a visit to city hall

Its not often that I can be made to feel that I am a fool within 15 minutes of making a statement.  The statement in this instance was a tweet, and the tweet was about how as citizens of the city (of Toronto in my case) we should be more focused on the issues rather than the drama that may be unfolding in the personal or professional lives of our City Councillors.

The statement was inspired by a visit to a city meeting this past Wednesday night when I sat in on council session.   I was only there for a couple of hours, so I only heard one issue being discussed. It was centred around holiday shopping.  Specifically, Victoria day (a Holiday in August) was being debated and the opening of stores to allow people to shop on that day was being discussed.

There are businesses who wish to be open in Toronto so they don't "lose" shoppers to areas that allow shopping on holidays.  Workers don't want to have to work on holidays.  It sounded like this issue of shopping on holidays comes up quite often, as the frequency of this issue being debated was brought forward by numerous Councillors.

After a few votes and presentations, a vote was taken and the idea for retailers to be open on Victoria day was defeated.  Much to the delight of many workers who were in attendance that day showing support for no work on holiday, mostly hourly workers who get "persuaded" to work by their employers.  Persuasion often being in the form of the choice of work on that day or get fired.

It was a good victory for those in attendance, especially one first generation immigrant (by her own account) grocery store grandmother, who was given a voice by having a video play of her speech that must have been given recently during a public consultation.   She was seen drying her eyes after the video came up, I'm not sure if she knew it was to be played before hand or not, but nevertheless, the issue was close to her heart and perhaps being given a voice on such a stage contributed to the emotions where were coming to the surface.

Most encouraging about the process was that regardless of views, council seemed to be working under a consensus building environment.  Shelley Carroll herself talked as though she was in support of shopping on retail days, but since she could see that the motion was strongly opposed, was going to vote against it.

Good to see mature, emotional intelligent reasoning and discussion, the likes of which we (as news watching citizens) don't often get.  We're often shown the drama-of-the-day, which was quite dramatic the day after we attended. When there's so much work being done on issues at hand, he said-she said gets more attention from us.

After listening to the discussion, I felt as though both sides had a point.  And there was a third side (and a fourth perhaps) that also was motioned and discussed.  A scenario was painted where those with children or urgent needs would be able to go to a pharmacy and obtain the medication they need (because health doesn't take a holiday) rather than populating the emergency ward of a hospital.  Pharmacies being open would help mitigate that, but pharmacies in the city now are more like mini-grocery stores to the point where they are large enough to be the anchors in some suburban plazas.   At what point does a pharmacy become more of grocery store with a pharmacy (7500 sq. ft versus 15000 sq. feet)?

Needless to say, a simple but  still complex issue.  People who choose one side or another would most likely lather, rinse and repeat their arguments ad infinitum to the other side.  Which is why we need councilors and leaders who can see all sides and reason and discuss a resolution which is to the benefit of the greater good.

And I thought to myself that discussion of issues in a calm, reasoned manner is a good method, process to utilize when leading and bringing our society forward.  There is construction that can arise out of deconstruction of arguments.  But deconstruction of discussion leads us backwards to defining the terms of the discussion.  Perhaps it leads to a viscous cycle of talking to make a point rather than talking to understand the other side.

Then, in a few minutes, my whole statement of "stick to the issues" was remarkably deconstructed by Michael Kruse in a recent TEDx talk.

h/t Bruce Arthur

Basically, issues don't captivate us.  Stories do. Conflict makes stories.  City Hall in Toronto is making news, international news, perhaps like never before.  And it's not because they are discussing whether or not shops should be open on Holidays.  Analogous perhaps to rubbernecking an accident on the highway more than paying attention to the eagle soaring in the sky above, we are attracted, compelled, to friction and conflict.  

This may not be a revelation to most, it wasn't exactly brand new to me (have to give myself a little credit), but it was another reminder of how issues, debates, often aren't as simple as we'd like them to be.

 enounce

1. To declare formally; state.

2. To pronounce clearly; enunciate.

access information

"Our society has reached a critical moment.  Our capacity to access information has grown to the point where we are in danger of overwhelming our ability to process it.  The exponential growth in the power of our computers and network, while opening vast opportunities, is outpacing our human abilities and altering our forms of communications in ways that alienate us from each other.  We are being deluged with information through electrical signals and radio waves, reduced to a digital, super-literal form that can be reproduced and redistributed at almost no cost.  The technology makes no distinction between value and junk. The abundance and availability of free digital information is dazzling and distracting.  It removes us from our own nature as complex, unpredictable, passionate people." - Neil Turok, The Universe Within

leaving the game to enjoy the game

This year, after almost 20 years of playing fantasy football, I decided to not manage a single fantasy football team.  This past Sunday was the first non-playoff Sunday that I watched football with little to no regard of how individual players performed.

This is a journal to record how it went.

I would call myself a football fan in the way that I am fanatical about the game. 

Is it a variation of chess in a physical form?  Yes.

Did I play strat-o-matic football growing up?  Yes.  The Cowboys were a beast of a team.

Do I watch a game and spend more time watching how the defence is lining up pre-snap than I would like to admit?  Yes.

Are these arbitrary questions that really establish little to no context of the sentence that preceded them?  Most probably.

It was opening Sunday, half an hour before kick off and I was nowhere near a computer or pre-game telecast.  I was about to dip my body into a very cold bath and trying to brace myself for that "experience", while audibly convincing my delicate parts not to retreat back up into my body. 

I've read that taking a cold bath after a run helps reduce inflammation in the joints, so it was my first week of doing that activity.  When I started running again last year, I used to dread the pain that my legs would be in about 5 minutes into my run.  Now I quite look forward to the runs in comparison to the bath afterwards. 

I used to run pretending zombies were chasing me.  There's an app for that.  Now?  I run from the pretend zombies but not home, because when I get home I have this torture facing me, so I continue to run, from baths. 

I guess a zombie crawling out of a bathtub would be one of my greatest fears. 
 
I researched the cold-bath therapy instead of checking the weather in New York to decide which kicker to start.  Instead of seeing what defences were weakest against the pass this year to choose my 3rd WR.

What was happening was that it felt like doing those activities, setting the lineup, evaluating scenarios, it had become tedious, almost routine, and I wasn't getting anything from it.  Could I half ass it and not do all that?  Yes, but, really, no. 

Being competitive, you don't want to fail out of ignorance.  So I devour information.  Fantasy football information gathering offers nothing that could be of any use in social settings, not even social settings that only involve other players of fantasy football, for in those settings, people are just waiting to talk about their own team.

I feel more comfortable sharing information about cold bath therapy than I do discussing the merits of TEs who get more playing time because they are good blockers. 

So as this past Sunday rolled around, I was introduced to a new channel on TV, the redzone channel.  Oh my football goodness!  It is a thing to behold.  I am considering getting the channel, even though I don't care who scores for any personal preferences.  There is no better way to watch a slate of games than through the redzone channel.  To the person/s who came up with that channel and to all those who work on it, I give my thanks.

Even though this channel may have been like freebasing a drug if I had a fantasy team, it was viewed with little to no negative emotional feeling when it didn't matter who on the team scored, just what team scored. 

And that's the crux of the problem.  Fantasy football, initially and in its purest form is meant to add, not subtract from the enjoyment of football.  I enjoy football, I enjoy participating in fantasy leagues with my friends.  For some reason though, unlike peanut butter and chocolate, the twine fail to meet.

Of course, it doesn't help that last year our fantasy league was partially decided by a coin flip rather than a cognitive interpretation of rules.   

But that may have been the straw that broke the camel's back. 

How did I feel watching the ending of Seattle Arizona with no financial, fantasy impact on the line?  I felt entertained.

And that's what these games are, entertainment.  Do you need to have a fantasy football team to be entertained?  Maybe, but then for you, perhaps the fantasy is the entertainment.

For me?  I prefer making up my own storylines. 

Last season, Pittsburgh went into Denver in the playoffs and lost a highly entertaining game.  This season, they started in Denver and lost an entertaining football game.  It was more interesting to me to see that Pittsburgh had found a way to drive consistently against the Broncos, rather than concerning myself with who was on the field and why my RB wasn't getting the hand-offs from Peyton Manning.

Because its not about me.  Its about the players who play the game, the coaches who coach the game and everyone else who is involved in the entertaining spectacle of sport.

I spend all week working on me and things that have something to do with my decisions.  Having my Sundays to enjoy football and enjoy watching other people work, that's a pretty good fantasy.

east of eden

Updated: August 22, 2011: Considering the passing of Jack Layton today, I have decided to update this post and put the quote from East of Eden at the top, and move my previous intro to the end of the quote. Reason being, I feel that these words by John Steinbeck apply to Jack Layton's legacy. Your body may die, but you may live forever as long as people talk about you. Please excuse the attempt at humour at the end, that was my original intro to this passage.

-----

A child may ask, “What is the world’s story about?” And a grown man or woman may wonder, “What way will the world go? How does it end and, while we’re at it, what’s the story about?”

I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one, that has frightened and inspired us, so that we live in a Pearl White serial of continuing thought and wonder. Humans are caught – in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too – in a net of good and evil. I think this is the only story we have and that it occurs on all levels of feeling and intelligence. Virtue and vice were warp and woof of our first consciousness, and they will be the fabric of our last, and despite any changes we may impose on field and river and mountain, on economy and manners. There is no other story.A man, after he has brushed of the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well – or ill?

Herodotus, in the Persian War, tells a story of how Croesus, the richest and most favoured king of his time, asked Solon the Athenian a leading question. He would not have asked it if he had not been worried about the answer. “Who,” he asked, “is the luckiest person in the world?” He must have been eaten with doubt and hungry for reassurance. Solon told him of three lucky people in old times. And Croesus more than likely did not listen, so anxious was he about himself. And when Solon did not mention him, Croesus was forced to say “Do you not consider me lucky?”

Solon did not hesitate in his answer. “How can I tell?” he said. “You aren’t dead yet.”

And this answer must have haunted Croesus dismally as his luck disappeared, and his wealth and his kingdom. And he was being burned on a tall fire, he may have thought of it and perhaps wished he had not asked or not been answered.

And in our time, when a man dies – if he has had wealth and influence and power and all the vestments that arouse envy, and after the living take stock of the dead man’s property and his eminence and works and monuments – the question is still there: Was his life good or was it evil? – which is another way of putting Croesus’s question. Envies are gone, and the measuring stick is: “Was he loved or was he hated? Is his death felt as a loss or does a kind of joy come of it?”

I remember clearly the deaths of three men. One was the richest man of the century, who, having clawed his way to wealth through the souls and bodies of men, spent many years trying to buy back the love he had forfeited and by that process performed great service to the world and perhaps, had much more than balanced the evils of his rise. I was on a ship when he died.The news was posted on the bulletin board, and nearly everyone received the news with pleasure. Several said, “Thank God that son of a bitch is dead.”

Then there was a man, smart as Satan, who, lacking some perception of human dignity and knowing all too well every aspect of human weakness and wickedness, used his special knowledge to warp men, to buy men, to bribe and threaten and seduce until he found himself in a position of great power. He clothed his motives in the names of virtue, and I have wondered whether he ever knew that no gift will ever buy back a man’s love when you have removed his self-love. A bribed man can only hate his briber. When this man died the nation rang with praise and, just beneath, with gladness that he was dead.

There was a third man, who perhaps made many errors in performance but whose effective life was devoted to making men brave and dignified and good in a time when they were poor and frightened and when ugly forces were loose in the world to utilize their fears. This man was hated by the few. When he died, the people burst into tears in the streets and their minds wailed, “What can we do now? How can we go on without him?”

In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty, men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed, most of their vices are attempted short cuts to love. When a man comes to die, no matter what his talents and influences and genius, if he dies unloved his life must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror. It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try to live so that our death brings no pleasure to the world.

We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the never ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly re-spawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is.

----

Googling images for "East of Eden" brought me to a picture of a popular Korean Drama called, unsurprisingly, "East of Eden". Apparently it is popular in Korea.

The East of Eden that I was looking for was the novel by John Steinbeck. I read it. It melted my face off. Apparently it has Biblical under/over tones.

Irrelevant

Apartment Advice from Cocoa on Vimeo.

Ok, perhaps not irrelevant, as it safe to say that the book's title perhaps also alludes to a Biblical reference. But that's not why I wanted to write about it.

The book is in 4 parts, and the beginning of the 4th part has a chapter which, considering what has happened in the book up and to that point, well, let me just say that this part melted my face off.

After a cursory check on copyright laws (5% can be copied) which may have been more of an academic regulation than a legal one, I have determined that I can, nay, shall, transcribe the portion that I so enjoyed.

If you plan on reading East of Eden, you may not want to read on. If you don't plan on reading East of Eden, then you really should adjust your plans. If you've mistakenly arrived thinking this is a post about a Korean TV drama, my apologies.

---

the book from where i sit

Just finished reading Doug Glanville's The Game from where I Stand over the weekend. It fulfilled my quota of a baseball book every April, a little personal reading exercise I've participated in for the last 5 or six years.

Baseball and books seem to go hand in hand together. Perhaps because unlike some other, faster paced sports, in baseball there can be a story within every pitch.

But that's not what Glanville approaches in his book. The Game From Where I Stand is more of a very brief life story about a man who's primary occupation has been baseball for the past few years. Glanville does a good job of heaping praise; for example his admiration for Tom Glavine isn't anything groundbreaking for anyone who's been exposed to Glavine's personality from beat writers. He does an even better job of respecting the privacy of others, whether it be a female associate or a player suspected of juicing (whose name has not been revealed by the Mitchell report).

In that respect, his book fails in the shocking expose category, a category easily catered to by the TMZing of mainstream society. His stories are real, but in keeping somethings held back you get to understand that Glanville is a man of integrity who will not attract attention to himself by using others.

I'm not saying I want an expose of a book like Canseco's Juiced, far from it. Although releasing a name or two as a suspected "juicer" surely would have put Glanville's book on a more populated book tour and perhaps garnered a greater release, it would have lowered the class of the book.

This book has class. It's about baseball from the viewpoint of a professional major leaguer who's played very recently. His anecdotes are heartfelt; and if you're an Expos fan, you will enjoy his take on Montreal.

It was fun to read, a good insight into another major leaguer. To that extent I will provide a single excerpt of a passage that spoke to me;

We call it advancement, the act of getting closer to something ahead or in front of us. But when we lock in on that target as the next step, sometimes we forget what got us here. The need to demonstrated success, the show, and glitter all play into why we can end up chasing illusions that take us away from our true selves.
All players battle with this in some form, and most get lost for at least a moment or two. (If you are lucky, that's the worst of it.) But when you get disoriented, you just have to be courageous enough to turn around, regroup, and look for home. That place where you can look closer of the matchup of needs versus wants.
Even if you have to go back down those stairs for a while.

morass n: swamp

Unassisted Triple play

This is how fast the internet works. 8:30 pm Lyle Overbay hits into an unassisted triple play.

By 8:35 Wikipedia has been updated.



By 8:40 I had checked online to see how many unassisted triple plays there have been in the history of baseball (15 now including today).

cogent adj 1: having power to compel or constrain [cogent forces]2 a: appealing forcibly to the mind or reason : convincing [cogent evidence] b: pertinent, relevant [a cogent analysis]

is there anybody out there? – a problem with the nhl

Note: this is the second part of a two part post, much like the complimentary songs in the Wall or peanut butter and jelly, this post goes hand in hand with the previous post.

It begins with a sorta surreal moment, watching someone play the theme (?) to Halo 3 on Guitar Hero III. No need to watch the whole thing, in fact, I encourage reading and listening to what will probably be the sample track on the top pop song in the summer of 2017.

There have been some issues raised recently with the NHL. They include:

Not enough fighting.

Too much fighting.

Too much expansion diluting the talent base.

Too much expansion into the US and not being able to find an identity.

Gary Bettman.

Lack of respect among players for each other.

The game is too fast.

Economic..... stuff

...and so forth.

I'm here to present another plausible option.

Since the dawn of time, people have gathered around fires and told fables of gladiators, philosophers, kings and paupers. Today, our fire is the internet, our gladiators; athletes.

What stories can we pass on about hockey players in the 21^st century? That they were the first athletes to get lifelong contracts? I'm struggling to think of their legacy, and perhaps I've disabled a few brain cells and am therefore unable to come up with stories. Here's what comes to mind, Hockey story wise.

Nagano 1998, Dominik Hasek leading the Czech's by Canada as Wayne Greztky, at the end of his career, chasing the one accolade that he had yet to achieve, sitting on the bench holding back tears.

Leafs playoff runs, pre-lockout.

The Flames and Oilers incredible playoff runs. Fans that cared. Sorry, but with all due respect, I'm sure some south east teams have ardent fans, and I know they have ardent bloggers, but the game is not entrenched in those markets as it is elsewhere. In fact, even in certain entrenched areas, (Detroit, Chicago) the game is fading. Passing away into obscurity. Why? There are probably a hundred and one reasons.

Why do people watch sports, watch tv, listen to the radio? Answer could lie in the entertainment, drama, information garnered from them.

Games that have meaning, games that have stories; those are the ones worth watching and remembering. There are far too many options in this day and age, far too many other entertainment outlets a person can hook their wagon to. Games, all 82 (84?) of them just aren't interesting. Say what you want about football, but at least there are only 18 (CFL) or 16 (NFL) games that have a chance to be boring. 82 games * 2.5 hours per game is a lot of time. Sometimes less is more.

As it has a solid core, a solid fan base, the game won't die. Hockey will just continue to struggle in purgatory until it learns that it is not alone.

dissonance n: 1 a: lack of agreement; especially : inconsistency between the beliefs one holds or between one's actions and one's beliefs — compare cognitive dissonance b: an instance of such inconsistency or disagreement
2: a mingling of discordant sounds; especially : a clashing or unresolved musical interval or chord

halo cruel world

Photo taken from my car driving home from work yesterday. Snow and ice bending the tree on the left, but you can probably see that for yourself.

It's been a while, and finally there's something to say. Well, two thoughts, really. Perhaps they warrant two separate posts, but I'm going to bob and weave them into one. Putting things off for another day has lead to posting 5 times (or something like that) so far this year.

Let's start with a musical note, because this post is designed as a multimedia experience. One of the problems I have been encountering with the posting is with all the blogs out there, why would anyone read mine (asides from friends and family of course)?

But you have driven me people, in the sea of mediocrity I believe I may have come up with an original idea. A YouTube video, designed as a soundtrack to accompany my poor literary skillz.

Let me set it up thusly. I have an xbox 360. I play Halo 3, and lose to what sounds like little girls online. I make that assumption based on the fact that they:

1. Kick my ass handily

2. Have decorated their online Halo characters to look as close to the colour pink as possible

3. Sound like little girls. With xbox online you can talk to your friends and opponents and these young kids have voices that sound like little girls.

4. I also lose to little boys, old boys, old women, teenagers; pretty much anyone who picks up a controller online, the only person I can beat is my friend Pat. But I haven't gone online in almost a week, so there's a chance Pat can beat me now. I doubt it; but then again, he does stay up and play video games to the point where his wife finds him asleep in the living room with the controller in his hand. So he plays hard.

I'll ignore the social ramifications of the statements I have just made, apologize for personifying Pat in such a light, but until he beats me, I'm not going to issue a retract. Also, he probably won't read this.

So, where was I? Yes, the Halo 3 soundtrack. Today, I was listening to it at work while working away at a spreadsheet, and one song came on and it felt like it was inspired by Pink Floyd. Now, I'm not saying that Halo 3 is as good as Pink Floyd; I'm just saying that one song on the soundtrack sounds like them. And for your information, the soundtrack to Halo 3 is #98 in ALL music sales on amazon.com. Considering it's the holiday season, that's no small feat.

Any who, the song I'm thinking of is track #15 on disc one (it's a two disc soundtrack, 9 hours of game play and tons of original music) called "The Ark. Edge Closer". Marty O'Donnell is accredited as the composer, and a big hand to him for what he has done.

So we're quite a ways into this, and I haven't introduced the multimedia experience. I've decided that this is going to be two posts now (actually the NHL decided it because the Leafs – Predators game starts in 10 minutes) and I'll write that post as I watch. It's about hockey, and specifically problems that I see with the NHL that I haven't found anyone else write about (read: did a search on "problem with the NHL", not as many hits as one might think).

Stay tuned....

hubris: noun: : exaggerated pride or self-confidence

the difference between 'y' and 'o'

.....is what the Raptors are providing this year. The difference between 'o' and 'y' is more than 9 letters.

It is a frame of mind.

Not hype.

Hope.

Godspeed gentlemen.

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?"