2001-12-07 - 10:40

Let me give it to you straight

It's a rare daytime entry, because I stayed up way too late working on other things to have the energy remaining to write here.

I finally got my Christmas travel plans settled and it turned out to be a cheaper flight than I was expecting. I'm glad that I didn't buy a ticket the last time that I was talking to the travel agency, since I shaved off more than 200 dollars from their old quote.

The slight drawback is that I leave first thing in the morning on the 23rd. A day earlier or a better time would have been nicer; but I'll take what I can get. At least I avoided the Ottawa-Montreal-Toronto-Halifax route that they were first proposing . . . that sounded needlessly complicated.

I'm happy to have my plans settled. Now I just need to get to the travel agency before 6:00 today. That limit is probably a good thing, since it means that I can't get stuck working too late. Yesterday was another 7:00 departure, although what we were doing at the end was quite fun.

The other reason that I don't want to stay late tonight is because this is the night that The Dears make their return to Ottawa. It will be the fourth time that I have seen the band live this year; and I really think that it will be the best. The Halifax show in April was great, as far as the band went, but the crowd response was subpar. There were too many people who were at the Marquee Club just because they wanted to drink on a Saturday night, not because they wanted to see the band. The next two times that I saw The Dears were when they were opening for Sloan; so, obviously, a headlining gig should easily surpass those (still impressive) slots. Considering how stellar The Dears are live, I have hopes that they will be even more intense with a better setting.

Oh, and I even came across someone else on Diaryland who was impressed by The Dears last visit to the city and will be catching tonight's show. It's always cool to see people getting into a band you love. As for me, I know that I have Aaron coming along, after enjoying the last show. I didn't get a hold of Flett yet, but if he's around, I'm sure that he'll be up for the concert. I'm psyched, for sure.

Oh yes, the reason that I was up too late to write was because I was playing around with my home page, in particular the concert reviews page. Having all of the reviews on one page was getting cumbersome, so I separated each review into a separate page. While I was at it, I added my reviews for November's concerts: Slayer and The (International) Noise Conspiracy. If you read my entries here after those shows, you've already seen the bulk of those reviews. Making those changes was basically monkey work; but, since I got started late and took breaks for laundry and shaving my head again, it kept me up past 4:00.

The Dears tonight . . . life is good.

J.