Blurnsball

I'd like someone to find and buy me a New New York Yankees hat...



...and a foam claw....


BLUUUURRRRRRN!

Mr. Boh

I'm fairly sure that Mr. Boh...



...lost his other eye in a bar fight with Julius Pringles...



...over the Utz Girl...


...but I think Mr. Boh won because....

Baltimore Blizzards

In NHL09, if you create a player, he automatically goes into the Free Agent roster. If you create a team, you can build it out of players from any team. However, if you want to use your created team in a season or dynasty, you must replace another team. But, any players you created stay in the Free Agent roster. So, even though a created player is on your team, there is another copy of him as a free agent, who then gets sucked into playing on other teams.

So, I'm in year 2 of a dynasty using the Baltimore Blizzards (who replaced the Anaheim Ducks). Nearly all of the players on the team are also on other teams. I was wondering how much of an advantage playing on the Baltimore Blizzards must be to each player, as the Blizzards are in fact the best team in town. I am only 23 games into the second year. (BTW, we were eliminated from the playoffs last year in the first round by Vancouver, whose goalie is awfully familiar....)

First I gathered all the stats...

#	Name	Other Team	G (BBZ)	G (Other)	A (BBZ)	A (Other)	PTS (BBZ)	PTS (Other)	PIMS (BBZ)	PIMS (Other)	+/- (BBZ)	+/- (Other)	Hits (BBZ)	Hits (Other)
9	T. Regan	NYI	35	13	21	11	45	24	36	4	51	19	148	60
11	K. Brooks	NYI	19	9	24	18	43	27	15	0	51	19	52	36
13	D. Miller	LA	3	1	26	13	29	14	26	19	53	-6	152	20
14	S. Marasinghe	BUF	0	0	6	7	6	7	27	21	4	-11	34	48
25	M. Phelps	MTL	4	23	4	10	8	3	4	13	12	6	21	18
26	A. El-Zeftawy	NAS	3	5	26	10	29	15	48	36	49	-3	105	72
27	M. Regan	CBJ	0	1	9	12	9	13	42	63	21	-9	73	105
38	A. Goldberger	FLA	2	4	4	15	7	19	0	9	4	6	23	55
42	J. Jones	CBJ	5	5	5	19	10	24	2	0	12	-2	21	50
48	M. Ibach	EDM	1	5	3	7	4	12	4	6	5	5	8	18
49	C. Ebadi	MTL	4	2	6	6	10	8	12	7	8	-3	49	42
51	A. Glaros	FLA	6	14	4	9	10	23	8	6	8	14	27	14
64	B. Twomey	CAR	13	15	18	12	31	27	14	8	46	4	51	49
69	D. Houser	FLA	2	9	6	17	8	26	15	7	10	11	39	57
76	M. Clise	BOS	5	4	3	2	8	6	16	13	8	-6	9	8
90	R. Cobbinz	MIN	1	2	9	10	10	12	5	9	7	4	51	23

#	Name	Other Team	GP (BBZ)	GP (Other)	GAA (BBZ)	GAA (Other)	W (BBZ)	W (Other)	L (BBZ)	L (Other)	SV% (BBZ)	SV% (Other)	SO (BBZ)	SO (Other)
0	T. Reganen	VAN	17	19	2.16	2.59	11	7	5	12	0.876	0.909	1	0

Then I took the Baltimore Blizzards stat for each player and subtracted the other team's stat for each player....

#	Name	Other Team	ΔG	ΔA	ΔPTS	ΔPIMS	Δ+/-	ΔHits
9	T. Regan	NYI	22	10	21	32	32	88
11	K. Brooks	NYI	10	6	16	15	32	16
13	D. Miller	LA	2	13	15	7	59	132
14	S. Marasinghe	BUF	0	-1	-1	6	15	-14
25	M. Phelps	MTL	-19	-6	5	-9	6	3
26	A. El-Zeftawy	NAS	-2	16	14	12	52	33
27	M. Regan	CBJ	-1	-3	-4	-21	30	-32
38	A. Goldberger	FLA	-2	-11	-12	-9	-2	-32
42	J. Jones	CBJ	0	-14	-14	2	14	-29
48	M. Ibach	EDM	-4	-4	-8	-2	0	-10
49	C. Ebadi	MTL	2	0	2	5	11	7
51	A. Glaros	FLA	-8	-5	-13	2	-6	13
64	B. Twomey	CAR	-2	6	4	6	42	2
69	D. Houser	FLA	-7	-11	-18	8	-1	-18
76	M. Clise	BOS	1	1	2	3	14	1
90	R. Cobbinz	MIN	-1	-1	-2	-4	3	28

#	Name	Other Team	ΔGP	ΔGAA	ΔW	ΔL	ΔSV%	ΔSO
0	T. Reganen	VAN	-2	-0.43	4	-7	-0.033	1

So, here's my analysis thus far in the season....

Defensive players (Miller, Marasinghe, El-Zeftawy, M. Regan, Houser, Cobbinz) generally have much better +/-'s on the Blizzards, and of course, a lot more penalties. Baltimore's top line (El-Zeftawy & Miller) gets many many more hits and assists in Baltimore. I expected this to be the trend across the board. I'm surprised.

Forwards are pretty much all over the place. However, the +/- is usually better, and there's probably more penalties to be had on the Blizzards.

As for star goalie Timo Reganen, he wins a lot more on the Blizzards, but his save percentage isn't as high. He lets in fewer goals on the Blizzards and wins more, but he's also facing fewer shots.

Players that are better off on the Baltimore Blizzards:
In all areas, the following players had higher numbers on the Blizz: D. Miller, T. Regan, K. Brooks, and M. Clise.

I was expecting all the stats to be more clear cut than this. I'll probably revisit this when the season ends.... But after the playoffs, it doesn't matter which team players would have been better off statistically on, as long as Baltimore wins the Cup, hon.

Secret Menu Items

From Mental Floss: 10 Secret Menu Items

Here's the one that frightens me:

5. If you’re at Wendy’s and you’re really hungry – like, three-patties-just-won’t-cut-it hungry, go ahead and order the Grand Slam, which is four patties stacked on a bun. It’s also known as the Meat Cube. Gross.

"Meat Cube"? Oh god!

At In 'n' Out, you can get "the Flying Dutchman, which is two slices of cheese sandwiched between two patties, hold the bun." Now I know where the inspiration for KFC's Double Down came from.

Easily, though, the best one is:

At Fatburger, you can order a Hypocrite – a veggie burger topped with crispy strips of bacon.

NHL10 and NHL2K10 Both Look Awesome!

NHL10's new features:

• New first-person fighting engine
• Women in the crowd
• Better passing and shooting mechanics
• Fights and penalties after the whistle
• plus 190-something more tweaks
  

Pretty awesome, pretty awesome.... But NHL2K10 has WINTER CLASSIC MODE and the HARTFORD WHALERS! ZOMGOMGOMG!!!11!!!1!!one1!!!

Both games come out on September 15 and yes, I pre-ordered both of them.

"Alaska's Area 51"

When your life consists of going to 7 Eleven and Game Stop, both of which you can pretty much walk right into, then returning to your mom's basement to watch Ocean's Twelve and eat Funyuns, being restricted from anywhere must make that place seem so mysterious that your SciFi SyFy Channel-marinated brain must equate it to some top secret alien-related cover-up or some kind of mind control device. Wired had a gallery, called Inside Alaska's Answer to Area 51. What the hell are they talking about? The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP).



Ooooh! Big scary sign! What do they do?! Must be SECRETIVE! They do ionoshperic research at HAARP. Basically they heat up the ionosphere using antennae arrays and see what happens. (Among other things, such as radio observations of meteors. They can also create mini man-made auroras.) Such advanced technology must be scary and secret, right? It's a good thing they hid the base and don't let anyone know where it is. Oh, wait:

From HAARP's Website:
Where is the HAARP facility located?
The HAARP Research Station is located approximately 8 miles north of Gakona, Alaska.

What are the geographic coordinates of the facility?
The facility is located at:
62 deg 23.5 min North Latitude
145 deg 8.8 min West Longitude

Well, then at such a mysterious base, they wouldn't possibly actually let anyone have a look around would they? Oh, wait:

We recognize that there is great interest in the scientific work of the facility and, as a result, we hold an annual open house at which any and all are invited to visit the site. Several scientists are usually present at these open houses so that visitors can talk directly with those who use the facility for research. Open houses have been held most years since 1995 and have proven to be a popular event.

Anyway, back to Wired's asinine gallery...

The crazies think HAARP is used to research remote mind control. And who can blame them? I mean, look at these top secret-looking books that are CHAINED TO THE WALL!



Oh, wait, those are just Material Safety Data Sheets. They seriously made it sound secretive in some way. Here's their caption for the above picture:

Haarp (sic) is an unclassified facility. But the flow of information there is tightly controlled.

Right, so mind control and weather control aren't far behind the MSDSs!

From the intro to Wired's gallery:

Self-directed “researchers” like Nick Begich say the collection of transmitters and receivers is conducting secret tests of monstrous weapons for the Defense Department: mind control, weather manipulation, long-distance spying. The military scientists in charge of this military installation insist that Haarp (sic) has absolutely no direct military applications whatsoever.

I am quite glad they put "researchers" in quotes, but displeased they stressed the military affiliation, implying that they are to be distrusted. Listen, HAARP, like any military installation, is going to have a sign on it like that, no matter what they do! You should see the sign at Carderock... it's pretty much the same thing. Sigh.

Shame on Wired. They could have just showed the gallery and talked about how it's an interesting site that does interesting research. But no, they had to add some imaginary secrecy to make people care. Failure.

At least they don't go all out to insult your intelligence...

That caption for this picture is: "Haarp’s (sic) scientists view the state of the ionosphere with this 'optical dome.'" Optical dome? OPTICAL DOME? You mean the TELESCOPE?!

Previously: AUTEC

Spock = Satan?

That would explain this:

Note to Trekkies: Yes, I know Spock + Goatee = mirror universe Spock, but remember: Bender + Goatee = Flexo, and they were both evil.