Am I a trailer? Am I one of those guys who just trails the end of conversations and group discussions?

Forgive the Seinfield-esque intro, but over my company Christmas Party (i.e. open bar, confined areas and drunken signing) I noticed something. Unless I was literally shouting and straining my vocals, not a word of what I said was being conveyed and registering. It just trailed off into the shroud of noise collecting above the bar. The funny thing is, I could hear their conversations.

I was quite perplexed by this, and of course this hypersensitivity and internal thought process was later heightened by some weed, and it lead me to wonder what was going on. Then, a possible solution hit me - they just want to talk for the sake of talking!

During their pauses I think that it's a moment for me to speak, but actually, it's just them taking a breath and recoating their throat for being so dry from talking so long. When the esophagus is rewetted, lungs are back as full capacity; they're back at it. This happens especially when I chat it up with the cabbies.

I guess it's a need for people just to talk. It's Toronto, high in independence and manifest destiny, and thus loneness and anomie effects ensue. People do want to express their thoughts and can't often - In bar situations, so many people are trying to express their thoughts at each other, like 2 buckets of water crashing head on. If one was empty the other could easily pour more in. I guess b/c in general I am more a listener, it just eggs people on to talk even more.

Thinking about it, I don't think I’d rather have it the other way. I know people mean well so it can be really comical at times. I should test this and just say a completely random comment, and see if they react! At times I wish I could be as sociable in big and loud environments as so many of the other extraverts, at least for 1 month to see what it would be like!

Bah, I enjoy being the listener; sometimes when I make comments FOR THE SAKE of making a statement, this adds no value whatsoever to the conversation. I'd say it's just as bad as a work laugh. When I CAN and WANT to add something of value in, I just hope people are there to at least listen and reciprocate that, which in general they do!

AND THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is where alcohol comes in to ruin it for me! There goes the tact in others, and it's about shouting louder to be heard. Who knows, it can be something else that I haven't figured out, and I don't care to put anymore thought than I have on this (coincidentally as I’m coming down). Where’s a group of pot smokers (and of course non-smoking, chillaxed, open-minded, thought provokers and not to mention solid active listeners) to discuss this with when you need ‘em eh??

Take care,

The Trailer

Wow. So I just spent 6 hours at the new Vaughn Mills shopping mega metropolis! Wow, it's pretty big!

I felt like a foreigner walking into the place. I was by myself, just taking a look after dropping my band mate off to a church gig she was singing at. Before I know it, hours and hours pass by and I’m still there.

Layout
Just as a quick update, this new shopping centre is north of Toronto and represents one of the biggest malls in Canada. I'm not going to waste time on stats as you all know can type "Vaughn Mills" in Google to get them. The mall is one massive square, with 6 separate neighbourhoods (e.g. fashion, technology, home, etc.). The interior was quite contemporary, each neighbourhood having its own colour scheme and design. They used lots of strong vibrant colours and clean striking lines, resulting in a fun and energetic feel to the mall.

Stores
I was impressed with the variety and size of the stores. There were no department stores or banks, which was a bit of a surprise but honestly you didn't need them. You can tell they were going for specialty stores and big box stores instead. You had the staple clothing stores, but also some fun new stores, which gave me the impression this was not a mall owned by Cadillac Fairview. Who knows. But anyway, it was fun to be new stores with the freedom to shop and look around for as long as I want! :)

Although it was a Sunday, the human traffic was only bad in the walkways throughout the mall. Once you went inside a store it wasn't too busy and the line up to purchase wasn't all that bad either.

There was one store called something like Big Ass Bass, which is a huge outdoor specialty store. They had a colourful exterior with fishing demos in the front to bait customers into the stores, as well a horrible shooting gallery/shooting games at the back that lured the kids in. (Btw, did you know that sales for fur coats/accessories have risen at some places by 300% in sales vs. year ago? Apalling. Where's Ace Ventura when you need him?) Anyway, this store was intense! Being a specialty store and massive overhead to maintain, the prices were quite high, but it would be great for my dad to rip off ideas and make/purchase at Canadian Tire for the cottage! :)

Purchases
As it goes every year, I always find so many things that *I* want while I’m shopping for others. Heh, given that I don't buy a lot of things for myself (I am a confessed penny pincher), I felt that I could purchase a few smashing things for me and add more to the list of things I will look out for when they're on sale :). I netted out with only 3 items in 6 hours, averaging 2 hours per items. Sad? Actually, for me, that's about average. I take a LONG time going through the consumer buying behaviour process (need identification -> info search -> alternatives -> decision criteria -> selection -> purchase) but usually in the end I’m pretty happy with what I end up with. Of the 3 items, one was a gift and 2 were clothes for me. :)

Overall the experience there was quite positive, given it was shopping in a mall. It was great going by myself for most of the experience (I did meet up with someone for the last leg), so I wouldn’t feel pressured by anyone. I found some GREAT clothing ideas for SBF, which means that I will need to do "what not to wear" during the boxing day sales for him!! He's been asking me for sometime, and i can't wait to be the next Clin-wonton London*> :P

Take care,

RE

"eat drink and be merry"

*SBF - Not to worry, I will not force you to purchase a tweed pant!

Some good news and some ok news. Good news is that we have our first cut of my band's demo done from ou drummer. OK news is that some work still needs to be done on it. I feel a bit bad b/c my drummer has been hard at work on it on his own, and now with more feedback i'm sure he feels a bit:

a) sick of listening to it
b) sick of pestering critics who will never like anything they hear
c) defensive of his post production work

This is understandable, but hey, we're all working toward a single goal, right? You've got to think of it the same as when we present creative for the first time to a client - it's a first concept, and although we worked hard on it, there's going to be revisions. Perhaps he's used to final approval on the first cut that he's happy with.

Don't get me wrong, I think right now the demo sounds good - lightyears better than anything I could do myself. So sooon, very soon we can have our first demo/EP done.

The ultimate goal is to use this to shop around for bigger venues to play at, and show to contacts in the industry for input and.. well, for more contacts! Once complete, this will be our first official piece of tangible material that will help represent our music. It's a big deal, since now the music can speak for itself w/o a band member like myself to defend it. I'm really hoping find a producer who can see what we're going for and help work with us, on a tight budget of course!

Before I get that far, it's back to working on getting this demo/EP done!

Take care,

RE

"eat drink and be merry"