Preds get into it with Columbus fans

Ok, so it doesn't sound like it was that bad, but it got your attention, right?

James Mirtle just posted a story about his road trip to see the Preds play the Blue Jackets in Columbus (actually, he was there on assignment for the Globe and Mail to cover a soccer tourney).

The most interesting part by far:

Toward the end of the game, two hecklers started trying to give it to one end of the Preds bench where Jerred Smithson and Vernon Fiddler were sitting.

The conversation seemed relatively innocuous, and Fiddler was having a good time giving little behind the back fist pumps while he mouthed one word to the crowd: "Playoffs".

Eventually, it turned a little ugly, as Smithson sprayed a water bottle through the crack in the glass at the fellow...who proceeded to dump half a beer over the glass.

Nice.

He also has some good pics, but i won't post them here. I don't want to steal the whole post. Go check it out for yourself.

Looks like the animosity between these franchises doesn't just involve the players. I don't recall ever hearing of these types of altercations with fans in Nashville when Columbus visits, but that may have to do with us being the big brother in this situation, and the fans there are probably tired of losing to us all the time.

pretty source

I'm all for commenting my source code and formatting it so that it is nice and neat. Proper indentions, tags, and comments are the key to writing good code.

I think Muxtape.com has taken pretty source code to the next level, though.
Wow.
I want my 503 bytes back.

Predators lease goes before Metro Council

Now that the Predators' lease has passed the Sports Authority, it will now go before the metro council.

I have already expressed some of my concerns about this lease from both a fan and citizen perspective in the past, and i intend to do so again soon, but in the mean time, i wanted to make sure you all knew how easy it was to let your councilman know how you feel: http://www.nashville.gov/council/feedback.html

This is what i just wrote in to our councilman, Erik Cole...

Mr Cole,

First, thanks for being a great councilman. I really appreciate everything you've done for us in east Nashville.

I just wanted to let you know that I strongly support the passage of the Predators new lease agreement. I know it is far from a perfect deal. Even as a Preds fan, I am disappointed in the length that it locks the team here. But the fact is that the city, arena, downtown, and all will do much better with the team here than not, and these lease terms are a good short-term patch. This will give the team under new ownership time to get on their feet and make things happen the way they should have under the previous ownership.

If the Preds are still heavily reliant on large subsidies in 5 years, and attendance has not gone up, then they can leave, and though it would make me sad, I wouldn't fight it. However, I believe this shorter term "last chance" is one worth giving the team and the city.

Thanks,

Paul Nicholson

Here's hoping that their 5 year plan works.

Sports Authority Approves New Predators Lease

NashvillePost.com is reporting it right now. Of course it is a pay only article, and i don't have a subscription, so i have no more details than a headline right now...

UPDATE: The sports section of the Tennessean doesn't have anything, but deep on the metro news section there is an article that talks about "Metro will always pay $3.8mil in arena loss" and mentions in passing that "Sports Authority members voted 7-1 to approve the lease agreement. The dissenting voter, Steve North, said he thought the new lease might leave the city paying for more than it expects."

Next move from here is for the new lease to be approved by the Metro Council. No idea on the time frame for that one.

UPDATE 2: According to a random article by the Canadian Press, the new lease will go before the Metro Council on April 1st. Just hope that isn't a joke. ;-)

UPDATE 3: The City Paper finally posts an article! Confirms the passage and the April 1st date for Metro Council. A few other comments, but not real details beyond what we had already heard about the lease changes outside of specifying the penalty amounts the team has to pay if it wants to leave after 3, 4, or 5+ years: "$20 million for 2010, $25 for 2011 and then drops to $10 million for any year thereafter" (more on that later...).

I'll make another big Preds update soon...

critter captcha

First off, for those not familiar with a 'captcha', they are basic test for humanity in web-based forms, meant to keep spammers away. If you make a comment on my blog, you'll see one. They are generally a random collection of text that you have to enter into a form...the typical "type the word you see here" kinda stuff. The one at the right here ("A6LTY") is from a Facebook sign up page.

You may have seen them getting more and more distorted lately (like the one to the right from MSN). This is because spammers were starting to use basic OCR software to allow their automated programs to defeat the tests. OCR software has a hard time seeing through distorted letters that (most) people can still easily see.

Last week captcha's were in the news not once, but twice. First, Gmail's captcha on their sign up process has supposedly been cracked. Gmail had been a pretty safe place to do your email business until recently, but now we may start seeing more spam come from "@gmail.com" (like we've been seeing from @hotmail and @yahoo for years). If that wasn't bad enough, there are apparently spammers in Russia paying people $3 a day to do nothing but enter captchas all day.

So, what is a site supposed to do to protect its users against spammers?

Go fuzzy.

I just signed up for an account on the Clarksville Leaf Chronicle to comment on a story about East Nashville's 5-points area*. I was greeted with this captcha:
That's right. You now get to go back to kindergarten and identify your animals. I hit refresh and it gave me 9 new animal pictures and asked me to click on all animals with four legs. Creative and kinda fun. I wonder how long it will take to crack though...

* I wanted to make a comment, but haven't been able to yet due to a really screwed up sign up process, because this chick must be really dumb to think that 5-points is named that just because the businesses are part of the Greater 5-points Merchants Association...wow...is Brooklyn named that because you get to it on the Brooklyn Bridge?

At the Preds party

At the Preds party

At Beyond the Edge for the Preds viewing party. Not going to live blog the game... Since i forgot my laptop (posting this from my phone). Feel free to comment on this post or direct message me on twitter (pwnicholson) with questions. I know Pete and Terry are great but they don't always remember that we can't see everything they can when on they are on the radio.

Preds' owner talks, and party reminders

David Freeman, the leader of the Predators new ownership group, just did a little Q&A with the official Preds website (which i have to say has been coming along nicely in terms of content and quality). Not too much there that was amazing, but a few quotes and observations to point out:

First and foremost i'm loving the implications in this quote:

NP.com: Have you starting planning the budget for next season?
DF: Sure. Yes. Strategically it's probably not good for us to talk about that publicly for competitive reasons. Our budget will be significantly higher than it was this year. In fact, I'm quite certain we will spend more on payroll next year than at any time in the history of the club. We're that committed to building this team right back up.

Did you catch that? "we will spend more on payroll next year than at any time in the history of the club". Wow. That's saying something!

I just got through saying on a HockeyBuzz discussion about Shea Weber's chances of resigning with the Preds, that i was nervous about our ability to sign Shea. If projects are correct that he could command $7mil a year, then i assumed that meant he would be gone. The largest contract (that i know of) that the Preds have ever signed anyone to was Vokoun's contract when we resigned him in the middle of last year to a 4-year, $22.8mil deal that will max-out and pay him $6.3mil in the final year... and we traded him and that contract away at the end of the year when Leipold put the team on the salary floor*. With that in mind, signing a d-man to a $7mil per year contract seems pretty out of character, and possibly out of reach. I think we could count on a small amount of home-town discount from Shea, so that together with this comment from Freeman makes me a lot more hopeful about our chances of keeping him, Erat, and other restricted free agents at the end of this year.

*Side comment about Craig Leipold: I think Leipold clearly had the pockets to keep the Preds above the salary floor, and he was clearly intent on buying the Wild before he'd even sold the Predators. Since he was about to move to another Western Conference team, why not do massive damage to the franchise you're about to turn around and face 4 times a year. It would be the equivalent of a player who had just been traded setting fire to the equipment truck on your way to the airport. -- I'm glad Leipold brought hockey to Nashville, but i think what he did to the franchise in the last year borders on unethical business practice. Not a fan personally.

Other thoughts on the interview...

Freeman talks quite a bit about his personal relationship to the team and hockey, etc. While talking about his experience on Trade Deadline Day and how his kids are with the team, etc...you get a real sense that this is still a project for the city, and a logical business decision. He is not passionate about hockey and is still fresh into becoming a fan, but is getting there.

Specifically, when asked about Nashville as a hockey market, the owner of the franchise replied:

I don't know that I'm in a position to answer that question. Time will tell. But I think that there's obviously a much greater awareness of the team and what the team means to the city. Even for those who might not have been hockey fans in the past – and maybe they're still not – but I think there's a huge awareness of the team and what it means to the city. Sometimes you don't know what you've got until you almost lost it. I think that definitely applies in this situation.

He also said that he doesn't talk about the team much with his kids, but that his kids get most of the news about the team from their friends. He said that they are enjoying going to games and "have become big fans very quickly, just like I have." While i certainly appreciate the honesty, i would love for him to have gushed about how much he loves the game and doesn't know how he missed how great it was for so long, and that once more people in Nashville are exposed to hockey that 'the most passionate fans in sports' (as 104.5 calls Nashville) will turn to hockey with the same zeal they give to football. But i guess that's me.

All in all it's a good interview and worth checking out. I think Freeman is just an understated, shy guy. He's still getting used to giving interviews and isn't much of a marketer himself. Good news is that he's hiring people who do, and the marketing and sponsorships are getting much much better.

---

Reminder to come watch the game with us tonight at Beyond the Edge (assuming you aren't snowed in). Game starts at 8:30pm, and there will be giveaways (i am pretty sure tickets for an upcoming game will be one of the prizes) and much fun had by all. They guys at Beyond the Edge are big Preds supporters, so come out and support a business that supports that Preds!

---

And of course my birthday party LAN party is tomorrow...invitation is still out there for any interested in coming. Just need a PC and...well, that's really it. You'll need a copy of Half-Life 2, but we may even have an extra we can spot you if needed.

padded cell walking

Please, oh please, tell me this is a joke.


Actually, it is a PR stunt. Pay directory service 118-118 and some charity no one has ever heard of ("Living Streets") teamed up to provide this 'service' and get mentioned in the news (and posted on blogs) around the world.

Well it worked. Good on ya fellas.

H/T Engadget

basic building blocks

Thanks to Brittney for posting a pic of this great new Lego ad:

click to en-biggen

Fabulous ad that shows Lego as they are meant to be used.

Too bad that the company's product group has forgotten what their ad agency knows so well.

It is getting harder and harder to find buckets of raw pieces in stores. Only Lego fanatics, willing to go online and take time to custom order parts, can find them anymore. If you hit Wal-mart looking for a quick Lego fix, you're only going to find these ridiculous sets that border on basic modeling kits.
I always ignored the directions showing all the different houses and things you could make with the generic kits anyway. That is the fun. Gimme a buck-o-pieces and make me use my mind. But when half the pieces have decals and designs on them and are custom molded nose-cones, it just ruins the fun.

Having said that...the more custom character pieces can be fun...especially when i can have my favorite character from the Star Wars Lego video game on my desk at work.

Preds Viewing Party reminder

Just a quick heads up that Beyond the Edge is hosting another viewing party for the Predators game this Friday night. This game will not be on Fox Sports South, so unless you have the Center Ice package at home, you'll have to head to one sports bar or another if you want to watch it live.

So, why not check it out at a cool bar in East Nashville with a bunch of other Preds fans - oh, and have a chance to win swag (hats, t-shirts, etc) and tickets to an upcoming game!

Time Change: This is a west coast game, so it starts late - 8:30pm. But hey, it's the weekend, so why not stay up a little late?

Predators vs Calgary
Friday, March 7th, 8:30pm
Beyond the Edge
112 S 11th St., Nashville, TN 37206

Note: Friday also happens to be my birthday, so i think this is kinda turning into an unofficial birthday-related party-type thing for me. Just be warned. And bring me stuff. Or something.

Predators/Hockey News (with attendance update)

I was widely quoted as being a pessimist about the attendance for the Predators when i made this post back a few weeks ago (something about titling it "Bad News for the Predators' Future"). Since I posted that, i figure i owe everyone an update:

Through 28 games, the Predators had averaged 12,756 in paid attendance. In the last 5 games, the Preds averaged 14,190 in paid attendance (including a few sellouts that were at about 15,200 in paid attendance). That's a significant increase, and something to be proud of. That brings our average through 33 games to 12,973 per game. Still not where it needs to be, but an improvement.

So, now we must average 13,750 in paid attendance to reach the 13,125 needed to qualify for the revenue sharing we need. Looks like a very do-able number, especially since we've averaged well better than that lately (and the current race for the playoffs, free food night, and a few games against Detroit won't hurt).

Unfortunately, it looks like my other predictions from my earlier post were pretty accurate. Even if the Preds sold out every game from here on out (assuming that translates to 15,200 in paid attendance out of the 17,113 capacity, as has usually been the case) that would only pull the average up to 13,408. Far, far short of the 14,000 needed to keep the current lease intact.

So, it's a good thing Freeman and the new ownership crew finally got the new lease over to the Sports Authority after all. That agreement keeps the team here for at least another 3-5 years (depending on attendance) and I am beginning to trust this new ownership group to do what it takes to win over fans and businesses in the community...

UPDATE: A blogger on the Tennessean's website (only works in I.E.) is also reporting that the new ownership has rescinded the "cure clause" for attendance this year. Meaning that, technically, even if the new lease isn't put into effect and the 14,000 in paid attendance isn't reached, the team still can't move. The same blogger says that the Sports Authority will be reviewing (and voting on?) the new lease terms tomorrow morning. Still awaiting any official confirmation...

UPDATE 2: Just talked to my ticket rep and it looks like the March 20th Detroit game and the March 22nd Chicago game will be sellouts, and several other games are going fast. Looking good!

---

Which reminds me, it turns out that local good-guy Gordon David Freeman is the largest shareholder after all. He owns 32.63% of the team, while the "outsiders" from California, Boots Del Biaggio and Warren Woo own only a combined 31.58%. That is a significant change from what we were led to believe earlier.

The fact that the outsiders (with eyes for a franchise in Kansas City) don't actually own most of the team, with locals just holding a token share, really means a lot to me. Conspiracy theories about them just playing nice and having a plan all-along to move the team (and Freeman just being a guy they talked into being a local front/mouthpiece) aren't going to go away... but this sure looks better, especially when you take into account that the remaining 35.79% is owned by other Nashville locals (making the total local share nearly 70%). I'm kinda surprised the team hasn't made a bigger deal out of it.

---

The first two sentences from an article in the Tennessean today regarding Martin Gelinas:

Predators forward Martin Gelinas will undergo surgery on Wednesday to repair his torn ACL, putting an end to his season.

Gelinas had suffered the injury Feb. 21 against Vancouver, but was hoping that — after the swelling had gone down — there would still be a chance he’d be able to play without the ACL this season.

Really? I'd love to have seen him try to play with a ligament completely removed from his leg. He's a tough player, but i don't think anyone would be able to pull that off.

On a more serious note, it is too bad that we've lost Jelly Gelli Gelinas for the season, and i honestly wonder if his career is done. He was playing very well for us this year, but he's getting up in years, and recovering from ACL damage this bad won't be easy, even for a fitness and conditioning nut like him. If he were under contract, i'd say he'll be back. But i don't know many teams that will take a 38 year old 3rd-liner recovering from a bum ACL. Great player, but that may be it for him.

---

I didn't get a chance to watch the Washington Capitals clean the ice with the Boston Bruins tonight, but...wow. Of course, everyone's going to be talking about Ovechkin's 5-point hat-trick-with-2-helpers night, but just take a second to check out the box score. More than just the 10-2 slaughter stands out to me...

Boston players Zedeno Chara (who i have on my fantasy roster), Marco Sturm, and Phil Kessel all played 16 or more minutes (nearly 20 for Chara) but ended up even in plus/minus. Kessel actually ended up plus-1 for the night!? I know 4 goals were on the power play (so they don't count toward plus/minus), but 6 goals were at even strength! How do you end up on the bad side of a 10-2 drubbing and still end up plus-1 for the game? Wow.

Conversely, with 6 goals scored at even strength and only one even strength goal allowed against their team, Sergei Federov, Brooks Laich, and Alexander Semin somehow ended up minus-1 for the game. Ouch.

Ovechkin got his 5 points, but the Caps really spread the love tonight. Every single player in the Capitals roster registered at least a point (either a goal or an assist) except poor Jurcina and new arrival Sergei Federov.

Besides the horrible minus-1 and no points for Sergei in the game, he didn't draw a complete goose-egg on the otherwise packed box score...he had a single shot on goal. Woooow. I'm sure he was one of the 3 stars for this game...

Chara not only pulled off an even plus/minus for my fantasy team in this game, he also pulled in an assist, a shot on goal, and 9 PIMs. And someone just offered me a trade with him for Jonathan Cheechoo. Ha! Yeah right!

Preds fans hope Florida takes a dive

Toronto Globe and Mail writer James Mirtle just posted a good summary on his blog of how the NHL's draft lottery works. It isn't terribly different from the way the NBA's lottery works if you are familiar with that method.

Basically, the 14 teams that don't make the playoffs are put into the lottery drawing to arrange their draft order (This is done so that the worst team in the league doesn't automatically get the #1 pick, which would cause teams to intentionally lose at the end of a year). It is a little complicated in that no team can move down more than one spot from where they "should" be, and no team can move up more than 4 spots.

As of right now for instance, the Predators are just out of the playoffs and would be the last team in the lottery (#14). At best we could move up to pick #10, but couldn't do worse than #14.

But the best part for Preds fans? Everyone remember that trade we made with Florida for Tomas Vokoun that everyone was so upset about? "We gave up Vokoun and didn't get anything in return!" It was a pure salary dump, meant to unload Vokoun's big contract and get the team on the salary cap floor. Well, we got Florida's second round pick last year, and their first and second round picks this year. Where is Florida in the lottery at this point? 3rd from the last! Meaning that the Preds (who own Florida's first pick) have a 14.2% chance of getting the #1 pick in the draft, and it isn't too inconceivable to think that we could end up with the #1, #10, #31, #40 (and more) picks. The worse Florida finishes, the better the Preds chances of ending up with the #1 pick.

This draft is largely considered one of the deepest and most talented in years (see a mock draft here), and Poile has proved himself as a fabulous GM, especially when it comes to drafting.

I'd love to make the playoffs this year, and go deep - heck, win it all - but the great thing is that as good as we do, we can still improve our position in the draft with every loss Florida racks up.

If Vokoun really loves his old team so much, i wonder if he'll let a few weak ones through the wickets for us... :-)

What's Your Number?

People seem a bit confused about new Predator Brandon Bochenski…or at least what number he will wear while on the Preds roster.

The Predators website says he will wear #12 (the number he wore in Anaheim), however it also still lists Scott Nichol as continuing to wear #12, and Bochenski has been in the league a shorter time than Nichol, so I don’t see him bumping Scooter of his number. Yahoo sports page lists him as wearing #13, which seems logical given his previous wearing #12…but I seriously doubt a hockey player would wear #13. (by the way, Sports Illustrated's site still says he's on the Duck's roster)

The most authoritative evidence we have is probably from the pictures my wife took at the open practice this afternoon. Practice jersey's don't have numbers on them...but helmets do. Zoom in close and you can see that he's got #24 on the back of his helmet (picture at right). Yup, Scott Walker's old number. I bet there will be more than a few fans not thrilled at that prospect, though he did get a warm welcome at practice today. Christy said he seemed genuinely surprised when several fans asked for his autograph as he was headed to the locker room after practice. Guess they don't do that to non-superstars in Anaheim.

Let's just hope he can help out the team that needs...something.

We'll find out Sat night as the Preds take on Dallas (will be in HD on Fox Sports South).

(For the record: the other new Pred, Jan Hlavich, is wearing Scott Hartnell's old #17. While Scott was well liked while here, i think it is safe to say that he was not as universally loved and appreciated the same way Scott Walker was/is.)

headset for the truly cool

This is awesome.

A Bluetooth headset for your phone...that also functions as a USB MicroSD card reader. Just pop in any MicroSD card and unsnap the ear-piece off the headset...and plug it in to a USB port. Wow.

And it's just $80, which isn't much more than your standard higher-end Motorola headsets these days. And it looks really cool. Video here.

I wish i didn't have a laundry list of other stuff on my gimme list, and a shortage of cash for it already.

ya think?

Headline on CNN.com says "Fed chief's new fear: Inflation".

Ya think? Really? I wonder why inflation would be a concern? Would it maybe be because you lowered interest rates 1.25% in 8 days?

What blows me away too is how many people think this means their mortgage rates are dropping automatically, and proportionally. Guess what - they ain't. Not for a good long while at least. Mortgage rates are usually based on the bond market, which is completely separate from the fed rate (the fed rate is just the rate that the government and banks charge each other for overnight loans, etc). Now since the bond market usually goes up when the stock market goes down...yes, home mortgage rates will probably dip a bit. But there isn't a direct tie between them.

What blows me away about Bernanke though... He wants to lower interest rates AGAIN to try to stimulate the economy, but he's a little concerned about inflation if he does. Does this guy think he's working in a high school economics class project? It takes time for fed rate adjustments to turn into more cash in the economy. Even when you drop the floor out of the rate. And yes, dropping the interest rate that much in that short a time will give likely give us the wonderful combination of rapid onset inflation before we even see the economy actually get to recover.

I miss Alan Greenspan. :-(

Preds (fairly) quiet on trade deadline day

Well, the Predators have be laying low (so far) on trade deadline day.

UPDATE: We just traded for Jan Hlavac (pronounced hull-A-vich)(formerly of the Lightning, Rangers, Hurricanes, Canucks, and Flyers). Only had to give up a 7th round pick to do it too. Not too bad. He comes on the super-cheap (he was on a one-year $700k deal and is an unrestricted free agent at the end of the year. Don't know much about him...but he is certainly not a star player. Will probably be able to spell Gelinas well enough. He's 31 years old and has obviously been around the block, though it doesn't look like he's ever been a great producer and only has 5 games of playoff experience with Vancouver. His best year was his second in the league in 2000-2001 when he racked up 28 goals and 36 assist in 79 games with the Rangers. It was quickly down hill after that though as his performance has been a consistent 20-something points per year in and average of 60-70 games annually. More concerning is his plus/minus (-9, -8, -10 for the last three years). So...we'll see...

UPDATE 2: and now we've picked up Brandon Bochenski from the Ducks. Barely worth commenting on here. He's played in a whopping 32 games this year, and just 113 games in his 3 year career. High point for this guy was last year's 13 goals, 11 assists in 41 games. Meh. Good news is that we only gave up "future considerations" which i'm hoping is the proverbial "bag of pucks and a 12th round pick in 2010" :-) Interestingly, he is a restricted free agent (as opposed to the typical un-restricted free agent "rental players") at the end his whopping one-year $600k contract this year, so we could conceivably re-sign him if he turns out to be some sort of wonder.

Now back to my previous comments.

I have to say i'm pretty disappointed that we missed out on Prospal, especially given how cheap he went for...but i'm not at all regretting Poile not going for the high-priced guys like Hossa, Richards, Campbell, or even Federov, Ruutu, Simon and others.

We "need" to pickup another forward (update: see above), but given what teams are giving up, and given how insanely beefed up Dallas, San Jose, Colorado, and even Anaheim and Pittsburgh are looking...i'm content to just see what we can do with what we have, draft well next year, and grab a few free agents in the off season (update: which we basically did).

The Preds are still a team on a budget (though thankfully not Leipold's) and Poile knows he's going to be able to put a better team together with 'value' veterans, prospects, and role-players. As has been discussed before, Trotz does better with those types than the superstars anyway.

So... for all you Predator fans looking for something entertaining on Trade Deadline Day...i leave you with Jordin Tootoo, doing his thing for Jack FM (yet more marketing efforts from new ownership that we never saw from Leipold)

GrandCentral

I just signed up for the latest cool tech to come into an open "Beta" from Google: GrandCentral. Really cool concept, pretty solid execution. Can't wait to see what it turns into eventually (or how they monetize it in the future).

The basic concept is this: Signup. Get a new phone number. Setup all your real phone numbers to tie to your account. Now, when someone calls your GrandCentral number, it actually rings any of your numbers.

For instance... if you were to call 615-823-1734, it would ring my work number, cell number, and home number simultaneously. I would then have the choice of answering, forcing the call to voicemail, or screening it...you'd start leaving a voicemail and i could "pick up" if i wanted to. I would be able to access your voicemails from any phone, or from the web. I can also set rules to direct different callers to different numbers at different times of day, and even have custom voicemail greetings and rings for different people.

The fabulous thing about this, is the people calling my number will never see my real phone number. I can even call into my GrandCentral number and then dial out to someone - the GrandCentral number would show up on caller ID, not my real number.

And it's all free...for now anyway. I could easily see a time when in between my witty custom ring sounds callers would have to hear ads, or something similar.

But for now, this is pretty sweet.
It is a semi-open beta, and i have 7 more invites i can send to people (leave a comment if you want one), or you can just hit their site and try to sign-up yourself.

And gimme a ring if you want: 615-823-1734 :-)

milestones

Wow. That went fast. 400 posts in 499 days.

It took me just over 3 months to get to 100 posts (from 10/11/2006 - 1/16/2007). I tried really hard to at least average a post a day for a long while there, and got pretty darn close. It tapered off after a while though, and it took 6 months to get to post #200, thought i didn't even realize it at the time. Still not a bad post rate i guess. Now i just realized a few days ago i was coming up on 400. We're here...yay!

What's kinda funny, is that i also just crossed my 5,000th picture on Flickr, which happened to be of Dan Ellis making a save against the Coyotes.

So, in celebration of both milestones, instead of repeating the strongbad-esque repetition of the word "blog", or better yet, a Stargate-style parody of myself, i'm going to make this a good-old fashioned best-of blog. That's right. Like bad sit-coms of the 80's and 90's, you're getting a clip show!

I think i'll make this more of a superlative to start with. For Flickr that's easy - this whole photo set is nothing but my "most interesting" pictures (a formula Flickr uses based on views, comments, favorites, and other factors). My most "interesting" picture according to the Flickr masses is by far my miniature version of the Preds playoff game against the Sharks last year (at right). Although my single most viewed photo is, for some bazaar reason, a picture of a jack-o-lantern i did with my co-workers two halloweens ago. It's cool, but i have no idea what drives the views on this thing. I don't even thing that's the best picture of it. The most favorited picture is one that i personally love - a miniature of the commuter rail train in downtown Nashville, and the most commented is of a funny church sign in our neighborhood.

As for my most "interesting posts", that's a little harder to nail down. The most comments i've ever had on a single post is 8, and that's happened several times (Bad news for Preds, name change, and bad movies. As for traffic driving posts... The first major traffic driving post i had was, well, post #100, oddly enough. I went from having 10-15 unique visitors a day to 123 that day. The next post is where i really hit it big - the predators what?!?! was one of the first post on the entire interwebs to break the story that the Predators were being sold to Jim Balsillie. It was posted late on the 23rd and drove 523 unique visitors within 48 hours. Other posts have driven good traffic too, including other updates on the Preds sale and a post about the new "megatron" screen in the Sommet Center.

The posts that by far has the best continual traffic draw are this one because of the images of vintage hockey masks shows up in Google Image Search a lot, and this one because AOL's Fanhouse linked to it (and used my picture).

I also just have to point out some of my personal favorite posts... like the one where i predicted (using evidence that only i had) that Peter Forsberg would be staying in Nashville for the 07-08 season (which of course, didn't happen - i don't mind), and my post about couldn't/could care less.

And the torture will last no longer... i'll wrap up with some of my favorite Flickr pictures...

LAN Party!!!!

It's that time of year again: My good friend Matt and I are celebrating another trip around the sun (my birthday is March 7th, his is March 1st). So, we're going shoot each other. :-)

Yes, we are throwing another LAN party!

dark picture from last year's party

This year we're going to try to make things a little more coordinated. For the sake of simplicity, we're going to base the day's gaming around the Valve Orange Box and games distributed through Steam. Specifically, mods for Half-Life 2, but we'll probably throw some Team Fortress 2 in there, and may break out Quake 3 Team Arena, Battlestations: Midway, or any of the other free demo games on Steam.

Depending on who is there, we may end up playing some Tribes 2 (now free online), or some RTS or other (Battle for Middle Earth?) and we may even devolve into playing some console games (like 8-player NHL 08 on my shiny new PS3). But we'll mostly stick to stuff on Steam.

The party will be March 8th at my place in East Nashville, from 1:00pm to... late (probably around 10:00pm or 11:00pm...)

Here's the fun part - you're all invited!

What you have to bring:

* Your own PC (with monitor, keyboard, mouse, and headphones!)
* A running copy of Steam and Half-Life 2 installed - before you arrive if possible
(the full Orange Box package is a plus, but not needed)
* $5 for pizza

We'll provide snacks and drinks, as well as seating, tables, power, and network connections.

If you are interested in attending, then let me know by either commenting on this post or direct message me on twitter (just post to Twitter "d pwnicholson: i want to come to your cool LAN party") and i will get you directions. If you are some really random person i've never heard of before, i may want to at least...ya know...talk to you first. But all my rad blogger buddies are certainly invited, male and female alike (of course, be warned: to have fun at this party there is something of a requirement to be a gaming geek at some level).

If you can only come to part of the party, that's certainly fine. Several people are already planning on being there for "only" 4-5 hours. It's cool.

It's over

UPDATE: Toshiba did not make the surrender announcement as expected. However, one of the manufacturers of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray movies has switched to Blu-Ray only production given the shrinking demand for HD-DVD media. Toshiba is holding on, but the end is inevitable. Just a matter of when.

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

Wow. That didn't take long.

The official truce documents haven't been signed yet, but it looks like the Blu-Ray doesn't just have momentum - the battle is over. HD-DVD will be no more very shortly.

After all the major studios switched to (save Universal and Paramount) and Netflix, Blockbuster, Best Buy, and Walmart all went Blu-Ray exclusive...it only took a day or so for Toshiba, the main manufacturer of all things HD-DVD to pull the plug. That pretty much seals the deal. If they stop making HD-DVDs, that just leaves one manufacturer (Hitachi - who made only about a third of the HD-DVD hardware to begin with).

Those wanting to track the state of the battle near the end, check this "state of the division" that lists the basic tech differences, which studios support which format, manufacturers, and other pertinent information that led to the downfall of HD-DVD.

So, everyone go grab your PS3's and stand-alone players. The war is over!