could you ask for a better day for playoff hockey? 74 F (23.3 C).


3-0... and i'm all wired now... =]

wow... what a long week. 2 presentations. didn't sleep 1 night. 2 sabres games, 2 leads blown ending in 2 losses.

crunch time... 4 finals, 1 paper, 1 paper revision to do... then in 2 weeks i'll be in new york. countdown to the end... here's hoping for a sabres win tomorrow... i'll finally be able catch a game.

hope everyone in the east enjoys the weather the weekend, and anyone with finals finishes the semester strong.

keep it real.

i'm a little pissed that i had to miss the game tonight. just got home to catch the last 14 minutes or so. it was a ridiculous 8-2 drubbing of philly... dumont, and pominville both had hat tricks. i hope we keep rolling like this. hearing the fans in the background of the broadcast... wow. it really is quite amazing how people have embraced this team, and hockey again. i remember a couple years ago, i went to a game... and it was dead there. during the dark days of the sabres bankruptcy... when the league was running the team, and we had no owner. there were way too many empty blue seats showing. the lower bowl at hsbc arena had like 10 people in it. it was a sad state of affairs. at the time... the thought of the place filling with noise was just unimaginable... fast forward to 2005-2006... got on a roll, couple sellouts later... in the playoffs, and the place is raucous again. i'll actually have to make it to a game to see if i can even compare it to being in the old aud (memorial auditorium)... but from what i could imagine what it would be like to be there tonight... i couldn't imagine it being any less crazy than the aud. i'm sure my coworker who i sold my tix to will be rubbing it in my face tomorrow.

on the plus side... my presentation went well... small victories... i know.

gotta love the penalty summary for a buffalo-philly game... always intense.

1st Period
Philadelphia hooking - 2 min 2:22, S. Gagne
Philadelphia cross check - 2 min 5:06, F. Meyer
Buffalo high sticking - 2 min 7:48, J. Hecht
Buffalo hooking - 2 min 10:15, T. Vanek
Philadelphia roughing - 2 min 15:54, R. Esche served by M. Knuble
Buffalo hooking - 2 min 15:54, H. Tallinder
Philadelphia elbowing - 2 min 17:41, D. Hatcher
Philadelphia holding - 2 min 19:20, M. Rathje

2nd Period
Philadelphia hooking - 2 min 1:53, D. Gauthier
Philadelphia checking from behind - 5 min 6:23, D. Gauthier served by B. Eager
Philadelphia game misconduct - 10 min 6:23, D. Gauthier
Philadelphia hooking - 2 min 11:44, F. Meyer
Philadelphia interference - 2 min 16:09, B. Eager served by J. Carter
Philadelphia misconduct - 10 min 16:09, B. Eager
Philadelphia interference - 2 min 18:35, J. Carter

3rd Period
Philadelphia tripping - 2 min 11:36, F. Meyer
Buffalo hooking - 2 min 14:00, T. Vanek
Philadelphia misconduct - 10 min 16:33, B. Eager
Philadelphia roughing - 2 min 16:33, B. Eager
Philadelphia roughing - 2 min 16:33, B. Eager
Buffalo roughing - 2 min 16:33, T. Vanek
Buffalo roughing - 2 min 16:33, D. Roy
Philadelphia roughing - 2 min 16:33, D. Hatcher

more conan articles from the spectrum if you want to know what he talked about...
-Dennis Black, the ‘straight man’
-Wit and wisdom to poop on

saw RS and SS yesterday before they flew back to the city... they were doing well... i'm glad. it's always good to see my friends from the city i haven't seen in a long time.

off to edit some more papers... busy busy.

glad monday's over... be good.

this here sums up the game last night.

this here sums up conan.

both will do it better than i could have. i'm sure tomorrow's (monday) edition of the spectrum will have some more conan coverage.

hope you all had good weekends. get ready for another week.

sabres play tomorrow night... let's go sabres!

take care.

conan was great. he did his talk in a question and answer type deal on a variety of topics, with some improv in between. the topic changed to celebrities and the thoughts they have... and one question went something like... if tom cruise came on his show... what would he ask him. without missing a beat conan replied that he'd tranq him and then throw restraints on him... soak him in cool lotion to calm him down. he also joked about how he was all in a series called the "distinguished speaker series" who've booked people like colin powell, and then some guy that acts like an ass 24/7... himself... which was kind of embarrassing for him =]. supposedly he's gonna mention ub on his show sometime this next week.


(blurry conan pic from far away... best i could do)

and the sabres won tonight! double ot! very physical game.

and congrats to k for the habs blowing out carolina.

here's a pic from the midori concert i went to on wed.


(midori all the way on the left)

so... i can't make the either of the first 2 home playoff games against philly. monday's out of the question cause i have a presentation. the wild card is sat night. this is the night i'm going to conan. while conan is a one shot deal, the sabres i will most likely have another chance to see. i figure if the sabres sweep the first round i'll get to hopefully go to a second round game (if my schedule allows... and i'll squeeze it in if i have to). or... if they lose one or two games i can get to the third home game at the very least in the first round still. i just have to pray... really really really hard... that they don't get swept by the flyers... otherwise i think i'd cry... seriously. so please everyone... send good vibes so that the sabres don't get swept... and to the flyers nonetheless!

so... if anyone you know wants 2 tix to saturday's game @ hsbc arena... there's an auction up on ebay here.

i thought i was gonna have a brain aneurysm today. my head was going to explode thinking about all the stuff that i have to do. kind of like lewis black when he shows up on the daily show for his back in black segment.

forecast for the next couple weeks... scattered posting when time allows... or more likely... when procrastinating.

shaping up to be a busy couple of weeks.

midori's making an appearance @ ub tomorrow to give a performance and talk a bit about stuff. those not in the loop... midori's one of the best violinists in the world. she's one of those child prodigies... though she's not exactly a child anymore.

before that... i have to hand in a paper, and make a revision on another.

sat... i signed up to volunteer with the erie county dept of health as an emergency outbreak response and surviellance person... since everyone's getting all worried about the bird flu... i guess they thought it'd be a good idea to implement a response team to monitor that disease and other potential hazards. so that's in the morning... if the sabres game ends up in the afternoon... i may go and check it out if i think i'm able to make a dent in my powerpoint presentation on friday that will be presented monday. sat night, i have tix to conan.

next week i have to finalize a bunch of stuff for a poster presentation the following week... along with prepare for finals.

more finals the week after.

in between all that... i have to register for my class for the summer, finalize the work situation, figure out how much i can work on top of the time i need to be in the lab.

pack like mad.

go on a trip.

pass out.

today was the last home game of the season... a nice 6-0 rout of the leafs. it was actually the first shutout of the season for us if you could believe that... now i think the canucks are the only other team without one. leafs found out yesterday that they were out of the postseason. i was still hoping the leafs would make it in. it would have been fun for a chance to play the leafs, cause the intensity would've been upped... having to face tie domi and darcy tucker for a potential 7 games would be interesting.

i hope we draw philly. they'd be a better matchup for us, since they have slow defensemen... it would be difficult for them to match our speed. plus there have also been some great playoff battles between us and them. in terms of rankings... they are probably the team i hate the most in the eastern conference. i dislike the leafs when we play them... but i can usually laugh it off since they can never seem to beat the sabres. philly however... different story. the next team in the eastern conference i'm not too fond of is the devils. right now, it looks like we'll be playing them. it seems jersey has always had our number for some reason. then there's the rangers, who are on the verge of losing out the atlantic division to philly or the devils if they don't win their last game. our record against new york isn't great this year either.

so... we'll have a tough 1st round battle ahead of us, as all three teams are good. hopefully montreal and tampa bay will get in, and pull some upsets off... kick out carolina and ottawa. if we held off carolina on tue, ottawa won their last game, and montreal held off tampa and atlanta, we could potentially have 3 northeast division teams in the 2nd round.

anywho... it's been a long season... here's a link to the first power rankings for 05-06... buffalo was at #23 (out of 30 teams). we were basically supposed to just drop dead. 108 points (3rd most in eastern conference) and 51 wins later... we're in the playoffs, on a win streak again, and looking to roll.

i think i'm going to give up on the bills. the nfl is just too big a business... wilson would be stupid NOT to sell the bills. i like football and all... but as the years go by... there are just so many things that i have come to dislike about the league. from the attitude of some of the players, to the big spending owners of large market teams, to the taxpayer subsidies of the smaller market francises... it just rubs me the wrong way. the bills haven't been to the playoffs in 7 years. we've either had just really crappy teams from the get go, or teams that would always fall apart midway through the season these last couple years. the frickin stadium is in orchard park and not even in buffalo. the local area does not have enough of a tax base to take on a project the size of a new football stadium that would seat at least 60,000+ in addition to luxury boxes.

president bush is such a douche... especially when it comes to the environmental policy. here's an article about cleaning up the great lakes. it's laughable that he thinks he has good ideas for the environment. i remember he had a photo-op with a tree over the summer before an election. i had thought to myself at the time, that it was one of the most ridiculous things he could ever do.

interesting story i found over the weekend about how treating wait-staff says a lot about a person... and how important people actually look at how you treat people. it's good to know that people in power actually notice things. there are too many dicks in the world... and to know that sometimes they don't get ahead makes me happy. it should be common sense to treat others with the respect and dignity you would like shown to yourself. here's a link to the waiterrant blog. has some funny entries. here's another great site with a posting about the employees of a cafe up and leaving all at once, due to bad treatment by owner.

here was an old link on the 15 best skylines in the world. i had saved up from an old gothamist post. i've been to 6 of the cities listed... and would love to be able to make it to the others sometime in the future. if i do an extended china trip next year... i'm definitely going to hit-up shanghai, and cross another one off the list.

so... that's it... another weekend gone. hope everyone had good easters/weekends/pesahs/whatever else was celebrated.

UPDATE: oops... forgot to give the link to the list of 15- best skylines.

got the tix!

for those wondering why conan would come to buffalo... he's actually coming to ub on a speaking engagement... the show's not actually being filmed here or anything. ub has had this distinguished speakers series for a couple years now. they've had people like colin powell, tavis smiley, bill cosby, and many others before. next year they've invited the dalai lama... i'm pretty interested in going to see him.

so glad that monday's over...

in about 5.5 weeks i'll be in hong kong. i'm having trouble concentrating... finals are looming in the near future... there's still so much to do between now and then. still planning some of the logistics, but we have a place to stay now when we get to hong kong.

i'll have enough miles for another trip to asia after this time around... so... maybe i can plan an extended trip for next summer and really explore china after i gradumacate. anyone want to go next summer? =]

wish me luck in getting tix for conan o'brien... he's speaking @ ub. the grad student association is giving some away for free... starting tomorrow.

so... it's the start to another week. hope everyone has good mondays.

penguin related things...
bonus 1: watch a funny penguin prank (courtesy tc).
bonus 2: an opus cartoon.

today as i was coming out of a morning meeting @ the student union... i saw...


heck yeah... some guy dressed up as the pillsbury doughboy. apparently there was some spring thing going on for the undergrads. one of my old friends actually had a free standing human sized cardboard cutout of the doughboy that was used as a promotion for something (she went to culinary school, and stole it from someplace). i was really jealous of her. anyways seeing the doughboy today totally made my morning. i was going to attempt to go and poke him in the stomach with my finger to see if he would laugh... but there were a bunch of students surrounding him, and i had to rush to south campus for a departmental seminar when i got to him. i was also thinking about kidnapping him and dragging him to my car, so i could keep him. it would have made quite a news story... with the accompanying picture of the doughboy looking out the rear window of a car speeding away.

from wikipedia:

He is a small anthropomorphic character apparently made out of dough. When poked in the stomach, he makes a short giggling noise, lightly grabs his stomach, and smiles.

ps... i got my new canon digital camera... so hopefully more pictures will be posted as the weeks go by.

i'm gonna jump on the bandwagon created by güggenflürgen, and subsequently done by most of the blogs @ the bottom of this page... cause my brain is turned off so i'll make a simple post (yet somehow i need to do a lab writeup by tomorrow, don't know how that's gonna happen).



oh... and the sabres beat the sens tonight. woohoo.

happy thursday.

ML notified me about this.

Call it a coincidental sign of our digital times or a reason to stay up late and stare at the clock. Either way, early Wednesday morning the time and date will be 01-02-03-04-05-06

after being thoroughly embarrassed by the leafs on saturday (ugh... 7-0), we went back to the air canada centre tonight and came out with a 3-2 shootout win. with the win we are IN the playoffs for the first time since 2001. it's been a long 5 years with no postseason (even longer for the bills 1999) for this city. wouldn't you know it... i got my first 2 round of playoff tix in the mail today too! it's that much sweeter that we got in by defeating the leafs.

one of the worst feelings in the world is when you have to break the news to someone that you don't feel the same way about them that they do about you. it makes you sick to your stomach... even though it should be done because you don't want them to expect something that won't be there. i've been on the receiving end of that in the past... and it frickin sucks.