Had I known that Cody Sylvester and Victor Rask were injured (along with Rob Trzynkowski and Calder Brooks, but they’re less important), I might have been less enthusiastic about the Hitmen’s chances in the first round. Sure, you hate to use injuries as an excuse, but at the same time, nearly any team in any league would be hard pressed to maintain their customary level with two top-six and four top-nine forwards out of action. The return of Sylvester tonight is cause for hope, to be sure, as it gives at least one or two guys a chance to step back into more comfortable roles. But the bottom line here is, the Hitmen need to get an early lead. They did it in Game 2, forced Brandon to get aggressive, and the longer the game went on, the more unhinged the Wheaties became. While I don’t expect a parade to the box necessarily, forcing Brandon to take more chances is naturally going to create more chances for Calgary: that’s Playing With The Lead 101. We’ve already seen what Brandon’s capable of with an early lead: they’ll let you back into the contest, and after you burn yourself out doing so, they’ll step on your throat in the back half of the game. Yes, they’ve gotten help from the officials in both victories, but even with that factor aside, Calgary’s just looked outmatched and outworked in the latter 30 minutes of both games they’ve lost, and it’s showed in the flurry of late goals (6 GA in the second halves of the two losses).

Break out your cliche-a-tron, because this is the biggest game of the season. A loss tonight, and I’ll be stunned if both teams return from Winnipeg this weekend.

Bold Prediction: A team will open the scoring in the first five minutes, then go on to win by at least three. Go Hitmen.

Much of what I’m going to talk about in this column comes from discussions that have taken place at mc79hockey, Oilersnation, HF Boards, on Oilers’ Lunch, and on Twitter.  If fan sentiment is markedly different outside of those sources, I apologize in advance, though I doubt [Converse Fallacy of Accident or Hasty Generalization] it is any different considering those last four are frequented by the average rabid Oilers’ fan [Quick math: Rexall seats 16,839 people. The people arguing in favour of the author's opinion (in writing) is 2 dozen (generously).  Let's say 1 dozen of those people have season seats (which they don't) and lets say that 100 people are actively arguing against the author's opinion.  These are rough estimates based on eyesight, but I'm pretty sure his are as well (though he's not giving numbers) so I'll allow it  ;) Let's also say that 10,000 people are regular viewers of Oilers' blogs (Derek would have the proper stats on that, so I could be way over or way under) and of those people less than 500 people actually comment.  If we can assume that season seat holders (in a very rough time) are "rabid fans" (what makes a fan rabid anyway?) then that means that of roughly 19,000 people (assuming some overlap between seat holders and blog frequenters --likely a large understatement) Derek is generalizing about 0.5% of "rabid fans" to the whole, with no statistics to back that up while saying that he "doubts it is any different"  See also XKCD.].

Tyler has written a superfecta of posts and various writers at Oilersnation have responded, making mc79hockey and OilersNation ground zero for debate centered around sending Taylor Hall back to Junior and Magnus Paajarvi back to the AHL.  Bob Stauffer of Oilers’ Lunch followed up with some arguments that weren’t well thought out [No citation, inflammatory, Straw Man], but he decided that he needed to enter the fray regardless [Citation needed, Straw Man].  One of the central arguments of the group arguing in favor of keeping Hall and Paajarvi on the big club has been [Quotes have no citation, and as such is likely not an actual quote, citation needed, Straw Man] “…the Oilers must keep the players that have proved they belong in the NHL by out-playing their competition in training camp.”  After the jump, we’ll look at why the vast majority of fans [Fallacy of Accident or Sweeping Generalization] making this argument are hypocrites.

First off, let’s start by saying this:  If I were running the Edmonton Oilers, Taylor Hall and Magnus Paajarvi would not be playing in Edmonton.  I’d try to have both of them playing in Timra, though that’s a topic of discussion for another time.  My reasoning is simple: by starting the clock on their contracts now, the Oilers will not be able to afford to re-sign one of Ales Hemsky or Dustin Penner, or any comparable replacement, after the end of of the 2011-2012 season.  This isn’t up for debate, this is a simple extrapolation of the best-case/worst-case scenario for the upcoming contracts combined with the existing signed contracts. [Fallacy of Misplaced Concretion -- CBA may expire by that point as well as assumption that these players' careers won't be destroyed by injury in that timeframe.] Holding each of them back for one season opens up a larger period of time where the Oilers won’t have maximum cap pressure [Fallacy of Misplaced Concretion].

Now that we’ve got my stance on the Hall and Paajarvi situation out of the way, let’s talk about why the “…best training camp players should play” argument is creating hypocrites throughout Edmonton.  It’s one thing for a proponent of seeing Hall and Paajarvi with the big club this season to make certain specific arguments as to why that should be the case, but it’s quite another to apply a certain standard to a player in one case but not in others.  And for large swath of Oilers’ fans [Converse Fallacy of Accident or Hasty Generalization], the duplicitous nature [du·plic·i·tous Adjective 1: Deceitful - treacherous, duplicitous behavior 2: (of a charge or plea) Containing more than one allegation.  I don't think this is the word you're looking for, though by the second definition it could be argued that this article is duplicitous.] of their argument is telling.

The team’s best goaltender during Training Camp and preseason, both by the numbers and to the eye, was Martin Gerber.  There is little argument here, virtually everyone agrees [Converse Fallacy of Accident or Hasty Generalization].  Yet when he was sent to Oklahoma City last week, no one batted an eye [Adj. 1. hypocritical - professing feelings or virtues one does not have; "hypocritical praise" - This entire argument, and the premise (hypocrisy) of this article is to hypocrisy as Alanis Morissette is to Irony].  I mentioned it on Twitter and Tyler took that up in his latest post, but other than that it went unchallenged.  Where were all of the people supporting the players that outplayed their competition in training camp?  Where were the posts and threads supporting Gerber staying on the roster?  They didn’t exist [And...].

Yesterday, the Oilers waived Liam Reddox and optioned Linus Omark to the Oklahoma City Barons after both of them outplayed their competition in training camp.  In most cases, even though Omark was playing with Zack Stortini and Steve MacIntyre, opinion was [Converse Fallacy of Accident or Hasty Generalization] that he outplayed Taylor Hall. There was a bit more support for Omark when compared to Gerber, but even that support was muted compared to the crowd that believes Hall and Paajarvi should stay in Edmonton.  When Omark was cut, he reacted quickly and honestly.  He called the process political and unfair.  And he’s right [Fallacy of Misplaced Concretion].  He never had a chance of sticking with the big club, not while the Oilers were selling mini-packs with vignettes and ads featuring Hall, Paajarvi and Jordan Eberle [Converse Fallacy of Accident or Hasty Generalization]. Yet when he spoke his mind, the fan reaction was to go against Omark for speaking out [Citation needed]. Omark said what fans have been saying all along [Converse Fallacy of Accident or Hasty Generalization] - the people that proved themselves in training camp should play.  Omark didn’t get a fair shake [Fallacy of Misplaced Concretion], and he still outplayed his competition [Fallacy of Misplaced Concretion].  The words come from the fans, it’s fine.  The words come from the player, he’s a jerk.  Interesting. [Converse Fallacy of Accident or Hasty Generalization]

All Liam Reddox did was blow the doors off of every forward in camp not named Paajarvi [Fallacy of Misplaced Concretion].  He had everyone’s attention through the second half of training camp and was a sure bet to make the squad [Fallacy of Accident or Sweeping Generalization].  Yet when cut-down day arrived, he was waived, because Omark was right – there was never a real competition in camp – just look at the balance remaining in the Training Camp scrimmage teams.  The fan reaction?  Non-existent.

Jeff Petry and Alex Plante also clearly outplayed [Fallacy of Misplaced Concretion] Theo Peckham and Jason Strudwick, but Peckham is waiver eligible, and there was no way the Oilers were going to waive him.  Strudwick is a team favorite, so despite his on-ice performance, his presence in the room guaranteed him a roster spot.  Where was the fan reaction to Petry and Plante being waived to make room for players that were outclassed in camp?  Again, non-existent.

I’m happy to say that the commenters here have taken a different tack.  The fellows that supported Hall staying because he played to a level deserving an NHL position are also livid that Reddox and Omark were sent down.  But the commenters here are not the norm [Fallacy of Misplaced Concretion].

It’s possible that Training Camp shouldn’t matter.  I’ve got no problems with ignoring Camp when making roster decisions, and I don’t care that Edmonton did.  However, when a fan hangs his hat on the idea that the best players deserve to make the roster like so many did with the Taylor Hall debate, they’d better damn well back that viewpoint up when it comes to other parts of the roster.  They didn’t.  And for that, they are hypocrites [See Irony, Alanis Morrisette].

That is all.

Check it out for a robber-baron Jabba, a Confederate Vader, a Victorian Boba Fett, and a monocled-Chewie…

Later.

So, the MaximumRandomosity.com site has a new design.  What does that mean for you?

Well, first it means that the site will display well on just about any display you’re using, whether it’s 20″ monitor, a 8″ netbook or an iPad.  I’m assuming that nobody will care about looking at the site on their iPhone/Android/Blackberry because the screen is too small, but I’ll be doing some minor testing on that later this week.

Second, it means that I’ve had to go back and do some touchups and that CBZ files will be popping up on that site later today.  I cringe at some of the pages/panels, but I need to just let it go at this point.

But does it mean that we’ll finally get new comics?

Yes.  Yes it does.

New pages start going up on August 25th.  It’d be sooner, but I’m going to be incommunicado next week.  Every Wednesday.  Mark it.  It shall be done.

See you on the 25th.

See, I went out today to rent a copy of Clash of the Titans.  I’ve heard it’s pretty bad, but I wanted to see it anyway so rental was the only real option.  I’m generally a pretty busy guy, but I had some free time so I thought “why not?”

Now, there are no video stores nearby me.  You might know this.  Apparently most of the rental places are closing.  I used to have an HMV nearby, but they’ve also closed, so I couldn’t even buy the movie without a 20 minute excursion, even if I wanted to.  There is, however, an automated system at the grocery store, but they don’t seem to have you in their system yet.  That’s unfortunate.

So next, I turned to my PS3, which recently got a Canadian video store.  But apparently they don’t update on release dates either.

So I checked iTunes, and sure enough there’s a rental there.  Of course, since I don’t have an AppleTV I can’t actually rent an HD version to watch on the TV, and short of connecting my computer  to the TV I can’t even get a decently upscaled SD version to play on my TV.  And that’s at a $5 rental cost.  So basically, I need to spend a third of the purchase price (via Amazon) for a rental that will not look as good on my TV as an actual DVD without going to a fuckton of effort.  Also, there is no way for me to rent an HD version today without spending another few hundred dollars.

This is not a good deal.

Look.  I know your industry is facing some problems and you think DRM is the solution to them.  But you know what?  If I could download a video which I could stream to my TV I’d be happy to pay for it.  You could have a number of stores online, and a number of different solutions to the problem.  I mean, software to stream video from Macs and PCs to iPads and TVs exist, so why don’t you bundle your DRM to some sort of streaming solution if you insist on this DRM crap?  I mean, a video that I can’t see is of no use to me and no money for you.

In short: Fuck you.

Twist Equation Alarm Clock

Basically, when the alarm goes off, you get an operator and a result. You need to twist the clock to make the equation make sense or it doesn’t shut up. Feeling tired?