1,000,000 performed live by Nine Inch Nails at a rehearsal for the upcoming tour. I hope NiN comes to Ottawa this tour, seeing how they had to cancel the last appearance due to Trent Reznor having a very bad cold.

Day 5 of the Honeymoon Diaries will be up sometime today.

Its been a while since I’ve posted anything that wasn’t hockey related. Stanley Cup playoffs aside, my life has been pretty hectic dealing with last minute wedding preparations. There seems so much left to do that it seems overwhelming. Luckily a few months ago my fiancee had the great idea of hiring a wedding coordinator and she has been a godsend. She’s given us some good ideas for decorations, and relieved us of the stress of having to deal with all the various people/companies for last minute preparations and the day of the wedding. I will admit that at first I did not see the point of having a coordinator, but as the big day gets closer I can’t phantom how more hectic things would be for us right now. We have the peace of mind knowing that she’ll be decorating the church and the hall, as well as coordinating everything on the day of the wedding. She’s also double and triple checking with everyone and all companies we hired, making sure everyone gets there at the proper time so that there’s no ugly surprises for us to deal with. This will allow us to enjoy the day worry-free.

We still haven’t gotten around to planning out our honeymoon to Paris. There’s so many places to visit and things to see that making a schedule is the only way we’ll get to see it all. Museums like the Louvre don’t have all sections open every day, so we have to figure out which days are best for us to go without missing anything. There’s only a few weeks left to plan things out, so we should get to it ASAP. So why am I sitting here blogging?

This is also the start of birthday season. Nieces, nephews, cousins all were born in the summertime. So we’re doing a lot of running around doing some shopping, visiting family, etc… Between that and the wedding/honeymoon planning, there isn’t much time for anything else.

Erin and I did manage to take the time and catch a concert last night. We saw Melanie C at the Bronson Centre. She’s currently touring small venues in Canada. If you’ve never heard her solo stuff, its very different from the Spice Girls. The concert was small and intimate, which is what she was aiming for on this tour. There was maybe 400 people at the concert, but that low turnout didn’t come as much of a surprise. There was next to no publicity for the show and the Bronson Centre is not the best venue for a concert. It was held at what used to be Immaculata High School’s auditorium, which doesn’t really conducive to a concert atmosphere. That being said, the show itself was very good. Backed by a 5 piece band, she belted out songs from her last album along with past hits (in Europe mostly, where her solo work is a lot more popular than North America). Having such an intimate rock show allowed for great interactivity with the energized crowd. The size of the show and the crowd made the whole thing seem a lot more personal. I did manage to tape 3 songs (which she mentioned she doesn’t mind people doing, as long as its not ’shit’ ). I’ll post them up on youtube sometime in the next few days. That being said, I would definitely catch her again in concert if she ever comes back to Ottawa.

Never be The Same Again

Northern Star

I Turn To You

Another week, another few snowfalls. We’ve had like 10 feet of snow fall this winter, with another 1-2 feet being announced for this weekend alone. This is getting ridiculous. Any more snow, and I might have to start piling it up in my garage as I’m running out of room! It’s just crazy!

I’ve been listening to Ghosts I-IV all week and man is it a great album. I’m usually not one for instrumentals (let alone 36 tracks), but this CD set is blowing me away. It really shows how much of a creative genius composer Trent Reznor really is.

I’ve been playing a bit of the Frontlines: Fuel of War demo on the Xbox 360 and I’m hooked. This is how Battlefield 2 should have been made. The online gameplay is fun and exciting, the graphics are pretty good for a 360 game. I can’t comment on the single player aspect as the demo is multiplayer only, but I’m hoping to find out how good it is as I’ll probably be buying the game this weekend.

I’ve also been blown away on how good some TV shows have been these last couple of weeks. Lost just keeps on getting better, and for every question that gets answered, 10 more pop up. So far this season has been far better than the last one. Stargate Atlantis has also been very good lately, with the temporary return from of Dr. Beckett who has risen from the dead, sorta. With only 1 episode left for this season, you can feel the cliffhanger just building. You just know it’s going to include the disappearance of Teyla, and that this storyline won’t be resolved until next season. I was happily surprised to see a new season of Regenesis. Its got to be the best Canadian show around (so much so that Showtime or HBO in the states carries it). As good as the 3rd season was, it wasn’t as good as the first 2. Hopefully they’ll return to the greatness that was seasons 1 and 2. I’ve been watching Survivor again this year. This season,they’re pitting past contestants against fans of the show. Its a pretty good premise and so far this season has been fun to watch. I also want to smash my head into a wall when I see the same mistakes being made over and over again. We all know what happens when you vote off the strongest people in the tribe before the merge; you end up losing many challenges. People will never learn. Finally, Battlestar Galactica starts up again on April 4th. This is one I’m really salivating over.

The Sens so far are 0-3 on their 4 game trip out west. They outright lost 2 games and they lost one in overtime. I’m optimistic though, as they are playing a lot better than they were a couple of weeks ago and Gerber has been really solid in net. It is disappointing that they lost 2-0 (one being an empty netter) against the last team in the league. 40 shots on goal against a rookie goaltender, and not one shot went past the red paint (well one did, but the video replay was ruled inconclusive). All we can hope for is that they’ll keep improving their play and be back to their winning ways before the playoffs start.

Man o man, do weekends go buy way too quickly. You blink and boom, there they went. 3 day weekends every week? I could go for that! On Saturday we went and saw my nieces perform their yearly skating recital. Due to some very crappy parking (or lack of), we ended up missing their part of the show. There’s always next year! We had to endure watching 3 to 10 year olds put on a skating show loosely based around High School Musical. [sarcasm] There’s 2 of my favorite things in the world. Ice Skating and High School Musical. [/sarcasm] It made for a very long afternoon. This means that I missed the Sens vs Penguins game. I did manage to catch part of the 3rd period on the radio, and from what I could gather they were playing with a lot more energy and resolve compared to the last few weeks. There were still a few too many giveaways and defensive mistakes, yet things are getting better. There are only 16 or so more games left until the playoffs, so we fans can only hope things will keep on improving, or else it will be a quick exit out of this year’s playoffs.

Nine Inch Nails has released a new instrumental album, but this time you won’t find it on store shelves (at least not yet). Being released from the shackles of recording companies, Trent Reznor was able to release his new album entitled “Ghosts I-IV” online. There are 36 tracks to this album, the first 9 which are available as a free download. All tracks are being released under the Creative Commons NonCommercial-Share Alike license, which means legally the files can be shared and used in any non-commercial way. Yup, you can share these mp3s with everyone as long as you don’t make a penny from it. For 5$, you can download all 36 songs in DRM free format, which also include some wallpapers, a 40 page PDF booklet, some graphic artwork, icons, etc..). For 10$ you can order a 2 CD set with all 36 songs. Doing this will also allow you to download all the songs immediately and get all the files you’d get with the 5$ only download. You can also wait to buy the 2CD set in stores on April 8th, but you won’t get the downloads. There’s a couple of other Deluxe packages that can be ordered as well. All this can be done at ghosts.nin.com. I’ve ordered the 10$ 2CD set myself, and once the servers aren’t as overloaded, I’ll be downloading it. I did get the 9 free tracks and this is pure unadulterated Nine Inch Nails at its finest.

This method is how albums should be released. Instead of suing your listeners for distributing music on the Internet and following an antiquated and dying business model, record companies should adopt new models such as this to help bring life back into the music industry. Heck, with the hundreds of millions gathered from lawsuits and settlements that the RIAA has won, not one dime from those lawsuits has made it into the pockets of the artists. Thankfully the RIAA has suffered a massive blow to their lawsuit campaign, with a federal US judge denying a lawsuit on the basis of copyright misuse and excessive damages.

So back to the album. The 9 tracks that I’ve listened to so far are very good. These are pure instrumental tracks with no vocals. They show how much of a creative and genius composer that Trent Reznor is. The background on this album is also pretty interesting. This is from the website.

“This music arrived unexpectedly as the result of an experiment. The rules were as follows: 10 weeks, no clear agenda, no overthinking, everything driven by impulse. Whatever happens during that time gets released as… something.

The team: Atticus Ross, Alan Moulder and myself with some help from Alessandro Cortini, Adrian Belew and Brian Viglione. Rob Sheridan collaborated with Artist in Residence (A+R) to create the accompanying visual and physical aesthetic.

We began improvising and let the music decide the direction. Eyes were closed, hands played instruments and it began. Within a matter of days it became clear we were on to something, and a lot of material began appearing. What we thought could be a five song EP became much more. I invited some friends over to join in and we all enjoyed the process of collaborating on this.

The end result is a wildly varied body of music that we’re able to present to the world in ways the confines of a major record label would never have allowed - from a 100% DRM-free, high-quality download, to the most luxurious physical package we’ve ever created.

More volumes of Ghosts are likely to appear in the future.

- Trent Reznor, March 2, 2008″

Quite a bit of excitement in the last couple of days. Tuesday was trade deadline day in the NHL. Murray didn’t do much for the Senators, bringing in Martin Lapointe from Chicago for a sixth-round draft pick. Lapointe isn’t expected to make a big splash on the ice (where he will likely replace the injured Chris Neil), but more for his leadership in the locker room. The big shockers at the trade deadline was Pittsburgh winning out in the Hossa sweepstakes. No one saw that one coming. Everyone believed Hossa would end up in Ottawa or Montreal. The Penguins will definitely be a team to look out for in the playoffs. They certainly won’t be pushed over like they were last year by the Sens. The lack of trades by Ottawa at the 2008 deadline said 2 things to me. Murray was giving a wake up call to the team, telling them they are good enough as it is. Secondly, that Paddock’s time as a coach was running out unless things changed. The Sens showed their appreciation to Murray by losing 4-0 to Boston. This was their first back-to-back zero goal losses since 2000! I thought they hit the bottom of the barrel with the 5-0 loss to Toronto on Monday. I guess I was wrong.

Tuesday night was also the very last show of the Return of the Spice Girls show. If we believe what the Spices have been saying, this was their last show ever… but as a couple of them said, they learned to never say never, so who knows. From the clips I’ve seen, it was a very emotional night, with each girl crying at some part of the concert.

For those like me who watch Stargate: Atlantis, I have but one word to say regarding this week’s episode, and that’s just WOW. I’m not going to spoil it for those who haven’t seen it yet, let’s just say the final 10 seconds were absolutely and totally not expected. There were rumblings that something like this would happen, but not like this. Just wow….

As I was driving home today, I was listening to the Team 1200 (a local sports radio station) when I heard the news that Paddock was fired (along with one of the assistant coaches) and that Murray was stepping back behind the bench for the remainder of the season and playoffs. As much as I knew Paddock’s days were numbered, I didn’t expect it this quick. I thought Paddock might still have 2-3 games left to prove his worth. Now we have to wonder if Murray didn’t want to do this sooner, but wanted to wait until the trade deadline had passed. We as fans just have to hope that this will be a wakeup call to the team, and we’ll see them regain the greatness that they showed last year and at the beginning of this year.

Go Sens Go!