I Shall Take The Ring To Mordor...Though I Do Not Know The Way

One Game To Rule Them All: "The Fellowship"

To plagiarize myself: The Fellowship is an elaborate drinking game set to all 3 of the Lord Of The Rings Extended Edition DVD's. It is an epic quest to vanquish one's dignity in the aching abyss of Mount Hangover set to a soundtrack of extreme nerdiness/epic cinema at its finest depending on how you view the fantasy genre.

Anyone That Brings Up The Animated Version Will Be Thrown into Mount Doom

I could easily just ask 8 of my friends to sit in my basement, but that isn't how I do things. This Fellowship will be worthy of the franchise that made it all possible. I'm looking to get as many of my fellow Kingston summerers together as possible for a weekend that will go down as the greatest party of the decade.

The plan is to get as many humans together as possible for one legendary saturday. Beer will be consumed, Pizza will be ordered, Jacket Bars will be earned. 

I have scoured the internet (how cool does that make me sound) to discover the best possible set of rules for this Fellowship. Here is what I came up with:  

"The Fellowship": Whenever the fellowship is mentioned everyone toasts the team.

The Party your Party Could Look Like

"Does This Rule Need A Name?":Every time someone drinks anything, take a drink. Careful during the Legolas/Gimli drinking game. 

"Really?": Every time someone eats anything, take a drink.

"Oh, Sam...": Every time Frodo says "Oh, Sam...," turn to the person beside you and do the same. Drink to make things less awkward. 

"The Killer": Every time someone looks mopey/angst-ridden recall that they have neither beer nor pizza. Sad Drink. 

"9 Riders of the Drinkpocalypse": Every time a Black Rider appears do your part to fight the impossible manifestation of evil. Drink. 

Rule 1 and Rule 2

"OmNomNom": Every time we see someone's filthy, chewed-up fingernails, take a shot.

"Home For A Rest": Every time someone sings a song, take a drink, try to sing along. If it is in elvish just mumble loudly and in an angsty tone. 

"Phallic Imagery": Every time someone draws a sword, take a drink. Its what a real man would do. 

"Fool Of A Took:": Every time Pippin acts like an idiot, take a drink. Think Gandalf is a bit of a grump, remember he dies and feel really guilty about it.

"OmNomNom #2": Every time Gollum hacks up a "gollum! gollum!" drink.

"Precious Is An Awful Movie": In an attempt to unsee the unsee-able, every time someone says "precious" try to drink the pain away. 

"Size Doesn't Matter": Drink whenever a reference to the hobbits size is made. Get bizarrely defensive 

"Is Peter Jackson A Sexist?": Take a drink whenever a female (who doesn't want to sleep with Aragorn) is seen outside the Shire. 

"A Ballad For Steve":Steve the Uruk-Hai (First Uruk-Hai that gets shot at Helms Deep) has been brutally murdered? Have a drink in memory of his life. 

"So Young": Sean the Cave-Troll Gets killed. Remember he probably had a wife and family somewhere. Drink to hide your shame. 

"This is Getting Old": Dwarf/Elf insult or vice versa? Drink. Wonder why Peter Jackson didn't mix up his dialog a bit. 

"Do Not Meddle in the Affairs of Wizards. They are Subtle And Quick to Anger": Gandalf says something wise? Drink. 

"He Who Shall Not Be Named": If Sauron mentioned by name you should drink. (Harry Potter nerds/Lord of the Rings Nerds simultaneously freak out that I misused that reference). 

"Royalties Anyone?" Bilbo's book is mentioned? Drink. 

"Are We There Yet?" Anytime there’s a false ending in “The Return of the King” drink and groan. 

And That's A Wrap: Hilarity Ensues

 Finished? Hardly. After going through a quest of that magnitude you can never truly be finished. You also have the hardest part of the whole journey to go through, next morning.

P.S. Ke$ha.

Looking forward to seeing everyone this summer.

The Most Heinous Thing I've Ever Heard

‎"Just cramped up real bad. I could feel it coming after the second...It was real frustrating...Its something that used to happen to me in the AHL. A lot of nervous energy, probably sweating a little more than normal, got a little dehydrated." -Cory Schneider.

Everything I Hate:

Me? Bitter?

My vote for 2011? The Water Jug.

John A Macdonald is reported to have said, after vomiting during a political debate, that his illness was brought upon by his opponents repugnant policies. I managed to make it through last nights AMS hosted debates for Kingston and the Islands without vomiting, something I found fairly odd until I realized that there wasn't really that much policy to find repugnant.

Artist's Rendition

I've been struggling for a way to format my post on Thursday's debate. Do I do it by candidate? Do I rank them out of 5 stars? Do I rank their performance in individual categories? Do I stand on the street corner and scream myself hoarse at how awful a display it was?

None of those really seem to fit. If I did the whole debate out of 5 they would all get a "what the hell were you thinking" out of "go find a different career." If I ranked each individual based on the individual sections I would have to give a unanimous "why the hell didn't you answer the question" out of "that doesn't even make sense." As far as screaming myself hoarse ... I tried it. It didn't really have much of an effect.

At the end of the day, isolating individual portions of that blind assault against both reason and competency is not the way to approach it. I could very easily go through the debate transcript and pick out every time Alicia Gordon said "I don't really know the answer to that" (approximately every time she started a question). I could also isolate the exact moments that Ted blew a chance to score a few political points or highlight a key point of the Liberal platform (approximately every question). That only highlights the candidates that have a chance at winning.

Realistically, all that would do is raise my blood pressure even higher and I'm too young to die at the hands of another humans stupidity. I need to wait until I'm at least 30 when an under-trained doctor at an underfunded hospital botches a basic surgical procedure and I catch a deadly infection from a super-virus while trying to recover because severe cuts to health care and public health programs cripple our ability to care for each other. (No, I'm not bitter...why do you ask?)

Ironically, the only super-virus I want to catch is the one I'm least likely to. 

In the end, all I can do is point to the common themes of the evening. First, almost the entire time I couldn't quite get a particular scene from Community out of my head. I'm talking about, of course, the scene from Abed's documentary filming where stand-ins try to perform the legendary "Spanish Rap" . At about the twenty second mark, Troy leans in to the two trying to recreate their performance and shouts "DO YOU HATE THIS? DO YOU HATE DOING THIS?"

All night, I couldn't shake the feeling that if Stephen Harper, and Michael Ignatieff had been sitting in the front row one of them would have stood up and shouted at the two individuals awkwardly pantomiming their policies something similar.

To be fair, there were to exceptions to this general malaise. The first was when Alicia Gordon actually leaned forward and chastised the audience, which was as close as we got to someone actually admitting that they hated being there. The second set of moments came when Ted "rose up" at various points and tried to inject some passion into his speech. It was appreciated, if a bit awkward, but I figure he deserves credit where credit is due.

Prison whats? Will Mother Nature fix that?

Second, and in honour of exams, I was reminded of kids sitting at the back of the class that hadn't done a single reading all year and were stunned that what they crammed for wasn't on the exam. If I had a dollar for every time the candidates just had absolutely no idea what was going on around them or what was in their party platform I would have enough money to fund my own damn campaign. Mr. Beals suggested that MP's are expected to know everything, and that is pretty hard. I would agree, but that doesn't mean they are excused for not knowing the basic issues in Kingston and the Islands.

I work for the Hon. Peter Milliken, and part of my job is helping with all of the letters that he receives on issues that matter to local Kingstonians. The questions that came up during our debate were, largely, products of those concerns. It was personally upsetting to see a general lack of knowledge on the part of almost every candidate, with the general exception of Eric Walton, on issues that anyone who paid attention during the class would expect to find on the exam.

On that note, I think I'll let you out of this exam early, and on a positive note. Rather than ramble about everything I hated about that evening I'll end on something that made me incredibly proud. Many of you saw, or heard, of the Queen's U vote mob. Many of you might also have seen the constant flow of students going to the various early polling stations to vote. This is excellent, and highly commendable. We might not have the best candidates this time around, but the fact that people are taking the time to engage with the system gives me hope. So, for all of my peers that have managed to make something good out of the turd sandwich that was the debate, thank you.

...I lied. I was going to try to make this non-partisan but just re-watched part of the debate. Go out and vote, but please don't vote for Alicia Gordon. During her response to the open Governance question she spoke briefly to the contempt motion that toppled the Conservative Government. She suggested that the documents were not read by committee (false) and that they were submitted (false). She also suggested that Peter Milliken charged the Government with contempt (false). I'm not sure where the stupid stops and the lying begins with this particular response and, frankly, the thought of anyone that is willing to put that toxic clustershit of an argument out in public representing my voice in Ottawa makes me sick.

/endrant

Zombie or University Undergraduate?

Everyone, it is April. That means it is time for my favorite bi-annual extravaganza: "Zombie or University Undergraduate."

I can already hear some of you asking "Kevin, surely you aren't a complete moron. Even if you can't grow facial hair and have questionable taste in music and women you can definitely tell the difference between a mindless, rotting sack of consumption and hatred personified and an 18-22 year old that isn't quite smart enough to avoid shelling out 35,000 or more for a degree of absolutely no value."

Where does he get the time to dress up during such a busy season?

AHHH! GET IT! ITS BITE IS CONTAGIOUS! GET IT IN THE HEAD!

See what I mean? It's impossible to tell the difference between the pale, soulless, wraith dragging itself through a living nightmare and the zombie. 

But, as a University Student I can't just rely on my highly convincing graphical representations to defend my thesis, especially not when the comparisons go so deep.

Similarity 1) They do not sleep

Not to sound bitter, but I'm fairly certain that exam period is a way for all of our professors, University administrators, and older people in general to take out their deep seated hatred for how much more awesome it is to be a young person in the age of Youtube, Smart Phones, and relatively minimal threat of Nuclear Holocaust at the hands of Communist Russia. Nobody that actually has love/respect for humanity would ever mandate a gruelling month long period where students are asked to forsake eating, sleeping, exercises, hope, fun and everything else worth loving for.



ITS A TRAP



The most dehumanizing loss however, is definitely the loss of sleep. Maybe the fact that I'm going to get a maximum of 3 hours of sleep is biasing my judgement, but I think that the absolute deprivation of my greatest solace, a strategy employed by most modern secret services as their most effective form of torture, should be a criminal offence. Much like the living dead, however, students grow to accept this reality over the course of April.  Their initial resistance to the deconstruction of their humanity gives way to a passive acceptance flittering in the back of the mind of a rotting brain struggling to push a decaying body as it shambles its way around campus.



Similiarity 2) I simoltaneously hate/fear/am fascinated by both of them.

I don't know how much more I can say about this point. The truth of the matter is that both groups exist beyond the pale of reason. They both exist in the uncanny valley of the unhuman.  University Students sit between the positions of real student learning valuable life skills neccesary to their operation as functional humans and actual productive members of the workforce, manging to fail utterly at fufiling either category for 4 years or more. Zombies just can't quite figure out if they are living or dead.

This inability to pick a side is frightening, and infuriating.

Similiarity 3) The Three C's: Consumption, Consumption, Consumption.

Book Learnin', Coffee, Human Brains, the life of a University Undergraduate/Zombie is all about the single minded shuffle towards material gratification. Could I tell you which one really desires what? Probably not, but the way that these empty, hollow, shells of former humanity pursue something that, in all honesty, is completely useless to them and have absolutely nothing to do with their futures is both impressive and soul-crushingly depressing.

Similiarity 4) Neither of them are very likely to vote in the next Federal Election.

#BOOM #Couldn'tResist

My vote goes to Undergrad: A mob of undead wailing at the cruel
universe is considerably more musical than Ke$ha.

Similiarity 5) This is less of a similiarity and more a question: Which does this individual most resemble?

Covered in dirt and reaking like a hamburger left in the sun for 6 weeks, devoid of discernable focus, and lusting for human flesh Ke$ha would, it seems, resemble a zombie in so many important ways.

However, her age, lack of hygiene, constant nocturnalism, affinity for auto-tune and ability to somehow mix considerable latent intelligence with a lack of willingness to apply herself to anything academically also make a strong argument for Ms. Sebert a seeming ringer for Team Undergrad.

In short, if you can explain to me the difference between the hordes of post-secondary humans longing for death and the hordes of undead hoping to help them along please let me know. This inability to distinguish Team Undead from Team BarelyAlive may well prove to be a serious liability.

My Greatest Failing

Some of my close friends will know that I am meant to be with Kesha Rose Sebert. She is the radiant light of my life, the spring in my step, the Jack on my toothbrush. Her charm, incredible social grace, impeccable fashion sense and the almost regal way she carries herself under the incredible burden of superstardom draws me, like a fly, to the million-volt bug zapper that his her personage.

Kesha or Kate Middleton? Sometimes I can't tell either.

Much to my dismay, however, there is something that stands between us. An uncrossable divide between what should be star crossed lovers.  Much more to my dismay, is that this one problem has confounded me before, and will likely confound me again and again until the eventual heat death of the Universe.

I cannot grow a beard.

What does this have to do with my face again?

Seriously, I cannot grow one at all. I can grow a patchy monstrosity over some parts of my face, sure, but there are sections of my beautiful visage that will have nothing of it. The entire left side of my face, for example, is barren as the womb of a 97 year old flaming sandstorm from Dante's Seventh Circle of the Inferno. For those of you that haven't wasted your life going through 14th Century Italian Poetry, that is best translated as "fairly barren."

Why am I sharing this? What can possibly be gained by sharing another of my crippling failures to properly perform the male gender role? I only do it because I need you all to do me a favor. It may seem like a big inconvenience, but here me out:

STOP HAVING EVENTS THAT DEMAND I GROW A BEARD. JUST STOP IT.

For God's sake, what am I supposed to do? Events like Movember, (known amongst my friends as "Mo-what-the-fuck-is-that-on-your-face-oh-my-god-someone-kill-the-spider-growing-on-the-right-side-of-Kevin's-Face), Winter (which lasts 7 months in Kingston), and most depressing of all, the NHL Playoffs, all encourage men to sport their most spectacular facial hair, which leaves me to sport the visible representation of my spectacular failure as a man.

Take the NHL Playoffs, for example. For those of you that aren't aware, during the NHL Playoffs players do not shave, which results in:

Angry Jesus?

And

Gandalf?

And



Vengeful Old Testament Irish God?

What do my best efforts over a similar period of time period yield?





I look like Wolverine in this one - Me at Halloween Last Year

So, in short, atop hosting events that ask us to grow a beard, have a beard, wear a beard, anything like that. Its bad enough that as a Canadian I have to spend the 9 month long winter watching people with beards look simultaneously cooler and warmer than me, stop making me feel even worse by institutionalizing events that make me feel like more of a failure.