at around 4pm on thursday i was told that i would have to go to my nation's capital the next morning, so i duly awoke at 6am on friday and hopped on a plane. on my way to the airport, i heard that al gore won the nobel prize. i have to say that i was pretty damn moved by this inspirational story of a man who overcame his disheveled obesity to find his true voice.anyway, good times in ottawa. saw the parliament buildings, read up on some mining shiz, filled up on some tim horton's. the next morning i awoke to see a poster for this masterpiece advertised in the hotel lobby and i thought, holy shit, my first time here and i'm going to see jean chretien? yeah, turns out i was wrong; it was just a media event, as a random female journalist told me. she was pretty psyched i'd heard of her publication, the epoch times. believe me, nobody was more surprised than i at remembering that name.
for some inexplicable reason, ottawa was teeming with asian tourists. loads of them everywhere--old asian couples getting off tour buses, young presumptively japanese girls with their cameras, etc. despite the general soporific tenor of the city, i felt pleasantly at home. of course, that was until some french (french-canadian?) tourist pointed at me and said something, loudly, along the lines of "blahblahblah japonais" and the fact the canadian dollar--the canadian dollar!--was worth more than its american counterpart.
update: this just in--turns out the boss (about whom i wrote a lengthy and shitty modern music paper in college) was in ottawa last night! and covered arcade fire! mind ~~blown~~. i like that stereogum assumes that all of its readers are retarded and calls the arena "ontario's scotiabank place". that'd be like saying "michigan's joe louis arena".
god, i love me some bruce.
