whose fault?

I was going to let this one pass, but considering the Jim Rome is still talking about this on his show (he spent most of Fri on it, now today too), i decided to throw my $0.02 in. If you haven't seen or heard about the fight on Thurs night, check ESPN's article and included video.

No the only thing Barry Melrose missed in his analysis is this: It is Chris Drury's own fault that he got hurt. Chris Neil made a legal hit. Fine. Drury had his head down. Fine. Drury didn't have his helmet on right, it went flying, and his melon bounced off the ice. Problem.

Had Drury worn his gear correctly the initial fight for the hit on a star player would have been the only action. But he was an idiot, cost himself the rest of the seasons and cost his team his contribution through the playoffs. The only other person i've found online who has called this out is blogger Jamie Fitzpatrick.

After that, Ottawa was stupid. They should have had at least a 2nd or 3rd line crew out, knowing that Buffalo would send out their tough guys. Their other players should have defended their goalie when he got jumped by a forward (though i have to say i love the huge smile on Ray Emory's face through all his fighting).

tragic upset

For only the second time, Pixar lost an Oscar they were nominated for. Up until this point, Pixar had won for every Best Animated Picture or Best Animated Short Oscar they had ever been up for, save for the first year the award was given (2001) when Shrek won. All I can figure is they lost for spite. That too many people didn't want to "give" them the Oscar.

But come on! Happy Feet?!

I would have understood if The Incredibles had lost to Shrek 2. The Incredibles was not as strong as past Pixar films, but... Happy Feet!? I saw all three movies in the category this year. The trailers for Happy Feet looked killer, and all I can figure is voters must have gone off of that and not bothered to actually watch.

The only good parts of the movie fit into the 2 min trailer, and when viewed in context, they were weak. Not to mention, as my wife pointed out, there were live actors in multiple parts of Happy Feet. It was just a bad movie. Not a good musical (one of those modern "mash-up" musicals with pop songs rather than a true musical) and the ending was just bizarre. It had nothing to do with the lead up of the movie. It jumped from a nice coming of age story for the first hour-plus, to a solve-world-peace environmentalist movie in the last 15 minutes. Honestly i think Monster House (the other movie in the category) was a better film - and it was pretty strange too. But at least it was supposed to be.

Cars was a great movie. I think probably the best Pixar since Finding Nemo or A Bug's Life. How in the world it lost to Happy Feet i don't know. Oh well.

tricksy

In an interview with sports radio 104.5 yesterday, Predators GM David Poile said that he drug his feet a little on the deal before making his final offer so that Forsberg would still be with Philly and give them a chance to do what they did - beat Detroit and help the Preds out a bit.

So Foppa was playing for the Preds before he knew he was :-)

reporters

I think one of my favorite quotes from the short-lived Dilbert TV show may answer the question of whether or not bloggers are reporters...

Dilbert: "What makes you qualified to be a reporter?"

Dogbert: "I'm willing to violate anyone's privacy for my own personal gain and then claim with a straight face that the public has a right to know."

I thought it was funny anyway.

forsberg

Poile did it.

The Preds now have Peter Forsberg.
Amazing.

I have to say, prior to today, i was cool to the idea of trading for him. I felt like we had a solid team that if we went on a roll could go deep. I was getting excited about the Preds winning a round or two. Now, we have to be cup favorites. Most of all i was afraid of us having to give up Hartnell or Radulov or someone else on our active roster.

But Poile knows what he's doing. We had to give up Scottie Upshall and defensive prospect Ryan Parent, both of who are solid players. But Upshall was about as good as he was going to be. Parent hurts a little more, but we are so deep with d-man prospects that it isn't a big concern. What hurts the most is the loss of our 1st and 3rd round picks next year. But again, Poile has drafted so well that Milwalkee (our minor league team) went all the way to the championship finals last year. We aren't hurting for young prospects.

And don't forget - Forsberg had to agree to this deal. He had a no-trade clause in his contract. He was willing and wanted to come to Nashville.

This has to take us from strong contenders to Cup favorites. My biggest concern is that our team is still very young, and few have gone deep in the playoffs. Now expectations are being poured on. How do they react? That's the only quesiton left for the Preds, and that is a good place to be.

For more coverage: Barry Melrose's take is here (video). Burnside here. SI article here. Tennessean here.

preds plate

Anyone interested in a Predators license plate? Of course i would be!

Read here and here.

Everyone let your state rep know. They would just be $35, and proceeds would go toward the Predators Foundation.

(The image i put in here is something i just came up with based on the Titans' plate. It will not necessarily be the design)

money issues

Many people are probably talking about the new George Washington $1 coin that the U.S. Mint released today. I think people are missing the real news: in 2010 we're getting a Millard Fillmore coin!

I really wonder what the Mint is thinking. With the collectible 50-state quarters, so many people hoarded them that there aren't very many in circulation. I'm not sure if that's the point or not. I know the mint has been trying to get $1 coins to catch on for years (coins have to be replaced less often than paper so it would save the Mint major $$) and it just seems that, while these will be noticed, they will be hoarded and collected and will never reach circulation in serious numbers.

I honestly think that the only way they are going to get the $1 coin to catch on is if the Mint prints them in the quantities they do dollar bills today and stop printing as many bills. Just force everyone to switch. Oh - and soda machines have to take them too.

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While i'm on the money topic...
Do stores get to report my "cash back" at the register as revenue? Instead of just a toothbrush for $2, they are just "selling" me a toothbrush and $40 in cash for $42 on my debit card. If so, doesn't that ridiculously inflate revenue and earnings?

Anyone know how that gets reported?

who are you?

All this talk of trades (especially the talk of the Preds being on the short-list for Peter Forsberg) got me thinking about how much players move around. But, as i pointed out in an earlier post, the Preds organization is one that tends to lean toward consistency.

I think i understand one of the reasons the hockey media aren't covering the Predators much relative to other media darlings (Pittsburgh, Toronto, Vancouver, etc) - they don't know us.

Of the 29 players that have played for Nashville this year, only 8 of them have played for a team other than the Preds in their career. Just tonight, of the 19 players on the ice for Nashville, only 7 have played for a team other than the Preds. Of the 3 coaches, only assistant coach Brent Peterson has coached at the NHL level elsewhere in the league. Two of our five 15-goal scorers are home-grown.

In this age of mobile players, media in various cities usually get a chance to see more teams. But the Predators players haven't been around to be seen. But hey - the media should still see the players when the come to visit home teams around the league right? Well, thanks to the unbalanced schedule the cheapskate owners have implemented, the Preds only see 1/3rd of the Eastern conference, and only half of those games are on the road in the east. Since most of the major media outlets are based in the east...it just makes sense. Or rather it doesn't.

Fix the schedule!

v-day

Happy valentines day to all.

Especially to my wonderful wife who made me a really cool mix on Rhapsody that i have been enjoying all morning.

Good stuff.

pixar @home

Intel has announced that they are researching a new processor that will feature 80 cores. It will basically be run like a high performance computing cluster (the things that Pixar uses to render their movies). Think of it as 80 4GHz processors connected with 5-port 80 GB/s routers (see diagram).

80 processors that can go active or sleep independantly, and each have independant access to memory that can be dynamically allocated. They can spread use so that no one processor gets too hot. They can each go to sleep or become active to save power. Thanks to those features, the memory can also be stacked directly on top of the processors, making for direct, low-latency connections.

Cool.

hockey updates

For those that haven't heard, the Predators just made two quick trades. The first one had me a bit worried, but the second made perfect sense. I honestly wonder why this wasn't done all at once as a good old-fashioned 3-way trade.

First we traded center Joseph Vasicek (who never performed the way we expected) back to Carolina for center Eric Belanger. This trade just sat for a day. Most Preds fans i know were left scratching their heads. Yes, anything was better than letting Vasicek earn $1.3mil as a healthy scratch game after game, but was this really an upgrade? Most speculation had him centering the 3rd line between Hartnell and Radulov...which didn't make sense to me given Hartnell's recent ability to play as a big center down low (thank you Arnott for teaching him how to park in the blue ice).

Then came the second trade: Belanger for Vishnevski. Now this makes sense! A big physical, hitting defenseman. This finally gives us four "d-men's d-men" (with Hamuis, Weber, and Zanon) to compliment our offensive d-men (Z and Timonen).

We also finally have the roster flexibility we needed. Unloaded a forward, and added a d-man. Zanon and Radulov can both go down without clearing wavers, so i think Poile finally hit the balance he needed.

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In other Predators news: We got blown away by the Kings at home in front of a sell-out crowd last night. That puts us at 2-4 in our last 6 games after we had gone 10-1 in our previous 11. The Kings certainly came to play, but we need some sort of shake-up. Hopefully the trades will help get us back on track.

I also have to wonder if being at the top of the standings and the extra media coverage we are finally getting (at home and nationally) is distracting the team somewhat. I hate to think that could be the case, but with some of the younger players, it could be a factor.

I will also go on record as saying that if Vokoun can't stay at home and play goalie, we need to be playing Mason more often. 4 times in the last 3 games Vokoun has cost us goals by being caught yards outside the blue ice. Last night he left Legwand and Suter playing goalie for LA's 3rd goal (video evidence here). If he wants to trade places with them, he needs to discuss that with the coach before the games start. Mason has still been the better goalie lately. We can't afford to slip in the division standings. Trotsy: play your hot hand.

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In other hockey news: Toronto's Kris Newbury was taken off the ice on a stretcher last night after a fight with the Pen's Ronald Petrovicky. As many have said before, this is going to be what finally causes the outcry to ban fighting in hockey. If this has been Mats Sundin and he was out for the year (or his career) i think we would be hearing cries for restrictions on fighting already. At the very least, i think the league should force the linesmen to step in when someone's helmet comes off (similar to jersey's coming off now).

I am definitely one of those who loves a good fight in hockey, but i don't really see what it adds to the game that good hitting doesn't provide. As much as i can't stand David Stern, i think Bettman needs to take a cue from the NBA and clean up its act if it wants to appeal to a wider audience (which i think is the right thing for the sport). With the rules as they are now, there isn't an action worth retaliating for that isn't already illegal. Thugs should not be responsible for protecting start players - refs making the right calls should be.

But that's my two cents on that one.

downer

This just isn't the kind of news i like to wake up to.
I'm not shocked. But i am bummed.

still here

Just a quick note to let "everyone" know that i'm still here. I'm working on new additions to my internet presence, while also working with Dell's tech support to get my XPS 400 desktop replaced (it just died...they've already sent me a new motherboard, powersupply, heatsink...still busted).

More to come soon.

more respect

Well, ESPN continues to notice and cover the Preds. We still top their Power Rankings. Terry Frei just did a feature story on the team (main story on the espn.com NHL section right now) . Though i will say his story is yet another story talking about Trotz talking about that the Canadian media aren't talking about us. It's getting a little old.

However, someone is actually talking about our hockey playing: Barry Melrose (ESPN's main hockey analyst) just answered the question "Are the Predators for real?" in a cool video clip. I like his answer :-)

picture time

It's been a while since i used any of the pictures i've been taking with my cool new phone. But today's snow cover prompted me to finally bluetooth the pictures over to my PC.
So here ya go...

Pictures of our front- and backyards this morning. In the backyard pic you can see a little bit of our new driveway that is being worked on. Yay!

This is a picture of what Cameron (our 7-month old lab puppy) did to his dog house. It used to have a front...and a bottom. Fortunately a little plywood and a few screws and its as good as new - functionally at least.

I find this really funny. It's a gas station on Gallatin Rd. near Briley Pkwy. It is a BP gas station, with a Mapco convenience store and the pumps serve Amoco fuel. I think they are a little confused.

You can't see it very well from this picture (taken on Church St downtown while stuck in traffic), but this is a fleet of police scooters (which i do think are kinda cool) all parked in a row - in a 24-hour no parking zone. Christy said she used to see them every day parked there on her way in to work.

And last but not least, a dark, fuzzy picture of the menu at the Cheesecake Factory. I was pretty disappointed in this place. Forget the fact that i've had better cheesecake at mexican-food joints, and that the wait was way too long, and that the food was only mediocre... Their menu's have full page ads on every page of the menu! This is supposed to be a "nice" restaurant! I can take the ads in the bathrooms. I think those are actually kinda cool. But on the menus! And we're not talking nice ads for a wine that they carry - we're talking cheap car dealership ads! I don't plan on voluntarily eating there ever again.