The Fireside

The Sens have made it to Round 2!! As great as this is, I will also examine the rest of Round 2 and give my thoughts on who I want to see win, and move on. Ottawa had a few close calls against Boston, but they made it through. So, without further ado, the rest..... Washington vs Pitssburgh: Washington I'm sorry, Pens, but you're not all high-and-mighty, or holier-than-tho. Nashville vs St Louis: St Louis I'd love to see St Louis advance!! Anaheim vs Edmonton: Edmonton This round will be tricky.... So, here's hoping Round 2 will go as I hope. Ottawa facing off against Washington for the Eastern Final, and Edmonton facing off against St Louis in the Western final. I would love to see an Ottawa - St Louis cup game, or an Ottawa - Edmonton one. We'll see.....

So I've been playing quite a bit of Zelda: Breath of the Wild  lately. I enjoy taking my time with these games, and doing non-essential stuff as I progress through the main game, which takes a longer time to progress story-wise. There are 4 Divine Beasts, each of which is...influenced by a scourge, called a blight. You have a Waterblight, a Fireblight, a Thunderblight, and a Windblight. Those serve as your 'dungeon boss'. I have conquered 2 of the 4 blights thus far. 2 more remain before I even consider myself ready at the earliest to take on the darkness itself. Oh - and yes my blog post title is a Pirates 2  quote. Once you're off the Plateau, which is where I left my previous 'progress review', the world is literally your oyster. You can head in any direction you wish. Storywise, you're to head to Kakariko Village next. I did that, while using my amiibo for the first time. At the very worst, I do 'daily' scans if I can't "play" the...

[click to enlarge] So the time has come - the first round of the 2017 Stanley Cup Playoffs has been announced. The board is set, the pieces need to move. I am also quite glad that my Ottawa Senators have made it in. In fact, so have Montreal and Toronto, much to the fans' delight. As is somewhat custom, I will break down my first round bracket for which teams I'd love to see advance onto the next round. THE EAST Montreal vs NY Rangers As an Ottawa fan, I'm not a Montreal fan. As long as Ottawa keeps moving forward full-steam, the other Canadian teams don't matter to me 'just because' they're Canadian. This one looks iffy, though. Either team could move on, so it'll be interesting. I'm calling that it'll be the Rangers, in 6 or 7 games. Ottawa vs Boston THIS will be a great round. Not just because it's the Sens, but because they'll be up against the Bruins. Of course, I'd lvoe tos ee Ottawa move on....but it could be a tough round. W...

I this post, I'm going to give a rundown of the Tolkien books coming up in the next while worthy of note. First up, as I previously reported, is what will most likely be this year's main Tolkien event, the publication of Beren and Luthien . It will be available in hardback and deluxe edition formats. Also, coming out, is Hammond + Scull's revised edition of their Tolkien Companion and Guide . It will be 3 physical books total, with the Reader's Guide being split into two. The ISBN for this set is 9780008214548. There will also be a sketchbook of John Howe's artwork titled A Middle-earth Traveller , with an ISBN of  9780008226770. David Harvey's book about Tolkien, myth, and Middle-earth, The Song of Middle-earth , will be publishing in a print-on-demand hardback from tolkien.co.uk with an ISBN of  9780008184834. Finally, for 2017 that is, Jemima Catlin's colour illustrated edition of The Hobbit  in paperback is arriving in September, just in time for The Hob...

As time goes on, I like to recommend more and more items to people. This could be due to age, social circles of various areas expanding, or the openness of geekdom within the past 5-10 years; [compared to, well, ever.] where cons have been popping up more and more often, and more and more people attend them. I also somewhat got the idea from the famed TV, one of the few early ones, that made geeky 'cool' - The OC . Not for sake of being cool, mind you, but the fact that it shows you don't have to, or should, change who you are. I am of course referring to Seth Cohen. In particular, come the Holidays "Chrismukkah", to be precise) Seth finds himself dating two girls at once. It's been a while since I've watched, so I forget which 'stage' of the relationship he's at with each woman. Because of the fact he can't [immediately] choose, he gifts them both the exact thing: "The Seth Cohen Starter Pack.". Now, my situation is vastly differ...