i stayed up late

for the first time, in a long time, i stayed up to watch the oscar's. i even made it all the way to the end, after 4 hours of awards, to see the best picture award. but my favourite part of the show was watching these silhouette dancers. too cool.

a great way to connect and facebook

after much complaining about it, i've joined facebook. why you ask? well, because everyone is going it. and if i remember anything from highschool peer-pressure, it's just easier to give in. i've spend a little time on the site now, and well it's a good time, but nothing like actually talking to my friends or have a drink with them. but give me some time, this thing may grow on me.

i just had a great conversation with a new co-worker. she was asking about living downtown, she lives with her parents in mississauga, and the need for some new friends. i just mentioned that i met alot of good friends from the church that i started going to when i moved to toronto. i always love hearing the next comment from a co-worker. 'oh really, i'm christian too.' it's great to make that connection at work. in the end, she's going to come to a service in the next couple weeks. sweet.

the great wave off kanagawa - katsushika hokusai (1760-1849)

one of my favourite paintings. enjoy.

my life is a song

so i'm watching breakfast television this morning, like i do every morning to see the weather and traffic. they now have a commercial or two during the show. this morning's commercial was from ups. i start tipping my toe to the song in the background of the commercial. then it hit me, 'i know that song'. so, ups is using 'such great heights' by the postal service in their ad's. it was crazy.

just a thought.

three eleven

for a week now i've been hearing this small part of a song lyric in my head, but i cannot remember what song it is. i know that it is a 311 song and the lyric is "hey you, hey you, hey you ... (with reverb on it)". so i've started listening to all of my 311 songs. all 100 songs from 8 different albums.

311 is one of my favourite bands (as you could tell). i find that with 311 your a fan or your not. they don't really get any radio play, but maybe the song 'down' or their cover of the cure's 'lovesong', and their video are not played on muchmusic or mtv. i just laugh how they mix reggae, hip-hop, ska, punk and metal. and at times all in one song. nick hexum is the 'brian wilson' of the band, writing 99% of all the songs. but my favourite member is, of course, p-nut the bass player. this guy has chops. his style is very funky and his slap'n'pop playing is something that i strive to be able to do, as a bass player.

hopefully by the end of my day long listening of only 311 songs, i'll find the song.

word of the day

bubinga

botanical name - guibourtia demeusei
other names - african rosewood, essingang, buvenga

one of four species, all native to africa, by the genus guibourtia. the species are reported to be botanically similar but are very different in color. the most plentiful is bubinga, produced by g. tessmannii , and g. pellegriniana . the trees are reported to be large, often reaching heights of more than 100 feet and trunk diameters of 10 feet. these species are found in equatorial africa, from southeast nigeria, through cameroon and gabon to the congo region. they occur in swampy or periodically inundated forest, as well as near rivers or at lakeshores. bubinga can be an amazingly wavy-figured exotic wood, sought by guitar makers and small box builders.

what a weekend

i thought that life might slow down a bit this winter now that the very cold weather has moved into toronto. but alas, it was another weekend of go-go-go for me.

friday: got a call from steve's music at work, my new bass had arrived and was ready to be picked up. very exciting. i didn't have time to get it on friday, and it had to wait at the store one more day. after a full day of office work, i picked felicity up from work and started the weekend. after dropping felicity off at home, i picked up machina and headed to waterloo for the night. ba was back from australia, so we made the trip to welcome her home. had a great dinner with adele and tim (and penny the dog) then headed to the huether hotel for beers. i had my favourite 'black & tan'. conversation was great and it was nice to have ba back.

saturday: saturday started early, mostly because i couldn't sleep knowing that steve's music opened at 9:30am. so i was off to steve's to pick-up my brand new bass. that's the bass i bought, but i got the 5 string version. of course, i went straight home and played it. the played it some more. after about 2 or 2.5 hours of playing i was very pleased with my purchase. next was dinner with mark j. at swiss chalet before the leafs game. it was a great game versus the oilers. the high-light was a ceremony at the beginning of the game to honour the 66'-67' stanley cup winning team. after the game the night finished with a little brownie's and ice-cream, as i caught up with felicity at the end of a great dinner party at rachel's house. again, more great conversions and food.

sunday: sunday started off early again because of the new bass. i was on the list to play bass at church this sunday. wow, it was awesome (not just because the whole love of God part) this bass can play. i love the tone, the action, the feel, playing position and just how it feels in my hands. the new sermon series about sex started this week. i was amazed by how great the sermon was, i'm looking forward to the next four weeks in the series. had my traditional burrito boyz after church. then started picking people up to go snowboarding. machina first, then jody and finally steve. spent most of my time riding with machina, as it was his very first time snowboarding. good on ya machina. got home around 11pm, and went straight to bed. zzzzzzzzzz.

she finally paid off

so i've been having some girl troubles. let's just leave it at that. but today having an old girlfriend finally paid off.

let's start the story back in 1995 (12 years ago). i was a l.i.t. at my summer camp. who doesn't love a good summer camp story. i met mary k. that week, and over that week and two more weeks at camp that summer we had a great teenage summer camp fling. i was in love (for a 15 year old). the next time i saw mary k. (2002) was at my good friend randy's wedding. randy married mary k.'s cousin, and she was in the wedding party (small world). we made some small talk. the most recent time mary k.'s and me lives have crossed was this past summer.

i was invited to a boat cruise of the beautiful toronto harbour by maxxam analytics (lab that does my sample testing). so after 3 hours of eating free hors d'ouevres and drinks, and talking work all night, the boat was about to dock when i was picked out by mary k. we talked about where we each worked. "you work at ch2m, you could get me a job there!?!?". i replied, "sure". so like someone else (double d) did for me, i wrote a nice letter to my hr guy and give her resume to him. she got hired, and now works in the k-w office. so why did this pay-off for me.

today i got a $750 rsp bonus for recommending her. sweet. i won't see a penny of it for the next 35 years, but that sucker is going to grow. again, sweet.

so thank-you mary k., it was a great summer fling.

UPDATE: a mere 4 hours after posting this, mary k. emailed me from the k-w office. apparently i owe her lunch in 35 years. no problem, it'll be on me.

snow day

so today after driving to work for nearly an hour and a half and only making it about a quarter of the way up the DVP, I declared today a snow day for me. so i turned around and went home to work. working at home was great. mostly because of all the emails (personal ones) that I got to answer, the music that i could listen to at my level (loud), getting to wear my pajama's to work, and the long sushi lunches with other snow day friends (thanks trina). all-in-all i got about the same amount of work done on a normal office day. this is way i work best in the field, no distractions.

thank you toronto court services

it may be hard to believe, but i had a good time at the york civic centre today as i went to fight my recent speeding ticket. after going to the toronto courts office downtown this morning, only to find out that i had to go up to eglinton west and keele for this ticket, i headed north after a short day of work outside again (damn it was cold today). i think that i was in the office for maybe 25 minutes. got my number, filled out my request to see the justice of the peace form, went upstairs to see the JP, talked to her for like 15 seconds and paid the new ticket. so my 22 kilometres/hr over $110 ticket was quickly reduced to 10 kilometres/hr over and only $40 bucks. sweet, cheaper ticket and no points. definitely worth my time.

last night i almost killed a guy in floor hockey (maybe the killing part was in my mind). he had just slashed my ankles with his stick one too many times. so with 5 minutes of play left and one last slash to the ankles, i showed him how much of a red head i can be. i've been very easily irritated the last couple days.

but today i'm feeling better :)

it's been a week

i've now worked outside all day for the last 6 work days. it's not that special that i work outside, it's just that i've had to watch people work for the last 6 days. i don't get to do anything but right in my book and take photos. so other than being cold, i don't have much to talk about.

the truth is i have lots to talk about ...

time for a review

i've given the three new cd's a couple listens, some tracks more than others, so here's my reviews.

air - moon safari
after being a big fan of 'talkie walkie' i found the early album a little hard to go back to, but only because i already knew what's in the future. some great stand out tracks, 'la femme d'argent' (sweet bass line), 'sexy boy' (the big single) and 'remember' (damn, i wanted to sample the beach boys 'do it again' first). big miss track 'ce matin la', i can't stand that horn sample. overall: 7/10, where 'talkie walkie' would be a 9/10.

deftones - saturday night wrist
this one truly speaks to the heavy rocker in me. screaming vocals, pounding drums, thick bass, and stephen carpenters always present 'wall-of-sound' guitar'. but all of the heaviness and madness is played with such texture and grace. i find it to be a heavy rock album that can be easily loved by the masses. favourite song name, 'U, U, D, D, L, R, L, R, A, B, Select, Start' overall: 9.5/10

dj shadow - endtroducing...
this one has gotten the least amount of play time. it didn't blow me away like i thought it would. i did have great expectations for this album. i tried listening to it by myself, with friends in the car on a long drive, just before going to sleep, but i just didn't get into it.
but this past saturday night at dave's place it was on while everyone was chatting and enjoying a small couch party. i found it's niche, the party album. it's a great party album. overall: 7.5/10

of course i have bought another album, +44 'when your heart stops beating'. let's see how the new blink-182 re-shuffle works out.

finally cut it off

after 4 months, finally i got a hair cut. and it was free, thanks lisa.