Month: April 2007

An interesting article…

http://www.productivity501.com/2007/04/17_things_you_s.html

iplaying: Who Are You, Defenders of the Universe? – The Dears (No Cities Left)

While munching on a burger and fries at McDonald’s today at lunch, Krista was saying if a person cut out all carbohydrates from their life, then they could probably lose 5-10 in 2 weeks.

Wha??? I sat dumbfounded while munching on my ironically tinged burger while sitting speaking about health matters. Could this be true? How could that even be true? Just by switching some food up in your life, it can make you lose weight?

I decided to stand up to the challenge and proclaimed that I would put my body on the line to test this theory!

This isn’t about a diet or anything…I don’t really care if I put the weight back on. I’m just intrigued that the changing of what you eat could allow you to lose some weight.

Therefore, starting at 6:18 on Wednesday night (I started after McDonald’s at lunch, but then I had leftover rice in the fridge that I figured I should finish off.), I am entering the carb-free zone and see if this actually works. I am marking my weight right now as 204 lbs with the caveat that just ate supper, so let’s bring it down to an even 200lbs.

Let’s see what this no-carb theory has to offer! I really doubt this will work, but heck, stranger things have happened.

My only dilemma is how to switch up my sacred breakfast and lunch items. I figured I will replace the morning granola bar with a yogurt and hopefully that will keep me going until the morning snack.

Lunch is a different beast altogether. There goes my legendary sandwich (eaten in my lunch since Kindergarten) and my granola bar. Krista told me her Mom used to make lettuce sandwiches which intrigued me. I think I will give it a try.

I will give you updates as to how this crazy adventure is going. Before anyone says it, yes, I know. Beer has carbohydrates also. I am switching back to the rye as of this moment. This brings back memories of college where one winter someone told me that beer really packs on the pounds and so I switched to rye and ginger but they said that the soft drinks don’t help out too much. So then I started drinking rye and water. That’s right – I went all out for the cause. It wasn’t too bad to be honest.

For all those who are going to cry out “Stop! You can’t do this to your body!!!”, there are no worries. I don’t have any plans to keep up with this no-carb test. Heck, Palmer cannot live without his sandwich!

Hey, while I’m at it, here’s an update on the shoe front – I picked up two new pairs of shoes today on a whim. Since I’m jogging, I don’t need shoes that fall apart (read below) and I didn’t think the other shoes would be the best to run in.

Whenever I don’t go swimming after work, I’ve gotten into the habit of jogging around the block. So far the pace takes me about 20 minutes and I’m ready to die.

I find the body is an interesting machine. While I can swim 90 lengths up and down a pool with no real problems, as soon as I hit the pavement to jog a little, it’s like my body has taken a beating.

While I know this feeling will go away with time, it is interesting to note that the body somehow knows the difference. Perhaps my endurance is up, but the fact that swimming is a low-impact activity may have something to do with it. Maybe it’s the fact that my body is crying out saying “Dude! You’re killing me here!”

Anyhow, I think it’s a nice balance for when I don’t feel like swimming. I am trying to obtain balance in all healthy aspects of my life. I learned this concept from Philipp. He can party hard, eat hard, but at the same time knows how to get some exercise also. He commented on how North Americans seem to take things to the extreme (like diets and whatnot) as opposed to a balance. It’s alright to have a beer or two, but don’t forget to eat some fruit and veggies too.

So in the life of Palmer where I usually stick to one thing and one thing only, I am trying to get out of that habit. I don’t have to swim every day, I’ll go jogging or biking instead. I don’t have to eat the same sandwich or apple every day. I’ll give some variety in my life. It will be hard to accomplish, but heck, I’m up for the challenge.

I dig the look of Adidas Gazelle’s so I was looking for them on Saturday. I am cheap as you all know so I was debating whether or not to spend $70 on a pair of sneakers.

After speaking with Krista, she got it in my head that they are probably worth it in the long run.

While jogging last night my sneaker was digging into my foot so I readjusted the tongue and it ripped right out of the shoe.

Huh. That’s never happened to me before.

Is this is not a sign from above, I really don’t know what is.

Just found out that someone has released a DVD of the Sam Roberts Band’s performance at Bluesfest last year! Awesome! That was a memorable concert.

Ah…Bluesfest. Depending on the lineup this year, I may go for the all-access pass as someone pointed out that the money spent on the entire pass is still cheaper than what I forked out for one seat of Roger Waters. 🙁

I think the 2007 lineup is set to be revealed sometime next week. I was talking to Laurie’s (Lorry? Man, how do I spell that name?) husband a few weeks ago and he heard the Hip will be making an appearance.

http://www.nme.com/news/the-police/27621

Uncle Gary tipped me off on the Live Earth concert series taking place across the Globe this summer. Much like the Live8 concerts of…2 years ago now? Unsure of when that happened. Must be back in 2005.

I had heard rumours of the concert series happening but there were no real line-ups officially announced at the time.

Let me tell you of the greatest rumour to ever grace our ears.

The concept of Live Earth is to have music happening in every continent. “That’s a swell idea.” all of you are thinking…until you think of how many continents there are and then you say “Wait a second…Antarctica?!”

So back to the rumour I head on Chez 106 a few weeks back…there is rumour that a mighty band from yesteryear will reform and play in Antarctica.

That band’s name is SPINAL TAP.

Oh my. Honestly, if this were to happen, this would be bigger than Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Who and The Smashing Pumpkins all taking the same stage, on my birthday, for my birthday and heck, while they are at it, I would be on stage with them.

We are talking Spinal Tap here…the Gods of rock, the band mightier than mortal men, the group who has their amplifier knobs go up to 11. They know how to rock.

Anyhow, I would seriously consider a trip to Antarctica to see these guys. 😉

Back onto the Live Earth concert series – as always, a cool concept. I’m glad the Smashing Pumpkins will be playing. HEY, this might be the first chance we get to see them live on television since their comeback. Neat-o. Other than that, I don’t think the concert will be close to Ottawa so it’s kind of reach for this guy!

It wasn’t mentioned on this site before (due to it being a surprise) but Mike and I had taken Thursday off to head on back up North for a visit. I had this grand aspiration of just hitting the road in the springtime after reading the Stompin’ Tom biography and how he just traveled across Canada. I figured I needed some of that! Plus, my car needs a good cleaning and Dad’s garage was calling its name.

Unfortunately, on the night of the Sam Roberts concert, I heard through the grapevine that there was a massive snowstorm heading towards Kapuskasing. What to do…what to do?

I hemmed, I hawed, I called Mike. He said that Eric had canceled his own plans to head up North. This solidified my plans and I decided to cancel the entire trip. There went my idea of traveling in the springtime. Perhaps next week!

I can’t say I’m overly disappointed considering at last count, it had been snowing for 80 hours straight and they had more snow than they received all winter. I do feel bad for the folks as they were looking forward to a weekend where they could start some yard work, work outside, do SOMETHING other than sitting in the house watching it snow.

Hence, Easter weekend was a bust. I spent Thursday and Friday working on my essay. Overall, I think it is crap. I really don’t enjoy the class I am in.

I also played around with GarageBand for an entire day and came up with some pretty nifty tunes. I am at a hard spot in terms of songwriting. I find some cool little chord progression but have a hard time to make it into a full out song – especially where the bridge is concerned. I will have to talk to Troy about the art of songwriting and how bridges usually work. I have heard from Mike’s dad that they usually switch into a new key. Anyhow, I am pretty impressed with the results so far and the click track is my new friend in terms of playing ‘in time’. Hello metronome!

I spent a lot of time over at Eric and Annie’s where I learned to play Mille Bournes which is an awesome card game. We also played what is called The Dice Game. Coupled with a quick game of poker and euchre, I had my fill of gaming.

Saturday also held a sneaker shopping expedition to Bayshore Mall with Trish and Mike which turned into a zoo. I found the sneakers I was looking for (incidentally, the same sneakers that Krista picked up in New York – I think they are swell!) but decided not to pick them up right away. I am cheap. $70 for a pair of sneakers feels like a rip-off to me. Everyone reading is probably laughing right now but that’s the way I feel.

I definitely decided against buying the sneakers this week as I picked up my guitar from Long & McQuade. (begin rant). I dropped the guitar off on March 12 in hopes to have it ready by March 23 (the day I was heading to Aunt Dinah’s surprise birthday party in Ajax). They had told me that it would be ready in two weeks time. Unfortunately, it was cutting it short wanting it by March 23.

Not a big deal, I nabbed my old acoustic from Amelia and it played out well. So I phone Long & McQuade’s yesterday and sure enough, my guitar is ready and has been ready since March 26, a mere two weeks ago. Come on! I was pretty miffed at the fact that no one gave me a phone call. I didn’t even bother calling them earlier as I had already called on March 23 and they told me not to worry as someone would call me when it was ready. I was ready to call them, tell them to cancel the tune-up and I would bring it elsewhere.

Anyhow, the tune-up was complete and I picked it up and I suggested they get a better call-back policy. It plays nice (with others! Ha ha) but I must admit that I’m back on the electric for the past month and my songwriting bug has bit back ever since. Plus, it helps to know that Troy is one-up on me on the recording side of things so I must play catch-up! (end rant)

My only regret of the weekend was not attending Melissa and Mike’s potluck as I had no idea if I would be done my essay or not and I didn’t want to commit and then have to bail. Although, it was a potluck so I suppose that’s the best event to bail if there ever was one!

This post is all over the place with random memories of the past five days. I must admit that this boy needed the time off. It’s interesting to see what happens when you have more than two days off at a time. You start to find time to do the things you’ve wanted to do for awhile but never got around to them.

Hope everyone’s holiday was a good one and there was not too much snow-removal involved!

It’s Day 4 of my five days off of work (thanks to you Easter Bunny) and I finally got around to doing…a lot of stuff.

The most important is finally getting around to getting The Morning Show up and running on the Internet.

The files are all on Youtube now which is a pretty slick video sharing site. Yeah, the uploading took forever and as I write this, I have no idea if it will get all of the final episode as it was a HUGE season finale and it may be over the 10 minute mark that is allowed on the site.

People can view all 19 episodes (hey, where’s the mysterious Episode #2 run off to? Let me refer to this episode as the Polkaroo.) by going to the top menu bar and clicking on the link which is labelled ‘morning show’.

Sit back, enjoy, and have some laughs at the sheer absurdity which was The Morning Show.