The Olympics Are A Time For Statistics

Early on in the 2014 Winter Olympics, many of Canada's medals had been won by athletes from Quebec in Freestyle Skiing and Short Track.  Six of the first nine medals, in fact. It prompted some journalist from the Globe and Mail to wonder if we should start seeing Quebec flags being flown by the fans instead of Canadian flags. His ridiculous and troll-bait opinions aside, it gave me a great idea to have a little fun with the medal stats.

I took each medal winner and tallied their home province (as listed by olympic.ca). For team events, only one medal counted in the tally, so I split the medal among the teammates (i.e. for the women's bobsleigh, half the medal went to Alberta and half to PEI).  In the end, Quebec had the most medals, but it wasn't a runaway.  Here are the standings:

Province	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
Quebec	3.45	3.75	2.00	9.20
Ontario	3.12	2.78	0.00	5.90
British Columbia	1.20	2.36	1.00	4.56
Alberta	0.64	1.11	1.00	2.75
Saskatchewan	0.17	0.00	1.00	1.17
Manitoba	0.89	0.00	0.00	0.89
Prince Edward Island	0.50	0.00	0.00	0.50
Nova Scotia	0.04	0.00	0.00	0.04
Total	10	10	5	25

No medals from NB, NL, NT, NU or YK.

What does it all mean? Not much, really. Some of it is a function of population, some of it is location of training facilities, some by how teams are chosen, and some is luck. But I think it's an interesting chance to crunch some numbers.  Here's another way to look on it:

12 medals were in men's sports, 11 in ladies, and 2 from mixed competitions.

What about the sports themselves?  Some events have more medals to give out than others, but whatever:

• 9 - Freestyle Skiing
• 3 - Figure Skating and Short Track
• 2 - Curling, Hockey, Snowboard, and Speed Skating
• 1 - Alpine Skiing and Bobsleigh

Great Success!

The Best Thing About The Olympics Being On CBC Again

The best thing about the Olympics being done by the CBC again (and there are a few), is that we don't have to hear CTV's "I Believe" theme.  CBC's Olympic theme is much more epic and doesn't have a drab pop song written over top of it.

Photos From Christmas Cruisetacular '13

Christmas Cruise 2013 on the Noordam, a set on Flickr.

I'm Cruisin' For A Cruisin'

Oh, my poor, neglected blog. I should be nicer to you. I get to tell you all sorts of secrets that no one else will ever read. Just between you and me. Anyway...

I'm off for the Caribbean! Holiday cruise #5 (Christmas cruise #4) over the past 8 years. Here's our route, as taken from the Holland America website:

Last time I went, I didn't even use their on-board internet, which was a first. Nothing really happening on the ol' 'net these days... I'm pretty sure the fad is on the downslope.

Maybe when I'm back I'll be more blogtastic... but I'm not making a New Year's resolution out of it. NYRs are for suckers.

Newish Video

I feel like I'm neglecting my trusty blog lately.  I even posted my latest cooking video to facebook and not to here.  Now I'll be remedying that.

Off The Couch

Sometime around May, I found a rare nugget of motivation and decided that enough was enough... I was going to get some exercise. I had come across a running program called "Couch to 5k" and it looked like just the thing for me.  The last couple summers, I've dabbled in jogging, but I never got that far, because I lacked a real goal, or direction... and it was really, really hard.  But this program starts you off with only 60 seconds of running with 90 seconds of walking in between, for a total of 20 minutes.  I totally can do that.

And I did.

The program is supposed to last 9 weeks.  It actually took me 11 weeks, because I had to redo some of the later days.  But I don't mind, because I miraculously stuck with it, and now I'm able to run for 5 km no problem, just under 40 minutes.  It's not blazingly fast, and people running with strollers are going faster than me, but the speed will come on it's own time.

By product of all this is that over the summer, I've dropped almost 20 pounds. Now this is due not only to the exercise, but I've also been eating a bit smarter.  Not Weight Watchers or anything.  Just less fast food (much less), cut out a lot of pop, and chips are the devil.  Also, to be fair, my weight was really out of control and the most it had ever been, even more than when I started WW both of the last 2 times.

Today I ran my fastest time for 5k (36:35) and ran my farthest run (7.25 km in 53:27). I think the cooler weather helps.

MLS Realignment Idea

Since I had great success with the NHL adopting my idea for realignment, I'm going to do the same favour for Major League Soccer.  In advance, you're welcome, MLS.

So, what need's realigning? Well, to start off, I think that most soccer leagues in the world have 2 important things going for them: a balanced schedule and promotion/relegation.  I love the idea of a balanced schedule (play every other team twice... once at home and once away), because it means that the regular season standings are an actual representation of how a team stands compared to its opposition, instead of having some teams with inflated points totals because they play in a weak division.  The MLS actually had a balanced schedule back in the 2010 and 2011 seasons until expansion made having that balanced schedule difficult due to the length of season. For reference, since 2011 each team has played 34 games in a season and before that it was 30.  So that's the area I'm aiming for.

I also like the idea of promotion/relegation, because it gives all teams throughout the standings something to play for later in the season.  However, true promotion/relegation like in European leagues would never fly in North America, because team support would drastically drop for any team in the lesser division with no chance to win... and MLS would not let that happen to any of their franchises.  But, can we have a system that mimics pro/rel while allowing every team a chance to win it all?  I think so.  Here's my plan (finally)...

Starting in 2015, MLS will have 20 teams.  I propose that the league be split into two divisions.  The first division would be the top ten teams from the previous season and the second division would be bottom.  The top eight teams in Division 1 make the playoffs as seeds 1 through 8 and the top two teams in Division 2 make the playoffs as seeds 9 and 10.  A one game play-in round between 7 vs. 10 and 8 vs. 9 would be the first rounds and then it's a standard home and away three round playoff setup.  That takes care of having every team being able to play for something.

Promotion/Relegation would be taken care of with the bottom two teams from Division 1 being relegated to Division 2 and obviously, the top two from 2 being promoted to 1.

A balanced schedule would be achieved with a team playing each other team in its own division twice (18 games) and in the other division once (10 games) for a total of 28 games.  The teams in each division therefore have the exact same schedule.

There is one drawback though.  The balanced schedule element of this would be destroyed by expansion or contraction, until the league gets up to 24 teams.  However, once at 24 teams, the number of games reaches 34 in this plan... the exact number of games teams play now, while being balanced.  Therefore, a 24 team league is perfect for this.

Again, you're welcome, MLS.

One last problem: out of all the people that I know that actually read this blog, none of them actually watch soccer or MLS... that I know of.

Gardenology 101: Lawncare

With the nice weather, and it still being early in the year, I thought that I might get ahead in the game and tend to the needs of the plant life that surrounds my house.  In particular, the grass.  Now my lawn isn't the greatest, many weeds and what seems to be creeping kind of mossy plant throughout.  I've raked some of it up and pulled as many of the dandelions as I felt like, but it's left my lawn a little bare in patches.

I figured that while the time of year is still right, I would buy some of that easy grow grass seed that they sell. I've tried it before and it came in a plastic dispensing container, so I figured I'd get a bag as a refill and save by buying in bulk.  I went to the store; it was $40.

My lawn is fine as it is.

In With The New, Out With The Nothing

As teased yesterday in my Twitter post, here's a picture.

Yep, it's that time of life again. Time for a new car! And it's actually new this time. My first new car is a 2013 Ford Focus Titanium hatchback. It's got some bells and some whistles. I can start the car with the key in my pocket with a push of a button.

I'm keeping the Jeep around for at least one more year... see how that goes. All I have to do is juggle the cars around in the driveway. Good thing the City recently allowed overnight parking onstreet.

It's blue.

Things I Don't Need To Buy: A New Roof

With all the rain that's been happening this week, I'm sure glad that I had my roof replaced back in October instead of waiting until spring, like I had originally intended. Especially since I've been seeing my neighbour giving his roof and windows suspicious glances today.

Thanks, past self! I owe you one.