The Week in Review

Greetings, loyal reader(s)! I've got some catching up to do on the ol' blog here. The photo is from a Victoria Grizzlies game I recently was at. The home team won, and the final few minutes featured two good ol' fashioned fights at centre ice. The kind where the two set an appointment at the faceoff, take their time removing their gear, circling each other, whipping up the crowd -- then go at it. The linesman on the right is the guy who lead the ref's course I did last fall. He didn't go into the finer points of breaking up fights for that room full of 12-year-olds.

Speaking of refs, I worked two games in the past week. Monday at Bear Mtn. Arena (filling in for someone) and Tuesday at the usual Knuckleheads home game. The regular Tues. guy had a game of his own, so the deal is I fill in when he can't come. I was looking forward to playing, but oh well. I enjoy ref'n too, especially when I know both teams (as was the case: K-Heads v. Titans). Our guys beat a short-benched, flu-riddled Titan's squad 7-4 -- and I got to toss a co-worker of mine in the box three times! In that Monday game I waved off two goals, patched up some ice damage, and dressed down a whiner in front of everyone. Yes, I'm getting more and more comfortable in the stripes! I also considered it an honour to work the scoreboard from the old Memorial Arena, which is now mounted out at Bear Mtn.

Work this week has been less interesting, as I've been on the anchor desk instead of beat reporting. A fellow newsie is off this week, which shuffles the sked around. I did get out to cover a big student rally at the Legislature yesterday, that was fun. Don't get me wrong, anchoring is great fun too (heaps more airtime, plus sports duties), but live on-the-spot reporting is where it's at. I was also at the police press conference revealing the details of a messy shooting (the cops opened up on a guy coming straight at them in a truck, and got him) -- so was on the leading edge of that story Sunday.

Recently restrung my acoustic guitar so it matches the setup on my electric. So now I can actually play it! For those who don't know, I only use five strings, and tune two of those differently to accommodate the way I learned. Basically, I picked up a rental guitar about 12 years ago, found a fingering that made sense to me, and tuned the strings into a chord after that. At first, it was just the one fingering on three strings (PUSA style!), but I soon established a second hand position and two more strings. The past decade has seen no more progress than that. By learning incorrectly, I've limited myself and likely will never learn proper guitar technique -- but I'm OK with that. I could still play a rythm role in a band -- been thinking about that for a while. I'd love to get going on another rock band sometime, and now that I have a decent amp for the guitar, it could happen.

For fans of online flash games, check this one out:
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/2007/01/world-domination.html

If you have the patience to play a keyboard-controlled, somewhat slowish one-on-one fighting game, there's some pretty funny animation in here. Specifically, the weapons and fight moves of all the world leaders featured. Worth five minutes. If you only play one character, make it Osama.