Corner of Bourbon & Division

Work is chugging along merrily today. Consistently busy, but not crazy. Shift change is now (the night shift overlaps with the swing shift), so I'm taking the opportunity to update a little bit. I have been closing calls all afternoon and evening (which essentially means that I'm writing up the summary of what happened during an alarm, assigning it a number and putting it in the client's call history). I have done about 200, which accounts for about 60% of the day's calls. Not too shabby.

Had a marvellous weekend. Got up at oh-my-God o'clock on Sunday morning and caught a lift with ulvain, his brother, and our mutual friend Janik all the way to the Godforsaken Howling Wilderness. We grabbed a quick breakfast at Tim Horton's, and spent the time in the car catching up on news, since I hadn't seen any of them since August.

We visited a property in which ulvain and his brother were interested in order to build a hippie commune survivalist compound in the relatively near future. They're looking at properties in the area and in rural Quebec, having both received the shock of their lives a few weeks ago when they found out about the peak oil crisis. I've been thinking about this myself for a while, and I've always wanted to live in the country, but it seems my sense of urgency isn't nearly as developed as theirs. The property was lovely, 119 acres of land, a barn and a small farmhouse, but the buildings were in such a state of disrepair that I doubt the nice lady will get anything close to her asking price. If she knocked $50K off her price, I'd be knocking at the door of my bank asking for a mortgage. As it is, though, it's not really feasible.

Spent the afternoon with fearsclave and his lovely spousal unit. I had a long heart-to-heart with Carolyn (the spousal unit in question) about her work, where she's having some communication issues with her boss, while fearsclave took the others out for a crash course in the Safe Handling and Shooting of Firearms. When they returned we partook of Glogg, which wasn't as strong as last year's (see fearsclave's LJ for the details on what he puts in his Glogg -which is essentially mulled wine) but still very tasty.

While fearsclave went off to buy dinner with ulvain's brother, Janik, ulvain and I remained in the living room, drinking more Glogg and succumbing to fatigue, singing silly songs (including the theme to "Passe-Partout," which was a French-Canadian kids' show we all watched growing up, and many different ABBA tunes). 'Twas much fun.

Carolyn went off to visit her mother while we consumed the pizza and discussed the fate of the world as we know it, and then Janik and I left the boys to their own devices in the living room and had our own heart-to-heart about what's been going on with her in the past few months, sitting happily on fearsclave's kitchen floor.

The day came to an end all too soon, and it was very reluctantly that we all piled into the car to head back into Montreal. I hope that much less time will elapse before my next visit up to the GHW.


( Cleaning update # 27,963,105,410 )

Saw the little man from Paradoxe today, and he and I don't speak the same language in person either, but we managed to get our points across. More to the point, he seems to make everything ten times more complicated than it has to be, and doesn't seem especially organized. However, he promised to have both my estimates ready by the end of the week, so I'm cautiously optimistic.

Mark your calendars, folks, because it's time for another gig featuring everyone's favourite undefinable bands, Random Colour and Invisible.

For those of you just tuning in, I am the drummer for Random Colour. Yes, Virginia, I do hit things with sticks.

Anyway, April 22nd, that is exactly three weeks from tonight, the two bands will be performing back-to-back at the Paradoxe theatre, which is where we always do these things. Curtain goes up at eight.

If you need directions, ping me and I shall email them to you.

Admission is free, as always. Bring your friends and your own booze! Booze is always welcome. Bring people —the more the merrier, and so forth.

So I just called the nice lady at Collège Montmorency, and she said there's still room available in the dispatcher course that I mentioned in this post.

So now I have to scrape together $250 and register.

The question is, of course, which course do I want to take? There's one in February, which means fewer scheduling problems but less time to scrape together the money. Money is definitely a consideration since Capricornucopia is in three weeks (official announcement to come sometime today), and that costs money too. It would be on the 18th and 19th as well as the 25th and 26th of the month.

The same dates apply to March, which would mean more time to scrape together the money I need to register, but it also directly conflicts with the next gig date for Invisible and Random Colour. Granted, the class lasts from 8am to 4:30pm, and so in theory I would be in time for the gig, but it also means no morning practice that day, which is a Bad Thing(TM).

Taking the course in March also has the advantage of being closer to the time when the next set of courses would start, namely the ones in which I'm supposed to specialise. Less chance of forgetting everything I know before taking another course.

Gah.

I hate it when Big Important Life Stuff conflicts with other Important Life Stuff.

I have spent the day doing nothing but post to Bluebook and sleeping. Sleeping is good. Sleeping is my friend.

The concert rocked hardcore. If you didn't come, you missed something really fun.

Invisible played first, opening with their hit single "Little Black Plane," and rocking out throughout the set after that. Highlights were

1- talyesin on backup vocals, which I had never seen in performance before. He made me choke on my water during "My Girlfriend's Girlfriend," and was generally awesome.

2- gmarc on drums. Watching the bass drum and the high hat bounce away from each other over the stage was hilarious. The high-hat grab and the "Oh shit I lost a drumstick! Oh well, I'll just improvise with one!" was awe-inspiring.

3- sandman7, the "Great Old One of Good Clean Fun," as a backup vocalist was great too. He does have a really nice voice. :)

4- baronscartop working the hair. I'd never seen him do it before, and I was very impressed. He has rock star hair and a pink bass named Honey. What more do you need?

5- The lead guitarist. I mean, that guy is hot.

"My Girlfriend's Girlfriend" is my favourite song of their set.


Random Colour kicked ass and took names. Not only that, but we did it amidst a plethora of technical difficulties. We covered "A, D, E" by Invisible, and our guitarist broke a string.

"A, D, E" was a last-minute addition to the set list. We decided to try it out last week, and ended up doing it in walz time, to the great pleasure of our audience. Of course, the joke was even better because Invisible performed that song just before we did it. :)

We got very nice feedback on "Do You Get High?" which I appreciated because it's our weakest song and I always feel as though I'm butchering it. It was good to hear from an outside perspective what we actually sound like when playing that song.

Then one of the soundboards went wonky during "Julia," because none of us could hear the right notes coming out of the cello. That worked out well in the end, and the song went really well after that. I didn't screw up the tempo either on that or on "Stutter," which I'd been doing all the night before, and I didn't even really need my metronome, although I took it onstage with me just in case.

And, of course, the final insult was karine's microphone falling apart at a crucial moment during "Bad Reputation," although to her credit she picked it up, put it back together and kept going almost without missing a beat, and the rest of us followed suit, and the song continued almost as though nothing had happened.

Naturally, our encore song was a big hit with Invisible. We'd tried to keep it a secret for as long as possible, but two of them figured it out. Still, doing "Do You Remember Rock 'n' Roll Radio?" was a great deal of fun, and chews the hell out of my drumsticks.


So it was a night of triumphs, with a couple of frustrations to keep things interesting. I' d like to take this opportunity to say how much my friends rock. You guys are all awesome. You keep me on my toes, you keep me creative, you keep me from stagnating. I'm am very proud to count you all friends. Here's to many more years of rocking out.

And, today, I rest.

Rock on.

No, I'm not talking about MacDonald Hall, although I could probably use the help of that particular committee. Heck, they could cause earthquakes and arrange marriages. Nothing could stop them. :D

Anyway, the committee had an argument again this morning, which culminated in my going to work in spite of feeling like I was hit by a truck and then dumped in a river.

Now, the committee is debating whether I should go to the thing I had planned tonight. The first meeting for competitive line dancing. The debate is getting heated.

"I really want to go."

"You're sick. Go home and go to bed."

"But it's the first meeting ever! What if I miss something important?"

"You can ask K tomorrow, or when you next see him."

"What if he's not around?"

"Then you can go next Monday and find out then."

"But what if it's vital that I go to the first meeting in order for roles and stuff to be decided?"

"Then you'll just have to join up some other time. You won't do them any favours if you drop dead during practice."

"It's a cold. I won't drop dead."

"The cold is kicking your ass, and I was speaking figuratively."

"But I really want to go!"

"I cannot stress enough how bad an idea this is. You have dancing on Tuesday and Thursday, a NaNoWriMo meeting on Wednesday, band practice on Friday, and a gig on Saturday. You don't have time to be sick for the whole week. Tonight is really the night you can afford to take off."

"*sulk*"

"*shrug* Your funeral, man."

Meh. Tonight I shall renew my acquaintance with my good friend NyQuil.

Dear brain,

The gig is over. I know it's hot, and heat isn't fun, but that's no reason to continue with the panic attacks every. fucking. morning. Really, they aren't as much fun as you think they are. Don't make me threaten you with the Seroquel.

No love,

Me




Resurrecting an old icon, just 'cause I always liked it. I sacrificed it for the greater good that was my "Two Lumps" craze. Right now there just aren't enough "Two Lumps" strips that I can convincingly turn into icons, or that aren't being used as icons by other people, for me to fill up all my empty slots. So, back comes my old Pink Floyd-lyric rip-off.

I have tons of unfinished projects lying about everywhere. The apartment needs tidying. I'm at work, and practically falling asleep.

I can't fall asleep at home.

I'm fighting off some sort of summer cold, two days before the gig. This is officially Not Fun.

I don't want to fall apart now. I need to wait at least three days before I can fall apart.

Three days.