2nd season, welcome to the playoffs

I love this picture.  The intensity, the anticipation of it falling below the crossbar, the beards (except on the Fin, of course), it’s like time stopped.

I hate Joe Thornton more than I should, but there’s something about a waste of talent that makes me angry.  Consider this:

The outside world continues to say that the Sharks will only go as far as you can carry them. How do you react to that?

“I don’t necessarily believe in that so much,” he said. “Everybody knows that the most important position is goaltending and Nabby’s a big part of this team. Todd has said in the past that it’s not one guy that’s going to carry the load, it’s going to be the team.”

It’s not my fault if we lose.

WP-Quotes Admin

It appears that the authors of my quote generator plugin (wp-quotes) are gone, and the last WP upgrade (or maybe earlier, possible I didn’t notice) broke the admin interface to the quote management tool.

Nothing serious, it looks like the call to generate the link in the admin has changed. There are other quote tools out there, but changing would require much more attention than a blog with zero readers deserves. So for anyone else that might be interested, the very simple fix (in plugins/wp-quotes.php) is:


23,24c23
< global $submenu; < $submenu['edit.php'][40] = array(__('Quotes'), 8, 'edit-quotes.php'); --- > add_submenu_page('options-general.php', 'Random Quotes', 'Random Quotes', 8, 'edit-quotes.php', '');

You can find an updated archive if you want here.

On a slightly related note, I’ve now collected enough quotes that I’ll change the font color to something other than the background color.

God is Dead

Nothing I can say more than this, reminds me of when Bob died – living the life we loved them for living and it killed them:

Dear Frank Vandenbrouke,
I was a loyal member of your posse, and I will miss you. You were my rider. You were the one I wanted to see in the break away. Your courage and willingness to suffer inspired me, and your inability to live outside of that suffering broke my heart.

You were a cheater. There is no denying that. You doped, both for performance and for absolution. Personally, I don’t blame you for seeking glory, and neither do I blame you for chasing oblivion. I spend the better part of each and every day doing both. I don’t know what is worse. Feeling the pain… Or feeling nothing… If I could take a drug that would make me write like Samuel Beckett, I’d do it. I’d do it no matter what it cost me.

We asked you and the rest of the peloton to do the impossible. We asked that you not only ride 200 kilometers a day with your ass up and your head down, but we demanded that you do it without weakness, without faltering and without complaint, day after day, year after year. We asked that you do it for our pleasure, and for our entertainment, and when you buckled under the pressure, when you gave in and used drugs to improve both your ability to recover and your ability to perform, we crucified you.

In the end, I don’t think it was the drugs that made us turn on you… The cycling world is full of heroes that use dope. It’s not the cheating that bothers us. What bothers us is that you got caught.

Your wife left you. You got depressed. You drank too much. You took drugs, and now you’re dead. I, for one, think the world is a poorer place for it. Rest in peace Frank. I’m drinking whiskey tonight in your memory.

Punk rock is as punk rock does,

Gypsy

When rules are dumb, rules are ignored

When will the ‘Powers that Be’ learn that stupid rules are ignored, and the more rules that are ignored the less important the rules are? If the people who write the rules don’t take them seriously, then how/why would anyone else?

No zoom?  Leave your phone at home.  Arrive an hour early?  Not sure they’d let me in then.

Spending a lot of time at the Garden this year, and all in all a decently run place.  They do a good job of keeping the place clean and the staff friendly, but can’t wait for the renovation.

At The Garden

As a reminder, we ask you to arrive early, one hour prior to game time. We ask that all guests travel light and avoid bringing unnecessary/excess items as all persons and bags are subject to search. MSG may utilize metal detecting hand wands, walk-through metal detectors or other devices. Bags that have passed inspection must fit comfortably under your seat. Oversized bags are prohibited. Amongst items that are prohibited from MSG are: weapons, laser pens, outside food and beverage, cans, bottles, alcohol, drugs, video cameras, monopods, tripods, audio recording devices and cameras with telephoto or zoom lenses. You may bring in a disposable, 35mm or digital camera (with no zoom or telephoto lens), however, flash photography is prohibited. For a complete listing, click here.

Wow….

Last night on the O’Reilly Factor, Bill turned to the audience letters. From Peter in Canada: “Has anyone noted that life expectancy in Canada under our health system is higher than the USA?” Bill wasn’t phased, but he did use some creative math to answer. “Well Peter, that’s to be expected,” he said, “we have ten times as many people as you do!”

I’ll quit when I fall off my bike

Kenny van Hummel crossed the finish after the climb of the Verbier this Sunday with a fistpump and a loud scream. The rider on Skil arrived in time only to start again after a rest day. “Today I literally ate my handlebar. I didn’t care if I was gonna make it in time or not. I’m tough, I’ll quit when I fall off my bike. A lot of sprinters went home already, but Kenny van Hummel is still here. And I’m proud of that.”

It’s so easy to forget these guys as we all focus on the front, but the race in back is no less hard: