The most inspirational movie ever

Well, it isn't the most inspirational movie ever, but rather a series of clips cut together from ALL OF THEM.

Watch the clip, then see if you can help me fill in the missing movies that i couldn't identify.

• Braveheart
• The Muppet Movie The Great Muppet Caper
• Animal House
• Rudy
• Street Fighter
• Old School
• Mr Smith Goes to Washington
• Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
• Star Trek: First Contact
• [Kirsten Dundst, not sure] Bring It On
• Stand and Deliver
• Newsies
• Charlie Brown
• Apollo 13
• Rocky Balboa
• Matrix Revolutions The Matrix Reloaded
• [unknown Orlando Bloom] Kingdom of Heaven
• Knute Rockne: All American
• Alexander
• Broadcast News Network
• [unknown Clint Eastwood] The Outlaw Josey Wales
• Robin Hood
• The Little Great Dictator
• Patton
• [Al Pacino, not sure] Any Given Sunday
• Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
• 300
• Troy
• [not sure] Swingers
• Miracle
• Dead Poet’s Society
• Galaxyquest
• TRON The Last Starfighter
• [Sean Connery, not sure] The Untouchables
• [not sure] Army of Darkness
• Mary Martin’s Peter pan
• Hoosiers
• The Mighty Ducks
• Henry V
• Pulp Fiction
• Braveheart
• Independence Day
• Free Willy
• Angels in the Outfield
• Cool Runnings
• Dead Poet Society (again)
• [not sure] Meatballs
• Spartacus
• Goonies
• Superman Superman II
• The Neverending Story
• Rudy (again)
• Shawshank Redemption
• The Grinch Who Stole Christmas
• Ferris Beuller’s Day Off
• Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure
• Rocky 2

(Thanks to my friend Brett who filled in a few missing movies, and corrected where i originally listed "The Last Starfighter" as being "TRON". I am so embarrassed.)

Just found a link to the original maker of the video and his post. He talks about the process of making it, etc.

The Faux Brummles

A few friends of ours dropped us an email a saying "A friend of Allison's (from work) husband is playing as part of a band on Friday night, do you want to go see them. The band is: Phil Keaggy, Dave Perkins, Lynn Nichols, Rick Cua, Mark Williamson, Mike Radovsky, Tom Howard, and several other players. Playing nothing but covers. Small cafe venue. $5 cover. Do you want to go see them?"

My response was essentially: "ARE YOU KIDDING?!"

And apparently i was so excited i completely neglected to invite Jamie, my dad, or anyone else who would appreciate seeing Phil Keaggy play with half of Chagall Guevera (and half the band that played on his amazing "Crimson and Blue" album) with some of the other best musicians in Nashville.

So, i'm a jerk.

Not only that, but i neglected to adequately test my Canon S3IS's ability to record REALLY LOUD music. It handled it better than my Sansa, but not quite as good as the old tape recorder in my pocket used to when i bootlegged every show i saw. Oh - and i also didn't think to take two SD cards, just a single 2GB job that could hold about 70min of video tops.

But at any rate, i recorded what i could. But i missed the last 3 tunes (including Rick Cua's one and only amazing bass solo) and the audio quality is poor.

However, even though the audio is fairly trashy, it unfortunately gives you an accurate feel for the sound that evening. REALLY LOUD and unbalanced. The drums and organ were way too loud, and you could barely hear Phil Keaggy's or Dave Perkins' guitars, or Phil Keaggy's and Mark Williamson's vocals. But all-in-all it was still pretty amazing.

I recorded video when i felt like i could. I didn't have a tri-pod and i wasn't sure they really wanted the whole thing video taped, so i just left it sitting on the table recording the lens cap and sound most of the show, and occasionally would pick it up and pretend to take still photos and shoot video of the band. I realized after the fact that they probably would have been fine with me setting up a tripod in the corner and recording the whole thing... lessons learned.

Anyway - here's a rough version of them covering the Beatles' "Get Back". I'll try to clean up the audio and post the whole show later.


The Faux Brummles from Paul Nicholson on Vimeo.

Note about the band name: They were the Faux Brummles...named after the Beau Brummels, a 'fake' British Invasion band that was really from the 'States. Since these guys weren't really a band, they figured they'd be a fake-fake-band. I took the misspelling of "Brummles" from the marquee out front, but who knows if that was a typo or intentional. They said if they ever play again it'll be under a different name, so don't look for them too hard in the future.

Happy Mother's Day from the Predators

In yet another shining example that the Predators new ownership, management, and marketing teams clearly "get it", they just released this fabulous video for Mother's Day (which i think was clearly filmed a few weeks ago while everyone was still in town).



Happy (early) Mother's Day, mom :-)

Preds season comes to a close

Many many words will be written about this team and this series. I'll chime in with a few of my own shortly, but first, i think this video says a ton all by itself.

This is the final 4.8 seconds of the Predators season on the ice, followed by the fans thanking the team for the crazy ride this season turned out to be. Then the team returning the favor, saying 'thank you' to a city that rallied behind the them.

This team never gave up, just like their fans who refused to give them up to outsiders who called us 'unworthy'. Many said this team wasn't capable of finishing above 10th in the conference, and many of the same people said this city couldn't and wouldn't support a hockey team. We proved them all wrong.

Thank you Predators!
See you back at prospect and training camps this summer :-)

Preds Win Game 3 (and more)

"Breaking News" - not only did the Preds win game 3 tonight, but the Metro Council finally has the new lease out of committee and looks ready to vote on it today (tomorrow...er...Tuesday the 15th). Good timing!

I'll leave it to those smarter than me to dissect the game fully (or you can just watch highlights below). Sufficed to say, Trotz made adjustments, something he hasn't done well in the past. The adjustments in lines and match-ups freed our players to do what they needed to do, and they got the job done.

You will also hear much regarding the crowd tonight. Once again, there were several long standing ovations, and the final 3-4 minutes was probably the loudest i've ever experienced at a sporting event of any kind (and i've been to San Antonio Spurs games in the NBA Finals, etc). I'm not going to say it was the loudest ever in history...but it was pretty nuts. To put it in perspective, i'm a drummer, and i was afraid of having some serious hearing damage.

Major kudos to the arena crew once again for knowing when to let the crowd go. There was more than one time that the crowd started a "Lets Go Predators" or other chant and the arena crew quickly muted the techno or whatever music they were playing in favor of letting the crowd feed off the natural hype. They also finally traded the commonly used red lights during pre-game for blue and yellow (gold) ones. You'd think this was a no-brainer, but it hasn't always been. These 'little things' did not go unappreciated!

I'm also uploading all the pictures that Christy took at tonights game. She's been grabbing better shots than me lately, so i'm letting her have the camera from here on out i think (besides, we win when she's shooting).

Of course, i took this shot during pre-game warm-ups:
They always show the pretty girls in the crowd ya know :-)

I also have to apologize to David Legwand. During warm-ups i took this picture of his skates (right), which to me showed he was clearly a decoy and not going to actually play. Thank you for proving me very wrong, Leggy.

And finally, this is now my new favorite Preds picture (that wasn't taken by me or Christy).

Predators make the Playoffs!!!

I'll try to blog about it more tomorrow.

Right now i've got to try to come down off this adrenaline rush and get some sleep.

Preds won. Vancouver Lost. We're in the playoffs!

Lots of pictures here (courtesy of my lovely bride, who took all the shots at tonight's game), including pictures of Titan's quarterback Vince Young, who was at the game and threw out t-shirts to the crowd.

And a video she shot of the amazing spontaneous crowd response is here:

Nashville Thanks the Predators

(If the video isn't working, that's because it's still converting on Vimeo's server...check back a little while...)

The crowd rose to give the team a standing ovation during a TV timeout after a great effort in the 3rd period. And they wouldn't stop. For a solid 2:30, the crowd just stood and cheered and waived their t-shirts* (think about it...just sit in your chair and do nothing for 2:30. That's a long time). The arena crew was smart enough not to interrupt with any videos or music. Just let the crowd thank the team. It was amazing. The game wasn't even over at that point. Gave me the chills.

Detroit vs. Nashville will start sometime next week.
Let's go Preds!

* By the way, the t-shirts look great and are way cooler shirts than past giveaway shirts

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

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)

Summer Movie goodness (and the new Indiana Jones Trailer)

Ok, first things first: If you haven't seen the new trailer for the fourth Indiana Jones movie, watch it now. Here. Immediately.

(if the embed isn't working - try here)

Ok, now that we have that out of the way...

My thoughts: I don't like that they open with a re-hashing of the original movies. For those of us who have seen the first movies, i think we know who Indiana Jones is. If they had just shown the clip of the fedora on the ground and the silhouette...that would have been more than enough and a great intro. For those that haven't seen the previous movies (all two of you) you just had them all spoiled for you.

Anyway...once the trailer gets going, it looks good. It looks like they'll use a bit of a comedy (i just hope not too much) to address the fact that he's old.

One thing that i am very disappointed by though: from numerous shots in the trailer, Spielberg and Lucas have obviously recanted their promise to keep computer generated effects to a minimum. I know this is a very short trailer, and those shots could be the extent of the CG in the whole movie - that would certainly be minimal - but i don't have my hopes up. I guess i'd rather be disappointed now than while watching the movie though.

I am definitely pumped about the movie though. The trailer had a good feel and in terms of cinematography, it looked very similar to Last Crusade. Good stuff.

In other movie news...
It is time for an updated list of movies i'm interested in seeing:

Planning on seeing:
Feb 14th - Jumper (scratch...heard it sucked)
April 18 - The Forbidden Kingdom
May 2 - Iron Man
May 9 - Speed Racer
May 16 - Chronicles of Narnia: Price Caspian
May 22 - Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
June 20 - Get Smart
June 27 - WALL-E
July 2 - Hancock
July 11 - Hellboy II: The Golden Army
July 18 - The Dark Knight
Aug 1 - The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
Nov 21 - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Dec 25 May 8, 2009 - Star Trek XI - just got bumped :-(

Might checking out (or wait for video):
March 14 - Horton Hears a Who!
June 6 - Kung Fu Panda
June 13 - The Incredible Hulk
June 13 - The Happening
July 11 - Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D
Oct 3 - Valkyrie
Dec 10 - X-Files 2

So...looks like i'll be dropping somewhere in the area of $300 in movie tickets this year. Could be worse i guess. Maybe i'll hit some matinées.

Nurse Anesthetist

In answer to a question Rob (aka: ThinkTrain) posted on Twitter a few weeks back - here's how you celebrate Nurse Aneshetist week.

My good friend Jeff just through this video together. Hilarious.

Also make sure to check out Jeff's "Runny Bakes a Tath" video.

proof it wasn't a dream

Some of you who know me and have heard me talk about the Predators, have heard me tell the story about the night the Predators Flying Tiger (seen in its normal state here) got stuck in the rafters at a playoff game. It was actually the first every home playoff game for the Preds on April 11th, 2004 (a game we won handily by the way).

Basically what happened was this: The Flying Tiger was doing its usual thing, flying around and dropping passes for free stuff to fans. Then all of a sudden the crew directed it down over the ice, which it never does. They flew it lower and lower until someone went out on the ice and grabbed its "tail" (mooring cable i think) and began to lead it gingerly to the zamboni entrance floating about 6 feet above the ice. Then, all of a sudden, the whole fan/motor system on the bottom just fell off. Of course, all the weight of the fans, batteries, etc was the ballast for the balloon, and now it weighed far too little. The keeper holding the cable was unprepared and the whole thing shot straight up in the air and jerked the cable out of his hand. It flew straight up and jammed itself in the catwalk and remained there for the rest of the evening (probably a great view from there actually).

Well, i was just digging through a whole bunch of old pictures in my archive folders, and i stumbled upon video that i actually shot of the occasion on my old Sony Clie UX50. It's not pretty, but it's proof! You can definitely see the Flying Tiger motionless at the top of the arena, stuck in the rafters above the ice.

So here ya go. Enjoy!

Predators Flying Tiger stuck in the rafters from Paul Nicholson on Vimeo.

showing off hulu

First off, here's your promised list of all shows currently on Hulu (* denotes a show currently on air):

24
30 Days
* 30 Rock
The A-Team
Adam-12
Age of Love
Airwolf
Alfred Hitchcock Hour
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Alias Smith And Jones
* American Dad!
Andy Barker P.I.
* Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?
Arrested Development
* Back To You
Battlestar Galactica
Battlestar Galactica Classic
Big Ideas for a Small Planet
* Bionic Woman
The Bob Newhart Show
* Bones
Boo!
Breaking Away
Brother's Keeper
Buck Rogers
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Burn Notice
Chicago Hope
* Chuck
The Comebacks
* Cops
Cover Me
The Crow: Stairway To Heaven
* Damages
Doogie Howser, M.D.
Dr. 90210
Dr. Steve-O
Dragnet
Eco Biz
Eureka
Exosquad
Family Guy
* Firsthand
Flipping Out
* Friday Night Lights
* Ghost Hunters
* Heroes
Hill Street Blues
* House
Inside the Actors Studio
* It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Jack of All Trades
* Journeyman
* K-Ville
* King Of The Hill
Kitchen Confidential
* Kitchen Nightmares
Kojak
L.A. Dragnet
Land of the Giants
* Las Vegas
* Late Night with Conan O'Brien
* Life
The Loop
Lost in Space
Lou Grant
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
McHale's Navy
Miami Vice
Monk
Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle
Murder One
My Bare Lady
* My Name is Earl
Nanny and the Professor
Night Gallery
* The Office
Over There
Peacemakers
* Phenomenon
Picket Fences
The Practice
The Pretender
* Prison Break
Psych
Queer Eye
The Real Housewives of Orange County
Remington Steele
The Riches
Rob and Amber: Against the Odds
Saturday Night Live
* Scrubs
Simon & Simon
* The Simpsons
Sitting Ducks
Sixth Sense
Solitary
St. Elsewhere
Stacked
Standoff
The Starter Wife
Swamp Thing
* Talkshow with Spike Feresten
Tequila & Bonetti
* The Tonight Show
Total Recall 2070
Vanished
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
WKRP in Cincinnati
Woody Woodpecker (New)

And here are the full-length movies that are avialble (yes, that is the Arnold Schwarzenegger version of "Conan"):

The Breakfast Club
Conan the Barbarian
The Blues Brothers
Bulworth
The Jerk
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
October Sky
Sideways
Weekend at Bernie's

Interesting thing about the movies: some of them are 'edited for TV' (like "Master and Commander") - pan-and-scan and edited for content...

...while others (like "Conan") are show in their 'original format' or at least close to it. They just cram the super-wide cinemascop into 16:9 TV format, which means the whole full length movie is all squishy.

Note: You can also see on the screen shots above how often the commercials happen - they are the little gray dots on the timeline at the bottom of the screen. Each one represents a single 30-second commercial. Not too bad considering the movie is 2 hours and 16 min long.

Another really cool thing about watching some of the longer content: it apparently sets a cookie. If you watch a movie (or show) on one PC - stop - then come back, it remembers where you left off and starts at that point. Pretty sweet, i think.

Oh, and here are a few other random things they have on the site...

Fox Movie Channel presents "Casting Session"
Fox Movie Channel presents "Making a Scene"
Fox Movie Channel presents "World Premiere"
IGN Videos

...as well as clips (not full shows) of a few other programs like soap operas. Whatever.

And now, what i think is the single best part - here's an embed of the Lost In Space pilot for your viewing pleasure (complete with the theme music stolen from Bernard Herrmann's score for "The Day The Earth Stood Still"):


And to really show things off, here's a clip i created out of the pilot for Buck Rodgers in the 25th Century which i think qualifies as the first mention of a "Stargate" on TV.


Good stuff. Good stuff indeed.

hulu review

Last night I was finally granted access to the semi-public beta of the new online video-on-demand service, Hulu. There have been many other reviews of this service already, but I just wanted to throw my two cents in, since I think that’s one of the reasons I was granted the beta.

For those not familiar with Hulu, it is a joint venture between Universal (NBC) and News Corp (FOX), so a large number of shows that belong to those networks is available, and a few full length movies to boot. There is even speculation that Warner Brothers TV will be adding it's shows to the fold (maybe i can finally catch up on Smallville). It works pretty much the same as ABC’s and NBC’s websites when it comes to streaming existing shows. They are occasionally interrupted by commercials, and the quality of the image depends on your internet speed.

First: Huge advantage to Hulu over other similar sites: it works in Firefox! I’m not sure, but I would assume it also works for Apple users. This is huge for me personally, and I think gives it a big leg up. Being browser agnostic means just that many fewer people that have a frustrating experience with streaming media sites that can be finicky at times.

The other awesome thing about Hulu you have to notice right away is the HUGE and I mean MASSIVE amount of content it has compared to other sites. My hope is that this is just the tip of the beta ice berg. They already have not only many full episodes from current running shows on NBC and FOX, but also a huge catalog of older shows. Simon and Simon? I forgot that show even existed. Remington Steele. Classic. Mary Tyler Moore, The A-Team, Airwolf, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, …on and on and on. It isn’t every episode by a long shot, but some of the shows go back pretty far.

And it’s not just TV shows – there are a few full-length movies on here too. Master and Commander among others right now. Curiously, the TV shows are in wide-screen high-def were applicable, but the movies are 4:3 pan-and-scan and edited for content – clearly the ‘old’ TV versions, which I find curious.

No doubt though, with this amount of content available, Christy and I are thinking about cancelling Netflix and going straight to the local library and Hulu for our entertainment for a while.

The ads were also pretty tolerable. Not the same ones over and over and over again the way some of the other VOD services can be, and the always-up ad banners aren’t an issue as long as you make the video full-screen, which is simple enough. I really don’t know why anyone would watch anything on here and not have it full-screen. Quality was also very good. We watched a few episodes on our projector and everything looked great. At least as good as SD cable if not better.

If you want to sign up for the beta yourself, you can at www.hulu.com, but I think it will be open for everyone by the time you get access to it at this point (it took them 3 weeks to process my beta application). When I get back home, I’ll put a full listing of the shows currently available up here for reference (Hulu, like most streaming media sites, is blocked at work for me).

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.

Preds vs Thrashers with Video!

Here it is, video of our awesome new scoreboard. Wow. This thing is amazingly sharp and huge!!! I think it must be even higher than HD resolution (1920x1080). It looked amazingly sharp, even right up close. That's the other thing - it is so huge that it looks up close no matter where you are.

Best of all, replays are actually worth something. You can actually see the puck! For some reason the horn/music after goals was off all night. Hope they get that fixed soon. Ditto for the shot counter. It was off all night (3 shots to 5 in the 1st, 0 to 0 in the 2nd, 6 to 2 again in the 3rd...).

Here's the video!


Nashville Predators new scoreboard from Paul Nicholson on Vimeo.

For all my friends behind firewalls, you can download the mpeg2 video here.

Also got a bit of video of the one fight. Tootoo and McCarthy did more than just scrum. McCarthy had Tootoo down and was wailing on him, the refs were moving in to break it up, just about then Tootoo regained his feet, and body slammed McCarthy over his shoulder, then started wailing on him. That dude is strong.



Jordin Tootoo bodyslams the opposition from Paul Nicholson on Vimeo.

I also took a ton of pictures at the game. I feel like i'm getting better and better at working with the right settings for shooting hockey. Check out the full set here.

Predators Training Camp video #1

Just wanted to post this real quick. Gotta get back and listen to the game vs. Columbus.

At about the 1:30 mark you can see Hordichuck dump Shea Weber, then right at the end you get to see some sweet goals from Arnott and Radulov during a breakaway drill.

Enjoy


Nashville Predators 2007 Training Camp Day 2

Keepon Keepin' On

Many of you may not have seen this yet. It is amazing. It is cute. It is amazingly cute.

Its name is Keepon. It is a very simple robot, but with cameras for eyes, a microphone in its nose, and programming to react to its environment and dance. It is currently being used to study non-verbal play/dance behavior in children. As my wife said, it should be used to study the ability of cute japanese products to suck money out of people's wallets. $30 on ThinkGeek.com and we'd have placed an order already.

This video was put together by Wired, as a promotion for Nextfest, a Wired-sponsored technology fair that has a big robotics push this year. From what i understand, the vast majority (if not all) of Keepon's reactions to the music and people around it are genuine and a result of programming, not pre-scripted.



See the first test/dance video that was posted here.

Predators on the Ice

It is so good to see players on the ice again!

Christy had some time this morning and swung by the open, informal practice session today. Mason, Fiddler, Gelinas, Erat, Hordichuck, Legwand, and Dumont were there today. They played light 3-on-3 most of the day, and Christy took a lot of pictures. Also some new news about the practice facility and what they are doing for the fans during open training camp session... go read about it at Christy's "Hockey Wife" blog.

Only thing she told me that she didn't put in the blog was the Hordichuck and Gelinas were hanging out talking together most of the time she was there. Makes sense to me. From what i understand they are both fitness nuts and seem to be cut from the same cloth.

Oh - and it looks like Mason does indeed have a new mask design and new pads for this season. I think it is interesting that Mason, who has been very pro-Nashville through the ownership mess, chose not to go with a mascot theme, but rather plaster "NASHVILLE" and the old Nashville Arena symbol on his mask.

Christy also shot a TON of pictures and some good video.
Video below. Pictures are here.

Oh - and if you watch closely, and about 2:06 into the video, someone actually gets checked lightly into the boards behind the net :-)



Nashville Predators Informal Practice.

more cool stuff

So some more of my pictures just got used in a video about BarCamp.

And this service is awesome. Check my first quick video. Took about 3 minutes 15 seconds to make this.

And while we're on the topic of videos...
Will you people with Netflix click on this link so you can be in my community on the service already!?

That is all.