Flight of the Conchords "Beautiful Girl"

Flight of the Conchords "Business Time"

July 2007 In Review

I took a blogging hiatus and it was swell. Now I'm back and we have some catch-up to do. Here's how July went down...

Biscotti and I went to Whistler from July 13-15 for our first anniversary. While there, we did the Rainbow Lake hike which neither of us had done before. There was a lot more snow than we were expecting, and Rainbow Lake was almost entirely covered, but hey, it was a good time nonetheless. Some very nice waterfalls while en route. See pics from the hike here.

Also while in Whistler we went to Mongolie Grill, which shouldn't really surprise anyone. What will surprise you, as it did us, is that our respective bowls of chow weighed the exact same! Crazy eh? Well, we thought it was cool. And so did the guy who weighed the bowls. So you should too.

Many times recently, I read in papers and magazines the word majority. I heard many people say it too. And every single time I read and heard it, it was preceded by another word: vast. Is every majority vast? No, but you wouldn't know it these days.. It seems the vast majority of people, especially the collective media folk, need to learn that they can use the latter word without using the former word.

I've been checking in on this site Mondays fortnightly as author Yann Martel continues to send Prime Minister Stephen Harper books. Martel has received a response from the first book sent, albeit from Susan I. Ross, Assistant to the PM. The latest book, la huitieme (sorry, no accent graves, or agus), is a book of very short poems. Check out this poem, known as the world's shortest:

Fleas

Adam

'ad 'em

And now to an example of horrible things humans are capable of. As you may have heard, NFL QB Michael Vick of the Atalnta Falcons is charged with involvement in a dogfighting operation run from a house that Vick owns. The details are gruesome, and the entire thing is abhorrent. If Vick was involved in any manner, that's bad enough, but what I find equally offensive are the comments made by Washington Redskins RB Clinton Portis.

In the June 4th edition of Sports Illustrated, writer George Dohrmann quotes Portis as saying, "It's [Vick's] property; it's his dogs. If that's what he wants to do, do it". He also said that if Vick were convicted of dogfighting, he would be "behind bars for no reason". Remarkable. Dohrmann writes, 'Animal control officials call this the "just dogs" mentality. "It's just dogs," explains [Kathy] Strouse, "so why does it matter?"'

In the July 30th edition of SI Jack McCallum writes that 'Portis also expressed the learned opinion that if dogfighting is held behind closed doors, then it's O.K.' McCallum also writes, 'According to the indictment ... as recently as April Vick and two of his associates executed about eight dogs in ways that stunned John Goodwin, an animal-fighting expert for the Humane Society of the United States. "Why would someone kill a dog this way?" asks Goodwin. "the only reason I can think if is that they took some pleasure in it, which is just sick."' Humans really piss me off sometimes.

Now to a happier topic! Flight of the Conchords. A friend asked if I'd heard of them - I hadn't - and a few days later finally looked them up on youtube and after watching just one video I instantly fell in love. Flight of the Conchords is a New Zealand folk, pop, and comedy duo composed of Bret and Jemaine (wikipedia). I will be posting three youtube videos soon, today if you're lucky, but I also strongly recommend watching their new television show. You can do so at this site. Each episode has three parts, each part about 8-9 minutes in length, about as long as a halfhour show would be without commercials. What are ya waiting for, give it a go mate. I root root root for this show to be aired on a Canadian network, like maybe Showcase or Bravo or the Comedy Network.

I saw the Simpsons movie the night before last - loved it.

After a few months after my last run (which itself was a year or so after my last run before that), I went for a run last Thursday in Pacific Spirit Park with Maui & Holly - and felt surprisingly good during and after. I didn't have high hopes of endurance but was able to go for about 35-40 minutes. A second outing yesterday morning was more difficult. I have a goal - set while writing this paragraph - of doing a half-marathon in 2008 and a full marathon in 2009. I guess that's two goals.. All of that was an intro to saying that I'm trying to get into shape by being more active. I'm cycling more, both for recreation and transportation. I play baseball for a Surrey team and most of our games are in Surrey or other such locales which are a tad difficult to get to on a bicycle from Vancouver. On Saturday July 7th we were supposed to have a game at Blue Mountain Park in Coquitlam. I was psyching myself up to cycle there, was planning the best route, and then the game was canceled.

On July 24th though, we had a midweek game at Central Park in Burnaby. After the aforementioned disappointment I didn't hesitate to pack up one of my panniers with my uniform and necessary equipment and cycle on over. Twenty minutes after leaving home I arrived at the park. Man it felt good. I felt like I was 12 years old again, cycling to a baseball game while wearing my full uniform (yup, cleats too) and carrying my glove in a plastic bag hanging from my wrist. Anyway, after arriving at Central Park after the nice leisurely bike ride, I was entertained by teammates' stories of traffic hell over the bridges and through the cities with this midweek rush-hour game being much more of a traffic headache than our usual Sunday games.

That's it, I'm done. I now return you to your regularly scheduled summer, or winter if you're on the flipside of the planet, like in New Zealand or something..

Jimmy Fallon "Car Wash for Peace"

COACNEOAEN

Knock knock. Who's there? Canoe. Canoe who? Canoe come out and play.

Biscotti and I were gifted with a canoe on Sunday. We're very excited. We envision many summer days of taking the canoe out onto the ocean.

If I had a boat, I'd go out on the ocean, and if I had a pony, I'd ride him on my boat. And we could all together, go out on the ocean, me upon my pony on my boat.

Now we've got a boat, and instead of a pony we've got two dogs, also known as fat donkeys. Maybe we'll attempt to have the fat donkeys swim beside the canoe.

Canoe. Ocean. The same five letters. Pretty cool.

NACOE - Native American Center of Excellence
ANECO - Agusan del Norte Electric Cooperative (Philippines)
ENCOA - Enemy Course of Action

Nat Bailey Makeover

After the triple-A Canadians left town, replaced by the single-A Canadians, catching a game at Nat Bailey Stadium was less appealing. After a few seasons of absence I went to a couple of games last season and found myself enjoying it. This season's season opener is Tuesday June 19th, and this week's Georgia Straight has an article about work that was done on the prettiest little ballpark in North America over the off-season.

Here are highlights...

• The outside of the stadium has been painted and now includes 18 large panels of baseball art. The exterior also includes retro 1950s-style printing, giving it a nostalgic baseball feel.
• The outfield fence has been painted and moved forward about four metres in hopes of producing a few more home runs.
• The original scoreboard has been removed and replaced by a replica that is now embedded in the outfield fence and still requires someone to manually hang the scores inning by inning.
• All chainlink fencing has been removed down the first and third base lines, bringing people much closer to the action. "We still have some netting behind home plate, but the fans that are down the first and third base lines are going to feel like they're on the field," [new owner Jake] Kerr says. "The good news is spectators are going to feel like they're on the field; the bad news is they're going to have to be wide-awake and have their gloves with them because they're going to be much more in the action than they ever have been before."
• The food-service areas have been given a complete face-lift and the paying customers will get far more bang for their buck this year. "We're not raising prices, but we are improving quality, and we're certainly in some cases improving quantity," Kerr explains. "Last year's 16-ounce beer will be 20 ounces for the same price. And the hot dogs and the bratwursts will be a heck of a lot better, we think."

Click here for the full article.

Ready or Not.. BRRANNNNG

A kid and I were waiting for school to be over and for the afterschool programs to begin.

Kid: When is the bell going to go?
Me: Let's see.. it's two forty-three, so in seventeen minutes.
Kid: I think the bell is playing hide-and-seek with us.
Me: ??

38 Pitches

Curt Schilling is a pitcher for the Red Sox. He has a blog. A day or two after each start, he posts a summary of his performance. People then comment in droves (unfortunately you have to have a WordPress account to be able to comment). On Thursday, Schilling was still pitching in the bottom of the ninth and had two outs. He was working on a no-hitter. The next batter got a single. D'OH!

In the post for that game - 6/7/07 vs. Oakland - he writes that "someone referenced Ben Davis bunting to break up a perfect game in the 8th inning in 2002. I said what I’ve always said. I never said a word about that bunt and whether or not I thought it was ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, and I never have. The game was 2-0 at that point, so the tying run was at the plate and the hitter was someone who’d swung the bat well against me."

Now, a perfect game means that there have been no baserunners. How then, with a 2-0 lead and a perfect game in progress, can a batter represent the tying run?

Dentist Confirmation Redux

Exactly a year and a half ago, to the day, I posted a post about confirming an impending dentist appointment. I wrote then that I received a reminder postcard a week before the appointment, asking me to call and confirm, which I did, and then I received a voicemail the day before the appointment asking me - once again - to call and confirm, which I did. I had thought, and still do think, that two requests for confirmation, both within a week of the appointment and by two different modes of communication, was a bit excessive.

Which brings us to today, June 8, 2007. I just retrieved today's mail, which included a postcard from the dentist. It's time to get together again... reads the card. You are due for your regular dental check-up and cleaning appointment. The date and time is handwritten, and then highlighted yellow is this: Please call us today to confirm the above appointment. The kicker? The appointment is on August 23, 2007.

So I'm supposed to call to confirm a dentist appointment two and a half months in advance?!?!? I'm not going to call today, or tomorrow, or next week. I'll wait until it's just a tad bit closer, like within a fortnight, or a month even. Besides, even if I do call and confirm today, past experience tells me that they'll be calling and mailing me postcards biweekly for two and a half months, expecting me to call and confirm each time.

How 'bout just one confirmation request, 5-7 business days before the appointment?

Makin' Bacon