TrueBlueGED
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Posts posted by TrueBlueGED
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I'm collecting a massive amount of data on various state finances and statutes for a professor, and he wanted me to get a bunch of employment data. Told me it was all on the Bureau of Labor Statistics website, easily accessible, should only take an hour or two to collect. Long story short, it wasn't there, and of course he wasn't in the office for me to ask again. So I do what any normal human being would--I Google it. Turns out, what he wanted me to collect is actually at the Bureau of Economic Analysis' website, not the Bureau of Labor Statistics. So I got to spend 5 hours doing something that should have taken 2, which meant I couldn't get any of my own work done this afternoon. Thank you, professor, for wasting my time.
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I've been attempting to read more and post off the cuff less. To elaborate on what I said, considering Ennis' limited sample/body of work, it is unlikely a team would try to poach him or give up a 1st rnd pick + for him. Personally I think Ennis will be a very good player as time goes by. If you look around the league most GM's avoid offer sheets and considering that the owner of this team has demonstrated he has absolutely no problem spending cash, it makes the Sabres RFA's less vulnerable.
Agree with all of this. Ennis right now is one of those guys who means more to the Sabres than he would elsewhere, and even if another team did value him highly they probably wouldn't believe they could a actually poach him away with Pegula in town.
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The awkward gym moments are definitely the worst, and it's always the old people who are completely OK with walking around the locker room nude. The gym I used to go to apparently got a bunch of complaints about this and actually started forcing guys to at least have a towel wrapped around them in the locker room.
Another thing that annoys me at the gym is guys who get upset when other guys look at their girlfriend. Although it's never happened to me personally, I've seen fights almost break out because one guy is staring at another's girlfriend. Maybe staring isn't in the best taste....but if your girlfriend is walking around in hot pants and a sports bra in the general section of the gym (when there's a separate women's workout area), do you honestly expect guys to NOT look at her? That's like going to the beach in a string bikini and being mad when she gets looked at. If she doesn't care then neither should you...and if she does care, then she should either wear something less revealing or go to the women's area.
Final gym complaint: body odor. Obviously there's going to be sweat and some unpleasant smells, but if every single time you're at the gym you can be smelled from 3 machines over, there's a problem. Shower... deodorant...body spray...use SOMETHING to control that please. Thanks.
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I don't care about my graduate degree. Which is making it very hard to complete. It's also making me miserable all the time, which is putting a lot of stress on the rest of my life, including my wonderful girlfriend. Bless her heart for putting up with me.
I guess 2 questions you need to ask yourself are: How close are you to being done? and Do you have to finish it for your career?
I can totally sympathize with the struggles though. I find that those who haven't gone through graduate school simply don't understand what it entails and it's really hard to talk to anybody who hasn't gone through it. Even if you enjoy what you're doing (and I do), there's just a lot of times where it just isn't enjoyable. Even during Sabres games I think to myself "man I should really be doing some work right now". Big props to your girlfriend for dealing with you though, it's certainly not easy to do--among other things, one of the contributing factors to me and my girlfriend of 4 years breaking up was the pursuit of my degree.
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I would still like to move Roy. I'm more convinced than ever that the After-Black-Sunday core needs to be dismantled. We took off last year when Roy went away and we took off this year when Gaustad went away. Stafford got better when we moved him away from Roy. Correlation is not causation, but I've seen enough that I'm ready to find out what this team can do with a new leadership structure.
Keep Poms and Vanek as your captain and alternate, then ask the younger guys to step up. The team is at its best when that happens anyway.
I'm just not interested in going back to having zilch at center depth or relying on Luke Adam to step up. The free agent center crop is terrible, and even Stoll who I had previously advocated I'm not particularly interested in since the Hodgson trade, since he'll probably want what Roy is making and will almost certainly give lower production. I like having 3 lines that can score, with 1 of them being a hybrid scoring/shutdown line. And with it being a contract year I'm not worried about inconsistent effort. Again if the right deal is there for him I make it, but we need to have a plan to bring in a legitimate #3 center with offensive upside to replace him.
While on the topic of centers, it's possible that Ennis is a #1 center. In the GDT I did a quick stat comparison to Giroux, and it matches up really well. In Giroux's first full season he played wing and had 47 points in 82 games while averging 16:37 of ice time (previous year he played 42 games for 27 points). Ennis' first season on wing he had 49 points in 82 games while averaging 15:40 of ice time (previous season 9 points in 10 games). Giroux's second full season is when he moved to center and he ended with 76 points in 82 games averaging 19:24 of ice time. Ennis this season he has 29 points in 43 games while averaging 15:51 of ice time...and we all know if I wasn't too lazy to parse out the numbers, they'd be much more impressive only counting his games at center. Is Giroux a #1 center? Yes. Does Ennis have an eerily similar skill set and career production? Yes. Maybe we caught lightning in a bottle.
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I don't care about the stats, although the most important stat -- playoff wins -- heavily favors Drury.
More importantly, when Drury was captain, there was no "fragile little children" issue. Until the last month, Pommer's captaincy has been all about day care for fragile little children. And it's far from clear that that issue has been resolved.
I'm not going to argue Pommer is the better captain, but I do think we tend to romanticize Drury's captaincy a bit. I mean, that 06-07 team seemed AWFULLY tight in the playoffs, and laid a gigantic egg against Ottawa. I think they felt the pressure of being favorites to win the conference, and Drury was part of the leadership which let that happen.
Getting rid of Sekera would be a huge mistake. He has been our most consistent defensemen this year, with his play elevating to it's highest levels since he and Regehr were paired up. The two of them have consistently shut down the other teams top lines for months now. They are a perfect compliment to one another.
I'm not advocating getting rid of Sekera, but you're not getting a guy like Dustin Brown with a poo poo platter of mid-level prospects and a 1st round pick.
I just checked Capgeek, and with Ennis due to get a BIG offer sheet this coming offseason and no way in Hell Regier letting him go, to get Brown here we'd have to shed a Roy, Leino, or Stafford to make space. Not just one but actually two higher-priced guys would have to go, and that's AFTER Boyes and hecht are allowed to walk.
I would be beyond shocked if Ennis got an offer sheet of any kind from another team, let alone a big one. Stamkos didn't get one, Doughty didn't get one....that stuff just doesn't happen. Yea yea Vanek...that was a completely unique situation which is not repeating itself this year.
This thread has drifted a bit from strictly a discussion re: Kassian-Hodgson, but I saw this Hockey News article this afternoon and thought the notion that Hodgson trains under Gary Roberts in the offseason probably should dispel any real concerns about a bad attitude:
http://www.thehockey...-in-201213.html
"Not surprisingly, the newest Sabres weapon is also a client of ‘Scary’ Gary and whatever subterfuge has been out there in the past about Hodgson’s attitude can pretty much be tossed out the window based on the company he keeps in the summer. Simply put, Roberts does not mess around. What the former NHLer preaches is no less than a lifestyle decision, where players commit themselves to both rigorous workouts and nutrition rites involving organic food and the right kinds of it."
I love this trade more by the day.
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None of the guys mentioned including McNabb have shown they are ready to be top 6 blueliners in the NHL come 12-13(the closest may be Brennan). In addition, unless SUlzer's agent loses his mind, he should come reasonably priced @ 1mil per season.
I think Brennan is ready, I really liked what I saw of him when he was up here. Of course I don't want to start both him and McNabb at once, so re-signing Sulzer would be a good move to me, especially if we trade one of our current defensemen.
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If the plan is going to be to roll 3 more or less equal lines, there have to be some cheap players in the mix. Tropp doesn't need the puck and is doing the dirty work reasonably well. Meanwhile, Hodgy and Vanek look like they are developing some chemistry.
If Brown is obtainable -- great. I won't say no. But let's not lose sight of the fact that for the first time in half a season Vanek looks like a weapon again.
That would be my exact plan: roll 3 lines, 2 scoring and 1 hybrid. Foligno is cheap (900K), Ennis will be relatively cheap (I expect a Stafford-esque second contract 2 year $4 million contract) and Hodgson is relatively cheap ($1.6).
Vanek-Hodgson-Brown
Foligno-Ennis-Stafford
Leino-Roy-Pominville
I'd be perfectly comfortable with this lineup heading into next season. I'm not opposed to offloading Roy, but at this point I don't want to rely on Luke Adam to fill his role, so we'd have to find somebody else viable...and I can think of worse things in the world than Roy in a contract year when at his age it's his last chance to cash in big time. Also, in any deal for Brown, I'm assuming we're dumping a few million of salary (Sekera or Leopold, for instance). I don't think money is an issue unless we're trying to add Parise or Nash.
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Agreed. The wildcard is, I don't think we'll have the cap space for a big name player like Brown or Nash unless someone else gets moved, so we may have to fill that hole as well.
Brown only makes about $3.2 million, it's one of the best contracts in the NHL so I doubt he's an issue to fit in. Plus I'm sure we'd have to offload somebody valuable to get him anyway. Nash/Parise on the other hand will certainly require some offloading.
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Oh GAWD no. Tropp is doing fine. Leave him be.
...although, if Brown could be an option, it'd be tough to turn down.
Tropp is doing fine, but let's be honest about this: Tropp is not a top-6 RW on a contender.
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Or get an upgrade for Vanek's right wing.
Since the acquisition of Hodgson and Ennis' emergence as a legitimate center, I think this has to be priority #1 heading into the offseason.
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The real question is what to do about Sulzer after this year given his upcoming UFA status. We have Mcnabb, Pysik, Brennan, Schiestel, and Gauthier-Leduc in the pipeline.
McNabb, Pysyk and Brennan are the only ones I consider real prospects at this point. Schiestel is on his way out of the organization, and Gauthier-Leduc is putting up a ton of points as an offensive defenseman in a league that doesn't play defense--we have less than zero idea how his game will translate.
Perhaps they'll move some of the pipeline assets along with the two 1st round 2012 picks to move up into the top of the draft.
Or for Dustin Brown (if he actually becomes available) or Nash (still not a fan, but I won't discount the possibility that we try to get him if we get on his list). At this point I'd be really surprised if we use all 4 of our draft picks in the first two rounds, keep all of our prospects, and keep our current defense corps. Something's gotta give, and I think it will. Just not sure what to expect yet.
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Personally when I'm at a game I want some rock music to really get the blood flowing, but maybe it's a generational thing. My first choice would have been Unstoppable by Pop Evil, but browsing the videos on youtube it appears the Red Wings either use it or it's an unofficial Detroit anthem. So I settled on A Warrior's Call by Volbeat:
I'd even pay them to adapt it a little to the Sabres.
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That's exactly why it was a good trade in the present. The Sabres got something they might need and gave up something they didn't need.
And thanks again for the good read.
*insert inevitable size and toughness rebuttal here* :P
I like the portion where he talks about how Hodgson could step in if one of the Sedins misses significant time. I really hope that scout said that before the Keith hit, because look where they are right now. Kassian is supposed to get some of those minutes, so we'll see how that goes.
But as has been said, that trade needs a few years for evaluation. It does still seem very strange to me from that angle. Buffalo added something they needed for the future while Vancouver went for something they need now. That's all well and good, except Kassian is not even close now to that player. Strange move.
I think that's the thing I look at for Vancouver. Right now they need the player they believe Kassian can be...in a year or two down the road. He's not what they need at this particular point in time, which is why I was shocked the trade happened. By the time Kassian fully develops, there's a good chance Henrik Sedin will be in steep decline (it may already be starting) and at that point Hodgson would have a role on the team. If Kassian were more developed it would have made more sense to me from Vancouver's perspective.
One thing I take from the article, which could be perceived in a positive or negative light, was the bit about how some teammates thought Hodgson was a little bit too ambitious. In that locker room I can see how it would be a problem--you're a rookie behind Hart and Selke winners on the depth chart, shutup and do as you're told to do. On the other hand I think that's EXACTLY the kind of attitude the Sabres have been missing in the locker room. We desperately needed a guy who wanted to be a star, who wants ice time, wants the puck in critical situations. Is he ready for the entirety of that load as a rookie? Unlikely. However I want a guy with that attitude on my team, and hopefully leading the team in the not-too-distant future.
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Thankful my early worries about Hodgson appear unfounded. The guy has been rock solid the last two games. Almost like that first point was psychological - now with that wall broken, CoHo is really starting to produce. Didn't come a minute too soon with so much on the line right now.
You know he must be pretty decent if Roby is talking him up during intermission - he's usually pretty honest and straightforward in either praise or criticism.
Generally speaking, it's probably a bad idea to judge any player, let alone a 21 year old rookie, on a 10 game sample size. Agreed? ;)
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selling a house. :wallbash:
Could be worse...you could be trying to sell in Florida where it's worth at best 40% of the mortgage.
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Stones randomly kicking up and damaging my car as I'm driving home. I drove my old car to Boston and back, to Florida and back....and nothing, not even a little scratch. Get a brand new car in July, and 8 months later a stone kicks up and leaves a nice size scratch right in the middle of my driver door. $319 of damage at least, and if the paint doesn't blend properly the entire door is going to have to be re-done which will cause me to go through my insurance and probably get nailed with a rate hike for filing a claim.
My girlfriend's father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer on monday and is having surgery as we speak. So yeah, this has been a rough week. It sounds like this may be an ultra rare case where they caught it early, so hopefully he can beat the numbers on this one. The surgeon also worked on Steve Jobs, so he definitely has the best of the best here.
I've been getting the feeling lately that she's worried her family could chase me away (which will never happen) and now this happens. There's never good timing for something like this, but still, what crappy timing.
And this makes my whining about my car's paint seam extraordinarily trivial. I hope everything turns out okay.
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I'm wondering if Hodgson and Kassian were too young, inexperienced and immature to be dealt at deadline in this supposed "blockbuster" trade between two teams. I'm not sure they are mature enough to psychologically adjust to the situation and do their thing. I'm not expecting too much this season frankly.
I missed this post somehow when I was responding, but essentially, THIS.
They didn't say that he was better suited for the wing. They suggested moving him to wing to help him get his groove back by letting him focus on offense with less responsibility in his own end. It's a very common move for young centers, but that doesn't mean that they stay at wing for their careers. Look at Ennis. He played center in Portland, came up and played wing for a while, and has now been moved back to center.
I believe they also actually talked about how he was on the wing in Vancouver and thriving, which was completely incorrect.
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I know Hodgson is young, but he is completely lost out there. Falling under the category of "just kick me in the nuts", Emrick and analyst(Olczyk?) were talking in the first period of how Hodgson may be better suited for the wing. The long awaited help at the center position? Better suited on the wing?
ARRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!!
That was just a flat out incorrect conversation by them on the broadcast. I don't remember the exact number, but Hodgson never got more than a handful of games at wing, and it didn't work out. I honestly have no idea where these NBCS clowns get their information from.
kassian has played 6 games for vancouver and hasn't shown much either...
was a minus 2 , with just 2 hits in last nights loss to phoenix in 9 minutes of time.
SSSSHHHHH, don't you get it? Kassian just needed to escape the oppressive Sabres regime for his inner beast to be unleashed! Of course everybody railing on Hodgson won't mention that Kassian has been equally ineffective in Vancouver. I think it's obvious at this point that they're both horrible busts who should be sent to the ECHL.
OR
They're 20 year old rookies trying to figure things out on the fly. I'll go with #2.
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Are you saying that the Sabres gave up on the season when they traded for him and didn't care if they made a run at the playoffs? I hope that's not the case because I would hate to be a fan of a team that gives up before they are mathematically eliminated from the playoffs. It's bad enough I'm a Bills fan.
That's not even remotely what I said. I'm sure they thought they were going to get some production out of Hodgson down the stretch, but this isn't some rental deal where we got him specifically to push for the playoffs. We traded for him to fill a gaping organizational hole at center over the long run.
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Was meant to be off DeLuccas post. I don't know how the hell I quoted myself, this laptop has a mind of it's own. :doh:
What really pisses me off is that people keep saying to be patient with Hodgson, he is gonna be fine and will be a good player for a long time. Unfortunately the Sabres don't have the time to be patient, they are fighting for their lives and needed him to be producing from the time he got here. Kind of like Winnick has for Colorado. He now has like 10 pts in 9 games with the Avs.
I'm sure they thought he'd have more than zero points right now, but, there's no way you can think they made that trade for the playoff push. That trade was made to benefit the team long term.
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I disagree - he needs to have more pressure put on him, not less. Push harder!!! Ride him, bust his chops, day in day out until he produces. Shooting drills, shooting drills, and more shooting drills. Work work work work work!!! We're not interested in his little problems - we want results, not excuses!!! Sulzer scores a point before he does - hammer that home too. He clearly has not been provided the proper motivation yet to succeed! I would keep hammering until he gets it done!!!
And you would lose the player. Glad you're not the coach.
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The weather. I can't remember the last time my spring break was so sun-filled while staying in Buffalo, if it has ever happened.
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1920x1200 resolution monitors are great. I do a ton of work in Word and Excel, and I've had a 23" 1080p monitor for years. I kept reading how 1200p monitors were so much better, and how you really notice the extra vertical resolution, but I never bought into it. But I just got a Dell Ultrasharp U2412M (I wanted a 27" model, but $1000 is too steep for me right now) and wow, the difference is so noticeable. Can fit fully zoomed Word docs on the screen without scrolling to see the bottom/top of the page, better for reading on the web, etc. Just fantastic. And the stand on this monitor is great too, fully adjustable height, swivel...and you can even rotate the screen vertically if you really want to zoom in and read documents on the full screen. Best $330 I've spent in quite some time.
Complaint Thursdays
in The Aud Club
Posted
From what I've read, this particular prosecutor has a history of very aggressive charges, sometimes going after what she believes happened rather than what the evidence can support. I just hope this isn't a case where a manslaughter charge would yield a conviction, but the higher standard of a murder 2 yields an acquittal.