The night Blue Rodeo saved my life

I have lived in or near the largest city in Canada, Toronto, pretty much all my life. But in my 42 years, I have only been to Canada's second-largest city, Montreal, twice. Once was in 1980 when my family travelled east to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and I remember bits of that trip (I remember it was 1980 because we saw The Empire Strikes Back in Halifax) but nothing about Montreal. The other time was shortly after I moved to Ottawa after graduating from the University of Waterloo in 1992. That one was more memorable.

I started listening to Metallica in about second-year university and by the time I graduated in 1992, I was a big fan. Faith No More's album The Real Thing was one of my favourites during my university years, and while not a huge Guns 'n Roses fan, I liked most of their music. So when I heard during the summer of 1992 that all three bands would soon be coming to Montreal, I was very excited. The radio ads said "seven hours of heavy metal!" I had moved to Ottawa in June to work at Corel, and Ottawa is only about an hour and a half away from Montreal. I called my girlfriend Gail (now my wife of fifteen years) and asked if she wanted to go. She's not the metal fan that I am, but she liked Enter Sandman and a few GnR songs, so she agreed. Plus we decided to get a hotel room and stay over, so it was a mini-vacation.

We drove to Montreal the morning of the concert, which was on a Saturday. A friend of Gail's lived in Montreal so we visited with her in the afternoon, and then walked down from our hotel to Olympic Stadium for the concert. I remember seeing an Expos souvenir shop near the door where we came in. The concert started right on time, with Faith No More opening. We were at the far end of the stadium, on the left side. I think we were on the lower level. The first thing I noticed when the show started was that the sound was terrible. Forget deciphering the lyrics, I couldn't even figure out what half the songs were. Faith No More played for about 45 minutes, then they were done and we waited for Metallica. The tour was a "co-headlining" tour, and I don't know if the order of the bands changed from night to night, but on this night Metallica was second and GnR third.

I don't remember how long a delay there was before Metallica came on but I don't think it was outrageous, maybe 30-45 minutes. I hoped that someone had fixed the sound problems, but alas, it was not to be. The first song they played was my favourite Metallica song ever, Creeping Death, and it was half over before I even realized what song it was. Sound problems aside, they put on a great show for about 45 minutes before it all went to hell. They started into Fade To Black, and about a minute into the song, after some pyrotechnics at the front of the stage went off, the music just... stopped. Dead air. Nothing. The smoke from the pyro cleared and we could see that the stage was empty. What the hell happened? Where's the band? There was a lot of talking in the crowd, but the house lights didn't come on, and nobody knew what was going on. It was several minutes before bassist Jason Newsted came out onto the stage and grabbed a microphone. He said that James (lead singer Hetfield) had been hurt by some pyrotechnics and he couldn't continue, so they'd have to cut their show short. He apologized on behalf of the band but said that they would come back to Montreal and they hoped we'd come out and see them then. (Apparently they did come back the next year, with tickets under $20 each as a sort of apology.) On came the house lights, and a disappointed crowd waited for Guns 'n Roses.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

I'm guessing that the show was scheduled such that Faith No More and Metallica would each play for a pre-determined length of time, and enough time was set aside for two stage switches, so Guns 'n Roses knew when their show was scheduled to start. GnR singer Axl Rose is not known for being flexible and... well, let's just call a spade a spade. Axl Rose is known for being an asshole. I have no proof, but I have assumed since that day that Axl decided it was too bad Metallica's show ended early, but GnR were scheduled to go on at whatever time, and that's when they would go on. Those fifty-odd thousand people out there would just have to wait.

Two and a half hours after Metallica's show abruptly ended, Guns 'n Roses finally took the stage. After the high-energy Metallica show, we found that Guns 'n Roses just didn't have any energy. I have no memory of what songs they played, but Gail and I quickly got bored. Our feeling was "They made us wait 2½ hours and this is what they're giving us?" After only about twenty minutes, I was bored enough to suggest that we take off. I was there to see Metallica anyway, Gail didn't much care one way or the other, and we had discovered earlier that night that Blue Rodeo was playing a free concert across the street from our hotel. We were both big Blue Rodeo fans as well, so we left and took a cab from the Big O back to the hotel. We walked across the street and enjoyed the second half of the Blue Rodeo show.

While driving back to Ottawa the next morning, we listened to a Montreal radio station for a while. The DJs were taking phone calls from listeners who were all answering the question "If you could talk to Axl Rose right now, what would you say?" All of the callers had very negative things to say and we assumed that the majority of fans were as disappointed with the GnR show as we were, though maybe not enough to leave early as we did. After a while we lost the radio signal and turned it off, still blissfully unaware of what had actually happened. I didn't find out until the next day, when I returned to work and my co-workers asked about the riot.

My response was "The what?"

As it turned out, Guns 'n Roses played for a total of about 55 minutes before simply leaving the stage. Axl Rose later claimed that his throat hurt, and indeed a few shows had been cancelled over the previous couple of weeks for that reason. But on this night, to my knowledge, there was no announcement of any kind. The band just left the stage and the lights came on. The remaining crowd were less than impressed with this. The promised "seven hours of heavy metal" turned into maybe 2½ hours of music and over 3 hours of waiting. This displeasure resulted in people going down to the floor and throwing chairs, and then destroying whatever they could on the way out of the stadium. I saw pictures on the news of the very same Expos shop we had seen on the way in, which had been smashed and looted. When the crowd got outside the bad behaviour turned into a full-fledged riot, with the rioters looting stores and using Guns 'n Roses T-shirts to set several fires including at least one car. The Montreal police had to use tear gas and shut down several subway stations. It even made the New York Times. This was the reason for the questions about Axl Rose on the radio the next morning, and it was big news in Ottawa as well, so everyone knew about it – except us.

Aside: According to an interview eighteen years later with GnR drummer Matt Sorum, the reason for the delay was that Guns 'n Roses wasn't even in the building. Actually they had not even arrived in Montreal yet. They were on their way from Toronto and were well over an hour away before they heard about the problems. (The text of the interview says that it had been 4½ hours, not 2½, but I don't remember it being that long.) I'm not sure I buy this argument though. Opening act 1 was done and opening act 2 was on stage, and not only was the band not at the stadium, they weren't even in the city? Good planning, people. Apparently the unexpected scheduling change caused other audio problems that contributed to the GnR show being cut short, but I'm not sure I buy this either. Sure the sound for the previous two bands sucked, but I have since heard from a number of people that concerts at the Big O always had bad sound. Plus, instead of the normal 45-60 minutes to switch stages, they had somewhere between 2½ and 4½ hours and still couldn't it working properly?

The Montreal riot wasn't the insanity that was downtown Vancouver after the Stanley Cup final, but I'm still very glad that Gail and I weren't part of it. And we have two bands to thank: Blue Rodeo for being free, and Guns 'n Roses for being boring.

If the coffee machine breaks, just drink water

At work, we have a fancy coffee machine in the kitchen which is similar to the Tassimo thing that's all the rage these days. (A friend of mine who didn't drink coffee bought one for his wife, and now he drinks at least a cup a day. You can judge for yourself whether that's a good thing or not.) The one at work takes little pouches (called "pods") of coffee, tea, or hot chocolate, pushes hot water through them at high pressure, and gives you a steaming mug within about 30 seconds. I don't drink coffee but I like the tea and hot chocolate it makes, and the fact that it's ready so quickly is very convenient.

When it's done making your beverage, it automatically drops the used pod out the bottom into a big bin that gets emptied regularly. Now and again a used pod will get stuck, but the people who supply us with the coffee pouches have posted a helpful (hand-written) list of instructions on how to clear it:

The order is VERY specific!!

Turn off, unplug. Open big door, then put your hand under silver packet door, pull off, set aside. Look inside. If you see a pod give 1/4 turn, GENTLY slide out the back (DON'T FORCE).

Plug in, turn on, close big door IN THAT ORDER.

Next, put silver packet door on by putting top into place, smack bottom with your hand. PACKET DOOR  MUST BE PUT ON LAST OR ELSE IT WILL NOT RESET! Good luck.

Good luck indeed. Sorry, but if your product needs this level of detailed instructions (complete with UPPERCASE COMMANDS) to fix a basic problem, you need to revisit your design. Luckily this has never happened to me but if it did, Tim Horton's is only a 3 minute drive away.

Oh Canada! Ribfest 2011

Waterdown held its second annual Oh Canada! Ribfest this past weekend. I wrote about last year's ribfest and I'm very glad I did, since 5 of the 6 ribbers that were there last year were there again this year, and none of us could remember which ones we liked. Again this year, we tried ribs from each of the six ribbers. We had a half rack from two of them on Thursday, two on Saturday, and two on Sunday. This year's ribbers were:

Boss Hog – Sauce was nice and smoky, and the ribs were excellent. My favourite, and Ryan's too. They even had the best beans.

Fire Island – Our favourite sauce last year, but not this year. Last year, their sauce was smoky and had some bite, while this year it was much sweeter. The ribs we had were big but mostly bone, so they weren't very meaty.

Silver Bullet – Great ribs and nice tangy sauce. Gail's and Nicky's favourite and me and Ryan put them at a solid #2.

Camp 31 – Ribs were good and meaty, sauce was sweeter than most of the others.

Bone Daddy – Great ribs with a nice spicy sauce. Challenged the Silver Bullet guys for #2.

Ribs Royale – New to the Waterdown ribfest this year. We weren't that impressed with the newcomers, since most of our ribs were tough and dry. We even left one uneaten – a sacrilege. The sauce wasn't bad. A few other people I talked to said they really liked these guys, so perhaps the half-rack we got was an anomaly.

All of the ribbers also sold BBQ chicken and pulled pork, though it never occurred to me to try anything other than the ribs. They had the same non-rib food vendors as last year – Tiny Tom's donuts, corn on the cob and yams, hot dogs, burgers, fries, bloomin' onions, fresh lemonade, and an ice cream van. Unfortunately, the spiral spuds that we enjoyed last year weren't available this year.

Helping Out

Gail helped out by volunteering last year, and this year all four of us did. On Thursday from 3:00 to 7:00pm, we were stationed in one of the recycling tents, which was somewhat misnamed since all waste (garbage and recycling and everything else) was brought there and we sorted it. Unfortunately, Thursday afternoon was the least busy and so for most of our four hour shift, we just sat. Occasionally we would grab a blue box and walk around the tables picking up garbage that lazy people had left behind, and the boys played with a beach ball for a while. The worst part was that there were twelve people in this tent – the four of us, a friend of Ryan's, and a bunch of mostly grumpy high school students trying to get some volunteer hours in – so the place was seriously overstaffed.

While sitting in the recycling tent, we got to listen to a few local bands who were performing. The first one had the odd name of Science Ninja Big Ten, and they sounded like a B-52's cover band, except that they played (AFAIK) originals. They were OK, but not my cup of tea. The second was a trio called Trees and I really enjoyed these guys. They had a Wide Mouth Mason thing happening and did an assortment of originals and covers, though their covers were quite different from the originals - sort of funky and bluesy at the same time. Next was a duo, Ria and Bill, who played "standards" – everything from Petula Clark's "Downtown" to Van Morrison's "Moondance" to Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots are Made For Walkin'". Again, not bad but not my thing.

We volunteered again on Saturday afternoon, and this time there were just six (the four of us, one grumpy teenager and another teenager who was quiet but not that grumpy) in the tent, and it was much busier. We certainly had some idle times, but other times the table was piling up with stuff just as fast as we could get rid of it. We got to listen to some different bands too. The Freeltones (who are presumably from the nearby town of Freelton, get it?) played first, and they played mostly 70's classic rock. They were pretty good, though it's unfortunate that the singer had his feet glued to the floor. I realize that nobody in the crowd came specifically to see you, and I'm not expecting Mick Jagger kind of energy, but dude, you're allowed to move. Next was a Dixieland jazz band with the cool name of Subourbon Street. They even had a sousaphone. I'm not a huge fan of jazz, and I have to say that Dixieland isn't my favourite – at one point they started a new song, and Nicky asked me "didn't they already play this?" I responded that I couldn't tell – it sounded to me like they'd played the same song a number of times. After they were done, a band called Straight Cut came out. They played heavier rock and even though there was a half-hour or so between bands, the juxtaposition was a little jarring – from oom-pah-pah to Judas Priest. They played some classic rock (Doobie Brothers, Cream, and both these guys and the Freeltones played Takin' Care of Business – more on that particular ditty later), but also some heavier stuff – Machinehead by Bush, Whiskey in the Jar (originally by Thin Lizzy I think but these guys did the Metallica version), and the aforementioned Priest. This is my kind of music, so I enjoyed this band.

The Record

On Sunday, the organizers put together an attempt to get into the Guinness Book of World Records – they asked everyone to gather in the baseball diamond to sing BTO's Takin' Care of Business, and the performance would be broadcast live on the radio. The world's record for most people singing simultaneously on the radio was 622, and we packed over 650 people in the ball diamond. If this seems like an odd record to try for, consider some other records that were set and recorded recently – "Most people dressed as Smurfs within 24 hours" and "Most people applying sunscreen at once". Those Guinness people take their records seriously – we had to close off all the entrances to the baseball diamond except one, and have a couple of people counting everyone who went in. There were a bunch of volunteers whose job it was to watch a small portion of the crowd, making sure everyone was actually singing and not just lip syncing, and count the number of people not singing. Those volunteers had to report their numbers later and sign affidavits to legally swear to the numbers.

Kudos once again to the Waterdown Rotary Club for putting this great event together and to our fellow volunteers. I saw people from my baseball team, people I know on twitter, people from Nicky's school, people from Scouting, some neighbours and other friends of ours in the area, plus the editor of the local paper and our local MPP. We all had a great time with some great music, a world record, and of course, good eatin'.

What a drag it is getting old

Gail volunteered in the beer tent at the Waterdown Ribfest last night. One of her duties was to ask people for ID if they looked like they were under 25. Step one: figure out what year one would have to be born in order to be able to buy alcohol legally. Some quick math, and the answer is 1992.

The same year Gail and I graduated from university.

Oh, God.

Skeptoid

I recently discovered my new favourite podcast – Skeptoid. From the web site: "Skeptoid is a weekly science podcast dedicated to furthering knowledge by blasting away the widespread pseudosciences that infect popular culture, and replacing them with way cooler reality." Host Brian Dunning created this podcast back in 2006 and has done over 250 episodes. Each is 8-12 minutes long and covers a single topic such as an unexplained phenomenon (like spontaneous human combustion), outrageous claims ("ionized bracelets" will cure all your ills), urban legends (plastic water bottles leech poison into the water), conspiracy theories (doctors and researchers cover up cures for diseases because it's in their best interest to keep people sick), and pseudoscientific alternative medicines (diluting a tiny drop of toxin billions of times until there's none of the toxin left in the solution will cure all your ills). Dunning investigates each topic, its history, the claims made by its supporters, and most importantly, its scientific plausibility.

Note that the idea of this show is critical thinking, meaning thinking for yourself, using proper scientific procedures to investigate and evaluate these claims, not attempting to prove or disprove a preconceived notion. The idea is not "anything mystical or supernatural is bullshit", and he does not begin a podcast on such a topic by assuming that it's bullshit. It may appear that way though, because pretty much all of the mystical or supernatural claims he's investigated have been bullshit shown to be either wrong or untestable.

Something that should seem obvious but wasn't at first is the first question he asks about any phenomenon. When talking about some unexplained phenomenon, the first question is not "how does it work" or "how do we explain it", as I would have expected. The first question is "does it actually happen?" There's no point in trying to come up with a scientific explanation for something if there's no evidence that it's ever happened. How is it possible for a human body to suddenly burst into flame? Well, who cares how if it's never happened? You also need to watch out for implicit assumptions – trying to answer the question "is there a curse on King Tut's tomb?" assumes the existence of curses. But "have an inordinate number of people involved with the opening of King Tut's tomb died under mysterious circumstances?" is a valid question which can be investigated.

Things I've learned from skeptoid thus far:

• Homeopathy is hogwash (I already knew that)
• Astrology is hogwash (that too)
• Most "near death experiences" can be explained by a lack of oxygen to the brain. People who experience oxygen deprivation but are in no danger of dying report extraordinarily similar symptoms.
• No documented cases of spontaneous human combustion that cannot be explained by a normal fire followed by slow burning have ever occurred
• Nostradamus was a noted plague doctor who made lots of predictions that were no more reliable than anyone else's at the time. There has never been a case of a specific incident predicted by Nostradamus that later came true.
• The people who were involved with the opening of King Tut's tomb didn't die of unusual circumstances with any higher frequency than any other group of people
• Your hair cannot turn white because of stress or something frightening
• Reading in the dark will not hurt your eyes
• You do not need to drink eight glasses of water a day
• Subliminal advertising does not work. The famous experiment where ads were displayed during movies for a fraction of a second and a huge increase in concession purchases was seen never happened.
• Nothing toxic leeches from plastic water bottles
• You can't die from "skin suffocation" by painting your entire body. Even if you paint it gold.
• Claiming that a health product is effective because it's "all natural" is meaningless. Cyanide, salmonella, and E. coli are all natural; Tylenol is not.
• Chiropractic was invented over 100 years ago by a man who had never been to medical school. It was based on "innate intelligence", a spiritual essence that flows through the body and can be affected by magnets and spinal manipulation. Many chiropractors no longer believe this, but they are essentially unlicensed physical therapists. Chiropractors are not medical doctors and cannot write prescriptions.
• In a crisis, a rush of adrenaline can give you more strength than you would usually have, but it cannot give you "super-human" strength, eg. enough to lift a car.
• Aspartame is not a government mind-control drug, nor does it cause multiple sclerosis or any other disease

A couple of the episodes I especially liked were the ones on logical fallacies – describing the straw man argument, appeal to authority, ad hominem attacks, slippery slopes, and the excluded middle. I have to admit that I've used some of those same types of arguments myself from time to time, so it was good to get a description of what they are, how to recognize them, and why they are not useful. In fact, they're worse than "not useful", they're actively counterproductive. If you resort to one of these logical fallacies in your arguments, it's likely that you don't have a strong position to begin with, making your argument look even less compelling.

When you do a podcast with over 100,000 listeners talking about how a particular alternative medicinal practice cannot possibly have the effect that it's claimed to, someone will inevitably send you an email telling you how that particular practice saved him or someone he knows from certain death, and it's too bad you're so closed-minded. Dunning gets lots of these, and every now and again he reads and responds to them in a show. His responses are generally funny, but can be snarky and disrespectful, and sometimes downright mean and insulting. You can hardly blame him though, considering the insults he receives. He even did an episode on who's more closed-minded – the skeptic or the true believer? The answer: both. And neither.

I haven't even mentioned the biggest debate of all – creationism vs. evolution. I've written on this topic in the past, though not in a few years. In general, Dunning's biggest problem with creationism is the faulty arguments many creationists use against evolution: "It's just a theory", "it can't explain the eyeball", "life has never spontaneously been created inside a jar of peanut butter", etc. Some arguments against evolution are laughingly silly: "Evolution is wrong because atheists believe it, and we know that Hitler was an atheist" (which he wasn't). "Evolution is wrong because it doesn't explain how galaxies and stars formed." Even the unbelievable "evolution is wrong because some evolutionary scientists are overweight". And of course, there's the "excluded middle" argument – either evolution or creationism is "right" and the other is "wrong". These are not the only two options – perhaps God created the initial building blocks of life and let them evolve. Not to mention that evolution is a fact. We know it happens. It has been observed in laboratories. The claim that there is debate among scientists is false – there is no debate.

OK, I was wrong. The faulty arguments against evolution are not Dunning's biggest problem with creationists. His biggest problem with creationists are the so-called "young earth" creationists, who believe that the Bible is literally true and scientifically accurate. The earth was created in six 24-hour days about 6,000 years ago. Humans and dinosaurs lived at the same time. Carbon dating (and geology in general) is wrong. Take any piece of actual science that contradicts this and throw it out and say "God did it all". When a scientist shows you scientific proof that you're wrong, just tell them that "God did it in such a way that all your tests are invalid." And who's closed-minded?

So what?

You may say "What's the harm? So some people believe that an alien spacecraft crashed at Roswell in the 1940's. Even if they're wrong, so what?" and in that particular instance, and many others, you would be right. But one of Dunning's biggest pet peeves is alternative medicine. If you pay big bucks for some "detoxification" pills that have no actual medicinal value, you're getting ripped off by a scam artist. Even worse, if you believe that every illness you have is caused by undetectable misalignments in your spine preventing some undetectable mystical field from flowing freely through your body, you may decide that seeing a chiropractor is of more value to you than seeing an actual doctor. If I had used alternative medicine instead of going to the hospital when I had my pancreatitis attack in 2010, I would be dead. My mother, mother-in-law, and sister are all cancer survivors, and I assure you that they are survivors thanks to modern medicine. No amount of spinal manipulation, copper bracelets, wheatgrass juice, crystals, homeopathy, or all-natural herbal remedies derived from ancient Chinese wisdom would have helped them without real doctors practicing real medicine. This is one of the biggest dangers of pseudoscience.

All 250+ Skeptoid episodes can be downloaded or the transcripts read from skeptoid.com, or you can subscribe through iTunes. Watch out though – there are a number of ironic ads on the site for psychics and various alternative medicines because of Google's logic in deciding what ads to place there. I have an upcoming article on one of those.

At least he's not blogging

My 11-year-old son Ryan isn't on facebook yet, so he has to find other ways to waste time on the internet.

 

The Plot of Every Episode of Criminal Minds

Criminal Minds is a cop show police procedural drama that deals with the Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) of the FBI, and how they profile and catch serial killers. It's well-written, interesting, action-packed, and has a great cast. During the 2010-2011 TV season, it was the tenth-highest rated primetime show – and if you consider just the dramas (removing American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, and football), it's number 4 behind NCIS, NCIS: Los Angeles, and The Mentalist. Gail loves this show and I enjoy it as well, but some episodes seem a little formulaic. If you've never seen it, fear not – here is a plot summary of the majority of episodes thus far: 

Opening: We meet the psycho killer (usually a man) and his most recent victim (usually a woman). The victim is killed and the body dumped.

Cut to someone finding the body and the subsequent police investigation. Hey, this killing is similar to that one last week, and that other one three weeks ago. We better call in the FBI.

Opening credits.

Fade in on a small airplane in flight. Someone, usually Hotch or Rossi, does a voice-over of a meaningful quotation. It's a little-known fact that Thomas Gibson, who plays Hotch, is contractually forbidden from smiling on Criminal Minds – he's been really grumpy since Dharma left. Joe Mantegna (Rossi) is the older veteran who frequently gives advice to his younger colleagues. He doesn't seem old enough to be grandfatherly, but he's at least friendly – he replaced Inigo Montoya Mandy Patinkin after a couple of seasons because it was decided that having two actors who weren't allowed to smile was a total downer for the audience.

After the quotation, we cut to the plane's interior, where the members of the BAU are examining how the victims were abducted and the locations of the body dumps. I'm always impressed at how they can talk about whatever town they're going to like they've lived there all their lives. They can look at a map and know what the locals call each part of the town, and whether a particular section of town is industrial or residential or new or old or rich or poor. They talk about the "unsub" (short for unidentified subject) and what's making him do these terrible things based on who he's selected as his victims and how they are abducted, tortured, killed, and disposed of.

Cut back to another person who is vaguely similar to the first victim we saw – usually in looks, occasionally in some other way like occupation. We see the killer stalking and eventually abducting her.

The BAU has arrived at the crime scene and is finding all sorts of clues that the local police missed. Police across the country must hate this show, since they are frequently portrayed as well-meaning and willing to help but not very effective on their own. The team adjourns to a meeting room in the local police station, where they find links between the victims with the help of über-hacker Penelope Garcia. If you ever watch NCIS, Garcia is the Abby of this show – both are sweet, extroverted women with mad haxor skillz and an outlandish wardrobe. Abby loves all her co-workers like family while Garcia is flirty with the men and never talks to the women. Garcia seems to be just a hacker, while Abby is a general forensic scientist with advanced knowledge of other things like chemistry, molecular biology, and weapons. Just like all other computer forensic people on TV, Garcia types queries in English and never uses a mouse. She can instantly cross-reference things in any database in the world, with vague references like "look for someone with an unfinished degree in American literature, who owns a gray or silver Honda sedan, and whose mother died of lung cancer in the mid-90's."

After another glimpse of the killer and his next victim, we have a big meeting with all the local police officers and the BAU team. The team explains the profile to the cops, telling them what kind of person they are looking for, and giving hints as to what kinds of behaviours they might see. "We're looking for a white male, 40-45, probably tall, say 6'2" to 6'4". He's confident but not very friendly; not the life of the party, but not a loner either. He may work as a welder or in construction. When eating an Oreo, he doesn't pull it apart and scrape the filling off with his teeth. ["What a psycho" says one of the cops.] His victims are tall dark-haired left-handed women 25-30 with glasses. He meets them at Citibank – they start to talk when she borrows his pen."

Back to the killer. We get a little bit of insight in to how he thinks or why he's doing this, usually a flashback to his childhood as he remembers something his mother / father / teacher / caregiver did or didn't do, or some traumatic event like when his brother died in a bizarre gardening accident.

The team splits up. Some go to interview people associated with the crime – hotel managers, store owners, taxi drivers – while some stay behind and continue analyzing the existing evidence. Some of the people interviewed are quite obviously innocent, but at least one matches the profile and seems shifty. Another major clue is found – a link between the victims or crimes that wasn't noticed before. The suspect pool gets pared down, but they still don't have a name.

Another cut to the unsub and his victim. His torture is almost done and she realizes she's likely going to die soon.

At this point, Derek calls Garcia again asking for more information, and she flirts shamelessly with him, usually on speakerphone. Strangely, none of the other team members is uncomfortable about listening to this, even though her version of "flirting" might get her fired from most jobs that don't involve phone sex. Someone on the team has has just discovered some little tidbit and when Garcia adds that to her query, she finds the unsub's name. He's either someone they have already talked to (but not the shifty guy), or he works or used to work at the same place as someone they've already talked to. Another query and Garcia finds his address. They go there. He's not home.

Now that they know the killer's identity, they try to figure out where he might be holding his next victim. The killer, who usually doesn't know his identity has been discovered, sticks to his MO thus making him easier to find. He's generally holed up in the house he grew up in, or a cottage or business left to him by a dead relative, or an abandoned building near where he used to work, before he was fired a few weeks ago. Eventually Derek searches the house with his gun drawn, showing off his sculpted muscles. Hey Derek, you're obviously an XL, so you really should stop buying those L sized T-shirts.

After a standoff with Derek and/or Hotch, the killer is cornered and usually arrested. Unless: he's not just a killer, he's a sadistic torturer and general whack-job, in which case he's killed. Unless: he's a sadistic torturer and general whack-job who gets under the skin of someone on the BAU team, in which case he's arrested and will escape from custody in a future episode.

Regardless of what happens to the killer, the abducted person survives and after another meaningful quotation, the team flies home.

So there you go – six seasons of Criminal Minds in one handy place. You're welcome.

Postscript: When this article was mostly done, I decided to watch an episode of Criminal Minds from beginning to end while paying attention to what I'd written, just to confirm the order of events and such. We didn't have any recorded, so I started looking through the PVR guide for upcoming episodes. For two weeks I looked for one that might match my "summary", but I couldn't find one. "Nope, that's a season finale with a cliffhanger, that's an episode focussed solely on Reid, that's one where one or more members of the BAU are themselves kidnapped, that's one where they know who the killer is from the start, ..." Here I am with an article on how formulaic this show is, and then I couldn't find an episode that matched the formula. More irony for you.

Knock knock

I saw this picture the other day and just had to share it. It's one of the first jokes I remember telling when I was a kid.

And Dustin Pedroia is short

I went with my dad to the Jays/Red Sox game tonight. Four observations:

1. Clay Buchholz is the slowest pitcher in the history of the world. I'm sure he waited ten or fifteen minutes between pitches.
2. Rajai Davis doesn't have anywhere near the outfield range of Vernon Wells. One inning, a ball dropped in front of him and took a high bounce. Davis jumped and cut it off before it went to the wall, keeping the batter to a single instead of at least a double. Pretty nice play, but Wells would have caught it.
3. Kevin Youkilis has unbelievable bat speed.
4. Food and beer at Rogers Centre is really expensive. One hot dog and two small Keith's: $21. Instead of a $5.25 hot dog in the stadium, have a $5 Italian sausage outside the stadium beforehand. Bigger, thicker, tastier, and cheaper.

Parental Control Software and Big Boobs

My kids (ages 11 and 9) are getting more and more familiar with the internet, and enjoy spending time on the computer. Mainly they play games and watch funny YouTube videos ("Simon's Cat" is their favourite), but a few times Ryan has mentioned facebook and chat rooms and instant messaging and such, and they are both heavily into a game called Minecraft, which is all the rage these days. They have gone to message boards and watched videos on how to mod the games, and recently Nicky wanted help in downloading a mod which required modifying .jar files. There's enough scary stuff on the internet that I'm getting less and less comfortable with them just perusing at their leisure, so I looked into various parental control software packages.

Step one was made a couple of years ago and was amazingly simple. I set up a free account on OpenDNS.com and changed my router to use it for DNS rather than my ISP. Not only is it faster, but they have controls that filter various categories, so I selected things like porn, nudity, adware, dating, gambling, hate, and a few others. It doesn't mean that it's impossible to get to these sites, just that if you try to get to bigboobs.com, the DNS server will simply not tell you where it is. (bigboobs.com is just an example I grabbed chose at random. Not surprisingly, it turns out to be a real web site.) The DNS setting is done on the router, which means it applies not only to the computers, but the Wii, Ryan's iPod Touch, and anything else we add in the future. That was a very easy first step and blocks a fair bit of the stuff I don't need my kids seeing. As part of research for this article I actually went to bigboobs.com to make sure OpenDNS was blocking it. It wasn't, so I had to fix my OpenDNS settings. I guess I will have to visit bigboobs.com periodically from now on, just to make sure everything is still working. With OpenDNS, I mean.

Step two has been ongoing for a while, though it seems to be at least temporarily solved. I'm looking for a software package that will allow me to monitor and limit my kids internet usage. I first tried a free solution from Blue Coat Software called K9 Web Protection. It looked pretty good, but I couldn't make it work at all. I installed it, rebooted the machine, and got nothing. I wasn't able to connect to the internet at all, and every time I tried to run the administrative program, it crashed. During the uninstall procedure, it brought up a window and asked me why I was uninstalling, so I told them. To their credit, a Blue Coat support guy responded via email within a day or two and sent me a newer version to try. It had the same problem only this time when I uninstalled it and replied to the original email, I got no response. Strike one.

The next one I tried was Kidswatch. I installed the trial version and it seemed pretty extensive. It allows you to limit exactly what times you are allowed to log on to the machine, what times you are allowed to use the internet, what web sites are blocked, what types of web sites are blocked (i.e. social media, online shopping, etc.), all kinds of stuff like that. The list of options is actually pretty impressive. It can also send you daily or weekly email reports of internet usage – which web sites were visited, how long was spent on each of them, stuff like that. It can send you immediate emails if a site is blocked or certain keywords are found on web sites, chat rooms, or IM sessions. This sounds great, but I started getting false positive reports all over the place - unless Ryan is doing google searches for "Megan Fox boobs" while sitting right next to me. It reported that he went to facebook when he didn't, it reported all kinds of other web sites he didn't visit and searches he didn't perform. It ended up being more trouble than it was worth.

I had been using the free trial of Kidswatch for a week or two, not sure yet whether I wanted to buy it or not. It's not that expensive – $45 allows you to install the software on up to three computers. But then I got an email saying "we've noticed you've downloaded our software but haven't bought it. If you use this code, we'll give you a $10 discount". I know this is standard practice in many industries, but it seemed backwards to me -- if I had originally been thrilled with the software and had bought it right away, I wouldn't get the discount? It's the same with banks – the loyal long-time customers who never consider switching banks pay the highest mortgage rates, while the people who threaten to move to another bank pay less. That doesn't seem fair to your best customers. Anyway, I didn't end up buying it because of all the false positives. Strike two.

There's another package called NetNanny which is supposed to be good, but I haven't looked at it. It's the most expensive though - $40 per PC. I was almost ready to install this one when I asked around on Twitter and someone said that they were "just using the free Microsoft one". I didn't know there was such a thing, but there is – Windows Live Family Safety.

Vista and Windows 7 have parental controls built in, so you can limit when you can log in to particular user accounts as well as the total amount of time they are logged in per day or week. This package adds more stuff, allowing you to set up multiple computers to have the same limits, modify these limits from anywhere, as well as adding web filtering (general categories as well as specific sites), game and program restrictions (eg. I have Skype and the webcam software blocked) and contact management if your kid uses Windows Live. It can monitor IM activity if you use MSN Messenger, but not other IM software. It would be nice if you could allow the child to log onto the computer at certain times but not use the internet, but that doesn't seem to be an option. You also can't combine the time restrictions with the web restrictions, so you can't say "Allow minecraft.net on weekends but not Monday-Friday".

So this is what we've been using for a few months, and it's pretty good. If I run into problems with the Windows Live stuff or I need more functionality than it provides I may give NetNanny a try, but I'd want it on at least two computers, and I'm going to have to be damned sure that it's going to do what I want before I spend $80 on it.

Replacing a Legend

(Originally posted on The NLL Blog)

How do you replace a legend, and one of the best players ever to play the game? We don't know much at this point about what changes Terry Sanderson and Troy Cordingley might be considering for the Toronto Rock this offseason, but one thing's for sure – they need a new #1 goaltender to replace the retiring Bob Watson, the only #1 goalie the Rock have ever had. How do you replace someone like Watson?

With all due respect to Pat Campbell, he'll be 35 next year and has been a solid backup goalie most of his career, so I don't see the Rock tossing him the keys to the franchise. The Rock have had a definite #1 goalie for their entire history so I don't see them going the route that the Bandits and Stealth have used – having two main goalies and "platooning" them (to steal a baseball phrase), so going with both Campbell and Gee Nash is unlikely as well.

Not going with Campbell or Nash means they will have to try to acquire someone from another team. I don't have of a list of goalies who are free agents this summer, so let's ignore that route for the moment and just assume we're talking trade. The top goalie on the "would be nice" list would have to be back-to-back Goaltender of the Year Matt Vinc. Suuuuuure. The Knighthawks gave up John Grant for this guy so unless we offer Doyle, LeBlanc, and a few prospects, he's not going anywhere – and definitely not to a division rival. Mike Thompson? Suuuuuure. Thompson is coming off of a fabulous season in which he had the second-lowest GAA and third highest save percentage in the league. If Ken Montour is able to return from his injury, the Bandits may consider trading Thompson, but Stephen Stamp's article about concussions didn't give much reason for optimism there. I hope I'm wrong about that. Brandon Miller from Philly? Maybe, although he was one of the few bright spots in Philly this season and was the reason they fought for a playoff spot as long as they did. Anthony Cosmo? Possibly – he had the lowest GAA in the league last year though I wouldn't call it one of his better seasons. It'd be ironic if Cosmo actually did replace Watson in the Rock net, like we thought he would many years ago. Cosmo himself mentioned that possibility recently in an interview with ILIndoor.com.

Let's look west. How about Poulin from the Roughnecks? That'd be great for the Rock, but why would Calgary do this? Do they want Palidwor as their #1 next year? Not likely. And it's not like the team has some glaring weakness that could be addressed by making a big trade, so file that idea under the "Suuuuuure" category as well. (Not to mention the fact that making roster changes to his lacrosse team is not exactly at the top of Brad Banister's To-Do list these days. Hey Brad, if you're actively trying to sell the team, surely there's a better way to convince some sucker astute business person to buy them than publicly whining about how little support the team gets and how much money you're losing.)

So what about Edmonton? I'm sure they wouldn't mind some extra firepower given that they traded Gavin Prout back to Colorado. But which Edmonton goalie to choose – Matt Disher or Rob Blasdell? Ummmm... no thanks. Chris Levis from Colorado? Another "Suuuuuure". After years of mediocre goaltending the Mammoth finally have a strong #1 so I don't see them trading him, though they could also use some help in the offense department. (Aside: It seems unbelievable that a team that just acquired John Freakin' Grant still needs help on offense.) How about Washington? I didn't think Tyler Richards had that great a 2011 season, but he was certainly the second-best goalie in the playoffs. But how likely are the Stealth to trade him to the team that beat them in the finals? Similar to Calgary, they're a strong team to begin with, so what could we offer the Stealth for them to give up Richards? Would Minnesota give up Patterson? I doubt it, though I know nothing about Kevin Croswell – if they have enough confidence in him, maybe they would if they got enough in return. That's a team that should have made big changes in the off-season last year and didn't, so perhaps a big shake-up would be good for the Swarm.

There are lots of possibilities here, some of which I can't address properly because I don't know much about the backup goaltenders. Philadelphia backup goalie, Ray Hodgkinson, is only 23 and only played 46 minutes this year. But maybe the Wings think this kid is the next Dallas Eliuk – if they have enough confidence in him, maybe they would give up Miller for the right price. Hell, for all I know the Rock have some young goalie in their system (is there such a thing as a "system" in the NLL? It's not like there are AAA affiliates like in baseball, or the OHL/AHL like in hockey) that is the heir apparent, though I've never heard mention of one.

So we have a few "maybe"s and a few "not bloody likely"s, but there aren't really any "no chance in hell"s. (In a league where Gary Gait can be traded three years after retiring, nothing's impossible.) But trades run two ways – the other question would be "Who could the Rock give up to get a #1 goalie"? Doyle, LeBlanc, and Billings are untouchables. Blaine Manning is a possibility, or maybe a rookie with potential like Aaron Pascas or Rob Hellyer. (Or more likely, the combination of a Pascas and a veteran like Manning or Cam Woods.) It's not unlikely that a team trading away a goaltender may want defense in return rather than a goal scorer, so perhaps 2010 NLL Defender of the Year Sandy Chapman (though I'd prefer if he were untouchable as well), or hard workers that get little fanfare like Drew Petkoff, Jeff Gilbert, or Creighton Reid.

Trade speculation is fun but ultimately pointless, as there are a zillion factors that we as fans don't know about that affect whether deals can be made. Are there no-trade contracts in the NLL? If not, could there be "gentlemen's agreements" between players and GMs that effectively mean the same thing? Are there personality conflicts between players or between a player and a GM that mean that some trades are impossible? Are there players who might simply refuse to be traded? Since this is a part-time semi-pro league, it's certainly possible that a player may decide that travelling across the country for the majority of games is just too difficult with work or family commitments, and would prefer to retire than be traded to a team on the other side of the continent. I remember a rumour that the Rock were not allowed to trade Dan Ladouceur because of his position with the Durham Region Police.

So after all that, here's the net result of this discussion:

1. The Rock need a new #1 goalie.
2. I don't know who they should get.
3. I don't know who they should give up to get him.

My work here is done. This is why the NLL Blog pays me what they pay me.

Macs suck too

If you're a Windows user who has ever been infected by malware, and you've posted about it on facebook, twitter, or a blog, some Apple fan-boi has likely told you "That wouldn't have happened if you used a Mac!" There is some truth to that, but the implication that Macs are inherently safer or more secure than Windows machines is simply false.

Please don't take any of this as a rant against Apple in general or Macs specifically, or believe that I think Windows is far safer than Mac OS X. I don't own a Mac, but I love my several-year-old iPod as well as my son's iPod Touch (way more than my wife's Walkman). I've used Macs a number of times in the past few years and damn, they're slick. Apple has by far the best visual design team in the world – things generally just work the way you expect them to and in some cases, even better.

I'm primarily a Windows developer, and I've written tons of software for Windows over the last twenty years. I am slightly less experienced when it comes to Macs, but I have plenty of experience on other unixes, and modern Macs aren't that different. I have done some Mac work in recent years, and in my previous job I worked on NeXTStep, which was essentially the predecessor to Mac OS X. If you're comparing the unix systems of the 90's with Windows 95 or 98, then yes, you can certainly say that the Windows operating system itself is less secure, because security just wasn't a consideration when those systems were created. Unix was built from the beginning to be a multi-user operating system, and so there had to be separation between different users on the same machine, and between normal uses and super users. But Windows was designed to be a single-user OS, so the assumption was that you were doing everything, and since this is your machine, you should have access to everything. Multiple users, administrative privileges, and even things like file permissions were added later and for a while, there were lots of things that just didn't support these features very well. But over the years, more and more software was changed to use the new security features, and Microsoft gradually deprecated and then completely disabled the old insecure methods of doing things. I know we at Sybase had to make changes to our software to deal with security-related changes when new versions of Windows were released.

Right now, when it comes to spyware, viruses, worms, or things like that, I can't really argue the fact that if you are using a Mac, you are less likely to get infected than if you are using a Windows machine. But the reasons for that have nothing to do with how safe the operating system is. There are two primary reasons:

1. Macs are simply less popular than Windows. This doesn't mean that they're inferior, but if you look at market share, Windows machines make up almost 90% of all the machines out there. If you're going to write a virus that will take over a machine for use in your botnet or have it scan a machine and send you somebody's credit card information, why would you write your virus specifically for a computer that only 5% of all computers are running? You'd write it so that it could infect as many people as possible, and that means Windows. I know of no viruses (virii?) that affect the BeOS operating system, but is that because it's completely secure? No, it's because nobody uses it.
2. Mac users are generally more computer-savvy than Windows users. We all have a brother or cousin or mom or Aunt Helen who knows nothing about computers but has one just for email and browsing facebook (and installing fifty browser toolbars). How many of those people own Macs?

Every year at the CanSecWest computer security show in Vancouver, they have a contest called "Pwn2Own" where contestants try to find and exploit security vulnerabilities in various pieces of software (usually browsers) on various platforms. The winner wins the hardware they broke (hence "Own" in the name) as well as cash. The contest began in 2007, and the only platform broken that year was the Mac, though it looks like it was a Mac-only thing at the time. Every year since, it's definitely been a multi-platform contest, and every year (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011) the Mac is one of the first platforms cracked. In 2011, it took five seconds. It shouldn't be surprising that Apple software developers are just as likely to write buggy software as the rest of us.

As the platform becomes more and more popular, people are indeed beginning to write viruses for the Mac. This one ironically poses as anti-malware software in order to get people to install it, just as many Windows malware programs do. This might be a good time to remind people that a web page cannot detect viruses on your computer. If you see a banner on a web site saying that your computer is infected (or your computer isn't running as fast as it could) and you should click here to install something that will fix it, they are lying.

I find it ironic that Mac people keep advising their friends to get Macs in order to be safer. If people keep doing this, two things will happen: Apple's market share will increase, and more and more non-techies will be using Macs. This will make Macs a bigger target, and more malware will end up being written for Macs. The act of telling people to use Macs for safety is actually making them less safe. So if you're an Apple person who's constantly telling all your friends that they should be using a Mac, it's really in your own best interest to shut the hell up.

A Momentary Lapse of Reason

(Originally posted on The NLL Blog)

As I mentioned in my write-up on the Championship game, the reffing was pretty good on the whole, with the exception of one notable play. There were no significant in-game repercussions of this play, and I don't know if there will be any coming, but their certainly could be. The player in question certainly needs to take responsibility for what happened, but I think that a big mistake was made by the ref and without that mistake, the whole incident could have been prevented.

It's near the end of the first quarter, and the Rock are up 3-1. They have possession in their own end, but are having trouble getting the ball out. Just before Blaine Manning crosses the centre line, the ref blows the whistle for a 10-second violation. Everyone on the floor stops, and Manning turns around and heads towards the bench, still holding the ball in his stick. Kyle Sorensen must not have heard the whistle and ran from well beyond his own restraining line towards centre, and knocks Manning down while trying to get the ball out of his stick. This must have been at least five seconds after the whistle. It's not like he hit Manning overly hard, but Manning certainly wasn't expecting it since play had long since been whistled dead.

At this point, several players from each team approached the centre circle where this was happening and there were a couple of shoves. This is when the mistake happened. For some reason the ref, standing less than ten feet away from the scuffle, blew the whistle to start play. Kyle Ross immediately cross-checked Sorensen in either the neck or head, and Sorensen dropped like a rock (no pun intended). The ref blew the play dead again, there was a little more shoving, and Ross was sent to the box for five minutes. Sorensen remained on the ground for several minutes before being helped back to the bench by the trainer. He remained in the game. (For those fans sitting near me calling for a diving penalty, watch the replay and then STFU.) At the same time, the Stealth were given a too-many-men penalty.

I have three questions about this play:

1. Perhaps Sorensen didn't hear the whistle, but did he not wonder why none of his teammates were going after Manning – or moving at all? Manning was not looking at the defenders, and was walking slowly back towards the centre line, neither of which he would do if the play wasn't dead. So why did Sorensen run so far to go after him? Did he really think that the ball was live?
2. Sorensen hit Manning before the whistle (i.e. while play was dead), and then a small scuffle began. Why did the ref blow the whistle to start play at that point? Why not wait until things had calmed down a bit?
3. If the Stealth were getting a penalty (too many men), why did the ref begin play at all? Possible answer: Another ref was about to call the bench minor and didn't blow his whistle because the play was dead anyway.

For me, number 2 above is the biggest question. Ross waited until the whistle was blown before he hit Sorensen. If the ref had not blown the whistle, would he have hit Sorensen at all? Obviously there's no way to know, but instead he's in the box for five, and could have been thrown out of the game. In addition, there may even be other repercussions (i.e. a suspension) for this blatant hit to the head. Sorensen was down for a long time and if there was a concussion involved, he may not even know about it for a few days.

It's amazing what one little mistake in judgement can lead to.

One slip, and down the hole we fall.

The Toronto Rock are the 2011 NLL Champions

(Originally posted on The NLL Blog)

The ending to Bob Watson's incredible NLL career couldn't have been scripted any better. Not only did he win his sixth championship with the Toronto Rock after an 8-7 victory over the Washington Stealth, but he was named game MVP for the second time in his career. And this was no "it's his last game, let's just give him the game MVP" thing, he deserved that puppy. Watson put on a goaltending clinic in his last-ever game, stopping 46 of 53 shots and keeping the most potent offense in the league to just 7 goals. Tyler Richards played a great game in the opposing goal, keeping the third-most potent offense in the league to only 8 goals, and only one in the entire second half. This was a strong defensive battle on both sides, especially considering the offensive firepower of both of these teams.

Rookie defender Glen Bryan of the Rock opened the scoring less than two minutes into the game, thereby doubling his career goals total. Cliff Smith answered a few minutes later, with a weak shot that went over Watson's right shoulder. Watson looked quite awkward on the play, but then he and the Rock defense shut the door, not allowing another goal until twelve minutes into the second quarter. "The defense was Rock-solid!" said my eleven-year-old son Ryan, very proud of his pun. Both teams played excellent defense as I said, and many of the 50+ shots taken by each team either hit the goalie square in the chest, or occurred with a second left on the shot clock.

The Rock D kept the pressure on the entire first half, and the Stealth forwards started to make mistakes when they realized their game plan wasn't working. When the Stealth did manage to get a decent shot off, Watson closed the door. Lewis Ratcliff was denied on one of Watson's brilliant saves and when the ball ricocheted into the crowd, Ratcliff simply stopped and looked at the floor, frustration written all over his body.

On Teddy Jenner's Off-The-Crossebar podcast last week, Rhys Duch said that they couldn't afford to let the Rock get off to a big lead early: "If we're going to spot Toronto a 5-1 lead like we did Minnesota, that's a hole we might not be able to dig ourselves out of". Duch was more accurate with that statement that he likely wanted to be. The Rock led 6-1 late in the second and 7-2 at the half. In Stephen Stamp's live blog of the game, he even used the word "blowout". That said however, everyone in both the Rock and Stealth dressing rooms (and I suspect many fans in the building) remembers the seven goals the Stealth scored in the 4th quarter of last year's final on their way to a comeback victory. At halftime, despite the five goal differential, nobody thinks this game is over.

The second half was more of the same at the Rock's end of the floor. Solid defense, frustrated Washington offense, and brilliant goaltending. The Stealth did start to put things together though, scoring two in the third and three in the fourth to get back to within one – while at the other end of the floor, Tyler Richards was more than doing his part and making his own bid for game MVP, keeping the Rock scoreless in the third and only allowing one in the fourth. As the Stealth slowly climbed their way back into the game, the crowd got quieter and quieter, praying they weren't about to witness a repeat of last year. But as Whipper and the D continued to stone the Stealth forwards, the clock continued to wind down.

As an aside, "Whipper and the D" would be a good name for a rock band.

The Stealth got within one at 7-6, then Stephan Leblanc put the Rock up by two once again. But just thirteen seconds later, Paul Rabil got the Stealth back to within one with an absolutely blistering shot. Rabil was circling around the offensive zone when there was only a second or two left on the shot clock. He turned towards the net and fired, while still running, what might have been the hardest shot I've ever seen. The shot hit Watson so hard it knocked him down and then trickled underneath him across the line. An unbelievable goal. Rabil's shot has been clocked at over 110 mph, so for all of you who laugh at the amount of padding lacrosse goalies wear, that's why.

In the end, despite the strong play of Richards as well as Paul Rabil, Mike Grimes, and the Stealth D, the offense just couldn't get it done. When Cam Woods picked up a loose ball with 15 seconds left, he did not shoot at the open net but just burned the clock until the horn sounded, and then joined his teammates in mobbing Watson.

Once the handshakes had been done, many of the Stealth players remained on the floor to watch the Cup presentation ceremony, and even applauded when Bob Watson approached the podium. They were given a well-deserved ovation by the crowd after a strong season and a great game. It was no surprise that Watson was named game MVP, as he was in 2002. There was really nobody else that could have been game MVP – the Rock played very well as a team but nobody other than Watson really stood out. (If I had to choose second-place, I might go with Kasey Beirnes.) After Watson thanked Commissioner George Daniel and the crowd, Daniel told Colin Doyle to come up for the presentation of the Champion's Cup, but Doyle sent veterans Cam Woods and Kasey Beirnes up to get it. (Daniel later tweeted "Colin threw me a curve ball with that classy move...") Woods and Biernes had each played ten-plus years in the NLL with no championships, so this was indeed a classy move by Doyle, a six-time Champion. After Biernes gave Doyle the Cup, he gave it to Watson, who got the biggest ovation of all.

The Rock are now tied with the Philadelphia Wings with six championships each. But if you only consider the NLL itself (not the MILL or Eagle Pro leagues), the Rock have won three times as many championships as anyone else, since no other team has won more than two since 1998.

After the game, a bunch of us went for dinner at Fran's Restaurant. On our way back to Union Station to catch the train home, we were crossing Yonge at Front when we heard someone yelling "Yeah Rock! Wooooooooooo!" (Note that this was close to three hours after the game ended.) An SUV drove by (going south on Yonge) with the windows down – they must have seen a few of us with our Rock jerseys. I didn't see the driver, but there was a smiling man in the front seat, and another very excited man in the back seat with his head and right arm out the window who was waving at us and still yelling "Wooooooo!" We laughed and waved as Troy Cordingley (in the back) and John Lovell (in the front) continued on their way to the next victory party.

Other game notes:

• Paul Rabil was all over the floor, and did a great job killing time while the Stealth were down by two men.
• The refs stayed out of it for the most part – no really stupid penalties were called, though I think one ref made a big mistake at the end of the first quarter that could have caused a severe injury to Kyle Sorensen and may result in a suspension to Kyle Ross. I'm going to write about that in a separate posting.
• The Rock were hitting posts and crossbars all over the place. Kasey Beirnes took a shot in the second quarter that hit the right post, the left post, and Richards' back but it still managed to bounce out.
• If you recorded the game or get a chance to see it on the NLL network, go to the 11:05 mark of the second quarter (i.e. 11:05 left in the quarter). You will see Bob Watson make one of the best lacrosse saves you will ever see. As Stephen Stamp said, "He doesn’t look like a man who's half a game away from retiring."
• The Stealth were given an interesting too-many-men penalty in the first quarter. Usually "too many men" refers to a player leaving the bench just a little early and getting involved in the play before his counterpart leaves the floor. In this case, the Stealth actually had six attackers out on the floor, none of them within twenty feet of the bench. Oops. The crowd noticed this long before the refs did, and a number of people near me were yelling "too many men!" before the whistle was blown.
• The Rock have really gotten into this Air Gait thing lately. For a while they were illegal, and then the rules were changed a couple of years ago. Since then they have been fairly rare, but in the last few Rock games, there have been several attempts (many successful!) at these leaps from behind the net. There was another attempt by Colin Doyle in this game, though it was disallowed because Doyle was touching the line when he jumped. Actually, since the goal was immediately waved off and there was a review, it's more accurate to say that there was no evidence that he wasn't touching the line.
• Creighton Reid was given a goaltender interference penalty in the third, which you could describe as "two minutes for not knowing what to do when you're in the offensive zone". He took a shot which was trapped on the ground by Richards, but then he hit Richards' stick with his own. As soon as he did it, he had this look like "Oh crap, I don't think you can do that." But how often has Reid even seen the other side of the centre line? I'm sure he'll remember next time.
• Garrett Billings scored a beautiful over-the-shoulder goal near the end of the second. While standing slightly to Richards' left with his back to the goalie, he looked over his left shoulder and then fired the shot over his right.
• The attendance at the game was 14,488. I was sure I read on Twitter through the week that over 15,000 tickets had been sold, and the last time a Championship game was held in Toronto, an NLL record was set when over 19,000 showed up. From those points of view, the attendance was a little disappointing, but I think it was also the highest attended game in Toronto in several years, so that's certainly a good thing. Hopefully that carries over into next season.
• In the Rock's six championships, they have only had three Championship Game MVPs – Doyle won it three times and Whipper twice. The other winner was also in attendance – Stealth assistant coach Dan Stroup won it in 2000. Watson and Doyle are two of only three players who have won the award more than once – Philadelphia legend Dallas Eliuk won it in 1998 and 2001.
• Interesting stat: Number of League MVP awards won by Gary Gait, Paul Gait, and John Tavares combined: 10. Number of Championship Game MVP awards: 0.

Our American Cousins

We went to Sault Ste. Marie (Ontario) this past weekend, and drove up through Michigan to get there. Now, it's not like I've never been to the US before, in fact I've been countless times. I've visited about half of the 50 states. At my last job (1994-1997), I traveled to Boston a couple of times a month for three years. I've also travelled on business to San Francisco (twice), Naples Florida, Washington DC, Baltimore (3 times), and New York City. I lived in Redmond, Washington for four months back in 1991. I live less than an hour's drive from the border at Niagara Falls, and even closer to Queenston/Lewiston. I even have a US Social Security number, though I have no idea what it is or where my card is.

Canadian and US culture is unquestionably similar, but there are a few differences (some subtle and some less so) that a seasoned traveler will notice. Here are some examples of the roadside signs and billboards we saw during our trip that you would not see in Canada:

• Bail bonds
• Fishing line (priced by the yard) – not that we don't have fishermen in Canada, but I've never seen ads like this
• Crossbows
• "Guns Galore" and "Gun sights and outfitters" – though there was a gun show in the Sault (Canadian side!) while we were there
• Bob Evans, Stuckey's, Cracker Barrel (never had these in Canada)
• Big Boy, Ponderosa (used to have these in Canada – why don't we anymore?)
• "Entering prison area. Do not pick up hitchhikers"
• Ads for health insurance
• One billboard was entirely in Spanish. This wouldn't surprise me in California, New Mexico, Texas, or Arizona... OK, maybe it would in Arizona. But in central Michigan?
• The Marines
• poopycredit.com – containing the slogan "Does your credit stink?"  This is a real web site, though one of the worst commercial sites I've seen. There are only six links on the site – two of them bump you off to different sites. Contact Us gives a "page not found" error, Privacy gives a document with multiple font sizes that looks like it was cut-and-pasted with no formatting, Additional Forms gives a very badly formatted form with a zillion fields, and I don't know about Video. I am not going to click on a link marked "Video" on any site with the word "poopy" in the title.

Please note that this is not a criticism, just an observation. In particular, I like the Marines billboards, and I'd love to see more billboards in Canada regarding the Canadian Forces – I like the "Fight with the Canadian Forces" ads that have come out recently.

Blackout!

(Originally posted on The NLL Blog)

I travelled with my wife and sons to Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario this past weekend for a family thing, which meant that I wasn't able to travel to Buffalo to see the Toronto Rock's victory over the Buffalo Bandits. I knew the game was being televised on TSN2, so I was hopeful that I would be able to watch it at the hotel. I checked in advance and the hotel did have free wifi, so worst case, the hotel doesn't get TSN2 but I'll be able to stream the game over the internet, right? Wrong.

When we arrived at the hotel, one of the first things I did was to check to see if they got TSN2. No such luck. We went about our family stuff and after dinner on Saturday, we returned to the hotel where I planned on firing up the ol' laptop to watch the game. I connected to nll.com, clicked "Watch Live" as I have done so many times this season, and waited in anticipation to see the score, since we had missed the first quarter. The game came up, I saw a score of 6-4 Rock, and a second later the screen went blank. A message came up saying something like "The content owner has blocked access from your current location, you LOSER", and it was then I remembered the whole blackout thing. When Rock games are televised on TSN or TSN2, they are generally blacked out in Canada on the NLL Network. I have never really paid much attention to this before, since I am at the home games, and I watch the away games on TV. This time, I'm over nine hours away from HSBC Arena and I can't watch on TV, so the internet is the only option.

I ended up "watching" the game by bringing up the boxscore from NLL.com and hitting Ctrl-R now and again to refresh it. This was less than satisfying so I tweeted NLL Commissioner George Daniel asking why. To his credit, he responded quickly. Here is our short conversation:

@GraemePerrow: . @NLLCommissioner Why is the Toronto/Buffalo game blacked out on NLL.com? It's impossible for me to watch the game any other way

@NLLCommissioner: @GraemePerrow should have only been blacked out if you are in Canada because game was on TSN2

@GraemePerrow: @NLLCommissioner I'm in Sault Ste. Marie ON, in a hotel on the river. I could throw a rock and hit Michigan. My hotel doesn't get TSN2

@NLLCommissioner: @GraemePerrow sorry about that but we did publish the blackout in advance on nll.com.

Mr. Daniel was absolutely right, they did publish the blackout in advance, I just didn't pay attention to it. And the fact that my hotel was a few hundred feet from the American border was irrelevant – they have to draw the line somewhere, and if you're on the wrong side of that line, too bad. (OK, so maybe I couldn't throw a rock from the hotel and hit Michigan. But if I walked down towards the water a little, I could definitely hit the cut-off man.) I suppose I could have driven across the border to Sault Michigan, found a Starbucks with free wifi, and watched the game from there.

But Andrew McKay from The Laxist also chimed in, saying "IMO, shouldn't be blacking out game that's on an opt-in digital channel." But he quickly changed his mind: "actrually [sic] I take it back. Agreement makes sense because TSN does move games to main channel." I was a little disappointed that Andrew had pulled his support for my predicament, and we had the following exchange:

@GraemePerrow: @apmckay IF they move it to the main channel, fine, but otherwise it shouldn't be blacked out

@apmckay: @GraemePerrow yeah but I can see signing blackout rights in return for main channel possibility.

There it is. That's the thing that made me change my mind and see reason. The NLL must have negotiated a deal with TSN that says "All games televised will be blacked out in Canada. In return, the occasional game will be televised on TSN rather than TSN2." I believe that Rock owner Jamie Dawick paid TSN to televise Rock games during the regular season, so I don't know how the regular season blackouts worked. But I did confirm with Mr. Daniel (again, via twitter) that the Championship game rights were negotiated with the league, not the Rock. I would assume that deal included all the playoff series.

So yes, it sucked that I couldn't watch the Rock-Bandits game last weekend, especially since it sounds like it was a great game. (On the upside, I did get to visit the Canadian Bushplane Heritage Centre, which is much more interesting than it sounds.) But in the end, having lacrosse televised (even occasionally) on the most-watched sports network in Canada is worth a little inconvenience.

The Transition Player That Wasn't

Last week, Calgary's Jeff Shattler was awarded the 2011 Transition Player of the Year award. There is no question that Shattler had a great season, and I would even list him in the top few MVP candidates. I congratulate him both on his season and this award. But Shattler wasn't a transition player for most of 2011, he was a forward, a significant part of the Roughnecks offense.

According to ILIndoor.com (a couple of typos left intact):

...apparently as long as a player is classified with a “T” by their name (which is done by the team, not league), they can be a contender for the NLL’s Transition Player of the Year Award. Andyone with D or F by their name (defender or forward), no matter what role they appear to be playing during the season, cannot be considered for the honour.

So Shattler was considered a transition player by the league because Calgary listed him as one at the beginning of the season, regardless of how he was actually used. This is silly. Surely the GMs and coaches and whoever else votes on these awards are lacrosse-savvy enough to be able to distinguish which players should be considered based on their play, not based on a letter on the roster list?

If you look at the Toronto Rock roster on nll.com, the only person listed with a "T" by their name is Ryan Sharp, who missed most of the year. Does this mean that nobody on the Rock was even considered for this award? I don't think anyone on the Rock had a Transition Player of the Year type season quite honestly, but to completely disqualify players like Marshall and Chapman and Merrill because the Rock listed them as defenders is silly and unfair.

Whether a player is a "defender" or "transition player" is hard to nail down. Many transition players play a lot of defense as well, and some defenders are involved in transition while others aren't. But as I said, the people voting on the NLL awards know lacrosse. They don't need to be told that Brodie Merrill is a transition guy while Cam Woods is not. They are not going to vote for Colin Doyle for Defender of the Year, and they don't need to look to see if there's a D beside his name to make that decision. Having said that, enough of them did vote for Shattler which is why he got the award. Can't say I understand that.

There were a couple of travesties in the NLL awards this year – Dave Pym should have been a lock for Coach of the Year, and Matt Vinc had a very good season but Mike Thompson's was better. Many people are disagreeing with the choice of Pat McCready as Defensive Player of the Year. No disrespect to Shattler intended, but the league got this one wrong as well.

Expanded playoffs in MLB

I read an article in Sports Illustrated by a baseball writer named Joe Sheehan the other day, and after finishing it, I couldn't get to the computer to fire up my blog-writing software fast enough. The article was called "More is Less", and had the following subtitle:

Miss pennant races? Think the regular season should matter? Then an expanded postseason isn't for you.

I was halfway through the first paragraph of the article before I realized that I read what I expected to read, not what was actually there. It said "an expanded postseason isn't for you". I can't imagine how an expanded postseason isn't better for everyone.

Sheehan says that adding an extra wild-card team to the playoffs will "finally destroy any notion that regular-season excellence matters". He illustrates his point with a scenario in which the winner of the second wild-card spot (Team A, in fifth place) has a big lead over the sixth place team and therefore "cruises" into the playoffs, allowing them to rest their starters during the last few games of the season, while the fourth place team (Team B) finishes hard because they're trying to win their division and just fall short. This means that the Team B, who finished ahead of Team A potentially by "10 or 12 games", needs to play a well-rested Team A in the first round and the team that finished lower in the regular season could end up winning that series. I'm not saying that this scenario is not possible, of course it is. But that's what we sports fans call "The Playoffs". I suppose Mr. Sheehan thinks that the fact that the President's Trophy winner rarely wins the Stanley Cup the same year is a failing of the NHL.

The thing is that this scenario could happen even without the wild cards. Say we're back in the days when there was just two divisions in each league, and the winners face off in the League Championship Series. Now say the winner of the weaker East had a 90-72 record but clinched the division with a week left in the season, and the winner of the stronger West finished at 100-62 but didn't clinch over the second-place 99-63 team until the last day. The team with the worse record is well rested and has a big advantage over the exhausted team with the better record.

I hate to tell you this, Mr. Sheehan, but the regular season is the seeding process for the playoffs. Ask any baseball player which they would rather do – have the best record in the regular season, or win the World Series? Any athlete in any sport will tell you that winning the regular season title is meaningless if they don't win the Championship.

Mr. Sheehan came up with a theoretical scenario in which expanding the postseason might negatively affect a team in a particular situation (note that the team that was affected in his scenario did make the playoffs, so a lot of teams might think that's a pretty nice problem to have). But let's look at a real-life scenario – the 2009 American League. On September 1st, the Yankees, Tigers, and Angels were leading their divisions. The Red Sox were 6½ games back in the East (and leading in the wild card race), the Twins were 3½ games back in the Central, and the Rangers were 6 back in the West. None of the races is over, but if there is no wild card spot, the East and West are much less compelling. 6 or 6½ games out with a month left to go is certainly not insurmountable, but even if Boston sweeps a four-game series against New York, they're still 2 back, so a lot would have to happen for the Red Sox to make the playoffs. The Rangers are in the same situation in the west, but nobody else really has a chance in either of those divisions. With a wild card spot, the Red Sox make the playoffs, and Texas and Tampa are only 4 and 5 games out respectively. Right away, you can see that having a wild card race means that excitement in these cities would be much higher – excitement not only for the fans, but for the players as well. More excitement for fans means higher attendance and more TV viewers, which is good for ownership and for baseball in general. More excitement for players means harder-played and likely more exciting games, which further increases fan interest. And that's not just fans in those cities – fans of the other front-running teams will be watching more to see the team they might face in the postseason. I don't see how adding the wild card spot is bad for anyone.

With a second wild card spot, there's still excitement in Boston but now if things stay the same, Texas will make also  the postseason and Tampa is only one game out. The Mariners are 9 games out of the first wild card spot, but only 5 out of the second. More exciting games, more excited fans in more cities, more TV viewers. Once again, everybody wins. Winning the division is still valuable – you make the playoffs and have home field advantage while playing a weaker team.

This doesn't turn MLB into the NHL, where teams barely over .500 make the playoffs (the 2009 Canadiens were 39-33-10) , or even worse – the NBA, where the 37-45 Pacers made the 2011 playoffs. (Of course, I'm a fan of the National Lacrosse League where 80% of the league makes the playoffs, including the 5-11 Minnesota Swarm in 2010. But I digress.) Even with a second wild card spot, only the top five teams in each league (out of 14 or 16) see postseason action.

It is, and should be, possible for a team to lose in the playoffs to a team below them in the regular-season standings. In Mr. Sheehan's view, this makes the regular season meaningless. But what if there were no wild card spot in the 2009 season? The Yankees get a bye (fans love those, don't they? They get to watch their team play fewer playoffs games) while the Twins and Angels play each other. But what if the Twins take out the Angels and then the Yankees? It certainly could happen – weirder things than that have. The Yankees won sixteen more games than the Twins in the regular season but don't go to the World Series. Doesn't this also make the regular season meaningless?

I am a Blue Jays fan, and the Jays haven't played a really meaningful game in September for well over a decade, and this is true for many other teams as well. Maybe the entire regular season isn't meaningless but the last month or so is, for the vast majority of teams. Adding an extra wild card team in each league means that some of these teams have a better chance of making the postseason. They may not be in a Pennant race, but they will be in a playoff race, and for teams that haven't been in an actual Pennant race in years, that's almost as good. September will be more compelling and exciting and therefore meaningful for these teams. Isn't making the regular season meaningful something that you're trying to accomplish?

So Mr. Sheehan, if you want to make sure that the regular season is really meaningful, you'd need to eliminate the divisions entirely and just have the first-place AL team play the first-place NL team in the World Series. The W-L records can't be compared because they play with different rules and against different teams, and so there's none of this worse-record-beats-better-record stuff that you don't like. But you tell the owners that you're reducing the post-season from eight teams and three rounds to two teams and a maximum of seven games and see how they welcome this dramatic drop in playoff revenue. You tell the fans of the fourth- and fifth-place teams that the fact that they didn't make the playoffs is somehow good for baseball. This scheme may be better for the ultra-purists, but not for anyone else.

Game Review: Toronto 10 Rochester 8

The Toronto Rock moved one game closer to the Championship game on Sunday with a 10-8 win over the Rochester Knighthawks. Bob Watson, in what might have been his last-ever game in Toronto (only one of the four possible outcomes of next week's games means another Rock home game), was great but Toronto's defense was even better, only allowing 41 Rochester shots and keeping the Knighthawks scoreless for over 30 minutes from the first through the third quarters. The offense seems to have overcome the problems they had in the last few games of the season, though there were still a few situations that looked like a drill where the idea was to pass as much as possible and not shoot at all. Shawn Evans, Jordan Hall, and Mike Accursi each had 2 goals for Rochester, while Garrett Billings and Colin Doyle each had hat-tricks for the Rock.

The Knighthawks took an early lead but down 3-1 after ten minutes, the Rock scored seven straight goals to take an 8-3 lead. The first was a beauty by Colin Doyle, diving from behind the net to stuff the ball in behind Vinc in a mirror-image of a Tracey Kelusky goal against Boston the night before. Rochester didn't score their fourth goal until ten minutes into the third, but then scored four in the 4th to make it close. One of those four included a rare penalty shot, scored by Jordan Hall after a Rock defender left the bench a touch early when Hall was on a breakaway.

The game was a fairly typical Toronto-Rochester matchup, a close game with no fights and not much chippiness. Somehow Shawn Evans was not aware of this, and seemed to think that more chippiness was just what this game needed. At one point Evans (5'9", 180 lbs) got into a pushing match with Jeff Gilbert (6'4", 215 lbs) and even managed to take Gilbert's helmet off, but Gilbert just stood his ground and didn't retaliate or let it develop into a full-blown fight. I'm not sure he even knew there was someone hitting him, actually. In the end, nobody was even penalized. There weren't that many penalties called at all, actually; I thought the refs did a pretty decent job for the most part, though there was one "warding off" call early in the game – that happens all the time, but when is it ever called?

Toronto's third goal was scored by Aaron Pascas, and I don't think the ref had brought his arms down from signalling the goal before Mike Hasen had thrown the challenge flag. It looked pretty cut-and-dried to me – Pascas shot the ball, Vinc got a piece of it, Pascas ran through the crease, and then the ball crossed the line. Pascas was definitely in and through the crease before the ball went in, so I thought it was a no-brainer – no goal. So when the ref came out of the video booth and signalled that the goal was good, we (as Rock fans) were pleased but thoroughly confused. It turns out that if the player goes into and gets out of the crease before the ball goes in, the goal counts. This makes no sense to me, but I'll take it. Pascas later left the game on a painful note – in the 4th quarter, a Knighthawks player fell on him in the Rochester crease and after the Knighthawk got up and ran off, Pascas half-crawled half-dragged himself through the crease, in obvious pain. The Rock trainer went out and after a few minutes, Pascas was helped off the floor, making sure to put no weight at all on his left leg. It didn't look good, but according to TSN, Pascas should be ready to go for next week's game.

Note to Rock promotional staff: it was nice to give the white "rally towels" to everyone, but you are aware of the phrase "waving the white flag" and what it signifies, right? Or "throwing in the towel"? That said, seeing ten thousand people spinning them around at the same time was pretty cool.

The Rock travel down the QEW to Buffalo to meet the Bandits in the Eastern division final next Saturday. The game is televised on Versus on Sunday afternoon, for those of you who get Versus (i.e. not Canadians). The winner of that game makes it to the Championship game – the winner either travels to Calgary or hosts Washington.