Month: December 2006

New Year’s Eve brought another hot tub adventure in my life and some ironing which Mike didn’t bother doing for me. We headed out to the Centre des Loisirs for New Year’s Eve this year as Mike’s dad was playing in the band that night. Excellent times would be had! We arrived, got a drink and sat down with some of Mike’s extended family and friends. All in all, I had a great night, but I must admit that it felt strange being the youngest there. This isn’t a common youngster event – unlike the stag and doe’s of yesteryear where you couldn’t walk three feet without meeting someone else you knew!

I ended up doing the mop of shame as I had spilled Carol’s drink onto the dance floor. I found this pretty unfair as I had done such a great job until she emerged from the washroom and that was the moment where my hand felt the need to let go. Doh! So we have some excellent photos with me and the mop.

After much dancing (in my awful, much needed to be replaced shoes) and a great midnight buffet (best way to cure the hangover the next day!) and some excellent tunes (Mony Mony – Uncensored), we retired for the night. I ended up back at home hoping to see my buddy Randy who was in town, but alas, he had taken off to Timmins that day so I didn’t manage to see him during the holidays. I ended up having a brewski with Maureen, John and Julie but then decided to return to my slumber.

The next day had me lazing around…wait a second! That didn’t happen at all…during the night an entire foot of snow had fallen and my parents were coming back that afternoon so it was up to me to save the day and snowblow the driveway! After contemplating taking the four-wheeler out with the plow, I thought better of it and hauled out the snowblower. Before that I slipped myself into a nice one-piece snowsuit and had an excellent hat – lined with fur and had the earflaps. Dad had a good laugh when I showed up later that night with it on as I had it on backwards! I swear it only happened the once!

Anyhow, starting the snowblower was a pain. I had to eventually bring the extension cord out and electric start it and even that was a pain. In hindsight, I don’t think I had the choke wide open which hindered my operation. Eventually it roared to life and I trekked up and down the driveway. There’s a good feeling when you blow a driveway which isn’t your own. Mind you, I don’t really have that problem as my best neighbour ever Barry kindly snowblows my driveway during the winter. Granted, this didn’t need to happen this year yet, and now with Mike owning a truck, there isn’t really much driveway to shovel.

Maureen and John have decided to move back to Kapuskasing. I wish them the best as they return in February! I selfishly wish they would go to North Bay so I would have a rest stop between Kapuskasing and North Bay, but alas, it is not in the cards. Anyhow, best of luck Maureen and John!

The day after beer and wing night brought back what I really wanted to do during the holidays – ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. My parents had trekked down to Toronto for a few days and with my boyfriend duties of visiting Hearst out of the way, I realized that this was ‘me-time’. That’s right, Palmer Day(s) were here!

I had decided to start out by scavenging the scraps of Christmas dinner like the raven that I am. My mood settled in on a scrumptious hot turkey sandwich. With the assistance of Maureen, I identified the greatest sauce that the sandwich would need and then heated it up and applied it to the tasty treat. Satisfied, I then decided to head to the video store to rent a bunch of movies to last me two days. I then settled on their ‘Buy 2, Get 2 Free’ deal even though each movie was $20. In the end, I still got 4 movies for $40 plus the thought of returning a few to Blockbuster in the future when they have their minimum $8 back deal. I ended up picking up Walk the Line, Superman Returns, V For Vendetta, and Munich.

As I settled in for the rest of the day on the couch, I adjusted the heat perfectly, got a drink and nibbled on some turkey before popping in the first flick.

Superman Returns: Alright, let’s start it off with a bang! I can honestly say that I never grew up with Superman like other kids did. I have only seen the four movies in the past year and Eric introduced me to Smallville in the past year. All in all, I am a Superman fan now and was anxiously waiting to see what the new movie had to offer, ESPECIALLY since it was helmed by Bryan Singer of X-Men fame. Superman Returns takes place after Superman II (by the way, check out the Richard Donner cut of the film…SOOO much better than the original.) and brings Superman back into a world which may not need him. Two thumbs up for this flick, I enjoyed the new cast taking on the old characters and the film is very much in the spirit of the original Supes.

Walk The Line: Johnny Cash biopic concerning his love for June Carter and his struggle with addiction to some narcotic. All in all, for drug related biopics, I enjoyed Ray better than this. I may even return this one to Blockbuster. It wasn’t a bad film, but I didn’t feel connected to the character of Cash and his struggle with love and narcotics. Meh. Would I recommend seeing this film however? Sure. It’s a decent flick.

Pirates of the Caribean 2: Now, I don’t know if it’s the fact that I watched this in three different portions (one of which was after beer and wings night so I may have dozed through a few parts) but I didn’t enjoy this one nearly as much as the first film. Especially the ending…buh. You know, if you’re going to try and pull of a connected sequel like Empire/Return or Matrix Reloaded/Revolutions, you gotta have a killer revelation at the end of the second film followed by some enormous cliffhanger. Sure, the cliffhanger was decent, but there was no revelation. It left me with a taste of ‘Stay tuned next time to find out what happens to Captain Jack Sparrow and his band of merry men.” I also felt that this film felt more like the Secret of Monkey Island for the sheer “Well, I need this item to get to this item, I need to perform this task, to win back the heart of this lass.” All in all…maybe I should watch this movie again in one shot.

Munich: Whoa! Munich blew me away with its sheer awesomeness. It was around 10 at night after three movies and I figured I wouldn’t stay awake for 3 hours more but it captivated me and I didn’t look away once. Munich deals with an Israeli secret task force who hunts down the killers involved in the Munich 1972 Olympics were some…Palestinians (? I’m pretty sure they were…can’t recall now…) killed all the Israeli Olympians. So the Israeli government secretly funds this task force to eliminate all those involved. This is based on a true story so I would be interested in getting the book based on it. Pretty intriguing and I was surprisededly interested considering that I’m not one for world issues and whatnot, but I think that is slowly changing in me. I realize that I should be aware of my surroundings. Anyhow, back to the film, WATCH IT!

Throughout the two days spent watching movies, I may have consumed three other hot turkey sandwiches. This was the life…where I didn’t have to think about preparing a meal. I am fortunate that I am not one of those people who hate to eat the same thing all the time.

Oh, the beloved beer and wing night at the Losier’s happened once again this year. I would like to send a great thanks out to Vero for allowing me to leave Hearst to attend this grand event!

30 pounds of wings later, we were all content on the good job done out in the garage. I aided (in a meager fashion) to apply the sauce to the wings. The Losier’s have a pretty good setup actually – the beer is downstairs and easily accessible, and the deep fryer for the wings is outside. Once the wings are cooked, they are thrown into three difference sauces – hot, thai and…hmm…can’t recall the last one. Some sort of sweet&sour mixture I believe. Then we cart the wings inside, throw them into this slow cooker that has individual slots and then everyone has a basket to place their wings into.

The judgement of how many wings to cook for 30 people is a tough gamble because there is definitely a bigger demand at the beginning than at the end of a 10 batch cycle. We were going to open the other 20 pounds of wings but Bruce thought better of it and decided to see if the 30 pounds would do the trick. Indeed they did.

After dinner, Louise & Sam had created this excellent Powerpoint Presentation to display the lyrics to a plethora of songs so that everyone could take part in singing. In total, there were a good 4-5 guitars in the room at one time, a piano and I believe someone was trying to play drums with their chicken wings. This was a gathering of musical minds is all about! We hammered through a lot of the tunes we all knew, and then listened intently when there were a few that only few people could play. The highlight of the night for me is when Bruce went into some improvisational jazz number which had me in awe. Well, really, he has me in awe whenever he plays. I hope to be of his calibre one day in the future.

The night quieted down after a few hours of playing and we sat there taking it all in.

Well, the morning came and I went out to check the car…no dent, no dent, oh GOOD LORD I FOUND THE DENT! Right in the rear driver side wheel was the markings which looked like Santa’s sleigh had hit the Mazda as there was a streak of red within the dent. All in all, it wasn’t that bad (well, at least in my opinion. Ask the opinion of the person who paid the repairs!) and later that day, Vero and I headed up to Hearst.

Hearst was fine as we chatted for a bit and I got a nice thermos set from Vero’s parents. We then went out for Chinese Food (with toast! Only in Hearst!) which was an excellent meal. We then went over to Vero’s sister’s place to play some poker and enjoy some hot tub. I enjoy the company of the Cantin’s and I especially enjoy going over to Steve’s and Anne-Marie’s as there is always a good selection of music and always some form of wild game hanging in the garage. Steve and I have the same music tastes as well as the same stereo amp from back in the day so it is a sign.

I am glad that the hot tub had some walls around it this year as last year I thought I lost an ear to the cold -60 windchill. Alright, perhaps it wasn’t that extreme.

The next day didn’t consist of much at all as we arose from our slumber around noon and then we brought the car in for some body work. I am thankful that we managed to get it done in Hearst as it’s a heck of a lot easier when you actually know the person doing the job (as it was Vero’s Dad’s cousin) instead of bringing it to some random guy in Ottawa. Later afternoon, Vero’s step-mom’s family all showed up for some good spaghetti dinner and then they cheered me onto stage as I took my guitar.

We opened up the evening with some french song with Mr. Cantin on the accordian. While I can’t say I knew really what the song was about, it was meant to get people moving after a huge meal. After that was over (an excellent duet between Mr. Cantin and I with Anne-Marie and Vero dancing with everybody!). Unfortunately I don’t know any francophone songs so the family had to listen to a few English rockers that went over well. Vero’s cousin is auditioning for Canadian Idol sometime in the spring so she sang Drove All Night (or something to that effect – Celine Dion covering Cyndi Lauper) which I managed to figure out after a few minutes of listening to the CD. Then they wanted me to sing Phantom of the Opera with her! I had no idea how to sing this song but no one could really understand why I couldn’t sing it. So I explained it in the following way:

Me (to her cousin): Well…let me put it to you this way…can you sing Stairway To Heaven for me right now?
Cousin: No.
Me: Well, that’s exactly how I feel about Phantom of the Opera!

After a good laugh, Vero’s uncle and I attempted to sing along with her cousin on the Phantom and can say that we didn’t do too bad. In fact, I may in fact be leaving my job to become a full-time Phantom.

All in all, I heard I rocked the socks off of the Cantin clan which was nice to hear as I didn’t know if they would appreciate the English tunes. However, in my ignorance, I should realize that English tunes are still heard throughout the North and just because you are Francophone, doesn’t mean you live in a shoe.

After the night died down, Vero and I watched the Maurice Richard movie which was excellent. I highly recommend it. I thought it was strange that it didn’t follow his entire career in the NHL though. It ended with 5 years to go. Perhaps a sequel?

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Originally uploaded by palm0014.

I believe I went to lunch with Dana and Mike on this day over at Greco’s and had some excellent pizza. Ended up seeing Aimee there which was a welcome surprise. I don’t tend to visit some of my old friends from Kap who still live there when I arrive home for the holidays. Years ago, that was the only thing I wished to do. Now, all I want to do is hang out in my parents house and decompress from the year.

Boxing Day was a bust in Kapuskasing but not so much online. I truly enjoy the fact that I can order items online nowadays and not have to be in a physical store. I ended up ordering all four collector’s sets of James Bond movies at $46 a pop from Best Buy. This was a definite savings over the regular $70 price tag I saw before Christmas. I figured I couldn’t pass it up. So…there may be a resurection of Nights of Bond coming soon.

The rest of Boxing Day was spent with Vero who came back up from Hearst for the night which was nice of her. She also stayed in town for the Legion night which was a great inspiration. Thanks Vero! We ended up exchanging our gifts which scored me a great original painting by her, and some other goodies such as a voice recorder so I can document my thoughts/song ideas. 2007 is the year of song for Ryan. We ended up playing some Scene It but alas, there was only Dad and I against an army of women so we lost that night.

Around 11:30PM that night, we got a phone call which was odd. It was Vero’s dad and I automatically thought something awful must have happened. After she talked with him, she told me that he had hit my car and she never noticed when it was in Hearst (Vero had borrowed my car). Realizing that a car is definitely better than a death in the family, I decided that the dent would still be there in the morning and I would take a look then.

Ah, Christmas. The day of goodness which comes in the form of a wrapped box. Christmas Day was fun with Nanny around as I used her as a wrapping paper disposal unit by throwing wrapping paper at her all morning long. I also entertained in a rendition of how and old guy would dance with her (as seen above). I got a good spread of items including a great selection of clothing items from Mom and Nanny’s pickings. It’s always good to see that people enjoy the gifts I got them. However, Dad just told me last night that the Band of Brothers set that I bought him was already lent to him and he had seen it already. However, he assures me that he doesn’t remember a thing. Sometimes loss of memory has its advantages! 😉

The day passed by at a crawl and I awaited the goodness which was the heavenly bird from above. No, we aren’t talking about an ostrich here, we’re talking about the turkey dinner. Mmm boy. It was an excellent spread this year and the Konopelky’s brought over another bird which was a gift over the next week as I picked at the leftovers. It was a fine meal and we ended the meal with a little viewing of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation – this movie never gets old for me. By far my favourite Christmas movie of all time.

After the movie, we started playing Maureen’s copy of Scene It where we pitted the guys vs. the girls. Without a doubt, the gentlemen won both games and we will not hear any complaints of how the guys team ended up recruiting three additional members during the course of the night. We allowed the girls to borrow Kevin “Martha” Stewart for awhile. Scene It is a pretty fun game and I think I would like to try the other editions. I ended off the night heading over to Jeff’s parents place with Kevin, Maureen and John for a little karaoke action. It was unfortunate that there really wasn’t much selection in terms of the songs we could sing. Jeff and I belted out a tear-jerking rendition of Unchained Melody.

Saturday morning we woke up and braved the outside wilderness which was covered in frozen rain. I was not impressed but once we hit the roads, it was clear sailing. Thanks to Mike who managed to change my much needed to be changed wiper blades! They were beautiful on the way up. The trip was uneventful other than getting passed by Danny and Carol in their van with some red-headed fury hanging out of the window. Also, the great iPod challenge occurred in the car near the end of the trip which was excellent. It consisted of two categories until we ran out of time: best guitar solo, and cheesiest song. Oh wait, there was also the ‘most rocking song ever’ challenge which Mike clearly won with Crazy Train.

After hanging out with the parents and Nanny (who had trekked up to the North for Christmas) we headed out to the Legion that night to grab an early table. I had never been to the downstairs portion and was pleasantly surprised. Bruce’s band was excellent and the volume wasn’t too loud and the place was packed. I saw a few familiar faces and then during the break, they invited Mike and me up to the stage. After setting up everything, we started it off with Blind Melon’s Changes which went over well. Mike thought his mandolin solo could have been a little better but I thought it was a beaut.

During a small break, I commented on how only our table laughed at Bruce’s joke of how they accept requests but only on the back of a 5 dollar bill. I told everyone how I asked Mike why that was and he said that it was an old joke of his Dad’s. Everyone had a good laugh at that.

Then we head on into the Barenaked Ladies Brian Wilson which I had literally started playing a few nights before as per Mike’s suggestion. I do remember playing it with Troy a few years back, now that I think about it, but never really thought of it as one in my repertoire. I don’t know how describe the feeling of playing a new song, but there is an energy about it. There is more enjoyment in playing a song that is new and exciting to you, rather than an old one that has seen its day. So all cylinders were firing when we launched into the force which was Brian Wilson. I thought it came off pretty well even though I needed the lyric/music sheet as I had no idea how to play the song by heart by that point. At this point, we could have sit there all night long, but we knew that it was not destined to be and settled for one more song with Danny coming up to try his hand at guitar during Neil Young’s Heart of Gold.

Danny was a success! He was nervous (as he should have been!) at his first time in front of a giant audience like that and it went over well. I made have flubbed a chord change here and there during the song, but I’ve realized that the best musician is one that makes it look like there is no flub during the performance. Also, one must realize that these things happen and it’s just music, man! Enjoy the moment! Mike rocked the harmonica like no other, although he said he started to sweat when he saw the greatest harmonica player in Kapuskasing walk by him as soon as he started! I had a good laugh at that.

Thanks to Bruce for allowing us to take the stage that night! It was a moment we will never forget. PLUS, some of it is on video.

The night descended into madness with draft beer all around and meetings with old friends. Of special note was Angele who commented on my Sam Roberts shirt and mentioned how she was good friends with Matt Mays and the boys from El Torpedo. I was very excited to hear this and chatted with her for awhile about it. My favourite part of this conversation was the following:

Ryan (to Mike): Hey Mike! Angele knows Matt Mays!
Mike: Oh yeah? That’s cool. (not looking too impressed.)
Ryan: No man, she KNOWS Matt Mays! Like, actually knows the guy!
Mike: WHOA!? Really?

Ah…hilarity. My highlight of the night was definitely when there was enough rye pumped into Brent’s body to convince him to get up on the drums which he hadn’t done in public for the past decade. It was a great time and I’m sorry to see the band couldn’t whip into some Zeppelin for the guy. I could tell he got the itch back. Hopefully he pursues it!

http://cdtechsettlement.sonybmg.ca/

Visit this website to discover if you purchased a CD from Sony/BMG that had some rootkit (malicious) software which installed onto your computer. They will replace your CD for free. I know that I have a few of them, and I know for a fact that Mike bought one and it could never import into his iTunes which he thought was awful. Perhaps the new copy will?

So do yourself a favour, take the holidays you have this coming week and fill out a form to get your CDs replaced!

What does this mean to you really? Well, if you put that CD into your computer and the CD installed a program on your computer, it may allow for a Bond villain to take over your computer and rule the world. No joke, we all know your computer can handle it.