Books

Woo-hoo! Another wild release of mine has been caught, and I can now say it's been journaled!! I watched the book after leaving it and saw a girl pick it up and take it with her! The release was on Sunday, two days ago, as part of the 'Word on the Street' event at the downtown library. I got the journal entry just moments ago.. This all has to do with bookcrossing.com, but you already knew that didn't you? That's right, you did!

I recently took a French class to update my ability to communicate in French.. In my high school days I was pretty good at the French, but as the years went by my skills became diminished.. Reading it was far easier than understanding someone who was speaking it.. Therefore, I would like to retain as much of it as I possibly can.. My goal is to read a French novel.. This should probably be done pretty soon, or else, if history has taught me anything, I will have difficulty getting past the title of the novel.. Does anyone out there have any suggestions for me on what I should read? Any suggestions are welcome.. I'd like to start somewhat simple, and work my way up.. The simple start should still be challenging though..

My last three posts have all been done on Tuesdays. What's up with that?

Oddest Of All Odds

Did I just hear that?
Did anyone else just hear that?
Again and again to be sure,
(Just don't forget to keep pedaling).
One, one, one...
At home, p+p, five,
Memory tells me that's the one (ten).
Deletion, my bad
Won't happen again.
I promise it will not.
That is not a light thing to say.
A question for you:
Why?
General, yes,
Now the best I can do.
Pepper, soccer, reality, Kelowna.
Two hours later - answered (to my satisfaction?)

Buy Me Some Peanuts...

The Indians will not play in the final. For the past 4 or 5 years, I have played for the Surrey Indians baseball team in the LMBA (Lower Mainland Baseball Association). This year I decided not to play in order to free up some weekends and have the opportunity to do some weekend/extended trips I couldn't do in past summers. On Sunday, two days ago, the Indians played the Maple Ridge Jerks in the semis.. Being played in Burnaby, I figured Biscotti and I could go out and take it in.

The Jerks used to be the dominant team in the league by a wide margin. Our games against them would be nothing more then practice for them, and embarrassing for us. That seems to have changed. Helped no doubt by a stronger Indians team than past years. There is an August long weekend tournament every season, and the three times I played in it we won a grand total of zero games. Each year every team gets a minimum of three games. The Indians, with me on the roster, never played more then three. In fact, one year we only played two. "You guys are so brutally bad that we are mercying you to Newton before the game even begins. You stink. Go home." "Hey man, you can call us bad ballplayers, but leave my B.O. out of this." In truth, weather was the cause of our lost game. Anyway, this year, the Indians happened to win the tournament. Super. I'd like to take sole credit for their win by saying I was responsible for removing the weakest link, but, from last year to this year, there were several roster changes besides me. Therefore, it wasn't merely my absence that sent them to the top of the podium, there were other factors involved. That's what I tell myself as I lay awake at night..

Sunday's game was close. There was no score for the first few innings. The Jerks got on the board first with a solo homerun, then went up a couple a couple of innings later. The Indians sure had their chances to tie. One inning, two men on and nobody out, and the inning ends with no runs scored. Shoot-oh. Final score was 5-3. Maybe 5-2. Just as well for them. Last year, when I told them I wouldn't be playing this year, they were warned that if they won it all this year, I would be so insulted that I would never play for them again. Now that I think about it, I suppose it's not just as well for them. It's just as well for me. I want to play next year. Nice try guys. You came very close but fell just short. Next year, I'm playing ball.

I've Got it Oh-So-Tough.

So here's the situation: The women's U.S. Open final is being played right now, or could possibly be over, and I'm struggling. You see, there were two men's semi-finals earlier today. In the first one, Aussie Hewitt beat Johansson (sp?) in straight sets. Then the second semi was starting just as I had to leave to catch a Fringe show. The second semi featured skilled Federer versus Henman. I taped it. When I got home it was ten to four and the Canadian hockey team was 2 minutes into their semi-final match against the Czech Republic. I let the tape continue to record channel 15 in case Federer and Henman were still playing. The tape would run out at 5, which happened to be when the women's final started.. At 5 minutes to 5, I flipped to channel 15 and thankfully there was a cartoon coming to an end. I took the tape out and put in another tape, pressed record again. I then watched the rest of the Canada game.. yowzers! What a thriller.. Here's a brief summary: Canada won in overtime! What? I did say it would be brief.. The Canadians now play Finland on Tuesday.. Oh shoot, I have plans to see a Fringe show on Tuesday. Gonna have to figure that out.. Tape the game? No. More likely to see the fringe show on another night.. I hope that's possible..

And now back to tennis. It's now 7:18 and the match started at 5. My mind is telling me that women's matches can last anywhere from 1 hour to 3 hours. I'm thinking of just letting the tape run for the four hours. Let me try to explain why. If I flip to channel 15 now, and I see them playing, then I know that the match lasts at least 2 hours and twenty minutes. Let's say that one of the Russians has a match point in the second set at the 1 hour-10 minute mark. I know who is going to win the point and the suspense is gone. Poof. If I don't flip to it, and just let the tape run out, then I have no idea how long the match is and can get appropriately tense/amazed/thrilled at the appropriate times. Understand? Of course, once that tape is done, I first have to watch the Federer match. Know why? Because no doubt the commentators, during the women's final, will reveal who won the men's semis.. whew.

The Fringe. I've never seen a Fringe show before. It's a once-a-year festival here in Vancouver that showcases many different types of performers that wouldn't really have anywhere else to perform. These performers tour, so they hit festival after festival around the world.. Today I saw a show with Biscotti called @witsend. It featured a standup comic from New Zealand ("'the Shire' as you probably know it") who was brilliant. I was hoping he would have a very typical Kiwi accent, but it was only noticeable on a few occassions throughout the show. I'm guessing he's losing it because he does so much touring. His accent I'm talking about. Not "losing it" in the "what a nutball" sense.. He had so much to say that his 50 minute set was all over the place, but in a good way. Segued very well and was very engaging.

Now I must figure out Tuesday and solve my women's-final crisis.

Accessorizing my Bicycle

Currently rainy and windy. That last word is pronounced win-dee, not wine-dee; wouldn't make much sense if it was the latter now would it? I mention the weather only because I finally put the front fender on my bike today. Okay, it wasn't so much me as a nice guy at Cheapskates who put it on. Might seem like a simple job that I should've been able to do myself, but to my credit this bike expert needed a good 10-15 minutes to do the job. Granted, he didn't call himself a bike expert, I bestowed that upon him just now, but he works in a bike shop, so he should be an expert right? The nice guy didn't even charge me.. Just told me to do someone else a favor today.. I said, 'pay it forward, gotcha, thanks'. I haven't seen the movie but I was able to reference it, that takes some skill right? Right? No, it doesn't. Anyway, my bike now has a front fender to match the rear fender and riding when it's wet should be a bit better.. The only thing I have to worry about now are the idiots in their vehicles who can't seem to understand basic traffic signs and don't know how to use their indicators. Of course, I don't mean you, unless you're an idiot who can't comprehend easy commands and aren't trained enough or smart enough to make your turn signals function.... Then there are the jerks who like to use the bike routes as shortcuts.. I could go on. I won't.

Getting Settled

I'm still not quite sure what I'm capable of on this site. It's taking some getting used to, that's for sure. I have updated (see: improved) my profile some, although I'm 99.7841% sure no one has seen it as of me writing this sentence.. Mostly because I haven't told anyone that I've started this blog. I will probably be sending out another group email to a select few to inform them..

I went camping a couple of days ago with my girlfriend, whom I shall call Biscotti, because that's what I really do call her. We went up near Joffre Lakes, which is north of Pemberton, which is north of Whistler.. It was very early September, we left on the first, so we were prepared for regular camping, with regular summer-ish clothes. When we first stepped out of the car, we felt a gust of cold air, but thought nothing of it. After all, since we'd been inside a warm car for the 3+ hour drive, it was bound to be cold as we opened the doors. The hike in was more strenuous than anticipated, and quite wet and muddy. By the time we got to Lake Rohr, we were semi-exhausted, and it was then that the snow started falling. Alrighty then, it's gonna be like this, is it? We had, fortunately, packed a couple of toques and some fleece clothing, "just in case", and I'm super glad we did. Our planned two-nighter turned pretty quickly into a one-nighter.. It's a beautiful place, glaciers and lakes and all, but the coolest part is that you feel all alone for many miles around.. Kind of because you are.. And that is what made me have bears on the mind until we got back to the car.. With no one else around, you know who the bears are gonna go after! Tried to make light of it, "No bears! No bears!" we chanted as we clapped our hands, but it was weighing heavy, let me tell ya.. And wouldn't you know it, we ended up having a bear encounter. A cute cub was eating some delicious looking berries, mere metres away from us. That's right, mere metres. We were starting to think that where there's cub, there's mom, when the cub turned and disappeared into the bush. Both of us suitably relieved, Biscotti put the car back into drive and off we went, homeward bound.

Now I must go watch the remainder of the Finland / Sweden hockey match.. Go Canada! (tonight vs Russia)

The First

I felt it necessary to put up a post on the same day that I created my very own blog. So here is my first post. My profile is currently subpar and I will be updating it in the near future. I'm always surprised at how hard it is for me to list my favorite movies on command. The only thing harder than that, I have just found out, is to list my favorite books on command.

You can now tell your friends that jblueafterglow's blog has officially started. Go on, tell them.. While you're at it, tell some non-friends as well. I'm sure they'd be very interested to hear the news.