Yesterday at our weekly shinny hockey game, a dude got a puck just under the eye. It didn't hit him hard but it's a hard puck on soft skin so there was quite a bit of blood. Luckily it didn't hit his eye and few stitches is all he'll need to recover.
I am one of the few guys who doesn't wear a cage or visor on my helmut but after seeing yesterday's incident, the cage is going on. I'm not good with blood!
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Competition is good
SanDisk Corp. on Monday introduced a new digital music player that stores twice as many songs as the popular iPod Nano for nearly the same price and cut the cost of existing models ahead of the holiday shopping season.SanDisk, which is a distant second to Apple in the digital music player market, said it would sell a model of its Sansa player with 8 gigabytes of storage capacity enabling it to save up to 2,000 songs.
The new player will retail at just under $250, SanDisk said. By comparison, a new 4-gigabyte Nano is priced at about $249.
Prices for Sansa players with 2, 4 and 6 gigabytes of storage were cut by as much as 30 percent to a range of about $140 to $220.
"The most costly ingredient in a flash-based (music) player is the flash memory," said Eric Bone, director of audio/video product marketing at SanDisk. "Since we make the flash memory, we essentially remove the middleman and pass that savings directly to the consumer."
Friday, August 11, 2006
An honour bestowed upon us
Under the ruse of helping them move furniture, my sister and future brother-in-law invited Melanie and I to their new home last night. They showed us their new hardwood floors on the second floor. Very nice! I'm looking around the place and wondering how come everything looks so tidy. Weren't we here to move stuff? I said nothing and we proceeded to eat dinner and talk about the housing market. I asked my sister, "Are we not moving furniture?" She replies that my parents came over yesterday and they were able to finish all the rearranging due to the hardwood flooring installation. Fine.
We spend the rest of the night talking about their upcoming wedding and about me designing the engagement and wedding invitations. Just as I'm about to tell them we need to leave, Vince asks Melanie and I about our plans for July 8, 2007. I tell him he's quite comical in that we plan on attending their wedding that day ... providing I can get out of my barber appointment. He then says, "Would you like to be my best man."
"Funny dude," is my response and I turn and watch tv for a few seconds before I turn back to him and say, "You're not joking, are you." No he says and you're making me nervous. I respond with a heartfelt yes and we all laugh about the awkwardness of my response. I thought he was joking ... although that would be quite the cruel joke.
Then, my sister says hold on. She asks Melanie if she would like to be in the bridal party as well and Melanie, unlike the dufus that I am, happily agrees immediately. My sister than drops the bomb that she wants her to be the Matron of Honour. Melanie instantly agrees and they hug like school children. (Perhaps a weird analogy but it works.) We then sit there in shock for a few minutes and are honoured that we've been chosen to help them on their special day. We close the evening off with a Sambuca shot and drive home with smiles on our faces.
As I was doing my run this morning, I thought about my brother's wedding 10 years ago and how I was best man for him and now I'm doing the same thing for my sister. (Cue the sappy music.) I realize just how close my family is. Although we may get on each other's nerves, we will always be there for each other and nothing is more important to us. The Leafs winning a Stanley Cup in my lifetime is a very close second!
This wedding is going to be a blast!
We spend the rest of the night talking about their upcoming wedding and about me designing the engagement and wedding invitations. Just as I'm about to tell them we need to leave, Vince asks Melanie and I about our plans for July 8, 2007. I tell him he's quite comical in that we plan on attending their wedding that day ... providing I can get out of my barber appointment. He then says, "Would you like to be my best man."
"Funny dude," is my response and I turn and watch tv for a few seconds before I turn back to him and say, "You're not joking, are you." No he says and you're making me nervous. I respond with a heartfelt yes and we all laugh about the awkwardness of my response. I thought he was joking ... although that would be quite the cruel joke.
Then, my sister says hold on. She asks Melanie if she would like to be in the bridal party as well and Melanie, unlike the dufus that I am, happily agrees immediately. My sister than drops the bomb that she wants her to be the Matron of Honour. Melanie instantly agrees and they hug like school children. (Perhaps a weird analogy but it works.) We then sit there in shock for a few minutes and are honoured that we've been chosen to help them on their special day. We close the evening off with a Sambuca shot and drive home with smiles on our faces.
As I was doing my run this morning, I thought about my brother's wedding 10 years ago and how I was best man for him and now I'm doing the same thing for my sister. (Cue the sappy music.) I realize just how close my family is. Although we may get on each other's nerves, we will always be there for each other and nothing is more important to us. The Leafs winning a Stanley Cup in my lifetime is a very close second!
This wedding is going to be a blast!
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Blogger Busting Balls
Anyone else experiencing trouble with Blogger recently? It seems that it takes a long time to upload a post or to republish the template once a change is made. I'd hate to have to go somewhere else to start over and lose all my archives.
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Air conditioning makes you fat
I can't remember where I read this article but it stated that we are heavier today because there are air conditioners everywhere. We no longer sweat a few pounds off during the summer because we have controlled, cool climates. I don't think we'd lose 15 pounds if we were air conditioner-less but I'm sure it adds up.
If anyone can find an article on this subject or something similar, add a comment with a link to its location.
If anyone can find an article on this subject or something similar, add a comment with a link to its location.
Rules people ... not guidelines
{Time to generalize}
I have no time for motorcyclists who complain that cars and trucks cut them off and pay them no respect. I believe a few of your brethren are making it tough on all of you. Just the other day during rush hour on the DVP, there were two separate incidents where I wanted to clothesline these dudes off their hogs.
The first guy, who is obviously way too important to wait like the rest of us plebes in traffic, decides to drive on the shoulder. Obviously, a family member is in the hospital on their last breath and he must get there in a matter of seconds. What else could it be? Impatience? No, this guy was someone!
The second dufus, just minutes after seeing the shoulder-driving dude, is driving in between lanes while the rest of us are stopped. More than likely, he is late for his ceremony — probably being knighted or crowned as king.
I'm not saying that all accidents involving motorcycles are their fault, but follow the laws of the road (they're not guidelines to be interpreted by you) and you might save a life ... like your own!
While I'm needling bad drivers on two wheels, what gives bicyclists the special permit to not stop at red lights and stop signs. Are we not using the same road with the same applicable rules?
Obviously I'm no friend of bad and inconsiderate drivers and this concludes my rant. Back to your regularly scheduled road rage.
I have no time for motorcyclists who complain that cars and trucks cut them off and pay them no respect. I believe a few of your brethren are making it tough on all of you. Just the other day during rush hour on the DVP, there were two separate incidents where I wanted to clothesline these dudes off their hogs.
The first guy, who is obviously way too important to wait like the rest of us plebes in traffic, decides to drive on the shoulder. Obviously, a family member is in the hospital on their last breath and he must get there in a matter of seconds. What else could it be? Impatience? No, this guy was someone!
The second dufus, just minutes after seeing the shoulder-driving dude, is driving in between lanes while the rest of us are stopped. More than likely, he is late for his ceremony — probably being knighted or crowned as king.
I'm not saying that all accidents involving motorcycles are their fault, but follow the laws of the road (they're not guidelines to be interpreted by you) and you might save a life ... like your own!
While I'm needling bad drivers on two wheels, what gives bicyclists the special permit to not stop at red lights and stop signs. Are we not using the same road with the same applicable rules?
Obviously I'm no friend of bad and inconsiderate drivers and this concludes my rant. Back to your regularly scheduled road rage.
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Bike riding
Last night, Melanie and I finally put some air in our bicycles' tires and went for an exploratory ride around the subdivision. I felt like I was 12 again as we rode through new parks and pathways which were previously a little too far by foot. Of course we went as the sun was setting, to not melt in the ridiculous heat that's gripping Toronto and surrounding areas, but it was still quite warm. It's pretty good exercise on the legs and we hope to explore more of our neighbourhood in the weeks to come. That is, as long as my butt holds out. I don't know how cyclists ride for more than 10 minutes without feeling pain in the groinal region. Yowza!
If we find anything worth talking about on our treks, like gold or dead bodies, you'll be the first to hear about it.
If we find anything worth talking about on our treks, like gold or dead bodies, you'll be the first to hear about it.
Enough of the cheats and lies
I understand that professional athletes are under a lot of stress to perform everytime they're "at work." They get paid a lot of money to give 110% each and every day — and when your salary contains six zereos to the left of the decimal, you bloody well should. Therefore I understand that some athletes feel they need an edge to outperform their opponents; this is where performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) come into play.
There should be a level playing field in all sports. This means that no one is under any type of PED. If Barry Bonds feels the need to inject himself with steroids, that's his choice. I call him a cheater. When these athletes get caught, I would respect them more as people if they told the truth ... "Yup. I injected growth hormones in my ass. The crowd loved it though when I hit my 73rd home run. It makes me a better player. A lot of ball players do it, I just got caught."
The hypocrites are the people who run the sports. Take baseball for example. They sweep the truth under the rug so the fans will continue to come out and watch 250 lb men hit 80 homeruns a year. Then, by fluke, a player gets caught in the web of the drug test and the public outcry makes them do something. Did you notice that as soon as the stiffer penalties were discussed during the offseason a few years ago, the homerun totals dropped. All the 'roid heads dropped weight like a fighter before the weigh in ... of course their excuse was exercise and diet.
Just admit that you're on the juice and the public will get over it quicker and your name will be out of the headlines that much sooner. Your fellow athletes won't care because they're just as guilty as you are.
Perhaps I'm using a broad brush to paint everyone in sports as cheaters but I'm tired of the lies to my face. For instance, "My massage therapist put a cream on my back but I thought it was Calamine lotion." Don't you hate when that happens? Or better yet, "I produce an elevated level of testosterone in my body naturally." Yeah, mixed nicely with the synthetic stuff.
Floyd Landis, Barry Bonds, Justin Gatlin et al ... just come clean ... it's easier.
There should be a level playing field in all sports. This means that no one is under any type of PED. If Barry Bonds feels the need to inject himself with steroids, that's his choice. I call him a cheater. When these athletes get caught, I would respect them more as people if they told the truth ... "Yup. I injected growth hormones in my ass. The crowd loved it though when I hit my 73rd home run. It makes me a better player. A lot of ball players do it, I just got caught."
The hypocrites are the people who run the sports. Take baseball for example. They sweep the truth under the rug so the fans will continue to come out and watch 250 lb men hit 80 homeruns a year. Then, by fluke, a player gets caught in the web of the drug test and the public outcry makes them do something. Did you notice that as soon as the stiffer penalties were discussed during the offseason a few years ago, the homerun totals dropped. All the 'roid heads dropped weight like a fighter before the weigh in ... of course their excuse was exercise and diet.
Just admit that you're on the juice and the public will get over it quicker and your name will be out of the headlines that much sooner. Your fellow athletes won't care because they're just as guilty as you are.
Perhaps I'm using a broad brush to paint everyone in sports as cheaters but I'm tired of the lies to my face. For instance, "My massage therapist put a cream on my back but I thought it was Calamine lotion." Don't you hate when that happens? Or better yet, "I produce an elevated level of testosterone in my body naturally." Yeah, mixed nicely with the synthetic stuff.
Floyd Landis, Barry Bonds, Justin Gatlin et al ... just come clean ... it's easier.
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