U2 Concert

So yesterday I attended the U2 concert, which was their second one in Toronto, and I think it deserves a spot here.

After waiting an obscene amount of time to get in to the show, my cousin, her friend, my brother and I managed to snag some awesome spots centre stage, on the inside of the outer ring of the claw, right by the walkway. For those of you unfamiliar with the setup, here's a picture to demonstrate:
Now these were probably the ideal spots for the show, because the main stage was too tall for those in the front row to have a proper view, while the walkway (where u can see Bono standing in the picture) was much shorter and allowed for a perfect view for even those right beside it. Now we could see the performance wherever it was, whether on the main stage, walkways, bridges, or giant 360 degree LED screen above.

Just needed to mention this. As you can see from the picture, this setup is RIDICULOUS. Its super tall, and very wide around its circumference, so much so that U2 can only play the larger stadiums in the world during this tour, and sometimes even they have problems closing their retractable roofs due to the giant antenna-like lighting structure hanging in the middle. This setup goes with their tour name perfectly (360) as they really did cater to all sides of the arena, and every seat in the house had a view (with the exception of those seats behind the sound shack).

On to the performance, well sort of. The opening band was Snow Patrol, and they're a good enough band if you're into that sort of thing, and certainly a good pick in terms of their popularity, they are a familiar enough name for fans to recognize, but everyone's still there for U2. Unfortunately, their style of music is not exactly what one would call high-energy, and for a band that is supposed to be warming up the crowd for what is arguably the biggest musical group around nowadays, "Chasing Cars" doesn't really cut it.

Oh and speaking of the crowd, it sucked. This was supposed to be one of those "ohmigawd its bono! lets jump and dance and sing and do whatever hardcore U2 fans do" type of events. What I didn't take into account was that the majority of casual listeners of U2 are middle-aged housewives and business men. With the majority of the really intense U2 fans going to the first show, we were left with those people who said, "Hey look! U2's coming to town! I saw that BlackBerry commercial and it looks pretty cool. Can I spare the expense to go and see them? Certainly! and I won't let any of my friends forget it, so I'll bring a camera and take pictures the ENTIRE BLOODY TIME!" Now I have nothing against taking a couple of pictures, and even a couple of videos, but you came to watch them LIVE, so why are you going to look into a viewfinder the entire time and not dance, sing or even MOVE so that you can watch it later?! Well the answer to that is simple, Facebook. Everybody wants something to post today, so instead of watching the show themselves, they can let all their friends, family, and stalkers have a peek into it. But I think I've wasted enough time with this, bottom line; no energy, no fun.

Now to the good bit, the actual performance. U2 is legendary for their over-the-top shows (just watch The Simpsons) and they did not disappoint with 360. The giant space-themed stage was beautiful, extravagant and quite an amazing feat of engineering and a testament to the setup crews' abilities. When U2 was taking the stage, Bowie's "Space Oddity" was playing in the background, with Larry goin on first and starting the show with some drumming skills. The Edge and Adam quickly followed, with Bono taking the stage last. The setlist was pretty well chosen, with many of their greatest hits mixed in with songs from "No Line on the Horizon", their new album, though I heard from my cousin that she wished there were more of the obscure songs. But as I said before, the band was serving a fair-weather audience for the most part, and had trouble getting a proper response from "Beautiful Day" or even their more recent hit "Vertigo", so random songs (no matter how good) probably wouldn't be the best choice. To sum it up, awesome music, and U2 knows how to rock it.

U2 has always been a political band, and it showed at this concert, with Bono taking a particular interest in promoting the "ONE" campaign and raising awareness of the situation in Burma, which is a military governed state, with the elected leader placed under house arrest for the better part of the last 2 decades. This of course did not act as a distraction from the show but was actually an integral part of it, with everyone in the, inner section, aka the (Red) zone (yes that (Red), the one for fighting AIDS) receiving masks of Aung San Suu Kyi (the burmese woman previously mentioned) to wear during their song dedicated to her struggle.

Ratings:
Stage and Props: 5/5
Opening Band: 3/5
Main Performace: 5/5
Crowd: 2/5
Waiting times: -1/5 (Seriously guys, an HOUR after Snow Patrol finished? C'mon!)

Dodge Dildo

IMG_6381
Originally uploaded by foucheduck

I love this picture,
almost as much as I love the game.


Props to JY for the photos,
U can check em all out here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/foucheduck/sets/72157622275366082/




For those of you still reading,
you just LOST The GAME!

On a brighter note,

did i mention i'm goin to see U2 at the SkyDome (Rogers Centre) on Thursday?

Police: College student kills intruder with sword

See the full article HERE:

http://pantagraph.com/news/article_ac7c8fcc-a20c-11de-8cb4-001cc4c002e0.html

Icing on the cake.

I'd been having a pretty good year, but now a long series of mildly annoying events having culminated into something that's totally, utterly, bullshit.

MY GAWDDAMN BIKE GOT STOLEN WHILE I WAS AT SCHOOL!

Ya, that's right. The bike which my unemployed self uses to get around has been stolen.
Now this would normally just be annoying, but this is the first time in my life I've ever owned an even decent bike, and I use it everyday to get to the GO station in streetsville.

Not only has my personal property been taken from me,
my mildly irritating hour and a half commute from home to school gets jacked up another 20 minutes to half hour.

If I'm not in the best of moods in the next couple of days, you'll all know why.

I'm personally pro-moneyhole, but i'll leave it up to you,

In The Know: Should The Government Stop Dumping Money Into A Giant Hole?

Frosh Week

Was the shit.

Monday:

• Boring school intros
  
• Awesome engineering intro video,
  
• Several hospitalizations (no more duck duck goose for us!),
  
• Boring english test
  
• JUNKYARD WARS! Go Biomegatron!
• Very informative traditions presentation by Bunce
  
• Soccer game

Tuesday:

• PURPLING PURPLING PURPLING (and seesaw on the ram for some of us :P)
• Parade & much stickering
• Ferry trip over to the island
  
• Frisbee & football
• Barbecue
• Chillages on the beach
  
• Back to school
• Imperial Pub after being kicked out of the Ram at 9
  

Wednesday:

• Scav Hunt (Team EYE OF THE TIGER still wins in my eyes)
  
• Successful(?) world record attempt for number of people playing air guitar... to a song with no guitar in it
• Attempt on the president's golden hardhat, luckily it was just the commerce students so they failed miserably as usual :P
  
• Chocolate Boat racing!
• Dodge Dildo
• Tea Party!

Thursday:

• Eng Olympics (more dodge dildo)
  
• Nooner
• Capture the Flag
• Jays Game, we lost the game, but destroyed Humber at cheering with some help from RCS
• Shinerama Pub Night until 3 am when we got kicked out of the Ram again due to last call at 2 am

Friday:

• SHINERAMA!
• Movie - Fired Up
• Banquet & Awards, with the first issue of the Golden Ram published (shoutouts to the Engitor and all those who contributed)
• Charades
  

I'm sure there's more dodge dildo in there somewhere, but dunno when exactly.

Being a leader was one of the greatest experiences of my life, thanks quite a bit to the AMAZING frosh that we had this year, though sometimes we had to go without food due to their large numbers and voracious appetites. I hope to see many of these frosh tryout to be leaders themselves so we can chill again next frosh week.

I'll see you all in the dungeon!

Summing up my musical taste, 30 songs

Today i was peeved to discover that my phone's default media player would support only 30 songs per playlist.

So, I had to search through my expansive library (20 gigs, still growing, and i DO listen to ALL of it) to create the ultimate Franz playlist.

I went about it by trying to limit myself to one song per artist, and only picking the artists I truly enjoyed.

The result was this:

1. Within Temptation - What Have You Done Now
2. Prodigy - Breathe
3. Muse - Knights of Cydonia
4. Michael Jackson - Smooth Criminal
5. Marilyn Manson - The Beautiful People
6. Korn - Freak on a Leash (Rammstein Remix) (counted as neither Rammstein or Korn)
   
7. Gorillaz - Fell Good Inc.
8. Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit
9. System of a Down - Hypnotize
10. Led Zeppelin - Immigrant Song
11. Rob Zombie - Dragula
12. Metallica - Whiskey in the Jar
13. Korn - Twisted Transistor
14. Guns 'n Roses - Sweet Child of Mine
15. Rammstein - Ich Will
16. The Darkness - I Believe in a Thing called love
17. Gorrilaz - DARE (needed to balance the hard rock somehow, don't judge me.)
18. Ozzy Osbourne - Crazy Train
19. Journey - Separate Ways
20. Sum 41 - Fat Lip
21. Genesis - Land of Confusion
22. Slipknot - Duality
23. The Offspring - Self Esteem
24. ZZ Top - La Grange
25. The Tragically Hip - Poets
26. Tool - Parabola
27. U2 - Beautiful Day
28. Yes - Owner of a Lonely Heart
29. Rush - Limelight
30. Black Label Society - Stillborn

Honorable Mentions:
Every song on Rush's "Moving Pictures"(I know Limelight made the list, but it gets an honorable mention too), on Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon", and Bloc Party's "Silent Alarm" (I only realized this didn't make the list after I made the list, my phone ignored the presence of this album because of its file format).

Also, too many songs too count by Pearl Jam, The Doors, Deep Purple, King Crimson, Jethro Tull and Electric Light Orchestra. I like these bands' music, just couldn't pin down what I liked about them with any one song.

Frosh leader training weekend

Yet another glorious weekend courtesy of RESS.

Got to meet a bunch of ppl,
escape Mississauga,
chill with the leaders,
and watch many of them make asses of themselves, yet still come out as champions.

Predictions for next week: Indescribable madness, hilarity, glee and purple.

Predictions for next post: District 9.

Inglourious Basterds

Alright, its been a week, and i think I've decided to shift to focus of this blog from... nothing to movies.

Inglourious Basterds

For those of you who have been living in a hole, Quentin Tarantino has released yet another film for our viewing pleasure. This time, the world's biggest movie geek has abandoned his usual modern American setting for nineteen forties Nazi-occupied Germany. The story depicted in all of the trailers is accurate, and sums up the overall plot of the movie, but ignores a very important secondary subplot, which can be forgiven, because the point of it is not made completely apparant until about halfway in. Anyways, Brad Pitt takes on the role of an American soldier who has a real name, but is better known as "Apache". Now, Apache is the leader of a small squad of Jewish-Americans who are deployed behind enemy lines to spread terror by killing, torturing and even scalping german soldiers. For what must be obvious reasons, this group becomes known as "The Basterds". The Basterds become aware of a premier of a new German movie, where all of the German high command will be in attendance. Obviously, this is an opportunity they cannot pass up, so they team up with a British soldier and film expert and a German actress in order to gain access to the premier and kill everyone inside.

Tarantino's usual approach to movies usually goes something like this: lots of character development, some first-rate (though over-the-top) action and gore, with a petty or ridiculous story (see From Dawn 'til Dusk, Kill Bill, etc.) However, Basterds actually has an interesting and coherent story, though still has moments that make it hard to take seriously. This may seem to be a bad thing if you have never seen a Tarantino film, but it actually works to make the movie more interesting and enjoyable, as only Tarantino can do with such skill.

All in all, this was one of the better and most enjoyable movies of '09 that I've seen so far, and I would recommend it to any Tarantino fans, or anyone who has liked at least one of his films, or anyone who likes to laugh at Nazis and Hitler, or to anyone who is not my father.


EDIT:
This makes me seem redundant, but i can't do a better job than this:

Movie in the quarry

Good fun, i recommend it to all of you in the Newport, RI area

we watched the Raiders of the Lost Ark,

first time i'd seen it in YEARS

probably the first time i realized how truly badass Indy was in the good ole days, and first time i realized the irony of Nazis using a Jewish artifact to try and win the war.

Home from Rhode Island

back home, good times.

i need to put some finishing touches on my frosh week gear, so headed downtown today.
staying overnight cuz im hittin up the TASTE OF THE DANFORTH tomorrow!

Rhode Island so far...

Gotta keep this brief, its too nice outside...

What I've done:

• Attended an international Polo Game (USA vs India), which was announced by my uncle
• Boating and Swimming in the ocean
• Family Barbeque
• Mastered the front flip on a trampoline
• Hurt my neck trying to do a front flip on a trampoline
• Gone to Flo's CLAM Shack
• Beach at night
• Bike Ride to a rope swing over a river
• Went to the Newport creamery and drank an Awful Awful ("It's a Drink")

Still to come:

• Visit the beach club
• Sailing on an 85-footer
• Movie night in the quarry
• Cliff walk
• and much more...

Peace out Mississauga

Leaving for Rhode Island tomorrow in the wee hours of the morning.

Had some pretty good times in the last couple weeks, but glad to be leaving the burbs in favor of beach.

I`ll try to update this more often while I`m there, I realize there`s been a little bit of a drought, I apologize.

The Hurt Locker

So I saw "the Hurt Locker" yesterday, and I gotta say, it's pretty awesome.

For those of you who haven't seen the commercials (there haven't been many), The Hurt Locker is a movie about a bomb defusal squad in Iraq. A new team leader gets brought in, and he's so good at his job, he takes a lot of risks he probably shouldn't in order to make things more interesting. This of course leads to plenty of tension between him and the rest of his squad, because he frequently endangers their lives as well as his own.

The story is solid, and the actors are good enough to convey it and make you believe it. The special effects are great, I particularly loved the bounty of explosions that took place. The camera-work was similar to many movies nowadays, frequently switching between far-off camera views to in-your-face suspenseful shakiness.

Despite the war setting, this movie was more suited to the suspense/drama genre, because most of the time is spent getting to know the characters, and even the action sequences are followed by another scene just as long showing how that experience affected them.

Consensus; if you liked movies like Jarhead or The Kingdom, you should definitely see the Hurt Locker, and if you haven't seen those movies, you should watch all of them (excpet maybe Jarhead). If you didn't like those movies, then you could still appreciate the Hurt Locker, as it has its own merits which the others didn't share, and provided you don't mind the main character being a dick.

Book List

It would seem i've fallen behind on my reading,

here's what I've got;

Currently reading : Duma Key (Stephen King)

Must read soon:

• Dark Tower 4 (Stephen King)
• Next (Michael Crichton)
• One Flew Over the Cuckooo's Nest (Ken Kesey)
• Taken (Thomas Cook)
  

Long time no see,

sorry its been like 6 days since i been here,
i know all three of you are heart broken.

anyways, had a crazy week including such shenanigans as:

Pirate-themed magic brownie party,
chilling with cassie for the first time since god knows when,
and performing impromptu brain surgery on a penguin with nothing but a toothpick and a sledgehammer.

K so that last one may be a little bit of an exaggeration, but still, great week.

BIG NEWS!

I'm Rhode Island-bound! That's right, next Saturday, I shall be leaving the Great White North, in favor of the American east coast. The plan as I understand it will be to spend a week there, visiting my numerous relatives and lazing around on the beach.

For those of you counting, this will be my first trip out of the greater toronto area this summer, and its about time.

Sloth; one down, six to go

So,

I spent the day reading webcomics again.

Nothing especially important goin on right now, and that's the way I seem to like it.

Anyways, time for me to leave my room for something other than food or gastrointestinal relief.

Some half-asleep morning poety

Sleepin in 'til noon,
Nothing else for me to do,
Writing a Haiku.

It is Mid-July at 1:20 in the morning.

What am I doing?

Why its what I've been doing for the last several weeks at roughly the same time of day, nearly ever day,
facebook-whoring while listening to some choice progressive rock, and trying to figure out what normal people are doing (which is beginning to seem very similar to what I'm doing, whether that is wishful thinking or a life-crushing realization I'm not as weird as I once thought remains to be seen).

Sorry about the not-so-uplifting mood of this blog so far, this is due to a day spent viewing several hundred pages of a webcomic I had never heard of before this weekend, and which I may reveal when my shame subsides.

On a brighter note, here are two videos that have amused me thoroughly these last couple days;

Some more information.

Alright, morose introduction aside, this is my attempt to make this summer less of a complete waste of time, and possibly amuse one or two like-minded individuals, as there is no way I can believe there are more than three of us.

I'm currently going into my second year of Computer Engineering at Ryerson, although "second year" is a term I use loosely, as I have yet to slay the hideous, GPA consuming dragon that is Calculus II. This means I will likely have a lot more spare time than I did last year.

Basic things to know about me:

First Name: Franz

Last Name: Perez

Middle Name: None

Unnessary Other Inherited Family Names due to Latino-European Heritage: Huttenczapski Isippon

Nicknames (in order of frequency of use): Tesla Coil, Pukeshit (long story that will come later), and a ridiculous amount of mispronunciations or liberal interpretations of what my "real" name is but I'm sure I'll speak of those later on, probably after someone else asks me if "FRANCE" is a French name.

Birthday: August 18, 1990 (For those of you currently looking up our horoscope compatibilities, I'm a Leo to the Greeks and a Horse to the Chinese)

Place of Birth: Toronto, ON.

Places Lived Since then: Mississauga.

That's basically all that the prying eyes of the internet need to know about me at the moment, more will come as I post real blog entries as opposed to these ridiculous background entries.

A message to the future.

On a dark, but otherwise clear and seasonably appropriate night, one Mississauga resident, a jobless, penniless, and until recently completely hobby-less Ryerson Engineering student decided that he may as well use his time to prepare a guide of how not to live one's life.

The result was a Google search which led him to a simple-to-use blog website that would allow him to convey his thoughts, opinions and pointless internet media with as little originality as he saw fit.

He realized that few would actually be interested in the ramblings of yet another middle-class suburban late-teen, and gave his page a name that would show how he knew it would fall flat from the beginning, or else be a completely hilariously ironic name on the off-chance that he learned to write and it became successful.

As you have probably guessed, this website is what came about, and I'll try not to fuck it up too bad.