Palmer’s World

Friday evening Vero and I headed out to MOHO Part Two…a continuation of the winner of my favourite summer moment of 2009…a trip to see Krista’s parents in Peterborough. We ended up at the Montreal House (MOHO) to see Matt Mays so that weekend will forever be known as the MOHO Weekend.

Krista’s parents have moved to a new house closer to Ottawa so we hightailed it there for Friday evening. The rest of the people (Krista, Ben, Mike, Jill) were going to spend the weekend whereas we would spend the one night as we had a wedding to get to the next day.

The first thing I spied upon entry to the house was the amazing 50″ Plasma sitting in the living room and I got talking about what one I should pick up from my own place. Dave and Lynn were adamant that I should go bigger (this is a blatant lie for Vero’s sake!) and I thought they were wise on their choice.

Everyone else showed up within 30 minutes and we settled in with some beer, a tour of the amazing house and some talks about how long it must take to mow the lawn.

The supper was fantastic and I believe I may or may not have been the one yukking it up for everyone at the dinner table. I was on fire that night knowing that I had to get my full MOHO in before the night ended.

We set up shop in the garage which had an excellent man’s lounge complete with a beer fridge! Mike and I played guitar for about four hours and life was good with a rye in hand. I even shaved the bottom of my chin so I could get the full-on moustache effect (in preparation of the wedding the next day!).

All in all, an excellent time at MOHO Part Deux and I heard that Mike was on fire at lawn darts the next day with beer in hand. You can’t get much sweeter than that.

Thanks to Dave and Lynn for having us up!

My letter to the editor was published in today’s Ottawa Citizen! Nanny Ruth, Spec-writer for many years, would be proud!

I will try and scan a copy this weekend considering the print version is awesome…I was the largest article on the page and there was a picture with it as well!

Here’s the link to the article on the Citizen: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion/letters/Chair+people+need+learn+when+fold+stand/3312352/story.html

But I am posting my original unedited article for you all to read here, as faithful readers of Palmer’s World. I enjoyed my comment about OC Transpo, but they had to cut it out due to length.

Also, I hope you enjoy the little tease about rock etiquette…as you may or may not know, I’m working on a book about the subject.

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Re: Bigger, hotter, quieter, tastier, July 19.
I was surprised to read in Lynn Saxberg’s excellent write-up of Bluesfest that fans at the Santana concert were reminded about the policy regarding folding up their lawn chairs during the concert for safety reasons.
While I cannot say that I am able to find this policy anywhere on the Ottawa Cisco Bluefest website, I must applaud the organizers for creating it.
I’m not sure if Mark Monahan and the other organizers of Bluesfest lose sleep over the never-ending lawn chair debate, but I feel that this policy is a fair one and encourages a few key points:
Safety – When you have 35,000 people attending a concert, it is quite alarming when you come upon a cluster of lawn chairs that forms a barrier. This creates heavy congestion, which has led to tripping, bruises and heated debates. In fact, I would be interested to hear from a paramedic as to whether it’s easier to get through a crowd of people who are standing or a crowd of people sitting in lawn chairs.
Personal Space – It is one thing to stand up and move around a little to the music, but it’s quite another to set up your lawn chair, sit in it until show time, and then leave it unfolded while you stand in front of it. It’s true that we would all love to have a little personal space within a crowd of music lovers, but it is common courtesy to share the same amount of space. If it helps, a person should just imagine that they are on the OC Transpo bus during rush hour but with the delight of Santana playing on the bus for them!
Proper Rock Etiquette – While there isn’t any proof of this, I have a feeling that many bands prefer to see people stand up during a concert instead of sitting there quietly!
While I am making light of the situation with my last comment, I do not see a problem with festival-goers bringing their lawn chairs to relax in during the better part of the day/evening. I have friends who do this and I am fine with it. But as soon as the event starts, they have the courtesy to stand up and fold up their lawn chair and place it in front of them. They are conscious of the fact that they may be impeding crowd movement (and, in the worst case scenario, paramedics coming through the crowd) and they want to ensure that everyone is having a good time at the festival.
If the organizers of the world-class Bluesfest decide to post this policy on their website in the future, I will be the first in line to agree with it. It promotes an atmosphere of safety and fun at a good old blues festival. Isn’t that what we are all there for?
By the way, two thumbs up to the organizers of Bluefest 2010. Once again, you have outdone yourselves.
Bravo.

iplaying: Stand-down at Sundown – Matt Mays + El Torpedo

This looks like a great book to pick up! The rise of Chinese Food take-out joints in small-town Canada!

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/life/Chopsticks+onion+rings/3292632/story.html

I love, love, love books like this. Books that get to the heart of Canada.

iplaying Exterminator (Massive Attack Remix) – Dirty Hits

Vero’s cousin Melissa called up on Thursday night and things were going down at her own place so she moved in with Vero and I for the moment.

I must admit that she’s quite fun and handy to have around…she knows a thing or two about gardening so she showed us how to weed the garden (and how to keep up with it!) and her hatchback has been instrumental in getting the big screen TV to our place! Plus, she’s fun to have around so it’s not even an inconvenience to have her shack up for awhile with us.

After a lot of researching, I finally went ahead and purchased a Mac Mini to act as my media center…or in the land of acronyms…my HTPC (home theater personal computer). If you have seen my setup at my house currently, you know that I have my Xbox running as my media center. The problem works like a dream when it comes to non-HD content. But the time is getting closer to when we’ll be picking up a big screen TV…I am waited with baited breath. I wonder what the term means?

Oh! Here’s an interesting point. It’s not ‘baited’ breath, but ‘bated’ breath! Upon further research, here’s some links that are interesting to read if you want to know what the phrase means. Neat!

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-bai1.htm
http://www.darrenbarefoot.com/archives/2004/04/waiting-with-bated-breath.html

Back to technology talk…the Mac Mini was the chosen victor amongst a number of candidates…the big runner-up was the PlayStation 3. But the fact that I don’t play video games kind of left a bad taste in my mouth with purchasing that device. But one may wonder “Didn’t you have an Xbox as well?” Touché.

Anyhow, on a whim, I went down to the Rideau Center with Nat at lunchtime to pick it up. I had a few weeks left before my student card expired and that would save me $50.

I got there and chatted with the guy at the Apple Store (who was excellent help) and we got things going. Then all of a sudden he says “So do you want the free iPod touch with this purchase?” My eyes shone like the sun but then he realized that I was only eligible for the free printer. Basically I pay $100 up front and get a mail-in rebate of $100. Easy money! We don’t exactly need a printer considering we got a sweet one for Christmas (this was the first time I have benefited from a Christmas gift that was given to Vero and not me! Sweet!) but I took it anyhow thinking I could either give it away or sell it someone.

Funny enough, this sucker was quite huge and I had to haul it back onto the bus to work with me. I was sitting there thinking “What am I going to do with this thing? Bring it home?” As I was pondering this, I showed it to my colleague Andrea and she said she needed a new one, so $90 later, it was hers. Things worked out perfectly!

In the end, if I were to purchase the Mac Mini, outright with no discounts, I probably wouldn’t have. It’s quite an expensive device to use primarily for a HTPC. There are many other great alternatives such as the PS3, the WD-Live device, or a PC with Windows Home Media Center (or something like that) installed into it.

But I was lucky enough to have a few discounts coming my way…I had a gift card for $250, a $50 student rebate and I suppose I can consider the $90 for the printer as going towards the Mac Mini. So in the end the thing cost me $359 which ain’t too shabby.

I plugged it in last night after getting some house work done. My favourite house chore last night was watering the garden only to have a thunderstorm come through an hour later. Woops? Vero and I also went next door to welcome the new neighbours to the area with a bottle of wine. They seemed like nice people and I was jealous of his ride-on lawnmower.

Speaking about lawnmowers, my lawn is a haven for gnomes to hide inside so I was happy when Vero showed up with the lawnmower back from the shop today. It was leaking gas before and we figured it was this cracked primer button. I assembled it and put some gas in it and voila! It worked! But then I noticed it was still leaking gas! What the heck? We were not impressed with this small engine repair shop and will be calling them back up saying “So when you say it’s fixed, what does that actually mean?”

We also met another neighbour down the street who was the first house built on the street 20+ years ago! They said that their sister ended up moving across from them and their brother next to them! That is fantastic. I believe they said they had since moved on, but that must have been great while growing up with a bunch of cousins all on the same street. They were laughing at the fact that young folks like us are moving in now and the neighbourhood will be running around with kids again. Real nice people.

Clearly this Mac Mini discussion has taken a turn away from proper discussion. Vero and I hooked up the Mac Mini and I really enjoyed how it had a migration assistant which would copy my settings from my Time Machine backup. That was quite slick of them. I was in the middle of updating some software when the power went out because of the thunderstorm. I decided not to boot back up right away in case the power went out again so I’ll have to restart the process again tonight.

If yesterday’s trip is any indication of what to expect, things will be good in terms of commuting. It took me 50 minutes to return from work yesterday which puts me directly in line with the amount of time it took me to get back home to the old house (45-60 minutes). So my first fear of it being a longer commute has vanished for the time being. I say the time being considering it’s the middle of the summer and traffic is usually pretty light at this time of year. Heck, Vero let me know that she made it home in 35 minutes last night! That’s quite the difference considering it used to take her 60 minutes!

I hit the road around 6:30 and headed out on a sunny morning. I would say that the trip to the mall takes about 20-23 minutes of my morning. That’s quite different than my usual 10 minute trip from the old house. But it’s a fair trade-off for the Utopia we live in.

This time around, I parked in the far corner of the mall parking lot and walked a few minutes to get the bus. This way, I mentally avoid getting a ticket (more-so than parking right next to the station!) and I get a little exercise. Bonus! I also hopped on the first bus that would take me out of the tunnel, got off at Hurdman Station and caught the first bus to my place of work. In the end, I made it to work in 5 minutes early which is fine by me!

All in all, I think I will not mind the commute. Especially considering I heard the following two facts about parking near Hull:
- Prices for parking are increasing significantly…$170/month for a parking pass!
- Supposedly it is illegal for someone who lives around Hull to rent out a parking spot ON THEIR OWN PROPERTY! I cannot believe this can happen, but sure enough, a colleague of mine indicated that five years ago, she was parking at a friend’s place, in their driveway and eventually the owner received a letter from the municipality indicating that wasn’t allowed. I’m not even going to begin to get into how ludicrous that sounds. Imagine not being able to let your friend use your own driveway!

I’m sure there will be days where it will be hell to commute (read: snow days) but I have a few plans up my sleeve to counter those.

It’s Day 1 of attempting the Morning Commute from the new house. So far, not too bad. I arrived at St-Laurent in twenty minutes and headed for the top of the roof as Rob suggested. He indicated that there was an elevator that brought you down there.

There was an elevator, but it was behind locked doors! I double backed and parked on an upper level of the parking lot. There are some clear signs marked ‘No Parking for Bus Users’ so I’m definitely taking a chance. Each level is 90% cordoned off as well so I parked in an area which wasn’t cordoned off but I’m now wondering if they will ticket me considering SOMEONE has to remove the wire that blocks an area and I’m sure they will think “Hey, what’s up with that car parked over there?” Time will tell. It’s all an experiment at this point.

I then walked down to the bus tunnel which is pretty great during bad weather…I was dry as a bone. However, the exhaust from all the buses probably took a week off of my life! My eyes were tearing up a little and my mouth tastes pretty foul this morning. Granted, I had to wait 10 minutes for my bus to arrive so if I time it better in the future, it won’t be a big deal. In fact, I may just hop on the first bus out of there to ensure my health is good and transfer to a new bus.

All in all, this commute may actually be shorter than my previous one. Even with waiting for my bus for 10 minutes, I arrived at work at the same time as coming from Orleans. So if I can time it, I may be able to make it to work by 7:20AM.

It is definitely a different beast altogether to hop in the car for 20 minutes and hit the highway instead of the 5 minutes I used to take. I will have to think of how I want to spend that time. Am I going to gain something in life from listening to Morning Radio all the time? Or is this the time to catch up on some podcasts I like? Or perhaps it’s a great time to pop in a new CD and get some much needed music listening time!

Anyhow, we’ll see what happens this afternoon when I arrive to my car! Here’s to hoping there is no ticket!

Experiment #1: Go to the roof and take elevators – FAIL.
Experiment #2: Park in the parking area near the station – PENDING.
Experiment #3: Park in the far parking area and walk around the mall – PENDING.
Experiment #4: Park in the super secret parking spot that my previous neighbour suggested. – PENDING.

**Update! No ticket was found on the car! Sweet! It was a reassuring feeling. But I didn’t want to chance it so I have adjusted my parking. I will now try the farthest point away from the bus station. One would assume that if a ticket were given out, it would be for the cars closer to the bus station rather than the one in the far corner on the other side of the mall. But who knows?**

Well this is it. The final day of Bluesfest. It’s been a long ride…one that I took four days off from. I must admit that I was a little disappointed to sell off my Saturday ticket. I was expecting to spend the evening with Vero for the first time without guests in the house…but then she had to go to a Bachelorette party! Serves me right for spending all week long at Mike’s place and not remember this fact! So I stayed in on Saturday night wondering what kind of fun I was missing out on.

On the final night of Bluesfest, we headed over to Krista and Ben’s place for some BBQ and then hightailed it back down for the final time and headed to the Mill Street main brew tent to try out their Stout. It was a decent stout as all products of Mill Street are. In fact, I highly recommend you trying out the Extra Special Bitter which was my fave of the festival. However, the Lemon Tea was good as well, but I couldn’t handle the sugary taste all night long.

The Lost Fingers took the Subway stage a little late and the crowd was pretty sparse…I’m not sure if it was due to the Jimmy Cliff show happening at the other stage or not. Either way, I was loving the extra space and I was loving the Lost Fingers. They are a French group who appear on stage with acoustic guitars, a stand-up bass and purple suits. Perfect! They have a knack of re-envisioning old classics in a way that hasn’t been heard in awhile…I really enjoyed their AC/DC medley and was hoping to catch them play their excellent rendition of Pump Up the Jam. They mix up both French and English tunes which was a welcome change. I give the band two thumbs up for their fun nature!

We then headed to ‘the spot’ for Weezer. I am glad we left when we did because it didn’t take long for the crowd to pile up behind us. We found Vero munching on a poutine with ketchup (gak!) and settled in for the ride.

I will admit that when I heard that Weezer was playing, the thoughts that ran through my head were “Cool. I like Weezer. I love the Blue Album and it should be a decent show.” But I wasn’t prepared for the feeling that arose within me as they started playing.

Weezer is a powerhouse of a band on stage and I couldn’t get over the full-on rock show they can deliver. Rivers Cuomo was all over the stage, waving his hands around and geeking out. I just assumed that he would be playing guitar for the most part, but that didn’t happen that much at all! He was stage left, stage right, in behind the stage, walking into the crowd, walking to the sound booth, climbing the lighting rigs…that guy moved! I especially loved the trampoline in front of the raised drum kit so that he can get up there in one superhero-like bound. Fan-freaking-tastic!

The tunes, OH the tunes they played. I swear they played the majority of the Blue Album. In fact, I will let it be known that as soon as Surf Wax America came on, the following events occurred:
- visions of me pretending to surf to this song in Vero’s living room
- visions of me pretending to surf in my parents living room while listening to some old ‘surf tunes’ LP that I would put on before the bus would show up in the morning. I’m sure Maureen has seen me fake-surf in the living room back in the day.
- Palmer circa 1995 rammed into my soul. I had the energy of a 17 year old and started bopping around. I don’t know where it came from me but it was the most amazing feeling in the world. I wanted to rush the stage and jump around with all my cohorts in crime. It was fabulous.
- My friends in behind me must have thought I went insane. It never let up. The entire show was like that. Fist-pumping, song chanting, just these waves of alternative 90s rock waving over me.

In the end, it was my favourite show of Bluesfest. It hit me totally unexpected…I never knew how much I loved Weezer until this moment. They put on a fabulous, fabulous show. They even covered some MGMT and Lady Gaga in the end which was great. Rivers is quite the showman. He’s talking to the crowd, he’s interacting with them, he’s jumping into garbage cans…there was just hilarity going on at all moments.

Sigh…I miss that show already. It was a fantastic, fantastic show and it brought the good concert-going feeling in me. I can’t believe the Ottawa Citizen didn’t even write a review about the show in the paper the next day. They opted for a ‘Bluesfest Review’ (which was an excellent write-up), but come on! One of the best ‘fest shows doesn’t even get a write-up?

It doesn’t matter. Weezer won best Bluesfest show for me. Hands down. Well done gentlemen, well done.

My Dad sent me this video. It’s of Alley Lapointe, a musician from New Brunswick that Dad was friends with when he was growing up in Murdochville. OUTSTANDING! Can I also say how much I loved the fire effect near the end of the video? I had a good chuckle.

Another evening with a good crew of people…Mike, Trish, Ben, Krista and I went for some Asian cuisine and then headed to the Festival. Did I ever mention that Andre introduced us to the greatest staircase in the world? It’s definitely easier to get to the festival grounds using the new stairs!

We missed out on Dana Fuchs which was disappointing…the only thing I know her from is the Across the Universe film where she plays Sexy Sadie. But she can wail. And wail she did, from what I heard of in the news the next day.

Old Crow Medicine Show was another recommendation by Mike’s roommate Dave and it didn’t disappoint. A good bluegrass band is what every person needs! They were really entertaining and I had a good laugh when you had four younger guys on one side of the stage and then the older guy on the banjo to the left and every time the band would huddle, it seemed like he was left out! Kind of like an old Uncle you don’t want cramping your style!

We then headed to the Subway stage since Vero was going to meet up with us there to see Marianas Trench…some band she heard on the radio a few times. Turns out that they were rescheduled for a later time so we headed over to Matthew Good who was getting quite the crowd built up. We finally found Krista and Ben deep in the crowd but lost Dave at one point who decided to hang back.

Matthew Good always puts on a great show and this one did not disappoint. I still question why I don’t own any of his albums considering his a Canadian alt-rock classic! I shall have to rectify that situation. I really was impressed with all the songs and the band put on an excellent show. Some great alternative rock anthems from this guy.

The entire crew split up as Trish wanted to see Crowded House, Mike wanted to see Derek Trucks and Vero and I went to see Marianas Trench. So Marianas Trench is a band with a young fan base. I believe the average age was around…12. They started out very cool…dressed as ninjas coming out and kicking ass to some good techno music. That’s about all they had in them in terms of awesomeness because the rest of the 30 minutes that I stood through was some pretty grueling stuff. If you can think of some one-hit wonders, I believe this is exactly what this band would appear to be. I believe in 30 minutes, they played three songs and just yammered in between them. I couldn’t tell if they were just drunk, or just slack in their professionalism as a musical act…either way, after three songs of torture I told Vero I couldn’t take it anymore and I was going to head over to Derek Trucks to see what he was all about. Considering the guy toured with Eric Clapton, I was expecting something a little better! Interestingly enough, when writing up this review, I notice that Marianas Trench has mysteriously disappeared from the list of performers that performed at Bluesfest. Nowhere to be found on the site, I wonder if Bluesfest has adopted a policy of ‘we’ll keep you on your site if you prove to play some good tunes’.

I wasn’t disappointed. Derek Trucks was wailing away on his guitar when I got there and never let up. From what Mike told me, Susan Tedeschi is the singer of this band and Derek Trucks is her husband and tours as the guitarist. Susan wasn’t too bad on the guitar herself and she had an amazing voice. I especially liked when they ripped into Helter Skelter…wait…was that the Beatles tune they played? For the life of me I cannot remember but it was a great tune. Come Together? Man, I can’t remember! Argh.

I unfortunately couldn’t find Mike as he found a good spot next to the sound stage…with good reason! You have to make sure to have the best spot in the house when seeing a band like this shred through some good blues music. A lot of people always ask “Where’s the Blues music at Bluesfest?”. Well, there was no need to ask it at this festival. They had some class acts at the festival this year.

After that was done, I headed back to our meeting spot and found out that Crowded House wasn’t all that good, Marianas Trench wasn’t all that much better, and Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi turned out to be the hit of the night. Wicked!

I said farewell to Bluesfest for a few days. The Festival had taken its toll on this weary soul and Vero’s sister had decided to stay until Saturday so I decided to take that opportunity to see them one last night.