WE'RE BACK BABY!

HEAR ME NOW! RISING FROM THE DEAD IT'S THE ONE AND ONLY!

I send out a plea to my fellows in arms, that once again, just one more time, lets make music together, let's make sweet harmony!

More to come soon, or possibly in 6 years from now, ya never know.

For those who missed it...

For the few people who haven't seen this already, the one and only lil dinka made his debut appearance at the MLB Fan Cave yesterday. As you can see here, he absolutely killed his interview with the fan caves own Mikey O. A rousing round of congratulations are in order, and in all honesty, I wouldn't be surprised if this appearance serves as a jumping off point for his career.

THE BEARD LIVES

When we started this blog, the plan was for me to fill the appointment of sports guy in residence, and until now I really haven't been fulfilling my duties. Why? Fuck, because I've been watching goddamn sports the whole time. But after a game 7 like that, where our beloved B's finally took a deciding game over the canadiens (I refuse to capitalize canadiens for the same reason I don't capitalize bitch) it was time for me to put in my two cents.

First of all, what a game, what a series. It seems silly to say, but here it really is true. Two teams could not have more opposing hockey philosophies, yet be any more evenly matched. The strength and team defense of the Bruins and the speed and quick strike attitude of the canadiens perfectly evened out over the course of the series, and ultimately the difference was an overtime snipe by underachiever turned 15 minute hero Nathan Horton. So while we should of course enjoy this momentous win for now, I can't help but look ahead to the team that caused us all so much misery last year, the Flyers.

Although the Flyers certainly have their own problems, with the most glaring one being goaltending, they did just beat a team with American hero Ryan Miller in goal, an accomplishment not to be scoffed at. So to avoid a repeat of the embarrassment of last year, the Bruins have some gigantic, and I mean GIGANTIC adjustments to make.

To be perfectly honest, the Bruins did not deserve to win that first round series. Any time the opposing team outscores you on YOUR OWN POWERPLAY for a 7 game series, you should think seriously about disbanding, getting a job in insurance or construction or something, and never again acknowledging that you ever laced up a pair of skates in your life. It's that shameful. It's baffling to me how a team can play such a dominant possession game 5 on 5, but with a man advantage they can barely get the puck into the offensive zone without literally shitting away all hope of a scoring chance, literally. Something needs to change if the Bruins want to have any chance in the second round. Tomas Kaberle, our big midseason acquisition who was supposed to save our powerplay has been, in the words of the great and possibly retarded Jeremy Roenick, "adysmal". He can't make a pass on the powerplay to save his life. Personally I think the Bruins should start with Chara and Seidenberg on the 1st unit and Boychuk and Ference on the 2nd unit. That way you have on each unit one defenseman who can move the puck and one who can blast a one timer that either breaks someone's fibula or finds the back of the net. I don't wanna blame the ineptitude of our powerplay entirely on the defensive pairing, but they are largely responsible for starting the rush and establishing possession in the offensive zone. The forwards really haven't even had the chance to show how ineffective they can be. And boy have they been ineffective.

Leading the charge in incompetence is our media described number 1 line of Krejci, Horton, and Lucic. Scoring the overtime game winner goes a long way toward being forgiven, but their level of play over the last 4 games has been downright awful. Especially tonight, it seemed like the three of them had never met and were thrown together 15 minutes before the game. Numerous times Horton and Lucic were wildly offside while Krejci brought the puck across the blue line. They failed to generate any sustained pressure, and spent most of the time in their own zone, hoping only to dump the puck down the ice so they could get off and reclaim their first line seats on the bench. They need to step up and play like their capable of, or at least what we think they're capable of. We've seen flashes throughout the regular season, but it just wasn't there this opening round series. Hopefully they gain some confidence from the game winner, but realize what they did against the habs was unacceptable, and take it as a personal challenge to show everyone that they are deserving of the number 1 designation.

The discrepancy in powerplay goals was significant, and was probably the reason why the series went 7 games, so one would think that the penalty kill needs improvement before playing philadelphia, but I actually think the penalty kill did pretty well given the circumstances. The problem is taking stupid penalties. The refs in montreal certainly played a role in game 6, but two many men on the ice is unacceptable. The high sticking on Bergeron with under 3 minutes to go is unacceptable. Taking a penalty to negate your own powerplay is goddamn unacceptable! The Bruins seem to do this more than any other team in hockey, and it absolutely kills me and any chance of breaking out of the powerplay slump. It's gotten to the point where I'm starting to think the Bruins know their powerplay sucks so they'd rather take their chances 4 on 4. The Bruins are gonna take some penalties as a result of their strong aggressive style of play. But if their also taking stupid penalties on top those, they become wary of getting their noses dirty for fear of taking a penalty, and ultimately that makes the team weaker. The Bruins aren't playing to make it to the second round. They're playing to win the whole damn thing. Anything less just won't be good enough for this fan base. If they don't clean up the dumb penalties, it'll be just another year of bitter disappointment we've all grown accustomed to with this team.

I really don't mean to be such a downer after a great win over our biggest rivals, but the Bruins need to learn to think like the Celtics, who learned to think like the Red Sox, who learned to think like the Pats. The Bruins have accomplished nothing yet. They're moving on to the next round, but no sane observer could say that their performance was cup worthy. The Bruins have a lot of work to do between now and Saturday. As a realist I'd say there's too much to fix for this team to make a legitimate cup run. But, as a fan with no actual affiliation with the team but still refuses to shave throughout the playoffs, I say bring on philly.

A Word to the Wise

Just some advice that I thought I'd pass along. For those of you out there thinking of starting a blog, don't do so if you must write a thesis concurrently. Your capacity to blog will decrease significantly. I don't mean to give the impression that I've been working non-stop on this for 2 months, because I haven't. The problem is trying to rationalize blogging when you know you have more important work to do. It's all about potential. When I'm watching the celtics blow double digit leads to charlotte and atlanta, I have some shit I want to get off my chest on the blog. Yet, I am crippled; incapable of blogging due to the sheer fact that I know any time spent blogging is potentially time I could could be writing my thesis. So I ask you, our loyal followers, to please be patient. There will be a reason to constantly refresh your browser hoping for new blog posts, just not at the moment. It will all become clear soon enough, I hope.

Variations on the Origin of Two Buck Chuck: Preface and Myth #1

Apparently there are some facts to the matter, but as far as I can tell, something is not being said. This must be more than a simple "wine glut." And I don't know about you, but I'm more intrigued by the "several inventive urban legend-like explanations" for the insanely low price of this very drinkable stuff than by any other cool-headed or "fact-based" reports on the reality of a thing that, let's be real, is much more fantastic than legal (taste-based dissent largely welcome here). So in the spirit of spirits, let's get some story.

Origin myth #1 - The Claw
Those things that you never win but you saw some kid win once and ever since always tell people when you're at the arcade or the Chuck E. Cheese, "Hey, those things are a scam, but I saw some little girl one time pull out a huge stuffed panda by the tag, no shit." Those claw things, the grabber game. SO it happened that one Charles Herbert Davidson Lesley Shaw once felt like you did. Right around the time that these games started making waves in mini-malls across the country, Chucky Shaw was lucky enough the be at the ribbon cutting on 7th and Harrison and watch the first quarter drop, and then the claw, and then the soft and empty return. The groan and the laughter of the crowd. Oh, technology, it will dupe us! And he watched again, and again, and again, tall then pudgy then middle-aged kid after kid step up to big box of toys and lose money fast, all the while developing a strategy that would marry the girth of stuff and the swing and sway of delayed-closing claw in a gift and a prize. In hope for humanity! Groans and laughter turned to muffled anguish among those still left in the quickly dissipating crowd. But Chucky, he stayed. Until the very end, he stayed! The last of the night, mall locking up at 9 bells, Chucky hung on determined.
He stepped to the box. He deposited his quarter. He scanned the field of stuffed friends and one very bright stuffed football. He gripped the joystick, his thumb hovering over that little red button on its top. Prepared, attuned, empathetic, heroic, he sprung! Before he knew it the button was depressed and the red lighted numbers counted down from 30. As if in a flash all of the animals had seemed to move from where he had locked them in his mind. Where was the exposed tag? Where the protruding horse leg? And the football, where had it gone, so well-shaped for the contour of the three-pronged claw? Down to 20, to 15, he raced the claw around the track so it swung in a jangly circle. Down to 10, he needed to regain claw stability! He could see his quarter disappearing forever into what he knew to be an uncountable pile of coins. Down to 5! Plunge! So he plunged, depressed the red button so the claw would swoop somewhere around the middle. What happened next he could not have guessed.
In a strange iteration of fat chance, the claw dove into the mess of stuffed toys at a speed and depth as yet unseen during the day. A glitch in the system, most likely, but good old Chucky liked to call it the fortunes of wisdom and patience. The claw now hidden somewhere at the bottom of the red box, the machine whizzed and groaned as if stuck, almost broken, as the young Chuck stepped back to watch this giant new machine, backlit by the yellow of sporadic mini-mall off-hours floodlights, struggle and a place that was only just today introduced to the claw language of new arcade technology. The groan turned to a whir, then to a whiz, then silence! Chucky, he said to himself, you've killed the monster.
Approaching resignation, he made the motion as if to turn and leave. Another quarter lost, just as stupid as all those other saps. But the patience and the wisdom, as he learned to tell it many years later, stuck in him somehow and won out. He held firm for at least a minute. The box, conceding, glowed a fantastic silver glow. Angels began to sing. The claw shivered, and rose! dislodging a bear here, a dolphin there, with a prize of apparently tremendously weight. At the top of it, pulling out of the mound of stuffs, a burgundy glass bottle shimmered in the box. Clank, clunk, clunk. Out it came, into the prize slot. Chucky, thrilled, awed, reached in his hand a pulled out a bottle of wine. From around the back side of the claw game box, a mechanical golden arm reached toward the prize and popped its cork. Chucky, the victor, the liberator of at least one lost quarter, took a swig. Then another swig. Oh youth, how it flees.
Long story short, Mr and Mrs Chuck Shaw Sr. sued both mini-mall and arcade company for a shit ton of money after finding their kid next day drunk and asleep at the base of claw game. News reports from around the country showed this game malfunction to have been rather a genius game-technician epidemic prank. Chucky, endowed well with his parents winnings, lived the rest of his life in wealth, in the joy of that short and not-well-remembered evening, and in the steadfast hope that if someone's gonna pay a quarter, the best possible prize is wine. With inflation and all that, quarter jumped up to two bucks, Chucky bought some wine and sold it cheap. For the people, of course.

The Contributor Must Contribute

It's been a while. I admit it. I have not been on the top of my game. When we started this blog, I thought I would post something every day. However, it quickly came to my attention that my blog posts were the shortest of all the great authors submitting their thoughts to our blog. In an effort to fight my laconic ways, I thought it would be prudent to wait a few days to built an arsenal of thoughts and anecdotes to share with all of y'all. Alas, it has not been fruitful. While plenty has happened in my life, my drinking habits prevent me from remembering it accurately enough to share appropriately. So while our blog endures these times of great doubt, let me just say that this strategy has been quickly abandoned. Thoughts will be echoed as soon as they occur, no matter the length. As the great Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said, "Be sincere, be brief, be seated." Words to live one's life by.

Things That Could Only Happen To Me-Titanic etc.

The Titanic is on ABC Family...RIGHT NOW.  I'm sure the loyal readers of 37% Blog knew that though. I'm sure you've all set a google alert for every time the movie is on cable.  I'm sure this is true because, honestly, can anyone think of a better way of spending four and a half hours than watching a slow burn towards Jack's demise?  I guess thats kind of a bad way of thinking about the movie, but thats their own damn fault.

Titanic, to this day, amazes me. It won best picture despite having some of the worst lines of dialogue imaginable ("take me...to the stars, Jack").  They chose a female lead who was great, but lets be honest, wasn't the least bit attractive.  This is fairly ordinary, but the most famous scene in the movie (don't deny it) is pictured below:

BUT the thing that amazes me the most about it is the mere fact that it has stayed relevant.  Here are the facts: its a historical period piece that is a slow three hours, and heavily features Billy Zane.  In today's world of shrunken attention spans, I can't see anyone actually sitting down and watching this movie, let alone the type of little nerdnogs who watch ABC Family.  The thing takes four and half hours for god's sake.  Let me explain how long four and a half hours is.

When the movie came on tonight I was leaving the friendly confines to head home for a few day's break.  Me and my upright bass were going to Penn Station to hop an Amtrak train for Kingston.  When I got out of the apartment the torrents of rain forced to hail a cab.  This took forever because I had to wait for a an open SUV cab (almost as rare as Mewtwo).  Once inside cab I quickly realized I had one of those hateful cab drivers that claimed the traffic was bad but really just wanted to spike the fare by taking THE STUPIDEST MOST INDIRECT ROUTE POSSIBLE. This, mixed with actual bad traffic meant that it was 40 minutes before I got to Penn.  Once inside, I tried to get my ticket at one of the do-it-yourself kiosks.  When the machine couldn't read my credit card, I got in line for an antiquated, human-manned ticket counter.  After ten minutes in line, the human at the counter told me that I would have to buy a second ticket to take my bass on the train.  Needless to say, this made me think in capital letters.  But the human was a nice one and told me to speak with a manager because, "maybe he could do something for you".  I went over to the customer service desk actually thinking that this manager might help me out.  What I forgot was that I was about to speak to a useless middle manager who works for a useless, price gouging company who, despite being a government organization, clearly hates freedom. He told me that I had to buy another ticket because there was nowhere to put my bass besides the seat next to me.  I said, "sir, there is no way an upright bass would fit  in a train seat. The ceiling is far too low".  This was his argument: "if a heavy set man can fit in a seat, a bass can".  The condescending way he said this to me caused me to not only think in capital letters, but speak in them.  "THATS BECAUSE THEY CAN BEND THEIR LEGS.  BASSES DON'T HAVE LEGS" I said to him.  Long story short, I got nowhere with him and I bitterly set off for the subway.  After two subway rides which took about 20 minutes each, I arrived at 3rd ave. and 14th st. Now here's why Titanic is so freaking long (Ha! You thought this run on paragraph was also completely aimless!):  When I finally got back up the stairs of 155 2nd ave, after my enraging, rain soaked misadventure, the freaking boat hadn't even begun to sink yet.  Jack and Kate hadn't even fooled around in the old-timey car! Even as I continue this never ending paragraph, the movie isn't over.  How is a kid of 11 supposed to pay any attention to this movie.  The thing came on like three VHS tapes when it first came out.  What the....how?

Anyway, the movie is long and I hate Amtrak. Oh, and Billy Zane once wore this: