This is why hockey is the classiest pro team sport around...
They'll hit and fight and talk crap to each other for two weeks. Then when it's all over, they shake hands like gentlemen. To top it off, the Kings players stayed on the ice afterwards, after they'd lost the series and their season had ended, and applauded the fans in the stands. You'll never see the Lakers do that...
I shouldn't have gotten excited or hopeful. As a Kings fan for 20+ years, I should really know better. The last two games were a nightmare. The team completely disintegrated in every way imaginable. It was depressing beyond belief. And now I must drive to Staples Center with a nauseous feeling in the pit of my stomach to watch what could very well be the last game of their season. At least they made the playoffs, right? At least the young 'uns who make up 90% of the roster now have this experience under their belts, right? And at least I won't have to pay the Kings the 12% price increase between round 1 and round 2 for playoff tickets that I stupidly signed up for, right?
(I likely just jinxed myself and helped them with that last statement, didn't I? ARGH...)
It's been eight long years since my sad little hockey team got to play a game past the second week of April. I'd totally forgotten what playoff hockey feels like. But after walking into Staples Center Monday night, and realizing that my sad little team ain't so sad anymore, I'm starting to remember a feeling I haven't really had since the Spring of 1993. I remember us playing Calgary in round 1, and that little shit Theron Fleury trying to jump out of the penalty box to attack Kings fans over the glass. We won in seven games. My seats were about four rows from the top of the Forum. Round 2 was against our current foes, the Vancouver Canuckleheads. Round 3, against the Toronto Maple Leafs... seven hard games, went down to the nail-biting wire. I remember seeing Dave Taylor, who spent his whole career with the Kings winning nothing, standing next to the Campbell Conference trophy in the locker room beaming from ear to ear. Then the Finals. One happy win against Montreal. Then there was Marty McSorely's curved stick, followed by that arrogant ass Patrick Roy winking at Tomas Sandstrom through his goalie mask as he gloved what should have been a sure-goal. Then it was over. I remember crying in my parent's living room and my mom telling me to get over it... it was just a game.
Haven't been to the movies in a long time, which is odd for me. Spent most of movie awards season watching screener dvds, very few of which I liked much less loved. Then I finally went to a theater and saw Alice in Wonderland back in March with my team at work and liked it a lot, but, sadly, it still felt like work. (Sucks how that happens.... getting so sick of something before you even get to fully experience the goodness of it). But this weekend, I returned to my movie mothership -- The Arclight in Hollywood -- to see a lovely little diddy called KICK-ASS. The movie is a superhero story about a regular high school kid who decides to do good, and gets in over his head, only to be rescued by my new hero: an 11-year-old girl with blond pigtails who has been trained by her dad as a super-assassin and wears an awesome purple wig. Her name is Hit-Girl, and she is the one who really kicks ass. Remember that scene in The Matrix where Trinity and Neo walk through the metal detectors with duffle bags full of weapons and then shred the lobby and everyone in it to smithereens, in super-cool matrix slo-mo with lots of flips and spins, while looking awesome in long black leather coats? Yeah, well, the 11-year-old does that all on her own in her purple wig and a Catholic schoolgirl outfit, taking out half the mafia. AWESOME! Gotta love true girl power :) The flick is two hours of fun, with an awesome soundtrack to boot.
Interesting article on my boss' boss' boss' boss in the New York Times this morning. This quote of the Big Cheese's never rang more true than in the last year, and is part of why I wish I was just a barista at Starbucks sometimes "The baggage of tradition," [Iger] says of Disney's culture, "can slow you down." People are so resistant to change, it's stifling at times. Not that I can blame them... I was afraid of change too, to the point where my first VP made me buy and read Who Moved My Cheese? when I experienced my first mini re-org years ago. And while that book did absolutely nothing to help me, realizing that every day something changes, and there's usually not a lot you can do about it, did. Now I just try to go with the flow... It's better for my bordering-on-hypertensive-blood pressure :)
Naturally 7 is a 7-man "VocalPlay" group... which means they have no backing band; no music tracks. Every sound you hear during their performance comes from a human voice.. be it a song lyric or the sound of a drum, bass or trumpet. They are, in a word, AMAZING.
No that's not a typo. Today (well, I guess at this time of night it was yesterday) was my friend Diana's birthday, but it was also the night that Michael Buble' played Staples Center. So therefore we shall deem April 9, 2010 "Diana's Happy Buble' Day." She even made a sign to hold up so he'd know it was her birthday. AND -- here comes the happy part -- he actually saw the sign and gave her a wave cuz our seats were justthatawesome. (So awesome, in fact, that Dick Clark Part Deux, Ryan Seacrest was sitting right in front of us -- like I-could've-kicked-his-date-in-the-head-in-front-of-us -- and caused quite the hub-bub in section 119, but I digress....) Diana looooooves Michael Buble', who (for those of you out of the know) is a 34-year-old Sinatra-esque Canadian crooner with a HI-larious sense of humor. His shows are a blast, and this one was no exception. So Happy Buble' Day to you Diana! And I'll try to remember to download the video of "Bubbly" giving you the wave at some point this weekend :)
I can't believe that the best show of the last six years only has six episodes left. It just keeps getting better and better, which is starting to make me sad. In tonight's amazing Desmond ep, I'm pretty sure I figured out what Sideways-ville is, and feel soclose to figuring it all out it's hurting my brain. On the flip side of that, once I figure it all out, that means it will be all over. It's an amazingly evil catch 22... kind of appropriate for this show. At least tonight's episode (titled "Happily Ever After") gives us a glimmer of hope that some of our favorite "constant" characters will end up together.
So here I am.. back to blogging after almost a year away. I'm hoping this time I won't feel the pressure to constantly update and that this can just be a place where I log the random, witty (at least to me!) thoughts that pop into my brain, as well as photos and links I don't want to put on facebook (where work people lurk) or twitter (where I vent to the work people I like). I also look forward to your comments and feedback... socializing is what the interwebs are all about these days, right? :)
