s "p age5 — November 2008 OPINION

UPEI Cadre

This town ain't big enough for the both of us

First Bar on the right - and Straight on Till Morning

How to

reak banality and drown

worries on the standard pubcrawl

By traditional standards, the ideal jar jaunt for any close compatriots or faculty align- ment is the familiarity with the schedule: the working man or woman’s version of the doggy shock collar; you voice your opinions, and get an electric spanking. This theory of “plan equals sure- fire success” is -- through multiple experiences of my own and by word-of-mouth — most awfully incarnated by god awful happenings of New Year’s Eve. You go places you don’t want to go. You hear bands you don’t want to. Most importantly, you’re spending time with people you hadn’t the slight- est intention of spending time with. This makes one overcompensate with the finest and cheapest booze, booze, stumbling, booze, midnight, booze, booze, police officer, booze, and etc. Following is a quite bog-standard way of not fucking up your night on New Year’s: :

- Don’t feel you need to stick with the group.

-Don’t make plans, make options.

-Don’t think. If you think, you’re gonna have a bad time. The main issue with having a gameplan is the lack of spontaneity.

It’s fine to follow a basic guideline, but setting times and places in stone allow for little time to sit and have great conversations with people discussing muted — politics in an altered state,

when juxtaposed with the dance, rock or whatever else people have the gall to play at these gatherings, makes for a really surreal time.

New Year’s is a time for showmanship. Many want to make a show, not have a good time, so there’s plenty of time for one to stand in mid-bar, entertaining hordes of associates with drivelling banter, anecdotes and pop conversations as each per- son passes by. It’s all about the mood, what do you feel like, not just whatever the group leader or day-planner has mapped out for you. Focus.

Listen to your instincts. Do you want suds, or shots? Red or white? Band or dance? These are essential tools of the trade of getting Reasonably Ripped.

On the other hand, you could stay home. No shame, game, risk, harm or foul,

just wrecking yourself mak- —

ing a “mystery list” and listening to Justice.

Hope you all had a gnarly time on Hallowe’en.

It’s a good night. But word to the winos: prepare Christmas, and beware New Year’s Eve. But you know what’s great? New Year’s levees. Ringing in the new year with daytime drunken- ness and different meals eaten throughout the day make for an event you’ ll wait through the holidays for.

- Sebastian Baglole

ist ignored, resulting in a near miss when Yeo was walk- ing. Cadre photo

Ya know what really Grinds My Gears

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Jarrod Yeo tells of his near-death experience and what he feels the city needs to do to keep it from happening again

By Jarrod Yeo The Cadre

I’m back with another com- mentary after a blunder with last month’s issue of The Cadre kept my enlighten- ing words from going to print. Knowing that I only have a 50 per cent chance of having this reaching the publishers, let me tell you what’s been grinding my gears.

Drivers. More specifi- cally, P.E.I. drivers. To find the kind of bad driving behaviour I speak of, you need look no further than the UPEI intersection on Belvedere Avenue. I was out for a run with a friend recently, heading up Belve- dere towards the Farmer’s Market. It was roughly noon and the streets were jammed with the lunch crowd. As I neared the intersection in _

question, a car leaving UPEI zipped towards it with the intention of turning right towards Subway. I could see the driver looking over his left shoulder, making sure there was no oncom- ing traffic and as soon as he saw he was clear, he pulled out. The fact he ran a stop sign? Unimportant. Yielding to pedestrians? Unimport- ant. It was wet that day and I had to stop so suddenly to avoid being run over I ended up wiping out hard, gashing my knee and almost ending up under his wheel. And as luck would have it my sister, who I might see twice a month, was stopped waiting to turn left in the same intersection and saw the whole event unfold. Now I’m sure that had I been hit, and with my sister and roommate as my star witnesses, it would have looked very suspicious and

I would have been dis- missed as one of those guys who throw themselves into moving vehicles to sue the driver. Not the case. And the thing that really grinds my gears is that even if the culprit is reading this, he probably isn’t aware it’s him because he hasn’t seen me yet.

Now that UPEI has po- nied up the money to build a fence to keep jaywalkers off of University Avenue,

I say it’s time the city of Charlottetown reciprocates by putting up some traffic lights at this intersection. I’m sure motorists will agree, during rush hours vehicles turning left here in particular can be left waiting for quite some time. I’m no engineer, and I’m not even a city planner, but if there’s a place in the capital that could benefit from traffic lights, I say look no further.