don't shoot the pianist
he is doing the best he can

Seen at the Serbia vs. Ghana World Cup match this morning:

As it would have happened twenty years ago: my cousin gets engaged, her parents let my parents know, and I find out from family.

Today: my cousin gets engaged, updates her relationship status on Facebook, I find out five minutes later and let my parents know.

Well, it’s happened again. A working-class man spends a few dollars on a lottery ticket and wins big. With the new-found wealth, his life changes completely. And not for the better.

Three years later, the body of $17-million Florida Lottery winner Abraham Shakespeare has been found buried behind a home belonging to the boyfriend of a woman who befriended Shakespeare not long after he won his prize.

Read the rest of this entry »

After Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Gail Shea was pied in the face during a speech earlier this week, I thought to myself: “Wouldn’t it be great if someone gave PETA a taste of their own medicine?”

Well, I’m glad I wasn’t the only person to come up with the idea:

Lavender … started to continue the protest when a van pulled up and a person dressed in a Newfoundland dog costume jumped out, pulled off the head of Lavender’s costume and pushed a cream pie into her face.

Excellent. Now, if someone could just do the same to Pamela Anderson, I’d be thrilled.

It was thirty years ago today, in the midst of the American embassy hostage crisis, that six American diplomats were successfully exfiltrated from Iran. In would become known as the “Canadian caper”, the escapees had been sheltered at the official residences of Canadian ambassador Kenneth Taylor and immigration officer John Sheardown.

The caper was a wonderful piece of cooperation between everybody involved, from the Canadian embassy staff to the Cabinet, which issued its first secret order-in-council since World War II to issue authentic Canadian passports to the American diplomats. The CIA was also involved, although their role in providing a cover story—which involved a fake movie production, of all things—wouldn’t be made public for over a decade after the operation.

It all makes me wonder whether we could pull this off again today. I’m not so sure.

Read the rest of this entry »

New skates should be sharpened before being used.

I decided to take my new blades to a public skate at Kingsgate Ice Arena out in Kirkland yesterday afternoon, and figured I’d get there a half hour early so I could get my skates sharpened beforehand. As luck would have it, the arena shop was closed until a half hour before the session ended. The rental office didn’t have hockey skates in my size, so I figured I’d skate around until the shop opened up.

That was probably a bad idea. As much as I enjoy the challenge of attempting to skate on blades that probably couldn’t slice open a block of tofu, it’s a lot more fun when they’re sharp. As it was, I had a very dull inside edge, and—outside edge? What’s an outside edge?

It could have been a lot worse—surprisingly, I managed not to fall once despite having the traction of your average Seattle driver in a snowstorm—but I have to say, skating with a dull edge is a bit like an engine problem limiting a Ferrari to 30kph. Quite frankly, it makes one look like a beginner. I think there were five-year-olds skating circles around me.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m usually the last person to notice something like this, but … does the Hamamatsu have some sort of dress code I don’t know about?

I mean, what gives? Is this supposed to be a piano competition or a funeral?

I’m getting claustrophobic just looking at this:

“A thorough government survey in 1987 … estimated that 33,000 people resided within the Walled City’s area of 6.5 acres.”

Given a limit of fourteen stories on buildings (imposed due to nearby Kai Tak Airport), that works out to a maximum 120 square feet of land per person—and that’s making the absurd assumption that every square inch was used as liveable space.

By way of illustration, that would be six people living in my one-bedroom apartment.

I’m beginning to see why reporters love Brian Burke. See if you can follow this:

1. Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke made some comments regarding a trade rumour that (inadvertently, we are led to believe) became public, and the Vancouver Canucks alleged tampering on the part of the Leafs. The NHL addressed the complaint and ordered both sides to “refrain from further public comment”.

2. On Friday, Burke commented on the feud with the Canucks in an address to the Vancouver Board of Trade, saying that the Canucks should not have complained to the league but should instead have taken up their concerns with him directly.

3. Burke then commented on his address to the Board of Trade, explaining why those comments in his address didn’t violate the NHL’s gag order.

In other words, Burke commented that the comments on the comments he made didn’t violate the NHL gag order on commenting on the comments on the original trade rumour.

Confused yet?

I have to say, this is an interesting take on the floor piano idea.

I only wish it was capable of something more than the F-sharp major scale. (Actually, those of you with perfect pitch will notice that the fellow who starts walking up the stairs at 0:41 is accompanied by the right notes. I wonder why everybody else gets F-sharp major?)

The other thing the staircase needs, of course, is a bit of order to prevent it from descending (ha ha, get it?) into a giant cacophony. To that end, I’d like to propose the following rule: “You must maintain a distance of exactly two, five, or seven steps behind the person in front of you. If you follow exactly four steps behind, you will be asked to navigate the Prok 2 finale.”