the.lithium.project

Hey everyone! Sorry for not putting anything up sooner, it's been a little nuts with school and all. I just came in to drop a quick note about upgrades that are going to be made for some of the website production that I'm currently doing and there's a lot that's going to be happening before the end of the month. The updated Jared @ YorkU site, which is being posted on my student website at York, will be completely redesigned from the ground up. I will headline with the Jared @ YorkU site with the new school site reflecting all of my notes, assignments, study guides and additional info which will be partnered with my Yahoo! 360 blog. I will also add some sister sites such as the Official Diplomatico Productions Ltd. website featuring my new DJ site, the 8^th generation of lithium.online project (more info on that next week) and an official Greenhaus Records Site with a plethora of information. I understand that it is rather delayed to have all of these sites posted but that isn't going to mean that it won't be something. My goal for this particular generation of sites is to bring all of the greatest elements of my previous sites, including a portal for all of my projects which I don't get a chance to really update everyone one, as there is a lot going on. I'm also trying to streamline the entire site so that each section isn't segregated though I can't integrate them too tightly as I would like to separate what's school and what's business. And lastly, one of the last features that I'm going to have having on some sections of the site are going to be student exclusive content, which means that you must have a York Passport in order to access some parts of the website. I will outline all the new changes closer to the launch of the new site but I will be posting some concept design work that I've been working for the past couple of months. Stay tuned!

Listening to – Housecrushers – Touch Me (DJ Delicious and Till West Remix)

    As I started to settle in Downtown where I loved the greenery and middle ground of Annex, I've been trekking around curiously trying to see if I could catch a glimpse of celebrities and it's become a bit of an interesting set of occurrences. First, I haven't met any celebrities (at least, I don't think so) but I have seen some familiar faces which was actually kind of surprising considering that I'm not one to run into the likes of Hollywood everyday.

    The film festival this year seems to have it's own warm buzz hovering over Yorkville, especially in the past couple of years. More movies are being shown, bigger celebrities are coming down and more companies and PR people are better prepared for the 10 day event that has seen some industry eye-brow raising feats coming in, not to mention the plethora of movies being shown this year almost middling 300. This will most likely mark the last year where the traditional festival will take place as Bell allocated $100 million+ to build a new fangled theatre/building for future festivals. Actually, I won't get into how much of a scam it is by speculating what Bell really could be doing with that $100 mill but I guess I'm bitter because I'm poor. Anyways, from a normal person's viewpoint taking a stroll through Yorkville, you could definitely feel when celebrities are around, especially when you get pushed out of the way for the mere sighting of someone who hasn't been confirmed by an overexcited mob. But the streets are littered with overdressed beautiful women and a bunch of well vacationed old guys. The traffic was horrible, especially at night naturally so walking is the best thing to do. In terms of Hollywood, if you've been keeping track of the other blogs about actual celebrity spottings, it's best to always keep in mind that a simple stroll will not land you any 'bump-into' meets of any big time celebrities, but standing alongside a bunch of smiling folks waiting in front of an empty red carpet is a sure-fire bet that someone is going to walk out. Even then, I wouldn't subjugate myself to stand behind a bunch of people just SEE someone.

    So, amongst the many strolls on the street I've seen all kind of celebrities, old and new including Nicole Kidman who I saw rather hurriedly going into the Windsor Arms, Jodie Foster looking back at me from her SUV for a slight second as it sped off, Robin Williams (I think! He was driven past me), Marilyn Manson and Evan Rachael Wood sitting in a limo quietly at the light (ERW was expected by Manson!?), and last but certainly not least CSI Miami's Sofia Milos. Of course, that's everyone I could recognize. There were rumors about which stars were where and I heard about parties where the likes of Jude Law and Jessica Alba but of course, working within the clubbing scene, celebrities are always around. For example, when Mark Wahlberg was noted for making Fluid his home while he was shooting 4 Brothers. Paris Hilton frequented Inside when she came down here but I heard she is starting to branch off to places like This is London and Ultra. In fact, when the stars all take off, Paris will be here for a few more weeks filming her musical. A set that sounds like it's worth crashing, especially if we run into her shooting a singing scene. I should note that sightings of Liv Tyler made noise, we should've been used to it since Edward Norton and Liv Tyler were both just blocks from me filming the upcoming Incredible Hulk movie. I did manage to see some of the filming of the movie and I did catch a glimpse of Liv Tyler but didn't go to talk to her. But expect some interesting stories about people filming movies here coming up because us guys have a little inkling to crash some sets and I will make official that I actually kinda want to meet Paris Hilton as bad of an idea as that sounds. I'll keep you posted on that one.

    While there is still a bit left of the festival to see, I detracted from taking pictures. For one, my phone camera is crappy and second, I didn't want to seem like those star struck people. Then again, I realized that there is nothing wrong with looking stupid being star struck, it happens to a lot of people. I think that funniest thing to ever happen to me which has nothing to do with celebrities oddly enough was when I sat down enjoying a nice smoke and people thought that I was a celebrity. It was kind of nutty and I didn't believe it at first but I considered the circumstances: relatively late evening with little light, dressed not too dressy but a smidge casual and…I don't know. People were walking by me, like Japanese tourists looking at me slowing down their pace just to get a better look at me. Some people even stopped and smiled trying keep a stare on me while conversing with their friends to determine who I was. It was truly funny. And while I wasn't originally going to tell anyone this having them think that I have the illusion of an inflated sense of egotism, Rooskie told me that when he was dressed up at out partying, he got asked for autographs a few times. So that made me feel better. Anyways, I'll keep my ear perked for any info and update you on the celeb status.

    And before I go, if you're ever around Yorkville and you want to spot celebrities here are some tips:

    Black towncars with super tinted windows and large Range Rover, GMC or Suburban trucks carry celebrities, make no mistake. And even though they make their way through Yorkville, the Richie rich streets that surround Cumberland and Yorkville Ave is where the majority of the transport routes for celebrities are.

    Unfortunately, it's quite rare that a celebrity will go out of their way to be seen in Yorkville or along Bay street. Chances are if a crowd of people are waiting by a hotel (and properly appointed red carpet), chances are you'll catch a quick glimpse. The biggest celebrities keep themselves on the down-low for obvious reasons. But lest we forget the multitude of other movie and television actors that are just all over the place. Just the other day, I saw Kevin Costner sitting at Litteri chilling on the patio, talking to passers walking by. I was kind of in a hurry and could meet him, but some celebs are just accessible though the majority of the ones that we read about in the paper are not quite.

    Get into a fancy club like Lobby, Muzik, V, Babaloos, This is London, Blowfish, or Ultra. We have some sheik clubs in this city that aren't necessarily on Richmond or Adelaide. To access these clubs, make sure you know either the promoter who's working that night or naturally, the owner. Don't settle for those who claim they're the owner, a la Persians from Lot 332. Try Remy's or Hemmingways for a casual place to hang out and you're bound to see at least some CSI or Showtime stars.

    Lastly, it's the worst thing to say to anyone who wants constructive advice about this kind of thing but I have to say it: sometimes you just have to be at the right place at the right time. Keep your eyes peeled because walking around Yorkville might yield some results in terms of spotting a celebrity, but actually meeting one might be just a matter of good vision and being in a lucky spot. Just remember that if you spot a big time celebrity, there are things that follow them. First and foremost, is PR and security. If you happen to catch one without them, don't expect a long chat with the star unless you sweep them off their feet. Often times it takes no less than three sentences before someone pulls them off to where they're really supposed to be. Be careful with certain celebrities, if you talk to them and the Paparazzi catches that person, you might be in a shot that could wind up all over the world and hopefully it won't be a National Inquirer issue.

Listening to: Yves LaRock – Rise Up (Vandalism Mix)

    Okay so it was time for me to get the blogging back into full swing. This summer left me a lot of life changing experiences, the majority of which I won't get into any time soon and the rest I will NEVER be getting into it. Let's just say that school's here and I have another full schedule and I'll be reporting with as much as I can. But first, a few things about the blog and the time I spent not writing it.

    Without getting into too much detail about things going on in my life - which I'm sure no one's interested in – I'm back again for my second year in sociology (third official year at York) and I have a full schedule. I am still working on my music as I have for the entire summer and I'm still in the process of releasing tracks. In my previous entry I said that there are going to be two tracks being released in "coming weeks" and they're still going to be released. The first track is called "Where You At (Diplomatico Remix)" which is a remake of a Derrick Carter song from back in the old house days with a little tribal flavor. The second track is called "Cover Me" which contains a familiar sampling of the Martial Arts Riddim which was popularized in the Dancehall circles by artists such as Beenie Man, Capleton and of course, Sizzla. The tracks are going into post production very soon and remixes are being attempted, though may not make the final release. This doesn't mean that I've been working on only two tracks, rather I've been working on as many as 50 different tracks including tweaks to over 30 different vocals which range from your basic run-of-the-mill house soul to hip hop, reggae (dancehall), and some popular music. The official tracks will be from work that I'm doing in a professional studio however, I've decided to run with any creative idea I had should I just happen to be making music.

    In all honesty, I just finished one of the worst summers of my life and hopefully that is all that is needed to explain everything. I just want to look at now as a catalyst to an insurmountable campaign for my fame and hopefully soon enough, my fortune. But since that isn't happening and since school is starting with the usual problems to take care of, I will be blogging once again. To my oddest surprise, I was browsing the net and stumbled upon a reference that I had for a longtime blog that was running which was Kat's upon which I couldn't help but think that the bitch is still blogging away though trying to catch up to all of her entries is near useless. In any event, since I haven't been blogging in a while, I'm going to make some catch-up articles and entries along the way so don't be surprised if you see 7 or 8 entries in one day and that isn't because I'm literally typing up entries, it's that I've begun to edit all the entries and posted them as I could. I wanted to follow a basic formula with everything that I'm doing to have some consistency, but I decided to 'eff' it and put everything up all at once, whenever I wanted where nowadays I care less about what people think about this blog and whatever get's transferred to the linking blogs. Yes, I did go away for a very long time, over the summer and sorting out everything that was going on was difficult and very personal. Right now, I haven't changed all that much but I will be trying to put myself back on the normal blogging trail as I have when I was in school previously. As for DJing gigs, I'm looking at a couple of places but nothing for the time being, so no stalking me.

    And last (but certainly not least), I will be updating my (in)famous school websites all with new updates and info. Just like every new website, I will be introducing new design and structural elements to the site which will bring forth the music, writing and design aspects of what my sites were good for. The content will be re-edited and revamped from the ground up and this time the whole thing isn't for you guys at all, it's all for me. I'm bringing all my ideas into the limelight and the only critique that's going to make me change the site is going to come from me. And like always, you can always contact and let me know what you think, only difference is that I don't care anymore. Stay tuned, there's a lot more to come.

Listening to: David Guetta - Love is Gone (Fred Rister and Joachim Garraud Remix)

Since the internet has become something of a mainstream item these days in our modern society, the credibility of information on the internet has been at best questionable. There is just so much information on the internet, the only thing that we are left with after reading half of the things that we look up on the internet is our very own opinions and from there we have some kind of understanding of what we read on the internet. Of course, this isn't limited to just what we read, but also what we see and listen to. The internet has both glorified and bastardized itself on so many levels, I guess it would be safe to say that there are a great deal of things that we have to know about the internet before we start taking everything seriously. This isn't always the case as we have the popularity of sites like Wikipedia and YouTube that have been made possibly by the keen interest of those who frequent the sites. I'm sure that with all of the things that are out there on the internet that are there for the taking, sometimes it's just hard to say no. Tonight I was watching the news on CNN.com and there was a story about an author named Andrew Keen who wrote about amateur bloggers and how they are dumbing down the credibility of information on the internet from experts like news sources. Throughout this interview, it did strike me as odd that someone who has written a book and released it to the mainstream population to undermine the efforts of amateur bloggers who are apparently destroying the credibility of the mainstream media and while there is some merit to his views, I think that there are a few things that he doesn't seem to understand. For starters, he is absolutely right about how the credibility of information from experts are being undermined by amateur bloggers that cover a wide variety of issues such as politics, entertainment and the majority of the news because they write about things that just riddled with opinion that might be written is such a way that it might seem biased but I'm sure that there is a sharp divide between those who blog for fun and those who write stories for a news agency.

It would be safe to assume that money is one of the main reasons why people work for news agencies and amateur bloggers write and there are many ways these people get paid. You get a site like PerezHilton.com where advertising money is the main source of income for that person to keep his blog going and freelance writers get paid for their work in much the same way. For the sake of opinion in this aspect, I think that the source of the money is what is making all of this possible. Advertising revenue is what basically pays all of these people and the only people left are those who blog for fun. I myself blog for the hell of it. I have said many times that I don't anticipate my blogs with all of the long-winded explanations and drawn-out stories to actually become mainstream but I know that I'm not the only reading it when I check it over for mistakes. I don't claim to be perfect or absolutely correct in everything that I say, but due to the nature of some of the commentary, I do feel that there might be some bias and some inaccuracies which I admit most of the time. The other times, I wouldn't know if I'm wrong thinking that I'm right and very few people who happen upon my blog actually take the time to correct or even comment on what I write. Sure, I'm not making a big deal out of this but I'm still putting the information out there and anyone who wishes to read what I write are free to comment and add their two cents in there. The funny thing is that, in my opinion, there is hardly a living soul that reads my work in all it entirety and even less so, contribute to my blog. Then again, my blog is personal and it's the only place where I feel my thoughts and opinions are out there and I'm actually quite interested in what people have to say about what I say. Evidently, if one searches through all of my blog entries, there is hardly any feedback on anything that I write. It would be nice, I guess, for someone to comment on what I write, but that isn't the sole purpose of why I blog. Though I do agree with the fact that there is a lot of misinformation out there, especially on the internet, it's hard to say whether or not someone's opinions are absolutely incorrect no matter where it is posted. As a University student, we are not taught to soak in the information that they give us – though it is a big part of our studies – but we are taught more on how well we can decipher information and come to our own conclusions. Critical analysis is probably one of the most important skills that I've developed throughout my academic career because it has allowed me to think twice about anything that I read and it has allowed me to formulate my own opinion about things that are going on around me. I'd have to say that it was a very daunting task taking most of what I read in the past and challenging it especially when I've lived my life to a point where things that I've come to understand as misinformation now, was common knowledge to me before. For the most part, I've come to learn that people will have their opinions and there is a great deal of credible information to rely on, but given the diversity of the world and how people form their own conclusions is an entirely different matter. It's not my place to say who's right or wrong because I have a mind of my own and I can think for myself. Sometimes it's not necessarily all that easy. I have learned to read the news differently as I did before. I feel that news from sites like CNN.com is biased in some respects, but it's overall credibility is not as concrete. That's just an opinion. My father swears by the information from FoxNews.com and sometimes when I read it, I think it just invokes very one-sided opinions about every known thing that is being reported today. For example, the coverage of the many conflicts in the middle east, including the news on the politics of what's going on, I feel is vastly one-sided. I just don't feel that the information put up there is not the entire story. You get something as controversial as American justice in the form of an army going to Iraq and trying to maintain instability is one thing, but the news coming out of there is another.

I sometimes see the stories of the reporters there in the field and they are talking about the carnage that had unfolded just before they went to air and you just know that the entire country can't be in that much turmoil. Of course, you don't need me to tell you that in most respects, that's not the case. In fact, there might be some insensitivity on my part towards those who have risked their lives to go out there and report the news. I mean, in my mind, I wouldn't make a career of going to Iraq to tell stories about what's going on there only to have it passed through many channels where it is then packaged for someone to read on their computer and expect it to be 100% of what I'm reporting. The video you can't necessarily argue but historically, there is in my opinion some fear-mongering that is going on with the information on FoxNews.com. Don't get me wrong, it's an excellent source of information and there is a great deal of news out there that is very different than what you might see on CNN.com, for instance. Then there is the issue of what people think when they actually talk about what they read on the news. Actually, first of all, I don't really talk to many people about politics because it's just not something that people can agree on. We have such a diverse culture of people that we find that people's opinions are pretty much the same because they don't want to be associated with the bad part of the news. Other people just don't care and they make these crazy statements that literally make me see stars after they speak. I know some people who absolutely do not care about what's going on in the world because their stuck in their own lives. So, is the misinformation that's out there making them not care? I don't think that's the issue. I think the issue is whether or not people incorporate information to their own experience and come to objective conclusions. The way opinions are both vastly different and oddly similar kind of scare me but in the end all I could say is that people will use their knowledge to whatever they feel is appropriate and they will apply it whenever they feel is the right time. People will read some news and believe in it whole heartedly and there's nothing wrong with it in my opinion, because at least people are reading it. What they are thinking after they read it is also another issue. As for blogging, I do it for my own personal tastes and I don't expect the news the stop and believe only me. There are very few people who actually keep up with this, if there is anyone at all. I remember one of my bosses from Nine West actually told me that she reads the things that I write on here and it took me completely by surprise. Actually, everyone told me that they read whatever I write is a total shock to me because it's amazing what types of people read my writings. And they would react in different ways to different things that I write. I personally like to write about very different things because I made this blog in a certain way that it has different types of information. Sure house music is my life, but there's more to me than just playing or making music.

I read different things on the internet and I feel that I take a certain amount of experience in my everyday life and when I feel like it I write. I mean, I won't stop because some guy being interviewed on CNN said that amateur bloggers on the internet are bastardizing the system because they are downplaying the professionals. I will keep doing what I'm going to do and if you have something to say about what I write, there is a comments thingy below and you are more than welcome to put your two cents in. I won't delete any comments unless it's spam and I'm more than willing to openly discuss anything that I write. It doesn't mean that what I write is in any ways final or correct overall, but it is my opinions and I'm no inundating anyone because if it was, I would take a different direction. I absolutely love to write and it's because I have a lot on my mind. I chose to write a lot of it here but there is so much more that I have that I haven't gotten around to posting yet. So in the meantime, keep blogging if your opinions matter to you and if anyone has a problem with it, tell them to debunk it and have fun with the discussion. I would recommend that you just don't shoot down everything everyone is saying, just learn to be diverse in your thinking and whatever is credible in your mind will surface immediately.

Listening to: Bamboola Productions – Bahia (Dr. Kucho Remix)

Of all of the girls that had been an influence on my life, there is no more credit that I can give other than to the girl that I have always known as Tiziana. Her screen name on Yahoo! Chat was italianbaby16 and at one point, we were friends. I remember the first time I spoke with her, that gorgeous summer of '98 where I just quit volunteering for the Red Cross Telerecruiting Program and was into my second week at the Intria Corporation under contract for CIBC's Division of Desktop Management. I was making a lot of money and I decided to splurge on a new video card, a modem and an internet dial-up package from Netcom. Within days of being connected and surfing on the internet, I found Yahoo! Chat and was scouring the chat rooms for anyone local who I can talk to. During this time, I also was an avid downloader of music, more specifically Techno. At 18 with a great job and the rest of my life ahead of me, that only thing I could hope for was a beautiful girl who was to share my love of music with. I was collecting all of the music I could but there was just one song I couldn't find. All I had were the lyrics: Move your body, next to me, let's have some fun, just you and me tonight…". After searching for the song for weeks previous, I found it impossible until I was on Yahoo! Chat one day and I started talking to an italianbaby16 who knew the song right away and told me it was called "Move Your Body" by a group I cannot remember right now. She told me that she had the song on CD and that it was one of her favorite songs emphatically with an exclamation mark she often used at the end of most of her sentences. I later came to know her only as Tiziana Filice. I was taken by how happy she was, with little other care than for her to be on the internet talking to me and enjoying our time together. In a short time we were talking on the phone and I was finding myself oddly curious about her. Despite the fact that she said that she had a boyfriend, she was more than happy to speak to me everyday, something that most girls never really bothered with from guys whom they spoke with from the internet. Day in and day out, I'd be on the phone with Tiziana talking about all manner of things. I remember that one weekend I asked if we meet at Yorkdale so I could borrow the CD off of her to rip the song and she willingly agreed. I had planned to meet her on the Sunday and she said that she would have to be quick as she didn't want neither her boyfriend nor her mother to see her with me. Thankfully, I had a cellphone which I just purchased and I asked her to call me when she arrived so we could meet. I felt funny about meeting her because unlike most of the other girls I met on the internet, I believed that I was starting to like her. I didn't want the situation to get weird so I figured that I should just pick up the CD, copy it as quickly as possible and return it to her before I changed my mind and ask her out. I waited in Yorkdale for the majority of that Sunday, waiting for her to call and to my despair, she didn't. It wasn't easy hanging out at the mall after you cancelled all of your plans waiting for someone you never met. It was making me more anxious not even having a good enough physical description of her to spot her but since she said she was with her boyfriend and mother, I decided that I wasn't going to go up to complete strangers asking for her. To add to my discomfort, there were so many girls around that fit her brief description. This made me very nervous and each moment, till the time I left the mall, I kept thinking that I'd seen her. After the search was proving to become a failure, I decided that I better get home and catch up on my errands. Later on that evening I called her and she promptly apologized for not calling me as she was only in the mall for a brief period of time. She said that she didn't see me in the mall and that we were going to plan a time to meet up again. Of course, being young and ambitious, I had been quite annoying in trying to verify a time to meet and of course, this never worked out. She would either avoid the subject or she would say that she wasn't sure. I never actually thought of why she would say no but I do remembering accepting all of the excuses that she'd given me. Even though I knew I was getting further away from the song that I wanted, I eventually forgot it as we spoke more. It was an almost daily routine. We would talk on the phone from day until almost night. She and I would break for our dinners but kept each other on hold for washroom breaks. She was an amazing person who was always happy with my upbeat attitude and my kind words. I loved the way that she used to always have something interesting to say to peak my interests, but it just seemed like we were drawing out a long process of two people who were getting to know each other and the prospects of dating were right around the corner. Originally I never thought we would date because of her 'boyfriend' situation but as time went on, she would tell me how she was having problems in her relationship and she would always tell me how I was the best. My intentions after about a few weeks of talking was not to date, but to stay good friends for as long as possible. We both knew that we were starting to like each other and though I was never sure, I knew that at some point we'd meet and try something out. But there were other things on my mind as well. She often would say that she wasn't beautiful and that I might think she was ugly. I did have that at the back of my mind, but as time went on I was starting to care less about how big or ugly she was, I just wanted to meet her.

When summer was officially over, I found myself at a new school for my first year in what was supposed to be OAC. I fell a bit behind so I was mainly taking Grade 11 courses making the whole adjustment process for a new school at little weird. It was awkward for most of the time and I never really had any friends for the first couple of weeks. The one thing that I was to look forward to when I was finished my classes for the day was that phone call from Tiziana. I would tell her about my day, she would try to make me feel better and then I would be ready to face another day. I don't know what I would've done without her, she was always there for me. Many nights we would be on the phone late at night talking about all kinds of nonsense but in all of this time, I was starting to become convinced that she was starting to like me. I was really happy about this because I was starting to like her too. I took the big step and told her that I liked her and that I wanted to meet her. She would remind me that she did have a boyfriend, despite the problems that I was well versed in, and the fact that he supposedly was living in her parents house which made things more complicated, not to mention sounding odd. I didn't really think of all the time we were spending on the phone but she did tell me that he knew about me and that he wasn't jealous. Which was good because I couldn't wait till they broke up so I could finally meet her. And without fail, I would ask to meet her every weekend and there were times that I could go to Yorkdale just to be there in case she arrived. The same things would happen. I wouldn't know if she was there and not tell me, because she told me that she always went there. Of course, I always thought she'd be there with her father, boyfriend or mother because she didn't drive. I was starting to feel very frustrated about not being able to meet her. We had these amazing conversations in the middle of the night and she'd be a soothing voice which was therapeutic enough for when I got off of school. I didn't care about anything but talking to her. I thought that eventually we would meet however, this was starting to seem like the furthest thing from her mind. I remember confronting her head-on about meeting her and again, I was reminded of her relationship with her boyfriend and ultimately, things were up in the air. Soon after, I became obsessed with meeting her. I was becoming more vocal about how we should meet and that we should be together because things were just right. I didn't care that I just had a basic description and even less so, never had a picture of her. She would calm me down by saying that we would be putting more time into our friendship and that she was to think about what it would mean if she left her boyfriend and us try to go out. I told her that at this point I didn't care about her appearance but it also meant it didn't matter much to me. Weeks went by and Halloween was coming up and she told me that she was going to a party just down the street from me. Apparently, all of her friends were going to be at this costume party which was supposed to have a little over 100 people. She told me that we could meet briefly at the party and that would alleviate all of my concerns. She said that she was nervous but she was willing to take a chance. I was excited and I walked around two hours new the place before she said she was to arrive. She said that she was going to call me before she left and if something happened and she didn't call, to arrive and look for a girl who was wearing a sexy black witch costume. Nothing was going to stop me, I was going to meet the girl whom my interests were blindly faithful to despite my new friends at my school telling me that they weren't sure about her showing up. In fact, my friends didn't understand that I had liked Tiziana so much and at one point, I even got one of my friends to talk to her whenever we were on the phone. The moment I walked in the door, I didn't have a good feeling. It was a big party with crowds of people in groups spread over the main area of the banquet hall. I became even more nervous because to my surprise, at least 10 girls were wearing witch costumes, both sexy and not. Before I could feel even more out of place, I saw a couple of guys who were friends from both grade and high school and that made me feel a little bit better. Even though they pulled me into the main room where everyone was drinking, there was no sign of Tiziana. I waited for almost two hours and I chose large blocks of time to sit alone and visible waiting for her to come up to me. I thought I saw a few girls that could be her, but no one said anything to me except for my friends who occasionally passed me wondering if I saw Tiziana. Too add insult to injury, no one even knew her when I did ask. As I was feeling more hopeless, I decided that I was going to say goodbye to my friends, leave and call it a night. Of course, every bad Halloween isn't without further insults to my night. I was talking to an old friend from grade school when her boyfriend and two of his friends wanted to beat me up for talking to her. Of course, being as drunk as they were, I almost got jumped by these guys before it was stopped but an unidentified man (who I would've sworn was Tiziana's dad with his booming voice) telling the guys that he was going to be on my side if the three were going to fight me. I went home, called my friend to tell her that I didn't meet Tiziana, and I went to sleep.

I didn't hear from Tiziana for an entire week as she emailed me saying that she wasn't going to be able to call me. After that week, I had no idea what was going on and I feared the worst. I got an email the next weekend of her saying that we couldn't talk anymore because she was abandoning her relationship which she wanted to get back to and that I couldn't call her at her house. I wrote her back in complete despair telling her that I liked her so much and that if I didn't have her that I would end my life. Taken by this, she inevitably ended everything and I was left to the pains of my own mistakes. I didn't quite recover from that as for weeks on end I wouldn't go to school depressed. The days that I actually did go into school, I was late and often skipped the afternoon classes. With no Tiziana, I felt like I was lost. I tried messaging her on Yahoo! Messenger, but she wouldn't answer. The times that she answer, she was brief which every time I asked her what happened that night on Halloween, she would log off. I tried my best to find answers and eventually I met a couple of girls that went to her highschool. With a few friends I would go to her school to see what information I could get and most people were telling me that she was a fat ugly loser who I was better off without. In a way I felt ripped off but in another way I didn't want to believe it. I didn't care what they thought of her, I just wanted to meet her once so I could move on with my life. The search got interesting with my meeting some girls who were her friends and at one point I even met her sister who turned out to be really nice. The story goes even further when in the search of finding out who Tiziana actually was, I met a girl who would was officially my very last girlfriend. After things ended with my ex, Tiziana would still be on my mind for the next couple of years. Soon after she was fading away and then I forgot her a long time after. I would always feel a little weird going to Yorkdale because if she were there, I was more sure that she would be able to spot me rather than my spotting her. I sometimes would think that she was around looking at me laughing with her friends about the time she stood me up. I knew very well that I did something pathetic and I anticipated that there would be those who would look at me knowing that I got screwed over. When things became too hard for me to even think about her, I soon forgot which eventually led to my giving up. It was before I started living on my own that I realized that I might never meet her by my own efforts. Without a picture, a screen name she was using less and a voice on the phone, Tiziana didn't exist.

It's been almost 9 years since and Tiziana's birthday is going to be on May 16^th where she should be turning approximately 23 years old. Ever since New Years, I declared that during this year, I was to find out some new information about things that I've never gotten answers for in my life but nothing prepared me for what happened last week. I was on Facebook and one day her name popped up in my mind. I thought, surely Tiziana would be on Facebook or worse yet, she was probably connected to one of my friends. I did a simple search of her name and low and behold, she came up right there in front of my face before I could even blink. Her picture was emblazoned over her profile with additional pictures in her album. After deciphering whether or not I saw her throughout all of these years, I'm not exactly sure. I don't think I ever saw or met her as she doesn't look familiar at all. She does look like the brief description of what she told me years back and I do see a bit of the fat that people were talking about but I don't think there's anything particularly grotesque about her. And even though I did DJ at Palazzo years back as well as places all over Downtown, I don't think I ever met her despite having met numerous girls that might have looked like her. Actually, I thought of her more recently because I found out that my ex went to York and there was a possibility that Tiziana went there too, but again, I was never sure. Nevertheless, I didn't believe it was her at first but sure enough, her sister left messages on her wall. Now, without even me realizing it, she came up on that search and I was oddly curious as to what she would reply if I messaged her. I clicked to private message her but then quickly cancelled it. What would it mean if I just messaged her out of the blue from, of all people, me? I wouldn't know if she even will answer me and given our history, most of which I still have bottled up inside of me, she would probably either give me a generic greeting or no answer at all. The feelings of all those years of pain and suffering that I put myself through, the search with no results and she was right there. She seemed happy. She had lots of friends who had regularly posted messages on her wall. I wish I could tell her that she changed my life forever, but I'm sure she already knew that in some form. And if she didn't, I'm sure that she'll read this one day and shake her head at the emotional mess that I was the time after she stood me up and for years after. I did meet and date other girls after Tiziana fiasco but there were some things that I did in memory of her. I think what bothers me the most is that she knew what I looked like all of these years and I had no clue whether or not she was watching me. When you have that kind of paranoia, which I'm sure a lot of girls have, it's something that doesn't sit well after a while. You have to say to yourself one day that you're not going to be the butt of some girl's jokes or the crudeness of torture from a girl who played with your mind. But in the end, what did it all matter? You could say that I moved on because I found girls who did more for me than she ever did. But it was just that Tiziana was just a part of my life which no matter how hard I tried, could not forget. I haven't spoken to her for years and seeming that I was a pathetic loser years back, I don't think anything is going to change that in her mind despite the different people that we are today. I guess all I could say is Happy Birthday, Tiziana. I was a mess for a long time after what you did to me but I guess that doesn't matter all that much now, does it?

Listening to: Mason VS Princess Superstar – Perfect Exceeder (Mark Knight Remix)

For the past few weeks, I've been hard at work putting my music together for an advanced promotion for online distribution services. There were originally 25 songs that required a great deal of work but I'm limiting everything down to about 8-10. It is all house music and within the next couple of months you will start hearing them all over the place. Everything's a work in progress but I do anticipate that someone out there is going to grab one of my songs and remix them. I'm very excited about this and I'm also doing all of the design work for each of the songs so that I'll be ready. As for my website, I haven't had much luck finding anything on the internet that would suite my needs so I might have to outsource my work on the website to another company who can get some web things going on, possibly in flash or java. I will have a release schedule out very soon for my music and I'll keep everyone up to date. If you would like a promo to hear what these songs sound like, seeming that I have space restrictions from posting up my full demos, I would be more than happy to send you a copy.

Listening to: Diplomatico – Chillmore

Ever since I decided to start producing music, there was a big divide between the people who liked house music and who didn't. Of course for the people who liked house music, there were rarely disputes in terms of whether it was good or not, for the both of us, the choice was clear. As for the other people who didn't like house, it presented some challenges for the way I make music. Some of us don't take into consider whether the music we listen to is actually music. People like my father would probably say that house music isn't really music and that it's just synthesized music of someone else's work. There isn't much argument to that because some house songs are just that, sampled works of other peoples' music passed through a synthesizer. The mechanics of an actual house song, though can be quite off the map from time to time, there is a certain mechanical way to it. Probably the reason why some people think that house music is annoying and repetitive, I see this as people thinking the songs are way too long. For DJs, we need that extra time to mix the songs in and sometimes the breaks help us determine a great deal of information about what we could do next in terms of playing the next song. I would hear people who don't like house music saying that they like hip hop, rock or indie music. There is a great deal of good music out there and to people who like house acknowledge this but the question is in, why is house music so great to everyone? This is a question that I had to answer myself when making music. I mean, I could make any type of music if I wanted to but for some reason, I chose house. This wasn't accidental. I was listening to house at a very young age and in the time I was listening to it, it was commercial. It was played on the radio, there were music videos and a lot of pop stars are now internationally famous because of house. Let's take Madonna. Her career took off from her first couple of hits which were produced by house artists. Today it's still present as Madonna last album was remixed by the great, Jacques Lu Cont who is now an internationally recognized DJ and Producer in the scene today. Depeche Mode was doing house music for years who still have many remixed tracks that are being made today without signs of stopping. Kylie's last album was given the rounds by many of the biggest DJs and Producers all over the world. Her album has a couple of songs that are reminders of how the UK likes their house funky. Tribal and Latin house is practically side-by-side with Rock in South America that takes over the entire nightlife. Countries like Brazil and Argentina are bursting at the seams with very high energy house music played DJs from around the world rotating. In Toronto, house was a big part of the nightlife years back where clubs like Fluid and Industry have grown into fond memories for many of those who have just started to admit that they are getting old, not the mention the ones that are still denying it. While I won't deny that house is not as a strong as it was in the past in Toronto, the reason for this might be for a couple of reasons. When house music just started, it gained so much momentum that whoever played house at the time just played anywhere they can play. It wasn't necessarily a movement that had a rigid agenda. It actually got so big that everyone started picking it up but they put their own twist to it. After it spread all around the world, the music started changing to the point where it spawned different styles that in some ways, I can't even tell if it's house or not. In some places, house became the norm but for others, it was as dead as disco. There's the other problems where people who don't like house music doesn't really know what it sounds like. Sometimes I would hear how house music sounds like annoying techno music. Umm, well that's techno music. In my years with mixing house music, I've noticed that a simple CD I made would have people coming back to me saying that they didn't know that house music sounded like what I played. I would most likely tell them that house music is so huge, that there isn't any one CD, night, event that could capture all of house music. House music is happening all around the world, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week either played in someone's car in the day, played in an afterhours club or even broadcast on a radio station. Many of the DJs and Producers that made the biggest songs today are only humbling their influence on purpose. A lot of the packed clubs in Europe, South America, North America, Asia and Australia are because those people are fanatical about house music. House music isn't trying to take over the world, it already has. House music isn't going to destroy music, it's creating it's own music. House music isn't going to go away anytime soon because if you take it away and replace it with something else, people will not let go of the experiences they had in a club where house was playing. For hip hop and reggae, you could probably attribute meeting with someone and dancing with them in the club for the first time, but House music lovers know of the places they were when they heard a DJ spin or when they heard their favorite songs being played on an amazing system. I would equate house with rock in many respects because they're both kind of rebel music that has come into the scene and keeps getting better with each evolution. House music can garner the talent of someone who had international success like Madonna or someone who was creating music in their bedroom on their home PC like Mylo but house music is made, then it is defined. So, to us, everyone else thinks of house backwards. Which is a shame, it's a very enjoyed genre of music all around the world, if I could be forward about my music: If you haven't taken the time to listen to a big of house music, you're missing out BIG TIME.

Here is a quarterly report of how I see the world of politics. Everyone has an opinion of what's going on in the World today and I often times write about it. Here is a nice neat package to start the year off with. It's almost like an essay, being 4000+ words, but this is exactly how I see it. I may be wrong, but it's what I'm saying for the time being….

Canada

So the world of politics is already showing signs of great change. We start at home with Canada where the Tories have managed to sneak past an election by passing their budget through Parliament. The United States is going through some major problems with their foreign affairs and of course tensions will rise as the Presidential Candidates utilizing this last year to pull out the big guns. This is probably one of the most interesting times for not only Americans but for the rest of the world as well as the political climate for the United States sees unforeseeable changes come 2008. These are the very things that will apply to many countries in the world including, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, China, Russia and Venezuela. This is my first quarter editorial about what's going on in the world today and some thoughts.

    First, Canadian Politics. Canadians having knowing that they've had a major change in Government with the installation of the Tories ousting a 14 year long run from Liberals which has proven to be a ride of mixed emotions. With only a minority government, the Tories haven't spent not even a moment to celebrate their win over the Liberals, but rather they started to get things done. As would be expected from any government that could be slightly seen as competent, the Tories started right away with trying to make sense of all of the money that's going around, tallying it all up, and distributing it evenly. Along the way, they've found some scandals, controversies and even some spare cash lying around where most of us are still scratching our heads wondering where it all came from. The Tories didn't have to worry about anyone except for the NDP who was probably the only party who wasn't shuffling as much as the Liberals but they started to speak up more recently. If the Liberals were smart, they'd reassess their political stance in Canada right now and try to evaluate what the party's next move should be. In one sense you have Canadians who voted to make major changes in their Government especially since the Liberals were many years in power. The Tories capitalized on this but what the Liberals never took into account was the fact that real work was going to get done as a result. It just seems to me that after the resolution of the national budget, the Liberals sunk in their seats and knew that Conservatives were here to stay even if it was for another 4 years. The question is now: Minority or Majority? Will the Tories pursue the majority so that they don't have to worry about any surprise victories from other parties? Well, I don't think it's a question of which strategy will push them out, it's more a question of whether the remaining Liberals will co-operate or not. I think if ex-PM Paul Martin were still in power today, he would slap the hands of any Tories trying to mess with his budget. Steven Harper is not quite the same however, he is not afraid to shoot down an idea that is bad on the vote of the Canadian people. I know that all of Canadian politics seems minute and unfathomable but one thing is certain when it comes to our leadership in this country; if you look back and see the overall changes in what has happened since the Tories were in power and all the things that are being planned on for the future, Steven Harper is the best man to put this country on the right track. Military spending and peace keeping missions shouldn't be election makers or breakers, it should be for the fact that we are a rich nation with the resources to equip our army to protect our country and we as Canadians shouldn't feel safe JUST because the United States is south of us. I think it's completely ludicrous to believe that the safety of the American people is going to reflect that of our own because as we step away from the jaded history of Bush's War on Terrorism, we cannot let the insecurities of other countries affect us. Meaning, we shouldn't let the fear of the American people affect our own. And yes, we should take extra consideration into the security measures of our landmarks (because other countries in the world have been victim to terrorist attacks) but we should really look at what we're protecting. Our people must be protected not in the interest of those who put our country at risk. While we must maintain good relations with the United States, we shouldn't harbor their views on the world because they aren't the best country to model freedom after.

Whether we know it or not, we have far worse problems going on in our Government that the Liberals did years ago that we're still recovering from. We also have to make sure that we are better informed as to what's going on in the Government because even though we are accustomed to seeing our politicians screaming and shouting at each other on TV, all that matters now is how much better our lives are going to be after the screaming is all said and done. I'm sure people see the word 'budget' in the paper but don't really read about what it's all about. I think one of our fundamental goals as Canadians is to make sure that we understand everything that's going on in the country and try to find ways to solve the problems rather than harbor opinions about what their political views mean to us. Canadians are about diversity and now that our country is going a different direction, the Tories are going to do anything to remain in the power. If the people voted them in, now's a good time to figure out what's going on in our country and relay that to them. We must not hesitate. We must talk to each other and figure out what issues matter most to us.

In the United States, we might look at the major news outlets and think it's ridiculous that there's so much news coverage on politics but if there wasn't, the American people would be breathing down the Government's necks if something is not being told that controls their future. This is not about peril of the entire world because I'm sure that there is enough power all around the world to avert that, rather we should look to see how we are as a people and how we could improve our country so that people won't think we're dead weights. I just had the sinking feeling years ago that cozying up to the Americans would bring their problems here. It's not so much that we should be afraid of a terrorist attack, (don't get me wrong, I think that is a perfectly viable concern to address) but we should find out where we stand with the International community. Canada with it's diversification should be a model for other countries to go by when establishing democratic societies rather than a single body who just simply stands behind the strongest neighbor.

The US and the Rest of the World

    Next set of issues will be about all matter of world politics but a lot of it will on the basis of what is going on in American politics today. First, the Presidential Elections are coming up next year and the race is in full swing. There are many candidates and some of them will fall before the big race but at the same time there are a wide variety of candidates that are in line that will make huge changes in the Presidential side of things. Currently, there is a view that most Americans hate what President Bush is doing in regards to Foreign relations but not much else has been said. Now here is something that most of us are not taking into consideration: If I expand, President Bush has survived two terms after a country under attack, numerous scandals involving large corporations, undertaking a major conflict in the Middle East, clearly identifying and pursuing his enemies and basically shaking up world politics as we know through a variety of small events happening all over the world in other countries. This is a huge set of circumstances for a single president to undertake and in some ways, that's notable because I would like my Prime Minister to fight for our country if we were under attack, not present a report to the UN to ask countries to help investigate what happened if we believed it all starting in another country. Bush saw his country under attack, which is a major blow to any President no matter which point in time you happen to find yourself in and try and manage the support of the Government and the people to seek justice.

Now there are many questions that go with all of this. For one, we have years of news from all the media sources, including our own, about who the Americans are after. I mean, Bush wants to go after terrorists in the Middle East, specifically in Iraq and Iran. While the evidence is flimsy because it's mostly secret, there is a lot that is going on that can't be released. This is hard for the American people because the only news that is being published about the War in Iraq are the undeniable facts: people are dying. President Bush had ousted Saddam Hussein but how could you see that as a legitimate open-close situation. Let's think about it for a second, the United States invades Iraq based on CIA reports to the UN who refused to promote it, but the States invaded them anyways. Interestingly, some voiced that such a mission would be detrimental to any peace keeping efforts in the surrounding regions, not to mention their home soil, but no one necessarily stopped them. With bleak support from merely two other countries namely Britain and Spain, both China and Russia of all people never interjected. So there was something about Iraq that brought them to this. Well, there was and we only know that claim as Saddam Hussein. But did you have to bring an entire country down to do it? Iraq was a first world nation that was brought to it's knees after the war. The shaky government with assistance from the American government brought Saddam to trial who then decided to execute him. Wait a second here.

First, the Bush Administration wanted Saddam to leave his home and when he refused they went in after him. Now, we might have thought that at one point that he probably died in some air campaigns that might have been so great, that killing Saddam was probably unknown until after a review of a such a site. Then the soldiers found him and captured him so that he could await trial. He and other government officials were tried in the court and some things were very interesting to me. Saddam was defiant in court for some reason. Which begs the question: Why would a man who was a leader of a country be so defiant if he knew that his actions would result in his execution anyways. I think he might have been trying to establish something in the courts. Simply put, when he claimed that the court that was trying him was wrong, I might not be able to agree since I don't know all of the facts but I will say this: Why was he saying that the court he was being tried in wasn't legal? Now, it might be hard to consider especially since most people when asked about Saddam would most likely not know too much. He was tried in court for crimes against humanity for numerous horrendous acts. Apparently it was all for the Iraqi Government to both investigate and put all those who were trying to assassinate Saddam to justice. If you look at what Bush did, he graciously came out to the American people after September 11 to tell them that because of his country being attacked, he was going to investigate and bring all those responsible to justice. I mean, without getting into the whole 'who was behind 9/11' thing, let's just consider this: Many people died in Iraq by the hands of the American army. This isn't the fault of the soldiers on the frontlines, it was because their President put them there. I can't say that the majority of the soldiers didn't want to go, but who's to say that they did anyways?

Forget patriotism for a second here. Would you go fight someone else's battles or would you rather find out what the real problem is and pursue it? Maybe Bush had the wrong information and acted as best as he could given the circumstances. I could safely way he handled them in someway that could be seen as 'American', but Bush knows that whatever he does will not lead him to get executed. He's the leader of the most powerful nation in the world and when that country gives up that title, Bush would be long gone. You can say that after Iraq's change of Government, it was only then that Bush was able to address the effects of the war. I think he knew very well how long the war would last, how much it would cost, how many people might die and how to recover from it the best way. Maybe he didn't have a choice. The fact of the matter is that he not only protected his country, but in the process he failed to properly indentify his real enemies. He started with an 'axis of evil' which created huge problems with racial profiling in the states. What the Blacks have been going through with Racism all these years, the Muslims are taking their place but with worse problems. The way Americans ignorantly set aside complicated facets of human dignity because of heinous crimes caused but a minority of radicals who in death ultimately made their mark in history, lead to other serious social and complicated economic problems. To start off with, those in Middle Eastern countries see the United States, namely President Bush, as a direct threat to their country. Talk to what national security is to an Iraqi and I can almost bet that they won't tell you it's terrorists.

This so called 'War on Terrorism' merely seems like a mindset to make people understand that the United States is being threatened. The problem with this is that issues of national security in the US is classified and as such, classified information can't be public. Same thing here in Canada. I see a few fighter jets patrolling the cityscapes or SWAT guys running through a delayed subway car is not a problem that is going on two blocks away, I see it as a problem that is far more complicated that goes beyond our nation's borders. I would look on the news to figure out if anyone saw this weird activity that is going on but to no avail. If I talk about it it's not like it's getting me anywhere because it's matters of national security and of course in order for the authorities to track down the 'terrorists', they can't release information on what they're investigating. I mean, switch that over and say that the RCMP is setting up stings for the Hells Angels. We know that the Hells Angels exist and we know that there have been violent things happening on the news with them. So if we see a bunch of cops surrounding a house and then busting a bunch of bikers, we know that. Terrorists are a different story. If a terrorist resided in our neighborhood and the RCMP went in to arrest them, we wouldn't know. If they said on the news that the guys they busted in that same house were terrorists, I wouldn't believe them. Sorry. First of all, how are the feds sure what terrorists are like in this day and age. Before we could refer back to the turban wearing guys screaming and running into a crowded market place blowing themselves up, but I have a feeling that that isn't what we're looking for here in Canada or in the United States. Now, the American people have been searching for answers in regards to any attempts of terrorist attacks but nothing really says that actual terrorists were planning to carry out any attacks. It just seems like they were being detained, sent to Guantanamo Bay and then never heard from again. The Bush Administration might have identified who was a part of 9/11 and what groups made it happen, but who's to say what is going to be attacked next. I only understand this because for Canadians to start considering themselves as target of Terrorism is the most absolute incorrect way to view it. If I was walking down the street, do I have to look at Sikhs more carefully because they might fit that profile? I think any terrorist who is willing to carry out an attack will understand that profiling is in effect whether they understand or know it, and they have to think of ways to carry out an attack. If we as mere citizens of North America were to be ever asked what we feel a terrorist might look like, truthfully, it's actually quite abstract.

Now with that in mind, you have a problem now that is being faced with all of the Presidential Candidates for their next term. The American people might not vote someone they consider is a 'war-monger' and might be left with a false opinions about what fate of their country is faced with. People will be wondering if terrorists attacks might still be imminent. Suppose the political agenda for the next President is to pull out of Iraq, make sure all war families are compensated and try to maintain stability in the Middle East through diplomatic means. This can't be a bad thing because for one, what other country can you invade to convince Americans that it will stop other terrorists attacks to happen? Suppose it did get to the point where Bush sends his Army to Iran before the next election? Then what? If you look at both sides of the coin in terms of both support and criticisms for the war, it seems to go back to oil. Let's say for instance that this whole war was for oil. Is it because that politicians used oil as a podium of power for diplomatic solutions or do they actually need it? Can there be a compromise to oil as an energy source? Well, for one we already know that the big car companies are moving to Hybrid technologies which have been considered long overdue but a welcome change. There are also lots of other industries that use a lot of oil that might still need it.

Then begs the question of whether or not other countries provide oil to the US because as far as I know, the rest of the world gets oil from places other than the middle east. What if the United States built a platform or a template for helping companies overseas convert their technologies towards alternative energy sources? Maybe this is preview as to how Nuclear energy might be why countries are gaining mass political power from. Think about it, why else would President Bush want to make sure Iran is not enriching uranium? Sure there is the very threat of a nuclear attack because of the Iranian Prime Minister saying that he wants to wipe Israel off the face of the earth but I think that's rather flimsy. I mean, he went on CNN to talk to them and couldn't understand why they were asking him questions in such a manner that made him, his administration and his country look like the enemy. Then you have Hugo Chavez blasting the American president in an UN address where those who were there to hear it might have gasped in his brass methods of addressing them but it might shed some light on what is actually not being said. I do think that any other country who has oil, produces it and distributes it while using the profits towards their people is not necessarily a political disaster. I feel the misinterpreted view of Socialism, probably not what the view of the Bush Administration is, might consider giving people the money of what comes from their land, which might be crazy to Bush but in all honesty, who really benefits when oil companies in the states do business? Well, so far oil is something that Americans are hopelessly dependant on, and that dependence makes Americans and some Saudis very rich. And rich people are good with their money so it's not like they're going to starve if their business goes belly-up, it's just that they're greedy. You have countries like us who has provincial governments like Alberta who give money BACK to their people through taxes and we're not screaming socialist ambiguities throughout all this. Hugo Chavez re-built his nation off of oil profits because his people needed it. I think Venezuelans would start a coup should Chavez puts the oil profits in his government's coffers.

The answers to all of the questions are not all there but there are some compelling alternative views that we should also consider when it comes to the world's view on oil. Maybe we should question whether the use of oil in consumer and corporate consumption is actually a problem for us? I think it totally is. Canada is probably one of the best examples of the measures that we're undertaking to utilize alternative means of production for energy other than nuclear, i.e. solar, hydro-powered dams and wind stations. Political issues aren't necessarily about maintaining peace but rather what resources are available to other countries to provide energy to their people. Not many companies feel that it's a big thing to scream about when it comes to oil mainly because it's just too much of an effort to intervene on issues that revolve around countries that are at war. Iran practically has the whole world against them and they're faced with possible military action from the states. I think the Iranian Prime Minister is well aware of what danger his people are in, but it won't be long before the Iranian people consider they'd rather work something out diplomatically rather than being attacked because of simple ignorance. But then we could also look at whether or not war is the solution to stop another country doing something. I have read some of the things in the news in North American about how the Iranian Prime Minister thinks Israel is the greatest threat to their country and how the United States leading the international community to condemn them but I don't think that the building of nuclear arms is what the problem actually is. For one, after the US Army came up with no biological weapons that were once claimed before the actual invasion of Iraq, it would be foolish for the international community to take up the facts presented by the Bush Administration in the same way.

Then again, history has a very bleak way of repeating itself. I just don't think we as humans, no matter what political or religious view we might undertake are stupid enough to allow countries to go at war. I personally think that given the scope of challengers to what Bush will be leading his country into, I don't think that these issues will be as negative as Bush makes it seem like. Of course, there are varying views on this. Some people actually believe Iran is a threat. Take Israel for instance. There has been conflict in that part of the Middle East for years with little to no intervention of the International Community. I know that even us as Canadians don't really have an opinion of what's going on in that region. I think it's very important because if some of us are willing to undertake the thinking that the United States will make us safe, complications elsewhere in the world could spell trouble for us. I'm not saying that Palestinians will attack us or the US, but rather we will start to harbor very inaccurate views of what the actions of those in both Israel and Palestine will mean to the rest of the world. What if these countries resolved their differences and recognized their positions in their homes and decided to be at peace? What would that mean? The answers are in Israel.

I might not be right, but I'm just saying….

Listening to: Absolutely nothing.

This is probably going to be one of the most interesting of all the blog entries I've ever written. I hadn't thought of writing anything that reflected any of my beliefs because I was originally afraid of how people would react if they read it but I have been living a new life, so to speak, that allows me to think of things in a different light. If I were to claim a first belief, it would be that thinking in new ways for the better is good. I was inspired by an article from a website which had articles written by a variety of people about what they believe. I only read one article from that site and it was from Penn Jillet who wrote about how he didn't believe in God. It was not necessarily a controversial thing as it was something that opened my mind. For those of us who feel that they were brought up by some religion, the mere thought of there being no God is quite an interesting experience. When I heard this, I immediately felt very excited about how I was thinking because it was only then that I started to realize the world in many different lights.

I believe that there is something about everyone that makes them think that they are limited beings. With all of the information out there about us as human beings, we find that a great deal of that information share one thing in common, thoughts made them all possible. Now, my way of thinking for the past while has in-turn discarded a lot of limitations that once made me control my thoughts to coincide with someone else's, but I realized that now only did it do that sub-consciously but I also allowed it to happen. For the most part I don't even realize that what I'm thinking is in some shape, way or form related to someone else' thoughts. I tried my best to word my thoughts carefully to write it down but it all seems very abstract so bear with me. The area of Quantum Physics seems very fascinating to me because it delves into the realm of science that allows it to bring things about our physical world into something that we can acknowledge uniformly. The only thing that could theoretically discount science is religion. So maybe after all these years of those having a faith in God might not be so crazy after all. What I've learned in my experience is that people separate themselves from the rest of the world and the world isn't necessarily following all of the rules that are associated with our physical universe. We must then ask ourselves, are we really seeing everything that is in our world. For me, it was a question of whether or not I came to being for reasons that I could explain. I could explain how I'm doing things in my life, I could probably associate feelings with what is going on around me and there is a likelihood of my understanding everything that is happening in the very immediate period of time but it's not always clear a lot of the time. For some people, the things we can't explain are the things that we should either be ignorant of or scared of. For other people, it isn't so much of an explanation of what is going on around them, it's a matter of what they're doing to cause the things going on around them. In my life, the answers to the questions that I had about life in general were not even considered. Could I question my existence and get answers? If I got those answers, would I be able to establish the very presence of my existence and have it work for me? What are these answers? What ended up happening was that recently I was starting to ask myself these questions and the more I did that, the more everything led to thinking about new things about my life. It was a little scary for me to do so because I was starting to get into the realm of the impossible but as I started to understand more about what was going on in my life, it was also the point at which I began to understand how I could control not only the things I'm thinking, but the things that are actually happening.

I believe that every human is an infinite being. We have limitless, in a way of thinking; god-like abilities which can allow us to see what the world around us actually is. If we perceive everything through what we see, how sure are we that everything we're seeing is right? Without asking 'what is right' and we maintain our understanding of the world as we know it, could our eyes be considered the portal into a new way of thinking, or maybe perhaps our thought? There is no way to determine how accurate our perception is through our eyes even though it's one of our primary methods of understanding our world. Of course, the sense of sight is much like our other senses. A good way of starting to look at yourself is to understand how your various senses work together in order to assist you by creating a perception of the world around you. For example, when you watch a music video of your favorite song, you are gaining a better understanding of not only the song that you hear when you watch the video, but you feel more in-tune with the song on many different levels by watching what's on the screen when the video is playing. A live performance can lay claim to the fact that music isn't the only thing that's going on when people are enjoying a show. If you can see a singer put a tremendous effort to hit a note, you can understand what emotions that person is projecting out to the world. What's interesting is that there is something working within yourself that allows you to feel something on many different levels. Going back to the music video, we watch it enjoying the song while also watching movement by the singer on-screen which some people would separate but others would put together. My emotions are heightened when I'm listening to music. Sometimes it helps me relax, other times it helps me visualize myself somewhere else or even the people that are singing it. Another good point is that we put together all kinds of information and form a perception from it. Meaning if you listen to someone sing, you could build what the person would look like in your mind. Aside from hearing the voice of a man or a woman, you could also have a picture of the person actually singing it as if you already knew what they looked like. You could go on believing what picture you have in your mind of what that person looks like, until you see what they actually look like. But what exactly changes when you finally see that singer? People fail to understand how a simple performance affects them when they only think of their experience from the audio or even from the video playing with it. You could start going in many different directions through this understand. First, we could say that we are creating not only that voice that we're hearing, but the person as well. There is also something about a singer's voice on a song that makes their presence feel very real. This kind of thinking delves into more abstract and yet at the same time, very specific things that are going on right now. On the one hand you have a singer's voice coming from an actual person in some studio somewhere and the other is saying that seeing the person and not caring what they look like, could possibly mean that there is something in their voice that stays in and becomes a part of us. Have you ever felt that after hearing a song from someone you don't think you could sound like, that even though you can't sing exactly like that person but that you could sing period?

Now at this point, if you're asking questions about what I'm saying, you're beginning to tap into a part of your brain that you might not have thought existed. When I used to question things with my friends, they either thought it was too deep or that the questions were irrelevant. I used to calm down and be quiet after they would say this but would feel extremely uncomfortable about how people could shut off their want to understand things. As human beings we are processing billions of thoughts but as it seems, we are only registering thoughts in the low thousands. Since there isn't a doubt that thoughts come from somewhere within. We must try and figure out what feelings are being associated with what thoughts, especially for those who consider themselves emotional. I would tell those who are emotional about negative circumstances in their life that the first thing that they should do is try and figure out what would make them come out of the mood that these circumstances put them in. Then I would ask them to re-evaluate how they would feel in two circumstances: if their feelings remained the same if they continued to dwell upon it or if their feelings would change if they dwelled upon something else. Usually in those circumstances people would ignore my advice of the benefits of taking their minds off of the negative thoughts and take some form of action towards them changing their feelings of what they think the situation is and then experience the same thing. For some reason I am always present at the point where people repeat their mistakes which is also the time that they discovered that they just repeated their mistake. It's amazing to see how people will somehow refuse to alleviate themselves from the stress they're feeling. I feel that they're somehow attached to it.

Here's a simple scenario: There is a young (and very cute) girl, who goes to university, has a quiet part-time job for spending money, and has the support of parents while she's in school which could consider pretty typical for someone her age. She was also in a two-year relationship with a guy that one day ended after a fight which we need not require details about. Because this relationship has ended, she is now feeling a way that could potentially affect all of the other things going on in her life. For instance, she might not be able to focus on school because her ex was always with her on campus. She might also think that all men are dogs and treats all the men in her life differently. She might also be against the idea of relationships because of the circumstances surrounding her most recent breakup. Now, what I'm trying to explain with this entire entry is that with all of the many ways that in what we perceive reality to be in our minds, we are not limited to the things that we feel from what we bring into our life in our day-to-day experiences, especially if you have a very rigid regimen. The likelihood of the girl having a nervous breakdown is present because she feels like she's in turmoil but that doesn't mean that she doesn't have a chance to get herself to feel differently. You could consider your circumstances or events in your life that are beyond your control because we might feel that our emotions are on auto pilot and we're just reacting to the things around us. The same could also be said about our thoughts also. If you bring the idea of more than one variation of a single circumstance in your mind, you now have a choice. Even though it's based on your thought before anything happened, that very thought was you making a decision in your mind and your experience will tell you through time what actually happened. Time is something that gives us a range of what is to become of our thoughts. It would be something as small as the time it takes to answer the phone or something major like the time it takes to get a university degree. For this young girl, she has to decide what she is going to do with the time she operates within. If a certain amount of thought is used for one activity and it get interrupted or blocked off, even partially, then the thoughts that were originally being put into that activity will change immediately. In one sense time could serve us well because we don't want to put thought into anything negative in our lives. If you have a destructive thought towards someone else, we operate within a universe and a body which recognized time, space and speed whereby thought alone cannot materialize something as quickly. Our thoughts might be travelling at almost lightning speed, but this doesn't necessarily mean that it could create things as fast if we limit our creations according to some form of limitation like time, space and speed. We see this when we talk over things in situations where not talking it over could've led to potential violence.

In my final comments, I would like to explain that everything that I've written comes from my own experiences and is not based on any scientific data. I will admit that I've been heavily influenced by three movies: 'The Secret' based on a book by Rhonda Bryne and both the original and extended version of 'What the Bleep Do We Know?' by William Arntz. I will accredit the direction of some of my thoughts by what was in these movies, but there a great deal more things that I have both found out myself and later understood just by thinking about it. If it's one thing I absolutely believe is that we don't have to feel like we have no choice about what we want from our lives. It is from our thoughts that we could guide our emotions towards creating bigger and better things in our life. I would encourage that people try to understand the meaning of their wants rather than trying to analyze what the validity of whether or not it's possible. The more you understand your personal wants, the more you understand how you feel when you are experiencing the very things that bring you to the things you want. If you're finding that your going to things you don't want, maybe you don't fully understand your wants. How can we interpret whether or not we are getting something we don't want? First eliminate the notion of need that is associated with that want and figure out how you're feeling about it. Remember the idea of needing something could be a want in disguise. Try to clearly define what you consider a need and if you still stuck with a bunch of needs, ignore them momentarily while you focus on your wants. The ultimate question you can dare ask yourself is: What is it that you truly want? Think about it.

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