Tina Fey

I`m a huge fan of Tina Fey. Most people have been saying that her Sarah Palin parody is bang on. Fey did an interview with Amy Poehler (as Katie Couric) last night on Saturday Night Live. Compare it with the real interview!

Guitar Hero tournament

So I'm signed up to do the GUITAR HERO 3 Tournament tomorrow! There are 24 people registered! I thought that there would be less, but we'll see how I do. I practiced a bit tonight. Sigh, if only I practiced my real electric guitar as much as I played this game.

Here's Weezer's My Name is Jonas with my highest streak: 378 notes!

Here's the same song with a higher %.


****Update: I just got back. There were way too many players! I beat a poor 13 year old in my first round, but the 2nd round doesn't start for another 2 hours! I'm a bit too busy for that. Lots of good players though! (Forgot my camera!)

Terry Fox Run

We had our Terry Fox run in the afternoon today. The whole school participated, except for one misbehaving boy in the wife's class. I did OK. I was beat by two of my students...we ran laps around the school and the field. Time to get in shape again! Maybe the Nike + Ipod feature on the new ipods will help... :)

The popsicle sticks indicate how many laps we had completed.

1st volleyball game

We often have fun drawing contests in French class. Here are three artists that are attempting to draw "un gâteau":

Here is the finished result. My quick drawing is the large one in the middle:

We had our first volleyball game of the season this year (I coach the girls grade 8 team at school). Our team consists of mostly gr 7 students though. We played the grade 10 and grade 8 teams from "my" rival school today. I've had quite a history coaching against this school. Today, their grade 8 team bench players would shout out "Garbage!" at the top of their lungs while we served the ball. The coach claimed he couldn't hear them after I complained. They stopped. We romped them. (We almost beat the 10th graders, too!)

Bumping into co-workers au centre-ville

So we bumped into our co-workers this past Saturday while I went to check out the new iPods (very nice, by the way). We decided to go eat at Hons on Robson. I found out that they only live TWO blocks away, yet had never eaten there since moving over a year ago! I think they enjoyed the rather inexpensive Chinese food. Too bad Tim picked up the potato nest (on the left) with his hand! Needless to say we didn't eat it.

Our dog is enjoying her warm house now that colder weather has arrived.
That, plus the fact that we had left her crate that she so much enjoys in the car.

Bingo aka "La Lotto"

So I'm going to blog in the fashion of the wife.

Here are some of my 5th graders enjoying a relaxing game of Lotto, French for Bingo. They practice listening to and pronouncing French numbers. I still just do five in a row for a bingo. I think I'll introduce the various other combinations, like the X or the corners, for winning soon!

Ferrari

I had a chance to drive my friend Mike's friend's Ferrari downtown (haha, it used to belong to him) This was our wedding car a few years ago:

First time I had seen two red Ferrari's side by side! (The one on the right is newer and faster!)

So we were at London Drugs tonight getting dogfood and tylenol (random, I know) and I noticed as we were paying that there is a Guitar Hero 3 contest coming up on September 27th. I wanted to sign up, but it took too long and the wife is sick, so I'll go back later on. I wonder how young the kids will be...I'm showing up dressed like a teenager haha. First prize is the Aerosmith version!

Brooke Fraser live in concert

A lot of you probably do not know who Brooke Fraser is. She is is an award-winning New Zealand Singer/Songwriter. She is also one of the principal worship leaders of one of my favourite Christian worship bands, Hillsong United. She has written recent worship favourites Hosanna, None but Jesus, Lord of Lords, and the latest, You'll come (a GREAT song)
She was quite witty with her humour and stories. She was great on the keys too!
This guy, Matt Hires, opened up for Brooke. He's only 22! He actually started with You are my Sunshine...which resulted in quite a confused reaction from the crowd. He ended up doing a good job...nice sounding guitar, and I bought his EP and got him to sign it:

The concert took place at Richards on Richards, an old-school club in downtown Vancouver. Brooke told us that the club was gonna get torn down soon to make room for high rises. It was weird seeing a christian artist in a club where minors under 19 weren't allowed. She ended up NOT singing any of her hillsong songs, but only her own songs and a couple covers. Hopefully I'll have time to do a quick video. I brought my Canon, but was surprised to see at least two people with large SLRS! I did not know you could get away with those at concerts!

This is her guitarist. I can't remember his name right now, but he was very good.

Here is a video of her best song, Hosanna, off the albums ALL OF THE ABOVE.

Ouch! Bangkok Dangerous gets a measly 9% rating!

Whoa...I was hoping to get a chance to watch the new Nicholas Cage movie Bangkok Dangerous, having just returned from the great city. But on the giant movie review website rottentomatoes.com, it has received only 7 positive reviews out of 75. Guess I`m waiting for the dvd release. My cousins in Thailand actually know Cage`s co-star, Chakrit Yamnarm.

On the other hand, The Dark Knight still has a very solid rating of 94%, and will be re-released in the theatres in January 2009, even after the dvd comes out in Christmas! Chances are it will meet the $1 billion mark worldwide.

Apple IPOD updates!!!

I've been looking forward to September 9th for some time now. Steve Jobs did a special conference revealing some new updates concerning all things iPod. There is a new 4th generation iPod nano out. They look amazing. If you have an hour to spend, here is the link to watch the conference. I ended up keeping up during a break at school on the live up to the minute blogs at engadget.com , ilounge.com, AND, gizmodo.com

Steve Jobs looked a bit thin. And what's with his jeans and weird shirt every time? Plus, as all teachers out there might have noticed, FUNNEST is not a word, Steve!


The iPod touch also got an update. PLUS a lower price point. It now features built-in exterior speakers and a volume control.

Hmmm.....sooo many decisions to make. Iphone 3G?? Ipod touch? nano?

The iPod touch will now be able to feature the Nike + iPod sport kit, where you can track your running, like a trainer! I was always interested in getting this, but never owned the Nano. Maybe this will be the motivation I need to get out there!
If you don't have one, here's how convenient it is to check your email/facebook/website through wifi at home:

Here's my previous post, shown on the iPod touch:Size difference of iPod touch vs. my 24 inch monitor:
Soooo many people are trying to unload their brand new in box iPod touch 1st generations on Craigslist! These must be the people who got a free one for buying a Macbook! They were going for about $220 Cdn. I predict with the new pricedrop ($259 here in Canada), we'll see these new 1st gens go for about $175!

The conference ended with a performance by Jack Johnson, who, according to Jobs, is the best-selling male artist in iTunes history. It's too bad that it sounded like not too many people in the audience even knew who he was! Ironically, the event, entitled "Let's Rock", ended with Johnson playing a couple acoustic folk tunes! Even he seemed a bit out of place at the end, saying: "I'm used to twenty-something (year old) girls right here, but..." (The audience was predominantly 30+ men!) Don't get me wrong, I used to listen to him back in 2003-04...U2 would have been better!

Hockey

Here's a couple photos from last week's hockey practice...our first game is in a week! We're doing late night (10:30PM games)! I'll see if I can survive out there...its tres fast! That's me on the far right wearing my roller hockey pants...

More Sunset photos - Richmond, B.C.

Compare these unedited low-res shots to future posts from the wife`s blog with the slr. It was too bad there were so many mosquito's out tonight!

Guitar Hero Aerosmith

This is as far as I got before I had to return the game. Hopefully, I`ll be getting it soon!

Great new Hillsong song

This song by Reuben Morgan is awesome. Have a listen. It comes from the same album with the song Healer from my post a while back. If you`re a guitarist, learn how to play using this video.

Buy the tracks off this album here.

Eve of first day of school

Well, all the kids must be feeling pretty excited and/or nervous at this point, as they all go back to school tomorrow morning. Being a specialist teacher, I don't actually have to do any teaching. I'm for sure going to visit the wife's class though. I know a few of the kids there, and they're too cute...I start Wednesday.

So I found out that my volleyball captain/best player has broke her arm and will be out of commission for the next five weeks. That was not good news (I coach grade 8 girls volleyball). We'll definitely have a harder season without her. Hopefully she can still come to practices and help out the younger group.

Got the new episodes of Prison Break Season 4 all cued up and ready to watch...did any of you see it yet? I had heard that they were bringing back Dr. Sarah Tancredi (sp?) It's true, Wentworth just confirmed it in an interview. I wonder how they'll play that out.

So we had our first ice hockey practice last night. Yes, I decided to join my first organized ice-hockey team (part-time albeit). It was quite a bit different from roller-hockey (something that I'm much better at). I trust I'll get better with more practice. I never did take the plunge and play ice hockey after all these years.