The View From Wisconsin

Summer colds are the worst things in the world. One little damp spell, suddenly you're sneezing and coughing and feeling like death warmed over. Meanwhile, people are outside, children are playing in the street, there's even ice cream trucks driving all over with their tinny music on speaker.

You, however, unable to breathe with a hunk of phlegm in your throat, want to just yell at them to shut the bleep up. If, of course, you could actually talk.

Anyways... I'm somewhat back to normal (if you can call my life "normal"). So, on with the countdown and some late observations:

• It was no surprise that Phil Kessel was not drafted by the Chicago Blackhawks. Jack Skille would have beat his brains in during training camp. I know, Kessel's a Wisconsin boy, but he burned his bridges when he decided to head to Minnesota instead of staying in Wisconsin. If he had, he'd be a National Champion player by now. Pity.
  
• Tristar Productions, a memorabilia company based out of Texas, has been putting together its own "Hidden Treasures" sports card packs in recent years. Last year, their baseball packs had you trying to find the Honus Wagner card - which, if you read the fine print, was just a certificate that let you in to a final "card opening" at the All-Star Game to see who got the actual Wagner card. This year, they're doing the same for hockey cards. Only one problem: I drew a card that I cannot, for the life of me, figure out what set or year it is from. I know the manufacturer: In The Game (ITG for short), and I know the release year (2003). But the set number? No clue. An Owen Nolan card, listed as F-11. I've actually e-mailed them with a scan of the card, and asked if they could tell me what set it's from.
  
• You know you are a net.geek when you spend an entire evening going through the archives of a webcomic, for the sole purpose of just trying to figure out the storyline behind the whole thing.
  
• In a way, I'm happy that the USA didn't get out of group play at the World Cup. If they had, that would have meant soccer enthusiasts in this country would have demanded more attention. And heaven help us if team USA would have actually won the tournament. I think there are some countries where a US World Cup victory would have meant an exchange of tactical nuclear weaponry.
  
• I'm slowly getting used to McAfee's Security Suite of programs, but I just have one bone to pick with it: the SpamKiller module slows Outlook 2K3 down to the speed of orca scat. I keep it disabled so I don't have to wait about 10 minutes for my e-mail to be readable. Keep in mind I'm on a puter with a 2.2 Ghz chip and running with 1.37 Gb of RAM. Can you imagine what it'd be like on a slower machine?