the sometimes senseless ravings (and the occassional rant) of an aspiring marine ecologist who may enjoy killing things a little too much

Sunday, October 30, 2005

Do a Happy Dance!

this is my last post today, i swear. i'm just excited... about hockey, if you can believe it. i've been so down on my teams this weekend that the flyers' recent win over damn ottawa makes me even happier than usual. i was all prepared to see them lose. but no, they won 5-3, handing the sens their first home loss of the season. this brought them redemption in my eyes. they scored three power play goals on the "all-mighty" hasek (read this with sarcasm, please), and they totally shut down dany heatley (too bad they couldn't do the same to chara, the big giant ostrich man, who had 2 of the sens' 3 goals). the senators never had a lead. it was awesome. hatcher still pissed me off, taking three penalties, but one of them actually wasn't his fault. that was another incident in which a flyer was penalized when his stick was nowhere near the guy he supposedly tripped. the flyer penalty kill still sucked, though. they gave up two power play goals, and their kill % is still stuck in the 70's. the PP just gets better and better, though, so that's something.

so, after that gem of a flyers game, i turned it over to the ducks/coyotes game just in time to catch a pre-second period interview with none other than dave farrish and his shiny bald head. i had actually gone into the kitchen to get some dinner when i heard, "...dave farrish" and rushed back into the living room to see pensacola's former coach on fox sports west. it was pretty sweet.

and with that, i will have happy dreams tonight.

Minnow Trap Adventures

i'm feeling wordy today, so allow me to share with you the tale of the latina and lindsey minnow trap adventure. as many of you are aware, lindsey and i have to create a collection of 60 freshwater specimens for our freshwater ecology class. we have been on many collecting adventures together since august, and we have now reached a point at which our collections are about half finished (i have 31 specimens identified so far). we have many a tiny dead critter sitting in alcohol in the lab, but many of them are duplicates of specimens we have already identified. so, we need to collect more creatures. i was supposed to join in on a boat trip into the mobile/tensaw delta with some people from my lab on friday, but the trip was called off due to extremely low water at the dock. so, lindsey and i decided to set some minnow traps around town yesterday afternoon in hopes of catching some tiny fish, and we had ourselves quite the little adventure.

we decided to use moldy vienna sausages to bait our traps (moldy so they'd be nice and stinky and attract lots of fish), and we think that's going to work out pretty well. anyway, from our very first attempt at setting a minnow trap (which both of us have done before, mind you), the day turned into an adventure. the only rope/string we could find to tie our traps down with was kite string, and we had a bit of a dilemma when deciding whether to double up the string. the decision was made easy after tossing the first trap into the pond next to the library on campus. i held onto the string (so we wouldn't lose the trap) while lindsey let it fly into the pond - only to have the string snap while the trap was in midair. so we lost the trap anyway. anyway, being ourselves, we proceeded to burst into loud, girly giggles (at ourselves). there was a girl pulling up to library at this particular moment, and i'm sure she thought we were freaks. so, on the next trap we doubled up the string, and there were no more lost traps.

after the library pond, we hit a few more spots on campus before heading out and about in mobile looking for a suitable spot. we decided on a random little stream next to a snooty neighborhood (as i call them) off grelot rd. we set the first two traps there uneventfully, and then came the canada geese. lindsey and i decided that it would be good to move upstream a bit along some (wobbly) rocks to set our last two traps. so, i took one, and lindsey (with her mad rock-walking skills) took the other, and we picked our way over the rocks. i set my trap uneventfully (but we had lots of giggles between the library pond incident and the canada geese), but lindsey had a little trouble. her string kept getting tangled in random weeds and rushes (from which all sorts of crazy something-scary-moving-around noises were coming), and as she was fighting with the string, i noticed some ducks in the distance heading toward us. as they got closer, i noticed that weren't ducks at all but canada geese. anyway, when the geese were almost on top of us, i suggested that lindsey give up trying to untangle the string and put the trap in shallow water. well, she did, but by then the geese were upon us, honking like mad... and they tried to eat the green vienna sausage from lindsey's trap. they kept diving down, messing with the trap, and one came up with the securing string in its beak. we couldn't just let the geese get tangled up trying to eat gross green random beef parts, so we're yelling and stuff trying to get the geese to leave, and they're just getting pissed off and honking at us, so linsey picked up one of the wobbly rocks and threw it into the water in the general vicinity of the geese. but alas, they still wouldn't leave. so lindsey and i gave up and left. we're going back to check all the traps tomorrow afternoon, so we're hoping we won't find a big dead canada goose there.

the final part of this adventure came when we were walking back to lindsey's car. keep in mind that we were wearing gross field clothes (jeans and t-shirts covered with rust from the minnow traps, lindsey with a ponytail, while i had a bandana keeping the hair out of my face), and i hadn't showered yet 'cause i was just going out to get all gross. anyway, as we were walking, this guy in a jimmy drives by and wolf-whistles at us. so lindsey and i just look at each other and burst into giggles (we're very giggly together). we look ourselves up and down, and lindsey says in disbelief, "really?!? you can barely even tell we're female in this." anyway, this fostered tons of giggles and random giggle-inducing comments about how west mobile boys must like 'em dirty. leave it to the two of us to turn a field excursion ino a giggle-fest.

Hockey Frustration

boy, has this ever been a depressing weekend for hockey... the pilots lost a game on the road in a shootout - a game they should have won. i was happy they got a point, though. how sad is that? the flyers also lost a game on the road friday night - a game they definitely should have won. they gave up two separate two-goal leads and ended up losing 8-6 to carolina. i blame two men for this disappointing flyers performance: derian hatcher and mike rathje, the two 'big additions' to the flyers' defense this season. both of these guys scored goals friday night, but it seems as if they abandoned their roles as defensive players to do so, and at least two carolina goals were a direct result of bonehead defensive plays by hatcher and rathje. i've said it many times, and i'll say it again - i am not impressed. a couple of completely bogus penalties called against the flyers didn't help matters, either. bill mccreary, a veteran NHL referee, called tripping on donald brashear upon seeing erik cole go sprawling. the thing is, brashear wasn't even touching cole when he went down, and neither was his stick. this call was replayed repeatedly, and even the pro-carolina commentators agreed that the call was bogus. the real kicker is that this power play opportunity resulted in a goal for carolina (their first of the game) and turned the momentum in their favor. i can't blame the whole thing on bad referees, though. the flyer penalty kill leaves much to be desired (only atlanta is worse in this department), though their power play is improving (they've improved from 24th in the league to 12th over the past week). if the flyers don't improve their defensive play (i mean the team as a whole here), there is no way in hell they can beat damn ottawa later today.

...and then there was the ice pilots game last night. i was quite excited to discover that *jacquo* had returned to pensacola upon walking into the civic center, and he played pretty well. it made me remember why i like him so much in the first place. he was hitting people like crazy (even though a few of the hits weren't quite as successful as he planned), skating with a lot of energy, and trying to make things happen out there. but even with some roster changes, the pilots still couldn't manage to pull out a win. the new guy, brendan cook, actually takes some shots, which is more than i can say for a lot of our other guys. the team looked really good in the first period, and i totally got my hopes up. we went into the second period with a two goal lead - the worst lead in hockey according to the always-entertaining barry melrose. so, long story short - we lost 3-2 in regulation. it sucked, man. i really thought they could win this one. they actually outshot the lynx after being outshot by greenville 61 to 20-something friday night. i guess that's something to be happy about.

i'm beginning to get the same feeling about the pilots this season that i had when i worked for the mobile wizards, the short-lived arena football franchise. at the beginning of the season, the wizards sucked. every game was a total blow-out, and i went to every game early on knowing they were going to lose. then, the team made lots of changes - on the roster and in the coaching staff. there was a vast improvement in the level of play after that, but they still could not win. the difference was, i really thought they had a chance in those last few games. they were so close. it almost hurt more at the end when they were playing decent football than when they sucked ass. anyway, the wizards went the whole season without winning a single game. they went 0-16 on the season. pathetic. so, after the ice pilots got blown out by greenville, i knew they sucked, so i sort of expected the blow-out the next night against gwinnett. but last night, they played so well in the first period that i really thought they could take augusta. good players were added to the roster, and the whole team appeared to be playing better - but they still couldn't win. that loss hurt way more than the blow-outs of last weekend. but maybe this a step in the right direction. we were playing with only three defensemen, forcing turek to play with the blue line boys, so maybe when sutton returns and we get a couple more defensemen assigned, the pilots will start winning. keeping my fingers crossed.

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Such a Nerd

yeah, i get excited about the nerdiest things. for instance, right now i'm in a state of absolute euphoria that is making it next to impossible to write my proposal for ecotox (which is due the day after tomorrow), and it's all because i just came from anne's office, where we finished going over the proofs of my paper from marine ecology progress series (MEPS). after making copies for both of us, anne stuffed the proofs in a big manila envelope to send back to the journal, and i walked out with a giant smile on my face. it was so awesome to see my paper in MEPS format... now i just have to wait a couple months, and it will actually appear in the journal. i feel like this is a huge step in my career, and since my research is sort of at a standstill for the moment, it's nice to have something to be excited about.

Sunday, October 23, 2005

Drunken Mens' Room Conversation

now, obviously i am not in the habit of hanging out in mens' rooms at bars, so the story i am about to relate had to come to me from my husband. there are three characters in this story: drunken southerner, drunken brit, and unidentified hockey player. so, last night after an atrocious ice pilots game, chad, vanessa, deva, and i headed over to mcguire's for food and maybe a glimpse of some of the players. well, we saw a few players, all right, but chad definitely had the most interesting story about them upon returning from the restroom. the conversation he overheard went a little something like this:

drunken southerner, upon seeing unidentified hockey player (imagine the southern accent, with a bit of slur): "man, you guys played like crap - like a bunch of homos out there."

unidentified hockey player: disgruntled look, like he really wants to kick the guy's ass

drunken brit (again, imagine the accent): "so where are you guys going after this, sammy's? wait, of course not - you're a bunch of homos."

unidentified hockey player, replying to such digs from a stall: "even homos can go to titty bars."
of course, the relay of this story cracked me, vanessa, and deva up. even homos can go to titty bars... that's funny stuff. there's one thing i have to admit, though. seeing the players at mcguire's just isn't as exciting when they suck - and sucking is about the only thing these guys do well.

and now for the rant you've all been waiting for. i am going to point out all of the things that are wrong with this season's ice pilot team (an amazing feat, i know). they're slower than flippin' tortoises out there, they're afraid to take a shot, god forbid that they should try and drive the net, they refuse to lay a hit on anyone (but they have that duck and cover thing down when an opposing player hits one of them), they can't pass for shit (yet that's always what they all want to do, unless it's the smart thing to do, then they'll shoot into heavy traffic and give up the puck), planting a guy in the crease in the offensive zone must be taboo for them, and when they do get a guy down there and make a smart pass, the guy waiting by the open net can't handle the puck (*cough* fulghum). it's like they're afraid of the puck or something. they pass when they should be shooting, and they inevitably try to pass to the guy who has two players covering him instead of the guy who's open. maybe they like seeing the other guys skate all over them and score 6 goals a night on their goaltender. what their mothers did to them to give them that attitude, i'll never be able to fathom, but there it is just the same.

no, i'm not finished yet. our guys fall all over themselves (*cough* collins) and stay down on the ice for an eternity, praying for a penalty call (though even with all of the power plays we've had, including a few 5-on-3's, they have yet to score a power play goal). then, they're so slow on their skates that it's like we're down a man until the guy who fell catches back up to the play. the one guy on the team who actually has wheels (dominic noel - aka "the body" by fans of the female [or homosexual male] persuasion) unfortunately thinks the puck is coated in crisco and can't keep his stick on it, so the breakaways for us will be few and far between. to top this off, our "enforcer" doesn't understand the concept of enforcement, though he can pick fights. his idea of his role on the team is to beat up the opponent after they've thoroughly kicked our asses on the scoreboard instead of getting in their way and keeping them from killing our players. and the one aspect of our game that should be good (goaltending) because we have three really good goalies on hand is falling apart, too. but i guess that freddy has always had a good team in front of him, fostering our vision of him as a kick-ass goalie, and with this shitty group out there, he just can't handle it. freddy's good. i'll give him that, but he is certainly no roberto luongo. he does not possess luongo's uncanny ability to be excellent when facing 50 shots a night with one of the worst teams ever in front of him. luongo's getting a break this season, though. the panthers don't suck this year. but back to the pilots, in my oh so humble opinion, trevor cunning should have gotten the start in goal last night. freddy wasn't exactly great friday night (he allowed 6 goals for crying out loud), and cunning deserved a chance.

obviously, i don't have the highest opinion of most of our guys this year. i would be glad to see nearly everyone go elsewhere. there are a few current ice pilots i would like to keep around, however. turek has been playing fairly well, and corey is probably the best defenseman we have (which is kind of sad, because he isn't very sharp right now). but the best guy we have right now is dallas steward. how sad is it that our best player is my size... and i'm not exactly a 6 foot 5 hulk who could just run down anyone on the other team to get to the net. no, our best player is 5' 3 1/2" and might weigh 140 pounds. but he's feisty. man, is he feisty. but a guy that small just can't do it alone. i hope to see some major roster changes in the near future.

boy, this is going to be a long season. at least the flyers are improving. their game last night in toronto was much better than the pilots game. gange is still on a roll, and radivojevic finally scored a goal... but the best part of that game was mike richards's short-handed goal - when the flyers were down by 2 guys. it was amazing. he's definitely one of the best rookies in the league.

ok. more hockey talk soon, i'm sure, but for now i'm outie.

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

First Biloxi, Then Beaumont...

now estero? is it the goal of the current hurricane season to take out as many ECHL cities as possible? hurricane wilma (the first W name ever, i think) now has the lowest recorded atlantic hurricane pressure ever (another cat 5), and it appears to be headed for south florida... dammit. not that i would rather have it head this way or anything, but come on - can the south division of the ECHL really handle any additional schedule rearranging? perhaps wilma will head for extreme south florida, where the only hockey team it could really destroy would be the NHL's florida panthers. not that i have a grudge against the panthers or anything (i honestly don't), but the city of sunrise is sort of on the other side of florida and probably wouldn't be quite as totally destroyed as the gulf-coastal city of estero, florida were it to be hit by wilma. egad!

mmkay. that's it for this morning. catch ya later.

Monday, October 17, 2005

Road Trip(s)

so, chad and i have formulated a new road trip plan for this hockey season. we will have two (maybe three) road trips spread throughout the regular season. the road trips will begin with a trip to the gwinnett center on saturday, 11/26. the next trip will be (maybe) to the phillips arena in atlanta on saturday, 1/21 to see the thrashers play the tampa bay lightning. our final planned trip of the season will also be to atlanta, but this time we will be seeing the philadelphia flyers on saturday, 3/18 (the last weekend of spring break). this plan has been modified from the original one, which had us going to tampa to see the lightning play the flyers, due to pricing. the same seats in tampa that we paid $70 each for two years ago will now cost us $99 each. seating in an equivalent section in the phillips arena will cost us $65 per ticket. chad is also convinced that we won't need to stay overnight in atlanta. while it is a little closer to mobile than tampa, i'm not so sure about this. best case scenario, both games start at 6:00 central time, end at 8:30 central time, and we make it back to mobile in 5 hours. that means we get home at 1:30 am central time at the earliest. i'm going to bet that it's more like 2:30 or 3:00 am. i dunno. chad thinks he can drive that. he does have funny sleeping habits when he doesn't have to work the next day... and it would save us the money we'd spend on a hotel room. i think that's really why he doesn't want to spend the night. and that's where the "maybe" regarding the atlanta/tampa bay game comes in. he would rather let me have what i want and go see atlanta play philly in march than go see tampa play in atlanta in january. isn't that sweet? we could go see both games, but he's kinda cheap. plus, he'd watch it on center ice anyway... and we'd be missing another ice pilots game. oh well. we're definitely heading to gwinnett next month, so we can worry about atlanta later.

Friday, October 14, 2005

The Procrastination Queen is Back

i've really been on the ball this semester. i've barely put anything off at all compared to my usual ways. i've studied for exams days in advance... unheard of for the queen of the late-night cram session. i even wrote a lab report three whole days before it was due. but here i sit, breaking a promise to myself. my goal for the week was to work on my ecotox proposal presentation today (which i've gathered some references for but haven't actually begun), but i really don't want to. i'm just not in the mood to work on a proposal for a project that will never actually get done. but, seeing as my presentation is tuesday, it needs to be done - at the least planned. chad and i are going to the ice pilots' first preseason game tonight (we're tivo-ing the flyers and lightning games tonight and tommorrow night, so don't spill anything about the flyers/penguins game when you see me on saturday, nessa), then heading to flomaton after the game so chad's dad can help him install a toolbox on his truck on saturday, then going from the 'rents' place to saturday's game. obviously, that doesn't allow for time to work on my proposal any (because of course i don't do school related work at mom's house)... but i will have all day sunday... then monday morning to practice... ok. i have formulated a new plan right before your very eyes. i will generate a general outline of the presentation and read some of those references today and put it all together sunday. sounds good to me.

mmmkay. off to do some work i guess. then, later tonight - hockey, of course! i can't wait to see all the new guys. lay-tah!

Thursday, October 13, 2005

Hockey: The Best Form of Entertainment

thanks to NHL center ice from directv, i have been catching bits and pieces of tons of hockey games lately. chad and i have of course been watching all of the flyers and lightning games, and i have made full use of the unlimited hockey access provided by center ice. last night while chad was taking a shower i watched the first period of the montreal/atlanta game, which wasn't all that entertaining. i thought that ilya kovalchuk would vastly improve the thrashers play, but i was dead wrong. they were not impressive.

the washington/carolina game was light years more entertaining. it was action-packed, and i got to see several players i really enjoy watching, but who are no longer members of the teams i keep up with religiously, including former flyers rod brind'amor (carolina), justin williams (carolina), and dainus zubrus (washington), and former lightning player corey stillman (carolina). how convenient that williams and stillman are still wearing their old numbers. anyway, despite the fact that i only watched the second period of this game, i managed to see the play with the greatest entertainment value. it was fantastically horrible for the player involved. carolina had pulled ward (the goaltender) due to a delayed penalty on washington. the hurricanes had just scored to tie the game 1-1, and the upcoming power play would give them the perfect opportunity to gain the lead, right? well, it didn't quite work out that way. since there was a delayed penalty, the moment a capital gained possession of the puck, play would stop, so even if the puck found its way into caronlina's empty net the goal wouldn't count. unless the player putting the puck in carolina's empty net was one of carolina's own players. and that is exactly what happened. i have no idea what niclas wallin (of the hurricanes) was thinking. it was so bad. he had control of the puck in the offensive zone, then zubrus kept putting pressure on him, trying to get it out of the zone, when wallin turns toward the empty net and lets the puck fly - right into his own net. every other carolina player on the ice was in the capitals' end. there was no one to receive this "pass." it was just so bad. i'm sure he felt like a big idiot. he put his team behind again at a time when they had a fabulous chance to take the lead. well, carolina did score on that power play to tie things up again and regain their momentum - and they eventually won the game 7-2. so carolina actually scored 8 goals in that game. only one was in their own net.

man, do i ever manage to catch the good stuff, or what?

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Bad Week

i decided this morning that i'm having a bad week. and it's only wednesday. blah. i guess it could be worse, but i can't shake this sense of gloom. maybe it's the crazy fog this morning. or maybe it's a build-up of "little things." or maybe it's that i found out over the weekend that my grandmother has skin cancer... and that yesterday in ecotox the lecture topic was carcinogens. no one in my family was really surprised at the news about my granny. she's had this funky place on her upper arm for about 2 years that her doctor has been telling her to get checked by a dermatologist. yet, every time the doctor made an appointment my granny called and cancelled it. crazy old lady. i think she was afraid to find out. anyway, she finally went for a biopsy last week, only the doctor she saw took one look at her arm, said it was cancerous (it's grown from quarter-sized to 5 1/2 inches in diameter over the past year or so) and that he saw no reason to cut twice, and scheduled the surgery to remove it for early in november.

and, to make this week even better, today begins those four or five days every month when i hate being a girl. like i said, blah.

moving on, the flyers game last night didn't help my mood any. they lost to the freakin' maple leafs, and damn ottawa beat montreal. badness all around. eshce's goals against average is going to suck. just guessing, but i'm gonna predict that nittymaki starts in goal on friday against the penguins (and former flyers mark recchi and john leclair). esche allowed another 4 goals last night, including a screened power play shot by freakin' eric lindros. why couldn't it have been anyone but lindros? on the upside, gange continues to impress as he picked up two points last night, with one coming on a short-handed goal late in the 2nd period. and the one toronto goal that i wasn't so upset about was former st. john's maple leaf kyle wellwood's first career NHL goal. it was really kind of sweet. he looked so happy. it's not often that you see that kind of sheepish grin on a hockey player's face. i was kind of happy for the kid (in a bittersweet sort of way, since his first goal came against my favorite team). he's a cutie, too... too bad he plays for the enemy.

after the game, chad and i wallowed in the current suckiness of our respective NHL teams. after impressive starts from both philly and tampa bay in '03-'04, they are both getting off to awful starts this season. tampa bay lost to boston monday night 4-2, and philly lost to toronto last night by the same score (and just fyi, that was the same score in the ottawa/montreal game last night). yuck. both of our teams play pittsburgh this weekend, so maybe they'll pick up a couple more wins. philly also plays the islanders. these games may be tivo-ed, though. i really want to go to both the ice pilots' preseason games this weekend, since chad's shoulder is still bothering him, and he isn't playing in the rugby game on friday night. i think i have him talked into going to pensacola friday and saturday, so expect to see us, those who will be at the games.

ok. it's time to go and work on a proposal for ecotox... i have to give a presentation on it next tuesday.

Saturday, October 08, 2005

I Believe in Antero Nittymaki

if you're sitting there thinking antero who???, he is the flyers' number two goalie this season. last season, he was the number one goalie for the calder cup champion philadelphia phantoms of the american hockey league (because neil little sucks). and the season before, when the flyers' goalies (robert esche and jeff hackett) were both laid up with injuries, leaving the team to depend on AHL goalies neil little and antero nittymaki, nittymaki played three games with the big boys, coming away with a goals against average in the NHL of 1.00 - including one impressive performance against the rockin' new jersey devils. yep, he allowed only one goal in each of the three games he played. the funny thing is, the flyers started out with neil little instead of nittymaki, realized that little sucks much ass at the NHL level, and put in nittymaki. and now nittymaki sits on the bench in the wachovia center instead of across the street in the AHL building. i'm glad to see him there as esche's back-up. when chad and i went to tampa last december to see the phantoms play the springfield falcons, i was desperately hoping to see nittymaki in action up close and personal. but alas, the phantoms started little for that game.

but now i'm seeing nittymaki in the NHL. he started last night when the flyers played the devils. that was the plan even before esche allowed five goals against the damn rangers wednesday night. i must say, that game did not start out well. a couple of bad moves put chris therien (i'll talk about him a little more in a bit) in the sin bin and resulted in a couple of power play goals for the devils. the flyers' penalty kill needs much work. well, one of those goals nittymaki should have stopped. but the puck shouldn't have been near him. anyway, the flyers were scrambling, even when they didn't have a man in the box. their passes weren't working, and they had no puck control skills. and then the lovely simon gange put some life back into the game with one pretty goal and one goal that might not have been a goal (i was really surprised that they called it a goal - they didn't have an angle where you could see the puck, even though i was pretty sure it was in the net). the controversy turned out not to matter, as the flyers went on to score three more unanswered goals in the third period for a 5-2 win. needless to say, they got their act together. they really started clicking about midway through the second period. passes were getting through, their puck handling was better, their penalty kill improved by miles (turner stevenson even netted a short-handed goal on his former team), and they started getting a lot of shots through to marty brodeur. simon gange was awesome, as usual, and i think that knuble is going to work out better on the line with gange and forsberg than jeff carter did.

now let's talk about chris therien. i was a little surprised to see that guy back in philly, especially since he'd been traded away in the '03-'04 season. i wasn't sad to see him go then, and he's still making the same kinds of mistakes. now, he doesn't completely suck. he has some good qualities in a defenseman, particularly his size, but sometimes he makes bonehead decisions on the ice that cost his team big. he was making bonehead plays in '04, and he's still making bonehead plays now. but when he's on his game and thinking about what he's doing (and how hooking that guy or cross-checking that guy, or taking out the wrong guy will affect the team), he's pretty good... but the flyers definitely have better defenseman than therien. my biggest problem with him is that ken hitchcock keeps putting him on the ice with the most dangerous players from the opponent. so i guess that's an issue with the coach, not therien. but anyway...

obviously, i was quite pleased with last night's performance by the flyers. nittymaki came up with some great saves, and even though he wasn't particularly spectacular, i think that kid's gonna make it.

chad was not so lucky with the lightning game. i watched pieces of it (during the flyers' intermissions), and i'm really surprised at the skill of the florida panthers. the game was scoreless until there were 2 minutes left in the game, when the panthers finally got something by grahame, and it was a really tight game as far as play. the lightning came really close to answering right back, but vinny couldn't get a stick on it, and boyle just didn't get enough lift on the puck to get it by the impressive roberto luongo... then an empty-netter by olie jokinen clinched things. disappointing, i know, but i was so happy about the flyers game that i didn't really care.

well, that's all for now. i'm sure there will be more soon. lay-tah.

Thursday, October 06, 2005

Hockey and Happy Birthday

so, yesterday was chad's 24th birthday... and it was also the NHL's opening night. so many hockey games, so little time. chad spent the day playing hockey on his playstation 2 and donating blood. i spent the day studying and setting up another ecotox experiment.

...and then it was hockey time. it makes me sad to say that the flyers/rangers game was a huge disappointment. it would have been fine if the game had ended at the end of the second period... but it just didn't. or maybe it did for the flyers. freakin' jagr... he was making crazy mistakes all night long, and i was having a great time laughing at him (especially his interference penalty - somebody should really tell him you aren't allowed to play the puck from the bench... gotta have a skate on the ice, buddy), and then came the third period. two goals from jagr back to back... and then one from freakin' marion hossa's little bro. it's almost as bad as marion hossa himself. and where the hell was esche? he fell apart in the 3rd too. but forsberg made a couple of nice plays, and i was fairly impressed with rookie mike richards. they'd better step it up friday night against new jersey.

the tampa game turned out better for chad. they dominated carolina for most of the game, and i had fun watching vinny lecavalier's inner figure skater. have you ever noticed that he really likes the spinning back-hand shot?

ahh, then we flipped over to the anaheim/chicago game for a look at former ice pilot coach dave farrish behind the ducks bench... and a glance at nikolai khabibulin. he totally felt esche's pain after that game... 5 goals each scored on two of my favorite goalies all in the same night. yikes.

and let's not forget the history making damn ottawa/toronto shoot-out. yup. we watched that, too. we were watching the post-game action on OLN, when i noticed the scores scrolling across the bottom - that game was in OT, so we tuned in and witnessed history. i am not a fan of either team (despite toronto's pensacola affiliation - when one of our former players sees some ice time, i'll pull for the leafs), so it didn't really hurt that much that the damn senators won. at least havlat missed his shot... and so did eric lindros (ha!). i freakin' can't stand lindros. if it had to be anyone who clinched the win for damn ottawa, i'm glad it was dany heatley and not one of the senators i really hate.

as you can tell, it was a hockey-filled night here in mobile last night. it was awesome. i so love NHL center ice.

Sunday, October 02, 2005

Hangin' in There

so it seems it's been awhile since my last post, and some of you may be wondering whether i have fallen off the face of the planet. well, i haven't. i refrained from doing anything crazy like becoming one of those nutty recluses who lives deep in the forest and avoids people and the "real world" on account of some bad experiences, tempted though i might have been. it's a little hard to find a stand of trees large enough to facilitate forest-dwelling recluses inside the city limits, anyway. i've become something of an apartment-dwelling recluse instead. i've spent much of the past week cooped up in here, filling my brain with knowledge of the environmental factors that contribute to the bioavailability of heavy metals and other toxicants and the various methods by which such pollutants move into and about various organisms and playing with different statistical methods to analyze my already overanalyzed data... and thursday afternoon i spent a good three hours using a dichotomous key to identify fish about the size of my thumbnail. that was a pain in the ass. 5 species down, 55 to go. and i get to spend the better part of the coming week cramming freshwater ecology facts into my head.

but then, on wednesday, after spending most of the day studying for my freshwater ecology exam on thursday, the most blessed event will occur... the official start of the NHL season. chad will of course want to watch the carolina/tampa bay game, and i will of course want to watch the philly/rangers game... and since it's his birthday, i'll have to let him watch the lightning game while i sacrifice (part of) the flyers game during that one little timeframe at 8:00 when tivo is recording two programs (the new show on the wb [related] and veronica mars on upn - that's a really good show. you should give it a try if you haven't already), during which we will only have the one tv in the bedroom on which to watch only one hockey game which i guess will have to be the tampa game. 's ok. i don't hate tampa... and i really do want to see them raise their stanley cup banner (which will be shown on OLN before the philly game). but at 9:00, after our shows are over, i should be able to turn the satellite back to the flyers game just in time to catch the end. not much of a sacrifice, eh?

before these games begin, chad will be spending most of wednesday playing the new NHL 2K6 game that i got him for his birthday. he hardly ever uses vacation days, so why not use one on his birthday, right?

so, until wednesday, i will have it to look forward to. for now, there is much work to be done.