Mood: Hungry
Music: Waterbaby, Sneaker Pimps
Game: World of Warcrack
Book: Time Enough For Love, Robert Heinlein
Muffin: Raspberry-Sweet Plum (WARM! YUM!)
Punchline: "How many bars do you work at anyway, buddy?!"
I have noticed that there are a significant number of lists as blog entries here. And then I kind of wondered why that is.
Thinking about it, I think it's because all of us immediately group, categorize, and rate everything that we come across. I am idly wondering if this is cultural...I don't recall seeing evidence of such things in Tokyo, say...but then again, I'm not sure I would have recognized such things if I had seen them, either.
Maybe it's just me.
Maybe I'll put together a list of lists.
I just recalled that one of my all-time favorite books when I was growing up was a book called "The Book of Lists." It was just that: A book full of crazy and wonderful lists...like the world's most feared thing, or the 10 best ways to fall out of a moving car.
Maybe it's just my childhood infatuation with lists. Maybe I think that way.
No idea. Just popped into my head this morning.
Oh, and one more thing...the cool thing about blogs is that sometimes, people you never expect to read it end up reading it.
It makes me happy.
Mood: Cold.
Music: Hummell Gets the Rockets, The Rock OST
Game: World of Warcraft (51 Rogue)
Book: Time Enough For Love, Robert Heinlein
Muffin: Blueberry-Apricot
Punchline: "Nah, man! That's just SNOW."
Aside from the sound that's already there while you play the game, I occasionally like to switch the soundtrack to something more of my liking. As a service to my game-playing bruthas and sistas, here's a collection of music that I like to play, and the games I play while listening. By the way, they're great listening, even without the gameplay.
The Rock OST - Aside from being a kick-ass movie ("I'll take pleasure in guttin' you...BOY.") with Nicholas Cage and Sean Connery, the soundtrack really rocks. Any run and gun game, such as Soldier of Fortune 2, Diablo(1 or 2), or Counterstrike can be made measurably better by this soundtrack. The track I'm listening to right now, Hummell Gets The Rockets, really beautifully tempos the action in a tactical shooter. Try starting it before a 4 minute round of Counterstrike, Ghost Recon, R6:3 or SOF2, and see how it works. It's fabulous.
Black Hawk Down OST - If you can't play Counterstrike Dust or SOF2 Bazaar to Hunger or Bakara Market, you're clearly insane. You could also play Act III in Diablo 2 to it...although I generally reserve the next one for that. You could also play Black Hawk Down while listening to this...and pretend you're in the movie...but that might just be overload.
The Mummy OST - I could listen to this over and over while playing Diablo 2...and did. The rhythm and tempo, along with the instrument selection makes this a no-brainer.
Wipeout 2097 OST - This is an odd one...there may not be a better soundtrack to play any racing game to...than a racing game soundtrack. The Wipeout 2097 OST is the soundtrack I immediately switch on when I'm racing anything, from PGR2 to Rally. The selection and bpm are perfect for high speed mayhem.
Gladiator OST - Fantasy RPGs could do no better than this soundtrack. From exploring to battle, cities to travel, this soundtrack provides the mood you need. World of Warcraft's soundtrack is good...probably the best I've heard from any game to date...but this is a good replacement when that one gets old. Try "The Battle" when heading into an almost certainly fatal encounter...I played it when me and four others I didn't really know rode our mounts to try to defeat two elite dragonlings in the Badlands. Chills. And we were victorious.
Crystal Method/Legion of Boom - Wipeout 2097 missed this one by a few years. It should definitely be there. Racing to this one is a great experience. You could also try taking on a mess of bad guys being armed with only a few health kits and a machinegun...it's that kind of song. Doom 3 and HL2 should have had this track on it.
Paul Oakenfold/Bunkka - Ready, Steady, Go. Defines a racing song. 128bpm, drops to 64bpm for a few measures, with a few percussion parts at 256bpm. Beautiful. You can hear where you're supposed to be cornering.
There are more...and I'll add 'em as I put 'em in my playlist. I know most of them are soundtracks already...but thematically, it's what works for me. What can I tell ya?
Mood: Happy.
Music: None. I wish I hadn't left my iPod at home.
Game: World of...oh, you know already.
Book: Road Work, Mark Bowden
Muffin: No muffin today!
I'll start by saying that if you're a fan of good journalism, Road Work, the book I'm currently reading, is pretty good. His journalistic style is anecdotal...not unlike Hunter S. Thompson, but without all the drugs and creative interpretation. You probably know Bowden as the guy who wrote "Black Hawk Down." What you may NOT know is that the book was actually written as a several dozen part series for the Philadelphia paper for which he worked at the time. Before and since then, he wrote probably hundreds of stories of much shorter length but no less interesting topics. I find his style to be easily readable, and the topics varied and fun, from following Al Sharpton on the campaign trail to cops on the take in Philadephia. All in all, a good read.
Now, I'm going to regale you with a list of things I think I need for my apartment:
A dish drying rack - I don't have a dishwasher any more...and I'm stunned at how much I miss having one. I cook a lot now, and the dishwashing is definitely a drag. I don't mind it so much when I'm doing it...but if I had a rack, It'd go much faster.
Dishtowels - My last set of dishtowels, purchased when I lived in London, have gone the way of the dodo. They've rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. They are EX-Dish towels. So I need more.
Ice Cube Trays - In spite of the fact that my refrigerator has an ice cube maker built into it, the water was never hooked up by my landlord...so it's now simply a large plastic thingie attached to the wall of my freezer that takes up space. Consequently, I need ice cube trays.
Bath Mat - The bathmat I had at the last apartment was pretty bad. Between the multiple head shavings and various fake blood and white face applications, the white bath mat was looking like someone had murdered a clown on it, and hadn't cleaned up satisfactorily. It's gone now. Obviously, a new one is needed.
Alarm Clock - For some unknown reason, my alarm clock just is NOT waking me up in the morning. I've had the thing since Hong Kong, and I used it while I was travelling all over, as it's portable. But it doesn't work any more. I need a decent one...one that will wake me up. I regularly sleep through the one I have at the moment. Not good.
Picture Frames - I have a mess of photos I'd like to place in frames and put on the wall. My friends are always complaining that I don't hang anything on the wall in any of my apartments. Fundamentally, they're correct. I always hate to put something on the wall...because I always feel like it's in the wrong place or there isn't enough of it. But this time, I'm going to place stuff on the wall. Really.
Some sort of support for the bar in my bedroom closet - The closet is about 6-7 feet wide...but the bar has no support in the middle. Given all my hockey jerseys, it's starting to sag in the middle. I think a piece of wood cut to shape would do it.
Storage Crates - Right now, I have dozens of Lego boxes on the top shelf in my closet. I should probably get big Ziploc bags, bag up all the Legos along with their guides, then throw them all in one large storage container. It would certainly save closet space, which I definitely need.
Rugs - I kind of want to get some sort of natural fiber woven sisal rug for my living room...they're not that expensive, really, and I love the way they feel under bare feet, kinda soft and crunchy and prickly at the same time. Can get them in lots of places, I'm sure.
There's probably more...but these are the things I'm working on getting in the near future.
I really like the apartment, love the neighborhood. Should have moved to Brooklyn years ago.
That'll teach me.
Mood: Sleepy
Music: The Theme from the Love Boat (hey Paul!)
Game: World of Warcraft (duh.)
Book: Road Work, Mark Bowden
Muffin: Strawberry-Sweet Plum (yum.)
Let's start at the very beginning...that's a very fine place to start...
My weekend begins with Panix.com getting hijacked.
What does that mean? Well, this blog, my primary e-mail address, a couple of other things I run through Panix...all gone. Not gone, per se...just hiding. Someone, nameless at this point, managed to mess with the DNS nameserver infrastructure to point panix.com to some unsuspecting box in England.
Frankly, I'm not sure how something like this happens. You'd think there'd be pretty tight controls on such an event. Yes, I know there are only 15 top level domain name servers, and yes, I know it's theoretically possible to hack one...and due to the process by which domain names propagate, it could be fairly simple to do it...but if someone tried this little number on Microsoft, do you think it would have worked?
Anyway, I ended up not getting any email this weekend...so if you sent me something, please resend it. The one you sent is floating in ether, never to be delivered. Sorry for the inconvenience.
If you tried to get to my blog this weekend, unlikely based on previous weekly visit patterns, you got some holding page in England. Trust me, we're still here. Finally got service back this morning some time...I could probably figure it out based on when the spam started pouring in again, but whatever.
So that was fun.
Then, Saturday. Was going to head over to my mother's house, got dressed, put my keys in my pocket, grabbed my mobile phone, got my cash off the desk...and no wallet.
Huh. Checked my pockets, the desk, the bookshelf. Nope. No wallet. Living room, settee, coffee table, coat pockets. Nope.
Now I'm getting a bit flummoxed. If you're anything like me, you come home, drop your bag, throw your keys, wallet, change, anything in your pockets on your desk/table/dining room table, and go about your business. I do it, and I drop my stuff in one of three places. My wallet was not there.
So now I'm getting ticked. I remembered I stopped at the deli on the way home from work, and took cash out from the ATM there, so I know I had it then. I began to figure that I lost it on the way back from the deli, like it slipped out of my pocket, or I missed my pocket somehow when I was putting my wallet back after using the ATM.
I've misplaced my wallet in the apartment before, and my mom was waiting for me, so I grabbed my coat, and headed uptown, buying a $10 metrocard, figuring I would check my house more thoroughly when I got back...but my missing wallet was on my mind. I hate losing my wallet, and yes, I've lost my wallet exactly twice before.
Once, when I was in high school, I lost my wallet, but someone dropped it in a mailbox, as I was taught to do, and it ended up back in my possession a few weeks later, missing the 10 bucks, but with everything else in it.
The next time, it was really gone. Don't know where that one is.
Anyway, I don't believe I'm all that typical, because I actually don't keep much in my wallet. I keep my cash card, my business cash card for Limewear, a few pictures of my nephew Ethan, my Rangers Season Ticket Holders card, my monthly metropass to get on the subway, my father's teacher id card, my fookus' business card, a spare ten bucks and a laminated password card for the servers at work.
Now, yes, this is all inconvenient. The personal cash card is the worst. I try to carry some cash at all times, but living in New York is tough that way, and so I'm always scooping 20-40 bucks every few days. The business cash card is no big deal...there's not much in the account, and I never use the card, anyway. The pictures of Ethan can be replaced, even though I don't like losing pictures. My Rangers Season Ticket card is most likely not getting any use this year, so that's no loss. The monthly metropass is a fucker. Work now gives me a monthly pass instead of the roughly $80 to buy one, and I've just started using it that week...so I've basically screwed myself out of $65. Not great. My father's teacher ID card will hurt...it's really the only thing I truly can't replace, and I carry it everywhere, so that kinda sucks. My fookus will give me another business card, I'm sure, so that's not too bad. The laminated password card would normally concern me...save for the fact that it's actually not accurate, as I've jumbled some characters, and left some out. So in reality, it's really just a password reminder card. No fear there...been doing this too long to write down passwords, especially root passwords.
Now it's also true I'm out one black leather Coach wallet that I've had for quite some time, and it's been a real trooper, and I will definitely miss THAT. A good wallet is always tough to find.
OK...so I get home, I tear the place apart, clean everything, check for my wallet...nowhere. So I sigh, resign myself to the fact that it's gone, and I call up the two banks to notify them that my bank cards got lost, and could they please send me new ones. They are more than happy to oblige, and they tell me it'll be 3-10 days before I get another card.
Well, I'll tell ya, I have $30 bucks in my pocket, and it's gonna have to last me until I get a new card, or until I can get to the bank...like people used to do in the Dark Ages. What else can I do? So, I tell 'em to go ahead and replace 'em, and I go back to watching the Jets choke hardcore. Let's be blunt here: If I play defense for the New York Jets, I'm wondering how much it would cost to kill Doug Brien.
Anyway, after that, I'm deep in the throes of clearing the cathedral in Scarlet Monastery with the rest of the gang when my computer crashes pretty hard. Happens sometimes, mainly as a result of a sound error, because we run Ventrilo while playing, and it makes for a great experience...save for the occasional crashes. So I open up the front of my case, you know, that panel that covers my power switch and ROM drives and such...and my wallet falls out.
I'm not kidding. My wallet. Right there. Here's the funny part...It didn't register. I just reset the computer and started playing...and about an hour later, I look down at my desk, and my wallet is there. And I freeze. Did some sort of weird time stop thing happen, and aliens place my wallet back where I left it before stealing it for some bizarre wallet probe experiments? Then it dawns on me where it was, and I laugh, shortly before getting well and truly pissed that I had already cancelled my cash card.
Well...WHY was the wallet inside my computer case? I'll tell you. On the front of my Alienware Predator case (in Plasma Purple) is a blue led light that indicates power. I have it on good advisement that this particular model of LED is used in airport landing lights, used for signalling the space shuttle while it's in orbit, and used on Coast Guard cutters to blind drug dealers. In other words, it's bright enough to vaguely illuminate my room if there's no other light on in the room. The light on the face of the case is just a piece of clear plastic that transmits the light from the actual case to the front of the cool curved cover.
I left my computer on the night before, because some kind individuals are loaning me their copy of the first season of Alias. However, at 3am, I was getting a face full of glowy blue light, and couldn't sleep, so I got up, staggered over to my desk, grabbed the first thing that I could feel on my desk, opened the case, jammed my wallet in there to block the small sun that is the power light on my computer, then closed the case again, and went and passed out in the blissful darkness.
Only I forgot that I actually used my wallet to do such a thing. I have been told that I can carry on a complete, perfectly lucid conversation while asleep and not remember a single thing the morning after. So went the wallet.
Duh. So I have my wallet back, and all the important stuff in it, but I'm still without a cash card until they send me a new one, while the old one sits, laughing silently up at me, on my desk.
Then, last night, while I was making some yummy lamb stew, I accidentally left it on high too long, and burned it. Yes, I was distracted by World of Warcraft. Such a moron. Ended up woking up some beef and snow peas instead for dinner...but burnt stew just smells...awful. And it's a waste of perfectly good lamb...which pisses me off.
Anyway, alls well that ends well. I'm still alive, I'm pretty happy, I have my wallet again, the burnt stew's been thrown away and the house has been aired out, the Jets are wondering who they pissed off in the grand scheme of things, and I am at work, ready to attack the job at hand.
Lastly, I'd like to thank all the folks who called, wrote, and IMd me to make sure I was OK after my previous entry. I'm OK...better than OK. I also have some kick-ass friends who care about me.
I apologize for the long entry...but I was just in the mood to write this morning. Enjoy.
Mood: Ready to Go
Music: Brazen, Skunk Anansi
Game: World of Warcraft
Book: We Were Soldiers Once...And Young, Moore and Galloway
Muffin: Blueberry Blueberry
On Wednesday morning, I had a panic attack. I haven't had one of those since I left Modem Media. I probably should have suspected that such a thing was in the making, because a few days ago, I was mentioning to Adam that I was pretty stressed out, and I could feel the acid in my stomach. Something that hasn't happened to me since Hong Kong/Tokyo.
Now, my panic attacks aren't exactly "grab a gun and rampage" or shriek and fling myself about. They're more about getting very quiet, heart pounding, and hyperventilating. Usually, these are triggered when I feel like I'm losing control of my surroundings. Not in a control freak kind of way, but in a very real "I can't affect what's going to happen to me" and I lose faith that I'm on the right path.
Fortunately, I've been through them before, and I put myself into rational mode, and walked myself through what I was going to do. The financial stuff is the financial stuff, and I'll sort that out with some help from my mom, who, as always, bails me out when I get stupid. She just puts me on a plan, I follow said plan, and we get back on track. Takes me some time, but I get there. And I'm also going to destroy my credit cards, because, frankly, I can't handle having that much credit. It destroys me. So I'm gonna get rid of 'em, and we'll see how that works.
But that, my friends, was only part of it. The other part was the feeling that I was going in the wrong direction at work. So, I took Wednesday to take a step back, focus on what I needed to accomplish, and figure out how I was going to accomplish it.
Took me 5-6 hours, and I refined it throughout the day as I thought more about it.
When I got to where I'm working, I promised the partners that I could effect change within their organization. I have made significant change in a lot of areas...but what I was really tasked with doing was to get hands around the construction process, and reign in some of the costs by providing accurate visibility on a regular basis. The infrastructural stuff, the methodologies, the thinking...that all happened anyway. Now it's the doing.
I've been largely held back from doing this by a combination of factors. First, I don't have the level of authority I'm used to in order to affect change. I'm used to changing it by persuasion at first, then dictat if they don't comply. I don't have the whip, so the carrot loses force. Next, all small companies are resistant to change, mainly because the people who have to change most are the partners, and they, when things get tough, would rather rely on their gut feeling than staying the course. It's not an unusual situation, nor is it completely irrational. It does, however, undermine any sort of significant cultural change.
After two years of doing this, I realized that I was allowing one of the partners to convince me that I couldn't do it, and that I was wrong, and that the way that I was proceeding was flawed, and I was allowing another partner to convince me that yes, what I was doing was necessary, but this project (whatever this project was that day) was more important, and couldn't these things wait a week?
In short, I was losing confidence in the path, and then I was being delayed, allowing no victories to bolster my confidence. I recognize the symptoms/flaws. I've seen them before. After awhile, I felt that I could not make progress, and so I was freezing. Not starting. Thinking but not doing.
So all of that came to a head on Wednesday morning as I was getting ready to go to work. And I called in for a personal day, and I organized myself.
I have a plan. I am going to give this place my last best effort. Either it will work, and I will transform this place the way I committed to, or I will give it my all, and it won't change, in which case it's not possible to change the way things are done here.
I have no lack of faith in my ability to effect change.
Here we go.
Mood: Odd.
Music: Theme to Mario DS (Doo - doo doo - doo dooo da doo...)
Game: World of Warcraft
Book: We Were Soldiers Once, And Young, Moore and Galloway
My last post was the hundredth post to this blog. I hadn't really noticed, to be honest. But the blog engine pays attention to such things. So basically, I've spewed drivel 101 times. Rock on with my bad self.
This morning, on the way to work, I ate my yummy muffin (sweet nectarine and strawberry this morning) and then, instead of reading (today's book is We Were Soldiers Once, And Young) I remembered I bought Mario DS when my foo was in town, and never got around to playing it, and I had somehow managed to throw my DS into my bag on the way out the door a few days ago.
It turns out that Mario DS is sort of an amalgam of other Mario Games...and I spent my entire ride just trying out a few of the minigames. Distracting. Not going to win any major awards...but it's fun.
I've also decided to add the game I'm playing and the book I'm reading to the top of my blog...because it's more info, and it might inspire some of you to start reading or playing.
Anyway, that's just housekeeping stuff. Now, my general entry:
Captain's Log...kidding. Each morning, on the way to work, I pick up a muffin. I go to a place called Blue Sky Bakery and it's kinda a hip trendy bakery/coffee place...but the muffins are amazing, and baked that morning. I'm not a coffee drinker, so I couldn't say how the coffee is. Anyway, the muffins are really really good. I even bring an extra for Adam most days, and he usually enjoys them too.
Anyway, as I walk in and get assaulted by the smells of fresh baking and coffee and listen to the cool music, I realize that there's a guy sitting at a table there with an iBook. Or some flavor of Mac laptop. There's usually someone with a Mac laptop in there most mornings...and a few weeks ago, there were three. A practical LAN.
Last week, on the way back from lunch at the Hunterspoint Cafe (Dominican food. Yum.) we stopped at Ten63, which is, yes, a hip trendy coffee place that apparently has great coffee, but their pastries aren't fabulous. Still make great mint lemonade and cocoa. Anyway, in there? 3 people with Mac laptops.
Now, there weren't any PC laptops in there. Just mac laptops. And, if I think about it, the last time I was in a Starbucks, the guy sitting at the table was whacking on an iBook.
Frankly, there's some information there that is tantalizingly out of reach. You could make all sorts of assumptions based on the fact that I seem to see iBooks and Mac laptops in hip coffeeshops often. Here's what's bugging me:
- I haven't seen any PC laptops in coffeeshops.
- The people with the Mac laptops are all there in the middle of the day.
- I know that PC laptops far outsell Mac laptops.
I can draw multiple possible conclusions:
- People who own Mac laptops like them some trendy coffee.
- People who own Mac laptops have no jobs.
- People who own Mac laptops are freelancers of some flavor, who can work where they like.
- People who have Mac laptops insist on using them everywhere, including coffeeshops, not unlike iPods.
- I frequent places where Mac Users like to go, making me at least sympathetic in taste to Mac Users.
I dunno. Open for input. I know some of you out there are avid (see also:rabid) Mac laptop users. What's up? Why don't you just work at a desk?
Ya know, maybe I'll bring my Dell laptop to a coffeeshop and work there for a little while...just to start to smooth the demographic. Who knows?
Mood: Frothing.
Music: Battle Without Honor or Humanity, Tomoyasu Hotei
OK...my job is not without it's little peaks and valleys. I'm sure that your job is much the same. Now, I have a skill that makes any job I take, from consulting to construction, from the US to Far East Asia, devolve inevitably towards a single, horrible, gut-wrenching task. That skill?
I can fix computers.
Vice-President, Project Director, Project Manager, Executive Producer...doesn't matter the title. At some point, I'm getting called into the office of someone who has well and truly bollixed up their system...usually someone important, and usually just as something of critical importance is required. Never fails.
Today? My boss "did something" to prevent his accounting package from working. Those of you in the know realize that the first week of January is NOT when things should be going wrong with accounting packages. Now, before I go much further with this, I should place this in perspective. The accounting package and server are operating just fine. The other finance people have no problem working with the accounting package, and so this is not even remotely the catastrophe that it could be.
However, it did not help matters much. This morning, I'm trying to get a Safety Manual out for Hearst. It's pretty important...not terribly so, but still something I'd like to be able to check off my list of things to do.
In comes my boss, and wants to know what javaw is, and why his computer is asking him whether it's ok to let it do what it does. Javaw is just a Java virtual machine, and it's not that big a deal that it wants to check the internet status. I check it out, it's no big deal, and I go back to my office. This, by the way, should have been my first warning.
Just before I leave, I see that MS wants to update the machine...so I check the updates to make sure that they're NOT Service Pack 2 for XP, and they're not, so I let them go through. This should have been warning 2.
20 minutes later, he walks back in and says that his accounting package is not working. The accounting package, by the way, is a SQL Client-Server based package. This should have been the last straw.
But I'm distracted. So I go about tweaking settings and so on, all while my boss MUST get on his computer.
Can't get the accounting package to work, so I uninstall it, and reinstall it. Just the client. I ain't that ambitious.
So along the way of installing a 10 step update, I realize a CD is missing. I didn't just realize it. It got screeched at me that I missed a step when I tried to patch the year-end 2004 update. I had the wrong version installed, and why the hell didn't I have 5.0 installed instead of 4.5, you bonehead?
So I look for the CD. Nowhere to be found. We keep a book with ALL the updates in it, neatly labelled, and all in order.
Except, apparently, this one.
No one knows where it is. We look for 45 minutes. We don't find it. I call the company that makes the software, and ask politely if I can download it. The nice lady with the Southern accent explains that she can't do that, because it's a FULL update, and only comes on CD, but she's happy to send me another one.
Fabulous. At this point, it's 3pm, I haven't eaten lunch, and I'm getting grumbly, when my boss declares he has to leave, and splits for the day. Whatever. At least he won't be asking me if it's fixed every 10 minutes like he has been for the last 3 hours.
Now, I wander into the accountant's office and ask her where this CD is again...because it's a mystery. Why on earth would this CD be ANYWHERE but in this book? I am very careful about updating the system, then handing her the update docs and software when I am done. Just in case, you know, I need to do exactly what I'm doing at that moment.
She doesn't have it. Looked everywhere.
Except, apparently, in the To Be Filed tray on her desk. To be filed as of, say, last October, but whatever. Found the CD, so all's good.
I install it. Nothing. Still choking.
I'm resigning myself to base installs of OS and all that other crap when it smacks me in the face.
WHY did it try to stop javaw from accessing the internet? Why was there a request for OS Security patches?
XP SP2.
You knew it. You patched your system with SP2. You didn't KNOW you patched your system with the devil...but you DID.
And all at once, your system decided to secure itself against everything in the known universe. Including, say, the SQL server we have running.
Only took me FIVE hours. Not bad, really. Considering I now am not going to get my work done today, and I haven't eaten lunch. I am writing this while waiting for the uninstall process for SP2 to complete. (Also known as Exorcism.)
Tomorrow should be an interesting conversation when I ask him how he managed to patch SP2 without knowing it...especially in light of the mails I regularly send telling people NOT to patch SP2.
Nothing like being the IT guy...
Mood: Happy.
Music: Nothing. Especially not Auld Lang Syne.
Let's start by saying Happy New Year to everyone who reads this blog!
Then, let's continue by pointing out that my fookus, who visited me for the New Year, told me that she reads my blog...which didn't really surprise me. What kind of DID surprise me is that she told me in no uncertain terms that my Return of the King blog, while she empathized, was factually incorrect. It turns out that on the last page of Return of the King, Frodo does, in fact, get on a boat with Gandalf and Galadriel. It happens some years after the events...but it happens. This leaves me ranting and raving about the fact that Saruman dies by falling off a tower onto a big spiky wheel, and that the hobbits don't save the Shire from Saruman and his minions. Oh well. Life's tough. Leave it to my fookus to put me back in my place.
Next, I got some cool t-shirts and a new coat and a bag and some books and a few DVDs for the holiday season. And it was very cool.
I also wanted to respond to Pete's comment on my last blog entry. He's siding with the owners. And last night, while on Ventrilo with the fellas, they were all pretty adamant about needing a salary cap in professional sports. So I'd kinda like to address all that.
My fundamental problem with a salary cap is that it is completely contrary to basic capitalism. I also note that a salary cap does not, in any way, restrict the amount of money a team or their owners can make, doesn't limit ticket prices, and doesn't limit the costs of concessions or parking or going to the game. It doesn't limit the amount of money received from merchandising, television rights, or even using the likenesses of its players wearing uniforms. It doesn't limit the amount of money they receive due to videogame sales, presence in movies, or game replays and/or archive/DVD sales.
In short, the owners and the league can make as much money as they like, but the players are restricted by an arbitrary number that the league decides.
As far as I'm concerned, this is bullshit. With no players, you have no league, no merchandising, and no TV rights. The fact that the owners want to artificially restrict the amount of money they pay players only ends up with them finding ways to circumvent it when it suits them, and provides a convenient excuse not to pay players a higher percentage of their profits.
I do not believe that the NHL didn't make money. I don't believe that the majority of teams lost money last year...or in the preceding 10 years. Did some teams lose money? Sure they did. Because they were new teams (see Carolina), they were poorly run (see Chicago), or they were in a market that they shouldn't have been in in the first place (see Phoenix.) Owning an NHL team, or any sports team for that matter, is not a license to print money. It is a business opportunity, and curiously enough, you need to be good at it to make money. This is the way it works in ALL business ventures. Just because you were able to cough up the 40-200 million dollars to buy the team does not in any way guarantee you that you'll make money. I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why these owners believe otherwise.
If you think a salary cap in the NHL will translate to lower ticket prices, you're crazy. The NHL has lower average prices than football or basketball, and has increased their ticket prices the least (30% over the last 10 years) of all sports leagues. Football and basketball, which have salary caps, have increased their ticket prices by over 300% in the same timeframe.
In short, the ticket prices are going to reflect whatever the market can support. Which will result in higher profits for the teams and owners...but not for players, because they'll be restricted by a cap.
If you're saying that players can always go to another team that will pay them more money...well, no, they can't. The amount of money in the salary pool of the NHL will remain fixed. For you to make more money, someone else must make less money. If the raise the cap, the amount they raise it is the total amount that the LEAGUE can offer in regards to salary increases. If they raise the cap by a million dollars, across 700 players, that means that they can offer each player a raise of about 1500 dollars. Now, I don't know about you, but if I got a raise of 1500 bucks, and I was making about 200k, I'd be more than a little insulted.
Hockey, and all sports, are a game...and they should be grateful that they get to play a game for a living and get paid for it, right? Nonsense. It's a game, yes...for us. For them, it's a physically difficult job that requires that they play hurt, day in and day out...for decades. They start when they're young, and they work and they train to be good enough to play professionally. And when they get there, they play against the best that world has to offer. And if they're really lucky, they get to play for 10 years, and make some money, and stay healthy enough to spend or whatever.
I don't begrudge them this money. They earned it. They gave me the moment the NY Rangers won the Stanley Cup. I know it sounds crazy, but it's probably one of the single most defining moments of my life. My father was born, lived, and died without ever seeing his beloved Rangers win the Stanley Cup. He took me to games, playoff games, practices...all in the hopes of seeing the Cup raised in the Garden. And when they won the Cup, I felt...I don't know. I felt happy that they had finally won it for my father, for me, for every fan that had ever sat there watching them, hoping, yelling, praying, wishing that it would happen. And it did. And Mark Messier raised the cup over his head and the place exploded with fifty-four years of waiting and relief. And I'm sure I'm not the only one of the 18,200 in there who had a story just like that one.
And when you get right down to it, the players do that. The owners don't. The NHL doesn't. Mark Messier did. Brian Leetch did. Esa Tikkanen did. Stephane Matteau did. They gave me that moment with decades of hard work and pain and effort. And because some owner decides that it's too hard to keep an eye on his own finances, he needs some rules or contracts to keep him from spending money he earns almost completely from the work of his players.
The primary argument from the fellas over at ijsmp is that the ability for a team to spend whatever they want imbalances the playing field. If you buy a team full of all-stars, like the Yankees and Rangers and Lakers, it gives you a better chance of a championship.
Of course, the Yankees, Rangers, nor Lakers actually WON a championship this year (or last year...)...but you get the point.
No, actually, I don't get the point. You can argue that attracting the best players will increase your chances of a championship...perhaps even significantly so. But nothing will guarantee a championship. Not player nor coach, not money nor love. Nothing. And I will argue, strenuously, that all a cap will do is reward the people who are best at circumventing it...see also the NBA. Deferred monies, signing bonuses, benefits, agreed leaves of absence, contracts that extend past the length of the career. Or the NFL, where a contract means nothing...because the player will play for the first year or two of a multi-year contract, then the team will release them, avoiding the heavier parts of the contract...but allowing the player to keep the "signing bonuses."
If the argument is that the teams ought to be fair...that the teams should start from some equal footing, and then compete...that's ridiculous. You don't draft players thinking they're equal. You don't pay coaches more or less money, figuring they're equal. If you go with that whole "Any given Sunday" mentality...well, on any given day, any team CAN beat any team. In ANY sport. In any league. They're all professionals. Yes, Kobe Bryant is a pretty amazing basketball player...but while he may be knocking down 40 any given night, his teammates aren't exactly keeping up. And it isn't money that's kept the Lakers from winning. The Yankees have arguably the best team player for player that money can buy. But it didn't save them this past year...or the year before. The Rangers bought Lindros, Bure, Messier, Holik, Kasparitis...and it got them a bunch of draft picks. If you check the champions and runners up of each league for the last 10 years, I would bet that both the winner and runner-up weren't the highest paid, nor the lowest paid, in their league.
Lastly, the NHL has only three teams in the league that haven't made the Stanley Cup finals. THREE. Of thirty. The teams that haven't made it are all expansion teams, recent of the last 10 years. The rest have made the finals, and a vast majority have won the cup at least once. The last champion in the NHL? Tampa Bay. Carolina made the finals. Anaheim made the finals. This says disparity?
Can you say that about the NFL? The NBA? MLB?
Parity already exists in the NHL...why mess with it?
You don't need a cap in professional sports to allow for parity. You just need a bunch of people who are committed to being competitive. The owners in Chicago have destroyed the Chicago Blackhawks...one of the grand old franchises in the NHL...because they won't spend any money. They won't televise the games. They won't draft good players. They won't trade for decent players for fear of having to pay them, and cut into their profits. Their ticket prices are huge. It's not helping them win. At all. And their fan base is now completely gone. But at least they're not losing money hand over fist...which, I would argue, they're now doing because they refused to invest in the team, which would pay them back.
At the end of the day, whether you need a cap or not, right now, there's no hockey. And THAT is the worst problem of all.
Happy New Year, all. Have a great year! I know I will.