1. The Escapist.  If you’re not interested in video games or video game culture, or if you are interested in it but struggle with the overwhelming geekiness of it all, this site is probably not for you.  If, however, you can happily wallow in your own nerddom, there’s a lot to enjoy on this site.  Zero Punctuation and Unskippable are definite highlights.

2.  Gord Downie on CBC Q.  The May 11 episode features a lengthy interview with the frontman for The Tragically Hip, one of the best Canadian bands ever.  The interview is a fascinating look into the mind of the poet and performer.

3.  Uncle Jay Explains the News.  More than Fox, CNN, or even BBC, I look to Uncle Jay to make sense of the events in the world around us.  And then to mock them.

photo credit: Pipe ?

1. Exercise.  It’s not so much that I like the exercise itself (at all), but I do like the general sense of well-being and smug self-satisfaction that one gets after one has returned from exercise.

At least, I get the aforementioned smugness and satisfaction.

Elizabeth and I were quite active this weekend, relatively speaking, though the relativity there should not be underestimated.  We even went to the gym, which is somewhat remarkable given my previous forays into dedicated fitness facilities.

2.  The Hip.  I know, I know, I need to shut up about the Hip already.  Bear with me.  I’m still buzzing (and my ears are still ringing) from the concert, and I just recently picked up two of their albums which I didn’t have before.  They are playing through my PC’s fair-to-middling speakers as I type, and are making me feel very soulful.

3.  Good sp0rtsmanship.  It allows me to remain friends with Diggory, even as he hands me the ass-whupping of a lifetime in our folding stats.

photo credit: kevindooley

We arrived at the Nokia theatre and made our way down to the floor just as the lights dimmed and the band strolled onto the stage, and with such impeccable timing I was pretty sure we were in for a great night.  To my surprise, they kicked off the evening with “The Depression Suite”, a 9-minute compilation from their new album which, like most everything the Hip plays, is a good song made ten times better when it’s played live.  (See also “Poets“.)

From there, the evening took off like a rocket.  I spent most of the show just grinning from ear to ear.  Because of the small venue, we started the evening about 30 feet from the stage, and after the first intermission had worked our way up to within 15 feet of where Gord was putting on his performance.  I had never been that close to them before, and being able to see the expressions on Gord’s face as he launched around the stage and performed a series of mini-dramas was an incredible experience.

For much of the performance, I was hoping I could catch his eye just so that he could see I was having the time of my life.  During the last few songs of the show, I’m convinced that Gord saw me and held my gaze for a few moments as the concert roared on around us.

Even Elizabeth, who is not necessarily a huge fan, seemed to be having a great time.  Perhaps that was just for my benefit, but either way it made me very happy.

They played many of the songs I was really hoping they’d play.  Some, I was quite confident we’d hear (“The Last Recluse“), some I was hopeful we’d hear but not certain (“Courage” and Elizabeth’s favourite “Bobcaygeon“), and some that I really didn’t think we had the slightest chance of hearing (“The Drop-off“).

If there was one thing I’d change, it would be stand further away from a cluster of drunken gibbons who, convinced it was still 1995, started crowd surfing and trying to mosh near the end.

For most of the show, though, it was just a crowd full of people who were pouring forth enthusiasm for the Hip, and the Hip poured it right back.  It was Canadians being Canadian, and it was the best concert I have been to in my life.

photo credit: radiobread

It is going to be a great show.

Today he sent me a link to this article in The Record that talks about the staying power of this band, and how they’ve remained relevant.  My brother-in-law and I have mused about what it is about The Hip that sticks with us, long after the song-of-the-day bands have come and gone.  The Hip don’t generally write songs that snare me at once, to be later discarded; rather, they write songs that grow on me, and these songs only seem to get better with time.

The fact that they don’t seem to take themselves too seriously helps, too.  A qunitessentially Canadian band on a quintessentially Canadian show — it’s like I’m peering into the nexus of the universe, and beaver riding a moose is gazing calmly back at me.

photo credit: cursedthing

That said, the people around me were eager to celebrate, and for that I’m grateful.  I can’t say that I’m particularly averse to having my wishes take a higher priority than usual.

You can expect to read about the fallout from said birthday for a while, between the concert Elizabeth is taking me to, the album that my sister and brother-in-law got me, the vacation indulgences that my parents helped sponsor, and my first bourbon from Diggory.

And I haven’t even mentioned the sudden onslaught of Facebook well-wishings that went down yesterday.  Truly staggering, that.

photo credit: *spud*

In Violet Light will forever remind me of South Korea, where I was teaching (I use the term loosely) English when the album came out.  More specifically, it will remind of me riding the bus there, listening to the Gord’s vocal flexings on the MP3 player I bought at some sketchy market in a suburb of Seoul.  And of visiting my sister and brother-in-law in Japan, and discussing the album over a thoughtful pint or two.

In Between Evolution came out just as I was heading over to Sudan (again, to visit my sister and brother-in-law).  The track “Summer’s Killing Us” seemed especially appropriate, given the unbelievable heat there.  It was the first time I have smelled heat.  While we were there, listening to the album as we worked, we talked about where we might be when the next album came out, and wondered if each new Hip album would also be accompanied by a change in our location.

World Container was the first Hip album (or full album of any sort, for that matter) that I bought on iTunes, while living and working in Mississauga, Ontario.  Geographically, it wasn’t as exciting a place for a Canadian to be as Seoul or Khartoum, but it carries its own share of memories as well.  It also taught me that, when it comes to really good albums by really good bands, I still prefer to have a physical disc that I can carry from computer to stereo to car for the first couple of weeks, while we get acquainted.  After that, I rip it to my library and listen to it amongst the rest of my music.

And now, We Are The Same has come out, and here we are in New York.  As an added bonus, I’ll also be seeing the Hip at their show in New York in May.

This is probably the only band that has such close ties to memories I have of places I’ve been, and I wonder if, in a few years, this album will remind me of New York the way the previous albums have connected me to the places I was when I first heard them.

photo credit: radiobread

1. My cousin’s wedding.  My cousin (and his new wife, just so’s we’re clear) just got back from the Dominican Republic, where they celebrated their wedding / honeymoon.  I’ve seen a couple of pictures from the trip, and suddenly I find myself longing wistfully to be someplace warm and lazy.

2. The Hip.  They just released their new album, which Amazon kindly delivered to me on the day of its release.  I then spent yesterday afternoon listening to it as I worked, and felt reconnected with my homeland and the artistic community at large.  Since Elizabeth got us tickets to see them here in New York in May, I felt it was important to become familiar with their new material prior to what promises to be a great and intimate show.

I had a moment’s panic when I first tossed the CD into my computer’s drive, and opened Windows Media Player.  For some reason, Media Player decided to just start playing some of the random tracks that came bundled with the software, rather than the CD that I had just put in the freaking drive.  As the lilting strains of someone I’d never heard of playing a song I did not care for filled the room, I wondered if perhaps my favourite band had gone off the deep end.

They had not, and contentment reigned throughout the house yesterday afternoon.  Though the first song on the disc was a little more country than I had expected.

3. BioShock.  Diggory and I are a little late to this party, since the game has been out for months, but we picked it up this week and have been enjoying it considerably.  It’s a pretty tense, suspenseful game, with a surprisingly intelligent story line.  BioShock is like something from Alfred Hitchock’s mind, if he was channeling Jules Verne while going through a dieselpunk phase.

I have decided that I will not play this game if I am alone in the house.

photo credit: Andrew*