The kids have their piano recital tonight. They are all excited and hyper and… Well… No they’re not, actually, they are sitting on the couch watching Disney shows.

Over the course of the last two hours I’ve gone from thinking this song was okay and good enough to finish to thinking it was really weak, to thinking that I just plain don’t like it at all.

Oh well. Now I just have an excuse to come up with something better so that this one won’t be at the top of my alonetone.com playlist.

Bad experience at Chunk’s tonight. The idiot kid decided to roll a chair in front of my step son after the movie had started. I had never been pissed off enough to give a $0.00 tip… Until tonight.

We won’t be going back there again.

The kids are sitting at the dining room table writing their letters to Santa Claus.

In a word… Elaborate.

In another word… Expensive.

I’ve seen between four and six deer in the woods within the last 10 minutes or so. It’s hard to get an accurate count because they circle around, and even if they would stand still you usually can’t see them unless they’re moving.

Still no antlers. Either they only show themselves to me after the males shed them for the winter, or we have a lesbian community. I can’t tell which.

On of them was tiny. She looked young enough to still be a little unsteady on her legs, but her coat was dark with no spots. Once again demonstrating how much nothing I know about these suckers.

The only thing I know for sure is that I love that they’re out there.

It’s so weird.

Last night I used my iPad as my alarm clock. Somehow I managed to hit snooze every 10 minutes for over an hour. I had to have had my eyes open to see what I was doing, but I don’t remember pretty much any of it.

Do you think I might have been kinda tired?

Maybe.

Jen felt that she was lacking in the Christmas spirit.  She asked if we could hop in the car and drive around looking for crazy displays of Christmas lights.  We found three houses, two of which were on the same street!

Milan Michalek, the NHL goal scoring leader, out with a concussion.
Claude Giroux, the NHL point scoring leader, out with a concussion.
Jeff Skinner, the reigning NHL rookie of the year, out with a concussion.
Sidney Crosby, the best player in the NHL, out with a concussion.
Chris Pronger, one of the best defensemen ever, out with a concussion.

Nathan Gerbe, Mike Richards, Michael Sauer, Kris Letang, Joni Pitkanen, Zbynek Michalek, Nino Niederreiter, Radek Martinek, Brayden Schenn, Robert Bortuzzo, Andy McDonald, Jay Beagle, Peter Mueller, Marc Staal, and Boston’s own Marc Savard… all out with concussions.  I got the full list here.

I heard on a recent Bruins television broadcast that the number of concussions is actually down from last season.  I find that hard to believe, although I think maybe the total number is down but the number of all star caliber players with concussions has to be way up.

How do we stop this?  I don’t know if we can.  All hits to the head need to be banned.  I think this is out of control to the point where that needs to happen, however it won’t solve the problem at all.  Milan Michalek was hit by his own teammate.  Sidney Crosby got bumped up high on a harmless looking play and then later got hit by his own teammate as well.  It could have been either of those plays that set him back, or maybe he wasn’t fully healed from last year’s concussion.  Who knows.  It’s all grey area.

Still… at this rate we’re going to be a league of nothing but B-list players.

Lately I’ve been hearing people talk about the pads the players are wearing.  I guess they are made from a hard plastic, more armor than padding, and that could be causing the increase.  Maybe it’s time to go back to pads that are actually pads.  Maybe.  Maybe there’s something wrong with the helmets?  Who knows.  All I do know is that it’s scary.  Marc Savard and Sidney Crosby seem like the poster children for the issue right now, Crosby because he’s the best player in the league and Savard because he’s a great player whose career is probably over way before his time.  They aren’t the first though.  Pat LaFontaine (sorry if I misspelled that), Eric Lindros, Keith Primeau.  All of them had their careers shortened, or at least derailed, by concussions.

There has to be a way to stop this crap.  There has to be a way to protect these players without taking the aggressiveness out of the game.  There has to be.  Is it the pads?  Is it hits to the head?  Are the players too big for the ice now?  Do we need to play on larger rinks?  What is it?  Someone who knows the game better than I do needs to give us some glimmer of hope here.  I’m tired of seeing players laying on the ice out cold.