DWAYNE "THE DRAIN" ROLOVERSON's STATS

Goals Against Avg Ranking:19
Save Percentage Ranking: 20

Wins Ranking: 19
Shut Outs Ranking:11 - he has 3 tied with 3 other goalies


either have incredibly shitty D, or we have a pretty average (regular season) goalie on our hands

Happy birthday P,

Sorry we couldn't make it out to the celebration...

A supersize 'solution' to a giant problem

Well, continuing my personal series of these things, I thought I'd write a bit about my favourite music of the year.

(Be warned, that I haven't the time to listen to most of the music that came out this year, and my knowledge of the music on both popular and ostensibly "indie" lists is sparse at best, so this will really be little more than a glimpse of my experience with music in 2006. As such, not all the music I discuss will have been made in that calendar year, and I'd like to nip any technical nitpicking of my post in the bud right now.)

As I don't have the breadth of listening experience of some more, so to speak, qualified people, I'll just break this down into little tidbits of interest, rather than the typical "Best [genre] [song/album/artist] of 2006.


Discovering New Music: (a.k.a. Who Needs the Radio, Anymore?)

The most consistent means of discovering new music I used was CBC Radio 3's Podcast. Although limited to Canadian artists, it still managed to give me a broader sample of music than I may have found on my own. They've introduced me to a few artists, and reintroduced me to some I hadn't heard in a while.

That said, I have a feeling that they won't be my main gateway to newer music this year. Pandora is definitely an interesting concept (playing artists musically similar to those you tell it you like), and at the very least makes for a less erratic alternative to radio. The other idea I'm looking at right now is Last.fm. While it requires me to have its scrobbler open to do so (watching my every musical move, it seems), it tracks what I play on iTunes and, after I've built up a reasonable database, makes suggestions to me based on what other users with similar tastes also like.

Neither of these has proven themselves to me just yet, but my mind remains open.

Ben Folds Five. I don't know why I hadn't gotten on this before. Maybe I wouldn't have liked it when it came out. Maybe I wasn't paying attention to music then. In any case, better late than never. There's nothing quite like the japanese version of the Song For The Dumped.

One of the artists introduced to me by CBC Radio 3, and the one that, according to iTunes, I have listened to the most since I got my new computer, is Final Fantasy.

Admittedly, when I first heard This Lamb Sells Condos, it wasn't an instant hit for me. But by the second time, I was hooked. I picked up the album and, while not as well-loved as that song, it's still one of my favourites. According the the little gnome in iTunes that counts what I listen to, it's far and away my favourite.

Notwithstanding that declaring an award-winning album one of your favourites smacks of realigning one's tastes to what other people think is good, this album is probably going to remain pretty high on my most-played list for a while.

I first heard The Lonely End of The Rink on HNiC (I think it was right before their first broadcast of the season) and it stayed in my head-- unrefreshed -- for a good week thereafter. It's by no means a typically-sounding Hip song, but it's about hockey, and, forgiving my use of technical musical terms, it rocked.

Jonathan Coulton makes music that's both hilarious and truly good. And the themes simultaneously are way out in left field and hit close to home. And all his songs are streamable from his website.

He's written the prototypical programmer song in Code Monkey, an ode to the iBook in A Laptop Like You, a twistedly funny geek-angst song in The Future Soon, a tribute to, of all things, the Mandelbrot Set (from which I stole a quote for the title of the board), and even an acoustic guitar cover of Baby Got Back. Just phenomenally fun to listen to.

You can listen to some of his live stuff on this episode (is that the word they use for these things?) of The Sound of Young America podcast (a packet of radio that also includes the "So You've Been Turned" vampire support group stand-up bit by Andres du Bouchet that I've often poorly quoted in the past few weeks.)

Wait, Rob Riggle really IS a major?

I intend to drive myself there! Abstinence, baby!

Happy Birthday, P. See you tomorrow. Better not drive yourself this time.

ok...so the people at the Keg will not do reservations under any circumstances. at all. boo for them. so i'll show up early and put our names down on the list.

PERCY'S BIRTHDAY PLANS

Ok, so here's the deal. 7pm tomorrow (that's Saturday night) at The Keg in South Common. I'll make a reservation under Percy's name. Come, join the festivities!

Happy Birthday Percy!