Meat, men, and music

24 May Reenactment
Originally uploaded by hellomizk

Now that I have your attention - hi!

Sounds like fun, huh? Let me explain before you get too worried about our newly-acquired debauched European lifestyle. Last night Peter invited Mr K and I over for a barbecue dinner (including delicious grilled Mexican-spiced pork, ground lamb, and most importantly sausage-that-used-to-be-made-with-brains-but-isn't-now) and he was kind enough to throw in a crash course in two important European phenomena as well - I'm talking about soccer and Eurovision.



I'm going to go ahead and skip the soccer game to go straight into Eurovision as that was what we spent well over three and a half hours glued to the TV watching. I'm having a difficult time figuring out where to even start with this one. The first couple hours of the show were the twenty or so bands each performing their one song. Peter told us the singing is all live but all the music is recorded and played back - however, this doesn't prevent members of each band from pretending to play their respective instruments as they dance, slink, or stomp around the stage.


After all the performances, the last hour and some or so of the show is voting and awarding of points. All of the voting is done by phone or SMS and is completed within 15 minutes, after which voting is closed. No country is allowed to award their points to their own entry. Once voting was closed, each of the 43 participating coutnries called in to announce how they were awarding their points. The tallying of the votes was simultaneously the most fun and the most painful as we watched our favorite sinking further down the list as our least favorite rose up.

Russia ended up winning with a performance that left us all jaw-dropped in disbelief... and not in a good way. Yup - rolling on the floor - check... lone violinist (remember what I said about pretending to play instruments - yeah)...an ice skater?!?! Yeah.

Other performances worth mentioning included Ukraine - Mr K was very impressed with her "talents." Another interesting entry was Latvia, who managed to make DJ Bobo look like a creative genius. Spain (watch the dancer in the pink) and France were both just plain entertaining.

Now I'm off to check all those links and maybe sneak in a little nap - too much excitement!