there is hope

Wow.
I never thought i would see the day.

Joey Crawford has just been suspended - indefinitely.
(At least through this year's playoffs.)

I'm not going to rant and rant about it now (maybe later), but here are the pertinent articles and video links:

ESPN News
ESPN Commentary
ESPN Video



Other pertinent blog links on my page and Mark Cuban's
Blog Maverick: Tim Duncan, Joe Crawford and the NBA
The Game That Was
Better Fines

Real Update: Tim Duncan was fined $25,000 for his critical comments about Joey Crawford to the media. This was expected. As you can see from my post "Better Fines", the NBA fines players and coaches when the publicly critisize game officials. This is the best spent $25k Duncan has ever paid out, and i'd be willing to bet that most of the players and coaches around the league would jump to pay the fine for him for helping to get Joey Crawford throw out of the league, if only for the playoffs.


Rant Update: Per request, i will rant a little more...
(warning: this is a particularly rambling, disconnected, random rant)

Joey Crawford is basically one of the worst refs to ever call a pro sports game by most accounts that i know of. At least in the "modern era". Certainly by my opinion. He tries to show up players and coaches, and obviously loves the camera being focused on him. If you skim the comments on the Blog Maverick post above, you'll get some idea what others think (though that is hardly an unbiased forum)

He does a decent job, occasionally, of actually officiating games. There are times when he calls games and there are no stand out problems. The calls seem reasonably fair, and nothing major happens. But then there are other times when he is a loose cannon. He has a dangerous temper and it goes off. That is just not something you can have in a referee. He makes ridiculous (or at least questionable) calls, and if anyone protests, they get a technical foul and are usually ejected shortly thereafter. You can see him giving someone a technical foul in the picture above - it wasn't very hard to find.

In many ways and to many people he is a good ref. He has called more playoff games than any other, and according to the way the league reviews calls, rates very highly on 'accuracy' and making the right calls.

But that comes down to one of the major problems. The NBA and David Stern (the commissioner) have a major problem with the way games are officiated right now. The calls are too inconsistent, and the refs play far too large a part in the game. Some of it is the way new players are playing the game. I think a lot of it is that players are figuring out ways to 'work the system'.

Example: Players normally do not want to foul someone. If you do, then the person gets to shoot free-throws (if they were shooting) and each player can only foul someone so many times. However, there are now many examples, the most famous being Shaq, where it is a clear and obvious strategy to intentionally foul someone. Most teams only use their top 6-7 players very much during the game. Of those 6-7, only 2-3 usually are in a position where they regularly pick up fouls. So - rather than actually try to play defense against Shaq (which most teams are not equipped to do well) they just foul him - because he is a horrible foul shooter. There are 5 players sitting on the bench with 6 fouls each, plus a few from your main players - that is 34-40 times that you can foul someone and if they aren't good at shooting free-throws, you will likely get the ball back. The better average free-throw shooters in the NBA shoot 75% or so, and many players that shoot more like 50%-60%. This is the great strategy known as "Hack-a-Shaq"
The bad part is, it works really well.

The NHL has the great "delayed penalty" rule - if one team commits a foul - a penalty is called. However, if the team that was fouled still has the puck and could potentially do something good with it, they get to keep trying. In the NBA, if someone has a good shot at the basket and is likely to make it, most teams just foul the person now and prevent the shot. This makes the game boring, frustrating, and also frustrates the players which usually leads to more real fouls.

So part of this rant is against the broken system of NBA officiating...

But back to Joey Crawford.
He is worse than most.

Where most reffing crews call an average of around 35-45 fouls per game and average less than one technical foul - Joey Crawford's crew has the infamous distinction of calling two of the worst games in history during the 2003 playoffs between the Spurs and the Mavericks. Joey Crawford himself called 4 technical fouls on Dallas coaches within the first 10 minutes of the game! I am a Spurs fan and can clearly state that this was completly and utterly unwarranted. His crew went on to call 120 fouls and 9 technicals. During the playoffs. And these were two teams that were not known for having attitudes or problem players. This was two of the classiest coache/player sets to play the game in recent history. Joey Crawford became the story of the series (rather than the play on the court) and as a result was warned by David Stern that if it happened again, he would have consequences. Well, here it is.

the game that was

I kinda feel like this represents the state of basketball in my life right now.

It's a shot of a goal nailed up to a tree across the street from my friend Jamie's old place (just helped him move)

2 years ago I would have listed basketball as my number one sport, and i still love to shoot hoops on my own when no one is looking - but the last time i did that was more than a year ago. and now that i've gotten so in to hockey, and we have a team in town, i haven't been following my Spurs most of this year. maybe when the NBA playoffs start up i'll get back in to it again.

I was talking with my dad about this at the last Predators game. It really makes me sad. I just like hockey better right now. I guess that's ok. That doesn't make me bad right? I just grew up cheering hard-core for the Spurs for so long, i played basketball as a kid (in church leagues and pick-up games).

But the current version of the game, the way the refs call things and the way most teams play...the way the league is so unbalanced...it just doesn't grab me the way it used to.

I am sure a lot of it has to do with the fact that i am going to hockey games live, and live a couple of hundred miles away from the nearest NBA town (500+ if you are looking for a team that actually wins games). We don't have cable and i almost never get to watch Spurs games anymore. Here at the end of the season and in the playoffs that should change since ABC broadcasts games...but now i don't know what's going on. I don't know who's who. I couldn't even tell you off the top of my head who plays center for the Spurs most of the time right now.

I still have a Spurs flag next to the Predators flag on my desk at work. And i still have an autographed David Robinson poster, "Go Spurs Go" sign, and a few other cool Spurs items in the sports-themed (Predators dominated) bathroom downstairs.

But alas, basketball is not the game it once was for me.

I have to say there is the teenie tiniest part of me that hopes that if the Predators don't win it all this year that they just get knocked out early so i can have more time to watch the Spurs in the playoffs. Of course the same could go in reverse. I don't even know if the Spurs are strong enough to guarantee our usually deep playoff run this year.

pictures, lots of pictures

I haven't blogged on pictures in a while, but for those who have been following my Flickr site, i have been posting a TON (several hundred in the last couple of weeks, actually).

I certainly wouldn't expect most (if any) of my loyal throng of readers (i think i'm up to 4 or 5 now if my mom has been able to "make my blog work").

So, here is a quick summary of what i think are the better and more interesting pictures, as well as the stories behind some of them. (for all of these pictures, just click to see the full view on my Flickr page)

First is a series of pictures taken with long exposure times. Basically the "shutter" (it is a digital camera, so no real shutter) is open for a full 15 seconds. The result is brilliant lights, colors, etc, as well as streaks/stretches anything that moves.

One of the down sides to the long shutter time is that if the camera doesn't stay perfectly still, it totally blurs the image. Sometimes the results are kinda cool though. I've started doing it on purpose occasionally:

Of course, many of the hundreds of pictures i have posted recently have been of hockey related since we've been going to so many games.

Here are some pictures i was able to grab of a tradition that i have noticed that i think is really cool and i doubt most people have seen. Many teams in the NHL just have a bucket of pucks they pour on the ice for free skate (warm ups). Others (like the sharks) have a guy throw them all out on the ice. However, the Predators have someone meticulously stack them in a pyramid shape on the edge of the boards by the tunnel. Then when Vokoun comes out (he almost always leads the team out the tunnel) he knocks them off on to the ice.

Anyway, that's it for now.
Many more on my Flickr site, and i'm sure i'll post more soon.

fantasy hockey results

Sweet! I won!

Honestly i didn't rig the league (i was the commissioner and controlled settings) but i think i did win largely because i was one of the only people that remembered to check on it on a regular basis.

It was a very close final 2 weeks (the finals went for 2 weeks instead of one).
I didn't take the lead until late in the final week. Here's the final scoring summary.

Congrats to all my fellow players and thanks everyone for playing!

Final standings:

1. Predators (Paul)
2. Preds Baby (Ryan)
3. Knuckledraggers (Jason)
4. Puck It Up (Brice)
5. Sabertooth Diago (Brett)
6. Nashville Starcats (Christy)
7. Frog Feet (Danielle)
8. Mandos (Kevin)

Update: I also made it to the final round of my Fantasy Basketball league (Someone else is the commissioner for this one). This one will be over April 18th

the nhl experience - nashville style

I've shot a good deal of video at recent Predators games.
As a result, i have a series of them uploaded to Google Video that, when strung together, may give you some idea what attending games can be like. (All of these can be viewed much larger by clicking on the Google Video logo instead of just hitting play)

First, we have the occasional open practice the day before a game. The Sportsplex is open to anyone that wants to watch the players run drills or sometimes even have a full practice.


Second, we have the pre-game warm-ups.
Anyone is allowed to go down near ice level (or to the glass if you get there early enough) and watch the players up close. If you are lucky, you may even be one of the many fans that J.P. Dumont or Vern Fiddler flips a puck to over the glass.


Next we have the visitor starting lineups.
In Nashville we have the tradition of yelling "SUCKS!" after each visiting players name is called out. After the coach, we yell "AND HE SUCKS TOO!"


After that, the Predators mascot, Gnash, is introduced. Sometimes he just comes out on the ice riding a four wheeler. Sometimes he comes straight down a rip line. But for really big games (first and last games of the year, playoffs, etc) he will come down the rip line swinging.


Then of course we have the Predators starting lineups as everyone skates out for the game.


Once the game gets starting, it usually isn't long before someone on the opposing team is whisted for a penalty and has to go to the penalty box.
For this, we all yell "AHHHHHH...SIT DOWN YA LOSER!"


Once we are on the power play, it usually isn't very long until we get to go through one of the many stages of our goal celebration with our own creative lyrics to "The Hey Song"


During intermission, there is usually some sort of silly contest featuring some people in tennis shoes trying to run around on the ice. This is my favorite flavor:


After a while the opposing team gets tired of being pushed around and they may start a little fight or two...and then someone may throw a catfish on the ice...and sometimes they happen all at once


So see, it is so much fun - everyone should come out and watch all the hockey games they can in person!

3rd jersey update

A quick update to a post i made waaaay back in October.

Much to the delight of fans (that hated the mustard jerseys) the NHL has outlawed 3rd jerseys in for next season. So last night's season finale may be the last time we see them.

However, my call was right back in Oct - we were much better with them than without them. Much better.

Here's how the record broke down this year (with one game to go):

	win	loss	otl	points %
overall	50	23	8	0.667
home	28	8	5	0.744
road	22	15	3	0.588
home jersey*	17	7	3	0.685
road jersey*	22	15	3	0.588
mustard	11	1	2	0.857

* Yes these numbers include the 2 times this year we wore our road whites at home and 2 times we wore and home blues on the road. We split those 4 games 2-2 so they were a wash.

So, clearly we were at our best wearing the mustard jerseys. Enough that i really have to wonder if it helped. Our blue home jerseys are dark, like the refs...i can't tell you the number of times i've watched home games where we pass the puck to the ref...at least it looks like it. They are very distinctive sweaters and i really wonder if it helps us see each other better for passing.

Maybe i'm nuts. Maybe it was the teams we played.
But given the samples to pull from, i really have to wonder...

I wish i had the time/resources to do this for other teams to see what the results were.

pictures and videos

Just a quick update on lots of new pictures I've posted to Flickr
I've included some of my favorites below, but as usual, just go to my main Flickr page to see the latest pictures.



Also - I now have VIDEO!
I'm starting to upload videos shot with my new camera (and probably some other random ones eventually too) to Google Video.

As a demonstration of the exciting videos you have to look forward to, here is a video that Christy shot at the Predators open practice recently. It is Vitaly Vishnevski doing puck drills. Thrilling i know.




I have to run now, but WAY WAY WAY more to come.

hockey championship

It has come down to this.

Our Yahoo Fantasy Hockey league's championship game is this week. I am proud to say i beat the odds (and my friend Brice) to get to the championship game.

This has really been a lot of fun. Christy did it with me, as well as a bunch of friends from work (and my friend Kevin, and my friend Brice's wife Danielle). It did what i hoped it would, and gave me a view of the rest of the league. Christy and i (especially Christy) drafted heavily from the Predators, being the fans that we are, but it made us pay attention and at least notice when major players in the rest of the league got hurt or got a hat trick, etc.

Here are the final regular season standings (click to enlarge):

And here's the way the playoffs went down (click to enlarge)

I have to also say that Christy made a great run for the playoffs and despite her team being made of 40% Predators players, she did very well - until the Predators all got hurt. The string of injuries that hurt the Preds have just about killed her in the standings. I think she would have won at least one round in the playoffs the way she was going, if it wasnt for the injuries.

Even if i don't win this week, i'm very happy with my outcome. I figured i'd end up in the middle of the pack.

romeo without juliet

I have to do a little mini-rant. Mostly just pointing out something i think is silly. A good idea gone just slightly wrong.

The local Yellow Pages around here have an add that plays about 10 times during every Predators game on the radio (which i listen to a lot since we don't have cable). It is meant to promote their Companion Directories. Basically mini-versions of their normal dead-tree phone books (does anyone use those anymore?). The idea is that the two books work best in combination.

The premise is simple enough - imagine famous people in history without their famous partner.

Lewis without Clark...
Lewis: "Man are my feet tired, any one want to go further?"
Crowd: "Nah"

Orville without Wilbur...
Orville: "I will make history! Man will fly! Can someone give me a push? Anyone?"
[Silence]

... Funny enough. But then they go off the deep end...

Romeo without Juliet:
Friend: "Romeo, you doing anything tonight?"
Romeo: "Just staying at home, working on my tapestry"
Friend: "Romeo, get a life."

The irony in the last statement is priceless. Romeo without Juliet would have lived longer! He wouldn't have killed himself. He'd have had a chance to work on a lot more tapestries. I think all-in-all you'd have to say Romeo without Juliet would have been a generally improved situation.

Funny commercial, but i think this is just evidence of how many people read the first part of the play in high school, got lazy, and never got around to finishing it.

new camera, new photos

For those that haven't heard, thanks to my parents generosity, i was able to buy a new camera recently. A Canon PowerShot S3 IS.

This thing is sweet. All sorts of amazing features, not to mention spectacular quality. It is basically a non-SLR digital SLR. I can get add-on lenses for it (wide-angle, tele, IR, etc). It has a mode just for shooting panoramas. And it shoots video at 640x480 at 30fps - with stereo audio.

So, here are some of the cooler pictures i've taken with it recently. Just made a big update to my Flickr page, so make sure to check it all out (and request to be my friend on Flickr to see WAY more pictures).

blog issues

For those using IE6: sorry about the blog not displaying correctly.

I custom wrote the theme i am using for my blog and it turns out that though IE 7 and Mozilla (and Opera) all render it just fine, IE 6 (which most people use) does not render it correctly.

I'll get it corrected as soon as i can, but in the meantime, try upgrading - either to IE 7 or the real upgrade: Mozilla.

sweet

This.
Is.
Awesome.

     

     

It isn't actually for sale but supposedly it will be about $1,500 when it does hit the market.

Check it out.

green d-men

Just a quick note to make sure everyone checks out the great article on ESPN.com about the Predators young defensemen. Great article.

Also, though i can't attend tonights game, i do want to encourage everyone to NOT give in to the St Patrick's Day temptation and wear green to the game tonight. We are playing the Dallas Stars tonight and their colors are green and gold. So wear green underwear if you must for St. Patrick's Day, but don't paint the Nashville Arena green and let the Stars feel at home.

we don't count

Christy and i were recently selected to be a Nielson family. That is, we were going to be one of the families who's TV watching habits were monitored to see who is watching what. Those numbers are then analized to see what the number one show on a given night was, etc.

My family got a chance to do this when i was younger, so i was excited to get the chance. Even though we don't have cable, we were looking forward to being able to 'pad' the ratings for hockey and Stargate, etc. that are still occasionally on broadcast TV.

However, you will note i am using all passed-tense verbs.
The guy came out this afternoon and determined we were a no-go.

Normally, they need a phone jack near every TV. We don't have one upstairs. But they said they have a 'wireless' model that would work. The problem came in with the computers.

We have a normal TV upstairs with a tuner. However, there is a PC hooked up to it that we watch things from occasionally. Downstairs there is a 19" LCD TV with a tuner we use sometimes, a VCR with a tuner we use sometimes, and a computer with an HDTV tuner that can display on the 19" screen or on the full projector system. They don't have any way to measure people with TV tuner cards. The guy said they just got the ability to measure content coming from DVR's and DVD players... wow. They are YEARS behind. It is amazing to me that the company that all TV advertisers and networks use to measure the success or failure of a given show don't have the ability to measure even the most basic of PC-based TV tuners. Not to mention all the watching of content we see streamed over the web (like Christy watching Ugly Betty).

As a result - if they can't measure every TV in the house, they don't measure anything.

It really makes me wonder just how under-represented geeks are. Giving in to stereo-types, i wonder how that affects the ratings of shows like Stargate, etc. At the very least i now know that my demographic (young, techno-savvy, upper-middle class, etc) are not being represented and as a result, our shows are not getting their due.

Oh well.
Another reminder that the world is not perfect, despite my best efforts.

Note: They did say they are working on being able to measure PC-based tuners. They are supposedly testing some methods in other markets. They said that we will still be selected as a ratings family when they can measure us, which will be 9 months to a year from now. So, if you will pardon the pun: stay tuned.

wake up, sir

This is awesome.

An alarm clock that awakens you with one of 50+ messages voiced by Stephen Fry (Jeeves of "Jeeves and Wooster"

For geeks like myself, this serves the wonderful dual benefits of being awakened both by the worlds most famous butler and the voice of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Can you think of a better way to wake up?

My favorite wake-up message (of the samples listed):

"I am so sorry to disturb you, Sir, but it appears to be morning. Very inconvenient I agree. I believe the rotation of the Earth is to blame, Sir."

Very well may be something I spend some of my birthday money on :-)
The version for the ladies is supposed to be coming soon.

Update: Ok, I won't be buying it. As awesome as all of that is, it doesn't support 24 hour time - as in - it goes off every 12 hours! That isn't cool. If it went off at 2:00 in the afternoon while i'm not home that might be ok (though it would annoy my wife i'm sure), but going off at 6:30pm as i'm eating dinner and asking me to wake up is just dumb. Not to mention - that means that the 50 messages would not actually last 3 months before repeating (as advertised), they would only last a month and a half. Oh well. Maybe I can just buy all the messages on CD and use them in the CD alarm clock i already own an use. :-)

Update 2:
For those who haven't had the joy of experiencing Jeeves and Wooster, check it out, someone uploaded it to YouTube. Most of the time content owners pull these things down pretty quickly, so i have to assume that its ok with them. Anyway, here's part one. Links to all 5 parts are below.



Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

happy birthday

Yesterday was my birthday. Had a good day. Got some awesome presents. Had a great dinner with Christy at Mafioza's last night and with my parents on Tues. And we're going to the Predators game tonight.

And check out the awesome cake my wife made me!

Christy got me a Dremel, too, which is fun. So now i just have to find out what I want to spend my awesome birthday cash on...

been a while

I guess i'm busy. At least that's my excuse.

Honestly i wish i had been blogging more. It helps me vent frustrations (which is why this tends to look like a negative rant) or share cool stuff (which is why i talk about the preds a lot).

Anyway, one of the things i have been spending time on that i used to use to blog is my/our new Flickr account.

Check it out - http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulnich

There is also a "Flickr Badge" in the lower right part of my blog if you haven't seen it)

Right now i don't have very many pictures out for public consumption, but i have over 1,500 uploaded and most of them mapped. You can sign up for your own Flickr account and request to be my friend (or family as the case may be). Then you can view all of our photos.

Also, make sure to check out the Mapping feature. I have placed pictures on a map where they were taken. Check it out.

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.