Tonight I shared a concert with Festival Singers in Sherwood Park.  The piece the singer and I collaborated on went quite well for our first performance and should be even better at the end of the month.  My piece was alright except a few minor but annoying glitches that I will work out.  In all it was a great concert and we had a great turnout.  Now we have to settle on a date and venue for our concert at the end of the month so that we can have an audience - a novel concept.

 

It really annoys me when mistakes surface in performances that never happen in practice sessions.  It just drives me up the wall that I don't know if it's a matter of focus or my physical approach.  I mean, I was very focused tonight but for some reason at certain moments my fingers decided they didn't know where to go... and then I can play it perfectly a few minutes later.  It's ridiculous.

Okay so it's 5 in the morning and I wake up, not able to fall back asleep.  So what do I do?  Waste time on the internet.  Did you know there are a number of sites dedicated to generating a name for a variety of purposes?  For instance, you can discover what your elvish name would be, or even as a hobbit.  My hobbit name courtesy of http://www.chriswetherell.com/hobbit/ is  Hob Hamwich of Buckleberry Fern and my elven name is  Círdan Elensar which sounds a lot better than Hob Hamwich.  I also was able to discover my pirate name after filling out a quiz at http://www.fidius.org/quiz/pirate/

 

 

  Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.

So I'm watching Entertainment Tonight Canada this evening (it was late and I was flipping channels) and on comes a segment about Donald Sutherland.  They didn't discuss his career or any upcoming projects but rather, the segment was about his dislike for our Prime Minister Stephen Harper.  Apparently he hopes that he'll make a few mistakes in the next couple years so the Conservatives won't be re-elected.  He believes that fundamentalism in any form in a position of power is dangerous for our country.  I've never really been a fan of Donald Sutherland before but now....

 

When you think about it, why were the Conservatives elected?  Out of a campaign of fear and hatred.  Fear of the Liberals coming to power again, fear of homosexuals being married, fear of allowing women choice, basically, fear of any kind of diversity.  Stephen Harper would rather we live in a nation-wide suburbia of white middle class hell (note: see the movie Chumscrubber for a clever look at what I'm talking about :p ).  Already by censoring the media from attending the ceremony of the four soldiers fallen in Afghanistan and generally making it more difficult for the media to question him or cabinet ministers, we're quickly falling into the direction that screams United States politics.

Today was a wonderful day in the world of sports as the Detroit Red Wings were decimated by the Edmonton Oilers in game six.  Strong checking from Edmonton and solid play from Roloson came through even when Detroit brought back team Yzerman for the sixth game.  Unfortunately (or fortunately?), Yzerman still wasn't 100% and couldn't do much to withstand the Oilers' onslaught.  The Red Wings return to Detroit with their tails between their legs after the first round of playoff action for the third time in as many seasons.  Despite some controversial calls from the ref, Chris Chelios' acting skills drawing penalities and some good goaltending from Legace, the Oilers eliminated the Red Wings 4-3.  Good Riddance!