NBC television Has renewed its contract with The National Hockey League for the 2007-2008 season. This is great news for the NHL. After the 2004-2005 lockout ESPN decided not to renew its contract with the NHL, leaving Versus (Who’s coverage is great, but limited) and NBC as the only nationally available broadcast partners.

Why is this good news for the NHL? Obviously national television exposure is good for any sport. I love to watch hockey, even if it isn’t my home town team playing. NBC also broadcasts most of their games in HD and hockey is awesome in HD.

Why is this good news for NBC? In addition to having national broadcasting rights to one of the most exciting sports on the planet (OK, I’m biased) it gets to pick the best game available to televise. NBC tried this during the final eight weeks of the 2006 NFL football season with great success. This allows the viewers to see the most relevant match-ups…a win for the network and the consumer.

While ESPN is broadcasting Poker and Jump Rope championships, I’ll still get to watch my hockey!

Tonight I feel lucky, my least favorite NHL official is working the Minnesota Wild vs. Vancouver Canucks game. Michael “Mick” McGeough is known for his borderline calls, bloated ego and perfectly coiffed hair. Personally, I think he looks like William Shatner on skates. Go Wild!

Recently I have been testing out different deployment options for a Rails application that I have developing. I decided on a production environment based on Coda Hale’s “Time For A Grown-Up Server” setup. Fortunately MacPorts (formerly Darwinports) makes it extremely easy to setup Apache 2.2 and Subversion on Mac OS X (Some additional configuration required).

One of the issues that I encountered after completing my configuration was that my Mongrel Cluster was not restarting following a system reboot. Most folks deploying to *nix environments are registering the Mongrel Cluster as a system-level service using inetd to make sure the cluster reloads. Apple, however, has decided to migrate from indetd to launchd. In the spirit of staying compliant with Apple’s technologies I have created a launchd plist file that suits my needs.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
 "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
  <key>Debug</key>
  <true/>
  <key>Label</key>
  <string>org.rails.mongrel.cluster</string>
  <key>OnDemand</key>
  <false/>
  <key>Program</key>
  <string>/opt/local/bin/daemondo</string>
  <key>ProgramArguments</key>
  <array>
    <string>--label=mongrel_cluster</string>
    <string>--start-cmd</string>
    <string>/usr/local/bin/mongrel_rails</string>
    <string>cluster::start</string>
    <string>-C</string>
    <string>(Path to your Mongrel Cluster config.yml)</string>
    <string>;</string>
    <string>--stop-cmd</string>
    <string>/usr/local/bin/mongrel_rails</string>
    <string>cluster::stop</string>
    <string>-C</string>
    <string>(Path to your Mongrel Cluster config.yml)</string>
    <string>;</string>
    <string>--restart-cmd</string>
    <string>/usr/local/bin/mongrel_rails</string>
    <string>cluster::restart</string>
    <string>-C</string>
    <string>(Path to your Mongrel Cluster config.yml)</string>
    <string>;</string>
    <string>--pid=none</string>
  </array>
  <key>RunAtLoad</key>
  <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

Make sure to replace the three entries with the full path to your Mongrel Cluster config.yml. Name the file whatever you like (in my case com.rails.mongrel.cluster.plist) and place it in your /Library/LaunchDaemons folder. Next time you reboot your system your Mongrel Cluster should be ready to go.

On Monday (thanks to my good friend Joe) I had the opportunity to go see one of my favorite bands from my high school days: Sepultura. Sepultura has changed quite a bit over the years, most notably in 1996 when their lead singer Max Cavalera decided to quit the band. His replacement Derrick Green (the only non-Brazilian band member) has done a fair job in his place. Most recently the departure of their founding drummer, Igor Cavalera has left the band with only two of its original members.

The Rock Nightclub is not an ideal setting for a rock concert. I have been there for a few shows in the past and have noticed that they generally sacrifice sound quality in favor of extreme volume. The show itself was fair but the poor turnout and compromised band lineup contributed negatively to the whole experience. It was fun to hear some of the songs that were definitely in heavy rotation for me years ago but left me with a lot to be desired.