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The Boy Who Wanted Too Much

September 11th, 2009

MissyToday my family brought our 10 year old cat, Missy, to the vet. We had the impression she was in pain and recently she started to pee in various places around the house.

As soon as a veterinarian saw her he told dad there was something wrong and he would tell she had a tumor before he even opened her up, it was that big. It’s sad, but she died on the operating table.

In high school when she was young I thought to myself that she was that perfect size where she’s old enough to cuddle (and not a ball of energy) but small enough that she was still a cute kitten. The following poem struck me.

I post this in memory of Missy.

The Boy Who Wanted Too Much

He begged
and he pled
and he did things as such
To get a new kitty
The Boy Who Wanted Too Much

After owning a cat
for almost two and a half months
the boy thought to himself:

“I like my kitty
he is perfect in size
I wish him no bigger
else him I’ll despise”

And just like that
with the blink of an eye
appeared his fairy godmother
with some loose ends to tie

“It’s a wish that you want
and a wish you shall get
What I do for you now
please do not forget.”

“I’ll remember what you do
Fairy Godmother dear.
I think you already
for coming to hear.”

“Oh do not thank me
Thank the heavens above
It is they who have sent me
to comfort and love…

But let’s get back to business!
And back to your cries.
You wish on your cat
to not change in size”

Ali-zee, Ali-zoo
And an Ala-kazeer
With the flick of her wrist
She had gone, disappeared.

The boy looked around once
Noticed something was strange
He thought about moving
but his posture would not change.

“God damn that old hag!”
said the boy with a tut.
“She has frozen all time
I cannot get up!”

The boy wanted to cry
but a tear would not form
“Now that time is all stopped
I wish I hadn’t been born.”

But this time, the fairy godmother,
she did not reply.
But the cat wasn’t growing
so she did not lie.

GregPike.ca

The world’s only wooden skyscraper in Russia

August 21st, 2009

In Arkhangelsk, Russia, a man known as Nikolai Sutyagin has built a homemade skyscraper out of his house.

Wooden Skyscraper in Russia

During Perestroyka he inherited some money and with that he started to build his dream home. He hired an architect who planned the first two floors.

From there he spent the next fifteen years building his house upwards. Right now it soars high over the city with thirteen floors. It is the taller structure in the city looking down on even the tallest cement buildings.

Some people in the city love it; others are afraid for their homes and for their skyline.

Either way, this is one interestingly ambitious project.

From CommonGate: Homemade Wooden Skyscraper
From Picdict: Wooden Skyscraper

Heroes, Wacky ,

JK Wedding Entrance Dance followed by the JK Divorce Entrance Dance

August 4th, 2009

Everyone has seen the JK Wedding Dance by now. If you haven’t, you should.

Now there is a JK Divorce Dance. This is very cool. Hats off to Jill and Kevin. You are now officially Greg Pike Heroes.

Congratulations Jill and Kevin and good luck!

Heroes, Wacky ,

Slight Absense

July 20th, 2009

Sorry I haven’t blogged much in the past week. What with guest-blogging with Signal Blog and being coaught in bed with a fever for three days I haven’t had much chance for writing for GregPike.ca.

Let’s see if we can’t change that this week.

GregPike.ca

Canadian Dave Carroll Sticks it to United Airlines – Sings “United Breaks Guitars”

July 13th, 2009

Dave Carroll has stepped into the ranks of a very special collection of people who are GregPike.ca Heroes.

In the spring of 2008 he was traveling via United Airlines and his guitar was broke in transit. After a year of bickering with United’s customer service representatives (and getting no where) he decided to write a catchy tune describing his misfortune with the world.

After producing the video and becoming famous for it, United finally offered to pay for his guitar (and get rid of all the bad publicity swelling around this video), but it was too late. He wasn’t interested in being bought. Taylor Guitars on the other hand sent Dave some free merchandise and posted online about how to take care of you guitar while you travel.

Now Dave is working on a followup song about United. This should be good.

Heroes

Moonball Theme

July 2nd, 2009

The Moonball theme for this year has been selected.

Moonball is a birthday party that my friend Ange and I host every year to celebrate our close birthdays. It’s a house party with a dance club-like dance floor and a free shooter bar.

The theme for this year is Fairtales!

We will be decorating to a Fairytales theme and some people will be dressed in costumes for the theme.

GregPike.ca

St. John’s Thriller on Facebook

June 29th, 2009

Michael Jackson's Thriller

As many of you know last Halloween a few of us put together a shot-by-shot recreation of Michael Jackson’s Thriller video shot here in St. John’s. Many of you have been requesting it to be put online.

Well now it is.

The story and video are located on the Product of Newfoundland blog (Thriller: St. John’s Style).

The video is temporarily only available on Facebook, but as soon as we have it on YouTube I will feed the video on GregPike.ca.

Additional information (Product of Newfoundland): Thriller: St. John’s Style
Additional information (dot dot dot): Thriller, in St. John’s
Additional information (Signal): Thriller was here. In St. John’s, I mean

UPDATE: The video is now available on GregPike.ca!


Thriller: St. John’s Style

GregPike.ca , ,

Michael Jackson passes away

June 26th, 2009

I know everyone is expecting me to write something regarding this topic as if I was Michael’s best friend. For those of you who do not know last year my friends and I recreated the Thriller video shot-for-shot in St. John’s with me as Michael Jackson.

I’m not sure what is the best way to show respect for this amazing entertainer, but I’ll write a little about the last day.

Tweets containing "Michael Jackson"

News of the story exploded on Twitter last night. Unfortunately I was not on the Internet at the time and was unable to cover the story but word is that Michael Jackson, for a while, dominated all 10 Trending Topics, which is no small feat. According to this graph provided by Mashable nearly 1 in ever 4 tweets was contained the words “Michael Jackson”.

Online news websites got swamped with visitors last night. Website availability for the top news websites fell from 100% to 86% as visitors flooded in to learn more about the incident. The average load time for every page doubled from 4.2 seconds to load to 8.9 seconds to load. Only one in every ten visitors was able to access ABCNews.com as they were floored with visitor requests.

Thriller - Michael JacksonI have no doubt there is a great deal of sadness amoung among his thousands of obsessed fans and the millions more who love his music (and how can I neglect to say dance moves). MJ’s family has requested that they be left alone to pay their respects and love to Michael. I doubt they will get any kind of peace given the power of these circumstances, but I respect their wishes and send my condolences.

In light of this tragedy I think I will upload our version of Thriller online despite my intention to save it for Halloween. I can imagine no better way for me to show my respect for this pop legend than to publicize an imitation of his great work, one of my favorite videos, Thriller. I will publish the video here when it is ready.

Good buy Michael. RIP.

From Mashable: Michael Jackson Dies: Twitter Tributes Now 30% of Tweets
From CNet News: News sites swamped following Michael Jackson’s death
From BNO News: Request from Michael’s family

GregPike.ca, The Web, Wacky , ,

GregPike.ca gets Another facelift?

May 11th, 2009

Yes, yes I know. I did it again. GregPike.ca has a new look. I assure you it was for a good reason.

The old GregPike.ca was built using a framework called Drupal. I don’t expect many of my regulars to understand what that means, but I had to make the change for two reasons:

  1. The old site was too constraining.
  2. SEO was atrocious (didn’t rank well in Google).

This new version is built using WordPress. I like this a lot more.

I am still adding elements but enjoy!

PS: Yes, your accounts no longer exist and if you want a new one, you will have to create it. I am really sorry about it, but there was no way around it.

GregPike.ca