Goooooooooooooood Morning, Montreal!

Well, I’ve finally had time to rest, and with that comes with an update!

I landed in Montreal, on the morning of september 4th. Since then… I’ve:

1. Got my first cell in 2 years
2. Bought my new queen sized bed
3. Found a new clothing shop I love
4. Started University studies
5. Finished the first book of my Literature class(Abelard & Heloise)
6. Finished my first Phonetics assignment
7. Saw 2 car accidents
8. Got my transit pass(difficult fucking process, fuck you SPEQ photo)
9. Saw my first goal at Saputo Stadium, celebrated fiercely.( My friend messed up his ankle in the chaos)

Now I’m starting the second book of my Medieval English Literature class, which is Beowulf. The USL playoffs are coming up, so that’ll be a big event. I’m also seeing the dentist, and possibly getting new glasses.

I saw this review in the Mirror while on the metro to school, of a new exhibition opening at Galérie Push:

Baby Ghost from the 1900s Says Beat it With Your Chain

http://www.galeriepush.com/fr/expos/we-pet-your-cat-to-death.html

It’s an interesting looking exhibition by a Canadian Artist, Wil Murray, and those of you that know me, know how much I love colour, and eccentric designs, so I’m going to check that out it seems like it’ll be a blast. The guy works with colour and foam. I’ve been known to make my own colourful foam from time to time, so it hits close to home for me. It runs until the 11th, so if you’re in the area, check it out.

I also have to say, it feels like every day is the best, and better than the last.

As my friend Nick pointed out, everyday is essentially the best day of my life. Hopefully it stays this way for a long time.

It’s great to be back.

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In anticipation of my University Studies…

I’ll write up a small review on Kanye West’s debut album, “The College Dropout”. Gather around, gather round, boys and girls, to hear a story about a magical time! This time was 2004, a world where people would soon be reeling over the surprising re-election of George Bush over John Kerry, as well as left reeling due to the surprising release by the virtually unknown producer known to us as Kanye West. Unbeknownst to the world then, was the terrifying fact that Kanye would reveal himself to be a robot in late 2008.

But, onto the review.

I must say, I see “The College Dropout” as one of the better modern hiphop albums released. Sure, K.West shows his penchant for writing good, poppy hooks, but the album also shows an amazing amount of soul.

Off the bat, Kanye shows a combination of wit and his humour with “We Don’t Care”, after a small interlude, there is a powerful song in “All Falls Down”, featuring Sylena Johnson. Kanye had to go through some hoops to get Sylena on the song, he couldn’t acquire the rights to the original song with her in it, so he managed to convince her to come in and record the same lyrics in-studio for the song. The strong carries a strong message, about our short sightedness with money, which we’re all guilty of.

Hell, I know I’ve been.

“Jesus Walks” was the gargantuan single off this album, and if it weren’t for that, Kanye would not be as known as he is today. I personally don’t think it’s the best on the album, it doesn’t match his  cheekiness & wordplay shown in other songs, such as “Slow Jamz” and “Get ‘em High” but it was certainly fire when it came out.

There were many notable collabs on this song, which include Jay-Z, Luda, Twista, Jamie Foxx and Blackstar themselves, Mos and Kweli. For the most part, these were all strong, though I feel that Common lagged behind all others, though I may be biased, I think he’s been going downhill for the longest time.

Kanye finishes his debut off with a series of introspective pieces, “Through the Wire”, dealing with the ordeal he faced after his car crash, “Family Business”, which deals with a family, with many members we can relate to. I know exactly what he means when talking about poorer family in a bad house, and one in trouble with the law.

He finishes it off with a gem in “Last Call”, a 12 minute long epic, chronicling his journey from poor boy to Multi Platinum artist. Looking back now, after he has released numerous albums since, this track really provides insight into the “humble” Kanye West, who knows where he has come from, and who he has to thank, rather than the current Kanye who seems to have lost sight of his origins.

All in all, I think “The College Dropout” is one of the best albums to come out since the turn of the millennium, and a good example of mainstream hiphop as it was around 2005: transitioning to a more global poppy sound from their gangsta counterparts, as Jay-Z and others were transitioning to songs about life getting better, until it culminated in 2008 with robots talking about having a great life, partying in excess, and leaving the origins and  intelligence of the genre behind.

Year Released: 2004

Genre: Hip hop, rap

Runtime: 100 minutes

Tracklisting:

1. Intro, 0:19

2. We Don’t Care, 3:59

3. Graduation Day, 1:22

4. All Falls Down, 3:43

5. I’ll Fly Away, 1:09

6. Spaceship, 5:24

7. Jesus Walks, 3:13

8. Never Let Me Down, 5:24

9. Get Em High, 4:49

10. Workout Plan(skit), 0:46

11. New Workout Plan, 5:22

12. Slow Jamz, 5:16

13. Breathe in Breathe out, 4:06

14. School Spirit Skit 1, 1:18

15. School Spirit, 3:02

16. School Spirit Skit 2, 0:43

17. Lil Jimmy Skit, 0:53

18. Two Words, 4:26

19. Through The Wire, 3:41

20. Family Business, 4:38

21. Last Call, 12:40

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School Spirit Skit 1″ (West)

1:18

Been a while!

I know it’s been quite a long time since I wrote a new entry, but I can’t really come up with a nice excuse, so you’ll just have to accept my apology!

Of course not much has happened since my last one, I’ll try to bullet point some small  things to get all caught up.

• Sister broke up with her boyfriend again, no surprise there.
• My father is healing up from his injuries, so that’s well and good

An aunt of mine is now engaged, very cool, I hope she and her family have a happy future.

Those are all the small things I can thing of at the moment, so onto the bigger events…

My uncle and his family(wife, 3 of their 9 kids) stopped by for a visit here. They spent a week “living” with us, though truth be told they had an RV in our driveway, so it’s not like htey were really underfoot. The biggest thing about their visit was all the garbage that was left behind due to the increased amount of people, and how slow our internet was with an added two computers on the network, I just refrained from playing xbox and downloading big torrents altogether.

I have not received word of my funding yet, so it seems I’ll spend yet another month here in Newfoundland before moving back home to Montreal! That’s real unfortunate, because I had some things planned for the month of August… I was to see a match between the impact and river plate, but I can’t now. I’ll put my river ticket up for sale, if someone reads this and wants it. I was to also chill with Nick while he was down seeing the Coldplay concert in parc Jean Drapeau, but that’s very unlikely now. We were going to hang out one last time, where he would be a guest in my home, instead of the other way around. We were going to have him and his friends out once, with me and my friend Jess showing him a night on the town. There would be a certain duality involved in that outing, because Jess is extremely cute, and I’ve always had a crush on her, so I’d hope to spark something new with her, while also showing Nick a good time. I’d even try to help find him a lady, since he seems to need a bit of a confidence boost in that area, for some reason.

Me being in Montreal would also be good for him, so he’d have a place to go, instead of doing pedestrian things with his friends, that his Crohn’s limits him from doing.

Anyways, I’ll continue this update later.

Later!

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Hospital: Redux

So, on the friends-and-family-of-Curtis-Mesher front, things aren’t their best right now. Nick’s been readmitted to the janeway for Crohn’s related problems, and should be allowed out on Monday at the earliest. The treatment the doctors tried before ended up being ineffective, but not fruitless. Their antibiotic treatment managed to make the problem operable, so he got that procedure done, and things will eventually be looking up for him. I couldn’t get out to visit him, so I called him up and we had an epic length conversation on the phone.

The act of calling someone isn’t the most comfortable, it takes a toll on your body.

My dad’s business is all done in the hospital, so now he’ll be staying with my older sister in Montreal until he is able to fly again. There seems to be a problem in one of his ears, so he is unable to fly due to the pressure. My sister and him also tend to go for walks now that the weather is nice, and he apparently lists to the left frequently while walking, which is troubling.

Both these people seem to be healing pretty well though, so here’s hoping they manage to stay healthy(or at least the North American equivalent of healthy).

Later.

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All’s well!

So my mom said that my dad is doing very well. The doctors say that all his injuries are healing on schedule, or in some cases, even faster than they anticipated! My sister was happy to see her come back, because she brought some smoked meat back with her.

Gifts-wise, I’m happy she brought back some Boivin cheese curds, they’re quality stuff for Poutine, unlike anything you can find here in Newfoundland!

I made her breakfast in bed for her first morning back, just because it’s nice having her around. I made her scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, brought up some coffee and OJ, the whole deal. I also told her the Corination Street reruns were on, so she could get caught up. I know its a show made for old british ladies, but I really like watching it, haha. Good storylines and the girls are all cute as hell, to be honest.

I also had my academic interview today, and it was real good. The lady was very helpful to me, very laidback and funny, and now I have a very clear idea of what I want to do, except for my electives. I was thinking about maybe taking a minor in Modern Arabic Culture and Languages. Unfortunately glassblowing is not an option, I’d love to learn how to be a glassmith(anyone have a link to a course I could take, please tell me!). I sent an email to a prospective teacher, he seems like a very fun guy. I asked him for his opinion on the most enjoyable professors in the faculty, and he said he could get in trouble for putting that down in words. Later on, my cousin told me the head of Concordia Linguistics was Mark Hale…the man I happened to ask who the best teachers were!

Oops!

Tomorrow will be the last bit of my servitude around the house, I will mow the lawn and then I think I’ll be free of that forsaken chore forever! I’m basing this all on the assumption that I won’t mow the lawn of my apartment, though. It’s actually not that bad if you through on an album while working. I’ve so far gotten through “Ready to Die”, “36 Chambers”, the greatest hits of Gang Starr and “We Are Blackstar”, by Blackstar.

Later!

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Nick and Curtis: Public Enemies.

So yesterday Nick came by to pick me up before he went shopping for his mom’s birthday. The start was a bit delayed because he left his headlights on all night, so he had to wait for his mom to come home from their cabin and give him a jump, haha.  So after he got his car in order, we swung by Chapters to pick up a book and some chocolates for her gift. We decided to go catch a movie later, and we decided on “Public Enemies”, with Johnny Depp as John Dillinger. We had around 4 hours to kill, so we headed downtown, walked through all the alleys and down george street,had some old pizza at reduced prices, and then started making our way out of town to go catch the movie, until we realised we still had 3 hours until it started. On our way into Mount Pearl, there was a huge lineup of people going into the convention centre, mostly teenagers dressed nicely, but also older and more causally dressed people. It seemed like a prom but I’m not 100% sure.

So to pass some time we went to Bowring park for a walk while he told me about his time in the hospital, what he’s dealing with, how he’s looking forward to his trip to montreal, etc. The park was pretty much abandoned, Nick made the observation that it looked like something out of a post apocalyptic movie: grey and devoid of all life. We found a new war memorial to Newfoundland Soldiers who died in the battle of Beaumont-Hamel, turns out it was opened only the day before we visited.

Before heading over to the movie, we just chatted about girls and school, and then went to go pick up Brett. We drove over and he hopped in the car, carrying a newly opened tub of ice cream and a spoon, haha. He offered us some, but I declined. We got over to Sobey’s Square and none of the workers cared that he brought in some icecream. I guess they’ll take any business they can get over there nowadays. Turns out our friends Shea and Noah showed up too, to go see Public Enemies.

None of the previews were that good, the projection was all messed up and the top of the projection ended up on the bottom of the screen, but they adjusted it just before the movie started. Public Enemies was alright, but the sound was very low and I couldn’t hear a fair bit of the dialogue. It was alright overall, a good movie but nothing really very special.

My mom’s finally coming home from Montreal today, she left last tuesday to go see my dad who was in the hospital, due to a three wheeler accident. The hospital up in Kuujjuaq wasn’t capable of handling his injuries so they flew him down to the Montreal General for treatment.

I’m looking forward to seeing her, so I can hear how he’s doing, and also so I’ll have to do less cleaning around the house, haha.

Later.

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Finally!

I’m finally getting out of the house, Nick has to go shopping for his mom’s birthday so on his way into town he’s going to swing by and get me to hang out in the process. He’s feeling a bit weird, but I’d say thats understandable after being in the hospital for so long, and then as soon as he got out, he went to a Tragically Hip concert.

I alos got a tonne of gamerscore off of Halo 3 last night, it’s the easiest game to get gamerscore from, but pretty boring. I can only get through it by listening to music while playing, so I’ve heard the entire Liquid Swords album by GZA three times last night, and Apathy and Celph Titled’s “No place like chrome” album.

You definitely have to check those out, one’s a classic and the other is great underground rap.

Later.

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Haha, just my luck…

After the bonfire didn’t happen, Liz and I had made plans to hang out and then see the fireworks for Canada Day(happy birthday Canada!), but of course that fell through as well! So I ended up just going over to my aunt’s for the bbq, which was delicious. I also played some “Burnout: Paradise City”, which is a fun game, especially the “Road Rage” mode. It didn’t matter that I had an ultra slow car, because I was able to push any other car around with relative ease. I love playing PS3 on a HDTV screen, I have never played my 360 in HD.

Liz is moving away Saturday morning, so I doubt I’ll be able to hang out with her before she leaves. Too bad, because she’s a pretty cool girl. I hope she likes Fort Mcmurray. We might get to hang out when she moves back to Newfoundland in September/October, she might stop by in Montréal to see me.

My sister’s boyfriend isn’t such a bad guy after all, he is funny at times, even though he’s rough around the edges. We’ll see if mom thinks the same thing after she meets him. Probably not, we had a terrible way of hearing about this guy that really made him look like a total dick. I guess I’ll tell the story later if I have no other ideas…Oh, he also runs Ubuntu, so it’s cool meeting another dude who does, I guess.

I also went to visit my friend Nick who’s in the hospital on antibiotics for something related to his newly diagnosed Crohn’s Disease, but it was past visiting hours. It’s shitty, because I bet he would have loved a visit, especially while everyone he knows is out having fun on Canada Day while he’s stuck inside. The disease has been real rough on him, I hope it gets to be more bearable.

I never got to see the fireworks, but from all I’ve heard, they weren’t particularly good. Not surprising, I’ve always found Newfoundland fireworks to be pretty bad, they’re either lack lustre or canceled due to weather, in my experience. But maybe I was spoiled by the international fireworks competition that takes place in Montréal every year.

Due to the late cancellation of my plans, I couldn’t find a party to go to, so I’ve just been listening to music(Blackstar) and watching a tonne of movies. “Killshot” is alright, and I’m about to start on “Valkyrie”, of which I’ve heard mixed reviews.

Later.

(PS:I’m hoping things get a bit more interesting as much as you are, I can only talk about ubuntu and music for so long! I know it’ll be better when I get back home, an interesting life, just like I had before the move.)

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One other thing!

I just have to say, “Ready to Die” just might be one of the best gangster rap albums ever, if not the best. It is certainly Christopher Wallace’s best album, it has so much strength and energy that even someone who doesn’t listen to rap can notice. This is 69 minutes that showcase Biggie’s diversity, he can bring the fury on songs like “Gimme the Loot”, while also taking it easy and sticking to his trademark smooth, witty style of gangster rap on “Warning”, as well as a giving us  deeper, more introspective songs in “Me and My Bitch” and “Suicidal Thoughts”.

This album is certainly the strongest he has released, and if you haven’t yet heard this album, you are certainly missing out. I was once someone who frowned on rap music, until I began listening to so called conscious rappers, though I still frowned on gangster rap. This album is just one of the many early gangster rap albums that helped me see that gangster rap isn’t something to lump together and frown upon, it’s certainly a legitimate genre, as creative as any other, and is much more than what most people assume it to be.

Not only is it very strong, but I love the whole concept album “feel” to it, you just don’t see it enough in modern rap, and when it you do, it’s hardly ever in the mainstream. Biggie certainly left us a gift before his death in this album.

I have to say “Gimme The Loot” is my favourite song off of this album, but “The What” is a close second, Method man is great on this track. And I think my new found love for “Juicy” is due to my completion of high school. And “Suicidal Thoughts” works better on the “Duets” album, with the Bob Marley sample to make “Hold Ya Head”.

Either way, this album is great, and one of the best albums regardless of genre made in the past while, everyone should check it out. If you’re someone who doesn’t give gangster rap a chance, you should reconsider and take the time to listen to this album, which is 69 minutes of art, pure and simple.

Year Released: 1994

Genre: Rap, gangster rap

Runtime: 69 minutes

Tracklisting:

1. Intro, 3:23

2. Things Done Changed,  3:58

3. Gimme the Loot, 5:04

4. Machine Gun Funk, 4:17

5. Warning, 3:40

6. Ready to Die, 4:24

7. One More Chance, 4:43

8. Fuck Me(interlude), 1:31

9. The What, 3:57

10. Juicy, 5:02

11. Everyday Struggles, 5:19

12. Me & My Bitch, 4:00

13. Big Poppa, 4:12

14. Respect, 5:21

15. Friend of Mine, 3:28

16. Unbelievable, 3:43

17. Suicidal Thoughts, 2:50

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Well

The bonfire never happened today, due to the cold weather. Even on the last day of June it can be cold enough to cancel plans here in Canada. I don’t know why they canceled it, 10 degrees and wind isn’t that cold but then again, I’m pretty resistant to the cold, perhaps that’s due to the fact I’m Inuit. That “or mind over matter”, I suppose.

Instead I took the time to align all of my emails under the Evolution Email Client and install Firefox 3.5. It’s nice having one central inbox for all my mail, and FF3.5 is running very well. It goes nicely with my operating system, Intrepid Ibex, a Ubuntu system.

Now it’s Canada day, and I think I’ll do something a bit more interesting today. At the very least I’ll go down to my aunt’s barbeque, which would be awesome to have since I haven’t had a bbq in an age. I had the opportunity to have one tonight but I passed that up, I didn’t want to be around my sister and her loser boyfriend.

Later.

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