Events

It's been quite some time since I've been away from Powderfinger for as long as this last lapse. To tell the truth, I always feel a twinge of guilt when I don't attend my postings. Even if I have the very best of excuses. Like I have now. My son who lives in Florida arrived here on Friday to attend

Event 1: the U2 concert in Norman, Oklahoma. [Set list, pictures, and fan reviews of the show here.] On Sunday evening at the OU football stadium before an estimated 60,000 people. I've been to a lot of rock concerts, though probably not as many as my children, and I have to say this was one of the best ever. My wife, not what you would call a heavy rocker, really loved it too. Review of the Oklahoma show here. Spectacular lighting, staging, sound. This is not my favorite band, but it could easily have been last night. Pleased to report that the geezer contingent of which my wife and I proudly belong, was well-represented at the concert. Bono and crew was worth the slight discomfort of a chilly Oklahoma fall wind.Opening act, for the first time on the tour, was The Black-Eyed Peas. A hip-hop band that the kids seem to like. It will take a little more time for me to get to that point, I think.

Event 2: the New Orleans Saints crushing win over the also-unbeaten New York Giants on Sunday at the Super Dome. I am normally not a pro football watcher, but I recorded this game to watch later. And I did. For a New Orleans kid who followed the Saints with mild interest until I inhabited Tampa when the Bucs won the Super Bowl (XXXVII, I forget what year that was), seeing any Saint team seemingly this good is something of a wonder. I mean, they put a severe hurt on a team with serious championship pretensions. 48-27 doesn't leave much doubt about which team dominated. Saints had over 500 yards of total offense. Amazing. This is not going to be the last time I watch them this year.

Event 3: Baseball playoffs. (NL here, AL here) I've seen parts of several games. I watched the entire one-game playoff for the American League for the Central Division champ--Minnesota over Detroit in a great ball game. A 12-inning nail-biter that the Twins won. Which now seems like a million years ago, since Minnesota has been eliminated by the hated Yankees and both the league championship series are well along. The aforementioned hated Yankees are leading the Angels 2 games to one--and I saw the better part of an extra inning game that the Yankees won the other night--and the Phillies are up 3 games to 1 over the Dodgers.

(I also had an assignment poem to write before Sunday.)

The point is Powderfinger has taken a back seat to several instances of million-dollar entertainment. Which, when I state it like that, seems like not a good enough excuse to avoid blogging. This weighs on me more than it should, but I'm already thinking about the 8 days or so I'm going to have to shut down beginning on Friday while I'm out of town in Texas.