Review: Canola Oil, Cabs and My Chemical Romance

Last night was starting off well. Got home from work and cooked a little supper before heading out for the concert. Mike and I were getting pumped up for the weekend.

We then separated ways as he went to pick up Krista and I dropped my car off at the Mazda service depot for some servicing. I perused the used cars while waiting for Mike and Krista. My car is being sold for $15K. Not too shabby right about now. Actually, that is pretty slick considering I only have under $10K to pay off mine. Does that mean I could sell mine for $15K and pocket an extra $5K? Mike pointed out the money I’ve spent over the years may be up to the $5K difference. It would be interesting to calculate it out.

While driving down to the concert, Mike cuts through a yellow light which he should or should not have done, but no worries. But then a cop throws his cherries on behind us and Mike is freaking out.

Then when he pulls over, the cop blows by him. Success! He wasn’t after us! At this point I recall my story on how I thought I got pulled over in Quebec in a speed trap but it wasn’t the case so I spent a whole pile of cash in Montreal considering it was now considered bonus money. You know the sort…you don’t have to use it to pay a ticket, so it’s yours to splurge!

Later on in the trip…

Me: “Do you guys smell something?
Mike & Krista: “No, what?”
Me: “I don’t know…something burning?”

When we come to an intersection I notice wisps of smoke coming from the passenger side of the truck.

We start moving again…

Me: “Mike, I don’t know but I think your truck is smoking.”
Mike: “What? Really? What’s going on?”

So I manage to hang myself out the window to peruse but no smoke is to be found. Mind you, we are traveling at this point. As soon as we pull up to another intersection a cloud of smoke envelops the truck as we realize it is definitely coming from our vehicle. At this point, let’s point out that a fire truck was passing by and kind of looked at us and we wondered if they would have to hose the vehicle down.

I get out to quickly check it (as we are in traffic) and realize it’s the brake that is smoking. We pull over in a safe spot and sure enough, the brake is seized. As if! So we’re standing there and a random jogger drops by and asks if she can help. Considering I didn’t see a cellular phone on her, I really don’t know what she could have done to help, but it was nice of her to stop.

So we analyzed the situation and realized that we have no tools in the truck and even if we did, there’s not much we could do. There was fear of the tire exploding as the rim was super-hot from the friction being caused. We then hightailed it to Canadian Tire and they said they would take a look at it that night and give us a call in the morning.

With that, we looked at our options and realized that we would call a cab and enjoy the rest of the night! We had a great cabbie on our trip out to the concert. Not too talkative. Just the way I like ’em. We arrive and we can hear the final notes of ‘Welcome to the Black Parade’. No worries…we’ve missed about half of ‘The Black Parade’ album as the concert started at 8PM instead of the usual 9PM. Remind me to write a letter to the venue…

We head down to the floor with a beer amidst a sea of teenagers. This is a decent thing as they are all short. We had a great view of the stage. The stage was amazing. I had heard rave reviews about The Black Parade tour as it was more of a theatrical spectacle than anything. Very much in the vein of The Wall or Ziggy Stardust. Dressed in marching band uniforms they performed in character while playing the entire album. The lighting, the visuals, the sound…all was amazing! I would definitely recommend anyone to go see the show if they have a chance. It’s a grand spectacle.

Highlights of the Concert:

• The flames shooting out for a solid minute during the song Mama where they sing about going to Hell.
• The thousands of screaming teenagers. I do enjoy that they are an enthusiastic crowd!
• I enjoyed how the ended The Black Parade set but then came back out of performance outfits and ripped into their older hits. Very nice segueway. Although I was disappointed at how they are covering AC/DC’s For Those About To Rock but they ended it when it was getting good!
• There was an amazing, amazing dancer in front of us at one point. I could not believe my eyes. She was doing a cross between the two-step and the hokey pokey. It was a beautiful. It was definitely worth the price of admission alone. She was flailing around so much that she got Mike right in the stomach! She was also wearing a fanny pack. Beautiful.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed The Black Parade set, but I must admit that the other half of the concert reminded me of the last time we saw them and I wasn’t overly impressed. The singer has a very hard time of hitting the vocal high notes as on the album. Perhaps it was due to it being at the end of the concert, but still. Kind of disappointing. But the first half was stellar.

After the concert we hightail it outside to discover there are no buses! We assumed they were coming later as the concerts are usually done at 11PM but this one finished at 9:30PM. We then scoured the area for a cab and lo and behold, our same cabbie was there! Excellent! We reveled in this occurrence and got dropped off at the closest bus station so we wouldn’t be paying $60 to get a cab into downtown.

We then headed to Krista’s to watch some Grey’s Anatomy. We also picked up an amazing panzerotti from the Pavorazzi Pizza joint. I’ve never been there before but the panzo was pretty darn good.

Krista gets extra kudos as she not only helped me get some work done at work so we could leave at a decent hour, but she also drove Mike and I home as we were vehicle-less.

Wait, where does the canola oil come into the story?! Well, it turns out that a few weeks back Mike did some repairs on his brakes himself and didn’t have any grease in the house so he used canola oil (aka cooking oil) to grease the parts. I had a good laugh when hearing this and I tormented him with this fact all night as I believed the canola oil to be the culprint the brakes seizing.

This was not the case as we found out this morning after calling Canadian Tire. Alas, they just seized and messed up the other front brake and the ordeal will cost $700. Ouch. But will that destroy Mike’s wild weekend in Montreal?

Mike: “No man, let’s give’r.”

That’s my man!