The World Series

I could just vomit.

Tonight only

Tonight is the Paul McCartney concert. If I cry during the show, does that make me lame?

I have been wanting to see Paul McCartney in concert for what seems like my entire life. I have liked his and the Beatles' music since I was a small child. For one reason or another, every other time he has been in town, I have been unable to go. Tonight I will be there.

It got me to thinking about those musical acts that I want to see before I die. I have been lucky enough to see several of them already.

The Rolling Stones
Billy Joel
New Order
Simon and Garfunkel
R.E.M.
U2
Nine Inch Nails
Paul McCartney (ok, so I haven't seen him yet, but unless I get hit by a bus or something I will be there tonight)

There are a few left on the list.

Pink Floyd (complete lineup, hey, they got together for Live 8, so there's still hope)
The Who
Bruce Springsteen
Tom Petty
The Cure

Hockey!

Yes, I'm a very happy girl now that the NHL season has started. Even though the Blackhawks lost yesterday.

Tonight I was listening to play-by-play of the Montreal Canadiens-New York Rangers game online at nhl.com. They had 3 feeds: NY, Montreal English, and Montreal French. I chose the French feed. I minored in French during undergrad, and have since forgotten much of it. I'll be in Paris in a few weeks, so I'm taking every chance I can to practice understanding French.

I impressed myself with how much I was able to understand. I couldn't understand every word, but I was able to follow the game, including the score, penalties, when a goal was scored, etc. I was annoyed that they used the English word for "goal" instead of the French word, but whatever. Unfortunately, understanding hockey play-by-play is probably not going to help me get around Paris.

Interestingly enough, some of the first French words I learned were hockey terms. You know how at night you can tune into AM radio stations from really far away? Back when I lived in the suburbs I was able to get a French Canadian radio station. I would listen to the hockey games. I was able to pick up words just by their context. The first word I learned was but, "goal". Also, I was collecting hockey memoribilia at the time. I would often get hockey cards from Canada that were printed in English and French. I was able to learn the terms for the positions that way. So before I started learning French for real I had learned enough French hockey terms to follow a hockey game on French Canadian radio. It's nice to know that I can still do it all these years later.