Month: June 2007

Rain Out In Watertown, New York

It was Thor, the God of Thunder and Marvel goodness one and opening day at the Watertown Wizards zippo. Our company included a former high school pitcher who was able to explain whallops of stuff I was not picking up. My Mets t-shirt itself triggered two conversations with other and extraordinarily friendly fans. Free pennants as the give away and Mel Busler of WWNY 7, shown below doing his job, signed the photo we took of him and the kids last year. They did get an inning and a half in against Glens Falls before the lightning started in the retreating clouds to the east but within a half an hour it was all around and time to retreat to the Texas Roadhouse where we have been given assured of no chance of a table at 5 pm. I can report that the ribs were again fantastic, though the place’s interest in NY craft beer seems to already evaporated with Bud and Blue now being the theme.

I figured out a bit more about the NYCBL. It is not so much an undrafted college players league as a pre-draft one. Players make the team only after their first or second years and they come from throughout the USA. Watertown has players this year from Texas, Oregon, Nebraska as well as New York. Plus – the best hot dogs I have ever had at a ball park. No question about that at all.

I Skipped The Stanley Cup

For the first time in about 18 years, I did not watch one Stanley Cup playoff game and I really don’t care that the Senators lost. Why is that:

  • Kids: I have no interest in watching idiots fight and explaining it to my kids. NHL hockey thinks fighting is part of the game but I can go to NCAA games with the kids in northern NY for under 30 bucks for the family including gas and see nothing but end to end play. And I get to scream “Yale Sucks!“
  • Other sports: As you know baseball has got my attention but so does NCAA hockey, basketball and football. I also have access to masses of soccer. All the sports are exciting and allow me to be a fan for way less than NHL hockey, whether it is tickets or paraphernalia.
  • The strike: Lost me completely. Bettman’s changes didn’t make a change but he was good enough to put the Cup on the shelf for a year to play God. The cap has made for tedious roving free agent parity. Bo-ring.
  • The teams who win: Tampa Bay Carolina, Anaheim. Who cares? No one in the US except people in those cities. No one in Canada. Not me. Maybe if they were selling BBQ, shrimp and Mexican food but they are selling hockey. Bring back the Winnipeg Jets.
  • The Leafs: For better or worse, I am a fan of the Leafs. They have sucked for years. They play a style of hockey that screams of entitlement and floater. They need their guts ripped out from the board room to the bench. They will suck for many years to come so, though I have a soft spot for the Wings which predates their golden years, I have to accept it. The only blip on the Leafs radar this year was seeing Davey Keon show up for a wave and a smile during a pre-season ceremony.

There it is. The NHL better do something. So should the Leafs. Otherwise, I am joining the growing majority and saying “Feh!”

Good For Bill Casey

Always good to see someone not turn out to be a party hack. Especially interesting to see someone representing my old hometown of Truro NS take a stand like this:

Mr. Casey said he and Gerald Keddy, another Nova Scotia Conservative MP, have met repeatedly with Finance Minister Jim Flaherty in an effort to resolve the impasse. They also appealed directly to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty responds to a question during Question Period in the House of Commons in Ottawa Monday. “We have tried to build bridges between the government and provincial governments. We’ve got legal opinions. We have done everything we can do and last week it was obvious to me that we weren’t going to get the Accord restored. I told the Prime Minister I was going to vote against unless it was restored and I did,” said Mr. Casey. “I just think the government of Canada should honour a signed contact and if they don’t, we haven’t got much to work with.”

Hard to argue with that argument. Interesting to see the reference to the legal opinions – who is the “we” he is referring to? The government? A dissenting group?

Chicky’s Last Waltz

I’ve told you before how much I like going to Chicky’s in Portland, Maine but sadly Chicky’s is no more. My buddy Tom, who played the piano at this dear departed joint, sent an email about a benefit that is being held for the staff who have been left high and dry by the sudden absence of the equipment:

Okay, so as to go out with a bang, and not a whimper, a bunch of us regulars that performed at Chickys have put together a Last Waltz benefit show. Proceeds to help out the excellent staff of waiters and waitresses, cooks, and bartenders who found themselves suddenly jobless.

Where: The Gold Room – 512 Warren Avenue.

When: Sunday June 10 from Noon to 7PM.

How much: 10 measly stinkin’ bucks! Come on! Really, all this music for $10 !?! Sheesh.

Tickets available at Buckdancers Choice Music
at the Union Station Shopping Center on St. John Street, or at the Gold Room, 512 Warren Avenue.

Who:
The Line-up:

12pm – Douce. This will be the LAST CHANCE to see Cajun fiddler/accordionist MATTHEW DOUCET before he heads back to Louisiana. Reason enough to come to the show.

1pm – The Bourbonaires (with Tom W. on accordion & slide guitar). Chicky’s co-owners Blake Smithson and Chicky Stoltz play in this band, so it’s a great time to stop buy and tell them thanks for the great food and tunes for the past 3 years.

2pm – Sean Mencher Combo. Sean has probably forgotten more guitar riffs than most of us will learn. I can’t say enough about him, he is one of my favorite guitarists.

3 pm – The Guv’nors. Beatles/British Invasion tribute with members of The McCarthys, Cattle Call, Diesel Doug and the LHT, and the Saccarappa Boys.

4pm – Tone Kings. Electrified Blues, R&B, and Funk featuring some of New England’s best musicians.

5pm – Travis James Humphrey
Bakersfield-style country by way of rural Maine.

6pm – Chipped Enamel. Folk music of the people.

I am too far away and can’t make it. But if you are in New England, you could go. Take pictures. Dance with Tom.

Group Project: The Problem With Making Up Stuff

By focusing so completely on avoiding international law, by presuming what has gone before is inapplicable or wrong, it’s tough not to mess things up:

…the chief military defense lawyer here, Col. Dwight Sullivan of the Marines, said he viewed the decision as having broad impact because it underscored what he and other critics have described as a commission process that lacks international legitimacy and legal authority. “How much more evidence do we need that the military commission process doesn’t work?” asked Colonel Sullivan.

I am not going to defend Khadr – not so much as the fact that I have no interest in doing so but really because Darcey will call me funny names and then tell all his pals – but what is the value of Canadian citizenship if we don’t lift a finger (even when the UK has tried and Australia has succeeded for its similarly situated citizens), what is the point of speaking out against child soldiers elsewhere when one carrying our passport doesn’t raise the slightest concern? Now as a man and no longer a child – and a man who has likely been indoctrinated in the Cuban jail more than his terrorist father could have ever wished – he is could well be more intent on murder than he was when fighting in Afghanistan. I don’t doubt it myself.

But maybe now it is time to just try them on good old international law or hold them as run of the mill combatant detainees, you know – POWs, seeing as the war in Afghanistan still continues, and move on from trying to prove the situation is unprecedented. Group Project rules apply. Now at five and a half years of the war in Afghanistan, have things gotten to a point where in perspective we see acts on the battlefield were the acts of war rather than the acts of terrorists?

London’s Logo For The 2012 Olympics

So if that is the logo of the 2012 Olympics, what will the slogan be: “London 2012 – Bljezjef Braznats!!!” ???

That has to be the stupidest thing I have ever seen. And here is what some twits associated with the choice say:

“The new emblem is dynamic, modern and flexible, reflecting a brand-savvy world where people, especially young people, no longer relate to static logos but respond to a dynamic brand that works with new technology and across traditional and new media networks,” London 2012 organizers said in a statement. International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge described the logo as “truly innovative.”

When the hell did I loose the ability to relate to a static logo? And what the hell is a static logo anyway? You want a real Olympic logo? Look at that Moscow 1980 logo, lighting up the twilight sky like the ICBM packing the warhead that was going to destroy your hometown! Now that was a frikkin’ Olympic logo. Look at Barcelona 1992, the greatest Olympics ever by all accounts. What a logo! Abstract but not something that looks like it would please someone in a home for the criminally insane. Not something that looks like it broke, fell down the stairs and someone kicked it. Not like something that you know depends on string to stay together. What does London 2012’s logo say? “Come to London – we are nuts!” “Come to London – we know the value of nothing!” Crazy people are in charge:

“It’s vital that we reach out to those young people in a language that they understand and in technology that’s familiar to them,” London organizing chief Sebastian Coe said. “This brand is absolutely the world they live in.”

For the first time in my life, then, I can honestly say that if that is what the young understand they are nuts, too. In fact, I would be glum now if I were young knowing that this is what their baby boomer parents in charge of things think of them. That is awful. Way to go. The most God awful thing I have ever seen. Makes me embarrassed for the colour red.

Big Hop Bombs: Simcoe Double IPA, Weyerbacher Brewing, PA

Rich fine tan creamy head over deep caramel ale. The smell is orange marmalade with a sort of distinctly garlic-y hot heat. In the mouth eucalyptus and mint hops with orange peel and rich creamy malt closing into heat. A really fine double IPA, balanced – at 9% not overwhelming. A kinder gentler sibling of the same brewer’s Eleven. A fine thing in the shade on the hot day with a stinky blue cheese and a good loaf as children draw with chalk around you.

Planned by the brewer to be a softer gentler version of a big hop bomb. 100% BAer approval noted and well worthy.

Talking About The Weather

Remember when talking about the weather was a euphemism for something between being intensely dull to sensibly steering clear of controversial topics? Intersting story in the NYT this morning about the US channel the Weather Network and how the dullest station on the TV is now coping with relevance:

The daily weather forecast is rarely controversial, but the broader topic of climate change has generated no end of debate. As the network has seen its primary subject turn into a hot-button issue, it has had to grapple with how it wants to address it — and has decided not to tread gingerly. The issue started influencing the network’s coverage in a new way after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf coast in 2005, and has been shaping its programming decisions.

Please note: as a founding member of BFR (Bloggers For Reality) I admit and give witness to the fact I know nothing about global warming and have no idea who is right.

Memorial Day Parade 2007, South Portland, Maine

Last weekend we got to watch the Memorial Day parade in South Portland Maine. Every town and village I’d guess ran a parade at about the same time and an air force refueling tanker flew overhead giving them each an overpass. When I bought waving flags, a lady told me to have a happy holiday but it was the slightest bit weird in that I didn’t know what background of cultural memory or emotion was exactly associated with the day. It was too happy for our Remembrance Day and far too sunny. I was good at flaggy wavey, however, so that was good.