Trilobite

I am really looking forward to the new Sufjan Stevens Songs For Christmas box set. I’d ask for it for Christmas, but I think I will buy it for myself before then. It’s going to be released on November 21st.

Thank you everybody for being nice to me. I think I was just having a bad day on Sunday. I’m not really going to stop blogging.

Random news: Sarah Harmer tickets are going on sale Friday morning! I finally got some movie editing software working on my computer (thanks, Peter) and I finished making a short video. I bought a rice cooker and a big jar of sambal today.

I bought a few Sufjan Stevens CDs today, but I couldn’t find one that I really wanted. I’ll look for it in the States (where I am going tomorrow). Here are some more links: wikipedia, nine live songs, farm video, night zombies (great song, it’s better on the cd), helicopter footage (20MB h264 QuickTime video).

Today I went to the Sound Works to buy a tuning fork or a pitch pipe or something. I didn’t really know what I wanted, but I was sick of booting up my computer and playing the cd that came with my lesson book every time I wanted to tune my guitar. They were sold out of everything but electronic tuners, and for some reason I didn’t want to buy one of those. Maybe I’m just being a Luddite, but I figured after 10 years of playing musical instruments when I was a kid I shouldn’t need a machine to tell me I was a bit flat. Now that I think of it, maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.

Anyway, I ended up buying a harmonica. It’s a diatonic harmonica in the key of E, and blowing into the first hole plays the same E as the lowest guitar string, so I am very happy with it. It only cost $9 and has a couple of air leaks in it, but at least it plays the one note I want! Maybe I will try doing a Neil Young impersonation with it one day…

By the way, harmonicas are insane instruments.

Wow. Somebody on MySpace just told me about Sufjan Stevens, and I am amazed at how much I like his music. I just downloaded 10 or so songs from the Gnutella Network and love them all. Listen to this one. I’m going to have to buy all of his CD’s now.

Here’s a video of me playing Ode To Joy on the guitar. That was a couple days ago, and I’m better than that now. I’ve learned the notes on the E, B, G, and D strings so far and I’ll get started on my first chords later tonight or tomorrow. Note: Gustavo Guerra cut his hair to look like me. 😉

Yesterday Christine and I took the ferry to Wolfe Island and rode our bikes out to the beach. It was 10km each way, and maybe a couple more kilometers of hiking along the path to the water. We had a really nice afternoon of swimming and relaxing in the sand. The water level was much higher than I’ve ever seen it there. I took lots of movies instead of pictures with my camera, but they didn’t turn out very well. Maybe I’ll edit some of the better ones and make a short one or two minute montage.

After work today I bought myself a guitar. I got the cheapest one at the store that wasn’t made of plywood. It cost me a couple hundred dollars and I’m not sure if I can afford it with my student loan payments starting this month, but I figured I’ve got more money now than I will after I start making my payments. I’ve been feeling pretty restless lately and really wanted to start playing an instrument again. I was considering buying a keyboard, but I think I’d rather start with a stringed instrument. Maybe all those years of playing violin will make it easier to learn. I also bought book of guitar lessons and worked my way through the first one. Now I can play three notes and I have a blister on my finger!

I’ve been watching Ze Frank’s the show for the past three or four weeks and can’t wait for the episodes to come out every day. I especially like the ones with songs in them, and when he talks about ethics and technology. If I had way more time, maybe my blog would be as good as Ze’s. Actually, no it wouldn’t. He’s pretty good.

Saturday was the Skeleton Park Music Festival and, Holy Cow, it was good! It was like a little Glastonbury in my backyard. Not that I’ve ever been to Glastonbury, but I imagine I would enjoy it. I took a couple hundred pictures and movies of all these great Kingston bands but lost them when my hard drive crashed. Oh well. I’ll just have to get by with wetware memories like everybody else does. The best act of the day was Karyn Ellis. She sang a waltz called Hearts Fall that made me cry. (I’m such a sissy!) I bought one of her CD’s and have been listening to it quite a bit over the past few days. I hope there’s another festival next year.

Monday night I turned on my TV to watch game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals and was surprised to see the reception was much worse than usual. I could tell what colour jerseys the players were wearing but there was too much static to see the puck and it was pretty hard to follow the action. So after the first period I went to The Toucan to watch the rest of the game on their big screen TV.

I got worried during the second period when a band began setting up their equipment on the stage in front of the TV and I quickly started making a mental list of other places within walking distance that might be showing the hockey game. That was until Sarah Harmer walked past me on her way to the bar. It took me about two seconds to decide that even if the TV got turned off just as the game was going into overtime, I would stay right there and watch the band. The pub left the TV on for the whole game after all (which was entertaining, despite the Oilers not winning the cup) and Ghetto Express started playing shortly afterwards.

At the end of the first set the band told everybody there would be a special guest later on, which really got my hopes up. I even started to think of the songs I hoped Sarah Harmer would sing and I almost went over to her table to ask if she would play Trouble in the Fields! In retrospect I’m glad I didn’t do that, especially since she got up and left the pub right after I decided not to harass her. The special guest turned out to be Tracie Morgan, not Sarah Harmer after all. Oh well. I still had a good night, and now I have another CD by another local musician.