Today marks the first day of the Riders off-season. They played a really entertaining game yesterday, but came up short - or wide, as the case may be. I thought I’d share my thoughts on the game - a really entertaining example of what the CFL can provide. If you’re American, or otherwise not interested in Canadian Football, please feel free to direct your attention here, where I’m assured there will be new content within the next 6 hours.

First off… The Riders played a really good game offensively. They moved the ball when they had to, and ate up a lot of clock in the process. Once again, they scored too soon, but you can hardly fault them for that too much. People will be disappointed that McCallum missed those two fieldgoals, and apparently a bunch of yahoos want to run him out of town, by dumping manure on his driveway. Intensely stupid, and classless. Paul McCallum is easily one of the top 3 kickers in the league, and if you send him packing, who will be doing the kicking next year? The kicker is an important position in the CFL, and you see it time and time again - when the kicker struggles, so does the team. Calgary - no kicker, Ottawa - no kicker, Hamilton - no kicker. Having a solid, established kicker is almost as important as having a solid, established QB.

Second, Henry Burris had a good game. It would have been nice if they’d been able to punch the ball into the endzone a couple of more times, but overall, they drove the ball down the field, despite having their running game shut down. He made the reads, and got the ball to the open receiver. He completed 72% of his passes, and threw for over 400 yards. I don’t care what team you’re playing for, those are good numbers. Printers and Dickensen both had hefty completion %’s as well. The difference in the game was that BC was making the tackles the first time. There were several times where the first Rider on the scene was shrugged off, and the receiver ran for another 10 yards before being tackled. Even that could be accounted for if they took away the big plays, but all three of BC’s TD’s were a direct result of a “big play.” Specifically, the QB got outside of the containment, and found a man open for a big gain on each of those drives. It’s easy to pin that on the secondary, but honestly, the front seven had some breakdowns on those plays. It’s really unfortunate, because they played phenomenally for most of the game.

What that game cemented though, was the importance of having a balanced attack at your disposal - with Nealon in, and the ground game stopped, the Riders don’t have much offensive potential. 416 yards is two good games worth of passing from Nealon. That underscored to me, that they need to resign Smilin’ Hank. They also need to resign Matt Dominguez, who is as dominating a receiver as the Riders have had for a very long time.

One other thing that I should mention about the game - the officiating. It was awful, in both directions. The key thing is — that’s how it’s been all year long (except they maybe make more calls usually.) People who claim that the officials gave the game to BC were watching it with blinders on, because there were a lot of penalties that went uncalled in both directions. It’s really easy to see bias where there’s really just incompetence. The CFL claims that they’re going to spend a lot of money to improve their officiating in the off season - including adding instant replay to their arsenal. That’s good, but it’s still going to be a fact that there will be missed calls, and the better teams will overcome them, while the poorer teams will use them as an excuse. It’s also really easy to criticize them when you haven’t walked a mile in their shoes. Honestly, it’s amazing how many calls they do get right - that long incompletion to Thurmon(?) was a really tough call, but they got it right, the first time. There were a number of really close plays that would have been really easy to miss the calls on, but they got them right more often than not.

At the end of the day though, it was a really entertaining football game, and the only thing that I would criticize about it is the OT format. That “shootout” crap may fly in the regular season, but I’d rather see two five minute halves or something first. Sudden death obviously isn’t the answer, but neither is the shootout (in my opinion.)

Simpson’s quote of the day: “This patient is dying, uh oh, better pull the plug.” - Dr. Nick

Rememberance day is a big deal here in Canada. Literally everyone buys a poppy and wears it, to show their gratitude for those veterans who gave their lives for their countries, and to help fund the Royal Canadian Legion, which supports those veterans who made it back alive. It always makes me proud to wear the poppy, to think of the sacrifices that were made by an entire generation of our countrymen (and countrywomen.)

While I don’t think Canadians are as flagrantly patriotic as Americans (maybe flagrantly is a poor word.) My perception is that Rememberance Day is a much bigger deal here in Canada than Veterans day is in the US. Please, if you’re one of my American readers, feel free to post disagreement with me on this topic. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that anyone has forgotten the sacrifices of their soldiers, it’s just that Veterans day doesn’t seem to have the same impact as Rememberance Day.

I especially can’t think of Rememberence day without remembering my grandparents who fought in WW2, and are no longer with us.

In Flanders Fields
In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch, be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields


- John McCrae

(Title is a reference to one of William’s current favorite books - Zoom City would have to be up there too…)

Anyway…Things have been fairly hectic at work lately. They just hired a couple of new people in the department - one of which is in my area. He’s been here since last week, so I’ve spent a fair amount of time working with him, showing him some of the ropes. It’s a nice refresher on some of the interesting/complicated stuff that we’ve done here, that I maybe just take my knowledge of for granted. On the other hand, it means that some of my other work gets pushed back a bit, and with Sarbanes Oxley deadlines looming, that’s not a good thing. It’s all fallout from the Enron/Worldcom fiascos, but it strikes me as a little funny. It’s not like there was some nameless programmer who perpetrated those heinous crimes, but ultimately, it’s the nameless programmers, accountants etc. that are going to wind up with a lot of upheaval in their lives.

Don’t get me wrong, most of the Sarbanes Oxley stuff makes a lot of sense, and it’s giving us a chance to get some controls in place that we otherwise wouldn’t have had time for. On the other hand, I’ve spent a lot of time working on projects that won’t ultimately add to the bottom line of the company — they’ll just help prevent the CEO from going to jail. That’s a good thing too, I guess.

I had a bit of a computer disaster at home - I plugged in a computer, and the power supply went into overdrive, and burned itself out. I’m hoping that none of the components got affected (and I don’t think they were) but for the time being, I can’t really test it out. It was a really old machine, so it’s not a big deal (I think I could replace it for around $20 if the HD/optical drives are ok) but it leaves me without a desktop machine until after we move, when I was planning on replacing it anyway. I guess that’s less than three weeks now, so I should be able to survive :) It was a pretty strange thing though - I don’t think I’ve ever seen a machine do that before. The keyboard lights were blinking like crazy, and the DVD burner ejected the tray halfway before the power supply toasted itself completely. It took less than 10 seconds in total.

So that’s the news from here.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Whoa-ho! A talking dog! What were you guys smokin’ when you came up with that?” - Otto

My struggles with the comment spammer continue. For what it’s worth, I’ve won the battle to this point, and not a lick of comment spam exists on this site. The measures I have put in place should prevent any from ever showing up again, while still ensuring that legitimate comments are not lost. Worst case scenario, I will have to manually moderate the comments, but I will not let some stupid spammer force me to turn comments off.

That’s not the reason for the title of my post though. The real reason is because I’ve been watching the show “Lost” lately. I mentioned it to Dave when they were in town visiting last time (or he mentioned it to me, I don’t remember) and so we both fired up a download to catch up on the show. It’s not 100% necessary to see all the episodes in order, but what I’ve seen so far has led me to want to do that. The premise is that a plane crashed on a mysterious tropical island. I won’t divulge too much more than that, but to say that it’s a really well done show (for as much of it as I’ve seen) with a good ensemble cast. I’ve seen four episodes, and they’ve all been pretty good. There are certain things that you have to just suspend disbelief over (only example I can think of is the dog whistle - what a monumentally bad idea) but nothing that really takes you out of the show.

I’m struck by how poorly a lot of people are taking the election in the South. Granted, there were some oddities with the election (one E-voting machine in Ohio counted an extra 3900 votes for Bush - and there were only 700 votes on the machine total…) but overall, Bush won with a majority of the popular vote. There are a lot of people saying things like “I’m moving to Canada,” which is responded with “Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.” which really blows me away. I love Canada, and I can understand why someone might want to live here instead of the US (I mean, I do after all) but I don’t understand why the outcome of an election would be impetus to move. Give me a break. Bush having won the election will not make any major changes in most people’s lives. If you’re unhappy with the direction that the government is going, that’s fine, and it’s your prerogative to leave the country, but things like the Patriot Act, the DMCA, and the Induce act weren’t going to just go away if Kerry won. If anything they’d have been followed by a bunch of “friends.” I guess it’s a case of straw meeting camel’s back for some of these people. If they’re looking for utopia though, they’ll quickly come to realize that they haven’t found it here either.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “I hope you enjoyed my one-man pie fight, kids!” - Krusty

In an attempt to cut down on the automated comment spam that I’ve been receiving here lately, I turned comment moderation up a little too high. As a result, a couple of comments that were made got stuck in the queue for a bit. It wasn’t my intent to actually moderate any valid comments, just to catch the comments of this particular jerkwad who wants to advertise his poker site via my web server without paying me to do so.

I’m all about the free speech…Just not the free advertising.

So, after having watched the election results last night, I have to say that the US networks that we get up here have a lot to learn about covering an election from the Canadian networks. The coverage was only distinguished from any other typical night on their news programming by the ticker on the screen showing current electoral college votes, and the occasional discussion of a particular state. To get good information (or “news” as it used to be called) instead of punditry, a person had to go to the internet, which wasn’t really an option where I was. Pretty sad.

With that out of the way, I’d like to mention the results, and my take on them. First, as may come as quite a shock to a lot of you, I’m not really disappointed that Bush was re-elected. I think he’ll be better than Kerry would have been for Canada economically. Likewise, I wouldn’t have been too disappointed if Kerry had won, because he perhaps would have been more tactful internationally than the current administration has been.

Second, something that has really disturbed me in the runup to the election, and the subsequent discussion that I’ve seen discussing the results, is the insane opinion that for someone to disagree with your position, they must be either stupid, or uninformed. I’ll grant that there were probably lots of stupid and uninformed people who voted for Bush, but there were probably just as many stupid and uninformed people who voted for Kerry. That’s the nature of stupid and uninformed people - they sometimes agree with your intelligent and well informed opinion by accident. Especially when it comes to something where there are only two options. It is entirely possible for a person to be well informed, and intelligent, and for them to come to completely different opinions of the same situation. Anyone who thinks differently is stupid and uninformed (just kidding…)

I watched the Daily Show coverage of the election, and it really brought home the fact that The Daily Show is completely misunderstood by a lot of people. For some reason, they really seemed to attract the anti-Bush crowd - probably because they call the administration on their mistakes. The pro-Bush side views this as obviously being biased toward the Democrats, but in reality, it’s biased against the current administration. Quite simply, the challenger doesn’t have as much chance to screw up enough to write comedy about. I think The Daily Show actually did a fairly good job of remaining objective, even though most of it’s fans clearly did not. The funny thing is that people will disagree with me on this point, but most of them have never watched much of the show. I’ve watched it pretty regularly since before the 2000 election actually, and while there have certainly been a lot of bits that could be construed as anti-Bush, there have also been a lot of bits that were poking fun at the Democrats. What’s interesting is that the Bush hating crowd seems to not care so much about the Democrat bashing, and continues to pass around the clips of Bush bashing on the net. Meanwhile, I’d bet there are very few Republicans who watch the show regularly. Those that do, obviously have a sense of humour about it, and take it for what it is - satire. Jon Stewart’s infamous Crossfire appearance really underscores what their target is - media. The media have become lackeys of the politicians on both sides, and as a result, people aren’t asking the tough questions anymore, or they accept glib answers, because that’s what makes “entertaining” news. It’s disturbing to me that the two campaigns combined to spend $600 million on advertising for the election. Instead of winding up with the best man for the job, you wind up with the best rich man willing to do the job. Let’s be honest here, the average middle class schmuck has about as much chance of ever becoming President as Osama has of being invited to the White House for Thanksgiving turkey.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Lousy teachers, trying to palm off our kids on us!” - Homer

In case you weren’t previously aware, there is an election occurring in the Southern Province today. I’ve heard a lot about it, and expect to hear a lot more before it’s all over, but what strikes me particularly is how interested the rest of the world is in this election. This is the first time that I remember hearing about groups of people getting together to watch the election results come in from the US. I didn’t even get together with people to see our last election results, and yet I’m heading out tonight to watch the numbers roll in with some friends. Supposedly it’s the most important US election that I’m ever likely to see. I doubt that. I really think there will be more important ones to come - I plan to live a long time.

What’s sad, is that a lot of people don’t have any choice on that ballot. There are traditional Democrat supporters who disagree with Kerry over various policies, strongly even, but he’s “better than the alternative” and there are traditional Republican supporters who disagree with Bush (strongly even) over various policies. There tend to be more of them that would rather vote for Kerry for some reason, than members of the first group who will vote for Bush. For what it’s worth, I think both candidates are further “Right” than those people would like (ie, Bush is further “Right” than some Republicans would like, and Kerry is further “Right” than some Democrats would like) which is probably why - Kerry’s policies move closer to the traditional Republican ideals than the Dems would like, which leaves them with what, Nader? :) That’s all obviously informal, with no substantive proof offered, but that’s my take on things. Personally, I’d probably vote for one of the “other” candidates that doesn’t have a shot, but I’m not saying which…People say that that’s “throwing a vote away” but I disagree. I think that voting for a candidate that you disagree with “less” than the other candidate is the absolute wrong way to go, and a mockery of the democratic ideals that the US is founded upon. It’s entirely possible that 75% of the population actually would prefer some third party, but each and every one of those people has been brainwashed into believing that if they exercise their right to choose they are “throwing their vote away” and so they wind up voting for the same old same old. Lets be honest, elections aren’t won on issues anymore, they’re won via fundraising, and poking holes in your opponent. It’s not “may the best man win,” it’s “may the least bad man win.”

It’s like that joke where two guys out hiking, and they see a bear, and the one guy stops to tie his shoe, because he doesn’t have to outrun the bear, he just has to outrun the other guy.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos.” - Homer

William dressed up as Superman (or Soup-man, if you listen to him say it.) We took him to the mall for a brief trick-or-treat session and he enjoyed the candy that he received, then we went to mom & dad’s to carve up the pumpkin and the regular Sunday night dinner. Erin and Mom made some pumpkin pie, and a good time was had by most. William got a little upset when he got himself trapped in a dark bedroom and managed to close the door. He only screamed for a couple of minutes before I rescued him :) He seems ok with it though.

It was one of the nicer Hallowe’ens that we’ve had in a long time (weather wise) so there seemed to be a lot of kids out. I expected that there would be more in the late afternoon, but they didn’t seem to start coming around until about 6:30.

We move at the end of this month, which is creeping up pretty quickly. Four weeks from now, we’ll be in the new house, and unpacking.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Oh, you Americans with your due process and fair trials.'’ The Devil - (who looked like Flanders)