One of my loves currently is not packing a lunch on Thursdays because there is this little farmer’s market set up down the street from my building every Thursday where they sell Pad Thai for $2. You can’t go wrong!
Unless you go to the tent yesterday and it’s pouring rain out and they have decided not to set up shop. That’s plain mean.
Hopefully they come back next week, as $2 for any meal is a steal of a deal.
After perusing the merchandise table and reminiscing the days of $20 t-shirts, we headed down to the floor to check out Robert Cray. This guy was great! I had never heard of him before and he put on a solid blues performance. I shall definitely pick up one of his albums. Trish and Joe said they had a few of his tunes and they dug him.
After a 30 minute set, we meandered around the complex and ended up back in our seats just as the house lights went down. Beauty timing on our part, eh? The touring band seemed like an army coming on stage. There were two guitarists besides Eric, a bass guitarist, two keyboardists, the drummer (who seemed gargantuan compared to this mini-me sized drumkit), and two backup vocalists/percussion shakers. What a crew!
They came out a-rocking. Very minimal stage setup – two vid screens for the closeups of some guitar solos. I must admit that I refrain from watching these screens as I feel that I paid good money to see the concert, not watch a screen that could be in my living room. However, it’s very tempting to watch them as you can see the amazing fingerwork over the fretboard!
They stuck to the classic tunes which was great for me – I enjoy the older Clapton; the newer, mellower stuff – not so much. It’s still good, but leave that for an intimate club setting, not a stadium tour! They had a three song accoustic session in the middle of the set which was excellent. Robert Cray came out for Old Love which was all around goodness. Everytime we looked at Mike, he looked like he had tunnel vision on the stage and stood there with his mouth open in awe. It was a truly awe-inspiring experience! Actually, I just read on Wikipedia that Robert co-wrote the song with Eric. Neato.
The set ended with some Layla, Cocaine and an encore of Crossroads with Robert Cray up on stage again. Four lead guitarists on a stage! Brilliant! My fave part of the show was what Trish deemed ‘the guitar-offs’ where one guitarist would go into 5 minute solo, then the other, and then Eric would nod to them with some telepathic message saying “Oh yeah? Watch and learn boys.” and then he rips into a solo only Clapton could pull off. Even the pianists had their time for extended solos. I think the last 30 minutes of the night were entirely solos. AWESOME.
All in all, two thumbs up for the performance. Boy, I hope someone bootlegged the concert.
And now, an open letter to the people sitting on the floor at the Eric Clapton concert:
The floor area is for one thing: to show the band how much you are appreciating the show. Also, to rock. The band don’t usually look up in the bowls of an arena to see the fans reaction. They can probably only see 20 feet in front of them.
Being in the 29th row last night, I was dismayed to see that everyone sat down for the concert. Blasphemy! This is Eric Clapton here!
I proceeded to stand up when Eric Clapton took the stage along with my cohorts in crime. A gentleman came to me and indicated to me that because I was standing up, some people could not see the stage. I shrugged my shoulders and he left but then I flashbacked to the time this guy was holding up an acoustic guitar at Bluesfest during Sam Roberts and we couldn’t see. Also, when we were at Tulip Festival and someone’s umbrella was blocking the way. Taking this to heart, I said “Let’s just stand in the aisle guys so we can allow everyone to be happy.” because there was no way I was sitting down at an Eric Clapton concert which I paid $130 to go see. The security detail kindly asked us to return to our seats and said that we are allowed to stand up if we want to at our seats and we should! When we returned to our seats, the gentleman who had come to me earlier went to the security guard and asked if we could sit down but she said that we have every right to stand up in our assigned area for the remainder of the concert.
So there we were…4 people out of 20 that I saw stand up for the entire show. Sure, they crowd all stood up for After Midnight, Layla, Cocaine and Crossroads, all appearing late in the set. In a sea of 1000s of people on the floor, it was pretty lame. Once again, the lame Ottawa crowds have risen from the dead and they stand predominantly in my mind. I will take Montreal over Ottawa any time, any place!
Do I feel bad for making people stand up to see the concert? A little. But the following options popped into my mind, some snarky, and some legitimate:
1) If someone wishes to ensure a great view of a concert, they should AUTOMATICALLY try and get concert bowl seats, and not the floor seats. They are structured so that even if someone in front of you is standing up, chances are, you’ll still see the show since the bowl is in the form of…a bowl. 😉 Floor area is a hit and miss. You may get a tall person in front of you, or you may not. He also may be a bastard and stand up all night and ruin your night which you paid $130 for. I just spoke with my colleague Kathleen who is a faithful concert goer and she agrees. She usually picks up bowl tickets because she is a little shorter so it’s her own problem if she gets floor seats and she can’t see well.
2) Perhaps the security detail could have been a little more lenient in their rules. Perhaps they should have allowed the four of us to stand in the aisle (which is…8 feet wide at least). That way, we would be happy, and everyone else would be happy.
In closing of my open letter, I suggest that every band take a little lesson from big bands who have general admission on the floor, such as Green Day and U2. With no seated area on the floor, you are free to move around wherever you wish to obtain the best view possible. There are no seats, but you automatically can judge for yourself when purchasing tickets if you feel like sitting or not, whereas when purchasing tickets to a seated floor, like I said – it’s a wild card.
Also, in further closing – live a little. It’s a rock concert. It’s Eric Clapton. Come on. The GOD of guitar. If you want to sit back and relax, go home and put on a compact disc, or even better, a little vinyl action.
PS – This post is dedicated to Mike from work who is against any man who wears a pink shirt. I just phoned him and he said he would STILL kick his ass for wearing a pink shirt, Clapton or not.
In perfect timing with the Ontario government push for no expiry dates, I received a letter from Black’s Photography last night!
I brought it with me to the Barley Mow Pub to open it in front of Mike and Krista and lo and behold, a nicely written letter was inside along with a card for 50 free 4×6 prints! This was a surprise as I had only asked them to reimburse me for the 35 that were missing.
Score: Writing Letter Campaign: 2
Overall, I think the letter pretty well said what we thought it would say (ex: Accounting fiscal year-end balancing, yada yada yada) but I can’t really recall as we were swayed by ONE CENT WINGS!!! That’s right people, we stumbled upon the motherload of wings at this pub unbeknownst to us.
Unfortunately, the hot wings were insanely hot and my stomach fought back in turmoil against this chili pepper conconction (which resembled spaghetti sauce with chili peppers). I could only manage to eat 1 pound of the wings which sucked since I had not eaten any dinner yet and had to wait until 8PM to eat these wings.
Can I complain too much about ONE CENT WINGS? Not so much. 😉
However, in a moment of moronity, I forgot my letter from Black’s on the table along with the gift cards! Thankfully, they managed to find the letter and I will pick it up today. Perhaps tomorrow considering we’re going to see ERIC CLAPTON tonight!
Hey hey, we all know Jen is anxiously awaiting a review of her shindig on this blog so without further adieu…
Saturday night brought us to a little Carling Hi-rise apartment action. At first I was thinking this was a place where I will come out and my car would be jacked, but it turned out to be a decent spot (at least once we got inside and not in the dark, dark parking lot in the back!). Jen’s new apartment is pretty wild. I enjoy the window connecting the kitchen and living room – always a must.
THE VIEW! The view is pretty cool. She is right next to the Queensway and on the 21st floor so you get to stare at the traffic. But the city is a cornucopia of bright lights, haze from the outlying suburbs (hello Orleans!) and just an amazement to marvel at. I heard it’s even better during the daytime where you can see the entire city with the Gatineau hills running along the edge. Beauty! Who says the world isn’t better from the top?
Lot of treats to fill up on so this guy was feeling pretty bloated after a few hours of gorging. I chatted tech talk with Duncan and Matt for a bit and then I was introduced to one of the finer game shows in this world – Deal or No Deal. AWESOME! So simple, yet so beautiful. The makes of a great show, and Howie Mandel can do no wrong. We all love Howie. “Oh, this is a really good first deal if I must say so.” Do say so and let everyone laugh at the lowest possible deal there ever was!
I also stumbled upon Episode II on a French channel which still didn’t earn the appreciation of Vero. So I switched it over to Terminator 2 which I haven’t seen in years but could quote every line from. After 30 minutes, we decided to call it night.
Pros: Awesome food, great company, excellent hostess (with the mostess!)
Cons: Matt having to leave because he is lame and had to go to bed around 9.
Thanks to Jen for the wicked cool door prize gifts on our way out! They will make a great addition to the house! To those who couldn’t make it to the party – suckas. We got the goods…what do you get? Nothing.
Update from my previous post here.
I haven’t heard anything from Black’s Photography yet, but I wanted to share you an important article that my friend Maren sent me.
Click here to read it.
Essentially, the provincial government of Ontario is looking to ban expiry dates on gift cards/pre-paid cards from stores as they screwing the customer. Alright, I’m paraphrasing here.
I find it surprising that something that affected little-ole-me is actually a giant issue within our provincial government. I can only say that I support them in their venture to abolish this practice.
This weekend I had an impromptu splurge moment and decided that I was sick of downloading a new TV show only to have the error “ERROR: YOUR HARD DRIVE CAN’T FIT THIS SWEET, SWEET EPISODE OF ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT. YOU SHOULD LEARN HOW BURN STUFF ONTO DVD, BLANCO NINO.”
Burning stuff onto DVD is fine and all, but hey, why bother when you can pick up a snazzy external 320GB hard drive?
I was doing some research here and there on my trusty price checking websites -> pricenetwork.ca and redflagdeals.com
and at first was thinking of buying a SATA2 hard drive for $108 and an external hard drive case for $60 which basically comes out to $200 and I just realized I’m starting to talk techtalk so I’ll tone it down a little.
Then to compare I thought I would see if there are any external drives out there for cheaper and lo and behold, Best Buy had this sweet deal on for $119.99 with a $50 mail-in rebate. You gotta hate those rebates, but whatever. It’s still money in your pocket.
Pros: Well hey, it’s portable! It looks nice also. It’s also cheap.
Cons: Well, it isn’t SATA (Serial ATA) which cuts down on the speed it will transfer data at. But as I was saying to Duncan and Matt, I’m not too concerned with the milliseconds piling up over time (whereas Duncan was totally against this train of thought and wanted the fastest within a reasonable price range. Two different ways of thought, who knows who is right?!). Who cares if it’s going to take me ten more minutes to transfer an entire season of Star Trek onto the hard drive?
Also, I was a little concerned at first as to the name brand – Digital Research Technologies? Who the heck are they? Turns out they are an affiliate of I/O Magic and just slap random hard drives inside. Turns out it’s a Seagate inside which I have no qualms about.
So it’s my first external drive so I’ll let you know if I run into any problems with it. I bought it because I figured in the future, I will be buying a laptop and the hard drives on the laptop are very small in size for what I like to be able to do with them.
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One young woman admitted she and her friends went so far as to bury several bottles of liquor near the fountain more than a week before the concert and planned to dig them up once they got inside.”
Awesome. Why have I never thought about doing something like that for an outdoor show? In fact, next time Lumberjack Fest rolls into town, I’m planting a keg behind the glass.
Taken from this article.
Three Days Grace, Theory of A Deadman, Mobile and Idle Sons.
Ottawa Civic Centre – Monday, November 13 – 6:30.
Tix go on sale this coming Saturday, unless you have the presale password, which I have not found yet, but I have only found out about this ten minutes ago as I spied someone’s newspaper and said “WHAT THE HECK?!” and scrambled to find my own which I hadn’t read yet today, and sure enough, there it was in all its glory.
Get yo’ own tix fools. It’s general admission on the floor so I don’t have to worry about getting you tickets. Mike, this doesn’t apply to you as you live with me. I’ll get you a ticket.
Here’s a tip to save some money (potentially) to all you long distance plan users out there.
We had the $20/month, unlimited long distance plan from Rogers. We just removed it because we live in the world of Skype and Jajah.com where long distance isn’t just from the provider anymore. Heck, I remember changing long distance plans in college every few months so I could get free stuff. Rumour has it that Sens tickets were actually given to switch over to Sprint at one time.
Here’s the scoop from yours truly after getting off the phone. Turns out that if you get rid of any long distance package, long distance within North America is 9 cents a minute.
Whoa. You know, years ago it was pretty sweet when it was 10 cents a minute but I remember that those deals were few and far between.
So there you have it…9 cents a minute. Now, if you think of the $20/month package, that would equate to 222 minutes, or 3.7 hours.
If you’re like me and don’t speak on the phone that much anyhow, perhaps you should look into NOT paying the $20/month package to speak to your loved ones over long distances, but go for the basic plan. Coupled with Skype and Jajah.com (only 2 cents a minute people!) you are talking instant goldmine.
However, if you speak a lot of long distance and you don’t feel like going on the Internet (or are unable to!) to set up a phone call, then the $20/month is for you.
My camera is a little on the fritz (as in some buttons do not work) and I was in a ‘woe is me’ state for awhile thinking my warranty must have expired by now.
But when I went to Henry’s with Mike last night, I asked if they would have my name on file so I could check out if the warranty is still good.
Turns out that I had purchased the extended warranty which was good for an additional 4 years! Wooooohooo! I remember clearly that Philipp and I had spoken about getting the warranty package after the fiasco I had with my old camera.
So, I’ll drop it off tomorrow and all will be good in the world.
Advice of the Day People – Even if you haven’t bought an extended warranty, make sure you check to see when your warranty expires IMMEDIATELY when something breaks. For all you know, your one-year warranty may be up the next week and you just are lazy and don’t bother and then get screwed in the end. That’s what happened with my old camera. I was just plain lazy.