I feel bad for Evgeni Malkin because he is the low profile superstar in this battle but the NHL has something to market here and I suspect most of this series will be played out on NBC and that could mean big ratings which could mean a bigger television contract down the road. If you want to hear a discussion about this tune into the Business of Hockey on XM 204, Sirius 208 1PM est on Saturday or 5PM est on Sunday.

These two players are polar opposites and yet they both have helped to elevate the coolest sport. Crosby does things the right way and he’s not very demonstrative and he plays the game the way purists want to see it played. Even with their quotes there is a tremendous difference. When Crosby won the Winter Classic in a shootout two year’s ago he had this to say.

“Yeah I think that we all watched the Edmonton-Montreal game and I think a lot of guys wished that they were a part of it and we were lucky enough to get to have that opportunity,” said Crosby. “You know for me growing up, I played a lot outside and a lot of their guys did too and when you see 70,000 people jammed into a stadium to watch hockey it’s a good sign.”

He signed some autographs right after the goal in the tunnel. He is an ambassador for the game to one segment of fans.

But that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t get mad, take bad penalties, and lose his cool from time to time. He does take a pounding from the Philadelphia Flyers fans and he once had this to say about that.

“It’s always a challenge coming in here,” said Crosby. “It’s always a hostile crowd here. You have to respect that. These are fun games to play in.”

Ovechkin  on the other hand wants to be the center of attention, that doesn’t mean he’s not a team player because he is, but he is also an ambassador for the game and he reaches a different segment than Crosby. One time he was getting booed by a particular fan in Philadelphia for most of the game. Some players would ignore that, some would yell back, but “Ovie” handled it in a very different way.

“Well it’s for the fans,” said a happy Ovie. “The guy who I gave the stick to, he called me not such a good player. (as he signaled the thumbs down sign). It doesn’t matter I gave him the stick because he is a little boy. He was surprised and he took my stick. It was nice.”

Sure he drives fast, and he jokes around and he annoys Don Cherry with his goal celebrations but this anomaly never gives up and last year when his team was down 3-1 against Philadelphia in the playoffs he took responsibility for his game.

“The puck was behind the net and I just tried to go down, and it was delayed so…It was my mistake,” Ovechkin said with pain in his voice. “We don’t give up and it’s not over yet.”

With his team down 3-1 he obviously took that same approach against the New York Rangers this season and this time he came out on the winning side of the ledger.

This series will offer so much to so many fans, hardcore and otherwise. Even if you aren’t a fan of either player, you will watch. You know you will.

MySpace, to me, was the ultimate cluster-fuck of poor design and annoying gimmicks that I bailed out 10 minutes after agreeing to their terms of service. Maybe I was too old for that scene but even if I were a  young man again I still don’t think it would appeal to me. Spammers, wanna-be thugs and rappers, teenage whores, and about a million guys thinking they might have a shot at those teenage whores really turned me off to the whole idea of sharing anything of any substance about my life online.

Then Twitter came along and changed that notion I had built up. It was still pretty new so it wasn’t overloaded with the retards of the earth and your updates where short and sweet. 140 characters was (is)  all you got and while that might be a bit small, I think it weeded out a large number of people who , quite honestly, aren’t interesting. Twitter started out with mostly members of the Tech/Geek world and for me that was fine. Sharing links about gadgets and technology was perfect for me and while I used ( and currently use ) Twitter to let friends and family into my little sports world it still soothed that geeky itch I had.

Twitter has taken off in the past few months with loads of people seeing the value of a quick update to share with others. While you always have the option to follow another Tweet , I hope that the large influx of new users doesn’t mean another service that becomes more of a bother than a positive.

On the other side of the social media world is Facebook, a site I tried to avoid at all costs. All the fears and loathing I had felt with MySpace I channeled into my avoidance of Facebook. I wanted no parts of the reconnecting with high-school classmates. I wanted no parts of being a “friend” of a former co-worker who I may have talked to twice in all my years of employment there. I could think of nothing more awful, nothing more of a waste of time than that. Yet, this year, I created an account and have 125 “friends” on Facebook. Fuck me.

The thing about Facebook ( and I guess more about me) is that there is a bit of a “lurker” element that I enjoy. I don’t have to accept requests for a “friends” cause, I don’t have to accept stupid-ass “Fish” or “drinks” or any of that Myspace-ish bullshit. I can sit back and watch the car-crash, watch the freak-show, and laugh at my “friends” at how BORING their lives are. I mean honestly, you need to update your status with ” I am stuck in traffic” or “I am picking up the kids from school” or other mind-numbing garbage. Now that is not to say I don’t have people I enjoy seeing updates from…and those people know who they are…but jeez, there are plenty of “friends” I keep on Facebook just to thank the powers-that-be that my life didn’t turn out like theirs.

The thing about Twitter is that , unlike Facebook, the majority of the people I follow and who follow me, I don’t know personally…and unlike Facebook, the people I follow on Twitter are a thousand times more interesting than the creeps who are my “friends” on Facebook. Let’s see…check in on what Trent Reznor is doing or read an update about how traffic is bad or how much they are wishing it was Friday.

Speaking of Mr. Reznor, here are the top Twitter users I follow:

Trent Reznor (trent_reznor) – The man who represents all that is good with the melding of music and technology gives us all things Nine Inch Nails.

Gregg “Opie” Hughes (OpieRadio) – One third of the Opie and Anthony show on XM/Sirius

Alex Ovechkin (ovi8) - He hasn’t posted since the All-Star game but to get updates from the greatest player in the world today is something worth waiting for.

Shaquille O’Neal (THE_REAL_SHAQ) – Some of his words of wisdom : “Ok I admit it I stay up at nite because I watch snapped Lol” and “ I wanna b a underwear model I will b n 3 months trust me I will b the finest 37 year older n da world”. Fucking priceless.

ComcastBill (ComcastBill) – Ok maybe an odd pick with the other four but hear me out. I had an appointment for Comcast to install cable cards on my HD Tivo but for whatever reason they didn’t bring the cards. So after a bit of a rant post on Twitter, ComcastBill hits me up and gets the ball rolling to have another tech (with the cards) stop out that same night. That was nice work.

White Lies – To Lose My Life

Best Track: From The Stars

Bonus Video

Ladytron – Velocifero

Best Track – Burning Up

Bonus Video

British Sea Power – Do You Like Rock Music?

Best Track – No Lucifer

Anyway, hope you enjoy Cohen’s stuff as much as I do.

Lisa Marie Varon was better known as Victoria (r, photos by Sportsology) in the WWE and now that she’s retired the federation will take yet another hit in the already weakened women’s division.  Having her lose her final match against Michelle McCool was yet another slap in her face. She was a former two-time champion and these days when you leave the WWE its almost always with a loss and that’s sad.

I had the chance to interview her before Wrestlemania XX and the Hair vs. Title match with Molly Holly. Before she got into character she had noticed my last name and said, “Hello Russ, by the way I’m in the tribe”. I was stunned, and really caught off guard. She told me about her Sephardic Jewish heritage, which explains her exotic good looks. She also mentioned that her father was from the Bronx and I knew she was telling the truth by the way she was pointing her finger at me – no not that finger.

She then told me about some times that she used to spend in New York, in the Bronx and in her uncle’s barber shop. Again it was a nice unexpected conversation that I had with her and that showed me how personable she really was.

That night I had the chance to interview Trish Stratus, and Torrie was there but she was too swamped to talk to but I thought Victoria was easily the best interview of the evening. Don’t get me wrong Trish was great, but Victoria was just a bit better maybe because she didn’t get bombarded like the other two did that night or maybe because she felt more comfortable in New York.

She was always a hard worker and fun to watch even when the federation was ruining her character, and make no mistake at times they did just to have a “hot chick” try and climb the charts in the women’s division. Varon could wrestle but many of the women in the last few year’s can’t. I think we all know who they are.

I can’t wait to see what she does next. Who knows if she will be in the public eye or not but I will keep an eye out for her because she knows how to entertain. If nothing else I can always get my car worked on at Black Widow Customs in Louisville, Kentucky where she is likely to be spending some time in the future.

So, I have a couple of confessions to make and this will be the only time I mention this here. It is something that I had wanted to do for a while and I feel very fortunate that I have the chance to do this.

I work – part time – for Apple in one of their retail locations…and I truly love it.

So what does that have to do with writing a blog that no one reads?

Well, you see , I love the computers and the technology that Apple brings to the masses. I’ve been a loud and vocal fan for many years and have become very passionate about what their products and services can do. A bit of a fanboy if you will.

So after the passing of my father, I kinda felt the old “You only have one shot at life” mojo, and I went for it. Things worked out and I was brought on in October.

Great, but what does that have to do with the blog???

Well , here is what it has to do with it. I wanted to write about the things I was passionate about and Apple is one of them but working for them and writing about it is not a great idea. There are plenty of places to get product reviews, Apple gossip and rumors, and even blogs where present and past employees dish the dirt. I didn’t and don’t want to risk losing my spot to a stupid blog…and at the time there wasn’t much else I wanted to write about ( hell , the hockey season had ended) so the blog kinda floated off into the distance.

Now I still won’t discuss anything Apple from this point on – my wife and I have given the secret code word “The Fruit Stand” to the store – but I will say this about my time there.

One of the reasons I wanted to work there , aside from the products, was the fact that I felt like a part of my personality ( the geeky side) was dying and I couldn’t share that passion with anyone. No one I knew was into it as much as I was. So I am very lucky in that I have met a lot of interesting, funny, talented, and knowledgeable people there and I feel like I learn something new every day…and that is all that I have ever wanted from the experience.

Now to be honest I did write about 10 or 15 posts on this blog after the opener but I ran into some issues. You see, when I started this mess I didn’t really want to focus on any one topic. I felt that by locking me in to write about one given topic would bore the hell out of me and I’d dump it in a second. For the most part that held true. I mixed things up and wrote about my travels to Chicago, some geeky computer and internet stuff, and some sports stuff as well.

So what happened?

You see, I have two issues that knocked me off the course – one I’ll write about here and the other I’ll dedicate to another post. So the first issue that I had (and I still have for the most part) is that I have a very hard time focusing. Now it goes well beyond the normal “I am bored..I don’t feel like it” general laziness that everyone has. It is the “100 channels running in my head and someone other than me has the remote” kind of stuff. It’s the “Did I lock the front door…ok let me check it for the 6th time” kind of stuff. It’s the ” You have about 3 minutes with me before I am zoned out somewhere else” kind of stuff.

Now at times it is stronger than other times, but by-in-large the channels are always changing. So for me to plop down and write about anything for any real length of time ( and not come across as some insane retard) is a difficult task. I could write about a million things but they all want to come out at the same time. The thoughts don’t want to slow down. Writing , even just in one post on one topic, became a bit of a chore…and when that happens I bail out the window. Maybe if I wrote five blogs at the same time that would work?

They have a medical name for this condition – ADHD – and in speaking with doctors and doing my own research there are a few bullet points used to determine if in fact you have ADHD or are just a self-absorbed jerk. They are:

• Often does not give close attention to details or makes careless mistakes in schoolwork, work, or other activities - strike one
• Often does not seem to listen when spoken to directly - strike two

No, it doesn’t. To prove it , I give you this:

That ,my friends, is this blog. Silly, stupid, awesome, geeky…like that tune that will get stuck in your head. I know your singing “I can’t help that I’m custom made…” That’s OK.  It’s almost become my national anthem I sing it so much.

…and with that I give you my first post on Lygertron. A historic event in anyone’s book. My ‘lil blog…watch me grow.