fade

In another day, another time
This identity which i take,
Cannot be called mine.

I arose from a clouded slumber,
my peacefulness disturbed
By news I had not heard.

Are my thoughts and actions guided?
Should my selfishness be chided?

It came at once,
At all to fast,
My spirit could not spare,
The hole which had been dug.

One text, one call,
One breath that i didn't stall
She said I wasn't there,
so she couldn't give me a hug.

It is one thing to be a victim of senseless violence,
But how can one explain a sudden youth silenced?

These days my spirit pondered,
God's existence I wondered.
At times I may have thought,
well, maybe?
Now, lately,
I sit in not that lot.

What happens when one ceases to have a thought?
Will internal good and evil then have no longer fought?

Perhaps you will consider this blasphemy,
I instead consider it rich irony.

God's existence or power
are thumb-twiddling questions for the vain,
But a single human soul is
to large for the universe to contain.



Apologies for the crappy rhyming. Pain numbs many things.

holistic hockey hunches

Maybe I'm a sucker for high draft picks cheap. I have not done any number crunching, so I don't know if there is room, but heck, I'd like to see Patrick Stefan on the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Here's why. He's Czech. So are Jiri Tlusty, Pavel Kubina and Tomas Kaberle. That's about it, the influence of his fellow countrymen. Maybe Stefan could be good too. Could sign him to a one year contract for under a million dollars.

Perhaps it makes no sense. Just throwing it out there as an idea. So JFJ, if you're reading, maybe give Stefan a call, a little 'howyadoin?'

Maybe playing with Mats could be a selling point. One thing that I definitely don't know about is what the players say between themselves. That being said, neither does anyone else who isn't a player (or close to one). So I'm going to go out on a short limb here and say that Mats Sundin is one of the most Respected players in the NHL, and as Toskala mentioned, perhaps one people will sign with the Leafs to play with. He is the Leader (nananananananana leader, leader, Batman) and should have haiku's written in his honour. That will be my task for the week, haiku's for Mats. Like these:

Oh fearless leader,
Thou art a moose on the ice,
With antlers hidden.

Big Swede with sweet stride,
Slapshot and defence like Thor,
But without the beard

-----

Second point of the day comes to this highlight of Nikolai Kulemin that my friend Kenny sent me. He's a 2nd round pick (44th overall) from the 2006 draft and was signed to a 3 year deal with the Leafs which (I assume) takes affect after this 2007-2008 season where he is signed with the Metallurg Magnitogorsk hockey club in the Russian Super League.

Here's a highlight reel of some of his skills. Big Props to MuscleBob for putting it together.

the tarp is falling

Chicken little, I mean the Colorado Rockies, were safely tucked away in their clubhouse as their opponents and the umpires took to the field to help the Rockies own personal. What does this have to do with anything? Well I'm glad I traded Todd Helton in my fantasy pool, and I'm glad I held on to (as Ryan calls him) Shane Victoriorio.

when your opponent is history

I don't mean that figuratively. When one is playing well, beyond well, and the only players one matches up against are those from that sport's great past; one plays against history more than the man across the court.

Roger Federer knows Rafael Nadal is catching up. It showed yesterday during the Wimbledon final. In the 4th set Federer began to lose his cool, in a way not seen since his younger days. But Nadal took some injury time during that 4th set. And Federer sat there, used that time to gather his composure and focus. Federer was down 4-0 in that set but had a 2-1 set advantage. Unless Nadal couldn't stand up, the match was going to 5 sets.

In the 5th set, Federer seemed to be distracted, trailing 15-40 tied at one game apiece. But he channeled his wandering mind and returned to take the game to deuce and win with four straight points.

Again at 2-2 in the 5th set, again trailing 15-40, he came back to take it to deuce and win the game with another 4 straight points.

That seemed to be it for Nadal. He had Federer ready to be broken at 15-40 twice in that 5th set. Now down 3-2 in the 5th and having held serve for 22 straight games, the weight of playing against a giant was too much for even him to hold.

Federer finally broke Nadal's service. At the end of a return point where Federer hit approximately one hundred lines during his volley with Nadal, the final sideline shot was a return unreachable for Nadal and Federer let out a stream of joy. A sight of emotion usually reserved for those who are human, for those who have been pushed to their limit and have come out on top. It was a sight unseen on the grass courts of Wimbledon for the past 5 years. Roger had owned Wimbledon like a man playing against children. There was no joy in that.

But yesterday Federer, for the first time in a long time, was being pushed. His physical opponent across the net was a 21 year old phenom made from clay. His mental opponents were sitting in the stands watching him. His spiritual opponents were controlling the infallible technology from above and beyond.

At the end, when he was finally victorious, Federer let go. Crumbling to the ground having vanquished his opponents, he covered his face with his hands. Perhaps, at some point, he thought that his opponents would be too much for him.

It was understood that Nadal had the French but Wimbledon was Roger's. That was Roger's home. That was where Roger beat the immortal Sampras and broke Sampras' chance for 5 straight titles away. Perhaps he thought that Nadal has caught up to him as he had to Sampras, and that his chances at pure domination maybe fewer and far between. Who knows what thoughts pass through the minds of those standing on the precipice of history?

As the floodgates of emotion overwhelmed the stoic champion, he returned to his chair and took his time to put on his proper whites. Vest, jacket, trousers.

Nadal sat at his own chair, head down, sweat dripped hair hanging. You could see the thoughts forming in a bubble over his head, "this is what it feels like to lose when you've done enough to win. Remember this feeling Rafa, this is what you will use whenever you feel that you're good enough to win."

We, the audience, sometimes wonder what it would be like for two greats of the past to square off. Soon it may be understood that Roger Federer's greatness not only lay in the amount of majors that he won, but that he had to go through Rafael Nadal to do so.

When it's all said and done, yesterday will be the day that two greats from future's past squared off.

"In my opinion," Nadal said, "[Federer's] tennis level is the best in history."

That's 11 majors for Roger now, Tiger.

nobody likes betting against the home team

As I drift off between drowsiness and waking life, I realize that I must reiterate the mantra.

We have a wonderful collection of minds.

Many intelligent people spend lots of mind energy (read: thoughts) on sports.
In my youth I watched Don Cherry often. As the years went on, and Saturday nights were for more than just hockey, and hockey was on more than just Saturday nights, I watched less and less.

Then he started, at the end of Coach's Corner, to hold a picture. Pictures of people, in the line of duty, who have been killed.

It started off as a once in a while thing. He'd hold a picture, camera would zoom in, he'd say something poignant, Ron Maclean would sign off (or not) without a witty line.

It just came to me, this evening, a month (or so) after the hockey season has ended and the last Coach's Corner has aired, that for many weeks this season, the segment did not end with a witty line from Ron.

And Don wasn't holding up one picture.

There would be a few of them, and since the CBC was used to graphically portraying them on their news segments, those same screen shots, of multiple people, Canadian Military, would be shown.

There is a war going on. It is nothing less than a war. It may not be the war we're used to, but then again, we aren't used to any war at all.

Tonight I found myself glad that the Jays won. In fact, I've been spending a lot of time thinking about the Jays, as many people may have.

But, if I was constantly reminded that we were at war, would I care? Wouldn't I want the war to end so I could enjoy the Jays or whomever at peace?

But I'm firing in the dark here. I've always been firing in the dark. I'm sure there are motions, movements, protests afoot. I'm not connected to them. Seek, and ye shall... but I'm buried in work/school/books/sports.

Kurt Vonnegut fought in a big war. He realized that there are a few things that will continue to happen that cannot be stopped. Those things include Ice Ages and wars.

Maybe I'm using the wrong forums to extract public opinion. Maybe I should use the internet better. But it gets hard. There's a lot of hate out there. A lot of ignorant, misguided, quick-to-judge bullying. And it's the sort of thing that can wake one up when one is about to fall asleep, and derail one's soft journey into dreams.

If I dream tonight, it probably won't be pleasant.

Walk tall, kick ass, learn to speak Arabic, love music and never forget you come from a long line of truth seekers, lovers and warriors. -Hunter S. Thompson

good riddance

"Makes me laugh that Daniel Alfredsson took a lot of heat and was even called "classless" by American TV broadcasters for shooting the puck at Scott Niedermayer with time running out in the second period of Game 4. The only thing he did wrong was fire it too low. In the Stanley Cup final, you should be doing everything you can to win. With two seconds left on the clock and standing at your blue line, you're not going to score. Attempting to take out the opponent's best defenceman is the next best thing. Believe it's called competitiveness."

By this logic, there should be lots of journalists lining up to take a hammer at your hands, eh Don Brennar? The only thing they would do wrong is not use a butchers knife.

Rebirth of radio

Not net radio, but podcasting. As the cell phones leans more and more towards becoming the ubiquitous device for the person on the go and memory chips get smaller and smaller, the radio will be reborn in the form of podcasts.

People like to hear people talk. Personally, there are a few podcasts that I listen to almost daily. They allow me to not read the newspapers as much, and give me the information I require in a short 15-20 minute segment during my travel to and from work. I download the podcast onto my smartphone, plug it in and go. Here's what I listen to (almost exclusively ESPN, because I haven't had the time to search out others).

-Baseball Today - ESPN: Above and beyond the best podcast series I've ever heard (I think I've heard 5). Alan Schwarz does a fantastic job of recapping the previous nights events, has great knowledgeable guests, and talks about baseball. Been listening to these guys since they started last year, and have tremendously enjoyed the whole time. Sure some of the sound bites are gimmicky, but whatever. Great job.

-Daily Dish - ESPN: Chad Ford does a bang up job of talking hoops. Hard to get into NBA for me because Raptors are out, but that is not their fault.

-Fantasy Focus -ESPN: After Baseball today, listening to this makes my ears hurt. They've got intrusive songs with this high pitched beep that goes off every few seconds and the commentators speak in forceful AM radio tones (e.g. "do not pick up Mark Hendrickson on the Dodgers. I will jump out of your computer and stop you from picking up Mark Hendrickson" who ended up pitching 6 shutout innings of 3 hit ball with 7 strikeouts that evening). I guess if you don't follow baseball it might make sense to have these guys advise some moves, but all in all, asides from the injury specific news on players, there isn't much they add. They could cut the podcast down to 5 minutes and simply discuss injuries, transactions, and implications. I don't need to know to hold on to Pujols because he's probably going to hit 15 homeruns in June (my prediction, not theirs).

-Sports Guy - ESPN: Well, he's had one episode so far. Lets hope it turns out better than that cartoon based on him ESPN was putting on for a while.

-Off Wing Opinion: Eric McErlain and Joe Tasca did some podcasts that I listened to last year. Good stuff there about the NHL and mostly the Washington Capitals.

Well, that's all for now, a short summary for sure. Here are some posts about Net radio, which, from what I understand, is different from podcasting.

The Death and Rebirth of Web Radio

The Death of Internet Radio

he'll make Gretzky's head bleed

Jeremy Roenick is on TSN's NHL playoff panel this year. A few nights ago they were all talking about the overtime situation in the playoffs. If they change the playoff overtime format, I'm going to start simulating the NHL with my old SNES and NHL 94. The way men played.
So, in NHL 94, JR used to be a kick ass player. Not so much now, but apparently he's willing to play for the Leafs next season, and not for much. Will Jeremy Roenick sign with the Leafs? Probably not, but this is still funny.



And I was at that game where Roenick scored over Belfour. I sat at the other end of the rink. I got my ticket off of ebay from a guy in Philadelphia. Things got pretty sour in the arena after that shot went in, guys were picking fights with girls, Flyer fans were cheering, just a bad scene.

and the heavens danced

Knowing that the universe is a large place and Earth is a speck, the astral heavens flowed as silk linens through a breeze. In other words, they moved to the music, and their music was the wind.

I can't remember which one of my university friends mentioned it to me first, Adam or Dayton. But I was given Galapagos, and my life would forever be the better for it. As the years went on, I digested his words, his beautiful regurgitation of anger into humour. When I read the news today "Author Kurt Vonnegut dead at 84", oh boy. I thought "wow, he's gone, this sucks." I then went through some of his quotes, smiling through each and every one. Wikiquote is what i used, and i feel it is a good resource.

As I write this I am finding hard to keep my composure. It's cold, grey and damp outside. So it goes.

Of all the beautiful things he has written or said, I have chosen the following. The first I use myself now when people ask me of my religious affiliation. The rest just make me smile.

"I am a humanist. Being a Humanist means trying to behave decently without expectation of rewards or punishment after you are dead."

"Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before," Bokonon tells us. "He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way."

"A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved."

"The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist. The Tralfamadorians can look at all the different moments just that way we can look at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains, for instance. They can see how permanent all the moments are, and they can look at any moment that interests them. It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever."

"I am, incidentally, Honorary President of the American Humanist Association, having succeeded the late, great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov in that totally functionless capacity. We had a memorial service for Isaac a few years back, and I spoke and said at one point, "Isaac is up in heaven now." It was the funniest thing I could have said to an audience of humanists. I rolled them in the aisles. It was several minutes before order could be restored. And if I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, "Kurt is up in heaven now." That's my favorite joke."

Thank you Kurt Vonnegut Jr. You're up in heaven now.

Kurt Vonnegut 11/11/22-04/11/07

uh oh, I hear a banjo

and hockey players? Tomfoolery ensues. This is a great NHL commercial and makes me smile that the guys at MyNHL finally woke up and started piecing together some good stuff (if this even done by those guys).



Ovechkin is to Crosby as Newman is to Seinfeld?

i'm dwight howard

"and you really have to put a body on me. I shot 13 for 14 from the field against Toronto this week, and last night this old guy, Tim Hortons (Duncan, Dunkin Donuts, donuts, coffee and donuts... from Tim Hortons) or something tries to stop me. And, yeah, he's got the right idea, you really do have to put a body on me, but good luck finding on. 'Cause this Hall of Famer?

Not enough.

Who's next?"

i'm alexander steen

“Hi, I’m Alexander Steen. I just scored a goal by faking the goalie by not looking at him. I kick ass. You may not know me yet, but my hockey intelligence is superior than most. I’m gonna go let my totally hot girlfriend cut and colour my hair any way she wants because she’s hot. And I’m good at hockey. You can watch me kick ass tonight against the Nashville Predators tonight. That is all.
Ps. I think I saw a hidden camera in the visitors shower locker there.”

NHL 3 point System

In the past, I’ve complained about the unequal point distribution between NHL games which has come into play with the new OT and shootout point being awarded to the loser. Instead of rehashing that point, I’m going to display a quick little study on a new format that I suggested, that being three points being allocated to winners of NHL games in regulation (and 2 points to winners in overtime or a shootout and 1 point to the loser of the overtime or shootout game). As of today, here are the standings with the current NHL point system.

EAST	GR	PTS
1. Buffalo *	27	76
2. New Jersey *	28	72
3. Atlanta *	26	67
4. Montreal	27	64
5. Pittsburgh	29	63
6. Ottawa	28	63
7. Tampa Bay	27	62
8. Carolina	26	61
9. Toronto	28	60
10. NY Islanders	29	57
11. NY Rangers	28	55
12. Boston	30	52
13. Washington	27	52
14. Florida	27	51
15. Philadelphia	30	33
WEST	GR	PTS
1. Nashville *	27	77
2. Anaheim *	28	74
3. Calgary *	29	65
4. Detroit	28	74
5. San Jose	28	69
6. Dallas	28	66
7. Vancouver	28	64
8. Minnesota	27	62
9. Colorado	29	56
10. Edmonton	28	56
11. Phoenix	28	52
12. St. Louis	28	50
13. Chicago	29	47
14. Columbus	28	47
15. Los Angeles	26	44

In the East there is a huge logjam in positions 4 through 9 and the New York teams have to leapfrog a couple of others to gain a playoff spot.

With the NHL system as it is, in the West, Colorado and Edmonton have a huge 6 point deficit to make up on Minnesota and Phoenix is starting to make summer plans.

Basically, the East is jockeying for position with a slight race. To correctly display how difficult it is to make up points in this system, I have followed Toronto, who has won 5 straight. Before their streak began, Toronto sat 2 points out of the playoffs (they were tied with the Rangers for 9th, but the Rangers had a game in hand). They won 5 straight games and now still sit in 9th, trailing by a point. Five straight wins and only 1 point made up in the standings.

Going further back, in their past 10 games the Leafs are 8-2-0-0. Ten games ago (standings as of January 9th), the Leafs were sitting tied with Tampa Bay for 9th in the Conference, one point out of a playoff spot. Leafs win 8 out of their next 10 games and are still sitting in 9th, one point out of a playoff spot (they do have games in hand on the teams in front of them, but I think the point is that it’s hard to make up ground these days, especially when the teams you're trailing also keep winning or getting overtime losses points, I'm looking at you Penguins)

So I compiled a new system, with 3 points being given to a team that wins games in regulation time (with the current NHL overtime and shootout point systems in place) in order to balance the weight of games. With this came a new stat, Point Percentage. This stat is similar to winning percentage in other sports, as it shows how many of the total available points a team has obtained (available points = games played * 3 points). Needless to say this stat can only be created with all games being worth the same amount.

Here’s how it works; if the Leafs win 3 out of 6 games (2 regulation wins, 1 win coming in overtime and losing 3 in regulation) their point percentage under the 3 point system would be as follows.

(2 Regulation wins * 3 points) + (1 overtime win*2 points) = 8 points

Total points (6 games*3points) =18.

Point % =8/18 = 0.444

Now say the Senators win 2 out of 6 games but win both of their games in a shootout and lose 3 of their games in overtime (and lose their last game in regulation time) it would work like this;

(2 wins *2 points)+ (3 OT loss*1 point) = 7 points

Point %= 7/18 = 0.389

Toronto would have won more games, have more points and a better point percentage than Ottawa. Here lies, what I feel, is the flaw in the current NHL system.

In the current NHL system with (both teams performing the same as stated above), the Leafs would have obtained 6 points in those 6 games (3 wins) and the Senators would have obtained 7 points (2 wins and 3 overtime losses).

What is the goal, to win a game or to lose as late as possible? Under the current system, losing as late as possible is the way to go.

Here are the current NHL standings with the 3 point system in place.

EAST	GR	PTS	POINT %
1. Buffalo *	27	100	0.606
2. New Jersey *	28	96	0.593
3. Atlanta *	26	86	0.512
4. Ottawa	28	90	0.556
5. Montreal	27	87	0.527
6. Carolina	26	85	0.506
7. Pittsburgh	29	84	0.528
8. Toronto	28	83	0.512
9. Tampa Bay	27	82	0.497
10. NY Islanders	29	77	0.484
11. NY Rangers	28	73	0.451
12. Florida	27	71	0.430
13. Washington	27	70	0.424
14. Boston	30	66	0.423
15. Philadelphia	30	45	0.288
WEST	GR	PTS	POINT %
1. Nashville *	27	108	0.655
2. Anaheim *	28	103	0.636
3. Calgary *	29	93	0.585
4. Detroit	28	105	0.648
5. San Jose	28	102	0.630
6. Dallas	28	90	0.556
7. Vancouver	28	84	0.519
8. Edmonton	28	80	0.494
9. Colorado	29	77	0.484
10. Minnesota	27	77	0.467
11. Phoenix	28	71	0.438
12. St. Louis	28	65	0.401
13. Columbus	28	64	0.395
14. Chicago	29	62	0.390
15. Los Angeles	26	59	0.351

The biggest leaps from the current system to the new one come from Carolina and Edmonton. Colorado (with a game in hand) could conceivably tie Edmonton for 8th if they won their next game in regulation.

I hope this goes to show how flawed I feel that the current system is by rewarding overtime and shootout performance more than wins.

i can do that

Last night, flipped to the Miami Heat - Indiana Pacers basketball game and caught this circus shot by Dwayne Wade. Left handed, over-the-shoulder, not looking at the basket, and one.

UPDATE: Youtube, greatest invention since you and tube.

tuesdays are my party night

Winter finally hits in Toronto. I'm sitting around at night, one cold dreary desolate night, flipping channels in front of my television. See that Texas is playing Oklahoma State in mens NCAA basketball. Now, I don't watch all NCAA games, but I have created a checklist, and if the game falls into one of the categories on that list, I might watch it. Here is that list of what needs to be happening for me to watch an NCAA game:

1. Leafs aren't playing
2. Raptors aren't playing
3. There isn't a good NFL game on
4. There are two top 25 ranked teams playing each other.
5. There is one top 25 ranked team, and it's the second half of the game, and that ranked team is losing to an unranked team.
6. Greg Oden is playing.
*New* 7. Kevin Durant is playing.

Number seven on that list was created on Tuesday night. As I mentioned, #14 ranked Oklahoma State was at home playing #23 ranked Texas in a Big Twelve Conference match up. Texas is a young team, they were ranked #1 at about this time last year, but this year have 9 freshmen or sophomores on their 12 man roster having lost all of their starters from last year. Their starting 5 consist of 4 freshmen and 1 sophomore.

Anyways, it was the match of the year so far in basketball, going to triple overtime and ending with a Oklahoma victory on a Mario Boggan wild three pointer with a few seconds left. They play again on February twelfth.

Twelfth is a weird word. Such strong consonants all in a row. LFTH. Just weird.

So this Kevin Durant guy is a skinny freshman on Texas who can shoot from anywhere it seems. He's listed as 6 foot 9 weighing 225, but it looks like he needs to weigh around 250 to fill out his body. He's going to be good.

countenance noun 1 obsolete : BEARING, DEMEANOR
2 a : calm expression b : mental composure c : LOOK, EXPRESSION
3 archaic a : ASPECT, SEMBLANCE b : PRETENSE
4 : FACE, VISAGE; especially : the face as an indication of mood, emotion, or character
5 : bearing or expression that offers approval or sanction : moral support

zoom zoom zoom

Went to the Raptors game against the Timberwolves last night, took some pictures with my new camera. Great game, good crowd, pizza was decent, Raptors won without Bosh, Mark Blount can shoot from 5 feet away at the most.

Just to give some perspective of how much zoom my camera has, here's a pic that I took without a zoom from my seat.


Here's a pic of the T-Wolves with standard 3x zooming.


And finally, here's a pic of the new kid (and boy did he get a loud ovation when he came in off the bench) Bargnani.


I'm seriously fighting off the urge to post pics of any and everything. Here's my desk, and there's my phone, and there's a door, and look at that staple, look how far I can zoom in on that thumbtack. I feel like that kid in American Beauty, which I just get now. It's not that he found beauty in meaningless things like a plastic bag in the wind, it's that he was in love with his camera and would take pictures or video of anything. I bet you a few months later he was totally in love with his ipod or psp or something. We have such short attention spans these days. What was I talking about again? Oh yes, words.

anhedonia noun : a psychological condition characterized by inability to experience pleasure in normally pleasurable acts
an·he·don·ic adjective

shotgun bang, what's up with that thang

I have a little thing I do, run weekly football picks pool with a few friends. This week, in making my report, I stumbled on to something which I think might make sense. It's about the Tennessee Titans and New York Giants. Vince Young and Jeff Fisher. Shotgun formation.

What contributed to the Titans incredible comeback, down 21 points in the 4th quarter? Here is what I wrote.

Sandy won, and he could give credit to Mathias Kiwanuka, the rookie defensive end from Boston College (1st round 32 overall) on the New York football Giants, who (for some reason I'm pretty sure even he doesn't understand) let up half way through a sack on Vince Young. This was on a 4th and 10 play in the 4th quarter with the Titans on their own 24 yard line, down by a touchdown and just over 2 minutes to play. Basically a play which could have ended the game but instead Young ended up gaining 19 yards on it and ended up leading the Titans on a game-tying touchdown drive. Some of you (especially Pat) might know of this play, but what might be lost is that on the play before, on 3rd down, Kiwanuka dropped into coverage and made a great stop by knocking down a pass setting up the 4th and long.

Watching that drive, and looking up some facts (you didn't actually think I knew what Kiwanuka's draft history was off the top of my head did you?) it got me thinking. What changed, what happened to allow the Titans to mount such a comeback in the 4th quarter? The answer, might be in the offensive formations used by the Titans. Here is something I guarantee you won't find anywhere else (at least not presented to you on a platter like this, maybe someone else is on to it, but they're probably in Tennessee).

Last year on the Longhorns, Vince Young, in the championship game against USC, he engineered a game winning touchdown drive with plays that were mainly from the shotgun formation. Those (and traditionally all) shotgun formation plays allowed Young to be more mobile. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if he primarily worked out of the shotgun formation in his college career. One way for me to verify this is to examine the Longhorns playbook in NCAA football, but I don't know if I need to because some facts here speak for themselves. Below is a table of the Titans yards gained by formation in their game agains the Giants. The first column is with Young under centre, the second is with him out of shotgun. It is further broken down by half, because there is a big difference in what happened in the two halves of that game.

1st Half	Under Centre	Shotgun
Plays	17	8
Yards	68	54
Avg.	4	6.75
2nd Half
plays	7	27
Yards	24	185
Avg.	3.43	6.85
Total
plays	24	35
Yards	92	239
Avg.	3.83	6.83

Included in that table is the drive in the 4th quarter which led to the first Titans touchdown, a drive that consisted solely of plays out of the shotgun formation.

Yeah, so lots of things came into play for that remarkable comeback, but consistent difference in average yards gained between the formations is striking.

I'm thinking that we might see Jeff Fisher employ the shotgun formation more frequently in Titan games in the future.

Putative: adj 1 : commonly accepted or supposed
2 : assumed to exist or to have existed

a note on the san antonio spurs

They are the best team in the NBA. Barring injury, they will win the NBA western conference and possibly the NBA title, if not for the Toronto Raptors (blind faith baby, blind faith). The only team that can beat the Spurs is....... the Spurs.

Seriously, they're that good.

Anyone who thinks Houston is better, did not see the (capital I) Incredible comeback that the Spurs made in Houston to beat them. That was a healthy Rockets team which showed its weakness (depth) as opposed to San Antonio's strength (depth). Unless that weakness is addressed a.s.a.p., this current Rockets team can not beat the Spurs in a seven game series, even with (boo) Tracy McGrady (boo) firing on all cylinders. The Spurs were down by 19 at one point in the third quarter of that game and out scored the Rockets 21-9 in the 4th quarter to win by 8. Yes it was one game but I'm willing to make my stand based on one game. Am I jumping to conclusions? Fo' shoggy my doggy, but I ain't gonna stand down on it.

Of course, it's only November, and there will be trades and injuries and etc. And yes, I know that there are other teams in the West, and yes, I know that the Spurs lost at home to the Bobcats last night, but they shot 3-12 in overtime compared to Charlotte's 5-7 and ended up loosing by 3. The fact the game went to overtime was a statement, because the Spurs were down by 8 with just over 2 minutes to play. This team just does not die.

ameliorate v Etymology: alteration of meliorate
transitive verb : to make better or more tolerable
intransitive verb : to grow better

a point on points

Disclaimer - I know this is not an original argument, but I had to vent. It’s only November, but this argument will be raised as the NHL season goes on (especially close to the end) and I just want to be a part of the collective voice supporting it.

I’ve been trying to get my head around this, and for the life of me, I can’t figure the logic behind why some games in the NHL are ending with 3 points being allocated to the participants, and some others are ending only having 2 points allocated to one team? Is it because some games are worth more than others? If so, why don’t they tell the viewers before hand, so I can plan to watch the more valuable 3 point games?

In the NHL, regular season standings are determined by how many points a team has gained throughout the season. Points are allocated thusly:

2 points for a win
1 point for a loss in overtime or in shootout.
0 points for a loss in regulation.

Based on those standings the top 8 teams from each conference (all teams being divided into two conferences) make the playoffs and chase the Stanley Cup. So even though the regular season is quite long, it does have some importance to it. My beloved Maple Leafs, missed out on the playoffs last year, despite gaining 90 points in 82 games.

The answer to my own questions lies in the fact that the NHL wanted to stop having games being ended in a tie, and therefore started to allocate a ‘bonus point’ to a winning side in overtime or shootout, and at the same time, didn’t want to penalize a team for loosing in overtime or a shootout and so it let them gain one point. But this has created a situation where teams (especially those playing games against teams outside their conference) perhaps are playing with the goal to get to overtime and the safe point; making the objective of the participating squads to tie, not to win. Once you lower the standards of competition to a tie, the level of play deteriorates. You have teams sitting back and waiting for other teams to make mistakes. Offensive chances go down at the ending of games with teams sitting back waiting for mistakes. I don’t need stats to tell me that the last 10 minutes of regulation time in games that are tied see a noticeable decline in offensive chances being taken by either squad.

Quite frankly, that’s fine by me. Strategy is strategy. You can’t plan excitement. What you can plan is an even schedule slowly building to a crescendo as playoffs arise. Late in the season, games take on a little extra intensity as teams in the playoff hunt are playing for a shot to go for the cup.

But if you make wins in regulation time worth 2 points, and still give some teams one point in overtime loses, you create an unequal playing field. It becomes incredibly hard for any playoff races to actually develop. If you’re crediting a losing squad in overtime or shootout, you’re devaluating the winning squad, but by giving the winning squads the same amount of points (in overtime, shootout or regulation) you’re also devaluating the team that wins in regulation. How can some games be worth more than others?

Why doesn’t the NHL see this inconsistency? A simple solution would be to allocate 3 points to a team winning in regulation, therefore equalizing the point distribution. The concept of a ‘bonus point’ has gotten out of hand.

Mercurial n 1 : of, relating to, or born under the planet Mercury
2 : having qualities of eloquence, ingenuity, or thievishness attributed to the god Mercury or to the influence of the planet Mercury
3 : characterized by rapid and unpredictable changeableness of mood [a mercurial temper]
4 : of, relating to, containing, or caused by mercury
synonym see INCONSTANT

to get to the other side

Is it a joke, or a incredibly philosophical debate? Why did the chicken cross the road? It was at a cross road in life, and it had to make a decision. Only to someone who is incredibly afraid, say a chicken, would crossing the road be considered a big decision. And yet, we all have our roads to cross, be we chickens, hamsters, raccoons, or humans. But we are what we are, and we will cross our roads each, individually (asides from those of us helping old ladies cross), in order to get to the other side. Just like it was a big decision for the chicken, and i admire him for making it, it is a big decision for each of us as we approach the road that we have to cross.

But you, apperantly, have had your arrival coincide with an awakening of the senses, or something to that ilk. You are either amazed by the enormity of the road ahead, or decidedly happy that it seems nothing more than a short juant. Perhaps you are blinded by the commotion on said road and are wondering where in the heck there is an opening for you to cross. You look up, there's no traffic signals to help forge an opening for you. To your front you see people and things moving so quickly and you wonder how you can enter such a fray without damaging yourself by being hit. Hard now doubly so because of your vision imperment due to the commotion.

To your left and right are other people who have yet to cross the road. Everyone has something different on the other side, but like you, they cannot see it through the fray of traffic. Some are just arriving, some have been here for a while. One gentleman in particular you notice, he seems to have a crowd around him, and he is speaking loudly, mostly to be heard over the noise from the road traffic. "Oh yeah, I'm going today." He shouts. "No need to worry about the traffic, I've scouted it out and I'm making my move today." He's been saying that for days, but others like you, who have just arrived, believe him upon hearing him this first time.

Others you see walk up to the road and upon rationalizing turn and walk back, deciding to cross the road at another time. And yet others, walk up and don't even pause before they decide to cross and enter the traffic.

The final group of people are those who are exiting the street onto your side. You walk up to one and ask them how it was. "No big deal," they reply. "Just a matter of getting your feet moving." And they walk away. Knowing that there will be another road for them to cross, but crossing the first is the hardest, or so it would seem.

And so you look down at your feet. Move your glance up to the road. Look down once again at your feet, and get them going.

happy trails.