Sunday, November 27, 2011

Favourite memories


This is my favourite memory of all time. It seems tarnished now, but in time I will polish it back up and remember it fondly. Her on the other hand…

I am not sure I will ever forgive her. Though I feel she made a bad decision based on faulty information. I think she listened to a snake and I hope she doesn’t get hurt.

At least we were truly in love once.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

I am trying to be optimistic. Realistic too.

I know that I need a ton of work, so I am going to make an entry very soon saying exactly what I want to say but cannot because I have no choice but to wait and pray. Since those are my only options, I am trying to find God and a job so I can make time move and get my prayers answered.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Regret.

I have no life left in my soul because I have loved and lost. I gave her it all and now I have nothing left but the effort I didn't give.

All my life I believed that to love someone was admirable and noble, something to be proud of and be rewarded for with the same. Now I know to love someone without doubt is to be tortured beyond any means. To love someone is to vulnerable forever.

I still think the sun shines out of her ass. I still know that I am better than what I was. I still think we can reconcile. However, the realist in me says optimism is great but you have to change your sails and go where the wind is blowing. The pessimist says there is a tornado.

Overall, I just want to sail back to that harbor where I fell in love, then sail back out bravely with you by my side. I was always going to make the shore, but sharing the journey was going to be the best part. There is nothing unnatural and nothing to be ashamed, about having regret. I don't regret loving you.

Saturday, October 1, 2011

The NHL might be on the road to more controversy

I think the suspension on Brendan Smith for his hit on Ben Smith, given out by Brendan Shanahan, was further proof that the league does not know what it is doing. Even with best intentions they prove to make mistakes that seem small now, but set themselves up for bigger and costlier blunders down the road.

The worst part of this, besides too many of the same names closely together, is that Brendan Smith had EXCELLENT LEGAL FORM IN HIS HIT!!! The only thing illegal about this hit was under the new rules; he made contact with the head. We all know that there was no way for him to avoid making contact with the head because he aimed at the shoulder of a moving target that moved out of the way but left his head there. When a player dekes with 2/3rds of a second left there isn’t a person on the planet that can avoid making contact when you are going over 20 miles per hour and have a third of a second to move. Even if he did move out of the way, then why does the player get to play chicken and force the defenseman to let him go unabated to the goal? It seems as if the defenseman Smith is taking too much heat on this one.

I don’t put 100% of the blame on Ben Smith, but I refuse to put more than 50% of the blame on Brendan Smith either. I will get to what Smith deserved in a minute, but first let us think about what happened in another situation. When I play hockey, there are times where I put my head in a similar position to try and move the puck, and I have been elbowed. I never once got up and said, hey mother f@#&-er why did you have your shoulder or elbows at their natural level!!!! HOW DARE YOU KEEP YOUR EXTREMITIES WHERE THEY BELONG!!!

If you lower your head, you are taking the risk of it making contact with lower body parts. It is just plain negligent to do so when you know a hit is coming. It could even be considered cheating in the future if you do it to DRAW SUSPENSIONS AND FIVE MINUTE MAJORS!!! We know people dive, so why wouldn't people dive like this?

Smith deserved punishment under the letter of the law, and I just want to make sure that these punishments remain proportional and fair. I will say right of the bat, that I do not believe injuries are required to make a suspension occur nor should they be ignored in lengthening the sentence. I believe the five minute major was a big punishment in and of itself, and I expect that to be called routinely. I just don't want the likely outcome, where the only time the five minutes is called is when the player embellishes or is legitimately hurt. If you are going to call the major for contact to the head, you better do it 100% of the time. The NHL has proven conclusively that they will never be able to do this with any rule.

Therefore it is my opinion that if they use a five minute major that they should count this as a significant part of the suspension. This obviously goes even further with game misconducts or match penalties. Unless they allow clubs to sub in a player for Smith, they are penalizing the team a game right there and giving such a momentum swing that the majority of the time the receiving team will lose. The games the player misses will be easier to win than the one where they get tossed without some sort of adjustment there, so I hate the idea of taking them out of the game. I would rather leave the guy in, and if they have an enforcer on the other team, well the problem will take care of itself. After that you suspend the player for his hit. Otherwise the penalty is proportionally upon the club and fan base for the act. This is heinous when the hit is the fault of the other player.

In Smith's case, he basically received a one game suspension right then and there and cost the Wings a meaningless game. Because of this, I am okay with the punishment being delayed to the regular season for him because the meaning is heavier, but five games is an absurd for a first time offender. This first time offender also had his only offense be that a player zigged when he should have zagged. I would have been fine with a two game suspension of the regular season on par with the other preseason suspensions or a five game preseason suspension. Five games at the start of the career is pretty insane. I know I would never ask for that if I was the one hit. I know, because I have had head injuries do to similar circumstances.

I think the league is once again going overboard to start and most likely will ease off of it in time for the playoffs. The fact that he was punished is not the issue; the fact that he was punished so severely for something I could see embellished in the future is the issue.

I still think of how Marian Hossa received no match penalty in the playoffs for a hit that was identical to Ovechkin’s hit on Brian Campbell just a few weeks prior in the regular season, then went on to score the winning goal that turned a series around. It can be argued that if they called that consistently then Nashville would have made it harder for Chicago to get out of that series, if at all, and the Blackhawks might not have won the Stanley Cup that year. That proves that issues of consistency can have the biggest impact on the outcomes of the entire history of the sport. I do not want another way for inconsistent suspension or match penalty calls to further tarnish the sport.

The league took another step towards mockery while taking a step towards player safety. Can we please move towards a safer league without making it impossible for teams to deliver a good effort? Can we do it taking into account the possibility of equal fault? Can we do it without costing any team from making the playoffs or going further on, due to misjudgment of an incident? Can we please just do it consistently, and not change from situation to situation?

I don't think this first group of suspensions and calls prove that we can. I love you Shanny, but I think you need to go back to the drawing board and figure out a better framework so you don't make more disproportional mistakes.




Addendum: Shanahan explains, that his (Ben Smith) head position did not significantly change. I would like to point out that his head position did change in relation to his left shoulder, which was the target. His head was protected by his left shoulder until he dropped it back and opened his body allowing the natural and pre-chosen trajectory to follow into his head instead of his shoulder. He still put himself into a vulnerable position by moving his shoulders.

Monday, June 20, 2011

A sports one- Happy!

There is some question as to what Nick Lidstrom should have done in regards to a final years salary for a team that needs to sign players to become a contender again. Many believe that taking the same salary as you age makes you selfish, while others say it is a great deal for an all star player. There is so much that you can dissect when looking at this issue.
The idea that if there is a cap, the size of the pie you get is relative and far more important than the actual payment. That is the team will do better if your cap hit is smaller compared to the total roster. Here is Lidstrom...
2005-06 - 7.600 million cap hit - 39.0 million cap - 19.5% relative cap impact.
2006-07 - 7.600 million cap hit - 44.0 million cap - 17.3% relative cap impact.
2007-08 - 7.600 million cap hit - 50.3 million cap - 15.1% relative cap impact.
2008-09 - 7.450 million cap hit - 56.7 million cap - 13.1% relative cap impact.
2009-10 - 7.450 million cap hit - 56.8 million cap - 13.1% relative cap impact.
2010-11 - 6.200 million cap hit - 59.4 million cap - 10,4% relative cap impact.
2011-12 - 6.200 million cap hit - 64.0 million cap - 9.7% relative cap impact.

We could stop right there and say he is doing his part, as he could go to the free agent market and then get the same 20% type contract and just keep getting richer. He didn't therefore he is loyal and a team player.

If this is his last year....

I would have been happier if he said I will come sign after Holland is satisfied with his roster, no matter how much is left for me. However, I never expected that to be the case. It would have been something I would have done because I love this team. I am sure the same sentiment is echoed by a few fans.

However we often forget that Lidstrom loves his family. That has to be a bigger love, and would most likely lead to me wanting to build the biggest nest egg ever.

I am not going to get into a class warfare mode here, but either way we should be happy. One last shot for Lids, whom we owe as much to him as anyone.


I would point out that American money inflates at about 2.2% a year. There is another way he is making less real purchasing power for his efforts.
For him to have the same value that he was making with 7.6 million in 2005, he would need roughly...

$8,850,541.91 to make the same money.

Or... let us just say we talk about his 6.2 contract....

$6,336,400 would be an estimate of how much his contract should have been worth given a COLA or cost of living adjustment.

His money in 2011-2012 will be worth
$6,066,536.20 in last years money...

Just shows you that the NHL is greatly outpacing normal inflation... much like Gas.

Don't feel bad for Lids though, he could easily be making 8% on his money if he is well invested. Which means when he was making 10 million back in the day he should be making at least league minimum of 750k just in capital gains... and the tax rate for that is even lower than his original earnings.

You can take two viewpoints from that, either he should have taken less because enough is enough, or he is taking less for certain and we should be quite happy. The truth is at this point it doesn't hurt the team as much as it hurts the fans who pay for the seats. If you don't mind then who cares. I am happy Lidstrom will be back.

With the cap going up and Lids in place, I want us to get the best players in the world.

I don't care if people scoff.

Bieska, Wiz, and Brad Richards.

I will take that in a heart beat. Sign people now and trade them next year for all I care, let us go at the cup.

Stanley or Bust.

Monday, June 13, 2011

A juxtaposition, Monday.

A juxtaposition, Monday.

I cannot understand how writers write with life happening all around them... Problems have been aptly, and might I add ironically, verbose in nature leading to an apathetic or just plain pathetic effort by my part.

Perhaps the drinking is the only way to escape dealing with everything when it comes to writing; though my money is still on the, the narcissistic rock-star-writer complex for the root of drinking-writing paradigm. I will consult Californication and report my results later.

It is indeed the lifeblood of any writer named by my name to get the zealous me-too itch after any encounter with faux genus. When confronted with the real world pragmatics that accompanies those in search for success and cliché, I rarely find such inspiration. Brutally, though, I cannot expect to find any drive without such a muse of disgustingly simple and suburban sentiment. There in lies the catch-22. Happiness is what I want- yet there who can be happy when there are ass holes doing genius in the most beautiful of forms of art and dreary jerks doing genius in the commonality of everyday life, leaving me bereaved of each in totality.

I can do simple acts of each, getting close but never committing everything to one and worse still is my desire to do both interferes with one another. Drugs, alcohol, waste, adventure, these things will lead to genius and art but ultimately will destroy my life. As much as I would love to have stories that conclude, “so that transsexual prostitute helped me get out of North Korea with my life and all it cost me was a bootleg DVD copy of Equilibrium starring Christian Bale…” ultimately those cannot foster the life where I wake up content next to a smiling girl who knows I will go fix breakfast for the rug rats because I feel guilty we watched my movie last night.

Perhaps instead it will come down to being more about spending the time comparing rather then spending the time working. I still place my money on the hours in the day. I start to think that one cannot have it all, and if they do they pay for it with their health or soul. I would rather just pay for it with a good deed and an IOU, but that rarely works. At least it didn’t for the Drugs, alcohol, waste, and adventure. I doubt it works for the mundane life either, otherwise would we have had a housing bubble collapse?

Friday, February 25, 2011

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I need a drink.


The Link is above.

When a friend make the question if this guy was wrong or not in the basic point he was making, pointing out the distinction first that his ranting was indeed absurd, I made this response. If you want a laugh listen to what he said. If you want to keep laughing, walk the top of the fence with me and see if I trip and fall, metaphorically smashing my nuts. I think I just scored a metaphore with ironical implications in the last sentence. Do they give awards away for blogs?


He is crazy because he is using his logic sparingly, denying it where it should be accepted at will. Then using it as some sort of flimsy pretense for conspiratorial bunk that is contradictory to his initial claims.

The guy is right that people have a lot of phony shit they worship, but Bieber is actually cooler to kids than Magellan for a few good reasons.

Bieber didn't die (yet). The kid did go make shit happen for himself. Also, he succeeded in the phony and important at the same time. Magellan might have been it for the chicks, and failed the phony bit but succeeded at the important. I say his logic is misapplied.

Do I think that Bieber beats Magellan? No, of course not. His logic is stupid though and he needs to be torn apart.

In no way is this some international plot to subvert the youth and brainwash them into compliance. ALL OF HUMAN CIVILIZATION IS THAT!!! The beauty of it, is that it all really is just corporate capitalism. Bieber is a tool, literally. A tool of mass consumerism. Does that placate the masses? Undoubtedly. To claim it is some sort of conspiracy is pretty crazy, but if you are going to wouldn't Occam's razor at least apply to say choose the least complex conspiracy?

Honestly, the only thing here is to allow people a distraction through things like sports and celebrities. If we didn't have that our lives would suck. I have come to the realization that it is endemic and institutionalized in our societal system. Just ignore it sir, you would be more convincing if you just said people today should be more impressed with those who achieve breakthroughs, and not breakthrough pop hits. Those who score advancements in the lab, and not score on the grid-iron. Those who lead, not in sales but people. An amazing concept that could be brought to the discourse without sounding like you should be in a sandwich board.

Furthermore, the way to convince people should never be yelling AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

All iteration.

I want to die in the miraculousness myriad of magnificent Modest Mouse minutes, meanwhile my manuscript meanders the markets making masterpieces of my mostly meaningless manifests.