Finals Update

The Wings are ahead of Pittsburgh 3 games to 1 and have their first of three chances to win the Stanley Cup tonight at home! During game 4 in Pittsburgh, a Wings fan managed to throw an octopus onto the ice, got promptly kicked out, changed his clothes and used his spare $300 ticket to get back in and watch the Wings win. Too cool. ;) Here's a link to an interview about his adventures.

It has been an exciting series and the Wings are playing very well. Their veteran leadership has helped them keep their cool in all situations, and their team defense has been stupendous! Zetterberg's amazing defensive play during a crucial 5 on 3 penalty kill late in game 4 was particularly noteworthy, and oh yeah he is also our leading scorer!

I really have lost a lot of respect for the Pens' star Sidney Crosby during this series. What a pouty crybaby. (See the humorous Wings fan creations at the end of this post.)

I hope the Wings can continue their stellar play and bring home the Cup, although Detroit officials are careful to note that no victory parade has been planned yet. (Hockey people are very superstitious.) One final note, when the Pistons and the Wings played at the exact same time, the Wings won the ratings war in Detroit (18.2 to 15.9). It just shows Michiganders have their priorities straight.

GO WINGS!!!

It's finals time!!!

For the first time since 2002, the Red Wings have advanced to the Stanley Cup Finals!!!!! We defeated the Dallas Stars 4 games to 2 in a series that took longer than it should have. The Wings led 3 games to 0 but let the Stars win two games before we closed them out in Dallas on Monday. (Please enjoy the above image of Zetterburg scoring a great shorthanded goal against Marty Turco.) However, I think the slight delay might work to our advantage if we can get Johan Franzen back from a concussion soon. If we had started the finals this week, he probably would have missed 3 or 4 games. Now it looks like he might miss only one (fingers crossed).

We will need Franzen against Pittsburgh in the finals. The Pens are the best team we have faced yet, but we are also way better than the teams they have been squashing on their way to the finals. We have a better defense than them (no question) and a lot more experience, but they have an (arguably) better offense, especially if Franzen doesn't come back. Goaltending is a wash in my opinion, as Ozzie and Fleury have both been great, although Ozzie has won the Cup before (like many of the Wings) so his experience should be an advantage. Still, Pittsburgh makes me nervous and no one has any idea who will win this matchup because the two teams haven't even played each other since 2006 (Stupid NHL scheduling).

Speaking of stupid NHL scheduling, the idiots at the NHL scheduled the Cup Finals games at the EXACT SAME TIME as the next 3 Pistons Eastern Conference Finals games. Do you hate Mighigan, NHL? Why are you making Michiganders choose between playoff games??? Granted, playoff hockey (especially the finals!) is WAAAAAAY more exciting than playoff basketball (sorry Steph) so the choice should be obvious, but I would actually have watched the Pistons games if they weren't on at the same time as the Wings. (And I'd guess Steph would watch the Wings if they weren't on at the same time as the Pistons.) The NHL's ratings were bad enough before they made this ridiculous decision.

But let's leave that bitterness behind us. The Wings will be playing in June this year, as they always should be, and it's time to enjoy a thrilling Stanley Cup finals. (See this article for 44 reasons you should watch the Stanley Cup Finals.)

I have one more thing to say: GOOOOOO WINGS!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Birthday Isis!

Today is the 3rd anniversary of the day I adopted Isis from the Humane Society. Most of you know the story, but for those that don't: I picked Isis because after I petted her at the shelter and then moved on to look at other cats, she followed me! She knew we were meant to be together! I'm so blessed to have such a wonderful cat!

To celebrate her special day, Isis got a special "cake" made of cat treats and a new mouse toy.

How sweep it is!

Yay! This week the Wings swept our bitter rivals the Avalanche out of the playoffs, winning four games to none! To be fair, the Avs were dealing with a lot of injuries. However, I'm sure we would have won the series even if they were healthy. We were clearly the better team. Johan Franzen set an NHL record with 9 goals just in this series (more than the entire Colorado team scored the entire series!). The rest of our team played great too. Now we await the winner of Dallas/San Jose for the Western Conference finals. Eight wins down, eight to go!

And, for Todd and Katie, here is a quote about how well two of our other players did:
"Pavel Datsyuk (drafted 171st) and Henrik Zetterberg (drafted 210th) were as breathtaking as Genghis Khan and Tamarlaine, sweeping down on the defenceless Denver folk."

You mean grad school doesn't go on forever and ever?

It's official! My Ph.D. defense talk will be on Friday, August 1 at 1 PM in East Lansing (in the same room where many of you recently witnessed Katie's wonderful Ph.D. defense...she will be a hard act to follow!)

I would love to have you all come for the talk! There will be food (aren't you curious to see if Jean can top her bee honey cupcakes with an amazing wren-themed dessert?) and you will get to hear a fascinating talk about bird reproductive behavior, aka "What to do when your mate is sexy". However, if you are too busy with other things, (like work or planning a wedding that will occur less than 48 hours after my defense,) I understand. :) If you need more detailed directions/info, please ask.

Sigh...sad but true

On to round 2

The Red Wings finished off Nashville 3-0 today to take the series 4 games to 2. Ozzie played great in goal and should get the start in Round 2 versus either Colorado or Calgary. My favorite Wing, Nik Kronwall, had another monster hit this game. :) It makes such a difference to have him healthy and contributing on the blue line this playoffs.

I HATE watching Wings games on NBC because the announcers are so obviously anti-Wings. Pierre McGuire is the worst of the offenders, but they all do it. All the announcers (and the maybe the referees, judging by all of the non-calls on the Preds today) clearly wanted Cinderella Nashville to defeat the big bad Wings. However, I was relatively calm and confident (for me) the whole game. I just got the vibe that we were going to win. The better team prevailed and hopefully this is the start of a nice long playoff run (my last in Michigan!).

NHL playoffs are here!

The Wings start the playoffs tonight! Our round 1 opponent is the Nashville Predators. Here is some interesting info about their goalie from that very reputable news source, the Onion:

Goalie Clearly Living In Net

Lets Go Buff-A-Lo!!!

For those of you who haven't heard, I have been offered (and have accepted!) a post doc in Buffalo! I knew it was fate when I found out their school mascot is a griffin! :) I will be leaving in August. I'll really miss my MI friends, but I am excited about this great opportunity.

Merry Christmas!

...oh I mean Happy Easter! Sorry, I got confused about which holiday it was by the FOOT of snow that fell here on Friday. Did I mention I hate snow? Oh and also I'm going to a job interview in Buffalo next week.

March Madness pool advice

Don't know/care about basketball? (Katie) Here is an article with some great advice about how to pick your teams for your bracket:

How to win* your tournament pool

My favorites are "Mascot Fight Club" and "If This School Were a Beer, Would I Drink It?" MSU is mentioned several times for you Spartan fans ;)

No I'm not on Facebook!!!

Stuff White People Like Blog

Stuff White People Like

Okay I should be going to bed but this blog hits so close to home its almost not funny. ;)

Check out #81.

Actually the whole thing pretty much exactly describes the culture I exist in. Hehe

Movie Quotes

I'm going to shamelessly steal an idea from Nancy's blog that I thought was really fun.

I picked 15 of my favorite movies and found a quote from each one on IMDB. Now your job is to guess which movie the following quotes came from! Post your guesses in the comments section for any of the ones that you know. I'll moderate comments so that everyone can guess and I'll list those who guessed the movie correctly on the main post. (Another idea stolen from Nancy!) Eventually I'll give you the answers. No cheating using Google, IMDB, etc! ;)

Enjoy!

EDIT 3/3: Good job guessing so far everyone! Only 2 more to go! I can't give you a clue about #10 without being too obvious, but I'm sure you all have seen it. I did add a 2nd quote to #13 to help you out. It is definitely the hardest one. (But kudos to Carl for getting 14, which I think was the 2nd hardest.) Feel free to keep guessing if you haven't given up and looked them up (ahem Mike). ;) I'll post the answers tomorrow night.

EDIT 3/4: (Well technically 3/5) I've put the answers as a comment so that people reading this in the future can have a chance to guess. It was really fun picking these quotes, and I agree with Nancy that it was hard to pick just 15 movies. :)

1. “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.”
Nancy, Mike, Rob, Carl

2. “Uh, we had a slight weapons malfunction, but uh... everything's perfectly all right now. We're fine. We're all fine here now, thank you. How are you?”
Nancy, Mike, Rob, Steph, Carl

3. “I like rich people. I like the way they live. I like the way I live when I'm with them.”
Steph

4. “Yeah, sir, you might want to send a maintenance man over to that office across the way. The lights are off, and they must be looking for a fuse box, 'cause them flashlights, they keep me awake.”
Steph

5. “For future reference, right handed men don't hold it with their left. Just one of those things.”
Carl

6. “We are men of action, lies do not become us.”
Nancy, Steph

7. “How can you read this? There's no pictures!”
Nancy

8. “It is a strange fate that we should suffer so much fear and doubt over so small a thing. Such a little thing.”
Nancy, Rob, Steph

9. “If you were waiting for the opportune moment, that was it.”
Nancy

10. “Being killed is pretty final, wouldn't you say?”

11. “Is that really what my hair looks like from the back?”
Nancy, Steph

12. “Strange, actually. This is the second time I've shot this man while he was flying through the air.”
Rob

13. “What kind of a land is this where you almost mean what you say? Where laws almost work?”
"The only thing John Quincy Adams will be remembered for is his middle name. "

14. “I have issues with anyone who treats faith as a burden instead of a blessing. You people don't celebrate your faith; you mourn it.”
Carl

15. “Those giraffes you sold me, they won't mate. They just walk around, eating, and not mating. You sold me... queer giraffes. I want my money back.”
Nancy, Rob

The cat is gone!

For all of you who have been avoiding my blog because of the funny but increasingly annoying cat video that played every time you visited, I am happy to report that this post has knocked it off the front page of my blog. Please visit more often!

For those of you that stuck with it (including me) and even learned to love the sound of the cat video playing, thanks for being so dedicated! :)

Blue Jay vs. Hawk

I give the hawk a lot of credit. He seems relatively unphased by the little blue jay dive bombing him...I get more annoyed when wrens dive bomb me!

Here's a link with more info about the video.

Fun fact

(Courtesy of Bob Kaser, the Griffins' radio announcer)

At a normal Friday night Griffins game, they sell about 450 beers. At last week Fridays' "Dollar beer, dollar hotdog" night, they sold 9,000 beers. No wonder the crowd was so loud! :)

I'm famous!

How exciting, I was just on TV! If any of you happened to be watching the Grand Rapids ABC affiliate 11:00 news' sports report tonight (Friday), you would have seen me and my friend Kathy cheering for the Griffins!

They played a great game tonight and DARREN MCCARTY (!) scored a hat trick (!!!) in his first home game with the team! It was a packed house and the crowd was so fired up for him. What a fun game!

This NEVER happens to me

January pics

Lisa's request is my command! I have posted some pictures from January on my Picasa public album. (You can link to it from my 2007 Picture of the Day album.) I plan to continue to occasionally post pictures, even though I'm not doing one every day any more. If you need the link let me know. Enjoy!