1 p.m.

• Guess the bird's biological clock was ticking.

Pippa, a 17-year-old Cockatoo, has spent two weeks trying to hatch a bowl of chocolate Easter eggs intended for visitors to an English wildlife centre, the owner said on Wednesday.

 

"It's very comical. She's not usually maternal so it's come as a bit of a surprise," said Geoff Grewcock, of the Nuneaton and Warwickshire Wildlife Sanctuary in central England.

 

"We had a lot of creme eggs so we put them in a dish on a table for people to take.

 

"When we got Pippa out, she went straight to them and began nesting on them," he said.

 

"She's so protective over them and if anyone goes near them she'll attack," Grewcock added.

 

"They're going to melt if we don't take them away. We're taking them away gradually so she should be OK.

 

"I think she thinks they should be hatching now and has starting pecking at them.

12:30 p.m.

• So last night I was watching the NHL playoffs on Versus and I heard that the NHL reseeds its playoff tree every round, making my playoff predictions from a few days ago a moot point. What kind of hippie shit is this? I have no idea when the NHL started doing this. They could have done this from the get-go back when they went from divisional opponents for the first two rounds to conference seedings; I've said that I don't pay much attention to this kind of stuff. Since I'm on the subject, I don't like the automatic reseeding. Having just learned the NHL does this, it appers the NBA doesn't. Good. There's just something lame about reshuffling playoff brackets after each round. Let the chips fall where they may. If a conference's top seed has to play a fourth-seeded team while the second-seeded team gets to play a six-seeded team, then so be it.

Nevertheless, here are my reseeded playoff picks. My first-round picks and comments are unchanged from my first entry.

(1) Buffalo v. (8) NY Islanders – that one guy from Edmonton got traded over to New York for a playoff push and cried. Buffalo’s good. Buffalo in 5.

(2) New Jersey v. (7) Tampa Bay – Martin Brodeur is still doing his thing. It’s nice to have a good goalie this time of year. Devils in 5.

(3) Atlanta v. (6) NY Rangers – I have no clue who is on Atlanta’s team. The Rangers have Jagr. Rangers in 6.

(4) Ottawa v. (5) Shittsburgh – I’ve heard some sports people say this could be the best first-round series of the lot. Uh, yay. Ottawa never seems to win in the postseason. The Penguins haven’t been to the postseason for a few years. I dunno. Senators in 7.

(1) Detroit v. (8) Calgary – I’m sure Detroit’s pissed at losing in the first round last year. Detroit in 5.

(2) Anaheim v. (7) Minnesota – I have nothing. Ducks in 6.

(3) Vancouver v. (6) Dallas – Mike Modano is still playing? Sweet. Stars in 6.

(4) Nashville v. (5) San Jose – The Sharks got Joe Thornton last season from the Bruins. Wait a second, Nashville traded for Petr Forsberg this year. Nashville in 7.

Second Round:

(1) Buffalo beats (6) Rangers in 5.

(4) Ottawa beats (2) Jersey in 6.

(1) Detroit beats (6) Dallas in 5.

(4) Nashville beats (2) Anaheim in 7.

Third Round.

(1) Buffalo beats (4) Ottawa in 5.

(4) Nashville beats (1) Detroit in 7.

Stanley Cup.

(1) Buffalo beats (4) Nashville in 6.

Wow, my playoff tree has changed quite a bit. Do I think this will happen? Probably not. But if it does, I can come back to this and go, "OMG do you see how lame reseeding is?"

9:15 a.m.

• This joke is too easy, even for me.

A small California radio station says it would run a "Best of Imus" series next week in defiance of the firing of radio host Don Imus after he made a sexist and racist joke on his nationally syndicated show.

• The better half went to her niece’s talent show last night. Why didn’t I go? Figure it out. Actually, I did ponder tagging along, but then I heard tickets had to be reserved in advance. On top of that, there was a fight at the in-laws’ house before the show when the brother-in-law told the mother-in-law she needs to throw out the meth-addict niece-in-law. And people wonder why I stay home.

Anyway, from what I heard of this “talent show,” I was first encouraged by the state of my local government school. Apparently, there was these two girls who went up and sang a song about JESUS CHRIST~! Good for the school for allowing this to happen. I’m just curious to know if any faggot parents are going to complain about this egregious violation of church/state separation, because you know that if one student out of 100+ sings about Jesus, that means the school will be forcing the children to read hymns the next day. While I give a thumbs up for letting two kids sing about religion, I then heard what else happened at this government school.

No talent act was to be more than two minutes. TWO MINUTES? And just what would have happened if some kid went over their allotted time – a big cane moves across the stage and yanks him or her off by the neck? They also gave trophies for all the participants at the end of the show. Now I’m not going to go “OMG everybody’s a winner/no competition will make our kids spoiled” over this, because the eternal optimist in me is hoping these were just fancy certificates of participation or something. However, trophies?

My old man likes to tell a story of my one little-league team (well, actually it was the league before little-league, where the coaches pitched to the kids, but whatever) where in the end-of-season tournament we played like a well-oiled machine against this other team and crushed them. We were destined for great things, like winning the division title, or whatever the hell it was. Then our team had to sit and watch as the opponents we just whipped got to receive their near-last-place trophies. According to my old man, everyone on my team went, “What? They got trophies?” and we tanked the next game, getting our “You don’t suck as bad as the first-round losers” trophies to display in our rooms. From there, my baseball career went rapidly downhill, and my old man would never have dreams of being parent to a major-league ballplayer. Gone were his dreams of sitting at Three Rivers Stadium/PNC Park yelling from the bleachers at me because I was putting too much weight on my left foot when I swung at off-speed pitches.