The Irrevocable Shackles of Matrimony: Matrimania - Saint Louis
I spoke to The Guy this evening, very briefly, nothing at all to do with the wedding. My appraisal? He sounded good, he sounded relaxed. He sounded like a man ready to become his ladylove's husband. My man sounded happy.

In the words of Tony Kornheiser, "Get happy, people."

Believe: Red Wings 5-2 Stars
Eleven down, five to go. Best of seven: Detroit 3-0 Dallas.

I admit, I flipped away from the game to watch Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe, flipping back to Versus (Where was the C.B.C.? The Canucks fouled this one up nicely.) during commercial interruptions to check on the score. I am, apparently, entirely justified in my inability to take the Stars seriously as an obstacle. I watched much of yesterday's all-Pennsylvania contest between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Philadelphia Flyers. At the risk of angering the heathen gods of hockey, I wasn't terribly impressed with either team and should the Red Wings prove triumphant over the paltry Stars, I think they'll have a better than even chance to hoist Lord Stanley's Cup for the fourth time in a dozen years.

Speaking, generally, of the Cup, I am absolutely disgusted by the ignorance and bad attitudes of nearly everyone in Michigan. Too many people regard the Red Wings as perennial playoffs chokers, as being extremely talented but unable to perform under pressure. How in blazes can anyone hold that opinion? The Red Wings have not won the Stanley Cup since 2002, true. Six years, five seasons. No such criticism is piled upon the Tigers, who haven't won the *scoff* World Series since - start studying Newspeak - 1984. The Red Wings advanced to the "Western" Campbell Conference Finals last year only to fall to the eventual champion Ducks in six close games; a few moments of different fortune here and there would have put the Wings in the Stanley Cup Finals. I seem to recall the beloved Tigers getting fucking destroyed and made to look like amateurs the last time they were in the *scoff* World Series. The Pistons have won a championship more recently than the Red Wings, and they were tantalizingly close to repeating the following season, but they haven't brought home "the hardware" but once in the last dozen years, the same span in which the Red Wings have won three championships, yet no one around here calls the Pistons perennial playoff pretenders. Wherefore the double standard? Why the scorn reserved so exclusively for the Red Wings?

I have a theory, but it isn't a legitimate, just a crude insult: The people around here are fucking arseholes. (Dearest Watergirl, please refrain from making any comment. I love your frequent commenting, but your incessant Mitten-bashing long ago exhausted my last nerve. Thank you.) I have a possibly legitimate theory, too, but it'll keep for a while yet.

Project TROIKA
K. Steeze gets a lot of his ideas from video games. Character ideas, the broad strokes of scenarios. I simply do not understand video game culture. I acknowledge that it is an ever larger part of our popular culture, but it is one of which I remain steadfastly ignorant and disdainful. (A charming combination, I know, but on this one I'm going to stand my ground and hope fear and hate carry the day.) So, denounce me if you wish, but whenever he mentions that the genesis of an idea lies within a video game, my first reaction, even though the vast majority of our TROIKA correspondence is over email, is to make a face, to look at his words as if they've aliens with bumps on their foreheads. Reason, goodwill, and the profound respect I have for Steeze's creative prowess eventually overcome that initial skepticism, yet that first impulse persists. I am a snob. Without knowing much about them, I regard the storytelling possibilities of video games an inherently inferior to those of books, motion pictures, plays, television episodes, and comic books, et al.

We are almost always on the same page, but in this one area there is between us a vast gulf.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
The Ataris, "Angry Nerd Rock" from Blue Skies, Broken Hearts... Next 12 Exits (T.L.A.M.)