fun with numbers

Decided to look at the rosters of the Champions of the leagues we followed this year and see how the nationalities fell out. First, here are the totals for the top ten nations:
Canada, 73
Finland, Slovakia 37
Sweden 29
Czech Rep. 25
Korea 23
Russia 22
Switzerland 21
USA 19
Italy 16

The most glaring things that stand out are the high number for Korea (with Anyang Halla winning the Asia League title) and the relatively low one for Russia (which will be explained later). But now let's look at the players outside their home nation's league, keeping in mind that the NHL is home for Canada and the USA, and the Asia League is also multinational.

Canada 53
Finland 19
USA 11
Slovakia 10
Sweden 9
Czech Rep. 4
Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, France, Hungary, Latvia 1
RUSSIA 0!!!

That's right- with all the Russians playing in leagues around the world, not one was on a championship roster outside of Ak Bars Kazan! As you can also see, the USA did much better in exports, and despite the rush for Czech players after the world cup, they also didn't find their way onto many championship rosters. One last thing I want to look at is, who had to take in the most imports. So here are the nations who had the lowest nationals on their champs.

France 8
Great Britain/Ireland 9
Norway 11
Austria, Germany 13
Denmark 14
Italy 16
Finland 18
Sweden, Switzerland 20

Here the USA becomes a special case of being intertwined with Canada and thuis doesn't chart although only (!) 8 Americans were on the Blackhawks. Finland also seems to be a special case, because although they had the fewest nationals on their champs out of all the elite teams, they had even more on other nations' champs(18 to 19). However, I don't know how to explain Russia, who had a devastating trifecta of no players on foreign champs, a poor showing in the Olympics, and losing the world cup to the Czechs. Finally, I'll give a shout out to the one nation who landed a player on a championship roster and hasn't yet been mentioned: Japan, who had one player on Anyang Halla.

Bits and Pisses, chapter 2

Let's start out with, on the way home, I saw my first longhorn steer. In a pasture on CR1000. I told Laurie if he was in he back seat (obviously a theoretical exercise and not a physical possibility), his horns would have points out both windows. Then, a mile or so later saw Mr. Bunny Rabbit.

Next, let's go on to the reason Pete Carroll and his basketball buddy Tim Floyd deserted the USC program when they did- a 30 scholarship penalty, vacating 14 wins from Dec. '04 through the 2005 season, and possibly losing the national title they "earned" against Oklahoma in the 2004-5 season. Funny how that Seahawks job seemed so much more attractive this year. I'm sorry, but I sense a certain amount of gutlessness about a guy who knows what's coming and ducks and runs. Kinda points to that character issue, and leadership coming from the top. Have a happy 2010-11, Lane Kiffin!

Not that I wanted to, but its time to give my two cents on the Big 12, now that its demise is beginning with the defection of Colorado to the PAC 10. Congratulations to the Buffs (and to whichever teams follow them into the PAC- whatever). You are now a member of a conference stuffed with dishonest bastards like the aforementioned USC Trojans, not to mention the worst elite conference referee crew around (the Big 10 refs ain't bad, they're just dishonest) and a fan base situated across the rockies, where nobody (again excepting USC and maybe UCLA) cares who you are on this side of the rockies. The Big 12 had become my favorite conference over the last couple years, but between the Mike Leach screw job, the firing of Mangino, and now this, maybe I'll just pay more attention to St. Francis this year. Word is the Big ten will grab Nebraska and maybe Mizzou, and UT, Tech, OU, Oklahoma St.,and A&M joining the big "let's get a big network deal and roll in $$$" party out west. Frankly, I'm disgusted. Big East, look out; you are no doubt next contestant in Consolidation Follies.

Thirdly, Hey Chicago whaddaya say? The Blackhawks are the North American champs after a 4-3 OT win in Philadelphia (home of the nation's lowest drinking age, apparently).

The 'Hawks go from last in division to NHL champs in 3 seasons. Philly goes back to being an overrated collection of goons bookended by Briere and Pronger. Enjoy your fluke playoff run this summer, because unless Leighton grows a clue over the offseason you won't be back soon.

And as promised, here's more about the 2 new KHL members, including proper spelling. HC Budivelnik is out of Kiev, Ukraine, and is the first Ukrainian team to play at an elite level in years. Yugra Khanty-Mansiysk is based in the eastern Russian city of Khanty-Mansiysk, an oil-boom town of 54,000 about 1180 miles east of Moscow.

Finally a tip of the hat to Bob Sachs, president of Arden corporation. After reading the letter I sent him (see "the breaking strain" last month), he sent me a letter back thanking me for "sharing my concern" and updating me on the efforts being made to "minimize the problems we faced this year" in the future. I have said this before, and I'll say it again- no matter what I occasionally think of he company as a whole, Mr. Sachs is personally a very kind, very generous man. A lot of the nastiness began after the company went to the "bankers" to whom we sold our corporate soul, men whose only concern is who's making me my money. I do not number Bob Sachs among them.

Step into my time machine, week four

We have a new number one this week! We have three debuts in the top 10, 4 in the top 40, and 9 in the hot hundred. Coming into the count for the first time this week were The Rockford Files theme by Mike Post at 99, the Bee Gees game changer Jive Talkin' at 89, and Steely Dan's Black Friday at 78, along with a lot of songs no one remembers too well (at least me). Into the 40, which was basically the stuff that actually got played in most areas, were Kool and the Gang at 40 with Spirit of the Boogie and Disco Tex and the Sex-o-lettes (real endearing name there) with I Wanna Dance Wit'Choo- neither of which made much of an impression on me- along with two songs that basically defined the upcoming summer of '75: Pilot's Magic, and the Captain and Tenille's breakthrough Love Will Keep Us Together. Toni and Daryl also claimed the weeks big mover with that one, jumping 15 spots to #28, three ahead of Magic. I was going to curse BJ Thomas for making me type out that damn long song name of his (still the longest title of any #1 in history) on the big dropper list, but Chevy Van beat him out by one, dropping 41 notches to 64. BJ only fell 40 to 57.

The top ten, as I said, had three debuts, so, as Casey used to say, the three that fall out of the top ten were the Blackbyrds walking in rythym the other direction to 14, Elton John's former #1 Philly freedom down to 16, and Barry Manilow who apparently thought 1 week in the top ten was miracle enough and fell to 26. Coming in were three of the four songs I would have had trouble picking between for my #1. Grand Funk's Bad Time up 4 to 10; the Carpenters' Only Yesterday up 2 to 9, and America's Sister Golden Hair (the winnah!) up 4 to 8. Tony Orlando and the girls drop 2 to 7 with He Don't Love You (and I've got to get the story in;

When Orlando and the members of Dawn (Telma Hopkins and Joyce Wilson) appeared at a Golden Globes award ceremony, Orlando spoke with Faye Dunaway and her then-husband, Peter Wolf, while waiting in a lobby. Wolf was the lead singer for The J. Geils Band, and the two started singing songs from the 1960s, including "He Will Break Your Heart", which the couple recommended Orlando record. Orlando contacted Mayfield requesting that he and Dawn wanted to do a remake but change the title to the opening lines of the song, and Mayfield gave his permission. Courtesy the name droppers at Wikipedia.)

Thank God I'm a Country Boy, sung by John Denver and written by his fiddle player (no lie!) moves the most within the ten, from 9 to 6. Insomniac Paul Anka climbs another notch to 5 with I Don't Like To Sleep Alone, a song I actually listened to today on LaLa and was not overly excited. The Ozark Mountain Daredevils concede the the top bunk this week, dropping to 4 with Jackie Blue; everyone else moves up one, with Freddy Fender going to 3 with Before the Next Teardrop Falls, Ace with How Long to 2, and the #1 song was the first big hit for Earth Wind and Fire, Shining Star.

The Martin index shows us with 38 songs out of the 100 that I've burned at one point or another. This includes one of my all time faves which was never exalted to the top 40 by a tone deaf listening audience: the Beach Boys' Sail On Salior, which moved up a measly 2 to a measly 73, but I would listen to right now over 98% of the top 100.

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It will be Russia vs the Czech Republic in the world cup final tomorrow after the Czechs knocked out Sweden 3-2 in an OT shootout and Russia downed Germany in their hardest fought match of the tourney, getting the winning goal with less than two minutes on the clock. In other news, Morrocco of all places was admitted to the IIHF today. They have one rink, three teams and 90 players in Morrocco, and apparently that's good enough. (Any further questions about Division 3?) In the meantime, Armenia was suspended indefinately for supposedly using ineligible players in their recent tournament, including one who they'd been busted for using previously. Does Kelvin Sampson coach this team, really? Also, my wonderful Blackhawks are now up 3-0 on San Jose and one game away from the Stanley cup finals for the second time since 1973. Hopefully they will avoid this year's Washington/Boston/Pittsburgh virus. Still waiting to see the ugly choice of opponant there. Hopefully (UGGH) Montreal: I'd rather watch them play Israel Bat Yam II than Philadelphia.

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Oh and speaking of Philadelphia, we saw yet another skunk, this one sagely avoiding becoming tire food on the way to work this morning. Do they come in threes, like funerals? I hope not, Scrappy and I might want to get another walk in this weekend.

World cup update

Ok, so Saturday, the USA finished off with a 10-0 rout of the Kazakhs, and added to that Sunday a 4-0 blanking of France of which score IIHF said "flattered France", i.e. it could've been much worse. France then beat Italy on Saturday 2-1, but the Italians beat the Kazakhs 2-1 on Sunday. Thus, anything could still happen in the Relegation round- although the worst that could happen for USA is a four way tie that would be broken by goal margin and we're +14. In the main rounds, Russia beat Germany 3-2 on Saturday and followed it up with a 6-1 rout of Denmark. Evgeny Malkin had a goal and an assist as the Russians continue a 23 game world cup win streak. The Swiss claimed a 3-2 win over the Czechs on Saturday; also on Sunday, Latvia broke open a game that was scoreless through 2 periods with 2 empty-net goals to beat struggling Norway 5-0. Belarus finally got another win, though probably too little too late as it went to OT when the Germans scored with less than a minute left to tie and were trying to win with time running out in OT and coughed up the puck and the Latvians scored on a 3-man breakaway. But the difference between a regulation win and an OT win is 3 pts to 2 pts, and that point will likely mean the end of the Belarussians. Finally the Swedes won a lackluster 3-1 game over a disappointing Canadian group. Russia now leads one group with 12 pts, double that of second-place Finland and Denmark. Germany's 4 pts lead a trailing group of Slovakia (3) and Belarus (2); in the next round, the bottom two from each group are out and the top 4 go on. In the other group, Switzerland and Sweden each have 9 pts, but the Swiss have a game in hand. Canada is third with 6, and the Czechs, Latvians, and Norse all have three.

I decided to see what all the divisions in the IIHF look like, and here is what I found. The bottom group, division 3, consists (or will next year) of Luxembourg, the UAE, Greece (who were supposed to host this years division 3 shindig but amazingly couldn't find the money- go figure), South Africa, Mongolia, and Armenia, along with Turkey and Israel, who got bounced out of division two . Then comes division 2, with Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Mexico, Romania, China, Iceland, New Zealand, along with Ireland and North Korea who rise up from division three and Serbia and Croatia, who fall from division one. Division one then is Ukraine, Japan, Lithuania, Netherlands, Hungary, Poland, the UK, South Korea, along with Spain and Estonia coming up from division two and whoever loses the relegation round after Tuesday's last games.
Those two losers will then be replaced amongst the big-boys group by Austria and Slovenia.

The Blackhawks Knocked off San Jose 3-1 today to open the NHL semis. I'm hoping they can find a way for both teams to lose in the other semis, but I guess I'll have to root for Montreal because, being a New York Islander fan, I'd sooner cheer for space aliens come to exterminate the entire planet than the Philadelphia Flyers.

Got the weather center up and running with a lot of very appreciated help. Very cool. And one last note: the Reds beat the Cards again today 7-2 and took over first place in the NL Central. What a very nice weekend.

Gotta love hockey fans!

Posted by a friend on facebook:

(in case you cn't read it, it says, "Are you pregnant, ref? Because you missed 2 periods!")

Anyhow, I'm finally at a night I have nothing else to bitch about, so its hockey night at TAW.First off, the world cup's first round wrapped up today. Russia not suprisingly beat Belarus 3-1, while Slovakia topped Kazakhstan 5-1 to send them into the relegationround, where they'll get a chance to further humiliate the good ol' USA. Russia finishes the first round 3-0 for 9 pts. Slovakia took second in their group (2-1, 6) and Belarus third(1-2, 3) . The Kazakhs, like the other relegation babies, finish 0-3. Sweden falls to the Czech Republic 2-1 to force a 3-way tie at the top of their group with the Czechs and Norway at 2-1. Norway makes it with a 5-1 piledriving of France, who goes 0-3 and faces Italy in their relegation round openner. The other groups finished last night, with Switzerland going 3-0 to take their group over Canada (2-1), Latvia (1-2) and the aforementioned Italian squad. Finland, with 2 non- OT wins, edges Germany (2-1) and Denmark (likewise) in the group that USA dusted the bottom of. So now, the groups will be Russia, Slovakia, Belarus, Finland , Germany, and Denmark in one and Sweden, Czech Rep., Norway, Canada, Switzerland, and Latvia in the other.

Did a little digging about how the Austrians and Slovenians earned their chance at next season's cup. Austria rolled through their group in division 1 (not sure why they call the second level teams div. 1, but whatever), beating Serbia 13-0, Lithuania 6-2, Japan 3-1, Netherlands 4-1, and the Ukraine 2-1. Serbia got booted to division 2 as a result of going 0-for-also rans. It scares me to think who all is in that group. Slovenia Knocked off Poland 3-2, Croatia 10-1, Great Britain 4-3, Korea 8-3, and Hungary 4-1. Guess who goes down to div. 2 out of this bunch? If you said Croatia...congratulations, you are right.

A word now, and finally, about the NHL playoffs. # 8 Montreal's stunning second upset of Pittsburgh puts the Habs into the eastern conference finals against either #6 Boston or #7 Philly, whom the Bruins are in the similar process of choking a big lead to. The east's top 4 seeds went a combined 13-18 in the playoffs; if you take out the Penguin's first round win, 9-16. In the meantime, the west has a final of #1 Chicago and #2 San Jose. The west's top 4 seeds have gone 23-13, the finalists 16-7. Assuming that the Habs will likely beat either the choke-er or the choke-ee of the other series, One has to wonder if they could pull off the magic one more time against the vastly better teams of the west. Let's hope not; the Canadiens are the Yankees of hockey, with 23 Stanley Cup wins, ten more than anyone else.

Oops, one more little note: Sidney Crosby, who suddenly has time on his hands, has turned down an invite to the Canadian team over in Germany. I can understand that. Why would he want to top off a miserable Quarterfinal loss by having to face Ovechkin again? Yeah, golf'd look pretty good to me, too.

Baby names

The 2009 most popular baby name list came out this week. You can find it on the social security website. Here are the top tens:

Top 10 Names for 2009
Rank
Female name
1 Isabella
2Emma
3Olivia
4Sophia
5Ava
6Emily
7Madison
8Abigail
9Chloe
10Mia

Male names:

1. Jacob

2. Ethan

3.Michael

4.Alexander

5. William

6.Joshua

7.Daniel

8.Jayden

9.Noah

10. Anthony

This is the first time since the year I was in Kindergarten (1967) that Christopher is outside the top 10, falling to 11. Poor Laurie has only made the top 1000 5 times in the last 20 years, with a peak of 684 in 1990 and falling out after finishing 962nd in 1994. Of course my kids KC (who still loves his mom for the spelling) and Shenandoah, are too unique to make such a "pedestrian " list.

The bottom 10 for boys was: Mustafa, Eliezer, Cassius, Amos, Tyshawn, Trevin, Stone, Renaldo, Fredrick, and Chaz (say I wonder if that included Chastity Bono's name/sex change?). The bottom of the girl's chart is Mireya, Lilyanna, Kloe, Karli, Gretchen, Valery, Samiyah, Cambria, Amiah, and Allanah. Notice at least the boys list has some names you've heard of. Samiyah? Really?

In our family the most recent babies we've had are boys Blaine (On the left above, 637th, falling from a ten-year peak of 405 in 2004) and Jackson (On the right, which has climbed every year since 1986 and is now at a high of 25th).

Out of my brothers and sisters, John got 26, Thomas took 57, Jennifer came in at 109, and Suzette was not only on the list, but hasn't been since 1978, when she was 968. My dad's given name, Louis, was at 354, but the middle name he went by, Woodrow, fell off in 1983 and hasn't been back since. That was the same year my mom's name, Ursula, fell off never to return. Laurie's siblings were Charles at 64, Mary at 102, Paul at 160, and Arthur at 376. Her dad, Robert, is at 55; her Mom, Laurice, joins my kids at never having been in the top 1000 in the past 50 years. A call out to my followers: Ashley came in at 20, and Gavin chimed in at 33.

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A check in as we speak on the world cup shows that Belarus topped Kazakhstan 5-2, the Czechs not suprisingly routed France 6-2, Slovakia and Russia are in the 2nd pd with Russia up 2-0 after an Ovechkin goal (doesn't it seem convenient to anyone else that he manages to lose in the first round of the NHL playoffs to a team he should've beat singlehanded, and immediately beats ass for Europe to play in the World cup? Priorities a problem, Alex? HMMMM?) and Sweden leading Norway 2-1 after 2 despite a Norse goal by our favorite goon Patrick Thoresson (you remeber from the KHL playoffs? "I didn't mean to give you a concussion, Alexi Morozov. REALLLLLY I didn't!")

Step into my time machine, week two

This week, we're at May 10th, 1975. BJ Thomas is on his way out with "Another somebody done somebody wrong song, pausing at 10. Paul Anka's "I don't like to sleep alone" and Blacbyrds' "Walking in rhythym" each climb one notch this week. Freddy Fender roars into the top 10 at 7 with "Before the next teardrop falls". Leo Sayer dances in place at 6 again with "Long tall glasses". Moving up three were Ace's "How long" and EWF's "Shining star". Elton Johm's "Philly freedom" reversed course and went back up to 3. Tony Orlando and Dawn failed to hang onto the top spot for a second week, dropping to 2 with "He don't love you". This week, it's Ozark Mountain Daredevils at number one with "Jackie Blue". Out of thirteen debuts, four that we all knew includied Frankie Valli's "Swearin' to God", Charlie Daniels' "Long haired country boy", Melissa Manchester's "Midnight blue", and 10cc's "I'm not in love". Poking their noses in the top 40 were, Jesse Colter's "I'm not Lisa", Led Zepplin's "Trampled under foot", Gordon Lightfoot's "Rainy day people", "Get down, get down" by Joe Simon, Michael Murphy's "Wildfire", and Roger Whitaker's "The last farewell". The biggest mover this week was last week's second high debut, the Doobies with (Take me in your arms) Rock me" jumping 26 notches from 82 to 56. And the Martin index (how many in the top 100 I've downloaded) climbs 5 to 36.

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Quick world cup update: Denmark shocks the world with an openning 4-1 win over Heavy favorite Finland; Canada smacked Italy ( I at first said "whopped Italy", but it was an accident and I don't want to offend) 5-1; and Switzerland edged Latvia in a mild upset, 3-1.

Hockey World Cup 2010

Hockey's world cup openned this morning (our time) with host Germany playing the USA in an open air arena. The results?

GELSENKIRCHEN, Germany – What a way to start the 2010 World Championship for the host country. With a loud and boisterous world record crowd of 77, 803 looking on at Veletins Arena, Felix Schutz tipped a shot into the USA net 21 seconds into overtime to give to Germany a 2-1 victory in the opening game of the International Ice Hockey Federation’s annual showcase event on Friday.

Germany and the USA are in a group with Finland (ouch!) and Denmark. Russia and Slovakia headline a group with Belarus and Kazakhstan; Canada faces off with up and coming powers Latvia and Switzerland, and oh, uh, Italy; and the final group holds powers Sweden and the Czech Republic and also-rans France and Norway.
The IIHF site has a cutesy listing of the teams involved and a sideways look at their chances.


1.
RUSSIA Mother Russia is the greatest! Soon the gold will be ours.
2.
CANADA Must win gold. Must win gold. Gold and getting better each day, that's all we think about.
3.
SWEDEN It certainly would be nice if we won gold, wouldn't it?
4.
FINLAND Why do we never win gold? Something always goes wrong...
5.
CZECH REPUBLIC It's so depressing when we don't win gold, like a Kafka novel
6.
USA Man, these European cities are beautiful!
7.
SLOVAKIA If Peter Bondra came out of retirement, we'd win gold
8.
SWITZERLAND If we didn't have so much gold in our bank vaults, we'd probably want gold more
9.
BELARUS Hey, we'll take any old medal...we're not picky
10.
LATVIA If we win gold, our fans will go insane! If we play relegation, our fans will go insane!
11.
NORWAY We're known more for black metal than for gold
12.
DENMARK Hans Christian Andersen's Happy Prince was covered with gold -- unlike us
13.
FRANCE With our great literature, cuisine, and romantic prowess, we 'ave no need of this vulgar...'ow do you call it?...gold
14.
GERMANY As the hosts, we're guaranteed a berth in the gold medal game...wait, we're not???
15.
ITALY What's gold?
16.
KAZAKHSTAN Yeah, we were wondering about that too

Anyway, I'll update this more as we go along. At least tomorrow -Saturday- we only have a nooner instead of the Twelve hours they were threatening us with. On that subject, here's a little personal note: Everybody, knock it off!!! You really don't need any patio cushions, you're old ones look just fine! Spend that moldy money of yours on something usefull, like beer to drink while you're sitting on your patio! I would really like to get back to having a normal life, and how can I do that if I'm putting in 70 hour weeks to make your damn cushions!! STOP! RETHINK! Put your wallet away and save for your retirement! PLEEEEEASE!

Leftovers of this week

Here's this week's catch-up.
1. In the process of our usual waking-up on Saturday process, Scrappy was doing his thing- groaning, licking, giving me the "baby eye" (this is where he pushes the bridge of his nose against mine, so that the one eye I have that isn't blocked by his snout is staring into his one eye that isn't blocked by my cheek), and thus was completely oblivious as 2 deer sauntered out the parking lot and into the fence row. That brings deer sightings for the year up to five.
2. Our goofy car is in the shop. We found the battery dead Monday morning, and preferred auto believed it to be a lights-left-on issue, which would have been odd since it hadn't moved since Saturday afternoon. It turned out to be a rebellious door-ajar sensor, which in turn was leaving the dome and exterior rear-view lights on at random. After a Thursday in which they worked normal, then wouldn't go out, then went out, then stayed on even while the car was moving, then went out 2 miles later, then wouldn't come on at all, then went back to normal , all in a three hour period, we took it back to Preferred who gave us a weekend loaner. This was a Chrysler (!) Concorde that sounded like it might fly apart at any minute, but was actually the result of a gaily rolling air tank in the trunk. In fact, as I type, Preferred has just called to say it's ready to pick up.
3. That three hour period coincided with my trip to see Dr. Sowden on the results of my ultrasound, which I documented in all its amusing detail on the 28th. He said a) the graft went closed, which is why the techs couldn't figure out what was going on, b) that "if they would have called me, it would have been done in 5 minutes" rather than the 3 hours it took, and c) everything's fine, no more ultrasounds, no more Sowden. I am "just a normal guy with two veins in his leg instead of three."
4. We worked our first OT of the season Friday, 6 hours, till noon. Probably wouldn't have been necessary without all the accursed fabric issues we're having. We have a ton of fabrics on hold for issues, including 1 Amazon (the blue that can't decide what color to be that I wrote about previously) 2 J Penny (that we have either run out of or can't get a decent roll w/o defects) at least one for Target (which defects have caused us to set probably a dozen 100-yd rolls aside as unusable) 3 for Country Casual (in which the latest rolls to come in do not match the older ones that are alomst used up in either shade or weave), and one I was just told about yesterday that the swatch that is supposed to bethe right color, weave, etc., neither matches the first rolls that came in, which are pretty much already used, or the new ones that came in this week.
5. Anyone else feel the hockey world shake to its foundations Thursday night? Not only do the Invincible Russians get knocked off in an OT shootout by Slovakia, but the only thing that prevented the same thing from happening to the Invincible Canadians at the hands of Switzerland is the fact that Sidney Crosby cannot be stopped in shootouts. The USA goes from hoping for a bronze to contention for a gold in two easy steps.
6. Finally, this blog has a follower now! Hurray! Tanks and God bless you!