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  • Pricey Weddings

    Bride Groom christian puppet

    I have often wondered what a wedding would cost as I see the wallets of many cry out in vain after the big night has ended. I stumbled upon this article talking about weddings in general and there is an interesting breakdown of what is spent. Here are some my cost-cutting solutions for the cheap in mind.

    http://www.ottawasun.com/life/2009/07/07/10045831-sun.html

    Kaching!

    Weddingbells.ca reports wedding spending is up – $17,300 in 2007 to $19,038 in 2008 to $19,274 this year. Check out the budget breakdown:

    Reception venue………$7,282 – This is crazy. Really? $7K for a venue? Highway robbery. Do yourself a favour. Find yourself a good friend with a nice house! Cost – Let’s say $2,000 for the beer you’ll have to buy your buddy afterwards.

    Bridal gown………….$1,083 – I guess I, as a man, cannot comment on this.

    Wedding bands………..$1,557 – A band at your wedding is a must have! Especially if it’s a band which rocks! Ah…but I know what they are really talking about…the rings.

    Photographer…………$1,682 – Ok, what the heck. This is ludicrous. Really? $1,600 for a photographer? Come on. We all know we have friends who like to dabble in all things photography. Ask one of them to read a book on the subject and to help you out on your big day. Let me put this point out there for you all…Nanny’s sole wedding photo is of her and Granddad under a tree. That’s it. You know what? That’s all you need. Cost – $100 for the printing of photos and the case of beer for your buddy.

    Wedding cake…………..$335 – I propose begging your Mom to make 300 cupcakes. Hmm…I wonder if that would still come out to a costly sum of $335? Cost – $150

    Florist/Decor………….$881 – If flowers really are a must, do yourself a favour and get all of your friends to pick some from a garden on the way over! Cost – $0.

    Transportation/Limo…….$569 – Really? REALLY? This seems like an extravagant expense. If you want a limo, you should have got one for your prom buddy. Cost – $0.

    DJ/Musicians…………..$805 – Now here’s an interesting one…DJs. I remember Ferda and James mentioning how for the same amount of money spent on their DJ, they could have easily picked up an iPod, loaded up a bunch of tunes and had someone manage it for awhile. I also remember Matt and Sophie’s wedding consisting of six CDs on the stereo with a listing of what was playing on each one in case someone wanted to skip ahead to some Billy Idol. Do you hire a DJ at your house party? Nah. So why should you bother at your wedding? Besides…spend that cash on some live music action. Cost – $0.

    Honeymoon……………$3,632 – Hmm…I can’t really comment on this one. I guess, depending on where you go, it could cost this much but I would think if you wait for an all-inclusive deal somewhere you can cut this price in half. Cost – $1,500

    TOTAL………………$17,817
    Revised Cost – $6390 including a honeymoon.

    Hire me to cut your costs!

  • Bluesfest Tix For Sale

    If anyone is interested in the following tickets, let me know!

    Saturday, July 11 – 3 tickets, $20 each.
    Sunday, July 19 – 1 ticket, $20.

    Just can’t make it on those dates! Cheers!

  • Review: The Dears at the Live Lounge

    Friday night brought forth a little bit of freedom in the form of me traipsing around downtown during the evening…

    The afternoon started out well enough. Got home, had some beer, tried to convince Mike to come to a concert with me, but alas, there was no having it…so then I got a hold of Krista and at the time she thought she would go with me so I headed down to the Lieutenant’s Pump for a drink with Jason, Ben and Krista. After a nice pint of Tankhouse Ale (which did not taste soapy like the Tankhouse from The Works), we headed in behind the pub to Jason and Ben’s new pad! It was quite cool…couple of bedrooms, a living room, your standard two bedroom place. We discussed eventual furniture placement and around 10:30 I realized the band would probably be coming out soon enough so I headed to the Live Lounge sans Krista as she decided that she wasn’t up for it.

    No worries, I know how to rock solo. I showed up at the Live Lounge and asked the woman outside if I could simply pay the door. She said “Sure, no problem!” and then the bouncer carded me and I headed on in. The Live Lounge used to the Pub en Ville if anyone did not recognize the name. Actually, I’m pretty sure the Live Lounge has been around for a year AT LEAST but it was my first time going there.

    Upon entering, the bouncer was chatting it up with the two ticket booth ladies so I stood there for a second and then realized no one was paying attention to me.

    “Why not?” I thought and proceeded to saunter to over to the bar for a drink and that’s how I got into the concert for free.

    Considering I love The Dears immensely I put it in my head that I would lay down some serious cash at the merchandise booth for them at the end of the night.

    The band was already out setting up their equipment when I found a great spot in the middle of the floor. Around 11PM they hit the stage and the crowd went wild. To reminisce for a moment my experience with The Dears…it was back in 2007 and I caught the last song of their set but something hit me and made me realize I should check this band out. http://palmer.grumpster.com/?p=616 Two years later, I am a big fan of their new album Missiles and was disappointed that in the past year they nevr hit up the Nation’s Capital to play. But that has changed.

    The band is in top form after touring for the past year together. The keyboards and synths coupled with the visceral attack of the guitar is what makes me love this band and their music. Everything about the evening was perfect.

    Highlights of the Night:
    Murray getting off the stage during ‘Hate Then Love’ and singing amongst us. He sang to the girl right next to me and then demanded the audience participation from a couple who I’m pretty sure didn’t know that they should sing the part which goes “I swear, I swear, I swear it to you.” But then he allowed the rest of us to sing that part. Amazing.
    The power he commands over the audience. At one point he had everyone in the place shut up to start off a song and it’s pretty powerful to be standing in a crowd of rockers, drunks and all around noise and then have it silenced.
    The audience snapping their fingers to get the rhythm going. I’ve realized that many of their songs are quite intricate and demand some great musicianship to pull off.
    The end of the night where the launched into some random disco hit which eludes me at the moment. I believe I shall end off all my performances with that song.

    So after the band was done, I went to the washroom where the two guitarists were hanging out and then I headed to the ATM machine in order to blow some cash on the band for a great performance. When I get to the merch booth, I ask if they have any older CDs available but there are none. I then ask about the tour poster for sale but it’s from a show in the past month and not the show of that night. Hmm…oh well. In the end I picked up a t-shirt which I swore was brown but in the morning I realized there must have been a different colour light shining on it and it was actually purple (which isn’t too bad either).

    It looks like the band may be going to the studio after this little jaunt in July so do yourself a favour and check them out if you can!

    Setlist (from my weak memory of what was played and in no particular order):
    Money Babies
    Hate Then Love
    There Goes My Outfit
    Disclaimer
    Warm and Sunny Days
    22: The Death of All Romance
    Dream Job
    Lights Off
    Crisis 1 & 2
    Demons
    Meltdown in a Major
    We Can Have It

  • Coolest Godson Ever

    Sorry to all other new Godsons out there…Evan takes the cake.

    Evan Douglas Unwin 010

  • Review: Matt Mays at the Montreal House (Peterborough)

    The blog entry is a long time coming.  The weekend of June 27 is five months ago and it’s still fresh in my mind.  Mike, Ben, Jill and I headed out to Peterborough to visit Krista’s parents.  Mike and I had never met them before and we feel it’s important to meet the family of friends so we figured this was a good way to kick off the summer as it was promised to be a weekend of fun in the sun.

    The road trip up was decent enough.  There was an excellent classic rock mix created by Ben (who won the competition). Mike’s compilation of road tunes consisted of live tracks from various bands.  Jill’s didn’t make the cut as she didn’t burn the CD properly.  I do recall a harrowing experience where I decided to pass what seemed to be 15 cars and then a truck decides to meet me in the oncoming lane.  I managed to merge back in just in time but someone noted that my face was white as a sheet!

    Krista’s parents were a great time and their house was spectacular.  We felt like were staying at a hotel.  We each got our own room and we had some fun in the pool and the fire pit.  Mike and I attempted to play some guitar after a few beers, but it was failed miserably as it’s pretty hard to play without words in front of you.  This prompted Ben and Krista to buy me a miner’s cap light for future forays into the darkness with a guitar.

    The next day we lounged around, took a spin in the boat around the lake, lounged around some more and then I went out on the Sea-Doo with Dave.  Now, I have never been on a Sea-Doo before and let me tell you, it was quite exciting!  The things can rip across the water like a bat out of hell and turn on a dime!  Dave had some fun trying to whip me off.  I did my best to hold on but at one point my hand slipped and in I went.  This was the equivalent of smacking a brick wall.  I was out of breath for a bit and was quite sore afterward.  Turns out that I had bruised some ribs falling off the Sea-Doo and I didn’t feel much better until a few weeks later when I played Hope Volleyball.  I almost think that some muscle was out of whack considering I was pretty sore leading up to the volleyball tournament (we’re talking having a hard time getting out of bed), but after a few games I felt great.

    Saturday night brought the main event…Matt Mays at the Montreal House.  Now, if you have never been to the Montreal House before, it’s quite an experience.  Krista’s parents described it as a tavern with no windows and some interesting patrons.  In fact, each ceiling tile had a patron’s name on it, one of which was Krista’s uncle!

    We started off the night in full force drinking back a few suds and watching The Novaks who were decent.  We then chatted with a few people who had come up from Toronto to see the band.  All in all, I enjoyed the Montreal House as a venue as it was a no holds barred kind of crowd where anything went.  The stage was super tiny and it reminded me of the Sunshine Tavern back home (just without windows).

    When Matt Mays and company (a hodgepodge of members of El Torpedo and his old band…ah, I can’t recall the name right now!) took the stage, it looked pretty tight up there.  Around midnight Matt Mays takes the stage and he must have been growing a beard since 2003.  It’s like ZZ Top on stage.  So we’re rocking and all is well and good until Matt Mays starts talking about how the last time they were in the Montreal House, they were so drunk because he staff gave the band a beer cylinder to drink from.  Sure enough, a few songs later, he’s crying out “Oh no, OH NO!” and sure enough, the staff is bringing up this massive beer cylinder to the stage.  So five minutes go by as everyone from the band takes a swig but then the greatest thing happened.

    “Well, we still have to put a good show on for you guys, so you can all finish it off.”

    And that’s how I ended up with a beer cylinder in his hands, not once but twice and the second time I finished it off and hoisted it in the air like I had just won the Stanley cup.

    For the life of me, I can’t find a set list for that night….it was a collection of different tunes from his different albums.  Here’s some vague recollections of the night.

    • Standdown at Sundown has now become one of my favourite tunes after seeing this played live.
    • He played Digital Eyes and Spoonful of Sugar solo.
    • Terminal Romance was a highlight of the night for me.
    • The energy of the place was infectious.

    The night ended in a blaze of rock and alcohol and we stumbled out of the Montreal House like any good patron would.  Krista’s parents were gracious enough to come pick us up in two cars and we somehow managed to moon the other car while driving back.

    The next morning was a rainy, miserable one.  We ate some breakfast, packed the car and headed for home.  It was amazing to meet Krista’s family, amazing to see Matt Mays as the Montreal House and amazing to experience all that Peterborough has to offer.  I was glad to have experience Krista’s parents awesome house before they sold in Nov 2009.  But now there’s a new place to crash around Morrisburg!

  • Officially Done School (For Now)

    I got a B in my Spanish course. Unless there is some random course I have forgotten about, I now am the proud owner of a Bachelor of Arts with a Specialization in Communications.

    Heck yeah.

  • Rogers Internet…No?

    Last night Vero and I babysat William and Philippe for a few hours which was good times except for the fact that they are turning out to be like their father as all they had eyes for was the lady in the house.

    When Eric got home, he was showing me some excellent Nine Inch Nails DVDs that he downloaded. I was shocked to hear that it took a few days to download them. What the heck? For me to download an entire 4.3GB of files, it would have taken me months at my slow trickle of 10K/sec max over torrents. He said he averages around 150K/sec.

    This is ridiculous and now I’ve seen what is the difference between Rogers and Bell. I have always known that Rogers shapes my torrent downloads and I assumed Bell did as well, but it looks like it’s still worthwhile looking into Bell.

    How about you folks out there? Any thoughts on the ISP bandwagon?

  • Trip to Waterloo, NY

    IMG_4048On Wednesday, I didn’t get a chance to sleep in as Trish, Caroline and I hit the open road to go down to Syracuse for some shopping at the outlet mall. It was due time that I got some new clothes and I also needed some new shoes.

    The trip was fairly uneventful, although I do remember seeing two cops trying to get a deer out of the middle median of the highway. Both Trish and I saw the cops around the deer, but Caroline swears that she saw them shoot the deer. I find this quite hard to believe considering we were in the front and she was in the back. I really find it hard to believe that a tenth of a second later, a deer was shot! On the highway no less!

    We made good time (probably due to the fact that we were travelling on a Wednesday!) and pulled into the Outlet Malls around 10:30AM. As soon as we pulled up, we were horrified as Trish said “Is it closed on Wednesday?” There was literally ten cars in the parking lot! We are lucky in that it was still open. Trish and I treated ourselves to some Arby’s and I made the age-old mistake of ordering ice tea. I’m sure I’ve already mentioned this somewhere, but ice tea in the United States DOES NOT CONTAIN SUGAR! Argh, it is disgusting. I could not finish more than three sips and Trish was gracious enough to pass me some of her own drink.

    The day was fairly uneventful. I went to Banana Republic to pick up some pants and a nifty new hat for the summer. We then moseyed over to the Kitchen appliance store and marvelled at their wares. In the end, I got a pair of Pumas at 40% off (plus I could have potentially got an additional 30% off if I left an old pair of shoes there to some African country!), some dress shoes, some shirts, some shorts, and a Nike Sensor which goes into my shoe and interacts with my iPod to measure my pace while jogging. It’s quite neat. All Nike shoes supposedly have a spot in the heel to insert this sensor. I also managed to pick up a Nickelback DVD I couldn’t find in Canada as well as the new Tenacious D DVD for $12! That was increcible considering I’ve only seen it for $30+ in Canada.

    After the day was done, we headed into Watertown to go to Ruby Tuesdays where we had some amazing steak the last time. Unfortunately, this magical steak must have only been in Syracuse at the time as we were quite unimpressed with our food this time around. We contemplated bringing some mini-burgs back across the border but upon asking the waitress if she knew if we can transport them, she thought we could not as they were a meat product. This was also our thought during the last trip.http://palmer.grumpster.com/?p=1214 So no mini-burgs were bought and we headed for the border.

    I’m glad we decided to hit the road a little earlier this time around rather than arriving home around midnight like the usual trips. I think if we just stick to the outlet mall and not go into Syracuse, life is good.

    When we hit the border, Trish’s favourite story comes into play. We pull up to the booth and I declare that I have purchased $400 worth of goods and the other two women have around $100 each. He asks a few questions…
    Guard: “Do you have any tobacco/alcohol?”
    Me: “No.”
    Guard: “Any bologna?”
    Me: “Get yer damn dirty paws off of my bologna!” (ok, this didn’t really happen)
    Guard: “Any gifts?”
    Me: “Uh yes, actually a gift for my girlfriend.”
    Guard: “What is the value of this gift?” (thinking that out of the $400, it must be quite a pricey gift.)
    Me: “Mmm…I would say $15.”

    At this point the guard’s eyes go as big as saucers as he realizes I spent $400 and all I got my girlfriend was something worth $15. Trish is trying not to crack up beside me. As soon as we pull away she bursts out laughing at the sheer absurdity of the moment.

    We head into the office and pay our dues (actually Caroline did not have to pay anything. Sweet!) and I take this moment to finally set the record straight about something that has been nagging me.

    Me: “Excuse me, but can I ask a question about crossing the border with burgers?”
    Guard: “Sure…what about them?” (with a highly skeptical look)
    Me: “Well, we’re wondering if we can transport some burgers from the restaurant across the border to eat later.”
    Guard: “Uh…well…of course you can! It would be different if it would be a truck full of burgers but if it’s just some burgers in a bag, that’s fine.” Please note that this guy is looking at me like I’m crazy. Of course, after the bologna incident, I am careful of these things!
    Me: “Great, thanks!”
    Guard: “Wait! Where are these burgers from?!” (thinking that they must be the most amazing burgers for me to want to cross the border with them.)

    Then I tell him about the Ruby Tuesday’s mini-burgs and he seems unimpressed. Trish is cracking up behind me as I ask the border guard about some mini hamburgers. I am glad I took the time to do so because now I know I can bring some mini-burgs back with me the next time! Yeeha!

    The rest of the trip was fairly inconsequential although we got into a good game of highway hypotheticals near the last leg of the trip. We rolled into town around 10PM. All in all, a productive day on the road! Perhaps it shall become a tradition as there isn’t much to do on St. Jean Baptiste.

    By the way, if you are wondering what I picked up for Vero, it is a Snuggie and supposedly is quite lame. But I knew Vero would love it, and she does. She doesn’t want to leave the house without it!

  • In Prep for St. Jean Baptiste

    Tuesday morning I was attending a meeting put on by Google to demonstrate their new Google Search Appliance 6.0.

    This was my first Google meeting so I was pleasantly surprised to see that I received a t-shirt, a pen and a notebook for attending this event. The subject matter was interesting enough…did you know that the Google search appliance runs on 144GB of RAM as well as 15 600GB hard drives to run your internal search? That’s insane. 144GB of RAM? Heck, we common folk manage just fine with 2-3.

    Tuesday evening was the eve of St. Jean Baptiste Day in Quebec so we decided to have an impromptu BBQ to celebrate the event. I am fan of impromptuness and gathering up a few fine folks to cook some meat and have a brew or two.

    So impromptu was this event that the pork chops I thought I had in the freezer were non existant so I had to get Krista to pick up some on the way. I also may have been out of ketchup which I did not know about (alas, this boy does not use ketchup) so Vero had to go out and nab some along the way.

    Hiccups in an otherwise perfect night, with Krista, Ben, Vince and Naomi coming over for an evening of fine dining. Vince wanted to try out his new guitar and he needed an amp to do so. An amp was of course, at Casa Losier so he hooked him up with one. He had quite the nice looking Les Paul model of a guitar. Man, that sucker was heavy! I am trying to remember the make of the guitar but it was something out of the UK. Perhaps Indian Guitars?

    The night went over well with Ben helping me out with a lot of the cooking. He is quite proficient around the kitchen and knows all the right spices to put into some food whereas I just put in anything that is around the table. The burgers he crafted were genius!

  • Holly and Alex’s Birthday BBQ

    The morning after the Woodies party, I must admit that I was feeling rougher than 180 grit sandpaper. It didn’t help that Carrie woke up super early and was gabbing away. I did manage to pick up my pillow and walk across the living room to find a nice solace in the form of her bed when she was making breakfast.

    After I woke up, we realized that Alex and Holly’s Birthday/Wedding Celebration BBQ was starting up in the backyard. I didn’t know how I would fare out in the sunlight but in the end, it turned out alright and before you know it, I was feeling great after chatting with the people I haven’t seen in awhile. Mike and I even picked up a case of Red Baron which is some beer I haven’t tried before. It was quite tasty and cheap. It may become my summer 2009 beer!

    The rest of the BBQ went great. Burgers, random hot dogs that not even the dog would eat, cake…it was all great. Vero didn’t show up until after 7PM as she had a late wake-up time after running her heart out until 7AM! She arrived when Holly and Alex were showing us a photo slideshow of their wedding in Jamaica. I had thought it would be a three beer event and Mark and others scoffed at the idea the slideshow would be so long.

    Three beers later, the slideshow ended. Victory is mine!

    I then meandered downstairs to see what Sabrina, Katie and Carrie were up to. They were playing Twister with Carrie’s soon to be new roommate Carlos and his friend Leo. After a few rounds of Twister I went back upstairs to find a wedding video being shown. There were two amazing parts in the wedding video. One being when their Asian friend Peg walked by the camera so fast that it looked like she was the creepy girl from The Ring. The other part was when the video somehow went into double speed mode so everyone was walking hyper fast but the time on the DVD was in real-time. Random!

    We spent the rest of the evening chatting with Alex and Holly after everyone left and then we headed home ourselves as we were spent after a crazy weekend.

    All in all, a great BBQ had by Alex and Holly and it was great to see their photos from their wedding. It was epic!