I had a blog post ready to post for Saturday but Saturday

quickly became Sunday so I thought leave it until Sunday. But I got so involved in other things yesterday that I forgot about Sundays blog post, so here I am..Monday.

The big event was supposed to be watching Wrestlemania XXV111 which we ordered and I was getting right into it, then just about the time of Cody Road's/Big show match, the screen froze while Anne was out. It went that way for about half an hour until she came home and called up our service provider to see whats going on. They said they were having technical difficulty over the whole system. We were not the only ones complaining. Finally the program resumed and Anne went out again, I got to watch the Tripple H/Undertaker match In a word: Wow. Then I went to check in on the Oiler/Ducks game 2-1 Oiler's at the end of the 1st period. Then I went back to wrestling and got a little bit of something and the program went to this screen showing all of their pay per view events. Now WTF? Ok, lets watch the 2nd period in progress. I went back to wrestling and nothing was happening. Third period, back to wrestling. Anne served up supper and no wrestling. At least the ribs were good and the Oiler's won but no wrestling. I saw about 20% of the show I paid $60 for. Or will if Anne and I don;t get on it today and call our service provider and give us a credit on a program I couldn't watch. This is a lesson learned: Never order any pay per view events. The other service provider no doubt was having similar issues. I didn't even see the Cena/Rock match, which was the highlight of the 4 hour event.

The worst part about yesterday was not only did I not see something I ordered and was prepared to pay $60 for, but I missed out on the "Edmonton collectible toy and comic show" Yesterday afternoon. On local news they had a film crew out at the Shaw conference centre where the event was taking place, and John Lancie ("Q" of Star Trek the next generation) Steve Sansweet were the special guests among others for the day. They had a costume judging contest as well. Admission was $15 at the door but they were offering a VIP pass, which included a photo op and special seating at panels etc and I missed it. I knew the date and place of the show weeks ago and even the line up of the guests but because of Wrestlemania I opted to stay home and "watch it" instead. All that and I didn't get to even see all of the Oiler game.

Some of the things we got going on today is to call Revenue Canada to see if they have my current mailing address. For some reason they can send my GST credit 4 times/year here but when it comes to my return, Anne gets her's before I get mine. They even had to return to sender on my T4's because they didn't have my apartment number on my form. So when we call this afternoon, watch, they're going to have difficulties, again.

A couple of things holding me back from making any music/noise are lack of usb ports on my laptop and hard drive space. I only have 2 usb ports on my current laptop and limited ammount of hard drive space. When I bought my laptop in December of 2009 I didn't know much about music production and DAW's. When I met a fellow at work in late August of 2010 he made some songs on his laptop and lent me his copy of Sonar (demo) to play around with. That's when I thought well if others are doing it I can do it to. Byron made his music though with a real bass and electric guitar and he's a better singer then I am. I'm just using VST instruments. Then I found this demo of FL Studio 9 and I began messing around with that in November of 2010. Then last March 2011, I bought a full copy of FL Studio 10 and later that summer a midi controller and some VST instruments and an audio interface and mic. About 18 months later I'm almost ready to begin producing some noise of my own. I could have done this a lot earlier but I didn't have the midi controller and I've been looking at VST options for guitar and there are a lot out there. Slayer that comes with FL Studio isn't bad but it sounds midi. The closest vst instrument to a guitar that sounds realistic is Vir2 Electricity (E6). It's a $400 program. People say why not get a real guitar? Well, for one I don't have the time to learn how to play it and even though at some pawn shops used guitars are anywhere from $100-200 and two guitars they take up space. My keyboard controller is tucked nicely on my desk in my home office and it's easier to buy a guitar emulator. I could have bought E6 but I've been researching a lot about Cubase 6 and it had some tools in one package that otherwise would have cost me a lot more if bought individually elsewhere. I decided to pick up Cubase 6 early last month instead of E6. I think it was a good investment. Except for the usb dongle key, which takes up 1 of my only 2 usb ports. Also my current laptop had only 250 Gb of space and that was being eaten up slowing down my system. Also since I had this laptop I had one virus, which took me out a month and I installed Linux which cost me another month because I tried to install it on my own. My "musical carreer" has had its ups and downs but it's all part of the learning curve. This is just a hobby for me, it's nothing I plan on making any money at. I've been wanting to do some covers of some of the songs I grew up listening to. It's not all about arriving at point B from A but the jouney getting to point B that's half the fun. Back to E6 though, I'm about to get a demo of it when I get my new laptop and I should have a couple of demo tracks this summer/fall up on my YouTube account.

 

I was thinking about going into work this evening but I've got some phone calls to make. Firstly what to do about the festive board for Thursday. Our regular Lodge meeting will be an easy one. In and out. I'm considering Pizza's as Anne said she'd order the pizzas for me from her place of work. I was initially planning soup and buns for the festive board then it dawned on me: Do we have any soup bowls at the Lodge kitchen? In an email sent from Dan yesterday he said he couldn't help me with the festive board anymore because he began a new job and that's going to take him out of action except his regular lodge duties. Bummer. I asked him to bring his crock pot along and some crib boards. Anne would buy me the chunky soup from across the street. I don't know how many cans I should get. We usually have about 15 guys at the festive board on a night when we are not conferring a degree. I need to ask firstly if we have any soup bowls in the kitchen. I need to ask Dan and if we do, then ask him how many cans of soup would his crock pot hold? If not enough then I need to call Nathan and enlist the use of his crock pot. If we don't have any soup bowls in the Lodge kitchen then so much for soup and I'll call for Piazza where Anne works as there is an outlet on the way on 50th and 118th. We can pick them up if Neil can pick me up say about 6:45pm and we can get the pick up for about 6:45pm. Because Anne works for the pizza franchise it's smoother operation. Neil and I can pick up the pizzas on our way in. The stewards can prepare the pizzas as we are about to close lodge and they will be ready when we disperse from the lodge to the festive board. Ok that's this month. The JW chair in any lodge is the hardest chair to do because all of the organization involved. Anyway, that's about all from me for now.