The woodwork is always revealing ...

Especially following tragic events .... and no I'm not talking about my computer crashing as I was finishing up yesterday's blog. Scrolling through my Facebook and Twitter feeds yesterday I saw many people genuinely concerned with the events in Boston, however I also saw the ugly side of racism and bigotry from the cockroaches lurking in the intolerant baseboards of society. Social media is both revealing and reviling, instant and ignorant. Misery loves company may be cliche, but social media provides ample evidence of its veracity. Yesterday's bombing in Boston is the continuation of domestic terrorism America has suffered from since its inception - and yes many of those events come with their own conspiracy theories Oliver Stone! This attack is not the beginning of the end of America, nor will it be the end of attacks in America. Boston will do what America does best - regroup, learn, move forward! The strength of America resides in the spirit of the people ... and no group of people or attack against people has ever been able stop the American spirit. This event will be no different!

Now then ...

Show of hands .... who had one of these bad boys in the early 80s? Me ... me ... me ... me!!!!! This fine piece of cutting edge technology provided an exhilarating rush of adrenaline as I dodged oncoming red blips with my blinking red blip on an inch wide screen. I could track those blips for hours - or 20 minutes when the battery went dead! Fast forward - and it definitely feels like fast forward - to 2013 and the government is asking for cell phone video and pictures from spectators to shed light on the Boston Marathon bombing. Kind of takes Crimestoppers to a whole new level, doesn't it? Technology has seeped into every crevice of our lives to the point we take for granted that someone hanging around a marathon finish line might have today's Zapruder film. My Sunday night viewing habits transport me back to eras where technology hadn't yet entwined its tentacles around the human existence. Sunday night's Mad Men exposed the differences between today's digital world and the 60s Stone Age in a variety of ways. Don Draper's flashbacks to living in a whor ... um .. brothel with his mother, Dr. Rosen taking a call on a restaurant's phone line (I'm sure he had to leave a number where he could be reached in the event of an emergency) and Pete's horrible attempt at an neighborhood affair could have been Norman Rockwell paintings of 60s technology if not for the illicit happenings which followed. The return of Don Draper, serial adulterer, continues to dominate the storyline which suits me just fine. Don is better when he prowls around in the pre-GPS equipped cell phone 60s. Instead of discreet text messages he simply forgets his cigarettes after the good Dr. exits the elevator and returns to his married mistress's apartment. Speaking of the good Dr. ... he really needs to plan his emergencies better or he'll need an OB/GYN on call! Imagine the shock when the baby has a full head of Don's hair! Brylcreem keeps Draper's coif in perfect order which is much preferred to the slime oozing off of Pete Campbell's existence. Pete has tried to be Don since the first episode without possessing any of Don's suave. He impregnated Peggy, sexually assaulted a neighbor's nanny, had an affair with Beth Dawes (his real life fiance - seriously. How a guy who  looks like Vincent Kartheiser ends up with a girl like Alexis Bledel is incomprehensible to me. My buddy has a theory and it involves a horse. You figure it out!) and is now trolling the neighborhood for fresh blood. Each of these sexual conquests had all the grace of a new born giraffe. It was a matter of time before Pete's inability to think with the correct head would catch up with his recklessness. PTrudy (and don't think Matty Weiner didn't name her Trudy on accident!) may be slow on the sex talk uptake, but she's not imperceptive to a bloody backdoor blonde showing up in the middle of the night. Newly free in the big city screams "Pete Campbell jailed for rape!" in a headline ... the only question is the victim. The only missing link to a great Mad Men season (besides more Joan Holloway!!) is the return of Don Draper in the genius role. Mad Men was compelling because Don was an advertising savant - always knowing exactly what people wanted - despite never knowing what he wanted. It's really the story of human existence - keeping the facade in great shape while what's inside is crumbling. Can't we all relate to that situation?

Enough for today ... tomorrow it's Reds recap!!!

Let's say I'm a major league pitcher ....

my arm/shoulder gets sore ... the team tells me to see the doc ... should I trust Doc Hollywood AKA Dr. Kremchek? Some people call Dusty the 'Widowmaker' for his propensity to destroy pitcher's elbows and shoulders (Robb Nenn, Mark Prior, Kerry Wood, Edison Volquez are commonly cited examples) ... well then what do you call Doc Hollywood after the 3rd Reds pitcher (Ryan Madson, Nick Massett & now Sean Marshall) in 53 weeks had an arm injury misdiagnosed? Doc FrankenMRI? The Cincy Scalpel? Dr. I'm-not-James-Andrews? Dr. Strange-eyes? Doogie Howser? I haven't even gotten to Joey Vottomatic's screwed up knee injury from last season which has turned Vottomatic into Ichiro without the on-field stretching routines (or unneeded interpreter & throng of Japanese media). So for those of you counting, that's three bullpen guys and a franchise 1st baseman Doc ____________________ (it's a fill-in the blank answer ... duh!!!) has left caddywompus in a year!!! Whatever Doc Hollywood - his preferred name, not mine - is paying the Reds to keep his title/job isn't enough to justify missing out on the Reds window to be one of the top teams in the Major League. There is a perfect MLB storm brewing for the Reds to be exceptionally good right now and for the next couple (2-3) years. The Yankees & Red Sox have tightened the purse strings after the arms race of the 2000s and both are vintage - great for wines, poor for post-PED baseball players. (Side note: Do you see a huge coincidence in the relative decline of the Yankees and Red Sox since the PED scandal was exposed and new PED enforcement strategies were implemented? Not only did both teams have juiced payrolls, the had juiced players! Anyone who doesn't see the coincidence is either blind or Bud Selig.) The Dodgers are set for a revival, but buying your way to a title takes time ... ask the Los Angeles Angels of **Your SoCal city here for the right amount of $$** or Miami Heat. The Cardinals are depleted by age and injuries to key pieces, the Mets are still dealing with Bernie Madoff financial fallout and the Braves ... well they are the Braves (How many championships did they win in the late 90s when they should have been cleaning up titles? 1? With 3 HOF pitchers? Holy Bobby Cox Batman!) If the Reds are going to win their 4th World Series in my lifetime, they need to do it in the next two seasons. The red window slams shut faster than an Aroldis Chapman heater after 2015 ... unless PEDs become permissible again and Reds Country shows up in droves (3.5 million or more) to GASP. The salary structure after 2015 is as sustainable as our national debt, and Bob Castellini didn't become a multi-millionaire by losing money on the regular. To have the big guy's desire to 'bring championship baseball back to Cincinnati' derailed by medical malpractice is a bigger travesty than Barry Bonds' hat size. It's time for the Reds medical staff ... cough, cough, Dr. Kremchek, cough ... to get things right, players rehabbed and back on the field ASAP! Championship level means everything at championship level ... including the hot tub!!!

Cool video from my favorite college in the country: http://miamioh.edu/features/love-honor/index.html

The Silly Season/Coaching Carousel has been swinging like Drew Stubbs the past couple weeks in both college and high school basketball. It's always interesting to see how positions get filled and also leads me to question what constitutes desire to improve or move up in the coaching ranks. I was drawn to coaching like Col. Sanders was to white jackets, black bow ties and fried chicken. Unlike Col. Sanders, my recipe wasn't a secret. I knew the formula ... pay my dues, coach freshman, JV basketball, spend a couple years as varsity assistant and then become the top dog. There were several times where I almost destroyed the formula like I did back in Mr. Gardner's chemistry class - POOF! - but I managed to find myself sitting in the 1st chair on the bench right about the time I thought I should get there. First top job I found myself in had me changing the formula like Heinz ... 57 varieties of things I never thought a head coach would have to worry about suddenly  were on my plate. The biggest alteration to my head coaching formula: FIT. And that's where some of these hires have me scratching what little hair I is atop my head. In my not so humble opinion, the only time a coach should leave a position where he FITS is if he thinks he has taken that program as far as he can. Jim Larranaga is a good example at the collegiate level as is David Moss in the Cincinnati high school ranks ... their teams couldn't achieve much more and it was time to move. In a similar vein I wouldn't have batted an eye is Brad Stevens or Shaka Smart left for gr$$n$r pastures. However bigger isn't always better, and moving to a bigger school isn't always a sign of ambition or lack thereof. My ambition is to take Clark to Columbus at the end of March. I wouldn't leave unless I thought I could take - insert new school name here - to Columbus at the end of March. If I was a college team my ambition would be the same .. I want to play on the first weekend in April at a very large dome! So when people ask me, as happens pretty frequently, "You looking to move?" and I say, "No" I get a lot of funny looks. I know Clark is a small school .. we have a small gym .. we play in a league not a lot of people have heard of .. and we generally don't get any publicity. But I FIT there and I have kids who FIT what I like to do and I have an athletic director who thinks we can achieve big things. So do I lack ambition? No way!!! I'm trying to get my squad to the top of the mountain!!! And if I never get there it doesn't mean we haven't accomplished many very worthwhile goals. Winning and losing isn't the end all, be all of goal setting .. and coaches who focus only on those goals are bound to get disillusioned with their school. If I can teach my players the value of investing yourself fully in the pursuit of high level goal, the work ethic to dedicate all of your energies toward that goal, fail and pick yourself back up to repeat the process, then I believe I have taught them a lot more then how to put an orange ball through an orange circular rim. Winning??? That will come as a natural by-product of teaching my players the process of achievement ... and that process is transferable to any life situation. Coaching 101 boys and girls ... easy as can be!!!

Reds are in the 'Burgh for a 3 game set. The Gunners host Norwich City in a must win match. The Buckeyes invade Paul Brown Stadium for their Spring Game. Should be a great weekend for sports!!!

Catch you on Monday!!

I knew this day would come ....

I'm so happy for my family who has supported me through all the struggles. I'm happy for my friends who have helped me along the way and been there when times were tough. But today is one of the happiest days of my life! I would like to announce to everyone that I am declaring for the 2013 Draft and taking my talents to the league!!! I know what you're thinking ... I'm a 40 year old, mostly broken down, ground bound jump shooter ... you can't make it in the League. But hey!!! 20 college underclassman have already declared for the draft, another 10 or 15 (tournament darlings like scUM's Trey Burke, GRIII, Hardaway Jr & Mitch McGary, the Ville's Russ Smith & Gorgui Dieng, Cuse's Michael Carter-Smith along with lesser unknowns Otto Porter Jr., Alex Len, Kelly Olynyk and Marcus Smart) will declare for the draft in the coming days, plus the graduating seniors who have an NBA future (like Jeff Withey of Kansas, Mason Plumlee & Seth Curry of Duke) ***** Phil Pressey of Missouri just declared so 21 underclassmen have now declared ***** and 10-15 Europeans. That means there are ... give or take ... my math is a little rusty ... 60 or so players vying for 30 guaranteed paying positions. What's that you say?? Everybody in the NBA gets paid?? Well yes .. you are correct .. if you make the NBA you do get paid. But only 1st round draft picks sign guaranteed contracts - which guarantee you get paid! - and 2nd round draft picks only get paid if they make the team. Of the 60 players drafted in the 2012 NBA draft, 10 (including 9 2nd rounders) draftees have never set foot on an NBA court and another 15 players (all 2nd rounders) haven't been on an NBA roster for the entire season. So 25 of the 60 draft picks - 42% - aren't drawing much salary at all. A D-League (the NBA's other minor league - the NCAA being the main NBA minor league) salary ranges from $12-$24K ... barely above minimum wage yearly salaries. All this number mumbo jumbo means one thing: What does the team drafting me have to lose?!?! I'm fine with being a 2nd round NBA pick and joining the 24 of 30 guys who don't stick in the league. I'll show up to summer league out of shape, take a lot of ill advised 24 footers, play enough defense that I cross half court and general be disinterested in the game. When it's time for training camp, I'll rinse-dry-fold-repeat the aforementioned behavior until I get cut or sent to hell the Erie BayHawks for a stint in the D-League. Of course they'll cut me in under a week and I'll be out on the mean streets of Mason (or back in the classroom ... but let's not distract from my fantasy!). Now some of those guys who are leaving college early might view a life of McDonald's drive-thru level salaries as something undesirable, but I already have a salary!!! Duh!!! Imagine it as Scott Kerr's Fantasy Basketball Camp if you will ... and then I'll join Royce White among the NBA draft picks who never played a game in the league. Not a bad badge to hold onto!!!!

A minute for Sunday's Mad Men premier ... Excellent. Now I know what all you Johnny-come-lately's are saying .. "It was soooooo slow" .. "The episode ended without anything getting resolved" .. "The storylines aren't making any sense" .. "Joan was only in it for 5 minutes total!!" (okay .. maybe the last one was what I said!!) .. but watching Mad Men is an acquired taste - much like the liquor Don permanently imbibes - while not inhaling the wacky tobaccy - before hurling chunks during funerals. Matty Weiner's scripts are a mystery inside an enigma wrapped up by a riddle. One important fact to remember is Don Draper only has this season plus one to conquer as many NYC females as he can!! (Well ... that's if you can believe Matty Weiner's claim he is only doing 7 seasons of the show. It's a cash cow for AMC and I gotta believe they will make a GodFather offer to keep it around for a little longer). The show is already starting the big wind down so there will be several slow developing story lines to stretch out over two seasons. The highlights? Don Juan back on the prowl, this time with his neighbor's wife .... the same neighbor he helped ski out of the building during a blizzard to go operate on somebody's heart!!! Always the gentleman that Don Draper!!! Don also has a fetish for reading books suggested to him by his extramarital lovers ... this time it was Dante's Inferno. Good choice!!! I know they have January Jones in a fat suit for her role as Betty Draper Francis (technology is getting better and better with those fat suits!), but what I didn't know was they had a Don Draper suit for Peggy to wear!! The way Peggy harangued those poor copywriters at her new firm made you think she had Don's pe .... ummmmm .... male organ between her legs. Peggy continued her habit of finding tag lines in trashcans (if you remember her big break on the Belle Jolie lipstick ad ... take that you Johnny-come-latelys!!) by rescuing the Koss headphones commercial using some discarded film footage. Roger Sterling on a psychologist's couch yielded some good zingers, but his pathetic attempt to sleep with his first ex-wife (and real off-screen wife BTW!) and subsequent breakdown upon receiving a deceased man's shoeshine box cast him as a rather forlorn figure heading into season six. Those Megan Pare fan's out there may be wondering why she isn't in my highlights ... well I don't like her teeth. There I said it! Get some veneers or braces Mrs. Ed .. then I'll talk about you.

The Reds can be summed up in a few words. Lost last night to the Cards. Dusty started a guy in leftfield he cut 8 days ago to "keep him sharp." The fact the guy is fast should concern everyone in Reds land. Dusty has a fetish with fast/no hit outfielders rivaled only by Don Draper's 'I'm sleeping with you' book club. A serving of Corey Patterson anyone? How about a plate Wily Taveras? Or the seasoned breeze of Drew Stubbs? I thought the roster was Dusty-proofed. I was wrong. Speaking of wrong ... tomorrow we'll look at the great medical advice proffered the past couple season by Doc Hollywood! Poor Sean Nick Massett Joey Votto Marshall.

Okay .. I'm out. Talk tomorrow!

Wilt the Stilt ain't got nothing on Donnie Draper!!

Shameless teaser .... I know .... gotta know my schedule though!

First a PSA for new readers ..... Mad Men recaps are on Tuesdays so I can rewatch each episode and collect my thoughts. After last night's episode I'm going to be passing the hat I have so many thoughts to collect! But it is good to know Don Juan Draper is back with a vengeance!

On a more important note .... Spring has finally sprung!!! My two sons (neither of whom is named Ernie - that's my brother) were so excited by this morning's 53 degree temperature that they grabbed the top pair of shorts in their dresser drawers and ran off to the bus stop. My buddy in Miami fires up his space heater and dons a parka, scarf and beanie hat when the mercury hovers in the mid-50s ... in Ohio, it's a t-shirt & shorts kind of day!!! Southwest Ohio was also fortunate enough to see our closest star - no, no ... not my bald dome ... the sun! - shining brightly on consecutive days for the first time since sometime last August. Global warming may be causing the polar ice caps to melt but it's not doing anything to melt Winter away from Ohio. The next progression for our developmentally delayed Spring should be April thundershowers. I enjoy no natural phenomena more than nature's light and bass (not the fish ... the sound) show - especially if it's a night show. The impending thunderstorm season has caused one question in particular to ricochet around my inside my head to the point of intellectual exhaustion. Will the storm systems (Mesoscale Convection Systems for all the wannabe weathermen/storm chasers out there) which spawn thunderstorms and tornadoes get names like hurricane and winter storm systems? I don't know about you, but Supercell Ivan Drago sounds much more intimidating than the Tornado of 2013. Why do storms get names anyway? How many hurricane names can you remember besides Katrina? Which winter storm from 2012-2013 had the best name? What is the salary of the person at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (a federal agency with federal employees using tax money as it's only source of revenue) who coordinates all of the storm names? Why does tax money go to name storms? See what I mean about the mental exhaustion which comes about from simply thinking about Spring thunderstorms? Oh well .... questions to ponder another day .... in the meantime keep the shorts and umbrellas handy the next couple of days before Winter returns in time for the weekend.

Speaking of storms .... I'm thinking of joining the growing legion of amateur storm chasers. Tracking a garden variety thunderstorm around with my high-tech cellphone camera just appeals to my inner whorish Andy Warhol 15 minutes of fame complex naturalist. It also provides a huge waste of gasoline valuable service for the local media scientific community who can't be everywhere at once and need pictures and video of even the most mundane of storms for their 11 o'clock news advanced data collection. My shots last summer of pea sized hail led to nothing a very important Facebook post!! If I had been in my convertible during last summer's derecho storm can you imagine the live action video I could have captured had I not been dodging trees falling into the road? I could have put the top down so people could really experience the wrath of the derecho - the wind, the debris whistling by my head, the sound of the hail pelting my bald head. Look .... I do it for fans ... and one of my storm videos was almost shown on Star64 CNN with Wolf Blitzer or whoever does the breaking national news there.

I'm not a big Saturday Night Live guy, but the Melissa McCarthy parody skit of Mike Rice (see here) is worth a couple minutes of your time.

Before I leave I would be remiss in failing to mention my two favorite red teams (the Buckeyes are SCARLET and gray ... duh!!!): The Reds and Arsenal. No truth to the rumor the National's ran Obama, John Boehner and Harry Reid out to the hill in Friday's 15-0 lambasting of Washington. The only numbers which were counting up quicker than the Redleg's tally was the national debt clock - ohhhhhhh low blow! At least the National's bounced back better than the national economy by winning in extra frames on Saturday before falling 6-3 in Sunday's game. The local nine get off to a 4-2 start with a three game set starting in ... ummmm 45 minutes ... at St. Louis. You better believe I'll be tuned in to the upcoming titanic struggle!!! On Saturday morning the Arsenal Gunners gutted out a 2-1 win over West Bromich Albion to briefly move into 4th place in the Barclay's Premier League. 4th place in huge in the BPL because it carries with it UEFA Champions League qualification and about $30million in TV right's fees plus increased ticket revenue. Arsenal needs to finish strong to overtake either Chelsea or Tottenscumham and nab a Champion's League spot. The Gunners take on Norwich City (nicknamed the Canaries after their bright yellow home kit) on Saturday before playing host to Manchester United.

Okay .. gotta go. Reds ... coaches meeting ... NCAA National Championship. Big night!!

Oh interruptions ... and Paleo diets

Let's see ... where did I leave off? These real life distractions cause serious harm to the blog and, by extension, my readers. Any lawyers out there available for a small retainer to file a lawsuit against real life? Or help me sue the people - those horrible teachers and college professors!! - who never warned me that real life could impede my pursuit of happiness? And forget about blogging during a Reds game .. not that I was wasting valuable instructional time tracking the progress of the local 9 against the Los Angeles Angels of Burbank Long Beach Compton Nowuknouintrouble Anaheim or anything .. my brain is unable to wrap itself around expressing thoughts while conducting an endless steam of consciousness conversation with myself about the game at hand.

 Now let me get this straight .... the newest diet craze is based on - and I'm quoting directly from Dr. Loren Cordain's website - "eating wholesome, contemporary foods from the food groups our hunter-gatherer ancestors would have thrived on during the Paleolithic ear, the time period from about 2.6 millions years ago to the beginning of the agricultural revolution, about 10,000 years ago." What? You haven't heard about it?? It's the Paleo diet!! And in the course of two days I went from having never heard of it to having seven people describe it to me. I'm not one to get wound up easily, but are you sh*%#ing me!!!! Go back to a Stone Age diet?? When the total human population on the planet was under 1 million (versus today's 7 billion!!!) and the average life expectancy was 18 (a deceiving figure of course due to an enormous infant mortality rate) and only about 30 percent of the total population lived beyond 30 years??? You want me to go back to that diet??? GTFOH!!! The basis Dr. Cordain cites - "decades of research!" - for his diet is the absence of obesity, cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease ... he goes on and on ... do you own research. I'm not a doctor, I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, I did watch Grey's Anatomy one time though and I did have to learn a little bit about history and historical populations at Miami U. Here's what I know ... how many people under the age of 30 have any of those conditions today outside obesity??? Look around and start counting Sherlock .... it's going to be a very low percentage. Secondly any study of ancient populations can not be definitive because we don't have complete medical records of ancient populations, only snapshots based on the relatively few fossilized bodies scientists have ever recovered and studied. I would hate to imagine what scientists would say about my life ... all 1,261,440,000 seconds of it so far ... if they were given 1000 second long Polaroids of my activity - especially if those Polaroids include my ill-attempted middle hair part or various college experiences (side note: thank God there were no cell phone cameras snapping away in my youth!!!). That's similar to the number of Stone Age bodies scientists have studied in the modern era. The other 99.999921% have been lost to history. And isn't it pretty common dietary knowledge that if you remove processed foods, diary products and refined sugars from your daily caloric intake then you are going to lose weight?? People paid for a book or a website to remind them of this?? Who's the dummy now?? Look .. you can do the South Beach Diet, the Mediterranean Diet, the SeeFood Diet, the Paleo Diet or the EWTFYW Diet .. it doesn't matter. If you eat healthy and exercise then you will have a better chance at avoiding some of the chronic illnesses it took Dr. Cordain decades of research to discover. Take a hike Einstein and let me enjoy my Graeter's!! I've already outlived my Stone Age ancestors, and my Iron Age ancestors and probably my Middle Age ancestors. I'm doing okay!! Skyline cheese coney?? I believe I will!!

Okay ... TV shows ... Mad Men, Downton, Duck Dynasty ... that's were I was!!!

3. Duck Dynasty (A&E) - The Robertson clan, owners of Duck and Buck Commander, wasn't a favorite of mine until recently. I am neither an avid duck hunter - never been actually - or beard grower - I prefer the Mr. Clean look.  However I converted to the stupidity as if Benny Hinn had smacked me in the forehead. Network TV comedy shows hold my attention for a gnat-like span. I prefer to find my comedy gold oozing out of redneck reality TV shows the same way Jed Clampett bubbled up some Texas Tea from the hills of Kentucky. And right now there are no one funnier than Si Robertson. Jase Robertson slides in right behind Si on the laugh tracking. The Robertson's wrap you into their cocoon of stupidity so well you forget they are ALL MULTI-MILLIONAIRES!!!! Why can they sit around the duck call room everyday doing nothing and not have a boss - or principal!! - breathing fire down their backs??? Because they have already stacked a lot of paper!!! Viewer beware: These are not your average rednecks!!!

4. Wheeler Dealers & Chasing Classic Cars (Velocity) - I consider both of these shows to be peas in a pod. Deep down .. or if you know me well it's not all that deep .. I wish I was a car restorer/reseller. Or a racecar driver of the sprint car variety. Either way these are my instructional videos of the life I wish I could lead. My Saab - which requires a wrench as frequently as a bird sings - has been the beneficiary of several lessons in automotive repair from Wheeler Dealers. Those of you who ride in the Jet with me beware!!!  And Wayne Carini ... let's just say it's my second dream job behind Miami University's Mens' Basketball coach.

5. Mr. Selfridge (PBS) - Hey .... another Masterpiece Classic .... I'm highbrow .... what can I say? Jeremy Piven is Mr. Selfridge and after Entourage I'm pretty much watching any show with J.P. as the lead. Dude can flat out act. But just to make sure the hook is firmly set in my jaw, the producers decided J.P. would be even better in a period show set in London. Yup ... line and sinker as well!! It's only been one episode, but Mr. Selfridge has all the trappings of a Downton-lite and a slice of my Sunday night time.

That's it ... plus live sporting events involving teams I care about .. in other words the Reds, Gunners, Tar Heels, Buckeyes, RedHawks, Musketeers, Bearcats and an occasional NBA game. Got it?? Good!!

Redlegs take 2 of 3 from the Angels .. I'm happy with a series victory over any team with Puljos, Trout and Hamilton in the lineup. I'll take the advice of one of my readers and stick to basketball .. Ha!! No worries .. I'll be back to torment Dusty when time and Dustration presents itself.

Long enough?? Yeah .. I thought so. Have a good weekend everyone!!!

Oh ... and Happy 11th Birthday Ty!!! Growing up way to fast little man!!

We gotta move these color TVs ....

Hey ... your Momma's so fat that THX can't even surround her!! Yo .. why did I see your Mom laying on her stomach in that TV commercial for laser back hair removal??? Maaaaannnnnn ... your Momma's so old she watches TV like Michael Jackson ... it don't matter if it's black & white!!! Okay .. enough of that .. I was never very good at 'Your Momma" jokes .. but I am pretty good at watching good TV shows. With the passing of ODiC, there is going to be less time for me to watch fluff on TV. My primetime lineup starts at 7 PM and lasts till about 10 PM on channel 1309 for those of you who are Time Warner subscribers, with the occasional Arsenal soccer match thrown in on Saturday mornings or Wednesday afternoons. So any 'shows' I watch are relegated to the DVR or squeezed around my sporting preferences. All which leads to tonight's channel conundrum culminating at approximately 10 PM: the end of the Reds-Angels game or Duck Dynasty???? See where I'm going with this???? If you're lucky enough to be the King of your Castle, the Commander of the Remote Control, the Keeper of the Man Cave, the Brains behind the Boob Tube (Hey! Get your minds out of the gutter .. that's not an internet porn site .. at least that I know of!!) ... or if you just get to make the TV viewing choice at your dwelling ... which shows are on your "Must See" list. I'll open the floor up for debate .... settle down .... this isn't the Jerry Springer Show!! ... we'll start with Mr. Kerr.

Who? Me? Okay ... ummmmm ... well ... thank you, Mr. Kerr, for allowing me to bat lead off on this topic. Here are the shows I will do anything to see on time:

1. Mad Men (AMC) - Far and away my favorite show currently on TV. And in a total coincidence and in noooo way a shameless plug, it returns for season 6 this Sunday night. Season 5 was a drop-off for a show which up to that point had been head and shoulders above anything else in the 1400 channel universe, but I expect season 6 to return to it's masterful ways. Sterling, Cooper, Draper, Pryce (although is the Pryce still included in the agency's name after Lane hung himself in Season 5?) has undergone many changes since the series was originally set in 1960. Don is no longer on the perpetual prowl, the advertising business has evolved from print to television, the old agency bought out and eventually replaced with a newer, bolder agency, Roger Sterling - this show's Dowager Countess - has shuffled through two marriages and millions of dollars, and Peggy has evolved from doormat to the corner office with a view at a different agency. But some things have remained more or less unchanged, most notably Joan (a drooling great thing) and Pete Campbell (a douchy thing). Netflix will have you caught up in time to be current Sunday night if you hurry (and you don't stop to rewatch season 5's 'Far Away Places' episode to oogle Jane Seigel Sterling on the way to the acid party!).

2. Downton Abbey (PBS) - Who says the Brits can't make good TV?!?! Dr. Who?? Fuhgetaboutit!! Drop into Downton and watch Olde English money attempt to adapt to the changing world of the early 20th century. Lord Grantham, his family and his stahhff (look .. they are servants .. except they are in a really rich persons house .. call a spade a spade!!) produce the finest soap opera ... wait ... I didn't mean soap opera ... get your hands off my Man Card!!! ... what I meant was ... errrr ... umm ... drama ... yes, that's it ... the finest drama on public television. I'm most amazed at the time period and the dress and the culture (although I must raise this point - season 3 saw several divergence in cultural attitudes which are completely incorrect for the period. Exhibit A - Lord Grantham's support for a homosexual butler. A homosexual male in the 1920s would have been run out of a country estate quicker than Usain Bolt, not protected by a member of the English gentry!). Several key characters (Lady Sybil, Matthew Crawley and William) have been killed off the show the past two seasons and another (Miss O'Brien - fetus murderer!) isn't returning, so it will be interesting to see the new characters sprinkled into the mix. Lady Mary as a single mother should be interesting in a train wreck, 'Mommie Dearest' kind of way.

3. Duck Dynasty (A&E) -

staff meeting .... TBC later this evening!

Meet the new boss ... same as the old boss

If you like free stuff, raise your hand. Now typing with one hand is difficult so instead of throwing a hand in the air let me just say this ... if it's free, it's for me!! You'll hear no complaints out of me for the four extra innings of baseball (tangential discussion ... aren't baseball games only guaranteed to go 8 & 1/2 innings? Are 3 outs an inning or 1/2 inning? If the home teams wins it with a walk-off run in the bottom of the 9th, didn't you get some free baseball anyway?), especially since I spent the game in the climate-controlled confines of the Yard House. I love the Reds - a lot - but not enough to spend the extra cash (3rd deck tickets were being quoted with a 3rd digit yesterday by the highway robbers scalpers) or stand in a line during the Cincinnati winter (a season which has been the gift that keeps on giving frigid temperatures!) to get a ticket at face value. So the block party developed around Opening Day - which is the best idea Cincinnati has had since Graeter's!! - is about as close to the game as I'll come. So before I start to rip on discuss Dusty's decision-making during yesterday's game, I have this question for you:

What is Opening Day like in other Major League cities?

Opening Day is a big deal in Cincinnati. In the pre-technozoic of my elementary, middle and high school years we would try to smuggle small transistor radios into our bags with primitive earpieces which were more obvious than the pieces worn by the Secret Service. Sadly it rarely worked. By college I could conveniently forget to go to class and watch the game in lo-def splendor. The last couple years I have taken advantage of my educational occupational calendar to attend Opening Day festivities in person, and not so coincidentally the event has exploded!!! Cincinnati's Catholic festivals drool at the party going on at the corner of Joe Nuxhall Drive and Freedom Way. A squadron of Port-o-let's have been deployed to carry the abundance of merriment which accompanies .67% of the Reds season. But what if we had traveled DeLorean 88-mph style to Oakland and celebrated Opening Day there ... would a large street party have been going on outside O.co Coliseum? Where the Dodgers hosting Fight Club II "Beat the Giants" fans in Chavez Ravine? I would estimate yesterday's crowd downtown and outside GASP (for you newbies that's Great American Small Park, a place where pop-fly's meet bleacher seats .. formally known as Great American Ball Park) at close to 100,000 people. You think 100,000 are bundling up in 38 degrees to hang outside stadia in Oakland, LA, NY or Chi-town for opening day? I've never been so it's up to you to fill in my blanks. The closest thing I can compare Opening Day in Cincinnati (ODiC) to is Patriot's Day in Massachusetts and Maine. (Bonus question: Can you tell me when Patriot's Day is? What does Patriot's Day celebrate?  Anyone ... anyone ... Bueller ... Bueller???) Now Patriot's Day - not to be confused with Patriot Day - is a state holiday .. the government shuts down .. they run a very long foot race .. and the Red Sox play baseball. On ODiC (pronounced Odis), workers and school children feign sickness ... there is a very long foot parade ... and the Reds play baseball. I can think of no better reason to establish a Cincinnati holiday!! Think of the possibilities. On ODiC Eve you have a big pep rally at Fountain Square where the Reds' players chase Old Man Winter away with their bats (they don't hit anything on Opening Day anyway - might as well put the wood to good use!) and the city turns on the Tyler Davidson Fountain. Give it five years and it will become a better indicator of the end of winter than some stupid groundhog in Pennslyvania!! ODiC retains the Findlay Market Parade, the street party, and a Reds baseball game. That right there is an early spring slice of Americana!!!

The Curious Case of Dusty Baker

Look ... I've held my tongue for 20 hours ... that's long enough ... but can anyone translate the enigma which is Dusty Baker's managerial book? I just don't understand why the Maj. Gen does the things he does. Case in point from yesterday's game was the bottom of the 8th inning. Here's the scene: runners on 1st and 2nd, no outs, DatDude - Vottomatic - Free Chris Heisey (FCH) - Bruuuuce coming to the dish. What's the call in this situation, knowing you have the Missile - hereafter known as the DSB (Dusty's Security Blanket) Missile - fueling up in the 'pen? DatDude, who grounded into 19 double plays last season but also drove in 77 runs, gets the order to sacrifice bunt, which he successfully executed just like he did three times in 2012. That marched Joey Vottomatic up to the dish with runners on 2nd & 3rd & first base open!!!! What do you think the Angels are going to do in this predicament? Pitch to the only most dangerous hitter in the Reds lineup? As Uncle Si is fond of launching in his singular staccato style, "Noh". Vottomatic quick-steps to 1st with his free pass, FCH swats at flies for out #2, Bruuuuce loops around three pitches close to the plate. Inning over. Threat neutralized. Reds neutered. Now Maj. Gen Dusty Custer had just watched the Angels attempt the same strategy in the top of the 7th and score exactly ZERO runs. Why try an emulate a failed strategy?!?! Furthermore, if you're going to play small ball for 1 run and sacrifice runners into scoring position, why don't you try to safety or suicide squeeze the run in from 3rd with FCH up to bat?!?! FCH had the same number of sacrifice bunts DatDude had in 2012 and three innings later the Dustrator had FCH sacrifice bunt .... don't you think he could have gotten a safety squeeze (or more excitedly a suicide squeeze!!!) down with the based loaded and one out?!?! Let's rewind FCH's 8th inning at bat, replace the Dustration Manual with the Winning Edge Baseball Manual and see what happens when the Maj. Gen thinks outside the box of toothpicks. FCH gets down a safety squeeze to score X-Paul, Dusty gets his one small-ball run, dails up the DSB Missile, the Angel's chase smoke in the top of the 9th, and the Reds win on ODiC!!! The Reds will continue to be hamstrung by the Dustrator's insistence on 'going by the book' and doing things the 'baseball way'. (Side note: Anybody want to bet on the effectiveness of Dusty's 3rd lefty in the 'pen, Manny Parra? He got shelled last year in Milwaukee, shelled in Spring Training .. but the 'book' says you gotta have a lefty in the pen for lefty-lefty match-ups in the 4th inning. I though Sean Marshall would be our lefty-lefty specialist??? Instead we send down a guy who went 6-2 with a 2.95 ERA last season - Jose Arredondo - to keep a guy who went 2-3 with a 5.06 ERA last season and a 5.28 ERA this spring! Doesn't the book say something about keeping your best pitchers in the big leagues?  Nope .. not on the Dustrator's team). Dusty's book is very curious indeed.