(read the next line in a Jerry Seinfeld-esque voice)

What is the deal with downtown Lowell?

Last night Jen wanted to go for some Japanese food. She did a little searching online and found a place in Downtown Lowell on Merrimack Street called Etsogo. It was a Friday night, after 8:00pm and we expected to have to wait.

Little did we know that Downtown Lowell apparently shuts down for the entire Winter season.

We parked in that big garage on Market Street and walked over to Merrimack. I was shocked to not only not see any people around (there was one drunk homeless guy… it wouldn’t have been Lowell otherwise) but to not see any businesses open. Everything was closed. It was 8:freaking pm and everything was closed. Many shops had their hours posted, complete with “Winter hours” that close up at 7:00. I know it’s cold out, but gimme a break. The whole city center closes at 7:00 because it’s cold? No wonder they have so much trouble keeping the city alive. Open the damn stores!

Fortunately Etsogo was open and it was really good. I had beef and chicken teriyaki and Jen had sushi. We will go back to that place, I am sure, and hopefully the city isn’t asleep the next time.

I recently started creating picture sets in Flickr for different cities and towns that I have found myself taking pics in in the past including Lowell. I used my iPhone and Camera Bag application to try to take some faux artsy pictures that I could add to the Lowell set.

Enjoy… even though they are lame.

The view from our parking spot on the second floor of the garage.

I think this is Palmer and Middle Streets (thanks Google maps!)

My wife Jenny perusing the menu. Checking out the sushi options.

I liked the front windows and took a lame picture of them.

Jenny loves her some sushi.

An ice cream shop called Monkey’s How could we say no? Of course they were closed, so maybe next time we’re in town we’ll pay a visit.

A failed attempt at getting a shot of the clock tower at the city hall.

Downtown Lowell is on my list of places to bring the camera for a waste of a day walking around taking pictures of stuff. It’s been on that list for years, but someday I’ll get there.

This afternoon we went out to eat as well. Where did we go this time? Only my favorite place (the Burlington branch of my favorite place, to be exact).

An unrelated note: we are sitting at home watching the Bruins playing the Islanders and we just saw a McDonald’s commercial and now I have a song stuck in my head:

Give me back that fillet o’ fish
Give me that fish…

Urgh!

Well… not that holy grail. That holy grail is in France… right Dan Brown?

Larry just sent me this. A video from cnet telling us how to skip all the previews on a DVD. Oh Please Please Please let this work on our Playstation 3!!!

Check out this site…

Did you check it out? I found out about this on the Bad Astronomer blog. You use this to design and model your own solar system.

Ya know, nothing major. Just intelligent design and stuff. Although in my case it’s not very intelligent. I keep plugging in numbers that get one of the four bodies either obliterated or kicked out of the system in the first orbit.

However… not to toot my own horn… but I had one with four bodies that ran for about 400 seconds before one of them was booted out of my solar system. That’s a whole boat load of orbits. (of course the guy who got booted had an orbit that was really erratic, but at least it was going in something that vaguely resembled an ellipse.)

I guess that makes me god of my own little solar system.

I just finished reading a Dan Brown novel so as you know I’m all about symbolism right now.

Watch this video. Watch Marc Savard hit the post in the third period. That play symbolizes the entire season.

I hate things that make me feel stupid.

Actually, I hate more things than just things that make me feel stupid. I hate a lot of varied things with varying degrees of malice. Some things I hate a little. Some things I hate a lot. For instance, right now I am hating that the Bruins aren’t slaughtering the Toronto Maple Leafs (it’s tied at one in the second period). I hate that, but I hate losing to Montreal (like they did the other night) even more.

But for right now I want to focus on how I hate things that make me feel stupid. Today there is one thing that I am hating because it makes me feel stupid.

Photoshop.

Yup. Hate it.

I open it up and load in an image file and… and… and then I stare at the screen like a buffoon trying to figure out how to do anything. I hate it.

Just saying.

One thing I don’t hate is my wife’s blog. I love my wife more than anything. I love my wife more then Rush and the Bruins and the Red Sox combined!

I also love her blog. I read it all the time and I think you should too. Go here and check it out. Just remember guys, she’s MINE!

My sweetie isn’t feeling all that well today. Would you all be so kind as to send her some feel-better-soon vibes? Thanks

I bet this is how things went at the Boston Bruins front office this morning.

Peter Chiarelli walks in the door, smiling from ear to ear with a look of total excitement on his face. He walks past a water cooler where Don Sweeney and Cam Neely are talking to each other, looking very depressed and ragged. Chiarelli slaps them both on the back and says, “Trade deadline day guys, let’s get on those phones and get some deals done!” Sweeney and Neely exchange confused looks with each other but before they can say anything to Chiarelli he is off down the hallway.

Chiarelli then pops his head into the door of Charlie Jacob’s office. “Trade deadline today Chuckie, we’re gone fill the holes and fix this team for you! Don’t worry a bit boss, we’re going to get it done!” As Chiarelli walks away Jacobs looks at his calendar for a minute. He looks perplexed. But I thought the deadline was… he thinks, clearly taxing his mental capacity.

Chiarelli gets to his office, plops down into his chair, puts his feet up on the desk, picks up the phone and starts dialing. He says out loud, “Let’s call the Hurricanes first. We are gonna get ourselves some scoring help!”

Before the call connects Cam Neely walks purposefully into the office, grabs the phone from Chiarelli’s hand and slams it on to the receiver. He then shoves Chiarelli’s feet off the desk and firmly slaps him across the face. “Peter” he yells at his General Manager, “the trade deadline was yesterday!”

Chiarelli looks at Neely, his face first showing a look of disbelief, followed by confusion, followed by crushing disappointment. “You mean the trade deadline was yesterday? It’s over? You mean that wasn’t a nightmare I had last night?”

“No Pete,” says Neely, “the trade deadline was yesterday. You totally blew it.”

Chiarelli then puts his head into his hands and weakly sobs.

Yup, I bet that is exactly what happened at the Boston Bruins offices this morning.

Poor poor Peter Chiarelli had a bad day. I think he probably needs to go to his bed, pull down the shades, turn off the lights, pull the blankets up over his head, and nap for 48-72 hours. Maybe when he wakes up fans of the Boston Bruins will have calmed down and stop threatening his health.

I have a feeling I know what Peter Chiarelli was feeling like throughout today’s NHL trade deadline excitement. Imagine a Viagra commercial. Got that image? Now imagine the man in that commercial about 3 minutes after realizing that he needs to place a call to his doctor so that he can ask about Viagra. That is probably a very accurate depiction of Peter Chiarelli’s state of mind today.

From the NHL roster’s point of view the Bruins moved Byron Bitz, who has been a healthy scratch and is still probably existing in the weird skill level purgatory between the NHL and the AHL. I call this space the Cameron Mann Zone. It could be a loss down the road, but right now it’s just a loss of a popular guy who’s name is kinda fun to say. The real departure is Derek Morris. This off season’s big free agent pick up who is the 2nd highest scoring defenceman (behind Zdeno Chara) on the Bruins. He was cast off to Phoenix (where he played for many years) for a 4th round draft pick.

That’s what I said, you didn’t read that wrong. A 3+ million dollar defenseman dumped to the desert for a 4th round pick. The pick may turn into a 3rd rounder if Morris signs a contract with Phoenix. Personally, if I were Mr Morris I would never sign with Phoenix simply to spite the Bruins for dumping me so cheaply.

Coming back to the Bruins NHL roster is Dennis Seidenberg from Florida. Seidenberg’s numbers are pretty comparable to Morris’ but he makes about a million dollars less per year.

Effectively, the Bruins swapped a good defenseman for a cheaper good defenseman.

That’s it.

Think back to the days leading up to the Olympic break. The Bruins won the four games immediately prior to the break, but lost the TEN games prior to that. During that TEN game losing streak Peter Chiarelli kept telling us how he was working the phones trying to pull off a deal to get some scoring help. In other words, he was trying to fill the gaping void in the current roster’s make up by acquiring a forward who can actually score goals. He failed to achieve this goal during the losing streak and he continued to fail today.

So one of the worst offenses in the NHL failed to do anything that might improve things at the trade deadline. Bruins fans are feeling devastated over the lack of movement and are jumping off the bandwagon in droves. The coaching staff are forced to continue to try and squeeze goals out of a line up that is almost completely unable to score goals. We have two forwards who are capable of producing consistent offense (Savard and Sturm), one forward who is as good an offense/defense combination as any in the league (gold medal winner Patrice Bergeron), and a whole cast of players who are either under producing or drastically over produced last year thus skewing all of our expectations this year.

The absolute pinnacle of this team’s achievements this year will be a first round exit from the playoffs. That’s as good as it can possibly get. Frankly, I doubt we will even go that far. I foresee a lottery pick in our future, and I ain’t referring to the first round pick we got from Toronto for Kessel. (although we will be getting a lottery pick out of that too)

It’s going to continue to be painful to watch the Bruins for the rest of the year. We’ve already had 60 some odd painful games so what’s another 20 or so.

Two further trade deadline Bruins related notes. Scott Walker was traded from Carolina to… Washington, I think. The cost to get him was, if I am not mistaken… and I could be… I don’t think I’m making this crap up as I go but I suppose it’s possible I’m doing it subconsciously… a seventh round pick. Late in this afternoon’s festivities the Bruins announced that Dennis Wideman was not on the trading block. I give that statement the gold medal for bullshit statements. Wideman was not available because no other team in the NHL (or the AHL for that matter) was willing to take him. Walker went for a seventh round pick, and even that was too much to pay for Dennis Wideman.

I am still very much on the Bruins bandwagon, but if one of the rumors I heard today had come to fruition I would have been off faster than you can say, “convicted felon.” The Bruins were rumored to be in the running to acquire Joe Corvo. Uh uh, no way. Corvo comes to Boston and you suddenly start seeing lots of posts about how big a San Jose Sharks or Chicago Blackhawks or Los Angeles Kings fan I am. I will not root for some one who is slime enough to beat up a woman, never mind a man who is scum enough to beat up a woman in a restaurant. Joe Corvo shouldn’t be playing for Washington (after getting dealt there today from Carolina) he should be playing for the Bridgewater Penitentiary team.

And that, ladies and gents, is my NHL trade deadline wrap up post. Maybe by next year’s trade deadline Peter Chiarelli will have some Viagra to help him out.

Go Bruins!