Tuesday, March 01, 2005
MARCH OF THE PIGS
Welcome to Tuesday, and welcome to March. Yikes. Step right up. I'm not sure I needed yesterday to remember what rain was like here in the Northwest, but it doesn't take too much of it for me to have enough.
Today's random note...I've been watching the Adult Swim on the Cartoon Network for a few years now, and the new shows are sometimes hit-or-miss. Robot Chicken is a new show. Seth Green is prominently involved. "Why don't you just call it Project Bananarama?!" In the first episode, Optimus Prime died of prostate cancer. Last Sunday, I saw Voltron get into a breakdance-off with Robeast. No, the whole show doesn't revolve around '80s cartoon characters getting into inane plots. Anyway, it's a twisted, ADD-friendly show (perfect for me, in other words) which uses claymation for its figures. The 10-12 minutes goes very quickly, and robot chickens have absolutely nothing to do with the show past the opening montage and theme. Here's some episode synopses, for those who would like some. The show airs on the Cartoon Network Sundays at 11:30pm on both coasts, and 10:30 in the middle of the country.
MARINERS
The Chris Snelling MRI results have been sifted through, and wouldn't you know it, it's a torn medial meniscus. Surgery and six weeks off will be in order for Snelling. Maybe I should go pick up the DVD of Groundhog Day and watch it in honor of Snelling.
The pain doesn't stop there. Bucky Jacobsen has apparently had some soreness in his surgically-repaired knee, and the team is backing off on having him on the field every day, instead cutting it to every other day.
Scott Spiezio last year lost his stick, lost his playing time, and even lost his marriage. He's also lost some weight, which given his leaner apperance now is a good thing for him. Man, even when I was in college I couldn't eat pizza six times a week. That's insane. The best I could do was pull out a Papa Murphy's coupon for a family-sized Chicago-style pizza, bake it, eat two slices of it, call that a meal, and then throw the rest in the fridge. Thus, one pizza would last for about four meals, and I was eating cereal with banana slices every morning, so the pizza was not eaten at breakfast and therefore was well-distributed. The image I'm getting of Spiezio here is that he ordered a pizza, polished it off in two straight meals, then repeated that process six times in a week. It's a scary thought.
Spiezio apparently cut six percent off his body fat. When I saw that Jim Moore had a column talking about betting against The Boone, I thought I was going to find out what Willie Bloomquist had to do for payback after Boone won the body-fat related bet after the first physicals this spring. Unfortuantely, we don't find out with this column. I was disappointed.
Apparently Carlos Delgado wasn't doubting that the Mariners would come short in the money department, but he just wanted to take his sweet time when it came to who he would sign for in the offseason. Delgado's solid and everything, but I'm not shedding a tear over not having him on this team. Not when the Mariners had their best offseason ever. I know that's the best baseball day I've ever had in December.
One of these days I'll actually listen to one of the Mariners' broadcasts on Spanish radio, seeing as to how I did take three years of Spanish in high school (though it was Bremerton-taught Spanish). Of course, I'll have to wait until the Mariners secure a Spanish broadcast deal in the Seattle market before that happens.
SEAHAWKS
Jones, Hasselbeck, and Alexander are squared away. Now the focus shifts to Ken Lucas. The free-agency period starts tomorrow, and Romero gives a few words on the free agents not named Lucas. The Seahawks got the big three out of the way, but they've got to retain some of the bigger and necessary pieces that are still unrestricted free agents.
BASKETBALL
The Marvin Williams Watch
The Tar Heels host Florida State on Thursday (6p, local only) before the ACC regular season ends...at home against Duke on Sunday (1p, CBS)
Huskies
Art Thiel praises the team-wide discipline of the Huskies. The team hasn't gotten into any weird crazy fights or had any drastic rule violations by any players that have gone public. Of course, the message was sent last year when Coach Romar benched Will Conroy and Bobby Jones to start the first-round tournament game against UAB last March. Hopefully no one even thinks about screwing up this March.
Brandon Burmeister has probably gotten some splinters of pine in the ol' rear, but the walk-on just might have a chance to do some damage next year, with some expected departures and the fact that he can nail some threes.
Tre Simmons was named Pac-10 player of the week for his doings against the Arizona schools late last week. He put up 29 and 24 in those games.
The Huskies travel to Berkeley to face the Cal Bears on Thursday (7p, FSNNW) and to Stanford on Saturday (1p, CBS)
Bulldogs
In Gonzaga's 87-60 win over Northern Colorado in a non-conference tuneup for the WCC tournament, Ronny Turiaf had 22 points and 8 boards in his final home game. Sean Mallon had 17 points and 5 boards off the bench, and JP Batista had 16 and 6.
Also of note for the Zags, Ronny Turiaf was named the West Coast Conference men's player of the year, and Mark Few was named WCC coach of the year for the fifth straight year. Erroll Knight was named defender of the year, and JP Batista was named newcomer of the year. Adam Morrison and Derek Raivio were named along with Turiaf to the WCC first team.
The Zags are awaiting the semifinal round at the WCC tournament in Santa Clara, where they have a first-round bye. The tournament starts Friday.
Sonics
An influence of Ray Allen's is one Reggie Miller, who helped make shooting threes a cool thing. Of course, there was that span in the '90s where the three-point line was brought in to a uniform 22 feet, and I think it really cheapened the three-point shot. You had people out there shooting threes who had no business shooting threes. Of course, there's also something to be said about how defenses were being drawn up to counter the line being drawn closer to the basket. Though I don't know if it correlates, it seems to me that the Knicks/Heat rivalry was heating up around this time, and that scoring was way down. Yuck.
Former Temple assistant and current Sonic assistant Dean Demopoulos is a bit disturbed and saddened after John Chaney's well-publicized antics in the Saint Joseph's game. Demopoulos went with Chaney and the team to 17 NCAA tournaments, so there's a bit of an attachment there, however, Demopoulos' father died young, and Chaney served as somewhat of a father figure to him. Of course, none of this will cool the hot water that surrounds Chaney right now.
Upcoming...
Today at Indiana (4p, FSNNW)
Tomorrow at Cleveland (4p, FSNNW)
Friday vs. Detroit (7:30p, FSNNW)
Sunday vs. Phoenix (6p, FSNNW)
HOCKEY
At this point last year, the Canucks were coming off a 2-0 home win against the Blues, and were 35-19-7-4 at the end of a mediocre February. Their next game was a highly-entertaining, ESPN-televised game at Colorado that ended in a 5-5 tie after the Canucks scored twice in the final period after being down two goals. Of course, the next game involving the same two teams included a pretty big incident. You know, guy gets suckerpunched and piledriven into the ice, suckerpuncher gets suspended for the rest of the year and the playoffs, etc.
Upcoming...
Wednesday: Vancouver at Seattle
Friday: Portland at Vancouver, Puget Sound at Tri-City (Cascade Cup semifinal -- Game 3 of best-of-5)
Saturday: Everett at Seattle, Tri-City at Portland, Kelowna at Vancouver, Rochester at Manitoba, Puget Sound at Tri-City (Cascade Cup semifinal -- Game 4 of best-of-5 if necessary)
Sunday: Seattle at Portland, Vancouver at Kamloops, Rochester at Manitoba, Puget Sound at Tri-City (Cascade Cup semifinal -- Game 5 of best-of-5 if necessary)
---
Have a great, grand, wonderful Tuesday, everyone. No yelling on the bus!!
Today's random note...I've been watching the Adult Swim on the Cartoon Network for a few years now, and the new shows are sometimes hit-or-miss. Robot Chicken is a new show. Seth Green is prominently involved. "Why don't you just call it Project Bananarama?!" In the first episode, Optimus Prime died of prostate cancer. Last Sunday, I saw Voltron get into a breakdance-off with Robeast. No, the whole show doesn't revolve around '80s cartoon characters getting into inane plots. Anyway, it's a twisted, ADD-friendly show (perfect for me, in other words) which uses claymation for its figures. The 10-12 minutes goes very quickly, and robot chickens have absolutely nothing to do with the show past the opening montage and theme. Here's some episode synopses, for those who would like some. The show airs on the Cartoon Network Sundays at 11:30pm on both coasts, and 10:30 in the middle of the country.
MARINERS
The Chris Snelling MRI results have been sifted through, and wouldn't you know it, it's a torn medial meniscus. Surgery and six weeks off will be in order for Snelling. Maybe I should go pick up the DVD of Groundhog Day and watch it in honor of Snelling.
The pain doesn't stop there. Bucky Jacobsen has apparently had some soreness in his surgically-repaired knee, and the team is backing off on having him on the field every day, instead cutting it to every other day.
Scott Spiezio last year lost his stick, lost his playing time, and even lost his marriage. He's also lost some weight, which given his leaner apperance now is a good thing for him. Man, even when I was in college I couldn't eat pizza six times a week. That's insane. The best I could do was pull out a Papa Murphy's coupon for a family-sized Chicago-style pizza, bake it, eat two slices of it, call that a meal, and then throw the rest in the fridge. Thus, one pizza would last for about four meals, and I was eating cereal with banana slices every morning, so the pizza was not eaten at breakfast and therefore was well-distributed. The image I'm getting of Spiezio here is that he ordered a pizza, polished it off in two straight meals, then repeated that process six times in a week. It's a scary thought.
Spiezio apparently cut six percent off his body fat. When I saw that Jim Moore had a column talking about betting against The Boone, I thought I was going to find out what Willie Bloomquist had to do for payback after Boone won the body-fat related bet after the first physicals this spring. Unfortuantely, we don't find out with this column. I was disappointed.
Apparently Carlos Delgado wasn't doubting that the Mariners would come short in the money department, but he just wanted to take his sweet time when it came to who he would sign for in the offseason. Delgado's solid and everything, but I'm not shedding a tear over not having him on this team. Not when the Mariners had their best offseason ever. I know that's the best baseball day I've ever had in December.
One of these days I'll actually listen to one of the Mariners' broadcasts on Spanish radio, seeing as to how I did take three years of Spanish in high school (though it was Bremerton-taught Spanish). Of course, I'll have to wait until the Mariners secure a Spanish broadcast deal in the Seattle market before that happens.
SEAHAWKS
Jones, Hasselbeck, and Alexander are squared away. Now the focus shifts to Ken Lucas. The free-agency period starts tomorrow, and Romero gives a few words on the free agents not named Lucas. The Seahawks got the big three out of the way, but they've got to retain some of the bigger and necessary pieces that are still unrestricted free agents.
BASKETBALL
The Marvin Williams Watch
The Tar Heels host Florida State on Thursday (6p, local only) before the ACC regular season ends...at home against Duke on Sunday (1p, CBS)
Huskies
Art Thiel praises the team-wide discipline of the Huskies. The team hasn't gotten into any weird crazy fights or had any drastic rule violations by any players that have gone public. Of course, the message was sent last year when Coach Romar benched Will Conroy and Bobby Jones to start the first-round tournament game against UAB last March. Hopefully no one even thinks about screwing up this March.
Brandon Burmeister has probably gotten some splinters of pine in the ol' rear, but the walk-on just might have a chance to do some damage next year, with some expected departures and the fact that he can nail some threes.
Tre Simmons was named Pac-10 player of the week for his doings against the Arizona schools late last week. He put up 29 and 24 in those games.
The Huskies travel to Berkeley to face the Cal Bears on Thursday (7p, FSNNW) and to Stanford on Saturday (1p, CBS)
Bulldogs
In Gonzaga's 87-60 win over Northern Colorado in a non-conference tuneup for the WCC tournament, Ronny Turiaf had 22 points and 8 boards in his final home game. Sean Mallon had 17 points and 5 boards off the bench, and JP Batista had 16 and 6.
Also of note for the Zags, Ronny Turiaf was named the West Coast Conference men's player of the year, and Mark Few was named WCC coach of the year for the fifth straight year. Erroll Knight was named defender of the year, and JP Batista was named newcomer of the year. Adam Morrison and Derek Raivio were named along with Turiaf to the WCC first team.
The Zags are awaiting the semifinal round at the WCC tournament in Santa Clara, where they have a first-round bye. The tournament starts Friday.
Sonics
An influence of Ray Allen's is one Reggie Miller, who helped make shooting threes a cool thing. Of course, there was that span in the '90s where the three-point line was brought in to a uniform 22 feet, and I think it really cheapened the three-point shot. You had people out there shooting threes who had no business shooting threes. Of course, there's also something to be said about how defenses were being drawn up to counter the line being drawn closer to the basket. Though I don't know if it correlates, it seems to me that the Knicks/Heat rivalry was heating up around this time, and that scoring was way down. Yuck.
Former Temple assistant and current Sonic assistant Dean Demopoulos is a bit disturbed and saddened after John Chaney's well-publicized antics in the Saint Joseph's game. Demopoulos went with Chaney and the team to 17 NCAA tournaments, so there's a bit of an attachment there, however, Demopoulos' father died young, and Chaney served as somewhat of a father figure to him. Of course, none of this will cool the hot water that surrounds Chaney right now.
Upcoming...
Today at Indiana (4p, FSNNW)
Tomorrow at Cleveland (4p, FSNNW)
Friday vs. Detroit (7:30p, FSNNW)
Sunday vs. Phoenix (6p, FSNNW)
HOCKEY
At this point last year, the Canucks were coming off a 2-0 home win against the Blues, and were 35-19-7-4 at the end of a mediocre February. Their next game was a highly-entertaining, ESPN-televised game at Colorado that ended in a 5-5 tie after the Canucks scored twice in the final period after being down two goals. Of course, the next game involving the same two teams included a pretty big incident. You know, guy gets suckerpunched and piledriven into the ice, suckerpuncher gets suspended for the rest of the year and the playoffs, etc.
Upcoming...
Wednesday: Vancouver at Seattle
Friday: Portland at Vancouver, Puget Sound at Tri-City (Cascade Cup semifinal -- Game 3 of best-of-5)
Saturday: Everett at Seattle, Tri-City at Portland, Kelowna at Vancouver, Rochester at Manitoba, Puget Sound at Tri-City (Cascade Cup semifinal -- Game 4 of best-of-5 if necessary)
Sunday: Seattle at Portland, Vancouver at Kamloops, Rochester at Manitoba, Puget Sound at Tri-City (Cascade Cup semifinal -- Game 5 of best-of-5 if necessary)
---
Have a great, grand, wonderful Tuesday, everyone. No yelling on the bus!!
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