Another Month Done Already?

It's hard to believe how fast April flew by this year... it seems like a complete blur to me, and I wasn't even working through it, except for some Math tutoring! Maybe things will slow down now that the hockey season is finally over (at least for those of us who torment ourselves by following the New York Rangers).

I only got about 3 days of novel-writing in over the course of the month, which is really pathetic considering how little else I had on the go. But I guess some months are like that.

Thanks to all those who have been leaving more comments here lately. It does make it all the more worthwhile for me, after two and a half years at it now.

Time Travel Has Never Been So Much Fun!

I love that Lost is dealing front and centre with the mysteries, possibilities and challenges of time travel this season! They've managed to acknowledge most of the concerns that I've had along the way, and they seem to be having great fun in making us think that they're going to tackle some of them head-on. Last time it was the apparent paradox of young Ben being killed in 1977 (which they managed to sidestep, at least for the moment) and now it's the even larger brain-bursting concept of short-circuiting the entire sequence of events that spawned the show in the first place!

Very exciting stuff... I can't wait for the final 3 hours (over the next 2 weeks) of Season Five! Lost absolutely rules the TV airwaves right now!

Oh Well, At Least They Didn't Get Blown Out (For Once)

But the Rangers still lost 2-1 in Game 7 (their third loss in a row, and fourth in five games) and got the early exit that they deserved. They finished the playoffs 3-1 in 1-goal games and 0-3 in the rest. They were shut out twice and scored 1 goal twice... that's right 2 goals in 4 games (and managed to win one of those games)!

So here's a tip for New York's upper management for next year: get some frigging scorers on your team! Fans aren't going to stick around much longer if you keep throwing this same bunch of losers - plus Henrik Lundqvist - onto the ice night after night.

Summer In April

Today could've easily passed for a July day, except maybe in terms of humidity. When I got back from cycling downtown for lunch, I thought briefly about going for a swim in the newly-opened, 19 degrees C pool... and then settled for simply sticking my legs in, almost up to my knees.

Unfortunately it's about to get more seasonably cool for the next week or so, and that means that keeping the pool temperature even up to the current dubious level is going to prove challenging.

And other than that, not much exciting is happening right now. As if that update was exciting.

But How About Those Blue Jays?

Unlike the soon-to-be-golfing New York Rangers, the Toronto Blue Jays are giving me lots to cheer about right now. They've done something quite impressive: they've won each of their first six series this season! In each case, they won either 2 or 3 games (in series that were either 3 or 4 games in length, respectively), leaving them with a current record of 14-6. I've long said that MLB teams should go into each new season with the hard-and-fast goal of winning every series they play in, and focus their attention on that rather than worrying about how they're doing over the 162-game season. After all, if you win the vast majority of your 3- and 4-game series, then you'll almost certainly make it to the postseason.

It's still too early to make any predictions about how Toronto will fare the rest of the way, but at least they've put together a good run in the month of April.

A Nightmare Weekend For The Rangers Fans

And now the series is tied 3-3, with all of the momentum belonging to Washington as they head home for Game 7. Oh well, I guess I should just be happy that the Rangers made the playoffs after their big midseason collapse. The better team in this first round series has finally started winning (three of the last four games now) and should be able to close it out on Tuesday and continue the long-standing tradition of Boneman's Bruins never facing my Rangers in the playoffs in the two decades that we've known each other.

Unfortunately Washington's Game 7 victory will also end a long, proud streak that New York has held over its franchise history of never losing a best-of-7 series after leading 3-1. That's just the kind of year it's been for that team, I guess.

The Suspense Would Be Killing Me, If Only...

I'm starting to hear from friends and colleagues - who, like me, had submitted session proposals for Agile 2009 - that they're getting e-mails indicating the disposition of their sessions. In most cases, it's been "Dear John" form letters, thanking them for their interest and encouraging them to attend the conference even though they won't be doing their suggested topic/presentation. There's been one instance where rejection followed rejection before eventually being contrasted by an acceptance (where one person had many different session proposals in).

As for my "Real-Life Adventures of AgileMan" proposal, I've so far heard nothing... nada... zippo. That might otherwise leave me on pins and needles, so to speak, except that I haven't yet decided which way I'm hoping that it goes! There are upsides and drawbacks to both outcomes, with no clear winner in my mind. So at the moment I'm just watching it all play out (vicariously, through others) with great interest but no actual emotional investment just yet. I'd heard that all responses were supposed to be out by the end of April, so I suppose that means that I'll get my answer, one way or another, between now and Thursday... unless (as Vicki theorized) I've just completely fallen through the cracks!

[Update 04/29: On the day before the deadline, I got the word: "Thanks, but no thanks." So at least now I don't have to figure out how to get to Chicago while Vicki's working and we only have the one car.]

My Crappy Day

I decided to save Vicki the "fun" of opening the pool this year, and undertook the various tasks by myself this afternoon. Since the winter cover was already off, it was a matter of hooking the pump and filter back up, getting the pump primed so that it would actually move water through the pipes, removing the jet return caps, getting the ladders out of the pool room, and making the heater run once again.

That last point has been contentious in past years, as it seemed like every Spring there would be an issue with the heater and we'd have to pay for (and wait for) a service call before the water could be warmed up. That may seem like a trivial matter, especially when it's really yet "swimming season", but several other things "back up" when the heater isn't working. First, the Baracuda (automated vacuum) needs the water temp to be at least in the 60s in order to function, and the electrolytic cell that converts our salt water to chlorine has the same restriction. Therefore I'm always wanting to raise the temperature to at least that 60 F point as quickly as possible.

So of course today the heater wouldn't come on. The pilot light is lit, the water pressure according to the gauge on the filter is within normal limits, the heater's set to ON, and the thermostat is set well above the water temp... but no whoosh through the heating elements, and hence no warm water for my troubles.

In the past, it's been the pressure switch in the heater that's been the problem (which I remove each Fall and put back in each Spring), so I figure it's probably that. I called our favourite pool place to see if they carry that part, and was assured that they did. I then biked to the store (about a 25-minute round trip) only to wait 15 minutes for someone to be free, after which I was told, "Oh, no, we carry pressure switches for filters, but not for heaters!" (and I'd been very clear over the phone, even describing the make and model of our heater).

Once I got back home - not happy! - I tried calling a few other places, but have yet to find any that have that part in stock. So once again I've got the pool running, but with no vacuum, no chlorine and no help on the horizon.

And now to top it off: Washington 4, NY Rangers 0, after 2 periods. I should have just stayed in bed today.

A Bit Of A Peek Behind The Curtain

While not revealing all that much about the show, it's still a worthwhile read for the Lost fan. (Hat tip: Ain't It Cool News.)

Sinfully Good

While I'm sure that Sin City (the movie) wasn't to everyone's taste, Vicki and I certainly enjoyed it... both on the silver screen as well as the DVD version. But I don't think I'd ever actually seen this particular trailer for it, and it just happens to be all kinds of cool.

I guess, thanks to The Spirit, we now know that, co-direction credit not withstanding, the real hand of the master behind the film version of Sin City belonged to Robert Rodriquez, and not Frank Miller. Frank should probably stick to the comic genre, and - to be honest - maybe even just to the art side of that. His creative choices of late (The Spirit movie, All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder, The Dark Knight Strikes Again!) have all been... well, let's be generous and call them "unusual."

(And thanks to Blog@Newsarama for bringing this trailer to my attention.)

Vicki's New Look

OK, maybe not so much a "new look" as a special hairdo for an event where she's got some speaking to do this afternoon.

It's all about the bangs, and the curls, and the ... with the little bit of ...

Alright, alright, already! I admit it: I have no idea what I'm talking about! I just thought she looked like a million bucks, and so I took a picture.

The Stupid Things That Hurt The PS/3

A news item went out about 3 hours ago, indicating that the Red Faction: Guerrilla demo was now available for download on both the XBox 360 and PS/3. I didn't see that article until just a few minutes ago, at which point I immediately booted up my PS/3 and went into the PlayStation Store... where I could find no record of RF:G at all. I tried several different filtering techniques ("New Arrivals", "All Demos", "Titles alphabetically") and the closest I could come were a couple of videos (trailers) for the game.

Disgusted, I switched over to my 360, and went to "Game Marketplace" and then "Demos", and RF:G was the first one shown. I'm now downloading it on my 360, and will be trying it out there. I had planned to buy it on the PS/3 if I liked it, because I tend to favour Sony's console with my cash over Microsoft's whenever feasible (I've never liked Microsoft's assinine attitude toward the rivalry between the two, for one thing). And maybe I still will buy it for the PS/3, but Sony certainly doesn't make it easy somedays. It's probably the case that the RF:G demo just isn't released on the PS/3 quite yet (it'll likely come out later today) but why wouldn't Sony have it ready to coincide with the press release?

[And I totally missed doing something special to mark this, my 2,222nd post! Oh well.]

I'm Getting Too Old For This Sort Of Thing

The finish to the Rangers/Capitals game tonight was just about enough to put me in the grave. I should've known that the 2-0 lead that the Rangers staked themselves to in the second period wouldn't stand up, as that would've made for too relaxed of a final half minute. Instead, it was 2-1 by then, and the Capitals did everything but tie it. When Ryan Callahan missed the empty net with about 15 seconds to go, I was sure Washington was going to streak down the ice (which they did) and score the equalizer to send the game into overtime (which, fortunately, they did not). Now it's back to the seat of the U.S. government for Game 5.

Meanwhile, not too many hundreds of kilometres away in Montreal, Boneman's Bruins were completing the sweep of the much-hated Habs. Montreal said, "Hey, guess what? This is our 100th season in the NHL!" And Boston replied, "Congratulations! We brought a gift with us, and it's called a broom. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out of the playoffs!" Woo hoo!!

Where Have All The Commenters Gone?

It's probably just my imagination, but it seems like I rarely get comments anymore. Oh, sure, I still get the odd response (looking over the past 50 posts, I see about 20 - 25 comments, suggesting a rate of something like 1 comment for every second post) but I remember the days when I'd routinely get 2 or 3 of the damn things for most entries!

I've been at this for over 2.5 years now, with 2200+ posts to show for it. I know some people follow the blog through various feed readers, and that adding a comment may not be the easiest thing to accomplish in that sort of a setup... but it's still nice to hear from people once in a while! So don't be shy about stopping by and clicking that comment icon.

Reality Sets In

It was only a matter of time before the real Capitals and real Rangers showed up for their Eastern Conference semifinal series, and tonight was the night.

Partway through the 2nd period and it's already 3-0 Washington, with the Rangers looking like the 7th place team that they were. At least Boneman's Conference-winning Bruins are still in their game (2-2 in the 2nd).

Oh well, so much for watching the Rangers go through the postseason undefeated (at least it took them six games to kill that particular dream in the regular season this year, where usually it only requires the season opener!). I guess I get to watch 24 live tonight after all!

(And for those who wonder: it was the sequence in the 1st period where a Ranger missed a wide open net and then the Capitals carried it the length of the ice and scored to go up 2-0 that convinced me the home team's not going to win tonight. That was essentially a 2-goal swing in the span of a few seconds, and a low-scoring team like New York just isn't going to recover from that.)

"Well... Here We Go."

With that one line in last week's episode of Lost, the ever-lovely Juliet announced the ending of the latest status quo for the show and possibly foreshadowed darker days to come. Spoilers ahead!

"Some Like It Hoth" provided a lot of interesting backstory on Miles Straume, continued the comedy duet between him and Hurley, introduced "the circle of trust" within the Dharma Initiative while at the same time providing more hints as to why the question "what lies in the shadow of the statue?" is so important, confirmed the theory that many of us had about the significance of Dr Pierre Chang's infant son who showed up in Season Five's premiere (yup, that was Miles!) and gave us a return appearance by the intriguing Naomi Dorrit in a recruiting role for Charles Widmore. One of the season's best lines came right around the midpoint of "Hoth", when Miles responded to Hurley's assessment of Dr Chang ("Dude, that guy's a total douche") with the zinger, "That douche is my dad." The choice of 1977 as the year that the second set of time travelers landed in is finally acknowledged for its geek cred when Hurley's shown writing his own, mostly faithful version of The Empire Strikes Back in response to the release of Star Wars at that time. ("And let's face it: the Ewoks sucked, dude!") Not to mention that we were teased with the question of just what are the ridiculous Polar Bear experiments that are going on over on Hydra Island, anyway?

Anyone who's stayed with Lost this long and isn't absolutely hanging on every word by now probably should just give up and move on. Honestly, I don't think this show can conceivably get any better than it's been over the past two seasons. It's fully into "Rewarding the Fans Mode" and this particular fan(atic) couldn't be happier.

Not All Watchdogs Are Scary Looking

Elizabeth Warren appeared recently on The Daily Show and won Vicki and I over almost immediately. I had not really heard of her before that, but she's been showing up in the news more and more as a result of her role as the head of the Congressional Oversight Panel (COP) that's tasked with providing oversight to the Troubled Asset Recovery Program (TARP).

You can read a little about why the conservatives don't like her here and actually watch her provide the executive overview of COP's most recent monthly report here. She's a delight to listen to because she speaks plainly and yet enthusiastically about her subject, and as such I imagine she's been a great professor throughout her career. I'm not sure how much power her group really has, but at least they've introduced a bit more transparency to a program introduced by the very-opaque Bush administration.

What's A Recession Good For?

Tammy got a laugh out of my tale of indignation when the accounting firm that does Vicki's (self employment) income taxes each year raised their rates by 6% in 2008 and 5% in 2009. I recently complained about to it the tax accountant who actually does the work, and threatened to have our (accountant) daughter take over the duties in the future if the company was really going to show such blatant disregard for the current economic landscape. My argument was that "the worst recession since the Great Depression" is no time for a rate increase that's so out of whack with the current rate of inflation. (And lest anyone think that I'm hypocritical about this, I encouraged Vicki to accept a slight decrease in her contracting rate two months ago, in recognition of the fact that we're in a deep recession and everyone's having to sacrifice.)

The end of the story is that the accountant said that he would ensure that our rate didn't increase next year. So in addition to possibly finding some good prices on cars, appliances, houses or whatever, perhaps this counts as a minor example of something that's a bit of a silver lining to the dark clouds of our bad economic times? OK, so it doesn't come even close to diminishing the pain of seeing your retirement nest egg shrink by 40% or more, but at least it's something...

Stem Cell Treatments Beginning To Make News

If you happen to know anyone with the age-related macular degeneration (AMD) form of blindness, then this news from the UK is probably going to make your day. It sounds like a "one hour, outpatient" basis treatment for AMD may be as little as just a few years away. These are exciting times, between the recent announcement that adult stem cells may be as valuable as the embryonic variety and the fact that a science-friendly administration is finally in place in the U.S.

It's too bad that Christopher Reeve (and his wife Dana) didn't live long enough to see this day, but at least Michael J. Fox is still around (just showed up recently on The Daily Show) and maybe he'll get to take part in a Parkinson's cure trial at some point in the next several years.

I Have No Nails Left

They were all bitten off, watching the Rangers/Capitals game this afternoon.

While all of the commentators are (rightfully) praising the play of Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist in backstopping his team's 1-0 win, I couldn't help but marvel at how many shots were blocked by players in the white jerseys, as well as the skill exhibited in keeping their heads as the Capitals kept pressing, late in the game. The final 3:03 on the clock went by without a single whistle, which is extremely strange in a close game like that. If nothing else, it's remarkable that the Rangers didn't ice the puck even once during that time. [For comparison, I just watched the end of Vancouver/St. Louis Game 3, with a 1-goal differential going into the final 3 minutes, in which there were 7 whistles!]

Of course, they also had several of the most anemic power plays that I've ever seen - I swear the Rangers looked much more outmatched on the power play than they did at even strength - and a few bad turnovers in the second half of the game. But as was the case in Game 1, they played just well enough to win, adding another 1-goal victory to their 2008/09 resume. Ryan Callahan had an incredible game, and I can certainly see why fans in the New York area are so high on him. It's nice to hear that coach Tortorella is willing to place so much faith in him.

The worst thing they could do now, though, is to feel overconfident heading home for two. The Caps could easily have won either or both of those games in Washington, and so the 2-0 series lead looks considerably more favourable to the Rangers than the play on the ice did. I didn't think that the best team won on Wednesday night (although I cheered the result nonetheless) and today was about a toss-up in that regard. The boys from Manhattan should feel very lucky right now and realize that they've still got their work cut out for them if they're to have any help of making it to the second round. I suspect that they'll have to play better still.