Meh.

Cranky, for nothing to do with the calendar. We're not doing anything special - just hitting the local Pho joint for dinner.

Hooray, stiffness that the substitute chiropractor didn't do shit about last week. Bah. Your chilly, cadaverous hands were not terribly theraputic, sir.

I was a big ball of stupid and suck pretty much all day yesterday[1], and then we went to the Lightning/Coyotes game. At my worst, I'm still better than 93% of the goddamned population. ( Some observations: )

Why, yes, I am a catty bitch when I'm cranky.

Review - "You Suck"

You Suck (A Love Story) - Christopher Moore

Sequel to "Bloodsucking Fiends"
More laughs. Much more nookie. Less angst & dramatic tension.

There are some books that I could never have written, but love to read. Moore writes books that I wish I'd written myself.

Other

[an excerpt of a letter I just sent to John Buccigross, ESPN's Resident Hockey Guy]

You write, "Major League Baseball's All-Star Game is held during the week."

The MLB All-Star game is unique in all of professional North American sports in that the day before, and the day after, are the only sports-free days on the entire calendar. It has, literally, no competition. The NHL ASG, by comparison, has to fight with, at the very least, the NBA, which (despite my staunchest efforts), remains far more popular [there's a prolonged rant I do here about the screen minute disparity between these two leagues on SportsCenter]), and possibly the playoff or Superbowl hype monster that is the NFL.

Long story short, the NHL ASG has the deck stacked against it, and making it a mid-week affair, even if it wasn't on the hard-to-find VS network, only exacerbates the problem. I hadn't considered the idea of a season-opening ASG like the one you proposed, but the more I think about it, the more sense it makes. Sure, the play will be pre-season sloppy, but casual fans won't notice, and real fans will hardly care - the current ASG is hardly representative of the average game in terms of play style, anyways.

Now, on to my question - what's your shortlist for best hockey video game of all time? I have a soft spot in my heart for both Blades of Steel on the old Nintendo and the first EA Sports NHL Hockey (before, you know, it became a franchise juggernaut, and sketchy AI allowed the lowly 92-93 Senators, they of the 38 team rating, to run up 40 goals a game with a .903 shooting percentage).... but nothing tops the EA NHL '99 (yes, the one with Lindros on the cover) for having the best, pump-you-up intro montage - great music, great footage (and LOTS OF HITTING - sadly overlooked when highlights focus on sweet goals and great saves)... after watching that for 45 seconds, you didn't just want to grab a controller and throw down, you wanted to lace 'em up and let fly.

And now, for your tedium and detritus pleasure, 50 trivial questions nicked from wyngdlyon:( Read more... )

Dating for Engineers

http://www.bitquabit.com/2007/02/14/smart-guys-date-in-parallel/

[courtesy of mighty_man]