Tag Archives: Canada

Born Losers

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The more that I think about this still anticipated split between my wife and I, I’m growing much more at ease with the reality of it. 

I heard this song driving into work this morning; it’s the first single from Canadian singer/songwriter Matthew Good off of his Hospital Music album released roughly 10 years back? (That can’t be right, can it?) Matt had recently split up with his wife Jenny and was very tortured over the whole thing. He went on a long acoustic tour right after which, at the time, felt like it was some kind of therapy for him. After that, he recorded and released Hospital Music which I felt was more therapy for him. 

Listening to the lyrics to Born Losers, I feel that bitterness and also feel that I’m on the verge of freedom and maybe even some kind of vindication. This marriage has largely been an exercise in pain and desperation, grief that I will feel lighter without. 

https://youtu.be/GlrJaw5HK6g

Happy Canada Day!!

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Normally, I’d probably be on my way to getting shitfaced and sunburned… maybe not quite yet… I’d have waited until the afternoon though. 

At least the weather is nice (for now) so I can get on that sunburned part anyway. Get outside and maybe kick a soccer ball around a bit!

Dude. That ain’t right.

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Holy crap.

I’m realizing that I haven’t updated the Official NJLE™ website in over SIX MONTHS. Wow, that’s my epic failure. It’s kind of bizarre how much things can change in such a relatively short (or relatively long, depending on your perspective) period of time.

The NJLE has always been kind of sliding by; on the brink of both wild success and brutal failure. However, in the past couple of months… it’s become glaringly obvious that belts are going to have to be tightened and things are going to have to change up in this bitch. See, everything in this place… surrounding us, in Canada? So much of it is affected by the price of oil. The whole world is affected. But here’s the trend:

In the past year, the price of oil has dropped off to a staggeringly low price that affects the entire world.

In the past year, the price of oil has dropped off to a staggeringly low price that affects the entire world.

Anyway, the main source of income for the NJLE is related to the price of oil. “On the outside” your highness is an engineering desk jockey for a company servicing the oil and gas sector. With this downturn, the NJLE GDP is taking a forced 10% hack-and-slash and a deep, deep round of layoffs that’s going on at my place of employ as a reaction to the global economy.

So, I have to look at my options. I think I’m relatively ok for the next month or two from a layoff perspective…. maybe. After that? All bets are off. I’m looking at possible opportunities elsewhere however, given that layoffs are rampant in my industry right now, I think it’s unlikely that I’ll find something after I get punted. So… I’ll have my five figure layoff payout. Low five figures, let’s be clear. Very low.

And then? If I don’t find another job? It’s EI for yours truly… and that’s something that I know very little about at this point. It’s terrifying to me to not have a job. To not be able to provide.

Terrifying.

Anyway, the future is not known to me. Maybe shit will turn itself out just fine. Maybe not. I am not Nostradamus of some wizened prognosticator. I’m clinging on to this moment, taking life day to day. Because that’s all I can do right now.

Off Hiatus

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It’s been over a year since the NJLE site has been updated… I know. Bad me.

The whole thing started with a major debacle involving my ownership of the domain newjefflandempire.com and finding the correct DNS servers to redirect to. In the end, both WordPress and 1and1.com were unable to resolve the issue for me so I said, “fuck it” and defaulted to the wordpress.com address that is free with the startup. That whole process took me months to get to and my interest in writing declined in this period. So whatevs.

The good news is that we’re back and the NJLE is as strong as it ever was.

And there’s so much that’s gone on in the past year that it’s hard to know where to start! I don’t want to overwhelm myself right now by trying to write everything out that has gone on but I’ll catch the site up gradually. 

Right now, though, the 2014 Winter Olympics are going on in Sochi, Russia and the round robin portion of the men’s hockey tournament has just completed. Canada is the 4th seed and will face the winner of Switzerland vs Latvia game that goes on tomorrow. Or… potentially in a few hours. The time difference between here and Sochi is killing me. LOL Really, I hope Latvia wins because the Swiss are a complete sleeper team capable of upsetting any team they play. We’ve seen it in the past and I don’t want to see Canada succumb to an upset at this point. Or ever.

Anyway, I really barfed when I originally saw the Team Canada jerseys designed by someone over at Nike however I admit that I really like them now. 

Team Canada Jerseys

For the Sochi 2014 Olympics.

 

In fact, I went and bought myself a red replica version of the jersey. Because if you are going to buy a Team Canada jersey and be patriotic, it’s gotta be a red one. In my opinion, anyway. The black ones are pretty sweet though too.

I’ll be watching the game tomorrow between the Swiss and Latvia with vested interest for sure. Go Canada!!

 

All That Glitters Is Not Gold…

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Despite whatever successes you think that the New JeffLand Empire may be enjoying… I dare say that it could be false. While the King (me) has been trying to bring this great nation out of destitution and desperation, there are forces at work that would be satisfied with dissolution of the nation to the greater nation of Canada.

Not that there is anything wrong with Canada. It’s a great… nay, an amazing nation! That being said, every man deserves to be king of his own great kingdom. They say that a man’s home is his castle and I believe this to be true.

But what happens when the castle begins to crumble around him? What happens when there is no upkeep while the King toils in international affairs and makes economic strides in the name of the nation? The King becomes angry and dissatisfied, that’s what. Not only does this King not have a refuge from the world but he grows angry with the people around him. He wants to abdicate the throne and move away.

It’s Do Or Die

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That’s what time it is for the Prince of Stanley’s hockey team. Tomorrow night, they play a crucial game that will not only decide their path toward a gold medal but will also, more importantly, decide whether or not I have to wake up at an ungodly hour on Saturday morning.

If they win tomorrow night, then they will play in a game on Friday night to decide if they head to the gold medal game. If they lose tomorrow night, then they play at 7:45 am at the arena on the opposite side of the city, in the heart of Downs’ Castle.

I’m going to do the math on this one; if the game starts at 7:45 am, he needs to be there a half an hour earlier as a minimum… at 7:15 am. I’m going to have to give the standard one hour of travel time, meaning that we have to leave the house at 6:15 am. Providing an allowance for how much time I need to get the Prince awake and fed, tack on getting a coffee in there… multiply it by the crab factor (which is basically how cranky the Prince is going to be getting up that early) and you have a crazy early morning.

Hence why it’s a ‘do-or-die’ scenario. Because if he doesn’t win… I’m going to die.

Holy National Holidays, Batman!

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Ok, so I missed marking the auspicious Canadian national holiday, Canada Day, with a post.  And given that JeffLand’s roots are so intertwined with Canada’s, it was kind of a “my bad” sort of moment on my part.  Soo… Happy Belated Canada Day!

Moving right along, today is the 4th of July; Independence Day in the United States of America.

Soundgarden – 4th Of July

[audio:http://newjefflandempire.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/fireworks1.jpgwp-content/uploads/2010/07/13-4th-Of-July.mp3|titles=Soundgarden – 4th Of July]

Mushroom Cloud

Quite the fireworks display!

I can’t help but think of this song every year that Independence Day rolls around. Feel free to click on the above audio player to listen to Soundgarden’s ‘4th Of July’ while reading the remainder of this post.  And, yes, I do realize that the song references nuclear war (explaining the picture to the right) but I love how Chris Cornell juxtaposes American patriotism with nuclear warfare and with the name… I can’t avoid posting this.

Anyway, Canadians could really learn a few things from the Americans with regard to how to celebrate their national holiday.  One thing that I know about American celebrations is that so many Americans enjoy setting off their own fireworks displays.  This is something that doesn’t happen nearly enough in neither Canada nor the New JeffLand Empire.  Really, we should be shooting off fireworks so often that one might realize that there’s a fine line between patriotism and pyromania!

I’m really expressing my fondness for explosions here and aligning myself with the philosophy that more explosions=better celebration.  So, in honour of our American friends on their day of observance… here is a brilliant fireworks display that won’t send anyone to the hospital or burn off anyone’s hair.

Fireworks

U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

Jumped The Gun

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iOS4 Screenshot

iOS4... Looking good!

Ok, maybe I was a little hasty with the whole “making-someone-pay” thing with regards to the Apple iPhone iOS4 update yesterday.  As it appears, patience really is a virtue… albeit one that isn’t very typical of benevolent dictators like myself.

The update was released around 11:00 am MDT so I updated my iPhone once I got home from toiling in the mines of industry.  And no one had to die in the process, so all is well.  So far.

Anyway, I got the update installed with no serious problems and have since spent some time putting all of the settings together and then I realized part way through today that this new iOS is absolutely sucking the life out of my battery!  After fully charging the battery, I walked around the office for about 15-20 minutes I returned to my desk and saw that I’d used 6%!!

Basically, with the multi-tasking… this new operating system is taxing the hardware that comes with my 3GS.  So that gives me a perfect excuse to get the iPhone 4 when it comes available.  And I’m giving that a Hells Yeah.