Everything in it’s Right Place

Radiohead, Vancouver, 2008. No question, this was the single greatest concert I have ever been to. It rained from the moment Radiohead hit the stage, and was POURING.  HARD. by the time they played Paranoid Android, which made the lines, “Rain down, rain down/Come on rain down on me” all the more poignant.

Some pictures:  shot from my iPhone, which, regrettably means they look like ass.

Stage (and mini donuts!)

Playing

Stars

From a little further back

Rainbows

GREEN!

Leaving Thunderbird Stadium

Set List:

01. 15 Step (Thom, ‘We brought the weather with us.’)
02. There There (Thom ‘How do you like the rain? It’s ok, you’ll get used to it.’)
03. Morning Bell (Someone from the audience yells “CREEP!” – Thom, “You’re not going to hear that tonight.”)
04. All I Need
05. Where I End And You Begin (Thom, ‘Alright no one get hurt out there tonight’)
06. Talk Show Host
07. Nude (Thom addresses crowd surfers, ‘Take it easy guys! Its not fucking Rage Against The Machine.’)
08. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
09. The National Anthem
10. Bangers And Mash (Thom, ‘This is a nasty little song.’)
11. Faust Arp (during the middle of the song Thom tells a heckler, ‘Shut the fuck up, you’re not funny you just don’t get out much.’)
12. Videotape
13. Karma Police (Thom, ‘I think we are confused. This one is called Karma Police.’)
14. Jigsaw Falling Into Place
15. Just
16. Exit Music [For A Film] (someone yells out I love you Thom. Thom replies whilst singing, I love you too darling.’)
17. Bodysnatchers

Encore 1
18. House of Cards (Thom, ‘During this song you have to snog the person next to you.’)
19. Optimistic (Thom, ‘Ok we know its raining and that’s a bummer, but fuck it this is Optimistic.’)
20. You And Whose Army? (Thom, ‘That’s show business!’)
21. Planet Telex (Thom, ‘Thank you everybody.’)
22. Everything In Its Right Place

Encore 2
23. Reckoner (Thom, ‘Ok, this is for making you feel warm inside.’)
24. 2+2=5
25. Paranoid Android (Thom,’This is the last song and you the viewers get to choose- (YAY!) Between two songs(AWW). Idioteque or Paranoid Android?’ )

Greatest 2 hours and 20 minutes of my life.

The swift and the seething

I’m on the ferry over to Vancouver at the moment sitting at a table accross from the arcade. I’ve noticed it before, and it’s always struck me as funny. The driving game, “Faster than Speed”. The hell does that even mean? How can you be faster than speed? I wonder what the other games in the series are? “Bigger than Size”? “Louder than Volume”? “Older than Age”?

Please stand by…

The iPhone.  I love the thing, but mine seems to have a series of eccentircities.  In the wake of the 2.0.1 update I lost all ability to access the internet, and most of my apps stopped working.  As a result I spent an entire night backing up and restoring my phon eto get it all working again.  It works now, but like many other iPhones, my location functions are now best described as “unreliable”.  Last night I typed out a blog post, which is currently sitting on my phone, ready to go, and it WILL NOT upload.  I couldn’t get it posted last night because wordpress was seemingly down, and today it’s just telling me my post id is invalid.  Hopefully I can get things sorted out before too long, and get back to updating normally.

Running wild…

Kathleen was in town the other day, and looking great! She founded the 60 days of salad that graham and I were on earlier in the summer and she just kept going with it. Then started hitting the gym. Then running. It wasn’t long before I came to realize that I was going to have to follow suit if I was going to meet my weight goal, because my weight loss had hit a wall about 20 pounds above where I wanted to be. On Sunday she ran 5k. I ran 6. Monday she runs 6.5. This tweaks my competitive spirit, and not one to lose to a girl in a dick-waving contest, I do what my masculinity tells me to and take things way too far. Monday I run 12.5. Tuesday, I can barely walk, and stairs are my arch nemesis. Wednesday I’m back at it, 10k, including king George terrace, one of the nastiest hills in victoria. Today it was an 11.5k run to uvic and back… Via Richmond rd. To non-Victorians, this means I essentially had to run up Mt. Tolmie twice. And that’s just to get to uvic. About the time I got there I was swearing at myself for thinking it was a good idea, and I began womdering how I was going to get home. I still had 5k to go. But, as a man, I had to suck it up and carry on. Men may do stupid shit, but real men see it through to the end. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to sooth my tired legs with a hot, lavender scented, bath.

Here’s my route.

Bound to continue…

Just after 8:30 am yesterday, I began my new position at work. I’ve been granted a posting as a User Analyst I and I was quite excited about it. But being that I work for a large corporation I fogued that none of my data and system access requests would have been approved yet, even though they’d been submitted a week prior. I was right. I showed up and was handed a binder with a 300 page document inside. I was then told that only one small 40 page segment was relevent, and that I should read it. Hopefully my access would be granted by the afternoon. Well, I finished reading by 10:30, still no access. I read it again. Still no access. I read the entire binder. Still no access. I spent 7 hours re-reading the same document. By the end of the day, my access was still not approved. This morning, I still don’t have my access, so I was given another document to read and told to compare it to what I read yesterday. That binder is rapidly becoming my enemy.

I don’t want none, unless you got buns, hun.

So here I am at soprano’s karaoke bar. My friend Tamara invited the guys and out tonight, and not one to deny myself the opportunity to get drunk and make an ass of myself, here I am. Paul, Graham, Jer, and James all pussed out on me though. Granted, Graham and Jer had dinner plans, and James is out of town, but that’s no excuse. And that Paul guy, what a let down. Oh well, at least Morgan is here. His propensity for large posteriors, and inability to tell untruths will find its way on stage eventually, and that should prove entertaining.

So having now gone inside the bar, it turns out Morgan’s not here either, because he’s working. What a dick. Oh well the guy on stage is singing rick astley’s “never gonna give you up.” Did we just get rickrolled at a karaoke bar?

You dont win friends with salad

So I just had a bizarre experience at Subway. I went in and ordered a roast chicken salad (which admittedly drew an odd look from the servers to begin with), my typical order these days. The guy began preparing it by throwing one handful of lettuce in the bowl, so I asked if I could have more. He Responded,

“I’ll put more on in a sec, what other vegetables would you like?”

“Oh, ok, uhh, onions, green peppers, and cucumbers.”

“Alright, salt & pepper?”

“Yes, Please.”

“And dressings?”

“I’ll take ranch, but could I get that extra lettuce now? Like, no- before the dressing?”

“BEFORE the dressing?” pause, “Ok…”

And then proceeded to act for the rest of the transaction like I had asked for my salad to be dressed with rancid clams.  Seriously, what the fuck? When did asking to have dressing “on” your salad, rather than “in” your salad become unusual? Isn’t dressing normally a topping?

I come to the realization more and more every day that I simply do not get people at all. Not one bit.

Better late than never?

Today was my last day at my current job. I’ve been grated a temporary posting in a higher-level position elsewhere in the company. I don’t think I was the best fit with the job I had, I can’t say I enjoyed it a lot, and I never got on really well with my coworkers. Still, I’m not one to flip them off on the way out the door, either. Just my luck, I forgot to set my alarm clock last night, and was an hour and a half late to work. To make matters worse I was joking with my boss yesterday about not doing any work today. What an embarassment. With a little luck it’ll be water under the bridge before to long… Assuming it’s not a smouldering wreckage at the bottom of the river already.

High and dry

So, recently I’ve taken to doing my laundry at my parents’ house. I used to do it at my apartment, but I always had issues with the dryers. They were only a buck, but invariably I’d have to run every load through two or three times, because they were too small and never got my laundry dry on the first try, so it would take me all night. When they raised the price to a dollar twenty-five, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. My mom has this great big washer and dryer so I can do all my clothes in one go. Of course, the dryer broke recently, and doesn’t get hot anymore, so it still takes all night to dry, but at least I’m not paying for it. It’s the principal of the matter.

Don’t drink and… Bus?

So this coming weekend is BC day, in British Columbia. Officially, it’s about celebrating the existence of our fine province, but we all know it’s really just about getting an extra day off work between Canada day and labour day. I can’t think of anything I’d rather celebrate than our thinning salmon stocks, our lumber that we can’t sell in the states without hefty levies, and the scandalous crown corporations that seem to be all the rage in the papers today. Hell, there aren’t even any fireworks. So why is BC Transit reminding people that open liquor isn’t permitted on busses? Parties would imply that people actually care.