Linger, Home Repairs, GO RIDERS!! and Why MIDI is hard.

Well Linger had another good show last night at the Exchange. I thought we did well, and we put in 3 extra songs at the last minute out of nowhere. I think we did well on all points. A really new experience for me and ironically first tried onstage during soundcheck was to use Victors Mac to play a string arrangement in GarageBand using the computers keyboard.

Spent the entire 3 day weekend working on the house and doing laundry. Things are slow to progress around here, there's alot to be done and alot more comes everyday. But we got nearly all the fallen tree cleaned up today, just a couple more hours - maybe 3 to get the yard back to some semblance of normalcy. Eavestroughs went up really easily, but as was shown during the rain delay of the football game, they don't hold water! But that will be an easy fix. It was a good test, albeit a failed one. Bought 3 big barrels off of Used Regina for a great price to make into rain barrels. I'll have enough water to irrigate the Sahara.

5-0. I lived to see it. I said it before the season started. Let's have faith in Eric Tillman. He knows how to build a team. Even on a continuing rotation of quarterbacks and injuries that would make even the greats' knees buckle, the Riders set a record for season starting tonight. As in, it hasn't been done since they've been playing modern football. Keep up the good work boys... Calgary is going to be a major challenge on Saturday, and Henry is still mad at us.

Been spending what down time I have with my nose in my computer trying to get everything set up to use MY laptop on stage and in performance with my bass playing. I'm looking to hook in my footswitch pedal to my computer. I'll then use it to control sample software and digital synthesizers, while also using my computer keyboard to play more targeted lines. I hope to use this to add a super-low-end layer to Linger's stuff. It will need to be really rappy and deep to cut through the already pretty full Linger sound, but I think it could be cool. I already have plans for foot-controlled lines in Root of Truth, This Narrow Path and of course Melody for the Hanging. I've got some sample ideas for Brian and the Bomb and Swaying Image and steal sample cuing from Dave for Narrow Path and Precious.

This does create some difficulties. I'm considering picking up a professional package like Reason, Cubase or Cakewalk. I've been trying to make it happen with Open Source stuff and while it's highly, highly customizable, it's hard to install, hard to connect devices and Windows Vista is un-forgiving when it comes to some software installations and permissions. If anyone out there has had some good easy MIDI software that might meet my needs, let me know, I'd be anxious to hear it.

Well all, that's that for today I guess. Kinda want to do a funny post like I used to do back in year 1 and 2 of the blog. Life is too short to be so serious.

Friday is a good day to work

Got one of my wonderful new benefits of a full time position at SGI, a Day of Rest. Every second Friday. Booh - Yah!

Spent most of the day cutting up wood and branches from the windfall this week. Also tore down my ruined eaves-trough, did some laundry and swept up the yard.

Had a few folks by this evening for a little grillin'. Had burgers, hot dogs, bad potatos, good mushrooms, great asparagus and lots of good salads and sides. Needless to say, no one went home hungry and we had some good times. A couple inpromptu jams with the likes of Johnny Rockstar on Guitar and Vocals, Duck Slick on guitar, Ronda on drum, Andrew Pilon on Guitar, Scotty T on Acoustic bass and yours truly on baby holding and playing harmonica with the other hand. Had a distinct western feel tonight, I place the ownice on it being Scotts dad's bass.

So now we're just relaxing, continuing our "Bourne Movie" film festival this weekend, can't wait until the next one.

Ok then. Here it is.

Sorry it took so long.

So we did get home the next day. Baby has been a joy for the most part I suppose. She cries, she poops, she sleeps. Occasionally she looks up at you with big blue eyes and laughs. That's why I did it.

She's been feeding well and is overall a healthy happy baby.

Mom is well, now looking to heal the hardships of childbearing and return to living it up like a rockstar.

Went to Ness Creek this weekend. Among the kickass things that happened to me.
1 - Laughing So Damn much.
2 - Five Alarm Funk
3 - Strange wood pixies.
4 - Baby connecting time.

Needless to say, I will be returning to this festival as long as I have energy to walk. And I have a list of people who I need to bring with me.

Had a big storm here tonight and we lost half of our big tree out front. I'm pretty upset about this, not because of the work involved and the potential cost, but because I REALLY LIKED THAT TREE. The first place I took Kayah outside to was under that tree and now it's sitting in two piles on my lawn. We also had half our eavestrough come down and maybe some damage to an old crooked pine in the back, but they're pretty minor jobs I think/hope.

Mom and Dad moved out of town. Kinda weird, they were this sort of anchor in a familliar place. Michelle is still in town, but hey for how long. Just odd. Weyburn has been my home for more of my life than anyplace, sad to lose touch.

Tai is well, attitude of Paris Hilton and coherence of salad dressing, but she's a good kid at heart and really helps out with the baby around.

Dogs=kickass

Bought myself a laptop at long last. Been walking around with a boner for two weeks because of it. No, it's not a Mac, I have mouths to feed.

Got permanent-full time at SGI. Things are interesting there ... what can I say - it pays well.

Label is growing slowly as I need it to. Have to make some tough decisions this week, but that's business and if I can't do it now, it isn't going to get any easier.

Well, I think that's all. Last month was the first I didn't post on since the start of the blog. I'll try to keep that from happening again folks!

Kayah Lily Pilon

Well all, Rhonda had our little baby girl this afternoon. She weighed 6lbs 4oz. I'll put up more info and some pictures in the coming days, but dad is understandably exhausted and needs a bath and coma.

Mom and baby are in perfect health, and I think will be home as soon as tomorrow.

Isn't Americana Fun?

Shasta Pop

Let's do the Commuter Challenge Why Not?

Check it out here. I think Regina will do well.

Maent Records - Invasion

Maent Records

LINGER CD RELEASE TONIGHT

Hey everyone, TONIGHT, May 2nd at the U of R, my band Linger will be throwing their CD Release party. Three bands, Johnny Rockstar, The League of One and Linger will rock the mother-fucking house down in what promises to be one of the finest evenings of rock experienced in the city of Regina in over 30 years.

Show starts at 8, doors will be open at 7:30. If you want to get some pre-sale tickets, e-mail me at maentrecords att gmail.com. They;re $5... but I won't be anywhere near a computer after 11:00AM Friday... sorry for the late notice. Just want it to be fresh.

LINGER CD RELEASE TONIGHT! BE THERE!

Record Store Day

Roll out a barrel...

Roll out a barrel of bombs!

Political Polka
The future of music.

Earth Hour a Success Here

We had the lights out for about 75 minutes for Earth Hour. While Tai didn't seem to quite get the idea that lights were not at all allowed, we did have a good time playing cards by candlelight and drinking lemonade.

I think we should do it once a month!

Self Sufficiency

Or - "Why it pays not to get your hopes up"

Busy busy busy... as usual. I've been waiting all week to sit down a write a blog post on religion and spirituality. Maybe I'll get to it tommorrow, it will be Sunday afterall.

Parents came up this weekend to help Andrew move up to Regina. So welcome to the RGC Roo. I see you blogged again, maybe I need to re-add you to my blog-roll.

Mom and Dad made it sound like they might come up and give us a little hand around the house, then not, so I just ended up doing work myself. "Why it pays not to get your hopes up".

Linger got together today (minus Duck). CD RELEASE IS BOOKED AND SET FOR MAY 2ND!!! We're playing the Multipurpose room at the U of R. So be there or be square! We're doing a big set-list and it might be the last show that Duck can play with us due to some other responsibilities, so come check it out. It could be the last time Linger performs as Linger.

Had a family crisis TWICE yesterday, starting with Bootsy going AWOL, and ending with Rhonda in the hospital again with contractions/cramps. All ended up ok, Bootsy is back home and Rhonda/Baby are fine so no worries.

But on that subject, I'm off to do... whatever.

Wow two blog posts in one day...

... that hasn't happened since I bet aught-six (dag nabit).

Tonight's topic : Women (dag nabit)

Fuck you

Ok you ladies think you got it so hard? You got it EASY ladies. I mean PURSES? How can you NOT be leaders of the world? If men weren't socially shunned for carrying purses we would have conquered Mars by now.

Oh sure metrosexuals have them. Ever see a metrosexual with a bad job? Exactly.

In this day and age of cellphones and iPods and large plastic car keys and wallets and digital cameras and GPS's and perscription eyewear and lighters and bill sizes as coins and.... so on... one is struggling to survive under this weight straining pockets made smaller and smaller by tightwad box stores who prey on your class because they know your style and your budget. Even with the introduction of the Cargo pant, typically the least used items end up in your knee level pocket and those are usually heavy things like digital cameras and that's a pain in the ass itself. Winter offers some solstace, large winter parkas offer endless pockets inside and out to hide treasures in. But here comes summer. Here comes my backpack.

Yeah you don't win them all ladies. I know. I know. But look I tell you what, I'll give you some advice (and compliment you too). You ladies should be running this world. You really should. You're organized enough, you're kind enough and you're just enough to make this world work right. People would not suffer as they do, and we would stop hurting and killing each other and our planet. I'm sure. So waddya say ladies? Ready to take the leap?

Friends, Romans, Countrymen ... Lend me your beer...

... and I'll return it. As urine.

Today's blog brought to you by : PROCRASTINATION! Try it today! Or tommorrow... or whatever.

I'm supposed to be working on the Maent Records entry in the second round of the Progress 2 Capital competition sponsored by the Regina Regional Economic Development Association. It's not like its a terribly hard job, but it IS hard and I DON'T like doing it. We have a potential artist signing that I should be concentrating on, but I gotta get this thing going because the grand prize is like 10G's in cash. CHA CHING!

Anyhoo... I guess that's enough of that. If I don't get to work now, I won't get it done in time, then I'll be up shit creek with my partners... and one of them controls how much poonanny I get or don't get.... so high ho- high ho- it's off to work I go.

Well the morning was nice...

...weather wise that is.

Updated the ol' blogroll on the right there. If I'm missing anyone who wants to be listed, let me know. Had lots of links to dead blogs. Or at least on life support.

Getting a little nervous about this meeting tonight. I've never met Ariel face to face, so I'm hoping she's open to us. I've studied up though, and made my gameplan. Now just to prep Rhonda and Scott and then knock e'm dead! If you're in Regina on Friday night go check her out at the Club (Exchange) or in Weyburn on Saturday night at Pump Jacks. She's got her CD release at the Club on April 26th, please make an effort to check her out that night as she's shooting for a sell-out as a good piece of promotion. http://www.myspace.com/arielmura


Should hopefully be able to announce the Linger CD release party this week. We're planning it for the Multipurpose Room at the U of R, the caveat right now is that it might need to be on a weeknight. As long as it happens before the baby, I'm a-ok. Ideally, we should probably just wait until summer but we've been promising this thing for basically a year, so no further delay should be allowed. I'm hoping to have time to get the webpage together. It's kinda hard to motivate, the page will have basically what the MySpace page has, with just more organized graphics - the content will be nearly identical.

Newest Addiction - Wikimapia

Oh Blah Di Oh Blah Da Life Goes On... oh!

Did the turkey thing last night at the mother-in-laws. Did something else there last night, but that's Rhonda's news to share, so I'll let y'all check it out on her blog (she hasn't got anything there yet, but I can assure you she will... and yes, she is going mad, but she looks good doing it).

Met with a representative for an artist we're trying to get on the label. I'm very excited, we're booked to meet with her on Monday, and I hope we can all come to an agreement together on what we should do. She's got a great voice, pretty and a hard worker. I think we have a winner, now I hope she thinks she has a winner in us.

Tai mysteriously found a bunch of candy kicking around the house this morning. Very weird how it just shows up like that. If anyone else has heard of such a thinig, let me know, I'm wondering if I should call the police.

Blogging?

You know what I kinda miss? Blogging. I mean it got to be a pain in the ass there because I found myself so restricted in what I could say or show or do. And I suppose I still do, its why I rarely post anymore. I over examine everything that I want to say and if I think that I can't perfectly defend it or that it'll receive too much backlash, I just don't worry about it.

But there are a lot of great things happening around here that I want everyone to know about. Things I want to share because they're MY news. Rhonda and I are having a baby... a baby. We even know it's gender and I want to scream it from the rooftops, but MOM doesn't want to know so SO ONE can know. Frankly, bullshit. We're having a beautiful little girl. And I cannot flipping WAIT to see her. I've been to ultrasounds in the past.. cool but no real connection. Felt it kick a bunch and watched my wife balloon. Nothin. But damn it finding out it's a little girl... NOW THAT'S MY BABY! The passing of the Midwifery Act unfortunately means our home birth has turned to a hospital birth.

The pregnancy has been hard. Rhonda is very sick and really hurt and beyond taking on as much of the housecare as I can handle, there's little I can do about it. Things get tense sometimes, we've gone through a lot of change over the past year, and I think we're still learning how to BE with each other. I know it's worth it and I know it'll be all right, but you know, just hard sometimes.

Also made a poorly timed decision to start a record label. I know, I know, why in the hell would you want to follow up getting married, buying a house, getting pregnant, oh yeah and taking on a kickass stepchild with starting your own COMPANY? In the MUSIC INDUSTRY no less?!?! Because I'm a sucker for punishment. And frankly, its an attainable dream too. I've spent the past 6 years working shitty jobs and having a generally bad time of things trying to figure out what I should make my lifes work. I knew a family was in there, but there was something else there, something entrepreneurial, creative, media related and I always wanted to involve music and the internet. One of the benefits of the kind of work I do in Facilites Management (fancy eh? that's skilled janitor to the rest of y'all) is you have a lot of head time. You can just put on some music and just THINK about stuff. Try it sometime. Through this process I arrived at record label about two years ago while working at the pool. And I kept thinking, formulating, thinking, formulating and just researching this and that and getting it together. Around Christmas time this year it started getting big again, and I started putting things on paper. That was the catalyst. Rhonda, Scott and I incorporated last week, we've got our first major project in preliminary stages and we've begun building a shockingly large and widespread network from places as far as Bristol England (hi Mark), Las Angeles USA, Cleveland OH, Montreal PQ and all over Saskatchewan, not bad! Check it all out so far at maentrecords.ca or swing your cell phone to maentrecords.mobi.

Bought a car... a Honda Fit. It rules. Speedy little blue demon with like 546 Miles to the gallon. Hatchback is cool and this little compact will fit all of Lingers guitars and three amps. And still have room for driver and one passenger.

The dogs are kickin ass as per usual. Bootsy is more neurotic than ever, but she's kind and loving. Shadow like to think he's a prick, but he's a pansy.

Tai is doing pretty damn good in school for a girl that missed half of a semester of French emersion. She has trouble following the rules at school and still needs to be walked through the steps of getting up and going to school by her mom and stepdad everyday, but at least she's cheery about it. We built a family of snowmen together, complete with baby and dreadlocked mom. I've amassed a collection of over 45 paintings from the Tai-Lin collection. They'll buy me a yacht someday... or decorate my office forever.

With baby coming and Rhonda soon off work, we're coming up on some tight times financially. We may have to change how we do things and that transition is becoming hard already, but I know we can make it through this spell, some of our dreams... our vacations and our record labels... might have to go on hold for a couple years. Too bad, so sad.... no one said life would be easy.

Work sucks, but that's ok, it pays me well, and I'm starting to get used to having the extra cash around. I'm actually starting to see surpluses from cheque to cheque, which is reassuring with the coming of the baby. I have a feeling that if I could spend some time concentrating on getting our finances lined up (and a financial advisor that was more interested in our well being than leading us on and fucking us over so he can buy a new car) that we might be able to get through this nicely. I'm starting to see why we had so little sometimes when I was a kid. I cannot imagine affording 4 kids in todays economy, let alone 4... or the 7 kids of my grandparents. But they made it through, I just have to follow their lead. Right?

And finally, the house. While initial response to owning a house is "Oh shit, we fucked up," after the knee jerk reaction, I'm starting to see its benefits and really enjoy living here. Our mortgage payment is a little less than we were paying in the house before and since rent rates have spiked in Regina of late, its not unreasonable to think that rate would have gone up, so we're in a pretty secure payment place right now. That's reassuring. And I'm starting to get used to the fact that I OWN the house so I can DO anything to it I want. Like if I wanted to paint racing striped on it, I could, and the only thing that would happen is my wife would institutionalize me, which would happen if I lived anywhere. I am nervous about something going wrong. I mean we are insured so like all that stuff is cool, but if we blow a water heater or the furnace... well I have savings now, but everyone seems to have bookmarked it... including me, and that could lead to a bad situation (I don't think my parents are in the lending business to me anymore). I am hoping to plan a big work-bee/cleaning-bee and try to enlist some help for a weekend, have a big garage sale, then just lie low for a while... no major renos, no changes, juat ride out the next couple years. Batten down the hatches and ride out the storm. It is gonna be a pain in the arse, and I think I'm gonna piss off some friends, a few family, but in 2010 while Canada is trying to explain why our emissions are like 700% of what we said they would be, I should be ready to look at the rest of the picture.

Here's hoping. Maybe I should start blogging again......

I'm a Drunkard!

91%DRUNKARD

Man how would I ever find out these things without the internet?

Home Birth

This should alleviate the concerns many people I know have had about Rhonda and I having a home birth...

FIGHT DCMA

Hey all, sorry for not too many posts. Been working on about 80 musical projects, including two that I'll be announcing in about 3 weeks. The reason I post today is that the Government of Canada is looking to pass a very restrictive DCMA copyright law. In essence this law will protect the bloated, stubborn major labels while seriously harming almost all aspects of classical and independent music scenes... among others.

From Boing Boing :

Copyfighting law prof Michael Geist takes apart a Microsoft editorial that claims that the Canada has no copyright law even after it received the largest award for copyright infringement in Canadian history. Meanwhile, the Canadian Recording Industry Association has been caught lobbying the Canada's Ambassador to the United States in an effort to convince the U.S. government to increase the pressure for a Canadian DMCA. If that weren't bad enough, Prentice is about to overrule the Canadian Foreign Minister who wants to have a debate on the WIPO copyright treaties before the Canadian DMCA is introduced just like the Conservative government promised in the last election.

Ready to fight back for your digital rights before it's too late? Check out the list of Copyright MPs who are particularly vulnerable on copyright, join the Facebook group, attend a talk this week in Calgary with Prentice, and write to your Member of Parliament and Industry Minister Prentice.

If you have 2 or 3 minutes, I ask that you join the Facebook group or write the letter (you just fill in a form and it sends a letter for you.). This fight is very important and will affect the way Canadians use music, and may damage many of the musical projects I'm currently working on.

See you in a couple weeks!

I'd like mine stir fried with peppers, onions, mushrooms and almonds

48%

EMO Regina

Merry Christmas

From all my crew to all of you, MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

People, we need to stop the Tar Sands.

I've long been follwing with an ear about the Tar Sands in Alberta. Basically, for the past while there have been alot of stats showing that the Tar Sands are an environmental disaster. CO2 emissions are rampant and land reclamation has been questionable.

The CBC is currently showing a peice on the news (Catch it again on newsworld at 11:30!) The land cannot be reclaimed, the water is heavily poisoned. Basically it will leave these massive dead lakes full of poisoned water. That water has already been seeping into the water system, poisoning fish, plants and people. Local fishermen have been finding mutated fish, fish with sores and fish with moss growing on them. Scientists have confirmed these finds and say the cases are rampant in some non-oilsands areas. A nearby reserve has a highly disproportionate rate of cancer, and cancer deaths, linked to a certain type of cancer.

THIS IS BULLSHIT PEOPLE! Holy crap, let's talk about the poor getting the shaft while the rich get rich! What are we the fucking 3rd world?! Why are we not civilized enough yet to stop this behaviour?

Take action. Take it now.

Walk - Bike - Take Public Transportation

The City of Regina has made a very wise and hopefully, just beginner move to change some attitudes about alternative transportation.

The first great example is the creation of bike lanes in some of the downtown areas. People have complained about the inconvenience and confusion associated with the lanes. I applaud this. The City has made it harder to drive and made it a far more bicycle friendly downtown. More people will use their bikes instead of cars. Traffic lowers, bikes become more easy, it can just spiral. I encourage everyone to use this as much as possible. Even if you live some distance from the downtown, try the area north of Victoria on your bike at least once this coming summer. No matter where in REgina you live.

Public Transportation. AHHH! I LOVE IT. SIck isn't it? But Regina has a REALLY good bus system from where I live. And I'm learning that it was far more flexible than I thought. And now they have an online trip-maker... you'd be RETARDED not to take the bus at least once a week, but preferrably 5 days a week. Start by going to the mall a couple times, have a nice day, eat a nice meal, take the bus home... and I swear you will feel better about yourself. It's like having a chauffeur, you can just relax and wait for your stop. If you live in another city... give it a try! It's wonderful and you're doing a HUGE amount to cut your footprint on the world and effect on the Tar-Sands.

Small centers, CARPOOL. You will be more prepared for work and will enjoy a better day.

I realize some of your experiences won't be good, and I apologize for that. One of my inspirations for exploring alternative transport came from watching my friend Mark and some of his experiences in Europe. I invite Mark to ride the bus with me when he comes back to Canada, so I can brag about something that's done really well in this province.


And since most of the tar sands oil goes south of the border, please visit http://www.tarsandstimeout.ca/ and participate as much as you can or will.

Yeah Right

Mark showed me this vid this summer, and for some reason I kept quoting it tonight at work. So I figured I'd like to share it with you all... enjoy. Oh it's a bit weird.

(null)

Hello world. I am blogging from my cell phone!

Pilot's World

A self-portrait... I title it Pilot's Wold...

wiitacular!¡!¡!¡?

Ok. So I just got the internet channel on my Wii, and I must say that it is a helluva lother easier than crappy Max Tv internet. I'm finding blogging quite acceptable. Alas, I still can't seem to blog. from my cell phone.

A great feature is the auto complete feature, similar to the T9word feature on texting.

Very exciting, now I don't need to use a computer at all anymore,

Oh my sweet precious darling.

I am a man of many loves. I love many things dearly. My wife, my dog, my stepdaughter... the works. One of my great loves is my little Fender Jazz bass.

It's really one of the most beautiful instruments I've ever played, and I rabidly love playing it. When I'm not playing it, I'm thinking about playing it. I think about is as much as sex. I don't need to send you to the Kinsey institute to tell you what that means. It means not being able to pick up my bass for sometimes weeks at a time can be like a massive case of musician blue balls.

Well tonight, my music mojo is getting her fix.

Yessiree, the only reason I'm typing this is that I need a little break to sit down.

Oh Web 2.0, are you killing us all?

I'm an avid reader of a trio of webcomics by married couple Natalie Dee and Drew. In fact Rhonda and I recently bought a pair of T-Shirts each from them to help support the kickass work they do.

I think one of the most attractive parts of their webcomics is that they are almost the exact age as us and have simmilar interests and social identities, loving music, counter culture, humour, the internet and being stuck in urban centers in rural areas.

I've found that they also have both been showing alot of frustration with the internet of late, and I can't help but identify with them a little. It's this double edged sword. It stems from a real love and appreciation for the internet and what it's become, and a real hate and loathing of the internet and what it's become.

Since the internet's growth has taken a steeper and steeper upward curve every year, my usage and interest has waned in an opposite fashion. My days of being able to spend 8 hours online are long over. There's just too much crap to sift through to find the good stuff, so I end up just sticking to a small handful of tried and true sites and fuck the rest. This is why newer internet fads like Facebook, MySpace, Flickr and lately my blogging have fallen to the wayside. I've been finding that quite frankly, real life is a hell of alot more interesting, and I'm getting alot more done because of it.

The ability of any Tom, Dick or Harry to post shit online is not necessarily a good thing in my eyes.

More Pictures of my Baby! - Tool in Saskatoon

My lovely wifey has posted some new "4d" pictures of our baby on her blog. I'm told the 4th dimension scanned is the "Awesome" dimension, and our child is off the charts.

If you would like to view the pictures, please feel free to visit Rhonda's blog at
http://knottyrhonda.blogspot.com/2007/11/baby-pics.html

Got back from seeing Tool in Saskatoon last night. The show actually got a mention on the Tool webpage, which is really awesome. I now wish I'd gotten a poster instead of the T-Shirt, but I like the T-shirt all the same. The show was good, but they were better in Calgary, I blame the sound man.

And I'm still reeling from the Grey Cup win, Saskatchewan sure as shit deserved it.

WE DID IT!!!!

Well we just got back from the mob celebrating at Vic and Albert here in Regina. I've got a pile of videos from the celebration, but this one is likely one of the best.

RIDERS ARE GREY CUP CHAMPIONS!!! WOOOO!!!!

GO ROUGHRIDERS!

Well to most of the people that would read my blog, you'd have to be living under a rock not to know that my beloved Sask Roughriders are in the Grey Cup. I'm totally stoked for the game.

Also, contrary to a popular rumor currently circulating tabloids such as the Star and People, I am still totally fucking rad. That shit just gets better with age, I can fucking assure you.


GO RIDERS!

My Thoughts on Child-Birth

Well we've entered what I guess is the 9th week of the pregnancy, just above 7 months left until we welcome the newest member of our little household. Sometimes it sinks in really hard, it did at the ultrasound. In fact the ultrasound was a really great day, and I've gotten very frustrated at my lack of ability to make it to the followup to come, because I'm obessed with seeing the kid. I can't wait to meet him/her.

I'll admit that I thought pregnancy would be alot less traumatic on the whole family. I'm a wreck of nerves and anxiety. I link lot of it to apprehension about Rhonda's pregnancy-related illness, we've made one late night trip to the emergency room already, and tonight she's mentioned visiting again, which leads me to beleive that I'll likely be visiting her again tommorrow night or later. The nursing types take no chances on these things, and I can't argue with it because I'm glad she's taking care of her health. But I'm a little phobic around hospitals, and so even the smallest issue is blown up in my head.

So I worry about Rhonda and the baby. I also worry alot about Tai. She's got this world of potential. Smart, rabidly artistic and pretty to boot, she's poised to take over the world if she wants to, and the way she dreams to live, she's gonna need to be a conqueror. But we find difficulty with her and school, our work schedules have made it hard to get her in extra-curricular and I think she's suffering a bit socially and personally.

I know that a large part of it is to stop worrying and take some control of the situation, and in some respects I try to, but in others I wonder at my place and ability.


In other words, don't marry fast and get pregnant fast. You can understand someone if you talk long enough, we just needed to talk more first. Marriage is good, pregnancy is hard damn work... especially if you're the one carrying the little munchkin.

Happy Halloween!

Happy H-Day y'all! No big plans here, pass out some candy, and sit around paying some bills. Almost 5 now, no sign of kids yet.

Listening to Kleinbottle.

The World's Top Methane Emitters

1 - China
2 - United States of America
3 - Brazil
4 - My Stepdaughters ass
5 - Canada
6 - Russia
7 - Japan
8 - India
9 - United Kingdom
10 - Vatican City

My Baby's first pix

What a handsome baby, don't you think?

I'm gonna be a daddy!

And he's gonna be the most kickass scuba diving, locksmith, extreme sporting, rock-star with doctorates in medicine, philosophy, curing cancer and kicking ass.

If it's a girl, I'm sure she'll make a good subservient wife and mother.

Yup,

I'm still awesome.

Last Day at Science Center

Had the last day at the Science Center today. Guess that's about it for now.

It Ain't Gout!

Went to see the doctor again yesterday and my blood/urine tests came out clean. It isn't gout. What it is, no one knows. He thinks it might be a sprain or "pseudo-gout" an ailment very similar to gout, but a buildup of a different chemical. Either way, I'm still on meds and still sore.

Yesterday I tested, interviewed, was offered and accepted a job with SGI. I am now an "SGIer". The company sounds fantastic, and everyone I came into contact with was just the bees knees. I'm really looking forward to shedding the Science Center and starting something that finally resembles are real career.

Thanks to my injury, moving has been painfully slow. Some of my family have agreed to come give us a hand this weekend, which is much appreciated. Hopefully I can talk dad into giving me a hand with leveling the house a bit too. Good times are a brewin'!

Other than that, marriage has treated me well, but probably not Rhonda so well (she spent her first days as a wife moving and nursing an injured husband), but I think things are going exceedingly well and I'm looking forward to the rest of the adventure.

Hoppily Married

The wedding was perfect this weekend. A beautiful, sincere and heartfelt ceremony and a fun and enjoyable social/reception/party made it all I could ask for in a wedding. You can tell you're making the right choice marrying someone when the crowd starts banging and you have no trouble giving your special lady a big smooch. Frankly i could have spent the day making out with Rhonda.

I woke up Sunday morning with a very sore ankle and found out Monday morn that I was the proud recipient of gout. Bastard. So crutches, pain killers and excrutiating pain attacks have been my menu. Bastard. Oh well... what can you do?

Well, Tommorrow's the big day...

... and I'm just taking the last breath of air before taking the dive.

Today was certainly long. We started by taking Tai to school, one of the few normal moments we've had today. Went for breakfast with Rhonda and Debbie. Then went out with Bootsy and dr0pped off some recycling (that trip is the subject of a post sometime after the wedding I can assure you).

About noon I was called and informed that we could go get the keys to our house at 1...and we did. Checked it out... acted like a little kid at Christmas for a couple hours and showed off to the family. Then projector and PA rental, setups, rehearsals, suppers, setups and now home at 10, to work on the playlists for the dance and watch the Hour.

Soon I will go to bed and awake single for the last time...

21 Things You Didn't Know You Could Recycle

Well I knew about most of these, but there were a few suprises. Gonna check a few out... and many of these are availiable in Canada (the Lions club does quite a number with glasses).

Link

Nervous Ball of Nerves

I gotta say, I'm becoming an emotional wreck this week.

The wedding 8 days away is naturally a cause for some jitters. Less the commitment part, I've been pretty confident and sure about that bit for a few months now. It's the wedding day itself. It's been one controversy after another with this thing, on both sides of our family, and I can't help but think it might come to a head next week. It's a shame, because Rhonda and I are having this whole thing for the benefit of our friends and family, we'd be married and moved on by now. And plus, my family loves to poke fun and I'm just too strung out to deal with it all right now... I know they'll toilet paper my new house or something and I'll spend half the day cleaning up their prank when I could be moving or painting the house... but I suppose when you're one of the most accomplished pranksters in the county, you gotta expect some payback sometime.

My job search is not going anywhere, much to my chagrin. I've applied to dozens of jobs and haven't seen so much as an interview. I have a few resumes to hand deliver this weekend, hopefully something comes to fruition, because I've only got about 2-1/2 weeks of living saved up.

Then there's the move. While it will be a relief once it's done, there's still a myriad of things to do from address changes to utility moves to the physical act of moving. Note to others, don't get married, buy a house and change jobs at the same time... it's a wonder I haven't had a breakdown yet.

A big shout out..

... to my homeboys who put on the best bachelor party a guy could ask for on Friday. From the police visit to karaoke, it could not have been a more entertaining night.

Love ya guys!

Still Number One

And now we know how to beat Winnipeg next weekend. This should be a good season!

GO ROUGHRIDERS!!!

Yikes

Well tonight is the night.

What do my brother and friends have planned for me? I don't know.

Stay tuned to the internet for pictures of me passed out with marker on my face or someones ass in my face or something.


Shoulda eloped.

You ever see those commercials...

on TV where this young couple is say scratching their head or like starting a family and then they go to the bank/talk to some suit then the next thing is them putting the "SOLD" sign on top of the Century 21 sign out front.

I shit you not, that shit happened to me today. Well ok, not exactly like that. But Rhonda and I made an offer on a house and got it today. So now, barring some catastrophic failure of the system (knock on wood) we will be the proud owners of a pink house.



I'm totally stoked! Oh and Shanna, you're the only person who couldn't see the link... thus I am again forced to conclude that you don't know how to use the internets.

Things people need to consider when they design/build things...

I've worked in maintenance for almost 2 years now and already I'm seeing some major flaws in the way people design and build things. Most of them are simple common sense things, but here's some reviews,

- If you are using cables in your design, assume that they will break. Design so that the cables are easily replaced and won't hurt anyone when they do.
- Tamper resistant screws do nothing but piss people off. Tamper resistant Torx & Phillips, Triangle head, 3 pin head, spanner, tri-wing and all the rest can go fuck themselves. The only acceptable bits are normal Phillips, Robertson, Torx, Blade and Allen(hex). Oh and posidrive can eat a dick too.
- Remember someone will need to clean your project someday. This is especially important to realize in places like kitchens, hospitals, recreation facilities and schools... places where sanitation is important.
- Every door should be openable, even from locked with just one hand... less if possible.
- Some people are right handed, some are left, deal with it.
- There is no reason anything should be built low enough to hurt someone shorter than say 7 feet... more if it's say a basketball court, gym or Big n' Tall store.
- Lightbulbs burn out, someone has to change them, make that easy for them.


There will be more to come, but dammit I hafta get back to work. Just rememeber this : Things break, someone has to fix it, don't make their life hell... or worse dangerous.

NUMBER ONE IN THE LEAGUE!!!!

WOOOOOO!

Oh man, what a rain delay. Had to take the following pic of Bootsy, she likes football, she doesn't like lightning... he he.

So we're number one, we're number one, we're number one.

Thank you.

My News Roommates

A pleco and a handfull each of Glowlight Tetra, Neon Tetra and Black Tetra. Natural plants.

Week 2

I'm just so HAPPY

Looks like I'm gonna be a homeowner

So we got approval on a home mortgage this week. At $120,000 it ain't gonna get us much in the Regina area unless we want to move to a less savoury area of town. I'm half excited about the idea and half upset. I'd like to continue living in the Cathedral area, there's nice people and good atmosphere, but if we decide to move into say the Washington Park area, we can be part of a young crowd who could potentially revitalize and improve the area. Plus we can get a bigger house for cheaper. It's all so confusing. But I am pretty excited about getting my own place.

Yup, still here

Just really busy, it's been that kind of week... or two. Stuff is good, gonna maybe go buy/finance a small multitrack this week.

That's all folks.

New Project and off to Camping

So I got to sit down with Dave last night and begin work on a new band we've been discussing doing. It's an interesting approach because we've got lots of ideas, want to avoid setting guidelines and boundaries. It's like a big lump of clay right now, it could be ANYTHING, but last night we started moulding it a bit. We discussed some of the projects we've done in the past, what we liked about them. We bounced a couple songs off each other that we'd been writing, teaching each other how to play and expanding on the ideas. We also discussed possible members and genres too. I think this will be an exciting and entertaining band, and I'm very anxious to get right into it, but patience may be key as both Dave and I need to get the Linger project finished, and there's really no rush for us to get going yet, we still need to find the rest of the band. I'm most pleased with the fact that I was able to bring in a couple songs that I didn't think I'd ever have a place for and slid them right in to what we're doing.

After work today, I'll be rushing home to finish packing then hitting the road for Manitou Beach for a couple nights of camping and relaxing. Got the first night all to myself, then tommorrow afternoon, Rhonda will be joining me for the remainder of my days off. I'm really looking forward to it.

Other than that, work work work. There's a big dark rain storm on right now in Regina, the Science Center looks really cool when it's dark outside.

Air Filtering House Plants

I've had a small but determined interest in horticulture for the past few years. I've been trying to grow the odd houseplant, succeding for a time, then failing due to circumstance, then succeding again.

One of the most successful to date has been my spider plant. It's gone from low-light and no water to too much light and too much water and it's just grown like nobodies business all along. It's no wonder it's my most accomplished plants (I was using success too much...), it's an incredibly hearty plant... thank God it's not a weed here.

While doing some research about this lil gem that sits in my window brightening my living room, I learned that it's an excellent air cleaner, absorbing all sorts of toxens.. recommended by NASA... pretty cool. So I caught this list of air cleansing house plants. Pretty cool, think I'm gonna get my hands on some and do some house growing. A similar list of large trees would be nice too, people could figure out what kind of trees to plant if they wanna be all "Green" and shit,

Anybody want a cutting, I'm willing to trade for anything on the list (or I'd just give you a cutting if you asked nice.

I'm dissappointed that my garden didn't come to fruition this year, the move ended a few of my plans for the year and the act killed a few plants I had going. But I got some seeds saved, all is not lost. I think I might learn to do something that needs a lamp or something to start. I have a bannana plant and a cashew nut tree, those could be interesting. And I just re-planted an herb garden. And I did a planter of chives, just to drive Rhonda mad with the smell. So all is not lost.

Oh Science Science Science

Beakman's World
Bill Nye The Science Guy
Mr. Wizard
Wonderstruck
Popular mechanics for Kids

and just as a bonus, completely un-sciencey, but I know you're all going "Oh wow, I forgot about that one!" Here's another one to blow your mind
Picture Pages

Sad Loss... thank God it's temporary

So I started laquering a project at work yesterday, something I'll be doing for about the next week and a half. Unfortunately I learned that my air-fileter mask doesn't seal properly thanks to the old beard. So last night I had to take the big plunge and shaved the ol' girl off. So I'm now as bare-faced as grade 5. I look like a dork... I want my beard back. So thankfully the project will only last a little while, then I can return to my normal awesome self.

Impressions and that damn environment again...

So got into a discussion this weekend about people who do impressions of people that are spot-on duplicates of the original person... with some embellishment for humor. Scott Thompson as QE2 floats to the top as one of the best. But I forgot an old favourite, this gem from a Gap commercial back 'round the turn of the century...



Also, been spending a lot of my time in the past few weeks working on ideas to lessen my "carbon footprint". I did a few jobs I've been delaying on, such as updating the house lighting to compact fluorescents, starting another person on a vermicompost, planted a couple trees, biking to work everyday (even when I don't want to), planting some other plants and getting the recycling together. Also have been trying to spend less time indoors using energy and more time outdoors enjoying free entertainment. Among some of my initiatives I'm personally trying (and dragging the family along with me) are the following ;
- Buying a small solar charged battery system for use in house and while out camping.
- Completing the upgrade of the lighting in the house, including switching over to CFL's about 4-5 more sockets and putting in more localized light like lamps so less power need be used.
- Xeriscape the yard (probably for next year, just waiting to see whether we can buy our house
- Seal windows and doors
- and reduce meat consumption by 25% in the next year.
- Purchasing as much environmentally friendly products as possible, the President's Choice line is a great place to start.

None of this is going to be very hard, and I hope that it will all help make a difference. I know I've asked this before in the past, but hey I'm still looking for ideas. Anyone else make any major changes since Live Earth? If not, why not try now, let me know what you're up to!

Not too much to report

Went camping with Rhonda, Tai, Mark and Rhonda's friend Curtis this weekend at Buffalo Pound. Swam, drank, smoked and just generally relaxed for 24 hours. Can't say I complain.

Going up to Manitou Beach (if my reservation goes through) this weekend, so that should be a really good time.

Just surfing the web right now, how about a collection of links of what I'm looking at...
Shanna Travel Log
PowerPack- Solar Powered

Good News, Bad News and otherwise

Very good news... Shadow was returned this afternoon. He was found many blocks away, on a leash that was not one of ours. Suspicious to be sure. We're just glad he's home.

Went and joined the sea of green at Taylor Field today. While it was a dissappointing loss, the game had a definite highlight when the guy who was sitting next to me streaked naked across the field after being kicked out of the game. Kudos to you guy, plead not guilty! I feel bad for encouraging him... but only a bit.

Also have had unsubtantiated reports that a musician I studied under in junior high and a mentor of my sisters, Mr. John Griffiths has passed. He will be missed by the music community.

MISSING

In a sad turn of events that makes myself and my fiancee look like bad dog owners, our young puppy, Shadow is missing. I put him out in the yard on a leash this morning on the way to work and he went missing sometime between then and when Rhonda went to let him in. His leash and lead are still in the yard, so he should be wearing his collar.

He's a small (say 10-15lbs) black Shi-Tzu/Poodle mix. He's all black with a white left paw as a distinguishing mark. He's friendly, but still very puppy like, so he may bite a bit and try to play. He is wearing a blue collar with a multicoloured celtic design on it. Rhonda is offering a $300 reward for his return. If anyone has any information, please contact me, my e-mail is jeremy.pilon@gmail.com.

Gimme an Inch...

...and I'll take a meffin' mile.

Took in my recycling yesterday. Now I'm all for the green stuff, hey it's probably one of the few subjects I speak about regularily on this blog, but someone has to do something about recycling.

Here in Regina I have a couple options;
1 - Put it all in one bag and toss it in the dumpster out back. Pros - Freaking easy and cheap - Cons - Completely environmentally irresponsible.
2 - Store, sort and return to various depots - Pros - Cheap and reponsible Cons - Inconvenient and you have to drive all over the goddamn galaxy to return stuff
3 - Hire a service to pick up your recycling - Pros - Convenient and less sorting - Cons - Costly

I'm currently using number 2 and I think with a little initiative and some effort, that process could be alot easier. I went to the SARCAN location on Dewdney to return my bottles. Now it was pouring rain, I was treated rudely by the staff (one in particular could not stop chastizing me for returning my bottles there and not across the street at the bottle depot where I could fetch 6 cents more a bottle... I was willing to pay for the convenience of not going out in the rain again, but she didn't seem to understand that.) ANYWAYS, they have a huge empty lot out back. If there was some brain power being used there, they would have paper, metal, glass, clothing and any other locally availiable recycling availiable right there, drive in and drop off. Hell add bins in the building for batteries and printer cartriges.

Besically what I'm saying is that all of this stuff that's being recycled are RESOURCES. They can be reprocessed into new things, avoiding processing and mining/harvesting. THIS IS A VALUABLE THING, and yet, no one seems to make it convenient for people to deposit it. It seems like an easy money scheme to me, people are willing to give you resources for free, you make it easy and cost effective for them to do so, and you profit. SARCAN has managed to make some success of it with their tin can, bottle, and paint recycling programs, just add paper, tin, glass and clothing to the mix. Or enter partnerships with other companies/charities. It makes economic and moral sense.

I also think that cities should be taking greater initiative for composting. For what would be a very reasonable investment, cities could install compost heaps in all city parks which could be used by the people in the area as well as city crews to deposit food and yard scraps for compost. Processed compost could be used by the city instead of fertilizers or could be sold or given away to the general public. Recycling bins for pop containers and paper should be more readily availiable in public places, particularily those with high traffic (Downtown areas, stadiums, brothels).

Anyways, enough of my rants, it just seems that we have a problem and all I see is people asking for solutions, well there's one.

Oh and if anyone needs a Queen sized mattress and box spring we have one for sale $20 as is.

The single greatest moment in rock history

Ladies and gentlemen - Spinal Tap performing "Big Bottoms" at Live Earth.. with an ARMY of bass players.

What a 24 hour period

Went to Weyburn last night to visit with Rhonda and Tai to visit with my parents, grandparent and great aunt and uncle. While there, I got an unfortunate phone call from an old friend who is incarcerated. It's sad and I suppose disturbing to talk to an old friend who has struggled all his life and is in prison. I'm not saying he shouldn't be there, but the justice system really takes on a personal tinge when it's your highschool weight-lifting partner who always had time to help you rebuild a carbeuretor.

Went (late) to the Saskblogs meet and shared some worms and some conversation. I REALLY need to start reading blogs more, now that I'm back in the fold. For SaskBoy, Garbage Delight, everything you ever needed to know about keeping those worms alive and healthy

Riders are up 39-8... YEAH!! GO RIDERS GO!

Ok, so Metallica at Wembly. My major criticism of Live Earth so far is the crappy mixes that I've seen coming thorough. Has the age of the quality live mix ended? Kirk was just soloing his goddamned ass off in "Sad But True" and I could barely hear it.

I'm a little shocked by the unfettered use of foul language in the shows. I gues they're going for the shock value here, but if this were a film, they've dropped enough F bombs already to acquire an R rating.

Funny story, inspired by the whole Live Earth thing, I've been going around the back areas of the SSC and turning off lights where they aren't being used. Sanil (sp?) the building maintenance guy is about 20 minutes behind me turning them all back on again. He he, guess it'll come to a head soon enough... oh well. TURN OFF SOME LIGHTS!!!!!

Watching Live Earth again, this time on MSN. Pretty cool overall, still really impressed with the two bands I talked about last night, particularily Rize who's album I think I'll have to purchase soon.

Heh, just saw Will Ferrel change a lightbulb... I bet that guy is funny sitting on the can.

There was a really good speech done last night on the Australian show. I don't know his name, but he was talking about the benefits of biking, including the incredible comfort of Lycra. His best line was "When someone comes up to you and complains about the cost of gasoline in this country, tell them to FUCK OFF! The price of gasoline is HALF the price of bottled water, and untill the price of the damage done by burning fossil fuels is factored into the price of usage, we will not come any closer to solving this problem" Well put.

Just reading about the initiatives being used by the Live Earth committee and shows. Check e'm out. While I think they're great, I think it would be of incredible benefit if the commitee had worked on getting solar/wind powered stage shows in each venue. This would place in each continent on the planet a stage setup that generated it's own clean energy. The stage would likely save MEGAWATTS of energy during it's lifetime as it's used in live concerts throughout the year for years to come. Seems like a good idea to me.

Oh man, Ben Affleck was just picking garbage, kickass!

OK, more to come later! Just watching BEP in Wembly.

Dispatches From Live Earth

Hey all, the world-wide concert to promote the dangers and solutions to Global Warming, Live Earth is on right now. You all know the history, if not, check Wikipedia.


So I've checked out a few acts from both the Australian show in Sydney, and the Japan show in Tokyo. Both have had some kickass bands. Rize from Japan was absolutely wicked. Language was no barrier there. I didn't understand a word they said and they were still crazy, crazy charismatic and kickass tight. Great band, check e'm out sometime. they're back on now, they fucking ROCK my balls OFF!

The commecial skits by Rip Torn and Harry Shearer were great, both incredibly funny and incredibly poingant. Never was funny so sad.

Another incredible highlight was Ghostwriters on the Australian show, the definite highlight from the continent nation down under.

More as I can give e'm, work, sleep and a trip to Weyburn will hinder the progress, but life MUST CONTINUE OR THE TERRORISTS WILL WIN! Later y'all.

This could be an easy way to raise some cash...

$3390.00The Cadaver Calculator - Find out how much your body is worth

Mingle² - Online Dating

Had a late night last night, a "Cane Sugar" cola combined with a hidden beeping cellphone kept me up later than I wanted. Comine that with the fact that I brought the fiancee's pants to work instead of my own to change into after the bike to work, and you have what has been an exhausting morning.

We booked the hall for the wedding last night and sold our old futon on UsedRegina.com. A great site to buy and sell, the ad went up in the afternoon, the futon was gone by bedtime.

Well if Genesis and the Police can do it....

So can I.

I'm coming out of retirement. I miss the old blog, and frankly I think she misses me. It's either this or join Facebook, and that shit ain't happenin!

So what's new? WELL LET ME TELL YOU! Firstly, the big news and the one thing I've come out of retirement to tell you all about firstly, is I got engaged a couple months ago! You will all likely remember Rhonda of Rescue Regina, well we've set the date for September 15, 2007 and we're working on presenting the whole thing on webcam, so Pilot's World might just have it's first online marriage!

Secondly, I've moved up to Regina in anticipation of said wedding. I've landed a pretty nice temporary position ot the Science Center in town, so I get to spend my days playing with and fixing all the exhibits on the floor. Maybe a blessing in disguise that it's only a temporary position... the administration is poor and you can only watch the same episode of Beakman's World so many times before you go insane. But I get to enjoy a bike ride to work most days and I get to sleep in to the wonderous hour of 7:00 now (so long 5:00 starts Weyburn Leisure Center).

Other than that? Adjusting to having a 7 year old in my life everyday brings joy and frustration, Bootsy is in good health. I'm still playing with Linger, and it looks like August might be busy for us. Looking to start another project musically, but I'm gonna leave that all in the dark till I know it's gonna happen.

So there you have it, I'm back and I'm full of piss and vinegar (I used to be just full of vinegar). Stay tooned...

UPDATE - FOUND!

I got a phone call this morning, and Bootsy is home safe and sound!


People of Regina. My dog Bootsy got out this afternoon, and I've been unable to track her down. She's somewhere in the Cathedral district of Regina.

She's a 3-4 year old Tri-coloured (white with Black and Brown spots) female beagle. She's very friendly towards people and loves food. If you have any information, e-mail me jeremy.pilon@gmail.com

Photo:

Pilot's World TV

So?

Well I dunno. Just never feel that much like blogging lately. I'm franlkly quite tired of people knowing about me, talking about me and saying things about me. Somehow it seems of late that everyone reads my blogs with relish and yet I find an extraordinary amount of backlash. I've backed down in some cases, stood my ground in others. No matter the outcome, I rarely feel I've won any battles and I've surely made even fewer points.

I'm retiring from Pilot's World ladies and gentlemen. I'm on MSN, I've got my music site coming up in the next month at http://www.jeremypilon.ca and those with my e-mail address and phone number have every opportunity to reach me and speak to me in person about what my life is up to. If my friend in England can keep up, well you get the idea.

It's been a great run guys, thanks for your support over the past couple years and I wish you all the best in the future.

This site will remain as a monument to these years of my life.

Pilot's World
November 2004-April 2007

January 9, 1996

Dear Jeremy,

You may not remember me, I am your past. The world may be ravaged by a past or ongoing war but I still hope your/my eyes see this.

My goals and hopes are high and plentiful and a few (due to my hormones), are erotic.

Life now is OK, a few stresses but that's crap from healh. School'¢ be out by now.

The past few days the "Blizzard of '96" is going on in the Eastern US. Quebec just lost the election to separate but you probably don't even know about Quebec being a province anymore.

Enclosed is a card from my band, Dulcet. I hope it is/was successful.

This is for my kids (if there are any) Love your dad, he's really a nice guy and be all you can be (Pepsi).

Sincerely

Jeremy Pilon

Rocket Man-arama!

YIKES! Kate Bush. Nothing like 80's pop-reggae.


NOW YOU CAN MAKE YOUR OWN!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cu3CSmAR8Sw&mode=related&search=

Sick Day

Was feeling like a big ball of shit at work today, so I took the latter part of the shift off. Naturally as soon as I get home, I get to feeling better. Maybe it's all the chemicals at work.

Anyways, might as well regale y'all with a story.

Went for a walk with my sister and her boyfriend yesterday to enjoy what aspects of Global Warming that we could. Lo and behold if on the trip we didn't come across a huge spill of oil on the street, draining into a storm sewer. I called my dad, the fire chief in town, to inquire who to call. He said "you would call me, I'll take care of it." and that was about that. Felt pretty good for taking some good environmental action and continued on my day.

So my dad calls me after work to chastise me. "Any idea how much paperwork you caused me?". Sounds like there's like 3 or 4 organizations involved with something like this and it poses a major risk to the Souris River which is considered a major, fish bearing water way. I thought it was pretty funny that I was the hippie and my dad ended up with the paperwork. Oh well, it's his fault for raising me with a moral responsibility to the planet.

Moral of the story : Dispose of oil properly and if you have a spill, clean it up or call the fire department for help.

Ok Linux Geeks - Help Needed

Ok, I love OSS... LOVE the shit. I currently run an XP system with 90% of my day to day software being OSS... I just love it.

But there is one Open Source dive I've never been able to fully take.. .the operating system itself. I've tried 3 or 4 times to use a Linux system (Mandriva and Red Hat mostly). It all goes fine as long as I'm using the packages that come with the distro, but then comes my brick wall : installing something new.

Here's my current conundrum. I've got Red Hat installed on this old PII laptop I got for $25. I want to install a program (package?) called Wired (link). Now I get as far as to unzip the tarball and all, but when I check out the install file it requires a dozen or so dependencies... and who knows how many dependencies they need... and so on. Is there an easier way to do this, because I could be all night here trying to install this one program, or is this just the nature of the beast?

People are regularly touting the wonder that is Linux to me, but this is a little peev I have with the OS that has kept me from switching over. If I could overcome this, I'd probably have switched over over a year ago.

Anyone got some good resources for me? Oh and go slow... pretend I'm your grandma, 'cause this stuff tends to get over my head.

Peice of the Earth MISSING!

OK so recent news headline is pretty cool. Apparently it has been discovered that a large part of the earth's crust is missing, exposing the massive mantle layer of the Earth. No one is really sure why this is, or what it means quite yet, but I think I know.

I think in time we will come to learn that aliens came to Earth and stole a piece of the planet to take back to their own planet for resources. This massive mineing of the planet caused a huge energy sink to be unleased which is warming the waters of the Atlantic, thus raising the mean temperature of the planet, THUS BEING THE REAL CAUSE OF GLOBAL WARMING!

These people just aren't thinking creatively enough.

I got my worms home today, so hopefully in a month first takers can have some worms to try at their house.

http://www.noc.soton.ac.uk/gg/classroom@sea/JC007/about.html

Friends of Science

Ok, first thanks for all the comments to my last post. Really made me realize
1) That people actually read this damn thing
2) The Environment is an important issue to the people of today, and I'm helping to record it's discussion with this blog. That's pretty fucking cool.

It was suggested in the comments of my last post that the alternate side of the problem be explored, specifically a group called "the Friends of Science".

First of all, the groups goal :

To encourage and assist the Canadian Federal Government to re-evaluate the Kyoto Protocol by engaging in a national public debate on the scientific merit of Kyoto and the Global Warming issue, and to educate the public through dissemination of relevant, balanced and objective technical information on this subject.

Friends of Science Webpage

There is a bias towards a certain outcome from the very beginning. Even if they're findings were to the contrary, the group must hide or change many of it's facts if it is to continue it's existence.

The scientists involved have not written peer reviewed work on the subject of global warming in decades, the company is anonymously funded by the oil industry, they get unusual favours in parliament, they have the media's undivided attention despite being the only group of their kind in Canada.... well....

just read all this.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Friends_of_Science

Then go do something really productive and visit:
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/



**** Note **** - This is an edited version of the original post wherein I call the person who made the comments to task about listing this page/subject. Now he's a close/longtime personal friend and maybe calling him out on my blog was a little much. That said, he had an uncensored opportunity to reply to my post not only in the comments of this blog (which are still posted wth my replies) but he also has such opportunity to reply on his blog. I was open enough to state an opinon about the environment in my last post, he was open enough to share a counter-opinion, by commenting his views. I replied in kind with a post because I felt that my opposition to his views were important enough to state in a general way. My method of wording the text was in response to the frustration I felt that someone I so respected personally and intellectually was taking what I felt was an uneducated and media driven view. I apologize to Dave if he felt attacked, but I did want to make a point that we need to get above these types of Spin-Doctors if we want to get beyond this problem.

Now everyone, go turn off a light/appliance in your house and recycle everything you can that's in your pockets/wallets and purses.

Have a nice day.

I never post anymore

Hey... I was gonna quit altogether, and I still might, so be happy with these once every two weeks till I get the itch again. I'm not doing this to please anyone.

Ok so shit I am.

Anyways, Rhonda went to see Dr. David Suzuki tonight (I had to be at work or I so would have tapped that!). Anyways, she texts me at 9:30 and says "I gave Dr. Suzuki your webpage". "Crap!" now I have to update!

So Dr. Suzuki, if you read this, welcome. Sorry the place is a little messy, wasn't expecting company. Can I get you something to drink? Perhaps a glass of filtered rainwater, or a glass of organcally grown, locally produced, hand crushed orange juice?

Anyhoo, so this, and Katherine's post on her blog has prompted me to give y'all another "save the planet" tree hugging bullshit post... so sit down and shut up for a sec ... Danny, I see you back there with that spitball, and I guarantee it will mean a week of detention if you throw it.

Now... where was I, Oh yes :

GLOBAL WARMING!!!! ... WHAT AM I DOING ABOUT IT?

Ok, so I'm working on posts and stuff for Rechargeable Future about greening my house and life and such, but until then, check this little list off, and see if you wanna participate.

1 - Vermicomposting - Soon. I bought the kit and such and have their new home all prepped and ready to go. I left the guys with Rhonda for a few weeks to "be fruitful and multiply" then I'm gonna split the colony in half and put half in my box and leave half at Rhonda's. I plan to keep on doing this (as well as the occasional worm swap to keep the genealogy viable), so if anyone is interested in some worms, let me know and I should hopefully have a family ready to depart in about a month and a half.

2 - Flourecent Lights - Got e'm. I buy them in bulk at CostCo or Wholesale. Not too bad that way, and cheaper in power and bulbs in the long run. Plus I'm generous and want to help the environment so I leave the bulbs when I move out of a place. So I'm slowly updating the lightsockets of our world.

3 - Recycle Recycle Recycle - Not just at home, but at work too. Started a paper recycle bin in our office and I'm constantly putting bottles in the bottle garbage (makes the lifeguards drinking money, which is nice, because today's youth are too smart and need to kill a few braincells. Basically less competition for the grand prize in the end). Look up recycling, there are alot of things out there you can recycle that you wouldn't think of - like - cars, batteries, printer cartridges, computers, cell phones, paint, paint cans, concrete.. and a tonne more. I make e'm recycle batteries at work... drives e'm mad.

4 - Walk - Now Andrew will tell you I don't do this enough. And dammit he's right. But I do try and make a point of walking to work as much as possible. With the warm weather, it's alot easier.

5 - Watch what electric appliances you leave on. Computers are the big one. I am a shameless downloader, so my PC is often on. But when not at the machine I make sure to shut off the monitor and speakers. As a backup, I also have the low power settings set on my computer to kick in after 5 minutes. Try and unplug things when you aren't using them, and unplug everything when you're on holidays (well you can leave the answering machine if you really need it). Power leakage is a huge source of CO2 emissions.

6 - Watch an Inconvenient Truth, Who Killed the Electric Car. Visit good environment webpages like Grist.com or ... whatever, there are a million out there and they all have something good to say. Read a book on the environment, I suggest "Greenhouse:The 200 Year Story of Global Warming" By Gale E Christianson... great book. Listen to some environmental music, how about "The Maples" by Rush. Eat an organically grown, locally produced, hand made vegitarian meal, it sounds like a tall order, but hey you just might like it.

7 - Grow Your Own/Buy Local - I have decided to grow a garden this year. I bought a bunch of seeds the past couple weeks, started some herbs for the summer, got some interesting fruits that will be fun to grow as well as help me eat local (got black tomatoes, purple, red, white and yellow carrots, the worlds hottest pepper, purple peppers). Still looking for seed for purple potatoes (or something else cool) and garlic. Tried to concentrate on food I could either eat right away, store for long periods or pawn off on someone else. Also gonna be checking out more farmers markets this year.

8 - Reuse - try to buy second hand where I can. Shop at Salvation Army or Value Village. Get stuff at garage sales (waiting for them to start again so I can get a kitchen table). I keep empty buckets from work for stuff.


So there's a start. Also want to start a tree planting street gang. Basically we'd just go around to places that we figure a tree should be and use stealth to plant the tree and try and propogate it's growth. Hardcore.

And the Winner of the Linger contest is.....

SARAH SNELLING!

Sarah is awarded the two free tickets to the show in Regina tommorrow, and will get a copy of the new Linger album, Root of Truth next month when it comes out.

This works well for me because she lives across the street from me.

It just never ceases to amaze me....

Just about 70 years ago, the United States of America commissioned, built and used a weapon of nearly ultimate power, the atomic bomb.

" On August 6, 1945, 8.15 am, the uranium atom bomb exploded 580 metres above the city of Hiroshima with a blinding flash, creating a giant fireball and sending surface temperatures to 4,000C. Fierce heat rays and radiation burst out in every direction, unleashing a high pressure shockwave, vaporising tens of thousands of people and animals, melting buildings and streetcars, reducing a 400-year-old city to dust."

The country commited a crime of unimaginable horror. Hundreds of thousands were killed. Innocent children and women. Workers, teachers, artists killed without justice or cause.

It just never ceases to amaze me that the nation was never brought to trial. Are we the citizens of the planet Earth so scared of this monster that we will not even rise up together and fucking DO SOMETHING about it. When Hitler killed untold thousands of Jewish, Black, Gay, Mentally Challenged and physically challenged people, the world responded. We stood up for our fellow man and kicked some ASS. Here the Americans are, murderers of likely in the range of a million innocent Japanese people, and we just sit back and go... SHIT that was a BIG mushroom cloud!

Please visit the following page and think about what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If I were to list all the names of all the people would stretch 10km.

http://fogonazos.blogspot.com/2007/02/hiroshima-pictures-they-didnt-want-us_05.html

Linger Show Poster and Details!

There we go... the first official Linger poster since before I met yo' momma! Still tonnes of time to enter the Linger contest. Just visit their MySpace at http://www.myspace.com/lingerbandcanada, and e-mail pilot@pilotsworld.ca your vitals and the names of the two songs featured on their playlist. It could net you a couple free tickets to this show and a free CD!

Magic 103.5 FM is the coolest radio station on the freaking planet.

OK FOLKS. So last week, I finally got my name entered into the draw for tickets to see the Tragically Hip in Regina. I'd been trying all month to get my name in, so was quite releived when I got in. To my shock, the next day, I would learn that I won the tickets to see the show!

So off the g/f and I ran to the Brandt Center to see the show. We ran into premier Lorne Calvert and his wife at the show. Rhonda had mentioned that she was a hardcore NDPer, little did I know that her family and the Calverts often popped each others back acne.

Anyhoo, the show was a SMASHING success and I'd like to share with everyone a video I took at the show



So once again, thanks to Magic 103.5 and especially the kickass staff at the morning show, GREG AND LAURA IN THE MORNING FOREVER!!!

Can You Name that Compilation?!!?

Ok folks, here's the thing. We're sitting here brainstorming trying to remember the name of an old compilation album from the mid-late 90's. We know for a FACT it had "Detachable Penis" by King Missle on it. We also believe the album to have on it "Say it Ain't So" by Weezer and "Hey Man, Nice Shot" by Filter.

The first person to e-mail me a correct answer to this question (and thus satisfy my aching brain) will recieve two tickets to the Linger album release party slated to happen in late March.

So get on it folks.

Submit answers to pilot@pilotsworld.ca. This is in ADDITION to the other contest. This is just for free tickets and it's to the album release, not the show on the 16th.

Best of Luck.

OH LINGER LINGER LINGER -- CONTEST!

OK FOLKS! I just got the call from the majors. The legendary (and endlessly sexy) Linger has asked me to join them in the capacity of bass player (live at least) and we are performing February 16, 2007 at the Exchange in Regina!

So in order to display how FREAKING STOKED I am about this whole development, I am having another kickass PILOT'S WORLD CONTEST!!! This contest is kickass easy to enter. All you have to do is head over to the Linger MySpace Page ( http://www.myspace.com/lingerbandcanada ), check out their two songs and e-mail the names of those two songs to me at pilot@pilotsworld.ca with all your vitals. I'll have an impartial draw on Feb 9 and inform the winner by e-mail then make arrangements.

So what is the prize?

Glad you asked! It's so good, it's a prize PACKAGE!
- Free admission to the show on Feb 16th at the Exchange for you and a friend
- Free ride to (and from) the show from anywhere between Weyburn and Regina for you and a friend.
- Free copy of their latest release and first full length album, "The Root of Truth"
- Meet and greet with the band.
- If there's an after-party, I'll try and get you invited.

The only catch with the contest is if you aren't actually IN Regina, your ride in will be early afternoon Sat, and back will be about the same time Sunday, and I don't think I have accommodations for you in Regina... so if you bring your own wheels, you'll still get the rest of the prize pack.

The band isn't putting up any of the prize pack (as it stands), but I told them (Dave) about the contest, so they might just put up some extras. So go check out the page today and get those entries in today!!!

Must - Buy - Windows - 386

Microsoft sent this tape to retailers to explain the benefits of Windows 386. Boring until the 7 minute mark when the production is taken over by crack-smoking monkeys. I like that kind of crappy 80's white corporate rap.

Hmmm.. that's why they got rid of it

marriedtothesea.com

Guys, I am truly sorry,

But I am NOT going through this alone.

THE NEW SAND GAME!

It has Zombies.

Sorry.

So ... what you're saying is we're screwed...

http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/denialmachine/resources.html

Busy Bumblebee

Hey folks. I haven't been posting because I hate y'all !!!!

Also I've been very busy. At the moment I'm in the old studio with Linger. They finally cracked and let me play bass on one song on the album. Just waiting my turn to go in the booth and wreck 7 years of work.

If you want to know more about Linger, visit your local library or check out their MySpace page at http://www.myspace.com/lingerbandcanada/.

Also.. .sorry Matt Smith for calling you Mike Smith... It appears I'm a retard.