a few more reasons why i love living in vancouver, in point form:
- Yo dropped by and hauled me out to the Cambie for pitchers, where it turns out a good friend from kelowna was hanging out whilst visiting the city. said friend Josh is a ridiculously talented guitarist, so we sat around and talked about wacky tunings for a while.
- Carly had to run home to grab some money so Yo and i walked back with her... we went from Cambie & Cordova way the hell out to east van. ended up walking across the corner of Main & Hastings twice. holy trek through crackland. interesting walk though... once you get past the seriously sketchy area (which by the way is fucking awesome for playing the boyfriend/girlfriend game) there are neat little neighbourhoods tucked away behind schoolyards with kids playing ball and buddhist temples full of people in brightly colored robes singing in chinese.
- ditched the Cambie around 10pm, hoping to get some sleep - but first, a veggie dog! stopped in at the hot dog cart across from Virgin (why i have hot dog cart loyalty i don't know, but it just tastes better) and decided to head home down Robson instead of going up the hill on Burrard first. about a block into the walk i passed a girl playing a viola exceptionally well, so i threw down a few bucks and she said i looked like a musician. we ended up talking for half an hour while she played, among other things, an improvised cover of some song off The Bends that i can never remember the name of, which led to...
- coffee, at some place i've never seen even though it's a block from my appartment. tucked into the ground floor of a building right near Burrard & Robson is this little coffee shop, all done up in glass, white curving walls, and red upholstered booths. expensive as hell, but hey, i guess they're still paying off the designer.
- coffee (and some gay-as-cutoffs canned pellegrino thing i got) ended up being nursed on the steps of the church down near burrard station while talking about a cafe that the girl and her friends are starting up over on Broadway. turns out she's a professional musician and plays strings for various concerts and studio sessions, so out of nowhere there were two people (random viola girl and the aforementioned Josh) to talk about music with in the space of a few hours. score. a wee lil doormouse kept skittering to and fro, apparently gathering urban flotsam in hopes of fortifying the gap between two newpaper boxes to protect from people, buses, and various other mouse dangers. he eventually gave up when a streetcleaner truck came by and blasted the hell out of the gutter next to his hideout.
- got home a bit late, passed out, was woken up at 5 in the (goddamned) morning by some loudass truck in my alley. fuck you truck. i would have shaken my fist at it, but opted to pass out and sleep till about half an hour past my alarm. eh, you win some you lose some you sleep through the rest.
- all the musicality lately has driven me back into the waiting arms of Long & Mcquade. i seriously can't handle having a gimped setup anymore, and i've got a sweet job so what the fuck am i still sitting around bitching about it for? hardware ahoy! E-MU soundcard bundled with badass softsynth/sampler and 3 gigs of samples and dxi magic packed in? check. 64 key midi controller for a paltry $130? check. severe price drop on the Vestax 06 Pro? check. $795 for an SL1200 MK2 Black? uhhhh... how about no. gonna have to finance the gear (minus decks... i can buy those used later) but i figure running up less than a grand in hardware will let me have it paid off in six months or so anyways. still going to sleep on it for a few days though, impulse buys are bad. which relates to...
- keeping currently tenuous financial balance in order is good... the fact that i can pay off stupidly large debts and still end up with a net gain is a triumphant kind of feeling. even slings and arrows can't fuck with my shit right now - outrageous fortune can kiss my prudent ass. i rolled with the punches and i'm still coming out in the black.
anyways, long story short (which is fairly pointless to write at the end of a rambling braindump) this is totally the right place to be. i have good things going right now, and it turns out that there are even better things waiting to happen. i feel like i'm just about to make it past a huge milestone and i've already got several more waiting for me to get started on them.
speaking of which, there's a whole mess of afternoon work waiting for me to get started on it. back to work.
- Yo dropped by and hauled me out to the Cambie for pitchers, where it turns out a good friend from kelowna was hanging out whilst visiting the city. said friend Josh is a ridiculously talented guitarist, so we sat around and talked about wacky tunings for a while.
- Carly had to run home to grab some money so Yo and i walked back with her... we went from Cambie & Cordova way the hell out to east van. ended up walking across the corner of Main & Hastings twice. holy trek through crackland. interesting walk though... once you get past the seriously sketchy area (which by the way is fucking awesome for playing the boyfriend/girlfriend game) there are neat little neighbourhoods tucked away behind schoolyards with kids playing ball and buddhist temples full of people in brightly colored robes singing in chinese.
- ditched the Cambie around 10pm, hoping to get some sleep - but first, a veggie dog! stopped in at the hot dog cart across from Virgin (why i have hot dog cart loyalty i don't know, but it just tastes better) and decided to head home down Robson instead of going up the hill on Burrard first. about a block into the walk i passed a girl playing a viola exceptionally well, so i threw down a few bucks and she said i looked like a musician. we ended up talking for half an hour while she played, among other things, an improvised cover of some song off The Bends that i can never remember the name of, which led to...
- coffee, at some place i've never seen even though it's a block from my appartment. tucked into the ground floor of a building right near Burrard & Robson is this little coffee shop, all done up in glass, white curving walls, and red upholstered booths. expensive as hell, but hey, i guess they're still paying off the designer.
- coffee (and some gay-as-cutoffs canned pellegrino thing i got) ended up being nursed on the steps of the church down near burrard station while talking about a cafe that the girl and her friends are starting up over on Broadway. turns out she's a professional musician and plays strings for various concerts and studio sessions, so out of nowhere there were two people (random viola girl and the aforementioned Josh) to talk about music with in the space of a few hours. score. a wee lil doormouse kept skittering to and fro, apparently gathering urban flotsam in hopes of fortifying the gap between two newpaper boxes to protect from people, buses, and various other mouse dangers. he eventually gave up when a streetcleaner truck came by and blasted the hell out of the gutter next to his hideout.
- got home a bit late, passed out, was woken up at 5 in the (goddamned) morning by some loudass truck in my alley. fuck you truck. i would have shaken my fist at it, but opted to pass out and sleep till about half an hour past my alarm. eh, you win some you lose some you sleep through the rest.
- all the musicality lately has driven me back into the waiting arms of Long & Mcquade. i seriously can't handle having a gimped setup anymore, and i've got a sweet job so what the fuck am i still sitting around bitching about it for? hardware ahoy! E-MU soundcard bundled with badass softsynth/sampler and 3 gigs of samples and dxi magic packed in? check. 64 key midi controller for a paltry $130? check. severe price drop on the Vestax 06 Pro? check. $795 for an SL1200 MK2 Black? uhhhh... how about no. gonna have to finance the gear (minus decks... i can buy those used later) but i figure running up less than a grand in hardware will let me have it paid off in six months or so anyways. still going to sleep on it for a few days though, impulse buys are bad. which relates to...
- keeping currently tenuous financial balance in order is good... the fact that i can pay off stupidly large debts and still end up with a net gain is a triumphant kind of feeling. even slings and arrows can't fuck with my shit right now - outrageous fortune can kiss my prudent ass. i rolled with the punches and i'm still coming out in the black.
anyways, long story short (which is fairly pointless to write at the end of a rambling braindump) this is totally the right place to be. i have good things going right now, and it turns out that there are even better things waiting to happen. i feel like i'm just about to make it past a huge milestone and i've already got several more waiting for me to get started on them.
speaking of which, there's a whole mess of afternoon work waiting for me to get started on it. back to work.
VIEW 20 of 20 COMMENTS
Otherwise, I'd do it.
Promise.
we can be friends off line...what about on line?
best part of crackland (as you lovingly refer to it) is looking up... it's a gorgeous area of town, we just tend to forget to look up in that neighbourhood...