Palmer's World

Spook yer socks off ladies and gents! It's the night of Ghouls and Goblins and we're not talking about your girlfriend here (except for you Bobby. Get your girlfriend some help.)

This year, the Hallowe'en bug didn't really hit me at all as my Ghostbuster costume idea didn't come to fruition AGAIN (2 years in a row) but I am hopeful for next year. I am also a fan of making a scary costume…so I have my second calling as Vero's friends are having a Hallowe'en party this weekend. Yay! I think I'm going to go all out and zombie-fy myself.

Anyhow, in true spooktacular fashion, I present some essential Hallowe'en goodies that you need to immerse yourself in.

Candy and Kids - Nowadays, as most of us reading this blog are adults, it's time to up the ante. We can't go around getting candy, so we need to do the next best thing - scare the bejeezus out of the little ones. My memories fade back to how scary it would be when Nanny would pop out her teeth. Now that was a fright! Tonight, I have ambitions of hiding inside the giant hill of leaves that I have yet to take off the lawn. In reality, I will probably just hand out candy from the safety inside my house while watching a horror flick.

Horror Flicks - Come on people. If you're too scared, you don't deserve any candy. I'm a big fan of the horror genre, so I present to you my all-time faves:

• Evil Dead/Army of Darkness - I am scared of the woods at night, it's no secret. So this just makes me wet my pants when watching it. However, when you get farther into the movies, they just get hokey which is awesome because Bruce Campbell is the greatest actor alive. He is the true B-Movie actor.

• Hallowe'een - Move over Freddy and Jason. Mike Myers was the cool stoic one walking around like nobody's business and slashing you with that big kitchen knife. One of my personal faves of the whole bunch.

• Blair Witch Project - Alright, alright. I know, it isn't that scary. But it is if you're scared of the woods at night AND if you don't know the secret behind the movie (which won't be spoiled here on Palmer's World.) I was blown away when I first saw this movie a few years back. This movie will make you cry out 'Mommy!'

Costumes - All costumes must adhere to the principles of good Hallowe'ening while at the same time, provide a balance of practicality. For example, if you're going to wear a pumpkin on your head for the event, leave enough room to stick your beer bottle in there so you can keep hydrated. No one likes a dehydrated pumpkin head. Let it also be known that there is no excuse for not having a costume ready by the day you are actually hosting a party. That's just poor form. A bathrobe does not count.

Practicial Jokes - Hey, there's a Gremlin in every bunch so it's good to lay a joke out here and there on Hallowe'en. My personal fave is when you slash your buddy's tires and when he gets up to go to work, there is a look of horror on his face. This, my friends, is what it considered a great practical joke. Or, the old burning of the front yard tree goes well on Hallowe'en also. I'm not a fan as of this joke alltomuch as there may be squirrels starting to collect their nuts for the winter.

TV Shows - Hey, we all love the Great Pumpkin. Krista tipped me off that this would be playing last Friday so Vero and I caught it on TV. Vero was very thankful she found out what the big deal was all about.

I hope everyone has a good Hallowe'en, and I hope that everyone makes an effort to watch SOMETHING that is spooky.

I never realized how much cancer really sucks until now.

We'll miss you.

I wish to build this.

http://pervivere.blogspot.com/2005/09/holly-shelf-unit-batman.html

I just started watching the HBO mini-series Band of Brothers. This is pretty good series so far. Follows "Easy Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, U.S. 101st Airborne Division" (taken from the beloved Wikipedia.com).

I like the cinematography of the series so far - looks like the camera operators were in the trenchs with them documenting the series of events. Considering Tom Hanks and Steven Spielburg produced this...I'm thinking this came about after making Saving Private Ryan?

Mike and I just watched Episode #2 last night which really got into the action. Some of the stuff that goes on is just heart-wrenching. Sometimes I wonder if any of it really happened. It's a little surreal to think about the World Wars and what was going on. I applaud anyone who served our country in the past and present, and heck, why not the future too!

One of the scenes that really got to me was when Easy Company were walking by some POWs and Malarkey made some snide comment but one of the POW replied in English. Turns out that the guy is actually from the United States from a town very close to Malarkey's hometown but because his parents immigrated, there was a call to 'return to the Fatherland' to fight. So here he is, a man born and bred in the States that has to go fight for the opposite side. Then, he gets killed. Dang. That really hit me. I never even fathomed that stuff like this happened. Granted, some of you are probably history buffs and know a heck of a lot more than me about this stuff. I can't say I'm that big of a history/war buff, but I like my occasional dose of it.

Anyhow, Mike was saying how his friend actually filmed veterans while working at Veteran Affairs so I'm going to take a look into what it takes to get an interview. Troy had me intrigued with his thoughts of interviewing Uncle Billy someday about his memories of the war.

Saturday brought Vero and I over to Eric and Annie's place for a raclette which is essentially a grill on the center of the table and throw meat on it to grill. Then you have these little pans that you can fill up with cheese, veggies, garlic butter..whatever you want, and put it in a spot underneath the grill so it grabs the heat from the grill.

This was amazing! Consider it the Quebec version of the fondue. Meat and veggies, you can't go wrong. We were treated to the best of the best - moose, fish, pork, sausages, shrimp…mmm boy! I think there was a little too much prepared for us to cook, but I'm sure they won't mind eating the rest of it during the week!

Got to see Philippe also. I don't know much about kids, so I'm unsure a child who has only been around for a few months now reacts to much. He doesn't really react when I'm making zany faces at him. Perhaps his vision isn't all there yet? Either way, he has broken down the shield of Palmer and I can admit the kid is cute. Plus, he has cool hair.

Thanks to Annie and Eric for the amazing times!

After introducing Eric to Borat and listening to some tunes, Vero and I headed downtown to Chantal's place for her birthday party which for the most part - consisted of me in a room full of ladies watching the Carmen Electra Strip Tease Instructional Dance Videos. Do I complain? Heck no! Some guys did end up showing up which brought somewhat of a balance. Good times were had and we then headed out downtown but everywhere we went had lineups. Poor Palmer had to go to the washroom so ducked into the Chateau Lafayette to use the facilities. I was in for a treat! I haven't been in the Laff since my first year moving here….9 years ago now. This place has changed! I remember it being a grimy old bike bar which served Kraft Dinner on the menu as an appetizer! I definitely have to go check out this place in the future.

We ended up at Helsinki Lounge which was a good time and the tunes were good. I enjoyed Helsinki as it had this 'out-of-a-movie' vibe to it.

Last night I popped in a movie that Mike had rented and said was pretty good. I hadn't popped in a movie in awhile (what's wrong with me? I think it's my mass television show watching that takes up my time nowadays) so I figured if I wasn't into it, I would just shut it off.

Well, was I in for a surprise. Lucky Number Slevin has everything I like in a movie. Intriguing characters, not your general storyline, and good dialogue.

At some points I even though the dialogue was reminiscent of our favourite Tarantino movies. Not really having to do with much, but amusing nonetheless.

The movie revolves around Slevin, who shows up in town to stay with his buddy Nick Fisher but when he gets there, he is nowhere to be found. Unfortunately for Slevin, he is mugged on the way and has no ID, hence when some thugs come looking Nick Fisher to pay back some gambling debt, Slevin can't prove he isn't Nick Fisher so he gets brought to the 'boss'. The boss wants him to do something for him to remove his debt and then chaos ensues.

While this may be the setup of a serious action flick, it's really a dry humour comedy. Josh Hartnett's (Slevin) repartée with everyone is amazing and I wish I had his aloofness. He claims he has some condition called adorexia where the person doesn't worry about anything. So it's pretty funny when this 'boss' comes to him asking him to do some pretty major stuff and Slevin really doesn't get concerned about it. He just shrugs and tells them that they have the wrong guy but realizes resistance is futile.

Big, big, big actors in here - Sir Ben Kingsley, Morgan Freeman, Lucy Liu, Josh, Bruce Willis…you can't go wrong. Man, I love Bruce Willis in these roles. He's the laid back guy who just has this air about him.

For anyone who has seen this film, I had a feeling I knew what was going on since the flashback in the beginning of the movie. Call my bullshit if you will, but I had the feeling. Not like when Mike thought about something that happens after the credits in X-Men 3. He totally checked out the spoilers on the Internet for that thoughtstream.

Two big thumbs up for this flick. Catch it and you won't be disappointed. I send this post out to cousin Shawn as he and I have similar taste in movies and I thought about him while watching it.

I was just talking to Larisa and she was talking about one of her friend's having a baby. I didn't even realize that these two were expecting, let alone have a three month kid in their midst!

This is why everyone needs to have a blog. So I can keep up on the news of the day. ;-)

All joking aside, it's random when you get news that people that you know but have lost touch have had a baby. It's like "Whoa. I went nine months not even knowing this?". Same thing happened at Shannon and Maureen's wedding when I stumbled upon Brian and Julie. At first I'm thinking "Hey, who's kid are they looking after?"

On Friday night, Vero, Mike, Claudine and I headed out to Hull to check out a play Vero's friends were in. The play was called 'La Soif de l'or.'. We arrived at le théatre de l'ile which is right across from the hotel I swim at. It was a very nice theatre, but I swear I could hear the airplanes going overhead through the log roof.

Anyhow, the story revolves around a mining town where something has gone awry (aka, someone getting killed), as well as talks of the mining company shutting down some jobs in the area. All in all, I really enjoyed this play and I recommend people go to it if they have the chance. I had a good laugh when I realized who Vero's friend was as she had changed her hair colour. She was the token 'lady' of the streets in the play which was funny considering she was dressed up the same way I saw her the last time.

Unfortunately, I didn't catch the last part of the play where they revealed the big plot twist. The reason of this is due to Mike, or should I say, Mike's spicy sausages for dinner. Right near the end of the play where the most dramatic part is about to come up, there is silence, there's no music, someone is whispering and then it happens.

Mike's stomach grumbles in what sounded like a a fart. In a silent theatre, it sounded like the cry of a wildebeast, or more appropriately (for Maren), a coyote howl.

As I had visions of remaining calm and respecting the actors on stage, I let out a little snicker. That started the cavalcade of laughter between Vero, Claudine and I. You know when you're trying not to laugh because you're in a quiet room and not trying to disturb anyone so all you do is have this silent laughter and once in awhile your vocal chords let out a little girl laugh? Well, that's what was going on. I felt bad for the people in front of us having to deal with our laughter.

The problem was, it was one of those times in life where I couldn't stop laughing. No matter how much I tried, it just came back to me. As I type this three days later, I am still laughing. Anyhow, I had to leave my seat to not bother anyone else. But then the play ended thirty seconds later so in hindsight, I should have just stayed there.

Anyhow, I'd like to put a shout out to Mike for giving me one of the best laughs in awhile. Claudine even commented that she hasn't laughed like that since she was a kid.

After the play, we headed over to Carrie's and Holly's place for a little get-together which was great. We brought over a portable record player and put on a record that Danny had found at a garage sale. All it has on the cover is a naked woman and some German wording. So we figured we would ask Philipp what it was all about. Hilarily enough, when he saw it, he was having a good laugh as the entire album was some sort of pornography record from the 70s. We all had a good laugh listening to it with Philipp translating. Not a bad purchase Danny! We even went onto Ebay to see how much it was worth and found it for $10 in Yugoslavia. That album gets around!

Good times were had at Carrie's and Holly's - got to check out Holly's new bed, walked around in a lab coat for awhile and witnessed the marvel which was Carrie's new remote control farting machine. That thing was great, but not as great as Mike.

For the past few weeks, I've been reading an autobiography of Stompin' Tom Connors, whom if you don't know who he is, check yourself out the door as a Canadian and remind me to call up Citizenship and Immigration Canada to change their immagration tests to include a question about the Stomper.

Stompin' Tom is a country singer born and bred in Canada and is the stuff of legend. Hitchhiking across Canada dozens of times, living on scraps, he came to know 2300 songs by heart, hence a performer was born.

The book is based on his recollections of the time spent in his youth before becoming famous. I'm about 50 pages from the end so I figured it's a good time to give a review. The book is amazingly funny as he gives you a glimpse of how it was hitchhiking across Canada literally dozens of times between the age of 15-30. There are quite a few good stories along the way and here's a teaser.

One day a gentleman from Ireland was in Saint John New Brunswick and couldn't figure out a way to Montreal where his family lived due to no money on his person (remember, these were hard times.). Tom Connors decided to offer up the services of showing him how to hitchhike to Montreal. Along the way, they usually took turns knocking on people's doors asking for a bit of food. One day, Tom was walking up to a house and out of nowhere two pies were placed on the window sill, straight out of the oven to cool down. Tom thought about it and made a run for it with these pies, giving one to this Irish buddy and the other to himself. When his buddy was about to chuck the plate across the street, Tom said "Now listen, this lady was nice enough to give us some pies for free, the least you can do is return her plates in good condition." He agreed and took back both of their plates. Well, the front door open and he got a frying pan to the head! Cursing and swearing and chasing him away, the Irish lad didn't know what was going on! Tom was rolled over in the ditch laughing until his sides hurt and the Irish lad was pretty peeved.

Anyhow, the hilarity continues throughout the book, but also there are some sombre times when Tom recounts tales of not eating for days on end which, I can't really even fathom how people functioned. Also, the entire outlook on hitchhikers and the drifters is a fascinating one as nowadays, people seem to disregard these people who are down on their luck, but really, the majority of them are just like you and me - but they have run into some bad luck.

You don't even have to be a Stompin' Tom fan to enjoy these stories! Just know that you're reading about a Canadian icon!

All in all, I really enjoyed this read as it's just stories from the road. It's also funny to see him talk about places I know, such as Timmins and Kapuskasing. If you're into biographies, or just plain old good stories, I highly recommend picking this up! It had me laughing out loud on the bus many times. Thanks to Dad for suggesting this to me.

To whom it may concern,

This letter is in regards to the service we received while having Rogers Personal TV installed within our home.

I had placed an order for Rogers Personal TV on September xx, 2006. The first available installation date on a weekend would be September xx, 8-11 in the morning.

I was dismayed to hear that I would have to pay a $30 installation fee, regardless of the fact that I have Rogers Internet as well as Rogers Home Phone within my house. As a faithful customer who enjoys your products and services, I was hoping that the entire installation fee could be waived. Unfortunately, it could not.

Before the installation date arrived, I received a call indicating that due to network upgrades in my area that the installation date would have to be rescheduled. It is unfortunate that I could not have been told this at the time of booking my appointment.

Upon phoning back to reschedule an appointment, I asked if I may simply pick up a digital terminal myself at a Rogers Store location and install it myself. I am technically savvy and have installed many such devices on my own television throughout my life. I figured that I would be saving Rogers the time and effort to send someone into my house to perform a simple task.

Unfortunately, this was not able to happen, as I was informed that the Rogers technician must ‘test’ the line to make sure everything was alright. I indicated that I already had Rogers Internet so I’m sure the line was fine, however, they insisted that I could not pick up my own digital terminal box. I found this odd considering my friend had already done so the week before.

I ended up scheduling a new appointment for October xx, 2006, 11-2PM. The technicians who came in were in good spirits and proceeded to hook up my digital terminal box and set up the remote control properly for me. I thanked them and they were on their way.

However, as I in the room at the time, I was not witness to any ‘testing’ of the line. One would think that ‘testing’ of the line involves some form of instrument measuring the line, but if ‘testing’ the line only requires the technician to plug the box in and make sure it’s working, then I believe I could have done that myself.

I am not disappointed in the service I received from the technician, but I am disappointed in the fact that it was ESSENTIAL to have a technician enter my home, which required me to ensure I was at home during the time, for him to install a digital terminal box. Considering my own friend picked up it themselves the week before at a Rogers outlet, it is not unheard of for Rogers to allow customers to install the device themselves.

I would ask that Rogers compensate for the service they offered me by offering me two things:

- the installation fee waived completely
- The allowance of the discount on ‘bundling’ my services, without any long term commitment. I failed to notice that there was a clause for receiving the discount if I manage to purchase two or more services from Rogers.

I enjoy the products that Rogers offers me and most of the time, the service. In the past, the customer service representatives have been kind and accommodating to my needs. I would hate to see one bad experience taint the company’s name.

Yours Truly,
The Palmer

----
This one is the doozy. If we can get Rogers to bow down and give us some rewards for the bad service, then I will consider myself an ultimate victor, as pretty well everyone I talk to has had SOME bad experience with this company. Stay tuned!

For those of you not in school anymore, let me remind you of memory tricks for studying for exams.

What's what? You have to remember the five tasks for managers? Why not use the acronym POCCC?
Planning, Organizing, Commanding, ah crap, I can't think of the other two now….hmm…Contribution? Dang, I just checked and it's Controlling and Coordinating.

Clearly my post about how acronyms really help out, hasn't helped out that much.

Holy mackerel, I did 90 laps yesterday at the pool. Definitely a stretch from doing the regular 72. Took me 45 minutes.

I think I figured out that the pool is 25 metres long but I can't confirm that until I get out the measuring stick. I think it's half the size of an olympic size pool.

By those calculations, I swam 2.25 kms. It's good to know if I ever have to take a bet to swim that far, that I know I'll be able to do it. ;-)

I will try and keep the 90 laps up even though it's a long time. But I've been thinking that the 30 minutes in the pool wasn't cutting it considering I don't do much else in the physical activity department so perhaps if I bump it up, it will be for the best.

The problem I have with swimming is that I get bored sometimes. I don't feel in pain from going that long - only when I start. Pain from breathing heavy that is, not any physical pain. So 45 minutes later, I'm just swimming away. I wish that they would come up with some economical water earbuds that would stay in my ears and broadcast wirelessly so I could lose myself in the music.

Faithful readers, what can I do to remain unbored?

After the Trews concert, I wanted to check out one of my fave local bands - For the Mathematics.

Math rock baby. At its finest. Trish joined the crew to head over to Barrymore's (which was Krista's first time!) and we found out the set had just started. Excellent!

Picking up a beer, peering at the stage, I was impressed with the new songs and the old. However, one thing in the night really bothered me.

There were no CDs available at the CD Release party!

Man, that has to be a blow to the band. I felt bad for them. I would be livid. I don't know who is responsible for that royal screwup, but whatever.

All in all, they put on a decent show, but I remember seeing them at Café Decuf a few years back and their show was more intense. It could have been the fact that we were all crammed into a small room together.

Pick up their new album 'We Impend' if you can find it around the area! For math rock fans only.

I just read an article with Steve Jobs (of Apple Corp fame) denouncing the Microsoft Zune and its great ability to pass a song over to someone and allow it to be played three times.

While I have commented on this, I have now started to realize that Microsoft may either be a secret (or inadvertent) genius.

Think about it…let's take the Microsoft Xbox. EVERYONE and their dog knows that you can modify this by cracking it open, adding a chip and voila, done. But what do people need to do with it before all of that?

Purchase it. Purchase an honest to goodness Xbox. Not someone's copy of an Xbox. You have to go out and buy one off the shelf and then lining Microsoft's pockets with cash.

Granted, they lose money on their game sales, but heck, they're still making money on the hardware sold.

Now, if we think about this Microsoft Zune player…how long can we anticipate that someone will hack into it so that we can share songs with EVERYONE, with no play limit at all? It will be genius! Everyone will want a hacked Zune player. People have already hacked their iPod but withiout WIFI, there isn't much you can do in terms of sharing songs easily.

I tip my hat to you Msoft. Clearly, you are not the buffoon I thought you were. However, if you don't know yourself, then I suppose you're just the inadvertent genius.

This movie is the cats meow, loaded with special effects, killer action and a great cast!

Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock star in this high octane action movie trying to thwart the menacing meanderings of one Dennis Hopper (a fan, I am).

So get this. Dennis Hopper is some maniac wanting some money so he bombs an elevator shaft hoping to hold them hostage. But then Keanu comes in and saves the day and it's awesome goodness because Keanu is the man and all is good in the world as he saves the hostages. But then he's trying to save his partner (Jeff Daniels!!!) who is being held hostage by Dennis Hopper but then Keanu shoots him (right in the leg!!!), like WHOA DUDE, chill out! But it stems back to the awesome 'Pop Quiz' line in the movie where Keanu said he would shoot the hostage if need be in a situation to 'take them out of the equation'.

Anyhow Dennis Hopper manages to escape, blow up a bus with some friend of Keanu's on it and then says that there's a bomb on some other bus in the city which…get this…this will BLOW YOUR MIND…

It will blow up if the bus falls below the speed of 50 miles an hour.

HOLY MOLEY! WHAT A CONCEPT! Unbelievable! For a Canadian like myself, I couldn’t even do the conversions in my head…it must be close to 300 km/hr or something like that! I couldn't fathom how it would feel to be on this bus full of people all freaking out. But there is Keanu, keeping his cool (until one part where he freaks out and it's definitely Oscar worthy.)

Anyhow, I couldn't believe the bus made the jump across the freeway gap which was 50 feet across! I fainted after that point because I was jumping up and down wondering what would happen.

All in all, 2 thumbs up for this great action movie. What a gem, and I hope that everyone gets to see this great movie. Sandra Bullock wasn't too bad in it either, although all she did was drive the bus. But she was cute, in a sort of a Sandra Bullock way.

If you're a fan of good movies, you have to watch this when it comes out on DVD!

Years ago, I was the king of comics. I remember every Wednesday going to the corner stores around town (because not all carried the same titles) to track down the newest comic books. I remember there being some cold, cold nights picking up some comic books over at Gizzy's, and sometimes trekking ALL the way down to the Circle (this was a big trek for me back in the day) and getting back to have my legs frozen solid. Sometimes they wouldn't even have the comic I wanted and I walked for nothing. I learned early on to bring some music along and I can honestly say that I was one of those people that even before iPods made it big, I had the tunes playing in my ears while I skipped down the street to pick up my new batch of comics.

The Marvel comics were my faves - Spider-Man and X-Men in particular. I never touched upon the DC Comics - Superman, Batman, etc. Something about them didn't appeal to me.

I have close to 1000 comics to this date and that was from back in the day. I rarely pick up a comic book these days although sometimes I wonder if it would be cool to get back into a series now and then.

The problem with making money off of comic books is that the market is saturated with them nowadays that if you pick up an issue of Spider-Man, chances are, it will never be rare. There will be tens of thousands printed across the world. Nowadays if you want to make money off of comic books, you either sell it when it's hot (oh, why didn't I sell New Mutants #87 when I had the chance!) or you have to buy the rare variant cover editions (only 1000 made!!!) to have it make extreme amounts of money.

But let's think about something for a moment. Curiosity got to me and I looked up random issues that I owned. A few have hit the $15 mark and that's only because they introduced a major key character in the series that everyone liked. But what about a random issue?

I present to you an example of Uncanny X-Men #288. Nothing special happened in this issue and it falls in line with how much it is listed for at the moment. It is worth $4USD.

Now, here I’m thinking "That isn't a lot of cash when I think about." but if you put it into the context of how much I bought it for, that's where things get interesting. I paid $1.25USD (according to the price on the book, not including taxes) so if were able to get $4 from someone for the issue, I would have made a profit of 3.2 times the price paid for it.

Triple the price, you say? I'll take that investment.

Now, I would imagine that the odds of me selling the issue for the listed price of $4 may be a little slim, but to be honest, I haven't checked. I've gone to a few comic conventions in town (one is coming up on October 29th in town here if you want to go) and I looked at some comics I owned and they were in the $1 bin. That was pretty sad considering I lost money on these issues.

Do I care that much about the money? Not really. They provided me with an imagination unbeknownst to many, but only to myself. Perhaps this is where I gathered my quirky personality from. Or my good looks. Chances are, both are true.

So, who knows? Perhaps I'll sell off my collection one day and make some cash from it. But for now, they're good sitting in my closet waiting for a good read (from some kid who respects comics. I'm not passing them off to some kid who has chocolate on their hands!)

This memory goes out to Aunt Lois who was the coolest aunt around when she brought me to the comic book store in Kitchener every time I visited. The problem with living up North is the fact that when you go to a comic store down south, you're in there for a minimum of an hour because you're overwhelmed with the selection. This is definitely not a problem for yours truly, but the adults may become bored waiting in the car for me. Hey, this randomly brought up another memory of us going to Spanish but Dad, Nanny and my sister waited (hey, was Mom there? I don't recall…she must have been) in the car for an hour in Sudbury while I went into the store. Man, that must have sucked, but that just goes to show how cool family was.) Anyhow, back to Aunt Lois…she never complained one bit when she waited for me at the comic store and that's a fond memory I have of her. I really don't know if she had other things to do, or if she waited in the car for me. Hopefully she had other things to do! Anyhow, here's to Aunt Lois. Thanks for making my trips to see you exciting. Not that visiting you on your own isn't excitement enough!

(comment - what's up with the lack of photo uploads? Aka, the Blogger software won't allow me to properly put a picture up? Argh).

Anyhow, here's an early Christmas gift any good man needs. The complete MacGyver series.

iplaying: New York Minute - Mobile (Tomorrow Starts Today)

We all know me. Me doesn't cook that often and when he does, he doesn't do it with flair.

Last night was an exception to the rule when I hauled out some partridge that Dad supplied us with and I went to look for a recipe on the allrecipes.com website.

Click here for the actual recipe that was used.

All in all, the dinner was a success! Bacon wrapped partridge puts a smile on everyone's face. Luckily, I noticed that the burner wasn't turned on for the potatoes or it would have been a very meager meal.

This is Trish's third outing for unknown meals - first there was moose, then deep friend turkey, and now partridge. Partridge is the cats meow if you haven't had it before, although we all can admit that it definitely tastes like chicken, albeit a little tougher to chew in some parts.

After dinner, Krista, Amy, Mike and Trish sat down to watch Heroes. So far, so good. Let's be honest, I will always be a fan of this show, purely for the comic book feel to it.

I also introduced everyone to a little TV Carnage - which is only the best video you can watch after a night at the bar. It consists of random oddities that someone has found aired on TV, edited into a glorious fashion.

Noon hit on Friday afternoon and Mike, Vero and I hit the road to head up North for the weekend. It was an uneventful drive other than the fact that I had realized my iPod has messed up and it had a total of 40 songs on it for some reason. Doh! We also happened upon a man who needed help right outside of Cochrane. We pulled over and asked if he needed any help and he didn't say anything but came running across the highway to our car. At this point I am remembering the time when Annie, Eric and I went to Timmins to see X-Men and we were on a dark highway and happened upon a car off to the side of the road so I parked the car, rolled down my window and asked if they needed any help. They walked right up to the car without saying a word and this is where we all realized that perhaps parking the car wasn't the best thing to do. Luckily, nothing came of the experience and they had just hit a moose so we phoned the police upon hitting Driftwood. But, boy, we're we scared! He could have very well pulled a knife on us or something with my window wide open.

So the memories of that night popped back into my head when the man was running across the highway to our car without saying a word. I was whispering to Mike "Let's just go man!" but it turned out that the guy hit a bear up the road. We called 911 and were describing what happened when Mike drove up the road to see where the bear was. While on the phone, my story of a man hitting a bear with his truck changed to him hitting a dog as our headlights spotted the REAL victim of the car. Poor dog. The 911 operator and I both realized how silly it was that I was on the phone so I stopped that conversation pretty fast.

I headed up to Hearst after dropping Mike off in Kap. The drive was a long one as we lost 30 minutes somewhere along the way. We rolled into Hearst around 11:30 at night and I was dead tired. I found it hilarious that when we walked into the house, Vero's step-mom thought one of her daughter's friends had showed up to the house at the late hour and didn't realize it was us in the doorway as she had just woken up! After sitting and talking we crashed for the night and the next morning, went around town and then went out for some pizza with friends. After that, we headed out to the woods to check out the cottage which was a decent time, however it was raining all day so my shoes were soaked after walking in woods looking for partridge. That night brought forth a great lasagna supper as well as good company. Vero and I then headed out to the local watering hole to see if there was anyone she knew and we stayed there for a bit. All in all, a good trip to Hearst. I was disappointed to hear that the music store was closed for the weekend as there was a closing out sale and guitars were 50% off. I'm not saying I needed a new guitar, but hey, when the higher powers deliver a good deal, you take it.

We headed into my side of the North on Sunday after loading up the car with Vero's bike (which is hoping to visit Ottawa sometime soon) and a year's worth of jarred goods. Got into town in time to attend church with Mom and then headed home to see my sister and hang out for awhile while Mom fixed all my clothes which needed fixing. Mike, Vero and I headed out to Philippe's baptism which was an alright time. It was strange to be in the very church where they got married a few years ago and see all the same players there (minus a few of course). It was a different feeling…baby, us not in tuxedos, Eric with a goatee. I felt like I was in the Mirror-verse from Star Trek.

Headed back home to see Dad who had come out from hunting to hit up the turkey dinner. It was a relaxing time at my parents…watched some movies on TV and ate some turkey. I was happy to see an old 1930s documentary on Abitibi Canyon which Maurice and I had seen years ago while working out there. It is quite hilarious - especially when the Natives canoe by the screen and the narrator talks about the Redskins.

Jammed a little bit with John (read: John played amazingly while I sat and watched.) and had a few beer. John is probably the most amazing guitarist that I've ever met so it is a treat when I get to see what he has up his sleeve. I'm really no calibre compared to him so I must admit that I was rather content to just sit back and watch as his is into the metal solos and I am but a lowly crooner with his three chord rock. ;-) We revelled in our love of Megadeth and reminisced of days gone by when there was a song entitled 'The Pigeon Song'.

The ride back was hell also as it took us longer than thought due to a random one lane bridge, and an accident to contend with. Dropped off a bunch of baby stuff over at Eric's place and headed home where I was anticipating a relaxing night but thought I would be ambitious and install the new version of Xbox Media Center - only for the thing to mess up in my hands and I spent two hours trying to fix it. After that I settled in for some Lego Star Wars action. Oh yeah, and I found a bootleg of the Eric Clapton concert that we went to! Sweet!

Hope everyone had a little turkey this weekend and good times all around.

I thought I would give an update into the life which is mine as to what's been eating up my time lately.

- School - I am currently taking two more courses this semester which are alright. They aren't entirely exciting, but they are required for the Communications field which I am pursuing.
- Work - As always, I work! I am proud to say that as of October 1, I have been part of the working force for 5 years. That is pretty crazy. Unfortunately for me, 3 of those years were spent being a contractor so I'm legitmately with the Government for only 2 years. Boo.
- Playtime - Not much playtime to do many things, but I'm heading out to see the Trews (unplugged!) this Friday night and am hoping to hit up the For The Mathematics CD Release party at Barrymore's on the same night. I dig this local band. If you like The Mars Volta, come check them out with me!
- Travel - It seems like I am forever travelling. I need a break.
- Lego Star Wars - The video game bug has bit me once again. I borrowed (read: stole when Eric wasn't looking) his copy of Lego Star Wars and have been playing it for the past few days. I love the simplicity of it. I feel like a kid again.
- Hallowe'en - We're slowly working on our Ghostbuster costumes. So far, we have some coveralls and a few power bar outlet type thingies (way to sound technical!). Unsure of the next step as we don't want to put our heart and soul into the project, but don't want it looking dinky either.

I have this 2 for 1 coupon from Ferda (yeeha! thanks!) to go see a movie so I thought I would drag Trish out of her hole that she calls an apartment to go see something.

Unfortunately for us, there just isn't anything that really piques our interest. MAYBE The Trailer Park Boys movie, but as Trish said, it's more of a rental. Plus, there's The Departed which I really would rather watch the original incarnation (Infernal Affairs) before seeing this flick.

Is the fall the lowest of the low time to check out a flick?

Instead, we have decided to munch on some partridge tonight. Thanks Dad! If anyone cares to drop by the homestead to watch the first two episodes of Heroes, it will be airing tonight at Casa Losierpalmer.

Wanted: Some Advice on Tires.

I don't know if I need new tires or not, but I'll run into Canadian Tire one day soon to measure the wear on the tires. It looks like the treads are starting to wear down so I figure before the winter hits, pick up a new set of all-seasons to last me for the next few years.

Here's my question for you all - Where's a good spot to buy tires? Should I be looking into used tires? What about new? Should I be hitting up Canadian Tire, Wal-Mart, Costco, the dealer?

Is it all about the price point or are there some tires that just plain suck?

Aid out Palmer in his venture to discover more about tires!

Yesterday brought me to my favourite restaurant on Earth - St-Hubert. I recounted a tale of how I love St-Hubert from our trips down to Gaspé every summer and we would stop at St-Hubert along the way. It was a virtual unknown restaurant in Ontario, and if someone is reading this right now and thinking "Wha???" it's like Swiss Chalet, but SOOOO much better.

We arrived for Jennie's farewell lunch (she is a lucky duck. She got TWO going away lunches!) and ordered. I ordered the quarter chicken breast (which is poitrine in french for all those at the table giving the lady a blank stare when she came up with the food orders. I bet some people wonder how I knew poitrine is French for breast. I learned it from St-Hubert!) which was delish but I wonder if I could have handled the half chicken order. After scarfing down Sena's leftovers, I realized I could have.

Mike came in later and decided to just order some take out. Here's where my rant begins. My bill came out to $16 with a ginger ale and taxes (not including the 1/2 cake I picked up for Jennie). Mike's order came out to $6.78. What the heck? Turns out that you get the 'cook's special' which is either a quarter leg or breast (cook's choice) as well as all the other good stuff, along with a drink and a chocolate bar!!! AS IF! I could care less for the ambiance of the restaurant, I just want my food! Clearly, I paid double the price just to sit down in their restaurant. I will never again eat inside. It's curbside for me boys!

Whew…does this mean I don't love St-Hubert anymore? Heck no! It has glorious chicken, fries, SAUCE SAUCE SAUCE and the obligatory coleslaw and hamburger bun to wipe up the sauce with. You can't go wrong with that combination.

But next time, I'll take it to go please.

I stumbled upon a VERY interesting article on how CDs are being mastered loudly nowadays as opposed to the CDs/LPs of yesteryear and they are in fact annoying the heck out of everyone.

Click here to read the article. If you're not really into music, or the technicalities of music, you probably won't find this article interesting. It's a long read, but informative.

It did however, remind me of why I never wanted to convert my music to MP3s. It makes everything bland. I think I'm going to start using my CD player again. In fact, I have found that if I have a new album I prefer to listen to it on the CD player in my car rather than my iPod. There's just something better to it.

iplaying: Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol

Read this article for the lead in to my rant.

Alright, so the 'so-called' iPod-killer is around the corner. Let's see what they have to say about it.

Market Forces - Face it Microsoft. You're the proverbial dodo bird. Dead before your time. Sure, you have a vast market share over the world with all your other products, but it's going to take some time to crack the stronghold Apple has on the MP3 player market.

Sharing Fever - Hey, now this is an interesting concept. At first I didn't think Microsoft would go the anti-piracy route and allow you to share files wirelessly. I was semi-right. Upon further investigation, they have a three day/three play rule when nabbing a file off of someone (whichever comes first). I do enjoy this feature regardless because it's always cool if someone can say 'Dude, check out this band I like!'. Bravo to you M.Soft. The funny thing about this is that we all know that someone will break the copy protection and this will probably be the main selling feature of the Zune. Much like how I bought an XBox because it could be 'hacked'.

More Content, Bigger Screen - Uh, did I just read on another site that the videos they offer won't even be filling the entire screen, they will just be the size of an iPod screen? Oh Microsoft, way to disappoint.

Surprisingly Cool - Yes, as in its not a hot item to purchase. That's why it's cool.

I think that if Microsoft released a competitor against the iPod, let's say, 2 years ago, it could have been a contender. But SOOOO many other MP3 players have tried to compete and it just doesn't work. However, I must admit that some of the features have me drooling (Wi-Fi? Sharing is cool albeit, even cooler if they get rid of the three day/three play), but we'll have to see what happens when it comes on the market.

Yesterday provided me with ample opportunity to sit down and relax. With school starting up, this is a rare occurrence so I embraced it with what I enjoy the most. Sitting myself down on the couch and checking out some TV shows that I downloaded. Keep in mind that I may have subconsciously left a school assignment on my desk at work so I wouldn't be able to work on it this weekend. ;-)

I could probably have an entire entry dedicated to a review on the TV shows I've seen, but I'll just keep it short and sweet.

Star Trek: Enterprise - Hey, I know this has been off the air for a few years, but I somehow missed the last six episodes so while at Joe's this weekend, I popped in the finale and took a look at it. AWESOME finale. I really loved how they tied it into Star Trek: The Next Generation. Do I enjoy the Enterprise series? Heck yeah. It was great. Too bad it got cancelled.

Jericho - New TV show here revolving around the town of Jericho and they see a nuclear blast in the distance which hit Denver. Joe, Vero and I watched the second episode of the show so the only thing we had as a recap of the first episode was the two minute recap at the beginning of the episode. The show seemed alright…part of me is intrigued to see who is bombing the States, part of me is saying that the show is kind of boring considering it's revolving around a town trying to find shelter from the fallout. Nonetheless, it is an interesting concept and it has everyone's Johnny Depp lookalike; Skeet Ulrich! After seeing one episode, I would say I'll watch a few others and see if it picks up a little more. Sounds like they may be using the Lost formula in keeping the watcher in suspense.

Grey's Anatomy - Well, I got into this show over the summer - really enjoy the characters and the stories. I was a fan of ER for years so I enjoy the hospital dramas. The good thing about the setting of a hospital is that it brings forth some interesting stories. Oh, what's that? You have a tree that went through your entire body? WHOA! I also laugh at how every patient that comes through their doors somehow has a metaphoric mirror image life to one of the cast members and they say one line that helps out the cast solve a troubling problem that they have been trying to deal with. Quite amusing. Anyhow, I watched the first two episodes and was impressed with the season so far. Get into this show!

Heroes - Maren had suggested this because she knew I am a fan of the comic books. She called this 'a believable X-Men'. It started up really good and I could tell that they really had the comic book in mind when filming the series with the quick pans to action and the focus on character's faces. After watching this show I have to say it's probably my fave of the new batch of shows for the season. This show is AMAZING! It's not geeky, it's a good drama that would rope the comic book hater in. It all revolves around how geneticists say that humans are evolving and they don't know how (aka into mutants), but they'll have random powers like teleportation, the power of flight, etc. There is a solar eclipse in the first episode which may or may not be the catalyst for these super powers. An interesting part of the show is that on their website, they go a little further into the story (making it MORE than a show) as they have some graphic novels showing what happened to some of the characters before arriving on the show, as well as a blog of one of the characters. If anyone has the time for it, the high interactivity level of TV shows is impressive nowadays. It would be like getting a phon call from Carol Burnett telling you what she thought of a certain scene. I highly recommend this show. I will be watching it faithfully this year.

The 4400 - I can't say I know much about this show other than Joe and Trish recommended it to me. I think it's in its third of fourth season right now. It starts off with a slew of people being abducted (perhaps by aliens?) over the past 60 years and then they all randomly (4400 of them!) show up one day from this mysterious ball of light. I've only watched 20 minutes of it, but it seems interesting and we'll be wondering what did happen to these guys. I can't say much more about this show. 20 minutes of it was intriguing, but we'll wait to give it the Palmer stamp of approval once I finish watching the pilot episode.

Friends - Why did they have to cancel this show? ;-) Only my favourite show ever. I downloaded Season 10 and was having a good laugh with Mike yesterday when we watched the episode where Joey visits Monica and Chandler's new pad.

I hope this gives you a little heads up to the shows people are talking about so you can get a better sense on whether or not you wish to check them out for yourself!