MattPie

Wegmans Red Hots (very Zweigle-like) and Victory Dirt Wolf. I found a pretty awesome hot-dog topping though (and it's "da Bomb" as the kids say on pretzels), Jalapeno Mustard.

I want to believe, but if dumping more money into scouting resulted in appreciable gains in "hit %" in drafting, everyone would be doing it. I think it's like face-offs, more like instead of a 50% hit rate you get a %55 or %60 hit rate. Keep repeating: half for the guys in the first two rounds will never seriously see NHL ice. We'll all be less disappointed that way.

I happened to buy a case of Victory Dirt Wolf Double IPA today at my local Brew-thru. A hair under $48 for a case (24 bottles). They'd be at least $10/4-pack at Wegs (and more expensive anywhere else).

I'm chuckling at "$2+" per bottle. That's close to average prices for craft beer purchased in 6-packs in PA. At the Wegmans here, I'm happy when I find anything at $9, fine for $10, and have certainly had a few 4-packs at around $10 for the strong stuff. I'm a sucker or big bottles (23oz/750ml), which are almost always $5-$10. I've started buying cases again, since it's cheaper.

Right, duh. Just ignore me.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's a cap recapture disaster waiting to happen, isn't it?

It's tough because there's "Born near Buffalo" and "Grew up Near Buffalo". Orpik, for instance, was born in San Francisco. Looks like Buffalo is OK on the wings with Folignos on the left and Kane and Callahan on the left. Sucderi or Orpik can play D. Not sure who would play goal, I think Syracuse is pushing it. Center is pretty thin. What else is new. Probably should start a thread for this... mods?

I'm not even going to complain about the dogs**t on my lawn. Whatever. Verizon, but not the usual annoyances. They've decided that I need to answer a security question to log into my account instead of the computer-generated 10-character complex password that I use. The problem is I can't remember "Where my spouse and I met". Buffalo? Our town? Our Middle School name? The state? Homeroom? All valid answers, none correct. I don't even remember answering that question. I think I'm going to finally implement my plan of picking a nonsense word (or something important to us) and use that for every single answer to those questions. It's probably safer than "What city were you born in?" which half the people here could answer or "What High School Did you attend?" which anyone who is my friend on Facebook knows.

I'm guessing Pat Kane makes it. :) We might be able to claim Moulson from Mississauga right? It's closer to Buffalo than some of the London-born players that are on Toronto's grid. the Folignos might fill a spot too.

I'll put this here: http://www.tsn.ca/bardown/Story.aspx?What%2bIf%2bEvery%2bNHL%2bPlayer%2bWent%2bHome%2bLike%2bLeBron&id=457388 It's a discussion if every NHL player tried to go to his home team (a la Lebron), who would be the top line. Why here? TSN picked Tyler Ennis for C in Edmonton.

I'm going with the dark-horse Canadiens! :)

That the ChzClassic avatar, don't worry.

Barring great chemistry, I don't think you put Ennis on a wing with Samson. By all reports Samson isn't overly physical, so you'd have two "non-hitting skill players" on the same line, with whomever is on the other side. I think they'd get manhandled. Although if we're at the point where Reinhart is our 2nd center, we're in pretty good shape so I think it'd be fine.

I'm not sure there's much to get. It's a play on those post-game and between period interviews where the player just spouts off some cliches instead of answering the question. Pominville was the king of it, I almost think the commercial was written for him before he left. Interlocutor: "Tyler, the Bruins really took some stupid penalties out there last period. Is the team looking to take advantage of that and draw them into spending more time on the PK?" Ennis: "This is a big game and the Bruins are a good team. If we step up and execute[0] our game plan, I think we can win it." [0] That was a Bills thing a bunch of years ago, right? I remember it was stuck in my head for awhile. For reference:

I think I've said here before, but any good team can (and often does) have 1 or maybe 2 small skilled forwards. The problem the Sabres have had in the past is that they've had 4-5 in the top six. Ennis will be an asset, either as a player or a piece in a trade down the road. He's plenty good to stay in the NHL.

My sincere hope is that someday, people will stop justifying players that come up through the Euro leagues with "But they play against MEN!". I don't have any problems with the players themselves, just that somehow the Euro leagues average age determines how good a player will be.

I get what you're saying, but to a casual fan there's not difference between the MLS and anything else because we don't really understand the nuances of the game. Realistically, the reasons I hear from everyone is: soccer is boring. American audiences are programmed that something exciting should happen at least once a minute in sports otherwise they lose interest. Hockey barely gets past boring to most casual fans because it's a bunch of guys skating around at least with a little hitting. Soccer is a bunch of guys running around, except there's even fewer shots and "interesting" parts. And if there's a collision, guys are writhing around in their death-throws afterward. And I actually enjoy watching soccer from time to time. The other thing you may notice is the most popular sports in the US tend to be dominated by US players and only really played in the US. I don't know if it's provincialism or coincidence, but football and baseball are #1 and #2, and #3 is arguably basketball (although there are some good European leagues from what I hear).

I've heard the sound of a pump-shotgun is one of the most recognizable sounds in the world.

Don't you talk about Terri Garr that way!

It's supposed to be a P?

Oops, I think I auto-translated GCOE to LPF (Last Pommer Fan).

Yeah, I'm failing to understand the logic in this discussion (and agreeing with LPF's post). Germany would have likely been better during the cold war years if they were united. I'd assume there'd be at least one player on the East German side that would have been good enough to make a combined German team and therefore make the team better.

You'll probably pay that much for the system and couple years of monitoring.

Bulk seems like a strong term, unless you figure 50% of the country is on government benefits. I guess that's just semantics though.

Things you'll want to consider: traditionally, alarms send signals via the phone lines to the monitoring service. If you don't have a traditional POTS phone (cable, FIOS, VOIP do not count), you'll need a unit that talks to cell towers. This will cost more money. The alarm person will talk about criminals cutting the phone line before breaking in. I'm not sure how much scare-tactic that is vs. reality. My guess is criminals will move on to your neighbor who doesn't have an alarm before going that route. Next, ask about how the triggers work. In my house, the front and garage doors trigger a 45-second "beep, beep" where you can walk over to the pad and punch in your code to avert the alarm. The windows on the first floor and sliding doors trigger the alarm immediately which is really annoying. The alarm is annoying in itself, but it's more annoying to have to answer the phone and admit that you're a dumbass and set it off again. This happens in my house 2 times a month on average; I really need to talk to my alarm company to see if they can change that. Other other "more cost" option you can do now is have your alarm linked to an app on your cell phone. That'd be cool, but it wasn't worth it to me. My house had the alarm when I bought it, so I figured I might as well use it. Even then, I didn't set the alarm much until my wife started living here. Even then, I probably wouldn't bother with it (I live in a pretty safe neighborhood) but it makes her happy so I roll with it.