Chapters Gift Certificate

With the $50 Chapters gift certificate I got from my sister, I bought Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, and the Sunday's Best CD "Poised to Break".

My birthday (slightly belated)

It was my 21st birthday on Friday (which everyone else made a much bigger deal about than I did, but which I was informed that I should have made a big deal out of), and I had an excellent time (which is weird for me for birthdays).

Anyway, I made out like an absolute bandit - three soccer jerseys (Newcastle United, which I've wanted for a long, long time, Inter Milan, and Juventus), the extended edition of The Bourne Identity, a Made shirt (boo-yeah, can't believe you found that, either!), Poolhall Junkies, a Chapters gift certificate, a Spongebob doll, a wallet, umm....I'm sure I'm forgetting lots of other stuff...

The Newcastle jersey I've wanted ever since I went to England for the first time, about 10 years ago.  The Magpies had just bought Alan Shearer for what was one of the biggest transfers in Premiership history, so he was everywhere, and, not knowing anything about soccer, I decided I liked him (why do you think so many Americans like Beckham?). 

And I've wanted a Made shirt since I started listening to Good Charlotte.

I'm sure everyone will tell you I needed a new wallet, and I definitely have a Spongebob Squarepants problem.  Ha!

So, yeah, I got completely spoiled, so thank you to everyone who got me everything they did and made the day as good as it was!  My parents, and Jen, and Carley, and Ben, and Nancy and all the family who sent me things that it would take way too long to mention.

As I write this, I'm also trying to figure out what to spend my Chapters gift certificate on.  So far, I'm buying a Sunday's Best album, but I've still got about $25 to go, and, unfortunately, I went out and bought two books today, so that kinda defeats the purpose.  I've got an idea, though...

Thank you everybody very much, you all got me far too much and I don't deserve it!  Happy birthday to Mike!

Busker's Festival/Rude people
 
Carley and I went to the Busker's festival tonight (it required some shift switching, and we were both pretty dead after it) and it was really quite excellent.  We went last year, and it was good, but this year outdid it.  The best act was a guy from Boston named Stitch, who's interaction with the crowd was great.  He had one little helper kid, although throughout the performance about a half dozen other kids ran on to "assist" him - which basically meant they knocked things out of his hands and tried to push him over.
 
The biggest difference between this year and last came right at the end, when all of the performers did a little mini-version of their shows, so that everyone could see what they'd missed or what they could see on Saturday.  Once again, Stitch stole the show, by doing nothing more than flipping a fedora on and off of his head.  It shouldn't have been as good as it was, but it was.
 
There is also a vaudeville show featuring the performers on Sunday, a change from the usual schedule of three days of busking.
 
As for the rude people, really, do you have to smoke in the middle of a crowd?  Particularly a crowd with kids in it?  I mean, we're in the middle of the main street of the town, for God's sake, you couldn't move off to the side long enough to finish?  Let's be like Waterloo, no smoking - anywhere.

The election

I haven't had a chance to sit down and organize my thoughts about the federal election on June 28th. I'll start off with a quote from Ben Kowalewicz from Billy Talent:

"Thank you Canada for not electing a conservative government. I mean, the Liberals aren't much better, but Stephen Harper would have been our own George fucking Bush."

Damn right. Thank you Canada for electing not necessarily a Liberal majority, but for beating Harper and the Conservatives. And with the NDP earning more federal seats than they have in a long time, we at least have a left-wing majority, even if the Liberals are going a little pink. The important thing is we won't be having too many victories on bills that propose to deregulate post-secondary tuition costs (anyone who wants to go to Queens should love that, even though education is truly in the hands of provincial governments, but is still affected at a federal level), develop a two-tier health care systems, and give the upper class those healthy tax cuts.

Quite frankly, having taxes remain the same, or even go up a little bit doesn't bother me, as long as I know I won't be paying through the nose every time I go to the doctor's or walk into the doors of a school. I get about $400 back at the end of every year, and believe me, if I only get $200 back, I'm sure I can find a way to get by.

Now, I voted NDP. I was torn between voting NDP, with whom I agree more than the Liberals, or voting Liberal, purely to help mount a defense against PC candidate David Tilson. Tilson was our MPP for years before he vacated his cushy seat in favour of Ernie Eves. He then decided to run federally, and take on incumbent Murray Calder, who really should have blown him out of the water. Instead, Tilson beat Calder by a few thousand votes. This, to me, was very depressing. Calder lost a lot of support because the riding lines were redrawn, and he lost his hometown of Mount Forest, so a considerable amount of support would have been lost there, but really, not that many votes. As soon as Tilson decides to run, everyone in Orangeville's a conservative. Yet, even though Orangeville elected a conservative MP, both Blockbuster's are totally out of their copies of Roger & Me, and Bowling for Columbine, and I'm sure Fahrenheit 9/11 will be totally sold out. Sorry, bit of Blockbuster propaganda there.

As for the future, hopefully the minority government will wake the Liberals up a little and make Martin more than a caretaker PM. It'll make him act on more than deciding on Canada's official horse.

So, thank you Canada for proving the pundits wrong and voting left.

Edgefest 2004

The lineup: The Salads, Jersey, Something Corporate, Alexisonfire, Jet, Billy Talent, finger eleven, Good Charlotte

Carley and I went to our first Edgefest on Friday, at the Molson Amphitheatre. It used to be at Molson Park in Barrie, but that's basically a parking lot right now. Anyway, our seats were great, right under the roof so we weren't bothered by the sun until it was just going down, and right in the center.

It was very crowded, mostly with stupid teen girls all yammering on their cell phones to the friends they had lost on the way to the bathroom. Did you know that teen girls can't walk and talk at the same time? It's really quite amazing.

And why is it that "goth" girls still think they're all edgy and cool when they're buying their chunky jewellery at a booth sponsored by a radio station? How exactly is that edgy, even if the station is Edge 102? And why is that particular age of girl always so melodramatic? Case in point: As Good Charlotte was playing "Hold On", the threesome in front of us (Carley and I had taken quite an interest in them because they seemed to fit every stereotype of silly teeny-bopper/edgy girls you could imagine) we holding one another and (probably) weeping uncontrollably. YOU'RE 14!! You don't have jobs and your mum is going to pick you up once the show is done! Get over yourselves! Which, amazingly, they did, two songs later.

It was also a lot of fun to watch the guys (it always seemed to be guys) who were obviously far more inebriated than they should have been -- assuming they pat you down at the entrance -- try to dance to the incredibly long guitar solos that f11 guitarist James Black played. And none of them had their shirts on, but you'd better believe they were sporting those oh so sexy trucker caps that (WARNING: The following could harm your sense of fashion) have never been cool.

There was also far too much smoking being allowed in the seats, assuming there were signs on every wall that you couldn't. I will say, one guy who sat beside Carley and I actually asked if it would bother us if he smoked, and then made a point not to blow the smoke near us. Yes he was smoking, but at least he was considerate.

As for the concert, here goes:

Loudest performance: Jet, who really said absolutely nothing to the audience except "Thank you", but ran through about 10 songs and absolutely belted out every one.

Least audible performance: Jersey, but that's OK because they suck.

Most audible performance: Something Corporate, who, even though they put on a slighty rockier edge for the show, still had their emo vibe to them and you could clearly make out all the words.

Performance we skipped: Alexisonfire. If they'd get rid of the screamer, the band would be good.

Song I was glad a band sang: "Riot Girl", Good Charlotte

Song Carley was upset a band didn't sing: "Konstantine", Something Corporate

Most energetic performance: Billy Talent, but only a slight edge over Something Corporate

Best reception for a band that's not Good Charlotte: Billy Talent

Most disappointing performance: finger eleven. It wasn't bad by any means, but it really seemed like they were tired and didn't really want to be there. They saved it, though, and did a really high energy job on "Good Times"

Worst performance: Jersey, the only band we didn't want to see but stayed for. All their songs sound alike! And that's not good!

Best bouncer moment: The first crowd surfer who got thrown out of the pit got caught upside down by the angry looking, 275-pound bouncer.

Longest wait between bands: Well, Good Charlotte, but they were the headliners. The second longest was between the Salads and Jersey. We managed to get up, look at merch, get back, sit down, and still watch them play.

Best performance: Tie - Good Charlotte/Something Corporate, with Billy Talent coming in a very close second. They probably would have won, but Ben kept pulling his shirt up and showing off his belly, which was just strange. Both GC and SC had amazing energy, good sets, and interacted with the crowds better than anyone else.

Best solo: Something Corporate's piano solo

Worst solo: James Black's guitar solo, which went on. And on. And on. And made the stoned guy dance a lot.

I think that pretty much sums up the best and the worst. We had a little trouble finding parking due to the complete lack of noticeable signs for parking lots. And we had to chug our water outside because we made the mistake of opening them before we got inside, which meant we could not bring them inside, should we have filled it with outside (read: not $6) booze.

We did notice a couple of things, other than the teen girl problem. One is that every punk band had a chubby guy, usually the bassist. Really.

Another is that a crowd of drunk people will cheer for anything. Including oatmeal. And these same people will also cheer every single time someone asks if the crowd's OK. Like the seven or eight times Benji from Good Charlotte asked during their set.

A fourth point: we saw more shirts for bands that weren't playing than ones that were. Carley spotted a boy of about 10 wearing a Rage Against the Machine shirt with Che Guevarra on it. Not only does this kid not know who Che is, but he doesn't even know what machine he's raging against.

Anyway, it was a ton of fun, really good for a first time, and Carley finally got to see Something Corporate.

Ever heard of a hamburger that could take a bite out of you?

That's right, I was nearly eaten by not just one, but three cows on Tuesday. It was very traumatizing. And had they not been eating grass on the other side of a fence, I might not be here to talk about it. Instead, I was narrowly able to get into my car and drive home before I was brutally massacred.

Well, actually, more of what happened was that I dropped Carley off at about 1:45 in the morning, and we could hear rustling in the field next to the driveway. Now, Carley's new house is surrounded by forest, so there are a lot of different members of the World Wildlife Fund around her house. So, naturally, we were creeped right out as it was pitch black out. So, we hurried to the house, said goodnight, and I ran back into my car, still having no idea what was causing the rustling. Until I turned my lights on and saw the three beasts through the fence. I tell you, they were definitely planning on running me down, had they not been far too involved in their grass chewing.

Very scary.

Moo.

Ah.

Happy 137th birthday, Canada!

Strawberry picking

Somehow, in my last post, I forgot to mention that, last Sunday (the...uh...20th of June), Carley and I went strawberry picking at Downey's, on King Road between Kennedy and Heart Lake in, I guess, Campbell's Cross. It was a first for me, even though I had gone apple picking at Chudleigh's when I was about five.

We got there at apparently the perfect time, as we managed to get in there when there were only a few people there, and left when they were bringing people in by the truckload (literally).

It was a great day out, very hot and sunny with a pretty good breeze. Carley, unfortunately, got pretty roasted as neither of us put sunscreen on. I had already been burned this summer, so it just kinda juiced up my colour a bit.

We weren't really all that sure how much to get, so we got four baskets. To put it lightly, four baskets is a lot of jam. As in about 24 500 mL jars worth of jam. Halfway through, we had to go out and buy another box of jars (thank God for 24-hour groceries). They were actually very hard to find. It's easy to find lids. We found lots and lots and lots of lids. But we were just about to call it quits when we almost ran into the display they had set up. But that was after spending about 30 minutes in Sobey's and A&P.

As for making the jam, it's extremely messy. Extremely. And requires a lot of tupperware and pots. And it also allows you to discover whether or not your dog likes strawberries (mine doesn't. Wuss). But, we cleaned everything up very nicely, and I have about 11 jars of jam in my freezer, and two in my fridge, which I have, unfortunately, not had much chance to eat, but am informed that it's all very good.