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Kings up 3-0. Looking like the writings on the wall. I wouldn't mind seeing the Devil take one, but not sure even that's in the cards. I certainly can't see the Devils turning this around. Shame that Brodeur has been so upstaged by Quick, esp. in game 3, but I guess he's had his time to shine etc. what with his 3 Stanley Cup victories and all.

Well, it's on my list but I definitely make fewer impulse purchases than I used to. Too many other priorities and trying to avoid too much debt (and I'm in better shape than many). I guess that's part of what is troubling the music biz. (Now if I could sell off my old CDs easily, then it might be a different story , but it's like pulling teeth some times.)

This is both very funny and very disturbing: Cat in flight Apparently after this artist's cat died, he decided to give him a new lease on life and turned it into a cat helicopter. (Hope the link works; I can try to fix later.)

I was also on some long flights this weekend. I reread Margaret Atwood's Cat's Eye, which I think is a solid novel about an artist thinking over her past and the traumas of childhood that helped shape her art. Somewhat curiously, her relations with her parents and brother were very solid, but she was tormented by a small group of "friends." It goes into other aspects of her life as well, and might fairly be called a feminist take on the bildungsroman tradition. Perhaps my favorite part of the novel is how she describes the outskirts of Toronto getting more developed. Even I experienced this in my little hometown where the open field we crossed to get to school turned into a whole bunch of houses the last time I was back. There was a "huge" woods behind the school where we would explore for hours. I assume much of that is also developed. I also can't imagine my wife letting the kids wander around for hours on their own, even in relatively safe Vancouver.

That's interesting. I actually paid somewhat more for this from Amazon.co.uk, though fortunately not drastically more. But it now seems to be OOP in the UK. Hope it actually turns up on Amazon.com.

So I came across this the other day, and I will probably digitize a couple of the articles and recycle the magazine. I'd be willing to ship it within North America or to Europe if someone wants it badly enough to pay postage. In any case, does anyone have any insight into Krasnow's Ululation? As far as I can tell, the vinyl release didn't happen after all nor are the MP3s available for sale.

Haven't looked, but I hear it's up on iTunes now. I saw it is on Amazon as an MP3, and I believe it is also on eMusic, so I will investigate tonight. Pretty exciting, though given the (short) length, I'd rather not pay an arm and a leg...

On a related note, I am attempting to pull together an anthology of poems about various modes of transportation with a heavy emphasis on subways, elevateds, biking and walking. There will of course be a few poems on cars, sailing and airplanes, but these have been pretty well anthologized already. I actually had prepared a subway poetry anthology, but the scope was deemed a bit too narrow. So that gives me a pretty good starting point for this new anthology. Any suggestions are welcome, though I have to say up front there will be no financial compensation or finders fee for any poem, no matter how good. But you could find yourself in the acknowledgment section, FWIW.

I came across this one a short while ago. I like it, esp. reconciling the dream of reaching America and the reality of reaching America. It is one of the stronger poems from his collection Falling Deeply into America. Sailing to America By Gregory Djanikian Alexandria, 1956 The rugs had been rolled up and islands of them Floated in the centers of every room, And now, on the bare wood floors, My sister and I were skimming among them In the boats we’d made from newspaper, Sheets of them pinned to each other, Dhows, gondolas, clippers, arks. There was a mule outside on the street Braying under a load of figs, though mostly There was quiet, a wind from the desert Was putting the city to sleep, But we were too far adrift, the air Was scurfy and wet, the currents tricking Our bows against reef and coral And hulls shearing under the weight of cargo. “Ahoy and belay!” I called to my sister, “Avast, avast!” she yelled back from her rigging, And neither of us knew what we were saying But the words came to us as from a movie, Cinemascopic, American. “Richard Widmark,” I said. “Clark Gable, Bogie,” she said, “Yo-ho-ho.” We had passed Cyprus And now there was Crete or Sardinia Maybe something larger further off. The horizon was everywhere I turned, The waters were becoming turgid, They were roiling, weeks had passed. “America, America, land-ho!” I yelled directionless. “Gibraltar,” my sister said, “Heave to,” And signalling a right, her arm straight out, She turned and bravely set our course North-by-northwest for the New World. Did we arrive? Years later, yes. By plane, suddenly. With suitcases And something as hazy as a future. The November sun was pale and far off, The air was colder than we’d ever felt, And already these were wonders to us As much as snow would be or evergreens, And it would take me a long time Before I’d ever remember Boats made of paper, islands of wool, And my sister’s voice, as in a fog, Calling out the hazards, Leading me on, getting us there. Source is the Poetry Foundation website here

I guess you never know. You can always put in an order. I think this one is more likely to be fulfilled: Complete Sampson Francois (EMI) I briefly considered this yesterday but decided 30+ CDs was too much even for me, and I went for this slimmed down 3 CD box instead: Sampson Trilogie

I'm officially supposed to put in 37.5 hours/week. I expect it is much more like 50, and I almost never stop thinking about how to make improvements to parts of my job I'm responsible for. (I'm the senior transport modeler.) But in terms of wasted time on the internet, that's probably 10 hours a week. I figure it comes out about even, particularly given how much mental overtime I put in. Of course, we have close to 10 hours/week on fairly pointless meetings, which are then rescheduled at the last minute and sometimes completely cancelled, so the effort you spent on preparing for the meetings (slides, handouts, etc.) doesn't feel at all productive. My manager has some strong qualities but is actually pretty terrible on the management side of things (disorganized, late with feedback, a bit of a micro-manager, etc.). Definitely would have been better off staying at a chief economist position and not risen to manager. Ah well, the Peter Principle strikes again...

Good one. That bugs me too. Doesn't bug me. I put the t in there. Many dictionaries note that the original pronouciation included a t and that while the silent t is more standard, the other is also an acceptable variant, and indeed the t is making a strong comeback.

Don't really know about the rest of the message, but I do have to wonder about the Rockets "reeling," given that Yao Ming really was a subpar and very injury-prone center for most of his career.

That's so ironic, since my boss wants me to use "we" a lot more than "I" even though it is nearly always "I" that does the work. Maybe we should switch bosses.

But you're OK with Jag-you-uh? Much of the US uses something more like Jag-gwar.

I realize these are variants and not true mispronunciations, but I sure don't like the UK (and often Canadian) pronouciation of: schedule aluminum innovative jaguar Not only do I think they sound "off," but in many cases the Brits add in extra syllables making it a bit harder to say.

The C$ hangs around par with the US$ these days, but I'd say it's likely that the US$ is down to the C$, rather than the other way around. Neither is doing well in Switzerland and the UK, where I've just been. Well, I think it is hovering around 1.6-1.65 $/GBP, but when I was there in the mid 2000s, it was more like 1.8-1.9 $/GBP. That really made it hard for Americans or Canadians to visit the UK!

My parents had Brubeck's Time Out, and I enjoyed that quite a bit. I think the first jazz I bought was a cassette of Miles Davis Sketches of Spain (maybe backed with In a Silent Way) and a bit later Bitches Brew on 2 cassettes. It was pretty early in college when I started buying CDs and I focused on Monk and Mingus. I don't really recall why I gravitated to them rather than other, perhaps more popular artists. Oh, actually it just came to me. My parents got me the Smithsonian History of Jazz (on cassette), so I did have a bit of background fairly early on to guide my later purchases. While I still like Miles and Brubeck, it really was Monk and Mingus that were the most responsible for my falling hard for jazz and its dissolute ways.

Near the end of last night's Lakers-OKC, Durant has the ball, is double teamed, hit by BOTH Lakers and knocked on his ass, but no whistle! Stevie Wonder calls that foul. I started to think that Metta World Peace would have to elbow Durant for a whistle... Definitely a problem. I turned it off when they showed Harden was whistled for an absolutely clean block and then was given two ticky-tack fouls in the next minute and a half. Just not enjoyable for me when the game's outcome is so bound up with the officiating.

The book does get better after this enormous explosion that rocks Halifax (this actually did occur during WWI) and we see who pulls through. A little unrealistic in that virtually everyone who does survive becomes much nobler during the aftermath, but that can be overlooked. Still, not likely a book I'd return to. I am mostly done with Callaghan's A Fine and Private Place and it is a bit more engaging though somewhat meandering. I note that, similar to Bissoondath's The Innocence of Age, a cop gets involved in a shooting. Wonder how many cops show up in novels and don't shoot someone? Pretty few, I'd wager. It's probably a corollary that if a gun shows up in the first scene (of a play or movie), it has to go off in the last scene. (Sometimes attributed to Hitchcock or Godard, it is more likely that it stems from Chekov.) Also read Nikki Giovanni's Bicycles. Awful. and Sailing Alone Around the Room, by Billy Collins. A few poems are keepers, but in general the poems are flabby, the stakes are too low and there just isn't enough of a point to these poems. Not sure what I will tackle next. I probably should get back to Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy, but I'm thinking that since the family will be away almost the entire summer, I'll read it then when I don't have as many distractions. Most likely I will go for a Toronto novel trifecta -- Atwood's Cat's Eye, Findley's Headhunter and Skvorecky's The Engineer of Human Souls. That should keep me pretty busy until the summer.

It's possible, though I'm liking OKC's chances (and much younger legs). The way things are going, it sure seems that whoever stumbles out of the East is going to be slaughtered by either OKC or San Antonio.

If you're going to do that, don't forget your passport!

Actually, Coach Thibs was willing to bench Boozer in game 6, since he was playing so awfully. There aren't too many coaches willing to do that, which is a shame. But the Bulls generally had the best bench in the NBA (OKC's bench is not bad either ), so it was an easier decision. Obviously it still didn't matter, but I think it was the right move. Bulls did come very close to winning that game, even being so short-handed.

Decided to pick up this CD of covers that the band cut waaaay back in the day but they weren't released until 1995 in the UK and 2003 or so in the US!

This is a pretty cool work-out for Dunn (Booker-Loo). As someone says, he's rocking the green plaid jacket. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kgBgX5HsqU