I don’t just blog links all that often, but some of these photoshopped pictures are just amazing. Thanks to L for the link.
Actually, there are a few other pages on that site that are neat: Stars: then and now is good, as is the one with Celebrities’ pictures as kids.
While working out this morning, I was watching Sportsnet news. They had a hockey crew on there talking about the Cup finals, when former NHL goon and current Sportsnet hockey analyst Nick Kypreos started ranting about how the Edmonton players should warn the Hurricanes that their goalie is next and maybe after their goalie, someone like Erik Cole. (Cole is already out for the season, so perhaps he said or meant Eric Staal.) This kind of brain-dead comment just shows that while Kypreos may have changed from a player to a TV hockey analyst, he’s still a goon at heart. The injury to Roloson was completely accidental; nobody ran their goalie, so Edmonton shouldn’t be looking for revenge.
I’m not a fan of fighting in hockey (or lacrosse), but I will admit that there are some cases where it’s… well, necessary is too strong; perhaps understandable, to some extent. If someone really runs your goalie, or hits your star player with a cheap shot, then I can see sending Tie Domi or your team’s equivalent out to have a conversation with him. Note that “cheap shot” here is important — if someone hits your star player with a clean hit, no revenge is warranted, even if that hit ends his season. I also think that whatever revenge may be warranted should only apply to the current game – once that game is over, the opportunity has passed. This whole “so-and-so hit our star player last game, so the next time our teams play, we’re going after him” is moronic and childish. For a prime example of how this is a bad idea, just reread the previous sentence as “Steve Moore hit Markus Naslund last game, so we’re going after him”. Todd Bertuzzi kept the promise that his team made, and ended Moore’s career by breaking his neck. (Note for the record that Moore’s hit on Naslund was clean.) For all Bertuzzi’s apologizing and crying during press conferences and stuff, he meant it, and would do it again in a heartbeat, though perhaps not from behind next time. I was disappointed in Gary Bettman for lifting his suspension during the lockout, and embarrassed to have him on the ice for Team Canada at the Olympics. I think his suspension for such a blatant cheap shot should be as long as Moore’s injury keeps him out – if Moore’s career is over, then so should Bertuzzi’s. He’s a great player, but nobody should be allowed to get away with that kind of crap.
I’m thinking Nick Kypreos would disagree with that.
I guess I’m really a part of the blogosphere now – not because I’m writing stuff on a blog, but because someone else’s blog linked to an article in mine. Whimsley saw my response to his article on blogging. I had to smile at the sentence “Except he says it better” — Tom is a professional writer and published author, so this is quite the compliment to little ol’ me.
Tom’s blog is read by a number of other people (friends and family of his, and likely some people who have read his recently-published book), and if his book is a hit, that’ll bump his readership numbers as well. Since there’s a link to my blog on his, that might bump my numbers too. Woohoo!
Oh wait, I don’t care about that. I forgot.
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blogging
Here are some exerpts from a book my son is writing, called How to be an Effective Nicholas. Nicky is generally in one of two moods — Joking and Upset, which the book describes as follows:
Joking Mood
When you’re in a joking mood, everything is funny. Mommy or daddy (or Ryan) saying “No” is funny. Squealing at the top of your lungs or punching your brother (or anyone else) is funny. Getting told not to squeal or hit people is funny. Inventing a meaningless word and then immediately asking what that word means is funny. Sitting or standing in the same place for longer than 3 seconds is not funny, so don’t do it. When someone asks you a question, it’s funny not to answer, or if you do, it’s funny to give a meaningless answer or one that isn’t true — here’s an example:
Daddy: “Nicky, what do you want for a snack?”
Nicky: “Grapes”
Daddy, approximately 15 seconds later: “Here are your grapes”
Nicky: (yelling,crying) “I didn’t want grapes!”
Note the immediate switchover to the upset mood. Also, having something taken away (“No, you can’t watch Scooby Doo because you’ve been hitting Ryan”), or being given something that you didn’t want (even if nobody knew that you didn’t want it) instantly switches to the upset mood. This is particularly important for critical decisions like what colour of straw to drink your apple juice with, or whether to put your shirt or shorts on first when getting dressed.
Upset Mood
When you’re upset, you can either ignore questions or simply answer “I don’t know” — make sure you don’t move your lips when you say anything, so that your voice is unintelligible. You must always pout and hang your head as low as possible (should you be sitting at the table, make sure your head actually hits the table, and ignore any pain). If standing up, you should immediately sit down, lie down, or walk dejectedly out of the room. Crying is not required, but encouraged. If your brother is nearby, hit him, even if he had nothing to do with the reason for your upset-ness. Nothing is funny, unless you’re being physically tickled (as an attempt to get you out of the upset mood) — in that case, you may laugh during the tickling, but the pouting must return upon cessation of said tickling.
Of course, every now and again, Nicky is looking at a book or playing with a toy and is having fun without jumping around and squealing, so there do exist other moods; we just don’t see them often.
It’s been almost a year since I started my weekly guitar lessons. Still no Grammy award, but I’m certainly better than I was a year ago. Favourite songs to play: Blackbird by The Beatles and The Rain Song by Led Zeppelin (though you have to retune the guitar for that one, which is kind of a pain). The lessons have certainly been helpful, but more because I’m forced to get the guitar out at least once a week and play it. I’m getting some instruction in my technique, but according to my teacher, that’s good enough that I don’t need much instruction there, just practice. My problem is music theory, and while my teacher does go over it, I’m not retaining much of it. At one point, he was explaining relative chords and stuff, and suddenly a bunch of stuff made sense — I even understood why the guitar strings are tuned the way they are, and not simply to a chord. Of course, a couple of months later, I don’t remember any of that now. It’s not my teacher’s fault, though, I just have to get off my ass and put more time into learning that stuff.
It’s my son’s birthday! Nicky turns the big ‘4’ today. I can’t believe he’ll be starting school (JK) in the fall. We got a package from the school just yesterday about it – his teacher will be Mrs. Tilton, who is new at Greenleaf. We were hoping Ms. Urfey would be his teacher – she’s taught JK at Greenleaf for at least the past 4 years, and is really good. She, however, wanted to move over to teaching grade 2, so they had to bring in another JK teacher. Nicky is looking forward to school, though I don’t think he has any clue what’s in store for him; then again, does any kid starting JK? Probably not. I think the teacher might have her hands full with him, until she can (hopefully) tone down his joking moods, when he loses control of himself, and “no, Nicky” doesn’t really mean anything. Hopefully Mrs. Tilton will have more luck doing that than we have, since she presumably has more experience in dealing with small children than we do. He’s also got three full months before he starts, so maybe he’ll grow out of it by then.
Update: Nicky’s teacher will not be Mrs. Tilton. We requested that he be moved to the A stream (i.e. Wednesday, Friday, and every other Monday rather then Tuesday, Thursday and every other Monday), and they have already done this for us (Gail being chair of the school council may have had a hand in this), so his teacher will be Mrs. Tyrosvoutis. I think that’s the right spelling, anyway – the kids call her Mrs. T. I pity da fool who pronounces her name wrong.
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kindergarten
I have some time to kill before I play baseball at 9:30 (!) tonight. Since I live so far from work (~70 km one way), there’s no point in my going home and then coming back — best case, that’s an hour and a half of driving — so I’m hanging out at work. What better way to spend that time than blogging?
We’ll start with 24, which Gail and I have been addicted to for the last 5 seasons. The season finale was this past Monday, and it did a pretty good job of wrapping up what was actually a rather boring season, by 24’s standards. Oh sure, several main characters died (Michelle, Tony, Edgar), so that was exciting, but the whole gas cannister plot went on too long, and I didn’t like the way the writers handled the traitorous President — I think it would have been better if he was a strong man acting indecisive and weak, rather than actually having him be indecisive and weak and manipulated by some bald guy (who they never explained, now that I think of it). The only thing that we know about him is that his name is Graham. (I’m just assuming that it’s spelled that way, not Graeme. Call me pessimistic.) Maybe they’re keeping him as next year’s villain, though one thing on this show that you can never do is figure out who the real bad guy is — as soon as you think you do, they bring out another guy who’s giving the first guy orders. They also kind of abandoned the whole “real-time” thing at the end, where Jack is is knocked unconscious and abducted (in LA) by the Chinese, and five minutes later wakes up in the middle of the Pacific on (quite literally) a slow boat to China.
Let’s move on to baseball now. Barry Bonds hit home run number 714 in his career the other night, tying Babe Ruth for 2nd on the all-time list. Big freakin’ deal. Well, I suppose it is, but I just can’t get too excited about it, firstly because it’s not a record anymore (Hank Aaron surpassed it over 30 years ago), and secondly because we all know that a good number of those home runs (at least all the ones hit in the last 5 years) were done while Bonds was juiced up on steroids. The evidence is painfully clear. Bonds played 14 seasons with the Pirates and Giants, and averaged 32 homers a year in that time — he hit over 45 home runs only once. He also averaged 33 steals per season. Then 2000 rolls around — the year Bonds turned 36, and for the next 5 seasons, he averages 52 homers (over 45 every year, maxing out at a major league record 73) and only 9 steals per season. His batting average over those 5 years was .339, while his career average before that was only .288. Then MLB announces that they will begin steroid testing in 2005, and lo and behold, Bonds sits out almost the entire season with an injury. But he’s not on steroids. Rrrrrrriiiiiiight.
On an unrelated baseball note, the Jays finally demoted Josh Towers to AAA Syracuse yesterday after yet another dismal outing. He didn’t lose the game because the Jays came back to tie it (and then lost it later), but he didn’t even last 2 innings. It’s about damn time. I have nothing against Towers — he pitched really well last year — but he’s 1-and-freakin’-8. For a second-year player, that’s at least 2 losses too many. It’s not like he was going 7 innings and losing 3-2 games either — he was getting shelled almost every time out. His one win was very impressive though – he went 8 innings in that one, so maybe John Gibbons figured he’d found his groove or something. Obviously he hadn’t, so they’ve sent him down to try and pick things up there. In 2001, Roy Halladay was sent down all the way to single-A ball to “re-build his delivery” — essentially learning how to pitch again. By the end of that year he was back in the majors, and look how that turned out — a Cy Young award in 2003, and he might have won another one last year if he hadn’t broken his leg in July and missed the rest of the season. I don’t know if single-A ball is the answer for Towers (heard someone on the radio this morning refer to him as “Fawlty” Towers), but staying in the majors isn’t working for him at this point, and it’s certainly not helping the Jays out either.
Well, I think that’s all I have to say for now, and I still have an hour before my
game. Well, since I’m at work, maybe I should, oh I don’t know, do some work.
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Baseball
Barry Bonds
Blue Jays
Josh Towers
Over Easter, we went to Gail’s dad’s place for a couple of days and my parents’ place for a couple of days. As always, there was lots of food at both places, and being Easter, there was also lots of chocolate. I ate like a pig the whole weekend, and felt like crap on the drive back home. Part of it was physical (I just ate too much), but mostly I was just disgusted with myself. I told Gail when we got home that I was going to start doing Weight Watchers with her – she’s been doing it for a couple of years. I haven’t officially joined WW, and I’m not going to the meetings or anything (Gail does), I’m just keeping track of what I eat.
The program is fairly simple – every item of food has a number of points associated with it, based on the amount of fiber, calories, and fat in the item. For example, an apple is 1 point, vegetables are generally 0 points (i.e. you can eat as much as you want, within reason), two slices of bread are about 3 points, a Coke is 3 points (though Diet Coke is 0), a cup of milk is 2 points, and a Big Mac at McDonald’s is 11 points. You write down everything you eat every day, and count up the number of points for each thing. For my weight, I get 24 points per day, plus you also have 35 “flex points” that you can use per week – you can either split them up (i.e. give yourself an extra 5 points per day), or use them all in one day, or some combination. Here’s an average day’s food for me before I started doing this:
Breakfast:
Two English muffins with peanut butter (at least 8 points)
Cup of apple juice (3 points)
Lunch:
Michelena’s entree or leftovers (anywhere from 8-13 points)
Yogurt (1 point)
Granola bar (3 points)
Dinner:
Anywhere between 8 and 15 points
Ice cream (3-5 points)
So we’re looking at somewhere between 38 and 45 points per day. Sometimes we’d try to be healthy and serve raw veggies with dinner, but I’d always take a big dollop of some kind of dip – the veggies are 0 points, but some dips are 4 points per tablespoon. Since I’ve been watching what I eat, I’ve made the following types of changes:
Some days I have enough points left over to have the ice cream after dinner, or a snack later on, and I’ve only max’ed out my flex points once – most weeks I barely touch them. I’ve been hungry a lot more lately, but I figure that’s a small price to pay to look and feel better.
The program isn’t designed for rapid weight loss, but I lost about 7 pounds in the first 4 weeks. We went to Ottawa last weekend, and I didn’t count any points while there, so I went up a pound last week. But it’s summer, so I’ll be getting lots of excercise with baseball and hikes and stuff – Gail and I bought bikes recently, so we’ll hopefully get out biking now and again too. I’m still working out two or three days a week, so combined with the exercise and better eating, I’m hoping to be in great shape by the end of the summer.
I signed up with Technorati the other day, and I found a way to set up a posting template that includes the technorati tag links, so some of my postings will have these links at the bottom. I’ll put relevant tags on an article, and if you’re interested in that topic, you can click on a link and technorati will search for other entries in the blogosphere that use that tag as well. I’m not going to go back and update a year’s worth of entries to add these tags though, so this will likely only affect new postings. I may add some tags to a couple of recent entries, just to see how it works.
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A guy at work wrote on his “relaxed slow-moving, occasionally-updated weblog” that bloggers who update their blog multiple times a day are “some combination of (a) well-organized, (b) brilliant, or (c) egotistical”. I can’t say I disagree with that. (I also know that he’s not really referring to me, since I only update my blog once or twice a week.) He then goes on to say that bloggers are “presumptious, almost distasteful” because they publish their thoughts with the implied assumption that they are “worthy” of publication. (Note that he also says that he’s decided that “this impression of presumptiousness is wrong”.) I certainly don’t think that my thoughts as published in my blog are “worthy” of anything. They’re my thoughts, and if you want to read them, great. If you think this blog is a pile of crap, well, there are one or two other blogs on the internet, feel free to check them out. I won’t be offended. I’m certainly not doing this because I think anything I’ve written is particularly profound or meaningful – I am quite sure that nobody gives a rat’s ass about my trip to Wonderland the other day, or what concerts I’ve been to, or my thoughts on the important social or political issues of the day (ummm… I couldn’t find any such links on this blog) and yet I wrote about them anyway. Why?
I don’t know if I have an audience. I know that one or two people at work (JP, MC) have read my blog in the past and have even commented on an article or two, but I don’t know if they read every article. I’ve sent links to single articles to a couple of my friends, but I don’t know if they’ve read any others. Even my wife knows about my blog, but I don’t think she reads it. My kids are too young to know what a blog is (but I’m sure they’ll be LOL’ing and OMG’ing on myspace.com before I know it). So: I don’t think my thoughts are particularly meaningful to anyone else, and other than myself and the occasional google searcher, I don’t know if anyone is reading this stuff anyway. So again we arrive at this question that I tried to answer before – why the hell am I doing this?
Going back to Tom’s description – am I well-organized? Not especially. Brilliant? That’s a stretch, though I’m fairly well-educated. Egotistical? Generally no, but I think there has to be a certain amount of that involved – logically, I must want people to read it, otherwise why publish it? If the writing part of it is why I do it, then I could just write it down and leave it on my own computer, but I don’t.
I enjoy reading other people’s blogs. When I went to DC in January for the CC testing, the validator was a guy named Daniel. I’d never met nor even heard of him before then, I haven’t talked to him since (and likely won’t ever again), and he probably doesn’t remember who I am. Yet I still read his blog, even though he generally talks about his friends who I don’t know, and places he goes in LA, where I’ve never been, as well as his interest in the Jewish faith, about which I know very little. It’s certainly not one of my favourite blogs, but I still find it interesting now and again. I’ve occasionally found blogs from people I’ve never met nor heard of, and sometimes they can be enjoyable too.
Perhaps it’s egotistical of me to think that someone, somewhere, occasionally enjoys reading my blog. I guess the end result is that I find it fun to publish this stuff, and if nobody reads it, then no big deal. I’m too well-organized and brilliant to care about that.
We spent Mother’s Day at Canada’s Wonderland (oops, sorry, Paramount Canada’s Wonderland – can’t forget the sponsor!). We got season passes last year, and went a number of times. Unless you know you are only going once, the season pass is too good a deal to pass up. It costs a whopping $51 for a single-day pass, but only $69 for a season pass (until today, anyway, then the price goes up), so if you go twice, you’ve already saved money. The only difference is that the kids’ season passes cost the same as ours, although the entry fee for the kids is $30. As a result, they have to go three times before we start saving, but that shouldn’t be a problem. We certainly got our money’s worth last year, so we got season passes again this year.
The major advantage for us isn’t even the cost savings, it’s the fact that we can come and go as we please — if you spend $51 for each of 2 adults and $30 for each of 2 kids, that’s $162 in admission — for that price, you’re going to want to get there first thing in the morning, and spend as long as you possibly can at the park. With the season passes, we can show up a little later or leave at 1pm if we want, and not feel like we’re getting ripped off. Or, in the summer, we can spend the entire day at the water park and not do rides at all, and then go back another day and skip the water park. Plus we get to park in the special season-ticket-holder-only parking lot near the entrance, which is quite convenient. AND we get 20% off (overpriced) merchandise, and 30% (overpriced) food (at some restaurants). For example, while we were there, we needed another roll of film, so I just went to the conveniently located gift shop, and after the discount, I got a 24-print roll of 400 film for the bargain basement price of about seven bucks. Membership has its privileges!
I used to go to Wonderland all the time in high school – I knew the park like the back of my hand. We’d basically hit all the coasters (except the Ghoster Coaster – lame), and then hit them all again. The Mighty Canadian Minebuster was my favourite — that was back when there were only five coasters – the Minebuster, the Dragon Fyre (which goes upside-down! Holy crap!), the Ghoster Coaster, the Sky Rider (which we just called “the stand-up one”), and the Wildebeest, which I always pronounced “WILL-de-beast”, since a wildebeest is a real animal, and that’s how the name is pronounced. Everyone else called it the Wild Beast. They have since renamed the ride as the Wild Beast, and they’ve also renamed Dragon Fyre “Dragon Fire”. Catering to stupid people, I suppose.
Anyway, there are lots more coasters now – they’ve added Thunder Run (goes around and inside the mountain), the Vortex (suspended), The Fly (tiny little cars on a windy track), Tomb Raider (you lie down on your stomach for that one), the Bat (goes forwards and backwards), Top Gun (suspended) and The Italian Job (awesome ride – you ride in these little Minis which are blazingly fast), not to mention a bunch of other thrill rides like Psyclone, Shockwave, Cliffhanger, and Drop Zone.
We, of course, don’t do any of those rides. We did hit Chopper Chase, Swing Time, the Rugrats bumper cars, Kidsville Station, Jumpin’ Jet, and Taxi Jam, which is a little roller coaster that the kids love. Nicholas is also big enough this year to do the Ghoster Coaster, and he loved it too. The boys had a great time, and we had a lot of fun watching them. We also saw the School of Rock show, which is basically a 25-minute live concert with some scenes from the movie, and the kids liked that too. Ryan turned to me in the middle and said “Daddy, this rocks!”. Knowing Ryan, he might have just said that because he knew it would get a laugh out of me, but I think he really did enjoy the show.
Unfortunately, their security hasn’t gotten any better since last year. Actually, it was even worse this year – I pulled the wagon through the metal detectors and they beeped – probably because of the keys in my pocket and my cell phone. The guy just waved me ahead without even asking anything.
Cut The Chatter, Red Two 
