Local sports and stuff

The Lightning have gotten off to an impressive start now that hockey is actually being played with a 4-1 record. The boys are scoring a lot of goals and with the exception of a mysterious lapse in the second period of each game, they are playing good defense as well.

Kind of hard to say how this short season is going to work out. Seems painfully obvious to say that either they will be rounding into top form when the playoffs start or they'll be struggling with those nagging injuries that crop up just around the half-way point of a normal season, but yeah . . . that's what I'm thinking.

It would be nice to see the guys in playoff hockey again. Here's hoping.

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And it looks like the Red Sox actually have a team in place. Cherry's been pretty busy in the off season jettisoning the clubhouse cancers and bringing in guys who will be happy to play in Boston. Plus saving a ton of cash at the same time.

There's a lot of pop in the lineup (fingers crossed on injuries) and the bullpen looks like it might actually be a plus this season with two quality closers in Bailey and Hanrahan. Putting Aceves back in his accustomed long relief role and the possibility of rehabbing Daniel Bard and leads might just hold up this year.

Starting pitching is a question with a lot of what ifs abounding. But with Cherrington saving money on contracts, there's plenty of cash on hand to pick up another solid starter to bolster the staff.

The AL East is going to be an interesting division this year. I think the Sox might be playing for third place, but they could be a sleeper to make the wild card depending on how some other teams do. And speaking of that . . .

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I mentioned this time last year that I thought that the Rays ownership was setting the city of St. Pete up for a leverage play. Bringing in Pena and Scott and spending freely to upgrade the team, the Ray's owners hoped for another pennant drive knowing full well that the area wouldn't respond any better than it had in years past vis a vis attendance. Then they could go to MLB and get the league to force the city to break the stadium lease and allow the team to move.

Well slap my face and call me Susie. MLB Commissioner Bud Selig released a statement last week saying that he is"...disappointed with the current situation in Tampa Bay... and ...the status quo is simply not sustainable."

Comparisons between the Rays and the Rangers are apt here. Both teams were languishing at the bottom of attendance before each took off on a five year run of winning and playoff baseball. However, though the Rangers finished last year in the top five in attendance, the Rays still finished in the bottom five.

Local officials are already conceding that it's not a matter of if the team moves but when. And even the language of the lease has magically morphed from a stadium lease until 2027 to what is now referred to as an area lease. I hate to see the team go, but I simply don't think the Rays are going to be here much longer.

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And on a different note, is it just me or should Nabilla Benattia keep her sunglasses on?

How about my Duffster?

Hilary Duff gave birth to a bouncing baby last March, and was spotted out and about the other day looking pretty good:

nice :-)

News reporting is an art in Miami

Jenny Scordamaglia is her name, and pretty gosh darn saucy interview wear is her game. Not sure how old this is, but check out this gal's outfit in this street reporting from ArtWalk in Miami:

I thought maybe she was just getting her phreak on for the report, but no, after looking around a bit, this look is not without precedent in her professional career:

¡Ay Carrumba!

Did I miss anything at the Golden Globes last night?

Didn't watch the Globes because I'm still a bit fuzzy from my concussion, so I checked the various blogs and news sites to see what I missed.

Jodie Foster apparently came out as a lesbian in her awards speech.  This is news?  To whom?  What casual movie goer or celeb magazine/blog reader for the last 20 years hasn't known this?  I don't really care what Jodie does behind closed doors, I'd be more interested if she could appear in a movie and not play a pretentious, holier-than-thou character for once.

Adele won an award for her awful theme song to the new Bond film.  Who didn't see this coming?  Adele's the flavor of the month right now and every review of the film, whether the reviewer loved it or hated it, started their review with a slobbering paragraph about the theme song.  Here's my yardstick for Bond theme song's greatness -- is it going to be playing on the radio in 5 years? 10 years? 20+ years?  Will bands be covering it in concert or on their CD's like Live and Let Die?  Doubtful.  This howlfest will be forgotten in a year.  For the last Bond movie, the producers lined up "it" performers Jack White and Alicia Keys for an underrated theme song.  By my own yardstick, it doesn't pass the award worthy line, but it's still a cool song and world's better than that dreck from Adele:

Anything else . . . oh yeah, HBO's factually inaccurate political in-kind donation smearfest Game Change won more awards.  Pretty much the rule of thumb with these foreign press types is that if something bashes America or conservatives or Republicans, it's worthy of an award.  I mean that's why the Nobel committee keeps handing out prizes to idiots like Paul Krugman.

So . . . to answer my question, no, I didn't miss anything.

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And just wondering here, but what exactly are they promoting in these movie posters anyway:

Not trying to be a prude here, but this is the sauciest promotional campaign I've seen in a long while. I can only hope the movie ends up being a guilty pleasure and not just some jailbait fantasy flick.

Update: So the trailer for the movie is out now. I'm still unsure whether it's a cult classic in the making or a disaster:

On thing I do know is that it's pretty cool to see places I'm so intimately familiar with -- The Undertow, the Coral Reef hotel, Corey Ave (I was there the day they shot the scooter scene), the Sunshine Skyway, etc., up on the big screen. If the movie turns out to be a klunker, hopefully our nifty little area here will still impress movie goers.

And just to remind you . . .

This is what Tiger Woods was cheating on:

Woods -- a really good golfer . . . in the character/relationship department . . . eh, not so much. Elin seems to be managing the trauma of their break up fairly well though:

Joe Biden's got a real firm grip on reality

Saw a story the other day about our Vice President saying that smart gun technology could have prevented the shootings at Sandy Hook.  The story quotes from the AP:

“Vice President Joe Biden says he’s interested in technology that would keep a gun from being fired by anyone other than the person who bought it . . . He says evidence shows such technology may have curtailed what happened last month in Connecticut when 20 youngsters and six teachers were gunned down inside their elementary school . . ."

It is useful to note that VP Biden has no military experience, having received five deferments during the Vietnam War before finally getting his 4F for "asthma" and has spent the last 40 years in Congress.  So basically, like pretty much all liberals, Biden's only knowledge of firearms come from movies.  I'm guessing he's seen James Bond and the Judge Dredd movies too many times if he's babbling about smart guns.

I'm not saying the technology isn't out there, RFID chips already exist and were being tested almost eight years ago.  Notable that the technology hasn't gone anywhere since.  The chips require implants into the user's arm or hand to make the weapon usable.  The police have balked at this since an officer may have to use a partner's gun at some point.  Also with nothing 100% reliable, the prospect of a malfunction in a life threatening situation makes the geek-y notion not practical in the real world.

RFID chip creators say the guns can be programmed to accept other chips, like partners, supervisors, etc.  Well, doesn't that defeat the purpose of the chip?  In the Sandy Hook case, we know the mother took her son to the range on several occasions.  Presumably, he would have been programmed to use the weapons he eventually ended up stealing.  I suppose she could have removed him as a user, but what if she had forgotten?  See, there's a whole other can of worms being opened up here.

The NRA gets demonized by liberals for balking at such innovation, but their motives are on target (pardon the pun).  If you own a weapon for self-defense, what good is it if you cannot be 100% sure it will work when you need it?  How many times has your computer acted up?  Your cell phone?  The computer in your car?  Are you going to remember to check the batteries in your firearm?  Most people don't remember to check the batteries in things like clocks or smoke detectors until they fail.  Your self-defense weapons fails when you need it, and you won't have to worry about checking it a second time!

Sadly this is just another case of Democrats looking to crush one of their conservative targets.  They spent the last year demonizing religion and right-to-lifers, not with another tragedy to exploit they're going to try and overturn the 2nd Amendment and outlaw private gun ownership -- if not directly, then by proxy: onerous taxes on ammunition, outlawing specific types of ammunition, outlawing vague catagories of firearms, mandatory buybacks, absurd high tech weapons that will surely be priced above the average citizens ability to afford them.

People who have complained about the leftist, socialist leaning of this administration where mocked by the liberal press, but once again, look at which party is attempting to curtail your rights, your Constitutional rights?  It ain't the Republicans folks.

So, this happened . . .

. . . which is weird

Yep, so I'm on vacation this week. And after getting bent over by my local Chrysler dealer for a brake job -- $800 for brakes on two wheels! Really!? WTF?! I'm sitting on the sofa watching television, put my hand on the back of my head and it's covered in blood:

Clean up in aisle 5!

Got no effin' idea what happened. Last thing I remember is sending my girl a text around 5:30pm. 45 min later . . . it's Dawn of the Dead in my living room. Did the CSI thing and found blood on a door jamb about 2 feet off the floor and some blood on the carpet inside the doorway where I guess I landed:

Did the shadetree mechanic's check-up on myself -- pupils the same size, reactive to light. No denser than usual when it comes to thinking and reasoning. Went to sleep last night (nervously) and woke up this morning. So I'm not thinking concussion from the fall. But as my sister points out -- I hit my head hard enough that I can't remember what happened. So there's that . . . which isn't good.

My sister, the ER doctor, and my girl are pushing me to go to the ER to get checked out, so I guess I will. But this is just so freekin' odd.

Heck of a way to start the new year.

Update:
Yeah, so apparently it was a concussion. Went to the emergency room and ended up spending half my vacation in the hospital while they ran pretty much every test imaginable. A slight brain hemorrhage that may have been a result of the spill, who knows. Good times, heh.

Late night hotness

Yep . . . taking down all these holiday decorations is quite a chore . . .

Stupid of the day from the Times

With the re-election of the most fiscally irresponsible President in the history of this country, the Tampa Bay Times (formerly the St. Pete Times) has given up any pretense of objectivity.  The news stories and editorial pages are wall-to-wall liberal propaganda.

The letters to the editor page is beyond belief.  I often wonder if they are choosing these letters because they are so outlandish or whether they are simply nodding their collective heads in agreement when they come in.

In today's letters, Doug Bauer of Clearwater is complaining about Marco Rubio voting against the Hurricane Sandy relief bill.  Bauer says that Rubio "...would be the first to have his hand out if Florida experienced a similar disaster."  Then finishes by saying Republicans are "...all about me." 

Yeah.

Problem is Doug, that the bill is $8 billion in aide for victims of the hurricane, and $51 billion in pork barrel projects that greedy politicians loaded in there.  Maybe you're too busy getting your news from Comedy Central there Dougy, but there's this whole fiscal crisis thing going on.  Perhaps Sen. Rubio is thinking that we shouldn't be loading aide bills with pork projects when were headed over the fiscal cliff into bankrupcy.

Duhrr.

Happy New Year!

Wishing a Happy New Year to any and all who happen to come by the blog today.

Among my many new year's resolutions is to get back to blogging regularly since my head's been exploding with stuff I've wanted to say and/or comment on over the last few months.

And just to start things off with a little smiley action . . . here's the Tis giving off some sexy on Twitter: