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Girl power week continues here at et.com. For today’s post, we have a video of an eleven year-old girl using a semi-automatic at the shooting range. She’d be very valuable during the zombie apocalypse. Not only does she know how to use a firearm, she’s small enough to get into tight spaces to search for food and supplies.

The above video shows how one little girl made her father the proudest papa in the galaxy. Sariah Gallego and her family went to Disneyland. She and her brother got picked to participate in a Star Wars show. The act is pretty much scripted. The kids that get selected are supposed to get about 30 seconds where they duel with Darth Vader, providing the audience (and their parents) with a neat photo op. I’d say the majority of the kids go along with the act since Vader is the bad guy and kids are supposed to be Jedi (or Padawans).

Ms. Gallego wasn’t having any of that. I guess she thought the Dark Side was way more fun. She did the kneel thing perfectly. Just like the way Vader did it in Empire. If I were her father, I’d be beaming with pride for the next year. Unfortunately, the fake Windu got so flustered he quickly ushered her off-stage.

You’re doing great Dad! Keep on with the good parenting!

Though it seemed unlikely for most of the day, the Vancouver Canucks will now face the Chicago Blackhawks in the first round of the 2011 NHL playoffs. The Dallas Stars had their fate entirely in their own hands today. All they had to do was win in either regulation or OT against the Minnesota Wild. Such a win would have propelled them to the off-season and sent Chicago golfing. Chicago narrowly avoided being of those rare teams that win the championship one season and then miss the playoffs the next.

I would have preferred playing Dallas, but I suppose the more dramatic match-up would be against Chicago. The Canucks have lost to the Blackhawks in the playoffs for the last two years; both times in the second round, both in six games. Many talk about this notion of having to exercise these “playoff demons” by going through Chicago. I don’t care about any of that. The road to the Stanley Cup is littered with tough teams no matter who beat you in previous years. Also, beating one team doesn’t make the following rounds any easier.

Another thing to keep in mind is that isn’t the same Chicago team that the Canucks faced in the last two years. Because of salary cap issues, the Blackhawks had to disperse parts of their Cup winning team. Gone are guys like Niemi, Versteeg, Burish, and Byfuglien. They do have their core group like Toews, Kane, Sharp, Seabrook, and Keith though, which is why they’re still a dangerous team.

At the end of day, I’m just glad the regular season is now over and all the playoff match-ups have been decided. If there was one thing bad about having such a great regular season, it was having to wait weeks for the playoffs to start. Wednesday is when the fun begins.

UPDATE: Henrik Sedin did not touch the Clarence S. Campbell bowl tonight when the Vancouver Canucks were crowned the Western Conference champions.

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In the above video you can see Vancouver Canucks captain Henrik Sedin and alternate captain Manny Malhotra officially accept the President’s Trophy from the NHL, signifying their place as the best team in the regular season for 2010-2011. What is interesting and what people had been wondering for days was Sedin going to touch the trophy. If you watch the video, you can see he nor Malhotra touch the trophy at all. In fact Sedin stays a respectable distance from the award, giving it a wide berth. Given the recognition of success the award represents, why would he treat it like a hand grenade?

If you’ve watched or followed professional sports you know pro athletes can be at times, a superstitious bunch. Professional hockey players are no different. There is a superstition that some players follow that the only trophy they should touch should be the final and ultimate prize, the Stanley Cup. The Stanley Cup, of course, is the NHL’s trophy for the team that comes through the playoffs as the winner. That team is deemed the best in the league for that year. Interestingly, before the Cup is awarded, there are theoretically two trophies a captain could possibly touch on his way to the finals. One is the President’s Trophy and the other is trophy for conference he plays in (Campbell or Wales). For many years now, people have watched with great interest during the presentation of the conference champion trophies. Will the captain touch the trophy or not? If you believe the superstition, then the trophy should go untouched.

In recent years, winning Cup captains have gone back and forth between touching and not touching their respective conference silverware. In 2008, on his way to his first ever Stanley Cup finals, captain Sidney Crosby did everything by the book, as you might expect a young captain would. When he was presented with the Prince of Wales trophy, he did not touch it, probably not wanting to tempt fate. He and his Pittsburgh Penguins went on and lost to the Detroit Red Wings in six game in the finals. A year later, in 2009, Crosby again found himself a conference champion. Perhaps not wanting history to repeat itself, he chose this time to touch the trophy. Not only did he touch it, he let others hold it, and even skated off the ice with it. A far cry from the previous year. Interestingly, he did not raise the trophy over his head. There are some who believe the superstition does not have anything to do with contact with the trophy but that it should not be raised over the head (as that is reserved for only the Cup). Crosby and his team then promptly advanced to the finals where they defeated the Red Wings. To throw things completely off, in 2010, Chicago Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews, reverted back to the superstition and stood idly by the Clarence S. Campbell bowl, never making a motion towards it at all. Toews and his team went on to defeat the Philadelphia Flyers in the finals.

Given recent history, perhaps this superstition means absolutely nothing, as many superstitions do. In pro sports though, you want to get any little advantage you can get, even that advantage might be just in your head. On a final note, I have to mention that the last time the Vancouver Canucks went to the Stanley Cup finals in 1994, captain Trevor Linden did more than just touch the Clarence S. Campbell bowl. He raised it over his head and tilted it back so far that the top fell off. Now it would ridiculous to think such an act cost them the Cup but if you were a superstitious person, that’s for sure one way to tempt fate.

The above video is an extended look at Green Lantern, which is DC’s attempt to bring movie success to one of their comic book characters, other than Batman. If DC didn’t have Batman, they’d be a complete failure at bringing their properties to the silver screen. Are Marvel characters that much better when translated to the movies? Maybe. Or perhaps Marvel is just better at making comic book movies. I’m slightly excited for Green Lantern though.

Tonight, the local professional ice hockey team in my city, suffered its second straight defeat in a row, to the same team and the worst team in the entire league. Though the Vancouver Canucks have already been given the accolade of being the best team in the regular season, their play in the last several games do not reflect such an honour. With the playoffs just weeks away, this isn’t a good sign for the club. Will they step it up when it counts? Or will they bring their shoddy play with them into the post-season?

As far as first days go, today wasn’t that bad at all. They all seem to follow the same pattern of activities: form filling, tour of the studio, being dropped off at your desk, discovering what hardware and software you’re missing, reading documents, meeting about fifty people, forgetting fifty people’s names, building the game, playing the game, all of which you try to do without looking or feeling useless.

I did get more affirmation that the game development community in Vancouver is definitely tight-knit. I knew going into work that I’d see at least three people I knew from previous places of employment. What I didn’t account for was various other people who I’d worked with (some just peripherally) years ago, who came to my desk to welcome me aboard. There was one guy who I hadn’t seen in nine years, stretching back to my QA days, who recognized me and wanted to see how I was doing. He was one of the nicest guys I met while I was testing games and it was great seeing him again. Then there was the designer who I didn’t even work with directly about six years ago who came by to say hi. I didn’t even know he recognized me from way back then but he did, so that was good of him.

The other thing I noticed on my first day is that there’s an amazing amount and selection of free food and snacks at Radical. At other companies, there are varying degrees of “free” when it comes to snacks and drinks. I’ve never seen so much free stuff before. There are free breakfast items every day. Every lunch hour, they provide sandwich fixings for the entire company. We’re talking several selections of meat, cheese, and vegetables. Throughout the day, you can grab all kinds of snacks like chips, toast, cereal, fruit, yogurt and stuff I probably didn’t even see yet. It can’t be cheap to order that much food for a team this size so I give the company much respect for offering this perk to the employees. One guy warned me that I could gain weight just from the food that’s available around the studio.

If you see me in a couple of weeks and it looks like I’ve put on weight, please tell me.

Tomorrow I’ll be joining my third game team in less than twelve months, representing the third job I’ve had in the same time frame. I didn’t really feel nervous joining Fight Night Champion, mostly because I knew the work wasn’t going to be interesting nor challenging. With that in mind, there wasn’t really anything to be nervous about. Before arriving at UFG for True Crime, I wasn’t nervous either. That was partly because I was sick as a dog before my first day of work. I can tell you if you feel like crap on the first day, the only thing you’re concerned about is just surviving until the end of the day. The other reason I wasn’t nervous was because I knew many, many people on the team and it seemed like a natural place for me to wind up.

I will admit though I am a bit nervous tonight before my first day at Radical tomorrow. This is my first role on a game team where I’m going back to doing game play since skate 3. No more doing only UI work on a game. I’m looking forward to going back to what I like doing but at the same time, I don’t want to screw it up. I also don’t know many people at the new company. There are just three people I know there, all ex-skate, and none of them software engineers. There will be a lot of new people to meet.

Well, I’ve been through many first days now, so I know the best strategy is just take it day by day to start.

This is just a friendly reminder that today is April 1st which in many star systems has been designated April’s Fools Day. I feel like I should warn you, my loyal readers, that nothing should be accepted today without some serious thought. Half the Internet today will be filled with stories that are completely made up. If you doing shopping online, there might be products that are completely made up and not actually available. Though that sweet Tauntaun sleeping bag is indeed real, no joke (well it started off as a joke then became real). You shouldn’t even trust this web site. Are you sure you aren’t actually on Oprah’s web site right now?

If you work in an office, I’d be cautious all day. Do not accept treats from fellow co-workers. Be wary of any innocent looking e-mails. No, your office photocopier didn’t just become voice-activated. Trust none of your co-workers today. If you remain vigilant on this day, you might even survive. Good luck!

I thought he handled the question quite gracefully actually.