Rambling Toward the Weekend

It's kind of hard for me to call Friday night through Sunday the weekend considering writing this is my main job. I haven't had a real "weekend" since I was in school over 9 months ago; so the title is just for the benefit of all of you out there who are actually contributing something to society. Anyway here's what's going through my head as we head toward the weekend:

The PGA Nissan Open is this weekend. Two-time defending champion Mike Weir is there along with Tiger Woods who can reclaim the number one ranking in the world with a fourth-place-or-better finish. This may not seem like a big deal because the number one ranking doesn't really matter for getting you into tournaments or getting a higher seed in a tournament; but it does matter to Tiger, Phil, Reteif, Ernie, Veejay, and all of the other golfers who may have a legit shot at getting there. Why? Because only about 10 people have held the title of world number one golfer since it has been a stat.

I didn't even know the NBA ALL-STAR game was this weekend, nor do I know why I just capitalized all-star, but I digress. Gaddis mentioned yesterday that the slam-dunk contest is Saturday night when I will be in Sheboygan; so I figured the all-star game must be this weekend, shows how much I care.

Does it really matter if LeBron competes in the dunk contest or not? This thing hasn't been exciting since Harold Miner was dunking because it was all we knew him to do in his 4 year career.

Congrats to Mariotti on winning his 100th showdown on Around the Horn, and I join him in thanking Tony Reali (stat boy) on not always letting Bob Ryan win like that donkey Max Kellerman.

"You've got to change your evil ways, baby, before I stop loving you. You've got to change baby, and every word that I say is true; you've got me running and hiding all over town, you've got me sneaking and a peepin', and runnin' you down. This can't go on, Lord knows you've got to change, baby."- Carlos Santana (I'm listening to some tunes while typing).

The PBA is in North Brunswick, New Jersey this weekend. What for you ask? Only the U.S. Open, come on! Bowling on ESPN, it's fantabulous. The Finals are Sunday at 11:30 on the Worldwide Leader.

The NFL is over, obviously, so now it can be 50 degrees again for a week before being 65-72 and sunny everyday until Thanksgiving. Isn't this really how weather should go? I'm about ready to clean up the wrenches and take them out to the range, but it's too blasted cold, and I refuse to go to an indoor driving range (unless someone asks me to go and pays for me). Plus, I spend about 90% of my time in my room, so I'm kind of bouncing off the walls with not being able to sit on my deck all day and watch baseball.

Speaking of baseball; it's only 45 days until the Cubs season opener. For the countdown, simply click on our link to the Cubs page on the left of your screen. Next week you will probably see the Gs responses to my outrageous claims about the AL West as well as my prediction for the AL Central. I'm working from coast to coast.

After thinking about it more and talking with Gaddis, I have revised my predictions for the records in the West, which can now be seen at the end of that column.

BBBBBBBBZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ, sorry, I was just trying to help out AndDro and wake him up from my long column today.

The Sports Guy has a great mailbag today including his 90210/ O.C. comparison. Shout out to my boys in Cali right now; Thursdays aren't the same without you, hope you're still having fun with Steve-O.

I would talk about the NHL season ending, but frankly I don't care. Maybe I would if the Pettit's actually would have landed a team in Milwaukee, but I simply don't care about hockey. One of my old roomates liked watching it on occasion and enjoyed playoff hockey, so I watched it then, but never really fell in love with the sport.

In case you missed Marquette's heartbreaking loss to Louisville last night (like I did), Dale Hoffman of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel does a nice job of categorizing it here.

As I'm watching CNN, I realized Soledad O'Brien could tell me our country was being invaded by an alien race led by Carrot Top and I wouldn't care.

Oh yeah, the Daytona 500 is this weekend and Fox will carry the race which begins at 1:00pm. Dale Earnhardt Jr. tries to win for the second time in a row at the course which claimed his father's life. By the way, today is the 4th anniversary of the "Intimidator's" death...moment of silence....

I know Duke lost last night and has not looked well as of late; but considering this was how they were supposed to look all season, I'm not surprised they've lost 4 of 7; nor am I worried about it.

This Saturday is "bubble buster" day on the college basketball scene. Instead of writing all of the games to be seen, click this.

Kansas (the band, not the basketball team) is playing this summer at my counties annual county fair (they are sharing the stage with Joan "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" Jet). My question is will everyone under 30 shout out, "You're my boy Blue!!! You're my boy!" at the proper time, or will the band work it into its performance? This will bother me until Friday, July 29.

Finally, if you're not doing anything this weekend, come to Sheboygan, Wisconsin to party with the creators of this blog. We will be celebrating my last reffing assignment of the year and my 23rd birthday. I mention that here because I leave you with a line from the song playing right now on my computer...

"I'm only this far and only tomorrow leads my way."- Dave Matthews.

Whatever you're doing this weekend, have a happy and a healthy.

-Until next time...