Hanging it up.
Kim du Toit retires.
I’ll miss him. Without him, this blog wouldn’t be here. Of course, that doesn’t say much with my recent non-posting spree.
November 30, 2008
November 28, 2008
A Thanksgiving Win
Last night the Sea Wolves won an amazingly even game with the number two team in our division, the South Carolina Stingrays.
When I say evenly matched, it really is: Nobody scored in the first period. In the second period, both teams notched three goals, and in the third both teams scored once. During regulation, both teams scored three power play goals and one even strength goal.
In fact, there are only two stats where there was a difference: the Stingrays faced four more penalties than the Sea Wolves, and Ryan Munce, #1 on our team (in jersey number and fan support), faced more shots on goal than Bobby Goepfert, South Carolina’s #47 (and an all around great goalie). By more I mean nearly 50% more: Munce blocked 24 of 28, and Goepfert blocked 15 of 20. But it always seems like our goalies face more shots than the other team’s. I think that’s one reason so many fans love Munce. Without his superior blocking ability, we’d be struggling to rise off the bottom, not fighting it out with the second place team.
The most exciting point in the game came early in the second period. South Carolina drew two penalties, one for cross checking and one for hooking thirt-six seconds later. With seven seconds remaining on the cross-checking penalty, the Sea Wolves knocked one home, tying the game at 1-1, ending said penalty. Exactly thirty seconds later, the remaining thirteen seconds of the hooking penalty were ended with another goal, giving the Sea Wolves their first lead.
Also, because I like to discuss it, the referee, Keith Kaval, did a pretty good job. I hope this doesn’t jinx it like the last time I praised a referee, but I honestly only found fault with one call, late in the first period. Our #11, Couch, got slammed against the boards pretty hard and was out of it. He skated back to the bench, but as he did so, when he was within the legal range for another player to skate out, his replacement made his way on to the ice — and the puck came by Couch, who didn’t touch the puck, but it was apparently close enough for Couch to be considered “in the play” and we drew a two minute penalty for too many men on the ice.
Tonight is round two of the three game series between the two teams, and tomorrow wraps it up.
November 21, 2008
What a bunch of crap.
This is a bunch of crap:
What a perverse message to send to the movie studios: we love your product so much that we refuse to pay for it. How do we expect the industry to invest in more movies like The Dark Knight if we aren’t willing to fund that investment?
Um. The Dark Knight, in addition to being pirated like mad, made a metric fuck-ton (not to be confused with the fuck-ton in the English measurements) of money at theaters, and will on DVD. Almost a billion dollars just in theater receipts — more than five times the movie’s cost — and that doesn’t count the upcoming DVD. I don’t have a problem with his stance against copyright infringement. I get that.
But arguing that because the Dark Knight is pirated, it’s not worth it to the movie studios? That’s just insane. The movie made a lot of money despite being pirated. I won’t say piracy is a costless crime for producers, but in the grand scheme of things? I don’t think it costs them as much as they want to pretend. Let’s be honest, the movie industry wanted view-once VHS tapes and fought the VCR as hard as they could. They just don’t like new technology — even when said technology makes them a ton of money.
Also, you can’t use anything Microsoft says on the matter. They’re selling the tools to prevent piracy, or trying to anyway, so they’re not trustworthy in the least.
November 15, 2008
Well gee, what a surprise.
Saw this article on Slashdot and the first thing that came to mind: Wow, Duke is actually going to require something be proven before selling their students out!
Someone call Nancy Grace, this outrage cannot stand!
Update: Also, if you’re still using Kazaa, 2003 called, it wants its shitty p2p program back.
November 10, 2008
What a weekend.
After our shoot out win Friday, which was the first win for the Sea Wolves since Halloween broke a small losing streak on home ice, the Wheeling Nailers came back and punished the Sea Wolves on Saturday night in a 4-1 game. We had a lot of penalties in that game and just didn’t bring it like we had the night before. At times, I felt that the referee wasn’t calling the game evenly; there were a few times when the Wheeling players got by with things we got penalties for. This trend continued Sunday night, when one of their players outright smacked Munce in the face with his stick, and another elbowed Munce in the face, and neither time drew penalties.
Sunday’s game started out with a fight. Literally, the puck dropped, and two players got into it. The gloves came off, and our #91, Matthieu Melanson locked up with their #13, Erik Johnson. Now, up to this point I don’t think I’ve seen our team win a fight all year; sure, a few that maybe could be called draws, but no wins. Melanson won this fight handily, beating the snot out of Johnson right outside the penalty boxes. I still don’t know what caused the fight to break out, but it was fun to watch.
The next forty minutes were pretty bland, honestly. A lot of back and forth, but no goals. Both of the first periods were scoreless. One thing that annoyed me during the second period — the Wheeling net kept coming off the moorings. The first time, I’d have bought it just being a coincidence, but it happened three times in the period, and all three times we were about to score. The third time was especially egregious and I thought their goalie should have been called for delay of game.
A little over a minute into the third, however, Wheeling got on the board by getting past Munce. We evened it out less than a minute later, but Wheeling wasn’t about to stay tied at one and gained their lead back a little over a minute after our goal. They’d increase the lead to with just over eight minutes left on a power play (one of the few calls I absolutely disagreed with). However, with a minute and fifty-four to go, Melanson would cut their lead to one, giving some hope of overtime. With a minute to go, Munce skated to the bench and we sent out an extra attacker.
Then came the call that pissed me off — two minutes for holding on Pat Oliveto, with thirty three to go in the game. We called time out, and I honestly think someone needs to have a talk with that referee; he did well Friday, but his performance got worse as the weekend progressed. Munce returned to the net, and we started the game back up in our own end, down a man, down by one.
I was ready to leave, and people were streaming out when Matthieu Melanson slapped the puck into their net with twenty four seconds to go. Shorthanded. Tied.
Overtime!
The Sea Wolves managed to keep the puck out of our end for the rest of the Oliveto penalty, which carried over into over time, and then, with 2:19 in the extra frame, Matthieu Melanson beat their goalie for the third time that night, getting a sweet goal, a hat trick, and a win. 4-3, Sea Wolves. In the weekend set against the Nailers, we went 2-1, and again earned ourselves to “even” in win-loss (5-5 now). Wheeling has yet to lose in regulation. We are currently tied in points with Augusta and Charlotte — we play the latter team Saturday as part of our five game road trip before we return to home ice on Thanksgiving.
The Sea Wolves (5-5-1-0) are doing slightly better than their NHL affiliate, the Philedelphia Flyers (4-6-3), and slightly worse than their AHL affiliate, the Philedelphia Phantoms (8-6-0-0).
November 8, 2008
Open Software, DRM, and Politics
One thing I hope the next administration does: Make the government use open software. Not necessarily free software (though it would be a good way to save on taxpayer money), and not necessarily open source software. In my mental utopia we would, of course, all be running free and open source software, surrounded by ponies and unicorns, but that’s just not going to happen. I’d also reform the hell out of our current mess of copyright laws (but not abolish them), but that’s another post entirely.
What I mean is software that works in an open format — none of this “you have to upgrade your Word because the new Word format won’t open in the old Word.” That’s stupid. Even though I’m a computer person and technologically inclined, I hate having to hunt down how to get one type of file or another to work. I much prefer open formats (even though all my music is in .mp3, well, apart from the original CDs), or at least one format. One consistant format.
This of course extends from my raging fASCIIsm; I like text. Most of the websites I read daily are text-centric, I despise HTML in e-mail (and I don’t like the “rich text” options in many web-based e-mail providers; seriously, don’t do that). The fact is, anything saved as plain text will be readable by any computer that understands plain text (ignoring the line break differences between operating systems). I think that’s how it should be. It’s also why I don’t like DRM. Whenever someone stops providing the way around DRM — authentication server closes, they stop providing the key, whatever terminology — you become locked out of your stuff.
I’d like to see that not be an issue with the government. ALL government files should be in an open format. Anything secret needs to be encrypted — and I mean heavily — but even still, one day someone may need to read it in a computer that it wasn’t designed for, and we should preserve it. This sort of thing wasn’t a problem when we kept records just on paper. Paper is universally compatible. You just have to speak the language. File formats, not so much. And closed software has so many stupidities in their file formatting that it’s just a bad idea to store anything you might want in their format.
An example is the fact OpenOffice.org saves as Microsoft Word at about a third the size Microsoft Word saves the same file. The difference? OpenOffice.org doesn’t save a bunch of junk in the file. Which is another gain to using a simple open format; smaller storage, less money spent.
Anyway, that’s just my lazy Saturday thought on the matter.
Pulling Even
What a freaking game.
Before I start on the details of the game — I complain a lot about referees, especially when I’m at the game, but I was freaking impressed with ECHL referee #9 Ryan Sweeney. The guy was probably the most level-headed, fair calling referee I’ve seen. Some of it was probably that both teams played a mostly clean game, garnering only 32 minutes of penalties between them (15 to Mississippi and 17 to Wheeling), but I never actually felt like yelling “You suck ref!” this time. (I did want to yell “You suck!” at one of our players that got an absolutely stupid penalty, though.)
Also, while play was kind of rough at times with some shoving, not once did a Wheeling player do anything that made me angry — seriously, this was a fine game to watch. It was clean, there was a lot of back and forth with the puck on the ice, and the teams felt pretty evenly matched. It wasn’t the perfect game by any means, but both teams brought what they had and played a sportsmanlike, interesting game. Whether or not that holds for tomorrow and Sunday is yet to be seen.
Wheeling got on the board first, short-handed, in the first four minutes. We got even at 1-1, and then we pulled ahead. Wheeling got even — this was the story of the night. Each team kept pulling even. We got a two goal lead in the second, then Wheeling got even. The entire third period stayed even, 4-4, so it went to overtime, which is where it got interesting.
At one point close to the end of the five minute frame, the puck bounced close to our net, but skipped outside and along the outside of the net. Seeing the net move and the puck in it, even from outside, was momentarily heart-stopping. Then with 12.7 seconds left in over-time, we called a time out, and nearly scored once play resumed. I thought for certain at about the 6 second mark we were going to win, but it was not to be and on to the shoot out… after they brought out the Zamboni to do the center of the ice for it.
Munce, our #1 and the best goalie I’ve seen play for the SeaWolves yet (and one of the stars of last season to return), was golden in this shoot-out. He blocked the first three shots easily. Ryan Cruthers, our #16, shot for us second and got a goal, so after Munce blocked the third shot it felt like a win — our first in too long. Wheeling’s $15, Nick Johnson, slipped one under Munce’s legs for their fourth shot, and so we were tied. Our#22, Frederick Cabana, sealed the deal for us on our fourth shot at goal; Munce deflected Wheeling’s fifth try, earning us our first win in far too many games — and pulling us even to 4-4 in the win-loss record. We’re now ranked fourth in our division, behind Florida, Charlotte, and Augusta. Those three teams are all tied in points. Wheeling remains in first in their own division (a spot I think they deserve after seeing them in action live).
If you count his shoot out goal, however, Nick Johnson of Wheeling did get a hat trick tonight — he scored two of their four goals during regulation and their only shoot-out goal. I wonder if he’d be interested in wearing a different jersey next season…
November 6, 2008
National Novel Writing Month
Oh my. Here it is the 6th and I haven’t written a word.
I should probably get on that.
Oi, I blame the goalie.
The Sea Wolves finished the game with 42 shots, while Augusta had 30.
And yet of those 30, 6 went into the net. Versus 3 for us, out of 42. Munce blocks 92% of the shots that come his way; Duchesne blocks 83%. Morgan Cey, a goalie many thought was bad last season, blocked 88-89%, and he had a much worse team.
And Friday, we go on to face the Wheeling Nailers, who are undefeated in regulation (5-0-0-2), for three games. If we start Duchesne at any game I might go ask for my money back before the game starts. The article says we weren’t in it offensively or whatever, but we scored three goals. Had they not scored six goals we’d look a little better or maybe have won.
I’m glad I wasn’t there last night.
November 5, 2008
It’s over.
The longest campaign in our history has finally come to an end. For the love of God, do not start again tomorrow.
I will be gracious; we lost. We lost pretty big. Not by the margins that Reagan won with, but still, it was a big night for the Democrats. I’m not going to spend the next four years acting like some on the left have for the last eight; I’m above that, and I’ve honestly been burned out on politics for about six months now. There are moments when my interest is roused, but for the most part, it’s just not worth it. I’d rather just write, about non-political things, and not have to worry about the stupid, partisan bickering that American politics has become.
I hope others are gracious in defeat, as well, and I hope the winners aren’t sore winners. Both candidates wanted this election to heal the divide and all that — so let’s see it, now that they’ve won.
I will, of course, stay abreast of things as much as I can stand it, and I will continue to vote. But I think from here on out, I will keep my political opinions quiet and leave you all to the nation you wish to build.
If, however, things go as many of us on the right side of the spectrum feared, I will be forced to point out that I told you so.
Also, dear Republican party: This is what you get for your behavior since the 2004 elections. Clean your act up if you expect to get votes in 2010.
