"It's not courage if you're not terrified." - D. Blagdan
"There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness." - Nietzsche
Whichever of you emerges as the Western Conference champs, I'll give you a little heads up. The Penguins are for real. Make a mistake and they'll make you pay. One bad line change, one failed clearing attempt, one puck that needs to get deep and doesn't, one turnover at the blueline... odds are good it's gonna wind up in the back of your net. Just sayin'.
Fact is, yeah... the Canes have been known to lay an egg -- even in the playoffs. They've played some stinkers in this postseason. But not four in a row. This isn't the Overachievers Anonymous bunch that won the conference last year. They really are that good.
It's the only sporting thing to do I guess. Congratulations to the Detroit Red Wings. They knocked off the Pittsburgh Penguins in Game 6 last night at Mellon Arena to take a 4-2 series win and claim their 4th Stanley Cup since the 1997-98 season. So now I've said it, but don't ask me to say it again. Summertime and the living is... ...hot. Not merely uncomfortably warm, we're talking about brain-boiling, energy-sapping, chipotle-seasoned temps over the next 6 days (or more?). Today's high is supposed to reach 97, then a string of 99's through Sunday before we drop to 98 on Monday and Tuesday and 95 on Wednesday. When did this happen? We were cruising along with a nice mild spring right up through the end of May. Then suddenly somebody turns the gas on and we jumped from the low- to mid-80's into triple-digit heat indices. Not funny guys. Knock it off. And should we manage to climb to an actual temperature of 100 or more before Sunday, it will be the earliest 100-degree day ever recorded in Raleigh. It's a record I wouldn't complain about not breaking. Presidential race green-flagged I guess it's official. Barack Obama has apparently locked up the Democratic nomination for the White House. The question now becomes whether or not America is willing to put a non-Caucasian with a foreign sounding name in the Oval Office. Because that's what it will come down to. Obama could have single-handedly fed all the starving people in his home state, reconciled the Russians and the Chinese, found a cure for cancer... and it will still come down to a question of whether or not he can take the job from a white dude. Never mind that this particular white dude courts the company of every special interest known to the western world, and seeks support from right-wing extremists like John Hagee who refer to Hurricane Katrina as "God's punishment of New Orleans". (I wonder know how he explains why the rest of the Gulf Coast had to suffer along with them. Anyone? Anyone?) McCain hasn't merely shot himself in the foot with the company he keeps, he's blown his whole leg off. Will it matter? Are American voters smart enough to realize that breaking the mold in November can go a long way in restoring our cred with the rest of the world? Or will they play it "safe" (a very relative term in this case) and maintain the status quo? It's going to be an interesting summer, that much is certain.Stumble This!
Once in a while (okay, once or twice a day -- alright, alright several times a day. Happy now?) a lyric strikes me as especially profound. Today's entry comes from the song "Something Else" by Good Charlotte (Good Morning Revivial 2007 - Sony Music)
You could come from something, you could come from nothing You could be a princess, you could be a working man But in the end...
We all want something else (We all want something else) We all want something we can't have We all want something else (We all want something else) We all want something strange to us Maybe a roll in the dirt, or it's a seat in first class We all want something we can't have.
Yeah... I guess we do at that. Makes the perfect gift On another topic entirely, I seem to be getting a lot of spam lately trying to sell me Viagra or making recommendations for Father's Day gifts. I wonder if the two things are related. Why do they bother? My dad left this world years ago, shortly before the last time I had sex. Not So Fast! show of hands: Who thought the Red Wings would make short work of the Penguins in the Stanley Cup Final? Zzzzzt! Wrong. The Pens forced a sixth game last night, and there wasn't anything "short" about the way they did it. After blowing a 2-0 lead and falling behind 3-2, Pittsburgh forced overtime on a Maxim Talbot goal with less than 35 seconds to play. Which brought on the sweetest sound my ears have heard since 2002. A hush of disbelief falling over Joe Louis Arena. The Penguins finally handed Detroit their second home-ice loss of the playoffs halfway into the third overtime, and put the Stanley Cup back in its trunk for a trip to Pittsburgh on Wednesday. The odds still favor the Wings (heavily I'd imagine), but major props to the boys from Steeltown for shutting up the NHL's second most obnoxious fans for another night. All The News That Fits Maybe you heard. Sarah Jessica Parker had a wardrobe malfunction of a different kind at the 2008 MTV Movie Awards. Seems the gown she was wearing had been worn before -- twice. Once on the cover of a magazine, and once at a red carpet gala in New York. I guess this must be some kind of serious scandal, because it not only made last night's Inside Edition, but was picked up by several news channels as well. I have to ask... was it just a slow news day? Neither of the dress's previous occupants died in it or anything like that. Were there classified documents sewn into the hem? Nobody's saying. But I can see how this might take precedence in the headlines over the war, the price of gas, global warming... After all, we hear about those things all the time, right? This is breaking news people! On par with Tatum O'Neal getting busted for allegedly trying to buy crack. I got three words: Who.Fucking.Cares.Stumble This!
The tide is turning: Whatever the hell that means. You would think that with something as huge and amorphous as a tide, it would be impossible to know if it was turning or simply adjusting itself in its comfy tidal recliner. Who comes up with these things anyway? I digress.
Here's the latest, just in from DC. The House (yes, that's the US House of Representatives) voted today to cut off funding for the war in Iraq without some evidence of an exit strategy. The House resolution also calls for the beginning of troop withdrawals -- though my sources aren't saying exactly when that might start. Still, it's the first sign of a backbone seen from Congress as a group. But there's still the matter of getting it through the Senate, which people much more informed than I am say could be a tough fight. Apparently it's likely that the Senate will reject the resolution outright or at best try to strip it of the most important bullet points (pun intended).
What's encouraging about this is that it suggests that the members of the House have started to remember what the word "representative" means. And perhaps realizing that another blank check for the war doesn't "represent" the views of the American people. You know, those people they were elected to represent. Now if only the sycophants in the Senate (Bob, Liz, are you listening?) could only get the message.
Where Was I?: Turning to entertainment news, I once again find myself in the "am-I-the-only-one-who-didn't-know-about-this" section. Somebody recently tuned me in to a Canadian singer/songwriter named Kathleen Edwards. Now in case you were somewhere in the A.I.T.O.O.W.D.K.A.T. section yourself (sorry, I didn't see you there) she's been putting some great music out there for us since around 2000. And after a handful of downloads of ahem questionable legality, I was sold. Sold enough to order her entire catalog en masse from Amazon just about as soon as the last of these finished playing. The newest of her efforts came out in March of this year, and you can find a sampling of it here. My favorite will still be this one though:
The girl absolutely rocks. Her music is phenomenal and you should buy it.
Knowing Hockey From Shineola: If you go back a few entries you'll find a whole dissertation on the NHL playoffs I wrote back in April during the first round. So far I'm roughly 50% right. It looks for all the world like Pittsburgh will rule the Eastern Conference, but as things stand right now Dallas (my pick in the West) is on life support, down 3 games to 1 to Detroit (bastards!). If things take their usual course, the Penguins will face the Red Wings for Lord Stanley's punchbowl this year. Which should make for an entertaining series at least. Just not the one I projected.
Along the same lines (sort of) I'm actually looking forward to the newest Mike Myers movie The Love Guru. Myers plays a guru from India who comes to America, then gets hired by the Toronto Maple Leafs to help them win the Stanley Cup. Don't worry, it's just a movie. It could never actually happen. But it may be the closest we come to seeing the Leafs break the curse in this lifetime.
In case you're interested, here's a trailer.
The Latest Craze: Have you ever noticed that spam seems to have its own set of fads? Years ago it was ink jet cartridges. Then bust or genitalia enlargement schemes. More recently discount "pharmacies" are flooding in-boxes the world over. And the latest trend seems to be in "Faux-lex" watches. That, and preparations that "cleanse your colon". Okay, I could understand the fake watches, the discount Viagra, and even this gem that turned up in my mail this morning from someone claiming to be called "Adela Lowery": Please be informed that you should be extremely careful in choosing your penis enlargement method. (Thanks Adela, I'll do that.) Those aren't all that unusual. But this whole "colon-cleansing" thing is just a little too-o-o creepy for me. As someone I know used to say, "When the conversation turns to shit, you've skipped a few topics." I really feel sorry for these people who have hung their hats on cleaning out the intestines of the world. What a crappy way to make a living. (Come on, you couldn't see that one coming?) I shudder to think what the next spam-fad might turn out to be. I can't imagine anything creating quite the scary mental images that this scheme does.
Maybe it's just me, but I'd really rather keep my colon to myself. I'd rather you did too.Stumble This!
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