Epoch
The beginning of a distinctive period in the history of anything
Wasted Hours
0394 days
by Aaron Wrotkowski
in Journal
Thoughtless beat
You pray on the shadows
You thought you wanted found
Dream of machines to change our past
But could we do it right?
If we could make time machines reality
Didn’t we do it right?
Careless beat
You’ve awaken the shadows
That never wanted to be found
The worst of times were wasted hours
Doing nothing, nowhere with nobody
The best of times were wasted hours
Doing nothing, nowhere with everybody
Ruthless beat
Here come the shadows
Who lay their claim to the found
Ambition closed in countless locks
My fingers could be the key
One lock keeps them from turning
That one lock is me
Honest beat
Return the shadows
What once was lost is still lost.
I’m going hungry
0423 days
Yesterday, the first instalment of the Science Fiction trilogy The Hunger Games debuted in theatres. I’m sure we’ll hear this adaption was a smashing success as anyone with a connection to the outside world beyond their own town heard about the long lineups and excited fanbase that flocked on opening day.
What has come out of this is an interesting reaction which defines the opinions of both the Internet collective and the male collective when it comes to literature and film. However, I should start by discussing the film. I haven’t seen it but I’ve read quite a few reviews and have seen the replies of said reviews. It should be noted to fans of the books to stop saying, “Well, if you read the book…” when someone mentions a glaring plothole in the film. Having to read a book to understand what you see on screen is a bad thing. I should be able to watch a movie without having read the book and understand everything I need to. Also, understand that the biggest criticisms to the current film are placed in pacing, length and action scene quality. These are not knocks on the book but on film merits themselves. You don’t have to defend everything about it. Or maybe you do, since the biggest criticism to it is unfair. (more…)
Songs for February 14
0462 days
by Aaron Wrotkowski
in Music
For the Lovers:
For the Haters:
For the Cheaters:
For the Self Lovers:
For the Broken Hearted:
For the Horny:
For the Ones That Don’t Know Better:
For the Ones that Fall for the wrong person:
For the ladies:
For the Boys:
For you:
For me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0q_dlPjJnU
The 10 Songs that defined my 2011
0517 days
Oh, it’s that time of year. When my blog gets dusted off for lists. A music list is difficult for me. I’m just starting to get back into hunting music down, something I lost when I left CJAM as a contributing DJ. Finding music made in 2011 that I loved is extremely difficult to narrow down and would be an unfair list to speak about my musical experience in 2011. Instead, I have here a list of the music that defined my 2011. Some of the songs are my favourites, and I went one per artist to not clog it up with the Naked and Famous. Some of these songs represent attitudes, but all of them should be listened to. Here we go!
Innerpartysystem – Not Getting Any Better
Oh IPS, you break my heart. First you help open the year for me with “American Trash”, which prepared me for the band taking a more electronic approach over a rock/industrial approach. Then you release the EP which had some great songs and was going in a good direction and then… you break up. “It’s not getting any better” is not a perfect track but it would have been perfected on an LP. Or not. Who knows anymore. IPS are still great and I gab at one of them on Twitter once in a while. I guess that’s a consolation prize. First half of my year is defined by IPS.
Foster the People – Helena Beat
Foster the People pretty much replaced MGMT for a lot of people, including myself. I mean, I still like MGMT and I think they got some undeserved flack but when it comes to an electronic band with pop appeal that’s still really good, Foster is it. While “Pumped Up Kicks” became an anthem for some, it was “Helena Beat” for me. Everything about it reminds me of the LooP in Windsor. Anyone who has been there knows that the “poison” is a Double Mudd (and/or Pure Mudd) and it’s my favourite drink on a Saturday night. Everything about this songs reminds me of my favourite place to be at. How can it not define my year?
Trent Reznor and Karen O – Immigrant Song
20 years from now, when people discuss “Movie Trailers as art” they will look at The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. There is a distinct possibility that the trailer could honestly be better than the film. Let that stew in your head for a minute. A major reason why is this song by Trent Reznor with Karen O, obviously covering Led Zeppelin. The song is absolutely perfect, and in completed form (which just came out in December), you realize it could very well be one of the greatest covers ever made. It’s pure sex. That trailer made me buy books. Defining moment of 2011 cross culture power.
Horse Feathers – Heathen’s Kiss
I would have never heard this song if it wasn’t for the first episode of the second season of Justified. It plays in the end like how songs tend to typically play on other shows but Justified seems to only do this on rare occasion. For this occasion it worked. This is the definition of “haunting”. Oh, and watch Justified. First season is on Netflix, buy the second season and start watching the third season in January.
The Suicide of Western Culture – this is the last time I shake your hand
Barely anyone has heard of these guys. When you have less than 2,000 views on youtube, you’re not exactly known. I hope that changes. I think these guys could have a Daft Punk-esque career. I know that’s a high height to reach but there’s something about their music that weaves such an eclectic tapestry. This is the music you think to. This is the music you question your path in life to. It’s this feeling of discovery and contemplation why this defines my 2011.
Thieves Like Us – Shyness
I’ve gone through a real 80s kick. I never used to like the 80s but I guess I was always meant to face the observation that it is a part of my makeup. It’s a culture and lifestyle I grew up during instead of grew up in. It will always appeal to me on a subconscious level. This understand works with a song like “Shyness” by Thieves Like Us. This song is very 80s and innocent. I think the title states something that has followed me throughout my life and I think I’m finally getting beyond. I don’t keep my feelings quiet. I’m acting on them now. It’ll make for a better 2012.
Teeel – Galilean Moons
Honestly, my music this year came from two sources primarily: Arspoetica and the Bytown Boozer. Arspoetica loves to pass music to me and her Tumblr has helped me find some great new artists, even when it’s not the artists she’s posted. I’ll sometimes hear a song, shrug, look them up on Wiki or on google and find similar artists and go exploring. The same goes with the Bytown Boozer. There’s a thread on Hockeybroads.com where we just randomly post music and his tracks tend to fail under my taste. Where Teeel is important is because through Tumblr I posted the track and mentioned Boozer. Teeel’s official Twitter ended up replying to the post asking what that was. If this doesn’t define my year for social media, nothing does.
The Arkells – Kiss Cam
I love the Arkells. As I drift deeper into a sea of electric beats, the Arkells keeps me grounded with straight up Canadian rock with a Motown twist. “Kiss Cam” is catchy and captures that feeling of “new love” where you’re stupid and you know it. It’s the kind of song you know later you’re gonna get hurt but it’s okay when you can be in that small moment for a little longer. I think everyone has had that feeling this year, even if you stayed with your man/woman/World of Warcraft.
Rich Aucoin – It
This is a late entry to the list from an artist I only know about due to Picnicface (Aucoin does their intro and did the music for the Roller Town film they tried to make). “It” is an amazing song. It’s epic, it’s beautiful and it’s catchy. It’s the kind of song you want to shout at the top of your lungs without feeling guilty. Who should with a video like that? First time I’ve ever impulse purchased a record from an artist I barely knew just based on that song (and unfortunately, the record is really just an extended EP but… it went to a good cause).
The Naked and Famous – Eyes
The Naked and Famous are pretty much filling the void of IPS breaking up. It was around the same time I found out about the news that I started getting into these Zealanders. “Passive Me, Aggressive You” is likely one of my favourite records ever and “Eyes” is my favourite track in a slew of amazing songs. I need to see these guys live. I missed IPS and I won’t let that happen again. If one artist defined my 2011, at least the second half, it’s Naked and Famous.
Conservatives, a definition by C.C.C.P.
0531 days
I want to make it clear that I did not write this. This was written on Something Awful forums by the poster C.C.C.P. You can find the page it was on here. I thought this was good enough to those who do not own a Something Awful account could read, because it’s so bloody good I wish I wrote it.
Conservatives (by which I mean the OORAH USA USA USA IF’N YOU DONT LIKE IT GIIIIIIIIIIIIT OUT true believer dittoheads, not the William F Buckley debonair intellectual type) all tend to be moral absolutist authoritarians.
What this means, in application, is that they have an extremely rigid worldview wherein everything they believe in is inherently, inerrantly good and anything different is evil. You or I might look at, say, someone of the Hindu faith and say “Their belief system isn’t inherently bad, it’s just different than mine”. Same with those who follow Islam, Judaism, whatever. To a conservative, no, they are different and that is BAD and they are a Bad Person for being different. They should conform so that they’ll be Good. What is “Good”? Well, the exact, to the letter worldview held by the conservative himself, of course!
Once one accepts this rather simple and incredibly obvious fact about conservative thought, a lot of the weird shit they do makes a whole lot more sense and one tends to be less gobsmacked at conservative behavior when it arises, such as in the case of Victoria Jackson.
Take, for example, the hilarious way that conservatives like to call their opponents liberal nazi commie socialists. Now, to a reasonable person, that’s like trying to insult someone by calling them a fat, thin, average sized person; they are terms that are, quite literally in some cases, mutually exclusive. For example, Hitler (a fascist) overthrew the Weimer Republic (a liberal democracy) and then threw undesirables (including socialists and communists) in the ovens.
To a conservative, though, it makes perfect sense. Liberals are bad. Fascists are bad. Communists and socialists are bad. They do not mean to imply that Obama, for example, simultaneously follows the philosophies of Marx, Mussolini and David Lloyd George. They simply mean that he is a bad, bad, bad, bad person. Why is he a bad person? Because he’s a liberal, obviously! And liberals are bad!
It’s a philosophy bookended by two bookends that both say “see other bookend”.
Another example, let’s look at Fox News and how they treat liberal guests. I’m sure it’s news to exactly no one that conservatives love to throw huge fits about how they’re bullied by the media. Why, then, do they cheer when Fox (the media) bullies liberals?
Well, because liberals are Bad People. What do you do to Bad People? You treat them with contempt and condescension. Because they are Bad. It’s very unfair for the media to treat Good People that way. After all, they are Good!
As a third and final example. Let us look at racism, the term. Not racism the concept, but simply the term itself. Conservatives have been masters at redefining words. They have made liberal mean the same thing as fascist mean the same thing as communist. Liberals however, to their credit, HAVE managed to demonize the word “racist” to the extent that even conservatives have added it to their ever growing list of “words that are synonyms of “bad”". Hence the kneejerk conservative reaction to label liberals as the REAL racists. Because racist means Bad. And liberals are Bad People, ergo, by definition, they are racist.
And notice I said “racism the term, not racism the concept”. That is because conservatives are routinely racist as SHIT. They will dogwhistle to the moon and back about 
illegal immigrants (mexicans). They will shit all over the welfare state (with the implication that it isn’t fair for your tax dollars to go towards supporting “those people”… y’know, “THOSE people” (blacks)). They will guffaw at a song called Barack the Magic Negro. They’ll accuse a decorated General and former Secretary of State of only voting for Obama because they’re both black. They’ll spend hours photoshopping KFC buckets onto pictures of the first family, or photoshopping chimps in place of the two first daughters.
But liberals are the real racists. Because racist means Bad and liberals are Bad People.
And lest you think this is me drawing conclusions where conclusions don’t exist, there is plenty of evidence of conservatives trying to shape language in this exact way. Lee Atwater (anonymously at the time) talked at length about how conservatives shaped “I hate niggers” into “States Rights!”. There’s a conservative pollster right now that’s trying to redefine the word “Orwellian” to mean “steadfast, not ambiguous, willing to expose evil where it exists” instead of it’s current definition of “ironically enough, the exact thing that the conservative pollster is trying to do”.
Why the proposed conferences work
0533 days
by Aaron Wrotkowski
in Hockey
Did the NHL get it right?
Funny enough, even if they did, this didn’t stop people from immediately complaining about the proposed conferences that was displayed on CBC’s Hotstove on Saturday night. It’s not that I don’t blame people since the last suggestions of conference re-alignment had some ridiculous proposals. Not to mention we just got done hearing Mike Milbury, the Shoemaster himself proclaim diving to be worse than head injuries in the game of hockey. With all of the precautions about head injuries and post-concussion syndrome occurring to current players, anyone think we should do some tests on former players?
Ahem. Anyway.
The proposed conferences work. They prepare for the future while supporting the present. These four conferences will allow for every team to play every other team and allow the opportunity for smarter travelling throughout the league. No longer will we have oddities like Minnesota teams having to play on the Pacific for half of their schedule or Washington being separated by their Patrick Division brothers. Some people do have some problems with the conference proposal and I hope I’ll address everything. (more…)
John Cena is already a heel
0542 days
Epoch: Wrestling posts will now be found on The Ring Crew Show
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
— Bernard of Clairvaux
The first thought for any professional wrestling fan reading this quote would be the Straight Edge Society. CM Punk’s heel stable running for a year was all about taking the straight edge lifestyle and twisting it into a corrupt, cultist ideal. It was taking it to the extremes that ensured the fans never considered the idea of being alcohol or drug free would be a good thing and even did it during a time when the WWE has been trying to clean up their side of the business of recreational and enhancement drugs. The character allowed the casual WWE fan to scoff at CM Punk and his band of followers while also allowing the smarks of the crowd to still love Punk and his ideals. By doing this, the small minority of fans never drew away from the fact the majority of the crowd was repulsed by them.
It isn’t very difficult to see what I would mean correlating Bernard of Clairvaux’ quote with John Cena. Cena is the most well intentioned wrestler in the WWE. He has ideals. He has values. He has tenets that he wishes his fans to follow. John Cena has been a man of principle for his run as the ace of World Wrestling Entertainment since 2005. But what is his road to hell? (more…)
Arkells – Michigan Left – Lyrics
0579 days
by Aaron Wrotkowski
in Music
I just recently purchased the Arkell’s record, “Michigan Left”. I’m a huge supporter of the band and noticed the web is a bit thin on lyrics so I’ve decided to post the lyrics myself from the CD booklet. Enjoy!
Arkells – Agent Zero
0579 days
by Aaron Wrotkowski
in Music
I just recently purchased the Arkell’s record, “Michigan Left”. I’m a huge supporter of the band and noticed the web is a bit thin on lyrics so I’ve decided to post the lyrics myself from the CD booklet. Enjoy!
Agent Zero I used to find a little peace in the lay up line. When I start sweating, when I start to unwind. I used to find a little peace under the bright lights. When I start sweating, I start to unwind. A little came to me in 1985. Got in the car, started to drive. We headed west, put Overtown behind. Dad was looking for a Hollywood sign. There was a time I could only impress you. You can tell by now, I'm only guessing. They kept asking me to describe the logic that was running through my mind. Ali had Cossell through hard times, but Wilbon, on this one, had to decline. There was a time I could only impress you, you could tell by now I'm only guessing. If you're saying the clocks run down, and the red light's glowing. If your mind's made up, then I'll get going. Turn all the lights down low.
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