JulianSimpson Still living. Still making falafal.

Canada’s olympic performance so far has been underwhelming to say the least and embarrassing to say the most. We haven’t won a single medal. Not one. 0 medals. If you subtract 1 from the number of medals that Uzbekistan has won then you will arrive at the number representing our total.

I’m not in Canada at the moment so I can’t guage the general public’s reaction. I’m guessing though that if past years are anything to go by it is a resounding *meh*. I doubt there is any public outcry. I doubt the media is jumping up and down demanding explanations. In fact I’m willing to bet the CBC is celebrating the “olympic spirit” finding little feel-good nuggets of journalism about athletes who’ve overcome some adversity or whatever. Whatever. I’m also willing to bet that they’ve already interviewed about 20 smiling Canadian athletes who are all “just happy to be here.”, “taking it all in.”, “gave it all I had” and any other defeatist mantras I’ve grown so used to hearing.

How is it that Australia. A country with a lower GDP than Canada, fewer people than Canada, and greater barriers to attend international competition than Canada can be near the top of the medal table while we wallow at the bottom, medaless, wondering if we’ll ever be able to reach the dazzling heights of Azerbaijan, Mongolia, Tajikstan and other such nations who are all ahead of us.

The answer is that Australian people care. They’re competitive by nature and they won’t accept a poor showing from their athletes. Their athletes are well funded and I’m sure Australian people don’t worry too much about how that’ll affect other areas of government spending and taxation. I know it’s much more complicated than all that and there are a number of historical, political, geographical, and climatological factors to consider but there’s no escaping the fact that they have a lot of medals and we have a big golden goose egg.

The fact is though, that olympic and amature athletic performance is not just a nice-to-have. It is above all else a source of identity and nation building. Something Canada who’s culture is often fragmented and always overshadowed sorely needs. The benefits of winning medals is a huge intangible. It’s not something that can be tallied up and factored in spreadsheets.

At the moment I imagine most of the country is taking a casual passing interest to the point where they just about tolerate it taking up space in their television guides. I’m willing to bet though, that if we were up near the top of the medal table a lot of people would suddenly stop and take notice. People would talk about it and perhaps for even longer than the next two weeks. Younger generations would be motivated to follow in the footsteps of successful Canadian athletes and suddenly no one would bother to draw a correlation between a struggling health care system and funding for amature athletics.

Togo has a medal now. Well done Togo. You must be proud.

Last night I had a dream that Kanye West and I were sitting on a pier wall fishing together. That’s strange enough in itself but it was definitely made a few degrees stranger by the fact that we were fishing for clothes.

Among the many articles of clothing we caught was a two tone brown jacket which Kanye pulled out. It had the letters KW sewn onto the chest in a sort of 50’s letterman style. I thought it was really ugly but Kanye seemed really excited by it so in an effort not to hurt his feelings I didn’t share my opinion.

Today while at a fairly large retail shop I noticed a little girl outside. She had a blue tongue. I know this because she stuck it up against the window and started licking it. Her parents were standing by not paying any attention and when they summoned her to go she walked the length of the shop, a considerable distance, dragging her tongue across the window the entire way.

Today I noticed that my keyboard was moving around a bit when I type. I flipped it over and noticed one of the tiny little rubber strips on the bottom was missing. I checked around my desk area but couldn’t find it so I decided that times like this call for me to do what I do best which is to take no action at all.

I had a shower and put clean socks on (as it is the third tuesday of the month). I sat at my desk and began to work when I realized there was something in my sock. It was a autographed copy of Wayne Gretzky’s rookie card!!! That would be the version of the story where that’s completely made up of lies but it was indeed the tiny little rubber strip that goes under my keyboard.

How? Why?

Those socks have been in my drawer for at least two days. Why today do I notice slight movement in my keyboard? Why today do I choose the sock out of my drawer that has the little rubber thing? And the most perplexing of all, how did the little rubber thing get inside my sock?

I decided a while ago that I was bored of writing regular blog entries and unless something weird happened to me or around me or in my head that it just isn’t worth writing about. My friend Derek commented the other day that he has the impression that all I’ve done for the last few months is eat egg salad sandwiches and brush my teeth with helmet on and I suppose that’s a fair if not somewhat inaccurate assessment. I suppose the biggest problem of late is that everything has been refreshingly normal. Not uneventful. Just not strange.

Me and Julie moved to Shaldon. It’s a small town/village in South Devon. Our house is right on the sea. Not literally. That would be a boat. We don’t live on a boat. It’s very much a house. Right now there is a large window in front of me. Beyond that is our patio and beyond that is the sea. It’s actually a river estuary across which is the bigger and far uglier town of Teignmouth. Shaldon has a butcher, a baker and a candlestick maker (seriously. I’m not makeing it up. They’re side by side by side though I think the candlestick maker is just what somebody named the house after realizing they were living beside a butcher and a baker. Both the butcher and the baker though are very real. I’ve purchased meat and baked goods from each respectively). There are about 5 pubs within stumbling distance. We did a bit of stumbling last night actually if I recall correctly.

The reason I started writing this is because I wanted to talk about radiohead. They did something interesting this week. They decided to give away their album in digital form for whatever you want to pay. $0.00 $100 and everything in between is the price you can pay to get their new album. The reason this is important is because it may mark a change in how music is distributed and the relationship between artist and listener. When they announced that they were releasing the album this way there was much internet fervor. I for one was really excited. Not only was there going to be a new Radiohead album sooner than anybody expected. It was going to turn the record industry on it’s ear and smash the stranglehold major lables have over musicians and listeners alike. I was going to be able to pay for music again knowing that my money was going directly to the artist. Radiohead were leading the charge into the new era of the music industry. Finally a David to stand up to Goliath.

Well not really.

They’re still releasing a physical cd. All indications are that they’ll be releasing it on a major label. One of the same majors that the media was reporting them to be bringing to their knees only a few days ago. I can’t help feeling a bit cheated. I paid £5 for my copy of the album. I’ve been looking forward to their new album for ages so on wednesday when I sat at my computer and decided on that amount I can’t recall how much of that 5 quid was for the music and how much of it was to help fund the revolution - a revolution, it turns out that they have no interest in.

Part of me wants to just hold on to the fact that Radiohead did something great in allowing me to pay for music again and feel good doing it knowing that my money was going directly to the artist. The fact is that it’s really really (fucking really) great album and it’s worth more than what I paid for it. That should be enough on it’s own. They were going to release a physical cd all along so this isn’t a new revelation it’s just one that wasn’t widely known. They did something that no band of their popularity or caliber has ever done. They gave their music away to fans for free or allowed them to pay a price that they felt was fair. In interviews Johnny Greenwood played down the role of music industry saviour saying that wasn’t they’re motivation. They simply wanted to allow everyone to hear the ablum as soon as possible and at the same time get people to question the idea of what music is worth. It’s still a really cool experiment.

The other part of me can’t help being dissapointed. Radiohead made a big wack of money from this “experiment”. Some blame has to be placed on the band and it’s management for not doing enough or anything to dispell the commonly held perception that they were making a huge statement by standing up to the major labels. This is from their website

Radiohead have made a record.
So far, it is only available from this website.
You can pre-order it in these formats:
Diskbox and Download.

I know it says “so far” but it could also have said “until we release the album in physical form”. They undeniably rode the hype that was created (perhaps unintentially) by their announcement to release the record for free and in doing so made a lot of money. How much of the money that they made was contributed under the perception that a cause was being furthered will never really be known.

I will continue to support artists that choose to release their music in this manner because I think it’s a great model and although there was some stumbling out of the gate I believe it’s the future. As for Radiohead’s album In Rainbows, the real shame is that it is a truly amazing piece of work and I hope that my perception of it in years to come isn’t marred by a slight bitter aftertaste.

And there it is. A proper old style, long winded, blog post.

Today I brushed my teeth with my helmet on. I was on my way out with my bike when I realized I hadn’t brushed them. Instead of taking the helmet off I left it on. As I stood in front of the mirror watching myself brush my teeth while wearing a helmet I thought about what it would be like to have to wear one all the time for day to day activities… like brushing my teeth. Then I thought that if I was the kind of person that needed to wear a helmet all the time to protect myself from injury then maybe leaving me alone in the bathroom with something as lethal as toothbrush wouldn’t be such a good idea.

We’re moving on Saturday. I can’t wait. If I was anymore excited I’d need a helmet.

I had an egg salad sandwich for lunch today. It’s been ages since I had an egg salad sandwich. It’s not something you usually think to make on your own. They’re usually the last sandwich left at your office lunch meeting and no one wants to eat them. Typically, they’re swimming in mayonnaise, and made with 99¢ per loaf soulless white bread.

Mine obviously, was far more exciting… it had bits of celery.

In times like this, one hopes that the relative excitement of one’s egg salad sandwich says more about the excitement of one’s life than the relative excitement of one’s blog posts.

I have the sneaking suspicion that my life has become really boring as of late… How is that possible though, when my egg salad sandwiches are so much better than the average egg salad sandwich.

This is an except from an email to Emerson. “Just on my way out the door for an unplanned ride… gotta make the most of the… forget what it’s called.. big glowing yellow ball in the sky that only rarely makes an appearance.”… Further googling reveals that the glowing ball is actually called a “sun”. every solar system has one. Occasionally the clouds part and it shines briefly on Britain causing local meteorologists to pee themselves with excitement.

So begins the story entitled “How I got caught in a hail storm in July”.

As noted, the glowing yellow thing was shining and I was enjoying a nice ride through the blackdown hills. I rounded a corner and was suddenly, unexplainably under a mean looking black cloud. At that point the road went up sharply and as I was climbing it started raining big fat wet rain drops. Lots of big fat wet rain drops. Shortly after that I noticed that some of the big fat wet rain drops were bouncing and thought that’s odd, I was sure water didn’t bounce. That’s when the road I was riding up turned into a fast flowing river and the big fat wet rain drops turned into pellets of ice. For those who have yet to have the pleasure, I’m here to say riding a bike while being pelted with hail stones on your face, arms, and legs is quite painful.

Flashback: I’m 8 years old. It’s the 80’s. Times are good. Times are especially good for big chain pet stores who have not yet been condemned for selling puppy mill supplied puppies. Our grade 3 class is on a field trip to one of the largest suppliers of Labrador Retrievers, cutely named “The Lab Lab”. I’m enjoying the tour when suddenly I fall in a pit of puppies and am being bitten in thousands of different places at once by their little puppy teeth.

None of that actually happened but perhaps now you have an idea of what it’s like to ride through a hail storm.

You know the part in the ‘Truman Show’ where Jim Carey’s little world starts malfunctioning and he’s on the beach when it starts raining on a single meter radius right where he’s standing and when he takes a step to the side he steps out of the rain briefly until it catches up to him. That was what it was like when I finally reached the top of the hill. Above me: dark evil ice cloud from hell, and a torrent of ice and water. A half mile in any direction: Beautiful sunshine. I’m beginning to suspect there are cameras following me, perhaps filming a CBC documentary called “Why Canadians don’t emigrate: A case study”

It actually turned out to be a really nice ride. In fact, every ride around here, rain or not, is amazing. The scenery is beautiful, and the roads have barely any traffic and are perfect for cycling, especially if like me, you really like hills. Lots and lots of hills.

Things are good. I’m settling into the english country life nicely. If I could bring one thing over from Canada though, it would be Ontario Summers… And perhaps my Mum, and my friends, and some of my bikes, and hockey, and Toronto. That is the only thing I’d bring though.

This other little piggy who works from home and does nothing but tap on his laptop all day was assigned with one simple task, to put the roast in the oven, but he forgot, and so as punishment, will have none. He will however do his best to hold composure and refrain at all costs from going wee wee wee wee all the way home.

New Country (well actually really old country). New blog.

Thanks very much to Buzz (CSS and XHTML super hero as well as one of my oldest friends (like as in we’ve been friends for a long time (he’s not elderly. (not very. (Not in age anyway (Perhaps in only on his views about the CBC (downright ancient)))))) for getting the interface working.

I really do hope to be more active in keeping this up to date but to be honest the “Dear Diary: Here’s what I did this weekend” posts really bore me. Hopefully I can find the right balance of inane, and interesting. Really though, the world just needs more butchered nursery rhymes.