Month: April 2012

I didn’t have a good feeling going into Bluesfest lineup day, and I come out of it with the same feeling. This may be the first Bluesfest in years where I don’t bother with an all-access pass. In fact, I was even eying up Osheaga in Montreal as an alternative.

What can I say other than the fact that there are just genres of music that I’m not partial to. In reading the Ottawa Citizen article about this year’s lineup, they said out of a survey last year of participants, 40% were under the age of 30 and had a strong interest in electronic music.

So this year’s lineup is chock-full of DJs, electronica, trip-hop…a far cry from the rock of the past few years and let’s not get into the age-old debate of whether it should be called ‘Blues’fest any longer.

From a management point of view, I admire that they had the balls to try something new like this…the past few years have been the same in terms of the lineup with some creeping into other musical genres to test the waters. This year it feels like they put all their cards on the table to see if it would work. I’m just not sure if it will…I may be completely wrong. For the 60% who are over 30 years old, or for the people who do not have an interest in electronic music, maybe they won’t bother going to all the shows, but their numbers will be replaced with the segment of the population who DOES care about this stuff and is thrilled with what Ottawa has to offer this summer!

When I look across the landscape of summer festivals, they are pretty much the same…in fact, I swear Feist has decreed that she will try and play every summer festival in North America this year! But Ottawa is the only one that stands out as different…

However, for this guy, it’s a little disappointing…there are still a few acts that I’m glad to see, but the only one I’m really EXCITED to see would be I Mother Earth.

Otherwise, here’s where I stand on a few acts:
Tiesto – A few colleagues are raving that he is showing up. It may be worthwhile to see what this DJ is all about.
Alice Cooper & Iron Maiden – May be worthwhile to me, but I wouldn’t be crying if I didn’t see either of them.
I Mother Earth – Awesome!
Nickelback – I’m actually pretty stoked to seem them in a summer festival considering I’ve seen them in the past in arena tours. Also, I missed out on seeing them in Montreal this past tour. All the haters, direct your snide comments elsewhere! They are as big as AC/DC!
Thievery Corporation – Interesting!
Big Wreck – Excellent! Their new album is killer as well.
Sam Roberts Band – ‘Nuff said
John Mellencamp – Going to skip this one for…
The Sheepdogs! – Caught the end of them last year and was digging it.
Our Lady Peace – Their new album is great.
Blue Rodeo – Beer in hand, this is a great band
Metric – New album out, exciting! Always a great show
The Trews – But unfortunately they are on at the same time as the Trews! Who to choose? I may go for the Trews

Ok, after writing this list, I have to admit that there are still quite a few acts that I will be pumped to see! Perhaps it will be a good thing that I don’t go all out on Bluesfest this year!

So…as it stands…disappointed with the lineup in general, interested to see a few acts, and also interested to see how this all plays out.

Vero and I are quite happy that we finally got the invitations for the wedding sent out, as well as the entire website created. It took awhile and there’s a few extras that we’re planning…all in all, it was fun times creating some alter-egos for ourselves and to live out the dream of becoming rock stars.

If you’re reading this, you’ve probably found this blog through a wedding invitation or the redirect from the old Palmer’s World at http://palmer.grumpster.com

Blogging definitely hasn’t been on my radar for some time…I’m trying to come up with other ideas of how to get me interested in documenting my life…perhaps video diaries or something like that would be more fun!

After many years at this URL, I’m moving towards a new site address:

https://www.veroryan.ca

This site will not be updated past this point.

Any Joss Whedon fans out there? Raise your hand.

Go see Cabin in the Woods if you are a fan. What a great film! In fact, I guess I can’t really talk about the film without spoiling it so from this point on, consider yourself forewarned.

***there be spoilers beyond this point, yarrr****

Cabin in the Woods starts off with a government complex with two guys joking around. What kind of horror film is this?! Then it goes to the classic “group of kids going on a camping trip” scenario and you realize that these government agents are somehow influencing/controlling the environment that they enter into. Meaning, once they get to the cabin in the woods, they can control how they act, what monsters will appear, etc.

I thought the film was super original and that’s what I enjoyed about it. Joss Whedon is a master of dialogue so it was fast paced and witty throughout. For those who entered into the film hoping for a straight up horror film…we were all disappointed. But I enjoy what it became because it was so original.

On Wikipedia, they had a great line about how the writers felt that horror films had swung the pendulum a little too far with the torture porn films out there like Hostel. I completely agree…at one point, I was more disturbed with the horror films coming out than entertained. I’m glad that the pendulum is swinging back.

We all know what happened the first time I tried to sell something on Ebay (see Zeppelin Tickets for Sale), but I have decided to test the waters again.

A few weeks ago I was over at Mike G’s house and he was talking about how he had a crate of old video games that he wanted to try and sell.  I have always wondered how selling on Ebay would work, so I took the games off his hands and went about selling them.

First step: Try and get them working!  This was more of a pain than I thought.  A lot of the games simply didn’t work anymore within the Nintendo console so I had to tear apart the NES console (which was a teenage boy’s dream come true) and cleaned it up.  I then used a lot of rubbing alcohol on the contact points of the game…over 20 years of oxidation has happened so we had to get rid of it somehow.  In some cases I even used some fine grit sandpaper to get rid of the oxidation!

In the end, some of the games are working, so I decided to take one of the rarest and see what I could get for it.

Second step: Do some research.  Dragon Warrior 3 was an excellent RPG back in the day and it still holds its value over time.  The cartridge itself has averaged between $40-$60 on Ebay, and that’s what it sold for, not what people were offering as a price to sell.  I was lucky in that I also had the box, the user manual (albeit in bad shape!) and the dust jacket.

Third step: Take some photos and post online.  I took my handy dandy iPad and snapped a few photos and created a listing.  The listing took me awhile to figure out…especially the shipping portion.  In the end I decided to ship it worldwide…who am I to deny the German who wants my old Nintendo game?  But the shipping was a little difficult to understand and I didn’t want to get screwed on the shipping charges so I added a little note in my entry indicating that I may have messed up and I’ll figure out the true shipping cost at the end of the bids.

Fourth step: Wait.  I waited a week and slowly saw the listing creep up.  During that time I managed to unpack a box for my office and lo and behold, I found a monster map for the game as well that I had thought had gone missing!  I decided to spend the 15 cents to add another picture to the listing (so far the listing cost me nothing) and updated the information.  The map alone had sold for $15 in a previous listing so I was sure to make some cash!

Fifth step: The end.  On the last day, the game had leaped from a hovering point of around $20 to $61!  Success!  I was happy with that amount.  But by the end of the listing, I cried victory when I saw that I made $88USD on the thing!  Incredible!  I believe I may have actually spent $90CAD on it when it came out twenty years ago!

Sixth step: Shipping.  Ebay offers the ability to print your own shipping label.  I had already weighed the package and measured it, so I figured what would be the harm?  In the end, the winning bidder sent me my money along with $6USD for shipping before I had sent him the quote.  I told him to wait for my quote of how much it would cost to ship, but in the end, it was only $2 extra so I said I would absorb the cost.  Ebay karma is with me!  (hopefully!).

So I would have to say that my first real adventure in selling things on Ebay was a success.  Granted, I had a rare item up for grabs which doesn’t hurt.  I doubt I will get more than $5-$10 for each of the other video games…but I have a box of my own and a box of Mike’s to sell (hopefully he can put the money to good use towards some camera gear!).  But it was really fun to see something that I treasured go for $88.  It’s a shame that I never held onto the boxes of all my old video games.  They were at home but I’m sure I just told Mom and Dad they could throw it out.