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30/08/02- Welcome...
Bienvenue tout le monde...
  
30/08/02(1050am)-to the person who's hitting my site from molson- hit me up with an email, we'll chat sometime...
28/08/02(120am)-i promised an update earlier and so that is what im gonna do. right now im back in montreal, same apartment as i was in last year so not much has changed except a few roommates. as you can see, i made the pictures above a little more recent. more on that in a bit, but ill backtrack to last wednesday, my birthday.
it was my last day of work so everyone was really nice, plus it was my last day at the bank. i already got my parents birthday present, so i got elises in the morning. it was a real nice jerry garcia tie, which is something i wanted since i liked his tie designs and the people at work were making fun of my star trek ties. id post a pic of the design, but i cant find one on the net. anyways. so kris fournier made me a canadian flag cake at the bank and it was real nice. went home for a little bit after my final audit and then went over to the rane space. the guys were getting ready for their next big friday the 13th show at iron horse, but i cant comment more on that. it'll be cool. so i pitched a song idea to alan and the guys, alan liked the lyrics more so, then we did a little coldplay and then i got to watch alan do some digital sound editing. he does some crazy shit and their next album is gonna be slamming. got home from there around 1145 and went to bed.
woke up thursday around 6 to be in car at 645 and to new haven at 730. was on the 812 train into nyc and got in at 10. of course there was major misunderstanding and david didnt meet me at grand central til 1220, but it was all good. got some pronto pizza, went to swatch, and met seth and nick at the empire state building. went to the top and paid 9$ for it. :-/ then we walked around a lot in midtown, went to toys r us in times square, fao schwartz, nbc store, rockefeller center, and a bunch of other stuff. just a good time hanging out. on the way home, i met zoya and her friends eli and alex down in new haven for pepes. mmm mmm mmm. ok, so it was my second time at pepes in a week, but ive got a year of shit montreal pizza. i didnt mind. besides it was all fun hanging out with them. didnt go to libbys so eli took us to her place (she's a yaleie) and we parked the car in the garage, but the place we were then gonna go to was closed. oh well. so again i left around 1130 and was back home around 1215.
friday i woke up half late(?) and then didnt do much but errand running. went back to the bank and said goodbye again. tried to get a usb/midi interface for my keyboard and then used my birthday present from aunt karin and uncle kc to buy the lord of the rings dvd (thanks :)) so finally made it home and started straightening up my room/packing around 7ish. was done by around 1130(?) andrew and carrie stopped by to say hi and so that was cool cause i never really got to say goodbye to anyone else before i left. oh well. shit happens.
saturday morning, i didnt do much cause all my shit was packed. i also slept late cause i fell asleep on the couch. the leather couch still isnt the same as the old couch... anyways, by the time we had lunch and loaded up the car, we were out by about 150. dad drove the whole way, but ive done the trip so many times that the ride isnt as bad. i know the route well enough that its like taking a trip around the town. anyways, we made it to the apartment about 715. dumped my stuff and then went to eat at la caverne grecque with the fam and nick. then went back to the apartment to hang out while the fam went to take a walk and then back to the hotel. didnt do much at the apartment, then crashed.
sunday i got up went to meet the fam at place milton at 1030 for breakfast. we had a pleasant breakfast and then i brought my mom and sister shopping in the underground while dad went hat shopping elsewhere downtown. it was a pain, i didnt get anything (even my swiss army knife), but it was pleasant (which was pretty much the atmosphere for their trip this time). and so after that, they got the car at the hotel, we put the clamshell back on top and then they drove me to the apartment. they finally left around 4. didnt do much more in the afternoon and for dinner, nick, yin, and i went to sara for shish taouk. sunday night was happening with a lot of people coming back to the city, so we hung out at vol for a few hours, had some drinks and then went to the girls place.
monday was a lazy day. got up and ready, went to funky toque to make a haircut appt, then went over to jons place, hung out with him a while and then got moving, walked around downtown a little and finally went to my appt at 2. got a pseudo fauxhawk, but not really cause i didnt ask for it. it can be styled like one though and look fake (so ive been told). maybe next time... ? anyways, i was feeling good so i went watch shopping because im 20 years old wearing a stopwatch. i wanted just a normal, metal wristwatch. so i went shopping, didnt find many stores with anything i liked so i went back to the bay and they had fossil watches. so i got this: 
we didnt do much in the evening again though. we just went to marche for dinner and then bummed around here. i was actually kinda bored cause seth and nick were watching sleepy hollow. oh, and we went to oap briefly during the day. mainly this boredom and doing nothing in the day was because everyone was at frosh training and im not officially doing frosh this year. (as for hooking up with seth and kristin's group...well thats another story...)
and that brings us to today. ive done absolutely nothing. i woke up around 10, got ready for nothing. between not having shaven since last wed, the hairstyle i got, and the watch, ive been going for the- what you might call- "cosmopolitan grunge" look. its the dirty, grungy, yet clean look that you get in cities. i dunno i kinda like it. went to the bookstore and got most of my books to beat the lines. then went to hmv to buy the new coldplay album (one of the years top three albums- review coming soon) and the dj shadow album. then after grabbing some lunch, my back was hurting from all the books, so i came home, hung out for a bit, and then seth and i grabbed a paper and went to café dépôt. literally, i sat outside there for 3 hours. and you know, i enjoyed it and found it highly relaxing to sit outside in the street, drinking my coffee, reading the paper, watching people... this is what montreal is about. then we went to the girls place again, i went back and forth, we went to subway for dinner and now here we are. basically been schmoozing with people as i see them and thats about it. anyways... tomorrow starts frosh. i gotta clean this place up cause its a mess. amanda and claires stuff is still in my room so i still havent unpacked my suitcases, but i gotta do that for tomorrow night. then, who knows........ who knows. one year of smalrus.com (not the smalrus website) coming soon...
27/08/02(1020pm)-back in the saddle (montreal that is). more later...
24/08/02(12am)-well, this is my last entry from the US for sometime (maybe november, maybe december, who knows). anyways. i dont have much time to type right now about my trip to new york/new haven, but suffice to say it was pretty fun. so was my birthday. they made a canadian flag cake and also i went and played with rane a little bit. anyways. when i get up to montreal, maybe ill elaborate more. oh, and also, i bought a cable to hook up my keyboard to my laptop. anyways, roughly 12 hrs and we'll be on our way...
21/08/02(12am)-birthday tradition on the smalrus web site- my birthday gets "birthday" by the beatles played. and ONLY on this day. come back august 22nd, you wont find it. yes thats right, its my 20th birthday and i feel like ive hit the jackpot. more on that later.
recap of the last week. as of today, i have no suggestions for keyboard nor guitar names. so my keyboard and guitar are nameless still. anyways, my keyboard has been slammin. ive gotten reaquainted with playing keys and my guitar has been put on the back burner sort of to be able to play with the keyboard. but... the keyboard is cool cause i can multitrack and thus input my own drum beat and play guitar with it. last night i wrote a drum track for a drum'n'bass sort of song and i figured out some chords and effects id like to work with. i also bought a midi cable so i can hook it up in my computer, download from the keyboard, visually manipulate the music, and reupload it to the keyboard. so ill probably work on that a little this week maybe? ill post it up here when ive figured out how i like it but to warn, its an all original composition using nothing prefab-ed from the keyboard itself. i wish i could delete some of the stuff off the keyboard cause i dont need it if im doing my own stuff.
works been going okay i suppose. basically same ol same ol. its gearing down and today is gonna be my last day and sad to leave everyone. i think from the disorientation i got walking into sbm from first federal, ive really gotten to know all my co-workers pretty well and i hope i my 3 months that ive brought something to the office. who knows whats in store, we'll see. actually my big news with that was last wednesday i balanced 1206.10$ off. we had gone offline earlier in the day and i was on drive thru going nuts. i went home wednesday worried sick cause i knew i didnt give that much cash out mistakenly and i didnt wanna look bad either. but around 1130 the next morning, proof dept called and found 1206 of that difference. i could live with $.10. so i was ecstatic the rest of the day. then around 530, HR called and told me that i won the Summer Employee Education Grant that i applied for with the bank for 500$. so i was even more ecstatic. then friday morning i went to the ceremony to pick up the check and there were 20 other grant winners.
friday was a really great day starting out with the grant ceremony. then was more work, then was the rane concert. first zoya came up from westport with her friend eli, and her friend sarah. then jenny went with her friends, then christina from work showed up with her friend, plus there was my rane buddies. so i was kinda all over the place with talking to people and watching the concert, but everyone there seemed to like the band, etc. heres my show review:
Clouds improv>Charging Forward's Blindness, Minutes, Where We Come From>Broca's Aphasia, Find the Cost of Freedom (Alan/Dan/Bowman solo CSNY tease), Long Road>Sounds of Sleep>Long Road, Kyte>Clouds improv>Sadness and Peace, For Them
E: (Bubbles)
ok, now. tonights show was one of the sickest fucking shows of the summer. it was incredibly hot in the barn but the guys pulled out all the stops on the setlist and blew everything away by playing NONE of the songs theyve been playing at recent shows. first off, the guys opened with the jam from clouds. last time that was done was somewhat in a triptofan performance but otherwise not in years. resurrect the sonG? anyways, that was sick and when they reprised it, it was even sicker. all the versions of the songs were excellent. broca's seems to be nailed and the jams from LR>Sleep>LR were extremely tight. and damned if i didnt see lars' jaw drop when the guys did a full band 4>5. and holy shit they smoked it out of the water. all in all, this show was probably an A show for setlist and performance. definitely one to go away to montreal with memories of."
after all the discussion on the rane boards about the lack of setlist originality/improv in the last several shows, the guys really came back with one of the bst shows of the summer and i was glad that everyone came out to see it even if not all of them stayed for the whole show. thats the last show for me til december unless they book up in montreal sometime during the fall. BUT...
tonight im going to jam with the guys at their space around 9pm. which is absolutely slamming cause they were the first time i played with a full band last year and since them ive jammed with my roommates once in a while. so itll be cool to play with them and it always stokes me cause last year i heard new material before everyone else. plus i sent alan the lyrics to revolver but we'll see if they like them/if they want to do anything wth it. jamming with rane jamming with rane jamming with rane, more on that after.
saturday was a fairly do nothing day since i didnt have to work for the first saturday all summer. i went over to andrews house briefly for his end-of-the-summer/last party at the concatelli house. but my parents wanted to take me out to dinner since it was our last saturday together in town and this week was gonna be a busy week to go out for dinner, so we went down to new haven for pepe's pizza. which was pretty cool cause we saw david. and our waitress, jennifer, gave me one of the new pepe's shirt that looks like the pizza box top. so that was cool. by the time we got home, it was 1130 in the evening and i had planned on going back to the concatellis party around 10, but it was too late to head back, so i crashed on the couch. and sunday, i cant remember what we had done. oh right, barry, dena, and mitchell came over for dinner. that was about it. coldplay's new album comes out next tuesday. ive got a copy now and its awesome. extremely well done, well written work of art.
last thing i can remember to talk about is the 3eb/goo goo dolls concert. that was last tuesday at the meadows and it was a pretty good concert. jon rzeznik was hillarious, cracking catholic jokes the whole show. vanessa carlton sucked. her band drowned her out and she talked too much. i like michelle branch better. she's cuter too. and 3eb was the best though. their setlist went something like: Graduate, Anything, Wounded, Jumper, An Old Friend Coming Over, Crystal Baller, Faster, Forget Myself, Sweet Jane>Never Let You Go, How's It Gonna Be, Semi-Charmed Life>Stairway to Heaven. old friend sounded like a u2 kinda song. and all the songs were really good and the vocals were the best ive heard from stephen jenkins yet. anyways, good times for all.
lets see anything else that i can think of to say? no? ok well then happy birthday to me and happy birthday to scott. its my last day of work and my birthday and im jamming with rane. and thursday im going to visit my roommates down in nyc for the day and then meeting up with zoya for pepes on en route back. its gonna be a good last couple of days here in south windsor. ill make sure of it...
11/08/02(1030pm)- meet my new toy, ernie. ernie is my new keyboard. ok, ernie isnt my new keyboards name, but what should i call it? actually, what should i call my guitars too? ive had my les paul for a year, and my electric acoustic for about a year and a half. and still, i havent named them. so... i'm now fielding suggestions for names for all my instruments. but anyways, my new keyboard, "ernie" is actually the yamaha psr-92, which apparently just came out. my parents got it for me for my 20th birthday since they figured that id like to have one at school which i can use and not completely lose touch with the piano side i started out with in music. which makes sense, cause last year i was noodling around john's keyboard from time to time. plus i can figure out songs on the keys a little faster. plus if i start up a band, it adds another instrument for me to play.
so anyways, not much been happening in the last few days. thursday and friday were longer days at the bank. friday night i went over to angelas to say goodbye to her before she left for school today. ill go on record for saying it was one of my strangest evenings of the summer. lets see. yesterday was a long day at jon's. went to work in the morning and then went around searching for a hawaiian shirt. finally found one at sears and then headed over to jons. he invited about 90 something people but only about 25 people showed up. anyways, it was pretty fun and im glad ive gotten to hang out with jon's friends a lot this summer. i may not be in with their IV stuff, but they're a really cool bunch that im glad jon gave me the chance to meet. but it was fun, we swam, played whiffleball, played guitar, just hung out and i didnt leave til 130 so...
so other than my keyboard, not much went on today. i got an email from virginia jon from mcgill today. he wants me to give a shout out to him and immortalise him on the smalrus web site. so id like to give a shout out to him and all the rest of the mcgill crew. countdown to mcgill is about 13 days....thats all for now...i think. tuesday is goo goo dolls/3eb, friday, zoya is gonna come up with a friend and go to the rane show at the powder mill barn with me so that'll be cool. so im convincing ct jon to come. plus jenny said shes gonna try and get tix from trav. and then my boston ranebuddies traded boston tool tix for providence tool tix, so they're going to powdermill. should be a blast as my last rane show of the summer. anyways, tv is distracting, im going to stop now.
07/08/02(1030pm)-happy 16th birthday elise! i got her the kylie minogue cd and also 2 asterix books. lets see, yesterday was a pretty shitty day. it started with a woman coming into the bank, getting pissed that her license wasnt the same as what was in the computer. then she got the marriage certificate, accused my manager of discrimination, stormed out refusing to do what we asked and nothing was accomplished. that is the extreme short story, suffice to say i ended up having to write an incident report. made for a very stressing day for us all. then i came home and didnt do much. ended up watching something on the history channel on crop circles. thats the short day yesterday.
today was a better day. i woke up early, went to the docs, took elise to dmv to get her permit, the dmv said i didnt count for her, i got my license renewed with the cheesy under 21 thing. which means it says im under 21 on my license until im 26. gah. and even the orientation of the license changes in CT with the new licenses they adopted. under 21 is vertical and over 21 is horizontal. ...until im 26... but still, i went to work, it was a much nicer atmosphere. i officially stated my 2 weeks notice and it was kinda relaxing after yesterday. id like to think that i add something to the office thats gonna be hard to fill when im gone and i think that now that the realisation is that im less than 2 weeks away, that everythings winding down. but, ill be glad to get back to school and see how my new year goes. i might go to nyc on aug 22 to see seth, nick, and dave in the city before the big trip back up. im glad i went on vacation when i did because i feel like i never left.
last night andrew was over for a while, i played him some cds so he could figure out what he wanted to make copies of before i leave. then we worked with his lyrics in making a song. sometimes its harder to write the lyrics and music yourself and i come up with a song every 3 or 4 months doing that. i know he always was looking to hear his lyrics as actual songs, so i thought it could be interesting to collaborate with his lyrics and try and create a song around it. im not sure what he's titled it, but it would be cool to lay it out on mp3 before we leave for school.
musically speaking, ive reinitiated the mp3 part of my site. its gonna be a rane mp3 site though for stuff thats not on project flood. so check it out, im gonna try and updated it more regularly.
its weird cause plans for the next 2 1/2 weeks are filling up fast. but im not sure exactly whats when and if its even happening. i need a calendar for the next 2 1/2 weeks. suffice to say, im still working things out so we'll see just whats going on. nothing but good i hope. but i did say id try to update my site sooner this time. and i was right.
19 days til the new coldplay album. a lot of good songs on it. im definitely liking it more than my first listen. take these beautiful lyrics from the song, "the scientist":
Come up to meet ya, tell you I'm sorry
You don't know how lovely you are
I had to find you, tell you I need ya
And tell you I set you apart
Tell me your secrets, and nurse me your questions
Oh lets go back to the start
Running in circles, coming in tails
Heads on a science apart
Nobody said it was easy
It's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be this hard
Oh take me back to the start
I was just guessing at numbers and figures
Pulling the puzzles apart
Questions of science, science and progress
Do not speak as loud as my heart
And tell me you love me, come back and haunt me
Oh and I rush to the start
Running in circles, chasing tails
Coming back as we are
Nobody said it was easy
Oh it's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be so hard
I'm going back to the start
06/08/02(510pm)-im pissed. i should be in boston seeing coldplay with lars tonight. i could have had two tickets, instead, i dont go, he doesnt go, brian lee doesnt go, and no one uses the tickets. therefore. i missed coldplay in hartford when i was in montreal, i missed coldplay in montreal when i was in hartford, im missing an exclusive coldplay show in boston while im in hartford, and theres no scheduled tour dates in montreal. therefore im extremely pissed. and after the day i had, im not particularly fond about not going. ill say more when i get a chance. in the meantime, im stewing.
04/08/02(1100pm)-man, its been like two weeks since i last updated. to tell you the truth not much has gone on. okay ive seen two movies. austin powers 3. hillarious. not much substance, but its good to watch a movie once and a while thats just stupid toilet humour that makes you laugh (kickstand!). then today, i went to see signs. personally i thought the original trailers looked stupid. then it was getting good reviews and that it was really scary and everything. i disagreed. there was a couple of sound things that made you jump. and a time or two where it made you uneasy, but i wasnt scared or tense at all *shrug* i dunno, maybe after some of the weird movies i watch, this seemed like not much. there was a cool tie in about the plots at the end, but the end (im not giving away) seemed weak. like out of war of the worlds or mars attacks. only in a trying-to-be-serious sort of light.
music news...no real new albums since the chili peppers one. id just been listening to it so long that i really didnt need much else. wait, i got the new dave matthews album. not as good i think. i like two step, rapunzel, stuff like that. it wasnt even the fact that it was a darker tone. it just was still too mellow. and ive heard it was peppier than the lillywhite sessions. anyways, the newest news? i found a website with new albums for download. its pretty good. i got the new coldplay album and it doesnt come out til august 26. i may end up reviewing it for then. personally, the new coldplay album was the album of the summer for me because the first album, parachutes, ranks in my top 5 favourite albums of all time (when you consolidate all of rane into one album). anyways, this album is a little harder, a little darker, but also a little lighter because it has a lot more piano it it. its gonna take a few more listens for me to warm up to it, but im liking it a lot.
other stuff ive needed to write about? not much honestly. again, just work primarily. although, at work theyve found that im more skilled at computers than they previously knew. they didnt realise they had an IT man on their hands until nathan had me do something on the computer and then i showed them my website. then they complained that i dont talk about them on my website and that if i wasnt talking about them on my site, then i must not have anything nice to say about them. so here goes: working with the people i work with is pretty cool. banking is a hard job. i find it very stressing working with customers and their money like that and because customers can be brash sometimes, it can become a stressing environment. but its something you learn to deal with in any workplace, and in that light, they're a good bunch of people. i think they're good to joke around with, particularly when im getting canadiana thrown back at me. its okay though because i talk about canada a lot, so ive got no problem being joked with on it. i think the structure of sbm is a lot different than first federal and so its different working with this group. for example, my manager is behind the teller line a lot more than my manager was at first federal. personally, i find it reassuring when working with difficult customers (see above statement on my stress levels). overall though, nathan, nella, john, denise, deb, kris, renu, christina, amy, and jessica are a lot of fun to work with. besides ive already been to hops with them and gotten in trouble with my parents for it. eh what can you say, c'est la vie. :-)
one night i went down to new haven with john, eric, and scott, and we met alexi at archie moore's in new haven for wings. then went to libbys for gelatto and canolis. good stuff. tonight we were at randys for pizza after the movie and i think on the way back, i think i realised that since they came up to montreal, weve definitely bonded a lot. and ive made a cool they're thinking of coming back up this year, which is pretty awesome cause it was one of the top 3 highlights of last year for me. second to the first week living in the apartment. anyways, im looking forward to their next visit.
um what else. hung out at andrews two or three times. its weird. before i went to montreal, i was complaining about being bored a lot, but since i got back, ive been busy a lot. one weekend i went to jazzfest with scott and angela. this guy bobby caldwell was crooning love songs. i dunno, not my particular kind of music. that was about it for that. ive shot pool with jon, eric, and scott once. that was pretty much it.
...you thought. lets see, thursday night was the grand band slam in downtown hartford. it was my 40th live show in attendance ad the start of my 5 year anniversary week which culminates on the 16th at powder mill barn. 8.7.97. anyways, i brought my mom, elise, and elises friend shannon to the concert. we got there later than i wanted, just catching the last song and a half of the adios pantalones set. but, as long as we didnt miss rane... they headlined the coach's bar outdoor stage. and there were a lot of people that we met including mr. rinaldi, who told me to call him neil, and proceeded to introduce me to his wife as ross. *sigh* concert was slamming, lots of people there. they played really well, even if dan messed up on the cover of radiohead's pyramid song. the last song of the evening was flutter, and it was definitely one of the most awesome versions of the song that id heard yet. the guitarist formerly from big ed's gas farm, billy mogofna, sat in on it. the only disappointment was that they didnt give bowman a chance to solo at all, and its one of bowman's showcase songs. they shoulda cat and moused but oh well. billy was still good. and the band, they were definitely feeling the energy of the crowd and proved why they won best groove rock, best drummer, and why they earned the headlining spot on the stage. saturday they opened up for santana/rusted root at the meadows. still wonder how that went.
the powder mill show, that looks like my last one of the summer :( but... a friend of mine might be going to that one. which is an interesting story. id been talking to one of jeff's friends all last semester or a little more than that, but we'd never actually gotten to meet. and shes extremely cute, hot, and jewish. anyways, so i told her to go to band slam, she works at riccardos with trav and alan. so she ended up going, i finally got to meet her briefly, but being that band slam was on a weeknight, none of us could stay long to talk or hang out. which sucks and makes me wish the summer was longer so i could get to actually hang out with her in person and actually get to know her in person and not just online but i guess such is life. ive gotta get a new guitar string, so maybe ill stop in to riccardos and see her, maybe if she wants to do something before powder mill, who knows. oy vey. anyways, ive got to get up early tomorrow, docs appt. so im wrapping this up for now. i promise i wont wait another two weeks to update. i do it sooner next time.
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