Congratulations You Crazy Kids...

My brother known to you as "Pizza Parlor Daren" proposed to his long time girlfriend AnnMarie Jagodnik(sp?) Sunday night. Daren chose the Serendipity III restaurant, the namesake for the Chick Flick "Serendipity" starring John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale as the venue for the proposal. AnnMarie said yes and will become "Pizza Parlor AnnMarie" at a date yet to be determined.

Congratulations to Daren and AnnMarie!

Happy Mardi Gras!

Here's a scenario for you.

1) The entire world celebrates Mardi Gras!

2) You have one set of beads

3) Anyone you give beads to must do what girls do during Mardi Gras in New Orleans

4) You can give your one set of beads to anyone in the world

Who would you give them to?

Here's my choice...

Happy Birthday SCZA!

Today is Scott Isaacs' 29th Birthday.

It will be celebrated with an all-day long extravaganza on Saturday involving SU basketball, SoCo and Lime shots and probably a week of SCZA in the doghouse afterwards.

If plans are made that sound bloggable I will blog the event, but for now wish SCZA a Happy Birthday!

Happy Presidents Day!

Today is President's Day. Not only a good day to buy a car, but the day we honor the 42 men who have taken on the responsibility of leading this country as its Chief Executive.

For a quick look at the office and our nation's Presidents I offer you Wikipedia's History of The Presidency

"In case you're wondering Who the Best is?" Wikipedia also offers a ranking of all 42 Presidents by Average Scholarly Rank.

Happy Presidents Day!

Weekend in Sports Purgatory: Daytona 500

I have no one to blame but myself for my own ignorance about cars. I have no one to blame but the broadcasters of NASCAR for my own ignorance about NASCAR. Here are my complaints.

1) There is apparently some "team element" to this sport where guys whose cars are owned by the same ownership group draft and block for each other, except nowhere on the constantly revolving ticker does it say whose on what team. Who are the Roush guys? Who are Joe Gibbs' guys? I'd like to root for Roush-FENWAY racing and they had some guys in the Top 10 towards the end but no one told me who so I still don't have "a guy" to root for. And that will never be properly explained to me, how people get to root for "their guy"?

2) For all the "gearhead" talk during the race. Could we get ONE Human Interest story? I'm stunned I'm asking for this in an individual sport and I've seen enough ESPN pieces on football players' whose family members have died of something to know that these stories must exist. How much more popular could this be if we were given reasons to root for individuals. All I know about any of these guys is that Carl Edwards banged Amanda Beard and had a brief cameo appearance on '24'

This sport got popular without ever having to explain their product to new fans, so I'm behind the curve on NASCAR and may forever be.

Anyway, the 6th Caution on the 198th lap (telling me that watching 99% of this race was a waste of time) brings us to the exciting "Green-White-Checkered" finish, where the restart takes us to the second to last lap than the final lap to end the race. The equivalent of Overtime in NASCAR. I felt like I was listening to Cotton McKnight during "Sudden Death" of the Las Vegas International Dodgeball Open saying "We haven't had one of these since the 1952 Helsinki Open...and we all know how THAT turned out!"

Kevin Harvick beats out perennial leader Mark Martin who is apparently 60 years old and has never won a Daytona 500 by .123 of a second. Pretty exciting, I must say.

Weekend in Sports Purgatory: America's Game

I've mentioned before, how much I enjoy these specials on NFL Network. They're the exact thing you should watch when you're debating whether or not to go to the gym. They're done the Top 20 Countdown leading to Super Bowl Week which pulled no surprise and ranked the undefeated '72 Dolphins #1 and are now showing the rest of the specials. This week they showcased:

2001 Patriots as told by Tom Brady, Lawyer Milloy and Adam Vinateri- I love that two of the three players interviewed don't play for New England anymore. How does Tom Brady even remember 2001? That must be about 250 booze-filled, whore-laced weekends ago. Anyway as Vinateri tells you and you already know "Drew Bledsoe doesn't get hurt, Tom never sees the field". Not sure if that's true or Brady would've eventually took over but definitely not in 2001.

1970 Baltimore Colts as told by Bill Curry, Bubba Smith, Mike Curtis and Ernie Accorsi- Accorsi was just a PR employee don't know why they interviewd him. Anyway this is the least inspiring of the episodes because the Super Bowl V was so horrible and many of the players were leftover from the first NFL team to lose (the team that lost to the Jets). Many of the players do not wear their rings from this Super Bowl.

Weekend in Sports Purgatory

Football Season is Over...

Pitchers and Catchers JUST Reported to Spring Training and Meaningful Games are STILL Six Weeks away...

The NCAA Tournament is STILL a Little Under a Month Away...

So what does a sports fan watch during a weekend in February? Well in my case, everything I can!

Weekend in Sports Purgatory: Florida vs. Vanderbilt

Florida lost its first SEC game of the year on Saturday in the weirdest gym in the SEC perhaps in all of college basketball. Vanderbilt's Memorial Auditorium was built with the idea of having use other than basketball so the court is actually built like a stage and to prevent injury from someone diving out of bounds, there is a good ten yards of space out of bounds on one side. Anyway, missed the altercation between Joakim Noah and Gene Stallings so I don't know what that was about. No reason to believe Florida will be anything but a #1 seed and the favorite to win the NCAA Tournament, this was the kind of game that's impossible to win for almost any team. On the road, in conference to an inferior team on national television. Luckily they were the only highly ranked team to lose such a game.

Weekend in Sports Purgatory: Boston College vs. North Carolina

Okay enough with these "Color-Outs", when Penn State started this in 2005 it was an awesome visual effect, when Louisville did it this football season, it was impressive. When I participated in one at Ohio State, it was a fun gimmick. Now its been beaten to death. I credit BC with actually giving away the gold shirts to fans who attended Saturday Night's game. Of course Syracuse is behind the curve on this as they just trust the people of Skaneatles and Manulius to show up in Orange.

Extra! Extra! BC chokes in a big game again! You could send the #2 Sports Betting team into Chestnut Hill and they'd beat BC, and of course BC would be #1. For more New England perspective, the most hated "local" team in New England, Boston College. The media that covers the teams, wonders why Boston is such a pro sports town and is weary of embracing Boston College. That's not it. We HATE BC! For one almost every one of us went to ANOTHER college that played BC. Two they sold out their fanbase alumni by joining the ACC and playing half their games south of Baltimore. You can't ever get me to root for BC in anything. To prove the point they played Duke and Greg Paulus and I was cheering harder than Dickie V for the Dukies.

Anyway overrated Jared Dudley could've tied the game with some free throws. They did an Andy Katz profile on him walking through Boston. He's from California probably did everything he did with Andy Katz for the first time then and he won't be caught dead in Boston after he graduates, which makes me happy.

Weekend in Sports Purgatory: All-Star Saturday Night

So, the NBA is teasing Las Vegas, even though putting a franchise there seems to be years away, at least by putting its All-Star Game there this weekend. Surprisingly the only trouble anybody's gotten in is Reggie Bush with the Saints for twisting his ankle in a Charity Basketball Game. All-Star Saturday Night consisted of:

Shooting Stars Competition- Where a current NBA Player, retired NBA player, and a WNBA player from the same city all shoot from different spots on the court then shoot from half court and whomever gets the half court shot in in the least amount of time wins. This is good for comedic fodder as George Gervin, Bill Laimbeer and Michael Cooper try to fit into their old uniforms and pretend to be in basketball shape. Ironically the Chicago team had Scottie Pippen on it who is attempting a comeback. The announcers played this like a tryout for Pippen. Anyway clock issues took away from this and Detroit won on a DQ when Ben Gordon shot out of turn. Moving on...

Skills Challenge- Surprised they actually got established stars to do this. Wouldn't think Kobe Bryant or Dwayne Wade would risk embarrassment trying to pass a ball through tires, which is exactly what happened to Bryant as he was about to win but couldn't pass a ball through the first tire. Apparently Wade's a back-to-back champion of this event. I'm sure he cares.

Charles Barkley vs. Dick Bavetta in a Foot Race- I'm an NBA lamen and don't watch every TNT Friday Night broadcast which I'm sure you need to do to get the backstory here, but Barkley miraculously beats the 5 mile a day runner Bavetta, then falls as the announcers laugh at Charles. Good for what it was and actually gave me an idea for Halftime of next year's Pro Bowl an ARM WRESTLING CONTEST BETWEEN SHANNON SHARPE AND ED HOCHULI! That's about the only thing that could get me to watch the Pro Bowl at this point.

Three Point Shootout- Jason Kapono beats Gilbert Arenas and Dirk Nowitzki. Kapono plays for the Heat and they kept showing Shaquille O'Neal and some hot chick after his routines. Even though O'Neal probably just found out that Kapono plays for the Heat that night. The post-interview tried to play Kapono and Shaq as best friends, I didn't buy it.

Slam-Dunk Contest- Who allowed partners in this event? When did this become the "Alley-Oop" Contest? There were too many props and watching Nate Robertson attempt the same bounce 360 was excruciating. Everyone's giving Michael Jordan a hard time for being stingy with his scores. Who can blame him? This was like Emeril Lagasse walking into a Waffle House asking him how he liked his Hash Browns with Frank's Red Hot.

Anyway, Gerald Green of the Celtics wins by paying homage to Dee Brown and doing dunks below what he was doing in High School. Magic Johnson said it was good "to see SOMETHING GOOD happen for the Boston Celtics" as if this was salvaging their season. Only Greg Oden or Kevin Durant will salvage their season. Got that?