Month: June 2008

While I’m away, I may drop in from time to time.  Otherwise, you can enjoy some good postings by my friends who will hold the fort.  They may come up with some great stuff, especially considering that this is the high of the time for the imagination to run wild…it’s summertime, the patios are starting to open up and all is good in the world.

But if you’re bored and need something to check out, check out the following:

– The Trews Bootleg on dimeadozen.org from 2008.06.06.  It is killer quality and gives us a good indication of what to expect from the new tour.

– Check out some of the new blockbuster films out there that I haven’t got a chance to see!  Iron Man, Indiana Jones, The Incredible Hulk…Star Wars is coming this August as well!

– Plan your Canada Day getaway!  What will you be up to?  I’m sticking around Ottawa and it sounds like we’ll have Vero’s family up for the festivities.

– Go buy a bocce ball set and learn how to play.

– Learn an instrument.  Even if it is the kazoo.  Make sure to take this instrument to the park on a good day.  You complain about the harsh winter so you better not be complaining about how hot it is outside!

Zat’s it, zat’s all.

I know, I know, you always ignore my posts about comic books but this is different. On Michael Geist’s website, I found this great comic book someone created with overviews the state of the upcoming issues surrounding the Canadian Copyright laws. They are due to be updated soon (actually, it will be tabled again next week in House on Monday I believe) and this is a fun way to get to know what some of the issues are.

http://www.appropriationart.ca/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/51_state.pdf

Last night turned into an impromptu killer night.  Even though I had to study, we also took some time out to go get a Futon for Trish.  Turns out that there was a guy selling one for $30 on craigslist.  Score!  However, we also found out that while we arranged to go there for 7PM, the seller  indicated there was another guy coming over at 6PM to look at it!  The race was on!

Trish picked me up after work and she gave me the standard warnings on how you can’t open the windows in the backseat because they will remain stuck in the down position.  I had a chuckle about this and suggested she tape a warning label onto the actual button so people don’t automatically roll them down!

When we got to Trish’s, we decided to order the unthinkable…Kentucky Fried Chicken.  All my work at lowering my cholesterol can be squashed with one instance of this fabled meal!  Trish always talks about KFC so we decided to go for it.  We phoned Mike who was picking up his replacement guitar (which is a beaut) and arranged for him to pick up some chicken.  We also phoned Vero and gave her the heads up.  Before we knew it, we were gorging on the amazingness which is fried chicken, potato and macaroni salad, fries and the oh so strange looking gravy!

Afterwards, we rushed to this seller’s house and we made it in time!  The futon was also in amazing condition and there was no point in thinking about it…Trish slapped the $30 in his hand and we made way with the futon.  The futon was actually a lot lighter than my metal framed one seeing that it was the wooden one.  It was a cinch to take out of the apartment and into Mike’s truck.  We also picked up a bulletin board that he was getting rid of and I sneakily gave it to Trish as we left for the night.

So now Trish has a primo Futon in her living room.  A Futon for the price of a case of beer!  Bonus!

On some better news for the night, Trish lent me her piano/keyboard which will be an amazing addition to the instrument collection.  She will start showing me the ropes on how to play the piano over the next 16 years.  The beautiful part about the keyboard is that it has a MIDI connection and thanks to the MIDI cable that Matt gave me last Christmas (thanks mate!), I can plug it into the laptop and interface with Logic Pro.

What does all mean to you folks?  Well, it opens up a world of possibilities in musical creation.  Imagine that there are virtual instruments on the computer.  Let’s say I wanted to have some trumpet on my song.  I load up the ‘trumpet’ virtual instrument and if I hit the C note on the piano, it sends a signal and I hear a C note from a trumpet from my speakers.  You can have all sorts of instruments…guitars, horns, strings…

You even get into crazier things like church choirs, sound effects, african drum beats, ambient music…it is quite awe-inspiring that Pandora’s box lay before me and all I have to do is hit a key.  I am working towards first adding some strings to Troy’s new tune ‘So It Goes’.  We both think it will add a lot to the song and now that I have the piano in the room, it will make it easier.

But the night descended into more studying for my micro economics final exam.  Equations were all jumbled in my head and I must admit that I’m a lot more confused than I was a few nights ago.  I think I have over studied and my brain has officially melted a bit.  I guess we’ll find out around 5:30 tonight!

One of the more entertaining live acts I’ve ever seen, local band For The Mathematics have called it quits.  I am pretty bummed to hear this news.  I have supported this band in picking up a few live EPs and checking out a few concerts and I really enjoyed their adrenaline fueled music.

The first time I heard of this band was after Tulip Festival where Mike, Eric and I went to Café Dekuf and saw them play.  They were insane.  Over the top…microphones flying every which way.  It was great!  We picked up their three song sampler CD at the door that night and I never forgot about this band.

All they have to say on their myspace page is that they were working on their full length album and are disbanding and will have their own projects.

Hopefully in the future this band will get back together but until then, I’ll have some great music to listen to.

In the past decade, comics have fallen into two different categories when it comes to selling them; those that are not professionally graded, and those that are and are in a plastic slab by the Comic Grading Company.

If you have a comic which you want to be professionally graded by the CGC, you send it in, they slab it (put it in between two hard pieces of plastic where it stays until you crack it open, and they assign it a rating number.  9.8 are pretty well the highest you can get, there are a few 9.9s out there in the world and I don’t think there are any 10s.

Thing is, you can’t open the plastic without voiding the ranking the CGC has given it.  I didn’t know what to think of this at first.  On one hand I think it’s cool to preserve the comic books, but then I realized that you can’t even read the dang thing so it’s really just become a collectible and that’s it!

A few months ago I bid on some CGC graded comics that someone was selling out in the West end of Ottawa (side note: I love how in Ebay you can limit your search to a kilometer radius from your actual house.  So instead of paying crazy shipping charges you can just look at what people are selling in your own town!) and in the end I ended up with one of them.  But I only paid $1 for it.  Steal!  I don’t think the guy was impressed as you probably pay between $10-$15 to get these things professionally graded.  This is a note for future Palmer…if you ever decide to go this route, be smart and only slab your worthy ones or you’ll end up like this guy.

Anyhow, I just figured if I won any for $1 I would just crack them open and read them anyhow.  I did end up picking up the $1 issue last week and it’s pretty neat to look at it in its nice packaging and all, but that’s it!  I can’t read it, I just look at the cover.  What a waste!

That being said, getting your comics (or any other collectibles like a Wayne Gretzky rookie card) professionally graded is probably a good thing to do if you are planning to sell.  Case in point, I just went on Ebay to look at how much Uncanny X-Men 266 sells for.

A 9.8 copy of this sold for $257!  Meanwhile a non-CGC graded copy sold for $40.

What the heck?  That’s a little insane.  Who knows, the guy who just bought the $40 issue may find it’s in good condition, get it graded and then resell it at a profit!  Isn’t that how the rich people of the world do it?  😉

Either way, it’s a crazy time to collect things…there is a vast difference between those who collect for fun and those who collect for profit.

Dad wrote in with an update on how the Alaskan cruise is going:

“Just letting you know that our trip is going well. We are in Juneau today .We have been sailing up until now. Greg and i went up 1850 ft. in a gondola today while everyone else shopped. Tomorrow we will stop in Skagway. The weather has been quite cool 10-12degrees C”
Now, I decided to check out Google Maps to see where they were at.  I have no idea what you all think about when you’re thinking of an Alaskan Cruise but I just thought about them travelling the ocean and then stopping in some ports along the way.
That’s what they are doing but I was surprised to see that Juneau and Skagway are off the beaten path and it looks like it’s inland quite a bit.  I guess I just assumed it would be on the sea most of the time.  Either way, it sounds like they are having a great time and the weather has been agreeable so far!

While I don’t have a cellphone, nor do I plan on getting one anytime soon, my curiosity was piqued when I saw that the new iPhone is being released next month and it will be available in Canada (legally) for the first time.

Now, a few of my friends already have the iPod Touch and it’s a killer gizmo. It’s basically an iPhone without the phone part (and a few other things missing, but very few). So I wanted to see how the new iPhone stacked up in comparison to the existing iPod Touch.

Well, the 16GB iPhone is planning to arrive at a $300USD pricepoint. Taking the current exchange rate into account, let’s assume that in Canada they will price it a) The same price but in Canadian dollars or b)People can just cross the border and pick it up for $300USD.

That being said, I just checked out the price for a 16GB iPod Touch and the lowest price I could find was $359 at Future Shop.

I don’t know if they have planned this, or if they are going to slash prices on the iPod Touch, but it seems to me that the better choice would be to buy the ‘more features, less priced’ iPhone which does exactly the same thing as the iPod Touch (if not more!).

The only caveat is that maybe the iPhone is only available if you purchase a cellphone plan but something tells me that won’t be the case. I’m sure if I enter the cellphone store and say “I want to fork out $300 for this iPhone but not activate the phone portion” they will be fine with that.

So, is there something up Apple’s sleeve? Are they finally putting the iPod to bed now that the price has come down on the iPhone to make the iPod obsolete? Or will there be a price slash in the near future on these iPods?

Either way, I know my iPod has been crapping out on me for the past six months but I’m going to keep it until it dies completely.  It still works if I give it a good old whack against a hard object or drop it to the floor from a three foot drop.  But it’s reassuring to see that the prices are coming down.

Here’s a funny story…

I was listening to Malajube (a French band from Montreal) the other day and I decided to see if they were on tour anytime soon.  Sure enough, in July they will be going to Buckingham, Quebec.

I recognized the name Buckingham and couldn’t put my finger on where it was but I knew it was close to Ottawa.

When I told Vero I was interested in going to this festival, she thought Buckingham was close to Montreal.  I didn’t think so and she checked it out and said the place was about 40 kms away from Ottawa.

I didn’t think was too far at all and said it’s probably the equivalent of traveling from Orleans to Kanata.

Anyhow, I went onto the maps today and had a good laugh when I found out where Buckingham was in relation to me.

It’s right across the freaking Ottawa River near where I live!  And it turns out that five kilometres up the road in Cumberland, there is a ferry that travels 24 hours a day!

So I have a feeling I’ll be heading out to see this festival this summer as all other concerts I’ve tried going to this summer have been squashed due to scheduling.

http://www.buckinghamenfete.qc.ca/ 

Mark (guy I work with) just passed me some new tunes to listen to.  Right now I’m absorbed in Airbourne which are quite clearly, the new generation’s AC/DC.  It’s quite uncanny how much they sound like them.  Even the singer!  It’s quite rocking.  I’ve also got some Michael Franti to listen to later in the day.

I also checked out Los Campesinos!, Malajube, The Dears, and some CBC Radio 3 all weekend long while studying.  Very excellent tunes going through my head.

My thoughts right now are all about my final exam on Thursday and the trip to BC coming up this Saturday.  I had forgotten to call Aeroplan to ask them why they switched my seat number (which was next to my cousin).  Hopefully they will switch it back for me.

Other thoughts look towards next week with a slew of guest writers coming to this website to give you their best.  I have no idea what they will write about but I sure hope they actually DO write SOMETHING over the next week and a half and don’t just pile in here one day and leave it empty for the remaining week.  I also hope that you find it entertaining.  I have opened up some floodgates to people to contribute, but also feel that every one of my friends have something of interest to share.  That’s why they are my friends (I don’t hang out with uninteresting people!).

Can I also point out that I enjoy a nice hot day with a bbq hot dog by my side?  Vero and I threw some on the other day at lunch and it was amazing.  The simplicity of a good hot dog astounds me.  Props go to Mom’s way of doing hot dogs as she fries the buns in a pan and they come out a-ok.