Many of my loyal readers have been asking me “Where are the posts on professional wrestling? We want to hear your opinions on the potential upside of the Great Khali and the simmering tension between Edge and Randy Orton”.That’s a good point – my blog is supposed to contain musings on music, family life, and professional wrestling. So, I will endeavour to keep up to date on recent WWE, TNA, ECW, NJPW, and ROH events.In the meantime, please enjoy this short clip of a man wrestling a bear.
Monthly Archives: February 2007
Banned Words
The English language is constantly evolving. New words get added to the lexicon every year – words like celebutante, crunk, and yogalates.
According to leading scientists, this is leading to a crisis of epic proportions. We are quickly reaching the theoretical maximum number of words that the average human can retain. Once we reach critical mass, our brains will be forced to delete random words from our vocabulary.
To alleviate the problem, I’m proposing we start a list of words to be deleted from the English language. My first suggestion is “slacks”. I really hate that word. Does anyone actually use it in real-life situations? “Hey Steve, those are really awesome slacks.” or “Honey, I’m going to the slacks store to ask the slacks experts about the new line of slacks.”
It’s a stupid word. “Pants” and “khakis” are perfectly serviceable, and personally I would be happy to never see or hear the word “slacks” again.
Any other suggestions?
The Future of Conducting?
Gustavo Dudamel, the young Venezuelan conductor who is generating a great deal of international attention these days, made his Canadian debut this week with the orchestra. Over the five days he was in Ottawa, he generated more buzz than anyone I’ve encountered.Gustavo is the product of Venezuela’s phenomenal system of state-funded youth orchestras. Roughly 250,000 children have been given instruments and participate in dozens and dozens of youth orchestras. This social experiment has been a great success – another musician from “The System” recently became the youngest member of the Berlin Philharmonic at the tender age of 17. Maybe Hugo Chavez can offer this kind of cultural export to George W.So what makes Gustavo special? The musicians probably have way more insight than I do. What I saw from the rehearsals and concert was incredible charisma, boundless energy, terrific “hands”, and supreme confidence. At his first rehearsal, he spent about 20 minutes on the first few bars of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5. He was meticulous and exacting, but the players completely bought into it.Thursday night’s concert was completely sold out, due in large part to all the publicity about Gustavo, but also because Pinchas was the soloist and the programme was very accessible:BARBER Adagio for StringsBARTOK Viola ConcertoBEETHOVEN Symphony No. 5The opening of the Barber was really dramatic – I’ve never heard such a quiet entry. The closing was equally memorable. After the last note, Gustavo and the orchestra froze for at least 20 seconds and not a single person broke the silence. That was cool.So is Gustavo the next Bernstein? He seems to have the tools. He’s personable, tireless (he apparently went out dancing until 3:00 am after the second concert), talented, and looks good on a poster. The New York Philharmonic, LA Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, and Toronto Symphony all sent either musicians or staff to check him out this week – pretty heady stuff for a guy who just turned 26.
Dis-Cord
My home is being overrun by power cords (not power chords). As we have accumulated more and more gadgets, our drawers have become full of tangled wires with connectors of various shapes and sizes. We now have a different cord to charge:
• 1G iPod
• 5G iPod
• My cell phone
• Bronwen’s Blackberry (yes, she now has a Blackberry)
• Camcorder
• Digital camera
• Laptop
• Bronwen’s Palm (maybe this can be retired now that the Blackberry is in place)
Plus, there are USB and Firewire cables to connect various gadgets to the computer, not to mention audio and video cables.
I predict one day this won’t be an issue – we’ll have an all-in-one device that will do everything (phone, camera, electric shaver, leaf blower) and it will connect with other devices wirelessly. We will control it telepathically, and it will draw power by converting calories we ingest to energy, thus solving the obesity epidemic. Apple will create it, and Microsoft will then take 3 years to come out with an inferior version that nobody will buy.
On the downside, it will need to be replaced every 3 days.
