Month: April 2007

http://www.thestar.com/artsentertainment/article/207826

According to the news, CD sales have dropped in a year to year comparison from last year (Spring time).

Everyone is avoiding the REAL issue of why CD sales have dropped!

There wasn’t great music released this spring! Plain and simple. I think I can say there I probably picked up under 6 new albums this spring. It has been a drought.

I have this theory that every 2 years you see a spike of CDs to buy, but I suppose that depends on what bands you listen to faithfully. For me, it averages out to every two years there is this onslaught of new music to buy, but then the next year, it’s kind of dead. Makes sense considering we need to give our fave bands some time to record!

Anyhow, I think somebody should take a look at this aspect of the low CD sales this spring.

IMG_3431
Originally uploaded by palm0014.

Here’s to Matt as it is his birthday today.

I remember his birthdays of yesteryear – it marked the end of the school year at Algonquin and we always went on a good party – usually at the Cabin. Man, I miss that place. It’s still there, but there are better bars out there nowadays, that’s a fer sure.

I also remember a particular night where Matt was introduced to his then unknown but soon to be favourite drink – the Purple Haze. I have no idea what was in this thing but it left his lips purple which was a giant unattractive quality to the ladies but we never told him. Matt, I’m kidding, there was never any purple on your lips. That wasn’t the unattractive quality.

Matt’s the kind of the guy who you can’t debate with because he stands his ground firm. However when he realizes that I am actually right (which is pretty well 99.9% of the time) his face makes the o-face and he just says “Oh.” when he realizes once again, that I am right. Then he challenges me to a game of Street Fighter 2 where if I concentrate, I can beat him, but I must admit he has the slight advantage over me.

Anyhow, Matt, have a good birthday. I’ll buy you a drink on Saturday night at Larisa’s post-doc party.

Feel free to leave comments about Matt in the comment section on his birthday. If you’re stumped, here are few things to get your mind jogging:
– Recall a time where Matt says “Hey, I can make better! (aka he wants to customize it to how HE likes to have it because he automatically assumes that if it’s the best for him, then by jove, it’s the best for everyone!). Bonus points goes to the ones that had a broken object after he ‘made it better’.
– Talk about how his sole sustanance during his years at Bayshore were weiners on a piece of bread.
– Talk about how in the end, Matt is a swell guy and he knows we’re just razzing him on his birthday.

Someone had to bow out gracefully from the B.B. King concert. Anyone who wants to go with us – come along! $83 and I think the seats are primo (from what I can remember).

Can I just say that this is bigger than Pink Floyd reuniting?

http://music.yahoo.com/read/news/42926245

Sunday morning I had grand plans to wake up no matter what condition I was in and head out to see some long lost friends (aka people I haven’t had the chance to see since school was up and running). Mike calls into my room and says Matt is on the phone (wait…wasn’t he actually at my house last night?) and wants to know if I’m still going. After an affirmative, Mike tells me that they are meeting at the Lone Star in Barrhaven.

Hmm… that’s strange. All week long, the meeting spot was Broadways. Ah well…maybe they couldn’t get a reservation so they changed the place. No problem. I hop out of bed, have a shower and start surfing the net for Lone Star in Barrhaven.

Well, that’s where I hit my snag. I couldn’t find it anywhere! Perhaps it was new? Perhaps it was in another district instead of Barrhaven? I spent 30 minutes online trying to find this place. Finally, when frustration (and the clock) finally set in, I tried to track down someone’s phone number which was a pain on its own. I guess I don’t have my phone list up to date! I finally got in touch with Trish who could give me Matt’s cellphone number.

“Hello, Matt, where the heck is Lone Star in Barrhaven?” – Me.
“What? We’re at Broadways.” – Matt.

Groan. All that time wasted.

I get in the car, drop Vero off and pick up Philipp and Carrie to head out to Barrhaven. Everyone is meeting at 11:30 and I think by this point it is already 11:50. No worries, we’ll make it.

After meandering through Barrhaven (which I’ve never been to the downtown area before), we find the street where Broadways is supposedly located but realize that
A) There really aren’t any visible addresses as it’s just a bunch of mini-mall shopping block complexes
B) There are a lot of them.

We drive through the majority of them to see if we can find Broadways. We never saw a sign for it on the giant side on the side of the road (you know the signs I’m talking about) but we figured we may miss it so we drove through 10 blocks looking for it.

By 12:30 we gave up as we hit the last block and I noticed it was nothing but straight road from that point on heading west. We turned around and decided to go to Kelseys. But then Philipp sees Broadways! Argh. By this point we agree that we don’t want to show up an hour later when people are ready to leave and make them feel like they will have to stay. So that’s the story of Sunday Brunch for those wondering where I ended up.

The rest of the day was a beaut with a decent meal at Kelseys, a traipse around Westboro, and some supper over at Carrie’s. I also got to chat it up with Alex and Holly who just got back from Jamaica which they said was fab. Pictures and stories were told and it was cool to hear how great it was as I am heading down south in January for Vero’s sister’s wedding.

1987 – the year Star Trek: The Next Generation premiered.

Whoa, I was just reading an interview with Patrick Stewart since it’s the 20th anniversary of TNG. Has it really been that long? It’s like it was yesterday that I come home from working at Wal-Mart on a Saturday night and catch the new Next Generation episode.

Next Generation and Enterprise were the only Star Trek series I ever watched completely. I tried to get into Deep Space Nine but it was pretty boring after the first three seasons so I gave up (only to find out it got amazing within the last seasons) and Kapuskasing never got Voyager aired. I stuck through with Enterprise but I must admit the season where all they did was hunt down the Xindhi was pretty darn boring after awhile. But I stuck through with it. Actually, the last time I went to see Joe, I caught up on some of the episodes I had missed as I never got around to downloading the series finale. It was decent.

Anyhow, here’s a great interview with Patrick Stewart on how he became captain and how he enjoyed it.

Make it so.

Saturday Saturday Saturday! Man, we had a killer Saturday. First, let’s jump back to Friday when Eric, Annie, Mike and I were playing Asshole all night long. It was awesome. Although they play it differently than I do so I was not impressed with some of their rules (what do you mean I can only play one card a round? If it comes to me and I have the higher card, I should be able to play it!).

Saturday got us up and rearing to go. We cracked the windows open, we let the sun shine in – we’re talking sweet weather coming from the Gods saying “Eat, drink and be merry.” Mike soon got discouraged from all these thoughts of cleaning the entire location of Casa Losier/Palmer and when he hit a roadblock with the garage, I took him out of that element and said “Let’s take a breather. Let’s not get into the garage today. It will be glorious, but today, there are other things to be enjoyed.”

With that we headed to Value Village to scope out the jewelery section with Matt. We were headed out to Spring Bling – a yearly event put on by my friends Krista and Amy. Actually, it’s usually called Spring Fling but they renamed this year and you had to bring some jewelery.

What started out as a simple jewelery excursion turned into a full-out Value Village trip. In the end, two of us bought suits and we all had golf clubs and I managed to pick up an Etch-a-Sketch. We headed home where I started to spray paint the golf club and Etch-A-Sketch in a gold paint to accentuate our ‘bling’ness. The history of the word ‘bling’ is as follows:

“Bling-bling” (usually shortened to simply “bling”) is a hip hop slang term which refers to elaborate jewelry and other accoutrements, and also to a lifestyle built around excess spending and ostentation.

The word “bling” was coined by the rap family Cash Money Millionaires in the late 1990s.[1] It was used on a song title by Cash Money artist Baby Gangsta and used in 1998 by fellow Cash Money Records artist Lil Wayne on the track “Millionaire Dream”- “I got ten around my neck, and baguettes on my wrist, Bling!”- from the Big Tymers album ‘How Ya Luv That’. “Bling Bling,” released in 1999 on B.G.’s album ‘Chopper City in the Ghetto’ also led to the rise of the term. In interviews, B.G. has stated that the term refers to the imaginary sound that light makes when it hits a diamond.

At the same time, the afternoon turned into a rip roaring good time as Joe showed up with Matt as he was taking his motorbike out for the first time this year. We popped a few beers, sat down and had a good time. I then went to pick up Philipp and Carrie from the bus station and grabbed some beer on the way back and all was good in the world. Trish and Vero then showed up and the pre-party was in full bling…I meant swing, ha ha, and we had this awesome meal of pasta salad, salad, chicken, potatoes and carrots. It came out to be an excellent meal. Thanks to Mike for picking up those sweet chicken breasts, and to the rest of those who brought something to munch on!

The only thing that sucked was when we tried to make my Etch-a-Sketch into a necklace, the drill hit the actual inside portion which holds the sand. Actually, I don’t know what is inside it actually…some kind of silver substance. In the end, it turned out alright as we got some silicone and fixed it right up. But half the Etch-a-sketch didn’t work any longer.

After dinner we realized it was getting pretty late so we started blinging ourselves up which was hilarity. We wanted to try out this new card game Philipp had picked up called Werewolf but we didn’t have enough people so we just headed out to the party.

We were quite the motley crew showing up to this party. We got into the apartment lobby and I wondered if anyone would actually let us in as we were on camera and if anyone actually saw us, I’m sure they would say we looked like trouble. With our gold canes swinging, we crashed the party in full flair but to our dismay, the ratio of bling being worn at the party was a ratio of 5:1. As in, five people already at the party had the equivalent of one of our people. Doh! Maybe we overdid it! I was told Matt’s facial expression was worth the admission alone as he had spent a bit of money on his costume (hello gold pocket watch!).

We continued to party and all was good in the world. Krista’s famous nacho dip came out and there were some good drinks being concocted. We got to see MaryAnn one last time as she was moving back to Newfoundland (have fun there!). I had forgotten to bring my gift for her which really upset me (more so that I have to mail it now. As if!)

The rest of the night was a blur but the party was a good time and we headed home to take a breather.

Thanks to Krista and Amy for the great night, and to the others – no one can ever beat us in a bling contest. We were the greatest gang there ever was.

Flashback:

March sometime. It’s the storm of the century. I forget to go to the dentist. I have five minutes to get there – there’s no way. So I call and reschedule.

Fast forward last Thursday. The day of my final exam. Hmm…well I didn’t realize that I had a dentist appointment on that date also. No worries. What’s the worst that can happen when getting some tooth work done? A little freezing here and there, I’ll be fine for the final exam.

I get to the dentist office, let them know I am there (fast fact – they don’t know you by your face in the city within the first three years so I was sitting in the office for 20 minutes the last time before getting up to inform them and they thought I hadn’t shown up.), and wait a bit and then they tell me that I have no appointment that day, but it’s on May 7.

Well that’s strange. I have no idea how that happened in my calendar. Oh well, not a big deal. I’ll go and study for my exam.

Then I get a phone call the next day saying they have an opening and I can come in on Monday. Sweet!

Yesterday I head to the dentist, I’m waiting, waiting, WAITING. Finally 15 minutes pass and Diane the hygienist comes on out, talks the talk and I have a seat in her dental torture space (do they call it their office) and then she starts talking about cleaning for the day.

“Uh, I think I’m supposed to be here for some sort of work on my teeth.” – Me
“Really? Hmm…your chart does indicate that you are supposed to have some work, but it was for March and I don’t see another appointment booked.”

Sure enough, somehow there was never an appointment booked and all along, I was heading in for a cleaning! Argh…I was upset. But there’s nothing much I can do so I never take it out on people. Who knows how that happened? The Doctor came in and apologized and I said “No worries.” in fear that once he got me under the knife he could have done whatever he pleased and I may have a smile like Ross Geller who had the glow in the dark teeth at one point. Mental note – never piss off anyone who could mess something up on your body and you go in there willingly.

So now I have to head back into the dentist AGAIN (three times in three weeks! Cripes!) so hopefully all will be good after that point on.

Palmer’s Rant about Dentists: $150 for someone to take a tool which looks like a metal toothpick out and scrape your teeth doesn’t sound worth it to me. I can scrape my own teeth I would think. What are people’s thoughts? I can see if they put the polish on there – that’s something I can’t have handy at home. But a metal toothpick? That’s all that happened yesterday.

Ah, the Spring. Where the birds are chirping (actually, they are chirping way too much. Time to see if there’s a nest up in the eaves trough), the sun is shining (argh, my skin is on fire!!!) and the grass is growing (but still wet. Don’t step into it).

I also dig the Spring because of garage sales. More importantly, ‘free’ garage sales. My friend Mary had a dining room set that she wanted to get rid of so Mike, Eric and I headed over there on Friday night to pick it up. We had no idea what condition it was in, but I figured if I can help her by taking it off her hands, by Jove, I’ll help her out.

I was pleasantly surprised with the dining room set and it now resides in my kitchen which is great as there were never any chairs there for people to park their ass onto. We even scored a ladder that Mary’s husband Stuart (Stewart?) never used before! Bonus! We were eying up their table saw but he wouldn’t budge on that item.

It’s interesting to think about the history of furniture. Mary mentioned how that dining room set was home to many family dinners over the past 14 years. Think about that. Think about the conversations and the witness of children growing up. I know it may be a silly thing to say about a piece of furniture. I remember my parents gave me their old furniture from the house when I moved to Ottawa and unfortunately they were pretty much unusable after some more years. But I remember going to Duncan’s place at Hallowe’een and finding one of those old chairs and just sitting in it and remembering old times that I’ve had in that chair. Many Christmases, birthday parties, just hanging out after school with my milk…actually, I just emailed Duncan to let him know that he should never throw that chair out and I’ll come pick it up from his place one of these days.

Anyhow, I’m glad to have some old furniture that I can continue making memories with. Granted, it’s a dining room table. All the memories will involve good food and burping.