peer pressure

last night had it's dizzying ups, and it's crushing lows. i went to work, came home, and prepped for the bbq like a mofo. then, thanks to the heads-up from my friend the coach, found out that marks for school were available online. i did really well this semester! i got an A- in research methods, and A in online info retrieval, an A in information and its social context and an A+ in surveillance and identity. i'm most proud of my social context and surveillance marks cuz those were the classes i tried in, but the pride i feel is heavily augmented by the fact that i think FIS marks way easy. like, none of the papers i did held a candle to the level of analysis i was doing in undergrad or even my brief stint at york, but i'm not going to say that i didn't feel chuffed seeing a row of A's on my transcript.

to celebrate, the roomie took the whole house family to swiss chalet (one of her clients gave her a $50 gift certificate) and we ate like the kings of the street. we moseyed on over to the boy's parents house to borrow the car for some errands today, where they were watching the movie "big". i've never seen it in its entirety, but i kinda get the feeling that it's not my bag...did you know that the movie "big" features sex between a 35 year old woman and a 13 year old kid (even if he IS inhabiting the body of a grown-up)???? i find it difficult to suspend my disbelief about semi-icky stuff like that. like when patrick swayze jumps into whoopie goldberg's body in "ghost" and starts making out with demi moore, and we're supposed to just forget that it's whoopi goldberg's body. my problems with this have nothing to do with race or gender, for the record, it's whoopi goldberg. another example where there's icky stuff going on that movie-makers just try to gloss right over is when leah thompson has sex with howard the duck. i dunno, call me crazy, but i'm just not okay with it.

so we make our way down to supermarket, go park in our friend's secret spot, and pump some money into the ticket thingie. we put too much money in, so the ticket thingie tells us to take the change and our ticket. the boy grabs the ticket to put it in the car, and i reached into the change slot and pull out TEN DOLLARS IN TWONIES AND LOONIES. i guess no one else had grabbed their change all night. that was probably the best point of the night. you really can't beat free money. supermarket was a GHOST TOWN. there was no one there, and so we collected our group there, and went down to white orchid to see a couple of the djs from the peer pressure crew out of montreal. the cover was $10. that's right, TEN DOLLARS. considering i was silently campaigning to see the clipse at tonic, and tickets for that were probably $30 at the door, forgive me for expecting a little sumpin' sumpin'.

now, i did dance. but the scene just wasn't my scene. the djs, hatchmatik and a-rock were totally high on their own juice, which clearly wasn't the same juice that i, or anyone else in the crowd was on. there wasn't much of a vibe inside the place, and there was way too much irony and people going into the bathroom stalls in pairs, if you know what i mean *taps nose*. the tunes were all rave-esque house-esque 4 on the floor numbers with minimal bass, that they would then slap some 80s sample on (ie. tears for fears) and other wink-wink samples, like the vengabus (!!!!!) interspersed with actual good tunes like technotronic's "pump up the jam". all the songs started to sound the same after a while, and i wasn't really feeling the music. i'm not really into irony as an overall aesthetic, and that's kinda all that place had going. the peeps were ironic, the tunes were ironic, and i'm using the term "sampling" generously. it was more like the puff daddy school of music-making. take a tune that everyone knows and loves, don't change it in any way, and then slap it on generic, of-the-moment beats.

p.s. the dj's couldn't mix a cake. crappy drops, no flow, and boots-in-the-dryer trainwrecks at time. which to me, if you're pulling that steeze and charging 10 at the door, DOES NOT allow you to be dancing around behind the decks, pumping your fists, and acting like you're pwning. cuz really, you should be paying attention to the mix, guy!

we had to break down to the roomie why we didn't like it, because she was thinking that it was just older kids griping about the new ish. which i can concede happens, but she was trying to link what was happening there with the rave scene, and i would definitely disagree. raving wasn't really "cool" in the same way that the scene last night was cool. like, ravers got made fun of, with their fat pants and pacifiers, and all the other silliness...it was a scene for the nerdlingers and dorks coming together under the loving umbrella of ecstasy that kinda became all urban and cool. these dudes were most def the cool kids. with their straight-brim hats all atilt and their freshjive tees and their skinny jeans and vintage nikes. and the music is very different. rave music wasn't made to be disposable, and it sampled and reconfigured, as opposed to just slapping shiz on top of other shiz, a la the mashup thing. that's why i think our top forty night is going to be bodyrock x 10000000000. no attitude, cheap cover, and the vibe that i tend to get at my parties, where no one is posing and everyone's just going buck over the tunes. for that reason alone, i want to throw another party, be it jungle or the top 40 dj fraaaaanche thing, because i haven't been to a local jam with a slammin' vibe in a while, and if there's one thing you can count on splinter for, it was at the very least, that.

today is a fun fun fun day! we're going out for breakkie, then doing some yoga, and then having some peeps over for a bbq. even if no one shows up, then it's still going to be a fun time. both my bros are coming, and some of the boy's friends, and the roomie's friends are stopping by late for drinks. i don't mean to brag, but i'm really the hostest with the mostest. we're having chicken wings, that i've marinated in lemongrass, ginger, garlic, soy, sesame oil, and fish sauce. instead of grilling them i'm going to put them on a foil-lined pan and kinda bake them using the bbq, cuz wings get messy on the grill. then we got burgers. remember that roll of pork fat that was calling to my sacred animal self in the italian grocer a while ago? i had the self-proclaimed brilliant idea to dice some of that finely and add that to my burger mix (just lean ground beef). all you need for a good burger is ground beef, salt and pepper, and now, if my theory plays out, pork fat. i also made my blue ribbon-worthy potato salad. i make the BEST potato salad in the world, if we're talking the quintessential potato salad. i'm also making a baby spinach salad with avocado, grape tomatoes, red onion, toasted salted pumpkin seeds and lemon vinaigrette, and i got some veggie burgers too. for dessert i made lemon chiffon pies in a candied-ginger gingersnap crust. we're also making sangria and mojitos. !!!!! see???? hostests with the mostests!!!

oh, and in other news. i kept getting this announcement when i did my online banking that i was eligible for overdraft protection, and it wasn't letting me complete the sign-up online, so i "popped" over to the bank, and what happens? i walk out with a line of credit, a new credit card that's HALF the interest of my other one, AND overdraft. dudes! raise your arms in the air, my brothers!

fin.