My Top List of the Decade
Wow, its mindblowing to think how fast the last decade flew by. It seems like it was just yesterday that I was busy updating thousands of router configs to combat the Y2K bug. Hard to believe that this was 10 years ago already.
Like many sites out there, I felt compelled to come up with my own personal Top list for the naughties decade, and here it is! I consciously tried to keep it short and to the point as to not bore you too much. These are not listed in any particular order.
Top 5 Music CDs: Metallica’s Death Magnetic. Since its release, that CD has been the music that’s played in my Jeep probably 90% of the time. That one was an easy choice. The other 4 music CDs that really stood out for me this decade are Nine Inch Nails – With Teeth, Korn – Take A Look In The Mirror, Linkin Park – Meteora, Bullet For My Valentine – The Poison.
Top 5 Movies: Dark Knight, Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Watchmen, Star Wars Episode 3, Casino Royale.Yup, Star Wars Episode 3 made the list. As bad as Episode 1 was, Episode 3 I felt was amazing and brought both trilogies together.
Top 10 TV Shows: I couldn’t pare this down to 5, so I had to make it 10. Even shrinking it down to 10 was a bit hard. Not surprisingly however, most of these shows were on the air in the latter half of the decade. Battlestar Galactica, Lost, Survivor, Dexter, Family Guy, Futurama, Stargate: Atlantis, Firefly, The Office, Smallville
Top Life Changes: I’ve had quite a few big life changes in the last 10 years, most of them coming in the last couple of years. I bought my first house, I got engaged and married. I had a wonderful honeymoon in Paris, where I fell head over heels in love with that city. After 15 years of smoking, I was able to finally quit the nasty habit (and I’m almost 1 year clean). And very recently I found out that I’m going to be a father for the first time.
Here’s to another great decade.
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Luc "Sandman" G. 
Metallica are coming back to Ottawa in October for their Death Magnetic tour. We haven’t seen Metallica in our fair city since 2004. Buying tickets for this show was a no-brainer. Didn’t get amazing seats, but they aren’t bad seats either. The show sold out in less than a day which suprised me. Now the countdown begins!
Stone Temple Pilots is one of those bands that have been on my ‘must see in concert’ for a while now. When the band broke up in 2003, I thought that I would never see this amazing band live and in person. I had to settle to seeing Velvet Revolver. Here we are now 6 years later, the band is not only back together, not only about to release a new album, but they are also playing Ottawa Blues Fest! There’s no way I was going to miss this concert. Getting first row tickets was almost beyond belief! I finally get to see STP live! I’m so psyched!
Who would have guessed that Detroit and Pittsburgh would meet again in the 2009 Stanley Cup Finals. I certainly didn’t, and was hoping not to see it happen again. Out of all the teams that made the playoffs, these 2 teams, along with the Montreal Canadiens, were the teams I really did not want to see in the finals. Can Detroit repeat another win this year? I think so. I don’t think that Pittsburgh still has what it takes to be Stanley Cup champions. I call Detroit Red Wings in 6, and Sid the Kid Crosby crying in the corner again this year.
TV season is over, and here’s some thoughts on some shows and finales; Lost had a great season finale, sucks that we have to wait 8 months until the next and final season. Smallville’s season finale was probably the worst of the series. It was very meh. Survivor was good, finally a good guy winning the million again. Really sucks that My Name Is Earl got cancelled. Hopefully it will be picked up by another network. Also sucks that Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles got cancelled. This show really delved into the characters of the Terminator universe. We got to see what made them tick. It was very much a psychological and cerebral show. It will be missed. Surprisingly, Dollhouse got picked up for next season. Rumours are that Summer Glau (Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, Firefly) will be joining the show. Fringe’s season finale was also really interesting. Fringe and Dollhouse are easily my 2 favorite new shows. I can’t wait to see where both shows will take us.
After years of wanting to get a DSLR, and having learned most of what I could by using a point and shoot camera, I finally got my hands on one. The new Canon T1i. This was my treat to myself for quitting smoking (4 months now), and I also had to drop my monthly comic book sub from approx 30 books a month to 5, but it was worth it. I’m absolutely in love with this camera, and I’m driving my wife and family crazy because I bring it everywhere I go. I can already tell that I’ve improved my photography skills and technique and hope that the learning never stops and the skill keeps on getting better.
Finally, a world war movie that shows the Canadian point of view. A powerful film about the sacrifice made by Canadian soldiers during World War I. Written by and starring Paul Gross (of Due South fame), who based the story on war stories shared by his grandfather who fought at Passchendaele.
This 5th season of Lost is starting off on the right foot. The 3rd and 4th season sometimes seemed to lack direction but the ship has been steered back on course. Inhabitants of the island are now travelling back and forth through time, having an adverse effect on some of the survivors. Some members of the Oceanic Six realize that they have to find a way back to the island. That their destiny is to be on the island and not back with regular civilisation.
Craig Hartsburgh was fired from the head coach position of the Ottawa Senators earlier this week after a big loss against the Washington Capitals. He was replaced by Cory Clouston, the head coach of the Sens’ farm team in Binghamton. Though I feel the problems are a lot deeper than the coaching, it was obvious that Hartsburgh could not find a way to inspire his players. He was a good coach, just not for this team at this time. His defensive minded system did not gel with the offensively-built Senators. I’m reserving judgement on Clouston until he’s had 5-6 games under his belt, but so far the team is playing with a lot more passion and heart. Lets just hope they keep it up.
A couple of weeks ago I received an email from Blizzard offering me a free 10 day trial of the World of Warcraft expansion Wrath of the Lich King. This offer couldn’t have come at a better time. I was already itching to try it, and having given up smoking I wanted to do something to occupy my time. It was great to catch up with people in the game that I had last spoken to over a year ago when I quit playing.
I’m on day 14 of quitting smoking. The cravings still come and go, but less often and with less intensity. Every day I’m breaking more habits where I smoked in certain situations. It hasn’t been easy, but at this point I figure that there’s no point to have suffered for these 2 weeks and take up smoking again.
Last week the OC Transpo strike that’s paralyzed the city since early December finally came to an end. Both the city and the union agreed to go to binding arbitration. Funny how they both agree to that just as the Federal government was ready to introduce a back to work bill and just before Obama’s visit to our capital. By going to arbitration both sides save face and can state that they didn’t give in to their demands. 
Earlier this week, the leaders of the Conservative Party, the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois shut out the Green Party of Canada from any televised leader debates for the upcoming elections. They stated that if the current leader of the Green Party, Elizabeth May, participated in the debate that they would withdraw from it. Only the Liberals endorsed May’s quest to participate in the televised debate.