A Taste of Armageddon

I just finished Hotel Rwanda. Despite a few things that were modified (but those little details don't diminish the importance of the movie and it's shock impact) for the stories purposes, it's a great and mostly accurate depictment of the Rwandan Genocide. A must see movie. It's the first time I remember crying in a movie in aeons.

If you want more information on the Rwandan genocide, I strongly suggest reading Shake Hands With the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda by Lt. General Roméo Dallaire. It's a poignant account by a Westerner who was at the first seats of the Genocide. There is also other great books about the Genocide, that I plan to read soon. But that one is very personal and easy to relate to, at least from my perspective.

Other great books include journalist Philip Gourevitch's We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda and Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the UN Shaharyan M. Khan's The Shallow Graves of Rwanda.

That's it for me, the movie was great, but a downer. Time to go feel shitty to be a racist and apathetic Westerner.

All Our Yesterdays

I again went for a beer at my favourite pub, the Ste-Élizabeth, this time with Amy, my ex-girlfriend. I didn't know what to expect from that meeting. I got a email a few days ago and decided to tell her I was sick of the games, the paradoxal messages and taking two weeks to reply. So I let my phone number and told her it was up to her to call. She did so this afternoon, I had something tonight, so we went for a late afternoon beer.

The talks were strange and of course a little awkward, but we mostly pulled it off. We were able to talk about some issues and also about nothing. Thinking back on it, I might have tried a little too much to not make it awkward. Since she did look a little shy and afraid to talk, I talked about a lot of unimportant shit, but not wanting to stay too long on those uninteresting subjects, I kind of rushed those discussions, making it a little worse, I think. Whatever, it wasn't too bad overall.

We then went to her place where we smoked a bowl and then made contact with Lars. It went well, no awkwardness showing, but he was quick to jumb on the pipe! We also didn't talk anything too intimidating, just tree-planting and summer in Montréal. I still feel like something with Amy is unresolved and I tink I sensed that she felt the same way. I left around 8PM, shook hands with Lars, said it was good to see him, I don't think he answered, and I had a big, nice hug with Amy. We'll see if we can be friends for real now.

After that encounter with my recent past, a shitty part of my past to be honest, I went back to Laval to see Carolyne, and two of her friends. We were supposed to go to the movies, but apparently, I called too late and it was my fault if we were not to see anything tonight. Always me! Mah...

So we instead went to a coffeshop for, well, a coffee. Tea in my case, I can't stand the taste of coffee, but the smell is great, I would love to just sniff grains, if it was allowed in coffeeshops! Carolyne's two friends were Peter, her best friend, and Vicky or Figi, as she goes for her summer camp job (Carolyne is working in summer camps since a little after she was born, hers is Dali...) and I had a great time, as usual, with Peter, laughing at Dali and Figi summer camp's chat. Their talks were almost as good as treeplanters talking business. I also had to listen to Caro telling everybody about our life together or mostly, all I did wrong, when I was an asshole or a liar or both. Sometimes Peter was filling in, and Vicky already looked like she knew some details. Great! The past giving me a punch in the face, again!

I also must admit that Vicky is cool. I might not be really cool in her eyes with the reputation (as desserved as it might be) Caro built for me, but we still managed to have a great discussion while I was driving her to Carolyne and Peter's appartment and, later, back to her house. Look forward to see her at Carolyne's party on Saturday. Note to self: You can't start anything involving feelings right now, you're going back to Banff in a few weeks. Understood? Yeah! I didn't plan any emotionnal shit, I said she was cool, okay! For fuck sakes conscience, why won't you go piss off? I'm supposed to be the one telling you wh... OH, FUCK OFF!!!!!!

What was that? Time to go deal with my other personalities...Wow, going to bed at 3AM, that's my earliest in 2 weeks!

Gotcha!

To anybody that read the Trekweb post about Riker's appearance in TOS...Well, if you believed it until now and didn't get the irony, you really should stop (believing) and start (getting the irony)...

I know, I really am an asshole. But it wasn't really a lie, it was just a bad joke!

Time to go get a life...

Jee the star!!!

Been a while, eh? Well, I've been quite busy, which have the dual consequence of stopping me from blogging frequently, and when I finally find the time, it makes for a huge post being long to write. Talk about a vicious circle! Well, here it is!

Last week, I went to my friend Jee and we ended up smoking hash. We then decided to watch Ghostbusters, but we got stuck in the main menu for maybe 30 minutes. We finally started to watch the movie, but our attention-span was quite limited, we were focusing on minute details and our discussions were wandering quite a lot (Like talking about one of the actors being limited to "Angry, shitty dad in comedic roles". We changed our mind, after only a few minutes of Ghostbusters, and watched Back to The Future instead.

We got stuck again, this time in the parental settings of his X-Box...Jee just had to press "yes", but it was too hard to figure out for both of us and it took us three times to get through the red parental screen! We were quite fucked up!

Again, after a few minutes wondering how skateboarders now stop their skates (in comparison to Michael J. Fox's old school style in Future...), we decided it was time to play some Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Again, still fucked, Jee ended up getting a pick up truck stuck on a concrete block in a parking. I used a street cleaner, to clean streets, while Jee was giving me the instructions to do the job well...Hmmm...

So it was a hilarious night! I'm not done with Jee the star...

Two days ago, I went to Trois-Rivières with Carolyne, my ex-ex-girlfriend, to see her university friends (great people!) and go to a beach that was more of a "human parking" than a beach, with that shitload of people being of the same kind...We watched a wonderful fight while playing frisbee in the water between a pontoon whose engine was stuck in the cord setting the boundaries of the swimming area and a woman thinking she was the beach representative. Watching two forty-something women insulting and splashing each other with water was so funny that I almost drowned in 3 feet of water!!!

Since I got the bad habit of going to sleep at 6AM since I'm back from planting, I decided, a few days before going to the beach, that not sleeping at all was the best way of getting my schedule back on track! Since I just bought an IPod, I decided I'd use the time to upload my tunes and download a few (Yes, I downloaded for free, don't piss me off, I mostly downloaded the CD's I lost or destroyed, some of those, like Reel Big Fish, I bought three times at full price, including a CD I bought that was CENSORED!!! I mean, come on, Reel Big Fish censored!!!).

But being stupid, the next day, I went to sleep at 5AM again! I finally was able to see my friend Marie-Ève, with whom I was quite close in Banff. We went for a beer and had a great time in old-Terrebonne, minutes away from my high school, St-Sacrement.(There is a virtual visit on the website, here's a virtual pic of the chapel, being used by the music classes, it is classified as a Québec historical monument. And for Karine and J-S, being my last remaining friends from that school, here the new auditorium) It was great to see that place again, been a while! As for Marie-Ève, she was in great shape, she's now dating a girl and they'll move together in a few weeks! She's done with travelling for at least a year, the last part of the trip wasn't as great for her. The Okanagan Valley kind of sucked, mostly since a camper friend was found dead, hanging at the camping entrance. She also got caught with Benoît and Maxime, two other Banff buddies, while coming back to Québec to pick a car, by the Ontarian Provincial Police, with one whole gram of pot! They were handcuffed, the car was searched and they had to travel back to Cochrane a few weeks later for their trial. Maxime and Benoît, but luckily (and strangely), not Marie-Ève, had to buy the law for $1,300 to not have a criminal record...Great times, eh?

So, the day before going to the beach, I decided it was a good idea to not sleep again, even if I had to drive back and from Trois-Rivières on that day, which is a hour and a half ride, one-way. I actually felt quite tired at the end of the day at the beach, but the car ride was great.

As for my last night, yesterday, it is the reason of my title; Jee the star!!! After thinking for a while to go to bed early, i decided to call Jee to go grab a beer in a nice little pub (It has the best terrasse or patio in Montréal), the Ste-Elizabeth.

So we were supopsed to go there for a beer or two and we were enjoying our little chats, while looking around (of course). A girl then came to ask us if we would be willing to switch table with a group in order for them to be closer to their friends. We reluctantly accepted (Our table was well located) and that girl (Being originals, we called her "Yellow", because of her shirt...) started to talk with us, nothing serious, when her then-boyfriend came and grabbed her by the wrist to have an intense chat with her...They left and a few hours later, the girl came back, the boyfriend having just broke up...A few minutes after the scene between Yellow and her boyfriend, a few guys looking for a space in the packed terrasse went by us and we let them use the rest of the table. One of them said thanks maybe three or four times for the offer, which lead Jee to say: "I didn't give you an appartment building!" Funny shit. But then, the rest of their chess-player gang slowly took over our table while I was in the washrooms. When I came back, I barely had room to sit on my chair and my chair had barely enough room to sit completely on the ground. I was being intimidated by chess-players! One of them, not having enough room either, decided to go talk to girls sitting by the next table.

The great thing was that me and Jee had noticed a while before that one of those girl had noticed Jee. She was always glancing in our directions, talking to her friend, hiding her mouth and her friend was then looking at Jee...When we moved table, she changed her sitting position to face Jee. So when the chess-player playboy went to her, she did the move of the century and traded him for Jee and, by extension, me. We then moved table for the second time and had a great time with the girl looking at Jee, Annick, and her two friends, Stéphanie and Chris. Well, Jee had an even better time than me! A little later, I noticed that the group sitting beside me were treeplanters, so I moved to that table (third move!) and talked treeplanting for a good hour (While Jee was busy making out with Annick...). Those people were planting for Outland's sister company in Québec, La Forêt de Demain, and they had to go back out north because their season was not done, and was always interrupted by the multiple forrest fire alerts in Northern Québec this year. They apparently made almost no money this year (a girl said she was in the negative,due to the camp-costs and cash advances) and were quite dissapointed and were hoping to join me out west next year. I got one of the girl's email, she was quite nice. I then went back to Annick and Jee sitting on the same chair and to Stéphanie and Chris. Continued to talk and laugh for another hour until we were kicked out of the bar at 3AM. Me and Jee were originally planning to be in bed at midnight at most...Jee gave his phone number to Annick and she actually called back at 4AM, singing on his voicemail. Talk about being charmed! So, Jee is a star! And I got another hilarious night

This was an incredibly short, despite not being short at all, version of the events of the last days. A great few days!

Finishing on a not-so great note, Amy, the ex, wrote me an email today, to tell me she wouldn't be able to attend the little get-together that happened more than a week ago...She knew she was late, of course. I thought it was rude, but I don't know what to think of that situation and of her anymore... Nothing more on that.

Boredom leads to thinking...

Thinking leads to memories.
Memories leads to SUFFERING!

Just kidding, memories leads to OLD PICTURES FOUND IN MOM'S FILES!!! Here they are, for my own pleasure. I guess you might enjoy them too:



Maternal Grand-Parents, Céline and Guy. Then.



Grandpa and Grandma, now, with the bro. Nice smile, Olivier!



Fishing at Grandpa's corporate cottage in North-Eastern Québec with some of my mom's sisters and their families. Dad is the green-shirted man, mom is the white-shirted, well, woman (makes sense, doesn't it?). I'm the kid pretending to be tough (I was still the tallest!!!). Brother is the stiff kid in the gray shirt. Speaking of shirts, wasn't early nineties fashion incredible?



Olivier, 3 years-old, in front of our house in Bernières, a Québec City suburb.



The same kid, 16 years-old, picture taken 4 years ago when he graduated from high school (A reminder to most of you, non-Quebecers: We graduate sooner in Québec, but we still have 2-3 years of CÉGEP to do before getting to university, 4 in my brother's case...Not that he's not a genius, he just took his time, as many classes as possible, and as many of my parents money as possible...)

I went biking tonight. It was great, but I realized that my body, despite being in shape, is not in cycling shape. I guess the last two weeks of doing mostly nothing didn't help either. Nevertheless, I went along the magnificent Mille-Îles (Thousand Islands) and St-Laurent (St-Lawrence) rivers shores and I saw a few great 250 years-old or more houses, as well as a perfectly restored windmill, dating back to New-France. I think I'll go back this week. Being a history maniac, I would love to have some of those buildings and landscapes in pictures.

Time to go to bed, my legs are sore. Maybe I'm just getting old? Nah!

Boredom, my master's kingdom.

Damn I'm bored. The suburbs sucks, I'm still waiting for two months worth of treeplanting to be deposited in my account. I'm sick of my rather sleak selection of music, books and movies and all my friends are working. The worst is that I actually have a lot to do, but I have to wait to have money in order to do those things (Yeah, it sucks to be that dependent, but it's not necessarily what you think. Yes, I want to buy a few items, but I also have to renew my driving license and other administrative stuff of that order). Actually, the really worst is that I am so tired and my muscles are in pain! Apparently my body is not used to do nothing.

I also can't push myself to write, it just doesn't feel right sitting on my ass in front of the computer. I feel like being outside, on the move! I'll probably go to my dad's and steal his bike. That would be fun!

Time to go do a little something!

I'm writing an "air-post"

You know, a little like playing "air-guitar"!

I know, it was already not funny yesterday...



P.S: It might not be a long post, but I had to edit it 5 times because of the mistakes! I sure suck big time!

You are cordially invited...to go fuck yourselves!

Just kidding, please don't fuck yourself, it usually looks a little dumb!

Yesterday, I had a few beers (and smoked a bowl, leading my friend Matthieu to kick a metal pipe on a wall in downtown Montréal, under which a rat had found refuge. It was hilarious to hear a stoned Matt explain to the police car it attracted that he was kicking the wall "because of the mouse"!!!) with a few friends I didn't see in a while, it was great. Thanks to all for coming!

This afternoon, I went to play hockey with a few friends. We got our ass kicked. We were mostly "air-hockey-playing"!

We then watched the bi-weekly fireworks at J-S' place. It was France's turn and to be honest, they didn't live to the "world competition" expectations. We did better on the Days Inn's roof in Timmins! Here's a few pics, I know they suck, but they almost made the fireworks look better!






We then ended up in a quite cool bar I never been before: Baloo's. It's a punk/ska/hardcore place and there was a band playing tonight, Vénus 3. It used to be a popular ska band in Québec and, their 15 minutes being up, they are now back to playing covers in bars. Honestly, I didn't like their original stuff, but I was quite impressed with their musical and singing skills. The girl can sing anything but she seems to love No Doubt, and mostly Gwen new shit a little too much (A classic punk-looking girl singing popish hip-hop...Hum). She's also the worst skanker ever. She looked like she was "air-ladder-climbing"(If you didn't get it yet, I'm extending the air-guitar art to new possibilities...) It was still really good though!

I also had a great conversation with Yannick, the least-known of the infamous Giroux brothers.(What? You don't know them? Oh right, they are my friend's friends...) We talked about almost any kind of science during the evening. We ended up sitting on a corner in the gay village, talking sociology while eating the worst pizza ever.(Man, that place is crowded!!!)

It's 6:30AM and I really should go to bed instead of posting insanities on the web. When masturbation lost its fun...

Just woke up after 4 days sleeping!!!

*Yawn* I am pushing it a little, but I slept a lot, and saw a lot of friends! Hence the lack of entries in the last days. I'll probably post a huge one tomorrow, but I just wanted to post this link to a fellow treeplanter's blog. He's planting in Fort Nelson, British-Columbia for another company and it is different enough to give experimented planters a new take on the thing. I guess it also gives another point of view to treeplanting virgins...

Oh, and while being there, here's a few more pictures, taken by Laura. Quite impressive:



Laura, Adam and me and our crew bus.



I honestly forgot about that! Snowy, freezing early May...



Is there hope?



Kerri and Laura and their radiant smiles.



The circus is in town! Camp site #3, heavy logging and train freight area.



Kerri and her nalgene bottle.



Moonlight at Twin Lakes.



Sparkles.


Anyway, that will be all for tonight, might be time to go to sleep, again.

Mom's

Yep, I'm at mom's now. A few days ago, I tought I would end up at pop's, but the brother squatting in the basement kind of fucked up my plans and I didn't really feel like camping in the backyard after all.

Anyway, my mother's boyfriend appartment is well located and he is a great guy so I don't mind at all. The best part is that they're leaving on vacation tomorrow, so I'll have the place for myself...until Sunday, when Gaétan's (That's my mom's boyfriend name, not that I thought you didn't guess, guys, it's only that I always have to assume you're total dumbtards, just in case) daughter will be back from her camping trip. It might be a little awkward, giving the fact I don't know her at all (saw her twice), I had to ask my mom her name this afternoon. Two complete strangers living in the same family house. Thanks a lot, serial monogamy parents! She'll probably hate me for squatting at her place...and monopolizing the computer.

Will try to go back to J-S' tonight, if he can call me back to tell me what we'll do. Not that I care, really, right now I just want to do mindless shit, probably get drunk for no reason and have a good time with my good old buddies. Talk about high expectations! (EDIT: I'll stay home tonight, saw BASEketball in the DVD collection. It'll be great to watch this classic again, for the billionth time!)

Time to post a few new pics from planting, enjoy!



Fiona and me, got my cap stolen, it was replaced by some flagging tape...Damn Heidi!



Last morning of planting. Less stressful than usual.



View from my tent at the last camp site. Isn't it beautiful?



Twin lakes beach, just down the hill from my tent.



Sunset at Twin Lakes, it looks like a Québec healthcare card:



Okay, maybe not that much...



Three members of the mustache club...Nick, me and...hum...John Doe (Not sure if it's his real name...)



The shirtless mustache club...applying to be Super Troopers. Nick, Tim, Burton, Me, Luke, Dane.



Does it mean they're late?



Kenny, the bus, the bush.



Kenny back from Webbwood, on our special plastic mission.



Kenny's usual attitude and Jeff on the Days Inn's roof in Timmins.



Okay Adam, I won't take your picture again...



Come on! That's ridiculous! Kenny and Iain.



I swear, people do respect me!!!



Kenny getting what he desserves...



There you go, Iain!



Yay! Girls!!! I'm so excited! Sara, Chelsea, me and half cut male heads.



Awww, they are soooo cuuuute!!! For your info; Nick, on the right is 6'2"...How tall is George? 6'6"!!!



Yes, I planted in that green shit! A surprise hornet's nest inside!



On the way back, between Timmins and North Bay, a farmer's field. So different!



Back from planting, at J-S' place. Seriously, don't piss me off and give me a Coors Light! (I ended up drinking Heinekken)

Okay, I think that's about it for now, seriously, this page will take hours to load! Two last ones before leaving, please compare both:





Incredible, years later, and still the same dumb facial expression when drunk! (And always an ugly hat too!) Grow up dude!

Time to go grow up. Later!

Montréal!!!

There! Finally!

Seriously, the time between finishing the contract on late July 4th (I'm late but happy Independence Day Charlotte!) and getting out of the bus on July 7th morning was incredibly interminable.

So now I enjoy some rest and relaxation at my friend J-S' place. Why there? Well, it was the closest place from the bus station, we arrived at 5AM and I knew that he had to wake up early for his job (actually, he had a golf tournament, so he was up even earlier...A golf tournament...Some people are getting deep into the bourgeoisie!). I'll probably go see my mom today and move my stuff to her place, since she's going on vacation on Saturday, but I'll probably come back to J-S' to squat for the weekend, and thus be able to see most of my friends over the next days.

How do I feel? Damn, I'm glad I ask! I feel so fucking good being done and having nothing planned for the next month (well, mostly nothing...) I do feel tired a little, but that will go away quite fast with the procrastination diet I'll religiously follow within the next days.

This post is not done, I'll be back...

Still in Timmins, goddamn it!

We planted one more day than expected (we wrapped yesterday, July 4th, I'm independent now!), then we packed camp today and we are staying in Timmins for the night before being dropped in North Bay. I could have taken the bus to Montréal tonight, but there is a difference of 60 bucks between Timmins and North Bay so I decided that a cheap hotel room was better than $60 to sleep on a bus...

I realized this week that Timmins stand for TIMber and MINeS(EDIT: Utterly false theory!), the two main industries of the town...So clever, isn't it? The beauty of the name reflects the beauty of the town. It is worth noticing, I guess, that it is also the hometown of Shania Twain. She sang her way out of here!

Won't say much more tonight, just can't wait to do nothing for a few weeks in Montréal! I might bike to NYC with two treeplanting buddies, but I'll mostly do nothing for the next few weeks...

Will do a longer post tomorrow, back in my dad's basement (The brother apparently took over, I might have to sleep in my tent in the backyard...Oh well, nothing new!) and I'll be able to post the final treeplanting pics.

Until then, don't drink and read about the Ramones...Mostly if Peter Wright is around!