stern
The Life and Times of Ryan Carter’s Moustache
About 11 months ago, giddy after the Devils OT win over the Rangers to move on to the Stanley Cup Finals, I decided that Ryan Carter’s moustache needed its own web site. The turning point for me was in Game 5, which I was forced to watch at the Sports Page in Mountain View, California [...]
From (Former) Russia, With Love
Toby and I have participated in the Jewish Federation’s Peoplehood Project for most of the past two years, knowing it would culminate in a trip to Ukraine and Israel, tracing our family’s lives from the very first roots of persecution in the pale of Jewish settlement to celebrating Israel Independence Day, in Israel, with our [...]
Flux Fortuna Kickstarter
I am a firm believer in the power of crowdsourced funding through Kickstarter. Small projects get wider exposure and individuals who want to think like venture capitalists manage a portfolio of small investments with well-defined rewards or returns. I’ve supported ten different projects, ranging from print editions of web comics to Devi Ever’s cartridge based [...]
A Point on the Number Line
With apologies to Trey Anastasio and Phish, today was a trip up and down the number line. It was the last day of Mites hockey, completing my first year as coach. It’s been deeply satisfying watching these young players progress through the year as players and teammates. I got to work with other coaches who [...]
Hands On A Hardbody: A Real American Musical
“Hands On A Hardbody” opened last week on Broadway after a run at the LaJolla Playhouse, bringing some of the west coast cast with it. I grabbed tickets on the pre-sale because the last tow musicals that looked appealing during previews (Once and Book of Mormon) took home wheelbarrows full of Tonys that put ticket [...]
A Ken-A-Hora
I did it. I gave the Devils a ken-a-hora (an early blessing) as my grandmother would say; I invited the evil eye by speaking a hoped-for truth before events had fully transpired. Or else the Devils are finally showing their age, their intensity, their capabilities, and their motivation. At 2-5 in their last 7 games, [...]
Buying into the System
Commentators love to talk about players buying into a team system. This is especially true in hockey, where an individual player may lift the overall quality of a team but won’t single-handedly win games night after night. Having players that can be coached and instructed, and are willing to work, makes a team stronger and [...]
Doctorow’s “Homeland” Hits The NY Times Bestseller List
Cory Docotorow’s newest YA novel, “Homeland”, hits the NY Times YA bestseller list in week one. Called it. It’s a superb followup to “Little Brother,” and Cory’s found a good balance between technical exposition and moving the story along, with decidedly less snogging and more insight into the root causes of greed and corruption. It [...]
Friday Roundup
The more things change, the more they look familiar. Alexi Ponikarovksy, known around here as “My Little Poni”, is a Devil again. We missed him. And he only helps with the surname scoring for “The Scrabble Line,” as I’ve started to call the various combinations of Zubrus, Zajac, Kovulchuk and hopefully Loktionov. Devils-Flyers tonight at [...]
Splitting An iTunes Library
I hit the point a few weeks ago where my collection of Phish shows (all downloaded legally, paid for happily and listened to frequently) was consuming a double-digit integer percent of my desktop’s hard drive. My $100 solution: buy another external hard drive (the area under my desk looks like the spawn of Ursala the [...]