I told you I’d keep this going!

Sorry, I’ve changed the weekly schedule of this blog series to Sunday nights. I’m usually busy on Friday nights and Saturdays, sometimes. This will work better if I have a weekend to write about whatever crossed my mind over the past week.

This week was the start of my winter semester, which has done wonders towards my sleeping schedule. Waking up at 6h30 AM tomorrow will be a wonderful event, I’m sure. Fortunately, my sister lives quite close to school, so I can just crash there if need be. On the bright side, it’s nice to see my classmates again. Winter break felt excruciatingly long and... lonely. It’s good to be around people again. I also have a new pair of glasses to start said semester! My program classes seem to be standard fare, and I’m rather excited for English. The teacher seems really nice, and the entire semester will be about reading and analyzing short stories from around the world. Globetrottin’ that shit.

Just having something to get up and do is the biggest help, though. I’m still coming off hard from my break-up earlier this month... It’s been three weeks and it... it still hurts. A lot. I’m having a hard time accepting that something better will come along, because I am pretty sure my happiness was at a peak in that relationship. Something might come along that will mean more to me, but there’s the chance that it won’t. And that scares the living shit out of me. Whatever the case, that is something I am seeking professional help for and will refrain from spewing on and on about it here. I have more interesting things to talk about, like my Friday that was totally awesome.

My dad, my sister and I went to the Montreal Auto Show on Friday afternoon, as we do every year. It’s a family tradition-kind of thing. It seems to get smaller and smaller every year, probably because the auto industry is doing kind of poorly. Doesn’t seem like spending a metric of money of floor space is in their best interest when most companies are struggling to make a profit at the end of the year. Even still, there was a lot to see and a lot to laugh at. For one, Mitsubishi’s lineup was frighteningly shit. I still want to punch all their board of directors for getting rid of every great car model they had/have. I hate the eco-friendly future, and to sacrifice cars like the Eclipse, Lancer and Galant to make way for said future makes me want to drive less fuel-efficient cars, or anything. Taking the fun out of driving is the wrong way to get on my good side.

Fortunately, one of the first cars on display was the ever-incredible Bugatti Veyron. It’s a whole different thing when you’re standing next to one, I tell you. That car’s tires are unbelievably massive. Everything about it is massive. Standing next to it made me feel like a kid again. That time where you have posters on your walls of supercars and they all look crazy and over-engineered. That goes away when you grow older, favoring economical cars or something with elegant design. But it all comes back to you when you see it in person. It’s awe-inspiring. I could of stood there and just looked at that car the whole show.

But I didn’t. Instead, we kept going and came across a few other noteworthy cars, like the Jaguar XFR (Which is probably my favorite car, in all honesty. Sitting in it was like being in my ultimate happy place) and the Ferrari 458. Also present was my vote for “most beautiful supercar ever designed”, the Lexus LFA. If there is any engineering feat that could rival the Veyron, it’s this car. A body made entirely of a carbon fibre composite, an exhaust system tuned by Yamaha for optimal sound quality and an engine that revs so fast that an analog tachometer couldn’t keep up with it. It’s beautiful.

Stealing the show, however, is the joint project between Subaru and Toyota. I had heard of the Toyota FT-86 beforehand, but I had no idea that Subaru also had it’s own STi-tuned version that they would actually put into production and market. The Subaru BRZ might have a stupid name, but the car itself is unbelievable. I swear to you, there isn’t a single angle from which this car does not look amazing. It has very slight differences from Toyota’s model of the car (which will be marketed here under the Scion brand--a fatal mistake, if you ask me) and looks gorgeous in the trademark Subaru Blue Mica paint. There’s no price announced so far, but I honestly can’t see it being anything other than the new standard for the tuner scene. I mean, fuckin’ look at it. Look at iiiiit.

Subaru was kind enough to essentially be the last worthwhile manufacturer booth on the show floor, ending the show itself on a very high note. A short while after that, I headed to a local bar/venue with my friend to go see Anamanaguchi live. They’re on their 4-stop Canada tour and the tickets were super-cheap, so it was a no-brainer to go. As expected, two fairly terrible bands opened for them. The first was some hipster rock/grunge/dunno band that sounded terrible not only because of their music, but because of the sound guy who thought it more important to text on his iPhone as opposed to fix the audio levels on his EQs that were constantly overloading. The best part of their set was when they said “Alright, this next song is called ‘Sleeping in My Car’.”, to which my friend promptly said “Yeah, I bet you do that a lot”. We burst out laughing, only to realize that he said it when the venue went dead quiet. It was awkward, and unbelievably funny at the same time.

The second band was... I can’t even put it into words. Just watch this video, and imagine that this is playing on a screen behind two dudes with incredibly long hair, one who is screaming into a mic and the other playing a BC Ritchie guitar really poorly. You’ll get the idea.

Finally, Anamanaguchi came on and fucking delivered. Their set was awesome, full of energy and wicked upbeat. Peter would chime-in every so often to thank the crowd and say useless things, like how Ary smuggled in a pink switchblade and that the Canadian Border Patrol told them that to stay in the country, half their set would need to be Nickelback covers. That became the running gag for the night, as when they returned to the stage for the encore and greeted the crowd with “Wow, you guys really like Nickelback.” Luke was the one selling merch before the show started and was fucking thrilled whenever anyone bought something and would promptly close out every transaction with an excited, up-top high-five. I got a ridiculously awesome pink/yellow tie-dye shirt alongside a poster! :D The show was seriously awesome. They played great songs, they never stopped to slow their music down and threw out glowsticks to everyone in the crowd every-so-often. If you have a chance to see them live, do so. They make for a great show.

After sleeping for a billion hours from getting home late, my friend and I had a MW3 night that went on for... a lot longer than we were expecting. We ended the night with a 30 win streak, which I think was a record for the both of us. We won thirty consecutive matches, thanks to the calling-in of what seemed like countless Reapers, AC-130s and Attack Choppers. We dominated, gained an unbelievable amount of XP, and it was awesome.

So that was last week. Eventful. While I’d like to say that I will be seeing Above & Beyond this week, I fear I may not be able to, which saddens me greatly. We’ll see. Hopefully, I can. Either way, I wish you a great week, guys. :D See you next Sunday!

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Last week's post.