EPTThat changes now and I guarantee you: this will be one hell of a blog. So much shit has happened and yet to summarize it in merely hours (it's almost 4 AM now) is both incredible and very likely: impossible.
It's been awhile since I last wrote something, in fact; several people kept asking me to write something and as the days passed, the more it piled on. I wanted to say so much of what I've come to enjoy, learn, feel. But the time just never allowed it and now I feel I will never give what I grasp emotionally and physically the justice it deserved.
Nonetheless, here we go. The city has taken a whirlwind of beauty, from the LAN ETS where I not only got to meet some great people, try my hand at commentating once again to the melting snow, small frigid nip of the last winter gust: everything has changed for the better. Unsure of where I was before, I was now in a place of being desired, having importance.
As you know, I am currently working with Quantic Gaming. Sometimes there are hitches with the players both with their expectations and the standards of our duty as a part of management. Things don't always go according to plan, but what I love the most is waking up everyday and seeing my Skype light up with either small messages, questions about things I am or should be on top of and new surprises or things to be aware of. It's sort of that feeling of when you were a kid and you'd always wanted to get mail, to know someone is writing to you; someone is saying: "this is designated for you"! Well that desire has stayed with me for years and it's probably a strong reason why I do a lot of events and stuff you've probably never heard of. To know I am contributing, becoming someone, not of fame, but of something who is needed, can be reliable and dependent on is not only a joy, but I feel is an innate demand for the human spirit. As cliche as that may sound, it still feels true even as a young adult.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOmPql0GBRI&feature=related
As much as I like Bocelli [and I guess Celine Dion], I enjoy the older Josh Groban-sounding Chriss Mann and of course: Katharine McPhee. It's just beautiful, slow, strong ending and a I love the slow baritone [?] winding down while she does these swift injects of pitch and highness. It's great, like a finger strumming a cello, not disrupting the sound; but adding depth, layers, levels.
As much as I like Bocelli [and I guess Celine Dion], I enjoy the older Josh Groban-sounding Chriss Mann and of course: Katharine McPhee. It's just beautiful, slow, strong ending and a I love the slow baritone [?] winding down while she does these swift injects of pitch and highness. It's great, like a finger strumming a cello, not disrupting the sound; but adding depth, layers, levels.
Yes, I casted the whole event at LAN ETS with some great, great people. Some french casters here in Quebec, a particular girl from the Girls of StarCraft group and overall it was great! I was fearful that I couldn't really do it and to be honest; I'm no professional, but when I'm around people and when I'm all hopped up with the atmosphere of just nerd on nerd action in the most asexual way possible: I get giddy, excited, pumped! Things came out, little jokes, play-on words and pop culture references was just excellent! I had a terrific time and I got to meet a particular young Counter-Strike: 1.6 professional player: Miss Harvey a part of the Ubinited team! World Champion once upon a time and still very active; she is just amazing both in-person in looks and in admirable traits such as approachfulness, positive vibe and a terrific smile. Her resume both in the scene and in the gaming industry is staggering and amazing. But she's so modest, downt-to-earth and admirable that I both respect her and have fallen deeply in a friendly passion to get to know her better as a person! It's great, I love meeting new people, but I enjoy talking to her because she is so receptive [and it doesn't hurt that all her friends are just like that too, both male or female, they're just great, great people].
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRPwguSpE10
Sinatra's World on a String gets a lot more swing and livelier with Minelli's touch who just adds some really kick and flair to Sinatra's often too dry of a voice. It's dry in the sense that it doesn't elevate to where Minelli can, adding a dynamic and interchanging of pace that I enjoy.
Sinatra's World on a String gets a lot more swing and livelier with Minelli's touch who just adds some really kick and flair to Sinatra's often too dry of a voice. It's dry in the sense that it doesn't elevate to where Minelli can, adding a dynamic and interchanging of pace that I enjoy.
That being said, LAN ETS came and passed. I got to meet some representatives of sponsors like Corsair, Cooler Master, Razer, etc. as well as some organizers that worked alongside us making my sheet of people I would like to get to know better even longer than Santa's naughty list of promiscuous young girls and rebellious teens. Nonetheless, as the days passed so did the amount of work demanded from school. I encountered a few problems with a certain teacher, but they have since dissolved given how little importance she is to the people I am with now and the projects I am working on currently. I've begun to get into Acting, or rather; I've been doing it since the start of the semester in my elective course. I took it because I always wanted to give it a shot, it's a great way to interact and meet people as well as keep it loose. It intertwined with my Sociology of Emotions advanced class and so I figured: why not? Well, we are nearing the end right now of the semester and I am now doing a piece called: Savage Love. The basic of the piece is a huge monologue from a man starting from becoming attracted to a particular girl, loving her, being with her and then the transition of both sexual impulse, restraint, misdirection and soon depression. It's not a particular strong piece or quite emotive, but it's great for newbies like us. I had chosen two pieces:
Terms of Endearment
What can I call you
Can I call you "Honey"
Or "Sweetie Pie"
Can I call you "My Treasure"
Or "Precious One"
Or can I call you "Babe"
Or maybe I could call you "Darling"
Can I call you "Darling"
I heard someone else call someone "Angel" once
Can I try "Angel"
Can I call you "Sweetheart"
Or "Sugar"
Or maybe I could call you "Love"
Just "Love"
What can I call you
Can I call you "Honey"
Or "Sweetie Pie"
Can I call you "My Treasure"
Or "Precious One"
Or can I call you "Babe"
Or maybe I could call you "Darling"
Can I call you "Darling"
I heard someone else call someone "Angel" once
Can I try "Angel"
Can I call you "Sweetheart"
Or "Sugar"
Or maybe I could call you "Love"
Just "Love"
What I thought was a cool monologue titled Terms of Endearment, soon became a very difficult piece for me when interacting with someone. They set me up stroking a girl's face, hair and arm asking her if these words are ok. She doesn't respond, lays quietly asleep while I continuously poke with these terms of endearment. The last line is great, but the build-up to it doesn't do it justice and it just makes me uncomfortable even though my partner [who is a girl] is not only very forgiving, but incredibly insightful and professional. I thought she actually liked me or something, but no; she's just incredibly good in her role and in going up and beyond "friendly" so to speak.
Killing
It was in one moment
When we looked
When we saw each other
That I killed you
I saw you lying there
Unmourned
You didn't know
I didn't say I saw you dead
I saw you thinking of something else
You couldn't see
The thing I'd done to you
It was in one moment
When we looked
When we saw each other
That I killed you
I saw you lying there
Unmourned
You didn't know
I didn't say I saw you dead
I saw you thinking of something else
You couldn't see
The thing I'd done to you
I enjoy this one a lot more. It's real, it's a form of shamefulness and the implicit desire to be forgiven; asked to be forgiven in a depth you shouldn't be. I love the idea of Killing having so many abstract embodiments and what it means to him to confess to her about this figurative "killing". All the lines can be delivered easily, with sighs in and about. But the teacher puts me in a position I don't feel is natural: on one knee, holding her hands and begging to be forgiven. It's too straight-forward, too simple, too one-dimensional. I don't move and so the words don't lift from beyond my mouth. There's no physical attachment rather than the stillness of my need to be forgiven, which dreads dullness given how terrible I am in invoking the lines with both authenticity and coming from a state I can almost relate to.
But that's that. Each day, I wake up: look outside and I see the city. I see it through Woody Allen's binoculars. He calls New York city, I call it Montreal. The Rhapsody of Blue of Montreal is anything but a mirror of New York's bustle, it's a life of its own; a dual citzenship in both verbal expression and cultural representation. Montreal to me is Owen Wilson to Paris and it will always be like that. Desiring to know it in another era only to come to realize that Montreal how it is now is just art, beauty, richness yet to be discovered.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0o6QKpNK9Cc
George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue is almost the musical emblem of Eastern cities, at least for me. Woody Allen's rewritten monologue and writing is still as memorable, true and timeless as it always was.
George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue is almost the musical emblem of Eastern cities, at least for me. Woody Allen's rewritten monologue and writing is still as memorable, true and timeless as it always was.
and you know why I love writing, the city, video-games? Interaction. It is the only art I can interact with. I tried painting, I tried music, I tried dance (Ballet, Tap and Jazz as a kid) and I tried movies. Movies comes pretty close, but to be honest; without the interaction, art doesn't move and doesn't live for me. I can see the interpretative beauty, the distraction of both colors, richness, dimension and realness to all forms of these arts: experienced or not. But they simply don't top the city, writing and video-games. All of them allow something new to work.
- The superimposition of leaning great buildings, all filled with the hustle and rustle of employees, bosses and productivity means that the city is forever revolving on its small island of urban. Going in one direction of a street brings me to new categories of life, business, leisure and commodities. If I stop, everyone else still moves and the scene always changes. It moves whether I do, it interacts if I do and the buildings sway in angles each time I look at it from a different spot. It's real, it's above me, I'm somewhere in there, in a maze of so many forms of newness of desires. Things are happening, planned to happen or forming as we speak. There's strikes going on with students about the hike of tuition, tomorrow is a showmatch of White-Ra vs. Slush that I am helping out with. All sub-cultures mind their own business but infest and grow inside this limited spaced civilization.
- Writing is everything. The detail of each word and its context just adds more worthiness to a piece, even a description of a box, a toy or just a color. Writing is the pursuit of interaction, it is the chase to draw without strokes of a brush and it is the boundaries of life, imagination and just how much you want to restrain or release. How much you want to trick or reveal. It is paradox and magical but only to those who read it and only those who pay attention, even if only by a little or even forced. I can be delusional with what I write, exaggerated or just purely crazy and it will always produce something I intended, whether unintended or just subconsciously demanded.
- Video-games is the extension of writing and the city. It engulfs the fantasy I desire and paints it in a way I can interact. It's convenience only grows how much more beautiful video-games can be and how I can dive into a world within 23-inches of an electronic display. Video-games to me is the incorporation of the character, utilization of its strengths and if I am lucky, the depiction of morality within great story-telling.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYBdjmNs1FE
Yeah, Buble does a great rendition of this song. But she also does an interesting way of singing in. A lot more feminine and not due to her voice, but how she chooses to elongate certain lines and the slowness of it overall. It sounds sweet, clever and a strong longing [which is intended], but a lot less with depression and a feeling of failure.
Yeah, Buble does a great rendition of this song. But she also does an interesting way of singing in. A lot more feminine and not due to her voice, but how she chooses to elongate certain lines and the slowness of it overall. It sounds sweet, clever and a strong longing [which is intended], but a lot less with depression and a feeling of failure.
BarCraft Montreal came around! It was great once again working with everyone from Marko over at Club 1234 to the Jacob, a representative for our sponsor, Vuugo.com. What I love the most about these events is the fact that I could do these huge and wide events for everyone to attend and I hardly forget that I've never attended a MLG or got to feel what it's like. When BarCraft happens, you forget who did what or who's doing what, you just do what you can and watch the whole thing grow. When asked how I could do this in an interview with a particular documentarist, I just tell him that I do what I do because I want to do it and make do with what I got. The bottom-line of it all and I'm not trying to sound patronizing at all is that a lot of people want to do something with their lives, with where they are now, but never know how to start. I was the same way and for a long time I was until I just did stuff and eventually it just goes on from there. Step outside your boundaries, try to do something knowing you don't know how and then move onward. I didn't know how to start a club within my university. I didn't know how to get sponsors for a team and I certainly had no idea how to start a BarCraft that could hold 1,200 simultaneous spectators (we avg. a bit less than that, depending on the BarCraft). But I still wouldn't know unless I tried and I said that if I was in a position where I had little worries in life, a small acorn pile of money to secure me food and a roof under my head, then I would spend my time learning and so I did. I just learned and learning is everything. I told someone in another blog this: "To learn is to discover. Discovering what's out there is to learn about yourself and thus discovering you." It's not some philosophical bullshit, it's just being straight-up and forward. I'm very proud and happy where I am, but I want to do more and I certainly want to travel one day. I guess ultimately I want to be someone notable so more opportunities arise and I can be further challenged. Now if I can get paid doing that, you'd have me drooling all over you!
Below are screenshots and videos of our BarCraft!
+ Show Spoiler +
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kM09MhTXK_8&feature=player_embedded http://www.flickr.com/photos/marko1234/sets/72157629692517293/
[There's a huge crediting problem in BarCraft because I never get mentioned in the thank-yous at the event, nor really after except by a few who know/remember. There are no pictures of me in there )
[There's a huge crediting problem in BarCraft because I never get mentioned in the thank-yous at the event, nor really after except by a few who know/remember. There are no pictures of me in there )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1waLSFxOdy4
Meiko's Fever is a lot quieter, slower and it certainly doesn't change pace. But it's smooth. The piano kind of throws you off, but it eventually changes itself to something better, something just pure. The background trumpet sounding off into the distance is just gold.
Meiko's Fever is a lot quieter, slower and it certainly doesn't change pace. But it's smooth. The piano kind of throws you off, but it eventually changes itself to something better, something just pure. The background trumpet sounding off into the distance is just gold.
And so what can be better than this? What can be better than enjoying the big steps you take to become someone amongst other somebodies as well as being able to enjoy the little things. I recently purchased some real fruit jelly sweets that I thoroughly enjoy. I eat about one a day and just let the flavour evolve in my mouth to an eventual tart and repulsive taste. I had something more poetic to say about enjoying the smaller things, how they compound themselves into completely u-turning your day into amazement or at least, shaving off the edge of irritation by stopping, savouring and enjoying before moving onto the next task. A blip on your heartrate and temper that manages to simmer down whatever angered impulse you once had.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/2IkBe.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/o76HC.jpg)
Yes, I've begun painting. I should of mentioned that, it'll be in my next blog including how I got to drink with White-Ra, but as I began to start painting [rather terribly, like a 3-year old], I also noticed the richness of colors even more. More so than before and admire a transition of density to a transparency of bright colors. Take this juice for example:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/m92he.jpg)
Minus the fact that you can see a reflected distorted camera phone, you can see its a dark purple color towards the bottom. But as the bottle gets thinner, the color begins to shine and bubble at the top with a pure red. A heart-like red imitated in paint and maybe even some cheaper wines. I just love it, I enjoy it as stupid as it appears, I adore how colors morph, change and gradually [as well as naturally] transition and maintain a taste I can still preserve and maintain in my mouth.
I think that's enough for today. Next entry is about Street-fighting, painting, White-Ra, the gym, the city [as always] and probably a movie (I didn't really talk about any this time eh?).
Here's a rather old photo of the city in the winter:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Ql80S.jpg)
In the end of it all, some things I wish I could improve, but for all that I can't change or improve, I compensate with effort in things I want to do and benefit those I want to be closer with as a community or as individual people I am personally invested in emotionally.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/G2orj.jpg)
(Torte is female and therefore used with the "die" article)
