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I just got up to get a glass of water. I noticed four of the five clocks around me and one of them said 11:11. I put some lotion on my tattoo and I saw the microwave clock was 11:11 while the first clock flipped to 11:12. I sat back down to the computer and the iMac said it was 11:11, while the first clock blinked to 11:13 and the second to 11:12. I make a wish when I see it is 11:11. But you can’t make more than one wish at one 11:11, so you’ve got to go with the first one you made. I wished pretty seriously this time, almost yelling in my head to the wishing gods that grant 11:11 wishes, wish chips, wishing star wishes and the like.

I had the day off. I didn’t do really anything. I had the plan for a productive day, but that didn’t really turn out. I have been sitting in front of the blank computer screen for the past hour listening to new jams waiting for something to come from the back of my head and out of my fingers to show up as black pixels on any white canvas I had, to prove to myself that the day wasn’t an entire waste. I originally wanted to contribute to my book, but I usually like to have semi-decipherable thoughts on that canvas, and use this one for other ideas. Like this one. I laid on my back for a total of five hours today, reading, watching, thinking, listening, eating and not much intellectual activity occurred. I tried to brainstorm writing ideas, ways to change the world, potential career paths, friends to call up, places to travel, ways to spend the money I don’t have, and I came up empty on all of those. Days off can be brutal.

When we are in a mental state where we do not want to be, looking to where we could go seems even more foreboding than it does when we are where we want to be. All that is visible is the pile of self loathing and pity that you yourself lay in. And what can you do about this? Drink? Schmooze? Rage? Nothing, is the only thing I can seem to do. And nothing I will do.

But I am trying to live a more optimistic and positive life. So this is it: I had a dream that Scotty Bowman and I went skateboarding together and he ate it hard. That was cool. The future could he bright of I allow myself to get there. Hockey starts tomorrow.

If you could change one thing in the world, what would it be? This blog introduction is so cliche it hurts.

Someone asked this question to a few friends and I while we were on a short road trip. I remember that everyone answered either poverty, war, or cancer. Except me. I was tired of their uninspired mainstream media answers, so I said I would change that feeling you get when you wear your socks to bed. When your leg and foot hair hurts. The same feeling that you get from painful hat hair, wearing long johns for too long, or in the female perspective when your head hurts from a long day of pony tailing. That was my answer, and I stuck to it. The creator of the question was not impressed that I didn’t want to change poverty, war or cancer, but that I wanted to change something so frivolous like a worldwide human annoyance: hair pain caused by long worn items of clothing. And that was it.

Rethinking the question a few years later and little has changed. I still hate that feeling you get when you wear your socks to bed. Where your ankle strands are screaming out for freedom from a cotton elastic prison. I would change it if I could, and it still might be the first thing I would ever change. I would be known for freeing the ringlets from oppression. My name would forever be known for providing the liberty of the hair follicle.
I never had the mental capacity to understand poverty, war or cancer. Usually when these topics are discussed, it is about how badly we need to rid the world of them. These three terrible murderers that the world has had since the beginning of man and that we would be perfect without. I think understand all this, but they have become mere concepts and little else. A world free of poverty or war isn’t even slightly viable if money still exists, and the elimination of cancer could happen even without a number with nine zeros behind it.

If I could change one thing in the world, after chronic hair pain, I would abolish money of any kind. I would rid the world of even the concept of money. I remember in elementary school, I once proposed this idea to a friend, a world without money. And he said it was impossible. He said that a world without money was not plausible where we are today. I disagreed and afterward likely went to the tire maze and peed in the murky puddles beneath. I was an intellectual.
I still hold true to this opinion. The abolition of money is no crazier a thought than the abolition of poverty or war, and would take a lot less research than the abolition of cancer. Eradicating poverty or war is an impossible thought if you consider the greed of mankind. Eradicating the idea of money would mean ridding the world of greed, and therefore poverty and war. Simple.

If I lived in village where every family provided one service or one product and these were given away freely, not traded for other products or services, but given away without question, it would work out ideally. If no one decided that providing their service was more difficult than that of their neighbours, and people got what they needed, content with no more and no less, it would work out. In theory.

I almost believe that if you disagree with me, you are a slave to the money-god. Tonight I finished the book ‘Keep the Aspidistra Flying’ by George Orwell. Protagonist Gordon Comstock constantly talked about money worship, to a point where it was a strain to read the conversations he had with friends. He was a lower class man by choice, working in a cheap book store when he could just as easily have worked for an advertising agency and write advertisements for the man. His wealthier friend was a proclaimed socialist, but Gordon didn’t believe in socialism. He just didn’t want to live for money. He lived a wretched two years in semi-poverty where he constantly spoke of how he could never sell out to the money-god but attributed all his woes to his entire lack of money. Then, he knocked up his girlfriend, got married, got the advertising job to support his new family, and they lived happily ever after…
The entire time I knew Gordon Comstock, I related with him deeply. I felt as though the story was written about my mind half of the time. How he described his job, his cynicism and his overall mindset. I guess I should get a real job. Thanks George. But Gordon never did propose a world without money.

Regardless of how George Orwell’s fictional British character’s life panned out, I firmly believe that life would be perfect if the concept of money had never entered the world. Sarcasm aside, I plead with you to prove me wrong. Sarcasm not aside, I would love to believe that money was actually important, it would give my conscience a real break. Prove my naivety so that I can understand the truths of this world and get a job at an advertising firm, writing jingles for breakfast crisps.

Open forum.

Cause I can’t stand feeling nothing
I can’t stand feeling old
I can’t stand standing for nothing
When standing up is all I know

So why waste another day
Turning our backs and walking away
I want to feel everything
And I want to grow in every way

Sitting at work. People walk in. Moms looking for shoes for their sons. Girlfriends searching out hoodies for their boyfriends. Raging teenage shoppers therapeutically looking for a top that looks cute. I see the worst of everyone. No one is their best while shopping. And I get to take the worst of everyone, and lump them into groups that I made up myself.

The Bros. Usually can be seen wearing brand name clothing, vibrant and colourful. Often with well done hair, a nice watch, expensive sunglasses, and ridiculously good looking yet daft girlfriend. Like to talk sports, weightlifting, getting licked, slamming ladies. Listens to Nickelback, Black Eyed Peas, Akon.

The Hipsters. Usually can be seen wearing American Apparel, raggedy vintage thrift shop clothes, cheap sunglasses, leather dress shoes with messy hair and unkempt facial hair. Men and women. Like to talk indie rock, dark beer, Vice magazine. Listens to Phoenix, Death Cab, She and Him.

The Couples/Families. Usually can be seen as crazy people. Whether it is a mother talking to her only friend in her three month old daughter, or a girlfriend talking to her boyfriend on a three year long leash, the conversation is often different and unnatural to outsiders. These people are no longer themselves, they are defined by the other person as well. Like to talk ages of children, length of time dating, families. Listens to the screaming of children, arguing, Fred Penner, and whatever couples listen to.

The Rednecks. Usually can be seen wearing cut off jean shorts and old runners. ’80’s band T-shirts, Riders hats, cowboy boots, tucked in shirts. Like to talk horsepower, RPM, shooting things, getting licked. Listens to anything from Toby Keith, Metallica, Brittney Spears.

The others. Not important enough to have their own group, or I just got lazy. Anywhere from the University devotees, punk kids, metalheads, farmers, the religious, the socially aware…

(Don’t bother trying to figure out where you think I would put you in my category system. Chances are, if I know you, you didn’t make any of them. You are a mix of the worst of them all.)

And then I try to label myself, and I can’t do it. Others could probably easily label me, but to do it to myself is impossible. Then I think about it all. Although I truly don’t use a system this senseless and prejudicial, a lot of the time it is how things are broken down. So when people walk into my store wearing full ’80’s workout gear, sweatpant-shorts and sleeveless black cotton shirt, I don’t think anything. This dude is legit, I think. I think about how circumstance changes how a person dresses, acts, talks about, listens to. And how none of it has any weight, as long as they are living and breathing. Everyone fits into someone’s category, but no one has to care, and no one needs to accept the entire category idea.

But in the end my discrimination breaks the entire world into just two categories. People who like condiments on their hotdogs, and people who like them plain. It’s that simple.

– the line calls in professional tennis are controlled by a robot called ‘Hawkeye’ that is about as accurate as a drunk man’s stream of urine.
– the Black Eyed Peas are popular and Nickelback sold five times platinum
– the movie 2012
– Mary Carillo, Brad Gilbert and Peter Burwash are respected members of sports news teams
– 3D TV
– cheeseburger hotdogs from 7-11
– The Death of Music. Ghosts of Modern Man broke up. The last good/classic Regina band called it quits. Regina’s music scene is slowing to a indie rock halt.
– Serena Williams is a multimillionaire.
– everyone is married
– NHL on TSN
– blogs and bloggers
– people believe in things like the swine flu and gingivitis
– The Death of Tennis Etiquette. New York fans are worse than UFC fans from South Carolina.
– UFC
– therapeutic shoppers
– Twitter
– CFL on TSN
– I heard Federer say ‘shit’ on TV. That was the clincher.

Plan your last two years accordingly.

Dickless Nicholas
Nikolai Khabibulin
The Nic
Neecoli
Niccus
Nickolodeon
Sputnic
Eu-nic
Pic-Nic
Ninevah
Nich
Nymph

This entire blog, Balls of Rice, is about me. I realized that after skimming a few old posts. Maybe not all of it, but most of it. I realize that the purpose of many blogs is to release thoughts and emotions in a public way that wouldn’t usually be possible. Mine has strayed away from my personal thoughts and emotions and has become a channel for my ramblings about myself. I try to come up with ideas that don’t revolve around myself, but it is hard. I don’t like talking about things that no one cares about (i.e. tennis, hockey, politics..), I don’t want to get all highbrow and profound and lose my core of readers that likes down to earth authentic words(?). The only thing I slightly know about, is myself, and I’m still learning a lot about that subject.

This is a short list of nicknames I have had over the years, just the ones I could remember (feel free to add to the list). I have a special quality that allows me to acquire innumerable names that aren’t my own. A special quality, like those people you know that are the punchline of your jokes, the easiest to taunt and mock. They are special character qualities that are commonly overlooked, but are as important as loyalty, honesty and BMI.
People that have known me for only a few hours sometimes already chose a new nickname for me, because I am that guy. It makes sense, considering my name is the original nickname, the one that the word ‘nickname’ was developed around. And considering that my name is Nic, not Nick, making it a double nickname. Occasionally I get the question of why I spell my name the way I do, and I usually use logic, as there is no letter K in my name (then people cite nicknames like Chuck, or Jim). Or I just blame the spelling of my name on my mom.
But doesn’t the name Nick remind you of some old wooly Greek man who owns a sports bar in New York somewhere, shaves rarely, wears a hairnet as he prepares your souvlaki, while his chest hair protrudes out of his stained unbuttoned collared shirt, falling into your meat on a stick. A man who still lives with his parents at the age of 45, his mom calls him Nicky, and his girlfriend is a Greek belly dancing teacher who once worked as a stripper, but realized that she can make more money charging middle class women how to stay fit and move their hips at the same time. A man named Nick, doesn’t fit me. That is why.

But it’s pretty sad that all I can think of to write about is myself. You will likely notice in the next few weeks, my attempts at ideas that revolve around things other than I. Like hockey training camps, political positions, great new technology…
Or I’ll just stick with the arrogance that we all like best.
The original double nickname.

I can never decide how I feel about home. When I say home, I am meaning my hometown. Everyone has a hometown. I wasn’t born here, I didn’t really grow up here, but Regina is it for me. I love home and always will, but each time I return to it, it feels more awkward than before. I feel less attached to the lifestyles, to the places, to the people. So music helps…

This is my prairie, this is my home
And I’ll make a stand here, and I’ll die alone.
They can drill, and they can mine on my smoldering bones
This is my prairie, this is my home
– Corb Lund, This is My Prairie

Nobody cares how much money you have
If you’ve got enough to get in a cab
There’ll be drinks on the house if your house burns down
If you saw my band in the early days
Then you understand why we moved a way
But you’ll hold a grudge any way
There’s a reason that I love this town
– Joel Plaskett, I Love This Town

I am a nomad – a wanderer; I have nowhere to lay my head down.
There’s no point in putting roots too deep when I’m moving on.
I’m not settling for this unsettling town.
My heart is filled with songs of forever –
Of a city that endures, where all is made new.
I know I don’t belong here; I’ll never
Call this place my home, I’m just passing through.
– Thrice, In Exile

Shoplifting is a serious problem. There are people that intentionally steal from a large corporation just to antagonize capitalism. First degree shoplifting. They do it to stick it to the man. The Man.
Play The Man, not the puck.

I worked in a bakery during my grade twelve year, for about six months. Because I went to school, I only worked the closing shift. The nightly tasks included counting every single piece of baking left store wide, marking the amount of each on a graph, and throwing out certain breads, buns and pastries and keeping certain breads, buns and pastries for the Food Bank. Donuts, for example, where thrown out on a daily basis. Flawless, untouched balls of dough covered in sugary toppings were dumped in a garbage bag every night, and that garbage bag was then put in a garbage compactor, to ensure that no single person could enjoy their sweet fillings ever again. Often times I would take single bites out of donuts while I was throwing them out. One night I counted over ninety donuts that needed to be thrown out. I took a bite out of every single one as I dropped them into the garbage. Employees were not allowed to take any home, but I took home about six every evening. Cinnamon buns, strudels, donuts, in paper bags, hid under my father’s old blue winter jacket as I walked out, waving to the boss.

I tried something new yesterday. I’m not especially proud of it, although I am far from ashamed. I was working the night shift. Not the graveyard shift, which has an interesting piece of history behind its name that has to do with the phrase ‘saved by the bell’. The Night Shift. Until nine, selling clothes. Back to school frenzy is over, people have sated their consumerist needs and are shampooing their shoes, hemming their pants and altering their dresses as they cry about the lack of digits in their bank accounts. Therefore, work is slow.

Yesterday, my coworker and I, while playing iPod Touch Price is Right, were craving a croissant, glazed with chocolate icing on it. Lucky for us, the Safeway in our mall baked this very same item. I grabbed some change and left Toby to play games alone. I walked into Safeway via the indoor mall entrance, headed to the bakery which was nearby the entrance. The batch of super croissants had been freed from their glass jailhouse and impending doom in the trash compactor. I took a chocolate dip and honey glaze instead. I bagged them. I walked to the cold drink aisle, grabbed two 99cent Arizona Green Tea Ice Tea with Ginseng and Honey, and headed to the checkout. There were only two checkouts open. And they were both quite full. I waited briefly. I looked to the door, noticing that the regular security guard had vacated his regular position at the mall entrance. I noticed that there was no one working in the deli, right near the doors.
I began walking. I looked around as I pursued the doors, noticing no Safeway employees anywhere nearby. As the exit grew larger, my face got hotter. My chronic heartburn flared up one hundred degrees with each step. Things got hazy, Safeway started spinning, and I was more terrified than I have ever been. I stepped onto the white and black tile of the mall floor, made a straight line for the out doors, and speedily strolled to my store. My face began to drain of its vibrant red criminal colour, and my heartburn stayed the same. I entered my store, shared the story and the goods, ate my food as fast as I could and laughed.

I shoplifted. The total cost of the goods may have been less than four dollars, but I paid nothing. They were going to throw out those donuts in forty five minutes. They weren’t that good. And after eating the sugared ball of dough, my Arizona Green Tea didn’t taste as sweet as it should have.
Or maybe that was the taste of guilt.

I have never done this before. I’ve never had the urge, or the need to do it. The first time I legitimately shoplifted was when I was twenty years old. I felt like it was something I needed to do before I died/before I turned twenty one. Something that I needed to do for myself. I needed to see if I had the character, the audacity, the gallantry to perform a cowardly act.
I did. I learned. I am the same as I was before. Except more badass.
This is my personal development. Thank you for being a part of my personal growth.

I am in the know. I text people constantly to keep up to date about relationships and love lives. I call people daily to find out about upcoming events that I might be able to enjoy or capitalize off of. I e-mail businessmen semi-regularly to see what stocks will rise and when. I check Facebook statuses and Twitter tweets to keep up to date on everyone’s pressing life events. I know things, and I’d like to attribute it to my Blackberry.

Although you may think this is going to be a rag on technology, it is not. Although I hate it all/am jealous of all those who flaunt it.
‘Let me know.’ I find myself using that phrase in each e-mail I send, and hear myself say it when talking to people about plans and the general future. When I catch myself employing this group of words I try to think of a different group of words to use that sounds cooler, more hip or just different. I dislike using the same word or expression more than once in a short period of time, or more than once in a paragraph, as you may or may not have noticed. Therefore, I utilize the thesaurus on a regular basis. My mind is repetitive and my vocabulary is somewhat limited, so to avoid coming off like a repetitious half head I like to diversify my word usage.
Like I when I’m chatting with my bros about a hot piece of lady that I saw earlier that day and I have to describe her attributes, I don’t like using the word ‘cans’ more than once. I like to throw in ‘knockers’ or ‘funbags’.

I think I coined this phrase (Let me know) a few years ago in an e-mail. I know I didn’t actually coin the phrase, but I was writing a semi-formal e-mail to someone and sat for a while trying to come up with a nice way of saying ‘Tell me what I want to know, now.’ I tried to come up with a non-pushy phrase to ask for an answer, but not demand it. When people read things on the internet or in a text message that are written conversationally or otherwise, they oftentimes misinterpret the tone it is written in. I am always afraid of this. Like when you send a girl an e-mail that signs off as
‘Love always,
Nic’

It rarely to never actually means that I actually love you and want to have children with you, but rather a brotherly camaraderie kind of love that I share with most everyone.
Or like how both of those previous italic paragraphs could be read as my actual words, when in fact when I wrote them I was whispering to myself in my, ‘I’m a jackass’ voice.
I am always afraid that my e-mails will sound pushy or controlling, when all I wanted to do was sound businesslike or communicative. So I thought that this phrase did it all. It quietly and passively encouraged the recipient of the phrase to share their knowledge with me when they learned of whatever this knowledge was.

But now I’m not so sure. I am starting to feel like ‘Let me know.’ has become pushy and domineering as well. Especially when I use it more than once in a minute or two. And I don’t think it is because I always want to be in the know, I just like to have a grasp on things.

Or I’m being obsessive compulsive and getting caught up in meaningless semantics. Yeah, that’s probably it. Just let me know if I am or not. Thanks. Talk to you soon! Take care!

Love always,
Nic

Three years ago to the day, I birthed a giant. An ever-changing, twice named, 278 post, giant. When my great child ripped out of my womb and entered the interwebbed world, I named him ‘Partying Since 1988’. I was young when I had my first child, and the name was not appropriate for the type of child it was. I later renamed him ‘Balls of Rice’, like that one 3 Inches of Blood song (running through your veins). When it all began, I didn’t expect it to be like it has been. I didn’t expect that this one poorly laid out blogger page would be the only thing I could actually count on. I didn’t think that it would start as a joke and eventually become a facet of my life that I take quite seriously.

It all began on a once popular networking site, before it was eclipsed by a ‘book of faces’, and before it became a treasury of spam advertisements. I used that as my channel for internet speech, and someone proposed that I get my own blog. I never saw the need, as Myspace was the be all and end all of the internet, but I birthed my giant anyways. And I haven’t looked back. My three year streak of perceptive analysis could have died with Tom Anderson years before it started.

Many people start their own personal blog, where briefly thought out ideas are poorly written and shown with photos and/or anecdotes. A large percentage of these blogs are soon abandoned and left in the desert of un-updated web pages. I nearly discontinued my own a few short months after I began and several times after that. I have always found the blog phenomenon quite peculiar. Whether it is a family blog where memories of dirty faced children dominate each post, or whether it is a travel blog in which sightseers give a day by day update of sights seen and foods eaten, just to make their grounded friends jealous, or whether it is some young halfhead who opines constantly for three years, it has never made sense to me. Because of that, a lack of interest, and the idea that I was not meant to be a writer, I nearly threw in the metaphorical towel. But I didn’t, and I’m still alive. Every time I write a new post, I question whether it is worth my time to continue, citing the fact that I truly know nothing about writing and that the only people that have complimented my writing are good friends or drunk people. But I felt that I have found something special. A relationship I never thought I would get, and found a love for the pen, or the keyboard, or the iPod touch screen.

Happy Birthday Mom!
Happy Birthday Jerms! (new house, new job, now all you need is a wife with broad hips to birth your own legacy)
Happy Birthday Balls of Rice!