God-Awful (Backup) Goaltending: It's Called Bruins.

This just in: a clinical study has determined that there is little appreciable difference between Manny Fernandez and an open net. One need look no further than tonight's 7-5 win over The Leafs, a game that most assuredly would have gone into the books as a loss if not for the simple fact that the Bruins were fortunate enough to be facing rookie Toronto goalie Justin Pogge, who got this deer-in-the-headlights look about him every time a puck approached.

Fernandez, who by the way is making more than FOUR TIMES the amount of money that Tim Thomas is this season, has proven himself an expensive liability. Tim Thomas got a lot of flack in the national sports media for allowing that incredibly long game-deciding goal in a 4-3 loss to the Capitals last month, which was unfortunate because Thomas ended up being pigeonholed as an incompetent goaltender who had made an error so egregious that he could never possibly live it down, while Fernandez's frequent inadequacy in the crease was left out of the discussion.

When Jack Edwards exclaims "SAVE BY THOMAS!" it's said with conviction and certainty, as if that's what he was expecting, while when he yells "SAVE BY FERNANDEZ!?" there's more than a hint of surprise contained within the words, as if he was expecting a goal. He's got damn little confidence in the man, and I can't say I blame him.

the one where I protest too much, then engage in spilling caffeine-addled words onto the proverbial page

Before I say anything else, I must give a tip of the cap to my cohort Keegan over at The Chesterfield King, who has been much more productive of late, so much so that his rediscovered blogging dedication is almost (ALMOST) enough to spur me on to try harder.

Second order of business: the ads that Google selects for my page are all too often laughably unrelated to the content of the page. I suppose that's indicative of my predilection to wander aimlessly from topic to topic on this thing than anything else. This realization has planted the seed of a new, ill-begotten experiment. Let's see if this works: CASH4GOLD CASH4GOLD CASH4GOLD CASH4GOLD
(note: the author is in no way associated with CASH4GOLD; however, he is flirting with the idea of starting a gold for cash business if the apocalypse ever looms large, since we all know that when it's crunch time, people are going to want gold and not flimsy pieces of paper. I defer to my friend Fardeen over at my face has a punch in it for more wisdom on the power of gold.)



Third order of business: the new Decemberists album (that "Mossy and Evil" thing that I started getting excited about last July) was at long last released today. Supposedly it's best appreciated as a song cycle in sequential order, so I'll just have to get the whole thing. Spin gave it a 5/10, but then again Spin called Against Me!'s sell-out-o-riffic 2007 effort New Wave album of the year, so suffice it to say that I take what that publication says with a grain of salt (well, maybe more like a salt-lick's worth of salt).

Unsolicited Career Counseling

Yesterday I was at work helping a client with her computer, when out of the blue she remarked that I had a future in medicine. "Why is that?" I wondered. Because I'm ever-so-sharply dressed? Because of my flawless use of incomprehensible technical jargon?

"No. Because your handwriting is just awful."

It's cool, malpractice insurance is kind of steep anyways.

Epic Fail and Epic Acting

So in my infinite feeble-mindedness I managed to forget to bring the power cable for my laptop home for spring break. Unfortunately I didn't realize this until I had drained about 80% of the battery. I don't know anyone else in my town that has a MacBook. Sounds like fodder for something to post on fmylife, eh?

So, I'm typing this up on the ol' Wal-Mart bought POS home computer. Due to my technological limitations, it seems likely that I won't be posting nearly as often as I had wanted to over break. Oh well, such is life. I'm trying to convince myself that doing without the laptop for a week and a half will give needed perspective to my existence. Of course, I don't actually believe that, but keeping myself half-convinced of its truthiness helps to dull the pain (well, that and the tequila).

But enough of my technologically-induced moping. I do have something good to report. Something very good indeed, courtesy of Eric Wilbur over at Boston.com. Let's just say that Dustin Pedroia appears to have been working on his acting chops when he wasn't working out at API, and that the results are hillarious...

Sorry 'bout the hiatus, enjoy the arctic tundra muskus Ovibos moschatus

I'll be posting starting this weekend, when I finally have some time to burn. Until then, stay warm out there.

Opening Pandora's Box?

I just found out that there's a way to scrobble plays from Pandora. I've been avoiding Pandora, despite the fact that it sounds like a cool idea, on the basis that I couldn't scrobble plays for last.fm. Then I stumbled upon this page, which has a link to a Firefox/Flock add-on which allows me to do just that. I'm probably getting too excited about this, likely because I'm ridiculously overcaffeinated at the moment thanks to the "Supreme" sized coffee I got from Jazzman's in the middle of my weekly 3-hour seminar on Reagan, but even when I come down from this unrealistically euphoric state, I have the inkling that this is still going to be cool. This could revolutionize my music listening experience. Or it may not--Dana didn't exactly give Pandora a vote of confidence when I talked to her about it. However, Beckie is a fan. I guess I'll just have to, you know, actually use it before I judge it.

UPDATE: IT WORKS--PRETTY WELL.

Bodies of Water Can Be Loud

Saw The Baltic Sea at The Grind last night, opening for A Place to Bury Strangers. They're from Portland, Maine (not left coast Portland). I came away from the show exceedingly impressed by their ability to harness dynamics on a most epic level. Keegan mentioned that they reminded him of Mineral and SDRE a bit, and I would be inclined to agree.

A Place to Bury Strangers were undeniably loud, but significantly less inspired. They reminded me of Stereophonics playing at the bottom of toxin-ridden swamp.

The Baltic Sea MySpace