Palmer's World

I was surprised to read that there are rumours that the criminal (please read the article here before continuing) may have learned the hostages names via myspace.com.

Fast fact -> Myspace.com is a site where you make your own personal profile and enter your interests into it -> music, movies, whatever, as well as make postings (ala blogging). You can also identify yourself via where you live, what high school you went to, etc. Danny and Carol showed me Myspace.com when I was up there visiting and it was neat to see how many people went to our old high school. Also, the big thing about myspace.com is the linkages between friends that you can make. There is a list of who you consider your 'friends'.

Other than that, I don't know much about myspace as I haven't really used it before. I prefer my own blogspace for my rants, whereas some people just like to use myspace!

Back to the point of the story, if the rumours are true and the killer found out the identities of these young girls via myspace.com, this will unleash a MAJOR backlash in terms of privacy issues on the Internet. The Internet has long been a place mixing anonymity (think nicknames, chatrooms, etc.) with highly personalized information (myspace.com, blogs in general, your photos on-line). Granted, it's the user's choice as to how much information they provide, but I don't think that the users of the Internet are really informed on how much privacy there is out on the Internet.

I have had a lot of experience dealing with privacy issues and youth. My job (as I started out) as a moderator of a message board of youth across the nation. There were always privacy concerns, and we ensured that there were no personal information exchanged on this message board for the public eye to see.

There needs to be more information drilled into the youth, and even us adults as to how much information we should really be placing on the Internet. Even I start thinking about what information I should be putting on a blog. At no time do I ever put someone's full name on my blog. Not even my own. But if someone really wanted to dig down and found out where I lived, it would be extremely easy considering the landmarks I speak about, the restaurants I go to, etc. Or, I bet they could figure out what my first name and last name are by reading a few dozen posts even though I never place the two words together.

We, as bloggers, should be more conscious of what we place in our entries and, even though it goes against the whole concept of the Internet, should learn to censor ourselves. I read somewhere that someone once said that you should never post anything on the Internet that you couldn't tell your own mother. ;-) This handles the whole 'embarassing picture' scenario, but what about someone saying 'never post anything that could lead someone to your home.' This is a serious matter.

I had an interesting call the other day from Holly in which she wanted us to change a blog entry on a sister site because it used her full name and someone had discovered the 'I heart Hollyisms' site via Google one day. Sure, it's fun to have a few laughs, but what if a potential job employer decided to Google Holly's name and found out all the funny things she has said over the years. It could affect her job. Or, at the very least, get her the promotion as everyone will see what a great person she is. ;-)

I don't think it will be the last we see on this subject. I think in the next coming weeks there will be a major retaliation against the Internet and its privacy amongst youth. What we should focus on, my faithful readers of Palmer's World, is to think about how much information you post about yourself, and if you are comfortable with it. I personally know that I am comfortable with what I post about myself, but if I ever mention any of you and you feel that you are not comfortable with the amount of information I have relayed, please let me know and I will edit accordingly.

As this moment though, I'm thinking of a few things that I'm going to continue to do:

• Not post anyone's full names.
• Not post anything about specific mailing addresses or phone numbers, email addresses, etc.

Other than that, I'm sure there's a SLEW of things I should do to increase the amount of privacy on this blog…but at the same time, I am comfortable with people knowing that my favourite bar is the Heart and Crown. ;-)

I’m not writing this to scare anyone, but perhaps everyone should take a step back and really look at what information they are posting on the Internet. If the rumours prove true, and a girl was shot in the head because of her information on a Myspace profile, then everyone has to stop and think for a moment. If you have children who are on the Internet, talk to them about this and make them realize that by typing in what high school they attend, what could be the consequences. It's an extreme example, but it's an extreme case that just happened.

I remember the time that I was over at Carol's and they had I Mother Earth: Scenery and Fish playing (a kickass album) and I didn't think too much of it. I don't know what was with me but back in those formative years of the early 90s, I didn't really care to listen to much that was POPULAR. I think this stemmed from two things - one, I didn’t feel like being part of the mob of people following the same popular bands, two, I wasn't that popular to begin with and I think I had some weird thought of if I listened to what was popular (or wore clothing which was popular, or read books of what was popular), then I would look like I was TRYING to be integrated into that scene and people (those harmful high school cliques) would point me out of a crowd and yell POSER!

Anyhow, back onto the music (I love how my memory posts go on random tangents encompassing everything I was feeling at the moment) - the last track of the album (Earth, Sky and C) started up and wasn't too into it until the fateful guitar solo came screaming out of the speakers and I was blown away. Turns out that this was their homage to Carlos Santana, whom I picked up their greatest hits album but never really got into it.

That day changed my musical direction and made me realize that I should give everything a chance. I was automatically dismissing I Mother Earth, Our Lady Peace, all these great bands coming out of the woodwork around the time of the mid-90s because of how I felt about the whole subject of 'hopping on the train'. This day changed me in many ways in terms of my views towards music and the hundreds of albums along my walls proves that it's been a long journey. I remember getting into a slew of more music back then. It was mainly the popular stuff on MuchMusic and whatnot - the alternative scene was my scene.

When I hit college, things changed as I had access to something different in the land of music - radio. Sure, some of you are saying "Wha? You didn't have any radio stations?". Well, sure we did, but they didn't have any GOOD radio stations. I think when I left Kapuskasing, it was a country station whereas now it's a Top 40 station. Hitting up Ottawa, I was introduced to a variety of new rock, but more importantly - OLD rock. Classic Rock. Who were these bands I had only read about but never really listened to: The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Clapton? Even now, I slowly get myself introduced to these bands as I like to saturate myself into them. I don't like picking up a Greatest Hits album and saying "Alright, that's what Clapton is all about.". If I did that, I would not be impressed considering his latest greatest hits album is all his newer mellower stuff.

It's been a long and winding road in the land of music, but I'm glad that I have an open mind to listen to anything, whether it is heavy metal, jazz, rock, hip-hop (heck, alright, there are a few tunes that are catchy but you won't see me going all out and solidifying my hip-hop CD collection here. That's just wrong.), or anything that comes my way. Having an open mind towards anything in life, as well as trusting your friends when they toss an album your way can open up the doors to better places.

Where was I going with this? Oh yeah, anyhow, that was just a random memory I had last night when the radio was playing 'Another Sunday' by I Mother Earth and then I thought back to the time I was introduced to them.

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.

Mike, Joe, Trish and I went out to the Scotiabank Place last night to check out the greatest of all guitar players left on this Earth - Eric Clapton. Traffic was hell going there and back (curse you construction after midnight!) but otherwise, we managed to get there in time for a beer before going in to find Joe. I definitely didn't want to be late this time considering I have heard through the grapevine that "I am always late.". Hey, I don't really care if I'm late once in awhile, but to be deemed 'always late'…that's just a low blow! ;-)

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 4x6 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.

"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.

Alright, if you know me, you'll know that whenever I tout a movie, the words "BEST MOVIE EVER!!!" come out of my mouth.

But let's be serious here. I did see the best movie of the summer last night with Claudine, Vero and Mike. It's name was Bon Cop Bad Cop.

Patrick Huard's is a comedian/actor from Quebec who I've seen in Les Boys movies. Very funny stuff. I enjoy the Quebec humour. In fact, I enjoy CANADIAN humour. I like hearing jokes that Canadians would get. In this case, perhaps Ontario/Quebec residents may get more jokes...unsure.

So the premise of this movie is like any other good cop movie where two cops have to join together on a case, but unfortunately for them, one is a 'by-the-book' guy, and the other…not so much.

Colm Feore (of Trudeau fame) plays Martin Ward from Toronto (the prim and proper) while Patrick Huard plays David Bouchard from Montreal (the rough and tumble). They end up on the 401 at the border between Ontario and Quebec start; to find a body laying atop of the border crossing sign. After debating who should take the case, the end up accidentally ripping the body in two and discover that their fates are joined for the remainder of the movie.

They claim that this is the first Canadian bilingual movie and it's true. Languages are interchanged all the time. It's not like when they are in Quebec, they speak French, but if they are in Ontario they speak English. They speak the different languages all the time, so it's convenient if you can understand both. But they have subtitles in case you can't understand.

One thing I found odd was that the translation was WAY off in some parts. At one point, they are speaking in French and say "Well, we can either go to the helicopter pad, or St. Hubert" but they translated St. Hubert to airport. Did they think that there would be some English folk that just wouldn't get the joke? St. Hubert is the best freakin' restaurant alive!!!

I also enjoyed the fact that the English police chief's name was LeBoeuf, while the French chief's name was MacDuff. Classic.

There was also a great lesson on how to swear in French that every English person should watch to better their understanding.

Anyhow, jokes, action, cool Canadiana made for an ultimate movie. Two very enthusiastic thumbs up for this film and I implore every good Canadian reading this to watch this film.
I even recommend this movie to Nanny. Even though there are a few swear words and action scenes, you should take a look at this film as it's a part of our culture.

After awaking from The Who concert, Vero and I went around Orleans to pick up some picnic supplies and drop in to see Baby Philippe who looks very chipper.

We headed over to Rob's to bring them in the caravan of people going to Strathcona Park for some good potluck eats, as well as some fun and games. We set up the volleyball net but I only played awhile as I noticed a spot came open in bocce ball and we played for a few hours. I would like to congratulate our team on coming from a 7 point deficit with only one point needed from the other team to win the game to the glory victory that Jen, Eric and I shared! It was a true underdog story (much like Dodgeball) and we even tried to dunk the Chief Measurer later on, but his mother would not allow it. ;-)

The crew packed up and a few of us stayed around the park to take in the day for all its worth. It was a glorious day outside. Mike and Mel dropped by Vero's pad to check it out before heading out around supper.

After picking up some chicken and beer, I took a well needed nap for an hour and then woke up and watched the last hour of Terry - a film about Terry Fox. It was an amazing movie, although I want to see it in all its glory someday. I wonder if its available for rent? The story touched me, and what touched me more was the fact that the Terry Fox run is held in over 50 countries.

Fifty countries! That's incredible! This is one man from Canada who spearheaded this event across the world! It's conceivable that if we went travelling and mentioned we were from Canada, someone might say "Oh, that's where Terry Fox is from!".

Benoit, Cinthia and Trish showed up for some drinks and then we headed down to the Heart and Crown around 11. There was no lineup which was amazing. Although, the bar soon fell victim to the hype and the bouncers started a lineup with no reason whatsoever as the bar was dead inside. Boo, hiss!

We had an excellent spot where we could all sit and enjoy some music. All in all, an enjoyable night, but it rated a 7 on the Heart & Crown scale, a 10 having a rocking band in the back. They just didn't do it for me this night so we hung around the front. Sam ended up on stage doing the 'green alligator, long necked geese' song which was a valiant effort.

Vero sends her thanks to all that attended. Everyone had a great time!

Setlist: I Can't Explain, The Seeker, Anyway Anyhow Anywhere, Fragments, Who Are You, Behind Blue Eyes, Real Good Looking Boy, Sound Round, Pick Up The Peace, Endless Wire, We Got A Hit, They Made My Dream Come True, Mirror Door, Baba O'Riley, Eminence Front, Black Widow Eyes, You Better You Bet, My Generation, Won't Get Fooled Again, Pinball Wizard, Amazing Journey, Sparks, See Me Feel Me, Tea And Theater

Hitting up the Scotiabank Place this time around was a lot easier then the time Joelle and I drove out to see U2. Leaving at 6:30 from Orleans is MUCH easier than at 4:30 from downtown.

Went inside and searched around for Joe who was actually outside. Hit up Marshies for a beer or two to wait for the opening band to end. Rumour on the street is that a beatboxer was the opening act. Bewildered we said no to that and waited it out. Then around 8:45 we split the crew up as Marc-Andre and Sam had seats down in the 100 Level whereas we had seats up in the 300 Level. Vero, Mike, Joe and I took our seats which were nice because we were right on the edge of the world (aka along the ramp) so we didn't have anyone in front of us.

The stage was very minimalist, other than the gigantic screens that are the norm at any rock show these days. I find myself torn between watching the giant tv screens to see some closeup shots of the band, or to squint my eyes to see some figures on a stage dance around. I figure if I'm paying good money to see this band live, why would I just watch a screen all night long? That's what a DVD is for.

Let's back to the concert...first song started off and Pete and Roger were in fine form - windmill guitar and mics going all over the place. Very impressed. I don't even think I could windmill my arm and hit my guitar strings so we all hail Pete Townshend.

I can't comment too much on the actual songs as I have not been exposed to enough Who. I spent the summer listening to some tunes off and on, but I failed to download the actual hit singles, and just got their albums.

Here's a history lesson for you young ones out there. Back in the day, hit singles appeared on a 45, not on the actual album, as singles do nowadays. This always throws me for a loop and I forget about it. So if you're into an old band, it's probably in your best interest to pick up a Greatest Hits album because their albums don't really contain many hits.

So, all in all, the show rocked. It wasn't bleeding ear rock as I had heard The Who is famous for (I also heard that they brought down the Great Garbage Wall in Springfield, but Mike thinks that was Spinal Tap.), but I enjoyed their tunes, along with their new tunes that they were trying out. Everyone had a great time and I give the show two thumbs up.

I take away half of thumb now for the lamest floor crowd in the world. I'm not pointing out anyone in particular but the OLDER generation who pays $265 per seat can't rock out anymore. I think an ideal concert should be general admission on the floor, no seats, so then the rockers can rock out and create an atmosphere. Then you can start charging the crazy prices once you get into the seated areas. This would create a rock dynamic where the band can feed off of the frenzy standing right in front of them instead of squinting and realizing that the 300 Level was rocking more than those fogeys on the floor.

Word on the street is that Holly's Mom thinks I should be a novelist from the stuff I write on this blog.

However, one could only imagine how my blog entries are being dictated to her over the phone by Holly...so I hope Holly sends her mom the website address so that she can have a laugh or two of her own while reading this dedication to her!

Last night after a grueling class with our first meeting of the minds in our group (I hate the awkwardness of meeting a group for the first time. We were all just standing there like we were on some first date), I left class at 9:45 and headed to the bus stop.

Waiting there for 15 minutes I pondered how the bus service can suck so much late at night and woe was me as I was kind of in a rush to get back home to see Mike's parents off.

Anyhow, an 85 pulls up and I'm thinking "By this point of waiting for the 95, when it pulls up it will be packed to the gills and probably pass me by so I should just hop on the 85, ride to St.Laurent then wait for the 95 there since St.Laurent is usually a drop off point for a lot of passengers."

So I get on the 85 and after two stops it veers southward instead of heading east young man! WHAT? Ah man, did I screw up the bus number? I ring the bell and get off. At this point I'm wondering if this is a sign of some sorts that I should stay in the downtown core tonight with Vero. I brush it off and say "Nah, I gotta get home. Haven't been there since Tuesday."

As I'm walking back to the last stop where I can catch the 95, I arrive and see not one, not two, but THREE 95 series busses pass me by! Incroyable! As I stood there bewildered at my rotten luck, I realized that I should pay attention to these signs and realize that it's pointless to head home. It's already 10:30 and I just spent 45 minutes waiting for buses and I'm still 20KM outside of Orleans.

This was it. This was the definite sign to hoof it back to Ottawa U campus. But the question is - why?

At first I thought it was to find Vero outside of the Residence with all her friends and there was a BBQ going on. Did the heavens bring me back to campus for a hamburger and to see my lovely girlfriend? Not sure...doesn't seem earth-shattering to me.

Was it to demonstrate my dancing move entitled "THE BOWLER" to Brad in which I skinned my elbow on the pavement? Not sure...probably not. I can skin my elbow anywhere else.

After retiring to Vero's pad I was pondering this situation with Vero in which she was pretty miffed that the reason that I came back was to see her! ;-)

But then it happened. The heavens shone their uv light down on the television set as I hit Channel 50.

The Hilarious House of Frightenstein.

OH MY GOD! There it was in all its badly edited, horrible acting glory. Vero was thinking "What the heck is this show?" while I was saying "Please let the Disco Wolfman make an appearance...YES, there he is!"

We watched it for 15 minutes and decided to go to bed as it was already 11:30.

My night was complete after witnessing Frightenstein. I can't wait to get our cable package to watch the entire series.

As you all must know, Montreal was victim to some moron going in to a college and firing on innocents.

I'm not even going to begin to go into how these people are morons...but I want to talk about the media for a minute.

I hate how all we see today is pictures of the killer with his firearms. Yes, because THIS is what I want to see. A killer being idolized.

I can't recall the specific details, but I'm pretty sure that when JFK was killed, the cover of TIME had his (supposed) killer on the front of it, not JFK.

Why are we intrigued by the killers and not the victims? Where's the picture of the poor girl who lost her life yesterday? Granted, maybe that's not the best route either...maybe the family doesn't wish for their child's face to be plastered over the media after she has been killed.

But at the very least, stop freakin' publishing pictures of the killer flaunting his firearms like they're his pride and joy. It's an insult to everyone involved, and I also feel insulted that I have to see these pictures everytime I'm trying to get an update on the story.

Personally, it makes me sick to the stomach everytime I see a picture of this guy. Perhaps the media should forget about the killers and focus on the tragedy.

Ten bucks says someone out there can name me the individuals responsible for the Columbine Massacre but can't name me one person who died innocently.

In the spirit of my letter writing campaign, here's a VERY interesting article for you all.

Click here.

You know me...if I'm disastified with a service, I write a letter! Here's my letter to Black's Photography.

------

To whom it may concern,

I purchased a Black’s Prepaid Photo Card for 100 4x6 photos a few years ago. I had used 45 of the photos at the time and placed the card in my wallet.

The opportunity arose to print of some photos and I remembered that I had this card hidden in my wallet and I went to the Black’s Photography store at Place D’Orléans, in Orleans, Ontario. I was greeted by John who was very personable and helpful.

He discovered that my card had expired. I asked how a card that I paid for has an expiry date and he stated it was company policy and he had no real explanation for it.

He was very helpful in that he gave me 15 free photos for my troubles. I would like to applaud his actions in giving me something for my disappointing trip.

I would appreciate it if Black’s Photography will explain to me why there is an expiry date on something that I paid for in the first place. Yes, I understand that there is a notice on the back of the card indicating very clearly that it will expire in 2 years, but that still doesn’t explain why Black’s would do this. I am disappointed that something I paid for is invalid over time. Essentially, I paid for a service that was never fully delivered.

I would appreciate if I receive a response in writing, as well as some form of compensation, perhaps an additional 40 free photos to top up the 15 which John had given to me. Unfortunately, John had taken the card in question, therefore if you need proof that I had this card, I would recommend you contact the store at Place D’Orléans.

Thanks for wasting my time! (alright, I just added this for the fun of the blog)

-----

What's everyone's take on this? Maren was talking about how everything has an expiry date clearly listed (gift cards, etc.) but she did agree that in principle, this is a lame business practice. But, I'm sure we all know WHY they do it this way. They hope that they have people like me who forget about it over time, let the thing expire, and then they essentially got a profit for no work done.

OR, they have an expiry date so that they generate more sales during the 2-year period that it's good for, rather than sales generated until the END OF TIME. Mwahahaha.

So here's my take and feel free to comment. Good business policy internally - gets the money in and potentially nabs some cash from the stupid customer who forgets to use it. Bad customer mojo to those like me who forget to use it in time.

Take a look at my cousin's blog entry on our adventures with Urban Croquet! It was my first time playing croquet and it was a sweet, sweet game.

Here.

Random Note: It was strange to hang out in the midst of another Palmer who goes by the name of Palmer. Everytime someone would say "Palmer" we would both look their way. ;-)

The best thing about Apple updating their product line is the fact that they usually update iTunes which is free and makes me feel better at handling the fact that I can't purchase their new products. :-(

Anyhow, there are two new features on iTunes that I thought are intriguing.

The first is the Cover Flow option for viewing your songs. As seen in the picture above, it will show you what song is playing along with displaying the album cover. On its sides are the album before and after in your list of songs. When you switch to another song, it flips to the album cover which is a pretty neat effect.

The other feature which has been sought out by many live music afficiandos is the GAPLESS MUSIC PLAYBACK which essentially eliminates the annoying gap between MP3 files. This isn't inherent in the actual MP3 file itself, so they must have just created a workaround to eliminate the gap it causes.

This is great for the live concerts I listen to as it was always annoying to have a little gap when the track changes. You want the thing to flow!

I noticed that the software was processing all my songs for gapless playback when I installed it so I thought it would be complete, but nothing changed. After reading about the feature more this morning, I found out that you need to select the tracks and click the YES button for Gapless playback.

Kind of silly when you think of it. Wouldn't you want all your songs to be gapless?

iplaying: Happiness is A Warm Gun - The Beatles (White Album)

Swimming: Swimming is going swimmingly well. Ha ha ha.I keep upping the number of laps I do each day. I'm a week into it, and have not got bored from it yet. It may be the fact that it's conveniently down the street from me, and the pool is usually empty which lets my mind wander instead of always being on high alert watching out for lane changers.

The Who: The Who kicked off their North American tour last night in Philadelphia. Check out the setlist here. When we bought tickets for the Who show (in town this coming Friday), I had not known much about The Who so I sought out some albums in the mall and they had crap. In fact, I didn't much about them and ended up buying some soundtrack to Quadropenia. BOOO. Tha isn't a freakin' album! Anyhow, after downloading their discography (hey, give me a break here...I tried to pick up their albums!) I was introduced to a few albums and am now listening to a mock setlist on my iPod.

iTunes: The new iTunes version 7 is freakin' amazing. So slick. I love this software. I am also impressed with the annoucement of an 80GB iPod. Just in time considering mine has hit it's 60GB limit. Let's be honest...other than a glitch that I may have to send it back for repair, I am fine with mine and won't bothering upgrading until it bites the big one. I was hoping Apple would have announed a new chipset for their MacBook line so I could think of buying one. But I'll hold off.

Recording Tip: When you're bouncing all your tracks to the stereo tracks, don't have a conversation with Mike and noodle on the guitar while it's bouncing, or at the very least, unplugh your mic and guitar from the soundboard or else your recording is ruined.

Medical Miracles: I found this amazing, amazing, AMAZING article on the Wolfshack about how common sleeping pills have brought people out of vegetative states. No joke. This is insane to think about. I was running around telling everyone about this. This is something that I can tell my kids that I witnessed. Click here for the article. Thanks to Pete for digging this one up.

iplaying: Who Are You - The Who (Who Are You)

I almost forgot about my Saturday night! I spent the first part of the night going through some old recordings with Vero, but later on we hit up Sarah's pad (just down the hall, boy do I love residence!) to play some Stock Ticker.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/2680

From the onset, the game looked pretty lame, but then I got into it and it turned out to be cool that I will be keeping my eye open at garage sales for this gem.

Stock Ticker basically involves stocks. You all start out with $5K and are able to buy stocks. The players determine a time when the game will end (let's say 2 hours from now) and then the dice start rolling. There are three dice - the name of the stock, the action of the stock (it can go up, down, or pay out dividends), and the number associated with the action (for example if you roll a 20 and it's dividends, then you get 20% of whatever stock you own).

We set up two rounds of rolling and then you get the chance to buy or sell stock. So in this time of two rounds, the stock market has fluctuated due to the rolling of the dice. Stocks have either gone up or down so you have to think about either keeping your stock or selling it.

That's it! It's a really simple game but there is definitely strategy involved which I failed at miserably as I came out with $2700 which was a definite loss whereas all others were in the positive.

Two thumbs up for this great game. As soon as I find it, I'm calling a games night.

Before I start off this next review of the other film we watched on Friday night, I have to send out a salute to our good friend James who came up with the title Fast and the Curious as to what this movie's title would be if it were a pornography film.

Anyhow, if you've seen the previous Fast and the Furious movies, you know you're in for a treat full of high paced race sequences.

I was not disappointed. It was cool to see this film introduce the term drifting into my vocabulary as I had been oblivious that vehicles could glide across the pavement so easily (at least in Tokyo they can. I have not seen evidence that you can do this sort of thing in North America).

I liked the characters and the classic story of the young one who knows nothing but then learns everything and kicks some ass at the end of the film. You can't go wrong with an underdog story! Recommend this film if you want to zone out and think of nothing else but a car chase.

On Friday night, Mike and Mel had a slew of people over for Movie Night (which was excellent by the way).

The men retired to the basement to avoid any lame women films and poppped in Nacho Libre - the newest work to star our favourite Jack Black.

Unfortunately, this is the first Jack Black movie which didn't live up to the hype. Both Mike and I have been waiting a LONG time to watch this film and were disappointed. I had only got through an hour of it a few months ago so was glad to catch the ending of it this time around.

Overall, it had some funny parts. The wrestling was pretty funny. But the rest of the cast is lackluster and if people were expecting a Napolean Dynamite all over again are in for a disappointment.

This also falls into the dreaded 'best parts are in the trailer' scenario. Perhaps we shouldn't watch trailers over, and over, and over again as Mike and I did.

Let's talk a little about everyone's favourite subject - Star Wars.

You may not know it, but tomorrow the original trilogy is being re-released on DVD in a LIMITED EDITION format with the 2004 edition (with all the new bells and whistles) along with (for the first time on DVD), the ORIGINAL untouched versions that you would have saw in the theatre back in the 70s.

Now, everyone and their grandmother (except for you Nanny!) have been asking for the original versions to be released on DVD at some point.

But you know what? They aren't even touching them up to make them look decent. With the re-release of the movies back in 2004, they went through frame by frame and redid the sound, the picture, everything!

Personally, I dig the new versions. However, I know there are a few things missing from the new versions which I wish they would have kept. Oh Wolfman in the Cantian scene, where art thou?

Anyhow, back to my public service annoucement. Don't bother getting this set unless you are so die-hard of a fan that you need everything that is Star Wars. Here's a little gem of information that people may not know - 30th Anniversary of Star Wars next year. Can we say a NEW BOX SET of all the movies? Chances are, that's what's going to happen.

So why bother spending the $75 now for all three movies just to get the original craptacular versions as a bonus feature? Why not save that money and get the new editions that will most likely have the prequel trilogy redone?

Just wanted to put the thought in your head for those who are interested in getting these movies coming out tomorrow. Make sure you know what you're purchasing.

Quick, if anyone here knows how to get out of the installation charges for Rogers Television ($30), drop me a line.

Yesterday, I picked up Help! A Day in the Life which is a compilation produced by Raine Maida (of OLP fame) with proceeds going towards War Child.

So far, it is an excellent disc as seen from the amazing lineup of artists who contributed some rare tracks. Take a look at the tracklisting here.

Let's be honest, it's all about the Sam Roberts track, Magic on My Mind.

But the album has got me thinking about charities and whatnot...as you may or may not know, I donate to the White Ribbon Foundation via my paycheque. The White Ribbon Foundation is a group of men promoting the end of violence towards women.

While I agree and support their cause, I started to think if this was the best choice of my money towards a charity.

I mean, looking at the liner notes of this album, it indicates that the amount I spend in a year can can support one war-affected household for a year, including education for women and their children, counseling and school support.

That's pretty heavy when you think about your money going to helping actual people. Yes, yes, I know that the existing charity I'm giving money to is helping people also, but in some ways, it seems a little more concrete with War Child.

I suppose I'll have to think about what I want my money to go towards when it comes to renewing my charitable donations form this year. I think that any charitable donation helps and that no one's choice are wrong, as long as they put some thought into it. For those who don't think too much when giving to charity, I suggest you start funnelling your money into the PPF (Palmer Pleasure Fund). ;-)

So if you feel like helping out a good cause and getting a killer compilation album at the same time, pick up this album! $12.99 at Music World.

Heh heh heh…we all knew it was coming. SNAKES ON A PLANE!!!

We finally managed to go and see this film, and even though Benoit thought it was the worst movie ever (or was that X-Men 3?) we decided that we would embrace this movie in all the goodness that it could provide.

Mike, Vero, Trish, Sena, Jennie, Sophia and Spencer hit up the movie on Wednesday night at the World Exchange Plaza. Because it was a movie that's been out for awhile, it got shifted to the smaller theatre. I would say 100 people could fit inside this room. It was good times laughing at the fact that we were the only ones in the theatre but then two poor souls came in behind us. I hope we made their stay enjoyable.

The movie has everything that is good in this world. Crummy dialogue, bad acting and a whole lot of snake gore. If you can think of any way a snake can kill you, well, it's been done in this movie. I also appreciated the fact that Samuel Jackson's famous LINE from the movie looks so out of place in the entire film considering he is always calm and serene up until that point.

We laughed, we cried, we heckled the screen. I have never been to a movie where a word comes out of my mouth in respect for the rest of the audience, but when the audience are your friends out for a good time to see SNAKES ON A PLANE, you can't go wrong by laughing out loud at the screen everytime a snake slithers by.

Two thumbs up for this movie EXPERIENCE. I say this because most of you will be disappointed if you rent this thinking it's a good movie. It's a really good B-Movie. Watch it with friends and just laugh!

Favourite Line: "What we need to do, is make a barrier between US and the SNAKES!" - Captain Obvious himself, Sam Jackson.

On another note, Trish gave me my belated birthday gift which turned out to be a sweetass thermos with a picture saying "I *heart* Thermos Dogs!". Ugh. Trish grew up on Thermos Dogs (as opposed to what she writes in this blog entry, which describes thermos dogs.). I don't think she'll ever convert me, but I'm glad I have a trusty thermos to carry them in, in case of an emergency. Thanks for the ingenious gift Trish!

So after a grueling 1.5 hour drive where I contemplating curling up in a ball and sleeping for a week, I arrived in Meaford to a locked door. No problems as I had forgotten to phone up Danny and Carol to let them know when I was going to arrive. I figured they shouldn't be too far away. I proceeded to set up a lawn chair and crack a beer and read my user manual of my recording equipment, but then it started to rain so I moved to the car. The car proved to be a worthy oponent to my own bed at home and I quickly fell asleep.

Knock knock went the window as Carol appeared out of nowhere! They had a good laugh that I was snoozing in my car with a beer by my side. After a shower which refueled the Palmer Machine, we hung out for a bit and jammed with Danny on some tunes. He had just bought these rubber guitar picks from a new music store which were…interesting. I don't know if I would ever switch to them and I'll see if they are better for picking the strings rather than strumming. I passed a few onto Mike and he said the same thing.

We headed over to the Leaky Canoe for some amazing wings, although I must not be used to the mass quantities of wings anymore (due to the atrocious pricing of them in Ottawa) so I could only eat half of my order whereas Carol managed to scarf down some cheese sticks, Greek salad and her entire plate! I was impressed by her show. The Leaky Canoe proved to be an excellent joint for food and drink, coupled along with the token small town drunk passed out at the bar. Beauty.

We then headed back home to jam a little more, relax and then Moe and Tracy showed up to the homstead. Unfortunately the night caught up with me and dozed off during their stay and was feeling pretty rude.

I must admit that Carol and Danny managed to demonstrate that I am losing my memory. They were talking about a camping trip that themselves and me and our friend Angele took back YEARS ago and I really couldn't remember it at all. Then they hauled out the pictures and I still couldn't remember it. This really frustrates me to no end…I had heard that as the years get on, you tend to lose your memory…but I wasn't thinking I would lose my MEMORIES. Bah.

Waking up around 8 the next morning, I headed out to Ottawa where I witnessed a slew of OPP on the 400 HWY, but rarely saw one on the 401. Stopped into Kingston for some Arby's since Ottawa does not have one in town. Unfornately the 401 went down to one lane before Kingston so that wasted 30 minutes of my day. Got into town and headed over to Vero's where I surprised her. Never leave your door unlocked while you're away Vero! Some crazy guy may be in there surfing the Internet!

All in all, it was a tiring weekend, but that was my own damn fault from partying hard and not sleeping much. But I enjoyed the trek around Ontario and I enjoyed the company along the way. A big thanks to the Pelkys, Troy, Connie, Jay, Heather and Shannon, and Carol and Danny for showing me some good hospitality along my trek. You're always welcome in Ottawa when you need a place to call home.

2 o'clock in the morning…not a shabby time to go to bed after a wedding.

However, when you have to be on the road to get to a ferry in South Bay on Manitoulin Island and it's five hours away, it's not an ideal situation to be in.

I woke up and suprisingly felt good. I packed up quickly and hit the road and then cursed myself for leaving the case of beer I had bought for the cottage trip. Hopefully Holly is reading this and brought it back to Ottawa for me!

About 20 kms outside of town, the thoughts of getting sick crept into my head and I realized that I wasn't in the best shape after all. After pulling over to the side of the road and doing the unmentionable deed, I continued on the painstaking trip while having dreams of a nice spot to curl up in and die, like the animal that I felt like.

I arrived in South Bay an hour before I anticipated, hence the travel time was only 4 hours. Even though I was disappointed I could have used that extra hour of sleep, I thanked the heavens I was there, got out, kissed the ground and curled up on the side of the road.

After some seagulls started pecking at my neck, I went to the Pierside Restaurant with my book and ordered the fish and chips which hit the spot. I then took a nap in my car and awoke an hour later when the ferry pulled up.

Now, I don't know how many people have been on a ferry but it is pretty cool. I was wondering how the heck such a small boat takes on so many cars. But they have these ramp systems where they end up stacking cars on top of another (well not literally on top of one another) but it's like a beehive of cars inside and they aren't just on one level. AWESOME!
I decided it wasn't worth it to be on the great waterscape without being outside so I spent the next 1.5 hours outside reading a book or going into the front where the wind took my breath away. I've realized that I love the water and the serenity of it all and enjoyed this part of the trip the most.
Arriving in Tobermory was surreal as there were tons of people roaming the town. Turns out that everyone comes to Tobermory for the last hurrah of the summer (which turned out to be lame as it was raining all weekend). I picked up some supplies and headed to the cottage which Troy and Connie rented off of a friend back in London.

Met Shannon, Jay and Heather (who unfortunately had the wrong address and spent 1/5 hours scouring the dirt roads for our cottage. That would suck large!) and had a few beers until eating some supper. The cottage was quite the scenic place inside and it didn't feel like roughing it at all! I must admit that I don't know if I would like having a cottage up around the Georgian Bay as it is all rock! That was odd considering all the other cottages I've been to have lawns leading up to the water.

Troy and I took the stage and jammed until our fingers bled, along with Jay on some vocal duties who was excellent! All in all, a good jam session with some old tunes that I hadn't heard. Dr. Hook anyone?

We then played Cranium which was hilarity at its best. Highlights of the game were Troy being the puppeteer and myself thinking he was trying to act out myself eating porridge considering my hands were flopping around like a ragdoll. Also, Troy's peacock strut was a thing of legend.

Got to bed around 4 o'clock which was killer as I hadn't had much sleep the night before either. Had some breakfast and then hauled out my recording equipment to show Troy and then realized I never brought any speakers so it was essentially useless. I was not impressed with myself.

The afternoon brought forth two games of urban croquet which is high up there with bocce ball in my books. We had an amazing tour of the woods playing croquet and there were many wars fought on the beach area. One ball actually cracked in half and I don't think the mallets have much use in them after playing in a rough and tumble area such as the one we laid out. Jay ended up taking two wins. I don't think these guys have played a game of croquet this wild.

Thanks to Troy and company for the wild times in Tobermory! It was cool hanging out with all of you, as well as Troy considering the only time we've ever hung out is at family functions. It's good to see family outside of family functions! Advice of the Day people.

I headed out around 3 o'clock to hit up Meaford to go see Danny and Carol. I was pretty tired on this trip as well but luckily it was only 2 hours away. The adventure continues once again!

Drove up to Sault Ste Marie on Thursday with Holly leading the pack after we found each other in North Bay. I've never drive up HWY 17 past North Bay so it was a nice drive with the water on my sides for awhile. Sunset was hitting as we drove by Sudbury and it was weird to have flashbacks of Sudbury pop into my head - like the giant power lines going into the city, or the smokestack.

Holly asked me if I had noticed the moron swerving and braking all the time outside of Sudbury. Turns out that she passed the guy and him and his girlfriend were having some fun in the car which was preventing him from driving correctly. ;-)

We rolled into town around 11 and met Holly's parents. They are very cool people and it was odd to walk into the house and feel comfortable with the surroundings. Usually if I'm in an unknown environment, I am on the defense - say the right thing, act the right way. Here, I just sat back on the couch and chatted. Holly's mom actually reminds me of her. They have the same laugh!

The next morning a super breakfast was prepared and Holly's dad introduced me to the health wonders of garlic. I chomped away on a piece and boy did it hit me hard! I would like to think that I'm chock full of anti-cancer agents that night. Unfortunately for everyone around me, I had eaten a piece of garlic. Holly was not impressed.

We did a quick tour of the Sault which is a pretty cool place. We then got dressed up, went to the church (just in time to zip in front of the bride!) and sat down next to the Masse family. The wedding was nice…Adam and Nichelle's son Blake was ripping around the church and when the vows were about to start he had tripped and smacked his head so the vows I heard were something like this:

Adam and Nichelle's lips moving: WAAAAHH!!!! WAAAAAHHHH!!! AUUUGHHHHH!!

So I hope they said something nice during their vows.

Went back to Holly's place for a beer and I hooked up their surround sound system and DVD player as they had just unpacked it. Headed over to the Watertower Inn where a great meal was had with great company at my table. The wine was flowing pretty nicely into Maureen and my glass that night! She was having a good time for sure.

DJ was decent although he didn't fulfill either of my requests. Strike one and two boy. All in all, a good time at the wedding and it was nice to see my friends in a different setting.

We ended up rolling into bed around 2 in the morning which was unfortunate as I had to be on the road by 7 to catch a ferry to Tobermory. Onto the next adventure...

• Baby Desgroseilliers actually has a name now and it is Philippe.
• Held my first baby the other day. Pretty cool. It moved around a whole lot.
• Meeting up with Holly ended in disaster. She somehow didn't hear me say that we'll meet at the Tim Horton's in Deep River, but instead, thought I had said "Deep River" and that's it. Hence, we waited in town for each other for 20 minutes and we were 100 meters apart as she figured she would wait at the Subway. We ended up meeting at the Mr. Gas in North Bay where Holly blew a gasket. ;-)