December 2008 Archives

Or <insert holiday here>. Here's Adèle on skates for the first time. All smiles, no cries. That's my girl.

Here's me wasting time on the Internet worrying about code and protocols and standards for the Kid Brother site - and indeed, my very livelihood - when really, I'm just being a big Muggle about the whole thing. The Internet is magic, after all.



And if you believe that, I have some boobs to sell you.

The Porktrashers continue with their inevitable move toward world musical domination as we record new material at our guitarist Mike's place. He has a pretty amazing set up, especially given that he rejigged the whole studio over the last 12 months. He has eschewed the usual ProTools set up, and is using Ableton Live, which I gather has a better sound than the supposedly more "harsh" market leader.

So what we do is all cram into a small front room (with an electronic drum kit), and then put amps etc outside said room with mics. For example, my guitar amp is in the bathroom, Mike's is in the "board room" and Steve's bass just goes directly into the board. All vocals go directly in too, for now. In the room we all have a set of headphones, and the sound is fed through the board/computer, balanced, and then piped back to our ears. So it's really weird to stand downstairs if we're playing: you hardly hear anything except the vocals and two electric guitars, as the rest is virtual.

That said, the sound quality is astonishing. We've been recording live off the floor (as opposed to instrumental track by track), and the immediacy of it is very exciting. We have about 19 songs right now, and I guess at some point we'll have to do the Sophie's Choice thing and start choosing which of our children we'll keep. Eek. I will try and post a tune or two for posterity so we can track progress.

Here is one of the best holiday greetings I've had in a long time, from Daryl, a developer I used to work with. A wonderful guy, terrific coder and very funny. How many songs have the word "turducken" in them?

I've been on a binge of absent-mindedness lately, leaving things behind everywhere I go, and most recently, losing my cellphone entirely. I was in Eaton Centre a few days ago (don't ask) and I stopped into T-Booth, one of those stores that has all the different phone brands, to see what I could do about replacing the phone or even replacing my carrier (I was on a pay as you go with Virgin, no complaints but in order to get a cheap phone I'd have to get a plan). Having them all there seemed like a good way to compare and contrast.

I will say, the salesguy was masterful. I must have tried to leave about 5 times, but every time he found a way to keep me there. The FIDO plan looked best, especially as I really liked the Motorola phone that came with it. Looking back, I think this is where the slippery slope began. When it came time to actually sign and transfer my number etc, the phone I wanted was discontinued, and he only had a crappy (albeit free) Nokia. I was hesitating, especially as I had minutes left on my Virgin plan. So he said, You know what? I'll waive the activation fee to compensate for that. And that was that.

Then two things happened: I went by the FIDO store (which I hadn't noticed before) and saw they had the phone in stock, and this morning I noticed the FIDO ad which said there WAS no activation fee on their plans! So I was totally scammed by T-Booth dude.

Now I'm on a two year plan, paying a little more money, with a phone I really don't like. Sigh.  I wish I could blame T-Booth (even though the salesguy was obviously being shady) but their job is to sell you phone plans, and if you're stupid enough not to verify it, well caveat emptor. I've never felt like such a rube in my whole life.

The other day Campbell had to do a bit of homework, but we couldn't find his backpack to get it out. He assured us that our nanny had brought it back with her when she brought the boys home, but after a bit more probing he agreed that it may have been her own bag and not his. So I got in the car and drove over to his school, and sure enough there it was in the schoolyard, on a bench... in the pouring rain.

So I took it home and started on my lecture about how it wasn't Nana's job to look after his bag, it was HIS. And that he was lucky it was there, because it was a good backpack and if he lost it the next one would NOT be so nice. Etc. You get the idea.

Then I got an email from a client, whose office I had been at that day, saying I'd left my backpack there and did I want her to bring it down with her for our next meeting?

Sigh. At least my boy comes by it honestly.

Well, good bye to all that. Adele has officially moved into a "big girl" bed, and I sold our crib through Craigslist today. I didn't think much about it (beyond what a pain it can be dealing with people on Craigslist) as I was mostly focused on just getting it out of the house for lack of space. But last night as I was cleaning it up for the buyer, and scraping off ancient spit-up from between the rails, I found myself feeling a little sad that this part of our life is now over.

Then I thought, "Dude, you're cleaning SPIT-UP. Probably from when Campbell was in his vomit mode at around 1 and a half. What's to miss about that?" and I felt a little better.

But only a little.

I got an email on The Porktrashers' MySpace site from a guy called Noel Hudson, saying, "Just a quick note to let you know that I included your band in The Band Name Book. Best band names since the dawn of rock & roll.
If you want to have a look, here are the links for ..Amazon. ca
.. and Chapters-Indigo online"

My first response was, of course, "Okay... what kind of scam is this?" But I clicked on the links and sure enough, there was the book. Mark our drummer works near Indigo so he checked it out, and The Porktrashers, are in the "Animals/Pigs" section, Page 30. Blurb reads "Started on the porch of drummer Mark Adilman's house behind a pig slaughterhouse in downtown Toronto." Cool! Naturally Mark bought three copies on the spot.

And that, my friends, is how direct marketing works.