Brand New, Brand New, Brand New
Posted by jtbourne on September 2, 2009 · 22 Comments
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Before I launch into stuff – how about me buying a new car?
Brand New – Rhymefest featuring Kanye West
It's 115 damn degrees here somedays, black them windows out, please...
As of a week ago, I was looking at these unforseen expenses: A crown for my front tooth ($1,100), two new (after market) tires w/ alignment ($700+), and registering my car in Arizona ($200+). Turns out minor league hockey insurance isn’t as bad as the rumours make it out to be, cause they stepped up on the tooth, and the new car not only lowered my monthly payments, has lower interest, and put me in an ’09, but it also took care of my tires and registration. Sweet.
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So, I love that Bourne’s Blog readers are passionate about their beer. At some point, we’ll have to steal a page from Botta’s blog and have a meet and greet (where we only drink good beer, right guys?). And by meet and greet, I mean schedule it like a year in advance, in Vegas, at the Sportsbook in Caesars or something (maybe to watch the Islanders in the first round of playoffs this year?). I’m just spitballin’ here.
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I made my debut visit to www.dontevenreply.com yesterday, and most definitely will be back. Much like textsfromlastnight.com (parental advisory, once again), it’s basically a way to pass time by reading about people doing/saying hilariously inappropriate things.
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The Jets are talking about picking up Brandon Marshall from the Broncos, gotta love that. My first Fantasy Football draft is on the 11th, and I’m at the peak of my football knowledge game right now (yet I keep insisting the Blackhawks will win the Presidents Trophy in the NHL, apparently damaging my credibility in that sport). After a meeting with Jay Dieffenbach, the Pro Sports Editor of the Arizona Republic, it’s becoming increasingly clear that my sports writing future doesn’t have to hinge on the whims of Gary Bettman and the Coyotes. Go Jets.
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Should we start looking into a Bourne’s Blog fantasy hockey league? Admittedly, I know nothing about setting one up or how to run one, but I’m fairly certain that as a college educated human I could figure it out. Just a feeler really. You in?
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Bri signed the lease on our new apartment yesterday in the Chandler/Tempe area. To put the awesomeness of our gated community in perspective, the pool has beach sand leading into the shallow end. But here’s my question to salespeople: Do we really have to do the whole “oh, this special just came out today”, “oh, I just got approval from my manager…” thing to get a fair price? After four days of that BS, we haggled 10 free weeks rent, a $300 credit and another discount on a year lease (taking our monthly payments down over $230 bucks a month in the process). Take that, desperate Arizona real estate.
So – apartment, car, engagement ring… Did I just get domesticated? …Wait… married guys still get to go party and crush beers after hockey games right…? … I just… um… wait… where am I…
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Random thought a million people have had: Why isn’t there a centrist party in the US? I have to believe the biggest population of the people aren’t strictly left or right; not many folks are that cut and dried. Would it be so absurd to represent moderate views?
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My new article is up today for The Hockey News. I’d definitely recommend this one, it’s a neat players-only insight that sheds some light on how we raise money for the end of the year party, aside from fines. Hope you like it! The Hockey News: Put in on the Boaaaard, Yes!
I'm a hockey player turned writer. After playing for Alaska Anchorage in the WCHA (NCAA), I carried on with an NHL tryout (New York Islanders in 2007) before spending a couple seasons in the AHL/ECHL (last year was 2008-09). My father, Bob Bourne, won four Stanley Cups with the Islanders in the '80's, as did my fiancee's dad, Clark Gillies. I'm now the web editor for theScore's hockey blog "Backhand Shelf."
I’m in for fantasy hockey.
Based on the beer related comments there might be quite a few teams named, “Beer Snob.”
Maybe an important follow up question would be: What’s the best provider to use for the league? A Yahoo! league? CBSSports?
I’m doing fantasy hockey this year for the first time with some friends… I’d love to participate in a league with people who actually know hockey
We did espn.com for the league just because it was the first site available to set up the league… though I think I’m more inclined to do Yahoo! then CBSSports..
I’ve used yahoo fantasy hockey before and rather liked it. I wasn’t as impressed with CBSSports. But either way, I’m in! Oh, and @AiH – there is a well known rec-league team here in San Jose called simply Beer. All players have beer names on their jerseys (Guiness, Fosters, Bud, etc.) Their logo is a bottle cap with crossed hockey sticks. Awesome!
Count me in for fantasy hockey as well, yahoo is always a good option. ANd keep in mind if your team sucks the league just turns into another outlet to tear guys up.
I’m in for fantasy hockey, and yes, I am a beer snob. The whole microbrewery craze of the 90′s has yet to reach South Florida. If you are lucky, a bar *might* have Guiness on tap, but no other dark beers. I love a good porter, and got spoiled when I lived in the Pacific NW. My family sees nothing wrong with drinking Miller or Bud Light. Fortunately, their taste in wine is *much* better.
Did the new Bourne-mobile come with Satellite Radio?
Now to mull over a team name…..
I love Beer – not the drink, the hockey team. We used to finish open skate/stick-n-puck/whatever and then head up to Stanley’s to watch Beer play! Of course I always hoping someone would join the club as “Other People’s”.
As for a fantasy league, I’m in. Trip to Vegas also sounds like a blast
I’m so down for a Bourne’s Blog fantasy league, I have only done Yahoo but I loved it both years, great interface, the live draft is wicked (and optional), and there are tons of choices for points/moves/etc.
Nice work on the new digs and ride. The family car, ring, and apartment might not have domesticated you but being a young writer with an attractive and successfully employed fiance may have you developing some sweet cooking chops and wishing more men watched daytime television.
As for an American centrist party, I am speaking as a smarmy Canadian but aren’t they called the Demorepublicats and haven’t they been in power forever?? There’s only two parties and they can’t win without the center. I think the left-right axis in the US mixes political issues with social ones quite a bit, which makes kind of an artificial “axis” that has more to do with different cultural opinions (abortion, definition of marriage, etc.) than any consistent political axis. In terms of issues like economic policy, government size and power, foreign policy, etc., there is a more legit left-right axis that is formed by different interpretations of ideal economic systems, foreign policy, government involvement in the private sector, etc., and you can see this division happening amongst parents at PTA meetings or states on a continent. In terms of these elements, I see Republicans and Democrats as different shades of the same colour but they market themselves differently for slightly different clumps attached to the center. Haha sorry that ended up being way longer than I thought it would.
Loved your article about putting money on the board! Editor’s pick, and rightly so. Maybe I would still read Sports Illustrated if Bourne’s Blog was the back page.
Loved the write up for hockey news!!! verry entertaining
I’m in for the fantasy football league. My other league is on yahoo and it works really well.
jl
If you actually look at his actions objectively, no small task for most americans, obama is about as centrist as they come in this country. Combine media folk, lobbyists, candidates, and commentators of all kinds desperate for attention and a public who’s attention span is shorter than most aboriginal midgets and you have the perfect conditions to create an “us vs them” mentality in everyone. There is no middle ground because to compromise would be giving ground to your enemy; and don’t think in any uncertain terms that people actually will think of “the other side” in that way. Most people’s minds are made up before they hear the issue just based on what they think the Republican or Democrat thinks. This perception makes everyone a reactionary, just either on one side of the spectrum or another.
I’m sure one on one, with someone you know you can find issues that they are “liberal” about and those that they are “conservative” about. (I use those quotes to denote the contemporary definition of the terms instead of the older original meaning given to them, after all a “conservative” is literally *liberal* about firearms aren’t they?) In fact, its to be expected, but if you ask them if they who they identify with, you’ll almost always get a resounding vote for one side or the other.
Deirde,
Anyone who says they don’t like beer just hasn’t had the right beer…
I work for the fastest growing craft brewery in the U.S. (6 years in a row!) and I can absolutely find a beer for anyone…
The ridiculous variety of things you can do with beer is astonishing… I’ve had beer made with everything from annatto seed and arctic cloud berries to saffron and peet smoked barley… and there’s so much more to it then just your bud/miller/coors…
I’m totally up for a beer geek get together… and I’ll bring some shit out west that y’all haven’t even imagined…
I’m whack-tose intolerant. Also I take credit for introducing you to that Rhymefest song, which is still hot.
Why so much hate for Bud Light Lime? What’s a guy gotta do to get a Dos Equis around here?
http://davecunning.wordpress.com
Beer huh, I happen to live in THE beer country Belgium, no country makes beer as good as ours.
A few tips,
Gulden Draak, Grimbergen, Chimay, Leffe, Ciney, Lachouffe, Kwak, Westmalle, Westvleteren, Orval, Rochefort, Achel, Maredsous, Witkap…
small country, over 800 kinds of beer, and we’re proud of it as well
I’ve been a little busy to get back to this blog but… Neil:
But wouldn’t the creation of an open centrist party take people away from the left and the right, essentially making the group on the left “actually left” and the one on the right “actually right”, thus giving people something to “actually vote on”? It would be nice to hear different opinions that aren’t tinted shades of the same colour you’re talking about, but actual, different colours.
In many other forms of democracy, like parliamentary democracy, there are ideological parties represented in parliament (in Canada, the NDP, the Bloc, and maybe soon the Greens) that don’t actually have a chance in hell of winning even a minority government, but they win seats and push the centrist parties around a little and give political voice to more specific issues (like the Bloc and the treatment of Quebec). So ‘the big two” (libs and cons) have to win the center (to get elected) and then compromise some issues to win enough support to actually do something once in power. If there are only two parties in a political system and success or failure is determined solely by winning or losing general elections, and you cannot win one without appealing strongly to the center, you have no choice (in Canada there is a similar process, and the Libs and Cons are sometimes called “brokerage parties” because their strategy involves appealing to such a broad variety of opinions without appearing too ideological on ANYTHING). My point is, if a new centrist government popped up between the dems and repubs, this “new” party would sound identical to either because they’d all be at the same trough. And when a legitimate third party actually did appear, everyone from Jon Stewart to Al Gore was pointing out how much Nader hurt Gore’s numbers in 2000…. Nader just kept shaking his head during questions, probably wondering when voting turned into a 2-player board game (a game the two players involved like a lot more than “have Nader chop off our leg before the election” or “have Nader open the door to a Social Conservative party that destroys the base of the GOP”).
In a nutshell, if there are only two people playing a game and success is determined by amassing a limited number of resources, a loss for one is a gain for the other. imho, it is pretty important to have a couple other players out there so that people can at least vote for their values and not just to spite the other player (using a fake axis of issues as justification). Not that I’m bitter.
Just got to the THN article – loved it! I have to wonder what Billy G put on the board his first game with the Pens (not to mention what he said to Sid, right off the bat, in the room…).
Congrats on all the good fortune flowing your way and fingers crossed the Yotes furture remains in the desert.
I would be totally down for a fantasy league, I only had one last year and I found myself wanting more. I liked CBS over yahoo but both are pretty damn good.
A meet and greet would be awesome too, but it should be in NYC. You know there’s nothing better than a pub crawl around the lower east side, ie. Hockey goons invade hipster town. I see this in the future: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhAtTz2wd34
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, America used to have many many 3rd parties. And then they all died off at once. And it was due to some BS law making by the Republicans and Democrats. It used to be on an election ballot the same person would be listed multiple times. To make an example from the 2000 elections it would have looked something like this:
George Bush – Republican
Al Gore – Democrat
Al Gore – Green
Ralph Nader – Green
A person would vote for the candidate they wanted to win, but since Al Gore would have been listed twice, he (and the democratic party) would have gained valuable information about how many people voted for him in what regions who identified as a green party supporter instead of as a democrat. The practice of multiple listings would give much better data showing what issues people vote on, and removes the “3rd party spoiler” effect. As it stands now, a green party supporter would either have to choose to vote for the green party candidate in order to have their vote “count” towards the party’s size (directly related to influence and future support) but that adds the risk of not having voted for their second choice candidate (Gore) which means Bush (their least favorite) has a better chance of winning. So each election people who wish to support an alternative party have to choose to stand on principle and most likely increase the chances their worst choice candidate will win, or compromise increasing their second choice will win but not accurately represent themselves ideologically.
From what I understand, what you are describing is exactly what some people were trying to introduce in our last provincial election (in British Columbia). They were calling it “single transferable vote”: people would list their three top choices and if your first choice got elected without needing your vote, the vote was transferred to the second candidate (I think…..). The idea, in part, was to make the actual seat-counts in parliament line up more accurately with the actual voting percentages (libs got 46% and 49 seats, ndp got 42% and 36 seats, and greens got 8% and 0 seats).
I was thinking Bourne, as per your comment, it would have to work the opposite way: a new party would have to be on the outside (like Nader) to steal votes away and sway the ruling party. Nader could be like the federal NDP in Canada: they can’t win elections but they can win enough seats to force minority governments to play ball on certain issues.
Great read on USAtoday, by the way. So funny, I love that two guys named are guys that had one or two great years before having one or three mediocre ones….
At the beginning of August I traded my 9 yr old Xterra (it crossed 236,000 mi on the way to the dealer) in for a new Altima as well. Nissan makes a good auto, my truck never even had a warning light come on. The timing belt finally broke at like 165,000, that was the worst non-body damage thing that happened to it. The Altima’s pretty sweet though, enjoy.
http://www.peopleofwalmart.com is another good make fun of them site
Yeah Neil thats another way to do it, back in my Advanced Microeconomic theory class most of what we talked about was ways to vote and count. It’s very interesting the ways in which people can intentionally (or by accident) create a voting system which at first glance seems entirely fair and yet will always yield a particular result. If nothing else it drives home the point that you need to be smarter than the next guy if you want to survive out there.