Armchair Coach: Free Agency 2009

Every July 1st, free agency begins for the NHL, allowing teams to upgrade talent, or offload bad contracts. This season, the Leafs made many changes before and during the season, most notably in their front office. They finally landed a big time General Manager whose penchant for big moves was the talk of the town for several weeks even before he was even hired.

The NHL Draft and beginning of free agency are Brian Burke's biggest opportunities to start making his mark on a team that has lacked identity, competitiveness and skill for a very long time. During his inauguration speech last November, Burke promised that "[the Leafs will] require, as a team, proper levels of pugnacity, testosterone, truculence and belligerence."


Burke promised to make a run at securing the number one pick at the draft this year, but other general managers were wary of Burke's draft-day dealings. He has orchestrated some of the biggest signings on th draft floor in modern hockey, securing the first overall pick to land Chris Pronger for Hartford and making a complicated set of swaps to land the top 2 and 3 picks to snag Daniel and Henrik Sedin. Needless to say, the Leaf draft was more subdued and no large deals were made.

Today's first day of free agency showed that Burke was serious about his promise.

Additions:
Colton Orr: 6'3" 222 lbs | RW
Garnet Exelby: 6'1" 215 lbs | D
Mike Komisarek: 6'4" 245 lbs | D

They're big, mean and hit hard.

July 6, 2009:
Burke continues to stock up on Defensemen, signing Francois Beauchemin to a 3 year $10 Million deal. Beauchemin is coming off an injury-plagued off-season with Brian Burke's former team, the Anaheim Mighty Ducks. For those keeping track at home, the Leafs' current defense looks like this:
Tomas Kaberle, Ian White, Luke Schenn, Jeff Finger, Mike Van Ryn, Garnet Exelby, Mike Komisarek, Francois Beauchemin

Marlie call-ups: Jonas Frogren, Anton Stralman, Jay Harrison, Jaime Sifers, Phil Oreskovic

It is an impressive stack of defensive presence that will hopefully quell the number of goals against this upcoming season, and maybe boost Vesa Toskala's confidence and statistics (so we can trade him for greater value at the deadline). The Leafs gave up 293 goals in 2008-09, an average of nearly 4 goals per game.

That being said, there should be no delusions of grandeur about this upcoming season. The Leafs are still going to be hard to watch. We will have trouble scoring goals (unless Patrick Lalime is the opposing goaltender)and we will rack up at least 17 penalty minutes a night. We will not make the playoffs by any stretch of the imagination. But we will be hard to play against. Anyone moving into the slot for a shot will be punished. Our younger players will get every opportunity to play and learn on the job.

July 7, 2009:
The news just keeps on rolling. Highly coveted Swedish netminder, Jonas "The Monster" Gustavsson, has signed a one-year entry-level deal with the Maple Leafs. Gustavsson is widely regarded as "the best goalie not playing in the NHL" and was between the pipes for the Swedish national team. He will play backup to Toskala, but has a good shot at taking over the number 1 spot if Toskala puts up numbers like last season's, where he played through hip and groin injuries.

Buffy Summers vs. Edward Cullen

Opera 10 Beta 1

Dang, it's fast.
I will be reviewing this upgrade after about a week or two. Ongoing notes after the jump.


Design

• New UI Skin, being worked on by the venerable Jon Hicks, better known as the designer of the Firefox/Thunderbird brand.
• The standard skin is pleasant, and not garish. There is a bit of a Leopard vs. Vista feel when comparing the two.
• In return for all the functionality cues Chrome takes from Opera, 10.0 buttons resemble Chrome's.
• Mild design oversights that should be ironed out in the weeks to come. The address bar has a Jay Leno (2-3 extra pixels along the bottom edge, forming a "chin")
• Visual Tabs: pull down the Tab Bar expander to show live previews of open tabs. Can also be activated by double-clicking the pull tab (which I prefer), or turn it off entirely. OMNIWeb and Windows 7 inspired?
• There seems to be a pixel shaved off the right edge of my scroll bars
• An updated snapshot build of the Beta rectifies many of the issues above. They've been stricken from the list.

Function

• Hot diggity it is fast compared to 9.64. I don't care much for benchmarks, but something under the hood is whipping through page rendering.
• Benchmarks show beta 10.0 is slower than Chrome 2.0 and Firefox 3.5 beta 4 in synthetic tests. Chrome, Firefox and Safari are definitely the front-runners in terms of rendering/scripting speed. Browsing speed, however, is more than just benchmark performance. Good to see so much competition though!
• Configurable Speed Dial: up to 25 Speed Dials available now, going from 2x2 to 5x5 configurations, with wide-screen options (4x3, 5x4). Choose your own background.
• The one function I missed the most when I switched from Firefox to Opera back in 2007, was in-line spell-checking. Opera 10 has finally added it to its extensive repertoire.
• Opera Unite beta is rolled into the latest snapshot build of the Beta. It allows for some direct P2P sharing, and treating your computer like a file share with select people, with zero configuration. Accessible through browsers other than Opera. More info.

"It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison"

Most of my 3 readers will not enjoy this.

I like animals. They're all really amazing in the way they interact with one another, what they can do and how they're built to do it well.

Today, I came across a creature so unique in the niche that it fills, and so bizarre, that I just had to share it. Honestly, it's so weird I've put it on my list of questions to ask God.

It's also really gross, so you'll have to see what I mean after the jump.

This is Cymothoa exigua displayed in a cut-away of the jaws of a Spotted Rose Snapper. It is not being eaten. On the contrary, cymothoa exigua is the one doing the eating.

It is a parasite about 3-4 cm long when fully grown. They live in the ocean waters off the coast of California. They infiltrate the buccal cavity of Spotted Rose Snappers by way of the gills, or mouth, and latch onto the base of the fish's tongue. Their first three sets of claws are used to puncture and extract blood from the tongue, nourishing the parasite. After some time, the tongue atrophies due to the lack of blood and falls away, leaving behind a stub. Cymothoa exigua then latches onto the tongue-stub and replaces the fish's tongue, both in location and function. It continues its existence feeding on blood, or the mucous lining from the mouth. The common name for cymothoa exigua is the tongue louse.

The more pragmatic among us can see how this is a pretty sweet deal for the tongue louse. The human equivalent is like living the rest of your life in a pink minivan, with food in front of your face all day, and a constant flow of water washing away whatever waste you produce. You're sheltered from the elements, hidden from natural predators (except for the ones that eat pink minivans) and you get to see the world every other second. Chances are, your friends have found other pink minivans to shack up in and you guys can travel together.

The Plan: Execution

Remember last October, when I gave a fairly detailed write-up of my plan to upgrade my computer? A great deal of it turned out to be an accurate assessment, so I am really glad I waited for this latest iteration of MacBook Pros.

Back in the heyday of PowerPC Mac notebooks, there were two distinct model lines: PowerBooks and iBooks. The PowerBooks, predecessor to the MacBook Pro, were metal and awesome and came in three sizes: 12", 15" and 17". The iBooks, granddaddy of the white MacBooks, were plastic-chic, oddly adorable and came in 14" and 12" versions.

As of this Monday, the MacBook lineup returned to its roots and separated the Pro/non-Pro lineup with the same visual distinction: plastic vs. metal. The MacBook now only refers to the white plastic notebook. The Pros come in three sizes: 13", 15" and 17". The MacBook Air still exists, making all other notebook computers feel fat and unpretty. On top of that, Apple did what I never thought it would do -- cut prices.

Back in October, my decision between MacBook Pro 15" and MacBook 13" hinged on a few things: screen quality, affordability, backlit keyboard and battery life. Today's MacBook Pro 13" answers all those requirements while costing less than the base model MacBook of late 2008. It comes with an improved (Pro-level) screen, standard backlit keyboard, improved battery and SD CARD READER (finally). On top of that, it still qualifies for the Back to School steal deal.

It's going to happen. I'm just waiting for reviews to confirm screen quality improvements and then I'm off.