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Elton John, The Super Bowl and Real Racing 2

    I have goofed off more today than I have in months. It was sunny and mild outside so I walked to the creek and checked for tracks. Not much shakin' on that front. In the afternoon I found a sunny spot to sit and listened to my I-Pod. Then I read a very interesting article.
     At Christmas I received several rock videos from Amazon. With the Rolling Stones concert I received a free, one year subscription to Rolling Stone Magazine. This month's issue had an article on Elton John, written by Austin Scaggs. Mr. Scaggs did a nice job on the article.
    The most interesting part of this piece was the discussion of John Lennon. What's up with this stuff? Seems like everything I pick up has something about the former Beatle. Elton talked about how gracious Lennon was to him. They did a show together in Madison Square Garden while John and Yoko were estranged. Elton said that John Lennon got a long, standing ovation that rocked the floor when he came on stage. It was his first live appearance in many years and he had been so scared he got physically sick before the show. Hard to imagine. No pun intended.
     Elton mentioned how nice John was to his parents (Elton's folks). He said that his Dad put his false teeth in Lennon's tea glass while Lennon was gone to the restroom and they all had a lot of laughs. Can you imagine dropping your teeth in John Lennon's glass? I fear that I would be too intimidated for that. Of course, if Elton John was your kid there wouldn't be too much to rattle you about celebrities.
     Elton mentioned that he and Bernie Taupin never collaborated on songs in the same room or place. This was a surprise to me. As you probably know, Elton was writing music for songs and doing a great job, but words were not his thing. He was talking to someone in the business about it and the guy hands him a big manilla envelope. "Here," he says, "this guy keeps sending me his stuff." So fate intervened very kindly for a terrific songwriter named Bernie Taupin. The rest is history. A lot of hits for the duo.
    After reading the article, I sat down at the keyboard and played a few of their songs. My favorite is Your Song and I play it fairly well. I played several more songs afterwards.
    I really don't have too much to say about the Super Bowl. It was a good game, a close game. Never have I seen so many players hurt in a Super Bowl. Maybe they over-train, get musclebound and lose flexibility. I was glad for Aaron Rogers to get his ring. How about the folks that got turned away from their seating for the game? It was temporary seats that didn't get finished. After all the ice, snow, travel and expense, this sounds like a nightmare vacation. They did give them triple money back for the seats, though.
     I expected the Steelers to come back and win it. I don't like them much but they are a money team. When the big money is on the table they most likely will find a way to win, and I respect that. I hope that the Falcons can become like that.
     I remember driving past Pittsburgh a few years ago on the interstate bypass. You could see the city sitting in the distance, like , there's a city and nothing around it. It was striking and would have made a cool picture. Just a big piece of flat field and a city in the middle of it.
     On the game front, I bought a new game for the I-Pad yesterday. It's a game that I wanted but refused to give $9.99 for. This weekend I noticed that the price had dropped to $4.99. Excuse me, I didn't mention the name of the game. Real Racing 2 is actually an I-phone game but it works fine on the I-Pad. I'll give a full review in the near future after I have a chance to play it a bunch. First impressions are good. The coolest thing about it is this: instead of four cars in the races like most racing games, there are 16, which is more fun. There are lots of cool cars to drive but you can't drive the better ones without earning a lot of cash from winning races. This is irritating for the beginner because I wanted a great car and couldn't get it. Whine, whine! This must be a strategy intended to give you a feeling of accomplishment later in the game. Sort of like an affluent parent's ploy for their teen child. I do like the easy button they have, though. 
    Goodnight and have a good week. CE Wills.

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