why do they bother?

Who watches the NHL All-Star game? And why?

Currently it's 8 to 5 for the Western Conference (I miss the old names... I'm sure the Prince of Wales was very flattered that they named a conference after him) in the second period. Nobody's putting any effort in and the most physical moment of the night was when the woman (oh, hey, it's 8 to 6 now) who "sang" the Canadian national anthem fell as she was leaving the ice. Guess they don't walk around on ice all that much in Dallas.

I know the NHL bills it as a grand showcase for the best the league has to offer, but I'd rather watch Columbus versus Florida in February, when both will probably be eliminated from the playoffs.

Grouchy, today, I am.

freakonomics

I got a book called Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner for Christmas. It was wicked. The authors take some pretty simple questions - about the real world, not questions that are really only of interest to a few academics in an ivory tower - and apply some basic principles of economics to them to come up with some pretty unconventional answers. They have an interesting way of approaching the world.

It kind of reminds me of The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell.