T-Minus 5 hrs 45 min

Well much like Mr. Johns, I too am counting the hours until my time here at Trailhead comes to an end...and the end is approaching!
But not too sad, its time to move on, its been good but I daresay I didn't have quite the impact on the world that Steve-o did...
That's where we sit, and you're more than welcome in the Kingston area to come down to the Merchant Pub for 8pm for drinks, if not I'm sure we'll see you all at some point.
Cheers

Icky Thump

Well after eagerly anticipating the new White Stripes album, even moreso after downloading Icky Thump from iTunes, I can say, Hallelujah.
In the past, White Stripes albums have really had to grow on me, apart from the singles. I started out like most people, around White Blood Cells, and knew a couple songs before I ended up buying it, and I enjoyed it a lot, but I mostly listen to the singles still. De Stijl and The White Stripes, the preceeding albums, I picked up and listened to all the way thru and enjoyed some moments, but I can't say I played them to death. It was really with Elephant that I rushed out to buy it and listened to it non-stop, to the point where I enjoyed every part of it. That album was played a LOT. When the last one, Get Behind me Satan came out, I rushed out to buy it and it kind of sat around as I listened to other albums I'd been meaning to listen to first. Then I ended up getting tickets to see them in Montreal, and ended up driving up to Montreal, and it was where I first cracked the jewel case and listened to it. I really enjoyed it a lot, and ended up actually listening to all 5 albums on the drive up, which is a GREAT way to get ready for a show (Steve I'll be interested to hear your thoughts on that theory of mine).

Well Icky Thump the Album is just as good as Icky Thump the single had me hoping it would be. I won't get into specifics, but its Heavy, and wide ranging, just like the range on GBMS and to a lesser extent Elephant. 48 minutes of good simple (in the best sense of the word) heavy blues influenced rock, with a few twists and turns thrown in for good measure.
I'm going to be in Ottawa when they're playing Bluesfest, and I just found out my friend Julia's grandfather won 4 tickets, so he's giving them to her and her cousins, so I know they'll enjoy it, as she's never seen them. I'm not sure if they're still available, but if so I'm going to have to go, which would be the first Bluesfest since the Hip show which just seemed like a Queen's party.

So in short, this is a GOOOD album from the beginning first play, and hopefully it will grow even more to a Great album, but Good is not a bad place to start. Go pick it up and enjoy if thats your kinda thing; if not, then you probably didn't read this post anyhow!

Sacrelige...I threw up in my mouth a little...

I think I threw up a little just now...Dear God why? Brian Burke how did you let this happen??
Pronger, you bonehead! You take the Cup on Leno and say no one can drink out of it but people associated with the team, and then you go on the 3rd string show of a 90s has-been and let him sully it with his mouth? the same mouth that touched Tara Reid? and good god knows where else its been...Truly one of the saddest days in Hockey.

The Devil's Picnic

Recently I finished a book that one of the guys at work reccomended, The Devil's Picnic by Taras Grescoe. Its a really interesting look at the culture of forbidden and banned substances, the history behind them, prohibitions, and how they manage to only increase the demand for the original, and lead to poor knockoffs. He also illustrates how governments and agencies end up trying to regulate things for their financial betterment, with no foresight or hindsight. This may sound dry but the way that Grescoe writes, its very easy to go along with. He also travels the world for these forbidden items; from Norway to Spain to Bolivia. The people he meets along the way, the efforts he makes to track down such things and look at the impact it has on the local and global cultures. I'm not feeling very verbose today so I'll just leave it at that and say its a great read.
Gulley in particular, I think you'd enjoy this.

Ottawa Bound

After months of speculation, this free agent has signed a 1 yr contract with a nice bachelor appartment in the West End of Ottawa. The new season begins July 5th...stay tuned for details and updates...Having accomplished all there was to be done in the minor leagues of K-town, its time to move on.

Is it even necessary?

Well, another season come and gone for the NHL, and I actually hate to say it, but this is the least interest I've had in it for a while. I think maybe it was the Ottawa hype machine that turned me off, seeing as how I was in Ottawa a few game days/nights (not at them) but it was ridiculous. On the other hand it was nice to see community togetherness, like the Gangbanger I saw at Walmart asking this little old lady with a radio what the score was. Now THAT was priceless!
Anyhow, I think Steve was right in talking about the game maybe being killed lately.
Well I for one agree some shit needs to get sorted out with all of it...reffing was all over.
Ah well. Good for Selanne, he's deserving.
So now the ahhh part of the summer when no sports need to be watched at all, save the odd ballgame in person maybe.
Not much to say I know, but I like to leave you a little bit so you know I'm still breathing.

Congrats Angela!

No clever title today folks, just simple to the point.
By way of the ever effective but somewhat frowned upon "mass email", I found out this morning that one of the nicest girls that ever went to Queens, and one of the most fun to hang out with in Deep River, Angela St. Jules of the booming metropolis of Blind River, ONT is getting married.
She joins the ranks of those committing and committed already, from our extended Queens Family, including Rahul, Karthik, and Sage (and maybe more I'm forgetting). Best wishes to her and her groom Mikael, and hopefully we'll be seeing her in Ontario at some point soon, seeing as how last time I saw her was in Ohio at the Holiday Inn.
Congrats Angela, thats fantastic.

Wow, there actually ARE cool jobs out there!

OK loyal followers of the Rambling...I have some fun/exciting news (well its exciting to me at least and maybe one or two of you, but mostly me).
I have just started a new job. Usually it would be like yawn, boring OK, that's great Gav, but I think its actually pretty cool.
What I am doing is online research for a Music Directory of North American Venues. What that means in reality is that I research, state by state, province by province, city by city, all venues where live music is played, whether it be coffee house, bar, club, pub, festival, restaurant, church, or what have you. The theory behind this is that if you are booking a tour for your band (Steve, this might be useful for your musical experiment) anywhere in North America, this Directory will save you a crapload of time and effort looking for good places to play, and also making sure that you don't book your death metal band to play at a church, or your Christian Rock band to play at a Biker Bar. The Brains behind this idea is Dave (can't remember his last name right now) who came up with a similar idea 8-10 years ago, called The Indie Bible to help aspiring musicians to make it in the music business on their own, or at least to facilitate the process. Check it out www.indiebible.com and you can see more of what its all about.
So I'm super psyched to be combining my love of music with the 4 years of research "skills" that I made use of at Queen's. Maybe that liberal arts education wasn't completely impractical ;)
As of now, I'm assigned 3 states to do: Kentucky, West Virginia, and appropriately enough, Missouri, home to my dad's entire side of the family.

So pretty much I search out venues online, check out their websites, and determine what kind of bands they book, ie, what genre, like punk, bluegrass, rock, etc. Then I do an entry about that Venue and attach the website and all the various genres of music they want played at their establishments. The goal is to have the whole of North America done in time to send this to the publisher in November, but it seems like a LOT of work still to be done. Anyhow, regardless, I'm pretty pumped about this, and being online, I can work it around my "regular schedule" whatever that may be.

I'm proud that I rarely discuss work on here, b/c usually no one wants to hear about it, but those of you that make the effort to read this know me well enough to know that this is a pretty sweet way for me to be working. So for those of you who were curious what I was up to, this is it.

Cheers. or should I say Rock On.