The Internship Poem

So I applied for an internship with HootSuite today. They asked me to describe myself in 150 characters or less, but being the dunce I am I misread it and wrote a 150 word limerick to accomplish that task. It was so good though, it goes up on here.

*ahem ahem*

 To describe myself in so few words

Including what makes me unique

A herculean task, please be assured

But this limerick might be a treat

A kid born in Saskatchewan

Who bounced all across the west

In June 2012 I had graduation

From Economics, the program's the best

At home my interests are varied

From jiu jitsu to games and sports

The 'Riders are my team, for hockey I bleed

I love politics and cooking and more

From deadlines to numbers

Against leglocks or pucks

I'm stoic and try to be calmer

Under pressure I give no...erm...ducks?

My bosses and coaches all will tell you

No matter what he'll get it done

He sees everything through

You can't teach this kind of dedication

[NAME REDACTED]'s my name

Though flawed I may be

Commitment's my game

HootSuite, call me, maybe?

Actually, upon reflection I don't think that it is technically a limerick. But whatev, still pretty neat though, right?

This conversation was real

Boy howdy, I sure am pretty freakin' awful as consistently blogging. Is this a sign of larger commitment issues? I hope not. Only time will tell if this plot twist leads to a fascinating narrative.

I just had to crank out this conversation though, because good lawdy I couldn't believe it actually happened. The NAMELESS COMPANY for which I currently work supplies customers with paper tape measures in order for them to measure anything they so desire. Obviously, the paper is an excellent material for this as it is super cheap to produce, recyclable and not at all cumbersome. As anyone who has handled paper knows, sometimes the stupid stuff cuts you and it hurts like a bitch.

The following conversation is as close to an authentic reproduction as I can write 24 hours later.  

Customer 1: Excuse me, come over here I would like to talk to you.
Customer 2: (who has a paper cut): Oh no...
Me: How can I help you?
Customer 1: I want you to register our complaint. Your tape measures are a hazard! My friend is hurting right now and this should never have happened.
Me: I'm not following.
Customer 1: Your tape measures are too sharp!
Me: Are you okay [customer 2]?
Customer 2: I'm fine. I did have a question about a ch-
Customer 1: This is a serious complaint!
Me: Sir, we can't control the properties of paper. Papercuts happen.
Customer 1: I do not care! [NAMELESS COMPANY] is a very large company and should be able to find a solution!
Customer 2: About the chai-
Customer 1: Are you taking this seriously or are you just laughing at me?
Me: As previously mentioned, we can't make paper not act like paper. Now what was your question about the chair?
Customer 1: I will be complaining to your head office!



I can't make this stuff up. Good grief. This man has inspired me to go skating and then complain to the rink manager that the ice is too slippery and hard.

First time screwing around with a wacom bamboo, which I just bought. Turns out the learning curve from paper to technology is way more involved than I had expected. EDIT- AND it turns out blogger doesn't handle tiff files well at all. So...that is something.

The Jarome Iginla trade

I'm not sure if this is actually how I feel, or if this is the result of my brain spending all night desperately trying to rationalize what just happened.

Phew.

Okay. Let's do this.

First, let's identify downfalls of the Flames organization over the past few seasons. They have no big centers and their prospects either have little skill and skating ability, or are very very very small. At the NHL level, they have not had a true "grind line" since 2009 instead filling the third line with 2nd line tweeners. The fourth line has been a random collection of goons, and usually can't see more than 5 minutes a night for risk of them letting in too many goals.

The Boston deal? That deal made me mad. A depth defenceman and an undersized russian with skating problems. Make no mistake, of all the pieces Calgary potentially had coming back Khokhlachev was the best, or at least had the most potential. That said, he reads like the stereotype of russians that don't make it in the NHL, so that is a huge question mark. Unfortunately, the KHL factor is a very real consideration now. Perhaps the biggest flaw with Khokhlachev is that the Flames already have him, he's just named Paul Byron. Another undersized skilled centre won't really help the organization. The real piss off was the conditional 1st rounder. For the return to be based on whether or not a player likes an organization is an unreasonable risk. That deal was basically Bartkowski and future considerations, which is very frustrating.

The Pittsburgh deal is the better deal. The Flames get a first rounder, likely late, and effectively replacing their 2nd in this draft. Okay. A guaranteed pick. Good, we need those. Now, what do the two prospects project to? First, worth noting that before joining the Flames as Assistant General Manager John Weisbrod was the head of scouting for the Boston Bruins. He spent a looot of time scouting the American college ranks. Also, during the lock out most scouts watched a ton of college hockey. If Weisbrod says these guys are good, I'm inclined to trust him. What do these players bring to the Flames? Size. Skating ability. They project as max 2nd liners, likely 3rd liners. Having shut-down players who can skate is a very desperate need for the Flames organization. They get those in this deal.

Would I have preferred Derrick Pouliot? Absolutely. But clearly the Flames are intended to do this rebuild the right way. I.E. Not just putting the sexy name into the lineup and waiting for results. Instead they're acquiring players who will play a role. More Ottawa style than Edmonton style. And I like this. Ottawa's rebuild is basically my gold standard for how you do a rebuild.

Farewell, Iggy. You were the best thing to happen to this city since oil.

On Video Games...

My video game docket is, at the moment, the fullest it has been in almost five years.

The PS3 is currently loaded up with Transformers: Fall of Cybertron. Yes, I'm playing through it again, because I need more Optimus Prime in my life. Currently warming up in the dugout is Dishonored, a game that I put two hours into and just ran out of time to play. Behind THAT is the last ~1.5 hours of Assassin's Creed III, a game that I really really REALLY liked, and is currently standing in the way of me playing through the Zone of the Enders remake.

Also worth noting? I'm planning on buying Bioshock Infinite today. So...goodness. Looks like I might need to call in sick a couple times. That is a lot of video game I need to get through.

I just want to mention one of the things which stuns me the most about Fall of Cybertron. In my previous post about how the ratings system appears to be broken I briefly touched on this, and I feel like it deserves mention again. Fall of Cybertron might be the best adaptation of external source material I have ever had the pleasure to play. What is persistently astounding to me is how everything in this game is covered in a glossy sheen of childlike excitement for everything you do. The progression of the plot reads like something a five year old would come up with while playing with his toys.

Need to get to the gates to help defend them, now we need to get the neutron cannons online, oh now we're shooting at tanks, now the cannons have become Metroplex, now our city-size robot is fucking shit up. In addition, the design of everything in this game is done with an absurd level of scale. City size guns are a thing, which is AWESOME. You enter ancient structures with kilometer high ceilings, look out upon endlessly built-up robot city, you have god damn Metroplex as something akin to a summon.

Randomly, Optimus yells out things like "Liberty is the right of all sentient beings," like some kind of house sized Robo-Lincoln. Seriously, everything about this game is like your inner five year old was given an insane budget and asked to make a Transformers movie that didn't suck. You really really need to check this game out.

And now we make the jiu jitsu

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is hard. It is punishingly, ball bustingly, verge of tears hard.

That said, I'm probably not going to stop anytime soon. The interesting thing about BJJ is that the reason it is so hard is also the reason it is so effective, and perhaps why the best in the world are so much better than the rest of the world.

The thing with grappling is that you can go balls-out, 100%, with no mercy. You can try out new things, you can look for new techniques and you don't get your head caved in. Consequently, when you're starting you get absolutely slaughtered. During this slaughter, you try out ways to fight back. You last a couple more seconds. You do that again and last a couple more seconds. After you last a few more seconds you try out something else, and see if it works. You learn to how your body can move in ways you never knew, how to feel when you're in danger.

I can't think of many other things where you learn by failure. It seems to be such an effective way to learn, difficulty aside, that it makes me wonder why this method has not been adopted in more areas.

Sidebar: GSP Diaz. Holy shit that is gonna' be cray cray.

when did radio get good?

I'm experiencing an interesting change of opinion about a great many things over the past few years. Fart jokes became lazy and unfunny, the non-fiction section became compelling, The Bay is a store I frequent and radio became a form of media I enjoy.

For most of my life the radio was that thing you listened to exclusively in the car. It was there, and you listened to it to get your fill of crappy pop music because that was just the only option available. Then I discovered CBC radio two. It provided me interesting, atypical music with a maple leaf emblazonned on every possivle surface. What I had not expected, however, was that RadioTwo is the gateway drug to RadioOne.

Let's examine the audacity of RadioOne for a moment. Commercial free, relatively unbiased talk radio, dealing almost exclusively in issues of national interest, supplemented by region specific content in two languages. That is a ridiculous thing to exist, and I love that it does. Jian Ghomeshi is the first hit RadioOne gives you, promising that the first one is free. Then you wake up in a cold sweat, queuing up missed episodes of Alberta at Noon while listening to Blue Sky, and you realize you're just another canadian content junkie. If CBC would just release a RadioOne app for Android I would rarely not be listening to something not-CBC.

Sadly the rabbit hole goes deeper. First I found NPR. This was my gateway to podcasts, and there was no going back. Podcasts, man. Podcasts are the hardcore variety of talk radio, the bath salts if you will. Currently I'm mainlining Freakonomics, with Jay&Dan waiting in the wings.

Was radio always this good and I'm only now growing up? Or are we experiencing a radio revival, an air wave rennaisance? More importantly, do I care and where can I find a podcast discussing that very subject?