Just call me Mr. Pool Shark

I've been meaning to update lately, but I just haven't gotten around to it.

I am definitely in a study slump. I got one assignment back and got 12.5/20. I submitted another assignment late and will likely get zero for it. On the two assignments that I'll have most recently handed in, I will authentically be surprised if I do any better than half marks. For the most part, I've given up a while ago. I got lucky in past terms with exams and midterms; I can only hope that trend continues. As far as assignments go, though, I won't be doing very well this term. I don't understand the course material for most of my classes.

I've been playing a lot of pool lately. I'm doing pretty well; I can consistently beat Hugh and Emiko. I'll lose to them every now and then to a scratch, and more than a few games have gone down to just the eight ball on the table, but I seem to be playing a bit better than I used to. Andrew is still a friggen shark though, but I can keep up with him pretty well. We just played in lieu of doing work, and we had a few games of 8- and 9-ball.

John will be gone this weekend visiting his sisters, and Andrew is going to Toronto. That leaves Hugh, Emiko, Mat and I to find something to do this weekend. I think it's the case that we all want to do something, but we don't really have any ideas. I'll be sure to go to Future Shop to pick up Season 2 of Corner Gas. Hopefully I can pin Emiko down for a movie...I haven't given up yet. It's rare that she's on MSN, but I absolutely love the conversations we have when she is on.

Well I've been leafing through the internet the last half hour or so. I'm trying to figure out what to do about Oktoberfest. The two best bets seem to be Karlsberghaus at the Aud (where I went last year), or Bingeman's. They're both student oriented, so I think I'll just go with whichever one I can get tickets for. I also noticed a poster for a free poker tournament at the bomber this monday. The winner goes on to Toronto to play against the winners at other universities. I don't have anything better to do, so I think I'll give it a shot. I won another 45 player tournament last night, but I haven't played with humans in a while.

Well, I suppose it is just about time to get some sleep. Here's hoping for an exciting weekend.

Listening to... Static-X - Get to the Gone
Link of the moment... The wit is unbearable.

It's gonna be us

I'm not sure if this weekend was a win or a bust. I had a good time, but did absolutely NO homework.

Friday night consisted of going to the Starlight club with Hugh and Emiko and seeing a few bands play. We missed out on seeing Iron Bitchface, but I wasn't in the mood for speed death metal. I forget the name of the second band, but they wre pretty good. Their singer wasn't too good, but their first instrumental song was fucking great. Up next was Ninja High School. Normally it's four guys and a girl, rapping to some beats, but due to odd circumstances, only two of them could make it. Even just watching the two of them with an iPod was realy good. I picked up their CD after the show, but it's shite compared to their live stuff. The last band was the Zoobombs from Japan. They were good, but it wasn't my favourite style of music. It was pretty generic rock. I also met a guy in two of my harder classes, so hopefully that will help with the homework situation.

After the show, we gave ourselves a tour of everyone's bedroom. I showed them my AFI, Misfits, and Battle of the Bands videos. Hugh, Emiko and I wound up hanging out in Emiko's room until just about four. Her intention was to stay up all night since she had to go somewhere early the next day. At four, I called it a night, and they went on a late night grocery run.

Saturday consisted mostly of a lot of napping. I tried hooking up with Emiko for a game of pool, but she didn't answer her doorbell. I called Hugh and got a few games in with him. After that, we went back to Emiko's and got a hold of her. We wound up going to a show in the SLC that consisted of a really amazing juggling act followed by an ok comedy magic show. The sound setup wasn't very good, so no one could really hear what he was saying that well. After that was some card games and more pool in the community center.

This morning, I made pancakes and bacon for my friends. They turned out pretty good considering I wasn't following a strict recipe, and eyeballing all the measurements. They were, however, a touch on the chewy side. No one besides John and I had had Finnish style pancakes before, and everyone seemed to enjoy them. After that, we played Tekken 5 to death, and then Hugh, Emiko and I (as usual) went to Value Village. I picked up an eggshell-white longsleeve shirt and a belt. After that we just hung out at Emiko's (again) until the free BBQ started at the CC (Community Center). I scammed a bit of free food, and some generically boring band was playing.

Hugh loaded up some laundry, and we sat around until I decided to go get ready for Simpsons at 8 (I have the biggest TV, so I'm usually the host). Emiko decided to hang out with Hugh and watch his laundry dry. After the usual Sunday night block of entertainment, I offered to play a game of pool with Emiko, since she wanted to play all day, but I definitely got rejected, because she'd rather sleep. I am definitely NOT getting anything close to a good signal from her, and I can't get a moment's peace without someone else being around (no offense, Hugh). Three months from now, I'll likely never see her again. Well, it doesn't matter much, cause if I were to get some time alone with her, I'd be too scared to bring up any interesting subject matter. I'm trying to keep myself from conversing about such personal matters through MSN. I guess I could easily stop by her house alone one of these days, or even phone her.

Pictures:

Hugh and Mat, eating my finn-tastic pancakes.

Andrew, lining up his cue.

Emiko, in all her glory.

Listening to... Iron Maiden - Prowler
Link of the moment... They're fun to watch live, if you're ever in the area.

Bomber was a bomb.

I decided to go to the Bomber (the campus pub) tonight with Emiko, Hugh, and John. Now that it's all said and done, I'm going to have to say it was a bad time. I didn't have an overall good time. There were moments, of course, but most of the time I was stuck with a sinking feeling in my stomach.

At points I wanted to join everyone in cleaning off a pitcher, but I remember now why I decided to stay away from that scene. I don't know how much the three of them spent on drinks, but I would guess on the order of ~$20 each. I wound up buying Emiko a drink, and already I felt like my money was flying away with beer soaked wings. I'm also reminded of how big a turnoff drinking is.

Hugh and Emiko put a lot of time and effort into trying to hook me up with a girl. Somehow they convinced her that I thought she was cute, or something of that means, but I hadn't even glanced in her direction all night. Thanks to them for wasting my time and hers as well.

On the way home, Hugh decided to pick up Emiko twice (literally of course), and me once. Of course when he picked me up, he dashed forward and promptly fell on the pavement. Luckily, my cushy body was there to protect him. He took the fall on his hand, but he definitely drew some blood from me.

After getting home, I wished them all to not choke on their own vomit overnight. As you may tell, I'm not in high spirits at the moment. Hopefully there will be something worth smiling about tomorrow.

Listening to... Sick of it All - Souvenir
Link of the moment... Am I alone? Am I the only one?

Waltz, bad nymph, for quick jigs vex.

For those wondering, the sentence above contains 28 letters, and contains all 26 letters of the alphabet. I believe it's the shortest sentence that can do this without using acronyms. It's also syntactically and semantically correct, so yay for grammar. Far better than "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog".

I've got a browser page open in firefox with its handy tabbed browsing feature (to further fuel the fire of debate from previous posts), and I've got a lot of eBay tabs. It looks like I want to buy the dubbed Cowboy Bebop boxset, Risk 2210 AD, and the Settlers of Catan 5-6 player expansion. I'm holding off on the latter two though, since I hope to visit a hobby and gaming store tomorrow for price comparison. The games store in Conestoga actually sold out of the Settlers expansion, so if the place tomorrow doesn't have it cheap, then eBay is my best bet.

We've had some thoughts of buying a Risk board, but I figure I might as well dish out the extra dough for the Risk 2210 board since you can play the original game on it, as well as the variation.

As for the Cowboy Bebop boxset, that requires some explanation. I was dicking around on my computer one day when I realized that there are benefits to being stuck on a residence connection: a huge LAN. A fair number of people realized this and are sharing massive amounts of media. I must have, by far, the most of anyone though. I have almost all of my 200GB drive shared, and it's nearly full. So far I've downloaded some music, Seasons one and two of Chapelle's Show, four seasons of Scrubs, and an anime called Samurai Champloo. It's set in ancient Japan and has a mostly hip hop feel to it. It's really good, barring the fact that I'm not a large fan of subbed anime. After researching it a bit, I found that the directors/producers have tie-ins with Cowboy Bebop (and also the O-Ren Ishii anime scene in Kill Bill). I remember watching one episode that was really good. It has a mainly Jazz/Blues theme to it, and it is one of the more popular non-child oriented animes out there. Perhaps it would be worth forking over 40 bucks for a decent anime series, but for the moment I have LOTS to watch.

Well tonight I've got a potluck to attend. I picked up some Swedish meatballs, but I'm not entirely sure I have a container big enough to carry them over in. I guess I should think about cooking them now.

Listening to... Iron Maiden - Ghost of the Navigator
Link of the moment... Samurai Champloo on Wikipedia

Dammit, I just can't sleep in anymore. I don't know what it is, but I always wind up waking up earlier than I want, and I'm tired all day. I tend to keep myself too busy to take a snooze.

Last night was a pretty eventful night. After class, a bunch of us (John, Emiko, Mat and Hugh) went to Fairview Mall. After wasting time there and buying a handful of items, we headed over to Jack Astor's for supper. I picked up a SPC, and at Jack Astor's you can get a free appetizer with your meal with it. I got a bacon double cheeseburger, which for some odd reason I could not finish, and I split an apple pie with Emiko for dessert.

After that we headed back to my place and played a card game. I kept a commanding lead until the last hand where I lost to Emiko, on a technicality. Afterwards, Hugh, Emiko, John and I went looking for a bar to hit up. We first went to K-Zone in hopes of free karaoke. Unfortunately, it's a very Korean joint, and not free in the slightest. From there, we drove around to whatever places came to mind. First was FIlthy McNasty's which had a huge line. Next was Club Abstract which had a line just as long. We wound up going to a diner called Ethel's Lounge, and Hugh had a couple of beers. I wasted a dollar on a terrible golf game. Hopefully tonight will be even more eventful.

I've still got a certain someone on my mind. I don't know if I should try to forget the whole idea all together, or go right for it. I think I'm gonna keep trying to drop hints for a while, and hopefully she'll be receptive to it. I wonder which regular "Kevin's crush" pattern this one will turn out like.

Listening to... All - Vida Blue
Link of the moment... I really do and do not recommend the garlic pan bread.

...I did it again

Dear god, I've done it again. I'm willing to tell you right now, that I have a problem. I have a problem and I want to not have it anymore.

I'm going to tell you what I just did, and I'm going to change the details to protect the innocent.

Recently I met a pretty cute girl in Waterloo. The only thing that she told me about herself is that her name is Lauren and that she's from England. Out of curiosity and boredom, I decided to use UWdir to see what I could find out about her. There were only 2 Laurens at UW, and one had an email from England. From this I know that her name is Lauren Simmons.

In the Community Center, there's a map where you can put a flag on your city. I tagged Thunder Bay, naturally, and I noticed the only city marked in England was Leeds. Now I know her name, and the city she's from. It's starting to get scary.

In a fit of boredom, and unable to sleep from the humidity, I used the dark tool known a Google to stalk what will undoubtedly be another poor victim of my desire. First I search for "Lauren Simmons". Too many results. I try "Lauren Simmons" Leeds. Bingo. Now I know that she's interested in photography. Not only that, but I find her email address pinned to the page as well. I should have stopped there.

Of course, I slip the email address into the enticing Google text box. The first result brings me to her own webpage. She's a very good webdesigner, might I add. Being this far, I click on the "About Me" section of the site. Now I have far too many topics to bring up in conversation that I know she'll be interested in. But that's still not enough for me...I know there's more...yes. There it is. A link to her LiveJournal. I know that I should leave her LJ to be read only by those who are invited, but I've already gone this far, dammit, how could I leave now? Unfortunately there is no mention of me in there, but that's probably much better for me. If there were, I would mull over it for days.

Then I thought...I wonder how many people have gotten to this page through google? Knowing my first name alone doesn't seem to yeild anything with both thunder bay and waterloo, but "Kevin Jurcik" puts my blogger profile front and center. Honestly, I hope she, for some reason, decides to google me. I hope she reads my whole blog, including this post. At least then we'd have something in common.

Listening to... Transplants - Quick Death
Link of the moment... Curse you, vile tool of demons!

Pre-term week is always so fun

I had one hell of a day yesterday. I went back to Zellers for perhaps the third or fourth thime this term for supplies. I picked up garbage bags for our already overflowing garbage that currently had a Sobey's bag. When i got home and tried to put one of the new bags in, I realized I'm a moron and bought bags that were too small. I headed out to Sobey's to get some that fit.

When I grabbed some, I went to the checkouts. Only two were open, and neither was moving all that fast. I waited in one for a few minutes, but it looked like the person there was having trouble with a customer, so I scooted over to the other line. There was a semi-decent looking girl in front of me, and she sneezed. I didn't know whether to say bless you or not, but I decided against it. At that point I decided that if I was going to have any stories to tell, I've got to take action. So, after she paid for her heavy looking items, I asked her if she wanted a ride back to campus. Before that, she got me to taxi her to the dollar store, and we had a nice conversation. Her name is Marianne/Mary-Anne and she's from BC. When I got to her place (on the other side of CLV, two houses down from John), she invited me in and we made sweet love. Oh wait, no, we just hung out for a while. She smokes, so that knocks her out of the potential girlfriend pile, but it's good to make a new friend. So let that be a lesson to you: if you have a car and spare time, offer to give someone a ride home.

In the afternoon, I started putting my stuff away in the kitchen, and Nicholas came home. He said he biked to downtown Kitchener to look for a music store to buy a guitar. A few minutes later, I saw him leaving with a bag, and asked where he was going. He said he was going to take the bus to the music store to buy a guitar, and naturally I offered to give him a ride instead. There's a lot in downtown Kitchener to see. I caught Club Abstract, so I at least know the general area it's in. I hope to go there at least once this term.

For supper, I cooked the worst steak I've ever eaten. I slapped it on the grill, and it looked good at one point, but when I cut it open it was still very much raw, so I had to throw it back on, and it became very tough. I don't think I'll try cooking any more steaks on it, but hopefully chicken and hamburgers will come out well. I also nuked some creamed corn, and it was edible.

At 7, I trekked over to the community center for the general merriment night for people in CLV. At first it was boring because I didn't wanna take the plunge and talk to anyone. One of the dons chatted it up with me, and once I saw a card came starting up, I joined in and played with them for a while. One of them asked me where I was from, and when I said Thunder Bay, the don slicing fruit turned around with a shocked look. Turns out she's from Thunder Bay too. Her name is Zara (sp?), and we both know Robyn and Catrina, but we couldn't really drop any other names that we knew. She's even from the same year as me.

After the main card game with the guys at the smaller table, I played ping pong with Milan. He beat me, but I haven't gotten too rusty. After that game, I noticed a larger card game going on with more people. The game was asshole, and I joined in, making it a nine player two deck game. I sat next to a typical looking Asian girl, and I was pretty shocked when she started talking with an Australian accent. I've gotta say though, it's the most adorable accent ever, coming from an already adorable Asian girl. Her name was Emiko (sp?). Some of the other people at the table included the don, John, Matt from Montreal who had a bevy of card games, Hugh, who convinced me his name was Stanley, Milan, and a handful of people I've already forgotten. When everyone was exhausted from playing cards until midnight, we walked home, and it turns out that Matt and Emiko live within spitting distance of me. One of these nights, I'll have to invite them over for a card game, or a game of risk or Settlers of Catan. It was a really great night, and I hope I can keep up communication with everyone I've met.

Listening to... Gorillaz - Slow Country
Link of the moment... New boardgame I want to pick up and try.

Home Sweet Home

Well here I am sitting in my room in my new townhouse, where I'll be living for the next eight months. For the most part I like it so far. I didn't like the table they have in the room, so I went out to Canadian Tire and bought the snazzy folding computer desk. It fits fine, but I really don't like the keyboard tray. It doesn't pull out very far, it doesn't slide easily, and there's a wooden lip at the end that makes typing very uncomfortable. There was no endtable in the room either, so I put a little plastic storage unit next to the bed, and now I have no space to sit back in the chair. Once I hook up some speakers, I can push this desk right against the wall, which will free up a few inches, but I kinda wish I got the thirty dollar computer desk. It had room for a keyboard, monitor, and printer which is all I really needed.

I've met my four roommates now, and they're all great guys. There's Nicholas, he is from France. I've gotten along with him great so far. Haha, he's got a dreamy French accent. Ben is from England, so he says things like "Brilliant" and "Rubbish". He seems to be the one out of us who will be partying and coming in late. He's in Geography, and even he makes fun of it. Christian is from Germany, and he brought the motherload to the kitchen. Dishes, pots, pans, cutlery...I don't think we need to buy anything thanks to everything he brought. He even got a TV from his friend, and we can get all of 7 channels on it. As far as I can tell, we occasionally get some Simpsons and hockey, so it's a lot better than not having a TV.

I haven't really slept all that great on this bed. It's really not comfortable in the least. The heat sometimes keeps me up too. We have a really big living room too, and not much to do with it. We've got the TV in one corner, and chairs around it, but there's still a lot we could do with the room. Ben wants to put posters up, but I hope he doesn't want me to contribute. I'm not a big fan of beautification.

I've got some supplies to pick up today, and then I've got to get some grocery shopping done. Sooner or later, I'm going to have to make my own food.

Listening to... Pennywise - Every Time
Link of the moment... My accommodations