You might cast around forever, and never find the peace you seek

I went out to see Josh Ritter Last night. I had high hopes, since the only other time I saw him it was at an awesome show back in London.

And last night he didn't disappoint.

Basia Bulat opened, and despite one of her strange instruments (she probably played 4 or 5 through half a dozen songs) being off-tune, she was pretty solid. Great voice and a talent for playing many different types of instrument, half of which I can't even name.

I was surprised how much old stuff Ritter played, especially from the Golden Age album. It's especially weird since his new album just came out recently. You'd think he would be focussing on that stuff. But realistically it's a pretty toned-down album energy and volume-wise, and he seems to put a ton of energy into his shows.

He did a few from the albums in between too, and besides Thin Blue Flame I don't think he missed any of my fav's. And it was a pretty long show too - had to be a 2 hour set for him. And his bassist Zack Hickman is still rocking the incredible moustache:


The one thing I notice even more in live shows than I do on the albums is that Ritter is a fucking incredible writer and lyricist. I'd probably have to say he's the best I've ever seen live.

I gotta say that he seems to have slipped a little towards the crazy side in his banter, a la Joel Plaskett once he got more confidence in public. But it makes it more entertaining. And my favourite part of the night was the final crescendo came, the whole band was rocking out, then looked back to the drummer for the final beat. But instead of hitting it, the whole band froze in their positions like mannequins and stayed like that for about half a minute until the drummer decided to let loose.

And the crowd goes wild...

No electricity and no hot water make Mintvis... something something

Yesterday our building was privileged with a 13-consecutive-hour electricity blackout while the city did god-knows-what to our wires and breakers. These fools seemed to think that 9 am-10 pm is the optimal time for most regular people to go without electricity. And the hot water ran out in a hurry considering we're a pretty big building, which is also ideal for an entire day. Fucking clowns...

Last weekend was the end of the hectic life for awhile. The 16th was the last day of wedding season for me this year, and we headed down to Chatham for my cousin Kelly's big day. Despite leaving Ottawa in cold wind and rain, the weekend weather was amazing down south.

Unfortunately I was absolutely exhausted on Saturday night, but we managed to party it up anyway. On Friday morning, the fire alarm went off on the floor above mine, and we had the brutal sound echoing through our hallways from 5 am-6:30. Despite the fact that the emergency was done at 6 o'clock, the alarm went off for an extra half hour. A few weeks ago there were drills all through the day for about a week while the whole system was checked. Unfortunately the doormen (despite these countless tests) were unable to shut off the alarm on Fri morning. Even after 6:30, they just put the PA system on the cancel off the fire alarm. So instead of raging beeps we got incoherent mumbling and humming for a few extra hours... fuck.

Friday night was just a long drive to my dad's place, which ended at 1:30 am and resulted in minimal sleep again since my bro came to get us at 8 am to head down for the wedding.

The wedding itself was good, not too long or anything. We had some lag time in the afterrnoon to have some beers at my aunt and uncle's place, then hit the dinner around 5:30. The venue looked like a barn from the outside, but they did a great job of renovating the indoors to make it a perfect spot. It was on a vineyard, and one wall was completely windows that overlooked the fields of vines with the lake in the background.

On Sunday we stopped off in some little town with a really cool rich-man's B&B for all you can eat brunch. It was basically a bday celebration for my dad (a bit early since I won't be back down there anytime soon) but it was really nice. I mostly stuck to the extravagant things - crab salad, lentils, calamari salad, etc. They even had a chocolate fountain for the strawberries and pies. Mmmmmmm.

The rest of Sunday consisted of non-stop driving to get back home for my first indoor soccer game of the year. It was at 10 pm and I was exhausted. I haven't played soccer in years, and I've never played indoor, but I got into the rhythm pretty quickly. Despite my bro's shitty shinpads and socks that kept sliding down my damn legs, and the brand new shoes that had yet to be broken in, I think I did pretty well. We ended up beating a team of Ital's 3-0. Not too shabby for a bunch of hacks that have never played together! Our jerseys are uglier than sin - maroon and white. I feel like a fucking 5 year old out there.

And somewhat surprisingly (due to my relatively consistent workout regimen lately) I am still completely incapacitated from the waist down. Two whole days and I can barely walk, I'm so stiff. Hopefully next week I fare better in the aftermath.


I meant to note that the previous weekend was Thanksgiving, but it was pretty uneventful really. Just saw the fam, drove for countless hours, and read and slept and ate alot... and rocked some seriously stylish duds:

I am le tired

It's Friday night and I finally feel like I have enough energy to function normally.

Last weekend was a big one, but at the start of this week it felt like someone took a sledgehammer to my energy level. It's not like I was sick or sore or fatigued, I was just completely exhausted. My eyes kept trying to close all day Monday, and as the week went by it finally subsided. Thankfully I've been able to sleep alot, and each day I've progressively felt better.

I gotta say I haven't felt anything like this in years, back in highschool when I had mono. Except this time I felt much healthier.


Last week I took off early to Toronto on Weds and met up with KP for dinner downtown. Hadn't seen her in awhile, and it was great to catch up. It turns out that a buddy of mine was at the same place, but rather than come and say hi, he just creeped on me from a distance, then sent me a text afterwards. Fucking weirdo... but I ended up seeing him at the wedding on Saturday anyway.

Thursday I went down to London for homecoming, and I had a hilarious plan for my arrival. I was in desperate need of a haircut, so I went to my old-school barber by the gates. Fortunately for me, I had forgotten to return my keys to Betty when I moved out of the sublet, so I took it upon myself to just show up at her place, let myself in, and have a nice shower. Needless to say she was a little surprised to find me half naked in her house, just coming out of the bathroom.

I chilled there for a bit, then hit up the Wave for dinner with Yakob. Young hoors galore, but none of them could drink. It was priceless.
It was actually my buddy Ty's bday, so we ended up boozing pretty hard that night. We had some serious discussions on how the world is falling into ruin, and I woke up with a brutal headache on Friday. Ended up chilling at Tys for half the day because my car was blocked in at the back of the building.

I spent the rest of day pwning at Jake's place, and that afternoon I hit the GC for some beers with the old lab rats, and it was good to catch up with them too. We got these wicked 1L beermugs full of Sleeman, and you got the keep the huge mug. All for $9.50 - can't beat that shit.

That night was Betty's kegger, and it was a pretty rockin time. Got nice and boozed, pwned some more noobs, and I actually ran into some old faces from Pano. Jeff Gordon (aka Dupont) lost his shit when he saw me at the party. I hadn't seen him in two years, but it turned out that he had been working in Betty's lab all summer and neither of us knew it. What a waste of good boozing days, he's a solid guy. It was good to catch up with Binnsy too, and despite the fact that I'm finally in Ottawa, it turns out that he finally left. He did give me the heads up on the copious amount of outdoor hockey games that take place in this town come wintertime, and I'm definitely gonna hit them up.

I woke up decently early on Saturday to head to Waterloo for Laura and NVP's wedding. Despite the rain, it was a really good day for everyone. The service was long but wasn't unbearable, and I'm rather impressed that the poor bastard didn't faint or something.

My third night of boozing in a row called for a wide variety of booze to be mixed together that night. The dinner was great, the music dancing was good, the speeches were solid, and the venue was really nice. It turns out that Calderon was also celebrating his 27th bday that night, so we did more shots than I can possibly remember. The bride happens to have prominent bangs, and apparently I was yelling "Laura Bangs! Laura Bangs!" about 5 feet away from her mother. Just my luck.

They had rented a photo-booth for the wedding, and rather than have a formal guestbook, you'd get two copies of the pictures and tape one into the book, then sign something beside it. Naturally we abused this right, and had tons of photos just for the hell of it. Bunn and I were flying solo, so we had a solid set with forearm flexing and nipples included. Great times!

My wedding gift was an absolute debacle, since I forgot to get a card. I ended up using the wedding invitation envelope that my brother had randomly brought in his luggage. I crossed out his and Mangela's names, put in my own, and wrote "return to sender" on the front. The boys made me stuff the envelope full of teabags for some reason. What a joke... classic Mintvis??

Mangela was quite pissed at me that night since I was drunk and stubborn about some fucking thing, and she was extremely unimpressed with my slowness the next morning as well. I drove back to TO and during my massive hangover I agreed to help my old buddy Findlay move into his new pad downtown. We had the most incredibly heavy shelves to lug up from the parking garage, and I almost tore my arms off in the process. It's a pretty sick place, with a view of the ACC and the waterfront. Tres badass. Fin bought me a beer for my struggles, and we hit a pub for dinner.

I went home, crashed, and woke up super early to catch my train back to Ottawa. And so began the week of le tired.