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Random Thought Processes from Raine Maida Show

Review to come later. But they did an excellent cover of Billy Talent’s Try Honesty. Nice.

– I was speaking to a gentleman last night who did not appreciate when people (who have access to the masses) express their points of view without providing a disclaimer. Examples of people he spoke about were Bono of U2 (using the forum of his concerts to express the need to help the impoverished), Oprah Winfrey (expressing views of who she supports in an election) or even Jared Paul (a spoken word artist opening for Raine Maida who expressed his thoughts on various issues around the world through spoken word/poetry.).

This gentleman also indicated that he is fine with these people expressing their views if they add the disclaimer “You should inform yourselves of all sides of the story and not just take my views as Gospel.” He was upset that there are clearly apathetic blind followers out there that simply agree with a view because “Bono said so.”

Discuss.

– In this digital age, it is hard not to see the following scene: You are in a crowd and an artist is on the stage. In your direct line of view is the person in front of you holding up their digicam and you can see the artist through the viewscreen as well as seeing the actual person on stage. I thought that would make an interesting album cover…what’s more important to these people? Watching the real thing or watching the real thing through a screen?

iplaying: Line and Sinker – Billy Talent (Billy Talent)

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Concert Reviews

Raine Maida at Capital Music Hall

Mike and I headed downtown to see Raine Maida at the Capital Music Hall. Raine Maida is out there supporting his solo album The Hunter’s Lullaby. While he cites influences of spoken word poetry, the album only touches upon that aspect in a few songs. It’s a more interesting album than a regular rock album from Our Lady Peace. It acoustic based, with keys, cello, good drum beats. All in all, a good album.

We started off the night going to the Lonestar Restaurant with Krista, Jill, Meghan and Julie. Good times were had and the chicken chimichanga is pretty darn good. Palmer-approved.

We headed over to the Capital Music Hall and found an immense line-up to get in. That was quite strange to see at 8:30! What is even more surprising is the place was PACKED when we got in. Billy the Kid was on stage at the time and she was loads of fun. I will probably pick up an album. Mike then realized there was a flux of people in the back towards the bar and we found a great spot to stand closer to the stage.

Raine came out to introduce Jared Paul who is a spoken word artist. He was quite interesting…most of the time he didn’t use the microphone so the crowd had to hush up to listen to the words he was saying. Quite the interesting technique. At one point the crowd was losing interest so he had to switch to the microphone to keep our attention. I thought he had some interesting thoughts and I enjoyed the way he delivered them (never seeing a spoken word artist before). Mike then started a discussion about how he didn’t appreciate how people who had access to a crowd just spout out their views without saying “But inform yourselves and don’t take my word for Gospel.” This started a great debate which lasted until 3AM and in the end neither one of us had managed to convince the other so we ended on that note.

Raine Maida hit the stage with his wife Chantal Kreviazuk on keyboards, as well as a drummer and cellist (celloist? Cello-player?). Very subdued show, as in it isn’t full out rock like Foo Fighters. But it was great nonetheless. Sometimes it’s great just to absorb the music and the words he has to say. He even commented that it was different playing for a crowd that isn’t crowd surfing or pumping their fists in the air.

I believe he played his entire album (but I can’t remember and I pulled the setlist below from their show in Edmonton which seemed very similar, if not exactly the same) and he had a bunch of covers. First he spoke of how Neil Young had stated in an interview a few months ago that “Anyone who believes that music can change the world is naïve.” Raine found this hard to swallow considering some of the more….influential songs he has had in his past. Raine was thinking about it and blogged about it but after the days went by he realized that maybe Neil was stoned when he said it. Ha ha. They then played a great version of Ohio.

Later on in the show they introduced a song by a Canadian band who’s singer Raine thought was cute. I really didn’t recognize the song until the chorus…it was Try Honesty by Billy Talent! It’s quite different to hear a punk song turned into an acoustic ballad. It was very moving and I realized that sometimes with punk songs, you don’t really pay attention to the lyrics. Actually, I find I don’t pay attention to too many lyrics and I’ve started to change that in the past year to help me with my songwriting craft. I recommend you go on Youtube to find a video of Raine Maida playing Try Honesty.

Chantal also sang a Pixies cover song “Where is My Mind” which was good but I have never heard the song myself. During the encore Raine started singing Innocent and the crowd was singing along and then Raine asked us to sing louder and asked if we were just a bunch of conservatives in this town of Ottawa. The crowd definitely upped the volume on the singing after that comment and afterwards Raine remarked that he now knows how to get a bunch of people from Ottawa all riled up. I wish every artist would do that in the future!

All in all, I really enjoyed Raine Maida’s show and I am anxious for any live material to come along. Especially if it includes one of his rare tracks called Victim of a Small Town which I had never heard before but fell in love with.

Careful What You Wish For
Sex Love & Honey
The Snake and the Crown
Victim of a Small Town (new song? I’d never heard it before)
Earthless
Ohio (Neil Young cover)
The Less I Know
Confessional
China Doll
Try Honesty (Billy Talent cover)
Yellow Brick Road
Rat Race

Encore:
Where is My Mind (Pixies cover performed by Chantal)
Innocent
One Second Chance

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Line of Credit Demolished

Mark this date in your calendars…I have finally paid off my line of credit.  While readers out there are either a) jealous or b) don’t care, I am definitely proud of this moment as it has been a burden ever since I purchased my house a few years back.

I had to switch some money from some savings accounts (like my Property Tax account…better top that one up fast before the next bill comes in, or the account for paying back my parents…I better hide for the next few months from them!) but I figured it was a smarter move to use some money in savings rather than accumulate any more interest.  I cringe at thinking of looking at how much interest I have paid over the past few years on the line of credit.  I suppose I should do it to shock my system into not letting my debts get out of hand.

I definitely picked up a few tips along my way of trying to be fiscally responsible and I thought I would write them out for those who are interested.  Telling you what worked for me may not work for you, so keep that in mind and find the right thing for YOU.

– I recommend visiting www.lifehacker.com periodically and pay attention to their money saving tips.  You can search by themes so click on the Money theme to look at their suggestions.  One of their suggestions really helped me out in the past six months.  For the longest time here is the scenario I used:

Put $125 a week into Savings Account.  Once the total hits around the $500 use it to put on the line of credit (or pay off the parents when they phoned wondering where their money was).

This seemed like a good plan, but it wasn’t working.  For example, when the savings account would hit around $500, my mind entered “I have $500 cash now!” mode and if I wanted to splurge a little, then I just took the money out of savings and put the rest onto my debt.  So instead of $500 going to the line of debt, $200 managed to survive.  Not a good scenario.

Life Hacker gave me this great idea of putting my automatic withdrawals directly towards my debt and not into a savings account.  Mentally, instead of being disappointed with myself in the fact that my line of debt wasn’t going down all that fast (part and parcel with the fact that I was spending savings on material goods), I began becoming happy when every week went by and I saw my line of debt go down by $125.  Sure, my savings account stood at 0.50 but who cares?  The line of debt was going down!

It may not work for everyone out there, but it sure worked for me.  I literally was happier every time I saw the number decrease…I started working hard at making sure I wouldn’t need to take money out of my line of credit.  I rolled coins, I watched my spending outside of home, I didn’t use my credit card.  Which brings me up to my next point…

– Credit Cards: I used to use my credit card for EVERYTHING so I could accumulate some Aeroplan points.  This scenario is great if you pay your credit card off with whatever you have in your bank account RIGHT AWAY.  My problem was that I would end up not paying it off right away, then have a large bill at the end of the month that the bank account couldn’t cover and so I would just pay the whole thing off with the line of credit.  Note that this is actually a really smart thing to do because it’s a heck of a lot smarter to not have your debt sit on a 20% interest credit card instead of a 8% interest line of credit.  Remember that the first step in becoming fiscally responsible is to realize the person you are…don’t fool yourself into thinking that you’ll pay that credit card off ASAP and before the month’s interest kicks in.  Just put it on the line of credit before you let the credit card bills pile up.  Of course, if you can manage to pay off the credit card every time you use it, or manage to pay it off by the end of the month with your bank account cash, then by all means, do so (and bravo!).  In my case, it messed up my finances and that’s how my line of credit never went down.

Back to the credit card story, I finally realized that using it to rack up Aeroplan miles was costing me more than I made so I halted that operation, settled down with a budget and budgeted myself a cash amount that I could carry in my wallet during the week.  Mentally, I had changed my thought process to know that whatever was in my wallet was what I had to spend for the week.  It is quite the life changing experience when you see your money go down so fast but it does make you think twice before saying “YES!” to when your buddies are going out for a bite to eat after work when you only have $40 in your wallet and you still have to get gas for the car sometime this week.  This was definitely a good step in my direction to paying off debt; having cash in my wallet and not depending on my debit card.

– Paying Yourself First – A tip I picked up from The Wealthy Barber (which Maren introduced me to).  The Wealthy Barber is truly an amazing read.  I even pull it out from time to time when I have life changes…for example, years ago, the parts about mortgage payments or saving for kid’s education didn’t really mean much to me but I know it’s there when I need it.  I also peruse it once a year to get myself back on track with some of its ideas.  I gave this book to Eric for his birthday a few years back but I don’t know if he ever got around to reading it.  Eric, I know you are reading this and if you haven’t read it yet, give it a try.  I love it.  It is a little outdated though…they quote some pretty amazing interest numbers for bank accounts that hearken back to the days where you would get 10% in a bank account.  The numbers are off, but the processes they speak about are not.

One of the processes is the ‘pay yourself first’ process.  We all know we have monthly/yearly costs.  So plan ahead for them!  For example, I know that I property taxes due every year so I have an automatic withdrawal from my bank account to my ING Direct Savings account for $100 every paycheque.  The first year I had my house, I got dinged with a $1000+ bill (thank the Lord for a line of credit!) but the next year I had planned ahead for it and when the bill came, I had the cash in an account (with a little extra over to spend on…me!).

Sure, you’re thinking that this is a major annual expense that I’m thinking about but what about the smaller expenses that creep out of nowhere?  Let’s talk about some strange things I save up for:

– Driver’s Plate Renewal: I know that each year around my birthday (boo, hiss!) I need to fork out $80 for my driver’s plate renewal.  For some, $80 is a drop in the bucket, but to me, $80 out of my wallet right around my birthday where I know I’ll be going out to have a few drinks hits the wallet hard.  So now I have an automatic withdrawal to take money out each paycheque to save up for the $80.  I get 26 paycheques in the year so that’s $3 a paycheque that I take off (now the logistics of this aren’t that simple since I don’t have a gazillion savings accounts…I kind of merge them together into one for small things like driver’s licenses, gym fees, etc.).  What’s $3 from a paycheque?  NOTHING.  But what is it around your birthday?  It’s an awesome feeling of not having to dig into your wallet for $80 but simply transfer some funds from the savings account.

– Gym Membership – I recently joined the gym with Vero and now that I am done paying off some debt, I will ramp up the gym membership account.  So I know it costs $350 for the year so divide that by 26 paycheques: $13 a paycheque.

– Christmas Gifts – The first year I moved into my house, I ended up having to use my line of credit to buy a lot of my Christmas gifts.  This was quite the silly move on my part and in hindsight, maybe it’s a little smart to talk to the family before the holidays and say “Listen, I’m a little strapped for cash, how about we tone down on the spending this year?”.  Besides, Christmas is about meeting up with family and friends and watching a good National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation on Christmas Day.  ANYHOW, after that mishap, I knew that I would have to put some money aside for Christmas gifts every year.  Luckily for me, my Canada Pension Plan and Employment Insurance payments end around the month of October so there’s a little extra cash on my paycheque.  I automatically set up an automatic withdrawal to my Christmas Savings Account for the months leading up to Christmas and stop the automatic withdrawal in January.  It has helped out immensely over the past two years and I definitely recommend it.  Heck, you KNOW that you’ll need money around the holidays, why don’t you prepare for it?

There are TONS of little things that you know will need some payment in the future…magazine subscription renewals, website hosting renewals, etc.  It’s a smart thing to pay yourself first on these items and you won’t notice it hit you as hard when the time comes to get these things purchased.  Sure, it may seem a little intense for some people to save for EVERY LITTLE THING, but the way I look at it is if you know it’s coming, may as well prepare yourself for it.

What does the future hold for me and financial matters?  Well, I still have some debt to pay off from some gracious people who have given me some ‘interest-free’ loans who definitely need to be paid back.  The money that has been going to the line of credit will be automatically switched to paying them back.

Of course, everyone’s ultimate goal is to have money lying around for a day where something out of the ordinary occurs; you need new tires, you need a new car engine, you need a new furnace…ideally I would like to get to the point where I have savings accounts with money in each of them for these types of emergencies but we’ll see about that one.

I think it’s also a smart idea in the future to look at the type of person I am and prepare.  For example, I *know* I go to concerts.  So maybe there aren’t any coming up right now, but I can still save up for it.  A measly $10 a week would help me immensely in the long run for saving up for concerts.  Plus, if I don’t use the money by the end of th year, I can leave a little nest-egg to prepare for the next year of concerts and use the remainder to pay off some debt.

Oh, before I forget, let’s not forget birthdays!  $20-$30 per person you want to buy birthday gifts for…that’s some money you could save for it you really wanted to.  But I suppose that doesn’t make too much sense because odds are, you have a birthday to celebrate every month so it doesn’t make too much sense to put money away just to use it again in the month.

After I pay off the debt, I’ll up my RRSP contributions again and then start having pockets of savings.  It’s still a long process, but I feel that the one thing that really helped me is realizing I had a problem with it.  Once I’ve realized it, I could get on the path of fixing the problem.

That lesson works with anything I suppose.  😉

In the end, I’m sure you all have your own tips to share, or know of what works and what doesn’t work for you.  I think the main issue is to realize that if you are in debt, make sure you really look at what you are doing to pay it off and realize when something isn’t working.  Saving money to pay off debt is great, but it’s not so great if every time you save a little cash it goes back to do something entertaining before paying off that debt!

Also, don’t kill yourselves over debt.  Life isn’t about sitting at home for 8 months while you pay off some debt.  Do half of the payments over 16 months and live life a little.  Wait, did that just go against everything I wrote about?

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The Sky Has Fallen – Rogers Fights Back

Well, it finally happened.  Rogers is about to change their Internet service plans and put downloading limits on their packages.

Currently, we pay $44.95 for their Express package.  With the new limits imposed, we will be limited to 60GB of traffic and I believe they charge an additional $2 for each GB over the limit up until $25.  I take that to mean that they would only charge you an additional $25 and that you could still go over the limit, but in reality, let’s be honest here, I’m sure they would just cut our Internet connection if we went over the additional $25 limit.  😉

They were nice enough to outline how much we have used over the past three months.  Let’s see…in November it was around 110GB and in December it was around 95GB and in January it was around 55GB.

Their letter says “With our upcoming changes, it appears that you will be affected.”

No kidding.   I guess all those TV shows we download add up over a month.

Anyhow, if anyone has some good suggestions of Internet service providers around the Ottawa area with no download limits, it would be much appreciated.  Heck, we may just go ahead and move all our services to ‘said’ service provider if the price is right.

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Why Don’t The Kids Sing Anymore?

I was just reading the blog of Natalia Yanchak who is the keyboardist/member of The Dears and I marvelled at how absorbed I became in her thought process and how she just spoke her mind of whatever she was thinking at the time.

I’ve realized that in the past, I think I’ve done that from time to time but have put that to the backburner on this site so that I can focus on creating a snapshot of my actual life at its present state so that future generations can take a look and say “So that’s what they did back then.”  Let me also say that I think it would be great if I get in the habit of taking a picture of my face every day and over the years constructing a flipbook with the images.  While I realize that this would take a lot of dedication, it would make for a very neat book to give away at Christmas in about ten years time.  😉

So here you have it…maybe it’s the mood I’m in and the fact that it’s the calm before the storm; the period in between midterm examinations and final exams.  All is calm in the world and I’ve been listening to Counting Crows and now The Dears.  If you have not listened to No Cities Left then I encourage you to go pick it up.  It’s a Palmer guarantee that you will find something to like about it.

I’ve been carrying around a little notebook with me everywhere which is an extension of the voice recorder that Vero gave me a few years ago.  The voice recorder helps me record tunes in my head whereas the notebook lets me write out the thoughts.  I just came across this entry:

no one likes to sing anymore or dance.  Why are they embarrassed?

I think this thought process started from the new Sam Roberts Band tune Them Kids which talks about how the kids don’t dance to rock n’ roll anymore.

It’s…so true!  Then I started thinking of years gone when people sang in the car before radio came along…I read about that particularly in Terrence West’s novel “Run of the Town” which has short stories of growing up in the North.  He talks about how everyone in the car would sing church hymns.

So that’s a start.  It looks like years ago people sang church hymns in a car.  Ok.  So what happened?

I can imagine that probably in the sixties people loved to sing along to their records and music was available in car radios…but after that, did people lose interest?  When did it become uncool to sing out loud?

I take playing guitar and singing as an example of people not singing out loud.  Countless times have I been the only singer in the room.  Is it because I overpower those in the room with my loud voice?  Perhaps.  But sometimes I lower it to see if people want to join in…and it just doesn’t happen.  Sure, I understand that an entertainer should not bother himself with these things, but it is quite strange when you’re ripping into Yellow Submarine and people can’t get the nerve to sing along (of course, I’m just generalizing here…there are those who are great at singing along).

So when did it become uncool to sing?  Is it this new world we live in where everything needs to be…perfect?  Your looks, your clothing, your voice, your demeanor?   I am amused while watching old films because I see actors who in this day and age would be deemed ugly and probably wouldn’t end up in a film.  Watch any film nowadays and tell me if you can find a mediocre looking person who isn’t mediocre looking for a reason (like being the sidekick to the main man).  Has this picture perfect world created this beast where no one wants to sing anymore?

Sometimes it’s hard to get people up to the karaoke machine!  But I hear the Japanese (and I don’t know about other cultures) LOVE karaoke.  Have they found the secret to life and that you should not look at yourselves too seriously and belt out “Say It Ain’t So” by Weezer while up on stage with your friends?  Let’s not forget the excellent Rob Zombie imitators at Wave’s Biker Bar in Toronto.  😉

I haven’t found the answer yet as to why people don’t like to sing anymore.  I don’t know why people are…embarrassed.  I think it has to do with the idea that you can’t do anything unless you are perfect at it.  I guess the same goes for dancing.  Or maybe I’m reading too much into it and in the end, high school dances were the same back in the day as they were in my day.  The guys hanging out around the wall and trying to survive the night.  Maybe it really isn’t like all the films you see where everything is choreographed.  Ha ha.

Musings for the night.  I suppose I’ll try this as an experiment on this site…split the time up between documenting entries for the grandkids (Hey Kids!  Gramps here!) and exploring my thoughts a little more.  I find it helps me flesh out ideas for songs.  I think I’m really onto the songwriting kick lately.  A lot of people are saying they are liking the 705 song I wrote.  I think I’ve finally opened Pandora’s Box.

iplaying: We Can Have It – The Dears (No Cities Left) 

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Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings

51xxrnbfozl_ss500_.jpgI just picked up the new Counting Crows album today.  It was a surprise that it was coming out…I lost track of when it would be out.  The concept is one half of the album are those songs that represent the Saturday Night when you want to rock…you want to lose yourself into the world…

Sunday Mornings (as we all know too well) are those mornings where everything is quiet and you recollect things that happened the night before and all is…calm.

I haven’t listened to Counting Crows in a long time and they were a big part of me…I’m looking for my old bootlegs and rare tracks and…they’re all gone somewhere else.  Good thing the Internet is around but that’s a whole lot of downloading going on.

I suppose I’ll give a full review later on but after three full listens tonight I realize two things:

1) I miss the days where I would have enough time to myself to hole myself up in a room and listen to an album completely.

2) Counting Crows do not disappoint.

iplaying: On Almost Any Sunday Morning – Counting Crows (Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings)

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Easter Weekend

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The weekend has become a giant blur for me…I really don’t know where to begin with what happened so I suppose I’ll just recap some main points:

The Breaking of the Dam: At the Foo Fighters concert, Mike had explained to me all about weeping tiles and the water that absorbs into the ground around your house and if the storm drain is blocked up, then it could potentially come through the concrete. While I admit that I am fairly smart in some things, there are other aspects of life in which I had no idea…for example, all this talk of ‘spring flooding’…I thought they just meant through my basement windows and that I should keep the area around my window clear of snow!

With this newfound knowledge and the fact that I found that our driveway had become a swimming pool, I decided it was due to time to break up the ice in the street to make a path to the storm drain a few houses down. I started with a shovel which didn’t really help matters. I then found my trusty crowbar and started chipping away at the ice trying to make a stream towards the drain. This was (partially) working but I knew I would be in it for the long haul. It was such a nice day out though so I figured it was better than staying inside. My neighbour ended up dropping by and giving me a giant steel rod that could be used to chip ice. This helped out a lot more as I didn’t have to bend over and chip away at the ice. It was heavy and tall enough for me to just lift it up and hammer the ice with it.

Seeing that this was the first time I had ever remotely attempted anything like this, I didn’t realize that the key to chipping the ice is to find a spot that you can chip away from…it’s not about making a little stream in the ice, but it’s more of the matter of getting rid of the ice completely from the street. I found this out after hitting one piece of ice and it broke away clean from the pavement. I thought “Hmm…this will make for a better channel for the water to run through!”. There were literally three driveways full of water that had to run into the drain so the bigger the channel, the better! Two hours later there was a river rushing through our street. Another neighbour came out and couldn’t believe the amount of water coming down the street. It was a thing of beauty actually. My hard work had paid off and now there was no more water in our driveways and I could rest easy that my basement would not flood (for now at least).

The Breaking of My Abs: I ended up going over to Vero’s on Thursday night and we made some dinner and watched Hot Fuzz (which is an EXCELLENT film by the way…quite funny). I ended up spying her pilates ball(s) in the corner and asked if we could try them out. She popped in the fifteen minute video and away we went! I must admit that shoes are needed if you are going to try pilates over a hardwood surface. My socks were flying all over the place! Some exercises were mediocre but some of them were quite hard to do which intrigued me. I would definitely try the ball out again as it’s a good workout. However, in hindsight, while I was sore in some spots, I definitely think I got a better stomach workout just using my regular old sit-up bench.

The Meeting of the Minds: I had to meet up with my school project team to finish up a Quantitative Methods project. We present to the class this coming Friday and I think we are cutting it a little short. It was good to get together as we hadn’t done so too much over the past few months. I must admit that I am not a fan of group work for this reason: I cannot go at my own pace. For example, I think if I would have had a project to work on, I probably would have went home for Easter weekend and either finished the project before or during that trip. But because of it being a group project, I had to stay in town. I’m definitely not knocking my group members…they are a fine bunch. I’m just saying it’s a lot easier sometimes to work on your own on a project, especially if you are one of those people who want to ensure everything is perfect with the report.

The Building of the Bench: Mom and Dad had bought me a workbench to use out in the garage so now that the weather was cooperating a little, it was due time to open the garage door, let some air and construct the bench. We had a few mishaps due to the instruction manual not being very forthcoming with good diagrams (for example we were building it upside down at one point) but we got on track quickly and it ended up being a decent workbench. It’s actually a real nice workbench to use to work on electronics I would think…like when you have to tear apart your computer or something. I think it will also be useful for other projects…I should create something. Any ideas out there?

The Birth of the BBQ: After bonding over the creation of the workbench, Mike and I realized that what called our name was the BBQ hidden under the snow in the backyard. With the sun in my face and the hunger pangs of steak on the BBQ, I took the shovel to the backyard towards the BBQ. Now, at first I thought this may be an easy task but the wind was quite chilling and the snow was quite hard. It’s like it froze somewhere in the middle. Groan. So I chipped away at it little by little until I made my way to the front of the BBQ. Success! I don’t think it took me that long…probably 45 minutes to cut a path and to scoop out the area around the propane tank. Mike joined me as we lit the BBQ and we marvelled at the smell arising from this great steel oven. Seeing that it was a beautiful day (well, the wind was quite cold, but it sure was nice in the sun) Mike grabbed us a few beer and we set up some lawn chairs in the snow in the backyard. It was quite comforting to imagine the summer upon us, but after 20 minutes we realized that it was indeed, freaking cold and we headed inside to watch some episodes of Alias (which Mike had just discovered and I hadn’t seen in quite some time).

We had an amazing feast of steak and potatoes for supper and the next night we also had some pork chops on the BBQ. The season is upon us!

A New Hope Arises: Now, we all know that Vero does not want to watch Star Wars and we found out over the years that the reason why is because she does not care for robots. I don’t know what they did to her personally, but she doesn’t like them. But years ago, she gave me a Christmas gift in the form of coupons that I could redeem to have her watch Star Wars with me. I ended up misplacing the coupons but decided to look for them anyhow and finally found them tucked in a cabinet somewhere. We called up Eric and he joined us in watching Star Wars with Vero. I don’t think she minded it too much although she did cringe whenever a droid would come by the screen. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…I find Star Wars to be a little boring to watch. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen it a few times…but I definitely prefer the more intriguing storyline of Empire or Return over the first film.

And that’s that. It was a fairly lackluster weekend but I’m sure after reading about my adventures you may wonder why I say that. I suppose it’s due to the fact that there was no fanfare concerning Easter per say, other than the fact that Vero and I built an Easter gingerbread house (!!!), or I combined some scrambled eggs and chocolate to make…chocolate easter eggs (get it?) which Vero couldn’t really stomach. I did think of our Lord Jesus Christ sacrificing himself for us but other than that, there wasn’t anything overly special about this weekend.

Perhaps I am succumbing to the everlasting winter! Let there be no snow!

I hope you all enjoyed your Easter long weekend.

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Concert Reviews

Review: Foo Fighters at ScotiaBank Place

After my Great Philosophers midterm, I headed over to Krista’s where Eric, Mike and Joe had already gathered for a few beer.  After changing into some more comfortable clothes, we made our way to the Royal Oak pub, had some decent fish and chips and drove out to the ScotiaBank place to see Foo Fighters.

I hadn’t seen Foo Fighters since Summersault 2000 in Barrie (home of the final Smashing Pumpkins V1 performance I saw).  I can’t say I’ve really followed Foo Fighters other than the obligatory tunes over the radio.  In the past year I have since changed that error in my life and had picked up their two newest albums as well as their classic “The Colour and The Shape” album which is quite darn fantastic.  I was excited to see Foo Fighters in action tonight as I knew they were ramping up their show to play in Europe in the next few months.  Europe stadiums are no easy feat so you have to pull out all of the stops.

foo8.jpgUpon entering and being frisked by security, I nabbed a beer (to my dismay, you were only allowed to purchase one beer at a time!  This hindered any good will to my friends in that I couldn’t buy them a beer unless they were there with me at the time) and we headed down to the floor.  It was quite packed but as soon as the opening band left the floor cleared out and we got a decent spot at stage left, right next to the catwalk.

Foo Fighters turned out to be an excellent show.  Dave Grohl is renowned for his camaraderie and funny stories and he didn’t let up during the show.  It was high octane for the first half…doling out hits from their new album, as well as the killer hits of yesteryear.  Dave made use of the giant catwalk which spanned the entire length of the ice rink (going all the way back to the sound booth) and was in full heavy rock garb…black to the bone.  They definitely added a lot of extended jams into their songs and showed off their guitar skills with Dave on one end of the catwalk and Chris Shiflett (rhythm) on the other end both trying to outdo each other.

Let’s be honest…any good rock show has a great drum solo and Taylor Hawkins performed superbly.  Sidenote: I heard Rush made an appearance at the Foo’s show in Toronto on Saturday and they played YYZ.  Awesome.  Endsidenote.  They were having fun on the stage at this point of the show and I swore they ended one particular song 10 times and the song lasted 20 minutes.  It just never ended which was hilarious.  I personally dig bands who get into the music and like to jam around and noodle…others…not so much.  They want their hits.

Clearly this was the case at the Scotiabank Place.  I gave the band two thumbs up and I have the crowd two thumbs down until after 2/3 of the show and then the crowd in front of us was quite riled up and I gave them one thumb up.  I felt very…disappointed in the crowd to be honest.  When the full out rock show is going on, you shouldn’t just stand there!  Wave an arm around at least!  Move your feet.  Tap to the beat.  Argh…Ottawa, thou hast forsaken me.

The show turned acoustic after the first third and the band all walked down the catwalk to the other end of the rink where an acoustic setup stage was descending from the rafters.  Neat!  We held our ground near the front stage and we could still see what was going on at the other end.  I thought this was a great idea as it let the band play closer to the people in the stands at the lonely end of the rink.  They played a few tracks acoustically (as well as But, Honestly, only my fave track from the new album) and Dave ended off by talking about the last time they came into town as the opening band for Bob Dylan and how Bob didn’t really socialize all that much but when they got to Ottawa someone told Dave that Bob wanted to talk to him.  Fearing the wrath of Bob, he met him in a dark hallway and Bob was dressed in black and he says “Dave, I really dig that one song you do that goes like this…” and then Dave starts playing Everlong for us.  It was great.  He ended off the song getting back to the main stage with the full band.

The encore was quite hilarious in that they had screens showing a night-vision camera going backstage and finding the band asleep and we had to cheer them back onto stage.  Dave had joked earlier about how their concert should last about 40 minutes…but then he upped it to 45, then 50, and finally up to 2 hours.  He did the same schtick behind stage asking how many songs we wanted to hear for the encore.  They finally came out where Dave told a story of how Taylor got sick off of tequila in his house one time.  The ended off well with some good hits like Big Me, Long Road to Ruin and One By One (which through the crowd into a frenzy.  I had forgotten about that song!).

Full out rock.  Highly entertaining.  Foo Fighters are up there in the stadium rockers.  They know how to put on a good show musically, as well as have some great stories to tell.  It’s too bad that crowd was quite the letdown.

Opening band:

Against Me

 

Setlist

Let It Die
The Pretender
Times Like These
Breakout
Learn to Fly
Cheer Up, Boys (Your Make Up Is Running)
This Is a Call
Stacked Actors

@Set[Acoustic]
Skin and Bones
Marigold [Nirvana]
My Hero
Cold Day in the Sun
But, Honestly

@Set[ ]
Everlong @Info[Solo into full band]
Monkey Wrench
All My Life

Big Me
Long Road to Ruin
Best of You

@Info[Soundcheck included “The Pretender”, “Disenchanted Lullaby”, and a new song]

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Happy Birthday Joe!

P1040738, originally uploaded by palm0014.

There are way too many birthdays to keep track of around the month of March.

We all know Joe. There’s not much to say that hasn’t been said before…gentleman, good humour, great looks…wait…sorry, I thought we were talking about me here!

All joking aside, Joe is the man who introduced me to the concert scene in Ottawa. I still remember the first time we went to Barrymore’s and I stood outside in -40 degrees for 30 minutes and finally I went inside and found out he had been in there all the time!

We have definitely seen our fair share of concerts as well as a few times out at the cottage. Let’s be honest…college buddies are a different breed but I’m sure glad that this college buddy ended up being one of the best buds a guy can have and one who I email every day or so…even if it’s a little jab towards his mother, it’s still keeping in touch.

Luckily for Joe, he’s got a great lady and just purchased a house so he’s living the good life. All he needs now are some skills on the guitar because whatever he possesses now seems more like a curse!

Cheers mate.

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Mall Ninja

79485_1_ninja.jpgThanks to Miguel from the Wolfshack for this highly entertaining link.  This is what the Internet was born for.

Remember, they are there protecting us even if we can’t see them while in the Gap.

http://lonelymachines.org/mall-ninjas/