Welcome to Nowhere

Home ยป Page 114

  • Panthers 2, Maple Leafs 0.

    written by

    james

    I always get this sick feeling in my stomach whenever we play a team that might actually have the slightest chance at maybe being halfway decent. I have no idea why. Well okay, I do have an idea why, I just don’t want to talk about that right now. Instead, I’ll just resign myself to the fact that that’s the reason we did absolutely nothing productive last night. I mean, yes, we got 39 shots on net. But we got nothin’. Not even a penalty shot that could be reversed and made into an opposing team goal. Instead, we’ve won an impressive 1 game on this road trip we’re on, and come home more battered and bruised than when we left. Sound like the story of our lives as Leafs fans yet? I thought so.

    Last time

    Compare last night’s game with 2 and a half weeks ago, when we actually won by a slim margin. Huge difference in performance and outcome. I mean, it was a win, and it was barely so, but I was expecting it to be another round of oh my god do we ever suck. Instead, we were treated to a surprising dose of oh my god we might only be craptastic. Nope, we definitely suck. Thanks for reminding me. Now, back to waiting for a team we can beat consistently.

  • Lightning 3, Maple Leafs 2.

    written by

    james

    I think we might have forgotten how to play again. At least for about 4 minutes in the third period. We had the game. Had it. Right up until a stupid penalty and our craptastical penalty kill had a chance to suck. It was tied when the third managed to close out. Overtime, we usually do slightly better in. Usually. But then we don’t usually take stupid too many men on the ice calls either. Not even 30 seconds left in the game, not even 10 seconds left in the game, and they throw one in on a power play that shouldn’t have happened. And they wonder why it is we place bets on who’ll do worse than them. My uncle, while we were out for coffee last night, seemed surprised we were in second last. My response? At least we’re not in last.

    Last time

    We played a little better in November, of course that was the we could actually play consistently. Managing 4 3 I actually sort of considered the possibility that we might have then been turning around after an ultra crappy start. I’d like to point out, just for the record, I was mistaken. Stick a fork in this team… I think we’re done.

  • And now, posts by email. Sort of.

    written by

    james

    Because not everyone’s going to be absolutely in love with this whole RSS thing, and because, as I’ve been discovering lately, RSS doesn’t necessarily translate to easy access, I’ve finally decided to start with the implementing something that might make things just a little bit more… well, readable for everyone. So now, thanks to my finally getting around to getting off my rear and doing something about it, and thanks to Feedburner making it just slightly less than painless, WTN by email is born. I have no idea how much breakage will be involved, and how much borderline insanity will be the result, but it’s here. You can find the subscription form in the sidebar. Now if I can just figure out how to keep the rest of it from blowing up in my face, I’ll be miles happy.

  • My problem with American Idol.

    written by

    james

    I used to at least make an attempt to watch American idol every couple weeks. Mostly because I was living at home and we only had 2 working TV’s, both of which would usually be in use, but a small part of me found something about the show fascinating. It wasn’t necessarily any of the actual talent–there haven’t been all that many that I’ve seen that made me want to pick up the phone and repeatedly call in to vote, or clear my schedule the next week to see if they ended up bombing out or if they made it into the top fifty million. I thought it might have been the overall hillarity of some of these people who somehow got the judges to believe they could sing, only to have themselves booted when someone outside the actual broadcast could make the decision. Then, I figured it was the general amusement I got out of listening to people who thought they really really could sing, only to discover–not entirely too unexpectedly–they really really couldn’t. Nope, wrong again.

    Why do I bother to tolerate a show like American Idol, when I’d much rather be doing just about anything else? Because at least once in a season, usually only once, you get that one particular fool who figures him or herself to be god’s gift to anything musically inclined, and there’s just nothing you can say or do short of tranking them that’ll make them shut up about it. My major complaint with American Idol? It only happens maybe once in a season. So after I see it, I no longer have any real interest in watching. So I usually skip out.

    Take tonight’s show, for example. I watched it only because it was on, my mother had the remote, and I’m mommy sitting. And, admittedly, because if the show completely sucks at everything else, I can at least snicker at some of the things that come out of Simon Cowell. It didn’t disappoint on either front tonight, but now that I have no real interest in watching next week, I can make do with what I saw.

    Near the end of tonight’s show, we were treated to a very stoned-sounding dood who thought, though I have no idea why–other than the fact he very well might have been stoned, that he could actually carry a tune without a half ton truck. And he chose to demonstrate his unquestionable singing ability with Amazing Grace–not exactly world’s most popular, or best really, song to begin with. That was mistake number 1. Mistake number 2, though? Actually having the nerve to be surprised when all 3 judges pretty much simultaneously decided he redefined suckitude. Mistake number 3? Insisting they were wrong and offering to give them an encore. Whether they wanted to hear it or not. The gentleman’s reward? A personal escort outside. In handcuffs. Whether he wanted to or not.

    Now, why in the hell doesn’t American Idol show more stuff like that? That’d make the show about 5 times more interesting to watch. Hell, I might even manage to last through to the finals if they happened to have someone up there who, upon receiving the impression they’re god’s gift to anyone with ears, got told to go pack. Maybe I’m just abnormal, but seeing a person get all uppity like that about a few million people who all think he should be flipping burgers instead of singing would be worth sitting through the rest of the crap. My problem with American Idol really is that simple. They pretty it up too much. That’s probably why you only see maybe 3 or 4 of the people who end up going home–the others, they figure, are probably too strung out at someone having the nerve to prick their ego. And thus, there goes any entertainment value for me. Don’t get me wrong, Idol’s an okay show, if there’s nothing else on and I’m desperate. But it could be so much better. And I might walk away from a show not feeling like taking a nap.

    Dear Idol producers. If you happen to be seeing something similar to this here entry, take it under advisement. I have a problem with your show. It bores me to tears. Thank you.

    Also, randomly tacked on side point: I still maintain Simon Cowell should consider a career in politics. We’d then at least know what we’re getting, even if we don’t all agree with or like the guy. More than we can say now.

    , , ,

  • The mommy update, part 2.

    written by

    james

    Insanity has been the last few days, otherwise I might have remembered to post this Sunday or Monday. Maybe. Mom made it through the surgery just fine as expected, and came home Sunday night. The only problem was she didn’t know what exactly was done to her–the surgeon had apparently decided not to leave notes for anyone else so they could tell her the semi-important details. Like, for instance, what she was supposed to do for post-op care. Or, even more fun, whether or not she had stiches. She was ordered to do the generic things–take it easy, no heavy lifting, all that good stuff–for about a week or two, just in case. Somewhere between then and now, she decided she didn’t have stiches–she’s had that operation done before, so would know if stiches were in or not. So, obviously feelilng much better and much less sore than she’d expected, she was off to Ottawa today for another appointment to get some kind of funkyness removed from her hand. Her good luck ran out right about then–she is now the proud owner of hand stiches, and the proud recipient of a temporary handycap. So, I go back over to the mommy house tonight, just as soon as my ride shows up, and babysit for a day or two. Fortunately, when I left on Monday I left my stuff there, so packing only meant throwing clothes on. It’s only supposed to be for about 24 hours, but knowing how she works I may only be over there for 12. But, at least this time we know what they did. That’s always helpful.

  • Thrashers 4, Maple Leafs 3.

    written by

    james

    It was almost a good game. Almost. right up until the third. even Toskala looked kind of like an NHL goaltender. Then we started into our usual suckitude. We lead 2 0 after 1. They managed to tie it up in the second, but we hadn’t gotten completely outplayed yet. We saved that trick for the final frame. They put another two on us, leading 4 2. Well over halfway through the period, we somehow managed to get one back. Might have gotten them both, but in the last few minutes of the game a shot that had nothing but net waiting for it bounced off a Leafs player’s ass. And, of course, didn’t go anywhere near the bloody net. That’s the 2009-2010 season in a nutshell for us, folks. Of course, if we could actually stay awake during the third period we might not have needed to curse the fact that shot didn’t end up going in. I think I can count the good defensive plays on one hand. And offense? Well, not really. The bright spot was a stupid cross-checking penalty in the last minute of the game–which, of course, we couldn’t take advantage of. It’s nights like that when I ask myself why I turn on the game. But, goddammit, I’m Leafs fan. Almost diehard. Which, yes, means I get to sit there, watch a crappy game, then come online and bitch about the said crappy game. But, because I’m *almost* diehard, I can still find that little bit of realism here. And, realisticly? We suck.

    Last time

    we did better back in December, holding them to just 2 goals while we managed to sneak 5 past them. How we managed that I don’t really remember, if I ever knew at all. I don’t think I did. But whatever it is we had during that game, can we please go back and find it? It’d make me less likely to get drunk during the next one.

  • Maple Leafs 4, Predators 3.

    written by

    james

    The thrill did it again. Exactly what we’re paying him to do. Tied at 3, going into the third. Just over 5 minutes left, he blows one through to close it out. If I’d actually remembered to watch the whole game I’d have probably been surprised as hell. As it is, I’m still to this day trying to figure out why in the 7 levels of hell Nashville has a hockey team. But, they do. And we nailed them. Now if only that actually counted. Ah well, can’t have everything.

  • RSS from anywhere may be a reality for me.

    written by

    james

    And it didn’t even take me banging my head against Google Reader. I’ve been looking for something portable to replace my current favourite, an RSS plugin for Outlook 2003. Mostly because, on days like today when I’m not sitting in front of my computer, as much as I love being able to have direct access to my feeds in Outlook, it helps me all of not at all at the moment. And I might have found it–at least a temporary fix, until it breaks or I find something better.

    The software, written in python and running on any OS that therefore supports the language–I have it on Linux at the moment, is just called Planet. It takes one or more RSS feeds, such as the feed from this very blog, and merges them into a single HTML file. The design looks not a whole lot different from most blogs–the entries are sorted latest first, by date, and optionally by feed, with individual headings indicating the start of a new segment. It looks incredibly customizeable, although I’ve not yet actually gotten much time to play with it–a disadvantage of all my current subscriptions being, as said before, on my computer at home which is precisely where I’m not.

    All the HTML, XML, and other such files are built dynamicly every update from templates. Those templates contain the raw HTML or XML code, plus a few variables understood by the program for printing things such as the feed name, entry title, when it was posted, etc. The program itself can be scheduled to run via Linux’s crontab command, or the Mac OS equivalent. Or, if you’re insane enough to have managed to get python running on Windows, you can suffer even more brain damage and update it via the task scheduler. I wouldn’t recommend it-windows has a nasty little habit of breaking task scheduler, but it’s your brain.

    The only thing that would make me not recommend it for non-techy users is absolutely no problem for me–entirely manual instalation and configuration. Everything from determining how long between checks for new content–enter the crontab utility–to the addition of new feeds absolutely must be done by hand. Personally, even though it’s not really a huge problem for me, I’d still have much rathered it give you the option of just tossing it an OPML file and letting it draw the feed info from that. But then, I also have well over 100 feeds to transfer over when I get the time. Still, for what it does it looks highly promising. And, it can always go away if and when I find something better. But for now, it beats what’s currently out there for hosted solutions (No, FeedMyInbox, I don’t want to pay you $16 for the privelege of being able to have you email all my feeds to me. Sorry.). So, I’ll give it a try for a bit and either really love it or tos it out the nearest window. In the meantime, I have back entries of feeds to go through when I get home anyway, so I can take my time with the moving everything over to the new software. And it’ll definitely take its time.

    , , ,

  • The mommy update, plus the first job application of 2010.

    written by

    james

    As of about 11:30 last night, mom’s surgery was done with and she was doing well. Actually, in my father’s words she was going back to her room and straight to bed. Which, to me, means she’s just fine. They’ll find out today exactly what they found/did/things and when it is she’ll be going home. Again, though, they’ll probably end up releasing her today unless there’s some major funkyness going on. Not that the last 3 days haven’t been some major funkyness, but hey, everyone’s definition’s a little different.

    In lighter news, and news more relevant to me specificly, my first job application of 2010 was finally filed last night. It wasn’t anything overly earth shattering. Another customer service job with Rogers Communications, our equivalent of Comcast and AT&T combined. I’ve applied with them several dozen times already, although the last time they actually thought about getting me in for an interview, so we’ll see what happens. In the meantime, I’m keeping my eye out and hoping like hel Ottawa gets a few more tech jobs. What with all the office closures and massive layoffs in the last year or two–Dell, the local outsourcing office of Sytel, and more recently the layoffs and eventual bankrupsy of Nortel–they could use a few dozen. HP has an office there, but if you’re not bilingual you’re not qualified, so we’ll just pretend like they don’t. In the meantime, it’s quarter past 5 and I should be sleeping. Will I? Hmmm. My money’s on probably not. Hello again, screwy schedule.

    ,

  • Capitals 6, Maple Leafs 1.

    written by

    james

    I figured the Flyers thing wouldn’t carry over against Washington. Even though we smacked them around twice before already, but apparently we were due. By all appearances–well, according to everything I could get my hands on re: that particular game anyway, we ended up pretty flat last night. Did they spend 12 hours in the emergency room too?

    Last time

    We doubled them up in December pretty good, ending up coming out on top in a 6 3 game. And we kept their new captain off the board that night as well, I believe. Can’t say that for last night. Oh well, what do you expect during a week when Toskala of all people actually gets–and earns–a shutout?

recent Posts

Recent Comments

Archives