Category: Random Musings

Just random musings on random stuff.

Another Habs Victory – Another Riot

Wow. Hockey talk. Go figure.

I’m not a big hockey guy, but I enjoy a good game when I can.

So le Canadiens de Montreal win their playoff series in seven games over the Pittsburg Penguins. Le Habs go on to the Conference finals for the first time since 1993. Hey, 1993 was also the last year they won a Stanley Cup… reading too much into this? Yes, I am.

Of course, with the Canadiens victory comes a riot party… and idiots looting stores.

Maybe you should just watch hockey games not taking place at the Bell Centre at home.

Oh… and a message to Heritage Minister James Moore, who boldly declared his beloved Canucks to be “Canada’s team” – Your boyz didn’t last long, did they? So there goes “Canada’s team” off to the golf courses while the Blackhawks move upwards towards something. At least a certain President is happy that his hometown team is going somewhere.

And a message to Gilles Duceppe, who declared Montreal to be “Quebec’s team” – and I’ll be doing this in broken French – Bizarre vous diriez que la considération de l’équipe manque à présent dans les francophones. La seule raison vous dites Montréal est l’équipe de Québec est parce qu’il n’y a aucune équipe Nordique pour vous pour accorder ce titre.

Never Give Up, If You Still Wanna Try – THE FANFIC CRAZE HEARD ‘ROUND THE WORLD or not

The latest edition of Eric “Asalieri” Tellah’s Masterpaint Theater features his interpretation of a Twilight fanfic called Never give up, if you still wanna try (no, that’s how it’s written out) by CheetahBlackCat. And well, it was rather funny.

What wasn’t funny was the aftermath, in which a bunch of people left some rather hostile

I read some of the story in question and it is poorly written. I can sort of understand that the person doesn’t speak fluent English, but using that as an excuse for why your writing is below par can only take you so far.

Anyway, among the more hateful criticisms, I posted the following review on her page – carefully worded so that I don’t come off as dickish but still critical.

“I have to be honest – I actually read through the first couple chapters before I gave up and lost interest. The story does nothing for me – either because it’s a Twilight fanfic or because the writing is generally poor. A combination of the two would be more accurate.

“I can understand that English isn’t your first language and so I can tolerate some mistakes in moderation and for generally short stories. But for a long epic such as this, that simply isn’t a good enough excuse for generally lackluster writing. If I were to jump ahead to one of the later chapters, I’d find the same problems that were prevalent in the earlier bits: some words not being capitalized when they should, improper use of punctuations, grammatical issues, just to pick out a couple general issues.

“People enjoy your story and you know what? Good for them. You’re producing something that’s garnering some interest, but the thing is some people can overlook poor writing if the story works for them and others will crap all over you regardless of how good your story is. Having a bunch of people proclaiming “your story awesome, please write more LOL” while saying NOTHING will not help you get better and only serves to make you not try harder to improve upon your work. It’s nice to have since it shows some interest in your work, but if someone points out some flaws in your writing and offers some constructive criticism, you should at least try to use the criticism to improve upon your writing style because they took the time to give you some advice in hopes that it’ll help you get better. That’s a good thing to have.

“As for the more hostile people out there? Just ignore them. Lashing out at them isn’t going to make them go away – it’s just going to encourage more of the same attitude and quite possibly make things worse.

“My intention is not to discourage you from writing. In fact, I read your other story and I enjoyed that one for the most part, but it did have some of the same problems that plague this one. The only advice I can give you would be to read some other stories, see how they’re written and structured, and compare it with yours to see if there’s any way to improve upon what’s already written. Just because a lot of people like your story doesn’t mean you can’t make it better and improve upon it.

“I hope this was helpful. Good luck and take care.”

Now I anxiously await the backlash… or actually, no I don’t.

Clean Slate… Except Not Really

And so begins a new year… hell, we’re kicking off a whole new decade today…

And with that… a clean slate…

In theory, at least…

It’s the year 2010… a decade ago, that would’ve sounded futuristic. Hell, it might’ve sounded magical, even.

I don’t know, man… thus far, I’m not feeling this brave new decade.

Started off almost as bad as the last decade. Lots of snow. Very cold. And feeling very bloated.

I bought myself a camcorder. Took it to a New Year’s Eve party. Figured I’d get some good picture to keep me awake… and it almost did.

But I really don’t have the stomach for such things anymore… as a matter of fact, I have to go to the bathroom right now and… relieve myself, if you get my drift.

And then I’ve got another party to go to… the annual New Year’s family get-together.

Joy.

Holiday Greetings

Got back from family dinner for Christmas. Lots of turkey, lots of card playing, lots of dominoes, lots of talking, and eventually falling asleep. Good times.

Anyway, I just wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Happy Kwanzaa, and other holidays I missed. So Happy Holidays. And if you don’t like that, then to take a cue from the recent AVGN showing, Happy Shut-The-Fuck-Up.

Thanksgiving Greetings And Stuff…

To the folks living in the US, you only get your turkey next month.

But to the folks on home Canadian soil, I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend… I had a mildly enjoyable weekend, comprised of clean-up work around the house and a couple errands here and there. Most importantly, it was a purely, relaxing three-days, so I can’t really complain.

Montreal Motocross Thingy

Went to the Motocross show last night and had a generally good time… it was something that my mom wanted to go see as a family outing and for the most part, it was a genuinely fun show. I’ll admit that I’m really not much of a motocross fan (I don’t follow the sport, so I can’t be a fan if I don’t watch it), but all in all, it was a fun little event.
A couple weeks or so ago, my mother had asked if I wanted to attend the Motocross event that was being held at the Big O. She wanted this to be a family event since we didn’t get to go on any trips this year… you know, what with my health issues and other bullshit. So I’d say, “Yeah, sure. Why not?”
Bought the tickets online – a process that she insisted on even though I would have rather bought the tickets in person – and to my great surprise, were mailed over within a couple days. I’ll say this much – the admission office who handles this stuff does nice, prompt work.
So the show was last night and they had a few qualifying races, some titles were awarded, many bikes crashed on the various obstacles that weren’t dirt mountains, and a couple injuries happened. All in all, thirty bucks well spent just to see the freestyle bikers in action. Even from a faraway seat, those stunts are pretty awesome to see live and in person.
Not necessarily going to follow the sport now, but I might be inclined to catch the show next year when it comes around.

Here’s the show site. They don’t have the results of last night’s show as of this posting, but they might.

I’m A Trekker (Not THAT Kind of “Trekker”)

So last night, I went on a long audious trek by foot from downtown Montreal to slightly home… in the suburbs. Most Montrealers probably heard about the mysterious package that was left in one of the metro stations and forced almost the whole system to be shut down. (Here’s the story so far.)

While people were waiting for buses, I was walking home and making due progress. By eight o’clock, I took the rest of the way home by bus. Of course, around that time, things were slowly returning to normal. In any case, I made a long Trek, so that makes me a one-time Trekker.

But I still consider myself a Star Trek fan and refuse to get into this stupid debate about which pet name is preferable and accurate.