Spinach, Basil, and Strawberry Salad

The local farmers' market started up last month and I have been getting a fair amount of my food there. Here is a salad that I tried the other day, using only locally-grown produce. In general I am not a big fan of the localvore movement. Back in the days that people had no choice but to buy food that was grown within a day's travel of where they lived people used to die of deficiency diseases. Today, thanks in part to long-distance transport, deficiency diseases are something that most of use never even think about, let alone have to worry about. But I digress. Here is the salad.

• Rinse and dry about 2 pounds of spinach. Tear into large bite-size pieces.
• Add a handful lemon basil leaves and a few purple basil leaves.
• Toss the leaves with about 1/3 cup vinaigrette.
• Mix in 1/3 cup fresh strawberry, cut in pieces.

Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus

It just does not get much better than this.

More NHL 2009 Playoff Predictions

My predictions for the quarter-finals were about as wrong as they could have been. My only success was in predicting that the Chicago Blackhawks would defeat the Vancouver Canucks. In the three other series I was completely wrong. At least it took seven games to decide each of those three series, so I can claim that I was not completely out to lunch. However, that was then and this is now. So, here are my predictions for the two semi-final series.

• Pittsburgh vs Carolina. There is no question where my loyalties lie here. I want Pittsburgh to win this. They have a strong team. They have just come out of a series with one of the best teams in the league. They want to make up for losing to Detroit in the finals last year. They have the potential to win the Stanley Cup this year. However, Carolina has consistently surprised everyone by winning games. They are this year's Cinderella team, and it never pays to bet against Cinderella teams. They make it to the finals more often than they should based on their records during the regular season. However, Carolina is just not that good a team. They have played well in the playoffs, and deserve to be where they are, but I have trouble seeing them get past the Penguins. So, I will bravely predict that Pittsburgh will win this series in a long, hard-fought series of battles.
• Detroit vs Chicago. This is another Cinderella team playing a heavily-favoured team. Chicago is a team on the rise, and they will be a force to be reckoned with in a year or two, but Detroit is just too strong. Chicago is about to face reality and will probably be out fairly quickly. I predict that Detroit will have little trouble winning this

NHL Quarter Finals Predictions

Here are my predictions for the second round of the 2009 NHL playoffs.

• Boston vs Carolina -- Boston should not have too much trouble here. My only concern is that Boston may have become a bit rusty while they waited for Carolina to wear away at the Devils. However, Boston is a fundamentally strong team, while Caroline is a fundamentally average team that has been on a hot steak recently. I do not expect Carolina's streak to continue.
• Washington vs Pittsburgh -- This is going to be a great series, and it could go either way. I am rooting for the Caps, so I am going to predict that they will win, but it will be a long, hard slog.
• Detroit vs Anaheim -- Detroit is the heavy favourite here, but the Ducks will surprise everyone and knock them out.
• Vancouver vs Chicago -- Vancouver has a history of falling apart when it matters. I am a little surprised that they have even made it this far, so I will be even more surprised if they get past Chicago. I predict that the Black Hawks will eventually win this series.

2009 NHL Playoff Predictions

Here are my predictions for the first round of the 2009 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

• Boston vs Montréal -- Boston, but it will be a nail biter, and I will be rooting for Montréal.
• Washington vs New York Rangers -- The Caps will win this one without too much difficulty.
• New Jersey vs Carolina -- Carolina may pull off a surprise, but I predict that the Devils will ultimately win it. In a perfect world both teams would lose.
• Philadelphia vs Pittsburgh -- Pittsburgh will discover that they actually have talent and pull off a win.

• San Jose vs Anaheim -- This will be the big upset series. San Jose will lose, and probably lose convincingly.
• Detroit vs Columbus -- Don't let the regular season fool you, Detroit will walk all over Columbus, much to my disappointment.
• Vancouver vs St Louis -- Vancouver never fails to pull defeat from the jaws of victory. I do not expect this year to be any different. St Louis will win.
• Calgary at Chicago -- Chicago is a team on the rise, but I do not think that this is the year that they rise out of the first round. Calgary will win.

So, Do yo agree with me? Let's see how well I do, and don't forget to visit my sponsors.

California Squidding

I found this article about jumbo squid this evening. California may be losing its human population, but it is gaining in its squid population. This will make me think twice about trying surfing when I am in Pasadena in June.

Go Caps

The Washington Capitals won their division yesterday, but they did it in a very unsatisfying way. They lost a game in an overtime shootout. The NHL awards one point to a team that loses a regular season game in overtime, so the Caps got one point. That unsatisfying point was enough to clinch the Southeast Division, which guarantees that the Caps will place at least third in the Eastern Conference. I would have liked to see them win the conference, but that is almost certainly impossible at this point. So, let's hope that they take the rest of this week to pull themselves together for a play-off run. I expect the Caps to make it to the quarter-finals, and perhaps even the semis, but I doubt that they will make it further than that. Their play has been off for the past few weeks, and they are going to be up against some stiff opposition. However, let's hope that I am wrong that that the Caps bring Lord Stanely's Cup to DC. Go Caps!

Octopus Escapes Aquarium

Octopuses are notorious for being able to escape from almost any tank. The ability of an octopus to escape almost anything is only matched by backslashes in a unix tc shell. All it takes is an opening the size of the octopus's beak (which is usually rather small) and the octopus will be able to squeeze through. This is because octopuses have no bones, and no internal shell. The only solid part of an octopus is its beak. Here is an amusing story of an octopus that decided that it had had enough of life in a New Zealand aquarium. This octopus escape story also briefly mentioned the recently discovery that octopuses use two of their arms as legs. The article implies that this is true of all octopuses, but my understanding is that this behaviour has only been observed in two species, and octopus experts are uncertain if this is a general behaviour, or just an adaption by some species.

Pepsi Giant Squid Ad

Pepsi has a new ad for Pepsi MAX, and it features a giant squid attacking a swimmer. It is nice to see giant squid being used in pop culture.

A Squidmas Carol

On the first day of Christmas, 
my true love sent to me 
A squid in a pear tree. 

On the second day of Christmas, 
my true love sent to me 
Two turtle squid, 
And a squid in a pear tree. 

On the third day of Christmas, 
my true love sent to me 
Three French squid, 
Two turtle squid, 
And a squid in a pear tree. 

On the fourth day of Christmas, 
my true love sent to me 
Four calling squid, 
Three French squid, 
Two turtle squid, 
And a squid in a pear tree. 

On the fifth day of Christmas, 
my true love sent to me 
Five golden squid, 
Four calling squid, 
Three French squid, 
Two turtle squid, 
And a squid in a pear tree. 

On the sixth day of Christmas, 
my true love sent to me 
Six squid a-laying, 
Five golden squid, 
Four calling squid, 
Three French squid, 
Two turtle squid, 
And a squid in a pear tree. 

On the seventh day of Christmas, 
my true love sent to me 
Seven squid a-swimming, 
Six squid a-laying, 
Five golden squid, 
Four calling squid, 
Three French squid, 
Two turtle squid, 
And a squid in a pear tree. 

On the eighth day of Christmas, 
my true love sent to me 
Eight squid a-milking, 
Seven squid a-swimming, 
Six squid a-laying, 
Five golden squid, 
Four calling squid, 
Three French squid, 
Two turtle squid, 
And a squid in a pear tree. 

On the ninth day of Christmas, 
my true love sent to me 
Nine squid dancing, 
Eight squid a-milking, 
Seven squid a-swimming, 
Six squid a-laying, 
Five golden squid, 
Four calling squid, 
Three French squid, 
Two turtle squid, 
And a squid in a pear tree. 

On the tenth day of Christmas, 
my true love sent to me 
Ten squid a-leaping, 
Nine squid dancing, 
Eight squid a-milking, 
Seven squid a-swimming, 
Six squid a-laying, 
Five golden squid, 
Four calling squids, 
Three French squid, 
Two turtle squid, 
And a squid in a pear tree. 

On the eleventh day of Christmas, 
my true love sent to me 
Eleven squid piping, 
Ten squid a-leaping, 
Nine quids dancing, 
Eight quids a-milking, 
Seven squid a-swimming, 
Six squid a-laying, 
Five golden squid, 
Four calling squid, 
Three French squid, 
Two turtle squid, 
And a squid in a pear tree. 

On the twelfth day of Christmas, 
my true love sent to me 
Twelve squid drumming, 
Eleven squid piping, 
Ten squid a-leaping, 
Nine squid dancing, 
Eight squid a-milking, 
Seven squid a-swimming, 
Six squid a-laying, 
Five golden squid, 
Four calling squid, 
Three French squid, 
Two turtle squid, 
And a squid in a pear tree!

The NHL Shoot Out

The Hockey News has a blog entry on the shoot out that nicely agrees with most of my thoughts on the NHL's shoot out. The shoot out was put in place after the Great Lock Out of 2005-2005. It was intended to be a way of ensuring that every game had a winner and a loser. There were two problems with this idea. The first was the assumption that the fans wanted a winner and a loser for every game. Many fans were quite happy to award a tie if the two teams both played well and deserved a tie. The second was the idea that shoot outs were a fair and exciting way of determining who won a close game. They are not fair. The odds of scoring in a one-on-goalie situation are about fifty-fifty. The goalie either guesses what the skater is going to do and stops the puck, or he does not. In many ways shoot outs are little more than a coin toss.

It is the exciting part that I want to type about today. The above-mentioned blog entry makes the point that fans love the shoot out. I hate to admit it, but that is true. And it is not just the NASCAR cross-over fans that love it, it is the life-long hockey fans who have have taken to it too. I realize that many fans still hate the shoot out. Some refuse to watch it. Others are waiting fot the day that Gary Bettman gets run over at a Zamboni crossing so that things can go back to the way that they were in the mythical glory days of hockey (which usually means when the speaker was ten years old). However, the reality is that the shoot out has proved to be popular amongst a wide swath of hockey fans. It is unlikely to go away, and people will miss it when it does. Even I have to admit that it is fun to watch.

I still dislike shoot outs. I would rather see regular season games that end in a tie after three periods be declared a tie. No five minute overtime. No shoot out. Play-off games should continue the way that the are with teams playing until someone scores the winning goal. However, if the shoot out does stay, I am not going to lose sleep over it.

My New Home

It has been a busy couple of months, so I have let this blog fall by the wayside since August. In the last two months Joan and I bought a house and moved into it. It is a fairly large house in a nice neighbourhood in Greenbelt. It takes about fifteen minutes to walk to the centre of town, and about fifteen minutes in the other direction to walk to the elementary school. There is a bus stop about five minutes away where I can catch a bus to work, or to the local subway station. All in all the location is great. Greenbelt is one of the few places left in the US where it is possible to carry out everyday activities (like shopping and getting to work) without a car. It is amazing what a sense of freedom not needing a car gives one. The car is in the driveway for when I do need it, but knowing that I can just walk down to the store to pick up some milk and cigarettes is a very nice feeling. It makes Greenbelt (at least the part of Greenbelt that I live in) actually feel like a town instead of just a storage shed for people like so many suburbs do.

The down side to owning a house is that there is no landlord to ring up whenever something breaks. For the most part that is not a big deal. Most of the minor things that go wrong in a house are fairly easy to fix, but when something major happens it is nice to be able to off-load the problem onto someone else. Our new house needs a bit of work, but for the most part it is in fairly good shape, and nothing needs doing quickly. This means that we can do the repairs and upgrading on our schedule, which will probably take years.

And now, I need to walk down to the centre of town, get a haricut and some groceries, and then walk home and rake up the leaves.

The Olympics on Tv

I have been watching the games of the 29^th Olympiad and I have been pleasantly surprised by NBC's coverage. The previous Olympic Games were almost unwatchable in the US. The tv coverage was awful. This time, however, the US networks seem to have gotten it right. I do wish that they would show more events where US athletes are not amongst the front-runners, but that is just US nationalism rearing its ugly head. Every nation showcases their own athletes, and the US is no different.

The 2008 Man-Booker Prize Longlist

The longlist for the 2008 Man-Booker Prize has been announced. The full list is given below.

Title	Author
The White Tiger	Aravind Adiga
Girl in a Blue Dress	Gaynor Arnold
The Secret Scripture	Sebastian Barry
From A to X	John Berger
The Lost Dog	Michelle de Kretser
Sea of Poppies	Amitav Ghosh
The Clothes on their Backs	Linda Grant
A Case of Exploding Mangoes	Mohammed Hanif
The Northern Clemency	Philip Hensher
Netherland	Joseph O'Neill
The Enchantress of Florence	Salman Rushdie
Child 44	Tom Rob Smith
A Fraction of the Whole	Steve Toltz

I hate to admit it, but I only recognize one entry in this year's long list, and that is Salman Rushdie's The Enchantress of Florence. The other authors and books are unknown to me. This is a bit embarrassing, but in my defense I have not had a lot of time to read over the past year, and my local library does not carry most of these titles. Not having a lot of time to read is not a good excuse. The reality is that when I have sat down to read books I have tended to read pulp rubbish like Sandworms of Dune (yes, I am a Dune fan) or non-fiction. In fact, most of my recent reading has been non-fiction. I certainly could have made more of an effort to keep up with the literary world. The other reason, the lack of these titles in my local library, is hard to overcome. I get most of my reading material from my town's public library. It is cheap, it supports public libraries, and I usually have a good selection of books to choose from. The fact that they only carry five of the thirteen Man-Booker nominees is disturbing, but given that the Man-Booker prize is for fiction by a Commonwealth author, not a US author, that is not too surprising.

So, my goal for the next month is to plough through as many of the five titles that are in my local library as I can in the next month. I expect to get through two or three by the time that the short list is released. The short list will be announced on 9 September and the winner will be announced on 14 October.

Video of a Giant Squid being Dissected

Here is an interesting video of scientists at Melbourne Museum in Australia dissecting a giant squid. This video is not for the squeamish, but if you do not mind seeing squishy internal organs flopping around, and various squid bodily fluids flowing, then it is a fascinating insight into how the anatomy of giant squid is studied. Unfortunately, I am a bit squeamish. I never liked the idea of dissecting things in high school, and for years I used to shoo flies out of the house instead of just swatting them (I have gotten over that now). Dissection was one of the things that kept me out of the biological sciences. It is partly responsible for me being an astronomer instead of a marine biologist. After seeing this video I do not regret my decision, even though it does mean that I will probably never get my name on a scientific paper about squid.

The Washington Capitals Need a New Logo

The Hockey News has decided to rank the logos of the thirty NHL teams. The team logo ranks reflect only the opinions of The Hockey News editors, but it is an interesting list. The first thing that caught my eye is that The Washington Capitals rank 22^nd in a league of thirty teams. The reason give is

"Love the uniform, love the secondary eagle logo, but we need more than words for the primary."

After getting over the disappointment of my favourite team being ranked in the bottom half of the league I realized that The Hockey News was right (as they so often are). The Capital's logo is boring. A hockey stick stuck in the middle of the name of the team does not stir feelings of pride. In fact, I barely notice it. The classic logos, such at Montréal's and Boston's are emblematic. They have come to signify not just the team, but hockey itself. Now asking that The Washington Capitals be a team that is synonymous with hockey is asking a lot. In fact, given that most people in the DC area care more about bowling and poker than they do about hockey, it is even a bit silly. Still, the Caps have Alexander Ovechkin, who is perhaps the most recognizable name in hockey today, and he has signed on with the Caps for the long haul. Any attempt to build a fan base around Ovechkin is going to involve turning the Caps into one of the NHL's signature teams. To do that the Caps need a better logo. Come on fans, put on your thinking caps and let's see some ideas. After all, there is not much else to do sportswise in August.

Detroit and Octopus Abuse

I am watching the Pittsburgh Penguins lose game six of the Stanley Cup Finals, and I am not happy about it. In general I do not care much for the Penguins. They have a silly name, and I do not consider Sidney Crosby to be the greatest thing to ever happen to hockey. He is a great player, and he is on track to become one of the game's superstars, but I am really tired of him being the face of hockey, and the saviour of the NHL. The NHL does not need a face, or a saviour. It needs to remember who its fans are and make sure that the games excite those fans. Hockey is not NASCAR. Hockey is not poker. Hockey is not the NBA. So stop trying to be. The fans of car racing, card games, and hardwood courts are not going to become fans of hockey. The sports are too different and appeal to very different demographics. The NHL needs to understand this. However, I doubt that that is going to happen while Gary Bettman is running the league.

Anyhow, enough about the state of the National Hockey League. What I really want to say is that I am feeling disappointed that Pittsburgh is probably going to lose to Detroit tonight, which will give Detroit the Stanley Cup. I really hate Detroit. This hatred dates back to when I was short and the Red Wings used to beat the Vancouver Canucks. In fact, in the 1970s, the Red Wings did not just defeat the Canucks, they humiliated them in almost every game that they played. Three decades have not healed those wounds. However, what really burns me up about Detroit is their blatant octopus abuse. It is a tradition in the motor city to toss an octopus onto the ice to celebrate goals, wins, and good fights. This is not acceptable. Octopuses are meant to be admired, either while diving, or at an aquarium. Octopuses are not meant to be sprawled across a sheet of ice. So, while I generally like the concept of traditions, this is one tradition that needs to end.

It's Time to Step Aside

Please Hilary Clinton, for the good of the country, step aside.

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!