MixBlog 1-4-11

So this happened while I was watching "Tron: Legacy" today...



You think that the film jamming and then burning up only happens to people on TV or in movies! Ha! So it took a half-hour for them to resume the film at approximately where it left off, and everyone (maybe 10 or so in all) got a free pass to another movie.

Anyway, I've got a few other things on my mind...

First of all, I've got another rule for Twitter users, or maybe one I've mentioned before that needs to be re-emphasized. When these idiotic memes hit the Trending Topics, such as the one tonight, #lessambitiousmovies (examples of less ambitious movies would include

Flyers' Post-Mortem: A Lesson In Destiny

I came to an important realization recently, and I'd like to share it. You may want to write this down for future reference, because it may be the most profound thing I ever come up with:

One's final destiny only becomes known after the fact.

This is probably obvious, but we're always looking to tell ourselves something will happen because it's our destiny. If it were that easy, we'd have a society full of actors. "It's my destiny to win an Oscar!" How many misguided souls think it's their destiny to be the next American Idol? Now imagine if it were true. "American Idol winner William Hung/Sanjaya Malakar/anyone from Season 9." And, of course, it's my destiny to win a huge lotto jackpot and never have to worry about money again. (Still waiting on that last one, keepers of the karma...)

In sports, we tend to proclaim destiny at the drop of a hat, but especially when our team hasn't won in a long time and something amazing happens that we take as a sign, an indicator, a guarantee of future success.

Softball A Bit Screwed Up; Flyers To The Rescue!

While I eagerly await Game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals I thought I'd rant about a couple of issues. As you know, today was day one of the Liberty Bell Classic softball tournament. In our D division each team played three round-robin games. Then the double-elimination portion began -- once you lose two games you're eliminated. Our team, the Tabu Nighthawks, had to play three consecutive games, at 11 am, noon and 1 pm.

Our first game was against a New York team that was filled with C-division (i.e. much better) hitters. Needless to say, we were clobbered. The fact that these teams want to not just play in tournaments, but essentially crush the real D teams -- loading up on players who are highly ranked, and possibly cheat by giving them rankings lower than they deserve -- disgusts me to no end. There's no real accomplishment here, there's no huge cash prize. So they get a trophy. Big freakin' deal. They may win a tournament but they're still losers. Pathetic.

Anyway, we rebounded with two wins in the round-robin and, after a brief break, won our first game in the double-elimination. That means we have at least two more games to play. For winning we were rewarded with a game at 8:00 am tomorrow.

Flyers Make History -- You Can't Make This Stuff Up

When it comes to sports, everybody -- athletes, coaches, fans, media -- likes to make predictions. Whether it's about a particular game or a playoff series or an entire season, people feel they know enough to project how things will go down. Often those predictions don't come true. Sometimes they do. And sometimes they come true in inexplicable fashion.

Case in point: the Philadelphia Flyers. Lots of people thought, prior to the season, that the Flyers were serious Stanley Cup contenders. The Hockey News outright predicted the Flyers would win the Cup. Sure enough, after tonight's 4-3 win over the Boston Bruins, winning their Eastern Conference semifinal series 4-3 after trailing 3-0, the Flyers still have a chance. But how they got to this point -- that's the inexplicable part.

The Flyers got off to a quick start and then fell into a morass of inconsistency that led to a coaching change. Injuries caused a goaltending carousel -- 7 different goalies dressed for a game, 5 of those 7 actually got into at least one game. They had to defeat the New York Rangers in the final game of the season just to get into the playoffs. After three periods and a five-minute overtime, they got that win in the shootout, where the Flyers have historically sucked.

Can The Gays Rally The Flyers?

This ridiculous Flyers season is rapidly drawing to a close -- more rapidly than usual, with the compressed post-Olympic schedule. The inconsistency that has dogged them all season, except for perhaps those four wins right before the Olympics, continues. Since the season resumed they're now 5-6-1, coming up with the occasional inspired effort (3-2 win over Chicago on a Chris Pronger goal in the final 3 seconds) followed by the inevitable lazy followup (3-1 loss at the NY Rangers the next day). And now it's taken a turn for the worse.

After losing starting goalie Ray Emery for so many games, and eventually the season, due to injury, they were basically saved by the surprisingly fine play of Michael Leighton. Then Leighton had to go and get the dreaded high ankle sprain on March 16th at Nashville, sidelining him for 8 to 10 weeks -- meaning he can only return if the Flyers make a long playoff run. The Flyers are down to Brian Boucher and heaven knows who from the minors to back him up.

Boucher ended up losing the Nashville game in the shootout, but won the next night at Dallas. The Flyers haven't won since, losing a home-and-home set to Atlanta over the weekend and at Ottawa Tuesday night. (More on that in a moment.) If that isn't bad enough, the team hasn't scored more than 3 goals in a game in their last 11 games, and just lost leading scorer Jeff Carter to a broken foot bone. He's expected to be out 3 to 4 weeks, and we're in the final 3 weeks of the regular season...