Tonight is the Hurricanes’ regular season ending versus the Panthers. The division title is theirs for the taking tonight and the Panthers haven’t won in the RBC Center since 2002. Signs are good, but hockey is hockey. You never know.

We’ll be there, desperately hoping for inclusion in the “shirt off our backs” promotion where fans are chosen “randomly” — and by “random” you can bet your ass they mean “select season ticket holders first” — to come onto the ice at the end of the game and receive the sweater from the players. I truly don’t care who I’d wind up with, it would be astounding in any event.

Here’s Julia and Stormy at the Lightning game Wednesday. The CEO of the previous company I worked for is very generous with his tickets and invited Julia and I to sit down 3 rows behind the penalty boxes with him and his wife. Yes, the company I left. No really, I quit and yet he still invites us to sit with him sometimes. It’s really quite amazing.

Let’s go Canes!

Wanted to save this off for posterity as Yahoo serves up the timely and relevant advertising. Hallelujah for content-sensitivity and utter context-insensitivity.

I’m curious about something. Why is it that I, as an American taxpayer, should be responsible for bailing out people and companies that, in essence, screwed themselves over with stupid decisions? Make no mistake, that’s what the Bear Stearns collapse and subsequent bailout is. They banked on — no pun intended — and likely precipitated the subprime mortgage phenomenon and then for all practical purposes got a margin call by everybody. Hey lookie! You’ve got no assets and astounding debt!

So, the Fed is possibly on the hook for $30 billion in buyout for that company which means that you and I are on the hook. Because they were dumb. I follow the reasoning: they’re bailing out this company to prevent a cascade effect since Bear Stearns had so many connections with other companies. I can’t help but be irked that I’m funding utter stupidity, though.

Similarly, the Democratic Presidential candidates both want to provide “assistance to those in mortgage crises” to the tune of another $10 to $30 billion dollars. This is a bailout for people who did the math on that $750,000 house on their $30,000 salary and said “we can swing it!” I can’t swing a 3/4 million dollar house and I make more than that. So I didn’t buy a 3/4 million dollar house. Why am I bailing out people who simply overspent and screwed themselves? I understand the desire to help the less fortunate and those who are truly in financial despair, but not those who brought it on themselves buying things that they had no possibility of ever really affording.