I fell for it

I just paid $0.89 extra for a large combo i very much didn't need, just to get a free download that normally cost... $0.89. Stupid.

Apologies to fantasy sports owners

Fantasy sports players (any sport, not just hockey) need to watch this video. Now. Just the beginning. Don't have to watch the whole thing. If you don't want to or can't watch the video, you can check this summary here.

Finally! ..or not

It looks like our long national municipal nightmare frustration is over.

UPDATE: It isn't. I'm leaving the rest of this post up, but though the city has put forth it's "final" offer, the local ownership group hasn't signed off on it. So, no press conference...return to your holding pattern.

This is really getting old.

The Preds and the City are announcing a deal this afternoon. Thanks to the Nashville Post, we have the agreement in hand already.

I still have huge reservations about this deal as it is laid out in this document. The Preds can leave after just 3 years if they lose $20mil during that time ($6.6mil a year) and attendance is under 14,000 per game (the statement doesn't specify if that is 14,000 average over all three years, or if they average under 14,000 for any time during those 3 years...or just during the last year). There is also a stipulation that the city will be paid back all of the many concessions and incentives they are paying the team if the team does leave.

So if you want to keep the Preds here past 3 years, it still comes down to attendance. Normally i would say that with this new, energized ownership group (and hopefully firing Steve Violetta) hitting attendance marks will be easy. But my faith that this ownership group is really going to be a knight in shining armor and be much better than Leipold are starting to waiver. It really won't take much to get attendance up. I just overheard more co-workers talking and one mentioned the Preds game tomorrow night - the other responded with "they're playing again, didn't their season just end. I'll have to go to a game". Much work to do, but so much of it is so easy. We'll see if the ownership group chooses to invest in those simple efforts, or let the team languish...

The most troubling element of this to me is that it takes a 30 year lease (with 20 years left on it) that would keep the team here as long as they hit 14,000 attendance at least once every 3 years and turns it into a lease that allows them to leave after 5 years - regardless of attendance - and allows them to leave after (theoretically) only one year of under 14,000 attendance.

Had any owner stepped up and supported the team with any marketing campaign, the team would have to stay. They could lose money and be on the salary floor every year, but they would have to stay as long as tickets were bough. Under the new agreement, they can leave after only 5 more years, potentially after 3.

(Conspiracy theories in 3...2...1...) I'm begining to wonder if the new "ownership" group didn't get in over their heads, get taken over by outside interest, who then worked a deal with politicians on the inside to make it look like they were saving the team, and in reality are moving it after 5 years (roughly the amount of time it will take to get an NHL caliber arena built in any city that doesn't have one...like...Hamilton, Ontario). Man i hope i'm wrong. I really really do.

I'm just glad the team on the ice has things turned around. This could turn out to be a very good year.

Seeing Red

Preds were absolutely robbed tonight. The Wings played well, but that game should have been 4-2 Preds. 2 goals taken off the boards just kills ya. The refs just blew it. As my dad said: "Isn't the NHL supposed to be the league with the best replay officiating options, that never misses a scoring call?" But they blew the plays dead not once, but twice, right as the Preds scored. Either of those goals count, and the game is very, very different.

Best part: we made it a game anyway. The game was 2-0 and the Wings were clearly satisfied with letting that be the final score. I don't think anyone would have been surprised if the Preds were as well, especially with plenty of excuses to make for how they should have won. But they played through it and stayed after it and played harder in the third than in the first, which is hard to do against Detroit. Shows a lot of character and the type that this team is absolutely going to need if they are to have any success. We'll be coming from behind far more this year than we did last.

Mason was fabulous in the game, but looked slow (tired) in the shoot out. Before the game i told my wife that i'd almost rather see a 1-0 or 2-1 loss than a 7-5 win. I wanted to see a good, responsible, disciplined hockey game and that's what we got the vast majority of the time. Mason was outstanding in net all night, and i think that the game was a solid boost in confidence he needed. I just hope he doesn't take the shootout loss too hard and too personally. He could have done better in the shootout, but after facing 45 shots, killing off a 4-3 through overtime, and with Holmstrom logging as much time in the crease as Mason through the game, i don't blame him for being less than sharp by the time the shootout came around.
But hey, i'll take the point for OT.

Predators Deal Done?

The Hockey News is reporting that the deal between the new ownership group and the city is a done deal, just waiting for sign-offs from all the councils and authorities needed.

Why am i not jumping for joy?
While the new agreement supposedly says the Preds will get the funds from the city, and upgrades to the arena that they wanted, they only have to stay in town for the next three years. They do have to stay for the next three years, no matter what, but after that, not even attendance can keep them in town.

Right now this sounds like a horrible deal. As optimistic as i am, i think the Predators are at best still 5-8 years away from real profitability. Which means in 3 years the new owners can just up and run, and nothing can stop them...if this report is correct. This is a very short, very spotty article that i don't completely trust. So we'll see...

UPDATE: The Tennessean is reporting that the Mayor's office has denied any deal as being "done" - they are still working. Hopefully that's a good thing.

i is smart

Hee hee.
I wonder what specifically justified my humble recreational sports and personal introspective online journal a "collegiate level" evaluation?

(note: do not just blindly copy all the HTML for your blog they have to embed it in your site - it includes links for loan spam)

Firefly Cast: Where are they now?

OK, i'm not actually going to give you an update on the whole cast. This is mostly just an update on one i just heard some news on. But first i'll give you a few other quick notes:

• Nathon Fillon (Capt Reynolds) was on another cool new show (i heard it was cool, never watched) that got canceled called "Drive". Now he's been on a few Deserate Housewives episodes - let's hope his cancel curse continues just one show longer, then the guy picks up a winner. He's great.
• Alan Tuduk (Wash) is filming a new "TV pilot" for Barry Sonnenfeld (the guy that did Men In Black) that also stars Kurtwood Smith (who has been in absolutely everything). Could be interesting.
• Of course, Jewel Staite (Kaylee) is now a regular on Stargate: Atlantis as the new doctor (no, not that 'new doctor'). Liking her work there so far, but i have to say: they have her in the show as an American, but her Canadian accent is thicker than most hockey players, much less David Hewitt (Dr McKay, who is supposed to be Canadian) since he's actually from the UK. They need to at least establish that she is from Minnesota (like Col O'Neill) quickly, cause it's just getting distracting.

Anyway...this is mostly an update on news i just heard about Summer Glau (River). She is apparently set to play a Terminator...on TV. Gonna be a great role for her. She apparently gets to play a semi-love interest and continue to kick butt at the same time. The show takes place after the events in teh 2nd movie. I still haven't seen any of the Terminator movies (i know, i suck...they are in my Netflix queue though!) so i can't weigh in on what i think the new show will be like, but it is interesting none the less. Glau will play the Terminator sent to protect everyone (read: good guys). I'm curious if this will even attempt to be a special effects and 'splosion heavy show like the movies, or a more "character driven" engagement. I know Summer could pull off either, but not sure about the other cast or the budget the studio has lined up. So don't get your hopes up, the show is on Fox which means there is a 85% chance it will be awesome, and a 95% chance it will get canned before they finish shooting the first season.

Rock Band: First Impressions

Update: this review wasn't based on the final version of the game, as it has only today (11/5) "gone gold". So the vocal issues may have been addressed in the retail version. Unfortunately i think it's a little too late to do anything about the guitar controller. We'll see.

---

Just got back from hanging out with my wife and sister, doing some shopping. Once we wrapped up finding what my sister needed, i forced them to follow me to Best Buy to try out Rock Band. I had heard on Engadget that many Best Buys had the demos, so wanted to see if ours did. It did!

So...how was it?
Not so fabulous.

First, the good:
The graphics looked great, and the parts were well written. The game also sounded good (as good as it could sound at an in-store demo). The song selection we rocked in store included "Should I Stay Or Should I Go", "Say It Ain't So", and "Main Offender". The demo also had "Suffragette City", "Tom Sawyer", and a few other tracks we didn't get to.

As a drummer, i was very skeptical that the drums would "feel" like drums, but i will say, it was remarkable how fast it felt like i was back home drumming. It was actually pretty funny, on the 'Beginner' settings, i found the drums very difficult, mostly because it over-simplified the more complicated rhythms (triplets, etc) to songs i knew well. I kept trying to play the "real" rhythm and getting being marked wrong. Once i upped the difficulty though, it was a lot of fun. But since i was already playing on 'Hard' on the demo in the store without breaking a sweat, i don't think drummers should look for a challenge in this game. The drum controller also felt like it could really take a beating (a good thing for a drum simulator). I will note: the in-store demo didn't have the foot pedal controller (though i was playing the kick part on the floor anyway to keep myself honest, and i really found that easier anyway), so no promises there, it could be flimsy.

Now, the bad:
The new guitar controller, which i was excited to play (with its extra 5-frets keys), was a major disappointment. It felt flimsy, and worst of all, proved to be so. The strumming switch (is that what it's called) was already toast. It wasn't registering strums unles you really mashed down on it hard. The whole guitar just felt lighter and flimsier than the Guitar Hero 2 controller i have at home - which is strange since i think it is also a little bigger. It was so bad, we actually couldn't play with the guitar. We kept failing every song, even though we had it on easy. It would only register about 1 in 3 notes. Bad bad sign, since this in-store demo has only been there for about 48 hours, and the Guitar Hero 2 demo that has been at the same Best Buy for months was still up and rockin' perfectly.

Equally disappointingly was the vocal gameplay. My sister and wife are both singers - and i don't just mean they lead Christmas carols with the family. They both majored in music with their vocal chords as their 'instrument'. We've played SingStar (a console karaoke game) too, and did very well (even i did). But over and over again, the vocal track failed out on both of them, even on 'Easy'. Now, there are a lot of people out there who are going to be horrible singers, but will want to play this game and have fun with their friends. On 'Easy', it should require absolute silence to fail out of the vocal track as far as i'm concerned. Maybe it was a problem with the mic, but if so, that again doesn't bode well. Same problem as the guitar - this Best Buy's SingStar demo has been running just fine for months. If this mic was dead after just 48 hours, that really doesn't bode well.

So...do i want this game? Would i recommend it?
Meh.

I have to honestly say, not so much anymore. I'd love to play some of those songs on Guitar Hero, and playing drums was fun... but for $170+ this game was very, very disappointing over all. Fabulous concept, obviously. I just think there will be a lot of frustrated vocalists and down right furious guitarist in January as their controllers start dying. I'm actually going to remove it from my wish list until i have assurance that the game doesn't fall apart inside of a few months.

(I am kicking myself right now that i didn't take any pictures with my phone to make this a really good review. But if you want to see what the game looks like, check here)

It's a little slow today

It's been a little slow at work today.

strike video

I don't even remember if i've written about the impending double-strike on my blog before. Basically i've been following the news over the past couple of months via Cinematical regarding the Writer's Guild strike (that started today) and a possible/probably director and actors guild strikes looming early next year. If you don't know anything about it...just know that most entertainment as we know it is probably going to grind to a halt, or get really sloppy as studios rush things through production to avoid the total blackout.

Anyway...

Point of that is to then show you this video. Very funny. Pay attention to details.

fan frustration

Preds lose another tough one. Put 40 shots on net, you expect more than one to go in. but from what I saw (the later two periods) the Flames did a good job of limiting the Preds real quality scoring chances. In the 3rd we finally had some spark, but it wasn't enough to compensate for a horrible 2nd period that was full of turnovers and shots from the point with no rebound.

The rough part of this is that a lot of Preds fans, unable to watch the game, will probably be coming down hard on Chris Mason when they see the box score. I hope Pete and Terry were singing his praises because the defense left him out to dry. Repeatedly. The final two goals in particular were 100% Greg deVries' fault. They were both breakaways to begin with, and deVries just escorted the Calgary players down the slot, not playing the shooter or the pass. Just skating through, looking confused, and letting passes go between his legs. Mason never had a prayer on either goal. The Calgary TV crew kept talking about how great Mason was playing all night, and repeatedly compared the Predators to Calgary's experience last year - a hard working team that deserved to win more games, but were being stoned by a hot goalie.

I just hope we can get things along on the right track soon.

In less specific hockey news from around the world...

Here's what the game looked like for me last night:

I was once again watching online. Can't see the players numbers, much less the puck most of the time. But at least I could roughly see what was going on. Better than Pete and Terry's "simulcast" stuff. The site i get my feeds from has just been redone, so here's the new link for NHL feeds.

Also, I just got added to the blog roll for the 2 Man Advantage. A really funny blog/show put out by a couple of hardcore hockey fans up in New York. Fun stuff. These guys are crazy hockey nuts (especially for NY teams, but they aren't real bad "homers"). Very funny videos. ESPN and Fox Sports Net had better be watching these guys, because they are putting out better content than most pro hockey shows i've seen lately. If you've never seen them, i advise you check this out as a good example. They are funny, irreverent, but have somehow managed to get interviews with NHL players, gotten into camps, and done interviews with former NHL GM's. The longer they go, the bigger their rep will grow and i have a feeling they could well have a special segment during someone's coverage of the playoffs/finals this year. Well, if someone decent covered the games anyway.

Lastly, All hockey fans need to go check this guy out right now. He has somehow managed to figure out a way (and amass the money) to see all 30 NHL teams play a home game in 30 days. 30 Nights, 30 cities, 30 teams, 30 games. Wow. He's just a few games in so far. He's coming to Nashville on Thanksgiving night to see the Preds play Detroit (remarkably, the only time he will see the Preds play during the whole 30 days). Of course, he has a blog going to cover the trip. I also love that he's from Orlando.

Lastly, there's apparently some news about a potential new financier from Canada coming in to help out the "local" group trying to buy the Preds (which is looking less and less local). Interesting. At this point, i just hope the drama ends soon. Heck, i'd take Balsillie owning the team at this point if it just meant the uncertainty would be over and the team could get itself together on the ice. I really think the off-ice elements are effecting the on-ice product. Trotz's job, trades, waiver moves, call-ups...with us at the salary-floor it really limits what Poile can do and what the options are for the on-ice product. Not to mention the absolutely horrendous lack of marketing (waaay worse than it usually was, and that's saying something) is killing attendance. The only thing filling the building even to the 12-15k we've been seeing is word-of-mouth and 104.5 FM's efforts to keep promoting the team. It really won't take much to give this team a major shot in the arm (on and off the ice), if only the ownership deal can get settled.

rock band hero

The "final" list of songs for Rock Band (minus the unlockable songs) just got released. Here are the ones i'm the most hyped about playing (full list is here):

Rolling Stones "Gimme Shelter"
The Who "Won't Get Fooled Again"
Boston "Foreplay/Long Time"
David Bowie "Suffragette City"
Blue Oyster Cult "Don't Fear the Reaper"
The Ramones "Blitzkrieg Bop"
The Clash "Should I Stay or Should I Go"
Foo Fighters "Learn to Fly"
Metallica "Enter Sandman"
Weezer "Say It Ain't So"
Garbage "I Think I'm Paranoid"
Soundgarden "Black Hole Sun"
The Hives "Main Offender"
OK Go "Here It Goes Again"

Great stuff.
This got me thinking the other day... If i could make a list for Rock Band (or Guitar Hero) what would it include... Here's what i got so far (in no particular order):

Booker T and the MG's "Green Onions"
Ben Folds "Rockin The Suburbs"
Jimi Hendrix "All Along the Watchtower"
Jimi Hendrix "Foxy Lady"
All Star United "Big Rock Show" (or maybe "Theme From Summer")
U2 "Beautiful Day"
Rolling Stones "Paint It, Black"
Smash Mouth "Road Man"
Earth Wind and Fire "September"
Electric Light Orchestra "Four Little Diamonds"
Electric Light Orchestra "Birmingham Blues"
Dandy Warhols "Bohemian Like You"
Santana "Oye Como Va"
The Clash "Train in Vain"
POD "Boom"
Simon and Garfunkle "Mrs Robinson"
Foo Fighters "My Hero"
Foo Fighters "Everlong"
Robbie Williams "Let Me Entertain You"
Weezer "Buddy Holly"
Weezer "Keep Fishin"
Sum 41 "Fat Lip"
Jamiroquai "Feels Just Like It Should"
Jamiroquai "High Times"
Johnny Cash "Folsom Prison Blues"
ZZ Top "La Grange"
Beach Boys "Good Vibrations"
Felming and John "I'm Not Afraid"
Stevie Wonder "I Wish"
Bob Marley "Jamming"
The Monkees "Last Train to Clarksville"
Switchfoot "Chem 6A"
Switchfoot "The Loser"
Cake "Short Skirt, Long Jacket"
Queen "Bohemian Rhapsody"

While we're at it, whole albums i'd love to see:

Weezer [Blue album]
Switchfoot "New Way To Be Human"
The Clash "Combat Rock"
Nirvana "Nevermind"

Of course, many of these would be better (and this would be much longer) if there was a keyboard/piano/organ controller.

And i'm leaving tons off...i am going to be embarrassed when i come back and look at this later, i know. But hey, i'm just doing this on my lunch break for fun. Sue me.

pic of the week

This is, by far, the picture of the week year so far for the Preds.
(Original found here)

The expression on the Panther player's face, Vokoun lying flat on his back, and the celebration of the Predators players. Great stuff.

bi-polar hockey

The Preds game last night was certainly a bit better. Still quite a bit of sloppy play, especially late in the 1st. Still a ton of chances left lying on the doorstep because no one was at home in front of the net. Plenty more occasions where we had great chances with the puck up front, but couldn't finish (pictured at the right). I'll grant you, Hedberg played well, but not amazing. We are still just not finishing the way a winning team should.

But so much was improved.

The defense was checking hard (Hamuis was involved in more than one hard hitting, body sacrificing play, which i haven't seen from him as much). I especially loved Hammer's check at the blue-line (pictured at left). That's building a wall!

I also loved how Erat was playing with Dumont and Arnott. Not just that he was playing with them, which i thought a good combo, but the way he was playing. More than once i thought it was Legwand out there, the way he was playing an aggressive but smart, positional forecheck. If he'd just put that puck in the net instead of off the post, i think everyone would be calling him out for a great game as well as Toots and Smithson, who played like first-liners...well, up against the sieve-like 2nd and 3rd Atlanta defensive pairings. But hey, we'll take it!

Win is a win. It felt great.

Ellis played really well, but i think more importantly, the team played better in front of him. Just like they used to do with Mason compared to Vokoun last year, the team seemed to play more intelligent, especially on defense, when playing in front of "the backup". It's amazing how much of it is still mental for this team. I do not envy Trotz the decision of going with Ellis (who is confident and hot) or Mason (get his confidence back and fulfill the "Mason vs Vokoun" billing for the big game) for the game against Florida.

Last note about the on-ice product:
We have two versions of the Predators. One that wins and wins big, and one that loses and loses big.

Our total Goals For / Goals Against per game for the year is 2.3 / 3.3. Doesn't look too horrible and is about what you'd expect (or better) from a team that is 3-6-0. However, if you check our GF/GA per game for wins, it is 4/0.3. That is dominant hockey! We've only allowed 1 goal in our 3 wins. That's great! Trouble is our losses. GF/GA per game is 1.5/4.8 there. Ouch. We're giving up nearly 5 goals a game in our losses.

Normally i would look at those stats and say they are indicative of a young, inexperienced team. But we're supposed to have more age and experience this year than last. What gives? Also, we supposedly got bigger and stronger during the off-season. But we still rank 27th out of 30th in the league in overall size (height/weight). That isn't going to get it done if we're trying to play more physical, grind-style hockey this year.

---

A few other random notes from the game:
The big new screen is now apparently being called the "Megatron" (capital M?). Paul McCann and the rest of the arena crew called it that multiple times last night. I don't know of this is a Hasbro/Paramount sponsorship, or just a cheesy name. There's even a new feature video about it up on Predators TV (i haven't seen it yet, streaming video is blocked at work). I think it sounds a little silly, but i don't know what else to call it...so fine.

What is not fine is that the crew i called out for doing such a good job of paying attention to aspect ratios has now either been replaced or gotten dumb. All the videos all night were stretched to fill the width of the screen. Now, i know there are a lot of bumpkins out there that probably complain about "those black bars at the side of the screen, it ain't workin' right". But now the videos look bad. Those bumpkins can watch Seinfeld re-runs in 'fat' stretch mode all they want on their $899 plasma's at home, but please don't make me watch it that way at the arena. Especially for videos that are actually wide-aspect to begin with (like movie clips) - crop the videos! Don't just stretch them so we have a fat Gnash and a tiny little strip of Matthew Broderick in the middle of black bars. Cummon people, this is your job and i can do it better as a hobby. If you need me to do it for you, send me the videos at my gmail account and i'd be glad to reformat them to 16:9 for you with the correct cropping/scaling so that everything looks nice.

Also, we apparently are losing sponsors right and left. We've picked up a few (most notably the Signature Tower), but we've also lost quite a few. It is no longer the "Fantastik Fan of the Game" it is the "fan of the night". No longer is the second Zamboni painted like Scrubbing Bubbles - now it's just a Predator Zamboni. We no longer have the "Windex Seats on the Glass" (movin' on up!) where they took people from the upper decks to seats on the glass. Most importantly, the free tacos from Taco Bell at the 5-goal mark are gone! (thanks to HordyHsrHar for the reminder- i knew i left something out!) I've also listened to several games that were on Lightning 100 with nothing but music during 'commerical' breaks. They didn't have commercials to fill the air time. Partially i blame that on Lightning 100's sales department, but it proves there is still not a line of sponsors waiting to be associated with the Preds. Not a good sign and something that needs to be turned around quickly.

There is also just no promotion or advertising off the ice going on at all. I overheard someone walking down the hall at work the other day asking someone if they were going to the Preds game Thurs. They replied "Nah. I thought they were going to move in 6 months anyway, weren't they?" This team is in desperate need of off-ice support and a major PR campaign, but there is no way Leipold is putting another dime into this team, on the ice or off. Contract/negotiation periods aside, this team needs new owners who can come in tell the city that the Preds are here, they are staying, and they are exciting and worth coming to see. Not just "worth supporting" like something on welfare, but worth spending money on as great family entertainment.

woot (with a british accent)

According to my low-tech cheesy ClustrMap, i just passed 100 unique visitors from England. First over-seas local to pass 100 viewers (Canada passed it long ago with all the hockey talk, though i think Toronto will probably pass 1,000 soon.)

frustration

Interesting note from LA Kings/HockeyBuzz blogger Carla Muller, who was at the game last night:

One of the more unique events of the night actually happened off the ice. I am not trying to diminish the Kings’ strong dominating game, not at all. Nonetheless, in the stands, a over zealous Predators’ fan was behind that team’s bench and appeared to the person in front of me with binoculars that he tried to climb over the glass at his own team... ouch!

Security moved this individual away from the bench and that proved to be a bad choice. A fight broke out between this guy who started shouting “Lets go Predators”. Peanuts were tossed only to be followed by fisticuffs, five security people in red blazers and his female friend following when she joined the melee by throwing a beer in the stands... Double ouch!

That about sums up my frustration. When i go to the game on Thurs night, i'm really just hoping for a score and solid play. A win would be pure bonus.

As for all these asking for Trotz's head... I can't argue that too much, but i wouldn't hold your breath.

1. Trotz has been around for so long, it will take more than this to get him fired (though not much)
   
2. The Thrashers are already looking to hire a coach, so trying to find a new coach in this market would be rougher than usual - can we improve over Trotz right now?
   
3. I don't see Poile/Leipold firing the coach just before a new owner steps in (whoever that turns out to be.

Lastly, a note regarding watching games: I don't have cable at home, and since FoxSouth/104.5 went back to "simulcasting" games (read: putting TV audio on the radio) i can't really follow the action on the radio. So...enter the wonders of the internet. And no, i don't mean the NHL's new online Center Ice package that blacks out the majority of my local team's games. No, i'm watching online over live P2P broadcasting services using Sopcast and streams found here: http://www.myp2p.eu/NHL.htm

The really interesting thing about this is that most of these end up being the local Fox Sports for the other team. Occasionally it is the Preds feed, but for the last several games i've been listening to the Kings/Ducks feeds. It's been very interesting hearing the other side of things. And i gotta say: as great as Pete and Terry are, FoxSports South is a dinky 2-bit operation compared to FoxSports LA. They have a studio they go back to with a talking head for replays during intermission, the works. Good stuff. I suggest watching the "other" feed once and a while once in a while.

are you still there?

I know, i know. It’s been a while. I’ve been busy working with my wife on ghia shows. And watching Preds games (which are hard to write about after losses, especially 5 in a row).

But mostly i lost my blogging mojo because

A) I’m tired of spending too much time in front of a computer, don’t feel like blogging
B) I’ve had a lot of mess going on at work, don’t feel like blogging
C) I’ve been spending time with family, etc, as i just found out my sister has some pretty bad ovarian tumor/cysts that has the doctors pretty worried.

A) With the release of the Orange box, i spent the early part of last week/weekend playing games with most of my free time near a PC (more of a review on that later hopefully. In short: Portal= Great but disappointing end, TF2= Amazing, Episode 2= Just more HL2, nothing special)(for those that don't know, the title of this post is a reference to Portal). I’m also just getting burned out with my PC at work, since my job has been shifting away from working with reps face to face and more to working with them over the phone (at my desk, in front of my PC)

B) Which leads me to work... I do still enjoy my job, but we’ve been going through some major changes. Our focus is changing from being a high-level coach/trainer/motivator to being sales closers. I’m not thrilled about that, but the part that kinda goes with it that i am the most unhappy with is that they are moving us from salary to commission. I hope i don’t get burned by talking about work on my blog, I usually shy away from it. But hey, this thing was started as a bit of a journal for me, so... there it is. Life will go on, but all this uncertainty at work has just been draining on me.

C) And last of course is that my sister, Amy, just found out she has two ovarian tumor/cysts. She found out on Thurs, and fortunately Christy was able to be there with her. They don’t know for sure if it is cancer yet, but one of the tumors is pretty big (12cm) so the doctors seemed pretty worried. She’s already done some extra scans, and is getting scheduled for a biopsy sometime this morning. Just all kinda stress and craziness there. It’s been great to have some extra time to hang out with Amy though, since she’s delayed heading back to New Orleans for a while.

So, there’s the update. I’ll hopefully be blogging a bit more. I also just added the mobile internet to my phone plan, so we’ll see if I can be a little more active by doing random blogging ‘on the go’. I normally don’t like micro-blogging that much (no offense to Brittney or others) but if that’s what i can do, that’s what I can do.

The funny thing is that through this ‘drought’ of posting i’ve still been pulling 20-40 unique visitors to my site and 25-30 reads from my feed every day. Cool :-)

ghia at the farmer's market

ghia at the farmer's market

ghia and many other local craft vendors are setup at the farmer's market today until 4:00pm.

Vote Preds

What he said. And he said.

Go vote on WMSV's poll asking if the Preds should stay or not.

Not that this poll matters a hill of beans, but it's easy to do. Why not. Go vote.

Peace vs. Environment

I have no problem with Al Gore's hypocrisy on environmental issues and being recognized for his work on the global warming issue. He might be the single worst polluter on the planet for all i care, and he could still be doing enough to warrant an award. I really just don't care. But Al Gore- and the UN commission - shouldn't have gotten the Nobel Peace Prize.

Peace?!

The award is for people who do major stuff toward Peace on Earth and Good-will toward Men. People who make other people stop fighting. "Humanitarian efforts, peace movements, advocacy of human rights, mediation of international conflicts, and arms control." Nelson Madella, Jimmy Carter...people like that. Al Gore and the UN did nothing that advanced the cause of Peace in the world.

If anything they all made people fight more, pointing fingers and stirring up arguments for those who think global warming is a hoax and those that think the world will end in a giant hurricane in 10 years. Not Peace.

I could even, maybe, see Gore and the UN group getting the Nobel Prize for Economics. Maybe even Physics. And i can definitely see a need for a specific prize for Environmental work. It is probably well needed, but someone would have to front the cash for the new award (like they did in 1968 for the Economics award).

But Peace?