Hey, I’m back. It’s been over a month, and I figured now was a good time to make a post. Lots of things have happened since my last one, which came in the middle of March. To summarize, the most significant event has been my family and I getting confirmation that we’ll be moving to a new place by the end of May, and so far all of our preparation to move has gone quite well. We’ve downsized tremendously, sold off a bunch of old trinkets and useful goodies at our weekend garage sales, and we’ve been doing a good job at getting maintenance done on various parts of our house. You’d be surprised how many empty cardboard boxes we’ve thrown out of all the stuff we’ve junked, that has to have been at least 35% of it. It’s not like we were going to use them for anything, anyway.

In other news, I ended up doing excellently on my March Madness bracket. To refresh your memories, I picked Florida to beat Duke in the championship game, and while I did get Florida right, Duke let me down in a big way. They did make it to the final four and had a significant lead on Houston, but they then blew it in the dying seconds of the game. In all my years, it’s hard to think of bigger single-game chokejobs than I’ve witnessed firsthand. There are some examples I could list, but in the moment, this one was exceedingly terrible. I recommend you look at the game’s highlights yourself; my words cannot do it justice. Either way, I’m pleased with the final result, and I’m hoping I can do as well as I did this year around the same time in 2026. Maybe Duke will avenge themselves; who knows?

Now, something that has considerably slowed down in recent weeks is my reading pace. Going into March, I had just finished Fullmetal Alchemist (which is easily in my top 10 manga right now), and I had planned to finally sit down and read a Dostoevsky novel, Crime and Punishment to be specific. Instead, I’ve found myself replaying many games in my free time, something I haven’t done in a while. In preparation for the impending release of Metroid Prime 4, I powered through the original trilogy on my Wii U over the course of a couple of weeks, and my opinion on all three games has changed quite a bit since I last played them 5 years ago. That will likely be the topic of one of my next posts; I love those games to death and am always keen on talking about them. I also replayed Half-Life 2 and its Episodes, and I’m glad to say they still hold up excellently as well. And when it comes to new games, I finished Metal Gear Solid 3 last night and am preparing to start Persona 4 Golden sometime over the next week. I’m kicking myself for not having played an MGS game until this year, 3 was an incredible ride. Before doing that, my only experience with the Metal Gear series was playing as Snake in Super Smash Bros and playing through Metal Gear Rising 3 times, which is another game I highly recommend. Hopefully, Persona lives up to its reputation; it’s been on my radar for a while.

Now, here’s what you could call the main topic of today: the NHL playoffs are here! Yes, they have finally arrived, and I will admit, my excitement for them this year is a bit dimmer than usual. The reasons for that are pretty simple: both of my teams, Edmonton and Dallas, are going into their respective series against Los Angeles and Colorado heavily injured and coming off of long stretches where they played some pretty brutal hockey, especially in Dallas’s case. I have both of them losing in the first round, with Dallas’s first game against Colorado coming later tonight. That being said, just because my teams will likely go out early does not mean that these playoffs will be automatically worse without them. On the contrary, I think they’re going to be awesome. The storylines we’ve got going on are incredibly juicy this time around: Florida and Tampa Bay facing off in the “Battle of Florida” for the 4th time in 5 years, which is always violently entertaining. Toronto and Ottawa are finally about to reignite their playoff rivalry in the “Battle of Ontario,” which fans have been waiting to see again since 2004. Los Angeles might finally exercise their playoff demons in Edmonton after losing to them 3 years in a row. I could go on and on, there are so many cool little bits of information and history that should make the next couple of months unforgettable, but I’ll spare you from that. Instead, let me show you my bracket for this year.

Quick story before I break this down: going into this season, I had picked Vegas to beat New Jersey in the finals. My reasoning was simple: Vegas still has their Stanley Cup-winning core (minus Jonathan Marchessault) and arguably the best defense in the league. New Jersey is young, hungry, and super skilled, and it’s a matter of not if but when they win a Cup. That will not be the case this year. While I can see Vegas beating Colorado in a hypothetical matchup and beating whoever comes out of the Eastern Conference, Jersey is super injured and has played horribly going into the playoffs. Carolina also doesn’t lose in the first round under Rod Brind’Amour, so I’m confident in Jersey losing in 5 games or so.

As for my actual Cup pick, I think Tampa Bay is due for another one. It’s been a couple of years since they last went on a deep run, and during that time, they’ve retooled their roster quite a bit. While the big guys in Nikita Kucherov, Victor Hedman, and Brayden Point are still there, their longtime captain, Steven Stamkos, was shown the door and replaced by one of my absolute favorite players in Jake Guentzel, who has been excellent for them this year. Coupled with them playing their best hockey in the last couple of months and Andrei Vasilevskiy looking like the same goaltender that brought them to 3 straight finals appearances and two consecutive Stanley Cups, I think this pick is reasonable and shrewd. They have the killer instinct necessary to win big games, the forward and defense depth to match the best of the best, and they have a tremendously talented goalie. This team checks off all the boxes on the list for a potential champion, now all they need to do is win the thing.

As for Colorado, I think they have the most complete (and healthy) roster in the West right now, and they just got their captain Gabriel Landeskog back after he missed nearly the last 3 seasons with a serious injury. Putting aside rivalries, this Dallas fan thinks it would be really cool if Landeskog played well and if the Avs won the Cup with him in the lineup this year, I think it would be an awesome story. That being said, I think Colorado will lose in this rematch of the 2022 finals, and I think it will be in 6 games. As for my Conn Smythe (playoff MVP) pick, I’ll go the safe route and pick Nikita Kucherov. It’s time for him to win one of those; it’s basically the only piece of hardware he’s lacking.

And that’s all I’ve got for today. The playoffs begin around 4 PM my time today, with the Jets and the Blues, and I’ll be watching that like a hawk along with Dallas and Colorado. It’s been fun writing this, and I hope that you guys have a great rest of this Easter weekend. Remember, Jesus died for all of us, not just a few people. And without his example and our Lord’s love, we would be absolutely screwed.

God bless, and I’ll see y’all later.