Tonight the Detroit Red Wings face the Anaheim Ducks in Game four of their conference semi-final series down 2-games-to-1. It brings a smile to my face.

Go DUCKS!!! (At least until the next round.)

You know what I mean – the couple who stay after you want to go to bed. The folks who you are glad to see early in the evening, but by midnight, they have overstayed their welcome.
That’s where we are with future Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre. We all remember the quandary he put the Packers through last spring/summer (it couldn’t happen to a better franchise), before the Packers eventually traded their signature player to the New York Jets.
For the Jets, it improved their talent at the position and made a splash, which they needed since the other New York team was coming off a championship season. For the Packers, they were able to hand the reins over to Aaron Rodgers like management promised and they traded him to an AFC team that they wouldn’t have to face.
Early in the season, it appeared that the Jets had gotten the best of the deal – the Jets sped to the top of the AFC while the Packers got off to a rough start. But by the end of the season, Favre played very poorly, caused by an injured throwing shoulder that needs surgery, and the Jets failed to reach the playoffs. The Packers were never able to overcome the poor start, but they did make a limited run at the playoffs.
For the second time in as many years, Favre announced his retirement (actually before the team released him – the Jets fired coach Eric Mangini). But instead of just retiring, Favre requested and received his release from the Jets and now there are rumors that the Packers’ worst nightmare one year ago may still come true – Favre is about to enter discussions with the Minnesota Vikings. The Packers were painted into a corner and they didn’t want to face Favre playing for the Vikings or Bears, two teams who needed quarterbacks before last season and divisional rivals, twice. And, as lively as the Packer-Bear rivalry has been for a century, the Packer faithful arguably have more animosity with the Vikings fans than Bear fans.
But as a fan of the NFL, let me say: Brett, you’ve had a great career – it’s time to get on the tractor in Kiln, Mississippi and bide your time for the five years before you get voted into Canton. You were an embarrassment at the end of last season with the Jets, and while we appreciate your competitive nature and spirit, the end comes for everyone. Jordan, Rice, Payton, Ruth, Orr, Howe, time catches up to everyone, even the greats in every sport. Your time has come. Deal with it. Let us remember you for your greatness on the field, not your pettiness at the end of your career.

The Indignant Wife and the Indignant Oldest Daughter watch a number of channels that I would normally avoid on my own: HGTV, the Food Channel; The Travel Channel. But I watch some of these channels so that I can spend some time with them.
And one of the shows that the family likes is TLC’s “Jon & Kate Plus Eight.” We have two girls and can barely keep our eyes open most days – I’m amazed by Jon and Kate Gosselin, who have to take care of eight very young children and cope with having their lives on television for all to see. (Not to mention people like the “OctoMom” who reportedly tried to have eight children so that she can have her own reality show, and the accompanying fame, and I guess, fortune.)
Well, the Gosselins have made the tabloids this week as reports surfaced of an alleged affair between the husband and a 23-year-old woman. Of course, NOW the family wants privacy: Kate Gosselin appeared on the Today show to show how private the matter is:
“We’re dealing with it privately,” she explained. “There are those things we keep to ourselves, and we’re working through it together.” Jon, reportedly at home with the kids, sent a statement, saying, “These allegations are false and just plain hurtful.”
And while I cannot condone marital infidelity (as one who hasn’t done so myself), I have to admit that if he did have an affair, I would understand, and I don’t mean the kids. When I’ve watched, the wife is constantly putting her husband down; rolling her eyes during mutual interviews; generally being condescending to him. I wanted to slap the bitch for him, personally.
So, no matter what the truth is (and believe me, you can’t measure my indifference with scientific notation), perhaps if she lightens up a bit, he may not want to spend time with any other women.

I have been on You Tube – watching old music videos, Jesse Jackson reading Dr. Seuss’ “Green Eggs and Ham,” and most recently videos of old songs for my guitar class. The class – British Pop Stylings or “Brit Pop” at the Old Town School of Folk Music on Lincoln Ave. in Chicago is my Thursday night release, learning to play guitar and singing songs by a diverse lineup of everyone from Elvis Costello, The Cure, Peter Gabriel, to Kaiser Chiefs, The Sweet, XTC and others. Any band other than the original British Invasion (Beatles, Stones, etc.) is fair game.
The instructor, Rob Newhouse, used to be in a band called The Elvis Brothers who I saw open for The Clash in 1979, is a great musician and teacher. He has become my friend, putting up with my bad guitar playing and loud singing. The rest of the class has been filled with terrific guitarists who have put up with the same. And at the end of each session, we play at the “graduation,” not a diploma ceremony per se, but a performance in which all of the classes get to play on the school stage which has played host to Bob Mould, Graham Parker and many more. It allows me to placate my inner rock star anonymously.
And that would have been fine with me. The graduation performance advertises the class, and we get to have some fun for a few minutes. Two weeks ago, we played a two song medley: The Cure and Erasure. We thought it sounded OK and the crowd applauded vigorously.
At least I thought it was anonymous. Until a couple of weeks ago, when someone recorded graduation for posterity and posted many of them on You Tube. The recording is not the best, and fortunately, I am almost completely hidden by a chair, but you can see my head, and hear me singing.
See for yourself. Be kind…

I believe that it’s stupid that there’s no playoff in Division 1A college football, but I also believe that the last people the world need to come up with a solution is the American Congress. But that’s becoming more possible with lawmakers having college football officials appear before a Congressional committee.
Rep. Joe Barton of Texas has introduced legislation that would prevent the NCAA from calling a game a national championship unless it’s the outcome of a playoff had it out with John Swofford, the coordinator of the BCS.
Swofford rejected the idea of switching to a playoff, telling a House panel that it would threaten the existence of celebrated bowl games. Sponsorships and TV revenue that now go to bowl games would instead be spent on playoff games, “meaning that it will be very difficult for any bowl, including the current BCS bowls, which are among the oldest and most established in the game’s history, to survive,” quoted on SI.com
Rep. Barton bluntly warned Swofford: “If we don’t see some action in the next two months, on a voluntary switch to a playoff system, then you will see this bill move.” Realistically, congress has a lot “on its plate including the war, recession, health care and other, much more important issues than college football, and ESPN and the current bowl powers along with the NCAA would fight hard to keep the bowls.
But I don’t understand what grasp the bowls have on the NCAA. There are over 50 bowls played today, many of which are useless, boring, fodder for television. Why can’t these bowls be eliminated, keeping the “oldest and most established to survive” (to use Swofford’s language)? I can’t believe that there’s MORE money in bowls than in a playoff, and if the Cotton Bowl and the Alamo Bowl and the Poulin Weedeater Bowl and the Motor City Bowls all disappear, who really cares?
As Swofford said, it is Congress, so they have to listen, and Congressional pressure has helped to mandate drug testing among the major sports, but if there’s one group of people who have no foresight, no new ideas, it’s politicians from both sides of the aisle. There is no way they will come up with a playoff that won’t suck somehow. Let’s have the colleges and universities come up with a plan.
Here’s mine – first, eliminate the conference championship games – all they do is get money for the conferences. Let the regular season be more meaningful. By eliminating the championship games, the playoffs could start in late November/early December. Let the top 8 teams play a playoff (and allow the other 92 teams play in the lesser bowls if they want); play the game s through Christmas and New Year’s and finish the second week of January. That way, most players are finished before the winter classes begin (they are supposed to be STUDENT-athletes after all), and the NCAA can crown a true national champion, decided on the field, not in a computer or by vote.
But it won’t happen until Congress threatens. But the politicians should investigate the link between college football and the bowls. It’s got to be more than money, and it sure as hell isn’t tradition because you can’t spend tradition.

A new book by Sports Illustrated writer Selena Roberts casts another cloud over the public perception of baseball superstar Alex Rodriguez. The book entitled “A-Rod,” to be released later in May, reports that the slugger took performance enhancing steroids in high school and his coach knew it. The coach, Rich Hofman, has denied this.
Further, the book, leaked to the New York Daily News with exerpts printed yesterday, states that an unnamed major leaguer is quoted as saying A-Rod and former Yankees pitcher Kevin Brown, who was named in the Mitchell Report, were seen together with human growth hormone in 2004, one year after Rodriguez has said he stopped using performance enhancing materials.
The one allegation that may be most true is that Rodriguez is a needy personality who wanted his ego stroked constantly. Of course, there is no law or rule in baseball against that.
How the world has changed for this young man. In Seattle, he was the golden boy; with Griffey, Jr. they were the best players in baseball. Then came his agent. Scott Boras (also know as the antichrist) and the way he got the Texas Rangers to bid against itself for A-Rod’s services. And came still, the biggest contract in sports history – $250 million for 10 years; along with added scrutiny and backlash from fans who believe that no one man, certainly in a team sport, is worth one-quarter of a billion dollars.
Unfortunately for him, Rodriguez’s big salary kept the Rangers from being able to pay the rest of the lineup, and the playoff starved Rangers remain strangers to the postseason. The Rangers were able to pawn Rodriguez off to the Yankees, while still footing the bill for most of his salary, and while the Yankees have made postseason appearances, Rodriguez has not been able to lead them to the World Series.
Then he pulled an end run around Boras to resign with the Yankees; got a divorce from his older-than-he wife; was reportedly boinking Madonna; and then had hip replacement surgery, which has placed him on the DL for all of 2009 so far.
A-Rod has been able to deftly avoid questions raised by the book all the while reportedly sleeping with every pretty woman in his vicinity. (No wonder his hip has taken more time to heal than expected.)
So what does this book say about Alex Rodriguez? I had a slightly positive to neutral opinion of the slugger for a very long time, but the admission of guilt for using performance enhancing drugs from 2001-2003, but still having his “cousin” running around the Yankee clubhouse until he was banned from being near the team raises questions. Questions about his personal morals are beyond my concern and none of my business anyway.
In an earlier post, I thought that Rodriguez still deserved to be considered for the Hall of Fame since there was no meaningful drug testing in baseball until 2003 and no punishment allowed until 2004, but if he used HGH, which is undetectable under today’s science, perhaps Rodriguez is the biggest cheat in baseball, surpassing Clemens and Bonds. And if that’s the case, perhaps Rodriguez should never be allowed in Cooperstown.

I know that many Conservatives are racists. I know that they are generally short-sighted and mean. But, they do know how to get their message out, and the rich ones are very adept at getting poor people to vote against their own best interests. And I have believed that they aren’t very smart, but now, there may be proof.
The Chicago Tribune reported today that a new academic study suggests that Conservatives don’t understand that Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report” is putting them on. Liberals get that he’s sending up Bill O’Reilly and his ilk four nights a week. But Conservatives think that, while fellow NU alum Stephen Colbert is funny, a new study conducted by Ohio State University confirms a long held theory on Right wingers: they get the input straight but then it gets tangled up in a weird worldview.
The study, entitled “The Irony of Satire: Political Ideology and the Motivation to See What You Want to See in The Colbert Report” was published in the April issue of the International Journal of Press/Politics. In it, researchers asked 332 undergraduate communications students for their interpretation of a clip of Colbert interviewing liberal radio host Amy Goodman. The paper suggests conservative viewers didn’t quite comprehend the “deadpan satire” that is Colbert’s forte.
The Tribune reported “Our results aren’t that conservatives don’t get the joke. It’s that how you see the joke depends on who you are,” says Kristen Landreville, a PhD student in communications at Ohio State University and one of three co-authors. “If you’re conservative, you think the joke’s on liberals because he’s openly making fun of liberals. Conservatives not only processed the messages as targeting liberals, but also processed the source as being conservative, Republican, and disliking liberals,” the paper says. “By contrast, liberals perceived Colbert as just kidding.”
All you would have to look at is that Colbert got his start on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show to know what slant he takes, but I guess putting 2 and 2 together is beyond too many of these folks.