End of the innocence

So as you may know I am recently a year older but certainly not a year wiser. So now that I'm 24, I have to figure out what the so much more is and where my life is headed. I suppose everyone has to do this from time to time and adjust on the fly. It could be argued that 24 is well after the age of innocence. Maybe 16 with your licence or 18 with military service, voting, gambling and pornography or 19 for alcohol, or 21 for cheap alcohol but 24 always seemed to demarcate the end for me. It is the cusp of adulthood (at least to us post gen x) until this point we are mostly still in school. Some still plugging away at our four year degrees. Some finding a new direction partway down stream. Some working on their masters or doctorate or professional degree. At 25 however most programs are finished that's 7 years from high school or at least 6 for us who had the joy of OAC and now this summer represents the last 'summer job'. As my old man once again pressures me to look for said summer job, I realize that this last part time excuse to make a dime to pay a tenth of the cost of schooling that I may ever have. After this year, I'm done with school altogether and I have to think about a career. To be quite honest I'm scared shitless with the prospect of a career. I feel like my youth has been stolen from me. Like that crystal on my hand can not possibly have turned colours yet. That surely, I, have a few more years left in the old tank before becoming a corporate drone, but alas, no. This is my last year for irresponsibility and my job being about occupying time and not being an occupation. Even the insurance industry recognizes this age as the penultimate change in our responsibility quotient by lowering our insurance rates. Soon for me it'll all be about car payments, mortgages, property taxes, suits, ties, business meetings, clients, living healthy, marriage, pets, children, decor, and the nameless other horrors of adult life. I'll start to look back at age 24 and under as the good ole days and remark on how little I actually did at school / summer jobs and how much simpler life was. I'll not stay up as late or party as hard and I'll start to complain about music being too loud, haircuts being too long, service being too slow, steak being too well cooked, and how much more difficult it was when I was growing up (As my dreams are slowly crushed by the oppressive weight of my responsibilities). So I think that it is now that I must seize the day and I invite you in the blogosphere to add me by suggesting worthwhile activities to remember fondly when I'm stuck behind a desk trying to fill out my TPS report including a cover letter.
P.S. I appreciated the math in AndyMac's last post and in the summer no less a time when math is almost strictly related to how many beers now come in a 'pack'. I have seen the same article and shopped the price and there is no way they met the number unless some sales were unreported (listing only NA sales for example but including European sales in the calculation) or some people were over charged (God forbid little Johnny had to go to that clerk at the local store because Walmart were not allowing him to buy a rated M game). Anyways hats off to the good Cyphering AndyMac!

Grand Theft Record

I'm not one to put a game down that has paid it's dues. Lord knows the GTA franchise has seen dark days. But being a fan of the X Box and Wii while being totally opposed to all things Sony I just had to look into a unique hiccup in GTA IV. Well not actually in the game... just claims Take 2 has made since the proposed bid from gaming giant Electronic Arts. I just read on Yahoo News that Grand theft auto made $500,000,000 on 6,000,000 units. A quick check of the calculator would reveal that this means that each unit cost $83.33 before taxes and cost of production. I have not purchased it, nor will I, I couldn't sit through a whole game stealing cars and killing hookers, not my style. I bet those who did buy it didn't pay 90ish dollars tho. The price at any retailer in Canada and the US is 59.99 which would put the net sales to $359,940,000 a much lower figure than they boast. I'm sure $500,000,000 has helped put the shares out of EA's reach but it still seems dishonest. To have actually made that much they would have to have sold 8,334,722.something. I do not dispute the fact that it is the biggest release in video game history, I just wish they wouldn't pad the numbers.

Was it just us or...

Did something seem awry in that Montreal - Philly game? I am still not clear on all these rules about allowing goals and disallowing goals, but seems to me, in a hockey game, where the object is to use your hockey stick to pass, handle and score on the nets on opposite sides of the rink's surface that using your hand to redirect a shot which changes the momentum of the game seems fishy.

It seems to me that the league has for quite some time opposed the advancement of the Habs. Even listening to the announcers on CBC, you'd think they would naturally root for the Canadian team in a game, not so. The Montreal Canadiens are the outcasts of the Canadian teams. Toronto has lost by such severe scores to the likes of the Florida Panthers but still they are cheered by the announcers. Its a shame that a team from Quebec does not receive the same kind of respect. Toronto is still sore about being losers for the last 40 years, but still.

I am not French Canadian and I like the Habs, the fans agressively defend their team. Much more than I can say for several other hockey teams. When tampa won the cup a couple years back, was anyone watching? Even Detroit fans are diminishing. Maybe they should put in a new rule, In order for a city to have a hockey team there must be a certain average recorded snowfall. Yanks in the southern states don't care about hockey, they are too busy cooking roadkill and playing banjos to worry.

As for that goal "Richards got credit for his fourth goal of the playoffs when he put up his left hand as Umberger’s shot sailed past him and Price. A video review upheld the goal.
'I tried to catch it and luckily my hand-eye is terrible,' Richards said. 'It went right off my shoulder and then I turned around for the rebound and it went in the net. That was the break we needed, I think.' " To credit Richards with the goal is a great insult to hockey and especially the die hard fans of Montreal. On one hand, the league is saying that, dumb luck on the part of Richards that he was standing where he was, pilon in front of the net and Umberger's shot bounced off him, in which case why don't they credit goalies with points when the puck hits their pads and go in. OR on the other hand, the league is spitting in the face of Montreal in saying that even though the puck was redirected consiously, therefore an illegal goal, but we hate you so much that we'll allow it anyways. I have this message for the wigs in Toronto (***explitave deleted)