a broken lull.

Purolator Courier Ltd.

Delivered to S *** at Receiving of S *** 9*** L***
NOVEMBER 30, 2004 AT 15:08
SHERBROOKE, QC

:D

i've never been as happy about seeing a delivery guy pull up in front of my apartment my entire life :) i'm gonna update the post with more details about the computer once i get it all up and running, don't worry. this has been one exciting day. thanks for staying with me through all the boring configuration stages and happy blabbering :P

Posted by Anonymous | 3:19 PM |

ohmygod, it's here!

my Dell Dimension 8400.

Shipment In Transit
NOVEMBER 29, 2004 AT 19:05
MONTREAL SORT CTR/CTR TRIE, PQ

i was expecting it to get to Toronto today, and maybe ship by Purolator this afternoon. but this far exceeds my expectations. that means i should get it (three packages! woohoo!! christmas is definitely coming early this year for me) tomorrow...? fuck me. i wanted to call in sick to work the day i'd get it but this is far too early in the week. it's taken me by surprise. i'll have to check with the girlfriend to see if she minds not spending my (maybe) suddenly free day with me :) this is so exciting!!!

btw, DVD burners - which programs do you use to rip and burn your dvd's? i read a little about it over the weekend and i learned that everything's not so rosy in the dvd burning world. i'm mainly looking at the closest picture quality possible to the source disc.

thanks :)
more news as i get 'em. obviously :)
(goodnight.)

Posted by Anonymous | 11:56 PM |

i missed this when it came out last month; even though they initially said it would never see a commercial release, we knew they could never hold on to it for too long: One Little Indian have finally released Oceania, featuring Kelis for your greedy little hands - it's available on Björk's Who Is It single. | oh, manchester |

np: missy elliott - miss e...so addictive

Posted by Anonymous | 10:07 AM |

a lot of stuff happened yesterday on our way, during, and after The Pixies show. right now i have a lingering headache so i won't go into details much except to say this -- last night i was introduced to the cult of The Pixies. and what an amazing night it was. a seriously solid, ferocious, and energetic show.

and i actually ran into a friend who was going to the show in the lineup. in a sea of 5,000 people. i never thought we'd manage to run into each other. very cool. she's a great person. she told me about a band of one of her friends, so here's a shout-out to Heroes & Villains.

we also dropped by cd esoterik to get some cd's. i held back (a lot) but only got two (both of which i'm really happy about - finding a used copy of the first one at $11.99 after holding onto a new copy while browsing the rest of their cool selection):

Discovered Covered - The Late Great Daniel Johnston
John Vanderslice - Life and Death of an American Fourtracker

computer update: it shipped yesterday, friday, from the US and they're saying i should expect it between tuesday and thursday :) i couldn't be happier. but i hope i won't call in sick the day i get it. lol :) i don't want to. i won't. but the temptation will be great.

Posted by Anonymous | 5:19 PM |

things seem to be going well for me this week.

especially with my car. see, earlier this week i had an appointment to get my winter tires on and make an oil change (that was due for close to a thousand km). the night before my appoinment my driver's side doorlock stopped working (i had to use the passenger side to lock/unlock my car) and then, when i pulled out my key, it fell out of the door handle. lol. i had my tires done, oil changed, and then i reluctantly called up the Volkswagen dealership for the door lock. i know we're not supposed to go to dealerships because their prices are crazy, but for something like this i wanted to go right to the source and get it over and done with. so the appoinment i managed to get was at 7:50 fucking am this morning!! lol. urgh. way too early for me. and they couldn't even tell me if they'd have the part for it or not. but, now i'm back, and $83 later things are all taken care of and everything's brand spanking new! i love it. (btw, this was my first run-in with Volkswagen and let me tell you something - they know how to take care of their customers: newspapers, tv, free coffee/juice/soft drinks. i loved it.)

and tonight's my last shift of the week because tomorrow i'm going to see The Pixies live in Montreal :) i called up the friend i'm going with last night and he offered to drive up tomorrow afternoon so we can spend some time in Montreal. love it. the weekend is here, baby!

hey, anyone wanna sell me on Gwen's Love, Angel, Music, Baby? i've been tempted as the lead single was catchy enough the one time i heard it, and the list of producers is mighty impressive. Future Shop has it for $11.99.

update, 9:58 am: and apparently my day just got even better!!

i just called up Dell's Customer Service line to get some real facts about my order (i can't get to it online and haven't even gotten one damn email from the guy who's in charge of my order) -- my system is already in the final stage of production!!! it will be shipped tomorrow (from the US, though? weird. i hope that means Dell Canada is gonna get it. i hope i'm not going to have to pay custom charges on that thing. nope. i just called Customer Service, got the lovely Joan again, and the system is shipping from the US to Toronto and then they're shipping it to me with Purolator :) so no custom charges for me). yay! she also gave me the correct order number and now i can finally follow my order online :P this is cool stuff, people. cool stuff...

Posted by Anonymous | 9:13 AM |

Garbage - Bleed Like Me
april 2005.

i'm a couple of days late on this but it's news well worth telling.
and i love the title. and it's a thousand times better than the working title they had - Hands on a Hard Body.

now that i've faxed the contract back (yesterday; and yes, it went smoothly this time), i'm waiting for final confirmation on my order from Dell.
i can't wait for it to go into production and, finally, shipping :) (oh yeah, you'll definitely be hearing from me once i get the whole thing home :)

Posted by Anonymous | 11:01 AM |

good sunday morning, all.
the girlfriend (yes, still 'the' and not 'my') just left. what's been happening to me? well, on friday, after weeks, days, and hours spent online trying to get the best system for the lowest price, i finally put in the order for the Dell Dimension 8400 (i'll post all the details once the deal is done). but yesterday i had to drive all the way up to my mom's house because they'd emailed me a contract i now have to sign and fax back (me no faxie). lo-and-behold, my mom's printer runs out of black ink halfway through the printing of the contract itself. yay. so this morning i'm going to get a new ink cartridge, make a photocopy of a blank cheque, head on over to my mom's house again and hopefully fax the whole damn thing and be done with it. will the whole system get here before the end of the week? we'll see. hopefully yes. and hopefully it'll be worth all this trouble :) (i think it will.)

anyone looking to see interesting films, head on over to the Toronto Online Film Festival Dec 2 at the Bloor Cinema to see my friend Teresa's (writer, producer) Monopoly Death Match. thank you.

Posted by Anonymous | 11:36 AM |

Future Shop just made me a very happy man. after tracking down my order online and seeing that, despite their initial assessment of a november 19 delivery, the order took a full 24 hours before shipping. it shipped last night. but then cut to this afternoon - the UPS man rings my doorbell with my items in hand :) here are the items:

Cat Power - Speaking for Trees (dvd & cd)
Rufus Wainwright - Want Two (cd/dvd)

and yes, the canadian edition of Want Two contains the two bonus tracks that will only be available on the special US version coming out in december :) both tracks (including a third one that's part of the actual album) were recorded at Rufus' montreal show last april. too bad i wasn't at that particular show, though. but it's at the Metropolis so it's almost the same. Martha, Anna, and Kate all appear on the album.

ooh. what a weird week. about the Dell computer i've been trying to hunt down: the rep never got back to me after tuesday. i was left hanging. i look up the new free upgrades this morning and it's free shipping (not too bad) and 250mb of memory. okay. it's not a flat screen but it'll have to do. i think my system just went up a couple of bucks a month.

Posted by Anonymous | 1:49 PM |

things to spend money on today:

Rufus Wainwright - Want Two (CD/DVD)
finally coming out ... to almost no fanfare. oh well.
the dvd contains a full 100-minute show filmed back in march 2004, people! ... and yes, Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah is included ... ah, heaven.
btw, the press release says Martin Scorsese's The Aviator will be Rufus' big screen debut - not true at all. everyone up here remembers him in Tommy Tricker and the Stamp Traveller when he was 15. (and a quick look at his imdb page and you can clearly see that he was also in a movie called Heights - that came out this year?). and he wrote and sang the theme song too.
Snoop Dogg - R&G (Rhythm & Gangsta): The Masterpiece
i couldn't believe how giddy The Neptunes' Drop It Like It's Hot made me feel the first time i heard it.
The Office Special
get it - now. there's no fuckin' way around it.

update on the Dell Dimension 8400:
i'm emailing back and forth with a Dell rep about details and the price. developing...

omg!! i looked up info on possible news for the second season of The Wire and found that HBO is already on the ball and is releasing it on january 25th!!! wow. i have two episodes left to watch on the first season. needless to say i was hooked and was stretching the season. i was hoping an announcement for the second one would come soon :) my prayers have been answered.

Saw is coming to dvd 2/15 - with some extraordinary cover art.

Posted by Anonymous | 10:24 AM |

i'm fuckin' going out of my mind already. those of you who came in earlier today saw that i'd posted the spec sheet for the Dell computer i'd finally chosen. well, hours later and i'm configuring the damn thing over and over again to try and get the best possible solution :) so here's the (close-to) final set-up:

Dell Dimension 8400

- Pentium® 4 Processor 540 with HT Technology (3.20GHz, 800 FSB, 1MB)
- Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition
- 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 400MHz (2x512M)
- 250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)
- 17 in 1704FP Ultrasharp™ Digital Flat Panel Display
- 128MB PCI Express™ x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) ATI Radeon™ X300 SE
- Sound Blaster® Live! 24-bit ADVANCED HD™ Audio
- Dell® Enhanced Multimedia Keyboard
- Dual Drives: 16x DVD-ROM Drive + 16x DVD+/-RW w/dbl layer write capability
- Dell A425 Speakers w/Subwoofer

any final thoughts? this system would cost me $46/month.
what i wanted to get were enough memory to burn dvd's easily (the 250gb was the lowest i could go on that particular configuration), the 17 inch Ultrasharp flat screen (because of the Digital Video Input not found in the other 17 inch flat screen), the dvd burner, and the 24-bit soundblaster card.
as you can probably tell, this is a pretty big deal for me, so any thoughts or comments are extremely welcome. huge thanks :)

Posted by Anonymous | 6:01 PM |

wtf? Ol' Dirty Bastard is dead ????????????!!
i'm so out of it. it seems unreal.

Posted by Anonymous | 4:34 PM |

beer should not be drank(?) a) after playing hockey for close to three hours, b) when you've got a fuckin' cold. thank you very much. i need some Advils now.

here are the cd's i bought yesterday on my mad scavenger hunt with the girlfriend (mostly inexpensive stuff i wanted):

A Perfect Circle - Emotive
Eminem - Encore (2cd)
The Beta Band - Heroes to Zeros
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus
Joseph Arthur - Our Shadows Will Remain
The Futureheads - The Futureheads

Posted by Anonymous | 11:44 PM |

bought lots of cd's last night. had friday off. triple-yay. trying to get some sleep before tonight's big reunion/hockey game :) more later when i'm less of a zombie :)

Posted by Anonymous | 2:40 PM |

Jason Frank Chromewaves is right -- Sufjan Stevens' backup singer is the absolute embodiment of cuteness. wow.

earlier this week i got a message on my answering machine. a call from the past. one of my childhood friends, with whom i lost touch (as with most of my childhood friends) in college, called me up. this weekend it's one of our friend's 30th birthday (as this year is going to be all of our 30th birthdays) and he's inviting a bunch of us old friends for a game of street hockey :D they even rented a fuckin' gym for the occasion!! i couldn't have heard better news. of course i jumped at the chance. of course i'm going ! he left me another message last night and named the guy's who are gonna be there and i'd forgotten almost half of them! :) it's gonna be a blast. wow. saturday i'm gonna go to my mother's house and pick up my old hockey sticks :) this is amazing. incredibly exciting nostalgia alert :)

The Pixies are still doing the DiscLive thing at the shows? i thought they'd scrapped the idea midway through the summer tour. but it's great news as i'm seeing them in about two weeks in montreal.

update on the Dell Dimension 4700 -- i'm gonna take the plunge and order it this weekend :) i would've ordered it this week (they say it takes 7 business days to get it; i doubt it'll take that long, though, but i want it asap) but Dell change the free upgrades every week and i wanna see what the new upgrades i could get are. that's gonna be tomorrow. i'm excited :) a brand fuckin' new computer. black. a Dell. and a very powerful Pentium 4. with a (dual layer) dvd burner :)

i always seem to jump into relationships believing they must work out. a flawed way of thinking, believe me i know. but i realized it just now. not that my relationship with A is over. it's not. but let's just say doubts have managed to creep their way up and they're fucking with my head big time :) thanks for letting me vent a little.

np: Interpol - Antics

Posted by Anonymous | 11:00 AM |

ah. the girlfriend (ha.) liked the idea of coming over after work and spending the night yesterday. good idea. she's also working today, 12-8 pm. we're supposed to go see The Incredibles tonight - and it appears the Star Wars trailer rumors were true. hopefully no one fucked it up and i get to see it tonight. her sister's boyfriend also wanted to see it so we'll see if we can hook up. i drove the girlfriend to work today, then went and got some groceries and did some quick and very effective cd-shopping; last time i bought a cd was ... a week ago. and that was one cd. the last time i bought more than one was almost exactly a month ago. it's an outrage :) i had more than enough money left and the cd's i wanted were incredibly cheap.

Interpol - Antics
Mos Def - The New Danger
R. Kelly & Jay-Z - Unfinished Business
Junior Boys - Last Exit (2cd) (finally)
The Chemical Brothers - Get Yourself High (uk single, includes a Felix Da Housecat mix)

Posted by Anonymous | 3:27 PM |

hello all.

i finally ran into the friend i wanted to show my new computer specs to last night at work. and he was impressed. so i checked up on the Dell site to see if any new upgrades were available because i'm feeling time for buying the computer is coming upon myself. here are the specs for this $31/month-for-4-years computer (with the tiny $10 shipping tag):

Dell Dimension 4700

- Pentium® 4 Processor 530 with HT Technology (3.00GHz, 800 FSB)
- Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition (i'll upgrade to Professional with a friend's disc)
- 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 400MHz (4x256M)
- 160GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)
- Dual Drives: 16x DVD-ROM Drive + 16x DVD+/-RW w/dbl layer write capability
- 17 inch E773c CRT Monitor (the free upgrade to a 15 inch flat screen expired last week)
- Integrated Intel® Graphics Media Accelator 900
- SoundBlaster Live! 5.1(D) Digital Sound Card w/Dolby Digital 5.1 capability

should i shell out $4/month for the Dell 5650 5.1 Surround Sound Speaker System with Subwoofer?
and if i do that, i guess i should also do the $1/month upgrade for the Sound Blaster Audigy™2 ZS (D) Card w/Dolby 5.1, and IEEE 1394 capability, right? just for the hell of it?
btw, i'll be able to hook up my LG cd-burner, right? it can handle that bit of hardware, right?

lemme know what you think because, as i said, i'm feeling this is getting close to being done. thanks :)

Posted by Anonymous | 10:48 AM |

a couple of quick facts:

- i've been online twice since sunday afternoon.
- my date with A was spent at her place (with roommates) - we never got to the movie theater. and i left at 6:30 am.
- we spent monday through wednesday afternoon together (called in sick twice :)
- tonight was our first evening outside of our 'relationship' (ain't used to calling it that yet), but we were both working (we're coworkers) and she was actually assigned to my partner and i for the entire evening :P
- last night was spent listening to music because she put on Portishead's 2nd album. that turned me on. i played her some Mogwai, Nellie McKay, some NERD, and some of my favorite songs i could think of - and she liked :) she seems to be drawn to the more melancholic music that i am. i was blown away.
- she wanted to rent Big Fish and Elephant. huge plus in my book. again - blown away a little bit :)
- she introduced me to Lay's Dill Pickle chips. i'm close to being addicted to them now.
- i'm taking it one step at a time, and learning to get to know her instead of trying to figure out how she fits into my perfect partner model.

have a good night and thanks for all the good wishes :) it's very appreciated.

Posted by Anonymous | 1:49 AM |

Americans, i fuckin' hope you voted today!
for all of our sakes.

thank you :)

Posted by Anonymous | 7:46 PM |