Month: December 2007

Led Zeppelin played their reunion show last night in London England and from the rave reviews, no one was disappointed.

Here’s an interesting stat which relates to me: “An estimated nine million people applied for the 18,000 tickets.”

I’m going to assume that considering that everyone who won a ticket actually one the chance to buy two tickets, that means that there were 9,000 people out of nine million who got first round tickets.

I was one of those 9,000. So my odds were one in a million. ***updated***Scratch that. Matt pointed out that my math is way off. Let’s see…9,000 divided by 9, 000, 000…cancel those three zeros on the end so it’s 9 divided by 9, 000, cancel the nines so they are ones…1 in 1,000? Wow. That definitely doesn’t sound as good. I stick by the awesome one in a million calculation for sheer story sake!

Awww yeah!

As we all know, Mike and I decided not to go due to the hefty price tag around the holidays and it worked out for the best for us as the show was rescheduled from its original date in November to December 10 due to Jimmy Page injuring his pinky finger while gardening.

Considering the smashing concert they put on last night, I can only hope that they will be hitting up North America sometime in 2008.

Here’s the setlist:

‘Good Times Bad Times’
‘Ramble On’
‘Black Dog’
‘In My Time Of Dying’
‘For Your Life’
‘Trampled Under Foot’
‘Nobody’s Fault But Mine’
‘No Quarter’
‘Since I’ve Been Loving You’
‘Dazed And Confused’
‘Stairway To Heaven’
‘The Song Remains The Same’
‘Misty Mountain Hop’
‘Kashmir’
‘Whole Lotta Love’
‘Rock And Roll’

Dad’s body has an interesting way of planning out things further in life. As Dad nears retirement his body says “Scott, you have a lot of sick days left that you haven’t used up. Why are you using your vacation days for the Christmas break when you have some sick days to use?”

Hence, the reason that Dad is in the hospital last night with chest pains. Hope you had a good sleep overnight Pops.

Friday night, Mike and I picked up Krista and headed over to Trish’s new pad (which is even more divine now that I noticed her office has these massive doors which slide closed to make it an ideal music space) to help her put plastic on her windows.

The night got off to a delayed start as Mike had forgot his wallet and driver’s license. He did a loop around but then decided to continue on without it. But then we made it another 100 meters and realized we definitely had to go back because a guitar was forgotten (the guitar would be used later on in the night). We headed back, got the stuff and then picked up Krista and finally got to Trish’s place.

After measuring her windows, we headed to Canadian Tire where Mike realized he left the measurements for our windows at home! So no luck on our front for plastic. But we got some for Trish’s bedroom windows and headed home where she was making some pizza for us.

Mike and I had a decent time with putting up the plastic, although the tape was wonky on the last window and it wasn’t sticking properly. Maybe it was a faulty batch? Either way, we finally got it done in time for the pizza to come out of the oven and Krista entertained us with her concoction of nog-tinis which is essentially a martini with eggnog.

After a great meal of pizza and Caesar salad (can we also point out that Trish had an entire lasagna cooking for us also?! She was pretty disappointed that none of us took some home. Trish, we are not an army!) we started out with ideas for a holiday photo shoot. Trish wanted something rocking for her new Christmas album. Hence the reason for the guitar. I also managed to find a purple garland with stars hanging from it. We then fell into fits of laughter thinking of amazing album covers we could make and I personally loved the thought of Trish exiting a closet for the album called “Out of the Closet”. Hilarity ensued with rock star poses and fake snakes coming out of the closet along with Trish. I was even in it at one point.

We then wanted to do a classic album cover shot of just some rock star stances with the guitar being held high. Then we got the idea of an action shot and we wanted Trish to jump off her coffee table and snap the picture in mid-air. Mike and I demonstrated how the shot should look and we had a great time trying to get the best picture out of it. My fave is one where I look like I’m floating on air while playing some Stevie Ray Vaughn. Beautiful! In the end, we realized there is a lot of work in preparing your rock star image and you can’t be caught making a crazy face when you are jumping in the air while playing guitar. It’s very not-rock-like.

We got a few great shots and I’m sure one of them will make the album cover. As for which one, we shall have to wait and see!

http://www.pitbullarmory.com/Squirrel-armor.html

This is why I love the Internet.

My sister Maureen was gracious enough to fill out the Christmas survey for Palmer’s World.

My favourite part is that she sent it twice to me and the answers were interesting as some of them had changed significantly!

Here are both of her responses for your reading pleasure.

What is your favourite thing about Christmas?
Hanging out with friends and family that I haven’t seen in awhile.//Being with friends and family

What’s your least favourite thing about Christmas?
You take months to prepare for it and then it’s done in one day.//the preparation and the waiting……and then it’s all over in one day. [Editor’s Note: I have a feeling she’ll be pretty disappointed if she gets married.]

What’s better? The Christmas Story or National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation? Why? I can’t decide because I like them both.//Why? I can’t decide. They are both equally awesome. Ralphie shooting his eye out with the pellet gun and The Griswald’s car getting stuck under a transport when they go to pick out a tree.

What’s your favourite drink during the holiday season?
Egg Nog//Hot chocolate and Slush.

What should Vero get Palmer for Christmas?
coal, coal and more coal HA!//Nothing, it should be all given to me :p

Beautiful holiday spirit photo gallery.

Click here.

Mom, if you have a photo of me like this with Santa, send it along!

Aunt Lois provided me with a good laugh when sending along her survey answers along with her picture.

You can see that she provided the first picture (seen here). Here is how the conversation went:

Me (thinking “What the heck? That’s a picture of my cousing Keri and Santa. Maybe that’s Aunt Lois in the suit?”): “Is that you in the Santa suit?”
Aunt Lois (thinking “Is this kid on crack? Does he not recognize me?”): No, can you not recognize me?
Me (thinking “Oh man, what’s going on? That can’t be her in the Santa suit!”): It’s the eyes Aunt Lois! The eyes! There’s no way that it’s you!

Then she realizes that she sent the wrong picture completely and we had a good laugh. She also wondered if I couldn’t recognize my own cousin Keri but of course I did, I just couldn’t see where the heck Aunt Lois was in the picture!

Ah…the laughs we had.

Onto her responses…

What is your favourite thing about Christmas?
My favorite thing is the music. Always put the CD’s on and wail away in my own home lol

What’s your least favourite thing about Christmas?
I think the least favorite thing is that I don’t have any small children in the house.

What’s better? The Christmas Story or National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation? Why?
Actually my fave movie is Miracle on 34th St……both of them.

What’s your favourite drink during the holiday season?
Diet Pepsi and spiced rum. YUM

What should Vero get Palmer for Christmas?
Whatever he deserves hahahahahaha

If you have not received a survey from me and wish to participate in this holidays, simply answer the questions yourself and send me off an email along with a holiday photo of yourself to my e-mail address.

iplaying: Lightning Crashes – Live (Throwing Copper)

Blade Runner (only one of the cooler sci-fi movies out there, which stars Han Solo at that!) is being re-released in a Final Cut version which will see a new transfer of the film to hi-def and (I think) some tweaks to the actual film.

Here is a beautiful article on the transfer from the negatives to hi-def format and was very informative on how they take old film stock and digitize it.

Read the article here.

I found the following note on the back of Chuck Klosterman’s novel “Killing Yourself to Live” and was inspired:

“Sometimes when you’re the co-pilot on a road trip, you’re having such a good time talking to your buddy, gazing out the window, and listening to awesome music that you’re a little reluctant to stop and get out when you actually reach your destination. That’s what reading this book is like.” – Gregory Kirschiling, Entertainment Weekly.

While I can go on about how great of a comment that is for a novel, I immediately thought about the road trips of yesteryear and the beauty of being both the co-pilot and the pilot.

Let’s be honest, the best seat in the car is the seat which controls the music. But having that coupled with being the co-pilot is an amazing surreal feeling.

I have a fresh memory of waking up somewhere between Percé Rock and the border of New Brunswick and Vero was driving. We were passing along the coast and the sun was not quite down but you can see it dipping from its apex. The Beatles were playing. Then we ended up in New Carlisle where my grandmother is from. You know that point of the day where the sun is starting to shine into your windshield and it’s kind of annoying when you’re driving because you can’t really see what the heck is going on outside? In the passenger seat, that’s a totally different experience. It’s like you’re rushing by objects that don’t have much form. The trees hanging across the street bring about this feeling of another world. Like we are traveling through a dream. Maybe it helps that I awoke from a slumber and it’s that point where you don’t want to talk just yet to the driver. You want to hold onto this moment where you are quiet and just stare out the window and pretend to sleep because you want to absorb it all in. That’s the beauty of being the co-pilot. Sometimes you can just exist in the moment but at the same time, you’re passing through the moment.

So the co-pilot position is pretty darn good when the conditions are right…when there is a beauty of the outside world and you are passing along. Like when you have one of those afternoons like when I went up to Hearst and it’s a brisk winter day, but the sun is shining and you’re getting hot in the truck but you still have all your winter clothes on and there isn’t any traffic on the lone highway but you have some gusting wind and the snow is just grazing over the road. You feel like you’re the only person on Earth and you even shut off all the music in the truck just to appreciate the moment you’re in. Those are my favourite winter days. When the sun is shining through some clouds.

iplaying: Live it Out – Metric (Live it Out)