I've had my 101 list for over a year now, and as I read through it from time to time I think the 17 year old me was far too ambitious for her next 1001 days. So, for the last few months I have been toying with the idea of updating my 101 list.
Why?
Because every time I look at my list there are things on there that I don't want to do any more, or simply can't do in the next 411 days. It's mostly my travel section that needs to be downsized. It is really expensive to travel and I don't think my little self realized that when I made the list. Also, when I made the list, I anticipated myself being in university when I was finishing up the list, not beginning it.
All I know is that time is ticking, and my list is looking far too intimidating for me to be able to complete it.
I have decided to restart the Funny Friday posts because I honestly love making them and also, because this is just too funny NOT to share.
I have never been extremely impressed with company's attempts at humour in their commercials. Usually, I find their humour distasteful. And I'm no prude.
These commercials are exceptionally funny. Meet Mayhem. I've posted some of my favourites, but there are many many more on youtube.
My uncle had tickets for a NAS and Lauryn Hill concert in a VIP section that he suddenly could not attend. He messaged my sister and she gladly accepted the tickets on our behalf. She called me from work and told me that we were having a date night Thursday and I was beyond excited.
Let me make this clear, I love Lauryn Hill. She was in Sister Act 2, one of my all time favourite musical movies. I get chills watching that video above. All over my body. My mom always listened to her when we were growing up. I also have a friend who often tweets quotes from her music and it always amazes me how intricate her lyrics are. I love her music! But her concert last night did not leave me with that "YES! I LOVE THIS ARTIST!" feeling that I usually have after concerts. And now I'm going to tell you why...
The concert was held at the Molson Amphitheatre, which I liked when I saw The Killers there, but I just need to say, there is no parking even remotely close. We payed 20 dollars for parking at Ontario Place (the home of the amphitheatre). Elise and I were pulling up to the pay station and we were thinking it would be 5-15 dollars. Which we had! Not 20... We shrugged it off though, we were excited for Lauryn Hill. We even discussed which songs we'd like to hear on our way to the amphitheatre.
When we got there, NAS was on stage... Until last night, I had never even heard of him. He was... interesting. Elise and I bobbed along for a little bit and then gave up and sat down. This was probably at 9:30pm. NAS rapped up his act and left the stage. (Ha, excuse the pun.) He left at approximately 9:45pm... Now, my understanding of concerts is that the point of having an opening act is so that your audience is pumped and ready for your show. This being said... I don't understand why Lauryn Hill would even HAVE an opening act if she was only going to show up to the building itself at 10:55pm. That's right. Elise and I waited over an hour in silence, twiddling our thumbs, waiting for Lauryn Hill. It was 11pm, Elise had work in the morning and we didn't want to leave without seeing the person we had come for...
Finally, at about 11:10pm, Lauryn Hill walked out onto the stage. The crowd went wild. We were all excited for her to finally be there. Elise and I had agreed that if it was good, we would stay for the whole show. If not, we would leave at 11:30pm. I have never even thought about leaving a concert early... And I honestly didn't want to leave. I had been hyping up this concert in my mind for days. I knew that if we had just waited over an hour to see her show, Lauryn Hill knowing this, would perform her absolute best.
Oh my gosh. Was I ever wrong.
Her music was more than double the recorded speed. (Recorded at roughly 95bpm, performed at roughly 175bpm.) Her rapping was difficult to understand and the beats got lost in the acoustics of the amphitheatre. I had a really hard time connecting with her. She just seemed so... off. She kept making big arm motions at her band to start and stop at different places. Didn't you go over this in rehearsals? Or did you show up and hour and a half late to those too? Then she kept yelling at tech to turn the lights down. I can sort of understand that, the lights at my high school were hot and we all know, those are not the cream of the crop.
I couldn't help but think the whole time that she was just another celebrity who does not care about anyone but herself. The snobby, snooty artists who know that the entire evening revolves around them. The ones who go into stores and say things like "Do you know who I am? I am Lauryn Hill. BOW BEFORE ME, MERE MORTALS!" Then I tried to make excuses for her. Maybe the lights were really hot. Maybe she was having a really rough day and she just didn't want to go to work. Maybe she left the stage to go get a glass of water because she was so hot. Maybe she'll come back in like 30 seconds.
That's right. She left the stage. After performing 4 songs. FOUR. SONGS. Elise and I looked at each other and left. I felt like I had been used and cheated. I wanted a refund and I didn't even pay for my tickets! This is when I started feeling like I just got out of a bad relationship. I started saying things to Elise like I could never do that to someone, as a human being. I don't know why I stayed for so long. I feel so used and dirty. I still tried to understand why she did this to me. Made me wait an hour and a half to see her and then left after 30 minutes. I decided in my mind that she had really had a bad day and that normally, her concerts were not like this.
I got home, listened to some country music and went to bed. (Had this been a good concert, I would have listened to Lauryn Hill...)
This morning, Lauryn Hill was a trending topic on twitter... I read some of the tweets. I read some articles. And I am so glad we left when we did. Elise told me that apparently she did the same thing at her Detroit concert. Except that they had to wait THREE HOURS before she came on stage. Her friends at work told her that apparently it's normal for an R&B concert to be left waiting... While rock artists know better than to disappoint their fan base. *cough*
The article that stood out to me most today was the one that said this:
Anyone who was unlucky enough to be in the audience on Thursday didn’t just see a bad concert. They watched one of the most influential female artists of her generation vomit all over her legacy.
When I was making my list, I always imagined what it would be like to complete each of the items on my list and it seems that they never go the way I anticipated. This particular goal was so different because I had been living in the Ottawa area for 3 months, and I had not gone into the Parliament or even to the grounds until late July. I must say, once I had been, I fell in love with the beauty of Parliament Hill. Seeing it and walking the grounds made me feel so patriotic.
I had gone to Mosaika with Jenna for her birthday and my mind was absolutely blown. I felt SO proud to be Canadian, they displayed our history in such an amazing way that could be appreciated by all ages. I'm going to post a video so you can understand how amazing this was...
After I had gone to Mosaika, I knew it was time to go inside the parliament buildings and do a walk through. But when? I worked every day. So, I decided to meet up with, Jenna, who is going to school at OttawaU and go there with her and my brother on my moving day. This was a very bad idea.
I spent the entire morning packing all of my stuff into the car at my grandparents' house. Then I drove the 45 minutes to downtown Ottawa, met up with Jenna, walked to Parliament. It had already been a long day. I was sleepy just driving to Ottawa. But as we toured the building, I got really excited! We went around the back of the building first to look at the bridge and the look off I went to with Jenna the last time I was there.
You can barely see it, but to the right of the bridge above the cliff looking thing, there's a statue. You can walk there and look at the parliament buildings from behind. Absolutely magical at night.
I went to put my arm around Jenna for a photo and ripped skin right off my arm! OUCH!
We're cute. :)
We only went to the Peace Tower and the Memorial Chamber. Going to the top of the Peace Tower was so nice, just because when you get to the top you can see the entire surrounding area. I learned a lot going into the Memorial Chamber. I love history, so this was exactly the sort of thing I love. The Memorial Chamber is for any soldier who has ever died in the service of our country. They have all of their names beautifully inscribed in books and each page is displayed at least once a year. They had a book for each war that Canada has been involved in. It's basically the paper equivalent of Arlington Cemetery. They had beautiful quotes and inscriptions on the walls, with stained windows. There is definitely a special spirit in the Memorial Chamber.
It was originally made for the soldiers lost in World War I, but as time passed, there were more wars and more men and women lost. They've assembled books for each of these.
The names are all hand written... I need to work on my handwriting.
The WWI Memorial, which was placed in the centre of the room.
At the entry of the Memorial Chamber, there are sculptures on the arch of the animals who helped in the wars who would often help our soldiers by carrying the soldiers, their belongings, going to see if the area was safe, etc. Most of the animals would die in service. It made me smile that our government took the time to remember the service rendered to us by animals.
Reindeers, donkeys, pigeons, horses and dogs.
All in all, it was a great day. As we were leaving the Parliament buildings, we stopped by the boutique. We really weren't planning on buying anything but Colin and I decided to splurge on matching rugby sweaters. Which have proven to be great purchases.
We're huge losers... But it was so much fun being a tourist in downtown Ottawa. I want to go again and go to all the museums there!
