Hoops-A-Licious

Basketball is not my favorite sport. Not even my second favorite. But like many, I tend to get caught up in the whole March Madness thing. Mostly, I like to beat people in insignificant contests, so I fill in a bracket and challenge my friends. I got second place last year, and I had no help at all.

But this year my competitive nature made me start to want more, and that made me start to over-analyze my bracket choices. I sought input from one of the football forums. You might imagine, sage advice was in short supply. Homers will scream out their favorite team's name in orgasmic ecstasy, even if they are a 16 seed. Some people will advise you to go with standard Final Four teams with no further thought. Others will start handing out NCAA tourney facts: four No. 1 seeds have never met in the Final Four, no 16 seed has ever beaten a 1 seed, etc. These are things I already know. Eventually, I remembered this was a football forum when I was told that, as a woman, I should just pick my teams based on colors and mascots. I realized then that at least half the fellas there didn't know any more than I did about college hoops.

So after careful analysis, I'm going with UCLA to win it all. This analysis consists mainly of reading the little postage stamp sized stat box on my Yahoo! pick'em bracket. I have North Carolina over Wisconsin and UCLA over Texas in the Final Four. Then I went with the Bruins due to their superior defensive efficiency stat. Defense wins games in football, so let's hope it holds true for hoops as well.

And if it doesn't, oh well. It's still three weeks of intense boys-playing-sports action! I can live with it.

$5500

So ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer has had to resign for diddling with hookers. Hey, we all like a little diddling, it's just that most of us aren't governor of a state or possibly spending other people's money on call girls. Some of us have the good sense to either get married, thus ensuring a relatively steady supply of nookie, or at the very least hook up with some guy/gal who works part-time at the Video Shack and thus "owes" us for rent.

Still, if a man wants to drop a little coin on some snatch, who am I to protest? Free country and all. Well, free if you don't count the $5500 an hour part.

It begs the question: What exactly does one get for $5500? An hour!

It can't possibly be something new. Anyone familiar with the internet must know by now that, whatever you like sexually, you ain't the first to like it, get it, sell it, steal it, film it nor write about it. It can be illegal, disgusting, painful, messy, patently immoral or bizarre in any number of ways, and it has still been around since civilzation arose and advanced humans first learned boredom. We can thank Ancient Rome for inventing most of the delightful perversions many of us enjoy (with the exception of that Grecian pass-time).

It can't possibly be because the ladies in question were that superior aesthetically to the average woman. Oh, I'm sure they are beautiful, but you can find a pretty girl nearly anywhere, even the Video Shack. And it can't be that they have vastly superior skills either. Plumbing is plumbing. There are only a few ways to join Tab A and Slot A, B or C.

So I think it must not be a question of what you get. It must just be, like so many things, "because it's there." Women have vaginas--and other orifices--and men like to stick things in them. Wealthy men simply have money to spend on it, and certain women are willing to set a steep price. It isn't that it's different. It's just that it exists.

And it all goes to prove that women, no matter how mercenary some may think us, are smarter than men. When I think $5500, I think of paying off my car or...Oh, God, yes!...a 60-inch plasma HDTV. I just know damn well I'd never drop $5500 on a spitzer.

Mean

I've never been one for being mean. Not on purpose anyway. I realize and accept that I have, at times, been indifferent or thoughtless or inconsiderate. Usually I feel a guilt for this forever, once it is recognized or pointed out to me. But in all honesty, I can truly say I have never been intentionally mean to a person, unprovoked.

I had a friend in high school who was mean. She was the closest female friend I have ever had, and we were friends for years, but once in a while it comes back in my mind how she was mean when we were in school. There was a girl in our class who was in the "special education" classes. Your school might have called this the "learning disabled" or "special needs" classes, but basically it meant the girl was retarded. This girl was particularly obsessed with money and counting it, and to be mean to her, sometimes kids would toss pennies down the hallway. This girl would stop everything when she heard the sound of pennies on the floor, and she would dive for them and gather them up. Once she was on the floor, kids would continue tossing pennies and then just leave her there. Long after the bell, she would still be on her knees on the floor, gathering pennies.

Usually I would tell the other kids to stop it and usually they would. Once one "normal" kid vetoes your behavior it is usually enough to make you straighten up. Sometimes it wasn't enough and I would find myself on the floor helping the retarded girl pick up her pennies. She never was upset. She didn't realize it was a prank. That was good, because then I didn't have to explain that my friend was only joking and wasn't really a mean bitch. She was, though.

In my life I have come to realize that people don't usually change. Whatever you are, that's what you are. If you throw pennies at retarded girls, that's what you do and it is what you will do all your life. I'm not friends with my friend anymore. Things happened that ended our relationship. Whenever I feel bad about that, I remember how she threw pennies at a retarded girl, and I don't feel so badly anymore.

Caught Looking

So I'm in Wal-Mart. I had to pick up something for my mother and then I wanted to see if my shade of lipstick was in stock, and that's it. I'm in a hurry to get home because we're going to dinner. I've been back to the crafts department to look for some stuff which they didn't have, and I was headed briskly to cosmetics.

As I approached the front of the store and hung a right toward my destination, in walks this guy. He's about 20 years old, 6'3", 195 or so, and he's wearing some royal blue basketball shorts and a white tank top like this one. It looks like it has been painted on his perfectly sculpted Abercrombie & Fitch-esque torso. His hair has been carefully highlighted to mimic the effects of a summer at the beach. In a split second I have gathered this much information. Having done so, my mind quickly said, "Hey, I need to look at that again." But how?

In a mere moment, I opted for a 360-degree turn; quick spin maneuver, get a fresh eyefull, and then back around to lipstick without ever breaking stride. And if my target continued on his present trajectory, I should be able to catch a nice look at his butt. Bonus! So...I executed.

Having just passed by one of those poles with a price scanner on it, I stepped slightly to my left and did my spin. Sure enough, he was right in sight, two long strides away from disappearing behind the candy aisle. I started at the shoulder, made my way down the bicep, stopping briefly at the trim waist, and then down to an absolutely squeezable ass. Then I backtracked, all the way back to the top, just in time for him to turn his head and look right at me.

Now, from the time I spotted him walk in the door to the moment he busted me, about four seconds have passed in the real world. But at that point, time froze. I thought, "Can I avert my eyes and appear to be looking elsewhere? Can I feign confusion as if I merely mistook him for my nephew or the neighbor's kid? DID HE JUST CATCH ME LOOKING AT HIS ASS?"

His response told me everything. Yeah. He caught me. His sexy little crooked grin seemed to say, "Go ahead. Everybody thinks I have a cute ass," and then he just kept on going toward his destination, probably sporting goods. I'm sure he needed another basketball or free weights or maybe some Stud Builder Protein Complex or something. For my part, I blushed like an 8th grader and stumbled my way onward to the lipstick where I found my shade not in stock. Or maybe it was. I was having a hard time concentrating.

Come On Home, Brett

Brett Favre was my fantasy football quarterback last season and he served me well. What a great guy to watch play the game. I'm glad his last season was such a good one, complete with records, playoffs and a run for the Super Bowl.

You had the feeling he realized he was lucky that he could spend his life playing. Not that football isn't work. Of course it is, and the pain in his body and the stress in his mind, both of which doubtless contributed to his decision to retire, are testament to that. But it isn't the sort of stress we regular people have, and he seemed to realize that. So he had fun. I loved watching him tackle his own guys and tote them around the field when they scored. Forget running from the other team. Run from Brett. My secret wish is that he had played defensive end for just a snap or two. I have a feeling he would have loved putting a fellow quarterback on the ground just once.

I don't know how Favre will stack up against all the other all-time great quarterbacks. He's won a Super Bowl and been the League MVP thrice. He is the most winning quarterback in NFL history. His career passer rating is a modest 85.7, but he owns the record for most touchdown throws with 425 and is the League's all-time leader in completions and attempts. Oh, and interceptions too. Brett didn't guarantee perfection, just effort. I read an article about being successful which included advice from Favre. In a nutshell, he said to follow your dreams, be realistic, listen to your coach, get yourself a mentor and show up for the job every day. Hard to argue with that, particularly when that advice comes from a guy who had to show up to play football outside in the middle of December in Green Bay, Wisconsin, for 16 years, that first temperate year in Atlanta a long distant memory.

So come on back home, Southern Boy. Ride your tractor, do some hunting and watch out for the alligators. Maybe I can catch a glimpse of you the next time I pass through Mississippi if I can't see you on Sunday afternoons anymore. Have a great retirement. But I give it 50/50 you really stay home next season.

Bama Blues

Nick is not happy down at the Capstone. Who can blame him? He's got kids making stupid choices, media scrutinizing every step, fans still demanding instant success. Whatever Bama has to pay a head coach, and Nick is the highest paid in the land, that coach deserves it. Being Bama's head coach, if you're successful, could be the closest to God you get treated on Earth, but if you're not (or just not successful fast enough to suit the fanbase), you are the devil himself. It would take somebody like Nick Saban to handle that sort of pressure. I think he does it pretty well. Still, it must weigh on him. Everyone is blaming him for all of it, but they are wrong. As with nearly every coaching problem Bama has ever seen since the departure of Bear, the Bama Fan is at the root of the issue.

Back when Mike Shula was fired, I got tangled up with some Bama fans in a sports forum. I was just trying to encourage them to keep their chins up, but they were full of gloom and despair. Then the Rich Rodriguez Incident occurred, and I thought they would all take turns jumping head first off the top of Denny Chimes. And then...Nick arrived.

There was speculation for a few weeks, but when the confirmation of Saban's hiring was announced officially, there was an immediate change in the attitude of the posters in the forum. Heads swelled. To a man, height increased by at least half a foot. And don't even get me started on how everyone suddenly sprouted a foot-long penis which they proudly swung at everyone, tauntingly, as if to say, "You'll feel it soon, loser!" You think the players don't feed off that attitude and feel that way too? Sure they do. And they're kids, which means they are full of stupidity.

Fans and boosters of every football program have long been accused of making excuses for and protecting players, even when they do wrong, encouraging them even, to feel they can get away with more because they are who they are. It's always wrong and it always will be wrong. If fans truly want to protect their players, they should stop them from getting into situations that will lead to trouble. If you see Rashad Johnson in a bar, don't buy him drinks until he's unable to make good choices. Fans should demand behavior that represents their program with pride and help their players stay out of trouble by not getting into trouble in the first place. Most do, but those few who want to swing it around will invariably lead players down the path to destruction, which may include jail, suspension from the team, NCAA sanctions, and the list goes on and on.

So Nick really does have his work cut out for him. He's gotten everyone so excited and full of themselves by taking the job, by getting this year's No. 1 recruiting class and by just being his lovable self, he now has to settle everyone down again. He will, eventually, if people will leave him alone enough to do it.

Obscene Display of Manflesh

Ladies, it's not uncommon, as you know, for women to be displayed like so many pastries on the dessert cart. If you aren't the jealous type and get upset that some other pastries are considered more appetizing than yourself, and if you accept that men are rather simple creatures and find women nice to look at, this is not terribly surprising nor alarming. What IS alarming is that there are so few equivalent displays of men. That said, please allow me to direct your attention to the NFL Scouting Combine.

The Combine features college football players on the verge of being drafted into the NFL. It's a sort of competition that showcases athleticism. In short, the Combine asks big, strong, muscular, 22-year-old men to do tricks on command. Run fast! (Yay!) Lift this weight! (Wow!) Jump high and catch this pass! (OMG!) Hit me in the slot! (Yes!)

Ehem.

Where was I? Oh yes, the Combine. The fellas get pretty sweaty at times. Even been known to take off their shirts. Not that that they need to. Only an Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirt could fit quite so form-fittingly across a man's chest as the shirts they wear at the Combine. You should really check it out on NFL Network. It will be running through the 27th and highlights no doubt for some time after that.

"...we got running backs jumping when we come back..."

How delightful.

Top Ten Fantasy List--Oh, Baby!

I was thinking today about those things that get the blood pumping and the heart racing and the skin tingling... sports, of course. In today's world, attending live sporting events simply costs more money than I have or with which I am willing to part. But this is fantasy, as I said, so if money were no object, here are my hardcore sports fantasy events:

1. The Iron Bowl.
The Auburn/Alabama game is my state's "big deal" rivalry. At birth, you are almost forced to pick a side. You're Crimson or Orange. You named your dog Shug or Bear. You're a Tiger or a whatever-they-call-themselves-at-Bama. (I call 'em Whooped Six Years in a Row.) But whomever you cheer for in the game, attending the Iron Bowl would have to be No. 1 on the list of "must see" sporting events for an Alabamian.

2. A Kentucky Wildcats home basketball game.
I have heard frequently that this is one of the most intense sporting events you can attend, bar none. Basketball is already a madhouse, because the venue is so intimate. To be someplace where the game matters so much--a real "basketball school"--would be an extreme thrill.

3. Naturally, a Browns game. Against Pittsburg.
Not only would this be a chance to pay a visit to a "big city," but going there AND seeing football? What could be better? I'd want to go all out, and get my seats in the Dawg Pound, drink beer, taunt Steelers, and cheer the Orange and Brown to an AFC North victory. Woof!

4. The Kentucky Derby.
I have multiple reasons for this one. First, I always wanted a horse. Second, I read all the Black Stallion books as a kid, so I learned all about thoroughbred racing. Third, the hat. A big, huge, gaudy, Southern lady hat. Like this one. It's a great event, full of tradition, and you get racing all day long in the beautiful Kentucky springtime. And while we're at it, let's just take in the whole Triple Crown.

5. A Major League Playoff Series in a City Where It Really Matters.
Boston, Chicago, New York. Doesn't matter. In the South we tend to cheer for the Braves, but my gut tells me it just isn't the same as cheering for the Red Sox. Another chance to visit a big city, and I'd take in the whole series from first pitch to last out, keep score and sing during 7th Inning Stretch. Good stuff.

6. The College Football National Champtionship Game (I refuse to call it that three-initial championship game).
Back to football. Doesn't matter who's playing (although I love a nice SEC vs Big 10 matchup), because there is nothing like college football. People care about it. For your school, for your conference, for mom and the high school sweetheart back home. College football is the ultimate ecstasy and agony sport, and it's ultimate game is surely a thing to behold.

7. Sugar Bowl.
Yes, I like football. A lot. And I like SEC football. So even in a year when the Sugar Bowl doesn't determine the national champion, it still has to be great. And on top if it, it's in New Orleans, my favorite place in this world. To be in my favorite city, watching my favorite sport, eating some shrimp creole and partying on Bourbon Street--Wow. It would be hard to top that. I might need to move this one higher up the list.

8. Heavyweight Championship, Vegas.
I'm no great fan of boxing. I tend to think it's probably fixed and I don't necessarily get shivery over the idea of men punching each other in the face for money. However, a big boxing match in Vegas has to be an incredible experience. Dress up, place a bet, crown a champ.

9. The Super Bowl.
Unless it's my team, I'm not going to get emotionally caught up, but we're talking about the most-watched sporting event in the world. And besides the game, you have some geriatric rock band performing at half time, a moving award ceremony at the end, and a city full of out-of-towners looking for a good time. I'm thinking this all amounts to one hell of a weekend.

10. A World Cup Match in Europe (preferably Italy).
Always wanted to go to Europe, so catching a significant sporting event could only enhance the experience. I admit, this is hard core stuff for an American. We don't give a shit about soccer over here, and Europeans will kill you for it. I'd have to toughen up, but it would be worth it.

And there it is. A sublime list, and I might say a MAN's list, apart from the hat.

Important (and True), Cuz I Said So

I do believe that "truth" exists, depending on what we're talking about. And I do believe some things are more important than others. For example, what I say is important IS important and it is very hard for people to argue with me. And what I say is truth because it is in the newspaper. Dispute that!

I've been involved in a discussion this week that first started as a debate on whom to vote for in the upcoming presidential election, shifted to the "truth" about Iraq, and ended on the topic of whether or not you can trust "the news" and even if the media tells you what is important at all, much less the truth about it. It actually reminds me of an argument I had years ago, with one of the most pig-headed persons I have ever known, over whether or not there exists such a thing as an "unbiased" reporter. The answer to that is No. You can rely on that answer because I editorialized about it in the newspaper, and once printed it is true, unbiased fact. However, it didn't run on the front page, therefore it isn't an important fact so you don't really have to worry about it.

I have worked in the news media for almost all my adult life and part of my youth, and it doesn't matter if I work for The New York Times or The Podunk County News; what I say goes. I tell you what is important by putting it on the front page, under the flag, with a color photo and a 50-pt. headline. I tell you what isn't important by using it as "filler" on the classified page or not at all. And it's true because it's right there, in black and white, with quotes from important and reliable people. They must be, or why would I have quoted them?

The point I'm trying to make is that you can't just count on the media to give you the important stuff in a truthful way. While I believe that most people are mostly good and mostly honest most of the time, if for no other reason than to avoid trouble, what's true and important for them simply may not be for you. And if I'm not so honest, I can write a completely factual article or editorial that is absolutely false and misleading, depending on how I write it. You can use the newspaper and television and internet as sources of information, but eventually you have to rely on your gut. It's the most faithful thing you have, even when it's wrong.

Organized and Efficient

I have always wanted to be organized and efficient. Unfortunately, you can't get that way just by wishing. You need a strategy. As yet I have not developed an organized and efficient strategy for getting there.

But I do find inspiration in lots of places. This weekend we had breakfast at Waffle House. I'm not particularly a fan of breakfast foods, and I nearly always regret eating breakfast out, but I'm glad I went. I was in the perfect position to watch the hashbrowns kid do his magic.

The place is packed with people waiting for tables. Waitresses are yelling out orders like a quarterback in the huddle:

"I got eggs and cheese, double hash, scattered, chunked and peppered on two!"

"On three, make it crispy! Smothered, diced and covered!"

In the meantime, this kid is doing hashbrowns, waffles and toast as fast as possible. He's got three batches of hashbrowns on the grill, six waffle irons going at once, and he butters, slices and plates two pieces of toast at a time in about three seconds. And he's doing this the whole time all the yelling, customer chatter and other cooking is going on around him. He does it with such an ease and such a rhythm and with the most calm and controlled expression on his face. He was in the zone. He was organized and efficient. I couldn't even eat my food because I was too busy watching the guy cook.

I suppose it all has to do with concentration, routine and good habits. In any case, I admire it. Perhaps I should go to work for Waffle House. Maybe I could learn a thing or two.