Ironies of ironies.

The hard-hitting Edmonton Oilers, after their own embroilment in the singing "O Canada" anthem incident, and more importantly advancing through the playoffs by taking out other team's top players, has lost its own.

Edmonton beat the Sharks with repeated hits to San Jose's young stars. They beat up the Ducks, making them look as inept as Gilbert Godfried in those Aflac commercials.

But Sports Illustrated, USA Today, MSNBC, Yahoo, and even the CBC all missed the ultimate irony: with their own star, Goalie Dwayne Roloson, out for the series with an injury, the Oilers are done. Cheer the anthems, boo the anthems, sing O Canada, drink to the Star Spangled Banner — it doesn't matter.

The real irony is that Roloson was hurt as by accident — it was due to his own defenseman's aggressive play. That wasn't true when the rough playing Torres intentionally elbowed Shark's Rookie winger Milan Michalek in the head, bruising his eye socket. It was a cheap shot, and lead to the Oilers advance.

Now, without their best player, the Oilers are out.

Karma exists in the NHL.

Well, Firefox seems to like to automatically update itself (grrrr), and 1.5.0.4 won't let me get into the post page here on wordpress. Oh joy!

Anyway, that's why there hasn't been much shme lately. I promise more shme!

Shme to the masses !!

Today's election day. Go vote!

Apparently we're expecting a 30% turnout in California. That means if you can get 1 in 5 registered voters to support you, you'll win in a landslide, because only 1.5 in 5 will actually vote.

That's pathetic! So go vote. And appreciate the fact that no one gets shot at here on the way to the polls. 

I'm not sure how many people watched HBO's version of Elizabeth I. Tivo grabbed the two part mini-series for me, and I finally got around to watching four hours of late 16th century England. Lots of stuff happens during Elizabeth's reign, most notably Drake's defeat of the Spanish Armada which leads to rise of England as the ruling sea power. No naval battles are shown, no royal navals are shown (no nudity at all, actually), but you definately get a sense of the events around it.

I thought it was a good mix of beheadings and heretic disembowlings along with weaving in bits about the Queen's love life. The adds made it look like a romance novel, but it didn't roll that way. At least to someone who was watching and surfing the web at the same time. It was as historically correct as you're gonna get outside of the History channel (at least what I could verify on Google and Wikipedia). So much for advertising.

Have Tivo find it for you, I'm sure it'll be repeated.

Why is it that people put out bird feeders and get angry when the squirrels eat the bird seed? Birds are descendants of dinosaurs. If birds were bigger, they'd attack you. Ever see a bird look for food, pecking and crawing? Imagine if it were six feet tall? Ten feet tall? Frightening.

Meanwhile, the poor squirrels have gotten a bad rap (as does the gopher). We share a distant relative with the squirrel. That distant relative was relentlessly hunted by the same distant relative of birds. So why are so many people pro-bird and anti-squirrel?

I say, defend our relatives. Screw the birds.

Okay, the last post concluded with “food for thought”. Ever think about the phrase “food for thought” ? Do we eat and therefore think? Does that make the obese American smart? Is this one big case of I eat, therefore I am? Or is it more like Popeye, I yam what I yam?

Anyone know why we say “food for thought” ? I googled “etymology” and “food for thought” but found nothing. I think that’s “food for thought”. Or at least good enough for a Daily Shme.

Pass the dessert!

Ever wonder about the phrase "kill two birds with one stone" ? The popular meaning of the idiom is that you do two things at once.

However, what does that say about us — that we used to actually kill birds with stones? With what, slingshots? And why is such a violent method to say "two things at once" so common place? Sickly-sweet versions of this saying can be found here. I sent them "disembowl two heretics with one knife", but I doubt it'll be posted.

Anyway, it's food for thought, and the first of your Daily Shme.

After getting frustrated at the time it takes to actually write a post, my blogging friends all said I've got it wrong. The art of blogging is to simply crank out lots of posts. Lightweight posts. I was spending over an hour on posts, and my other bloggo-brethren said I was nuts. Well, they usually say I'm nuts, but that's another thing….

So, in honor of my new-found spirit of blogging, I created a category "Daily Shme". I'll try to post something daily that's fairly random and that qualifies as shme.

So, look for your Daily Shme in the Daily Shme category. Aren't you thrilled?

While I have no intention of getting into the gadget review game (like popular sites like engaget), I did come across this goofy device as an interesting giveaway for a trade show raffle. You know, the "let us scan your badge and enter to win a <random shme thingy>". Replace <random shme thingy> with MP3 player, lowest-and-cheapest iPod, or the latest PDA. Or this newfangled device:

It's the SwiMP3 player, to be used by swimmers who want to be groovin' to "Once in a Lifetime" by the Talking Heads (and the lyrics "let the water hold me down"). Oy.

Apparently it works by sending sounds in by vibrating the bones in your head. But I keep thinking this looks more like a gift for Admiral Ackbar.

Is it just me?

All this brou-ha-ha on cheering and jeering national anthems in my previous posts got me thinking about the origin of the Star Spangled Banner.

Most know about Francis Scott Key being kept prisoner aboard some British vessel while Baltimore (Fort McHenry) was being shelled. But do you know that the tune is "To Anacreon in Heaven", an old British drinking song?

More importantly, the tune totally fits — it is indeed a drinking tune! Don't believe me, see for yourself. Open a beer the next time you hear the anthem. If a college marching band is playing the song, you've got a huge advantage: you drink each time the cymbals crash. Consider:

Oh, say can you see (drink)

By the dawn's early light (drink)

What so proudly we hailed (drink)

At the twilight's last gleaming?

You get the idea. There's even a chug half way through, starting with "rockets red glare". You're done with your beer by the time you start singing "oh, say does that star spangled banner yet wave".

Anyway, with all this anthem controversy, I thought it might be good just to put things into perspective.

Cheers!