Day One

Why did I start this thing? I really have no good explanation beyond total boredom one evening. That and I find that I have the ability to quite the gasbag when I get going on a lot of topics. Peering into the future, I see the posts containing quite a bit about sports, since I will probably use this as an escape from the day to day grind I often find myself in. I will leave personal items off, for the most part. The people with whom I like to share those items already know my innermost thoughts and feelings. They are all in intensive psychological therapy because of it.

A few quick hitters to start off on this 15th day of January, 2009:

A plane "landed" in the Hudson River after colliding with a bird. Thankfully, at last report, no major injuries or casualties. (I guess I should check on that, but then again, blogging isn't real journalism.) Does it give anyone else pause that a giant airplane can be derailed so easily?

The Sabres (likely to be a recurring topic) will make the playoffs. They will not win the Stanley Cup. After a year and a half of inconsistent efforts and results, it is clear they are flawed team. It will take more than a few tweaks to make them a contender.

The Phillies (another recurring topic) are not a flawed team. Contact hitters, power hitters, speed on the basepaths, solid starters and money bullpen. Am I predicting them to repeat? No. What use is a baseball prediction in January? They have drafted well and the core is a group of players all in their primes at the same time. They can contend for another two years at least.

Enough whining about college football needing a playoff system. As the NFL has demonstrated, playoffs are just as inexact a predictor of a champion as the computer wizardry and voting involved in the BCS beauty contest.

I will conclude with a bit of a vocabulary lesson for anyone who may read this on a regular basis. These are words I often use. Most of them have pretty self-explanatory meanings.

GASBAG: A reference to a person, often of some stature (athlete, coach, politician, celebrity), who runs their mouth for no good reason. Synonym: BLOWHARD. In a sentence: In the first 24 episode this season, Kurtwood Smith (aka Red Forman) did an excellent job portraying the typical Congressional GASBAG in the opening scene.

DUMPSTER FIRE: An absolute disaster. Synonyms: GREASE FIRE, TIRE FIRE, TRAIN WRECK. In a sentence": At the end of both the 2007 and 2008 baseball seasons, the New York Mets were a complete DUMPSTER FIRE.

UNSPEAKABLY......: A modifier to highlight how extremely good or bad something is. In a sentence: The 2008 Detriot Lions were UNSPEAKABLY bad.

Finally, I am a huge fan of awkward and/or uncomfortable moments. The most recent example was a few a weeks ago when the living former and current Presidents met in the Oval Office. I got a huge kick out of the way all of them kept their distance from Jimmy Carter, as though he was a leper. Every attempt he made to get closer to the others in photo ops was, to me, hilarious as they moved away. In fact, UNSPEAKABLY hilarious.