Sunday, January 31, 2010

FREE CONCERT!

The 2nd Annual Manitoba Film & Music Showcase happens today at 2pm at the Centennial Concert Hall. Admission is FREE (I'll emphasize FREE throughout this post so you'll remember and go). 13 bands from a plethora of genres will play a song or two in between film clips and talks from local filmmakers and producers.

Director Gary Yates (High Life, Seven Times Lucky) will be interviewed. There will be screenings of the animated short Runaway, Cubicle Land, and the recently-recorded Live at the West End concerts, which featured The Dust Rhinos, JD Edwards, Julie Biggs, and Patrick Keenan. The Showcase also spotlights Farpoint Films, Frantic Films, and the National Screen Institute. A live aerial silks performance from filmmaker/aerial artist, Talia Pura, whose short film, Aerial Artistry has been chosen to represent Manitoba in the upcoming 2010 Olympics in Vancouver this February is not to be missed. And it's all FREE!

After the event, there will be a chance for attendees to mingle with local celebrity-types from the Manitoba film and music community.

The Line-up (not in order of appearance but appearing for FREE):

The Weakerthans
Domenica
Quinzy
J.P. Hoe
Grand Analog
Romi Mayes
Fred Penner (best website EVER lol)
Nathan
Harlequin
Billy Joe Green
Daniel ROA
Paper Moon
Record of the Week Club with Mike Petkau (Some of the Live at the West End Cultural Centre pics were taken by me! Woo!)

Sounds like a great time to me. And did I mention that admission is completely FREE? Unfortunately, parking is not.

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Fire alarms aren't really indicative of trouble, are they?

I have to share my day at work. It was grand. If you think you've had bad days at work, I think this one comes pretty close to taking the cake.

It all started with coat check. It was freezing cold, as it has been for the last week or so because the heater in that area of the casino is broken. For some reason, the heater itself is outside on the roof, and it said we were at 21 degrees, but in actuality it was more like -2. I was wearing a sweater under my fleece jacket, and my fingers were getting wrinkly because they were so cold. We have little heaters behind the counter, but we can only have one running at a time in either plug, or it blows the fuse. So, the valet captain, who works next to coat check, turned on a third heater, not realizing that two were already running. This knocked out the valet computer, the video monitor, the heaters, and best of all, the club card scanner (customers scan their cards to get points and they're entered into a draw for gifts). This took 15 mins to fix.

Then, at 12:30, the real chaos erupted.

A steady beeping sound filled the air, and all of a sudden a firetruck pulled up. Security and casino upper-mgmt were running towards the main entrance.

Patrons continued to play slot machines, oblivious or stupid or both, you decide. Turns out, a water pipe froze and burst over the front offices and was spraying pretty much everywhere.

Security blocked off the main front entrance, leaving only the exit at the back of the casino towards the hotel as a means of entry and exit. Valet was closed again while the water was cleaned up. The water seeped through into coat check, drowning the carpets.

Then we noticed smoke in the air.

It turns out that when the casino fire alarm goes off, the vents in McDonald's close, so all the smoke from their fryers was blowing into the casino. This resulted in McDonald's being unable to fry things until they got the vents open.

It also turns out that when the casino fire alarm goes off, the glass doors into the hotel seal shut, presumably to protect the hotel from the fire in the casino. This meant that anyone wanting to use an ATM had to go outside, around the building, and into the hotel itself, then back again.

At about 3:30 another pipe burst, and was spraying water out of an electrical outlet outside the main front entrance. The alarm was going again and the firetruck returned.

By this time, they had reopened the front entrance and valet, and so they had to decide if they were going to close it again. Apparently it was safe to have the water flowing out of the electrical outlet, so they left the doors open.

And then i went home.

I saw the damage in the front office, and it was pretty bad. There was sand everywhere and it smelled bad. A whole row of those foamy ceiling tiles had caved out, and the rest all showed signs of water damage. There was water running down the walls. Everything was soggy. They're going to have fun returning it to its former glory.

The really sad part is that no one even bothered to look up when the alarm went off. I guess it's more important to keep pressing that spin button than it is to make sure you're not in danger.

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