Manitoba Links Weekly: Clunk Clunk Clunk Clunk Clunk Clunk Clunk Clunk (ManLinkWeek 35)

Yes, it's been another eventful week that was; get ready for ManLinkWeek!

Manitoba Links Weekly: Will Help Identify Your Carts if There is a Problem (ManLinkWeek 34)

All right, let's do this! Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown drops tonight on PSN -- I'm downloading it as we speak -- so we've no time to lose; the last console release in the series was... just under five and a half years ago, and to say that I am excited about the game would be to understate matters ever so slightly.

Ah, but first things first, of course -- it's time once again for ManLinkWeek!

Portage and Main Turns 150! (The Closure Contract is 35.)

There's been quite the flurry of local anniversarial activity, as late; Kelvin High School and Transcona have both celebrated their 100th anniversaries, the Pride Winnipeg festival turns 25 this weekend, and all of the local media outlets went entirely over the top with partook in some One Year Ago reminiscing about the return announcement of the Winnipeg Jets. Worthy subjects all! But the most historic and notable of these civic observances -- the granddaddy of them all, if you wee-ull -- will be tomorrow, tomorrow being the 150th birthday of the Portage and Main intersection.

Now, like most local stories of historical significance, just about everybody was set to ignore it completely. (Who's "Mostyn"? What's a "Rathje"? How old was that building we just knocked down?) The anniversary would have passed by completely unrecognized had radio superstar Christian Cassidy not brought up the oncoming date in this blog post; many fine folks in the local blogosphere answered the call with their birthday wishes -- I'd link them all here as they come in, but I think that'll be more of a Tuesday pursuit -- and a hastily assembled but still appreciated party was thrown for the intersection after the story garnered some mainstream media attention.

So Happy 150th Birthday, Portage and Main! You've been closed to pedestrians significantly longer than I've actually been alive, but I've enjoyed the opportunity to walk around on you those couple of times during the occasional street party or parade. (Santa Claus parades, I mean; this town hasn't had a victory parade in, well, a lifetime.) I've driven through you more times than I could ever count, I'm sure; I can say for certain that I've never tried to cycle across you, but I'm sure that if I did it would be a fun and creative way to die.

And, hey, there are only five more years until that legendarily idiotic agreement expires -- it's legitimately impressive, sometimes, how long bad decisions tend to last in this city -- so when the next crop of mayoral candidates assembles a couple of years from now, there will be a lot of people lining up to position themselves as your savior. Things are looking up! Exciting times are ahead, and to avoid unnecessarily anthropomorphizing you I'll instead say that I'm excited on your behalf.

Happy Birthday, Portage and Main, and here's to 150 more!

Manitoba Links Weekly: Portage and Main, Public Sphere Craft Show, and Police Service Dog TIKA (ManLinkWeek 33)

ManLinkWeek ahoy! Later than intended, yes, but t'is the season; this is the brief but significant period of time when good weather and playoff hockey intersect, and when they do, hey, something's gotta give. I am finishing this post off during Game One of the Stanley Cup Finals, with the window wide open, trying with various levels of success to enjoy everything at once.

A housekeeping note, before I begin: the presentation notes from the Manitoba Libraries Conference, mentioned last week, are now online. So if you're interested in a bit of independent study on adult literacy, or data ownership in the Web 2.0 world, collection and classification decisions at the Canadian Human Rights Museum, or the public and academic libraries of Northern Manitoba, you'll find no better place to start than there.

As for this week -- one sure sign of the approaching summer, in Manitoba, is that locations outside Winnipeg start seeming a lot better and Winnipeg starts seeming a lot worse. So there's something of a conceptual split this week between the Winnipeg content and the Manitoba content, and I think you're going to be able to tell quite handily which side I'm more taken with this week.

But enough talk! Have at you, ManLinkWeek:

The 2012 Stanley Cup Finals Begin Tonight

ManLinkWeek will be along shortly, delayed already as it is, but first things first -- I just got home, and Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals starts in maybe fifteen minutes. And, since I got none of my series predictions right last round (well, 'neither', really, since there were only the two series), the best I can aim for on the year is one under .500 -- so, hey, at that point, what's the harm in zipping through it?

LET'S DO THIS

Stanley Cup Finals

(6) New Jersey Devils vs. (8) Los Angeles Kings

sixth seed home ice advantage, how did this even

I am begrudgingly obligated to admit that I do, after the last round, rescind my previous round's assessment and recognize the New Jersey Devils as legitimate; a large part of that is how Martin Brodeur is on a spaghetti-western old-man-with-one-last-task-in-life tear right now, playing well enough to outduel a world-elite league-MVP-candidate goaltender and look every bit as solid as his ridiculous lifetime statistics would suggest. The forward depth of the Devils outperformed the Rangers' lines admirably -- although, to look at the Rangers' playoff stats afterwards, that may not have been as impressive as it sounds -- and the defence, while not really a force defensively in the traditional sense, turned out to be pretty valuable offensive threats. (So it probably helps that, with Brodeur back there, they never actually have to go back and play the puck.) And I have a longstanding soft spot for Adam Henrique, for some reason; I'm not entirely sure why, but I suspect the EASHL modes in NHL '11 and '12 have something to do with it. Yes, that's right; I'm that guy.

But! But. If the Kings don't look like a capital-T, capital-D Team of Destiny to you right now, I don't know what team could. The Kings' forwards are gigantic, at precisely the time of year when height and weight are most considered assets, and at precisely the time of year when the opposing defenders are going to be the most tired. (New Jersey actually seems like kind of a tiny team by comparison, but they are very fast; unfortunately for them, that's more of a help earlier in the year when referees are still calling plenty of penalties.) The defence is, for what people would have expected of them earlier in the year, overperforming, and... there's probably a more clever way of stating that Jonathan Quick is playing really well, but holy crap Jonathan Quick. He just shows up, waves his hand a few dozen times, and theoretically much better teams end up dumping their franchise goaltenders or losing hundreds of millions of dollars for the infinitieth straight year.

Given the evidence, given the comparative levels of rest and how both teams have played in the rounds previous, I would predict that the Los Angeles Kings would win with what seems like reasonable ease. However, if there is one thing I have learned from years and years of watching the Stanley Cup Finals, it is that their end results more often than not underwhelm and vaguely disappoint me.

SO

What I'd Want: Los Angeles in five.
What I'll Guess: New Jersey in six, including at least one shutout.

Hockey, everybody! ManLinkWeek will be along shortly, don't worry.