This Just In

The Leafs didn't make the playoffs. They were essentially out of the running for 2 months before the season ended. You still droned on about their chances during that time. The season is over now. Stop fucking talking about them and give some more respect to the teams that did make it. Even if you only give attention to the Canadian teams. What happens with your Swedish meatball and your 10 million dollar D-line can wait til the other teams are on their offseason as well. And to the assclown that tried to say that the Leafs are as good as any team from 5-8 in either conference; how do you even wake up and dress yourself in the morning, let alone be allowed to spout such nonsense on a national sports program. They finished 11 points back, in 12th place, in the East.

But hey, its your kind of thinking that will be infectious to all the rest who bleed blue, and will prevent the kind of wholesale changes that the club really needs in the offseason. And anything that causes the Leafs to miss the playoffs is alright with me, but seriously take it off the TV and give some time to the teams who do matter.

Allan H. Selig

I got to my first Jays game of the year yesterday, and it didn't disappoint. Hilarious Boston fans who made the trip, combined with a Jays blowout, and finally catching a ball at a game after going to so many, along with quasi-t-shirt weather, made it a great trip. Hopefully I'll make it down again for at least one of the $2 games in the first few months of the season.

I learned that Bud Selig's real name is infact Allan Huber Selig by way of his signature on the ball. Who knew? What kind of name is Huber?

Walter Gretzky was also at the game for 'Brantford Day' and lived up to his reputation of being great with signing autographs for kids and other fans. He actually sat in the section next to us instead of rubbing shoulders with all the execs up in the boxes.

And on the hockey note, the standings are finally almost clear, and the pick sheet for the pool just needs a few more players slotted in. Within a couple hours (since tonight's game doesn't have any implications) I should have the sheet uploaded for everyone. Get em in ASAP!

I Want to Break Free

Two days in a row with a temperature above 10 degrees meant that it was time to rid my head of a couple months worth of shag yesterday. Earlier in the week I pulled my mountain bike in for the limited spring tune-up I'm capable enough to perform.

Last year after my early season crash, I took my bike in to the shop to have things re-aligned and looked over since my knee was so buggered up that I wasn't going to be riding for a few weeks anyways. At the time, I was told that my shocks were likely in need of new bushings to eliminate some of the 'sloppy' feel I was noticing at the time. Well today, after placing an order online for some parts I need at prices 50% to 75% cheaper than those at the local shops, I decided to finish the work I had started on my bike.

After truing up the wheels and putting my tires back on, I checked the compression on my shocks and noticed a kind of squelching, squirting noise coming from inside. After a bit of reading, I think it means that the oil seals inside are pooched which could make for some expensive time in the shop unless I can find a decent guide to do the work myself. After having turned to an online store to avoid the mark-up in the local lower volume shops, I can only imagine what they'll want to charge me for more limited parts and labour. They sure won't want to take any parts I can find for cheap online and do the labour for me, as nice as that would be.

The money spent on keeping the bike in good shape so I can get my own ass in shape is already enough to cover a few 24s of beer that could serve well to keep me out of shape. The forecast repairs, will likely cover a few more cases. All I wanted was to get out on my damned bike.

Earth Hour

Not much really needs to be said here.



Sure there is some license taken for the sake of comedy, but for the most part, he's absolutely right.

A 10% reduction in a couple dozen cities for one hour once a year isn't going to change a thing.

The Resurrection

Warm weather appears to be on its way back from the dead. The 14 day trend is still almost entirely below the historical average for this time of year, but I have to find satisfaction with above zero for now. Lowered expectations.

The baseball season officially gets under way tomorrow in Japan. My buddy Como and I have tickets for the Saturday game of the Jays opening weekend that I'm told are on the wall in left field similar to the ones I fluked into a couple years back. All this Super Premium, Premium, Value game pricing adjustment bullshit needs to go though. What started with the occasional mid to late summer series against the Red Sox or Yankees being rated a premium game with slightly higher ticket prices has morphed into an increasing number of pricing levels and games for which the pricing isn't just some 'regular' amount. Paying 39.00 for a ticket that cost me 21.00 for opening weekend just a couple years ago is handicapped. I prefer to be called retarded.

And the injuries are already starting to add up for the Jays. Combined with manager J.P. Ricciardi's asinine move to pick-up Shannon Stewart and drop spark plug gamer Reed Johnson, all the talk about the Jays resurrection from the middle of the AL East look like another fictional anecdote to get hopes up leading to the perennial 3rd spot in the East. More lowered expectations.

But the hockey pool is coming together well enough, despite all the Leaf fans who still think they have a chance to go anywhere. Make sure you pass on the word to anyone else that might be interested.

NHL Season 2

I could bitch and moan about how Hoover, its products, and warranties are garbage; but I'll just tell you not to buy one and leave it at that.

I could whine some more about how it was snowing again today, and how this shit still won't end; but I'll tell myself that this is still Canada, I have to get the hell over it.

I could tell you all about St. Patrick's day drunkenness; but there'd be gaps, and the non gaps weren't very exciting.

So instead, I'll let everyone know that I'm putting together a playoff hockey pool, and that you should get in on it.

Thou Shalt Not Medicate

The Catholic Church has just knocked another gem outta the park. It seems people weren't going to confession enough (perhaps something to do with the old fashioned, and increasingly backward approach to a rapidly evolving world?). The solution: create some new sins to keep the sheep in line.

A Vatican official has listed drugs, pollution, genetic manipulation and social and economic injustices as new areas of sinful behavior. -AP

The new mortal sins were listed by Archbishop Gianfranco Girotti at the end of a week-long training seminar in Rome for priests, aimed at encouraging a revival of the practice of confession - or the Sacrament of Penance in Church jargon.

According to a survey carried out here 10 years ago by the Catholic University, 60% of Italians have stopped going to confession altogether. The situation has certainly not improved during the past decade. -BBC

Of course, any drug or gene therapy, or even genetic manipulation of lesser organisms that lets a believer live a little longer, or a little happier will still be alright; less need for miraculous intervention that way. And hey, they're still teaching abstinence and shunning condoms to control the spread of disease, so really we won't even need those treatments much longer.

Ultimately on the drug side of things, they're mostly referring to all those arbitrarily defined 'illicit' ones. But when you are based on the arbitrary, there's no problem with this kind of logic.

And then there will be all those forced into conflict by the declaration that the rich are sinners. Those that still believe God is speaking through George W. are going to need some extra medication to cope when they realize that as one of those rich people, he's one of the biggest sinners out there. But for no other reason. As an aside, I wonder what George himself confesses to sitting there in that vestibule.

I mean clearly the likes of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are sinners, what with all their millions of dollars donated to curing disease though alternative therapies. Double whammy on those two, definitely destined for some lower level of hell when they kick the bucket.

In the end it still comes down to people who need some defined set of rules because their own moral conscience simply doesn't exist without it. And when there are people out there who think like this,

so you think if no one believed in any religion there would be no wars or fighting? i think it would be worse. i know if i didn't fear god's judgement i would have killed many many times.

cajunXLVII - FSTDT.com

some kind of indoctrination is certainly better than the alternative. I have a feeling though that through history there have been far more that killed in the name of their god, than those that have decided not to kill in the name of their god. Clearly the nature of that argument makes it unprovable, such is the problem.

The Last Hurrah?

This needs to be the last snow storm of the winter. I don't think I can handle another without a heavy dose of summer first. Enough of the bloody noses from the dryness. Enough of the shoveling. Enough of the scraping off the van every time I want to go out. Enough of the no sandals, shorts and t-shirts.

The plan is/was to go out for dinner and drinks for Carolyn's birthday tonight, but if the snow doesn't stop dropping soon I doubt there will be much of a turnout, us being the only one's really within walking distance of Uptown. I don't mind driving around town in this weather, but then not everyone can be as cool as me driving around a soccer mom mini-van that sits out of the snow at least a little bit more.

Hopefully things shape up for St. Patty's next Saturday. The luck of the Irish has to be better than my own right?