Start counting the days, folks!

As of tomorrow, only 600 more days until this (literally) bloody administration is ovah! Why do I have a bad feeling the worst is still yet to come, tho?

A-S-I-N-I-N-E
That’s my humble opinion of the overblown coverage ESPN and ABC are giving today’s National Spelling Bee event—they’re covering the damn thing like it’s Game 7 of the World Series.  First off, just like poker, spelling is not a sport!  It sure doesn’t belong on ESPN—seems to me the Learning Channel might be more appropriate for a spelling bee, but they’re too busy airing such "educational" fare as "American Chopper".  I also think it’s pathetic the way the networks exploit these kids just for ratings on shows like this.

Just as an aside, I nearly won a spelling bee once, finishing second in the mighty 1975 all-5th-grade spelling bee at my school.  It came down to me and a kid from the class across the hall, and I tripped up on the word superfluous.  I got the spelling right, but we also had to define the word, and I didn’t quite nail the definition.  Some of my classmates were actually more upset than I was that I lost—they thought I got screwed on a technicality.  Oh well, fuck it—first prize was just a lousy ribbon anyway, so I got over it...

SHUT UP, KOBE!
I’m already sick of hearing L.A. Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant bitching and whining about wanting to be traded (or not wanting to be traded, depending on which way the wind is blowing).  I lost all respect for this fucker anyway during his rape trial in Colorado a few years ago.  I know he wasn’t convicted there, but if nothing else, it proved that he’s a first-class asshole, and it’s schmucks like him and Shaq that really have turned me off toward the NBA.  I used to love the NBA when I was a kid (even before the Kings came to town), but now I couldn’t even tell you when the last time was I actually sat through an entire NBA game on TV from start to finish because they’re so fucking boring.  I can still watch college basketball until the cows come home if it’s a team I care about or if it’s the NCAA Tournament or Big 12 Tournament, but the NBA is more sleep-inducing than Sominex and Don Imus put together...

CLASSIC MISHEARD LYRIC #33
"Hair Of The Dog"--NAZARETH (1975) "Heartbreaker, soul shaker..." I, like many other listeners, thought it went "Heartbreaker, salt shaker..."!

WON’T THEY EVER LEARN?
Speaking of NBA assholes that I can really do without, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban says he’s trying to recruit several other billionaires to help form a new football league that would play games on Friday nights in the fall and compete directly against the NFL.  What makes him think they’re going to be any more successful than the previous attempts to rival the NFL that failed miserably?  Let’s see, the old WFL lasted two seasons in the '70s, the USFL lasted three seasons in the '80s, and the dreaded XFL lasted one whole year earlier this decade—that’s six full seasons between the three leagues.  The only league that was able to match the NFL stride-for-stride for any length of time was the AFL in the ‘60s, and that was mostly because there were only 12 teams in the NFL when Lamar Hunt conceived of the AFL (and two of those were in Chicago until the Cardinals moved to St. Louis), so there was far more demand for teams than there is now with 32 teams in the NFL.  I also remember a proposed league about ten years or so ago called the Professional Spring Football League (the Pissful?), but it never got past the planning stages, as the potential owners realized they were pissing in the wind and said Fuhgeddaboutit.  Then again, it'd almost be worth it to see Mr. Cuban lose his shirt over it...