Neel Parikh

“… total commitment. Execution. Perfection.” That’s what freesoloing means to Alex Honnold. Here’s an interview with Honnold from last year. The man has balls of steel – I don’t even know where to begin. Take a look at the caption on the picture at the top of the article. If you need inspiration and motivation, that’s where you get it… when you’re struggling on a multipitch 5.10d crack, and all of a sudden, Alex Honnold sneaks up behind you at a belay station… “Hey, I’m Alex, I don’t have a rope.. all I have is this chalk bag, some protein bars, and oh yah, my balls of steel, do you mind if I pass you?”. Not exactly verbatim, but you get the point. Forget being ridiculously physically strong, I’d love to have that kind of mental strength. That’s right, I want Alex’s balls (of steel). There, i said it.

Here’s a pretty cool video of the man in action at Indian Creek.

…. is hopefully the final nail in the coffin. Yep, that’s right folks, there’s no a straight to DVD Prison Break Movie.  When Prison Break first went on the air (a few agonizing years ago), I was a fan. I looked forward to Monday nights to see what kind of clever trickery Michael Scofield was up to. But with contingency plan after contingency plan, and being convinced that a run of the mill engineer was a combination electronics specialist, plumbing specialist, structure specialist, network specialist, weapons specialist, and bulletproof master of disguise (that’s right, if you’re on the top 10 most wanted, all you need to do is wear a hat and nobody will be the wiser*), I decided to throw in the towel. What a horrible horrible show. And what kills me is that even after I decided to throw in the towel, I still kept watching. I was pot committed, I couldn’t accept the sunken cost of the countless hours I spent watching a show that was in a downward spiral after the first 5 episodes. So that, I finished the series.

Now if you haven’t already watched the finale that aired a few months ago, don’t. Consider yourself lucky, and go on with your life knowing you’ll have an extra hour to enjoy your life. Go for a jog, climb some rocks, hug a tree, do whatever it is that makes you happy, and keep reading so I can “spoil” the ending for you. So yah, they wrap everything up neatly, but had 15 minutes of airtime left… so what do they do? they kill off the main character off screen and have a shot of everyone visiting his grave 4 years later. Horray. Fan-frikin-tastic. I figured THAT was the nail in the coffin of the show. With Michael dead, they couldn’t POSSIBLY revive the franchise. (Could they?) We will never have to (albeit voluntarily) suffer through another episode of Prison Break ever again. I was ecstatic. Until about 4 hours ago when I was driving home, listening to the radio, and heard that there’s now a Prison Break movie intended to fill the gap in the 4 years between when everything got wrapped up into a neat little package and when Michael dies of some sort of brain tumour. Hopefully its something more than their monkeys on typewriters spit out for the last 5 seasons…

“Michael, we have to get you to a hospital”…. “everything will be alright Sarah, I promise” … repeat as necessary, create cover page titled “Prison Break Script”, hit print, sell to Fox. Speaking which apparently the character with the least dialogue in Family Guy now has his own spinoff show. I present to you, the Cleveland Show.

* If you typically wear a hat all the time anyway, not wearing a hat would probably work better. And I’ve always said, if dying your hair black** and stealing the identity of a guy named Desmondo Jose Ruiz*** worked for Harrison Ford, it can work for you.

** If your hair is already black, try a different colour.

*** If by some unfortunate circumstance, your name actually is Desm…. nevermind, you get the idea.

Ah wine gums, I forgot how good you are.

That is all.

So both of you guys who read this blog have probably noticed that I haven’t posted in a while. I’ve been sick in bed for the past few days, long story short, it’s most likely strep, and man does it suck to not be able to enjoy food without excruciating pain.  On the plus side it’s given me the opportunity to assemble some “Swedish” modular furniture (made in China, no doubt). I’ve had a love an hate relationship with Ikea since I moved in to my condo. I love the fact that I can get stuff that looks decent and is cheap. I hate the fact that it’s cheap. Okay, let me elaborate on that – it’s cheaply made. It looks fantastic, until you get close and realize that it’s just laminated MDF (if you’re lucky), but more likely particle board.  For some reason, laminate is all the rage, the bee’s knees, the successor to sliced bread, and I can’t understand why… in most casts it’s a picture of real wood printed onto a friggin sticker, then stuck to the scraps of wood that are left behind on the factory floor. hooo-ray. At least I know that it’s only temporary, and that when I can afford the kinda stuff I really want, I can always sell my LACK Coffee table to some 1st year arts student so s/he’ll have more money to buy baked beans and ramen.  If you manage to not destroy your Asian-made Swedish furniture by sliding dishes across it too many times (read: three), it’s always got good resale value. On the other hand, buy a good piece of furniture, and it’ll last you forever… but you’ll never get your money back if you get sick of it.

Check out Environment Furniture – they’ve got some super-sweet stuff, and I was stoked on their Santos Coffee Table until I found out that they had more than 100% markup in Canada. I was told by the snooty saleslady that it could be mine for a paltry $1700 + taxes. yah.. right. eat me. twice. seriously. It’s nice, perhaps even 21 times nicer than the LACK. But unless they’re willing to share some of the crack that they’re smoking, I think I’ll put my drink back down on my laminated particle board and get back to watching Burn Notice.