The Penalty Box

I do believe HD hockey is one of the prettiest things on this here planet Earth. Hell, even curling in HD is pretty.

With the Superbowl not too far away, I came across this article about football. As with any other sport, football is a spectacle, but is there any other sport where the social aspect of the spectacle is bigger than the spectacle itself? (Boy I used spectacle a lot in that sentence. Spectacle spectacle spectacle.)

I knew football had really short bursts of action, but I didn’t think out of a three hour production only eleven minutes consisted of the ball in play. No wonder there are so many other things synonomous with football besides, you know, football. Not a bad excuse for a party, but it makes sense why football just isn’t all that fun to watch by yourself. Unless you hear those voices too.

Quite possibly the most awesome thing I’ve seen in a while.

This morning I happened to catch a TV movie called “Turtles Forever.” It’s the 1987 Turtles I grew up watching being transported to the “future” turtles dimension to battle new Shredder and 80s Shredder. And Krang. And they even brought back the Technodrome and the Party Wagon! Complete with “Cowabungas” and “Turtle Powers”. I was getting flashbacks to my childhood playing around with Ninja Turtles action figures.

It was campy as all hell, and I was laughing my ass off when freaking Bebop and Rocksteady showed up on screen. There’s even an ooze reference! The story was terrible, but I had to watch it until the end. Something just compelled me to, whether it be nostalgia or something else. If you liked the Ninja Turtles as a kid, you should check this one out.

For those of you asking, “what are Ninja Turtles?” you can get the hell off of my lawn right now.

I didn’t see this live on TV, but I don’t know how the camera men stayed so steady with their shots. I would’ve been on the floor laughing.

If you’ve never seen Dal Richards, you should. I was fortunate enough to see him years ago when he still had the pipes to play his saxophone. Nowadays, he sings a couple songs but mostly does his charismatic band leader thing. I saw him on Saturday and it was amazing to see how much energy he has at the age of 91. Truly inspiring. Plus I got an autographed CD.

I ought to go see him on the last day of the PNE. Apparently Jim Byrnes will be there too.

I made my yearly Canada Day sojourn down to Granville Island for the Vancouver International Jazz Festival. The Taphouse held a trio who was fairly generic. It was the kind of music that you would hear in a nice lounge, except instead of Manhattans and calamari, there was beer and jerky. Granville Island Brewery’s seasonals were the Belgian Wit (a hefeweizen) and a bitter. Two beers in me before 1:30 makes me start feeling like a few drunkards I know. Good thing I went early though; the lineup began around 1:30 and didn’t subside at all for the afternoon shows.

Afterwards I wandered over Railspur Park and took in The Colorifics. They had a pretty unique sound, a nice blend of Latin, jazz and bossa nova. They also managed to get a big band feel on some of their songs, despite having no horns; not a big band SOUND mind you, because you can’t have that without horns, but it just had that feeling of a big band dance type of thing. The bass lines grooved and the lead vocalist had just that little bit of sass that makes female jazz leads so good watch. The music was also just so damn FUN to listen to. I tried to get a CD afterwards, but unfortunately they didn’t bring enough. Hopefully that e-mail list brings some info on where to get it, because honestly, MySpace blows.

Next up at Railspur Park was Dalannah Gail Bowen and Straight Up. She’s a blues singer backed up by a pretty good blues band. Doing some hits from B.B. King and Jimi Hendrix, she rocked the house. The guitarist was unreal and the tenor saxophonist played dirty and loud. It was pretty awesome. Bowen was no slouch herself; it was hard to believe she is 63 years old. Another quickly sold out batch of CDs later, I was left to the Internet to tell me if I could buy her CD online. Only from CDBaby unfortunately, which is American and would require customs and non-cheap shipping. I might have to check out Golden Spike Days, since she’s performing there too, and try to be closer to the front to nab a CD.

Oh I should mention that I went to go see The Contemporary Lovers a couple weeks back. Good show it was, aside from the clarinet player that almost certainly had a cracked reed. It was like beginner band all over again with the squeaks on high notes. Yeesh. The rest of the set was good though. First time I’ve ever heard a soprano (and this was freaking HIGH soprano) sing jazz well. Most female jazz vocalists I’ve heard are in the mezzo soprano range, deep enough to get the lower, sexier tones. Venue was in an old hall though, so the balance was off by a lot. Still a good show though; if you’re interested in modern jazz, you should check them out.

The Vancouver International Jazz Festival is back, and there are plenty of good concerts happening. Dal Richards on July 4, Shuffle Demons on June 29 and various quartets and trios. Canada Day on Granville Island is always good, especially taking in some sounds at the Taphouse.

The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra is holding a free concert on Sunday, July 12 in Deer Lake Park (Burnaby). I’ve never seen the VSO and have been told to do so at least once in my life.

The Burnaby Blues and Roots Festival is on August 9 from 1:30pm to 10pm, general admission type deal.  Tickets are $35 for the next month or so.

Who’s up for going to any of the above?

The intarwebs reports that there’s a script, the entire original original cast is back and that it’ll be a “passing of the torch” type movie with a new generation of Ghostbusters. As much as I love the franchise (Ghostbusters and Ninja Turtles were the staples of my childhood), nostalgia can only get you so far.  The original guys are in their 60s and are fat.  There’s a reason why Schwarzeneggar wasn’t in Terminator 4 and why Harrison Ford looked awful in Indy 4.

While I have a faint hope that this could work (Aykroyd’s a decent writer), this has the potential to be like Blues Brothers 2000.  I suppose if it is, at least the soundtrack will be awesome.

Ah, the lovely things reddit can bring.  XKCD wrote a recent comic that turned out to be a premonition, and then I came across this flash game.  It’s a throwback to The Incredible Machine game I used to play back in high school.  Enjoy!