Tag: Me and Mine

CBC Election Roundtable

Well, it is up now. I have been invited to join the CBC Election Roundtable of five bloggers from across Canada. It sits on the analysis and commentary page of Canada Votes 2006 at cbc.ca. So, yes, my words now sit in the same server farm as Le Brent.

We are to give our views on the events of the day, updating fairly regularly. Have a look and if you have any ideas or comments please feel free to post here. The roundtable is not structured as a blog so comment here freely – as if you wouldn’t…

Moment of Disclosure: real term gig with the entitlement equivalent of a 1989 student summer job. I am hoping to save up enough for a bike.

Camera Recommendations?

For the third time in 2005, the basic Sony Cyber-shot has died. The first time it was the day before my cousin’s wedding in the US…so I had to buy another. Likely cause I thought was sand in the lens. That camera, a DSC-P32, had done yeoman’s service so I did not feel too bad. Then the next one was on the second day of summer vacation only a few months later. Maybe the DSC-S40 was getting treated too roughly. Likely problem I thought was a jarring of the lens. So I bought another in the US. Tonight we get that third one back from the trip. It was working fine at lunch but by 5 pm it can’t take a sharp picture, it keeps telling me to reset the date and it takes 15 seconds to “access”. I am thinking that the likely cause is that Sony can’t build a camera. They are being relegated to file back-up and shelf riding service.

I am sick of Sony, refuse now to be tied to their proprietary memory sticks and need your advice. What can I buy that is cheap and will not die?

Professor Longhair

Someone I know says “longhair music!” with a humph when the wrong sort of classical music comes on the car radio.

There is another sort. I was thinking – as I am thinking too much – of the flooding down south and I remembered that I used to have a live double lp of Professor Longhair, the New Orleans blues pianist, probably on Atlantic records. I probably sold it in the great purge of ’92 when I sold my worldly goods to travel west. I recall the guy who bought it at the flea market saying “why are you selling this” – just like the person did who bought my They Might Be Giants CDs and like the kids did who I let pay less for my KISS comic book by Marvel (with real blood from the band members in the red ink!)…except they worked “woa” and “dude” into the question a few times.

There was something bouncy dancing about the piano played by Professor Longhair that I figured today I needed to get back – especially on “Big Chief”. I only found one cut, “Tipitana”, on a mixed discount CD of generic blues piano. Not good enough. I know I bought it in the 80s and I know I sold it over 13 years ago. It appears though that his albums were all live and pretty much all had a version of “Big Chief” [clip of version #37] and “Tipitana” [clip of version #841]. I would have thought the internets would have figured this stuff out by now.

Now it is all memory work, playing each 30 second cut from “Big Chief” from each CD – the concert in Germany (too fast), the concert in London (too slow) – over and over at Amazon to figure out which one it was. Thank God I held on to all my punk lps. That is all I can say. Thank God.

My Day South

Up in the middle of the night with too much road head. We went into CNY for some Labour Day weekend treat gathering, flipping back and forth between sports radio and crisis news until the Prairie Home Companion took us around eastern Lake Ontario, through sunset and dusk, north along beautiful highway #3 from Oswego to Watertown.

Through our travels we got to give to the Sally Ann as well as the American Red Cross through folk making it easy to give while going about doing their job. Rudy’s in Owsego had big jugs on the counter on a very busy Saturday night pouring all tips and whatever else customers wanted, all to be given to the ARC. Good to see. Good also to see that they were happy to take Canadian as well both for the tip jar and their wonderful fish sandwiches and little crab cakes. $2.09 USD for a Genny Cream to go with that…except they let me pay in CND at par. What was that about – a tribute to Bangour Maine circa 1975? The tip jar got the difference and more.

Gas prices were everywhere from $3.15 USD in Clay, a suburb NW of Syracuse, to around $3.60 USD in the Watertown area another hour north. The same US gallon cost around $4.11 in USD in Canada – that’s at $1.30 CND a litre. portland reported $3.00 USD in southern Maine Friday. I took my own over out of some personal plan to micro-manage gas supply. Crossing back we got to witness four early twenties lassies make the error of trying to sneak a shopping spree past customs. Oh dear.

Best line of the day? NPR’s Car Guys:

Brother #1: what happened to all the drive-in movie places anyway?
Brother #2: global. warming.
[Brother #1 then has coffee come out his nose and laughs for the next five minutes.]

In a day almost entirely based on going to place already known and liked, we even got to have lunch at Ann’s in Cape Vincent, home of the nicest waitresses on the planet, right after being allowed to enter by the nicest US customs guard who, when we said we may go to the State Fair, looked right into the back seat at the kids and said with a big smile “you let get them to buy you lots of candy, lots of candy, you hear?”

My Hits Of 1981

Twenty four years since high school ended and undergrad began. I sometimes wonder that, with the passing of time, that moment in my life is as distant as 1957 was to it. Ancient history I would have said then.

Anyway, someone has created a internet meme-thingie about the songs in the top 100 you really liked by showing them in bold and Michael picked it up for 1987 and John for (I think) 1976. In response, here are my notes from top ten of 1981:

1. “Bette Davis Eyes”, Kim Carnes – awful

2. “Endless Love”, Diana Ross and Lionel Richie – awful

3. “Lady”, Kenny Rogers – really awful

4. “(Just Like) Starting Over”, John Lennon

I had the 45 and gave it to a Beatles fan a couple of years ago. John Lennon’s death greatly affected me and my pals in the middle of our grade 12. It also spawned the ditto band show “Beatlemania” that people watched in Canadian rinks.

5. “Jessie’s Girl”, Rick Springfield

I actually liked this one. But, then again, I watched General Hospital after school. Synth, rocky guitar and the saucy lyric.

6. “Celebration”, Kool and The Gang

really awful and made worse when the committee girls at school played it about 12 times during what was billed as a “new wave dance”.

7. “Kiss On My List”, Daryl Hall and John Oates

I really only came to appreciate them as something I could stand around 1983.

8. “I Love A Rainy Night”, Eddie Rabbitt

Yee. Haa. Yet I recall driving around Truro singing the song on a summer evening between the end of one school and the start of another.

9. “9 To 5”, Dolly Parton – beyond redemption. Cow pie.

10. “Keep On Loving You”, REO Speedwagon

The soundtrack of my life…errr…I meant this really sucked if only for encouraging Richard (“Dickie”) Marks in the years that followed.

Click here for my entire top 100 list for 1981 if you really need to.

Slow

The internets are slow this morning as am I from an achy soccer-wracked corps. Why does the web slog sometimes so that my high-speed is like ice station #17 bad dial-up? Radio silence much of the day as we are off to the 3rd and 1st birthdays party of the neices.