Much to The Peach's chagrin, yesterday was the autumnal equinox, the first day of fall for those not up on their astronomy. The days of summer bar-be-ques, shorts, and suntan lotion will soon be just a memory, or for some people, the only thing keeping them going through the wintry nights. But for me, memories keep better when they have a soundtrack. So I decided to make a list some of the best songs I heard from the albums I got this past spring/summer. I didn't include every album I got, because some were standup comedy and might have broken the flow (like Patton Oswalt, whom I love), some of them had multiple album entries on the list (like They Might Be Giants), and some of them weren't very good albums (like, god help me, Bjork). I would have made it in a playlist form but I'm not that technically proficient, so you just get a list. Some of the albums are over thirty years old, some of them came out in the past six months. Many were downloaded from eMusic, but some were actual purchases of physical albums. The only thing that connects them are the fact that I obtained them from December 21 to September 21.
I've also decided that if there's any interest I could make an album of these songs available to the people who amass a certain number of Geek Points, say, ten or twelve. Or if you REALLY want one but don't think you could ever get enough points, we could always come up with another solution that's geek-related. Sure, you could always download them and make a playlist or something, but you'd miss out on the personally designed and shoddily constructed album covers! And you wouldn't want to deny yourselves that, would you?
The Doc’s Music: The Spring/Summer Singles Collection
A Weekend In The City (Bloc Party) - Song For Clay (Disappear Here)
Atlantis (k-os) - Fly Paper
Gang Of Losers (The Dears) - Ticket To Immortality
Greetings From Michigan (Sufjan Stevens) - For The Widows In Paradise; For The Fatherless In Ypsilanti
Orphans (Tom Waits) - Bottom Of The World
69 Love Songs (The Magnetic Fields) - Papa Was A Rodeo
Operation: DOOMsday! (MF Doom) - Rhymes Like Dimes Featuring Cucumber Slice
The Life Pursuit (Belle & Sebastian) - Sukie In The Graveyard
Ys (Joanna Newsom) - Emily
Streethawk (Destroyer) - Virgin With A Memory
Shake The Sheets (Ted Leo + Pharmacists) - Heart Problems
At War With The Mystics (The Flaming Lips) - It Overtakes Me
Eye To The Telescope (KT Tunstall) - Black Horse And The Cherry Tree
Scissor Sisters (Scissor Sisters) - Comfortably Numb
All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt (NoMeansNo) - The Hawk Kills The Punk
Resurrection (Common) - I Used To Love H.E.R
Neon Bible (Arcade Fire) - My Body Is A Cage
Little Minds (Count Zero) - Sail Your Ship By
Memory Almost Full (Paul McCartney) - Dance Tonight
Grinderman (Grinderman) - Honey Bee (Let's Fly To Mars)
Traveling Wilburys (Traveling Wilburys) - Handle With Care
Essential John Denver - Thank God I'm a Country Boy
Donuts (Jay Dee) - Lightworks
Yo-Yo Ma Plays Ennio Morricone - The Ecstasy of Gold (From The God, the Bad and the Ugly)
In Our Bedroom After The War (Stars) - Personal
The Spine (They Might Be Giants) - Wearing A Raincoat
Team Boo (Mates of State) - Gotta Get A Problem
Thrills (Ellen Allien) - Cloudy City
Maggot Brain (Funkadelic) - Super Stupid (not the best song from the album - that would be the title track - but works much better as a single)
Kala (M.I.A.) - 20 Dollar
New Maps of Hell (Bad Religion) - Murder
Ratatat (Ratatat) - Germany to Germany
The order is not 100% set in stone, I may have to play around with it a little. But that's a sample from my musical smorgasbord so far this year. Comments and questions are welcome. And since I haven't made any semi-obscure references in a while, I'll end off with this. A few of us geeks went to Happy Harbor Comics on Friday to play in a HeroClix tournament, something that will likely be repeated over the next few weeks (as long as we bring scented candles or something, because there was the very ripe smell of unwashed nerd wafting around). The store owner, Jay and I, came up with a theme song for Aquaman, who's figure was the participation prize at the tournament. Sung to the theme of Spider-Man, it went like this:
Aquaman, Aquaman / Does whatever an aqua can
See him sit / In a glass
Watch his fish / As they pass
Hey there / There goes the Aquaman
For two geek points, write me a second verse to this song. (And for an extra two, you can throw on a bridge.) My favourite verse will get one additional geek point. It's the competition anyone can win!
Showing posts with label geek points. Show all posts
Showing posts with label geek points. Show all posts
Friday, September 21, 2007
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Not a Fringe Update: New Addition To The Family!
No, The Peach isn't pregnant. At least, not as far as I know. But we have adopted. A budgie. Her name is Lola, and she's a yellow budgie who is currently trying to adjust to her new surroundings. We got her from my Future Sister-In-Law (the FSIL); she and G are moving to a new apartment, and their new work and school schedules don't work well with keeping a bird happy and healthy. And The Peach loves birds, so they naturally thought of us when it came to finding new owners for her.
Like I said, The Peach loves her; cooing to her as she does the dishes, dutifully changing the water and even giving her fresh fruit to eat, and making sure CBC Radio 2 is playing whenever we're out. The FSIL told us that Lola likes soft music, and also The Beatles. Me? I'm scared of her. Not in an "ornithophobia" sort of way, or in a "Melanie Daniels"* kind of way. In a "oh god, oh god, I'm going to kill it" kind of way. The girls keep reassuring me that there's no way I'm going to be able to hurt it, but I disagree: I'm about thirty-seven times taller than her and have probably five hundred and eighty times her mass. I know I'm going to try and change her water, or give her a head scratch, and somehow accidentally break her tiny hollow bones. Also, I don't know what to do with a bird. I feel stupid talking to it, and you can't take her for a walk or pet her or throw things at her. Well, you can throw things at her, but it'd just lead to bone breakage, which I'm already a little nervous about.
However much I'm afraid of her, she's FAR more afraid of me. Every time I walk in the room or get up from the chair I have to announce it ahead of time; if I don't, her wings start flapping and she shuffles as far away from me as possible. She won't eat in front of us, and I honestly think she breathes faster when we're in the room. I don't want her to get an anxiety problem, or have a premature heart attack, so I'm trying to give her a role model. I think she likes him.
Well, it's progress.**
* - Identify this name for 4 geek points. No Googling or anything: just off your brain.
** - Why this role model? 2 geek points.
Like I said, The Peach loves her; cooing to her as she does the dishes, dutifully changing the water and even giving her fresh fruit to eat, and making sure CBC Radio 2 is playing whenever we're out. The FSIL told us that Lola likes soft music, and also The Beatles. Me? I'm scared of her. Not in an "ornithophobia" sort of way, or in a "Melanie Daniels"* kind of way. In a "oh god, oh god, I'm going to kill it" kind of way. The girls keep reassuring me that there's no way I'm going to be able to hurt it, but I disagree: I'm about thirty-seven times taller than her and have probably five hundred and eighty times her mass. I know I'm going to try and change her water, or give her a head scratch, and somehow accidentally break her tiny hollow bones. Also, I don't know what to do with a bird. I feel stupid talking to it, and you can't take her for a walk or pet her or throw things at her. Well, you can throw things at her, but it'd just lead to bone breakage, which I'm already a little nervous about.
However much I'm afraid of her, she's FAR more afraid of me. Every time I walk in the room or get up from the chair I have to announce it ahead of time; if I don't, her wings start flapping and she shuffles as far away from me as possible. She won't eat in front of us, and I honestly think she breathes faster when we're in the room. I don't want her to get an anxiety problem, or have a premature heart attack, so I'm trying to give her a role model. I think she likes him.
Well, it's progress.**
* - Identify this name for 4 geek points. No Googling or anything: just off your brain.
** - Why this role model? 2 geek points.
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Movies: Knocked Up
Taking a quick hiatus from The Science Trip Chronicles to talk about Knocked Up, one of the best movies I've seen this year. Jago and I went to see this about two weeks ago, and it was one of the worst movie audiences I've ever experienced. We were at the back of the theater, and there were people talking on all three sides of us! I had to turn to the people beside me and berate them after tolerating 20 minutes of commentary. Seriously: when I have kids, I will likely have many parenting failures. But by god, they will know well enough not to talk in a movie theater. And the rest of the experience wasn't great either: it took a LONG time for them to remember to turn of the lights, and the sound was terrible for the whole movie. Luckily, Knocked Up was a great movie that we both enjoyed a lot. The first question I asked Jago after we saw Knocked Up was “Did you like it as much as The 40-Year-Old Virgin?” He wasn’t sure, and neither was I. In hindsight, it’s not a fair question. While they might appear similar on the surface, I appreciate them more for their differences.
Knocked Up is the story of go-nowhere slacker Ben Stone (Seth Rogen) and upcoming entertainment reporter Alison Scott (Katherine Heigl). Celebrating a promotion at work, Alison goes out and has a drunken hookup with Ben; in the morning, after an awkward re-meeting, they go their separate ways. Until eight weeks later, when Alison tells Ben she’s pregnant. The rest of the movie deals with their uneasy relationship, Alison’s struggle with her impending motherhood, and Ben’s arrested development. The movie is full of great supporting characters, many of whom are played by alumni of previous Apatow projects (Virgin, Undeclared, and Freaks & Geeks). In fact, the actors who play Ben's group of friends have all worked with Apatow before.*
By showing both sides of the situation, Apatow takes a big risk: he’s definitely more adept at crafting the guys’ stories than the ladies’. As good as the scenes with Alison and her sister Debbie (Leslie Mann), I felt as though some of their plot threads were left dangling or underdeveloped. The scenes with the guys are where you get most of the humour: Ben’s group of friends are hysterical, and the scenes where Seth Rogen gets to act with Paul Rudd (as Debbie’s husband Pete) are among the best in the movie.
And as mis-matched as they might first appear, Rogen and Heigl have a great deal of chemistry. I almost believed that a girl that pretty would date a guy that…plain. (This is where I go on a slight tangent: if you don’t care about my theories of the movie, skip to the next paragraph.) Some people have a hard time imagining the situation: after all, that kind of “beauty disparity” is pretty rare. Even Ben admits it in the movie: “Wow, you’re a lot prettier than I am.” I’ve had a few people tell me that it’s just another example of the double standard: in Hollywood (and society) women are valued only for their looks, while men can be attractive for charm or wit or sense of humour. While that’s certainly one way to look at it, I have another. Apatow’s work is centered mainly on nerdy guys, like I imagine he was at one point, and like I am still. When a nerdy guy gets a girlfriend, even if she’s just slightly prettier than he is, he can’t believe it. When they're obviously prettier than he is, it's mind-boggling to us. I know; I deal with it every day. Apatow’s trying to show the audience how us geeks feel when a pretty girl pays us attention, but because it’s Hollywood, you have to get an absolutely stunning woman to really get that across. It’s still kind of a double-standard, and you could argue with me about it, but that’s how I took it. Anyhow, back to the rest of the review.
Knocked Up is definitely a comedy, but there are moments of real conflict and pain. Compared to Virgin, which is silly fun most of the way through, Knocked Up has a lot of heartbreaking moments, where I thought to myself, “Okay, we’re not in a comedy right now.” Far from being a weakness, this is one of the film’s big strengths: Apatow’s always the best when his humour is tinged with pathos (see the previously mentioned Freaks & Geeks). The scene with Rudd and Rogen in their Vegas hotel room is the best in the movie: hilarious and real.
The movie wraps up a little too neatly, but it’s a Hollywood comedy, so you can’t really fault them for it, and even someone as jaded as me appreciated the happy ending. I think the biggest problem Knocked Up could run into is that people go in expecting another laugh riot like The 40-Year-Old Virgin, as I did. Afterwards, though, I appreciated it for what it was, and think it stands tall on its own merits.
* - One geek point apiece if you can tell me, without using IMDB, where each of the actors comes from. That's four geek points total for grabs!
Knocked Up is the story of go-nowhere slacker Ben Stone (Seth Rogen) and upcoming entertainment reporter Alison Scott (Katherine Heigl). Celebrating a promotion at work, Alison goes out and has a drunken hookup with Ben; in the morning, after an awkward re-meeting, they go their separate ways. Until eight weeks later, when Alison tells Ben she’s pregnant. The rest of the movie deals with their uneasy relationship, Alison’s struggle with her impending motherhood, and Ben’s arrested development. The movie is full of great supporting characters, many of whom are played by alumni of previous Apatow projects (Virgin, Undeclared, and Freaks & Geeks). In fact, the actors who play Ben's group of friends have all worked with Apatow before.*
By showing both sides of the situation, Apatow takes a big risk: he’s definitely more adept at crafting the guys’ stories than the ladies’. As good as the scenes with Alison and her sister Debbie (Leslie Mann), I felt as though some of their plot threads were left dangling or underdeveloped. The scenes with the guys are where you get most of the humour: Ben’s group of friends are hysterical, and the scenes where Seth Rogen gets to act with Paul Rudd (as Debbie’s husband Pete) are among the best in the movie.
And as mis-matched as they might first appear, Rogen and Heigl have a great deal of chemistry. I almost believed that a girl that pretty would date a guy that…plain. (This is where I go on a slight tangent: if you don’t care about my theories of the movie, skip to the next paragraph.) Some people have a hard time imagining the situation: after all, that kind of “beauty disparity” is pretty rare. Even Ben admits it in the movie: “Wow, you’re a lot prettier than I am.” I’ve had a few people tell me that it’s just another example of the double standard: in Hollywood (and society) women are valued only for their looks, while men can be attractive for charm or wit or sense of humour. While that’s certainly one way to look at it, I have another. Apatow’s work is centered mainly on nerdy guys, like I imagine he was at one point, and like I am still. When a nerdy guy gets a girlfriend, even if she’s just slightly prettier than he is, he can’t believe it. When they're obviously prettier than he is, it's mind-boggling to us. I know; I deal with it every day. Apatow’s trying to show the audience how us geeks feel when a pretty girl pays us attention, but because it’s Hollywood, you have to get an absolutely stunning woman to really get that across. It’s still kind of a double-standard, and you could argue with me about it, but that’s how I took it. Anyhow, back to the rest of the review.
Knocked Up is definitely a comedy, but there are moments of real conflict and pain. Compared to Virgin, which is silly fun most of the way through, Knocked Up has a lot of heartbreaking moments, where I thought to myself, “Okay, we’re not in a comedy right now.” Far from being a weakness, this is one of the film’s big strengths: Apatow’s always the best when his humour is tinged with pathos (see the previously mentioned Freaks & Geeks). The scene with Rudd and Rogen in their Vegas hotel room is the best in the movie: hilarious and real.
The movie wraps up a little too neatly, but it’s a Hollywood comedy, so you can’t really fault them for it, and even someone as jaded as me appreciated the happy ending. I think the biggest problem Knocked Up could run into is that people go in expecting another laugh riot like The 40-Year-Old Virgin, as I did. Afterwards, though, I appreciated it for what it was, and think it stands tall on its own merits.
* - One geek point apiece if you can tell me, without using IMDB, where each of the actors comes from. That's four geek points total for grabs!
Monday, June 25, 2007
Science Trip: Saturday
I knew from the beginning that day one of the trip was always going to be the worst for me. See, back in, oh, August of 2006, we were asked to sing at the wedding of Scott, Kow Superfan, and his lovely then-fiancée Jessica. Of course, we said yes; the guy comes to nearly every show we have at the Fringe, which is a loyalty that not even our most devoted friends and family memembers have. Later on we got confirmation of the date, June 9th, and everything was fine. A few months ago, my supervisor asked me to present at a conference in Calgary, which she thought was July 16th to July 18th. And foolish me, I didn't double-check. I said, "Yes of course!" because a) someone needed to go and she would have been out of town, and b) I'd never been to a conference before and I thought it'd be fun. Two weeks before the wedding, I finally registered for the conference. And found out it was on the 9th throuth 11th. Panic set in. I had committed to two absolutely mandatory events on the same day in two separate cities. I'm not The Flash. I'm not even Madrox*. I was worried that it couldn't be done, but after doing some wiggling, I figured I could pull it off. If I arrived in Calgary at exactly 1:00 and set up my poster, and if I checked in to my hotel room by 3:00, and if traffic on Highway Two was good, there should be no problem. I'd drive back to Edmonton for 6:00, sing at the wedding, leave Edmonton at 9:30, and get back to my hotel for 12:30. Everything would be just fine!
On the leisurely drive to Calgary, I caught up on a few episodes of Comic Geek Speak and pulled out albums from Count Zero (Little Minds) and The Arcade Fire (Neon Bible). Count Zero is a band I discovered while playing Guitar Hero; I think the songs that they put on Guitar Hero One (Sail Your Ship By) and Two (Radium Eyes) are two of the best unlockable songs available. Little Minds is an okay pop-rock album, with a few really good songs, but the rest range from acceptable-to-fair. Neon Bible, however, is great. I held off listening to it because I kept hearing that it was a disappointment when compared to Funeral, but I didn't find that at all. It's not quite as good as the debut, but the difference is negligible, and I liked it so much I repeated a few songs. The Geeks talked about Daredevil, miniseries, and Grant Morrison. It was awesome.
I pulled into Calgary at 12:30, and thanks to a combination of Google Maps and a sudden realization as to how Calgary is laid out (seriously, though, that city has a ridiculous street labelling system) I made it to the Calgary Westin at 12:55, just in time to put up my poster. When I got to the conference table, I was told that due to "technical difficulties" in the room, poster set-up had been delayed, and that I should check back again at 3:00. "Uh, that's going to be a little difficult," I said. "You see, I need to be gone by 3:00." After explaining the trek I had to make later in the day, the woman behind the table empathized with me and said she'd happily put the poster up for me. I thanked her profusely, checked in and registered, then went out to the front desk.
The girls at the front desk greeted me warmly. One of them was a young brunette with a cheerful demeanor and braces, the other was a short blonde with indie-rock looking glasses . They took my company credit card and tried to ring it through. "Oh, I'm sorry," said the bruntette, "I'm going to need verbal authorization of this card." She went to the phone and I chatted with the blonde, who complimented me on my Music + Science = Sexy t-shirt, as she was taking a double-major in Math and Music at the U of C. The brunette came back. "Sorry," she said again, "but I can't seem to get authorization. Maybe you can call the number on the back of the card?"
She gave me a courtesy phone, and I dialed the 1-800 number. "For business transactions, authorization, and bla bla bla, press one. If you are enquiring about your account balance, press two. If you are a corporate card holder, press three." I pressed one, and was quickly put on hold without explanation. After 20 minutes of instrumental piano and string music, which didn't soothe me so much as fire the flames of my impatience the longer I waited, I hung up the phone. "I'm not getting anything," I said, "do you know of another number I can call?" They got me the Mastercard 24 hour emergency number, and suggested that I could head over to the payphones if I wanted to sit down while I was making the calls.
I sat on one of the benches and dialed the number. After about 10 minutes of waiting, the gentleman on the other end of the line told me there was nothing he could do because it wasn't a Mastercard problem, but rather the problem of the issuing bank. He gave me the bank's number, and I called it, getting the same push-button menu and the same instrumental crap. After another 20 minutes on hold, I picked up another phone and called the number again; this time, however, I pressed 3 instead of 1. Immediately I hear the following message. "Thank you for calling (BANK NAME). Our business hours are 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., Monday to Friday. Please call back later." Oh crap.
I walked back to the front desk. "Any luck?" asked the brunette? I shook my head, looking dejected. "Well, I'll see what Sean can do for you." Sean, who I assumed was a higher-ranked employee, came over and asked me a bunch of questions. "Did you call the number on the back of the card?" Yes. "Did you call the MasterCard emergency number?" Yes. "Well, there's not much we can do. Do you have an alternate form of payment?" Well, I said, I suppose if I cleaned out my bank account I could stay at your hotel for one night, but I wouldn't be able to afford gas back to Edmonton. "I'm sorry, sir," he said, "but there's nothing else I can do for you."
"You don't understand," I said frantically. "I have to be at this conference this weekend."
"You're part of the conference?" he said. And the heavens parted.
Five minutes later everything was settled. It was now 2:45; I checked in to my room on the 15th floor, ran back down to the car, and started driving back to Edmonton. More driving, more CGS, as well as some NoMeansNo for adrenaline, and I was back in town at 5:45. Plenty of time to change into my wedding clothes, brush my teeth, and head to the wedding! Plus, The Peach had made me cookies for my trip as well as a mix cd to drive to! Hooray for everything!
I got changed and checked my desk for the address of the hotel. I couldn't find it. Hmm, that's weird. Oh well, I'm sure the e-mail's still in my account. Ten minutes later, no e-mail. I called Ninja's house: nobody there knew where the wedding was. I called Astro's house: nobody answered. I checked my e-mail again, the junk mail and the deleted files: nothing. I called ten downtown hotels at random: none of them knew where the wedding was. I was back in town early and was going to miss the wedding. I nearly started to cry.
But then! I made one last-ditch phone call to the Barber's apartment. "Hello?" his lady answered. "Oh, thank GOD!" I said. I explained the ridiculousness of the situation, nearly out of breath. "Oh, don't worry," she said, "I know where it is!" SUCCESS!
I peeled out of my parking lot (now late) and drove to the reception, where I paid $3.45 for a $2.50 parking meter because it wouldn't recognize my last nickel, and ran to the elevator. When the doore opened at the top floor, it was 6:30, and dinner was winding down. I got a big plate of salad and potatoes, and Astro and Jago gave me some pity roast beef from their plate of seconds. Jessica even set me up a spot at Kow's table, which was amazingly nice of her to do at her own wedding.
The next few hours are kind of a blur. I had some good food, we sang (a little late, but that's okay) and people seemed to think we were decent, and we took photos with the bride and room before I went back to my place, changed, and drove back down again. I listened to some more CGS, but by 12:30 I was feeling the tiredness, so I switched to Patton Oswalt and screamed his punchlines out to the darkness in order to keep myself awake until 1:30, when I finally got to the hotel. By the time I got up to my room, called The Peach so she knew I got in safe, and washed the road off of my face, it was 2:00. I groggily set the alarm for 6:45 and drifted peacefully to sleep, knowing that the next day was going to hurt, but it was worth it.
To be continued.
* - Anyone know why this would help me? THREE POINTS!
On the leisurely drive to Calgary, I caught up on a few episodes of Comic Geek Speak and pulled out albums from Count Zero (Little Minds) and The Arcade Fire (Neon Bible). Count Zero is a band I discovered while playing Guitar Hero; I think the songs that they put on Guitar Hero One (Sail Your Ship By) and Two (Radium Eyes) are two of the best unlockable songs available. Little Minds is an okay pop-rock album, with a few really good songs, but the rest range from acceptable-to-fair. Neon Bible, however, is great. I held off listening to it because I kept hearing that it was a disappointment when compared to Funeral, but I didn't find that at all. It's not quite as good as the debut, but the difference is negligible, and I liked it so much I repeated a few songs. The Geeks talked about Daredevil, miniseries, and Grant Morrison. It was awesome.
I pulled into Calgary at 12:30, and thanks to a combination of Google Maps and a sudden realization as to how Calgary is laid out (seriously, though, that city has a ridiculous street labelling system) I made it to the Calgary Westin at 12:55, just in time to put up my poster. When I got to the conference table, I was told that due to "technical difficulties" in the room, poster set-up had been delayed, and that I should check back again at 3:00. "Uh, that's going to be a little difficult," I said. "You see, I need to be gone by 3:00." After explaining the trek I had to make later in the day, the woman behind the table empathized with me and said she'd happily put the poster up for me. I thanked her profusely, checked in and registered, then went out to the front desk.
The girls at the front desk greeted me warmly. One of them was a young brunette with a cheerful demeanor and braces, the other was a short blonde with indie-rock looking glasses . They took my company credit card and tried to ring it through. "Oh, I'm sorry," said the bruntette, "I'm going to need verbal authorization of this card." She went to the phone and I chatted with the blonde, who complimented me on my Music + Science = Sexy t-shirt, as she was taking a double-major in Math and Music at the U of C. The brunette came back. "Sorry," she said again, "but I can't seem to get authorization. Maybe you can call the number on the back of the card?"
She gave me a courtesy phone, and I dialed the 1-800 number. "For business transactions, authorization, and bla bla bla, press one. If you are enquiring about your account balance, press two. If you are a corporate card holder, press three." I pressed one, and was quickly put on hold without explanation. After 20 minutes of instrumental piano and string music, which didn't soothe me so much as fire the flames of my impatience the longer I waited, I hung up the phone. "I'm not getting anything," I said, "do you know of another number I can call?" They got me the Mastercard 24 hour emergency number, and suggested that I could head over to the payphones if I wanted to sit down while I was making the calls.
I sat on one of the benches and dialed the number. After about 10 minutes of waiting, the gentleman on the other end of the line told me there was nothing he could do because it wasn't a Mastercard problem, but rather the problem of the issuing bank. He gave me the bank's number, and I called it, getting the same push-button menu and the same instrumental crap. After another 20 minutes on hold, I picked up another phone and called the number again; this time, however, I pressed 3 instead of 1. Immediately I hear the following message. "Thank you for calling (BANK NAME). Our business hours are 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., Monday to Friday. Please call back later." Oh crap.
I walked back to the front desk. "Any luck?" asked the brunette? I shook my head, looking dejected. "Well, I'll see what Sean can do for you." Sean, who I assumed was a higher-ranked employee, came over and asked me a bunch of questions. "Did you call the number on the back of the card?" Yes. "Did you call the MasterCard emergency number?" Yes. "Well, there's not much we can do. Do you have an alternate form of payment?" Well, I said, I suppose if I cleaned out my bank account I could stay at your hotel for one night, but I wouldn't be able to afford gas back to Edmonton. "I'm sorry, sir," he said, "but there's nothing else I can do for you."
"You don't understand," I said frantically. "I have to be at this conference this weekend."
"You're part of the conference?" he said. And the heavens parted.
Five minutes later everything was settled. It was now 2:45; I checked in to my room on the 15th floor, ran back down to the car, and started driving back to Edmonton. More driving, more CGS, as well as some NoMeansNo for adrenaline, and I was back in town at 5:45. Plenty of time to change into my wedding clothes, brush my teeth, and head to the wedding! Plus, The Peach had made me cookies for my trip as well as a mix cd to drive to! Hooray for everything!
I got changed and checked my desk for the address of the hotel. I couldn't find it. Hmm, that's weird. Oh well, I'm sure the e-mail's still in my account. Ten minutes later, no e-mail. I called Ninja's house: nobody there knew where the wedding was. I called Astro's house: nobody answered. I checked my e-mail again, the junk mail and the deleted files: nothing. I called ten downtown hotels at random: none of them knew where the wedding was. I was back in town early and was going to miss the wedding. I nearly started to cry.
But then! I made one last-ditch phone call to the Barber's apartment. "Hello?" his lady answered. "Oh, thank GOD!" I said. I explained the ridiculousness of the situation, nearly out of breath. "Oh, don't worry," she said, "I know where it is!" SUCCESS!
I peeled out of my parking lot (now late) and drove to the reception, where I paid $3.45 for a $2.50 parking meter because it wouldn't recognize my last nickel, and ran to the elevator. When the doore opened at the top floor, it was 6:30, and dinner was winding down. I got a big plate of salad and potatoes, and Astro and Jago gave me some pity roast beef from their plate of seconds. Jessica even set me up a spot at Kow's table, which was amazingly nice of her to do at her own wedding.
The next few hours are kind of a blur. I had some good food, we sang (a little late, but that's okay) and people seemed to think we were decent, and we took photos with the bride and room before I went back to my place, changed, and drove back down again. I listened to some more CGS, but by 12:30 I was feeling the tiredness, so I switched to Patton Oswalt and screamed his punchlines out to the darkness in order to keep myself awake until 1:30, when I finally got to the hotel. By the time I got up to my room, called The Peach so she knew I got in safe, and washed the road off of my face, it was 2:00. I groggily set the alarm for 6:45 and drifted peacefully to sleep, knowing that the next day was going to hurt, but it was worth it.
To be continued.
* - Anyone know why this would help me? THREE POINTS!
Friday, June 08, 2007
The Doc's Big Science Trip!
This weekend, I'm taking a trip down to Calgary for the Canadian Language and Literacy Research Network (CLLRNet)'s 6th Annual conference. I'm just going down there to present a poster for the project I'm working on at the University; my job basically boils down to "stand in front of the poster and answer questions as best you can, if indeed anyone asks you any questions". I'm not speaking or anything, and I didn't even do much work on the poster itself, but it's a pretty big deal for me. It's my first big conference, presenting research I helped work on (even if it was just gathering the data), and a reminder of how much I like science! (Science again! I said science again!* )
I originally thought this conference was next weekend, because of my awesome "not checking things out my supervisor says 'I think' two times about" skills, which put me in a bit of a bind, seeing as I'm singing at a wedding tomorrow evening. I have to drive down to Calgary tomorrow morning, set up the poster, check in to my hotel room at 3:00, then immediately drive back to Edmonton and be at the reception for 6:00ish, sing, and then immediately drive back to Calgary because I need to start standing in front of my poster at 7:00 a.m. on Sunday. That's a lot of driving (9 hours in one day!), but I have a few albums I need to listen to, as well as catching up on my early episodes of Comic Geek Speak, so that'll keep me amused. As Peach said to me yesterday, "Just think, you won't have to play music for me at all this weekend!" Yes, it's nothing but punk rock, comics talk, and indie rock for me.
(By the way, in looking for cool links about science, I came across The Science Creative Quarterly and their Order of the Science Scouts of Exemplary Repute and Above Average Physique. Sounds like something I'd like to get in on, and besides, they have badges! After a cursory look, I'm eligible for, like, 7 of them so far! Hopefully they don't hold too strictly to the "Above Average Physique" part of their title. If so, well, I always need more inspiration to get in shape, I guess.)
* - Where does this come from? 2 geek points up for grabs, people.**
** - Yes, I was totally serious about this last week. There may eventually be prizes.
I originally thought this conference was next weekend, because of my awesome "not checking things out my supervisor says 'I think' two times about" skills, which put me in a bit of a bind, seeing as I'm singing at a wedding tomorrow evening. I have to drive down to Calgary tomorrow morning, set up the poster, check in to my hotel room at 3:00, then immediately drive back to Edmonton and be at the reception for 6:00ish, sing, and then immediately drive back to Calgary because I need to start standing in front of my poster at 7:00 a.m. on Sunday. That's a lot of driving (9 hours in one day!), but I have a few albums I need to listen to, as well as catching up on my early episodes of Comic Geek Speak, so that'll keep me amused. As Peach said to me yesterday, "Just think, you won't have to play music for me at all this weekend!" Yes, it's nothing but punk rock, comics talk, and indie rock for me.
(By the way, in looking for cool links about science, I came across The Science Creative Quarterly and their Order of the Science Scouts of Exemplary Repute and Above Average Physique. Sounds like something I'd like to get in on, and besides, they have badges! After a cursory look, I'm eligible for, like, 7 of them so far! Hopefully they don't hold too strictly to the "Above Average Physique" part of their title. If so, well, I always need more inspiration to get in shape, I guess.)
* - Where does this come from? 2 geek points up for grabs, people.**
** - Yes, I was totally serious about this last week. There may eventually be prizes.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Inertia
When I was three years old, I wrote my first story. Well, I told it to my dad and he wrote it down for me. I was always obsessed with stories; I loved my Disney and Star Wars books on record, which read to me before I knew how to read, and I loved sitting on the couch with my mom or dad and having them read a story to me, particularly one from the Golden Books. Even when I couldn't read, I would just open a picture book and pretend to read it to myself, until that day when I was four that I pulled out a book and realized that I wasn't pretending to read any more, I was actually doing it! But that's getting ahead of myself.
When I was three years old, I wrote my first story. Not the first story I ever made up, because I was making up stories for my Matchbox cars and Super-Friends action figures all the time. But the evening of May 11, 1982, I sat down with a pencil and a scrap of blue paper, and dictated the following story:
Mr. Potatohead and CBC*
Once upon a time on the
edge of The Black Forest,
they had packages
for fruit and toys. Then
there came a big frog.
Then there came a
big, big lion. And they
lived happily ever after.
The End
It's lacking a lot of story grammar, and there's no real compelling through line to it - What did they do with the fruit and toys? Where did these giant animals come from? - but it was mine. Writing that story is one of my first memories. Like I said, I'd made up stories before, but I knew that I just really wanted to have it written it down. I wanted to see my name beside those words, and I wanted other people to read it and like it as much as I liked it. I wanted to have it forever. Most stories written by three-year-olds don't last for twenty-five years, but thanks to my mom & dad's careful cataloguing of their first-born's activities, I have it pasted in my Me and Winnie-the-Pooh memory book, there to be laughed at and "aww"ed over for many more years.
From that point on, something stuck in me about writing. In my elementary school, there was a story writing competition; everyone wrote a story and the best story from each classroom made it into a collection printed at the end of the year. I won in Grade One, Grade Three, and Grade Five, in a sort of inversion of the Star Trek movie curse. I always made up stories and wrote stuff down, and naturally read books and watched movies as much as I could. Stories are part of my operating system. As a geek, it comes in awfully handy, as having a shared knowledge of stories with my other geeky friends leads to a lot of shorthand when we get together; all one of us has to do is say something like, "I'm gonna need a hacksaw"** or "This is coming out of your pay!"*** and we're all right there in that moment.
Which is why things are frustrating for me right now. My own personal story seems like it's stalling. Yesterday, to appease her parents, my lovely Peach went to live with them until we get married. My thesis is rolling so slowly the only way I know it's moving at all is that I'm not getting ahead of it as quickly as I used to. The wedding planning seems to be moving forward but I don't really feel like a part of it, even when I try helping. And I sit at this computer every night trying to think of something to write and failing miserably.
There's plenty to write about. I could write about my opinions on Spider-Man 3 (short review: not so good) or Pirates Of The Carribbean: At World's End (short review: wow, not bad). I could write about the struggles The Peach and I have as we try to integrate our lives together. (An excerpt from a conversation we had this evening. She: "Wow, I didn't realize how much beer you drank." Me: "It's one beer. I've had three beers in the past five days.") Hell, I could even write about how amazing The Sensational Spider-Man Annual #1 is (it continually breaks and fixes my heart). But every time I sit to write, nothing comes out, because I can't think that anything I write is going to be very interesting.
And that's always been part of why I write, why I put it down on paper or broadcas it to computer screens: to delight an audience, somewhere out there, wherever they are. For nine days I have tried to think of something to write, and have written nothing. I read. I watch. I laze around. And so my inertia takes control of me and I say nothing. But tonight, I face the inertia and just write something. It doesn't have to be good, or thoughtful, or even entertaining, it just has to be something. And I just did. So maybe that can crack the inertia that seems to be pervading the rest of my life now. We'll see.
* - A little background. When I was young I thought that the CBC logo I saw on tv was a character, like all the other drawings with voices I watched (The Smurfs, He-Man, and so on). Not only was I convinced that "The CBC" was a cartoon character, I was also convinced he was an evil cartoon character because he spoke in a loud, deep voice "THIS IS CBC!" about once every two or three hours. I was terrified of him. Why I made him best friends with Mr. Potato head in the story I do not remember.
** - Two cool points to the first person to guess where this quote comes from.
*** - Four cool points to the first person to guess where this quote comes from. If you need a hint, imagine it said with a Jamaican accent, but dock yourself a cool point****. Honour system, folks.
**** - Really, they should be called geek points, shouldn't they?
When I was three years old, I wrote my first story. Not the first story I ever made up, because I was making up stories for my Matchbox cars and Super-Friends action figures all the time. But the evening of May 11, 1982, I sat down with a pencil and a scrap of blue paper, and dictated the following story:
Mr. Potatohead and CBC*
Once upon a time on the
edge of The Black Forest,
they had packages
for fruit and toys. Then
there came a big frog.
Then there came a
big, big lion. And they
lived happily ever after.
The End
It's lacking a lot of story grammar, and there's no real compelling through line to it - What did they do with the fruit and toys? Where did these giant animals come from? - but it was mine. Writing that story is one of my first memories. Like I said, I'd made up stories before, but I knew that I just really wanted to have it written it down. I wanted to see my name beside those words, and I wanted other people to read it and like it as much as I liked it. I wanted to have it forever. Most stories written by three-year-olds don't last for twenty-five years, but thanks to my mom & dad's careful cataloguing of their first-born's activities, I have it pasted in my Me and Winnie-the-Pooh memory book, there to be laughed at and "aww"ed over for many more years.
From that point on, something stuck in me about writing. In my elementary school, there was a story writing competition; everyone wrote a story and the best story from each classroom made it into a collection printed at the end of the year. I won in Grade One, Grade Three, and Grade Five, in a sort of inversion of the Star Trek movie curse. I always made up stories and wrote stuff down, and naturally read books and watched movies as much as I could. Stories are part of my operating system. As a geek, it comes in awfully handy, as having a shared knowledge of stories with my other geeky friends leads to a lot of shorthand when we get together; all one of us has to do is say something like, "I'm gonna need a hacksaw"** or "This is coming out of your pay!"*** and we're all right there in that moment.
Which is why things are frustrating for me right now. My own personal story seems like it's stalling. Yesterday, to appease her parents, my lovely Peach went to live with them until we get married. My thesis is rolling so slowly the only way I know it's moving at all is that I'm not getting ahead of it as quickly as I used to. The wedding planning seems to be moving forward but I don't really feel like a part of it, even when I try helping. And I sit at this computer every night trying to think of something to write and failing miserably.
There's plenty to write about. I could write about my opinions on Spider-Man 3 (short review: not so good) or Pirates Of The Carribbean: At World's End (short review: wow, not bad). I could write about the struggles The Peach and I have as we try to integrate our lives together. (An excerpt from a conversation we had this evening. She: "Wow, I didn't realize how much beer you drank." Me: "It's one beer. I've had three beers in the past five days.") Hell, I could even write about how amazing The Sensational Spider-Man Annual #1 is (it continually breaks and fixes my heart). But every time I sit to write, nothing comes out, because I can't think that anything I write is going to be very interesting.
And that's always been part of why I write, why I put it down on paper or broadcas it to computer screens: to delight an audience, somewhere out there, wherever they are. For nine days I have tried to think of something to write, and have written nothing. I read. I watch. I laze around. And so my inertia takes control of me and I say nothing. But tonight, I face the inertia and just write something. It doesn't have to be good, or thoughtful, or even entertaining, it just has to be something. And I just did. So maybe that can crack the inertia that seems to be pervading the rest of my life now. We'll see.
* - A little background. When I was young I thought that the CBC logo I saw on tv was a character, like all the other drawings with voices I watched (The Smurfs, He-Man, and so on). Not only was I convinced that "The CBC" was a cartoon character, I was also convinced he was an evil cartoon character because he spoke in a loud, deep voice "THIS IS CBC!" about once every two or three hours. I was terrified of him. Why I made him best friends with Mr. Potato head in the story I do not remember.
** - Two cool points to the first person to guess where this quote comes from.
*** - Four cool points to the first person to guess where this quote comes from. If you need a hint, imagine it said with a Jamaican accent, but dock yourself a cool point****. Honour system, folks.
**** - Really, they should be called geek points, shouldn't they?
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