You Gotta Know When To Hold 'Em, Know When To Implode 'Em

Sometimes you just do something to say that you did it, which is what I did this morning. Today was then day when, finally, the old Winnipeg Arena, which has been so admirably replaced by the newfangled MTS Center was to be demolished...with DYNAMITE!!! It had been mostly disassembled by this point already, looking like a bombed-out building somewhere in Eastern Europe with its skeleton clearly visible and mounds of rubble surrounding; a shell of its former self. In any case this event was to take place at 7:15 on a Sunday morning, so I went along with my roommate Jon, better known as The Dizz.
To make a long story short the dynamite, though impressively loud, failed to take down the steel super-structure, simply collapsing the remaining concrete parts. Dissappointing, yes, and an engineering failure, but somehow appropriate for a two-bit city like Winnipeg (you just know they would have done it right in say, New York, or somewhere. Though, to be fair, Americans in general have significantly more experience blowing things up than we do). Secondly, it was fitting because like the memories of Teemu Selanne's record-breaking rookie season and the Jets themselves the building simply did not want to go away.

Check out Dizz's blog for a video of the debacle and another take on the proceedings

Looking forward this week to: Supper and Scrabble with my former roommates, Heather and Karin; Payday; um....Friday.

We Will, We Will, Do Our Best to Rock You

So here I am, trying to avoid getting sucked in to watching the Oscar pre-game show. Walking down the red carpet and what not. It's harder this year because there are more interesting movies nominated than usual, and if I were to catch an interview with Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jake Gyllenhall, any of the rest of the cast of Brokeback Mountain, Nicole Kidman of course, or Rachel Weisz, I would actually be interested in that. It still isn't worth the requisite time in front o' the tube.

What else can I say. The band I am in played its first show in its present incarnation last Friday as 'Cassette.' We were formerly called 'Delmar', but since added a new member (from the illustrious science-folktion duo 'Secondhandpants') so it warrented a new name. We played at an art show and it turned out well. We bleached the outline of a cassette tape onto each of our shirts so we smelled like swimming pools and our throats burned but overall the scale was tipped slightly to the side of "success." I don't think there is any way to hear the one song we have recorded out in internetland, though you can and, dare I say, should, check out the Secondhandpants (esp. Space Robot Blues).

Well, we play Ultimate tonight at 9:30 so I'll take it easy until then, after which I will be too wound up to sleep and will have trouble getting up tomorrow morning.

Looking forward this week to: Akron/Family show at the Albert on Thursday.