Tonight on Facebook, HGTV asked about people playing a House Hunters drinking game. Immediately it was flooded with people asking what the rules were. So I made up my own and posted them there. I thought it was fun enough to put here.

My original posted drinking game:

Take a sip if
-buyer complains no stainless steel appliances.
-buyer is told the selling price is above what they set their limit at.
-realtor “educates” the buyer with some sarcasm.
-more than 2 requirements specified by the buyer are unmet at the property being viewed.
-for each pet the buyer owns, because animals are awesome.
-buyer uses the phrase “this is (just) incredible!” (possibly a HH International specific rule)
-one of the rooms in the house has a color of paint that is just atrocious. What were they thinking?
-the property needs over $15,000 in repairs.
-a spouse disagrees with their significant other.

2 sips
-if you know before they walk in the door there is no way in hell they are buying that house.
-every time you see a bidet.
-if the realtor and a single buyer get flirty at all.
-buyer picks the wrong house.

3 sips
-if the realtor and a married buyer get flirty at all.
-if you are openly laughing at a design decision of a home owner as you view their house on the screen, buyer’s house or one they are looking at.
-the realtor is at the “6 months later” get together party with all the friends and family.
-that time during each show that you feel it is trying to mislead you to believe the buyer really loves one property only for them to pick a different one at the reveal.

Drink everything in the house if
-you are over 75% sure the realtor and buyer hooked up.
-the buyer actually chooses the right house.

Others peoples’ that merit mentioning and are not my own:

-Every time the wife goes “Well this closet will fit all of my clothes, what about yours?”

-”Open floor plan”

-”Oh, this will be great for entertaining”

-Take a drink if Suzanne Whang is shown walking along a hedge or through a park that is clearly a thousand miles away from where the featured homes.

-”We’ll keep it on the list.”

-”I really don’t think 4500 sq ft is enough for 4 of us.”

-”I really wanted granite countertops.”

Apparently you can Google it and find other lists too.

And why does size matter? Why are these jackasses so proud that their kills are bigger? First of all, the bigger something is, the larger of a target it is. IT’S EASIER TO HIT. You should be looking for things that are smaller. Hitting a bear from 200 yards out with a rifle that can hit an apple takes no skill. Why don’t you hunt fucking squirrels from 200 yards out, and then we’ll see how bad ass you are.

And second, it isn’t like you spent any additional energy on killing it. You pulled a fucking trigger. You didn’t even have to pull it any harder than you usually do. The animal goes down either way as long as you manage not to miss. And if you do miss hitting a deer that is completely unsuspecting with a goddamn sniper rifle AND scope, then you should have to turn the gun on yourself. Then, things might actually be a little challenging.

Like I said, I’ve never been hunting. I’m sure normal people who don’t spend all of their lives out in the woods need this kind of hunting drive-thru lane in these little slaughter farm forests. Climb up the tree, find a deer, shoot it, get your picture with it, and take it home. I get it, people have jobs and shit and can’t go become skilled warrior hunters like back before hot pockets and management meetings were invented. But shouldn’t the guys hosting the damn TV shows be the Mario Batalis of hunting and not the Sandra Lees?

I think the most interesting thing is going to be whether Kovalchuk takes a pay cut to be on a team that can make the playoffs and could contend for the cup, or just goes for all the money. A lot of people talk about how he likes to win, and that if it was about money he could have just taken the offer from Atlanta since it was just about the maximum. If he really was checking out homes in the NJ area recently, that seems at least like an indication that he might seriously be considering staying. This ties in to how some other sources say that he wants to be in a place where he isn’t harassed by the media or fans, and can live a low-key life, something we know Brodeur has mentioned as well.

What he is worth and what he can get are two different things, too. I’m sure he’ll have every chance in the world to go get the maximum from like, Edmonton, but does he really have a shot to win it all with those types of teams? It would be more of the same as in Atlanta.

Every great team, especially the ones centered around a few specific players, have had those players make sacrifices for the team. Neither Crosby or Ovechkin have the league maximum, even if they are pretty close. The best example we have is Brodeur and his salary. He’s getting paid no matter what, especially now that he is branding himself, and we get a great deal at $5.2m a year. If Kovalchuk wants to really compete, he is going to have to take a pay cut regardless of the team. That isn’t to say we are the surefire winners, but if you take a look at the team everyone thinks he will go to, LA has even more cap tied up next year than we do and a lot of UFAs too, and are another team who went in the first round just like us and won only 1 more game in their series. So I don’t see why he couldn’t choose to stay here and get roughly the same amount he will get from LA or somewhere in a similar position.

Reading some comments on Fire & Ice, I noticed TG said he knew lots of colleagues or sources who think that he doesn’t make the people around him better, and that he is unproven. His team has only won 1 playoff game in 9 chances. You would think he could steal at least one of them if he is wanting a contract that is Crosby or Ovechkin-esque. I wonder how that will factor in to the teams who are competitive and already have high-caliber players, where he becomes just one of the core stars instead of leading the team basically by himself.

I thought an odd comment was TG saying that most people around the league would take Crosby and Malkin over Parise and Kovalchuk because being strong down the middle and having good D seems to be what wins. I completely agree that our D and centers are hurting and that this seems to be a winning formula in the NHL right now, and a large Kovalchuk contract will most likely kill our chances to really fill those holes, but on the other hand how many other teams who don’t have Crosby and Malkin would take Parise and Kovalchuk if given the chance? And can we supplement the center and D positions well enough in the coming years around those two even if they aren’t the best center combo in the league like the Pens have? They lose this year too, so it can’t be the ONLY way to win.

The only thing so far I’ve been disappointed to hear about is players being upset with how much ice time and free reign he was given. He did what was asked of him regarding his position, as well as did his job of putting some pucks in the net (and getting a lot of assists too). While I think he was misused and overplayed on the power play, he was deserving of most of his minutes. His production wasn’t as huge and didn’t pull the team up like everyone hoped, but that now seems to be more because of coach vs. players issues anyway, and nonetheless the numbers are still fairly decent, all things considered.

As far as anyone telling Lou to just walk away or not bother, or just sign him no matter what, I just don’t get that. Lou is a professional GM and has won 3 Stanley Cups (as well as taking a crappy expansion team to being Stanley Cup champions within a very short time period). The only way this is going to happen is with the utmost professionalism, where he and Vanderbeek will sit down and discuss all the factors and what they are comfortable doing just as reported by the press. The fact is, while Lou steers the ship, the money comes from Vanderbeek and the hugeness of his salary vs. the possible income he will generate will be big factors to be considered as well. These men haven’t become the best in their respective professions by doing things on a whim or not bothering to research and seek out every possibility.

As for my own opinion, I think there is a very slim salary range that we could offer to Kovalchuk, that might even be slightly insulting to him, but still high enough that he might take it if he just for some reason really wants to play here. If that is the case, I am all for signing him. Everyone always complains that we don’t keep our stars and just keep getting lesser players and ones who “fill roles,” well, Kovalchuk is our chance at a star. If that happens, I think the next year or two are going to be seen as transition years anyway much in the same way that Sutter’s first years were too. I remember them talking about a 3-year plan that he and Lou had for the team regarding adapting style and getting the type of players they wanted. The next 1-2 years may very well be waiting out some big contracts while getting Josefson and Tedenby up to becoming rarely 1st/mostly 2nd or 3rd liners, and getting Kovalchuk adapted into the team while trying to fix our D up and figuring out Marty’s replacement. If Josefson emerges as the center everyone wants him to be and we also re-sign Parise, there is every chance that we can go into the 3rd or 4th years with Brodeur sharing time with our future goaltender, some solid guys on D, a decent 1-2 punch with our top 2 lines, and hopefully some depth as well. It will also help us that Parise is an RFA next year, so we can attempt to take this gamble and use the next 1-2 years to re-tool while still being relatively competitive, though probably not Cup-winning. With the extra contracts coming off in his RFA and UFA years, I see no reason why Kovalchuk and Parise can’t be signed here together long term as our cap-eating contracts end in the next 1-2 years. This is probably the most optomistic goal that ensures the future of the team more, both financially and competitively, in the long run.

If the contract Kovalchuk wants is just too high and would completely cripple our team even in the long term, we have to go after a top D and top centerman while retaining Paul Martin. Truthfully we should try to retain Paul Martin either way, but having Kovalchuk and Parise long term might be worth it to continue to suffer on D for the next year or two. This maybe gives us a better shot to win now, but we miss out on having a real superstar and our future is a little more uncertain I think, and not guaranteed to necessarily be better than if we take the chance on Kovy.

As a quick note regarding the argument that we aren’t a winning team, so Kovalchuk has less of an incentive to play here for that reason: I realize our performance the past 4 years dictates otherwise, but I think with a few quick changes and a new coach that the Devils can easily be competitive and I don’t think there is any doubt that they at least make the playoffs again. Even if it is closer to the 5-7 spots rather than winning the division, as the East dictated this year, once the playoffs start anything can happen. So I think re-signing Kovalchuk could go either way, especially if Kovalchuk is serious about wanting to be on a team who consistently wins and who could definitely manage 1 or 2 cups during his 7-10 year contract (and has the recent track record of doing that in the past 15 years). All the other perks of being with a first class organization and a nice/convenient area to live in help too. For all he or anyone knows, we might get a coach who clicks, gets the team firing on all cylinders like Dave Tippett did for Phoenix, and we do great just as easily as it can go the complete opposite direction.

I think we all know this device has to be universal in its approach and appeal to everyone, much like the iPhone. The iPhone is great because with all the apps available for it, the machine can be whatever you need it to be. Apple would be silly not to continue this experience, so it was no surprise that this new device is rumored to run the same OS that the iPhone uses.

It only makes sense that this tablet, built on the iPhone OS, will have strong interaction with the iPhone/iPod Touch. For example, the tablet could play a movie sitting in a stand on your desk while the iPhone is your remote control. This is just one very basic idea, but if you use your imagination you could easily see how the iPhone could become a gamepad that is completely on the touch screen, and play a full-screen game on your tablet.

It is surprising to me that no one has talked about this device being possibly subsidized by wireless carriers. Any truly next-gen device that is important and this connected to the web has to be able to connect from anywhere and not just limited to wifi hotsports. Verizon Wireless has told their employees there will be a big announcement for them tomorrow as well. While this probably partially relates to the iPhone being available on their network, I wouldn’t be surprised if the tablet is also announced as available through them and other carriers as well. This tablet could also use the hybrid GSM (AT&T, Tmobile) and CDMA (Verizon, Sprint) chips reported for the next iPhone. It seems that many rumor reports are suggesting that these devices will have 3G chips, so I doubt I’m wrong here.

This means the rumored $1000 price tag would drop by a few hundred dollars. Even getting it down to $600-700 would bring in many more customers for Apple, who is getting its money anyway from the carriers who are taking a hit on the device to lock people into a contract. Carriers already sell netbooks from HP and Dell in stores, it seems that they could sell the tablet just like both AT&T and Apple stores sell the iPhone as it is. As this isn’t a phone, it may be able to do data only, making it even more accessible to people who might otherwise have netbooks or laptops. Much like the iPhone, within 2-3 years the older versions could be reduced in price to only $200-300. Given that iPhone sales doubled in the past quarter to bring Apple record profits, I think it is clear people are willing to pay that. However, as I’ll mention below, I think including voice would be a good idea.

For the record though, I think the device by itself without being subsidized will not cost $1000.  This is simply too inaccessible for most people, and Apple surely wants this to be as big as the iPhone. I think with subsidies from the carriers, a price of $200-300 is more realistic from the start if they want to achieve iPhone-like success.

Still, Jobs says this is important, which makes me think he is trying to revolutionize how we connect to the rest of the world. A front-facing camera is something that is rumored and I think Apple would be silly not to include it, since it would act as a webcam which is already becoming a standard on any type of device bigger than a phone or mp3 player. I think Apple could really be revolutionary with a device that allows for video chat like this. While the device will probably have a speaker and microphone, a bluetooth headset could easily be used to make this able to act just like a cell phone and give you some privacy. If this tablet runs the iPhone OS, there is no reason that the dialer and all that couldn’t be put on the tablet as well. You might even be able to have the iPhone use software to forward the call to your tablet or vice versa. I think including the capabilities of connecting to a wireless voice network would be a good idea for this reason.

As a sidenote, the next iPhone should also have a front facing camera. This is something people have been wanting for years for this very reason. The iPhone could be the mini, portable alternative when your tablet is too big to bring along somewhere.

I say all these predictions because I think this is the ultimate way of our personal communication technology as we go into the future. It will only be a matter of time until cell phones devolve in size and scope into what are currently bluetooth headsets, and we all instead have some type of ‘tablet’ device for everything we need as well as an interface to the headset. I think this could easily happen within 10-20 years (certainly within 40), as we have already shown how the cell phone has gone from a giant-yet-still-portable analog device that looked like a walkie-talkie in the 90s to the current sleek, sophisticated mini-computers capable of rendering 3D games and connecting you to biggest assembled collection of knowledge the world has ever known. One drawback is the tablet may be a little bigger than a cell phone and more of a burden to carry around, but we already carry around laptops and netbooks which are arguably bigger and heavier than what I expect the tablet to be. All you would ever need to carry could be your tablet. Paper, books, etc. would all become obsolete.

Ray Kurzweil recently suggested we would have glasses which overlay information, and while I still think that may be possible, the only way you could input data would be either a mini-keyboard on a strap around your wrist, or verbal instructions (where you are forced to say everything you need out loud, thus risking privacy). Still, I think we will all just have tablet devices as an all-in-one notepad, media device, communicator, book/newspaper/magazine reader, PDA, internet device, and so on. It just makes the most sense to have this all in one flat, universal device that is always accessible for you. If you need to call someone, you dial on your tablet and your bluetooth headset does the rest. A device that is a little bigger than this Dell device shown at CES, which is still at least managable on your hip or in very big pockets, could be the perfect fit between being portable and small enough to bring anywhere, yet large enough to do everything short of serious work that requires a desktop/laptop (such as writing novels).

Moving on, I think this new tablet may make devices like Kindle a bit more obsolete over time. I know e-ink is great because it doesn’t strain your eyes, but if you need to spend hundreds of dollars, you might as well get the device that does everything all in one. The iPhone screen is too small to effectively use the Kindle software or any other ebook reader. I’m sure much time was spent on the exact dimensions to make the tablet large enough that it can easily display pages of books, newspapers, etc. The screen already seems like it will be bigger than the Kindle, so at that point it just becomes really hard to justify spending $250 on a black and white device that only reads books. I think Amazon, along with other ebook reading devices, will need to dramatically lower their prices to continue selling within 2-3 years, maybe even to the $50 point as we start to make everything digital. At that point though, there is no reason the Kindle can’t still turn a profit as it is a very basic device. This is not to say it is cheap, but it certainly doesn’t require the same type of advanced chips and horsepower of an iPhone or Google’s Nexus One phone, and the prices of both the Kindle 2 and Barnes and Nobles’ nook are currently a bit ridiculous when you consider what you are actually getting hardware-wise.

I must admit that I really can’t fathom how data entry will work. This device seems too big to have a keyboard that you could easily tap with thumbs. Holding the device with one hand and typing with the other seems like it will become a bit of a pain in the ass and would be very slow. A great way to alleviate this would be have an iPhone/iPod Touch “keyboard” app that simply has a full-screen keyboard connected to the tablet over bluetooth. This way you can use the touchscreen of the tablet to click around and work as a mouse, and the typing would become a bit faster by using the smaller device just for a keyboard. This also means that the keyboard won’t take up space on the tablet and it could be propped up and work more like a traditional computer monitor or more similar to the many large touch-screen all-in-one computers being produced (like the HP TouchSmart series).

As for what I hope it isn’t: Just an iPhone with apps that are tailored for the bigger screen, that make things like newspapers and games a bit more accessible due to the added size and horsepower that is likely to be under the hood. I know everyone is already in a frenzy over this thing and no one has seen it yet, but I think it would be a big let down if it is just an oversized iPhone.

I guess we’ll see tomorrow.

Tracy and I had actually received the package yesterday, but it didn’t come until 7PM. Luckily as it had not arrived in the day time, I decided to order a pizza as Tracy and I were both starving which wound up arriving before the lobsters did. I had skipped lunch in preparation for the meal both days, so it really had to be kind of an early dinner. The lobsters were both alive and, remarkably, every steamer opened. There was only one that tasted a little off to me which I had to spit out, but this is pretty remarkable given they were shipped by FedEx overnight and probably tossed around quite a bit and were out of water for 2 days.

We slept in, got breakfast a little late, and spent 3 hours from 4-7:30 at my in-laws house opening presents and snacking on some finger food like crackers and dip and a fantastic edible bouquet of fruit that was sent by my Mom to us. As I got home, I decided the plan of action would be to cook the lobsters, and while they were cooking get the shrimp cocktail on a plate and time a bag of frozen vegetables that steam in a bag. This time it was red potato and green beans in rosemary butter sauce.

The meal was fantastic as I already mentioned. I separated the lobsters and steamers because both get cold very fast, and there is no way I could prepare it all, serve, and eat an appetizer and main course at the same time. Since Tracy was hungry it was just easiest to go with the main course first. I thought the chardonnay I had with it was a decent match as well.

Really though, Maine steamer clams, otherwise known as the soft-shell clam, pissneck clams or simply “steamers” if you are from the Northeast (if you order this expecting normal littlenecks that have been steamed or grilled while in New England, you will be in for a surprise) are my absolute favorite food ever.

There are a few foods I really love: a really good pizza (either NJ boardwalk/normal pizzaria style, or wood-fired oven gourmet-like pizza), lobsters, my mother’s chicken français (and her parmesan too for that matter), pho tai, and wild cherry Nerds. But when I say I love steamers, I mean love as in I once ate them 5 nights in a row on a trip to New Jersey a few years ago. I stayed with my favorite aunt for a few nights and each night was a different restaurant that had steamers as an appetizer. Each night I just asked for 2 orders of the appetizer. For years now at our family dinner ( which takes place at a seafood restaurant), I have ordered these an appetizer, and this is not the first time these have been shipped down to me as a present :)

There are very few pages about exactly what you do with these things on the web. A few pages have instructions on how to cook, one great one shows how to eat them kind of, but I don’t think any really pay attention to this fantastic food or try to further it. I would really implore anyone who orders one of these lobster dinners to try the steamers instead of the safe route of mussels, clam chowder, or shrimp. Here is a photo from the cover showing some decent detail of them after they are done cooking:

I cooked the steamers in the same can as I cooked the lobsters in with about an inch of water and some of the chardonnay. I usually have a metal steamer basket to keep the clams out of the water but I couldn’t find it. Either way though, they take roughly 8-10 minutes to cook. Shellfish cooking is tricky. This is something you set a timer for. If they are undercooked, you could be in a lot of pain after eating them, and overcooking even slightly will give you rubbery food. As they are cooking, you should have some drawn butter (or just melted butter if you don’t have flour or are just slacking) being melted on the stove as well. I also setup the area I’ll be eating at since it requires a little bit of a system to eat these.

From left to right, we have the bowl of cooked steamers, an empty bowl for the shells and the skin that covers the tails, broth/cooking liquid from the pot, and some butter. I usually squeeze the lemon right into the butter rather than try to get some on each clam for the sake of simplicity. As we are dealing with dipping wet food in multiple bowls, paper towels or newspapers are a great idea. I setup on my kitchen counter since I was eating alone and it was easiest.

First, peel away one side of the shell, grab the tail near the base where it connects to the clam shell, and try to begin ripping out moving inwards towards the ‘meat’ of the clam. Keep it intact as best as possible, but often this will rip in some way. What is important is the middle fleshy party remains intact until it goes in your mouth. If this bulbous part is punctured, the guts spill out and the steamer is basically wasted. Then, pinch the black skin from the same area on the base of the tail where it was connected to the shell, and pull back to remove. The best way I can describe this is as if you are removing a condom.

The finished product should hopefully look something like this. With this clam, the middle part is actually separated a bit from the siphon ducts which lead to the tail, but still relatively intact including the fleshy bulb part that is hanging on the bottom. The tail starts off as tan like the rest of the clam, and fades to black by the time it gets to the tip.

From here, dip in the broth and swirl around to remove as much dirt as possible. Then, hold it over the broth for a bit to try to get all the broth off. You might also slightly tap it against the side of the broth bowl to get excess liquid off. This is kind of important. Although 1 steamer going from the broth to the butter doesn’t move much water over, often by the time you are halfway through you can easily have diluted the butter to have this murky, gray water mixed in, which just kind of ruins the rest of the meal in my opinion.

Some people grab by the tail and only eat the clammy part, and then throw the tails away. I see this as a waste, though in their defense the tail is very chewy and not very tasty. For me though it provides a nice contrast to the very mushy and tasty part.

The journey for me this time around was arduous. I had been snacking on food at the party, came home, had a huge lobster dinner with shrimp, vegetables, and wine, and now had 2 pounds of steamers ahead of me.

Still, there is no way in hell I am letting any go to waste. Finally, the last one was eaten.

After this, I poured the last glass of wine the bottle had to offer, came here to write this, and will now be promptly passing out in my bed.