3 Things

I, Nick Jones, being of unsound mind and body, do hereby give notice that i will attempt to do the following three things before the end of 2009.

1: See more of Canada

I came to this country with a dream. It is a simple dream. I am a simple man. My simple dream is to see what this country truly has to offer. To meet its peoples. To eat its foods. To drink its waters and laugh at its political humour about people i don't know. I hereby give notice that some time this year i will go see something on the east coast, i while i may not go over it in a barrel, i will post a picture of me peeing over the Niagara falls, or something as equally ridiculous.

2: I will get a hair cut, and more than one.

At the minute, my luscious head of hair resembles something akin to a Bear's backside. While this is the delight of many i meet, it's starting to annoy me. It's one thing finding hair in your food, but another when it turns out it's your own, and one end is still attached to your head. I will have short hair, and i will keep it so.

3: I will personally develop myself.

Right now, I'm an overly plump, ridiculously insecure, occasionally lazy and somewhat hirsute gentleman. By 2010, hopefully much of this will change. I suffer from an almost crippling level of sporadic self doubt in which i believe myself to be not only the kind of ugly that not even John Merrick could approach, but that those around me have all spontaneously come to the consensus view that i really am an utter idiot, and now no longer wish to have me around. Hopefully, this is not actually true, and i will attempt over the next year to get over my horrendous personal hangups. 

I am now in possession of a career, rather than a job, and tying in to the previous entry, i will do my utmost to grow and develop this. I have zero idea on how to do that, but by gosh I'm going to give it a bloody good go.

That's enough for now. Expect a funnier post later, I'm tired right now, get off my porch you damn kids

Starbucks, I both hate and love you

Starbucks. From Hell's heart i stab at thee.

Starbucks, to me at least, represents everything I both am and wish i wasn't. Essentially, Starbucks seems to be this horrible sticky fondue of young/hip/urban/professional/yupee/stereotype people who all want to get together, "chillax" and drink rubbish coffee with pretentious names. I seem to end up in there a lot.

Once upon a time a read a line in a book that said "always make it easy for people to give you money". I don't want to sound like the heartless capitalist pig that I am, but Starbucks to me is the epitome of this maxim. Everything under one roof. You can get Wifi in there, so you can do your business and twitter or whatever while you drink crap coffee. You can buy a paper. You can buy festive gifts and other trash to lavish on people you supposedly care about but not enough that you'd actually go out and hunt for a gift in stores, you got them a mug with Starbucks emblazoned on it so they can get discount refills on their morning commute. You can buy yourself some music with your coffee, and get that same annoying faux-jazz rubbish in your house. But get this, not content with rubbish faux-jazz, Starbucks has now strong armed a bunch of people you've actually heard of into having their music only available from Starbucks. What's that Sonic Youth, you got a bunch of money and free Mocha Frappa-Crappa-Venti-Corporato-Wannabe-achinos for life for doing a Starbucks compilation? And all you had to trade in was your counter culture authenticity and any vestige of self respect and dignity? WHAT A DEAL!

That said, i find Starbucks a very relaxing place. Everything in there is designed to take the edge off, from the faux-jazz to the reassuring brand names and catch phrases, every little bite size chunk is designed to let you know that hey, you're in a Starbucks, but it's alright. Bombs may fall, buildings collapse and global woes continue unabated, but that's okay because you can get soy milk for an extra dollar.

I'm on the Internet a lot, and i find being able to have a hot drink while i check my daily mail (hello mum) quite nice. I have my coffee black with two brown sugars, and i can ask for that without resorting to silly words that don't really mean what they say (Grande, I'm looking at you. Since when did 'Big' or 'Large' mean 'Medium'? Guess i was sick that day)

But most of all, i like the fact that i have never been frowned at by a coffee maker in there. Seriously, I'm never in trouble, I'm never there at a bad time, and I've never had a bad word said to me. I don't give a fudge if that's happened to you, it's never happened to me and that's what matters. You're all jealous of them, because they've taken a simple concept like filling your mug with brown dishwater and made it a global success. They're like McDonald's. I bet you don't like their food massively, but you know who they are and you've been there before.

Money makes the world go round. Coffee makes the wheels turn faster

Calgary Farmers Market

Calgary farmers market is sweet. Seriously, I'd live there if i could. Aside from video games, every single one of my other interests is serviced by that place.

If you don't know this about me by now, you should: I have a serious addiction problem. I am addicted to cheese. That's not a euphemism, or slang for something else. I cannot get enough cheese. I would eat cheese until it came out of my ears if i could, and i have tried in the past (long story) 

In fact, i love food of all varieties. Calgary farmers market scores big big bonus points because it's the only place I've found so far in Calgary that has English style sausages. They're not quite there, but it's the closest you're going to get to a meaty Lincolnshire. Ever had toad in the hole? You don't know what you're missing.

Calgary farmers market represents to me the way things ought to be. All the people there work entirely for themselves, or at least directly for the person who owns whatever business they're involved with, so you can literally see where your moneys going. I like the feeling of knowing exactly where my money goes, rather than feeling like I've tossed it in a whole in the ground. Yeah, I'm looking at you, Starbucks. What is this brown crap-in-a-mug I'm drinking anyway? And why does everything have such silly pretentious names? Venti? Sounds like you sell air conditioning. Bet you like them Franz Ferdinand boys, don't you?

Sadly though, as Robert Frost said, nothing gold can stay. Calgary farmers market is going to get shuffled off somewhere else, because apparently a valued link to Alberta's rural traditions and a source of entrepreneurial income for many hard working individuals isn't viewed as a valued addition to the community, unlike the multiple condos they plan to build there instead. This, regrettably, is not a fact we can change, but for now it's still where it is, and when it moves, wherever and whenever it ends up, even if you have to pay to get in (it's free at the moment, so what the fudge are you waiting for, go make toad in the hole, idiot) I'll still be there, and i urge you to do so too.

That's all i got. You had toad in the hole yet? Not you PVC Percy, I'm talking about the food. No, i don't want to see that. Or that. Or that. Why am i even talking to you, you don't exist. Who am i talking to?

I need to go lie down.

9.8 Princes out of 10. If this were a band, it'd be Morris Day and the Time. Yeah, Jungle Love.

Livivng in Canada

I'll tell you one thing, and i'll tell you one thing for free: The american dream is a crock of shit. There is no oppertunity there, check this out:

http://www.propertycommunity.com/forum/overseas-property-sale/11759-927-houses-usa-7-5-million.html

You can get pretty much anything you need to know about this article from the title. Yep, that's 927 houses for 7.5 million. thats about 8 grand a house. Where else can you get a house for 8 grand? Probably Baghdad.

I was born in England. I grew up drinking tea and reading the Telegraph, spitting at peasents and tut-tutting at every possible occasion. I love England. I pride myself on the fact that i talk like a BBC newsreader. I'm as English as you can be. But i don't live there. Lord no.

I live in Canada.

My girlfriend, bless her cotton socks, persuaded me to abandon my original plans of running off to Japan after university to live in the land of the rising sun and the used panty vending machine to move to Canada. She wanted to go to New Zealand, so i'm thankful we reached a compromise

"What can you see out the window this morning?"

"Sheep"

Yeah, New Zealand ain't for me. Calgary on  the other hand, is the pormised land.

No, seriously.

In one year, we earned enough to go on a crazy-shit-cockeyed-beat generation roadtrip across America for 5 weeks, we moved into a house worth more money than i've ever owned in my entire life so far, we drove around in a truck the size of a jumbo jet, we helped start up a business which will see us all lying on a beach retired and gently turning into strips of man-bacon before i hit thirty, i made a documentary, met several world famous people and had them engage my services as a new media genius, and met some of the best friends you could hope to have.

England meanwhile is in the grips of the worst financial crisis in living history, and America is selling off houses for less than the price of a family car (which they're giving away 2 for 1 i might add)

Yeah, Canada's cold in the winter. Yeah, i live in a suburb where all the houses are the same. Yeah, the people occasionally say "eh" and "aboot"

Yeah, sucks to be me i guess.

You know what the best part is? The very best thing?

I can help you do the same.

Seriously

Drop me a line. Nick@voncreative.com

That's my story. Tell me yours.

Lucerne Hot Springs

The Rocker: It's not a heated swimming pool like Banff

The Shocker: It's hot shit. Literally.

That's right, i went off the beaten track in search of a hot pool to soak my plums in. After an hour or so down THE ICE ROAD OF DEATH! (to the tune of "Angel of Death") you arrive at a three space carpark nxt to a vertical drop cliff, with a skating rink for a footpath. Awesome.

Unperturbed by the very real possibilities of a guard rail suppository, we brave few treked on to find an admittedly lovely little set of rockpools to sit and obliterate your bruises. And a frozen river. Yeah, i  went in the frozen river. Three times. Children? Never.

After compressing my future lineage into a raisin, jumping in the hot pools is ecstacy. Feels like you're having your skin flaked off by a thousand angry IRS agents, which is a fantastically pleasent feeling. Untill you notice all the white crap floating in the pool. And the discarded band aids. On a plus side, you can drink to your hearts content in there, as some folks were keenly doing, god only knows how they got back along THE ICE ROAD OF DEATH, guess that's a story for another day.

Oh well, if you're in the area, it's lovely.

Rating: 8 out of 10 Prince's

About my rating system

It's between one and ten. One is low, Ten is high. Go figure.

Why Prince? He's the greatest musician ever. If you argue with me, i'll ring you up at 3a.m. on a saturday and proceed to harrass you with the opening riff from "When Doves Cry" until you admit he's the most awesome man alive. If he was dead he'd be the most awesome dead man ever, and i'd be trying like crazy to bring him back to life. Then he could be the most awesome undead man ever.

Yeah. Peanut butter.

Tonight: Franz Ferdinand. Tomorrow: Something better please

Beep Beep kids, it's all the way back to the 80's for Franz Ferdinand's latest. Alright, I'll give you that Ulysses is a good tune, even if ninety nine percent of all the pilled out indie kids who listen to it while swilling cheap cider and groping each others hair will never read it, just wikipedia it and pretend. Why not, it's how i got my damn degree.

 

There needs to be a little man in the studio, I’m going to call him a Frank just because I can, he doesn't have to wear a robe or have a funny hat or nothing, he just needs to live in a closet in the studio and occasionally pop his head out and go "Calm down lads, enough's enough." Seriously, this is when it becomes too much.

 

"Can we stick a synth in here?"

 

"Shit yeah we can!"

 

Damn near every track on the album is drowning in the kind of Eighties tomfoolery best forgotten. "Lucid Dreams" is a particular lowlight; Frank would have been out of his closet and all over it before anyone could even mention new wave. Sweet tap-dancing deities, it's 8 minutes long. 8 bloody minutes. I had a bloody lucid dream by the end of it. I dreamt i was stabbing the band up viciously with a pair of Agatha Christie brand murdering scissors, and a very pleasant dream it was too. Also, i had a rather nice pair of brown leather pointy half boots with a slight heel and a tight zip up the side. Shit i want some of those shoes.

 

Any who, this album is pretty crappy, for a band that's always style over substance, this lacks even a bit of that magic. Why do they have to try so bloody hard all the time? They can't even make a decent dance floor banger without sticking some shitty allusion to some high art piece of mumbo jumbo they're counting on most of their fan base having no knowledge of.

 

"Let's name ourselves after an assassinated archduke!"

"Let's drench everything in the motley dung heap of Russian Propaganda!"

 

"Let's name songs after experimental novels!"

 

Frank, come out the cupboard please, and beat them with a broom handle. Enough is enough

Rating: 3 Prince's out of 10

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