Pittsburgh Penguins update

ok, while i pull my size 12 foot out of my mouth, lets take a look at the NHL playoffs so far. Actually let's just talk about how well the Penguins did "While the men in Pittsburgh look in the mirror every day at their ever growing playoff beard, and unfortunately the ladies too who are not shaving their legs, we all must wait" Game one started off just the way Ottawa didn't want it to; with Gary Roberts (the man who survived abortion and created giraffes when he uppercutted a horse, and the only man in history to ever beat a brick wall at tennis) scored a backhand goal. The Penguins the proceeded to tear the Senators a new a**hole for 4 games and swept the Sens. I will be the first to say I was wrong about the Marian Hossa and Pascal Dupuis trade, because both were amazing. Pascal on the penalty kill held the Senators powerplay to under 10% on the series and both played on the line with Sidney Crosby. Marian even got off the schnide by scoring a playoff goal (granted it was a garbage goal but its a start). The steel city line continued to show that they are the best line in hockey, Ryan Malone scored 2 goals in the series as well as Petr Sykora scoring a handful. and of course, Evgeni Malkin is in the top 5 in playoff points only playing 4 games, while every other NHL playoff series has gone at least 6 games. But perhaps the best thing that we can take away from this series is the play of Marc-Andre Fleury. The flower has finally blossomed into the number one pick we hoped he would be. The flower was more like the Venus Fly-trap allowing only 5 goals in 4 games and the best save percentage in the playoffs. The series was summed up when 4th liner Jarkko Ruutu, the man who was suppose to take stupid penalties and not contribute to the offense at all, scored a break away goal by spinning away from a defender and going 5 hole on Martin Gerber on his back hand. The Penguins got every break and the Senators were left stunned. The only bad thing about sweeping our biggest rival and getting payback from last year is now we have to play the waiting game. The Penguins will most likely not play for another week! The only thing we can do now is practice hard, stay sharp, and hope that our age (besides Gary Roberts) gives us the extra legs we need that will keep us moving through these playoffs.

V for Vendetta

Who is the bad guy in V for Vendetta?

the obvious answer is of course Chancellor Sutler who plunges England into a world of total obedience and seclusion after the United States self destructed. The Chancellor assembles a dream team of advisors and right hand men to keep the country "under control". The country (according to V) enjoys a life or predictability and security. Until...enter V a terrorist bent on changing the country after the heads of the country injured hundreds of thousands (including V) during an experiment to create a biological weapon and insert it into people.

So take a step back and look at the big picture of the roles of the two characters. Sutler does what he believes is the best for the country and if you dont believe that he just wants to keep the people and himself safe. V is a terrorist who blows up public statues and hijacks the city wide news tower to broadcast a hate message and threaten to blow up parliament.

Of course I am a fan of V and what he stands for but dont prosecute Chancellor Sutler for running his country the way he seems that would keep the people safe

Pittsburgh Penguins Playoffs 2008

wow...what a year. Let's slow down and remember the year that was for the Pittsburgh Penguins. We started off slow...like we always do and the East seemed out of reach through 20 games because Ottawa started off just about 20-0. The year slowly grinded on as we watched a few of our best players fall to injury. Sidney Crosby, Scary Gary Roberts, Mark Eaton, Marc Andre Fluery, and Rob Scuderi missed an extended period of time. Sidney Crosby's injury seemed to be the death of the Penguins half way through the season. Enter Evgeni Malkin...the young Russian Center who would be the starting center on any team but the Penguins...because of Sidney Crosby. Evgeni then scored 30 points in the 15 games Sidney missed and was contending for the scoring title until Alexander Ovechkin scored 1,000 goals for the rest of the year (a deserving MVP). The end of the season the Penguins went on a complete tear...losing less then 5 games in regulation over the last 20 games. We decided to lose the last game of the year to the Philly Philadelphia Flyers to give the Penguins the 2nd best record in the East and the Atlantic Division Championship.

That puts us in a first round playoff matchup against our favorite team...the Ottawa Senators. The very team that knocked us out of the playoffs in the first round last year. Hopefully this year is different...the Penguins have another year of experience under their belt and the Sens have lost Daniel Alfredson and Mike Fishcer for (as the coach comments) weeks. The Penguins are poised to make a run to the Stanley Cup. We have more defensemen then we know what to do with (after acquiring the USS Hal GilL who will hopefully take on the big name players we're up against) and the best one two...even three punch combination scoring wise in the league (Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Marian Hossa (who I still disagree with trading for because I am a huge Erik Christensen fan)) and the best one two goalie combination in the league: Marc Andre Fleury and 85 year old Ty Conklin who stepped in when Marc-Andre was hurt and had the best save percentage in the league during his extended assignment.

Final Predictions: Penguins in 6 over Ottawa Penguins in 7 over Boston Penguins in 5 over Montreal and finally Penguins in 7 over San Jose.

Go Pens
Gary Roberts is back...Hide the Women and Children!!!!!

Soccer Tennis

While playing soccer in Western PA during the fall...I experienced a lot of rain outs. Days where practice was usually canceled because our field was literally underwater. In Junior High, practices were canceled because we did not want to ruin the field for the high school team's games during that week. When I got to high school however...practices weren't canceled, they were moved.

Csaba Fehr, coach of the Riverside men's soccer team from 1992-2006 is a native of Hungary and played on the Under 21 International team for Hungary. His playing career was ended early because of a terrible knee injury which led him to the WPIAL and Riverside. Playing under Csaba (pronounced Chubba) was the best experience of my soccer career. Being international all of his practices were focused on scrimmaging each other on very small fields in the hopes that our ball handling and decision making would improve. He would always say "if you can play on a small field, playing on a big field is easy"

But back to the practices, Freshmen year on a wet day in the parking lot all the Seniors were excited that it was raining. Our only guess was that the Seniors were pumped that practice was going to be canceled. Csaba showed up with the same smile on his face as the seniors and announced to the team "Let's go to the tennis courts". Thankfully we all had other shoes, and not just our cleats. So we changed and all the Seniors had on just shoes while the freshmen had on shoes guards and socks. Csaba explained the rules of soccer tennis and they were as follows:
1) 2-3 players on a side
2) Drop-Kick serve (bounce the ball once then kick it)
3) the ball can bounce ONCE on your side
4) unlimited touches per player but you could only exchange possession on your side 2 times.
I could receive serve and juggle it 100 times and then pass it to Jordan (my team mate) and he could juggle it 100 more times but he had to put it over the net eventually.

The first couple of soccer tennis days, the freshmen sucked. But as time went on what we all thought was a game really did improve our ball possession, juggling, and close quarter passing and receiving.

Buzzworthy?

Last Tuesday was the last day for Free Agency in the NHL. I skipped my classes on tuesday so that I could watch the trade deadline talks on NHL.com in its entirety. Talks swirled all day as I waited to see my favorite Penguins player, Erik Christensen, get traded away in a blockbuster deal. I ended up being wrong, as the Penguins traded EC Colby Armstrong Angelo Espesito and a 2nd round draft pick for Marian Hossa and Pasqual Dupruis. I'm crushed of course, because now my #16 jersey is worthless. This trade made the Penguins better, and as I look back on that day...all of the talks were buzz marketing for players.

As Agents cell phones blew up with GMs trying to acquire the biggest free agents in the NHL...it's all buzz marketing. The agents talk up their players and their ability trying to convince the General Managers to buy them. And the agents are not the only one's talking up players...ESPN is just as guilty of trying to market players. With as many "experts" on SportsCenter all had different opinions as to where Marian Hossa, Hal Gill, and Brad Richards would all end up. I guess there was something wrong with the offers and credentials of the Ottawa Senators because Marian Hossa ended up signing with the Penguins.

Thursday was Hossa's first game with the Penguins. Penguins Nation almost shut down as FSN did not report on Hossa's injury, while my dorm room knew all about it. Thanks to TSN.com. Bob Errey (Penguins announcer) drives us crazy anyway...but he did a horrible job of buzz marketing Hossa's injury by saying his "flu like symptoms were just carried over from the plane ride".

Sports is a never ending barrage of Buzz Marketing except we pay millions of dollars for people instead of merchandise.

2008 Dating Service

The evolution of the dating world has evolved from SWF seeking SWM posting in a newspaper to websites such as Eharmony.com and Matchmaker.com. We have progressed from words, to pictures and words, and now we're reverting back to just words, in the form of txt messages. As was the case in R We D8ting, a whole relationship occurred in a few days because of the availability of the couple (cellphones). Txt messages give people the option of being formally informal. A technologically advanced way for people to talk/flirt but not actually have to see each other, which is sometimes just what we want. Txt messages also throw out the feelings of the dreaded uncomfortable silence, because there is that grace period we give people to txt us back.

Sites like EHarmony and MatchMaker "match" people "according to compatibility" with variables such as zodiac sign income life goals and other questions that try to determine what kind of person you are. My dating service only asks one question: What cellphone company do you use and what is your txt messaging plan. For instance, my profile would contain my name "Steve Brenner" age "19" a picture and my cell phone provider "Verizon unlimited messaging" and my phone number (xxx-xxx-xxxx) and allow other users to get a hold of me rather then the people at a website telling me who i would like to talk to or be in a relationship with.

Txt messages are the easiest way to communicate with people and takes out all the awkwardness of "blind dates" and the possibilities of hanging out with someone you have no chemistry with...your cellphone always looks the same to you.

Who does Patricia Hyjer Dyk think she is

ok this is going to be fun. I started to read "complexity of Family Life among the Low-Income and Working Poor" by Patricia Hyjer Dyk, and had to put the book down 3 pages in, because I simply felt terrible. Reading her bash on people who have to work for a living really made me sick. "Those of you who started the day......This would not be the beginning of a typical day for most low-income and working-poor families" who the hell gives her the right to say we are better then the working poor because we see our kids in the morning before work/school. I had to put the book down when she said in black and white "Low-income and working-poor families are different from middle and upper-income families".

Dyk uses too many big words and statistics to hide behind her opinion that people are different based on their income and living conditions. "Findings from their three waves of in-depth interviews with single Black women revealed vulnerability to numerous persistent barriers to self-sufficiency and that their well-being rests largely within their support networks"? She might as well of said "EVERY SINGLE black woman comes from a broken family and is a single parent because her baby's father left, and will be forever emotionally scared and held down because she can not afford to live in a nice house and current racism will not allow her to get a job".

Now I am in no ways at all a racist nor I support what Dyk is writing about. I am a college student who is being taught to read between the lines, and the only thing I am getting from this article is a load of racist bullshit coming from a woman who thinks she is better then everyone because she lives in a mansion.

Am I a minority?

Being a teenager in America is hard enough these days. I am in no way a rebellious kid nor do I walk around cutting myself because I dont fit it, but it is human nature to wonder: "do I fit in?" "is there something different about me?" After a week in class and reading these essays I never thought that my family is what would make me different.

I live in a house with a mom a dad a brother and a dog. But that's not the amazing part...this is: we all love each other. My parents dropped out of college and decided to get married and raise a family together after meeting in band in high school. My mom went to Geneva and my dad attended Westminster both coming from Riverside High School. After moving to Tennessee for a year they moved back to Beaver Falls because they were expecting their first child (me). 19 years later the whole Brenner family lives within 30 minutes of each other. My mom was adopted and never met her birth parents, but has a great relationship with the man that adopted her.

I guess that is how I'm weird. I love to hang out with my family, especially my immediate family (mom and dad). I've dated girls who have single mothers and single fathers, girls who spend the weekends an hour away because their parents couldn't make it work. My room mate has two families also: his father remarried and his mom lives alone. Reading these essays and talking to these people the same argument always arises "you wouldn't understand". Actually, I'm glad I don't understand. I say I do but when it comes down to it, both my parents love me and I love them too.

I have one set of parents, who have been together for the better part of 25 years. They've never been divorced they never fight, my dad doesn't spend the weekend away just to get away, and I don't understand why some kids don't love their parents.

Social Status and Cheating

In the J.D. Heyman essay "Psst...What's the Answer?" Elizabeth Laurie paid her room mate an extraordinary amount of money to write her papers and do her homework. Of course, most of us would see this as cheating and most would expect her to have her diploma taken away, or kicked out of college immediately. Her case is now under investigation, which will probably end up settled out of court for an even bigger amount of money to let Elizabeth keep her diploma. It seems to be like this in sports too...especially baseball in my eyes. Perhaps UPJ should adopt a similar punishment system, close to that of MLB. The MLB rules about steroids in baseball are somewhere in the ball park of first offense) 15 game suspension second suspension) 30 game suspension and third offense) ban from the game for life. They are suspending players but not kicking them out because of all the money involved. UPJ could follow the same guidelines but since we can not pay students to go here, there are ways to punish the student but not kick them out. So I figure UPJ's rules about plagiarism should be first offense) meal card suspension 2 weeks second offense) grounding the student to his/her dorm room and finally third offense) expulsion from class and possibly university.
Will this plan ever go into effect, of course not, but I think something needs to be done about cheating in sports. Stop giving professionals and celebrities "lives" with cheating and let the kids see that, and then when they get to high school and college all they hear is the "no tolerance" policy.

Cheating in Society

once students reachcollege, he/she is given so much responsibility that it can sometimes scare them. While living alone, students can choose to make decisions they would not normally make because they do not have to answer to their parents. One of the decisions is usually cheating. Some will admit it and some won't, but truthfully everyone has cheated on their schoolwork at some point in their life. Where the argument comes into play however is: what exactly is cheating. In the Nathan essay, most students think cheating is ok when the expectations of the class are "unreasonable". This is exactly where I'm going to tear these kids apart. Every college in the country allows students to pick their classes, and one way or another, a student can find out what the class is all about. Whether it is http://www.ratemyprofessor.com or just talking to people who have taken the class before, anyone can learn the expectations of the class/teacher/and workload. All of these kids who say "The teacher is too mean" or "There is too much work"..... DON'T TAKE THE CLASS. I really can't put it any simpler. Even though the line between right and wrong is sometimes skewed because for whatever reason they took a class that they knew they would not like or would not be able to keep up with.