I'm pissed!

I am so frustrated at a man named Gary Bettman. His highest priority...his job description is to uphold and keep alive the NHL; to support it and grow the sport. Instead, he killed it.

He cancelled the 2004-2005 season outright yesterday. I don't know what good he thinks this will do. I am so angry at him.

He's a typical lawyer, too. He gave his press conference yesterday and was asked what responsibilty he and the owners take in the lockout and cancellation. "My biggest regret is that we couldn't get the union to look...we couldn't get the union to do." Shirk! What a huge shift of blame. What a liar he is, too! He remarked that the union wouldn't make an offer. The union's offer was the last one on the table!

The more I think about this, the more I cannot blame the owners or the players. They seem to be along for the ride more than anything (case in point, the majority of players were surprised that "they" were offering the league the 24% rollback in salaries, later they were surprised that "they" had endorsed a salary cap). Gary Bettman works for the NHL Board of Governors, not the owners as a whole. Bob Goodenow works for the union...he answers to the player agents. The owners and players wanted to play hockey; Bettman, Goodenow, the BOG, and the agents wanted to kill it. Yeah, real hockey fans there, guys. You disgust me!

You guys need to grow up, talk more, get things worked out. Quit blaming the other guy. Own up to your own responsibility. If you truly are the fans of hockey you claim to be and can't work out a deal, get some help so that you can do it. Otherwise, you run the risk of living the rest of your lives labeled 'idiots.'

I'm tired of your bickering...I want to see my Lightning defend their cup and my Flames defend their Western Conference Championship. At this point, I don't know if I'll ever see either team play again. You claim, no contraction, we'll have all 30 teams. We'll your job was to keep hockey alive and you've killed it. You're a liar, Gary Bettman. I can't trust you. I fear that your promise of no contraction is a lie, too. And there's nothing you can say that will convince me otherwise.

So, go ahead and give your press conferences. Hold your head up high in your holier-than-thou attitude. Shake your head as you answer questions because you're right and everyone else is wrong and can kiss your butt. These lips will never come near you except to give you a piece of my mind should I ever see you

Oh, and Bob, you're not off the hook, either. Don't begin to tell me you've done all you could. You bickered with Bettman just as much as he bickered with you. You could have begun talking with the league a lot sooner. If you really cared for hockey as much as you claim, you would have tried to save the game--to work with its "savior," Gary Bettman--as soon and as quickly as possible. Instead, you both sat on your behinds waiting. Labor disputes are never solved with seiges, and you've proven that very clearly.

I'm one angry fan. I'll point the finger, because I can, and I point to you two. You are dispicable. You are deplorable. You are a desolation. You are evil. You should be banned from this game you claim to love, the coolest game on earth.

I've posted pictures of li'l Robert. You'll find them all here. Please enjoy!

Submitted for your reading, edification, and pleasure, my sermon from this past Sunday--the Transfiguration of Our Lord. Please click Sermons in the appropriate menu bar to read the manuscript. Thank you for your attention

I'm catching them as quick as I can. I'm blocking the ip-ranges and deleting all comments from this-or-that loan and here-and-there blackjack. This is called referrer spam. They are left here by an internet bot, not a person. The idea behind it is not so much to get you to follow their links, but to increase their Google Page Rank by placing links to their businesses over and over and over again on as many different web pages as possible. The more links to their site, the higher their rank. The higher the rank, the more people who are actually looking for these things will be able to find it more quickly on Google.

Now, an upgrade in Pivot has what they call a fix for this. There is a tag that can be placed in the links which will stop Google's bot from following those links, therefore not increasing the rank. This is a no-win situation for me, becuase I still have to go through and delete all the spam. It's just more work for me. No thanks.

Anyway, now you know what's going on.

Finally, they're talking. It took 5 months of whispers and one-liners, but the two sides are finally sitting down and discussing things. But, I think it may be too late. There are rumors that the NHL is ready to cancel the season altogether today. Well, I have to ask, why did you wait so friggin' long to hash something out? You and the NHLPA are the manifestations of a couple of stubborn doofusses (ahem*GaryBettman*cough*cough*BobGoodenow*ahem). Thanks for caring enough for us, the fans, in order to beat more money out of each other with which to line your pockets. I hate you!

However, I do have to say bravo to Trevor Linden for initiating these talks. Good job on trying to get together and get something done. Nice idea not inviting the two baboons. But again I have to ask, "Why did you wait so long?"

Bravo, as well, to Jeremy Roenick for your class-act comments about having to give something back to the fans. Lowering ticket prices should once again make the game attractive to us who have learned that there are other things going on in winter and other activities with which to consume ourselves as there is less and less daylight per diem. It seemed as if you wanted to give the game back to the fans. However, I question you dedication to the stubborn-ness of your doofus association boss. In essence, I hear from you, "I want to give the game back to the fans as long as we get our way and get to line our pockets." Shame. Really.

Bravo to the NHL players who decided not to play in Europe or take someon else's spot in a minor league. Shame on those other players who decided money was too important to forego.

Bravo to the owners who had the balls to say they want the game back. I think there was only one. However, there may have been more who thought it. Shame on the rest of you for following your doofus of a leader.

If only the fans had an official voice, then I might try to start or join a call for the jobs of Bettman and Goodenow. They are the enemy. They are evil. I want my NHL back!

18 days. It doesn't seem like all that long a time. Two weeks, four days. That kind of time goes by so quickly for someone who lives 70 or more years, on average.

In the life of a computer, however, 18 days is a long time...a very long time.

That's how long Thaddaeus (the computer I am now writing from) had been running without a restart or shutting down, until yesterday. It seemed a little unstable; some programs weren't running like they were supposed to, failing to do what they are supposed to do. So, I look to see what kind of uptime I had. 18 days! "Well, I guess it's about time to reboot."

Thaddaeus reboots without a hitch. Then I get to the login screen. Click on my username, input my password, and wait...and wait...and wait some more. It's not logging me in.

Grrr, time is running short. We had to get to Salem for a prenatal doctor's appointment (come quickly, baby, it's supposed to be your birthday). I hold the power button in--the computer shuts down. I wait ten seconds and turn it back on. Try to login and wait...and wait...and wait, again. "This is not good."

Turn off the computer, turn back on, hold down F8. "Safe mode," I thought, "Maybe I can do someting from safe mode." For some reason, and it turns out to be fortuitous in the end, I select Safe mode with network. I try to login, and the same thing happens.

"I don't have time for this now!" We arrive at the Salem clinic just in time for the appointment--thank God for these rural clinics which are a little more lenient with regard to schedules, but it's nothing I want to take advantage of.

From Salem, we head to Sioux Falls. We have an appointment to get the car seat checked...to make sure it's in properly. Owell, the guy that does it called in sick, so we reschedule. Next, to Saturn for an oil change and to get the front license plate bracket remounted. That goes off without a hitch. From there, to Sears for rotation, balance, and alignment (that's where we get our tires). It was a nice hour-and-a-half roaming the mall, doing some shopping, spending some nice together time with preggers. Dinner time follows, courtesy of Jessie. "Hey sis, we had some delicious build-your-own burgers from Chili's thanks to you...thank you!" Then Sam's Club...I bought Norton SystemWorks here (excellent price) with the idea of reformating Thaddaeus and starting over. Finally, over to Wal-Mart for some other smaller things.

All this time, Thaddaeus sat at home, powered down. gen_here (my wife's computer) was powered down, too. Tychicus, the file server, was still up and running, however.

So, we get home, and my wife tries to login to her computer. She's getting the same thing. "Man, this really sucks...two computers down at the same time?" Something was fishy. On a hunch, I checked the router. No flashing lights, everything's solid...that's not right. gen_here get's turned off, the router get's rebooted, gen_here is turned back on. Here comes that login...we wait...and wait...PRESTO! She's in! Thaddaeus gets turned back on; I try to login...and wait...and wait...voila! I'm in! I wake Tychicus...the screen is blue...nothing else. So, it gets powered down, and powered back up. It works again.

A scare due to a router fart. Now, I'm out $50...well, sorta. One of these days (maybe this summer), I'll take the time to reformat Thaddaeus and get it back to a more stable state. It's long overdue. When I do, I'll be installing SystemWorks anyway. It's a handy suite of system tools to have to keep an eye on how your computer's running, so...yeah.

I was dreading today all day away from home yesterday. I kept running through my mind how I was going to try to backup various bits of data so that I could restore everything that I wanted to restore to a renewed configuration. It's a good thing I already backup all my documents and such, but other things, like Outlook configurations...well, that's another story. I'm thankful that I have all kinds of Outlook information stored on Tryphaena (my Pocket PC). Thankfully, I can take the time to backup everything I want and put in place measures to either remind myself to backup more stuff or do it all automatically.

Still, yesterday afternoon was not a fun day...well, in many aspects it was, but not computer-wise. I'm glad it's come to some sort of resolution.