Month: June 2007

Looks like the trip to New York is pretty well becoming a reality with a super special thanks to Katie!

Now…I wonder if there is anything exciting to do there? 😉

iplaying: Megalomania – Muse (Origin of Symmetry)

“Machines to out-think humans in 15 years, futurist predicts.” – This is a headline from an article in the Ottawa Citizen from a few years back when the movie Final Fantasy came out.

While the thought of that is ridiculous, I thought about this futurist that came up with this idea.

What the heck is a futurist? Is that an actual job? That is amazing! I want to be a futurist! Imagine me throwing out random hoopla from my brain and getting paid for it!

The best part about it is they have the security that is shared by the weatherman. Wazat? Weatherman predicts rain all day but it’s sunny? Man, he got it WRONG, but heck, let’s go outside and enjoy the day. No weatherman can lose their job even if they predict the weather wrong every day!

I bet this is the life of the futurist. Suuuure, we’re going to be run by machines in the future. Uh huh. Wait, what if it doesn’t happen? There should be a public stoning of this futurist since he made us give up technology in fear of the Matrix becoming a reality.

I can see some of the headlines I would come up with when I become a futurist:

• Walt Disney will come back to life to entertain us all.
• We will not need to leave the house in the future to go to work – we will teleport.
• Pets out. Robodogs IN.
• Hot dogs become #1 health item in Canada.

If anyone finds a job listing for a ‘futurist’, you know how to get in touch with me. This is my calling.

Mike let me know that the Chicken and Rib Festival launched yesterday on Sparks Street so we went along with Carrie to check it out.

It’s really hard to choose which vendor you’ll buy from. They need to implement a taster program where you can get a few ribs before spending $20 on a full rack. Speaking of full rack, they kept hollering it out whenever you ordered one and at one point Carrie thought they were yelling about her. 😉

Carrie and I split a full rack along with some beans and coleslaw which were superb. Actually, I never realized but splitting the full rack with someone is by far the best deal they have going on there. Perhaps I shall return to the Fest later on in the week to check out the pull-pork sandwiches. It looked divine.

Mike and I then headed out to the beach to set up the volleyball net for the first night of Orleans Vball. Essentially, anyone is welcome to come. I forgot how beautiful the beach is. I love the fact that it is right on the river and there is vast open spaces of water, sand, and trees. Beautiful! We had a good turnout and the guys didn’t do too badly at all, although I know that I have to get my volleyball moves up to snuff. Mike and Rob seemed to be handling it nicely whereas I was treading water.

Iplaying: Time is Running Out – Muse (Absolution) – Speaking about Muse, I don’t know why I suddenly had this urge to check out this band, but I downloaded a few albums to check out what they are all about. So far, I’m four songs into the album and it is amazing stuff. I think I shall enjoy Muse.

Here is your PSA (Palmer Service Announcement) for the day.

What are you doing on July 14?

It doesn’t matter because you’ll be dropping all plans to go to the HOPE Volleyball tournament at Mooney’s Bay!

http://www.hopehelps.com/ottawa_home.cfm

Taken from the site:

HOPE is a volunteer-driven, not-for-profit events management organization that raises funds for community-based charities. Inspired by Terry Fox’s run across Canada, in 1981 a group of friends in Ottawa founded HOPE to make a difference in their community.

This is a pretty great community/charity event to take part in. I try and go every year on a volleyball team, and if not, there is an excellent beer garden with amazing bands. This year the following bands are playing:

Finger Eleven, Mobile and Matt Mays with El Torpedo!

You can’t go wrong.

Fun times will be had. Come down to the event and have a great time while helping out local charities!

iplaying: A Night in Tunisia – Dizzy Gillespie (To Diz With Love)

This is a pretty funny article about how a judge cites 42 Beatles songs in his verdict:

Click here.

iplaying: Storm – Lifehouse (Who We Are)

Pretty well every reader of this site knows that the Smashing Pumpkins are releasing their new album Zeitgeist in about a month’s time.

Details are arising (not officially, but through the beloved Net) about exclusive bonus tracks on the album depending on where you purchase it.

A different bonus track from Best Buy.
A different bonus track from Target.
A different bonus track from Amazon.
A different bonus track from Your Mom.
A different bonus track from iTunes.

This stems from decreasing CD sales (woe is the record label distributor who cannot make some more money from the masses), therefore marketing gurus have said “Well, if we can’t capitalize on unsuspecting victims, let’s go for the hardcore fans!”

Tsk tsk. This is an interesting concept. Let’s be honest, there are fans out there that will buy every version of the album like the fools they are.

Myself, I’ll do the responsible thing. Buy the album, most likely a special edition version, heck, while I’m at it, pick it up on vinyl because I like that kind of thing…then I’ll download the bonus tracks. Something tells me that the band doesn’t mind this ONE BIT.

So…back to the marketers…what are they thinking? I mean…don’t you think that this would actually start to piss off the hardcore fans out there? Way to kill your fanbase potentially.

This interesting thought process was brought to you by me, for you.

iplaying: Broken – Lifehouse (Who We Are) <- which is turning out to be probably their best album since No Name Face upon my first listen...

From an email from Vero:

“…..I’M DONE MY LAST UNIVERSITY PROJECT EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WAPIDOUWIWAPWAPPIDOUWOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Just as I start my new course tonight at the University, Vero is done school forever! What a great feeling! Plus she gets to celebrate by visiting Europe for the summer? You can’t go wrong! Good for you babe! To recap, Vero was technically done going to classes but she had two reports to finish up for her co-op terms.

In other news, I gave Ryley a guitar lesson yesterday. It went as well as I expected. I didn’t know what to expect until Troy gave me some pointers and offered to send over some lessons to start him out. It’s interesting to see him struggle with the things that I struggled with when first starting (for example – your fingers hurting!). Hopefully him and I can learn some things together. I didn’t know what to expect with teaching a kid the ropes, but he seems to be interested so far. We shall see next week!

Special thanks goes out to Krista who snagged a sweet pair of aviators for me during her 1K trek around Ontario last week. I managed to find a pair a few months ago but they didn’t have mirrored lenses (a must). She plopped a nice pair of mirrored lenses as an early birthday present! Awww yeah! Thanks Krista and it will not be forgotten every time I’m on the beach.

My week off was pretty swell. It was great to go back home for a week instead of a weekend during Lumberjack Festival where you are always on the go. I think I shall do this more often as it gives me more of a fulfilling experience visiting and partaking in daily activities back home.

A few highlights:

– Taking a nap in Temagami on the way up. There’s nothing quite like it.
– Going to see Mike and Danny’s Dad play at the Legion. Now, for those of you in the know, the Legion was home to some good times back in Christmas when Mike, Danny and I had the opportunity to play downstairs for a few tunes. With that knowledge, I got my best t-shirt and jeans out and headed out for a good night on the town.

However, things got a little strange when we started heading upstairs. No problem, I thought, I can handle upstairs just as well as downstairs. However, SOMEONE failed to mention to me that it was a retirement party for a Ontario Provincial Police Detective and everyone was traipsing around in suits! I clearly felt out of place and I think the entire police force was giving me the eye. Lucky for me, beer was cheap and I didn’t really care after a few of those. The night was good and we managed to hit the dance floor a few times near the end of the night.

– Fishing was AMAZING. We headed out on Sunday, Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning. We got our limit of fish every day in a fairly short (3-4 hours) time. We went up the Kapuskasing River.

The funny part about fishing was the first day we headed out, we got to our ‘spot’ and found a big red boat parked there and they were hauling them in. When they left, we headed into their spot and got our limit in no time.

The second day we headed out, we saw them leaving the lake so we did good in the same spot.

The third morning we headed out, we arrived to the launching area early and all was good. But then the big red boat shows up beside us! We give a friendly ‘hello’ but then the race was on! We managed to load the boat up and launch it with seconds to spare and got ahead of them! Dad gave us a little extra speed to ensure we made it out there first. All was good in the world and the river was like a mirror. I got up to take a picture at one point and my hat blew off! I told Dad to forget about it as I wanted us to win the race but he was the voice of reason so we let the other boat pass us and we grabbed my hat.

The miracle of the situation occurred when we arrived at the spot and they were nowhere to be found! As soon as we anchored they showed up as they must have overshot the location! Success! We were pretty stoked by the event and Dad managed to reel in 4 pickerel in 30 minutes! We had to work for the rest of the day for the other 4 but it was a beauty of a day so I wasn’t complaining too much.

– Let’s talk a little about how we had some balmy weather for the entire week! Mike and I sure know how to pick a good week off! We didn’t see a drop of rain all week long and rumour has it that Kapuskasing was the hottest place on the map sometime during the week with 38 degrees!
– I took Maureen out for some driving lessons during the week. I’d like to point out that she said I was a great teacher. Maybe I should think of branching out! All was well and there were a few mishaps but she did fine and I hope she continues to do so! It’s interesting to see a new driver on the road and the way their brain works. I remember not knowing all the actions to take or all the rules of the road but with more practice it becomes second nature. I think she was getting pretty frustrated when I started throwing out all sorts of things she had to think about: “Check the speed limit! Slow down towards the Stop sign! Signal where you are going! Watch for pedestrians!” It’s good to take everything in little chunks and build upon the knowledge you have.
– Ripping up some old interlocking brick and laying it back down was interesting. It was quite hot outside the day we started the job and near the end of the day the sun was beating down on us and we felt like we were in an oven. We managed to get the job done and it looks pretty good. I know realize that working in an office requires a break for mental relief as opposed to working on interlocking brick where your body needs a physical break. I was the sorest man that ever walked this Earth the following day and it was pretty hard for me to do much of anything! At least I know some concepts of laying brick now (as Eric seemed to want to utilize after hearing of my stories).

– It was good seeing Mom and Nanny over the week (as Nanny was spending a few weeks up North). I think Mom appreciated seeing me as I helped install the air conditioner.

– Dad and I headed down to Toronto (which is an excellent drive past North Bay with their new highway) to see Uncle Brent and company for the weekend. It was good times. Uncle Richard’s chili was in fine form and the Palmer Clan were their usual selves.

I don’t have one complaint about my vacation. Awesome weather, excellent times and all was good in the world. PLUS, I just realized that I have two long weekends coming up! Sweet!

If you’re out in the water anytime soon, watch out! You’re hearing from a gentleman who now has his Pleasure Craft Operator’s Card.

I’m heading home next week to do some fishing and help around the house. I had forgotten about the Operator’s Card hoopla and I figured I would like to take the boat for a spin so I crammed and only got 4 answers wrong. I must admit even though I heard the test was very simple, I was a little concerned at the different buoys and signs I had to study as you don’t encounter too many of those coming from the North and hanging around the lakes. Seems like they are geared towards the rivers around Ontario.

Either way, there were no questions about buoys which was a relief. Now that that’s out of my way, perhaps I’ll buy a boat soon enough!

Who knows how much this website will be updated in the next week so to give you your daily dose of Palmer, I recommend you check out the Archives and find some of your favourite posts! You can also make note of them in the comments section!

A special shout out to my cousin Troy who is on a fishing trip of his own this week in which I had to ditch due to the Roger Waters concert. It’s a good thing I did as the concert was originally on the Monday and it got moved to the Wednesday! Imagine if I had staked my claim for the trip and the concert got moved! Eek! Anyhow, hope the fish were a biting and the beers were a-flowing. I will see you next weekend in Toronto. Bring your guitar.

iplaying: The Bootleg Saint – Sam Roberts (Chemical City)