I promised you, oh gentle readers… or probably reader… or probably not even that… that I would post my second round picks.  It’s a little tougher this time.  In the first round I picked the teams I wanted to win instead of the teams I thought would win and it paid off for me… not litteraly of course, I don’t have any money therefore I don’t bet but you get the idea.  Now in the second round most of the teams I’m routing for are either playing each other or they’re playing teams that are on fire right now.  So I have to pick with my  hockey brain instead of my hockey heart.

Let’s start in the East.

Ottawa vs Buffalo.  I picked Ottawa to win it all at the begining of the season.  Furthermore, Buffalo ranks very high on my list of teams that I totally loathe.  I don’t Montreal hate them, and I don’t quite New York hate them, but I sure do hate them.  Unfortunately Ottawa’s goaltending is suspect right now (I never thought I’d route for Dominic Hasek… who I first learned to hate when he played for Buffalo) and Buffalo just made Philly look silly in the last couple of games.  So, in this round it could go either way, but I’m going to back Ottawa.

Carolina vs New Jersey.  This one is painful.  I’ve watched a ton of Carolina players come up through the AHL over the last few years; Eric Staal, Mike Commodore (a fellow red head dontchaknow), Craig Adams, Chad LaRose, and Cam Ward just to name a few.  Unfortunately for the team-formerly-known-as-the-Whalers they are playing New Jersey who have won about 500 games in a row, who are hot enough to melt the ice, and who just happen to have the best goalie on the planet.  I’ll be routing for the Hurricanes, but the Devils are going to win this one.

And now for the West.

Anaheim vs Colorado.  The Ducks looked real good beating Calgary last night, but the Avs are going to destroy them.  Two weeks from now the Duckies will be golfing.

San Jose vs Edmonton.  Joe Thornton vs Sergie Samsonov.  I wanted to see this match up, but not until the third round.  When that schmuck of a former Bruins General Manager traded Joe Thornton to the Sharks for a broken stick and a bag of pucks I instantly became a San Jose Sharks fan.  Unfortunately, said schmuck also traded Samsonov to Edmonton and I became an Oilers fan too.  Now I have to pick one over the other.  No offense Sammy, but I’m picking Joe.  The Sharks have looked like a monster lately and I think they’re going to pile on the goals against the Oilers.  The Oil were great defensively against Detroit, but San Jose is going to steamroll over them.  I’m picking the Sharks.

Well there you have it.  My four picks for the semi-finals.  Knowing my luck they’re all going to get swept.  It’ll probably end up being the Ducks and Sabres in the Stanley Cup Finals.

I haven’t heard this song in at least 1000 years.  I don’t own a copy of it, I never have.

Why then is it firmly lodged in my brain today?

“bowling with bedrock barney barney
he is the life of the party that barney
he likes his chilli con carne
that barney”

Talk about a great song, eh?  Of course The Dickie’s proudest moment is probably their cover of the theme from “The Bananna Splits.”

Immortal greatness.

Until the NHL play-offs started.

Eight first round match ups.
Seven have already been decided, the eighth will end tomorrow night.
Of the seven complete series, I predicted the outcome of six of them.

Easter Conference:
Ottawa vs Tampa Bay – I predicted Ottawa and Ottawa won.
(I actually predicted Ottawa to win it all back in
October)
Carolina vs Montreal – I predicted Carolina and Carolina won.
New Jersey vs New York – I predicted New Jersey and New Jersey won.
Buffalo vs Philadelphia – I predicted Philly… and I don’t wanna talk about it.

Western Conference:
Detroit vs Edmonton – I predicted Edmonton and Samsonov set up the
series clinching goal babie!
Colorado vs Dallas – I predicted Colorado and Colorado won.
Calgary vs Anaheim – I predicted Calgary, game seven is tomorrow night.
San Jose vs Nashville – I predicted San Jose babie!  San Jose is now my
pick to go all the way.  I still like Ottawa, but
without a healthy Hasek, I’ll put my money on Joe
Thornton.

I almost feel like I know what I’m talking about.  Tomorrow night I’ll stay up late routing for the Flames.  Go Calgary!

After the first round ends I’ll post my picks for the four second round match ups and you can all laugh at me when they all turn out wrong.

Until then…
Go Sharks!

Deena moved to southern Rhode Island a few of years ago, but she’s originally from Andover and last week she let us know she was going home for the weekend and invited us round for brunch.

I had an enjoyable afternoon shooting the shit with two great people that I haven’t seen in a year (in Veronica’s case) or almost two years (in Deena’s case).

These are people that I really miss, and I’m glad Deena brought us back together again for the day.  Thanks Deena!

Roger Waters tickets went on-sale today for the September 8th show at the Venue-Formerly-Known-As-Great-Woods in Mansfield, MA.

I’ve never seen Roger live.  I’ve seen the rest of Pink Floyd without him, but I’ve never seen him.

I want to go.  My friend Larry wants to go.

I volunteer to get the tickets.

Ticketmaster.com tells me that tickets go on-sale at 10:00am today.

At 10:00am today I click on the find tickets link and am brought to a page where I can search for tickets.

Except your old pal Robbie can’t look for tickets because your old pal Robbie isn’t a member of the American express gold club or whatever they hell it was called.

I click on a few of the other cities that opened up at 10, and the same thing.  You need this club things password to actually look for tickets.

Meanwhile, the people who aren’t retarded like your humble blog narrator and either physically went to a tickemaster outlet, or called a ticketmaster 800 number are buying up tickets like mad.

At 10:05 I finally get it.

The best available seats are in the section that used to be the lawn, but are now seats that just aren’t under the roof.

So I’m going to see Roger Waters for the first time.  Roger will be in Mansfield, but my seats will be in Chelsea.

Thanks for nothing ticketmaster you cock suckers.

Oh yeah, the legal scalping fee they charged me was $10.75 per ticket.

I hope they rot in some really horrible yet brutally ironic hell.

I took today off from work and tried to have lunch at the sub shop I used to go to when I was a student at UMass Lowell… both times (9/89-12/91 & 9/00-5/04)

AND IT’S CLOSED!!!!!!!

Lena’s Teryaki Subs and All Kind Subs (note, there is not a typo there, that’s what the sign out front really said) on University Ave in Lowell is gone!

Next thing you know they’ll be telling me there’s no Santa or Easter Bunny or Jesus too!

Yes I stole that line from South Park… shoot me

If you know that spot then you know there is an off ramp just a few feet down the road from where you merge onto route 3.  When the traffic is heavy it tends to be a real mess.  Today it was drizzling, so it was a real mess.

I look to my left to see if I can change from the 1st lane to the 2nd lane.

I see a car facing me at about a 45 degree angle to the 2nd lane.  The douche bag was trying to take the exit from the 2nd lane… through my front seat.

I watch said douche bag for a second or too.  I figured I’d look the asshole in the eye as he hit my driver’s side door.

I look back in front of me…

Just in time to see me hit the car in front of me.

There are about a thousand really offensive, vile curse words that I can use to describe what I was feeling at that moment.

We pull over.  Fortunately the guy I hit was fine… we were only going about 3 miles an hour or so.  We were moving at walking speed… cause it was drizzling dontcha know.  Also, fortunately for him, his little pick up truck was fine.

My car however… the hood has a big honkin’ crack and there’s a nasty gouge taken out of the front bumper.

>Insert offensive curse word here<

I’m going to cash in one of my comp days tomorrow to take the car to a body shop (Patriot Auto Body in Tewksbury… I can plug businesses here, unlike my days in commercial free radio.) where they are probably going to tell me that my hood needs to be replaced.

Yeah… fun.

I can only hope that the before mentioned douche bag got run off the road and totalled his car at some point during his commute today.  The putz earned it.

On an unrelated note… it’s NHL playoff time which means my deep seated hatred of the Montreal Canadians multiplies 100 times.  I just watched them beat Carolina in double overtime.  That’s a Carolina team that’s chock full of former Lowell Lock Monsters.  I.  Really.  Hate.  The.  Montreal.  Canadians.

I’m down to the last 12 hours on-call and still the phone has not rung.  Thank whoever you thank for such things.

Friday, both of the NHL teams I’m pulling for lost game one of their quarter final playoff series.  Today however, all is right with the worlds.  The Hockey Gods have smiled upon those I favor.  (sorry, I’m watching the Lord of the Rings triology tonight -the extended versions of course… I’ll be up until about 2am- so the language might be a tad over-flowery)

San Jose spanked Nashville 3-0 to even the series at one game a piece.  Also, Edmonton surprised those damned Detriot Red Wings with a 4-2 win.  That series is now tied at one as well.

So on that front, all is well.

I’m jumping the gun a bit right now, but hopefully there will be a trip to The Border Cafe in Harvard Square next week.  I’ve got a bad Tejas Chicken craving, and so do my friends Larry and Kelli.  I think it’s inevitable at this point.  We would have gone this weekend if not for the whole on-call business.

Anyway, time to go back to Lord of the Rings… The Orcs are about to invade Helm’s Deep… proving that I have no life.

Good day

I’ve been an go-live on-call programmer four times now (counting this weekend) and I’ve already gotten more calls than some of the programmers who’ve been with the group for years.  Just lucky I guess.

So the NHL playoffs started last night.  Guess who didn’t win game one?  Either team I’m routing for!  San Jose lost to Nashville 4-3 (Joe Thornton had one really sweet assist) and Edmonton lost to Detroit 3-2 in double overtime (Sergei Samsonov had a goal).

Checking out the AHL playoffs, I am routing for one team, and routing against another team.  Same results.  The Providence Bruins got blown out in game one of their series with the Portland Pirates (I’m routing for Providence) and the Manchester Monarchs lead their series with the Hartford Wolfpack two games to one (I’m routing against Manchester… I hate them so).

So the hockey gods are pissing on my parade yet again.  Thanks hockey gods.

Go Sharks

Just a pointless piece of myspace goofyness:  The next person to read my blog will be the 300th overall.  Leave a comment if you think it’s you.

I’ll be sitting here staring at my cell phone and hoping it doesn’t ring.

Good Day