Various Pats / Sox related thoughts... (and a snowblower fight story!)

Corey Dillon is no longer a Patriot. He has asked to be released by the team and The Pats have granted him his wish. He may or may not retire, depending on what kind of offer / opportunity he gets from other teams. Apparently he feels that he still has enough gas in the tank to carry the load as a number one running back. Based on his numbers with The Patriots the last few years, I am not so sure about that, although last season I thought he was very productive and was under-used by The Patriots... Hopefully he does not go to an AFC East team, or some other big AFC rival, but I would not be surprised if he did, since that is how things always seem to work with players that leave The Patriots.

Wherever Dillon winds up, I wish him the best. When he was still on the Bengals I used to always think how cool it would be to have him in a New England uniform and then when it actually happened, I was psyched. I appreciated the effort and the work that Corey put in when he was on the team and I never fell for any of the crap that the local press tried to shove down our throats about him being a bad person or whatever. The Pats helped Dillon escape from what was, at the time anyway, a perennial loser in Cincy, formerly known as NFL Siberia, and in turn Dillon helped the Pats win a Superbowl. Things worked out quite nicely.

Best of luck Corey (except when facing The Patriots of course).

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Well it looks like I will have soon have something else in common with Tom Brady besides the fact that we are both men and both really like football. Yes, it's true. In case you haven't heard, our man Tom is about to join The Daddy Club. All I will say about this 'story' is this: I now have to find a new millionaire-playboy-superbowl champion-aw shucks-seems like a regular guy like me but also dates super-models and plays for my #1 favorite team-athlete to live vicariously through. Damn. Do you know how hard it is to find a guy like that?? It's not easy. It's easier to find a white whale or a white elephant or a koala bear or something. I don't think it can be done actually. I mean, who out there in the sports world can offer what Brady formerly had to offer as an imaginary double life? Nobody, that's who. Who am I supposed to live vicariously through now? Petyon Manning? Phhht!! Yeah right!!

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The Sox are not going to offer Curt Shilling a contract for 2008 and will allow him to become a free agent after this season. My thoughts on this subject are somewhat cloudy because I happen to have a huge man-crush on The Shil. Shilling is the fucking balls dude. I fully fucking love that guy (in a very masculine, manly way of course) so it goes without saying I'd like to see him finish things out as a Red Sox.

Of course, I can understand the Red Sox side of things too. He has been injured (mainly due to his risking his baseball future for our sakes in 2004, I might add) and is getting up there in age at 40 years young, so in that vein I can see why the Sox would want to wait and see how things pan out this season before signing any kind of guaranteed contract for future years.

And it is still possible that The Sox could work out a deal with Shilling after the season ends as well, provided he has a good year, etc etc. I read the article about him basically brushing off Sox owner John Henry as he tried to approach Shil during spring training by speeding up his pace and walking away too quickly for The Henry to keep up and have a conversation with him. On one hand I thought it was funny. Classic Shilling. On the other hand, it was not funny, if you know what I mean, because Shilling is obviously annoyed by the situation.

Whatever. We've got a long baseball season in front of us for things to play out in so we'll see what happens when it's over. I just hope that if Shilling has a good year, he does not hold this against The Sox when he becomes a free agent. Hopefully he doesn't decide to pay The Sox back for their wait and see attitude by donning the hated pinstripes in 2008... That would fully hella suck...

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Manny is being Manny again. What? No way!! How dare he show up for Spring Training late, just like he does every year!! Yup. Yawn. This is a story? I've noticed the press is doing their best to try and stir us up about Manny's annual 'late to Spring Training because of [insert reason here]'. Thankfully this time around it does not appear to be working. Seems like most folks have finally learned to ignore the flailing of the sportswriters on this subject. Yay! You can fully count me in on the 'Manny Rules and can show up to camp whenever he feels like it' side of things.

The Dugout had a really funny post on this subject by the way... Good for a Friday laugh.

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Well I think that basically about covers things here... Oh, yeah I forgot. I woke up this morning to the glory of a snow covered winters morn today... and then cursed every last flake as I went out to shovel. I hate snow. All snow. Any snow. Hate it.

This last storm was pretty mild. Couple inches, not too heavy. I was not expecting a problem getting cleared out today. SO I'm out there with my snow-blower, and things are working fine. The Airens is chugging along and I'm just mindlessly going up and down the driveway. I was actually thinking to myself that even though I hate snow and I hate shoveling and snow-blowing, I am very, very thankful and glad that I have a snowblower, because manually shoveling the driveway really, really sucks. So even though my snow blower has generally been a pain in the ass and has needed several repairs over the years, as well as temporarily serving as a comfy nest for some mice (fuckers), I was still extremely appreciative and thankful for it's presence.

Just as I was thinking these nice, happy thoughts about my finicky snowblower, I noticed that the chute that the snow comes shooting out of was kind of wiggly and loose.

'Hmmm. That's kind of odd,' I thought. 'I have not seen that before. I'll have to check that out when I'm done...'

I got to the end of the driveway, turned around to go back up, turned the crank to swivel the snow chute over to the other direction and, 'CLANG!!' The shute fucking fell right the fuck off the snowblower and landed on the ground.

WHAT THE FUCK!!!

So now I'm pissed. 'You stupid snowblower!' I yelled to no one in particular.

I took a minute to calm down and then proceeded to scour the driveway and the street for the little nut and bolt that held the chute onto the snowblower and had apparently come loose and fallen out somewhere while I was walking up and down the driveway. I actually said a short prayer to God in Heaven to help me be patient and calm and to help me to find the little pieces in all this snow and ice. It took several minutes but, YES!! There is the nut. Found it!!

Now I needed to find the screw. That should be easier. The nut was really little, so if I found that, I should be able to find the screw, right? Plus it should not be too far from where the chute fell off... Well not so fast because I had a a hell of a time finding that little screw. I was almost ready to throw in the towel and see if I could scrounge up a replacement from the box of assorted screws that I have on my workbench in my basement when I found it. YES! Thank you God! Big ups to you for your help! You are THE MAN! (or the being, or whatever God is...)

I put the chute back together and finished clearing the driveway. As I was putting the snowblower away, I noticed the chute was loose again. 'I bet there was a lock-washer on there and now that's gone,' I said to myself. 'Well there's no way I'm gonna find that.'

Down to the basement I went to get my box of assorted nuts and bolts and washers. I was in luck again because I had one single lock-washer that fit just right on the screw. Woo-hoo! Somebody really was watching out for me today. I put the thing back together and tightened it all up. I checked all the other nuts and bolts on the ornery machine while I was at it because I did not want to have to do this again.

They don't have to deal with this kind of thing in St. Thomas I bet...