Fight On!

Okay, what have I been up to lately? I think I'll do it in reverse order. Coming up, I have the car undergoing an operation in a couple of weeks - Brian is going to redo the exhaust so I will be in Kitchener-Waterloo on Sat June 7 during the day if anybody wants to say "Hi", or needs me to pick up or drop off something. We've got Thomas all sorted out for his Bruce trip, and that will free up the Wii for more Guitar Hero time for me. I really should be writing instead of playing a video game but I am obsessed right now - I five-starred all 70 songs at Easy Level this week, so now I am doing them all at Medium, then I will do Hard and Expert, then I will forget about the game because it will be done (I am both boring and methodical). After experiencing Poison's "Talk Dirty to Me" I may also have to do a thread on worst song lyrics ever.

On Wednesday (May 28) I have my recital. "Fugue for Tinhorns" from Guys and Dolls is back on. Its a trio, so we got together last week to practise and our accompanist did not show, plus the other two guys had not memorized the piece. You can imagine my slow burn. We are supposedly practising it Wed night half an hour before the show! Also I am doing "Non piu andrai" from Mozart's Il Nozze di Figaro (it's the piece that everyone knows). I am having trouble with the "o" sound in "riposo" but it's too late to fix it now! God I hate recitals (that I have to perform in).

Tonight we are going to Michael's year-end string concert, and I am really looking forward to that. It's always awesome. Michael discovered this weekend that he has lost his music to Dvorak's 8th Symphony *sigh* (and he lost his wallet and his bus tickets). This weekened I had to get up at 5:00 am (!!) to cook breakfast for the participants in Thinkfast, which is a 25-hour fast for young people designed to raise money and awareness about world hunger. The Knights always cook a breakfast for them on the Saturday morning after it ends. Last weekend I was in Toronto as a voting delegate for the Knight of Columbus State Convention, so that was a wasted wekend.

I have many writing projects on the go, and though I am not quite as successful as Mary, I did get an article published in "Fight On!", a magazine dedicated to re-vitalizing the "old-school" spirit in RPG's. So I now have a more-or-less regulated writing schedule: Toastmasters Bulletin, K of C Bulletin, "Fight On!" magazine, Toastmasters speeches, and my damn novel whenever I find the time between all the others. Let me reiterate - DO NOT write a historical novel! It is way too much research.

Oh yes - our fund-raiser for Wayne Little raised $6998.50. We had Kenny Rogers, Neil Diamond, Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Willie Nelson and John Denver perform. I'm thinking Helen should become a Carly Simon impersonator - $500/night isn't too shabby!

I'm sure I did lots of other things that nobody cares about, so I'll sign off now.

Ciao!

'Bloodied Angels Fast Descending'

I had a delightfully Spinal-Tapian evening last night, as my sister Helen, her son Chris, and my friends Claus and Tom joined me in an evening out for some heavy metal music at the John Labatt Centre in London. This was to be Chris' first concert (not counting Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears or Hilary Duff or any other teeny-bopper concerts he may have seen in the days when he would not be held accountable for any lack of judgement in taste).

First to offer their wares were f'ing Down, a black metal act, featuring former members of f'ing Pantera, as the f'ing lead singer mentioned in between calling the audience f'ing pussies or calling out songs like "This one's for the f'ing bikers". I actually could not quite tell when they changed songs. About the only thing Chris and Helen agreed on at the concert was that Down f'ing sucked. I actually found them quite amusing, as they only played for 30 minutes, and they accomplished the goal of making the next act look good in comparison.

Megadeth (a speed metal group) played a short, taut set, only 45 minutes long, with little talking, and many guitar solos (I think i counted seven of them in "Hangar 18" alone!) Our seats were a bit far away to get a good look at Dave Mustaine's guitar playing. I didn't know their new stuff, and Chris didn't know their old stuff, so we had few comparison points. Memo to Helen - Chris needs to grow his hair long before the next heavy metal concert so he can headbang more effectively.

Sabbath played almost two hours, and most of their songs were interesting. They had an excellent stage set (no 18-inch high stonehenges here) which I wished I could find a picture of and download. The music was slow and very heavy (as opposed to Megadeth's fast and very heavy). I think Chris could take or leave Sabbath (not enough energy!) but I think they put on an excellent show. Helen and I are Dio fans, and he still has the voice at 57 years of age - quite impressive, and Sabbath were nice and heavy.

I'm not sure if I would go again (concert tickets are expensive), but I'm glad I checked them out.

PS - There was a drum solo!