The World on Steroids

With the holiday season(s) upon us, it has been some time since posting last. It all seems so hectic these days to have the time...or is it that the older we get, the faster time gets away from us?!
No doubt most of you have heard of or read excerpts from the Mitchell Report. The report exposes certain of our baseball heroes, past and present, to the use of steroids and HGH (human growth hormones) in order to gain an athletic advantage. Some of the players named have admitted the use of these banned substances, some have emphatically denied it. To those who deny their use, I say show patience and allow the rest of the process to unfold. All should be deemed innocent until proven guilty....that is the American way.
However.....and a big however it is.....since this is the Christmas season, what about Santa Claus and his reindeer?! Have you ever seen a real reindeer? They are shaggy looking beasts and not near as cute as all the media hype at this time of year happens to show.
So-o-o......how can these un-cute creatures pull Santa's sled and make it fly? Steroids, I say! How else can they get that high for that long, and cover the entire earth in a single night? Not being the speediest of animals, these reindeer of Santa's would have to be traveling several thousand miles per hour to get the job done. If one of our revered athletes were to show this kind of performance enhancement, they would be surely crucified by the media and be the headline topic in the next Mitchell Report!
And what about this Rudolph reindeer with his nose so bright? When was the last time you saw a nose so red, when your partner had too much to drink after the Christmas party? So is Rudolph not only on steroids, but has a drinking problem, too? That may explain why I didn't get what I wanted last year.
But as I said, we have to be tolerant and give the benefit of the doubt until proven guilty. It may be time to form our own Mitchell report, set up a committee and begin mandatory testing for these super athletes called reindeer. Let them 'do their thing into the urine cup.' Then we would know for sure.
Flying around, indeed! Steroids, I say!
Happy Holidays!!

Kudos...and a Boo

By now, you know I like to read about sports. It is part of my morning routine. Not that I was ever a good athlete.....hardly!I just made it by to participate. My brother was the athlete of the family, I was the bookworm. But today there was something in the sports section I thought interesting.
The kudos: As inflation and greed continue to drive up prices for tickets at sporting events, The Pittsburgh Pirates are standing pat, keeping ticket prices the same for next season. They have not raised ticket prices since 2001, and their ticket prices average $17.07, among the lowest in baseball.
Now the Boos: Apparently, 15 consecutive losing seasons are enough to make even baseball executives feel guilty. "We will at some point need to raise ticket prices to stay competitive, but the focus this season has been and will be on changing the culture of this organization to one in which our fans will again be proud," team spokesman Brian Warecki said.
Be careful who you root for and how well you want your team to do during the season and into the playoffs. Rooting for a winning team will apparently cost you more! Especially if they raise those already exorbitant salaries we talked about before in order to keep the winning players.

December, A New Month

Well. we are in the first throws of the month that ends our year and our holiday season. What a year it has been, for most of us anyway!
Most of us have routines that we follow on a day to day basis, and I am no different. My particular routine gets me up aroung 6 AM and I grab a quick cup of coffee and the newspaper. If it is a nice morning outside, I go sit on the back patio to drink and read. But I don't just begin reading. Even that has a routine. I first start out with the Sports page. After all, I have to check to see if the same teams I rooted for yesterday still won and there were no changes!....;-)
After the Sports comes the Comics, Dear Abby, the Bridge column......even though I don't play bridge, I just love to read about the strategies. I actually prefer Cribbage, a dying game if there ever was one.
Our paper is the Las Vegas Review Journal, and with all the sports betting going on in this state, the sports section is a good one. Check it out if you ever get the chance. The Bridge column is great, because not only do you get lessons on strategy, but the author, Philip Alder, loves to throw in a few quotes during the week that are very profound at times. Here are a couple of his included quotes from the past couple of days:
Charles Caleb Colton, an English cleric, writer and collector well known for his eccentricities, said, "When we are in doubt and puzzle out the truth by our own exertions, we have gained something that will stay by us and will serve us again."
Here is another: Thomas Mann, German novelist and Nobel laureate, wrote, "A great truth is a truth whose opposite is also a truth." Pretty profound stuff coming from a bridge column, don't you think?!
Oh, and don't forget the crossword puzzles. After the sports, bridge, etc., the crosswords finish up my first morning routine with a second cup of coffee. I only do the crosswords to bone up and give me fuel for my evening routine of watching Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune, and to help me kick some serious booty against my competitve wife!
What could be better? Fresh coffee and the newspaper to start, and a couple of good rounds of game shows to keep the mind sharp. That leaves the rest of the day in between to fill in with other mundane stuff.......like finding the truth.