wildebeest

Ah, the author everyone spouts off to sound intelligent thanks to Good Will Hunting. Yeah, but he's also the author every history major reads to get another side of American history. I see what they did there...

Howard Zinn. Two of my favorites in one day.

Finally getting around to posting the mod job my extremely talented wife did on my 9k shoulder pads. I was tired of looking like Junior Seau while tooling around in pickup, but I wanted to have something to protect my squishy innards. I didn't want to completely hack the shoulder caps off because the mens league here is pretty rough at times. Pretty standard-looking 9Ks. Nothing too out of the ordinary. Until you lift the shoulder caps to notice the velcro tabs and D-rings she sewed in. So now I can wear these things without fear of the random puck or stick to the chest/tum-tum and the comfort and style of not lugging around a couple of army helmets on my shoulders!

I found 2 One95 Perron pro stock sticks at Johnny Mac's in St. Peters. I have pattern pics if anybody would like to see them.

That. I did that.

Little Nick Boynton in the house. How'd you guys do?

I was worried about them turning purple, but I think the drawing marker (faber-castell PITT artist pen) said that it was lightfast and waterproof, so I gave it a once-over with that after I did a couple of coats with the big Sharpie Magnum. Hopefully that will hold off the purple fade for a while. Four hours on the ice and they're still going strong.

Kept myself occupied while watching a movie about Jimmy Hoffa last night Used a huge-ass sharpie and a brush-tip drawing marker. I skated 2 hours and played 2 hours on them tonight and there's no sign of fading or rubbing off.

That was the point, I don't feel the need to join the "look how cool I am, too" set by posting pictures of my arm all over the internet for other people's amusement. Besides, I don't have anything as cool and creative as a fish done by somebody on a TV show, so I'd probably just get made fun of. Seems like you can't please the non-conformist crowd. What the hell are you talking about? Are you seriously as naive and childish as you're coming off as? I don't feel the need to join any "crowd", or whatever it is you perceive my intentions to be. The thread is about people posting their ink, and whatever. Big deal? And your first post is to trash on someone about it? What are you, 12 years old? As for the Koi - it was done before she joined H&H, first of all. Just thought it was neat (although somewhat inconvenient) that she's made it to mainstream TV with her work. Secondly, why the hell do you care what it means, if anything? Unless it stands for "wildebeest is a douche", you really shouldn't give a shit either way, right? So you go ahead and keep your 'cool and creative' tattoo hidden, and you can be all 'edgy' and 'hardcore' by being a 'non-comformist'... but the reality is, you're just a douchebag. No, literally, it's not cool and creative. It's a portrait of myself in black and grey prison ink with "wildebeest is a douche" underneath it in Gaelic. I got it for my 11th birthday!

That was the point, I don't feel the need to join the "look how cool I am, too" set by posting pictures of my arm all over the internet for other people's amusement. Besides, I don't have anything as cool and creative as a fish done by somebody on a TV show, so I'd probably just get made fun of. Seems like you can't please the non-conformist crowd.

Crazy, I've never seen a koi fish/lotus/japanese ocean sleeve before. My favorite is when people feel the need to show theirs off -- it's like "look at this deeply personal and permanent marking I got done, and now I'm seeking your approval on it!" I have pretty much my entire upper left arm done, and most of the time it's completely covered. If somebody happens to notice a bit peeking out and ask me what it says, I don't even acknowledge. It's mine, not yours. I never intended it to be a conversation piece. Also, what's with the foreign language/kanji stuff? Do random words and cliched phrases suddenly mean more because they require translation? I'm gonna get something really deep and insightful like "nobody lives forever" or maybe a really cool Love/Hate dichotomy but in Xhosa, so people will think it's SUPER BADASS!! Or maybe I'll just get people's names and birthdays somewhere classy like on my ankle. Nothing serves as a better reminder of when Junior's birthday is than having to see it every day in the shower.

On that note - SmartHockey Stickhandling balls? I know every shop seems to have tons, but I don't think I've ever heard of someone actually buying or using one. I have one. They work great on tile or linoleum, but they're crappy on carpet.

I gotta say, I'm with jimmy on this one. I used to manage a locally-owned store that sold computers and audio devices made by a certain fruit-oriented computer company, and when people would come in and get the whole demo and sales pitch just to say that another online place had it cheaper, it would really piss us all off. I have no idea what the markups are like in a hockey shop, but I can tell you that those trendy little pieces of apple-flavored pocket candy brought us roughly 7%, depending on which model we sold. Keep in mind, that this company sets minimum advertised pricing and we were always, without fail, right in line with MAPs. When we're dealing with online places that sell them at what is just over our cost, there's no way we can compete with those prices. What would REALLY get my goose is when these people would come back two weeks later and try to treat us like the "Genius" Bar, asking a million questions, trying to get us to show them how to sync their device or whatever. Some people even went so far as to bring their laptops in so we could do it for them! Needless to say, they weren't exactly enthusiastic about paying for a service that we'd happily provide to a customer that purchased their stuff with us for free. People who shop based on price are the worst customers.

I went to the Coyotes sale over the weekend and picked up my first 2 pro stock sticks ever. Yay me! They're both Derek Morris sticks, since they have a nice, mellow curve similar to the Forsberg retail I have and they're exactly the right length. They're both 100 flex, which is a little stiffer than what I normally use, but for $40 each, whatever. One's an Easton Synergy and the other is a RBK 7K SicKick I did the blade tape job, but what's with the little mean guy eyes? They're on both sticks in the same spot. Anyway, they'll get put to use tonight. myyyyy bad, didn't realize they were so huge :(

If he does what I do, it's to get a feel where the bottom hand goes on shots.

Ok, my mom worked for tips for a long time and my wife still does (hairdresser, you pervs) so my take might be a little biased. First off, it's against postal regulations to tip the mailman. There's a good reason for it, too. Secondly, Thanks to Reaganomics, wait staffs in most places are paid WELL below the minimum wage. In my experiences, it's usually in the $2-$3 dollar per hour range because the government's thought on the matter is "with tips, they'll make more than minimum wage, so we'll give the restaurant biz a break on the minimum wage 'law' thing". Never mind that restaurant owners are on par with used car salesmen, ambulance-chasing lawyers and public restroom-trolling senators in terms of being shady, underhanded mofos. If I go somewhere and the service sucks, I leave the standard tip and I don't make it a habit to go back there. If it's good, I tip accordingly and keep going back. After a few times, the staff knows who you are and the level of service keeps getting better. My rule of thumb on whether or not to tip is this: If somebody does something for you that you SHOULD be perfectly able to do yourself, but don't because of convenience (opening doors, parking your car, preparing/serving your food, etc), you leave a little something. If the person performing a service for you is particularly skilled at it (sharpenings, haircuts, computer help) then you make it worth their while. It's a way of recognizing their superior skill and an investment in future returns. Simple as that.

I gotta do something between fashion-forward tape jobs, I guess. Memorial Day is coming up soon so I'll be switching all my black tape to white.

A guy rockin' a neon green stick with a bunch of holes drilled in it is concerned about a tape job looking "tacky". heh.

As long as this AZ dudebromobile doesn't make an appearance. Seriously, I think most of the PHX population has compensation issues sometimes.

ok, honest question here. I moved to PHX from the Midwest a couple of years ago, and I notice that EVERYBODY out here has one of those beasts. There are even car lots out here that sell nothing but monster trucks. What I don't get is, what's the draw to these things? I don't even think they're street legal in Illinois, where I grew up, where ground clearance, bumper height and tire size are restricted and it seems like diesel is more expensive than gasoline (3.49 vs. 3.19 last time I filled up) and even if these guys out here drove gasoline-powered tanks, they'd get worse mileage than the diesel. No offense, I just can't wrap my head around it. BTW, 2004 Hyundai Accent, 5 speed, no AC, $9000 brand-new, the only money I've put in it is seat covers, floor mats and oil changes. woo woo!

There's a reason they're referred to as "NB" in the rental car industry...

Oh yeah, you're right. The Jim Cs aren't as thick as the Primos. I gotta rock the blue tenderizers and blue brake cable on my bike, no matter what.

Gotta love the blue Primo Tenderizers in the first pic.

That's funny, I had a guy at open hockey tell me I looked like Forsberg. Crazy, considering he looks just like Daniel Alfredsson.

OK, so here's all my garbage. That's RBK 9k shoulders, Hespeler pants, itech 255 shins that I performed some surgery on, Vapor XXXX skates, CCM HT592 helmet with the big honkin' itech visor, Easton Air gloves and Louisville Flexor elbows. I wonder if anybody on here knows the specific model of these gloves and where I can get some more. They're the best gloves I've ever used and got them used at PIAS, so I don't know when they were in production or what the actual model name/number is.