Die Hard Three

I was not expecting this to be diehardthree.com‘s inaugural post (we just launched a few hours ago), but hey, life is full of surprises.

Like many of you I just finished watching the live broadcast of the Tragically Hip’s final concert of their Man Machine Poem tour. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this band or their current situation, I’ll try to explain everything in one sentence.

The Tragically Hip is one of Canada’s most popular/well-known bands and earlier this year their frontman Gord Downie was diagnosed with brain cancer and they decided to launch a cross-Canada tour.

There are literally dozens of things I find interesting and fascinating and nostalgic about The Hip. Normally I would be more than happy to share all of them with you, but today I feel that brevity rules.

1. Most people outside of Canada have not heard of The Tragically Hip but within Canada they are probably our most recognizable musical act. If you look at all the main medias (mediums?) books, music, movies, television – Canada has produced a disproportionately large number of world-famous musical acts (while our contributions to the non-music entertainment industries are more inline with our size).

Just type “canaidan musicains” into Google – and look at that fucking list. You don’t even have to be able to spell.

In 2003 I was visiting a friend in Germany and we were driving to the Nord Sea (the sea, not the fast food restaurant). So we’re listening to the German commercial radio station and I shit you not, it was 15% CanCon. And it was like a two hour drive.

CanCon (or Canadian Content) is the government regulation that requires that something like 40% of the music on commercial radio in Canada has to be Canadian. It’s the reason that Canada has a world class music scene. It means our musicians can make a living working in their chosen profession.

Contrast that with the Canadian film industry does not have any such regulation – and if you will look over here, you will find the one-time highest grossing “Canadian” film.

Anyway, this is to put into perspective how popular these guys are – amongst all the internationally renowned musicians from Canada, within our borders, The Hip are very close to (at?) the top.

2. The CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company) – if they were a patron in a bar, I’d buy ’em a drink. And then after we’d finished those drinks, I’d buy another round. They hit one out of the park tonight. They shut down everything else to show us a 3-hour concert with no commercials and no talking heads.

And of all nights, the second-last night of the Olympics – taxpayer me does not want to know how much they bid for the rights to broadcast the games, but they sure as hell made the right call when they had to choose. I’m happy we have the CBC.

That’s all I have. Goodnight everyone.

Welcome everyone to the launch of my brand new, slightly redesigned webzone! On Tuesday I broke down and paid the $99 USD to the WordPress GmbH corporation so that you, my dear readers, could enjoy all latest features that can be experienced on the Information Super Highway (that’s the “Datensuperautobahn” for my German friends).

In addition to supporting embedded videos, I updated the about page, added some fins to lower wind resistance, and I painted on an orange racing stripe – which I feel is pretty sharp. But most importantly I was able to secure the Internet web address

www.diehardthree.com

Look at it. Isn’t it just beautiful. I’m surprised and relieved it was even available. Just the thought of having use a .org or .edu top level domain made me want to vomit with rage.

Anyway, enough about that, stay tuned for the inaugural post – I consider this one to be more of a press release.

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Last day in NewOl and what a trip it’s been! There were so many great events and happenings I don’t think there’s enough space on the Internet to document them. Sarah and I got marred in a huge discussion about punctuality, specifically: at the end of a typed sentence is it proper form to use one space or two after the period? I correctly asserted that using two spaces in any online writing helps the NSA identify individuals who are too old to present any sort of threat to national security, while Sarah took the opposite position that I am stupid.

On Day 3 we went to the New Orleans Bug Museum and Insect Air-Aquarium, which in retrospect, I should have written about in yesterday’s post as it was very much in line with the underlying theme of the WWII museum: Things I Am Terrified Of.

During the visit I also became educated as to how the movies have been deceiving us about several of their more popular plot devices and machinations. I will list the lies for you now:

1. Tarantulas are big and scary but their venom is not dangerous to us humans. James Bond was in no peril whatsoever when that guy who wanted to blow up the world tried to kill him with two spiders instead of just shooting him in the face like any normal assassin would.

2. Tarantulas are actually quite fragile – a fall from just a couple of feet will kill them. The main villain spider from Arachnophobia (1990) should have died from that fall from the top of the jungle when she was captured at the beginning of the film. And in Return of the King (2003) it should have been quite easy for Frodo to slay that creature Tolkien lazily came up with in Book 2 (close to the end he was clearly running out of original ideas “the obstacle will be a spider… but it will be… big”).

3. Giant insects are impossible to exist. Their physiology does not include a supporting skeletal structure and if they were any larger than they are in real life, their increased size would render them immobile and unable to attack. But to be fair to Hollywood, it’s totally possible that the gravity and/or atmosphere on Klendathu is much different from our own planet, resulting in a radically different bug morphology.

So that’s it for this trip. I hope you all enjoyed the new vocabulary you can add to your lexicon after reading my posts. My favourite words from this time out were: propagandist, equine-based, tangential, punctuality, and lexicon.

See you next time!

Bugkeeper! Bugkeeper! Those two beetles are killing each other! – like I said, very educational.

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Today was my day, that is to say I was responsible for selecting and organizing all the day’s events. Plan A was visit Nicolas Cage’s tomb, but the weather did not cooperate so I had to revert to Plan B.

Like many travellers before us who have woken up to a light rain moistening their holiday, we decided to spend the day in the museums. And fortunately for us, New Orleans has the greatest museum known to man (and woman) – the National World War II Museum.

Originally I was thinking we’d skip this one, but Sarah insisted. It was very impressive but every time I visit one of these WW2 museums my mind wanders to thoughts of how I would have contributed to the war effort had I been nineteen in 1939. This time around the first jobs off the list were the usual ones (land, water, air).

Pilot? I’m afraid of heights.
Submarine Captain? I’m afraid of depths.
Infantry? Terrified of dying.
Merchant Marine? I’m a communist.
Navy? I’d rather join the infantry.

But as we explored this museum I discovered there were so many more jobs and professions hypothetical me wanted to avoid the 1930s.

Medic? I faint at the sight of needles.
Shift supervisor? I’m more a shift caller-in-late.
Clerk? I can’t type.
Machinist? I’m sensitive to loud noises.
Anti-war protester? The Barrett Light Fifty is pretty damn cool.

The whole things was kind of depressing. But luckily for me everything turned out ok at the end when I found the job I was born to show up late for: propagandist – where the greatest threat to my personal safety is an allergic reaction to the makeup they use to make me really really really really good looking.

Watch out, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy! Or as Tom Hanks in the museum movie called them “Germany, Japan, and Fascist Italy”

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New Orleans is a interesting and hot place to visit and / or live. I know this because I am in the city right now. Day 2 belonged to Sarah – we decided on Day 1 to divide up the full days (Day 3 is all mine!)

This morning our self-guided walking tour revealed a most fascinating piece of trivia information. This house, the red one here in this photo – this is the house of the rising sun.

Strangely this was not part of the tour – while chatting with a local who was out walking his dog, he pointed across the street to the famous house from the famous song. Then I took the photo.

I was also surprised to discover that (due to budget cuts), the New Orleans PD has gotten rid of all their cars and converted to an equine-based policing system.

I think it was the correct decision and other city police services should follow suit.

Later in the afternoon it poured rain and I got two soakers.

And finally, I got to see under the streets, which is something I look forward to when visiting a new city.

From what I can tell it’s mostly dirt and some infrastructure.

Hello readers! I’m traveling again! This time it’s because Sarah and I are trying to escape the Olympic fever that has taken over great parts of our great country (Canada). Naturally, we decided to fly to another nation that takes sports less seriously than we do up north. On the agenda for this trip: New Orleans and the wonderful food that can be found there.

While Louisiana-style dishes include a wide range of tastes and flavours, I’m most looking forward to eating lots of spicy food.

As many people know, hot peppers are an essential component of many cajun recipes. But did many people also know that a hot, tropical environments is *not* required to grow them? I only learned this fun fact in the spring when I went to the Home Depot to purchase some plants for my new, non-tropical garden.

I’m not sure why I thought these plants needed a rainforest in which to grow. Did my mind make an association with the heat found inside the peppers with the heat experienced in their native climate? In retrospect it does not make a lot of sense. While both phenomena do make me uncomfortable and sweaty, the connection is tangential at best.

Anyway, because a blog post without an uploaded image is just another promotional tool for the WordPress company, here is a picture of the first pepper grown in my garden.

Don’t worry. I gave him a good home.

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So this year for my annual excursion to Killarney Provincial Park I’ve found myself on two teams that are planning to do most or all of the La Cloche Silhouette Trail – (65 km – Team A) and (72.3 km – Team B). Team A’s attempt will be for four nights and five days from Sept 3 – 7 while Team B will be hiking from Sept 24 -30 (five nights and six days).

In preparation for these grueling hikes, a number of training hikes have been scheduled, the first of which happened yesterday and in the rush to get out the door I forgot my water bottle at Sarah’s (from where I was getting picked up).

Now for those of you who have never done anything ever, water is the most important part of life – without it we all die. So you can imagine the horror as I hiked around the Wolf Trail in the summer heat with no means of hydration and this photo series showed up in my iMessage!

I was shocked! And thirsty. Very thirsty. I’d spent the whole morning washing and filling that water bottle. Next time I will have to remember to bring extra liquids. Until then I will drink beer. See you at the next training session.

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