Snow (Hey Oh)

Welcome Back, Mr. Winter: No, the famous albino guitarist isn't back in town. This is the other older man with the last name of Winter. Wasn't a huge surprise, but the fact that its snowed almost every day in the last week has been interesting.   This time of year is very bittersweet for me. I like the Christmas season (for as much as the retail industry tried to beat that out of me), but I don't like the fact it is dark at 4:30 in the afternoon. Last night, Amanda and I went out to a club and we didn't really go out til about 10:30 and it felt like it was 2 in the morning. We played Scrabble (congrats on beating me again, Panda) around 8 pm and it just felt like the right time to go into bed. But we (and by we I mean "I") decided to tough it out and go out to the club. Weather wasn't too bad, and it was good to see our deejay friend Lori again.   A Great White North Story Too Good To Not Pass On: Last weekend, Amanda and I decided to do the big weekender again with the Erie Otters hockey games, both against the Owen Sound Attack.   On Friday, we had Townsend with us. I picked up tickets in section 19 and we headed to our seats. Outside the entrance to our section, I noticed a lot of fans with the other team's jerseys on. Inside, I noticed more folks. We got up to our seats and I realized that we (and be we I mean, "I" again) were sitting right in the middle of a sea of Owen Sound fans.   The "Attack Pack" as they called themselves, had lots to celebrate over, as they beat the Otters pretty badly 3-1. What was great about it was the collision of my patience and their fans. I stewed the entire time. There was a girl sitting beside me that had an oldfashioned wooden noisemaker...every time they made a good pass or had a big body check or their goalie made a good save, she would ring this friggin' noisemaker right next to my head. Best part of all of it was when Towns was sort of acting upset that we didn't buy him cotton candy early on. The women behind us had a little conversation with him...   Canadians: Hey little man, would you like some candy? (Townsend looks at Amanda real coy) I'm sure it'd be alright. Me: No, I think he's alright. Canadians: I can't imagine how upset he must feel, considering your team is down 3-1.   Townsend is not my son. But I still wanted to punch the woman for being so stupid to him.   On Saturday night, we went again, just Amanda and I, and the Otters won 6-2. Big time adjustments had to have been made at practice after that Friday night game because the Otters played 500% better than they had on Friday night.   I got a chance to talk to the Otters general manager and he said that the team had to bench about seven guys due to a nasty cold that had been going around. And the guy actually APOLOGIZED for the game. Talk about humble, eh?   Ick, now I'm even typing like a Canadian.   Editing Note: The next entry that will be posted to the blog will be a picture of Amanda in front of a snowbank that I took yesterday with my camera phone. Please email me if it is not showing up in your mail.   If it doesn't show up, you can always go to thetonytimes.blogspot.com and check out the main site.