Recently, someone that I know (and no, it was not me!) was charged under Ontario’s Stunt Driving Law for travelling over 50 km an hour on a major highway.  In consultation with him, and though various discussions that I have had with others, I have found that this is one of the nastiest laws on the books today.  The legal name is Bill 203 – Safer Roads for a Safer Ontario Act.

The penalties for street racing, stunt driving and driving 50 km/h or over the speed limit are as follows:

Pre-conviction:  Immediate 7-day licence suspension and 7-day vehicle impoundment.

Upon conviction:  $2,000 to $10,000 fine, 6 demerit points, up to 6 months jail, up to 2 years licence suspension for a first conviction.

Second offence:  Driver licence suspension up to 10 years within 10 years of first conviction.

Obviously, the easiest way to avoid contravening the law is to stay less than fifty kilometers over the posted speed limit.  I don’t think anyone needs to drive that fast, though I can see how people can get carried away.  In my car, it’s very easy to drive 150 km on a highway and not really notice.  I have an old car, but it has a big engine that likes to go go go.

On the flipside, cops are generally decent people.  If you are going 120 km on a highway, and not driving like an idiot, they’ll generally leave you alone.  If you are driving funny or weaving in and out of traffic, your ass is getting lit up and pulled over.  Realistically, if you are speeding at 50 km over the posted speed limit, the cops have no choice but to pull you over.

I would like to know – out of the 10,000 charges that have been laid under this new law since September 30, 2007 (when the law was enacted), how many of these charges were dismissed and for what reasons?  The law has been challenged on a constitutional level with little success.  Those challenges arose because there are criminal ramifications to the law (up to six months in jail), but the law (being a traffic law) does not allow the person to submit a defence.

I would hope that the judge in each case looks at the person before passing a sentence.  If someone who has all sorts of previous convictions is in front of the court begging for mercy, then throw the book at them.  If someone is a first time offender who was just not paying attention and got carried away, then I would show them some leniancy.

It’s not that I have lost my desire to write, but alas, this past month I have found myself far to busy to contribute to my blog.  Perhaps that comes down to better time management skills, or re-allocation of priorities.  Inevitably, however, there is only so much time in the day and thusly, something has to be sacrificed.

I have been spending a lot of time working.  I have been working at my job (of course, because I have to pay the bills) and we have had some projects that are taking up a lot of time.  I have also been doing a lot of work at Grace’s house.  We have a laundry list of projects that we have wanted to get done, and the weather has cooperated (to an extent – many days have been very hot and this week has been particularly rainy).

By trade, I am a computer guy.  This means that I work on computer systems all day.  It is my primary hobby but also my job and how I feed myself.  Typically, computer geeks are not very handy and to that end I do not consider myself good when it comes to fixing things up.

Yet, sometimes I do surprise myself.  A lot of the stuff that I have been doing here are things that I have never considered doing before.  For example, yesterday I built (from scratch) a pantry.  I did it all in one day, as well.  I used SmartDraw to lay out the design, and then I did all the measurements by hand (because SmartDraw, being friendly to use, does not allow you to measure things out in fractions.  Everything has to be rounded to the inch.).  I went to Home Depot and gathered the wood, and then had them cut it on their saw.  Lastly, I brought it home and assembled it.

It’s the first time I have done anything like this and I was thrilled that not only did it turn out perfectly straight, but all my measurements were bang on accurate.  I also really enjoyed the challenge as it allowed my to expand my rather narrow scope of vision about what I am capable of accomplishing.

Aside from building the pantry, we have accomplished a lot of other things as well.  We added shelving to the kitchen, which was a challenge unto itself.  I was getting really frustrated because I purchased a stud sensor to try and figure out where to drill the holes for the shelf brackets, and it didn’t work well at all.  Then, we couldn’t figure out what height we should hang the shelves at…which when people start getting personal can result in some somewhat hard feelings.

However, despite those problems, we overcame the obstacles and installed two perfectly level, at the right height shelves in the kitchen.  It also helps that Grace’s sister is a fantastic painter and covered up the holes I mistakenly made while trying to install the shelf brackets.  It looks like new.

While hanging the shelves, moreso due to my frustration than anything else, we switched gears and installed an outdoor speaker system in the backyard.  The backyard has been a big project.  We have spent many many hours on it and thankfully, we are in the final stretch.

About a month ago, we built a playpen for the dog so he wouldn’t run around the backyard shitting everywhere.  This involved cutting down a blueberry tree and and removing a boatload of weeds.  From there, a lot of sweeping and sorting took place as we cleaned out a lot of junk out of the garage.  This allowed us to start installing the speaker system.

I purchased the speakers from Wal-Mart about a month ago because they were priced absurdly low.  Ten dollars each.  Having worked in the industry for seven years, I know for a fact that these speakers generally sell for at least eighty dollars each.  And – even at that price – they sell very well.  Needless to say I bought all of the ones Wal-Mart had on sale.

Initially, I was not sure as to how I would install them.  Of course, I wanted to do it properly.  I’ve never been one to take shortcuts, and this project would be no exception.  The trick was figuring out how to wire the speakers to ensure that the wires would remain in good working order for years to come.  I solved that problem by purchasing electrical conduit and installing it around the house, the fence, and the garage and running the speaker wire through it.  Thankfully, Grace has a small backyard so it did not cost a lot (though we still used close to 300′ in speaker wire!).  The only speaker that I am missing is an outdoor subwoofer, but I have yet to find one at a reasonable price.

It will be nice to have movie nights under the stars.  We have an old projector that will serve the purpose well, and we’ll hang up a bedsheet for the screen.  It’s not the best video solution, and there are much more professional ways to do it, but in the interim it will work well.

During this time, we tackled the front garden as well.  This is a half-completed project as it stands now.  In the front of the house, there are two areas where we can plant.  The top area we have planted vegetables and a couple of weeks ago, we finished it off.

We have not had a change to work on the bottom area of the garden.  It is a smaller area and will require just as much work as the top area, primarily because we have to re-level the patio stones.  Gardening is a burden for me because I do not like it, due to the fact that I have allergies plus I do not know anything about plants.  Ergo – I content myself with doing the heavy work and turning the earth.

As it stands now, Grace is busy organizing the kitchen now that she has a lot more shelf space.  I am happy to say that I am not helping out in any way – it’s her kitchen so she can put things wherever she wants.  I was just the facilitator.  Yesterday, I sat her watching Grace’s sister and daughter offer suggestions and try to assist in the organization.  Maybe its experience, but I just sat back, silent.  Too many chiefs and not enough indians.  The only person who works in the kitchen is Grace and to that end, I think it is best that we leave her alone to organize it however she so pleases.

Today, I slept in (a rarity for me) because Grace is not feeling well.  In fact – the time is 1:16 pm and she is still sound asleep.  I am going out to pickup some speakers for the kitchen so that she can play her music while she is organizing it.  I forgot to mention that I wired the kitchen at the same time that I wired the backyard, as it all plays off of the same home theatre reciever (zone one and zone two, gotta love it!).

We still have a great many things to do, but we are completing them one by one.  It’s the only way to get anything done.  I pride myself on being a highly organized and strategic person, and those skills are coming into play given the amount of stuff on our respective plates.

Once again this year, I had the opportunity to visit Montreal.  This is the third time in the last three years that I have been to Montreal, and once again the city did not disappoint.  Montreal is a fabulous city, and one that I would have no problems living in.  The culture is diverse, and the majority of its inhabitants are bilingual.  This – to me – is important because my French is very rusty.  This is not to say that I would not grasp the language fairly quickly if I was living there…but you know, feeling lost due to a language barrier bothers me.

This time, I took my camera and I took a ton of photos.  The last couple of years, I did not take a camera and after the trip ended, I was kicking myself for not doing so.  Hindsight always being 20/20, of course.  This year, I made up for it in droves by taking over 1,000 pictures.

In any event, we (me and a couple of guys from work) booked a trip up to Montreal to witness UFC 113 live in person.  I was previously in Montreal for UFC 97 and UFC 83.  Each of these events are awesome to attend live in person and I urge anyone with an interest in Mixed Martial Arts to make an effort to attend at least one live event in person.  The atmosphere is electric and the UFC puts on a great show.

The main event was a rematch between Lyoto “The Dragon” Machida and Mauricio “Shogun” Rua for the UFC Light Heavyweight Title.  In their first encounter at UFC 104, the champion Machida retained his title in a very controversial decision.  Many people thought that Rua had defeated Machida – ergo the immediate rematch.  The second fight did not disappoint, as Shogun became the new UFC Light Heavyweight Champion with a devasting first round knockout.

Many people believed that beating Machida was impossible.  His style – Karate – is unique to Mixed Martial Arts and up until his first fight with Shogun, he was considered virtually impossible to hit.  If you can’t hit your opponent, you certainly have no way of winning the fight.  In the first fight, Shogun solved the Machida puzzle by using low leg kicks and aggressively punching.  This threw Machida off of his game and forced him into counterpunching randomly.

The strategy was similar for the second fight.  However, this time it did not take Shogun that long to solve Machida.  He used the same strategy to pummel Machida and knocked him out at 3:35 of round one.  He caught Machida with a hard right that knocked him down and then followed with a shot to the eye to finish the fight.  It was a quick fight with a brutal knockout, which made many fans happy.  It was a decent fight in my eye, and while some people wanted to see a longer fight, I was just happy that it ended decisively. 

Personally, I have never been a big fan of the judges.  The judging in Mixed Martial Arts is more often than not very suspect.  The judges – however admittedly – have a very difficult job to do.  They sit at ringside (on three different sides of the cage) and watch the fight from a singular angle.  They do not have the benefit of commentary, television, or instant replay.  As a result, it is entirely possible that they may not see something that is pivotal to the fight.  Thankfully the judges did not play a factor in the outcome of this fight.

In the co-main event, Josh Koscheck defeated Paul “Semtex” Daley via unanimous decision.  Koscheck used his wrestling and neutralized Daley throughout the bout.  The match was not without controversy, however, as Koscheck “pretended” to get hit with an illegal knee in the first round (which cost Daley a point).  It was not honorable in any way.  After the bout, Daley punched Koscheck in frustration.  That is a definite no-no and earned Daley a one-way ticket out of the UFC.  Many people thought that firing Daley and banning him from the UFC forever was far too harsh, but in my opinion an example had to be set.  It is no different than Renato “Babalu” Sobral not releasing the choke on David Heath at UFC 74 following the bell.  I don’t care if the fighters don’t want to be friends, or shake hands following a fight, but there can be zero tolerance of aggressive actions outside of the cage (or in this case, the fight itself).

The fight of the night was Jeremy “Lil’ Heathen” Stephens vs. Sam “Hands of Stone” Stout.  This was a back and forth affair that saw Stephens take the split decision.  I have to admit that even though the fight was close and the crowd did not like the result, the judges scored the fight accurately.  Stephens won the first round, and I think eeked out the second, but Stout clearly won the third round as Stephens tired.  I was hoping that Stout would have been able to finish the fight, but ultimately Lil’ Heathen’s chin held out against the barrage of rocks thrown by “Hands of Stone.”

The comedian of the night award had to go to “Filthy” Tom Lawlor.  At the weigh-ins, he did the funniest Dan Severn impersonation that I have ever seen.  I was in tears, laughing so hard.  Then, on the way to the cage, he was doing his best Apollo Creed impersonation.  It takes balls to come out to “Living In America” in Montreal.  He lost a very competitive fight to Joe “El Dirte” Doerkson.

The “OMFGWTF” award of the night went to Jason MacDonald, who, two minutes into his return to the Octagon, landed awkwardly on a takedown and broke his shin in two places.  This was the first fight of the night and it was a very sickening injury.  I’m sure his opponent, John Salter, did not want to win in that manner, and I would like to see these two fighters rematched because I think that their styles could make for a very competitive fight.

The “Disappointing Fighter of the Night” easily went to Kimbo Slice.  Kimbo – via his reputation – has (had) a lot of hype behind him.  He faced Matt Mitrione at UFC 113 – and was stopped via strikes in the second round.  Mitrione is a very large man in need of a tan, and much like his unofficial nickname on the tenth season of The Ultimate Fighter, he reminds me of the meathead from Archie Bunker fame.  I even made up the name before I knew that he was coined with it by Rashad Evans.

Regardless…Kimbo did nothing in this fight other than throw a few wild punches.  Mitrione took him down at will, attempted submissions, and generally used his reach to out-box Kimbo at his own game.  I was hoping that Kimbo – after four years of training – would be able to show some kind of takedown defense, but alas I was disappointed.  Kimbo was cut from the UFC following this fight (a move I did not agree with as the man only has one UFC loss on his record), and hopefully he lands on his feet in another organization.  Normally I wouldn’t care where I fighter goes, but Kimbo seems like a decent guy who is doing everything that he can to earn a living to support his wife and kids.  Inside the cage he is menacing, outside of it he seems like a big quiet teddy bear.  His fortunes are likely best served in Japan, where they will pay top dollar for fighters who have that type of aura and charisma about them (…in Japan, the actual ability to fight is almost secondary…).

Patrick Cote made his return to the Octagon after an eighteen month layoff due to injury.  His opponent was Alan Belcher, a rising condender in the 185 lb. division.  The ring rust was evident in Cote less than a minute into the bout, as he was unable to find his range against Belcher.  He submitted to a rear-naked choke in the second round, after Belcher dropped him on his face (obviously, stunning him).  I was surprised that Belcher won, I had picked Cote in this bout despite the layoff.  Moreso, I was suprised that Belcher won via submission – it is not something that he is known for.  I had predicted that these two guys would stand and slug with one another, but given the fact that both of these guys have dynamite in their hands, I guess they were leery of each other’s power and decided to turn it into a mat war instead.

In other fights, Mike “The Joker” Guymon defeated Yoshiyuki Yoshida (by decision, for which he was very emotional and very happy), Johnny Hendricks (who reminds me of an Ewok-in-training) defeated T.J. Grant by decision, Joey “The Mexicutioner” Beltran defeated Tim Hague (by decision), and Marcus “The Irish Hand Grenade” Davis defeated Jonathan Goulet by strikes in the second round.

All in all, it was a fantastic event, and of course I will attend the next one in Montreal if I have the means to go.  It was better than last years event (UFC 97, which was marred by the snooze-fest between Thales Leites and Anderson Silva), but not as good as UFC 83 (which featured Georges St. Pierre rematching Matt Serra).  It goes to show you how much the main event plays a part in the overall quality of the show.  If the main event is good, then people will remember that the show was great.  If it is not, then they have the notion that they got ripped off.

While in Montreal, we did a few other things.  On Friday, we ventured up to the Bio Dome and the Olympic Stadium.  We just saw the outside of the Stadium, because to be honest none of us had the desire to go inside.  The monstrosity that is the hotel that looms over La Stade Olympique should, in all honestly, be torn down.  Actually…just tear the entire thing down and rebuild it.  I think that Montreal would benefit from a classic stadium, using architecture from the 1800′s (much like Camden Yards in Baltimore…I’ve always loved that stadium).

The Bio Dome is a unique place.  I have never seen anything like it.  It looks (and is) huge on the outside, but because it houses so many various environments it does not take long to walk through.  It is basically an indoor zoo.  You start in the Tropical section, which will take you about twenty minutes to walk through.  In the twenty minutes though, you’ll drop about ten pounds.  I have to remember that this is not the environment for me – I don’t like it when my breasts sweat.

I did enjoy the wildlife though.  Birds, a crocodile, something that looked like a flamingo…they were all there.  As well, a myriad of various tropical fish.  There is no way that I could identify them all, but I have the pictures with the names on them.  What I liked was how the environment completely changed as you went through the different areas.  Thankfully, the sub-arctic envirionment was behind glass, or it would have been mighty cold (though I would have loved to have interacted with the penguins).

After we finished up at the Bio Dome, we took the Metro (which runs on tires and railroad tracks…tires!) to get to the Bell Centre for the UFC 113 Weigh-Ins.  We were early so we stopped by La Belle Province for a quick bite to eat.  La Belle Province is a burger joint, with their claim to fame being $1.00 hot dogs.  The food was palateable, but I would have preferred something a little more decent.

The weigh-ins were a very good tease to the main show – Tom Lawlor’s impersonation of Dan Severn standing out – and the history of Lyoto Machida and Maurico Rua for those who were not in the know.  Say what you will, but the UFC does a great job building up their shows.  The weigh-ins were covered live by ESPN, another sign that the sport is gaining more mainstream popularity.  There were approximately 6,000 people there for the weigh-ins and pre-fight buildup.

We went up and down Rue Saint Catherine a few times, and we stopped at Reubens for a nice large smoked meat sandwich.  We did a fair amount of shopping, because Saturday was a really shitty day.  It rained and the wind blew like crazy.  That was o.k. though – in my previous two stops I had never been through the Montreal underground (where all the good stores are).  The Bay is eight floors high!  And of course, we went through all eight floors, just to see how they laid out the store.  Then, we went into the main mall and wandered around where I found a few MMA t-shirts.  The other guys found some shirts that they were looking for as well, merchandise that they couldn’t find in Toronto.

The goods in Montreal tend to be a tad higher priced than in Toronto, but they offer a much better selection and quality of product.  I don’t mind paying good money for quality, though i do mind paying $75.00 for a t-shirt.  The MMA t-shirt business is a gold mine, in that you could manufacture these shirts for less than $20.00 – and sell them for at least 100% profit.  If I had any chops with respect to designing and marketing, I would probably get into the business.

We filled up our remaining time by eating in various restaurants around the city (St. Hubert, of course!!!!!) and watching the playoff series between Montreal and Pittsburgh.  Montreal was the underdog in this series, and we were fortunate enough to catch Games Five and Six while in the city.  The fans in Montreal are extremely passionate about their hockey club, and as they were (unexpectedly) climbing deep into the playoff picture, people were out in droves to support their club.  Even in McDonalds – they had big screen televisions and people were glued to them.  You don’t see that in Toronto – because you actually have to qualify for the playoffs first! 

As in previous years, I would have liked to have gotten down into old Montreal a bit more.  It’s funny, even though you plan the time to do things, you invariably never get to see everything that you want to see.  It’s a good thing that I keep going back.  Eventually I’ll see it all!  Montreal is a fantastic city and I wouldn’t have much problem living there full time.  As it stands though, I’ll settle for visiting regularly.  Even when Mixed Martial Arts is eventually licensed in Ontario, and the UFC puts on a show here, I’ll still make the trek up.

While it is not something that I normally do, I have been watching this series.  The chase for the Stanley Cup has the Montreal Canadiens and the Pittsburgh Penguins battling back and forth.  Montreal is the definite underdog in the series, as the Penguins are the defending champions and possess a significant amount of firepower.  Montreal has a very hot goaltender that has thus far neutralized the likes Crosby and Malkin.

The series goes a deciding Game Seven tomorrow.  Who will win?  Who do I want to win?  Well…I like the Penguins more than the Canadiens, primarily because Montreal’s fans (especially here in Ontario) are (for lack of a better word) retarded.  They are celebrating despite the fact that they have yet to win anything!  They do this at the expense of the long suffering Leaf fans, who haven’t had a playoff team in five years.  However, last time I checked, neither team had won a Stanley Cup in the last seventeen years (the Leafs go back forty-three years, but who’s counting?).

On the flipside, it would be nice to see a Canadian team win the Stanley Cup, as it has not happened since 1993 – the longest drought by far, ever.  Hockey is our game, and even though we now share it globally, it would be nice to have one of our teams take home the Cup, even if it has to be the Habs.

I can see this happening.

Facebook is the penultimate social networking site.  They have everything that Microsoft could ever want with respect to trend marketing.  As last count, Facebook has some three hundred million users, the majority of whom are already running at least one Microsoft product.  And in both counts, this number is growing everyday.

Facebook is now where most users spend their time.  Whether they are watching television, at work bored at their desk, or absent-mindedly playing with their mobile devices.  Users do not go randomly “surfing” anymore.  They would rather skip from wall to wall checking out friends of their friends, and so forth.

The creators of Facebook understand this trend only too well, and to that end I would invite you to take a closer look at Facebook Connect.  Facebook Connect is a series of API’s that allow you to login to various sites (such as X-Box Live, Hulu, JibJab, and the Gawker Media Network, among others) with your Facebook I.D.  Once logged in, users can then post information and updates from these sites to their wall and those of their friends.  They extended this feature recently by allowing users to search these sites from within the Facebook platform.

Facebook is also quietly implementing what is known as Virtual Currency.  This is literally a goldmine for them as this allows them to accelerate their extensions by putting a “Like” button with user pictures on these websites.  The concept of virtual currency is still quite new but it is clear that it can do much, much more.  As Mark Cuban writes, “your favorite website doesnt know it yet, but Facebook is in the process of annexing  it.”

The trend shift to a “for-profit” corporation is also made obvious by some of the internal changes as to how Facebook manages virtual currency.  Let us take a look at a few of them in the subsequent paragraphs.

Facebook recently has given users the ability to purchase Facebook Credits, which is their new virtual currency system.  The prices of virtual gifts last year were quietly changed from U.S. Dollars to Facebook Credits, with each credit now costing $0.10 cents.  They have now enabled Virtual Gifts, a process that allows users to give credits to one another.  From there, they expanded the virtual currency gifting program to branded virtual gifts (branded gifts are things like Caramilk chocolate bars, Harley-Davidson motorcyles, and everything in between – nothing generic).

In August of last year, Facebook took the idea of virtual currency international, opening up fourteen different international currencies.  The cost of the virtual gifts still stay the same, however.  Soon – I’m sure they’ll add more and more currencies as Facebook becomes increasingly popular with users in those countries.  They have also allowed developers into the gift shop to pawn their physical gifts as well.  So – while the gift shop was always just items from Facebook for Facebook users – now you purchase physical items with Facebook credits (such as flowers) and send them to anyone.  You can pay for them by purchasing Facebook credits on your mobile cell phone and having them billed to your number.

This is not to say that Facebook should not be allowed to make money, but the forecast of higher earnings would certainly establish their market value considerably higher than it would with lesser earnings.  To this end, the more they are worth, the more another company will have to pay to acquire them.

Now, while these changes unto themselves do not impose upon your privacy, let us switch gears for a few paragraphs.

What do you call an application that secretly installs itself on your computer without your permission or your prior acceptance?  That’s right, folks, you guessed it!  Malware.

As referenced earlier, with respect to Facebook Connect, if you visit certain sites while logged in to Facebook, an app for those sites will be quietly added to your Facebook profile. You don’t have to have a Facebook window open, you don’t need to signed in to these sites for the apps to appear, and there doesn’t appear to be an option to opt-out anywhere in Facebook’s byzantine privacy settings.  Facebook is having a very difficult time with respect to managing the privacy settings of their users, and to think that it will get worse before it gets better is not unwise.  It would therefore be good advice taken to not post anything to Facebook that you would not want to share with anyone else.

Now, let us take a look at the big three in the industry, and how they relate to Facebook.  You have Google, Apple, and Microsoft.  Of the three, which company would love to have all of our personal information, our pictures, our friends, our family members, our employers and business associates all in a database that is extending out and gathering information about what we like on sites that exist outside of Facebook?  Here’s a hint.  It’s the only company of the three that has the cash on hand to pay thirty or so billion dollars for Facebook.  Technically, they are the also the only company that does not have a successful mobile operating system.

Microsoft.

Google has Android and does not interact with its users.  Apple has the iPhone and interacts a little bit with its users.  Microsoft has a ready made desktop and mobile operating system that would work very well with the Facebook platform.  Could you imagine a hybrid Windows/Facebook mobile operating system?  I sure can.  And with all that data that Facebook has accumulated about us, what do you think the marketing wizards over at Microsoft could do with it?

Finally, let us not forget that Microsoft already owns a 2% stake in Facebook.  This in of itself gives them the inside track to any further purchase or outright takeover.  Furthermore, in that agreement, you would have to be a fool to think that Microsoft did not have some kind of right of first refusal on shares should Facebook decide to IPO themselves.

The Montreal Canadians eliminated the Washington Capitals from the NHL playoffs in an absolutely stunning seven game upset.  Down 3-1 in the series, the Habs stormed back and neutralized the high-powered Washington offense.  I think its safe to say that Halak stole this series for Montreal.  This is the first time that an 8th place team came back from a 3-1 deficit to eliminate the President’s Cup winners.  Washington finished almost 35 points ahead of Montreal during the regular season, but as I always say the playoffs are a completely different animal, and in a short series anything can happen.

Montreal now has to face the equally dangerous and well-rested Pittsburgh Penguins starting on Friday.  As they were against Washington, they will be huge underdogs.  People have been comparing Halak to Patrick Roy, but time will tell if he has those qualities or if he is a flash in the pan.

As an aside, you have to feel for Alex Ovechkin.  Great season, then completely falls flat in the playoffs.  Given the failures of last years playoffs, coupled with the Russian Olympic disaster, he can’t be feeling too good right now.

Synopsis (from IMDB):  In Venice, Italy, a team of expert theives pulls a daring heist of 35 million dollars in bars of gold. One of the theives betrays his companions and swipes the gold for himself. One year later, in Los Angeles, the surviving team members create a smart and devious plan to steal back the gold and get their revenge on the traitor.

The Italian Job is one of those movies that I enjoy each and every time that I watch it, yet one that I rarely think of when listing my favorites.  I am a fan of this genre of movie, and I also rank the Ocean’s Series among my favourites.

Edward Norton deserves particular acclaim as the villan in this movie.  He is a fantastic actor that rarely fails to deliver.  He was well cast.  Donald Sutherland was equally as well cast, despite his role being small, it was well written (much like the Steve Seagal cameo in Executive Decision).  Why is Jason Statham always the wheelman in his films (Collateral, Death Race, the Transporter series)?

In any event, the movie definitely rates as a 3 out of 5 stars in my book.

I have been watching the Toronto Raptor free fall lately and I must admit that their rapid decline has me somewhat puzzled.  They started off slow, but then the team started to gel and they won some games.  Even when Bosh hurt his ankle, the team still performed decently.

They went into their tailspin when Bosh returned.  Even though Bosh (for the most part) performed decently when he came back, the supporting cast failed him.  The team is now in danger of missing the playoffs, and Bosh (after an inadvertent elbow the other day) may be lost for the season.

Where should the team go from here?  From my perspective, here is where things sit.

Chris Bosh is all but gone.  His desire to win a championship is strong and he will most certainly not realize his dream in Toronto.  The Knicks are a prime team for Bosh’s services, as is Los Angeles.  Bosh and Kobe in L.A. would be an almost unstoppable tandem, and if the Knicks also sign LeBron…Bosh and LeBron in N.Y.C. would be just as unbeatable.

With respect to Bosh, being a native Texan, he may want to sign with Dallas, San Antonio, or Houston.  The Mavericks are well-known in NBA circles for taking exceptional care of their players and that alone my swing the balance in their favour.  In any event, it is all speculation until after the season ends.

Should Bosh depart, that would leave the team leaderless for next year, and someone from within will have to pickup the slack (or be signed).  The team has some quality players, yet they do not seem to gel.  Bargnani has had a decent year but for the Raptors to remain competitive next year (and by competitive, I am hoping for 45 wins), he will have to seriously up his game.  He cannont be inconsistent every other game.  Turkoglu will have to rebound from his off year this year and return to the form that the Raptors expected when they signed him.  Calderon has to start in order to be effective and continue to feed his teammates the ball.

Jarret Jack, DeMar DeRozan, Reggie Evans and Sonny Weems are all serviceable players who play the game hard.  These are the type of players that I am a fan of.  Nothing bothers me more than slackers (and Turkoglu, I’m looking right at you here party-boy).  The only downside is that the skill level may be lacking, and while you can make up some of that with hard work, skill (like speed) is not something that you can teach.  If the Raptors do a sign-and-trade deal with Bosh, it is likely that they will not get anyone of significant skill back in trade.  I am not sure if there are any pending free agents this season that would address their needs, either.

Any NBA team worth its salt has a balance of hard workers and skilled players.  The Raptors are years away from winning an NBA Championship (about as far off as the Blue Jays and Maple Leafs, actually).  What they need to do is turn the public sentiment back towards them and make the fans care about the team.  Winning and playing hard does that.

Chris Kanyon died this weekend.  He was 40 years old.  Another premature professional wrestling death.

Kanyon competed for WCW and WWE under his name, as well as Mortis (a Mortal Kombat based character).  He was primarily a mid-card wrestler, and a very good worker.  He had a number of gimmicks and feuded with the likes of Diamond Dallas Page and Raven.

In his later years, he was openly homosexual, in an industry that commonly frowns upon such things.  He was also bipolar, and had spoken about suicide in the weeks prior to his death.  The toxicology results on his death have not come back yet, so it is unknown if he had anything in his system.

Professional wrestling is a hard business that extracts a terrible toll out of its participants.