Author: Nic Olson

Not only the greatest flavour ever made, it is also one of the greatest crime fighters of all time. Curry featuring the tasty stylings of Tumeric backed up by the strength and power of Curcumin. This picture is of Dog Curry, but curry nonetheless. My highschool Science teacher Mrs. Mary Thomas always told me that tumeric was the magic pixie fairy dust spice that stopped cancer, and I always believed her. Now you can too.

And here we be. July 29. As I head home to be unemployed, but first, to be Tim’s work slave. The summer ran by faster than a Yellowknifer towards the… Yellowknife..party(?) …..and now I’m headed home for a month of unemployed bliss. A concert here, a road trip there, a week long trip to the West Coast (represent) and a whole lot of watching my incredible muscle mass deteriorate before me. Not much better than that. In Elementary school fashion, I’ll let you know how my summer went.

This summer I learned…

About Moving. I now know the proper way to pack a trailer, the right terms for a moving warehouse and moving trucks, names and cubic footage for boxes, how to lift a heavy-as-balls dresser, how to swear with ease (which is important, ask Cindy) and most importantly how to get paid very lots for doing very little. These are all important skills I have gained, which will in the end, make me a better member of society, or something stupid. The job was sweet, the pay was sweeter, working with Arlen was the worst, but you can’t win them all. And most of all I learned, if you have to move all your crap cross country, don’t bother highering Matco…. Your stuff will be in two hundred more pieces than it originally was.

About trailmix. If you ever move to Yellowknife/the Ashby’s house, watch out for some people that lack self-control and can’t handle the rules of trailmix.

About wakeboarding. I’m bad at this game. I also learned to rarely listen to Randy or Benji about what tricks to try, ’cause when you do that, you get a sprained ankle. Looks like my Riverside Open championship win over Jerms is no longer going to work out.

About television in HD. Incredible.

About life. Keep it steady. Mellow it out a little. Keep it smiley… that was gay.

Something happens when you try to play tennis north of 60. It just doesn’t seem to jive all that well. They should just stick with dogsledding, polar bear hunting, bare back buffalo riding and shoveling snow. It is like the Tennis Gods (McEnroe, Bjorg, Agassi, Graf, Sampras, Chang, Becker, I guess Federer and others) put a curse on the north so that anything awful happens when anything tennis related happens. By the way, you don’t have to be dead to be a Tennis God.

After a painful series of racquet breaks this summer, an even more painful inflation of the prices for stringing, many different people breaking the holiest of holys (a tennis date), and a poor satellite connection during some of the most important matches of history, I just can’t handle it. The NWT Open is this weekend, and my first match was tonight. Of course, the North of Sucks-ty Curse lays one on me, I get to work three hours later than I was supposed to, and miss my first match. Thanks to a person that is not from NWT, my match was rescheduled to tomorrow. Likely I’ll dislocate a shoulder or get a hernia tomorrow at work to prevent another regular-world tennis event.

If I’m lucky I will break this spell in two weeks time when I’m back in the world capital of tennis, Regina, and dominate once again…. or continue to let myself down to the level of Anna Kournikova. But she’s so hot.

I can likely say that with confidence. I realize this every day at work. I don’t think it is because I’m outta shape, I think my body is 30 years older than we think it is. I’ve got Wilf-Jerms Knee Disease quite often, my lower back often aches hard (yeah I lift with my knees), and each morning I wake up with fingers I can barely move, from what I figure is Arthritis. If that doesn’t qualify me for an old man, nothing does.
Maybe I think this because I’m almost 19. Once you’re 19, you’ve got one more year of youth, then you are hootched. I don’t like that thought. That is why, when things come along, things that are awesome, you (I) should take advantage of them. India, Yellowknife, Vancouver(?), Overseas again(?). Maybe I’ll even visit Tim in Saskatoon!!!! And even if I end up staying in Regina, my youth will not be wasted, I guarantee you that. I heard a quote once that said something along the lines of, “If you think joy is a matter of location, you are damn wrong”. I think that is how it went.
Pretty much from August until forever, I have little to no plans, and I’m loving that. Stress free. Maybe stress free will eventually meld into arthritis free. Is the cure for arthritis not planning your future? I sure hope so.

I was raised in a house of Olsons. This means a few things. This means that if I didn’t eat everything that was served, I’d get the angry Wilf furrowed brow. This brought me up to eat and like everything. Everything. This then brings conflict when I encounter people that don’t eat things. I hate the term pet peeve, cause it is super gay, but this would be my pet peeve: People who can’t suck it up and eat food that is good. Thanks Dad, now I’m OCD.(obsessive compuslive) This is all written because of an extensive and exhausting debate at the Ashby house about trailmix. It is awful. Enough for me to move out. I hate it here. Darla has no boundries.

my time in Yellowknife has passed the one month mark, which possibly means it has passed the halfway point. Bummer.

plans for my life so far go l ike this: go home, rock and roll for a while. spend some money, do a short western canadian tour to visit some friends i haven’t seen in too long, find a job, put off school. i’m sure that when you read this, it seems like a bad plan, but, i’ve thought it through fairly well, so don’t worry, my loser future hasn’t totally been smashed, just placed on temporary hiatus. can a hiatus be temporary, or are all hiatus’ temporary. what is the plural for hiatus? hiatia?

my blogs are losing more meaning as they continue. i think my blogging career is slowing to a hault. maybe just a series of hiatia.

It has been pretty warm up here lately. People here seem to get the intense body sweats when it hits +20 Celcius, but not this guy. Back in the 90’s, when I lived in White City for the summers, I had to sleep in the basement all summer long because the surface was too hot for my sleeping habits. A long time ago I remember Laura (mom) telling me that I would never be able to go to India because it would be too hot for my Canadian temperatured body. Boy did I prove her wrong.

Being part of a moving company really shows you the stupidest part of the western civilization. It is about the most frustrating thing when you have to move people’s useless crap from one house to another and it takes eleven hours to load it all onto three trucks. I know it is super trendy to talk about materialism and how North Americans have so much crap, but this job kills it. I just don’t get why people must have three plasma screen TVs, two childrens pools, a million garden tools, and loads of other crap that I don’t have enough energy to type out because it is that useless. Thing is, my family likely has triple what this dude has, and if things continue the way they are going, I’ll likely have a million friggin’ boxes full of garbage when I’m old and ugly.

While throwing around priceless china and smashing glass with my unconcerned crap-tossing, I was wondering why I am in Canada. Why was I born here? Why do I still live here? There are better places for me to be, better things for me to do, better… Oh whatever. I’ll be here forever.

Then I’m in a new situation. Where I don’t really see the need of getting a job that pays 8 million a year, because I don’t see the need of having more things. I’m back to my usual ‘crap-what-do-I-do-in-two-months’ deal. Gotta love it. But don’t worry mom and dad, I’ll go back to school, but maybe major in Philosophy….. Oh man, just kidding. What a waste.

But on the plus side, this job is really working my delts, traps, and pecs. I am cut like a holiday ham. A holiday ham without the fat on it. Only six packs.

It wasn’t me that chose this title for my day yesterday, it was Cindy’s idea. But it is pretty accurate. Here’s why…

Work started, just like any other day, but today was different. I woke up energized and awake, the first time that has happened in a while. For work, we were at a school moving desks, chairs, tables, boxes and people’s hearts. Arlen had a good time making fun of French Catholics and Newfies, while I laughed with the occaisional, ‘Ohhhh, those Francophone sons-a-guns’. It was the last day at school when we were moving, so obviously, it was party day. In the afternoon Arlen and I got popsicles, which is a big deal. So just shut up. Then later I got a fudgesicle and Arlen didn’t, which was an even bigger deal. Not everybody gets paid to eat popsicles and fudgesicles in one day. Only me and Catholic Newfies that speak French. And I would venture to say they don’t even exist.
Also at work, my next locale, some ladies house, I got a slice of free cake and a free slurpee. Big news!

Arriving home, guess what time it was? Four O’Clock? Nine O’Clock? Nope. It was NHL Draft Day O’Clock! The most exciting day of the year besides the day that Bob Gainey signs Sheldon Souray (yet to happen). Gainey didn’t take Angelo Espo, but it was likely a good choice. In Montreal, he was the next Riberio. Bob is a smart man, he’s got it under control. Go here for Jay Onrait’s blog, the most clever man on TSN.

It was also pizza night.

Then, something huge happened. I can’t write it right now, ’cause it is likely still on the QT. I don’t know what that means, but as far as I know, it is the same thing as the DL (downlow for the old guys). But, it was huge. I called it, spot on. When things are out, I’ll update and show you my marksmanship on calling what will happen on a weekend in Edmonton.

Then me and the guys played a round of Loaded Questions. Funniest game of the year. And then we watched Oceans Twelve.

All in all, the day was great. I don’t think I will ever make any day The Best Day Ever, because that is risky business, but it was a good day to be sure. I know that it wasn’t the best day ever, because I had to take a whizz like forty times, and that just doesn’t constitute The Best Day Ever. Pee ruins everything.

I have been feeling very (I don’t know what the word is) the past few days. If I knew what sentimental meant, I would use it. Maybe ‘touchy-feely’ is the right phrase. Nope, that’s not it. How about the word ‘good’.. I have been feeling very ‘good’ the past few days. Sure, that is broad enough.

I realized the other night that I truly miss the land of the Curry. I miss the people, and everything else, a lot. I miss the slow and relaxed mindset that really went well with my mellow ‘I’m-so-cool-I-don’t-give-a-crap’ attitude. I haven’t had the opportunity to talk about my trip or anything, maybe because when people ask me questions I have nothing but snappy one liners and weak short answers. But, I do miss it. It is like an infectous fungus that has burrowed underneath my toenails and has taken over the majority of my left leg. Like, I could live without it, but it just wouldn’t be awesome.

Work is great. I advise that if you can, find a job that pays $16 an hour to do nothing but play broom hockey with a guy named Arlen. This job would also entail trying to translate the difficult language of Newfie into regular English, and sweeping dirt into piles, then spreading the piles around so you can sweep them again. I love it.

It sometimes feels like no time has passed since I was here last summer. I’m in the same futureless position as before, with the same plan of, ‘Yeah, I guess I’m going to school…ugh’ I’m the same dude as a year ago, with a bit more travel under my belt, a bit more understanding of the world, and a bit more appreciation for relationships, and a bit of a bigger gut. Yeah, I’m getting soft.

Whenever I was in India, I couldn’t understand why people didn’t write things on a regular basis. Now I understand.

It is not that things up here are boring. Or that they are extremely busy, but that they are kinda regular. And let’s be honest, I’m not good at making ordinary extraordinary, in real life, or in a blog. I’m, again let’s be honest, a fairly boring guy. I hang out, play some tennis, watch movies, go fishing, eat lots… and it just keeps going. In India new things happened to me every day, whether it was about the toilet or about people staring at me.

Yellowknife is like the mellow capital of Canada. People drive 10 km/h under the speed limit, which makes their speed about 8km/h and everyone is just waiting for the weekend where they can go to the lake and mellow out some more..

So, if not many things are said on this for a while, it is because I’m having fun and hanging out. Sorry, India is exciting, Canada isn’t. If you want to read about young people going exciting places read Katie‘s or Mel’s or Tyler’s blog.

Oh, and I got a job. I am a mover now. With Arlen. Oh yeah. Our motto is ‘Anything I can do, We can do better’. We are going to make shirts.

1. I’m searching for jobs. Everyone loves searching for jobs. Last summer my venture to the North yielded no real jobs, so a friend had to give me a job. If you ask her, it was a real job, if you ask me, I am awful at painting fences. Especially lattice. You know, the stuff that doesn’t paint well. And about as nice to decorate your house with as lettuce. Anyway, this time, the jobs are flowing in. So many jobs that I don’t even know which one to take. I guess my marketable skills have increased tenfold since last summer. Now I’m a real citizen instead of a loser just outta highschool. Now I’m a loser just out of India, and that seems to work better for me. I’ll let you know if I’m going to be a professional mover, woodsman, lumberjack or tennis player, real soon.

2. The new Rihanna album comes out on this day, and it will likely break the record for Best Album Ever Written by a Girl from Barbados with a Hit Single about Umbrellas. That, and Best Album Ever Written in the History of Album Writing. As well as New Breakout Singer! I recommend you check into that CD. Be a part of history.

3. The Hunger Project: Do you ever get hungry? Do you ever eat food? Do you occaisionally enjoy smiling? Then go to The Hunger Project website and check out the latest craze of myspace but not facebook. That thing sucks. But, check that site out. It is a collaboration of recipes on one site, for quick and easy reference, run by Nic and Big Ben.. Delicious and Hilarious. One may call it Hilicious. Or Delarious. But we know this for sure, it is Tasterrific.

4. Smelly Melly started a blog. Mel Kissick. She’s in Europe, drinking wine and getting fancy.

8. I don’t like Pronger. What a dirtbag.