Working hard, or hardly working?

Working hard. And long. Forty-nine hours and forty-five minutes this week. A new personal best. But my PB couldn't bring home the first Canadian medal - my heat score was just shy of claiming a spot in the final. Ah well, there's always next year four years from now.

I'd rather be...

Summer's encore; it's hot. Today I put more than double the amount of ice cubes into my water bottle to try to keep the water colder than usual during the first half of my work shift. I put so many in that I thought some would still be left in the bottle for a long while. Even though no solid water remained when I went for my first drink an hour in, it was still refreshingly cold. As I drank I closed my eyes and was taken to a few places at which I have also had a refreshingly cold drink from a water bottle:

• On a tennis court
• Next to a Mexican pyramid
• Biking around Stanley Park
• In the Surrey Indians dugout
• On the trail towards Upper Joffre Lake

Straight's PemFest Review

The Pemberton Festival has come and gone and I never left Vancouver. Had I travelled north, I probably would have gone just for Saturday's incredible lineup of acts. The Tragically Hip alone was tempting, and then I found out that also performing on Saturday were Sam Roberts, Buck 65, and Tom Petty. Those four plus a bunch of other acts all in one day - tell me again why I didn't go? Damn. Festival organizers: Next year, give me the all of the same acts on the same day, throw in Los Campesinos! and Clumsy Lovers, and I'll pay double whatever you were charging this year. I promise.

In the issue of Georgia Straight issue the Thursday following the festival, three writers each reviewed, extensively, a different day. My favorite part:

Buck 65 could be heard on the Lillooet Stage, meanwhile, prefacing "The Centaur" by accusing either Sam Roberts or Gord Downie of taking a huge and hideous shit in the backstage area.

When Downie himself mounted the Mount Currie Stage for the Tragically Hip's occasionally stiff and unwieldy set, he seemed even more hell-bent than usual on deconstructing his own music, whether it meant turning "Grace, Too" into a red-faced catharsis, or generally playing out an incomprehensible—although incredibly entertaining—private pantomime. Only Gord Downie will ever really know why he spent most of "Courage (For Hugh MacLennan)" spinning around on his ass with a hanky covering his face.

My run of no run is done

Before running the half marathon on May 4th, I told myself and my better half that I would take a break from running to allow some recovery. Well, the recovery dragged on. And on. And on and on. So much so that today I finally went for my first run since May 4th. My break lasted three months less a day.

Today's run route
In Pacific Spirit Park, start at Sasamat Reservoir, down Sasamat, right at Council, right at Salish, turn around at 16th, right at Sword Fern, left at Council, left at Sasamat, end at Sasamat Reservoir.
Today's run time
39 minutes 1 second

The new X-Files movie

Saw the new X-Files movie. Liked it during. Didn't like it after. More to follow..

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!

When going to see a new movie, I tend either to not have expectations or to have low ones. This helps me to avoid disappointment. However, my expectations for the new X-Files movie were high. During its run it was my number one show to watch, and I would say my favorite television show of all-time. I was present during the filming of the opening scene of the final Vancouver-shot episode.

It was great to see Mulder and Scully again. The movie progressed and I was pretty content, if only because I was seeing Mulder and Scully again. As usual, Mulder believes the psychic who is helping solve a mystery, and Scully has her doubts. If the plot came anywhere near one of the better episodes of years past, then it would've been an above-average, possibly great, movie. But the plot was crap.

While it was great, sort of, to see Mulder and Scully again, where were all the others? Sure, it's been a long time since the series wrapped, but I expected to see some familiar faces. All we got was Skinner and he was barely present. Also, where were the aliens and the supernatural aspects? A review I read after seeing the movie said the whole thing played out like an extended CSI episode, which I agree with even though I'm only partially familiar with CSI. It was basically a missings person(s) case. Back to Mulder and Scully, I felt that the chemistry between them was completely gone. There was no closeness, no bond, no nothing.

The FBI agents played by Amanda Peet and Xzibit REALLY annoyed me. Horrible characters. They seemed really dumb (Peet) and uninterested (Xzibit) for FBI agents. Any new clues and the guy always wanted to give up on it right away. And in Peet's death scene (I told you there'd be spoilers), she's chasing the bad guy, knows he's close by, and yet she stands near a drop-off looking up at Mulder for a lonnng time. Whoa, hey, now the guy is standing right in front of her and pushie-pushie and buh-bye. Dumb.

Speaking of dumb, Scully doing medical/surgical research by googling?!? Ummm, how about medical journals and the like? I'm upset because I wanted the movie to be so great and it so wasn't. Damn.