Armchair Coach: State of the Roster

the last time i wrote about the Leafs was back at the Trade Deadline. a few things have changed since then: they met expectations by not making the playoffs by a rather narrow margin, thus ensuring that they would have a mediocre draft pick at the end of their mediocre season.

for those who are out of the loop, here is where things stand.
subtractions:

Andrew Raycroft - signed by Colorado Avalanche

Darcy Tucker - signed by Colorado Avalanche

Scott Clemmensen - signed by New Jersey Devils

Kyle Wellwood - signed by Vancouver Canucks

Andy Wozniewski - signed by St. Louis Blues

Simon Gamache - signed with SC Bern

Paul Maurice, Head Coach

still up for grabs:

Mats Sundin

Jay Harrison

John Pohl

miscellaneous Marlies

additions:

Ryan Hollweg - traded from New York Rangers

Jamal Mayers - traded from St. Louis Blues

Mikhail Grabovski - traded from Montreal Canadiens

Curtis Joseph - free agent

Jeff Finger - free agent

Niklas Hagman - free agent

Luke Schenn - 5th overall pick

Ron Wilson, Head Coach - signed from San Jose

i said a few months ago that the Leafs would need to start thinking ahead by rebuilding from a small core of players already in the system. thankfully, my list remains intact. i said that we would need to build from the back end a corps of defensemen who are committed to actually playing defense. the Leafs traded up for the 5th overall pick to land Luke "the Human Eraser" Schenn, the last of the top-tier defensemen in this year's draft, and signed Jeff Finger on the opening day of Free Agency -- a defenseman purported to be 'stay-at-home' and 'tough to play against'. i said we needed forwards who could finish plays, and we've kept Jason Blake and will be adding the services of Nikolai Kulemin and seeing more of Jiri Tlusty.

will things be better this year? probably worse, but sadly not bad enough to hit 30th in the league for a good shot at landing John Tavares at the next draft. at the very least, our core people will develop into stronger, more dependable players. Ron Wilson is a coach that is reknown for rebuilding successes, instilling responsible, two-way play and getting the most out of young players. it's a small step in the right direction.

next task:

Ascertain Sundin's future

Shed heavy contracts: McCabe primarily

Land a permanent General Manager

i'm a waiter

that is to say i am the type of person that waits. i try to arrive at events or appointments or classes 30 minutes early so that i can get a lay of the land and gather my thoughts. it's like swimming after eating. you'd be doing yourself a favour by waiting the half hour.

i hate being rushed. there are situations in life that you should get pumped up for, like watching your wife-to-be walk down the aisle, or lunging out to catch an egg from falling. getting to class should not be one of those situations.

waiting is not about killing time (take that, clock!). waiting is about preparing yourself, your attitude and your mindset before said event, appointment or class. with the right attitude, you'll be equipped to handle whatever comes your way. say the event goes bust because something catches on fire and there is panic at the disco. because you were there half an hour early, you had time to scope out all the fire exits, alarms and extinguishers, thus saving the day by directing everyone to the exits and defeating the blaze with your arrayment of extinguishers.

as illustrated by the above example, waiting is not a passive activity (oxymoron!). waiting implies future decision, or action. it is the calm before the storm, the shoring of armaments before battle, the inhalation before the exhalation. waiting is doing something.

it's been a long wait; many months of nothing. but now it is done. Avatar has wrapped up it's third and final season in epic fashion. it was well worth the wait.

Politics: ur doin it rite

Sean Tevis for State Representative of Kansas

Can you resist the allure of references to:

bulletin board-speak

xkcd

Napoleon Dynamite

indexed

Rickrolling

Battlestar Galactica

300

all in one?

Pygmy Orca (Orcinus pygmaeus)

Not to be confused with the Pygmy Killer Whale (Feresa attenuata), the Pygmy Orca is a docile, hand-sized cetacean generally found in sub-tropical waters. Its name stems from the uncanny resemblance to the full-sized Orca (Orcinus orca), known to the Inuits as the Sea Wolf, and more colloquially as the Killer Whale.

Pygmy Orcas, like their larger cousins, congregate in pods of up to 32 for safety. Their communal nature and higher than average intelligence is also evident in their feeding patterns. They work together to herd and swarms of krill into a waiting subset of the pod. Pygmy Orcas are the only toothed whales to actively predate on krill, as it is the only food that will fit into their mouths. Like their larger cousins, Pygmy Orcas employ echolocation to navigate the seas and to find food. Each pod has a designated alpha couple who coordinate feeding and migratory paths. Pods of Pygmy Orcas are often seen coasting in the slipstream of full-sized whales, allowing them to traverse vast distances on minimal energy.

Pygmy Orcas are very familial and mate for life. A couple can produce up to 3 babies per litter, but are only fertile every 3 years. The pups take about 14 months to reach full maturity and size. The adults take turns tending to the pod's nursery, while others hunt. The average lifespan of a Pygmy Orca is about 15 years.

As they are mammals, Pygmy Orcas can live out of the water for brief periods of time, but their skin is delicate in the air and will dry and crack if taken out of the water for too long. They are not large enough to have large stores of blubber, so they live in warmer waters than their namesakes.

Porcelain Philosophy 11: The Space Between

Mental exercise: pick your favourite song, or piece, and play it in your head. Now strip out all the pauses and breaks and rests in the music and play it again. How does that sound? Now take all the notes and tones and sounds and play them all at once. Correct, that sounds terrifically cacophonous. It's like eating a whole steak all in one go; it does not taste any good and will cause you to retch. The music happens in the space between the notes. Enjoyment of a steak happens within each bite. The pause is where the tension and drama happens. It is all about the anticipation.

In recent days I have been doing some research into web design principles. One oft-overlooked component of good web layouts is white space (or negative space). White space is any part of the layout that does not have any content. In a book, this would generally be the margins, where your fingers can grasp the pages. In a newspaper, there is white space between columns to give them separation and consolidation. On a web page, white space can break the content into manageable chunks for absorption, as most content on web pages is simply scanned, rather than pored over. White space helps focus the reader's attention on the content that matters.

Good web page designs will employ the Law of Closure, a specific manifestation of Gestalt perception. People are naturally inclined to mentally 'fill-in-the-blanks' when presented with incomplete images because the mind strives for structure, regularity and logic. Your brain anticipates what ought to be there in the image, and your perception is informed thusly. The image on the left is not of a morning star, but merely some black near-triangles with one curved side. The notion that white space makes things simple for the viewer and, at the same time, makes him think unknowingly is deliciously ironic.

In our own times of rest and respite are usually when life is simplified; they are also the times when we tend to think the most, focusing on what is truly important. In the second book of his Elegies, Sextus Propertius, coined the well known phrase,

Semper in absentes felicior aestus amantes,

Absence makes the heart grow fonder. While this phrase has been overused to the point of becoming cheese, the sentiment remains true. One of the signs of love is the anxiety and preoccupation of the mind that comes with separation and distance. Not having something (or someone) will make you want it (or him/her) even more.

This goes beyond emotional attachments and personal interaction; this is a philosophy. If you are living your life constantly on the go, meeting the bottom lines, pushing ahead and striving to achieve, you are not living and you sure as cheesecake are not growing. Your bank account may be swelling, or your trophy shelf caving, but when time runs out, you will have nothing. Take the time to enjoy, to cherish, and to share. If something wonderful comes your way, you have every right to pause and savour it. As the venerable late George Carlin (and Hitch) so aptly put it,

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take,
but by the moments that take our breath away.