Month: March 2009

I am coming to a crossroads of sorts lately with my music purchases. There is starting to be more and more choices of what to buy. Let me discuss a little…

For the past twenty years, CDs are the big thing. Now, you can also get a digital copy of an album (or in most cases, buy single songs off the album…boo hiss). I personally don’t care for this option as I have this fear that one day my hard drive will crash and I will lose these ‘digital copies’ of an album and not have a proper backup. Wait…did that just happen to someone? However, on the other hand, it’s quite easy to simply get in the habit of backing up the digital files onto a recordable CD as soon as you download it.

So, as you may or may not know, I’m enjoying the idea of collecting vinyl again. Vinyl is neat-o. I don’t have much, but I’ve also noticed a resurgence of vinyl being released with new albums. At first, I didn’t really bother thinking about buying TOO much vinyl because I thought “Why would I buy the CD as well as the vinyl?” But now there are tons of bands releasing digital copies of their album for download along with the vinyl.

If I really look at how I listen to music, it is in the following manner:

– my iPod, which contains digital copies of music
– on CDs in the car
– on vinyl when I’m at Vero’s place where her record player is handy

If I started solely purchasing vinyl copies of music, I would then have a digital copy and the vinyl copy. But of course, if I really wanted to listen to the album in my car, I could easily burn it to a CD, or simply plug my iPod into the car and voila! I suppose I would still need to back it up onto a CD in case my hard drive crashes. It’s not like the vinyl will be easy to rip onto the computer. There’s also the option of simply finding it on the Internet. Now, this is a good idea in theory but have you ever tried to find some obscure band’s music on the Internet 10 years after an album was released? It’s a little bit trickier. The Internet is a wondeful place for new and popular things…not out of print stuff that the majority of people don’t listen to.

I think I’m going to try the process of buying a vinyl record instead of a CD for awhile and see how it treats me. Part of my brain is screaming “Wha? What are you thinking! Don’t you love grabbing that CD in a quick grab towards to the car? Won’t you have to think about burning this album?” but the other part likes the vinyl movement. It hearkens back to the old days which I can only imagine is like in the movies where you would throw an album on and stare at the artwork for hours while you listened to the music.

Face it, I’m a romantic. A romantic for music.

NB: I now do not like living in Orleans.

I woke up around 6AM this morning and headed out the door at 6:30AM. Note that while living at Vero’s place, I would roll out of bed around 6:30.

I managed to find a great spot at the Orleans Park and Ride and I also met up with Steve who was waiting for a bus. Unfortunately, the express bus that we generally like to catch was packed to the gills. This was my fear. Considering that this one express bus looks like the only one running out of Orleans (as opposed to the seven others that should be running along with it), this means that more people will get onto it, hence leaving us with no luck at all.

We did manage to get onto a regular route bus which took a little longer and then we transferred. In the end, I got into work at 7:30…which is the same time I would have got to work when I was living at Vero’s. The differences being that I would get to sleep in 30 minutes and wouldn’t have to wait for a bus (well, at least I wouldn’t nowadays. The early days of getting the shuttle were fraught full of lineups!).

In the end, I’m sure I’ll get used to living in Orleans again but I must admit that living closer to work was a little treat that I grew used to.

Word on the street is that March 16 will see the full bus service back up and running. I don’t mind the hassle of switching buses for a few weeks.

I’m sitting here on Sunday morning with Cat Stevens’ ‘Tea for the Tillerman’ album playing on the stereo.  I’ve already went outside to enjoy the crisp sunny morning to fix my wiper blade.  Whatever it is, it’s not that pin that I had torn out last week.  I removed the other wiper blade and there’s no such pin.  My original assumption was correct that the pin was part of the old wiper blade.

That being said, I hope the wiper blade doesn’t try and fall off again.  I noticed that the driver’s side blade tends to snap into place whereas I don’t really feel a snap when installing the passenger side wiper.

Unfortunately for the Mazda3, there’s a little damage in the rear.  Mike and I were walking by it yesterday and noticed that someone had side-swiped it!  Argh!  It isn’t TOO bad but there definitely is a little scratch of paint which was lifted.  Considering I’ve had the car parked in the driveway for many a moon, I can only imagine that it happened during the road trip to Barrie/Meaford last weekend.  Lord knows where it happened…it could have been out on the street in Barrie for the half hour it was there, it could have been outside the hall that we were all partying at (we were parked on the side of the road), or it could have simply been in the driveway of Carol and Danny’s when someone was backing up.  Heck, it could have been anywhere.  What peeves me is there was no note left.

That’s right, there was no note left apologizing for the nice damage you left on my car Mr. Sideswiper.  What kind of low individual are you that you care more about your money than your conscience?  I hope you live with regret until the end of your days good sir.

The weekend has been entertaining so far.  Eric, Annie, Philippe, William and Mike gathered at our house for some Chinese Food on Friday evening to welcome me back to Orleans.  That’s right, I have returned!  It looks like the busses seem to be operating at a capacity that can get me to work…tomorrow morning shall be the real test.  Will I get a spot in the Park and Ride parking lot?  Will I get a spot to sit/stand on the bus?  Who knows?  I’ll find out tomorrow.

Later that evening, Mike and I headed over to Eric and Annie’s place as they had to put the kids to bed.  We ended up watching the film Crank with Jason Statham.  It was over-the-top slapstick action.  I had some good laughs at the absurd situations the main character gets himself into.  The deal is that he is drugged with some poison which will kill him if he doesn’t keep his adrenaline up…so he does everything under the sun to keep the adrenaline pumping in his system.

On Saturday I got the chance to replenish my cupboards with some much needed food.  I also saw a colleague from work who I didn’t know lived in Orleans.  Turns out that a few guys from work live out here and he was saying how we should open an office out here!

Saturday afternoon was spent doing some research for my group project in my Images and Communications class.  It will deal with rock posters (which was not a subject I immediately suggested but am quite pleased that we are working on it).  For awhile I couldn’t find any literature on it so I hit up the U of Ottawa library and lo and behold, I hit the mother lode in the form of a book called ‘The Art of Rock’ by Paul Grushkin.

This book is amazing.  Weighing in at a good ten pounds, it’s full of poster artwork from the 50s – 70s time period and delivers a history of how they came about.  It was interesting to read about the posters in the 50s being very ‘block type’ in that there was a standard spot for a picture of an entertainer, his band name, the date he was playing, etc.

Then you move onto the psychadelic era which started out in San Francisco with the group of artists called Family Dog.  They would hold dances and advertise them with great posters across the town.  These soon became collectibles and people would steal them off the lamposts 30 seconds after they were put up!  In the end, Familiy Dog didn’t care as they were still getting the word out to the people who wanted to go to these events.  The poster scene grew bigger and bigger when Bill Graham of the Fillmore clubs started making his own posters (which the Fillmore still does to this day!).

It was quite an interesting read and I want to have this book for myself.  It’s a beautiful oral history (they have tons of interviews with the people involved at the time) of a great time for music in general and the general art/music scene that was occurring at the time.

The rest of the evening was spent bonding with Mike over some BBQ steak and some great Mill Street Stock Ale.  We both love this beer immensely, but the $40 a case is making us cringe at buying another case in the future.  Perhaps it shall be reserved for those special days.

iplaying: Cat Stevens – Longer Boats (Tea for the Tillerman)