Faraway, So Close

Not much to talk about here, so I decided to start making my website more my own instead of just one of the templates that comes with MovableType. You'll notice the spiffy new banner at the top... and that's about it. I have to get more gutsy and start fooling around with the stylesheet for the site - but I have yet to find said guts.

It looks like my parents have bought a shack up at Waskesiu and so we plan to spend some time there on our holidays next week. It's got everything we need, except running water. But there's a tap nearby as well as a washroom/shower. Should be fun. I'll bring back pictures.

Today's picture is in honor of my parent's purchase - in honor of them becoming land barons:

Posted by iChris at 5:52 PM | Permalink

It's certainly been a creative couple of weeks with Travis and I. Not that these tunes are necessarily great songs or anything, we're just having a lot of fun doing it. We've done up another song - well a cover song this time. For whatever reason Rocket Man by Elton John has been floating around in my head as a cool tune and so, the other night when Travis and I got together and nothing was coming musically we thought we'd try our hands at covering a little Elton. Maybe it was the fact that he's coming here (Saskatoon and Kelowna are his only stops in Canada... I don't understand it) but mostly it was just a cool tune that works well accoustically.

Grab yourself a sample if you dare.

In movie news, The Lord of the Rings DVD comes out in a few days. I'm a bit torn as they are apparently releasing another version in November with 30 minutes of extra footage that the version coming out now doesn't have. They're obviously doing it to help hype the next movie that's coming out in December (for which there was a trailer in the Austin Powers movie - nearly worth the price of admission just for the trailer... well, the trailer and the opening 10 minutes of Austin Powers for sure). Hmmm... well, we'll just have to see what my birthday (Aug 19th hint! hint!) brings me. :)

Posted by iChris at 5:51 PM | Permalink

Some of you may have noticed the little graph-like icon at the very bottom of this page. If you click on it it takes you to the stats for my blog and near the bottom of that page it gives me a breakdown of where people are from who visit this site. I realize it's not entirely accurate since people could be telneting to other computers and then connecting to the web, but:

I pretty much know who's visiting this site from Canada and from the U.K. and even Australia. But what I'm not sure about is who's visiting from the US, Japan and Indonesia (as well as the unknown 4.1%). Chances are they just happened across this site by accident and won't be coming back, but if there is someone who's a regular visitor who's name isn't Lindsay, Christine, Kenton,Matt or Mark (well, you guys are welcome to send me an email as well!) please drop me an email.

Don't read the next section if you don't want to hear about Austin Powers.

We saw 'Austin Powers in Goldmember' yesterday. While it was quite funny at points and made us laugh it's also starting to really feel like we've done this all before. But they did manage to throw enough surprises and new material in to make it entertaining. What was kind of disturbing was the fact that they've rated the movie PG-13 for crude humour, sexual innuendo and language it should've been rated higher for the violence. If you've seen the movie then you'll know what I'm talking about. Mini-Me gets his butt handed to him on more than a few occasions in very violent ways. Sue and I couldn't believe parents would bring their kids to a movie like this - especially kids that were obviously 10 and under.

Such is our culture I guess.

Posted by iChris at 5:50 PM | Permalink

Another sample from a different tune Travis and I are working on. Click here to check out a sample from a tune simply titled 'Rock Song' for lack of a better term. It's very rough and was put together quickly in about an hour after I expressed a desire to write a rock tune with Trav. :)

Sorry for all those folks with AOL stock - it's a bad time to have investments that you want to take out, but a good time to buy in. I'm starting to sound like my dad. I'm sure this is exactly what he'd say if i asked why we lost $50 in one month's investment.

For those of you who know Lindsay Unger, check out the place where he's going to have his wedding. Makes me want to find a way to get there even more.

Apparently the war on Iraq is under way. Kind of scary when you think of the fact that they really haven't done anything.

BUDN (Best Use of Domain Name): http://www.filthymess.com/

Fun game to pass hours mindlessly at work (matt, I'm looking in your direction): moon lander

Posted by iChris at 5:49 PM | Permalink

Here's my quick report back on our missions trip up to Pearceland, Sk:

We had a blast working with the kids up there - 17 kids came out to the DVBS (Daily Vacation Bible School). We met some new friends from the church there and our kids got to experience helping out others in a big way. An awesome example of this was when after our week-ending bbq our kids (spearheaded by Dave & Chris S.) took the extra burgers and food out random people in the community - drunks outside the bar, people just walking down the street, etc. It was truly moving to see these kids showing so much love to people they had never met and would probably never see again.

Anyway, enough sappy stuff. :) Here's some photos from the trip:

Posted by iChris at 5:48 PM | Permalink

So Wal-Mart's 1 Hour photo has turned into 24 hour photo. Now, 24 hours isn't really that long to wait for 3 rolls of film and I'm not really that impatient - but don't advertise 1 hour photo but actually taking 24 hours. Sorry for all the Wal-Mart bashing - I know lots of people really do love that place. Here's a little free advertising for them in exchange:

In other web stuff - check out this site for a look at which albums you shouldn't have in your collection. I think I have about 7 or 8 of them. I think he's a little harsh on U2 in here - but then I could be a bit biased.

Two new websites are up and running that I'm involved with. The first is of the musical variety - Travis's song that was debuted here in a sample format now has a home on mp3.com. Check out http://www.mp3.com/t_ravisty for any of the stuff that Trav and I come up with. Also, be sure to drop by and visit Crystal Redekop's new site that I'm working on with her. It's at http://www.cyrstal-leigh.com and is definitely a work in progress though there's enough there to be able to send the few people that visit this site to check it out.

Photos probably tomorrow - unless Wal-Mart turns into 48 hour photo. ;)

Posted by iChris at 5:47 PM | Permalink

'm not really down for the count (yet), we were just gone on a week long missions trip with some grade 9, 10 & 11's to Pearceland, SK (four hours north of here, up past North Battleford). As I mentioned last week, I was sick going into it so that's why I didn't post anything then and we left Saturday and got back today. And now I'm starting to feel sick again! Yech! And i thought sleeping in a tent with 6 other guys would help my sickness. Doh!

More details when I have pictures and more sleep.

Posted by iChris at 5:46 PM | Permalink

A very interesting article on the music business by John Densmore, (former?)drummer for The Doors. He talks about not selling the reason they don't sell their songs for commericals (even when offered a couple million and a computer by the president of Apple, Steve Jobs) and also about giving back at least 10% (a.k.a. tithing) to the world.

I went through a Door's phase back in high school (Oliver Stone's The Doors being one of the best rock/band movies made) and while a lot of their tunes are just drug induced ramblings - they did (and obviously still do) have a strong belief and respect for the art of the songs they wrote.

Posted by iChris at 5:46 PM | Permalink

Apparently today is free slurpee day at 7-11 since today is 7/11.

Of course, they have to have it on a day when I've got a sore throat and shouldn't be drinking slurpees.

Anyway, for those of you who don't have sore throats and don't live in Quebec (sorry Matt!) go grab yourself a free slurpee!

Posted by iChris at 5:45 PM | Permalink

So the lake didn't happen - well the lake I'm sure was there, it just didn't happen for us. Sue came down with a cold friday night that meant we spent the weekend getting better. Actually she spent the weekend getting better, I spent the weekend feeding my Sims addicition. (Mark got married to Carlo's girlfriend, appropriately named 'girlfriend' because I couldn't remember her name - sorry c-lo!)

After i manged to kick the Sims habit for awhile, Travis came over and we did some recording of a tune he's had floating around his head for awhile. Click here for a sample of it.

Have a great Monday!

Posted by iChris at 5:40 PM | Permalink

We're off to Waskesiu (is that how it's spelled?) this weekend - well part of it anyways. Hopefully the storm that's brewing doesn't get too nasty and we can have a good time out there with my family. We're all packing in to one cabin so it should be fun.

Saskatchewan air got sold on ebay - I think I know what business I'm starting next.

Get a free game compliments of the U.S. Army.

That's it for me - have a great weekend!

Posted by iChris at 5:40 PM | Permalink

To counter-act the lame seriousness of the last post, here's something I found that I find just hilarious - but don't know why. Hopefully it doesn't start a big thing like the hamster dance did:

Posted by iChris at 5:39 PM | Permalink

Bono on the crisis in Africa and the North American Evangelical church's (of which FGCC is one) response

"I mean, what is going on with the churches? It is incredible. I tell these evangelicals in the United States there are 2,300 verses of scripture about the poor. It's the central message outside of personal redemption, the idea of dealing with the poor. And I'm asking them, where are they? Where are they on this? On a recent poll of evangelical churches, only six per cent said they wanted to do something about AIDS. It is unbelievable, the leprosy of our time if you like. " - from the cbc.ca site

Posted by iChris at 5:38 PM | Permalink

As I type this there are at least 8 girls downstairs celebrating Dana's engagment with what they like to call a 'Bridal Shower.' I don't really need to point out that there's no sign of any shower happening, so I won't. Vast amounts of chips and chocolate will be consumed things that it's probably best I don't know about will be discussed.

It's funny how a lot of our friends have reached the magic age of 25 and are starting to get paired off. I don't think it's panic or anything because nobody's rushed into a relationship that they shouldn't really be in, but it is kind of funny how last year at this time hardly anybody was even dating and now most everyone is engaged.

Except for Darren.

But that's ok because Darren's okay. Although he sounds a little less confident in his single-ness now that he's one of the few left (in our friendship group obviously). So, wherever you are tonight - raise a pint to Darren and wish him luck in his pursuit of his mystery lady who is out there somewhere, wondering where her intellectually stimulating unworldly loner of a man is.

Posted by iChris at 5:37 PM | Permalink