Yes, I Pay For My Music. I Also Pay For Chapstick, What's It To You? This Title Is Too Long.

Do not buy this album.
Go get a Cold Cut Combo instead.

The dumbest thing I've ever done in my entire life was buy Evan Taubenfeld's album. It's terrible. Quite possibly the worst album I've ever heard. "But, Alene, why did you buy this album? And who the h-e-double mozzarella sticks is Evan Taubenfeld?" I will tell you, dear readers.

Evan Taubenfeld is (was?) the guitarist for a little lady named Avril Lavigne. You may or may not have heard of her. When I was a youngster Avril was basically my favourite person ever. It was partially because we're basically from the same town, but also because her first album was completely legit, unlike the less-legit junk she spews out these days. (I'm sorry, but this is how I feel.) So, I knew everything about Avril's band and when I saw somewhat recently (last year? The year before?) that Evan had released an album, I thought, "Yeah, I'll support him. It can't be that bad. Here's my ten bucks." Like I said, dumbest thing I've ever done in my life. And one time I drank a cappuccino and an Amp energy drink within 15 minutes of each other and threw up for three days because of it.

The point of all this is that my main reason for purchasing this unfortunate album was to support the artist. Yes, I sacrificed the dollarly equivalent of a footlong sub to help this dude make more horrid music. In retrospect, I would really have preferred the sub. But this is how I look at it: This dude thought his tunes were good, and his mama is probably pretty proud of him. I say, "probably" because it's possible that this guy made an album that not even a mother could love. But clearly someone thought it was good enough to put on iTunes. (I'm sorry, this is a joke because I'm pretty sure there are albums on iTunes that are just the sounds of people pouring cold water onto a hot frying pan and painting their cats. If you want to know what a cat being painted sounds like, listen to any Downlink song.)

So, conclusions and some confessions of hypocrisy:

I pay for most of my music. The only real exception is like Taylor Swift and the Biebs, because they don't need financial help making music anymore. But when it comes to the less popular bands that I like to listen to, I always purchase on iTunes. Unless they're giving it away for free themselves, on purpose. Then I take full advantage.

This being said, I may or may not have on occasion MAYBE (this is NOT a confession of guilt. I refuse to say anything else without a lawyer present.) watched a film or two online without paying. But why is this any different? Without going into details because I don't want to reveal how little I know about the film industry, the short answer is, I feel like actors have it easier than musicians. Yeah, they starve themselves to fit roles and spend days covered in fake blood and dirt to make fun movies that we love to watch. But musicians tour all over the place and sleep in vans and starve themselves so they can afford to make one more single AND they're covered in dirt and blood because their moms never taught them how to do laundry before they went on tour. Maybe I'm wrong though (haha, that never happens) and actors are actually worse off. Also worthy of noting, if I had to give up either watching films or listening to music, I think I would pick films. (Because I REALLY only like going to the movies for the popcorn.)

Basically, don't be an a-hole. If you want your favourite artists to keep making music, you'll have to cough up some credit. (Because who buys real CDs with real money these days?)

I Don't Skate

So, I don't know if you noticed or not, but I'm scared of a lot of things. I spend more time worrying about what could happen if I do something than I actually spend doing things. I'm pretty sure I've been this way forever, and it can get really frustrating when my brain says everything is going to be fine but then some little crazy person who also lives in my head reminds me of the 4050 reasons that it might not be fine.

Yeah, I'm terrified of dying in a car accident or falling and breaking my leg getting off the bus. But so is everyone else. The weirdest thing about me is that it's not necessarily the death or the broken bones which terrify me (okay, that's super scary stuff, but just bear with me). The worst part about all of that is that then people would see me, notice me, have to help me, etc. and for some reason that's the scariest thing in the world to me. I just want to go about my business, blending in to the crowd and looking like a perfectly normal human. I don't want to make a scene. I don't want to be different.

Normal. That's the important thing. This is why when people ask me this one particular, no-big-deal-for-most-Canadians question, I have a tiny panic attack. "Want to go skating?"

No, I don't want to go skating. Why? Because I can't. Except I never tell people I "can't" skate. I say, "I don't skate," as if it's something comparable to "I don't drink" or "I don't hunt humans for sport." When someone says they "don't" do something, it implies that they're making a choice not to do it, but they could do it if they wanted to. But it you put me on a pair of skates, I would end up on my butt in a matter of seconds. Because it's not that I don't skate. It's that I can't.*

I always say it's because I'm afraid of falling and damaging my coccyx or smashing my head or getting my throat slit by someone else who goes skating by, which is partially true. You should see me walk across icy sidewalks. I'm sure it's hilarious and it definitely takes me an unreasonable amount of time to get places. So, yes, part of it is fear of falling and looking like an idiot.

But in reality, I'm mostly scared of failing. And people seeing me fail. It's the same reason it took me a long time to learn how to tie my shoes. The same reason most of my basketball playing career was spent terrified of handling the ball. If I don't try, then I can't fail. And at this point, learning to skate would be a whole lot of me falling and looking dumb and people seeing me do it (because there's no way I'm going out on the ice with blades strapped to my shoes by myself).

Of course, if you don't try you won't succeed at anything either. But I'd rather be a non-succeeder than a failure. Go about my life in mediocrity and stuff like that. (I'm just kidding. No one wants that.)

And I know that everyone went through this. Everyone was four years old and falling down and looking dumb. But clearly even as a young child I was insecure enough to be aware that I didn't want people to look at me and see me falling down. Because what if I was terrible at it? What if I never got good? I'm guessing it was just easier for little Alene to give up, because that way she was only "bad" at it because she hadn't really tried.

One time my class went on a field trip to go skating and I stayed behind. When my classmates returned, we all had to write a journal entry about our day on the ice. Oh, wait, except for me. I wrote about my day spent sitting in the library probably reading Berenstain Bear books and hoping that people didn't notice that I had stayed behind. And then of course we had to read them out loud. The worst part of the day though, came when one of my classmates came up and told me that she was discussing with our teacher and they're both pretty sure that I didn't go because I don't know how to skate. I don't know if she said it in a mocking way or if she was trying to be sympathetic, but I do remember being unbelievably angry and upset. I denied not being able to and was probably kind of mean to her about it. But that moment has always stuck with me.

You wouldn't think something as unimportant as this would cause someone so much stress. But it did. And it still does now. You're probably thinking, "Just go and learn to skate and stop whining." It's not that easy. Plus, really, I've gone this long in my life without it, I think I'll live. And, seriously, I'm a bit higher off the ground now than I was when I was four. Do you really think I'm going to enjoy falling at this point?

This shouldn't be a big deal because I'm sure the majority of the world can't skate since the majority of the world's population doesn't have access to ice or even shoes for that matter so why would they own skates? I'm definitely not the minority when it comes to the entire planet, but I am the minority when it comes to Canada, and since I don't hang out in Africa a lot, I think it's kind of a bigger deal.

It has only been extremely recently that I've been able to admit this to anyone. I dated someone for three years and never told him. I just made up excuse after excuse as to why I couldn't go. I honestly don't know why it's such a big deal. To my friends, I tried to act like I could but I just didn't want to. I don't know that my pathetic attempts really fooled anyone, but I do know that most of them don't ask me to go skating anymore.

So, I guess what this is is just me getting this off my chest. And hopefully it will feel good, because at this point, I'm panicking a bit about it.

Wait, I forgot to tell you the part that makes the entire thing 10000x worse for me. The reasons I never took up skating are the exact same reasons that you'll never see me riding a bike anywhere. I feel like it would be easier if it were one or the other, but it's both.

I guess I'm hoping that I'll get some feedback and people will tell me A. That I'm not alone. Which I know I'm not, it's just good to see real live people who are in the same boat and B. That I'm not crazy and these are rational feelings. Which I know they are because I read about it in a textbook. But again, it's nice when real live people share your problems, isn't it?

*Please don't tell me to "never say never" or some nonsense. I'm aware that I'm physically capable if I just set my mind to it and did it. Please just enjoy that paragraph because it was kind of funny and move on.

My Favourite F-Bomb Dropping Tunes

Sometimes nothing turns that frown upside down like a good f-bomb dropping in a good song. Here are the songs that contain my personal favourite lyrical f-bombs:

10. Mama - My Chemical Romance - I just really like when Gerard Way wails f-words.

9. The Stand - Mother Mother - Oh, what a pleasant surprise, the song is not bleeped out, you guys are just the greatest of tricksters.

8. Fuck You I'm Drunk - Flogging Molly (APPARENTLY there is some argument over who actually sings this song, but I'm sticking with Molly on this.) - The title says it all, man.

7. You Oughta Know - Alanis Morrisette - It's around the time that the Big F is released that we know sh*t just got crazy real and we should all be terrified of this tiny lady. Actually, it might be more realistic to say we're all terrified of her from the moment that she opens her mouth in this song.

6. Minority - Green Day - I've been enjoying this particular tune since I was about 10 so I couldn't keep it off the list, could I?

5. Kill Me - The Pretty Reckless - There's just something about hearing Cindy Lou Who say "motherfucking" that makes me really happy and stuff.

4. The Art of Losing - American Hi-Fi - I don't even have anything to say about this one, just go listen to it and feel empowered and junk.

3. What Are You Looking At - The Johnstones - "Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, you stupid fucking sh*t." Nuf said.

2. @!#?@! - Motion City Soundtrack - This song just kind of makes me want to go on a rampage and pump my fist while I watch other people flip cars. But more importantly, it's the most fun I've ever had singing, "fuck."

1. Break Stuff - Limp Bizkit - If there's one thing Fred Durst got right, it's the way he says "f**k." I don't care what anyone says.


There are obviously a billion more, and apparently I like to stick to the same genre when it comes to f-bombs. These are just my go-tos. Share your favourites below! And have a nice day.

Damn it, Dunham!

I don't know how many people caught the recent episode of HBO's Girls, or how many of you have given in to the madness surrounding the show (for the record, I started watching Girls BEFORE all the award business, so I was here first and the rest of you can stop crowding me on this wagon, okay?) For those of you who didn't watch, there are spoilers coming up so don't read any further!! (But feel free to share this post and like it and follow my blog and tell everyone about how I'm the best.)

In case any of you aren't watching Girls but for some reason have decided to continue reading, here's what happened last night:

Hannah (Dunham) got a new job writing for an internet site and decided to try cocaine with her gay ex-boyfriend/roommate Elijah so she would have something exciting to write about. Then they go to a club and la dee dah, Hannah ends up wearing nothing (NOTHING) but a mesh tank top and a really, truly terrible pair of shorts. Yeah... Then she galavants all over the city with everything ALL out and about, if you know what I'm saying and ends up making out with her creepy former-junkie downstairs neighbour. (The fact that Lena Dunham could make Hannah more awkward and naked than she already was blows my mind.) Other stuff happened too but it was mostly just your basic Marnie looking unimpressed about stuff, Shoshanna talking about losing her virginity and Jessa being hipster as f**k. 

What I'm trying to say here is, I feel that currently my daily life is not offering me a lot to write about. This is what I did today:

• Woke up at 12:00
• Stayed in bed until 2:45 watching Dexter
• Ate half a pop tart and some soda crackers at some point during the Dexter watching
• Put pants on
• Went pee, finally
• Watched an online lecture (yay, progress!)
• Ate real food (like, a real vegetable! My body was shocked.)
• Finished lecture on police selection and criminal profiling, googled serial killers for about an hour
• Watched Dexter

And here we are. No cocaine, no public nudity. Just a kind of disturbing amount of time spent on serial killers and some really bad eating habits.

That's my life right now, though. Dexter and crackers. And an above average enthusiasm for reading text books. I think it's because reading is easy and the longer I put off doing statistics homework, the longer I can avoid the involuntary eye twitch I get whenever I have to think about standard deviations. But it's also because I genuinely enjoy the stuff I'm learning right now (school doesn't suck ALL the time, kids!) But, I don't come in contact with a lot of stuff that inspires me to write.

This episode of Girls didn't bring me to this conclusion. I'm not like, "Oh my God, I need to have cocaine to write!" I wrote about socks once, for goodness sake. But it just made it painfully obvious that I've been being a tad boring lately. Which is sad, for me, because there are few things I enjoy doing as much as I enjoy writing.

So, what you should take away from all of this is that I've been having some pretty serious writer's block and I'm not really up for experimenting with drugs to fix it. You might even say I'm having serious life block, but we don't want to get too deep into like feelings and stuff because feelings are the worst. So, if I disappear for a while, don't worry. I'm not dead or locked in a basement somewhere. I'm just unblocking my life. (This only applies to my blog/Twitter presence. If you know me in real life and I disappear there, I AM PROBABLY LOCKED IN A BASEMENT OR BEING FED TO PIGS IN TINY PIECES GET HELP! Or I slept in again.)

Until then, this is where I'll be, taking frequent naps between classes, trips to Subway and textbook readings:

Kissing Is Weird

I assume you read the title of this post, so, I don't think I really need much more of an intro than that. Kissing is WEIRD. It is. Press your face up against someone else's for a little bit. Touch your mouths together. Your mouths, where bacteria and all kinds of yucky stuff lives. And then tongues get involved and SERIOUSLY?! That's disgusting.

Why is it that sharing a tooth brush is considered absolutely horrid, but we can rub our saliva all over each other's mouths and that's super romantic or hot or attractive or whatever it is?
And you wouldn't walk up to someone you don't know at a bar and take a sip from their drink (I say this, but a guy definitely walked up to me at a bar once and drank half my beverage but I think he may be an exception to the rule because I was in Montreal and everything is backwards there.) I do, however, know plenty of people who would walk up to a person and start kissing them.

Now, I'm not really a big germaphobe. I don't believe in the ten-second rule, I believe in the however-long-it-takes-me-to-see-it-and-pick-it up-off-the-ground rule (with exceptions to certain questionable locations such as bathrooms and airplane tray tables.) But retrieving your food off the ground is a matter of survival and environmental friendliness! Touching your tongue against another person's is not.

It's like when suddenly you're in a relationship with someone (this counts friendships, because friends do this to) it's okay to take a sip from their drink because clearly if you know this person they must not be carrying any diseases or dangerous bacterias. And everyone who you don't know very well must have a mouth crawling with the plague, obviously. For instance, one time at Costco my mother took a drink of what she thought was my beverage, but it was actually just a cup that had been left on the table from the previous inhabitant (BTW this is a pet peeve of mine. Throw out your damn cup, you lazy jerks.) Anyway, so Mom takes a sip, before I could inform her that this was not my cup. She of course proceeded to spit the contents out, which I think is a natural reaction. But think about it: Why is that cup any less sanitary than drinking out of my cup? I don't think there is any such thing as a clean human mouth, so what's the difference? (In case you were wondering how the Costco story ends, I was scolded for not throwing out Mr. Lazy's cup before I sat down because I was supposed to foresee that my mother was not going to buy herself a drink and was just going to steal mine. Sorry, Mom. My intentions here are not to sound like a brat, I just feel as if you should have purchased your own beverage. I'm a thirsty girl.)

This is a PG blog, so I'm not even going to get into how weird other things humans do together are (again, if you really think about them. And more so if you take a quick surf through urbandictionary.com. It's a real eye-opener.) No, actually, let's talk about it. Why (why why why why WHY WHY WHY WHY!!!) is it acceptable to put our mouths ALL up in other people's unmentionable areas? It's not even like this is an animalistic thing, really, because I think only monkeys and dolphins do it too, and they're like super smart. But probably I'm being extremely ignorant to all kinds of knowledge and studies that say differently. Whatever. Anyhoo, we all know what comes out of those areas, correct? But I'm doubting I could find a lot of people who would lick the inside of a toilet bowl. See what I'm saying here? Yet, this is an acceptable (to some extent) practice.

So, we can put our mouths all over each other, but when a dog comes along and tries to lick the remnants of your breakfast burrito from the corner of your mouth, that's disgusting and you have to go rinse your mouth out and spit for like ten minutes and cut your lips off. Okay, to be fair, that dog was just licking its butt and eating a dead squirrel but for all you know the guy you kissed at da club last night also enjoys the occasional road-kill snack. I'm not saying making out with your dog is something that should start happening, but I'm just saying I think it's funny what we deem as gross and what we deem as a fun past-time with another person.

Unsanitary-ness aside, kissing is also weird in the way that dancing is weird. Waving your limbs around and wiggling. Have you ever stood above a dancefloor and just watched everyone? It's actually hilarious, regardless of how "good" a dancer you are. (I know we're getting off topic, but I actually think that the most ridiculous-looking dancers are the "professionals." I'm possibly way over-thinking or over-analyzing the act of dancing. But over-thinking is what I do. That's why this post exists.) Anyway, kissing, shoving your mouth against another person's. Or against their forehead or cheek or whatever. For birds, this exact action is called pecking and it's an act of aggression (I assume, because I know essentially nothing about birds.) And this is arguably the most sincere way we have of telling people we're attracted to them or we like them or whatever. Or at least that's what movies teach us.

I don't want to get into the psych behind kissing or the biological reasons that we enjoy it, I'm just saying that it's weird when you look at the big picture.

In case you want to check out someone else's view on the weirdness of kissing, I found this fun article as well, on a website that I personally enjoy very much. I found this AFTER I wrote most of my post so there is no plagiarism involved, you scholarly jerks. Study: Kissing is Really Weird from hahajk.com.

Professional Athletes

So the NHL lockout is over. I guess I'm happy? I don't really care. I mean I enjoy watching hockey but I don't think I actually missed it. When you think about it, professional sports are possibly the biggest joke in western society.

Here's a reminder to pro athletes: Your job is to PLAY A GAME. Settle down. Some people sit in their basements and dominate at World of Warcraft every day. These people are called "losers" even though who says that WoW is any less legit than hockey or baseball? Someone could pay them to do it and broadcast their quests on live TV. That would be the EXACT same thing. There's still a certain amount of skill involved and you're still getting paid to contribute absolutely nothing to society.

Here's my other big issue with professional athletics. If you're truly an amazing player, you should be able to take the most simple, least technologically advanced equipment, and play with it. Having these Ultra-flex FX-7000 Super-Mega Hockey Sticks is, in my opinion, pretty much cheating. It's like when Harry got the Nimbus 2000 and everyone else was riding around on Cleansweeps. Not fair. Because not everyone can afford the best of everything. I'm talking about the kids who are trying to get into the NHL or MLB or NBA (although I kind of feel like there's only so much you can do with a pair of b-ball shoes to make them better than another pair of b-ball shoes.) If this fancy equipment really makes SUCH a difference, it shouldn't be allowed.
Maybe we should wonder then if it really makes a difference at all or if it's all in your head because those shoes are SUPPOSED to make you jump 17 ft. in the air so CLEARLY that's how high you must be jumping right now. If one hockey stick is worth three times as much as another hockey stick, I'm expecting something kind of more like a rocket launcher that shoots pucks at 200mph.

These days, less fortunate kids, no matter how naturally talented they are, have almost NO chance of getting anywhere in sports because they can't pay to play. That's the kind of crushing heartbreak that ruins a person's life and makes them miserable in whatever job they do find. There's no such thing as kids being discovered in back alleyways by tough-but-kind coaches. That only happens in movies like The Mighty Ducks, not real life. (I know. The Blind Side was a movie about the true story of a kid who got taken off the streets and made it to the NFL. First rule of life: There are exceptions to every rule.)

In closing, my fellow people, it's all just a giant money grab, right? They get paid millions to play a game while the less-significant members of the population pay for tickets, t-shirts, jerseys, beer and chicken wings and watch the games. Sure, there are people making a living off of it, and we're all just trying to make it any way we can, right? But the people who are making the money off of pro sports are rarely making any reasonable amount. They're like Scrooge McDuck rich and they're not sharing it with ANYONE.
I don't really have a conclusion or a suggestion or a plan or anything. And I've been begging my father all morning to buy me Habs vs. Sens tickets. So this feels like a perfect place to stop so that you can have a chance to think about what I said and write a comment about how the NHL is fuelling something rather in the economy and bread tastes way better when Sydney Crosby is on the packaging and blah blah blah.

Note: This whole thing can be applied to movie stars and musicians in a way.

Socks Are NOT Our Friends

Socks are the worst.

For one, socks are always lost. They're like the "drunk friend that you lose on the streets" of clothing. Everyone blames the dryer for this phenomenon, but I really don't think that's the case.
I'm almost positive that every sock comes with it's own personal ghost foot that puts that sock on and walks away with it whenever it pleases. I have literally set a sock down in a specific place so that I would remember where it was, and it has disappeared. This cannot be blamed on the dryer.

But the worst part about socks is holes. Like, you know when your big toe starts poking through a hole in your sock? And of course your big toe is super ticklish so you're dying inside but you're at a job interview or something important and you can't make any "oh my sweet jeepers, that tickles" faces or take your shoe off and rearrange your sockage so you just continue dying inside.
Or when you're at a house party and you have to take your shoes off because the host just got new carpet and oh dear, there's a hole in your sock and people might catch glimpses of your Frodo feet.

Socks are just unreliable. Socks are not our friends. Your favourite, nice, toasty warm sweater is your friend. Your jeans that fit you perfectly even after multiple Christmas dinners are your friends. (Why are "jeans" and "pants" plural even though they're just one clothing article? English is also the worst.) But socks are most absolutely not your friends. Possibly something to do with the fact that you use them to cover your disgusting feet and stick them in your disgusting shoes and you step on them like all the time (which of course is even worse after Christmas dinners.)

Socks are mischievous little sprites out to ruin all of our days. One little wrinkle and you can't concentrate on a single thing in the entire world. Godzilla could be stepping on the car next to you and you're still wiggling your foot around in your shoe.

Not saying we should be giving up socks. I'm just saying that they're a burden. One which we all must bear. Or wear. Or something.