28/04/02(120am)-down and out 2-1. meaning we lead the series 3-2 and it comes back to montréal for game 6. and damn jon has tickets to the game :P. anyways, im predicting another bruins win on monday- i dont know that the habs will do it again, but we'll win game 7. hey, my original prediction was bruins in 6, but that didnt happen now... more at a later time when i dont have stuff to do.
26/04/02(12pm)-i remember what the other thing was- the G8 ministers are meeting here in mcgill now. it was an impromptu thing that i didnt find out about til i read the newspaper yesterday and it said that students taking exams yesterday were gonna be facing beefed up security on campus during the 5pm meeting.
(1030am)-let me just preface my 240am comment. in a thread on the rane forum, this guy by the alias "joemastro" accused me of being a "bandwagon" fan for liking the habs and the yankees. ive essentially been a life-long fan of both teams. granted, as my active interest in hockey has picked up over the year (leading to my getting on the ice a few times with the puck), ive started to find baseball more hohum. games are about 3-4 hours long and theres 162 of them. but then the guy has the audacity to tell me that i have no legitimate say to cheer for either team. so, that was it for me responding to further comments, but in the heat of last nights anger, i couldnt help feeling what michel therrien was feeling and saying a few words myself.
not much else been going on here, mainly hockey fever here in montreal. tuesday nights game was a good one. no one thought we'd win, but dougie gilmour stood up in the dressing room and got the team to fire up a comeback win. i cant remember what happened wednesday night, but last night was game 4 and it was here in montréal. i was at the molson centre trying to get a ticket, but the scalpers wanted 150$ for whites and quite frankly, i wasnt paying that. so instead, i just went to la cage aux sports (the restaurant in the molson centre) and watched the game over dinner. place was going nuts. the whole thing with the 240 comment was that with about 2 minutes left in the third period, bruins send out PJ Stock on the bruins powerplay (used to play for the hartford wolf pack, was briefly a hab at one point). stock is one of those volatile players who is not a powerplay guy. so we sent out ours, gino odjick (who's definitely scored more than stock this season). odjick gets stock into a fight. take a penalty for the team, eh? bout a minute later, the score is still 5-2 boston, kyle mclaren goes after richard zednik (who scored the two habs goals and is one of our best players in the playoffs). zednik goes in with the puck, mclaren looks at him, brings his elbows/stick high (see above pic), swings them around into zedniks face, zednik falls back, and it takes 5 minutes for them to get him on a stretcher (as you can see). zednik ends up with broken bones in his cheek, nose, jaw. then for the first time this season, therrien gets immensely fired up and shouts at the bruins bench (see above pic). definitely one of the cheapest hits of the season. then in the post-game interview, mclaren says that he didnt go out to hurt anyone and that hes never been suspended in his 7 years playing. and thats supposed to say what, that he shouldnt be suspended? well, right now hes suspended indefinitely pending nhl review, and quite frankly he deserves it. anything to the face would be called, but when you swing like he did on the play that was in progress, and the guy ends up with a broken face... thats as good as gone. sure, you can fine therrien for his outburst, but its playoff hockey and its about time hes showed emotion this season. we'll see what happens in boston on saturday night.
in other news...not too much been going on otherwise because of exams tues. maybe if im up for it, ill open mic wed, cause i said i still had to do one this semester. problem is, i can never find where they are. the listings are somewhat confusing and some of them are open mic jams, where you get up and jam with people, and then sit down and rotate someone else in. which would be cool, but i still need to just play myself again. we'll see what happens. then theres the whole roommates thing for next year which i never talked about.
basically next year, seth, nick, and i are staying here. and 3 new people are coming in (after a sleazy 100$ extra rent increase, bringing the total to an increase of 400$ a month by our sleaze landlords). first theres yin. seth and nick knew him from last year in mcconnell. then theres amanda... she's just from toronto. but shes one of those people into the dj scene. apparently she used to do interviews for dj zines, etc...she responded to an ad we put on infomcgill (mcgill's online classifieds). and then she got her friend claire in here. shes one of those people who was born somewhere (paris) and then moved around the rest of her life. currently, she resides in mauritius (an island off the coast of madagascar). but shes lived in chicago, paris, hong kong, south africa, mauritius, and i think another place or two before here. shes fluent in english, spanish and french. and her english accent is tinted with french (i learned last year thats what they speak on mauritius). we made a deal that ill teach her guitar if she helps my french fluency :). so yeah, thats the apartment next year. should be another interesting combo.
Swiped from nikhil's profile... You Know You're From Connecticut If.... (or as I like to think, "You know you hate Connecticut when...")
1. You thought everyone couldn't buy beer after 8 pm.
2. You or someone you know has attended UCONN.
3. You still think that the Whalers are cool.
4. You have been drunk at the Meadows Music Theater and don't remember the concert.
5. You have to explain Cow Tipping to people from out of state.
6. You have said... "I'm in a good location... Between both Boston and New York."
horrible tragedy in germany. you think your country is the only one that goes through these problems, but it can happen anywhere. coincidentally, its the same time as the german legislature is debating more gun control. its impossible, but everyone needs gun control. because you just dont need an AK-47 to hunt a deer. if the aboriginals could do it with simple tools like bows and arrows, theres just plain no need for semi-automatic assault rifles for civilian use. they just dont solve anything.
had something else to say, forgot what it was, maybe ill remember if i head out...
(240am)-mr. joemastro, this "bandwagon" fan cant wait to see you eating your words when mclaren is serving his 8 game suspension which will be carried over into next season and joe thorton is taken out saturday in boston. oh, and the markov injury? we'll see how far the nhl will take guerin along the playoffs. we'll make sure to bring the cup back home where playing hockey is a sport and disgracing hockey isnt. and if we dont, then boston wont. can you say tie domi? read some other bandwagon fans' says. you'll find that the real bruins fans want mclaren out.
ps, i dunno what your definition of "bandwagon" is, but when you like a team since kindergarten, they're only #8 seed, and you're still emphatic, that aint bandwagon. bandwagon's when you read some stats on espn, and then pick the #1 team. save for boston's cheap hits game tonight, they look pretty weak. 6-4 didnt prove anything. and if it takes cheap hits to win the cup, then this bruins team disgraced hockey in boston. by the way, question my legitimacy all you want. you dont even know me.
25/04/02(1130pm)-3 words for robby ftorek: payback's a bitch. more later.
24/04/02(320am)-im enibriated agan. als i have to say is bostn can suck it lonnnnnnng and harddddddd. we kicked the shit outta them. down 3-1 and we won 5-3. everyonse talking shit about montréal, saying that we cant make it, but ill be damned otherwise. the habs' flag flies proudly from my window along with the spirit of all montrealers.
23/04/02(110pm)-why else my computer sucks: sometimes when im writing my updates, i get some kind of freeze in wordpad, the characters garble up and then ive got whatever i was typing spread out over the page. case in point, a tag got replaced with . the latter tag is not a tag and thus, where text was supposed ended as bold, it wasnt :/ i hate my computer.
if i stop saying ill update, maybe id do it when i say. backtracking: sunday, ended up at an expos game with nick and seth. they were playing the mets and it was pretty cool i guess. it must have been a freak day or something cause attendance was actually at around 12,000. probably mostly americans though- mets fans that came up hoping to see their team beat the expos. unfortunately for them, the expos got a homer and won it 6-3 i believe, i cant remember. i dunno, im a yankees fan, but overall, ive been getting bored with baseball. games take forever, theres sporatic action when a play actually happens, but most of the time its pitchers just standing on the mound getting ready to throw. and it goes on for 9 innings. multiply that by 162 games and thats a lot of hours. maybe its cause this is the first year ive gotten so wrapped up in hockey that baseballs lost its intensity to me. theres no physical game, theres skill, but not that much. the only speed there is is a running play that takes 30 seconds to complete. anyways, thats my baseball gripes. yankees will get to the pennant, red sox wont, and itll take all year for it to happen. but hey, as long as expos tix cost only 8$, i guess ill still go to a couple games while i can.
(sidenote while im surfing: whats up with all these people with opendiaries or livejournals? that seems to be how easy it is these days to get yourself a site. its starting to get to be a cesspool of internet bandwidth of people whose sole goal in the internet is to take online quizzes and cut and paste the results. the average joe knows nothing about html anymore cause they use livejournal. (sorta like the airwaves, eh? ;-) ). and its not like theyve really used it as a journal per se, but just a forum for their damn quizzes. not to say that quizzes arent always amusing, but how bout some actual substance while we're at it?)
so anyways. after the game, seth and i went speedgrocery shopping, seeing as to how we were all getting tired of not cooking dinners cause it was getting expensive otherwise, plus, we had no food in the house. 1/2hr including walking with the groceries. ended up making a quick dinner (stouffers tv dinners and fin du monde). lord, fin du monde is some strong beer. its a triple fermented yeast beer from quebec thats 9%. its not bad going down, but its got a horrible aftertaste and because of the gas, you're belching every 5 minutes. it was the first time i got a yeast beer- i just wanted to try it, but it woulda taken me longer to finish than a regular beer and i didnt have the time. so i ended up leaving for the concert with seth.
it was seths first concert so i guess that was cool. we got there like 5-10 min late and bela fleck and the flecktones were already on. i was kinda surprised that they were actually on time on time. obviously not as many people during the opener but it was still cool. bela fleck was good, although im more into guitar jam myself than the bluesgrass jam of the midwest, but musically they were really good, particularly the bassist. they played about an hour, there was a 1/2 hr setchange and then dave came on. by then the crowd was filled and it was pretty charging with energy. some weedclouds, but i was surprised that there wasnt more, and that no one was passing anything around. molson centre was still selling beer so i just got a beer. as indicated below is the setlist. they had some good tunes, although i only knew about half of them and even at that, im not too keen on his lyrics. but it was still okay. the 30 minute two step with bela fleck was pretty awesome and i was hoping that theyd play it cause that and lie in our graves are two of my favourite dave tunes. and the 30 minute two step reminded me of the 30 minute kytes of yore. couple of cute girls including this one girl from my french class- they were sitting in seats and we were on the floor so when i was coming back from getting a beer, i walked down the aisle that doesnt get you to the floor and she saw me and shouted over. introduced me to her roommate, who's also good looking. we couldnt find them after the concert though. kinda wish i was intoxicated during the concert cause that woulda livened things up. we were supposed to be in row MM but two people wanted to switch with us to sit with their friends, so we got bumped up to JJ :) all was good though. its like i say, concerts in montréal are so much better than in ct, crowds are better, and no DMB riots like hartford. one thing i shoulda done in retrospect was to do rane flyering, something like "rane...coming soon...www.ranetides.com" and then handed them out and gotten people involved for whats to come up here.
yesterday not much went on, tried to get a haircut, but was unsuccessful cause they'd closed. and the temps here dropped from like 28 to 6 in a day. yesterday it was briefly snowing even. just when i said i wouldnt wear shoes again til next october, it got cold. :/ oh right, i also watched the tape of the habs game. it was a pretty good game. and im glad it wasn't just a 6-4 loss. boston was leading 4-0 and we brought it to 4-3, 5-3, 5-4, and then their empty net made it 6-4. josé froze the first 10 minutes of the game and they got some easy shots into the net, but the rest of the game, we gave them a run for their money. including the fact that if zednik had scored on the deflection attempt, it woulda been 4-4 and the rest of the game woulda been different with a centre ice faceoff instead of playing on. the pass was right to his stick, and he was ready for the deflection, but it bounced off square to the boards instead of angling into a wide open net that byron dafoe wouldnt have gotten. may have been a loss, but it definitely was a good one. solid offence, solid faceoffs...we lost cause jose froze in the first 10 minutes, but the rest of the game- we'll still have a chance at these playoffs, particularly with our offence playing better than it has all season. if he can keep his focus, we'll be winning this in game 6 here in montreal (im predicting boston will beat us only once more). tonights game at the molson centre should be excellent. id love to go, but getting even a scalped ticket will be impossible and while it could be worth the time and money, its also not. particularly since the habs will be back next year :) so ill just watch it on the tv instead. maybe either here or at jons house.
i think im gonna pass on the israeli pullout. i think ive pretty much said before what i needed to. and its now been confirmed from cnn by jihadists in detention that it was the palestinians who had boobytrapped the entire jenin camp and that they were just waiting for the soldiers to come in. if thats not saying anything... like i said, ill stick with clinton's speech and how arafat is the reason this is all happening. when you dont denounce terrorism and instead of stopping it, send your men out with bombs strapped to them, how do you expect to be taken seriously? seriously in the terms that when you make demands and cant follow through with what other people are asking, how do you expect your demands to be met? given the years of arab-israeli politics, i dont think anyone should expect it surprising that what happened happened. like i say, im not saying either side has things its done wrong, but its like i saw someone saying on cnn: israelis wont rest until they have security. and for israelis, security means being able to allow your children to go to school without armed military guards, allowing them to a disco on a saturday night or walking around the marketplace on sunday without fear of a man with bombs strapped to his chest walking into it and blowing himself up. and thats currently the state of israel. if active self-defence is wrong, then terror really has won. here in montreal last week, there was an 10,000 person rally (i wish i woke up in time to go) and it was from people all over montreal who were pushing for israeli solidarity. david and i just caught the tailend of the rally and it looked pretty big. some interesting responses there. it was last wednesday that celebrated the 54th anniversary of israeli independence (yom ha'atzmaut). maybe i didnt pass on the israeli pullout
coincidentially, it was also the 20th anniversary of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the repatriation of the canadian constitution. and yet quebec still feels excluded. the quebec legislature unanimously denounced the constitution last week, saying it still doesnt give enough to quebecois. quite frankly it doesnt, but amending the constitution in this country is near impossible. unlike the states, to amend the canadian constitution requires 7 provinces that make up 50% of the population to pass an amendment. which is why meech lake and the charlottetown accords failed to pass. ...in other news,
85% of canadians think that the US should pay for what happened over in kandahar. a US pilot dropped a bomb that killed 4 canadians and wounded 8. and the fact that the US government has brushed it off has made canadians pissed. it took 3 days for george w to say anything about it and as far as canadians are concerned, its the US showing its machoism and irreverance for other countries. according to some US law, they dont have to pay foreign victims of military tragedies. im not sure where this will go politically, but as the US's number 1 trading partner, it'll be something to see how that turns out. im not sure how the american newspapers are treating this (there are ZERO headlines on it on the CTnow.com homepage, nor its breaking news), but definitely its huge news up here and its definitely proving a point as to why the rest of the world looks down on americans. the thing is, americans are so wrapped up in theirselves that they not only refuse to believe it, they dont want to hear that the rest of the world looks down on them. the collectively selfish american attitude. rest assured that even if american newspapers dont care about this incident as anything other than a page A3 column, ill say whats going on with up here.
and now that its taken me almost 2 hours, ill finish with my last political happenings- the french elections. like ive said, its been 3 years since france and just saturday there was the first presidential runoff in the elections over there. candidates are current president jacques chirac, prime minister lionel jospin, and far-rightist jean-marie le pen. the results of the election had chirac ahead of le pen, but the percentage that le pen had was enough to cause massive shock. many french papers, including the ones here, called it an "earthquake," particularly because of the shift it shows in right-wing politics in europe. anti-semitism hasnt been higher since world war II until now- france, belgium, people like jörg haider... and they want to get rid of immigrants. it makes sense if you know about the political scene there. the national front has always been big and as i wrote in my russian history final, nationalism was the threat of the 20th century. its now carried over into this century, despite the goings on of the european union. in fact, le pen wants to pull france out of the union, even though france was one of its founding members starting way back with the European Coal and Steel Commission. but right-wing has become big because of immigrant workers. its the same thing as in the states with the mexicans except for the fact that immigrants in france are usually legal. its gone back since pre-WWII colonialism. members of north african colonies like morocco or tunisa came overseas to see work in french. and now that french unemployment is up, its easy to blame the immigrants from stealing jobs from native frenchmen. and yet in elections, its just like in the states, voter apathy means that the guy that people dont want is the guy who gets more votes. voter turnout in this election was extremely low and now people who didnt vote or dont vote are going to vote so that le pen isnt president. you see "j'ai hônté" ("im ashamed") in the massive street protests against le pen. its a shock le pen got this far, but i guess less shocking because if you see trends in european politics, the right is starting to pick up. its like a pendulum over there. the way the politics there work make it easier for extremist groups to get out there than the traditional american two-party system. and because of that, the political atmosphere there is a lot more volatile. hopefully voter turnout in the second runoff will be enormous and really not let le pen win.
for shits and giggles, check out this site on cnnsi.com. your hockey greats then and now. look at patrick roy and doug gilmour. hahahahahaha! thats it for now.
22/04/02(1130am)-
Sunday, Apr 21 2002
Molson Centre
I: So Much To Say*, Granny*, You Never Know*, Lover Lay Down*, Pantala Naga Pampa*>Rapunzel*, Big Eyed Fish>Bartender*, What You Are*, Crush*, Grey Street*, Where Are You Going*, Drive In Drive Out*, Dont Burn The Pig*, Sleep To Dream Her*>Grace Is Gone*, Raven*, Two Step*+~ (~30)
E: Aint It Funny How Time Slips Away, (#40), Ants Marching*
Special Guests:
*Butch Taylor
+Bela Fleck
~The Flecktones
more again later.
11(130am)-couple things just to get down that ill talk more bout later- expos game, dave matthews, more france, and i havent watched the habs game nor heard the score cause i taped it, so ill watch that tomorrow am. tired now. maybe ill talk bout the israeli pullout. there was a massive rally here in montreal last wednesday i didnt mention. also the head of the national front in france won a critical election there for the presidency. hes far right, so thats not real good. talk more about that later also. hope it doesnt hurt me getting to europe...
21/04/02(120am)-well for those who enjoyed the sound clip that i had up here, im probably gonna put another one up soon from another radio station. for ranesome reason, they keep freezing up explorer on my shitty computer. i say, in the last day, ive done all the maintanence to it that i can think of and its still running like shit. sadly, ive been pretty bored this week. i dont have any exams for 9 more days so theres some boredom cause who wants to work all the time.
thus theres not a whole mess to write about. the exam on tuesday went pretty well and i have a good feeling about it. im much better with post wwII russia than pre. like i know more about the cold war stuff than i do about the february and october revolutions. and the essays i thought i did well on also. so after that, i went to hmv and got the mulholland drive dvd. theres no chapters to it- its just one chapter. and the 10 things david lynch says should help you figure it out- are all fucked up. other than that, its mainly been some guitar playing and walking around the city- although i wouldnt mind playing some hockey tomorrow. i bought a habs flag and hung it over the balcony but nick cut it down so now its broken and half flying from out of my windowsill. tomorrows the dave matthews concert (no date- extremely sad). and some schmucks have it on the same time as game 2 of the playoffs. which compltely pisses me off cause im not skipping the concert, but someones gonna ruin it for me before i see a tape and im gonna hate it. but if the habs play like on thursday, im optimistic of another win (like the canucks did to detroit- go canucks! boo red wings and blackhawks ;)).
there was a 5.0 earthquake at 650am, 15 miles south of plattsburgh, new york, about 50 miles away from us. i slept through it. which sucked cause i didnt get to feel it, but is scarier cause i sleep through anything. once im out, im like a log. which makes me wonder what would happen if it was bigger? would i have woken up? people down in baltimore felt it, but i was 50-60miles away and didnt wake up. scary eh?
and last but not leastly of the things im not lazy to keep typing about are the goings back in history: a year ago from last night, i saw rane at the iron horse in northhampton for the big 420 show. two years ago i visited mcgill, submitted my acceptance deposit or whatever and came home to a nice mess which blew the rest of senior year. and three years ago at this time was france '99. personally id rather remember that at this moment than what happened 2 years ago. and so thats what im briefly gonna do here:
specifically, it was 3 years ago yesterday that we were sitting at hotel motel vert in mont st. michel and heard of the columbine shooting on bbc world. thats why ill never forget columbine- cause i knew that coming home to school in the states wouldnt be the same. anyways... france was amazing. okay, so maybe theres some anti-semitism there, but it still was a nice country to vacation in. i was reading my france journal, which is what the convenient button is for on the left, and it was kinda funny. i know in 3 years, im gonna read some of this stuff and say i was really naive, but man, some of what i said then was really naive- like i had been on vacation before but for me, france was so left wing at the time that it was very much culture shock. maybe being in the city has dulled some of the culture shock for me, and maybe canada is more left wing like france than right wing like the us. maybe montreal is more like france than i think, but still... stuff like squatters freaked me out; pdas all over the place, sex shops, all of it. sex shops are like nothing now cause you walk down ste. catherine street and theres tons of sex shops/strip clubs. drinking- i wrote how weird it was cause some people from the trip were drinking and the age was 16 but we only had one glass cause we were following the trip's no-drinking rules... there was a lot of stuff back then that i think i was really naive about, but yet, the trip was immensely fun and i definitely made the most of everything i did there. example: ill never forget going to the top of the eiffel tower that first night with jon, even though we were tired from travel and jet lagged. the view was amazing. and later in the week when everyone else went to it, it was grey and overcast and you couldnt see as much. or the planet hollywood experience (see above far left picture). the maitre d' (amendine)was really hot and she was probably only 22-23. just before that shot, the waiter told her to kiss me and i was within like 2 centimetres from doing it, but then i started cracking up cause it was just too funny. in retrospect, she probably would have done it cause they dont care in france, but me- the naive little american boy- thought it was funny instead (this also having a girlfriend at the time).
i dont regret what happened on france- definitely i was a different person way back then and didnt know as much about the world as i thought. on the other hand, i wasnt content in just letting myself be that american. even now, i dont want to be the ethnocentric american that the rest of the world hates. being up here has definitely changed me (besides the canadian flag on my wall) and given me outside perspective on how the rest of the world makes fun of americans. and thats why the french "hate" americans. so yeah, id love to go back to france. david and i were talking last night about backpacking in europe and i was saying how id love to do it. definitely i would. id love to tour europe cause i think im definitely more ready now than 3 years ago. i love european culture- its steeped in history and tradition and yet its still modern and always keeping with the times. start at london, chunnel to france, go west to spain and then backpack east all the way to poland? id love that. and davids right, its not the same at 45 as it is when you're in university. my parents are always like "you'll have the rest of your life to do it" but the fact of the matter is, you wont. when you're still exploring growing up and out and the rest of the world, its not the same as taking the weeks vacation with your family. i mean i love that my dad took us on vacations when i was a kid, but then just as im finding 3 years later with france, its not the same and you appreciate it differently. anyways, enough of that babble. basically in summary, france 99 was cool, the people i went with were fun to be around and im glad i got the chance. but yet id like to think ive matured some, grown up and grown less naive about the world (even if not entirely) and definitely im anxious to do it again and be able to reinterpret things- get new experiences in a different context. if only i could talk my parents into letting me go (thats yet another problem im still having...)
anyways, im tiring out- its 210am and although maybe id have more to say, im tired enough that i'd only come out as babble, so if theres something relevant, such as what happens with the DMB concert and what happens with the habs game, ill put it up. for now maybe read my france journal. ciao.
18/04/02(10pm)-all i have to say is that boston can suck it and suck it long and hard cause they're going down. and if the person from sacred heart that reads this page is the one that i was fighting with on drop about the bruins- the one that called me jumping on the bandwagon for liking the #8 seed team since kindergarten, then he'll just have to eat his words when the bruins go down in 6. if its not the same person, i apologize and am obviously talking to someone else who doesnt read my page. also, espn/cbc can suck it for their bruins-biased coverage of the game.
(220pm)-maybe ill update later. in my sloth of being done with that exam, theres been not too much to speak about. sort of. mainly, just wanted to put up the background song for tonights big playoff game against the bruins. it was done by the guys at CKMF in conjunction with RDS. if i had its video, id put that instead, but they dont have it up. go habs go!
now to do some laundry...
15/04/02(120am)-happy tax day. my stuff gets mailed to CT, so i hope my parents filled it out for me. i prolly owe the govt taxes. whatever, anyways. stressing next couple of days- french test tomorrow am and 20th c. russian history final at 2pm tuesday. yikes. after that ill go get the mulholland drive dvd. i figured i wasnt gonna update right now. and im not really- just making a note of stuff to talk about before it passes fast- friday's moses mayes concert. (their cd is excellent- very funky and i like). saturday hockey game- fan appreciation night and a bad season closer. and today- hockey at the Y (playing with real players and equiment is tough). thats alls im gonna say for now and probably until after my exam. less than a week from now is dmb. still no date. sad sad sad. oh and i dont know of any good graphics/pics to put as my header pic above. now accepting suggestions and artwork...
i updated my cd list. now at 204 albums. 30 of those are rane shows, comprised of roughly 52 discs, and approximately 65 hours of live rane. thought id share those stats. also, im taking a count for tickets to the 5.31 show at cheney hall. its on a friday night and its 6 weeks notice from now, so im not quite sure why anyone couldnt go to this one- im trying to bring as many people as i know to this show because cheney hall is the oldest venue in CT and the show is going be huge... friends bring friends, etc... so if i can get a count, ill be able to have them hold me a block of that number of tickets, because im sure it will sell out. email me for sure so i can run a count. so... to bed i head, for tomorrow i dread.
12/04/02(1220am)-this has been one of the best weeks for me. i think i know when im gonna come home after finals. i now need to work /aon booking my ticket home. also, as you probably hear or saw the video clip, our team captain, saku koivu came back after beating non-hodgkins lymphoma. he was diagnosed with it in september just before the start of the season, and after 7 months of chemo, he beat it. according to the facts, half the people that get it die within 5 years, but his is in remission. and he would always show up even in his worse days, to support the team. and he was back. definitely he's become a hero of mine. i got my ticket a day before- probably about the same time as the announcement was made. and i found out the day after the game that my 38$ ticket was being scalped at the game for 125$. and they were nosebleeds! got there early and took some pictures during warmups. you can see them at the link from yesterday. definitely, the crowd was surging with emotion and i almost cried. it was amazing to watch him skate out with the team, take some shots, everything. then he acknowledged the crowd and it was nuts. 8 minute standing ovation. the PA announcer tried to interrupt the crowd 3 times to start the national anthem. amazing. a-mazing. and it was not only that, but a win would clinch our spot in the playoff. the game was great, even though saku only played 8 minutes total. but it was still great. up 3-0 by the end of the 2nd period, then 3-1, then 4-1, a couple more goals to 4-3 and that was it, we won it 4-3. we made the playoffs! 4 year drought but we did it. and we're only on year 2 of the 5 year plan. our first opponent is boston, who's first in the eastern conference. gonna be tough. gonna be tougher to get tickets. i tried and im not having much luck. thats only been one day on sale also. im so excited though. even if i cant go, bet that ill be watching all the games (not that im not already). awesome. for a clip of the crowd as koivu was announced in the starting lineup, go here.
im gonna try and be quick since i need to head to bed. not much happened in class. apparently a movie is being shot partially on mcgill. and ive heard rumours of ed harris, nicole kidman and anthony hopkins being involved in it. hm. russian history final tuesday at 2. :-/ game tomorrow night, services tomorrow night, moses mayes tomorrow night, john's gig tomorrow night, etc etc etc...i dunno whats going on tomorrow night. this weekend is big study. so there shant be too much to report other than tomorrow night's doings. ooh ooh ooh, i found my 6.7.97 Arch St. Tavern rane tape that i was missing in my room. we're talking about the days of rane when greg pastor was in the band. it was 2 months to the day before my first rane show (also meaning that 8.7.02 would be my 5 year anniversary show). man how much theyve grown in 5 years. on 5.2, they're playing at Paradise in boston, which is a stepping stone for a lot of bands. U2 played one of their first US gigs there in 1980. anways, thats great news that i found it.
so im playing guitar a little bit on the balcony tonight. the girls next door are on their balcony and some guy had stole my spotlight and started playing for them. and the people eating at los altos are looking at us, so 2 girls run out and ask me if they could take a picture of me and the other guy playing. i say yeah, so they go in to keep eating and the guy leaves. so im still out there and they finish eating and whatnot, come out and im still playing. they still ask if they could come up, take a look around. at this point i figured they must be tourists or something. they're all from chicago, turns out they're working on the movie with ed harris, nicole kidman, anthony hopkins, and gary sinise. who knew ;) you think that fact above was gonna be extraneous information? they're probably about 21-24 and one of them was really cute. so they were hanging around (there was 4 of them, all production assistants- jeff, annie, jessica, and elizabeth i think i got them right). so jeff and i were talking about music for a little and he asks for my acoustic, so we're jamming on my guitars and nick joins with the bass and we have a 2 song impromptu jam. really cool, and the girls were kinda amazed. they only saw the downstairs and loved our place. apparently the studio is putting them up at La Cité, which isnt exactly the best apartments even though they're nice, but not like ours. anywho. like annie, shes assistant to the executive producer. so it was really really really cool cause they get to work with harris, kidman, hopkins, and sinise!
so, the movie is called The Human Stain and if you want to read anything about it, theres brief stuff on upcomingmovies.com or imdb.com. Obviously, its got a while to go, but its amazing. so i gave jessica my number and told her to call me if they wanted to hang after my exams. maybe ill ask her to dave ;) or maybe they could introduce me to nicole kidman ;) or both ;) anyways, they're here til mid-may, so that'll be awesome cause they're working long hours on the movie, but when they get a break, obviously they want to do something so...its just cool cool cool news. exciting!
thats basically it for me. ive gotta be up tomorrow am. (duh). and so anyways, im excited- saku, playoffs, rane tape, movie people, new issue of rolling stone, going home dates...i dunno... anyways, im ending on a more serious note though. it was two years ago today (well, yesterday) that something happened that brought all of us together and i think we're all remembering along with you bro. for as long as you know bud, you've got friends that are your family and we're all there for you, close or afar, today or any other day. hang in there with love.
11/04/02(220am)-bro, take it easy (i dont know if you got my IM tonight or not, but you know who you are). anything you need, you know im there for you bud. in the words of rane, "Every world we pass through and the bonds that we create haven't been a passing chance or a simple twist of fate." you're in my thoughts bro.
(1220am)-not updating really now, but i put pictures up from the rest of the jon and eric weekend, as well as most of the pictures from last night's game. amazing. a couple of the game pics are acting weird on me, maybe they'll work for you. pictures www.smalrus.com/jonericsaku.php.
10/04/02(2am)-im not gona say much now, im enibreated. but WE WONNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! we are IN THE PLAYOFFFS!!!!!!!!!!!! and SAKU'S BACKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I cannot be more EXCITED! ok maybe, but thats why im enebriated :) more when im sober ;)
08/04/02(930pm)-as you can see from the above clip, he's coming back. if you watch the thing, i shouldnt need to explain what's going on. suffice to say, we're also on a 6 game winning streak with one win needed to clinch the last playoff spot. if i said in the beginning of the season that the habs were gonna make the pl'sayoffs this year, you'd laugh. but i said "trust in savard" and in year 2 of his 5 year plan to win the cup, we are already in the playoffs. history's in the making and im going to be at tomorrow night's game, in full effect with the fans like myself, who have been supporting koivu through all of it, and the habs through all of it. now more than ever.....so we'll try and make up for the last update, although there's not a great deal to talk about. like i said before, i wrote that new song. im gonna have to write a chorus for it because i fleshed out some chords and it definitely seems like its gonna need a chorus. basically it sounds very traditional quebecois, but you know, its good to do different music styles and the lyrics almost flowed out in french for some reason. no problems from me here- i just gotta make my accent more joualey. :)
not much has been going on here. it was funny on saturday night, i got dragged out with jared and it was daylight savings. since the bars here close at 3, that meant at 2am, it was 3am and the bar had to close. that pissed some people off who were getting there late. and like i said, a lot of people were pissed yesterday because of the hour. this weekend, nicks family came here. it was kinda funny cause he hasnt seen his family in 2 years, so we were actually thinking they didnt exist (joke). so the first thing his dad said when i met them was "we really do exist, huh." 19 hour flight from thailand. yikes. so he was out with them a lot this weekend.
im not sure what else ive done. mulholland drive comes out on dvd tomorrow. i guess not writing when i say i'm going to definitely creates a big damper on my updates cause then i forget everything i'd otherwise say. big rane date on 5.31. everyone should be leaving that date open on their calendars and coming with me to it. no joke. not much in music coming out this week, so ill probably get mulholland drive, but i just got a band called antibalas. pretty good afropop. dont know how to explain it, but it sounds like something from a peppy, urbanish car commercial. anyways, im running out of stuff right now and am losing interest at the moment so im going for now and when i think of something, you'll hear it. ill probably work on recording my song on the computer so we'll see...
(1230am)-i lied big time. i tried updating, it didnt get finished. im not gonna kid myself tonight either, so im gonna put up the lyrics to a song i wrote today. its called "Je suis ce que je suis." yes its in french, and yes, it loses in the translation. im now transcending the language barrier in my music writing. (side note: i dont think ive ever seen anyone complain about daylight savings so much until this year. i think id seen 6 or 7 away messages with people pissed off because of it. weird eh? its only an hour)
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"Je suis ce que je suis"
paroles par Spencer Ross c. 7.4.02
Vas-tu à la plage?
Tu ne me demandes jamais si j'y veux aller
Suis-je un mystère
Et puis, je te fais mal à l'aise?
C'n'est pas une complexité
C'est un fait de la vie
Mais
Je suis ce que je suis
Et rien est compris
Vas-tu à la lune?
C'n'est pas plus brillant que tes yeux
Pourquoi est-ce qu'on cherche
La rivière de la vie
La vie n'est pas sûr
Et tu m'embrouilles
Mais
Je suis ce que je suis
Et rien est compris
Si toutes les planètes
Et toutes les étoiles
Faisaient une ligne
Ça me plairait
Si tu me parles et tu me comprends
Une énigme n'est pas une énigme
Et même les devinettes les plus complexes
Sont résolues
Mais
Je suis ce que je suis
Et rien est compris
Vas-tu à mon cœur?
Peut-être rester dans ma vie?
Comme le vent souffle le sable?
Comme la conscience tourmente l'humanité?
Ou suis-je seul dans le monde?
Mais
Je suis ce que je suis
Et rien est compris
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"I am what I am"
lyrics by Spencer Ross 4.7.02
Are you going to the beach?
You never ask me if I want to go
Am I a mystery
Then do I make you feel uncomfortable?
It's nothing complex
It's a fact of life
But
I am what I am
And nothing is understood
Are you going to the moon?
It's not as bright as your eyes
Why are we looking for
The streams of life
Life is not certain
And you confuse me
But
I am what I am
And nothing is understood
If all the planets
And all the stars aligned
It would please me
If you talked to me and you understood me
An enigma is not an enigma
And even the most complex riddles
Are solved
But
I am what I am
And nothing is understood
Are you going to my heart?
Maybe stay in my life?
As the wind blows the wind?
As consciousness plagues humanity?
Or am I alone in the world?
But
I am what I am
And nothing is understood
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07/04/02(12am)-set your clocks forward at 2am. unless you're in newfoundland. :) then you might as well go to bed and give up all hope. :) anywho...
the synopsis begins. first the hockey summary. we're on a 5 game winning streak. ever since donny audette came back, we've been smoking and are slowly clinching the final playoff spot in the eastern conference. wooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!! this is exciting. i only wish i could go to a playoff game. um...to be continued
03/04/02(1030pm)-first off, check out this month's ellis y wyllys on ranetides.com to find out some new rane news, plus my response to musical influences (uncle kc, you'd like hearing this- is a history of neil diamond and kris kross :)) also, alan veniscofsky, lead singer/rhythm guitarist of rane has put out an down-tempo ambient project (17:40 total length) on the website. the name of the ep is called
f="http://www.ranetides.com/vision/alan/copilot/index.html" target="_blank">i am your co-pilot and is just 6 really short songs. definitely check it out. you'll see how much musical talent alan has outside of the complex network of rane songs. musically, he's phenomenal. and all of the tracks are written/recorded/produced entirely by himself.
(6pm)-the day after i wrote the entry on donny audette and saku koivu, audette played in his first game since december. not a day too soon. the habs beat the penguins and are currently in the lead for a playoff spot. if we keep this pace up, bring koivu back and hope washington keeps sucking, we'll clinch the spot and make the playoffs for the first time in for years. yes!
for some site news, i finished my panic room and mulholland drive reviews. go read them if you havent. ive decided that mulholland drive is either tied for first or is second on my list of all time favourite movies. it really is that good. also, like i said, the pages for all but a bunch of reflections have been converted to v.7.0. the reason i havent gotten to the other months is because since reflection pages are biggest, they're more of a pain to do. but the rest of the site is redone. bout time eh? turns out also, powweb is upping all account sizes to 200mb (from 100) and monthly data transfer to 12gigs/month (i think it was 6 before). this is awesome news. now if i was allowed file uploads more than 10mb, i could put up some live mp3s. oh well, ill have to shrink them or something... one more thing- the new lyrics for "from the vine" and "secanendo maldanado" are up on my rane lyrics page. they're both great lyrics- "from the vine" is like a t.s. elliot poem and "secanendo" is up there with the new chunk of material thats really good. lately, the guys have been going on major improv jams, incorporating the new instruments, and writing music thats reflective of a different, more ambient writing style. its totally different from the old stuff, yet the same. and the lyrics and music for secanendo are awesome. thats the technical news for the day for my site.
passover's going well although there's a lot going on in the middle east thats overshadowing it all. its frustrating because i dont believe everything israel is doing is right but on the other hand, neither are the palestinians. you cant expect to get israel to stand down when you send suicide bombers into the country to blow up marketplaces with large crowds. israel is a retalliatory country because it has to be. theres a point where you can only say enough is enough, if you [arafat], arent gonna stop your terrorists, we'll do it for you. unfortunately, the israeli actions are the only reason why arafat is still in office. and unfortunately, he's the root of the problem as well. the PA would do a lot better if they had a new leader. unfortunately, it only fuels support for arafat even though he's the reason why peace never worked. everyone knows the palestinians should have accepted wye river or camp david II or taba, but they didnt and now its worse. you can blame israel for some things, but not all of it. if terrorism is gonna be stopped, its gotta be cut off at the root. im not saying in the least that palestinians are all terrorists. on the other hand, ive also know people who have family back in israel who fear their being called to active duty from the reserves. and since every israeli has mandatory millitary duty before being a reservist for several years, its scary. people dont send their children to school in israel either for fear that a bomber will walk into a school and blow it up. and its not unlikely. thats why its called terror and it will continue to be the cat and mouse game it is.
i heard something about uconn winning a national championship. whats that about?
basically not much has been going on over here, just gearing up for finals :-/ looking forward to getting to go to a few rane concerts again in a couple weeks. dmb is coming up in 18 days. passover ends tomorrow so i'll be getting subway for dinner tomorrow :) no more matzah pizza? hoo-ray! :) we went to the expos home opener last night, but they were losing 6-1 in the top of the 6th. so we left really early along with the rest of the fans. turns out they won 7-6 in the 9th. who knew? oh well, its their last year here. they're doing a sort of "Hartford Whalers." and so are the fans. its just like when the whalers left hartford- all the fans only care when the team leaves but never go to games otherwise. 24 was so-so this week. saw jay and silent bob strike back. funny stuff. i think thats all the news i had to report. its namely been a boring week because of passover. this week's new music, shakira's laundry music, leonard cohen's ten new songs, and super furry animal's rings around the world. SFA's album is pretty cool, its like crosby stills and nash+coldplay+pink floyd+radiohead. interesting sounding and a lot going on. paul mccartney has a cameo on a beatlesy sounding song. what else what else. go see mulholland drive, it comes out on dvd on april 16.
oh yeah oh yeah. so sunday i did some more playing outside since it was nice again (last night ended up being a rainsnow- erratic weather). this time we took it to the streets. i wasnt doing so hot, so i put some change in the case and ended up making 2$. yeah but this was over the course of 2 hours. a dollar an hour? i dunno about that. maybe wearing decent looking clothes didnt help my cause. but the funnier thing was, some guy asked me if he could borrow a quarter for a phone call, so he reached in my case, took one out and made the call- never returned with it. so. the moral of the story is, perhaps if i wasnt wearing good clothes, and wasnt on my own stoop, people would have given more money. but no, take away the quarter and i made 1.75 for 2 hours. bad! bad!
oh yeah, and the last thing is the new molson "i am canadian" commercials. hilarious.
commercial one:
(at office party)
girl: hey, do you know glen? he's from canada? plays hockey, says "eh" a lot?
guy: glen? (pauses to think) oh, office glen. yeah, he died last month. (guy walks away. cut to "i am canadian").
commercial two:
(at bar)
guy 1: hey! canadian! you're so cooool. if you're so cool, where's your pet beaver?
guy 2: (pulls out ravenous beaver. beaver attacks guy 1's arm. cut to "i am canadian")
hilarity
anyways, thats it for now. til next time...
