Dear WFSB,

Yes, it's snowing. We get that. It's been forecast for several days. And you are showing a playoff football game. Even though it's Baltimore vs Tennessee, some CT residents actually want to sit in their warm, snug houses and, you know watch the game. These people do not need to have approximately 20% of their television screens filled with a crawling listing of all the towns and cities in Connecticut that have overnight parking bans, due to the storm. Oh, look, bingo is cancelled at churches in Milford and Ansonia. And Thomaston still has an overnight parking ban, as does Waterbury.

And, some arcane rule means that, even though Comcast carries WCBS from New York, when WCBS and WFSB have the same programming scheduled, the WFSB feed appears on the channel allocated to WCBS. As a result, the only way I can avoid seeing, yet again, that Stonington has an overnight parking ban, along with Thomaston and Tolland, is to turn off the TV and go shovel some of that snow, or something.

ETA In another instance of the awesome power of an LJ rant, within a few minutes of this posting, WFSB decided that they no longer needed to give screen real estate to a repetitive listing of storm closings.

I suppose I should be grateful that Comcast is willing to provide a pixelated, artefact-ridden video signal with distorted audio for The NHL Network for the World Junior game between Canada and the US. But, somehow, I'm not. Out of all of the digital channels on my system, including the other sports channels that they throw in for free when I pay them $7.99/month for the NHL Network,* this is the only one that they can't manage to keep on the air. I've subscribed to this channel for two months, and this is the second time the channel was unwatchable, and there have been two additional times when there was no signal at all (I suppose that counts as unwatchable as well).

The good news, though, is that by the time I called to complain, so had many others. I'm not the only hockey fan who'd planned to stay in on New Years Eve and watch this heavily bally-hooed game. There were multiple trouble-tickets open on this issue. It's nice that they recognize that hockey fans care about actually seeing hockey, not to mention that if they sell a value-added service for $7.99/month, they ought to actually provide that service. All of the Comcast CSRs I've talked to about problems with the NHL Network have been quite pleasant, as was the tech who came out last week. But that doesn't negate the fact that I can't, ever, count on watching scheduled programming on the NHL Network.

ETA: Picture and sound are back, with 4 minutes to go in the second period, within 2 minutes of my posting. If I'd known I had that power, I would have posted this during the pre-game!

*This is a matter of framing. Comcast would say that they are selling me a package of about a dozen sports channels (NBA-TV, NFL Network, channels dedicated to tennis, NASCAR, college sports, etc.), but, if it weren't for the hockey, I wouldn't be subscribing, so that's what I'm paying for, and, if I watch an occasional hockey game or Thursday night football game, well, they're available, but nothing actually worth subscribing to.

So, for a NY sports fan, there's exactly one football game worth seeing this Sunday, Jets-Dolphins. (The Giants opened and won on Thursday night.) My cable system carries two CBS stations, one from NY and one from Hartford. According to the on-screen guide, the NY station has the Jets game, and the Hartford station has the Patriots-Chiefs game. In fact, both have the Patriots game. I spent 15 minutes in hold-hell on Comcast, along with all the other Jets fans in New Haven County, only to be told, by Ramona, that CBS decided that the Jets-Dolphins game should only be shown in the NY metropolitan area. Ramona gave me a CBS phone number which I can try tomorrow to complain. I'm sure that CBS will tell me that it was an NFL decision, not their decision. (Can you tell that I've been down this road before?) But, meanwhile, the Patriots' season is over before it began, and there's 15 minutes until the Mets telecast begins. So, I'm stuck with my choice of two different Fox channels showing Eagles-Rams. The Eagles' season is alive and well, at least for now. But I just want to know when the NFL hired fan-relations coordinators away from the NHL? Seriously.

Your result for The Hockey Role Test...

The Goalie

30% Playmaker, 10% Goal-scorer, 40% Stay-at-home, 0% Rusher and 80% Goalie!

Take The Hockey Role Test at HelloQuizzy

All I can say is José Theodore????? Yikes.

Well, the Stanley Cup was awarded almost a week ago. The parade is done; some stars have retired; and the Cup is making the rounds. Tomorrow night is the big awards show, which I'll miss because of knitting group.

So, in the past few months, I've watched a lot of hockey and done a lot of knitting. When I started planning this post, I thought I'd done 5 1/2 pairs of socks. But, when I went to photograph them, I discovered that I had 6 1/2 pairs! And here they are:



( Click here for details and more pictures )

Here were the second round playoff predictions:

East:
Rangers-Pens
Flyers-Habs

West:
Wings-Avs
Sharks-Stars

Yep...That's a big 0 for 4. I was wrong about all four series.

And now the more general predictions:

As for the more general predictions:
(1) an epic overtime game ended after midnight: well, the only multi OT game (game 4 of Flyers-Caps) ended in the second overtime, and Knuble's winner wasn't particularly fluky. But there are three rounds to go.

Well we got the epic OT game. But Morrow's goal halfway through the 4th OT wasn't particularly fluky.

(2) an Avs-Red Wings hate-filled series: we'll have the series but the jury's still out on the hate

What hate? That series was a total snoozer.

(3) a young player not named Crosby or Ovechkin developing a reputation: Daniel Brière, I'm looking at you, and at you, Brandon Dubinsky

Daniel Who? I got your R. J. Umberger here. Not to mention Johan Franzen and Brenden Morrow.

Marion Hossa already had the reputation…of coming up small in the playoffs. No more. He did OK.

(4) an older player rediscovering his youth and carrying his team: Kovalev? Jagr? JR, if he can keep it up.

Well, Kovalev and Jagr couldn't carry their teams, and JR couldn't keep it up. Is Marty Turco old enough to be an "older player rediscovering his youth and carrying his team"? How about Chris Osgood.

(5) Mike Milbury trashing Jagr: With both Boston and NY telecasts available, I managed to avoid most opportunities for Milbury mishegoss.

Milbury. Blech. Enough said.

And maybe this round we'll get the epic OT game.

I left this in because, boy, howdy, did we ever. I was a wreck at work today, but it was so worth it to stay up until 2:30 AM to see the end of this game. There is nothing, I mean nothing in the world of sports like sudden-death playoff hockey. The two teams played 7 1/2 periods of hockey last night. That's 2 1/2 games.

And now for the conference finals:
East:
Pens–Flyers

West:
Stars–Wings

So, I'm knitting and watching Stanley Cup playoff games. I've finished one pair of socks, the Becoming Socks, and started another that I'm thinking of entering in the Lorna's Laces sock contest. But that one is fairly fiddly, and I'm going to need some more mindless knitting for the Yarn Harlot event on Sunday. So I grabbed a ball of Mega Boots Stretch from the stash and started knitting Wednesday night.



Well, actually, I tried to start knitting Wednesday night, but I kept messing up on the tubular caston. Granted, it's a very fiddly caston, but I've done it successfully a number of times. But I suppose that's what I get for starting a project after midnight.

Yesterday evening, I went back at it, during the Detroit-Colorado game, with much greater success. Since I wasn't sure how the yarn would pattern, I decided to stick with a decidedly non-fiddly k3p1 rib for the cuff and instep of the sock:



It's certainly easy enough to do, which will be good when listening to a hysterically funny lecture in the company of many other knitters. But, as I was winding up for the evening, I took a look at the inside of the sock, and realized that I like that much better.



It's visually interesting without distracting from the yarn. So, I'm going to have to do a bit of fancy footwork, so to speak, when I turn the heel, to make sure that I flip the sock and then work the instep in p3k1 rib. It's a fun challenge. So, we shall see how it works out. It's all good.

Two weeks ago, I posted a series of predictions about the NHL playoffs. Since the first round is over, it's time to revisit those predictions.

First the outcomes (predictions in bold, outcomes underlined):
East:

* Bruins-Canadiens
* Pens-Sens
* Caps-Flyers
* Rangers-Devils

West:

* Wings-Preds
* Ducks-Stars
* Sharks-Flames
* Wild-Avs

Six out of eight ain't bad. However, one of the series I was wrong on eliminates my predicted Cup final; the Sharks may well win, but they won't be beating the Caps, at least not this year.

As for the more general predictions:
(1) an epic overtime game ended after midnight: well, the only multi OT game (game 4 of Flyers-Caps) ended in the second overtime, and Knuble's winner wasn't particularly fluky. But there are three rounds to go.
(2) an Avs-Red Wings hate-filled series: we'll have the series but the jury's still out on the hate
(3) a young player not named Crosby or Ovechkin developing a reputation: Daniel Brière, I'm looking at you, and at you, Brandon Dubinsky
(4) an older player rediscovering his youth and carrying his team: Kovalev? Jagr? JR, if he can keep it up.
(5) Mike Milbury trashing Jagr: With both Boston and NY telecasts available, I managed to avoid most opportunities for Milbury mishegoss.

And now the second round:
East:
Rangers-Pens
Flyers-Habs

West:
Wings-Avs
Sharks-Stars

And maybe this round we'll get the epic OT game.

Game on!

So tonight's game is on MSG and on Versus. At first I was thinking of it as a mug's choice—Stan Fischler between periods on MSG or Mike Milbury on Versus. Then I remembered that Milbury had been on NBC for the Sens-Flyers game. Listening to John Forslund call the game is a small price to pay for not having to listen to Stan Fischler.

I'm getting further and further behind in posting final writeups of completed knitting, let alone garden updates and little slice-of-life postings. But the Stanley Cup playoffs have started, which means prime knitting time. And Lolly of Lolly Knitting Around suggested a playoff knitting knitalong. And, since it's no extra effort, I'm knitting.

( Cut for details and pictures )

With apologies to Christmas, now is the best time of the year. The NHL playoffs start tonight, and end sometime in early June, with the presentation of the Stanley Cup.

Things we will see (hopefully) in the next two months:
(1) an epic overtime game, ended after midnight by a fluky goal by Scotty Gomez or a wicked shot from the point by Alex Ovechkin or a shot by Patrice Bergeron that bounces off of Carey Price's back and into the net.
(2) a series in which the Avs and Red Wings rediscover the hate
(3) a young player not named Crosby or Ovechkin cementing his reputation as a player who can carry his team
(4) an older player rediscovering his youth and, yet again, carrying his team
(5) Mike Milbury trashing Jaromir Jagr (if Milbury had any skills at player evaluation, he'd still be picking personnel for the Islanders, and the Caps would be playing golf!)

Since I've made predictions in other venues, I'll reprise them here:

East:

• Bruins-Canadiens
• Pens-Sens
• Caps-Flyers
• Rangers-Devils
  

West:

• Wings-Preds
• Ducks-Stars
• Sharks-Flames
• Wild-Avs
  

Cup Final: Sharks over Caps

If — and this is an almost unimaginable if — the Senators' free fall were to continue to the point of their missing the playoffs, it would stand as one of the greatest collapses in sports history. People would speak of this bizarre season in the same way they remember the 1964 Philadelphia Phillies blowing a 6 1/2-game lead with 12 games to go in a baseball pennant race, or Greg Norman squandering a six-stroke lead going into the final round of the 1996 Masters.

Roy MacGregor's piece in Tuesday's Toronto Globe and Mail

It's so nice that he still thinks of the 1964 Phillies as having perpetrated the worst late-season collapse in baseball history.

The 2007 Mets thank him.

LETS GO BUFF-ALO! LETS GO BUFF-ALO!

That is all.

So today was a totally yucky day. Even though we didn't get the snow and sleet that folks further north got, it was still cold and rainy. And the cold that I'm getting over is now at the nasty, anti-social cough stage. Yesterday, I went to the supermarket and bought cough syrup. All through the evening, I was wondering why I'd wasted my money; I wasn't coughing that badly. Hah! Around 3AM, I dragged myself out of bed, staggered to the kitchen, and poured myself some vile-tasting cough syrup. In the dark. (Well, to the light of all the electronic clocks and such-like; I was surprised just how many of them there are!)

So I was certainly in the mood for cocooning today. Fortunately, the National Hockey League provided appropriate entertainment for me: an outdoor hockey game in Buffalo. An NHL-size ice rink was constructed in the middle of the stadium where the Buffalo Bills play (they don't need it, as the season's over), and a spectacle ensued. So, I watched, and knit. I started these socks on Christmas day, watching basketball games (what else is there to do when you don't celebrate the holiday, and everything's closed, except Chinese restaurants). Given that I was sick over the weekend, I'd spent time knitting that I would otherwise have spent doing such useful things as cleaning and decluttering. No matter. All I had to do was finish the foot of the second sock. And I did, completing the final toe decrease just as Sidney Crosby's shootout goal was winning the game for the Penguins. Before getting up to change the channel, I grafted the toe and wove in the ends. They'll be ready to wear tomorrow. But, in the meantime, here they are:



Yarn: Trekking XXL, color 104
Needles: 2.25mm HiyaHiya circular
Pattern: Simple Trekking Socks, from Mimknits

I often find it very frustrating to knit socks from a pattern, since so many designers (or perhaps the editors they design for) have unrealistic notions about appropriate gauge for a particular yarn. I have yet to meet a fingering weight yarn that produces a good fabric knit at 8 stitches/inch, yet many published patterns require a loose knit like that that I can't imagine will wear well. This pattern, on the other hand, was for an appropriate gauge, and the resulting socks fit me quite nicely.

Of course, since I'm not a pattern person, I didn't follow the pattern exactly. The pattern calls for two bands of displaced ribbing at the top of the cuff and two more near the toes; in between there's just plain ribbing. Well, I liked the look of the offsets so much that I did the entire cuff and instep in offset ribbing, alternating 8 rows of k2p2 ribbing with 8 rows of p2k2 ribbing. Aside from the aesthetics, a stitch pattern like this makes it much easier to count rows and, hence, to make both socks as nearly identical as the yarn will allow (this colorway of Trekking doesn't have a noticeable repeating pattern). In addition, I did an eye of partridge heel instead of a standard heel.

The National Hockey League season starts tomorrow, with the first game played in London, tomorrow. On digital cable systems, the NHL out-of-market games are on the same channels as the out-of-market baseball games. Since there's minimal overlap in seasons, this doesn't cause much of a problem. But, the free preview for hockey lets you see whatever baseball games are on (and vice versa). So, tonight, once I realized that the preview had started a day before the hockey season, I started channel surfing. And I ended up on the Dodgers-Giants game, in late innings. And, of course, that was it for the surfing.

It's the Dodgers broadcast, with a single voice; no three-man booth, with roaming reporter in the stands, no-sirree. As in the past 50+ years (there was a promo for season tickets for next year, touting the 50th anniversary season—the 50th anniversary of major league baseball in LA), it's been Vin Scully. The voice is a little weaker than it once was, but the mind is sharp and the observations are to the point. (And, to his credit, when Hu just singled, he resisted the temptation to say that "Hu's on first".)

The leaves are changing and the afternoon schedule includes, in addition to house cleaning and grocery shopping, pennant chase baseball and pre-season football. When I change the sheets, I'll put another blanket on the bed; last night, at bedtime, I had to get the blanket and just throw it on. The tulip bulbs I ordered last spring from White Flower Farms were waiting on my doorstep when I got home yesterday afternoon, so, in the next few weeks, I'll have the plant them.

NHL training camps started this week, and almost all of the hockey blogs I follow regularly have been posting up a storm. But, today? Today the scoreboard panel of my Yahoo home page listed, in addition to MLB, the two NFL teams I follow, and the WNBA playoffs, 5 (counte'em, five!) NHL games. They're pre-season games, so the game-tracker won't work, and XM probably won't have them, as there won't be radio feeds for XM to pick up, except, perhaps, in Calgary. But still. hockey's back, and life is good.

So, the (baseball) All Star Game is in San Francisco this year. As in the past, the starters are elected by fan vote, both in stadiums and on the internet. Reserves and pitchers are elected by players. And a few players are added by the managers, in consultation with the Commissioner's office. All of this is subject to the constraint that there must be at least one All Star from each team.

Barry Bonds plays for San Francisco, and is on the verge of breaking the all time career home run record, set by Hank Aaron. While record chases are ordinarily played up, this one is different. It's different because, even in the absence of direct proof, virtually everyone is convinced that Bonds took illegal substances (anabolic steroids or growth hormone). The circumstantial evidence is suggestive, but it's not entirely clear exactly how these substances that it hasn't been proven that Bonds took as part of what, by all accounts, is an intense training regimen might or might not have contributed to his mounting home-run total.

As part of the All Star Game hype, interim fan vote totals are released. Through all of the run-up to the game, Bonds was in fourth or fifth place in the fan voting. So various sports discussion shows and web sites were rife with speculation about whether the players would vote Bonds in as a reserve and whether the commissioner (who still hasn't made public any decision about how Bonds' breaking of Aaron's record will be treated by baseball officialdom) would make sure that Bonds would appear in the All Star Game in his home ball park.

The All Star rosters were announced today. And among the starters, voted in by fans, was Barry Bonds. So, the National League manager and the Commissioner of Baseball are off the hook. And the votes weren't even counted in Florida. How convenient.

When asked to stand for a moment of silence for Memorial Day, to remember soldiers who have died in battle, the appropriate thing is to be silent. What is not appropriate is to chant "USA, USA".

Also, whose bright idea was it to have Stephen Stills sing The Star Spangled Banner a capella?

And, Versus producers, I really don't give a damn what Jerry Bruckheimer or Cuba Gooding, Jr. thinks about this series.

For some reason, NBC thinks that more people will watch a hockey game at 2PM Eastern on a weekend day than in the evening, as God and Foster Hewitt intended. Now some die-hard fans might neglect their spring weekend chores (gardening, lawn-mowing, etc.) to watch a hockey game. But not all, and certainly, casual fans who might be attracted to the sport by a rollicking good playoff game aren't likely to be inside channel-surfing on a gorgeous spring day.

But, it's 54° F out and drizzly. Here are the outdoor chores that I could do today: [ ]. Here are the outdoor chores that I'm not going to bother with: planting a few flowers, sweeping the deck, weeding, planting beans, cucumbers, and more radishes. It may even be too damp for me to pick arugula for dinner, but I have green beans from last summer's garden in the refrigerator (I took two servings' worth out of the freezer last night). I need to go grocery shopping, but not necessarily during the day. So, hockey it is. I may do indoor chores during the game, or I might sit there with this Sunday's New York Times. But the TV will be on, to hockey. And it's cold and raw out, much more hockey than baseball weather.

I don't normally watch the NCAA men's college basketball tournament, as it's a made-for-TV event and, in any case, the putative student-athletes for the most part aren't college material in the first place. However, I didn't have to work today, as it's a snow day, and the New Haven schools are closed. It's still snowing, so there's no point in shoveling.

( Danger: rambling, meandering thoughts inside )