Dr Eric's Blogology

I've moved

2010-05-07T16:09:00.000-04:00

If you're looking for Dr Eric's Blogology then you can find it at http://drericallan.wordpress.com

If you came here by mistake then I wish the best of luck finding whatever it is that you are Googling for.

Special Thanks

2010-05-02T18:01:00.000-04:00

This is my 100th post, I wanted to thank you to all of you that have been reading my blog since the beginning. I feel like this blog has come a long way from the incoherent random stories that I posted at the start.

Here are some of my successes that you the readers are responsible for achieving over the past 7 months...

1850 - unique visitors coming from 66 countries

Naturally my blog was the biggest hit for Canadians but it looks like there is a strong American following as well as over 200 page views from Australia and the UK

The most popular posts were "My blog is special" focusing on the different Erics of the world and "Roar it's a blog-i-vore" my rant about vegetarianism. Why these two were the most popular I have no clue.

A big shout out to my readers in Sweden, Afghanistan and Ireland. These readers spent an average of 6 minutes on the blog so thank you so much to you loyal readers.

I've learned a lot from this past year and I hope to carry my blog forward and attract many new followers. So check out my new blog, keep reading and I encourage you to give me feedback and share your thoughts.

Here is the link for my new blog. http://drericallan.wordpress.com

You Stay Classy Planet Earth

2010-04-22T12:00:00.000-04:00

For a planet that is over 4 billion years old you certainly still look great on the outside. It's whats on the inside that really matters says my mom. That's where we come in. Celebrate Earth Day today! Pick up some trash, walk or take public transit to work, plant a tree or resist the urge to cut one down. There are lots of way to make this a better place. Ted Turner, for one, created Captain Planet!

20 years ago, Captain Planet and the Planeteers was made into a cartoon show and during the six seasons it was on the air, it made a lasting impression on me and other children of the late 80's, early 90's.

"Captain Planet, he's our hero, gonna take pollution down to zero!" I always remembered that theme song and loved the show except I always remember getting really upset because one kid had the heart ring. In my mind, the heart ring did not count as an element of Earth and should have carried no powers. Early stages of my Neuroticism I guess.

Another great part of the show was it one of the earliest cartoon shows to promote multiculturalism, having characters from all over the world work together to defeat the EcoVillans.

Truly an amazing show, ahead of its time. And how random is it that Whoopi Goldberg was the voice of Gaia and Phil Collins wrote the theme song. Big Double T pulled out all the tricks to make this show a success.

"The Power is Yours" Thanks Captain Planet, 20 years later and I still remember your message. Here is an homage to Captain Planet and several other Eco-Friendly characters.

The Last Time the Leafs Made the Playoffs...

2010-04-21T16:55:00.000-04:00

... I was in first year university, not yet 19 and a scrawny 145lbs
... The songs "Hey Ya", "Stacey's mom", and "Right Thurr" were at the top of the charts
... Andrew Raycroft and the Bruins beat out The Leafs to win the Northeast division by just a few points
... Martin St. Louis was the league MVP
... Chris Bosh, Lebron James and Dwayne Wade were all in their rookie year
... Vince Carter was still a Raptor
... The Patriots beat the Panthers in the Super Bowl
... One Tree Hill was the newest "Pop TV Drama" show

I think that's a good start. 2003-2004, the last season the Toronto Maple Leafs made the playoffs. A long time has passed and many faces have come and gone in that time span. 3 head coaches, 3 "franchise" goalies, 3 GMs and a whole bunch of roster shuffling. With Ponikarovsky departing to the Pens on trade deadline day, that leaves Tomas Kaberle as the sole keeper of the playoff records that seem ancient to the organization.

At first glance you start to remember how awesome this team was but then looking at the names you think to yourself, why did they do so well? Simple, it was a different league back then and having just a few goal scorers was good enough had the rest of the team been stocked with aggressive 2 way players. The top players on the team included such names as:

Mats Sundin (32), Alexander Mogilny (34), Joe Nieuwendyk (36), Gary Roberts (37), Darcy Tucker (28) Owen Nolan (31), Tomas Kaberle (25), Bryan McCabe (28), Ron Francis (40), and Brian Leetch (35) added at the deadline. Throw in Tie Domi and Ed Belfour that is a team filled with grit and finishers.

Not one player finished with point per game status and after Sundin's 75 pts, the next highest was McCabe at 53. It was a balanced attack that didn't score as much but won the big games and had no problems physically dominating other teams.

Sadly it just wasn't quite good enough as the Leafs fell to the Flyers in 2nd round on May 4th 2004 in OT...

Lest We Forget as the 6th anniversary of the dark day in Leaf-Land draws near. Here we have the final 2 goals ever scored in the playoffs by the Toronto Maple Leafs

Forgive & Forget

2010-04-20T17:00:00.000-04:00

Bryan Colangelo...I forgive you. Even though you didn't ask for forgiveness you could hear it in is voice that he was sorry for putting a lackluster Raptor team on the court this year. I forgive you because when the season started this team looked amazing, then for a good 2-3 month they played insanely good. Then they folded faster than Superman on laundry day and were out of the playoffs. On paper the team looked stacked with talent and at times you couldn't decide who outside of Patrick O'Bryant and an injured Reggi Evans should be a reserve...

He was wrong and he knows he has to correct it. I forgive you BC, please hire me...

On the same day as BC's "apology" 2 other random headlines caught my eye that fit this theme.

"Tom Jones' Welsh Village Ban Lifted"
After 47 years Tom Jones can return to Fochriw, Wales. Thank the good Lord for him as I'm sure this has been eating away at him for 47 years. Story goes, Tom stole a chicken after a gig. What he didn't know was this was probably one of the few chickens in the town and that stealing a chicken is one of the most heinous things you could ever do.

At least now Tom Jones can go back and enjoy Fochriw a town known for...wait a minute, let me go on Wikipedia...COAL MINES!

"Pope Finally Forgives John Lennon"
40 years after John Lennon stated that The Beatles were bigger than Jesus, The Vatican has forgiven him and The Beatles for their blasphemy. That really helps seeing as how half of the members have been dead for many years now. I guess now their souls would be allowed into Heaven but being released from a place after 20-30 years it'd tough to make it on the outside ya think?

What's interesting to note is that it took 15 years for the Vatican to forgive the man who attempted to kill the Pope. Bottom line is do not get on the Vatican's bad list or it will be a long road to forgiveness.

But if a town in Wales and The Vatican can forgive someone after 40 years, I think even sports fans can forgive past figures (except Rob Babcock and John Ferguson Jr.).

Practicing Safe Breath

2010-04-16T15:53:00.000-04:00

A pretty clever commercial, but won't be incorporated into any Grade 9 Health classes anytime soon. A guy should probably practice more than just safe breath.

Bad Tiger Bad!

2010-04-13T14:05:00.000-04:00

Ever since the Tiger Woods Nike Golf commercial came across the buzz feeder, many people have been asking me what my views on the commercial are. Now, those people may be imaginary, but they are also intelligent because they came to me who is the wisest person in that imaginary world....

First off, I'm not going into the actual scandal that Tiger Woods was involved with. In case you've been living under a rock for the past couple of months, Tiger Woods was involved in an altercation with his wife. Then it was revealed he had a rather unquenchable thirst for women, hence Gatorade dropping out as a sponsor.

The big deal now is this commercial that has been released by Nike Golf. Here is the video if you have not seen it yet.

OK, now, I believe this is a great commercial. It tugs at your emotional strings and gets a reaction out of you either positive or negative. Many people that I asked that disliked the commercial barely make the association with Nike, so in my opinion a negative view of the commercial is because the consumer does not agree with Tiger Woods and not Nike. A positive reaction almost always brings out, "good for them, great PR spin." The commercial doesn't try to distract the audience with flash but rather has fully acknowledged that they are aware of the situation and not treating the audience like a bunch of idiots. Good on ya.

Yes I realize many people disagree with using Tiger's deceased father as a voice over is a little much but when you think about it, this was a man that would have done everything he could to help Tiger. Doesn't that include lending his voice to support Tiger after he's past on? I think so.

My final point. His wife has reportedly forgiven him, the golf world has forgiven him (though they can't afford to not forgive him) and whether you forgive him or not, he has to live with this for the rest of his life and still has the will to stay in the public eye and play golf. That takes courage.

Play on Tiger, just be sure to no longer text, voicemail or e-mail your mistresses next time, learn from your mistakes. Oh yea, found this little clip online, I think it's good for a laugh. A hilarious spoof of the aforementioned commercial. Check it out.

"It's so small" - That's what she said!

2010-04-09T11:42:00.000-04:00

Many of you probably saw this story in the Metro newspaper the other day but I thought it was of interest to bring to the attention of people not from Toronto, especially Hicksville NJ, shout outs to that resident who read my blog yesterday.

128 Day Avenue, home of Toronto's smallest house. Just over 300 square feet of coziness and Hobbit style fun. Some say it's the World's smallest house at 7ft wide, 49 ft long. 7 ft wide, I wouldn't be able to give anyone a massive hug or my hands would slam against the walls. It's more of a hallway than a house.

What it lacks in size it makes up for in interest as "The Little House" has been talked about for decades and even was courted by Ellen Degeneres, probably for keeping a low profile whenever she's in Toronto.

Supposedly it was rented out to a student several years ago for $900 a month, pretty pricey for a house that would have some really awkward keggers. Right now it's listed at around $179,000, though it does have a patio and 2 parking spaces...It even has a website http://www.thelittlehouse.ca

Our House...Is a very very very tiny house

I really really really hate Pigeons

2010-04-08T20:03:00.000-04:00

Today I was walking around Liberty Village in Toronto when I was "accosted" by a hideous creature. No it wasn't Tiger Woods, ah those jokes are getting old. It was a pigeon! One flew right in front of me to the point where it hit the side of my arm and began freaking out till it flew past my face. I too started to freak out and turned to the mistake of nature and yelled "Seriously! You have the entire sky, why and how do you fly into a single person when there is no one else on the street?!"

Pigeons once held great value to man, when they were used to deliver messages especially during the World Wars when radio couldn't be used for fear of revealing a plan. Of course the Germans could probably just shoot pigeons down and look at the notes they carried but I guess they didn't want to waste bullets.

Ok, they served their purpose, but now we should ask ourselves, do we really need pigeons anymore? Before animal lovers get too upset, realize that there are actually cities who pay people to spray Pigeons with a watering gun, until they realize that it isn't safe for them to be at that spot anymore. Pigeons crap all over the place and the ones in Toronto do not fly out of the way when people approach. They simply waddle around as if they expect people to walk around them.

The other summer my mother asked me to try an experiment with the pigeons at our home. A flock of them had set up shop at her bird feeder and were scaring away the smaller, more exotic birds. Whenever I would sit outside I was to throw a tennis ball at the birds until they flew away. I did this about 20 times one day and every 2 minutes the Pigeons would return, even after I clocked a few of them.

They truly are morons and the only purpose of the common Pigeon nowadays is to confirm that your city is indeed a large urban developed area with enough people to accumulate enough waste to feed these pests.

Of course I have no actual plan to rid Toronto of these creatures, it is more of just a rant and to tell people to stop feeding them! Please just stop, or they will take over our city. I have even spotted them underground in the subways, they're invading every level of our infrastructure. We need something to get rid of them...

They Call Him Black Dynamite

2010-04-06T15:36:00.000-04:00

Over the weekend I wanted to watch a movie. Crazy eh? It was 11pm and I was exhausted so anything longer than a 2 hour movie would be unacceptable. Enter Black Dynamite, a 70's spoof of "blaxploitation" where a retired CIA agent must avenge his brothers death.

The movie originally appeared at Sundance in 2009 and actually beat out The Hurt Locker at the Seattle Film Festival suggesting film critics in Seattle enjoy nudity, excessive violence and 70's stereotypes of African Americans. Clearly the movie was not as successful as The Hurt Locker and grossed just above $200,000.

Still...Black Dynamite is entertaining and the movie takes a bold move poking fun of the movie itself. What's even more random about this bizarre film is the cast of characters. Here you have Michael Jai White (Spawn) alongside his fellow pimps - Arsenio Hall, Tommy Davidson, Nicole Sullivan, Brian McKnight and John Salley.

I laughed the entire time during this movie. There are even parts where you think it's too corny but then the film verifies your perception as it joins in on the laughing. Black Dynamite is a magical character who would probably to this day give Austin Powers and James a run for their money of International Spies from the 60's/70's who enjoy women as much as they enjoy ripping someone's arm off.

Check this movie out and don't expect a deep storyline, just accept it as a comedy and laugh along with the ridiculousness. If I still haven't convinced you, here some clips below. For those that have seen it, I think you'll agree the best scene in the movie is them discussing the current drug conspiracy and relating it to Greek mythology.

George Brown Gets You A Job...You may not like it though

2010-03-31T15:13:00.000-04:00

"See yourself in the job." Yes, because the only way I will have the job I want will be in my imagination.

The other week I was contacted by the crack squad at George Brown College. In February they had sent a letter out saying they would be contacting alumni in early March in regards to their satisfaction with the education they received. The note also specified that students should check their contact information online to ensure it was up to date.

Now, in order to do that a student must use their log-in information, only George Brown resets passwords every 17 weeks, meaning alumni passwords were deleted. I explained this to the registrar office who told me I should have gone to reset my password at the school. I replied, why the hell would I take time out of my life to reset a password for a school I no longer attend. So, they took down my cell phone number and said they would contact me next week.

3 weeks later ( I guess they wanted to give everyone more time to find a job) they called my home phone. Brilliant, seeing as how I was out and that's why I gave them my cell number. Finally they got a hold of me and asked if I would like to answer a survey. I agreed and then listened to the woman explain the benefits of taking the survey. After her 5 minute speech I said "I already said yes, I will do it, please stop selling to me".

And so the survey got under way. First question.

"Are you currently attending George Brown College or another educational institution?"
- No, I graduated from GBC. I am not attending any other schools

"So that means you are working?"
- No.

"So you are not in school and not working?"
- Correct.

"Have you been looking for work?"
- Yes, of course

"Why didn't you get hired?"
- I don't know. I guess no one thought I was experienced enough

"So they thought you weren't experienced enough but they felt you received the right education?"
- I really don't think they cared where I was educated, I didn't have the experience

...I explain the problem I was experiencing of not being hired and she seemed to not understand that a diploma from George Brown didn't magically get me experience for a job.

"I will now ask you some questions and please select an answer. #1. The education you received at George Brown College A) Exceeded your expectation B) Met your expectation C) Somewhat met your expectation or D) Somewhat did not exceed your expectation"
- "Somewhat did not exceed? Is there it fell drastically below my expectations? That would be my answer

"OK I will say somewhat met your expectation, is that OK?"
- No, it did not meet my expectations at all, please put that down

"#2, The education you received at GBC gave you the skills to succeed at your job"
- I have been unemployed or an intern since graduation, so I can't answer that question

"OK I will put down that they somewhat helped you succeed"
- No, please don't put that down. Put N/A if you must put something

"#3, Have you met all your career objectives that you had for yourself before you attended George Brown?"
- Again, I am not working so unless I had very low career objectives...

"So you did meet your objectives?"
- No, I have high objectives and GBC did not help me meet them.

I politely stopped her there. I said I understand you have a job to do but I feel that all these questions only apply if you have a job. (No wonder 9 out of 10 students have a job). I asked if there was an open comment section where I could voice my concern. She said yes and I vented. The jist of it was that I believe GBC has successful graduates but that they are in specific programs like nursing where your career path is set. Sport & Event Marketing is so broad, a program like that can't be a cookie cutter where every year students find a job in the industry of sport and event marketing. I also said that as students many of us felt our voices were not heard and that GBC needs to use their resources in a more effective way by developing better partnerships with companies in marketing and event planning. We also needed more guidance. I had no idea what companies I should be looking to work for except MLSE that were involved with Sports Marketing.

"Did you try to talk to a career counselor?"
- Yes, she is so hard to get a hold of, and is only available a few hours a week

"OK, I will give you the number of a career counselor here, 416..."
- "That's the one I was talking about. Is there only one counselor?

After an exhaustive 20 minutes the survey ended. Bottom line is that George Brown needs to look in the mirror and better understand the hiring process of the marketing world. Some of the profs were terrific and have even gotten me job interviews but the program itself needs to change. It's been nearly 8 months since my graduation and if the alumni office actually records the survey results from my program, it will be interesting to see if George Brown still claims that 9 out of 10 graduates receive a job within 6 months.

The Great Office Escape

2010-03-21T15:30:00.000-04:00

Good Grief Charlie Brown...Monday is tomorrow and I'm already thinking about my plans for the next weekend. That tends to happen a lot whenever I take a weekend off for relaxing. Luckily my plans for the weekend are almost set already so I just have to survive another week of work.

If only there was a way of getting out of work early on Friday so I could start my weekend sooner...Well the people at Guinness have a new website up that has given me some inspiration and motivation to plan an office escape this Friday and get my friends together to start the weekend off right. If anyone from my work is reading this blog right now please close this window or distract yourself with a hilarious cat video on Youtube.

On Friday I was contacted by Guinness to give a prescription of curing your boring work week by planning ahead with your friends to get of work and hit the pubs. Their new website Guinness After Work has a team set up to help you plan your next pub outing with your pals/cronies/buds/ or crew members. Even well wishers can be invited to join in on your festivities. Sometimes though when you're planning a weekday outing you have to shave some time off work in order to get to the pub before it fills up, especially during patio whether. Guinness has some good excuses to use on your boss such as "My computer is acting up" and "There's a training session on Maximizing Efficiency that I really want to attend this afternoon". But I have some other good ones that all my readers are free to use. Remember the key to using these excuses is to have back stories to beef up the excuse as well as keep a straight face and get out before too many questions are asked.

#5. I woke up today and there was this really green looking fungus on my right toe. It hurts to remove my shoes and I think I should really get it checked out right away. Did you want to see it and give me your opinion?

#4. I'm trying to this piece of software to enhance the upcoming presentation to our client but it's on the company's firewall. I got it installed on my home office and could finish it up there. Picture it being like Powerpoint on speed, it'll be worth it!

#3. I still haven't seen Avatar yet...

#2. Sorry, I'm a little sore today, the other day I was playing some and I really messed up my . Oh I didn't know you were a fan. We should play as soon as I feel better but this is really sore so it could be a while at least until I get it checked out in a few weeks.

#1. Something is wrong my car. I did bring my emergency hang glider but I will have to use it before the sky rush hour which is around 3pm. Can I give you a lift home because dropping out of the 62nd floor here should give us some pretty good speed. At least let me mail these letters for you.

You can submit your excuses to the Guinness website along with redeem some coupons and discounts for consumption the next time you go to a pub and well, consume. So check it out.

Brawlin' on St. Patty's Day

2010-03-17T12:29:00.001-04:00

St. Patrick, told by God to revisit Ireland to save the Irish. To mark that day everyone adorns a shamrock to remind them of the Holy Trinity. I dug up some more research (Wikipedia) and apparently the holiday eventually became a break for lent, hence the massive consumption of alcohol.

If Braveheart and most of television stereotypes taught me anything it's that the Irish love to fight, especially on St. Patrick's Day. This too is another tradition embraced by nations all over the world. Here are my favourite ol' fashion St. Patty's Day inspired brawls/brew-has/melees/smack-downs.

This video made it to my desk last year. All servers must know what it's like to get stiffed on a tip, but these guys lose it when two patrons refuse to pay on St. Patrick's Day. Not so much funny as it is ridiculous and a bit of an a-hole move on the part of the videographer.

Gaslamp St. Patty's Day Fight Part One @ Yahoo! Video

This one is short but it's hilarious how rather than breaking up the fight a swarm of people run up to cheer the fighters on

This video also made the rounds last year around St. Pats Day. Why is so common for a mixed tag team match? Girls if your boyfriend keeps getting into fights maybe you should not be with him or risk getting a blackeye from another girl.

On the lighter side...

Finally, for those sports fans that remember this hockey brawl.

You Know You've Made it, When You're a Disney Character's Voice

2010-03-15T16:20:00.001-04:00

It's really hard for me not to start debates at work or at the pub. People start talking, they laugh and you learn from one another. One of the topics I always seem to bring up are Disney films. There's a wide range of topics that can be debated in this field: Which film presents the best message to kids? Which is the most evil villain? or my recent one - Which film boasts the biggest star power?

A quick IMDB search lead me to some fascinating discoveries. You spend hours of your childhood watching these films and sometimes you don't even remember who were the stars and you end up saying "really, he was in that one?" Now for this topic I'll only be going back to the late 80's since I have no clue as to who the stars were of Snow White nor would I know if they were relatively famous.

Aladdin (1992) - Gilbert Gottfried as Iago and Robin Williams as The Genie

Pocahontas (1995) - Christian Bale (yeah) as Thomas and of course Mel Gibson as Jon Smith

Hunback of Notre Dame (1996) - Jason Alexander as Hugo, Kevin Kline as one of the Gargoyles and Demi Moore as Esmerelda. Demi Moore and Jason Alexander, definitely fit nicely

Tarzan (1999) - Minnie Driver, Glenn Close, Wayne Knight, Rosie O'Donnell and Phil Collins with the song

Emperor's New Groove (2001) - John Goodman, Eartha Kitt, Patrick Warburton & David Spade. With Tom Jones as song writer

Mulan (1998) - George Takei, Pat Morita (Mr. Miyagi), Harvey Fierstein & Eddie Murphy. Christian Aguilera also had a song in the movie

Hercules (1997) - Rip Torn as Zeus, Danny Devito as Phil, Keith David as Apollo (he played in a lot of Disney movies and war movies), Wayne Knight, James Woods as Hades and Paul Schaeffer as Hermes

The Lion King (1994) - This was a stellar movie and boasted the greatest depth of star power. These actors/actresses were all in the movie if you can believe it...

Rowan Atkinson as Zazu
Matthew Broderick as Simba (adult)
Jonathan Taylor Thomas as Simba (kid)
Whoopi Goldberg as the girl Hyena
Robert Guillame as Rafiki, google him and you'll know he's famous from something
Cheech! as the other Hyena that doesn't just laugh
Nathan Lane as Timon
James Earl Jones as Mufasa
& Jeremy Irons as Scar, quite possibly the most evil Disney character

Let's not forget that Elton John wrote Circle of Life and won a Grammy for it.

Hop in my Blue Van

2010-03-11T16:08:00.000-05:00

The Oscars are over and I must say I was delighted to see Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin as Co-Hosts. They were hilarious and it made me stay on the channel, though I changed the station to the Leafs game whenever someone gave a speech. What me made me even happier was the iPad commercial. Not because I want one or think it's cool but because Apple has historically skyrocketed relatively unknown bands into the mainstream and that time it was The Blue Van's turn.

I've been a big fan of The Blue Van ever since their 3rd album Silly Boy came out in '08 I believe. I'll admit I have yet to hear their first 2 albums but I doubt they're nearly as great as the latest one. I am old school and still use Limewire to download songs so I've only ever been able to download 3 or 4 songs from them but hopefully that should change now that they've been Apple'd.

Many Social Media critics like Mashable claim the iPad commercial won't go viral, which for the most part I believe them. I mean, the commercial is really sub par and very basic but I still hope that The Blue Van gets some added fan base.

The Danish band has had some exposure before with a few of their songs being featured in a MLB video game and an episode of Scrubs according to Wikipedia but I haven't seen it. Either way they got some great songs to get you tapping your toes, shaking your hips or whatever it is hip cool kids do these days for dancing. Their best tracks to check out:
- Man Up
- Silly Boy
- Be Home Soon
- There Goes My Love (iPad Commercial)

Facebook Pages for the 2010 Olympics

2010-03-09T18:56:00.000-05:00

The 2010 Olympics is nearly 2 weeks old but is still fresh in our memories. There were a lot of memorable events and it was the most watched Olympics (supposedly) with a reported 3 billion viewers. It was also just the 2nd Olympic Games during the age of Facebook, though Turin was during the early stages.

Fan Pages and groups seemed to be appearing everywhere during the games. The Vancouver Olympics official fan page jumped 60% in the first week of the games and now stands at 1.7 million strong. It's always fun to join a fan page, even if it's just for a fad page like that Onion one. Here are a couple of other notable pages and groups that I came across during the game...

Terry Fox's Mother to Light the Flame - 126,000 members
No school during the olympics - 66,000 members
I bet Canada can get more fans than the US: I could've sworn this page had way more than 288,000 fans but I guess either people dropped out or Canadians realized there was no point seeing as how the US fan page had about 1800 fans.

Cheryl Bernard Full time Cougar, Part time MILF - 389 fans, the other popular group:
Cheryl Bernard is a cougar - 316 members....Yes she is!

Speaking of curling babes, my all time favourite olympian - Carmen Schaefer a.k.a. "Swiss Miss", a.k.a. "Countess of Curling" a.k.a. "Majestic Eyes"

Carmen Schaefer - 2,400 fans: I joined this group when it was in the 200s. Between the four days that I joined this page and Switzerland was eliminated in the bronze medal game the page had 2200 members. Let's just take a minute to gaze at her beauty. Oh and she's a pretty good curler too with a 90% take out rate

But the most successful curling related page of all belonged to the Norwegians...

Norway Curling Team's Pants - just under 10,000: They were pretty ridiculous and the designer has said to have gotten hundreds of requests for clothing orders. I can definitely see these pants being a recurring costume for future winter Olympics.

Finally, the closing ceremonies which I thought was a huge disappointment. Yeah it's supposed to show off Canada, but it was a little much and I realize we were being sarcastic with all the stereotypes but in my opinion that just came across as one inside joke. 36 million Canadians laughed, 4 billion + had no idea what was going on and probably still think Canada is a bunch of Mounties and dog sledders.

NO Nickelback at the closing ceremonies - 660 fans: Sigh, if only it came true. There were some horrible band choices besides Nickelback. It should've stopped with Neil Young rather than having him in the middle. Bad change of pace and bad selection!

Dear world we're sorry about the closing ceremonies - 120 fans

If you have any other Olympic related Facebook pages and groups that you thought were worth mentioning please feel free to comment below and share a link.

OK GO Viral

2010-03-02T16:58:00.000-05:00

"A million ways to be cruel", "Here it Goes Again" and now "This Too Shall Pass". Youtube has been the primary tool for marketing bands, especially OK GO. I bought their first album way back in 2nd year university so I want to say '04?? and for the next year or so they remained unknown to the masses until their video A million ways to be cruel made its way on Youtube and onto over 4 million computer screens. Their videos have been copied almost as many times as SNLs' Digital Shorts. I really really hate it when people re-enact videos and tag them the same as the original. Make it your own damn video, it makes searching for the real one so much harder!!!

Now OK GO has come out with another video they hope goes viral. From what I understand they have 2 videos out right now. One of them in a marching band has brought in over 800,000 views in a month and another, the one I'll show has had 100,000 views in 2 days!! Viral status approved.

Their label EMI however wanted to pull the ad from Youtube because they feel it was not the way to make a video go viral but rather invest money into other mediums to guarantee returns like buy the video from itunes. Clearly no one at EMI is a fan of chocolate rain.

Enter State Farm which sponsored the video thus saving them from EMI and allowing us to enjoy their delightful videos for free!!

Greatest Hockey Game Ever? Not For Long...

2010-03-02T15:14:00.000-05:00

Canadians are still hungover from celebrations of winning gold at Olympic Hockey this past weekend. Some say it was the biggest game in Canadian hockey history with more than 80% of Canadians watching the game at some point. No wonder no one was around to attend my recital. But good for Crosby, if he didn't score that goal he would have been under the microscope as an under performer at the games but instead he has now cemented his hand print on the Canada Walk of Sports Heroes.

It was a big game, sure, the biggest to date but I can't help wonder if it'll even come close to a game that will determine the future of mankind. I speak of...

Team Earth vs. The Intergalactic All Stars

Ever seen Space Jam? That story obviously was not true but it was based on a hypothetical of what would happen if intergalactic space aliens came down to conquer Earth. I for one am a believer that this will happen one day only this time, we won't be able to rely on Bugs Bunny and the rest of his pals because they'll all be of senior citizen status. That means it'll be up to our human athletes to fend off Earth's enemies.

Now I feel that if we were to be taken over by aliens we would at least get the chance to challenge them like in Space Jam. With the recent success of the Olympics and the growing number of hockey players over the world I would say our best bet would be challenging them to a hockey match.

While we may feel like we would have the upper hand you have to realize that hockey is a universal sport and is played on many different planets and moons. The talent pool that the Intergalactic All Stars would have would make for a major uphill battle. These Alien players would be paid to play against Earth by the beings trying to take us over. Therefore their motivation wouldn't be as great as ours giving us a slight edge in that department. Talent wise is a whole other story. We would obviously recruit our best - Crosby, Ovechkin and the usual suspects but the Intergalactic All Stars boast some elite players as well.

Just look as this sculpture, they have sculptures instead of trading cards.

Behold Kraggar!!! a.k.a. "The Kommander" His last season space stats for the Nebulon Galaxy League were 320 goals, 543 assists and 14 decapitations.

That's one spaceman I would not want to face on the ice. We'd have to have a pretty tough checking line to hold him and his crew to minimal scoring.

So continue thinking that the Canada-US game is the greatest game in history of hockey but I for one BELIEVE that the true great game of our time is close at hand and will require all Earthlings to come together and fight. Well, only the 8 or so nations that have NHLers, the others should feel guilty and buy lots of merchandise to support our team.

Even Iginla has fans from the Vothrox Galaxy

Oh Canada

2010-02-26T19:39:00.000-05:00

Many of you know that I attended university at Mount Allison University out in New Brunswick. I got to see and hear a lot of great East Coast music. Sometimes it got a little much when certain Great Big Sea songs were constantly played at the school pub and everyone would sing except me because I didn't know all the words and then people would look at me and say "YOU DON"T KNOW THIS SONG?!"

But one artist I particularly enjoyed listening to was Classified. Possibly one of Canada's hottest rappers right now on the charts, he was big out east but virtually unknown to the rest of the country. From Enfield Nova Scotia, the same region as some of my housemates, Classified frequented Curly's pub so I'm told. After 3 years of hearing his songs, Classified announced he would finally come to Sackville.

So there we were, inside George's Roadhouse hearing Classified spit hot rhymes. It's great to see local bands play for a while and then become well known to the rest of the country. It happened to the Trews while I was at Mount A and it happened to Classified.

You probably have seen his latest hit, a new anthem for Canada that was unveiled at the start of the Olympic Games. My favourite part is the omage to those Canada Heritage moments. Great work Classified, the video has gone viral in the country and hopefully a lot more Canadians know who you are because of it.

Top 5 Adult Film Titles about Adam Giambrone

2010-02-24T15:21:00.000-05:00

It's a little overdue, I meant to have this for Valentine's Day in time with the election scandal but better late than never. Before I give you the hilarious list full of puns and references to the TTC, I wanted to say that I got to work with Mr.Giambrone at the ROM in my first year and from what I can remember he was a nice guy.
But ever since Tiger Woods cheated, it is now socially acceptable to playfully mock celebrities and their infidelities...

#5) Ride His Rocket: Fare & Skirt Hikes
#4) "Ummm Stimulation" - this is based on the texts he sent to his young mistress
#3) Bootyquest - a play on the course GeoQuest that he taught at the ROM searching for Gems...
#2) Davenport Riding: The horniest of all Toronto ridings
#1) Adam Giambroner Jam #12

*Didn't make the cut: Young Skanks Who Sleep with People in Power so they can get Famous Themselves"

It's a Voice Off!

2010-02-13T16:57:00.003-05:00

It's what we've all been waiting for. No, not the Olympics! The final duel between two wise, old men who have made a fortunate lending their voice to olympic commercials for their respective countries. For the past year or so Donald Sutherland of Canada and Morgan Freeman of America have turned in their Hollywood acting hats and replaced them for throat lozenges and a pair of spectacles to read scripts as Narrators. Every olympic commercial (and there many) have the two men lending their voices to rally their countrymen to get involved as consumers for the vast array of Olympic products. I think there's actually a tax on all products that have been featured in a commercial with Sutherland or Freeman narrating or at least they get a cut of each product.

I've seen the commercials so many times that now the voice of Freeman and Sutherland acts as a calming presence, like a warm glass of milk. Both actors are well known in Hollywood and both provide excellent narration, but if the two of them battled each other in a voice off, who would win?

Donald Sutherland's voice is calming and soft. He makes me feel at peace and can get me to focus my attention for the entire commercial, which is very very difficult to do. His narrator experience is a little behind Freeman but his performances are still noteworthy including the major motion picture Dinosaurs: Giants of Patagonia. He also did a few documentaries in the 80's for films about China and Chimps. Oh yea he also did the opening ceremonies for this year's olympics as well.

Morgan Freeman is the wisest man in Hollywood. Every film he's in he's seen as the wise, respected and good man - Shawshank, Million Dollar Baby, Batman Begins & Dark Knight and Evan Almighty when he played God. But it's not just on the screen where Freeman shines. His past voice work is in multi million dollar movies: War of the Worlds, Shawshank and March of the Penguins. Freeman's voice is calming as well but it's more empowering and if he were to just start talking on the street people would gather and listen.

I think it's safe to say that Freeman takes this battle. Although, Donald does have his son Kiefer who is the voice of Ford which brings some added firepower - not to mention he's Jack Bauer. That may lead to a 2 on 1 voice off which would be much more exciting.

Caption that Shit

2010-02-09T14:41:00.003-05:00

The good Dr. Eric has another competition for you all!

Karin the red @thekarin http://thekarin.wordpress.com sent me a tweet that had this amazing photo of a snowmen gathering. We began coming up with hilarious headlines and captions and now its the rest of you readers turn to try.

Below is the photo. Write a caption, quote or headline in the comment section and I will judge which one makes me laugh the most. The winner will get a sweet prize which will probably include some sort of meal or drink with yours truly. I may also throw in some other swag and broadcast your winning title through my social media world.

I'll get the ball rolling, haha...

Snowmen are outraged that the New Miss Snow-woman is actually an ice-cube

The first ever Frosty the snowman convention draws record attendance

A mass hunt is on for Bill's left Oreo eye last spotted in the mouth of the Johnson's family dog

Snowmen protest Wizard of Oz release claiming the phrase "I'm melting" is too soon

Your turn to make us laugh!

BOOMSHAKALAKA

2010-02-01T19:52:00.003-05:00

It's true it's true. NBA Jam is coming back! Last month EA Sports revealed that NBA Jam will be available on the Wii later this year. Check back every week to vote for who you think your starting 5 should be. 3 weeks down and they haven't done the Raptors yet.

This will mark the first Raptor appearance in the NBA Jam franchise. I started to think about who on the Raptors would be great for NBA Jam and the options are slim. Maybe they can have Vince Carter return. Chris Bosh would be the obvious choice but the other 2 spots, hmm...

Demar DeRozan and Andrea Bargnani I honestly think are the 2 closest players to the all around skills NBA Jam requires - speed, dunking and shooting

My team growing up was always the Knicks with Patrick Ewing and John Starks although Scottie Pippen seemed to be a favourite amongst most people.

So make sure to cast your votes! That's all for now, the Dion Phaneuf trade is still sinking in and I got some bigger blogs coming up. Promise!

The Lost Art of Skatebowling

2010-01-25T19:48:00.003-05:00

November 3rd 2003, three Mount Allison students sit in their residence rooms after a long day of classes with stomachs full of half cooked Chimichangas from meal hall, sending them into a near zombie-like state. Meal hall food can really make a student do weird things on a cold night and that is how the idea for a new campus sport was developed. Having lost their mobility from the lack of nutrients in their past 3 meals, the students are forced to propel themselves on a skateboard in order to reach the bathrooms. Another student (one who passed on the Chimichangas), full of energy sees one of the other lackadaisical students slowly heading down the hallway on a skateboard. Craving some excitement, the happy go lucky student grabs the other zombie student on the board and hurls them down the narrow, straight hallway. At that moment the Chimichanga’s effect on the human body were diminished, causing the student on the skateboard to awaken and become overwhelmed with a sense of fun and adventure. All they can shout out is half a “Wee…” before they slam into the side wall. The students in the hallway all open their doors to see what had happened, only to find that student standing with a huge grin on their face, a twinkle in their eye and a gaping cut on the forearm. The sport of Skatebowling had been born.

It’s almost as if no explanation was needed. The residents of Hunton House knew exactly what their peers were thinking – Creating a sport that combines the thrill of skateboarding and bowling minus any athletic ability. Quickly, the guys rounded up anything they could find that they could crash into. A few empty 2L pop bottles from the recycling area were salvaged and a pillow was placed at the end of the hallway. Each student took their turn sailing down the hallway on a run-down skateboard, crashing themselves into the pile of pop bottles. A scoring system was not needed at this point as the creators felt it would damage the “purity of the sport”. It was a simple sport, for the people, where anyone with a willing heart and lack of fear to be slammed into the wall could participate. Rules did have to be established and that night the three creators drafted the first known rulebook of skatebowling. The rules were simple:

- The skatebowler must stay on the board for the whole run
- A player must stop propelling themselves before the “line of no return”, which often was placed 7 – 12 feet away from the pins
- Other players may distract/taunt the skatebowler until they begin their run
- High fives must be given after every successful run

With only 4 rules, the sport became one of the most complex campus sports in Mount Allison history. But before that inaugural night was complete, one of the creators looked down at the surplus of leftover costume pieces lying on the floor from the past Halloween night. It was decided that each skatebowler must equip themselves with several pieces of the costumes, whether it was wearing the cape or the antlers or chemistry goggles.

Within the week, nearly every resident on the 3rd floor of Hunton House including other students of nearby residences had participated in the sport but it wasn’t long until Skatebowling received its first casualty. It was fitting that one of the creators was the first to experience the potential pain that a player could experience. After several successful runs, the young lad grew cocky and decided to increase the speed of his runs. Flying down the hallway, he knocked over all the pins but failed to land in the safety zone, smashing his forehead into the fire escape. A minor concussion a scar in the shape of an “L” on his forehead would be the price of his reckless methods. From there on out, the sport adopted the “multi-pillow” safety zone.

No one knows what happened to the sport after those students left the residence in 2005. Some say the sport still gets played on quiet nights in residence when students don’t feel like studying for exams. Others say the sport faded with its creators but is forever apart of the campus culture. Perhaps one day the sport will be picked up on other campuses and the spirit of camaraderie and stupidity will once again flow through the halls of residences across Canada.

Critical Dunk

2010-01-12T20:07:00.003-05:00

First things, I thought I'd stop with the titles using Blog puns. New year, got to try something different. Like a bandaid quick and painless, on with the blog...

The Toronto Raptors last week hosted the San Antonio Spurs. A google search of Tim Duncan to see if he would be playing lead me to an article that revealed Duncan was well known for just his basketball skills but also his skills with a d20 and wizardy. Tim Duncan plays Dungeons & Dragons! Not only that, he originally wanted to be called Merlin when he first entered the NBA and he even has a wizard tattoo of Merlin and another one of a skeleton Jester.

Why don't other NBA players take part in some D & D campaigns, if they're worried about it being bad PR it can't be any worse than Gilbert Arenas bringing guns to the locker room. That's real badass and now you can't play basketball and may lose millions of dollars.

I think a bunch of players should get together and form a party to take part in an epic quest. It could be saving a princess, battling an evil wizard or most likely a quest for the ultimate treasure guarded by the David Stern Dragon. Here's who I think would take part in a quest and what characters they would pick. Keep in mind a well equiped D&D party should be balanced with varying classes...

YOUR STARTING LINEUP FOR YOUR 2010 D&D NBA QUEST....

"at the Wizard position. Tim Duunncan!" I already mentioned he plays as a wizard but also because he's older, wiser and collecting 20ppg, 10rpg and 3apg for a big game is Magical.

"defending the party. The fighter position, Kevvvin Garrrrnet!" Defensive player of the year and intense as hell. This guy gets amped and is ready to fight every game and every battle encounter.

"in the shadows, ready to steal. Chris Paul the Thief!" Leads the league in steals for the past couple of years. He's quick and always maneouvers around his opponents to get a sneak attack steal or kill.

"Giving the party some religious faith. As the Cleric, Michael Redd!" Redd is always injured yet finds ways of healing himself to come back for a spur of games then gets hurt again. He is also quite devote in his religious faith even putting money aside to build a church for his father.

"Rounding out the starting 5, a monk who flies above the human realm, Kobe Bryant!" Kobe just is crazy, he is capable of dealing deadly strikes that are fast and is always flying around the court. Oh yea, he also studies Kung Fu and learns meditation from head coach Phil Jackson.

Other notable classes and players a.k.a. the D&D bench:

Paladin: Dirk Nowitzki, growing up in Germany he served time in the Military and is loyal to one team - The Mavericks.

Barbarian: Yao Ming, from the exotic lands of China, Ming stands half a foot taller than the majority of big men in the NBA. You can hardly understand anything he says either.

Druid: Nathan Jawai. Jawai was found playing basketball in sandals in the outback of Austrailia. He knows the land and is in touch with nature. Only a matter of time before he gets too knowledgeable and gets busted for possession.

Bard: Lebron James. The showman, The King does a bit of everything and always looks to impress. Loves the spotlight and entertaining his teammates.

I also think that you could totally do a D&D basketball game, unite Nerds and Jocks!

Dog Rescues Blog

2010-01-05T20:11:00.002-05:00

Some people were upset with my post about why North Americans don't eat dogs but eat cows instead. All I'm saying is read this article and tell me if a cow has ever saved someone!

Pretty awesome eh!

2010: A Space Blog-essy

2010-01-02T20:34:00.003-05:00

2010 is here and it couldn't have come any sooner. 2009 was definitely not a year full of fond memories. Most of the year I was sitting on the sidelines of life either with injuries or lack of funds from unemployment. A lackluster amount of accomplishments and too many disapointments totalled up to be one of the worst years I've ever had to deal with. But out with the old in with the new. I predict a big year and decade of major changes in not just my life but also throughout the world...

Here are a few things I think we can look forward to in the next decade:

- Cyborgs! A recent article in National Geographic revealed that people are officially receiving bionic limbs such as hands and legs. These robotic body parts can move digits such as fingers and toes just like a regular hand. This will give rise to cyborgs as many people will opt to remove different parts to replace them with robotic parts. I'm already trying to register for a new back that will sprout wings allowing me to glide short distances when I jump from rooftop to rooftop.

- Elbow and Knee Tattoos: All it takes is one really well done and publicized inkwork and before you know it everyone will be lining up to get their elbows and knees tattooed. The draw, it will be a test of control as many times a needle touches the elbow the reflexes will kick in. Watch for a lot of these tattoos to be smeared on jumpy people.

- The Rise of Bulgaria: Did you know that shaking ones head in Bulgaria means yes and nodding means No? This information is not well known to the other nations and this will lead to many tourists mistakingly agreeing to marry Bulgarian women. This will result in a dramatic increase in population and by the end of the decade Bulgaria will become an economic powerhouse.

- Summer Scarves: I've seen a few people in Queen West wearing scarves in the summertime! Perhaps this isn't just for style but rather these people know something that we don't. Increased exposure to UV rays? Another place to conceal small weapons? Who knows but more people will start to wear them.

- Hoverboards: These are way overdue but I think towards the end of the decade the public demand will be at it's highest for the R & D of hoverboards.

Here's to 2010. I hope you continue to stick with Dr. Eric through this year as I try to make some major life changes of my own. Including the possibility of a switch to Wordpress as Blogger is getting on my nerves.

All I want for Christmas is my blog to be...

2009-12-24T21:38:00.003-05:00

My Christmas wish for this year includes...

- Health (includes a new back, left hip and left knee)
- Wealth(enough to get my own place/start an agency/bar within 10 years)
- Success (a job that will turn into a career)
- Love (to have more people love me)
- Traffic (let's get more people hooked on this site)

I would also like to wish my following of readers a Merry Christmas and my christmas gift to you is a drink on me. So get in touch with me to collect your gift:

Scott Rosien
A_Mandolin
Danielle Charlton
Lindsay http://lindsah.blogspot.com/
The King of the Zombies http://kingofthezombies.blogspot.com/
Daniela
Victoria
& Sara http://goodmangilman.blogspot.com/

Check out those blogs, great reads!

As a gift for all of you check this out from thebasketballjones.net and check back tomorrow to see more goodies that I want to share.

Sleep well, Santa is on his way!

I eat blogs for breakfast, lunch and occassionally dinner

2009-12-19T15:52:00.003-05:00

Not sure why, but for some reason I've been debating with vegetarians (a lot of them) lately. I say "To each his/her own" but also "To eat all but the bone". Ever hear of something called the food chain?

Great clip. I could end my point there but what fun would that be.

Recently PETA began running a transit campaign which made its way onto TTC posters. I saw them quite frequently but only for a couple of weeks. I guess it wasn't a success. Convincing someone to stop eating food cooked on a BBQ on a hot summers day is quite possibly the hardest thing to do.
The comparison ad asks the question why eat one animal and not the other. The point being, what's the difference between animals, eating an animal is the same regardless of the species.

I respectfully disagree, any meat eater would tell you that animals taste different and there reasons why people eat certain animals and not the others. Not only that, but different cultures eat different animals, it's definitely an uphill battle.

Take the dog vs. cow one. A reader could go one of 3 ways. (1) omg that's right, I should just not eat animals at all any longer (2) Fine, you want me to eat dogs as well, ok! or (3) Dogs are adorable and accounted on more for their usefulness rather than deliciousness.

When man first discovered meat, animals had to adapt. Dogs were smart and when first approached by the hunters they were able to convince everyone that dogs were friendly, could retrieve items and protect the tribe. It was decided then and there that dogs would not be hunted for food. The world's first vegetarian pleaded that all animals get a chance to prove their value beyond food. One by one, species did their best to convince mankind not to hunt them but rather they would be useful.

Horses let people ride them so that man could travel greater distances. Birds would sing and cats would comfort the sick. Cows and pigs on the other hand, did not understand the concept and did what they do best - eat and stare. They were eaten on the spot in a great feast which was the world's first Barbeque. Tribes from all around smelled the good cookin and joined in the festivities. Wars were stopped and the emergence of trade and commerce began when bbq sauces, the worlds first commercially bought item, were invented.

We're a sensible species. If animals can provide a use other than food then we'll listen. It's not our fault if we can't understand the language of cows when they keep trying to explain to us that they possess the saviest financial perspectives in the world.

The fact that we even gave animals a chance is much more "humane" than say Lions which kill first and never ask questions later.

Roar, it's a Blog-a-vore!

2009-12-07T14:44:00.009-05:00

Humans love animals, they also love fights, it would make sense then that people are drawn to animal fights (just ask Michael Vick). Don't get me wrong, pitting animals against each other is barbaric, I'm saying that when these battles occur in the wild or in our imagination it's always interesting. The evidence is there, just look at discovery channel's animal face off (one of the most viewed shows on that channel though only one season has been made). Don't forget about Pokemon and The Lion King also exhibiting animal on animal violence. By the way, a Lion versus pack of Hyenas = great fight.

I still remember 2nd year University when we would have Friday Night Animal Fight Night. We didn't get animals to fight each other but rather debated hypothetically if two animals were to meet who would win. We had some pretty epic matchups including Komodo Dragon versus Lion and Grizzly Bear versus Bengal Tiger.

Well I stumbled across a website that shares my interest in debating hypothetical animal fights. http://www.wildanimalfightclub.com/ offers some great battles. My personal favourite is this video where an old television show features a Lion battle a black bear. Now this is a television show but those animals really go at it. And what parent in their right mind would let their children play with a full grown male lion. I'm sure it's trained but even housecats sometimes smack their owners. Can you imagine a 500lb lion "love tapping" your 40 pound child. Anyways watch and enjoy...

Mind bottling isn't it? I will definitely continue checking this site out but I will also give my insight into some fights I wouldn't mind seeing happen in nature.

In the Featherweight divison...

Northern Flying Squirrel
30cm long, 250grams

VS.

"Killer" the Pug
20lbs

Analysis: What seems like a mismatch in pure size the Flying squirrel makes up for in speed and stealth. Flying squirrels can glide easily from tree to tree and have sharp claws to dig out insects. Pugs a.k.a "little devil monkeys" are fast, easily agitated and are naturally curious.

Arena: Living Room
Scenario: Killer is playfully running around the room with his favourite toy, a rubber ball. The ball rolls over to the bookcase where a squirrel has recently found its way to the top of. The pug is curious and begins barking at the squirrel. The squirrel with no place to run decides to glide down and attack the ugly face of the pug. If the pug can counter the fight will be over quickly, if not, that face is going to scratched up really bad and with miniscule limbs it will be hard for the pug to knock the squirrel off.

Heading up the Welterweight divison...

Honey Badger
80cm long, 40lbs

VS.

Tasmanian Tiger
150cm long, 80lbs

Analysis: The Tasmaninan Tiger is extinct so there are few scouting reports on how the animal behaved. What is known is that they closely resemble the Tasmanian Devil in terms of behaviour in captivity which could mean the Tiger was a fierce fighter and could hunt animals larger than themselves. The Honey Badger is regarded as one of the most fearless animals in the world. They have been known to hunt pythons and small gazelles.

Location: The Honey Badger covers most of Africa so it is captured and relocated to the tiny island of Tasmania.

Scenario: With the badger being relocated it's out of its element. Unable to secure territority it moves into the Tiger's kingdom. The Tasmanian Tiger, the apex of Tasmania does not take kindly to this intruder. They attack for several rounds with the Tiger using its surrounding to reign blows on the slower badger. The badger much like Rocky in Rocky IV is in a new land and unfamiliar but fighting is a transferrable skill and the badger digs deep to survive. Badger takes it in the final round and upsets the whole ecosystem of that area.

And now for the Heavyweights...

Elephant Seal
16feet long, 4 -5 tonnes

Vs.

Hippo
11 feet long, 3 tonnes

Analysis: If these two animals ever met they would rock the earth. Both are more than capable of battling both onland and underwater. The Elephant Seal is the largest land carnivore in the world but hunts mostly underwater. It's massive with a thick thick hide. The Hippo, has the worst temper of any animal and kills more people with force or trauma (not poison) than nearly any other animal each year. Their massive tusks can gut almost any hide.

Location: Elephant Seal in the Arctic, Hippo in Africa. The seal is forced to migrate south after the ice caps melt. They land in nowadays France is. The Hippo is naturally drawn after it develops a love for pastries.

Scenario: The Hippo charges at the seal being much more agile on land. The Elephant Seal either decides to hop in the nearby river or stand strong. It does the latter and slams it's body directly into the Hippo. The tusks from the hippo are able to slice through the Elephant Seal but the Hippo is unable to eat the seal being smaller than it. The Elephant Seal continues to push the Hippo into the water thinking it can best it. The Hippo is a great swimmer but cannot open its mouth wide enough to use its tusks effectively, the seal continues to bash and bite the Hippo till it is forced out of the water. The Seal emerges tired not being used to doing this much physical activity in one setting. The Elephant Seal collapses but the fall shakes a nearby bakery. The massive sign above breaks off and lands on the heavily wounded Hippo knocking him down. A double TKO.

Let me know what animal face offs you wouldn't mind seeing.

Happy Blog-o-versary

2009-12-01T15:47:00.002-05:00

It's been 1 whole year since I started blogging... What's really amazing is that this hasn't died like many of the other projects I've invested time in. Yes it's been some time since I last posted a blog but that's because I recently took a second job and for the next month I will be working roughly 60 to 70 hours a week. In other words, not much time for blogging.

In honor of my one year in the blogiverse let's take a look at a slice of my very first posting ever entitled "In the beginning there was blog"

"Tuesday - Started off on a funny note when my Marketing Management group met to discuss our project. Lily and I began searching our names on Google as a distraction,Lily's name came up as a Defensemen for her University Lacrosse team. I said "Hey Lily, you're a D" and Alex responded from the next computer with "You're a D Lily, nice job" oh Alex and her dirty mind."

Wow, that's just brilliant material. I like to think that I've come somewhat of a long way since that mind blowing post and I hope to continue this blog for another year. Some reasons to continue this blog, well for one, this blog has become officially recognized by Canadae.ca as one of the top humour blogs in the country. Another reason, I want to add this to by razor thin list of things I've committed to for over a year. Here are some things that I have done regularily for over a year ...

- Basketball, baseball, hockey leagues
- making movies
- facebook
- text message
- running
.... I think that's about it

Throw back Blog

2009-11-17T14:09:00.006-05:00

For some random, unknown reason, cartoons of the 90's have been a popular subject with my peers. TV was my babysitter, mentor and later on my lover. I spent hours sitting in front of that screen watching cartoons. As a kid I watched the more "violent" shows - Transformers, G.I Joe, Extreme Dinosaurs and I turned out alright...so far. Some would call me the expert of Television but today I thought I'd test all my readers to see if their knowledge of 90's cartoons is as impressive as mine. Take a look, match the character names with the shows they appeared on. Good Luck...

A. Dr. Putrid T. Gangreen...............................1. Batman

B. Howard..................................................2. Freakazoid

C. Clayface.................................................3. Attack of the Killer Tomatoes

D. Morph...................................................4. Dragonball

E. Zack.......................................................5. Samurai Pizza Cats

F. Baloo......................................................6. Tail Spin

G. Tails......................................................7. Bobby's World

H. Porkchop..............................................8. X-Men

I. Dexter Douglas.....................................9. Gargoyles

J. Goliath....................................................10. Where on Earth is Carmen San Diego

K. Rath......................................................11. Sonic the Hedgehog

L. Dot.........................................................12. Reboot

M. Speedy Cerviche..................................13. Extreme Dinosaurs

N. T Bone..................................................14. Doug

O. Yamcha................................................15. Mummies Alive

Think you got it?....See answers below

A 3, B 7, C 1, D 8, E, 10, F 6, G 11, H 14, I 2, J 9, K 15, L 12, M 5, N 13, O 4

Now Let me know well you did!

Check out my new Blogstache

2009-11-06T12:03:00.007-05:00

Well it's Movember, so I thought it would be fitting to give a salute to moustaches. It's unfortunate I skipped the facial hair stage of puberty but am trying my best to take part in the moustache growing. Recently I had lunch with my buddy Josh who was sporting the classic handlebar moustache. It's been a week since I last shaved and I barely have any stubble. Do I dare continue with the moustache growing in promotion of prostate cancer research or do I save my dignity and shave the stubble?

Getting back to the salute, here is my top ten Cartoon Character Moustaches...

#10) Julius Pringles - his barbershop style moustache is the trademark symbol of Pringles chips. This delicious mascot could lull anyone to sleep with his harmonizing voice or hypnotic moustache.

#9) Rich Uncle Pennybags - This iconic mascot has a similar stache to Pringles, both of whom have probably kept that style since 1934. Pennybags made it big in retail and is said that with every hotel purchase, his moustache grows. On the downside a lot of ash from his cigars fall into his moustache during business meetings.

#8) Apu - The beloved shopowner in the Simpsons has the very slim and parted pencil style moustache. Suitable that his humble moustache ties well with his good manner demeanour.

#7) Ned Flanders - Keeping with the Simpsons, Flanders is rarely seen without his moustache. When he does shave it under the suggestion from Homer he gets casted into a commercial. The moustache I believe it keeps him close ties with the big man upstairs as I'm sure the moustache was given to him by The Creator...Matt Groening

#6) Randy Marsh - Simple stache for a simple Geologist. Randy has gotten much more "air time" in South Park with his guitar hero playing and fighting at little league games. His moustache serves him well in battle.

#5) Family Guy doctor - He's been accused of sexual harrasment, illegal practices and has proved to be an incompetent doctor yet the Griffin family continues to see him as their family doctor. Perhaps it's the calm, wise moustache he sports that quells their uneasiness with him.

#4) Dick Dastardly - This one I had to dig for through Google. I remember him being in numerous culture references and that he was affiliated with racing, and cheating! Dastardly has the classic villan moustache and has been used as inspiration for Wario and WaLuigi in Mariokart (according to Wikipedia)

#3) Mario - Or Luigi, either way, the Italian Plumbers turtle shell their way to #3 on the list. If this were a race I'd predict them to eventually land a lightning bolt and take over the #1 spot.

#2) Optimus Prime - Ok, so he doesn't have a moustache but he should, he's a truck for goodness sake and needs to sport a handlebar to really blend in. If you're upset with this pick then let's say any of the GI Joes can take this. Just look at Bazooka and Gung Ho.

#1) Yosemite Sam - Iconic red moustache/beard that covers his entire body. Yosemite Sam hides his pistols in his beard and his moustache could easily hold its own against Chuck Norris' moustache.

Intergalactic Blog-etary

2009-11-04T14:11:00.003-05:00

Saw some great Halloween costumes this past Saturday night. Notables ones included:

- Kim Jon Il carrying a missile

- Zack Galifianakis from the hangover (baby included)

- Sonya Blade

- Lara Croft

- Zombie anything

- Beethoven

- female Zorro

but one group I saw was the trio from the Beastie Boys dressed in their costumes from Intergalactic Planetary music video (robot included). I thought this was an amazing costume until I saw a token guy dressed as the solar system. That got me thinking about a new theory that could be used amongst Earthlings, particulary people interested in Astronomy. I call it...

"Planetary Attractiveness Theorem"

This theory should be used only to describe people you do not know personally but rather people around you at say a bar/club, etc. It goes like this: every person can be quickly described in reference to a planet from their looks and/or brief chat. Now this is quite vain I agree, but I feel it could be a little better than the traditional number scale rating and in the nerd realm this theory has the potential to really take of. Let's run down the list shall we:

- Saturn = big ring on their finger = married/engaged, don't even try

- Venus = very feminine and mysterious, should investigate further

- Jupiter = large and gaseous, avoid at all costs

- Mercury = Petite but sexy with a nice tan

- Earth = full of life and a strong gravitational pull

- Mars = been circled many times but no one has landed, further research is needed

- Neptune = icy and cold, takes a lot of energy for them to warm up

- Uranus = nice bum/body, approach with caution though as not much is known about their habits

- Pluto = was initially a person "planet" but now it is unclear what they are

- Sun (not a planet) = avoid direct eye contact because of their ultrahot rays

- The moon = too similar to you, possibly related, and everyone seems to go there, avoid!

BOO! it's a blog, scary

2009-10-30T19:58:00.006-04:00

Ah Halloween, the only time of year when ghosts, ghouls and ghastly people from all walks of life get a chance to read this horrific blog. I'm trying to get it viewable in the other realms but you need to install a plug-in which costs like $7.79 and I don't have the budget for that.

If you're like me, then you always get excited for Halloween because it allows you to have the same opportunity as everyone else to look cool, popular and most importantly, draw attention away from inperfections. In University I had an interesting phase of costumes, all of which fell in pop culture categories but with my own witty twists.

1st year I was "Eric Zoolander", a very easy costume which consisted of gelled hair, sunglasses, a vest and an extremely tiny toy cell phone which really pulled it together. 2nd year I was Rick James, "it's a celebration bitches!" for some reason I have no photos of that year. 3rd year I went as Duffman, oh yeah and finally in 4th year I was Kevin Federline. That outfit made me look just like a sleezebag so I guess it worked.

This Halloween I'll be attempting to go as Johnny Cage, minus the in - shape stomach. My hope is that no one else will be upstage me with the same costume. For those that aren't sure what to wear tomorrow night here are a few tips:

1. Be sure the costume can be bathroom accessible. If you're going out to a club or bar, chances are (if you're guy) you won't have the option of a stall readily available for you to dismantle your costume so go with something that will let you get in and out.

2. Stay away from recent pop culture characters. Sure they're cool and in, but it's a good bet there will be a lot of other people having the same idea as you. I use the 3 year buffer so the idea is out of the minds of the average person.

3. Statements vs. Witty outfits. Ugh, these get annoying, you should not have to explain your costume to every person you meet, which if at a bar will be a lot of people asking "who are you supposed to be". Then if they don't get it or don't like it then you've just alienated yourself.

4. The slutty side of life. Don't be afraid to be a little seductive. This goes for guys and girls. It's Halloween, and it shows you're an open and fun individual.

5. Plan for the night. Know how you're getting to the location and how long you'll be there for. Take the weather into your decision. Can your character wear a jacket? If you wore this on the subway home by yourself would you lose your dignity?

6. Have fun and try something new.

A Munday-ne Blog

2009-10-27T20:57:00.004-04:00

Yeeaaaaahhh... I'm going to need you all to read the following blog about my Extreme Monday and then I'm also going to need you to come in on Saturday to work, grreaaatt...

9:36am - Running down the street to catch the subway, no time to grab a paper!

9:37am - Jump on the train, no way a paper!

9:40am - Who fills out the crossword and sudoku and leaves the paper?! C'mon!

9:52am - Get on the streetcar, it's packed, an elderly woman begins coughing then coughing over me, then coughing on me until I give her the seat. It's too late...

10:14am - Arrive in the office, there's no one here! Thanks for the memo...cough...uh oh

10: 57am - My coworker arrives and surprise we have no work to do. To pass the time I check out Fail Blog, one of my most favourite sites.

11:13am - A Virus has been detected on your cpu, your spyware is out of date. Click here for windows to update and protect your computer.

11:19am - Thank you for installing AutoProtect 10.0. Your cpu has 29 infected files. Click here to delete. To delete the files you must purchase the software for $59.99 or click here for a 30 day free trial. To download click here. Windows has protected your cpu from downloading this potentiall dangerous file. Click here to allow the download. Page Error.

11:22am - Uh oh. Cough. Double uh-oh.

12:33pm - McDonald's time. Sweet two more Monopoly stickers that I don't have. Ok wait here with my drink while I use the bathroom.

12:36pm - Where's my drink? where are my stickers? who the takes a drink and stickers?! Cough. DAMMIT!

2:07pm - Alright, no word from the bosses, let's head home in 30.

2:09pm - "Hey guys, I'll be in the office soon to meet and see the work you've been doing." Cough.

4:44pm - Home time. Thank goodness, hey a different street car. It's going to a subway stop really close to me, sweet!

5:08pm - "I'm sorry folks, this streetcar will not be continuing to the station, please vacate the car at the next stop." Hey man where am I? "You're at Landsdowne and College and there should be another bus coming shortly."

5:28pm - Where the hell is this bus! I'm gonna walk to the station, cough, ah shut up!

5:46pm - Ah the station, ding ding, the bus?! C'mon!

6:32pm - Cough Cough, I'm dying...

Tuesday - the cure...

LIGHTSABRE MOMENTS IN HISTORY courtesy BoingBoing.com

Delicious Bakery Blog

2009-10-19T14:39:00.003-04:00

Had a vivid memory recall of a business idea that I was discussing with Jessica Nowlan a few weeks back. It was while I was in the midst of developing my own business when we started talking about what we could open and what people wanted. So what does everyone like? Cupcakes! What else? Kittens, hence the first ever Cupcakes & Kittens store!

With Jess being the expert in these Cat-egories, hehe, we decided she should be the entrepreneur of this venture. It's a brilliant idea and could even include a small bookstore later in the future. The bakery would also house a live music lounge with Spencer Gough's acoustic abilities to add to the buyer's experience. Well today I googled cupcakes and kittens to ensure the idea had not been taken and I found that there is a band on Myspace called Cupcakes and Kittens (not very good) so the bakery is a definite go in terms of brand name.

A New Segment Blog

2009-10-07T15:56:00.002-04:00

Listening to The Game Plan on the Fan 590 I've decided to incorporate some of their segments to my blog, the most in depth and read blog in the world...regarding my life. So for the first time ever I present to you readers the first ever edition of Exciting and Excruciating, where I list the goings on in the world that I find Exciting or Excruciating. Let's Begin with...

Exciting

- The Month of October. Basketball and Hockey are kicking off, NFL is well underway and the MLB playoffs. It's a great time of the year, better than the time of the month, heh.

- Zombies. With the movie ZombieLand coming off a strong weekend at the box office I have high hopes that this is the start of yet another zombie craze, which are always entertaining and often milked. Perhaps that could mean yet another installment of Dr. Eric's Zombie Stories as told earlier in the year.

Excruciating

- Vampires! I'm so sick of vampires, do girls not realize that Vampires kill and eat people? Is that sexy? draining the blood from innocent people is so hot right? And where the hell are all the older vampires and vampire hunters. Everyone knows that where there are vampires, there are hunters. Your days are numbered teenage vampires, I'm calling up the movie studios and asking them to make another Blade movie where Wesley Snipes eliminates every one of those teen vampires from the movie Twilight!

- CBC/TSN Hockey. Yes, we all realize that Canadians love hockey, but do we really need these long montages and segments geared towards reminding people that hockey is a Canadian game. I don't think people will turn off their TVs when they know there's a hockey game coming up if there's no opening montages. If they put that kind of effort into creating decent tv shows then they wouldn't be in such a mess. Now CBC had a great montage for the season opener which is acceptable. They used The Killers which I thought was odd because their not a Canadian band, way to go CBC not supporting Canadian artists, being a huge fan of the Killers though, I liked it. Then they had the Saturday night montage which they always show. You had a whole year to change it up and they kept everything the same, except for one clip of Crosby holding the Stanley Cup, yeah that must've been long and tiresome to throw that in. And to CBC and TSN, stop being so OBSESSED with CPU graphics! Seriously, they have all this animation which looks like shit spliced in with retro hockey clips. FIX IT! And TSN, get rid of Simple Plan!

Wow, that was tiring, I must work for the CBC. Well I got all that off my chest, this was a good segment. It's good for my mental health, stay tuned for more of these segments.

Blog on Ice

2009-10-02T16:47:00.002-04:00

So first Leafs game is in the books. Surprise surprise they lost their home opener for the eigth season in a row. With all the optimism both inside and outside the locker room I have to still play devil's advocate.

The word of the summer seemed to be "truculence" which describes the new and improved Leafs blueline. They were quite truculent but much like a truck, were easy to pass for the speedier Habs. Now if I were a player...again... I would definitely try to spend the first period or two trying to match the Leafs intensity which is what the Habs tried to do. It was futile as Toronto is a massive team that likes to hit and they beat on the Habs more than Chris Brown beats Rihanna after another night of going to a club and having people not recognize who he is.

It wasn't until the third period that they realized rather than going toe to toe with the Leafs they can just go past them and that's what they did. That my friends will be the biggest downfall to the Leafs, the defence, sure they will hit and maybe kill a player or two but I think Brian Burke may realize that soon enough there will be too many fast forwards that will zoom by them and catch them flat footed.

Leafs forwards on the other hand are another story. Here we have a lot of decent players, none of whom other teams tremble when they hear his name. It's almost laughable to hear a coach say, "watch out for Stajan, he's their #1", granted Phil Kessel could add a big scoring punch but they need someone to give him the puck first. I mean I could get 20 goals if Marc Savard was on my team, well that plus having Lucic and Chara ripping the heads off of any player that so much as glances at me with a notion to hit me. This season you'll see a lot of Leafs forwards getting into the 50 - 60 point plateau but none except maybe a few make it past that mark. It could be the most balanced 3 lines of attack in terms of point distribution.

So what shall Leafs fans see this year. Lots of blood, grit and Grabovski getting the shit kicked out him. They will be flashes of speed and agility but mostly Komisarek and Exelby throwing their bodies at people. There will be plenty of close games and like last night, fans may have to get used to a lot of one goal losses. My predictions, unless other teams struggle mightily, I can't see the leafs making the playoffs in such a tough conference. Wild Card will be Kessel who may actually be able to get a few game winners.

Prediction: 36 - 40 - 6, that's not saying that all the games will be very fun to watch.

Finally, big shout outs to Mats Sundin who I know must read this blog seeing as how I got a couple of readers from Sweden last week. Sundin was one of the top 10 Leafs to ever put on the jersey and it would be a huge slap in the face if he is not inducted into the Hall of Fame. Over 1 point per game, 500+ goals, nearly 100 game winning goals! 'nuff said

Dog Eat Blog

2009-09-26T19:39:00.005-04:00

So I'm still unemployed and have been watching a heck of a lot of television lately while I still recover from my toe/back injuries. Couple of days ago I ended up watching a Dog the Bounty Hunter marathon, approximately 4 hours of my day.

I was interested in how the whole bounty hunting/bail bondsman system works so I looked into it, thank goodness for wikipedia. Turns out that Bounty Hunting is only legal in the United States and the Phillipines, random, and even some states have banned the practice. Bounty Hunters make roughly 10% of the bail so in Dog's latest case, he pulled in $7500 on a $75000 bail over the course of 2 days, not bad to split with his team. In the U.S. there over 90,000 bail jumpers who are brought to justice from bounty hunters (that's over a billion dollar industry).

I thought to myself, I got to get me a piece of that action. Granted, Canada is too small a market to bounty hunt should the practice even become legal, so I would have to move to the states. Next I need to assemble a team and become "approved" which can be done with no formal training. Then I need to pick my bounty hunting name. Now my first 2 choices Dog and Bobba Feit are already registered so I would need a different name. Here's what I've narrowed it down to:

"The E-train"

"Executioner" or "Ex"

"Saber"

"Hawkeye"

"The Knee capper"

"Bonesy"

Ok, so those need some work but at least I'm thinking and hey, if one of the members on my team has a cool nickname, I should be able to steal it. This could be my true calling, I already know my father the ex pro football player has much interest in joining or starting his own agency, so if that's the case I'll have to start bulking up. I know one guy that I'll need on my team and that is Graham Hood.

Today is Graham's birthday and the lucky devil that he is, is starting the night at the Leafs game. Graham and I grew up on the same street and have known each other for over 20 years.

While Graham hasn't been a full time cast member in the sitcom that is my life, he is a featured guest that always brings interesting stories such as:

- Faking a british accent and having a cougar swoon over him, it was a bet to get free swag at a bar I believe

- Going behind a bar and grabbing a pair of spoons only to use them as an instrument to accompany the featured performer

- Creating the movie character "Max McCool", a British drunkuard Music executive who constantly battles with drug and alcohol abuse while retelling random stories from the world of rock n' roll.

Happy Birthday Graham, hurry up and get that degree in Commercial Law so I can start my many businesses that may or not be entirely legal.

They call them blogs in England to?

2009-09-13T21:26:00.002-04:00

Sitting here in my office watching the MTV movie awards. Kanye West bursted out onto the stage outraged that Beyonce did not win Best Female Video. I applaud him, she deserves it and as my future wife I will fight for her. The stupid twitter feeds at the bottom are getting really annoying. Twitter has already been ruined by making it the cool thing for the tweens. Good grief.

Toe is feeling pretty good. 3 weeks to the day and I can wear socks and walk without a crutch. It still looks like I'm either stumbling drunk or Igor from Frankenstein. Should only be another week or two and I'll be back to my dynamic self. And not a minute too soon for I am researching some Toronto basketball rec leagues for the fall. I'm looking to put together a team so holla if you're interested. The potential team names: Team Eric, Eric's ballers, Eric + 4 or Pass it to Eric!

Haven't played competitive ball since University where the Hunton TurdBurglars won 3 straight championships. Looking to get back into double double form. After all these injuries I better be voted for sportsman comeback of the year over Theo Fleury!

Blogged but not out

2009-08-30T22:34:00.004-04:00

1 week into my road to recovery. Toe is feeling alright but the back is not. I think my physio therapist aggravated a disc that has made the back the worst it's been all week. It's not the worst pain I've had so in honor of my temporary handicap, I present to you my Top 10 injuries in my life. This list is based on severity of pain at the time and the duration of the injury.

#10 -Strained rhomboids: I first hurt this muscle in a hockey game when I got checked head first into the boards. The check essentially tore the rhomboids sending stiffness to my shoulders and neck. Couple of advils and heat wrap sessions and I was ok but I've been subject to recurring injuries of the same nature from simply sleeping improperly. Pain level at time of injury: 5/10, Duration of pain: 4/10

#9 - Bruised ankle: Back in my baseball days I was known for getting hit by pitches. Maybe it was all the smirks I'd give pitchers of the fact that when I was in a slump I needed to get on base so I would avoid ducking out of the way. One time at bat I was struck 3 times but was not granted a base because I didn't make an effort to get out the way. The last pitch hit me right in the ankle. I was finally granted first base but was so badly bruised I couldn't walk for a week. Pain level: 6, Duration: 5

#8 - Enflammed appendix: One day at the ROM, I suddenly started feeling sick to my stomach. I assumed it was the McNuggets not sitting right but when we got to the bar afterwards I refused beer and french fries. My coworkers knew something was wrong so I went to the hospital. My appendix was enflammed but was not going to burst. I could have it out then or see where the next few days takes me. I opted for just the drugs and as a result was put on some heavy heavy sedation. Woke up the next day, felt fine but that day I recall was extremely excruciating. Pain lvl: 7, Duration: 3

#7 - Skatebowling accident: Fitting that the sport I helped invent had me as the first casuality. I consider myself the Jacques Plante of the skatebowling world. One run I was going faster than anyone had gone before when I smashed my head into the fire escape door. no concussion fortunately but I was definitely hurting and bleeding from my forehead. I was left with a massive scar in the shape of an L, how appropriate and because of me, the sport of skatebowling requires at least 4 pillows at the end of a hallway. Pain lv: 7, Duration: 5

#6 - Sprained ankle: This was back in my skateboarding days. I remember attempting to do a standard grind along the school curb when my board's trucks slipped too far off to one side. I fell off and hurt my ankle. At the time it was alright and I went home but after a few hours it had puffed up causing my whole ankle to look like one big melon. Pain lvl: 8, Duration; 4

#5 - The glass door incident: This one happened when I was just 10 years old. I was playing tag with my dad, the door was home free. I ran towards the door "Home Fre..." arm goes through the glass door. On the other side was my baby brother who started screaming. I pulled my arm out and saw tons of blood so I started screaming. My neighbour came down the street to ask to play road hockey and he saw the blood and started screaming. I had slashed my arm and could see into my hand. No stitches but I had my arm wrapped and the scar to show for it. Pain lvl: 7, Duration 6

#4 - Cheek: Another baseball injury, had a throw smash me in the cheek. It quickly started to swell and I couldn't open my mouth for 2 weeks. The only sustinence I could get was soup and sucking on bread. That sucked! Pain lvl: 6, Duration 8

#3 - Broken toe: Most recent one, I won't go into details, basically it hurt really bad and I'm unable to do any running for 4 to 6 weeks. Pain lvl: 7, Duration 7

#2 - Sciatica injury: Possibly the most annoying injury. Every few movements I get a shooting pain in my back and down my leg. I have good days and bad but when it's bad I can never do any moving without feeling pain. Pain lvl: 7, Duration 8

#1 - Dislocated patella: This was the grossest injury I have had. Came down from a rebound and fell to the floor only to see that my left kneecap had been popped out of place. It took nearly an hour for the ambulance in Sackville to get to the gym. After that I got super drugged up and was absolutely insane for the rest of the night. My resident friends claimed that I was calling everyone as if their name started with a J. I was stuck in bed for a week and had to wear a knee brace and endure physio for months. Pain lvl: 9, Duration 9

California Blogarnicles pt2

2009-08-26T14:44:00.002-04:00

Yes I'm back in T dot after a few days taking in the sun down in California. The other day I tried my hand at boogie boarding. Caught a few good waves but for the most part I got knocked around a lot. Damn this lanky frame of mine, it offers no balancing ability what so ever.

Saturday we got to witness a lovely wedding which got me thinking who I would marry. Until Beyonce returns my calls I have decided that I will marry a tall woman who has some athletic background. That way our child will be a super being with extraordinary athletic supremacy, nothing will stop my super seed! MUWAHAHA.

Sunday we went to the track. I have a new obsession. Horse racing. I don't think I've ever lost so much money so easily and quickly. For 2 minutes you get this huge rush (much like snorting Nestle Quik mix) but then it's gone with your money, unless you win. As my young cousin Carey said to me, "You don't have to bet money or win, it's just fun to watch". But more correctly I explained to him is that it's much MORE fun if you bet money and WIN. Out of 7 races I won twice, unfortunately the last race which had a 2 - 1 favourite won but not before I had bet almost all the money I had on me. Most of the family did quite well but ol Eric was out nearly $50 by the end of the day. Good grief.

An empty bank account with possible collectors after me wasn't the only thing I had to declare at the border upon my arrival. My last day soaking up the sun in San Diego led me to a broken toe. Now at the time it was quite painful despite it being just a toe, geez who'd a thunk it, but when I arrived at the hospital I realized my pain was nowhere near that of say a victim who came in with what looked like a gunshot wound. Still I demanded to go before them, my logic, you can at least heal one person in 15 minutes rather than having two people suffer for hours while the gunshot victim gets fixed up. Having a broken toe did have some perks. For one thing, I got to ride the wheelchair around the airport. I took great satisfaction being a jackass in a wheel chair wheeling in front of people while they walk and cutting them off only to turn and say "hey man watch it, I'm in a wheelchair!" I did however experience what it was like to be short, something I haven't been since grade school. I had to get my brother to lean over the counter to get my order of fries from the foodcourt.

Oh yea almost forgot, because of my toe I had to be in a wheelchair/airplane seat for 10+ hours leading me to experience the worst back pain I have ever had. Thank goodness for easily accessible Tylenol 3 which put me right out and has kept me out for nearly 48 hours lying in bed. Most of you probably think I should be doing a lot more like look for a job or upload those videos from California, well, I promise nothing! I've been so drugged up that I can only watch movies and even Batman seemed a little complicated to me last night while I popped 2 more pills.

Good news is I'm on the mend and should be up on my feet in a few days. Bad news, I have no excuses to not do housework or manual labour.

California Chronicles pt.1

2009-08-22T00:44:00.002-04:00

Currently I sit on a quiet hotel balcony with free wireless! I was originally going to be by the pool but it was closed and honestly, it's a little chilly here in San Diego. Tomorrow we head out to watch our little cousin marry a German Tycoon apparently, good on her!

My flight to San Diego was quite interesting. It started out a mad hungover dash to the airport and then as I was the last to get on the plane I decided to sit in the empty seat in first class. It was a wonderful 30 minutes until they realized that a sold out economy class flight was missing a person. I soon understood the situation and quietly slunk over to my seat along with the other peasants!

I arrived in San Francisco for a four hour lay over. I took my camera around (videos to come soon) and started shooting. Just as I put my camera away on the moving walkway an eldery man tumbled off the ramp. I could see about 20 feet down that 5 people were helping him up but they clogged the exit causing a massive pile up of people. Possibly the worst moving walkway disaster since 1996 when one walkway went full speed in reverse sending 3 people into a worm hole where they are probably stuck in the past. I was closing in on the pile up of people (some of which consisted of numerous business men who had flipped over and were struggling to get back to their feet), but I was able to leap over the handrail to safety just as I reached the end. total action movie star style.

Tune in later to read part 2 of my trip to California which will feature my attempts at Boogie boarding.

Guess where I'm blogging from...

2009-08-22T00:33:00.003-04:00

Friday night and I finally get some alone time (and sober time). Cootos to all those that showed up at my birthday last Friday. I'd like to say it was a memorable event but it wasn't and I guess that's a good sign that my birthday was a success. I still curse those who I thought were my friends and didn't bother to come out or even reply saying they couldn't or even write me a message on Facebook. Speaking of Facebook notices, the new layout really takes a toll on birthday shout outs, since you have to scroll past the ads to a very small box for upcoming birthdays. Still I was confident I could beat last year's record of 42 facebook messages. I thought, hey I met over 60 people this year, this should be a breeze...not. 35 wall posts/personal messages. Less than 10% of my friends. Those that wished me a happy birthday shall be rewarded when I become an eccentric millionaire and take them out on my yacht.

But Friday was not the only time I celebrated my birthday. The actual day the 19th was perhaps the best surprise I have ever gotten. Birthday cake from a beautiful woman. Ms Sarah Stanley was kind enough to have me over to enjoy some tasty birthday cake which was delicious. Unfortunately my family was all in California so if it wasn't for her I would be celebrating by myself.

But enough about me, I would also like to wish a happy birthday to those celebrities that share my special day. So Happy Birthday...

John Stamos
Fat Joe
Nate Dogg
Lil' Romeo
Matthew Perry
& Bill Clinton

us August 19ers have so much in common. A toast to all of us. Drink up, be merry!

Don't Rain on My Blog

2009-08-09T11:29:00.002-04:00

It's Sunday morning and it's pitch black. I woke up, turned my lights on and it feels like it's 11 at night. Outside my house the rain is pouring down harder than the tears generated by girls everywhere after the finale of the Bachelor. What the hell was that?! Thunder that I'm pretty sure sounded like it was 2 feet from my window.

Talk about a crappy crappy summer for living outdoors. I thought this summer might actually result in me getting a tan on my pasty casper like skin but I guess mother nature had other plans.

But it's not just tanning that's suffering in this bleak weather, patio furniture everywhere joins my pain. Can you imagine if you were selling patio furniture in the middle of this monsoon.

Beer as well must be taking a hit. Summer is primetime to push the frothy liquid upon Canadian quaffers. People love to sit on their decks and forget about all their troubles. The weather however, is causing more and more people to stay in Toronto rather than jump up north to the lake and cases of 24.

Currently Canada sits in 19th place just above Portgual in beer consumed per capita. While we're nowhere near the Czechs, we do have the will to move up but now we need the weather.

I guess not all people are hating the rainy weather, supposedly residents of the Annex are joyful because patios in the area are not getting major play. Numerous complaints regarding the noise caused the Labrinyth lounge to close their patio.

Anyways, that's my rant on the weather this summer. Clouds go away or if you must rain for the next 3 days straight so that our trip to the island can be a sunny one.

Ye Olde Blog

2009-08-05T11:45:00.005-04:00

Fondest Greetings Lords and Ladies of the Internet Realm.

Last eve my party of merry men embarked on a quest for entertainment. Good and noble Sir. Graham was successful in a past tournament of "Kurling" and thus was presented with two mystical tickets. These enchanted tickets would take him and his guests to a world of Knights, wenches and chilvary. I speak of...

MEDIEVAL TIMES DINNER & TOURNAMENT!

Upon arrival, we had the esteem pleasure of meeting the King who seemed like an old angry drunkard. As we entered the Great Hall a young maiden welcomed us with her mysterious plastic sword and glowsticks because all knights go for raves after victory in battle. We began to realize that half of the workers either loved working here and had the whole act put on while the other half seem crushed and defeated.

Our first stop was the tavern, where we quenched our thirst with Medieval Lager in some of the largest mugs I have laid eyes on.

Then the tournament began. Our knight - the Green knight was picked as the villan who captured the Prince in exchange for...something, that wasn't very clear. We cheered our knight on as he fought off numerous foes. Our cheers were echoed throughout the stands "Green Machine, Green Machine" and the tomahawk chop to "Greeee-E-E-EN, Greee-E-E-EN"

Sadly our knight was defeated in the final battle but was magically cured for the tournament closing ceremonies and we ran into him outside.

Highlights of the "Knight" were these memorable quotes from our party...

"Let us feast on succulent Garlic Bread!"

"Sure, I'll buy the giant mug of ale"

"BEER WENCH!"

"Red is Dead, Red is Dead!"

"You have the jousting ability of plague ridden blind man"

"fair Princess, is thou on the Book of Face?"

"Here ye, here ye I am ripped!"

The end of the night concluded with a trip to the Old Sod where we joined parties with a group of wenches. One of which, had the nerve to take Lord Trevor's massive pint glass that he paid a large sum for. She continuosuly denied taking the pint to both us and her friends until finally while she was a good 5 minute walk away handed the glass over. We relished the victory and walked back in triumph.

The night was glorious and I have realized that I must live my dream and become a knight. Day 1 of training shall be a simple Mace demonstration. Let my new path begin!

For more photos please visit my facebook page

My blog is special

2009-07-28T19:29:00.010-04:00

I used to think that in order to obtain my physical and mental peak I would have to eliminate all the other Eric Allans so that I may be the only one. But now, I feel that is just may be ok to co exist with other Eric Allans. After doing the usual searches over Facebook I found 263 results. However, many of those names have Allan as the last name like Eric Allan Hull who has himself dressed up in a Star Trek outfit, good grief. Next I checked out Linked in and wouldn't you know very few people with yours truly being #5 on the list. The most obvious Eric Allan is Eric Allan Kramer who used to dominate the google results until I started building my web persona. Kramer is most widely known as playing Little John in Robin Hood Men in Tights. Well watch out Kramer because I'm climbing the ranks of Google with 2 results on page 1! And since you haven't been in any movies, that gives me all the chances to claim number 1 spot!!!

Recently I saw the new Pepsi joy commercial. The song Energy is by a popular band called Apples in Stereo. I've been listening to them for a few years now but never really learned anything about the band so I did some research. Well wouldn't you know it, their guitarist is Eric Allen. Another one! I was so impressed that Eric Allan/Allens are capable of so much and I thought I'd take this time to acknowledge some of the greater Erics that have influenced my life.

Eric Clapton - He taught me that Erics are capable of playing guitar without ever practicing.

Eric Allen - Former NFL star, whom I was actually named after

Eric Idle - A founding member of Monty Python, the original funny Eric

Eric Lindros - Showed me that Erics are prone to injury...even from the slightest breeze

Eric Montross - Whenever I doubted my basketball abilities I would turn to Montross and say, "at least I'm better than him". Ah the Big 00.

Erik the Red - Great explorer and starter of the Eric name.

Eric Cartman - Possibly the most famous Eric in todays youth generation, despite being a loudmouth, crass, fat ass, but you just have to love him!

Prince Eric - I used to hate it when people called me Prince Eric...Why? I don't know, he is one of the most popular Disney Princes ever. It is him that set the bar on the typical attractiveness of Erics everywhere which from what I've seen is far from the real Erics.

Finally, let's not forget...Eric's World

Well Erics of the past, I salute you all and I hope to one day make myself worthy enough to go on another Eric's blog.

Rockin' the Golden Blog

2009-07-23T21:29:00.004-04:00

Well all my hard work has paid off. After nearly 1 year of planning, my major event is finally all done. Rockin' the Gold "Kurling" bonspiel was held last Friday. It was a huge success with the event being sold out and problem free. Even our professor was doing the wave by the end of the night, and only told me 5 stories about how amazing his life is, which is a new record low at an event.

Cootos goes to the fine ladies of Hammer Time which took the event championship. But they weren't the only winners. My good friend Graham Hood, which was one of the only two people I was able to bring to the event (great contribution from my end), walked away loaded with not just beer but prizes. First raffle prize draw, he picks up 2 brand new golf shirts, a bunch of golf balls and a Ping Pitching wedge (valued at over $400). Next up, another raffle prize which he won on behalf of Ken. That included a bunch of NHL apparel and autographs valued at over $200. Finally, the door prize which everyone got only 1 ticket, Graham won! As he went to receive his third prize of the night, people began to boo him. He gracefully took a bow and walked out with his stash of prizes.

A big thank you to all that attended and now that the event is over, I realize that I have a lot more free time...that should mean a few more posts in the next couple of weeks (unless I take up unicycling).

Hello Welcome to my blog, Hello welcome to my blog, Hello welcome to my blog

2009-07-12T19:41:00.003-04:00

I think within 5 minutes of walking into the Mandarin Restaurant I was greeted a combined 42 times (just an estimation). That place thrives on customer experience and it starts with the greeting. Oddly enough the hostess was a pretty caucasian girl which really threw me off. Why would they need a token white girl in a restaurant with an entire Chinese staff. Equitable Employment?

We were there on Friday for my bro James' birthday and the Mandarin is his favourite restaurant. I think every restaurant that serves 4 different kinds of meat in a buffet style is his favourite place to eat. Here are the 4 characteristics I would use to describe what the dining experience is like at the Mandarin.

Ninja like service: If you take a sip of water, a sip is poured back in by one of the 4 servers waiting by your side.
Greetings: Taking your first step you are treated like a celebrity by everyone saying welcome to Mandarin
Cleanliness: That place was spotless and the buffet was always full with no spills
Quick: You can go in, grab your food and be out of there within 30 minutes

It was an enjoyable evening and was free of family drama as unbelieveable as that sounds. That couldn't be said for some of the other families sitting near us. First off, there was a teenage girl who apparently sat on a toothpick giving her a small prick (I didn't even hear an "ow"). I couldn't believe that in order to sit on a toothpick it would have to be lodged face up which was impossible with those chairs. Well the father thought it could happen and started yelling at the manager till they got a free meal. Score one for bitchiness and complaining.

Another family (Spanish) was having what looked like a family reunion. I never understood the whole kiss hello. It took literally 10 minutes for everyone to have kissed everyone else to say hi. Now if you go to the Mandarin I'd imagine that you'd see your family fairly often so what's wrong with just saying hi. Maybe I'm insulting a whole culture but I think the kiss hello was developed when there were far fewer people in the world and you only saw them every once in a while. By the time that family had finished their hellos, the Allans were well on their 2nd load of food.

An interesting topic developed at our table as we discussed the background of the Mandarin restaurant. We were originally all in agreement that it was a Chinese restaurant but they were offering a trip to Japan and had Japanese art being displayed in our dining area. A heated debate arose until I commented that the restaurant is a commercial Chinese restaurant and just want to put as much Oriental design as possible as the average consumer of the restaurant probably could never tell the difference between Chinese and Japanese art. On the trip, I said that Japan right now is probably a more desireable place to visit when talking about luxurious and exotic vacations.

Well we waited for my brother to finish his 5 different scoop fulls of ice cream flavours and then headed out but not before we caught site of James' doppleganger. That kid looked identical and that just proves my theory that my brother is a scientific experiment with clones all over the world. A scary idea but plausable none the less....

Bloggie Jean

2009-06-28T21:47:00.005-04:00

Talk about a rough couple of weeks for celebrities. I had a very scary moment as this morning I was watching TV and an infomercial came on for the Oxi Clean I think it's called. While I watched the infomercial I went on twitter to see that Billy Mays had died. I was watching a dead guy on TV the very moment I found out he was dead, weird. Now it would've been really weird if I had been listening to Thriller and turned on the TV to see that MJ had died.

So it started in early June when out of the blue David Carradine when he supposedly committed suicide but the investigation is still ongoing. Then came Ed McMahon and Farrah Fawcett, both of whom were expected to kick the bucket this year. McMahon was 85 and practically homeless since his foreclosure on his home. On Thursday came possibly the biggest shock of all - Michael Jackson dead. Things were looking up for him too but then again he's been ill since his life after Bad. Finally earlier today Billy Mays, the mighty putty man himself died just days after he was Conan O'Brien. What a world.

Seems like celebrities are becoming the newest members of the endangered species list.

I went on a few celebrity death pools and saw if any of these celebrities were on the list. Ed McMahon was on a few and Michael Jackson as well although I'm pretty sure that's just a name you throw on every year. Then I checked out The Deathlist where they pick 50 people predicted to die this year. Some really bold predictions so I thought I'd predict a few of my own...

Actor/Actress - Sean Connery (but his soul will live on in several inanimate objects)

Athlete - Michael Vick when dogs throw him in a steel cage and make him fight Tyson

Musician - Everyone says Amy Winehouse but i'll go completely random and say Corey Heart

Politician - Stephen Harper (a missed shot against another leader of a nation)

Other Figure - MegaTron

Farewell to those we have lost this year and hopefully there won't be anymore shocking surprises.

I could go for some Blogonade

2009-06-22T16:00:00.005-04:00

This may be because my background is marketing with a dash of psychology or it may because I have the ability to see the big picture...

I was walking around the neighbourhood the other day, just casually, when I came across some tiny entrepreneurs operating a lemonade stand. Being parched from walking 5 minutes, I decided to take the only change I had in my pocket ($1) and hand it over for a cool glass of pink lemonade (they had a choice of 3 kinds). Now, their lemonade was 50 cents a glass which even with inflation is quite expensive for a simple lemonade stand. Not only that, they didn't give me change back until their mother told them so but I stopped her.

"You know what ma'am, if these kids are so confident about their lemonade and take what they want then I say keep the 50 cents as a tip. Economic times are tough these days and people need to take what they want."

They said thank you and placed the change in their bank, which had $23 in it! They claimed to have only been out for a couple of hours and that their parents placed $5 worth of change in to get them started. Still, $18 = roughly 30 - 36 customers is pretty good. Take into account that this was a deserted street on a Thursday afternoon, probably meant that 80 - 90% of crossing consumers decided to partake in a drink of lemonade. These kids had a mean set up and were out to win:

Simple operation with little to no variable and fixed costs
Clever marketing with an adorable sign (e spelled backwards)

3 kids that could get away with murder just by looking sad in the judges' eye
Dog next to them that I'm sure could be trained to attack non paying customers

A rather attractive mother that would bring in the 25 - 50 year old male audience

Monopoly on the location, not 1 other stand in the neighbourhood

I thought to myself, Eric, these kids can make you rich! I sat down at their tiny table and explained to them about the free market system and how capitalism allows small startups to become multinational billion dollar organizations. They stared at me with a blank look on their face, "ok, these guys are tough, time to make them an offer" I said to myself.

$20 to buy the company out and become the owner, a low ball offer, but I still think a fair one seeing as how it could buy them enough 5 cent candy to rot through their teeth. By buying the company I would ensure them financial stability to cover costs as well as keep them employed on a commission basis of 20 cents (40%) of every glass of lemonade they sold plus an extra 5% bonus on every 10th glass they sell. The stand would be upgraded (see photo left) to allow for more storage of lemons and then moved to Bloor street to sell to the bustling crowd. Notice the professional signage and wheels to make it more mobile. Outside the subway station was the best bet. I didn't have to hire security because they had the dog and the mom could easily bring in the men coming home work.

Since I'd be getting only 30 cents of every glass I'd have to wait a few days to get my money back but I figured with these kids not having school for the summer they could easily clean up all summer and getting to the area first is a big advantage. Not to mention, me as the investor would act as muscle and bring in my "partners" to take out any of the competition.

Well I guess they didn't like my offer because I left my card and they haven't gotten back to me. Perhaps I dig out my old lemonade stand sign and hire a few employees to start Eric's Excellent Lemonade, maybe serve it to the late night crowd that stumble around the town and will tip!

The haps of the week a.k.a missing blog

2009-06-13T16:42:00.002-04:00

Been missing in action the past couple of weeks so I'll fill you on what happened to me this week as it was eventful (that's sarcasm). Monday started out fantastic (again with the sarcasm). The subway was packed and I had a seat but gave it up for an eldery lady, karma I was hoping would shine down on me, boy was I wrong. At lunch I placed my Sprite bottle in my laptop case and what do ya know it spills out all 3 compartments. Soaking all my notes, my calculator, notebook and laptop - the one day I bring my laptop to school.

What happens on Tuesday but another mishap this time back on the subway. I was picking up a newspaper from the stand when someone walked by and attempted to throw their sandwich out in the garbage but it landed on me messing up my shirt. The guy didn't even stop to say sorry but hoped on the subway and I had to resist going after him and instead run home to get a new shirt before class started.

Skipping ahead to Friday I enjoyed a long lunch break outside by the lake with the gals at Agent Wildfire. Being surrounded by some of the most beautiful women in Toronto really makes a guy feel special and popular. Later that night the crew from George Brown gathered around to watch the Stanley Cup finals. A certain Detroit fan was there and I'm sure if he wasn't as a pacifist he would've hurled a beer bottle at me for all my insults. I realized that my drunk persona is just an exaggerated version of the current mood I was while drinking. If I was being an asshole then I turn into a mega asshole, if I was all depressed then I become this whiny little emo kid.

Well that's it from me, hopefully this week will pick up with Trevor's B-day party tonight. We've already hit the Sod two nights in a row and tonight should be legendary! Eric out

Gettin Blogs Done

2009-06-01T21:08:00.005-04:00

June is here, May was good to me but I'm hopin for June to bring good fortunes and a new sense of routine and discipline. It promises to be an extremely busy month, which will require old Eric to be on his game. The month started out strong with me sleeping in and missing my morning class, then my afternoon was cancelled so I was stuck at home. I haven't had that much time to myself in a while and I made the most of it.... by watching 6 hours of Season 1 of 24. Damn Jack Bauer keeps you glued to the couch. Luckily, I picked up my old basketball and shot around for a few hours and then proceeded to take a run with Trevor. The run must've sparked me as I came inside to write down a detailed list of things to do this week.

#1 on the list - Get an agenda so I can write down things to do for the week.

#2 - Go on at least 3 runs this week

#3 - Spend 20 minutes a day of Yoga/stretching for my sore back

#4 - Work on plans for world domination...starting with Turks & Cacos

#5 - Clean the room so that I can find my old vaccuum

#6 - School work...I guess

#7 - Update my will

#8 - Reconnect with my writers for Generation GO http://www.gengo.ca/

#9 - Organize a softball game

#10 - Learn how to hit a softball

#11 - Finish this blog, this probably should've gone at #1

Finally, I would like to wish a Happy Birthday to my boy Geoff Keating, turning the big 2-4, hmm 24, I should go watch more. Geoff is in the land down under right now but I wish him all the best, here are a few highlights of his past birthdays...

20th - Kidnap Geoff from work and drive him around the neighbourhood pouring shots down his throat while making him wear a cowboy hat.

21st - Created the film documenting the life of Geoff, with interviews and celebrity appearances

22nd - Clubbin at the Boulevard Room. Don't remember much of that night except that we looked damn fine.

Be sure to check out Geoff's rockin home made beats. He probably should be working on getting his law degree but who I am to judge. So raise our keyboards or mouses or drinks if you have em to Geoff Keating.

Drink up be Merry!

Blogging about new discoveries

2009-05-25T21:27:00.003-04:00

The internet has become a place where people can express themselves to millions of others and most of them choose to express themselves by using other people's work. I'm guilty of it by having all my phrases on Facebook come from Will Ferrell movies or The Simpsons and chances are you've probably used someone else's work to express yourself. Twitter has become the ultimate form of this act. People will tweet everything that they find exciting which is fine, unless they're doing it to look "cool" or cultural savy.

Over the past few weeks I've been getting some really random information thrown at me so I thought why not share with you, websites that have been getting tweeted about and are worth taking a look at.

1. Webeconomist recently posted an article about 9 animals that have the most bizzare self defense mechanisms, including an Ant that can explode and a frog that grows retractable claws, so basically Wolverine in frog form.

2. Some Ecards is a hilarious website that allows you send for free, e-cards to anyone you want. It has thousands of choices for any occassion. Check it out!

3. A French man has decided to bring to life characters from old video games and destroy what ever comes in his way. He nearly got arrested at a grocery store for his antics as Pac Man and came even closer when he got pulled over while driving his MarioKart.

4. Toronto Star's map of the week showed a few weeks ago where every known case of syphilis, hep C, chlamydia and HIV in Toronto. You can actually view the number of cases in each neighbourhood. Only 1 person in mine has reported syphilis...who could it be?

Blogformers

2009-05-22T00:33:00.002-04:00

When the new Transformers movie was in its first stages of creation there was much talk about updating all them to modern vehicles. Does that mean most of them should have been hybrids? I can't imagine Optimus would have been taken seriously if he was a Prius. See the original movie was way too ahead in terms of the status of Earth.

According to them in the year 2005 I believe, everyone wears the same basic jump suit and have hover boards, not to mention no military or cops seem to care that there's a giant robot base in the middle of nowhere. I guess if the base was in a major urban area there'd be some red tape. I'm confident that the new movie will be tres awesome, so long as there are no corny dance numbers with a Weird Al song. If only they could still throw in some hard rock 80's as they did in the original movie. Transformers from a few years ago was a great movie and actually was much better than I anticipated. But what can we expect from the upcoming film? More action, Devastator! and a rumour floating around that Soundwave, the most popular deceptacon next to Megatron may make a guest appearance. With Soundwave around that still raises some questions regarding technological advances on Earth and Cybertron.

Now Cybertron is much more advanced than Earth so I'm sure Cybertron has had DVDs long before Earth, making Soundwave's transformation useless, unless he upgraded himself to a DVD player or even an iPod but he'd be pretty crappy in battle. So maybe in the movie Soundwave faces unemployment on Cybertron and travels to Earth to find work only to find that Earth is in terrible economic times. He then finds a nice pawn shop to sit in as a boombox until he is bought by some street performers. It's while he plays some Run DMC he gets recruited by StarScream who offers him little pay but lots of benefits like dental which is great for Soundwave as he has those 5 little robots inside him that he needs to feed.

I'm fairly certain that's how the movie will go down as it seems many movies now a days are focusing on global issues. If humans can't work, how can advanced Galactic robots get jobs, although technically they are illegal aliens to the United States, but I don't think anyone from the Imigration department is going to ask them to leave.

She's too Young for you to Blog

2009-05-17T17:16:00.005-04:00

Recently I purchased The Bro Code, written by Barney Stinson (played by Neil Patrick Harris on the show How I met your Mother) and Matt Kuhn. It documents all sacred rules that Bros must abide by or be Brovicted by their closest Bros. I haven't been able to put it down (I have it open right now as I write this post) and would highly recommend it to any Bros out there who need guidance. There are a lot of theories discussed in the book including the Hot-Crazy line and the Pyramid of Shouting. Being a big fan of theories I will be adopting these to my life starting immediately but there is another theory that is quite popular amongst Dudes and Dudettes and that is the acceptable dating age theorem. The origins of this formula are not fully known but has been evident in French and Muslim culture. After spending some time googling the rule which I heard about over 10 years ago I found that many people don't understand the rule and thus think it's "stupid" well don't phret because I will explain it clearly.

a = your age

y = youngest age of your date

y = (a / 2) + 7

Simple stuff, I'll be 24 soon so the answer for me would be 19. That does NOT mean I should be dating 19 year olds as some people were outraged they had such a specific number. It means I can date ladies who are at least 19 years old. This rule as a lot of merit as it keeps teenagers from going out with their parents friends (gross) and it allows the older people to say fuck it I can date tons of people (50 year olds can still go out with 32 year olds). But why the number 7? Here are some reasons...

- 7 years difference creates dissonance in similar interests. For every age difference above 7 years the less likely that couple will find common interests.

- 7 years sentence (around there) for sleeping with someone under the legal age of consent

- 7 is a lucky number so it should take a role on when it's ok for you to get lucky, heh.

These rules are tested quite often as young girls dress much older than they are and can easily get into bars and clubs some of them I've heard have been 16 years old when they go! But the two biggest rule breakers would have to be Cradle Robbers and Cougars. Especially Cougars as they typically go against society anyway by wearing really revealing clothing despite being 50 years old.

But the other night I was thinking...what's the formula for acceptable layage of someone older than you? I naturally do my best thinking while I drink so it was no surprise that after some inspiration I cracked the code...

Y-older = (a-7) x 2

Strange, I know, but it works out. For a 19 year old they would be allowed to date anyone up to the age of 24. See, it works. This formula however raises a lot of eyebrows as it seems that at any age you have a wider margin for dating older people so me being 24 I could date someone 5 years younger than me or 10 years older. I'll have to keep that in mind next time I encounter a Cougar because it may be ok. I think I'll have to expand on those formulas to account for alcohol consumed and commitment level, if it's going to be a one night thing then that should allow for wider margins.

So there you have it, that is one of the most tested and proven formulas in social conduct between consenting adults and it is the one I strongly believe in.

Blog's the word

2009-05-13T20:10:00.002-04:00

Mother's Day 2009, location: Boulevard Club...

All you can eat brunch, my brother and I each devour 3 plates worth of brunch items stacked on top of each other. Needless to say I was 4 pounds heavier after that meal. But here is where James and I differ...

When I feel full, I stop eating. When James feels full, he continues to eat until there is nothing left that he wants. After the brunch he consumed 6 slices of cake, a few hours later he wanted dinner so he ate 3 bowls of chilli. To no one's surprise he proceeded to get sick while at hockey and needed to head to the washroom halfway into the game. What a character, my mother was so grateful to call him her son.

Blogging was better in those days

2009-05-05T20:42:00.004-04:00

Children movies just aren't what they used to be, I know. I can't remember when the crusade against "child friendly" films began but I can't tell you the parents won that battle. Movies when I was growing up were always revolving around violence with good guys always coming out on top. It taught me that being evil may look fun but chances are if you're evil, you will lose and probably live in either a dark castle or cave.

Have you ever actually rewatched all those old child films/tv shows of the 80's? Some of them are super trippy (Dark Crystal/Labrinyth) or not nearly as awesome as you once remembered (Darkwing Duck) and some you wonder how you were allowed to watch the movie as a child. Exhibit A: Short Circuit. A family movie about a robot (Johnny 5) created for military purposes only to develop emotions and morals to not harm anyone ("No Disassemble"). I remember seeing this movie dozens of times as a child, sometimes watching it with my family. Then I saw it again the other night...and it should not be a kids movie! Don't get me wrong, it's a great story, I love the movie but there is a lot of swearing (nearly every 5 minutes) and a lot of sexual innuendos/blatant sexual comments - "I think I have a boner in my pants" says Dr. Ben Jabituya. Not to mention that Indian scientist was played by Fisher Stevens, a white American which just had loads of make up put on.

Maybe excessive swearing or violence shouldn't be allowed in kids movies but then again I may have learned some swears as a kid but was quickly corrected and thus turned into a rather polite young man. I mentioned to my mom that I grew up watching violent shows like Transformers and G.I. Joes and that I was mentally stable with her replying "For now..." Oh mother. And you know what, those shows taught me that being good is its own reward and has brainwashed me to protect Earth from Megatron and Cobra, something all children should learn.

Up and Blogging

2009-04-29T20:09:00.002-04:00

So my internship is officially over. I spent the last 4 months working for a word of mouth marketing company. I was unsure how much I wanted to be involved with the company after my internship but fortunately I have found a project that I am deeply devoted to - Generation GO. Managing this website will be my sole mission...while I'm in school, and having fun.

I have a lot of plans for this baby. First is to get all the bloggers on board and writing actively and frequently. Next is to bring in a whole wack load of followers to read the blogs and attend events. Down the road and I keep wanting to do this one now is grab my handycam and travel all over Toronto to gyms, rinks, trails and document my attempts at an active life in Toronto.

If I'm going to be managing a website that is devoted to active living in Toronto I decided to start getting back into shape. I tried to start on Saturday but that was the storm of the month. Sunday I spent the entire day with my family in East Toronto for my cousin's first communion. By the time I got home there was so much cake in my stomach that I wasn't moving. Monday I had all planned out and began to do my stretching when Trevor called and I was off to the networking event. Tuesday was pouring for all the morning but finally it cleared up and I walked outside. I rounded the corner when I felt my legs give out as I tore my quadriceps.

Now I sit here at my computer back where I started except I have tensor bandages all wrapped around both my legs. At least it gives me a lot more to time to work on my blogging.

I was told to blog so I did

2009-04-28T20:40:00.002-04:00

Been sometime eh? Well I'm sorry my life has been so busy lately, but I am proud to say that I am on vacation...in my basement and so I have more time to blog. In fact, I have 3 blogs going on the League of Kickass Under 30 and on Generation GO. Yes, Gen GO is finally up. For those that have been following me for some time now, you would understand why I am so relieved as this project has been in the making for 4 months. Who'd a thought a simple blog site was so difficult to finish but it's done www.gengo.ca check it out!

Last night Trevor treated me to a networking event for his fellow classmates and their guests. I must say as he explained what the event entailed I began to grow weary and dreaded the fact I committed to staying there for 4 hours of my first night on vacation. Basically, everyone presented their projects to those willing to walk by and inquire. While their hearts were in the right place I'm sorry to say there were major problems and that's just coming from experience planning and attending networking events. Here were my observations...

1) Speakers - good selection of speakers from a wide range of backgrounds but some really took too long and overall there were too many speakers which took away from people getting a chance to see the exhibits. Oh and the last speaker really sucked! I won't articulate my criticism.

2) Agenda - Speakers took up about 85% of the event with a lot of breaks in between. This made people restless and after 3 hours of speakers, people start to wander and get drunk. I think by the last speaker there were only 30 people listening.

One of the speakers who shall remain nameless didn't sit well with me. First off, he's a very arrogant individual who claims to shred resumes! Who does that? Very inconsiderate and if you're not going to bother looking at someone's background then you may miss out on some excellent candidates. He also claimed to be an introvert yet he spoke for nearly an hour and loved the sound of his voice. Finally he said he won't talk to people who have been drinking at networking events.

Let me explain the general practice of networking events... People gather at a venue after work in which they are successful and proud of their jobs making them tired and looking to unwind. They want to drink alcohol, especially marketers. It let's them relax and become friendly with people who may potentially become partners or customers. The trick is to learn how to handle your consumption while still maintaining an appropriate display of your motor skills. I find the first 3 is the biggest test. If you can down those and still feel fine you're sitting pretty as most events will feature speakers or a presentation or game which will take away from your presence from the bar.

Along with practicing consumption limits, I also have a few other tips...

1) Start with a joke, the people who come to social events are social people and like to joke around.

2) Establish a familiar contact. Try to find out what they do and who they know so that it's easy to understand where the person is coming from

3) Easy on the business cards. Some people are super pushy and will just throw the cards at you, even if you're not waiting for it and it flies at you, slitting your jugular. I always wait till the end of the conversation or if they inquire.

4) Leave em wanting more....

This is a throwdown Blog

2009-04-15T11:56:00.004-04:00

Been a few memorable weeks in music lately. Kurt Cobain's 15th anniversary of his death, This is how we do it by Montell Jordan was at the top of the charts for 7 weeks in a row in 1995. And let's not forget the 20th anniversary of Maestro's Let your Backbone Slide, which is to date the number one selling Canadian hip hop song of all time.

"This is a throwdown, a showdown, hell no I can't slowdown it's gonna go..."

It has also been a few memorable weeks for me at my job. Generation Go is in it's final stages (yea that sounds like a broken record) but our new web guru is working all hours to get it up. It's been 4 months but at last we're nearing the end but also the beginning of a massive project.

Plans are for next Tuesday to throw another Kickass event for the League of Kickass under 30. Only 10 tickets have been sold, yikes, although so many people have said they'll come. I dont' understand why you wouldn't, I'm combining Speed Networking/Dating with Bingo! plus we'll be adopting an animal from the Toronto Zoo, how Kickass is that!

There has been an epic debate raging in the office about which animal to adopt. If we can raise $500 then 6 of us can get a free trip to the zoo to go behind the scenes to see the animal. I guess that means they stick us in a cage and we introduce each other, or get eaten. After seeing that Cheetah was on the list I immediately let it known that I wanted to adopt a cheetah!

me as a cheetah taken by Lindsay Hay

I've been obsessed with Cheetahs ever since I was a child, including having my mom fashion me a cheetah costume which I wore for 3 Halloweens in a row!

Talk about a 180 reversal going from Music to Cheetahs but that's just how I roll on this blog, it's like taking the mystery box - you never know what you're going get but you know you made the right choice. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcG8z2OTAWs

OK OK BLOGGING BLOGGING....

2009-04-08T21:38:00.004-04:00

Let's Let's Write Write Blogs!

Since the dawn of time for blogging that song has been passed down from generation to generation. The Blue Jays opened their season Monday to a snowy day and as my dad explained to me, there was this crazy time called the '70s where the Jays had their debut to over 4 inches of snow on the ground at Exhibition Stadium. Can't help but wonder if this season will mirror that one. I hope so in the sense that they all grow major side burns and go back to the baby blue uniforms.

It's sad really, marketers do focus groups with the consumers they feel will buy the most of their product. For the Jays, that's kids, well their parents who buy it for the kids. That means they are always coming up with uniforms and logos that the kids will think is "cool". They had so much success for Retro Fridays, why not just go completely back to the old school Jays uniforms. They haven't won a world series since changing the uniforms in '94.

Looks like the Jays lost tonight. And the Leafs. And the Raptors. That's 3 in a row for the Raptors, at the game last night. Sittin in style in the platinum section. We had better seats than Pinball Clemons! Man that guy is stylish, he should totally run for mayor and he'd win and clean up this stinkhole. Props to Trevor for hooking us up with the tickets. Special thanks to the lovely and talented Whitney, truly the best arm candy.

Meet the newest Blue Jay pitcher...

It's a Twitter Takeover Blog

2009-04-06T16:31:00.002-04:00

So Twitter... Interesting little tool, the hottest new social network and I'm just learning about it now. It's essential for the work I'm involved with in Word of Mouth Marketing.

While my twitter profile @etrain85 is a little slow, my alter ego @LOKU30 has 100 followers and has only been around for 2 weeks so pretty good in my opinion.

First let me explain Twitter the way I get it. You have a profile where you can post information in less than 140 characters. Anyone who follows you will see your updates and anyone you follow will have their updates displayed on your screen. While your updates go out for everyone to see, you can directly message people or @reply them to create an online conversation. Hashtags # are used to categorize topics that people can search for. Example, I want to find anyone who mentioned the Raptors so I type in raptors. It will show every user who used #raptors in their recent posts. Speaking of basketball, Twitter really got big a few weeks ago when Charlie V of the Bucks was caught twittering while at halftime. Funny thing was that it was related to the game "Coach says I gotta step it up, he's right, we need this win." Many celebrities have twitter including Kevin Spacey, Steve Buschemi and several adult film stars so I'm told. I think the only celebrities I follow are Stephen Colbert and Shaq, mostly because they never follow me back. John Mayer's relationship with Jennifer Anniston ended because he was too obsessed with Twitter apparently!

I have a twitter scorecard...Everytime I check it, I look at the most recent posts. If something is interesting then a point is scored whereas pointless tweets deduct points. Overall Twitter in my world @etrain85 has a score of -12, whereas my alter ego @LOKU30 has a score of +17.

Pluses with Twitter

- People post lots of information/links. I've learned a lot, like which neighbourhoods in Toronto have the most people living with syphilis http://www3.thestar.com/static/googlemaps/starmaps.html?xml=090331_disease_infectious_syphilis.xml

- Build relationships much easier than Facebook (don't look like a creep vs. facebook)

- Follow interesting people like Shaq @The_Real_Shaq

- Connect with people you've probably never met but are maybe 1 or 2 degrees outside your circle of friends.

Minuses for Twitter

- Pointless status updates!

- Lots of repeated information

- More users means less chance of catching an interesting article or get too many and get distracted

- Consumes your life, I know some people that twitter while having drinks with me, so rude (unless it's about me).

Overall, I've had a positive experience with Twitter but will probably use it more for getting information vs. sending out the updates I have in my life because that is what my blog is for. Although a lot more people read my twitter posts than blog posts...

Here are a few videos on Twitter, quite enjoyable and hilarious.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN2HAroA12w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeLZCy-_m3s&feature=featured

Get Blogging Stupid

2009-03-31T15:10:00.010-04:00

This title was a reference to of course the Simpsons, where Troy Mclure lists his films you might have seen him in including "Get confident Stupid!"

These week has already started out on a hectic note. Monday our boss returned from a vacation with a wack load of new projects to work on. He also brought back life to the Generation Go project. By finding a few web designers we now must narrow our options down to 4 choices. We will select them over the next 24 hours and that will jump start the project. IT'S ALIVE, IT'S ALIVE!

I finished selecting my courses for next semester, should be a fairly relaxing semester. Have Friday's off so far but that may change. Hard to tell because Monday's I have 9am but Sundays are usually Old Sod nights, ugh decisions decisions.

Recently, I was feeling not so much blue but rather unmotivated. Had nothing really going on with my life and while that hasn't really changed I have discovered some hilarious posters which have propelled me to reignite some projects that I had put off for some time.

http://www.marcofolio.net/imagedump/top_40_demotivational_posters.html

This website provided some great posters, not exactly ones that shout inspiration but just cheered me up and sparked my creative juices. So if you're down in the dumps or just need a great laugh check these out, they've already had a huge effect on my creative brainstorming.

The Toronto Symphony Orchestra came to for ideas on how to bring a younger crowd to their performances. "How to make the TSO seem awesome"? I thought to myself then googled "awesome" and this came out...

Speechless...

Earth Hour blog

2009-03-30T17:15:00.003-04:00

So Earth Hour... Toronto had a 15% drop in power usage. I'm not sure if that's considered a success or not. Most of everyone I know participated in some light. I had to have my television set on as the Leafs game and the NCAA game were both high octane action and I couldn't miss it.

The highlight of my Earth Hour was walking downstairs as my brother turned the lights off resulting in me falling down the stairs and having a mildly sprained ankle. The swelling didn't happen until last night oddly enough but it kills today.

After the folks got home we decided to play some scrabble by candlelight. Good lord, the Allans should have a reality show. We only had a few candles and therefore had to get a flashlight which only powers up by you winding it up. Try thinking of words to put down while someone winds a flashlight of very quickly. Every turn that was taken took like 15 minutes with the player breaking down in near tears going "I don't have any letters" and then someone else yelling "WELL PUT SOMETHING DOWN!!!" and then the word would come as W - A - S or the addition of a S to another word. Not one triple word score was used as the board was so cluttered. Truly the Allans have an extensive vocabulary. I however, claimed victory by playing the word 'quick'.

That was my Earth hour, really quite amusing, on a side note if anyone wants to sponsor/contribute to the Allan family reality show let me know. I have the editing software, just need a few extra cameras to place around the house.

Sunny blog up

2009-03-27T14:44:00.002-04:00

Finally, finally, finally...I can go outside and work. Currently I am sitting ontop of the roof of the Agent Wildfire office building. It smells like the beach as we are just minutes away from Lake Ontario. If it wasn't for that delapadated meth lab blocking the view we'd be able to stare at the lake. Don't really have too much going on in my life right now. In fact I've hit sort of how you say writer's block. I was supposed to write a Top 10 (George Brown topics) for everyday this week but honestly I just couldn't do it. Could not get anything written down and I hope it's not permanent. I heard it's common in guys... I need my genius back as after my work here at Agent Wildfire I plan on getting back to trying my hand at stand up comedy. Caught an episode of Jimmy Fallon live, pretty crappy. He really isn't funny on his own and I must act on this observation and quickly gain stardom in the next few months so that I can make the transistion from humble comedian to guru talk show host.

Check back later next week while I search for inspiration. If you have any lying around please pass it on...

A Wild Night in Blogging

2009-03-21T12:20:00.002-04:00

Ok kids, today's word of the day is foreshadowing. This is the story of how I was kicked out of the 53rd Toronto bar that I've been to - The London Tap House. First let's go back to the beginnning of the night...

I get a phone call from Ken at around 5pm asking me if I would be interested in taking some Martial Arts classes with him. Foreshadowing. We then arrive at Trevor's and watch on Youtube some video of a guy who is an experienced fighter do a demonstration of how to F*@K someone up. Foreshadowing. I am upset because I really do not want to go this club, but it's Fred birthday and I gotta give love to my boy. I didn't want to go because I am not a fan of clubs mostly because you can barely hear people and I rely on my words not my looks to charm people and whenever there is someone a club that I have a fancy for they are rarely interested in me, so I was in a bad mood. Foreshadowing.

We arrive at the club where I was happy to see a lot of my old George Brown crew, I introduced Ken as my bodyguard. Foreshadowing. At coat check I made the joke that there is no way anyone could lose/mix up the giant tickets we got with giant numbers on them. Foreshadowing. An hour into the night and Ken keeps hounding me to grab my friends and hit up the dance floor. I think we were on the floor for less than 10 minutes when this drunk asshole falls back into my friends are sweet young ladies just trying to dance. He then turns to me and says some very very crude things about the girls in our group. NOT COOL!!! I gave him a courtesy shove to tell him he needs to relax and get lost. Really, who goes to a club with an unbuttoned dress shirt with no undershirt? asshole. Anyways, apparently he took offence and looked like he was going to attack while my back was turned making sure everyone was alright. I then see Ken got apeshit and starts yelling at the guy. Ah when everything comes together. The two came to near blows and rightly so we were asked to leave. The manager told us, "If this was any other night you wouldn't be kicked out", apparently that means they have a Wednesday fight night.

Up at the coat check we recollect and laugh because now we can head back to the Sod, grab a pint and tell an epic story...Or so we thought. The lady at the coat check gave Trevor the wrong ticket! We waited 1 hour to get the right coat, when we were asked to leave. Ken chummied up to the bouncer that was supposed to escort us out so needless to say it made them look very awkward and if those assholes that tried to fight were waiting outside then they definitely would've gotten tired and left, haha, suckers. Now we understood that they can't just give Trev the coat he says is his, but they also can't insult our intelligence by saying "you'd be surprised how many people think they brought a coat but actually didn't". Bad Customer service.

Well we finally made it back to the sod for last call and the night winded down, until....

A brew haha starts outside between some metal head and two guys who are debating music. Ken I'm sure was still feelin the rush of the near fight and tries to settle the arguement of which bands are great live. The metal head claimed to have been to 3,000 concerts! The guy was like 22 and that would mean he's spent nearly 10 years of his live seeing concerts and really, when do you start keeping track after a few hundred? The debate was nearly finished until the metal head says the Deftones are the worst live band ever. This did not bode well with Ken, and rightfully so, there are many more worse acts than the Deftones. About an hour later we give up and go home.

Needless to say that was a crazy night, Happy Birthday Fred, hope your night was Legendary!

The Headlines Blog

2009-03-20T15:18:00.004-04:00

Friday Friday Friday, first day of Spring my ass it's freezing outside!

Well my life wasn't too exciting this week so I thought I'd share some headlines I read and give my own commentary on each one...

Ancient T-Rex super predator roamed the seas

Apparently they discovered this aquatic dinosaur that had a bite 11x more powerful than the T-Rex and was nearly 70ft long. Seriously, what is the deal with everyone hatin on the T-Rex lately. Bad enough the discovery of the Spinosaurus lead the T-Rex to no longer being the largest predator ever but now he doesn't even have the strongest bite. Just leave the T-Rex alone, he is awesome - end of story. I mean, if I was a Dino-Rider, I'd still go with the T-Rex over Predator X. We're not going to be able to have a steel cage match between the two so why bother comparing. Speaking of steel cage matches...

Cage fights settled student disputes

A high school in Dallas, Texas (obviously) had a cage set up for troubled students to slug it out. Even the principal knew and encouraged this! It went on for 3 years and sounded pretty ridiculous, they have a photo of the cage set-up, nice craftsmanship. But there were only 2 known bouts. 2! and you had it for 3 years, what a waste of school money. If you were going to have it there why not include it as a Phys-ed class and hold Friday night Fights and charge tickets. Guaranteed in Texas that'd make more money for the school than any bake sale!

Anika Sorenstam is pregnant

Good for her. Can you imagine if you had her in Fantasy Golf? I heard that women leagues from all sports are trying to build a fantasy pool following. While in men's leagues you have to worry about re-occuring injuries, in women's leagues you'd have to follow their personal life to find out when she plans on getting knocked up

Top O' the blog to ya all!

2009-03-17T12:27:00.005-04:00

Ah toi toi toi, tis a merry day out.

Yes, I can say these things because I am part Irish/Scottish, as me mom's side of the family (Rynard/Mackay) is of Irish/Scottish ancestry. I'd like to blog about all things Irish to celebrate and embrace stereotypes...

Leprechauns - tiny male fairies who are normally wealthy and mischevious. Such famous leprechauns include the Trix cereal mascot "Lucky" and the murderous one in the movie saga "Leprechaun". They've been given a bad rap lately and are on the cusp of being banned from the media but believe me, Leprechauns are not extinct.

Drinking - this is not a stereotype. While the business side of Ireland is one of the fastest growing sectors of any other nation, many practices still involve drinking, not much different from North America. According to a report, the consumption of alcohol in Ireland has increased 17% over the past 11 years to 13.4L of alcohol consumed per capita. Every other European country has decreased that amount, France from 20.4L in the 70's to 13.4 in 2003. Also, a survey from 2002 showed that 78% of alcohol bought in Ireland was beer!

The Simpsons...My god best show in the history of anything (especially if you know me). The writers commonly make references to Ireland. Top moments include...

- Willie's fights his arch enemy Groundskeeper Seamus
- The drunken Irish novelists start a brawl in the St. Patrick's Day float
- Lisa says angels are no more real than unicorns or leprechauns, Kent Brockman responds by saying everyone knows leprechauns are extinct
- The old Irish man who makes a few guest shots including whacking day where he says "I took many the lot of ya on, but twas all in good fun"
- Burns laughs continuously as he remembers crippling an Irish worker on a bumper car ride
- Any shots of the mini leprechaun that just gets into fights with everyone
- The even smaller leprechaun that tells Ralph to burn the house down! BURN EM ALL!!!

Well tis 1pm, methinks that's time to go out and get some green beer, Happy St. Patrick's Day to you all!!!

It's getting bloggy out there

2009-03-10T16:30:00.003-04:00

So....what's new?.......

Yea you're right, nothing much you're boring, that's why you read my blog. My week has been wreckless and it's only Tuesday! First off, project Generation Go has made little progress. I have great blogs from people, a new logo and everything is ready to go on the site, the problem. A snaffoo with our company and the web designer. It is now very awkward for me as I just want to launch the site and let bygones be bygones. Secondly, The League of Kickass Under 30 is having it's Debut Event Wednesday. What started off as a great idea has gone horribly downhill. Originally we were under the impression of charging a premium price for a ticket and then there would be free drinks for the night. Apparently that is not the case and all drinks must be paid for. We then asked if since we are charging a premium that everyone could at least get 1 or 2 drinks for free. That has yet to be approved and could really make or break the event. Also, we had to sell 150 tickets. Now, people said they were free for that day but are now backing out and it's up to me to scramble around and recruit more people...It's turning ugly and making it a very stressful couple of days for the good Doctor.

Now onto the good stuff my latest observation and bar visit.

Observation: Ford Flex - seriously? has anyone seen this car? this looks like the designer had months to think of something then put it off only to realize he had to have something in for the next day, started panicing and then saw a drawing of a box car that his 4yr old son drew and took it in.

Bar visit: That brings it up to 52, I went to see the Watchmen. Unlike the last time I was at a theatre and Chris Bosh of the Raptors asked me to move, this time we went to a bar inside the theatre. Alan Smithee's Lounge. Don't know what to say, we're drinking while waiting for our movie to start, nice seats with big tvs but it's almost a clear cut sign of who is an alcoholic that they must have a beer before seeing the movie. On the plus side, it'd make date movies seem a lot easier to watch...

A Blog by any other name

2009-03-06T16:29:00.002-05:00

Would not be nearly as awesome as my blog. That title was inspired by my cousin from Southern California who has been very supportive of my blogabilities and she should be. Why? if you need reminding I suggest spending an hour of your time and reading all my blogs that will bring your brain to near melt status. She suggested that I take my blog skills to a higher level, no not heaven (though I hear the need to make the bible more readable for today's christian), the next level is either a newspaper column or a blog site such as BlogTo. Don't you dare minimize this window and check out BlogTo, just be patient and look afterwards. I explained to her that she has too much time on her hands and perhaps just put her name and photo on my blog and try her luck at getting it out there. Of course, that would be successful because when it comes right down to it, this blog is nothing without me. NOTHING! And so my quest begins today to conjure up a blog entry the likes of which BlogTO has never seen and I Dare them to post my ramblings on their site for all to see, to laugh, to cry and to ask "Who the hell is this Eric Allan fellow and what is he on?" To those that ask that question I reply with one word "Life" I am high on Life...with a touch of crystal meth.

Starting this weekend I will begin to develop an idea for a blog that will be the biggest thing to hit their site since that escaped Rhino demolished the Animal Rights office, oh the irony. I have so many brilliant ideas I'm bound to think of something. Quoting my boss from a brainstorming session we had earlier regarding a marketing campaign... "Eric, you have some of the most random and out there ideas, but sometimes one just hits home and comes off brilliant".

Cootos to you all, I must away and commence on a period of thought and self-reflection in order to knock this blog entry into the International space station.

TGIF blog

2009-02-27T15:41:00.002-05:00

The end of the work week... What a week it's been. I'd say overall I accomplished very little that could be measured. Everyday the time flew by because I was either e-mailing or compiling blogs or listing websites and companies. When it comes down to it I was super busy and have nothing big to show for it. I know I promised the launch of the Generation Go website today, but fact is that I'm still waiting on peoples' blogs and the website is not fully to our liking yet. It's been a painfully slow process as I'm sure all websites are in their design phase. We still have to pick a logo, put in the photos and blogs and clean up the look. I will be so freakin happy when this site is launched. That brings me to Lent-olution. I have decided to give up complaining for 40 days. If you notice that I complain in my blogs please call me out on it by punching me in the gut if you see me on the street. Not the face though, that's how I make my moneys.

Last night I attended a George Brown Fundraising event. It was in a neighbourhood I had never been before and of course I got lost. Well, not so much lost, but got off at the wrong stop and ended up walking for 30 minutes, which did make me very hungry so I gorged myself when I got there. I had been looking for to the event for along time as I hadn't seen a big GBC group in sometime. It was a great time, Faren picked out a Martini for me that I'm pretty sure was made of Vodka, Vodka, Bourbon, laced with Vodka. Apparently it's called a Sinatra. I finished it though and it wasn't that bad. Then again, I had had about 4 beers prior so my tastebuds were dulled. Unfortnately for me, I had gone into the night with one objective and as I left all I could do was stand there and say thank you for inviting me. It was a blown opportunity and I hope to redeem myself next time.

This weekend is a party filled one with J-spot's 24th b-day bash. Should be a drunkenly good time with merrymaking and apple bobbing, the usual Mount Allison party. So in the words of Rick James, "Drink up, Be Merry!"

Wednesday & Thursday Blog

2009-02-26T10:53:00.002-05:00

Wow, I already broke my promise, apologies all around. I did not take my laptop home with me after work. For Wednesday, let's re-cap what happened Tuesday night.

Karoke at the Old Sod, surprise surprise. Trevor and Ken went up as usual with their rocking performance. The fries were absolutely delicious and I wished I could've stayed out the whole night but alas I had to work early the next morning. Stacey also performed much to the jeering drunk frat boys in front of her, asking for encores. I must say I had never heard a better cover of "In Da Club" than Stacey's performance, brava.

Wednesday at work was same old same old, updating the League of Kickass Under 30 website along with collecting blogs for the Generation Go website. We already have teriffic blogs and surprisingly very attractive group of writers, including myself, cough. No?

Today I look forward to the end of work, not because work is dull, in fact I'm very busy today. But I get to enjoy the company of George Brown students new and old. This should be a great opportunity to show how awesome I have become over the work term. Plus I get to see someone who I have not seen in a while and I'm really hoping it goes well. Well time to get back to work, I lost an office bet for the Oscars so now I have to buy the whole office a case of beer. Should make for an increase in productivity.

Tuesday Blog

2009-02-24T16:57:00.002-05:00

Wrapping up another hard day at Agent Wildfire. Today I updated my list of bars I've been to in Toronto. For those that don't know, I have set a goal for myself to visit 100 bars/clubs in Toronto by the end of this Summer. After adding Tattoo Rock Parlour to the list, I am officially halfway there. Tattoo Rock was pretty enjoyable despite getting off to a rough start. I ended up in a huge line by myself and had these guys in front of me ask if their two friends could cut. I said sure only to have like 10 guys come in afterwards. Needless to say I got pretty pissed and things were going to turn ugly except Stephanie showed up so I was instantly 100 x happier because I got to wait in line with someone I knew.

Once inside they played decent music with decent prices and I had two girls from the party consistently touching and caressing me in a drunken manner. Sure, they were wasted and just kidding around but that's the most attention a girl has given me in sometime so I wasn't complaining. Soon I'll feature a bar review in all my blogs.

Update from work: Generation Go is near launching. I'm gonna say Friday!

Random thought: I wonder which is the first animal that people actually care about becomes extinct? any wagers?

The Monday Blog

2009-02-23T19:37:00.003-05:00

So as punishment for my lack of blogging last week, I have decided to give my readers a treat - write a blog everyday for this week. I hope enough exciting things happens in my life this week. Let's kick off my telling you all about my brush with the high life of society. It started out with dinner at Monsoon restaurant. The typical $30 dinner but very little food, however very delicious.

And the company I was with, the League of Kickass Under 30, terrific people. Very insightful, I felt like I was actually communicating with intellectuals when in reality I just kept helping myself to the free wine. We then proceeded over to catch a TSO performance. My first one since I was in grade school and I must say it was quite enjoyable. The violinist Midori, apparently once broke 4 violins by playing them so hard but still managed to finish the performance with the conductor bowing down to her after she finished. Her stuff was very soothing and yeah, I drifted off but it was still great to listen to.

Overall it was a delightful night and I highly recommend taking in a TSO show. For only $12 you can see a show in the same seats as an older gent who paid $80. You could also join the League of Kickass Under 30 and get another chance at experiencing the same way I did. Definitely do that...

And for my random observation of the day.....

Anyone see that commercial of those kids saying Canada will win it all at the 2010 Olympics? THese kids have really high expectations and they're all super pumped about it. I'd hate to disappoint them, talk about putting pressure on the athletes. "If you guys don't win gold, we're going to get this horde of kids to beat you with their hockey sticks so bad that you'll be up for a gold medal in the Infirmary Olympic games."

Sporty Blog

2009-02-22T18:58:00.002-05:00

Hey Sports fans, been over a week. I was missing in action as it was an eventful week at the workplace (more to come on the next blog). I thought with the launch of Generation Go this week I'd kick celebrate by writing about Toronto Sports.

Raptors - Enter the Matrix, Shawn Marion. He will be a good fit for the team as one could easily see in the past 3 games. But the team needs more than just one player to win games. Bargnani is playing well, Bosh is a little rusty and Calderon has had a sub-par year. Fact is, this team is in such a mental funk, totally not with the program. Let's keep shooting until we score, never mind driving to the net. It seems every game, a few players have these huge games but the others struggle. If the all the players on a consistent basis do what they're supposed to do every game then I think they would be doing much better. Probably in 4th place as I firmly believe on paper this is a great team. But play Nathan Jawai more please, I missed his first basket thanks to the game being on TSN 2. 1/3 of the season unwatchable from my home, fantastic. Lastly, what is the deal with Raptor fans at the games? Biggest assholes ever. You start booing when the Raptors are losing to Cleveland - one of the best teams in the league and we don't have Bosh, how the fuck did these people watching the game think the Raptors could possibly win. It's one thing to lose when you have a 14 point lead going into the last quarter but when you're just outmatched then there's not that can be done.

Leafs - I hate to cheer for a team to lose but the Leafs have converted me. The Last place race is so much more exciting because the Islanders and Senators are so brutal that the Leafs can't even lose properly. That's life in Toronto this year, yet I always watch both teams when I can. Speaking of which the Leafs got a game coming up tonight, so I'm going to try and wrestle the remote away from my mom to see the game on HD. Keep your sticks on the ice and balls on the court.

The News Blog

2009-02-13T15:43:00.003-05:00

Well the long weekend is almost here. Thank you Family Day. I noticed a few interesting articles in the paper today and I thought I'd give my take on them.

"York U profs help track songbirds". Professors at York U have found out how to track the migratory patterns of the songbird which travels thousands of kilometers for mating. Now that's a booty call. Nice to know that students were held out of classes for 3 months while this important study could still be carried out. The reason why they studied that I'll don't know. Last time I checked humans couldn't fly nor are some interested in travelling to two bars down to find a mate and result to going online.

Speaking of birds...

The US airliner that crashed into the Hudson was apparently caused by Canadian Geese...That was just a warning shot America. Next time we'll use Mooses to bring down your Submarines!

"RCMP says Tasers can kill" Wow, really RCMP, your top notch detectives figured that one out? This just in, Swords can cut off arms.

"Municipal Dutch Porn archive goes missing" - Ok, now that is just hilarious enough as it is.

More headlines to come in the future, but I must finish my work before the weekend

Being Eric Allan in a blog sense

2009-02-09T16:24:00.003-05:00

Sounds like someone has a case of the Mundays...The cure, reading Dr. Eric's latest blog, which is special because it will showcase just exactly what goes on inside his brain during the day.

8:14am - "Holy crap, that water is cold. Wait a minute, when did I wake up and get in the shower?"

8:25am - "Bagels for breakfast again, if only I had the will to make bacon everyday for breakfast. But then the bacon might not become as special and thus, turn into the new bagel. Why do I hate cereal? I really need to invent a new breakfast food"

8:53am - "Segways have been around for a long time and yet they're still not seen very often. What is the deal, that's marketing gone bad."

8:55am - Eric runs into the man who delivered him into the world 23 years ago. They had met several times but with other people around. Now they were walking towards Bloor st together. "Thanks Dr. R, for bringing me safely into this world. Just wanted to let you know that I'm living life to the fullest and your time was not a waste."

9:02am - Eric reaches the subway doors, a gust of wind from the subway blows the doors open just as he enters making it look like he had opened them with his mind. "Man, I got the force with me today"

9:04am - "My earphones are tangled, I have to fix them before I reach the station or else I won't have two free hands because I'll have to hold the paper. Must hurry, only 30 seconds left!"

9:05am - "How are there no Fuckin newspapers at this stop today at 9am?! Wait a minute that man over there has one, I could easily run by and take it. Who would stop me, I know these streets and I'm fast. Also I am a master of disguise, it's the perfect crime. Shit the bus!"

9:07am - 12pm - ......

12:01pm - "Man I'm hungry"

12:30pm - 4:30pm - "League of Kickass, League of Kickass, League of Kickass, Generation Go, Generation Go. These two things have consumed my life for the past 2 weeks. Oh look a new facebook friend, yay"

There are a lot more interesting thoughts that go through Eric's head but sadly there is only an optimum amount of blogging one can do before becoming disinterested in the post.

So I married a blogg

2009-02-04T12:28:00.005-05:00

I would first like to dedicate this blog to my old mate Victoria a.k.a. "Notorious V.I.C.". This little fireball asked if she could blog for my new network "Generation Go" cough, shameless plug. At first I said maybe so then she asked what if her name was blogg. How can you argue with that logic so I said sure, at which point she told me she is getting married and her new last name will now be Victoria Blogg. So in my face...

The good Dr. has 2 beefs to talk about today. First is a Public Service Announcement for the homeowners of Etobicoke.... "SALT YOUR FUCKIN SIDEWALKS!" It really is common courtesy that if you live on a street with a sidewalk that you salt your part when it gets icy. I was walking home from work the other day when all the slush had frozen over and the whole city was a skating rink. I passed by a home on Grenview and slipped on a huge patch of ice. I felt my bad knee pop out of place which it has done before, but luckily it must have popped back in when I landed. After getting up I saw the family was ten feet away playing and only the little girl started laughing at me. The mom was right there and just looked at me like "how dare you walk near my house, that is the penalty you get for doing so". For the safety of other people and your own children salt your sidewalks. I returned home and began talking to a friend online that I haven't spoken to in a while. He's in law school right now and I told him the story. He told me that I have no legal action if my knee popped out because it was a recurring injury. Fuckin ridiculous logic, that's like saying 50 cent can never sue anyone that shoots him because he's already been shot 9 times.

Ok beef #2 and this is related to the wedding and couples thing. At weddings everyone kisses each other, well like Jerry Seinfeld I cannont deal with the kiss hello. I'm already so awkward around women as it is that if one were to kiss me on the cheek for purely friendly social situations, I'd freak out and probably fall in love with them. So nothing against anyone who does it, in fact it's the opposite, if you don't want me falling in love with you then for your own safety avoid a kiss hello with Eric.

A Super Blog

2009-02-02T16:09:00.002-05:00

Just realized that I need no longer write the date at the beginning because blogspot already includes it, I just saved a combined 3 minutes of my life. This is based on how long it takes me to type the date and multiply that by the number of blogs I estimate doing over the next 5 years. I realize that by figuring all that out, those 3 minutes have been wasted...

Moving on, the Superbowl was apparently on last night. My family joined together to watch the festivities, judge one another and of course, gamble. Nearly everyone there picked the Cardinals to win (way to hop on the bandwagon family) but I was wiser and chose the Steelers by 10. In the end I won and received a grand prize of $50. If my math serves me well that's roughly 2 pitchers at the Old Sod and two shots for when I meet that special cougar.

I must say, I was very irate with the fact that CTV decided to not only encroach on the NBC station but also throw in their commercials, thus I did not catch any of the great commercials until this morning. Not cool CTV. After finally watching all the ads I came to the conclusion that this year sucked. Only one commercial came out on top - Conan, and he had 2 of them. Him in a mesh shirt talking in Swedish, hi-larious. Way to go Conan, if only Bud light could keep up that creativity instead of resorting to old ads or basic slapstick, which is funny but too easy. Other props go out to Alec Baldwin for hulu and the Pepsi "I'm good". You can check out all the ads on Youtube's adblitz's channel http://www.youtube.com/superbowl. Now I'm off to go spend that $50...I think i'll invest in that pet shop down the street that seems to only sell depressed rabbits.

A Social Blog

2009-01-30T13:43:00.004-05:00

January 30, 2009

2 months since I started this blog and the mere fact that I still am interested in it and that no one has asked me to shut this down is nothing short of a miracle. Since I work in social media, I thought it would be quite smashing to discuss not just social networks but also social situations...

This month I was very determined to gain membership to the Beautiful People network. To get in I had to send them a photo of myself and then wait 72 hours for members to judge whether or not I was beautiful enough. Both times I applied, I was rejected, not even close to getting a high enough rating, so I tried the Canadian network. Again I was denied entry but a few people I know have made it on so I'm curious to see what goes on in those networks.

As of now I'm working on developing two social networks that should hopefully take off. One is the League of Kickass Under 30, a network geared towards gathering young all-stars of business to network with one another - the problem, it looks like a dating site. Not that I'm not completeyl unhappy with it, because from what it seems, I'm almost starting a new beautiful people's network when you look at the members. The other network is going to be huge. It's top secret right now, but you can join the Facebook group (Generation Go).

Now for some networks I don't want to get on...

Twitter - seriously, what is the big deal about twitter?! 140 characters, that is a facebook status. That is a tiny blog. If I need to constantly update people on my life, I will do it on Facebook. Or if I want to brag about myself, that's what a blog is for. The only upside of Twitter is that you can follow people you know but they have no idea who you are, par example - Shaq and Britney Spears both have Twitter accounts so you can follow them and get their brilliant outlook on life (despite a lot of it probably being inside jokes with their friends)

Linked-In - I know this is supposed to be a good one to have if your trying to look professional. I'm on it and I'm starting to accumulate friends but it's almost like starting at facebook square one again but with jobs . Eventually I will probably be more open to this, but right now, I could care less about it.

And Facebook right now, isn't even that fun anymore. For some reason, the thrill of creeping on someone's page just isn't there anymore for me. Maybe a good thing?

I blog on the TTC, blog on the TTC

2009-01-28T12:08:00.002-05:00

January 28, 2009

Been a few days since my last post so I thought I'd give you all the happenings of the good doctor. Recently, I have a bit of an adventure with the TTC and I believe this has all stemmed from the fact that Mercury is closest to the Earth or something like that. I needed a scapegoat and lots of people have been blaming Mercury so why not get on board the blame train.

A few days ago I was finishing up work when I saw the bus coming my way. 5 minutes early, what was the deal with that? Although that's not the worst thing in the world, the fact was that I had gotten into a groove of catching the buses right on time and lately the schedule was changing. I rushed towards the bus but slipped on a huge path of ice, though I didn't fall over (but managed to sprain my knee none the less). The pain was minor possibly because I was racing full speed down the street towards the bus stop before the bus came. If I missed this bus that meant standing 20 minutes out in the cold.

There was no chance of getting to the stop before the bus but like a true public transit user, I began to curse and flail my arms in the air signalling for the bus to stop. The bus began to pull over but it was after the stop, next to a big curb of snow and opened the door. Being the extreme action superstar that I am, I leaped onto the 4 foot high snow pile then threw myself towards the moving bus and fortunately landed inside (while the bus was still moving). The bus driver then looked at me as I gasped for air and said "I was going to stop". Yea right.

The next day I was getting on the subway to head downtown. I heard the door chime to signal the closing of the doors and I thought "here we go again" so I jumped down the final flight of stairs (at least 10 steps) and jumped into the subway...this time I wasn't so lucky and the doors slammed against me, crushing me like a bodycheck from a giant Russian player named Monsterov. The doors didn't even open again as half my body was in, half was out. The subway driver just kind of stared at me and said get away from the doors. I mean, he could have at least opened them for me, it wasn't even rush hour. But instead I was forced to pull my shattered right side out of the train before having my left side ripped off when I hit the side of the station. Thus concludes my latest saga with the TTC. Tune in for exciting and erotic tales...

The In and Out Blog

2009-01-22T13:44:00.004-05:00

January 22, 2009

This blog is all about what is currently the "In" and the "Out" of Dr. Eric Allan's life. Let's begin...

Television

In - 24, How I met your mother and Flight of the Conchords. All coming into a new season and still going strong, however I was a little let down by the new episode of FOTC

Out - SNL - The skits are just not nearly as funny. John Malkovitch's episode was hilarious and Kirsten Wiig is my dream girl.

Movies

In - The Watchmen (very psyched for this one) as well as Taken (Liam Neeson kicking ass and taking names)

Out - Hellboy 2, just sucked! The Spirit, was decent and Eva Mendes was gorgeous but not worth the $10

Bands

In - Passion Pit, The Killers & re-listening to The Stills

Out - Lady Gaga, hate her, hate her so much!

Projects

In - The League of Kickass Under 30 & Generation Go, both my babies and should hope to turn into huge social networks

Out - The Allan family reality show. Just don't have the time or access to dozens of cameras to make a decent show. I have plenty of material though.

General things in my life

In - Iceland, next 5 years would be great to take a trip to.
Russian, learning a new word every day.
Zombies

Out - Beautfiul People website - I'm tired of trying to get on
January, such an ugly time of time
Toronto Raptors, I've given up on you guys unless Nathan Jawai gets more court time.

Barack to Blogging

2009-01-20T15:27:00.003-05:00

January 20, 2009

Got to hand it to the Americans, everything they do is big. We need some flare up North in Canadian politics like a laser rock show whenever the House of Parliament assembles to the song of Thin Lizzy "Boys are back in town". Just something to make it sparkle. My colleague here at Agent Wildfire were discussing what is the big deal with Obama. I mean, granted it is a huge step forward for equality but he has a lot to do and not a lot to work with. Here's my theory on President Barack...

He never ages and therefore has been planning this day in his head for centuries. He has an odd name and that can only mean one thing...Alien. Barack is the shortest version of his name because his full name cannot be pronounced by humans, for he is head of the Blygarian race located in the Perseus galaxy. This advanced race has slowly begun to make their move as their lord Barack has become in charge of the most powerful nation on Earth. It really is only a matter of time before he shows his true form and reopens the vortex to Planet Blygarius located over Alaska and his fellow Blygarians invade our planet.

But it won't be the end of humans because the Blygarians don't have sufficient resources on their planet to power their Planet Cannon which will shoot down any asteroid or Starship that comes near their planet. It would also be too costly for them to look after their own workers who would be responsible for gathering the necessary resources. That means they will leave it to the humans to gather their resources creating hundreds of thousands new jobs in the manual labour industry at a cheaper cost to the Blygarians. That my friends, is Universal Outsourcing.

A Zombie Survival Blog Pt. 4

2009-01-16T16:18:00.002-05:00

January 16, 2009

Our team reaches the downtown sector. There's not a person or zombie in sight, looks like the place has been deserted for years. We break into one of the condo lobbies and take the elevator up to the Penthouse suite. A dance party ensues as we celebrate being the only ones left in Toronto. Just as the strippers get going Graham begins to protest, which seemed odd to the group because Graham loves strippers so much.

He pulls a gun from his pocket and aims it at us. "Graham, just what the hell are you doing? We got a penthouse suite and strippers!" I say to him. It's at that time he reveals to us that he actually is part of a government organization that was experimenting with the Zombie virus. He was sent to monitor us seeing as how we would put up a fight for the zombies, obviously we were too good. "I must put an end to this, no one can know about the Toronto zombie experiment." He fires a shot at Ken (who he hated most). Ken grabs a stripper and pulls her in front of him seeing as how strippers have evolved an extra layer of skin to stop bullets. Geoff then stretches his 7 foot arms out and takes the gun from Graham. Then Trevor rams Graham against the wall hitting the elevator button. The elevator doors open with a dozen zombies rushing out. A brawl begins and Graham and Geoff are hurled out the window of the penthouse suite, falling 20 stories and smashing through the roof of another building.

We finish killing off the zombies and get a call from Geoff on my cell phone. He tells me that they're alright and that there was a chip on the back of Graham's head that had broken off and he doesn't remember a thing. The team repels down to meet Geoff and Graham and we then realize that we're standing in the Air Canada Center. The strippers come down to join us for a game of pick up basketball - shirts and skins. After I drain another 3 pointer the ball rolls over to the bench where a shit load of zombies are standing.

"Uh oh, here we go again..."

The End?

A Zombie Survival Blog Pt. 3

2009-01-15T17:31:00.003-05:00

January 15, 2009

Driving through the streets of Toronto, I realized that there was an abandoned guns and ammo store located in the heart of the downtown. Trevor veers the Hummer around and we head on down, running over countless zombies, I mean sometimes Trevor went out of his way to hit them. On the way to the abandoned gun store, Ken suddenly gets a craving for strippers. "We need to save the strippers!" he shouts. I told him it was on the way but if we're picking up strippers that could potentially zombies then we're going to need two kinds of protection.

Trevor pulls up in front of the shop. We each take what we can and load the car up. Naturally, Geoff likes to go big so he fashions the top of the Hummer into a turret and as soon as he completed it, we were swarmed by zombies. The new weapons work pretty well except for Trevor's flamethrower which just set the zombies on fire which meant flaming zombies walking towards us.

The strip club's doors have been busted open and it already smells like death. "No, that's what it always smells like," Graham says, being a regular to the club. As soon as they hear the soft tone of Graham's voice, a few of the strippers slide down the poles (I guess those poles do lead upstairs). All of sudden our party seemed to be sitting pretty nicely with guns, a Hummer and strippers. Being in this unique situation we decided to break into the penthouse suite of a fancy condo because when you roll like that you have to keep it up...

Tune into the conclusion...

A Zombie Survival Blog Pt. 2

2009-01-14T16:41:00.000-05:00

January 14, 2009

So there we are inside the Old Sod as hundreds of zombies have begun to break inside to eat our brains. Being regulars to the bar, the staff that is still alive is being forced by us to continue serving pitchers and Bryan Tyrell the nightly performer must continue to play as per our request. I mean we are amazing tippers and great customers. Around the 3rd playing of With or Without You, the zombies break through the giant glass window (we probably should've boarded that up) and head towards us. The staff makes a run for it out the back door while us the loyal regulars have decided to defend the bar.

Luckily Graham remembered that the owner keeps shotguns behind the counter (he knows because one night he went behind there to prove to the staff that there were many pitchers left). We grab the guns and head up to the roof. Just like classic zombie movies we begin to unload shells onto the walking dead below. By this time we had a couple of pitchers so our aim would normally be better.

The zombies grow in numbers and as sad it sounded, we needed an escape plan. This would be the first time that we left the Sod without being asked to leave. Geoff spots a nearby hummer (yes there is a hummer in our neighbourhood) so we zip line down to the car just as Ken lights the TNT. "If we can't drink at the Sod then no one can drink at the Sod" was his logic. Trevor hotwires the hummer and we were off to save the rest of humanity....

Tune into Part 3.

A Zombie Survival Blog

2009-01-12T10:33:00.000-05:00

January 12, 2009

First off, Canada should really look into taking over a small island nation and turning it into a colony. I mean the US has Hawaii and Puerto Rico, Britain has Bermuda, why can't Canada get a nice tropical island? Look into that Harper, because it would definitely help with my next big worry...Zombies. The following is how me and etobicoke crew think a zombie infection will go down.

Downtown Toronto, 10:31am:

After the TSX takes another huge plunge, a man will proceed to bite the face of a co-worker. Little does he know that he holds the zombie virus that is dormant in him but infectious to others. For the next few hours, the number of zombies skyrockets throughout the financial district and rest of downtown.

Toronto 5:04pm:

The rush hour hits and everyone steps out of their offices to find zombies walking the streets. Some make it back into thier buildings while others head for the subways. Few make it but they are bitten and think for the time being they are safe as they head to the suburbs.

Etobicoke 7:17pm

Me and my gang are hanging out at the Old Sod pub when we see some people stumbling around outside. We assume they are drunks and take no notice but when the owner goes out to shoo them away they begin to tear his flesh off. At that point we realize something is wrong and sure enough have barricaded ourselves inside the Old Sod as zombies begin to close in on us.

Stay tuned for Part II...

The Blog, The Blog is on Fire

2009-01-06T10:12:00.000-05:00

January 6th, 2009

Blog #2 of the new year. I'm excited to say that your beloved Doctor Eric has become immersed in the exciting world of Social Media with Agent Wildfire. It started off in an interesting way. I got little to no sleep the night before my first day. I woke up, got ready and started for the subway. On the way as I was thinking "Agent Wildfire", "Agent Wildfire" but instead got on the subway headed for school. It was ok though as I got to work on time. Should be an interseting couple of months for me as I have a few projects already underway that I hope to excel at. On a lighter note, I got to meet with my old roomie from residence - Nate Halcovitch. As a tribute to nostalgia I have compiled some of the more memorable events that happened to us as roommates.

First day of school: I ask Nathan if I can call him Nate Dogg, he refuses but I continue to call him Nate Dogg till this very day.
Eric is seriously injured twice in a skatebowling and basketball incident. Nathan must put up with all Eric's groaning.
Nathan listens to music while he sleeps. In the same week, Nathan begins to speak in French which sounds like tongues to Eric as well no music is heard by Eric but Nathan begins to shout out Beatles lyrics. Both times scares Eric half to death.
Nathan's clock goes out of whack and his side of the room becomes "nathan time zone" Eric wakes up everyday to look at Nathan's clock to find he's late for class so he rushes to get ready but wonders why no one else is up and then realizes he's in "nathan time"
Jamie spills chocolates behind Nathan's computer which invites a mouse dubbed "Mr. Bojangles". Eric constructs a series of elaborate traps but is unsuccessful.

Good times Nate, good times. See you in 2010. To everyone else, I'm sure I will see you soon.

Year of the Blog

2009-01-03T12:49:00.000-05:00

January 3, 2009

Officially recovered from New Year's. It started out at the Raptor's game where I had amazing seats. I was calling out plays for the Raptors on the offence and it seemed to work until the half when they switched sides and lost the game. We then proceeded to the Old Sod...of course...where we rang in the New Year. It was eventful as I was forced up on stage to sing karaoke with the boys. We sang Intergalactic and I'm proud to say I wasn't booed off stage but was far from starting my own rock tour.

2009 will be a major chapter in Dr. Eric's life. While during New Year's Eve I was unable to take a leap forward and do/say stuff I wanted to to but chickened out, but chalk that up to '08 Eric to '09 Eric. '09 Eric as I shouted to Zach in a drunken stooper will be the Year of Eric. My New Year's Resolution will be to become more Action orientated - I want to Do more, I want to Be more and I want to Make more (ok, the last one I don't know what that means, I mean I don't want to make cookies all the time although that does sound delicious).

Monday will be the start, as Eric enters the working world...Scary. But never fear as I will be only a phone call away. So that is what I expect from this year. Tune in to see how it turns out. Should start off on a good note with me meeting up with my old roommate from University -Nate Dogg. Next blog will be the best stories of first year University as I'm sure we will talk about all those wacky days. Happy '09.

A Blog of Reflection

2008-12-31T14:16:00.000-05:00

December 31, 2008

The final day of 2008. Apparently only 3 more years till the end of mankind according to the Mayans and Hollywood. Here is a year in review of the highlights of Dr. Eric's year.

January - Started off on a good note. Anthony and I took a trip to merry old London England where we had many adventures touring castles and trying out Haggis and Iron Bru. Both of which were not delicious at all.

February - Alone again on Valentine's Day, my family begins to ask questions about what direction my life is heading in. Overall a bad month however working a few jobs probably left me with the most profitable month.

March - I think I could honestly say that nothing happened. How exciting is my life?

April - Another adventure, this time out East to my old stomping ground in Sackville NB. Got to see lots of old friends and basically revert to my University antics. Geoff's going away party where half the group was out of the club by midnight by choice or the bouncers' hands.

May - The beginning of my unemployment, I take up a new undertaking of constructing a pond for my aunt. Took a few days and probably put on some muscle, yea I'm huge now. Overall, I think I did a pretty good job.

June - Eric gets a call to work for Frank's Hot Sauce as a brand ambassador and goes into training.

July - My new family, the Frank's Red Hot Army consisted of me and 3 beautiful ladies going around Toronto handing out hot sauce to all. Loads of fun as I got to see a lot including bum fights and Creepy guys in business suits.

August - The best month of the year! My job with Frank's finishes with a boat cruise where Dr. Eric is born and forced to dance to Billy Idol's "Dancing with myself" at the front in front of dozens or strangers. Later, I get visitors in the form of Cody and Lara who spend a couple of days livin it up in Toronto with me. Then my wild birthday party gets a new record for attendees as we danced the night away at Andy Poolhall.

September - A new beginning at George Brown College. I walk into the classroom only to find 60 girls and 10 guys. I thought I was in the fashion class. Highlights included the Argos game and Scottie's b-day at the Madison

October - Halloween, I discover a new TV show called How I met your Mother and in lieu of the character Barney I go as a Wingman and get on the jumbotron at the Raptors game.

November - Montreal baby, nuff said. A weekend of hilarity and pillow fights, not to mention having dozens of prostitutes, I mean classmates, on my bed at once. Terrific. Also, get my internship with Agent WildFire and the path to awesomeness begins.

December - Some work with giant F's, literally, is the first step to a new chapter in the Eric Saga as I prepare to enter the working world. scary... Holiday party for the GBC people where I get in the top 5 for ugliest sweater but am destroyed in the finals. My cunning ability to talk to girls winds up with me not saying anything and thus will not get another chance for months to come where I'm sure she'll be taken by then. That leads up to today...

My year was definitely no 2007 which was awesome 24/7. It was a roller coaster ride, which I don't like. I had many, many adventures with major heartbreak but new friends made. I guess you take the good with the bad but for 2009 I want to start out with nothing but good and keep it like that. Be sure to check out my blog in the new year. Especially after tonight, I'm sure I'm going to do something really really stupid but it'll make a great blog... See you in 09!

Dr. Eric checking out

Happy Blogday

2008-12-28T16:36:00.000-05:00

December 28th, 2008

Well, the holidays are pretty much over. Ken's birthday is over, which by the way was a great time for those who missed out. As promised, I have a top 10 for my loyal readers. Here we go.

Top 10 toys that didn't make it to the shelves this Christmas...

10) Teenage Mutant Lint Warriors
9) Little Billy's homemade bird feeder that he made for his mom
8) Nerf blowgun: with real acid tip arrows
7) Hector the laid off Elf (actually mutters swears at Santa)
6) Blackberry Soul Stealer
5) "Coalition Rocks" jackets and hats
4) Pinup posters of Eric Allan...ugh those never sell and I have to get rid of 5,000 of them
3) Imagination in a box
2) iTouchU vibrating pagers
1) How to Spread Holiday Cheer with your lover: Santa's list of Naughty and Nice sex tips

See ya soon for Dr. Eric's Year in Review

Gone Blogging

2008-12-22T15:55:00.000-05:00

December 22, 2008

So it's been a little over a week since my last blog. Been having kind of a writer's block so here's some funny things that happened this week.

I was on the subway and I hate it when people bring food with very strong smells to them such as McDonalds. I was so hungry I wanted to steal some fries and chicken from the person. Then on my other side, a man had the newspaper which I couldn't get a hold of because there were none left at my stop. He was asleep and I slowly moved next to him to see if I could take it. I tried to look closely to see if he was really asleep and the man jumped up and gave me a weird look.

On the social side of my life.

Geoff Keating has arrived back in town and we've been out celebrating for every night this past week. Lots of money spent and lives altered. We've become celebrities at the Old Sod as we arrived to a packed house and yet a table was cleared and saved for us. How choice is that?

My apologies if this blog was lacking. I'm a little rusty and all my mental power is going into writing a rap song for Ken's birthday. I'm sure he never reads this and therefore the surprise will not be ruined, but I promise that as soon as its done I will be back with a top ten list for you. So stay tuned. Same Blog time, same blog channel

-Dr. E

There will be no Blogrogue here

2008-12-14T16:27:00.000-05:00

December 14th, 2008

Lazy Sunday, what can I say...but I wouldn't have it any other way. After 4 months of homework and group assignments, my 1st semester at George Brown is complete. Seriously, this program has been a pretty big joke thus far and I will be disappointed if I get any less than a 4.0 GPA. This week was still eventful none the less with many thrilling and erotic adventures so enjoy a quick recap...

Thursday evening a few of us from the Sport marketing program decided it would be very fun to go skating at Nathan Phillip's Square. I must say, the lights there are very very bright and vibrant (word of the week), the night concluded with a few drinks at the Village Idiot pub across from the AGO. Nice lil' spot and the highlight would be Jacqueline getting a little tipsy and claiming that she never drank the night before a final exam, well we broke that streak. Thanks to all those who came out and to those who didn't...Well let's just say that I was cut pretty deep.

Friday night we headed out to celebrate the end of the semester and catch our favourite sports teams in action. Apparently it was some Raptors fan night and I soon found myself in an Arcade basketball shoot out with Fred and two other guys. The two "suits" were horrific and we quickly dispensed of them but Fred lite it up scoring 83 points in the first round. Eventually I found my groove and we put on a clinic tying each other in one game at 94 points. Just throwing it out there that is probably a record for the bar.

Saturday was my last day for the Fuji Film promotion - Get on the F list. It was a sad day to see the team hang up their giant F outfits but it was a lot of fun, even it involved working out in the freezing cold. I'm excited to start my many projects for Agent Wildfire so don't worry about ol Eric being bored over the Holidays. That's about it for this week...Everyone's favourite friendly giant - Geoff Keating should be arriving in Toronto any minute now so I hope we can pressure him to come out to the Old Sod for a big reunion. Personally I don't know if I can accept him back into life after he left for Austrailia over 6 months ago and now is just waltzing back in like nothing ever happened. Well, perhaps he'll have an explanation, Enjoy the break everyone.

Dr. Eric Allan checking out.

Tis the season to be Bloggy

2008-12-08T20:31:00.000-05:00

December 8, 2008

Ok so it isn't quite Christmas yet but seeing as how I am giant kid, seriously, I'm like Jack in that I'm actually 10 years old when really I look...17 I'm gonna act like it's Christmas.

Keep in mind I am writing this while watching How I met your mother so I may start giggling and not pay attention to what I write. HAHHA Barney just punched himself, good times.

Back to Christmas, I just finished writing my list to Santa. Here's what I need from him this Christmas although I've stopped asking for a girlfriend because he told me he couldn't keep a girl in his toy bag because she'd sufficate and if he put holes in the bag then toys would fall out. Thanks for trying Santa. Besides that, I'm askin for Raptors tickets and a new Jersey along with the obvious DVD choices - Dark Knight and Step Brothers.

Friday night was the Ugly sweater Holiday party. It got messy and it got Ugly! I was happy that I made it to the top 5 ugliest sweaters but when people were supposed to cheer for their pick I received no cheers. About 20 people said they cheered for me but if 20 people cheered all at once, ya think that would make some noise considering there were only 40 people there. Later in the night, myself and Zenya travelled back to Etobicoke where we introduced Bryan to our favourite pub - The Old Sod. The next night...Old Sod again with my bros Trev and Kenster so essentially I got very little studying done but that's ok because I'm gonna pick it up right after this blog I promise. Oh, I'm going to be skating at Nathan phillips square Wednesday night so if anyone wants to see an Olympic speedskater do his thing then check out Vancouver in 2010 but if you want to see a lanky guy get pulled around by other people on the ice, come to city hall.

Also, I would like to give a Happy Birthday to Cousin from the South, Heather, party it up!

Eric out!

Blogging is more addicting than Crack!

2008-12-05T15:00:00.001-05:00

December 5, 2008

Well, let's not go overboard here...crack is pretty addictive. On with the blog.

The winner of the follower contest goes to Ottawa's own, Scott Rosien who was the first to become a follower of Dr. Eric's blog. He won himself a free pint. Along with Scott, many of us were up very early this morning writing the marketing management final exam. Overall I did not find it too bad, but you did have to read the questions and answers very carefully. So I hope everyone did a great job.

A challenge was issued to me online the other night when Danielle Robertson dared me to Shutup during a class, apparently I talk way too much, who'd a thunk it? In light of this challenge, I will not say anything during my class on Tuesday unless someone asks me a question, but my answers will have to be short and sweet.

Weekend Festivities...

Friday night will be the GBC Ugly Sweater party. I think I have a very cheesy sweater but the costume of the night I'm guessing will go to Josh who apparently has spared no expense...Literally, I think he paid like $200 to manufacture a dick in the box outfit. He's horrible at negotiating prices though.

Saturday night....sigh, open for now but I probably should work on my Final exams and projects. Also I will be posting my Christmas List, might not be as good as Oprah's but we'll see.

Music to check out...

Passion Pit - a new synth rock band, got a single called Sleepyhead that's featured on the PSP commercials

The Killers album Day & Age - very bizzare songs but a great listen in my opinion despite what Ken thinks.

That's all folks, oh I just opened a fortune cookie today and it said "Someone is interested in you. Keep your eyes Open" so hopefully this could mean a potential turn around in Dr. Eric's love life.

Blogging is way better than Microsoft Access

2008-12-03T12:03:00.000-05:00

December 3, 2008

Dr Eric here, well not in your computer but rather in the computer lab prepping for my Access exam. To the right of me, Zenya is in panic mode and could start hitting people any minute. I for one, have lost the burning desire to learn Access and also just to excel in school all together.

I got a busy week ahead of me including a Marketing final exam and Professional Selling presentation on Friday, an Event Planning final on Tuesday, a Sport Marketing and Access project on Wednesday and to top it off, a Marketing presentation the next Friday.

Violet has begun to speak to the class but I can barely hear her over everyone typing and cackling over Youtube clips. Youtube for me, is a love hate relationship as its great for seeing ridiculous acts like a fat kid pretending to be a Jedi but I hate how so many people do spoofs of pop culture. I searched for Lazy Sunday and got like 50 versions of morons thinking they're creative.

The test seems to be starting as Jamie rallies the class, I will definitely be copying off Zenya and Brittney to even come remotely close to passing this exam. I would like to conclude by putting out a challenge to everyone that the first person to become a follower to my blog will get a free pint from me and Fred. So become a follower and hear all about Dr. Eric's rambling medicine.

-End Transmission

In the beginning there was blog

2008-12-01T20:56:00.000-05:00

December 1st, 2008

Dr. Eric would like to welcome all of you to his new blog. Just for you, Dr. Eric will stop talking in 3rd person....nnnnoooww...

Here is my first blog so I thought I would keep it short so here is a quick recap of the highlights of my week.

Tuesday - Started off on a funny note when my Marketing Management group met to discuss our project. Lily and I began searching our names on Google as a distraction, Lily's name came up as a Defensemen for her University Lacrosse team. I said "Hey Lily, you're a D" and Alex responded from the next computer with "You're a D Lily, nice job" oh Alex and her dirty mind.

much more happened but I'll skip to Saturday

Saturday - Started working with Agent Wildfire, I helped lead a team through the streets of Toronto promoting Fuji Film's Get on the F List, great site check it out getontheflist.com Later that night I reconnected with Whitney Baker (a mega hottie from Mount Allison) a.k.a. "Titney" I took her to the Old Sod my local hangout where we met up with Ken and Trevor. 5 pitchers later we parted ways but Trevor and I were stopped by local authorities for apparently looking to bad ass. As we slurred our names and addresses the cops thought we checked out and left. Oh what a fun night! Stay tuned for more blogs and doses of Eric...