For those of you not in school anymore, let me remind you of memory tricks for studying for exams.
What’s what? You have to remember the five tasks for managers? Why not use the acronym POCCC?
Planning, Organizing, Commanding, ah crap, I can’t think of the other two now….hmm…Contribution? Dang, I just checked and it’s Controlling and Coordinating.
Clearly my post about how acronyms really help out, hasn’t helped out that much.
Holy mackerel, I did 90 laps yesterday at the pool. Definitely a stretch from doing the regular 72. Took me 45 minutes.
I think I figured out that the pool is 25 metres long but I can’t confirm that until I get out the measuring stick. I think it’s half the size of an olympic size pool.
By those calculations, I swam 2.25 kms. It’s good to know if I ever have to take a bet to swim that far, that I know I’ll be able to do it. 😉
I will try and keep the 90 laps up even though it’s a long time. But I’ve been thinking that the 30 minutes in the pool wasn’t cutting it considering I don’t do much else in the physical activity department so perhaps if I bump it up, it will be for the best.
The problem I have with swimming is that I get bored sometimes. I don’t feel in pain from going that long – only when I start. Pain from breathing heavy that is, not any physical pain. So 45 minutes later, I’m just swimming away. I wish that they would come up with some economical water earbuds that would stay in my ears and broadcast wirelessly so I could lose myself in the music.
Faithful readers, what can I do to remain unbored?
After the Trews concert, I wanted to check out one of my fave local bands – For the Mathematics.
Math rock baby. At its finest. Trish joined the crew to head over to Barrymore’s (which was Krista’s first time!) and we found out the set had just started. Excellent!
Picking up a beer, peering at the stage, I was impressed with the new songs and the old. However, one thing in the night really bothered me.
There were no CDs available at the CD Release party!
Man, that has to be a blow to the band. I felt bad for them. I would be livid. I don’t know who is responsible for that royal screwup, but whatever.
All in all, they put on a decent show, but I remember seeing them at Café Decuf a few years back and their show was more intense. It could have been the fact that we were all crammed into a small room together.
Pick up their new album ‘We Impend’ if you can find it around the area! For math rock fans only.
I just read an article with Steve Jobs (of Apple Corp fame) denouncing the Microsoft Zune and its great ability to pass a song over to someone and allow it to be played three times.
While I have commented on this, I have now started to realize that Microsoft may either be a secret (or inadvertent) genius.
Think about it…let’s take the Microsoft Xbox. EVERYONE and their dog knows that you can modify this by cracking it open, adding a chip and voila, done. But what do people need to do with it before all of that?
Purchase it. Purchase an honest to goodness Xbox. Not someone’s copy of an Xbox. You have to go out and buy one off the shelf and then lining Microsoft’s pockets with cash.
Granted, they lose money on their game sales, but heck, they’re still making money on the hardware sold.
Now, if we think about this Microsoft Zune player…how long can we anticipate that someone will hack into it so that we can share songs with EVERYONE, with no play limit at all? It will be genius! Everyone will want a hacked Zune player. People have already hacked their iPod but withiout WIFI, there isn’t much you can do in terms of sharing songs easily.
I tip my hat to you Msoft. Clearly, you are not the buffoon I thought you were. However, if you don’t know yourself, then I suppose you’re just the inadvertent genius.
This movie is the cats meow, loaded with special effects, killer action and a great cast!
Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock star in this high octane action movie trying to thwart the menacing meanderings of one Dennis Hopper (a fan, I am).
So get this. Dennis Hopper is some maniac wanting some money so he bombs an elevator shaft hoping to hold them hostage. But then Keanu comes in and saves the day and it’s awesome goodness because Keanu is the man and all is good in the world as he saves the hostages. But then he’s trying to save his partner (Jeff Daniels!!!) who is being held hostage by Dennis Hopper but then Keanu shoots him (right in the leg!!!), like WHOA DUDE, chill out! But it stems back to the awesome ‘Pop Quiz’ line in the movie where Keanu said he would shoot the hostage if need be in a situation to ‘take them out of the equation’.
Anyhow Dennis Hopper manages to escape, blow up a bus with some friend of Keanu’s on it and then says that there’s a bomb on some other bus in the city which…get this…this will BLOW YOUR MIND…
It will blow up if the bus falls below the speed of 50 miles an hour.
HOLY MOLEY! WHAT A CONCEPT! Unbelievable! For a Canadian like myself, I couldn’t even do the conversions in my head…it must be close to 300 km/hr or something like that! I couldn’t fathom how it would feel to be on this bus full of people all freaking out. But there is Keanu, keeping his cool (until one part where he freaks out and it’s definitely Oscar worthy.)
Anyhow, I couldn’t believe the bus made the jump across the freeway gap which was 50 feet across! I fainted after that point because I was jumping up and down wondering what would happen.
All in all, 2 thumbs up for this great action movie. What a gem, and I hope that everyone gets to see this great movie. Sandra Bullock wasn’t too bad in it either, although all she did was drive the bus. But she was cute, in a sort of a Sandra Bullock way.
If you’re a fan of good movies, you have to watch this when it comes out on DVD!
Years ago, I was the king of comics. I remember every Wednesday going to the corner stores around town (because not all carried the same titles) to track down the newest comic books. I remember there being some cold, cold nights picking up some comic books over at Gizzy’s, and sometimes trekking ALL the way down to the Circle (this was a big trek for me back in the day) and getting back to have my legs frozen solid. Sometimes they wouldn’t even have the comic I wanted and I walked for nothing. I learned early on to bring some music along and I can honestly say that I was one of those people that even before iPods made it big, I had the tunes playing in my ears while I skipped down the street to pick up my new batch of comics.
The Marvel comics were my faves – Spider-Man and X-Men in particular. I never touched upon the DC Comics – Superman, Batman, etc. Something about them didn’t appeal to me.
I have close to 1000 comics to this date and that was from back in the day. I rarely pick up a comic book these days although sometimes I wonder if it would be cool to get back into a series now and then.
The problem with making money off of comic books is that the market is saturated with them nowadays that if you pick up an issue of Spider-Man, chances are, it will never be rare. There will be tens of thousands printed across the world. Nowadays if you want to make money off of comic books, you either sell it when it’s hot (oh, why didn’t I sell New Mutants #87 when I had the chance!) or you have to buy the rare variant cover editions (only 1000 made!!!) to have it make extreme amounts of money.
But let’s think about something for a moment. Curiosity got to me and I looked up random issues that I owned. A few have hit the $15 mark and that’s only because they introduced a major key character in the series that everyone liked. But what about a random issue?
I present to you an example of Uncanny X-Men #288. Nothing special happened in this issue and it falls in line with how much it is listed for at the moment. It is worth $4USD.
Now, here I’m thinking “That isn’t a lot of cash when I think about.” but if you put it into the context of how much I bought it for, that’s where things get interesting. I paid $1.25USD (according to the price on the book, not including taxes) so if were able to get $4 from someone for the issue, I would have made a profit of 3.2 times the price paid for it.
Triple the price, you say? I’ll take that investment.
Now, I would imagine that the odds of me selling the issue for the listed price of $4 may be a little slim, but to be honest, I haven’t checked. I’ve gone to a few comic conventions in town (one is coming up on October 29th in town here if you want to go) and I looked at some comics I owned and they were in the $1 bin. That was pretty sad considering I lost money on these issues.
Do I care that much about the money? Not really. They provided me with an imagination unbeknownst to many, but only to myself. Perhaps this is where I gathered my quirky personality from. Or my good looks. Chances are, both are true.
So, who knows? Perhaps I’ll sell off my collection one day and make some cash from it. But for now, they’re good sitting in my closet waiting for a good read (from some kid who respects comics. I’m not passing them off to some kid who has chocolate on their hands!)
This memory goes out to Aunt Lois who was the coolest aunt around when she brought me to the comic book store in Kitchener every time I visited. The problem with living up North is the fact that when you go to a comic store down south, you’re in there for a minimum of an hour because you’re overwhelmed with the selection. This is definitely not a problem for yours truly, but the adults may become bored waiting in the car for me. Hey, this randomly brought up another memory of us going to Spanish but Dad, Nanny and my sister waited (hey, was Mom there? I don’t recall…she must have been) in the car for an hour in Sudbury while I went into the store. Man, that must have sucked, but that just goes to show how cool family was.) Anyhow, back to Aunt Lois…she never complained one bit when she waited for me at the comic store and that’s a fond memory I have of her. I really don’t know if she had other things to do, or if she waited in the car for me. Hopefully she had other things to do! Anyhow, here’s to Aunt Lois. Thanks for making my trips to see you exciting. Not that visiting you on your own isn’t excitement enough!
(comment – what’s up with the lack of photo uploads? Aka, the Blogger software won’t allow me to properly put a picture up? Argh).
Anyhow, here’s an early Christmas gift any good man needs. The complete MacGyver series.
iplaying: New York Minute – Mobile (Tomorrow Starts Today)
Setlist:
Every Inambition
Fleeting Trust
Hollis And Morris
Hopeless
When You Leave
You’re So Sober
Tired of Waiting
Makin’ Sunshine
Sweetness
I Can’t Say
So Shes Leaving
Yearning
Poor Ol Broken Hearted Me
Montebello Park
Travelling Kind
Travelling Down The Dark Highway (New Song)
Ishmael And Maggie
Not Ready To Go
Sympathy For The Devil Here’s another rip-roaring review of some rock n’ roll. However, this set was different. It was UNPLUGGED baby. Yes, that’s right. How the oldtimers did it, with a stompin’ boot and an acoustic guitar.
Krista, Mike and I headed over to ‘Mike’s Place’, a pub inside Carleton U for a few beers and when Joe showed up, we changed the night into a euchre match. Although Joe and I lost the first game, we upped the stakes, and I’m proud to say I was the owner of two free beers after 30 minutes of playing. Thanks Mike and Krista. You are great sports!
Now, the last time I was at a concert at Carleton U, it was at Porter Hall across from a Muslim Prayer room (sorry about the rock concert gents!). This was time it was in some room called Alumni Theatre. Envisioning some grandiose hall where we would get a great view of the stage, I was dismayed when Krista told me that this was one of her old classrooms.
A classroom you say? Say it ain’t so!
Sure enough, turned out to be an auditorium style classroom, which, in of itself is not a bad thing because even in the back row, you’re getting a good listen and a good view. We pulled up to the left of the stage, found us some seats and settled in for the ride.
The Trews came out in fine fashion and I felt like I was in someone’s kitchen with them banging away on their instruments. Very intimate. This is the stuff I live for. Sure, I dig the rock n roll, but I also dig the acoustic stuff also.
There was this older dude sitting in front of us who was having the time of his life which was awesome. You see, in a classroom setting, what are people used to? Sitting down! So most of the time, the crowd was sitting back enjoying the show (which is fine in this setting I have determined). But this guy wouldn’t have it. He was egging the crowd on and dancing up a storm. His wild antics convinced me to stand up and enjoy the show. Luckily I was near the wall so I wasn’t blocking anyone’s view if I hung around the wall area. My ONLY beef with this guy is that he would yell out randomness during a quiet part of the show and I was thinking it may be recorded so it irked me to think of always hearing this guy yell something like “It’s only rock n roll baby!”. I quickly got over this and realized “Hey, this is a rock show! Let the guy be!”
Got to hear Travelling Kind which is a fave of mine, and we can’t forget the great drinking song o’ Ishamel and Maggie. Sympathy for the Devil at the end of the set was also a crowd pleaser.
Excellent, EXCELLENT time at the concert and Mike managed to snap quite a few good pics with his new camera.
We all know me. Me doesn’t cook that often and when he does, he doesn’t do it with flair.
Last night was an exception to the rule when I hauled out some partridge that Dad supplied us with and I went to look for a recipe on the allrecipes.com website.
Click here for the actual recipe that was used.
All in all, the dinner was a success! Bacon wrapped partridge puts a smile on everyone’s face. Luckily, I noticed that the burner wasn’t turned on for the potatoes or it would have been a very meager meal.
This is Trish’s third outing for unknown meals – first there was moose, then deep friend turkey, and now partridge. Partridge is the cats meow if you haven’t had it before, although we all can admit that it definitely tastes like chicken, albeit a little tougher to chew in some parts.
After dinner, Krista, Amy, Mike and Trish sat down to watch Heroes. So far, so good. Let’s be honest, I will always be a fan of this show, purely for the comic book feel to it.
I also introduced everyone to a little TV Carnage – which is only the best video you can watch after a night at the bar. It consists of random oddities that someone has found aired on TV, edited into a glorious fashion.
Noon hit on Friday afternoon and Mike, Vero and I hit the road to head up North for the weekend. It was an uneventful drive other than the fact that I had realized my iPod has messed up and it had a total of 40 songs on it for some reason. Doh! We also happened upon a man who needed help right outside of Cochrane. We pulled over and asked if he needed any help and he didn’t say anything but came running across the highway to our car. At this point I am remembering the time when Annie, Eric and I went to Timmins to see X-Men and we were on a dark highway and happened upon a car off to the side of the road so I parked the car, rolled down my window and asked if they needed any help. They walked right up to the car without saying a word and this is where we all realized that perhaps parking the car wasn’t the best thing to do. Luckily, nothing came of the experience and they had just hit a moose so we phoned the police upon hitting Driftwood. But, boy, we’re we scared! He could have very well pulled a knife on us or something with my window wide open.
So the memories of that night popped back into my head when the man was running across the highway to our car without saying a word. I was whispering to Mike “Let’s just go man!” but it turned out that the guy hit a bear up the road. We called 911 and were describing what happened when Mike drove up the road to see where the bear was. While on the phone, my story of a man hitting a bear with his truck changed to him hitting a dog as our headlights spotted the REAL victim of the car. Poor dog. The 911 operator and I both realized how silly it was that I was on the phone so I stopped that conversation pretty fast.
I headed up to Hearst after dropping Mike off in Kap. The drive was a long one as we lost 30 minutes somewhere along the way. We rolled into Hearst around 11:30 at night and I was dead tired. I found it hilarious that when we walked into the house, Vero’s step-mom thought one of her daughter’s friends had showed up to the house at the late hour and didn’t realize it was us in the doorway as she had just woken up! After sitting and talking we crashed for the night and the next morning, went around town and then went out for some pizza with friends. After that, we headed out to the woods to check out the cottage which was a decent time, however it was raining all day so my shoes were soaked after walking in woods looking for partridge. That night brought forth a great lasagna supper as well as good company. Vero and I then headed out to the local watering hole to see if there was anyone she knew and we stayed there for a bit. All in all, a good trip to Hearst. I was disappointed to hear that the music store was closed for the weekend as there was a closing out sale and guitars were 50% off. I’m not saying I needed a new guitar, but hey, when the higher powers deliver a good deal, you take it.
We headed into my side of the North on Sunday after loading up the car with Vero’s bike (which is hoping to visit Ottawa sometime soon) and a year’s worth of jarred goods. Got into town in time to attend church with Mom and then headed home to see my sister and hang out for awhile while Mom fixed all my clothes which needed fixing. Mike, Vero and I headed out to Philippe’s baptism which was an alright time. It was strange to be in the very church where they got married a few years ago and see all the same players there (minus a few of course). It was a different feeling…baby, us not in tuxedos, Eric with a goatee. I felt like I was in the Mirror-verse from Star Trek.
Headed back home to see Dad who had come out from hunting to hit up the turkey dinner. It was a relaxing time at my parents…watched some movies on TV and ate some turkey. I was happy to see an old 1930s documentary on Abitibi Canyon which Maurice and I had seen years ago while working out there. It is quite hilarious – especially when the Natives canoe by the screen and the narrator talks about the Redskins.
Jammed a little bit with John (read: John played amazingly while I sat and watched.) and had a few beer. John is probably the most amazing guitarist that I’ve ever met so it is a treat when I get to see what he has up his sleeve. I’m really no calibre compared to him so I must admit that I was rather content to just sit back and watch as his is into the metal solos and I am but a lowly crooner with his three chord rock. 😉 We revelled in our love of Megadeth and reminisced of days gone by when there was a song entitled ‘The Pigeon Song’.
The ride back was hell also as it took us longer than thought due to a random one lane bridge, and an accident to contend with. Dropped off a bunch of baby stuff over at Eric’s place and headed home where I was anticipating a relaxing night but thought I would be ambitious and install the new version of Xbox Media Center – only for the thing to mess up in my hands and I spent two hours trying to fix it. After that I settled in for some Lego Star Wars action. Oh yeah, and I found a bootleg of the Eric Clapton concert that we went to! Sweet!
Hope everyone had a little turkey this weekend and good times all around.