I finally jumped on to rdio.com with a $5 a month subscription which lets me stream whatever music I want from their site. What I like most is you can see what your friends are listening to and discover new music that way. In the past week I’ve been turned on to the new Dead Weather album (so awesome!) and some new bands: Slartybarfast, Blood Red Shoes, and a shoegazer/wall-of-sound band called Darker My Love. There are some albums by Mercury Rev and Gang of Four that I’ve finally listened to as well. I should’ve been listening to both those bands years ago but didn’t bother for whatever reason.

The biggest win with rdio is I can listen to new music immediately. So the other day I was thinking, “I should check out Mercury Rev.” Normally I’d go to their myspace page and give them a listen and maybe download an album to see if I like it. Now I just hop onto rdio, do a search, and satisfy my curiosity right away. No more messing around trying to find albums on torrent sites or digging though a disjointed pile of songs on a myspace playlist.

There are some albums that aren’t on rdio. Tegan and Sara albums before The Con are all missing and there’s no Paper Lions to speak of. Paper Lions I can understand, but really, So Jealous isn’t on your music list? Let’s hope they fix that soon. These omissions aren’t terrible though. I still have my iTunes with my favorite albums and I use that when I’m at home. Rdio is more a tool of discovery for me.

Today marks Sharon and my first anniversary of being a couple! We’re going to go out for dinner tonight and spend the evening together.

So much has happened in the last year. Looking back on 2010 I hit a number of significant life changes. I started work with a new company, got a new girlfriend, spent the first year in my newly-purchased condo, quit playing drums (and quit the excellent band known as My Friend Lisa), embraced a vegetarian diet, and made the first moves towards a more minimalist lifestyle. Oh and I quit biting my nails too. That’s a habit I’ve had ever since I can remember and it’s finally been broken.

Not much has happened in the meantime. I’ve been feeling a little blah so I haven’t got up to much outside of the eat/sleep/work routine.

Listening to the Paper Lions EP from last year, Trophies. I think it was one of the best releases of 2010 and it remains in heavy rotation in my playlist. What other bands put out great albums last year?  Hannah Georgas, Paper Lions, Bend Sinister, Quasi, and the Corin Tucker Band.

Most anticipated album for 2011: Wild Flag, Janet and Carrie from Sleater-Kinney with friends. Should be amazing. Strange trivia: Mary Timony and Carrie, both in Wild Flag, where once in a Priceline commercial starring William Shatner. They were Bill’s backing band while he covered Two Tickets to Paradise.

I haven’t updated in about a month so this will be a grab-bag of stuff that happened. Was in Vernon over Christmas, had good times there. Saw cool people, hung out with my Mom, and took it easy. I came back with Dave and Joy, who flew in from Japan to visit her family in Vernon and then to Vancouver to run around with everyone down here. Lots of fun. New Years at Ben and Michaels for an interesting night. Black Frog the next night to send Joy back off to Tokyo.

Changes for the new year? Well, I’m rocking solid on the vegetarian thing. I did chow a bit of meat over the break and I expect I’ll do so from time to time in the future, but I’m basically off meat. This week I’ve been eating lots of quinoa, beans, and rice. Am feeling much more energetic for it too. Probably because I have 1000% more vegetables and fruits than I normally do. I’m back in the gym too. Once that routine is in place again I intend to get back into running once more. The theme this year is health and fitness.

I had said that I would be cutting back on shows and I am, except for 2 upcoming: Wire at the Rickshaw in April and Quasi opening for Sebadoh on Feb 11. Can’t miss Quasi and definitely can’t miss Wire! I recently discovered Wire’s Read and Burn 01 album which has one of the greatest punk songs of all time (my opinion) on it. Song’s called “I Don’t Understand” and builds nicely into a frenzy.

For learning, I’m going to keep ripping through Rex Barks, my English grammar text. Then I have my Ruby and Rails to keep my busy.

Still not planning on any music for the time being. It may be a year or two before I jump back into those waters, but I’m not thinking that far ahead so who knows.

I don’t know if it’s the weather or if it’s work stress but I’m sick for the second time in the past month. Nothing serious, but I don’t like the lack of energy that accompanies it.

So what’s happened lately? On Friday night Sharon, Reilly, and I attended Mint Records Ridiculously Early Xmas Party at the Biltmore. I got to see some favorite local bands: Geoff Berner, Laura Barrett, Carolyn Mark, and of course The Evaporators. Then I discovered a new favorite band, Hot Panda, who’ve recently moved from Edmonton and brought their enthusiasm to the Blitmore.

Yesterday Sharon and I checked out the Got Craft indie craft show that showcases cool local artists and their funky designs. I love checking it out all the creative things.

Other than that it’s been a low-key weekend. Like I said, I’ve been less than energetic since the end of last week so I haven’t been up to much over the weekend.

I’ve been streamlining my life over the past couple of months and anything that I’m no longer using is being shipped out the door. As part of the downsizing process I’m trying to decide if I should stick with this music thing or not. I’ve barely had any ambition to practice and my drum kit has seen little use since I dropped out of My Friend Lisa.

There’s a few things I’m digging into right now, most notably a fantastic English grammar book called Rex Barks as well as everything to do with Ruby and Rails (geek computer stuff). When I have some free time it’s the English or the Ruby that win out, practicing drums always takes a backseat.

It’s not that I dislike drumming but I’m not going to put in the time to practice regularly so I can get better. So if I’m not practicing and not interested in being in a band then what’s the point?

I’m not sure if I’m ready to abandon my once-bright musical dreams. It’s a big decision and ditching all my gear means that it’ll be tough to get back into it if I decide I want to take it up again. So I need to sit back and carefully consider this over the next couple of weeks, or even months.

I had one hell of a great time with My Friend Lisa though. I miss jamming with those guys.

Sharon and I saw Grinderman, Nick Cave’s side band, at the Commodore on Friday night. Nick Cave hasn’t played Vancouver since 1994 when he walked off stage at the Lollapalooza show after someone in the audience hit him with a thrown shoe.

It was an epic, sweaty, frenzied show and I agree with the Georgia Straight’s headline, “Grinderman gives Vancouver a religious experience.”

Only one more show left: the Mint Records Ridiculously Early Xmas Party at the Biltmore next Friday. Then I’m done shows for the year and quite possibly for quite a while after that.

I’ve been chilling at home with Sharon this weekend. We saw The Social Network last night (that’s the film about the Facebook guy). Tonight I made some apple pie and some pizzas.

I’ve been slowly moving towards a minimalist lifestyle. One of the things I’ve recently undertaken is to eliminate all mail that comes into my mailbox, with the only exceptions being my mortgage statements and my subscription to BC Business magazine. I don’t have time to wade through all that other crap!

Here’s a brief rundown of what I did for anyone who values their time and focus:

1. I told Canada Post to stop delivering unaddressed bulk mail (a.k.a. junk mail). I simply put a note in my mailbox and the next day the Canada Post person had stuck a small red sticker inside. No more junk mail! See the Red Dot Campaign website for more details.
2. I moved all my bills to ePost so they get delivered electronically. I also took the opportunity to sign up with all my utility companies and set up automated bill payments. I no longer have to worry about forgetting to pay a bill.
3. I set my banking preferences to “electronic delivery.” Unfortunately RBC hasn’t sorted out how to deliver my RRSP and TFSA updates electronically yet so I’m stuck with quarterly reports being mailed to me. Not the end of the world and I’m sure one day they’ll have that ironed out.
4. Steps 1, 2, & 3 took care of most of the mail coming in. There were still a few companies that were sending me stuff: Sears catalog, the BCAA magazine, and the occasional marketing piece addressed to “occupant” or “home owner.” For these items I’ve had to contact the senders individually to get myself off their mailing list. I usually tell them I’m doing this to “minimize my environmental impact”, which is true although I’m mostly doing it because I don’t want to have my time wasted.

Most days I don’t have anything in my mailbox, which I love. I’m still working through the occasional marketing piece from step 4, but I should have those all taken care of by the time the new year rolls in. It means one less thing I have to deal with every day.

For the past several years I’ve been playing with the idea of going vegetarian. There’s a bunch of heath benefits and I’ve never been interested in cooking meat at home anyway. Sharon’s a vegetarian so it seemed like an opportune time for me to cut out the few pieces of meat that I occasionally eat too. I’m about a month in now. There’s been a couple of meat dishes in there when I was out and couldn’t find non-veggie options, but whatever, I’m basically a vegetable chewing hippie now.

I’m also trying to shed another inch of fat. In 2007 my weight had crept up to 185 lbs and I was having to buy 34″ waistline jeans. During the summer of 2008 I got my fattening ass into the gym and worked myself down to 175lbs and a 33″ waist. I’ve held steady there ever since but now I want to drop back to a 32″ waist, which is where I was back in 2003ish when I was more active.

So how do I get back to that size? After going through a running/gym phase last spring without any weight change it’s become clear that I’m going to have to improve my diet and cut back my calorie intake. Ditching meat, fatty foods, and beer should do it. In the past month I’ve done exactly that and it’s been pretty painless. I don’t eat out as much and the food I make at home is healthier than anything I could get anywhere else anyway.

The bonus to not eating out? I’m saving cash! I have a Google spreadsheet where I track all my expenses and I’m on target for the cheapest month I’ve had all year! Not buying concert tickets (save for the 2 x $12 tickets to the Mint Records Xmas Party on Dec 3) has helped out a bunch too.

Given my activity level has ramped up (2 x gym visits + 3 x runs every week) again I don’t really feel like drinking beer anyway. Not that I was some outrageous beer-guzzling monster (despite photos that suggest otherwise).

Mint is putting on a “ridiculously early Christmas party” on Friday Dec 3 at the Biltmore. Acts include The Evaporators, Carolyn Mark, Geoff Berner, and Laura Barrett (that’s the girl who sings the Robot Ponies song). I know I said I wasn’t going to go to anymore shows but this is a great lineup and is only $12!

Anyone interested? This is going to be one awesome show! I’m picking up tickets from Red Cat tomorrow.

I’ve started a separate blog to talk about software stuff: software.darrenthetiger.com. If you’re not a software developer then it’s doubtful you’ll find it at all interesting. It’s just there to let me talk about geek stuff without my non-geek friends having to wade through posts about Ruby, Agile, and other nerdly pursuits.

In other news I only have one more concert until I’m officially done shows for the year! Grinderman, Nick Cave’s other band, is playing the Commodore next Friday.

November has been a relatively quiet month. I’ve been cooking lots, spending time with Sharon, and getting heavily into my nerdly activities like Ruby on Rails. There’s also been some fantastic software talks in town. I won’t bore you with the details of those though. See the new blog if you’re interested.