So, I've been meaning to make this little compilation for a while...and acquired the very last of my videos just before fall started. So, today instead of doing my statistics homework, I did this with one of my favorite songs off of the new Sigur Ros album, Inni mer syngur vitleysingur :)




The lyrics are here - in both Icelandic and English :D
Enjoy!

Now I should probably do some homework...hah :P
This post shall consist of something that was of primary epic importance and then a few side bits of mini epic importance.

That which is incredibly epic and important is not surprisingly, the Sigur Ros concert on September 20, 2008 (which I attended). I've been waiting to see them for at least 3 years because their music is great - possibly the most shiver inducing music I've ever listened to (I think my shiver record was exceeded at that concert, or maybe on par with Radiohead).

I have uploaded a few videos of the concert here. Youtube is doing maintenance right now and so I can't upload it there.

It took place at Quai Jacques Cartier. Twas a bit chilly, but not terribly so...I got a shirt. A splurge on my part, but dude man, it was destiny :P I didn't have enough cash on me for a shirt, but then while perusing the area, there was an ATM. So the shirt was meant to be mine. Anyways, enough of this and onto the show.
I was on the leftish side, in front of the speaker, right at the front against the gate (usual location it seems). So I had a good view of the stage.

The opening act was an Icelandic band called Parachutes. Apparently the vocalist of that band is the boyfriend of the Sigur Ros vocalist. So they're touring together - how sweet :P. They were pretty good. I generally find (or at least with a good part of the Icelandic bands that I've heard) that the music always has some kind of magical vibe about it. Also, it was the bassists birthday; so the violinist summoned the crowd participation in singing the Happy Birthday song...and so it was sung, all at once in English, French and Icelandic.

About 30 minutes after the opening band finished Sigur Ros came on. First of all, they have nice uniforms. They're all black, except for the drummer. He had a white shirt with his happy colorful hat/crown on. My friend explained Jonsi's outfit quite well - like a pseudo cowboy. Here's the setlist ( I'm a lamer and knew which songs were which from the first note >_> I also sang along (silently, lol)...in icelandic & hopelandic):

01 svefn-g-englar
02 glósóli (the scream at the end is shiver inducing!)
03 ný batterí (I was surprised that they played this...it's an incredibly depressing song, but awesome. I used to loop it often in fall 2005. Lyrics here w/ translation)
04 fljótavík (there was colorful snow-like confetti falling from the top of the stage :D)
05 við spilum endalaust
06 hoppípolla (haha, joyful song!)
07 með blóðnasir (at this point, Jonsi asked us to sing along by going Ooooooooo Ooooooooo. Created that happy together crowd atmosphere thing).
08 festival
09 heysátan (This was really pretty - the four of them gathered around the same general area to play their instruments. It started dark, but every time they played something, these little electric candles would light up and the dim again when there was no music).
10 viðrar vel til loftárása
11 inní mér syngur vitleysingur (my favorite song from the new album so far because it's so cheerful, especially the build up near the end. It does make me laugh though, because during that fast part at the end, it sounds like he sings "you kinky towlie" at one point :P makes for an interesting insult. "you suck!" ...."well you're a kinky towlie").
12 sæglópur (aha! this was initially my favorite song off of "Takk" along with "Andvari". This explains my old fb name :D)
13 hafsól (dude man! this is the revamped version of the song from "Von", and it came out on the Hoppipolla single (I think?, if I remember correctly) Anyways, it's top notch. I'm really pleased they played this. It starts off all quaint, with the bassist tapping a drum stick on his guitar and Jonsi doing his bow on the guitar thing. The end builds up really nicely and it goes all chaotic with the recorder and the drummer going mad and ending with Jonsi banging the bow against the guitar until it is destroyed...then he threw it into the crowd).
14 popplagið (YES! That's all I could say. First note, bang, I was like no way! Untitled 8. The most EPIC song on ( ) and possibly one of their most epic. I didn't take any pictures during this song because I was completely into it :o and many shivers, oh yes. What a great way to "end")

encore:
15 gobbledigook (I knew they were gonna play this song because it's their first single off of the new CD and also they came out with acoustic guitars. Also, some people from Parachutes came to help with more drums. Jonsi said, ok, I'm gonna ask you guys to help, it's really difficult. I'm gonna ask you to clap...but on beat!
It's different from their other stuff, if only for the use of the acoustic. The concert ended perfectly with colorful blasts of confetti from each end of the stage. The only other concert that I've been to that had confetti blasts was the Polyphonic Spree. So, like at that concert, I naturally jumped around like a happy bunny).

As people continued clapping, the band came out once more to bow and thank us.

Here are some pictures:








Now the little tidbits:

I was roaming around HMV yesterday to use up a gift certificate a friend gave me for my birthday and a song started playing that I thought was pretty good. So I asked what it was. HMV dude says "It's from the new TV on the Radio" album - Dear Science.
Now, I'd seen them open for The Yeah Yeah Yeahs early in 2004 and I thought they were "ok", but not super into them. I guess they were still developing their style or so. So I decided to download the album and give it a try. It's actually pretty good. So far the tracks that I like are "Halfway Home" (the one I heard in HMV), "DLZ" and "Lover's Day". In a way they're like MGMT, but more rocking (less discoey :P).

Also, there are many things happening at Cinema du Parc these days...but I haven't been able to check them out yet.
I completely missed the Eastern European Film Festival. The last day is tomorrow, but I doubt I'll be able to check anything out. So perhaps next year :( (eurofest.ca I think it is).
Starting Friday is the Bollywood Film Festival. I already have Devdas, but I may be checking out two of the movies. Om Shanti Om was recommended.
Also, Pop Montreal has some things showing to. Of particular interest is the Oct 5 stuff - talking about Nollywood (the Nigerian Film industry), which is like #3 in movie production in the world ~ 2400 films/year. Crazy peoples :P (including meself, woot). Also, they will be showing a 63 min film of a road trip through Ukraine with Eugene Hutz - the vocalist of Gogol Bordello - a most awesome gypsy punk band. So I may check that out as well, for he is an all around premium dude.

Now, for something truly epic - Cinema du Parc is gonna be showing "War and Peace/
Voyna i mir (in russian)) - based on the huge ass novel by Leo Tolstoi. I have yet to read that...I'm still stuck on Anna Karenina and War and Peace is longer :P By the time I finish that i'll probably be 30 something.
In anycase, such an epic book deserves and epic movie. It's over 7 hours long and so they must show it in 4 parts. Like dude man...imagine being at the cinema for that long. Yeah, there are intermissions, but I'd leave the place "whoaaaa, my eyes >_<".
I was tempted to embark on such an adventure, but then I found the movie on youtube.
So if any of you feel like subjecting yourselves to 7 hours of russian epicness, start here


That ends my long post,
So Until next time,
Happy Fall!
After class yesterday evening, I happened to have my camera and took a few pics for fun :D

From poly

Walking from the main building of Poly down their many outdoor stairs
From poly

The main building of Universite de Montreal
From poly

Some more outdoor stairs that lead to a little scenic pathway of sorts :)

From poly

Pavillon Mackay-Lassonde - the one that's all colorful inside

From poly

Light!

From poly

Walking along that scenic path

From poly


From poly

Here you can see part of the ramp I try to bike up. It's long, inclined and curvy. I usually get 3/4 up, so maybe next time I'll make it :P

From poly

treeeees

From poly

more light in the sky

From poly


That's it :)
PS: It's getting to premium sweater weather! How wonderful. Soon it'll be time for crunchy leaves, halloween, and apple picking :D
I started the Masters Research Program in Biomedical Engineering on Tuesday (officially...I only had class on Wednesday). Tuesday consisted largely of administrative things.

So far, here's what I can say:
1) Compared to the English universities in Montreal, Poly's administration is a whole lot more efficient and polite. Every time I've gone to inquire about things or drop things off, I've been greeted nicely and everything is done quickly. They also don't charge you for attestations of full-time study.
They also try really hard to be welcoming. For orientation they organized a kind of info session about biomed with free beverages and pastries. Then we got a free lunch that consisted of salads and meat and also dessert. For veg's they gave pizza. Granted, it wasn't a very good tasting pizza...but hey they tried!

ETS also seems to be pretty efficient...but I was only there for 20 minutes today. So I'll have to gather more observational data while I'm there taking my class.

In contrast, Concordia charged me 10$ each time for attestations and they're also incredibly slow. They also seem generally grouchy. There are some really awesome profs there though.

But, this doesn't even compare to McGill. They are THE SLOWEST university EVER. They still haven't given me a letter saying whether or not I can do a masters there :P Oh, well McGill. It's too late! I would say it's only their administration that's slow, but no, at least some of their profs are equally slow.

2) The campus of University of Montreal encourages physical fitness - the entire thing, is uphill and Poly is on the highest part of the hill. Biking up there is quite a challenge and so is walking (to some extent). Even if you take the subway, you have to go through the ramp and then walk up 10 flights of outdoor stairs to get to the main building. Luckily the other building, Pavillon Lassonde is not that high. One advantage of the height is the nice view of the city though.

3) Pavillon Lassonde the most colorful university building I've ever laid my eyes on. Each floor is a different color - there's red, green, blue, orange, though bathrooms are grey. The bathrooms are entirely automatic - automatic flushing, automatic tap, automatic paper towels and the super high power hand dryers that deform your hand so that it looks like you have moon craters forming in them. There are escalators going up, but none going down. It was built to be ecological, which brings me to my next point.

4) Poly is really trying hard to be ecological. They have lots of bike racks and there are bikes you can borrow for free to ride around campus to get from building to building. There are recycling bins everywhere, clearly indicating what type of material goes in what. There's an entire website dedicated to being ecological.
In the Graduate Student handbook it says you can borrow a set of reusable containers while you're there. There's also a coop there. And if you use reusable containers/cups, I hear that whatever you ordered is of reduced price. I have yet to investigate all their enviro stuff, but it seems really awesome that they're so dedicated to it.

5) Poly is as multicultural as Concordia but in a different way that makes sense. Concordia has a large arab, indian and chinese population. Poly has lots of quebecois, vietnamese, french speaking arabs, french speaking africans and then a few other groups scattered around.

6) I've only had one class so far, but the teacher is reaaaaaaaally queb. It amuses me because I'm so used to being taught in English that it's something new. I'm used to I guess what you'd call international French and though I live in Montreal, I'm pretty unfamiliar with the slang and expressions used by the French speaking population here. Some things go over my head. Some things I knew they said before, but it's still fun :) I'll see how the other teachers are. I haven't made any friends yet, so I haven't been able to assess my comprehension in a conversation really. I mean, I spoke to one person during orientation, but then when I didn't know how to say one word in French, he completely switched to English and so my experiment was over. I've spoken to administration, but they usually don't use much slang...so yeah.

That's it for now. I should take some pics of the campus at some point I guess. But then I'll look like an uber-tourist. I'm quite pleased about taking a course at ETS. I'll get to try out two universities at once :D Once I finish my Masters, I will have tried 3/4 Montreal Uni's :D!
Last Friday I went to Washington, D.C. with some of my family members.

It took us 14 hours to get there (typically a 10 hour journey), as there were some snags on the way. While we got lost in Washington trying to find the hotel, we stumbled upon some areas that really remind me of Little Burgundy/Place-St-Henri/Georges-Vanier area. It just looks really sketchy and it seems theres more of the general sketchyness there than here. From what I understand Washington is really close to Baltimore and Richmond. Apparently Baltimore has lots of violence. So that could be one of the reasons for the sketchy feel.

On Sunday, my cousin, her boyfriend and I ventured into the city for a short sightseeing excursion in the touristy areas. It's a standard capital city (though keep in mind, my only references are Ottawa and Quebec City). But, they look generally pretty, nice to check out once and then there's not much to do after. We saw the White House, Capital Hill, the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial as they're all in the same area. We passed by an FBI building too.






Their subway - also called the metro, is probably one of the best subway experiences I've had in North America apart from Montreal's. Their fare is inexpensive (1 round trip ticket was 1.38$), it's clean and doesn't require going outside to switch train directions. You simply, either walk across (like at lionel groulx) or you go up the stairs and go on the other side (like other stations). Their trains are air conditioned, which is always a plus (we don't have that yet) and there's not much noise. My only complaints are that the stations are open (the weather can get in) and the seating arrangements on the train don't provide much standing space/maneuverability (remember when the low platform buses first arrived and it was just rows of double seats? yeah, like that. Then everyone complained and we changed it).

People seem generally friendly. People in the US seem to really practice premium customer service because everyone always asks "how's your day", and room service knows your name when you call. The accent is interesting...I would say, from this, I can see the progression of accents from Northern US to Southern US. I've been to New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Oklahoma and now Washington. It seems that the further south you go, the more twang there is in words and the longer the syllables get. The only addition I have to make is to Boston, where yeah, they do that, but they also add r's at the end of words and remove r's where they're supposed to stay.
e.g. "Brenda put the sofa in the car" becomes "Brender put the sofer in the cah"

The best part of Washington was probably my 3 minute carousel ride and generally chilling with my cousin. I was the only adult on the carousel that was not a parent. It was still fun though :)