Tales from Tech Support.

So my story today is about this one elderly woman who called in, all flustered and upset; she had just had a technician visit, who installed everything, got her all set up and left. But she was crazy upset, practically crying because it wouldn’t take her password, it wouldn’t take her password…

Over and over again, she swore to me that she had an account, but it wouldn’t take her password. I assured her that I could help her, and that we’d get her problem fixed together, and she kept cutting me off, getting way ahead of me. “Well, what if I do this … when I open this, this happens … should I try to do this?” etc., and meanwhile I’m still just trying to get the basic information from her, start at the beginning.

It took everything I could do to get her to power down her modem, restart, and try to browse a web page. It was difficult to understand what she was saying, she was so distraught. All the tests I ran gave us green lights, so I tested her connection at a couple of pages, and everything was fine.

I told her we were all finished, and she practically freaked out on me… turns out she called cos she was trying to get into her online stock portfolio, and couldn’t sign in. It didn’t much help matters when I told her I wouldn’t help her with that…

Marianas Trench, live.

Marianas Trench - Say Anything live

Back in October, I had the opportunity to see Marianas Trench perform here in London on their last tour in support of their debut album, Fix Me. As always, I had the opportunity to spend a little time with the band before the show, and with Ian Casselman and Mike Ayley in particular. I’m always impressed that those guys remember so much about me every time I see them.

Anyway, I got a chance to talk to singer Josh Ramsay a little, too, and just like the other guys in the band, he was stoked about the fact that the four of them were going to appear on Much On Demand a mere couple of days later. He was not too thrilled, however, with the throat infection that he was suffering from at the time, and trying hard to rest up before their television appearance.

So I was kind of happy earlier to stumble across this video, one of the tunes they performed on Muchmusic on October 3rd. And though you wouldn’t know it if you weren’t familiar with the band, Josh is actually very much subduing his vocals; ordinarily he sings in a higher register and screams a fair bit more. It would seem that though he wasn’t quite well yet, he and the others (including guitarist Matt Webb) really hit it out of the park that afternoon.

And also, throat infection or no, Josh Ramsay is an incredibly talented singer. I simply can’t wait for the new album; a recent msg from Ian tells me that “the album is gonna be killer but is taking some time.” I’m looking so forward to it, and the band being back on the road, that I could just throw something through the picture window right now…

Cork Soakers.

from www.nbc.com posted with vodpod

Rocky Took A Lover.

from www.pastemagazine.co posted with vodpod

Behind the Paddle: The Brian Crushman Story

from www.vimeo.com posted with vodpod

“How would I describe my play? Good question… um, I’ve actually been asked this many times before, and the answer that I usually give is: think the Holocaust, minus all the whining after…”

Bobbyisms.

“If there is any one thing I’ve learned in all my years alive, it is this: no one has a shower in perfect working condition. It could be temperature fluctuation, could be water pressure, could be that thing that happens when a few of the holes are plugged on the showerhead, you know, where it causes the other ones to spray out even harder, and in all directions?

“No ones shower works perfectly. And if they tell you it does, it just means they’ve grown to like the way that their shower sucks.”

Surgeons keys.

So, Mikey and I filmed a few extra Quick Characters scenes the day after we had that one long session in the Tim Horton’s, but since we’d been out late filming the night before, we both became amazingly sick.

I’m sharing this one single scene; I thought it was cute, and wanted to share it, but by this point at lunch the next day, Mikey and I were both clearly feeling under the weather. You can hear it in our voices, and in comparison to the other scenes, there’s so little energy. Still, I love that our beverages came the second after Mikey turned on the camera.

Mikey’s challenge to me was to pretend to be a surgeon who had left his keys inside a patient during a procedure. See if you can pinpoint the moment I call the ‘moment of realization’… and yes, in case anyone was wondering, we filmed I Want A Divorce a little while after this piece.

Not a joke!

Um, so I’ve just woken up, and that dangly-thing in my throat is roughly twice it’s regular size, and now I can’t speak or breathe very well. What the fuck??

Edit: guess I’m off to the hospital… I wonder what they’re like here in London?

Edit again: question answered - it’s the biggest fucken hospital I’ve ever seen. It’s like a city, crazy-impossible to find your way around when you’re half-asleep and the sun hasn’t even come up.

A sampling.

Here now, in regards to the last post, is a good half of the dialogue that occurred when Jean Chrétien appeared on The Hour to be interviewed by George Stroumbolopoulos. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

From a msg to Nicole.

You’re going to love this, Jean Chrétien is the first guest on The Hour tonight, and George spoke about this one prank Chrétien pulled as a child - he faked appendicitis to get out of boarding school, and was so convincing that his father took him to the hospital… and he underwent the surgery!

I don’t know if you much followed Jean Chrétien’s career, you weren’t old enough to vote when he was in office. But I was always impressed by him. I remember being 16 and 17 years old, and having this one history teacher, a Mr. Wilfrid Neidhart (whom I got to see again at that reunion last year), who really encouraged all of us to follow politics… he even gave us an assignment to follow the news and political events during this two-week school shut-down around Christmas of 1998.

Anyway, I remember paying close attention leading up to the first time I was old enough to vote, for what would have been his third term… I was really excited to do my part and cast my vote, and really paid close attention to the issues. I watched the debates and weighed everything carefully.

And in the end, the factor that made up my mind was this really short piece of b-roll, filler film shown on some news broadcast about a month before it came time to vote. Chrétien was making his way through a crowd to Parliament, and someone called out to him, asked him what business of his was something something, some issue now lost to my memory.

And Chrétien turned and looked at the man, with a look on his face that can only be described as a cross between irritated offense and surprised hurt, and said forcefully, “Canada is my business, sir.”

I’m very happy to tell anyone who’ll listen that I voted for Jean Chrétien then, and insightfully so - he went on over the next couple of years to keep Canada from going to Iraq and attempt to establish the Kyoto Protocol. I very much enjoyed his interview tonight, and wish we had a leader like that today.