I Want It That Way

Tonight a girl called me picky.

"You're such a picky person!" she said.

"Oh really? What am I picky about?"

"Everything! You're picky about food, about music, and even about people."

I've been called far worse things than picky before, and I had just been teasing her about her taste in music. But for some reason it hit a sore spot, I wasn't ready to move on.

"What if I just have high standards?" I asked. "What's the difference between being picky and having high standards?"

"Nothing" she replied. "Except high standards usually means you're looking for something."

High standards usually means you're looking for something.

This girl hit the nail on the head by calling me picky. Don't even try to feed me coffee, tomatoes, mint, or salad dressing. I probably hate your music. In the cases of food and music, I know what I like. I make a habit of trying foods or music I don't think I'll like or that I didn't like in the past, on the off chance that I discover something good. But by and large, I'm an excellent judge of my own tastes. I have high standards, because I know what I want and I'm actively separating the chaff looking for it. However, in the case of judging people, by this girl's definition, its definitely pickiness.

I'm quick to zoom in on someone's faults. Find a too many or too glaring faults, and I have very little difficulty writing off that person altogether. It's like I'm looking for reasons to disqualify people from being worth my attention. If the person isn't tailor-made to suit my taste, I don't usually even bother to remember their name. It's a very limiting way to approach one's social life, but its not like mean to do this. It happens by default, unless I actively work against it.

It goes double for girls. I'm really harsh with my deal-breakers, perhaps overly so. Smoking cigarettes, or an annoying laugh, or a stupid comment made in class, or a boring vibe, or even an interest in horses is enough to extinguish my interest in a girl. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with these deal breakers, but I've realized that I'm approaching from the wrong angle entirely. I'm focussing on the negatives, looking for a reason to give her a failing grade. I'm constantly ignoring a girl's beautiful qualities, and writing her off because she doesn't look good in that hoodie she always wears. Maybe if I approached from the positive angle, I'd be too caught up in a girl's positive traits to mind so much that she listens to Top 40 music.

So it's undeniable that I'm picky with people. I'm not looking for something good in particular, only picking out things I don't like. Now I've got figure out what it is I'm looking for, so I can turn my pickiness into high standards.

The Adventure Final

Yesterday, completely out of the blue, I decided it was adventure time. I strapped on my rollerblades, pointed myself west into the city, and set out to see how far I could go.

My adventure turned out exactly how I hoped it would. I navigated residential areas, parks, bike trails, and dormant construction zones. I discovered smooth and winding longboarding hills, an adorable splash park, dozens of beautiful viewpoints, and storms of falling yellow leaves. I navigated by dead reckoning, paying to attention to street numbers or signs, and got my bearings from the tops of hills, like a modern-day voyageur traversing a landscape of raging concrete rivers.

The morning before the adventure was spent at The King's Interdisciplinary Studies Conference. Classes are cancelled for two days, and all students attend seminars, sessions, and speeches in the gym, then write a for-credit pass/fail paper on what they learned. The keynote speaker referenced the 10,000 hour rule, and put it into the perspective of making a 2-hour per day commitment to practicing something. His money quote was "you need to pick something that you can imagine doing for 2 hours a day, every day for 10 years, and still truly get joy out of it".

The adventure provided a few solid solitary hours to think and discuss this with myself. I tried to think of what I would want by 2 hour a day activity to be. I had to go all the way back to the very basics of the question: "what do you like to do?" Whenever I'm asked this question, I answer with "sports and music", which I think is a pretty decent answer. As far as I can tell, those are two of my favorite, if not my two very favorite activities. But what I realized yesterday is that I don't actually do either one of them very much.

Over the first few weeks of the semester, I've settled into my day-to-day pattern. As it turns out, I've spent probably less than 15 minutes a day, on average, on either one of my two favorite things. Instead, my free time has largely gone toward watching movies and TV shows, playing video games, and wasting time on the computer. I spend at least a couple of hours every day on some combination of these things. But yesterday, looking out across the river from the top of Connors Hill, I decided that it had to stop.

I mentally drafted and signed a pact with myself. It has two sections, one outlining the three things that I will no longer waste my spare time on, and the other outlining the three things I will replace them with. This is the pact:

Section 1) Things I Will Not Do Anymore

A) Movies and TV

- No more watching movies or TV shows unless it serves a direct social purpose. That means I will not watch by myself, or even if my roommates are sitting around watching in the middle of the day. I will only watch if it can truly be described as having a direct social function.

- The exceptions: I can watch all Oilers and Eskimos games, from the start of the 30 minute pregame show to the end of the postgame recap.

B) Video Games

- No more playing video games unless it serves a direct social purpose. That means no more playing by myself. I will only play multiplayer games with a direct social purpose.

- The exceptions: Game nights at Nolan's, COD with the roommates, Pokemon training for a specific tournament.

C) Computer

- No more wasting time on the computer. This includes, but is not limited to: obsessive facebooking, Reddit, stumbleupon, smogon articles for no specific purpose, flash games, etc.

- The exceptions: email, necessary facebook, specific skype dates, blogging, reading friends' blogs, and my five Oilers blogs (Oilersnation, coppernblue, BlackDogHatesSkunks, Lowetide, and mc79hockey)

- Activity directly related to Section 2, such as researching music or dating science, is encouraged.

Section 2) Things I Will Replace Them With

A) Physical Self Betterment

- Playing an organized sport, such as intramurals, Hicks Hockey, shinny hockey, King's hockey, curling, or indoor soccer

- Individual physical activity, such as running, rollerblading, longboarding, skiing, snowboarding, or working out.

- Any activity in preparation, organization, or planning for one of the above.

"No citizen has a right to be an amatuer in the matter of physical training... What a disgrace it is for a man to grow old without ever seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable." - Socrates

B) Social Self Betterment

- Managing social circle at King's. Apartment visits, King's events, general hanging out.

- Managing social circle outside King's. Anything involving friends from Vegreville, Shad, or MacEwan.

- Activities outside and beyond King's. Bowling, laser tagging, pub night, Whyte Ave, Oilers and Eskimos games, house parties, volunteering, shopping, exploring in a group.

- Researching and practicing dating science. Reading Magic Bullets or other resources, fighting approach anxiety, practicing openers and sets, day and night game.

"... there is no magic bullet to get the women of your dreams. There is no one thing, or even ten things, that you can do that will all of a sudden allow to you reach your full potential... If you've taken care of the fundamentals, any reasonable system can work." - Nick Savoy

C) Musical Self Betterment

- Actively practicing technique on voice, piano, guitar, and drums.

- Expanding Vocal, piano, and guitar repertoire.

- Anything with the intent of getting to play with others.

- Researching, discovering, obtaining, and listening to new music.

"The wise musicians are the ones who play what they can master."

- Duke Ellington

So if you catch me wasting my time on anything in Section 1, slap me across the head and tell me so. This is my life, and it's ending one minute at a time. There's only so many adventures left in me.

Dream On, Dreamer

I subscribe to All Time Low on my facebook feed. They just posted this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NKXSU0FDss

It's part of a series of interviews with popular bands about how they gained their passion for what they do, and how they harnessed that passion into getting to where they are. I watched the interview compilations for a few of my favorite bands including All Time Low, We Are The In Crowd, and Set Your Goals. I could see myself mirrored in every single one of them.

The recurring theme of the interviews was that today's bands would grow up listening to the bands that came before them, and be inspired by what those bands did and what they stood for. For example, All Time Low cited Blink-182, Green Day, and New Found Glory as their inspirations. There was never any grand vision or goal to be "as big as Blink-182". There was only ever a burning desire to play the music they loved, and have fun doing it. Each of the bands whose interviews I watched had a similar story. They would keep playing and keep pushing themselves, never giving up on their passion. With a whole lot of hard work and a whole lot of luck, they're living the dream.

I see myself in them because I had that dream. I vividly remember the first time I heard Relient K, how it blew my mind, and thinking how much I wanted to do what they did. I had my little garage band and played my little local shows. I burned Blink-182 CDs and sang along to them until I knew every lyric. I even went to music school to get my skills to a high level. I wanted it, but it was such a long shot that I guess I never really admitted it to myself.

As a result, I never pursued it wholeheartedly. To admit to myself that to "make it" in a band was my goal, why that would only be to invite failure. What the interviews with All Time Low et al fail to mention is that for every success story, there are hundreds of failures that drop off the map. I guess I couldn't deal with those odds.

Instead, I did the prudent thing. Now I'm going to school to be a doctor, and the odds are good that I'll make it. But in doing so, I'm all but guaranteeing that I'll never be the next Blink-182 or the next All Time Low. Some other group of kids, a bunch of kids who want it worse than me, and are willing to accept the high chance of failure, they'll rise up and take that place that I secretly wanted.

I am going to be successful, but I gave up on my dream to do it. What does that make me?

"Meh, It's... something."

I got the afternoon off work today, so I took the opportunity to finish up a project that I've sporadically been working on throughout the summer. Today I finally finished the full-instrumentation recording of my song Iron Rainclothes.

It was a long and arduous process. First, I figured out all the individual parts on their respective instruments, and practiced them until there was a chance I could play them all the way through without screwing up. This was made difficult by the fact that I don't know how to play guitar, bass, or drums very well. After that, I hooked up my macbook to my sound board and recorded every part individually. This was made even more difficult by the fact that I REALLY don't know what I'm doing with recording software, effects, and techniques.

But today, all that came to an end when I put the finishing touches on the vocal harmonies. I'm proud of the result. The song is simple, the playing is simple, and the recording is a hack job if there ever was one, but I'm still proud of it. Hopefully, the next one goes faster and smoother. Ideally, I'd find a few fine fellows who appreciate pop punk music as much as I do, and who could help in the instrumentation department. I have so many ideas for stuff that I simply don't have the skill to get out of those instruments myself.

Here is the song, for your enjoyment. Iron Rainclothes by First Class Honesty!

http://soundcloud.com/first-class-honesty/iron-rainclothes-full

Things I want to do RIGHT NOW

1. Fly to somewhere with big roller coasters, and ride them all. Repeatedly.

2. Go somewhere hot, with sandy beaches and big waves. Learn to surf on them.

3. Join/start a pop punk band. Tour the nation, become a sensation.

4. Road trip to Chicago and see The Fold live at some tiny obscure venue.

5. Meet The Fold after the show and tell them "I came all the way from Edmonton for your show!" and creep them out a bit.

6. Play pond hockey (in the southern hemisphere, of course).

7. Find one of those places with giant trampolines and high-tech landing mats. Do ridiculously dangerous flips into them.

8. Explore something awesome. It has to be big enough that it takes more than one day, and requires camping out.

9. Play a tabletop RPG. Stay in character, no matter what.

10. Go to an NHL playoff hockey game. Feel the atmosphere. Boo the Canucks.

Notice that none of these involve Vegreville, or residents thereof.

Supremacists

A few months ago, I went to a smallish concert with a couple friends. The headliners were metalcore superstars August Burns Red, supported by modestly popular pop-punk/melodic hardcore band Set Your Goals, and two other metalcore bands I'd never heard of.

I'd been introduced to Set Your Goals by a coworker the previous summer, and had been hooked ever since. I had just spent two weeks repeatedly listening to their albums in anticipation of the concert. This was as excited as I'd been for any concert since Relient K back in Grade 9. Believe me, I was pumped.

I finished up my biology lab, and hauled ass down to the Starlite room. I walked in, and made a beeline for the merch tables to me a sweet Set Your Goals t-shirt. But something was wrong. I looked around the tables once, twice, three times. There was no Set Your Goals merch on display. It turned out that Set Your Goals, for whatever reason, was unable to make it to this particular stop on the tour. It was to be all metalcore, all night. I soon caught sight of the two friends I was meeting. They had been watching my consternation from the balcony, and were having a laughing fit at my expense.

These two friends are not normally so mean spirited. But in the weeks leading up to the show, there had developed some minor bad blood between us over the content of the upcoming show. As previously mentioned, I was jacked beyond belief for my beloved pop-punk Set Your Goals. These two fellows, however, belong to a breed of music lovers that I like to unofficially call Metal Supremacists.

Metal Supremacists are fans of blisteringly fast drums, abrasive guitars, complex rhythms, and unintelligibly screamed vocals. They emphasize the extremely high level of skill required to perform this style of music. For them, it's all about the pure technical mastery of the instruments, and the sheer physical feat of playing so fast for so long. But perhaps most importantly, Metal Supremacists consider most other styles of music to be inherently inferior.

In the weeks leading up the to concert, I'd posted facebook statuses about how excited I was for Set Your Goals. Metal Supremacists from all over my friends list, not just the two i was attending the show with, were quick to jump all over them. They would exalt August Burns Red and the other two mediocre nobody metalcore bands on the tour, and openly bash Set Your Goals. There were several extended flamewars, some of which spilled over into real life verbal debates. My position was that I preferred the catchy beats, hooky melodies, and relatable lyrics of pop-punk to the technical spectacle of metalcore, however obviously impressive it may be. Their position was that pop-punk is crap, Set Your Goals are talentless hacks, August Burns Red should be crowned kings of the musical universe, and I'm an idiot for not thinking so.

My friends at the show were downright giddy that Set Your Goals wasn't there, or perhaps more specifically, they were downright giddy that I didn't get to see them. But I still had a good time at the show, and ABR was very impressive, as I knew they would be. Which begs the question, why can't we all just get along? Why can't we all have our favorites while graciously accepting the tastes of others as different? This experience brought such questions into fine focus for me, at least as far as music is concerned. In the months since the show, I've found myself listening to a much wider variety of music. But more importantly, I've started respecting them more as well. If your favorite is Garth Brooks, Metallica, Lady Gaga, or Jay-Z, that's none of my damn business. I don't agree with you, but I respect your choice to like what you like for whatever reason you want.

P.S. Offer not valid for fans of Justin Bieber. THERE. IS. NO. EXCUSE.

Oilers Hockey

Some of my earliest memories are of listening to Oilers games broadcast on 630 CHED, and watching Oilers games with dad in our old house. I couldn't have been older than four, and I didn't really follow what was going on, but I very clearly remember cheering for the Oilers. I remember dad telling me that the Oilers weren't a very good team, but that they used to be the best team in the world. I remember him telling me about Wayne Gretzky, the greatest hockey player ever, and how he used to play for the Oilers. The Oilers won their last Stanley Cup a month before I was born.

I remember him teaching me about the current Oilers. Doug Weight, the best player on the team. Todd Marchant, the fastest skater. Curtis Joseph, the best goalie. Mike Grier, hardest hitter. Ryan Smyth, the hardest worker.

Dad's favorite players were always the hardest workers. He used to take me to a couple games a year, back when tickets were cheaper. He would take me down to ice level during the warmups and point out which players were hard workers. I specifically remember him beaking Rem Murray for being lazy. These days, he's a fan of Shawn Horcoff, not of Dustin Penner.

I grew up through the 90's and early 2000's, watching the Oilers try to compete with large-market teams. In those days, there was no salary cap, and the Oilers couldn't afford to resign their best players. Teams like Colorado, Detroit, and Dallas could always spend more money on good players, so they were always better than the Oilers. It wasn't fair, and I felt a monstrous sense of injustice. Dad said that meant the only thing the Oilers could do was make sure they were the hardest working team. If they worked ten times as hard as the rich teams, they could beat all of them.

I remember the Oilers usually barely making the playoffs, battling hard, and usually losing the series to Dallas or Colorado. One time they actually beat Dallas, and I was so proud of them! They promptly lost to Colorado in the second round, but Dad had been proven right: if the Oilers work ten times as hard as the rich team, they can win.

It was hard cheering for the underdog team. Other kids cheered for Colorado, because they had Joe Sakic and Peter Forsberg. This was blasphemous to me. I almost punched a kid on my hockey team for saying Peter Forsberg was the best player ever, not Wayne Gretzky. I knew that just because the Oilers weren't very good was no reason to cheer for one of those evil rich teams.

The games were always exciting to watch. Since the Oilers' only chance to win was to outwork the other team, that's what they had to do. They had no choice but to skate harder, bodycheck harder, and fight harder than the other team. That was my team. That is the team I cheered for.

In 2005, the new NHL collective bargaining agreement put a salary cap in place for the NHL. That meant the Oilers could afford good players. It didn't really hit home for me until I heard the Oilers had traded for Chris Pronger and Mike Peca. This was absolutely earth shattering. I remember where I was when I heard it; sitting in the car in a Future Shop parking lot waiting for Dad to get something. Chis Pronger represented everything the Oilers couldn't have before. I thought wow, if the Oilers have players like Mike Peca and Chris Pronger AND work harder than every other team, they could win the Stanley Cup!

We all know how that turned out. The playoff run was amazing while it lasted. It brought people together. I was never prouder of my team. Chris Pronger the superstar. Dwayne Roloson the goalie. Ales Hemsky the kid phenom. Ryan Smyth the heart and soul. Georges Laraque the unbeatable fighter. Fernando Pisani the unlikely hero. That was Oilers hockey. That was a sublime display of what it is I love about hockey.

Ever since, it hasn't been the same. The Oilers aren't the same as the Oilers I grew up cheering for. Of course the players are different, but the team's identity is gone too. The playing field is now level, but they lose even more than before. They don't work hard like they used to. I follow the team more closely than ever, but I can't cheer for them like before, because they don't work like they used to. They have a better chance to win any given game, but they lose more of them, and don't even go down swinging. Before, they had a good reason to lose, but they won anyway. Now, they have every reason to win, but they lose anyway. The hockey they play is not the Oilers hockey I remember, not the Oilers hockey I was raised on. There have been some fun moments, but I haven't seen that hockey since 2006.

The other night though, I got a glimpse. The Oilers, with half their lineup injured for the rest of the season, came up against their provincial rivals the Calgary Flames, with a chance to officially eliminate them from playoff contention. A last-place team with nothing to lose, up against impossible odds. Their only chance: to work 10 times harder than the other team. The Oilers were up 4-1, and lost 5-4 in a shootout, but I haven't been so proud of my team in literally five years. I really did feel like I was watching playoff hockey, Oilers hockey.

It's almost like I'm afraid to stop "following" the Oilers and start "cheering" for them again. If the game against the Flames is any indication, I might be able to do that before too long. The Oilers can lose 90% of their games for the rest of my life, as long as they play like that. Then I can cheer for my team again.

Yes, I'm an Oilers fan. Are you?