Month: November 2006

Yesterday I had the great opportunity to participate in a talent show at work. They ended up renting out a theatre in the Museum of Civilization that seats 500 people! Yowzahs! I sang Through The Glass by Stone Sour (one of the Top 40 hits out there right now) along with co-worker Shawn who is big into these things. He found out I played guitar back when we were baking bread a few months back so he thought I may be interested.

All along, I thought “Sure, this will be fun” but I didn’t realize the sheer size of the production until going for a soundcheck in the morning – along with those handy dandy monitor speakers at your feet so you can hear how you sound. That threw me off big time as the monitors were so loud that I couldn’t hear myself strum. That freaked me out for the remainder of the day, but luckily the sound guys turned them down for the performance.

Gigtime hit fast and Shawn was nowhere to be found. Doh! There were people rushing around trying to find him so they told me to just go on stage as it’s no fun watching an empty stage. I saunter out to some cheers (thanks to whoever cheered!) and sat myself and plugged myself in.

The first thing that struck me was that the spotlights make it so you can’t see the crowd. So it was surreal experience…almost like I was alone on stage with a black void in front of me that has whispers and claps coming out of nowhere.

The MC came out to talk a bit while Shawn was getting ready (no jack cord) and we had a good banter together. My favourite part was when he mentioned our Director General was in the audience today so I made a comment that she was the best DG we ever had. That had the audience roaring! Sophia actually caught all of this on video which was great.

We started off as soon as Shawn was set up and ripped through the song. It was great. I must admit that I had some lyrics at my feet which became my crutch and I read off of them. I’m so used to them and have no faith in myself when it comes to memorized lyrics. I feel that if I’m searching my head for what lyric comes next, then I don’t put as much passion into my vocal performance. However, I know I had memorized these lyrics as I had been practicing for some time now, but when the crutch is there, you take it. Not a big deal. In the grand scheme of things, when you’re in a theatre that size, no one notices what directions your eyes are pointing towards (aka, down at the floor at your lyric sheet).

Everything sounded great and we were both impressed. It’s funny…I realize that the performer doesn’t get to take the applause in afterwards…it’s just a rush off of stage and a rush of adrenaline now that you’re finished that hits you and you don’t even realize what’s going on until you’re backstage and thinking “Hey, they’re clapping for us!”

All in all, a great experience. I have no idea how many people were out there. I would estimate between 200-300. Probably your standard wedding size. One day I’ll hit up the stadium tour circuit and see what the crowds are like there. Speaking about stadium tours, one of the guys there was telling me their band won a competition to open for Tom Cochrane years ago at the Corel Centre. He said it was surreal playing for that many people. Awesome!

Thanks to Shawn for inviting me to take part in the peformance du jour.

Santa Claus (no E) writes:
“$341.00 for a christmas list…..I hate Christmas lists…..my my my what ever happened to .. imagination, listening, looking, making mental notes….Come on folks….. this is Christmas, time to give surprises…not things that people tell you to get….”

For once, I agree with one of the comments left on my site. Santa Claus has hit the nail on the head.

I personally do not care for wish lists. Sure, when I was a kid, they were fine because you could hint towards your parents about the things you wanted…especially the ONE gift you couldn’t do without.

But nowadays, when everyone can afford anything they want (well not EVERYTHING, but a lot of stuff that would make it onto a Christmas list at least), I would rather be surprised with my gifts. I would rather people take a step back, think about who I am and realize what I would appreciate.

Now…the reason I made the list is for the people who just aren’t around me enough to figure out what I would like. Let’s take the parents for example…living away from them, they can’t peruse what I own and say “Hey, Ryan probably needs a new hammer!”. It’s hard! Hence, the list makes things a little easier, or at the very least, gives an idea. For example, I listed a few Beatles books on my list last year. The parents didn’t get me them, but they picked up another gem of a Beatles book which I’m reading right now which is really great! It’s probably the best gift I got last year. (Vero, if you’re reading this, I’m lying…your gifts were the best! You know it’s true!) So with the list, they deduced other items that I would enjoy.

So…do I like the idea of a gift list? No…but I understand why there is sometimes a need for it. Sort of like wedding registries.

Where wish lists go wrong is when a person is DISAPPOINTED that they don’t get something off of the list. That’s just lame. Remind me to introduce you to coal next year bub.

As for the $341 comment…holy crap, I don’t expect to get anywhere near all the items on the list. It’s more of a ‘pick and choose if you can’t figure out anything else’ deal.

For those wishing to pick up yours truly a gift (Mom/Dad, I’m looking at you here..), I have created a wish list on Amazon.com

Actually, you may wish to actually order through Amazon.com (instead of Amazon.ca) to save some money. I have just received the following note from Artoo concerning his Alias boxset that he ordered through amazon.com:

“Yep.. Got it last Friday. No duties = shipped in Canada as per your blog entry. Set is beautiful. I believe they relay the shipments as the outside box is shipped from Canada. The inside plastic said an address from the US.”

Here’s the list.

I had to go to Hell and back last night to pick up my iPod from the repair shop. You send the iPod in via UPS, but they send it back via some obscure shipping company called DHL. Considering I had to sign for the package, I had to arrange to pick it up at their depot.

Their depot was in south Nepean. Krista was gracious to lend me her wheels for the adventure so we high-tailed it down to South Nepean to find this depot. Keep in mind that it’s dark, it’s rainy and it’s 5 PM. That’s right, rush hour.

Let me just say this…traffic is literally insane once you get to the junction of Hunt Club and Prince of Wales, otherwise known as the Gateway To Barrhaven. I don’t even know how people can manage getting into that cramped in spot to their community. Gak. I almost got caught in it, but didn’t make the turn quick enough but realized I can just go up another block and find the depot easily.

Anyhow, after some pains at the depot, I ripped open my package to find a brand new iPod! Yay! Now, it’s not the newest version (which I had thought for a whole two minutes as it said iPod instead of iPod photo on the back) but it is a new iPod with a colour screen (no video capabilities).

After a swim with Vero on Sunday, I jumped into the fire with a project that I had put on hold for quite some time. This project involves tedious, monotonous work which some days is fine, others not so much.

I am scanning my parents old photo albums for archival purposes. I figured with the technology around me, why do my parents get to enjoy all the photos? I borrowed the bulk of their albums last year but then a few months ago Mom wanted them back so I kept a few that I was in the middle of scanning. I suppose my eyes were bigger than my belly taking this project on. I would say an entire photo album can take upmost of 5 hours to properly archive.

I am what is referred to as ‘anal’ when it comes to organization of things I’m passionate about. Music, photographs, etc. Granted, if you saw my bedroom, you would think I’m not passionate about my clothing as they are strewn about!

So with the advances in digital photography, I realized that it’s not just enough to scan the photos and crop them. I wanted to know what date the picture was taken to encode that data into the photo. Then, when I organize all the photos, they are by date, or the closest approximation. I think later on when I get bored, I would like to add text to each photo also so that I don’t lose factual information such as who is in the picture. There are quite a few pictures from the parents stash that I just don’t know who is in the picture, but I should have a record of it. I think I may bring the few albums I have scanned to my Mom and sit down with her and write down who was in the picture, or even the story behind the pictures.

Sure, I am ambitious about this project today, but the sheer size of it dwarfs my ambitions and this is why it’s taken me a year to scan three albums and properly tag them.

The COOL thing about tagging my photos by ‘Date Photo Taken’ is that if I upload them to a photo site…let’s say FLICKR, then I can browse my photos by date taken. It’s interesting to look back in the 80s when I was a kid and pinpoint the actual date where the picture was taken. At least I think it’s cool. Some people are just more interested in the actual pictures, not when they were taken. I wish I was like that!

The other thing I start to wonder about is how do the older folk feel about their pictures going on the Internet. I haven’t heard any complaints from my friends about the pictures I put online…if anything it helps them out as they have a cental repository to access the photos. But what about the older folk out there, or more personal pictures like baby photos and whatnot? That’s where I think a courtesy call to people should be issued to find out if they mind if their photos can be placed on the ‘net. Sure, there’s a way to make them private, but it’s a pain to issue guest passes to check out the flickr site if someone wants to check them out. WAY easier to make them public.

So, as you may all know, I may be responsible for borrowing Rob’s ladder for the better part of a year. Well, he finally came to collect a few weeks ago, but I didn’t have the foresight to put up my Christmas lights beforehand. I use my ladder twice a year – once to put them up, once to take them down. A purchase of a ladder seems useless to me. ACTUALLY, I should have looked into renting one for the day instead of purchasing one.

Anyhow, it was a beautiful, beautiful day on Saturday with the sun shining bright. We haven’t seen too much sun in awhile so Vero and I decided to walk to Canadian Tire to check out the ladders. Once we get there, we find two ladders that I have to choose between.

One, is the household grade – load rate of 200 lbs. $40.
The other, a professional grade is rated for 225 lbs. $70.

Now, here I am thinking I don’t really feel like forking out an extra $30 on a ladder for an extra 25 lbs. Then I start wondering what does ‘load rating’ actually mean? Is it really the maximum they can guarantee safety for and after that, they are not responsible? After debating this point with Vero (as I though the 200 pound one would be fine), she convinced me to get the Professional grade one. I seriously doubt that the ladder would simply crumble under the weight of this 200 lb man along with a bucket of paint, but I figured, why take the risk? So please, someone reassure me that the 200 lb ladder could have definitely supported my weight!

Anyhow, we walked the ladder back home and stumbled into Eric and Annie along with Eric’s parents who were hunting the neighbourhood for us. After chatting, we got home, fixed an eavestrough (well, I hope it’s fixed now…I haven’t tested it yet) and Vero and Caroline put up the Christmas lights. They look supreme. I’m not going to turn them on until December 1st, but I figured why bother waiting until it’s -20 degrees outside to put up lights when I can put them up on a nice warm day? Let’s flashback for a moment last year when I was at Eric’s freezing my hands off putting up HIS lights for him. I don’t know how that happened. Plus, I heard the 2 year-old kid next door banging her little shovel on something and said “Hey Eric, it sounds like she’s hitting your car!” and then he said “Nope, she’s hitting yours!” and then I look back and sure enough, there she is banging her shovel against my car! You can’t get mad at a two-year old so luckily the mom came over and scooped up her kid.

The evening brought us to the main strip to catch the Parade of Lights! We happened upon the sign outside the firehall and thought it would be a great event. I can’t even remember the last time I saw a parade, although I have a vague recollection of a parade in Abitibi Canyon which is strange because I was 3 years old. Perhaps it wasn’t a parade…maybe a carnival of some sorts?

The parade was amazing! We opened up the thermos of hot apple cider and watched the spectacle pass us by. Being a parade of lights, all the floats had a generator hooked up to them and it was a bright sight! I especially like the OC Transpo bus decked out a like a Santa Claus! Hilarious! We were very impressed by the parade as it lasted a whole hour. Good times were had and I think the entire population of Orleans showed up for it. If you have the chance, come out next year!

Did I forget to mention that Matt and Jenn hosted an excellent potluck/games night last week?

The highlight of the night is when we pulled out the game Battle of the Sexes. Now, knowing me as you all do, you know that I get a little more competitive when games turn into competitions of guys vs. girls. Classic examples of this are Disney Trivial Pursuit circa 95-97, Christmas Party ’05, and…well there’s a lot.

The game Battle of the Sexes involves each team starting on opposite ends of the board and they get to move one space forward for every question they get right. There are also spots on the board where you get to pick up a wild card (like Community Chest in Monopoly) where they can take spaces away from you, or give you spaces to move forward.

The game was a little intense. Personally, the boys felt that the questions were a little skewed towards the girls favour for the sole fact that girls know a lot about guy stuff by the sheer fact that they are inundated with it throughout our society. Anything about television is not male specific, it is gender-neutral. Anything about movies should be gender-neutral. So, while the ladies got the questions about movies and music and TV, we got questions like “What do you put on first, lipstick or lip liner?”. Good lord.

Anyhow, we were 20 spaces behind and the girls only needed one more spot. While the rest of the crew that we were done for, I noticed that we were one question away from hitting the WILD CARD spot. “Guys, let’s play it out.” I proclaim. “We haven’t played this game before, perhaps there’s an ‘advance to the end of the board’ card tucked away in there.” While most of the guy outright dismissed me, Matt picked up the top wild card to see if it would be possible and the look on his face was sheer amazement. He didn’t say a word but from the look in his eyes, I knew we had it.

Sure enough, the question comes, we answer correctly and then pick up a wild card. I believe the card said something to the effect of “Your wife is 8 months pregnant. It’s 3:00 in the morning and she wants pickles so you drive out to the grocery store to get some. Bravo! Advance to the end.”

Once again, the cheers to the tune of “Na na na nah…hey hey…goooddddbye!” appeared in our lives as we danced around living in the victory once again. The girls dismissed our win as pure luck, but in my books, a win is a win. If the girls wish to say we don’t have talent because we win by luck…so be it. That’s how millions of dollars are won in a lottery. Who’s laughing now?

Ahhh…I can’t wait for the big trivia contest at Christmas. I predict some big wins once again.

Now that the Christmas is slowly approaching (wait, no, it’s here! What the heck?!), it’s time to think about gifts.

I have some scoop on how to get a little more for your money this holiday season.

Everyone knows about the website amazon.ca. You can order anything your heart desires off of this website.

There is also amazon.com, the US equivalent.

Now, USUALLY when someone buys something from the States, it gets dinged at the border with duty/taxes whatever and the price pretty well is the same as you would get it in Canada. It all depends on how much the item is to begin with.

But, what if I were to tell you that if you order from amazon.com, all you have to pay is the exchange rate, and you wouldn’t get dinged on duty/taxes?

That’s what’s been going on for the last while. Our good friend, Benoit has tried this out for the Alias boxset. I have not heard from him on whether or not he received it yet, but his friends have contacted me and said that they have had NO problems using this method and receiving the items without duty/taxes.

The theory behind this? Amazon is a globalized company. In their wisdom (and to save on shipping costs), they fill the order in from the closest warehouse – hence, the one located in Canada, NOT the US.

Caveat emptor people…this may not be a guaranteed thing. Maybe they’ll figure us out one day.