The series of events of the last few days are worth me blogging for the next 24 hours straight. Unfortunately, I must go to boredom, a.k.a. work in the morning at A.C. Nielsen. Please stay tuned for my rant tomorrow evening.

Thanks to my loyal following for keeping me in the top 40 while I was away for some 36 hours.

To come.

It's been over 24 hours since I last blogged. The withdrawal was horrifying. I even know that posting this will delete some of my recent posts that I wasn't able to save before my laptop bit the bullet.

But, I must blog.

Looks like a heroine in the making

"She continued firing at the Iraqis even after she sustained multiple gunshot wounds and watched several other soldiers in her unit die around her in fighting"

"[She] fought fiercely and shot several enemy soldiers ... firing her weapon until she ran out of ammunition. She was fighting to the death. She did not want to die"

more...

Looks like that's a big DEAD!

more...

Where is Baghdad?

The Americans still think they are close to Baghdad. The Iraqis disagree.

more

Read and believe

Microsoft ... bizarrely planning to run ads (alright, only in South Africa) to say that its technology is so secure that it makes "hackers" instinct.

Sundin injured :(

A decent game, not that it mattered.

I watched the first period at D&B, second on the car radio going home in the mess of the 407 and third period at home.

After the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, which killed six and injured 1,000, President Clinton promised that those responsible would be hunted down and punished.

After the 1995 bombing in Saudi Arabia, which killed five U.S. military personnel, Clinton promised that those responsible would be hunted down and punished.

After the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 and injured 200 U.S. military personnel, Clinton promised that those responsible would be hunted down and punished.

After the 1998 bombing of U.S. embassies in Africa, which killed 224 and injured 5,000, Clinton promised that those responsible would be hunted down and punished.

After the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, which killed 17 and injured 39 U.S. sailors, Clinton promised that those responsible would be hunted down and punished.

Maybe if Clinton had kept his promise, an estimated 3,000 people in New York and Washington, D.C. that are now dead would be alive today. And, now that Bush is taking action to bring these people to justice, we have opponents charging him with being a war monger.

AN INTERESTING QUESTION:

This question was raised on a Philly radio call-in show. Without casting stones, it is a legitimate question. There are two men, both extremely wealthy. One develops relatively cheap software and gives billions of dollars to charity. The other sponsors terrorism. That being the case, why was it that the Clinton Administration spent more money chasing down Bill Gates over the past eight years than Osama bin Laden?

THINK ABOUT IT!

It is a strange turn of events. Hillary gets $8 Million for her forthcoming memoir. Bill gets about $12 Million for his memoir yet to be written. This from two people who have spent the past 8 years being unable to recall anything about past events while under oath!

Sincerely,

Cmdr. Hamilton Mc Whorter

USN(ret

"Where exactly is Bagdad?" said one soldier to his commander.

The U.S. says its only miles away from Baghdad, but the Iraqi's say the coalition is still not near Baghdad. I've got a fealing that the U.S. and Iraq are talking about two different Baghdads.

Hello Bush, this is Frank, sorry to say, but we've been attacking the wrong Baghdad all this time.

Hello Bush, we just got to Baghdad and I found this note. "We moved. Come see us at our new location in China."

more

This is a great move by Microsoft. A one up on Sun's Java. But, I'm getting concerned with Microsoft these last few months.

Rant against Microsoft and usability

A long time ago, Microsoft's concern was making Windows easier to use. It has gotten easier, but we still have a long way to go. For instance, the AutoUpdate component for Windows is great and makes it possible for the average user to keep his computer upto snuff. But at what expense? A recent IE patch (I don't even know which one) has rendered it impossible for me to communicate with my router or Radio using IE. I had to install Netscape in order to continue blogging. By the way, blogging in IE is way easier than in Netscape. Another tic for Microsoft.

I'm in the top 1% when it comes to understanding home computing technology. What does the other 99% do when they encounter the same problems I do? It's no wonder I'm always being asked to fix this and that friend's computers. Home computers are still too complicated and unusable by the majority.

cool!

6m giant squid with hooks on the end of its tentacles. Science fiction becomes reality.

others

Jackman Berg Belak Hoglund Reichel

NetZero and Earthlink are using compression to similute faster than 56k dialup connections.

SlipStream's Web accelerator will prolong the life of dialup Internet access. Regardless dialup will eventually die as the price of broadband moves lower with greater adoption rates.

more...

Looks like Saddam is still alive. RATS ;(

more...

Just a note. I was iced in today. Have to spend the day at home.

Did some work on the kbcafe.com website. By the way, I nabbed rapidspiral.com and made the blue print available for purchase on the kbcafe.com site. And check out the logo. Tell me what you think.

Also called Dell back to do more work on my laptop, which still isn't working. Arggg!

Actually, I was wrong, it's still slow as molasses. I give up on Radio! It just doesn't work.

Great, I read the discussion forum and found that many others are having the same problem. Radio's suggestion is to use someone elses comment server. Now that's great service. Here's the translation.

"Thanks for the $40 sucker."

Looks like a cool C# community.

1-1 after the 1st period

Mat Stajan scored for the Leafs. Here's a great story, this guy was playing for the Bulls in the OHL last week. After his team was eliminated, he signed with the Leafs, played one game scored an assist with the baby Leafs, then off to the parent Leafs and he scores a goal in his first period.

2-1 Ottawa

Nice to see Housley is playing. By the way, HockeyDb.com is cool! I must also remember to point out who the refs are in a well called game. Tonight Dan Marouelli and Dean Warren are invisible, as they should be.

end of 2nd

Another loss 3-1

Oh well, it's not like this game counted for anything, bring on the Flyers.

Coalition is walking into Baghdad with little resistence. Very impressive. Looks like the media is going to have to give the coalition leadership a pat on the back for a job well done.

Unconventional Warfare

Iraq promissed unconventional warfare attack last night. They delivered. The coalition is hiding the fact that thousands of coalition soldiers died overnight. They died of boredom.

more...

• Bush Says Iraqi Fighters Facing Their 'Final Days'
• U.S. Tanks Make Foray Into Baghdad, Attack Kerbala
• Thousands Flee Baghdad as U.S. Troops Edge Nearer
• U.S. Air Power Prepares for Urban Combat in Baghdad

Rescue of the century

From the article.

"You will never know how much I love all of you. I know that it takes me being away to really tell you. But I know that no matter where I am, here or by your side, I have you all the same and even more every day," Sgt. Eugene Williams wrote to his wife and family in Hawaii before he was killed March 29 in a suicide attack when a taxi exploded at a checkpoint.

If there's one thing that is great about the Internet, it's that you can't actually censor anything on it. You can try, but somebody will route around the filter. The thing is that the Internet was originally designed to escape outages, constantly re-routing itself to keep the Net together.

The Internet was design to route around filters.

Hackers around the world have taken that design to another level, where it is no longer possible to filter out any noise. Just check your inbox for an example of noise (SPAM).

Another example is that my workplace doesn't allow third party email. My solution, I'm writing a private Webmail client to route around the filter.

"Our basic dream was that people didn't want to talk to cars. They didn't want to talk to a desk or a wall (where phones were generally placed). They want to talk to other people."

Very true. This applies equally to email and data in general. Hmm! Data has to move around with its user. Data must be suspended on the Internet and available to its user on the spot, 24x7.

The little computer hooks onto the back of your belt, with an ear-piece running up your back to the ear. The device on your belt has a JVM or CLI and a wireless Internet connection. The wireless connection seemlessly switches between WiFi (for speed) and cell (for range).

Great play-by-play from the front-lines

Here's a reporter that's giving you a vivid picture (of words) of the front-line. What follows are great paragraphs from the article.

"Fifteen feet from Carter's Bradley, he stood with his rocket-propelled grenade launcher, ready to fire. So Carter cut him down."

So Carter cut him down

"And they got a close-up look at the lives of their adversaries, in what appeared to be part of a junior officers' training camp for the Republican Guard. They saw snapshots of friends and children; a simple gym with pictures of soccer teams on the wall; a mess hall, where the walls were painted with Bedouin scenes, sayings from the Koran and quotes from Saddam."

I got an email, which I'll detail later, that says my opinion in Iraq 2.0 are biased. I'd like to hear back, whether they are or not. Please email me. I really wish I could re-enable comments. Arrgg! to Radio Userland.

the email

From: Dana
To: randy@kbcafe.com
Sent: Sunday, April 06, 2003 5:41 PM
Subject: Just A Note

Randy:

I was so disappointed to see that your website is biased. Please keep in mind that over 70% of Americans support the troops and the war effort in Iraq. There are many peoples who want to live in America. Apparently our republic that is ruled by democratic principals and has one of the best standards of living in the world is quite appealing. The right to freedom belongs to every human being on earth, and since the US can not house all of the oppressed, then helping hands are in order for those suffer from lack of it.

Dana

Wisconsin, USA

my response

How am I biased? One day, I'm pro-peace, the next I'm anti-Saddam. I think I argue both sides of the fence better than most.

I support the troops all the time, see my blogs on the heroine "Lynn Jessica" and Rescue of the Century. And I'm not even Amercian and I've never lived in the U.S.

As such, to say I'm biased doesn't fit.

Randy

Patent Wars

The patent wars are fun. Amazon is definately the most aggressive companies in the war and maybe the best.

Arggg!!! I'm always stunned that the coalition kills more of themselves than the Iraqis kill of the coalition. It's a weird war.

more...

Just so cool!

A private space capsule that could win the X Prize. The X Prize is a $10 million prize to be awarded to the first private reusable spacecraft.

more...

British troops from 2 Platoon 1 Parachute Regiment, part of 16 Air Assault Brigade, take a break from patrolling the front line near Basra to cool down and freshen up by means of an improvised shower unit in Iraq April 7, 2003.

Remind me not to join the army anytime soon.

Picture courtesy REUTERS/POOL/Ministry of Defense/Giles Penfold.

In Memory of those who Served there Country to the Fullest

more...

• Eighty-nine US military killed in Iraq: Pentagon

Vindication for the U.S.?

more...

• U.S. Tests for Possible Chemical Weapons

Take that Saddam!

The U.S. takes another stab at the Iraqi leadership. Is this strike two or a clutch RBI single with two outs?

more...

• U.S. Targeted Saddam in Bombing, Result Not Known

Also, Chemical Ali is reportedly dead.

• "Chemical Ali," author of 1988 massacre of Kurds, reported dead

Secure your seet belts. I'm taking us in!

The recent increase in attacks are do to the beginning of cyberwars. That's where corporations use vulnerabilities in each others software to generate negative propaganda. For years, many companies have been stock piling vulnerabilities in each others systems, for use later when the real cyberwar breaks out. Well here we are.

Yahoo heats up the search space. Watch out Google.

related...

• Google News: press releases are OK - Official

The article is an argument for Swiss Army Knife design.

Personally, I disagree and would rather see a component model where Microsoft and Sun produce the basic tool and others can easily (not COM please) add new extensions to the tool, the component model.

Swiss Army Knife v. The Component Model

If you want a word count, then surely you should be able to call on the hacker communicate to write you an installable component that provides exactly the functionality you want. I know you can do it in Ms-Office (only with the pains of COM), I'd like an answer on Star and Open Office. Can you tac on components to these also?

The heroes are those soldiers who are truly looking to help the Iraqi people.

The coalition only serves to discredit itself when it continues to push the weapons of mass destruction theory. I think any reasonable person understands that Saddam did have such weapons. But when the coalition announces that they've found a potention cache of such weapons only to deny 24 hrs. later, they build momentum against themselves. They should shut-up until they have evidence.

more...

• U.S. Finds No Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq

bin Laden is long dead!

Osama is not the type to hide from the public eye. If he were alive, he'd be producing video to confirm he lives and to preach more fatwas. I suspect the American authority knows that he's dead, but would rather that he fade away then to become a martyr.

Let me thank Groove publicly. An honest mistake and they apologized for it.

Now, I've unsubscribed from Symantec SPAM about dozen times. Still get several SPAMs from them per day.

----- Original Message -----

From: "Groove Networks"

To: <randy@kbcafe.com>

Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2003 3:11 PM

Subject: Our apologies--we may have inadvertently sent you our bulletin

> We apologize. We may have inadvertently sent you a copy of our
> April bulletin yesterday, even though you had previously
> unsubscribed from our list. This was due to a systems issue that
> has since been corrected. Please be assured that you will not
> receive any further unsolicited email from us.
>
> Thanks very much for your understanding and we apologize once again
> for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

Front line news. Great read!

From the article...

"The counterattack began shortly after dawn, when more than 20 buses and trucks dropped off dozens of Iraqi foot soldiers firing assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades at U.S. tanks blocking an intersection leading to a bridge over the Tigris, Wolford said."

Take Two: Take that Saddam!

The anticipation of finding out if they finally got him. Priceless.

more...

• 'I don't know' if Saddam survived bombings: Bush
• U.S. Airstrike Aims to Kill Saddam
• US bombs target Saddam and sons
• US forces target Saddam as tanks seize key Baghdad bridge

Leafs Win! Leafs Win! Leafs Win!

Leafs won 5-3 with a hat trick by Mogilny and a solid game in net from Belfour. Sundin played well considering his jaw. Lumme, McCabe, Domi and Renberg had good games too! Svehla played solid defensively.

The shots were not really an accurate portait of the game, except the second period when Philly dominated and the Leafs coughed up another lead. Many Philly shots including the goals were from well out. Toronto's shots were all right on top of Cechmanek. Two 2-1s and a post for TO in the first period. Toronto played great defensively in the late third, allowing only two Flyers shots between Renberg's go ahead goal and the empty net goal by Mogilny.

The reffing was horrible. For instance, Johnsson penalty on Sundin in the late third, he pushed Sundin to the ice and got 2 minutes for holding. Svehla got a very similar penalty pushing Leclair to the ice. And Renberg's slashing penalty was just simply phantom.

I finished the first prototype a month or so ago. I've abandoned the prototype and am now working a new, better version. I'll be finished in the coming weeks.

Blix nailed this one

While the american media continues to focus on the War, Blix is attacking Bush on another front. Completely ignored by U.S. media for obvious reasons.

If you are a proponent of War or an pro-peace-nic, then this is a must read.

"There is evidence that this war was planned well in advance. Sometimes this raises doubts about their attitude to the (weapons) inspections," Blix told Spanish daily El Pais. "I now believe that finding weapons of mass destruction has been relegated, I would say, to fourth place, which is why the United States and Britain are now waging war on Iraq. Today the main aim is to change the dictatorial regime of Saddam Hussein.

What happened to the weapons of mass destruction? Blix says that the coalition wanted a War and weapons or not, they were going to get one.

Wes Walz is showing up for the Wild. After the Avs dominated the early portion of the game, Walz scored shorthanded on a great rush to tie the game at 1. Wals and Roloson were the two stars of Game 1. Unfortunately, the Wild lost game 2. Well depends I guess on the individual. I predicted that Colorado would win the Cup in a pool and as such, this is fortunate for me. That's John Back's pool.

Only the second time I joined John's pool. Usually, I'm just too busy. But A.C. Nielsen is boring me to death and thus my chance to be in a hockey pool.

I picked the Rockies to win. Unfortunately, so did two others, including my brother. I predicted a Rockies-Devils final. If either team wins, I have a big chance at the pot. About a 30% chance of winning if either prevail. If they actually meet in the finals, then it might be a lock for me.

Either way, Let's GO Leafs!

I would've predicted a Canadian team, especially TO, but being that it's a TO based pool, I thought too many would have predicted that outcome. Turns out, nobody did. Arggg!!!

Summary

Keep it simple and stupid.

I've noticed some particular interesting behavior on the part of IE of late. Some pages, like those inside my subnet and others like Google (particularly Google images) take forever to load (sometimes literally).

For this reason, I've installed Netscape as an alternate browser. Where IE doesn't work, I use Netscape. I can still see where IE is lightyears ahead of Netscape.

Browser Wars

My thought is that Microsoft is currently losing ground in the war of the browser. Not only are they delivering bad product, but other companies are taking steps to discredit them, i.e. Opera. If Netscape can just push a little harder, they might find themselves back in the race.

Yesterday, I figured out how Microsoft expects you to do globalization in .NET. Very good solution. I was doing the work for the A.C. Nielsen SPACEMAN project that I'm working on.

Basically you can embed the default, language and regional specific strings in your application executable or resource modules or DLLs. The GetString methods then use an algorithm to find the most culture specific language falling back eventually on the default language. Very flexible and everything is close to automatic (except the translation).

By the way, I also do English to Japanese translations. Did you know I once wrote a Japanese technical book (ISBN 4-7561-3211-1)? See pic. I'm not very good and the translation service cost $10 per word :) 

On a completely unrelated note. Babelfish anyone?

Leafs lose. I'm not going to say who I blame. I'll let pictures speak for themself. Responsible for goals #1 and #2, he let Gagne and Roenicke go to the net for great chances.

That's number 96.

Ok, I give up. His name is Phil Housley. I can't wait till Glen Wesley returns. Poor McCabe who had to live thru a big -3 because his defensive partner couldn't knock down two of the Flyers smallest players.

Toronto Looked Like an AHL Team in the 1st and 2nd Periods.

Beyond Housley's horrific play, where in the world is Nolan and Corson? These guys have done little to nothing in two games. I expect Corson will find the press box again, when and if others return to health.

Also, Roberts seems different this year. He's still putting his heart into it, but when he hits people, he's likely to hurt himself, rather than the opposition. Sounds like he's not 100%, maybe on his last legs.

After the game Quinn was very upset at the whole team. The post-game interview with the coach and GM was interesting to hear.

If you want to be happy in life, then you must subscribe to this newsletter. By the way, Scott Adams, the author has no problem pushing product in his newsletter. This only adds to the fact that it's the funniest newsletter going.

A must read.

I posted this on my blog. I hope Scott Adams doesn't mind.

That would be Paul Martin Jr., who is likely to be Canada's next Prime Minister. He posts a few time a month, but none in the last few weeks.

source Alec Saunders.

Paul Martin's father died in Windsor, Ontario while I lived there. All the big politicians were in town for the funeral. Paul Martin Sr. (the father) was a professor at the University and long-time Liberal M.P. for the region.

I lived in Windsor for six years while I and my future wife attended the University of Windsor. I got out of there with two Bachelor's of Commerce (both my wife and I) and a Bachelor of Computer Science.

The picture is Paul Martin Sr. shaking hands with Nobel Peace Prize winner Lester B. Person and another great Liberal Louis St. Laurent.

Interesting story about CNN and how they failed to report the atrocities of the Iraqi regime in order to protect their Iraqi staff.

from the article...

"awful things that could not be reported because doing so would have jeopardized the lives of Iraqis, particularly those on our Baghdad staff"

A must read for anybody who thinks that the Iraqi regime was anything but the despicable.

source David Winer.

A family picture of Saddam and his family. Arggg!!! Take that Saddam! Take off your shoe and join in on the fun.

So, you ask why the Oilers are beating the Stars.

Turco v Salo, Salo is out dueling his foe. Stars top line v Oilers top line, winner is Stars top line.

That sounds like a tie to me, so why are the Oilers ahead. Let me give you three names; Fernando Pisani, Shawn Horcoff and Ales Hemsky. The Oilers have a great future.

Need to increase our wheat reserves.

That was one of the best games I've seen in a long while. Both teams should be honoured to have participated in such a well played game. The hitting was enormous. Two overtimes. Goals. Saves. Great goaltending.

Reichel's best game

Reichel, Kaberle, Svehla, Roberts, Sundin, Mogilny, Belfour played big games. I have never seen Reichel play as well as he did last night.

By the way, it was classic to see Cherry tell Sundin to take off that mask and Sundin walk onto the ice without the mask and create the opportunity that led to Kaberle's goal. Obviously, Sundin did not watch Cherry's comments, but it was classic.

Housley's ass on the bench

It was also great to see Wesley play well, returning from injury and Housley's ass on the bench. Tucker also played decent coming off his injury.

Last, neither Nolan, nor Mogilny's face cutting incidents led to penalties for the Flyers. Both were immediately in front of the ref for an easy call. Refs were Devorki and Pollock. I seem to recall Pollock earlier in the playoffs. Considering the Gretzky high sticking incident from 10 years ago, it's getting very disappointing that the critical calls have patterned to be against the Leafs. It hints to bigger things.

James Ryan took some time to improve my C++ POP3 and socket classes. Sorry, I didn't check them at all. I'm the C# guy now.

• Socket.cpp
• POP3.cpp

The biggest story of the war yet, the Americans have recaptured another seven POWs.

Seven U.S. POWs Found Safe Slideshow

more...

• Freed POWs describe capture, detention at hands of Iraqis
• Families of Seven Rescued POWS Rejoice 

Just got my RV insurance. It starts on Saturday, which means I might pick it up Saturday. It was a pleasure dealing with Wayfarer.

We go over the last minute details at The Hitch House and hand over the cash to them Thursday evening.

I did a lot of great work this week. Maybe, wife permitting, I might be able to get the new Dude running this weekend. We'll see.

I feel bad for Corson. He played extremely well for the Leafs these last two playoff years, but is no longer capable of playing at that same level.

This begs a question, since players are not paid in the post-season, does Corson sacrifice any salary with this move? He was in the last year of his contract with the Leafs.

Mogilny Roberts will play in game 4

We might be looking at a couple players Mogilny and Sundin in those fancy dancy face shields. Roberts played his best game in the last.

Will Toronto Break Out

In games 1 and 2, the Leafs won 3 period, but got destroyed in 3 others. In game 3, the Leafs won most of the periods, but failed to put the Flyers away. A good show for the Leafs would be to put the Flyers away in game 4. Win by 3 or more goals. A close game can only favor the team that is down (the Flyers).

more hockey...

• Penguins fire Kehoe after missing playoffs again
  Fired for what? He almost made the playoffs before Patrick pulled the plug and sold off all his good players.
• Bruins finally break through Brodeur
  Nice of Thornton and the Bruins to show up for a game. A little too late.

Frustrating

Belfour had a great game, unfortunate that he let in three bad goals. 72 saves, but if you watch the game, you'll see that Flyers shots were usually from well outside. Most of the Flyers (not Primeau) seem reluctant to go near Belfour. This will pay dividends in the last three game.

Eddie's website.

By the way, that's three high-sticking penalties in overtime in the last two game where the referees turned the other way. I wonder if they would have turned their eyes if Domi was holding the stick. One of the highsticks was responsible for Mogilny missing game 4.

On three occasions, the announcers thought the penalty was against the Flyers only to find out that their was another phantom call against the Leafs. The Leafs have done well to ignore the reffing and focus on the game. What they need is for Nolan and Roberts to step to the plate for the last three games. We need two ruffians in front of Cechmanek.

Could there be anything more random than the reffing in the NHL at this moment? All this contact and interference. Dallas is up 2-0. Well, the ref, I guess decided that he needed to help out Oilers. Young stands in front of a Edmonton forward and doesn't let him deep into the zone. Didn't knock him down. Barely touched him. Interference penalty. Randomness.

Five minutes later and beforehand, everybody is slashing each other and nothing, no penalties.

Mike York

Nothing against Mike York, but comments that he was in the top scoring leaders just over a year ago and that he is no longer playing at that level, show absolute ignorance on the part of the commentaters. He was playing with a healthy Eric Lindros at the time. Now he plays with much lesser players. Sorry again, nothing wrong with the Oilers, but they aren't healthy Lindros'. Check out Leclair's points per game with Lindros and after Lindros. Or Renberg. Or Mike Craig. etc.

Not a good game at all. The same players played awful, the same players played well. Here's a run down of my thoughts in the first five games.

• Housley played awful and was clearly the reason why the Leafs lost game 2.
• Nolan has been invisible. If not for the game sheet, I don't think Nolan could prove that he played in any games. I'm miss McCauley.
• Gilmour still out.
• Wesley missed games 1-2, but has played well since.

These are the four played we acquired at the deadline. I really thought we had a chance with these four players. I was clearly in the wrong. In the five playoff games, we have three good games from the four players.

More...

• Roberts has been invisible in the road games, played well at home.
• Renberg should be on the first line where he was all here. Bad coaching.
• Hoglund went home to Sweden before the playoffs began. Sarcasm.
• Game two and five were the only games where the Flyers had many shots on goal from inside. Almost all their shots have been from the boards, from the point and behind the net. In the two games, where they got inside on Belfour, the Leafs got beat big.

On the good side...

• Reichel has played well, which I didn't expect. Last year, he was invisible.
• Primeau and Gagne have played well too!

I have posted a few times lately about problems in IE that give Bad URL errors when navigating certain website, like localhost. The problem is related to the "Automatically Detect Settings" in the LAN Settings of IE. If you get the error, disable it.

more...

NewsNet Thread

thanks goes to Paul Galbraith.

Tampa pulled it out. In what was likely the best goaltender series since Brodeur v Hasek some years ago, the Lightning with Khabibulin, St Louis, Lecavalier and Prospal playing big roles. Dan Boyle and Andreychuk also played big.

Beyond game one and two, only Kolzig decided to show up for game day on the Caps side. At first, I felt pitty that Khabibulin was playing on the lesser team and was going to be the first big goalie knocked out of the playoffs. But, his team stepped it up and the Caps hid.

Canuks v Blues

Once again, very similar to the last Oilers-Stars game, the refs decided to influence the game by reffing in favor of the team that was losing. The Canuks hung on to win with a great rally by the refs in the third period. Third star goes to the tandem of Mccreary and Watson who brought the Blues back into the game.

With the end of the Iraq war comes the beginning of the new economy. Amazing how things turn quickly. Already looking at funding for a new company, another company is looking for my help, a friend got a cold call from a recruiter.

This week was the turning point.
Within five years, nobody will remember the downturn of the early 20th century.

1. Green
2. Roenick
3. Belfour
4. Cechmanek
5. Reichel

In-game comments

Belfour and Reichel have the Leafs up 1-0 early. Flyers seem to be playing the Leafs to a par in the first, but trail.

After the first period, the Flyers are still in the game. It only takes one goal to put the Leafs in a sudden-death overtime from hell. Let's build on the lead.

Second Period

Toronto has dominated the early second, but has let the Flyers return to form in the second half of the second period. Still 1-0. Toronto better start scoring on the power play. They've won the ref battle 3-0 so far this game, but you know how those refs like to even it up.

Roenicke scores. Now 1-1.

Bad luck, great play by the Flyers. Leafs didn't do much wrong.

I'd be pretty upset if I were a Flyers fan. I think the Leafs must have paid off the refs. Ridiculous some of the non-calls. Mind you, Cechmanek deserved the penalty shot call.

Third Period

You gotta be happen with 1-1, if you are a Flyer fan. Out reffed. Out played. A few posts. And you are tied going into the third. This has to be scary for the Leaf fans. I'm scared. ={

All the non-calls against Toronto all game and then they call a mundane one against Sundin. Ramdonness prevails.

Belfour is holding the Leafs in the game. Again!

Even when the Leafs got the bounces this series, they were unable to put the puck in the net. Sad overall performance. They are going to have to dig deep to pull this one out. Moving thru the third period.

We are now in next goal wins territory.  Less than 5 minutes left in the third. Two minutes. Last minute. Great plays all over the ice. Overtime. Roenicke v Reichel game. Top two players on each team. The Leafs top line of Sundin, Mogilny and Roberts have been a major disappointment for TO. They better show in the OT.

Overtime

My picks are Roenick and Reichel. Of course. They have been the best players in the game.

Leaf penalty. They dominated the Flyers during the penalty. The fans applauded a great hustle by the lineman. Some great hockey!

Berg is playing the best hockey of his life. Toronto just can't finish it. Neither can Philly.

Rockies turned their game around quickly. From 2-0 to 2-2 in zero time.

Goalies are winning the first OT period. Great saves!

End of 1st OT

Been blogging this for almost 3 hours.

Wild scored in OT to force a seventh game. Bad goal by Roy. Park is the player of the night. Two goals! I'll get his pic up here soon.

Green!!! TO Wins 2-1.

Gotta play him more.

The extra options after the purchase

• Fabriguard
• Rustguard
• 7-yr/120k extended warranty

I didn't get

• Paintguard
• Etchguard

You can all tell me I'm an idiot, either way.

They played bad. I watched the game at the Bull and Firkin on Toronto's Yonge Street.

Belfour sucked.

The first goal was his fault. He tooked two stupid penalties that also led to goals. Nuff said.

Belfour had a good year with the Leafs, too bad his last game was this bad. Not completely his fault, the team should have scored one or two more goals earlier in the series and taken it in six games.

I've been getting a few hits a day with the following keywords in various orders.

corson mogilny's wife

In contrast to most tech execs, Rob Glaser shows some "Real" class

At the opposite end of the spectrum, 724 Solutions (where I worked), paid their execs big severance and option plans for running the company into the ground. The 724 execs paid themselves $500k each in 2002 (most of them working only a few months of the year) while the company's stock tumbled from $345 to 50 cents.

Three cheers for Rob. Three boos for the crooks @ 724.

The Dude Evangelist John Henson @ Emerging Tech Conference

The music industry is trying to stop a tornado, a.k.a. music sharing slash file sharing. Their approach should be how to capitalize on this tornado, not kill it. Because, you can't kill a tornado. And you are likely to die trying.

You can't kill a tornado

Right now high bandwidth users can download a music file faster than they can listen to the same file. In five years, you'll be able to do the same with a movie file. The movie industry is next. They two will have the choice to join the file sharing revelution or die a painful death!

I love the part in this article where the ignorant author says

"During the telecom dot-com boom three years ago, they traded around $80."

In fact, they traded much higher, $345. Great research on the author's part.

from an uncle of mine to my daddy

I golfed with Kent Douglas and Frank Mahovlich last Fall in Sturgeon Falls. It was a tournament organized by a local native organization for the Maple Leafs alumni who had played a hockey game against a team in North Bay the previous night.
 
Kent is separated or divorced and lives in North Bay with his mother. He plays in a lot of these tournaments all over Ontario with the alumni. He doesn't recall much about Cobalt but does keep in touch with a few people there (Chitaronis)

Kent won rookie of the year and played for the Leafs on the last Leaf cup winner.

What a joke. Mal Lastman is worse for tourism in Toronto then SARS. This interview is funny in just so many ways. Aaron Brown was obviously aware that Mel is an idiot, cause the entire interview is a setup to reveal just what Mel is.

Lastman who didn't you embarrass from TO?

Nooobody!!!!!

This must be especially emabarrassing to all those morons that actually voted for this guy.

Flyers v. Senators, Game 1

What a goal tonight by Marian Hossa! He circled the entire offensive zone at blazing speed, then back to the point for a couple of shots before the puck magnetized back to Hossa's stick and into the net.

The Flyers started with a 2-0 lead only to find themselves on the wrong side of second period fireworks. Three goals in the first 10 minutes of the third period.

End of second, 3-2 Senators.

Big goal. 4-2 Senators.

Brilliant play by Hossa again. First star is already decided. Now lets see if the Flyers can make it a game.

Senators Win 4-2.

Steve K who said

Well, after the 4th longest game ever last night, wouldn't the answer have to be...Keith Primeau, whose goal won the 3rd longest game a couple of years ago?

Seven years left of eligibility :(

Who is the player still active in the playoffs that has scored the latest goal in an NHL game, that is, the farthest into a game in terms of game time?

Winner is the first person who sends me an email with this players name. I'll do a trivia quiz everyday of the playoff here-on out and I'll announce the daily winner, who gets the priviledge of seeing his name on a blog :)

WHO the hell do they think they are? SARS is such a minor killer compared to many other diseases.

Earlier in the week, I got food poisoning. I quickly made my way home to check the symptons of SARS. I had none. Yet, it's amazing how they have me paranoid. I work in Markham, Ontario and use to frequently visit Toronto's and Markham's Chinatown. I've only been once in the last month or two.

The government has decided that it will attempt to kill the tornado of music sharing in order to preserve the music industry. Why is it so important to preserve the music industry? Or are they fighting a battle to prevent the same happening to the movie industry?

They shall not win. The tornado has spoken.

All that it takes is one person to create a serverless application that provides for generic file sharing and no specific support for music or video files. When this happens, who do you go after to stop the sharing? If the author is anonymous?

How 'bout an interpretation of Sims' comments.

Revenues in non-mobile data infrastructure has dropped so fast that our declining mobile data infrastructure revenues now account for 50% of our total revenues. Yes, everything is rapidly spiralling down the tubes :)

From $345 to fifty cents in three years. Unbelievable! And there seems little to no chance of recovery. Hmmm!

Someone once said the greatest revenge is success. I don't know. Maybe the greatest revenge is watching those that screwed you fall on their face. Here's a way-to-go to Chris Erickson. Thanks for the memories.

Chicken humour is the best. Here's some more, my favorite, sorry to the chickens, monkeys and paraplegics.

Why did the chicken cross the road?
To get to the other side.

Why did the paraplegic cross the road?
Cause he was stapled to the chicken.

Why did the monkey fall out of the tree?
Cause he was dead.

Why did the paraplegic fall out of the tree?
Cause he was stapled to the monkey.

source my sister Jaqueline

Found two awful bugs in the indexing that was holding back population of the database. I think I fixed 'em.

I also increased the amount of link per blog.item that I'm saving. Before I only got the blog.link tag, now I also get the blog.guid and any links within the blog.description.

Number of channels and items are going thru the roof with the changes in the first paragraph. Looks like we are in business.

The RV is in my driveway.

Cool!

If you want to CHECK IT OUT, then feel free to stop by my open house, all week. Call in advance, I do work 9 to 5 and hate it!

Walz shadowed Forsberg to a draw, scoring 2 goals each in the series. Who was the famous shadow that drew Bobby Hull to a 2-2 draw in the semi-finals v. the Red Wings in 1966?

Winner is the first person who sends me an email with this players name. I'll announce the daily winner, who gets the priviledge of seeing his name on a blog :)

I'm #89 this morning. 83, 68, 48

Interesting facts

When I went on my run of a week plus in a row in the top ten, I did it with a lot of hits from Google. I posted links back to my blog, which increased by Google page rank and references back to my blog. I didn't pursue this practice. I fell out of the top 100 for weeks. Yesterday, I posted 3 links back to my site and I'm back in the top 100 the very next day. Tricking Google is much easier than I thought.

A great game by Minnesota native, Trent Klatt. He now has 5 goals in his last 12 playoff game. I don't know what Sekeras was thinking on the overtime penalty call, a slash to the face of Henrik Sedin.

Wes Walz keeps his great playoff moving with two goals (both assisted by Gaborik) that put the Wild up 3-1 in the 3rd period. Three minutes later, Walz and Gaborik teams again to caugh up the puck to Naslund who made it a closer game (3-2). Then with 1.2 seconds on the clock, Matt Cooke completed a great comback and put the game in overtime for our power-play overtime hero Trent Klatt.

A lot of potential game heroes.

• Trent Klatt
• Wes Walz
• Matt Cooke

A couple stars game thru for their teams.

• Naslund
• Gaborik

By the way, I took Gaborik five minutes before the game as my playmaker in a playoff hockey pool. He gets 3pts for assists. I also took Walz and Brunette. My team was demolished when I lost 5 players from the Avalanche in the first round. Now I'm gambling, but I still want the Canuks to win the series.

There is a bug in REPLACE.H

you can try:

kbcafe::findandreplace(exp, str, ","+str+",");

it will dead loop.

suggested alternate code:

template<class T>
void findandreplace( T& source, const T& find, const T& replace )
{
   size_t index = source.find( find ); 
   while(index != T::npos ) 
   { 
      source.replace( index, find.length(), replace ); 
      index = source.find( find, index + replace.length() + 1 ); 
   }
}

Thanks to Baron Lee who found and gave me his suggested alternate code. He gave me two versions, one with replace.length and one with find.length.

index = source.find( find, index + find.length() + 1 );
index = source.find( find, index + replace.length() + 1 );

I didn't test any of it, as I no longer write much C++ code. I'm a C# guy now.

A lot of people disagree with Modano's comments. Regardless, he speaks the truth.

The playoffs are being badly officiated as usual.

There will one hundred or more slashes per game and one of them gets called a penalty. How can that be fair? Slashing is either a penalty or not. When you call one in a hundred, then you are asking for the players to question the reffing.

In-game comments

Lightning took a 3-0 lead into the start of the second only to see the lead shrink to 3-2 before the mid-point of the second period.

Now 3-3 on a goal by Friesen on a nice shot 

Khabibulin is struggling in this second period. Devils are just killing them this period. The shots don't tell the story. The devils are getting the better chances and hitting hard. Modin has such a cannon.

3-3 after 2nd period

Khabibulin is really taking a lot of abuse from the commentators. Funny, one commentator suggested that the Devils had a book on him and were shooting and scoring high. Another suggested that the Devils were shooting and scoring five hole. Truth is, he's letting in a lot of goals, five hole and high.

Dave Andreychuk makes it 4-3

What a monster period by this veteran. He's had chances and made a good defensively play earlier in the period. Even after the goal Andreychuk continues to get big chances, he must have four or more in the period. Tampa has taken the play since Andreychuk's goal.

Gomez is invisible and not in a good way.

Tampa wins 4-3

cool #58 today, 54, 53

Looks like somebody is reading my blog in detail, giving me lots of hits. Looks like a 1X person, might be Kam.

Met Cory tonight at the Barbarian's Steak House, Elm St, Toronto. Seems like a bright guy, very creative (verging on visionary, sorry Greg) and with a broad grasp of tech concepts. You can definately play a good game of acronym bingo with him :) Cory is a great story teller. I can see this translating well to his fictional writing carreer. The group is often willing to sit back and listen to a Cory tale.

By the way, Cory and I have one strong dislike in common. In fact, we discussed selling seats on eBay to an event in the name of our common dislike :))

Founder of Opencola

Cory was a founder of Opencola, where I eventually became a development manager, but only after his time. Cory founded Opencola with Grad Conn and John Henson.

Writer 

Since his Opencola days, Cory has written a book, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, co-authors the Boing Boing blog and much more.

The WHO ban was late to begin with, then untimely when it arrived and now has disappeared. The condition for lifting the ban is better airport screening. Just a note. Nothing could possibly be implemented in time. By the time any effective additional screening is in place, SARS is most likely to be history. The World Health Organization has proven itself to be incompetent.

The penny missed. Fortunate for the Italian Space Agency.

Times are tough. The Hubble is again out of commission and with the shuttles grounded, repairs are not close at hand. Hubble only requires 3 gyroscopes to function and has 4 good ones and 2 bad.

Note, nothing has been posted at http://hubble.nasa.gov, but this website has always been low quality compared to other NASA websites.

Let me start by saying again this the Corson Mogilny rumours are rumours. It is highly likely false. Here's some interesting quotes I found on the Internet today.

Friday, April 25, 2003 at 12:36:09
RF4L,,,,,The story I recieved was while Corson was at home nursing an injury, and when the team went on the road, Corson would go over and play "Honeymoon" with Mrs Mogilny, apparently once the team caught wind of this they all turned thier back on Corson [Tucker & Green ] excluded. This guy who told me this is a Metro cop, the police were called once Mogilny found out, I assume he freaked on his wife, dont believe enough to file domestic charges, just to defuse a tense situation.

HamiltonHellhound

Well don't hate me for releasing this information, but I figured I would let you guys know what I heard. Apparently news of Corson's resignation has surfaced some rumors to the reasoning behind it. If everyone will remember Mogilny left the team a few weeks back citing family problems, to which a reason was never given. A Toronto Police officer has said that during this stint he was called to a domestic at Mogilny's home in Toronto.

The rumours are that Mr. Corson had been laying pipe to Mogilny's wife while the team was off on the road trips, and he was nursing whatever problem he managed to have over that week. After all this was found out by team members, Corson's presence with the team was not welcome, hence the resignation.

Senators are up 2-1 v Flyers. Note Leafs were also up 2-1 v Flyers and had stolen home ice advantage away from the Flyers, whereas the Senators have only preserved home ice advantage.

Canuks are up 2-1 v Wild. Note Avalance were up 3-1 v Wild.

Penalties

The high-sticking penalty against Naslund? Does someone review these calls with the individual refs after the game or between the period? Wow! What a call!