Just saw this over on Japers’ Rink and had to share. This video won a three 2007 Golden Matrix award from the Information and Display and Entertainment Association (IDEA): Best Music Video, Best Overall Video Display (hockey) and Best Overall Video Display (overall). More details on Kukla’s Korner. Congrats to the Caps PR team.

Next season is only a little under three months away. Given the moves the Caps have made this off season, next season should be a sight better than last season. Playoffs? Maybe. Contending for playoffs? Probably? Cup Contenders? Check back in a couple more years!

• Congrats to the Colts on winning the ugliest Super Bowl ever. Pouring rain, eight turnovers, missed PAT and field goal and the opening kickoff TD return. Ugly, but fun to watch.
• Now that we’ve had our first poor-weather Super Bowl, I think it’s time to start rotating through cities that have never gotten it due to expected weather conditions. Obviously, I’d like to see a Super Bowl at Qwest Field. But most of all, I would love to see the Super Bowl played in Green Bay on the “frozen tundra” of Lambeau Field.
• Was it just me, or did the Super Bowl ads suck this year?
• There’s a sweet looking pinball game coming to XBLA. I love pinball, so unless it completely stinks I’ll be buying it.
• I commented on the Windows Live SDK last week, but I missed the Windows Live ID Client SDK alpha release. It looks like you can use this SDK to build desktop applications that use Windows Live ID for authentication. Fairly cool, but does it work with non WL services? (via Dare Obasanjo)
• I saw this post on the home page of DotNetKicks today. It claims that locating the ASP.NET App_Data directory by calling AppDomain.CurrentDomain.GetData(“DataDirectory”) is a “dirty hack”. I left a comment on the original post, but I wonder if the correct information will ever make it’s way back to DNK?
• Architecture Comix? Yep, on Skyscrapr, an architect community site run by my old team. Sorta funny, but I’m guessing Scott Adams isn’t worried about the competition yet.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up… live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.
Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr

• My boss asks “Are We There Yet?” on fulfilling Dr. King’s dream. Sadly, the answer is no. I think we’re making progress, but we’re not “there” yet.
• No back to back trips to the Super Bowl for the Seahawks. They had chances to win it both down the stretch as well as in overtime and they couldn’t capitalize.
• I blogged about “Politics 2.0″ back on election day. Here’s an article about viral video in politics that’s very Politics 2.0.
• It finally warmed up enough yesterday to make a snowman. Patrick named the snowman “Capa” which is what he call my father. Apparently, my father and the snowman have the same bushy eyebrows (according to my wife). It’s supposed to snow again tonight, so maybe we can make a “Granny” or “Nana” snowman (snow-woman?).
• The new season of 24 started last night. Please review Larry’s list of the Top 10 Things I’ve Learned About Computers From The Movies and Any Episode of ’24′.
• My wife posted a picture of Patrick and I playing Lego Star Wars II. We really enjoy it, but I need to watch my language when we play. When we were fighting the Rancor, Patrick announced to his mommy that we were fighting the “big fucking monster”. Woops! Patrick already knows several words that your not supposed to say (and he reminds us if we ever use them) so I guess should add that to the list. Or I could start saying frak instead.

I can feel it coming in the air tonight, oh Lord
I’ve been waiting for this moment, all my life, oh Lord
Can you feel it coming in the air tonight, oh Lord, oh Lord
In The Air Tonight by Phil Collins
Covered by Nonpoint on the Miami Vice Soundtrack

• It was a tough weekend in the Pierson house. For several hours on Saturday, we thought we were going to have to put our dog D’art down. My wife has the details, but the good news is that he had spine trauma, but nothing broken and he seems to be back on his way to his old self.
• I grew up in Northern Virginia, so I’m a long time member of the Dallas Cowboy Hater’s Club. So watching them snatch defeat from the jaws of victory against my adopted Seahawks was sweet.
• Last night, Bill Gates kicked off CES with the usual assortment of product news and announcements. The biggest news, in my opinion anyway, is IPTV support for Xbox 360. (Did you know MSFT has a TV product division?) Details are fairly scarce at this point, but I’m hoping this allows for independent broadcasters to directly reach consumers, much like blogs have done for independent writers. Can I use IPTV to launch my own TV channel? Imagine the possibilities. I’d like a Washington Capitals channel, so I can watch post game highlights on my big screen TV rather than on my computer. A Rooster Teeth channel would also be nice.
• No coding this past weekend, though I did reinstall XNA Game Studio Express on my recently paved dev partition. I tried playing Lego Star Wars II with my son over the weekend and he’s still having trouble learning how to use the controller. I was thinking I might try making some simple “games” to help him learn.

I gave up drinkin’, I gave up smokin’
I gave up thinkin’ all the time, stone cold revoken
No reason to my rhyme, I wasn’t jokin’
If there’s a phony bone in me, I want it broken
“Rub It In” by All Day Sucker

I’m trying to write more in 2007. Here’s a roundup of stuff rattling around my brain:

• Fight On! So much for Michigan and their bleating about being left out of the championship game. Also, massive congrats to Boise State.
• Santa did bring me free time this holiday, but I spent it playing games rather than writing them. I’m digging Gears (big surprise) and Dead Rising, and I’ve starting playing Viva Pinata with Patrick. Plus, I finished GRAW which I had on loan from a friend just in time to start playing Vegas. Note I said “free time” which is to say time when I wasn’t hanging out with my family. Typically during naps or after everyone was in bed, though I did skip at least one birthday party to play instead.
• We had a “surprise” snow storm two days after Christmas. Not enough to be dangerous driving, but enough to make a snowman with my kids. It’s still there, though now that it’s 55 degrees, I’m guessing it will be totally melted by the time I get home from work. It’s been melting a little bit each day, so it’s been like watching the climax of Raiders of the Lost Ark in slow motion.
• My wife and I finished watching season 5 of Alias last night. Fun, though it had really jumped the shark by Season 5. We watched the entire series on DVD, which really makes me wonder about the future of broadcast TV. We watched season 1 of Lost on DVD but we’ve been watching on TV ever since. I’m hooked on Lost, so there’s no way I could go back to DVDs at this point, but I’m thinking that DVD is a better way to go for most TV. I wonder how this will change TV storytelling.
• I wish I could see how a show like Lost or Alias evolves over time. How much of the Rimbaldi story arc was mapped out before the show started? How did the production team deal with forced changes like Jennifer Garner’s pregnancy or the apparently surprise series cancellation?
• I had 12 days off for the holidays, so it’s very tough to be back at work. As I suggested above, I did very little coding while I was off, so getting back in the saddle won’t be easy. It’s especially hard on my little boy that I’m back to work. He was acting up yesterday which is fairly unusual. I finally asked him if he was sad about me going back to work and he broke down crying. I’m very lucky to be a part of such a tight knit family.
• I’ve been in my “new” job for six months, but it seems like longer. I mean that in a good way. It feels like I fit better in this job, on a much smaller team, actually building stuff instead of just “evangelizing” it. Nothing against evangelism, I just think I burned out on that job.

So starts a new feature on DevHawk. As you might guess from the “1″ in the title, I’m hoping to make this a regular feature. As I ease back into work, expect more tech related nuggets along with the more random stuff. I should admit, however, that I actually don’t drink coffee. 😄