Category: Uncategorized

Robyn wrote in and wanted an update on my schooling this fall. I have returned to the higher eduction system (read: University of Ottawa) to take a Bachelors in Communication. This came from thinking of the future and how Government types who are high up (Directors, Prime Minister) have University education and in about ten years time when I’m about ready to enter one of those positions, I would not have the necessary requirements. So I inquired around to what I should take and settled upon a Communications degree.

Let’s be honest…I decided to take Communications because of the quick-in, quick-out structure to the courseload…it only took 3 years to complete and that would be a lot to take in due to me taking it during night courses.

But I must admit that I am thoroughly intrigued with Communications at the moment. It touches upon everything I am interested in…technology and methods of passing messages along. There is so much more to mass communication that I should just post one of my essays up here and talk about it, but I’m happy to say that this is the first time in my education that I am actually excited to go to class. I always thought Computer Engineering was fun, but after starting in the workforce I realized that my passion was not in the field. Now I’m digging up everything I can on the subject of Communications. I can say (with pride) that I go out of my way to read the extra material the teacher assigns us. That’s the beauty of loving the subject matter and having the time to do so.

In a nutshell (for Robyn): Going to University. Two classes a week. One of them is awesome, the other is super boring (Workshop in English essay writing where we learn about comma splices. Joy.). I’ll stick it out with two courses a semester (even during the summer) and hopefully will be done in about 5 years time. I’m in no rush.

iPlayingrightnow: Polyamourous – Breaking Benjamin (Saturate)

It’s not cool when you return home with great ambitions to clean up the house before your Dad gets there on Friday to find out that the power has been out since 3:00. Even more convenient is the fact that I am the slowest unpacker ever which leads to not having flashlights or candles handy. As soon as the sun started going down, I managed to nab a shirt for work tomorrow and headed to the girlfriend’s place. It’s nice to be around little comforts like electricity and the Internet (Internet is supposedly being hooked up on Friday at my house).

Question: Why is it that Rogers needs to come into your house to hook up the Internet connection? We all know this isn’t necessary…I have the modem from my old place. All I have to do is hook it up to the cable outlet and voila! The technicians know very well as I do that the cable connection is on the side of someone’s house down the street. The excuse they gave me was something along the lines of ‘configuring it so you have most optimum connection known to man’ whereas I think it’s a ploy to check if I have pirate connections or worse; add something to the line which prevents the piracy of the cable signal. Yikes! Stay tuned. On Friday, they may be tracking my every move and this site may disappear within a keystroke.

Update: So I got a phone call last night from a machine saying that my power is back on. I thought that was a neat feature from Hydro One. They even had it set up so you could press 1 to confirm you had power, or 2 if you didn’t.

I always come across updates across the board regarding music so I figure I should share them with you.

Nirvana: Best of the Box: Well well well…another case of taking advantage of the fans. Last year, the most excellent box set ‘With The Lights Out’ came out from Nirvana. Well, this Christmas, Geffen wishes to get some more cash for their pockets so they release a greatest hits of the box set along with three unreleased tracks. You guys know me…I don’t like stealing from the artist (aka downloading) but in these times, I figure that if I paid $80 for their box set, I should be allowed to download their three new tracks for free.

Aerosmith/Lenny Kravitz On Tour: Holy crap. Aerosmith and Lenny Kravitz are coming to Ottawa. Tickets on sale tomorrow at 10:00 AM. Must think about this…I should save the money to fork out for U2 tickets. Trish’s sister is supposed to hook us up, but that depends on whether or not her other sisters come from Quebec City and Idaho. Chances are slim, but should I bank on them? Or should I save the money to put towards the $300 for U2 tix? Hmm…on the other hand, I hear Aerosmith does put on a great show. May be more of a greatest hits/b-sides concert since I don’t know of an album coming out in the near future. You can’t go wrong with Lenny either. Well…except for anything past the year 2000. Lenny…what happened?

After two trips out to The Source by Circuit City (rant: That is a stupid, stupid name. I still call it Radio Shack, and always will. It’s like how The Beer Store was called Brewer’s Retail.), I finally managed to hook up my stereo in all its glory. There are WAY too many things to factor in with these new fangled gadgets. I was amazed at how I think I’m pretty good in the technical field but I had to refer to the manual most of the way throughout the installation.

Anyhow, my rant on The Source by Circuit City. I had Eric drop by to get me some speaker wire the other night since I wasn’t near the store and the gent at the desk showed him some wire that cost $70 for 15 meters. I’m thinking “Man, that’s more expensive that I would have thought.” but Eric said that the gent at the desk said it was the only wire in the store.

The wire was WAY too big to place under the trim around the room, so I decided to return it, but then I found 15 meters of speaker wire for $12! Clearly, these students they have working there just don’t cut it anymore. When I worked at Wal-Mart in the Hardware section, heck I knew that place like the back of my…let’s be honest. I was flying by the seat of my pants. I especially like how I found out that a ‘char’ in French was slang for a car. I believe I found out when someone asked me where the spark plugs for a car were in the department and I mentioned that we had none in the store. I was standing right in front of them. This just goes to show that I should have been working in the Electronics section and not the freaking automotive section.

Lesson Learned: Don’t trust the kid at the desk when he tells you the $70 speaker wire is the only in the store. I especially like how they are giving us a hard time about returning since the package is open. If I have to get them to measure the entire 15 meters, I will.

Anyhow, the stereo is amazing. I’ve heard home theatre systems before but never owned one. I’m digging the fact that I can hear the bullets fall to the floor in the Chateau scene of the Matrix Reloaded.

Joke heard on the radio: How much does a pirates ear piercings cost?

So last night I discovered a great lesson learned…don’t try and set up your new stereo when the tech stores are closed. I had Eric rush over to buy speaker wire which ended up being thicker than my toe, and then we realized that I need an optical cable for my DVD player. Needless to say, our mission to hook up the stereo ended swiftly. I spent the rest of the night sifting through the many acquisitions I made after helping Carrie move out on Saturday. I may or may not own 50 forks now. At least I don’t have to eat a sausage out of a tupperware bowl like last week. Dishes are divine.

Answer: A bucaneer!

Saw a workshop today from the Ottawa Animation Festival entitled “The Animated Characters of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith” which had the lead animator Rob Coleman talk about his work on the movie as well as showing us various animation shots.

Let’s be honest. I’m a Star Wars geek. I dig this stuff up. I was really impressed with the workshop but at the same time thought about all the other geeks sitting at the show wondering if he would show us some deleted scenes or have George Lucas himself magically appear. The best thing I got was a blooper animation of Count Dooku doing a somersault in the air and having his cape fall over his head while he was trying to swing a lightsaber. Sweet.

Thanks to Veronique for pushing me to go even though it was 11:00 and I was already late.

This freakin’ wall took 5 coats and it still sucks. The woes of not wanting to live in a bland white walled prison anymore.

Notes from scrapbook

Went alone to Summersault to see the Pumpkins for the last time.    I met up with a few guys which was great!  Let’s see….who did I see.  Pumpkins, Finger Eleven, Foo Fighters, A Perfect Circle, Our Lady Peace, Eve 6, Treble Charger…to name a few.  Pumpkins were great.  It was worth the trip.

Further notes from my memory writing this in 2019

I find it hilarious that I wrote that I met a few guys which was great.  You know what really happened?  Two guys needed directions to Molson Park so I pointed out how to get there and they offered me a ride.  I then hung out with them for a few hours, even to the point of hanging out with them for supper.  While having a slice of pizza one of the guy’s ask me what I think about God and religion and all of that stuff.  Hey, I’m an open minded guy but alarm bells were ringing saying “Oh man, they are going to convert me to something!  Get the heck out!!!”  I answered some questions and then told them I was going to check out the merchandise booth and never went back!

Setlist – Smashing Pumpkins

Glass and the Ghost Children
The Everlasting Gaze
Heavy Metal Machine
The Sacred and Profane
Mayonaise
Stand Inside Your Love
An Ode to No One
Don’t You Want Me [The Human League] @Info[Melissa sang the male lead and James sang the female]
I of the Mourning @Info[with “Du Hast” tease]
Once Upon a Time
Cherub Rock
Bullet With Butterfly Wings
Once in a Lifetime [Talking Heads]
Drown

Setlist – Our Lady Peace

One Man Army
The Birdman
Automatic Flowers
Naveed
Superman’s Dead
Is Anybody Home?
Thief
4am
Stealing Babies
Everyone’s a Junkie @Info[Demo version; different lyrics from version released on Spiritual Machines]
Life @Info[Pre-release of Spiritual Machines]
Clumsy
Starseed

Setlist – Foo Fighters

Breakout
Learn to Fly
My Hero
For All the Cows
This Is a Call
Big Me
Stacked Actors
Next Year
Monkey Wrench
Everlong

Setlist – A Perfect Circle

Renholdër
The Hollow
Magdalena
Sleeping Beauty
3 Libras
Breña
Orestes
Thinking of You
Thomas
Rose
Judith

Setlist – Finger Eleven

First Time
Above
Suffocate
Quicksand
For the Ocean
Tip
Drag You Down

My Carousel

Counting Crows-Metropolis, Montreal November 13, 1999

Went along with Joe and Amanda.  Great place to have a concert….like Barrymore’s but bigger.

Joe 90 and Gigolo Aunts opened.  Gigolo Aunts were really great and Dan came out for the last song and he was wearing a funny hat.

Charlie comes out talking about the AIDS booth in the corner and how to get information from it.

Then the radio station comes in and tells us this is being broadcasted over the radio and the net.  Too bad I didn’t get a copy!

Starts off with Magical Mystery Tour.  
Mr. Jones-Same as always…little intro and then rips into the cool version.  Some guys started to crowd surf at this point.
Daylight Fading-I love this song and the lighting was great.  Dan was wild in the solo.
Children In Bloom-First for me.  Never heard it live.  Very cool and Matt had a great bass solo.
High Life-Introduces this song while holding up a bristle board from a fan…it seemed to ask if he could play guitar on a song and he was saying how they already had enough guitarists on stage and they were handsome handsome devils.   Introduced this song as off This Desert Life and it was pretty cool.
Omaha-Awesome accordion by Charlie.  Gotta love it.
Monkey-I couldn’t believe they played this song.  I never heard of them ever playing this and he even admitted he hasn’t played it for 3 years.  He talked about meeting a Canadian girl in New York which prompted an interest in this optimistic love song again.  Loved it!
Another HorseDreamer’s Blues-Great stuff!  I love this song more ever since I saw it live in Kitchener and I’ve been playing it on guitar forever.  
Catpult!!!-By far my favourite Crows song.  I couldn’t believe they played it.
Hangin Around-Brought Joe 90 and Gigolo Aunts out for this one and had all of us clapping.
Amy Hits the Atmosphere-Adam sat at the piano for this one and the place shook when they sang ‘I’ve waited so long’.
All My Friends-Good song.
I Wish I was  A Girl-WICKED!  I love the lead in this song and it just builds up at the end!  It was great.
St. Robinson And His Cadillac Dream-Good song.
Rain King-Great song with a little improv in the middle.
A Murder of One-Rocking song.  I felt that the crowd just wasn’t as kerazy as the Kitchener crowd but I got right into this song.
ENCORE
Anna Begins-Always a favourite.
Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby-Thank God they played this song.  It looked like they just came up with it too since it wasn’t on the setlist (that I caught a look of later on.).  He sat down for this one and was shaking hands and stuff.
A Long December-Had a new intro with the accordion and piano.  Kind of neat.
Walkaways-Started the song and stopped it concerned with a fan who might have fallen down.  Then he goes ‘ah shit’ cause they never really fell down (I think).  They started the song up again.  Awesome song.