Championship Baby!

I won the ABL League Fantasy Baseball Championship! 



I may never play again.  I might just walk away on top and retire as champion. 

Random Thoughts On Nothing Important ....

First: Happy birthday to my sister Kell!  Hope you have a great one!

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Well I would like to thank the NFL and ESPN for ruining the NFL Draft.  The league decided to make the big money and ratings grab by moving the first round of the draft to Thursday night prime time.  Then rounds two through four (I think) on Friday night prime time and then the rest all day on Saturday.

Personally, I thought it sucked.

The NFL draft was quickly becoming one of the biggest sporting days of the year.  The noon Saturday time meant that fans were able to turn that first day of the draft into an opportunity to gather around and have a party while waiting for their team to make their picks.  But, the NFL decided to take that away.  I understand the money side of this, but there are some things you can’t put a price tag on.  And, those day long get-togethers by fans and the pure enjoyment of the draft is one of those things.  To me this is just another example of a sports league putting money in front of their fan’s enjoyment.

And then of course there was ESPN’s coverage.  They actually barely cover the draft.  After the first round they actually miss a lot of the picks and have to update everyone on the picks that they missed.  They spend most of their time on puff-pieces on certain players and letting Todd “I Hate Tim Tebow With Every Fiber Of My Being” McShay, John “I Have The Haircut Af A 12 Year Old” Gruden, Steve “Does Anyone Have Any Idea What The Fuck He’s Talking About” Young and Mel “The Angriest Man Alive” Kiper just scream and yell at each other over players that were drafted. 


Angry Mel Kiper:

I found it boring.

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Mom while watching Food Network: “Wouldn’t it be funny if it turned out nobody really likes arugula?  They just claim to like it because it’s ‘healthy’ and fashionable for the elitists?

Me: “Yeah, kind of like Faulkner.  Nobody like his drivel, they just read him because they have to and claim to love it because they think it makes them look smart.”

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Speaking of the NFL Draft.  Tim Tebow was taken late in the first round by the Denver Broncos.  Now, unlike many people, I’m not a Tebow hater.  I have no problem with him and think that a lot of the hate is unfair.  My problem isn’t with Tebow, it’s with the members of the sports media and their idolizing of Tebow and their over the top declarations of Tebow as the greatest human being ever.

I do have doubts about Tebow ever being an elite NFL quarterback though.  But, we’ll see.  Three years from now this will either be a brilliant draft pick or the entire Broncos coaching staff will be gone.  That’s the way the NFL works.  The bottom line is how much you invest in a player and if that doesn’t pay off, then somebody has to pay with their job.

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I posted on my Twitter the other day that I had finally made a decision on who to vote for in the senate primary coming up here in Arkansas. 

Nobody.

I just don’t really like anyone running and don’t have any confidence that any of them will be a good senator.  Especially our sitting senator Blanche Lincoln. 

So, since there are no local issues or other races that look interesting, I think I’ll just pass on the primaries.  Then I will decide this fall on who to vote for (should it be “whom?”) in the senate race.  All other races are no contest.  In fact, I’m not even sure that the republicans are going to put up an opponent for Governor Mike Beebe or the other constitutional offices in the fall.

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Speaking of the NFL again.  I saw this week that the NFL has decided that they will no longer defer to Major League Baseball and the World Series.  The NFL will play a Sunday night game opposite the World Series this year for the first time.   This, along with moving the draft to prime time opposite the NBA playoffs is part of the NFL’s taking advantage of it’s dominate position among the major sports leagues in the US.

I’m totally fine with this.  I will probably be watching the NFL game on that night rather than the World Series anyway.  But, I do kind of agree with Dallas Mavericks’ owner Mark Cuban when he said that this is a pretty arrogant move by the NFL and at some point that kind of behavior will come back to bite them on the butt.  That’s probably ture.

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And speaking of baseball, I think I hate fantasy baseball.  It seems to work pretty much like fantasy football.  And by that I mean that my opponent’s players are guaranteed to have a monster week the week they play me. 

Currently I’m 1-2 on the season and I have no idea how I won the one game.  I’m not sure that I’m going to win another one.  I think I might hate fantasy baseball.

Lent, Fantasy Baseball and Suicidal Roadrunners ...

Well lent is finally over.  At 12:01 am on Sunday morning I celebrated the end of lent by driving through McDonalds and getting my usual #6.  Supersized to include a 32 oz Coke and then came back home and poured some bourbon into that coke.

Okay, not really.  But that actually sounds pretty damn good, doesn’t it?  And, I DID have a Meat Lover’s Pizza from Pizza Hut Sunday night. 

Anyway, lent has finally ended and it was a spectacular minor success.  I wasn’t perfect so you can feel free to feel all superior.  But, I didn’t cave completely.  I did avoid the fast food joints.  I didn’t buy a big bag of Doritos and six 20 oz Throwback Pepsi’s with real sugar and gorge myself on them while watching basketball.  And the only alcohol I had was 1 dram of Scotch when my sister and brother in law came over.

Yeah, I’m setting the bar kinda low here, but oh well.  The problem with doing things like no junk food or soft drinks for lent is that it’s way worse than a diet.  When your dieting and you have a small bag of Doritos, you feel bad, but try to make up for it by having an extra healthy dinner or whatever.   During lent you’ve let Jesus down.  That’s pretty rough.  Lent failure guilt is much worse than diet failure guilt. 

So, I’m think next year for lent Imma do something different.  Like not observe lent at all.  I don’t know, we’ll see.

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I’ve joined a fantasy baseball league.  I named my team The Swingers.  This league is being run by THE Burl.  I haven’t a clue what I’m doing.  I didn’t know most of the players on my team after the draft.  Although as I’ve checked them out, I’m not all that unhappy with the team. 

I don’t really have anyone that will put up monster numbers like Albert Pujols, but I do have some pretty consistent players who will hopefully produce as a team.  That’s pretty much what Matt-Man did in fantasy football and it worked out just swimmingly for him. 

I do have a couple of Chicago Cubs on my roster though.  This makes me very uncomfortable.   I would hate for some of that Cubs Fail to rub off on The Swingers.  So, I might have to do something with those guys if things start going badly. 

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Okay, so I’m driving along minding my own business this afternoon, just enjoying the beautiful spring weather here in the Ozarks, right?  As I’m cruising along at 85 mph the speed limit of 45 mph on this country road, I see a roadrunner on the side of the road.  So I’m like “MEEP MEEP” and all the sudden the roadrunner runs right out in front of my car.  Unfortunately there wasn’t time for me to do anything but hope that he was fast enough to get past the car. 

But, he wasn’t. ☹

I blasted that poor dumb bastard.  I heard him hit underneath the car and then I looked out my rear view mirror to see nothing but feathers flying everywhere.  Then I saw the bird come flopping around out the back of the car too.  I was totally sure that I killed him.  No way a bird could withstand that hit. 


I don't know why he just ran out in front of me like that.  Maybe he was committing suicide? 

But, a little ways down the road I decided to turn around and go back and see how bad it was.  When I got to the spot where I hit the bird, he wasn’t there!  There were feathers in the grass on the side of the road, but no roadrunner!

I don’t know if he got up and limped off, or if he wasn’t really hurt at all and he ran away.  Or, maybe another animal like a coyote or something grabbed him and ran into the woods.  I have no idea.

But, I think I’m just going to pretend that he did 12 summersaults, a cartwheel and then a back flip then nailed the landing and yelled out “TA-DAAAAA!!!!” 

Yeah, I think that’s what happened.  An Easter miracle!