Tuesday, October 17, 2006

evening

National Blog Posting Month - I’m Gonna Do It!

Fussy.org has organized National Blog Posting Month for November - all you have to do is update your blog every day for the month of November.  You don’t have to write the most amazing thing ever each day, just write each day.  It’s a good habit, plus it gives the rest of us something to read.  Heck, I probably have more than thirty book reviews waiting to get done.  Seems like a good time to at least get some of them written, before I forget what all of the books were about...or if I even liked them.

NaBloPoMo

Monday, October 16, 2006

evening

Neil Rackers - The Agony of Defeat

I felt so badly for Neil Rackers when he missed the FG that would’ve won the Monday Night Football game.  Not only because he’s on my fantasy football team, but because he was so amazing last year when I picked him up mid-season.  It was like he could do no wrong, but this season it’s almost the exact opposite.  I can’t even imagine how horrible he feels.  I’d rather he would’ve made the field goal and won the game because while my Bears defense had a great recovery in the second half, it wasn’t enough for me to win anyway.  So, I’d rather not have seen a kicker’s season go down the tubes like that.  Plus, Matt Leinart was pretty great, and he deserved the win.

That game was the epitome of the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.  The Bears could’ve dealt with the loss.  It would’ve humbled them and I’m sure they would’ve finished the season still doing really well, but I think this loss just destroyed the poor Cardinals and their fans.

By the way, Joe Theismann, just SHUT UP.  Please give us a few seconds of silence occasionally to enjoy the game.  You don’t have to fill up every single second with blather.  It only makes me love the Al Michaels/John Madden team all that much more.  Knowledge, a sense of humor, some humility, and they can have brief moments of silence without freaking out and filling it.

Sunday, October 15, 2006

late at night

Idiot of the Day - Anna Nicole’s Mother

I suppose I probably don’t need to preface this by saying Anna Nicole and her mother are estranged, but I will.  But seriously, the woman thinks someone murdered Daniel, with methadone, Zoloft, and Lexapro?  Surely there’s a more effective killer drug out there.  Ask Chaz Higgs - now that’s how you kill someone.  Of course, unlike Chaz, you probably don’t want to tell a co-worker exactly how you would kill someone and get away with it...the day before you, uh, kill someone.

Naturally, Nancy Grace just had to interview this train wreck.  Hey, you know, Nancy Grace should’ve been my idiot of the day.  She’s an incredibly scary woman.  But oh what a great interview she got out of Anna Nicole’s mom.  I hope the appearance fee was huge for this kind of insight, “That’s true. There was only three people in that room. Danny was one of them . . . I just know Danny didn’t kill hisself. He did not overdose hisself . . . Danny wouldn’t take drugs to begin with. I don’t believe that for a minute. You could not convince me of that.”

evening

Gooooo, Bears!

For the first time, and probably the last, I’m going to be watching a football game solely for the defense.  I’m down by 13, I have the Bears defense and my dad has Anquan Boldin and Edgerrin James.  While I feel badly for wanting my defense to totally decimate Matt Leinart in his second NFL game, I can’t help myself.  I need to win this week.  Man, I knew I should’ve quit fantasy football after I won two leagues last year.  It’s too much pressure now.  But, haha, at least I don’t have Frank’s tremendously bad luck.  No matter what players he gets, no matter what sport it is, somehow his teams are jinxed.  I don’t know how it happens - he does all the right things, checks the stats, picks up the right players, but when it comes down to game day, he gets beaten by Bo.  Bo, who picked Shaun Alexander, The John Madden Jinx player of the season.  Of course, most of the fantasy football experts said not to pick Alexander anyway.  They said he was lazy and that he wouldn’t work as hard this season because he worked hard last season to get a good contract.  So, getting lucky with the first pick in the draft, I pick Larry Johnson.  Geez, he may as well have broken his foot for all he’s produced for me.  Leigh-Ann’s LaDainian had FOUR touchdowns today.  FOUR!  Larry Johnson was tremendously lucky to get one, and he rushed for a big whopping 26 whole yards.  Hell, I could’ve rushed for 26 yards.

Enough about football - has anyone been watching the Leafs?  Who are these guys?  They shoot and they score!  It’s like someone switched out last season’s team and replaced them with guys who actually like to shoot the puck.  And last night, when I thought they were going to turn back into the Leafs of yore and blow the game, they won with an awesome short-handed overtime goal by Mats, his 500th career goal.  The only way it could’ve been better was if it was a playoff game.  It was worth sitting through poor Cassie Campbell working her first game doing color.  I honestly hated her at first.  I like Joe & Harry’s chemistry.  They’re no Vin Scully, but they’re fun because they know each other so well.  Anyway, I didn’t realize that Cassie was working the game because Harry Neale was stuck in Buffalo because of the snowstorm.  Had I known that she was an emergency replacement and didn’t have time to prep, I would’ve given her a break.  She knows her hockey, she was just a bit awkward, which she’ll get over.  Speaking of disappointing, I sure miss John Davidson on Satellite Hotstove.  Yeah, yeah, he’s now the president of the St. Louis Blues, but I want him back doing commentary.  Oh, J.D., come back.  You know how I hate change.

early afternoon

Leigh-Ann Says I’m Being Too Cryptic

Leigh-Ann says I’m being too cryptic about the fake/real Leanne Domi story, and that it’s even hard for her to follow my odd blog entries.  I don’t know, I guess because it wasn’t something I was especially proud of - I liked the fake Leanne, and I figured the real Leanne didn’t need any more stress in her life.  Plus, most of my readers aren’t big hockey fans and don’t really care much about Tie Domi’s wife, real or fake.  Also, my full name is quoted in the story, and snippets from Friday’s blog entry.  Right now, the search engines haven’t crawled that entry yet, so Toronto Sun readers can’t follow the whole story and read my blog.  The only people who know about the story and my involvement are Leigh-Ann, Michele Mandel (the reporter), the real Leanne Domi, Leanne Domi’s divorce attorney (by the way, if I was Tie, I wouldn’t mess with her), Helly, some of my friends on Vox (they’ve known for about 48 hours), and the other people on the message board with “Leanne”.  Oh, and maybe the fake Leanne too.  Who knows.  If the fake Leanne is reading, the people on the WIYT board know, but like me, they still like you.  It’s honestly the strangest reaction to someone lying online that I’ve ever encountered.  Not a single person is mad.  Confused, perplexed, curious, but no one is mad.  The consensus is, “Oh, really?  Well, I liked whoever it was.” So, fake Leanne, if you want to come back to the board, it’s still there for you.  But to punish you, you’re no longer a “moderator”, so take that.

One funny thing is - Leanne’s lawyer wrote to the reporter and said for me to contact her.  But when she wrote my name, she put it in quotes, as if *I* wasn’t real.  Oh sure, like I’m going to mess with a reporter, a lawyer, and someone who has enough money to sue me and make my life miserable.  All for this weird story.  Uh, I don’t think so.

Anyway, here’s the link to the infamous story in the Toronto Sun - E-Chat with “Leanne” - Former Leafs wife’s identity taken. I’ve got to say, being introduced on the field at Dodger Stadium in 1978, after my softball team won the national championship, was a lot more personally fulfilling than being the source of an odd internet story.  I appreciate that Michele was completely fair in what she wrote, that it wasn’t sensationalized and that the story reflects that we’re all still a little puzzled by the whole thing.  There was only one slight misquote, I don’t know if “Leanne” loved The Alarm.  Liked, maybe.  Oh, and the fake Leanne saying Belinda Stronach was prettier?  Nicely “self-deprecating”, but not true.  Tie traded down.