mr. blackandwhite

It's 5 o'clock somewhere.

Things I check, almost every day:

NHL Eastern Conference Standings: The Bruins are gonna take it right down to the wire it seems. With two games left they are in 7th place and tied with the 8th place Caps for points at 92. The Flyers are 1 point out.

Oh God, as if the idea of potentially missing the playoffs is not bad enough, getting bumped by f-ing Philly would make it ten times worse. Of course if the B's scrape their way into the Quest for the Cup, they'll be facing the Habs in round one. That's not encouraging, considering the B's did not win a single game vs. the g-d Habs all year.. Oh well, one step at a time. The Bruins need to win these last two games and then we'll go from there ok?

Netflix: Rescue Me Season 4 release date - I have mentioned that my Wife and I are totally hooked on this show. Looks like Season 4 should be coming out sometime in June. Yay! I expect we'll watch the whole season in about mmmmm.. 4 days.

Mike Ness' myspace: I check here almost every day to see if there's been a Boston show added to his Spring solo tour, though now that I think about it, I would probably get an e-mail first.. In any case, no dice, yet. Boston is not that far from New York, Mike! Come on man!!

The clock: To see if it's 5 o'clock yet.. Not yet? Ug. Tick-tock..

Happy Friday!

{mood: Alan Jackson - It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere}

The waiting is the hardest part...

As most people know, The Sopranos final episode was shown last night. Don't worry, no spoilers here, I did not see the show. I don't have HBO so I have to wait for it to come out on DVD to see what happens (Note: DO NOT TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED!!)

In the meantime, especially today, since a lot of people are talking about it, I have to be extremely cautious about what I read on the web. Even the most innocent, unsuspecting looking link can lead you right into the big Sopranos ending so today is a day to proceed with caution on the interweb. If I see any kind of mention of The Sopranos out of the corner of my eye I immediately click away.

(CLICK AWAY! CLICK AWAY! DON'T WANT TO SEE IT!!)

So far today I've done pretty good. I only got the briefest glimpse of something that looked like it was about the show over at A Large Regular and I immediately forced myself to concentrate on erasing any memory of what I thought I saw.

I can't really explain the method I use to purge this kind of stuff from my brain but it's kind of like how when you need to remember a certain number and somebody messes with you by telling you a bunch of different numbers? It's kind of like doing that to yourself. Ok, I know. I'm fucked up. I'm weird. Just.. never mind.

I appreciate those well mannered people like Angela, who put a great big SPOILER WARNING on her Sopranos finale post in order to keep those of us who don't want to know out of harms way. Thank you Angela! You get a gold star today!

Update:
Balls Deep Sports almost got me. Almost that is..

ESPN2 to show hot-dog eating instead of Superbowl recaps...

One of my favorite Superbowl Sunday holiday traditions (Yes, that's right. It's a holiday.) has always been to watch the NFL Films' Superbowl highlight shows that are shown throughout the day on ESPN2.

Each NFL Films Superbowl recap is a half hour long and ESPN2 used to show each one, usually in order, all day long on Super Sunday, leading us right up into the start of The Big Game at around 6:30 PM.

Note I said 'used to' because ESPN2 is changing things up this year.

This year ESPN2 is showing most of the highlight shows, but they are starting them with Superbowl XI at 11PM Saturday night and ending them at 2:00 in the afternoon on Super Sunday. Then, starting at 2PM, ESPN2, part of the self-proclaimed, 'World Wide Leader in Sports,' will bring you scintillating coverage of a hot-dog eating competition followed by heart-pounding coverage of The World's Strongest Man tournament.

Wow. Hot Dog eating and The Worlds Strongest Man competition. I tell you what, that is a GREAT lead-in to the Superbowl.

Awesome. Can't wait.

On the bright side, Superbowl XX (Patriots/Bears) will be shown at some ungodly morning hour while I'm still asleep, so I won't have to see that disaster. And Superbowl XXXI (Patriots/Packers) will be on at 9AM on Sunday, so I will probably miss that heart-breaker too.

Maybe ESPN2's decision to show a hot-dog eating competition instead of super-awesome Superbowl recaps is really some evil NFL strong-arm tactic to try and force me to watch four hours of CBS' Superbowl Pre-Game on Sunday afternoon. I don't know, but either way it's not going to work. I'll just watch my Superbowl 36, 38 and 39 DVDs instead.

Bite me ESPN2.

(Patriots Reign, A.K.A. Superbowl 36, 38 and 39, starts at 11:30 AM for those who care.)

The following takes place between 10:30 and 10:45 PM...

We got '24' Season 5, disk two in the mail today and promptly watched 3 out of 4 episodes. I wanted to watch the 4th episode but I got 'the look' from my Wife.

DAMMIT WE ARE RUNNING OUT OF TIME!!

Some may say I am addicted to '24', just as Jack Bauer once became addicted to heroin, in order to preserve his cover... I'd say that's accurate.

Pats / Fish, 24 Season 5. I'm tired...

I am super tired and sleepy today. We got disk 1 of '24' season 5 in the mail yesterday and last night my Wife and I immediately watched the first two episodes. Normally that would not be a problem but we did not start it till after 9PM, so it was late when we stopped watching.

I could have watched the whole, 4 episode disk in one shot, that is how addicted I am to that show, but my Wife gave me the, 'don't even think of starting another one because it's way to late,' look. BUT WE'RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME and JACK IS ON THE RUN and CHLOE JUST GOT TAKEN INTO CUSTODY!! Must see what happens NEXT!!

No dice.

I realize I am a season behind most people with this show so in order to avoid learning something that I don't want to know about season 5, I do my best to ignore any ads or references to the current season of '24' which is due to start soon.

Generally if I see an ad for the upcoming season come on TV, I will scramble for the remote and try to change the channel as quickly as possible while closing my eyes and yelling 'LA LA LA LA LA!' If my Wife is watching TV at the time she will start yelling, CHANGE IT!! CHANGE IT QUICK!!!!'

This can make finding the remote kind of hard, but it has to be done lest any '24' season 5 secrets get revealed.

After '24' was finished I had to write my football story for Faster Than the World, so I was up even later. So now I am tired. And sleepy. And I am on my 2nd cup of coffee. And I will need more later. And I just used 'and' a lot in that little paragraph there. And that's all.

Ok I'm stopping.

The Pats play Miami this weekend. They can clinch the AFC East with a win AND a J-E-T-S loss. (Go Bills.) I have a feeling Miami is going to be a tough game for The Pats. Fortunately, last week's game vs The Lions ended up as a win for The Pats, but it did not exactly instill a lot of confidence in the team's chances of running the table against so called, 'weaker' teams...

After last week's lack-luster performance against The Lions, I think The Pats will be out to prove that last week was an aberration and they will be extra motivated and up for this game, (as they should be anyway).

The outcome of this upcoming game vs. The Fish will have major playoff implications for The Pats, as they try to move up in the AFC Conference standings and maybe grab a bye week spot. I have no doubt that Miami will be doing everything it possibly can to spoil The Pats' chance at clinching the division and ruin their hopes of moving up in the AFC standings.

Damn Fish.

I'm sure The Fish also appreciate that they are playing at home in December, instead of in New England. I kind of think the New England players will not really mind playing in Florida this time of year either.

It used to be that Pats/Fish games were scheduled so that both teams got an advantage on each other with each game. The Pats used to always have to go down to Miami in September or October and play in 150 degree heat, while The Fish always had to come up to New England in December and freeze. Lately the league has been switching it around so that Miami comes up here in Sept/Oct and New England goes down to Miami in December.

In the end I guess that works out better for The Pats who get to play Miami in 'normal' weather twice a year, as opposed to going from one extreme to another, which I think was one of the big factors in why these two teams would often split the wins year after year.

Whatever. As long as The Pats win on Sunday, it's all good.

GO PATS

Just. Can't. Watch...

I just can't bring myself to watch the Sox and Wake go down in flames again tonight, especially not Wake.

Run support people!! Run SUPPORT!!!

I feel like Tom Cruise in that crazy movie where he wore the mask, and ran around yelling TECH SUPPORT!! TECH SUPPPOOOOORRRRTT!! What was that flick called again? I can't remember... Anyway, RUN SUPPORRRRTTT!!!

Three nights in a row of watching the Sox swing and miss in frustrating futility is just too much, so I'm taking a break. If that means I'm not hard-core, so be it. Whatever. Feel free to make me say, 'boy I wish I'd watched that incredible comeback by the Sox' a little later fellas.

Freed from the commitment of watching the Sox / Twins game, my Wife put on 'The Office', The American version, just to check it out and see how different it is from the original.

Well it did not take me long to come to the determination that it hella sucks!!

As David Brent would say, 'been there, done that, got the t-shirt, next!' Nice try NBC, 'it's always good to have pipe dreams, yea?'

Losing interest in 'Lost'...

I am quickly losing interest in 'Lost'. This was a show that I used to be really into. I don't watch much TV, but I looked forward to this show coming on every week. Now after weeks of re-runs, followed by a couple disappointing episodes, only to be followed by more re-runs, (not even from this season, they are showing last year's episodes,) I'm starting to lose interest. Pretty soon I'm not going to care anymore and just stop watching all together.

Note to ABC: Get your shit together.