Peon's Place

Pluto was discovered by the astronomer Clyde Tombaugh at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona while he was searching for “Planet X,” a hypothetical planet that was believed to exist beyond Neptune. Pluto was long regarded as a planet, but following the discovery of other, larger Kuiper belt objects, astronomers recognized the need to reclassify Pluto. In 2006, the International Astronomical Union ended official recognition of Pluto as a planet. What is Pluto’s current classification? More…

Tiger Woods will make a public statement on Friday for the first time since revelations about his infidelity. My only question is… Tiger, if you’re sincere about this, why did you wait so long? Hoping to get back into Golf and have this not greatly impact your career, possibly?

Read more here.

On a poll about the timing of this..

• 39% say “better late than never”
• 21% say this will make a little impact for him
• 40%, including myself, state “he waited too long”

Sorry, Tiger. You’re a douchebag.

USA wins game versus Switzerland! Here’s how the scheduls looks like so far:

TUE, FEB-16 USA 3, Switzerland 1
THU, FEB-18 Norway 12PM – USA
SUN, FEB-21 Canada 4:40PM – MSNBC
TUE, FEB-23 Qualification Games 12PM
WED, FEB-24 Quarterfinals 12PM
FRI, FEB-26 Semifinals 12PM
SAT, FEB-27 Bronze-Medal Game 7PM
SUN, FEB-28 Gold-Medal Game 12:15PM

Here is the USA team. Players are listed by name, age as of February, 2010, and NHL team.

Goaltenders

• Tim Thomas, 35 (Boston Bruins)
• Ryan Miller, 29 (Buffalo Sabres)
• Jonathan Quick, 24 (Los Angeles Kings)

Alternate Candidate:
- Craig Anderson (Colorado)

Defense

• Brian Rafalski, 36 (Detroit Red Wings)
• Ryan Suter, 25 (Nashville Predators)
• Paul Martin 28 (New Jersey Devils) – withdrawn due to injury
• Mike Komisarek, 28 (Toronto Maple Leafs) – withdrawn due to injury
• Erik Johnson, 21 (St. Louis Blues)
• Brooks Orpik, 29 (Pittsburgh Pittsburgh)
• Jack Johnson, 23 (Los Angeles Kings)
• Ryan Whitney, 26 (Anaheim Ducks) – injury call-up
• Tim Gleason, 27 (Carolina Hurricanes) – injury call-up

Alternate Candidates:
- Matt Niskanen (Dallas)
- Ron Hainsey (Atlanta)
- Alex Goligoski (Pittsburgh)
- Matt Carle (Philadelphia)
- Rob Scuderi (Los Angeles)

Forwards

• Zach Parise, 25 (New Jersey Devils)
• Chris Drury, 32 (New York Rangers)
• Dustin Brown, 25 (Los Angeles Kings)
• Jamie Langenbrunner, 34 (New Jersey Devils)
• Paul Stastny, 24 (Colorado Avalanche)
• David Backes, 25 (St. Louis Blues)
• Patrick Kane, 21 (Chicago Blackhawks)
• Phil Kessel, 22 (Toronto Maple Leafs)
• Ryan Kesler, 25 (Vancouver Canucks)
• Bobby Ryan, 22 (Anaheim Ducks)
• Joe Pavelski, 25 (San Jose Sharks)
• Ryan Malone, 31 (Tampa Bay Lightning)
• Ryan Callahan, 24 (New York Rangers)

Alternate Candidates:
- Jason Pominville (Sabres)
- David Booth (Panthers)
- Scott Gomez (Canadiens)
- T.J. Oshie (Blues)
- Brian Gionta (Canadiens)

Keep in mind that rosters are not final until 24 hours before the Games begin. Players injured before then can be replaced.

Wondering where our Sharks players are at?

• USA – Joe Pavelski
• Canada – Dany Heatley, Joe Thornton, Dan Boyle and Patrick Marleau
• Sweden – Douglas Murray
• Russia – Evgeni Nabokov
• Germany – Thomas Greiss

I decided Friday afternoon before leaving work that I should visit my cousin and her sister whom I had not seen for.. roughly.. 14 years. Yeah, she was 8 years old when we went to Disneyland. I also had not seen her parents, my uncle and aunt, for six and 8 years respectively. Since I had a 3-day weekend and a need to travel, this is sort of how it went down over text messages:

Me: What are you up to this weekend?

Her: Drink drink and probably drink! Hahaha!

Me: I have nothing to do. Want to go hang out and grab some drinks or something?

Her: Yeah for sure! Well there’s not much to do here but I can find some stuff.

Me: Well I have the weekend off from football, and most friends are tied up with a valentine or something, soo…

Her: Okay cool! You can stay at our house.

(again.. this is sort of how it went. Sort of.)

So I watched some of the Winter Olympics (more like Canada’s fashionable display of screw-ups in the introduction) while packing bags. I left at 2:15am since, adding in travel time, I estimated landing in around 10:15. I was pretty much right-on spot when my travel time when I detoured to pick her up at a friend’s house around 10:30am. Side note: I drove past 3 Sonics that I saw on the way.. why do we not have any in the greater bay area?

Summarizing past all of the canned beer I drank this past weekend, I noticed a few things that are different, past the obvious fact that they’re in ass-nowhere-ville 90 miles East of San Diego.

1. Canned Beer. More specifically, Budlight canned beer. If I never have another beer in a can, it would be drastically too soon. One of the house parties we went to, we brought a 36-pack of Budlight cans. Now, here in the bay area, we don’t even sell 36-packs. We come in varieties of 12, 18, and 24-packs. The people that came after us brought an 18-pack of Budlight cans. The people after them? A 36-pack of Budweiser…cans. I’m thirsty for a Guinness, a Corona, Stella, or anything else that is not equal to a canned American beer. Seriously. I had to buy a bottle of Skyy and some Redbulls to mix some easy drinks; sadly most people at the party had never had a Redbull/Vodka before. I was crying inside.
2. I understand the necessity to smoke while drinking. Apparently Marlboro Lights is all the liquor stores have in stock. Those nifty little white & gold containers of cancer sticks floated freely around every table.
3. No iPhones. I was the only person to have an iPhone. The coolest phones anyone had resembled something of the Verizon enV series. No touchscreens at all. Showing off some of the cool apps, such as Shazam, Urbanspoon etc, became a really big hit.
4. If you don’t own a Nintendo Wii or a PlayStation 3, then you’re not a cool kid. Which means no one comes to your house parties. Every single home I was in over the weekend had a Wii in it, and 90% had a PS2 or PS3, or both. Clearly, Microsoft did not live here, at all.
5. Their radio stations play some stuff that we don’t have. Their hip-hop/rap stations, for example, played many of the songs that ours do, plus a dozen or so that I had never heard of. I however was cleansed of hearing Taylor Swift come on right after Flo Rida or Kanye, so there was that plus side. ;)

Overall it was a great weekend, and I didn’t have to deal with the “Single Awareness Day” blues. Screw this weekend, I said on Friday night.. and I just took off. The drive was nice, time to myself, watching Scarface on the screen with the Mustang on cruise control, zooming away into the darkness…

A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

The Apple iPad has a contender to compete with – the iTablet! While the iPad will come in 16/32/64gb varieties, the iTablet starts off at 250gb. It sports two USB ports, HDMI for video, and even a camera — all things the iPad lacks.

No iTunes store or application downloads you say? Since this thing runs Windows 7, it’s a mini-PC; meaning you can sync your iPad/iPhone/iPod to it. And since it has its own operating system and is not limited by Apple, I’m sure you will not need to limit yourself to Apple’s applications.

Move over, Apple, with your over-priced unoriginal new gadgets!

They who act without sufficient thought, will often fall into unsuspected danger.

Aesop (620 BC-560 BC)