More on Da Kine

The news is good. First, from Kin-Shay:

2005-03-16 UPDATE - Courtney just called, she just spoke with CPT Rivera, the military laison to the civilian hospital. Shane is awake and speaking. We are not sure what he is saying, but his nurses described him as a “feisty young man.� CPT R is on his way to the hospital now to visit Shane. More updates to follow…

At first, I was worried Shane might be confused enough to default to one of the other languages he speaks. He'd have a hard time getting water from a nurse if he asked for it in Latin or Romanian... Luckily, Kin Yah Brutha adds some detail in the Soxaholix comments:

hey guys, da kine is out of the drug induced coma two days early and spoke to his wife this morning. he is speaking in complete sentences, but is still a little confused. ever the master of understatement, he said, "i seem to have been in a bit of an accident."

That's our boy!

Luck of the Oirish

Today our building management people set up some fun St. Paddy's Day fare in our lobby. (I know... Wrong day... I guess they have four buildings to entertain... Or something...) So, what yummy treats do you suppose they had for us? Well, I'll tell you!

  • GREEN shamrock cookies with GREEN sugar sprinkled on top!
  • Grapes – because they're GREEN!
  • Honeydew mellon chunks – because they're GREEN!
  • Kiwi bits – because they're GREEN!

That was the extent of the solid foodstuffs, but then there was a coice of beverages, as well:

  • St. Patty's Punch! White grape juice and 7-Up. That'll drive out the snakes! (It's not GREEN, though....)
  • Lime-aid! Because it's GREEN! It's limey! (Hey! That's not Irish!)

Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph it was a sad affair.

As an alternative, I shall be hoisting a Guinness or few (and playing my Songs of Bobby Burns disc — take that, ya bastards!) this Thursday.

If you have some spare good vibes...

Send them Shane's way, please. He was in a very serious accident while serving in Kuwait. Initial signs seem encouraging, but he suffered some nasty injuries.

We love you, brother. Be well.

...

This is purely trivial now, but Shane would be happy if circumstances hadn't interfered: Our BU Ice Dogs made it past Providence tonight and will meet New Hampshire in the Hockey East semis, which will be a single-elimination affair.

More Chris Bourque

As my BU Ice Dogs get ready for Providence in the first round of the Hockey East playoffs, Boston.com gives us a nice feature on our favorite feisty winger, Chris Bourque:Son burst: Once he arrived on scene at BU, it took Bourque no time to excel

Let the record show, too, that it was a certain winger who for years wore No. 8 for the Bruins who most captured the imagination of this Bourque's generation.

"Cam Neely was probably my favorite Bruin," said Chris. "He did everything. He fought. He scored. He killed people, the way he checked and fought. He set up goals and scored some others that were just unbelievable to watch. All in all, I'd say he was the perfect hockey player."

I knew I liked that kid.

Also, congratulations to Chris for his classic quote in response to the various taunts he receives due to his lineage: "I love it. Really, it's wicked funny, and when it's something new, that cracks me up."

Wicked funny...? That's pissah.

So long, Peter the Great

Shit. Forsberg sustains concussion

Swedish star Peter Forsberg was concussed when he was checked into the boards by Peter Nordstrom, disrupting his comeback in the Swedish Elite League playoffs on Thursday.

Forsberg, sidelined for six weeks after breaking a bone in his hand, was cross-checked in the second period while playing for MoDo against Farjestad, which won 5-4 and led the best-of-seven quarterfinal series 3-1. Nordstrom was ejected.

I'll bet this spells retirement for Peter for sure. Damn. There goes this hockey generation's Cam Neely.

(Yes, totally different players and styles, but in terms of talent and ability – pretty much samey-same.)

Wil Wheaton: Slightly less angry at the world

Or at least that's how I think the intrepid Mr. Wheaton comes across in this NYTimes article.

Viewers of tonight's episode of "CSI" may find Walter oddly familiar. Under the Hollywood dirt and scabs, the actor playing a drug-addicted murder suspect may bring to mind a teenage Starfleet officer, or a boy who once sought a corpse. That's because Walter is played by Wil Wheaton, once a wildly successful child actor who these days endures sometimes-painful lulls between gigs - and has, in response, transformed himself into a quirky star of the blogosphere.

Tidbits:

  1. I hate the fact that the term "blogosphere" has made it this far into the public consciousness.
  2. Wil seemed pretty grumpy on the WPT Hollywood Home Game. I wonder if he really is that grouchy, or if he's just that acerbic... Or maybe LeVar Burton just put him off by acting like a pompous ass.
  3. Yeah, Wil's on CSI tonight. I really love that his role got upgraded based on his audition. Good job, Wil!

Uri Gorilla?

Study: Monkeys Do Read Minds

The study is the first to show that monkeys, like humans, not only react to visual information, but also that they can use it to reason about the behavior of others.

The findings suggest that certain human cognition skills are not as rare as once thought. They also indicate that the ability to reason did not evolve in humans. Instead, the brainy trait probably passed down to us from our ape ancestors.

Cheeky semi-psychic bastards!

Actually, this doesn't stike me as all that earth-shattering. I mean, dogs and horses (aka: "Big dogs") can interpret very subtle visual cues, too.

[FYI: Title ref]

Northeast Travel Alert

FYI: The Wife and I are making tentative plans to travel to Boston and Maine towards the end of July. We were hoping to bring along Matt and his lady, but that's not going to work out, sadly. From what I hear, though, there is a possiblity that Hezzy's brother Chris might be able to come along with Auntie Kate.

It's liable to be a bit of a whirlwind tour, but I'd think, if it's at all possible, that we'd need to touch base with any available Corcorans, the Hanh/Van Collective, and possibly Cringe & Co.

Ping us if you're on that list or if you think you unjustly got left off it.

My Millionaire Wife

Hezzy and I often joke that she owes it to me to become rich and famous. It would only be fair payback of the time I supported her while she went to grad school, etc., right? Well, if you believe WIRED, she may be poised to become the next breadwinner in our household after all: Revenge of the Right Brain

To flourish in this age, we'll need to supplement our well-developed high tech abilities with aptitudes that are "high concept" and "high touch." High concept involves the ability to create artistic and emotional beauty, to detect patterns and opportunities, to craft a satisfying narrative, and to come up with inventions the world didn't know it was missing. High touch involves the capacity to empathize, to understand the subtleties of human interaction, to find joy in one's self and to elicit it in others, and to stretch beyond the quotidian in pursuit of purpose and meaning.

The article is adapted from A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age by Daniel Pink.

Sounds interesting to me. Now if only I could get back in touch with my artistic/poetic self, I might actually be in good shape... ;)

On Boston Drivers...

Yes, they are a notorious bunch. I hereby offer a couple more exhibits for the evidence pile: First is a somewhat whiney account from a freshly exposed youngster who thinks she's been around long enough to have an authoritative opinion: Massholes

Yes, the popular term is “Masshole,� but that’s something of a misnomer. You see, the trouble with Boston drivers is not really that they’re jerks on the road—I’ve driven alongside my share of New York cabbies and asphalt cowboys. Boston drivers are a different breed. Their driving wavers somewhere between oblivious and schizophrenic. They stop dutifully in the left lane at a stoplight because that’s the lane they were driving in—even though there’s nobody in the other lane. They fade between lanes with no semblance of purpose—or sometimes even intention. I’ve driven in front of buses at night that had no lights on. More than once, someone has tried to merge in from the right—right into my passenger door.

That’s the thing. Boston drivers aren’t bad, they’re scary. Congratulations, folks: you frighten me.

This is fairly typical stuff, especially for someone who has been in the area less than, say, five years.

More damning, however is this bit about Boston cabbies not wearing seatbelts — because they don't have to!!

Published in today's Annals of Emergency Medicine, the survey by Fernandez and other BMC emergency room doctors found that of 250 taxi drivers observed during a four-day period last June, only 17 were properly belted in. The doctors stationed observers throughout the city where cabs are common, to note and record whether the driver was wearing a seat belt.

Industry lobbyists pushed for the exclusion from the seat belt law back in the late 1980s, saying that being strapped in was inconvenient for cabdrivers, who frequently get in and out of their vehicle.

The mind boggles. How did the cabbies get the exemption? Well, they argued that the belt would slow them down too much considering how often they get in and out of their cars to load/unload luggage and such. Oh, and since they mostly drive in the city at speeds under 30 mph, a seatbelt would be silly anyway.

Yeah right. Show any cabbie in any town two blocks of open road and I bet they'll get to 60 in no time. Time is money and speed equals time.

College Hockey Playoffs

Well, thanks to a boatload of ties, Boston College has secured top spot in the Hockey East standings at the end of the regular season. Meanwhile, my boys at BU edged New Hampshire in the last game of the season to grab the number two spot. That sets up a three game series against the Providence Friars in the first round of the Hockey East playoffs:

BU also faced the Friars in the quarterfinals in 2002 and 2003, both series that BU won. BU swept the Friars in three games this year, including two 3-2 wins and a 4-2 win in which BU scored an empty net goal as time expired.

The odds sound good to me, but Coach Parker (who will soon share his name with the rink on which his teams skates) is always cautious – or at least politically correct:

"I don't see any home-ice team being a shoo-in," said BU coach Jack Parker. "It's a tough league."

Now I need to get me one of the new old school third jerseys (perhaps with Chris Bourque's number)...

The plan is to have the team wear the uniforms on various special occasions. "Once in a while, yeah," Parker said. "Although I think if a lot of people like them, we might use them a little bit more. We might take the negative of them and make the white uniform to use as our home jersey once in a while. But we will not get rid of our traditional 'Detroit' look."

Yeah, that "Detroit look" has almost gotten me into some bother here in Colorado. I've sported my Chris Drury sweater around town a couple times and heard several grumbles along the lines of "That better not be a Red Wings jersey..."