The Morning After

Just putting the finishing touches on some projects here at the Zone then I can start really getting into the festive spirit.  I think I might come in tonight after Madelyn is off to dreamland and push through the night so I can enjoy my Wednesday broadcast without the Top 91 weighing on me.

I have some spots of work over the holidays, you can find me DJing at The Clubhouse in the Strathcona Hotel on December 24th!  I have some great remixed Christmas songs, maybe I’ll read the Night Before Christmas, we can share some pints if you need to get out of the house.

I will be in the lower mainland over a good chunk of the holiday season and even off to Kelowna (I hope… weather and money will dictate if we make the journey).

I’ll be on the radio on Boxing Day.

And if you’re looking for a New Years Party, I’ll be DJing at the Veneto Lounge in the Rialto Hotel.  I’ll have lots of fun songs on the playlist from the past decade.

***

Coral is now home from work, so that means I’ll really need a new laptop as I am not used to Coral staying awake so late.  Puts a crimp in my writing/music listening time.  That will take some adjustments.  Or I’ll have to kick her off the computer so I can use it! (ha, like that will work).

As per the usual, Coral and I will likely escape Christmas financially by the skin of our teeth.

I keep vowing, NEVER AGAIN, but this year it has been so hard generating any cash flow after our wedding.  In the new year Coral will have her severance and be able to cash out her savings, so we can eliminate our debt.

Then we’ll be transitioning to a one income family (well two, I just gots to earn the two).

But that’s AFTER Christmas.

I think I’ll want to start a financial blog like Krystal’s.

I love this chick.  She is so disciplined with her money.  I read her blog everyday.  I like how she sets financial goals and then makes a plan to achieve them.  She posts her monthly budget, then all month tracks her spending and at the end of the month posts a wrap up and how she did with her budget.  Very inspiring.  I want to do the same for our family and for my slowly growing music business.

The idea of having long term, emergency, vacation and slush fund savings accounts full of money would be such a luxury that it seems silly not to do it.

I want to go to the Sasquatch Festival again this year and live it up like a rock star and not have to pinch pennies like last year, so that is a good short term goal.  I also would like to to take a holiday to somewhere sunny with the family (or we talked about going to the canyons in Utah and along the California coast)… AND take a little trip all to myself.  So that vacation account will get a work out.

Now I just need a cute name for my financial blog, I was thinking “2 + 1 = broke.”  Then when we add a new little one, 2+2 = broke.”

***

Might be adding a new night to my weekly DJing in 2010 and hopefully The Veneto will re-up and expand my time there.

Lots to look forward to in 2010!

Go with yourself.

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Jess turned me on to a new blog the other day by a guy named Neil.  I have been jiving on Neil’s style lately and he had one of those meme type posts going on, and it looked sorta fun, so I thought I’d give it try on a lazy gray Saturday morning.

1)  You are facing an epic journey. You may choose one companion, one tool and one vehicle from any book or film to accompany you. Or just one of the three.  It’s up to you. What do you choose?

My companion is an easy one.  I would pick my buddy Bob for three key reasons.

i) He scored some Canucks tickets for the game against the San Jose Sharks, right behind the Sharks bench!

ii) Bob never complains.  We are an epic journey to chuck the ring in Mordor’s fiery lava pit and then save Princess Zelda… I got no time to hear how his girlfriend troubles.

iii) But that doesn’t mean Bob doesn’t like to talk.  While we travel across endless trackless desert on a horse with no-name, I can count on Bob to keep me thoroughly entertained with stories of sexual conquest, gossips from the characters in his life and hockey trivia.

Tool? Lateralus

Vehicle… well our journey would be a comedy… and nothing gets you into weird space/time continuum predicaments like Doc Brown’s Delorean.

2)  You can escape to the insides of any book. Where do you go, and why?

Part of me thinks it would be cool to live in Trilogy North and South.  I remember reading those books as a kid and the main characters crushed a lot of Civil War era vag.  One of the main characters is this lady named Brett who I always imagined as being very attractive.  Growing up I always thought Brett was a strange name for a man, because in my mind, it belongs to a Southern Belle.

3)  You can bring one literary character into your current life. Who do you choose, and why?

Robert Langdon… we’d travel the globe solving capers.

4)  _________________ is my go-to book. I could read that book fifty-seven times in a row without a break for food or a pee and not be remotely bored. In fact I’ve already done that but it wasn’t fifty-seven times.  It was sixty-four.

I have a hard time reading fiction books multiple times.  Now, my books about medieval history or Canadian War History?  those I can go to anytime.

5)  Of all the literary or film characters that made an impression on you as a kid, who was the most enviable?

I remember reading Sue Carpenter’s 40 Watts From Nowhere, maybe not when I was a kid, but a young adult, and I was pretty excited by the prospect of starting a pirate radio station.

Sue started a pirate radio station out of her apartment in California and lived this crazy eclectic lifestyle that I always thought I’d like to try.  The internet doesn’t make the need for a pirate radio broadcaster as important as times past, but it would be a fun hobby to run a radio station out of my home, some day.

6)  Of all the literary or film characters that made an impression on you as a kid, who was the most frightening?

Film character?
Fucking Jaws man… that shark scared the shit out of me as a kid.  I remember it was on TV late one hot summer afternoon, and for some r-tarded reason I watched it.  Then my Mom took us all up to Spani Pool for a swim.  I could barely get in the water, and when I did, I was TERRIFIED the whole time.

A shark that eats people? who dream up this shit?

7)  Every time I read _________________, I see something in it that I haven’t seen before.

Like I said, I don’t re-read fiction too often.  So yeah, Neil is smarter than me, read his answer about the book The Decameron.  he made me want to read it.

8)  It is imperative that _________________ be made into a movie. Now. I am already picketing Hollywood for this—but if they cast _________________ as _________________, I will not be happy. I will, however, be appeased if they cast _________________.

I blooged about this before, but the story of John Jewitt NEEDS to be made into a film.

If they cast Robert Pattinson as John Jewitt or the kid that plays a werewolf in New Moon as Maquinna, I’ll barf, however I can be appeased if Jewitt is played by either R Patts Brit Pack buddy from Pirate Radio, Tom Sturridge or… maybe the fugly guy from Notting Hill, Rhys Ifans.

9)  _________________ is a book that should never be made (or should have never been made) into a film.

Fast Food Nation was a powerful book that lost some mustard when it was made into a film.

and any of those movies based on blogs that were made into books.  Texts From Last Night, hilarious, please don’t make it a movie.

10)  After all these years, the _________________ scene in the book/movie _________________ still manages to give me the queebs.

Queebs is some sort of cracker slang for what exactly?

11)  After all these years, the _________________ scene in the book/movie _________________ still manages to give me a thrill.

Whenever I watch Glory and matthew Brodrick is like, “The 54th will lead the charge against..” whatever the fort is called.  And you know, all those poor guys are gunna die.

12)  If I could corner the author _________________, here’s what I’d say to them one minute or less about their book, _________________:

It would be George R.R. Martin and I would say,

“Seriously guy, finish your god damned story or give me my money back!

“If life was like school, you would have so failed out by now friendo.  Why are you walking the streets talking to me, get back to work writing YOUR GOD DAMNED BOOK…”

13)  The coolest non-fiction book I’ve ever read is _________________. Every time I flip through it, it makes me want to _________________.

I love non-fiction and re-visit my collection often.  Any time I read my book on Canadian Wolrd War One I want to write a screen lay for a movie that will suck 100 times less than Passchendaele.

Go with yourself.

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I don’t know what to tell you other than, I don’t know what to tell you.

I really want some pumpkin pie AND there *might* be some in the fridge, and if there is…. then I also know the whereabouts of some whip cream in one of those futuristic aerosol cans.  BUT! but, what if there is no pumpkin pie left?  A true and frightening possibility.  The last time Coral and I went grocery shopping, we bought just a half pie as a treat.  That was the weekend and here I sit late on a Tuesday.  Gone? it must be.  Should I check?  no, because if it is there, I’ll eat it, and if its not, I will eat the consolation prize, whip cream straight out of the can.  bad.

I went to a personal trainer on Monday and did some fitness testing.  I scored poor (or worse) on every test she did.  Then she asked about my diet (which I thought was one area I excelled at) and she laughed at me.

I need to eat more, AND eat less.  SWA?  More good and more meals in general.  Less processed food and WAY less pop.  Sadness, pumpkin pie and pop are my favourites.

I am going to try and make a go of this.  I will cut my pop back to treat status (kinda like beer, which I have kept in pretty good control since meeting Coral).  If pop becomes beer, then it will be a weekend/holiday/event type dealio and not a daily, or multiple times a day thing.

The trainer said that one step alone will shrink my paunch.

Then she said, my general leanness (see: skinny) should make the perception of noticeable muscle growth a reality that will in turn, re-enforce my working-out-ness.  Good times.

That all said, I woke up sore but good today… tomorrow I might get some time in the meat of the day between appointments to go again.  Alright, twice in a week.  That’s a start.

Go with yourself.

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