With but a scant few games left in the regular season the playoff picture is coming into focus. Here are some highlights.
1. Tomorrow night, Carolina takes on Washington. This could be the most exiting playoff game this season. The winner of this could theoretically send the other home for the season. Other than that, both Carolina and Washington play Tampa and Florida for their last two games. Both Florida teams are playing for a better draft pick, so tomorrow nights game should be worth watching.
2. The Flyers want to play for a playoff spot, but also want to play for position. Right now, they are set to play Pittsburgh. They want to move up to 7th and draw Montreal. Koivu is reportedly one of three key players who could be out for the first round. The Flyers want to stay right where they are at.
3. Unfortunately, Edmonton’s big push looks to be for naught. Unless Vancouver AND Calgary shit the bed this week, the won’t make the playoffs. SHAME! They looked good and could have been interesting to see in the post season.
4. If the matches stay the as is, the best series so far looks to be Colorado/Minnesota. Colorado will win Game 1. Once Forsberg gets hurt, the Wild could take it in 5.
5. If Washington can beat out Boston for the last spot, the match up of the best player in the league (male) and the best player in the league (female) would make the Washington/Pittsburgh another good series to watch.
As the Flyers wind down their last six games with a BIG showing (hopefully) in the Garden tonight, it's time to think about the Deathlok NHL Playoff Pool.
This is an Annual event that I started about 15 years ago and it's awesome. It started when I worked for the Navy. I got a group of people together for a playoff pool that was fun and easy. Over the years, people have brought people in. . .who have brought people in. . . who have brought people in . . then the people that I knew dropped out . . and before I knew it, I had a playoff pool with a list of participants of whom I know about 20%. I have met people at the games who have approached me at talked about the Pool (I am the only person at the game with a Flyers FOTIU jersey. . . .so I stick out a little.
The concept is easy. . . You rank the playoff teams 16-1 and get the assigned number of points for each game that team wins . . .Easy!
Once all 16 teams are locked in, the entry forms go out. Interested? Let me know. There is always room for more.
A few weeks ago, Wyatt posted about the glorious event of the birth of his new child.
Yesterday, in the mail, I received a notice that my gradeschool friend, Mike, and his wife, were blessed with twin girls.
Congratulations to everyone.
That got me thinking. . . SO! I would like to announce that Mrs Deathlok and myself are NOT having a baby. Were are not planning on having another baby and thanks to the wonders of modern medicine, we WILL NOT EVER be having another baby.
It's seems a bit self congratulatory, but I feel great now!
Last night I attended the Holy Thursday Mass. I was kinda obligated to go because it was required of my CCD students as part of their preparation for Confirmation. At least I don't have to teach on Sunday. On Wednesday, I received an email from the head of the Pastoral Council asking for Council members to volunteer for the feet washing ceremony during the Mass. The 12 then go put and wash the feet of anyone in the congregation that wants to participate.
for those of you that don't know, during Holy Thursday Service, there is a reenactment of Jesus washing the feet of the twelve Apostles.
I, being smarter than the average bear, reply back that I would love to participate but due to my hand injury I am unable to help. This is quickly replied to with a message that says, "We usually do it in groups of three, so we can work around your cast issue, if you are still interested." Dag! "Sure, I'm in!"
So I get there and Mass begins as normal. As part of the Gospel, we select 12 go up on the Altar and the Monsignor washes one foot from each of the 12. We then, take the pitcher, basin and towels to stations in the Church and offer the same to the rest. Despite, not wanting to do this, it was AWESOME. No doubt people's feet are disgusting!! However, what we were doing was much more important than what we were doing. I felt great. Afterward, I stayed after and helped strip the Altar in preparation for today, Good Friday.
It was a moving experience that I look forward to next year.
With poor quality video as evidence, Anaheim Ducks captain Chris Pronger originally escaped punishment from the NHL after apparently stomping on the leg of Vancouver Canucks' centre Ryan Kesler Wednesday night.
But a clearer version of the video revealed late Thursday - with a better look at the incident - has the NHL is looking into it again. A phone hearing is scheduled for Saturday and a suspension will likely result.
Pronger waived his right to an in-person hearing in favor of a phone hearing.
Traditionally, the type of hearing usually speaks to the number of games a player can be suspended. The phone hearing normally means four games or less, while an in-person hearing means five or more.
By waiving his right to an in-person hearing, Pronger acknowledges his suspension could be more severe than the phone treatment usually determines.
"There's a review process going on right now," Pronger said Friday. "Obviously, we'll have to wait to see what happens."
He said he would not comment further because of the league's new review.
While the original game footage showed the incident from a distance as the puck was being cleared out of Anaheim's zone, the second version zeroes in on Kesler and Pronger as they got tangled along the back boards.
The incident happened in the opening minute of the second period in Anaheim's zone after a dump in from the blue line by Canucks defenceman Sami Salo.
Kesler - one of two Canuck forwards who chased down the puck behind the goal line - collided with Pronger along the boards and fell, and it looked as though Kesler wrapped his legs around Pronger's feet.
It looked like the Ducks captain appeared to disengage from Kesler, but there was also a form of a stomp or a push with some downard motion from his foot.
"He stomped on me," Kesler told the Vancouver Sun after the game. "He got me on the calf."
It isn't the first time the former Norris and Hart Trophy winner has been involved in such incidents.
Pronger has been suspended seven times in his career, with the most recent ones handed down during the Stanley Cup playoffs last spring. He received a one-game suspension from the NHL last May for his hit on Detroit Red Wings forward Tomas Holmstrom in Game 3 of the Western Conference Final, and was suspended for a game in June for hitting Ottawa's Dean McAmmond in the head with his forearm during the third period of the Senators' 5-3 win in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final.
"(Pronger's) a tough player and an aggressive player," Ottawa Senators defenceman Luke Richardson told TSN on Friday.
"(There's) probably a double standard, I think sometimes if you are a superstar you might get a little bit of a benefit of the doubt, but also works against you that if he plays and he's a repeat offender, sometimes that might work against you too. I think if you had two seconds to think about it, nobody in the game really intends to injure someone in that way. Sometimes you make careless decisions and it costs you, but it's hard to know what's on someone's mind when you see something that's little deceiving when you see it."
It also marks the second time this season that a player has stepped on an opponent while he was laying prone.
In December, New York Islanders forward Chris Simon received a 30-game suspension for trying to step on Pittsburgh forward Jarkko Ruutu's foot.
Simon, who now plays for the Minnesota Wild, was not impressed with the league's lack of action.
"I can get the amount of games I get and other players can hurt players?" he told reporters Friday.
"You look at Holmstrom and McAmmond - those two guys getting knocked out of the playoffs and the player misses one game and the same thing, if not twice, happens in the Vancouver-Anaheim game and there's not even a review."
(H/T TSN.CA)
This is ridiculous. Watch tho video and decide. To me it looks like he was pumping his leg to get is loose and when his leg was released, he was still trying to pull his leg free.
LONDON (Reuters) - It is the one moment every man wants to get right -- and which London floor-fitter Lefkos Hajji could hardly have got more wrong.
The luckless 28 year-old's dreams of giving his sweetheart, Leanne, 26, the ultimate proposal have literally vanished into thin air.
Hajji, of Hackney, east London, had concealed a $12,000 engagement ring inside a helium balloon. The idea was that she would pop the balloon as he popped the question.
But as he left the shop, a gust of wind pulled the balloon from his hand and he watched the ring -- and quite possibly the affections of his girlfriend -- sailing away over the rooftops.
"I couldn't believe it," he told The Sun newspaper.
"I just watched as it went further and further into the air.
"I felt like such a plonker. It cost a fortune and I knew my girlfriend would kill me."
Hajji spent two hours in his car trying to chase and find the balloon, without success.
"I thought I would give Leanne a pin so I could literally pop the question," he said.
"But I had to tell her the story -- she went absolutely mad. Now she is refusing to speak to me until I get her a new ring."
He is hoping the ring will still turn up.
"It would be amazing if someone found it," he added.
(Reporting by Peter Apps. Editing by Steve Addison)
(HT: Yahoo News)
Now THAT'S funny. Word of advise Chap. Based on her reaction, call it a $12,000 wake up call and move on. Nice Sympathy. . . .Bitch!
I'm just about sick of this cast. I have a week and 5 days to go and then rehab. I have been tinkering with the piano, but I've really lost a lot of what I knew. I can't wait to get back at the keys again.
I was clicking around different sites . . . .blog surfing if you will and came across this test at Cowboy Blob's
What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, (click on Blob's link to take the quiz (or hit the link below)
I Am A: Lawful Good Human Cleric/Sorcerer (3rd/2nd Level)
Ability Scores:
Strength-11
Dexterity-12
Constitution-11
Intelligence-14
Wisdom-16
Charisma-12
Alignment: Lawful Good A lawful good character acts as a good person is expected or required to act. He combines a commitment to oppose evil with the discipline to fight relentlessly. He tells the truth, keeps his word, helps those in need, and speaks out against injustice. A lawful good character hates to see the guilty go unpunished. Lawful good is the best alignment you can be because it combines honor and compassion. However, lawful good can be a dangerous alignment because it restricts freedom and criminalizes self-interest.
Race: Humans are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like.
Primary Class: Clerics act as intermediaries between the earthly and the divine (or infernal) worlds. A good cleric helps those in need, while an evil cleric seeks to spread his patron's vision of evil across the world. All clerics can heal wounds and bring people back from the brink of death, and powerful clerics can even raise the dead. Likewise, all clerics have authority over undead creatures, and they can turn away or even destroy these creatures. Clerics are trained in the use of simple weapons, and can use all forms of armor and shields without penalty, since armor does not interfere with the casting of divine spells. In addition to his normal complement of spells, every cleric chooses to focus on two of his deity's domains. These domains grants the cleric special powers, and give him access to spells that he might otherwise never learn. A cleric's Wisdom score should be high, since this determines the maximum spell level that he can cast.
Secondary Class: Sorcerers are arcane spellcasters who manipulate magic energy with imagination and talent rather than studious discipline. They have no books, no mentors, no theories just raw power that they direct at will. Sorcerers know fewer spells than wizards do and acquire them more slowly, but they can cast individual spells more often and have no need to prepare their incantations ahead of time. Also unlike wizards, sorcerers cannot specialize in a school of magic. Since sorcerers gain their powers without undergoing the years of rigorous study that wizards go through, they have more time to learn fighting skills and are proficient with simple weapons. Charisma is very important for sorcerers; the higher their value in this ability, the higher the spell level they can cast.
I've received several emails about the passing over Gary Gygax, the creator of Dungeons and Dragons.
Wyatt sent me an email about it, as did several people that I play D&D with. Wyatt loves to ridicule my playing the game almost as much as he riducules my Irish Patch Work Hat. I also happened upon a link to Wyatt's blog which took me here: DND Law School & Life
Who would have thought that Wyatt would have to hyperlinks about D&D on his site. The above site had a great post about the man. My friend Exilian posted this (and I link it here with his permission) I thought this summed up the feeling of D&D's core following very nicely.
Personally, I didn't grow up with the game. I knew of the game and knew people that played. I even rolled up a character back in the late 80s, but never "got into it". My wife and I were asked to join a game a few years ago as a means of getting out of the house. We took the couple up on it. It was fun. Even my wife found it enough fun to stick with it and is still playing. Today, we are playing at our house and the, other than the DM (Dungeon Master) it's a completely different crowd. We have made a lot of new friends over the years. . . all because of the game.
Gary is a genius for inventing the game and the way of life that it has become for a lot of people.
The bottom line is that it's a game and people that don't know what it's like, don't want to know and refuse to release their tight grip on their preconceived notions of what the game is. The game is great if you have the right people (and by right people, I mean a group of people that you enjoy hanging out with). I've played with people who took the game (and themselves)way too serious and that was not fun at all. Most D&D gamers are very knowledgeable in the game and its inner wrokings. I prefer to play "from the hip". It makes the game more fun.
Between the game, the companionship, the food and drinks, I look forward to meeting every other Friday night.
I am convinced (not that this would ever happen), that if Wyatt and his crew got together for a game one night, they would have a blast. You can tailor the game fpr your needs. I have always thought that a D&D Police training session would be cool. Instead of Elves, Orcs, and Humans, you would substitute, detectives, snipers, and forensics, etc. Instead of Goblins and Trolls amd Cobols, you would substitute, crack dealers, murderers and rapists. Same game, different perspective.
15! That's the number of the week. Yesterday, I broke the 15,000 mark on my site meter. Oddly enough, the guy who was the 15,000th hit got there by doing a search for Eddy Izzard PreSale Tickets. Sorry Buddy! (That's fun!) So with the click of a mouse, I break the 15,000 hits mark and am made aware that Izzard is touring. . . .just not around here.
Note to Eddy: The AC casinos brother. . .the casinos (and I use the term brother loosely).
Added to that wonderful event, this Thursday. . . .just two days from now. . .is my 15th Wedding Anniversary. 15 years!! The difference between me hanging on to someone for 15 years and someone putting up with me for 15 years is very slim. . . it might even be the same thing. Regardless, if there is anything better for a couple going through marriage counsiling, it's this event. "If we can do it, so can you." That's our slogan. It was going to be "Hell, it beats the dating scene." but we chose the high ground.
My wife is great. A good marriage is being able to say, "You're a royal pain in the ass, but I wouldn't trade you for the world". . . .at least she says the first part.
Check out the new hockey figure coming out this summer. What could be better? Well, it juat so happens that this figure is coming out at the same time: How sweet is that!
With 10:00 minutes left in the 3rd period tonight, Alexander Ovechkin has 3 goals. That brings his total for the season to 52. He needs 8 more to hit 60. The last player to hit 60 goals in one season was Mario Lemieux.
This guy is so much better than that whining maggot Sidney Crosby, I can't stand it. Alexander The 8 . . . .The real face of the NHL.
KATHMANDU (Reuters) - A controversial young Nepali girl worshipped by many Buddhists and Hindus as a Kumari, or "living goddess", has given up her divine position following a request from her family, an official said on Sunday.
The 11-year-old Sajani Shakya was revered for nine years as the Kumari of the ancient temple-town of Bhaktapur, near Kathmandu, in a centuries-old tradition.
So "Goddess" is a position that you can get demoted from? Hmmm . . .Maybe Hillary will try for this position when she loses here.
With the pressures of the new job, the cast that has me treating Percocet like Lunesta and my pool leaking like a sieve (soon to be replaced at the tune of roughly $1000), this song has been going through my head lately.
I believe that the cast is coming off on Tuesday. If you are in the NJ/PA area on Tuesday afternoon and you catch a whiff of something foul, you will know that my arm has been released from its chrysalis.
