Another Wow

Vegan triathletes.

Now, I bet THEY have great parties. Wheat juice and wetsuit talk, anyone?

Anyone?

And for those of you who think advertising is of no use, I found this via a google ad on my email. Definitely worth a click...

Running

I went again today. It's been a while, and even though I've lost a lot from last time I went, it felt good. And it gave me time to think:

Things I like about running:

• Feeling good (eventually)
• Looking great (more or less immediately, but some of that may be psychological)
• Being able to do stuff like carry the little chick around without getting tired
• Feeling like my shoes were a fiscally sound investment
• Good excuse to carbo-load - hello, spaghetti carbonara!
  

Things I don't like about running:

• Sweating
• Not being able to sing
• That point where it feels like someone is trying to separate your rib cage from the rest of you with a dull, rusty knife
• Sweating in my clothes
• Being far from a shower while sweating

Yeah, I guess that about sums it up. Down with sweating, but three cheers for fitness!

Happy New Year

Original, huh? Nonetheless, I hope it's a good one... for all of us. And I'll be updating more, soon. I promise. Until then, have an egg-nog for me. Or, better yet: I'll have the egg-nog and you can do a half-hour run for me. If only it were that simple...

Good Genes

From a colleague at dinner this week, shaking her head:

"I don't get it. How do you eat like that (pointing at a rapidly-disappearing steak) and look like that (pointing at me)?"

Sure, I haven't been approached by GQ (recently) and won't be invited to open tryouts for... well, any Olympic team, but in the great genetic lottery, I'll take what I can get...

Have a good weekend, everyone!

My Eyes!

Sorry about the lack of updates lately - I've been busy with a friend staying at my place, and I also seem to have acquired an eye infection from somewhere. It feels kind of stupid - 5 year-olds are supposed to get these things, not adults. But yesterday, it was certainly there - red and swollen to the point that I couldn't really focus with my right eye.

Just so you're not alarmed, I went to the doctor, got some medicine, and am well on my way to being recovered.

But I wasn't able to work... looking at the computer (which is mostly what I do while I'm working) was really messing me up. I couldn't focus with both eyes, but it turns out that using my PC while sitting with one eye closed is not that practical, either. I left midway through the afternoon, soon realized that my eyes tend to play a pretty central role in my away-from work activities.

Maybe I'll write on my blog. Maybe I'll edit some pictures. Maybe catch up on facebook. Maybe work on mixing some music. Maybe try to find out what Scott Baio has been up to lately. You know, just the usual stuff. But those all use the computer and all (except maybe the last one) work best with two eyes. I couldn't read. I couldn't watch TV. So I limited myself to checking my work email at most every 15 minutes, strapped on my bass and spent the rest of the afternoon singing.

And something I've been thinking about lately... what really moves me? What are the compelling forces in my life? More to come on that...

New Jeans

Well, I can now officially get my nearly-new (I just got them at Christmas) favorite jeans on or off without having to undo them. And while this does sound eminently practical and perhaps even somewhat entertaining, it does make me think that, perhaps, the time has come to get new favorite jeans.

I like shopping. I don't usually have a hard time finding clothes that fit, but jeans seem to be the exception to the rule. And that's bad news, because I wear them a lot. I've lost a few inches around my middle and this is my second transition in the last two years. It's good, but it's also a bit of a pain, having to replace clothes that are fine except for the fact that there's a bit too much of them. And jeans are a special case.

Jeans are really more like friends than clothes. You make an investment in getting to know each other. You start off a little unsure... things are not really comfortable but you hope they'll get better. Sure, after a little while you may realize that it's just not going to work between you. The tears may be of regret or sadness or anger, but tears are tears when you're crying them. You may take some time off and decide to try again after you've both cooled down. But you know, deep down, that it's not going to work. There is no return from the "to try later" pile, no matter what you say as you part.

It's over.

But when you find those jeans that are destined to become your favorites, you can sense that something special is happening. And I've had it happen with different brands, with button-fly and zips, indigo, aged, or classic blue. You never know when it's going to strike, but when it does, it's like all of the stars in the what-not-to-wear sky (the original, British snarky one, not the cheery American one) are aligned. You put them on, and they're just right. They work with any shoes. You can toss on a jacket or a tee shirt and they pull it off with aplomb. It's like being able to communicate without having to learn the language first: it's more basic than speech.

They just fit.

And I don't want to do that again. I like my favorite jeans. They're not getting worn out, and their color is good, and we still get along so well. I'm unsure as to whether I should invest heavily in ice cream and try to save the relationship or bite the bullet and go shopping.

I'm telling you, I have a difficult life. I think I need to sleep on this.

Doping On The Tour De France

I don't believe it. Next, they're going to tell us that baseball players are doping, too.

Helmet

I saw a guy cleaning windows, wearing a helmet. He's six stories off the ground. I can understand if he was on a bike, or even working on the first floor. But at that height, isn't it a little like a plastic bag around an egg? It may help keep things in a bit, but they're still going to get pretty scrambled. "The illusion of security" as they say in Fight Club...

It Turns Our That I'm Allergic

I've known for a while that I wasn't a big fan of hip-hop, but the Beastie Boys are different. I really dig some of their stuff ("Hey Ladies", "Sabotage", and "Fight For Your Right", only one of which they played) and was looking forward to the show at Montreux this week. Upon arriving home after, though, I was up the whole night, throwing up copiously and, I must admit, with a fair amount of relief. I don't know if it was food poisoning, a flu, or just an adverse reaction to the opening band, but something certainly did not agree with me. So, sorry for not updating sooner, but I was pretty busy.

Ah, the opening band - Spank Rock. I use the word "band" loosely, of course. It was one guy who played records, one guy who came out at the beginning to shout at us to get more excited or Spank Rock himself (themselves? it was not really clear) would never come out. I couldn't quite make out if it was a threat or a promise. There were two more guys who rapped okay (I guess? I'm not really well-qualified to judge that) and danced... well, marginally less okay. One of their girlfriends came out occasionally to shake her moneymaker, and there was another guy in a sailor shirt who just wandered around on stage taking pictures and video with a little camcorder.

There was precious little rocking, except when they played some RunDMC completely unadulterated. Nice, but hardly the making of a great show to play a record somebody else made 20 years ago. Is that all it takes to play Montreux, now? I need to get one of those application forms. Thankfully, there was also no spanking, which, I'm guessing from their lyrical content, was certainly not a foregone conclusion.

In case Spank Rock happens (it does turn out that he is one of the two featured rappers) upon my blog (and let's face it - if he's always this good, I'm guessing there aren't going to be a lot of pages coming up when he googles himself), I'm going to be charitable and give him a few hints for next time.

1. If you have to tell people they're having a good time, they may not actually be having a good time. You can substitute "party" for "good time" if it makes it easier for you to relate to.
   
2. Get rid of your warm-up guy. It's time to deal with the fact that, as an opening act, you don't get an opening act. It's cruel, but that's show business. And, frankly, he's setting the expectations just a little high.
   
3. When people stop clapping before you leave the stage, it probably means that you shouldn't come out again and do an encore. And sending out the guy in the sailor shirt to put his arms in the air to get them to clap probably didn't help. Between you and I, it came off as a little desperate, and no one likes that.
4. The yellow pants worked. I'd try to do more with the yellow pants.
   

It reminded me a bit of the time that Carlos Santana's son opened for him... Claude made it quite clear that it was at "special request" of Santana. I'm wondering if the BB have some kind of interest in Spank Rock? May be time to sell the stock, boys.

That's all for now... I need to leave something for the Annual Concert Review....

Sniff

Man, I have a cold. On Friday, I wasn't sure - thankfully, I was able to get what I needed to done by the end of the week. Today it's certainly here. And I'm scared of what's coming tomorrow.

In lieu of my own inspiration, here's a quote I rather like from Zoolander, which I watched tonight with some good friends:

Mugatu: "I am one hot little potato right now"

I can just see it having so many applications.

Yeah, So Now What

In a moment of weakness I bought chickpeas and lentils. I'm looking at them now, and trying to resolve in my mind their super-natural healthy-making properties with the fact that they just really don't look like food.

Any ideas? Anyone? And don't say deep-fry them and serve them on ice cream - tried that, and it didn't work out nearly as well as you would expect.

Boogers

My little chick has had a cold lately. And she has also had an insatiable urge to run up to me from across the room and throw herself into my legs and hug me with all the strength in her little arms. As a result, I have a lot of nose-height spots on whatever pants I happen to wear, about 3 minutes after I put them on.

I've never been so happy to do laundry before.

The Clean Air Gnome

A gnome on an air purifier, of course. Which begs the question: how freaked out are you willing to be in order to have your air a little bit cleaner? I don't know about you, but for me, the answer is "not nearly this much". And what, exactly, is he holding? A bucket of clean air? Perhaps all of the pollen he's proudly collected? Maybe it's just the souls of little children. Who knows...

Taken with my phone through a tinted shop window, hence the fabulous quality. But I think the object itself rises well above any slight photographic imperfections.

The Dangers Of Self-Medicating

Today, I squirted eye drops up my nose.

It was bound to happen eventually, I guess. I've had a cold for a while, and while it hasn't been too bad in my throat or chest, I'm dealing with a lot of congestion that I would rather not deal with. I reached for what I thought was a bottle of Otrivin, wandered off to a place where I could use it as directed without losing friends or facing ridicule around the office. When I squirted and snorted, though (and yes, now would be an appropriate time for you to stop and picture that happening), I realized that something was wrong. None of that nasty Otrivin-y flavour in the back of my throat, and certainly nothing that would hint at a lessening of the Manhattan-at-rush-hour kind of congestion in my sinuses.

It could have been worse, I guess. I would rather not think about what Otrivin in my eyes would feel like. I'm not sure, but I can't picture it being good. So this was a wake-up call for me; from now on, I will positively identify anything that I intend to squirt into my body and then double-check to be sure I have the correct orifice lined up. Take a lesson, kids, and don't let this happen to you.

English Bathrooms

Can someone tell me who thought it would be a good idea to carpet a bathroom (or "washroom" for Canadians, "toilet" for the Brits)? Had that person never cleaned under a toilet before? And why are people still doing it? My theory: it's a scam perpetrated by the carpet cleaner guys, and I bet they are making a killing.

And then there is the hot-and-cold-in-two-different-faucets thing, so you either have to fill the basin and use the same water to wet and wash your hands with as you use to "rinse" them, or let the two faucets run and try to move back and forth between scorching and freezing as quickly as you can, trying to convince yourself that alternating frostbite and burning is almost the same as being warm. In what conceivable situation would I require simultaneous access to hot and cold water from seperate sources? I have no theory on this one, but whoever convinced a whole nation that it was a good idea is a salesman I'd like to have on my team...