I’m going to close up shop around these parts for the holiday weekend. At some point this year I made it a goal to blog everyday; a goal which I have, for the most part, achieved. This weekend I’m making it a goal NOT to blog until Tuesday. This absence is going to make us love each other all the more. On Tuesday we’ll all pledge to never be apart again. :D
Archive for August, 2008
Today I spent a hilarious day shivering and damp at Dunn Tire Park. The BPO sponsored an afternoon of lounging on the Labatt Blue Party Deck for the final home game of the Bisons season. Do I look like the kind of gal who is going to pass up a glamorous opportunity like that just because it was raining and uncomfortably cold? No. I do not.
After the baseball game (which incidentally went the ENTIRE nine innings despite the weather), we went to Colter Bay for additional beverages. They randomly had one of their televisions on the NHL Network. That made me smile.
(This post is part of a series in which I am picking the Sabre most deserving of the title “Kate’s Favorite Sabre II”. The competition is stiff. The traits necessary to win are impossible to predict. Anything could happen! Every Sabre is a hero, but in the end, there can be only one. Last year the “one” was Max Afinogenov, so you can assume this whole exercise is deeply flawed/possibly corrupt.)
Last year when I was running this competition I didn’t have very much information to work with beyond roster photos. At the time I had seen maaaybe twenty hockey games in my life. Comparatively, I’m now a hockey expert. This morning, armed with a new confidence in my ability to reasonably grade professional hockey players, I eagerly headed to the Sabres website. “Time to reacquaint myself with the cast of characters and enjoy my new (and hopefully intimidating) depth of Sabres knowledge,” I thought. I got quite a shock.
There are, like, 5 million guys on the Sabres roster right now.
Darcy Regier has been signing dudes right and left all summer. I paid little or no attention to these guys because I assumed they were all headed straight for Portland and my already overtaxed walnut-sized brain has no room for non-NHL hockey. Apparently, these recent acquisitions are current Sabres.
I don’t have the time for this bullhonky, so the following Sabres are cut from the competition because I have no idea who they are:
Jimmy Bonneau, Tyler Bouck, Mathieu Darch, Colton Fretter, Colin Murphy, Felix Schutz, Derek Whitmore, Chris Butler, Michael Kostka, and Dennis Persson.
Never heard of him.
Listen, I’m a supportive and understanding person, but this is unacceptable. It’s like they’re not even trying to be Kate’s Favorite Sabre. I’m sorry to be to be so unwelcoming to the new kids, but HONESTLY, if you’re going to be someone I’ve never heard of you’d better also be really funny, or at the very least have a working knowledge of the viola and viola related issues. Since these guys are neither funny or holding violas, I have no choice but to eliminate them from consideration for KFS.
Katebits: (stands up to approach the contestants) (voice dripping with false sincerity) I’m sorry, that means that you’re out. (*kiss kiss*) Auf wiedersehen!
Commence Pommerdoodling
Published August 26, 2008 beep beep beepbeepbeep! , Pommerdoodling! 14 CommentsMaybe it’s the conclusion of the Olympics, or the fact that September is now within sight, or maybe it’s because last night I had a dream in which Toni Lydman and I were watching football and debating the merits of popsicles versus fudgesicles, but I woke up this morning with the sudden realization that it’s time to start getting excited about hockey.
I know it’s a bit early to get all wound up, but I can’t help it anymore. I don’t care if my early enthusiasm winds up biting me in the ass when I find myself ravenous for hockey with WEEKS left to go. I don’t care! I’m feeling excited and happy for hockey! There is a distinct feeling of Fall in the air! I refuse to see reason!
HOCKEY IS COMING BACK!
I’ve been on the fence, but I think I’m going to do Kate’s Favorite Sabre again. KFS will get me back into the habit of thinking about hockey and making fun of the Sabres. With all this blogging about the Olympics and woolen eggs I’m feeling a bit rusty on the hockey front. Do I still have what it takes to carefully rank the Sabres based on a ridiculous and ever shifting list of criteria that has little or nothing to do with hockey? I don’t know! I guess we’ll find out. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you can read the entire KFS series from last year here.)
I’ll wile away the next month on TWC whimsically ranking the Sabres for Kate’s Favorite Sabre Competion Part II, and then before we know it, training camp will be upon us and it’s all down hill after that. Soon we’ll have a wonderful, unblemished, hopeful, fresh, agonizing, shiny new, hilarious, infuriating, looong, fantabulous, FULL season of Sabres hockey stretched out before us! WOOOOOOOOOO!!!
HOCKEY IS COMING BACK!!!
beep beep beepbeepbeep!
This post has nothing to do with hockey or sports of any kind. This post is very, very silly.
I live very near to the Elmwood Strip so I wandered over to the art festival both days this weekend. Yesterday I just meandered around, but today I went to eat junk food and purchase “art”.
Here’s what I bought:
It’s a felted fried egg made out of wool. It was three dollars.
Jeff and Dinesh think I overspent, but Robin and I agree that we’ve already squeezed 3 dollars worth of entertainment out of the egg. I carried it around the art festival like a trophy- that was pretty funny. I brought it home and lovingly photographed it- that was funny. I held it out for Charlotte, Robin’s dog, to smell and she took one dainty sniff and then gulped it up as if it were a REAL EGG- that was HILARIOUS. Then Robin and I had to wrestle it out of her locked jaw- that was side splittingly funny.
Watch it. She’ll snatch your egg.
Once we got the egg away from Charlotte, Robin hand washed it in the sink and then put it in the dish rack to dry, which as you can see was both funny and adorable.
If you don’t think that’s kind of funny you’re no friend of mine.
The egg promises to be at the center of hijinx for days to come. It was totally worth three dollars.
Well, Heather and I decided to dust off the podcasting gear, and we got together and recorded a “podcast” yesterday afternoon. Trouble is, it’s mid-August, and there’s not much going on Sabre-wise. Good thing Heather and I don’t mind doing an entire podcast about how there is nothing to podcast about. Don’t worry. It’s only five minutes long.
We debated whether or not to even publish this one. It’s….comically devoid of value. We have some technical issues: Heather’s air conditioner is an active participant, and I completely forgot how to use my editing software since our last podcast. In addition to the lack of intelligent material, the ambient noise, and the fussy editing, I use the word “totally” about eleventy million times, and I ruin almost every second of dialog with my incessant giggling. (I swear I’m 33 years old.) Have I mentioned it’s only five minutes long?
Here’s what happened: We got together, we quickly realized that although we were having a grand old time we were not feeling inspired or creative enough to come up with any good podcasting material, I went home, and then I spent hours obsessively editing everything away until the entire postcast was whittled down to almost nothing. Then I added cricket noises.
Thankfully, it’s only five minutes long.
I think there is some method of subcribing to SabreCast on itunes, but I don’t know what it is. That’s Heather’s area of expertise. My area of expertise is cricket technology.
My friend Dinesh and I had the following conversation tonight while watching the men’s 400 meter race:
Dinesh: I wonder what the coaching for these events is like. I mean, I wonder what they work on. (speaking as a track coach) “That was great Usain. Now if you could just do that again, only this time…..go faster.”
Kate: (also speaking as coach) “You look good, but I think what you want to aim for a little more speed. Try it again, only try running a bit faster.”
(pause as we watch the race)
Dinesh: (shaking head sadly, but still speaking as coach) “Damn it. You know, I really should have told him to run faster…..He could have won that race.”
_______
Yes, we think we’re pretty funny. :)
Today was a very trying day. It was one of those days where despite my very earnest intentions, nothing I was trying to accomplish was being accomplished. I was frustrated and out of sorts all day.
It’s amazing what a little Project Runway (starring drag queens) immediately followed by synchronized swimming can do for a gal’s mood. Synchronized swimming and drag queen fashion are a FABULOUS combination. The Project Runway drag queens were amazing! (Hedda Lettuce is such a BITCH!) The synchronized swimmers were mind boggling. (Those Russians are freaking ROBOTS!) It was a hilarious night of television, and my mood has turned completely around.
I’m suddenly in the mood to blast some show tunes, slather on the blue eyeshadow and splash around dramatically in the bathtub….but I need a synchro partner. I’m convinced drag queens and synchronized swimming should always be experienced together, and so I have taken out the following ad in The Artvoice:
WANTED: One bearish drag queen to be my synchronized swimming partner. Must have own supply of glittery blue eyeshadow, and a keen sense of swimsuit fashion. You bring the drama, I’ll bring the sequins and the neccessary viola music for our gold medal routine.
1. I want to make sure I acknowledge that Max Afinogenov’s main squeeze won a tennis gold medal in the women’s singles at the Olympics. That’s pretty cool. Elena Dementieva is clearly an alluring badass, and I like Max a little more because he dates her. It’s every professional athlete’s right to GOP out and find themselves a hottie, but Max went out and found himself a hottie who can actually do something. I appreciate that about him. Max’s girlfriend won a GOLD MEDAL at the Olympics this weekend. That rocks. She rocks. Max rocks by association.
2. Aw, man. Tonight was the first night of true Olympic heartbreak for me. I was so sad for the track ladies! Sanya Richards and then the plucky hurdler Lolo Jones, BOTH came up short despite being favorites in their events. Lolo tripping over the second to last hurdle when she was so close to a gold medal was particularly tough to witness. I can’t say I’ve ever been too enthralled with track and field events in the past, but this year I’ve really enjoyed watching the running events. I find the incredible fierceness of the track women very inspiring, which is why it was such a jolt to the system when they switched directly from track to gymnastics on the NBC broadcast. After the track ladies, the gymnasts looked like creepy little wind-up toys. (But, America can finally breath a sigh of relief. Shawn Johnson has her gold. You can stop rioting in the streets now.) Obviously, the gymnasts are world class athletes too, but their tininess combined with the glitter and the hair scrunchies just made them seem infinitely undignified when viewed in quick succession with the track events. (Farewell, bizarro gymnastics! Until 2012, I bid you adieu!)
3. This is just a friendly reminder: SET YOUR DVRS TO RECORD THE SYNCHRONIZED SWIMMING TOMORROW AT 6PM ON THE OXYGEN NETWORK. I watched a bit of the synchronized “duet” preliminaries today and this event is B-A-N-A-N-A-S. It is NOT to be missed. Not only is it the event totally nutso, but Robin, my current roommate, is a former competitive synchronized swimmer, so I have a live-in expert. Yeah, you heard me. Robin isn’t just a Juilliard trained bassoon player and high-powered advocate for disadvantaged children, she is also a FORMER SYNCHRONIZED SWIMMER. (Don’t even ACT like you’re not impressed/intimidated by her foxy skill set.) Robin promises that the duet competition is totally lame in comparison to the team competition, which BLOWS MY MIND because the duet prelims were quite possibly the most spectacularly freakish thing I’ve ever seen.
Here’s a teaser (all photos sneakily swiped from nbcolympics.com):
Jazz hands are just the beginning.
Look at their freaky toes! They have jazz feet!
For some reason they all wear tranny whore make-up. I don’t know why.
Last, but CERTAINLY not least, behold the 2008 US Synchronized Swimming Team. Behold!
*stunned silence*
1. Is is just me, or is Jenn Stuczynski’s pole vaulting coach a bit of an a-hole? Scolding Jenn while he was mic’ed up was completely lame, and I kind of wish she had just punched him in the face. I hate that guy. If I decide to take up pole vaulting tomorrow, and in four years I win a silver medal in London, my coach better be a whole lot nicer to me than that. He (or she) better give me an enthusiastic high five and then take me out for a delicious cheeseburger and about a hundred vodka sodas. Afterwards we can drunkenly run around London letting strangers pose with my silver medal and periodically stopping to “WOOOOOO” and jump up and down with joy. On the way back to the hotel, my coach will make some kind of joke about how, unlike gold, silver matches most of the jewelry I already have, and that gold is kind of fugly anyway, and aren’t I SO GLAD I didn’t wind up with a hideous gold medal- or, god forbid A REVOLTING BRONZE?! Then we’d laugh and laugh about how silver is totally the prettiest of all the “precious medals”, and by the end of the night I’d be convinced that silver medals are WAY better than gold medals. My pole vaulting coach is going to be so cool. Jenn, your coach is not good enough for you!
2. The sputtering outrage of the NBC gymnastics commentators was fairly hilarious tonight. Don’t get me wrong, if I were judging that competition that’s not how the medals would have been awarded. (The third place Chinese girl would have won first, Nastia would have won second, and the gold medal winner would have won the bronze.) The judging did seem a bit out of whack, but the tiebreaking method was very clear. Even I, a half-wit violist, now understands how a gymnastics tiebreak works. My favorite part of the whole fiasco was how, after about half an hour of Tim Daggett and Al Trautwig and carrying on about the INSANITY of the INCOMPREHENSIBLE judging, and the TRAGEDY of Nastia being ROBBED on such an OBSCURE technicality as an IMPOSSIBLE to comprehend TIEBREAK SYSTEM, they were all, “Back to you Bob,” and from the studio Blob Costas kind of shrugged and said, “Well, there was a tie, but the tiebreak seemed pretty straight forward.” Heh. I absolutely love to watch gymnastics, but gymnastics and the industry surrounding gymnastics is totally stupid.
UPDATE: I guess Blob was talking about the men when he made his little crack about the tiebreak being straight forward. Don’t you love how I have no problems blogging about something to which I was barely paying attention? Don’t you feel good knowing you can always turn to TWC for the very least true information? Heh. One of my favorite things about the Olympics is that they seem to encourage us to have very strongly held opinions about crap we know nothing about. I don’t care if Blob Costas agrees with me, in the true spirit of the Olympics, I’m going stand by my uninformed opinion: gymnastics are gloriously stupid. (And the bronze medalist should have won gold.)
The Willful Caboose 