the darkerside to rants

The Vancouver Jazz Festival is on right now and there are a ton of free shows daily.

So strolling around today I listened to a few different artists, my “pick of the day” is “The Cat Empire” which had the crowd jumping.

Those guys are truly amazing, they had people jumping, dancing and cheering. And in general produced a good vibe.

Definitely on my “to get” list now.

More as I listen to more at the Festival.

[Currently listening to: Ghost of Perdition from the album "Ghost Reveries" by Opeth]

What the heck is going on, look at the clock: 10:47, do something, next I look it is 11:09……

Time is flowing faster around me it seems…..

Damn Twilight Zone.

First game of the World Cup with overtime, and it was a good game and probably had the nicest goal of the world cup so far, 2:1 was the final score for Argentina and oh how nice the 2:1 goal was.

Having said that though, Argentina deserves an acting award for their behaviour after they scored the 2:1. Truly amazing acting.

So now it is Argentina vs. Germany on Friday and looking how Argentina played today, that may just be a challenge. Should be a good game. South American soul vs. German Engineering.

My my.

So Germany is in the final eight and the game was…. Well sort of improved. They did well the first 20 minutes or so (two goals) but after that it tapered off a bit. They played a solid game, but it still is German football, meaning very technical clean, not really emotional.

Sweden really didn’t had a good day, but hey Germany is through with 2:0 and if they would have hit the goal a bit more often (and the goalie been asleep) it may have ended even higher.

Maybe they actually have a shot at the title. Klinsmann is already saying they won’t lose in the quarter finals… I guess we’ll see next Friday.

… I just spent three hours with my favourite movie: “Le Grande Bleu” and every-time I see it…. I am melancholy happy (yes yes, oxymoron) can’t help it.

I am not really certain what draws me back to the movie over and over again but by now I must have seen it more than a hundred times, and I am still not ready to “let it go” so to speak.

The film originally came out in 1988 and I think something struck me there… I was 14 at that time, it was two years after Top Gun had come in and everybody I knew wanted to become a fighter pilot, I remember spending a lot of time in Flight Simulators. But when I saw “Le Grande Bleu” for the first time it didn’t really let me go, not to this day, 18 years later.

I guess if I am honest, the film probably showed already who I had become. I can identify with Jacques Mayol, what drives him. For Enzo it is the competition, to “be the best” (which ultimately kills him) but for Jacques it is life. He needs to do it, it is part of him, it is him. And if he has to chose between love on land or being at sea, he choses the sea because he knows he never could be on land and be happy.

- Tell me a Story.
- A Story? — Do you know how it is — Do you know what you’re supposed to do to meet a mermaid? — You go down to the bottom of the sea… where the water isn’t even blue anymore … where the sky is only a memory… and you float there in the silence. And you stay there … and you decide that you’ll die for them. Only then do they start coming out. They come and they greet you and they judge the love you have for them. If it is sincere… if it is pure… they’ll be with you… and take you away forever.

In the end he makes his choice, he is going to find the mermaids, and he is giving up everything else he has. A selfish act maybe, but then, love is selfish, isn’t it? We proclaim to give it freely, but we want it in return. And so he goes, he follows his heart, leaving behind another one.

Le Grande Bleu is a love story, not Hollywood, it is a crossover almost between a Film-Noir and a Love story. It is, I guess one could say, bittersweet as life itself. It is something that hasn’t really let me go…. And in a way, being in Vancouver now, close to the sea and the mountains I can feel it a bit more, just like Jacques may have felt it.

It has a sad ending and a happy ending, it is all. Like life. And maybe this is why the movie doesn’t let me go…… If you haven’t seen it. Watch it.

Planned on making some Indian Potatoes, I had picked up some mix a while ago, but upon taste testing it I decided that this wasn’t quite what I wanted.

Unfortunately I had already cut the potatoes and had them in the skillet, so I changed the recipe. So now it is a nice Potato salad:

- 3 large potatoes
- Olive Oil
- Garlic
- Green Onions
- Pepper & Salt

Put the potatoes with some olive oil into the skillet and browned them until they were tender. Put them into a bowl and mix’em up with the rest of the ingredients. Let’s soak a bit and et voila, potato salad.

Not my best, but not the worst I have ever done either.

Gee,

this thing is turning into a sports blog today.

Anyway, Edmonton won game six 4:0 over Carolina, which is good. Game Seven on Monday, and I think they have a shot at getting the Cup.

On that note. Stephen Harper, current Prime Minister of Canada (for you yanks, the Canadian version of the President) showed up to the game and (as far as I could tell) was sitting in the middle of all the other fans. If Bush would have shown up at a Hockey game in Carolina, I am sure he’d be the only one in the stadium… Terror, you know (ties nicely into the earlier post about the US football team in Germany right now)

What a game, lots of cards, three guys off the field and the US got out of it 1:1 thanks to the help of the Italians who hit their own goal once (queue nasty remark about the US always needing help of allies to accomplish anything).

Unlike earlier this week the US actually tried to get the ball, which is good, last game they looked like they didn’t want to get close to it, maybe they thought it was a bomb?

After all, the FIFA had organized two hotels for the team, but they rather stayed at the Rammstein Airforce base, due to “security concerns”. Geez.

Now Group E is pretty much open again, Ghana could make it, the US (in theory) could make it…. Italy must be scared.

[Currently listening to: Jericho from the album "Putumayo Presents: Women of the World - Celtic II" by Susan Mckeown And The Chanting House]
So earlier in the week the CZ declassed the US in a way that one had to wonder how the US actually made it into the world cup.

When they took to the field today against Ghana one would have expected that Ghana would just sink like a rust bucket. But instead Ghana turned it around and actually schooled the CZ.

I am by far not a football fan per se, watching sports on TV in general I find boring, but I do make exceptiions for things like the World Cup and the final eight during the NHL playoffs (will Edmonton survive tonight’s sixth game?).

The thing about football is that the game who usually wants it more gets it, in this case, both teams wanted it equally bad and then luck and talent come into play. I am not quite sure if it was all talent that made the difference here, but Ghana clearly showed the CZ how to play the beautiful game.