Friday, April 07, 2006
Yeah, now that's typical. Sign up to a site and the next day it breaks, and causes MY site to barf because I put an image there. Pfft.
The current page count is 6054.
Today's topic, is hockey. Leafs won't get to the playoffs, and you can blame who you like - there are plenty of culprits. Quinn for changing the lines too often, the players for sometimes turning up in body only ... take your pick. Injuries are always a bane, but look at other teams (Tampa springs to mind) and it's obvious that the Leafs are not alone with that issue. It's part of the game, but if a team is forever speaking of "the injuries wot dun us in" then either it's a whingeing team, or they really do have backroom problems with medical and physio staff. Either way, it's not going to get you a Stanley Cup - so change something, for Mackinaw's sake.
Eyes in Toronto now turn to the Jays for the chance of a winning team. At the risk or marginalising the Marlies, I suspect that nothing will be muttered about them until they're in the Calder Cup final. So let's just watch the ball game, shall we?
I was lucky enough to be at the season opener at Rogers Centre this week, and it was a great game. Superb atmosphere, and every had fun. I even walked past Lance Brown, but was moving too fast in the other direction to be able to take a photo. Shame, as my wife thinks he's great. Inside the stadium, you can tell they've applied a new lick of paint, and the new Jumbotron looks nice. One downer though, when the Jays scored home runs there were no fireworks. What's up with that?
So it's Friday, the Jays pulled off a 2-1 series win over the Twins, and the Leafs scrounged a point last night but again lost the shootout. If you ask me, the Leafs need to shoot the puck more.
The current page count is 6054.
Today's topic, is hockey. Leafs won't get to the playoffs, and you can blame who you like - there are plenty of culprits. Quinn for changing the lines too often, the players for sometimes turning up in body only ... take your pick. Injuries are always a bane, but look at other teams (Tampa springs to mind) and it's obvious that the Leafs are not alone with that issue. It's part of the game, but if a team is forever speaking of "the injuries wot dun us in" then either it's a whingeing team, or they really do have backroom problems with medical and physio staff. Either way, it's not going to get you a Stanley Cup - so change something, for Mackinaw's sake.
Eyes in Toronto now turn to the Jays for the chance of a winning team. At the risk or marginalising the Marlies, I suspect that nothing will be muttered about them until they're in the Calder Cup final. So let's just watch the ball game, shall we?
I was lucky enough to be at the season opener at Rogers Centre this week, and it was a great game. Superb atmosphere, and every had fun. I even walked past Lance Brown, but was moving too fast in the other direction to be able to take a photo. Shame, as my wife thinks he's great. Inside the stadium, you can tell they've applied a new lick of paint, and the new Jumbotron looks nice. One downer though, when the Jays scored home runs there were no fireworks. What's up with that?
So it's Friday, the Jays pulled off a 2-1 series win over the Twins, and the Leafs scrounged a point last night but again lost the shootout. If you ask me, the Leafs need to shoot the puck more.
Thursday, April 06, 2006
Eep.
I signed up to a blog tracking site, I have no idea why, and I'm starting to get traffic here again. Which means I suppose I should update it more often than every year.
So as an aide memoir, some topics I will be touching on in the near future will include hockey, beer, Canadian national politics, wildlife, travel, baseball, weather, online gaming, books, movies and TV. Should keep some of you interested enough to check back I hope.
I wish I had more interesting things to say about what's been going on chez nous since my last update. Alas, I do not. It's been a slog, a grind, a general malaise and the rut has well and truly been furrowed. Still the same job, same car, same house, even the same pants. Excitement has to be ordered in and usually comes with extra cheese & pepperoni.
For those who have been taking the slightest bit of notice, Canada has a new government now run by the Rt Hon Stephen Harper. He'll be Rt Hon until he dies, which is the way we do things here, kind of like any US president gets to be called Mr President forever. So along with a new PM, a few other things have changed, though not so you'd notice. Today's minor rant is about the Canadian ambassador to the US. It used to be Frank McKenna, and I saw a Rick Mercer interview with him and he seemed a cool guy. Good sense of humour, he outlined his stance on putting Canadian policies to the US, and I felt warm and fuzzy about this guy. When Harper became PM, McKenna offered his resignation because that's the done thing when governments change. The resignation was accepted and a new guy appointed.
Before I move onto the new guy, I was saddened a little that McKenna refused to put his name forward for leader of the Liberal Party, and therefore have a great shot at being the next PM. I said he gave me the warm and fuzzies, so I wanted to see how he'd do in the limelight. Ah well.
Back to Canada's new ambassador to the US. Michael Wilson. Yesterday, in his first speech as ambassador, he voiced his concern that the US/Canada border could become an "invisible barrier". Well duh. It's an international border, and as a European I expect to be required to hold a passport when I cross an international border. Yes, there are some areas of tight integration where there is freedom of movement, but I can't see the US/Canada border being one of them any time soon. We are not converging like the 25 Euro states - Canada has absolutely reaffirmed its sovereignty and even piss-poor "free" trade agreements like the appropriately named NAFTA have only shown how incompatible our respective core national policies are.
Applause, please, for trying to work closely with our largest trading partner, but to those who say that Canada needs the US more than the US needs Canada, please remember that trade is a two-way process and the importance of the Albertan oil sands has doubled/tripled/quadrupled in the past few years. Canada is a net exporter of oil. US president Bush has admitted that the US has an oil addiction. Do the math. Stand up, Canada.
I signed up to a blog tracking site, I have no idea why, and I'm starting to get traffic here again. Which means I suppose I should update it more often than every year.
So as an aide memoir, some topics I will be touching on in the near future will include hockey, beer, Canadian national politics, wildlife, travel, baseball, weather, online gaming, books, movies and TV. Should keep some of you interested enough to check back I hope.
I wish I had more interesting things to say about what's been going on chez nous since my last update. Alas, I do not. It's been a slog, a grind, a general malaise and the rut has well and truly been furrowed. Still the same job, same car, same house, even the same pants. Excitement has to be ordered in and usually comes with extra cheese & pepperoni.
For those who have been taking the slightest bit of notice, Canada has a new government now run by the Rt Hon Stephen Harper. He'll be Rt Hon until he dies, which is the way we do things here, kind of like any US president gets to be called Mr President forever. So along with a new PM, a few other things have changed, though not so you'd notice. Today's minor rant is about the Canadian ambassador to the US. It used to be Frank McKenna, and I saw a Rick Mercer interview with him and he seemed a cool guy. Good sense of humour, he outlined his stance on putting Canadian policies to the US, and I felt warm and fuzzy about this guy. When Harper became PM, McKenna offered his resignation because that's the done thing when governments change. The resignation was accepted and a new guy appointed.
Before I move onto the new guy, I was saddened a little that McKenna refused to put his name forward for leader of the Liberal Party, and therefore have a great shot at being the next PM. I said he gave me the warm and fuzzies, so I wanted to see how he'd do in the limelight. Ah well.
Back to Canada's new ambassador to the US. Michael Wilson. Yesterday, in his first speech as ambassador, he voiced his concern that the US/Canada border could become an "invisible barrier". Well duh. It's an international border, and as a European I expect to be required to hold a passport when I cross an international border. Yes, there are some areas of tight integration where there is freedom of movement, but I can't see the US/Canada border being one of them any time soon. We are not converging like the 25 Euro states - Canada has absolutely reaffirmed its sovereignty and even piss-poor "free" trade agreements like the appropriately named NAFTA have only shown how incompatible our respective core national policies are.
Applause, please, for trying to work closely with our largest trading partner, but to those who say that Canada needs the US more than the US needs Canada, please remember that trade is a two-way process and the importance of the Albertan oil sands has doubled/tripled/quadrupled in the past few years. Canada is a net exporter of oil. US president Bush has admitted that the US has an oil addiction. Do the math. Stand up, Canada.
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