The View From Wisconsin

• Mark this down: the New England Patriots will lose before the playoffs are over. I do not believe that they will be able to win the necessary three more games to go 19-0.
  
• If Barry Trotz is still employed by the Nashville Predators by this time next year, it's because he has pictures of David Poile with a goat.
  
• Roger Clemens' lawyers are going to go full-out character assassination of Senator Mitchell's lone source (Brian McNamee). And McNamee's getting his own lawyers in line for a nice battle royale - there's even talk of libel suits against the Rocket. Boy, this thing's getting nasty, and the report's only been out for what, two weeks?
• No Suter, No Weber, Legwand's iffy, Sullivan is still far away from a return... Boy, is this team playing for the right to draft Steven Stamkos, or what?
• Before I head west with Dad to his winter retreat, I'm going to do a hole-by-hole review of the Wii Sports golf course. Those of you who share my passion for the cordless wand remote, keep an eye out for it.
  

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that my alma mater, the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater, finally managed to win the NCAA Division III Football championship after losing twice to Mount Union College of Ohio. My one-time classmate Lance Leipold got the squad over the top in his first year as the head coach of the Warhawks. Great job, Lance and the rest of the team! And as for the NCAA Division III Player of the Year Justin Beaver: I hope your name gets called during the NFL draft, buddy.

On to other topics:

• It's official: the Nashville Predators haven't played this bad since the 2002-03 season. In hindsight, I think David Poile made a mistake in moving Tomas Vokoun for the usual "draft picks" after the announcement of the sale of the team; Vokoun was a bigger part of this team than even we, the Predator Nation, realized. TV is performing at roughly the same level as ever now in Florida (though he did get off to a horrendous start); Mase... *sigh* I don't think we're a playoff team right now, with the team we have on the ice. And I'm doubting that the return of Steve Sullivan (IF it happens) will have any serious effect on that reality.
  
• It is very appropriate that Sean Taylor was named a starter to the NFL's Pro Bowl - posthumously. It's interesting to see that only one other player in major pro sport history was ever named as a starter in an All-Star game - Pelle Lindbergh, the Philadelphia Flyers goaltender who was killed in a car accident in November of 1985.
  
• I've been getting a bit overboard in posting Mii's on my Nintendo Wii system. I've made a few and posted them, including my attempts at Prince Fielder (3168-7006-6460) and Brett Favre (1067-0689-3054). I've found a couple of interesting sites that show you how to make celebrity Mii's, which I will probably try out by day's end.
  

This is starting to remind me a bit too much of December 2000, when we had consecutive Monday snowstorms that had us all digging out every week or so. I am so ready to go to Arizona.

On with the countdown:

• Ever just have a craving for something that you normally can't get without doing something elaborate? That's me and Midwest Airlines' famous chocolate chip cookies. Fortunately, they sell those things now at the Bradley Center (much to my dietitian's chagrin, I would suspect). Is it wrong to want to fly on Midwest just so you can get your paws on those lovelies?
  
• I now know the names of the Skanks on Skates... er, I mean, um, the Skeleton Crew. I broke down and, for a measly two bits, bought a photo of the eleven girls that comprise the ice cleaning and between-period entertainment crew. I have only one question: is it some sort of mandate from the AHL or NHL that if you have such a group of female ice cleaners, that at least one of them must be named "Molly" or "Melissa"?
  
• I have managed to sneak into the playoffs of my "private" fantasy football league, but am not very optimistic about the possibilities of my success this week. Here's the matchups:

  Aldebaran Bulls: QB – Peyton Manning – (Ind – QB); WR – Reggie Brown – (Phi – WR); Patrick Crayton – (Dal – WR); James Jones – (GB – WR); RB – Marion Barber – (Dal – RB); Edgerrin James – (Ari – RB); TE – Chris Cooley – (Was – TE); K – Nick Folk – (Dal – K); DEF – New York – (NYG – DEF). [6th in league, 956 points]
  

  Fightin' Okra: QB – Kurt Warner – (Ari – QB); WR – Hines Ward – (Pit – WR); Plaxico Burress – (NYG – WR); Kevin Walter – (Hou – WR); RB – LaDainian Tomlinson – (SD – RB); Julius Jones – (Dal – RB); TE – Alge Crumpler – (Atl – TE); K – Mason Crosby – (GB – K); DEF – Seattle – (Sea – DEF). [3rd in league, 939 points]
  

• My other two teams are done. I will not be defending my Packer-fans NFL Fantasy League title this year.
  
• There are times I am glad I don't know all the "hip" references. I've heard about this 2 Girls 1 Cup video "occurence" from, of all things, a web comic (Times Like This by Tom Overbeck). I have no intention of actually watching the video, and am somewhat disillusioned that a small cottage industry has popped up from showing "reaction videos" from this thing on YouTube.
  
• Speaking of Mr. Overbeck - yes, I do think it would be classified as masturbation. But I don't want to make a time travel machine to find out.
  

This was going to be my attempt at blogging via my Wii Console's Internet Channel, but it's not going very well.

I had to use the "Edit HTML" option from Blogger to actually type the post, and formatting might be a bit iffy.

The sacrifices you make for being tech-savvy, hm?

A few rambling sentences before I go on, then:

• The big news from my Wii console is that I've managed to hit the Pro level in Wii Sports Golf. My big issue with the game was learning how to hit my Wedge; that was keeping me from making par on the tougher holes.
  
• I actually imported a few Mii's from the "Check Mii Out" channel, and played a baseball game with them; anyone who knows me knows that it was fun to have Charlie Brown, Snoopy and Lucy playing on my team (though we lost).
  
  Side note - why does Wii Sports play only a three-inning game? Seems a bit silly. Of course, the three-hole "practice" options for the golf games aren't too great, either... but you can at least play nine holes for a "half round".
  
• I'm amazed at Milwaukee area drivers. Yesterday morning, as I was attempting to get into Racine, there were three separate accidents on the system, all in key locations near the three major interchanges. An accident on I-94 by Hwy 100, something which shouldn't surprise anyone; another accident on the East-bound section of I-894 just past the Hale Interchange with I-43 and US 45; and one northbound on I-94/43 just beyond the dreaded Plainfield Curve. Traffic was, in short, a mess. And what was worse, the over-the-street routes weren't all that much better, with a nasty snarl at Loomis and Layton because the city of Greenfield can't (or won't) synch the lights between the intersection and 50th Street.
  
• Pekka Rinne is getting a mini-vacation to Nashville because Chris Mason caught the flu bug. Good thing; it'll give him a chance to rest after playing nearly every game over the last month and a half for the Admirals.
  

That should be all for a while.

No, this isn't an update about my dad... it's about a new website.

Instead of renewing houk.nu, I have instead gone with the Go Daddy guys and registered jwhouk.com and josephhouk.com.

Happiness is...

... realizing that even though you decided to upgrade to Office 2K7, you can still keep your copies of Word and Excel 2K3, which is what about 99% of the stuff you have was created with.
... getting Excel 2K7 to work the way you want it to (namely, sans ribbon).
... still having some money after the bills are paid (though that probably won't last through the next two months).
... realizing you're gonna be heading to Arizona after the first of the year - when you really need to be down there.
... seeing your father doing immensely better than he was a little under two months ago.
... getting some time to actually post on your blog.