April 2006 Archives

It was Josh's twenteenth birthday party on Friday night. He decided it was time for use to mature, so he held his party at a really swanky Jazz Bar and Restaurant: Alley Catz.

Earlier tonight Sarah and I had our second double date with Adam and Becky. After the Mexicali Rosa's fiasco, we decided to eat at Boston Pizza before enjoying the amazing movie that is Stick It. I recommend it to people who enjoy really catty girls, really pretty boys, and anyone else who doesn't have a stick up their ass.

Sure the movie is super cheesy for almost the whole thing, but it's the first movie to come out in a long time that's just fun. No stupid impossible mission that some tool has to do to save his loved one, and no cuddly animals who have to find their way home; just a lot of really dumb crazy fun girls. Now you see why I can relate.

I'm not going to school ever again.

So I'm going to kill myself.

And my last wish is to touch Dougie.

nekkid.

So I'm going to LA with Sarah.

PEACE OUT.

The main reason The Mike Haddad Show takes long to load because of the picture adventures. For every picture adventure, there is about an addition 30 second load time for users on a 56k connection. So, get a better connection.

Much love,
Mike

So here's the deal. I have a blog, ready to go. I am just in no mood to put the effort into having it appear right now. I've spent the better part of the last two days fiddling with some css and html trying to make everything I want happen. Only it's not happening, and I'm getting pissed off. So if you hear anything smashing, it was probably me.

I wanted to try something new as a quick way to summarize all my weekend. I've decided that I don't like this format though, so you probably won't see it again unless I'm in a really good mood, a really bad mood, or really desperate to draw attention to myself.

So I may have figured out why Adam's blogs do so well. It's not just that he's cold and bitter, and hates everyone; it's beyond the fact that he recounts various tales of excitement and intrigue from his hyper-active, rambunctious youth. It's the fact that he consistently makes fun of my personality traits and past decisions. What a jerkface.

Over the past few weeks I've found myself agitated by little things. The problem with these little things is that not one single evernt or person pisses me off enough to give me reason to vent my frustrations. That is of course until one person happens to do something to push me over the top, allowing me to vent all my frustrations on that poor soul. Or even worse, when someone happens to be around when I reach that point and I take it out on them just because they're there. I'm a great person like that.

So I thought long and hard about it until I came up with this. Inspired by a Seinfeld episode I can hardly remember, I present to you the very first Airing of Grievances. At first I was thinking about following a format: one thing about myself, one thing about a person or thing, and one about people in general. That would have gone well for all of five minutes.

I realized I didn't want to be obliged to admit all my faults to the whole world. Better to admit it silently and try to fix it, only mentioning major, amusing or major-ly amusing problems. Second was the fact that all the things that I could think of that bothered me about one person were usually traits of an easily stereotyped group of people. Pointing on person out using traits from a whole group of people is just asking for trouble in the form of that person showing up at your house with one million punches for your face. So instead I'm going to just put whatever I want to out there, and work from there.

I don't think I'm ever going to drink again. Thanks to Mel for this. She should get big hugs.

Like any adventure, we started the day with a trip to visit Kashmir and Josephine. They are our most favourite Wendy's ladies. My close seconds are Hong and Myrna, because they remind me of Lucy Liu and my grandma respectively.

Nancy and I sat off to have an adventure. We documented most of the havoc that we wreaked down upon the land. By documented, I mean we took way too many pictures.

For those interested, it turns out my email from Stephanie wasn't spam after all. As Natasha and then Eugene pointed out, Mike Haddad seems to be a famous author and/or critic of some sort. Which leads me to wonder: (1) if I can have his pay cheque, and (2) if displaying an email that I thought was spam will get me in trouble due to the sharing of personal information? Oh well.

So today I was angry. It should have been obvious by the tone of my words - tone of my words being similar to the cut of my jib. I spent most of the day moping and solidifying the belief that I really am an angsty, whiney brat in the minds of far too many people. In fact, I'm surprised I didn't completely and totally ruin dinner with Sarah and Jeremy. In fact, I'd like to take a minute to say we spent most of the dinner laughing to the point where pop came out of my nose once or three times.

So it didn't help things later in the night when I saw a brand new 2006 Honda Civic EX pull off my old street behind me as I drove Sarah home. I turned to her and said "I bet you that's my brother and my dad, and I think I'm going to throw up." It wasn't sometimes I needed after all the bad mood I had stormed through during the day. Of course, it was my dad and my brother in the Civic. This is because the universe hates me.

I'm surprised that something didn’t explode out of my ears as I got home. I went up to my room to sulk. I was shaking so much I felt dizzy. I had trouble walking down the stairs when my brother and dad got home and I was summoned to the car. I got over it as soon as I got out of the driveway though; thank gods I go through mood swings. 30 minutes later I was at the intersection of Neyagawa and Dundas stalling. It took me four sets of lights before I made it through. Yes ladies and gentlemen, the government trusts me in this thing. Now if only I could too.

So every once and a while my parents do something that grants me a greater understand of the inner workings of their minds. Today is one of those days. Today is the day that my family finally gets it replacement for the much loved and equally hated Ugly Green Van, the yet to be nicknamed 2006 Honda Civic EX. This is the reason that I've ruined my knee and sanity over the last two weeks attempting to learn how to drive stick. Today was the glorious reward for my relatively successful driving lessons. I was going to take the car around much of the abandoned suburbia that is Oakville putting what I've learned to actual use, and even try to hill start. Or at least that's what I had planned.

When I got home earlier my mom told me that my dad was going to take the new car to his meeting tonight, all night, effectively ruining my plans to enjoy life once again. This lead me to do two things, the first being to attempt to control my frustration lest my brain explode all over the living room creating a not so fun mess to clean up afterwards. The second was to go upstairs and, like a true angsty teenager, contemplate why my parents are jerkfaces.

According to the mother, the father-figure doesn't want me to be near the car until he's there with me. This effectively proves that my parents don't feel I'm capable of doing anything myself. It only makes me wonder why they aren't hounding me every second for information about my school applications, my plans for alternative part-time work, and just checking in to make sure I remembered to keep breathing. It also shows that the father-figure probably is going through his midlife crisis. How better to attempt to regain your youth than by pretending to be cool in a Honda Civic?

More than this comments the mother made earlier in the day about me attempting to drive. It was something to the tune of continuing to practice in other people's cars so I don't fuck this one up. This is when the big fuck you comes in. For the last many number of years, my parents have enjoyed pointing out a lack of respect for personal property. I don't respect their property, my brother doesn't respect their property, our friends don't respect their property, and those woodland creatures REALLY don't respect their property what with all the walking on their grass, leaving prints in their snow during the winter. So of course, in a fashion that only two people as well versed in the art of protecting their private property could, they want me to fuck someone else's car up instead of ours. But then, that's what the Great Canadian Dream is about isn't it?

I was in a bad mood, so I decided to browse around the internet. America is going to hell in hand basket, and Morrissey is boycotting Canada because we're cruel for supporting the seal hunt. Someone needs to tell that idiot that most of the seals aren't actually clubbed. Although right now I feel like clubbing someone, so maybe I'll tell him. Then club him.

Chugworth Academy: #244 Oh Shit

For a long time now I've struggled internally about a number of things in my past. The most prominent has been the question "Why did my music taste fucking suck?" I mean, I remember how I would stay up until all hours of the night as I lay in bed pondering this question. A lot of the time in grade 5, we'd randomly be listening to music on CDs or the radio. Everyone would know the songs and all the words to the songs. Meanwhile I'd sit at my desk doodling, or making spaceships out of the pink erasers, or doing my homework and pretending that it didn't bother me that I'd never heard any of these songs before.

I would try so hard too. I wanted nothing more than to learn the lyrics to all these songs that I didn't necessarily enjoy, just so that I too could be a jackass and yell along with everyone else. I remember how happy I felt the summer between grade 5 and grade 7 when I was in Japan. The music they played in the hotel pool was all in English, and all hits that I had tried to learn the lyrics too. Oh and did I learn those lyrics; Lyrics to songs I never heard on the radio. Suddenly it dawns on me: I didn't hear them on the radio, because when you're the oldest kid and you're in grade 5 you have NO SAY on the radio stations. So add one more thing to the list of things my parents did to ruin my social life.

I spent the late hours of last night with Torie making fun of people and wandering around Dominion as if we were high out of our minds trying to find something that cost under $2. One of the topics on the long list of things we talked about was how she has been approached a number of times by people who know me talking about how they always hear about this Torie and they feel like it's her. Well, probably because it is her. After much thought I had decided that it was time to introduce the internet to my friendship with Torie. All I needed was a title.

I thought long and hard about what to title the entry. The title is usually the most important part; it needs to be witty and tell the reader about the entry without giving too much away. There are so many things I could talk about! I mean, it's not as if we don't share our love for Grey Goose over King of the Dancehall but that's too normal for us. And sure, I could always talk about our inside jokes about gay people, but someone might get offended and cry.

So I decided first on the rice crackers. Our love for rice crackers will shine on until the end of time when the only things left are cockroaches and Keith Richards. This love became apparent last night after we devoured what must have been $10 worth of them. From there it was just a hop, skip and a jump to random purchases under $2. Purchases that we happened to make at the same time as the rice cracker purchase. Finally, I decided to make a comment about our racial equality. After all, she is the token black chick and I am a BIG RACIST. Just ask Nancy's dad. He'll tell you how it's a good thing she's black, so I can only love her this much. Otherwise the world might implode around me because the love is just too much to handle.

When I walked into my bathroom earlier today my nostrils were assaulted with what was the disgusting stench of pot. I don't care what you say, pot doesn't smell good ever. Combine that with the fact that is a cheap, boring high, you will get my very strong argument for why I don't smoke it. I also don't like smelling it in my bathroom. Strangely enough, no one smoked in there so I can't figure out why the room decided to smell.

All this brought to mind an incident from the Queen's EMC trip we took in grade 10. We were staying in one of the bigger residences. I think it was Vic Hall. The residence took the shape of a giant X, and due to a horrible booking mix up I got shuffled up four floors and across the building from where everyone else from Loyola was staying. However it wasn't far enough away so that I didn't get to witness the commotion the night they thought someone was smoking pot.

Now that I think about it, it was probably because I wasn't in my room when I was supposed to be that allowed me to experience this. With our group the school had sent a teacher chaperone which meant that her word overruled most of what the EMC counsellors said. So the floor was co-ed all the time, and we spent a lot of time watching movies in the common room or jerking around in each others rooms. That was when counsellors stormed onto our floor banging on doors as part of a room to room search.

"SOMEONE'S SMOKING POT!!" Leave it to Queen's students to be uptight. Sigh. So we watched as they went from room to room until they found the culprit. Innocent little Alyssa had three angry counsellors yelling at her about smoking pot, and getting kicked out, and on and on. Then Alyssa quietly pointed out that she was burning incense, incense that was still visible on her desk and not smoking as they accused. I've never seen people look so stupid in my life. And that's why I couldn't finish yelling at my brother, because I was too busy remembering this and laughing.

So my dad has made it official. We're getting a Honda Civic. I know there's something about an X model, and that it has a body kit, a spoiler and a moon roof. I find moon roofs to be stupid, since they can't open, but they do make the car look bigger and I'm not paying for it, so I won't complain. Apparently the colour is going to be a pearly silver, what ever the hell that means.

My dad and I had a long talk about all the anger surrounding the whole car issue. The other night there was an explosion of emotions on my driveway that sent the neighbourhood cat scurrying off to find cover in the trees lining the upper half of my driveway. Lightning shot back and forth between me and my father. He had woken me up from a nap to show me a yucky silver Civic, then asked my opinion. My opinion was that it was ugly, the same thing I had told him all week. Apparently that was a mistake leading to the aforementioned explosion of emotion and lightning bolts.

So now everything has settled down. Hopefully I'll get the car soon. They have it at the dealership, so there will be no stupid 8 week waiting period. This means I need to start practicing again. Joy.

1. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what my favourite number was, which would tell me when to stop.
2. Ever since that one year I gave up pop for lent, I have a hard time drinking it.
3. Japanese Cuisine is the way to my heart.
4. Actually, anything Japanese is the way to my heart. I think Japanese is the most beautiful language in the world; much more than French. Anyone who says otherwise is probably an ignorant white person, Korean or Chinese.
5. There are 6 pillows on my bed and I feel I need 2 more before I'm set. I like being surrounded by pillows.
6. Before I go to bed I usually fantasize about living in a video game or a fantasy book.
7. Addictions are a part of my life. As a result I try to avoid drugs and alcohol.
8. A serious Starbuck's addiction has just been curbed; they cancelled Cinnamon Dolce Lattes.
9. Textbooks and notebooks fall on a list of things I'm OCD about. There's a reason I have notepads and notebooks all over my desk.
10. I'm very easily annoyed with people. In order, I'm most likely to be annoyed with gays, then lesbians, then everyone else, then Asians.
11. Despite the tendency for people in computers to bootleg music and movies (especially movies), I only bootleg cds that I can't find in stores and porn.
12. People think I hate my exs, but I really don't. Whether or not they hate me is a another story.
13. Once upon a time I had a really hot dream about sex with someone only to wake up having sex with that same someone.
14. I don't do excessively nice things for people's approval If I do something nice, it's because I would have done it anyways.
15. Conversation subjects tend to jump around because I don't voice the connections I'm making in my head before speaking.
16. Despite claims I'm a label whore, I'm really not. There are so many expensive pieces of clothing that I think are hideous and would never ever wear, never mind purchase.
17. There's a possibility that I'm physically incapable of purchasing something I don't like. Even though I'm a compulsive buyer, there are a number of occasions where I'd love to buy something but don't.
18. The greatest compliment someone has ever given me was when they said I should work at Hollister because I'd be perfect there. I asked her to have my children.
19. The service has to be absolutely horrid before I stop feeling bad about not leaving a tip at a restaurant.
20. I feel horrible for people with nice bodies and ugly faces, especially when I see them at a gym. It's because no matter how hard they work out they can't change they have an ugly face.
21. Compulsive liars are my form of entertainment. It may make me a horrible person, but I absolutely love catching people in their lies. This has caused a problem only once when I really wanted to believe someone.
22. The most challenging thing for me is to apologize to someone. It's like admitting defeat, only a thousand times worse. Even worse than working at a job I'm way too qualified for.
23. As a result I try very hard to make sure everything that comes out of my mouth is valid.
24. It takes a very special person to be chaotic neutral. You either need to be ADD, or your conscience and your temptations need to be waging a constant war with each other. As much as I act it, I'm not ADD. I still haven't decided if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
25. Old women can do no wrong, unless they're causing me a personal annoyance. I find them adorable. They could murder someone right in front of me, and I'd flat out pretend nothing happened or tell everyone that they saved my life in killing that person.
26. That goes double for Asian women, and triple for little old Japanese ladies. Quadruple points of those little old Japanese ladies happened to be my Japanese profs.
27. When I was younger I used to think that people got piercings because they didn't like themselves and wanted to make a statement. I now have two piercings that I constantly forget I have. I'm not sure if I feel like a hypocrite, or there's some statement I'm trying to make that I just haven't figure out yet.
28. I know far too much about the TTC, especially considering that most of it is pointless information. Forget schedules, those are boring. LRT turns me on.
29. There are exactly 2800 songs in my iTunes library right now, and most of the time on shuffle I can't find a single song that I like. I forgive iTunes because every once and a while it does an amazing job shuffling.
30. This is a result of the fact that I used to buy CDs for one or two songs that I liked, leaving me with a ton of music (especially rap) that I can't stand but don’t feel like removing just in case.
31. Every so often I try very hard to talk to people on my msn, usually when they sign in. This never lasts very long because I always end up getting really awkward with the first person, and I give up.
32. Grade 11 Drama was weird for me. It was even weirder after I realized my drama teacher could be Emma Bunton in her music video for 'Maybe'.
33. I hold a special spot on the list of things I hate for the Toronto Public Space Committee, and all the shit they whine about because their lives suck, because they're not getting laid and because they have nothing better to do.
34. Very often I realize that I'm giving people dirty looks without meaning it. This usually happens because I'm watching people and thinking about something, which leads me to thinking about other things until I hit something I don't like and scowl. Only I forget to stop looking in their direction, and before I know it I've offended someone.
35. Forget how amazing their voices are, the very first thing I heard a music theatre student sing was 'Cry Me A River' by Justin Timberlake. I'll never look at that song the same way again.
36. Cooking is so ridiculously challenging for me. Not the kind of cooking where you drop something in a pan and let it sit for 10 minutes. I mean real cooking. As soon as there is defrosting or sauce involved, I'm screwed. I'm not creative enough for it. I can hardly make a sandwich I enjoy eating.
37. I enjoy driving a lot. Despite having been in 2 accidents, I still love it. I tend to forget about the accidents.
38. I used to read a lot as a child. Actually I still read a lot. Only as a child I would power read. In grade 5 we had this thing where you'd get a coupon for Pizza Hut if you read the most books. I used to plow through Goosebumps books, because they were easy to read and easier to remember.
39. I went through this phase where I really liked tighter jeans. 4 pairs and like $2000 later, I've decided that I'm just going to shop at Hollister unless I feel like splurging.
40. I used to spent far too much money playing DDR. By the time I got to Waterloo, before the mono kicked in hard I was able to pass MAX300 on Heavy. Those were the glory days though, and now I can hardly pass simple songs like Waka Laka.
41. When I was too unfit to play DDR without embarrassing myself, I started playing Time Crisis 3 and Initial D V3. I've beaten Time Crisis 3 more times than I can count, and Initial D is the reason I picked a Manual Transmission car.
42. I tend to confuse Nancy Silverman for a black woman and I think of Ali Momen-googleplex every time someone says that they left their waitress job in Jersey.
43. I definitely almost skipped this number. I forget about things sometimes. Worst memory ever.
44. My claim to fame was the fact that I'm loved more than everyone else who went to high school when I did. That, and the fact that people named Phil have a tendency to dislike me.
45. The last time I had sex was with Abby. Just kidding. I swear.
46. I've decided that I really enjoy the number 46. Not because I can't think of anything else – I've cut stuff out. But even numbers are always cooler than odd numbers, unless their cubed. In which case things get really complicated so we won't get into that.

Yes, I understand nothing has happened here in a few days. I feel your pain, although probably not as much as you feel mine. A lot has been going on, much of it frustrating and almost all of it for no logical reason. There's been a lot of shit going on with this new car and I've come to the conclusion that I overreact a lot if I'm woken up from a nap. So when I do finally figure out how to be appreciative, I'll let you know what happened. Until then, the Characters section is slowly being updated, so check back for fun character information and trivia.

Today I was not having a good day. I worked all morning while the thunderstorm pounded in my head. I had one thing to keep me going; one thing that would let me survive no matter what the universe threw at me. Some of you have already found out, and others may have guessed after I posted about how I was learning to drive stick. My parents woke me up Saturday, had me meet them at the Ford dealership and two hours later I was the soon to be owner of an incredibly sexy Ford Focus ZX4 ST. I couldn't have been happier either.

Fast forward to earlier today. After waking up from my nap that I was oh so enjoying so I could get ready to go into work early, my head was pounding and I was not a pleasant person. Downstairs my brother had the misfortune of opening his mouth to speak allowing me to direct my frustration at something. Only not only did he speak, he didn't ever bother to use a full coherent thought in his sentence. He said "I got subs" and then said "subz" over and over again, complete with the 'z'. Now I knew exactly what this meant, but I tried my best to pretend I didn't just so I didn't have to continue the conversation with him.

My head which had already been pounding, was now throbbing furiously like a really fat person doing MAX300 on heavy. I'd spent the last 48 hours worrying about how this was going to happen; how my brother was going to blaspheme the goodness that is the car with way too much bass. My brother is akin one of those people you make fun of, the really greasy guys who think that girls want them when they really just want a ride. The kind of guys who need to make sure that everyone within 15km knows they're listening to a song by turning their bass ALL THE WAY UP. Who needs to hear the song when you can just feel it rattling your brain and ruining your ear drums? Now my brother was going to turn into one of those in the car that I picked and customized because he had spent the day bitching about how he refused to drive a Ford. Well I snapped.

I yelled out "What's the point in buying parts for a car you don't even have yet." I'm pretty sure he responded - something about the parts working in any car. I didn't really care to listen. I got my anger out and I could already fell the throbbing subsiding. I went to work only kinda really angry instead of really, really angry which I feel was a vast improvement.

So as I whored away making smoothies, my dad came to visit me. By this point my mood had recovered and the fact that I was getting a car made everything ok again. I had even spent an hour trying to think about how I would apologize to my brother and tell him that I was going to drive the car much more than him because I was using it all day for work, and probably on the weekends too. I was even going to be nice and pay for half of the shit he put in the car. Then my dad nonchalantly said "Oh by the way, we're not getting the focus anymore" as if he had meant to say "Oh by the way, it stopped raining." No he definitely did that wrong. "We’re not getting the focus anymore" ranks just above "someone jumped infront of a GO train" and just below "God called and said to stop being a huge whoreface," which are definitely not the same as "it stopped raining."

I think anyone watching me might have thought I was suffering through a brain aneurism. I was three seconds away from crumpling into a pile of broken dreams, as my dad continued to explain that Ford was being a huge jerkface and they couldn't get the car for 8 weeks, and that the closest thing was way more than what they felt like paying. So now my brother has parts for a car he doesn't have and the universe is laughing its ass of at me because I'm a horrible person getting my comeuppance.

Today was spent on an emotional high, with a lot of up and down movements. Of course, these weren't the usual up and down movements of a day. It's the up and down movements of the left leg that are only familiar to the people who know how to drive stick. For today, I attempted to learn how to drive stick.

For those of you who have never driving a car with manual transmission before the first thing you need to realize is that although people like James Bond make it look sexy and cool, it is like all things that are sexy and cool: a lot harder than they look. My plans at becoming the next Initial D driver were quickly dashed when I realized that most of the time it took a lot of effort for me to get the car moving.

That's the strange thing. Like riding a bike, once you get things rolling going faster is just a matter of moving your foot and your hand. It's the starting and the slowing down for turning where things get tricky. I'm too much of a perfectionist and I've driven automatic for far too long to have made it work as well as I could have today. While I could get an amazing start about half of the time, a not so amazing start a third of the time and a decent start the rest of the time, it was still a lot of riding on the clutch to make it work.

Downshifting is a completely different story. The exact opposite of shifting up, it hurt my brain a lot. My brain, being a very tender thing after a lot of caffeine and even more regular shifting, was on the verge of melting.

After a very monotonous few hours my knee hurt to the point where I just didn't want to drive anymore. So I don't know how I plan on learning to drive stick properly; at this point my goal is to just continue driving around in circles in a parking lot. There may be a whole big world of suburban roads in there, but I'm comfortable where I am – Bronte GO's parking lot.