Monthly Archives: December 2009

Late Night D.C. Sports

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I stayed up late last night. Went to bed at 1:00 am.

I watched the Caps game on Comcast SportsNet and I toggled back and forth to the Wizards game on CSN Plus. Both teams are out on West Coast road trips.

I though the Caps vs. Canucks game was a terrific game. We lost 3-2 but I thought we played well. It was like a playoff game. They scored on their power plays. We didn’t and that was that. There is nothing to overanalyze. The Canucks are a very good team. We are on the road. It was a close game. No one to blame. Win as a team; lose as a team. The refs played their role and we can’t complain. We just have to rise above it all and fight through it and win against very good teams on tough road trips. That was the kind of game I would have liked us see go to OT and get at least a point. I didn’t understand the 4 minute penalty on Tom Poti where the game was sealed by the Canucks but we have to stay out of the box at game’s end on the road.

We trudged on to Edmonton after the game where we play tonight. December is a tough month for us in terms of travel with two West Coast swings, 13 games and 8 on the road. At the end of December, we will have played 22 games on the road and 18 at home. It all evens up at some point so we can’t complain. Almost half the season will be over come end of the year. Wow. The season is flying by, isn’t it?

It was good to see the Wizards end a losing streak. It was fantastic to see Gilbert Arenas play with abandon and passion and get great results scoring 45 points. The Wizards play tonight in Phoenix, back to back.

Tough schedules on the road for both teams.

Rock Star Treatment and No Rock Star Treatment

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Alex is being treated like a rock star in Vancouver. Check out these articles to see for yourself. This is deservedly so. Alex is two-time reigning MVP; has great charisma; and is a First Team NHL All-Star. I love the photo montage of him at practice. Wow.

On the other hand, Mike Green, who is also a First Team NHL All-Star, was hit in the head by an Avalanche player who did not receive a suspension by the NHL. See Jim Kelley’s piece here. Thanks Jim and please get well soon. See these articles as well.

What a tough schedule we have tonight and tomorrow night, back to back games again. Wish us luck. Go Caps!

Julia Nails It

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This is a perfectly posited article and thesis. Sad but true.

Are we really close friends? Will I tell you what I tell my closest friends knowing all of this will end up – forever – on the web? And in Google’s search algorithms? So some venture backed company can generate clicks to turn pixels into gold?

Can Facebook really make a business around “friendship” and “community”? We really tried at AOL in the old days but instant messaging was such an intimate one-on-one bit of self expression that no one supported ads. And then chat rooms were tough to monetize, too. Who knew what was being said and by whom in chat rooms? Email, guess what we got? Ads in the bottom of email forms and bad sig files. This is tough to make a business around that feels good to the consumer and the advertiser.

Is Facebook a utility?

Is it a fun place to hang out?

Is it a media company?

A platform and for whom?

Julia is right. Facebook has become something new and different. This weekend while I have time, I will drill down on the privacy settings and have to make some tough calls. Do I want to use Facebook as a publishing platform and really look at my 5,000 friends as an audience or do I fool myself into thinking Facebook really is like Cheers, a place where I like to hang out and meet up and mingle and chat with my buddies?

I thought this article was very poignant, smart and thought provoking.

Makes a Great Holiday Gift

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Angelina Jolie bought Brad Pitt Rosetta Stone software as a gift to learn French according to this blog. I thought this was a cool piece of news and wanted to share it with you.

I am giving some of this software as educational oriented gifts to friends and family this holiday season. Also, some Capitals players will also receive some software this New Year as well. Go and self improve – learn a new language.

I Am So Confused

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I thought we had global warming yet it is record setting cold in Canada. Click.

I thought the world was ending and the financial crisis would deepen yet Time Magazine’s Man of the Year is credited with stopping the economic meltdown. Click.

The NHL salary cap would go way down as the bad economy would ripple across our league. Click.

Who to believe? Believe no expert that is for sure.

The Cat is Out of the Bag

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Privacy, safety and security. Integrity.

As a utility service, consumers need to trust you. See this blog post on Facebook and its latest move.

Default settings should always be set on the highest level of security and then a communique should be sent to the user that says, ”If you want to broaden the network and be more ’public’ here is how you do it.”

But there is now an arms race to feed the Google algorithm. I recently Googled a good friend and I was shocked to see the first two entries for him were his Twitter tweets. Facebook wants in on this action so your newsfeeds to friends, pictures published and wall postings all go into the algorithms and are now public fodder. Unless you do something about it via Facebook’s privacy settings which most people can’t figure out.

This development bears watching. It isn’t passing the smell test to me.

A Good and Total Victory

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The Avalanche is a young and exciting team. They have great ownership and a great history. They are filled with former Washington Capitals that I am very fond of; Joe Sacco as coach; Kono as assistant coach; and Craig Billington as goaltender coach. Amazing. When I first bought the team and George McPhee signed Joe Sacco as a fourth line role player, I received a funny email. It said, “You are so stupid as a new owner. I bet you thought George was signing Joe Sakic but instead you got Joe Sacco.” Joe Sacco was a great teammate and a very tough, grind it out defensively sound player. He is doing a great job now as coach for the Avalanche. I responded, by the way, to the person who emailed me with that funny comment that I found it ironic that the Caps traded their first pick in the draft one year to get Dale Hunter and guess who that first pick turned into? Yep, Joe Sakic. A trade that served both parties quite well indeed.

The Avalanche is positioned to be a terrific team. Young and exciting. They are only four points behind us now in the overall NHL standings.

We played pretty good team hockey last night. We won the game 6-1. Everyone contributed which is important on the road. This is a tough trip: Toronto, Colorado, Vancouver and Edmonton. That is a lot of travel to a lot of hostile arenas and a lot of miles of wear and tear.

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