The movers show up at 9 and I imagine they’ll be out of here by noon. By 3pm or so we’ll have drugged the cats and we’ll be heading down the 416 to the 401 and on to the Big Smoke. By this time tomorrow we’ll have unpacked the stuff that’s coming in the car and be having our first dinner at home in Toronto together.

I’m really excited about Toronto and I think we’re going to find it a better fit than Ottawa, but it’s still a weird feeling to leave.

On the way in, we passed a panhandler. Asking for spare change. While both of us had our arms filled with jars of change. And then the Coinstar machine was full, so we had to walk by again with our arms filled with jars of change.

Awkward.

(Also, in the store someone accidentally ran into me at full speed with their cart. When they realized they had, they backed up about 6″ and pushed forward again, over and over. Clonk clonk clonk. I yelled at them and they stopped.)

I meant to post this ages ago, but forgot, and only remembered when I was pulling the FreshBooks Festivus pictures off of my phone.

I was walking along a street near Bridgehead in Hintonburg in early December and heard a CLONK CLONK CLONK CLONK right beside me. I turned, and saw a tiny woodpecker head peeking around the telephone pole at me!

When I’d come close to the pole, he’d clawed his way around behind it and was patiently waiting for me to move on. As I walked away he came back around the pole and started working again. If I came closer he’d go back around and peek out.

The hole was probably two inches deep and an inch around. Can’t be good for the phone pole. At first I figured he was looking for bugs for food, but it turns out that the drumming is how he lets female woodpeckers in the area know that he’s here and lookin’.

You go, Mr. Woodpecker.

But what the snow does mean is that Environment Canada’s forecasters get to write the apocalyptic weather warnings that they do so well. My theory is that all of the senior meteorologists choose to stay the hell home when there’s big snow coming, so they get someone from the high-school newspaper to do the writing. Excerpts from tonight’s, italics mine:

A near-crippling snow storm with heavy snow and blowing snow as well as some ice pellets tonight and Sunday…

The developing low pressure system is moving across western Kentucky preceeded [sic] by a burgeoning area of moderate snow…

This storm track will place much of southern and eastern Ontario directly under the brunt of heavy snow…

A few claps of thunder along with bursts of very heavy snow are also likely.

The brunt of the main snow event will begin this evening in the southwest and rapidly envelop all regions east to Ottawa in the overnight hours. Copious amounts of snow as well as strong winds causing blowing snow are expected.

In addition freezing rain is possible especially near Lake Erie for a few hours overnight and Sunday morning as milder air pays a brief visit aloft. Ice pellets are also quite possible generally along and south of a line from Grand Bend to near Toronto and east to Cornwall.

This massive snow storm has the potential to cause near-paralyzing conditions as road travel on any unplowed streets may become next to impossible on Sunday.

There is a high degree of certainty with this storm as the concensus [sic] of weather model data is virtually unanimously forecasting this event.

Put down the thesaurus, guys! (I liked it better when the forecasts were written by military meteorologists.) Welp, at least I’ll get to try out my new snow tires and Sorel boots.

I’ve seen that airport bus around town and every time I do I think “I should take a picture of that and send it to Bill Griffith”. And I guess someone (who is not me) finally did!

RCMP horses end 30 years of roaming on Parliament Hill

Mounties on horseback have stopped clip-clopping about Ottawa’s Parliament Hill, quietly ending a 30-year-old Canadian tradition.[…]

She added the decision was made after the RCMP’s musical ride staff realized that the public is not as accustomed to horses as it was three decades ago, when most people knew not to walk behind the horses or make sudden movements near them.

“People run to the horse, they grab the tail,” Deschênes said, adding that police were concerned that kind of horseplay could lead to an accident in the future.

Was that necessary? No, I don’t think that was necessary.

(Also, I bet those people now know not to walk behind the horses.)

When Bluesfest kicked off at Lebreton Flats on July 4, organizers allocated space for people who brought their own chairs and wanted to stay seated.

But on Sunday, during the White Stripes performance, the area was flooded with boogying fans, and organizers realized police would be needed to keep the area lawn-chairs-only throughout the festival, which runs until July 15.

Never mind that there weren’t even any signs about a lawn-chair area on Sunday. But boogying fans? Someone at the CBC decided that “dancing” wasn’t good enough and that’s all they could come up with?

However these people at the Jimmy Vaughan show on Thursday are clearly not boogying:

Background on the lawnchair problem here. Photo by Jessica — enlarge to see how stupid the lawnchair situation was at the beginning of the festival.

(Photo by Mike Bouchard)

The great part about George Clinton is that it’s so unrehearsed. Everyone on stage — and there’s a lot of them — is just up there playing (or perhaps strutting around in a pimp outfit, but it’s P-Funk). I think Ottawa is probably the whitest city I’ve ever watched funk in, though. Easily two-thirds of the crowd was hardly moving at all, and I think Clinton got annoyed a couple times after trying to get the crowd screaming and dancing.

(And about that screen: You can send SMS messages to a short code to have them appear on a ticker at the bottom of the video screen beside the stage, and I’ve been entertaining myself by trying to get Internet memes from a certain place up there to see if anyone else in the audience returns with related ones. I tried but could not get SO I HERD U LIEK MUDKIPS last night, but I did get a LOL WUT, a POOL’S CLOSED DUE TO FUNK, and a SHOE ON HEAD! up, the latter of which inspired a DO A BARREL ROLL and a A CAT IS FINE TOO from someone else in the crowd. I am determined to get MUDKIPS up there by week’s end.)

As a study in contrasts, tonight we’re seeing Cat Power on the smaller Rogers stage at 8. It’s always easy to get right up to the Rogers stage so that should be a good show providing she decides to perform at all, which is always a question with Cat Power, although she’s apparently much better about it now than earlier in her career.

(Speaking of contrasts, immediately before George Clinton was Randy Newman, who I wouldn’t have gone out of my way to see but who was fun to listen to anyhow. When he wasn’t playing tunes that scream “Randy Newman”, he actually reminded me a bit of Dr. John, which is always a good thing.)

I saw a newspaper article yesterday — “Are the White Stripes bluesy enough to headline Bluesfest?” Someone must be colour blind! – Jack White, mid-set last night

(photo by Sarah Naegels)

Bluesfest is in full swing! I had been meaning to post every day about what we’ve seen, but things have just been too busy, with work and cat-pilling and Bluesfest itself. So I’ll work backwards:

Last night was the highlight of the festival for me, and I think for Candice too: the White Stripes! Jack and Meg played a blistering hour-and-a-half show with only a five-minute break in the middle. The White Stripes have always had their blues roots but I think Jack turned it up a little last night. Fantastic playing, great music, and a blast to watch — not so much moves but just awesome stage presence, and a nice mix of material from Icky Thump and from earlier albums. We were about 150 feet from the stage and it still felt intimate, and the lawn chair problem decided to take a night off. I’m an awful music writer, though, so you can read a full review of the show from the Citizen if you’re interested.

Before the White Stripes we caught half of Leahy’s set. They were late getting on and they’re a bit too Rankin-Family-ish for my tastes (and a bit heavy on the fiddle), but it was still fun to watch a bit of. For a band whose gimmick is step-dancing there wasn’t very much step-dancing.

Saturday we took off because Candice and I were celebrating our first anniversary! Hard to believe it’s been a year. We had dinner at the Courtyard Restaurant, the same one we got married at. Candice wrote about the menu on ‘foodies.

Friday night we passed on the headliner, George Thoroughgood, because we’re under 40. Instead we caught Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, who I’ve seen before at the Montreal Jazz Festival. Honestly I go to see Victor Wooten play bass, and he didn’t disappoint. I should really get playing again. After Bela Fleck was Kid Koala, a DJ from Montreal, who spun a fun set.

Thursday night I saw Jimmy Vaughan while Candice was at work. Lots of good, solid blues guitar but I know of Jimmy only because of Stevie Ray and the show was a bit reserved for my tastes. After that was Bob Dylan who is really just a Bob Dylan cover band these days. Now I can tell people I’ve seen Bob Dylan live, but that’s about all I got out of that show other than some yelling matches with idiots in lawnchairs.

Tonight is Buddy Guy but I’m pretty tired from the weekend and it’s from 9 to 11 and it’s raining, so there’s probably a good chance I might take a day off to make sure I’m rested up for George Clinton tomorrow night!