Happy New Year everybody...  see you all in 2005!

Corvette hitting brick wall

Really, does anyone think Shaq to injure Kobe?  Probably some people are hoping for some WWE entertainment come Christmas day, but I'm not expecting anything more than a small fizzle.  I'd expect that Shaq would enjoy the victory more if he defeated Kobe rather than a Laker squad minus Kobe.

So what do I think will really happen?  Well, for starters, we'll see Shaq and Kobe exchange the fist-on-fist handshake before tip off and that's about it.  No dramatic exchanges, no fisticuffs, no accusatory glares, no "I'm gonna f*** you up, b****" intimidation.  Just a little frosty greeting.  That's it.

The Lakers will want Kobe to take over and beat the Heat single-handedly, and will basically turn the game into a one-on-one contest against Shaq.  Kobe will respond with huge numbers: 42 points (18 of which will come from the stripe), 12 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals, and 2 blocks.  He'll take 40 shots to get those 42 points, however, and he'll also have 11 turnovers.

Miami will also turn the game into a one-on-one situation - they'll try to let Shaq  kill the Lakers by himself and end up force feeding the Diesel.  They'll dump the ball into Shaq, sit back and watch.  This tactic will NOT be good for the Heat: they'll find themselves down by 7 at the half.

At halftime, Shaq will tell the rest of the team that he wants the win more than individual numbers, and we'll see a completely different Miami team in the 2nd half.  Wade will go off as the Lakers only have defensive eyes for Shaq.

So the final result will be Kobe putting up crazy numbers, while Shaq just has a decent game with 26 points, 14 rebounds, and 7 assists.  Wade will be the difference-maker in the end, putting up 32 points, grabbing 8 boards, and dropping 9 dimes.

Miami wins 98-90.

After the game, Shaq will be magnanimous towards Kobe and will issue a semi-friendly "we're not really okay, but nobody likes you, I'll win another championship before you do, and thus I'm content" hug.  Kobe will be stiff and emotionally blank after the loss.

And then we'll all get back to watching Vince sitting in a suit on the sidelines for the Nets...

Vince is gone.  And as much as I had grown to detest his "Wince" Carter personalty and his ineffectiveness, I'm sad to see him go.

Vince lifted the franchise to unprecedented heights... and put all the fans through the deepest lows.  He had an incredible debut in his rookie year, and went on to have the most spectacular first 3 seasons of any player that I can remember.  Every night, every game, Vince did something noteworthy, memorable, and spectacular.

I do believe the Raptors are a better team now, and that the professionalism and, more importantly, the toughness of Eric and Aaron Williams will do wonders for the franchise, but Vince is the greatest player in Raptor history.  How do you replace that?  The people we got back from the trade are tough veterans who'll shore up weaknesses in the lineup, but where's the excitement going to come from now?  If Zo had shown some willingness to join the Raptors, I could be excited.  As it is, the trade was extremely anti-climactic.  No All-stars coming back.  No stars coming back.  Heck, nobody coming that can create their own shot, demand a double team, or even score more than 12 points a game.

Jalen had a great comment in the Sun:


Having said all that, I am a little bit excited over the changes that may happen to the club.  We've already witnesed MoPete become more aggressive - he oft times fell into the Wince Carter act by pouting his way through games.  Now, he's been aggressive, authoritative, and showing signs of leadership.  Bosh has been too inconsistent - I can't believe he'll miraculously become a 20-10 guy (even though I believe he will be one day) with Aaron Williams banging in the paint... but hopefully he'll at least start to produce 14 and 8 consistently.  The Raptors have already proven this season that they've got enough scoring to overcome the loss of a great offensive talent like Vince, so I'm not too worried about the offensive end for the Raptors.  In fact, I think we'll see an incredibly balanced offensive output through the rest of the season: most nights we're gonna see 4, 5, 6 guys in double digits.  Nobody's going to have an incredible offensive game, but they'll win a heckuva lot more games this way.  In fact, I'm going to say it right now:  the Raptors will make the playoffs this season.  Currently they're in 10th place, only 3.5 games out of the 8th spot.  I believe they'll finish 40-42 this season, which means they'll finish the rest of the season at 32-25.  7 games over .500?  I dont' think that's a ludicrous prediction.  We've shored up our biggest late-game weaknesses: rebounding and defensive intensity.  That should lead to a .500 team.  Throw in the post-Vince surge we're gonna go through and voila: playoffs here we come.

Okay, so it turns out that I'm actually pretty excited about the trade afterall.  Sadly, Zo will never play for the Raptors, but a Jalen/Zo package could be veeery enticing for other teams out there.  Perhaps the Raptors will add an exciting player before all is said and done.

Air Canada in flight

Some people out there want to see Vince do poorly, but I would love to see him go through a renaissance and get back to his high-flyin', gravity-defying, highlight-making self again.  I have so many amazing memories of Vince and I'm hoping to see more from Vince, even if he is in another uniform.

Here's a sample of his incredible plays over the past 7 years:

First VC Celebrity Charity game: Shammond Williams handling the rock with Vince roaring down the middle on a break.  Shammond pulls up from about 20 feet out and chest passes the ball off the backboard.  Vince takes off from the middle of the key, catches the ball in the air, and windmills it home.  An alley-oop windmill?  Sick.

Game winning dunk vs. Houston: iso'd left wing, time winding down.  Vince explodes left, going baseline.  As he blows by his defender, Olajuwon swings across the key to provide some help D.  Vince goes airborne and throws it down on Dream with no time on the clock.  Raps win.

1st dunk in 2000 Dunk Contest: reverse 360 windmill... a jaw-dropping dunk - I loved seeing Shaq's reaction

Throwin' it down

3rd dunk: off the bounce catch between the legs, with the photogenic point to the heavens afterwards

4th dunk: Post-jam elbow hang - just looks amazing in slow mo

Cramming it in Mutombo's grill as a rookie, and followed it up with a staredown at Deke

Crazy ass reverse baseline jam vs. Indiana: any other mere mortal and it would have been a reverse layup.

Breakaway windmill(s) at home.  The grace.  The elegance.  The ferocity and power.  Followed by the scream.

Putback spike dunk against New Jersey: after an errant shot, nobody boxed Vince out and he went up for it unimpeded.  Threw it straight down - the ball bounced up higher than the backboard after the jam

Vs. Detroit: on the right wing, blows by Rip Hamilton to the top of the key, takes off from the circle.  Big Ben's waiting for him, and challenges Vince in the air.  VC flies through the air around Ben and throws it down.

Vs. Sacramento D: Vince goes right baseline, spins away from Doug Christie (a noted defender) into the air, and goes over Vlade for the 2 hand tomahawk

Defender's view of Vince

Incredible  speed: against San Antonio,  iso'd right wing against Bruce Bowen.  Goes left hard and in midstep does a between-the-legs crossover, turning on a dime without losing any speed whatsoever.  Vince does lose Bowen, howeer, and goes in for the unimpeded dunk.  Insane move at high speed to lose one of the best perimeter defenders in the League.

Against New Jersey, I forget who was guarding Vince.  He's on the right wing again, beyond the arc.  VC fakes right with a jab step and the defender bites.  Hard.  He actually stumbles trying to regain his defensive position and ends up falling on his ass about 5 feet away from Vince.  Vince stands there, stares at him, then calmly launces a 3.  Nothing but net

Thanks for the memories, Vince.  It's been a great run...

Eric Williams just checked into the Toronto - Houston game, and here's the log of his first 4 possessions of the game:

1. On defense, guarding Jimmy Jackson.  Sound positional defense in the key to deny any sort of flash/cut/pic'n'role situation for Jackson.  Jackson curls out and again, Williams is in good defensive position, forcing Tyronn Lue to throw a low pass that ends up going off Jackson's foot.  Turnover.

2. On offense, Raptors isolate Eric Williams in the low post against Jimmy Jackson.  Slightly forced entry pass by Bosh, resulting in Williams catching the ball 15 feet out instead of 7 feet out.  Using his strength, Willams backs down Jackson onto the block and then rips off a power step into the key with a half fadeaway from 7 feet out.  Back rim, front rim, drops in; a soft touch.  Bucket.

3.  On offense.  Again Eric Williams is iso'd, this time on the right midpost.  Quick move into the middle for another short  8 foot jumper.  Bucket.

4. On Defense, still guarding Jimmy Jackson.  Last possession of the quarter, and Jimmy Jackson gets the ball in the corner.  Perfect defensive position by Eric Williams - Jackson has nowhere to go and ends up launching an ill-advised 3 against Eric Williams' long arms.  Airball.

So, Eric Williams' first minute-plus as a Raptor results in forcing a turnover, back-to-back buckets in the paint, and forcing an airball.  Great defense, tough offense... the post-Vince era has begun!!!

No easy baskets

Great to see Bonner dishing out a hard foul - the Raptors have been lacking that kind of toughness since the days of Charles Oakley.  I don't think it was worthy of a suspension, but I suppose in light of the whole Detroit-Indiana thing, maybe the refs were just trying to keep control.  In any event, what's KG expecting, an easy dunk at that point?  You gotta just know that you're gonna get hit, and get hit hard.  Loved hearing the crowd chant "Bon-ner!  Bon-ner!" (of which I was an enthusiastic participant), but I dunno bout his exit, where he was high fiving the crowd.  That was a little too WWE to me.  Still love the guy, though.  He just does good things whenever he's on the court.

Mitchell had a funny comment about KG (courtesy Slam Sports):


Hahahaha... I like the "everybody's talked about his mother" part.  :)

VC: "Yo Chris, take over the Franchise Player role so I can get my trade"

 So I've been to two games this season, and they've both been great games: first the historic 19-point comeback in the 4th against San Antonio, and last night's game.  Both games featured Chris Bosh having really good games against top players in the league.  Bosh put on a show last night: took it right at KG and finished with the reverse layup with his right hand (he's a lefty)... twice!  Hopefully last night is the first of many 24-14 performances we get out of Bosh.

I gotta give it up for MoPete.  Hit some big shots, forced Spree into a couple turnovers, fought for some boards, and had that one monster put back dunk.  Wow.  After that dunk, his next posession he drove the lane and tried to dunk it over KG.  He got nowhere close, but mad respect for even thinking to try it - I'm loving the aggressive attitude.

Final thought: whither Jalen Rose?  The guy goes 3, 4, 5 straight possessions without getting a sniff of the ball.  On consecutive offensive sets, I watched him set up in the far corner and just stand there and watch the team.  I dunno if the other Raptors are not looking for him or if the offensive sets put him in that situation - how do you not involve the best player on your team for that many possessions in a row?  Madness.  He finished the game with only 4 shot attempts.  At least the refs were feeding him - after every stoppage in play, Jalen begged the ball from the refs so he could take a quick shot or layup.  Poor guy.  Hopefully they're nicer to him in Miami.

I'm sitting at my desk, writing this post.  It's past 5pm on my last day at Tucows, so I'm now officially trespassing.  Heh.

I'm cleaning out my desk, sorting through old paperwork.  I never knew just how fun it can be to go through 4 year old org charts, crossing out the names who are no longer here... including me, of course.

I just tried to access one of the production machines:


That's the only true measureable indicator: I'm no longer an employee of Tucows, Ltd.  :-)

I guess it's appropriate that my very last act at Tucows will be a blog posting.  Next time you hear from me, it'll be as a Novatorian.

Ciao!

Woke up without enough sleep this morning, body sore from last night's basketball, and begun my day as any other: groggy and stumbling through a dark morning while washing up and dressing for the day.  Headed out early to meet Sara in the morning, where I was greeted with a sunny smile, a big hug, and "Happy birthday!"

It's quite possibly the best feeling ever - I didn't realize it was my birthday today!  Thanks for getting my day started off so great, Sara!

Finally received the "SUNDRY CREDIT/DIVERS CREDIT ON" credit on my Visa bill yesterday.  After reading all about this on Tashiwa's blog and seeing all those posts about people getting their credits, I had been wondering if I was gonna get one.  I did indeed, to the tune of $4.77.  Sweet.

Turns out they boy who died after a dunk attempt died due to a heart condition rather than his failed dunk attempt.  I wonder if he wasn't an athelete if his heart problem would have been better or worse.  Lower physical activity may have lessened chance of his heart overworking, but less physical activity may have meant his body was less healthy and he may have succumbed earlier to a heart problem... I've always believed in the benefits of physical activity, but could it be that physical activity may be a negative thing in some cases?

Amgen held their annual company meeting/getaway at Deerhurst Resort this year.  Of course I tagged along and took advantage of the free room and board.  Thanks Uncle Amgen!  :-)

Deerhurst Resort, in case you didn't know, is the birthplace of Shania Twain.  Okay, well, she's not actually born there, but Deerhurst's Musical Stage Show was the start of her career - she was discovered there and the rest, as they say, is history.

Deerhurst is a big-time resort and is very nice, however I don't think the rooms were all that amazing.  The room was very large, but the bed was... well, as Sara puts it: "It's no Heavenly Bed."  :-)  At $300/night, I'm glad I wasn't footing the bill.  The food was very good, though, especially their buffet.  I couldn't get enough of their roast beef - I ate about 3 portions more than I should have... but it was soooo good.

Sara and I went what I'll loosely describe as "canoeing."  We were paddling... well, actually I was paddling and Sara was admiring the scenery and occasionally dipping her oar into the water for a couple strokes.  I'm sitting there, struggling against the strong headwinds and lake current, grunting and cursing under my breath, and all I hear is "Ooooh, so beautiful!  Do you see that?  Wow, it's so nice out here, ohmigosh, is that a bear?"  Hah.  Musta been an enjoyable canoe trip for her.  When she started to paddle full-time, our paddle strokes were all out of sync and we were zig zagging our way across the lake and generally working extremely hard to go a very small distance.  Needless to say, we got pretty ticked off at each other.  We can look back on it and laugh now, but boy, we were close to killing each other on that little excursion.  :-)

We also got a chance to hike up a waterfall, which included a bit of rock scrambling.  I love rock scrambling - something about hanging onto cold, rough rock with your bare hands and jumping from rock to rock just utterly satisifies the primal neanderthal in me.  Maybe I've missed my calling as a mountain ranger.

After the canoe trip and waterfall climb, we relaxed on a pier beside a serenely peaceful lake.  Perfect opportunity for black'n'white shots...

Take a look at the pictures.

Holy carp!!  Teen dies after slam dunk attempt.

That's why I don't dunk - it's dangerous, man...

(Thanks to Catherine for the link...)

It's been a hell of a ride over the past 4-plus years at Tucows: somehow getting hired even though I had the worst interview ever, free massages every week and paid lunches on Fridays (ah, the benefits of joining Tucows during the tail end of the Golden Age of Dot-com), getting over a stock option fiasco, surviving through the Bubble Burst (300+ down to 120-odd employees in a month and a half), causing the company to blow $64,000USD in 10 minutes with a not-so-minor bug in one of my apps, butting heads with management, getting paged during Christmas Eve dinner, love/hate (mostly hate) relationship with QA, hoops in the lobby, Nerf Wars, Flame Wars, Perl vs. Java Wars, Platform Wars, and of course, Foosball Wars.

Along the way I've accomplished so much, learned even more, worked with so many great people, and formed lasting friendships.  The people here are great, the work is good; Tucows had truly become family.  It was a very, very hard decision for me to leave.  In the end, it was a great opportunity that pulled me away from Tucows.

I'll spread my wings and I'll learn how to fly though it's not easy to tell you goodbye [ I gotta ] Take a risk, Take a chance, Make a change and Breakawaaaaay

Good bye Tucows, thank you for the memories...

Woke up to a sky full of white stuff coming down this morning.  I love the snow!  Now I'm in the mood for the holidays.

Last year was my first-ever green Christmas, and I gotta say, it sucks.  It just doesn't feel right to setup a Christmas tree when you can see your lawn.  Hopefully today's snowfall lasts and we'll have a white Christmas this year.

The snow also means another thing - skating season is upon us!  Now that I live within walking distance of the Harbourfront skating rink I look forward to finally breaking in my new/old skates.  I got these skates 2 years ago but I've only used them once.

Posted some pics from my trip to Baltimore.  No shots of the shopping, but there's plenty of pictures of the nice Inner Harbor area as well as the Baltimore Aquarium.  Nice place, but apparently they're starting a promotion of $1 entry fee.  We paid $18/person to get in!  *grumble grumble*

Down there, everyone responds to "thank you" with a non-chalant "Umm-hmmm."  Even though they were pleasant and answered your question, that final response feels like such a brush off and just felt rude, like they're saying "yeah, whatever buddy."  Didn't like it; couldn't get used to it.

Other than that, everyone is soooo nice there - they'll say "excuse me", wait for your acknowledgement, and only then will they pass in front of you.  So polite - very unexpected from Ugly Americans.  Which makes me feel even worse over this event:  while shopping at the outlet mall, I stopped into the food court to get a drink.  I got some change back from my purchase, around 70 cents.  The customer at the til beside me is short some money and asked me if he could borrow a quarter.  He's a teenager and is very clean cut, not a trace of punkness in him.  He's very well mannered and asked me very politely.  I had no problems with his asking me, and it was not a bother to me at all to give up a quarter, but my Toronto-bred automatic rejection of beggars kicked in and I responded with "No, I'll need it later."  He was stunned, speechless with his mouth agape.  Being turned down for a little bit of change is probably an unfathomable event in his universe.  He's probably the type of person who volunteers at soup kitchens, thinking of how his high social position allows him to help his fellow man... and then, in a matter of seconds, I coldly crushed his idealism.  Now he'll become a cynical sonofabyatch, hating everything and always expecting the worst.  So much for me being the good-natured, friendly Canadian. *sigh* At least I got some great deals at the outlet mall.

Later, as we explored the harbour area, we stopped into a nice Marriot hotel for a quick bathroom break.  There were a ton of people there with some sort of convention ID tags hanging around their necks.  We couldn't make out what the tags said, so we started playing guessing games.  There were small children there so it was likely that a company decided to bring their employees to Baltimore for some sort of Employee Appreciation event.  It was hard to figure out what company it could be, as the 'employees' were composed of ... how shall I put this... "have-nots".  Lots of trailer trash types mixing with seedy urban elements.  An odd group, to say the least.  What company would be composed of such demographics?  We finally asked the hotel restaurant hostess about the group, and visibly uncomfortable, she responded in a hushed tone: "Um, yeah, they're from Narcotics Anonymous."  Narcotics Anonymous?  They're all drug users??  I've never heard of a support group for drug users!  It is a good idea, though.  "Hi, I'm Greg... and I do crack."

I wonder if the Drug Dealers Association of America was also having a meeting in town?  :-)

So it's official now - my manager sent out the company-wide notice of my departure from Tucows.  I can now officially start slacking for the next few days.  :-)

As predicted, I've received lots of emails ranging from "congratulations" to "no! don't leave!" to "you will be missed, thanks for your work" to "why are you leaving us?  bad mistake!"  One response I didn't anticipate, however, was "So the rumours were true."

There were rumours about me!?!?  Wow!!  I've never had rumours about me before!  I feel so important and cool and part of the in crowd!

Wednesday, Dec 1 Morning forecast: 3°C, feels like -5°C

So anyways, this morning was crappy, all cold and rain.  I had the unfortunate dis-pleasure of waiting at the street car stop with a group of 30-odd girls aged 10-12 all belting out Christmas carols at the top of their lungs.  It may have been okay if it was sunny and there was a blanket of fresh powdery snow covering everything, but with the dreary grey raininess, I was in no mood to listen to their off-key extra loud screaming.  I was hoping, praying that there would be 2 street cars coming along so I could catch the 2nd one and not have to sit with them.  Alas, only one street car showed up.  I shuddered at the thought of being confined in a tin acoustic chamber with 30 pre-pubescent girls screaming out "Deck the Halls."  As luck would have it, they didn't board the street car, leaving me in blessed silence for the remainder of the trip to work.  Thank god for little miracles.