40 cm of snow + 100 km/h wind over a 24 hour period =

Yesterday was another big blizzard which unfortunately closed The Ship, thereby preventing all of us from seeing John Lennox' farewell performance. I was all set to go, when Dana messengered me with the news. After walking around this morning, I got to thinking about that alley that The Ship is in. Probably looks like some of these drifts now. No wonder it was closed.

Music Part 2

Dave and I went down to CBTG's last night to see the John Lennox show. Unfortunately for us, we just caught the last song. I guess we figured that 12:30 would be fashionably late or something...Thankfully the next two bands were great, the Reels from Halifax and (I'm guessing)local boys Blair Harvey and the Dregs. The Reels were this country rock outfit doing some serious channeling of Blue Rodeo and Sons and Daughters. If you've never heard of Sons and Daughters, I'm not surprised, but have a listen to the track Johnny Cash and see if you think like this reviewer:

a darkly theatrical, distinctly celtic noise that's part Alternative Country, part Psychobilly, part Indie Rock and part New Wave post-punk, with songs that make you want to rub your sweatiest bits against your neighbour's muddy jeans.

I'm just getting into the local music scene here in St. John's, and it's quite lively. I've always said, that one of the things I liked about living in Owen Sound was the local music scene, that we could go to Jazzmyn's and hear good live music. But now that I think about it, it was mainly the same 15 players over and over again, playing the same 30 songs over and over again. The Byrds, Neil Young, old Eagles, etc. Not that I'm dissing the great hits of the 1970's mind you, they're classics. But it does get a little repetitive.

I'm really looking forward to John's final show at The Ship on Saturday night. If his show a couple of weeks ago is anything to go on, this one will be excellent. He had a couple of tunes last time that sounded like he was channeling early Pink Floyd. That's Piper at the Gates of Dawn, Pink Floyd, not Dark Side of the Moon, good as it is.

Music and Memories

Dreae put out a request for some mix tapes to help her write poetry and get "Dora the Explorer" out of her head. I wrote her, because I've got this tape from Joe's Bar in Porto kicking around on my desk. God only knows why I've hung on to it this long, because I don't have any way of playing it, save for the crappy player in the Jeep. But while I was writing a comment in her blog, describing the tape, memories kept flooding into my head, things I haven't thought of in a long while.
I remember one evening during the Tall Ships visit, when while being rowed ashore (we were anchored off the shipyard, cause the Sagres had taken our spot on the dock) some of the hideously polluted D'ouro river water splashed on my foot, which unbeknowest to me had a scratch on it. By the time that Elin and Ellen showed up about an hour later, my foot was swollen and weeping blood and pus. Elin went back across the bridge to the ship and brought back some antiseptic before the blood poisoning travelled up my leg. I've still got the scar.
But there are some happier memories as well, nights filled with music and conversation; putting on a record and ducking out to go to the cafe for one of my 20 nightly expressos; someone bringing back that weird latenight Portuguese pizza; going to Meia Cave after Joe's closed at 2, and then to Industria to dance until 6; making my way home for an hour or two of sleep before starting work.
This isn't from that summer, but from the following winter when Elin and I were sailing on the Eye of the Wind, but it reminds me of that time.

The Canadian Women

So the Canadian women are kicking ass all over Turin (Torino, whatever) in which ever venue they appear in. Ok, Beckie Scott kind of let us down there in the skiing, but I'm hopefull that she'll stage a big comeback later on.
Trainspotter Dana was commenting that my blog was "so 1994" with it's centered-ness, so I had to go back to the drawing board (the html tweaking board) and fix it up some more. I'm still trying to get the background colour to something that moves me, but haven't had any luck yet. I guess more experimenting/tweaking/procrastinating is in order.

Yet Another Incarnation...

Yes, big change for those few people who read my blog. I tried out the email blogging which I actually got to work, but which screwed up my blog beyond belief. So I had to find a new template. This is the Minima template which is the same as Dreae's, but which I've tweaked the html code to something I like. As Dana says, html tweaking is great, but you are never sure if you are learning one thing or procastinating on another.
For those of you in the know, major changes are happening now in my life. That's all I'm going to say on the subject, but I felt that since so much was changing, I'd better go with a new look. Maybe, as usual, Dana has something to do with it as she's broken down and gotten a new blog, and is taking up her usual post as my inspiration.
And I finally met Dreae at the Ship last weekend!

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Music

So I spent part of yesterday, (the part where I wasn't outside shovelling snow - like the dutch boy with his finger in the dyke (dike?) desperately trying to keep ahead of the flood of snow or the snow plow) trying to get a music player integrated into my blog. The main reason why I devoted so much time to this project, when I could have been skivvying off on my tech communications project, is I had a flashback to when I was DJ at Joe's Bar in Porto. My then Swedish girlfriend, Elin, introduced me to this incredible band Hedningarna, and I suddenly thought that maybe I could get some of their stuff off the net by using Limewire. Hedningarna sounds (as I described them to a friend) like a couple of fairies hopped up on meth accompanied by the Valkries on electric guitars! I've always liked the foreign stuff, now described as "world music," but I liked it before it got fashionable.