29. Not quite 30, but getting there. To all you old fogies, I take joy in the fact that I am younger than you. To all the young'ns, respect your elders. We're older; we can beat you up.

A couple of weeks aqo, I got to play the gimp. Making an awkward save at hockey, I caught an edge the wrong way and twisted my foot in a direction it was not meant to twist. I had a very difficult time walking the next day, and continued to suffer discomfort for a few days following. Under certain circumstances, I can still feel the injury, but it otherwise doesn't hamper any mobility or sporting endeavour. However, with hockey playoffs on the horizon, I didn't want to risk doing any damage that could threaten my participation.

That was a concern when my friends offered to take me skiing for my birthday yesterday. Choosing to snowboard, I figured having my feet locked together would prevent any ankle-related injuries common with skiing, and only leave me susceptible to the standard wrist-and-ass snowboarding injuries, which I could be careful to avoid. I was having a great time, and getting much more used to the board than on my only other outing last year. I was getting much better. That is, until fate struck. And it struck specifically on the same ankle, at the very small window of opportunity it had through the night.

When getting on and off the lift, you have only one foot attached to the board, and this was the source of my worry, so I was extra careful approaching the lift, and even more so getting off, trying not to fall in a heap and getting whacked by a chair. Before our very last run, I successfully got of the chair and slid away in a speedy and steady fashion, only to discover that a pair of people ahead of me decided to stop and mingle directly in my path (for the third time in a row, I should add). In retrospect, I should have bowled them over. Serves them right for standing in traffic. Instead, I leaned hard to make a sharp turn, fell, and with only one foot attached to the board, it was free to turn and catch and turn some more, twisting the same ankle the exact same way as its original injury.

If this injury persists, I will scorn the names of those two for ages to come. And since I don't actually know their names, I will invent demeaning ones for them and scorn those. In any case, they owe me one human toboggan run down the mountain.

My Wii arrived! My Wii arrived! Woo! I mean "Wee!" I mean "Wii!"

One of the games I have acquired for it is Rayman Raving Rabbids. Evil bunnies, cow-tossing, plunger-shooting, rabbid dancing, and characters like this? What's not to love?

(The title is an obscure Night Court reference. Don't fret about it.)

Some time ago, my Internet-Freak-Friend Lloyd wrote a post about his diet plan, that of attempting to lose half of Nicole Richie's malnourished body weight. It's an ingenious plan, and I must say, it's working. Since getting my rowing machine, I aimed to lose 26% of Nicole Richie's weight, and I am already 17. With Easter coming along, I don't expect to hit that last 9% too soon, but the plan is in motion, and I owe much of it to Lloyd and Nicole.

Hockey playoffs are in full swing, and the drama has been non-stop so far!. My Monday team, which finished fourth, faced the first-place team in our first matchup - whom we had beaten all three times we played them previously - but blew it when it counted and fell 4-1. It's a double-knockout system, so we still had a shot, but there could be no more mistakes. We faced the third-placed team next and turned the tables with a 4-1 win, setting up a rematch against those pesky division leaders.

The hockey gods, it would seem, were either asleep at the switch or in a foul mood during this game, as I surrended three of the flukiest goals I have ever seen and we entered the third period trailing 3-1. Not wanting to falter again, we mounted our comeback attempt. A goal with about six minutes left put the game back in reach. With two minutes to go, we iced our top players, looking to see what they could do. Thirty seconds later we saw what that was, as they tied up the game, essentially setting up a next-goal-wins scenario. We left them all hoping for more of the same.

And they delivered. With 9 seconds to go, we potted the winning goal and advanced to the semi-final! Oh, the suspense! The drama! There were only four spectators in the crowd, but they witnessed a gem!

In addition to that hockey success, my Sunday team - which had been on a losing streak through much of '07 - won both round-robin playoff games to ensure a semi-final spot. In last night's game against the first-place team, I stood on my head multiple times to secure the 3-2 win against a team that outplayed us much of the game. Hopefully even better things lie ahead...