Maggie the Monkey is 1-6 while my Mom is 7-0 at this point, in playoff prognostication. Overall, we’ve picked the upsets correctly, (with the exception of NJ/Philly, which was split 6-7 the wrong way.) That doesn’t bode well for the Leafs tonight, thought we were somewhat split on that one too.

We’re a collective 67-24 heading into tonight, which is to say that we’re doing well - our record at the end of the first round will be either 73-31 or 74-30. Of course, depending on the outcome tonight, all of us picking the favorite would have wound up with a 78-26 or 65-39 record.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “I’m telling you the light would work better if it pointed out to sea.” - Man in lighthouse

I don’t know what’s more disturbing - how well we’ve been doing as a whole with the predictions thing, or that Mom is beating me (and everyone else who isn’t 5-0.) On the other hand, there haven’t been any upsets yet, so that certainly explains it. The series that are left to finish are the ones where the majority picked an upset, so other than the NJ/Philly thing, we’ve picked the favorites, and been right, so far.

I’ll be impressed if Montreal, Calgary and Ottawa win their series, which would bring the collective “us” 7-1 in the first round. I’m sure that at least one of those series will go against our majority pick though.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “My name is Otto, I looove to get blotto” - Otto

The Habs game was strange last night. I think Boston outplayed Montreal quite badly, and yet, the scoreboard went the other way. It’s a strange series, in that the wrong team has won 3 out of 5 games (Game 1 and Game 3 are the exceptions, in my opinion) I’m looking forward to game 6 on Saturday night, though I don’t know if I’ll be able to watch it live, or maybe wait until Sunday morning.

On a completely unrelated note, when I was a youngster, I would have loved to see HowToons in the Sunday comics.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Marge, am I going crazy, or is my back getting hairier?” - Homer

I’m not a fan of any particular sports team. You can call me a Habs fan, you can call me a Riders fan, but since fan is short for “fanatic” I don’t think I qualify. I do like those teams, better than other teams in their respective leagues, but I’m not fanatical about them. I don’t go out of my way to buy souvenir merchandise that has the logos, and I don’t get too upset when they lose. The reason is because I tend to be more of a fan of the sport itself.

I am a fan of the CFL. I love Canadian football. I will go out of my way to watch any little bit of CFL action that I can get my hands on. It’s an exciting sport, even if the players aren’t making millions. It’s high paced, top flight action, from start to finish. A lot of people would scoff at me to hear me say that not every NFL’er would fit into the CFL, but it’s true. The CFL requires a slightly different athlete than the NFL. Some NFLers would keel over after the first quarter of CFL paced football. That’s not a knock against the NFL, since a lot of NFL players could come to the CFL and be dominating. It’s a statement that the two leagues are a lot more different than you’d think.

I’m a fan of hockey. Not just NHL, but any high tempo, fast paced, quick skating, hard hitting, big shot-big save game of hockey. I haven’t been to a Blades or Huskies game in a couple of years, but I think that when William is old enough, I will take him to a lot of games - both Blades and Huskies.

So, that’s why it doesn’t bother me when people say mean things about the Habs, or the Riders. Yeah, Kovalev and Ribero were pretty dumb. I feel fine admitting that here. Doesn’t change the fact that I will be cheering for them tonight. At the same time, if they get eliminated tonight, I’m not going to go into a funk and stop watching hockey. There is too much entertaining hockey being played this year, and it could be a while before we see NHL calibre hockey on TV again.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “And I’ll STILL kiss your butt and call it ice cream!” - Homer

Last night I was thinking about what went wrong with my athletic career. All through elementary school, I was one of the athletic kids, I played sports, and enjoyed phys. ed. more than most. As I’ve said before, I wasn’t necessarily one of the elite athletes, but I was nearer the top of the barrel than the bottom. Then highschool hit, and I seemed to lose interest. Phys ed was a chore - far and away my least favorite class. I couldn’t wait until grade 11, when I could stop taking phys ed. I stopped playing hockey after grade 9, and haven’t been involved with organized sport since (though I did try out for a baseball team in grade 12, and didn’t make the cut - not surprising, since I hadn’t played in over 5 years.)

So, what happened? I think there were a couple of things that conspired to drain my desire for physical activity. First, I got interested in computers, and specifically BBS’s. I spent a lot of time online, talking to people, playing games, and not much else. My parents got a second phone line for me (and my older brother) because we were always on the phone (for the BBSs.) So, that kept me inside a fair amount, and instead of running around playing tag, or hide and go seek, or Donkey, I was inside playing Trade Wars and Pyroto Mountain, or talking to the people on The Asylum.

So, that accounts for my decreased extra-curricular activities. What caused me to hate Gym class? I think a lot of it had to do with my Grade 9 gym teacher. To him, Gym wasn’t supposed to be fun, it was supposed to be hard work. We’d start out by running laps for a few minutes, then we’d do pushups for a while, situps, jumping jacks, etc. None of those things are fun (to me.) So, I’ve started off not having fun, right at the start of class. Then, despite the fact Gym was pass/fail, we were graded on everything. How many times can you sink a layup in 60 seconds, how many tennis serves can you put in a specific area out of 10 tries, how close to the center of the target can you get. These are all individual sports, and that’s what I remember grade 9 gym being about. There’s nothing wrong with individual sports, but the key is that to enjoy them, you have to realize that you’re really competing against yourself. That was never stressed, or even mentioned, as far as I know. We were graded, and stacked up publicly against everyone in our class, and everyone in the other classes.

What’s that? You can’t flexed arm hang for five minutes? You have been measured, and found lacking.

At least that’s how it seemed to me. I don’t remember tracking my scores against my own previous scores, just against everyone else in the class. When you’re consistently 10th (or whatever,) you’re not seeing improvement, and so then, what’s all the work for? Maybe my competetive spirit is broken though.

I really wish that I’d realized all of this back when I was in highschool, because I associated Gym class with all physical activity, and found that I didn’t like it anymore. Instead, I should have signed up for a school team - football, or soccer, or something. Team sports always have appealed to me because of the community aspect of it, much the same way that BBSs grabbed me, because, while I’m an introvert, I do like working towards a common goal with groups of people. I really like playing multiplayer co-op video games much more than deathmatch.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “I’m gonna make you an omlette!” - Barney

I mentioned the X Prize before (though apparently I didn’t link to it properly.) Anyway, one of the entrants is the da Vinci Project, based out of Canada. They’re planning on doing a test launch this summer some time, from Kindersley, which isn’t too far from here. I mentioned it to Erin, and I think we might try to make it to the inagural test launch during some summer holidays. Worst case scenario, we get some camping done.

Simpson’s quote of the day:
Announcer: “It’s a lovely day for a launch, here, live at Cape Canaveral, at the lower end of the Florida Peninsula, and the purpose of today’s mission is truly, really electrifying.”
Announcer 2: That’s correct, Tom. The lion’s share of this flight will be devoted to the study of the effects of weightlessness on tiny screws.”
Announcer: “Unbelievable, and just imagine the logistics of weightlessness. And of course, this could have literally millions of applications here on Earth — everything from watchmaking to watch repair.”

This past long weekend, William wanted to wake up early every day. I say wanted, but what I mean is that he did. So, we decided to take him to the mall playground, to run him around, and get him tired out. While we were there, I thought I’d drop by WorkWorld to pick up a lifetime warranty card for my boots - the soles of which are starting to show their age.

As we were walking towards WorkWorld, I had William on my shoulders, and he started to whistle.

Not just a little bit either, and not just quietly. He was whistling as loud as I ever have, with a pretty good sound to it. Erin thinks he picked it up from her uncle Jim, and I’m inclined to agree, since neither Erin nor I are very good whistlers. It was pretty shocking anyway.

When we finally got to WorkWorld, it had already left. I guess I’ll have to get my lifetime warranty card from somewhere else, so I can send my boots in.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “At the risk of being unpopular, this reporter places the blame on you the viewers.” - Kent Brockman