September 14-15, 2001 — Picking you out of the crowd

Yesterday I managed to get a decent amount done, and I saw the Dismemberment Plan play. Today I feel lethargic as hell and doing anything that takes the slightest amount of effort doesn't seem to be in the cards. I'm surprised that I'm writing this, actually.

So yesterday. I woke up and decided that the layout of furniture in my room was hampering my productivity (an important concern for jobless university dropouts like myself). The problem was that the table on which I keep my stereo equipment was too close to my desk, and I didn't have enough room behind my computer chair. I get quite antsy if inanimate objects (or, even more so, people) are behind my computer chair while I'm working, and I found that I was generally working less. So I moved the table. My room is basically divided in two by the table now -- it's like I've my office and my bedroom. All in my little one-room apartment. And now I'm in a better position to hear my music while I'm working on the computer since the speakers are directly behind me, which I'm all for.

The downside was that I could no longer wire my computer into my stereo, and that my power bar couldn't make it far enough under the table to power everything. The solution, of course, was to go wire shopping. With the Dismemberment Plan show that night forcing me to spend at least $4.50 on the bus regardless, I figured I'd pick up a day pass for $7.50 and get all of my errands out of the way at once. (I also needed groceries, the new Converge CD, and a book about XML.)

Once downtown, I spent $20 at Active Surplus on a new power bar, an extension cord, and several stereo adapters and extensions. Active Surplus is quite possibly the best store ever. While searching for the extension cords, I also found a Tandy portable computer data coupler from back in the day and a large box full of assorted Atari wires. That they also have a medical/dental equipment section (and that it is one aisle down from where you can purchase 5.25" floppy disks and spare pawns [but only pawns] for chessboards) just makes it all the more enjoyable to visit.

With Active Surplus behind me, I cashed in 10 HMV stamps to get the new Converge CD. My father told me that they're discontinuing that program soon. I hope I'm able to get to 10 stamps again before it ends...

I ran into Justin, Nathan's roommate, on my way to buy XML books. I run into far fewer people that I know while wandering Toronto than I do while wandering Ottawa, and the odds are far better of me actually wanting to talk to the people that I run into in Toronto. This is a good thing.

I flipped through an XML book and decided that I didn't really need to learn it after all. Not just yet, anyway. Maybe in the new year I'll be working on something that will be more useful to involve XML in.

And then I went to pick up groceries at the massive Loblaws at St. Clair and Bathurst. It was the most intense grocery shopping experience I've ever had. You ride on moving walkways up to the second floor with your shopping cart (and then back down when you're done), and I think the produce section alone is bigger than the entire grocery store in Richmond.

Unfortunately, Loblaws seems to have phased out paper bags that are actually large enough to carry anything. I realized this after picking up jumbo packs of Cheerios and frozen pizza. The cashier encouraged me to complain, but I was more keen on getting the awkward trip home out of the way as I did my best to keep food from tumbling out of the three over-packed plastic bags that I was juggling between two hands. Everything made it in one piece, but my fingers hurt quite a bit.

Then I waited around for the Dismemberment Plan show. Once Johnston and I had arrived at the subway station, I realized that I had forgotten my ticket. So I got back on the streetcar and arrived at the show an hour behind Johnston, Jeff, and Amy. Luckily (depending on how you look at it), I didn't miss the opening act.

"Depending on how you look at it" because they were terrible. As were the other three opening acts that spanned somewhere in between three to four hours of my life that I will never get back. The face value of the ticket may have been a mere $10, but the psychological damage of those opening bands can never be repaired. I occupied my time during the opening acts by staring at lights, acting out Weakerthans songs that were being played between sets with Johnston and Amy, and watching people completely out of their element trying to dance like exiles from the mid-eighties at what was (more-or-less) an indie rock show. The crowd was, to say the least, bizarre.

When the Dismemberment Plan did finally hop on stage to begin setting up, it wasn't difficult to stumble up to the very front. We found a demo tape by Shuvel on the stage and tried to give it to a young-looking girl wearing a hoodie with devil horns sewn on. Having since read their bio, the offer seems all the more appropriate as it turns out they were signed to Interscope via a connection with a stripper who happened to know an A&R person at the label. If this (combined with their attempts at "lashing the rhythms of hip-hop to the volume of metal") isn't indicative of the arrival of the antichrist via the sounds of Shuvel, I'm not sure what is.

But yes. Dismemberment Plan. It was definitely one of the best shows I've been to in awhile. They were fantastic live, and they had a huge amount of energy. I ended up buying their two most recent full-lengths along with a t-shirt. I had decided when I bought the two CDs not to buy a t-shirt in an attempt at saving a bit of money, but then, by the time they'd finished their set, I had changed my mind. The songs from their as-yet-unreleased album (due October 22, I think) seemed slower than their older songs, so it'll be interesting to hear that once it's released.

Today I did very little. I spent some time on AIM for the first time in awhile. I hate AIM all the more. I wrote this journal. Andrew arrived home and we rearranged the wiring a bit so that he could be on the Internet, too. (Yesterday, the landlord's daughter asked if we were building a robot. There are some pretty intense-looking feats of wiring behind my computer at the moment. Hopefully I won't start an electrical fire.

And tomorrow team Cuff The Duke is coming to talk (read: bicker, yell, scream, and heckle) about their CD design that Doublenaut is doing. Should be... umm... if not fun, interesting. We're to get a copy of the CD, Life Stories for Minimum Wage, for inspiration. I'm not worried about us being able to do a good job and to get everything organized and printed properly, but it'll be a challenge to keep everyone happy in the process...

To bed.