Bobsleigh?

I turned on the TV last night, expecting to see bobsled from Turin, but all they had was bobsleigh from Torino.

That, and the sad sight of all of those limp Norwegian flags at the finish of the 4x10km cross-country relay.

Compulsion

I don't have OCD or anything, but if I ever got to work and all of the red hangers were taken and I had to use a yellow one for my coat, I'm not sure what I'd do.

Nostalgia

One of my wife's friends has only just now discovered email. As a result, our inbox is jammed with jokes, cartoons, fake sob stories, and hoaxes.

It's just like 1998.

Snappy Comeback

My new dentist is Dr. Sherlock. Each time I go to see her, I hope she says something self-evident, so I can come back with "Thank you, Captain Obvious!"

Chipotle

I learned yesterday that chipotles are just smoked jalapeños.

I can honestly say, though, that this new knowledge hasn't brought me happiness.

The Tracterz

Anybody remember the early 80s band The Tracterz? Jambo's blogging about them.

Words

You know how when you can't figure out the words of a song? And you try, and try, and try, for days, weeks, or even months? And when you finally figure them out, you can't get that song out of your head for days?

No? It's just me? OK.

Anyway, here's the current example:

For she'd her apron wrapped about her
And he took her for a swan.
Woe and alas, it was she, Polly Vaughn.

I laughed. I cried.

I saw "Walk the Line" yesterday, and it's a terrific film. This is not a review, just a few thoughts on a few scenes.

But before that, I'll get the usual business out of the way. Joaquin Phoenix is absolutely fantastic in the role of Johnny Cash. Despite what Roger Ebert says, no, you can't close your eyes and believe it's really Cash singing. But it's a very good facsimile, and certainly good enough for suspension of disbelief.

Reese Witherspoon is also excellent as June Carter. I would have liked to have seen a little more about her life away from Cash. She's portrayed as really having it together, as being just about the only real adult performer on tour. But what about her two failed marriages? I don't know anything about that, or whether it would have made for a better film, but it does leave me curious.

There are a lot of very good scenes, but I was especially moved by one sequence near the end of the movie. Cash had sunk a tractor in the mud near his house, and mainly to try to please his tyrant father, he's gunning the tractor back and forth, trying to free it. Mother Maybelle Carter tells June "Go down there!" June replies "I'm not going down there!" Her mother says "You're already down there."

We haven't seen very much of the Carter matriarch, but here she is, telling her daughter to save this ornery man, a man who has caused her daughter nothing but pain and trouble. She knows what June hasn't admitted to herself; that despite Johnny's erratic behavior, his drug addiction, the failed marriages, and all of the other obstacles, the two of them belong together. Metaphorically, June was down in the mud with Johnny, and the two of them needed to get out, together.

Later, as Cash is locked up in his own house, going through detox, Maybelle & Ezra Carter chase off Johnny's drug dealer at gunpoint. I was laughing and crying at the same time.

Extra-familial poop

Lord knows I've dealt with my share of messy diapers. I can't say I enjoy cleaning up the feces of my offspring, but neither do I mind it all that much. But other children are another matter altogether, and the older they are, the more I'd like to avoid it. Yesterday a three-and-a-half-year-old dropped a load on our floor. I should say "floors," since he spread it out over two rooms. And the toilet seat. And himself, down to his feet.

Most unpleasant.

Bad Cholesterol! Bad!

My cholesterol's a little high, and my LDL/HDL ratio is not good. Lately I've been consuming lots of oat bran muffins to remedy these alarming numbers. Last night I was whipping up another batch, when I realized we were out of eggs (whites only in the muffins, of course! Yolks down the drain!).

Listening to the radio on my way to the market to pick up a dozen, I heard Paul Kennedy of the CBC intone "This is Ideas."

Shouldn't that be "These Are Ideas?"

But that's beside the point. The topic of the show was diet and heart disease. According to the program, most of the science behind the whole saturated fat theory of heart disease is questionable at best and bogus at worst.

For example, about 50 years ago, some schmo took data from the World Health Organization, and found that in seven countries, the populations with the highest dietary fat consumption had the highest rate of heart disease. Convincing, no?

Trouble is, the WHO had data from twenty-two countries, and the other fifteen showed no such relation. The guy just tossed out the two-thirds of the evidence that didn't match the theory.

Going back even farther is the apparent father of the whole theory, some Russian in the early part of the twentieth century. This guy isolated cholesterol in the blood of rabbits to which he'd fed tons of fat. Then he fed them the stuff straight, and found that they ended up with arterial disease.

He apparently didn't think anything of the inconvenient fact that rabbits are vegetarians, and he was feeding them animal fat. He (or somebody else; I forget) tried it with some omnivore, and found that cholesterol didn't produce artery damage.

And the famous Framingham Heart Study apparently showed no link between dietary fat consumption and heart disease.

They went on and on and on about shady research and pseudo-scientific zealotry.

So I bought my eggs, went home, and finished making the muffins.

But while they were baking, I ate some Doritos.

Looks like...

My three-year-old (then two) was sitting on the pot about a month ago. After she did her business, she craned her neck around to observe the product of her efforts.

With just a hint of glee she exclaimed "That one looks like a crocodile!"

Comb - pronounced "kahmb"

Ever since I was in Junior High School and was assigned my first locker, I've had this odd notion about locker combinations. In Junior High, of course, most kids were quite protective of their combination. You wouldn't let anybody look over your shoulder while opening the lock.

I took this one step (or several steps) further. I imagined there might be mindreaders about, so I would try to avoid even thinking of the combination while opening the lock. To this day, I say to myself the fake combination "36-23-36" as I dial the real one in the locker room at the gym. Sometimes I find myself dialing that fake one instead, and I have to start over.

Natural Woman

Years ago I bought Aretha Franklin's "30 Greatest Hits." Killer, particularly disc 1.

In those days, I rode bicycle to work most days. As I rode, I would often sing whatever song was in my head. One day it was "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman." I was just belting it out, waiting at a stop sign.

"You make me feel! You make me feel! You make me feel like a..."

At this point, I happened to look to my left. There was a pickup truck, also waiting at the stop sign.

With the passenger window open.

And the driver, sitting there, listening to the dork on the bike singing "You make me feel like a natural woman."

I Am the Walrus

If I'm sorta dopey-looking to begin with, and then I decide to grow a walrus mustache, I would hope somebody would pull me aside and gently inform me that I probably shouldn't. Grow the mustache, I mean.

Ruby slippers

I know, I know, I told you to vote for the amp that goes to 11. Now that Jason is safely in second place, it's time to knock it down to third by voting for the ruby slippers.

Eep Opp Ork Ah-Ah

Eep opp ork ah-ah
Eep opp ork ah-ah
Eep opp ork ah-ah
And that means I love you

The Happy Norwegian - Myron Floren, 1919-2005

Myron Floren died yesterday. He was, to many people, a symbol of a silly television program, a yokel, a joke. What he really was was something quite different -- an astonishingly skilled musician.

I didn't always have this opinion. I remember riding the wrestling or track bus to Webster or Groton, SD, going through tiny Roslyn. They had a sign up at the edge of town: "Welcome to Roslyn, home of Myron Floren." Everybody in the bus was just too cool to do anything but sneer. A guy from the Lawrence Welk Show! And he played accordion, too! We couldn't see why a town would admit it, much less boast about it.

Myron Floren joined Lawrence Welk's band in 1950. The story goes that he was out on the town with his wife, celebrating her birthday. He'd met Welk some time earlier, and the bandleader invited him up on stage to play. Once Welk heard what he could do, he offered him a job on the spot, essentially hiring Floren to replace himself as the accordionist in the band.

Twenty or so years later, when I was a boy, I watched the Welk show regularly. Seeing it now, in perpetual reruns, I have to say, yes, it was a little silly. The choice of material, the costumes, the musical arrangements were often corny. But many of the musicians, and Floren especially, were really quite amazing.

My sister happens to own three accordions, and she's promised to give me one some day. If I could be 1/10th as good as Floren, I'd be deliriously happy. Several years ago, sort of as a joke, I bought her a Floren CD. I listened to it a little, and boy was it good. Again, not really my cup of tea as far as style and selection, but it was impossible to miss the virtuosity.

Read the ABC news and LA Times obits.

Dialectic

M: Why do you eat your corn that way?
Y: What way?
M: Around the cob, instead of the long way.
Y: What's the difference?
M: You should eat it like a typewriter: all the way down one line, then rotate, and start a new line.
Y: Why?
M: It makes no sense to eat it your way.
Y: What do you mean?
M: The kernels are lined up the long way.
Y: What?! They're lined up both ways!
M: Not as straight.
Y: So?
M: So eat it the way it's lined up!
Y: Whatever.
M: Also, the butter stays on better.
Y: What?
M: If you butter it all around, the butter drips off as you turn it. You should butter just one line all the way the long way, eat that, then butter the next section.
Y: You're nuts.
M: Look, if you don't want to eat it the right way, get used to people pointing it out.
Y: "People?" Who, besides you?
M: Anybody that's thought about it.
Y: You've thought about it a bit too much, if you ask me.
M: Hey, the unexamined life isn't worth living.
Y: I don't think that applies to corn-on-the-cob eating techniques.

Russian to English

When I was about 12 years old, my oldest brother, off at University, sent me reading assignments, complete with essay tests. One of these was Alexander Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. I can't recommend this novel enough, even for 12-year-olds.

I remember only the last of the questions he sent along. "Is this a good translation?"

That had me completely flummoxed. Did he think I knew Russian, and had read the book in its original language, too?

I left that one blank.

A few years later, one of my other older siblings, on holiday from college, brought back a copy of the same book. Idly flipping the pages, I went to the end to read that last memorable paragraph.

"This translation stinks!" I blurted out. I ran upstairs to get my old copy. I re-read the last paragraph, which confirmed my literary criticism.

Just Say "No" to Jason

There is a poll on the Three Way News weblog to pick the best movie object or prop ever. It was sparked by this entry, and followed up by this one.

You must go there and vote for the amp that goes to 11 from This Is Spinal Tap. Not because it deserves to win, but because the hockey mask from Friday the 13th must lose.