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  • Review: Prison Break (and other shows I watch)

    I’m going to send some props out to Mike for introducing me to my new fave show: Prison Break.

    Before I forget, Benoit resurrected his blog. Check it out here.

    Back to my props. Mike told me about Prison Break around Thanksgiving…since I was a little low on good shows to watch, I decided to download it.

    Holy crap this series is great. I love television these days…all serialized format where it’s like you’re watching a mega-movie. (sidenote here about how Quentin Tarantino directed the season finale of CSI last year just to see how TV production is. Now he loves it and thinks he can do a lot more with story in a series than in a 2 hour flick. Awesome.)

    Anyhow, the show revolves around one guy in jail on death row and his brother getting himself thrown into jail so he can break him out. Oh yes, and supposedly the brother on death row didn’t do it, so there’s that side story of lawyers/friends trying to prove he is innocent.

    Why do I love this show? Excellent storytelling for one. I am engaged the whole way through. I thoroughly enjoy the cast and the character development. Working inside a prison, you can create a character you need out of thin air since there are thousands of people there. It’s not like they are on some mystical island in the land of nowhere…actually this brings me to Lost (my other fave show right now) and how they smartly said that there are more people who crashed on the island than they actually show. So if they ever need a new character (read: someone to blow up, like the ensigns on Star Trek) they just pull them from this random pot of survivors.

    Anyhow, I haven’t finished watching the season yet…about half way through (I download them off the Internet since I don’t have TV cable) but I may try and have a marathon run this coming weekend to finish the season off.

    —–
    Should I start talking about how Alias is biting the royal big one lately and how I’m not depressed that the show is getting cancelled? For the past two seasons, I have found the show to start out slow and uninteresting…but then they ramp it up near the end to make it all worthwhile. I’m hoping they will do that for the series ending.

    Should I start talking about how I love the fact that I can download TV shows and watch them whenever I want instead of being pulled from my every day doings to go sit and watch a TV show? I just wrote an essay on this subject which I should put up here which analyzes how broacasting companies like the CBC should offer up their shows on the Net as free downloads and keep an archive forever. I like the ‘on-demand’ society better than the ‘must be in front of the TV at 8:00. No worries I can set my VCR…NOOOO! I forgot to set my VCR!!!’

    Granted, it takes awhile to download a show…overnight usually. But hey…if I’m not in a rush to see them anyhow, I’m saving some sweet cash from not paying for TV cable. Granted, this may change when Mike moves in with me in January. Heck, I don’t mind paying for TV cable. Scratch that…I do mind. We’ll see what we can do to get around that. In no way am I talking about illegal means that I was using at my previous home. 😉

  • The Internet Does Not Want Eric Here

    Turns out that the Internet would rather that Eric stays away.

    All Your Base Are Belong To Us

  • Review: The Arcade Fire (oh…and U2 also)

    We believe that we can see Benoit, Claude and I at this concert in this photo. We could not locate Joelle though who is standing right next to me.

    What can I say? Their first set of 90 minutes flew by. It felt like 15 minutes. That is what the U2 experience is all about…it allows your entire being just get into the music.

    Setlist:
    City Of Blinding Lights
    Vertigo
    Elevation
    I Will Follow
    I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For / In A Little While (snippet)
    Beautiful Day
    Original Of The Species
    Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own
    Love And Peace Or Else
    Sunday Bloody Sunday / Rock The Casbah (snippet)
    Bullet The Blue Sky / The Hands That Built America (snippet) / When Johnny Comes Marching Home (snippet)
    Miss Sarajevo
    Pride (In The Name Of Love)
    Where The Streets Have No Name
    One

    Encore(s):
    Until The End Of The World
    Mysterious Ways
    With Or Without You
    Stuck In A Moment You Can’t Get Out Of
    Yahweh
    40

    Highlights of U2:

    • Foil wrappers being released as soon as City of Blinding Lights begins
    • Realizing that my fears of Bono having a weak voice (after watching the Vertigo DVD) being squashed as soon as I hear Sometimes You Can’t Make it On Your Own. Magical.
    • Literally being 12 feet away from Bono during Love and Peace while he bangs the drum. While I’m at it, it’s great to be 12 feet away from any of the band when they come to our end of the catwalk. Read that again. 12 feet away. We were SO CLOSE.
    • Seeing a little boy scream “No More!” during Sunday Bloody Sunday and realizing it’s the boy I met in the washroom. His dad was saying how they’ve been following U2 for the past few weeks.
    • Bullet the Blue Sky – what can I say. Beautiful.
    • Pride (in the name of love) – looking a few feet behind me to see Claude have the greatest grin on his face seeing his favourite U2 tune being played
    • Joelle and her concert shoes
    • Hearing With or Without You – didn’t expect that
    • Spending an hour in traffic, getting to the Corel Centre, missing the pre-party with free drinks, going to the scalper, talking him down from $400 a ticket for Floor to $125 (with our tix to trade in), going in, finding the wrong entrance, continuing on, the anticipation of (almost) getting picked to go inside the ellipse, suprisingly meeting up with Claude and Benoit on the floor, the lights, the sound, the magic…

    Everything was beautiful.

    Quick review of the Arcade Fire: I love these guys. Mega-band on tour. They switch instrumental positions. That’s so wild. Drummers playing guitar. Fiddlers going on the drums. Back and forth and round again with people banging the ski helmets with their drum sticks. Excellent opener.

    Links of interest:
    http://www.u2-vertigo-tour.com/
    Benoit’s Review

  • Bread For Sale

    Your very own Ryan is making bread this coming Thursday. 50 loaves of bread for fundraising activities for work (needy families, etc.).

    We have 10 loaves left for order if you would like to have one. They are $5 each.

    Let me know!

    iplaying: Somewhat of a Complication – Steve Cuch

  • Christmas in The Stars

    Benoit managed to snag me a digital copy of Christmas in the Stars.

    Excellent.

    I cannot say I’ve listened to it yet, but there’s a song that’s called What Do you Get a Wookie when he already has a comb?

    Classic. I’ll let you know how it is.

    A great review of the album here.

    In other news, Trish came through for Ben and Claude and they snagged two tix to the U2 show. At first, they were behind the stage, and now they have floor area tix. Man, those guys are lucky. I’m super happy that we are all going. We’ve been waiting for months!

    Tonight’s mission – Go to some scalper’s and upgrade our tix to Floor. I’m willing to spend $100 to do so. Should be enough.

  • U2 – Everywhere I Turn

    Everywhere I turn in this city, it’s all about U2.

    I must admit that I am pumped. I felt that my experience at the Elevation tour in 2001 was a religious experience. Bono transcends the rock star persona to something more.

    In other news, I’m trying to figure out how long are all-seasons good in the snow for? aka, how many kms? Dad suggested I look into getting winter tires…there goes my recording equipment fund down the drain. But seriously, I know the benefits of winter tires, yada yada yada, but with all-seasons with 36,000 kms on them, do I direly need them? Fill out the comment section with answer! I’m searching for the answer!

    The lack of winter tires will allow me to purchase this:
    http://fostex.com/index.php?file=products/digital/mr8hd

    I’ve been looking at getting recording equipment ever since our trip to Boston last year where I found out that I wouldn’t have a warranty covered in Canada. I’ve waited a year and now that Mike is moving in, I’m thinking of picking up something. This little ditty has a built in hard drive AND four inputs. What does this mean?

    Let’s say Mike and I are on the road somewhere touring. We can plug in two guitars and two mics into the system and record ourselves. Instant soundboard recording.

    Let’s say Mike and I just want to jam at home and we get something good but don’t want to forget about it in a week’s time. Boom. Tape it.

    What if I want to write Tributes to Michael Bolton for a night? Well, I would just laugh that one off and go record some good rockin’ tunes.

  • Top Albums

    Something tells me this may be a long post and I have time to kill. Bear with me.

    I’ve realized that with Vero, I’m not sure what music she has listened to. I have an idea of what she enjoys, but I have no idea if she knows the same music which has created a solid foundation of love.

    I’ve given her a few albums when we first started dating…just trivial things such as Econoline Crush – Devil You Know, and Pearl Jam – Ten (pretty well they’re best commercial album.)

    After hearing that she didn’t really know U2 at all, and didn’t even know THE U2 song; Where the Streets Have No Name, I decided I would take the next step in our relationship. We’re going to see what she thinks of my top albums.

    How did I judge my top albums? Simply enough, I looked through my album collection and pulled out anything that either:

    • touched a chord in my soul
    • reminded me that there was not one bad song on the album

    I have this theory that even though you may think the majority of the songs on an album are amazing, it can all go to hell with ONE song. That ONE song screws everything up for being the best album. Example: Master of Puppets – Metallica. It can be the killer album except for freakin’ Leper Messiah. Guh. I hate that song. The rest of the album is bliss.

    I will be honest that I tried to create a Top 10 list, but there are way too many albums here.
    (in no particular order)

    • U2 – The Joshua Tree – My introduction to U2. The classic album. Ranked #26 on Rolling Stone’s Top 500 Albums list here. I cannot begin to describe my love for U2 from this album. Can I just say that Where the Streets Have No Name has more energy than the entire discography of the Rolling Stones (oooh…I can see the comments section flamed soon).
    • Nirvana – Nevermind – No real explanation here. Actually, this album is ranked #17 on the Top 500. I’ll keep checking the site to see if my choices make it or not. What can I say about Nevermind that has never been said before? How about the fact that there is a naked baby on the cover? Nah…that’s been said.
    • Lifehouse – No Name Face – A SOLID SOLID album. I’m not sure who introduced this to who, but Eric, Annie and I (and maybe Mike?) put this in our top 5 for sure. Every song evokes emotion. Everything is the greatest song put on this Earth. In fact, this is the song that Mike and I played at Eric and Annie’s wedding. And it kicked ass. Why? Not because we rocked the casbah…but because the song evokes emotion. Too bad Lifehouse sucks more and more with each new release. Stanley Climbfall…not bad. Self-titled album…gak!
    • Sam Robert – We Were Born in a Flame – I have entered my rock n’ roll phase in the past few years. Sammy and the boys bring this feeling out in me. I would have to say this was my favourite album of 2003. I will follow this band to the grave.
    • Mogwai – Happy Songs For Happy People – Lucy introduced me to Mogwai after I mentioned how I loved the guitar driven soundtrack of 28 Days Later. This album brings you to another place…all (or mostly) guitar-synth sounds all about. It creates an atmosphere.
    • Matchbox 20 – Yourself or Someone Like You – Someone out there has borrowed this album and never returned it so I found it at a garage sale for $5. It’s worth another purchase. Good campfire songs here.
    • Stabbing Westward – Darkest Days – I sense a theme here. I like albums that evoke emotions. What I love even more are albums that evoke ONE emotion. Ah, the classic theme album. This album is the greatest for after the breakups when you are full of rage. Industrial at its best.
    • The Tea Party – The Edges of Twilight/Transmission – Where Edges take Eastern and Western…Transmission takes rock and electronics. These are such different albums, but so, so good. Edges got me into playing guitar. However, I don’t think I’ll ever pull off what Jeff Martin can pull off.
    • Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here – Ah…the tribute album to Sid Barrett. From the bookend Crazy Diamond’s to the middle title track…there is nothing missing from this album. I love Floyd albums for the sole reason that they blend into one cohesive piece of music.
    • Live – Throwing Copper – Memories of driving around in the car with Carol and Angele and belting out these tunes until we believed we were on stage. Probably their best album ever.
    • I Mother Earth – Scenery and Fish – Same time period, but guitar goodness. Choice track – Earth, Sky and C (C is for Carlos ladies and gents)

    At this point, heck, I’m tired of writing my thoughts on the albums, so I’ll come back to them tomorrow, but I’ll leave the list here:

    • Theory of a Deadman – Gasoline
    • The Arcade Fire – Funeral
    • Silverchair – Neon Ballroom
    • Pearl Jam – No Code
    • The Smashing Pumpkins – Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness – here’s my comment. My all-time favourite album. Will be forever. Long live the Smashing Pumpkins.
    • Collective Soul
    • Nine Inch Nails – The Fragile
    • Counting Crows – Recovering the Satellites

    There you have it…my top albums.

    If you’ve wondered how to get an idea of what I think and feel, listen to these albums. The answers are written right there.

  • My Love of Hot Apple Cider

    What do I cherish more than life itself?

    A hot apple cider…man, I’m addicted. I have been known to have one (or sometimes two) a day. I pride myself on the fact that I don’t have any common vices such as coffee or chocolate, but heck, when the cold weather hits, why not warm your insides with some hot goodness?

    What are your cold weather delights? I know Duncan likes to pick up quarts of eggnog every time he gets the chance, as they are only offered during the holiday season.

    Other cold weather delights:

    • sitting next to the Christmas tree reading a book. Ahhh, the smell. Boo to the fake Christmas trees. They smell like metal.
    • having a nice glass of rye after a big meal

    I think I shall also have hot apple cider on hand at the Christmas bash this year. Not sure how to go about this…I’m assuming a huge pot with some apple cider should do the trick.

  • Arcade Fire Update

    Can I just say that my week is getting better and better?

    Turns out that The Arcade Fire is opening for U2 in Ottawa…originally they were not.

    EXCELLENT! I am pumped.

    In other news David Bowie and the Arcade Fire have teamed up for an EP release.

    Dang…only available on iTunes. I may have to finally buy something off of that horrid site.

  • 8 Levels of Dating

    http://www.jasonmulgrew.com/content/blog_archive.php?bid=506
    (warning, not for the faint of heart)

    Excellent find by Krista!