Entertainment

s”NO”w Fun Part Deux

This weekend was pure white crystal hell. 30 centimeters of snow fell on Saturday. The snowfall was pretty steady during the day so we were able to go out twice to shovel this pure white crap. There’s certainly no need to join a gym this winter if you’re in Ottawa, as you just need to break out the snow shovels. We were hit with some pretty high winds late in the evening, so at 11pm I had to go out and clear the snow that was burying my furnace’s intake and exhaust pipes. The last thing we need is to suffer from some carbon monoxide poisoning. So I bundled myself up and trek around my neighbour’s townhouse, as I couldn’t go out my patio door due to the sheer amount of snow on it. It took me 5 minutes to walk some 100 feet or so. At the best spots, I had snow up over my knees. At the worst spot I had snow practically up to my armpits! Luckily I was next to my patio at that point so I could use the wooden railing to help myself out of that spot. If it wasn’t for that, I would probably still be there!

Sunday morning we woke up to even more snow. In fact, another 52 centimeters had fallen! That’s roughly 1 3/4 feet. With snow drifts, the snow was as high as 3 feet in some areas. It took us almost 4 hours to shovel this stuff, 2.5 hours at 2 people, then I did another 1.5 hours solo. I’m so tempted to get a snowblower for next year! My only dilemna is that my garage is so small that I wouldn’t be able to park my Jeep in there with a snowblower present. So shovel by hand, or dust off/scrape/warm up the car each time we need to use it. It truly is a hard choice. You see, when there’s just 1-5 or so centimeters of snow on the ground, I actually enjoy shoveling. I find it quite relaxing. It’s when there’s more than 10 that it goes from being relaxing to being an annoyance. 15 or more and it becomes a curse…. Oh well.

Some interesting facts about this winter, courtesy of the Ottawa Citizen and the Ottawa Sun:

Number of events with 10 or more centimetres this winter: 10
Average number of 10-plus-centimetre events: 4
Average March snowfall: 39.8 centimetres
Record snowfall for Ottawa: 444.6 cm in 1970-71
Snowfall in 2007-2008 for Ottawa: 410.7
22% of a winter’s snowfall falls in March
Record snowfall for March: 106.7
Snowfall for March 1st to 10th 2008: 97.6

There are very good chances that we’ll break the record for total snowfall this year. Lets just hope this kind of weather doesn’t happen for another 40 years!

There was at least some good news on Saturday. The Ottawa Senators decisively won against the Phoenix Coyotes with a score of 4-2. With each passing game the Sens are starting to gain back the winning form they had last year and at the beginning of this season. All we can hope for now is that they’ll keep it up and keep on improving.

Today I had to take a full day First Aid course at work. I hadn’t taken such a course since high school. It was really interesting and I did learn a lot. I’m now a certified first aider for the next 3 years! It also opened my eyes a little bit more on some things… I really need to quit smoking soon.

On the TV front, I’m a little bummed that tonight’s episode of Stargate: Atlantis was the final show of the season. We were left with the usual cliffhanger, and I have to admit it did come as a little surprise. I knew that the whole Teyla rescue thing wouldn’t get resolved until next season, but I didn’t expect to see what happened up until the last minute or so of the episode. Overall, it was a pretty good and interesting episode where Sheppard gets flung 42,000 years into the future due to some freak stargate accident caused by a solar flare. I’m not going to mention more in case some of you haven’t seen the episode yet.

And finally on the game front, I picked up Frontlines: Fuel of War for the 360 this weekend. I played the demo quite a lot and wanted more. Unfortunately due to all the shoveling that needed to be done, I didn’t get to play much, though I did manage to get a few multiplayer games in, as well as get about 45 minutes of the single player game completed. This game does not disappoint. I’m usually not one for FPS games on the console (gimme a mouse and keyboard any day for FPS games), butFrontlines: FoW does play very well on the 360. Hopefully I’ll get to explore the game a bit more this week.

Luc "Sandman" G. March 11, 2008

s”NO”w fun

fwinter2 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.

Luc "Sandman" G. March 7, 2008

Entertainment Life Music Sports

The weekend didn’t slip through the couch cushions

NIN_GhostsI-IV 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″

Luc "Sandman" G. March 3, 2008

Hockey Music Television

This is the end my friend

feb272008 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!

Luc "Sandman" G. February 27, 2008

Life Music

Spice Girls in Montreal Part Deux

Sunday started off by being a day from hell. I first went to get a much needed haircut. I was told there was a 30 minute wait. 1h15 mins later I finally managed to sit down in the barber chair. Once that was said and done, I had to drive 10 minutes to get my car wash thanks to some birds who decided to use it as a toilet, only to find the car wash was closed. Off to the next closest gas station I went. I start to pump some gas only to be told the debit/credit system will be down for 5 minutes… so I wait and wait. Once my Jeep was happily fed, I get in line for the carwash, with 10 cars ahead of me. Did I mention I was in a rush?

3:00pm finally rolls around and I finally make it back home. We’re slightly behind schedule to leave for Montreal to catch the 2nd Spice Girl show. The drive down to Montreal was quick and uneventful. There was very little traffic on the highway and we didn’t get stuck behind slow drivers. We managed to get from Orleans to the Bell Centre in an hour and 45 minutes. We park the car inside the Bell Centre, I grab a quick smoke then we head in to St-Hubert for some dinner. Just like the last concert, the place was packed with Spice Girls fans that were also grabbing some grub before the show. Come 6:30 we’re done eating, the coffee cup is empty and the bill is paid. We almost fear going outside. See, on the January 31st show, we lined up outside in the freezing cold at 6:30. The doors didn’t open until 7:20, and once inside all seats were blocked off until 7:35. However, they had the doors open early yesterday so we walked right in (after my after dinner smoke of course) and went to our seats. We were in section 111, 2nd row dead centre to the raised platform. These were even better seats than last time! With some time to kill, we headed back out to the lobby, checked out the dealer tables, grabbed a drink and just walked around for a bit. The crowd generally appeared to be a bit younger than the last show. It looked like most concert goers weren’t even in school when the Spice Girls first became popular. Man did we feel old (and my fiancee is 10 years my junior!). We headed back to our seats when I look at my watch and its only 7:45. The Jan 31st show didn’t start until 9:15. We were both hoping the show would start earlier, as it was still early, and my fiancee started a new job on Monday morning. Imagine our surprise when the show started at 8:30!

As exciting as the first show was, this one was even better. The crowd was even more into it, the screams were even louder (not to mention the sound system) and there seemed to be more people dancing. The Spice Girls themselves seemed more energized and more playful, especially Geri. There was a lot more interactivity with the crowd too. Maybe its because the tour is coming to an end, the seemingly better crowd, or they were just having a really good day. In either case we fans benefited from it. Being so close to the stage was a blast. All 5 girls throughout the show headed our way, waved in our general direction and said hello. Emma, Mel C and Victoria even managed to make direct eye contact a couple of times… I know, I sound like a 15 year old girl there but who cares 😛

There was quite a bit of differences between last night’s concert and the last show. Here’s a quick rundown:

* Emma and Mel C cracked up bigtime at a sign being held by someone in front of me.
* Some guy was holding a “Will you marry me Geri” sign, to which the girls starting friendlily teasing Geri about. Just the other day I was telling my fiancee that I should wear a shirt that said that exact thing. She wasn’t really amused 😛
* A fan gave the girls 5 huge fake roses. The girls really appreciated it. Mel B and Geri started swordfighting with theirs. Victoria rushed to the 2nd stage and handed it to Cruz.
* During Wannabe, Mel B totally cracked up. Neither my fiancee nor I saw why.
* Emma sounded like a chipmunk at the start of Goodbye. She guzzled down half her water bottle to clear it up.
* Geri flipped herself upside down on the bar on the raised platform, mooning our side of the stage.
* 4 of the girls seemed to be impressed by this one guy’s dancing and urged him on with “go Joey, go Joey”
* Mel B brought Angel up on stage at the end of Mama.
* Pretty much all the girls spoke french at one point. Geri said pretty much the same thing as last time, and did her Headlines intro in french. Mel C said she spoke french “un petit peu” ( a little), Emma said Merci, and Mel B asked in her usual sexual-toned way “Quel age as-tu?” (How old are you?).
* Geri seemed genuinely sad when she talked about only 2 shows left for the tour.
* Mel B didn’t swear once during the concert.

I know I’m missing quite a bit. Lack of sleep is affecting my memory. My fiancee will help me fill the gaps later on tonight 😛 Oh, one thing I couldn’t believe. The 3-4 girls that sat beside me literally did just that. They sat through the entire concert. Even though everyone else in the section (and the arena) were up an their feet, waving, dancing, singing along, etc…, they just sat there. Oh well, to each their own I guess.

The show came to an end at 10:15, which made my fiancee happy since it meant she would have more than 5 hours of sleep before starting her new job. Come 10:25 we were already on the highway back. Whoever designed the parking at Bell Centre should talk to the folks over at Scotiabank Place, where it can take up to an hour just to leave the parking lot after a hockey game! The trip back was entertaining to say the least. There were a lot of fog patches where I could barely see 10 feet in front of me. Even though we stopped at Timmy’s and McD’s on the way home, we still managed to pull up to our driveway at 12:25.

All in all, this tour rates in probably the top 4 or 5 concerts of the 60-80 that I’ve seen in my lifetime. Its hard to imagine that this is probably it for the Spice Girls (so they keep on saying). They seem to genuinely be having so much fun on stage with each other and with the crowd. It would be a real shame for us, and for them, if this would truly be their farewell tour. Regardless of what may or may not happen after this tour ends, both my fiancee and I have to thank the Spice Girls for 2 very fun and memorable nights that will forever remain etched in our memories.

Videos I took:

[youtube nFYxdqf8r88 Say You’ll Be There]

[youtube J7Ts-treuYo Viva Forever Intro]

I only managed to get the intro as a guard came up to me to remind me that videotaping the concert wasn’t permitted, even with a digital camera 😛

I took a lot of pictures of the concert. They’ll be posted in my photogallery soon, but in the meantime, here are a few: