1. Too many guys (should be none),
2. People scare me.

And those are the two reasons why MySpace is stupid!

Regarding some actual news, information, or semi-intelligent thoughts, for those who do not already know, I am going to RIT. That’s about all I know. There is a dual degree program available for computer engineering, and as far as I know, I am not in it. I would like to be, but i do not know how to be in it. I hope I can still be in it.

I’ve been working a lot lately. Today I popped around 40-50 very large bags of popcorn (maybe more, probably not less). These bags are large (very large). For those who are popcorn cooking virgins, the act is not a calm one. At only two points in the entire 210 minute process did I have chances to rest. Those chances were short-lived (about 20 seconds each). It was insane. I was supposed to work tomorrow, but someone switched with me so I can play baseball. The game better not be cancelled. Since I am no longer working Friday, I work for a total of 30.5 hours this upcoming week. I want money: large amounts of money.

Here is a special piece of information to those who are lucky enough to live in Buffalo and read this site within the next nine hours: Jerry Seinfeld will be at the Dipson Theatres in the McKinley Mall for a private screening of Prairie Home Companion at 10:30 AM. Get out your cameras, ’cause Jerry’s coming to see a movie!

To reiterate, it will really suck if baseball is cancelled tomorrow. I need money, and I better not be passing up a chance to make money for no reason.

The other night I began reading The Automatic Millionaire by David Bach. I did so after being convinced by Vicki that I should read the book before I try to invest my millions (Whoops, paradox alert: if I truly had millions, why would I bother reading The Automatic Millionaire?). So I read the first chapter about the author David Bach’s meeting with the automatic millionaire, one of his students (who was thirty years older than Bach; the teacher has become the student, apparently). This is when I realized that the only concept the book relies on is a farce.

Before I continue any further, let’s discuss the point of Millionaire for those who are unfamiliar with the work. Bach’s "one-step plan" is actually a series of steps toward becoming a millionaire in the very distant future and retiring early (the millionaire Bach meets with retires in his early fifties). The first step of one total step is to take your money and start paying off debt early (mortgages, etc.). The second step out of one is to stop amassing debt. The third and final step of the one-step plan is to cut down on how much you spend on worthless, over-valued things and save more money (while not necessarily taking in more money). These steps are great and I really like how Bach emphasizes that people need to save more (instead of making 50% more but spending 100% more), but I have yet to find an irrefutable reason to follow Bach’s three-step one-step method. I also disagree with Bach’s mathematical system, in which any combination of numbers adds up to one.

Here is my problem with Bach’s plan. Becoming an automatic millionaire relies on being niggardly and cheap for the young, fun, vivacious part of one’s life in exchange for having all the time and money in the world when one is old! In addition, there’s no guarantee that one will even live long enough to ever become a millionaire. Hence, Bach’s plan has a very high chance of failure in that if one dies before retirement, he fails. His plan is rooted in living a "now" that, although possibly acceptable, is limited all for the sake of achieving a "then" that probably will not even be that great if it ever comes.

For those who don’t grasp what I am saying, most likely because I am horible at explaining things, I’ll use an analogy. Bach’s plan, applied to sports, would imply that one should spend the majority of his life training and building the skills necessary to be succesful and then only actually competing in the sport when one is around the age of 50. Sure, one will have a lot of talent, but at some point the body starts to age and becomes unreliable. All the talent and resources in the world mean nothing once one can’t move due to a broken hip! This is what Bach’s plan is: save money for the entirety of life before retirement. The problem here is clear: no one knows if they will even reach retirement and if that point is reached, what about all the times one was required to limit himself when he was still young and sprightly?

The root of the problem is simple and omnipresent: People die. It happens. And Bach says to forget about that inevitability and assume that "it won’t happen to you; you’re exempt from everything in the world that seeks to destroy life." My feeling is that people need to accept the inevitability of mortality and live in the present. Spend today, buy a latte; it won’t make you evil or poor. Plan for the future but don’t let the prospects of consequences ruin what you have or can have now.

I just got back from the Sabres’ defeat at the HSBC Arena tonight. It was, of course, upsetting. I thought that, if we lost, the game would be close. After all, that’s the way the Sabres have been playing in the playoffs this year. I was wrong. They sucked.

At some point in the game, I realized what happened to the Sabres that suffered humiliating deafeats against teams like Ottawa and Carolina throughout the year. The team never went anywhere. Tonight’s Buffalo Sabres was the same Buffalo Sabres that lost to Ottawa and Carolina during the year and that defeated them during the postseason. The team has played this way all during the playoffs. What happened tonight was that the Sabres did not get their chances in the net. This is also what happened in game two of this series. In that game, Buffalo would have won had two of their very good chances gone in. Both chances were mere inches away from becoming goals (Wesley’s save and Roy’s breakaway shot to the skate of Cam Ward).

The same thing happened tonight. Buffalo had their chances. Did they go in? No, and they lost. Buffalo had some breakaway chances and one-timers; had these chances been carried out better, the Sabres would have won.

Every game has had many similarities (not counting Buffalo’s last three wins in the Philadelphia series). In all those games, Buffalo did not dominate the other team. They won because a few of their timely chances went in the net. The same was true of the first and third games of this series. When Buffalo could not get their chances, as in the second and fourth games of the series, they lost. The only games the Sabres dominated were three of their wins in Philadelphia. They still won in Ottawa and two games against Carolina, but only because they got a few of their chances in.

Another similarity is Buffalo’s lack of chances after setting up in the offensive zone. Tonight was no different. Buffalo had the play set up in Carolina’s zone several times. However, they did not score any of those times, just like in the rest of the playoffs. Tonight the reason was that every shot that was not blocked hit the boards. The only way Buffalo has been able to score was on odd-man rushes or one-on-ones. Tonight they had those chances, but they didn’t go in, so Buffalo lost.

As a side note, if anyone wants to blame tonight’s loss on goaltending, don’t. I’ll assume the first goal was deflected and I know the second and final goals went off of Sabres players. The third goal was the result of a rebound that did not go to the funnel. Instead, the rebound went about a foot away from Miller’s right leg. Afterward, the Carolina player skated in and put the rebound in the net before Miller could get to it. This player should have never been allowed to skate right to the net untouched. This loss was not Miller’s fault.

I no longer think the Sabres will win the cup. If they do, then I’ll know that the Stanley Cup champion does not have to be a great team. However, all the champion has to do is get their chances in, even if they are outplayed the rest of the time. If the Sabres win the cup, the champion will fit that description. If Carolina wins, I still don’t think the champion will be that good of a team.

If a team from the Western Conference wins, then I won’t know what to think, because I don’t know anything about the teams from the west.