Random Hockey Thoughts

This past Saturday I took the team to another rural tournament that was held at..., yep Buick Arena.  I can't believe I keep driving out to the sticks where I lived for two years and moved into town to escape.  Life is funny that way.

Anyway, the players on my team were showing a lack of motivation in wanting to acquire the puck from the other team.  So, I dipped into my coach's bag of inspirational comments and pulled out a gem.  I told the kids that they had to want the puck badly.  I told them to pretend that they were starving and the puck was a pork chop.  I know, I know.  Regardless, the was a moment of quiet on the bench and then I hear a little voice say, "I like pork chops.  They're my favourite food."  This led on to a bit of a conversation on the bench about how good pork chops were.  Clearly, this was not one of my highlights of coaching.

On a similar, but completely different note, I had a weird situation at my hockey game the next day.  I was in the shower and had just finished rinsing off.  The fellow at the shower next to me had just finished as well.  I was following him to the exit.  That was when he stopped to talk to the guy in the shower next to the exit.

The problem was that the fellow had stopped right in the middle of the exit.  I quickly sized up the space left between that fellow's butt and the edge of the door frame.  That was a no go.  So, I was there I stood soaking wet and getting colder by the minute.  Females will ask why I didn't just go around.  I had to think about that too.  I knew I wasn't going to squeeze by, but only on a gut level.  Later while thinking about it, I realized that  it is against the guy code to let any part of your naked body touch another guy's naked body.  I did not want to be the guy to cross that line.  The guy code is unwritten and we never talk about it, but it is rigid and every guy knows it.  Only a few social retards don't and that's a very big reason they are social outcasts and pushed to the edge of the herd for the predators to take first.

So, there are my random hockey thoughts.

Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld

I picked up this book after hearing some good things about it on The D6 Generation podcast.  They really didn't give much detail on the story, so I really didn't know much about it, other than it was young adult fiction and good.

The story is an alternate history set at the beginning of the First World War.  In the world of Leviathan, the great powers of Europe are divided into two large factions: the Clankers and the Darwinists.  The Clankers rely on machinery and mechanical means far beyond what our world had at the turn of the 20th century.  The Darwinists rely on genetically engineered animals to provide transportation, do work and provide power.

The story follows young Deryn Sharp who is a girl disguising herself as a boy in order to join the Royal Aircorp and fulfill her dream of flying.  The other protagonist is Aleksander, the son of the recently assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand.  The German military is seeking Alek to remove the only living heir to the Austria Hungarian Empire.  The two characters meet up on the living airship, Leviathan.

While this book is classified young adult, it is in the same class as the Harry Potter series.  The world Westerfeld creates is deep and is as much a part of the story as the plight of the main characters.  All of the machines and genetically altered beasties was fascinating to me.

The story is a nice romp.  It moves along quickly with enough action to keep it interesting, but also enough character development to make it a good story.

A really nice feature of this book is the wealth of black and white drawings included in it.  The drawings add a sense of the era the story takes place in.  The pictures are also quite amazing in their own right.  A nice touch.  More books should have pictures.  Sorry, for the primary teacher moment.

This book is intended for young adults, so there are not any really adult themes and it doesn't go too deep.  Frankly, it is a nice read for a cold winter day when you just want to have fun reading a book and not feel emotionally drained at the end.  I am looking forward to reading the sequel Behemoth.

Just Go With It

I just took Jen to see the new Adam Sandler flick Just Go With It.  While the premise of the movie was just about as dumb as you can get, it managed to be pretty funny.  Sandler did end up doing some of his stupid voices, which is always annoying, but that didn't ruin the movie.

The characters and much of the dialogue was pretty clever and I found myself laughing out loud many times during the movie.  Now, it must be noted that I generally like Adam Sandler's humour and style.  However, there were many people laughing out loud throughout the theater.

I also have to say, that while the movie focuses on the hot body of Brooklyn Decker (see every trailer),  Jennifer Aniston at 42 was certainly holding her own.  That woman is aging very gracefully.  Unfortunately, most of her Friends co-stars are not faring so well.

On the whole, I would recommend this movie to people that aren't overly concerned with artistic vision, but do want to laugh at some silly jokes and outrageous situations.

Happy Birthday to Me

Last week I had my 40th birthday.  I had been dreading this one for quite a while.  Most birthdays I would not even notice if it weren't for my wife.  She likes birthdays more than I do.  Anyway, I don't know what I didn't like about this birthday, but I was not looking forward to it.  Maybe it was that my life was over half over.  Not that I'm unhappy where I'm at, but wow, the fuel gauge is down to half empty, I'd better get my butt in gear and actually accomplish something.

My wife held a wonderful party with my friends and I had a great time.  We had lots of food, drinks and laughs.

We even tried out the Kinect for the Xbox 360.  One of my friends brought it over and we jumped, ducked, swatted and generally looked like fools for a couple of hours.  The Kinect is an amazing piece of hardware, but in my opinion, they don't have the software to go with it yet.  The game that we used was fun, but he novelty would wear off quickly and the Kinect would gather dust on top of the TV.  So, I think I'll keep the $150 in my pocket until there are better games.

So, I'm now 40 and working on another 40.  According to the pension people, I'll still be working for all of them!

The Law of Hockey and My F@#$ing Cat Pt. 2

First, I thought I should pass on something I learned from one of my Grade 1 hockey players.  In the dressing room yesterday, W's mom noticed that his brother had gone onto the ice without his neck protector.  She suggested that W take it out to his brother when he went onto the ice himself.  W got very agitated and hollered that his brother had to have the neck protector on right then because it was against the law of hockey to be on the ice without it.  I didn't know that.

My cat was at it again.  I went to hockey last week and when I put on my jersey it smelt pretty ripe.  Now, I'm not going to get on here and try and tell you that hockey equipment doesn't smell bad.  In fact, it smells like ass.  But my jersey had been washed just recently and it smelled like ass x2. 

So, I gave the jersey a bigger sniff.  I know.  When something smells bad, why do we take a big breath?  Anyway, I smelled harder and thought I caught a familiar scent.  So, I took out my other jersey from the bottom of my bag and didn't have to even take a small whiff.  The acrid smell of cat pee jumped out and punched me in the nose.  The other jersey was wet.  Really wet.  Luckily, the jersey I was wearing had only caught a bit of overspray on one sleeve.

That's right.  My old friend had taken a massive leak in the bottom of my hockey bag.

Well, I played that whole game smelling of cat pee.  Unfortunately, as my body temperature creeped up, so did the stink-o-meter.

I can tell you that I can't prove which one of my little freeloaders did the deed, but I can sure guess.  I KNOW it was the little bugger that had me wiener deep in the snow not that long ago.

Northern Machismo

There's something about the folk in the north that has been bugging me on and off for the past four years.  The problem is with the typical northerner's psyche.  There is this idea that they can endure anything because they are "tough".  For example, it was snowing and drifting like crazy last night and this morning and the school buses in our district were still running.  The buses in the district to the south were shut down.  When you talk to people in the schools, the reason you get is that we are tougher and we can handle these weather conditions.  I think it is important for people to differentiate between tough or brave and foolhardy.  In their desire to appear tough and rugged, many northerners only succeed in making foolish choices.

Another example of how tough northerners are, is when it comes to cold.  When it is crazy cold outside (somewhere south of minus retarded), you hear many say that it's not that cold outside.  We are tough up here and if you just dress for it, you can handle it.  Now these are usually the same people that will start their vehicles over an hour ahead of leaving home.  There is no mechanical reason to let a vehicle run that long, they just like to get into a warm car.  It is nothing to see long rows of gigantic trucks idling outside the movie theater or hockey rink while the owners are inside for the duration.  Why do the pollute the atmosphere so?  Well, what kind of tough guy (or girl) wants to set their delicate ass on a cold seat?

My F$@#ing Cat

Well, I just spent the last 45 minutes wandering our neighbourhood calling for a cat that had gone out early this afternoon and hadn't been heard from since.  My wife is much fonder of this cat than I am.  She was quite distraught at the missing feline.  So, out we went and wandered the snowy streets, looking like fools, calling out a cat's name.  Unfortunately, we saw nothing and heard nothing while out and about.

When we got home, Jen went out on the deck one last time and called London's name.  She said she heard him.  After listening I determined he was somewhere in the back yard.  Now, we've had quite a bit of snow over the last couple of weeks.  I plowed out into the back yard.  The snow was up to my crotch!  I'm not a tall man, but that's still pretty deep snow!  I chugged through the wiener deep snow, only pausing long enough to listen for pathetic meows from the back corner of the yard.  Of course the  little idiot managed to get to the farthest point in the yard possible.  When I finally made it to the far corner, the cat was peaking out from behind a sheet of chip board the previous owners had left leaned up against the shed.  It turns out that he had taken the fence most of the way around the yard and then jumped down at the back.  That is when the fool cat realized that the snow is deep in the front AND the back of the house.  So, we carried him back into the house where he promptly showed us his ass and went to get something to eat and fall asleep.


Sometimes I really hate that f$@#ing cat.