Uncluttering My Mind (Keep Reading, There is Hockey Eventually)

A few non-hockey complaints:

- I cannot believe how much Christmas cards cost. I found these awesome Where the Wild Things Are cards but it was $16.95 for ten cards! That's highway robbery! I bought some dinkier cards and they still cost me $17 but atleast I got a lot more of them for my money. Also, they were a pain in the butt to open! What's wrong with a regular ol' box, card manufacturing people?

- I was unpleasantly surprised to discover that the lowest denomination gift card McKinley Mall offers is $20. I'm only supposed to spend $10 on my Secret Santa! I'm a fabulous Secret Santa because I ended up just spending the $20. I was too lazy to even think of somewhere else to go much less actually get in my car and go there. (Enjoy, Ralph!)

- Hollywood, can we please get on with this whole strike thing? Pay the writers already. YOU NEED THEM and I'm not going to be happy if Lost gets pushed back for your crap. I'm enjoying the plethora of pro-writer websites and videos out there. Let's face it, in a P.R. battle between producers and writers, writers definitely have the advantage. Here's my favorite video, "A World Without Writers," which takes a look at how some of our best movies might have fared without real writers. The lines from Gone With the Wind and Citizen Kane are my favorites. Although the Blade Runner one is good too.



- Not shocked about Roger Clemens and not buying his denials, disappointed that Andy Pettitte didn't come clean when his name first came up a year or so ago, relieved that Jeff Bagwell is still clean as far as we know. His name is the only one that would really devastate me. Also, someone please make John Kruk shut up.

And now a little hockey:

- I'm not down with this whole Scott Niedermayer thing. I think Scott is a great player and he's wonderful to watch and I understand that Brian Burke told him to take his time and think about what he wanted to do... but just because Burke gave him that option, it didn't mean Niedermayer had to use it. If he wanted to retire, he should have said, "Thanks, but I really want to move on." If he didn't want to retire, he should have been ready to go when the season started. No one player - no matter how talented he is - should be more important than the other guys on the roster. I suppose his teammates might all be fine with him only playing part of the season and with the team having to shuffle everything around and move players to make room for Niedermayer's return, but I don't know, it strikes me as unfair in a pretty severe way. I hope this doesn't lead to older players regularly playing partial seasons.

Oh, who am I kidding? I drafted Scott Niedermayer in my fantasy draft and he totally screwed me. Unlike his real-life management, I'm not forgiving him any time soon.

- I'm going to the Flyers game Friday night. I have very mixed feelings about this. At first I totally wanted to go because I wanted to be there for Marty Biron's first game back but then Daniel Briere went and muddied everything up by signing with Philly. The family is going though so I got roped into it. I'm not entirely sure how Danny will be greeted and I'm not entirely sure how I want him to be greeted. I don't think I want him to be cheered like a conquering hero. He left and really he wasn't even here that long. I kind of want to feel like everyone's (finally!) moved on. But he did give us a couple of really special years and he was, by all accounts, wonderful in the community so I'm not sure I want him to be booed mercilessly either. If you see a confused looking woman in the 300s who looks like she can't quite decide whether to boo or cheer, that'd be me. I am clear on one thing though: No video tributes. Seriously, can we just stop talking about that?

- Mike Harrington totally stole my Patrick Kane headline! Okay, he beat me by 15 minutes or so. But still! Speaking of Mike Harrington...

- ...Since I'm usually complaining about the Buffalo News, I will throw them a little praise and say that I've been really enjoying Mike Harrington's work. He comes across as both knowledgeable and fair which is a nice change of pace. His Sabres Edge blog is good stuff and he seems to really get blogging more than some old school journalists do. The quality of the conversation in the comments is touch and go since it sometimes brings out the crazies (although it's calmed down considerably since the free agency days), but the writing itself is top-notch and he often includes some interesting links to other sites and papers. I found his link to a recent Rochester Democrat and Chronicle bit about an AHL team ganging up on Patrick Kaleta cool since we don't hear much about the Rochester guys. I may be the only person in Buffalo who doesn't really want to see Kaleta in Buffalo any time soon so I thought it was a particularly good read. (ETA: It was actually John Vogl who linked to the Kaleta piece. My bad! The spirit of the above remains the same however.)

- Thanks to everyone who played along with me on the last post. While I hope it goes without saying, I'll state for the record that I love when fans of other teams pop up over here. I think one of the coolest things about the blogging world is getting to know other fans and teams more. I like knowing how other people are feeling about their teams and I like occasionally seeing that hockey exists beyond the Sabres.

I also love how loyal WNY transplants are to their hometown despite where life may take them. All the stuff I said about Buffalo being the kind of city that grabs you by the heart and never lets go was absolutely sincere. It's not a perfect city and it's certainly a place with its share of problems, but it's my home and I love it. Here's a glove tap to all you Sabres fans spread across the country. Wear that blue and gold with pride! LET'S GO BUFF-A-LO!