Buying a condo: Step 2

Ok so tonight we had an appointment with the financial institution to examine our offer we put through to buy a condo last week. Seems like everything will be fine and we should be able to finalise everything in the next couple of days when we get the final confirmation that we have been accepted for our mortgage. My girlfiend is a nervous wreck and I can't talk to her about anything to try to make her feel better about everything because she won't hear anything...Oh well, I guess I'll have a little party by myself then.

More news later

2005's biggest shame in sports: Formula 1

Congratulations to Formula One who accomplished the biggest shame in the sporting world for the year 2005. Yes I know there are still 6 months left to 2005, but to witness something like this on television (even worse, on location in Indianapolis) has to be the worst kind of event you can witness in sports.

Yes I know you might not consider automotive racing a sport. But there is some kind of sporting spirit involved in racing. I know for a fact that Americans consider Nascar and Indy sporting events...so F1 falls in the same category.

Let's recap what happened:

During practice on Friday, both Toyota cars driven by Jarno Trulli and Ralf Schumacher ended up having accidents on blown left rear tires after going through the banked turns on the oval part of the Indianapolis Speedway. After exmining the tires closely, Michelin informed the teams using their tires that they couldn't identify the exact reason why the tires blew up. So they asked that the teams using their tires not run the race, fearing that the drivers could be driving under great danger with these tires.

After evaluating the possibility of driving with the same tires as they did in Barcelona (which under F1 regulations would disqualify the teams for using different tires between qualifying and the race) and 9 of 10 teams accepting to install a chicane in the last curve before entering the front staightaway, the Michelin teams (7 out 10 on the F1 circuit) decided they would not race because of the possible risk of accident. In order for the chicane to be installed, all 10 teams would have to have accepted it. Ferrari decided not to, saying they were standing behind the FIA and their decision.

In the end, all teams joined the starting grid. When the formation lap started, all teams but Ferrari, Jordan and Minardi entered the pits and decided not to run the race. Leaving 6 cars on the starting grid and a disappointing spectacle for the more than 100 000 fans at the Indianapolis Speedway. Needless to say that the only teams running the race are equipped with Bridgestone tires.

Minardi didn't want to run the race either in respect for the other teams equipped with Michelin. But since Jordan decided to run after all and Minardi are in a race for the "least worse team" in the constructors championship, they decided to go after all. Both Ferraris finished 1-2, Jordans finished 3-4 and Minardis finished 5-6.

In all my years that I have been a Formula 1 fan, I have never seen anything more ridiculous than this. There have been many unsportsmanlike events in some races (the Ferrari incident in Austria a couple of years ago) and the fact that Ferrari was dominating so much so the last 5 years that I kind of lost interest along the way. Since the championship was more interesting this season because Ferrari hadn't won a race so far this season, I was watching the races more closely than the previous years...but today was just ridiculous.

The USA always was a hard place to conquer for Formula 1. Basically because anything not american-made isn't that much interesting to them. I understand that. I was at Indianapolis in 2000 for the return of Formula 1 for the first time in almost 10 years. 250 000 people were in the stands and seemed to enjoy the spectacle. In the past years, the attendance went down, but there were still over 100 000 people attending. After today's events, I highly doubt that Tony George and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway will want to host another Formula 1 Grand Prix in the upcoming years. I also doubt americans will have any kind of interest in the racing series.

I'll conclude on a comment from a race fan that was heard on TV during the race. He said: "I was a Formula 1 fan until today. Nascar or IRL would have never done anything like this"

I think that last comment says it all...and will give a general impression of what the american fans think of Formula 1 racing...

OK so I haven't spoken in like 6 months...

But that doesn't mean nothing happened in those 6 months.

Well for starters, I ended up going to Craps training in January for 2 months. Ends up I hate the stinking game and the players that play it even more. So I asked my team boss not to put me there anymore...To make a long story short, one night, about 1 month ago, I was there and a couple of players made 8 years of accumulated frustration against casino players explode in a single night. So I ended up leaving the craps table in tears and hating my job. For the first time in 8 years I hated my job. But, it was a relief though. I took a sick day the day after that event and when I came back to work 2 days later, I felt much better.

In other news, I have put up a better website for myself: www.steff.qc.ca It's been up since March and I the main part of it is the photo gallery I have there. You can find all my concert pics since 2003 (8 concerts in all -- 4 from Metallica) and other stuff. Although I am currently thinking about changing hosts and going with Powweb so I can build either a PHP or Mambo driven website which would be much nicer...I think...hehe.

Also, my girlfriend and I are on the verge of buying a condominium in Brossard, on the south shore of Montreal. It's awesome and we only need to have our credit approved next week to make it official. It's a brand new building so we'd be the first ones to live in it. So new in fact that the street where we'd be living is still on gravel. Very much like my friend Dave explains it, it's a nerve racking process and since we signed for the conditional offer on wednesday, I've been more stressed than I can ever remember in my life. You can see outside pics of my future condo here. If everything goes well, we should be able to move into the condo by the end of September. Can't wait!

In a previous post from November, I mentioned I was an uncle for the second time of a cute little boy named Anthony-James. Most people in my family call him Anthony, I prefer calling him AJ, although at 7 months, he doesn't quite pick up the name AJ yet...lol. Oh well, I'm sure it'll come in time. Pretty soon I'll be putting up some pictures of him from May 18th...I just need to remove the red-eyes from the pics as I completely forgot to tweak the flash on my camera when I took the pictures.

So that's about all that's been going on in my life. Hope you didn't miss me too much although I'm sure I didn't get many visits here. Pretty soon I expect that to change though.

No hockey this season? Maybe...Maybe not...

Well it looks like as if the hockey season might get cancelled...The NHL owners are going to meet on January 14th (kind of a late date cnosidering the fact that in 94-95, after the player's strike, the season started January 20th) and are probably going to decide on cancelling the season.

If that happens, eventually the owners might get what they want: A player's union falling apart...For the 2005-2006 season, there will be over 400 players without a contract which represents more than 50% of the league's total players.

Chris Pronger even said in an interview that he doesn't think there will be hockey before 2006...that's encouraging isn't it?

I also came across this Sporting News analyst Paul Grant's article on Yahoo Sports which gives interesting numbers on the 4 pro leagues (NHL, MLB, NBA and NFL) Did you guys know that the Washington Redskins are the most valuable franchise of all professional sports? Not those damn Yankees...nooooooooo sir! The Redskins are the most expensive franchise evaluated at an astounding $1.1 billion, while the Yanks are only worth somewhere around $832 million...while the New York Rangers are the most expensive team in the NHL at a lowly $232 million...Interesting...

Enjoy the numbers...oh and by the way...the NHL ought to find a way to get TV contracts like the NFL and MLB if they want to survive somehow...How in the world could they NOT think about trying to make something out of TV for this sport???

Goodenow and Bettman meet...Hockey soon?

As I mentioned in a previous post on my blog, a friend of mine told me that he had reliable sources informing him that there would be hockey in the NHL on January 15 as the players were ready to sit and talk seriously about signing a new bargaining agreement in order to save the 2004-05 season (or at least the 2005 season).

Well, Goodenow and Bettman finally met and this time it was the NHLPA that brought the biggest arguments so far in order to reach a new deal. Here are some of the aspects of this new proposal:

- 24% cut in player salaries effective immediately when the season starts. This will mean a $528 million rollback in the next 3 years.
- Future Salary Restraints (Entry Level System, Qualified Offers and Arbitration), meaning that the salary cap for rookies entering the NHL would be lowered to something around 800 000$ per season. The bonuses that these players can earn would also be brought down, resulting in a rollback of about 55% in salaries for "first contract" players.
- A payroll tax with thresholds that begin at $45M, tax rates between 20% and 60% for first time taxpayers and higher rates for repeat taxpayers. If a club triggers the tax, its payments will be pooled for distribution by the NHL and NHLPA.
- A revenue distribution plan in order to help poorer teams with options ranging from $65 million to $190 million.
- Comittees formed in order to help make the game more interesting, better marketing and the permission from the NHL to let the players participate in the Olympic Games in 2006 and 2010.

For those of you interesed in the technical side of the new proposition made by the NHLPA, you can actually find it here. Surprisingly, it is a veryyyyyy heavy document with 235 pages! Good thing someone was kind enough to make a draft of the important points in the proposition.

Personally, I think this is good. The players are not 100% happy with it but most of them so far are acknowledging the fact that this is about as far as they have to go in order to save the season. The only problem is that in this proposition made by the NHLPA, nothing has been said about a system to keep the players from making or asking for as much money when the become free agents. Sure the teams will save a lot of money, but it won't stop stronger teams from getting even better. For example, take the Detroit Red Wings...They are already one of the strongest teams in the league. Won't they be happy to be able to save 24% in salaries on the signed players that they already have in their roster??? Say they currently have $50 million in salaries to pay, by saving 24%, they will save $12 million. If you were the Detroit GM, what would you do? Go after some free agents and offer them something like 6 million per year and there you go...2 extra players on your team to make it even stronger...It's a wheel that keeps turning and somehow, I don't think that they will have resolved this problem by taking salaries down 24%...Something has to be done with the free agents and the amount of money they are making.

But otherwise, it's a very interesting offer from the players' side. Let's hope that they can reach an agreement soon and start a new season somewhere in January... I said January 15 there was going to be hockey in the NHL...with the looks of this last offer, I wouldn't be surprised if that actually happened.

I miss my Coyotes and even more so now that they had signed a bunch of free agents and had built a pretty decent team for the upcoming season.

Come on boys...lace your skates and get ready to play!!!!!