So 2 people flew in to South Carolina and have put a little to no-name town in the spotlight. Me and my ego... and Danelle also so I guess that makes 3.
First, Wesley Snipes... from the most awesome movie of all time, Blade... also from the most disasterous sequels of all time, Blade 2 and Blade 3... is purportedly doing his time for tax evasion in a federal prison in the quaint little town of Greeleyville, South Carolina.
Second, one of the guys messed up in the Anna Nicole fiasco... not the lawyer, but the guy who says he donated at a sperm bank... moved there to flee the other guys who supposedly tried to kill him by placing him in a bathtub of ice after he passed out from drinking...
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Old Time Hockey
I just read Don Cherry's book about his life... love'm or hate'm... it's a really good book... a collection of hockey stories Don has gathered through all his years in the business... told only the way he can...
... I've heard some of these stories already on Coaches Corner through the years of watching... like the fight he always comes back to where he had 'new gloves' and couldn't get them off fast enough... and got worked over pretty good... he explains the video intro to Coaches Corner where he is bowing to the Boston Crowd not because he wants applause but because it's the way coaches back then used to chide refs for taking over the game and calling too many penalties...
... my favorite part of the book is that instead of this book being about selling out everyone else around him (although he does sell out 3 people who, in my mind, deserve it)... it's about defining the culture and the identity of a hockey player... Maybe not where hockey is going, but definitely where it came from...
... Spent his whole career minus a game battling it out in the minor leagues... and serious props for doing it... I would never want to survive the break arm slashing, the across the teeth cross-checking, the grind it out for no paycheck league that he lived... but out of the dirtiness of road trips, bloody noses, and stitches for 20 is a man who fought his way from nothing and carved out a niche for himself... a man many times unemployed, kicked, dragged through the mud... who stayed strong through it all... like a single solitary weed on the side of a highway outlasting everything else growing around it... it's a story that hits home for too many Canadians, or people in general, for it not to have value...
... and I say if anyone ever wants credibility as a hockey fan in Canada they have to read this book...
... I've heard some of these stories already on Coaches Corner through the years of watching... like the fight he always comes back to where he had 'new gloves' and couldn't get them off fast enough... and got worked over pretty good... he explains the video intro to Coaches Corner where he is bowing to the Boston Crowd not because he wants applause but because it's the way coaches back then used to chide refs for taking over the game and calling too many penalties...
... my favorite part of the book is that instead of this book being about selling out everyone else around him (although he does sell out 3 people who, in my mind, deserve it)... it's about defining the culture and the identity of a hockey player... Maybe not where hockey is going, but definitely where it came from...
... Spent his whole career minus a game battling it out in the minor leagues... and serious props for doing it... I would never want to survive the break arm slashing, the across the teeth cross-checking, the grind it out for no paycheck league that he lived... but out of the dirtiness of road trips, bloody noses, and stitches for 20 is a man who fought his way from nothing and carved out a niche for himself... a man many times unemployed, kicked, dragged through the mud... who stayed strong through it all... like a single solitary weed on the side of a highway outlasting everything else growing around it... it's a story that hits home for too many Canadians, or people in general, for it not to have value...
... and I say if anyone ever wants credibility as a hockey fan in Canada they have to read this book...
Friday, April 17, 2009
Road Trip
Settled 7 hours into my 8 hour shift between Golden and Steveston... struggling against a lagging creep of numbness beginning in my feet and working its way up the lower half of my body... Truck driver content with 80 kilometers an hour becomes the new victim of my healthy 10% over the speed limit... 3 minutes later this same truck is off my left shoulder barrelling at a good 140 and soon leaves me in the distance... Not one exit later the familiar hydrolic lift of the raised F-150 is off to my right going a liesurely 90k... Only for the same black streak of truck thunder past me on the left... Just before my exit into Abbotsford, as once again I get caught up in this senseless game of leapfrog, I can't help but wonder if this lady, so oblivious to her speed, in such desperate need of cruise control, is railing about me to her mid-seat sitting husband as I am to Danelle... half asleep and yelling at me to stop bothering her...
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Superfan
Every once in a while the bar, and the drink, turns a regular, nice fan into some kind of terrible, awkward something or other...
... and it usually follows along a similar course of events...
... they come up and begin the whole thing with a stronger than needed handshake to prove that they're tough and in different circumstances they could easily hold their own out on the ice...
... they proceed to call you a great, amazing, talented player...
... they hover... and in the process attempt for 4 or 5 more handshakes with various varieties of hugs and pats... all firm... overcompensating...
... they make some comment about some bad game, or bad play... and ask why it happened... why we lost...
... they make some comment about another player on the team and spare no expence about how bad they think he is...
... when I come to the defense of the player the guy leaves in a huff...
... they come back every 5 seconds or so with some new negative comment... and... again... upon a beak of how much he looks like Wayne Rooney leaves in an even angrier huff...
... they sulk somewhere in the bar nursing any number of made up wounds against them and every once in a while stare you down through drunken eyes...
... they come back with finger pointed at you like a knife... a little woozy... a little physical... under the cover of a fan... still 'friendly'... but abrasive... and spout off everything that's gone through their mind the past few hours... and finally you have put an end to the whole thing before it gets out of hand...
... their friends remind you how nice the guy is when he's sober... just a little over the top when drunk... how he really is a big fan...
... he comes back for one last shake... 'everything alright?'... 'cool'.... 'well good'... 'I hope you come back next year!'...
... and it usually follows along a similar course of events...
... they come up and begin the whole thing with a stronger than needed handshake to prove that they're tough and in different circumstances they could easily hold their own out on the ice...
... they proceed to call you a great, amazing, talented player...
... they hover... and in the process attempt for 4 or 5 more handshakes with various varieties of hugs and pats... all firm... overcompensating...
... they make some comment about some bad game, or bad play... and ask why it happened... why we lost...
... they make some comment about another player on the team and spare no expence about how bad they think he is...
... when I come to the defense of the player the guy leaves in a huff...
... they come back every 5 seconds or so with some new negative comment... and... again... upon a beak of how much he looks like Wayne Rooney leaves in an even angrier huff...
... they sulk somewhere in the bar nursing any number of made up wounds against them and every once in a while stare you down through drunken eyes...
... they come back with finger pointed at you like a knife... a little woozy... a little physical... under the cover of a fan... still 'friendly'... but abrasive... and spout off everything that's gone through their mind the past few hours... and finally you have put an end to the whole thing before it gets out of hand...
... their friends remind you how nice the guy is when he's sober... just a little over the top when drunk... how he really is a big fan...
... he comes back for one last shake... 'everything alright?'... 'cool'.... 'well good'... 'I hope you come back next year!'...
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Shmayoffs
So we're 2 days on the outside of playoffs looking in... I'm 2 days straight on the ski hill attempting to forget this... and guys are 2 days from flying back home to -30 degree weather in Canada...
... The home game shots were 55 - 20 in our favor but we lost 3 - 1... and the final game was 2 - 2 at 0:00 in the 2nd and 6 - 2... 5 minutes later...
... Looking back from a very poor perspective that consists of being very tired and still a way too close to last game... I'd have to say that most of the blame belongs to the moon being out in the daytime for the past week... and that kind of creeped out a few of the guys who thought the world might be coming to an end... thus, they didn't really have their whole mind, body, spirit connection into the games... a shame really because every sane person knows that the world won't end until 2012...
... The most frustrating parts of this series were... an empty-net with a stick covering the bottom 4 inches that still somehow saved my go-ahead goal in game 5... a shoulder injury my teammate and I both got from running into each other in the corner... and a psudo 1 -2 -2 /slash/2 - 3 forecheck and neutral zone trap that the other team played against us effectively taking away our speed and our forecheck...
... Some guys take a long time to get over a mistake... or loss... or a mistake that results in a loss most especially... I prefer to take a page from possibly the most successful hockey player in the game... Steve Yzerman... who said he gives each loss and every mistake a moments thought... another second to learn from it and be better the next time... and another instant to put it out of his mind forever... There's probably a thousand reasons why he's polishing Stanley Cup rings... you'll have to buy his book to find out the five or so other ones that he's willing to share in his memoires... but here is one for free...
... The home game shots were 55 - 20 in our favor but we lost 3 - 1... and the final game was 2 - 2 at 0:00 in the 2nd and 6 - 2... 5 minutes later...
... Looking back from a very poor perspective that consists of being very tired and still a way too close to last game... I'd have to say that most of the blame belongs to the moon being out in the daytime for the past week... and that kind of creeped out a few of the guys who thought the world might be coming to an end... thus, they didn't really have their whole mind, body, spirit connection into the games... a shame really because every sane person knows that the world won't end until 2012...
... The most frustrating parts of this series were... an empty-net with a stick covering the bottom 4 inches that still somehow saved my go-ahead goal in game 5... a shoulder injury my teammate and I both got from running into each other in the corner... and a psudo 1 -2 -2 /slash/2 - 3 forecheck and neutral zone trap that the other team played against us effectively taking away our speed and our forecheck...
... Some guys take a long time to get over a mistake... or loss... or a mistake that results in a loss most especially... I prefer to take a page from possibly the most successful hockey player in the game... Steve Yzerman... who said he gives each loss and every mistake a moments thought... another second to learn from it and be better the next time... and another instant to put it out of his mind forever... There's probably a thousand reasons why he's polishing Stanley Cup rings... you'll have to buy his book to find out the five or so other ones that he's willing to share in his memoires... but here is one for free...
Monday, March 9, 2009
Playoffs
We are 3 games deep into playoffs (and no speech about the epicness of playoffs weird I know...)... and down 2-1 to Renon in (already) the semi-finals on account of only 4 teams making playoffs... with 4 making playdowns*... A 7 game series usually plays out as two home games for the higher ranked team... two home games for the lower ranked team... and then 1, 1, and 1... but our odd system has us playing every other game home and away... So far we've played away (loss), home (win), and away (loss)... with tomorrow another game at home...
In my limited experience with playoffs it's usually the smallest differences that win or lose a game for you... and eventually the series... every faceoff is magnified... every turnover glaring back at you in the next day's video session... and every strategy and lineup mulled over incessently by maniacal, pacing, giant ball of stress resembling (very faintly) your ordinary everyday run-of-the-mill coach...
Guts can take you a long way... courage can take you a long way... desire can take you a long way... but I will say it again like I've said it before (except this time a borrowed quote from a highly recommendable book called The Power of One that states...) "First the head then the heart"...
...You need both...
... of the two everyone seems to value the heart because of the two it seems more human... and also because the value placed on it in romantic novels... but take a page out of English 10B... most every tragedy has this very heart as the heroe's fatal flaw... heart can take a wheel around the net pass to the winger at the hash-marks only so far against a 2-3 forecheck that pinches the walls... and it's no use ranting on and on about how much we do or do not want to win when the stats tell us we had 17 turnovers and over 20 minutes in penalties...
*Playdowns is a nasty sort of thing... I've always thought that playoffs takes mental toughness... at worst you have the excuse of a mediocre year to fall back on... this makes it easy it is to let up just enough to lose, go home, finally get some rest, and enjoy the ski hill until you fly home to enjoy the summer... that is the barrier to be overcome in playoffs... But you have the added incentive of money, of memories, of battling it out in some sort of survival of the fittest that lends you a desire to win... and some esoteric idea that you may never have this chance again and you don't want to look back on it and regret (... esoteric because although common knowledge tells us that we are all going to die and thus should pursue the present... we rarely are in a position like this to think about it...)...
...But a part of me thinks that playdowns might actually be the harder of the two mental tests... you are no longer playing for a bonus, or a championship or anything... you are playing a game that means nothing... you are merely playing to go home earlier... to be the slightly better of the two losers... and thus all you are playing for is pride... You lose in playoffs and you keep a small sense of it... you lose in playdowns and that sense takes a while to come back... in playdowns there is more to lose... and thus of the two sides of our bracket... I would expect the playdowns maybe to be even more intense than the playoffs...
In my limited experience with playoffs it's usually the smallest differences that win or lose a game for you... and eventually the series... every faceoff is magnified... every turnover glaring back at you in the next day's video session... and every strategy and lineup mulled over incessently by maniacal, pacing, giant ball of stress resembling (very faintly) your ordinary everyday run-of-the-mill coach...
Guts can take you a long way... courage can take you a long way... desire can take you a long way... but I will say it again like I've said it before (except this time a borrowed quote from a highly recommendable book called The Power of One that states...) "First the head then the heart"...
...You need both...
... of the two everyone seems to value the heart because of the two it seems more human... and also because the value placed on it in romantic novels... but take a page out of English 10B... most every tragedy has this very heart as the heroe's fatal flaw... heart can take a wheel around the net pass to the winger at the hash-marks only so far against a 2-3 forecheck that pinches the walls... and it's no use ranting on and on about how much we do or do not want to win when the stats tell us we had 17 turnovers and over 20 minutes in penalties...
*Playdowns is a nasty sort of thing... I've always thought that playoffs takes mental toughness... at worst you have the excuse of a mediocre year to fall back on... this makes it easy it is to let up just enough to lose, go home, finally get some rest, and enjoy the ski hill until you fly home to enjoy the summer... that is the barrier to be overcome in playoffs... But you have the added incentive of money, of memories, of battling it out in some sort of survival of the fittest that lends you a desire to win... and some esoteric idea that you may never have this chance again and you don't want to look back on it and regret (... esoteric because although common knowledge tells us that we are all going to die and thus should pursue the present... we rarely are in a position like this to think about it...)...
...But a part of me thinks that playdowns might actually be the harder of the two mental tests... you are no longer playing for a bonus, or a championship or anything... you are playing a game that means nothing... you are merely playing to go home earlier... to be the slightly better of the two losers... and thus all you are playing for is pride... You lose in playoffs and you keep a small sense of it... you lose in playdowns and that sense takes a while to come back... in playdowns there is more to lose... and thus of the two sides of our bracket... I would expect the playdowns maybe to be even more intense than the playoffs...
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Stephen Harper was on CNN today!
(In summary)
Can we win the war in Afghanistan?
No.... 'NO?'... What I mean is we cannot hope to govern the Afghan people or they will continue to be hostile towards us. We need to train a government of natuve Afghan people that can handle the insurgency on their own and be there in, if anything, a support function. I am curious to know Obama's plans with regard to finding an exit strategy in the area.
Why have Canadian banks done so well?
We have known for a long time that a completely unregulated financial sector would lead to all sorts of terrible problems such as pyramid selling. The US is now learning lessons they should have learned in the 1930s by not having these regulations.
What did you talk to Obama about?
We talked about how we must not let things slide down into protectionalism or we will push the economic crisis deeper. But there are many issues within the NAFTA treaty that Obama said may well need to be rewritten in order to help the US.
As an economist, what do you think should be done about this?
The government has to move in and absorb the insolvent funds. The stimilus package needed to be done. At the same time both of these actions are fraught with long-term danger and moral issues. We're glad that in Canada we did not have to do that. Part of this is due to regulations we set up within the housing district.
Can we win the war in Afghanistan?
No.... 'NO?'... What I mean is we cannot hope to govern the Afghan people or they will continue to be hostile towards us. We need to train a government of natuve Afghan people that can handle the insurgency on their own and be there in, if anything, a support function. I am curious to know Obama's plans with regard to finding an exit strategy in the area.
Why have Canadian banks done so well?
We have known for a long time that a completely unregulated financial sector would lead to all sorts of terrible problems such as pyramid selling. The US is now learning lessons they should have learned in the 1930s by not having these regulations.
What did you talk to Obama about?
We talked about how we must not let things slide down into protectionalism or we will push the economic crisis deeper. But there are many issues within the NAFTA treaty that Obama said may well need to be rewritten in order to help the US.
As an economist, what do you think should be done about this?
The government has to move in and absorb the insolvent funds. The stimilus package needed to be done. At the same time both of these actions are fraught with long-term danger and moral issues. We're glad that in Canada we did not have to do that. Part of this is due to regulations we set up within the housing district.
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