Dear Evgeni,

Your San Jose Sharks have dropped to 4-13 lifetime in the shootout, and your 3-9 record isn’t helped by your 46% save percentage.  I think I know why you’re experiencing problems in the shootout:  it’s that stupid poke-check.  Yes, you suck at everything else in the shootout but that pokecheck makes it very evident that you’re still stuck in the 1980s/1990s style of goaltending.  That’s not necessarily bad but, remember, the NHL had no shootout back then.

I’m sure you’re familiar with this magnificent goal the magnificent one, Mario Lemieux, scored in game 2 of the 1991 Stanley Cup Finals:

He didn’t score because he pulled a great move on Jon Casey.  He scored because Jon Casey was a poke-checking scrub who tried that dumbass poke-check yet again.  Lemieux, Casey’s mother, and anyone who is not a putz knew the pokecheck was coming and prepared for it.  Poke-checks, like stacked pad saves, open skate saves, and the Dodge Neon were once popular but are far from that now.   Please, adapt your shootout methods to the modern game.  I, and every Sharks fan out there, am sick of knowing that a shootout is an automatic loss.

For the record, the next three shooters you face in the shootout will go five and blocker side on you.  If a schmuck like me can figure you out, then you have a whole set of major problems.

It’s day 3 here in my apartment complex without hot water.  This hot water crisis started the day I had to give up a new place because I am an idiot, didn’t read my lease, and would have to pay a huge chunk of change to move out 2 months early.

Instead of packing up to move to a bigger place with in-unit washer and dryer, I lay here in a tiny studio apartment a day removed from a boring trip to the laundromat pondering just how the hell I’m going to shower after my hockey games tonight.  The roller rink, which is a brand new facility, only has showers for employees.  Should I sleep in my hockey funk and shower tomorrow morning at the gym?  Should I drive to 24 Hour Fitness and buy a day pass?  Should I take a huge swig of moonshine and run into a cold shower while shouting obscenities so loud that I wake the neighbors?

WEIRD: The maintenance people just left me a key to an unoccupied apartment in a different building just as I was about to post this.

The universe maybe doesn’t hate me, after all.

Or, maybe that apartment is out of hot water as well.

It seems that phone book season has started.  This morning was the third time in a week that I found a phone book at my front door. For the life of me, I cannot understand why phone books are still being printed.  I certainly don’t need one because I think this internet thing is going to take off and I can quickly find phone numbers with the Yeehaw! and the Googly, or whatever they’re called.

Unless there is a large subset of society made up of extremely short people who own tall and wobbly furniture, there is no need to keep printing these behemoths. It’s 2007, folks.  If you need a phone book, then you probably don’t have an internet connection.  In that case, you have bigger problems to take care of and should probably call a local psychologist.  You can find one in the –

Oh, I get it now.