- Literally the best college basketball game I can ever remember watching took place last night and into the early hours of this morning. The Syracuse-Connecticut game, won 127-117 by Syracuse, in the quarterfinals of the Big East Men’s Basketball Tournament at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan was a six-overtime thriller (yes, six) that was the second-longest game in college basketball history, trailing a 1981 tournament game played by the University of Cincinnati. This contest saw four players from each team foul out, Syracuse guard Johnny Flynn play 67 out of 70 minutes and a win by the Orange after they did not lead a single minute in either of the first five overtimes. There was no shortage of dramatic moments, but perhaps none more breathtaking than at the end of regulation, when UConn tied the game on a layup with 1.4 second left on a broken play, after which Syracuse called a timeout, threw a pass the length of the floor and saw it tipped, then had guard Eric Devendorf (noted woman assaulter) catch the tipped pass and fire off a three-pointer that hit nothing but net. The referees initially ruled the shot good, but upon further video review, they determined that Devendorf did not get the shot off before time expired. The game remained tied at 71-all heading into the first overtime, with the teams going back and forth for five extra periods, five minutes each, before the Orange pulled away in the sixth extra frame. Guard Andy Routens was a huge factor in that final overtime, as his outside shooting helped boost the Orange to a valuable win that propelled them into the tournament semifinals. The game lasted a whopping three hours, 46 minutes and ended well after midnight, when most fans on the East Coast were probably asleep. That’s a shame because this was a game for the ages, no doubt. Now it will be interesting to see if Syracuse can rebound and be competitive in their game tonight against West Virginia……
- God bless you, General Assembly in the state of Virginia. Ironically, a state that has been home to some of big tobacco’s biggest names in the not-so-distant past has come to its senses and finally implemented a statewide smoking ban that prevents loser smokers from sparking up in most public places. The legislation passed the assembly yesterday and was sent to Gov. Timothy M. Kaine for his signature. The law will put Virginia into a distinguished group of 23 states and the District of Columbia that have banned smoking in most public places, including bars and restaurants. Plus, four other states - North Carolina, Kansas, South Dakota and Wyoming - are debating similar bans. Within the next few months, more than half of the states in this country could have smoking bans in place, leaving only 23 laggard states back in the dark ages when foisting deadly secondhand smoke on unsuspecting strangers was acceptable. As for the new law in Virginia, it will ban smoking in general areas inside restaurants and bars, including restrooms, except in designated rooms. the only places smokers in restaurants will be permitted to choke down their cancer sticks will be in rooms segregated from the nonsmoking area of the restaurant and ventilated separately so that cigarette smoke can’t mingle with air outside the designated smoking zones. Good. If smokers want to kill themselves and one another, go for it. Just make sure they’re not taking down the rest of us with them. I do wish the bill went further and banned smoking on outdoor patios, sidewalks or decks where food or drink is served, and not just if the outdoor area is enclosed by tent-style side flaps that can be lowered when outdoor areas are used in winter or bad weather. Private clubs aren’t affected by the new law, so places like the VFW can keep on being bastions of increasing your chances for lung cancer, just as they’ve always been. Oh, and the legislature might have been wise to up the punishment a bit so it was more than a $25 civil fine for patrons or restaurant proprietors for each violation. Kick that up to $100 per offense or make it some sort of escalating scale where the fine doubles with each offense, then people will get the message. Either way, the bill becomes law on Dec. 1, so your days of being able to smoke in public places are numbered, cancer stick fans of Virginia……
- Detroit, I’m not sure what it says about you that your city’s mayoral position attracts such a checkered lot of losers. Of course, the most notable douche bag among that lot is former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who was forced from office after a scandal involving an affair with a staffer and a lie about that affair while testifying under oath in an unrelated trial, but now that the incumbent mayor Ken Cockrel Jr., who took over for Kilpatrick, is coming to the end of his shortened term in office, candidate and former NBA great Dave Bing is showing that he too has the sort of lack of character that politicians have long been known for. Seems that earlier in his campaign, Bing was going around telling people that he earned a master's degree in business administration from General Motors Institute in Flint, now called Kettering University. When a local radio station confronted Bing about his claim and played audio Wednesday morning of Bing saying in the past that he had an MBA, he doubled back on his claim by saying on air "that is not correct" and adding that he didn't have an MBA from the school. However, Bing doesn’t see how falsifying his resume and lying to the very people he hopes will trust him enough to elect him is a problem. Pressed on the issue, Bing said he doesn't see it as a "big issue." Yeah, go tell that to George O’Leary, who was hired and then fired as head football coach at Notre Dame, or former Toronto Blue Jays manager Tim Johnson, who lied about being a Vietnam veteran, or former Food Network personality Robert Irvine, who lied about having cooked meals for presidents and kings on his resume, and see if that sort of thing is a problem. Those guys weren’t even elected officials entrusted with running an entire city with integrity and honor, either. You may not think trumping up your qualifications is a big deal, but I have a feeling the electorate might feel otherwise. People are funny that way; lie to them when you’re asking them to vote for you and they don’t like it very much. They’re inclined to wonder, “If he lied to me about having an MBA, what else will he lie to me about to get my vote?” But hey, I guess we can settle this on May 5, when the election takes place. Just don’t be surprised if your duplicity comes back to bite you, Bing…….
- Let’s hold off on the celebrations over a chimp at a zoo in Gavle, Sweden collecting rocks from around his cage to throw at zoo visitors, shall we? Researchers and scientists might be awed by Santino the chimpanzee building a cache of rocks each morning to use as projectiles to be chucked at visitors later in the day, but I’m not. These researchers are beside themselves because they cite Santino’s actions show that chimpanzees are capable of anticipating future events in a way that so closely resembles human behavior. At the zoo, located 93 miles north of Stockholm, Santino would score his cage for rocks and fashioned concrete disks from the center of the island inside his enclosure and fashion them into "manufactured missiles." All of this began in 1994, soon after he became the dominant chimp at the Furuvik Zoo in Gavle. For three years, the rock-throwing episodes were sporadic, but in 1997 Santino decided to make the attacks a regular occurrence. Zookeepers decided to investigate their top chimp’s behavior, so they conducted stakeouts and observed Santino scooping rocks from the moat in his island enclosure and organizing them into neat piles or making his concrete disks. He did so with a calm, methodical demeanor and when cognitive psychologist Mathias Osvath heard about Santino’s act and began studying him, he was amazed. Osvath became convinced after watching the 30-year-old primate throw rocks at visitors for a decade that this was more than just an angry chimp with personal space issues. "Such planning implies advanced consciousness and cognition traditionally not associated with animals," wrote Osvath, research director at the Lund University Primate Research Station in Gavle, Sweden. In human evolution, "similar forms of stone manipulation constitute the most ancient signs of culture.” What also has Osvath wound up is that Santino may have been calm when collecting his rocks, but when he began raining them down on visitors, he was angry and agitated. “This is what makes this special," Osvath said in an interview. "He is planning for a future psychological state.” Great, but a lot of animals plan for the future. Squirrels store nuts for winter, birds fly south for the winter and so on. I guess you can be excited about this case because it involves “emotional states” and all, but just remember, scientists, that chimps are not humans, we’re not evolved from chimps and we are totally different creatures. ‘Nuff said………
- This next bit of news is extremely offensive to me. Hearing that “singer” Chris Brown has recorded a song with his girlfriend, Rihanna, just days after charges were filed against him for allegedly assaulting her, I find myself extremely offended. No, not because I’m angry that a woman who had just gotten the crap kicked out of her would so quickly forgive the dude who abused her and go so far as to record a song with him. No, I’m offended more as a music fan than anything else. While I hate domestic abuse, I also loathe bad music and let’s face it, as solo artists that’s what Rihanna and Chris Brown produce. Their individual musical efforts are slick, overproduced pop/R&B at its worst, a horrific abortion of sounds that could drive me to take a sledgehammer to a radio quicker than anything this side of Madonna, Britney Spears or the Black Eyed Peas. So what the heck do you think is going to happen when these two hacks come together for a duet? Besides, what are they going to sing about? What it’s like to be facing two felony counts of assault? Being trapped inside a car with your psycho boyfriend who is punching, biting and slapping you? Perhaps a nice ballad about the important of not keeping text messages from old girlfriends on your phone? But I guess you need to do something with your time in between now and April 6, when Brown is due back in court for his formal arraignment. He’s pretty radioactive right now in terms of performing and making appearances, as evidenced by the fact that Brown and the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards show agreed that withdrawing his two nominations would be the best course of action. That being said, I think we’d all be better off if Brown stopped abusing women and both he and his lady stopped making music, but I don’t think the chances of either one happening is good……..
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