North Country

Hey kids, I'm writing to you from the North Country of Canton New York, which plays host to St. Lawrence University and it's Sunday graduation and just about nothing else. It takes about 7 hours to get here from Boston and 3 of those hours are spent on a one lane, occassionally dirt, "highway". Among the highlights of Canton are snow, toothless townies, Canadian radio, cheap Labatt, and snow.

Naturally, as the entirety of my day yesterday was spent in the car my only entertainment was letting the radio scan for ESPN affiliates, which would come in for 20-30 minutes and then fade into static, only to be followed by another scan, another station, repeat.

As such, I heard these ESPN headlines about a hundred times each.

The lead story throughout the afternoon was Tiger Woods missing the cut at the Byron Nelson Classic by 1 stroke after a bogey on 18. 2 things. 1 Byron must be laughing in his grave (yea I know he's not dead but he's so close that I'm going to presume) since he held the previous record of 113 consecutive cuts. 2 Tiger doesn't care about this one iota, now he'll spend the weekend with his smoking hot wife and his millions. No sympathy. Regardless, the record was insignificant, Tiger will be judged on major victories, not on whether or not he finishes in the top half of a meaningless field a few hundred times.

Dana Patrick will race in her first Indy 500 on Sunday. This is only a story because she's cute, if she looked like Roseanne we would never have heard of her. If she wins that's great, if she crashes it will just be another accident caused by a woman driver. (Oohhhh!)

Why does ESPN have the rights to the NBA Playoffs but does not carry the radio broadcast? It was a very sad moment at hour 5 when I realized that I was not going to have the Pacers v. Pistons game to carry me through the last few hours. Not to mention that since they weren't covering the game they ESPN Radio refused to give timely updates about the game, and when they did give updates they just mentioned the score and what quarter it was, not even how much time was remaining. It's as if they were saying, "Fine! You won't let us carry the broadcast, we're going to pretend these games don't exist! So there!" :-P Luckily Fox Sports Radio does a "gametime react" where they basically give everything short of play by play.

Pistons fans are rioting in their dirty run-down streets today. How are they down 2-1 to the Pacers? Reggie didn't even play well last night and they still lost. It's like Indiana is a black hole causing a league wide implosion wherever they go. Maybe if they had Ron Artest they would have a chance against Miami, not that I think they're going to be able to win 2 more.

Beyond the score I have no idea what happened in the Mavs v. Suns game last night. There, I said it, I'm clueless, someone write me a recap in a response to this.

I'm really starting to think that T.O. isn't going to play this season. His agent Drew Rosenhaus has absolutely poisoned his perspective and is, in the long run, going to cost him millions and more importantly the respect of his teammates. T.O. has been put in a no win situation. If he backs off his enormous ego takes a hit and a blow is landed for the ownership, if he doesn't he'll miss the entire season because I'm getting no sense that Jeffrey Lurie or anyone in the Eagles camp has any interest in giving in to this arrogant misanthrope. In fact, they can't, if they do they're opening a huge Pandora's box. Who knows when he'll decide he's unhappy again and demand that they pony up another 50 million. We'll be talking about this every off season.

Ty Law met with the Dolphins yesterday. HA! Go ahead Ty, take the money from Miami. You might as well end your playoff career with a Super Bowl win because you will never see the post season again. "The Law" is in for a harsh reality.

Yay! Time for the "President's Reception and Cocktail Party".

Snooty Academic: "So what do you do son?"
Me: "I'm a bartender."
Snooty Academic: "Good, get me a gin and tonic."
Me: "Ahh...I don't work here."
Snooty Academic: "Bombay Sapphire, extra lime."

Thump, as Snotty Academic hits the flooor.