My life as a drama, and why Rafal owes me BIG!

Scene One: my bed

So I'm passed out and it's like 7:08am. Rafal knocks on my door and with one little "Hello," he tares open the door and starts frantically yelling about angry advertisers and distributing our paper "NOW."

Fuckin 'ell.

So he takes off to rent a car and I'm just stunned. I walk around my apartment in my underwear for a little bit, check my email and wonder how the fuck I'm going to make my interviews when I'm in a car downtown chucking Gazette's all over the place.

And then the laundry list of other shit I have to do starts flooding my brain. I have to prepare my apartment for the lovely Jessica's arrival. I have to report on a cow and lama shitting in random receptacles at Victoria park. I have to cut the mop top that's a sorry excuse for a hair style. Then I have to go to the wedding reception of my ex-girlfriend and the guy she cheated on me with. Then I have to drink all I can out of the open bar.

[pant, pant]


Scene Two: Spring Garden Road

I'm standing outside Subway with two bundles of papers in my hand and my contact for the international student work permits story calls me. "Hi Reid, I've got Megan Edwards here, she's the senior policy analyst with the Nova Scotia Office of Immigration, and Ron Heisler, the director of operations for Citizenship and Immigration in Nova Scotia."

Zoinks! Wasn't expecting that. I thought our 9am call was just to set up a time when he and "somebody from the province" could meet.

"Umm, could I call you back in like ten minutes?" The words literally just crawled out of my mouth. How does a gumshoe student reporter tell these important people to wait? But there was no way I could do it right then and there, two feet away from an intersection.

Dammit Rafal, you are ON NOTICE too!


Next Post: Reid Southwick's first STAG PARTY!!!

The new wave of pluralism

It appears that the Conservative government in Ottawa announced on August 8 that it is running a series of "online consultations" to sort out the so-called fiscal imbalance in Canada. But in fact, the Tories simply posted a set of background documents and asked the Canadian public to study hard and answer the following questions by email or registered mail:

How should these key principles be implemented in order to help restore fiscal balance and reinforce a strong economic union?
What do you see as the areas for priority action?

Perhaps the questions should be prefaced with the following:

"The Government of Canada is committed to appeasing citizen demand for transparent governance and an active voice in policy-making. In this new wave of pluralism, the Government is asking every regular-Joe Canadian to study the complicated funding formulas already in place and devise a plan for a new, innovative fiscal arrangement between the Federal and Provincial Governments."

I might be way off track here, but it seems that the Tories are targetting Joe Canadian and not the community of experts and policy advisors, which might have a better idea on how to manage the problem. More specifically, I wonder about the value of judgment that Joe Canadian can offer in this case. That is, if he has even heard of the program. And if he can find out how to participate. And if he can navigate the confusing maze of links. And if he really wants to take the time to read ten massive webpages of facts, pie charts and graphs. And if he really believes that his voice will be heard. And, And, And...

Is this really their plan? Their torch of transparency? A webpage with links and contact information for some office in Ottawa? Well, if any benefit came out of this new isolationist government, it's that the staff at Tim Horton's save an extra penny every time I buy a coffee.

To their credit, though, the Conservatives have offered Canadians a valuable resource for channeling their input on the future role of government in post-secondary education. And it is... ...drum roll please... ....a survey!

Here is the list of themes and questions:

1. Objectives for post-secondary education (PSE) and training
What objectives should Canada aspire to for PSE and training?
Which objectives would you rank among the top three priorities for action?

2. Clarifying roles and responsibilities in PSE and training
Given what you have identified as objectives, what would be the most important roles for the Government of Canada to play?
Where would clarifying roles and responsibilities amongst governments be most helpful? Do you have advice on how these roles could best be defined?

3. Developing a framework for ensuring measurable results and accountability
What results would be most useful to measure in terms of PSE and training?
How could governments report on progress so that they are held accountable?


...and government emerges to save the day! Seriously. These questions are cut and pasted from every mediocre business consultant's play book in the country. "'What are the strengths of your business? How can we harness those strengths to build the success of your business? and blah blah blah." The questions are absolutely meaningless unless they are posed to right people with the right knowledge.

So why didn't any of our national student lobby groups hear about the "consultation" until they stumbled upon the site themselves? Who is the government trying to reach? What is it going to do with the data? More importantly, why doesn't it provide any background information with the survey, answering these questions?

To be sure, the government has gone out of its way to sweep this consultation straight under the rug of the student movement in this country. The Tories have backdoored both national lobby groups, who have calculated, responsible policy recommendations, in the interest of reaching an unknown, likely ignorant, constituency.

With no clear mandate or mission statement, with a deadline set for the middle of Orientation Week in most Canadian universities and no hope of reaching any stragglers, with little to no promotion or media attention, this program is heading straight to my ON NOTICE board.


All i can say is, 'Wayda go, Steve." Way. To. Go.

In case you didn't know...

... how weird i am...

I sometimes wish i could use the excuse that it is only "lately" that i feel the throng of eccentricity rage through my blood. But it never works.

A couple of weeks ago, i was drunkenly stummbling down grafton street with a couple of friends. Feeling a bit hungry, i disappeared into Maxwell's Plum. My comrades could then see me through the windows racing like a fat kid on steroids toward the barrel of peanuts. Looking in either direction, i plunged my hands into the vat, filled my mits and raged back in the opposite direction, flooding the street with arms flailing and peanuts falling out of my hands and pockets.

Yesterday, i blasted Wonderwall while smoking a cigarette outside my window, wearing nothing but pajama pants and singing along at the top of my lungs. Passersby eight stories below just looked up in awe, but i continued on nonetheless. Then Phil started yelling at me through the living room window, saying, 'cut that fuckin racket out you piece of shit! don't make me come in there!' It must have been quite the show.

I also routinely get caught singing on the elevator. I feel the elevator is the best place for solo singing, besides the shower and my bedroom window. I eventually trained myself to quit the singing a floor before my stop, but people still seem to hear, as evidenced by the looks on their faces. But nothing was quite as bad as getting caught rapping to myself by a bunch of hoods. Never again... until the next time i''m wasted on the elevator by myself!

from informed confusion. a soft sequel to reidski's 2-4 abomination

had to stick this in here.

excerpt:

Southwick said...
Chris,I happen to remember making some serious sport of you last night. my apologies. i blame it on li dong and all his money. let's rob him and spend it on happy meal toys.

oh, and i seriously can't remember what i said, only that i'm an asshole and you prolly should have punched me or something. my other excuse was that it was my birthday and since i didn't get kicked out of a bar (yay!!!) i had to even the score somehow.

sorry dude


Wed Aug 23, 10:21:03 AM ADT
C. LaRoche said...
Apparently I'm self indulgent, which is a fair enough assessment of me if I've ever heard one. So I'm going to consider your contribution to the Wisdom of the Month as being:

"Chris, you are a self-indulgent asshole."

:)

ON NOTICE

thanks Jen.

Reidski's 2-4 abomination

alright people, we managed to drink an astounding $540 in bar sales!!! so i'd like to thank each and every one of you for once again proving my friends are a bunch of raging alcoholics. mostly cuz i had NOTHING to do with it. HAH!

i was expecting a few more people to come, but i couldn't have asked for a better group of drunkards to help me bring in my 24th year in style. the only one missing, of course, was the love of my life. another time... and we're DEFINITELY doing it again!

as i've never been one to regret absolutely everything i do with my life, i have posted some photos for your perusing pleasure. all credits go to rafal. out of 625 shots, here are the highlights. the flying V

he could show me up

yeah boy

he can only be cool for so long

but he can't resist the camera

the fam

beautiful woman

the ex

...and another

things got out of hand... actually no. i got out of hand. still allowed in the building though!

more of the ex

alright, that's enough.

so suave

too bad his boyish looks only got him laid ONCE in europe!!! (it was a damn good story though)

before

during

after

ann bond, no wait, beringer! sorry ann. the two coolest girls are easily mixed up


the toast

where did those flowers come from?

yes that IS a pitcher of rum and coke. thank you nicole coffee!!!

no Chris, i am NOT taking this one down

like a fool


sandy still keeps it real with the punk rock

oh my, the TRAIN!!! forgot all about it till now. whose idea was this?

more training

and more

like a pack of villains

a bit blurry

seriously. how many people saw this pathetic display?

cuz everyone knows li needs a routine talking-to

a little too intense

steph on the patio

the second round. but everyone cheated and i ended up drinking last. pooheads.


drunk AND creepy. nikki's right up in the mix


wow.


THE AFTER PARTY

couchin and keggin

me dancing in my room. alone. rafal just came out of nowhere most of the time

what the fuck was i thinking?!

cuz the party just never ends

awww

i think that wraps things up quite nicely. not much more needs to be said.

thanks guys. that was a feckin amazing night.

Fearlessness as an object

Morgue Madness pt. II

I had to knock it off first. mostly cuz i was fairly drunk and knew that if i left it, the anticipation of revisiting the very room where death lives on every molecule, every atom, would overcome any concept of responsibility, and i would simply quietly hand in my shit at 7:30 and not say a word. admittedly, all of that would normally be cool, but i showed up to work drunk. i do have a conscience, so into the morgue i went.

of course, my curiosity overcame me so i had to turn on the light to the fridge and peer in... and like, Holy Fuck. this isn't the normal drawer-type shit you see on law and order. it's a feckin open room where dead bodies would be draped over stretchers (hopefully covered) next to each other. with a hell of a lot of luck, the room was empty. sigh.

and then came the autopsy rooms, and with those came the usual suspects (saw and spatula). but i soon realized that i hadn't observed the full monty the time before. to illustrate, i must digress.

imagine your younger sister's class is having a science experiment expo. she's in grade 7, let's say, and each student has a model of their experiment on a table with directions and descriptions inscribed on a piece of bristol board on the wall behind it. now imagine that a student's illustration has inscribed above it the following words: HOW TO CUT A FIXED BRAIN ETC (emphasis in original).

wow. a little racy. but nonetheless understandable, given the circumstances.

added to this, the illustration features sketchy ass drawings of knives making particular incisions into what can only be guessed is a brain. However, the diagrams are, as discussed, the work of a junior high school kid who has no fucking clue how to draw.

cool. still no problems here. just a kid with a strange streak of originality.

then comes the last piece of the drawing, which is a SPATULA dumping what's left of the brain into a fecking GARBAGE CAN.

OK. this kid is mad disturbed, right?

NOW imagine this isn't a freakin science expo in some grade seven class. it's in an autopsy room of the QEII Hospital's morgue.

so THIS is how they teach people how to desecrate the bodies of the deceased. ahh.

good fucking thing i'm drunk.