Taro T

Do you have outside sources of income (wife, investments, etc.)? If yes, you can (obviously) get by with less of a cushion than you would otherwise need. If not, save up or start networking to get funding. Either way, before you start, come up with a WELL THOUGHT OUT business plan. Understand who your clients would be, who the competition is (today and in the future), what sort of support staff you will require, what you expect cash flows to be like and what you plan for a source of funding to cover the startup costs and inevitable delays in having funds coming back in. It sounds like you have a handle on what products (or more accurately services) you expect to provide. Understand how many clients you will need to keep yourself out of the poor house and have a marketing plan for landing those clients. Try to get a handle on whether the clients' business environments will change to the point that it will affect their demand for your service. No matter how well you plan for the 1st effort, there will be things that are "surprises". Knowing people that have started up the type of firm you look to begin would be enormously helpful. As others here have mentioned, get invoices out quickly and make sure that your clients pay on schedule. I've hit a slow patch, but the wife's income is enough to minimize the hurt of the "growing pains". Hit the 1 year mark of being independent this month. 1st 9 months went very well, last 3 not as well as I would like, but business has picked up recently and May is shaping up to be a rebound month for me.

Darn old fashioned phones. Never a cell phone around when you need one! Thanks.

Happy B-day all. To JSP - What no birthday BotD? Just because it's your birthday doesn't mean you should be the only one to get a present! Happy Birthday anyway.

[sarcasm]Are you kidding, Peter (we're not worthy) Forsberg KNEW his team needed a momentum shifter in the 1st and that is why he leapt 14 inches in the air to hit the shorter Briere. He KNEW his team would get a much needed shorthanded opportunity because they were due to get an odd man rush having gone 7-1/2 periods without one. He KNEW that Brian Savage would have a wrister from the blue line beat Ryan Miller short side (the same Ryan Miller that had a 1.63 gaa heading into this game). If you think he did NOT take over the game by taking that much needed, well timed penalty, then you simply don't understand the game of hockey. The other items you highlight merely cement his dominance of the game, as he knew that "fluke" goals would be much harder for the Sabres to overcome than mere outwork and outmuscle goals would have been.[/sarcasm]

Some of my favorite scenes from randomly assorted movies: Robert Hays deadpanning to the camera "what a pisser" after Julie Haggerty gets through with the breakup speech. Later in that movie when the passengers all line up to kick the heck out of the hysterical woman. Also, Beav's mom speaking "jive". "$50 the Smails kid picks his nose." ... "What in the wide, wide, world of sports is a goin' on here. I hired you men to put down some track not dance around like a bunch of Kansas City f*****s." "Hanrahan, Susanne's a d*ke. ..." "I'm listening to the f***ing song." The battle between Dark Helmet and Lonestar. The "beating" Ray gets in High Fidelity. The conversation between Chevy Chase and the cop after the dog is tied to the bumper. "Again. [tweet] Again. [tweet] Again. [tweet]" "My name is Mike Eruzione. ... I play for the United States of America." "C'mon Claire, just answer the question." "It's a simple question." "Answer the question." "OK, I never did it!" "I never did it either. I'm not a nymphomaniac, I'm a habitual liar." The recruiter's office in Stripes. Also, John Candy becoming "a lean, mean, fighting machine"! "Ray, when someone asks if you are a God, answer YES"! I'm sure I'm missing a ton of one's I consider "classics" but with it being late and having a sick kid, that will have to be enough for now.

I wouldn't expect to see them draft any quarterbacks in this draft. They won't draft one high, because they have too many other positions to fill holes at. (If Young is somehow there at 8; hello trade offers, Marv is listening.) And I don't see them grabbing one in the late rounds because realistically the guy would be practice squad fodder with the Bills already having 2 relatively young inexperienced quarterbacks and a veteran to back them up. They can get the practice squad guy in "the 8th round" as I expect there to be a few guys with potential that don't get drafted. Drafting a quarterback at some point in the '07 draft would make a lot more sense to me than grabbing one this weekend. As they will most likely know whether they like (or hate) Losman and/or Nall and I would not be surprised to see one of them gone, or if Marv and Dick like what they see out of both then I'd expect Kelly to be gone. Either way, they will probably know who their qb is heading into '07 and will know who the backup is. It makes more sense to bring in a young "qb of the future" to be the 3rd stringer at that time or at least battle with this year's practice squad guy for that title.

I am aware that you already know this; but for those who don't, the Pacino quote was from "And Justice For All". By the way, aren't you supposed to be tied up somewhere waiting for your rettata fest?

Maybe we could take up a collection for her to make up for "alienating her fan base".

Classic!

Someone from Philly viewing area could answer more definitively, but apparently the reason that Phlyer feeds of games don't end up on DirecTV is due to some war that Comcast has with satellite providers. The Philly Comcast is one of the very few RSN's that aren't on the DirecTV sports package. As mentioned, I don't have many details about that one, perhaps Clements22 or one of the other people in Filly could give a better answer.

Sorry, BiB, but that one is fake.

The front of the shirt is plain. No logo. No text.

Who cares if she can sing?!? She's hot and she likes hockey!

Well, not when you're calling in air strikes.

Not only is she hot, she's a hockey fan!

Actually, as much as I like to believe in conspiracy theories against Buffalo teams, the other 2 (not so) subtle differences are why he didn't get suspended this time. 1. Wellwood did end up injured, Thomas didn't. While I think the discipline should be based on intent far more than outcome, the league has NEVER looked at it that way. Had Vanek been hurt like Cole was (or worse), then Gauthier would have received a suspension (in all likelihood). 2. As (IIRC) Colie Campbell stated, in reference to Varada being headbutted in the Finals, "the playoffs are different". While discipline shouldn't be less severe for actions that have legitimate chances to injure players AND also appear to have been intents TO injure in the playoffs, the league has never agreed with me on that one. I can't recall anyone ever getting suspended in the playoffs (at least under the current regime) for a play that DIDN'T injure someone. Even though it send the completely wrong message to players, the league doesn't suspend people unless someone is injured; especially in the playoffs. Unfortunately, in this situation, the best the Sabres realistically could have hoped for was Vanek not being injured and the refs calling the game the way it should be called. They did get that. They also get to play against one extra pylon for (hopefully only) 2 more games.

Well, they definitely have the a-dope part down. Not sure what they plan to do for the rope. (But I do have some ideas for what they could do WITH a rope!)

Team with the best seeding gets home ice. By virtue of "winning" the Atlantic Division, NJ is considered the 3rd seed and will have home ice over anyone but Carolina or Ottawa in the East. Assuming Buffalo and NJ both win, if Carolina and Ottawa win, Buffalo plays Otters next round. If 1 of higher seeds wins and one loses, Buffalo plays in Joisey. If both top seeds are knocked off, Buffalo hosts Moe-ray-aal. Home ice for the SC finals is based on record.

TSN is owned primarily by Bell Globemedia. (ESPN has a minority stake, thus all the sets on Sportscentre looking like Sportscenter.) OLN in the US is owned by Comcast which also owns the Phlyers. OLN Canada, which does not show NHL games, is apparently owned by Bell Globemedia, Rogers Media (which owns Rogers Sports Net), and Comcast. Though TSN and Comcast both share ownership of OLN Canada, I do not believe that the same people would be running TSN and OLN (US). As near as I can tell, the NHL owns the "Center Ice" franchise. I personally would lay blame for CI NOT showing a game they were supposed to show with them. You would think that it wouldn't be too expensive for them to give some kid $10 bucks to watch the games and tell someone to switch the #$!@%! feeds if one of them has "technical difficulties" or just does what TSN did and switches away from the game. (I'm certain they can work out rights fee issues as posters here have stated that eventually the TSN feed was replaced by the MSG feed.) IIRC, this kind of happened on NFL Sunday Ticket when the Bills beat NE 31-0. A friend of mine watching the game in the NYC market couldn't watch the game on ST because the game was being shown over air in NYC. When the game became a blowout, the NYC station switched to something else, and my friend couldn't watch the end of the game because ST had blacked out the ST feed because the game was being broadcast (theoretically) in NYC.

And this is a bad thing because ...?

Gauthier got a game misconduct to go with his 5 minute major for hitting Vanek from behind. Eager was a little over eager and got a 10 minute misconduct in the 2nd and another after he finally got out of the box in the 3rd. Neither is scheduled to miss Wednesday's game as of my writing this, but I do expect Gauthier's hit to be reviewed and he MAY (or may not, this is the NHL) receive additional discipline.

Doesn't matter, as long as they keep icing teams that the Sabres can win 10 of 12 from during the regular season, they can do whatever they want!

Not quite true. Bruins fans hate the new NHL as well.

If you are in Buffalo or Rochester (and probably a few other places in NY), during the 1st round (definitely) and the 2nd round (most likely) the OLN Sabres games will be blacked out because MSG has the broadcast rights for the region. On DirecTV, the game will typically be on 627 (although there could be some sort of perfect storm of NYC based games going on and the game could move to 625). MSG will definitely show all the round 1 games except game 5. That is an NBC game. OLN and NBC have the final 2 rounds exclusively, so CI goes away and so does MSG coverage of the Sabres (assuming they get there).

That's how it went.