Camping Photos

As promised: camping pictures!

Camping

Spent the last two days camping with two friends of mine, it was lovely. Pictures to follow... tomorrow?

This is a short entry but it is my blog and I can do that if I feel like it.

World Cup Silliness

I laughed way, way to hard while watching that.

World Cup Soccer and Me

I will start this post by saying that I love the World Cup, but in a weird way. You see, I do not like watching sports and soccer is no different. I have no idea if Canada even has a team that is eligible to compete in the World Cup or whether we do, and it just sucks and hasn't been able to make it in a while. However, what I do love is seeing how into it people get.

I couldn't help but laugh at a friend's facebook status the day the World Cup started which said something to the effect to of "...now remember France this is soccer not volleyball," referring to France's win over Ireland that got them to the Cup. (The story behind this is that France and Ireland went into extra time and France scored. However "based on replays, the goal was triply illegal: two of the French attackers were offside, while one of them – captain Thierry Henry – clearly touched the ball with his outstretched hand.") My mum is originally from Ireland and every time we pass someone with a French flag some variant of "cheaters" is muttered. My mother does not watch soccer, nor has ever really shown an interest in the sport, but it makes me laugh seeing her get all indignant over the fact that her country didn't make it to the World Cup.

I also love seeing all the flags people have flying on their cars. Not so much in the town I live in, though they're definitely present but I went to Toronto yesterday and pretty much every single car has a flag on it. A good chunk of the people walking down the street were wearing they're jerseys (particularly the Brazilians, who were playing as we were driving). You could tell when the Brazilians scored because horns would sound all over the city and people would be hanging out of their cars hooting at pedestrians. It was particularly fun driving down St. Claire after the game and seeing literally every other pedestrian in a jersey.

Overall, I just see the World Cup as a fun way to celebrate your country or your heritage. While neither Canada or Ireland are in the cup, my dad and his family are all from Italy so I'm going to be cheering them on. GO ITALIA!

Music

I've been playing both of these songs on repeat for the past few days. Thought I'd share.

On Laziness and Montreal

You know, I honestly thought that once school was over and it was summer I would blog far mroe frequently. Y'know, 'cause I have all this free time and stuff. Readers, I do have all sorts of free time, but I am also lazy beyond belief. I was going to write a glorious blog post about my adventures in Toronto with the lovely Caitlin, complete with pictures of elephants and scary birds from our trip to the zoo. However, my memory card broke and I lost all my awesome pictures and I decided that I did not want to write a blog post about our adventures without them. This is inexcusable because while on this trip I got to see my favourite band, Coheed and Cambria live in concert. They were amazing and I made a fool of myself by dancing and singing along to all the songs. Somehow, Caitlin still allows herself to be seen with me in public.

My next adventure that I was going to blog about was going to the beautiful city of Montreal with my father and step mother. It was a gorgeous city and I took a ton of pictures, none of which were lost. I got the pictures all resized so they would fit nicely on the blog... and then got lazy. So, I will post these pictures now and try in the future to not be so lazy.

Book Review: Dies the Fire

Title: Dies the Fire
Author: S. M. Stirling
# of Pages: 573
Published: 2004
Genre: Science Fiction
Rating: 4/5

Summary:
Michael Havel was flying over Idaho en route to the holiday home of his passengers when the plane's engines inexplicably died, forcing a less than perfect landing in the wilderness. As Mike leads his charges to safety, he begins to realize that the engine failure was not an isolated occurrence.

Juniper Mackenzie was singing and playing guitar in a pub when her small Oregon town was thrust into darkness. Cars refused to start. Phones went silent. And when an airliner crashed, no sirens sounded and no fire trucks arrived. Now, taking refuge in her family's cabin with her daughter and a growing circle of friends, Juniper is determined to create a farming community to benefit the survivors of the crisis.

But even as people band together to help one another, others are building armies for conquest.


I really enjoyed this book when I first read it a few years ago, and I still really liked it now. The premise is really cool (what would happen if all the technology in the world simultaneously died) and I feel that the author does an excellent job of exploring the scenario. I will admit that early on in the book there are few less than likely coincidences that allow the characters to survive but hey, if they didn't happen there wouldn't be a book.

Anyways, interesting premise, you have some really solid and interesting characters and the story moves along at a really good pace. Totally worth reading.