While We’re At It…

August Burns Red vs. Carol Of The Bells

Lets get in the spirit! METAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAL!

LUCIA

It was a bad idea to watch this full screen with the lights off at 5AM… bad idea

-Dre

Photo of The Day

Nona Next Door: Skinny Jeans

The last Nona Next Door went well, so lets try this again. I really should be sleeping right now.

I walk into the kitchen every morning. I have to hop over this baby gate thing, it’s there so buddy doesn’t run down in the basement and poop everywhere.

He’s a repeat offender and this is the solution.

Nona is keeping her hands busy with something on top of the ktichen counter. She’s fiddling away, I open the fridge to find something to drink.

I grab the milk, a glass, and sit down to what Nona has made for me.

It’s an un-toasted Montreal bagel with peanut butter. To be honest I’d much prefer it toasted, but the gesture of making me something every morning is very nice of her. I won’t complain. Plus I really appreciate consistency like that, you know?

I eat my bagel, this time pretty quickly. I have to go to school and like usual I’m ten minutes late.

She sits down on the chair across from me. She’s wearing these little gray slipper that are hilarious and cute. I can see she is about to say something important. With her hands folded on her lap, she’s been preparing for this moment.

She blurts it out.

“You pants are too tight.”

I should have known this was going to come up sooner than later.

“Don’t worry Nona,” I say. My strategy with Nona is to just brush this stuff off my shoulder. It’s no use to argue with her, she will win.

“When you buy pants you buy pants so they comfortable.”

There she goes again in her broken English. She is too cute, like a sad puppy.

“Nona, don’t worry about it.”

My defense, if I wanted to get into this argument, is that the only reason is why they are so tight is because she does the laundry so often. You gotta wear those suckers in.

I get up to clean my spot after destroying the peanut butter bagel. I clean up and start to walk out of the kitchen.

“Wait wait,” she says.

She hands me a fiver. “Nona, you are too nice.”

I take the bill and try to hop over the baby gate again, but it had my number this time.

What a Day

I got three hours of sleep because I spent the whole night trying to set up my new Sega Genesis. Best present ever!

But now I feel like shit. Good news is that I just finished my February music feature.

Cheers to that.

Bolton Emails

Writers,

Get your content in ASAP, guys. I know your lives are busy, but we need to get your content in. Please let me know if you’re having problems and when you will have your completed work in by.

Remember to pass on the Personal Question segment too.

I look forward to the rest of your work, guys. Good talk, see you out there.

Best,
Ryan Bolton

Ryan,

I don’t know what to tell you dude. I just got a Sega Genesis for Christmas. I’m talking Sonic and Tails 2, NHL 93′, Batman Returns, and Spiderman vs. Kingpin. I’ve just cleared my afternoon. Where is my present from you?! Hm… Yeah, that’s what I thought. Sucka.

Michael Burton

The Writer in All of Us

I get this a lot: “I just can’t write. I’m definitely not a writer.” I hear this more often than, “Yes, I enjoy writing. I am a writer.” And I have a large body of friends that are indeed writers. Maybe it’s that my ears always open when the term “writer” is announced, but I hear people lament about their lack of writing prowess more than anything else. Well, besides failed relationships. But that’s another story. (For more information, Google: “Jon and Kate Gosselin.”)

Here’s my counterargument: You can write. It’s not about the physical act; it’s about storytelling. And every time someone attempts to argue they can’t write, they go on to tell me a compelling story about the last time they were lost in a foreign city. Without speaking the mother tongue. Now that’s a story, so just write it down. Write it like you would say it, nothing wrong with a conversationalist tone. Use a tape recorder if it helps – then transcribe word for word, then edit. Fact or fiction, fairytale or essay, writing tells a story. There are always small beads of anecdotes and vignettes littered throughout the prose. Writing is the very basic of human tools. So don’t tell me you can’t write. Because you can. Maybe not well, but that’s the point – writing is hard. It’s not suppose to be easy, hence the clichéd tortured writer.

Writing can be really hard, actually. I slowly meandered around my apartment today mulling over possible blog topics. ‘Death of charity?’ I thought. What about the state of the Toronto Maple Leafs? I don’t think I even need to go there, we all know how dire a story that one is. It’s just that the story creation of writing, the act itself, the editing, the fact checking, the flow, the approval of others inter alia of writing is darn onerous. And it’s the most apt example of practise makes perfect, because, truly, writing is never perfected. It’s a constant struggle trying to hone a piece into a finely whittled word cane. (See, that’s an example of a terrible metaphor, not even close to perfected or whittled.) But you already know that, my ‘but-really-I-can’t-write’ friends.

Besides writing is part of everyday activity. Writing an e-mail to a co-worker. Pounding out a typically humourous or ironic Facebook status update. Blasting out a late night text to a lover. Writing a letter to President Obama congratulating him on whatever great thing he did this week. We’re constantly writing, especially when you don’t realize it. And let me tell you, you’re writing when you’re talking.

Because, like I said, you’re storytelling. And you are a writer. So go write.

It’s that simple.

–RYAN BOLTON

Nona Next Door: Radio Maria

Nona lives in the room next to my bedroom. She’s been living with my family for a while now and things have been going pretty well.

I’d love to write about Nona more, because she is just too damn adorable, but unfortunately stories about her do not translate well into written form. In person, when I talk about her it is just that much more funny. I do her little voice, and I hunch over trying to imitate her.

But for you, and just for you, I will try this one time. This might go well.

So my Dad is cheap right? Frugal is the more appropriate way of putting it, but it is ingrained into my lifestyle because of him.

Lights can’t be left on, TVs shouldn’t be either, and the free popcorn from Jumbo Video is always a special treat for the kids.

Nona was minding her own business, telling me what to do, folding clothes and cleaning obsessively. Her radio was on and she was moseying the house as she usually does. She listens to Radio Maria, an all Italian radio station broadcasting from Italy. I don’t know why we get the channel, but we do.

It was on pretty loud and my Dad came home and walked up the stairs. Nona was at the bottom of the stairs tidying up the row of shoes near the front-door.

“Nona?” my Dad asks.

“Yes Davie?”

She speaks in broken English, keep up okay?

“Why is the radio on?”

“Oh they pray. They pray to god and Jesus,” she says.

There is a pause.

“Is very nice,” she says again, with her Italian accent and little old lady tone of voice. She smiles.

My Dad walks in the room and flicks off the radio.

“Yeah well, Jesus doesn’t pay the electricity bill, does he?”

That one single phrase, Jesus doesn’t pay the electricity bill now has her wanting to go back to Montreal to live by her lonesome.

She is all talk though, she threatens to leave every week or so. The two of them are currently working out their differences.

Mario’s Multiple Day Jobs

Brilliant? I think so.