Short-lived interest in women's tennis, the perils of rain in SoCal and $262 poorly spent in Tennessee

- Well that didn’t take long. My interest in the women’s side of the Australian Open draw lasted less than one full round. Those who read this space often know that my degree of interest in women’s tennis is directly proportional to the amount of time that my girl Maria Sharapova is in a given tournament. If Sharapova and her amazing legs are on the court all the way through the finals, then your tennis tournament is one that I will follow avidly. However, if she is bounced in the first round like she was in the ongoing Australian Open, my desire to follow that tournament packs its bags and leaves along with Sharapova when she exits town. Her surprise 7-6 (4), 3-6, 6-4 to fellow Russian Maria Kirilenko was Sharapova's earliest exit from a Grand Slam since the 2003 French Open. Coming off the heels of her second-round loss at last year's U.S. Open and injury problems over the latter half of 2009, it is a discouraging sign for the former top-ranked player in the world and those of us who love to watch her play. The match was among many affected by steady rain that delayed the start of play on outside courts and forced several suspensions and more than a dozen postponements. In defeat, Sharapova made no excuses and said it was "just a bad day." Making matters worse had to be the fact that it was her first appearance on Rod Laver Arena since winning the 2008 Aussie Open trophy. She missed last year’s Australian Open last year as part of a 10-month layoff due to shoulder surgery, so you know she wanted to come back strong this year. “I could be disappointed or I could just take it as it is and just go back on the court and just keep working,” Sharapova said. “I choose option two. A bad day's not going to stop me from doing what I love. I'll be back here on a Saturday of the second week, so you watch.” So where does Sharapova go from here? Clearly she has rust to knock off after missing 10 months, but I am holding out hope that she will regain her old form (although her current one doesn’t look all that bad to me, but I digress) and become one of the world’s best players again. If you need any additional words of encouragement or support, Maria, let me know because I am always here to help my favorite athletes when they struggle…………

- Southern Californians do not deal well with inclement weather. They’ve learned to cope with mud slides and wildfires, but talk to anyone who has lived in SoCal for any length of time and they will readily admit that when it comes to dealing with precipitation falling from the sky, they are freaking pansies. Just a few drops of rain can turn the freeways into demolition derby hour, so with rain that would actually register as significant in non-SoCal portions of the country currently falling, you can only imagine what life is like right now. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa urged hundreds of Californians to heed evacuation orders and flee their homes before a dangerous storm hit their area this morning. "A powerful Pacific storm, likely the strongest of the week, will bring strong and damaging winds to much of southwestern California on Wednesday," the National Weather Service said. This new storm from comes on the heels of a torrential rainfall Tuesday that unleashed flooding and spawned a rare tornado warning in SoCal. "This is a severity we have not seen in a very long time," Villaraigosa said. "Respect any and all orders to evacuate. They are doing this to protect your safety. Please cooperate." Right, Mr. Mayor. I’d love to tell you that people will follow your directive without questioning, but you know they won't. People are prone to give the middle finger to the authorities when they are told to evacuate because they a) believe the potential threat won't materialize, b) feel they can weather the storm right where they are or c) just don’t give a damn. Having said that, officials issued evacuation orders for more than 480 homes in areas prone to mudslides. Of particular concern are he foothill areas torched by last year's Station fire were. "I can't stress enough how quickly the danger arrives," said Councilman Paul Krekorian. "When it is time to leave, it is time to leave. You may not have a second chance." The incoming storms truly are supposed to be bad, with predicted winds of about 80 mph in mountain areas and rainfall of more than 1 inch an hour in parts of Los Angeles County. Floods have already hit many areas in the county and a lot of homes are currently without power. On top of all that, a possible tornado was reported Tuesday in Huntington Beach by the Orange County emergency manager. Boats in the Huntington Beach harbor were damaged in the storm, as were several buildings in the area. In all seriousness, I hope this storm is not nearly as bad as predicted and wish nothing but health and survival for all of my SoCal amigos…………

- As a longtime fan of Smallville, it has been a bit of a bummer not having Martha Kent (Annette O’Toole) around for the past couple seasons. As the show plows through its ninth season, Martha Kent has been AWOL since in Season 6, when Martha moved to Washington to become a U.S. senator. She has been referenced and alluded to by different characters the past two seasons, but has not made an on-screen appearance. That will change later this season, when O’Toole makes a brief return to Smallville. Sources say that O’Toole has inked a deal to reprise her role as Clark Kent’s mom later this season, although producers are still working on the details of her role. The when and why are still up in the air, but it is expected that she will most likely come back near season’s end, possibly during May sweeps. Show insiders are speculating that the return and mother-son reunion won't be an entirely pleasant one and that there will be some unexpected turmoil to bring it about. With the show having lost so many key original cast members (the über-hot Kristin Kreuk, Michael Rosenbaum, John Glover, John Schneider, O’Toole, Sam Jones III), it will be nice to see at least one of them make a (temporary) return to the show. Observers believe the show is likely to return for a tenth season but that hasn’t been decided officially, so with the possibility of this being the show’s final season still in play, I’m glad Martha Kent is popping up again…………

- I don’t know about you, but when I see those lame sitcom episodes where a crazy dad brings out his gun to “clean” it when his daughter’s date shows up, interrogates the poor guy like he’s a freaking terrorist and follows the poor kids out on their date to snoop on them, I always assumed those were just fictional Hollywood creations. Never did I dream that there were men out there like Scott David Sullivan of West Bloomfield, Mich. Sullivan was arraigned on charges of malicious destruction of property and reckless driving Tuesday after…..well, after he found his 14-year-old daughter and her 16-year-old boyfriend in a compromising position in the back seat of his car. Seems that Sullivan followed the two teens after they drove up to a beach near Pleasant Lake and parked there in the boyfriend’s 2010 Dodge Charger. He told police that he pulled his van up alongside the Charger and saw the teens in the backseat of the car. From there, let’s just say that Sullivan did not react well. His first move was to do what most dads in his position would do, namely pull his daughter out of the car. I don’t think anyone can quibble with that, nor would they have a problem with Sullivan if, after putting his daughter inside his own vehicle, he had turned back to threaten the boyfriend and inform him which appendages he would be cutting off if the boy ever came near his daughter again. But sadly, that response was much more pedestrian than the one Sullivan went with. After pulling his daughter from the car, he leapt into the driver’s seat of the Charger, drove it out onto the icy lake and left it there – with the boy still in the back seat. He returned to his own vehicle and drove away, leaving the boy to fend for himself on the thin ice. See, temperatures in the Midwest have bee at or just above freezing the past few days, so that ice wasn’t exactly thick or sturdy. As such, when the boy got into the driver’s seat and attempted to drive the car off the ice, the front left tire had already sunk into the ice - making it impossible to move the vehicle. Police soon arrived and the boy was unharmed, but his car remained in the water until a tow truck pulled it out the next day. Now, Sullivan could face up to 10 years in prison for the malicious destruction of property charge and up to 93 days in jail for the reckless driving charge. Although I’m sure he would tell you that he’d do anything to protect his little girl, he didn’t need to go to this extreme to make his point. Heck, even waving an empty gun at the boyfriend or briefly attempting to choke him would be smarter than driving his brand new car out onto an icy lake to leave him there. What if the ice had given way and the boy had drowned? Awfully hard to protect your daughter if you’re in jail for homicide, idiot. Oh, and lots of luck for this poor girl in getting a date any time soon. She may appear to possess certain qualities that teen boys are after (as evidenced by her presence in the back seat in the first place), but a homicidal dad tends to scare away potential dates…………

- Well at least Tennessee football fans arent bitter. They were majorly dicked over by departed coach Lane “One and Done” Kiffin as he fled the UT campus after only one season so he could take the USC job when it opened up earlier this month and left a litany of burnt bridges in his wake. Angry students gathered on campus the day after his abrupt departure and UT fans immediately took to lighting him up on message boards, Facebook and Twitter. Stories were dragged out about Kiffin crashing his university-provided Lexus late last summer and any damning evidence that could be used against him was readied for launch. But even where there isn’t any damning evidence against Kiffin, embittered Vols fans are creating it. Even as the university has hired Derek Dooley to replace Kiffin and theoretically set the wheels in motion for moving forward, people like. Knoxville attorney Drew McElroy are readying another salvo to lob Kiffin’s way. McElroy, clearly a rabid UT fan, has filed paperwork with the Knoxville City Council's Public Properties and Facilities Naming Committee to rename a waste water treatment plant the Lane Kiffin Sewage Center. “At first I was offended that he would sneak out in the middle of the night, like a one night stand," McElroy said. "It dawned on me--Lane Kiffin told us that he hoped the fans would understand. I thought 'Well, naming the wastewater plant for him would let him know, I think very clearly, we do understand. We want to memorialize his stay here, and I think this would be doing it appropriately." Sounds like a very pissed-off guy, no? But McElroy insists that in spite of scratching a the $262 check for the application fee, he is in fact not angry at all with Kiffin. "Knowing what we know now, I don't think anybody is angry he's gone," he stated of the waste facility’s new namesake. Right, because people spend $262 to rename a sewage treatment facility just for the heck of it and because they genuinely like someone. Sure thing, you ignorant tool. I don’t have a problem with what you’re doing and it’s your money to waste on whatever you want to waste it on, but just don’t pretend like you’re really clever and that anyone thinks this is anything other than a bitter, scorned guy with too much money and too much time on his hands looking to rip the coach who jilted his beloved program. On the application, McElroy says he wanted "to honor our recently departed head coach and raise awareness of the good work done by the Knoxville Utilities Board." Students asked about the idea are mostly on board, but I doubt that any of them will be heading down to what was formerly known as the Kuwahee Wastewater Treatment Plant for a renaming ceremony any time soon. The proposed name change isn’t expected to happen any time soon, as the Knoxville Public Property naming committee only meets a few times each year. But it’s safe to say that if the change is made, it should be done in time for the start of football season this fall and I’m sure Drew McElroy’s day will be made…………