Palmer's World

The night before Hallowe'en, Mike and I did a tour of Bank Street after work where I stumbled upon a rare find - a record store which actually had NEW vinyl! I am very excited at this prospect as I have been searching for one over a year now. We also hit up a couple of comic stores along the way. I was interested to see that Silver Snail offers their comic books at US prices instead of the CDN price. Viva the smart retailers!

We then went to the Manx Pub which we have heard about over the years but have never visited. It was a very cozy place and wasn't too loud. We had a few drinks until Carrie showed up and then we ordered dinner. Carrie and I ordered the lamb/curry wrap from a suggestion from Krista and it was delicious. I would definitely recommend the Manx Pub to anyone.

We then headed towards the Ghost in the Gallows tour which is a tour where they take you to the old prison in Ottawa (aka, now the Ottawa International Youth Hostel). In all the years I've been here, I've never gone on the tour so the Halloween time was the best time to go!

We met up with Vero and Mel, had some hot chocolate and started walking with the group towards the prison. Stopping along the way, our guide recounted tales of how Darcy McGee was assassinated and how the ghost of the murderer haunted the old prison house.

The old prison house/hostel is quite the archaic place. It was odd to see a bunch of youth hanging out there as it was a hostel, whereas we are a group of people traipsing along hunting for ghosts! We checked out a few old prison cells, heard about the ghosts that have inhabited them, heard about how the top floor has been shut down due to hostel-dwellers being freaked out by ghosts appearing in the middle of the night…it was all very fun. We also saw the gallows with the noose and while the guide was talking, the steel floor let go beneath it with a BANG! It gave us all a fright and she was very concerned as that never happens.

Well, at least that's what she said. We had heard a scream and a bang when we entered the building and so a few of us thought it was part of the act. I would like to believe in the ghosts myself.

We grabbed some hot apple cider and toured a little more and the tour was over. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I believe the others did as well. I am anxious to go on the other haunted walk in the future as it takes you around various locales in Ottawa that are haunted.

Highly recommended!

I must admit that this article indicating that Ontario has busted over 1000 offenders for speeding over 50 km/hour over the speed limit has me surprised. I can't say I've ever sped to that degree so it surprises me that there are quite a few people who do.

On another note, why doesn't the law make some ludricous fines to ensure people don't do this? For example, instead of confiscating their vehicle for a week, take it for three months! A year even! Fines should be increased to a point where they will be paying out of their ass for quite some time!

I don't think there should be a balance when it comes to laws…they should be in extremes…low extremes for things like underage drinking and smoking marijuana…high extremes for murder and drinking and driving. I understand the concept of rehabilitation so why don't they have the concept in some laws that the first chance is all they get and then afterwards, nothing goes?

http://www.canadaeast.com/news/article/112066

I've realized that I no longer take a lot of pictures with my own camera as there are a gazillion going around at parties I go to. However, this puts me in a conundrum because my entries are not photorific! However, Joelle sent me this nice snap of Vero and I. Please note that Vero went as Charlie Chaplin's Mistress. I don't know about you, but if my mistress dressed up like me, I would think that would be odd. ;-P

Saturday was the most laid back day in the Universe. I literally rolled over in bed, grabbed my laptop and read some comics. Then I rolled out of bed, went downstairs and watched TV and read comics. It was raining outside so I couldn't do any of the work I had intended to do outside. Faithful readers of Palmer's World, fret not! I can still accomplish much sitting around and doing absolutely nothing around the house on a rainy day! Especially when lunch is being served in the form of beans and weenies. Why am I hooked on that stuff? It's my Saturday lunch treat lately!

Mike finally got me out of my laziness when he started getting his Hallowe'en outfit ready and wanted me to rip off the sleeve of his suit to zombify it. Seeing that I had always wanted to do this to someone I jumped at the chance and pulled with all my might. Let me tell you now that either I'm really weak or it's impossible to tear of a suit jacket sleeve without some help (read, a knife). We managed to mangle his outfit after some good shredding with the knife and it was looking pretty darn good. I got the Hallowe'en spirit in me and proceeded to try on my outfit.

In true zombie fashion, I had a low key outfit because I wanted the focus to be the zombie portion. So I dressed up as a golfer, along with an Arnold Palmer vest I found at Value Village.

After picking up Vero and getting dressed I realized that we all had some pretty slick outfits on this year. I was very excited to go to Duncan's party as it was a zombie-themed party and I think themes at parties are hilarious (hence, my Christmas sweater theme at my Christmas parties).

We headed over to Rob and Janice's where the action was happening in the form of 16 kids running around like maniacs hocked up on a sugar rush. Awww yeah! This is what Hallowe'en is about! I must admit that they did a great job on decorating the place, including the haunted house/room in the back corner. I had a great time acting like a zombie with the kids and indulged in the kids needs for a little wrestling as I fell to the floor and they zombie-piled me. This was all good fun until some kid in the back proceeded to stomp on my leg! Hey, that's not cool! So I asked him to stop that and later on he proceeds to grab a box and pummel my face with it! This kid has anger management issues, clearly.

After some good cake and the parents picking the kids up, we helped clean up a little and headed on our merry way. Vero and I gave Ryley his birthday gift which I think he liked. Some people find it strange that I give Ryley his birthday gift on Hallowe'en instead of in January but I figured it's cool. Hallowe'en is such a great event, why not couple it with a great gift every year?

We picked up Joelle and Martin and headed to Duncan's. Hey, Duncan's place got new tiles in the kitchen! If no one knows this, I lived at his place for quite a few years when I first moved to Ottawa. The place was decked out Hallowe'en grandeur although I must gripe about something.

I don't know if it's because people are too old, or they are lame, but I have to wonder about the lack of zombies at a zombie-themed party, INCLUDING THE FREAKING HOST! Not cool. In total, there were three zombies - Mike, me and Trish. Although I'm sending some kudos to Alex who surprisingly looks a lot like Deaner.

There were some good eats and the wine was a-flowing and we loaded up some good old pictures from Hallowe'en yesteryear which Duncan projected onto the wall. There weren't as many people as years past but we still had a great time. Although I need some Monster Mash to appear at every Hallowe'en party. Duncan, take note!

After some debauchery, the night ended and we hightailed it for the East end of the city and crashed for the night while my head swam in a sea of wine. Wine Likers, take note: I tried the new Farnese…argh, I can't remember the name of it…it was labeled as NEW at the LCBO. Anyhow, it was great. I enjoyed it.

Sunday brought a nice day and a bad hangover. The deadly combination - where you know you can't laze around and do nothing all day because there is work to do. I got Vero to help me with putting caulking around a few leaks in the eaves trough that has been plaguing my house for a few years now and never were properly fixed. Vero is excellent on the applying the caulking. I also threw some roof tar on the roof in a few spots. Now all I have to do is put the patio furniture away before the snow hits and I can consider the house fit for the winter. Unfortunately, my painting of the garage door and front door is 95% complete and will have to remain that way until the Spring as it is too cold to apply another coat of paint on the front door. I'm kind of disappointed, but it's not that big of deal. I'm proud that I adhered to my housework philosophy - get it done, but don’t kill yourself in the process. However, I'm thinking this may be attributed to sheer laziness?

iplaying: I'm Going Down - Bruce Springsteen (Born in the USA)

On Friday night, we headed over to Benoit's place (which, coincidentally, is defined as the greatest place in the world) to watch some horror films to continue our thirst for blood and zombies.

First up was 28 Weeks Later, the sequel to 28 Days Later which showed a desolate London, England which has fallen victim to the Rage virus - a virus which spread amongst the population and created maniacal zombies which stopped at nothing but carnage in the form of eating innocent humans. The film's hero awakes in a hospital and tours around London to find that there is NO ONE LEFT. This haunting film follows his quest to find survivors and to escape the zombies only to find out that sometimes you don't know what's worse - the zombies, or the surviving humans.

28 Weeks Later takes place 28 weeks after the original outbreak of the virus when all is seemingly well in London and the city has started to take refugees back into the city under strict US Army supervision (because the English army has been wiped out?). There are quarantine zones as they go through and clean up the mess left behind but two kids go into the quarantine zone to find their old house and get some things (clothes, etc). I don't think I'm ruining anything concerning the film when I tell you that once again, the virus has an outbreak and zombie terror reigns but it's coupled with the insane actions of the US Army to control the situation.

In the end, Benoit was saying he enjoyed this film more than the first. I have to say that I at least think it's on par with the old one, but upon future viewings it may become better. It's an excellent sequel - an original storyline about what happens after the outbreak. The zombies are my favourite variety of any series - hyper-fast, crazy in their feedings of the living, spitting blood…BEAUTIFUL!

My only gripe of the film was the fact that they used this one driving tune (In The House - In A Heartbeat by John Murphy) that appeared in 28 Days Later EVERY TIME WHEN THE ZOMBIES WERE RUNNING AROUND! While I really enjoyed this driving guitar song which raises your anticipation of chaos, I would like to think that they could have found some different music to place inside the film instead of having it happen 20 times in the movie. Come on people! There was also this one ludicrous scene where a zombie survived the napalming of the city, but that's a minor irritant.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED and I would have to say (this doesn't come from me often), it may win the BEST MOVIE EVER award from yours truly.

Next up, we watched Hatchet. I had seen an advertisement in Vice Magazine for this film and also checked out its Wikipedia entry where it said it was an official selection for many film festivals and had sold out around the world. I guess it is a great film so I downloaded it for our viewing pleasure.

Don't bother. This film was awful. AWFUL. It's one of those films which are so bad, it's good! I can see myself watching this again just to have a laugh. While I thought the death sequences were over the top, that was the only redeeming quality to this film.

Thanks to Benoit and Cinthia for hosting the event at their luxurious pad.

Bonus Review:

It wasn't until someone mentioned Batman this morning that I remembered the greatest part of horror film night - the moment where we put in the original Batman movie with Adam West and watched the scene where he enters the ocean and exits it with a shark attached to his leg! His only way out is to club it with his bat-gloves and ask Robin to bring down the shark reppelant. Honestly, it doesn't get any better than that people.

How can such a dark, brooding character be the victim to such an insanely funny TV show?

iplaying: Nothing Else Matters - Metallica (S&M)

Hey Ho, let's go! Another day, another blog entry. For the masses. You are it. The people who come to Palmer's World and crave to hear more from my existence.

Last night I existed on many fronts - I existed on the exercise front where I jogged around the block while stopping into the post office to pick up my smashing new vinyl! I ordered a few Smashing Pumpkins 7" vinyl singles from the UK. Unfortunately for me, shipping from the UK sucks price wise and let's not forget that usually the vinyl is more expensive anyhow…but that's the life we live in when North America isn't friendly to the vinyl collectors.

Later in the evening I picked Vero up from work and we headed out to the Scotiabank Place as we had tickets to the Sens Army event for the night (courtesy of Eric and Annie, thanks guys!). We strolled in there, took our seat on the floor around Row 30 and watched them introduce this year's Ottawa Senators. After much clapping and all around hockey goodness we waited for the first comedian to come on for the night.

Scott Harris came on and we had a good laugh with him joking about being old and a slew of stuff about Tim Horton's which was hilarity. Unfortunately for Vero and I, the acoustics in the Scotiabank Place SUCKED last night. I believe Mike and I were in the same boat one time at a concert where we are in this spot on the floor where the sounds emanating from the stage reverberate back as an echo so the sound is muffled with an echo and it's hard to hear.

It wasn't TOO bad for Scott Harris' set but then the headliner came on (Jeremy Hotz - he was doing this weird thing where his hand always went to his forehead) and we couldn't hear a word he said. Of the words we caught, I just didn't find it funny so Vero and I decided to cut out early.

Unfortunately for us, as soon as we walked ten rows back from where we were, we could hear the guy clearly! We must have been in this echo zone of sound but we escaped it! We still left but it's good to remember for next time - don't sit in the echo zone!

I swore there was a way that you could post private entries onto this blog...does anyone know how to set a posting to private in Blogger?

Thanks.

Last night after a grueling day of training at work along with my regular class at U of O, I headed out to Mike's place for his surprise birthday party (not roommate Mike).

When I arrived I noticed the lights were off which tipped me off that Mike had not arrived yet which scared me because I didn't want to be in his driveway when he showed up!

In the end, he was surprised, everyone was happy and cake was served. Along with pizza and sushi. It was a good night to chat with a bunch of people I haven't seen in awhile (like Jen! When's the last time I saw her?!). I heard tales of the upcoming Hallowe'en party, the quest for our Ghostbusters costume ONCE AGAIN falling through the cracks, and a review of the wagon ride to Saunders Farm (which I'll have to try someday).

I'm sure Mike had a great time and fun times were had. Heck, you can't go wrong with people showing up for your birthday.

I am gearing up for my favourite holiday - Hallowe'en! Unfortunately I will be in school for the better part of the night so I won't be able to hand out candies to the little ones. But there will be a wicked shindig at Duncan's (aka my old homestead with me going as a zombie!).

In no particular order, my Top 10 list of horror films to whet your appetite. I shall try and group them into what genre they are in because there are clearly some different genres of horror. For example, slasher horror (where there is a main villain and all he does is kill people), or science fiction horror (where they are battling some evil-doer…usually in space!).

The Shining - My parents picked this up for me as a Christmas gift. I had never even heard of it and we watched it on Christmas morning. Good lord. Those twin girls drove me nuts. REDRUM! Category: Psychological Horror.








28 Days Later - The world, or at least the UK is overcome by a rage virus which makes people into zombie like creatures who just run around maniacally and feed on the living. I personally love this film and it's probably in my Top 3. I just the dichotomy between the first half of the film being about the crazy zombies, but then the other half being about the crazy survivors of the virus. Very cool. I also enjoyed the fact that the zombies aren't really zombies and they are super-hyperactive and can move like the wind. That scares the bejeezus out of me. Category: Newage Zombie Horror.




Hallowe'en - The king of the king! Hallowe'en is always underated compared to Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th, but Michael Myers has a place in my heart. I love the lumbering figure coming across the street with a William Shatner mask and a knife. It's my favourite slasher flick of all…and the Rob Zombie remake was decent, although I must admit I don't need to know every little detail about the childhood of some crazed killer. I want to know as little as possible! Category: Slasher horror.







House of 1000 Corpses - Rob Zombie's first film was a doozy. It nabbed the feel of the old school slasher flicks and it nabbed it well. Pulling from ideas from Texas Chainsaw Massacre and a little sci-fi horror, the film is an excellent addition to the new-age horror genre. PLUS you get to see some excellent death sequences! Category: New-age Slasher Horror.









Evil Dead - I really don't know what I can say about this film that hasn't already been said on this site. Bruce Campbell is the king and Sam Raimi ain't too shabby himself. I have a fear of the woods at night and it is common knowledge that I would be in college trying to watch this film at night and have to turn it off 20 minutes into it because it was so creepy! I would watch the film over the entire week because I couldn't handle it alone in my room. Yes, I am a baby. If you like a film revolving around some college kids going to a cabin in the woods where a supernatural force takes over the living and then Bruce Campbell has to kick some ass…this is the film for you. Honourable Mention goes to Evil Dead II (which, was essentially a remake of the first one) and Army of Darkness (which basically drove the series into slapstick comeday whereas the first one is straight out horror). Category: Supernatural Horror.



Event Horizon - I still remember the first time watching this and freaking out. This was an intense movie and it really messed with your head with the dark imagery and the blackness of space. Morpheus (aka Lawrence Fishburne) appears in this sci-fi horror film where the crew is on the search for a ship called the Event Horizon. Only, when they get there, they wish they hadn't. Category: This one is all over the map - sci-fi, with some good psychological horror with it.








Aliens - Please note the pluralization of Alien. We're talking about the sequel here which was the greatest Alien film there ever was. While I am not denouncing Alien considering it spearheaded the franchise and was pretty darn good on its own, the sequel was just as good. Sigourney Weaver battling some aliens in outer space who have acid for blood…what more can you ask for? Category: Sci-fi Horror.




Blair Witch Project - Ok, ok, you have me. This can't be in the Top 10 list! It's not really that great! Well, it is really great if you don't know what the movie is about. I went to see it on my birthday years ago and had no idea what to expect. I was on the edge of my seat in fear for the entire film and it never let up. It had to do with the fact that it took part in the woods at night. Ack! That's my kryptonite! Documenting a group's search for the Blair Witch, they encounter horrors at every turn. Category: Psychological Horror.



The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: This is, and always will be one of the great films that bring the horror genre up in status. I don't know what's scarier - the chainsaw wielding maniac (Leatherface!!!) or his family. Both are equally creepy. I especially love the sequences where they are filming at night and you can't really see what's happening and all you hear is a chainsaw in the frame. Beautiful. I don't know if that is on purpose or if it was because of the low budget times. Either way, it gave the film an eerie feel to it. Category: Slasher horror.





Friday the 13th Part 2 - Mmm…with some trepidation have I put this film on here instead of Part IV because I really can't remember a lot about Part IV but I do remember it was great. I may have to update this list when I watch it again. Anyhow, this film has the introduction of Jason Voorhees in all his pillow-case toting glory. It has everything I love about the series - Camp Crystal Lake, gratuitious nudity, and some maniac running around killing people. What more can you ask for? Category: Slasher horror.






Haute Tension: Oh ho! The French invade the horror landscape with this truly awe-inspiring horror film! One may say it's the best movie ever! Revolving around two college students coming home for a holiday only to find some random guy coming in to kill the family. It is brutal in every fashion and I honestly couldn’t handle my first viewing while at Katie's cottage one year. I had to leave the room as it was freaking me out too much. But it has turned out to be one of my favourite horror films. I intend to branch out and watch a lot more foreign films, especially considering I heard the Japanese know how to make some good horror. Category: Slasher/Psychological Horror.

In Singapore, there is a dragon boat league.

On this league, there is a Canadian Dragon Boat Team.

My uncle Gerry is part of this team.

While the membership is not entirely Canadian, but more of "Whoever loves Canadians may join this team", my grandmother has created the ultimate team uniform - toques!

Here is a photo of her displaying some of her Team Canada toques! She knit 50 of them but she can't fathom them wearing them considering it is 32 degrees celcius down in Singapore!

I, for one, am hoping to see a photo of the team in action on the water while wearing their toques! That would make the front page of the Globe and Mail for sure!

***update*** Here's the photos!

The subject line was uttered by Christopher Plummer (the actor) yesterday at the National Arts Center. He was receiving an honourary doctorate from the University of Ottawa at the same graduation that Vero was taking part in.

Sunday morning arrived and I got up early to head to a comic book convention. Last time I went with Benoit, I managed to pick up Volume 2 of WildCats which was/is an excellent series that I lost touch with.

I headed down to Lansdowne Park and after scouring the area, I finally found the sports cards/comic book show and meandered around the booths. I have been toying around with the idea of getting back into the comic book world, but more from a 'I want to make money off of it" standpoint. I shall continue my thoughts of the comic scene in a future entry.

After the convention, I went home to get a bite to eat and then headed out to the NAC to watch Vero graduate. Mike was gracious enough to lend me his great digital camera which had me feeling like Peter Parker every time I held it. That zoom is incredible! I was on the Mezzanine level at the NAC and the zoom allowed me to see people from afar easily.

Now, the only graduation I've ever been to have been my own. So, as a guest, it's a different experience altogether.

As in, it's kind of lacking in excitement. ;-)

You're sitting there waiting for one person in 500 to hit the stage. I must admit I enjoyed Christopher Plummer's speech and he compared the graduating students to inmates who were escaping prison. He was a great speaker and had an energy to him.

Another highlight was being witness to the first Aboriginal in Canada to receive a University doctorate. Although, after hearing some employees speak after the graduation about how the claim was not true (or partially true), I'll have to wait to see what the news has to say about it to get the real scoop. It was a moving moment though, I was taking part in history!

Vero finally took the stage and I yelled out a "Go Vero!" but I don't think she heard it. I managed to get a few good pictures of her walking across the stage AND a picture of her shaking Christopher Plummer's hand!

After the graduation, we headed outside to take some photos with Marie-Claude and Jean-Francois and then we headed out to Cam Kong for a bite to eat (hey Cam Kong, when the heck did you raise your prices?!).

I'm very proud of Vero to be finally done her higher education (the first incarnation of it at least). She is the hardest worker I have ever met. There were times where I just looked at her and wondered how she handled it all - school, her job, having an amazing, good looking boyfriend who is also witty and eloquent with his speech…congrats Vero on making it through! Plus you got Cum Laude which the Latin language defines as "with honor" This must mean that she didn't do too bad.

Saturday had me working on finishing the last part of Midterm Madness, a proposal for a research project I'm doing for my sociology class. What's the worst thing about essays? You need to find literature to back your stuff up. Boo! I like the format of your own website where you can spew out garbage that you think is true and people have to believe that you are well informed. Plus, they don't ask for references.

Once I completed that, Vero and I headed over to Eric and Annie's pad to babysit Philippe while they went out to the Sens game. Poor kid had a fever so he wasn't doing much at all. In hindsight, babysitting a baby must be a heck of a lot easier than babysitting kids you can run around because you have to be constantly running around!

In the end, babysitting on my end wasn't much of a success as every time I got close to him, he started crying. So Vero basically took care of him while I sat and watched Forrest Gump on TV (excellent flick! I forgot about this film.) and after we munched on some St. Hubert, we settled gave Philippe a bath, got him ready for bed and then we checked out a Harry Potter film (instead of Transformers. What the heck?! Why do you have to be scared of robots Vero, WHY?!)

I would have to say that I have seen the first Harry Potter film about…5 years ago? But it was more of a film playing in the background at Eric and Annie's apartment so I didn't catch most of the flick. This was the first time I really sat down and watched it.

I would have to say that the film was pretty faithful to the novel (from what I can remember!). I loved some of the choices of actors, such as Robbie Coltrane as Hagrid. He was born to play the part!

It is quite the fantastical film and I enjoyed the depictions of the various elements of the Harry Potter universe - the Quidditch matches, the owls delivering mail…it was all wonderful.

I also enjoyed the musical score created for the film. At one point I noticed that one of the parts reminded me of Empire Strikes Back and lo and behold, I found out that John Williams created the musical score for the film! Bravo!

I am looking forward to watching the rest of the films eventually. Considering the final novel is out, I think I shall re-read the novels, and intersperse the films so I can compare the two. Then I'll be prepared to read the final Harry Potter novel (which I'll have to find somewhere).

Friday night saw the arrival of rainclouds and guests. Mike's Mom and sister arrived at the house as Samantha is in town looking for wedding dresses over the next few days. While one may think this is an exciting venture, Sam has referred to it as "somewhat discouraging". Let's send her some good luck vibes for the remainder of the week!

I headed to the bus station Friday night to pick up Philipp who was coming in from Montreal. Unfortunately for me, his cellphone was broken so he didn't get the message that I was going to be there waiting for him and he ended up getting off at the University of Ottawa and taking a bus to Carrie's place. Doh! I saw some interesting characters around the bus station for that hour, along with a girl who needed to get to Toronto after her boyfriend kicked her out that morning. I don't know if any of that was true, but I gave her 5 bucks. However, in hindsight, I should have recommended she look at a ride board at the University as you can usually find people going to Toronto for $20 (instead of whatever a bus ride costs).

After having some excellent low cholesterol spaghetti and having Carrie's mom jump on the opportunity to tell me how to lower my cholesterol (although, I must admit I disappointed her after telling her what I eat every day!), we settled in to play some Settlers of Catan (or Seafarers of Catan…which is a different version).

Now, years ago, Carrie's family tried to teach me this game and I didn't grasp it and it left a sour taste in my mouth and I never wanted anything to do with it again.

Years later, here I am wanting to give it another chance. I had an excellent teacher with Ken explaining things along the way and I'm proud to say that I think I did pretty good for my first time out. Clearly, I need to think strategically in the future but whatever…it was a good game to play.

Oh! I should describe the game for those readers not 'in the know'. Essentially, the board the players settle onto some land. So in order to build a settlement, you need to have a certain combination of cards - like one lamb card, one wood card, and one brick card. To accumulate cards, you have to be settled next to a piece of land and each piece of land has a number associated to it. Let's say you are positioned between two pieces of land - one with lamb on it, and one with wood and the one with lamb has the number 6 on it. If any player rolls a six, you get a lamb card. So over time, you accumulate cards, which in turn, you may spend to build more settlements, or you can trade them with other players to get what you want. There's other logistics to the game, but essentially every settlement is worth some points and the game goes up to a certain maximum.

Anything you have to put effort into ends up being a good thing in the end, much like Settlers of Catan.

I know there is a faithful following of this board game out there in Palmer's World fan-land. Hopefully I can come play with you soon!

BRB writes:

Hey palmer.....here is an article i read in the paper i copied the top 10
A new book, The Top 100 Canadian Albums, is out today. Read the full article.

What do you think of the rankings? Top 100 Canadian Albums

1. Neil Young - Harvest
2. Joni Mitchell - Blue
3. Neil Young - After The Gold Rush
4. The Band - Music From Big Pink
5. The Tragically Hip - Fully Completely
6. Alanis Morrisette - Jagged Little Pill
7. The Band - The Band
8. Arcade Fire - Funeral
9. Rush - Moving Pictures
10. The Guess Who - American Woman


By the way, me and the wife LOVE your blog. You are witty, charismatic, and probably are pretty darn good looking in life.

***That last sentence was not altered in any way, shape or form by the author of this blog.***

I had heard about this on the radio while trying to take a nap in my car while waiting for Mike to get home yesterday. To arrive at his top 100, [Bob] Mersereau polled nearly 600 music journalists, retailers, musicians and DJs — of all ages — from across the country. The list is based on a tally of their top ten selections. Taken from here.

That's an interesting way of approaching something…nothing is based on record sales in this book. It's all about popularity.

I also like the dichotomy of the older stuff and the newer stuff. It was a surprise to see the Arcade Fire's Funeral album make the Top 10 list of Canadian albums. Sure, they've hit the stratosphere, but have they really sold more copies than Rush's Moving Pictures? Let's investigate.

After 15 minutes of searching for sales numbers, I dug a little more into the concept of the book and it's not based on sales at all. It's based on popularity. Word of mouth…that sort of thing.

ANYHOW, let's get back to the list. Having not heard Neil Young's Harvest album, I still have heard about it's legendary status so I am going to throw this thought out there - it's a well deserved #1 spot. Heck, it's Neil Young people! It's funny how I speak of Neil like I am a big fan. Hmm…I enjoy the tunes I've heard but only own a few albums. That shall change in the near future when the legendary Archives box set is released.

Let's look at the other choices on the list…mmm…the only albums I have listened to are Funeral and Jagged Little Pill. So am I in the position to say 'yay' or 'nay' to the list? I would have to say 'nay'. The choices look about right from what I know of Canada's superstar acts (Hello THE BAND!!!), but other than that, I'm surprised to see Joni Mitchell there. Clearly, I do not know enough about Joni Mitchell to realize she kicks ass in terms of Canadian albums.

Actually, I'm now starting to appreciate the concept of this book. We are talking about popular albums that everyone has in their repertoire. Let's take Michael Jackson's Thriller album for example. While I am not denouncing Michael Jackson in any way (Hello Maren!), his Thriller album is one of the biggest selling (if not the biggest?) album in the world. Now…I enjoy the Thriller album. I am pretty sure I grew up with it in my car on road trips. Do I own the album? No. Do I want to own the album? Maybe…but not a priority. Is it a popular album? Mmm…I would put big money that no one would put it on their Top 10 albums right now (of course I'm talking about an American Top 10 here).

Kind of disappointed to not see the Sam Roberts Band show up ANYWHERE. I would have put them on the list before Broken Social Scene (although I love BSS).

CBC should hold something like they did with the Top 10 Canadians last year. THAT was an interesting survey done across the Nation. Let's broaden the scope on the Top 10 Canadian albums here!

So I put it out to you folks…what's your Top 10 list of Canadian albums? This is a tough one to put down on paper for me, as I haven't been introduced to many classics (like…pre-90s).

In conclusion, to answer the question posed, I think that from the looks of it, it seems to be a solid Top 10 list but I cannot be a fair judge as I have only heard 2 of the albums on the Top 10.

What do you think of the Top 10?

I'm sure everyone has had one of these days. Mine occurred yesterday.

I had my written exam for a promotion yesterday which was grueling. Argh. I couldn't get my head around it. Alright, maybe it wasn't that bad but I was on high gear for the full four hours.

After that was completed and my brain was swollen, I had to head over to the University to get some literature to review for my report which is due on Monday. I'm going to do a sociological report on how women tend to work more in social program/policy areas than men. When I say 'more, I mean in terms of sheer numbers of people, not the load of work they do (although I'm sure there are some theories on that!). So I have to find some literature to back that up.

The problem with this is that at the library, they have a search feature but it's more about searching for an actual journal, not articles within a journal. That can't narrow my search! Plus, when I finally found the link which said "Want to search for articles in a journal?" it turned out ot be a dead link and I tried a few different computers. Knowing that the search function was on their website, I figured I could just log into a computer with outside access and use that…but I needed a user name and for the life of me, I do not know my University user name as I had never needed to use it. Argh!

Tail between my legs, I admitted defeat and decided to go home, search the Internet for my sources and hopefully write my report last night.

On my way home, I pass by Mike in his truck, wave to him and continue on home. When I get to the front door I realize my house key is not on my key chain. Whaaa? Turns out that I had forgotten it in my jogging shorts the other day. I take it off the chain so I don't have to have a ring of keys in my backside while out for a jog. Clearly, this worked against me and I was locked out of my house.

I figured that Mike must be out getting groceries or something so I just sat in the car, read The Lies of Locke Lamora for awhile, then decided to take a nap. When I awoke, it was an hour later and I realized that Mike must be gone for good. So much for my plans to work on my report!

I headed over to Rob and Jan's place where I found a cornucopia of Hallowe'en decorations! Donna was also there which was a nice surprise since I hadn't seen her in a few years. She now has a house out in Carp RIGHT NEXT DOOR to her parents. Imagine that! She gets the bonus of a lifetime - free food all the time!

I hung out at Rob's place until around 9PM when Mike called and said he was back home. I sauntered into the house and called it a night as I was frustrated with the whole ordeal. It was still nice to see Rob, Janice and the kids but in the back of my head I was screaming "Oh man, if only I could have got that report done tonight!"

Case in point - get two sets of keys made and drop them off at two sets of friends close by.

The scoop is…I hate studying. After a disastrous midterm on Monday, I have lost the will to continue. When I say disastrous, I probably got a good mark, but it wasn't due to studying. It will occur from blind luck. What the heck? Here's my beef - So you have a textbook that you read 4 chapters out of. Then you go to class where the Professor lectures on a given chapter pinpointing KEY CONCEPTS for your brain to digest. That's what they are there for right? To point out WHAT YOU SHOULD BE STUDYING?

That being said, considering that my Prof gives us plenty of lecture notes, I studied them. Beauty. I was on top of the world.

In the end, the multiple choice test had nothing really to do with the lecture notes and in the end, turned out to be something that looked suspiciously like it could have been lifted directly from the textbook. Argh! I hate it when they do that. There's only so much a person can study…I can't be expected to memorize 100 pages of text!

So last night, in the midst of cracking the textbook for my other midterm tonight, I finally had enough and had to put everything away. I couldn't do it anymore. Critical Thinking…argh, the bane of my existence. Reasons, conclusions, arguments…who cares?!

At this point it's very important to realize that in the end, I've done pretty well over the years on midterms and everything else, so this is just my need to rant and afterwards, all will be good.

All tongue in cheek aside, I did have a moment of pure creativity where I pulled out the laptop, plugged in the guitar and within the next hour laid down some drum tracks, added some effects and voila! I have a new demo. My demos are just ideas to flesh out a bigger part of a song that will form. I love my recording equipment. It allows me to hold onto these memories. My only problem now is the fact that I was thinking of some lyrics/melody and realized I was humming the vocals of The Arcade Fire's Keep The Car Running. Uh oh. Did I just copy someone's entire song musically? Dang. I'll have to go back and check that out!

In other random news while I just blabber on, I finally got around to ordering the two 7" Smashing Pumpkins singles from their new album Zeitgeist. I'm really starting to like vinyl and I wish Canada had some which was easily accessible. I ended up ordering this from the United Kingdom (where the Pound is double the worth of the Canadian dollar. Yikes!). I figure I got a good deal on the singles, so that's what counts. But I was tempted to pick up the Year Zero album on vinyl, but for $40 + shipping…not really worth it. Does anyone know of anywhere in Canada with some good NEW vinyl for sale?

iplaying: (AntiChrist Television Blues) - The Arcade Fire - Neon Bible

I'm frugal. Here's a great article on when to purchase items during the week to get the most bang for your buck.

http://www.everythingfinanceblog.com/2007/07/for-frugal-mind-cheapest-days-to-shop.html

Alright faithful readers...without using any resources within your power...what's the word linder mean? My Grandmother threw that out at me and I was close but not correct...

When I was at the Loblaw's Superstore with Krista on Friday night, I was killing time when a man asked me if I wanted to get a bone density test done. Heck, why not?

So it turns out that my calcium intake is great…above my daily recommended intake. Score one for Palmer.

However, when they put my foot into an ultrasound machine to measure my bone density, the pharmacist on hand showed me how the results indicated that my bone density was at 79% of what it should be at my age.

Pharmacist: "You don't drink enough milk."
Me: "I have at least one glass a day."
Pharmacist: "Then you aren't eating enough yogurt."
Me: "I have two of those small cups a day."
Pharmacist: "Well, then it's your muscle. Do you do muscle exercises? Like push ups?"
Me: "No, I guess I'll start doing those."
Pharmacist: "Yes, and eat a lot more yogurt."

So in the span of two weeks, I have had the following recommendations from medial officials on how to fix me up:

For High Cholesterol: Eat fish three times a week.
For Low Bone Density: Eat more yogurt. Also, do push ups.

It's just not my week, is it? I mean, I am starting to realize the term 'ignorance is bliss' really is bliss. What irks me the most is that I would understand completely if I thought I was unhealthy and eating crap all the time and that was the cause. But no…the doctors can't really pinpoint a cumulative cause so it seems like they throw out a ludicrous statement like "eat fish three times a week and you will be cured!" and "eat more yogurt!".

In the end, I depend mainly on my good friend, The Dish, as she has a background in nutrition and can help pinpoint some other ideas of what to eat (such as oatmeal. Yum?).

So we'll see how the fight for the Aryan species of the Palmer develops...

Other than that, my Friday night was pretty good. I decided I needed an off-night from studying before the gauntlet so Krista came over and we tried out some old school Nintendo games like Lunar Pool (which she claims is the greatest game ever created, but we couldn't get it to work) and we also ended up watching Grandma's Boy. Not a bad night at all to relax my brain before the big crunch.

iplaying: Say Goodbye (Live) - Dave Matthews Band - The Best of What's Around - Disc 2

Here's an update on all the new albums I've picked up in the last while AFTER I've had a few listens. Short and sweet reviews in some cases as…there's just so much to write!

The Colour and The Shape - Foo Fighters
10 years later, this is the first time I've ever heard this album. I'm just starting to get into Foo Fighters and I've realized I've missed out in the past decade. This album was remastered (read: loudened) and bonus tracks have been added. It's a killer album with those great singles you all love - Monkeywrench, My Hero, Everlong…classic staples of alternative airwaves in the 90s. Two thumbs up and the cover of Baker Street is beautiful. If you don't have this in your collection, do yourself the favour.





Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace - Foo Fighters
Not to be outdone by an album they released a decade ago, Foo Fighters have released the follow-up to In Your Honour (which was a double album - one album hard, one soft). They've taken the elements of hard and soft and applied them to a slew of tracks on this new release. Essentially, Foo Fighters have built the album I've always wanted to create. I love the dynamic of hard and soft within the same song. The entire album is great…no filler tracks here. There's even an acoustic song that has Mike drooling at the mouth for its great solo. Highly recommend this album for rock fans.





Amnesiac - Radiohead
Seeing that it's the fall, I picked up a Radiohead album. This is the follow-up/brother of Kid A which is the beginning of Radiohead's ventures into 'other than guitar' rock. Imagine yourself with digital instruments in front of you and being asked to create some music. That's what Radiohead have done. Upon the first few listens, I believe I like Kid A better than this album. There are some great tracks like Knives Out but overall, I don't think I will be listening to this one all too much. Time will tell.






O - Damien Rice
I picked this album up after hearing him perform before the Pumpkins took the stage at the Osheaga Festival. I liked what I heard from 100 meters away. Damien Rice is chock full of acoustic goodness along with some cello. I listened to this a few times while studying this weekend and it put me in a good mood. Very low key but very cool also. He has the power of song on his side. Plus, he can really rock the dynamic of soft/loud…take a listen to the hidden track Prague for an example. It starts out with something that sounds like he is in some empty bathroom in Amsterdam and then ascends into chaotic madness of your brain literally melting…then it tones back down. BEAUTIFUL! If you like low key players like Jack Johnson, please give Damien Rice a chance.





Into The Wild - Eddie Vedder
Eddie Vedder's solo album which is the soundtrack for his good buddy Sean Penn's new film - Into the Wild. Dealing with the story of a man who left society to live in the wild, the soundtrack encapsulates that feeling of loneliness and utter silence around you in the woods. I have yet to see the film, but can only imagine watching it with this great soundtrack. What a great time to release this album…a walk around the block in the cold chill of the night is perfect time to listen to this album. In fact, there were a few times this week that I left the house for that sole reason. Just to walk out in the darkness and the gripping cold on my breath. A low key album with acoustic tunes thrown about but with the booming voice of Eddie Vedder. Some of the tracks clock in at a minute long as they are used as filler music for the soundtrack but it doesn't make them any less spectacular. Highly recommended.

The Limitless Potential
This was the remixed tracks of Nine Inch Nails that I was talking about last month. I have given it a few listens and while all the tracks are pretty great, I must admit that more variety is needed. Most of the tracks are a remix of the single off of Year Zero - Survivalism. It gets tiring listening to 30 tracks where half of them are the same song, but remixed. I would recommend downloading this album (as you can't get it in the stores) and picking your favourite tracks to listen to. Also, stay tuned for an official release from Nine Inch Nails in the form of a Year Zero remix album called Y34RZ3R0R3MIX3D. For those of you in the know, you'll know how to read this.


The Best of What's Around - Dave Matthews Band
I ordered the Dave Matthews greatest hits album off their website awhile ago because it offered a bonus disc which had the longest live track in their repertoire which was recorded here in Ottawa! I figured I needed it if I were going to get into the Dave Matthews Band so I ordered it. Of course, if you're a fan of Dave Matthews, then this album is naturally a favourite as it is a greatest hits album. I enjoy it. It was a good introduction to the Dave Matthews Band. It was different than I expected as I had only heard acoustic renditions played or heard live tracks (such as Cortez The Killer). There is so much for to the band than a man and his acoustic guitar. This will tempt me to pick up one of their other albums but I don't know if I'm sold completely on the band yet, although I know everyone and their dog love them. I have the same feelings for The Tragically Hip. I enjoy their music, but not to a point of fanaticism.

Jason Voorhees that is. I'm watching Friday the 13th Part 2 right now in preparation for Hallowe'en. I love October when all the scary movies come out on TV. I figured I would just pick up a few films on cheap DVD, but after some research found out that no one has ever released a Director's Cut of a Friday the 13th film (hence, some gore cut out in the films we know now). OH! There goes someone's head...man, if you can see heads flying off of bodies, what the heck did they cut out?

Anyhow, I downloaded Friday the 13th to watch over the weekend. OH, here comes Jason! Who would have thought? Friday the 13th is not a bad series. I enjoyed Parts 1-4 the most. It made for a good whole story but then Part 5 was just stupid and then came Part 6 and 7. I've never seen the later ones because of the lack of goodness going around.

I'm watching these films as background images really as this was the weekend of studying. These are the weekends where I hole myself up inside the house for the entire weekend, crank some study notes out and then study them while having a film in the background. I think I really understand the Sociology class but the Critical Thinking is...strange. A lot of it is common sense but then they have terms which I have to memorize. I hate memorization. I think my brain isn't wired for memorizing things as I always have a hard time with lyrics and always need my lyric book in front of me.

Other than that, I caught up on some X-Men comic books, watched what I ate (cholesterol-wise of course) and just vegged around. I'm going a little stir crazy at the moment but being stir crazy sparked some creativity and I finished a couple of songs I was writing a few weeks ago. The music is down, I just have to apply some lyrics and voila! I think these will be the ones I ship off to Troy and he can think of other ideas of what to do with them (aka, add some lead guitar and think of some structure elements).

Oh oh, don't go into that dark room! Man, what is with the stupid people in horror movies? Oh, at least you are smart enough to bring a knife with you. Or...is that an ice pick? Yeah, that isn't going to be good for anything lady. You know what I like about old school horror films? They were so cheap to produce that they could release one every year! That's a good way to get the franchise going...look at the Saw series. They release a film every year around Hallowe'en. It's something to look forward to. Saw will become like the old school horror films with a great franchise ahead of them - they have classic scenarios that repeat and that's what people like. It's like AC/DC. Everyone loves how it all sounds the same. ;-)

I also picked up a new book on Friday called the Lies of Locke Lamora (sp?). I am starting to pick up some books that Paul and Miguel recommend on The Wolfshack and this one sounded intriguing. I'll let you know how it is.

Veronique did a segment for the Rogers Television show "RegArts", which is a French arts and culture show which runs for 30 minutes.

I just saw it and it was fabulous!

It re-airs a few times in the future so if you were interested in seeing it, it is on the French local Rogers Television station - Channel 23 here in Ottawa.

I am not sure if people outside of Ottawa can see it via satellite dish...I am unsure of how that stuff works. If you do get the Ottawa Rogers channels, it's the French one. Look for the program called RegArts. She comes on about 10 minutes into the show and it lasts five minutes.

Here are the future airdates:
Sunday October 14 - 12:30
Monday October 15 - 9.30, 12.30, 3.30, 6.30

Hope you get the chance to tune in!

Years ago, my friend Andrea pointed out that the fall was the best time to listen to Radiohead. It just has a feel of the autumn in its music. Ever since then, I always find myself walking outside or staring out the bus window while listening to them. I don't have many albums so I picked up their Amnesiac album yesterday as well as a Damien Rice album from the past. I find I have this problem where if I am introduced to a band by a newer album, I rarely appreciate their older works. It must be because they usually are worse because with each new album a musician advances in music. Anyhow, while waiting for the Smashing Pumpkins to come on state at the Osheaga Festival, I enjoyed what I heard from the Damien Rice so I figured I would give him a chance. So far, so good.

Last night I caught up with a few episodes of Grey's Anatomy. I didn't care for the season premiere this year, but the subsequent episodes made me a fan once again. I'm liking some of the new dynamics they've introduced within the cast. I also watched Journeyman - the tale of a guy who time travels unwillingly. Think - Quantum Leap. I enjoyed the first episode and will continue watching for a few episodes to see if it's worth my time or not.

We also had a feed of moose meat last night (thanks to Sam and Marc-Andre for that!) which was excellent as always. I was joking that there wasn't enough salt in it, but this hearkens back to awhile ago where I messed up the recipe and the moose meat was saturated in salt! Vero was not impressed at all as we had guests over and they had to choke it down. Ah well. Nothing like a good salt lick for supper!

The weekend is looking up to be a bust for me. I have to study for a few midterms AND I just got word that I have a written exam for a PM-05 position at work on Thursday. So…I have three tests next week. Gak! I also want to attempt to fix my eavestrough before the weather gets cold, but we'll see how that goes...

iplaying: Amie - Damien Rice (O)

I have had a few requests on the status of the Led Zeppelin tickets and whether or not I purchased them.

In the end, even though I found a flight for $500 round trip (heck yeah! Zoom Airlines…who knew? Thanks to Katie and Lianna for both pointing out this airline to me), I figured the event would have cost me $1000 which is $1000 I don't have to spend right now.

Anyhow, here's an interesting point to the story. While it was impossible (or is it really?) to give your password to someone and let them buy tickets, someone was a genius, bought two tickets legitimately and sold his extra seat next to him for $12,000. So in hindsight, I should have picked up two tickets and sold the other one as "An Evening with the Palmer and Led Zeppelin." Ah well, I guess I don't have that much business sense!

Upon research (let's be honest here…my main friend The Dish), I have determined that a good way to reduce cholesterol is to eat oatmeal.

So it's Day 3 on eating oatmeal in the morning. So far, so good. I can't say it's amazing, but it's not bad either. I think I shall try the apple flavour kind next.

My main issue with the oatmeal is the fact that I have to slot in some extra time to eat it in the morning. If you don’t know the Palmer's morning habits, it consists of waking up at 6:10, showering, getting dressed, eating breakfast and making lunch…all in time to get out the door by 6:45. I like to consider myself a machine. There is no room for error in my morning lifestyle.

So now I have to wake up at 6:00 to accommodate the prep/eating of the oatmeal. Am I whining about this? Well, 10 minutes a day is a little thing to bicker about when I'm talking about my health. So I suppose I don't mind TOO much. I've come to discover the A-Channel Morning Show which is quite enjoyable for 10 minutes.

I also figure I should prepare myself for the eventual introduction of children in my home (warning: not for a long time!) and the fact that no matter how much I love to have a morning process, it just won't happen somedays so I better get used to it. ;-)

Is this a poll? Heck yeah it is!

What's your favourite Beatles album and why? Let me know in the comments section.

As I am trying to become a more proficient songwriter, I have looked back to the classics - The Beatles. More specifically, their older stuff as they were just starting out themselves. I can see the simplicity in some of their songs coupled with the fact that a simple song can still be an amazing one.

Onto the favourite Beatles album…I asked Sara and Krista this the other day and it's interesting to see people's responses. Sara replied with The White Album whereas Krista responded with With The Beatles…an interesting choice but she mentions how she constantly played this album that her Mom owned over and over again.

My favourite album would have to be Abbey Road. Right off the bat, I've realized that I enjoy the later Beatles than the older Beatles. I don't know if 'later' Beatles accounts for anything considering I really enjoy anything from Rubber Soul onwards…I know that everyone fell in love with the band with the old songs which revolved around the concepts of love…but I enjoyed it when they started entering different territory.

Fast forward to their last recorded album, Abbey Road. I love it all. I am a sucker for medleys and that's what really hits it home for me. I enjoy how the last half of the album have recurring themes of music and lyrics that intertwine once in awhile. Very smart on their end. Then you have the instant classics like Come Together, Here Comes the Sun (!!!), Something, She's So Heavy….what a haunting guitar riff. I can't get enough of The End and listening to everyone's guitar (and drum!) solo. Do yourself a favour and put this album on for a listen right now if you can and see what I mean.

There you have it. My favourite Beatles album. Are there certain albums that I haven't given a fair judgement? Sure. I really haven't listened a whole lot to their older albums like Please Please Me. The White Album is still this hodgepodge of music for me. It's an incredible album but I find it's sometimes hard to get into. It's almost like a compilation of tunes rather than a flow of an album. I shouldn't pass too much judgement on The White Album yet. Give me another year to really get into it.

So…what's yer fave?

Jean-Francois lent us his copy of Doctor Strangelove. I didn’t know what to expect. Here's what I knew about the film before watching it:

- It was made by Stanley Kubrick. Uh oh, either a hit (Clockwork Orange!!!) or a miss (2001).
- It had a cowboy riding a bomb.

That's it, that's all.

Well, I was VERY IMPRESSED with the film. It was so hilarious. I am a fan of dark/sarcastic humour and it was in the entire film. The film revolves around a United States General issuing a nuclear strike against Russia without the President's authorization and then the United States have to attempt to stop the attack and calm the fears of Russia. However, the plan gets zanier when its discovered that there is a Doomsday Device which is armed to destroy all human and animal life on Earth if there is an attack on Russia. So basically the US have dug their own graves if they can't get in touch with the attack fleet which has gone under radio silence.

Anyhow, the film is beautiful. I am not familiar with any of the actors but apparently Peter Sellers is a big name actor from back in the day and he played not one, not two, but THREE different characters in the film! Extraordinary!

I enjoyed the critique of the Cold War and it was interesting to see such a critique coming from the era where the Cold War still in effect (whereas nowadays, it has been replaced but other villains like world domination and control of chocolate factories). I thoroughly enjoyed every bit of dialogue and the absurdity of some comments "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!". Classic.

I couldn't stop laughing when Major Kong ends up riding a bomb out of the plane and how he didn't plan on it. All these years I just assumed he had meant to do it on purpose. I had a really good laugh at that point.

I highly recommend watching Doctor Strangelove (although I must admit it's interesting to see how Doctor Strangelove doesn't really have much dialogue in the film). You won't be disappointed if you can see the humour in the situation. Stanley Kubrick, I tip my hat to you for this film.

iplaying: Chocolate - Snow Patrol (Final Straw)

Waking up in Meaford was pretty killer and there was a little storm brewing in my head. After saying goodbye to everyone, I hightailed it out of Meaford along a very scenic route recommended by Carol (thanks Carol!). I dropped by Tim Horton's for a bowl of soup which hit the spot and I continued down the roads to Ajax.

I must admit that once I hit Highway 400, I was feeling like I could use a good nap. I wasn't passing out, but I just felt like a zombie going through the motions of passing people, staying in my lane, watching the trees go by.

FINALLY, I made it into Ajax, strolled into Aunt Dinah's house, said hello to everyone and immediately hit the sack. Everyone had a good laugh. After managing to rest my weary soul for a bit, I awoke, jammed a bit with Troy with my new guitar (it's a beaut), learned a few new songs and then went to mingle with the crowd. It was good to see everyone, especially Aunt Lana and company as I haven't seen them in awhile. Everyone was looking great (especially my cousin Rocky. It was like looking at a new man!) and we had a great spread of food, watched the hockey game and then proceeded to rock our socks off with the lovely sounds of guitar, voices and Palmer, Palmer and Sullivan.

Let it be noted that Uncle Richard is once again 'the man' for making up a good pot of chili for us. While one must wonder why he brings this deadly concoction into the Palmer household, but Troy and I aren't complaining.

I then went to Burlington with Mom and Dad to visit Nanny and Tom which was fun. I haven't been to their house in awhile. We had a great lunch, I showed off my new guitar which I bought with some money Nanny gave me for my birthday, played them a tune, looked at some old records (hey, I found an old James Bond album!) and then we headed out to Melanie's place for a few hours before heading back into Ajax.

Let it be known that Aunt Dinah has officially won the best aunt ever award this year as she wasn’t serving Thanksgiving dinner until Monday and I would have been gone so she made up a plate for myself and Vero to munch on upon my return to Ottawa. While I feel bad that I inadvertently guilt tripped her into this, Vero and I thought the meal was fabulous and we send some great thank you's to Aunt Dinah.

All in all, a decent Thanksgiving weekend was had and the weather was fabulous. We are talking about 30 degrees in the shade!

As I grow older, I must look younger. My proof is that many people card me nowadays versus the low number who carded me in yesteryears.

I headed up to Meaford Ontario with Mike to visit his brother and Carol on Friday. I figured a jaunt over there wouldn't hurt me too much considering I was heading to Ajax the next day to see the family.

Mike ended up finding the craziest route to Meaford that there ever was…I believe it intersected 14 different highways. In the end, it only was 500 kms long (excellent), but still took us 7 hours (not so excellent). I didn't mind it though. I was cruising through some beautiful vistas along with some good tunes.

We showed up in Meaford around 1:30 and proceeded to hang out with Danny, tour Meaford for a bit and returned home to have a few beer. We ended up picking up the new version of a Bubba, but in a Heineken form. Unfortunately for us, the beer was flat inside (whereas, the whole concept of this new-age mini-keg is that it keeps itself pressurized for awhile). Dinner was had, guitar was played and we headed out to the Legion for the night.

All I know is that upon entering the building, some woman grabs me by the shoulder and loudly proclaims:

"I am the female bouncer here! You don't look to be of the age of 25 so I'll have to see some ID."

Of course, I didn't say a word, showed her my ID and we all had a good laugh at the ludicrous statements. Such as:

1. "I am the female bouncer here." - Well, that's fine and all, but we can all very well see that you are female, why bother announcing the fact?
2. "…the age of 25…" - Last time I checked, you have to be 19 to enter a drinking establishment in the province of Ontario.

Anyhow, I'm nitpicking here…I really didn't care if she carded me, but we did have a good laugh at the way she was presenting herself.

The Legion was in full force that night during karoke night. I played some games of pool with some guys from Trinidad and listened to the awful, AWFUL karaoke from some guy. He didn't even know where he was in the song half the time!

We then headed for a midnight snack and called it a night. I must say that I had a little headache in the morning and was in some dire need of some extra sleep.

I had a good laugh when Carol mentioned in the morning where she got up and checked to see if my car had a sunroof open (as there was a nasty thunderstorm) and I pointed out that while I appreciated her efforts, she should have checked out her own car also! Unfortunately, the car was soaked inside.

Thanks to Danny and Carol for the lovely hospitality and the good times.

Mark this day down as the first day I went for a physical at the doctor's. I didn't really know what to expect other than the horror stories about some guy's finger in my ass. Hey, that's the truth people, they do that here in Canada!

Anyhow, I guess it went well. Although when the nurse threw me into an empty room with the instructions to put on a hospital gown, I must admit that I was perplexed by this paper mache gown that I had to figure out. After looking at every nook and cranny, I figured out where my head went in and realized that it's better for my ass to be hanging out rather than my twig and berries.

That room was pretty cold while I was waiting around for the Doc. In the end, he came in, went through the motions (hey, no fingers entered any orifices! Beauty!) and the only thing that was wrong with me was my cholesterol was very high. Oh oh. What the heck? How did that happen?

In the end, the only thing he suggested to me was to start eating fish three times a week. I must admit I was a little perplexed that the ONLY way to bring my cholesterol down was to eat more fish. So I'm hoping that this will do the trick, otherwise, the doctor's fears will be confirmed and the high cholesterol will be due to a little thing we like to call genetics. Gak.

Vero and I watched Julie Taymor's Across The Universe last night. Across The Universe is a film which incorporates 33 Beatles tracks interwoven into the story so that it acts like dialogue. Think a Beatles musical but intermixed with actual speaking (whereas a musical is all singing (of course!)). It's a love story, set against the 60s.

Hmm…I've been struggling with what to say about this film all night long. Sometimes I feel my words can't do something justice. I have made the word Palmer and BEST MOVIE EVER commonplace. ;-)

That being said, Vero and I loved this film and if you love the Beatles, you'll love this film.

I don't know what to say really…it transported me to another time, another ideal.

I love Julie Taymor's stuff. She created the sets/costumes of The Lion King musical. She created Titus (only the greatest Shakespearian film ever). The imagery, the self-indulgence…it's chaotic but moving.

So…just go see it. This message goes out to the Beatles fans that I particularly know - Sam, Marc-Andre, Benoit, Troy…just go see it. Open yourself up to a fantastical voyage.

iplaying: All My Loving - The Beatles (With The Beatles)

Matt comments in my Radiohead post: "Also, If anyone can find a place to purchase a DRM free download of Jen Militia's "Berlin boot camp" please let me know. Otherwise I am going to have to buy a CD that I am only going to use to rip the music."

This brings up the reason why I like to buy CDs instead of downloading music.

I have this fear that one day, my diligent backing up of my hard drives will fall to the wayside and I shall suffer a catastrophic event - both my hard drive AND my iPod will bite the dust on the same day. Therefore, I will need to go back and digitize my CDs.

Let's be honest here…rarely do I pull out an album and look at the artwork anymore. It's like Matt says - it's just used to rip the music.

I like to think of it as my backup copy in case something goes wrong. Although, if I do end up starting to buy digital music (hey, they are starting to remove DRM! Awesome!), I'll have to be diligent in making a backup.

Oh yeah, and if anyone can help Matt out with his search, let him know.

Not the band, but the object which has been bestowed with nirvana-like qualities.

That's right, I got to try out the new iPod Touch! Benoit had his at work the other day and let me fiddle with it.

It is pretty slick I must say. I don't know if I would use the cover flow feature that much, but I do love the feature where you can select the letter of the artist you are looking for and it pops down to that section of the menu. Beauty! Saves me some thumb scrolling.

Also, the video feature is amazing. I could definitely see me enjoying it if I was on a long trip somewhere and wished to check out the newest episode of Heroes.

The interface is killer…that's what won me over. It's so sleek. It's so…intuitive.

Sigh…it is a pretty cool product. I've never personally played with something like it so I have nothing to compare it to.

Sure, it only has 16 GB, but I equate it back to the days where we only had our discmans with us and a few CDs in our pocket. Sure, you can't load ALL your music onto it, but you can load a lot of it.

Two thumbs up for the iPod touch.

I write this entry 24 hours after I received an email in my inbox stating that I had been one of the lucky few to purchase tickets to the Ahmet Tribute Concert which is home to Led Zeppelin in a reunion concert.

While I had no real plans to attend (heck, it's in LONDON ENGLAND!!!), I knew that Mike was excited to go so I said "What the heck." and put my name in.

To be one of the chosen few in an all out rock ballot is a shock to the system and I am honoured to have been a part of this event.

The scoop is, they sent me a password that would allow you to go into the Ticketmaster website and use it to purchase tickets in the O2 Arena. So I started wondering if I could sell the password.

So I logged onto Ebay and noticed that someone just sold one for $10,000. I have no way of confirming this but it did say it sold for that price. After some deliberation, we put the tickets on ebay and after a slew of problems (like not being able to see the listing), I awoke this morning and saw a cool $300 in the running to get the password.

Meanwhile, the morning drags on and I start scanning the message boards for any notice on whether or not people will get screwed by purchasing this password. You see, they had a notice saying that they would be checking the IDs of the purchaser. So here I am thinking that this means that they aren't checking the passcodes!

Early in the morning, I had a slew of people inquiring about the tickets and one great fellow actually got in touch with the office and let me know that the passcodes, in fact, would be checked also at the ticket gates.

Not wanting to screw over anyone, and allow the tickets to go back into a pool of randomly drawn participants, I went to cancel the ebay listing but could not as there was less than 12 hours left in the bidding.

During the day, I was talking to a rep from Ebay about this and my situation and he said they do that so sellers can't go in two minutes before an auction and change it to...oh...a rubber band for example. It makes sense but at the same time, it made my predicament harder as the bidding had peaked at $2,000.

I had a backup plan in mind, but the rep at Ebay said I can go ahead and cancel bids on my own item (which I thought was odd...) but lo and behold, that's what I've been doing for the past hour now. I keep cancelling and telling people that the password won't work, but because I am unable to edit my own listing if there is 12 hours left, I can't get the word out before people bid on it! Argh. The countdown is on - 20 minutes left in the bidding. I must admit I am pretty pumped to remind myself that it got up to $2,000. In the end, I would have offered the buyer a refund if it came to that as I couldn't (in good conscience) sell him a passcode that may screw them over as soon as they trekked out to London England to pick up their tickets.

In the end, I'll have to spend some money for putting the listing up on Ebay, but I must admit it's been a fun ride and I can have a story to tell about how we got the chance to go see Led Zeppelin (in perhaps, their final performance).

On a sidenote, if someone would like to start a collection to send me to London England on November 26 (flight is around $1000), by all means, do so. I still have 48 hours to use the password and order the tickets. Would I be appreciative of your grand gesture?

YES! THIS IS LED ZEPPELIN WE ARE TALKING ABOUT HERE! THE GREATEST ROCK N ROLL BAND THAT HAS EVER LIVED!!!

In fact, if someone wants to pay my way, they can have the other ticket and we can go together. Fair enough?

Who cares that Led Zeppelin tickets are being announced today…let's focus on a bigger music element, Radiohead has a new album ready and it's out in ten days.

WHAT THE HECK?

While every other band and their mother releases an album months after announcement, they've decided to go a different route (which is zany) and release it in ten days.

Here's the scoop:

- Essentially, in ten days, you have access to a digital copy (read: download) of the new album. You buy it for any price you want to pay. It can be zero dollars. It can be ten dollars. It can be $100. Whatever you want to pay, you pay.

- There is also an $80 box set which includes the album on CD, the album on double vinyl, a bonus CD full of other songs, artwork, other things, plus some artwork. While $80 seems a little steep to me, I do know that there are manic Radiohead fans out there that would pay this in a heartbeat.

- Later in 2008, there will be a regular CD released.

So, let's look at this immensity of this announcement - mainly, a 'pay whatever you want' download.

Now, there have been programs set up in the past which allows you to give money to an artist if you've downloaded their work. So if I downloaded the new Spice Girls album and thought it was amazing, I would go to a certain site and this business would send the money I feel they deserve for the album to the band to divvy up amongst themselves. Pretty good idea, don't know if it ever really worked.

There are some interesting marketing experiments coming from the 'pay whatever you want' Radiohead album. It would be interesting to see how many people pay money for it, and what the average price point comes out to. I'm going to be honest here, if I knew I would never buy the physical CD, or the box set in the future, I could definitely see me forking out $10 for the album. It's the least I can do. Others will just grab it because it's free because that's just what they want to do, which is fine. I think Radiohead is in a position in life where they realize that they have tons of money, they have enough fans that will still make them tons of money (so let's make a super awesome box set that the fans want) and just think about the music in the end. Someone brought up an excellent point that a band starting out couldn’t really pull this off. While I agree that they probably couldn't pull it off and MAKE MONEY, anyone can release their own music to the public.

It would also be interesting to see how many people downloaded it and THEN bought the album, but I think that's a hard correlation to make unless someone orders it directly from the website when the regular CD becomes available. When the music spread out on the Internet, there are some good arguments that state that MORE music has been sold because MORE people get access to MORE bands. Instead of relying on my buddy telling me about a great album to listen to, I find out for myself if it's worthy of a purchase. I still fall into the habit of buying first, listening later, but there have been some choices which have shocked me into regretting the purchase (Spider-Man 3 and Rob Thomas solo album, I'm looking at you!).

In the end, Radiohead can do no wrong with this strategy. They've essentially given us a free download preview of their album (or if you want to send some money their way, awesome), they've given their super-fans a really great box set with the album (as opposed to the horrid special edition of Zeitgeist that the Smashing Pumpkins released. Even I, a devout Pumpkins fan, could not bring himself to buy that load of crap...let's not even get into the whole seven different versions at different stores with different tracks on each album. COME ON!) and they won't be screwing over the common fan (like me) because they'll eventually release an actual CD someday in the future.

I don’t know if I’m going to buy the $80 box set. I can't say I'm a uber-fan…but I think I'll download the album for free and follow up with an actual album purchase in the new year.

Random Updates

Friday Night's Ice Cream/Birthday Party for Vero was a success! Although there was WAY too much ice cream left over, but that isn't a measure of failure! Everyone had a great time, I tried out an ice cream beer float (not bad), Trish got me some nice AC/DC sandals for my birthday, I gave her the 2 minute hot dog cooker I found at a garage sale a few weeks before (read about it here) and everyone had a great time!

Saturday had Vero and I lazing around her place. It was unfortunate that I had brought a book with me that only had two chapters left in it! I surfed the Internet for a few hours while Vero still slept to find out more about the referendum happening in Ontario next week. It's good to read about both sides of the story to formulate your own view. After speaking with Krista on my findings, I have decided to vote against MMP.

Saturday night brought us to Larisa and Jason's new house which is a pretty swell pad. They have a huge backyard and their house is nice also. I ended up starting to play Settlers of Cataan which I was excited about as I have heard it is the #1 board game in the world. I tried learning it once with Carrie's family but I don't anyone was really putting much effort into actually teaching me so it wasn't a fun game at all. But Matt and James really helped me out on Friday night and before we shut the game down, I was having a great time.

We then played Scene It: Squabble edition which was a guys vs. girls edition of the game Scene It. We all had a great time even though the girls really had to push the limits on the rules to catch up to us. But we were victorious (once again!)

Can I just say that I think Vero hit a skunk while driving back as the car smells like skunk right now. Thank you.

Sunday had me catching up on painting my front door. I don't mind painting when I get a roller in my hand…I hate painting when I have a brush and I have to meticulously attack every little nook and cranny. That's what the front door was all about. In the end, it wasn't a hot day so I had to wait forever for the paint to dry for a second coat. I would say that I only have to apply a bit more paint in a few areas for it to be completely done. I'm pretty happy with the paint job on both the garage and front door. I like the colour better than the green that was there. All I have left on my things to do before the winter hits is to apply some roof tar over the tin shingle I put down, and try and replace a section of the eaves trough that is leaking. Silicon has been of no help in the past years. Time to really put some effort into this.

Last night was the last night that Mike's parents were up. They left this morning with their new plane in tow. It was good having them up and I look forward to seeing them at Christmas time. Mike's dad also gave me a few pointers on the structure of songs so I'm excited to start writing some stuff.