Vigo

Funaki?

I'm sure this'll surprise anyone who knows where I stand on topics like this, but I'm strongly in favour of two-tier healthcare. If it eliminates wait times and generally makes things run more smoothly and efficiently, what's the harm? I don't know how easy it would be to implement, but I think, if nothing else, the extra money would also encourage more doctors to begin practising, or more to enter med school. There's a staggering number of immigrants with PhD's that can't practise for whatever reason - how many more doctors will we need in 15 or 20 years when the baby boomers start getting sick? I think the fear is that the doctors will be more inclined to go after the "private tier" since they'll be able to make more cash that way. Also, the most likely result of going this route is that the best doctors will be "private tier" while the crappier or less experienced doctors will be there for the rest of the general public, so in essence the poor will be getting screwed over as usual.

That one's in reference to what would happen if Getzlaf, Perry and Penner all had an offer sheet for Burke to match at the same time, a big kick in the junk to Penner for sure. Burke is saying some funny shit, but he comes off like a big pussy with his whining. Burke is a tool. Maybe if he didn't blow his cap space on Bertuzzi and Schneider he'd have no problem keeping Penner. He should have had his RFA locked up before he went dipping into the UFA pool.

Don't bother seeing Captivity. It sucks. One of those movies, which leaves you shaking your head at its stupidity while you're watching it. It's not even laughingly bad, like for example "The Wicker Man" with Nicolas Cage is. It's just shit.

He just signed with the Oilers. Terms of the deal not disclosed yet but it is rumoured to be 5 years, 27 million. I didn't really want this guy but anything is an upgrade at this point. Yay! We get another version of Marc-Andre Bergeron for this upcoming season. I wonder how long it'll take Oiler fans to turn on him after they see him make some bonehead plays.

Alligators.

At least it's not Bobby Holik making $9 million or Martin Lapointe making $5 million. With the cap, a guy like Crosby or Vanek can make big bucks but it'll mean someone else will have to take less.

I think Pitkanen is still going to arbitration as I don't see Lowe pulling this move with Pitkanen not being signed. He's going to arbitration. Not allowed. And we don't have the capspace anymore. We spent it on 5 good players. We have our own 5 million dollar worthy RFA to worry about, he needs to get signed before he gets a huge arbitration award. We could have signed RFA's, but making enemies is not the way to go. I'd like to see the other GM's stick it to Lowe worse by not having talks with him about anything. How's he going to get players then? No person with a soul is going to come to Edmonton through free agency, and IF the GM's called bullshit on Lowe for his move today, nobody would deal with him either. What Lowe did today was an action of a desperate man. He would have been giving up 4 top 10 picks for mediocrity rather than sucktitude. I WISH Buffalo hadn't matched. I don't see this happening because a GM's job is to make his team better and if Lowe comes along and offers you a deal that will improve your team I can bet you my left nut that the other GM will accept it.

Do they have the necessary cap space?

No, he stuck it to Buffalo. This move sends a message to the big spending teams like Philadelphia and the Rangers for example. Those teams can sign those UFA to large long term contracts but because of that they'll leave their younger star players in a vulnerable position. The Rangers, for example, can spend a $100 million on salary and front load the contracts all they want but if the salary cap doesn't rise dramatically they'll be in trouble because then teams like Edmonton, who have trouble attracting UFA can come in and poach their young talent knowing that the Rangers won't be able to match the salary due to the cap. Basically, it'll make GM's think twice about giving out a large contract to a 50-60 point guy when they know that they still have to sign their RFA.

The Flyers have Biron and I'm sure they're willing to give him a chance to be the number one guy so from that standpoint I can't see them picking up a goalie.

And Philadelphia is pretty much getting Lupul for the same reasons. Basically, they're just swapping two guys with potential in hopes that a change of scenery will do them good.

Yes, and there were 11 teams below the $35m minimum salary figure pre-lockout. Every team was never supposed to be able to spend to the cap. They put it in place so that the discrepancy between the rich teams and poor teams in terms of salary would be a lot smaller. I mean before the lockout some of the richer teams were at $70+ million in terms of salary compared to some teams who were only spending around $30 million, that's a $40 million gap. With the current cap and the salary floor the gap is only around $15 million.

Which is good. I don't like the pointless talk, just get with the picks.

Here's what's moving between the two teams. To Florida Vokoun To Nashville 2008 1st Round Pick 2007 2nd Round Pick Conditional 2nd Round Pick in either 2007 or 2008 It looks like the Preds are preparing for their sale to Balsillie with all these moves.

It looks like the campaign by the fans of Jericho have brought the show back from the dead. At least it looks like for at least 8 episodes. Jericho Saved?

Maybe she can be Paris Hilton's cell mate.

That would be terrible for them. Imagine all the travel, and being nearly completely cut off from their obvious natural rivals. I think having Detroit in the West is ludicrous as it is. Well, then say you leave them in the Eastern conference for the time being and try to balance the teams out whenever the NHL decides to expand to 32 teams, which probably isn't too far away. Giving an expansion team to say Kansas City gives you one team in the Western Conference and then say a team somewhere in Oregon or Winnipeg and you've got yourself a balanced league. The travel thing is not a big deal. The Western Conference teams travel plenty and if the NHL ever decided to go back to the schedule they had before the lockout then you'll have a little more balance in that department as well.

I don't care much for the Leafs so personally I would find that scenario hilarious. That does nothing to alleviate the very real problem of the Maple Leafs rarely coming to Chicago and Detroit. I think the Hawks went like three and a half years between hosting the Leafs. That's supposed to be a rivalry, don't you think? Original Six teams in the Great Lakes region? What a concept. Well, that's a scheduling issue, which probably will be fixed once the league gets past this three year cycle that they wanted with the schedule. The issue will be brought up after this upcoming season and hopefully enough teams vote to change the schedule.

You have to factor in the fact that folks can have more than one favorite team that they can support especially when it's so damn hard to get tickets to Leafs games. Ideally, if a team does move to Southern Ontario then you keep them in their current division that way you have a "Toronto" team in each conference. In addition, I'm betting that the Canadian fans who support Detroit and Buffalo probably do so cause they're Leaf haters and so probably have little choice when it comes to watching a live hockey game thus they adopt those teams since they're the closest. Another factor to consider is where the team is in terms of skill when it's moved. People like winners, so if the Predators are a playoff team like they are now when they get moved you'll naturally have an easier time attracting fans. But really though I don't care where the team moves as long as it's to a Canadian city.

Winnipeg is the only Canadian option that makes sense. They have a decent population base and an arena already in place (even if it is small by NHL standards). I'm wondering if he's even looked into the feasibility of a team in KW, because I just can't see it as an NHL market. It's about half as big as the smallest market in the league (which I believe is either Calgary or Edmonton), and it's mostly known as a university town, so there aren't necessarily a lot of deep-pocketed folks. It'd be like giving a franchise to Syracuse. I went to school in Waterloo, and it's one of the last cities I could ever see with a major league sports team. You don't look at an individual cities population you look at the metro area. For example, Edmonton's city population is 730,372 but when you're talking about the metro area, which includes places like Sherwood Park, Beaumont, etc. it balloons up to 1,034,945. Same thing with Kitchener-Waterloo, the city's individual population matters very little it's the area where said city is that's important and Kitchener is located in Canada's most populated area. The fact that they have a metro population of 451,235 means very little. Winnipeg has a metro population of 694,668 but it's pretty much in the middle of nowhere. The Leafs and Senators have very little say about a team moving to Kitchener/Waterloo as it's outside there 80km territorial rights so if Balsillie does move he won't have to pay either team any cash due to stepping into their territorial area. Sure, the Leafs might whine and cry about it but ultimately they can't outright block the move. This is pretty much a foregone conclusion. The Predators will be moved as Balsillie didn't buy a team to so he can lose millions of dollars every season like Leipold has been. The move to Nashville was a bad idea. Deciding where a team goes just because they have an arena already there shouldn't be the main focus of deciding where you're going to move a hockey team. The Predators are a perfect example of this. So will Kansas City get a hockey team? Probably, but it will be an expansion team and not the Predators.

I've seen the British version and it kicks ass. Ramsay's the type of guy you either like or hate there's not really any middle ground when it comes to him. And yeah, being on American TV it's going to be tough for the show as all the bleeps and what not will get really annoying after awhile. My believe with network TV has always been that if you can't show something the way it was meant to be seen i.e. movies on network TV, then don't show it at all. A great example of this is any rated-R comedy being shown on a station like TBS. It just kills the humor of the movie because it's all pretty much edited to shit.

You also have to factor in that stupid two or three month long break that the show took. Those breaks suck for already established shows but doing it to a show that's in its first season and trying to establish an audience is just plain stupid. I can bet you my left nut that the "Kid Nation" show will be canceled after two or three episodes and whatever else CBS decides to put in that slot will be fucked into oblivion by American Idol.

Here's a YouTube video with her featuring some more chokeslams. Chokeslams of Doom

30 Rock ain't bad but it's not a show I watch regularly like My Name Is Earl or The Office. This is clearly a move to help 30 Rock in the ratings department as I'm sure NBC is banking on the fact that people will stick around after they watch My Name Is Earl and will wait the extra half hour to watch The Office.