I Don't Heart Amazon

In fact, to be honest, I loathe being an Amazon customer. Or I loathe myself. One of the other or both.

Let's face it, Jeff Bezos has conquered the world and other than not having the nuclear Football to play with, he is in position to outlast that pig-eyed over-stuffed prig in the White House and be an international power all by himself. He can force cities all across North America to spend lavishly wining and dining he and his decision staff in the (as it turns out, foolish) belief they could be the new OTHER HQ for Amazon, when all along Bezos was going to pick a town (or two, as it turns out) where he could hop to work in a helicopter from his home, whether it be in New York or Washington, where he maintains East Coast homes. Toronto, a mile or two up the road from where I sit, was particularly lead on.

This from a man who pays his workers low wages, runs them like dogs at a racetrack that PETA should be working to shut down rather than imperiously demanding folks stop using phrases like Bringing Home the Bacon, in favour of the ridiculous Bringing Home the Bagels. Isn't the latter culturally insensitive to non-Jews??? (Of course not, it's just ridiculous stupidity from a group with a good message that has transmorphed into a parody of a cult).

And Amazon's face, the one that people at home see when a package arrives at the door, are as poorly treated by Amazon as the warehouse staffs. Maybe more so. Doesn't excuse the stupidity I've found rampant for these last mile Amazon employees. But it should be said, so that I acknowledge that time is money and delivery drivers get paid to deliver, not to chin wag with customers. Still, the rules Amazon imposes and the monetary realities facing the drivers, make most deliveries a case of drop and run. The needs of the customers getting the deliveries are completely and utterly ignored. I know, because I'm a fairly large Amazon customer for a private citizen.

I have to. I'm a shut-in. I can't move around all that well and the only time I leave the house these days is to go to the doctors. And if I'm going out, I like to combine as many doctors visits as possible because I know the following day is going to be wasted in bed, trying to cope with the pain in my legs from doing as little walking as I do. It's taking my fully-prescribed load of pills and trying to sleep my way through it.

So, I need some compassionate delivery. Like I get from my pharmacy or my on-line grocers. Both of which call me in advance before showing up because, as the sign on my front door says, I take some time getting to the front door. But Amazon has a different approach. No phone call. No waiting for me to get there. And if they see the opportunity to put the box or boxes inconveniently as possible, they snatch that opportunity up with relish. Whether it's Amazon delivery personnel, the Post Office or one of their hired-out delivery companies. It's become so bad of late that last month I tried to cancel my Amazon membership.

Before talking about the details of the delivery problems, let me say that I'm a published Amazon author with more books on the way. That's right, I make money from Amazon, yet I wanted to be rid of Amazon from my life. That is how absolutely furious I've become with Amazon of late.

And as it turns out, getting out of Amazon is only slightly less difficult that retiring alive from the mob. In fact, I was successful in canceling my Prime membership, which has always been a scam up here in Canada, although the Prime Video was finally added a while back. Prior to that, Prime did mean quicker than usual delivery, given that you were paying for delivery up front. But even that was and still is a scam. First, most orders are big enough to qualify for free standard delivery anyways. Secondly, during the last two months of this year, every delivery gets that standard. Amazon's gift to the Christmas/Chanukah gift-giving world. And a kick in the face of we idiots who paid for Prime. Second, the fact is that most deliveries are going to get to the customer quicker because Amazon always promises an extra day or two and then delivers (early) on time and the customer feels like that's wonderful service. It's like holding a sale by first raising the prices and then discounting back to their regular prices, leaving customers conned into thinking they are getting bargains. It's a loathsome, evil, vile little way to screw with people's minds and make them think Amazon is the best retailer in the world.

So, I could cancel Prime. Effective August of next year. No canceling and getting back the three-quarters of the money. That money was now Amazon's money. So, I have Prime whether I want it or not. And as for canceling my actual account ... which I can't do because I need it to run my book publishing mini-empire (joking, it's one book for the time being), well, you try and do it. The passive-aggressive threats you'll get will sicken you. Included is the loss of my books, the ones I bought for my Kindle. That's right. They would disappear if I ever accidentally or otherwise, deleted them from my Kindle. I could only access my owned book again ... if I bought it again after setting up a new account with ... Amazon. Now, I've actually been aware of that threat ever since the great George Orwell misadventures from Amazon a few years back where Amazon just didn't benignly keep your Kindle books updated, if the circumstances warranted it from Amazon's perspective they could (and did in the case of one of Orwell's books) reach into your Kindle and delete it. So, I've always taken delivery of Kindle books to my computer and then side-loaded them. That way, I always had a copy of what I paid for. So, when I canceled my Amazon account early this decade because I had both an Amazon.com and Amazon.ca account, the only way to clear up the mess Amazon had created for me was to cancel both and start anew. The loss of the books would have been a deal-breaker (and I did loose updates on the books, which I accepted as a loss I could live with), but I was prepared.

Still, reading through the emails warning me of the dire consequences of canceling my account would stop most people from even starting up an account. Like the fact that all my reviews would be deleted too. Meaning that an inevitable return to Amazon would mean my reviewing rep-building would start anew. And why's that important? Well, prodigious reviewers often score free swag to review, building up a pyramid of review a lot, get a lot, review more, get more, etc. and etc. and etc. Suddenly, you're an Amazon employee. I review stuff when asked politely by the company. I rarely hand out five stars because five stars should mean Amazing! It doesn't for most folks. And of course, you can't hand out zero stars (I tried). Which is what some product scams are worth. And I remember that the product I wanted to zero star was actually rated something like 1.5 stars. A star less than average. yet the product was a complete ripoff, NEVER working for anybody who actually bought the product from what I could see. It was a repackaged item that said it was one thing when it was a worthless hunk of junk that never worked, being something else entirely. Yet 1.5 stars. Because paid-for reviewers would rate it two stars. STUPID people who reviewed before using would rate it two stars. So it sold, to dopes like me who were so entranced by the price-point versus what it promised, that it was worth a few bucks to see if it was a bargain by mistake. it wasn't. And I had to go through the process of returning the product to Amazon. Make no mistake, this was a case of buyer beware pricing blindness. But you know, that product is still for sale on Amazon.

I get daily emails from Chinese trolls trying to get me to review iPhone cases and other such stuff. Never had an iDevice from Apple and will probably go the grave still being able to say that. (And yet, I was a low, low-serial number buyer of the Apple ][ computer back in the 70's. Wrote for Apple-oriented magazines. Was there for the launch of the Lisa and then the Macintosh. You know, the ones in the Jobs movie. But I never bought another Apple after the ][c. I had professionally switched over to the Evil Empire by then, working with IBM computers and something called MS-DOS from a little outfit in Albuquerque New Mexico called Micro-soft. When Jobs completed the transformation of Apple into a boutique computer manufacturer who started building high-end devices, I was lost to the Apple world. Still, a whole series of come-ons that are probably scams arrive in my in-box. Amazon won't say which is which. Which is peculiar since they gather data from me with such gusto, that I have to re-read the privacy policy weekly to keep up. So, I refuse to even read the pitches. I imagine others go the other way and wait for their swag to arrive. And obviously, some of it does. Good reviews are forth-coming. And, I presume, once you've shown your value as a reviewer of knick knacks, the trolls upgrade you to better swag. The problem is, I'm not interested in giving all my personal data to just anybody who offers me a free iPhone case for review with my non-existent iPhone.

So, there is a LOT of stink to the Amazon carcass. I could happily miss out on it if I had an alternative. I've found a bit. My next door neighbour visits Canadian Tire for me. Walmart's on-line stock isn't half of what I can get AT Walmart, but I haven't stepped foot into one since I almost stroked out (heat stroke) in the parking lot of one late in the Aughts. And the free shipping is a bit hit and miss. But it's getting better and I will soon have an Amazon alternative for the day-to-day stuff I need. And Marilyn has become my personal shopper, meaning if I am willing to abuse my friendship of more than 30 years, I could have her running all over Brampton on my behalf. I have enough integrity left over to try and minimize my requests. Barely. Still feels like I'm imposing on her.

At one point, I started taking Amazon up on their subscription services. I was ordering enough Ketchup for the average ten-person family each month, lots of Kraft Dinner original and things like pens, markers, tissues, paper towels, spices, water flavourings and medications, the list was, at it's peak, about 40 items in total and represented hundreds of dollars monthly. Then I got a notice from Amazon limiting me to one pack of Kraft Dinner a month. The next day, the other shoe dropped ... and this was long before President Small Hands forced a Ketchup tariff into place ... Amazon would only ship me one bottle of the Ambrosia of the Gods (Heinz, of course). I asked why, got no answers. At least they didn't TRY to say it was because the biggest retailer in the world had suddenly been given quotas by Kraft and Heinz. I canceled all my subs immediately. Turns out, a lot of people did that. No more 15 percent discounts. Amazon emerged weeks later with a new subscription scheme, topping out at 10 percent. I'd been gaslighted to save Amazon five percent. I was not alone. But it left me asking why I wanted to continue doing business with this greedy, rapacious outfit.

Which FINALLY brings me to the delivery issues. Let's start with Amazon policy to HIDE the boxes in the bushes. Not wait till somebody comes to the door and hand it to them, only leaving the boxes if there's nobody there in a minute or two. Just delicately brush your knuckles lightly over the door (it looks better from the street) and then dump the boxes in the bushes and run. That's POLICY. Time is money, but Porch Pirates require SOME semblance of not leaving the packages out in the wide open. So, HIDE the box. The problem is, I live in Canada and most of my deliveries come in a time when the bushes around my front door HAVE NO LEAVES. Furthermore, my bushes are a full level lower than my front porch/stoop. I walk with a cane and try to avoid it at the best of times. IF the box is in the bushes, even at the best of times, I have to don slippers, grab my cane, go out my door and bend over to pick up a package that is BELOW the level of my feet AND is always heavier than I would like. In effect, Amazon is doing it's unlevel best to kill me.

So, I've asked, politely and not so politely (rudely to be honest) to stop trying to hide the boxes in the bushes. The immediate response was to hide the boxes in the runway between my fence and my garage,behind the back gate. The last time I saw THAT space was when I had raccoons removed from the garage ... a decade ago. If I didn't have my back yard attended to regularly, I would NEVER HAVE KNOWN of the boxes. They would have lay there moldering until the next owners of this house moved in. I was ... unhappy with Amazon. And shared it.

Still, Amazon delivery personnel became adept at stupid placement of the boxes. I have a door that opens towards the north. They'd put it on the south side where I would never look for anything. I got one delivery of a big box and the decision on that one was to place it directly in front of the door. A heavy box that I could not budge sufficiently to leave my own home. I called a neighbour to help move it three feet north and then into the house. I hope that driver doesn't procreate. And worse things. Another driver came close to doing the right thing. He put the box between my outer screen door and my inner door. Too big to close the outer door, but a good try, if it hadn't been on a seriously windy day coming from the north. My box was found five doors down and returned to me. Wind has driven my deliveries north and south. The best effort was at the end of my street to the north. A total of 20 houses. Sometimes, I don't get deliveries and theorize it's more likely it was delivered, but blew away, than it was delivered to the wrong address. Not that that THAT hasn't happened. Twice, in fact. Not everybody on the street knows me, although I have lived here for more than fifty years.

I acquired a chair with a porous bottom so water and snow wouldn't pool. I had it chained backwards to the street so that it would serve as the defacto hiding place. It's right beside the door, under the mailbox. Any rational person delivering a box to the address and NOT waiting for me to come to the door, would put the package on the chair and be happy it was hidden from the street, meeting Amazon policy. So, last month, in one week, I had single delivery I had checked off to arrive on the Friday, start arriving piece meal, beginning on the Wednesday. Three separate deliveries on Thursday and one, that finished off one of the Thursday deliveries, came on the expected Friday. Of the deliveries, one was on the south side of the door. One, the big one, directly in front of the door, one in the mailbox, one in the space between my doors and one UNDERNEATH MY CHAIR. Not ON the chair, UNDERNEATH IT. I discovered that one on Saturday. Number of packages ON the chair: Zero.

Because Amazon gives you tracking websites for your deliveries, I knew that agreed-to Friday shipments were coming on other days. So, for Wednesday and Thursday, I didn't go to my office on the second floor, I did some paperwork and napped on the bottom floor approximately twenty feet from the front door. Never once did I hear a knock on the door. I'm old, but my hearing is decent enough to hear a rap when it comes. Not once. In fact, in the past half-decade, I can count the number of times I heard a knock on the door (and my doorbell is a video doorbell with a rather loud chime, so that is not the alternative they can claim) on one hand. Out of dozens of deliveries, approaching hundreds. Never mind the disruption to my work day and my sleeping habits, Amazon's deliveries are never ON-TIME.

For at least the last two sets of deliveries, I have ordered shipments to arrive on the same day. It's a new feature Amazon is testing out BECAUSE too many customers are complaining about unexpected deliveries or having to re-arrange their lives for multiple days when the deal was to get them all on the same day. Last month it was three days of deliveries for the one that was on the agreed-to day. This month, ALL of the deliveries will occur on days other than this Friday. The one I ticked off to receive all the boxes, even though I could have had same-day delivery for half of them on Tuesday. I live a two-minute drive from an Amazon distribution centre!!! But I CHOSE to get them all on Friday to minimize disruption of my day waiting for the delivery. The number of packages I will get on the agreed-to day? NONE. How very serviceable Amazon is. Taking the savings they give me in delivery costs by wasting two afternoons and early evenings of my life. By my calculations, if I hadn't been charged for what I bought at all, meaning free stuff delivered for free, Amazon still owes me a few hundred dollars based on my billable rate.

And when I bought this up with Amazon support last month, one of the idiot managers had the temerity to say, well there's a line you can fill in for instructions. Which is a bald-faced lie. There is no such line. There's a security code space. If she thinks that's adequate, you try and fill in instructions with 25 characters to fill. "Knock on the door, ring the doorbell and wait at least one minute for the customer, who has health issues. If the customer is not there in a minute, leave the package on the chair beside the door." Yeah, doesn't fit. Should be on my file. Been told it is. I've been lied to.

So, THIS month, I resorted to once again choosing to get all the packages on Friday. Which is stupid of me. But I added a second address line. RingBell,KnockOnDoor,LeavePkg-Chair That's my full 35-character limit for that line. My delivery yesterday? No bell, no knock, the package between the doors, where it didn't fit. Congratulations Amazon. You've kept a screwing up streak intact that would embarrass most companies.

But not one Jeff Bezos runs. The package was early. Nothing else matters.

And because I disagree, but am one of millions of Amazon thralls, I can loathe Amazon, myself for using Amazon and everybody at the support desk who have two answers to ALL complaints once you can find a way to contact them: Replace the shipment for free (which works unless it was time sensitive) or pass along the complaints/suggestions to the department in charge. That's the two answers. Placate and move on. The whole Amazon Customer Service playbook. Not fix, just wait for cheap prices, ease of ordering, large selection and that ever-present early delivery to wash away whatever today's problems are.

Amazon is heading for government regulation. The company will be split up with Amazon.com and Amazon Web Services inevitably becoming separate companies. Both run in an ethos developed by Jeff Bezos. Not much will change, but politicians in the USA will puff out their chests and proclaim to one and all that they were doing their job regulating mega-monoliths like Bezos. And nothing will actually change. Deliveries will continue to be early and disrupting and hidden in bushes. Bezos will be indifferent to all of this citing his monopolistic power in many vertical market niches is for the good of the customer ... which he determines to be price-point dependent above all else.

And I will loathe Amazon, because I will still be a customer and author. And I will come to loathe AWS because somehow that relationship will sour over something or other. Did I mention my cloud backup service is Amazon Glacier?

No, I don't heart Amazon. I did once. But the love affair is over. And it will never come back. Amazon is a group of largely good, hard-working (over-worked) people who work for a loathsome organization. A plague on Bezos' houses, all three of them.

POSTSCRIPT: Today, the driver knocked and rang the bell and left the package on the chair. In other news the world stopped spinning to allow me to recover.

Is It Too Late to Publish my Top 25 TV shows of 2017?

The answer is probably yes. Which I plan to ignore and put the list here.

No extended discussion as to the why's and how comes? I'm hoping to turn this annual (I'm LESS than a year late with this) write (sic) of passage into an eBook called "One Man's Guide to Binge-Watching TV: The Lifetime Edition." I plan to 'scoop' myself by releasing the list annually on my birthday. And that will continue next month with the 2018 edition. Check out Amazon in about five months to see IF I succeeded. After that, the book will be updated on my birthday and then the release here later in July of just the list. But here's the 2017 list, at least.

TOP 25 or close enough

1. British TV Game Shows with scoring rules too complicated for me to figure out UK
   • QI
   • Duck Quacks Don't Echo
   • 8 of 10 Cats Countdown
   • Would I Lie to You
   • Big Fat Quiz 
   • Room 101
2. Our Ex Wife UK
3. Snatch UK
4. Marvel's Luke Cage
5. Amazing Hotels Life Beyond the Lobby UK
6. Talk Shows with foreign-born hosts
   • Last Week Tonight with John Oliver 
   • Full Frontal with Samantha Bee 
   • The Daily Show with Trevor Noah 
   • The Jim Jefferies Show
   • The Last Leg with Adam Hills UK
7. Brockmire
8. Orphan Back CDN
9. Spies in the Wild UK
10. The Good Place
11. Bosch
12. Gotham
13. Madame Secretary
14. Pain, Pus & Poison The Search for Modern Medicines UK
15. Superior Donuts
16. Good Girls Revolt
17. Sweet Vicious
18. Dark Matter
19. Marvel's Agents of SHIELD
20. Sneaky Pete
21. Startup
22. Truth & Iliza
23. Stitchers
24. Tarzan and Jane tie Star Wars Rebels
25. Designated Survivor
26. Tyrant
27. Newton's Law AU
28. GLOW
29. Girl Meets World
30. Quarry
31. The Last Ship
32. Queen of the South
33. DC Comics
    • Lucifer
    • Supergirl
    • Flash
    • Arrow
34. White Gold UK
35. Shark Tank US/AU
36. Not Going Out UK
37. Killljoys CDN
38. The Night Shift
39. Travelers
40. Adam Ruins Everything
41. Incorporated
42. Real Time with Bill Maher
43. Hack My Life
44. The Secret Life of the Zoo UK tie The Zoo US

HONOURABLE MENTION

1. Japanology JPN
2. Chance UK
3. Salvation CDN
4. Rosewood
5. I Love Dick
6. Ideas, ideas, ideas ... TV shows that might have been genius
   • Pure Genius
   • APB
7. Private Eyes CDN

GUILTY PLEASURES

1. Anthony Bourdain - Parts Unknown (A truly tragic story)
2. Toronto TFC (for Sebastian Giovinco) CDN
3. Vanessa Gianfrancisco  on One World Kitchen CDN
4. Downward Dog for the dog animation despite the horrible everything else
5. Aisha Dee on The Bold Type
6. The Catch (It's a caper show, 'nuff said ... here)

WORST

1. CNN
2. Gap Year
3. Kevin Can Wait
4. Brooklyn Nine-Nine
5. Kim's Convenience
6. MacGyver
7. I Live With Models
8. The Odd Couple
9. Taken

DISAPPOINTING

1. Time travel TV
   • Timeless
   • Frequency
2. Notorious (how could you screw up having Piper Perabo)
3. Westworld
4. You Me Her (after a decent first season)
5. Riverdale
6. Powerless
7. The Good Fight
8. Imaginary Mary

(If you're counting, I think that's 78 good mentions to 17 not good mentions ... for a top 25 list)

Heinz Ketchup, Canada and Comrade Donald

I skipped publishing 2017's Top 25 (or so) TV shows last year because I got to the Worst of the Worst and ended up writing 1500+ words on CNN's aiding of the election of the UnGreat Pumpkin, his worst self. I was enraged that the TV channel had abrogated its journalistic responsibilities for the (easy) good ratings letting that overgrown Enfant terrible spout lie after lie, virtually unchallenged so as to ensure he would appear on the channel. Don Lemon, a guy I like and who I think IS a good journalist, didn't come to Jesus until it was too late. He lambasts President Small Hands regularly and doesn't let lies go unchallenged... now. 18 months too late. He wasn't the only CNN journalist to do this, just the one I was most disappointed in. Sigh, I'm stressing myself again just typing about it.

Thanks to CNN and the depressed Midwesterners reaching out for any lifeline in the absence of the belief in the Democrat promises, voters formed the opinion that a vote for Doofus J. Terrible was a case of "What have you got to lose?" Turns out, the American soul.

And moderately priced Heinz Ketchup here in Canada.

The Blithering Idiot-in-Chief has started a trade war. Reasonable to a certain extent if that war had been with China. But that was only Act II. First, he had to shove it up the backsides of the countries that have historically been American allies. You know, the GOOD guys, the neighbours boasting the world's longest undefended border, the folks that died in large numbers so that American soldiers could take Berlin eight decades ago. We've been the polite wingman, consumers of American media and goods and services. And that Tub-o-Turd has fouled this neat agreement amongst gentlemen and gentlewomen. It has been assumed that the Democrats will de-fang The Monster come November and then sweep him out with the rest of the garbage he institutionalized in his not-so-brief four years of Caligula/Nero-like rule from his bully pulpit.

But what if the damage he does is harder to overturn simply with Presidential fiat to sign orders decreeing the country forget everything the dog-whistling Racist has done to the country. One which I truly love, down to the single woman I've ever tried to complete a life with. I wonder if "Oops, we won't do that again," will be good enough for the rest of the world. Ask Germany how long international memories are. What if the Autocrat-In-Wanting won't leave? Bill Maher keeps reminding us he saw a victory for the Orangutan Look-A-Like and that he is increasingly alarmed at the idea that we might have an Emperor (with no clues) in the making. Hopefully, his Delphic Oracle impression is wrong. For the world's sake.

There will be a swell in Canada to stop buying made-in-the-US Ketchup ... really Heinz Ketchup. The tit-for-tat tariff Canada attaches to Ketchup in July to respond in part to this cowardly stabbing in the back trade war The Filibustering Fool started, will prompt MANY Canadians to look at the price of buying USA. Boycotting Heinz.

But not me. I consider the stuff ambrosia, the gift of the gods. I am addicted to the stuff. I eat a LOT of it. I have type II Diabetes. Those two things are not unrelated. Like most addicts, I have no control over how I spend my money. I MUST have Heinz Ketchup. Simple as that.

YOU LYING SACK OF BOVINE EXCREMENT, YOU'VE DRIVEN UP MY COST OF LIVING WITH YOUR CAPRICIOUS REMINDERS THAT YOU ARE AN IDIOT SAVANT, AN EXPERT AT BULLYING AND BARELY COHERENT AT ANY OTHER TIME. I HOPE YOU ....

Sigh, I'm Canadian. I'm not allowed to complete the rant. Civility demands I recognize my own failings and stop blaming others for those failings. I will continue to buy Heinz Ketchup. In quantities that drive my doctors to despair and my bankers to lower my credit score. But without saying it, you REALLY know I'm thinking it. And I hope whatever he chokes on is covered in the red stuff.

Heinz red stuff.

Mr. Bergevin, Line 1 is for You

I'd like to call Marc Bergevin and tell him  how to go about his business because his business has been hurting. And when the Montreal Canadiens hurt, so do I. Don't quite have the chutzpah though.

Bergevin has managed himself and his team into a corner. There's a lot of talk about taking advantage of the third pick in the draft because the Habs went through all kinds of unhappy to earn the pick. Just as they did the year they made Alexander Galchenyuk their solution for the future and for the past unhappiness of THAT season. Galchenyuk never realized the potential he showed in his first year and was shipped off to the Desert Gulag of Arizona in return for Max Domi, seen by many as Galchenyuk-lite. I actually think the swap works out well for Montreal. I think Domi's determination makes him a better end of a "New Start" trade. I like the worker over the artiste most times. And maybe Max CAN play centre. Or maybe not. The evidence that Jonathan Druin can seems even more ephemeral.

So here's the off-season advice for Bergevin to stumble upon as he strolls through blog after blog telling him ... well ... stuff! I'll be more compassionate. Although if he FAILS to do EXACTLY as I say, I will join the chorus to have his hide astride a pole somewhere in the depths of Hell. Or worse.

I do NOT stake my whole draft on a reach for a kid from Finland who won't be in Montral Blue, Blanc et Rouge for at LEAST another season. The ticking clock on the careers of Shea Weber and Carey Price simply won't permit that strategy. So, I reach out and let Paul Statsny know he can come home to his home province of Quebec. I'm hoping 5.5 for four years gets his signature on a free-agent contract. If it's six by four, so be it. I have my second-line centre, a defensively-responsible defender who scores. And that's just too rare in Montreal this decade. I also bring back Tomas Plekanec for a year-by-year contract arrangement. He'll play the fourth centre spot and can cover up a line or two for brief periods of time. And he is a Montreal lifer, despite doing hard time in Toronto post trade deadline in the spring. We'll ignore that blot on his record, as most Montrealers ignore Toronto anyways. I'd think 2.5 for the season would get him, but I'd still buy in at 3. And by doing that, some of the pain over the loss of Andrei Markov before last season might be repaired. Montreal SHOULD honour those that honour it.

Montreal still needs a bit more help on defence and I'd like to take a flyer on John Moores, a three-year 2.5M kind of guy who might add some scoring back to the back-line and he's sneaky tough too. So, we are talking 10.5M annually for the three, which is less than John Tavares will get. Of course, I'd TALK to Tavares, but I think he stays in Long Island with (probable) in-coming coach Barry Trotz and the Lou Lamoriello touch in the head office.

Which STILL leaves a considerable bit of payroll space and I use it all up PDQ with a three-team trade that I think works for all three teams. Naturally, it resolves most of Montreal's problems and DOES include a division-mate who might not want to help Montreal all that much, but the Habs DO have some candy to deal and relatively new GMs in rebuilding situations have been told ad nauseum that draft picks are the King's Gold of hockey assets. So, here it goes:

Montreal gets Ryan O'Reilly and Risto Routsalainen from Buffalo, along with a third rounder this year from Vancouver and a seventh rounder from Vancouver next year.

Vancouver gets that third pick in the first round from Montreal, as well as Montreal's sixth rounder and Buffalo's seventh rounder next year.

Buffalo (the linchpin of course) gets Max Pacioretty from Montreal, Vancouver's first round pick this year (seventh overall) and the THREE BEST second round draft picks this year from Montreal (which starts with four).

Hmmmmm, the Habs get their first-line centre (or second, it's semantics, given Stastny) and a defenceman to add to the mix of bounce-back candidates, plus some lottery tickets. In losing the captain, Montreal takes on long term commitment of 12M a year, where as Pacioretty is on a sterling 4.5M for one more year. A net add-on of 7.5M. And with it, the remainder of the Habs' payroll. It also means Drouin is a winger. And so is Domi. And so is Brett Gallagher and Arturri Lehkonen and Paul Byron and Charles Hudon and Nicolas Deslauriers and Andrew Shaw. Phillip Danault gets the third-line centre spot. Not a great dozen, but one that makes sense in the NHL. Lots of speed, maybe a lack of proven goal-scoring. But a decent dozen. There's a BIT of disaster insurance in Laval, hopefully made better by new coaching. Can you imagine power plays with both Gallagher and Domi in front of the net?

As for defence, Ristolainen was highly thought of (just look at his contract) as recently as two years ago. If the Habs are selling low on Pacioretty, so are the Sabres with Ristolainen. But not too low. Buffalo gets a boatload of picks to make after the kick off the draft Friday with Rasmus Dahlin. The club clears the way for Casey Mittelstadt to play second-line minutes behind Jack Eichel. They add leadership and a power-play asset in Pacioretty, paving the way for a potential contract extension if the two sides think it's a good fit. If not, they are saving maybe lost dollars for Ristolainen and awkward dollars for O'Reilly. And the larders will be freshly filled with second-rounders plus that pick six picks after Dahlen and likely to be another defenceman. I think this makes enough sense for Buffalo to trade two roster players for one and to trade intra-division.

Vancouver now moves up and can draft the last of the B level players. Dahlin is alone in the A class this year, but the B class isn't much bigger with just the two players, Andrei Svechnikov and Filip Zadina. Both seem gilt-edged. Now Vancouver will be able to claim one or the other. Not that having a pick from the next six or so would be unpleasant. In fact, I wanted Montreal to take winger Brady Tkachuk third, before hatching this trade and sign plan. But all of the six next best players have some doubts attached to their game. Adding two lottery tickets AND moving up into guaranteed slotting seems a good price to pay for their own pick at seven and a third this year, plus that seventh round swap next year.

This is a trade with legs. It has to be paired with the free agent signings. But if Bergevin wants to keep his job, something similar to this has to be done. Or else the trident is at hand.

Nice Guys Finish Last

Dwane Casey is a good man, bordering on being a great man. He was a black man playing on a still VERY WHITE Kentucky team when he was in college. He continued in the game after that by becoming an assistant coach. A good one. But he got falsely labeled as a coach who got caught paying off a player to come to Kentucky. The NCAA, in a rare moment of acting in the actual 'best' interests of the college game, kicked him out of avocation and passion. That the NCAA ended up being wrong is also par for the course. Outside of cashing cheques, there is little that the NCAA does right.

Casey was wronged. Exiled to Japan to continue his quest to coach back in America. Brought back to the States as an assistant coach in the NBA, Casey developed a reputation as a defence guru, and a good one at that. Everywhere he went, he was popular with the rest of the coaching staff, players, team support personnel and the media. By seepage, it also became something of a given that even the great unwashed masses, the fans, also liked him. He eventually got the head gig with Minnesota and then was dunkirked by an owner too new to the post-Kevin Garnett world to allow Casey to develop. His mistake ended up being Toronto's fortune as Casey was free to take over from Jay Triano who took over from  another Coach of the Year type, Sam Mitchell, himself a former Minnesota player and coach. The circle of the coaching life.

In Toronto, while in a historically good run, Casey has been exposed for what he's not. A good head coach. And his signature defence has failed to make the leap from good to great. Casey's rep has grown this year thanks to the revamped offensive attitude of the team, but Nick Nurse basically designed that change and it was ordered from on high by Masai Ujiri, the GM. Getting credit for extracting better offence from BASICALLY the same team as was available the year before ... when HE should have noted the failures and made changes... ANY changes... in the Raptor hero-ball offence where Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan pounded the ball before going solo waaaaaaaaay to often, seems like sneaking a peak at somebody else's paper and getting an A where only a B was deserved. NO, Casey didn't cheat, but NO, Casey doesn't get credit in this quarter for Nurse's work implementing Ujiri's command.

Coach of the Year? Ahhhhh, NO. Wouldn't even make my top three, with Brad Stevens, Quinn Snyder and Mike D'Antonio (hey, YOU try mixing two alpha dog ball-handlers on the same team and not have it blow up in your face). Nate McMillan also might be a better choice for the award.

Casey has proven, as a HEAD COACH, incapable of making the in-game adjustments winners have to make. He's won series, more than any other coach in Raptors' franchise history, but a lot of the wins were with better talent. He gets some credit for NOT SCREWING UP the better team, but too many of those games were too close to give him MUCH credit. His coaching, save for a single quarter in game 3 against Cleveland, rates as abysmal. His insertion of Lucas Noguiera, too often ignored because of his flaws and injury issues, suddenly put into that final game at a critical juncture ... with Jonas Valanciunas' dominating first quarter a seeming memory, ranks as one of the most curious coaching moves in recent memory. Casey, the fine man, and I'm NOT being sarcastic here, then LOST ME, when he explained the move as something the assistant coaches wanted. Under the bus is a bad spot to be.

Toronto will have to find a new head coach. And the irony that he MIGHT win the Coach of the Year in a sort of lifetime achievement sort of thing, is not lost on me nor on the Raptor management. The situation is similar to the one Golden State faced when they realized Mark Jackson had a limit to what he could do with the assemblage of young talent they had gathered. It was a bit of a tempest when they replaced Jackson with Steve Kerr. An announcer replacing ... well the future announcer. It was a trade of positions. Nothing I've heard OF Jackson or FROM Jackson since then makes me think it was a mistake. Ohhh, the World Championships MIGHT have occurred with Jackson at the helm. But I don't believe that. Jackson has a lot of supporters, not the least of which was because he's considered a good man. Where have I heard THAT before? Think, think, think ... yeah, right here.

In the best of times, Casey gets another job and maybe uses the experiences here in Toronto to learn and excel elsewhere. I actually hope that happens to him. Maybe in college, maybe in the NBA. He also could go back to the role that I think he's actually quite suited for: head assistant for defence. I think he KNOWS the game and can COACH defence. Just like players who range from sub-par to average to good to great, coaches have different levels of talent. Why would it be surprising that an expert on coaching defence might NOT be able to handle the subtleties of offence and of managing a roster of players? That's NOT the same expertise. And yes, many specialists DO learn other areas, but many just don't. But Casey is not a good enough head coach right now to lead a team on the VERGE of being GREAT into actually BEING GREAT.

I coached softball at significant levels. But I was flawed enough that the teams I was involved with that had the most success had me as an assistant coach. I knew the game and could teach it. But I was always stuck with the problem of thinking that I was a baseline as a player and that everybody should be able to do as well as me ... at a minimum. I didn't have talent, just a brain. And, yet, that brain could not assimilate that others couldn't think at the speeds I did. I still don't really get it. But it was true despite me ignoring the truth right in front of me. As a head coach, that flaw was magnified. As an assistant, my intensity was like a tool in a drawer. Useful in some places, not called for in others.

Reluctantly, I join the chorus to oust Casey. I've never actually been a FAN of his professional work, but I'm a fan of him, the person. Still, I place Raptor needs over his. The many rather than the few. The Raptors have to make changes. Somebody else, who won't ignore DeRozan's rather bizarre history of offensive improvements each season against a declining (from an originally pretty low intensity) interest in defence. The rationale? You can't practice defence all by yourself. All those hours DeRozan puts in the gym honing one offensive skill after another (his ball-handling and decision-making in crowds, shows even offensive skills that involve other players), can't be improved upon ENOUGH. A new coach, a new approach, might yet pull the complete player out of DeRozan. A new coach won't make DeRozan the principal ball-handler in pressure situations. That remains one of the most bizarre of Casey's decisions.

A new coach might not come from the obvious candidates, Nurse, Jerry Stackhouse or less likely Rex Kalamian. Tainted by association or too new to coaching (Stackhouse), makes any of them a risky choice. Me? I take Stackhouse in a New York second before he goes to Orlando. I wouldn't get too upset if Nurse is elevated. The coaching choices out there include a pair of Van Gundy's that I would be happy with. Jeff before Stan, by the way. NO to Jackson. I'm not sold on Mike Budenholzer as anything other than Casey redux. A guy to get TO the greatness line, but no evidence he'd bounce the squad past it. David Blatt interests me. A more experienced Jay Triano is available and Toronto has has sooooooo many reunions with players and coaches that I would hardly be surprised if he took a second tour with the team. Would Ujiri have the guts to pick Becky Hammon from San Antonio's bench? Hopefully, Jason Kidd's name doesn't float up to the top. I'm pretty sanguine about him as a person.

However, the time has come for Dwane without the Y to become EX-coach of the Raptors.

The Answer to the Burning Question of the Day

Who's going to win March Madness. I dunno. And if anybody says THEY know, then start the comparisons to other pathological liars we know and don't much love. This is NOT a year for unequivocal predictions.

Who do I THINK is going to win? I entered in 13 pools at ESPN/TSN and picked EIGHT DIFFERENT WINNERS. But the one I entered in first had Virginia ripping down the nets.

I corresponded with my friend Frank last night and I had this to say: "It's going to be Virginia over Michigan State in the final. The Wahoos become team number four to go from unranked to the penthouse game, and will be the second to actually win the thing. ONE of the other three is the legendary Loyola Ramblers who beat Mississippi St in the first whites vs blacks game for an SEC team before losing to Cinncinati team in the final. Fitting that that team is back in the dance this year. 

Virgina has coaching, three guards, tough defence, three-point shooting and are coming in on a roll. Outside of NBA lottery draft talent, they check all the boxes. They DO have a chip on their shoulders. Unranked pre-season and all. Michigan State has coaching, tough defence, three-point shooting and a bigger chip. Having Miles Bridges get out of the spotlight by paying 40 bucks to charity takes ALLLLLL the mental pressure off of a school that's been nothing but bad news for six months. Their guard play will hurt them, but having two lottery picks sort of off-sets that. 

Arizona (coaching, three-point shooting, HUUUUUGE chip and lottery talent) makes sense for a final four, if Virginia wasn't on the itinerary. That said, the Wildgattos de Zona are my number two pick, NOT the Spartans. What about Villanova? The problem with THOSE Wildcats is the lack of a chip, which is odd for the normally junkyard dog Philly school. The 'cats won the whole thing too recently. And their draft talent is a lottery ticket AND Jalen Brunson. Not the other way round. I just think they are vulnerable to big teams and the Spartans are REAL big. Big enough to handle the Dukies before that.  

I'm leaning Gonzaga over North Carolina. Xavier doesn't impress me at ALL. The ONE GAME I want to see is the one that creates Xavier's vanquisher on the weekend. I am VERY interested in Missouri with Porter, Michael back in the line-up. I liked Missouri the last time I saw them and if Porter is the guy who people thinks he is (hopefully NOT the chucker from his first game back), then Missouri MIGHT be the story of the tournament. If not, Florida State going to the second week would qualify. But I BADLY want to see the Mizzou-Seminole game. "

I'm REALLY off first week upsets. Maybe Xavier, as I said. And that really depends on Missouri and both Porters being what people thought the Tigers might be at the beginning of the year. I think Florida State CAN beat Xavier, but I'm more hopeful it will be Mizzou. Texas is sort of in the same boat with the recent return of Mo Bamba, who I thought might be THE guy this year ... until I saw Deandre Ayton of Arizona. Put Texas as a maybe, along with potential one-guy star shows resulting in upsets for Oklahoma (Trae Young) and Alabama (Collin Sexton). But honestly, the only first-round upsets I see are #10 Butler over Arkansas in the East and #9 NC State as the obligatory 9/8 winner over Seton Hall in the MidWest. On the weekend, Florida and West Virginia feel like teams to go upsetting in the East. Beyond that, bupkus.

Which gets you to the second week of the tournament and sixteen teams with championship dreams, half of them legitimate. I'd be hugely disappointed to see Kentucky make it there, even with a good Canadian kid Shai Gilgeous-Alexander running the point. Oily John Calipari did his schtick on ESPN Bracketology Sunday night and reminded me how much I dislike the guy. Given his track record and Memphis and UMass, how in the world does this whole FBI investigation into bad things in college basketball game NOT INVOLVE HIM? Arizona is a team on a mission to finish out the careers of Ayton, Alonzo Trier, Rawle Atkins and coach Sean Miller with a vengeance. IF Miller's voice is matched against his real voice on that tape discussing money and Ayton, he's going to be cashiered out of the NCAA, probably for life. He'll get the Dwane Casey treatment in spite of being from coaching royalty (brother, father). That will be because he will be guilty of the one crime the NCAA can't overlook, getting caught by real law enforcement. And given Casey got five years DESPITE BEING INNOCENT, I figure the Miller penalty will be life plus a day. That is why I have Arizona as my number two choice.

The second and third week's of this year's NCAA will be the best in recent memory. THAT I PROMISE YOU.

Last thought: Jalen Brunson, Wendell Carter Jr., Miles Bridges, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Gary Trent Jr., Grayson Allen, Hamidou Diallo, Devonte Graham, Allonzo Trier, Rawle Atkins. Stars or pretty good players all. Not one of them is the player the NBA expects to call from their team FIRST when the draft goes this summer. One more reminder of why the pro game and the college game are so different.