Saturday – Mike and I awoke at Vero’s, drove her to work and then headed home to enjoy the day. It was one of those days which I had sought out for the past four months. One where I could catch up with my recording of music.
First step – go through the recordings that I had downloaded from the Fostex recording studio. I had backed up all the files over the holidays but had yet to go through them. It’s a lengthy process but a fun one to do also as there are some gems that I had forgot I recorded over the past few years.
Of special note were a few live off the floor sessions that have graced my music page before but I got to import these files into Garagaband and pan some channels and increase volume where it needed it (sometimes the vocals weren’t great at all as there were people singing from across the room). In the end, I’m satisfied with the end product. I’m especially satisfied with the live jam session that Randy, John and I recorded on Boxing Day a few weeks ago. It was amazing and had some great renditions of Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game as well as Tripping Daisy’s Piranha. Let us not forget What I Like About You by the Romantics. I split these tracks up and hopefully will get them into the hands of the people who were there in given time.
After going through the live sessions I started going through the cream of the crop which were my original songs, riffs, jam sessions. This will be a lengthy process as there are probably 60 separate songs to go through and then I have to decide what to do with them. For example, I had this great recording of Brighter Days (by our very own Randy) but in the end, I messed up one chord change at the end so really, it ruins the song. Why would I want to spend time on effects and whatnot when it’s a mediocre take? It doesn’t do the song justice.
However, there are other songs where I realize that they just are good as a demo so I shouldn’t really bother with reverb and other effects. In the end they should just be there as a reminder if I want to go back and record the song properly. Essentially I recorded a lot of these demos to send off to Troy so he can pick and choose a song that we could take on as our next one to record. Of course, these songs were recorded a year ago so you can see how busy we have been!
In the evening, Vero, Mike and I headed over to Holly and Alex’s place along with Joelle. We had an excellent meal of soup, pizza and Greek salad. Yum! It was also Joelle’s birthday this coming Wednesday so we had a little something for her in the form of ice cream cake. There was no pin the tail on the donkey which was disappointing.
After dinner, we hauled out the Game of Kapuskasing (which Joelle had picked up last summer at a KDHS garage sale). We found out that the game is actually Wheeler Dealer but they custom make the game to incorporate town businesses. The rules seemed complex at first and everyone was pretty leery of playing it but in the end it was pretty fun and we kept encountering rules that made the game even more fun, such as the BAMBOOZLE card where you can challenge another player to a BAMBOOZLE duel where you each roll a die and whoever wins the roll gets to keep their property as well as take the other person’s property. It was very much like Monopoly but had it’s own spin on it.
Highlights from the game:
- Bamboozled! I was on a roll with Bamboozling and managed to win a bunch of properties at the beginning of the game from duels. I also loved how everytime it would happen there would be a cry of BAMBOOZLE across the table.
- The choice between a Tax Audit or something else which prompted Alex, Vero and me to chant AUDIT! AUDIT! To Holly’s distaste while she had to make a key decision.
- The Investing portion of the game is fun as you pay to invest in a material (like gold) and you roll the dice to see if the investment pays off or if you lose your money.
All in all, it was a long game that we had to cut down for time’s sake but all involved enjoyed it (although Joelle crapped out early in the game and went bankrupt) and I ended up winning by a cool $100K lead. Definitely recommend the game.
Thanks to Holly and Alex for the lovely supper and entertainment for the night. I love not having any schoolwork which interferes with life!
Friday had me go to class again…I don’t know if I will either enjoy a Friday afternoon class (where it has me leave work early) or come to loathe the Friday afternoon class (because it’s essentially work on a Friday where your brain is mush, PLUS I foresee group work happening afterwards). The one good thing I have going is my Professor seems amazing for a Quantitative Methods course.
Rewind: Vero mentioned that Labyrinth was her favourite film of all time so I went ahead and picked it up for her over the holidays. I vaguely remember watching this film…flashbacks of David Bowie and his grand hair and some crystal ball. Vero on the other hand, had an interesting story in that her father had videotaped the film but the ending was cut off so even though she had seen the film a gazillion times as a child, she had never seen the end!
