Happy new year

I am happy to say I had a very enjoyable new year.

I went to a party at Kelsey, Barratt and Tori's place. The dining room was attractively set up (ie. blue tablecloths: I like blue, as you may have guessed from the colour scheme of my blog), focused on a chocolate fountain. While snacking, I rarely ventured far from the chocolate fountain, as it was just so yummy.

I was the first to arrive, but people streamed quite steadily in after me. Most people there were people I knew from the Gilbert and Sullivan players. We chatted for a little while, but soon began a game of Apples to Apples. I have already mentioned how much I enjoy this game, and this time was no exception. I think I finished with an approximately average score: I think Kelsey and Ethan won.

After more snacking and chatting we began Trivial Pursuit. This was a different version from the one I have played before, where the question asked depended on the number you rolled, higher numbers giving (ostensibly) harder questions. Several of the teams, including ours, managed to collect every colour, and the last team to do so won overall by correctly answering "which event caused the Macy's Thanksgiving parade to be cancelled between 1942 and 1944?".

Midway through the game, midnight struck and we toasted the new year with sparkling wine and apple juice.

It was rather warm as I walked home along Cambridge St: the snow from earlier in the week was beginning to disappear and it is now very patchy, remaining only where it had been piled up.

New Year's day is a big day for bowl games in college football: I watched a little on TV but none were of particular interest. I did watch the National Hockey League's winter classic, a game played outdoors in a football stadium converted for the occasion. I was amused by people talking about outdoors as the natural way to play hockey, ie. how people grew up playing. Outdoor ice skating in Australia feels about as natural as indoor skiing.

I was a little confused during the lead-up to the national anthem, because the music was in quadruple time and The Star-Spangled Banner is in 3/4. Sure enough, the song that began was in fact O Canada. No Canadian team was playing, but since the NHL covers both countries both anthems are used (not at every game if only one of the countries is represented, but this game is a special one). The American anthem was sung in a very high key. The version I've seen already ranges from B flat to F, and it was definitely transposed up - substantially, I believe. It is a rather hard anthem to sing because parts do sit very high, but the range is large so it can't just be transposed down.

The game was the first professional ice hockey game I have watched: I watched two of Cal's games during my semester there. On those occasions I was surprised that the game was not faster, and told that was simply because it was a lower level game. The impression continued, however, this time: I don't foresee myself becoming an ice hockey fan.

I found it very odd that two players got into a fight, and that was considered quite normal: the TV continued to show it, the commentators commented on it as they would any other part of the game, and the officials didn't do anything until it was naturally dying down. I believe this is simply the practice in ice hockey: fighting is part of the game and penalised rather laxly. I didn't stay to watch the consequences, since an ad break began and I was heading off to do something else for the middle portion of the game.

The game ended up finishing Washington 2, Pittsburgh 1. I have no idea of its implications for the standings: I keep my spectator sporting attentions on the NFL.