Metal Bands of the Past: We're stars.

I loved this song when i was a kid...

Weekend that was....

Well, I'm suckin' back the coffee this morning, folks. I'm fuggin' tired!
This weekend was a particularly busy weekend, in that, i didn't get a lot of sleep. Couple that with the fact that I've been out of the music-circuit for 2 months, and I had a gig on Friday night, and that spells F.A.T.I.G.U.E!
The band got together on Friday night at the regular haunt. The same one where i nearly punched out someone's lights!! Same two guys were there, as I expected them to be, but my dad and I went into Friday night with a plan.
You see, typically, if there was a relatively good crowd there, we'd start at 9:30, a half hour earlier than usual. But this gave us the freedom to end early too, if the crowd was small near the end of the night.
For those too lazy to click on the link to read what happened, I'll reset a little, two guys went off on us because we had started at 9:30 and wished to end off the night at 1:30, instead of 1:45am. All this on a night our bass player hadn't showed up, so we were all in bad moods to begin with and played 4 hours without a groove.
So.. this time, we decided, without exception, we were going to play at 10pm, and no earlier, and finish at 2am. No encores. No getting on early, no getting off early. 10 till 2 and out!
That turned out great. We hammered it home to the fuckers that pissed us off the last time. "We're on at 10pm.. and we're on till 2am.. and buh-bye!". We got a lot of people appreciating the extra 15 minutes, and I bought a beer for one of the guys that harrassed us last time -and he was very thankful, and had a great time.
The guy who told me to go fuck my bitch? Well I reported that fact to the owners of the bar, and to the waiting staff that, after playing in that bar for 10 years, I would expect a small level of respect from the patrons. What that guy had done and said was unacceptable in my books. I was told the situation would be dealt with. The guy was, afterall, a regular. I'd spoken with him every time i played there. I know his name, and I've seen him in the neighbourhood. The staff were very candid with me when they reported that over the last few months, this guys had gotten really bad. He was drunk all the time, and as time went on, his drunkeness had become aggressive. I know i was shocked when he went off on me; cuz for 10 years, even drunk, this guy was typically a good guy. (Which saved him - cuz i really wanted to kick his ass!!!)
On Friday, after the second set was done, I walked to him I slapped him on the back, asked how he was doing, and he looked at this feet and said he was fine, told me he loved the set; the music was awesome and then he walked away. He stayed for an hour, and left.
So on the whole, we went in with a new outlook, playing for ourselves, and had a really really tight jam. The crowd was into it. The sound was great. And I faced the two guys that took issue with me the last time and made everything right. There's something to be said about taking the time to think about your actions and reacting in a positive way instead of using avoidance as a strategy.
The big difference, too, this time? I didn't live 5 minutes away anymore. hehehe. So by the time i got home, it was 4am Saturday morning. I had a slice of pizza, and a beer. Watched some Olympics and finally went to bed.
Do you think I could sleep in??? Deb had spent the night at my sisters, I had the whole place to myself - and could i sleep?
Fuck no!!!
I was up at 8am - stayed in bed until 9 and said, "Fuck it!" Got up, made some coffee, let the birds out and then cleaned the house. By the time i was done it was around 11:30am, Deb came home and thought - now would be a good time to 'get it on!" we had a good Nooner (that's a mid-day romp -- cuz we could), and high-tailed it out of the house for some lunch at our new hang-out, Broadways Bar & Grill. We did a little shopping, played some RockBand when we got back, and it was Back-Deck time.
My buddy Jeremy showed up, we sat on the Deck, drank Ceasars and beer until around 8pm - and we BBQ'd some awesome steaks.
By the time our evening was done it was after midnight and we crashed (after another romp -- cuz we could) so bedtime was actually around 2am ..
Do you think I could sleep in the next day??
Fuck no... i was pretty much up at 9am again. Sounded like a good time for another romp - so I did ... it's not like Deb was saying "NO" ok??
Sunday was Nascar day - and i was really looking forward to watching the race. We had a nice visit from an old High-school friend of mine and her family. They visited for about an hour before they had to drive all the way home in Toronto. It was really nice to see them again.
We watched the race, had some Chinese food for dinner, gazed out of the telescope for as long as I could take the Mosquito bites and finally decided I needed to sleep. I was exhausted.
So we took a hot bath in the large RomanTub - and went to bed (after another short romp) and i slept.. until around 2:30am when i had to pee... and i always have trouble sleeping.
So today - i'm WIPED OUT!
But it was a great weekend.
Now.. i just need to get through this week so that i can be set for 2 weeks of Vacation.. WOOOHOO!!!

Hanniman-Bowes-Rozon Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebrities - Collage - Morph

Here's what's funny about this! I'm not Raymond's biological father! But people tell me all the time that he looks like me.. funny eh?

Toronto Burns.

Well, if you haven't heard about it yet, Toronto was the site of a HUGE - nay - MASSIVE explosion as a Propane Plant errupted in a very Hyroshima-esque way.

Some people were rocked by explosion near 4am Sunday morning, took out their video cameras and caught this on tape!



Just do a search on google for "Toronto Explosion" or at YouTube and you can see and read all about.

I Miss You And I Love you: But you don't keep your fucking mouth shut.

I've never laughed so hard @ work in my life: People think i'm crazy.

From Mother-Effin'-Nature to Political stupidity.

More ranting folks. I only report it. I, as a blogger - and i'm sure you'll all agree, i NEVER ever ever.. have an opinion.. Right?

So - with all the rain that's coming down in our fair city these days (4 days of sunshine in 97 days here) that's a lot of rain. This is the news that's coming out of our City Counsilors' office.

Almost every time it rains this summer, raw sewage is poured into the Ottawa River. According to a report in the Ottawa Sun this morning, there has been a constant flow of warnings about fecal matter in the River from staff to councilors this summer. The most recent came yesterday, when councilors were told that about 15,000 cubic meters of sewage entered the river on Saturday. It takes as little as 5 millimeters of rain to cause an overflow.<

This isn't news to us, folks. City Councilors in Ottawa have known about this problem since March! What have they done? What they always do: NOTHING!
The city councillors' office is full of fuckers that don't know how to make a decision. Collectively, they are whining machines that elect to do a "Study" rather than to actually do something about the situation, for fear of political backlash.

I'm not one to get too political, here, but these fuckers have to stop playing at politics and just DO POLITICS. The word POLITICIAN is derived from latin for "Policy Maker". These hacks don't know how to do that. They're Students! They makes studies of things and let Staff and City Managers make recommendations that they'll never heed.

So ... WAY TO GO, City Councillors ... when you're walking along the Ottawa River and smell the shit floating to the surface, SHAKE YOUR FIST AT IT AND SCARE IT AWAY... it seems to be the only thing you're fucking good at!

Family reunion Update: Mother Nature can go to hell!

So a bit of an update from the Long Weekend that was.
Firstly, I'd like to submit my complaint to Mother Nature. She's done a piss poor job this summer with managing the amount of sunlight we, here in Eastern Ontario, are getting. I know she's busy. I get that, with us all melting down the Arctic circle, we're making things very difficult. But in the grand-scheme of things, I doubt that we, here in Eastern Ontario, are the sole cause of said things that keep Her busy.
That all being said, i would like to propose to Mother Nature a couple of things that she could do for us, in order to make us happier and to make life for her a little simpler.

1) FUCK OFF!
2) See #1
3) We're sick of the fricken rain, already.

We have seen rain, literally, every single goddamned day since the beginning of June. Look it up people... fuck it - don't bother, I did it for you, and I'm telling you Eastern Ontario has seen.. GET THIS FOLKS, 4 fucking days of sunshine -- that's 4 full days of sunshine where it didn't rain, cuz Mother Nature was doing her hair that week. FOUR ..... UHH.. DAYS!! Four days... Since June!! Did I hear 4 days?? out of 92 days! Every other mother effin' day has had rain or thunder. Someone say it with me. Stop raggin on us, Mother Nature. We're sick of it.

So we're driving the hour and a half ride to Alexandria, which is South-East of where I live in the pouring deluge that Mother Effin' Nature gave us. We, with our tent packed in the trunk, cuz we thought we were supposed to get a nice weekend finally.. but NOOOOOOooooo.. we had to get rain... Surprise surprise!!

In a lull in the down-pour, we managed to get our tent up, and because we like to make life difficult, my father and I decided to bring our band equipement with a laptop full of midi songs that we can play to to entertain the masses at the family reunion. IT was a damned good thing we did.. cuz for the two and a half hours straight that we played, is was pissing rain outside of the tarped area that our cousins erected to keep us dry. But not to be out down .. oh no,, not the BITCH herself.. no no.. Mother Effin' Nature had to have her say. Knowing that our huge tarp would keep us dry, and that we were going to ragale in song and dance in spite of her, Mother Nature threw WIND at us.. that's right ... WIND!! You see, the tarp was litterally help up by 4 12 foot beam, held in place by a rope secured and pulled tightly two trees on either side of the tarp. The tarp is then held down by 4 ft long wooden stakes and army-tied securely with more rope. Now.. as we were setting up - i sorta noticed that the beams were precariously leaning to one side.. and i told my ol'man.. "Look dude.. i don't think these posts are gonna last .. did you bother asking your cousin if these are to Code-Spec... " he laughed.. Ya.. but, I said, "I'm not taking my guitars out dude, until they tighten those things, I'd hate for my nice little guitars to get crushed.."

No sooner had i said... had Mother Effin' Nature blew a warm shinooky fart at us .. that huge gust of wind lifted the tarp and sent one of the beams coming down behind me.. hitting one of my cousins in the shoulder (thanks for that - my back was to it ... and had she not deflected it- i would have taken it in the head...) and where did that beam finally lay itself to rest??? Right on top of my two guitar cases with my guitars still protected within them...

My dad looked at me and nodded, "You were right!"
Of course i was.. Mother Effin' Nature has it out for me.. and she's bitchy!

All that aside.. the music went on, with a couse nursing a sore shoulder with ice on it, but none the less into the festivities. We sang Beatles tunes, Wild Cherry, old 50's and 60's and some tradition old fashioned ACDC (what's a party without ACDC right?)

Dinner was fantastic.. awesome BBQ chicken... and after we tore the gear down and my father leaving around the 9pm .. we sat by a bonfire!! ahhh... we were nice and comfy by the toasty fire.. crick-cracklin' away... my cousin brings me my acoustic and we play more music... Not to be outdone.. Mother Effin' Nature decides to pee pee on us again... Imagine our shock!

By 1:30am i went to bed in the tent. We woke the next morning to headaches, snoring and --- YOU GUESSED IT... RAIN!!! Gah!!! But we were served to a great breakfast served up by Great Cousins and given cups of Heaven-Sent coffee.. i swear some of the best coffee ever.

WE got home on Sunday afternoon in time to watch NASCAR .. during that time, it was nice and sunny... of course it was.. I watch Nascar every sunday... of course Mother Effin' Nature knows that.. so she makes it sunny... BITCH.
After nascar, I decided to bbq some turkey burgers .. and guess what happens...
Say it together everyone ... IT STARTS TO RAIN... I sat outside, with my beer, staring daggers at Mother Effin' Nature and Deb opens the back door as I sit soaked beside the bbq, "What are you doing?"
"I'm staying out in spite of the rain," I said.. Now it had gotten personal.
The one thing I had going for me, was they had predicted a nice Monday .. for our Monday off. This would allow me to sit outside on the back deck and enjoy the day.

We woke up Monday morning. It was grey, foggy - and .. what??? RAINING.
It's raining today. It will rain tomorrow.. and straight through until Saturday - and if people on the radio tell me that it will be nice on Saturday.. I won't fucking believe it .. cuz Mother Effin' Nature is simply too bitchy to leave it be!!

So - yes I had a great weekend... In spite of the rain... but it can stop anytime now! We, here in Eastern Ontario, are fucking tired of the rain!

And that is this week's rant!!

Holy Shizna! Where have you been?

First from the Wall of Wierd. I don't know if it makes it down to the states, but we had a horrible attack that simply defies logic near Winnipeg Manitoba. A carny sits at the back of a bus, listening to tunes on his mp3 player, head against the bus-window. He's minding his own business looking forward to going home.
Another dude walks to the back of the bus and sits next to said carny. Dude grips a knife and starts wailing away at the carny repeatedly (ok like constantly) 40 or 50 times in the throat ... with gurgling screams, the carny is powerless to defend himself, and eventually the Dude isn't happy enough with just whackin' the guy with a knife. He proceeds to cut the sinew in the carny's neck to decapitate him while the other occupants of the bus rush out of there...

Now.. I submit to you. What kinda fuckin' pscyho do you have to be to just walk on a bus, arbitrarily pick a guy to kill like that?? I ask ya!!! What the fuck is this world coming to.

now they're saying they wanna put metal detectors on a bus?? What the hell is that gonna do. What? Are you gonna put metal detectors in side-walks now so that people with knives don't threaten the local population???
Good thing we have a GUN REGISTRY that cost us BILLIONS of dollars to stop people from shooting each other.. oh ya.. that really worked out great eh?? If people wanna kill poeple - they don't need a gun.. You can't stop a fuckin' nut-job.. cops shoulda popped this fucker in the head the minute he came off the bus with the Carny's head in his hands. KAAKPAAAOOOOWWW!! Goodnight!

Ok.. From the sick, repulsive to a little lighter topic.
As all of you know we have a new house. New Backyard. New furniture. New tub. New everything so we thought; "Why stop there!?"
So we have a new Birdy too.
This is Onyx. He's a Grey-Fancy Pied - but he really does look black. even his beak and feet are black, and so Onyx seemed like a fitting name. Nothing like just calling him Black, only with a different language... very creative of me. but it works so .. shush!!!

On the docket this weekend. We have our 25th annual Family Reunion this weekend. I have family coming from all over the place, going to my Father's cousin's cottage. I remember going to the first one of these reunions 25 years ago .... it was fun back then, and now that i'm old enough to partake in the beer - it's a lot more fun hehehe..

My dad and I typically bring our guitars and have a wee jam while the family dances around the fire. It's alot of fun. The one difference this year, is we're pitching a tent and spending the night to party. The cottage is over and hour and a half away - which sucks for driving after a day of drinking (or not drinking if you have to drive). So! WE decided, Deb and I, that we're just gonna let loose and camp out.

So - that's that mes amis! Have a good weekend.

I leave you with a picture of me with my Cousins Roxie, and her ALL TOO TALL husband Shaun (who's cousin is Chris Phillips from the Ottawa Senators btw. (can you see that size runs in the family there?)), my dad's cousin JoJo and her daughter Melissa. From the last Reunion i attended back in 2005.

I look forward to partying with my Cousin Roxie -- she's the Shizna!! :)

Let's Dance.

This is something to bring smiles to faces out there.
In a world where media is frought with death, war, global warming and the threat of human annihalation...
I bring you, Matt Harding.

There is some Geek-Lore here - so beware!

Matt Harding is an American video game developer and Internet celebrity known as Dancing Matt for his viral videos that show him dancing in front of landmarks and street scenes in various international locations. Harding has since achieved fame through widespread coverage of his travel exploits in major print and broadcast media outlets.

This video, most recently, was posted at NASA's Picture of the Day Site. and it really brought a smile to my face.

If you're having a down day - this is sure to cheer you up.


Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Find Matt here!

Weekend Review: "Holy Bats, Batman"

Let us start with Friday, before we get to "Batty-Saturday".

Friday, I came home to a relatively quiet house. I wasn't in the best of moods after spending a day dealing with translating Korenglish into English.

"What is Korenglish?" you ask.
Well my curious little friends, Korenglish is what you get when someone in our Korean head-office takes a Korean Press-Release, translates it into their broken-down English and sends it to us to have it proof-read. IN essense, it's terrible english.

"How did you get roped into doing that? I thought you were a System Administrator/Computer dude?" you wonder.
Yes - all that is true. However, when it is well known that I write as a hobby, and i'm actually not bad at it, and our tech-writer/verification engineer/documentations person/ / / you get the idea... feels she's very swamped and knows i could really lighten her load, she asked me if i'd help out. Me, not knowing the sheer scope of what this wee job entailed, i agreed.
In hind-sight, i was a fuckin' idiot to agree.

Seriously, with something as important as a Press-Release, they should consider having a professional, not a webmaster (in korea) translate english based on her "English as a second language" schooling. No offense to her, but she's just not qualified to come up with the appropriate Marketting Language to suit something of that importance.
Do I? Probably more than her, from what i've read.
I fixed around 4 documents, each one more contradictory than the next. And with my ignorance of our product model, it made RE-WRITING the documents more and more difficult. The more i read, the more pissed off i got at how terrible the english was. I started getting the "I can't work like this" attitude.

1) it wasn't my job.
2) we should be getting pros to do this.

To make things worst still, when they realized that two of us were willing to help, they started sending us all of their documents (3 to 4 a day) to "PROOF" read. I said to my colleague here in Ottawa, if proofing is all they want, I'm willing to circle the whole document in Red-Ink and say, "RE-WRITE" .. Proof-reading is not re-writing in legible and understandable language.

Long long story short, i was in a pissy mood Friday night... but we had a good BBQ-steak, and wine - and all was right in the world after that.

Now.. on to "Batty-Saturday".
We woke up a little earlier on Saturday, because we knew that by 10:30, we were leaving.
"To where?" you ask.
To the theater, to take in the latest Batman movie, Batman: The Dark Knight, that's where. Tho' Mike Q (my good buddy of ALRO-Nation fame) and LilDeb thought I was crazy, i was bent on making the theater steps before 11am for the 12-Noon showing. But i was quickly vindicated as we made our approach towards the movie-house. Yip, there in all their glory were around 100 other geeks just like me. By 11:15, there were at least 250 people on the front steps.

Once we got in - we just barely got good seats for all 4 of us, Me, Deb, Q and LilRay.

Now - from here on - get ready to be gooped up with gooey, geeky goodness!!!
Let me preface this. There will be some minor spoilers.. but i swear not to give anything critical away... like.. "Batman dies" or anything like that... no, i will strictly leave that out. (I was kidding about the 'Batman dies' thing!!) (oooor was i??? Hmm.. you'll have to see the movie now won't you?!)

Ok.. So if you were not part of the mob of people that dropped $153 million this weekend on The Dark Knight movie, this is my reaction to it.

HOLY FUCK!
Parents out there will ask: "IS it ok for children?"
I will say "Yes" so long as your kid doesn't frighten EASILY. We took Raymond (7 years old) to this movie and he loved it. (of course, he's a geek in training and follows the creed of all geeks -- comic book movies rock no matter how fucking psycho the villain is!!)

We all know that Heath Ledger passed away from an accidental overdose of anti-depressants, sleeping pills and booze. That saddens me. A LOT! I think we were all struck by the fact that this man did not get to see his own brilliance.
TO say that Heath Ledger's portrayal of The Joker was good -- nay, great, nay fucking brilliant is not good enough. Frankly, i don't think that anyone hereforth will ever be able to match this man's performance... EVER! and i don't say this lightly!

Ledger's performance BLEW. ME. AWAY!
The rest of the performances were very strong as well, making the movie so believable, you lost yourself in the movie giggling and laughing throughout the film at Joker's brilliance, his cunning, his savvy, his sheer love of chaos...

This movie also really showed that The Batman is not - JUST ONE MAN. The Batman is a team of people working together. And it's awesome.
There's tons of chemistry. Clearly the actors bought into the directors vision and ran with it.

The result is a deliciously evil villain, against a morally acute protangonist with a great ensemble of supporting characters that make for a unprecidented, chilling ride in to the mind of a Super-Genius Madman. A madman bent on bringing chaos to gotham no matter what the cost.

Ledger's performance is so great - and the writing for his character was so brilliant, that at the end of the movie, you respect the Joker's genius. When you look at the painted face in the movie, however, you don't see Heath Ledger anymore. You see -- something else. A monster. It's not much of a wonder why he fell into depression following the end of filming. As a method-actor, delving into the mind of this madman that he'd created.... what a fucking mind job that would have been.

I cannot endorse this movie enough. See in in IMAX.. loose yourself for 2 and a half hours.. and just be WOW.

We found ourselves saying, "I can't believe he just did that!"
Heath Ledger, rest his soul, deserves a posthumous Oscar for this movie.

So that's what i got on THAT.

ON Sunday, we went to my Dad's new place in the country. It was his birthday, and so, armed with a bottle of 18 year old scotch, we made our way there for bbq and a nice afternoon on the deck.
So Happy Bifferday to Him!!!!

Lastly, the new Star Trek movie finally made some splash. JJ Abrams is really keeping this movie on the hush-hush. The only thing known about it is that it's about Kirk and Spock just after the Academy days. Probably pre-5 year mission (but noone really knows for sure). If you go to imdb.com and do a search for it, you can see who's in it... but other than that, there are no details at all about the movie.
BUT>.. they did release the posters for it... 4 of them.

1 of Kirk.
1 of Spock
1 of Uhura
1 of Nero (the villain)

When i put them together, using only Paint in windows, you get the well-known star-trek symbol A.K.A (The Delta).
So, in my geekiness i'm sharing.



Have a good week all.