A 'lil HooHaa

Some quick hits today.

First, I slept like a rock last night. Had myself three beers after working on about four hours sleep from the night before.

Saturday was tough with that lack of sleep.

Up at 7 a.m., got ready and headed to a state softball meeting. Which, of course, got a little boring with all the people chatting about nonsense. I had to be there even earlier, however, to meet with a committee I’m on. That wasn’t bad and we learned where the state tournament would be held this summer. It will be a blast, I’m sure.

I’m also the state’s player rep for modified-pitch softball now. At least for the tournament. Good times.

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Of course, snow was around on the ride down. Only one spot was real bad, at the top of one mountain here. And of course when I got up there, a car was in the ditch. You could see what happened too. Fool came up over the knoll too fast, didn’t realize it’s a great spot for wind-spread snow and went sliding off.

Idiot.

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After the meeting? Yeah, of course I had to cover a basketball game. Good game for a half, then the top-seeded team opened it up in the second half and ended up winning by 21.

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Apparently the weather here is supposed to be in the 60s next weekend. Sweet. And sunny for at least the next three days, with some rain later in the week. I’ll take it.

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My alma mater was the No. 1 seed in Regionals and the top-ranked team in the nation in NJCAA Division III. Not only that, they play host to nationals each year. AND they hadn’t lost to anyone IN the Region all year.

Yeah, that helps.

Knocked out in the first round of Regionals to the No. 9 seed. Good times. Unreal. They were an incredible team. But, I guess it proves what the postseason is all about. Be ready to play or your ass could go home. Still sucks though. That tournament is rocking when the host is in it.

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My new laptop kicks ass. It’s faster than hell, the screen is sweet and it’s going to be sweet to get writing on. I am still adjusting to the keyboard.

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Working on this book I have it tough. I need to start outlining myself better. Can’t just write off the cuff.

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I wish it was summer, I was on vacation and in Montreal.

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I actually wish I’d hit the freakin’ lottery.

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Have a nice day!

It’s time to start preparing.

I don’t mind fantasy sports, but baseball has always been my favorite. I haven’t, unfortunately, gotten into it as much as I’ve ever wanted to.

Baseball is my favorite sport and the one I know the most about. So I’ve always wanted to do a pretty solid league where it’s pretty in-depth, has some keepers and some other cool rules. So this year, I’m hoping it all works out with the league we’re doing for Beer is Beautiful.

Now comes time to prepare for the draft. This, again unfortunately, has been one of the things I always do poorly at. I figure I can go off lists, set them up a night or two before the draft and do it. However, it doesn’t always work out for me. This year I’m hoping it will be different. I’ll be going to find myself a good magazine Friday for fantasy baseball.

I also have my Baseball America books, which are mainly for my beat in the summer, but I’m hoping will come in handy at the draft. Especially in the minor league portion of the draft.

My whole thing with baseball has been that I need to become more involved with my team and what’s going on in baseball as a whole. Maybe that’s the same thing with all of my fantasy teams.

See, I’m not one to trade too often. I usually look at a trade and skip it. I’m the same with free agents. I rarely drop players and pick others up because I believe too much in the team that I drafted. I have to get away from those things and start be willing to make some moves here and there and not get attached to everything I have already done.

So I’m starting to do a little more with research and everything else for the pre-draft. I have about three weeks or so before we draft, so I have plenty of time to have everything mapped out. I plan on having everything on my laptop so I can take it with me to the draft and be all set to go. It will be even better if there’s wireless available where we’re going to draft. If I knew I could be online with the laptop as well, I’d probably put everything on my website and color code it and all of that.

I know this, however, when I show up at the draft this year, I’m going to be extremly prepared and hope to hell this research pays off!

NOTE: I talk about the movies Bad News Bears and White Noise in this entry. If you want to know nothing about the movies or the DVDs, don’t read. I don’t give plots away, but I do talk about the movie a little and give explanations of what it is and all. I don’t think I give anything away though.

Movie: The Bad News Bears (new one)

Pros: It was a funny at times movie. Billy Bob Thornton and Greg Kinnear were pretty dolid. A couple of funny lines that make you crack up and they did a decent job at putting it into today’s time.

Cons: A lot more than pros. They ruined Tanner, took a lot of key lines and parts away from the movie and made you shake your hands at others. Tanner didn’t say “cruddy” once and his real memorable lines were completly taken out of the movie — thank you for having to be P.C.

Also, there’s a lot of product placement and name brand things used (Under Armor is seen throughout the movie).

Extra features: Didn’t watch many because the movie pissed me off. There were several extras though.

Thoughts: Funny at times, annoying others. I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would because there were parts taken out and characters gone that were key parts to the first Bad News Bears. I understand being PC, but there are times people want to see certain thing. Tanner was a total disappointment and they totally killed his character. That pissed me off more than anything.

Overall rating: 5 out of 10. And I’m being nice.

Movie: White Noise

Pros: A thriller/horror flick with the basis of Electronic Voice Phenomenon, where the dead supposedly can connect with the living through electronic devices. A good thriller that made my hair stand on end (something that usually doesn’t happen with me with horror flicks). But this one did me in pretty hardcore at times and make me really wonder if the way things unfolded there were possible from this EVR. Needless to say, it spooked me pretty decently to the point where I was happy I got a chance to watch it. I think it would have been better on the big screen.

Cons: When this movie first came out, I did a little research on EVR and didn’t read anywhere that you could see the dead or anything like that, rather it was hearing. Some of the plot parts of the movie were a little odd because they didn’t seem to really go anywhere, but it was enough to keep your hair on end and make you think all about what was going on and such. It made you shiver and made you really wonder what the hell was going on. It also, I don’t think, doesn’t do a good job of explaining why some of this stuff happened. Good usage of music and horror effects to scare the shit out of you when needed.

Extra features: Not bad at all, to be honest. Only checked out a couple of them, mostly about the EVR. And it’s well worth checking those parts out. Gives you an insight into things going on.

Thoughts: I think most of my thoughts were in the pros and cons. A couple more things, however. I used to hate horror flicks until watching the Blair Witch Project. Then that gave me a whole new liking for horror flicks. This one was one of the few that I’ve seen over the years that has actually spooked me and done what it was supposed to do. I enjoyed it throughout and hair stood on my neck and I got shivers down my back several times, which is usually the sign of a good horror flick as far as I’m concerned. I would highly suggest seeing the flick if you enjouy horror movies.

The ending was odd as hell. I don’t know what to make out of it. Maybe if others have seen it they can fill me in on their thoughts.

And for the fellow journalists out there, you might not want to use your recorder after seeing this.

Overall rating: 8 out of 10.

I spent this weekend in Long Island, covering the state wrestling tournament.

It’s my hope that it never goes back there again.

Even Long Island’s newspaper, Newsday, had a column today about how bad it actually was. Link

Being from a smaller newspaper in a smaller area, people know me a little bit and like to soundoff at times. I heard from several people how bad this weekend was. Let me point out a couple of things.

– No re-entry. So if you bought a ticket, you better plan on staying all day, or pay again. This didn’t happen in previous years.

– Camcorders were not allowed. I figured it had something to do with Cablevision and it sounds like through the Newsday article that it was something with Cablevision.

Look, this is high school sports. Unless you are going to offer a way for people to buy DVDs/tapes of the event or it is shown and seen throughout the entire state, then camcorders should be allowed. This was a major ball dropped by the Nassau Coliseum.

– The Coliseum was selling beer. At a high school event. And from sources off the record, I was told it cost NYSPHAA some cash to re-write the contract to include that. But they kept selling beer until things were finalized. A good two hours worth of selling on Friday.

Now come on, selling beer at a high school event? That’s ridiculous. This tournament — or anything else from the state — should never go here again because of this alone.

– The staff at the Coliseum were rude and idiotic. Yeah, the tournament is at your joint, which means you should treat the people coming there with a little respect.

Between jacked-up hotel prices, tickets to the event for a couple people, and eating in there (remember, no re-entry and you weren’t allowed to bring any food or drink in), one husband and wife I know spend probably around 750 bucks or more for the weekend. To watch their kid wrestle. AND couldn’t use a camcorder.

Yeah, good stuff all around.

That place isn’t worthy of having anything else there. What a joke.

Thankfully, it returns to Albany and the Pepsi Arena next year. More affordable, cheaper hotels and no whoring out the fans. The best part? Central location and all the major highways go into Albany, so it’s good for all parts of the state.

I went and saw Lonestar tonight at the local college here. First, I was shocked they landed someone this big and current. This college used to be a hotspot in the 70s and early 80s for concerts, but went down. In the 90s, Meatloaf played there before he got big again — and that was a great concert. But mainly, it was a lot of comedy.

So Lonestar coming is a pretty big deal, although I don’t think it was aimed just for the college. In fact, I’d be willing to say there wasn’t more than 25 percent of students at this concert.

That said, I wanted to give some impressions on the concert, people who were there, and other things.

First, the concert. Good all-around performance, I thought. Did a show of about 1 hour, 30 minutes. Played all their hits, some from the new album, a couple of covers (Walking in Memphis and an Alabama collage) and really got the crowd involved. That’s something I like with country bands — they seem to get the crowd involved more.

Throughout the show the lead guy (I have no clue what his name his) was signing autographs while singing, they at one point brought up two younger girls with a camera and he took their photo with each member of the band, then posed with them — very cool in my mind. Mingled a little with the crowd.

We bolted quickly after the show and we were paked behind the building — right where the band’s bus was. As we got out there, the lead dude was coming out and my one friend was like “Hey, there he is!” You could see he was hustling to get in the bus. But as we bolted by, I was like “Good show.” He thanked us and quickly got on the bus. I think he realized, however, we weren’t the normal “Oh my God! fans.

Now, during the show… I have several observations. First, the people.

I’ve been to country concerts before. I realize that they really bring out some people from the woodwork. But holy smokes did people come out of the woodwork tonight. There were people you knew hadn’t been into “town” in a long time. This is the city to a lot of people. Now remember, we’re a rural area, 2,500 people normally and nearing 5,000 when college is in session.

But the outskirts, there are a lot of interesting folks. They all showed up tonight. And man, the clothes they wore and the way they looked, you knew it was something they had planned and saved up for for a long-ass time.

The better ones are the younger folk. High school kids, those early in college etc. These are the ones that cracked me up because they try and act like these redneck, back woods people. They wear jeans so tight you wonder how they got them on. The cowboy hats and the cowboy-looking shirts. And you know as well as I do when they are in school, they dress like an Abercrombie catalog.

Now, second obeservation is how these people act at shows. Well, some of them anyway.

I really believe some of the woodwork people are more concerned about taking photos than watching and enjoying the show. Seriously, we had a couple sets of people near us who were taking shot after shot with their digital camera. I took one, realize I was too far away and put it away. But these people were firing off shot-after-shot. Too funny.

Also, the high school kids. These little bastards have no clue and no respect. We’re set up in a pretty good place (it was set up in an older gym, so one set of bleachers and everyone else standing on the floor. We didn’t get there early enough for seats). A couple songs into the concert, these four high school kids (I know they are high school kids because the one girl is a standout hoops player and she was with her man) come right up and cut in front of us, and don’t give a shit.

I’ll give three of the four credit — they were trying to move out so people could see. But one little fuck wouldn’t have any of it. In fact, he got them to walk into the middle, then back and back in everyone’s way. What a douche. No clue about anything. The type of kid where you’d love to take him out back and kick the shit out of him.

Finally, what is it with these concerts where as soon as they play a song, or a lovey-dovey song where the guys have to start making out with their gals? Or grabbing their asses. Or trying to slow dance and getting in everyone’s way?

Get a room.

Get a room.

And find a fucking dance club.

I’m not a fan when it comes to public displays of affection as it is. But seeing this makes me want to punch people. I’ve been to rock concerts and don’t see that shit happen often. But hell if country doesn’t bring out the best in all of them.

Overall a pretty good time. I would have liked to have sat down and not been on my feet the whole time, but other than that not bad. Some of those people really crack me up though!