A Meeting With Stu Siegel This blog has moved to http://quagmire.darsys.net

The Geography of a Recession is a very short presentation which will scare you. It should. Thanks Paul for this one. Keeps the economic "recovery" in perspective.

I received for the umpteenth time the "Dear Dr Laura" letter. The contents is true, though the origins of the actual letter are unknown. I removed the name of the alleged author because he claims to not have penned it. Please note that Dr Laura is not qualified to speak on most of the topics which she speaks on, especially theological ones such as raised in this letter. See Snopes for details. On her radio show, Dr Laura Schlesinger said that, as an observant Orthodox Jew, homosexuality is an abomination according to Leviticus 18:22, and cannot be condoned under any circumstance. The following response is an open letter to Dr. Laura, penned by a US resident, which was posted on the Internet. It's funny, as well as informative:

Dear Dr. Laura:


Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination... End of debate. Its in the Bible - end of argument!


I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of God's Laws and how best to follow them.


1. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?


2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?


3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness - Lev.15: 19-24. The problem is how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.


4. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord - Lev.1:9. The problem is, my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?


5. I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2. Clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the police to do it?


6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination - Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this? Are there 'degrees' of abomination?


7. Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wriggle room here?


8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27. How should they die?


9. I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?


10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev.19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? Lev.24:10-16. Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair, like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)


I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy considerable expertise in such matters, so I am confident you can help.


Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.

Anyhow, that's just out there to put things in perspective. Just because it says so in the Bible, doesn't necessarily make it so. Just like if it says so on the Internet also doesn't make it true. In fact, you can probably bet good money the Bible's more trustworthy than the Internet.

Courtesy of Wil Wheaton we have Timmy O'Riley by L. Hadron and the Colliders. Making music was never this awesome! Using only the Bliptronic 5000, Guitar Shirt, Drumkit Shirt, Stylophone, and Otamatone Electronic Instrument, L. Hadron covers Baba O'Riley by The Who. All real geeks will click that link. The name of that band is awesomely double-plus geeky.

Our wonderful TSA has issued a great memo to staff. If you fall down due to heart failure or some other medical ailment, and the TSA agent comes to your aide as a good Samaritan, they will be fired. I am not making this up. The memo also points out that the TSA will not provide first-aid training to its officers, that any officers with such skills wanting to help passengers in distress must get themselves “excused from security duties by their supervisor or manager”, and that Good Samaritan activity is “working outside of your job description” where “you are not covered for medical or time loss through the Occupational Workers’ Compensation Program”. (Italicized bit from the Economist's Gulliver column which is linked above.) I understand security is first, but that's just a bit much for me to stomach. Read it all, shake your head, and wonder what our government has come to.

My stupid HOA of which I was formerly president served me with three violation notices today. They're hiding from my return phone call which wasn't very nice. First, they claim my house is not painted in the correct colour. It's the same colour as the day I moved in 15 years ago. I also have proof they're insane on this. I have the original colour book they provided. This is the second time in five years I've been served with this same notice. The second notice was for cleaning my roof. Um, my roof? The new one I put on less than two years ago? That roof? They're smoking crack, and it's not even good crack. The third one, they are complaining about the back patio. I'm sure their complaint would be legitimate if you could see it from the street. But a back patio isn't visible from the street. Oh, wait, I don't even have a back patio. I think that's a problem. Anyone want to tell me how to humiliate these fucktards? They have failed to return two phone calls and left me on hold for 14 minutes. One lady whom I asked to take a message said "company policy doesn't allow us to do so" -- WTF?

Lastly (first lastly), my friend Josh -- yeah, I still have friends -- found an interesting tidbit about one Danish curler, Madeleine Dupont. She’s posing for a calendar and it’s for charity. And she's one hot curler. I like curling and I've been watching a lot lately. I did the same last Olympics too. I can't tell you why I find it appealing but I do. And I've never actually seen Ms Dupont on TV, so she's got nothing to do with it before you raise that unseemly -- but plausible -- accusation. Speaking of curling, still without Madeleine Dupont, Suzie-Q found this AP video link. You can read Josh's original comments on his blog.

Lastly, (second and final lastly), I had my big meeting with Stu Siegel the new Managing Partner of the Panthers today. This won't interest most of you except for the hockey folks, so if you're not interested in the NHL, you can go now.

I had written Mr Siegel after a "last straw" moment and requested a meeting. I pitched myself and told him why he should give me time. I told him that I'm a charter season ticket holder, worked for the ECHL Matadors for a year, wrote a weekly column on the Panthers for nearly three full seasons for LCS: Guide to Hockey, and that I ran this message board. I ended the request with, "That is why you should listen to me." I then waited for a reply.

I received one Monday and he agreed to meet me Wednesday. That's today for those of you keeping track. I went to this meeting prepared. I had a 19 page, perfect bound, full colour presentation. I wanted to leave him facts. I came in with three copies of the book. One for Siegel, one for his partner Mr Vimer, and one for Yormark who I was assuming would crash the meeting. I left Siegel two copies: one for him and one for Vimer. I still have no use for Yormark. Almost every ticket holder I speak to thinks he's a cancer that infects the organization and I don't think Siegel realizes it or accepts it either. I explained it nicely verbally, and not as nicely in the packet.

The packet contains a seven page letter detailing what is wrong with the organization broken down into a few distinct categories. With most points, because I named names and made claims of inappropriate performance, I included facts. There were links to online websites where evidence was provided. I also included printouts from team message boards and local media. If you're going to make a case that something is happening, it's best to prove it. I am not going to go into specific details, because I don't feel that would be appropriate. But I will give you the general gist of what happened.

It all started 11 Feb 2010 when I went to the game with some people from ITW, number 148 on the Fortune 500 list. They made some comments about the arena that I've heard before. But because these were not only business associates, they were very loyal, long-term Blackhawks fans they were especially telling. It was the last straw and when I contacted Mr Siegel.

This is from the packet and doesn't cover what actually happened in the meeting:

First, I pointed out the downward trend started with the departure of Jeff Cogen. While many people didn't like Mr Cogen (I liked him), he did get the job done. I first went into detail about how the organization disrespects our hockey traditions. A common complaint is that people can't tell there's a hockey team there when you're walking around. While I made a few suggestions, this wasn't the point of my meeting. If they want suggestions, I'll give them suggestions. I volunteered. And I will help.

I went into how the organization conveys a "don't care" attitude. It starts with the typos and grammar errors that litter the scoreboard, advertising, and food menus. Then it's the people who don't return phone calls: sadly that's most everyone there.

Then I went into how the organization disrespects the fans. I explained clearly that perception is reality. That means since the fans feel that way, it's true. Even if they don't feel that way. In the packet I pilloried Mr Yormark on this one point:

[Yormark is the] most universally derided among fans for his attitude. I am using a personal experience on this because it just so happens that this promise was seen by just about every fan in the building. On both the Official Panthers board and my own message board I mentioned I was having a meeting with him< .... we had the meeting earlier this year, and I thought it was productive. I won’t say we agreed on everything but I thought he and I at least came to an understanding. I blogged about it here so you can see my thoughts. At the end, he said he’d read my suggestions on the plane and follow up with me in a week. It would be very hard for me to prove he said it, except he blogged it .... That was 19 May 2009. It’s been nearly a year and I’ve not heard back. Where’s the accountability in that

I went on about how they fail to communicate even when they do things right. For example, if someone asks you to do something, let them know it's been done. Otherwise how will anyone know you took care of their email/call/etc. I went on about how scheduling these meetings and giving people one day's notice is inconsiderate of their schedule.

I used Mindy's situation as an example of how they disrepect their own fans. You can find Mindy's post over on the message boards. Better you hear her words than mine. She's a class act, a great fan, and that she would be treated that way is horrible. (The team apologized after I gave her links to make complaints but it should have never happened.)

I brought up the legendary and infamous Body Slamming Alice article because it's important that the team knows that some people think they're better than everyone. No fan should drop and F bomb in front of a child. The fact a team executive did it, and then fired the employee who told them to stop it is inexcusable. If this is the public face of the team, why would anyone want part of that organization? I mentioned more examples of failure to communicate with other people. It's important that I not pick on any one person.

People think I have a grudge against Mr Yormark. I categorically deny that. I think he does a great job at selling advertising, sponsorships, and all that. I just happen to dislike him because I do not think in an organization that relies on the fan base for their financial gain they should have a Machiavellian liar in charge. And that's who's in charge.

One comment as proof they don't get it: Urinal Pucks with team logos. Epic fail. 

My final point was that hockey should be left to hockey people. "Hockey and management must be separated by an iron wall. Cohen, Yormark, and everyone else (yourselves included I’m afraid) need to stay out of the way." I don't think they get that because Yormark has his fingers in that too. I can promise you Yormark simply doesn't know enough about hockey do the job. He's a smart guy, but you need a smart hockey guy doing that. Yormark's not a hockey guy.

Okay, that was the packet summary. Now on to my meeting. I introduced myself again, quickly reminded him why I was there and promised not to to discuss the hockey side. (I did later mention that if they did trade Tomas Vokun they had to buy me a new jersey....)

Stu is a hockey fan. I want to make that clear. He asked where I sat, and I explained why we sat there. I also explained why we're relocating for the upcoming season and that we gave him back his 'free' tickets in exchange for that relocation. We talked about Mindy a bit. We talked about Chad -- I said nice things about him except his inability to return phone calls. We talked about Brad -- again, I said nice things about him too, again except for his failure to return phone calls. With Brad, especially it's frustrating because he did the work. We just didn't know he did it. You think after messages from three people he might have had that little light go on and say "maybe I will call" -- what do I know. Again, no beef with Brad or Chad.

We discussed Murphy. I told him that was the sort of fan he needed in the building. A nice guy, a loyal fan, a home, and a Pollyana when it comes to the Panthers. That's all good things for a home-town sports fan. Murph's my friend and I am not criticizing him in any way. I pointed out that even Murph is frustrated and that if they're losing the hard-core die-hard fans, things are going really wrong.

I pointed out that the problem is not the on-ice product. We have had several coaches, two GMs, and a whole slew of players. The team is being infected from things not related to hockey. The fans are part of it, or the lack of fans more accurately. I tried to convey to him repeatedly that the reason there are no fans in the building is because they don't feel welcome, it doesn't feel like home to a team. I'm not sure he realizes how true this is. How am I so sure? Last year they gave away tickets for free to anyone who had a local driver's license. FREE. Nobody came. That means no ticket revenue, no concession revenue, no eyes seeing sponsor ads, and no life in the building.

This building (the store out front excluded) if you walk around it's hard to tell this is a hockey arena. In fact, you'd probably never guess. When you go to a concert you don't know there's a hockey team there. And you should. I've been to many arenas, and ours is better than Tampa's because they have the worst hockey arena I've ever been to. But I've been to Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, New York, among others and those building you can tell a hockey team plays there even when one isn't. Hell, I've been to minor league building over the years that are better including Estero and Orlando.

I suggested he survey fans using Surveymonkey or some other site. I am confident if he asks the right questions, he'll see how right I am and how wrong they are. He said he welcomes suggestions and I do hope the fans who feel the management has ruined this building with their de-pantherization, with their "screw you" attitude, write him and share their views. The more people who express this, the better.

We took a little walk, looked at Mindy's suite then at the ice which was mid-conversion for a concert this weekend. I thanked him for his time, urged him to read the packet carefully, and then, if he had follow ups or needed help, to contact me.

Mr Siegel is very hard to read. I'm usually good at it, but I'm not sure what he was thinking or feeling. Did I like him? He seemed okay. It's hard to know most people in 35 minutes. I certainly don't have a bad impression. I didn't get that "icky" vibe that I get with others. I think he's sincere in his desire to fix what's wrong. I don't believe we necessarily agree on "what's wrong." I can tell you he does care. He's like Jeff Cogen that way. He cares about the team and he's not faking -- that's the reason I spent my valuable time with him, because when it comes down to it, I care too.

The Panthers Just Suck. Seriously. It's THAT Bad. This blog has moved to http://quagmire.darsys.net

Apparently I'm (in)famous now. As you may know I got special tickets to heckle Jay Bouwmeester mercilessly on his return to Florida 5 Feb 2010. Getty Images* sent a picture of me over the newswires and it's here in this article on Yahoo Sports. Or just see the image here:

"Florida Panthers fan holds up a sign for Jay Bouwmeester of the Calgary Flames for his first visit back to Florida on February 5, 2010 at the BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise, Florida. The Flames defeated the Panthers 2-1," reads the caption. While Jay didn't read the sign as far as we could see, a number of his teammates did and that's good enough, because we know they told him his special fan club was in attendance. Sadly, the Panthers lost that contest. However, we had fun for two periods of the three until the Panthers threw in the towel. Which leads us to the next topic.

I am going to discuss something I've already discussed over on my message boards in this thread. A few short weeks ago, the Panthers were as high as sixth place in the conference struggling to stay there. They've slipped down to twelfth, and are in danger of settling into last place. And not just in the conference, but in the league. Today the "Managing Partners" of the Panthers wrote an open letter to their fan(s). Click that link to read the letter, and my comments follow there. I'm going to go a bit further here, though.

As I said, that letter is an important document, historical in at least one sense. Over time many teams have performed badly, but the Panthers have been trying harder than most to be bad. This in spite of the "Managing Partners" promise of accountability. This is the first team in professional sports I've ever seen that has sent a memo to fans that admits we suck which is what it says. "... our team, the way it is currently structured, is not equipped to meet the goals and objectives that we have set ...." That says we suck and there's no getting around it either. And it's 100% true. We suck, swallow, and beg for more. It's embarrassing to me and my fellow fans what passes for hockey on the ice.

The team doesn't care and it shows. Management doesn't care and it shows, this letter notwithstanding. The bottom line is that despite the "Managing Partners" moniker, Alan Cohen still owns this team and the pile of festering, steaming shite it has become. This goes back to the basic issue, nobody on this team, the management, or anyone involved has any clue why the team is like this. It's still like this despite changes in coaches, general managers, players, and more. There is one constant, and apparently I'm one of the few that can see it. When our season is over on 11 April 2010 (no playoffs for us), I will contact Cliff Viner and Stu Siegel, and if they agree, I will tell them what's wrong with the team. The problem is, and I know this in advance, they won't want to hear it because sometimes the truth is very painful. A cancer such as this team has spreads and getting rid of the infected parts doesn't cure the problem -- you have to kill the source, and quite frankly, Alan Cohen doesn't have the balls to do it: he's the most wishy-washy vacillating owner I've ever seen**. I have no idea how he ever ran a successful business.

A very, very sad fact: I care more about this team than any one person in management. I say that unreservedly, unconditionally, and without exception. I have no desire to get into hockey operations, and while it may need some fixing, that is secondary to the malaise that infects our hockey team.

The letter goes on to say, we're rebuilding. This is our fifth rebuild (give or take) in our short history. None of the others have worked, and this one won't either. I'm throwing that out in front of everyone right now. I'm willing to bet anyone one year of my salary that this next one will fail too. Because they aren't addressing the underlying malady, the source of our internal plague. Because they don't see it. I'm not sure if they saw it, if they would fix it. I realize my words here are harsh, and it would be great if someone in management would read them. (If they do read them, please note I will gladly say these same words to your face. And, given the opportunity, I will. What I say in private will be polite, professional, and brutally eviscerating. But if you listen, it'll do you some good.)



The letter also indicates they're keeping our coach (DeBoer) and general manager (Sexton). I can see a bunch of our local fans rolling their eyes and thinking how bad an idea this is. It's a great idea. DeBoer is not the problem, though he probably should take his frustrations out on the players a little more. If I were to build a hockey team from scratch, DeBoer is the sort of man I'd want behind the bench.
Sexton, well he's sort of green but I think he deserves a chance. I think he's got good hockey sense
and his ego doesn't get in the way (unlike, say, Keenan, who Cohen had on our team not once, but twice). These "Managing Partners" are behind DeBoer and Sexton because they say "After consulting with ... Sexton ... DeBoer" -- you don't consult with people you intend to fire. And "Sexton has begun the process of reshaping this team" Good. I'm happy with this.


The letter then states, "these changes are part of an overall plan" -- then share it with us, please. This team has been rudderless a long, long time. I'm a charter and inaugural season ticket holder. I've sat through almost every home game this team has played in over fifteen years. (In the first ten years I only missed a total of three games.) I know hockey and this isn't it.

As I said, after the season is over -- okay, it's already over if you want to be technical -- I am going to contact both Cliff Viner and Stu Siegel. If they agree, I will ask for a one hour meeting with nobody else in attendance. Just us three. I will tell them what's wrong, what they need to do to fix it. And I'll give them proof. Just to make sure they understand I really do know what's wrong with this team. I won't hold my breath because current management of this team says they care, but they really don't care. They have proven that repeatedly to me and many other fans. And they're too self-centered to even realize it. (Now, please proceed to beat your heard on the wall repeatedly.)


* While Getty Images may claim copyright to this photo, I deny that claim. First, it's a picture of me -- taken without my express or implied consent. Second it's a picture of my sign to which I lay copyright claim, and for which I gave them no permission to use or reproduce. So to hell with them.
** Here's a guy who had Jacques Martin as coach and GM. He asked many fans to a town hall style meeting. Then he asked what we thought while admitting he had no idea what he was doing. Pretty much every said JM should go. Cohen then laid the decision on someone else. Who? Jacques Martin. Yeah, the guy was allowed to decide his own career at the team. He opted to stay as GM. He should have been shown the door. The real point is that the owner of the team needs to have the balls to make the decision. He doesn't. 

Panthers Autograph Session (And Idiot Roofers) This blog has moved to http://quagmire.darsys.net

First, I had a fight at work today with Murton Roofing. I was already in a bad mood because of last night's incompetence with Roto-Rooter*. We have a roof at work that was installed 2004 by Murton Roofing. It has a 20 year warranty (2 years with Murton and the rest with GAF who made the roof). We also had that extended by five years by having a special inspection done to get their diamond protection. A year ago, the seam / expansion joint had a leak and it was fixed in April 2009 by Murton. The roof started leaking again Monday in the same spot. The roof is under warranty. We called GAF. They sent Murton out to look at the problem. So far everything's okay.

The inspector guy comes down with his digital camera and shows me pictures of the seam and it's clearly a mess. He agrees it's a mess. He says, it's not covered. Why? Wait. Wait. Wait.  Because whomever fixed it last time did a really bad job and they won't fix work done by other people. I explained to them that nobody else has done work and why would we pay someone else to do work on a roof that is pretty new and covered by a warranty. Logic doesn't work well on stupid people, apparently. He said his boss would call me to discuss it.

We called GAF and their response is that they were told Murton didn't do the shoddy work. Unfortunately for Murton we have a copy of their work order proving they did. Only, despite promises, nobody at Murton has called us for two days. This is beyond my ability to understand. I gave it to the lawyer and said "sic 'em" -- we need to slap them down now so they understand I have zero tolerance for stupidity. Seriously, they make Bush Junior look like a rocket scientist. You all know me. How often am I at a loss for words?

Still no Super Bowl tickets. Face value or I ain't going. I'm close though.

Back to normal news. Today was the official autograph session for the Florida Panthers. Much like last year's this was remarkably well organized. As last year there were some food give-aways (chips and ice cream).

You came in (opened a bit late), walked through Pantherland in case you wanted to spend money, then checked in. I checked in my group of one and Greg's kids while he bought a poster to be signed. They give you a team magazine to use to collect autographs. We were near the front of the line so it went pretty quick. This year the players were in numerical order instead of alphabetical because that's how the magazine was ordered.

They started the actual signing a few minutes early (yay) and you could have one personal item to have signed in addition to your magazine. My official one item was the Clemmensen gloves (picture now on Flickr) but I was wearing a plain hat and my Vokun jersey. I got all the players to sign the magazine and the hat except for the two goalies mentioned before where they signed my item only. I got Vokun to sign my jersey after I took it off at his table -- actually it was a re-sign since his old signature had faded away. I put it back on. Clemmensen was pretty happy to see I had bought his gloves and actually hauled them back for him to sign. I only asked him to sign one, but he volunteered to sign both of them without me asking so I took the other out of the bag. I explained they made me buy the set. He told me how he had them custom made and we talked for a moment before being shooed along.

Most of the players were friendly, chatty, and signing full names when we came in. I'm sure the autographs would continue to get messier. There were some 500 people there (2 signatures per person mind you). A few were less chatty, other awkward, and some bored. Only one was downright surly. I tried to give most of the guys some happy words of encouragement. I made sure I thanked every single player -- sadly many fans didn't. Done from time in to time out in about 40 minutes.

Greg decided to terrorize the last signer in line: Stanley C Panther, the mascot. He asked for a hug and Stanley clicked his fingers together as if expecting money. Greg said "but that makes you a prostitute" and I threw in, "No, that makes you an ice cat**." Stanley laughed. I got my program signed and asked him, again, why he doesn't skate. He got frustrated and wrote me a note saying I must not come to all the games. I said I mostly did and only saw him skate once. He signed my program on the cover too, we shook hands and that was that. (The whole Stanley bit was caught by the official videographer.)

Then I stood in line next to John and Liz (who were about 30 people behind us) and chatted with them as they waited their turns. Liz forgot to torment Barky*** about his picture. We left and went to Stevie-B's for dinner and ran into DavidW from my message board. After that we went to Ice Cream Club, then parted company. And traffic wasn't the nightmare it would have otherwise been.

Then we have this link of the twelve most insane things you can buy on the Internet. They are crazy, but I'm sure we can all think of worse. Maybe.

And the greatest quote of its kind: "I wish my lawn were emo so it would cut itself." That is just perfectly awesome. I wish I knew who really made this one up.







* Shout out to Andy Marquez for offering up his plumber. Hopefully he'll squeeze me in tomorrow. Roto-Rooter did reply to my testy email. "You can expect to hear from XXXX or someone from his office within the next two business days. I hope this can be resolved to your satisfaction." If they don't go out of business, I can't imagine they will do anything to my satisfaction. I'm going to pay someone else -- even if it's more -- because they suck.
** Many people have impugned the Ice Cats (our "cheerleaders") and made comments about them. Thanks to Evan we now know you can, indeed, buy them by the hour as many have long suspected. Here's a scan from the Panthers themselves as proof. 
*** Barky? If you're wondering what the deal with the famous Radek Dvorak avec chien picture is from which is nickname is derived, you can see it for yourself. This is the infamous photo in the 1999-2000 season calendar from the September page. I've scanned it in, cropped it, and added a caption. It was and is much talked about to this day.

Hockey Hubris, The Florida Panthers, the iPad (iTampon?), and Avatar This blog has moved to http://quagmire.darsys.net

I am using the word hubris only because Murphy used it in his recent blog entry. It's an unusual word and if he can use hockey and hubris in a blog post, so can I. I am going to talk about hockey as it turns out.


EASTERN CONFERENCE (NHL: National Hockey League)
These are based on statistics as of the close of business Tuesday, 26 Jan 2010
1. Capitals 74
2. New Jersey 69
3. Pittsburgh 67
4. Buffalo 67
5. Ottawa 62

6. Flyers 55
7. Rangers 55
8. Panthers 55
9. Canadiens 55

10. Bruins 54
11. Thrashers 54
12. Isles 54

13. Lightning 52
14. Leafs 44
15. Hurricanes 39

If the playoffs were held right now, my team, the Florida Panthers, would be in it. Yay, team! Had they lost last night against the Canadiens, we'd have been in 13th place instead of 8th place -- eighth being the final playoff position. That tells you how close the standings are. The Panthers are in a four way tie for 55 points (tiebreakers control the order teams are listed) and there are three more teams just one point behind us. That's a total of six teams that can win today or tomorrow and be ahead of us in the standings. Further, tonight, if the Lightning versus the Canadiens game is won by the Bolts, they'll be in that second group with fifty four points, adding a seventh team to the mix.

Hockey Point System For Non-Fans: If you're not a hockey fan, a regulation win gets you two points. So if you have 54 points, win a game, you have 56 points. If you go into overtime you get one point -- something that is really fucking stupid -- even if you lose the game. Ties were abolished in favour of a shootout -- proving the NHL could fuck up a wet dream. But, I digress. 

The saving grace is no matter what happens this season, we'll not finish in the final two spots (14 and 15) because we're better than that. And we're only a seven points out of fifth place and five points out of thirteenth place -- that may be a record for tight grouping nearly two-thirds of the way into the season. All this assumes nobody in front of us wins which is an absurdist condition. Our divisional record is an abysmal 6-7-2*. To avoid sounding like a Pollyana here, I must point out the only reason the Panthers doing so well there are seven teams (basically half of the conferfence) within two points of us.

(A brief word on the West: if you take out the anaemic Oilers pretty much every team in the Western Conference would rank at or higher than the Panthers. Even Minnesota, which is the subject of ridicule, has 54 points to keep it all in perspective.)

The Panthers are a team that has huge potential. But we're not using it. Our destiny is in our hands. We stand on the brink of a golden opportunity for the future that lies before us or on the brink of a chasm from which we may spend a decade returning. This lies within the hands of the players themselves. It's not coaching (DeBoer is a good coach), it's not ownership (hmph), it's not the referees fault (they suck anyway), and it's not even the fan base's fault (speaking of sucky fans welcome to Sports Hell).

The Panthers have made their bed with some spectacularly bad collapses, lazy efforts, and all around suckitude, and let's be clear: I'm not happy where we are. So many blown games are the primary reason we're not a top point team. But that's the difference: good teams don't consistently blow multi-point leads.

We beat Toronto a few nights ago because Toronto sucks worse than we do. But it wasn't an enjoyable game to watch. It was like watching you play your lazy older brother who wasn't really even trying. Our effort had we played a better team would not have resulted in a win. Let's not even mention the goalie, Tomas Vokun: he's the only reason we're not behind Carolina sucking up last place.

Honestly, it all comes down to consistency. That's not something you can coach. That's something you do as a team. Which road will the team take? History is not on our side but I hope (HAH!) this is the year we take our own destiny into our hands. This differentiates the bad, the average, the good, and the great teams. It shows your character. The Panthers have a date with destiny. The question is, will the Panthers show up?

To quickly change the subject, this video is a riot. We have the TSA and now Rick Mercer has this security video mocking(?) Transport Canada's security:


It's a short video and well worth your time if you need a good laugh at the expense of airline 'security'.

Next up, I must mock the iPad. I love Apple. I am a Mac-head. The iPad, when I first heard the name some time ago, is poorly named. I assumed it must have been a joke. I mean, seriously, why would you name a product after a feminine hygiene product? I thought my amusing comment was original but apparently many people besides myself got the same wrong idea. This (thanks FailBlog) is what happens when people are afraid to stand up to Steve Jobs:

Let me be honest. When I heard they were coming out with a feminine hygiene product tablet, I was sure they'd call it the iSlate. A great name, conveys what it is, and there's far less room for rude product names. Or maybe even the iTablet. But no: we have the iPad. The worst product name Apple's ever come out with.

The iPad is well designed from all appearances, meeting Apple's awesome visual standards. It's easy to use because everything Apple does is easy to use. I will admit that I have no idea why this product exists. I don't know who the market is outside of the geek set who will want it because it's new and cool. I love technology, but I really do need it to serve some sort of purpose. I love books but I don't want an e-reader. I don't have a Kindle and this doesn't make me want one. It's a computer of sorts -- but with limited functionality -- and quite frankly, I'd rather have a laptop. Add a touch screen to a laptop or netbook and that's what this is. What is the revolution? Why does iPad exist? Listen, can we just call it iTampon because Steve Jobs apparently was having his period when this was designed? Would that offend anyone? No? Good.

A little bit of news on Avatar. It has officially become the highest grossing film ever, passing Titanic, a record nobody thought was beatable. The news article is here. Only I'm sure you'll all remember a few days ago in my blog I pointed out how that the real champion remains Gone With The Wind. The article, happily, acknowledges that. Earning $189 million when tickets are averaging a dime is far more impressive than earning $1.3 billion when tickets are averaging $15 per admission. Avatar still impresses at equalized dollars, but it's at 26 on the all-time list by that standard. I have nothing against Avatar and enjoyed it (see review elsewhere in this blog), but it's being made to be bigger than it really is. Seriously, use the equalizer link to see how movies really rate (2009 domestic dollar version).

Lastly, I mentioned Dean before. I have been officially Simpsonized by him:

I will post a full-sized, full-resolution version soon. This tiny preview is for your amusement. This is the second draft. He's amazingly good and the only changes we made were my hair colour and changing shoes to skates. We made a slight alteration to the jersey neckline because it's supposed to be yellow but the shade matched the avatar's skin so it was adjusted for practical reasons. I am deeply pleased with the results and you'll be seeing more of Yellow Me around.

* or 6-7, as I deny the existence of the 2 in accordance with my beliefs that shootouts are bad.

Post 800 -- Rapture! This blog has moved to http://quagmire.darsys.net

This is, as far as my count shows, really post 800. I did a count and sync and I do believe this is the real deal. 800 posts and over 250,000 visitors. I think that makes my blog popular, though why continues to be a big mystery.

Today's first entry (all edited to preserve privacy) is stolen from a Facebook status entry for my friend Cheryl " 'I didn't know I needed permission to help people.' -- Michelle after being chastised by her teacher for not getting permission to sell the cookies and brownies she made to raise money to send to Haiti in response to their massive earthquake. PS: She made $90.00 in one day. I'm so proud of her." First, I'm proud of Cheryl's daughter too. The teacher, not so much. I replied "Good for her. Cheryl, might I suggest you call the principal and say something. What your daughter did should be commended and not chastised. I am glad you're proud of her and you need to back her up. The world needs more people like her and less of a teacher who would chastise a student for doing Good Work and the parents who obviously raised her properly."

I continue to watch the Late Night Wars and I have to stop as I am not getting enough sleep to function at work. The Wall Street Journal has weighed in with this gem of an essay. They go on to say why comics are no longer laughing at the Leno situation. And quite frankly, I completely understand. Leno is many things, but funny isn't one of them. At least not any more. Poor Johnny Carson is rolling over in his grave.

The Florida Panthers replaced their mini-Mascot. We have a full sized one and a small one. They looked basically the same. Now, not so much. This is a conglomeration of Evan's writing and mine: First they showed a video on the JumboTron of Mini Stanley getting sucked into the engine compartment of a Zamboni. After, he was rushed to the hospital and they showed him in surgery and then they briefly showed some sort of grey, scarred, macabre interim face before he was bandaged. After the surgery, they unveiled the new face. So, the character they invented to be less intimidating to kids has now scared them shitless by showing him in a "horrific" accident and coming out with zombie eyes and a Botox face. Evan's kid was so scared he couldn't sleep all night and Evan filed off a complaint to the Panthers. Mini Stanley thread here. It's not so much one small thing as the Panthers continue to shit on their fans day after day and the fans continue to take it. Our group has decided to draw a line in the sand. We'll see what happens. Keep up to date in this thread.

For those of you travelling into the United States, be prepared for even tighter security. The CBC is reporting that airlines are being notified by TSA to expect new even more stringent regulations to be imposed soon.

I mocked Pat Robertson the other day in my blog over his offensive and racist anti-Haiti comments. I figured he's always at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to that. He normally makes Rush Limbaugh look sane and normal. Well Rush has outdone himself and pretty much confirmed he's a racist, misanthropic, twat with his drivel. Even Rachel Maddow of MSNBC has proven to be a moron, though at least she's not a racist moron. Do these people have any clue? It's just repugnant to see how disgusting these 'people' are. I can't envision I come from the same species as these shit-spewing scum. With that preface here's a clip of John Stewart (of who I am not a big fan) commenting on video clips of all three of them.

20 - 12 = 7 (The New Math) This blog has moved to http://quagmire.darsys.net

If you want to figure out that subject you'll have to read all the way through to nearly the end. I'm going to start with Thursday when I went off to Grandma's after work to meet her and Aunt Barbara for dinner. I rarely see Barbara (Grandma's baby sister), so it was a rare treat for her to be in town even if it was for one day. We visited for a bit, went to dinner (okay food, horrible service -- bad service seems to be endemic around this part of the state), and then parted company. I'm sure you saw our part of the country in the news, as it turns out we got 12 inches of rain in Grandma's part of town in 5 hours (and 16 in 24) so my drive home -- which is normally 40 minutes, was much longer. Other people never got home, including many people who slept in the mall because they couldn't escape. Needless to say my sleep Thursday night was cut short by half of what it should be, forgetting whether or not I actually slept.

Friday, I went to work knowing it would be a long day, and far more tired than I planned to be. I was secretly hoping the evening's movie would be cancelled because I was totally wiped. But I wasn't going to be the one to mention it, hint at it, or cancel it. Friday brought more bad weather, and in fact, a tornado removed a gas station near Grandma's house. Left work early to meet Pablo and Andrea at my house and then go to the game. Ended up getting home late due to an accident. Remarkably, there was no traffic on the way to the arena. On Sunday it's a 40 minute drive and on a weekday at 5, it's usually a 75 to 90 minute drive. We did it in 48. Shocking. We went to Rosario's which was there years ago, vanished, and has now reappeared. My food was good but I was most irritated that the lasagne was swimming in the sauce. That's not a proper lasagne. Flavour was good, though not evenly cooked. Evan loved his as did Pablo and Andrea. Kathy didn't seem to like hers as she barely ate any. The garlic rolls were phenomenal.

We went to the game and the rain has vanished, finally, by then. We got to witness a rare home win by the Panthers despite their efforts to clutch defeat from the jaws of victory in the final period of play. So far the day was proving to be a success. While at the game, Greg asked me to film his son playing goalie at first intermission, which I was glad to do. I tested the video camera at our seats by filming the Ice Cats (nothing like soft core porn to amuse you). I went down to 103 -- centre ice -- to film Greg's kid and was stopped by the usher as they were letting the kids on the ice. The usher was actually nice once I explained what I was going to do. He let me stand behind the handicapped section and film. Then the supervisor Nazi came over and started yelling at me, causing me to miss finding out which goalie was which. Then the two ushers and the supervisors argued over whether or not I could film. (Filming of the NHL game is prohibited. Filming a friend/relative/etc at intermission is permitted but they had trouble figuring it out, and I kept getting jostled about.)

Having no choice I tried to film BOTH goalies at opposite ends of the ice but doubt I succeeded in doing anything but filming a bunch of shaking about. I feel bad, but that fiasco wasn't my fault. The arena folks don't communicate and none of them know the rules and this is a common occurrence. Feh.

We left and went to Cinema Paradiso where we would see Rocky Horror Picture Show. The entrance to the parking garage was closed, so we drove in the exit and up the exit ramp. We watched other cars have the same challenge trying to park as we did. Finally Liz arrived and had similar trouble, nearly removing the automatic gate when it refused to open.

We went in, realized we had time because they weren't on schedule. Liz and I let them know that Pablo was a virgin. (In this context I refer to one who hasn't seen RHPS and beyond that is outside the scope of my knowledge thankyouverymuch.) They tried to put the red lipstick "V" on his head, but I forestalled it until we returned from our coffee adventure because I was feeling kind.

We piled in my car and went in search of caffeine. Sadly, all the Starbucks we passed were closed, and we ended up at the Floridian Diner on Las Olas where Liz and I had coffee and key lime pie. Andrea had coffee and Pablo just watched. We finished, headed back to the cinema via the tunnel (Pablo was apparently a tunnel virgin as well). We parked, coming in through the out door* again. We bought our tickets and Pablo immediately got the "V" mark on his head. He was a good sport about it.

We entered the theatre just past midnight. My day is eighteen hours old already at this point and I'm operating on four hours of sleep. The coffee isn't helping. I like the theatre: comfortable seats, some friendly staff, and even some friendly fans. All RHPS shows have some form of 'virgin games' wherein the 'virgins' are embarrassed gently. I got 'ring around the virgin' in high school. Other casts make you introduce yourself at the front of the theatre, proclaiming yourself a virgin. Stuff like that. This cast made everyone introduce themselves while grabbing their tits or tackle (as appropriate) and shouting their name loudly. Pablo did himself proud and we laughed. That should have been the end of it, but it wasn't.

Now, I've seen some casts do spin the bottle wherein you take the virgins in two groups, spin the bottle, and then kiss the virgin from the other group. It's a chaste kiss and you can pretend kiss if you really want. Harmless enough though creepy in these times.

This theatre they collected money and for every dollar they collected the virgins had to hold the kiss that long. That's a bit over the top and definitely a little past the point of sexual harassment. Most people were faking it, though. Anyway, poor Pablo was the victim of a "substitution" where they picked someone of a clearly different orientation. I shan't go further other than to say, I sincerely and formally publicly profusely apologize to Pablo -- had I known I'd have never outed you as a virgin. You might have a sexual harassment case against the theatre. I hope you can walk again in a few weeks. (I'm kidding about the last sentence, but not the rest. Way too over the top. One day they will get sued, and they will lose.) If Pablo wishes to elaborate, he may. That's all I'm going to say.

The only amusing part of this part was this one kid -- 14 at best** -- who raised $31 and got a nic, long French kiss with a very large older woman, and he appeared to enjoy it immensely. No faking there. He'll probably need therapy and turn gay. It was a great laugh because when asked by the MC how he liked it, he was really breathless and had trouble answering it; the smile on his face was priceless.

We bought prop bags. I got three at $4 each. That's $12 and handed the lady $20, and waited for change. "That's seven," she said. She repeated it again. I corrected her, and she said "seven" again. I ended up getting eight, but I'm not sure she believed me. Seriously. Epic fail. She wasn't even a blonde.

The film started a little closer to 1am than midnight. They showed the US cut which has a missing scene/song and is about 3 minutes shorter than the UK version as I recollect. I could look at my last RHPS review but am far too lazy. The atmosphere here was way better than at Flippers where we saw it last time. But they had the movie volume down too low to hear, and the lighting people were incompetent causing the spotlights to blank the screen numerous times. The cast was enjoyable except for poor Rocky who was miscast due to his very tiny stature and it was very, very, very distracting.

We got out well past 2am and I flew home at warp factor ten, at one point being passed by a little Acura doing warp twenty and at another point being nearly run into by a DUI. We got home a little past 3am, and then Pablo and Andrea went on their way. I was in bed around 330am, and was up, sadly, at 740am. That's two nights in a row with four hours of sleep. Today was harsh. Really harsh and I am not functioning well. Tomorrow I have to be up at 7ish to head to the flea market with Timmy, Liz, and John. No reason, just fun.

And a bit of random news: if you think the Queen is not normal, here she is taking public transport. It's pretty cool that she'd do this. It's so normal yet not. A very short video so feel free to take a peek. And now I'm off to bed.


* Gratuitous Prince reference. Name that song for one pence.
** No idea how he got into an R rated movie 

Woe, Woe, Woe your boat.... This blog has moved to http://quagmire.darsys.net

Nobody but me will find the title amusing. I have long since learned that clever, pithy, witty, sarcastic, or humorous post titles are all ignored. Philistines, the lot.

So I will be seeing Jan as part of my annual holiday, but the bit with Carey isn't working out again. It's been a long time but no thanks to British Rail, we're scuttled again.

I didn't put it in yesterday's post because I didn't have anything to say about it, though I certainly remembered. My friend John has a nice post at his blog. Yesterday marked the anniversary of John Lennon's murder/assassination.

You're probably sick of hearing me bemoan the state of the Panthers. Time after time I bemoan their suckiness and tolerance for same. As much as I hate the Lightning, they did something great. They benched their lazy-ass players. The Panthers talk about accountability, but the Lighting did something about it. Hey, Panthers, talk is cheap.

I am a subway geek and these two tours were brought to my attention. The first is 2-1/2 hours of bliss and the other is a full day of bliss. While insanely overpriced at as much as £34.50 per person for the first and £79.95 for the second, I'm willing to do it. I've contacted them for more details as to the amount of stair climbing required due to Karen's injury.

As you know, I sometimes make fun of people's misuse of certain things such as word choice (your vs you're and it's vs its) because it's a peeve of mine that people manage to graduate from school without a working knowledge of their native tongue. So innit* wonderful that slang is creeping into the language? Not so much in my view, and BBC News takes the same view saying "Slang is sabotaging language, with some teenagers unable to speak in any other way, say critics .... Their language is becoming saturated by slang, leaving them ill-equipped to communicate in the wider world." Spoken like a true cunning linguist‡.

I'm hoping to see a number of my friends this weekend in addition to getting my skates sharpened. They are duller than George W. Bush.

* That is used in an ironic sense, thank you, so don't bother pointing it out.
‡ That is for Jose

Insert Title Here This blog has moved to http://quagmire.darsys.net

The NHL's Florida Panthers continue to defy all expectations and have now lost eight of the last nine in spectacularly bad fashion. I could rip the team a new one because they deserve it. The players don't care -- anyone watching the game can see that. Okay, some do, but this is a team sport. The management clearly didn't care for many years. Maybe that will change, maybe not. I'm not seeing it so far. I am a natural pessimist, or a "realist" as I call it, but this team has turned my game days into a not-so-fun ordeal instead of a fun experience. I realize the only reason I'm even going still is to be with my awesome group of friends, and the random visit from folks in other parts of the arena (Corrie!) who decide to try a game in our section (aka The Bitter And Cynical Section). You know, for years I was like the legendary Murph and was full of optimism until this team took it, stomped on it, spit on it, shat on it, and crushed my spirit. They want me back, they have to earn it. And they're not doing it.

People come up to me sometimes, including last game, and say they read my blog posts, Facebook notes, and message board posts (the real board, not the new official disaster they try to pass off as a message board) and totally agree. To those people I say, stop being silent. Write a blog and say what you feel. E-mail or fax management. Post on my message board (or the official one). Link to the complaints of your fellow fans. At some point they're going to have to realize we're not a small group. Guys, today they said they're working on the marketing plan for next year's renewal package. I ask you: don't they have more critical things to worry about than renewal packages? (I am not making this up. Indeed, this is true. See today's message board post entitled STAB.) Your silence is self-defeating. Speak up for God's sake. Enough of this for today.

Sue asks, "Are you planning to try Google Chrome? If so, I'll wait for your review." I answered her and realized maybe some of you might care: I've been using it for damn near 8 weeks -- since 6 October 2009, in fact. It's slow, stalling for no reason at all. It's very clunky, and I dislike the alien user interface a great deal. On the Mac, at least, it's not ready for prime time. Try it and see if you don't believe me. But these claims of "speed" -- it must be on sites that I don't visit, because outside of Google.com it's worthless. Sorry, Google, I love you, but Chrome is a fail.

While I'd love to vote with my wallet like most people, I have to vote in a way that lets me sleep at night. That tends to rule out a lot of people who'd protect my wallet at the expense of people who don't deserve to have people treat them as sub-human. When I wasn't sure who I thought should be president, I was seriously considering McCain because he's a pretty moderate Republican. Then he picked Sarah Palin: the soulless bitch from hell. Yeah, I don't like her. If there was an election between Bush and Palin, I'd vote for Bush. That's how much I dislike her. She makes him look like a Rhodes scholar, and he's an idiot. I mean that literally. He's stupid. Dumb. I'm calling him names. Palin, she's worse. I will thank the person who sent me this link which reinforces everything I think about this abomination named Sarah Palin. Read it, watch the videos, and then tell me why you think she should be in politics. There are plenty of good Republicans -- she's just not one of them.

Speaking of the GOP, we have an article here about what some of them do in their spare time. Missouri House Speaker Rod Jetton is facing assault charges for allegedly beating the shit out of his mistress while having sex. His ladyfriend had not uttered the “safe word,” probably because Jetton was beating her unconscious. That's just sad.

I continue to laugh at lamebook -- which posts real Facebook entries that are just hysterical and/or scary. If you want LOL go visit. The first sign of the apocalypse is when I use SMS speak in a post.

Stupid-ass phpBB 3.0.6 This blog has moved to http://quagmire.darsys.net

So today I upgraded PHMB to phpBB 3.0.6 from version 3.0.5 which was a simple process. What I didn't realize is that it makes some significant changes that prevent roll-back to 3.0.5 and also prevent most of the new features from working. It also prevents anyone from registering. I'm miffed to say the very least. It is my fault for not understanding the full complexities of changes, but in a minor upgrade something like this one doesn't expect changes of this magnitude. So if anyone is looking for some money and has a basic knowledge of php, I have a theme that needs to be updated in a hurry. You can find information here where it says "style code changes" -- I have a zipped file of the theme I can send if you want to decide what's involved and how much you think you'll need to charge. (At least current members can still read and post.) HELP ME!

My air conditioner is about to die. I'm going to have to spend quite a ton of money to replace it. I am displeased because this is not in my budget at all. I'm trying to arrange to have this done before the weekend. The current unit keeps overloading and tripping the circuit breaker. They changed the capacitor and several other parts (including the motor) but it still won't output a consistent amp range and keeps popping right after it makes an unhappy noise.

The Panthers continue to suck ass. I'm wondering about the legal ramifications of a lawsuit. They are advertising a professional hockey team and I do believe that would make them in breach of contract and/or false advertising, possibly both.

Happy Birthday, Josh, wherever you are. Probably at Red Lobster. Eww.

I am tired and it's your fault This blog has moved to http://quagmire.darsys.net

Well, probably not, but now you're paying attention.

First, for the Lost fans out there, I present to you, by way of Sue, Barenaked Hurley which is hysterical. All but one of the video links are removed for DMCA violations but the lyrics are still posted. And the audio for the current entry works fine. It's funny. If you don't watch Lost, don't go as it will mean nothing to you.

Randy presents music from a Tesla Coil. No, really. That's to the YouTube video. This is only for the true geeks but it's absolutely fantastic. A Tesla coil is a resonant transformer circuit invented by Nikola Tesla in the late 1800's. It's used to produce high voltage, high current, high frequency alternating current electricity. A Tesla Coil is something that will, invariably, appear on Lost before the end of the series. I'm sure with all their geeky uses of Faraday and such, Tesla is due :)

V, as those of you watching know, showed four episodes and is now on break until March 2010. If you liked Anna (Morena Baccarin), and want to see more, click here (over 18 only). And while we're on this topic, AOL which is generally useless, provides these twelve things you didn't know about sex. Yeah, you probably knew some of them, but it's still educational.

The real Michael Yormark (not to be confused with FMY) saw me at last night's game, looked right at me, and then high-tailed it out of there without acknowledging me. Do I care? No. Am I amused? Heartily so. Sadly, he's good at his job which is whoring out selling advertising space. John's parents who were at the first game, without any prompting, asked why, with all the advertising, they had to pay to get into the game. It doesn't get any better than that. (Last night's luggage tag give-away was awesome, and if you got one and don't want it, send it my way.)

Today was errand day, with trips to the post office, dry cleaner, Publix, and the mall. The mall? The day after Black Friday? Yeah, the mall. And that's how I felt. But I had a plan. I figured I'd get there around 1030, park right near the store I needed (Lindt), go in, buy my stuff, and get out. And hopefully not be killed in the process. I got there at 1044am and there was tons of parking. Everywhere. So I parked by Bass Pro Shops (because it's more convenient for me) and walked through the entire mall, which was eerily silent and empty. Lots of huge sales, but except for one rugby shirt I didn't buy anything. You can't beat $20 for a rugby shirt.

Happy Thanksgiving... This blog has moved to http://quagmire.darsys.net

... to those celebrating it. That's three dots, not four. Get it right. :)

Thanks to FSJ for this article: Microsoft, the largest bastion of evil outside of Yormark's office, hosted an conference on Windows Mobile technology called Mobius 2009. There were 25 people in attendance. Picture one shows the presentation being done. On a Mac. Maybe it's because of the 25 people they invited -- see picture two -- 13 of them were using Macintoshes. Way to go Microsoft. This is a blog of a very pro-Windows person of all things. It's fantastically amusing to me. I am not sure he appreciates the irony of his post.

Thanks to Sue for this bit. It's the complete history of the internet in a nutshell. For this article, it' not true. It's pretty interesting, very informative, and entirely geeky. And that's all good. (There is a saying that anything that can be put in a nutshell belongs there. It's often called Whitney's Postulate and is listed as a corollary to Murphy's Law. This quote was stolen by Sydney Harris and is used all over the internet in various forms.)

As you may or may not be aware every SMS (text message) you have ever sent in your life has been stored by your mobile phone company. Theoretically the archives are reserved for law enforcement and national security purposes. Many, many SMS were sent in the immediate aftermath of 911. Those SMS were posted in their entirety by WikiLeaks on the web. Here's the NY Post article. The article has the link if you care to follow it. I won't put the direct link here because (a) I read a few and some will crush your soul and spirit (b) they violate every personal privacy ethic ever written as they include UNEDITED full names, phone numbers, and more. If you were in New York on 9-11 and sent an SMS it is posted here. If you sent someone your phone, your address, or anything else. It's here. That is completely unacceptable. There are tons of them and unless you like reading both the mundane of unaware people and the misery of people finding out things nobody should ever have to hear, just read the article and skip the link. (The article has more than enough to give you an idea) Nobody should ever have their privacy invaded like this. This isn't journalism, the public's right to know, or anything else. It's fucking disgusting and those at WikiLeaks should die slow, painful deaths.

Special thanks to my season ticket representative Mario Durant of the Florida Panthers for his efforts in securing us nine ducats for a special event. If you ever want season tickets for the NHL's Florida Panthers, call him and tell him I sent you. He'll hook you up. This guy comes through and he's awesome. I'd tell you more about the special event, but you'll have to wait until next year.

A special frown to people who think nearly a decade and a half of friendship should be discarded without at least saying something and providing a reason or even discussing it. Cowardly. And enough on that subject.

So, yesterday was quite the challenge. I left work early to visit the attorney as I do from time to time. Part of my job is making sure things that need to be signed are signed, and everything is in order. If you checked yesterday's weather report, you will know we got damn near 5 inches of rain in some areas and had floods and flood warnings all over the area. I left the attorney's office around 430 to meet everyone for dinner at 515 at Lucille's. The idiot light on my car came on and said my tire was low on pressure. I figured because it was cooler, the pressure had probably caused it to get low (this stupid BMW is sensitive like that), so I stopped in the light drizzle, added air, reset the sensor, and made it almost a quarter mile before it came on again. I stopped, the rain a bit harder, and checked the tire again. Indeed it was leaking because it was low on air again. I inched the car forward and found a very large screw in the front passenger tire. I filled it up again, knowing there happened to be a BMW dealer about four miles from where I was. The car has run-flat tires. While it's good because you're never stranded, there are some downsides. First, you get about 20 to 30 miles of driving if you keep your speed under 30. Second, BMW doesn't give you a spare since you don't need one (as if). The deluge started as I got on I-75 to go one exit (hazards on in the right lane) to the dealer -- Lauderdale BMW of Pembroke Pines. I made it there at 448pm. I walked in and it was damn near deserted in the service department. I explained my situation (and that I was 35 miles from home) but they said most of their mechanics were already gone as they were closing at 5 due to the holiday. (The special tires for the X5 are not readily available at most tire outlets and have to be ordered -- with Thanksgiving looming tomorrow, that was a Bad Thing.) They guy was nice and called every mechanic that was still in the shop seeing if anyone there would do the tire but they all said no as it was quitting time. I was resigned to limping home and missing dinner, the game and everything else.

I thanked the guy (Cal), who was way more helpful than anyone at South Motors would have ever been. My service guy, Donny Rizzo of South Motors, doesn't even return phone calls or emails reliably. How that dealership is in business, I will never know. And of course BMW doesn't care about their customers as my previous interactions indicated (see previous blog posts.) As I was getting ready to walk out the door, a mechanic, Josh, who was sitting in the office (not in the garage) came over and said he'd do it. What a nice guy doing this on his own time to help me out. Sadly for me, the tire warranty company was already closed so I had to pay for the tire at the dealer's rate. (If you worked where I did, you'd have a warranty too for tires that cannot be patched and must be replaced at $300 each.) I paid for it on the company credit card, and I'll file for reimbursement Monday. I give this dealer an A, and will return her for scheduled service even though it's farther from my house than South Motors. To hell with South Motors. BMW will get a nice letter about Cal and Josh, though they probably don't care about that either judging by their previous replies (or lack thereof).

I left the dealer at 550pm, called Karen and found out they were all running a bit late due to weather and were just ordering so I gave them my order over the phone. Got there 615ish, and we ate. About 90 minutes later neither Karen nor myself were feeling very good. So much for dinner. And the Panthers lost in OT.  Came home, returned dinner from whence it came and felt much better. So, all in all, today (yesterday now) sucked.

A long post with lots of stuff in it This blog has moved to http://quagmire.darsys.net

I don't even know where to begin because it's been a very eventful two days since my last post. I guess I'll start with the fact I went outside and notice there is a big screw in my tire and I'll have to deal with it tomorrow somehow. Of course it's tomorrow: the same day I have to meet with the probate attorney, have our annual sales meeting, and meet everyone for an early dinner before the hockey game. I'll probably drive the whole 100 mile day with the damn screw in my tire and hope it makes until Thursday. Sometimes my job sucks. The collection of tire punctures is one of them.

A quick link to Academic Earth, a link Mom (congrats on your kitchen remodelling job) gave me. It's free lectures from leading professors. Their website blurb says (edited for space): As more and more high quality educational content becomes available online for free, we ask ourselves, what are the real barriers to achieving a world class education? At Academic Earth, we are working to identify these barriers and find innovative ways to use technology to increase the ease of learning. We are building a user-friendly educational ecosystem that will give internet users around the world the ability to easily find, interact with, and learn from full video courses and lectures from the world’s leading scholars. Our goal is to bring the best content together in one place and create an environment in which that content is remarkably easy to use and where user contributions make existing content increasingly valuable. There's some great stuff there including an introduction to astrophysics. My school, Berkeley, is well represented.


Next up, and this one's for Evan more than the rest of you, comes courtesy of my friend John Carney's blog. He says: I realize I’m sick but I didn’t think I was sick enough to hallucinate. However, I could swear my brother sent me an e-mail with a link to the Muppets performing “Bohemian Rhapsody.” That must be some sort of hallucination. Maybe it’s the cold medicine working.

Don't thank me for sharing that. And if you have nightmares, blame John.

Over tonight's dinner -- leftover meatballs I made -- I was reading Locus Magazine. I've been a subscriber for damn near two decades. I'm rarely mention it, but it's a great magazine for the Sci-Fi / Fantasy / Horror geek in you. It's a legend in its field and you should subscribe to magazine and newspapers before they vanish forever. But I mention it because I have often recommended Cory Doctorow's Little Brother novel to anyone who will listen because it's that good. He's got a nice opinion piece in Locus this month, and it's even online. He talks about sex in young adult novels, which may be a sensitive topic to many. I've always thought people were too hung up on this topic anyway. It's well worth the five minutes you'll spend reading it. Right here.

What does everyone think of this ring. I was thinking of buying it. Comments and opinions welcome. I also found out, that if you try a ring on in Las Vegas, that same ring will be way tighter in Florida. I'm glad I didn't buy the one I really liked when I was there because it was way too much money. But if you're feeling generous a 7-1/2 is what I need. Here's a small photo if you're too lazy to go to the link.

I have added to my Panthers memorabilia collection. You can see the photo on Flickr. If you want Panther collectibles, call and ask for Matt Redmond and tell him I sent you. He'll hook you up. They have game used, game worn everything. And you're buying right from the team so authenticity is guaranteed.

That leads me to my next topic: sex in advertising. Ever since there's been advertising, there's been sex. Though aside from Michael Yormark, probably nobody thinks sex was invented just for advertising. Josh -- we'll get to him in a minute -- took this picture of me at the arena.

Yes, the lady in the picture is very photogenic. She elicits stares from many of the menfolk especially since she's pasted to the entrance of the men's room. We all notice her. I'm not sure how many of us know what she's selling. It could be because, as men, we are distracted enough that our eyes don't drift down to the sponsor's name. Or it could be that the ad, clearly, is an offer to sell her services to the highest bidder.

Yes, it's clever. As all guys know, sexist as it may sound, some women are high maintenance and this ad certainly plays off that. It also makes this woman into a hooker. I mean she's asking if we can afford her? What's the hourly rate and are there restrictions or conditions? Maybe she's an defrocked Ice Cat? I am happy to look at her, but this ad really skirts the line. It sends the wrong message. Or maybe not? What is the message? Does anyone care?

Karen is recuperating well, thanks for asking. I've been getting emails from all my airline frequent flyer clubs insisting I fill out the new DOHS security requirements. As you may (or may not) know before you can fly you are required to provide your DOB, gender, full legal name, and some sort of government issued ID. They prefer to have all this in advance. If you book online you're going to be asked for all this. If you're a Frequent Flyer, they all are adjusting your profile to provide this. But to be honest, as computer friendly as I am, I am not sure I am pleased with an airline having my driver's license or passport number on file. I know how good their security is. Or how good it would be if they had any. Once you're the victim of identity theft, you don't trust things.

Thanksgiving is coming up, so I must present to you the infamous Les Nessman Turkey Drop bit in the 15 second summary or the whole episode on Hulu.The clip doesn't do it justice -- watch the episode. It's priceless. (Yes, Mr. Carlson says it, but Nessman owns this episode.)

Finally, and more importantly, this past Sunday I heard from the elusive Josh. I've mentioned him before. One of those rare friends from the past that doesn't belong in the past. In my last post, I mentioned I actually heard from him in an e-mail. I spoke to him on the phone for the first time in about 4 years. We talked until 230am. A seriously long talk. I invited him to the Penguins game Monday (even though he's a lousy-ass Penguins fan) and, to my surprise and delight, he accepted. I thought it would be awkward, but it wasn't. I'm glad we had some time together and I hope he sticks around.

Oh, and if you didn't read about the teenager who was lit on fire by some other kids, the article's here. But I don't care if you read it or not. What I do care about is you click here and donate money, though if you read the article I promise you'll donate twice as much. Make sure you put "Michael Brewer" in the 'intention' line of the form. Some people are sick beyond words.

Out Damned Cough This blog has moved to http://quagmire.darsys.net

This cough sucks. Dry and hacky and it won't go away. I hatesssssss it. It's not as bad when I'm lying down in bed. Opposite of normal.

Shout out to Tara. It's okay: you can eat a PayDay bar if it makes you happy.

This from Dave Higgins. It's a subway map. But this one takes 250 of the best movies of all time and plants them on a (fake) subway map. The amount of work and effort that has gone into this is mind boggling. The main page is here and underneath are the links to download the image so you can spend hours looking at it. You can read the second page, mais il est en Français. However for those who don't speak French, he clearly states he took films as rated at IMDB and some of the films he doesn't feel are worthy of inclusion.

I've been toying with a Blu-Ray drive for my Mac since they came out. But they started at $1200 for an external 1x speed, so it never materialized. They started falling in price, and now this one is out for $400 and it claims to be 12x. Anyone know anything about this?

Another hockey night approaches this week, and along those lines, someone posted an amusing link on the Panthers Message Boards to this blog, entitled Fake Michael Yormark. It's clear someone has a lot of free time. There's a blog, a matching Twitter account, and even a full live.com profile. There's content, which if you look at it, is utterly hysterical. That assumes you know who Yormark is. He's the guy I'm not a big fan of because (a) he's a liar* and (b) he sold the team's soul. I've commented my opinions on various hockey message boards about him. Some people seem to like him but most people I speak to seem to get the "used car salesman" feeling from him. I am enjoying the mockery, though I think it's far too gentle. I gave it a thumbs-up on StumbleUpon and a mention on Facebook as well. If you're as amused as I am, feel free to share it.

Yeah, it's a short news day today. I'll be back in a few days with more, I suppose.

Did I mention how much I hate this cough?

I finished listening to the Pogues albums I got: The Best of The Pogues, The Very Best of the Pogues, and the Rest of the Best. This is now one of my very favourite bands. I want to see them in concert. Their albums are very good so far and am in love with them. Thanks John. My favourite song of theirs is The Band Played Waltzing Matilda. I have a Rod Stewart version. Not very good in comparison.

I also listened to Dengue Fever, an obscure band that John was playing at his BBQ that I really liked. Having now heard all of them, some is really good and some average. But I like them. Then I listened to Kiss Alive IV which was pretty damned good -- my first Kiss album.

Lastly, did I mention how much I really hate this cough?

* Specifically, I met with him (which was blogged) and he said he'd answer me within a week. In his own blog he mentioned me and said he'd be getting back to me within, two weeks. It's been about a year. That makes him a liar. 

An Enormous Post This blog has moved to http://quagmire.darsys.net

Fake Steve Jobs (aka Dan Lyons) wrote an amusing piece in his blog today. As you may have seen, Microsoft was planning to sponsor an entire episode of Family Guy. It was to be 30 minutes and sans commercials. The payoff for them was having all sorts of Windows7 references built into the show. Microsoft, aka The Borg, has pulled out. Fox claims they've got a new sponsor -- it would be ironic if it were Apple. 

I continue to not "get" Twitter. In my last blog post I wrote "I still find no point at all to Twitter. Do I have one? Sure, but I don't use it much. Does one really need to delve into the minutia of someone's life to the minute." My friend, Daniel Haun, left a snarky comment about that on Facebook. He said, "The point to Twitter is ego masturbation." I liked the comment so much I Twittered (Tweeted?) it. I think that's a bit ironic.

Another friend, Liz, commented "If you really still think that about Twitter, you're definitely not following the right people I don't know who else you're following, but you're following me. Don't I post interesting stuff?" Yeah, a lot of your stuff is interesting. But that's not the point. It's the insane minutiae that people post on a daily basis. I figure at least half the posts most users make, shouldn't be made. I don't care, nor does anyone, that you've been waiting in line for dinner for 5, 10, 15, 20, etc minutes. Yet people insist on posting stuff like that. I don't "get" it.

In regards to commentary (again on my previous blog post), I am going to start correcting my posts when there are errors. Broken links, I'll just fix when people point them out via email. If they're pointed out by comment, I will still fix them but post a comment that it's been corrected. Simple typos will be fixed. But if anything needs to be corrected correcting and it's significant, I will use the time honoured strikeout feature. As always, any new commentary to an old post (a rarity) is clearly marked with the date added. To be clear, I always appreciate corrections to the blog, through prefer e-mail. Comments are for comments and discussions.

In news almost nobody will care about, I've added a classifieds section on the PHMB but it's in the members only area. Because I was feeling contentious, I called it "YormarksList" (as in CraigsList) because everything in the topic is for sale -- and that's Yormark, everything is for sale. These are all advertisements of a sort and what better name than his? If you're a hockey fan, please take a moment and join the board. I really do think you'll enjoy it. When the official board changed to the new format about a month ago, our traffic spiked. Bad for them and good for me: they forgot the one thing that was most important. They forget "know your customer and what (s)he wants" and their activity has plummeted from what was in the off-season. Yeah, the season started and traffic went down instead of up. Censorship and a bad user interface is a guaranteed fail.

I have been thinking of taking up a collection to get a Panther jersey with the name "Yormark" on the back and "666" as the number. With everything it'll be around US$160. Everyone who contributes will be allowed to wear it to games. As John mentioned if we all take turns wearing it, at some point he'll wonder how many of them are out there, even though it'll be only one. The point will be at every game, someone will have it, wear it to the game and take at least one lap of the lower bowl before the game, and at each intermission. I will keep the jersey in the off season and be responsible for care and cleaning -- if you want to clean it during your possession, that's up to you. I'll have to get XL so everyone can wear it. I might be able to squeeze in a L if nobody needs the XL. In the corner where the "C" for captain goes, we'll have the official logo of Yormark (for which I will pick up the cost.) If there are leftover funds, they will be donated to Habitat For Humanity -- in Mr Yormark's name -- and everyone who donates will be given a full accounting of every last penny. If I do not collect enough, your money will be returned.

Dave sent me this link about the New Facebook (which is replacing the old New Facebook.) Users are totally up in arms. I really hate it, but just don't have the energy to do anything about it. You know, the bottom line is if they want to fuck up their service, let them. I don't like it because Facebook now unilaterally decides which posts you see from which friends. You can block someone, but if someone's not blocked, you don't see everything they write. If you go to their page, you'll see you've missed stuff. Of course you can use the live feed which picks up more, but even if you select it, it eventually returns back to the new news feed. Which is what everyone hates.

In regards to my Saturday post about AvMed. I got my prescription today. It's amazing what a very firm, demanding, and polite but threatening letter will do. I demanded a written apology, told them I am their worst nightmare and will dog them relentlessly as long as their 'staff' feels they know more than my doctor. I told them every time they fail to comply with my doctor's orders, I will file a formal written complaint with the state (and you all know I will, too). They, as I said, figured out that they should go bother someone else. Again, I am not asking them to do anything that I asked: I am asking them to do what my licensed medical doctor asked. I do not feel anyone that has not personally examined me and my case has the right to override what my doctor says. And this was stupid. The new pill costs half of what the old one cost. Seriously. How stupid can you get? Oh, and the lady never called me back as predicted. As a side bonus, the pharmaceutical company that makes the new drug picked up the tab on this first order (well, all but $5 of it).

I wasn't going to post Nucor news, but there is news and it's on the company Facebook page. I have no comment on an individual level. I only say, we're working on a filing if we can meet all the technical requirements. I've never seen anything so complex and confusing. No wonder those lawyers charge $2k or more per hour. Our corporate WiFi is working well (still) and from a technical standpoint the Vista and Windows7 laptops (our employees property, not ours) work with the least problems, though I am loathe to admit it. The Windows XP systems running XP Home are the worst.

I had mentioned visitors by country to the Interstate Screw Corp web page. Here's a summary from 1-1-09 through 26-10-09. There's an Excel version which is cooler because each country has the flag in front of it, but there was no practical way to post that here. I can e-mail it if anyone is terminally curious.

Countries		Pages	Hits
United States	us	54,820	355,033
Russian Federation	ru	4,470	5,330
China	cn	2,895	12,822
Japan	jp	2,325	2,839
Spain	es	1,542	2,612
Romania	ro	1,424	1,802
Canada	ca	1,402	6,782
Germany	de	1,159	1,885
Taiwan	tw	695	4,561
Great Britain	gb	524	2,533
Ukraine	ua	493	587
India	in	429	2,439
European country	eu	419	934
Chile	cl	419	3,567
Peru	pe	378	3,005
Jamaica	jm	345	2,461
France	fr	324	769
Colombia	co	314	2,037
Latvia	lv	310	353
Hong Kong	hk	304	1,136
Argentina	ar	297	1,891
Venezuela	ve	271	2,364
Mexico	mx	260	2,081
Netherlands	nl	252	493
Malaysia	my	216	1,534
Cayman Islands	ky	182	1,845
Sweden	se	171	590
South Korea	kr	165	1,082
Aruba	aw	163	1,395
Ireland	ie	162	2,190
Israel	il	158	712
Australia	au	139	996
Brazil	br	137	754
Panama	pa	131	1,138
Costa Rica	cr	129	1,351
Singapore	sg	128	762
Bahamas	bs	123	1,000
Antigua and Barbuda	ag	118	952
Turkey	tr	115	734
Dominican Republic	do	115	1,112
Italy	it	102	488
Austria	at	102	273
Guatemala	gt	100	636
Barbados	bb	98	686
Ecuador	ec	97	1,075
Thailand	th	97	536
Puerto Rico	pr	94	900
Egypt	eg	76	598
Ghana	gh	73	679
Hungary	hu	70	211
Suriname	sr	70	1,039
Greece	gr	69	529
Former Czechoslovakia	cs	66	192
Poland	pl	61	325
Portugal	pt	59	231
Haiti	ht	58	402
Philippines	ph	53	351
Trinidad and Tobago	tt	53	431
Czech Republic	cz	51	151
Iran	ir	47	264
Switzerland	ch	44	261
El Salvador	sv	44	324
Virgin Islands (USA)	vi	41	429
South Africa	za	41	189
Indonesia	id	39	207
Uruguay	uy	37	637
Finland	fi	36	245
Anguilla	ai	35	213
Turks and Caicos Islands	tc	34	287
Pakistan	pk	34	282
United Arab Emirates	ae	32	277
Denmark	dk	29	160
Nigeria	ng	28	196
Saudi Arabia	sa	27	101
Belarus	by	27	72
Moldova	md	27	27
New Zealand	nz	26	68
Qatar	qa	24	24
Bulgaria	bg	21	99
Belgium	be	21	136
Vietnam	vn	20	141
Nicaragua	ni	19	158
Norway	no	19	153
Guam (USA)	gu	18	138
Belize	bz	17	149
Guyana	gy	13	156
Slovak Republic	sk	11	68
Lithuania	lt	9	32
Slovenia	si	6	44
Angola	ao	5	15
Malta	mt	5	23
Luxembourg	lu	5	5
Senegal	sn	5	15
Ivory Coast (Cote D'Ivoire)	ci	4	4
Kuwait	kw	4	15
Bahrain	bh	4	4
Croatia	hr	4	39
Jordan	jo	4	13
Estonia	ee	4	13
Yemen	ye	4	64
Bolivia	bo	3	31
Georgia	ge	3	15
Cuba	cu	3	36
Namibia	na	3	3
Saint Kitts & Nevis Anguilla	kn	3	38
Lebanon	lb	2	2
Cyprus	cy	2	2
African Regional IPO	ap	2	2
Netherlands Antilles	an	2	12
Bosnia-Herzegovina	ba	2	10
Paraguay	py	2	12
Myanmar	mm	1	1
Syria	sy	1	1
Tunisia	tn	1	1
Bermuda	bm	1	1
Uzbekistan	uz	1	10
Afghanistan	af	1	11
Gabon	ga	1	1
Iraq	iq	1	1
Kazakhstan	kz	1	27
Morocco	ma	1	4
Ethiopia	et	1	1
Liechtenstein	li	1	1
Armenia	am	1	30
Algeria	dz	1	2
Sri Lanka	lk	1	10
TOTAL VISITORS -->		80,788	454,208