I've Been Had!

I've always thought I was smart with money. I hang up on guys who want to up my credit card limit, I cover my keypad while typing my password, and I tend to budget quite well. I wouldn't call it cheap ... but maybe thrifty. Twenty five years I've gone without doing anything really stupid with money ... and that all came crashing down yesterday. The culprit ... gift cards.

Over Christmas I got a couple gift cards to various places in town. I now understand why stores love gift cards ... you always end up spending more than you have on the card!!! I spent an extra 170 dollars in one store yesterday and barely even had a bag full of clothes ... do you know how many items of clothes you can get at Salvation Army for 170 dollars!!??? A LOT. That's the answer to that question.

Anyway, my woman said I looked good so I justified spending that much. (She came in under her gift cards!! An art I obviously have yet to master.)

We then went to another pricey place in town to use more of our gift cards ... again, I was tricked into spending more money ... tack on another 68 dollars above the GC's I got for Christmas!! It's like a sickness ... once the flood gates open up, there's no stopping the plastic!! I found myself wanting to go buy more things at places I didn't even have GC's for!! It was all my girlfriend could do to control me!!

The good news is I felt sick to my stomach about spending that much money .. so the shopping spree ended there. By now you can tell the thrifty comment I made earlier, is really just a cover up for me being a cheap skate. I can't help it ... its years of backpacking and being a student that have formed me this way!

After the dust settled .. I had two shirts .... a pair of jeans ... two dress shirts ... a pair of dress pants ... and a belt. Not bad for 250 bucks. Saying that makes me want to yack. I really am cheap.

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I'm 25. My birthday was on boxing day. I don't feel any different. I don't feel older. I don't have aches and pains. I haven't got any white hairs. But I do shake my fist at young kids who walk by my house ... but I've been doing that since the age of 21. Thanks to everyone who gave me a shout out on facebook, it felt nice.

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The Living Sky Casino opened yesterday. I think I'm going to let that sink in for a couple weeks before a blog is in order ... stay tuned.

Radio

I just got back from a short little vacation in Alberta. The Ms. and I drove out to Calgary and then down to Lethbridge for a couple days to visit family and friends. What a time to go on vacation ... we didn't fill up the car for more than 69.9 the whole trip and after driving close to 1500 kilometres ... we spent maybe 70 dollars on gas!!!

Anywho, I digress ... I realized something on our little expedition. You can now drive across the prairies listening only to rock!! Now that Medicine Hat has stepped up their game with Rock 105, you can drive from Winnipeg (power 97) to Regina (The Wolf) to Swift Current (The Eagle) to Med Hat (rock 105) to Calgary (Cjay ... or x92) !!! Its a very cool thing! I think it just shows how far radio has come. Three years ago a guy would lose the Wolf around Chaplin and have to put up with the crap the Eagle used to play ... then when that faded out .. My 96 would be the only FM station you could get ... and don't even get me started on that kind of music. Very cool to hear rock radio right across the board. No offence to what the Eagle used to be or what My 96 is .. its just not my kind of music.

I did notice something a little strange driving from Lethbridge to Med Hat though ... Rock 106 in Lethbridge (a Rodgers radio station) is playing the exact same music as Rock 105 in The Hat (also a Rodgers radio station). I'm not talking about rock n roll .. I'm talking about the exact same song at the exact same time of day. What I'm trying to say is both those Rodgers stations are using the same play list ... just using different DJ's and commercials. I was flipping back and forth as I got close to the Hat and sure enough ... exact same songs ... minutes apart from each other. I thought that was kind of weird for a big company like Rodgers who have radio stations all over the country. I mean ... Lethbridge and the Hat are so close ... why would they do that? It got me thinking ... does every Rodgers rock station use the exact same play list?

Some of the highlights of the trip ... the Lethbridge water tower!! Have you ever heard of it? Its the old town water tower that is now converted into a Restaurant/bar ... very cool!! .. but expensive! The Strathmore Station is also neat ... an old train station converted into a top notch restaurant! You can tell a guy is getting old when all he can talk about after a vacation is the food he ate.

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Check out the new poll ... its to get you in the Christmas spirit.

F this guy

I wanted to punch this piece of garbage right in the face when I read this BS.

"Velvet Revolver are seeking to recruit Irishman Phil Conalane from Million Dollar Reload.
Though a surprising choice, Phil is experienced but relatively unknown on the international stage, which would fit Velvet Revolver’s bill of fresh blood as they try to rebuild their career following the disappointing sales of their last album, Libertad, and the GN’R return that has left them reeling. Phil is also well known as a good songwriter, something that scuppered Velvet Revolver’s plans when they previously tried to bring in the less-than-prolific Josh Todd of Buckcherry. "

Here's the back story. Before VR formed ... Slash, Duff, and Matt Sorum were jamming with Josh Todd and Keith Nelson of Buckcherry ( Buckcherry was on hiatus at that time). Basically they wrote some songs and were all thinking it was going to be something very cool. Then out of nowhere Slash said he didn't want to work with them .. they hired Dave Kushner and Scott Weiland and never looked back. Unfortunately the rumour is they used a few of the songs they did with the boys from Buckcherry which is brutal. Atleast Keith Nelson got a writing credit for Dirty little thing.

The good news is Buckcherry got back together and ended up making their most successful album ever! 15 was unbelievable !! "Crazy Bitch" catapulted them into platinum status selling over a million ring tones and becoming their first top 100 hit settling down at #59. That was followed by 4 other singles, one of which became their first top 10 hit. "Sorry" landed at #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The album is 2x platinum now ... which means 2 million albums sold ...

Don't even get me started on their debut album which went Gold and included "Lit Up".

Bottom line ... whoever wrote that story needs to watch their mouth. Get your facts straight. No one likes to hear your personal opinion. Josh Todd may not be a lyricist god .... but he seems to do all right .... plus he's still in a band ... that's more than anyone can say about Velvet Revolver ...

Metallica

One word ... incredible.

Let's start with the light show. The first song was such a crazy laser show I almost had a seizure. Which is kind of ironic because I laughed to myself as I stood in line outside the Pengrowth thinking ... " I can't believe they have sings up warning about the lights!" They really did ... it said something along the lines of the light show being so intense it could cause seizures.

The play list was pretty good. The only reason I say pretty good is because they played a lot of new stuff and that's never really that fun at a concert with a band like Metallica. They have way to many good songs in their archives. Plus I heard the first night they played a bunch of stuff off of "and Justice for all" which is my favorite album. They did play "One" but that's about it. They re-visited the oldies with "Master of Puppets," "Ride the Lightning," and "Seek and Destroy," and they hit up the Black Album playing "Sad But True," Enter Sandman," and "Nothing Else Matters!" All in all ... it was a solid set.

How long has Metallica been around for? The answer is a couple years shy of 3 decades ... and the old boys still rock!! They took the stage at around 9:15ish and played almost till midnight! Can't complain about the length of the show!!

The stage set up was cool. Basically ... it was a 360 degree stage which meant it was in the middle of the stadium and every side was used for seating ... very cool ... I have never seen anything like that before. It looked like the score clock got in the way of the stage being right in the middle of the stadium which sucked cause they had to put it on the other side of it which was farther from where we were!!

The best part of the show was "One." All the lights went out ... the guns starting firing ... and as the bombs blew up ... fire came out of the stage ... so awesome!! Then James walks out and starts the song as flames fly from the stage. Kirk joined him and started his soloing magic ... Lars waited till the last possible moment to run on the stage and start drumming ... Rob was on the other side of the stage so I couldn't really see what he was doing. Best part of the night for me.

The funny story of the night came with our winners. We got to the Pengrowth Saddledome in the Cruiser. The place was a zoo!! There were people everywhere!!! I really wanted to get a picture of Daylyn (winner of live like a rock star: Metallica) and her man Kerry in front of the Saddledome sign standing in front of the Cruiser. I basically had to run people over to get that close but we did it. The funny part was all the people yelling at us. If you haven't seen the cruiser ... one side has the Eagle logo on it .. the other ... Magic ... which was the one facing the crowd of METALLICA FANS!! You can imagine the comments and invective being hurled our way. "Get the @*#% out of here with your MAGIC #*%#&%#*%!!!" one guy yelled. I had a good chuckle. We got some good pictures, that's all I cared about.

Metallica was worth the 5 and a half hour drive ... and to be honest ... I fulfilled a dream of mine this weekend .. and that was to see the greatest metal band of the last 30 years. I can now check that off my bucket list.

New Idea

It looks like people thought Jamaica and The Mayan Rivera Cruise were the best Incredible Journeys we've put on. For those of you who are lost ... it was a poll that was on here last week. Unfortunatley San Diego and New Brunswick got zero love. Just think, you can win a trip to Jamaica this year and go to what people have dubbed, THE BEST IJ EVER!!! Just listen for the Jamaican Jet.

WARNING!!!! More talk of Ellen ahead.

I've put up a new poll ... don't judge me. It's got a purpose. The other day we got on one of our birthday tangents where a celebrity was having a birthday ... we didn't know anything about that person, so we talked about people who had something to do with them instead. For example ...

Chance: Julianne Moore is 48.
Jon: Who's that?
Chance: I'm not totally sure. She's got red hair.
Jon: Red hair?
Chance: Yeah, you know... the one with red hair....
Jon: ....
Chance: She looks like that chick from Silence of the lambs ..
Jon: Jodie Foster?
Chance: Yeah she's a great actress isn't she?
Jon: Jodie Foster or Julianne Moore?
Chance: Jodie Foster.
Jon: Yeah she is but man was Anthony Hopkins ever creepy in that movie!
Chance: You know who else is creepy ... Nicole Richie
Jon: Not as creepy as Oprah.
Chance: She doesn't even matter .. Ellen is way better than her anyway ..

You can see how we get going. It happens a lot. Anyway, Lucy Liu was turning 40 and I mentioned something about her doing some investigative reporting for Oprah. Jon then pointed out how terrible Oprah was, and how he would pick Ellen any day of the week rather than Oprah. I mean come on ... that's pretty obvious .. Ellen is unbelievable. Anyway .. that brought to my attention that we have been talking about Ellen a lot as of late. I thought to myself ... you either need to stop letting people know you watch Ellen ... or embrace the fact that you are a morning DJ who has a non sexual crush on Ellen. I've decided ... I am going to embrace her!! Well, I'm not actually going to embrace her ... well maybe someday ... I hope...

Here's my plan. We're going to start doing an Ellen bit everyday of the week. I don't know exactly what its going to be or how it will go yet but I am starting to brain storm. Everyday I'm going to e-mail the audio to Ellen's "people." I will do this for as long as it takes. They can't ignore us forever!!! My hope is to hound them until they give in and get a couple of Rock Morning Show Jocks from Swift Current Saskatchewan onto the Ellen show.

Got any ideas? I mean for helping us on our quest to get on Ellen. If she can reach for the stars and try to get George Clooney on her show .. I can try to get on her show!!

Leave your comments and check out the poll question ..

Christmas

Its December 1st. Anyone who has decorations up right now should be ashamed of themselves. Don't you know the rules? No Christmas decorations till its December. That's the rule. I didn't make up the rule, its just the rule. Abide by it. It's for your own good. It's to protect you from looking ridiculous when there's still 5 days to Halloween and you've already got the blow up Santa on your lawn. You don't really want to be the guy with the blow up Santa on your lawn when its October 19th do you? Do you?! I mean, its safe to put the blow up Santa up now because it's December 1st, but if you have it up already, that means you broke the rule, you put the blow up Santa on your lawn before December, and you oughta be ashamed of yourself!!

Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas decorations. Lights, trees, blow up Santas ... they're all great! Just don't make me look at them for more than the allotted time!!!

This is the first year I own a house for the Christmas season. I thought to myself, "Chance, you should put some Christmas decorations up. " Obviously I would have to wait until the December 1st rule to put them up, but I was thinking about this around November 25th. Unfortunately, my thoughts for Christmas lights went down the drain when I noticed my 80 year old neighbour Grizzwalling her house ! How can I compete with that? She's been buying Christmas lights for a good 60 years longer than I've been alive!!!

What was I going to do? I wasn't going to try and compete against her and her lights! But I did go over there on November 14th to tell her to SMARTEN UP! I yelled ... " MARG! YOU ARE TWO WEEKS TO EARLY TO BE PUTTING UP A BLOW UP SANTA!! DAMN YOU MARG!! DAMN YOU!! She didn't hear me ... she's 80!

We really are in the Christmas season now, and to be totally serious for a moment, its a season where you should be thinking of others. Sure its about the presents, the food, the decorations and the presents .. but its also a time to help others who may not have it as good as you do. There are a ton of ways to do it. The Salvation Army is a good place to start. Volunteer, donate ... do anything you can to make some one's Christmas as good as you know yours will be ... it'll be better than any present you get .... unless you get an I- phone ... THOSE ARE SOOO AWESOME!

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Scientists have found chunks of the meteorite that blew up in the sky a couple weeks ago. People reported seeing it all the way from Yorkton to Fort Mac to Edmonton and here in Swift. In fact, some were convinced it landed behind the Swift Current Mall! The meteorite chunks were found about 40 kms south of Lloydminster in Saskatchewan and could lead to Scientists discovering a lot of things about our solar system. Check out the video of it originally coming down .....