Green Day/Jimmy Eat World

In response to Shaw's comment on my last post, sadly Christian Slater has not swept me off my feet and taken me away. I am still here, still searching for jobs and getting no responses, trying to enjoy the last days of sunshine before autumn hits us and volunteering for random causes.

Last night was the long-awaited Jimmy Eat World and Green Day gig. I had forgotten how much I like Jimmy Eat World, so their opening act was much appreciated. I'm not entirely sure what I thought of Green Day. They were energetic and able to whip up the crowd as always, generous with their thanks and nice to members of the audience. They brought a young boy on stage to hose down the crowd with water cannons, probably making his year, and they also picked three people to come on stage and play bass, guitar and drums. This seemed to be something that people knew about, as there were many signs being carried which read things like 'Pick Me For Drums'. The kids they eventually picked were damn good, the guitarist running on the stage and hugging Billy for about 15 seconds straight, until I thought they were going to have to get security to rip them apart. So they played a song, and Billy sung to it, and at the end he called the guitarist back and said, "You can keep the guitar." The kid nearly fainted and the crowd went mad. Not a bad thing to come out with at the end of the night.

Apart from that, their songs were of course catchy and high energy, but at times it was like being at a political rally, or an anarchist group meeting twenty years ago, when you felt like you were 'anti-establishment'. Of course George Bush was mentioned a few times, as was Hurricane Katrina, personal freedom, civil liberties etc. Singing 'We Are The Champions' as the last song really made me feel like I should be wearing a pledge badge and swearing in a presidential candidate. But if you took that part out of the night, it was a very entertaining gig. If only the screaming girl behind me hadn't had such an ear-splitting scream.

In other news, I've been called for lots of filming and have always been busy, I volunteered for the Aids Walk for Life and persuaded my housemate to walk around the park just to visit me, I've done a half day course on emergency registration of evacuees, have registered as a Disaster & Rescue volunteer with the Red Cross, have been mega busy with computer work (for once) and have singularly failed to clean my room or do my house chore for this week. I did jump in the swimming pool last Friday with one of my housemates, because we felt like we should, seeing as it was fixed. The photos from that experience are not good! Tonight we are going to a free salsa class as a house (hopefully 5 or 6 of us) and Gilles is giving us champagne because today is his 1 month anniversary of being here. This may seem slightly over the top, but his father works for a champagne company, so the man knows his wine. We drove round town for an hour and a half yesterday looking for it, so it had better be good!

Oh, the trauma

Of spending two hours proofreading a load of Filemaker Pro forms, then pressing the wrong button due to tiredness and seeing a new, blank, form export itself into your database, magically consigning the 23 non-blank forms you've just proofread into oblivion, never to return. That's two hours of my life I will never recover, and more importantly, won't get paid for..... :o(

Psychology

Sometimes Psychology can really piss you off. I'm not sure whether it's being a student of Psychology, or whether it's a natural psychological thing, but I'm good at spotting things in people before they actually happen. Not only this, but I also spot them in myself. So I find myself getting pissed off at people for little things, because I've seen them coming and I don't understand why other people don't see them coming. Even worse, I get pissed off at myself and then I am able to psychoanalyse myself and realise why I'm pissed off at myself! And that's pretty pointless, since it's not like I can do anything about it just because I realise why I'm pissed off.....

Does that make any sense? I think I'm talking shite. Ignore me!!

Anyway, I've just been to my first Latin Funk dance class with Christie and am now very tired, but nonetheless am trying to do some work and drown out Blair's bloody guitar next door with my music. Grrr!!! Surely something good has to happen in my life soon? Surely? Hello? ;o)

Today's filming......

....for Hollow Man 2, starring amongst others, this guy. Let's hope he doesn't bring his troubles to set!!

A little queasy

So last night I planned to go to the baseball, since the Canadians are in the Championship playoffs against Spokane and they are at home Sat, Sun and possibly Mon. Somehow my plans got disrupted by the building of a lot of Ikea furniture for Martha, one of the girls who's just moved into the house, and then another trip to Ikea when one of the drawers didn't fit together properly. This of course led to more purchasing of furniture, then more building after we came home, and then a clearing out of her room so we could move all of it in. Of course the desk that was in there already had to be moved out and downstairs to Gilles' room, which necessitated my removing the doors from each room and Martha, Gilles and I hefting the damn thing down a flight of stairs and along two corridors, before destroying the door frame in an effort to get it into its new home. After all of this, and moving the new furniture into Martha's room, I decided that we needed something alcoholic, and everyone else in the house agreed. Cue three or four hours of serious drinking, which led to the abandoning of the baseball game as I was seriously wasted. And I don't get wasted. There were a few rounds of "I have never" followed by some more alcohol, some of which was hideously strong and homemade, then some music and pool playing, a change of music to salsa and some improvised salsa tutilage. Gilles tried to teach me how to do salsa and mambo steps, and I kept apologising for standing on his feet, but I wasn't too bad. When it got to the stage of me feeling sick and not being able to actually hit the pool balls, I abandoned the night and went to bed, after staying up for a while and watching my tv in an effort to stave off the whirlygigs. I woke up at 4am with the tv still on, turned it off, and finally got up at 10am this morning. I don't feel too bad, except for some tiredness, but I shan't be getting that drunk for a while! *pale smile*

Suing gone mad?

I came across this via another site that I was reading, and I have to say, it's almost worth turning up at the law courts on Monday to hear this one being filed.....

Madness?

The madness of golf

I just discovered that I am a lot closer to the Bell Canadian Open golf than I thought, having gone to get in my car to go to the supermarket and come face to face with the 14th green and a couple of golfers, separated only by a small fence. I feel that some rollerblading round the perimeter and some sweet smiling at people on the gate might be on the cards tomorrow or this weekend....

Oh, and I doubt anyone else will be watching the golf, but if you happen to catch the view from the darn blimp that spends its day over my house, look out for me. Big long white house, swimming pool and trampoline in back garden, facing the 14th green on a bend in the road. I'll be waving!

Welcome to my life

Or at least my music collection. Last night, for the first time in I can't remember how long, I put my headphones on, hooked myself up to my laptop and listened to some music in the dark before I went to sleep. I'd forgotten how nice it is to do that and just chill out for a bit. However, there's always that annoying point in time when the music gets overshadowed by thinking. In this case, I realised why all the songs I was listening to were good for chilling out (a select list of 20 had been chosen). These aren't necessarily my favourite songs ever, but they're damn good for listening to in the dark. There was an overwhelming plethora of acoustic guitar and piano, with classical strings in the background. Just for interests sake, my top twenty 'chilling in the dark' songs were:

Scarlet - Independent Love Song (piano, strings)
Vertical Horizon - Forever (acoustic guitar, strings)
John Mayer - New Deep (acoustic guitar, keyboards)
The Perishers - My Heart (electric guitar, piano/keyboard)
Duncan Sheik - Half Life (acoustic guitar, piano, strings). I'm sure he's nicked some parts from Foreigner!
Vertical Horizon - I'm Still Here (acoustic guitar,electric guitar)
Charlie Mars - White Out (acoustic guitar, strings). Sounds like a Smashing Pumpkins song.
Bryan Adams - I'm Ready (acoustic guitar, strings)
Matt Nathanson - Sad Songs (strings, acoustic guitar, electric guitar). Sounds like Gin Blossoms.
Matt Nathanson - First Time (strings, acoustic guitar)
Duncan Sheik - For You (acoustic guitar, piano)
Ben Folds Five - Magic (piano, strings, keyboard/harpsichord)
Five for Fighting - 100 years (piano, strings)
Jewel - Hands (piano, acoustic guitar)
Simple Plan - How Could This Happen To Me (piano and strings, plus angsty lyrics, which is always good, though there is also some electric guitar in there for ten seconds)
Switchfoot - This Is Your Life (strings, acoustic guitar, keyboards)
Bryan Adams - I Will Always Return (acoustic guitar, strings)
Ryan Adams - The Shadowlands (piano, electric guitar, strings)
Melanie Doane - I Can't Take My Eyes Off You (acoustic guitar, some cheating electric guitar sneaks in)
Switchfoot - Spirit (again, some sneaky electric guitar, but mainly acoustic guitar)

So, quite a random collection of songs, but it's good that I can identify a common thread or two in the madness......

Today I finished signing up for some dance-type classes that Christie, Patty and myself are doing; belly dance, latin dance funk and line dance (my choice, the other two are doing disco instead). I love line dancing, it's the funniest thing I think I've ever done. Shaw will remember the class that we took, with Marlisa and the guys (the guys were pretty bad at it, surprisingly, since they were good dancers otherwise). I love classes where the people don't take themselves too seriously. I also went to the final baseball league game of the season, although the Canadians are in the Championship playoffs so I might go and see them on Saturday. Despite meaning to become a volunteer for Red Cross Disaster Relief, like I've been meaning to do for months, I once again forgot to do it, so that's tomorrow's work. Maybe in the future I'll finally be able to get on a plane and get into some forensic work if needed, rather than sitting here hoping someone would take me! Appropos of nothing, the Bell Canadian Golf Open is on just down the road, so the traffic is horrendous wherever you go - another reason to stop driving and start rollerblading.

Strangely, I just looked up Oasis tickets for tomorrow, since I was on Ticketmaster, and they are still not sold out. Guess they're not as popular as they thought..... the $70 price tag might have something to do with it! I'd go for $20 ;o) or free.....

A sneaking suspicion

Does anyone else have a sneaking suspicion that the world is falling apart? I mean since last year we seem to have had a multitude of natural disasters; typhoons and earthquakes in China, hurricanes in America, floods in India, a tsunami warning here, even a flipping tornado in Birmingham! And then the plane crashes; today there was another one in Indonesia. I'm starting to wonder when the next thing will come along :o(

The invasion

Is it spider season? I seem to have to attack more and more of the big bastards as every day passes. I just pulled out my modem accidentally when I saw one out of the corner of my eye scuttling past my feet. And Jesus was it big. After some thrashing about with my slipper I finally managed to smack the hell out of it, only to Google it and find out that it was bloody poisonous. Fantastic! Poisonous spiders are inhabiting my bedroom somewhere. Since I cleaned all of my room today I can only assume that it came from the closet, which I will have to tackle tomorrow. With a big boot in my hand. The joys of living in a basement continue.....