Happy Thanksgiving

Here in the United States today is the day we give thanks for our ancestors, the "pilgrims", surviving a New England winter. If it wasn't for the fact they paid attention to the natives in the area and stocked up on food to make it through the winter, they would be dead and no one gives thanks for that.

Also, if the pilgrims had landed in someplace other than New England, like maybe Florida, we would not be celebrating Thanksgiving either because they don't have winters in Florida. Besides, the pilgrims would have all died from alligator attacks or getting hit by falling iguanas.

So anyways, I hope you were well-stocked on food and enjoyed your tryptophan nap this afternoon. I also hope no one got hit by any falling iguanas.

And yes, I am fully aware that Tryptophan and the Falling Iguanas would be a fantastic name for a 1960's lounge band.

Oh, and I got this picture of a shitload of free turkeys the other day. If you need a turkey, just drive through my town and you'll eventually find one.

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The Bruins beat the Islanders 3-1 last night, moving up to 3^rd place in the Atlantic division.

One of the reasons you see the Bruins listed lower in tie situations is simple math - they have played more games than anyone in the league. Simple math means gives them a lower win percentage than a team with fewer games and the same number of wins.

The best explanation is 5 wins divided by 10 games played equals a win percentage of .500 while 5 wins divided by 11 games played equals a win percentage of .455.

And to make things even more difficult, they add in the number of ties in regulation.

In the case of hockey's OT system, it's not not just the number of wins divided by games played, it's the number of wins plus half of the OT points, also known as ties in regulation. If a team has played 10 games and they have 5 wins with 2 OT loses, they would have a win percentage of .600 because it would be 5 wins plus (2 ties in regulation / 2) = 6. Divide that by games played and you get a win percentage of .600 even though they only have 5 wins.

And now you know more about how hockey standings are calculated than you did yesterday.

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If the news is to be believed, one of the guardsmen that was shot yesterday was hit in the head. That means a traumatic brain injury.

Also, the shooter is an arrival in this country from Afghanistan and the FBI is treating this like an act of terrorism. This means that Trump is now looking into reviewing everyone who came to the US from Afghanistan.

Time for me to get a little racist...

Too be honest with you, I'm not entirely sure that looking into the lives of each and every Afghan refugee is a bad thing. Culturally, Afghanistan might as well be on a different planet than the United States. The people from that culture are vastly different than the people from the United States.

This has been my narrow-minded racist view of the world. We now return to my traditional view that every culture and race has assholes within it. This includes my culture and my race. There are assholes everywhere.

So anyways, I hope the guardsman, Sarah Beckstrom, does not suffer and she either recovers to live a long healthy life or she passes with no pain. Either way, she did not deserve this. She was doing nothing other than following the lawful orders of her command.

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Here are some links:

• Normally, I don't speak russian. As a matter fact, I'm not really all that good with english. But I was able to interpret this. I believe what he said was, "Give me what I want or I will keep killing babies and school children."



• Trading him to a team where he can play his position would be the best thing for both him and the Red Sox.



• I own a streaming box from Amazon. It's an Alexa FireTV cube and I can't load any software on it that doesn't come from Amazon.



• His real name was Frank Urban Zoeller which made his nickname 'Fuzzy'.

There are sportings tonight

The Bruins will hopefuly beat the Islanders tonight.

I say hopefully because they've already beat them twice this season but they are on a small losing streak lately so it is anyone's guess what will happen tonight.

The one thing I do know is the puck drops at 7:00 so I should be able to watch the entire game.

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As I type this, there is news out of Washington DC that two National Guardsmen were ambushed and shot point blank about 500 yards away from the Gold-Leaf Palace formerly known as "The White House".

It's an odd situation because initially the governor of West Virginia, where the guardsmen were from, reported they had both died. At some point a little later, he came out and said that they had not died. What is known at this point is that the shooter is alive and in custody. He had no ID on him and he has not said anything to anyone.

Hopefully the guardsmen survive with no life-changing injuries and the douchebag that shot them gets put into a dark damp hole for the rest of his life.

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Here are some links:

• Key line in this story: "He could not accept being defied."



• This guy would be a great addition to the team.



• Turns out that the Worlds Strongest Woman is actually just a pretty strong guy.

No sports tonight

I managed to get all the leaves out from under the bushes in our backyard this afternoon.

This makes me happy simply because now I can see the mulch I busted my ass spreading this summer.

Oh, and my neighbors got their leaves picked up so I suspect I can now say that short of some kind of natural disaster, I am done with leaves.

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When we bought our house, it had a oil-fired boiler for heat and hot water. Immediately after signing the papers, we went to the store and bought an American flag, a package of toilet paper, some paper plates and drinking cups. We weren't going to be moving in for about a month while we worked on the house, making it our home by tearing up old green shag carpets, ripping down 1970's "western motif" wallpaper, installing new modern lighting, cleaning all the surfaces of the prior owners life, etc...

We also called the gas company and ordered a LNG conversion for the house.

They offered a great deal where they would convert the boiler from oil to gas and pipe the house with connections for appliances.

The conversion from oil to gas meant we were left with a rather large oil tank in our basement but that was okay and we lived with it for a long time. Eventually we had the tank removed, along with all the infrastructure associated with it like the fill pipe and the connection line to the boiler.

I tell you all this because PEOPLE ARE MORONS!

Who, in their right mind, removes an oil tank but leaves the fill pipe(s) in place?

In the first place, the fill pipes are a great opening for mice and other such rodents to use to get into your house but more importantly, they are a what oil companies use to pump hundreds of gallons of oil into the tank. If you have the tank removed, the hundreds of gallons of #2 home heating oil has no place to go other than your basement.

Morons...

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Here are some links:

• If I were him, I would refuse to talk to them without a subpena being issued and even then I would invoke the protections afforded under the fifth amendment.



• This is maybe the third or fourth time The Very Stable Genius has made peace in Ukraine.



• Why not. He's pardoned everybody else.



• Right now, I'm not sure if this is good or bad. If it's good, then Breslow is a genius. If it goes poorly, Breslow is going to look like a fool.

They lost

I made it through two periods last night and when I went to bed, the Sharks were up 2-0.

When I woke up this morning, I found that the Bruins had lost 3-1.

They need to get back on a winning streak because if they aren't collecting points, they don't stand a chance. There are too many good teams in the Atlantic division.

Don't get me wrong, they might stay in a wildcard slot but that can quickly become a problem because every other team in the Eastern conference is looking to fight its way into one of those slots.

Their next game is Wednesday against Islanders, a team they have already beat twice this season.

Oh, and here is an update on McAvoy. All I can add to that is "Ouch".

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My neighbor finally got his leaves off his lawn. This means that there is almost no chance I will find leaves spread all over my lawn in the near future.

This is a good thing because history teaches us that we here in the northeast can expect snow sometime this winter. Trust me, it's hard to rake leaves when there is snow covering them.

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Here are some links:

• Somehow I doubt we've heard the last of this.



• Key load of crap in this story: "This matter will be handled in compliance with military law, ensuring due process and impartiality."



• Brain Worm Bobby claims to know what the word 'nuance' means.



• Maybe it was caused by global warming...



• I'm pretty sure the kid didn't mind one bit.

Excellent win

The Patriots managed to beat the Bengals 26-20 this afternoon.

Maye did not look like his usual self-assured self. He was having problems hitting his targets and he actually threw an interception that was run back for a touchdown.

The last minute or so of the game was close and the Bengals were marching downfield with seconds on the clock but the Patriots defense managed to hold them off.

Next up for the Patriots is the Giants on Monday Night Football on December 1^st. That means I'll probably make it to the half before falling asleep.

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The Bruins go up against the Sharks tonight. As I said the other day, I'm hoping to make it through two periods but I'll settle for just making it through one.

Because the Red Wings, the Lightning and the Senators all won yesterday, the Bruins have been booted back down to 4^th place so they kinda need to win tonight.

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It's late so here are some links:

• This sounds like something that is going to hurt a bunch of very rich people.



• Gotta be honest with you, this has me a little concerned.



• I don't care what they say, the best time was last week.