Future.
Remember in the seventies when writers predicted that people in the future would have huge heads because they would be spending so much more time thinking and less time working?
I predict that in the future people will have hugely-overdeveloped fingers on the right hand (from doing everything with a mouse), massive asses (from never getting off of them), tiny brains and eyes that see clearly only to about 15 feet(from a steady diet of TV and PC images). Further, I predict that the people of the future will be so hopelessly agoraphobic that reproduction will be done via cable modem.
Relatives.
Today I met some relatives from Finland! My father's cousin Birgitta and her daughters are in town for Finn Grand Fest this week and we got together for the afternoon. It was great to meet new family!
We went for lunch and to get to know a few more branches of the family tree - they were much more prepared than I was. They had charts, pictures, maps, and a letter from my grandfather's side of the family (Birgitta is from Grandma's side), too.
But the best part of it is we got invites from what seems like half of Finland - so when we go, we will have places to stay.
Of course, I want to go in the winter and Louise wants to go in the summer. I think Louise might win this one, since Kronoby is around the 64th parallel and the winters might get a little cold (for her, not me - but I don't want my wife to freeze).
Finland.
I got mail today from Finland - my dad's cousin is coming to Toronto in a few weeks for Finn Grand Fest with her daughters. She dropped me a line to say they'd like to meet me and use me as a tour guide. Sounds good to me. I think I will have to get my parents and sister to send me down some pictures of my grandmother (her aunt) - the last time she was back in Finland was in 1972; she died in 1987.
Arkansas.
Before we welcome my Finnish kin to Canada, I'm going south - to Little Rock, Arkansas. Louise's best friend lives there, so we're taking two weeks and driving (1100 miles (1800 km)! Each way!) to go there. Nothing like the South in July!
Explanation.
It's really hot here tonight and it got me thinking about ways to cool off, which got me thinking about a cold drink, which got me thinking about what makes drinks cold, which got me thinking about the title of this here pitas page, namely, "180 Ice Cubes Made Easy," which got me thinking that I owe someone an explanation of why the title is what it is.
Really, that's how the train of thought went.
We regularly shop for our groceries at a store called Dominion, and in one of the aisles - the pop aisle, I think - hanging on a shelf in front of the Coke or the Pepsi is this package labelled - you guessed it - "180 Ice Cubes Made Easy."
I thought to myself, "¿ ? ¿ ?" I hadn't been overwhelmed by the intricacies of making ice cubes before and was frankly surprised that there was a new way - an easy way - to make them.
It's a bag. It's a water balloon with 180 little compartments. You fill the thing with water, see? And then - here's the "made easy" part, near as I can figure - you put it in the freezer. Voilà !
180 Ice Cubes Made Easy. And here I am, making them the hard way, like a sucker.
Weather.
Has anyone else noticed that accurate weather reports seem to have been nearly entirely replaced by utterly unreliable stabs at what might happen in the next day or two? On TV, four- and five-day forecasts abound, supplemented by high-tech time-lapse computer-generated animations of the last twelve and the next seventy-two hours, and - have you noticed? - they're usually wrong.
It's as though the meteorologists all went home. In their places are the TV weatherfolks - the Ridges, the Stones, the Susans - who read their stuff off the TelePrompTer (a trademark, by the way) and haven't got a clue what it all means. Last year a Toronto newspaper asked the local weatherbees a few basic questions - "Why is it colder near the lake?" sorta things - and they were right about 50% of the time. Just like their reports.
Whatever. As Bob Dylan said, "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."
Rant.
"Then a man comes on the radio
telling me more and more
'bout some useless information
supposed to fire my imagination
But he can't be a man 'cause he does not smoke
the same cigarettes as me."
from "Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones
Seems like everybody is trying to sell me something lately. Advertising on TV, billboards, all over the freakin' WWW, on buses and streetcars, on rinkboards and the ice in hockey arenas and, sooner or later, it will be in churches and cemeteries too. Just wait and see. Joel Achenbach, in his Rough Draft column, wrote last Friday that "one of the big questions about the future of [golf] is whether there is some way to genetically engineer the human body to give it an extra limb or two that can be used strictly as a logo-bearing appendage."
Don't get me wrong: I am not saying that stuff isn't nice to have. But when did we start to believe that we must have stuff?
Wisdom.
Two words:
David Wisdom.
He hosts Radiosonic on CBC Radio Two (Canadians, check local listings, the rest of the world, visit the website for a link to streaming audio). Radiosonic plays the most incredible array of stuff you won't hear anywhere else. This Saturday (June 10) it's "Hockey Rock" - all kinds of tunes about The Game. Songs about Bobby Orr, Dave Schulz, Wendel Clark and more!
Just don't expect a song about the heroic sacrifices of Gary Bettman.
Me.
Nothing like popular demand to drag me, kicking and screaming, into the threedubbleya age.
Physics.
The London Telegraph reports that "a woman taking part in safety trials of a giant catapult smashed her pelvis after being flung at 50mph from the medieval-style machine and bouncing out of the landing net."
Safety trials? Catapult?? FLUNG??? I think I see the flaw in these trials.
It reminds me of an old Python bit - "Interesting People":
Host: "This is Tiddle, the wonder cat. And what does Tiddle do?"
Guest: "She flies through the air and lands in a bucket of water across the studio."
H: "By herself?"
G: "No, I fling her."
Rocket.
I never saw him play - he retired three years before I was born - but I grew up loving the Canadiens and immersing myself in their history. I've watched films of him playing and photographs of him are burned into my memory.
His fire, intensity, talent and through it all, his quiet dignity inspired me then and inspire me now.
He will be missed.
Au revoir, Maurice. Et merci beaucoup.
Wife.
My wife does a much better job on her page. Compared to her, I'm just a thousand monkeys banging away at a thousand keyboards.
Map.
I like maps.
Lies.
I believe it was President Bertenernie who said that there were four kinds of lies: "Lies, damn lies, statistics and The Lie Of The Day."
Mail.
If it's really important to send heaps of abuse immediately, then you can mail me.
Cranky.
Mr. Cranky hates the movies, and with good reason.
About "Mission:Impossible 2" he said, "Tom Cruise's most unbelievable stunt continues to be his success as an actor," and "as directed by John ("Face/Off") Woo, "M:I-2" couldn't have more slow motion if it were a story about mongoloid chess."
Now that's what I call a review.
