The View From Wisconsin

It's getting to be a running joke.

At the beginning of the season, I didn't get a chance to see Alexander Radulov play for the Admirals, because my first home game wasn't until the end of October. By that time, he had been called up to the Predators.

Then, he managed to stick for a few games while the Preds had some players healing from injuries. About mid-November, he ended up back in Milwaukee - in between the time I had tickets on my partial STH plan.

Right before Thanksgiving, when I was slated to see the Admirals again - he's called up to Nashville. This time he stays until this past weekend.

Now, I could have gone to the game on Saturday afternoon - actually thought about it for a while. But, I decided I'd rather spend some quality time with the wife around the area. I figured that with all the people coming back to the Preds, I'd be able to catch him when the Ads came back from the All-Star Break.

Damn if it didn't happen again: the Preds announce on Sunday that Rads and Upshall have been called back up to Nashville.

Part of me wonders if Poile is doing this to me intentionally, just to tick me off.

So, how many times has your place of employment been mentioned in ESPN: The Magazine?

In the January 29th, 2007 issue, Chris Palmer has a write-up in the NBA Insider page about Caron Butler. Butler grew up in Racine, and graduated from my high school, Washington Park.

However, it was the "other" school that he attended that was where we crossed paths. Back in 1994, when I was just finishing up my first year as a YC at Ethan Allen School, Butler was placed at the facility for a gun and cocaine possession charge - something Palmer mentions in the article.

What I find funny is, Butler talks about the "scars" he has from playing street ball on the courts at EAS, and how the stakes were for "prize booty like Mountain Dew and Little Debbie snack cakes." Even then, that was considered to be against institution rules, as the unauthorized exchange of property (especially gambling on contests like hoops) isn't permitted. Part of me would love to just drop him a line and tell him he has five hours of confinement for that revelation... but I think he'd just laugh it off.

Caron has come back to visit EAS since joining the NBA out of UConn, right after the 2005 season (when the Lakers were eliminated from the playoff race). I admire the kid, but as a supervisor pointed out to me last night, what happened to the other five thousand-odd kids who thought they could make the NBA out of Ethan Allen?

PHOTO: Washington Wizards' Caron Butler backs into New York Knicks' Quentin Richardson during the third quarter of an NBA basketball game in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2007. The Wizards won 99-98; Butler had a team-high 27 points. (AP Photo/Lawrence Jackson) Photo taken from ESPN.com's archives.

Let the jokes about the "iFUBARphone" commence...

• Watch out Hollywood, here comes Becks and Posh. David Beckham signs with the L.A. Galaxy of MLS for a gazillion bucks. No one notices that he won't be playing until August (which is halfway through the MLS season). Everyone in London town seems to think he's washed up. People in Tinsletown are more interested in his wife. This has all the makings of either a really silly soap opera - or a really bad reality TV series. Which I wouldn't be surprised if someone tried to pitch that concept somewhere along the line to the couple. "Luvya babe, let's do lunch."
  
• I read a recent article by Dan Wetzel over at Yahoo sports that lays the blame for a lack of a true college football playoff on the hands of the Big Ten and Pacific Ten Conferences. Their reticence to give up the Rose Bowl as their cash cow is supposedly the reason why we don't have anything more than the one-versus-two BCS Championship Game in Division I-A football. Well, there's a way of getting around that: make it where the Rose Bowl is the Pac-10 vs. Big 10 champion, and the winner takes on the victors of a post-season playoff with the remaining conferences. I've even done some of the figuring, and it could be done by having the first round include the conference championship games in existing leagues with such games. This way, the other semifinal could be played at the BCS Championship site (like the Fiesta was), and the winner goes to the Championship game the next year. With all of the conference champions involved, it'd actually come off as legitimizing it as an NCAA playoff. And the Rose Bowl people would still be happy - even if the SEC and company wouldn't be thrilled that the winner of that game essentially gets a bye to the semifinals.
  
• Unless Steve Jobs has information that Cisco intended to use the iPhone name for their VoIP service intentionally to block Apple from using it, I'd say that the Apple iPhone is iDead in the iWater. However, the iJokes are going to be in iFull-swing for months on end.
  
• Dieting alert: I've actually dropped six waist sizes in pants. Unfortunately, my inseam size hasn't grown, so I'm still rolling the pants. But I'm on the right side of 200 lbs, which is something.
  
• There's been some list-making of favorite webcomics around the net as of late, so I'll put my top five out there for argument's sake:

1. Wapsi Square. My fave by a long shot. Paul Taylor does a great job of fleshing out characters and making you give a damn about their lives.
   
2. Sheldon. Just a fantastically drawn strip. I almost imagine that if Charles Schultz had lived in California all his life and came along about 50 years later, this is the strip he would have drawn. Has the right amount of geek references, the right amount of just funny "life" stuff... and Arthur is just the cutest thing. I'm waiting for the stuffed version to come out. Strangely enough, it's because of Dave Kellett's strip that I was turned on to the other strips in my top five - but that's another story.
   
3. Starslip Crisis. Kristofer Straub's "anti-Star Trek" story is the right amount of SciFi and weirdness. If Star Trek was Wagon Train to the Stars, then SSC is F-Troop to the Stars. Though there's a bit of a hard edge to it at times, Kris doesn't take the future as seriously as others do. (Actually, he doesn't take the future seriously at all - take a look at Time Friends.)
   
4. PvP Online. Okay, I admit it - I like this strip. And no, it's not because I'm some gamer geek that spends hours on end playing WoW. I actually like it because it's funny, it speaks to my generation (which does consist of gaming geeks), and the characters are realistic (okay, maybe not the troll or the cat), funny and have faults. It's kinda like a goofy version of Seinfeld. And I mean that in the best of ways, Mr. Kurtz, I really do.
   
5. Evil Inc. Brad Guigar's premise was simple: Evil's better if you do it legally. What's funnier is when a company founded by a supervillan for supervillans gets sold in a corporate takeover... to a group of superheroes!

(Edited to include links)

No comment, just the facts:

Longest professional ice hockey point streaks
51 - Wayne Gretzky, NHL, Edmonton, 1983-84
46 - Mario Lemieux, NHL, Pittsburgh, 1989-90
40 - Chick Chalmers, IHL, Omaha, 1961-62
40 - Paul Jackson, Wichita, CHL, 1993-94
39 - Wayne Gretzky, NHL, Edmonton, 1985-86
39 - Darren Haydar, AHL, Chicago, 2006-07 (STILL ACTIVE)
38 - Trevor Jobe, ECHL, Nashville, 1992-93
35 - Brian Martin, ECHL, Hampton Roads, 1990-91
32 - Andre Lacroix, WHA, San Diego, 1974-75
32 - Jamey Hicks, ECHL, Birmingham, 1997-98
32 - Rob Brown, IHL, Chicago, 1996-97
31 - Michel Mongeau, IHL, Peoria, 1989-90
31 - Mike Richard, AHL, Binghamton, 1987-88

(information courtesy of the Peoria Star and Hockey Hall of Fame archives)

That is just amazing.

After seeing the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, I can only agree with Thom Brenneman:

We need a Division I playoff.

If Florida defeats Ohio State next weekend, I would be among those who would be saying that Boise State is the true National Champion - they're undefeated.

If Myles Brand had a backbone, he'd cut through all the crap from the bowl committees and just order a championship tournament be done. If no one wants to do it... well, you can just take the "NCAA" off the name of the game.

Of course, some schools might not see that as a bad thing, but that's another story.

How about winner of OSU/Florida takes on Boise State the weekend before the Super Bowl at U of Phoenix Stadium?