On vacation ...

It was either this or a family picture of the Griswolds.

As a note to readers (someone asked!), it has been quiet 'round here this week due to a long-needed vacation to St. John's, N.L. It seemed as good a destination as any for a couple Ontarians.

Of course, it would have been incomplete without a side trip to Dildo up yar on Trinity Bay. There was a robust ethical debate between myself and friend Samantha Craggs over whether to pose for this picture. Captain Dildo never existed and the people in Dildo totally put this there to get gutter-minded Ontario folks to stop and take goofy pictures. They are asking for it.

It has been a fun week. Highlights have included taking a whale-watching tour (highly recommended; only got seasick twice), looking out over the Atlantic Ocean from the top of Signal Hill and finding out that it's a local ordinance in St. John's for all cover bands to know Folsom Prison Blues. Seriously, three bands in as many bars have covered that tune, which might be some sign of a disgruntled population.

To readers, thanks for hanging in during the process of figuring out what to do with this blog. While I's be back? Indeed I be, as they say here.

Acharya called it

Wikipedia defines an acharya as "an important religious teacher (guru) who teaches by his own example."

Well, hockey is religion. Our man Neil Acharya — who's not merely a hockey play-by-play man from Newfoundland just like Hockey Night in Canada's Bob Cole but was also born in Carbonear in 1978, just like Detroit's Dan Cleary — intuited the Red Wings' dominant Stanley Cup run way back in January:

"... with a vastly improved division this season, the Wings have chalked up all their losses to divisional foes. With the Wings having faced harder divisional tests throughout this regular season, they could be better equipped to tough it out in this season's quest for the Stanley Cup." — The Score Forecaster, Jan. 10, 2008

Now you know the rest of the story ...

(For anyone who's wondering, NBC reported a 3.8 national rating for Game 5 on Monday, the triple-overtime contest -- twice as much as Game 5 of last season's final, but lower than the same game from the little-remember Red Wings-Hurricanes final in 2002.

A post on the playoffs finally being over is up at Epic Carnival. You will probably hate it, but there were things in there that had to be said.)