Ever since the Buffalo Sabres had their amazing playoff run ended by eventual Stanley Cup champs Carolina last year, I've been an avid hockey fan. Hockey is definitely the sport of choice lately, and I'm following more teams and players this year than I ever had.

The best part is, Kathy's into it, too. Ever since we got on a Houston Aeros kick last year, we haven't been able to shake the hockey bug.

The three teams I'm following are the AHL's Aeros, and the NHL's Sabres and Minnesota Wild.

First Buffalo. They are on the verge of their most successful season ever. All-star MVP Daniel Briere has been a goal scoring machine while Ryan Miller continues to dominate in goal. It's a shame they had to let go of one-time starter Martin Biron (and especially to Philadelphia, Biron can't be liking going to the worst team in the NHL), but it allowed them to make some key moves, including picking up Zubrus from Washington to help cover their injured players. Buffalo had this problem late last year, especially with Jay McKee's bizarre shin injury that left him out of Game 7 of the Conference Finals. Fortunately, it's not just the defense brunting the blow this year, so they are able to shift people around better. And the people they are calling up from Rochester this year have just performed amazingly. If they can beat up Toronto 6-1 with 7 missing starters, they're going to coast to the division championship, and quite possibly the President's trophy as well.

The Minnesota Wild started off hot but have cooled down since, and are now in the midst of a 3-way battle for their division title that seems to have gone on for months. As I write this, Minnesota, Vancouver, and Calgary are within one point in the standings. There are still 18 games to go, but if this tight race can continue to the end of the season, each game is going to feel like a playoff game, and if they can pull through they will be ready to give Minnesota fans something to cheer for. Their main problem right now, however, is their goaltending situation. Manny Fernandez is out with an injury, and has been out for a month. Just last night, Nikolas Backstrom went down to injury, leaving their third-string doing the starting role. However, Josh Harding has proven himself well in the AHL, and is one of my favorite Aeros players. I have no doubt he'll be able to succeed at the NHL level.

In the AHL, the Houston Aeros are our only local hockey team. They play in the Toyota Center, the same place as the NBA Rockets, and play to crowds that average about 6,000 to 7,000 in attendance. After finishing 2nd in the division and making it to the division finals last season, they are having a terrible season this year, tied for last place in their division. They lost Kirby Law to Europe and Eric Westrum to the Toronto Marlies, and no one's stepped up to take over leadership on the team. It's getting so bad that Matt Foy's taking out his frustration every game, usually getting into fights, unsportsmanlike penalties, and even misconducts for throwing some guy's glove into the stands. The head coach hasn't placed the "C" on anyone's sweater so far this year, which I feel is the base of the problem, no one is being expected to be the team leader. Adding to that, their top two goalies are out, because the injury chain falls upon the Aeros to replace Minnesota's goaltenders. Both Harding and Miroslav Kopriva are playing for Minnesota, while in the meantime we're stuck with Kochan, who's decent, and Quesada, who I personally don't want see playing in net and giving up 5+ goals ever again. Apparently he's been terrible in the lower leagues as well.

Despite the badness of the Aeros, Kathy and I still have fun going to their games, as hockey is simply the most exciting sport to watch. There's action, hitting, fighting, and now there's even scores with the rules that have really opened up games. It's not uncommon anymore to see 2, 3, even 4 or more goals scored in succession. And as in any sport, it's ALWAYS fun to yell at the refs.

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CatSalad🐈πŸ₯— (D.Burch) :blobcatrainbow:
@catsalad @infosec.exchange

Did you know that Pavlov's hair was famously soft and silky?
It's because he conditioned it. :ablobcatlurk:

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Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

"People suck. Don't be people." -roncli, 2019. πŸ™ƒ

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Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

And when the groundhog saw its shadow, the people declared:

"FOUR MORE YEARS OF STRESS EATING!"

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Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

I told you, son!

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Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

Boss: "We need to come up with a number of hours it will take to do this super big project."

Me: "Do you want that number written out, or can I use exponential form?"

πŸ™ƒ

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Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

I guess you CAN'T do it with True Value. cnn.com/2024/10/14/business/tr

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Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

Former 2 time world champion DogPlayingTetris becomes the first player to ever rollover the level counter in NES Tetris, performing what's known in the community as "Rebirth". Final score: 29,486,164, 4216 lines, level 347 (256 + 91)... all huge world records.

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Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

Back row... Mother with screaming infant, 300 lb linebacker, and me. Or what's left of me.

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Solitha
@solitha @mastodon.social

🚨 James McGovern 🚨

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Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

I'd also love a 6 hour layover overnight instead of taking the red eye I was going to take and be 7 hours later getting into Cleveland than I wanted, why do you ask?

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Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

Why yes, I'd love to leave at 4:40 to get to the airport at 6:20 for an 8:20 flight that got delayed to 9:05 which is too late for my connection so now I'm on a 10:20 flight instead. Why do you ask?

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Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

Twitch getting SOMETHING right for once...

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Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

You may just be a po'boy, but I love you. β™₯️

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Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

I've never had as much fun on comms for a Tetris match as I did tonight with NinjaOfNinjas for the silver bracket semis and finals. What a show!

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Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

Logan Paul didn't qual for silver unfortunately. πŸ™ƒ

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Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

I'm not done! I'll be casting the later rounds of the silver bracket today at 6:30 PM Pacific at twitch.tv/classictetris3. Cya there!

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Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

I'll be live casting qualifiers today for CTWC at twitch.tv/classictetris2 at 1 PM Pacific and twitch.tv/classictetris3 at 3:30 PM Pacific. This year's CTWC is the craziest yet so don't miss it!

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Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

Public restrooms are funny.

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Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

The golden state, more like the blackened state. πŸ”₯

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Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

Just a note to everyone out there who still believes 2020 hasn't ended that today is Unquinquaginember 21st, 2020.

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Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

Burritos can be used for bribing if necessary. 🌯 :)

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Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

@shanselman Who at Microsoft do I have to bribe to fix ADO so that those of us on dark mode who copy/paste text from one task to another can do so without our friends on light mode seeing dark text on a dark background?

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Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

I updated the blog post with a statement from Revival. While I'm not particularly happy with Revival's decision, I understand their motives. It's just a shame that it was someone from Interplay that had to go and do this. "By games for gamers" my ass.

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Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

Damn, got another Tetris world record! This time in the arcade variant developed by Atari. 6,008,005 points, 5,386 lines, round 363. Be warned, it's nearly FIVE HOURS. twitch.tv/videos/2131759212

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Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

I certainly didn't have "Overload but with web3 features" on my 2024 bingo card. WTF did Revival Productions just do?

roncli.com/blogger/39495275106

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Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

@solitha New rule: cat tax. For every pun you post or repost, you're now required to pay the tax of posting one cute cat video.

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Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

Today was a special day. I scored 1,016,221 points in classic NES Tetris, the first time I broke the 999,999 maxout barrier.

With that maxout, I became the oldest person to get their first ever maxout at 46 years 319 days.

After I scored that, I learned that today would have been 7-time Tetris world champion Jonas Neubauer's 43rd birthday.

I am FILLED with incredible emotion tonight.

clips.twitch.tv/AverageImporta

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Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

"I'm Sorry, What?!" The biggest bailout in the history of Descent II! youtube.com/watch?v=GLlTk7wa59

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Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

β€œBART anime merch" are three words that I would not have expected to go together, but here we are. railgoods.com/bart/anime/

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Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

Does anyone else sing the chorus to "Cherish" by Kool & The Gang to themselves whenever they play or watch streams of Balatro? Or is that just me?

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Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

I'm fact that's what Lingo needs: a "phone" block. The clue is an incorrect autocorrected form of the answer. πŸ™ƒ

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Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

It's like my phone knows I've been playing Lingo. I typed in "exited" and my phone was all:

⬜️ EXCITED ------
β–ͺ️
β–ͺ️

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Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

@arborelia Bag-les.

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Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

A comparison of the classic Tetris and Descent communities. Not a post I write lightly, either.

roncli.com/blogger/37031578090

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martin
@luftlesen @mstdn.jp

Aptiz played #Pentis again. In the beginning you can see roncli asking in the chat for the right version. About an hour later, he broke the #PentisRankings record with 60K ! Congratulations roncli πŸ† πŸŽ‰
twitch.tv/videos/2052528360?sr

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Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

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Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

Yeah, it's season 11. But the OTL Season 6 highlight reel is up, this time Fireball has taken the reins! Check out this video jam packed full of kills, deaths, silliness, and Sirius puns. youtube.com/watch?v=SXstLVjnaG

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Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

Over on , someone retweeted sympathy for the people being laid off today...

...and then said that Amazon Games was hiring. You know, the one that just had layoffs in NOVEMBER.

Honestly? Tech sucks right now.

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Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

Seriously. Why is it called Sagittarius, A Star? Clearly, it's Sagittarius, A Black Hole. Silly astronomers.

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Cultural Historian: Dr. RGST
@DrRGST @mastodon.social
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