Pleasant Interruption

Sunday, September 18, 2005

Hiro For those that had this site bookmarked
At 9:07 PM
by: Hiro

The blog found on this site (blogger) will no longer be used.

Please go to www.pleasantinterruption.com for more pleasant interruptions.

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Nana The Most Improbable of Probable Outcomes
At 2:55 PM
by: Nana

So this weekend was pretty awesome for me. On Saturday I went out for a swim at my friend's (Mark and Arjun's) place, and got drunk afterwards with the guys. On Sunday I went out on a massive pub crawl to 10 different bars (the only criteria: no cover charge). And on Monday, I partied backstage with Metric and The Stills at the University of Ottawa frosh week concert.

Yeah, you read that properly. I partied with Metric and The Stills.

The concert was being held at Confederation Park (at Elgin and Laurier, if you live in Ottawa. If you don't, it doesn't really matter) I went with Mark Wilson and his lovely girlfriend, Kate. As usual, I was late, so I met up with them at 3:45 instead of 3:30. We then lined up for the concert which was supposed to begin at 3 pm but actually started at 5. Upon entering the Park, we bought some food to support charity and met up with some friends. With our food in hand, we sat down on the lawn and waited for the other bands to finish their sets so we could see The Stills. There were five bands playing at the concert, but we only came for The Stills and Metric; the other bands were pretty good but nothing I'd listen to normally

After The Stills played their awesome set (their first time playing live in 9 months, which included new and awesome material), Metric came on stage. You could feel the energy in the crowd, with ended with their amazing song "Dead Disco." The Stills of course played "Love and Death", "Lola Stars and Stripes", and "The Still in Love Song", but they also played new songs like the brilliant "The Mountain," and the sad "She's Walking Out." Metric's new material blew me away. They still have the same power and rhythm behind their music, but it's more raw (if that's possible). Emily Haines tapped right into the crowd's energy and gave us an unforgettable show. If you've never seen Metric live, I urge you to. Their show is so awesome that it's hard for me to explain it properly here (and believe me, I tried).

When Metric finished their set, Mark, Kate, and I leaned against this fence near the "backstage" tents. We saw Emily go into Metric's van and called her over to talk. After getting my philosophy book signed (Mark got his shoes signed, and Kate got her ticket signed), Emily said "Why are all the cool people on this side of the fence?" and helped us over. It was such a surreal experience, but we were "in."

We made our way to The Stills' tent, and struck up a conversation with The Stills and Metric. Apparently both bands are close friends and try and see each other whenever they can. I complimented Oliver from The Stills on his amazing bass playing on "The Still in Love Song" and Liam (the new keyboarder for the band) and I discussed several interesting points from Russell's "The Problems of Philosophy."

The headliner for the show were this band called "Les Cowboys Fringants." I've never heard of them, but they're really popular in Quebec. By the time that the Cowboys got to their final song, we all decided to run onto the stage and dance to their last song. This was probably the craziest thing that has happened to me EVER. Mark, Kate, and the other Kate, and I ran up onto the stage while some crazy French-Canadian rock band was playing their hit song to their crowd, and danced with Metric and The Stills.

So much more happened on that night, but I don't feel like writing about it and its still kind of hard to believe that it happened. I'm not really star struck or anything, but things just moved so fast. Even now I'm listening to The Stills' album and thinking "I was talking to Tim (the lead singer) about beer and other random stuff yesterday."

Even though she won't be reading this, I'd like to thank Emily for making all of this possible. She receives this week's award for rawkingest person. I hope to share a beer with her and the rest of Metric again. I'll be seeing The Stills (with Jason Collett) again in Peterborough in about a week.

Metric's new album is coming out at the end of this month, and The Stills' album should be out by February of '06. I urge you to check out both of these bands' music. They're good artists, as well as really good people.

Saturday, September 03, 2005

Nana Written While Eating an Apple Early In The Morning
At 4:23 AM
by: Nana

So the news, eh. It never stops. I've never seen reruns of the news before on the television.

Anyway, the reason I'm talking to you this time is to draw your attention to Wonkette. If you're a web jockey like me then you already know about the American (and mostly Washington oriented) news aggregator that goes by the aforementioned monicker. I won't guarantee that you'll be happy with the site, but there's just so much good coverage of American politics coming from that site that it's worth taking a look at even once.

If only they had one of these for Canadian politics...

Friday, September 02, 2005

Hiro A New Home, A New Term
At 9:02 PM
by: Hiro

Yesterday, just a day after arriving back in Canada, I moved back to Waterloo where I've settled into my new place. This time it's an apartment...not quite as cozy as my old house but my room here is almost twice as big as my last one so I can't complain. I'll miss having the old family(Dave, Mariano, Mike, Tony) though, but I'll be living with them(minus Mariano since he's a don) again in 4 months so I guess I'll look at it as a break so I can better appreciate how fun it is to live with them.

Tomorrow marks the beginning of one of the busiest weeks of my life. I'm going to be a frosh leader for both engineering frosh and village frosh. In other words, I will get 2 hours of sleep every night. Last year it felt insanely busy doing just engineering frosh leading so I can only imagine what it will be like with twice the workload. To top things off I'll be staffing the big football game at the end of frosh week next Saturday. You may think I'm crazy, but this is only the beginning of a busy, busy term. I'm pumped.

I'm hoping that over the next few weeks I'll be able to revisit my tour of Europe so I can share with you some of the stories and also use it as a means for myself to remember what exactly happened over those 2 crazy weeks so stay tuned for that.

I'm also working on reworking Pleasant Interruption. Technically speaking I'm gonna put it on its own server and moving away from the Blogger system.

Thursday, September 01, 2005

Nana Wake Me Up When September Begins
At 3:18 PM
by: Nana

It's September, which means that it's time to get back into the school mentality. Readin', 'ritin', and 'rithmetic will abound, I am sure.

This is the first year taht I've been prepared for school before it has started. I think that's a good omen.

I hope everyone has a good year, and if you aren't in school then enjoy whatever else you're doing.

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Hiro The Secret is Out
At 8:31 PM
by: Hiro

Arjun had his monobrow(he didn't want me to mention the other word) waxed today.

That is all.

Nana All Deafening on the New Orleans Front
At 5:27 PM
by: Nana

This blog is amazing. It's written by a guy who is stuck on the 10th floor of a building in New Orleans that is surrounded by flood waters from the Hurricane Katrina. The building is a data center that deals with maintaining servers for various websites, including Something Awful.

He has streaming video from the building running nonstop and some commentary about the events that are occuring in New Orleans, including looting and other crimes.

It really drives home how selfish people can be, when all they can think about is profiting from unfortunate circumstances like Hurricane Katrina, even at the risk of their own lives.

UPDATE

It completely slipped my mind to mention that the Red Cross is taking donations for a Relief Fund for those affected by Hurricane Katrina. You can donate online at Red Cross dot Org or by calling 1-888 HELP NOW. Our thoughts and prayers go out to anyone affected by the Hurricane, or by any of the other terrible things happening in the world at this instant.

Nana So You Think Things Move Pretty Fast 'Round Here
At 4:25 PM
by: Nana

It's finally happened. I've replaced my tried and true discman today. We had a good 5 year run, but it's time to move on.


RIP - NANA'S DISC PLAYING OBJECT - 2000-2005

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Nana Kicking at the wainscotting
At 2:46 AM
by: Nana

I have a huge post coming up for you all. It involves a wedding.

I'm headed back to the O.C. tomorrow night.

Does anyone else think that all this hurricane watching stuff is stupid? News shows devote too much time to stuff like this.

It's getting late, so I'm going to sleep.