May Quickies

Can it actually be the end of May? Due to lingering snow I have mowed my lawn a grand total of 3 times. That means one Friday afternoon a week for the last 3 weeks. It has been like clockwork, so if you are lurking in the bushes of my neighbourhood by all means feel free to pull up a lawn chair next Friday and watch me make quick work of my underfoot greenery.

Some noted quickies:

1) Mike Gillis wrote me a letter the other day. You know Mike Gillis as the new GM of the Vancouver Canucks. I apparently now know him as my penpal. He wrote me assuring me that he was committed to making the Canucks a winner again and that he had a gameplan to do so. Which was reassuring because I probably would have been a little cheesed had he written me saying "I am actually just in this for a quick paycheque bump and I think I might trade the Sedins to Philly for Riley Cote and Antero Niitymaki". Its good that we are peeps now. My wife says it has something to do with the fact that I was on a Canucks insider mailing list but I refuse to believe that. Mike and I are tight now and I fully expect that he got my reply and is going to shell out some dough for Marian Hossa in the summer.

All I know is that former GM Dave Nonis never sent me a letter. He once gave me a questionable back rub for a box of Krispy Kreme's but that was different. I think this Gillis move is one in the right direction.

2) If you think that you have a suck life, then read this. I remember watching Johnny Tapia fight once upon a time when I got HBO and actually enjoyed watching boxing. But then I realized all the garbage that pollutes the boxing world. And I stopped watching. Check out the link below. I read this in the back of SI last week. CONCLUSION: It must be tough to be Johnny Tapia, his wife, his kid, their neighbour, their postman, their dog, their fridge, etc...
http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1135938/index.htm

3) Catch of the week finalists are:

a. The Cubs Jim Edmonds running up the hill in centre field to make a circus catch in Houston. Why is there a hill on the field you ask? I don't know. Why is there a flagpole on the hill at the top of the hill...also in play? No clue. In any other field that is still a nice catch but double nice in Houston. Just wondering what they were thinking when they made that field. How can we make this unique? I know lets change the topography of centre field.

b) Me. Thats right. The other day the wife and I watched the dog get off the leash out at the park and spend the next 20 minutes daring us to catch it. The thing is the size of a malnourished ground squirrel and runs a 4.2 second 40 yard dash. It also is about as tall as Danny DeVito at its highest point so the chances of me catching it were pretty much nil. If we were in a cardboard box we might have had a chance but this chase was taking place on about 10 acres of sports fields. Eventually, it tired of tormenting us and ran back into the car where we decided just to wait it out. And then we beat it into a coma with the icy window scraper thing. Ok...that didn't happen. But there were parts of me that wanted it to.

Anyways...the catch. Today we went out on that same walk again and I ran with the dog on the leash. We came to a gate and the cunning little beast decided instead of running through the gate it would dash under the fence and slam the leash into the fence to free itself. Almost worked. The force of the collision launched the leash out of my hand and it fell in slow motion to the ground. The dog gave me a "screw you" look and started to bolt but I dived to the ground and caught the end of the leash, yanking the dog back to me and captivity. Two scraped knees, one dirt filled hand and one captured mutt. Let's see you do that Jim Edmonds.

Catch of the week winner: Me...by KO.

4) The WNBA is back. Here is my season preview. In the East I like the team with the really tall butchy girls and in the West...uh more of the same. As for the rest of the teams I see them breaking down like this...ya right...who am I kidding?

5) Why would anyone sign up to be a goalie in college lacrosse? I watched a little of the NCAA semi-final between Syracuse and Virginia today and I felt for the little guys in net. I have seen Major League Lacrosse (is that what its called?) where the goalies are wearing look like they have stuffed their shirts and pants with bags and bags of marshmallows. Not the fruity little marshmallows that you plop into your hot chocolate either, we are talking the big ones. The NCAA guys are wearing nothing. They have a helmet but nothing that the other players don't have. Oh wait...they do have larger webbing in their sticks. Which I doubt helps them save anything but might help them gather up their testicles more quickly when they are knocked clean off their body by hurtling lacrosse balls. Who signs up for this? Thats like playing hockey goalie in a thong, flip flops and wearing a sombrero. And holding a toothpick. Yet a bigger toothpick than the others. Dumb.

6) I am not sure that something can really be called a sport when at the end of the day it ends up in a euthanization? Can it? For those who don't know, the horse Eight Belles was put to sleep forever only a couple of steps past the finish line of the Kentucky Derby. The horse had just finished second and likely won some people a handful of money and then it broke both front legs and had to be killed on the track. Why on the track in front of 120,000 people...I am not sure.

When my soccer team Leicester City was relegated to the 3rd highest tier of English football I was angry and sullen. But I didn't want for the players to stay on the field, let the other team leave and then Zyklon B them. Something about someone/something being left lifeless after a competition doesn't seem right to me. Maybe this is why I gave up watching boxing and never found myself watching a UFC fight begging for a murder.

7) I watched the final of American Idol. That guy beat that other guy and approximately 3 people were conscious at the end when we found out who won. This was because we had to watch a bazillion crappy performances that made us a cringe and feel extremely sorry for the people who lost and ourselves. If that was a prelude to the American Idol tour this summer, you can count me out. You could have counted me out anyways but this was the capper. The only bright spot was the appearance of Bryan Adams who still reps Canada well at age 74. I still remember listening to "Everything I Do" at summer camp some time in the 90's...and wondering why you would do everything for a girl. I mean some things yes. But freakin' everything?

8) I'm not still bitter that the Bucks took Bogut at #1 in the 2005 NBA draft. I mean Chris Paul and Deron Williams wouldn't have been better picks would they? Hold on I have to stop and wipe the tears off of my face, and arms, and legs, and toes, and the carpet and where the little estuary ran down the stairs.

And then the NBA draft lottery punched me in the face again last week and gave the Bucks the 8th pick. Great. That's about the territory that teams do stupid things like take people who come from some far away land and have no clue about what it means to play in the NBA. Yes, guys like Yi. I have a feeling we are going to pass on Eric Gordon with that pick and take Stanislav Yakscrotumski out of Tajikistan and label him a "can't miss prospect". When is someone going to tell the truth and label these guys "can't make prospects"?

9) Saturday Night Live is on tv behind me. How dumb has that show become? You can debate whether that showed peaked during the late Sandler and Farley years or the moment Will Ferrell skipped town but the fall from grace has been rough.

10) This quote from the Bill Simmons blog on ESPN...which is always a great read:
"I'm not sure if Byron Scott should have benched Jannero Pargo in Game 7, clotheslined Pargo as he was running by the Hornets bench, or just shot Pargo in the leg with a BB gun, but regardless, you really don't want Jannero Pargo deciding your NBA season. It's one of my rules in life."

Apparently Ime Udoka from the Spurs isn't a big Simmons fan. If he had read that maybe he isn't the guy hoisting up lame ducks in the 4th quarter of Game 1 against the Lakers as the Spurs desperately try to hold on. Maybe he passes it to guys like Parker, Ginobili, Duncan, Horry, Finley, Barry etc. instead of not even hitting the rim. Just a suggestion. I wonder if Pargo texted him the next day and said "listen dude, i wasn't aware of it either, but apparently we aren't supposed to be deciding NBA playoff games". October games against the Grizzlies perhaps, but not playoff games in May.

11) Is it bad that I was hoping Danica Patrick would never win a race? I put that right up there on my list of "I hope this doesn't happens". Other list dwellers include:
a) Michelle Wie winning a PGA, LPGA or Champions Tour tourney
b) The Montreal Canadiens winning the Stanley Cup again
c) Paul Tracy winning any kind of race
d) Daniel Snyder ever getting his smug face near a Super Bowl ring.
e) Hillary Clinton beoming the President of anything.
f) Bert and Ernie becoming full fledged members of the Ku Klux Klan thereby severely weakening their working relationships with both the Count and Snuffleupagus.

Other than those things, anything else can happen and I won't get too mad.

Well, thats about it. For the record, I expect to see the Red Wings and Lakers (gag/puke) as champions of their respective leagues and I also see Big Brown winning the triple crown in horse racing. And thank goodness we are only 3 months away from another NFL season.