What I did over the summer holidays

Sheesh, it's been a while since my last rant - nearly two months. Let's see, what's happened since July?

Hmmm... well, there was Zinédine Zidane and his meltdown at the World Cup. I mean, what are you supposed to say about a player whose game is so good that even his hacks look like they should be in a textbook somewhere? I'm obviously not condoning violence - heck, I don't even like hockey - but you have to have at least some (grudging) admiration for a guy who can make a vicious head-butt look like a work of art. Not even Wayne Gretzky could do that. I'm just glad that I wasn't at the receiving end; getting a whack like that in the ol' xyphoid (come on, don't be lazy, Google it!) would be supremely painful, and probably left quite a bruise on Materazzi.

And then there was that other meltdown: Floyd Landis. His wasn't so much a meltdown as a complete disintegration, followed by a miraculous, er, re-integration, followed by a completely humiliating letdown, with full media coverage of all aspects. I suppose the jury is ostensibly still out on whether Landis Did Something Naughty, or had a little something not-quite-kosher administered to him without his knowledge, but there are many more questions than there are answers and Floyd doesn't seem to be leading from the front. I'd like to think that if I knew I was completely blameless in this affair I'd be adopting the more aggressive Lance Armstrong "if you've got incontrovertible proof, let's see it" approach. Instead Floyd has faded from view. As much as I hate to use a lazy journalist's bromide, I guess time will tell.

I spent a few days in New York City at the beginning of July. As I've done before, I spent much of my time just wandering around the city, although on this trip the heat and humidity were particularly awful. I saw some great jazz, including the Mingus Dynasty and the Heath Brothers (Jimmy and Tootie), bought a bunch of hard-to-find CDs, and saw some things I didn't expect to see, like this sign:

I guess they mean car horns, but as a saxophone player I felt a bit persecuted for a moment there. And so close to Lincoln Centre and the Juilliard school too!

I also went to a Yankees game. My ticket cost an arm and a leg - maybe two arms and a leg - and baseball isn't my favourite sport in the world either (more on that in a few lines), but hey, going to Yankee Stadium on a steamy Friday night in July strikes me as the sort of rite of passage that a guy should undergo. It was great fun, and I had a great seat. See?


For the detail-oriented, the Yankees played the Chicago White Sox. That's Randy Johnson on the mound for the Yankees. And "we" - I discovered pretty early on that when you're sitting that close to home plate you'd better be cheering for the home team! - won 6-5.

So that was my July. What about August? I guess one bit of big news is that Canada qualified for next year's Rugby World Cup in France. One more reason to start planning next year's vacation on the continent...

And as I write this, Canada is playing at the Women's Rugby World Cup in Edmonton. The girls got shellacked in their first match, losing 66-7 to the New Zealand Black Ferns, but there's no shame in that. Scoring any points at all against the Black Ferns is quite an exploit. Hopefully the Canadians will do well in the tournament this time around.

That's all I can think of, curmudgeonly or otherwise, on a rainy Saturday. I'm sure I'll have more to rant about soon.