Quite A Storm

It's late, in my hotel room in Huntsville, Ontario, and it's storming outside. Impressively so, with the rain coming down in sheets, heavy wind, and lightning. I've tuned in to Cape Radio, and I've got all the lights out so I can really appreciate it. There are streams of water flooding off the roof directly outside my window, backlit by lightning.

Contemplative. It's that kind of night. More on my trips tomorrow.

On Movie Reviews

I'm starting to catch up on my summertime movies. I went with friends to see Transformers last night, and Ratatouille this evening, and I'll have reviews of both very soon.

I'm a movie snob, and I do not apologize for this. The prevailing opinion seems to be that if I criticize a movie, I did not like it; or people think that I over-analyze things, which may or may not be true. It's not so. I can appreciate a bad movie for what it is, and I can enjoy a bad movie and even recommend it to others. But at no point will I deny that it is a bad movie.

Transformers is a bad movie. Ratatouille is a great movie. I enjoyed them both, and you should go see them both. But catch Transformers at a matinee, and see Ratatouille twice.

Hockey

The first few days of free agency are always interesting. It would seem that Detroit's lineup will remain largely unchanged, with a few exceptions: Mathieu Schneider has signed with Anaheim, but a replacement was quickly acquired in the form of Brian Rafalski, formerly of the New Jersey Devils; and Todd Bertuzzi has also signed with Anaheim with a surprising (to me) two-year, 8 million dollar contract.* Kyle Calder has signed with the Kings.** Robert Lang, gone to Chicago. I'm iffy on how I feel about that last one; he was a good player, when he could be bothered to show up. His work ethic, or lack thereof, is going to be a serious liability on a young team like the Blackhawks.

So we're still solid on defense, and we've got enough forwards in the system to absorb the loss of someone I'm actually kind of sorry to see go; I'd have liked to see Bertuzzi back in his old playing form, with enough of an edge to make a physical difference.

The Predators continue to hemorrhage talent. Vokoun is lost to Florida, Timonen and Hartnell to Philadelphia, Kariya to St. Louis. Forsberg won't stay either, although the traditional summertime speculation has begun as to whether or not he'll retire. And now owner Leopold has scuttled the deal with potential buyer Balsillie, none of which makes any sense?

Why complain about losing money, publicly make a deal with Balsillie to sell the team for staggeringly more than it's worth, cause your best players to jump ship, then kill the deal? Yes, Balsillie was going to move the team. Anyone--anyone--who says that they didn't know that is a liar. I think there's some sort of game being played in club owner circles right now that no one else is really seeing. And our league commissioner, Gary Bettman, is so completely the owners' creature that he's helping facilitate all this drama. For a long time, I never knew why so many fans despised him, but I'm starting to learn.

The salary cap has been raised yet again, this time to 50.3 million. Remind me, why did we have a lockout? The wealthier teams are spending like drunken sailors again, and the poorer teams will suffer for it. There's no reason for the cap to be that high. There's very little TV revenue coming to the league as a whole, ever since ESPN dropped the contract, and the attendance numbers the teams tout are nothing but smoke and mirrors. I've been to plenty of games this season, across the country, and I'll tell you, there are a lot of empty seats in some places.

*(Anaheim's current general manager, Brian Burke, was Vancouver's GM back during that whole Bertuzzi-almost-kills-Moore incident, arguably partly responsible for it, and I think he's a worthless bastard. What was he thinking? "You know, I just don't have enough brain-damaged thugs on this team. I wonder what Bert's up to?" A medium-big contract like that for damaged goods is a bit of a gamble, and Detroit wasn't willing to spend that much.)

**(Wait, who? Yeah, that's how much impact he made in Detroit this season.)

Too Late

I first met her in high school: tall, slender, pretty, blonde, a year younger than me. I saw her this evening, the first time I'd seen her in a couple of years, down at J.J.'s, while bar-hopping with a friend. She was staggering drunk, hugged me, told me how great it was to see me, how she'd missed me.

She's like that every time I see her. My friend confirms that she's like that every time he sees her too, and he spends a lot more time downtown than I do. At least, he says, she's gotten off the crack.

I look at her (she's practically leaning on me for support, not much choice), and I can see that there's something that's finally gotten burned out there. I remember she has a child, she told me about that a few years ago. I want to shake her and ask What happened to you, because I remember the girl you used to be. Before we leave (hastily), I kiss her on the forehead and ask her to take care of herself. That's the most I can do, the most help I can give. That's heartbreaking in its own right, the idea that there are some things I can't fix.

I'm not the same person I was in high school. OK, maybe I am, but it's more like I've grown into myself. The flaws get smoothed over a little, you learn what your strengths are. But I wonder what happened to her, to have her end up as she is now. What happens to anyone to make them eradicate themselves with too much alcohol, too many drugs?

It's late, I'm tired, and there's a hundred different things to write about. I haven't updated this blog much this month, even though there are new trips to write about, new pictures to post. We'll fix that later today, this July 4th, after I get some sleep.