Why does the CFL exist?

Does anybody watch the CFL anymore? It would appear to me that they do not. When I lived in Ottawa last year, I saw the outrage in the city due to the possible moving of the Ottawa Renegades. The fans were rioting in the streets, buildings were on fire, babies were eaten...actually I don't think anyone even noticed that the team suspended operations in April of 2006 because no one knew they existed.

All I ever hear about in the CFL is the lack of money and the folding of teams. Why don't they revolutionize the game? I often have this conversation with my dad and he brings up a very good idea for the CFL - why not turn it into a farm system for the NFL?

Playing in the CFL seems to be a deathwish for a player's career unless your name is Doug Flutie or Ricky Williams. Actually, yeah, it's still a deathwish. But what if the CFL was used as a minor league system for up and coming players in the NFL? In the current system, if you're not drafted out of college, then you go and get a 9-5 job with your General Studies degree (if you completed your requirements, that is).

What about players that couldn't get the exposure they needed on their college team or weren't good enough in high school to be offered a college scholarship? There could be a lot of talent out there that doesn't have the chance to develop because other than arena football in Europe, there is no system in place.

Players aren't drafted out of the CFL very often for two major reasons:
1) The rules are different. If a player gets used to throwing every down, they might lose their abilities on pass defense. Special teams is more important with 3 downs and the 1-point system as well.
2) There is very little exposure. How can these players get noticed with the current relationship the CFL has with the NFL. They need to be tied more closely so that teams can monitor their draft picks.

How many times is there a first-round draft pick from college that you don't hear about again for 4 years until the first string franchise player goes down? And 9 times out of 10 that draft pick fails to meet the hype when he gets in. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that he's played 3 snaps in the last 4 years! If there was a farm system, the team could have him playing in the farm system while he's developing and bring him up when they need him. That way, his game sense stays sharp and he's been in game situations for the past 3 or 4 years and not playing 7-on-7 no contact at practice every week.

I think most people would rather buy a ticket to go watch these up and coming superstars than to go watch a bunch of washed up CFL'ers kick every 3 plays and score on every touchdown pass because they have an end zone the size of Australia.

Personal update.

As another term comes to a close, I thought I might post a personal update for my friends and family.

I've been working at Research In Motion since September this year as a software developer, writing Instant Messenger applications for the Blackberry. When I arrived, the clients were nearly feature-complete so I've been mostly responsible for fixing bugs, cleaning up the code, and some small feature implementations. It was a great opportunity to work on a large project though, as most of my other development experience comes in the form of "toy" applications; ones that are started from scratch and are usually written by one person. I was pretty overwhelmed with the amount of code I was supposed to learn but after a couple of weeks I felt a little more comfortable with my responsibilities. It was a lot of responsibility but I think I definitely got some solid experience working with some very nicely designed software, not to mention 4 months of embedded Java and client-server experience.

I will be returning to this group to help out over the next school term as a part-time employee for approximately 10 hours per week which means I get to keep my Blackberry which is a nice bonus. Not to mention I won't have to spend my weekends waiting tables anymore and I can do something that I enjoy that will also benefit my career.

I will be departing chilly Toronto on Friday morning for sunny Cayo Coco, Cuba! Christie and I booked the vacation at the beginning 0f term for a bargain at $750 each which includes flights, accommodations, 24 hr buffet/room service, unlimited 24 hr international bar, scuba lessons, disco cover and drinks, volleyball and beach volleyball, tennis courts, bicycle rental, gym, catamarans, and massages. That price also includes taxes, except for the $25 departure tax for Cuba, and whatever cigars and rum we bring back. We're staying at a five-star resort (Cuban five-star is not equivalent of North American five-star) called the Hotel Blau Colonial.

Hopefully I'll have lots of good pictures to post after the break. Good luck to all those writing finals right now, I'll be thinking of you as I sip a mojito and chew on a freshly lit montecristo on the beach in Cuba...pause....not.

Stuff to do before I die.

I've been inspired (read: forced) by Scott to make a list of things I want to do before I die. This isn't going to be a numbered list of goals though, moreso events I'd like to attend and places I'd like to go. Moreover, it is intentional that these are all extremely cliche.

Run with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain. And I don't mean watch the running, I mean actually out run a bull, the whole way. Extra points for being gored!

Make a stupid face at one of those Royal Guards at Buckingham Palace.

Party at Mardi Gras in New Orleans, once they're back up and running. I have to see at least 13 boobies.

Get a Philly Cheesesteak in Philadelphia.

Attend a World Cup game in a European or South American country. Engage in any tomfoolery that occurs.

Drink a Guinness in Ireland. Not Dublin though, a small pub with a real fireplace in a small town.

Attend a New Zealand All-Blacks rugby match. Also, I will accomplish Dwight's goal:

I can travel anywhere. Except Cuba. And I will travel to New Zealand. And walk the Lord of the Rings trail to Mordor. And then I will hike Mount Doom.

Participate in the tomato fight in Spain - requires 10 headshots for completion.

Drink a glass of wine at a vinyard in Italy...in one sip.

Go snowboarding in Banff and Whistler.

Go surfing in California.

Enjoy a Fosters, barbecued shrimp and then go scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia.

Buy the best rip-off electronics I can find in Japan, after a meal of sushi and sapporo.

See a play on Broadway in New York.

Go to a high school football game in Texas.

See an NCAA football game and basketball game.

Leave a casino in Vegas as a winner.

As I mentioned on Scott's blog, drink tequila in some roadside stop on the way to Mexico city. The kind of place where you can pay your tab with a nice watch, and lose in pool against some three-toothed, 64 year old Mexican prostitute named Chantico.

Smoke a cigar and drink a mojito in Cuba, while reading a Hemingway novel.

Take a photograph of the Taj Mahal.

Go on a safari in Africa.

Smoke sheesha in Egypt after a day of graverobbing the pyramids.

Visit Easter Island off the coast of Chile.

Write a "Hello World" program at a startup in Silicon Valley.

Buy a hotdog and $8 beer and see a Red Sox/Yankee game at Fenway park.

Walk along the Great Wall of China.

Have a cup of fresh coffee in Columbia. Also, cocaine.

Eat a lobster dinner in Maine.

Deposit money into a swiss bank account.

Do a cycling tour of Italy or France.

Enjoy an Ouzo somewhere in the Greek islands.

I'm sure I will add to this list as the ideas enter my head. Anywhere else I should go?

Stuff I'm in the market for.

I'm in the market for a couple of accessories these days:

Headphones: I want a decent pair of headphones. I'm tiring of the white earbuds that came with my 5G iPod...they are no longer cool. Everyone and their dog has an iPod now, they have no coolness factor anymore...but they do look good. Anyway, my budget is in the $70-$100 range and I would like a relatively large and comfortable set of cans that can double as earmuffs during the winter. Also, a 3.5 mm jack would be beneficial, I don't want to have to buy an adapter for it to fit into my iPod audio jack.



Wallet: I'm going a different direction with this purchase. I'm leaving my trusty black, leather, bi-fold doorstop behind and I'm going with a front-pocket version. I need room for my debit card, credit card, driver's license, and student card as well as a bit of cash. Fossil has some nice distressed leather versions that have cardholders and integrated money clip. Also, I might be persuaded to get something a little less stylish but more functional like the Jimi.

Any suggestions?

MacBook lust.

Alright, so after approximately a week with the MacBook, I thought I'd post an update (Sorry Christie).

Apple Mail:

Wow, so easy to set up! I can't even start to explain the nightmares I've had trying to set up Outlook and Thunderbird as e-mail clients. I have school, GMail, and hotmail email accounts and I have always been forced to use the crappy web interfaces because any time I've tried to set up POP3 forwarding, I've ended up removing all mail from the server and storing it on my hard drive which is not what I wanted at all. So, I ended up archiving all my mail by forwarding it all back to the Gmail server which took me about a full day.

When I took the plunge with Apple Mail I simply put in my email address and selected POP3, but Apple provided an OBVIOUS option to leave the mail on the server as well. I was up and running in about 23 seconds and everything is working the way I want it to.

iMovie:

So I finally got the opportunity to test this bad boy out on the weekend. As we were leaving the bomber on Friday night (hurray for $8 pitchers on a Friday night!) they had those big sumo wrestling suits set up with all the inflated equipment and jousting stuff. So, a couple people donned the suits and I got some crappy low-light footage of Phil drop-kicking the shit out of them with my point-and-shoot sony digital camera. It took me about 5 or 10 minutes to edit the clips and add a soundtrack. I've decided my next tech purchase will be a decent camcorder - I can just keep recording and get all kinds of hilarious footage to compile in the offtime. Video editing was something I got kind of into in my last year of high school doing stuff for assemblies and I've been waiting for an opportunity to pick it up again lately. Enter MacBook.

Wait, I know what you're thinking...the bomber has $8 pitchers on Friday nights? YES! And yet everyone goes on Wednesday, which is ironically the only day of the week they don't have cheap drinks! I'd like to thank the Erb St. crew for tuning me into this little deal and hopefully we'll continue to meet up there on Friday nights. The pub is a lot quieter but the beer is just as cold.

Anyways, I'll have more updates to come on the MacBook, but probably not until school starts and I have a good reason to open up the bash shell and get into some real dev work there. See you on the flip side amigos.

Laterals.

Seattle @ Denver last night. Seattle was winning 23-20 and they were just about to kick off to the Broncos with no time left on the clock. The standard play for the Broncos in this situation is to receive the kick, and through a series of ill-fated laterals and cross-field passes, attempt to confuse the defense long enough to score. I'm not sure if this tactic ever works but I couldn't help but question whether any player in the NFL had ever seen a rugby match.

In rugby, the only types of legal passes must be lateral or backwards in direction. These are the same rules that apply on a kick-off in the NFL. However, no matter how often this situation occurs in the NFL, the ensuing play is always the same ridiculous and unsuccessful tangle of players. In rugby, the offense lines up as a diagonal line and attempts to get the ball from the front of the line to the back. The further along the line the ball gets, the more opportunity there is for space for the quicker runners at the end of the line.

Okay, some more explanation (for Scott). The black numbers are the offensive team and red numbers the defense. The triangles are the scrum. You can see that the backs are lined up diagonally, and the ball will start at number 9 (the scrum-half) and they will attempt to get it as far down the line as possible using one of the designated plays they have called. The defense tries to line up as flat as possible so that there are no gaps for the offense to run though. Number 15 is the fullback, the last line of defense.

Furthermore, blocking is legal in the NFL, whereas in rugby, an obstruction penalty would ensue. This is another advantage of using a standard rugby offense in the no-time-left-kickoff situation because the offense adds a layer of protection between the defense and themselves.

The final advantage to using this in the NFL is that the defense would have no idea how to defend it. The smallest variation in the "flatness" of the defensive line is extremely exploitable by an offense running this play. The defense would probably come using layers - players to occupy blockers, trying to create holes, moving as a pack, etc. There would be a huge opportunity for the offense to take advantage of the weakness of the defensive line, clearly resulting in a touchdown every time. So what gives?

Edit: Clarified diagram for you Scott...you are 50% of my audience after all.

More toys!

A few weeks ago, my Dad bought a new Nikon DSLR (D200) and as a consequence, rendered his old D70 nearly useless to him. By method of hand-me-down, it landed in my hands and I've spent some time in the last few days playing around with it. It looks like Christmas came a month early for me this year :)




Anyways, I thought I might share a few photos I took today whilst Christie and her family decorated their Christmas tree.

I'm not sure I fully understand some people's devotion to real Christmas trees. Our family has always used an artificial one and I've never felt the need to buy a real one. How ironic, that my sister - the environmental engineering tree-hugger that she is - is dead set on us getting a real tree this year. She takes responsibility for the Christmas decorations though, so I guess it's her call.

Christie and her aunt take full responsibility for the tree decoration process at her house. They kindly offered to let me help but after watching them remove and replace each ornament the kids placed on the tree, I thought I'd save them the trouble.

I know people appreciate the smell and the experience of picking out the "perfect" tree. But then they bring it home to find out that it leans too far to the left and the it is about ten inches too tall. I guess I should save my judgment until I've had at least one Christmas with a real tree.

Anyway, I have a lot to learn about photography before I start producing some quality shots, but I think I'm starting to figure it out. You stay classy, San Diego.

MacBook arrived.

So maybe it's the reason I started this blog in the first place. Shut up. This is my first adventure into Macland and nobody is going to ruin it for me, except for me. And maybe Kevin Federline.

I was at work when FedEx tried to deliver it, so I had to pick it up in Cambridge. Strike one. Just kidding, that wasn't Apple's fault. The unboxing of the hardware was most definitely documented, I'll post photos of that slightly erotic experience shortly. I ordered the white 13" Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz MacBook with 1 GB of RAM and the 160 GB HDD. Apple definitely knows what they're doing when it comes to minimalist industrial design. The sleek white casing is very smooth and iPod looking. There are plenty of reviews of the new MacBooks out there, so I won't waste any more time of yours with my new obsession.

However, there are 2 issues I have with my new laptop:

1) The wrist-rest has a very sharp edge and although you aren't supposed to rest your wrists there while typing, everyone does. It is a minor discomfort if anything, but still.

2) Wireless issue. My house's wireless router uses WEP encryption with a 4 key system. I assume the reason there are 4 WEP keys is so that you can periodically toggle them for security's sake. My system admin (read: Dad) had the index set to the third key at the time which isn't a problem for any of the Windows wireless users. When I started up AirPort, I tried to input the third key and was faced an incorrect key dialog from AirPort. The first key did work, but it would not allow me to access the internet, just our internal network. After about 2 hours of Googling, I discovered that Mac OS X does not recognize this wireless protocol and only reads the first key index. I switched the router to use the first key and voila! Access! But how stupid is that. I know that UNIX supports 4-key WEP, so apparently Apple has removed it for simplicity's sake. Why not add an "Advanced" tab where users can input this kind of information though? It's not just musicians and graphic artists using your hardware anymore Apple.

Once I got up and running though, using the Mac was a lot of fun. The battery lasted around 4.5 hours browsing the web, using iTunes, iPhoto, and chatting online. There are a few applications that are really cool. Quicksilver is like Google Desktop but faster, better, and smarter. Adium is the all-in-one IM client and is a pleasure to use; no more flashing orange tabs in my taskbar. iSquint rips .avi files to .mp4 files for my iPod seamlessly, quickly, and freely. Please feel free to post any other free must-have apps and I'll give them a try.

My favourite part of Mac OS X is its Unix underbelly. I love having all the configuration options and power of Unix with that pretty Aqua interface. Any time I feel like getting dirty, I can open up Terminal.app and dive in.

So, on a scale of 1 to 10, with 6 being the highest, I give my new MacBook a 6! Stay tuned for more comments on my switch from Windows to OS X. Not that I'm going to fully make the switch, Bootcamp is going on the MacBook tonight.