Futility of statistics: during 1971, ten million refugees fled across the borders of East Pakistan-Bangladesh into India--but ten million (like all numbers larger than one thousand and one) refuses to be understood.
Sleepy...
This weekend has been rather busy and light on the rest, dominated by the Florida Sectional meet which ran Thursday-Sunday.
Friday, post work, I started working the meet, after waiting for a drawbridge and dodging the beginnings of Spring Break traffic here in La-t-dal. That went from 5:30-9:00 p.m. or so, then (after another drawbridge) I dropped by home briefly (1 minute inside) and headed over to a local bar (Blue Martini) for a friend's going away party (DBB's job transferred him to New York City--he left today). I stayed there about an hour and got home & to bed around 11 p.m.
Saturday, the alarm went off at 6:30 a.m., (drawbridge) so I could swim from 7:00-8:00, then had prelims and time trials for the meet from 9:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m., jotted over (drawbridge) to work and got some stuff done from 2:00-4:30, headed back to the pool (drawbridge) to help out with finals 5:30-8:30, and then (drawbridge) got home around 9:00 p.m. There I "sprung" my clock ahead its hour for Daylight Savings, and crashed...
This morning's wake-up was an hour later (7:30), but with Daylight Savings not so much so... what saved me was hearing Cool Jerk on the way to the pool (made me almost not mind the drawbridge being up, again). But, today I got about a 2-hour break at home mid-day, Nimrod (there's a swimmer in the meet who's name is Nimrod) and "non-nimrod" (one of the pool staff called one of Nimrod's competitors a nimrod, so we corrected him and told him he wasn't Nimrod) swimming, and the drawbridge was down on my way home tonight. :)
Now, I'm fixin' to watch The Best of So Graham Norton... so hasta.
Can you do it, can you do it, can you do it, can you do it
Can you do it, can you do it, can you do it, can you do it
For awhile now I have wanted to use Eddie Money's Take Me Home Tonight for a subject, and point out part of the background to the 1986 hit. Today's inclusion into the Library of Congress of the Ronette's Be My Baby provides an appropriate excuse reason to do so.
The Ronettes were a girl group of the 1960s, and are best known for Baby--and the lack of royalties the group got from the song that instead went to the song's producer, Phil Spector (semi-similar to what happened to Willie Nelson with Crazy). The song is one of the best known and best pop songs in history (even before it was on the Dirty Dancing soundtrack), which is why the Library of Congress chose it for inclusion in its audio archives for preservation (also included this year: the Rolling Stones (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction and FDR's Infamy Speech--"...December 7th, 1941--a date which will live in infamy", made to Congress the day after the bombing of Pearl Harbor asking for a Declaration of War against Japan). The Ronettes are also being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this year.
Anyways, so the cool thing about Eddie Money's Take Me Home Tonight is that "Ron" from the Ronettes, Ronnie Spector (yes, she was married to him also), sings back-up in the chorus, right after Money references her (all that "just like Ronnie sang" stuff...). By doing so, Ronnie, I believe, got some of the royalties from Tonight, and if so probably got more money from that song than the original (and more famous/popular) song it references. Somewhat of a vindication... and Ronnie's even in the video. :)
Take me home tonight
I don't want to let you go till you see the light
Take me home tonight
Listen honey, just like Ronnie sang
"Be my little baby"
It turns out I was either a tad over-ambitious or under-achieving this weekend. I managed to make my social/meal related activities on Saturday (morning practice, breakfast, lunch with co-workers, movie with friends, dinner with Masters teammates), but didn't really get to the productive stuff (oil change and laundry).
And I didn't get to either of them on Sunday, either--I eventually just called the whole thing off and did my tax return instead (at least it's done though).
I couldn't even manage to watch all of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which I still need to finish (the movie with friends I saw was Zodiac--coincidently during the lunar eclipse).
Guess I'll try to get to it now... maybe it will get Chicago songs out of my head: I've had All That Jazz and Cell Block Tango drifting in and out since seeing sheet music for the latter down in Kendall on Friday (the theater the conference was in also hosts the Miami's Children's Theater).
Start the car, I know a whoopee spot
Where the gin is cold, but the piano's hot
It's just a noisy hall, where there's a nightly brawl
And all, that, jazz...
March has started with 2 days in Kendall (SW Miami) for work. The distance from Ft.L to Kendall (about 40 miles) and the traffic had me fearful that I might not be able to swim either day, but thankfully did not. However, it kept me rather occupied, so I'll just post a quote from Midnight's and prepare for a rather busy tomorrow (morning practice, oil change, lunch, laundry?, and then a Master's social...)
Our names contain our fates; living as we do in a place where names have not acquired the meaninglessness of the West, and are still more than mere sounds, we are also the victims of our titles. Sinai contains Ibn Sina, master magician, Sufi adept; and also Sin the moon, the ancient god of Hadhramaut, with his own mode of connection, his powers of action-at-a-distance upon the tides of the world. But Sin is also the letter S, as sinuous as a snake, serpents lie coiled within the name. And there is also the accident of transliteration--Sinai, when in Roman script, though not in Nastaliq, is also the name of the place-of-revelation, of put-off-thy shoes, of commandments and golden calves; but when all that is said and done; when Ibn Sina is forgotten and the moon has set; when snakes lie hidden and revelations end, it is the name of the desert--of barrenness, infertility, dust; the name of the end.
