Yay! Row 22 – Floor for the Coldplay concert on St. Patty’s Day. Can I be any more happy?!
I had a meeting this morning so couldn’t personally try and get tix, but when I got back to my office I discovered a string of emails stating that no one could get tix. NOOOO!
Turns out that they were playing a cruel joke on me and let me know the moment before I was going to order a single ticket in the 300 Level.
Excellent. Awesome. I’m stoked.
nowabouttobeplayingintheboxo’music:
Here’s a great pic taken by Benoit’s camera phone of Joelle and I at the U2 concert!
Yesterday, I spent the entire day baking 60 loaves of bread for some fundraising activities at work.
Spencer and myself showed up at John’s place at 8:00 sharp to begin the day with no expectations other than John telling us we will work like dogs.
John used to own his bakery and now has his own stone stove in his backyard. We spent the morning learning how to mix the ingredients of bread, the science of it all…kneading the bread, letting it rise, cutting, weighing and then finally placing it into this giant brick oven (aka the haven of heat).
This was a great learning opportunity for me as I had no idea how much work was put into actually baking something. I am a simple man with simple needs. No way would I ever have to make 60 loaves of bread for myself.
We had a great day and even though my feet were sore after standing for 7 hours (felt like I was back at Wal-Mart!), I was impressed with our work accomplished and thought that this may be the greatest thing I’ve done all year.
I encourage everyone to take a workshop in baking bread. It’s interesting and you’ll never go buy another loaf of that sliced stuff in the stores. Bah!
I would like to point out how much of a difference a handlebar moustache makes to a man.
I thought Tyler Connolly was a freakin’ old man when they hit the scene years ago…now he looks like a kid without his el moustachio.
Night started with Mike over at Vero’s having a few beer while we debated what the heck my references are supposed to look like in my essay. Stupid references.
Went over to the Capital Music Hall where Hurst hasn’t started up yet. Too bad they were sold out of Theory autographed pics…I would have snatched that up quickly.
Had a few beer during Hurst’s set…Trevor Hurst is the frontman of this band and was the singer from Econoline Crush from years back. The set was intermixed with their own tunes as well as catering to the Crush fans. Excellent! Very impressed with them. Picked up their EP for $5 and got it autographed by the band at the end of the night.
After their set, I realized that the beer must be interacting with the Advil Cold & Sinus that I was taking since I felt like I was in some dream state while chatting with Mike.
Highlights of the night with Theory:
All in all, I love this band, I think Gasoline is my favourite album of 2005. It may show up on my top 10 list this year at the top.
If you were around me last weekend, you’ll know that my cell phone was on the fritz. Looks like the battery kept losing it’s connection. I brought this up to Mike and he said that if I fold a piece of paper and put it inside, it should push the battery against the connectors to maintain a connection.
Voila. Problem solved.
I find it ironic that the newest form of communication was saved by the oldest form of communication (other than vocal of course. Oh yeah, and those cave drawings.) Granted, I’m not using the paper to write down any information, but at least it came in handy for other things!
Another special guest ranter…apparently I have quite a few friends who like to rant.
Read this article first on the new policy in place at PWGSC for hiring white, able-bodied males:
Then continue on with Mike’s rant here:
You know,
That is total bullshit, by attempting to stop discrimination they are only discriminating even more than before. Getting a job based solely on your ethnic background or your sex does nothing but hurt the employer. Jobs should be awarded solely on the basis of your experience and your qualifications. If I have a problem I want the best person for the job no matter of who they are or where they come from.
And there is my rant.
Such is a fact of life, I guess that I will have to get used to the idea of being discriminated against for no apparent reason. Why discrimination ever came to be I have no idea, we are all human beings who originated from the same lineage.
Mike
At long last…the moment you have all been waiting for…I present you:
The Morning Show
A webcam based show from my office along with my colleague in crime Phil, in the year 2001.
The collection follows Bob and Jethro through the trials and tribulations of hosting a morning show, and how you can only go so far with moose jokes.
Episode #1 – Download Here
Original Airdate: November 9, 2001
(tech notes: 8.09 MB, AVI File)
If you take a look in the comments section of Trish’s Rant, you’ll notice the topic of artists pushing their political views on people.
Granted, Bono pushes a lot, hence, you see a lot of him in the media.
But let me ask if there are any artists out there that haven’t pushed their views on their audience at sometime or another? I suppose there are quite a few.
Wasn’t the good old days of Rock n Roll about rebelling? Alright, maybe not every band rebelled against something, but I’m sure a lot of them did!
What about John Lennon? Speaking of which…25 years…coming up soon.
I enjoy a good political rant at a concert. I enjoy hearing about their views against the current political climate in the States, or the myriad horrible issues affecting Africa right now. I like how it informs people. I was very oblivious to current events until musicians took it upon themselves to inform me.
But back to my main point…I like it when rock n roll is rebellious. They want us to rock out. They want us to rock the vote. They want us to change something. I like when they speak between songs…you get to hear what they are thinking. It’s cool. It’s more than just the music. That’s what I like about a concert. You get more. You hear new variations on songs. You get to feel the energy in the crowd. You get to hear the band’s thoughts on stuff and see how it translates into their music writing.
You can keep the discussion alive in Trish’s Rant section…I don’t want to squash it.
Since Ryan has been gracious enough to let me be a guest ranter on his blog, here are a few things that I need to vent about today. For the past few days I have had that fabulous Band-Aid song “Do They Know Its Christmas” stuck in my head. This stems from the compilation of my Fromage de Noel album, which will be on sale shortly.
In this song, we distinctly hear our very own Bono, champion of poverty prevention, sing “Well tonight thank God it’s them instead of you” in reference to the poor starving children of Africa. Thank God the children are starving in Africa? Doesn’t sound very charitable to me. For a guy who is so quick to tell us all his political views and insists during his concerts that we call our political leaders and share our views on poverty, he might have put a little more thought into that line. (editor’s note: I think Trish is on crack.)
Another line that gets me: “And there won’t be snow in Africa this Christmastime.” Is this as opposed to every other year when they do get snow? Do you really think snow is their biggest concern? I mean really, it is fabulous that all sorts of famous singers got together to save the children of Africa through song, but I think they could have put a little more effort into the lyrics. (editor’s note: Who says there isn’t snow in Africa? I think Trish should do some research on this one.)
The Simpsons also agree with me. Please refer to the episode “Radio Bart” where Bart uses a microphone and pretends to be an orphan boy named Timmy O’Toole, who has fallen down a well. Celebrities from Springfield and Sting put together their own Band-Aid.
Sideshow Mel: Though we can’t get him out, we’ll do the next best thing…
McBane: We go on TV and sing, sing, sing! (well, if it was in the Simpsons, I can’t deny Trish’s comments above.)
In other ranting news…ever since I have had a car again, I have been noticing that there are a lot of stupid people out there. For instance:
Ok. Done for now, but don’t worry. I am just getting warmed up. I’ll be back (it’s up to you to imagine the Terminator voice here).
I’m going to send some props out to Mike for introducing me to my new fave show: Prison Break.
Before I forget, Benoit resurrected his blog. Check it out here.
Back to my props. Mike told me about Prison Break around Thanksgiving…since I was a little low on good shows to watch, I decided to download it.
Holy crap this series is great. I love television these days…all serialized format where it’s like you’re watching a mega-movie. (sidenote here about how Quentin Tarantino directed the season finale of CSI last year just to see how TV production is. Now he loves it and thinks he can do a lot more with story in a series than in a 2 hour flick. Awesome.)
Anyhow, the show revolves around one guy in jail on death row and his brother getting himself thrown into jail so he can break him out. Oh yes, and supposedly the brother on death row didn’t do it, so there’s that side story of lawyers/friends trying to prove he is innocent.
Why do I love this show? Excellent storytelling for one. I am engaged the whole way through. I thoroughly enjoy the cast and the character development. Working inside a prison, you can create a character you need out of thin air since there are thousands of people there. It’s not like they are on some mystical island in the land of nowhere…actually this brings me to Lost (my other fave show right now) and how they smartly said that there are more people who crashed on the island than they actually show. So if they ever need a new character (read: someone to blow up, like the ensigns on Star Trek) they just pull them from this random pot of survivors.
Anyhow, I haven’t finished watching the season yet…about half way through (I download them off the Internet since I don’t have TV cable) but I may try and have a marathon run this coming weekend to finish the season off.
—–
Should I start talking about how Alias is biting the royal big one lately and how I’m not depressed that the show is getting cancelled? For the past two seasons, I have found the show to start out slow and uninteresting…but then they ramp it up near the end to make it all worthwhile. I’m hoping they will do that for the series ending.
Should I start talking about how I love the fact that I can download TV shows and watch them whenever I want instead of being pulled from my every day doings to go sit and watch a TV show? I just wrote an essay on this subject which I should put up here which analyzes how broacasting companies like the CBC should offer up their shows on the Net as free downloads and keep an archive forever. I like the ‘on-demand’ society better than the ‘must be in front of the TV at 8:00. No worries I can set my VCR…NOOOO! I forgot to set my VCR!!!’
Granted, it takes awhile to download a show…overnight usually. But hey…if I’m not in a rush to see them anyhow, I’m saving some sweet cash from not paying for TV cable. Granted, this may change when Mike moves in with me in January. Heck, I don’t mind paying for TV cable. Scratch that…I do mind. We’ll see what we can do to get around that. In no way am I talking about illegal means that I was using at my previous home. 😉