Everything I touch turns to goaltenders

We start today's entry with a little fantasy hockey story.  Those that have been with me for a little while rmight remember back to my fantasy hockey draft.  For those that haven't, I am sorry to disappoint you, but I am not going to rehash the entire entry, suffice it to say that coming out of the draft I had three goaltenders with which I was pretty happy, Martin Brodeur, Manny Legace and Martin Biron.  Going in reverse order, Biron got off to an awful start this year, going from a starting goaltender to being in a platoon situation where it is a 50-50 chance that he will start on any given night.  That might be okay for some, but if I am only going to get a 50-50 chance at a start, I will opt for a better goaltender, so I cut him and signed Nikolai Khababulin, another goaltender in a platoon situation, but for the Chicago Blackhawks, and his numbers seemed to be better than Biron's.  Next up was Legace and I have covered previously what happened to him, tripping on a carpet rolled out for Sarah Palin and ending up on the disabled list for a couple of weeks as a result.  That lead to the signing of Alex Auld to fill his place while out.  Just when it seemed my run of goaltender bad luck would end, Martin Brodeur, who I drafted in the first round, tears a muscle in his arm and is out for 3 to 4 months.  Can I wave the white flag of goaltender surrender yet?

Okay, that out of the way, lets get to the meat of the blog entry shall we.  Fantasy hockey, I went 4-5-1 last week, the overall record after 50 games is 24-20-6, and amazingly, despite having a losing week, I moved up from 4th to 3rd place overall.  Of course this week I have the first place team, with my slew of wounded goaltenders in tow as I try to stop three straight weeks of .500 or lower hockey. 

At least I am doing better than I expected in football, where I rolled up another win and now sit with a comfy 7-3 record.  With just 4 weeks left in the regular season, I have a three game lead over 6th place, and the top 6 teams make the playoffs, so all is looking up there.  Actually, I am only 1 game out of first, as two teams are 8-2 overall and the top two records receive a bye in the first round of the playoffs.  That would be nice, but I will be content with just qualifying for now.

Life has been pretty much same old same round these parts, save for me giving up the part time job, at least for the time being.  There was just something about spending almost as much time traveling to and from work as actually working that didn't fit into my schedule all that well.  They told me if I wanted i could reapply for my job, but I haven't as of yet.  I may at some point, but I would rather find something a little closer to my apartment.  I realize that it isn't the most opportune time to be job huntng, but I'll roll the dice and take my chances.  Worst case scenario, I could always go back, and the work wasn't terrible, just the travel to and fro.

The extra time in my schedule does mean that I will get to lunch with Lynn tomorrow.  We have seen each other a handful of times since the station let her go, and have been in touch via email about once or twice a week, but this will be the first time we have gotten to sit down and blab since the election, which should make for some interesting conversation.  Plus I know she has something in the works about getting a new show, though it is still in the haggling stage, so I don't want to go into too many details and jinx it.  Suffice it to say, there are a couple of options that she can explore.

Sorry, took a break there.  Yahoo has the Penguins game on tonight, so I was watching the first period of the hockey game, and while that was going on I went ahead and made some iced tea, which is currently chilling in the fridge. 

I haven't been by the Neverending blog recently, but I will say I just finished a pretty funny book called "Death: A Life" which is supposed to be an autobiography of the entity known as Death.  I saw it the other day when I was going all Barnes & Noble-y and bookstores are like bakeries to me, I can press my nose against the glass and just salivate.  After convincing myself that I could only have one book, it became a tossup betwen that and another Andrew Vachss.  Not that Vachss would have been a bad choice, but I think I did pretty well for myself.

I am still saving my soda caps.  I am actually trying to get back up to at least 90 points in Pepsi, as there giveaways are ending in December, and the goodies I am eying are 90 points or more.  Coke isn't ending any time soon that I am aware of, and I am torn between buying new music or doing another giveaway on here.  I am not sure if anyone grabbed the last prize (free month of Gamefly), so I am wary of putting a prize out there that is unclaimed.  I have an idea of what to select also, and I think it would be a rather cool prize, but just the same, I haven't added any free music in ages, the last thing I redeemed from either Coke or Pepsi was the Ric Flair DVD from Pepsi, and that wiped out a good portion of that account, though I must admit it was well worth it.

I have had occasion recently to run into Poe's Law, and if anything goes to show just how damned stupid the electorate is, it is this.  A brief definition of Poe is in order, so here it is - Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that someone won't mistake for the real thing.  The reason I have been running into Poe is that I have been posting the stuff from the Red State Update guys from time to time, as I am sure you are aware.  As funny as I think they are (and I will admit I find them pretty damn funny) if you go to Youtube and actually read the comments some morons post with those videos, they think that Jackie and Dunlap are serious.  What is truly scary is I am quite sure some of these idiots spend part of their time breeding future idiots to take their place.  Forget radical Islam as being a threat, it is radical stupidity that must be stopped.

Well, took another break to watch the second period, and after two periods of hockey, I am afraid to watch the third.  While I won't get all gloggy on you, suffice it to say, Pittsburgh was leading 3-0, and managed to give up four consecutive goals, including two while they had the man advantage and they now trail 4-3.  How in the hell do you give up two short handed goals in one game let alone one period?  What is worse was that on one of them, despite having 5 guys to Philadelphia's 4 on the ice, they gave up a three on one breakaway.  That is damn near mathematically impossible.

Anyway, I took time from the here to make some dinner also, just some quickie tuna casserole crap.  Nothing fancy, but then I am only cooking for one, fancy isn't required. 

I usually watch The Office if I am home Thursday nights, one of the few TV programs I will watch, and if I am being lazy I will just leave the channel on as the rest of the lineup pipes through on Thursday night, which brings me to 'ER".  I'll admit, I kinda used sorta liked the show in the "it ain't that bad" way, but now it is just sad.  It is like waiting for Old Yeller to be put down, they are so sad now they are bringing back dead characters (paging zombie Dr. Green, paging zombie Dr. Green) just to get people to tune in.  When your show reaches that point, just pull the fucking plug on it already.  It would be like having "Leave it to Beaver" still on TV.  Actually that show would be better if it were on TV now. I can imagine Ward sitting at the dinner table, with his face hidden behind the daily newspaper just wondering what kind of drugs he was on when he named his son Wally, and even worse, named his youngest son after a sex toy.  What else could a Beaver Cleaver be after all? And why the hell are his kids still in the house, don't they have lives?  Then again, try picking up women when your names are Wally and Beaver and you can understand why they still live in their parent's basement.  Meanwhile June has to be thinking to herself, why must I always be so understanding to these people?  Why can't I just once slap the spit out of their mouths when they get into another mess?  Just how stupid are they, it's been what, 40 some odd years and they are still pulling inane shit.  Come to think of it, I would like that show better than "ER" at this point, as long as they don't have a guest appearance by zombie Dr. Green.

Took time out again for the third period, we are now tied 4-4 going to OT.  I swear it seems like every game the Penguins play ends up going to overtime.  I can't remember the last time they won in regulation.  Just as I type that the announcers say it's the 8th time the Penguins have played an OT game already this season.

With nothing decided in OT we go to a shootout.  Man, I have to quit staying up for these games.  Especially with a busy day on tap for tomorrow.  And after 6 rounds of shootout action, the Pens win 5-4.  I hope when they post video highlights, they get some closeups on the saves in the shootout, because both goaltenders were really good.

Anyway, I have been tinkering with the Pogo badges, got the Greenback Bayou one done, but I have barely started Freecell Solitaire.  I have tinkered with the new Yahtzee game, I am up to level 5 or so.  Good game for getting tokens, but getting spins, which is what you need to advance  can be tough.  Personally I found it harder with wilds than without, but that could just be me. 

Oh well, I think it is bedtime for me, time to have a glass of iced tea and call it an evening.  I have been wondering when I should do another Ask Matt Anything, I think I will hold off a while.  I don't want to become dependent on them for blog content. So I gues there is still plenty of time to think up new questions.  There is also plenty of time for me to think up new answers.  Anyway, time for me to scoot.