[transmission from... Tyler Sonnichsen]

They say the more things change, the more they stay the same. CT has always been a sublimely strange place. I feel like every time I come home, I notice something new that makes me feel uncomfortable and/or plain confused. There are several places in my home state that defy simple description. I remember a few months ago I did a show in Laurel, MD. I went out to eat at a restaurant on the outskirts of the town, and could not shake the feeling that at any moment, some redneck in a pickup truck was going to drive by with a shotgun a la the end of "Easy Rider" and blow me to shreds. I felt the exact same way while I was helping my friend film a movie on the outskirts of Syracuse, NY. Every truck that passed was suspect.

Lately, I've been feeling similarly about certain parts of Connecticut. Every time I come back here, I find more crustached cretins infesting the region with their Dale Earnhart memorabilia and Jack Daniels baseball caps. I suppose they were always around, but perhaps by coincidence, I've found myself in many of the same places at many of the same times as these esteemed individuals. However, most of them are just as stupid as they look. Case in point:

Last night, I was driving home from the movies. A Toyota Corolla that most likely predated "Rico Suave" passed me on the left, and I spotted their license plate: NINGAS.

This created a conundrum in my mind. These guys were both white, lanky, and looked like they both secretly thought of the other as their sidekick. There was no way that license plate was any kind of coincidence. It meant something, but what?

1. Where these guys so desperate to be renowned as Ninjas that they were willing to take a butchered version of the word that takes anyone three out-loud pronunciations to figure out what they hell they meant in the first place? NINGAS. If these guys hadn't dropped out of school after second grade, they'd know that unless the G makes a hard sound unless its followed directly by E.

2. The aspect of this that I actually liked was the fact that, if my first speculation is true, there is someone driving around in the state of Connecticut with the license plate "NINJAS." I'm going to wage a guess that the guy who claimed that one fits a similar description to the NINGAS guys. I would give anything to be in the Package Store parking lot where these two cars encounter each other, and the greatest fight to happen in CT since the Whalers left Hartford would ensue.

3. Another thing to think about NINGAS: If you are going to go out on a limb with the Latin alphabet like that, make sure you don't wind up with a word that's one typo away from a serious ethnic slur. I would just as much love to be caught in traffic near these guys in New Haven and see them get their asses kicked by a group of near-sighted black guys. That's just about all I have to say about that pair of misspelled ninjas.


In other news (speaking of the Hartford Whalers), congratulations to the Carolina Hurricanes, 2006 Stanley Cup Champions. I admit I wasn't exactly cheering for them along the way, or even in game 7, but I have to hand it to players like Rod Brind'Amour and Glen Wesley who've been busting their ass for years to get their hands on the cup. There really is no trophy in sports that's harder to earn, so even if you hate the team that does win it, you have to give them respect for taking the hardest of hits, scoring the toughest of goals, and growing the fluffiest of playoff beards. It was borderline disheartening to see someone younger than me, Carolina goalie Cam Ward, take the Conn Smythe trophy, but no one's going to say he didn't deserve it.

On the 11 o'clock news last night, they all acted like they'd just watched a baby fall from a ski lift while reporting on the Hurricanes' victory. Instead of showing Frank Kaberle's game-winning goal, they bitterly showed Gary Bettman saluting Peter Karmanos Jr's decision to move a team to North Carolina from Hartford. I loved having an NHL team in Hartford as much as anyone (despite growing up a big Bruins fan), but all I can say is GET OVER IT. They moved nearly ten years ago! It wasn't like they pulled out of Hartford the second they became a contender (like the Avalanche did to Quebec). Hartford had never been a major contender because their organization wasn't up to par at most times. Edmonton has won five Stanley Cups because, despite being in such a small market, they knew how to manipulate and best use that small market. Gretzky, Fuhr, Messier, and Coffey didn't materialize out of thin air during their golden age, and neither did Peca, Samsonov, Pisani, and Pronger this year. A lot of Edmonton's small businesses own a part of the team; they're the only franchise that does that. The Whalers, as beloved as they were, stayed bouyant for a long time due in part to their proximity to two major markets (Boston and NY). True, having a pro hockey team in CT was much more appropriate than anywhere south of the Mason-Dixon line, but the fans in Raleigh-Durham deserve to have a hockey powerhouse just as much as we do up here. Plus, the more that southern teams take home the cup, such as Dallas in '99 (Sabres fans are STILL bickering about Brett Hull's goal), Tampa Bay in '03, and the 'Canes last night, the more hockey will infect our national consciousness outside of a handful of northern states. And trust me, with the NFL as bloated as it is, we need it.

And under the first review since long before I discovered the comedic genius that is Bob and David, Yo La Tengo's "Sugarcube" is quite possibly the greatest music video ever made. More on this subject later. Much love.