HOLY PRAIRIE OYSTER!

Vancouver? Nope. Toronto? Uh-uh. Montreal? Non!

Which Canadian city was determined by the Conference Board of Canada to be the hottest economic engine in all of the land?

Saskatoon. Yep, little old Grumpsland itself. And it’s about time. This is an absolutely beautiful place with thriving culture. Last year people started moving here in droves. Now we’re number one.

Even ahead of Calgary.

To which I can only say:

Suck it Alberta!

It’s summer time, a season of amusement for me.

That’s because I have to laugh at all my crazy neighbours who go nuts trying to turn their front yards into fairways at Pebble Beach. That might be something easier to do in more southern climes but, here in Grumpsland, the turf is dormant two-thirds of the year. It takes a lot of coaxing to turn those brown blades a lush green.

I wonder why people even bother. Four months from now, it will all be brown again. It doesn’t matter how much fertilizer you dump on it or how often you set the sprinklers to it. Which reminds me of rule #1:

If you can’t eat it, don’t water it.

Yep, I don’t mind watering a garden. Grass, being little more than a weed, deserves none of that precious H20.

Someday I’d like to convince Grumpspouse to allow me to dig up the sod and plant the perfect, low-maintenance replacement:

Cactus.

You heard it right.

Nothing would be better than a yard full of Cactaceae. There’d be more benefits than just the low-maintenance.

The prickly, pleasing plants would be a natural pest deterrent. What a lesson a bird landing, a cat rubbing up against it or a dog lifting its leg would learn!

It might even keep some unwanted humans away. That and some cinder block, some barbed wire and a guard tower or two would all fit my idea of the perfect carefree and pest free yard!

I Can’t Complain



Yikes, it’s been months since I posted. I apologize to both of my faithful readers.

Maybe it’s a good thing. I have nothing really to grump about. With a nod to Library Mama, here’s a list of things I can’t complain about:

• BabyGrumps competing in the provincial gymnastics championship and winning a gold medal for the third year in a row.
• Grumps Jr. flying to Ottawa the same day to compete in a qualifying tournament for the national debate team.
• Both being gifted performers. She played Little Red Riding Hood in her school’s musical. Ironically, he was the Big Bad Wolf in his high school musical. His improv group (all under 18) was invited to a fundraiser where they opened for Fringe celebrity, T. J. Dawe.
• My mother-in-law and father (who people tell me has passed on the grumpy genes) recovering nicely after being briefly hospitalized in April.
• My hockey being one of four teams left still vying for the Stanley Cup. It means I get to glue myself to the TV whenever they’re on. To sympathize, I haven’t shaven since before Easter. It looks uglier than a cross-check to the face but it’s for the team.
• GrumpSpouse and the GrumpsKins being completely understanding of my nuttiness about my team: my rituals, my devoted attention, scheduling my life around games, the world stopping as soon as the puck is dropped.
• May, my favourite month of the year.

FINALLY, THE MOVIE MAESTRO IS RECOGNIZED

Those of you who are Oscar-watchers may stop yourself when you see the name of this year’s honourary award recipient, Ennio Morricone.

And while you may be asking who the heck he is, I won’t be. Instead I’ll be reveling in the well-deserved recognition for the definitive master of movie music.

Morricone, 78, has composed the scores for over 500 films. Yep, that’s right. 500.

But it’s not just quantity. He’s also left a legacy of haunting, melodic themes that often transcend the films for which they’re composed.

Morricone, intent on becoming a classical composer, began writing for movies in the late 1950s. A few years later, he collaborated with classmate Sergio Leone, on the first Clint Eastwood Spaghetti Western, A Fistful of Dollars. With more movies like For a Few Dollars More, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and A Fistful of Dynamite, the two would redefine the western genre.

They would do more. Leone’s Once Upon A Time in The West is the greatest western movie ever made, Morricone’s soundtrack the greatest ever composed for a cowboy flick.

I don’t say the greatest ever because Morricone’s best work was still to come. Making the leap across the ocean, he again worked with Leone on Once Upon A Time in America.

Morricone was first nominated for an Oscar for 1979’s Days of Heaven. He was also nominated for The Untouchables, Bugsy and Malena but his work for The Mission in 1986 (also Oscar nominated) may be his most memorable. The music is as beautiful as Chris Mendes’ photography, lush and rich - it absolutely deserved to win.

Morricone still wasn’t done – he again collaborated with Giuseppe Tornatore on the latter’s Cinema Paradiso, winner of Best Foreign Film in 1990. The maestro’s sweet, romantic score is another classic.

While he’s never won an Oscar, he’s received three Grammy noms and eight Golden Globe noms, winning twice – for The Legend of 1900 and The Mission (the Hollywood Foreign Press got it right).

Closing in on 80, he is still incredibly active and currently working on an Untouchables sequel and Leningrad, an epic to be lensed by Tornatore.

Honourary awards are usually good times for food or bathroom breaks during the long Oscar ceremony. This year is an exception. I’ll be glued to the set, with the volume cranked through my stereo listening to beauty that Morricone has bestowed on us time and time again.

Those were the games my friends






I’ve got a complaint about the roads in my neighbourhood this winter and it’s not that the ruts are deep.

No, my problem with the streets of Saskatoon is that I hardly ever see anybody playing road hockey.

These are the days of ultra-organized sports, extra-curricular activities, computers and video games. Kids don’t have the time, energy or desire to go outside and play a good old fashioned game of road hockey.

I could go outside with my stick and wait around, with the hope that some other guys might come along and get a game going. Unfortunately, the sight of a balding, overweight 46-year old man loitering on the street in a hockey jersey while shooting a piece of snow around may cause parents to call the police rather that send their kids outside.

Instead I’ll just have to live with my memories:
Growing up in a corner house was perfect – the street was incredibly wide and, because houses ran the opposite way, seldom used for parking.

It meant that rarely would we ever have to utter that most evil of words: “Car!” Having three brothers was another bonus. We could quickly get a game of two-on-two going. All we needed was our sticks, enthusiasm and four frozen lumps of snow-ice to make the goal posts.

And, of course, the ball or puck. Sponge was ideal for days when the road was slick but a rough road meant we resorted to a ball that would freeze harder the colder it got. This naturally led to bigger bruises – the proud proof of our street battles. Having no referee, we relied on the rules of gentlemanly conduct to oversee our games and settle disagreements...

“YAH, we score!”

“No way, that hit the post.”

“It was in by a mile, you slush-head. The post hasn’t even moved. It’s 15-12 for us.”

“Listen, ice-for-brains, I was standing right here and it wasn’t even close.”

“Oh, yeah, then I quit.”

“Okay, okay, we’ll give it to you. Now give us half.”

The absence of rules or refs also meant we could get away with any indiscretion we liked, unless we knew mom or dad was watching out the window. My favourite in this case was the body hold because it could easily be made to look like a friendly hug. Then there were the times when our “discussions” digressed into brawls, the four of us working things out with our fists like the pros – only, because it was outdoors and cold, we left our gloves on.

No clock meant our games of road hockey were limitless. We’d play until our hands were so frozen the words “victoriaville” or “sherwood” would be tattooed into the skin beneath our mitts.

Sometimes games would end with the flicking on and off of the porch light, signaling it was time for supper or bed. Other times we played until one pair won the Stanley Cup in a best of 23 series by winning the 12th game 17-16. Hey, we weren’t the Espositos or the Mahovliches and it wasn’t the NHL but, to us, it was hockey at its best.

My days of road hockey are long gone. Instead I settle for an all-out battle at the Scrabble table, waiting for a chance to score the game winner with a seven-letter word...

“Reguber? No way that’s a word, thesaurus-head.”

“Of course it is, tiles-for-brains, but I forget what it means. That’s 87 points for me.” “Well, then I quit.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll take it back. Now hand me the dictionary.”

YAY! The Holidays are over!

Okay, I know this is a week late but we have two family birthdays in the first week of the year so I always count those as part of the season.

So here it is, the eighth day of January Double-Oh-Seven (I coined this) and I’m back at work, snuggled into my little corner, happily viewing the world from the safe perspective of my IMac portal.

I was actually first relieved on Dec. 26. For more than a month prior, BabyGrumps had been doing a count down, saying, for example, “17 days ‘til Christmas!’, to which I’d reply, ’18 days ‘til Christmas is over!’

I’ve earned a reputation as a Christmas hater but it’s unfair because I don’t really hate Christmas. Instead, I dislike the lead up to Christmas – the commercialization, the numerous events, the rushing around, the “you have to do this and you have to do that because it’s Christmas” attitude. I work three jobs and have very active GrumpsKins so I really don’t need any more hassle in the season of ‘peace.’

The 25th, for me, is like emerging from a tunnel of noise, into a serene haven - namely my home and my family, not my jobs, the stores, the roads etc.

The real meaningful time for me is when it’s all over – when I can just stay at home, unshaven and in a pair of sweats, watch the kids open their gifts, play some Scrabble or cards, rent some movies, read a book, basically just take it easy without having to be somewhere doing something at sometime.

So while January is the season of blahs, SAS or whatever, for me it’s a time of relaxation. Even though our normal routine is hectic, it’s just that – our normal routine.

WARNING!

Just wanted all my Internet Grumpsketeers to be warned not to use Puretracks, or subsdiaries like Bonfire or Chooseyoursongs (owned by Moontaxi Media). If you get a free gift card for downloading music with a retail purchase, investigate who runs the service before downloading any files. You can compare puretracks.com with other pages - if they look very similar, then it's just a Puretracks shell - avoid it like the plague. Also avoid any music service that offers WMA files as opposed to MP3s.

The reason is they are having a horrible problem with DRM - people download music after paying for it only to find they can't acquire licenses and often can't play, burn or transfer music that was legitimately paid for. Emails to the support desk go unanswered for months and then are only answered with form replies.

As a result I'm going to stick with Itunes, which I have never had a problem with on either Windows or Mac.

Has anyone else had problems with Puretracks or WMA music files?