Q & A from Health Canada on the listeriosis outbreak:
Q: The Stanley Cup was recently on tour in my town, and I kissed it. Do I have to worry about being infected by listeria?
A: You are safe. The Stanley Cup has not been in contact with any Maple Leaf product in over 40 years.
[From HabsInsideOut]
I love me some long weekends. Since we’re going away next week we didn’t really plan anything for Thanksgiving, save getting a bunch of stuff done, having a nice big turkey-less meal on Monday, relaxing and enjoying the abnormally beautiful (for mid-October) weather.
After shaking off the work week at Smokeless Joe last night and sleeping in this morning, we bought enormous amounts of produce and other groceries, dropped a bunch of stuff at Goodwill, had a beer and a bite to eat on the wonderfully sunny Volo patio, ran a few errands, bought a few things, and came home. After a quick nap Nellie was fired up to do some cleaning, and when it involves throwing stuff out I always get excited, so we did that right up until the hockey game started.
Watching the Canadiens manhandle the Leafs 6-1 (in their home rink, no less) was like watching my old cat torture mice in the yard, just swatting at them as they cowered and shook, until I went outside and killed them with a shovel. I almost felt bad for them, right up until I heard Don Cherry giving Montreal coach Guy Carbonneau shit after the game for having the gall to play his usual power play units late in the game. I watched the game. They weren’t even trying, and they still almost scored, but apparently Cherry knows some unwritten rule that used to matter 30 years ago, and this had him angry. It made me wish Montreal had scored five more goals.
More relaxation and patio-sitting to come tomorrow. Yep, I do love me some long weekends.
Dan
Tonight: blogging in delicious bite-sized portions.
See? Tasty!
Ummm, yeah. So I’m done blogging about the MBA. And TIFF is over for another year. So what the hell do I talk about now?
Well, last night we got the remnants of a hurricane. Which was fun. And this morning the American financial system fucking melted. Happy trails, Lehman Brothers. You too Merrill Lynch. Say hello to Bear Stearns for us. Here’s hoping AIG can get up off the mat. Me, I spent the day trying to catch up at the office and wondering how the ass balls I can tame my inbox.
And here’s what’s coming up: Canadiens training camp. A Mogwai concert. A Toronto FC game next weekend. Volo’s cask days. Drinks with two friends and a cousin (all at different times…they don’t know each other) that I’ve been putting off for a while. Dinner with T-Bone. Long overdue blog template redesign. The “some day” category on my RTM task list. PVR annihilation, especially the stuff recorded back in December. Listening (finally) to the following:
Reviews:
[tags]tiff, lehman brothers, merrill lynch, canadiens, mogwai, toronto fc, volo cask days, fringe, cloverfield, true blood, anna paquin, rutina wesley, bon iver[/tags]
I obviously haven’t had much to comment on the Olympics, though I have been trying to keep up. There’ve been lots of great stories — the little singing girl swap, Michael Phelps, Canada’s late burst of medal-winning, the Cuban guy kicking the referee in the face, and so on — but the one that’s really bothering me is the furor around Usain Bolt.
For those who don’t know, Bolt won the 100m dash, generally regarded as the showcase athletic event at the Olympics, without breaking a sweat. He actually cruised the last 20m or so (since no one was around him) and even pulled up a bit when he started celebrating his win. This caused a wave of indignation from…well, old people. They were angry that he didn’t “run through” the finish line, that he pulled up and started to celebrate (beating his chest, etc.), and that his celebration was a little too exuberant.
I find this patently absurd. Usain Bolt is 21 years old. He had just broken the record in the world’s premier race and become, pretty much officially, the fastest human on the planet. He’s from a country that’s fairly well known for exuberant celebrations. He’d just capped off four years of grueling work by winning in front of tens of thousands of screaming fans. With all this screaming through his mind, in the final 1.2 seconds of that 9.69 second run, you expect him to become austere? Maybe show some emotion by pumping a fist? Ridiculous.
One of my enduring mental images of the Olympics is Donovan Bailey, having just won gold in the 100m in Atlanta, decelerating after the finish line with his arms spread wide, eyes bulging, screaming triumphantly. Was that, too, classless in the eyes of the likes of Bob Costas, one of Bolt’s biggest detractors? Many have taken Costas to task for this, but I think Heather Havrilesky from Salon might have done it best:
He became the fastest man on earth by a long shot, breaking his own record, while every other contender huffed and puffed along several feet behind him. How would anyone dare to claim that he owed it to the fans to run even faster, or that he disrespected them by celebrating a little early? What in the world is Costas, space alien from Planet Honky, talking about? Why should Bolt care about class, of all provincial, bourgeois values? What the hell is class, anyway, but some arbitrary code that soulless, high-capitalist professional robots live by? You know what I like to see in the world’s greatest athletes? Exuberance, and joy, and tears. I’d like to see them rip their clothes off and run around the Bird’s Nest naked.
Side note: the words “Planet Honky” made me laugh out loud.
As much as NBC would like to proclaim Michael Phelps’ 8 gold medals the story of these Olympics, I don’t know how it can’t be Usain Bolt. There are imbalances between the number of events available to swimmers compared to other disciplines, so I think it has to come down to who utterly dominated on the biggest stage, and who became a star in the process. In my mind Usain Bolt owned his competitors, the fans and these Beijing games.
[tags]usain bolt, bob costas, heather havrilesky, beijing olympics[/tags]
Today we went to our first Toronto FC game down at BMO Field. The weather called for showers and possibly even thunder & lightning, so we fully expected to get wet. I also expected to see a win, since FC were playing the expansion San Jose Earthquakes.
We took a streetcar packed with red-clad fans down to the exhibition grounds and found our seats; good view of the field, right in the middle, good sightlines. Last time I was there (for a non-FC game) I was on the other side, so it was good to get the other angle. We were in one of the calmer sections, far from the likes of the Red Patch Boys, U-Sector and North End Elite.
The game itself ended in a 0-0 draw, a disappointing result for Toronto. San Jose (more often than not described as “lowly”) mustered only a few moments of offense, so the game was Toronto’s for the taking…they just couldn’t find any scoring touch. Several failed runs, lots of crosses sailing right through the box with no one to put a head to it, even a missed penalty…nothing went right. The crowd was pretty vocal about their disappointment. It’s hard to watch your team struggle like that. They were also pretty vocal about the officiating, which was…questionable.
We lucked out with the weather. It never did rain, beyond a few sprinkles here and there…not enough to really get wet. And it didn’t get too hot either; when the sun finally broke through, the breeze from the lake kept it tolerable. A few minutes after we got home it really started to pour…glad it held off.
Pretty fun time, all in all. We have tickets for one more game in September, after the MBA is done and the film festival is over. I look forward to not having any pressing deadline on a Saturday afternoon other than getting to the soccer pitch on before the first goal.
[tags]toronto fc, san jose earthquakes[/tags]
Just got home from the Yaletown Brewing Co. where we watched Spain beat Germany 1-0 in the Euro final. Two things I love about the YBC, even more than their sister Brewhouse in Whistler:
1. The music. Last night, when the DJ started after 9:00, they played some really good songs, including “7/4 Shoreline” by Broken Social Scene, “First Day of Spring” by The Gandharvas, “Common People” by Pulp and “Connection” by Elastica. Surprising stuff for a pub that hosted by no less than 3 stagettes in the time it took us to eat dinner.
2. The men’s washrooms have Dyson Airblades. It seems funny to refer to a washroom hand dryer as cool…but it’s cool.
And now we wait to see what else our last full day in Vancouver — and on vacation — brings. Still waiting to see if we’ll meet up with Stanzi this afternoon, but other than that I think we may just rest, pack, do our web check-in and find a quiet place to eat dinner.
[tags]yaletown brewing company, euro 2008, dyson airblade[/tags]
In advance of Saturday’s NHL draft, Mike Boone has an article on Habs InsideOut about the 25 years of horrible drafting (in the first round, at least) of the Montreal Canadiens.
Without doing a scientific comparison, I suggest that from 1975 through 2000, no team in North American professional sports squandered more first-round draft choices than your Montreal Canadiens.
I remember seeing a lot of these picks fizzle into nothing year after year, but to see a list of so much squandered opportunity…well, it’s a wonder the Canadiens won cups in ’86 and ’93. Thanks goodness for the ’84 draft.
[tags]montreal canadiens, nhl draft[/tags]
Awesome: Stephen Colbert’s plundering of the Hockey Night In Canada theme song.
Awesome: Bigger sidewalks on Bloor. (Less awesome: lack of bike lanes)
Awesome: watching Portugal play football. Since I cheer for no particular team I just like watching skill, so the game today was like watching a group of painters at work.
Awesome: the weather. Perfect. An ideal June day.
Awesome: being 95% done.
[tags]stephen colbert, bloor street, portugal, euro 2008, toronto weather[/tags]
Sometimes my Zen, which is usually on random, starts playing a song I don’t recognize. I often figure out what the song is, or at least which artist is performing it, within a few seconds. I was stumped on this one for a while though, even though it was a really good song. Usually the ones I don’t know are throwaways from the depths of an otherwise good CD. Finally, once the chorus hit, I realized it was “Boys Wanna Be Her” by Peaches. I don’t remember downloading that or putting it on the Zen, but hey…I’m glad I did. It’s almost as good as “Lovertits”.
Speaking of music, I finally listened to the entire new Death Cab album. It’s good, but it didn’t blow me away. Not that I was expecting fireworks, but because the first song I heard was the 8-minute version of “I Will Possess Your Heart” I think my hopes got up a little too high. Meanwhile, 59.59 by The Sian Alice Group wasn’t great. I like droning melody as much as the next shoegazer, but I think there were only three songs worth listening to again.
Finally, finishing off the topic of music for the day (probably) is word that the CBC will retire the Hockey Night In Canada theme song. Naturally, this rumour has prompted great wailing and gnashing of teeth from coast to coast to coast. Personally, I think the song sounds dated and I have no more love for it than, say, the theme to Mr. Dressup or the nasal magnificence of Rex Murphy’s voice. However, given the recent proclivity of CBC Sports producers to pepper HNIC with gawd-awful versions of Elton John‘s “Saturday Night’s Alright (For Fighting)” (Nickelback? For the love of all that’s holy…), I fear what they’d end up with. I suspect the devil I know, in this case, is better than the devil that CBC would almost surely choose.
But for fuck’s sake, retire Don Cherry.
[tags]peaches, death cab for cutie, hockey night in canada, don cherry[/tags]
Skirl | Dan Dickinson 