Today’s post is brought to you by the number 4 and the letters C and H.

When I was waiting for the bus yesterday on the way home from work, these four young kids came around the corner and kind of stopped to look around. Then, one by one they took off down the street. First, the two on skateboards, then the one on rollerblades, then finally, the fourth kid, looking kind of tired and flushed, shrugged his shoulders, and ran off after them. It was kind of comical, since they didn’t seem to be trying to ditch the running kid, but at the same time they didn’t really slow down for him either.

Ok, so maybe you had to be there.

Anyway, then I was sitting on the bus looking out the window, and just as the bus was approaching the terminal, I spotted four jelly filled donuts sitting in the gutter. Two of them had quite clearly been run over, with the other two awaiting the same fate. It was just an odd thing to see laying in the gutter, but not quite so odd as the four casters that were laying not four inches away. I have no idea why there would be four casters laying loose in the gutter, but there they were, right next to four jelly filled donuts.

So you see, I had no doubt that the Habs would win their fourth game of the playoffs last night :)

The game was decent, with Theodore making many many spectacular saves. The best of the bunch came when he reached behind his back and punched the puck away. Some people seem to think that it hit his stick (which he’d dropped), but from every angle that I’ve seen it, it appears to hit the inside of his blocker (between the “glove” part and the “blocker” part) Either way, an incredible save. Carolina is next I guess, and that should be an interesting series, if for no other reason than I know absolutely nothing about the Hurricanes. I’m picking Montreal of course :) My picks for the second round will go up tomorrow, but feel free to send yours in before then. Of course the first game in the second round is tomorrow night, so don’t dawdle too much on getting your picks in.

I’ve updated the playoffs page (actually I’ve been doing it all along) to reflect the second round matchups that have been decided already. Check it out.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “*gasp* It’s the four elephants of the apocalypse!” - Flanders

Montreal pulled out the big win in Boston Saturday afternoon, so tonight, they try to close out the series at home. Finally Jose Theodore stole a game in the playoffs - though to be fair, he’s played fairly consistently throughout, the bounces just finally went his way.

Should make for a good game tonight, with both teams realizing that it’s a must win - Montreal does not want to go back to Boston, and Boston does not want to go golfing just yet.

I rented a couple of games this weekend, and borrowed a bunch more. Rented “Simpson’s Road Rage” which is a “Crazy Taxi” knockoff with the Simpson’s theme to it. It’s fun, but like Crazy Taxi itself, the game kind of gets old after a short while. I do think it’s the type of game that’s fun to pick up for five or ten minutes every now and then. The only problem with it is the load times between levels, which are entirely too long.

I also rented StuntGP, which sucks (in my opinion.) I didn’t even play it for half an hour, because the controls were so crappy. Plus, I had to look in the manual to find out what button does what. I shouldn’t have to do that - the controller config screen should label buttons. I don’t want to bother to find out what the differences between config A, B and C are, just show me on the screen.

I borrowed Spiderman from Dave, and a bunch of other games from Bryan/Darren (I’m not sure who owns what - I think they’re all Bryan’s, but since Darren is the one that lent them out, I thought I’d give him some credit) TTT, MGS2, GTA3, all the famous acronyms. Al was over for most of Saturday, and we played a bunch of them, but not all. It turns out that I still had DOA2 from the last time I borrowed it. I’ll have to return that one :)

We went out in the middle of the day and tossed the frisbee around a bit, which was fun, and likely a very good idea - I’m signed up for an Ultimate team this year, so I’ll have to get in a little better shape soon. I’m not sure when the season starts or anything like that, but it should be fun.

Long update today…

Simpson’s quote of the day: “You hurt me! Nothing gives you that right.” - Milhouse

Last night in the game between Montral and Boston, Kyle McLaren hit Richard Zednik with a brutal elbow/clotheline to the head, breaking his jaw, dislocating his knee, and giving him a concussion. The injuries will keep Zednik from playing until at least next season.

Zednik had been arguably Montreal’s most dangerous offensive threat, with 8 points in 4 games, and his loss is a big one. The hit was a stupid one, but I don’t think it was as bad as some that I’ve seen - for example Tie Domi’s elbow last year, which was obviously not a “heat of the battle” elbow. That said, I don’t think McLaren should play again in this year’s playoffs. Domi deserved a lot longer suspension than he got last year, and I suspect we’ll be saying the same thing about McLaren once the decision comes down.

The game turned ugly after that hit (well, honestly it turned ugly before that, but it got REALLY ugly then) with 1:17 to go, and down three goals, Montreal didn’t have much of a realistic comeback chance, so Therrien sent out his boys with instructions to maim. My hope is that cooler heads will prevail in game 5 tomorrow, and Montreal will get the best revenge possible, by eliminating the Bruins from the playoffs. Get your pound of flesh next season if you feel you need to, but show some discipline during the playoffs, because otherwise you’ve got no chance. Especially since Boston is the bigger/more physical team. No offense to Saku or Oleg, but I don’t think they’re going to do much damage to a Joe Thornton.

If the series turns into a brawlfest, not only do I not give the Habs much of a chance, but even if they do win the series, what kind of shape are they going to be in to play the next one. No, I hope they really keep their cool, and just shoot out the lights…

Interesting link that I thought I should post - its a lego-style person configuration thingy. Enjoy it.

Simpsons quote of the day: “Diggity! Highly dubious!” - Martin

The theme for today’s post is funny signs seen/not seen in crowds at sporting events.

My youngest brother, disgusted with the way his beloved Maple Leafs lost last night, came up with Cujo Blows Chunks. I personally like Curtis (or Cujo if you prefer) Boinks Children as well. Ok, maybe that was tasteless. How about Cujo Be Cryin’. Hmmm Chips Beer and Canadiens - nothing beats that.

Feel free to suggest your own - they don’t have to use CBC either (see “The Isles are Sinkin’ says Abe Lincoln” as seen in Toronto held by a guy dressed as Lincoln - it’s funny, but not “ha ha” funny)

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Stupid TV. Be more funny.” - Homer

The game was pretty exciting last night - lots of back and forth, with Montreal weathering the second period storm, and coming back from two goals down in the third to win the game.

Plus, I did a complete re-install of my OpenBSD server at home, which worked so well that I thought I’d switch the site over to it. So, if you’re reading this, it means that you’re seeing the new(old/my) server. If you’re not, you’ll just have to wait a bit for the DNS changes to take effect :P

I’m continually impressed with the quality of the OpenBSD installation. Yes, it’s all text based, but it’s pretty simple to have a powerful system set up in no time flat. I mean, I formatted my drive last night, and had my web server running, with all the stuff imported etc. in less than 4 hours, which included watching a hockey game - ie. I’d set the install doing something, then walk away and watch hockey, then pause the game for 30 seconds, come back and set it doing something else, lather, rinse, repeat.

There are still a couple of things that I want to configure on it, but for the most part it’s no big deal, and shouldn’t even require a reboot.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “If something’s hard to do then it’s not worth doing.” - Homer

It’s my week to stock the fridge with water and pop this week. Next week too apparently. I went down to the supply room to get some water to fill up the fridge this morning, and there was none there. I guess everyone is going to have to deal with drinking water from the tap, like me :)

I’m working on getting my server set up properly to do everything that I need it to. I figured I’d do a reinstall of OpenBSD from scratch, since B2 requires different things that I hadn’t installed, and couldn’t get to install with the way I’d set things up. Last night I got a good chunk of the server installed, all I have to do now is finish setting up the databse, and install PHP support, then configure the whole thing so that it’s both secure and functional.

For now, that doesn’t mean anything to you, I’m sure, but at some point this site will move over to my server, and you’ll probably have a slight delay before the DNS gets updated, where you’ll be looking at the old server. Everything should go smoothly though, right?

Habs play tonight. I’m looking forward to it, but I hope that they don’t do what Vancouver did, and lose the first home game. This game is pretty important, with the series being tied. I expect some solid defensive hockey tonight, with Theodore stealing the game for the home town crowd.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Yeah right lady. An elephant ran through your front yard. Ok sure Mister, an elephant just knocked over your mailbox. Yeah right buddy. Liquor store robbery, officer down. And I’m Edward G. Robinson.” - Chief Wiggum

Well, despite playing a decent game (other than the first 10 minutes or so) the Habs lost 6-4 last night. I’ve been watching the Habs for a long time now, and this team has shown me something that I don’t remember seeing recently. A lot of teams would give up if they were down 4-0 that early, but they fought hard, and made a bit of a comeback, though it fell a bit short. If not for the puck that jumped over Zednik’s stick at the end of the first, Boston would have been in some serious trouble.

We fixed the neighbour’s fence yesterday, which took very little time, and looks really good now (compared to before, when it looked like a car had run into it…) After that, we did a bunch of yard work, cleaning up the garden, and flowerbeds. It was nice to get to spend some time outside, the weather was gorgeous, not too hot, not too cool. Things are looking pretty good back there, so we’re hoping that it warms up enough to plant stuff in the next couple of weeks. Erin wants to put up a fence in the back, and have climbing strawberries on it. Should be nice, and not too much work. It will make the back yard more appealing to sit outside and read or browse the web or something.

I thought I should let you know that the site may experience some server related difficulties in the coming days - specifically I may be moving the site onto my own machine at some point in the next couple of weeks. I’ll keep you posted as things develop.

Simpsons quote of the day: “You can’t treat the working man this way! One day, we’ll form a union and get the fair and equitable treatment we deserve. And then we’ll go to far and get corrupt and shiftless and the Japanese will eat us alive!” - worker boy in 1909