Great Times

Well I”m back from the Sunny South. We had a great time down there. Canadian Mens team finished 6th which was just good enough to qualify them for the 2008 Olympics and the Canadian Women won the tournament and earned the right to be called World Champions! That lead to quite a party afterwards – most of which I couldn’t recount now if my life depended on it.

However, these were not the great times that I refer to in the title. Today has been a slow work day so I’ve been reading through the archives. (Or has it been a slow day BECAUSE i’ve been reading through the archives…. anyway…). The old posts were always there and they were fun enough to read – but having the comments back has made it great.

I went back and read a bunch of the stuff from late January 04 and early February 04 and it was all I could do to contain myself and not burst otu laughing in the middle of the office.

In my mind, that was the most fun time on this site. The cast of character’s commenting on the boards made it that way. Not that they (or us) had anything more interesting to say – just that everyone was so bloody malicious! Most of it was spurred on by Nick and Gee (or what turned out to be Nick as Gee). The comments where he fucked up his posting and then tried to dig out, just making it worse were hilarious. Then Steve just heartlessly tossing him under the truck by throwing all the fuck up’s on to the main page for the world to see was just gold. Satan’s verbal abuse was great as was everyone’s (Steve, Carin, Greg Twilly, annonymous, a different annonymous and Not Roland). It was just so much fun.

I’m not sure I’ll get anything more accomplished today as I’m hooked on going back and reading all of our cold crap. Great stuff.

Also for the record – since I don’t know if it’s been mentioned yet – we passed 1,000 posts a while back. This is number 1006. So, for now anyway, call this the 1000th post look back. Maybe we’ll get some time to put together some of our best posts/comments in to one big VC Retrospective. We’ll see if any of us are feeling that ambitious. For now. Cheers to the VC.

Well…We’re Alive.

I don’t have much to say, except, phew, we survived another move. I always underestimate how freaky it is to have everything you own put in boxes and transported to your new home. But it’s weird. And now everything we both own has made the trip safely, although I do feel sorry for the people who helped Steve. Hauling a bed frame up 6 floors because it can’t fit in the elevator has gotta suck. But everything fit beautifully, and our new home has the phone, the internet and the cable again, not to mention that it plain rocks. This is a strange thing to say, but because of Stupidhead and Ditz O Matic, I forgot how it felt to feel safe and secure in your own home. Being here has made me remember what it feels like. The neighbours are cool, I think I’ve met a grand total of one creep in this building, and he’s leaving soon, and everyone else has been nothing less than awesome, and there’s lots of nice people in the neighbourhood. Plus, I don’t know what my parents were smoking when they said there was nothing near us. Let me count the things I found when I went on a little walk with a friend. 3 convenience stores, a computer store, our bank, a pizza place, a drugstore, a hair place, a Mcdonalds, a Tim Horton’s, a Dairy Queen, two more restaurants, another ice cream store, and a beer store. And I’m sure there’s more! Oh yeah, and a giant park where lots of stuff happens. If that’s nothing, having everything near you must mean you don’t have to move and stuff comes to you. Now I just need to get a few groceries and Steve needs to come back from family stuff and the place will be complete! Oh I can see many many happy times ahead!

Alexander Graham Bell, You’re a Genius!

That looks like a strange thing to say, now that phones are everywhere and they’re so ordinary. But that must have been what they thought when he first invented the thing. And why would such weirdness be swirling through my head? Because I got a taste of what it must have been like before phones yesterday.

Like I said, we’re almost ready to get over to the new place. Well, my stuff is over there, and Steve’s moving on Saturday. Since we’re using Steve’s phone account and had to move it yesterday or be screwed until Monday or Tuesday, poor Steve was without a phone. I don’t know if he’d call himself poor Steve, but damn it he’s poor Steve for the purposes of this story. So I go down to the lobby to speak to our poor stressed out building manager to get my buzzer tied in with my phone and book the elevator for Steve’s folks/moving crew who are heaving things like couches into the new home, and I find out that the elevator’s not going to be available at the time we would have hoped. Now, what would one normally do? Call Steve and say hey, what should we do now? But he’s got no phone! Add to that that my internet’s not in at the new place because I need his big length of cable that, um, he’s using. So he may have the internet, but I have no way of reaching him. So all that’s left to do is take the bus across the city and talk to him face to face.

So off I go, thinking about how it must have sucked to not even have the bus back then, and only having horses and such. Then I get off the bus, and I really think I’ve been placed in one of those old movies. I’m running down the street, and I hear a slow spit…spit…spit. Within a minute, it becomes pit pat pit pat pit pat…and as I get close to Steve’s house, it’s more like pitter patter pitter patter pitter patter! Can’t you just hear the dramatic old movie music?

I have to admit that once I got the message to Steve, the old time feel died suddenly when we…sent an email to his mom and asked what time would work for her. But it really made me think about how much we depend on the phone, and how I never want to go VOIP! And it made me realize how important the words “Mr. Watson, come here, I need you!” really were.

2006 World Goalball Championships. Online Radio

This was just sent to the old inbox for circulation. If you have no idea what Goalball is – the rest of this post will not interest you. Anyway – here’s the e-mail.

“Hi Sports fans!

We are just a few days away from the beginning of the 2006 IBSA World Goalball Championships, where we will make history by providing live goalball for the first time ever!

In this e-mail we’ll list the games we are intending to cover (we will possibly do more if demand is as high as we are expecting!), and we’ll show you how to get on to the site to enjoy the games!

Here is the list of games we are intending to cover during the round robin events, all leading up to Saturday the first of July, when we will bring you all the action from the round of 16 right through to the trophies presentations.

All times mentioned are Eastern Standard Time – local times (5 hours behind UK time, six hours behind Europe, fifteen hours behind Sydney Australia)

Wednesday – MALE

10:00 AM SWEDEN VS AUSTRALIA

11:00 AM USA VS SLOVENIA

Thursday – Female

2pm Australia Vs Brazil

3pm Denmark Vs Greece

Friday – Mens

1pm Denmark Vs Algeria

2pm Germany Vs China

FEMALE

3pm Canada Vs Finland

Then Saturday from 9am until the conclusion around about 10pm

How to link in to the games

Let me stress first of all, once more, these internet broadcasts are free!

There is no sign up required.

Each evening you can listen to edited highlights of the day’s play on the Audio Network, where there will be a permanent audio record of the tournament that you can catch up with any time. Here is the link to the edited highlights show, which will be online commencing Wednesday morning.

www.sports.pressakey.net

This is also where you can play an online interactive game of goalball on your computer for free too!

NOTE FROM VC: This game is the single worst game of all time – do NOT waste your time. I beg you. Now back to your regularly scheduled announcement.

Listening live is just as easy!

Here is the web address of talking communities where you can listen to the games

http://www.talkingcommunities.com/pat

Once there, click on the first link called “Auditorium”. A page will appear that will ask for your name and a password. Simply put in your name, no password is required for this event. You will then be taken to the auditorium, where you will hear the live goalball at the specified times.

If you have any problems connecting, Pat Price would be happy to help with any questions! Here is Pat’s e-mail address…

pat@talkingcommunities.com

We are so excited to be pushing the boundaries of blind sports coverage, and

we hope you will enjoy the tournament.

All there is left to say is good luck to all teams competing! (Note from VC: but especially Canada)

Best regards,

Bill Teale (the Audio Network)

Pat Price (Talking Communities)”

And that’s that. Neat concept. whether it will fly or not or whether there will be the demmand from the “blink” community to make it worth while on a regular basis is yet to be determined – but good on them for trying. I, however, will not be listening as myself and a friend will be flying to South Carolina Wednesday morning to take in the rest of the round robin and playoffs. It should be a great time.

Another Me Plug

Right now over on Salty Ham, there’s a deal going on where a bunch of us are choosing the 5 CD’s we’d want with us if we were ever stuck alone on a deserted island. Well, this is my week, and my picks have been posted. So if you’ve ever wondered what some of my favourite albums of all time are, or if you just need something to do for the next 5 or 10 minutes, the article is right here.

While you’re there, feel free to check out the choices made by some of the other writers as well. Links to their articles can be found on the page linked above.

Ok, I’m off to pack some stuff for the move now, I’ll be back later.

Ummm

Bobcaygeon, No.
Wheat Kings, No
Fireworks, No.
That Night In TORONTO!!!! No.
New Orleans, No.
Ahead By A Century, No.
Vaccination Scar, No.
Music at Work, No.

These, my friends, are songs that the Hip elected not top lay at their concert. That’s right. Saturday night in Toronto – they didn’t play THAT NIGHT IN TORONTO! Now – do I like all of the songs on this list? No. But I do most. And they were hits so someone liked them. And given how many people were at this show and paid nearly 50 bucks to be there – you probably should have played them.

I don’t have a problem with no stuff or mixing it up. But 2 songs no one new the words to in the encore? What? Why’d you even come back out? You just pissed people off more. And believe me. People were PISSED walking out of there. Andl istening to the Classic Rock station on the way home that was pimping up post-Hip parties at different bars. Well they had people on who were also pissed.

No one should be surprised. Gord Downie has a history of playin what he wants when he wants. So this should be no shocker. But it’s still ignorant.

So what did they play? Alot of new stuff which wasn’t bad, alot of stuff from old albums that never made it as hits and about 4 or 5 hits.

– Nautical Disaster – my favourite Hip song, luckily, or I’d be even more annoyed.
– Courage – which was done as a very well said tribute to the Nurse’s at Toronto Sick Children’s Hospital. “We may not ever know what Heaven is – but we know what Hell is – a child in pain. A nurse can do more than any priest, a nurse can do more than any government, a nurst can do more than any lawyer. This is for the Nurses at Sick Kids”. I thought it was a nice touch.
100th Meridian, 38 Years Old, and It’s A Good Life If you Don’t Weaken.

That was it for hits. Was it a bad show? No. The stuff they did was good and high energy and the crowd was in to it (at the beginning anyway before the clock was winding down and they weren’t playing any hits). Would I go see them again? Probably. But not until they’re old and are like the Stones and are touring just for the hits. Other than that I can now say I’ve seen Canada’s biggest Rock band – and I’m content with that.

The rest of the day with the guys was good and fun – but not wild. Some wandering Toronto, looking at music stores at sweet guitars. Nothing ground breaking or story warranting.

Roundtable Plug

Just a quick note to let anybody who happens to care know that Salty Ham’s
Vengeance Roundtable
has been posted.

Hopefully I do better this time around than I did last time out. But funnily enough, even though I got utterly schooled at Backlash, I’m still not in last place, which amuses me greatly because I didn’t think such a thing was possible.

Also, for anybody keeping track [Carin and Matt], we’ve hit our 1000th post, at least so says the counter on the Blogger site. Go us!

Maybe I’d consider Going To Church If This Guy Was Preaching There

The joke I posted earlier got me thinking about a video that I stumbled on a few days ago. I’m not sure how long this show lasted, but if it was more than 1 episode, I’d be stunned.

The sound is kind of quiet and you can’t really hear the people calling in, but you don’t really need to for this to be funny.

And for all of you who are stupid enough to be surfing for things like this while you’re working, you might wanna wait until you get home if you don’t have headphones or run the company.

I Guess He Didn’t Like It Then?

I just read this in the newspaper, and it might well be one of the greatest album reviews I’ve ever seen.

THREE DAYS GRACE

One X (Sony/BMG)

This repetitious, mind-numbing experience is best summed up by the song titles: Pain, Get Out Alive, Let it Die (not a Feist cover), Time of Dying, and Over and Over. Is there some kind of theme at work here? Supposedly the album was written about the drudgery of being on the road for years at a time, which one supposes is the cost of becoming a million-selling band.

Every lyric can be reduced to “I feel like I could die/ but I’m alive.” That must be about the 23 boring hours of the day versus the one hour concert, but sitting through One X makes it hard to imagine 60 minutes on stage with this band being any more stultifying than the rest of their road dog existence.

To call this formulaic would be a compliment, but Gone Forever is one of the most shameless Nickelback rewrites since — well, Nickelback themselves. Not surprisingly, the Alberta superstars can be found thanked in the liner notes alongside Seether, Staind, 3 Doors Down, Theory of a Deadman and rock radio’s seemingly endless parade of identically beige bands. When Adam Gontier sings, “Somebody help me get through this nightmare,” I feel his pain.

Finding Jesus

A drunk stumbles across a baptismal service on Sunday afternoon down by the river.

He proceeds to walk down into the water and stand next to the Preacher. The minister turns and notices the old drunk and says,

“Mister, Are you ready to find Jesus?”

The drunk looks back and says, “Yess, Preacher..I sure am.”

The minister then dunks the fellow under the water and pulls him right back up. “Have you found Jesus?” the preacher asked.

“Nooo, I haven’t!” said the drunk.

The preacher then dunks him under for quite a bit longer, brings him up and says, “Now, brother, have you found Jesus?”

“Noooo, I have not Reverend.”

The preacher in disgust holds the man under for at least 30 seconds this time, brings him out of the water and says in a harsh tone, “My God, man, have you found Jesus yet?”

The old drunk wipes his eyes and says to the preacher…

“Are you sure this is where he fell in?”