I haven't the bloggiest idea...

DAN FOGELBERG, 1951-2007
Sad news in the music world with the passing of singer Dan Fogelberg yesterday of pancreatic cancer.  I didn't follow his career all that closely, therefore I wasn't even aware that he'd been seriously ill for the past few years.  Although the "Soft Rock" genre is better for me when taken in small doses, DF certainly had his moments like "Part of The Plan" and my personal favorite, 1978's "The Power Of Gold" (with Tim Weissberg).  I seem to remember he got plenty of airplay at the "Mighty 1030" on the Transtar satellite in '87 when I worked there.  R.I.P., Dan...

I HAVE A QUESTION...
How can the Golden Globe Awards people nominate this Charlie Wilson's War flick for five awards, when it hasn't even come out yet?!?  Ain't it amazing how these brand new movies get all the nods (the Oscars do this too), while all the good stuff that comes out in March and April every year is largely forgotten?  Who be paying for these nominations, hmmm?

SHOUT, SHOUT, LET IT ALL OUT—THESE ARE THE THINGS I COULD DO WITHOUT...
Things like constant reaction shots from the luxury suites of player's wives, mothers, girlfriends, et al., during NFL games.  Especially skank celebrity girlfriends like Jessica Simpson in her pink Tony Romo jersey, whom Fox TV constantly cut away to during the Cowboys-Eagles game yesterday.  And some schmuck sitting with her actually brought it to her attention that she was on camera—as if this bimbo has never been on TV before!  And true-to-form, the talking heads on ESPN are now trying to blame Romo's poor performance yesterday on said bimbo's distraction.  Yeah, right, whatever...

I could also do without singer Beyoncé on every other TV ad these days.  Ironically, she's taken the place of the above-mentioned J. Simpson on the Direct TV ads this football season, and she's also hawking cell phones and who knows what else.  Beyoncé is a talented singer and a half-decent actress, but she's rapidly turning into a big sell-out.

VICTIMS OF VENOMOUS FATE
The Northwest Missouri State Bearcats are beginning to look like the Buffalo Bills of Division II football.  For the third straight season, NWMS made it to the Division II title game, only to lose another heartbreaker on Saturday, this time to Valdosta State 25-20.  Things were looking good for the Bearcats with about 5:00 to go in the game when a killer holding penalty nullified a nice first down play as they tried to run the clock out with the lead.  Valdosta got the ball back and scored with just seconds left.  Life's a real bitch sometimes, unfortunately...

OFF THE SCHNIDE!
Congrats to the Miami Dolphins for finally winning a game this year after beating Baltimore 22-16 in OT yesterday.  Congrats for not only winning the game, but making me look like a genius for picking them to win!  And congrats to the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers for maintaining their rightful place in ignominy (igno-Mini-Me?) as the only NFL team to go winless for an entire season.  I remember that sad-sack team's maiden season very well—nearly every game was a 45-10, 48-3, 42-0 blowout—even the then-lowly Chiefs manhandled them pretty good that year.  They continued their mighty losing streak on into the next season, going 0-12 before finally beating the Saints in Week 13.  At least the Bucs had an excuse—they were a rag-tag expansion team full of cast-offs, wanna-bes and never-weres.  The Dolphins have no such excuse, being a franchise that's been around for 40-some-odd years.

Speaking of the Bucs, on the same day that Miami spared their place in the record books, Tampa Bay finally recorded a kickoff return for a TD!  In much the same manner as how the New York Mets have never had a no-hitter in their 45-year existence, it took the Buccaneers 31 years and 1,865 tries to finally run back a kickoff for a touchdown.  What's the bet TB gets another one next week...

SPEAKING OF IGNOMINY
El Chiefos put on yet another half-assed performance at Arrowhead yesterday, and as I predicted when the season started, the fans are turning on the team in droves now that things have gone totally south.  Most of their venom is aimed at general manager Carl Peterson and head coach Herm Edwards.  I'm willing to give Edwards one more season to make his plan work, given that he's still working with a lot of players left over from the Dick Vermeil era that don't fit his new system, but Peterson's time has come and gone.  Step aside, CP, and let someone else run the show...

31 FLAVORS?!?
Well, the college bowl season begins this weekend, and there are now a staggering 31 bowl games (32 counting the BCS title game).  At the risk of sounding overly-nostalgic, I remember the good ol' days when I was a kid and there were about 1/3 that many bowl games.  You had the big four—Rose, Cotton, Sugar and Orange—on New Year's Day (or Eve, sometimes) and maybe another half-dozen or so traditional bowl games (Fiesta, Gator, Holiday, Tangerine, Peach, Sun and the vaunted Astro-Bluebonnet Bowl from Houston), plus a handful of All-Star games like the Blue-Gray Classic, Hula Bowl and Senior Bowl.  Thus, viewers were guaranteed of seeing good solid teams playing over the holidays—none of this 6-6 vs. 7-5 crap like we have today.

Now you have these tradition-free bowl games like the New Orleans Bowl, Ft. Worth Bowl, Motor City Bowl, et al, not to mention all these soulless corporate name dot.com bowls and crap like the Outback Bowl, etc.  Even the Peach Bowl ain't Peachy anymore—now it's the Chick-Fil-A Bowl.  It's quite conceivable that one day we'll be treated to the ACME Lint Filter Bowl!  What's worse, some cities have multiple bowl games each year now, like Orlando and San Diego.  Hell, New Orleans has three this year with the BCS title game.  Too much of a good thing, folks...

Rant within a rant:  Why does Fox Sports suddenly get to carry all the big bowl games (except the Rose Bowl) when they don't even televise one single solitary regular season game on free TV?  I guess this is what you'd call the new-millennium version of "Bowling For Dollars"...

Damn, I miss the '70s!

THE POOP AND NOTHING BUT THE POOP
Brazilian soccer midfielder Kaka was named the FIFA World Player Of The Year.  I guess that means he truly is The Shit!  That was too easy, I know, but I just couldn't resist...