"Tonight, the city weeps, as for the first time ever, a hockey arena becomes then scene of violence." -- Kent Brockman

Now I can say I have been able to say I participated in a hockey game which ended after a spectator came onto the ice and fought somebody. Long live low level recreational adult ice hockey.

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I gave up what little dignity I had and unsuccessfully tried to do Garth's rendition of "Foxy Lady" for a friend's karaoke bday party.

Although the dignity meter was probably running pretty low after I was one of the few showed up properly dressed for the 1920s gangsters theme. And I learned that fedoras make my face look like a goomba from Mario Bros.



My first gig as a professional photographer went pretty well. I felt inadequate about my stubby stock lens, so I went out and got a more physically imposing one.

The event was a $1000/plate award ceremony for "Entrepreneur of the Year" for local businesses. Probably was setting myself for disappointment as I figured the winners would be accomplishing feats just short of curing cancer. One of winners basically ran the Central American version of Costco with carbon copy warehouse and website. I'm sure he worked really hard to make it profitable, but in general it struck me as not particularly innovative to take an already successful business model overseas. But I guess I'm mixing up entrepreneur vs. inventor.

I worked the event for free, but was bribed with dinner and a penthouse suite at the hotel. Although it was a bit weird staying there on a weekday as I had to frantically get ready for work the next day.



Steve Scott hosted the annual MDA fundraiser last weekend. At the end, there's a sports memorabilia auction; Last year I got a Marty Brodeur autographed 8x10 for $40. This year Steve decided to play an inside joke by auctioning off a hockey stick autographed by one of our hockey buddies.

Since the money was going to charity, a bunch of us pooled together $200 to buy it. But we wanted to go through with the farce of bidding in small increments.

Not sure if it comes across well in the video, but there was a palpable "WHO?" murmur from the other people not in on the joke. Afterwards a couple people told us they were quickly trying to Google the name to see why the bidding was so furious. It was highly amusing when some random guy popped in at like $125.



There was a Marty Brodeur autographed puck as well. I probably would have gotten it pretty cheap but my wonderful friends decided to bid me up. In a parallel universe I wouldn't have outbid them, but in the end I donated $110.

"Selma, my dear: your lock of MacGyver's hair." -- Malloy
"Thank you. I'll add it to the ball." -- Selma

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The previous night, we were downtown for a Padres/A's game and stopped by a bar for a few drinks. Kurt and Aaron start whispering something amongst themselves and then ask "Is that [San Jose Sharks winger] Jonathan Cheechoo?" To which I responded "Yeah, that does look like him, but I thought he'd be fatter."

They were a bit hesitant to approach the guy without total confirmation. But since he was like ten feet away, they would probably do it after a few more beers. I noticed a tattoo on his right arm and suggested that Kurt search for like "Cheechoo tattoo" on his Blackberry. Sure enough, he found a YouTube video with various San Jose players, including Cheechoo, proudly showing off their tattoos. Huzzah to the internets.

Ended up talking to him for a couple minutes; One of his buddies told us that it was Cheechoo's bachelor party. Kurt made a quip about "Why aren't you in Vegas?" At first I thought Kurt was asking why Cheechoo wasn't in Vegas for the NHL Award show, ie in the "You won the Rocket Richard once, why aren't you still scoring like that?" way as opposed to "Why aren't you in Vegas for your bachelor party?"



I had a wonderfully long and pointless writeup which was to serve as a preview for the NHL Draft. But alas, my bout with mono general laziness caused me not to post it before the draft occurred last Friday.

Part of the post also gave quick explanations as to how junior hockey is organized and where most prospects come from. But I figured that sort of post would have entertained nobody, so instead, here comes what I'm sure will be a very rambly Draft Day Diary which will mostly likely still entertain nobody.....

4:00pm: Thanks to work making us take mandatory days off, I'm able to watch the draft live this year. In 2007, they changed the draft from Saturday to Friday. In 2006, they changed it from a "traditional" 9am PST start to 1pm which I had to miss due to Steve's fundraiser. In 2005, the draft wasn't available on television for anybody without DirecTV. So this was the first draft I could completely enjoy spoiler-free in five years.

I guess I still have great connotations with the NHL Draft since back in the day, it would usually be the week after school ended. So the draft was a sign that summer was in full swing.

4:01pm: Watching on Versus which is carrying the TSN feed in HD for the first time. Now I can be fully depressed to see how young these 1990/91 born draftees are.

Just wanted to note that I'm watching this while largely ignoring an attractive gal friend who dropped by.

4:02pm: If you're still reading this, there's a high probability you're a Sharks fan. So it's worth mentioning that the Sharks were the only team to start the day without a first round draft choice.

This is unlike recent years when teams freely traded first rounders to rent the likes of Brendan Witt, Ladislav Nagy, and Dainius Zubrus. So it's a sign that it's a good draft year as well.

San Jose did own a pair of second round picks which they used on stay at home defensemen William Wrenn and Taylor Doherty. Wrenn did display some offensive ability as he captained the US team to Gold at the under-18 tournament in May. He scored three power play goals in seven games and he'll be headed to the University of Denver this fall. Doherty is a 6'7 monster who has decent mobility but won't be a big point producer.

4:03pm: Standard promo showcasing the consensus top 3 players: John Tavares, Victor Hedman, and Matt Duchene. For the first time in ages, nobody is quite sure who's going #1. Tavares is #1 on most scouts' lists while some analysts were hearing that Hedman was the Islanders' man. But as of a couple hours ago, everybody is reporting that Matt Duchene is in fact going first.

At this point, my biggest man crush for the Devils is defenseman Calvin de Haan who is projected in the 20-30 range, perfect for New Jersey selecting at 23. *knock on wood*

4:04 - Out of the blue, it's announced that the Ducks have traded Chris Pronger to the Flyers. Ducks' fans can dust off their Joffrey Lupul jerseys again. I find it distressing that Anaheim got back essentially the exact same package (for a 34 year old Pronger with one year remaining on his contract) that they gave up (for a 31 year old Pronger with four years left). Buy low, sell high.

4:14 - Gary Bettman makes his opening speech with requisite disdain from the Montreal crowd. This also starts the night long trend of teams making announcements in English and then in French.



4:18 - The Islanders end up taking Tavares to the delight of their fanbase. Tavares missed being eligible for last year's draft by a mere five days. After being endlessly scrutinzed the previous four years, most figure Tavares won't be another Crosby/Ovechkin generational type of player but more in the Heatley/Lecavalier "still pretty damn good" mold.

I would have gone Hedman here, but Tavares is more naturally marketable as a goal scoring forward. The Islanders are trying to drum up support to build a new arena and Tavares provides a new face of the franchise.

The appearance of Islanders owner Charles Wang and his obese grandson is quickly becoming an annual highlight of the draft..

4:26 - Tampa GM Richard Grieco...oh wait, that's Brian Lawton makes a sensible selection of Hedman at #2. Hedman can be described as Nicklas Lidstrom trapped in Chris Pronger's body. Pretty nice addition to go along with last year's #1 overall pick Steven Stamkos and those Lecavalier/St. Louis guys.

4:38 - Lag, lag, lag. Unlike the NFL/NBA/MLB drafts, it's almost as though teams make their selections based around commercial breaks and pre-planned interview segments. Because realistically, Colorado needed about 28 nanoseconds to draft Matt Duchene.



Duchene grew up collecting Avalanche memorabilia, so he was pretty happy when Tampa bypassed him at #2; They showed a splitscreen of Hedman and Duchene as Tampa's pick was being announced and Duchene can be seen saying "YES!" while doing a little fistpump.

4:45 - The Thrashers take power forward Evander Kane at #4. Just to make you feel old, he's named after boxer Evander Holyfield.

4:55 - The Kings are up next and take Brayden Schenn to the dismay of Toronto GM Brian Burke. After having the Sedins in Vancouver and the Niedermayers in Anaheim, it only seemed fitting that Burke would try to get this pick to reunite Brayden with brother Luke in Toronto.

The production crew also finds it fitting to cut to a visibly annoyed Burke. In the last game of the season, the Leafs scored three third period goals to defeat Ottawa 5-2. That game bumped them down from #5 to #7.



As for the Kings, Schenn is an awesome fit as he projects to be a #2 center along the lines of Rod Brind'Amour, Mike Richards, or pre-knee injury Mike Ricci. Although it's quite noticeable that Schenn looked kinda bummed as he was putting on the jersey.

LA also added Ryan Smyth after the draft as LA looks poised to make the playoffs for the first time in ages.

5:02 - It's Phoenix's turn as Wayne Gretzky is conspicuously absent. But his brother Keith is there to announce Swedish defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson as their pick. Slick skating defenseman with good passing skills who should be a nice fit after the Coyotes have been forward heavy in recent drafts.

Camera pans to the Columbus draft table as they have consumated a swap of picks with the Islanders. Can't help but notice that in the pile of provided snacks is a bag of Lay's Ketchup flavored chips. You freaky Canadians.

5:05 - Cute girl leaves. Eventually is replaced by my roommate Aaron.

5:10 - In the first surprise of the draft, the Leafs take Nazem Kadri, a smallish center along the lines of Mike Ribeiro and Scott Gomez. Surprising in that he doesn't seem to be the normal Brian Burke "belligerent and truculent" blueprint.

Afterwards, Burke awkwardly tells the TSN reporter that Kadri was the guy they wanted all along. It's about as convincing as O.J. promising to find the real killers.

5:18 - After Burke is afforded his obligatory airtime, the Stars go off the board a little bit and take forward Scott Glennie. Strikes me as a Joffrey Lupul-esque complementary forward. Will be seen if they'll regret passing up Swedish winger Magnus Paarjarvi-Svensson; Dallas might have bypassed him since they're drowning in left handed left wingers.

On a side note, I can't help but notice that Glennie's jersey doesn't have his name on it. Normally teams, especially those picking in the top 10, have a prepared jersey for their player.....or at least have a detactable nameplate.

5:25 - TSN interviews prospect Ryan Ellis, which might as well be a 30 second spot for Clearisil. Have I mentioned that most of these kids just graduated high school?

5:27 - After being rebuffed on Kadri, the Senators take 6'5 defenseman Jared Cowen. Cowen was considered a surefire top 5 pick until he tore his ACL midway through this season. So it's a bit perplexing that he'd fall given that most of these prospects are 2-3 years away from really making an impact. Ie, teams shouldn't be scared if he still needs a few more months of recovery time. So Ottawa possibly gets a bit of a consolation prize in the Robyn Regehr/Derian Hatcher mold.

The TSN crew interviews Cowen and Sens' GM Bryan Murray, but it doesn't take long before they start asking about Dany Heatley who had demanded a trade--a week later he'd reject a deal to Edmonton.

5:34 - The Oilers take Paajarvi-Svensson who had been considered a lock to go in the top 7. Good size, good wheels, but with questionable finishing abilities. Sounds like the Swedish Milan Michalek to me.

5:44 - Despite having a need for offense, the Predators take Ellis, a diminutive defenseman along the lines of Brian Rafalski.

5:53 - Owning approximately 528 picks, the Islanders package a handful to first move up from #26 to #12. Then those bastards take my boy Calvin de Haan. God god, dammit dammit. de Haan kinda came out of nowhere this season and was putting up good numbers, but most felt that was a function of playing on the same junior team as Tavares. But after Tavares was traded midway through the year, de Haan put up even better numbers. The analysts all say he got drafted a little too high, but I think the Islanders got a gem here.

6:01 - Just to make you feel a bit old again, TSN interviews Ray Ferraro and his son Landon who is expected to go late in the first round. He ended up slipping to the 2nd day, but was snatched up 32nd overall by Detroit.

6:03 - The Sabres' top forward prospects are Nate Gerbe (5'5) and Tyler Ennis (5'8). So it would make sense that they'd grab Zack Kassian (6'3) to be their protection. Now the question will be if Kassian turns out like Todd Bertuzzi or Turner Stevenson.

6:10 - With Jay Bouwmeester having a foot out the door, the Panthers take defenseman Dmitri Kulikov who might be able to step in immediately. Put up great numbers in the Quebec junior league this season, but noticeably slowed down at the end.

6:16 - The first of two Duck first round picks after the Pronger deal. Anaheim adds center Peter Holland here. Some have compared Holland to Jeff Carter at the same age. Lots of skill but an inconsistent level of intensity which can be misconstrued as laziness.

6:21 - The Wild are in a tough spot as they have the worst prospect pool in the league and their NHL squad isn't setting the world on fire either. Minnesota is one of the teams that's under somewhat large pressure to take local players. Here they take Nick Leddy, who had been awarded the title of "Mr. Hockey" given annually to the top Minnesota high school player. Most had winger Jordan Schroeder as the best Minnesota born player, so it'll be seen if taking Leddy instead of Schroeder might be something they'll highly regret down the road.

6:27 - The Blues select Swedish defenseman David Rundblad who was #2 on my wishlist after de Haan. But as a result, defenseman John Moore (ranked #13 by TSN) is unexpectedly still available.

6:35 - The hometown Canadiens dispatch a small army of representatives to announce their pick. In recent years, they had been skewered by local media for bypassing the best available locally produced kid. But this year, they select Quebec native Louis Leblanc to the approval of the home crowd.

6:44 - Ran-juhs. At this point I'm biting my nails with the hope that the Devils can get their hands on John Moore. New York takes U.S. high school player Chris Kreider. Most have him rated as the best pure skater in the draft, but since he played against a generally low level of competition, there are some questions about how good he is.

6:47 - As Kreider is shaking the hands of the Rangers' brass, I start going over the order of the next handful of picks: Calgary, Anaheim, Vancouver, New Jersey. "The Devils need to trade up to Calgary's pick," I declare to Aaron. The announcers mention that a trade is forthcoming as they cut to commercial.

6:48 - "The Devils have an extra 3rd round pick, so maybe they can package that with #23 for #20?"

6:51 - We come back and Bettman announces that the Flames did in fact deal the pick to the Devils, with the exact parameters I hypothesized, and I am now mildly aroused.

Pierre McGuire of the TSN crew says the Devils had great interest in Kreider who went 19th and the Devils now pick 20th. Harkens back memories from 2004 when the Rangers picked 19th and the Devils traded up to #20. Ranger fans bragged that they got a better guy. Not sure how the Ranger fans feel now about that pick, but the Devils made out pretty well.

6:52 - The announcers note that Moore is the likely target, a smooth skating 6'2 American defenseman who patterns his game after Scott Niedermayer. They run down some other names such as Schroeder, Swedish defenseman Tim Erixon, and New Jersey native Kyle Palmieri.

6:53 - They recall that in 1990 the Flames and Devils swapped draft picks. Calgary walked off with Trevor Kidd and the Devils settled for some guy named Brodeur.

6:54 - The Devils entourage finally makes it up to stage and announces they're taking Swedish center Jacob Josefson as I sit down in disgust. Hopefully this will be similar to 2004 when I wasn't thrilled that the Devils picked Travis Zajac (albeit I really wanted Mike Green there). Similarly was, and still am, unhappy with the Devils bypassing John Carlson for Mattias Tedenby last year.



Scouting reports project Josefson to be a solid #2 center. Being that he's a forward and already has a year of pro experience in Sweden, Josefson might be able to step in by 2010-11 and form a gimmicky all-Swede line with Tedenby and Nicklas Bergfors (hey, it works for Detroit, right?). Just wish New Jersey would draft a high ceiling defenseman one of these years.....I really was spoiled by the Stevens/Niedermayer experience. New Jersey would take a handful of defensemen in the later rounds to compensate.

6:59 - Columbus trades up and takes Moore. FML.

7:08 - Canuck captain Roberto Luongo announces Vancouver's selection and butchers Schroeder's name in the process. Steve Kent approves this pick.

7:13 - I spend the next 45 minutes complaining that the Devils should have taken Moore there. Meanwhile Calgary drafts Swedish defenseman Tim Erixon, Washington tabs Swedish center Marcus Johansson, Boston selects winger Jordan Caron, Anaheim picks Kyle Palmieri, Carolina goes off the board with winger Philippe Paradis, Chicago selects Canadian defenseman Dylan Olsen, and Tampa trades up for winger Ashton Carter.

7:58 - The Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins ends the first round by selecting Quebec defenseman Simon Despres, who receives a loud ovation from the crowd. Depres is a big defenseman who (wait for the cliche) has all the tools but hasn't found the toolbox.

8:01 - Where did that girl go?

(while waiting for Wolverine to start)
"My new roommates have never seen Speed." -- Danette
"We should make them watch the Keanu trilogy of Bill & Ted's, Point Break, and Speed. There's this theater version of Point Break that I've been meaning to see in LA." -- me
"That sounds awesome, I'm going to LA next weekend."
"Me too."

Finally caught Point Break Live after finding out about it years ago. It was amusing and I certainly would go again.

Part of the selling point is that they pick an audience member to "perform" as Johnny Utah. Ie, an unprepared amateur reading a cue card could more than adequately replicate Keanu Reeves' performance.

I misread/misinterpreted the procedure, since I was under the impression that they'd pick somebody completely at random like "Tonight's Johnny Utah is in row 2, seat 13." But instead, they asked for volunteers to come on stage and deliver the "Are we gonna jump or jerk off?" line while the rest of the crowd voted for the best guy.

In retrospect, this was the better route. The "director" of the show reminded the crowd that if we voted in a shitty Johnny Utah, that we'd end up with a shitty show. Despite having seen the movie approximately 597 times, I didn't have the testicular fortitude to "audition." But the guy that got voted in would have been much better than me, and he had the Keanu blank stare down.

Their site warned us ahead of time to not wear anything clothing we wouldn't mind being stained. They even sold "survival kits" containing plastic ponchos as if we were watching a Gallagher show.



The show more or less followed the script, although they bypassed the subplot involving Anthony Kiedis' group of surfers. Although in retrospect, that would have required a couple more actors and would have taken away from the later shootout scenes.

The Gary Busey/Angelo Pappas actor was awesome, as was FBI director Harp. The actors added an extra element to each character to reflect Busey's drug use and J. Edgar Hoover's behavior.

Personally thought the guy who played Roach was the best of the actual actors. The one who played Bodhi did a good job, but he had the emphasis on the wrong word on a handful of lines. Then again the show was only $20 and the source material is Point Break, so I shouldn't be mad if they gave Roach one of Nathanial's lines.



Several good improvised/new lines:

"Arrrrrgh......I guess I won't be in the sequel." -- Pappas

"Alright, Paul from The Wonder Years." -- Roach to the guy who played Johnny Utah who did bear a slight resemblence to Paul from The Wonder Years

"Condi, go to the vault!" -- Bodhi to Roach, who was wearing a a Condeleeza Rice mask instead of an Ex-President's one

The show also had a short lived run in Vegas last October. The San Francisco version also just reopened. Just in case any of you Bay Area types only live to get radical.

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My friend told me an amusing story about how her then boyfriend ended up on Judge Judy several years ago. He lived in a house owned by the parents of one roommate. That roommate also lacked basic social skills. For instance, if somebody was playing their music too loudly, he would call his parents who would then call the offending roommate.

And if you had a friend stay over on the couch, he needed to be prepared to pay a prorated portion of the rent. Ditto if a non-roommate dared to take a shower.

So after awhile, the other guys were a bit annoyed with his behavior and wanted to get back at him. Somehow they decided killing his goldfish was the proper course of action.

Guy comes home and discovers the dead fish, accuses the others of foul play. One roommate steps up and contends that he was merely carrying a bowl of dish soap, tripped, and accidentally spilled it into the aquarium.

Eventually the roommate sues for the loss of the fish and the labor of manually cleaning the tank. Something to the tune of $350. Enter Judge Judy, whose people parse through small claims court cases and reach out to folks like this. The kicker is that they offer to cover the damages as well as pay the plaintiff/defendent $500 to appear.

They drive up to LA for the taping. The witnesses in the court room are all paid actors, who apparently were told to rehearse their overreactions before the camera starts filming. LION FACE! ARRRR! LEMON FACE! OOOH!

The psycho roommate eventually won as the other guy unsuccessfully used the "...but he's a dick" defense. But now that I've tracked down the episode number, I gotta figure out how to get a copy.



After a false start last year, MTV is finally releasing "The State" on DVD in July. It's been amusing watching the proliferation of various cast members through the years.

Various members have been regulars on Reno 911. Thomas Lennon and Joe Lo Truglio had supporting roles in "I Love You, Man." Finally caught "Role Models" this week which was co-written by State member David Wain. Lo Truglio and Wain had speaking roles along with Ken Marino and Kerri Kenney-Silver. Michael Ian Black is known to most as "That guy" from all the VH1 I Love the 70s/80s/90s/00s episodes.

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One of my personal favorite songs is Failure's cover of "Enjoy the Silence" that I first heard in summer 1998. As I was listening to it last week, it only then dawned on me to wonder "Hey, I wonder if any of their original stuff is any good?"

Color me intrigued thus far. Their musical genre had been described as space rock, which has been optimal to listen to right before going to sleep. Guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen was part of the original incarnation of A Perfect Circle while late being in Queens of the Stone Age. A Perfect Circle does a cover of Failure's "The Nurse Who Loved Me" on one of their albums.

And I was amused to find that there was a tribute album of Failure covers since I really only knew Failure for their cover of Depeche Mode.

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RIP Geocities. With Yahoo announcing that it was closing the doors on this late 90s relic, I had to go through my old site to see if there was anything worth salvaging.

There was this little blip I wrote up in August of 2000 regarding what Alexei Yashin had done during his yearlong holdout from the NHL. Despite the crude MS Paint alterations, one since defunct and resurrected Faceoff.com did offer me some sort of gig to write for them.

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I was "hired" to be a photographer for my friend's work event. I'm excited, if only because I can add a crappy watermark to the pictures and jokingly sell them to the attendees. Plus I'm debating if I should show up like a contemporary photographer, the ones carrying around multiple camera bags with various lenses and detachable flashes. Or I could dress up like an old timey photographer.

Death Pool update:

Guang: 109 (Jade Goody, Maria de Jesus dos Santos, Wendy Richards)
Kat: 14 (Bea Arthur)
Vietca: 10 (Claiborne Pell)
Everybody else: 0



While perusing the Wikipedia recent deaths page, one name caught my eye: former boxer Greg Page. Couldn't quite figure out why that name rung a bell, especially since his prime was in the early 80s.

Then it hit me. Growing up, I had this game called Sierra Championship Boxing for DOS. Since I was young, I wasn't particularly skillful and basically just mashed buttons usually resulting in a quick knockout for either me or my opponent.

But from that game, I remember having one epic twelve round bout with either with or against Page. Despite multiple knockdowns by both fighters, nobody could secure a KO. And when it went to the judges' cards, where my fighter got the narrow split decision victory.

The game itself came default with real boxers like Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, Roberto Duran but also several "fun" characters like Harry the Kangaroo. The game also gave the user the ability to create custom players and due to memory constraints, you had to delete an existing character for a new one.

After awhile, the 8 year old version of me couldn't distinguish which ones were original and which ones were ficticious.

So until a couple days ago, I had assumed "Page" was some imaginary entity like Bald Bull or Piston Honda. It made me sad knowing he was a real guy.

Speaking of Piston Honda, his name has been changed to Piston Hondo in the forthcoming Punchout release for the Wii. That game has me tempted to buy a Wii for the third time.



Another staple DOS game of my childhood was NFL Challenge. The gameplay itself was different than say Tecmo Bowl. You would pick a formation (0-9) and then a play (0-9) to run. And the screen would go into an animation of green offensive O's and red defensive X's running the play. Just the thought of a red X returning an interception for a touchdown brings me great joy. The idea of anthropomorphic letters playing football is highly amusing to me.

Being that I grew up cheering for the L.A. Raiders, I remember manually keeping track of stats from my games. I'm sure if I dug through my old notebooks, I could find inscriptions like "Hostetler 17-29, 194 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT."

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Unlike past years, I wasn't awkwardly giddy about the NFL Draft. Seemed like a below average year as it seemed like the teams picking in the top five were desperately attempting to trade down. The Chargers only having one pick in the top 60 didn't help either.

When it came time for the Bolts to pick, I was hoping they could trade down and recoup the 2nd rounder they gave up to draft Jacob Hester last season. Figured they could have traded down and still landed Rey Maualuga and then drafted a safety in the 2nd (both highly rated safeties would have both been off the board however).

It seemed a bit unexpected at the time when they selected outside linebacker Larry English. After digesting that pick for a few days, it made sense. Basically insurance for Shawne Merriman for the future and to develop depth in case of injury since the Chargers' pass rush was woefully impotent last season.

And to my surprise, I'm actually excited about one of their mid-round picks since they drafted Vaughn Martin out of Canada. He was a Jamaican immigrant who moved to Toronto at an early age and had hoped to play hockey after seeing the Mighty Ducks movies. At 6'4 330 pounds, he had an impressive predraft workout. The question now is whether that can be developed into possibly being Jamal Williams' heir apparent.

So on the downside, it seemed like the Chargers drafted developmental players who might have not have the most immediate impact. But on the other hand, it seemed like everybody else in the division had a questionable day as well.

Kansas City was stuck at #3 and picked Tyson Jackson whom most had more in the 10-15 range. Meanwhile, the Raiders were everybody's whipping boy as they drafted Darrius Heyward-Bay instead of consensus #1 receiver Michael Crabtree. And then in the second round, they traded up to draft a safety that most figured would go undrafted. And then there was Denver who pulled the Bobby Beathard "trade you next year's first for a second rounder this year" move which always has potential for a disaster.



(after the Devils lost game 4 with 0.2 seconds remaining)
"You're taking this pretty well." -- Kurt
"I guess if you watch long enough, you'll see everything." -- me

The Devils exit this year was definitely a new one. 90 seconds away from a second round meeting with the Capitals, and then Carolina rallies for two goals to abruptly end New Jersey's season. I suppose that's what makes the championships more special, since you deal with disappointment most of the time. Brace for flashback.....

1994: I had only just begun to root for the Devils, so I wasn't immediately heartbroken when Stephane Matteau sent them home packing. If the Kings had a better 1995, they probably could have won me back as a fan.

1995: Now full-fledged as a Devils fan, I recall watching part of a round 2 game against the Penguins while in a Van Nuys Circuit City. Also had to rush home from a doctor's appointment to catch the Devils eliminate the Flyers in the Conference Finals. My sister's then boyfriend was a Red Wings fan, so we had some friendly verbal jabbing prior to the Finals. Devils smoked 'em, and thus really began my fanaticism.

1996: The Devils managed to miss the playoffs. Going into the last game of the season, the Devils needed a win to clinch a playoff spot. And they were playing the worst team in the NHL, the Ottawa Senators. I remember my cousin was over, and I'd periodically check the TV for score updates (ah, the days before my reliance on the Internets).

When I checked the ticker one last time, I was horrified to see "OTT 5, NJ 2 F" in a game that the Devils had been leading 2-1 to start the third period. Immediately the feeling in the media was that the Devils were a fluke and that their Cup win ought to have an asterisk since it occurred during the stirke shortened season.



1997: Unfortunately the playoffs coincided with the AP Test season. So I don't have any vivid memories of their opening round series headlined by Brodeur scoring a goal. I only had AP Physics remaining but the Devils were down 3-1 to the Rangers. Stupid Adam Graves scored on a wraparound in overtime to end it. And then I sucked it up on the exam.....because I had no business taking it since our teacher did little to prepare us.

1998: Again, I don't have any memories thanks to AP tests. The #1 seeded Devils got knocked off in six games by those damned Ottawa Senators. But at least I could enjoy the remainder of senior year.



1999: Spring quarter at UCSD started off with being dumped. Soon I found myself unmotivated and only taking three classes. But I figured with all my free time, I could at least distract myself and watch the Devils who were once again the top seed. And then they lose in game 7 to the Penguins.

Images of Martin Straka sliding along the ice celebrating still seem fresh in my memory. And perhaps not coincidentally I dyed my hair green soon after in a "I hate my life, let's do something stupid" moment.

2000: Simply awesome. I've mentioned this enough times, but this was the time that school and hockey helped restore my faith in humanity.

2001: Devils had a scare in the 2nd round, going to 7 games against Toronto. I remember having a CSE120 midterm that afternoon. Sitting in Round Table, the Devils tied it just has I had to leave for the test. Afterwards, I quickly went back and see the Devils won 5-1. In the Conference Finals, I had to watch a convincing 5-0 win over Pittsburgh while in Davis for my sister's law school graduation.

I had invited Jeff/Jim/Chris/Jina to come visit before finals week started for me. That night, the Devils had a chance to clinch in game 6 but played a clunker of a game. In a bit of a karma faux paus, I turned stopped watching the game to take the gang to dinner at Denny's. Devils also blew game 7, but I had some tough finals to study for.

2002: We had purchased tickets for game 6 of Kings/Avalanche, so I was on the freeway as the Devils got knocked out by Carolina. Highly disappointing since I had gotten all of my hard classes out of the way in order to have maximum downtime for the playoffs. But I had that whole graduation/finding a job thing to worry about.



2003: First playoff without having to worry about studying. First playoff with a full time job and expendable monies! And this was the first time I really got to know the floor hockey folks as I watched the Devils win the Cup at Steve's house.

2004: The Devils never really found their groove and were quite forgettable in their title defense as I wave adios to the Stevens/Niedermayer era.

2005: Thanks Gary. Thanks Bob.

2006: Devils stumbled out of the gates to open up the post-lockout NHL, but had a furious second half to win the division. The team exorcised some demons and swept the Rangers, only to be knocked out by the eventual champion Hurricanes. I was at my uncle's house for the elimination game.....I always feel like it's negative karma to watch anywhere but my house.

2007: Unfortunately highlighted by meeting Wayne Gretzky at the Wynn. Those damned Senators knocked New Jersey out in the second round and the Ducks win the Cup thereby proving that there is no God.

2008: Rangers win in 5. I have the sudden urge to fail a Physics exam.



2009: Aside from watching them blow a lead late in the game, it was one near step away from me breaking something. Our DVR had been acting up recently; It would stop recording at random moments. With five minutes left in the game, both boxes crashed and rebooted. It came back in time for me to watch the collapse, but if it had gone from 3-2 lead to blue screen of death directly to 4-3 deficit, then I might have punched a hole in the wall.

----------------

When your team wins a championship there's an unwritten rule that you can't complain about anything for five years. Not counting the lockout season, the five year grace period has basically ended for me.

Dainius Zubrus - Good god. He's under contract for four more years? Hated this signing at the time, mostly because Zubrus had been in the Eastern Conference for ten years and I never found myself worrying about shutting him down. Linemate Brian Gionta passive aggressively jokingly suggested that Zubrus should get the Selke since Gionta's offensive production has gone down since his breakout 2005-06 campaign.

For a guy that's 6'4 with good wheels and decent hands, the guy just doesn't produce outside of the two years he was piggybacking Ovechkin.

Can't imagine Lou Lamoriello being too happy given Zubrus' combined playoff output the last two seasons: 12 games, 0 goals, 2 assists, -5. Not exactly top 6 forward material.

Bryce Salvador - I didn't mind him as a deadline pickup last year. But I was mildly unhappy when the Devils kept him for four years @ 2.9 million. +/- is a stat that gets misused. Ie, Aaron Ward's +16 in Boston doesn't mean he's better than Scott Hannan's -21 in Colorado. But if you keep it relative to each team, then I think it's more useful.

Mike Mottau +24
Paul Martin +21
Johnny Oduya +21
Colin White +18
Bryce Salvador -1

*raises hand* I think I see a problem. Salvador had the revolving door with defense partners, so maybe it's not entirely his fault.

Brian Rolston - I was very happy to get Rolston back as he was one of my favorites growing up. But I wasn't thrilled that they gave him a four year deal. Before free agency started, I told Kurt I hoped the Devils could land him for a three year deal. That way, there might only be one regrettable season. Rolston's year was tough as he had an ankle injury which sidelined him for a good chunk of the year. When he came back, there wasn't a natural spot to put him and he mostly languished getting 3rd/4th line minutes. Mildly optimistic he'll have a bounceback year, but his contract likely means there's no salary cap space for the more productive Brian Gionta.

Unfrozen Caveman Center Bobby Holik - Since it was only a one year deal, I was excited to get Holik back to provide some size and offense which our 4th line was lacking. Unfortunately he was a shell of his former self, albeit the guy is 38. It's also amazing to think how well he's been paid this decade:

2000-01: 2.7 million
2001-02: 3.5 million - arbitration award, last year with Devils
2002-03: 9.6 million - first year in a 5 year, 45 million dollar contract with Rangers
2003-04: 8.85 million
2004-05: 2 million - due to a clever cause in his contract, he got 2 million every year on July 1st, so he got paid despite the lockout year
2005-06: 13.218 million - (8.968 + 4.25) - To get under the cap, the Rangers bought out the remaining two years of Holik's deal (8.968 million). Then Atlanta signed him to a 3 year deal
2006-07: 4.25 million
2007-08: 4.25 million
2008-09: 2.5 million

So in total, he's made 50.8 million in NHL salary this decade. Some other notables: Scott Niedermayer (42.5), Marian Hossa (31.375), Joe Thornton (38.575), Joe Sakic (58.94), Mike Modano (49.5). The reunion tour was a better in theory than practice as Slow-lik found himself moved to wing because of a lack of speed and eventually a healthy scratch in five of six playoff games.

Martin Brodeur - Before the season, a drunk Kurt was musing "What are the Devils gonna do after Brodeur? They're done." So when he went down for half a season, it was at least reassuring that the team is bigger than just one player. Maybe his eventual replacement wont' be a future Hall of Famer, but the level of goaltending is pretty high nowadays. The difference between the top tier and the middle tier isn't as big with the evolution of the position.

The thing that worries me about Brodeur is that he's more reliant on his reflexes than the more typical butterfly goalies. And reflexes tend to diminish with age. So it's kinda tough watching him flail around even though it's worked in the past. At least in comparison to the Luongo's and Lundqvist's who seem robotic but in control.

The salary cap is expected to remain steady for 2009-10, but it's the 2010-11 cap that most are forecasting will be the one to reflect the economic downturn. Like many teams, the Devils have some regrettable deals which limit what they can do. It's seeming more and more likely that mainstays like Gionta and John Madden will be given a gold watch and the "Sergei Brylin plaque of appreciation" rather than a new contract.

The NHL is inching closer to operating like the NBA in terms of trading under a capped environment. NBA teams almost no longer trade equally talented players, but instead trade for expiring contracts.

Because of their current situation, the Devils probably won't be in a position to make any large multiyear offers to prime free agents like Jay Bouwmeester. An ideal puckmoving defenseman might be Sergei Zubov if he's willing to accept a one year deal + leave Dallas. Lou Lamoriello seems to like to collect Dallas Stars (Langenbrunner/Niewendyk/Marshall/Matvichuk/Lukowich) and foes of playoffs past.

On the bright side, Zach Parise continued to impress and finished fifth in NHL scoring with 94 points. Patrik Elias had a resurgance and had a point per game season while Travis Zajac recovered from a horrific sophomore season.

For casual fans, the next season begins in October. For dorks like me, the next season begins in earnest on Draft Day (June 26th) followed by the opening of free agency on July 1st.

Annual Draft mancrush/targets for the Devils is defenseman Calvin de Haan. Alternative realistic choices which would make me happy: David Rundblad, Nick Leddy, Zach Budish, Peter Holland, Kyle Palmieri, or Chris Kreider.

Previous Draft mancrushes include: Adam Colagiacomo (1997), Justin Papineau (1998), Ross Lupaschuk (1999), Kurtis Foster (2000), Lukas Krajicek (2001), Alexander Polushin (2001), Robert Nilsson (2003), Mike Green (2004), David Fischer (2006), John Carlson (2008). Sadly, as poor as that list looks, it's not much worse than the Devils' actual first rounders the last eleven years.

------------

But 'tis all in good fun. Had a gal friend who used to chide me for writing posts like this, basically dismissing sports as entertainment--ironic in that she seems to have become a sports fan over the years.

In the end, that's what it is. Entertainment, a distraction from the less exciting aspects of life. And for me, one way to distinguish the years from being lumped in with one another.

I've been mentally guilt tripping myself from posting anything of late. Mildly annoyed by various folks posting every mundane detail in their Facebook statuses, only to realize that I have maintained a blog for the better part of a decade.

Although I did enjoy one friend's mobile upload to let everybody know he had gotten into a Vegas club and then getting a phone call thirty minutes later from mutual friend who saw him get kicked out for trying to swipe a bottle of alcohol.

John Doe is getting kicked out of club. BRB.

-------------------

Took an unintentional Spring Break as I went back home to visit the folks since my Dad had surgery recently (he's doing well).

As usual, I went rummaging through my old boxes in the garage in hopes of finding anything amusing. Found a copy of my last junior high newspaper, dated June 1994 complete with details about our upcoming Disneyland trip (same day as the OJ Bronco chase) and a movie review for Naked Gun 33 1/3 (also featuring The Juice). Another page had reviews for the latest Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, and Alice in Chains records.



During 8th grade, they introduced street hockey into our rotation of sports for PE. Unfortunately that didn't carry over into high school. My friend Mary also managed to have a fairly lengthy article debating whether the NHL should adopt a two referee system and go into shootout to decide regular season games. Oh the days of getting my NHL fix from a junior high newspaper.



I had the main splash photo which led into the school picture section for all the Sophomores. There's me in 1995 wearing a Florida Panthers hat, possibly telling everybody how they'll make the Stanley Cup Finals that year. Or I'm just wearing a hat I got for $2 while hanging around the baseball players of my year before I eventually was excommunicated because I wasn't in any of their classes nor played baseball. Thanks Dad.

Also dug through a bunch of UCSD exams, homework, and notebooks. I was hoping to find my ECE109 midterm exam for sentimental reasons. One of those things that symbolized that I'm not a complete screwup. Long story short, I had been meandering through college not really putting forth full effort. Then I had an epiphany really wanted to show up this gal who didn't want to study with me. I made it my mission to destroy that exam with the childish desire to go "Neener neener neener, you could have done as well as me."

It was a tough test, but I still had the urge to slam it on the professor's desk and tell him not to waste his time in grading it and just to give me 100% on the spot. The average was pretty low and I got my 100%. I wish I wasn't raised to respond to negative reinforcement.

And my personal favorite find was this cassette single of Hammer's "Pumps and a Bump." I assure you that I did not purchase this. I just remember it coming up in conversation and my buddy mentioned that for some reason he had it. Suffice to say, I recently asked several friends if they happened to still have cassette players in their cars.

-------------------

I blew my tax refund on a new car stereo. Unlike many of my other purchases, I have absolutely no regrets about this one. Main amenity with this one is the USB port. You can plug in an mp3 player or a flash drive and it'll read it....handy for me since my iPod is currently non-functional.

Although my one regret is the circumstances which led to me getting a replacement stereo....

....So my friend was in town for work and a wedding. Work provided her a flight and rental car, but she was getting a bad vibe from coworkers who may have been theorizing she only came on the trip because it coincided with the wedding.

She was going to pay for the extra day out of her pocket, but Avis wanted $100. I had offered up my car since the wedding was only like 15 miles away, plus I was occupied for most of that day anyways. We had already planned on her staying over at our place for at least a night, so I didn't think it was a big deal.

The plan on Friday night was for her to drop off the car at the airport and I'd pick her up. I arrived first and gave her a call. On the other end, she's freaking out because she thinks she just triggered a red light camera.

In my head, I'm jokingly thinking "Great, this is the girl I'm lending my car to."

Then I see her pull in with no headlights on at 10pm. I think she was just down the street filling the gas tank, but still a bit scary to see. She then mentions that she'd been in two accidents recently and that the red light camera might cause her insurance to drop her.

In my head, I'm not so jokingly thinking "Great, this is the girl I'm lending my car to."

I do my best to distract her from the possible calamity, mentioning things like how the red light camera near our place seemingly takes photos for no reason all the time. But she's not having it.

She calls her mom while we're at the rental car place. Twenty minutes later, we finally leave. She calls her mom again while we're driving. We stop to get coffee. She calls her mom again. We get back to my place. She calls her mom again. The last time she's on the phone long enough for me to almost finish watching the Devils game I had DVR'd. And this gal is no longer in her 20s.

Next day, she takes off for the wedding and says she'll be back by 10. I go to dinner with some other friends and get home at 9:30. Friends and I rented a movie as I nervously watch the clock creep closer to 11 with no further contact.

Eventually I get a call. My car battery died! And she has no idea what happened. Kinda hard to give her the benefit of the doubt at this juncture. She said it had already been jumped, so she'd be back shortly.

...90 minutes later she gets back and apologizes. Then she mentioned that my car stereo is locked out. In stock Honda radios, if the stereo gets disconnected from battery power it assumes it's being stolen. When it gets turned on again, it expects a 5 digit code which I never received.

It's 2am and she's reading me this from the owner's manual. I'm just a tad bit annoyed with everything and caustically mention that I can deal with it tomorrow. She then goes upstairs to change and says she'll be "right back down."

(Earlier in the day, she got annoyed at me as I had left my door open and one of my roommates might have seen she had stayed over. Scandalous I tell you, scandalous!)

My roommates come back from various drunken endeavors, one in particular has the munchies. After 15 minutes, we decide to get some food as I'm mostly curious about the condition of my car. I go upstairs to check up on her.....and she's on the phone.....at 3am.

We get back from Carl's Jr (without crashing into it!) and I walk through the front door. She's on our stairwell and begins to ask me a question when the other guys walk in behind me. She lets out a scream, sprints back into my room and shuts the door.



"Just like a rat," I mutter.

I go into my room and she angrily says "You didn't tell me your buddies were coming over!" I'm a bit dumbfounded as I mention "They're my roommates....they kinda live here."

The next morning she gets a phone call and has the courtesy to take it out of my room. As she's walking through our house, she notices that one of the bedroom doors is open. So she logically carries her conversation in their bathroom.

Meanwhile, a certain drunk roommate of mine had fallen asleep on the couch the previous night. He wakes up and walks into his room. He opens the bathroom door to find some girl on the phone.

In her panic, she vacates the room and proceeds to fall down the stairs. I do vaguely recall hearing a thump.

A few hours later, I happily drop her off at the airport and try to shake off the utterly bizarre weekend. I suppose the part that bugs me the most is that she didn't seem cognizant that any of her behavior was unusual.

So back to the radio, Honda will give you the 5 digit code only if you provide the VIN of the car and the serial number of the radio. Only way to get the serial number is to physically remove it from the dashboard.

So I could either pay to have it removed or just get a new stereo. Being that my CD player was a 50/50 proposition at best, I figured it was a pretty good time to splurge.



Friend was trying to set me up on a blind date with a friend of some guy she just met. My friend managed to extract some details including which high school she went went. Turned out it was the same high school as my old lab partner, so I sent his younger brother a picture to see if he knew the girl. Unfortunately his first response was "she put on some weight." And it's not like she was out of shape in the picture or anything, but just not the ideal comment you'd like to hear.

And then several weeks later, he sent me a link of a different photo of her that he had come across. But he typed "Don't" when he intended to type "Don." Gotta love Freudian typos.

---------------------

Note to self: Stop inviting people who don't like baseball to baseball games.

Had a distinct juxtaposition at a game last week. Went with a group of friends, but one gal was giving off the "I don't want to be here" vibe almost from the moment we left for the ballpark. She proceeded to spend the next three hours texting while otherwise looking disinterested.

Meanwhile in the row in front of us, there's a cute gal wearing a Tim Lincecum shirt. Giants score a run and she genuinely cheers without being obnoxious--unlike other drunken Giants fans like Kurt whom were present downtown.

But yeah, I couldn't help but compare and contrast. And it's not like you're supposed to intently watch every pitch. There's just certain ways to carry yourself....or at least don't leave during the 7th inning stretch.

---------------------

There's an amusing commercial that aired during Sharks games recently. The setup is three guys at a sports bar being served by a homely looking waitress. But then she starts spouting off random tidbits like "Most people don't know this, but Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau went 1-2 in the 1997 Draft." And each time they pan back to the waitress, they switch her with a progressively more attractive woman.

On a similar note, I may have "hockey jersey" goggles. We were downtown on Thursday night watching the Ducks/Sharks game. As the third period is about to begin, Asian gal walks in alone wearing a mid-90s Sharks jersey. She asks if she can sit at our table and we begrudgingly oblige.

Not to imply that this girl was hideous either....but I really can't remember what she looked like to be frank. I was just mesmerized by:

A) Hockey jersey B) Knows which bar is the go to place to watch hockey C) Used to play ice hockey

Everybody was concentrating on watching a scoreless game, so it wasn't the best time to attempt to make idle chatter. Before I had a chance to epic fail chat it up any further, one of her guy friends showed up to the bar as the game ended and they left together.

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Frozen Fury, September 26th. Up and at them!

Apologies to the dozens (AND DOZENS) of folks who regularly check this site for random hockey musings, tips on weight loss, and misadventures with attractive women that only have interest in harvesting my organs for sale on the black market.

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We were watching the MLB Network and they were having a show about the older ballparks. During the segment on Dodger Stadium, the Dodgers' PR guy mentioned how they regularly invite youth teams to practice on the field when it isn't in use by the Dodgers. Followed by obligatory shots of kids happily playing.

Couldn't help but be bitter: "Reminds me of my childhood. Oh wait, no, I didn't get to play during the day in summer. My parents made me do math. When is that ever going to come in handy? To help my friend study for the GMAT?"



I forget what prompted this conversation, but Kurt unearthed a suppressed memory of mine when he mentioned these late 80s baseball sticker books. Basically you'd buy this yearbook which was filled with various stats and tidbits of information. But there weren't any pictures since you were supposed to buy packs of stickers which you would then put into the yearbook.

I remember having this. I was up in San Francisco visiting a family friend--coincidentally I do remember that baseball commishioner Bart Giamatti died during this trip--and everybody went to the grocery store. While in the checkout line, I couldn't help but notice they were selling packs of these sticker cards. I asked my parents if I could get a pack but my request was quickly dismissed.

Our family friend probably saw the sad look on my face and she bought me a couple of packs. So naturally I was quite happy despite my parents telling her to return them. We get back to their house and I'm getting ready to open them like your typical eager eight year old. And my Dad waits until everybody else is outside of hearing distance and he starts yelling at me.

It's little episodes like that which probably make me feel guilty when other people do nice things for me to this day.

--------------------

So I was helping my friend study for the GMAT. I was mildly amused that I did pretty well on the math section with zero preparation.

1) x+y=a; x-y=b; Find 2xy in terms of a and b.

2) Aaron can run at a rate of x miles per hour, while he can walk at a rate of y miles per hour. Aaron typically will run from home a distance D and walk back the same route. If Aaron spends time t running from and walking back home, how far can he venture from his house in terms of x, y, and t?

(solution at the end of post)



(brunt of the video starts at the 50 second mark)

Kurt forwarded me this (first of a) series of modified Super Mario World stages. Suffice to say, high comedy.

....and because we're nerds, we dug out the SNES. Who needs a working a PS3?

Edit: Translation of the text boxes according to Howard......

penpen2015: well the first one with the block landing on marios head basically say, god dammit, i have to save that woman(bitch) again?
penpen2015: yoshi:s house text says, quit taking side trips (wasting time) and hurry up and get going! -signed super dragon yoshi
penpen2015: the first one isnt that vicious sounding
penpen2015: but i couldnt find the right english words to make it be a little less vicious
penpen2015: the message block in the first stage says the following
penpen2015: first stage
penpen2015: if you cant clear this stage without cheating, you are better off dying in real life



"Let's watch Empire Strikes Back." -- drunk Kurt

(preceded by a discussion of the mid-90s PC Game TIE Fighter)
"TIE Bombers suck." -- me, during asteroid scene
"You used TIE Advanced huh?" -- Kurt
"Nah, TIE Inceptors." -- me
"You know what sucked about those?" -- Kurt
"They didn't have shields." -- me
"Yeah." -- Kurt
(pause)
"I'm gonna go upstairs and hang myself now." -- me

(next day)
"I came home and Kurt was asleep watching Star Wars and playing Axis and Allies on his computer." -- Guang

"Sorry if that text message earlier sounded curt....curt as in C-U-R-T, not Kurt." -- Aaron
"Pretty much the same thing either way."

(at friends' Edward Fortyhands party)
"So, who do you know here?" -- drunk girl
"I'm Guang's roommate." -- me
"You're not Juan's roommate. Juan's roommates are hot." -- drunk girl

Unbeknownst to me, there was a guy named Juan there. I don't know Juan or his roommates. But I suddenly have the urge to fight them to regain my dignity.



Vegas hockey trip was pretty standard compared to the last couple of years. For the second straight year, my team got eliminated in the semifinals in shootout. I suppose that's a sign that we need to practice that for next year.

On the way up, there was an overturned car which blocked both lanes of the N-15 near Baker. So we sat parked in traffic for 20-30 minutes. Figured it was as good a time as any to break out the sticks and play some shinny on the freeway. I suppose you had to be there to enjoy the visual of somebody stickhandling between cars.

I kept this trip low key with the purpose of "saving" cash. Objective #1 was not to spend $100+ on table service. After several Vegas trips last year, it seemed like I wasted a hefty amount on doing this. And that money could be much better allocated for birthday presents for ex-girlfriends donating to charitable causes.

But on the first night, one of friends said he had the obligatory hookup at a club. After being assured that it would only be $20/person to get in, I went with the rest of the guys to "The Bank" inside the Bellagio. Nothing terribly exciting, standard fare of guys in ugly striped shirts and forgettable women.

There was a group of gals near us and they were taking the standard group party photos. Using my skills as a former Six Flags employee, I offered to take the photos for them so everybody could be in the picture. But mostly, I wanted a closer look. Walked away and was debating whether this one gal was legitimately cute or if she was just simply less hideous than the rest of her friends. Eventually figured that while her body said "25" but the wrinkles on her face said otherwise.

Unfortunately my drunk buddy only heard the first half of my ramblings and decided he'd play wingman. Couldn't help but want to hide as he tapped the girl on the shoulder and pointed in my direction.

Next, he forcibly dragged me by the collar over to the girl who was visibly not interested. Had a brief conversation along the lines of "Please excuse my drunk friend" and tried to walk away. At which point drunk 6'4 friend bearhugs me and implores me to not leave without getting more info. Mind you, bearhugging me in the middle of a dance floor.

"I appreciate the help, but you can let go of me. This probably isn't making me look any more attractive either."

--------------------

Majority of the time was spent at the rink. Those who care about that portion were most likely there with us.....but here's a recap in non-haiku form:

San Diego Sex Panthers 1, Orange County Snipers 0 - We had a slight advantage in shots throughout the game, but weren't able to get many good scoring opportunities. One of our D took a point shot which trickled through their goaltender and Julie hammered home the rebound for the lone goal of the game.



San Diego Sex Panthers 1, Orange County Fighting Irish 1 - We controlled the first half of the game, but the other games came on really strong to finish. On an early shift, I recovered the ball in the corner of the offensive zone and spotted Dorothy wide open in the slot. I rushed a pass which was approximately 150 feet off the mark. The next shift was redeeming though, as again Dorothy was open but my pass was much better and she roofed it to give us a 1-0 lead.



Missed a glorious opportunity late to extend the lead to two. On a dump in, their goalie went behind the net to play the ball but Joel beat him to it. Joel centered it to me in the slot and I tried to one time it into the vacated net.



But their goalie dove back and made the save since I didn't elevate the shot. In retrospect, I may have had time to pull the Top Gun "hit the brakes and he'll fly right by me" move instead of rushing a one timer. Hell, after looking at the still photo, it seems like I had to try to miss the gaping net. I'm gonna go throw up now.

Kevin made several huge saves to preserve the lead until we gave up a breakaway goal with 45 seconds left.

If we had held onto the win, we would have had the #1 seed going into the elimination bracket which would have been a nice ego boost. But the #1 seed also had to play at 3pm on Saturday. The #3 seed didn't have to play until 6pm, thus giving us extra time to enjoy Vegas. Derek then happily announced that his team (also from our league) ended up with the #6 seed seed.

"They're in direct competition! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!" -- Homer



San Diego Sex Panthers 2, San Diego Sun Gods 1 - If anything, this game was ripe for prop bets. The teams agreed (without mine or Derek's consent) that the losing captain had to do Edward Fortyhands at the post-tournament party. And since Julie and Dorothy (the only gals on our team) scored both our goals, there was a bet on whether or not a male player on our team would score.

Sun Gods came out a little more quickly than us......possibly since one of our defenders was still en route and Dorothy was still hungover. But we took advantage of an offensive zone draw. After a bit of cycling, we got the ball back to Isaac at the point who fired one on net. I did my best Ryan Smyth impersonation to screen Jimm and the shot found daylight.

We took a penalty and Derek redirected a shot up and over Kevin to tie the score. They had a slight majority in terms of shots for the rest of the game, but we took the lead on a dubious goal. It appeared as though one of our players kicked in the ball on a scramble around the crease. Unfortunately one ref had a bad vantage point and the other ref has 20:150 vision.

Kevin saved our bacon as Mikey stickhandled through two defenders (including myself, I'm still questioning why I took that angle) and fired a wrister from the slot with less than 10 seconds remaining. In their previous game, he scored the game winner on almost the exact same move. But this time, Kevin made the save with his mask and we hung onto the lead.



Barrie Blizzards 3, San Diego Sex Panthers 2 (shootout) - I took some flack in that the finals were at ~10pm and I rescheduled our team dinner reservations for 9:45pm. (Realistically the restaurant closed at 11pm and I didn't want to make a reservation for 11pm)

Although both Derek and I had pegged this Canadian team as the best in our pool. Mostly because they seemed to have the best individual skill up front. To my slight surprise, we took it to them early.

Jordan scored on a 2 on 1 during the first shift as we had a 1-0 lead after the first half. Unfortunately my line was out when they scored off a draw. We traded a few more chances until we recaptured the lead with a goal from Jeremy. Things were looking great, until one of their guys rushed in and picked a corner with a little over a minute left.

Overtime was mostly uneventful although we had a late power play. We headed to shootout and we were definitely not a team made for a shootout. Unfortunately for us, rules allowed the other team to cycle through their best three players. Since the skill level of our team didn't vary much at all, I was prepared to let everybody have a shot.



The gang made fun of me last year for not inserting myself in the shootout, so this time around I was the #2 shooter. I had practiced my move a little bit the week before (and beaten Nick pretty well with it).



The move working is predicated on either the goalie going for a pokecheck or moving side-to-side, either way opening up the five hole for a tap-in. Got the move off alright, but the 5-hole didn't seem wide open so I tried to pull it around his pad....but I didn't have enough touch and lost control.

We went six shooters deep on each side before the other guys squeaked one by Kevin. It was a little bit bitter to get ousted in shootout again. But at least we knew that we never trailed in the tournament until that point, and that the Barrie team won in the Finals as well.



Also played goalie on a Men's C/D team. Didn't have the highest of hopes though. It's hard enough finding instant chemistry when we've never played together unlike most of the other teams in these tournaments. It's especially tough when a significant portion of your team doesn't regularly play ball hockey.

We played a squad from New Jersey in our first game. I had remembered seeing their team mentioned in a previous newsletter in that they had won several "C" level tournaments before. As expected, they were more of a mid-level "B" team and beat us 3-1. Thought that was a moral victory at least.

After the game, I was walking past the guy who scored the first goal against us. I tried to compliment him on a great one timer. He just kinda grunted at me. Decided to keep walking instead of contuining the conversation with Mr. Personality.

As I was near the exit, their goalie chased me down and started asking me about the glove I was using since he was thinking about getting it as well. Had a brief, but highly cordial conversation. He then mentioned that he was from Canada and was just a mercenary for the weekend.

So that made some amount of sense to me. Standoff-ish guy from New Jersey. Gregarious guy from Canada.

It reminded me of the fine motion picture that was Baseketball, where each team was comprised of regional stereotypes. Couldn't help but chuckle every time I overheard "Yo Frankie, I'm open!"

And our team held up our end as well, since we were mostly Asian guys.

We finished up pool play with two shutout losses against Washington DC (4-0) and Orange County (1-0). We beat a team from Edmonton 2-0 before getting eliminated by an LA team 3-2 in overtime.



Highlight of the this tourney was finally being teammates with my younger cousin. Growing up, we played plenty of street/roller hockey but never in a team environment. His parents were nice enough to sign him up for roller hockey. Mine.......well, not so much.



Best jerseys of the tournament had to be the plaid clad coed team from Calgary. Also helped that they had three very attractive women. They were definitely of the girl next door variety. And during a game, the cutest of the bunch was talking shit to the ref.

I was mildly aroused.

Edit:

chris: way to get a shot ALL GUYS from that plaid team in vegas.
me: yeah i only got a couple photos of that team
me: figured it wasn't covert to take a photo of the hot one
me: when she was on the bench as i was walking out

--------------------

Had one irrational moment as I was playing blackjack with my cousin, Joel, Bob, and EK. I had dropped $100 and bought in for an another $100. Rode the usual wave and wasn't making any strides towards recovering my money. It was about 4am when I decided to bet my remaining $103. My warped mind was okay with going down $200 or breaking even.

Sitting in the first base seat, the dealer immediately gives me an Ace. My next card is a beautiful King. Ship it.

After this, I started placing $1 for everybody on this "Pair Plus" sucker bet. Basically, you get 10:1 if you get dealt a pair initially (15:1 if your pair is suited). On a four deck shoe, you're 13.86:1 to hit, but doing sucker bets is so much fun! And we hit an inordinate amount of times. The first hand Bob got dealt 10s. At worst, it made for a better vibe as we quit at 5am (after several "one last shoe" declarations).

Eventually had $150 profit going before walking away with $100.

Unfortunately I gave that $100 back the next night. D'oh. I wholeheartedly blame the losses on the pair of foreign guys who sat between me, Do', and EK. Even the dealer was imploring one of them to hit on a soft 16--he would have made 21 and saved the rest of us.

One sign of how much Vegas is hurting was that the Bellagio was spreading numerous $10 tables (and even one $5 table) during prime hours. In past years, I remember having to play $25 a hand there.

But at least I didn't blow that $100 on table service.



When I was looking at the NHL standings a few weeks ago, I couldn't help but notice there was a common trend between each of the teams currently at the bottom of the league. Each of these teams basically f'd up in varying degrees at the 2003 NHL Draft.



And like wine, some Draft Years are just better than others. The last entry in my ill advised eponymous site before starting this one was about the 2003 NHL Draft. Experts were calling this the best draft in the last 25 years. My pal almost convinced me to fly to Nashville for the Draft.

The general rule of thumb is that you can't properly judge draft picks until five years later. The amount of talent is still staggering to this day:

1. Pittsburgh - G Marc-Andre Fleury - Florida owned this pick originally after winning the Draft Lottery. But the Panthers figured they could drop a couple spots and get their guy. And for some reason Pittsburgh was paranoid about somebody else trading up and taking Fleury, so they sent Mikael Samuelsson to Florida to swap spots. No reason to regret this pick yet, although one could have made an argument to selecting a forward in a pre-Crosby, pre-Malkin world. And how awful was the 2003-04 Penguins roster?

2. Carolina - C Eric Staal - Staal was the closest thing to a consensus #1 overall pick. So far the only member of the 2003 Draft to register a 100 point season along with hoisting the Cup in 2006.

3. Florida - C/RW Nathan Horton - The Panthers had Horton rated #1 overall. While in the hockey purgatory that is Miami, Horton has quietly put together a pair of 60 point seasons.

4. Columbus - LW Nikolai Zherdev - Blue Jackets' then GM Doug MacLean was a little too proud to show the media that Columbus had Zherdev #1 on their list as well. After a handful of enigmatic seasons, Zherdev was traded to the Rangers last year where he continues to show periodic flashes of brilliance.

5. Buffalo - LW Thomas Vanek - The question mark about Vanek was a certain xenophobia about him being Austrian (this would cause Anze Kopitar to drop in 2005) despite him being in the US for several years. The scouting report of him being a pure goal scorer seem right on the mark.



6. San Jose - LW Milan Michalek - A year earlier, people were touted Michalek as the favorite to go #1. His stock waned slightly as he "fell" to sixth. A popular thought at the time was that San Jose would select Ryan Suter, nephew of former Shark Gary Suter.

7. Nashville - D Ryan Suter - The host team instead took Suter, who has since established himself as a solid defender.

8. Atlanta - D Braydon Coburn - One of the debates prior to the Draft was who'd go first between Suter and Coburn. Coburn didn't develop as quickly as some of his other '03 draftees, which caused Atlanta to channel its inner-Milbury and trade Coburn to Philadelphia for the Artist Formerly Known As Alexei Zhitnik.

9. Calgary - D Dion Phaneuf - In hindsight, most folks wonder why Phaneuf didn't go higher. His powerful shot and punishing hits were noted, but his 02-03 stats weren't jaw dropping. Calgary's GM Darryl Sutter did have a pretty good source when it came to scouting Phaneuf however. Namely Phaneuf's then coach, Brent Sutter. Sud-dah Brud-dahs.

10. Montreal - LW Andrei Kostistsyn - Termed by everybody as the wildcard in the Draft. One publication had him rated as the #1 overall prospect. While Kostistyn probably won't ever justify being the tenth guy picked in this draft, he isn't embarrassing the Canadiens either.

11. Philadelphia - C Jeff Carter - This one was considered a mild reach at the time. Up until last year, Carter showed flashes of his potential but was continually fighting for ice time behind the likes of Forsberg, Briere, and fellow '03 pick Mike Richards. The Flyers were set to trade him to Toronto until Tomas Kaberle refused to go to Philly. Almost immediately after the failed trade was made public, Carter went on a tear and now sits 3rd in goals scored.



12. New York Rangers - LW Hugh Jessiman - LoL Donkaments! In defense of the Rangers, most "experts" had Jessiman rated around this area. Then again, the Rangers' brass proudly declared they had Jessiman ranked 4th on their board. Jessiman had a bad comic book nickname "Huge Speciman" since he was 6'4 and yet to fill out. Unfortunately for New York, Jessiman never developed into anything and they traded him for future considerations prior to this season.

13. Los Angeles - RW Dustin Brown - Another scouting service had Brown ranked as the 2nd best available forward. The Kings' current captain and western New York state native might look pretty decent as a Ranger....

14. Chicago - D Brent Seabrook - Like Carter, this selection was a little bit off the map but the Blackhawks landed a perfectly acceptable solid defender.



15. New York Islanders - C Robert Nilsson - Things were looking up for the hapless Islanders. After being the laughingstock of the league, they qualified for the playoffs for two straight years at this point. And then they lucked out as consensus top 10 pick Zach Parise (son of former Islander J.P. Parise) fell into their laps at #15! But instead they opted for Nilsson who had just broken Markus Naslund's record for most points by a rookie in the Swedish Elite League. And I honestly was hoping Nilsson might drop to the Devils at #22. Unfortunately for the Islanders, they would trade Nilsson only a couple years later to rent Ryan Smyth for two months.

16. San Jose - RW Steve Bernier - While the TSN commentators were still going off on the Islanders bypassing Parise, the Sharks quietly traded up to #16 from #21 to snag Bernier--they had a second first rounder as a result of the Owen Nolan deal. The Sharks brass would later mention how they wanted to get a couple of power wingers from this Draft to flank Patrick Marleau. After showing flashes of exactly that, Bernier was passed on the depth chart and dealt twice in the last year. But at least they still have Joe Pavelski who was selected in the 7th round.



17. New Jersey - C/LW Zach Parise - Almost immediately after the Bernier selection, Gary Bettmann announced that the Stanley Cup champion Devils had traded up to #17. TSN's Pierre McGuire was giddy with joy, declaring that this move was exactly what championship caliber teams do. At this point, two guys had fallen in Parise and Ryan Getzlaf. I personally wanted Getzlaf if only because he sounded like Jason Arnott who the Devils had traded a year before. But the commentators were so sold on Parise, plus Devils GM Lou Lamoriello had the largest smirk on his face as if he had just robbed a bank and gotten away with it. His NHL career started off rocky, but after switching to left wing it's been mostly smooth sailing. Parise has a chance to be the 2nd member of this draft class to register a 100 point season.

18. Washington - LW Eric Fehr - His career thus far has been delayed/derailed by injuries although he is now finding traction on a stacked Capitals club. But just imagine how sick the Caps would be with.....

19. Anaheim - C Ryan Getzlaf - ....but instead the Ducks were the other beneficiaries of a "top 10" guy slipping and slipping.

20. Minnesota - D Brent Burns - This one was a huge surprise, although Bob McKenzie alluded to the Wild possibly going way off the board to select Burns moments before it happened. Burns had just recently converted to defense and Minnesota saw something that most teams didn't. Now the slick skating Burns stands an outside chance of making Canada's 2010 Olympic team.

21. Boston - D Mark Stuart - The B's traded out of a chance at Parise and Getzlaf to grab Stuart who was hailed as a steady, stay at home defenseman. I'm sure they wouldn't mind a redo on that decision, but at least they landed Patrice Bergeron in the 2nd round.

22. Edmonton - C Marc-Antoine Pouliot - It was amusing a few years ago when incredulous Oiler fans still maintained they "won" the Parise trade which netted them Pouliot and J.F. Jacques. The Oilers braintrust wanted a bigger center (so why didn't they just draft Getzlaf?) so they happily drafted the 6'2 Pouliot who may finally crack the vaunted ten goal barrier this year.

23. Vancouver - C Ryan Kesler - Seems to have been accurately depicted as a good checking line center with some offensive skill. I remember seeing footage of their staff debating between Kesler and then assistant-GM Steve Tambellini's son Jeff. At least they made the right call between those two.

24. Philadelphia - C Mike Richards - Another one in hindsight were it seems like a no brainer that he should have gone higher.

25. Florida - RW Anthony Stewart - Tampa traded out of this spot as several teams were after Stewart. He was expected to go higher but there were concerns about his skating which have proven to be justified. The Panthers tried to get creative later, attempting to draft Alex Ovechkin four times during this draft. Ovechkin was two days too young to be eligible, but Florida tried to argue that the CBA defined a year as 365 days and thus if you counted leap days.....Ovechkin would be eligible.



26. Los Angeles - C Brian Boyle - Going into the Draft, Kings fans rejoiced that they had three first round picks, including numbers 26 and 27. The draft was deep that everybody expected the Kings to walk away with three impact players. But with this pick, they selected the mammoth 6'7 Boyle who has yet to earn a regular NHL spot.

27. Los Angeles - LW Jeff Tambellini - Coming off a point per game freshman year at the University of Michigan, Tambellini seemed poised to be like Jeff Friesen in his prime. Unfortunately he's played like Jeff Friesen past his prime. The Kings traded him prematurely to the Islanders, but Tambellini hasn't become a consistent scorer at the NHL level. And to rub the proverbial salt in the wound of the last two picks....

28. Anaheim - RW Corey Perry - ....crosstown rival Anaheim traded up to nab Perry. Dallas traded out of this spot, but still landed Loui Eriksson with one of the picks they acquired. Did you know Eriksson is on pace for 39 goals this season? 'Cuz I didn't.

29. Ottawa - RW Patrick Eaves - Was supposed to be a solid 2nd liner, but has been slowed by concussions. Traded last year to Carolina where he's still struggling.

30. St. Louis - D Shawn Belle - In 1999, the NHL found the Blues guilty of tampering with Scott Stevens way back in 1994. As part of the settlement, the Devils were allowed to swap first round draft picks once with the Blues between 1999 and 2003. Always felt like that was a weird punishment since the ownership/management in 1999 had nothing to do with the tampering in 1994. So the Blues fell back eight spots and drafted Belle who had the reputation of being a graceful skater but a mediocre hockey player. They'd trade him a year later. But the Devils also sent Mike Danton to the Blues at the Draft. Danton would give St. Louis a solid year before being arrested for trying to hire a hitman to kill his agent.

The second round was also littered with an unusual amount of talent. Along with Eriksson and Bergeron (45th overall), other impact 2nd rounders include: Matt Carle (47th) Shea Weber (48th), Patrick O'Sullivan (56th), and David Backes (62nd).

And in writing this, I could help but notice a correlation. If you look at the bottom of the standings, one common trend seems to be that each of those teams missed out on the smogasbord that was the 2003 NHL Draft:

Islanders - What if they had Parise?

Lightning - Traded down and netted next to nothing.

Thrashers - Prematurely dealt Coburn and dealt their 2nd rounder for Ivan Majesky who'd play one year for the team.

Avalanche - Sacrificed a chunk of their future to win a Cup with Rob Blake.

Senators - Traded Eaves in a package to rent Cory Stillman and Mike Commodore for a few months.

Coyotes - Traded their first two picks for Daymond Langkow and Brad Ference. Gretzky would later lament to Patrick O'Sullivan dropped that he would have gladly selected him, had the Coyotes possessed a draft pick.

Maple Leafs - Maybe they could have found use for Brad Boyes and Mike Richards instead of an aging Owen Nolan.

Kings - Along with blowing picks on Boyle/Tambellini, they'd also draft Konstantin Pushkarev right before Bergeron/Weber were selected.

Blues - Traded Belle at the 2004 Draft for goalie Jason Bacashihua who never caught on with the team.

It's not completely foolproof, as the Caps/Wings/Rangers also had disappointing picks but have remained competitive throughout the years. But it doesn't seem like a total coincidence to see these teams at the bottom when it typically takes 5-6 years for a player to hit his stride.

--------------------

1)

x=a-y or x=y+b
y=a-x or y=x-b

x=a-(x-b); x = 1/2(a+b)
y=a-(y+b); y = 1/2(a-b)

2xy=2[ (1/2)(a+b)*(1/2)(a-b) ]

2xy = (1/2)(a^2-b^2)

2)

Solving for Distance d:

d = x*t(x) where t(x) = time running
d = y*t(y) where t(y) = time walking

t(x)+t(y)=t

t(x) = d/x
t(y) = d/y

(d/x)+(d/y)=t

(dx+dy)/xy = t

dx+dy = xyt

d(x+y) = xyt

d = (xyt)/(x+y)

Is it sad when watching the Devils is more like Christmas than Christmas is? I was super excited the night before and almost left milk and cookies by the fireplace.

Back when the NHL schedule came out in July, I emailed various folk to see if they wanted to go to the game. I thought I was lucky in that the game was on a Saturday as I skipped the last Devils/Kings game which was on a Monday. But I also realized at the time that it coincided with the 2nd week of the NFL playoffs and that I fully expected the Chargers to be playing. So there'd be a 50/50 chance that there would be a Chargers game that same Saturday.

So unlike in previous years when I'd buy tickets as soon as they went on sale, I waited to see how the Chargers would do. After they were 4-8 and needed a miracle to get into the playoffs, I felt pretty safe in getting tickets.

But sure enough, they made the playoffs and won their opening round game against Indianapolis. But the scheduling Gods were on my side as the Chargers game was set for Sunday thereby allowing maximum nerdiness.

Going to Staples Center quickly reminded me of why I kinda stopped going there and instead have watched more games at the Honda Center in recent years. Just the amount of driving in comparison to time actually spent in the arena doesn't feel very efficient.

The game was halfway over and I kept thinking "It feels like I just got here." Devils won handily 5-1, similar to the first Devils/Kings game I went to (more on that later). After I told my Kings' friends before the game that the typical New Jersey game is typically decided at even strength, the Devils scored three power play goals.



The first goal was directly off the faceoff and you couldn't even tell in real time that Travis Zajac tipped in the Jamie Langenbrunner point shot. When I got home, I watched the DVR replay....I was highly amused that when the goal happened, it was splitscreened with the Kings' obligatory female reporter interviewing a Playboy Playmate. You could tell Kings' play-by-play announcer Bob Miller was a bit annoyed when they cut back to him.



The nice thing with the $11.50 promotion was that the arena was full. The ambiance gets killed when it's a bunch of empty seats (insert 2009 San Diego Padres joke here). And even though we were sitting in the yuppy section, it seemed like most of the people around us were legitimate fans.

As usual, I couldn't help but mention random tidbits about certain players:

"#12 on the Devils is playing in his 1000th NHL game tonight."

"Kurt knows a girl that used to do #9's math homework in high school."

"#26 on the Devils almost died from Hepatitis that he got from eating bad fish in Russia."

"#12 on the Kings has a restraining order against his Dad."

One sequence at the end of the game which I highly enjoyed was the one boisterous fan sitting in front of me standing and cheering loudly when Matt Greene got a big open ice hit on Zach Parise. Unfortunately Greene totally put himself out of position and the Devils scored on the subsequent two on one. Causing me to stand and cheer loudly. The other guy proceeded to leave.

Nothing says Valentine's Day like Devils/Sharks. (It's an NBC game, would they actually show Avs/Wings or Flyers/Rangers instead?)

--------------------------

Bear with me, I was curious and wanted to catalog every Kings game I've attended.....not realizing I've been to at least 20. The really sad thing? I still have ZERO idea how to get to Staples Center without looking it up.

But since it's almost been ten years since my first game....couple games per year, that makes sense. I'm still mildly amazed that most of these games were from when I was in college......back when I shouldn't have had the money or the time.

For the record, I had to look up the dates and in many cases the final score.

Day - Visiting Team (Person(s) Who Accompanied Me) - Musings



10/20/99 - Boston (OJ) - This was my first NHL game. My previous attempts had been thwarted by my Dad who once opined that I'd get shot by gang members if I showed up to the Great Western Forum wearing the opposing jersey.

This game happened to be the first sporting event at Staples Center. The Kings christened the new building with a forgettable tie against the Ray Bourque led Bruins. While writing this, I initially thought the the Kings lost this game, but then I looked it up. I guess paying money to see a tie almost feels like a loss.

Only other notable memory from this game was running into my friend while trying to get into the building. I suppose being the jackass wearing a Red Devils' jersey made me stand out. Oh the days when I only had that one jersey.



1/23/00 - Colorado (OJ, Chris, Niki) - A couple months prior to this, I had sold a Transformer toy on eBay for $700. My Dad wanted the money since he was correct to assume I'd waste it on something frivolous. So I did the natural thing and told him I sold it for $300 and pocketed the remaining $400.

Used a portion of that to go to this game. The unnecessarily difficult thing about this game was that I agreed to pick up my UCSD friend in LA to bring to the game and subsequently back to campus--she had gone up for some party but didn't have transportation.

To make a long story short, she didn't have an exact idea of where she was aside that she was on Verdugo Street. We then learned that there is a Verdugo Street and a Verdugo Blvd in close proximity in Burbank.

And I'm ashamed to admit that I wore a Peter Forsberg jersey to that game. Why did I own that jersey? A: Because I got it cheap on eBay.



4/19/00 - Detroit (OJ) - Game 4 of the opening round of the playoffs and the Red Wings unceremoniously swept the Kings and won this game 3-0. This was the game where I learned the difference between a regular season crowd and a playoff crowd. Fights broke out....between Kings fans.



11/23/00 - New Jersey (OJ) - What a sweet, sweet game. First off, it was Thanksgiving night.....you know, when most people have dinner with the family. Not me and surprisingly my parents weren't mad. Also scored cheap lower bowl seats on eBay since people couldn't make this game.

Mathieu Schneider scored to give the Kings a 1-0 lead. The defending champion Devils scored the next six. Jason Arnott (center of the pic) and Scott Niedermayer held out for the first 20 some odd games and they signed three days before this one.



12/16/00 - Tampa Bay (Brad, Shannon, Brian) - Tampa jumped to a quick lead and held on for a 4-3 win. My one clairevoyant moment was telling everybody how the lowly Lightning would be pretty good in three to four years.

1/13/01 - St. Louis (Aaron, Ning, Niki) - Normal guys would bring one cute gal to a game, but I got greedy and brought two. I likely scared off both of them in that Aaron and I talked hockey throughout the three hour drive up and the three hour drive back.

Smooth.

Game itself stunk as the Blues cruised to a 4-2 win.

2/10/01 - Washington (Brian, Brad?, Armin?) -- Our friend Brian was going to graduate a year early and work in Washington DC. So he decided to become a Caps fan.

Washington won 4-3, this being in the midst of the painful Jamie Storr era. If I recall correctly, he spotted Washington a 3-0 lead and the Kings battled back to make it 3-2. Then Storr proceeded to let in a soft goal with less than a minute left in the second period. The immortal Steve Passmore replaced him to start the third.

There was the "I have to scream everything, all the time" guy behind us which was driving Brian crazy. During the third, he started screaming "PUT IN PASSMORE!!!!! PUT IN PASSMORE!!!!!" I turned around and told him "They already did.....god damn." Thankfully he was pretty quiet from that point forward.

3/26/01 - San Jose (Aaron) - I think this was the game which signaled the end of ever going to LA for a regular season weekday game. Despite leaving San Diego at 4pm, we missed half of the first period.

This might have been the worst game I've ever seen live. 0-0 tie.



Although I forget if this was the "Craig Johnson" game. The Kings used to a run a promotion where if a randomly selected player scored in the second period, everybody in the crowd could redeem their ticket for a free McFlurry.

"And your McFlurry player is........Craig Johnson." -- public address announcer
(entire arena groans)

Still one of the funniest things ever. Johnson was a defensive forward not known for scoring. Sure enough, he got a breakaway that period and.....missed.

4/15/01 - Detroit (Mary) - Mary was a Kings fan who I'd torment throughout high school when LA was a mess of a team. Still remember winning a bet and her having to wear my Brodeur jersey at school for a day.

It was Easter Sunday and the game had a peculiar 8:30pm start; I think the Lakers played a daytime game. It was game 3 against the Red Wings and Detroit was up 2 games to none, looking to sweep the Kings for the 2nd straight year. A late third period goal from Mathieu Schneider gave the Kings a 2-1 win.



4/18/01 - Detroit (Chris) - Shortly after I had gotten tickets for Game 3, Chris told me he got seats for Game 4. This was the "Frenzy on Figueroa" game where the Wings blew a 3-0 lead with six minutes left in the third period. Eric Belanger would score early in OT to tie the series and the Kings would win the next two games to eliminate Detroit. The video never gets old.

5/6/01 - Colorado (N/A) - I ended up not going to this game because I had to study or something. But I still enjoy the Ticketmaster snafu in purchasing these tickets.

Brad had left me his credit card since he was in class when tickets went on sale at 10am. I tried to order four tickets, but the Ticketmaster screen seemingly timed out. So I started over and this order got processed. Later I jumped in the shower when Brad got home and discovered I inadvertantly purchased eight tickets. I can't adequately describe how mad he was as he was screaming me at me while I was still in the shower.

The next thought was to eBay the seats as the game had sold out and other people were turning a nice profit. We were thinking this was a blessing in disguise since we might make enough to go to the game for free. Unfortunately by the time we put our extra seats on auction, the Avs jumped to a 3-1 series lead thereby killing demand. Fortunately the Kings won game 5 and a classmate of mine agreed to buy our extra seats at face value.
As for game 6, I remember being in the room studying while listening to the game. Kings won 1-0 in overtime as Glen Murray flung a seemingly benign shot on net which handcuffed Patrick Roy.

9/15/01 - Anaheim (Justin A, Chris R, Justin H) - I had bought eight tickets to throw a de facto birthday party. The one thing I hated about having a mid-September birthday while in college was that most of my Saugus friends had left for school but none of my UCSD friends had come back.

Unfortunately 9/11 happened and everybody was still shellshocked. Half my friends canceled, in particular one friend sayid her Dad wouldn't let her go anywhere that might conceivably be a terrorist target. I suppose that excuse was slightly more realistic than my Dad being fearful of me being gunned down by a gang member in a Kelly Hrudey jersey.

I vaguely recall the Ducks winning like 3-2. Being that it was preseason, I'm usually more interested in seeing the young players who might crack the roster. I was most curious to see Alexander Frolov's debut as he was the hugely hyped but mysterious prospect at the time. He was awarded a penalty shot in this game but didn't convert.

4/27/02 - Colorado (Brad, Brian, Armin) - First two quarters of Senior year of college were extremely hectic, so I don't recall catching any other games. Plus I think we had decided to save our limited funds for the playoffs.

Much like the previous year, the Avs jumped to a 3-1 series lead and the Kings won game 5. In game 6, the Kings won 3-1 to force a game 7. My one indelible memory of that game was when the Avs scored late to make it 3-1, this Avs fan jumped out of his seat, turned to the rest of the section, and angrily announced "THAT'S ONE!"

Everybody else just kinda look puzzled....like was he the Count from Sesame Street? Colorado wouldn't get any closer thereby sparing us from "THAT'S TWO!" and presumably "THAT'S THREE!"



12/19/02 - Anaheim (Lam) - My cousin grew up a Ducks' fan thanks to Paul Kariya. The only thing distinctive about this game was having lower bowl seats and wearing Santa hats. The hats made it easy to spot us when we rewatched the game later, plus it gave us a novelty item to throw in case somebody scored a hat trick.

1/25/03 - New Jersey (Lam) - My memory seemed to have conveniently blocked out this game. I recall going the previous night to see the Devils beat the Ducks 3-1.....if only because Aaron got pulled over on our way back to SD. Since he got pulled over in Orange County, he had to do traffic school in Orange County.......and I forever drive 65 mph whenever I'm near Capistrano.

Anyways, re-reading the article quickly jogged my memory as I now remember where I was sitting. Ziggy Palffy wripped a wrist shot that beat Brodeur glove side in OT. Still remember drunk Kings' fan getting in my face after the game. "DEVILS SUCK!!!!!"

Five months later: Stanley Cup, biatch.

Also in this game was a minor, but cool trick. Sergei Brylin got hit and he lost his stick which slid towards Tommy Albelin. Albelin then passed Brylin's stick like a puck....and Brylin caught his stick in stride. The entire crowd gave an "Ooooooooh." You probably had to be there to appreciate it. Actually, I haven't seen this again maybe because I think it's actually a penalty to shoot an errant stick like that....



1/13/03 - San Jose (Aaron) - We bought our seats off this guy on eBay who had the two seats next to us. He chose to bring his adorable nephew who was decked out in a Kings jersey. If only my childhood was like this.......

But other than that, I had no idea how this game ended. I thought I could narrow down the date since our seats were right behind the Sharks bench I distinctly remember the ugly defensive pairing of (*shudder* and future Devils) Dan McGillis and Jim Fahey. McGillis was traded to the Sharks in December of '02 and then dealt to Boston in March of '03. But alas the Kings hosted San Jose three times in that span and I have no recollection of how the game ended.
But in going through photos from this game, there's a "MON 4, CGY 2" on the out of town scoreboard which helped me pinpoint the exact date. Jason Allison apparently scored the game winner in overtime beating rookie Miikka Kiprusoff.



11/25/03 - New Jersey (Dad) - Had Premier Seats for this one and front row seats for the Ducks game the next night. Brought my Dad to his first hockey game.....which he seemed to enjoy while wearing my Kings' Deadmarsh jersey. Devils won handily 4-0 as the Kings were missing their entire top line of Deadmarsh-Allison-Palffy.


The next night was a 3-3 tie in a Stanley Cup Finals rematch against the Ducks. All I got with these glass seats is an awful photo of Vinny Prospal celebrating, with me 80% cropped out with my cousin celebrating while wearing one of the many awful Anaheim 3rd jerseys.

9/17/05 - Anaheim (lot of folks) - Our floor hockey group had been planning the annual Frozen Fury trip to watch the Kings/Avalanche in Vegas. I spotted a deal where if you ordered a ticket for Frozen Fury, they'd toss in a free ticket to this preseason game.

This was another de facto birthday thing for me, so I got a handful of folks to go that normally wouldn't come. One of those was one of Kurt's college roommates who we picked up in Orange County. Unfortunately for him, his wedding was in a few months and his fiance decided to call it off literally the night before. So the rest of the car was treated to a very awkward thirty minute phone call between him and her dad. (The wedding was eventually canceled)

Also at this game was the only time I ever met my friend Rob in person. We had both been in a competitive Fantasy Hockey league since 2000 where both of us were typically #1 or #2 and we got to be good pals. I sent him extra goalie gear for his kids to use and he helped me out when I had been mail frauded by some guy in Buffalo. Unfortunately he died in a boating accident several months after this.

On a less grim note, this was also the Travis stalker game. The Monday after this game, I logged onto the Kings' fan site where I had purchased the tickets. I notice one post being like "Who was that cute guy in Section 216, Row 7, seat 14?" I pull out my ticket stub and sure enough it's exactly that seat. But since we had twenty concurrent seats, I didn't actually sit in that one.

"Lame, she's probably is looking for Travis."



Just to play along, I posted the group photo to confirm to the gal I knew who she spotted. Probably not the smartest thing to do on a public forum as other posters commented "Well, it's obviously not the Asian guy" as they were trying to deduce who she was trying to find.

Unfortunately, since that section was more or less reserved for people that had purchased Frozen Fury tickets from the site, the girl (and her cohorts) knew we'd be in Vegas the following weekend. And the site only had a couple sections in Vegas, so they kinda knew where to find us.

They would later tell me they found Trav, but only by looking for me first. I guess an Asian guy at a hockey game sticks out like a sore thumb. Wish there was some other wild story to tack on, but Trav just took a photo with the now very embarrassed girl at the behest of her friends.

12/10/05 - Florida (Kurt) - Scored some nice seats courtesy of Steve S. The Kings dominated the lowly Panthers for a 3-1 win. Nothing else notable other than running into the stalker girls again.....and they still recognized me.



12/17/05 - Phoenix (OJ) - My only time in a luxury box as OJ got a couple seats through his work. Kings won 4-1, I had a hot dog, and there was much rejoicing.

1/7/06 - San Jose (lots of folks) - I recalled absolutely nothing from this game from a hockey standpoint. I did remember telling Shira that I had heard "Chinese Democracy" would be released shortly. Oops.

According to an old blog entry, the Sharks won 3-2 in OT after tying the game in the waning moments of regulation.

---------------------

Last year's Celebrity Death Pool: 1 death, 366 days
This year's Celebrity Death Pool: 2 deaths, 2 days

---------------------

Time Warner crapped out and only a handful of channels were coming in tonight. So I caught the end of Jeopardy and saw some of the strangest and seemingly illogical wagers ever. Unless they've changed the rules recently and non-winners get to take home their final cash amounts.

Contestant 1: $11,200
Contestant 2: $10,400
Contestant 3: $12,400

Those are the totals going into the final clue of Double Jeopardy which happens to be a Daily Double to Contestant 3. To me, the main strategy here would be to maintain the lead in the case you got this question wrong. So a wager of up to $1,200 would make sense if you're playing conservative or if it's in a category you're not confident in. But if it happens to be a category you're feeling confident in, then it's understandable to make a sizeable bet. I almost think the amount to wager is independent to the category in this case.

The guy proceeds to bet $1,600. What is the upside to that bet?!? You get it right and you don't open up that big a lead. You still have to wager a large amount to protect against 2nd place undoubtedly betting everything in Final Jeopardy.

And the downside......you give up the lead?!? The guy proceeds to get it wrong, so heading into Final Jeopardy:

Contestant 1: $11,200
Contestant 2: $10,400
Contestant 3: $10,800

Logically to me, Contestant 1 has to wager at least $10,401 to protect against Contestant 3 doubling up. Contestant 3 has to hope Contestant 1 misses in any case, but also has to protect against Contestant 2 from doubling up. So a wager of at least $10,001.

Contestant 2 has the most freedom as she knows what both guys have to wager. She's at the mercy in that she likely needs both guys to get it wrong or for both to miscalculate their bets. As long as I'm not playing for the parting gifts, I'm either wagering $1 or $10,000 here depending on how I feel about the category.

The category was something about royalty. They reveal the answers in reverse order, so Contestant 2 gets to go first. She answers correctly and her wager is $5,600. I wasn't quite following the logic on that bet. If she backdoors the victory by everybody missing, she's either getting $4,800 or $16,000 depending on her getting it right. But like I said, she had the most freedom.

They reveal Contestant 3's response and he gets it correct. But then he wagered $4,200 for a final total of $15,000. Where the hell did $4,200 come from? I figure he wasn't feeling very confident in the category, but you PLAY TO WIN THE GAME. If he made the proper $10,001 wager he'd be be in the lead with $20,801.

Contestant 1 (defending champion) is the only one that makes a logical wager ($10,500) but he answers incorrectly dropping him to third place. So Contestant 2 wins despite making an odd wager and Contestant 3 loses by screwing up not once, but twice in a row on bet amounts.



Old and busted: Candy and Flowers
New Hotness: Figure Four Leglock

Another year and I all I have to show for it is these good looks.



I hate myself. I was subbing for ice hockey and a fight broke out. A third guy jumped in, then a fourth. Before you knew it, all ten guys on the ice were paired off with equipment everywhere. The refs had their hands full pulling apart the players. The recipe was there for me to fight the opposing goaltender.

I looked down to the other end of the ice, but didn't have the heart to skate his way. The refs took like ten minutes to sort out the penalties, since fighting is an automatic one game suspension. I ended up talking to the other goalie and he was a pretty cool guy (outside of being a Broncos fan). It's too bad I didn't know him beforehand, else we could have "fought" for comedy's sake.

Earlier in the game, we were killing a penalty and an opposing player did the "Avery" to me. Seemed a bit childish, then again he was sporting "666" as a jersey number. I believe his girlfriend was also awkwardly heckling us. "I'm gonna take a picture of you losers" she screamed. So I did the natural thing and posed with a real big smile while waving.

Gradually breaking in my new pads, this was my first game using separate knee pads while taking off the attached thighboard. Definitely felt better, although I tweaked my groin while running a few weeks back and it doesn't seem to have gotten any better.

Made a Brodeur on Hull save (gotta love Pandolfo water skiing on Modano and not getting called for hooking), although it would have been entirely preventable if I hadn't left an ugly rebound in the first place.



I was having dinner on Black Friday with my cousin and explained why the 4-7 Chargers had a legitimate shot at winning the AFC West. I told him that all that had to happen was the Chargers going 3-1 while the Broncos went 2-2, which would set up a winner take all season finale. I theorized that the Chargers would beat Atlanta, Oakland, and KC while losing on the road against Tampa. Whereas the Broncos would likely lose on the road against the then 8-3 Jets (who had just handed Tennessee their first loss) and on the road against Carolina.

A few days later, the Chargers could lay a turd against Atlanta while Denver had a convincing win in New York. "Likely" suddenly became "well, the Chargers are at least mathematically alive."

Mix in a miracle finish against KC while Denver dropped one at home to Buffalo....and the basic scenario I told my cousin happened.



The Broncos had an insane number (7) of injured running backs which couldn't help but remind me of when they drafted Maurice Clarett with a late third round pick in 2005. Clarett hadn't played football in a year due to NCAA violations and looked terrible at the NFL Draft Combine. Denver took a chance on him based on his stellar freshman year at Ohio State, but ended up cutting him a month after signing a four year contract.

The Chargers picked Darren Sproles 29 picks after that. Meanwhile the next two running backs selected after Clarett were Marion Barber and Brandon Jacobs.



Forgot I had this.

--------------------------

In 7th grade, we were divided into "teams" which was basically a euphemism for keeping the smart kids away from the troublemakers. "Hart" was the natural landing spot for the nerds, "Pals" was for the performing arts kids, "Search" had a supposed emphasis on computers, and "Explorers" was generally all the dumb kids and wannabe gang members.

Chris, myself, and a handful of other reasonably smart kids landed in Explorers. You had to "apply" to be placed on a team after 6th grade. Being that I liked computers, I applied for Search and later received a pamphlet informing me I had been accepted. I show up first day at junior high and I'm instead an Explorer.

The one time I got called to the principal's office was when the cops were looking for a classmate of mine and the school happened to have our yearbook photos mixed up. I still remember the confused "You don't look like a Pedro" look on their faces.

In the past, I jokingly remarked that I assumed many of my Explorer-mates are either dead or in prison.

Unfortunately that joke might be closer to reality as a former classmate is being accused of being a serial rapist. Chris alerted me of the story and immediately asked if this was the guy we used to make fun of in 7th grade PE.

We dug out our yearbooks and sure enough it was. Don't remember much about the guy aside from him not knowing the rules for various sports. Still recall having this conversation:

"You know a shot in basketball is called a field goal right?" -- me being a smartass
"No it isn't, I'm not stupid." -- him....not knowing basketball terminology

--------------------------

Last week, we conducted our annual Celebrity Death Pool for the calendar year of 2009. Things actually went pretty smoothly as everybody did research, unlike last year when we mostly shot from the hip.

Guang had several obscure picks--in terms of their celebrity status--like the oldest living Munchkin from the Wizard of Oz.



Chris not being able to stay for the entire draft, and instead agreeing to have the remaining twenty members of the original nWo. The nWo has been a rather fertile breeding ground for this sort of thing: Miss Elizabeth (2003), Curt Hennig (2003), Rick Rude (1999), Big Boss Man (2004), Crush (2007), and Louis Spicolli (1998).

I used a pick on Jake "The Snake" Roberts again this year. There's a movie that's been getting fairly good reviews called The Wrestler which is based on the recurring stories of pro wrestlers being addicted to painkillers, alcohol, steroids, etc in order to maintain their lives.



Another friend selected venerable car dealership owner Cal Worthington which spawned the greatest slow clap I've ever participated in.

Doing the Draft in mid-December left a small chance that somebody might die before 2009 even started. Basically the debate was whether the points should count or if that person would get a compensatory selection, but we decided "Tough luck." But this seemed a remote possibility as we were collective 1 for 125 in all of 2008, what are the chances of somebody dying in the next 12 days.

Sure enough, it happened. At least in future years, we can refer to "Harold Pinter" rule.

--------------------------

Prior to the Draft, we did a gift exchange. I'm not sure what it says about me, but I received two copies of The Love Guru along with 3 Ninjas - High Noon on Mega Mountain.

Personal highlight of the gift exchange was pulling off "Dick in a Box" on somebody. After I gave everybody else their gifts, I casually mention "Oops, Danette, I left your present upstairs." At which point I cranked "Dick in a Box" and became one with the box.



"I'm not opening that." -- Danette

After some amount of coercing, she finally opened to find my junk a Russell Martin jersey shirt. I had the previous night trying to figure out how to affix the box to my crotch. Attempts to rig a belt or use tape proved to be unsuccessful. Then I found my Swiffer duster which extends and bends at a right angle. Stuff that down my pants, insert into box, and voila!

And in case you haven't seen it, definitely check out the followup to "Dick in a Box": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pXfHLUlZf4&feature=related (also available in HD)



The Devils are playing the Kings in a couple weeks and I decided to splurge and get Premier seats. Basically had the same ones when I last saw the Devils vs LA in 2003. Ended up paying about $60/ticket on eBay, which was pretty good considering seats in the upper deck were $45 (and decent lower bowl seats were $110) after Ticketmaster charges. A few days after I won the auction, the Kings announced a promotion where all tickets for January home games are $11.50 (~$19 after surcharges). This angered me to no end.

But at least a handful of other friends have decided to join me and scored Premier Seats as well. These yuppy seats are usually sold for $20,000 per which includes all Lakers, Clippers, Kings, Sparks, and...Avengers game. So usually these are bought up by companies and given to clients, so you tend to get people in those sections that could care less about the game.

These seats also provide access to a private restaurant, since it's not a hockey game unless I get some lobster.

--------------------------

Christmas Eve was productive. Drove Yvonne up to her uncle's in Cerritos and made a pit stop at the Carlsbad Outlet mall where I bought a suit at Banana Republic for $135. All these years I was wearing one of my Dad's old suits. Being that I'm three inches taller and 25 pounds heavier, I was probably due for a suit of my own.

Got to Cerritos where I had one of the most eclectic meals ever. First course was a roasted turkey followed by a plate of sashimi followed by catfish. This along with side dishes of cabbage, tofu, and other things which I could not identify.

After that, I dropped by Christie's parents' place in Placentia. Christie gave me some crap for not greeting her parents with the proper Vietnamese "Chào bà/chú".....as if "Heyyyy, how's it going?" isn't formal enough.



Had dinner with Christie earlier in the week in SD and we dropped by the local Mervyn's. It was quite a sad sight to see the place barren even though I never willingly shopped there. Growing up in Saugus, we didn't have a local mall until like 1992. So during elementary school, any time I needed clothes my Mom would drag me to Mervyn's.

Christie's Mom wondered when the last time I was at their house (it was 2000) and I remembered being there in 1999. Why 1999? Because Christie's little brother had just seen Wild Wild West in the theater. I really don't know why that stuck around the memory banks.

Concluded the day at my sister's place, just in time to read my niece a bedtime story. I did not know that Blue from Blue's Clues was a girl dog.

--------------------------

Christmas with the family was alright. I've gotten jaded over the years since my parents simply don't try to give me a thoughtful gift. This year, I had a little bit of fun with theirs:



"What am I supposed to do with this?" -- Dad
"PLAY CATCH, LIKE WE NEVER DID WHEN I WAS YOUNGER!" -- me, putting my baseball glove on

This exchange drew a nice amount of laughter from my sister's friends. My dad proceeded to put the glove on the wrong hand, leading to the easy "No wonder we never played catch, you don't even know which hand it goes on."

Since I was exorcising some childhood demons with my Dad's gift, I thought it was appropriate to do something similar with my Mom's. In like sixth grade, everybody had to build a pyramid. I was never great at arts and crafts, so I made a pretty terrible one. My Mom told me point blank that it was terrible, made one herself, and made me turn that in. I had it in my closet for years and I always hated how it represented "you're not good enough."

(On a side note, that pyramid assignment was bullshit. One girl shows up with this huge wooden pyramid which opens up to show several rooms along with an Indiana Jones-esque boulder which rolls down when somebody enters the throne room. I only had construction paper. What the fuck?)

Sometime in high school, I was upset with my Mom over something and I decided to take it out on the pyramid. Took it out of my closet and stomped on it Office Space style. I remembered my Mom brought this up in conversation a few years back, as if it still bugged her that I destroyed it because she made it with her best intentions.



So my primary gift to my Mom was a Barnes and Noble gift card, but I made a pyramid to house it. Sadly, my arts and crafts skills have not progressed in the last seventeen years.

Although I was highly amused that I had to apply the Pythagorean Theorem at midnight to construct this thing. x = √(900-225) ~ 26.5. I was working with a finite amount of paper, so I had to be precise!

Didn't engender quite the same response as my Dad/baseball glove, but it was amusing to me nonetheless.



It almost killed me, but I think I've finished the damn Muppet CDs. Thanks to the numerous folks who helped me gather/select songs. I also stumbled on a nice program which downloads YouTube videos and can convert them to several different file types including mp3.

I just hate myself for buying CD-Rs instead of CD-RWs because I keep running into new songs that I feel like I need to add, thereby requiring a new CD burned along with a new label. (Edit: Happened again after the original posting of this entry)

The most eerie one happened on the drive to my sister's on Christmas Eve. I was lamenting that I couldn't find a logical spot for a Jimmy Eat World song since that's one of the recipient's favorite bands. And literally three seconds later on KROQ, they play a Jimmy Eat World cover of Wham's "Last Christmas." Good god, Christmas song and it can fit on the Gonzo or Bunsen/Beaker CDs.

Anyways, here's the final *knock on wood* track listing:

Kermit
--------
1. Kermit - Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
2. Michael Jackson - Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough
3. Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up
4. New Kids On The Block - Step by Step
5. Color Me Badd - All 4 Love
6. Milli Vanilli - Girl You Know It's True
7. Boyz II Men - Motownphilly
8. The Pixies - Here Comes Your Man
9. The Proclaimers - I'm Gonna Be
10. Travis - Happy
11. Beck - Guero
12. Beastie Boys - Ch-Check It Out

Miss Piggy
----------
1. Miss Piggy - The Christmas Queen
2. Belinda Carlisle - Heaven Is A Place On Earth
3. Madonna - Into the Groove
4. Paula Abdul - Opposite Attract
5. Mariah Carey - Someday
6. Britney Spears - I'm a Slave 4 U
7. Fergie - Fergalicious
8. Rockell - In a Dream
9. Bjork - Human Behavior
10. Kelly Clarkson - Since U Been Gone
11. Natalie Imbruglia - Torn
12. Lisa Loeb - Stay

Fozzie
----------
1. Fozzie - North Pole Comedy Club
2. The Simpsons - See My Vest
3. Mitch Hedberg - The CD Jokes
4. Sarah Silverman - I'm F*cking Matt Damon
5. Jimmy Kimmel - I'm F*cking Ben Affleck
6. Team America - End of an Act
7. Stephen Lynch - If I Were Gay
8. Demetri Martin - The Jokes With Guitar
9. Chris Rock - No Sex In The Champagne Room
10. Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake - Dick In A Box
11. Weird Al - White and Nerdy
12. Monty Python - Camelot

Janice
----------
1. Garbage - Push It
2. Luscious Jackson - Alien Lover
3. Elastica - Never Here
4. Veruca Salt - Seether
5. Hole - Miss World
6. Alanis Morissette - You Oughta Know
7. No Doubt - Happy Now
8. Liz Phair - Fuck and Run
9. Paramore - That's What You Get
10. Lacuna Coil - Our Truth
11. Evanescence - Call Me When You're Sober
12. Fiona Apple - Criminal

Rowlf
----------
1. Rowlf - The Christmas Party Sing-Along
2. Billy Joel - Piano Man
3. Elton John - Rocketman
4. 10,000 Maniacs - Because the Night
5. Richard Marx - Right Here Waiting
6. U2 - New Year's Day
7. Van Halen - Right Now
8. Michael Andrews featuring Gary Jules - Mad World
9. Fastball - Out of my Head
10. Ben Folds Five - Song for the Dumped
11. The White Stripes - The Denial Twist
12. Biz Markie - Just a Friend

Gonzo
----------
1. Jimmy Eat World - Last Christmas
2. Violent Femmes - American Music
3. Cake - Is This Love (live)
4. Radiohead - House of Cards
5. Muse - Falling Away With You
6. Depeche Mode - It's No Good
7. Green Day - Paper Lanterns (live)
8. Weezer - The World Has Turned and Left Me Here
9. Hum - Stars
10. Goldfinger - Here In Your Bedroom
11. Sum 41 - In Too Deep
12. MxPx - I'm Ok, You're Ok
12. Weezer - Across the Sea

Electric Mayhem
----------------
1. Electric Mayhem - Run, Run Rudolph
2. Oingo Boingo - Dead Man's Party
3. Save Ferris - Come On Eileen
4. Spring Heeled Jack - Jolene
5. The Mighty Mighty Bosstones - The Impression That I Get
6. The Aquabats - SuperRad
7. Less Than Jake - The Science of Selling Yourself Short
8. Reel Big Fish - The Set Up
9. Squirrel Nut Zippers - Hell
10. Incubus - Summer Romance
11. Dave Matthews Band - Crush
12. Brian Setzer Orchestra - Sleepwalk

Statler & Waldorf
------------------
1. Led Zeppelin - Over The Hills and Far Away
2. Johnny Nash - I Can See Clearly
3. The Beatles - Ticket to Ride
4. Jimi Hendrix - Voodoo Child (live)
5. Eric Clapton - Layla
6. Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody
7. Pink Floyd - Another Brick In The Wall
8. Peter Frampton - Baby, I Love Your Way
9. The Knack - My Sharona
10. The Clash - Police On My Back
11. The Police - Every Breath You Take
12. Aerosmith - Walk This Way

Rizzo
---------
1. Run DMC - Christmas in Hollis
2. Young MC - Bust a Move
3. Paperboy - Ditty
4. Us3 - Cantaloop
5. Nas - If I Ruled The World
6. Ice Cube - It Was A Good Day
7. Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg - Nothin' But a G'Thang
8. Notorious B.I.G. - Going Back to Cali
9. Cypress Hill - Dr. Greenthumb
10. Warren G - Regulate
11. Jay-Z - Can I Get a....
12. Lil Jon & The Eastsize Boyz - Get Low

Swedish Chef
--------------
1. Swedish Chef - Christmas Smorgasbord
2. ABBA - Dancing Queen
3. Europe - The Final Countdown
4. Roxette - Joyride
5. Ace of Base - The Sign
6. The Cardigans - Erase Rewind
7. Eagle Eye Cherry - Falling In Love
8. The Hives - Main Offender
9. Millencolin - Fingers Crossed
10. (International) Noise Conspiracy - Up For Sale
11. Division of Laura Lee - Black City
12. Refused - New Noise

Animal
----------
1. Primus - John The Fisherman
2. 311 - Don't Stay Home
3. Oasis - Supersonic
4. Smashing Pumpkins - Geek U.S.A
5. Unwritten Law - Rescue Me
6. Deftones - Digital Bath
6. Soundgarden - Fell On Black Days
7. Alice In Chains - No Excuses (unplugged)
8. Sublime - Waiting For My Ruca (live)
9. Nine Inch Nails - Only
10. Rancid - Journey To The End of East Bay
11. Nirvana - Sliver
12. Guns N' Roses - Rocket Queen

Bunsen and Beaker
-------------------
1. hellogoodbye - Winter Wonderland
2. Foo Fighters - Everlong (acoustic)
3. Johnny Cash - Hurt
4. Dirty Vegas - Days Go By (acoustic)
4. Frente - Everytime I See You Falling
5. Dynamite Hack - Boyz N The Hood
5. Slightly Stoopid - I Would For You
6. Presidents of the United States of America - Radio Killed The Radio Star
7. Failure - Enjoy The Silence
8. Linkin Park - My December (remix)
9. Korn - Freak On a Leash (remix)
10. Metallica - Devil's Dance (w/symphony)
11. The Moops - Build Me Up Buttercup
12. Me First and The Gimme Gimmes - I'll Be There

Apologies to the faithful readers on this insipid site, most of whom either live with/down the street from me.

Nothing terribly exciting to note of late, this being a typical "I spent how much in Vegas? I guess I can sequester myself in the house for awhile" kind of lull.

------------------

Thanksgiving was pretty low key as I went back to my folks' place in Saugus. On the way up, I picked up other family members who don't speak English. Combine that with my inability to speak Vietnamese and well, you get an awkward thirty minute car ride.

My Dad has the AT&T U-verse TV package which happened to be doing an all-inclusive free preview. This gave us access to eleventy billion terrible movies. Suffice to say, I almost stayed up to 3am to watch "Cool As Ice" starring Vanilla Ice.

After Thanksgiving dinner, the everybody gathered around to watch a movie. Naturally we ended up watching "Snakes on a Plane." I was giddy that the movie's unintentional comedy transcended language barriers.

Despite not spotting any good deals, I accompanied the family for Black Friday shopping. The highlight being witnessing one near parking lot accident complete with shouting match instigated by the wrongful driver.

Later met up with my cousin for further shopping which proved to be in vain as I have/will be returning 90% of what I bought since I found it cheaper this past week.

Mildly funny in the 'you had to be there' category....my cousin was looking through shirts and explained "I don't mind buying this for her, this girl is nice." The potential Freudian slip was in reference to my propensity to get gifts for undeserving gals. We had a good laugh as he backtracked with "No, no, that's not what I meant."

Aside from that, spent most of the weekend hanging with the folks. Taught my mom how to use the Internet with extra bonus fun in arguing with my Dad who was against using Firefox because he had no idea what Firefox was.

Also had time to go through my old baseball/hockey card collection. Found some other goodies in the box which had been neglected for almost ten years:



Unopened copy of Twister from Grace for Xmas '98, which I brought back to SD with me. I was vacuuming the living room this week and my roommate said "I really hope this is a prelude to us playing Twister."



Numerous hats from over the years. The odd ones are the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panther ones which I picked up at a Kay-Bee outlet in Victorville circa 1996 for $2 or $3. Probably got the Blackhawks one in homage to Jeremy Roenick.

The Twins one is by far the oldest, I got it at some Asian swap meet in 1992. Chili Davis was my favorite player growing up and he got traded to Minnesota in 1991. Jumped on that bandwagon in time for that World Series. I still remember being at my cousin's house in San Diego when Davis hit a home run off of Tom Glavine in game 2.

The next bandwagon I jumped on was those same Braves. I got that hat in time for a 7th grade field trip to watch them play the Dodgers. At the time, I thought Steve Avery was better than John Smoltz and Tom Glavine. I suppose that's why they don't let eleven year olds be talent evaluators.

Also in 7th grade, I got that Miami Hurricanes hat......if only to fit in. One of the resident cool kids challenged me to name any other Hurricane player other than quarterback Gino Torretta. I meakly squeezed out one other name which allowed me to dodge the "poser" label. Perhaps this is the moment where my "You have to know every obscure player" knowledge got jump started.

The Padres one was from 1996 when I disowned the hometown Dodgers for the steroid led Ken Caminiti led Padres. My Dad took me to the final game of that season when the Padres swept the Dodgers to win the division when LA only needed to win once to clinch. Fast forward twelve years and Caminiti is dead while the Padres are a punching bag. Would I rather pay Jake Peavy 11 million this year or Jason Marquis 4.8 million.......I'm gonna go hang myself.

As for the baseball cards, I found a handful of cards which engendered giddy laughter:



I incorrectly thought Bill Bene was the first openly gay baseball player (probably the mustache) but that was actually Bill Bean. And that's not to be confused with current Oakland Athletics GM Billy Beane.



Roger Salkeld was a star pitcher at Saugus. 6'5 with a 96 mph fastball, and with his name you couldn't help but think Roger Clemens. My 7th grade PE teacher was also a local scout for the Mariners who would take Salkeld 3rd overall in the 1991 Draft. Naturally I was excited in the "he's from where I'm from" sense and got a handful of his first issued baseball card. My sister was a classmate of his sister as well, so I had a potential connection to get the cards autographed. But he struggled in the minors and had arm problems. D'oh.

Being that the bulk of my baseball cards were from 1986-1992, I found a handful of "top prospect" cards for players who by now have had distinguished careers and are either winding down or have retired. Mike Mussina, Chipper Jones....and Maurice Vaughn amongst others.

And also in the box was my collection of hockey cards, mainly from 1996-1998. Amongst the personally amusing ones in this batch:



Esa Tikkanen on the Devils is pretty hilarious. Tikkanen started the 95-96 season with the Blues for eleven games. St. Louis then traded him to New Jersey for a 3rd round pick on November 1st. He played nine forgettable games for the Devils before getting dealt to Vancouver on November 23rd for a 2nd round pick. If I'm a card company, why do I produce a Tikkanen Devils card? And huzzah for rookie #22 Patrik Elias.



Another rare one in the same vain is Ed Belfour on the Sharks. San Jose felt like it was ready to contend and needed a veteran goaltender, so they dealt for impending free agent Ed Belfour. Belfour tanked in his thirteen game stint but San Jose made a contract offer which Belfour seemed amenable to signing. Dallas reportedly made a similar offer and Belfour jumped ship and won a Stanley Cup two years later, thus earning hate from my roommate Aaron to this day.



When I started collecting hockey cards, I ramped up my knowledge about upcoming prospects. Going into the 1997 Draft, Adam Colagiacomo was almost mentioned in the same breath as Joe Thornton. Maybe it was just the fun of saying his name (COAL-A-JACK-CAH-MO), but I was highly excited when I pulled his prospect card out of a pack. He had a disappointing season but many figured he was still late first round material. He ended up dropping to the 4th round to San Jose and never made it.

--------------------

Roughly 1/3 through another NHL season and I haven't become a raging alcoholic because of the Martin Brodeur injury. On top of losing their future Hall Of Fame goalie, the Devils went through a stretch without Brian Rolston and half their regular defenders. The low point was when the Devils called up defenseman Jay Leach and even I had no idea who he was.

"He's like a cross between Jay McKee and Brian Leetch."
"Yeah, the offensive abilites of Jay McKee and the shot blocking prowess of Brian Leetch."

So sipping the Devils Kool-Aid, they look to be competitive. Brodeur getting a chance to rest might end up being a good thing as he's looked burned out the past two playoff runs. Still feel like the Devils are one offensive minded defenseman from really contending. Although looking at who might be available who won't cost an arm and a leg......sadly I might have to talk myself into Derek Morris as being that sort of guy.



My other favorite subplot of the season is the predictable turmoil in Tampa Bay. Just one look at their new owners and I couldn't help but think "Are they trying to be an even lamer version of the Maloof Brothers?"

They already have two former coaches lashing out at them and a former GM who resigned rather than deal with the situation. Reminds me of the 2005 Penguins and how some people thought they were Stanley Cup contenders after they brought in familiar names like Ziggy Palffy, John LeClair, Mark Recchi, Jocelyn Thibault to go along with rookie Sidney Crosby. Only this time, replace that with Radim Vrbata, Gary Roberts, Recchi, Olaf Kolzig, and Steven Stamkos.



But at least somebody made a good parody video of them signing Ryan Malone to a 5 year contract. Then they hold Ottawa hostage by threatening to sign Andrej Meszaros to an inflated offer sheet that the Sens couldn't match, leading to an eventual trade.

And what did they get for overhauling their roster like some kid with A.D.D. would do in a video game? Hey hey, they're still dead last in the NHL.



Went to my friend's company's holiday dinner. Interesting party in that there was a kids' table and the organizer had a hat decorating station to keep the kids occupied. There were hot glue guns, ribbons, fake flowers, random figurines, etc etc.



But the odd thing was that there was a random stack of hockey cards from 1991. (I swear, I did not bring them) Being a dork I decorated my hat with the old school Devils: Peter Stastny, Slava Fetisov, Alexei Kasatonov, Sean Burke, Chris Terreri, Kirk Muller, and even Brendan Shanahan. And I snagged a Scott Stevens card from the one year he was in St. Louis.

Awkward conversation with one of my friend's coworker's wife:

"Where are you from originally?" -- coworker's wife
"I was born in Hong Kong, but came here when I was three." -- friend
"And what about you Don?" -- coworker's wife
"I was actually born in San Diego." -- me
"Really? You look very Asian to me." -- coworker's wife