i'm at narita airport in tokyo.

i will be in vancouver in about 14 hours, i think.

i tried to buy oliver a baby kimono, but they didn't have any. fuck.

okay, it's monday morning of my last week before i leave for holidays.

i'm thinking back to last year's holiday in thailand and this year has seemed like a breeze. year end recaps are generally for new years - but it's my birthday on friday - so this is high time for reminiscing.

my last birthday was a rager - massive all-you-can-drink nonsense at carnestation in hongdae followed by madness in hongdae. for those who witnessed it, no birthday comes even halfway close.

let's see... thailand in august - good. kyeongju in november - really good. grandfather dying at christmas - not good at all. christmas in apkujeong with the cobras - good but not good enough as vernon. japan in march - amazing. vietnam in april - amazing. lifting weights like a madman pretty much every other day for a year - amazing.

which brings me to a request - since i'm pretty vain these days - those of you who remember what i look like when i left, i want an honest assessment of how my body has changed. it seems subtle to me, but if i'm looking huge, feel free to say "holy shit, sean... you're BUFF!". i left around 185 pounds... then with a different diet, too much homesick-beer i bounced up to 205. i'm still hovering around 195-200 pounds but i look different than i did this time last year. i'm esecially stoked about my shoulders and back... but if you don't notice a difference, please say so. the amazing ryan sabourin is slowly taking currie's place as my workout partner, and it's amazing how much i've learned from derek just since february. i'm actually at a place where i can school someone else a bit. it rules.

so here's the deal. i arrive at YVR at 10:20 am saturday the 23rd.
AC 4 V 23JUL NRT/YVR 1725 1020 CONFIRMED

i even get a stopover in japan, so if there's anything japan-style that anyone wants, let me know. i keep neglecting to get parge the suntory whiskey.

what i plan to do that day is hang out, perhaps nap to get over jet lag, visit some of my old haunts in vancouver, and at about 8pm i want to meet as many people as possible at the irish heather in gastown. i will try to get someone to make reservations for about 15, but i'm sure a come-one come-all situation will be fine.

roll call so far for the heather:
me
parge/cindy/oliver
franco
alexandre
comeau/verbeek and the 13th ave. mom squad
balogh
dillon
shuquaya
walden
ruscheinsky
saez
nick "nick berry" berry
portlanders
and if korndog can suffer one night in a pub, he'd better come too.

AWOL or indisposed: arslanian, payton. you fags are geographically challenged.

oh and god i don't remember who else. it's 9:10 am and i have to be upstairs to teach about 5 minutes ago.

i have this problem with insomnia on sunday nights.

see, i have to go out on friday and saturday nights to let loose and blow off steam. we are in intensive which means 12 hour days from about 9-9. even though i get a 2 hour break from 12:30-2:30, it's not really a break and i end up at 9pm feeling like i'm aging from a bad crank habit.

so the weekend we party a bit, not too much since my free time is fucking SACRED right now i try to not get too bent, as a hangover tends to steal spare time that could be spent in deep relaxation. much to the occasional disappointment of my comrades. many of my friends have much higher stamina levels than i.

but inevitably, i stay up fairly late. i go home and watch dvd's. in bed by 2 at the latest if i can help it.

last night i was awake until 5. i was supposed to get up at 6 and go to the gym; instead i was up at 8 for work at 9. what sucked is that i was falling asleep the whole night, but i'd catch myself snoring as i dozed off and wake up with a start, thinking "shit, i'm sleeping alone... and someone's snoring? SHIT! I DO SNORE! GOD DAMN IT!!!" who in the hell has ever caught themselves snoring? i am under the impression that i am the first to do it and have the cojones to talk about it.

the only person who is as humble as i was in that line is a woman who admits she's PMSing during the PMS episode, not a week later when she's all "heh heh... uh... i guess i was a bit of a bitch, heh heh". I SNORE. nasality happens.

anyways... the purpose of this entry was to illustrated that, while under the influence of massive sleep deprivation, 2 (lite) beer and a small pizza, i can still write.

pentagram.

this is a band that i have been listening to almost nonstop for the past 2 months.

there's something about them - their unabashed satanic themes, the fact that they started in the year i was born (fucking 1971) and are still rocking - their absolute bare-bones production... the almost moronic lyrics.

they are pretty crude-sounding, plodding, black-sabbathy pentatonic rock. the kind of thing that two dudes down the road from you in new westminster are playing in a basement when you're trying to sleep. the kind of band deaner from FUBAR would start.

however, there's some sort of stadium-rock pageantry that goes with it - you get the idea that, despite the fact that they've probably never played in a club that held more than 120 people, they approached every show like they were headlining monterey pop.

there's a dude (who i think is a professor of some sort - which is even cooler) who runs a website dedicated to the documentation of this tragically unsung band.

http://www.cas.sc.edu/socy/faculty/deflem/pentagram/default.html

there are a few people - like greg "i'll do anything a year before it's hip" anderson (galleon's lap, engine kid, goatsnake) and relapse records (www.relapse.com) who have championed their cause. this is noble work.

i try to explain to people why i like certain music and i think this blog entry just scratches the surface of one of the 'odder' ones. i'm just not articulate enough to explain why i like such shitty music sometimes.

i mean... who likes the knack? i do.
pentagram
kool keith
anal cunt
dead horse
the wrens
integrity
the oath
galleon's lap
neil young
silkworm
MC paul barman
themselves
mitch hedberg

i don't know... i love all this shit, and it's all so shitty. but it has one thing that so many bands lack - VISION. i mean... who else but dead horse could pull off a song like SCOTTISH HELL?

fuck all of you. i have headphones and you can go be intellectually correct out of earshot. but then again none of you really exist.

i need a holiday.

i will have one soon. 18 more days.

i paid about 1400 dollars for a round trip ticket to vancouver today.

i arrive july 23.