The Red Wings retired #19 tonight. Yzerman’s statistics and awards from his 22 year career are numerous, and well documented. I was able to watch most of his speech on ESPN News. He was in his speech as he was his entire career: humble, grateful, and full of class. I seriously doubt professional sports will ever see such a player again, serving the same team for his entire career. Thanks for all the memories, Stevie!
Dan Fogelberg, the voice of Christmas?
Let’s face it. When you think of Christmas music, you think of Dan Fogelberg, right? Yeah, me either … until this year. Like many people, I love Christmas music. This year has been no exception. I’ve been listening to Christmas music pretty much non-stop since Thanksgiving, either from my own personal collection or on a local radio station.
That station played a song that got my attention, mostly because of its cheesiness. It was one of those songs that shouldn’t count as a Christmas song, but it mentions Christmas Eve and snow, and thus gets played. The lyrics made me laugh, as they talked about meeting an old acquaintence in the frozen food section of a grocery store. The second or third time I heard it, the DJ announced it was Dan Fogelberg’s, “Same Old Lang Syne.” More than once I’ve had the song stuck in my head, much to my dismay. The tune is fairly catchy.
The first thing I thought of when I heard Dan Fogelberg is a game my friends and I used to play in high school whenever we’d drive somewhere. We’d put the radio on scan, and you tried to be the first person to correctly identify the artist of a song when it came on. Invariably, if no one knew the true artist, someone would shout out Dan Fogelberg. I’m not really sure why we chose him. Perhaps because Rhythm of The Rain was somewhat popular back then, or perhaps because he had a funny name and no one would every really know if you were correct or not when declaring him the artist. Even if you did, you wouldn’t want to admit it.
In an effort to redeem myself (and this post) a bit, I will say “Oh Holy Night” and “Do You Hear What I Hear” are probably my two favorite Christmas songs right now. I’ll even go so far as to admit I like Josh Groban’s “Oh Holy Night” quite a bit. Not sure if Dan Fogelberg sings that one …
Pedro For President
I thought it might be enjoyable to rent a movie this weekend, while Moby and I had the place to ourselves. Watching movies relatively infrequently, I didn’t want to waste this opportunity. That being the case, I had three requirements for picking a movie: (1) it had to be something previously recommended to me by people I (for the most part) trust; (2) it had to be entertaining; and (3) it had to be something Rachel likely wouldn’t want to watch were we to watch a movie together. That led me to one choice: Napoleon Dynamite.
Since I’m likely the last geek around to watch the movie, I won’t bother with a review. I will say I enjoyed it, which means something given the build up it received. Some highlights for me:
* Hearing Forever Young by Alphaville, The Promise by When I’m In Rome, and the A-Team theme song. Wow, those bring back memories.
* Watching Napoleon play tetherball on the playground. That was a classic recess activity for me in middle school … but I was playing it with other people, I swear.
* Learning the truth about ligers.
* Seeing Napoleon work on the chicken farm. Thanks to a college friend, I did that for a couple days one spring break to pick up some extra cash. That’s definitely an experience.
All in all, I was entertained and now have a much better grasp of conversations going on around me every day (if that tells you anything about the circles of which I’m a part).