Lost Keeps Screwin' With Our Heads!

After ending a few weeks ago with that shot of Locke's dad, and then having Nikki's eyes open just before being buried alive, I should've known something unexpected was coming in the final moments of this week's Lost. And yet I was still shocked to see what was going on in Juliet's head as she set up her tent! Because I, like Jack, want to believe in her, I can't help but hope that she's running a double-cross on ol' Benry, or that her motives will turn out to be not as evil as they seem. But certainly it doesn't look very good right now.

And how about all the things we learned this week? No one in their right mind should be complaining lately that mysteries aren't being resolved! So many of the little weird moments from the first two seasons have now been explained, including what the deal was with Claire and her "dreams" of being attacked while sleeping.

I'm with Saiyid, though, when it comes to wanting some answers from Juliet. She did a good job of deflecting the pressure exerted by Sawyer and his unlikely ally, but hopefully this won't be the end of that line of questioning. Since Benry said, "See you in a week" to Juliet, her true allegiance should be revealed within a few episodes. The writers need to avoid dancing around this too long, as there are still tons of other mysteries (rather tha Others mysteries) that can unfold after that.

Another great episode in what's turning into a fantastic second half!

I Told Ya So!

I predicted earlier that Monday's excellent outbound travel experience would be countered somehow on the return trip... well, you could say that: our flight out of Philadelphia was cancelled, and no other flights were available until tomorrow!

Rather than hang around and hope for better luck tomorrow, we opted to drive our rental car all the way back home! Eight hours of driving (with almost no stops) later, I'm safely home, where I belong.

The irony is that we arrived back here only 3 hours later than we would've had we flown, and it would've only been 2 hours later if we'd left at the time we'd planned to leave for Philly airport (we spent an extra hour trying to get another flight before giving up and starting to drive).

It was a long trip but at least we had great traffic on the highways, so it wasn't a total disaster.

What A Great - And Wacky - Pic!

When my eye first landed on this, I thought: "Hey, that's a cool image that could almost pass for Clunky Grey Armour Iron Man!" and then I realized that's exactly who it is!

I'm getting more and more intrigued by the Robert Downey, Jr/Gwyneth Paltrow/Terrence Howard Iron Man film, as directed by Jon Favreau.

Let's All Just Get Along, OK?

Scary tale of blogging gone bad that hopefully we'll never see the likes of in these here parts.

I definitely feel that I have the right to delete any comments posted here that I think are offensive, although I've rarely had to exercise said right. The great thing about blogging is that it's available to anyone, so if I deleted someone's comments here they could fairly easily start up their own blog and post whatever they want there. Part of my commitment to this site stems from my belief that it's my site, and as such reflects my sensibilities. If I didn't feel that way, I probably wouldn't bother keeping it going like I do.

Really, Really Slow Internet Tonight

That, along with having to reboot my laptop six times so far (each time it would come up and then freeze as soon as I tried launching a browser or logging into Msgr), has wasted nearly an hour of my late evening now. I eventually launched TaskManager right away after rebooting, and cancelled the "svchost" task that was running and chewing up 99 - 100% of the CPU indefinitely. If I hadn't known how to do that, I'd still not be able to use my laptop for anything other than to tell the current time! As it is, I'm hoping I haven't done anything dire by ending it like that.

Anyway, that's about all the update I'm going to be able to provide tonight, since it's now almost bedtime. Maybe tomorrow will be better...

Learned Something New Today: 'Sequestering'

In the Time magazine I read on the plane today, I encountered a Global Warming concept I'd never seen before: sequestering of carbon gases. The idea is that the CO2 gases are trapped, rather than being released into the atmosphere, and then pumped into the Earth at points where other gases had previously been removed. It sounded wonky to me, but apparently it's actually viable, especially in places where the extraction equipment is still there. Converting from extraction to insertion, the experts say, isn't all that hard. And if the original natural gas could safely stay there for millenia before being removed by us, then carbon dioxide could similarly reside there indefinitely without endangering those of us up on the surface above it.

One of the strange aspects - for me anyway - of the Time coverage came in an extended article called "51 Things You Can Do To Make A Difference." They had lots of great ideas (few of them new to people who've cared about this stuff for any amount of time) and no shortage of silly ones (live in a house that's really, really small.. like 100 sq ft; and, have clothes-trading parties with your friends rather than buying new clothes), but nowhere on that list of 51 was "Ride a bicycle to work!" Biking was mentioned in passing in an item that talked about taking public transit, but that was it! Considering how many Americans live in climates where you could bike to work all year round - I can only dream of that scenario! - this seemed an odd omission. They even had "Dry your laundry on a clothesline" (another thing Vicki and I have been doing since, well, forever!) but no recognition for the value of cycling over driving.

Again, I wonder about Americans' priorities...

No Ho's Here, Nappy-Headed Or Otherwise

When you're stuck watching ESPN to entertain yourself on a Monday evening, you can get a distorted view of reality.

I mean, is the whole world really obsessing over radio host Don Imus referring to the Rutger's University women's basketball team as "nappy headed ho's"? Or is it just considered a slow sports news day in these parts?

Number of times ESPN (and NBC, when I watched it for half an hour) has referred to "the incident" so far: at least a dozen, but I've stopped counting.

Number of times ESPN has referred to the amazing, unbelievable, dramatic finish to the Islanders/Devils game yesterday that decided who would make it into the NHL playoffs: zero.

You gotta love the priorities on American sports shows...

Bored In Pennsylvania

It's barely past 8:00 pm and I'm already thinking about going to bed! Since I know I have to get up at 6:00 am tomorrow, and there's really nothing good on the dozen or so channels my hotel room TV gets, it may just boil down to a really early bedtime.

And it's not like any of you have posted any interesting blog entries for me to read today...

Travel Made Easy

In a turn of events I thought I'd never see again in our post-9/11 world, I had a pleasant and virtually hassle-free pair of flights today! About the only low point was having to toss out my nearly-empty tube of toothpaste when the customs officer told me, were it full, it would be too large to allow on the plane, so out it went (what kind of logic is that?). Among the highlights were:

- no line-ups at all in 2 different airports and a car rental office... and I mean no line-up! zero people in line! step right up! it was unbelievable!

- got my seat switched just by asking, and had lots of legroom and an empty seat beside me, allowing for much greater comfort than I'd expected

- both flights took off on time!

- I spent the entirety of the longer flight reading one issue of Time magazine, all about Global Warming, and barely noticed the time in the air (as we added way too much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere)

- we arrived at our final destination 20 minutes early!

- had crying babies near me on both flights, but miraculously each one quieted down for all but take-off and landing!

I fully expect to pay for all that good luck on the trip home, and may in fact never be seen again...

More Musings On BSG

Thanks to the kindness of co-worker Kevin, we have in our hot little hands BSG Seasons 2.0 and 2.5. (Someone at some juncture should point me to a really good link that explains why they split their seasons in half, but since I'd be afraid of encountering spoilers at this stage, I probably wouldn't follow it yet anyway!)

We've got one more episode to go in Season 2.0, which I expect we'll get through tonight. I'd say that this season has been pretty consistent with the previous one, in that there've been a lot of really good character moments, and an interesting arc to it, but also a fair amount of frustrating plot holes. It was maddening enough in Season 1 that the Cylon-test didn't get more attention by anyone but the dubious doctor; but once it became public knowledge that Cylons could look like humans, and one such creature put two bullets in the beloved Commander, how could perfecting the test not have been Priority Number One as far as the military, and the civilian ranks, were concerned? This particular element feels like Pandora's Box, in that the writers introduced it but now they're afraid to fully open the container, because so many future storylines will be invalidated once they do!

An odd thing that I like about the show is that the President shows absolutely no reluctance to lie, bald-faced, to any Cylon she encounters! Twice now she's promised leniency in returm for Cylonic cooperation, and in each case she then openly reneged on her word as soon as the opportunity presented itself, ordering that creature be tossed out of the nearest airlock! Considering the Cylons are responsible for billions of human deaths, I'd say her stance is completely realistic, and defensible.

One of the more humourous moments, for me, was the scene where they find the Tomb of Athena and are transported - or so it seems - to a field on Earth in order to be shown the star system Earth operates within. Since my mind works this way, I immediately said to Vicki, "So how do they get back, or if it's just a hologram, end the show?" And wouldn't you know, they simply cut away and then showed them back on their ship! As I've said before, some parts of it just feel a little un-refined at times. Or possibly Lost has simply raised the bar too high!

Trivia: The new model of fighter ship introduced late in Season 2.0 is called the Blackbird, which might be a nod to the X-Men, as that's the name of their ship.

The Business Trip

Tomorrow morning I head out to visit one of our sibling companies located in the States. This group has been Agile even longer than we have, but adopted Scrum where we opted to create our own blend. Very recently, they decided to start using Story Points for their estimates, instead of Ideal Hours, and are bringing in a trainer to help introduce the concept. I've been invited to attend that training, to see if any of it would be applicable for our office. I blogged about my love of Story Points over four months ago, and nothing's changed my opinion in the meantime. Attending two training sessions last summer hosted by Mike Cohn made me a believer, where Story Points are concerned, and I've seen them used effectively - though not yet consistently - at work over the past eight months. I'm genuinely curious to see how they're brought into this other group, and how they're received there.

I'm not sure what my Internet situation will be while on the road, so it's possible that you won't see much blogging from me this week. On the other hand, I may have more free time in the evenings than I know what to do with, so connectivity in my hotel room - if I have it - plus no comics to read could equal Blogathon 2007!

A Finish For The Ages

After an extremely entertaining Leafs win the night before, it looked like Toronto's hopes for the postseason were deader than disco with four a half minutes left in today's decisive NJ/NYI game. The Isles, who with a win would replace the Leafs as the final entrants to the Eastern Conference playoffs, were up comfortably 2-0, when the (up-to-that-point, lacklustre) Devils got a beautiful tip-in goal to cut the lead in half with just over 4:00 left.

Even that didn't look to be enough, however. With the score still 2-1, the final seconds ticking off, and the Devils' goalie out and an extra skater on, it looked dire. The Islanders even had a clearing chance with less than 20 seconds left that would've salted the victory. But when they couldn't get the puck out past centre, the Devils continued to press. Crazily, unbelievably, New Jersey's John Madden managed to jam the puck past the rookie Islander netminder and over the line with less than a second left!! All around the Toronto area, seismographs were reading the effect of thousands of fans, jumping up and down, and doing high fives!

I had been in the act of writing the Leafs' eulogy as the goal went in, and had to scrap that and start all over... Those final five minutes will be remembered by Leafs fans for a long time to come, especially if the Isles don't pull it out in Overtime or the shootout.

Overtime just ended, and the 8th spot in the Eastern Conference playoffs will be decided by a shootout! If you wrote this up as a script, no one would buy it!

And... the Islanders just won the shootout 2-1, breaking Leafs' fans hearts everywhere...I'm sure the Canadian sports writers are already licking their lips in anticipation of ripping the system that allowed a playoff spot to be decided by a shootout...

Boneman should be happy, though (no Habs, no Leafs, in the postseason).

The Rangers' Season

Before heading out tomorrow for a 4-day business trip, I figured I should put down some thoughts on the 2006/07 New York Rangers season, which ended last night in Pittsburgh. Fortunately, they'll play on for at least four playoff games, but the season itself is now complete.

Obviously, the Rangers dug themselves into a huge hole in January and February, to the extent where I pronounced them dead, and then refused to believe they could make it all the way back out. I said, back on February 17th, that they'd have to go 16-8 in the final 24 games to make the playoffs. In fact, they did me one point better, going 14-5-5 - accumulating 33 pts, rather than the 32 pts they'd have gotten with a 16-8 record - and indeed grabbed a playoff spot during a race that saw six teams vying for three positions. Notably, they didn't 'back into' the playoffs, winning an important game against the Habs to clinch. Last night, though, they did secure 6th place in the East while losing, which would've been nicer if it had come via a win, or even an O/T or Shootout loss.

Overall, their season seemed to be made up of three parts. The early third of the season was pretty good, with them peaking somewhere around 8 games over .500, and sitting in the middle of the top 8 in the East. Then they fell off the rails, dropped to about the 10th or 11th spot in the East, and teetered right around .500, before pouring it on over the final third to finish, remarkably, 12 games above the breakeven mark. They also outright won more than half their games, as they scored victories in 42 of their 82 games, with only 30 regulation losses.

Comparing their stats to last season, 2006/07 looks like a worse year. While they finished in the same spot both years - 6th in the East - they had 6 more points last year, and lead their division for most of the season. However, comparing the way the regular campaigns ended tells a different tale. Last year the injury-ridden Rangers closed out with five consecutive losses, stumbling into the playoffs only to be humbled by the Devils in a series in which the once-mighty team didn't even win a single period! The 2007 version finished in a much stronger fashion, going 7-2-1 in their last 10 games. They're also relatively healthy, at least for the moment. What they'll do in this year's first round series with the Atlanta Thrashers is anyone's guess (I'm not making any more predictions!) I'm just glad they're going back to "the show!"

Whale Of A Game!

Just finished watching "the game" (Leafs vs Habs, game 82 for each) and it was exciting from start to finish! I had half-expected the game to be tied in the dying minutes such that the Leafs, who needed a regulation win to have any chance of a playoff berth, would have to pull their goalie in a tied game! That would've been something to see, but as it turned out, the Leafs managed to defend their 6-5 lead all the way to the final buzzer! The game featured a four goal burst by the Canadiens, changing a 3-1 deficit into a 5-3 lead, and then a three goal onslaught by the Leafs to grab the lead for good, at 6-5. I couldn't help but enjoy the looks on the Habs faces as their hopes of a post-season vanished during the final seconds of a game they'd looked like they had under control in the 2nd period. The Leafs now have to sit and watch tomorrow afternoon's Devils/Isles game, and pray for an Islanders loss of any variety (regulation, overtime or shootout). And Buffalo, like Toronto, will have to wait for that game to finish before they'll know who they'll be playing in Round 1 next week. (And did anyone else have a black screen on the CBC-HD channel tonight? I was all set to watch the game in High Definition but the channel was black all evening! Talk about bad timing!)

Meanwhile, in the battle for 6th place in the East, the Rangers came up a goal short against the Pens, as they have three other times this year. Since it was a regulation loss (2-1), they couldn't clinch the 6th position on their own (a single point would've done it). However, around the same time the bell rang on that game, Atlanta beat Tampa Bay in a shootout, and thereby kept the Lightning from catching the Broadway Blueshirts. That means it's the Rangers (6th) against the Thrashers (3rd), which is probably no better than having to face the Devils, but at least it won't be back-to-back first round embarrassments at the hands of New Jersey. It's also kind of interesting that, by winning that shootout, Atlanta determined their own first round adversaries. Had they "thrown" the shootout, in fact, they'd have been setting themselves up to play that self-same Lightning squad! Instead, Tampa Bay will face New Jersey, and Ottawa, with the home ice advantage, will play those nasty Penguins.

In the West, everything's set except for the 8th team, which is currently Calgary, but Colorado can still catch them. Calgary's needed a single win to clinch for a few games now, but haven't been able to get it, while Colorado's done nothing but win. Tonight, the Flames host the hapless Oilers - one win in their last 19 games, I think I heard? - while the Avalanche face the high-powered Predators. But if the recent pattern (Calgary loss, Colorado win) continues for one more night, then the two contending teams finish out their seasons tomorrow, head-to-head! Could be another huge game, if it comes to that. Whoever grabs the # 8 slot draws the Red Wings next week (gulp!) Already set up for 1st Round series are Anaheim/Minnesota (yawn), Vancouver/Dallas (should be excellent), and Nashville/San Jose (hard to say, although SJ was fun to watch last playoffs).

[Update: Colorado finally ran out of gas against Nashville, losing 4-2. So we've got a confirmed 3rd Canadian team in the 2007 playoffs in Calgary, with Toronto's fate still undecided.]

All in all, it's been - and continues to be - a fascinating and exciting finish to the 2006/07 NHL season, for fans across North America.

A Little Literacy In Print, Please?

TSN.CA headline today: "Sens try and secure home ice advantage".

No, they'll be trying to secure home ice advantage, guys... c'mon! I know we often say "try and ____" but in print, you really ought to get it right!

I can only wonder what old school newspaper editors must think of things like that...

A Good Reality Show

My lovely wife, with her milestone of 25 Blog Points here, chose to have "attempt to conceive of a reality show that Vicki and I would both enjoy watching."

That's a tough one (which is probably why she picked it) because I really hate reality shows! I think they're stupid, and I think they dumb down the people who watch them so avidly. Just my opinion, but that's what this blog is all about, after all.

So I tried to think of the very small handful of pseudo-reality shows I've actually enjoyed over the past decade. Junkyard Wars and Project: Greenlight both came to mind. I'm not sure either qualifies in the genre, really, but at least they're along the same lines as the so-called reality TV industry. And that's one of the many problems I have with those shows: it seems pretty apparent that at least some of them are less real - and more written - than they'd have us believe. Whether Junkyard Wars or Project: Greenlight were guilty of that or not, I don't know; but at least they had interesting subject matters (building stuff, whether it's a contraption or a low-budget movie).

And that's significant, because... Most of what's on TV right now, calling itself "reality," is about crap I wouldn't waste thirty seconds of my life on! People engaged in a popularity contest on an island? Who cares! Couples racing around the world trying to find clues or accomplish tasks? Boring! Competitions to see who can outlast the others in battles of squeasmishness? I'd rather watch golf!! (Which isn't saying much!)

So I think the description of a reality show that Vicki and I would both enjoy watching would go something like this:

"Looking Under the Rock: Something new in Reality TV, coming to you from NBC. This bold new hour-long program will record the making of each week's episode of 30 Rock. What you'll see each week is an edited version of what we consider to be the highlights of this week's activities, but if you want the raw material, go to NBC.COM and every minute of every day on the set will be available for you to stream. Nothing's being doctored here, folks... and we've got the footage to prove it!"

I think we'd get into that.

This Week's Lost

While not as good as the last two episodes, "Left Behind" still had some good bits in it. I loved the scenes involving Kate and Juliet, although it once again raised the question: why the Hell are the castaways not asking more questions of the Others when they encounter them? I suppose you could argue that they don't feel they could believe any answers they get, but you'd think they'd at least try! Anyway, I was glad that Kate found out that she'd broken Jack's heart back in the cages, and the look on her face as Juliet told her was priceless.

The Sawyer plotline was really dumb, only slightly redeemed at the end with the interesting notion of him as a leader. I'll have to see where they go with it before deciding if it was worth the silliness of him trying to be nice, though.

Kate's flashback was notable, of course, for bringing together her and Sawyer's ex-, who's carrying Sawyer's unborn child around in her at the time. One of the big unknowns of the show is whether there's any reason behind the various intersections of the characters in flashbacks, or if they're all just coincidences. I think the more they pile them on - as they did here - the more I'd like for there to be an explanation, but I'm doubting there's going to be one.

Perhaps the most interesting development was Locke signing up with the Others. While not exactly resolving the cliffhanger from two weeks ago, it still managed to progress it slightly. And the fact that the Others told Locke enough about Kate to seemingly turn him somewhat against her is intriguing. How do they know so much about the castaways??

Weird Hinckley Dream Last Night

I had such a vivid dream last night that I had to check this morning to make sure it was only a dream! In it, Hinckley had stopped me in the stairwell at work to talk to me about a troubling parenting experience he'd had, and was surprised that I didn't already know because he'd blogged about it. I told him I hadn't checked his blog in awhile because it'd been so long since he'd put anything new there. But sure enough, when I went to check, he'd posted a long and detailed entry about what he'd told me, and it was one of the most interesting things I'd read in awhile. And I felt bad because I'd made him tell me all of the same stuff again.

So this morning I had to check to convince myself it really had been a dream.

And it had.

I did see Hinckley in a stairwell yesterday, though... which probably also contributed to the dream seeming real this morning!

Sometimes It's Good To Be Wrong

Given my history of making bad predictions hereabouts, it shouldn't come as any surprise that I blew Tuesday's death knell of the boys from Broadway.

And yet, I couldn't be happier to be wrong!

As Boneman knows, my only goals for the Rangers this year were that they make the playoffs, and improve on last year's embarrassing first round sweep at the hands of the Devils. With a 3-1 win at home against the Canadiens tonight, they've accomplished the first, and most important, part of that goal. Whether they'll comport themselves better in the playoffs remains to be seen, but at least they won't be heading there on a five game losing streak like they did last year.

My thanks to those who offered words of support earlier in the week - it was greatly appreciated - and I've vowed not to care (so much) what happens the rest of the way. One thing I thought of today, that I refused to dwell on for fear of getting my hopes up, was that there were 9 possible outcomes tonight of the two big games (Mtl/NYR and Tor/NYI): NYR get 2 pts, Tor get 0 pts; NYR 2, Tor 1; NYR 2, Tor 2; and so on. Of those 9 possibilities, the only two that didn't clinch the playoffs for the Rangers was NYR getting 0 pts and Tor getting 2 pts, and NYR getting 1 pt and Tor getting 2 pts. Therefore, statistically, the odds were greatly in their favour, and yet it still felt like not only would they not clinch tonight, but they'd repeat that feat again on Saturday night. Fortunately, the odds won out!

For those who care, the Leafs are losing 5-2 to NYI in the final seconds, so Toronto has to beat Montreal in regulation on Saturday night and then hope NYI doesn't win both of their remaining games (Sat & Sun). The Habs get in with a win. One of Mtl, NYI and Tor will get the final spot in the Eastern Conference... Tampa Bay and the Rangers already have their ticket, although who finishes where is still up for grabs.

Is It Just Me?

Or are other people finding the in-vogue expression, "Oh no you didn't!" really annoying now that it's being used so much? There seem to be a few variations:

- "oh, you did not!"

- "you did not just do that!"

and so on. It's reached the point where I'm noticing it now and really wish people would move on to whatever the Next Thing is.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, count your blessings! And read up on it at the Urban Dictionary site.