der meister

"Look, the fact of the matter is that isn't the way any team wants their season to end, and we are no different. Even if we felt like we deserved to win, no one ever deserves to win. Did New York get some lucky bounces? Yeah, they did. I thought for the most part we outplayed them, but they ended up on top. Maybe we go on to beat Seattle or Calgary or whoever, or maybe our bad luck hits in the next round. The real takeaway is that I wasn't good enough, and as a team, we were not good enough." Those were the parting words from Toronto Legion winger-turned-center Konstyantyn Shevchenko on locker clean out day. His words were echoed by various teammates, and by General Manager Doug Stevenson, Jr. later in the afternoon. The general attitude of determined disappointment came up repeatedly, and time will tell what the Legion are able to do this offseason to help their chances of a more successful campaign next year. "I'm going to head to Vienna to visit with my parents and take some time to heal from a few nagging things," Shevchenko revealed. "Moving to center was not something I expected this year, but I think I played pretty well in the role. I'm going into this summer with the idea that I will be the Legion's number one center, and that means I want to be in the top 10 in points in the VHL. So while the work never ends for my parents and their organization, and I will be working with them in Vienna, I also plan on doing a lot of tape review and conditioning to make sure I'm ready to be the center that the Legion need come Day 1 next year." As to what went wrong for Toronto, Shevchenko's description of "bad luck" is hard to argue. Despite outshooting the New York Americans in three of the first four games of the series, New York jumped out to a 3-0 series lead before Toronto finally won game 4, 4-2. Unsurprisingly, Toronto couldn't recover from that kind of deficit and fell in game 5. New York's goaltender, the now retired WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW, was a real difference maker and the series MVP. He ended up stopping 46 of 47 shots in a game 1 overtime victory, 33 of 35 in game 2, and 35 of 37 in game 3, another overtime victory. "It's not something I want to keep reliving and replaying in my head," Shevchenko added. "I had, what, 2 goals in 5 games? Even with W playing the way he was, that's not good enough. It was nice to set a new career high in the regular season [Shevchenko finished with 81 points], but 4 points in 5 games in the playoffs is a letdown. I let myself down, and I let my team down, and I let the city down. I want you to listen closely: I will do everything in my power to make sure that does not happen again."

Well, this week was a roller coaster. I heard back from a job I had interviewed at and didn't get it. There was an internal candidate at a different building already doing the same job, so I basically had zero shot. The manager was really nice and said he'd email me directly if there were future openings and put in a good word with other managers. Still, what a frustrating piece of news. Not even so much because I didn't get it as because I can't leave my current position. I'm incredibly frustrated with the result of our series against New York. Nothing against them, but Toronto was the better team in the regular season and frankly most of the series, at least based on shot totals. We got goalied by A Giant String of Repetitive Letters. I wish them the best moving forward, but I'm still not happy. Shev better show up big time next season. That's all I can say. I expect him to be the top line center for Toronto next year, and if he doesn't put up 90+ points, I'm going to be disappointed. His shooting percentage this year was pretty bad so if he returns to normal, that should get us to 90 pretty easily. Fingers crossed.

Book 2's ending

Good luck! This year is a bad one for discretionary spending.

The Desperado Club one is kinda fire tbh

I'm on book 5

Toronto is Booker T and New York is Hulk Hogan.

The opening of Book 2 is *chef's kiss* Lila is an icon, IMO

You've gotten past the roughest parts of the series, which is noteworthy. Enjoy!

3.5 for Darker Shade is wild to me. The world building is off the charts. Your reading list makes me think you'd enjoy Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell though.

Assuming wheel of time.

Got em right where we want em

1 - Double G fo shore 2 - none of them. Don't really care. 3 - Double G fo shore 4 - Onions, sliced jalapeños. Sometimes franks red hot too, and stir it in. 5 - I'll be honest and say I don't have much of an opinion pre-Toronto but Raimo was a beast this year and will be missed. 6 - Interesting. I prefer free flowing days but sometimes it's nice to have a playback to reference.

1 - oof. Late to answer this. I'll say Yes lol 2 - Nope. I've been to 3. My own was my favorite. 3 - Scoring by committee is a good way to avoid a star or two having a cold streak 4 - Not being so cold in the basement when I record my Youtube content. 5 - Calgary. They're a sneaky strong team and I have a couple friends there that I would feel bad for when we trounce them. 6 - Lot of good options, but I'd probably go with tomato soup and a grilled cheese. Cheating a bit lol

Haven't mentioned it in a while, but the games on my Youtube channel have changed up recently. I'm playing Avowed, Half Life 2, and Phantasy Star 4, all blind plays. Just in case anyone's interested. I also resurrected my Goodreads page and posted my first blog entry a few minutes ago, to prep for the novel release. You can also come talk to me on Bluesky if you want. I'm not super active there but occasionally post things like pictures of bread I've baked. And finally, I got a hug from my chiropractor this morning for helping him with some Google Workspace stuff earlier in the week. He doesn't work on Fridays, but he told me to come in at 10 for a free adjustment as a thank you. Edit: damn. Maybe I should make a LinkTree lol