betterREDthandead

What's so great about knowing? What would we have to argue about then?

And five games into the season. And five games after that. And five games after that. And so on. Amen to that, Heaton.....people are always going "zomg babs iz moron" and getting all upset about the lines. How can Hudler be on the third line???? How is Franzen a first liner???? Defensive pairings are idiotic!!!! Listen up, people, and this isn't hard: These things change all the friggin' time. Everyone always acts like they're set in stone. They'll shuffle periodically as people get hurt, certain combos go cold and others get hot, guys get called up or sent down, trades happen....and so on.

So if "almost" only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades (and not Rose Bowls) then why does the close win play a factor?

I don't have any formal diet rules either, other than Rule #1 - "Stop eating so damn much." I've long ago accepted that I love junk food way too much to try and force it out of my diet entirely, and I like eating too much to force myself to only eat "healthy" stuff. So I still drink Dr Pepper and eat ice cream and all that stuff - just not nearly as much as I used to. This way I don't ever feel guilty about having dessert or picking the fried chicken instead of the pork, and I don't have to ever drive past a Taco Bell and hate myself for giving it up. I just eat smaller portions, make far fewer trips to the pop machines, and actually do work out instead of making excuses not to. It's a slower way to lose weight, but I'm happier about it because I'm not forcing the South Beach diet down my throat or being a calorie and carb Nazi.

Yes. Or.... Yes.

Latest update.... 195.9 - May 11 194.5 - May 23 190.7 - June 8 186.2 - June 25 182.2 - July 2 183.3 - July 16 177.1 - August 25 - GOAL REACHED!!! 175.8 - September 4 So far this deployment I've lost over 20 pounds, about 2.5 inches off the waist, and 4% body fat (from 27% to 23%). I haven't weighed 175 since about the beginning of my fourth year of college....in other words, I've lost almost four years of extra weight in four months. I've done it all entirely without supplements, too. I feel like if I started the supplements and then stopped them later on, the weight would just jump right on back. Now that I've reached the goal I set out for, I think my next one will be 165 by Christmas.

I'll wait and see how they do against Oregon before I pass any judgment. How the team fares in the rest of the season no longer has anything to do with talent. If they lose to Oregon or just squeak by, it'll be a very long season indeed. Forget the Outback.....Alamo? Motor City? If they come out like gangbusters, all fired up and ready to put the upset behind them, and wreck Oregon, then maybe we can hit reset on the season and be a Big Ten contender after all.

Nothing good ever comes out of playing I-AA teams. Nothing. And might I add, I have had a queasy feeling all summer about all this hype Michigan's been getting. No defense. And to make matters worse, my 'Hoos got destroyed by Wyoming. 23-3. So much for college football. I'm gonna go curl up in a corner and wait for basketball and hockey season to start. Somehow I don't really expect the Lions to help much. Respectable season? What respectable season? We lost to Appalachian State. All respect is gone from this season. There's only one thing that can return respectability to this season, and we have to wait til the very end for it.

I'll tell ya what's slightly frustrating. The season starts September 1 (well, UM and UVA do, anyway) and here it is September 1 and the season hasn't started, because I'm still just slightly west of the date line. Dammit, I don't wanna wait til Sunday morning to find out the game scores.

If Leftwich doesn't mind backing up, he'd be a hell of a lot better than O'Sullivan. Pity that Orlovsky got hurt and couldn't play those exhibition games.

Matt's right, it's a bear.....but yes, it's actually a very good logo, and I hate that they encircled it with that wordmark. Just as bad as Vancouver's. And I also agree that there's not enough green in the league and Minnesota should have stayed that way.

Shall we ban him for raining on the chest-thumping parade? Sorry if he doesn't think getting in a bar fight is the end-all and be-all of awesomeness. Sorry if expressing a different opinion than yours ruins the thread for you. I guess it'll have to stay ruined.

If Grigorenko is the second coming of Slava Kozlov, I'd be positively thrilled. He would indeed be just what this team needs; I think the Wings' biggest weakness right now is a lack of dependable second-tier scoring. If Grigorenko can fill that role, the Wings will be hard to stop. I really, really want to see him make the team right out of camp and skip Grand Rapids.

Plus it looks like nothing more than a blob in motion on TV. Bland and lazy says it all. I don't hate the orca logo at all - it's representative of the Pacific Northwest, and it's certainly shaped more like a C than the rink and stick.

That was my thought as well. Ericsson is the guy I'm rooting for to break into the top 7. But, I think that roster is kind of sloppy and not exactly a true reflection of how it actually looks (after all, they assigned 13 to Mark Hartigan and 33 to Adam Berkhoel), so I'm not reading anything into it. They could have been half-brothers with the same dad

Teal, thank god, though it's probably only a matter of time.

There's a better composite logo on that blog that has the tournament of logos. Basically the same, only the orca is wearing the V-collar. It definitely gets my vote.

I think the Canucks name is fine.....but what they ought to do is just invent a stylized VC logo like you might see on a baseball cap and stick with it - forever. Because having five completely different looks in a thirty year history is stupid. I like how you can go to a Wings game and the fans pretty much have a uniform look. At the Canucks game I went to it was an awful hodgepodge of colors.

Where do you get the idea that the Wings got rid of McGrath? He's right there on the roster with #47.

Commence hyperventilation, cold sweats, and the shakes on the part of Capitals management.

Am I the only one who absolutely HATES the rink-and-stick? Old school does not always equal awesome. (Usually, yes. Not in this case.) Rink-and-stick is STUPID. And so is the VANCOUVER wording across the front. I say, bring back the flying skate or totally reinvent the logo.

New update for me! It's been a while since I haven't actually weighed myself for over a month. 195.9 - May 11 194.5 - May 23 190.7 - June 8 186.2 - June 25 182.2 - July 2 183.3 - July 16 177.1 - August 25 - GOAL REACHED!!! Yup....my goal for this deployment was to lose one pound a week, or a total of 19, which takes me from 196 to 177. (Disclaimer - today I slept right through breakfast and only had a granola bar from the vending machine, and I weighed myself before lunch, which turned out to be chicken parm so I'm probably right back where I started ) Don't care though.....the number on the scale said 177. Besides, I was still wearing my coveralls, which always add a pound or so. With just under four weeks to go until I get back home, I can probably drop another three or four pounds and get down to the low 170's for my "official" weigh-in (on the same bathroom scale that measured 196 when I left.)

Other than a couple fairly insignificant points, so far I see nothing here that stands as a truly legit, factual criticism of ESPN. Lot of opinions (ESPN hates hockey! Biased!) but nothing on which to base those claims. Has anyone at all considered that ESPN doesn't do much with hockey because FRICKING NOBODY WATCHES IT? Does anyone remember the ratings for the Finals? When the NHL decides to put its games on at 12 noon on Tuesdays in order to fill the Scrabble, poker, and pool timeblocks - or allow its games to be showed on tape delay - then I suspect ESPN will be happy to accommodate the NHL. Until then, all the complaints that "ESPN will show X and Y but not hockey" are off base. I will worry when trick billiards hits prime time.....and then, I suspect, hockey will not be the only one with a problem.

I have yet to weigh in on this. But frankly, it's stupid, the whole thing. Don't get me wrong here: Michael Vick, and his idiot younger brother Marcus, are punks, thugs, and morons, and frankly both are probably on the tracks to jail for one reason or another no matter what. If it wasn't dogfighting, it probably would have been something else. But seriously. It's dogfighting. It's not murder, rape, robbery, assault, or even drunk driving. What a stupid thing to have an uproar over.

That logo ruins it. But at least we won't have to see those stupid wavy-stripe jerseys any more.