My endeavours to the world of writing.  Yesterday, I sent of my application to NAIT for their screenwriting course that starts next month, and am hoping to hear back relatively soon.  I had to give a sample of my writing, and an idea for a 30 minute teleplay to be developed over the course of the... course.  For the sample, I sent in a shortened version of "Alex and Alex", a stage play about two people, Alexander and Alexandra, who fall in love, and then out.  It's sort of absurdist, with both of their subconciouses being the only other two characters in the play.

For the teleplay idea, I submitted a synopsis of "NEVER", which is a television show that takes place in a 'during-apocalyptic' time, rather than post-apocalyptic.  I'd hope to develop the pilot episode during the course.

And, next week Vancouver Film School is visiting the city, so I'll be able to find out some more information about their school, and hopefully register for next September.  VFS is the big one I want to get into, but living in Vancouver will be expensive, and they suggest that students not get a job, as the courseload is far too heavy to have time for anything else (it's a four year course condensed into just one school year).

*Crosses fingers* here's hoping I get in!

This blog is just for me to lay out my sympathies to all those who are fans of the New York Islanders.  Really.  Let me explain...

Over the past many years, they've had a General Manager by the name of Mike Milbury.  Milbury has earned the nickname "Mad Mike" because of the preposterous trades and signings he's done.  He's basically an idiot.  He made the entire franchise the joke of the league.  Well, this summer, they finally said 'adios, Mike' and hired Neil Smith, a respectable choice as GM.  Smith made a few moves that will undoubtedly help the team out.

So they fired him.  He'd been at the helm about a month, the team had played a total of 0 games, and they figured the Neil Smith reign was over.  Who'd the hire?  *Sigh* Garth Snow.  Garth Snow was the team's backup goalie.  The only experience he has in hockey is actually playing it, and in fact has no business experience of any kind, any where, at all, ever.  And now he's in charge of the team.

Well, things have been quiet on the 'make fun of the Islanders' front for a little while now... until this morning.  Snow made a splash (although it's beleived he's a 'wang puppet' as owner Charles Wang is the one beleived to be making all the moves)

The Islanders signed unproven goaltender Rick DiPietro to an unprecedented 15 year, 67.5 million dollar contract.  It's just... ridiculous.  What, 6 years wasn't a good enough commitment?  If DiPietro is a bust, they're paying him that money either way, and it's counting against the cap.  Not to mention, it just makes them look stupid.

So that's why I'm expressing my sympathies to all Islanders fans.

Well, a new TV season is upon us.  A bunch of new shows to keep track of, as well as a bunch of the old ones.  Here's the shows I watched last year, and whether I'm watching them this year or not, and if not, why.  New shows I'm watching are underneath.

Big Love - Yes.

Bones - Yes.

Desperate Housewives - Yes

Everwood - No (Cancelled)

Ghost Whisperer - No (Horrible)

Gilmore Girls - Yes

Greys Anatomy - Yes

How I Met Your Mother - Yes

Kitchen Confidential - No (Cancelled)

Lost - Yes

Reunion - No (Cancelled)

Scrubs - Yes

Smallville - Yes

Supernatural - Yes

Surface - No (Cancelled)

Teachers - No (Cancelled)

Veronica Mars  - Yes

New Shows

Day Break

Heroes

Kidnapped

Runaway

Six Degrees

So I guess that means a LOT of TV watching (especially when you factor in 82 Oilers games...)

Why Canada hates Toronto.

1) The Maple Leafs

2) The Maple Leafs fans

3) The fact that all Canadian media thinks the Maple Leafs are the only Canadian sporting franchise.

4) That Americans think Toronto is, in fact, the only city in Canada.  (It's not.  In fact, the rest of Canada wishes TO wasn't even part of this country.  They're kind of a disgrace...)

5) They think the universe revolves around them.

6) THE PLURAL OF LEAF IS LEAVES!  NOT LEAFS!  MY GOD!

7) According to Torontonians, a good team isn't determined by how they perform on the ice, it's determined by which fans can go to other teams message boards and say "you suck" the most.

Yes, Toronto, your teams all win at having the most trolls.  Good job.

8) They've won 13 cups.  Let's not mention the fact that there are exactly 0 videos or pictures of a Leaf holding the cup in colour, because the last time they won it, there was no colour TV or pictures.  That doesn't matter though, because if their grandparents can barely remember their last cup, by golly, it's more impressive than anything accomplished since then, by anybody else.

9) Apparently, every hockey player in the world one day dreams of donning the Maple Leaf.  Every free agent period, it's "LET'S SIGN EVERYBODY FOR THREE DOLLARS EACH!  WE'LL BE MAKING THEIR DREAMS COME TRUE!! YAY US!"

(Then they get mad at us when we point out it took them 5 million dollars to sign a half million dollar defenceman)

10) They're everywhere!  You honestly can't go a day without seeing a blue fricking maple leaf.

11) Despite having no offence, an overpaid defence, and a goalie who's crowning acheivment is being named Andrew, they're the heavy, heavy favourites to win the cup.  Somehow.

12) On to football.  They make Canada look bad by signing drug using, suspended NFL players.

13) They make Canada look bad by existing.

14) I.  Hate.  Toronto.

I feel a bit better now.

Today, after weeks of speculation, the Oilers signed unrestricted free agent Petr Sykora. The good one, not the bad one. This just makes our forward lineup that much better. Our defence is very, very suspect... but with three first lines, the puck may never be in our end anyway! Also, recently, the Oilers locked up young playmaker Ales Hemsky for SIX years. Hemmer gave up 3 years of Unrestricted Free Agency to make that deal, so it's very nice to see players make this kind of commitment. A return to the finals is not unrealistic.

Back to hockey, but please, I urge you to read this one.  This one is just... awesome.  There is no other way to describe it.  Okay, there are a few.  Breath taking, unbeleivable, etc.  You get the idea.

This is the Canadian national anthem being sung at Rexall Place in Edmonton, for game 3 of the Mighty Ducks/Oilers series, in round 3 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.  (Yes, I was at this game.  What you see in this video- multiplied by infinite, actually being there)

This is an amazing display of patriotism, and makes me darn proud to be Canadian, and an Oilers fan.  BTW, if anybody makes fun of Joey Moss, I'll slap them.  He's our dressing room attendant with down syndrome, that you'll see absolutely belting out the anthem towards the end, behind the Oilers bench.

Here it is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meLpuF9UMvk

A changeup from my usual hockey theme.

Every now and then, my friends and I like to take my van out to a dark, desolate road, and just hang out there for a few hours.  It's nice to just hang out, relax, and talk about basically whatever we want.  There's no TV, obviously, and radio/iPods/etc. aren't allowed for the Dark Desolate Road.  Just us.  As odd as it sounds, it is one of the most enjoyable things I do, and really, if you can't enjoy the company of your friends, only your friends, and nothing but your friends, they're probably not really your friends.

Needless to say, to get to the DDR, it needs to be dark.  And there are a few desolate roads on the way.  Tonight, I was with one other guy, and two more were a few minutes behind us, gonna meet us there.  We came down the last road, which is just off a major road, before getting to the DDR we most often frequent.  Most of the time on this road, I drive right down the middle, high beams on, because on one side is wide open feild, and the other a forest.  I always figure, "if something jumps out from the forest, I'll have more time to react with have the road there."  It's not like I'm gonna hit anybody- the road is probably used by 4 cars a day.  Usually I pay attention.

Not tonight.  Tonight my friend and I were having a rivetting conversation about something I can't remember.  My high beams were off, and I was sticking to the right side of the road.  I was just about to bring up a point, but my point ended up being, "oh (apparently this word has to be censored.  It was a bad word)!"

A deer jumped out, right in front of me.  As dumb as this is going to sound, the 0.325 seconds (ish) that it took from seeing the deer, to hitting it, seemed like an eternity.  Its head snapped towards us, and you could just see it realize the mistake it had just made.  I almost got to the brake... but even if I had, it wouldn't have mattered.  Then the deer was flying through the air.  It must have sailed 20 metres- I wasn't speeding... I was just... going fast...

I pulled over, and the two of us got out, to look for it.  The other two pulled up behind us, and refused to beleive what had happened until they saw the hood of my van.  (Excuse me for any typos now, as my head seems to want to spin.)

We couldn't find the deer.  As much as it seems impossible, the only explanation is that it walked away.  It got hit by a van going 80 (km/h., not mph), sailed through the air- and got up.  I think.

Whether that's the case, or we just didn't find it, I don't know.  But it's something that's gonna stick with me for a very long time.  You don't really realize how shaking that is until it happens.

A while ago, another friend of mine backed into a truck at a drive through. (Don't ask.)  He caused 2000 dollars in damage.  Likely, the dents in my van will be a few hundred.  Tops.  I'd gladly change places.

Well, about half a year ago, the Oilers had one of the best D-corps in the league.  Pronger is bar-none the best defender in the game, (jerk) Spacek is a stud on your second unit, and anywhere else would have been 1st unit.  Smith is our captain, and although not offensive... he's a defenceman.  And he's awesome at it.  Staios is like a not-quite-as-good Smith player, but when paired with Spacek, he was awesome.  That left us Marc-Andre Bergeron, Dick Tarnstrom, and Matt Greene to fill our final 2 spots.  The first 2 are 3-4 defencemen on any other team, and 5-7 on ours.

Then Pronger decided Edmonton's not good enough for him.  Spacek, being an Unrestricted Free Agent, told the Oilers that he'd give them the opportunity to match any contract he was offered.  'Cept we were offering more than Buffalo was, and he still signed there.  It later came out that the Pronger fiasco, and too much travel, were the reasons behind this.  We got Ladislav Smid in the Pronger trade, and he might be good, but he's never played an NHL game.  We signed UFA Daniel Tjarnqvist, but on a defensively minded Minnesota Wild team, he was a minus 11 last season.  We traded absolutely nothing (well, a 7th round pick, whoop-di-do) to the Sabres for Jan Hejda, who's a seasoned veteran.  Just not in the NHL.  Once again, he's never played a game in the league.  And Dick Tarnstrom is a UFA, and might still sign with us, but there will be absolutely no breath-holding.

So now we have Smith and Staios as our top pairing.  Bergeron will surely be on the second pairing, but he's still a defensive-liability at times, so he needs to be with a vet, such as Smith.  That leaves our top pairing Staios and- somebody.  Let's go with Tjarnqvist.  That makes our second pairing better, so they get bumped up.  Our third pairing will probably be Hejda and Smid, with Green being in and out for one of those two guys ever 4 or 5 games, or in case of injury.

That is scary.  We need d-help.  When you lose your top two defencemen, and replace them with a minus player, and two guys who've never seen the inside of an NHL arena, you know you'll be in trouble.  Especially when one of those guys was Chris Pronger.

(BTW, Pronger used to be known as CFP around these parts, but after the trade demand, he's now known as FCP.  I'll let you guess what the F stands for.)

But oh the irony!  Last season, the only sure-fire solid thing about the Oilers was their D.  Goaltending was shaky in the Mike Conkkanen threesome, and we didn't have a forward that could net big numbers.  Well, we still have those same forwards, take a Peca and Samsonov, and add a Lupul and Reasoner (sligh downgrade- but not bad) and a year of experience- BIG experience- for all the young guys (Stoll, Horcoff, Hemsky, and especially Pisani.)  And oh yeah!  Our goalie is Rollie.  So we're set up front, and in the net.  Now it's just our D that looks suspect.

Smyth-Horcoff-Hemsky

Lupul-Stoll-Pisani

Torres-Schremp-Moreau

Winchester-Reasoner-???

Pretty solid.  And I really think that ??? is gonna turn into a solid young player ;)

"I bleed for the Oilers, and they don't want me."

These were the words of former Oilers tough guy Georges Laraque, earlier in the week as he and the team couldn't come to an agreement.  Georgie was willing to sign for about half a million dollars a year less than he was going to make anywhere else (being an Unrestricted Free Agent, he was free to sign anywhere) but wanted a No Trade Clause.  The Oilers wouldn't give him one.

Laraque has played for the Oilers for nine years.  He is just an absolute class act.  He's our fighter.  He stands up for our skilled players.  But off the ice- you'll never find a better guy.  He lived for this community.  You'd be hard pressed to find a day that Georgie wasn't in an Edmonton hospital signing autographs, or organizing a charity event, or anything like that.  He made his email public, and always, always replied.

True, he wasn't a scorer.  True, we have so much depth up front.  True, he's a healthy scratch many nights now.  True, this team doesn't need an enforcer.  But he's our guy.  We love Georges.

It would have been all right if he said "my time in Edmonton is done.  It's been a wonderful nine years, but now I need to move on."  We would have applauded him for his time here, and wished him well.  But it's heart breaking to hear him say that he bleeds for this team, and they didn't want him- especially in light of the whole Pronger fiasco.

Georges Laraque is a Phoenix Coyote now.  I died a little, right there, typing that.  I won't miss his 2 goals a year.  But I'll miss his fights.  I'll miss him revving up the crowd, raising his arms after he wins, smiling in the penalty box, giving the thumbs-up.  I"ll miss his radio show that I never listened to.  I'll miss his accent.  I'll miss reading about him in the paper every day.  I'll miss him slamming his body into the end boards whenever he scored at home (which is the only place he scored)

I just hope he scores a goal against the Oil (in a losing cause, of course) in E-town, and does the old body slam in to the boards one last time.

You'll always hold a special place in our hearts, Georges.  Edmonton loves you.

Sport really is quite strange.  It's truly the only form of entertainment that can captivate, enthrall, jubilate, depress, frustrate, excite and disappoint anybody, young or old, rich or poor, American or African, European or Australian.

I was ten years old when the Oilers upset the Stars in 97.  My favourite show was Power Rangers.  I was in grade 5.  When Marchant streaked down that wing, and potted the winner in game 7 on Andy Moog, I shouted "YES!" at the top of my lungs.

My Dad is in his fifties.  His favourite show is The Sopranos, I beleive.  He's an accountant, and has been with the same company for over 25 years.  Though he's Scottish, in the World Cup, he's cheering for Italy.  He was watching it on tape, because he had to work today, and in the last two minutes, when the Italians scored, he shouted "YES!" at the top of his lungs.

And the Germans cried.  Just as the English did, just as the Australians did, just as every other country has done, except Portugal, France, and those Italians.  Of course, by the time this is all over, two of them will be left crying as well.  Only one country gets to be happy.

So why?

Why play sports?  Why watch sports?  If such a small percentage of the players/fans/managers etc. get to experience that joy of winning each year (or four years) is it worth that heartbreak if you don't?

Is it worth the pain of coming within a win of the stanley cup, only to fall short?  Is it worth the pain of missing that last putt on the 18th to let the green jacket slip away?  Is it worth it?

The logical answer is simply no.  If you don't want to have your heart broken, you don't watch sports, quite simple.  Stick to your basic TV shows.  They may break your hearts, but at least it isn't real.

But the heart isn't very logical.  Most relationships don't last to marriage, and even those that do forget about the 'till death do us part' clause, and yet we date, we love.  Sports are no different.  Okay, they're quite different, but there is a very basic element that is the same.

You never think your team will break your heart, just as you never think your girlfriend/boyfriend/fiance/spouse will.  Most of the time they do.  Then you have to decide if that journey/relationship was worth it.  Sometimes it was, sometimes it wasn't.

But there is the odd time- the very odd time- that they don't disappoint.  They'll win the Superbowl, the World Series, or whatever it is you want them to win.  He'll get down on one knee, or she'll say yes.  The marriage will last.  And then it isn't even a question.  Then all those broken hearts are worth it.  I'd expect, anyway.

I guess I answered my own question.  Starting this blog I wasn't sure.  Why should I cheer on the Oilers?  It could be 16 years before they take another run at the cup- and they could fall short again.

But then why bother trying to find a girlfriend?  I could become a life-long bachelor, and just stick to TV and books, living alone.

I'd never get hurt, and I'm sure I'd be quite happy.  But-