So, here we are on what is basically the last day of the calendar year which isn't somehow directly or indirectly related to a holiday. Nobody who is working today is getting off early due to what tomorrow is, nobody who was working yesterday is being given today off as a special prezzie. Nope, today, just like most days of every year, is just a normal, boring, middle of the week day. It isn't shiny like Christmas, sorrowful like Easter (if you discount the eggs and bunnies), scary like Halloween or green like St. Patrick's Day. People aren't declaring their love today, like they do on Valentine's Day; nobody's parent's are getting special treatment like on Mother's or Father's Day. No, today is just Thursday, and that's just how it is.
Of course, if you are high school age or younger, or attend University or College, it is in fact in the middle of your Christmas break, but that still doesn't give the day any special meaning or anything. Thursday. Its just Thursday. Pathetic little nearly the end of the week Thursday. It isn't even a special weekday either. It isn't Hump Day or T.G.I.F. even. It used to be special, Thursdays did. Once upon a time, it was Must See T.V. night, but then things changed and Thursdays aren't so important anymore. Even Survivor left Thursday for Hump Day's greener pastures.
So, what I'm simply stating is that today is no big deal in any way, shape or form whatsoever. Two days from the end of the year, and you might as well be a Tuesday in July for all the world cares. Poor, disgusting, shabby little Thursday before New Year's Eve. I pity you.
But hey, at least you aren't April 28th. That'd be REALLY depressing.
Personal Crap
- Gutrend
- Meaford, ON, Canada
- A big lover of all types of media, from Movies to Video Games, Books to Music, Television to Stage.
12/30/10
12/29/10
My Secret (No Longer) Love of Coronation Street
To those of you who know me, you know that I am a huge fan of television. I certainly watch a lot of it, and I ensure that when I am watching certain programs I ignore phone calls, people at the door, burning embers drifting past my nose, etc.. To me, what makes good viewing is intriguing storylines, humour, interesting locales - and if you can manage to throw in a few hot women, I'm all for it!
When I was younger, like 35 years ago or so, I used to have a hell of a time trying to figure out what to do on Sunday mornings. I used to be up the same time as I would be for school, about 7am, and there just isn't a whole lot for a five-year-old to do that early on a morning when the parental units are trying to get sleep. Keep in mind that this is the 70s we're talking about here, which means television channels didn't air overnight, stores weren't open for shopping, and about the only thing to watch was religious shows or farm reports. There were only two things available to be viewed that were of any interest, and I had to choose one of them.
Those who know me also know I hated my mother. Loathed her, despised her. Threatened to do her with a sword if she ever came around my home again. The last time I spoke to her, two years before she died, I dis-invited her to my wedding, and then told her I wished she had had an abortion so that I would never have had to have her as my mother. Celebrated with an impromptu pool party when I was informed she was dead. These things on their own might seem shocking, disturbing, and very hateful - and they certainly are. I'm not going to go into depth here at this moment, but if anyone ever reading this wants to try and understand how I could be this way to her, send me an e-mail at gutrend@gmail.com or comment below asking for more info. Otherwise, for those I haven't alienated, let's keep going. I'm bringing this up to explain that I wasn't always like this with her. When I was a kid and didn't see her for the spiteful, vicious, abusive person she was, she made huge impressions upon me which I am still feeling the repercussions of to this day. I can honestly say that, even without a psychiatrist, I am aware that 95% of the person I am today is as a direct result of my mother's influences, and how I either embraced them or fought against them.
As a little aside, I'll explain that more fully. My mother, and again I'm not getting into specifics, demanded high marks from me in school - so, I purposefully barely passed, skipped classes voraciously, and under-achieved like a fiend. Someone noticed this and I still got into U of T regardless, don't know how, but there it is. My mother hated electric guitar - so, I fell in love big time with heavy metal music. My mother hated my posture - I still slouch. She wanted me involved in sports - I'm 340lbs, a hundred pounds overweight based on my height and frame, and it is contributing negatively to my heart condition (though not the cause of it). My mother hoarded crap and made it a rule that I could never have friends over to the house - I keep things as tidy as I can when living with two people who often don't give a shit, and wish I had friends to come over daily, or at all. There are things that she did when I was younger and more impressionable that stuck with me as well, and some of those are in fact good things. She created my love of music in general. She was an avid television watcher (both a good and bad thing, it can be argued). She for a very long time didn't like the majority of our family, hence I only have interactions with my cousin - and she alienated the family against me by lying about certain events and flaunting her ongoing extramarital affair by bring the douche to every family event she could. She was an avid reader, and I can't keep enough books in the house.
However, the one thing that she did when I was very young that is related specifically to this entry is this: she HATED Coronation Street. With a passion. No idea why. So much so, in fact, that the second the theme would start playing on CBC on those early Sunday mornings, she would throw it to any other channel just to avoid hearing it. She got me to hate it to, so on those mornings when I was awake and alone, I'd end up watching whatever black and white movie was on CityTV that early. Didn't care for most of them, but that's how I grew up. Hating Coronation Street into my 30s. Until one day...
It was again a Sunday morning, I was awake and alone. I was flipping channels and saw Corrie there on CBC and I thought to myself that with all the things I had been doing for most of my life to spite her, why don't I look and see why she hated this show so very much. So I did. I've been watching the show faithfully ever since. For those readers whom also watch Corrie, I started with the following plot lines: Molly and Tyrone were getting ready to get married, though Tyrone was trying to make a big production of the ceremony and had no money to do so; Tony Gordon and Carla were together, and Maria was seemingly crazy, accusing him of killing Liam (if only I had tuned in early enough for Liam's murder); David and Tina were together and Gary Windass was trying to win her from him.
Now, I'm a rabid fan of the show. So is my wife, and we can't even wait until the omnibus on Sunday mornings to watch them - we tune in and/or record each episode at 6:30 every night Monday through Friday. Not only that, but I also read ahead. Yeah, it irks me that we're ten months behind the British airing of the shows, and at some point I hope we have the means to watch them 'live' as it were, but that would also mean a lot of recording for 10 months so that we could catch up all at once and be on top of the episodes. Well, it isn't like I'm doing much else, but we still need a proper station to broadcast the current run to us. I'm even looking into whether we'll be able to see the shows from Britain when we are in the Dominican Republic. They get channels from all over the globe down there, so if we can get CBC and ITV down in the Caribbean, then all we need is a DVD recorder and a proper Tivo, and we're off to the races!
For now however, I'll just have to content myself that I know what's about to happen with George's obsession with keeping Simon away from Peter, when Gary will be coming home and the change in him and why, whether Sally will ever find out about Molly and Kevin, whether or not Steve and Becky are going to actually conceive again, or whether Tina will really be staying together with Jason or whether there is someone else in the wings...and of course, waiting until October for the 50th anniversary show, complete with incredible pyrotechnics and all!
The best part of it all? Simple. If my mother had ever taken the time to watch the show, even once, she would have loved it. So, guess that's a point in my favour, hmm?
When I was younger, like 35 years ago or so, I used to have a hell of a time trying to figure out what to do on Sunday mornings. I used to be up the same time as I would be for school, about 7am, and there just isn't a whole lot for a five-year-old to do that early on a morning when the parental units are trying to get sleep. Keep in mind that this is the 70s we're talking about here, which means television channels didn't air overnight, stores weren't open for shopping, and about the only thing to watch was religious shows or farm reports. There were only two things available to be viewed that were of any interest, and I had to choose one of them.
Those who know me also know I hated my mother. Loathed her, despised her. Threatened to do her with a sword if she ever came around my home again. The last time I spoke to her, two years before she died, I dis-invited her to my wedding, and then told her I wished she had had an abortion so that I would never have had to have her as my mother. Celebrated with an impromptu pool party when I was informed she was dead. These things on their own might seem shocking, disturbing, and very hateful - and they certainly are. I'm not going to go into depth here at this moment, but if anyone ever reading this wants to try and understand how I could be this way to her, send me an e-mail at gutrend@gmail.com or comment below asking for more info. Otherwise, for those I haven't alienated, let's keep going. I'm bringing this up to explain that I wasn't always like this with her. When I was a kid and didn't see her for the spiteful, vicious, abusive person she was, she made huge impressions upon me which I am still feeling the repercussions of to this day. I can honestly say that, even without a psychiatrist, I am aware that 95% of the person I am today is as a direct result of my mother's influences, and how I either embraced them or fought against them.
As a little aside, I'll explain that more fully. My mother, and again I'm not getting into specifics, demanded high marks from me in school - so, I purposefully barely passed, skipped classes voraciously, and under-achieved like a fiend. Someone noticed this and I still got into U of T regardless, don't know how, but there it is. My mother hated electric guitar - so, I fell in love big time with heavy metal music. My mother hated my posture - I still slouch. She wanted me involved in sports - I'm 340lbs, a hundred pounds overweight based on my height and frame, and it is contributing negatively to my heart condition (though not the cause of it). My mother hoarded crap and made it a rule that I could never have friends over to the house - I keep things as tidy as I can when living with two people who often don't give a shit, and wish I had friends to come over daily, or at all. There are things that she did when I was younger and more impressionable that stuck with me as well, and some of those are in fact good things. She created my love of music in general. She was an avid television watcher (both a good and bad thing, it can be argued). She for a very long time didn't like the majority of our family, hence I only have interactions with my cousin - and she alienated the family against me by lying about certain events and flaunting her ongoing extramarital affair by bring the douche to every family event she could. She was an avid reader, and I can't keep enough books in the house.
However, the one thing that she did when I was very young that is related specifically to this entry is this: she HATED Coronation Street. With a passion. No idea why. So much so, in fact, that the second the theme would start playing on CBC on those early Sunday mornings, she would throw it to any other channel just to avoid hearing it. She got me to hate it to, so on those mornings when I was awake and alone, I'd end up watching whatever black and white movie was on CityTV that early. Didn't care for most of them, but that's how I grew up. Hating Coronation Street into my 30s. Until one day...
It was again a Sunday morning, I was awake and alone. I was flipping channels and saw Corrie there on CBC and I thought to myself that with all the things I had been doing for most of my life to spite her, why don't I look and see why she hated this show so very much. So I did. I've been watching the show faithfully ever since. For those readers whom also watch Corrie, I started with the following plot lines: Molly and Tyrone were getting ready to get married, though Tyrone was trying to make a big production of the ceremony and had no money to do so; Tony Gordon and Carla were together, and Maria was seemingly crazy, accusing him of killing Liam (if only I had tuned in early enough for Liam's murder); David and Tina were together and Gary Windass was trying to win her from him.
Now, I'm a rabid fan of the show. So is my wife, and we can't even wait until the omnibus on Sunday mornings to watch them - we tune in and/or record each episode at 6:30 every night Monday through Friday. Not only that, but I also read ahead. Yeah, it irks me that we're ten months behind the British airing of the shows, and at some point I hope we have the means to watch them 'live' as it were, but that would also mean a lot of recording for 10 months so that we could catch up all at once and be on top of the episodes. Well, it isn't like I'm doing much else, but we still need a proper station to broadcast the current run to us. I'm even looking into whether we'll be able to see the shows from Britain when we are in the Dominican Republic. They get channels from all over the globe down there, so if we can get CBC and ITV down in the Caribbean, then all we need is a DVD recorder and a proper Tivo, and we're off to the races!
For now however, I'll just have to content myself that I know what's about to happen with George's obsession with keeping Simon away from Peter, when Gary will be coming home and the change in him and why, whether Sally will ever find out about Molly and Kevin, whether or not Steve and Becky are going to actually conceive again, or whether Tina will really be staying together with Jason or whether there is someone else in the wings...and of course, waiting until October for the 50th anniversary show, complete with incredible pyrotechnics and all!
The best part of it all? Simple. If my mother had ever taken the time to watch the show, even once, she would have loved it. So, guess that's a point in my favour, hmm?
12/28/10
What BGJ Was All About
Happy Tuesday, one and all. Today is the first day that I don't have anything to post from the original BGJ website, so it has taken a while to get around to saying something. I am planning on posting at least once a day, and anybody who is actually reading this faithfully will notice that there are days when I have more to say than others. This can either translate into multiple posts or very long entries, depending on what's scurrying around inside my head. Today, I'm going to explain what the BGJ website was and where it came from.
BGJ was what I termed an "anti-fraternity." In 2003, at Thanksgiving, my father, Scott and I were all in the kitchen of our previous house and were getting ready for a bunch of my friends to come over for the meal. I, as usual, had been throwing down Smirnoff Ice Vodka Coolers all day, so I was pleasantly happy. My father was talking about how we were all so much younger than him that it made him feel like he was watching a fraternity circling around him, and the idea took hold. Given that we had just experienced the movie Jackass for the first time that same week, that was in my mind when I thought of the name for our little group. Knowing that actual fraternities used Greek letters for their names/logos, I deemed us BetaGammaJackass, and it stuck from that day until my father died in October 2006, a couple of days before Thanksgiving (he was pronounced dead at midnight of the morning of October 6th, and the holiday was that weekend).
The "anti-fraternity" idea struck hard. I started to try and find people to join us, and kind of opened the house for people to drop by. This was also at least partially spurred on by my ex-wife having left me in December of the previous year and my wanting to meet new and exciting females and make their toes curl, and also partially by the idea that if we had enough people who wanted to do similar things, we could apply and qualify for Group Discounts on things like theatre tickets and vacations. I still think the Group Discount idea is valid, no matter what anyone else says.
Anyway, we had a website and all, which I still have in it's entirety her on my computer, and it included the blog, plans for upcoming get-togethers, a menu of what I could whip up for people who dropped by ($2.00 a meal is a better deal than you'll find anywhere, and I wasn't talking about some canned food shit, I'm talking my homemade chili, my Chicken Paprikosh, my spaghetti, and other actual recipes I have been told a restaurant could serve successfully - don't believe it, come by and try them yourselves), photos of all the members, and even a 200 question movie trivia contest that was being played for 2 Santa's Choice Christmas hampers. The site was over ten pages large, of unique material, and I maintained it pretty comprehensively until the end of the year 2005. At that point, because we had moved in August of that year to a house further away from people, we had less get-togethers and we started to break apart. To be fair, our core group was only six people strong anyway, with one being my ex and another being the other "friend" who buggered off the next year. So, suffice it to say, I stopped with the website and pretty much put the "anti-fraternity" to rest except for one small coda at the end.
When my father died, to commemorate his passing (and because in my grief I really had no fucking clue what else to do) I had a tattoo artist put the skull and cross-crutches logo on my arm with the label betagammajackass underneath it. As such, the journey came to an end, except to re-post my writings for anyone interested to read them, and hopefully think I had some kind of writing ability after all.
BGJ was what I termed an "anti-fraternity." In 2003, at Thanksgiving, my father, Scott and I were all in the kitchen of our previous house and were getting ready for a bunch of my friends to come over for the meal. I, as usual, had been throwing down Smirnoff Ice Vodka Coolers all day, so I was pleasantly happy. My father was talking about how we were all so much younger than him that it made him feel like he was watching a fraternity circling around him, and the idea took hold. Given that we had just experienced the movie Jackass for the first time that same week, that was in my mind when I thought of the name for our little group. Knowing that actual fraternities used Greek letters for their names/logos, I deemed us BetaGammaJackass, and it stuck from that day until my father died in October 2006, a couple of days before Thanksgiving (he was pronounced dead at midnight of the morning of October 6th, and the holiday was that weekend).
The "anti-fraternity" idea struck hard. I started to try and find people to join us, and kind of opened the house for people to drop by. This was also at least partially spurred on by my ex-wife having left me in December of the previous year and my wanting to meet new and exciting females and make their toes curl, and also partially by the idea that if we had enough people who wanted to do similar things, we could apply and qualify for Group Discounts on things like theatre tickets and vacations. I still think the Group Discount idea is valid, no matter what anyone else says.
Anyway, we had a website and all, which I still have in it's entirety her on my computer, and it included the blog, plans for upcoming get-togethers, a menu of what I could whip up for people who dropped by ($2.00 a meal is a better deal than you'll find anywhere, and I wasn't talking about some canned food shit, I'm talking my homemade chili, my Chicken Paprikosh, my spaghetti, and other actual recipes I have been told a restaurant could serve successfully - don't believe it, come by and try them yourselves), photos of all the members, and even a 200 question movie trivia contest that was being played for 2 Santa's Choice Christmas hampers. The site was over ten pages large, of unique material, and I maintained it pretty comprehensively until the end of the year 2005. At that point, because we had moved in August of that year to a house further away from people, we had less get-togethers and we started to break apart. To be fair, our core group was only six people strong anyway, with one being my ex and another being the other "friend" who buggered off the next year. So, suffice it to say, I stopped with the website and pretty much put the "anti-fraternity" to rest except for one small coda at the end.
When my father died, to commemorate his passing (and because in my grief I really had no fucking clue what else to do) I had a tattoo artist put the skull and cross-crutches logo on my arm with the label betagammajackass underneath it. As such, the journey came to an end, except to re-post my writings for anyone interested to read them, and hopefully think I had some kind of writing ability after all.
 |
| Best picture I have of the tattoo |
 |
| Not the original, as I don't have rights to it |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)