TwoBlog

My sites got hacked and somebody added this javascript injection. Thusly, google flagged my site, followed by my provider.

Unfortunately it’s a chicken or egg thing where once they suspended the site via html, I couldn’t manage my blogsite to prepare it for upgrade.

Fortunately, the site knew the situation, unsuspended me and I *think* I’ve cleaned it up. I had to wipe out the injection from some static pages as well as remove the malicious js script from ALL my dirs. Finally, since the hack injected some bad functions into each and every js file it could find, I had to upgrade mine, Olivia’s and Christien’s blogsites. So far just this one has been done. Did the post work?

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Before I forget, I must post that yet again, Sean and I went to another Echo concert. This time at the Phoenix in Toronto. I’m not certain, but I think this is the first venue I ever saw the band about 12 years ago with Greg. I must say it hasn’t changed much. But that’s OK because the site is a great one to have a concert of this size.

As Sean can attest to, the band was on. I would sum up the performance as ‘aggressive’. Rapid rhythms and hard guitarwork. They played some great classics that don’t come up live very often: The Back of Love & Rust.

The highlight for me was when they cranked out Never Stop, The Back of Love, the Killing Moon and the Cutter before ending the set. I haven’t seen that much energy from them.

The encore was a great extended version of Lips Like Sugar. But I must admit my disappointment that they didn’t play Ocean Rain. Up until then, I hadn’t seen them live without that song being played. Although Greg had told me that they don’t often play it I couldn’t believe that since I’ve been so fortunate.

Anyway, a great concert and a great night out even though we didn’t get home until 2am.

Hey Sean, if they ever come back we’ll need to finally man up and by one of those awful T-shirts….maybe the one with Einstein.

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Alas, I failed to win again. The darts was a wash. Euchre – we won the round robin and got the bye, but were ousted immediately by a lone hand thanks to Greg. Only 1 point there. Poker – well, in the 1/2 hr you have to make a move I didn’t hit any cards that could be played against a table that stays in on every hand. Ping Pong was a surprise as Doaner and I made it to the finals by upsetting the favourites (Rico and Tiger). So that garnered me 3 instead of 1. So a 4 pt finish which is average at best. Moving further in Euchre would have helped get me on the podium.

Next year I’ll man up and do the log saw (if I draw a good partner).

Anyway, it was another year of tradition and predictable schedule which is what lures me to Wonderboy: same people, same location, same weather, same schedule, same everything. It’s a nice way to shut off the mind if only for a little while.

Wonderboy has gone high tech. Along with the website, we now post standings realtime-ish. Expect this feature to get a major overhaul for next year that shows more detail regarding the in-game progress.

We also Twitter

Next year, expect to see live webcasts as we attempt to bring the Wonderboy to you. It also will be useful for the lazies that can’t make their way to the basement to watch the games live. They can now sit in the comfort of the main room and watch the events on the 55 inch LCD.

We’re hoping to someday create a Wii version of Wonderboy. Then our Mii’s can do all the work!

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Last night Sean, Sonia and I took a break from our normal lives and headed to the Queen Elizabeth Theatre at the CNE to catch Echo doing their Ocean Rain album accompanied by symphony. For $77 a pop we didn’t know what to expect. My guess was that they would do the album and that’s it.

Was I ever wrong. As the lights dimmed and the gang came out sans orchestra and started hammering out ‘Going Up’, I knew something was up. After the song, Ian said (more or less because I can never really understand what he’s saying) that with all the interviews and ‘ciggies’ he had that day he needed to stretch his voice, that the band had decided to do 2 sets that night: One with a sampling of songs from all their albums, followed by the Ocean Rain album.

Unbelievable! Thus, the event turned into something we couldn’t have imagined. And Ian and the band were on form. Better than I’ve ever seen them, and I’ve seen them many, many times. I think the theatre acoustics helped, but that didn’t account for how ‘on’ they were. Ian had great voice control. Plus the ‘new’ bassist was quite the addition.

Sitting through the first set had some oddness to it. As they were more or less doing their normal gig, I’m used to being in a crowd of people standing/dancing around with drink in hand. And quite a bit more rowdy. Sitting there and politely applauding to the set was unusual. Especially when it was time for ‘Cutter’.

The first set even touched upon a couple of songs from their new album ‘The Fountain’. I don’t know the titles offhand since I’ve just this morning popped it into my car. But they did the 1st two tracks off the album. I think they’re “Forgotten Fields” and “I Think I Need it Too”. They also did, to my delight, Villeur’s Terrace with a merge into Roadhouse Blues. Other songs from the list: Stormy Weather, Nothing Lasts Forever (I wanna play football for the coach…with Ian’s trademark wanderings and meshings into Lou Reeds ‘Walk on the Wild Side’), Show of Strength, Rescue.

The crowd was an eclectic bunch of old-timers and odds and ends. We would be considered young in that crowd. So the energy wasn’t really projecting from the crowd and Ian had to muster it up on his own. One unusual attendee: a 6mth baby that had industrial strength ear muffs on his/her head. Very cute, and very dedicated mother.

It’s tough to dance in the rows and there was some but not much dancing in the aisles. I wonder how that made the band feel? One lady tried multiple times to hand Ian a dozen roses. Not sure if he ever got them.

Between sets was a 20 minute break to stretch and prep. And then it was all business as the band came out to do the feature. And this set will go down in my books as the most memorable Echo concert, scratch that, the most memorable concert moment of my life. I was blown away. So much that I just sat there in my seat, barely moving and soaked it all in. The orchestra fills out the Ocean Rain album so much that you wonder how they pulled any of these songs off in previous concerts without the accompanyment. I know Wills DAT fillins help there, but it doesn’t compare to the rich full and majestic volume that the combination of the band and the orcestra produced.

As the band moved through the songs, right about the end of Killing Moon, you could feel the anticipation building for Ocean Rain itself. And when they performed it, well, words can’t describe it. It was clearly the best rendition I have ever heard. Even Will’s iMAC malfunction wasn’t enough to spoil the moment.

Great times, well worth the coin, and when are they coming back again?

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Happy Birthday Olivia!

4 years old today. The celebration has spanned the last few days but today is the actual day.

Sunday we spent the day with Sam, Grace, Joey and Angel at African Lion Safari. That was a blast. Your favourite was the splash park. But the trip around the reserve in the tour bus was fun too. You insisted on sitting with Angel at the back of the bus. You got to see monkeys rip trim off of cars, giraffes eating, baby lion cubs, rhinos and more. The Birds of Prey show was exciting too. The horn-rimmed owl was your favourite. Christien was a big fan of the Safari as well. I guess we’ll be going there quite often over the next few summers.

Afterwards, back home for a BBQ and birthday cake with even more guests: Nicole, Perry, Nick and Alex. You ‘raked’ in some nice gifts:
- pretend Bride outfits including invitations from Joey and Angel. Daddy will practice going down the aisle with you
- Whack-a-mole and a splash game (Nicole et al)
- beautiful kid-sized upholstered lounge chair for the basement playroom from Grandma and Nonno
- Scooter and treasure chest full of goodies from Mommy and Daddy. The monkey helmet is your favourite. Don’t every grow up kid!
- Easel from Nanna
- Gift certificat parlayed into a Barbie Jeep from Uncle Luc.

Today it’s fun at the Lion’s Lagoon or the KidZone if it’s too cold. And then dinner at the Boston Pizza for your Bugs’n'Cheese.

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I admit this, it’s true. I do watch AI (American Idol), and am always somewhat disappointed. That’s a direct result of the fact that I’m a dud and love Echo, James, Roxy Music and the other *greats*

But tonight, there was this *Grand Ole Opry* night where the singers had to choose an *opry* like song. And lo’ and behold, 9 of the 10 chose to sing country style (nothing wrong with that).

But this one guy….I think his name is Adam…chose to sing J.C’s “Ring of Fire”. and Randy (Travis)? was ‘upset’ about the *eastern* flair. “I don’t know what to say about this boy” “That Johnny Cash arrangement thru me for a loop”. The best comment he made was “A great singer” dusted in with many *unusual* criticisms.

So anyway, Freakboy, I don’t think you watch this show, but if you ever get a hold of this guy’s rendition of “Ring Of Fire”, you will likely take Reznor’s rendition of this and shatter it into many many pieces. This is a mixture of The Darkness (One Way Ticket To Hell And Back) and The Tea Party. I can’t give it proper justice.

The only justice I can give it is that dunce girl was stupified, Simon Cowell was an idiot and Randy Jackson thought it was hot and *the bomb* — whom I think is the most qualified of the bunch.

So anyway, I know this guy won’t last (not that I care) but he is on my wavelength. And I say this: In my mind I know what I like and be that as it may, it’s a shame he has debased himself by going on this show. He is a singular talent that I would probably be buying many albums from….except that now he has reduced himself. I really hope he loses so he can go off and do what he’s meant to do.

Cheers buddy!

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I bought gas at 93 cents today. And with my gas card I worked it down to 88 cents! Long live the recession!

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My brother Luc just informed me that James has a new album on the market. Time to skip out and check it out! More to come on that one.

What troubles me slightly is that I had no idea they were producing again. What has happened to me?

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Our household was very disappointed with the broadcasting of the Olympics in Beijing. The games themselves seemed very good and there were some pretty good events like the 100M and 200M dominiation by Usain Bolt. It’s the broadcasters we loathe.

Sonia (and I agree with her) was very disappointed in what NBC and CBC (and TSN I guess, but who cares about them since they only were able to show basketball and boxing. Whoppeee!) were broadcasting, particularly in prime time. Of the most irritating things: why did they have to spend about 40% of their broadcast time showing profiles on Olympians and docucrap on China? My god, we can do this ourselves on the internet. So, add in commercials and of the ‘billion’ of hours of broadcasting, about 25% was actually devoted to showing the events themselves. And that leads to aggravating point number 2: they were often showing stuff that we just didn’t care to watch. IN PARTICULAR: BEACH VOLLEYBALL. Man, this made up hokey sport for drunken teens to play on spring break shouldn’t even be in the Olympics (nor should a lot of other events like syncro swimming. Table tennis can stay but it should be officially renamed to ping-pong). If you add the amount of time CBC spent on Beach Volleyball, now were down to about 18-20% of the broadcasting time was spent on anything remotely interesting. And get this: Canada didn’t even have any entrants in Beach Volleyball that would have garnered any real interest! But I guess that could be said for pretty much every event (Bah-dum!)

So, grow up you silly excuse for a ‘national’ television station and start using TV a little better. Start getting the real guns involved like Rogers and start offering multiple On-Demand options so that I can watch what event I want, when I want. Boy, I was Jonesing for some badminton or archery, you know, stuff I never see outside of the Olympics but not once did I catch any of that. And don’t give me that ‘how do we make money if we go On-Demand’ crap because there are many creative ways to make a profit going down that path. Though I’m not going to make your life easier by telling you how.

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I’ve been adding (slowly) to my blog page about songs that invoke vivid memories of my past. While I was scrolling through the Nazareth part of my brain, I remembered a couple of funny things that I just have to repeat here:

“You’d think that these memories should come out of high school or even earlier, but they are more about my 2A to 3B terms at UW, most of that time living at Batavia place. The ‘Nazareth Anthology’ came out the term I was in 2A. But it all started in 1A, when I received one of their cassette tapes in the big first purchase from Columbia House (do they still exist?). Yes, cassette tapes. I would listen to this during my walks to class in the dead of winter (1B). “Heart’s Grown Cold” is a big memory maker. It was during this period of purchasing albums from Columbia House that I made the transition to CDs. Wow. My Nazareth Anthology box set was eventually stolen while living on 3rd Street (near Lansdowne) in Ottawa during my third workterm. One day Scott Murphy and I bought a couple of these keg contraptions holding 36 beer equivalent that Labatt’s was trying out for their Genuine Draft product. All day in the backyard we were sitting around listening to old vinyl Metallica albums that the neighbour was ‘introducing us to’. I don’t know how it happened but for some reason 2 absolute strangers joined us in the fun. These guys were shady at best (think mullets, cut off jeans and wife-beater shirts). After drinking a lot of beer with us, they eventually left. They seemed like nice guys. Later that day Scott and I went out to shoot some pool and when we got back, my bedroom window had been broken into and these guys (obviously) were the culprits. But they only took 2 things: my jar of change and my Nazareth Anthology. Now, I say obvious because we had left the keg contraptions in the back yard but not the taps. The kegs were also damaged….as if somebody were trying really hard to get some more of that wonderful Duff they had been drinking earlier that day. True story!”

Oh, and something I’m also proud of: I once went to see Nazareth when they came to the Flying Dog. But it wasn’t called the Flying Dog back then. Does anybody remember what it was called back in the early 90’s?

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