Ryan J. Allen

So I’m nearly 22 and I just find out today that my family (on my mother’s side) is a bunch of crazy, G. W. Bush loving, anti-abortion, war on Iraq supporting, radical Christians. (Politics is not a common topic in our household.) And I kind of feel sorry for my mom because she, like I’m sure many other Christians, is just believing what she is told to believe rather than think things through on her own. The problem with trying to discuss this with her, hoping to fuel a train of thought, is that she doesn’t actually respect anything that I say. There’s nothing I can say or do that will change that, either. She needs to, figuratively, be beaten over the head by multiple people all telling her that I have something insightful to say before she’ll even consider truely listening.

Unfortunately I am outnumbered.

I had the idea to start an FAQ sort of section to the blog recently but I completely forgot about it until Alex’s comment to my non-update. Don’t worry–you haven’t been missing out on this section for very long (recently in this case means the past couple of days). I’ll answer the two questions Alex posed in her comment, ignoring the rest of the comment so as to not wear this section out on its first post.

Question 1: Why you stopped wearing your fedora.

The first time I read this I must’ve added a word and a question mark because I honestly thought this was a question. Anyway, I stopped wearing my fedora for primarily three reasons:

• the hat was very dusty, and not easily cleaned, after improperly storing it over the summer;
• the feather went missing during the first season I wore it; and
• I was dissatisfied with the shape of the brim of the hat, again after improperly storing it over the summer.

I would definitely own another one. If I wasn’t so tired I would write about how I came to get my fedora.

Question 2: If you could play a musicial instrument what would you play and why?

The Piano. I think that I would find wind instruments to be a bit stressful, especially in the beginning: the majority of your energy is used in moving air into the instrument. And I do not enjoy playing string instruments: the feel is distracting, and the indiscrete nature of strings scares me. The piano is an instrument that I know I can enjoy playing, and play relaxed.

I had a musical keyboard (I guess you’d call it) as a young fellow. Whilst I wasn’t very skillful with it, I was able to play your typical children’s songs and I enjoyed doing so (rather than playing with the weird sound effects). This keyboard was a gift from my grandmother whom I don’t see often (as she lives in Nova Scotia), so it also held meaning to me. So I think the piano is more comfortable for me at a subconcious level because of this connection.

Chopin, who was a pianist, is one of my favourite classical artists. I am not at all a conossiuer of classical music but I can honestly say that what I’ve heard from Chopin has topped the list for me.

And finally I would have to say that, recently, Taylor Hanson has added more inspiration for me with regards to playing the piano. I can remember watching the Late Show with David Letterman when Hanson was on to perform Thinking of You to promote 3 Car Garage. I had heard Thinking of You many times before but this performance was the first time I really noticed the piano solo. It’s not at all a difficult or very impressive solo but I did, and still do, really enjoy it. Even more recently, I think the piano work in Crazy Beautiful is also very great and very inspiring.

I guess that ends the first installment of Ask Ryan. Future questions can be passed along via comments or e-mail.

Nothing to say, really. Sorry.

So, Kurt Busch won the NASCAR Nextel Cup. Good effort from the Hendrick camp, though.

The focus group was pretty interesting. I wasn’t sure exactly how others (from the industry, or from the college) were thinking, but it turns out we were all pretty much on the same page. I felt like the group gave some quality suggestions, and, best of all, I felt like my input mattered. Hats off to those program co-ordinators who didn’t just shrug off the ideas of a 21-year-old.

Kevin Smith was awesome. The drive to Toronto was safe, nice, and entertaining (when Eric got behind the wheel). The show itself was fantastic. I’m really glad that I got to see it with everyone I did, Alex specifically (she missed it last time). The ride home was fun, too, talking to everyone (and, again, with Eric driving in the big city traffic).

Alex and I watched Seven and another movie, which I cannot remember the title of, on Friday night. That was very nice, and both were great movies. Work Saturday was relatively uneventful, and I was really tired. Saturday night I fell asleep around 9 p.m. I wonder what will happen when I get a real job.

I’ll leave you with this (one-sided) conversation bit I had with Stephanie this evening:

“I went to get two chocolate chip cookies but, when I did, there was a chocolate chip cookie under the two I picked up that had so many chocolate chips in it I couldn’t say “no”. So I got three chocolate chip cookies.

“It’s a quality story that examples my compassion for delicious looking cookies. The cookie was created to be eaten and I, unselfishly, ate it.

“It was the highlight of my weekend.”

Today I found the barrel part of my Pilot ExecuGel. This was actually a rather disturbing find for me. Earlier in the year I had lost the pen–through no fault of my own, of course. I had difficulty dealing with that, but I accepted that it was gone, and figured it to be in one pieces. Today, that idealisation was ruined, and now a horrible tragedy is upon us. Justice MUST be served; by whom, and for what exactly, I’m not sure, but an incident like this cannot go overlooked.

I beat Halo 2. Lucas and I have determined that I am a good player one-on-one, but not good in a group scenerio.

Tomorrow I’m participating in a focus group discussing the learning outcomes of my former program at the college. After that, a quick drive to Toronto rewarded with a Q&A session with Kevin Smith. Oh it will be a good day.

And Happy Birthday to Adam! Technically I’m late in announcing this (his birthday is on November 17th), but the birthday wishes are still the same.

I’ve been playing lots of Halo 2. Check out my stats. I’m not very good, but I’m having fun. The game is incredible–both the campaign and the multiplayer. If you want to know more just read one of the many, many game reviews out there. And if you want to play against me add “Ocip” to your Xbox Live friends list.

I’ve talked about it a few times, but now I’ve finally done it: I added an anonymous list viewer to my copy of phpgiftreg. So for those who have their lists registered feel free to send it to friends and family.

Charles sent me this humourous image. Ooh I can’t believe how unlucky the world is (or how misinformed Americans are).

I’ve been looking into possibly signing up for a VoIP service–Vonage, specifically. They don’t provide a local number for Kingston, but I think I’d be fine with a Toronto number (I’ve got my cell phone locally with such an awesome number that I wouldn’t want to get a different one). I spend around $10 a month in long distance, which is about half of the price plan I’d get from Vonage; the extra $10 a month would be worth it for the coolness factor! But, I have a problem justifying the startup cost ($80) just for the coolness factor. Plus, there are so many other things that I want. This leads me to believe I need to find a job.

So today I think I’m going to do a little job hunting, as well as a little reading. This Thursday I’m participating in a focus group at the college with regards to the learning outcomes of my former program (Computer Engineering Technology). Afterwards I’m going to see Kevin Smith in Toronto again which is hugely exciting. This time not only to I get to go with Eric and Kristy (although we didn’t sit together last time), but also Amy again (who is always exciting) and Alex!

It’s 1030h EST and I’ve already had more than a couple of handfuls of Hickory Sticks.

There’s going to be a complete box set of The Office released in North America. If I didn’t already have the first two series’s I would be all over that.

What we need now is the complete works of Alan Partridge released on this side of the pond.

I just read, what can only be, the most convincing open-ended argument for a pencil in the timeless pen versus pencil debate: “if you break a pencil you have two pencils; if you break a pen…”