Upcoming

Oh the curds... show me the whey!!

So... FIMAV was fun as always. It's a special place where people from many nations speaking many different languages come together and try to burst your eardrums.

Not in all cases, of course, some of it was quite sublime... but two back to back nights, Saturday and Sunday featured large scale performances by some of the most infernal racketeers you'd ever want to hear. Saturday was a double bill featuring Keiji Haino and Sunn O)))... then Sunday was a supergroup of sorts featuring old school American jazz/noise merchants Borbetomagus and Japanese noise rock pioneers Hijokaidan. It looked like this on stage:

This photo is courtesy of the event's official photographer.

If you want a show by show run down you can pop over to the Surgery blog where such a thing will soon exist.

Slept on and off much of Tuesday (which I pre-booked as a day of rest...) caught up on e-mails, not much else. Then back to work. One thing about taking any amount of time off is that the first day back is usually a painful thing. I was quickly reminded of my place in life when someone called with 78 rpm records and "regular" records to sell. I gave my usual pitch, they named a few albums... some of them promising, some of them Supertramp. I had poo pooed the 78s early on, given that we don't have the space for something so slow to turn over. He assured me the music on them was older... "even older than Supertramp," was how he described it. Is that even possible?

Here are a few more sights and sounds... well sights anyway... of the weekend, including the legendary Poutine Galvaude of the wonderous MAX POUTINE!!! (all caps for effect and for J.Mac's benefit.)

In the details

It's a couple of days (less than 48 hours) before I take of for the FIMAV in Victoriaville. Taking care of last minute details gives me a rash... what am I forgetting this time... census, curling iron, cats on fire (got to put 'em out). Do people stay on top of the little things like getting haircuts and putting out the recycling on time? I feel like I used to. But now... well it's more conscious, that's for sure.

Marc B., James and I are taking a route through Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire to get to our respective destinations... I've never done this drive before. Scenery is one of my favourite things to look at.

Things have been pretty laid back whilst house-sitting. My only bit of heart acceleration came mid-late last week, walking to work. My route is down Reid to Albert and across the top of the Middle School sports field over to York and down again. I was cutting the corner onto York, which has a fairly steep 5-6 foot dip down to the sidewalk. A black dog three or four houses down the street across York was barking frantically at me even before I got to the corner. Stupid dog, I grumbled, especially after seeing he was safely tied up. When I got to the very top of the decline I saw that not me, but a full-on bushy tailed skunk was what had the dog so excited. I sucked in air and backed up slowly but deliberately, crossed over Albert to the opposite corner and crossed there. I gave the, now obviously, smart dog a big thumbs up on the way by.

At work, other than the usual springtime cavalcade of phone calls by people who've discovered records in their basement and think they've solved their money woes for 2006... only slight irritations, annoyances, and opportunities to be amused have occured. To whit:

Two young men (15-17... who can tell?) browsing the store. The blonde one is a "regular," but the type of regular who comes in twice a month, never buys anything but always asks for "rare" Nirvana stuff (vinyl, singles, imports) or K. Cobain endorsed things like Vaselines, Daniel Johnston, Teenage Fanclub, etc. When confronted with any of the things he so desperately desires he either "has it" or will "pick it up later." Later of course means never, though a great show of disappointment is made when he comes in three weeks later to find the Nirvana single sold. But I digress.

His friend, a first time customer, I think, has a Slayer CD and a copy of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon on a Japanese label. Here's how this goes:

He: This says it's Japanese.

Me: Yes.

He: Does that mean it's translated in Japanese?

Me: No... it's on a Japanese label.

He: So they put it out in Japan?

Me: Yes. The Japanese love to rock.

He: [furrowed brow] But it's not in Japanese?

Me: No.

He: [putting CDs on the counter] Are you looking for any work here?

Me: [piecing it together] Ahhh... I don't have to look, I have work here.

He: You Do have work here?

Me: I have work here. Were YOU looking for work here?

He: Yeah... yeah.

Me: Sorry, we're not hiring.

He: Oh well, thought it would be better than working at Ponderosa.

and SCENE.

I fed the kitties some Limp Bizkits...

...and they started to mutate:



I'm giving them some Korn for dinner. Maybe that will make it better?

I did it for the Kittie, the Kittie...

I hope everyone's forgotten Limp Bizkit sufficiently to not get the title of this entry? Good.

I've begun a stint house sitting for my friends Dana and Chris...

It works out well just now as they have an office with a view of the back deck, Hi Speed internet and a nice Mac to work on... and I have reviews to write for an Exclaim! deadline. Noon tomorrow.

They also have three things which might (pre)occupy my attention:


Simon


Phoebe

...and my old nemesis... SATELLITE TELEVISION!!!!

I'll let you know how the battle goes later.

So why are we here?

The wonders of weeknights off!!!

After a pleasant ramble through points Maine-ish and Quebecois with Mandy over the weekend (see pictures below) I've been revelling in the new-found ability to go where I want when I want after 5 pm. Of course 3 of the last 6 nights that's been up here to the lab to get caught up on work, but still... it's only 'cause I could choose to do so.

On Wednesday the routine was broken up by wine bottling with Howard and Linda. Two new batches to add to the wine cellar/gymnasium/sewing room/darts emporium. Some of those things probably aren't meant to co-habit, no problem for the Renaissance couple, though. H & L take quality control quite seriously so much scrubbing, filtering, sterilization was involved. The process post-pre-clean is dynamically perfect for three people: 1) Howard on racking (or bottling) 2) Me on corking and 3) Linda on labelling. The final step is the application of the plastic seal... the shrink-wrappy thing that goes over the cork... I did that with a super-heating paint stripping gun... worked a treat.

Each momentary pause between steps of course calls for a sip of the wine from a newly decanted bottle. Only when the process is over (we did 2 batches of 28-30 bottles each) do you realize how wrecked you've gotten.

I capped the evening off with a walk home... which is about an hour from their place to mine... across the river... but it was a nice night and I had my CD player (you may remember portable CD players... they were early prototypes for mp3 players). The only little bit of unexpected fun came as I got to the South side of Westmorland Bridge. There was no traffic so I crossed over the road to the City Hall side of the bridge and walked down the on ramp to the riverside. I crossed the Westbound lanes to the central median when I noticed a set of headlights approach under the bridge... so I stopped to wait for the car to pass. However when I stopped the car stopped. So I thought a thought halfway between Hmmmm and Oh Fuck. As soon as I started walking again the car sped forward... propelling me further in the Oh Fuck direction. Soon enough I could see that it was a police car and they pulled across from me blocking my path.

Cop: How are we tonight?

Me: Doing OK, thanks.

Cop: Where are you off to?

Me: Just headed home.

Cop: We saw you just standing by the road... what were you doing?

Me: I was waiting for you to pass so you wouldn't run over me.

Cop: Oh. Alright then.

[speeds off]


The other little bits of synchronus silliness at the store this week consisted of not one or two but three different organizations calling or dropping in looking for junk vinyl to decorate for parties/functions they were planning. All of them essentially hoped we'd just hand over something no questions asked. My favourite of the three was the Marriott call centre chick. Now the Marriott is, I believe, a fortune 500 company... million/billion dollar revenue jokers, y'know? The lady's pitch was that they were having "Associate Appreciation Hootenanny..." or something to that effect... with a retro rock theme. She wondered if they could "borrow" some of our records with the promised they'd return them in the same shape at a later time. My response was propelled from the Oh Fuck (off) direction.

Not pictured here...

Clicking makes 'em bigger...