The City Watch

I suppose I should be glad I'm unemployed at the moment, so I don't have to use the BOSS button on the March Madness website in order to disguise my basketball addiction.  I love this time of year, and I'll watch just about any game that's on.  Well, not a few 1-16 matchups - there's no fun in winning by 50.

The men's tournament started on Thursday, and the women's tournament starts tomorrow.  ESPN is covering the women, so we'll get to see a lot more of the games than we used to, with the whip around coverage and the multiple channels.  The women's basketball isn't taking any of the men's off of the air (they're on CBS), but that doesn't stop commenters on just about every online article from writing that NO ONE CARES ABOUT WOMEN'S BASKETBALL and YOU SHOULD SHUT UP ABOUT WOMEN'S BASKETBALL and WOMEN'S BASKETBALL SUCKS and THEY'RE ALL LESBIANS and other erudite, enlightening and informed opinions.  I'm used to that.  Some men think women shouldn't play basketball, especially women whom they secretly know could kick their asses at it.  There are Neanderthals in every walk of life.  Ignoring them now.

And then I clicked over to Deadspin, which I find entertaining sometimes, if only for the way they poke at ESPN.  They have a segment every Friday or so called "Waxing Off", which is their clever title for the female-writer ghetto they've corralled and squashed into a once-a-week post.  The women who write for it seem quite knowledgeable about various sports, and are sometimes very funny.  But today they wrote their article about the women's ncaa's, and I didn't think it was funny at all.

Women's basketball, and why some actual women don't seem to like it.  Oh, goody.  Let's talk about what the women look like, what the uniforms look like, what the cheerleaders are like, and whether or not any of them are sexy.  Let's discuss Candace Parker's breasts!  Let's ponder whether or not it would be less boring if the outfits were more revealing!  Let's discuss how women can't be good athletes because they're not competing against men!

SERIOUSLY?!?!?  You don't have to do the Neanderthals' work for them, ladies!  It's like they're hating on the women so they can be "one of the boys."  STFU!

So I'll root for the Aggie women and I'll root for the Aggie men, and I'll know that both teams are full of kickass athletes who can play a helluva game of basketball.  And I'll acknowledge that things are a lot more equitable than they used to be.

And I shall remain pissed off.

The Texas A&M Aggies have hired a new head football coach, Mike Sherman of the Houston Texans.  See Article.   He comes to us fresh from 8 years in the NFL, six as head coach of the Green Bay Packers - Cheeseheads!!!  He also spent two stints as an Aggie assistant in the 90s, back when we were good at defense.  (I might have met him - he was there when I was, and I worked camera for the coach's show, but I only remember RC Slocum and Bob Davie.)  In general I'm not in favor of Pro Coaches as College Coaches or vice versa, because it's not the exact same job, really, but I'm going to be provisionally happy about this.  He's an offense guy, and clearly we need one.  He's also taking 200,000 less than Fran, ostensibly to free up money for good assistants.

I do like that it didn't drag on forever.

Still cannot decide about the upgrade for Torchwood, and am torn about asking for Doctor Who DVDs for Christmas, as they are so relatively expensive.  How can a show like House, with 24 eps a year, have a DVD that costs only half as much as Doctor Who, with 13 eps a year?  

Wonder if they'll discount DVDs on a truncated year of House, if the strike doesn't settle?

Wonder if they'll use a rerun after the Superbowl?  (I vote for "Three Stories")

Wonder, wonder, wonder.....

I need a sandwich.

Clearly I have posting issues - but I definitely think of posts all the time, and apparently just have difficulty actually writing them down.  Will work on that.

The Aggies won over Fresno State Saturday, giving me quite a nice heart attack in the process.  They were ahead 19-0 at halftime, but apparently felt that wasn't interesting enough, so they put off the win until triple overtime.  BlairMom had to watch it and report to me in the back bedroom, where I had the radio turned up to loud static.  Because if I had watched, you see, then they would have lost.  My power is vast.

The Cardinals are many games down now - they've been losing ever since the Rick Ankiel HGH news broke.  I don't know what to think about that - on the one hand, ENOUGH already, people.  Just eat your spinach, okay?  Stop with the popping and injecting, etc, etc.   On the other had, at least with Rick, the time frame involved is when HGH was NOT BANNED by MLB.  You could, and I would, argue that it should have been, that they were incredibly hidebound and slow about performance-enhancing drugs, but that's THEIR fault.  They should go after people taking banned substances NOW, but stop grandfathering justice to hide their own faults.

And I hope that Congress stays out of it this time - why don't they try, I don't know, governing the country or something instead.

Anyway, it seems to have taken the wind out of the Cardinals.  Am traveling to STL to watch them against the Cubbies this Saturday.  If winning out becomes mathematically impossible, I'm rooting for the Brewers.