senatorhung's pad
ramblings of an information troubleshooter
ramblings of an information troubleshooter
so long, farewell, auf wiedersehen goodbye ...
permalink Tuesday, 05JUN2007:to anyone able to read this, my static IP address of 209.115.175.51 is going the way of the dodo as my ISP is transferring all its accounts to another ISP. i'm not sure yet what will happen to this site, but hopefully i'll figure something out.
also today, at the airport, i bid farewell to my houseguest of the last week. she's a real sweetheart - i mean, she'd have to be to be able to hang out in my domain for a week with a near-barren fridge, weird waking hours and being forced to self-amuse while i went about my regular weekly routines. i wasn't the only one lucky enough to enjoy her company, tho, and she left lots of disappointed northerners in her wake who will all be pining for her next return.
no place like home
permalink Tuesday, 26JUN2007:egadz ! 2 weeks without a post ? what the heck could i be doing ? perhaps a wee too much online poker methinks. up and down and back again - some nites i'm exhilarated and others i'm so down on myself. the trick is that you shouldn't really be playing against the other people, but rather, look at it as playing against yourself, determining what your own tendencies are and work to correct them rather than continuing on oblivious. i'm still working to get there, tho ...
also got called on to assist with this year's alianait! festival in the lighting department. with andrew, simon and eric, we'll be working the opening ceremonies, the artcirq circus, the coffee house and the closing ceremonies. in-between, the white stripes crew will take as much lighting equipment as they can get for their show and then return it to the aqsarniit middle school so that we can carry on. so the lights i work with will be used to light the white stripes and i can just enjoy that show as an audience member rather than a tech.
the artcirq group astounded the audience at the opening ceremonies. i was particularly impressed with the unicycle fellow and the fellow who climbed a bedsheet up into the rafters of the school gym. made all the setup time worthwhile :). i also got a chance to show off with the spotlight during the greenlandic dance.
on the weekend, i took in the northern ramblers farewell gig at the legion and happily sung along. unfortunately, they felt the need to get the crowd up and dancing, so a lot of their originals (including some of my faves) were left off of the setlist. as well, i took in the ajiit film nite at the astro on sunday nite, including a neat trailer for neil and tony's 'mahaha' which might be done in time for next year's festival.
most of the days recently have been overcast / rainy. normally, i don't mind that as long as it's fairly warm, but with the ever-present arctic breezes, it's as bad as the time i was in halifax and the rain felt like it was coming in sideways at me from the bay. i keep thinking that this would be a nice place to visit and hike around, but as i'm actually living here, it's actually somehow more difficult to motivate myself to do it. i've been here for 5.5 years and it still doesn't feel like home. maybe no place ever will ?
i won a copy of a print from the nunavut arctic college show at the museum earlier this month. it happened to be the same print that friend karrie picked up during her visit here, so it looks like we're cornering the market.
so i have a new fixed i.p. address, which actually doesn't work. however, i did go and register and new domain name and url-forwarded it to my blog's current residence. so, the new url is short and sweet: http://z01.ca. i've registered it for 5 years, so as long as cira doesn't do another putsch, it should be the home for my blog for the forseeable future.
iqaluit, the music city ... (white stripes concert review and more !)
permalink Thursday, 28JUN2007:the alianait! festival continued tonight with a coffee house at the aqsarniit middle school. all the lighting equipment was already dropped off by the time that simon and i got there just after lunch. the same lights had been shone on jack and meg white the nite before at the AWG arena where they rocked the city. yes, news reports indicate that the arena was only 'half-full', but this wasn't due to a lack of enthusiasm. rather, it was the fact that the local fire marshal was enforcing the rules, however inflexible they may be.
still, even that half-full arena had many music-lovers young and old, who hopefully made the white stripes feel good about making the effort to come and play thru the north. i think it's great that the band is choosing to play in every canadian jurisdiction, and i'm hoping that a canadian band will rise to the challenge and duplicate their feat soon. since there was no booze on sale at the venue, we got to enjoy the music rather than have it drowned out by drunken louts. a group of us started a mini-moshpit which lasted for almost an entire song, while some other friends pogo'd in a linked snake fashion with uninhibited glee. one fellow even attempted a crowd surf, but was only up for about 10 seconds before running out of support.
the available lights were used effectively, with the deep red backdrop backlit by a couple of the IBC redcaps and the ungelled parcan stands were just used for general lighting, leaving most of the heavy work to the spotlight. the spotlight stayed solidly on jack throughout the performance (good job denis !), save for a single solo by meg at the mike. the crew even saved 2 of the parcan stands to shine out onto the audience and each time they lit up, the crowd signalled its pleasure on cue.
sadly, the 6600 pounds of sound equipment flown out was swallowed by the cavernous arena and from where i stood, all i heard from jack was *mumble, mumble*. jack did appear to get a bit frustrated when one of his guitar strings broke during the performance of 'seven nation army', and he waved meg over to help him keep the beat going on the keyboard while the string was being repaired. when the guitar returned, he brusquely waved meg back to the drums. hopefully that was just a momentary outburst.
with the concert still ringing in my ears, and the sky still bright outside, i decided to hike back home by following the creek from the road to nowhere all the way down to where we picked up trash earlier in the day down by arctic ventures. friend joanne had tried to get my assistance with a streeter, but i was so dazed post-concert that i fear that i was a waste of tape. however, she did manage to get a treat when the white stripes showed up on her doorstep this morning to take some video footage of her housesit.
anyway, back to the coffee house, with michael doyle and andrew molloy working sound, everything sounded crystal clear. of course, the middle school gym is a smaller space, but lucie idlout opened for the white stripes last nite and closed the coffee house, and definitely sounded much better tonight (not dave's fault). as after last year's canada day concert, i'm still very much looking forward to getting a copy of her 2d cd, which is now slated to come out in the fall. the lighting re-set with simon went smoothly and we got a good run-thru for the closing concert on saturday nite.
speaking of michael and andrew, last nite after the stripes concert, i ended up eating a big meal and not wanting to go to bed right away, popped in my copy of their latest northern ramblers cd / dvd 'jump the gate'. i liked the way that jimmy arranged their 'making of' documentary by interweaving the interview bits with the videos, including sweet baby's arms. i was assured by michael today that the videos used were the actual final takes used for the cd mix. the slideshow was also very poignant, and the iminent departure of both michael and andrew will leave a big gap in the local scene.
after the coffee house wrapped, i joined a group of folks at sylvia's place for an impromptu barbeque of burgers. while emily mixed in some blue cheese into the ground beef patties and sylvia got the bbq flaming hot, i subjected anna and yann the visiting musician to yet another one of my rambling rants about various local political issues. maybe i should just write a book and shut up already.
after we dropped yann off at the frob, i headed for home past the inuksuk high school. suddenly, 2 rcmp trucks went screaming past on both sides of the school, kicking up dust. i was a bit surprised, but i just figured they had gotten a call at the residence. however, as i turned the corner and began heading down the steps towards downtown, an officer hailed me down and demanded some id. when i pulled out my justice employee card, he quickly determined that i was unlikely to be the culprit they were looking for, as a window had apparently just been broken at the school.
ip idiocy link of the day:
a fair(y) use tale by professor eric faden. thanks to slaw for the heads-up.
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