Sea Cucumbers

A mention of sea cucumbers at Hog on Ice reminded me of a funny story.

A close friend, let's call him Bob, was on a diplomatic mission to China in the mid-1980s and was having lunch with some higher-ups in the government there. At the time, Bob's idea of being adventurous with food was making a peanut butter sandwich with something other than white bread, so he was struggling with the traditional Chinese fare that was being served. About halfway through the meal, sea cucumber was presented, and there isn't much vegetarian about this cucumber. The host pulled the ugly thing around the lazy susan and stopped it in front of the guest of honour. The translator explained to Bob that the eyes of the sea cucumber were the best part and that they were being offered to him as the guest. Bob thanked them but declined, saying quite honestly that he would vomit if he tried to eat them. Once that got translated, the man seated next to Bob, a guy who must have been in his eighties, turned to him and asked, "Upchuck?" Bob said, "Yes, yes! Upchuck!" The old guy laughed, shrugged his shoulders and proceeded to pluck the eyes right out of the sea cucumber with his chopsticks and ate them on the spot.

Bob found out later that the old guy was one of the intellectuals that Mao imprisoned after the communist revolution in 1945 and had only recently been "rehabilitated". He probably heard the term upchuck from some Allied soldier back in WWII and this was the first time he ever got to use it.

On a sadder note, Bob also heard that the old guy was put back in prison around the time of the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989.

I guess I picked the wrong week to start a blog...

This is hands down the busiest summer I've seen at work. I finally get some vacation at the end of this week. So, if all goes as planned, I'll be back in mid-August, refreshed and with a fire in my belly.

Hockey This Fall

Now that an agreement in principle has been reached by ownership and the NHL Players Association, the NHL will likely turn their attention to rule changes. That is all well and good, but what fans should be doing is to settle on an effective way of sending a protest vote to these greedy bastards (for the record, if one side can be blamed more than the other, I direct my ire at the owners).

I'm not so naive to think that hockey-rabid Canadians and Americans will stay away from the NHL for long, so I propose the following: Stage a one-day protest by not attending or watching on television the first game of the season of whichever team you tend to root for. Remind the owners and players who they forgot about for the last 301 days.

Update: Let's make it a week of protest instead of one game. That way every team would feel the pinch.

Upperdate: Turns out all teams will be playing on day one of the new season. Never mind.

On the Road

Lots of travelling for work this week. Probably a write-off for posts until the weekend.

Independence Day

Hope our American cousins have a good holiday today.

Live 8

Live 8 looks to have been a logistical success (the actual results of the campaign are much harder to evaluate). By all accounts, most complaints had to do with network TV coverage. MTV in the US has received much criticism. CTV here in Canada wasn't that bad, though I am fuming that they made such a big deal over the Pink Floyd reunion and then only aired two of the four songs Messrs Gilmour, Waters, Wright and Mason played (Breathe and Money). But Ben Mulroney kept promising that we'd see everything we'd missed during the day on the greatest hits replay on Saturday night. I gave up at 11pm eastern, but until that point they only replayed the already aired Money. Wish You Were Here and Comfortably Numb were the songs to which Canadians were not privy.

I wish I had thought of this, but AOL is reported to have put network television to shame, offering multiple feeds and notifications of who was playing on their other 'channels'.

From what little of Pink Floyd and The Who I did see, they looked to be in fine form (Colby Cosh has some snider and potentially misleading words, but he may have had is television on mute. David Gilmour is 61, by the way). Just like at the Concert for New York, The Who are a very hard act to follow. Despite Pink Floyd not having toured in ten years and Roger Waters not joining the other three on stage in nearly twenty-five, they sounded terrific.

As for the Canadian show, Dan Akroyd and Tom Green were pretty lame hosts. Deep Purple were surprisingly sharp. It would have been classier if Blue Rodeo had finished their set with a classic rather than the new one Greg Keelor chose. On the contrary, Great Big Sea and Barenaked Ladies don't have a Greg Keelor in their bands and know how to play to a non-partisan crowd. Bruce Cockburn stuck to his political songs about the third world, which were apropos, I suppose, but it reminded me that he is a much more enjoyable performer when he isn't political. The crowd booing Celine was classless but not surprising. Neil Young's set was dignified, though Four Strong Winds went a bit too long. The all-star rendition of Keep On Rocking in the Free World end on a humourous note when it became evident that no one knew how to the end the song (the drummer finally got a cue from Neil to wrap it up).

All in all, I watched way to much television on Saturday.

Happy Dominion Day