Team USA Hockey Disappoints Once Again // February 22nd, 2006

Both the men and women ice hockey teams for the USA succeeded once again in letting down their country when it comes to Olympic hockey. The women’s team had to settle for a bronze medal after looking past their opponent in their semi-final game. For some reason they had it in their head they were always going to play Canada for the gold and just had to go through the motions. And for the 3289472340987328096809438 time, there is a reason why you play the games.

The men’s team on the other hand was never close to playing for a medal and finished with a 1-4-1 record, beating only Kazakhstan. A full roster of 23 NHL players could do nothing except disappoint their country for the third straight Olympics.

I have a hard time picking what was their worst performance of these games, but it just might have been their spineless play against a physical Team Russia yesterday. A perfect time to send a message to both Russia and Finland in a game that had no bearing on anything, Team USA played soft and the Russians skated around them.

In an after-game bitch fest, Mike Modano stated that Team USA needed, “new blood” to succeed in the games. He’s right if he means players that are passionate about playing for their country and aren’t simply selected because they are an American playing NHL hockey, i.e. Chelios, Hatcher, Modano, Gomez, Tkachuk.

Team USA Hockey should do what Team USA Basketball had to do, have players commit to the team for 3 years and practice together during the their off-season in order to be a part of the team. Team USA should then invite select NHL, minor league, collegiate, and junior hockey players to tryout for the team. Keep the roster at 60 players for 2 years, and then cut it down as the Vancouver games approach. Have these players play together now to form the best team, so this will never happen again and or at least the on and off ice performances will be something this country can be proud of. But I don�t believe that will ever happen, not when the marketing of a team is more important to the executive management.

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HDTV On a Non-HD TV // February 21st, 2006

About two weeks ago I decided to finally pick up the Comcast Digital Video Recorder from the local branch office here in San Jose. I was tired of missing favorite shows or flipping between two interesting programs.

Now with the DVR, I can record one show and watch any other, or record two shows at the same time (and only watch one of the two shows).

The cool thing about this DVR is that it is also a HD tuner, meaning if you have an HD monitor, you can watch all the HD channels. While using the standard cable box, I found that tuning into a HD channel, I obviously couldn’t see a picture, but I could hear the audio (big whoop).

Anyway, after getting the new DVR, I was curious to see what would happen when viewing an HD channel, so I clicked on over to the HD version of a local network affiliate. And lo and behold, I got a picture. Not an HD picture, because my TV is over 16 years old (I’m cheap), but a serious increase in resolution and clarity nonetheless. I’m not sure how it happens, but I believe the HD signal is degraded automatically through the composite connections leaving me with DVD-like quality video.

This is badass. Sort of. While the increase resolution is awesome for things like Men’s Olympic Ice Hockey in widescreen(!) and for my favorite shows, HD channels are limited. Limited to, the local affiliates for Fox, NBC, CBS, ABC, and PBS. Then an additional $5 a month for ESPN HD, Discovery HD, and NBC Universal HD. That is it. I think the premium movie channels come with the HD channel counterpart, but only one channel of each is in HD.

I was thinking of saving cash for a nice flat-panel HDTV, but even after seeing a limited increase in resolution, I have a hard time of justifying spending a lot of money on something that will only take advantage of a few HD channels that I rarely watch. Maybe I’ll just stick with this old TV and the DVD quality video.

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Tonight on ‘The First 48′ // February 9th, 2006

My favorite cop show since ‘The Shield’ and ‘NYPD Blue’ and ‘Homicide’, ‘The First 48‘ has a new episode tonight.

Episode details from my email update;

Close Ties/Last Call

Thursday, February 9 @ 9pm/8C on A&E

When Phoenix Detective Alex Femenia is called to a scene where three young people are found dead in their home, it is his job to cull through the evidence and determine what happened at this bloody scene. As night falls, the detective waits for the Medical Examiner to arrive to determine if this is the scene of a triple murder or a murder suicide.

In Memphis, TN Sergeant Tony Mullins and Lead Investigator Sgt. Caroline Mason get their first call of the week. A woman calls 911 to report a dead body laying on the front lawn of a home. When the detectives arrive on the scene the mother of the victim is there and gives the Sgt’s a clue, she tells them the last time she saw her son alive, he was with his girlfriend. With the clock ticking it is now up to the Sergeants to locate the girlfriend and find out exactly what she knows.

One of the best things about this reality show is that one can truly see what role the forensic teams play in homicide investigations. Spare me the CSI:New York Special Victims Unit of Cold Cases bullshit that has hit TV recently. Speaking of which, did you know CBS has 3984732987 cops shows on during the week? 3 CSI shows, NCIS, Cold Case, Numb3rs, Criminal Minds, Without a Trace, and more probably coming. None of them compare to ‘The First 48′, because it is real, and even when dealing with boring cases, it is still interesting overall, and sometimes even heartbreaking to watch (if I was on… like… Brokeback Mountain or something, I mean).

Catch it if you can and spread the word if you like it as well. Hopefully this will stay on while shows like ‘Surface’ and ‘Bones’ and ‘Freddy’ or even other A&E shows like ‘Inked’ (Miami Ink is considerably better) get cut.

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Job Search Update & Technical Recruiter Review // February 9th, 2006

blah blah blah blah I hate looking for a new job. The good news is that I am able to receive unemployment compensation while I have to deal with brain dead technical recruiters. That’s not an underestimation, either. The next tech recruiter I deal with that has a good understanding of job requirements matching a candidates experience will be the first one ever.

Since my last blog post about job opportunities, nothing happened. I have had 7 interviews with 5 different lame ass companies. Either a tech recruiter submitted my resume or I did to positions like ‘Web Developer’ or ‘Web Developer’ but these companies for some fucking reason want Marketing or Sales people with some knowledge in web development. Obviously this misunderstanding must be my fault. Stupid me for applying to jobs that want 5 years of web development experience, then not knowing how to answer interview questions such as “how would you handle a promotional campaign for a local company interested in running ads on our site?” Uhh…. I guess I skipped that chapter in O’Reilly’s PHP Cookbook. Damn if I didn’t feel like Chris Farley in ‘The Chris Farley Show’ sketches on SNL: I’M SO STUPID! GOD!!
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Coachella Lineup Announced // February 2nd, 2006

Coachella Lineup Announced - Headliner for Sunday April 30th; Tool.

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100 Best First Lines from Novels // February 1st, 2006

100 Best First Lines from Novels

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