More Miscellanea

I've been off work all week and enjoying a vacation at home. It has not been as fun as I had hoped, mainly because we still have to fulfill our usual Christmas obligations to family and are entertaining house guests.

Some things that have happened:

Darling husband started an “animated political discussion” (aka fight) on Christmas Eve, which I finally had to break up by yelling “Moving on now...” Darling father-in-law was not amused with any of the participants. The entertainment value came in listening to the relative parrot the usual right-wing talking points about the devaluation of Christmas and spying on American citizens without thinking through the argument logically. Pity I only heard the end of the discussion.

We pulled a Sidney Crosby Rookie card from a pack of Upper Deck cards. Current book value: $200.00. No, I'm not selling the card.

The Penguins played exceptionally well last night against the New Jersey Devils. I did not get to see the game on television, but caught the second and third period on our way back from a family gathering. I am pleased. We see them play tomorrow against the Rangers. It will be interesting to see, since the Rangers will be in the Stanley Cup this year.

Apparently, I am some sort of hockey idiot savant at work these days. Almost two months ago I put a list up on my white board of all the things the Penguins organization needed to do to pull themselves out of “suckitude”. The list included the following, in no particular order:

1. Bench Lemieux.


2. Promote Michel Therrien to head coach.


3. Fire Shane Clifford.


4. Release Thibault.


5. Defensive Drills until they throw up.


6. Make Recchi Captain.


7. Bring Andy Chiodo up.


8. Break the kneecaps of any ref who called a Boston/Pittsburgh game this year (sheer fantasy, yes).

What can I say? I read the sports column every day, watch most of the games and pay attention.