragged those guys to a game yet. It’s a good, cheap time. Why not? Are they that lazy? If they miss hockey so bad, why don’t they friggin’ watch a $15 game? As for the lockout, whatever. I mean, I’l always be scanning the newswires and looking for new developments just because I’m a dedicated fan, but I also don’t really care which side ‘wins’ or who screwed who. I just want it over. As for Anaheim, I thought that was hilarious. I hope lots more american teams get devalued and/or folded. Just one more step on the path to the destruction of hockey in the United States, which I am all for!

A Yes reunion? That’s awesome! I hope Rick Wakeman does one of his awesome synthesizer solos! ‘Owner Of A Lonely Heart’, rock on! Oh, wait, not that ‘Yes’. Are you looking forward to it, or is it just going through the motions out of some obligation towards them?

Kyle

8:48 PM, Tuesday 1 March 2005

Kusch,

I guess I really can’t compare Foxx’s performance to Cheadle’s as I have not seen Ray yet. However I will say this, Cheadle did an amazing job, and I am not just saying this because of the movie, he really hit it perfectly.

What is this about the Fraser Health Authority? Must be out of the loop, I didn’t hear anything about this. Is this the Liberal MLA’s who are talking about all the problems with it, or the local guys here in the Vancouver city council. What exactly is the Fraser Health Authority suppose to do?

Yeah it is pretty sad I haven’t been able to get them out to a game. Actually I kind of gave up after nobody was remotely interested in going to the all star game. That was the epitome of lameness, and when I decided I would stop with the invites. Maybe I will pick a Rockets or a Ice game and try once again. Did you read the story about Clarke saying Goodenow has ruined the game of hockey for everyone?

So the reunion was really excellent. There was over 100 people there, lots of free wine, great finger food and some interesting conversation with fellow interns. I really had a great time, plus I got to see a few people who I did pre-departure training with. It is interesting to hear all the different stories and compare with your own and how easy it is to relate. Makes me realize how small this world is and how the same we all.

Have you ever watched the TV show Corner Gas? I finally watched a full episode the other day and laughed my ass of. This show is basically the Canadian version of Seinfeld, very very funny. I think I might start tuning into it more often.

Ohh and by the way watch out for the hippos up in Prince George, I hear they can be a bit dangerous: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=515&e=1&u=/ap/20050302/ap_on_re_af/hippo_attack

Stefan

10:41 AM, Wednesday 2 March 2005

Put it this way: Jamie Foxx wore prosthetic eyelids so as to actually make himself blind for the movie filming. Plus he sang, not lipsynced. But it’s all opinion. And basically anyone who even gets considered for a nomination does an amazing job.

You haven’t heard about all the shit going on at the FHA? The fact that people are dying because they’re turned away from acute care b eds, or that there’s a disproportionate amount of infections amoung women with C-sections, or that the recently-fired CEO has been throwing $100,000 office parties at taxpayer expense?

I still can’t believe that those FUCKING LOSERS passed up the Top Prospects game. How the hell do they even call themselves hockey fans? Call them what they are: opportunists! Remember when the Canucks sucked and Lorne ‘didn’t really follow hockey?’ I wonder what Bernie would do if Colorado started sucking?

Did you read the story where Clarke was the Philly GM for fifty years and never won a championship and the team never progressed with all the money in the world but somehow he kept his job because Ed Snider’s dick is in his mouth? Again, who cares what people say at this point, it’s coming out of bias, anger and spite and none of it is constructive. It’s only funny because you get to watch the same slow-motion train wreck get replayed over and over again. Not that I’m not a Clarke fan, at least he says what he thinks. I really liked how he brought attention to the plight of Canadian teams instead of southern US expansion markets. And for having nice dentures. And for sta nding up to Karl Lindros. But he does a lot of dumb shit too, like with Roger Neilson. Hard to get a read on the guy.

Well, it’s cool that you got to meet up with all your old friends, stuff like that is always fun. ‘and how the same we all.’ Truer words have never been.

As for me, it’s an interesting time ahead. Next weekend is the Western Geographers Conference in Lethbridge, a 13-hour bus ride. There’s 24 of us renting a bus for the trip so it’ll have that road trip mentality. It’ll be good. The week after that will be a return visit to the Upper Fraser, first time in five years and a good way to get reintroduced to my case study area.

I watched the very first episode of Corner Gas last year and was hooked. It’s fucking hilarious! ‘Oh, no, marijuana! Next thing you know we’ll be listening to that crazy jazz music.’ Or ‘Where do Eskimos go to the bathroom in an igloo?’ ‘Inuit. The proper term is ‘Inuit”. ‘Okay, where do Eskimos go to the bathroom in an Inuit?’

Ah, stories about stupid dead people are always funny.

Kyle

10:42 PM, Wednesday 2 March 2005

So I just watched a home video I took from my trip to Italy and France when I was like 15-16. Where you in my class when I showed it at highschool? It is too funny. I think I must have said beautiful about 100 times. “Look at that beautiful CHURCH!”. What a dork I was, pudgy, with braces, all I really needed more was a pair of glasses. However you could see the beginnings of my long hair in the video. Very very funny stuff. In all actuality though I did see some amazing things during that trip. Captured on video over 10,000 years of civilization in a little under 2 hours. HA

The Flyers have not won a cup yet but they are close. With the roster they have now and the new talent working through the system they are going to be pretty amazing soon. I just hope they can hold onto their junior talent and don’t end up trading it away for 40 year olds at the trade deadline (Oates).

All the way out to Lethbridge hey Kyle? that is a long journey, is there going to be booze consumed on that bus trip? I think you should eat some pot brownies and go crazy, let your colleages deal with you then! oh boy. The upper Fraser hey? who lives there? who were the original settlers? what type of people are they?

Headline today “Bush won’t call Martin”. When the fuck has he EVER called Martin, doesn’t the press realize that it is a long distance phone call? That would require Bush to be able to enter 10 digits consecutively into a telephone; that won’t happen soon. In all seriousness tough before the missile defense decision Bush and Martin were not talking on the phone, so why would people expect any different. A state of the media we have these days.

What do you think about the Federal Government and the Ontario Government putting down 435 million dollars towards upgrading plants and funding research? The final clutches at jobs that are flying south to Mexico maybe?

Peacekeepers were killed in Congo, so they decided to fight back, took out their assault helicopter and gunned downed 60 rebels. I am just at the part in Shake Hands With the Devil were 10 Belgians where slaughtered in Rwanda. History Repeats itself, and it seems that it repeats now on faster and faster intervals. What used to be a cycle of 100 years is now 10, go figure.

Stefan

9:37 AM, Thursday 3 March 2005

Oh, yes, I very much remember watching that video in Hobson’s class. ‘And there’s Mom!’ ‘Hello, Stefan,’ she says like she’s embarrassed you just put her on camera. ‘And there’s the field where Paris St. Germain plays!’ Yeah, you were a funny looking kid back then. Too bad you weren’t wearing your 1994 BC Lions shirt! I forgot just how fucked your teeth were back in Grade 8. Who’d have guessed you’d become this tall gangly guy? And long hair really doesn’t work for you, you looked like a deformed Steve Nash. Which reminds me, I really need to get a haircut tomorrow. This eight loss is really disorienting. I haven’t been this skinny since about Grade 7. I forgot that I actually had ribs. Because I have that Kusch barrel chest like the rest of my family, it actually looks like I have upper-body development now-until I take off my shirt. Then it looks like I could be in one of those Save The Children ads.

As Philly is one of the American teams I have a soft spot for (San Jose, Boston, the Isles), it would be really cool to see them keep that young team together and watch them develop into a dominant team. And Adam Oates wasn’t a bad acquisition. It’s just that FIVE players for Adam Oates was dumb, especially when he was a free agent three months later. Oh, well, at least Clarke won’t be getting rid of his goalie again this year. Mind you, with all of this animosity between players and execs and Esche being a player’s rep and all…

Since we’re all adults on this trip, I bet there will be some booze at night once the main conference is done. But not for teetotalling Kyle. Plus, there is a disproportionate estrogen content on this trip which means if anyone does get drunk it’ll probably be off of Sour Puss or something lame like that. Yeah, just show up at the conference on mescaline or something. Turn into Fear and Loathing in Southern Alberta. Hey, the trip means more brochures, anyway.

The Upper Fraser (http://web.unbc.ca/upperfraser/) is a region consisting of 34 communities that grew up as rail sidings. The entire region is completely forestry dependent and has been bypassed completely by the Yellowhead highway. Other than McBride, the communities are rapidly dying out (only 14 are left). So it’s important to research that area now while there’s still actual people there. Most residents are elderly hangers-on and back-to-the-landers at this point. You can check out some cool photos on the website. My actual area of study is geographic modeling of migration patterns within the region. Badically I’m looking at different ethnic groups and why they moved to the area and moved around the area. It’ll mean lots of interviews with people this summer.

CanWest Global likes American policy because they want it implemented in Canada so they can make more money via deregulation. Because Global is so prevalent a media force, whenever they make up some bullshit story everyone else will pick up on it. Ever since Bush got into office he’s ignored Canada, so why should we care if he’s still ignoring us? It’s probably a good thing because the only countries he pays attention to are the ones he blows up.

I think that we could have saved a lot of miney and a lot of jobs if we hadn’t signed onto such a stupid deal as NAFTA in the first place.

In today’s age of mass communication, culture accelerates at a much faster pace. This is why we have such a huge generation gap. This is why countries rise and fall so quickly. This is why economic booms and recessions happen so quickly. And this is why we have really, really short memories and forget our mistakes so quickly. Where were these peacekeepers from?

Well, the Nakusp name change debate has reached the national media. It was all over CBC radio yesterday. Unfortunately I missed the feature in-depth report when I was teaching yesterday but I guess they talked to one girl who said, ‘It’s just the old people who are afraid of change’ and then they immediately played clips from three young people who were dead set against it. ‘Why don’t they call it Nakusp Logging then, it’s more accurate!’ So hopefully that report educated a few people.

Kyle

11:21 PM, Thursday 3 March 2005

If I would have been wearing my 1994 grey cup champions, or wait better yet Property of BC Lions tshirt that would have topped it. The Kamloops Blazers hat was just as well however. “Beauuuuutiful CHURCH!” oh boy.

Yeah you have been getting skinner kusch, you finally starting to look like your pops now? grow some upper body strength, then you will be picking up the ladies. Seeing that your bus trip will be with a bunch of women, I think it is then you can make your move. Must be a few single girls going to lethbridge, you can get all crazy with your herbal tea.

I think the long term effects of NAFTA are finally being realized now. We have an economy that is almost completely dependant on our southern neighbors, and a continual push for integration. What better way to take over a country, start with economic dependance, then work on cultural assimilation, then after a while a full elimination of borders will seem like a fitting idea.

Exactly why the CBC is so crucial to Canada, it is not being governed by big money. I think I have said it before but I will say it again, there are certain things that despite sometimes being wasteful or not financially smart, need to be in public hands and not be governed by how good a quarter it is having. Things like health care, education, social services, fire and police protection, the courts, government, etc. These programs were put into place to look after the people no matter how rich a poor a person is, so that we are all just simply people of this land who are all looked upon under the same light, rather than having a privelaged few and a majority of have nots. The further the US slides into this realm the hard they will fall. I think eventually their will be a revolution, people will wake up and realized the dream is dead, they were being deceived, and they will revolt. Granted I think things will get a lot worse before things will get better…

What if Billy Joel never sang uptown girl? Would she still be living in her uptown world?

Stefan

7:24 AM, Friday 4 March 2005

Actually, the funniest thing, never mind the braces or the pudge, was when you started dropping all of that weight and gained it back in hair. When you came back from summer for Grade 11, that was priceless. Shoulder-length and everything! After about two weekes you got the hint and chopped it off. A close second are the frosted blond tips from when you first moved to Vancouver. I don’t know if you remember from Aunt Flo’s Sunday School my wonderful spiked hair. I’m sure you remember my old Coke bottles that covered up half my face.

Herbal tea? Are you telling me to dose them? That’s horrible! Leave it to tolerant, worldly Klopp to recommend sexual assault! Seriously, I already know a lot of people on that trip. All of them are involved. This school is amazing for the lack of single people there are.

NAFTA is just one link in a long chain of US manifest destiny. It’s amazing we’ve held out this long. I am hoping that more people will realize in the next few months the damage NAFTA has caused and and lobby for its dissolution.

One of the things that has changed in the last thirty years is that government believe it should be run like a business instead of as a service provider. While it’s good to be fiscally responsible, ethics and the desire of the populace must be taken into account as well. Business ‘ethics’ would see a completely market economy and citizens worried more about keepig what they have rather than trying to change things for the better. That would ultimately lead to something like Bismarck-era Germany, a capitalist monarchial dictatorship.

Still a uptown girl? Hard to say. But I’m certain Billy Joel would still be a downtown man (that’s what I am).

Kyle

10:56 AM, Saturday 5 March 2005

Yeah I chopped off the hair not because I really wanted to but because I was facing pressures that my grad photos would look stupid a few years after then. So I gave into the pressure, had my hair chopped down. I was a bit like Samson actually the longer my hair grew the taller I got. While Samson grew muscles when his hair grew I just got taller… I do remember the wonderful days at Flo’s Sunday School. You, Jen and Me. You had the spiked hair and over 4 watches on your arms. You were definitly a strange one I thought. Come grade 8 I was like “Hey I know that wierdo kid”. That was the start of my rise to #2 on the friend list… I never cracked # 1 did I? poor me…

Herbal tea is what you can drink, I wasn’t suggesting you drug these woman, just woo them with your worldlyness. ha

I used to have a cat named bismark, not sure if we named him after the ship or the man. I do remember being in Germany though when I was a kid and we hiked up to the top of this hill and there was this big statue of a leader on a horse and my dad asked me “Stefan who is this person?” and I replied “Well that is Bismark of course!”. My Uncle was so amazed, little did he know about my cat…

Anyway I think I am sick, no wait I know I am sick. My head all day yesterday and today has been floated off all disconnected. My body is starting to ache now, at least my sniffles are gone. Hopefully this won’t last…

Stefan

11:39 AM, Saturday 5 March 2005

Well this will be one of the quicker replies yet since I’m here at school working on my third thesis proposal draft. Dr. Halseth is brilliant but really demanding as a supervisor. It’s a good thing, though, because it means that my learing curve is really steep and when I’m done I’ll be really good at whatever it is I wind up doing. I’d much rather have someone like Greg keeping me on task all the time because it means it don’t waste much time. Plus he’s got this funny sardonic wit so that even when he’s disspointed in something I did or didn’t do it goes over well. Nothing wrong with a guy that makes you work hard.

Good to see our peer pressure worked. In retrospect you must admit the hair was quite funny. As for the friend list, the only explanation I can have for it looking back on it was that I have an insatiable need to quantify things and rank things. Since I was never big enough to play sports, I had to make up for it by learning everything I could about them, and out of that came a need to turn everything into a competition, even if was just for my own personal amusement. By about the end of Grade 8 I think I realized how incredibly petty it was to rank your friends on a daily basis (the funny thing was that for a while I got other people to start doing it, too!). Now I’ve just got ‘people I know’, ‘friends’ and ‘really good friends’ just like anyone else. It would be so weird now to actually try to pick people over other people. Chalk it up to being a stupid 12-year-old, I guess.

Do you remember anything about Sunday School other than having to dress up and sit there? I know I don’t except for the fact that we had to think of stuff to pray for.

Everyone’s been sick up here at UNBC, too. Just when you think you’re going to die you wake up the next day and you’re fine except for a really runny nose. Hopefully, that’s all this is. I’ll start us off again tomorrow night!

Kyle