Head Tale

Throwback Thursday – #tbt – My First Gmail Message (June 2004)

Not sure how I stumbled upon this but poking around my Gmail account recently (which I have used since day one as my secondary account for entering contests, subscribing to newsletters I’ll never read and generally trying to target spam there so rarely look at it), I found the first message I ever sent to that account. And the HUGE attachment I included? It got cut off in my screencap but it was a 4mB MP3 file! 😉

¶ Posted 20 April 2023 § Internet § MemoryLane § Technology § ThrowbackThursday ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: history

Artificial Intelligence Charlie Echo Versus The Real Thing

Back in December, I was playing with AI generated images and Sasha suggested “Charlie in the Snow.”

This is one of the images it came up with and it felt appropriate today with the late April snowstorm we’re enduring…

I didn’t get any pics today (kids took him out walking tonight instead of Shea or I) but here’s the real thing in a slightly similar position…

¶ Posted 19 April 2023 § Charlie Echo § Humour § Internet § Meme § Sasha § Technology ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: cute, weather

Why The Flames Sucked This Year (It’s A Long List)

Now that the playoffs have started and the Flames, who were predicted to be a top team at the start of the season, missed making the playoffs in the final week of the season.

That means they end up in their traditional “absolutely middle of the pack” position they usually get in years they suck, it’s time to review the ways this season was one of the most painful I’ve watched.

I think the early season predictions would’ve held and they would’ve at least been in the playoffs if they had…

* not lost their two best players, Johnny Gaudreau and Matthew Tkachuk in the off-season, Gaudreau for no return

* not played Huberdeau on his off-wing for much of the season which is a big contributor for him setting an NHL record for biggest point drop off in a year from 115 points last year to 55 this year.

* not rolled four lines, basically no matter the situation

* not done constant line juggling without allowing players to build chemistry

* played OT to win instead of not lose (eg. playing two forwards and a d-man instead of a forward and two d-men like the Flames often did)

* given young prospects a chance instead of sticking with grinder vets who had won a Cup maybe once a decade ago

* for example, Matthew Philips was leading the AHL in goal scoring, Dustin Wolf was the leading AHL goaltender but Philips got a brief look and Wolf didn’t play until they were eliminated (and of course he won.).

Flames Prospects on Twitter: Phillips and Wolf named to the AHL’s First All-Star Team! ? Phillips has an impressive 75 points in 64 games this season and is tied for the league lead in goals (36) Wolf is leading the AHL in all major goaltending categories, GAA – 2.08, Wins -…

— Flames Reddit (@FlamesReddit) April 13, 2023

* worse, Phillips is a free agent and will likely end up with another team. (The Flames have a history of letting undersized players go on to success elsewhere – Martin St. Louis, Marc Savard and arguably even Johnny Gaudreau though time will tell if he has more success in Columbus.)

* speaking of goaltending, it pains me but they should’ve done what the Oil did and ride the hot young goalie instead of the higher paid, more experienced one. Vladar ended up with a much better overall record than Markstrom but Sutter kept going back to Markstrom for some inexplicable reason.

* league average goaltending instead of 26th ranked GAA

* league average shooting percentage, not 8.8%

* the most games decided by one goal in the NHL (48)

* record-setting 30 one-goal losses

* record-setting 17 OT/shootout losses

* Going back to an earlier point, I can’t imagine how an undersized but top AHL goal scorer like Phillips couldn’t have helped the Flames in 3-on-3 overtime.

* NHL all-time record-setting number of losses when outshooting opponent by 10+ (25)

* tied for third in terms of most posts hit in the NHL

* fewest third period comebacks in the NHL

* not using Milan Lucic on the power play…ever

* one of your best d-men getting into a freak accident when he’s hit by a car while riding an e- scooter that affects him physically and mentally for the rest of the season.

* not letting Nick Ritchie (!) take your final shootout attempt of the season with basically the team’s slim playoff hopes on the line

* actually named a captain

…and worst of all, not lost to their arch rival Oilers in last year’s playoffs which seems to have psychologically damaged the entire team as much as I hate to admit it.

The Flames whole 2022-23 season pic.twitter.com/58OWns3XWP https://t.co/EpPezO97BN

— Aman Kurji (@AmanKurji) June 12, 2023

They’ve had ups and downs over the years like all teams. But like I said earlier, this was probably the single most painful season I’ve seen as a Flames fan.

I mean, it could always be worse. We could be the Oilers! 😉

Flames fans are beating themselves up over this season finishing with 93 points. That point total, 93 points, would represent the fourth best season for the Edmonton Oilers since 2006. They sure love patting themselves on the back when they have been one of the worst team in the NHL for 15 years.

And it could get better next year too!

¶ Posted 18 April 2023 § List § MemoryLane § Sports ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: alberta, hockey

Music Monday – “Clicking sticks three times/Drawing ‘er back to your own line/Top shelf and we’re up by one/Ringing ‘em off the crossbars/Moving our nets for the cars/And all together we’d yell ‘Game on!’/And then our folks would call us in/And we all agreed ‘Next goal wins'”

“More Than A Game” – Mike Plume Band

I didn’t put a lot of thought into this (well, except picking whoever was against the Oilers and Leafs!) but here’s my picks for this year’s Stanley Cup Playoffs…

¶ Posted 17 April 2023 § MusicMonday § Sports ‡ Comments (2) ° Tagged: alberta, hockey, music

Secular Sunday – SNL Alum Victoria Jackson Goes on Rant Saying Her “Loving” God Hates LGBT+ People

The hypocrisy is strong with this one as she tells a local city council meeting that the Bible tells her that God hates “pride” but also ends by warning people to avoid being brainwashed.

(And as a side note, I legitimately don’t know how she ever got on SNL as I never found her very funny.)

¶ Posted 16 April 2023 § Humour § MemoryLane § SecularSunday § Wisdom ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: atheism, science

Saturday Snap – Camping Season Is Coming

Yesterday I posted about spring seeding and today I’m posting a picture the in-laws sent of our camp site – has it been a long winter or what?

¶ Posted 15 April 2023 § Family § MemoryLane § Photo § Saskatchewan § SaturdaySnap § Shea ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: camping, parents, saskatchewan

Friday Fun Link – Everything About Grain Bins (Farmers Are Geniuses)

Spring feels like it’s (almost) here.

Even though I haven’t been directly involved in farming for years, like many in Saskatchewan, I start thinking about seeding at this time of year.

Here’s an interesting video but unfortunately he doesn’t cover survival strategies if your dad makes you shovel out a grain bin on a super hot summer day while desperately hungover! 😉

(Er, probably shouldn’t joke about that – they mention near the end of the video that grain bins are one of the most dangerous places on a farm and when I was in grade 12, my dad was badly injured when a manual bin sweep caught some rubber lining and jumped up, breaking his arm and smashing his face. He was alone at the time and luckily wasn’t knocked out but instead, managed to drive to town (likely in shock), wake my mom who was a nurse that had just worked a night shift, and say in typical understated farmer fashionwhile standing at the end of the bed bleeding and with his arm hanging limply, “Uhm, I think I may have hurt myself.”)

It wasn’t in a grain bin but another cousin caught her hand in an auger loading grain into a bin and only her thick leather gloves jamming the auger meant her hand didn’t get totally amputated. Instead, it was badly mangled and still causes pain, over a decade later.)

¶ Posted 14 April 2023 § Family § FridayFunLink § Jobs § MemoryLane § Saskatchewan § Technology § Video ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: economics, education, food, parents, saskatchewan

Throwback Thursday – #tbt – The Last of Us Isn’t Just A Popular TV Show (Oct, Dec 2022, Apr 2023)

Pace in early October…

(Shockingly?) Shea and I didn’t test positive until December…though having a teen who pretty much self-isolates 99% of the time anyhow did help keep the rest of us safe when Pace was the first positive in the family.)

And even though she ended up getting the PCR test twice in the earliest days of Covid and has been sick *a lot* the last few months, a few days ago was (even more shockingly?) the first time Sasha has actually tested positive for Covid. (All the usual caveats about “Who knows if any of us have had it at any other point in the last three years and just not tested positive for whatever reason.)

The timing sucks as it meant postponing Sasha’s birthday party sleepover for a couple weeks but best that we knew before potentially infecting a bunch of her friends!

She’s not as easy to isolate as her older brother either – because of her age, her more extroverted personality and, in all honesty, Shea and I feeling a lot less worried about being around her since we had Covid less than six months ago and our bivalent boosters just a couple months ago compared to when Pace was the first and only person in the family to test positive originally back in October.)

Bonus: I have a distinct memory of taking this photo and being disappointed I didn’t catch an earlier reading which was higher when Shea and I had Covid…

¶ Posted 13 April 2023 § Family § MemoryLane § Pace § Photo § Sasha § Shea § ThrowbackThursday ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: Covid, health, science

My Childhood Best Friend Wins $55 Million! (Well, A Guy I Kinda Sorta Remember Anyhow)

Okay, maybe he wasn’t my childhood best friend but he was somebody from my hometown whose family and mine did do stuff together occasionally before they moved to BC.

But I should back-up…

I still distinctly remember a conversation when I worked for the Sask Publishers Group around 20 years ago when we were chatting with the staff of the Sask Writers Guild who we shared office space with.

Someone announced that a cousin of theirs had won one million dollars in the lottery and, in the course of the conversation, it came out that nobody in our group of ten or so knew anybody who had “hit the jackpot” to that level…ever.

I knew it theoretically but that was a real reminder that winning a lottery has incredible odds against and knowing that our group who worked with writers and publishers across Canada not to mention their own large circles of family, friends and acquaintances and yet no one knew anybody, even a friend of a friend, let alone a direct connection who had won a significant amount in the lottery until that day really brought home how rare big lottery wins were.

In the twenty years since, I still haven’t heard of anyone I know winning a big lottery and I don’t remember hearing of anyone I know who knew someone who won either, even on those rare occasions when a big win happens in Saskatchewan instead of the more typical Ontario or Quebec.

Well, my dad gave me some wild news the other day – the son of a family we’d known growing up recently won $55 million in the lottery!

I was pretty young when they lived in Indian Head and only have vague memories of them with their kids being quite a bit older than me – Scott who won the lottery was eight years older than me and I think he had one brother closer to my age maybe? (Speaking of misremembering, I’m 90% sure that on one visit to their house I was scarred for life because one of the brothers had a poster of a crocodile coming out a toilet, possibly a band poster of some kind, in their bedroom!)

So, anyhow, like I said, he wasn’t really my childhood best friend but my dad and mom knew their family and dad remembered curling with Scott’s dad, socializing at their house, and even hauling dirt in from the farm for Scott’s dad to do some landscaping.

As is so easy in this day and age, when I heard the news, I went looking for Scott’s “Digital Footprints” to see if he was on Facebook or any other social media – more just out of interest rather than to ask for a million dollar loan (honest!) 😉

But it’s a sign of the times and it was quite obvious that there were a number of fake Facebook profiles which had popped up after he won trying to impersonate him and run scams to get people’s money.

So I guess I’ll just have to stick with my foggy memories of being at their house (I remembered where they lived in IH when dad told me so was old enough for that to stick) and of course, that crocodile poster!