Madness, Hillary, Faulkner, Ankle Breaking

My bets for today, after just eeking by in the initial rounds of the NCAA tournament.

 

North Carolina vs Washington State... North Carolina is giving 9, and I'd probably give them 19 if that was the line. Unless WSU somehow has been hiding a Sasquatch on their bench just for this moment, they don't get by UNC... or even near them.

West Virginia vs Xavier... The mountainous part of Virginia is the one point favorite, but I'm going for the X Men.

Louisville vs Tennessee... Louis is giving up three points... and while I do think tht they'll win, I think it will be in one of those last-shot gutwrenchers. Gimme Tenny!

Davidson vs Wisconsin.... Davidson has some freak of a scorer named Stephen Curry, but Wisconsin is big and mean. I'll take those 5 points and go with Cheesehead U.

Stanford vs Texas..... the Texicans are giving 2.5 points, and I'm buying.

Villanova vs Kansas..... Kansas is giving 12 filthy points, which is the big carrot dangled in front of today's more reckless gamblers. It worked on me, reeling me in like a big, fat bass.

Michigan State vs Memphis... Memphis is iller than an AIDS patient, and should triple that 4.5 point spread.

 

Meanwhile, in the Big Leagues.... the Celtics doled out some stepchild-worthy abuse on Shaq and the Phoenix Suns last night, in what was a very enjoyable game. If you want to see someone get sh*tted on, watch this 30 second clip...Rajon Rondo Freezes Steve Nash in the Lane - FanHouse - AOL Sports Blog

 

Hillary Wasn't Lying - CollegeHumor video.... I was going to vote for the Muslim guy until I saw how Hilly laid down the law in godforsaken Bosnia.

 

Miss Bimbo, virtual fashion game! - MissBimbo.com... I haven't played this yet, but I became aware of it through a protest article that appeared on AOL. Supposedly, the object is to "construct" the Überslut. You can accessorize by having your model vomit to lose weight, dress like a streetwalker, and get big implants that would make Hefner proud.

Granted, this is a Sports column.. but there are those who say that love is God's greatest game, and breast augmentation is fair play. As Stacey says, "there are two kinds of men in the world... men who love huge chests, and men who lie when you ask them if they like huge chests."

 

William Faulkner Mississippi Oslo Madison Square Garden Montreal Joe Louis York Rangers - SI Vault.... Ignore that screwy titled link... Just imagine the editorial brilliance of the man who thought... "Southerner... legendary author... has never seen hockey.... I wonder what would go through his head if we took him to a game?"

Turns out... a whole lotta bullshi*... but it's an interesting read, and it's only one page. Walk with a King for a while.

My favorite Faulkner line, from a non-hockey story.... He was invited to have dinner at the White House, perhaps with Eisenhower. He backed out, saying "It's too far to travel, and I hate crowds."

I think that he was teaching at Georgetown or Virginia at the time.

 

Tags: NCAA, Hillary, Rajon Rondo, Bosnia, Hockey, Faulkner

Hoppin' Down Da Bunny Trail

Editor's Note.... Stacey is of doing her one church appearance a year, so Baby Magic puts on the bunny ears and takes over the annual Easter column.

Most sites take Easter off... not us. We're lashed to the helm, pointing the bow towards Here To Entertain You Harbor. Besides... I went to Midnight Mass, so I'm off the hook. Some of us go to church, while some of us crank the reggae, lay back, twist one, hop on AOL, and worship The Man in our own way.

God hasn't been much help to me with the NCAA tournament, I'll tell you that.

My March Madness bracket was 22-10 at the end of Friday, and all I know about Saturday is that Duke lost.... I had a date before Midnight Mass, you see.  I had Duke going a few more rounds, but what do I know? They deserve to lose for stripping that lacrosse player or whatever they did last year.

Duke also has a Blue Devil as a mascot, never a good thing to be rocking on the anniversary of Christ's death and resurrection. I'd mention that they took that name as a tribute to a famous French alpine brigade, but it won't be of any use to you until about December 2008... next season.

College hoops tends to be the forte of the Southern/Midwestern schools that aren't any good at football, you see.... and Duke is the flagship of this particular philosophy, going 1-11 at football last year....but I digress.

A lot of people don't like Duke. They always get the top recruits, and they have a rowdy crowd of kids who don't know any better than to think that they're at a Tobacco Road Ivy League school. ESPN analyst Dick Vitale- always quick to attach himself to a winner- raves about them like he's about to let them f*ck his daughter. Nixon went to Duke, which only adds to the Hatred.

Duke also holds a little-known place in sports history. They were one of the first schools to take part in an interracial game. Peep the link below...

Duke University Alumni Magazine

Long story short, two teams who thought that they were the best in town defied the police and the racist power structure to meet up for a game. One was old Dook, and the other was something like North Carolina State College For Negroes That Was Most Likely Separate But Was Hardly Equal. I'll crank up the tension by not telling you who won, but I will add that one side didn't go "we're the better race, f*ck you" after the game.... no, they just mixed the squads and played another game... Shirts Vs Skins.

Things went uphill race wise after that game, to the point where it is now the White Man who has to answer questions about his race when entering the NBA. I was playing NBA Live in Franchise Mode on the XBox yesterday- with the beginnings of this article about Duke/NCSC4N already banging around my pretty little head- and I still twice passed on what appeared to be superior draftees because they were white.

I may miss the next Larry Bird or Pete Maravich following that strategy... but I won't get stuck with any Adam Morrisons or Darko Milicics, either. Bettors live and die by those kind of differences.

 It all works out in the long run. Besides, if Ainge didn't turn Raef LaFrentz, Wally Sczerbiak and Dan Dickau into Pierce/KG/Ray Allen, we wouldn't have this kick-ass Sportscenter commercial to watch.... YouTube - Celtics Three Amigos Sportscenter

One thing I enjoy about the Sportscenter commercials is that they insist upon portraying the athletes (and there are perhaps hundreds of these commercials) in uniform 24/7, sort of like how the Carver High kids went to class all day in their basketball uniforms on The White Shadow.

I wonder if the Celtics singin the shower? We had "Do the Celtics players sing in the shower, like White Shadow?" lined up in the Cherie Blier interview, but we didn't think she was old enough to catch the reference... I only got it because Stacey has the shows on DVD.

Well.. I have eggs to hide, so I'd better wrap this up.

Here's our finishing move for the day.. a famous Lobby featured in National Geographic:

Photo in the News: Monster Lobster Pardoned

"Bet you'd like to prove that... get your name in the National Geo-Graphic."

aoljpictureUpload, aoljpictureUpload_2

Baby Magic Returns

Elle is in the house!

Stacey's off defending the oppressed, so it falls to me to create and promote our new interactive feature here at the National Sports part of the CCToday Experience..... an official NCAA March Madness Game that you- yes, YOU- can play.

www.ESPN.com will do all the scoring for us, and they don't spam you that often. UMassj at Yahoo is the man for this idea, but I am more familiar/can explain better with the ESPN format.

First... you go to this link:

 ESPN - Men's Tournament Challenge: Game Home

 Like most sites, you have to log in/sign up, but I don't recall ESPN being that big of a pain in the ass.

Once you're in, you'll be presented with a bracket. Fill these out (for each of the 4 conferences). You click on whatever team you think will win the game. They provide scouting reports, from both one paragraph briefs to ones that are so deep that God himself might not have time to read them all.

In the first round, I chose about 16 teams by reputation, 5 by actually comparing the scouting reports, and 11 Wild Guesses. Wild Guess then began to take a substantial lead in the later rounds. You can do 32 wild guesses. They will be as good as mine. Follow the tournament through the championship game.

Once you're done, you can put your team into a league. Click this link:

.ESPN - Men's Tournament Challenge: Cape Cod Today Group Page

... and then join. You can go back to this same page to check out how you fare against the others.

Now, I know what you're thinking.... "There's no way that my inferior intellect can match wits with Baby Magic's bad-ass mental acumen." Granted, that will be a concern.

If you don't want to lose to a girl, you have bigger problems than losing to a girl... so play. As I wrote this, both Stacey and the Colonel told me of NCAA pools they were in that were won by A) a lesbian English teacher who literally took her bracket and checked it off in 7 seconds, possibly without looking at it, and B) a guy in the hospital who had taken sharpnel to the head, and was thus left in a sort of near-constant mental fog.

The NCAA tournament (which I should probably have mentioned by now is the men's college basketball playoffs) isn't called the Madness because they want to encourage more Ron Artest-style brawls. No, they call it the Madness because it defies comprehension.

There were about a zillion reasons why Apollo should have beaten Rocky. Rocky was white, washed up, untested against major competition, wasn't the brightest bulb in the tree, had just been dumped by his manager, had endured savage punishment in hundreds of low-rent bloodbaths, had possible mob connections, appeared to be constantly punch-drunk, and was fighting a character who was supposed to be this ultradominant heavyweight champ who was named after a God.

But Rocky believes in himself, you see. He gets up, drinks raw eggs, runs a marathon, batters sides of beef until his hands are bloody and raw, does one armed pushups and chases chickens around. His manager is older than the old school, and he teaches him everything he knows. The city adopts him as their own. Rocky has even fallen in love.

He enters the fight as a David/Goliath underdog, and then wins an Old Testament style battle against a gallant and worthy anti-villain. Black embraces white, love conquers all, a man is redeemed, and grown men weep.

That exact scenario  (translated to college basketball) will go down about 16 times this weekend. There's 32 games happening. You have to guess which is which, in  a tournament that has a history of making Fools out of far greater prognosticators than you or I.

Logic would dictate that the more serious fans would hold the advantage here. But the Rocky thing happens just enough so that Your guess is as good as Mine when it comes to predicting these games. Bring in Dick Vitale, who has covered the sport for a living since well before I was born, and your guess is still going to be as good as his. It's called Anti Logic, and I'm trying to secure the patent.

Besides.. I think Rocky actually lost that fight. I've never actually heard the announcement of the decision in the movie, because everybody is laughing at/impersonating that mongoloid yell he does at the end.

Rikki Tikki Stacey

Up at 3 AM notes... doing the werewolf shift again

 

- Never let young children watch scary movies. I'm not talking The Exorcist  or anything. I'm talking a scary cartoon.

Two children's movies gave me the creeps when I was a kid. I can't tell you how Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory ends, as I bailed out right when they were killing that fat kid. I liked chocolate more than Gene Wilder, so my decision to bail was a sound one. No need to develop a Phobia, especially over a wimpy guy with a blonde afro.

 Going down to the kitchen for some cake instead of watching WW&TCF was actually a positive, as I- a small child- made a rational decision when faced with an irrational situation. I've never looked back, either.

Gabrielle and Melissa won't see that one unless Elle comes over with it, or if they're watching TV when Mommy falls asleep. The Colonel- who enjoyed that film as a child- knows better than to cross me on this. Tough to get laid from the couch.

The other film that creeped me out as a kid was the one we (the whole family, and Elle) watched this evening. We were YouTubing for a good kids movie, and we came across an old Jungle Book classic, animated by the Bugs Bunny people.

YouTube - Rikki-Tikki-Tavi (1975) - Part 1 of 3

This is a fairly ugly story about a heroic mongoose who is kept as a pet by an English family in India. The family lives on an estate with not one but two cobras. The cobras speak in an evil hiss, and are pretty much all about killing the whole fam damily.

RTT isn't having that shi+, though... and he kills both cobras in a series of terrifying battles. Prior to doing so, he discusses strategy with thecamera. "If I can break her neck from the jump...." and "I'll bite the head, and just hang on long enough to kill it."

Granted... cobras don't have necks/spines to break, and mongooses don't talk. The film still scared me as a child, but I was outvoted.

Keep in mind... the other people with votes were the Colonel, Elle, and 2 children. The dog- who the kids came to view as a second line of defense- didn't get a vote. No one with a vote- except for me- has to get up when they have nightmares.

So... the movie ends, the kids are still scared- even after RTT dispatches the cobras- and they wake up five times with nightmares...including the 3 AM session that pretty much has me up for the rest of the night.

Melissa was more difficult at first, although having Sloppy Dog sleep in her room seems to have assuaged her fears somewhat. Kipling had his mongoose, while Melissa has a pretty goofy border collie who has run from a cat before. What she doesn't  know won't hurt her, especially 35 degrees or so above the equator.

Gabrielle is old enough that a border collie doesn't soothe her when thinking about cobras. She wouldn't sleep until I laid down beside her... and would wake up every time I tried to sneak away. It cost me a Celtics game, but one must prioritize.

The Colonel and I have a very strict division of duties. If there's some sort of noise in the house when we're in bed, he is the one who gets to get up and investigate. 100% of the time, it's the dog groling at a skunk/raccoon in our yard, but that's his problem. He's simply better equipped to deal with a potential prowler than I am.

When the kids wake up, the duty falls onto me. This was pretty much driven by feeding when the girls were infants, but it has evolved into glasses of water and nightmare counseling.

Elle- who had a vote- sleeps in the cellar bedroom, and gets neither Prowler or Nightmare duty. Even if we're not home and she's alone with the kids, her instructions in case of a prowler involve locking herself and the kids into a bedroom and calling Big L.

It's not as rude as it sounds... Big L is a drug dealer, and 3 AM is sort of his Peak Business Hour. He knows the deal, and promises to come over armed. My house is one of the few houses where a prowler is Unfortunate if he chooses to attack our home while the huge ex-soldier husband is out.

No prowler tonight... just a couple of kids who are afraid of a mid-winter cobra attack in Massachusetts. Sloppy Dog is still laying at the foot of Melissa's bed, performing her protector function admirably.

 

In other news.... emptying out my Favorites bookmarks....

 

YouTube - Right outta JAWS : Great White visits Martha's Vineyard area... you might remember this guy, who got into the papers for a few days with his summer visit to our shores. I seen one eat a rocking chair once....

 

 

YouTube - Demetriu Hook Mitchell Dunks.... one of the better streetball legends, the Hook is an Oakland area baller who chose Drugs over an NBA career. He's one of the few men who can jump over a car and dunk a basketball... a good skill to have, seeing how people drive Mustangs onto the court a lot in the NBA.

 

 

YouTube - Food Court Musical... if you choose to eat at a food court, you deserve whatever happens to you. The last time I was really sick from food was when Elle talked me into eating Taco Bell at the Independence Mall food court. She got sick, too... and after that, she was much more amenable to my cooking lessons.

 

This will probably be my Football graphic for some time. Quarterbacks... never stretch your WR out when he's coming over the middle....

Previously, at Cape Cod Today.... East of Boston - Rally 'Round The Sammich!

Tags: Blogplugs

Cape Gear

Searching those Internets for the cream of the Cape Cod sports memoribilia crop...

This one is an instant classic. For the uninitiated, this is the uniform of the fictional Hyannisport Presidents of the Federal Hockey League. They were one of the teams faced by the Charlestown Chiefs of Slap Shot fame.

 

 

Fans were stampeding to the Cape Cod Rodeo in 1980, and you can find the program if you look around hard enough on EBay. Try as I might, I am still unable to find the program of the corresponding Great Wyoming Chowdafest of 1986.

 

 

 If Al Capone had a summer place on Cape Cod (after 1992), he would have beaten that snitch to death with a Barnstable Bat Company birch bat....  Barnstable Bat - wood baseball bats-birch,ash,maple pro stock  .... instead of some glorified Kentucky tree branch.

Of course... just like the CCBL uniform brouhaha we spoke of in the last entry.... the accountants get involved, the Louisville Slugger people flex some power, and the Man is trying to keep Barnstable Bat Company down.

 

 

Remember... sometimes those kids you see playing for the Cape Cod Baseball League are pretty much playing at the highest level that their ability will allow. After this, it's off to wife/kids/mortgage/etc...

Sometimes, however.... you have a kid out there who is destined to tear up the Show for 15 years. Peep "The Big Hurt" Frank Thomas up above, during his barnstorming days with the Orleans Cardinals.

 

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The Cape Cod Today NCAA Basketball March Madness Tournament Bracket Game, already set up by UMassJSP (or whatever he calls himself) on Yahoo, will kick off in earnest once the tournament selection process is completed.

Word on the street... Walter is putting up a prize for the winner!

We'll keep you in touch, and help you get involved if you'd like.