NHFFL Tuesday

We are down to one week before the playoffs, and as the Gold division becomes clearer, the Purple becomes more muddled.  The games this week sent the Purples into a 4 way tie for first.   The Beagles downed the Aguas 28-22, with Brandon Marshall's Monday night TD doing more good here than it did for Da Bears.  The KCAs beat the Angels 44-31 on 24 points from the dynamic duo of RGIII and Santana Moss.  And the Greenwoods joined the party with a 20-17 win over the now-eliminated Rangers.

  With the KCAs/Greenwoods playing next week, the Beagles have the advantage here with a 4-2 record against the other three.  The Greenwoods need help, because they are 2-4 against the group.  A Beagles/Aguas tie or Beagles/Aguas/KCAs or Greenwoods tie will go to the Aguas; A Beagles/KCAs tie goes to the Beagles.  A Beagles/Greenwood tie also goes to the Beagles, so basically the Beagles need to win and the Aguas to lose to claim a division title.  Either way, the Beagles and Aguas are in the playoffs, and the Greenwoods really need to beat the KCAs by 33 to make up for their 57-25 loss earlier to get in.

On the other side, the Porkchops keep rolling with a 43-33 win over the Clock BBQs courtesy of the 23 points the Colts gave the New England D (See! I knew the Colts were good for something...).  The Elks climbed over the B2s with a 43-30 win and a win next week puts them in the playoffs, and the B2s would climb over Buzz with a win in that event over the Clock BBQs.  If the Elks lose to Buzz, Buzz is in and the Elks would need the B2s to lose.  Buzz got put into that position with an upset loss to the Ducks, 31-21, behind the 2-TD swan song of Rob Gronkowski.




So next week it's Beagles/Rangers, the showdown between KCAs/Greenwoods, Angels/Aguas, B2s/Clock BBQs, the Buzz/Elks showdown, and Porkchops go for 10 wins against the Ducks.

Now back to our regularly scheduled hockey post

In case you were wondering (and even if not), the reason it has been over a week since I've reported on my boys from Yaroslavl (AKA Lokomotiv) is twofold.  First, the league actually took a week off, and didn't play until last Wednesday.  Second, The KHL site was doing wonkiy things on my computer and was hard to read- until this morning when my computer announced that it was because it was blocking what it considered a pop-up but was in truth most of the site!  So now, it's time to get caught back up.

Wednesday they played the first of three straight home games, against Slovan.  Semyon Varlamov racked up his second shutout since coming over in the NHL lockout, posting 32 saves in a hard-hitting 4-0 victory.  Maxim Trunyov got us started with his 3rd score of the season at 6:16 of the first, and Alexei Kalyuzhny made it 2-0 at 6:49 of period two, his 6th, with an assist from Viktor Kozlov.  Artyom Anisimov put in his third at 2:51 of the last period, and exactly a minute later, a cross ice pass in front of the Slovan net was stolen by Roman Lyduchin (who came to us this year after 4 seasons with Spartak), who planted his 1st of the season behind the shell-shocked goalie for Slovan for the 4-0 win.

Friday we hosted Lev Prague.  After a scoreless opening stanza, Lev scored halfway through the second, and held a 1-0 lead most of the rest of the way.  With just under 5 minutes to play, though, Alexandr Chernikov scored his 5th to tie things up.  We went to OT, and you KNOW how we are in OT.    The first shot of the extra period, 28 seconds in, went from the stick of Staffan Kronwall past the goalie for a 2-1 win.  It was our defenseman and leading scorer's 6th goal on the year, and made us 6-for-6 in OT and shootouts.

Yesterday, we hosted CSKA (Red Army).  Things didn't go very well for Varlamov in the opening period.  In a period where each team only had 5 shots on goal, two found their way behind him.  The first came from Yakov Rylov at 6:44, and the second with 31 ticks left in the period, from Mikhail Grabvosky, a lockout from the Toronto Maple Leafs, with assists from fellow lockouts Pavel Datsuk of the Red Wings and Alexandr Radulov of Nashville.

The second period was vastly different.  Starting at 15 seconds in, Lokomotiv got 3 goals in 3:16.  Sergei Plotnikov took advantage of CSKA not being able to clear their net to score in a scramble; just under a minute later, Vitaly Vishnevsky shot one from high on the boards on  goalie Ratislav Stana's right and Yuri Petrov tipped it in for a 2-2 tie.  It was the first for Petrov, a veteran of Lada Togliatti who went to Sibir when Lada was demoted to the VHL.  Two minutes and twenty seconds later, Anisimov put us on top 3-2 in another scramble, which like the first one netted an assist for my boy Emil Gallimov.  The goal was Anisimov's 4th, and spelled the end of the night for Stana.  It also spelled the end of scoring, and Lokomotiv had a 3-2 win.

This puts us at 13 wins, 5 losses, 6 OT games (in which we have 2 wins in OT ant 4 in the shootout).  55 points, tied with Dynamo Moscow (14-5-7) for best in the league overall.  SKA (17-6-2) and Traktor (15-4-6) are next at 53 points.  Dynamo hosts Vityaz tomorrow, while we travel to Moscow's CSKA Ice Palace to play a rematch with Red Army on Wednesday.

Not too surprisingly, Locked out NHLers Radulov (36), Sergei Mozyakin (34), Evgeni Malkin (31), and Ilya Kovalchuk (28) hold down the top 4 spots in league scoring.  We are not a high scoring team- but we have a balanced attack with eight players with 10 to 12 points (Kalyuzhny and Anisimov at 12, Kronwall and Niklaus Hagman at 11, and Plotnikov, Petrov, Chernikov, and Yegor Averin at 10).  However, we are a great defensive team and Varlamov leads the league in save percentage, with Vitaly Kolesnik in fourth, with Curtis Sanford having an even better percent than either of them in just 4 games!  This puts us tied with Ak Bars for fewest goals allowed (49, 4 better than Traktor and Dynamo), even though we only rank 13th in goals scored (68, a whopping 31 behind SKA and 15 back of second place Traktor).

Sunday Message

In the last week or so I happened to mention the Woman at the Well story in John 4. And something inside it has opened a double edged lesson for me.

As you know, I have often jousted with atheists.  Unfortunately, it is hard to score points in matters of faith with those to whom faith is anathema.  For, according to Logic, "Why would a God who requires worship not reveal Himself?"  Sound logic, I guess, but the problem becomes that, while I will put myself in their shoes to understand their point, they will never afford me that same courtesy.  Or, in doing so, they just can't take it far enough to make sense to them.  But I was thinking in listening to a couple of preachers tonight (Yes, this one is written ahead.)

Say that you are God.  Your purpose in creating man is to make a people peculiar to You, that is tried in the fire, winnowed from the chaff, and completely loyal, which is what You as Creator deserve.

To do that, these people have to be presented with choices so they can choose You.  And the one attribute more than any others that is the opposite of the Love You wish to share with them is pride.  Pride tells them that they are more than You, that they don't need You, that the Universe doesn't need You.  So Pride has to be the main thing winnowed away.  But how to do that?

That is why You choose faith to be Your winnowing staff.  Not faith as in, "I have faith the sun will come up tomorrow," but spiritual Faith, described in Hebrews 11:1 as " Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."  The belief in a reality beyond our own, and yet very much our own.

Here's where logic can help.  If you wanted to trip up those who believe that man is the pinnacle of evolution, of existance, how better to do so than with faith?  For it is a concept that they can never accept without tearing down the temple of their self-perception and thinking in an entirely new, non-logical way.  Or to put it another way- if God wanted to winnow out those who would never truly believe on Him, what better way than requiring faith?

But it goes deeper than that.  Now suppose your brand of logic brings you to the point where you believe that there is a God.  Whether as a "Hairy Thunderer" or a disembodied "force" or even a disinterested experimentor- or even Jesus Christ after some fashion-you accept that a divine being exists.  History shows us that the natural reaction at this point is to find a way to please that God.  Sacrifices, rituals, laws and regulations.  Somewhere, somehow, there is a way that you can make yourself acceptable to this God.  And this is pride as well- the "I can do it" complex that we all have.  But God wants to shave this away from His peculiar people, too.  What better way to do so than to require, as Luther termed it, "Justification by faith alone"?  Because the whole of the Old Testament is about showing man that, first, he cannot make himself acceptable, and then, that the Law cannot make him acceptable.  And the whole of the New Testament is the hope that comes from Christ having made us acceptable when we could not.

But it goes another step deeper, and this is where we have to refer, if but for a moment to the Woman's story.

“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. ²⁰ Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
²¹ “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²² You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³ Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. ²⁴ God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

So, what does "In spirit and in truth" mean?  Read the context.  True worship is not about the building you worship in, nor even the denomination you worship with.  Romans 10:9 lays the groundwork for heaven: "That if you shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you shall be saved."  That is the Spirit end of things, because it is the Spirit that leads you to this point.  But what then?  One of the pastors I listened to tonight was speaking on the story of the prophetess Deborah in Judges 4.  His point being that Deborah's job was to proclaim to the Israelite general Barak (which is going to seem highly ironic in a second) that God was going to put the enemy general Sisera the Canaanite into his hands- all Barak had to do was obey.  But Barak was afraid, didn't have enough faith of his own, and would only lead the troops against Sisera if Deborah came along.  Thus Deborah told him,

⁹ “Certainly I will go with you,” said Deborah. “But because of the course you are taking, the honor will not be yours, for the Lord will deliver Sisera into the hands of a woman.” ( I think I know another Barack who may someday learn that lesson.)

The point the pastor was making is that if God gives us a task, faith should compell us to act without requiring just the right conditions.  That many people who go all the way to Spirit then just sit there in their pew and let someone else take care of the Truth.  Doesn't mean they have to evangelize or teach or be a missionary, just do what you can in your everyday life, according to the gifts you were given, to act on the FAITH you supposedly have.  In other words, what better way to winnow out those who have faith from those who don't than requiring them to then act on that faith?

In summary of this last part, Spirit is the part of worship where we let the spirit guide us into faith; and truth is acting based on that faith in our lives.  Dear Lord, help me to worship in truth as well as spirit.

And summing up the rest, you can see that far from being "illogical", my dear Sarek, Faith is the most logical way for God to build the people he desires.  Because the people He wants must be able to let go of pride and humble themselves to Him.

Free delivery on deer

In between this morning's episodes of This Old House and Ask This Old House, I had to avail myself of the upstairs facilities.  Scrappy, as usual, went in our room to watch "Scrappy TV".  Soon he was barking, and when I managed to tear myself away from... what I was doing, this is what I found him watching.

Twinkie, Twinkie, little star...

My good friend Monkey Butt took the opportunity of Time Machine to ask me what all the buzz was with Hostess.  Don't ask, that's just what she does.  You can see my reply easily enough, but then I went on Facebook and saw people actually defending the union that put them out of business.

"Oh, it's a Bain Capital thing," They said.  "Ruthless corporate raiders refused to negotiate with the poor defenseless union."

I've had enough.

Let us re-evaluate the situation.  FACT:  a box of HoHos has consistantly been two dollars higher than the similar product made by Little Debbie.  FACT:  this was caused by, in part, union wages and pension requirements that priced the company out of competition.  FACT:  The Teamsters recognized that the situation was unsalvageable and agreed to the harsh concession Hostess needed to even try to stay afloat.  FACT: The baker's union refused to bend, even though any reasonable group would have said, "Hey, they will close the company if we don't accept.  Our people having jobs at all should be our first priority."  FACT:  the company had little choice to close.  In fact, let's hear how the Teamsters reacted to the closing, in a released statement:

“The BCTGM chose a different path, as is their prerogative, to not substantively look for a solution or engage in the process,” the statement read. “BCTGM members were told there were better solutions than the final offer, although Judge Drain stated in his decision in bankruptcy court that no such solutions exist. Without complete information, BCTGM members voted by voice votes in union halls. The BCTGM reported that over 90 percent rejected the final offer and three of its units ratified the final offer.”
Hmm, doesn't sound like the BCTGM will be welcomed into the Teamsters anytime soon.

FACT:  27% of Hostess' work force (the 5,000 represented by the BCTGM) cost 100% of 18,500 people their jobs.  Does this absolve Hostess their responsibility in the collapse?  Certainly not, they gave both unions reasons to distrust them.  But the Teamsters put their workers first, while the BCTGM (which undoubtedly stands for "Buncha Chumps out To "Get" Management") just said, "F'em all."

In the end, Hostess may have folded with the concessions.  There was no guarantees.  There was a wealth of stupid moves committed over the years- and let's not forget how many of those were concessions TO unions- and there may not have been time to fix it.  However, the employees WOULD have still had a job at Christmas.  They WOULD have had a 25% stake in the company- and a much greater say in how to fix things.  And they might have had a shot at part of their pension- instead of it all being disbursed at a judge's discretion.

In the interests of fairness, I went over to their website to see if they had anything to say in their own defense.  But like Hostess, their site has apparently crashed.

And the Bain Capital thing?  Well, Bain makes it's money taking struggling businesses and either rebuilding them to thrive if they can, or dividing them up so the viable parts have a chance of surviving if they can't.  That is the FACT.  And that is what will happen to Hostess now.  It was up to the BCTGM to decide which side of the line Hostess would come down on.  Ask THEM why they chose #2.

Time Machine week 42

Today is November 16, 1970.  A slow news day, unless you are a monster.

This suspected Pleisiosaur washed ashore at Situate Harbor, Massachusettts during the night.  Much later, experts concluded it was in actuality a basking shark.

This monster, Hafez al-Assad (pronounced "haf-ass al ass-hat"), took over Syria on this date.  He was later discovered, like his son and current Syrian dictator-on-a-stick Bashar, to be just a turd on the pages of history.  Being a monster just ain't what it used to be.


Welcome to this week's Time Machine.  This week, one new song joins the top ten and two fall out (?), a big week if you're stoned, where Baron Longfellow is now- and who he is, and a new # 1!  Make sure your safety glasses are on in case I have to blow my nose, and lets go!

Thirteen songs debut this week, and I'm going to mention three now and one more in a little bit (and no, that doesn't mean it debuts in the top 40!)  James Taylor comes in with one of his best, Carolina In My Mind, at 93.  Dawn debuts at 87 with Knock Three Times.  And at #72, Three Dog Night with One Man Band.

This leads us to our birthday songs of the week.  Turning thirty Are Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers with You Got Lucky, Air Supply with Two Less Lonely People In The World, and Michael McDonald's I Gotta Try.  Turning 35 are Elvis with My Way, Randy Newman's controversial (if you were an idiot) Short People, Sean Cassidy (not the Cassidys again!) with Hey Deanie (which was a neat song but a bad name for a girlfriend), Samantha Sang's Emotion, noted atheist Billy Joel's Just The Way You Are, and a dance hit by a band called Odessy you might remember, Native New Yorker.  Turning 45 is Johnny Rivers' most underrated hit, Summer Rain, and my personal vote for stupidest song of the sixties, John Fred and the Playboy band with Judy In Disguise.  Finally, hitting the big 5-0 is Go Away Little Girl- not by Donny Osmond, though he was (amazingly ) 5 years old at the time- but by Steve Lawrence.  Blow out the candles...

The road to the top 40 is a rocky one, and perhaps never more so than this week.  The Supremes sit at 54 with Stoned Love;  Barbra Streisand sits at 69 with Stoney End.  And debuting at 95 is an instrumental called Stoned Cowboy by a Miami outfit called Fantasy.  Formed in 1967 around twin brothers Billy and Bob Robbins, brother Billy soon went missing... his body wasn't found till years later, cause of death never determined.   16 year old Lydia Miller took his place as lead singer, and they did one lp before she went out to find success solo (which she never did).  The rest of the band renamed themselves Fantasy Year One, but never again hit the charts.

We have two big climbers and one dropper this week.  The dropper is (where have we heard this name before) Three Dog Night, falling 44 spots to 85 with Out In The Country.  And the climbing pair each rise 22 spots- Chicago's Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is to #42, and Santana's Black Magic Woman to #63.

And that brings us to our Where Are They Now feature, and this week we feature Baron Longfellow.  Who, you ask?  Why, that's a pseudonym for  Andrew Youakim!  Still blinking your eyes?  Okay, our number 50 song this week is by both of these men- AKA Andy Kim, who hits with his cover of Be My Baby.  Andy, a Lebanese-Canadian, had attained his first measures of fame as a bubblegum writer for the Archies- he had a co-credit on Sugar Sugar.  He soon had his first hit with Rainbow Ride, and followed it up with the #9 hit Baby I Love You.  He wrote his #1 Rock Me Gently in 1974, and by 1976 he stopped touring.  After a half-decade of inactivity (partly because he thought his actual dark Lebanese complexion was at odds with the image his songs gave of a blond-haired, blue-eyed Canadian), he emerged for a pair of mid-eighties lps under the name Baron Longfellow.  He also had a 1991 hit in Canada under just the name Longfellow with a single called Powerdrive.

A couple years later, he did a one-shot show that also featured the band Barenaked Ladies.  Ten years later, BNL singer Ed Robertson coaxed him out of retirement.  He is recording again, and has organized a charity Christmas Show in Toronto every year since 2006.

Andy Kim... he thought you were expecting some blond guy.

3 songs enter the top 40 this week.  Up 4 to 40, the future "Disco Lady"s man Johnny Taylor hits with I Am Somebody.  Climbing 8 to 36 is Ronny Dyson with I Don't Wanna Cry.  And up 10 spots to 33 are Woodstock stars Canned Heat with Let's Work Together.

Our look back this week is Glen Gray and the Casa Loma Orchestra.  Another Canadian act- and you know how we love Canadian acts- they got there start as the Orange Blossoms, playing at the Casa Loma Hotel in Toronto.  After getting a contract, they left the hotel and changed the name (having never played at the Casa Loma Hotel as the Casa Loma Orchestra), and moved to New York.  There, they were incorporated, with every member being a board member and stockholder, and each being responsible to the board for their performance.  For example, Gene Gifford, their arranger, was responsible for their early unique sound- but came before the Board in 1935 for his alcohol problems, and was bought out. Originally Glen Gray, the saxaphonist, was "first among equals" and not the leader; It wasn't until 1937 that he was "elected" to the lead.  The band's career ran on the charts from 1931-1945, and they recorded long after.  Their big year was 1934, when they hit the top 20 17 times, six of those in the top ten.  Their biggest hit was 1943's My Heart Tells Me (Should I Believe My Heart?), one of their 5 #1s and 30 top tens.

The band was featured from 1933-36 on the Camel Caravan, a variety radio show whose theme was the band's hit Smoke Rings.  The show itself went on until 1954, with various acts featured until Bing Crosby took over in 1939.  By the mid-forties, Gray found himself the owner of the corporation; ill health had him retire in 1950.  The band continued, though, under his ownership until his death in 1963.

I have three Almost But Not Quite shoutouts.  Teegarden and Van Winkle's God Love And Rock'N'Roll peaks at 14 this week; The Who's See Me Feel Me peaks at 16; and Blood Sweat and Tears' Lucretia McEvil drops this week to 24 after peaking last week at 17.  Also, a Yellow River progress report:  it moves from 32 to 25 in its 20th week on the chart-and third on the top 40.

One new song joins the top ten, but two drop out.  How does that happen?  Well, unlike last time, it's not a mistake on my part.  A song that had dropped out of the top 10 climbs back in this week.  So two songs drop- Lola, from 10 to 13, and It's Only Make Believe, falling from it's peak of 9 to 11.

Sugarloaf moves back up to #10, a one notch climb, with Green Eyed Lady.  Welcome back!

Free drops from 6 to 9 with All Right Now.

Smokey Robinson and the Miracles blast up from 12 to #8 with Tears Of A Clown.

Bread holds at 7 (drat! No "rising" joke this week!) with It Don't Matter To Me.

100 Proof Aged In Soul moves 2 to #6 with Somebody's Been Sleeping.

And that brings us to a slightly underdone six degrees.

I'll Be There, which drops from 2 to 5, was the first ballad for the Jackson boys.  Berry Gordy decided it was time to take a chance, and called in a new group of writers for the band, headed by Motown producer Hal Davis.  Hal would also co-write their first foray into a more disco flavor, the hit Dancing Machine off the lp G.I.T.  Get It Together.  This lp also had a former Temptations and Rare Earth song called Hum Along And Dance.  The Temps had it as the b-side of our recent WATN feature Unite The World, while Rare Earth had it on their acclaimed lp Ma.  Both the Jacksons and RE were instrumentals with basically the only words being one band member saying along the lines of, "Hey, why aren't there any words?" and another answering, "we didn't have time to write any!"  Which was basically the only contribution to the song on their lp, since Gordy didn't allow the Jacksons to play on their albums (which led to their leaving Motown soon later), and the only other thing they did was shout, "Play it!" at each other.  Of course, the Temps had the same thing on their cut, with the Motown studio band the Funk Brothers handling the music.

James Taylor holds at 4 with Fire And Rain.

The Carpenters step down to #3 with last week's top dog, We've Only Just Begun.

The Partridge Family climbs 3 to #2 with I Think I Love You. 

And the number one song this week...

R. Dean Taylor (the R stands for Richard) and Indiana Wants Me!!!!!


And that is another stitched together epic on Time Machine!  See you next time!

My excuse...

I should be ready to get research done on Time Machine and do my usual fabulous job.  But if it doesn't meet the standard this week, here's my excuse:

Yesterday.

-Within two miles of work, a self-esteem challenged individual decided to bolster himself by going just slow enough on the interstate to encourage me to pass, then speeds up so I couldn't just before the lane I'm in ends, and then increases his speed by about 20 MPH to speed away when I dropped back behind him (and made sure I couldn't pass on the other side by stradling lanes until he had a good lead).  Breaking news, buddy: Your girlfriend still thinks it's short.

-Find myself put in one of the busiest departments, by myself, for the first time.

-When they decide to give me help, it was only the best:  a girl who wanted to talk first work second, and a guy who spent WAY too much time messing with his iPhone.

-Guy promptly messes up two things- one my fault for not telling him, the other his for being stupid.  Guess who fixed both?

-At some undetermined point, cut two adjoining fingers.  Not sure which one bled all over.

-Seat of my pants ripped open.  Wore outer shirt over ass for just over half the night.

-In trying to bring them in more work, almost had to physically move phone boy out of the way, he was in the middle of some important text/playlist change.

-Moments later:
    Girl:  Do you want to ask for another person?
    Me:  Why?
    Girl: To do all these boxes... (that would be the boxes that he was making slowly due to his other activities, which she was supposedly putting bags in so I could take them where they were needed, but was way behind because she'd stood there talking for the last five minutes).
    Me: No, because we could get them done ourselves if everyone got off the phone, stopped standing around, and did what they were supposed to be doing!
Reported this to lead, who increased her own vigilance and reported she'd talk to the supervisor because they had been nothing but skin tags in the place she got them from as well.

-Got chewed by line loader #2 for the mistake #2, which was causing the line to jam.  She offered that if they kept it up, come to her and she'd read them the riot act.  Told her I already talked to lead.

-While blowing my nose, got a booger on my glasses.

-Lost my usual seat in the break room because of the ten million Burmese from our other plant who are training to help out during the Great Deluge which supposedly starts next week.  Sat out in the hallway last break.

-Frost on the windshield when going to leave.

Thankfully it was nothing abnormally loud music on the way home couldn't cure.  But if TM looks a little raggy tomorrow, you now know why.