Yeh, it’s cold here in Edmonton. Some would say unbearably cold. But if it was really “unbearable”, wouldn’t everyone leave?

Some like to compare the city to the ice planet of Hoth when it gets like this. Fair enough, so I did a little digging. Turns out the average nighttime low on Hoth was -60C, which Edmonton’s never reached. You’d have to go into the Arctic circle to register that kind of temperature. However, their daytime high is pegged at -32C. That’s certainly reached a number of times most winters. In fact, at lunchtime here in Edmonton we’re still hovering at the -30C mark, with the mercury encapsulated in a one degree range since 11pm last night. So yeh, the days can definitely be compared to Hoth.

Now, to be fair, we all know that on any planet there are ranges of temperatures, so there’s probably not ONE high and one low temperature for Hoth. Then again, based on my basic knowledge of astronomy, how they describe its solar system would also leave one to think it would be a hell of a lot colder there than is indicated by those temperatures too.

Be that as it may, I was also reading up on another location much closer to us than Hoth (well, and a place that actually exists too) – over in Russia, a village called Oymakon. They hit a low of -90 in February 1933 (Yes, NINETY, that’s not a typo). It IS the coldest permanently inhabited place on Earth. There the only school closes only if temperatures drop below -61; and residents leave their cars running ALL DAY. For those of you that don’t live in winter climates, the very idea of plugging cars in like we have to when it gets to these temperatures probably just seems bizarre, but just imagine having to leave your vehicle running all the time?

The Edmonton Oilers lost again last night. They’re now the fifth-worst team in the league this year, within a point of falling into the bottom four. Should make for a nice lottery pick again.

My family shared season tickets during the team’s Stanley Cup run. I don’t know if I was ever at a game when they won a Cup, but I certainly saw my share of games in the Finals; and certainly walked Jasper Avenue after their victories. And I don’t know about you, but I’m a little more than fed up with this organization. Since the glory days – more precisely, over the last SEVENTEEN seasons – since the conclusion of the mid-1990s expansion (when Anaheim, Florida, Ottawa and San Jose all began play), they rank 23^rd out of 26 teams. Only Florida, Tampa Bay, and the New York Islanders (worst of the worst) have fewer wins over that time.

Too long a period? Since 2000-01, when the last teams (Columbus and Minnesota) joined the league to bring the total number of teams up to thirty, the Oilers rank 26^th – only Columbus, Winnipeg-Atlanta, Florida, and of course the New York Islanders are worse.

Still too long? Over the last five years, the Edmonton Oilers are dead last. Thirtieth. Worst. Of every damned team in the league.

I think it’s time to accept the fact that this is a horrible, exasperating franchise. One of the worst in the NHL. In fact, it’s only because it’s in Canada that it continues to persevere – if it wasn’t in hockey-mad Edmonton, the franchise would have long since floundered and had to be moved (or at least be in limbo like the Phoenix Coyotes, or poised to be sold at any moment).

“Nobody wants to play in Edmonton”, whines management (which is echoed by the kowtowing mainstream media). Which is complete bullshit of course, nobody complained in the 1980’s and early 1990’s when the team was actually winning games and playoff series (hell, making the playoffs would be an anomaly nowadays). “Nobody wants to play for this franchise” would be a better sentiment. And who could blame them? If precipice-poised Blackberry offered you a job, would you take it – or look for something better? You think people working for Chrysler weren’t completely demoralized when they were getting their ass kicked by GM, Ford, Toyota, Nissan, and pretty much every other car manufacturer in the world?

 “Our drafting wasn’t very good”. Who the hell’s fault is that? The GM and President of Hockey Operations make the call on top drafts, and should be held accountable above all else. If nothing else, they’re responsible for putting the people in place to do the scouting and recruiting.

“We can’t compete for free agents”. Ha, this one makes me laugh more than anything else. Remember that year-long lockout that was supposed to fix this. In the six seasons before the lockout, the Oilers ranked 13^th out of 27 teams – nice and mediocre. It would make the playoffs at least. In the six seasons since the lockout ended, the Oilers rank 26^th amongst the 27 teams that have been around that long – only Florida is worse.

 “Wait a couple years, look at all the potential”. We’ve heard this one a lot. Including this year as the season has fallen off a cliff into an abysmal canyon from which there seems no escape. Look at the roster, my friends. In goal, we have a 39-year-old (Khabibulin) who won’t be around more than few  more years. And Devan Dubnyk. Is he a capable starter? I think so, but he’s certainly not the second coming.

The defense is particularly weak, the worst piece of this entire puzzle. There’s nobody on the current roster, or in the system, that holds any hope of being a #1 or #2 defenseman down the road.

The forwards, the best of the lot for the team, have some pluses. But I’m not sure there’s a lot more that we can expect. Nugent-Hopkins (I refuse to call him “Nuge”) is having a point-a-game-season. A stellar opening – but with the current cast surrounding him, is there more of an upside than that? I doubt it. The same could be said for Eberle.

Hall shows flashes of brilliance, but is shaping up to be a player that’s frequently on injured reserve. I’m repulsed at the treatment Hemsky has gotten from the local media and the team itself (there’s that whole “franchise” issue again), but he’s certainly not moving towards being an ‘all-star’ like we heard earlier in his career. Speaking of Hemsky and how he’s being treated by the team – you think hearing that makes players from other teams want to sign as a free agent? Hell. No. Never.

And what about the team either forcing players back too early from injuries, or at the very least being complicit in allowing players back into the lineup before they’re ready, risking that player’s career and their value to the Oilers? During a season where there’s no hope of even making the playoffs (like there’s any other kind).

Let’s get back to the forwards – the other top ones are Smyth and Horcoff – 35 and 33 years old respectively. Smyth’s having a good year, I’m really happy to have him back, he’s a tough, gritty, emotional leader, we could stand to have a lot more of those. But both he and Horcoff are on the downslope of their careers.

Beyond that you have a hodge-podge of was-potential, never-had-potential, and maybe-yes-maybe-no forwards. Sam Gagner is the best of the lot of them this year, but is averaging under half a point per game. Eric Belanger is a superb defensive forward and a great faceoff man, perfect as a third-line center on a checking line – but wait, who else would you put on a checking line on this team? Seems to me they’re missing that piece. But, you know, they’re missing a LOT of pieces.

There are a bunch of forwards who aren’t even on pace to crack fifteen points (well, maybe fifteen but certainly not twenty). Lennart Petrell, Anton Lander (good god why is he still in the lineup), Magnus Paajarvi (same question). Darcy Hordichuk and Ben Eager are essentially the same player (and have a total of five points between them, and only 71 penalty minutes but have played 80% of the games), and you signed both in the off-season? What a joke. Linus Omark wasn’t given much of a chance this year, but didn’t really earn it – and had zero points to show for his five games in the bigs anyways, while averaging over 14 minutes per game.

So, with all that said, now what? It’s probably about time to clean house from the very top. Not just the coach, what kind of chance did he have with the talent he was handed, never mind the missing pieces throughout the roster. Nope, the very top – that includes the President of Hockey Operations, General Manager, and everyone responsible for player development – because frankly, there really isn’t any. But yeh, you’d probably dump Renney too, so the new regime has a clean slate to start with. I mean, really now, this “team” has had almost two decades to do something, and what have they done? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Forget the regular season, when you can compare them to everyone else – they’ve missed the playoffs ten times in those seventeen seasons I was referring to earlier. Their only saving grace was one playoff year where EVERYTHING gelled at once, and they steamrolled right to the Cup final. The team was still playing way over their heads, they ranked EIGHTEENTH in the league that year in wins. Eighteenth.

Maybe this is all we should expect. Maybe, like the Leafs, the Oilers have a plan in place to not bother doing that well, because they’ll still sell out the building, and get more than enough fan support – why spending any more? I’d like to think there’s a tradition of winning with this organization, of wanting to do better – but that certainly hasn’t been evident over the past two decades. To any degree.

I’ve eaten cereal as a regular part of my morning routine since I was probably five or six years old. That’s a lot of cereal.

Growing up my mom wasn’t so concerned about health cereals, so indeed we regularly had many of the ‘big three’ Garner Andrews talked about earlier this week – Honeycomb, Froot Loops, and Frosted Flakes.

But we had many others that we loved too – Frankenberries (which sadly can’t be found anymore), Corn Pops (another popular one), and the veritable Cap’n Crunch. We played around with some others as well – Count Chocula for example – but always came back to those first six. We would rarely go shopping with my mom, so she’d just pick one from our favorites list, or else maybe she just bought whatever was on sale.

My habit continued after I left home, starting off my morning with one of those; and continued on through marriage with my beautiful wife Heather. Of course, at some point my wife started shaking her head and tried to move me towards healthier cereals. I’ve tried some, many of which I think taste like cardboard, or “a sod hut” like Garner. However, she’s now convinced me of mixing cereals, as Garner also suggested. So she gets me this one pretty healthy cereal all the time – I think it’s some type of corn puffs (since my wife is also trying to get us to refrain from so much gluten) – and then I add organic peanut butter gorilla munch (or something like that). They mix well, and it makes Heather happy, and it makes me happy. A beautiful compromise.

For those joining in from the SOC link, this is my ‘whatever strikes me’ blog; I also post daily on new music over at www.newmusicmichael.com blog.

Yesterday Edmontonians learned that the city council voted yes to proceed on a $450 million arena, of which the city is funding $305M; they need the province to fund $100M; and I guess that means Katz is funding only $45M of it (great deal for him, by the way, but not the point).

On the very same day, it was announced the federal government had pulled the plug on funding a new Royal Alberta Museum.

I’ll tell you, I’d rather have the museum. Well, I’d rather have both, but the funding model for the arena is completely screwed up.

Still not the point.

Everyone keeps on batting words around like “world class” to justify the arena. I can tell you, having just visited Chicago for a couple of days, that there’s one thing that’s undebatable. And that is this – Chicago is a “world class” city, and it has nothing to do with any hockey rink – it’s the museums, and the culture, and its architecture, and its people, that make it so. Hockey rink – no way in hell.

I’ll shut up now.

(photo: rutio/flickr Creative Commons)

Heather and I were walking back to our cars on the Sunday after folkfest, passing all sorts of walkups (that must be the walkup capital of the city), and I started thinking back to all my friends who lived in walkups at a specific time in my life – a few years after University, it seemed.

Jacquie and Joanne in a little place near Heritage Mall.

Gary near Calgary Trail (after our basement suite got too depressing for him). I can’t remember his roommate’s friend for the life of me.

Margaret and Anna near mid-town. That was the coolest one, and perfect for two single girls, with the main living space in the middle, and Anna at one end (with her own bathroom), and Margaret at the other (with her own bathroom).

Kim and Chevy near Southgate.

Here’s the thing about walkups. They have all the downside of apartment living, and very little upside. Sure, you’re closer to the ground, but that also means more street noise and crappy views. Elevators are rare, so moving stuff in and out will make your friends curse long and hard (because none of us could afford movers at that point in our life – that’s for sure). And while I’ve seen some pretty swanky apartment buildings, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a swanky walkup.

I avoided the walkup phase myself, starting out in a basement suite, then moving into this cute yellow house near University with my good friend Marilyn. That house was a lot of fun. It got a little weird from time to time, like the summer an acquaintance of ours rented out the garage to live in. Or our rule about not having sex on the couch, but it was okay when our friends did. Weird times. But good times.

 I don’t miss those days. Yeh, I’m lying.

For those of you that don’t know me, I’ve owned two cars in my life – a “purchased new” 1989 Nissan 240SX, which I drove until I bought a brand new 1998 Nissan Altima, which is seemingly about to move on to another life as well. And I’m feeling guilty as hell about it.

I remember writing a poem about my 240SX the day after I sold it, that’s how loyal I am to my vehicles. And it’s completely the opposite of my brother, who motors through 2-3 new vehicles every year. I don’t know how we ended up so different in that way. Growing up, my father typically had a company car, so it got cycled through every four or so years; my mom, when she had her own car, only had two as well – a yellow 1971 Cadillac Sedan deVille (that thing was *H*U*G*E*), and a Chrysler LeBaron. I don’t remember the year of the latter.

But the Altima’s starting to have some major issues – three times this year. The first time was when the steering went, requiring me to drive it to my favorite garage (Kingsgate Autopro) without power steering. If you’ve ever had to do that before, you’ll know how hard it is. $1,500.

The next time was a new clutch. $1,500. Then this week, it required a new alternator. Another $500. Realistically, if I would’ve sold it at the start of the year, I could’ve saved myself that $3,500 and used it towards another vehicle. And the body’s got major rust damage on both sides around the doors – perhaps some of that is because I didn’t wash it often enough – but surely it’s worse than it should be on a 13-year old car. Sigh.

At any rate, I’d like to thank my Altima for its 13 years of extraordinary service. I only wish you could have as good an end as the 240SX (which I sold to a stereo installation place, and was reportedly customized and decked out with a premium stereo). But it appears you’re more likely destined to the kidney foundation in exchange for a tax receipt. Regardless, you served me well and for that I thank you.

I’ve got some cash set aside, not a lot, but enough to move up about five years (2003-ish), and fewer kilometers, and maybe get 4-wheel drive. Maybe. I definitely love my anti-lock brakes too, those have saved me a few times, so I’d like to get ABS too. Maybe an Explorer? Or an Escape? Stay tuned.

This is what I like to see from an analyst, a very clear message as to whether a stock is showing positive or negative:

The stock has a negative, but improving technical profile. Intermediate trend is down. The stock trades below its 50 and 200 day moving averages. Strength relative to the S&P 500 Index has been negative since last October. On the other hand, the stock has bounced back during the past two weeks and is testing its 50 and 200 day moving averages and its short term momentum indicators are trending higher.

Thanks, dude.

( taken from Financial Post RSS feed, Don Vialoux )

( photo courtesy flickr Creative Commons / Julian Stallabrass )

Those of you that follow me on twitter, or know me in real life, will already know that I help my brother out by doing bookkeeping for his retail hobby chain, Hobby Alley. Those of you that don’t, well now you do.

Here’s the thing. It’s boring.

Obviously I don’t mind helping him out, he’s my brother, he’s a good guy, and it’s really helped me understand a lot of things that are just inherent in working for a large company, where almost every journal entry is created automatically.

But once you get to the stage we’re at now, with the nitpicky reconciling of bank accounts to credit card statements to currency brokers – GAWD! – it just seems to drag on and on and on, with no end in sight. And of course nothing ever reconciles the first time through.

It’s definitely re-affirmed that I much prefer bigger picture accounting – the analysis, the business modeling, the strategic planning, the business consulting – you know, the fun stuff.

The marks are finally being released this morning, everyone should’ve received the email already … if not, go to http://www.cma-canada.org/, click on the results links, and the id is your first initial and last name; password is your ID number. It took me a few tries, because it forces you to change your password, and I’m used to most of my systems asking for the password twice, whereas this one asked for your old password, then your new password only once … but I did get my mark, and I did almost as well as I was expecting (some might even say I kicked that exam’s ass – but that would be rude wouldn’t it).

So now we can finally relax for the summer, until things start up again in October! Yay!

courtesy cupcanal / flickr creative commons

I’ve always felt that a championship series that goes seven games is the penultimate in professional sports. Whether it be baseball, basketball, or of course my favorite, hockey, there truly is no other spectacle like it. An 82 game regular season (in the NHL), upwards of 21 games in the first three rounds, and another six games that haven’t decided anything, all to come down to sixty minutes.

Or even better, overtime. I’m not really a Boston fan per se, I like some of their fans, and I dislike the Canucks organization in general, so I’ve been watching this final as more of a “hockey” fan than anything – which makes it perfect that it’s going to a seventh game.

So for the first sixty minutes of the game, I’ll be cheering for a tie score – then in overtime, the longer it goes the better it gets. If we get to a third overtime series, you can bet your a** I’ll be one happy camper.

And while having the championship final go to a seventh game is not that uncommon, in the history of the NHL, ONLY TWO SERIES have ever gone to overtime in game seven. The first was in 1950, which remains the longest Stanley Cup Final game seven ever, with Pete Babando scoring for the Red Wigns at 8:31 of the second overtime.

The only other time it happened? Four years later, in 1954, it was the Wings again winning, this time at 4:29 of the first overtime on a goal by Tony Leswick.

Yep, there’s nothing like a game seven.