Saturday January 12, 10:48 p.m.
It's been a quiet start to the weekend with most of today being spent doing some translation work. It wasn't too difficult but somewhat arduous since there wasn't much of a translation memory to work with. Gotta say that the weather has been gorgeous at least when it comes to temperature. The mid-January thaw has done its job....the snow is completely gone and it feels more like Spring out there. We should have one more day like this since we'll be heading up to 12 degrees tomorrow but then we return with a huge thud back to Winter as the high temperature is only going up to 0 degrees on Monday. We may even have some of that snow back by this time next week.
Well, the players have ratified the CBA, so hockey is back on. Training camps should be launching tomorrow and the first games will be hitting the screen and the arenas next Saturday. I'm gonna be really interested in seeing how the general managers will be parlaying the next few days before game time. The big question here in Toronto is whether the new guy, Dave Nonis, will be getting Roberto Luongo as the new goalie. Even if he does don his mask here at the ACC, I think he will just be a band-aid until one of the youngsters finally gets up to speed and skill. But the guy who won't be involved in any of this: Brian Burke. He had his final press conference with the media he mostly despises. He was relatively cordial, though, as he apologized for his failure to bring any sort of winning team to the masses, but he still brought out plenty of stick to certain members of the press....namely Steve Simmons. Most of those reporters won't admit it, but I bet some of them would like to use a stick on him. In any case, he's gone....let's see what the new guy does.
But on the 19th, I've got my Skype student back on-line for this lesson, so I won't be seeing too much of the game. It's a Habs-Buds lineup but it's over in Montreal, and this matchup is rather far from the classic level from yesteryear. Both the Canadiens and the Leafs have seen far better days. And another old friend from Japan is visiting....I was invited for a big reunion dinner on that night but had to decline because of the lesson, but hopefully I may be able to make it for the dim sum the next day, although I know that The Anime King should be coming back home on the 18th so he may come calling for our first Anime-and-Foodie outing of the year.
