Just for the heck of it:
One of the funnier moments in classic sitcom television:
FRAZIER (reading his paper to people at the bar): Now I call the piece ‘Ingmar Bergman: Poet of the Subconscious.’ The films of Ingmar Bergman…
NORM: Well, who could forget her in Casablanca, huh?
FRAZIER: No, no, you’re thinking of Ingrid Bergman. I’m talking about Ingmar Bergman.
WOODY: Ingmar Bergman the boxer?
CLIFF: No, Woody, you’re thinking about Ingmar Johansen.
SAM: The guy who knocked out Floyd Patterson?
NORM: No, Sonny Liston knocked out Patterson.
MAN: Then who knocked out Johansen?
NORM: Patterson.
MAN: Before Liston?
NORM: No, Johansen knocked out Liston.
MAN: Then who knocked down Patterson?
WOODY: Was it Ingrid Bergman?
MAN: No, Ingrid Bergman was…
FRAZIER: Shut up, shut up. Not one more word. I came here to discuss Ingmar Bergman, not start a Abbott & Costello routine.
NORM: Actually I thought it was more like “Martin and Lewis.”
SAM: You mean Joe Louis?
CLIFF: No, he’s the one that knocked out Floyd Patterson.
WOODY: Then who knocked out Lou Costello?
FRAZIER: Apparently Ingrid Bergman (walking away in disgust).
WOODY: I guess she was tougher than she looked.

TOUCHDOWN

Mood: Sway
Simple pleasures of life are somethin'/
You need to see 'em and love 'em.

I get the stress like everyone else. A lot of it, really. But every once and awhile you get one of those things that lifts ya — � something that would be of little consequence to many others, in fact you'd struggle to explain why it's got you so amped.

Like today.

The new Common CD Be shows up in the office. A legit surprise because you wouldn't expect seeing one of hip-hop's fathers showing up on disc in an office situated right in the middle of country-ville. Cowboys and buckles is Brandon, not ghetto prophets and corn rows.

An uplifting, overwhelming, feel-good-all-damn-night surprise because Common is one of the most important and influential musical voices of our time. Chicago's finest has teamed with Kanye West, also from the City of Wind, in producing an album that has already earned rave reviews ( and here)as an opus of inspired beat-producing, lyrical genius and chin-rubbing introspection. An appearance by ChiCity's John Legend, who I call the most important R&B artist of the past 10 years, adds to the power of the album, along with striking production from Kanye which shows originality and creativity are not liabilities in today's watered-down world.

Be is an album that reminds me why I believe hip hop is great. Not great in the "well done" sense, great in the "important it exists" sense. One of the things I've always said about the culture of hip hop is that it has to answer for its ugly sisters more than any other genre. Mention you're into hip hop and likely you're getting people assuming that means Nelly, 50 Cent, Ja Rule and other uninspired bling-blingers that are around to hit Top 40 charts and get regular spin on your pop radio. Not all hip hop is good hip hop, but that goes for any genre. Saying you like "rock" won't get anyone responding: "Oh, so you're into Nelson, or Hanson?"

But hip hop IS great. And important. It once stood as the new rock and roll, a genre of protest and inspiration; rising up to right wrongs and spitting about what really mattered, all the while angering the powers-that-be the same way Elvis did by shaking his hips. While Public Enemy opined to bring down the government, or NWA violently shot back at the world that held an entire culture down, those growing up and absorbing the sounds genuinely indentified with the messages they heard.

Back to Common. Perhaps it is because I lose faith in the state of hip hop seemingly daily, as I get old and revert to the geriatric battle call "this music nowadays, they don't do it like they used to." But Common has stood the test of time, swimming through the waters made murky by many uninspired contemporaries, to emerge time and again with something new, something to show the world that hip hop is still, on some level in some capacity, the important voice it has been for nearly 30 years.

Kanye's appearance on the scene is one that I struggle to reconcile with. Undoubtedly, his emergence into the wider scope has LeBron to the NBA-type magnitude on it. The hoopers are trying to annoint a new Jordan, while true hip hop heads want to know that the next generation of the culture will still be in good hands. Kanye gives me, this old-timer who so often doubts and is left frustrated, faith that intelligent lyricism is still a priority. What throws me the curve, though, is his status in popular culture. He has been well-received on TV and radio, and straddles the line of pop artist and poet at every pass. His position as producer on this particular album shows how flawlessly he can work with a great lyricist and make a memorable album. His ability to spin witty prose with infectious rhythms leaves the larger consuming public also scooping up his CD's, leaving me to generally say: "Did you hear that? Did you hear that?" because, in this case, the message is more important than the medium.

In school we study centuries-old poetry, dissect and analyze each line and, when done, consider ourselves educated and the subjects' undeniably paramount. It is a significant exercise, without a doubt and it wouldn't be my position to put Common, or colleagues, in the category of Yeats, Pope or Kipling. That's apples and oranges. Still, because the language has changed and the subjects are profoundly different, should not take away from the fact that poetry exists in these lines.

Nas, dubbed by the Village Voice as one of the most important voices of our time, said he was "a poor man's dream, a thug poet." And maybe that's the best way to articulate this. Poetry, among other things, has a powerful ability to inspire despite the verbiage or the audience on which it has an effect. Just as Yeats penned lines for lovers, Nas can do the same for his followers, with similar influence and equal importance. I would urge many readers to just sit and read the words of some of these artists I consider to be important. Common's words, for one, don't need a beat behind them to remain meaningful.

And, if I struggle to explain why seeing a CD on a shelf elevated my mood to ecstatic, then using that example should suffice.

Common inspires. Inspires me to put pen to pad, to stop and listen and to take account. How many people do that to you? And how often do you get that feeling in a day? A week? A month? Not often, but it's a good feeling when it comes around.

... And reminds me why hip hop is great.

Lyric of the day:
Real People walk in the streets, the streets is talkin'
Often it's beef this city never does
People walk and talk in they sleep
Cold sweats and wet dreams
On how to get green our faith is all in a jeep
Black souls raw and they deep
Hypes tryna talk with no teeth
Shorties sayin' ball or retreat
A lesson we all speak at one point or another
Whatchu expect from one who smoke a joint with his mother
Anointed hustlers in a fatherless region
Through the pain wish they know that God was just teachin'
We want decent homes
So dreams we say out loud like speakerphones just to keep em on
It's like a colored song that keep keepin' on
I guess knowin' I'm weak is when I'm really bein' strong
Somehow through the dust I could see the dawn
Like the Bishop Magic Juan, that's why I write freedom songs
For the real people
Common, Real People

Incomplete Pass

Mood: Polar bear's toenails
A pretty relaxed, lazy day today, to be sure. With little on the go, perhaps now just a few random notes to pass the time.

The San Diego Padres have won four in a row (currently 1-1 with the Milwaukee Brewers in the bottom of the ninth) and are one of the hottest teams in baseball. Now, I know it's the American pasttime and there's countless people out there that are crazy about the game, but even I as a fan of the Padres admit whole-heartedly I don't know how fans, at this time of year, can be jazzed about the MLB when their teams are already essentially out of playoff contention.

One hundred and sixty-two games, and not even a third of the way through the season you would be hard-pressed to convince me of a good reason why people in Houston, Kansas City, Colorado, Tampa Bay and Seattle haven't just given up. This is coming from the most die-hard of fans, remember. Still, since the Padres were swept by the New York Yankees in the 1998 World Series — that year's Yanks being one of the greatest teams in the history of the game — my fandom for the Friars has been little more than seasons of frustration highlighted by firesales and records of the sub-.500 variety.

So this year I'm reacquainting myself with the Pads and it's been enjoyable. They are atop the NL West by a couple games and have put together a couple of win streaks that has led to them being the hottest team in the month of May. The tingling sensation in the back of my brain, however, tells me: "Pump your breaks." It's not even the All-Star Break yet.

---

Update: Pinch-hitting catcher Miguel Ojeda just doubled in the bottom of the ninth to drive in Geoff Blum. Padres, 2. Brewers, 1. Five straight.

---

So hey, if you've got a roto team or follow a winner, then this MLB thing all makes sense. If not, ... well some of the empty parks around the league should give you that answer.

Other Notes:
• On the Jersey Wishlist are a couple of Padres entries. This Tony Gwynn throwback from the Nike Cooperstown collection and this Padres roady, which isn't retro but has the look of it.
This Lakers shooter is exactly what I need to remember the days of Yore (McAdoo, Coop, Worthy, Magic and Kareem); And my goodness, Mean Joe. I don't need to say anymore. I'll also be interested in a Louisville basketball jersey, FYI.

• Furtherto my assertion that female stand-ups simply aren't funny, allow me to present to you the ongoing career of Elvira Kurt. It's my blog, so yes I am standing up and making statements for the world on what is funny. She, is not. Not even close. And yet, there she is with a Jon Stewart-meets-Dennis Miller-style half-hour travesty called popcultured on the Comedy Network that brings her and the never-ending crop of 'budding' Canadian comedians to the fore in a laugh track-riddled piece of garbage that airs weekly.

It sometimes wows me that Canada has this rich history of comedians when I look down the list of what we have going on now. I guess the measuring stick is, if you're a comedian and you're still in Canada, you suck. For every Jim Carrey, Mike Myers, John Candy, Eugene Levy or Martin Short there is the likes of Red Green (Steve Smith), Aurora Brown, Jen Goodhue, Gavin Crawford, Roman Danylo, Terry McGurrin and the grandaddy of all the suckwads, Mike McDonald. Here's a guy who is revered as one of Canada's great stand-ups, yet can't get his ass any other gig other than the road shows he's been doing for the past two decades.

And don't tell me that the likes of Brown and Goodhue are Toronto Second City alumni. That doesn't cut it. That's the same as putting me in the same category as James Cameron because we both hold degrees from Brock University, although mine wasn't honourary.

Now CTV has gone and put the lot of them together for another run of Comedy, Inc., another example that Canadian comics that stay in Canada are the ones that can't make it elsewhere.

Keep the canned laughter close at hand.

Lyric of the day:
Sometimes you gotta dig deep, when problems come near
Don't fear things get severe for everybody everywhere
Why do bad things happen, to good people?
Seems that life is just a constant war between good and evil
The situation that I'm facin, is mad amazin
to think such problems can arise from minor confrontations
Now I'm contemplatin in my bedroom pacin
Dark clouds over my head, my heart's racin
Suicide? Nah, I'm not a foolish guy
Don't even feel like drinking, or even gettin high
Cause all that's gonna do really, is accelerate
the anxieties that I wish I could alleviate
But wait, I've been through a whole lot of other shit, before
So I oughta be able, to withstand some more
But I'm sweatin though, my eyes are turnin red and yo
I'm ready to lose my mind but instead I use my mind
I put down the knife, and take the bullets out my nine
My only crime, was that I'm too damn kind
And now some skanless motherf---ers wanna take what's mine
But they can't take the respect, that I've earned in my lifetime
And you know they'll never stop the furious force of my rhymes
So like they say, every dog has it's day
And like they say, God works in a mysterious way
So I pray, remembering the days of my youth
As I prepare to meet my moment of truth
GangStarr, Moment of Truth

3rd and inches

Mood: Battlin'

I have to admit I'm pretty blown away that Colin Farrell's career is what it is. I have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that he's a much-idolized superstar when, in actuality, he's quite unlikable and has little to no ability as an actor. What he's done in Hollywood barely registers on the radar and his personality off camera is the overdone 'bad boy' thing that really only succeeds in coming off as a spoiled little prick that, if he were just the random Joe on the street, would get knocked out on a daily basis by people who get thoroughly sick of his shit.

Which leads me to... Have you seen "Phone Booth"? Oh my word, this thing smells and Farrell is right there fanning the stink for all the world to whiff.

The premise of the film isn't necessarily a bad one. Intriguing enough from the outside to coax a viewer into it and unique enough to fuel slight interest.

And then it starts...

Now, I realize this rant isn't torn out of the headlines. After all, Phone Booth has been around for three years but yet its status as a running joke has stood that test of time. Take Farrell's squeezed-out-with-vice-grips performance that in no era would ever be convincing,
Kiefer Sutherland's absurd effort which shows that "hey, voiceovers can be awful to." On a side note, did Sutherland even leave his house to shoot this movie other than the one day necessary to film his capture? Was he sitting at home and watching old home movies of him and Julia Roberts and actually on the phone to the set?

And speaking of mailing it in, the usually likable Forest Whitaker really makes a bold effort to end his career right then and there. He may have in fact succeeded. Thanks Farrell, for bringing others down with you.

Other Notes:

• If you haven't seen Boom Goes the Dynamite, please do yourself a favour and watch this clip. It might be one of the funniest things I've seen online in my lifetime. Don't worry, it's safe for viewing in front of family or at work. Just good old fashioned failure at its best.

• An online profile for Colorado City, Ariz., a town well known for its polygamist ways, declares it as a "town of strong family values" and that, lately, " the government’s policy seems to be 'live and let lie.' This is the same state that was one of the last to officially acknowledge Martin Luther King's birthday so, multiple wives? Hell ya, get after it honkies.

• If you're going to be a DJ at a wedding social or reception, I think somewhere under rule No. 1 should be "Know when to play Michael Jackson's Billie Jean." I mean, we all know it's coming at some point. It's the track. But played too soon, you've taken it out of the arsenal before anyone can freak to it. My recommendation? 11:30 p.m.

Lyric of the day:
I'm countin' down to the day deservin'
Fittin' for a King
I'm waitin' for the time when I can
Get to Arizona
'Cause my money's spent on
The goddamn rent
Neither party is mine not the
Jackass or the elephant
20.000 nig niggy nigas in the corner
Of the cell block but they come
From California
Population none in the desert and sun
Wit' a gun cracker
Runnin' things under his thumb
Starin' hard at the postcards
Isn't it odd and unique?
Seein' people smile wild in the heat
120 degree
'Cause I wanna be free
What's a smilin' fact
When the whole state's racist
Why want a holiday F--k it 'cause I wanna
So what if I celebrate it standin' on a corner
I ain't drinkin' no 40
I B thinkin' time wit' a nine
Until we get some land
Call me the trigger man
Looki lookin' for the governor
Huh he ain't lovin' ya
But here to trouble ya
He's rubbin' ya wrong
Get the point come along
Public Enemy, When I Get to Arizona

2nd and 7

Mood: Ol' school
Well the front page of the Winnipeg Free Press' sports section is a feature on Kevin Glenn's tenuous status as starting quarterback for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

The club has essentially named him No.1 before camp has even opened and likely that won't change when camp breaks in three weeks.

I've been saying for a number of years now that Tee Martin should be in Winnipeg and leading this team, ever since the Bombers placed him on their negotiation list when he was the third-stringer for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

At least it appears the Bombers are keeping their eyes open to the possibility that Glenn is NOT the guy, as evidenced by the impending release of Stanley Jackson — which will move Martin to the No.2 (probably) — the off-season signing of Spergon Wynn and the pursual of young guns like former Florida State standout Chris Rix. Translation: There's Plan B's all over the place.

It's a good time of year, though. Brand new slate, anything is possible and a whole season to look forward to. Everyone is 0-0 and I, for one, think the Bombers are going to be better off than many have predicted.

I mean, what more did this team have to do in the off-season? They bolstered their quarterbacking corps, beefed up the O-line, re-signed basically all their own free agents and brought in WR's like Vinny Sutherland and Wane McGarrity that will give them more playmakers and downfield threats.

Now if the team can just make the right call on what QB to allow to make the plays.


Lyric of the day:
Yo I know the feelin, when you feelin like a villain
You be havin good thoughts but the evils be revealin
and the stresses of life can take you off the right path (no doubt)
Jealousy and envy tends to infiltrate your staff
We gotta hold it down so we can move on past
all adversities, so we can get through fast, like that
Chorus:
I really know how it feels to be, stressed out, stressed out
When you’re face to face with your adversity
I really know how it feels to be, stressed out, stressed out
We’re gonna make this thing work out eventually


A Tribe Called Quest, Stressed Out

1st and 10

Mood: Noddin

An utterly uneventful day today, so I will use today's post to go off on one of the topics I mentioned before.

Following the 2004 season, the Canadian Football League announced, after a particularly tumultuous ending to its season (as far as officiating is concerned), that it would be reviewing how the game is covered by its referees, a group that has for decades been arguably the most infuriating aspect of Canada's national loop.

Earlier this month, the league announced that, among other things, refs would now be given the freedom to call illegal contact on a receiver — a 10-yard penalty — even on balls deemed uncatchable. The Pandora's Box that this opens is so unfathomable on so many levels, I'm not quite sure it's possible to address it all in one sitting.

For instance, if a QB is in trouble, he now has yet another bail-out option when fleeing oncoming pass-rushers. With the CFL's already loose illegal grounding rule, the quarterback already just merely has to get the ball across the line of scrimmage to be free from that penalty. Now, if he can muster tossing the ball — hypothetically 50 yards — into the stands (yes, it's an exaggeration), he can get his team 10 yards if a pass defender happens to get tied up in a receiver's path.

It also gives an official in the CFL just one more reason to blow the whistle, a privilege we should be doing everything in our powers to deplete them of. This is not a group that has historically been good with judgement calls, and now the league has given them one more to make.

An article on the topic from Canadian Press reporter Bill Beacon, I paraphrase, made reference to the lack of illegal contact penalties on uncatchable balls in the past was one that had frustrated fans.

Which fans exactly?

I would struggle to find one well-versed fan of football that believes a ball that is thrown 38 rows into the stands should be subject to the same penalty framework as one that remains in the field of play and within range of being caught.

The Canadian league is one that, necessitated or not, has often followed the NFL's lead. Also new this year are penalties for bringing foreign objects on to the field in celebration of a score. It was motivated by Winnipeg Blue Bomber Keith Stoke's harmless, yet questionable in its coolness and timing, decision to pull a magazine out from the padding of the goal post after a touchdown. That was precipitated by Joe Horn's cell phone gag of the same vain during an ESPN Sunday Night game in the NFL.

Previously the CFL has banned removing of helmets on the playing field, another rule change that followed in the footsteps of the NFL. While the NFL was dealing with what it considered an epidemic of celebrations in which players removed their helmets on the field, the CFL had nearly no such history of such atrocities. Yet, the rule exists. It was rash by the NFL and it was not only rash, but also blind of the CFL to follow suit.

During this off-season, Global Winnipeg sportscaster Joe Pascucci was permitted not only to sit in on the league's general managers meetings, he even tabled a rule change on how the league would award single points on missed field goals. The merits of Pascucci's idea aren't of significance here, but the fact that such a random figure would garner the ear of the committee in charge of our game is mind-blowing. The league has the committee there for a reason and allowing outsiders like Pascucci — who used his standing as Global Sports Director to get the invite — to come in and try and affect change makes the league more bush.

The illegal contact rule is one of the instances where the CFL should have followed the NFL's lead, which is to say it should have just used common sense and realized there's no particular reason to adjust the rule. It wanted to answer the hoots and hollers of fans following a season where the incompetence of its officials was finally too bold to ignore, but instead the decision is to let referees who already misinterpret rules and err in their calls at an alarming rate to have even more things to decide, which is to say they'll have even more chances to have the entire league's fan base even more irrate.

The CFL should not be looking to the NFL or listening to sportscasters who happen to have an idea spring to their brain (keeping in mind that countless sportscasters in this country aren't as well-versed in the games they cover as they come off to be.)

In fact, here's my advice for the CFL idea factory: Instead of adding hair-brain, nonsensical quirks that have little to no chance of enhancing the game, listen very closely to your followers. They'll have the right ideas. Because if this month's decisions are any indication, the booing is going to get a whole lot louder.

The List of Five:
The first in a weekly wrap up of what's on the radar.

1. Steelers rookie LB Rian Wallace (1)
2. Bombers QB Spergeon Wynn (2)
3. Common w/Kanye West "The Food" (3)
4. Red Bull and vodka
5. Jerry West throwback jersey
Also receiving votes: Chrysler Crossfire, ESPN Magazine, Tee Martin as starting QB by Week 4, Zack Taylor, Schpladow!, Jake Peavy

Lyric of the day:
Let me voice my concern
So many of my fellow brothers have given themselves a title
That their actions didn't earn
Our ignorance is in the same breath as our innocence
Subconciously, seeking to find an impressionable mind to convince
I've finally come to the realization why Black people in the worse place
Cuz it's hard to correct yourself when you don't know
Who you are in the first place
So I try to find the clue in you
But evidently, White folks know more Black history than we do
Why're we bein' lied to? I ain't know our history was purposely hidden
Damn, somethin' in me wanna know who I am
So I began my search, my journey started in church
It gave my heartache relief when I started to understand belief
Hustlin was like a gift spent my share of time in the streets
Taught me survival from this evil I'm just gonna have to deal with
And I felt like a fool when I tried to learn it in school
It almost seemed like a rehearsal when the only
Science and math are universal
Takin elder advice, read the Bible, the Koran
Searched scrolls from the Hebrew Israelites
Hold on, this ain't right, Jesus wasn't White
Some leads were granted with insight
and it's all in the plan, but it took me some time to overstand
He still created with the imperfection of man
So, with followin' I disagree
By no means have I forgotten or forgiven what's been done to me but
I do know the Devil ain't no White man, the Devil's a spiritual mind
That's color blind, there's evil White folk and evil niggas
You gon surely find there's no positivity without negativity
But one side you gonna have to choose
Any chance to speak I refuse to misuse
So how can you call yourself God when you let a worldly possession
become an obsession and the way you write your rhymes and
Can't follow your lesson
If a seed's sown, you make sure it's known, you make sure it's grown
If you God, then save your own, don't mentally enslave your own
Cee-Lo, from Common's G.O.D. (Gaining One's Definition)

Fumble

Mood: Ragin

I dropped my cell phone today. In the pisser. Now I'm utterly hooped in the world of telecommunications.

Perhaps there are some that are sitting idly by and laughing at me, a guy who once reamed the collective cell phone/pager universe for being utterly dependent on something that, in the past, much of humanity got by quite happily without.

Well, here I am. A slobbering, incoherent heap of a man. I have no land line and now I have no cell either, making me — in this day and age of uber-communication — essentially Nothing Man.

While those in the capable financial bracket grasp their Blackberries and Sidekicks and do everything they could possibly need to in a day, aside from laundry, here I am lamenting the loss of what was a significantly out-of-date cell phone.

A number of years ago I scoffed at those who went for the cellies and the two-ways, asserting that answering machines and land lines were really all that was necessary. I don't differ from that opinion too much now, despite the fact I succumbed to the unrelenting force that has overcome many a 13-year-old and the parents that watch over them.

Now I'm sitting here phoneless and realizing how difficult life can be, in the communciations world. I went to Radio Shack, the retailer that sold me the phone and the life-jacket-like activation contract that I am currently victim to, and the much-informed gentleman there told me my basic options were a) pay through the ass or b)pay through some other painful orifice. There really wasn't a Plan C where I'm allowed to replace my phone or get any kind of non-cost-heavy option. This, I found, one year after buying the piece of crap I never thought necessary, is where they kill me.

I'm constantly aware of trying to find loopholes and sucker spots for people trying to sell me things. I am aware of commission and hot items that are pushed on the unsuspecting public. But cell phones were a foreign land to me, as if reading medicine bottles in Cantonese. Perhaps I jumped when I should have juked, been more cautious on my purchase a year ago rather than taking what the seller sold me at their word.

Nevertheless, the point I see here is this: What in God's name are we doing with the cell phone world? Do we realize how utterly at the whim of these companies we are? I didn't and I'm sure others don't either. To try and repair my phone it would cost upwards of $200, and to replace it, basically the same.

The thought that our technology over the last, say, 20 years has advanced so rapidly that those chihuahua-sized numbers that Zack Morris rocked back in the day are now a humourous, yet nostalgic, footnote is one thing. But you would hope that technology has advanced to the point where dropping a phone in water, or for that matter any other liquid other than hyrdochloric acid, would not leave it utterly useless to the person who bought into the nonsensical contract in the first place.

And, aye, there's the rub. It doesn't matter what logic says. The cell phone companies — Rogers in particular — are booming off the idiocy of people like me and the parents that buy phones for their much-too-young kids or the much-too-young kids blowing their allowance just so they can be in-line with Trinity or Sienna or whatever nouveau-chic name is populating pre-teens these days. They know, down the line, you're going to screw up.

So here I am, 29, and feeling like a completely useless sod because I don't have a cell phone, a technology that I once vehemently rallied against. I'm angrier than I have been in months. Cursing the phone, cursing my stupidity and, even louder, cursing the jackasses that have me by the eggs.

I'm not sure who I'm madder at.

Other Notes:

•Went golfing today which takes the tinge off the utterly awful day that I did have. Shot 96, which isn't anything remotely good, but I went 43 on the front and I won't cough at that. Although I was angry through the entire round.

• The "A.C." in A.C. Slater stood for Albert Clifford.

• Beat of the Day might be discontinued if only for the fact there aren't a lot of places online I can produce beats. If you know of any, please fire them off.

• Wanda Sykes is on The Daily Show right now and she has a funny voice. She's pretty funny. Which leads me to...

• Female stand-ups are NOT funny. Paula Poundstone and Ellen Degeneris both did their thing but, lets be honest, name me a legitimately funny female stand-up. Show me one of those and I'll show you a hack.

• I freestyle when I'm asked.

• The Brandon Wheat Kings had no hope if they had made it to the Memorial Cup.

• The theme to Welcome Back Kotter, was one of, if not the best, sitcom themes of all time.

Lyric of the day:
In 1995, you'll twist to this
As you raise your fist to the music
United we stand, yes divided we fall
Together we can stand tall
Brothers that try to work it out
They get mad, revolt, revise, realize
They're super bad
Small chance a smart brother's
Gonna be a victim of his own circumstance
Sabotaged, Shellshocked, rocked and ruled
Day in the life of a fool
Public Enemy, Brothers Gonna Work it Out

Kickoff

Mood: Head bobbin

I don't know what to say. This is the first in what is likely to be a long line of ridiculous posts that very few people will have any interest in. I'm well aware of that. Nothing I do here is different than the million other yahoos who have decided that their thoughts and opinions are of importance to a) friends and family that didn't get to hear their precious gems in the course of a regular day or b) complete strangers who would not otherwise have access to said gems. Either way, get over yourself.

And yet here I am, part of the problem, never the solution.

This particular entry into the Blog-o-sphere is inspired by fellow Brandon Sun colleague Curtis Brown who started his own little rant party as well as Phoenix Suns 12th man Paul Shirley, a 6-foot-10 forward who has earned an unfathomable amount of attention for his Road Ramblings, a collection of his views on life in the NBA.

Now, CuBro's blog is not generally my kinda bag. His Spin Cycle column appears in the Brandon Sun and his blog is the Bell Biv Devoe extended remix version of that. Curtis is a smart guy and knows I rarely want to hear him and his cohorts, mutual friends, engage in politco-battle royals much less read about it. Still, his views are much closer to mine than the mutual friends he disagrees with, so I take a swing by every once and awhile, if only for a reminder as to why I got into sports. Don't tell any of them, but it's quite possible that I'm smarter than them all.

Which leads me to this: I could do pretty well on Jeopardy. I'm not the smartest guy in the world but the breadth of knowledge I possess in the field of Useless Information is really quite something.

Pretty random statement, to be sure. So with that, I'll lead into what the bulk of this blog will be: Random Thoughts.

Back in the day I had a sports talk show on CFBU Radio Niagara, the campus community station at Brock University. I won't get into it too much, but suffice to say Random Thoughts was a popular segment on the show -- sometimes just out of the blue statements, sometimes interactive questions -- and I'll continue the legacy here along with whatever else seems relevant enough for this sacred thing we know as the Internet. I mean, after all, they don't just give these web sites and logs to just ANYONE. I'm glad I made the cut.

• Mary Kay Letourneau married Vili Fualaau on the weekend. Now that she's 43 and he's 22, it doesn't seem THAT weird. I'll admit though, the whole sexual relationship when she's 34 and he's 12, yeah that was weird. Hey if those two crazy kids can do it, then it gives us all hope there's someone three times our age out there for us.

• Just for the heck of it: Bronson Pinchot

• The Canadian Football League has introduced some changes to how its referees will officiate games. The CFL will allow the most imcompetent workers in professional sports to now have more freedom for judgement calls by making passes deemed non-catchable to be subject to 10-yard illegal contact infractions. Just ridiculous. And instant replay, which will be interesting to see how they can screw that up beyond recognition. A blog-exclusive column on this topic will be along shortly, as soon as I can stop my ears from bleeding.

• Who's funnier: Peggy Hill or Hank Hill?

• I'm not sure which currently popular television show stands less chance of me ever watching it: Lost or CSI: Miami.

• Thirst, the action figure sidekick to LeBron James, must owe Lil Penny some serious royalties. Although I'm down with the catch-phrase SCHPLADOW! Remind me I'm wanting to work this into my regular vernacular.

• The appearance of the character of Tiger Woods in Dave Chappelle's "Racial Draft" sketch has his golf glove on the wrong hand. He's wearing it on the right. Still, "goodbye fried rice, hello fried chicken" is a funny moment.

It's 3:30 in the morning and I'm going to get a hamburger. See you tomorrow and I promise it can only get better from here.

Lyric of the day:
All up in her vibe something coming over me
Summer days more likely that you notice breezes
Winter days more likely that you notice heat
When I'm warm more likely that you notice me
In the dark it's more likely that you notice light
In the light more likely that you notice night
Hungry more appreciation for that meal
Dead broke more appreciation for that scrill
A bad day'll make you really notice ones that's good
And that'll make things a little better understood
Blackalicious, Make You Feel That Way

Beat of the day:
Mixed by Dregz