It's THAT Time of the Year Again!

 Okay, fair warning. I did no real prep for this post. At least nothing like I normally do. But I have a duty to the world to tell you what I THINK might happen over the next three weeks in the annual March Madness extravaganza south of the border. And no more chalk picking in this year of upsets (including a Saturday last month that featured the top six teams losing and seven of the top ten overall .... in ONE DAY!). Anybody who tells you they KNOW who's going to win it all this year is full of leftover hot sauce.

Also, I remind you that simply being one of one million that pick Gonzaga to go one step further this year is going to get you nothing worth anything at all. Nope. Be adventuresome. Like me. I'm calling for two of the one-time top-ranked teams to meet in the final, with the Auburn Tigers doing what Baylor did last year in becoming a first-time champion. But not at Gonzaga's expense. I DO think Gonzaga makes the Final Four, but they have to buy tickets to the final when Purdue upsets them in the West vs East semi-final.  Auburn will have to climb over the fastest climber this month in the Tennessee Vols.

Auburn, not Kansas (one of the teams that disappoint me regularly since I last won a TShirt and a Laptop for backing them to the title ... many, MANY years ago), wins in the Midwest. It'll be a largely chalk region with #9 Creighton and #11 Iowa State (going from two wins LAST year to the second round) pulling off the only upsets prior to Auburn dunking Kansas in the regional final. Texas Southern earns their way into the tournament proper with a win over Corpus Christi.

While Gonzaga marches to the Final Four out of the West, it'll be Alabama on a march to the Elite Eight ending a strong season for Texas Tech AND the Hall of Fame coaching career of Coach K and the Duke Blue Devils. I like #10 Davidson's international cast and crew to join with #9 Memphis in other West upsets. Rutgers and Ron Harper Jr. over Notre Dame in the first four.

Why NOT Gonzaga?? It's a weird reason. In addition to Kansas and Tom Izzo, I've had a predilection for picking Florida and being disappointed. And disappointed. And disappointed. And who's the engine that drives the Gonzaga team? Why ex-Florida guard Andrew Nembhard, a Canuck to be proud of. 'nuff said. Really, THAT is the reason.

I also think that Purdue has the size to contend with Chet Holmgren and Drew Timmie along the Zags' front line when it comes to the Final Four. That's because of another good 'ol Canadian boy, Zach Edey. He'll split time with Trevon Williams as he has all year long and hope Jaden Ivey has a game for the ages when it matters (almost) the most. I don't have any issues predicting Purdue over Kentucky just because it's John Calipari and nothing makes me happier than predicting no second week for the Wildcats. It'll take Oscar Tshiebwe getting out-rebounded for the FIRST time all year to happen, but that's what I'm calling to happen. After handling The Big O, I think Purdue will then shock the defending champions Baylor who have shocked by being number one at times this year again and grabbing a one seed. The only other upset will be #9 Marquette over North Carolina.. I'm taking Indiana over Wyoming in the First Four.

I think injuries play a part in the only two upsetting squads in the South. Definitely Ohio State is in tough with #10 Loyola of Chicago, the darlings of Sister Jean. The top-seeded Arizona Wildcats, featuring Canadian Benedict Mathurin, are handling their injuries better, but I had Houston beating them BEFORE I got the injury report. But then again, I DID know of the uncertain comeback from injury by André Curbelo which sets up Illinois to be upset by Houston to set up the follow-up upset of 'Zona.  Having run off two higher seeds, Houston will run out of steam against Tennessee. Wright State gets my First Four nod over Bryant just because I can't stand the nation's leading scorer getting another game to make a mockery of the sport. I really, REALLY hate the antics of Peter Kiss. 

So, Houston, Alabama and Purdue to spoil OTHER brackets, not mine. And congrats in advance to Auburn and Jabari Smith, along with coach Bruce Pearl.

Mark Bell, RIP: A Remembrance

 I lost my good friend Mark Bell to Covid three weeks ago. On the day Georgia called to tell me that, shortly before noon on the Tuesday, I sat in front of my computer staring at the same page of the book I was reading for three hours. I cannot tell you the page number, not even the book title. It was a white page with black text. I think. A grief counsellor would tell me I was in the first stage: Shock and denial. But that counsellor would be wrong. I believed Georgia, having let loose with a sorrowful "Noooooooooooo!!" even before she told me. She told me nicely. And I believed her and shortly thereafter hung up the phone. 

Mark Bell wouldn't be checking up on how things were going with me ever again. I rarely asked for anything, telling him "I didn't want to abuse the privilege." Didn't stop him from asking next time we talked. And sometimes we talked once every couple of weeks. Sometimes months passed by. But to me, Mark was one of my best friends (from a fairly small pool). On the other hand, he would have described me to other people as one of his friends. Best friend? No. Not at all. You see, Mark Bell was friends with just about everybody he came into contact. He was a good man.

He wasn't perfect, nobody is. But he wanted to be the best he could be within that understanding. He formed a partnership with Andrew Stanley to sell comic books and that company eventually morphed into The Comic Warehouse, where you could by comics, graphic novels, action figures, cards, games and just about anything else a kid of any age could possibly want. Georgia McDonald entered the picture later, splitting time in Brampton at Mark's and her other home in Kingston, Jamaica. Hurricane Georgia I called her because she is a force of nature, who liked cruises and sitting on the couch with Mark on Friday nights binge-watching something or other with a never-empty bowl of popcorn at hand. 

The last time I talked to Mark was about three weeks before his passing. Georgia and he were on a break from the night's marathon of something or other, one headed to make more popcorn, the other for a bathroom break. Mark got back first and picked up the phone and dialed my number. It wasn't our first conversation this year, but being only the second wasn't good news. He and I had been under the weather this year. And at our age, under the weather is a euphemism for being pretty sick. I normally would have played a game of 'Can You Top This' with him, but something in his voice troubled me. A lot.

First, he described what had happened to me back in May to a 'T' as he described his symptoms and weight loss. For me, being weak isn't anything new. Mark, the brawn of the store in may ways, was describing his legs turning to jelly in the aftermath and seemed astonished such a thing could happen. I knew just how he felt. But instead, I let him give me the laundry list of 2021 malaise. I didn't want to add my complaints to his long list of things rotten from this year. Despite still not feeling his best, he then did as he always did. He asked me whether there was anything he could do for me. I demurred. Usual reason, and I REALLY meant it this time. 

"Hey, we've been buddies for what, 30 years now? If you need something, just say the word. Talk to ya later, buddy." And with that little giggle-cum-laugh, he hung up the phone. I didn't even correct him. It was closer to 35 years. It just felt wrong. 

I have been customer, provider, customer, employee, customer, reluctant provider, and friend through tout. I think I have the sequence correct. Being a comic buyer, with a 200 buck a month habit when comics were largely less than a buck apiece, made me a fairly big customer of the store. I bought graphic novels, both for myself and for gifts. Each Christmas I give the O'Neill family a game, usually after advice from Mark and Andrew. In many ways, the stores Andrew and Mark operated were my idea of the ultimate playground. I wish there had been a golden ticket to let me sit in a back corner and just read. And read. And read. There was even a little café at the front of The Warehouse for any needed sustenance. But no Willie Wonka stepped forward to give me the ability to completely shut the real world out. 

Having jumped ship from the Brampton Guardian, I started writing for the Brampton Daily Times. They took my Bridge column and my Comic Book column and were due to start with my Trivia column when the paper folded without warning. Mark and Andrew paid for the comic book column. 

Later, when I was between jobs (again), having quit the CKMW-790AM radio gig, and not yet headed to Memphis to take over the Media Liaison job with the American Contract Bridge League, I needed somewhere to go and get out of the house. A new comic shop was opened on the other side of Brampton, not far from the old Dixie Cup factory. Mark handed me the keys to be the counter guy there. IF memory serves, that was something like six months of me calling him Boss. 

When the ACBL gig went south, I was okay with it because I now had a social life. At least I did until an unexpected death knocked me for a loop, the first time that had happened to me. I didn't get over Laura's death for three months. By that time, I was doing computer consulting by being one page ahead of the others in the manual. And I was programming, systems software. And that led me to being a service provider for Mark once again. He wanted me to do a Point of Sale program for his operation. He disliked the software he was using and couldn't get any modifications made. For a solid six months, I found reasons not to do the software.

But I eventually ran out of excuses and said yes. The result was software that was used at multiple stores connected to the Warehouse and was modified as needed. For most of the first part of this millennium. Around 2017, the business that Andrew and Mark had built up and weathered through rotten weather, crooks and worse financial times, was changing. I have the logo I created for Mark17, the replacement I started for cwRegister. And still haven't finished. 

And now, I am not sure it will be. That discussion is still to be had with Andrew. I'm not even sure the Warehouse survives Mark's passing. I don't want to talk about it with anybody because not talking about it means Schrödinger's cat is still alive in the box. I guess that covers pain and guilt. I've put off until tomorrow, until there are no tomorrows left on the calendar. Not something to be proud of. 

At some point, I told Mark my worst problem, something I've never told anybody else. Not Patrick, not Marilyn, not James nor any member of my family. To the best of my knowledge, Mark never broke the confidence I had sworn him to. But he did come back three days later with a solution, albeit not one I wanted to act upon. Still, the knowledge that there was an approach made sleeping that night and most nights since then a lot easier. That was Mark. Don't judge, figure out a fix. 

When I made out my will earlier this year, Mark, Andrew and Georgia were part of it. I expected my brother Rick to get them to curate my collections of books, magazines and comics, as well as electronic media, and disseminate parts of the library to assorted other people in my will, and then the rest of the SF-oriented material would head for Kingston to Georgia's local library down there. I was thankful they all agreed to help in the event of my passing.

Never thinking for one second that any one of them would pre-decease me. 

If I'd been raised to curse in public forums, I would be swearing up a blue streak right now. I know a LOT of the words and I've used them in private. But I just can't turn a memorial to Mark into a place where I get my anger out. He doesn't deserve that. I do. But not Mark. 

So, I remain right where I was when I head the news. The only differences are that I have moved away from the computer, even got dressed. I have seem Mark's memorial service on the web (Thanks to Georgia's son). But I am still depressed and I'm not going to try and play 'Can You Top This.' 

Mark Bell was a good guy. He was my buddy. And I miss him and will continue to miss him, even if it's only at the other end of a phone call. Covid-19. A killer of good buddy phone calls, a murderer of the good guys. 

RIP Buddy. 

The Question Is: Who are the Gonzaga Bulldogs?

 Of course, in honour of the late great Alex Trebek, a fellow Canadian, the answer is: Who will win the 2021 NCAA Men's Basketball championship in Indianapolis the first week of April.

Now, as things go, this is about the least unlikely champion pick in the tournament that I have ever made. Which should worry you. It's been 45 years since the Little General, Bobby Knight, guided his Indiana Hoosiers to a perfect season. Five times since then, schools have stumbled after perfect regular seasons. This time, the sixth sense says bet the Zags.

Along with 60 per cent of the betting public in all likelihood. 

I haven't done a deep dive, looking for defensive teams with senior point guards, a pair of good three point shooters (if not more), good defense, GREAT rebounding and having momentum. THAT's the definition of an upset school. So, a LOT of my upset picks are gut shots. And for a change, I'm entering in my true picks in the Gontram Architecture pool that welcomes this Canuck into the free pool every year. And I've never come close to winning a free meal at the local diner of choice. Not once. So, I'm not filling in a lot of pools this year AND I'm starting with Eddie Gontram's pool first. With my best guess. 

First Four games starting tomorrow? The one that everybody wants to see is Tom Izzo and Michigan State against UCLA (and Mick Cronin, a guy I like quite a lot). But everybody knows I think Izzo is one of the best coaches in the college ranks, ever. Sooooo, the Spartans to party. And I like the game to be a great tourney lid-lifter. Drake over Wichita State despite me being a Shocker supporter generally. Mount St. Mary's over Texas Southern is another wish pick, mostly because I think MSM can give Michigan a tussle in what is usually a 1-16 bore, Lastly, I've got Norfolk St. beating Appalachian St on a pure coin toss. 

So, that's my field. And I've got a chalk board to go, with a total of 14 upsets, eight of which go in the first round Friday and Saturday. I'm upset-light in the West compared to some of the upset darlings of the big name prognosticators. Just UC Santa Barbara, who will fulfill everybody's hopes by downing Creighton. As far as Ohio, VCU and Mizzou? Nope. But in the SECOND round, and even-numbered round that I traditionally mark chalk and be done with it, I have UCSB taking out Virginia AND USC bouncing Kansas. Just not that convinced the COVID-belaboured Jayhawks, one of my usual picks, are going to be ready for the USC size, due to lack of practice time.  But other than those upsets, Gonzaga will have an issue working up a sweat getting to the Final Four.

My most upsetting region is the East. I like St. Bonaventure over LSU in an 8-9 match-up and Michigan State will go on a bit of a run by adding BYU to it's victim list. It'll end with BYU, 'cuz Texas is going to end the party in the second round. And then we come to Georgetown who are one of the reasons Louisville didn't make the field. The Hoyas stole berth 68 or even 67 from the Cardinals when they ran the list in the Big East tourney at Madison Square Gardens, the newest version of which, Patrick Ewing had some part in building. His defensive monsters will swarm Colorado in a defensive showdown and then add Florida State in round two to the run. And it won't end there. Yep, Georgetown will take down Juwan Howard's Michigan top seeds in the region before meeting it's match in Alabama. The Crimson Tide will have had some practice with defence first basketball when dispatching Rick Pitino's Iona squad in the first round. Think it sticks in the Cardinal's craw that Louisville is out and Pitino is in?

The staid South will see Winthrop bounce the Wildcats of Villanova in the first round to give the tournament THREE #12 seeds advancing, and I like Utah State to do in Texas Tech. Why? I think western teams are generally under-seeded and this was a team that gave the Pacific sides competition all year long. And aside from Baylor, the top seed in this region, I just don't have Big 12 supporter-itis this year. Or ACC devotion either. So, go figure. Only OTHER upset in the region, I have Arkansas doing in Ohio State in a mini-upset before bowing out to Baylor in the regional final. 

Leaves me with the MidEast which starts with two upsets in the opening round and ends with Houston upsetting Illinois in the regional final. The first-rounders are the usual 8-9 game where I expect the rapidly improving Georgia Tech Rambling Wreck to take down the Loyola Chicago Ramblers (sorry Sister Jean, I truly respect anybody who can travel at age 101 to support her boys, but not this time) and I think Tennessee is reeling as the season finishes and the Oregon State Beavers will win the battle of the Orange. (San Diego St. will takedown Syracuse in another battle of the Orange, but that won't be an upset ... unless Buddy Boeheim, one of my favourite players in the event, goes truly off, which he IS able to do). The Beavers are the partners of the Hoyas in sidelining Louisville, stealing the auto bid in the Pac 12.

Final Four will end with Gonzaga taking down Baylor in the long-delayed showdown between the two best teams of not only this year, but of the last two years (in total).  I think it will be a comfortable win, but I just don't think there is a weal-point Baylor can expose in the Gonzaga game. Andrew Nembhard gets to hoist the cut-down twine and that's all right with me. 

Player-wise, enjoy Cade Cunningham, who can't improve his draft position, as he leads the Cowboys of Oklahoma State past Liberty (a must-watch first round game) and then Oregon State before Illinois finishes his college career. Evan Mobley and USC will make noise as I noted. Jay Suggs won't be the best Zag, maybe not in any of the team's games. But he's the third of my NBA top picks I think bears watching. 

I want to see Zach Edey with Purdue and the Oregon Duck Canucks, especially Chris Duarte. I have Purdue winning twice, Oregon once. Luka Garza isn't Canadian, but I have an appreciation of great college players who won't be great NBA players. He'll end his career with yet another loss to Gonzaga, but three wins leading up to the loss will gild his legacy. 

And those won't be the only players that are must see. The others? Well, a fortnight plus from now, you and I will both know. Enjoy.

Pascal Siakam and Al Brown, Together in My Mind

 The Toronto Raptors' Pascal Siakam is one of the most likable players in the NBA. He is a self-made multi-millionaire who has taken moderate talents (it appeared) as a late first-round draft choice out of New Mexico, worked diligently with high-level coaching with the Raptors organization and summers at UCLA in the off-season and has become an all-star. This from a guy who wasn't interested in basketball much growing up in Cameroon and only started a path towards NBA stardom a continent and an ocean away because he tagged along to a basketball camp with a friend as something to do during a hot summer weekend.

He's a goofy guy who is one of the few Raptors to star in local commercials (along with the make-good idol of the undrafted, Fred VanVleet) because he doesn't have to talk to make people feel good. He does talk though and his punchlines bring smiles and laughs. 

So, I do not come here to bury Siakam. Far from it. If I had a daughter, he's exactly the kind of guy I would hope she brings home for the 'talk' with her parents. But there IS a thing Siakam does that drives me to extraction. He has a propensity for jumping in the air looking for someone, ANYONE, to pass the ball to. A lot of those times, he passes behind himself, frequently to poor effect. Other times, he actually gets the pass off to a fellow Raptor and then CRASHES into a defender, standing there ready to take the charge. And those fouls/turnovers are doubly hurtful for the Toronto team. 

My old high school coach at the junior level was Gerry (T-Tough) Thompson, who had a long and distinguished career coaching Bramalea Secondary Bronco junior boys' teams. Good coach, one of three I would think of, when asked who were the best basketball coaches in town. But I watched him learn a real tough lesson one year in the region final against Applewood Heights. There was a game plan that day. Shooting guard Bob Hamilton was going to be the ball distributor, throwing a curve ball at the Axemen in their gym. Coach Thompson figured Hamilton, the leading scorer on that team, would do a good job distributing the ball. And he was wrong.

Just like Siakam, Hamilton drove into the paint as often as he could, planning to distribute the ball. But his way of doing it was to jump in the air, and when that happened, the well-coached Applewood Heights team just sloughed off him or stood their ground. A good shooter isn't necessarily a good passer and on that day, Hamilton looked like a flopping fish before fouling out late in a one-sided loss. Hamilton's play that night violated what I thought had been a cardinal Thompson rule. "Never leave your feet to make a pass without knowing where that pass is going."

It's one of the rules that became foundational to my understanding of the game as a rarely-used, undersized, and slow, back-up point guard. And later a sports reporter and an announcer for pro basketball in Toronto. You don't leave your feet to make a pass without good reason (and virtually guaranteed success). I had been provided with the proof and in my own play, the difference between jumping and not leaving my feet was only a few inches anyways. I was living proof of the stereotype, white men can't jump.

Which brings me to Al Brown, the principal at J.A. Turner Secondary and it's senior girls' basketball coach. Brown was the silver fox of the coaching set and created a mini-dynasty at the school on the other side of Brampton from Bramalea. It took me until after I was done being a sports reporter and he'd retired from the teaching of our young for me to add Brown to my pantheon of best school coaches I knew. He wasn't self-effacing, but at the same time he wasn't a big talking self-promoter. It was my understanding that he was an outstanding administrator and a better teacher. He had some ... let's call them interesting ... training routines that he mandated be run early and late in practices and in warm-ups before games. The germane one here was his jab-step, stop and jump for a short range shot. Not the raindrop extended layup popular today. He had his ladies come to a stop by jabbing hard and jumping backward and maintaining good proper shooting form for a ten-foot shot attempt. 

This was extraordinary successful as the Hamilton sisters, Janet Weaver and a host of other players scored consistently in the (semi) fast break, rarely charging and hitting a high percentage of their shots, no matter the size of the opponents. And it wasn't just the guards. Tracey Gerber, the lion-maned power forward was equally adept at the art. The key was arresting the forward momentum with a hard step, falling back and depending on form and two changes in angular momentum to actually create a fairly good up-and-down shooting posture. 

Brown coached technique as well as any of the coaches in the boy's game did during that era, the 70s to the early 90s. The game at that time was changing in town as the town became a city became a mega-city. The complexion changed and schools in town became more athletic. There were strong runs at several schools over the next 25 years, putting Brampton on the map as a source of NBA-calibre talent. 

But I don't think the coaching in town is any better than the last quarter century if the 20th century. In fact, I could argue in some ways that it isn't as good. Better athletes, more year-round roundball players. Yes. But better coached?? I think Al Brown would have a credible argument to the contrary.

Back to Siakam. He's a devout disciple of the DeMar DeRozan school of adding a skill each summer. I fervently hope the skill he adds this summer is the jab-step jump stop. It's more difficult for him, given his racing horse speed and there's always the worry his joints won't agree with his decision to bring himself to a sudden stop. But he can't keep taking charges, costing him a foul that might put his butt on the bench AND turnover the ball at the same time. It's a double-whammy. He's got to stop doing that. If it means curling out when there's more than one defender between him and the basket, so be it. Better to pull it back under control. 

Wish there were some tapes of J.A. Turner's old warmups. Sure, it's a bunch of under-sized white girls, but I'm sure Siakam would benefit from the viewing.

A Guy's Gotta Eat

 Truly, madly, deeply, I like to eat. To do that, I occasionally need to get a service to deliver me food. The ones that come the closest to delivering you your choice of foods for a sawbuck, and getting mostly what you ordered from them, is Sobey's Voilà and Longo's Grocery Gateway. I'm mad at the first for the most recent deliveryman's ability to spread my delivery all the way to the far end of the porch and for Grocery Gateway for their creative use of the phrase, pricing.

But here's what you can expect from neither company, is a surprise on the payment page under the heading TIP.

I LOATHE the idea for tipping, have long come around to the view that restaurants pay their workers a living wage and leave the customers to look at the prices in the menu and quickly tote up how much longer the kids will have to wait to go to college in order to order from the menu. In fact, I still think tipping can be added, since service above and beyond should be appreciated. By a single bill, not a percentage. 

So, why the Scrooge act?? Well, let's start with a lady I called Sunshine in the days when once a week (or sometimes twice), I'd end up in a local bar playing NTN, which stood for Network Trivia Network, or somesuch silly thing. I played in Brampton ON where the trivia competing was actually pretty tough. My team, the BUMMS (Brampton Union of Marvelous Mugford Sympathizers) and a team of teachers from one of my alma maters, Balmoral Public School, were regulars in the North American top ten. More them than us, but we had our moments. I was offered the chance to jump ship (from my OWN team, which would have simply been The Bums, but the network wouldn't allow that name), but being overly competitive decline with malice aforethought. Occasionally, I'd show up at their bar and give a good accounting of myself, all by myself, just to be contrary. 

Sunshine was our waitress at Tom O'Malley's bar. She was a pretty, young lady who didn't smile nearly enough. She HATED being called Sunshine and I was too immature to care. I never tried in the least to get flirty, personal or touchy. And I tipped well. I could afford to since my share of the bill was always as close to peanuts as I could get. Basket of french fries, one or two orange sodas. That was the fullness that the restaurant/bar got out of me. I could afford to tip better than 30 percent and I did. But I admit, one thing she said to me bugged me till the day I retired from active trivia competition (concurrent with Tom selling the bar). According to her, TIPS was short of To Insure Prompt Service.

And that bugs the heck of me, still, after all those years. It's NOT my responsibility to insure Tom paid Sunshine well. That was between him and her. Off-loading paying her enough onto the shoulders of the customers MIGHT have been all right, but honestly, TIPPING has ALWAYS been a bad system made worse in SOOOOO many ways. Tip sharing is common. Why should hard-working Sunshine share with one of her co-workers who spent most of her time flirting with well-dressed customers than doing her job? Or the other workers?? Well, because they all assumed tipping was off-setting the wages Tom was NOT paying them. And I don't want to single Tom out. That was the way the bar/restaurant biz ran back then. And still does for all I know. 

But shaming customers into paying to avoid some spittle in the drinks? NO. Just NO. Paying is what I do at the cash register, not looking over my shoulder to see that no customer or worker or owner helps themselves to the money meant for the single person it was meant for. 

And I THOUGHT about my tips. I have tipped a single penny to a particularly rude and incompetent server. And on that occasion I went over to the owner, or manager, I didn't know which, and said that I wouldn't be back and the server I was pointing at was why. Mean?? You betch'em Red Ryder. Everybody has a bad day and incompetency's happen. Being rude for something that is essentially your fault?? Not on my watch. EXCUSING that behaviour is how it happens again. And again. And again. You owe it to your fellow diners and drinkers to stop the boorishness now. A word to the manager, commiserating without being nasty, should be the reward for a server who apologizes for lack of good service. But tick me off, then blame me?? Well, reap the wind. 

So, imagine my surprise earlier this year when I got to the payment page trying out Real Canadian Superstore and saw a TIP in place. Fifteen percent no less. And I had neither met the shopper from Insta Cart doing my shopping, nor had a lick of service from them to adjudge a tip. And oh, it gets worse. The instructions on my order for NO replacements didn't mean much to my ad hoc replacement. That shopper was getting a PERCENTAGE of my bill as a tip. So, ignoring my no-replacements comment, the shopper merrily replaced a whole lot of stuff. I have allergies. Wrong trust and I could be in hospital assuming I could dial 911. So, the food bank did well with my groceries that day. 

I still paid the TIP I'd promised. Later, I found the despicable amongst us, most of whom could laughingly be described as the well-to-do, rich slimeballs, would log in after the fact and CANCEL THE TIP!?!?! And why would these (frequently rich) jerks do this?? Well, the tip wasn't a pedestrian ten or 15 percent. No, the number would be in excess of 60, sometimes even 100 percent. They weren't going to pay it, so why not promise the moon??

Why?? Because the highest tip got the best treatment by the shopper. None of this queue business with first in, first shopped for. No, the orders get prioritized. That means shopping first, getting to the customer domicile first. Freshest food, items to those early in the priority, items not necessarily being available at the tail end of the queue. Survival of the richest. And to that, a plague on all your houses. Delivered as is, thank you. 

So, a guy like me with my modest tip, well I get what's left over. Literally. And to my shopper, no schadenfreude from me when you get bamboozled. Your integrity should be to ALL your customers,  not to the robber barons first, but to the customers who have ordered through the web, through apps, however. 

Of course, that ignores one thing. A guy's gotta eat. Should I come down on the shoulders of somebody willing to risk his or her life out in a pandemic to do what I won't do? Honestly, I'm housebound. I don't have much in the way of choice. Shoppers have a choice. I don't want to enforce a choice on them, but if they take the job, then playing favourites isn't the way to conduct yourself doing that job. And to the company that once again avoids paying its workers a living wage, SHAME ON YOU. 

This past week, still seething at the latest delivery from Voilà and the smacking around my credit card got from Grocery Gateway, I decided to try CornerShop. I'd looked at their site in the summer and seen emblazoned there-on, "NO TIPPING, WE PAY OUR SHOPPERS A GOOD WAGE!" So, imagine my disconcert when there, on the payment page, was a five percent tip already sitting there with options to make it bigger. I shook my head and decided to finish the order out, having wasted an hour 'shopping.' The food would be here in less than six hours. 

The shopper called me and asked me about no replacement. "None," I said. He argued anyways. The potato chips were available in the half-as-large size (for sixty percent of the price). "Okay," too tired to argue. I sat ten feet from my front door waiting for the delivery, which had the instructions, "Knock on door, Ring Doorbell, Phone in advance."

He was zero for three. I only noticed the groceries sitting on the porch when I got up to do something I do once a decade, look behind my TV. 

When I was finished hauling in the groceries I got on-line and made an attempt to cancel my account with the organization. I got one of those RATE OUR SERVICE emails and in a fit of blind fury, stabbed at the single star (zero not being available) and when faced with yet another TIP field, zeroed THAT out. Only later, I realized it might NOT have been an extra tip, it might have been the ONLY tip, And then, freshly revitalized at raging, I thought to myself that zero was more than he deserved. What if the order had been hot food on the very cold morning?? Or cold food in the midst of July?? The sheer callousness to deliver food and NOT let the customer know is ... well callous is about the right word. I didn't get my full order (which included fresh-baked bread) which was because my tip screwed my queue emplacement. My shopper didn't earn my money. Didn't earn his employer's money either. Cost them a customer. But the company that proudly proclaimed paying people a living wage, no longer bothers to do so. It would be a lie. 

I'll probably place an early spring order with Grocery Gateway. I've made my point. After a couple of months after that, I'll probably do a Voilà order again. Voilà does the best job of providing you with an order without resorting to unrequested replacements. I won't ever use a surrogate shopper service again. I have friends and extended family who regularly want to do it for me and I refrain during these troubled times. I love them too much to send them out into the cold, cruel world, with me having a LARGE WELL-FILLED PANTRY. It's NOT like I'm belt-tightening. So, I will wait until the Pandemic eliminates the excuses for these shopping services doing odious things in the future.

And yes, I understand I'm choosing their lives to endanger over those of my loved ones. And I'm being callous. But I'm not going to support the failure of organizations to pay their workers either. That day is done.

If you are a user of VPNs, check the fine print ... Especially if you consider PIA

 I am a dupe with a preference to using Windows 7 despite it ending being supported by Microsoft in January. Since I employ both a firewall and a decent anti-virus, I continue to use a system I have setup to my preferences a decade ago. It's a familiar piece of equipment that keeps me contributing to the companies I'm involved with. I  understand Microsoft feels that Windows 10 is sooooo superior that they were willing to sunset the most popular desktop computing operating system in the world. 

And I DO have a Win10 box that was built to my specs. I originally tried to buy a fan-less system out of Israel that was more than three times the price of any computer I've ever bought. Turns out the pandemic got in the way of that deal, so I had Patrick build a system that will eventually be something I'm happy to be using. 

Some day.

I have to find time to spend seven weeks (roughly) to customize the new machine so that I can transfer my day to day work over to it. SEVEN WEEKS.  That makes Microsoft's gunpoint assault on my Windows 7 system more costly to me than the hardware. So, a raspberry to Microsoft.

Now, let me introduce you to Personal Internet Access, aka PIA. It's a VPN. And in case you don't have your three-letter dictionary handy, that's a Virtual Private Network. While a number of critics would point at a VPN user as a person with elicit secret activities to hide, the truth is that bad guys are getting better and better at finding innocent bystanders at home and invading their privacy. For the cost of a cup of coffee, it's possible to have another layer of protection.

And yes, if I want to watch a US-only video on YouTube, it's nice to be able to do that. I have to remember to switch it off when looking at SportsNet and TSN videos here because if I don't, I get that same off-putting notice about the video not being available in 'your' country. 

I did the due diligence and found PIA was a mid-level performer at the lower end of the pricing tiers. The decider in my matrix was the fact that the service supported up to 10 devices. Given that I have six eligible devices within my sight at this moment, having 10 covered seemed like a good idea. So, in the middle of the year, I bought a year's subscription to the service. It cost a few coffees, but that's not the point. I paid for a year for ALL of my devices, not the least being the main machine, which was running Win 7 then as it does now. 

There was some growing pains. The Win 10 machine had a tumble over the Hosts file on the computer. I asked for some help from PIA to help get by that problem. The response was the usual boilerplate pablum. I eventually resolved the issue by wiping the machine and restoring a two-week old machine image backup. This time I found what program was diddling with Hosts as I re-installed and upgraded programs.  All of that without PIA's help. Was it their responsibility to solve the problem?? No. But help, hell yeah!!

Then, in September, PIA decided unilaterally with no notice to me that it would no longer support Win 7, which was within their rights, given the weasel words in the fine print. These Licence Agreements don't hold up all that well when challenged by well-heeled victims of bad software or bad management of good software. The managers at PIA decided to pull the plug on Windows 7 support, hiding behind the sunsetting of the OS by Microsoft. 

But here's the gigantic hole in their fig leaf defence. I bought this product FIVE months after end of life and I used it for more than three months WITH PIA's continued support of the non-supported operating system. Then PIA decided manpower in a pandemic dictated that they throw the Win7 Users overboard. But they did something still worse than selling me a product they wouldn't support after I'd used the product for more than a month. They cancelled the support WITH NO NOTICE to me and the others in my situation. And the service worked intermittently for weeks after. All it took was cycling through servers all over the world, to occasionally get a connection. That was until this month when no amount of fiddling made things worked.

That's when I went to the website and found the now two-month old notice. I contacted support. All I wanted was the half-year I wasn't going to be using the service (I certainly couldn't trust a devious organization, moving forward). The support person politely pointed out the refund policy was specific about when it expired and that she'd be happy to put a stop on my automatic renewal. You can imagine the words that crossed my mind, especially after the legal eagles pointed out that I'd win the case (worth 20 bucks) here in town, but travelling elsewhere might result in a loss (lawyer's fees to be included) and the travel costs. And in a different jurisdiction, their crappy, one-sided licence could be upheld. Even though they no longer offered the service they sold me! 

So, the best I could do is to cost PIA future sales. I hope readers, however few they might be here, will share and, of course, avoid PIA like the plague (a joke that is immediately stale, but true nonetheless). I'm telling all my friends and family. Somebody, somewhere, will believe me and will shop for a VPN elsewhere. And I whole-heartedly recommend VPNs. I know some of you are either current or will be future users of NordVPN.. Not the worst choice, but I urge you to do your due diligence.. Heck, you might even be a non-Windows 7 user and think the dreadful support from PIA is worth the price savings. YMMV.

To me, PIA represents the worst of the pandemic responses. They can't support the work for a key section of their customer base and just cast the workers AND the customers adrift, without returning money taken WHILE IN THE PANDEMIC, thus without the ability to claim they didn't know. The company made no effort to contact me that they were doing that. And when contacted, they didn't respond with a decent effort to split amicably. They said your money is ours and we'll do the right thing and not automatically try to take your money again NEXT year. 

Not good enough. Not close. Not part of my life moving forward.

And not a single creative slur in the whole rant. Mom, I AM mellowing.

Be safe, Even you PIA folks.

IF My Last Name Was Bettman ...

I'm going to give the new Blogger interface a whirl today with some meanderings about the NHL Draft lottery last night. Although it means my beloved Montreal Canadiens will PROBABLY have a 12.5 percent chance of winning the lottery (aka Alexis Lafreniere), I'm in the camp with Brian Burke thinking my namesake from the Bettman branch of the United Gary's of the World, screwed this up.

Burke believes in the lottery. The worst should draft first. Or close to it. He thinks a lottery is okay ... providing there are no outside interlopers. Like the mystery team, still to be determined after the play-in round of the playoffs, commencing some time between now and the end of everything. Might be the worst of those teams, my Habs, or the best of those teams, the Pittsburgh Penguins. Heck, it could even be the horrible local team around these parts, the Toronto Maple Leafs. Ugh! No, make that QUADRUPLE UGH!!!!

I'm hardly an Ottawa Senators fan. Still think the idea that they wear a centurion on their chest is REALLY STUPID. But I grew up in a family that grammatically didn't shudder supporting the Maple Leafs. Took me till grade TWO before I realized what a bobo that was. But I would have liked the Senators to draft one-two, take Lafreniere and Tim Stutzle, leaving Detroit, hopefully, with Quinton Byfield. Keep all the studs in Montreal's division cuz I like watching great hockey players. Except in the Blue of the Maple Leafs. And really, not that fond of the other blue team, the Tampa Bay Lightning. Or the Rangers. They wear blue too. Hmmmmm, a journey of self discovery just found a profound place. Yep, no blues in hockey. Although, I have to admit, sorta liked the St. Louis Blues ever since their inception.. Glenn Hall, three Plagers and the best uniform not worn in Chicago. Montreal's third, if you are wondering.

Where was I? Meandering, that's right. Back to the lottery.

All pro sports leagues are struggling with the lottery. You have to do things to prevent squads tanking in the hopes of landing the Next Great Hope. Thus was born the lottery. The lotteries used to be one ball/envelope/whatever, but have mostly become three chances at the winning ticket. And in the time of Covid19, it's become two lotteries in one, an NHL invention. And it is a bad scheme made very much worse by the fact that the worst fears were realized. NOW, we have eight to TWELVE teams potentially thinking of TANKING. You know, the idea the lotteries were invented to STOP!!! Habs stars were already thinking of not playing. If the squad gets down two, where's the strength of resolve for them to go for a triple upset and win three straight elimination games in a row??? Just to play Boston and face the shame of losing to the Black and Gold. Hold on, maybe it's blue AND black? Have to add that to the pondering list.

Here's two ideas for my fellow Gary to ponder for the next NHL Lottery season. Let the losers EARN the top pick. Think of it as an in-season tournament of equals. On the day AFTER the team is eliminated from the playoffs, the team gets to start earning points in the Draft Tournament. Obviously, the worse teams will start accumulating points earlier than say, the Habs, who rated to finish as the ninth team to enter the pool, maybe with only two or three games left on the schedule. Might even finish the Draft Tournament with ZERO points. Tied with, say, Carolina. But Ottawa and Detroit might have a dozen points, having started earning them a month before. If two or more teams tie in the Draft Tournament, you break the tie in reverse order of where they would have finished in the overall standings. And the Draft Tournament ONLY dictates the order of the first round of the upcoming Draft of Eligible Juniors. After the first round, strict adherence to the reverse Regular Season standings.

What else would change in this system??? Glad you asked. No more selling off of players that might help YOUR TEAM be competitive in the Draft Tournament. If it's a good deal, go ahead. But no more fourth to sixth defenceman suddenly becoming eighth defencemen on playoff-bound teams. No more getting sixth and seventh round picks in the future for them. If a team comes around and offers you a boatload for your soon-to-be free agent centre, you weigh what that guy could help you with in the Draft Tournament and what the boatload could do for the GM that gets hired after you're fired after the season. And if you think it's a good HOCKEY trade, you take the boatload and wish your successor well, having done him a solid. (I HATE, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY HATE the buyout crap that goes on in the NBA. I'd want this Draft Tournament for the NBA more than any sports league.)

Yeah, Trade Deadline Day might be a REAL downer with all the semi-unknown names no longer switching around to give the two hundred commentators something to yak about. But the real movements would be dissected with much more intensity merely for the fact that it's impact on TWO events would be that much more to talk about. Less chaff and more wheat. And imagine a late-season game between Detroit and Ottawa NOT being a tank fest, but a playoff-intesity match to see who drafts first ... and lands Lafreniere!!! You want the WHOLE season to mean something. The WHOLE season to have value with NO meaningless games. The WHOLE season to consider when moving players. NO MORE letting players BLACKMAIL you into buyouts on their terms, maybe for a savings of a few thousand dollars in savings. The players would play for SOMETHING. Maybe not a title (of which one or two of the moving players would earn, the rest WILL FAIL). But SOMETHING.

By the way, the idea is not original to me. Just repeating it since it seems to have faded from view over the last little while.

My other idea is not original either. It has it's origins in the long gone early years of the ... NHL Lottery. One ball, one team, one chance to move up by as many as three spots. If, say the tenth place team wins, it gets draft slot seven. Lottery done. Or at least that was HOW IT USED TO BE.

So, revive the same idea. But with the understanding there's three numbers coming out of the magic ball machine now. Place the Too Good to Luck Into Top Spot bar where ever you want. I think Burke wants it at five, with NO CHANCE for teams higher than that. I say, put the bar at five, to resolve Burke's biggest complaints and allow the first number to move up three spots or less, the second one two spots and the last one, well, you guessed it, one spot.

So, let's go through the repercussions this would have on this year's bifurcated snafu. The To Be Lucky team that sits above the bar at five, gets to move up THREE spots from nine to six. Los Angeles with the second number goes from four to two and Ottawa goes from two forward to ONE, leapfrogging Detroit in doing so (with their San Jose pick). The draft now goes Ottawa, Los Angeles, Detroit, Ottawa ... with the Lucky team getting six. The rest of the draft fills in around the lottery winners. That's ONE way to look at the results of the lottery.

Maybe, we stick with the ABSOLUTE top picks in play. Mystery team still only does the nine to six move because of the bar rule, limiting teams HIGHER than that to a three-spot jump. (And let's say the winner IS the nine pick originally, regardless of whether they were the nine going into the lottery). But give LA the top pick thanks to getting the next most golden number. And Ottawa gets two, cuz that's the best of what's left. Hmmm, LA, Ottawa, Detroit, Ottawa. Better than the actual lottery. Not as good as the play-in Draft Tournament.

Last refinement that will bug Burkie but might appease the lords of the NHL in my imaginary turning back of the clock to before my fellow Gary hatched this plan. Give the mystery team OR teams, the slots STARTING right behind the bar. Sixth through eighth would be the best available starter spots, but the three-spot jump would come from their position POST bar. In my scenario with only ONE golden number to a mystery team AND that golden number being triple gold, the draft order in my scenario would be LA, Ottawa, Mystery team, Detroit, Ottawa. Burke would HATE, absolutely HATE a team like Pittsburgh lucking into a Byfield or a Stutzle after choking against Montreal, but c'est la vie. Maybe moving the bar back to six works well enough for Burke. SOOOOOO many drafts are top three drafts when it comes to franchise altering players, that I think six is the right number. Negotiations start on the left.

An adjunct to why the draft lottery has failed in this wacko pandemic-driven year is that the mystery team is going to be one of the play-in series' losers with EACH team getting equal odds, supposedly to stop tanking. Every team has an equal shot. And in a five-game series, a hot goalie means a good team might very well 'earn' the one and eight shot at Lafreniere. Ridiculous. It's why Carey Price is such a pivotal player in making this Lottery scheme fraught with danger. Imagine Pittsburgh with Lafreniere on a rookie-scale contract for the next three years???? Or just as bad, the scheme could very well hand Les Habitants the next great French Canadian player. Think some fans will yell "FIX!!!" Ummm, sure. But a man can dream, can't I??

It's hard to screw up an idea meant to help the poor (in terms of talent) by potentially adding the Next Great Hope to a team that was in contention for a title all season long. Just after a bad two week stretch. The NHL has succeeded in failing all logic. Gary ... Bettman, you need to step up and prevent future screw-ups. Our name demands better.