Hockey Sadness

The Washington Capitals are out. The New York Rangers are out. The Montréal Canadiens are out. The Vancouver Canucks did not even make it in. All of my favourite teams are being systematically eliminated in this year's Stanley Cup race. The only team left that I really care about is the Philadelphia Flyers. So far, they have done very well. The eliminated both Washington and Montréal, but I suspect that they are not going to be so lucky when they face off against Sidney Crosby and the streaking Pittsburgh Penguins later this week. The Flyers have gotten as far as they have by being a scrappy team, and by riding the outstanding goaltending of Martin Biron. However, they have also been lucky. They barely beat the Capitals in teh first round, and the Capitals only barely made the playoffs themselves. They also got lucky when they faced a Montréal team that played well below their capability in the quarter-finals. They will not be so luck against Pittsburgh. So, while I will be rooting for the Flyers, my prediction is that the Penguins will end up representing the East in the Stanley Cup finals.

The Capitals are in Trouble

Well, what can I say about the Caps now? They barely staved off elimination on Saturday, and have generally played like a team that is looking forward to the golf course. The Philadelphia Flyers are a tough team, and were vastly underrated going into the playoffs, but the Capitals should have been able to make it a close series. But what have they done? They folded. They barely won the first game, and did not deserve to. Then they lost the next three, and deserved to. Now, they have managed to force a sixth game, but I am not optimistic that they can win it. The Flyers are hungry, and they are playing that way. The Capitals do not seem to have that hunger. I hope that I am wrong. Please Caps! Prove me wrong!

The Caps Did It!

I got back from a week in Los Angeles on Friday evening. I was there for the High Energy Astrophysics Division meeting, a meeting of the US high-energy astronomy community, of which I have found myself a part for the past five years. All in all it was a good week, and I learned a lot there. Some of what I learned was scientific, and some of it was political. High-energy astronomers can be a self-absorbed group at times. This is not meant to be a knock at the people I work with, but a comment on how easy it is to forget that there is a bigger world out there than what we see on a day-to-day basis. And part of that bigger world has blossomed into the Washington Capitals making their first playoff run in several years!

Last night, while I was enjoying the best meatloaf that I have ever eaten, the Capitals defeated the Florida Panthers to secure first place in the NHL's southeast division. Now, being first in the NHL's southeast division is akin to being the smartest member of the US Republican party, but it does guarantee a berth in the playoffs. The NHL's odd seeding structure guarantees that a division winner gets one of the top three seeds in each conference. So, Washington won the third seed when, if they had had to compete based on points alone, they would have barely slunk into the eighth seed. But I am not complaining. The Caps are in the playoffs, and I spent all of today doing happy dances. I get to grow a playoff beard this year!

So, now that the Caps are in the playoffs, what are their chances? How far are they going to go? To be honest, I do not expect them to make it out of the first round. The Caps have a lot going for them. They are a young team with a lot of talent; they are on a roll, having won 11 of their last 12 games; and they are going to be playing the Philadelphia Flyers in the first round. However, many of those 11 victories where tough slogs where the Capitals barely won.  They have often had to overcome poor playing early in the game.  They will not have the luxury of doing this in the playoffs.  The Caps have split the season series against the Flyers, and the Flyers have been fighting hard to make it into the playoffs themselves. Despite their recent problems, though, the boys from Philly have a fundamentally strong team that has the ability to defeat the Capitals. I suspect that they will. The season series looked like this.

Nov 2	Phi 3	at	Was 2	loss
Nov 23	Was 4	at	Phi 3	OT win
Jan 13	Phi 6	at	Was 4	loss
Feb 6	Was 4	at	Phi 3	win

There you have it. The Caps lost two games in regulation time, won one in regulation, and won one in overtime. That is not a record that inspires confidence. I hope that the Caps can pull it off. It would do wonders for the team to make it into the quarter-finals, and having Ovechkin playing for more than one round would be a publicity coup for the NHL. In a perfect world the Penguins and the Capitals will play in one of the rounds so that the world can see several games of Crosby vs Ovechkin. That would settle once and for all who is the better player. My money is on our favourite Russian.

So, bring on the first round!

Go Caps!

It's time for me to do another happy dance!

Arthur C. Clarke: 1917-2008

Rest in peace.

Thanks for the inspiration.

We Need a New Squid Book

There has not been much squid news over the past week or two, so I do not have much to write about tonight. I was down at my local library last night and I was a bit disappointed at the lack of material on cephalopods. Every book but one was aimed at children. The only book for grown-ups was Richard Ellis's The Search for the Giant Squid. This is not a bad book, but I read it long ago, and it is a bit dated. There have been some big breakthroughs in giant squid over the past couple of years. In particular, live giant squid have been filmed, Dr Steve O'Shea tried to rear larval giant squid in captivity, the existence of the colossal squid has been confirmed, and much has been learned about the behaviour of architeuthis dux. There is still a lot that we do not know, but I think that enough has happened recently that a new book on our favourite cephalopods is warranted. I wish that I had the time to write it.

Three Weeks and Three Points to Go

The NHL season has three weeks to go, and the Capitals are still in the playoff race. Of course, they are barely in it, but there is still a chance that Ovechkin and Kozig and the boys can make it into the postseason. And once they get there anything can happen. The Caps won their game against Boston this afternoon by the score of 2 to 1 in the shootout. They are not play all that well, but they managed to pull off a win and get two points. Combined with the Fliers' disastrous performance against the Penguins earlier in the day the Caps are not only two points behind Philadelphia. That means that they only need to make up three points to secure the eight and final playoff spot in the East.

Can they do it? To be honest, I doubt it. The Fliers are in the middle of self-destructing, but they do have a fundamentally good team, so if they just rediscover that they can pull through. The Capitals are playing well, but they are still a weak team in some ways. They tend to choke, and they do not have any experience in desperate attempts to make it into the playoffs. I hope that I am wrong, but I am worried. So, it is going to be an exciting ride for the next three weeks. With luck, I will be growing a playoff beard this year.

Ode to an Octopus

Octopus, octopus, I love you
Yes I do
I love you

Well, that was rather silly wasn't it.

A Short, Meaningless Note on the Capitals

The Capitals have 16 games left, and they are three points out of first place in the anemic Southeast division. They have the talent and the ability to win the division, but I worry that they do not want it badly enough.

Yummy Yummy Sandwich

I found an idea for a sandwich in a promotional calendar from my local grocery store. I eat a lot of sandwiches since they are about the only thing that I know how to make to put in my lunch bag for work, so I tend to get bored with my menu. When I saw this idea I decided to try it out. The first thing that I did was bake a loaf of bread. It was generic white bread except that I used half white flour and half semolina flour to insert a bit of variety into my life. Once the bread was made I made the sandwich by adding these ingredients onto a slice of the bread.

• guacamole, spread reasonably generously
• a couple of slices of smoked turkey
• a layer of spinach leaves
• a slice of havarti cheese
• a sprinkling of fresh chopped dill weed, not too much
• sliced cucumbers

That's it. I have been eating this for lunch all week, but now the turkey has run out so I need to think of something else for tomorrow's lunch.

Thoughts on the Florida Primary

John McCain won the Florida Republican primary yesterday. For what its worth he seems to be the best of a bad lot, so I suppose that I am rooting for him to be the Republican presidential candidate this year. Not that I am rooting for the Republicans to win in November, but of all the Republican candidates he seems to be the sanest and has the most realistic world-view. His mindless support for the US war in Iraq is troubling, but let’s face it, there is no way that the US can pull its troops out of Iraq without that country, and perhaps that entire region, descending into chaos, so we really have no choice but to stay and help clean up the mess that the botched occupation made. John McCain has the military experience to realize that this will not be an easy job, which is better than some of the other Republican hopefuls who seem to have a bit of a Pollyanna view of the occupation. If we are going to stay in Iraq we may as well be realistic about it. We need to take on advisory and security roles and not try to impose a political or social system on the country. We also need to recognize that the country may not survive and prepare for that possibility. What we need to avoid is getting drawn into protracted combat operations where one faction in the country is attacking one of the other factions. We also need to recognize that we are there to keep the country, and region, stable. We are not there to promote democracy or export freedom, or fight terrorism. John McCain is the only Republican who appears to understand this.

On the Democratic side Florida was supposed to be a non-event. Florida lost its Democratic delegates because it held its primary earlier than the Democratic Party wanted, so all of the Democratic candidates had pledged not to campaign there. For the most part the candidates honoured that. The problem was that Hillary Clinton ran a ghost campaign that essentially said “I am not campaigning, but if I were then this is what I would be saying”. For the most part I think that Clinton would make a good president, and I would be happy to support her if she becomes the Democratic candidate, but things like this make me worry that she is not an honest person. She won in Florida with 50% of the vote. Obama got 33%, and the rest split the vote between them. What really worries me is that Clinton and Obama will battle this out to the bitter end, and that the battle will get more and more bitter as it goes on. This will benefit no-one except the Republicans. The increasingly nasty fighting between the two camps will just weaken the Democratic Party, disillusion their supporters, and provide ammunition for the the right when the presidential campaign starts. Please, Democrats, stop! Both of these people will make good presidents. Let the primary system do its job and stop slinging mud at each other. A Democratic victory in November is not a sure thing. In fact, it is quite possible that the Democrats will collapse on the campaign trail and the Republicans will win again.