Preakness & Other News

I found out the problem with having your cable, internet and phone all wrapped up with one company. My cable was down three hours on Saturday, and while I could probably pick up NBC enough to watch the Preakness, I couldn't bet on my online account without internet. And I couldn't go to a phone backup because the home phone was down and my cell phone is a work phone which means I'm not calling a gambling service on it. Fortunately it got back up so that I could throw my hard earned money on animals running in a circle and even better, be able to watch it clearly. Not that there was much suspense as Big Brown won easily as I and pretty much everyone thought he would. It was so easy that I'm not sure he broke a sweat. I think they could have grabbed a dozen more fresh horses and run the race a second time and Big Brown would have won both. Since it didn't seem to take much out of him, I'm not sure anyone's going to beat him unless that shooter from Japan can do it. Unfortunately, that means we'll have a Triple Crown winner who some (including me) will question the greatness of because he ran against a bunch of nags.

The good news is that I took my own advice and placed a $10 win/place/show bet on Macho Again ($30) because I thought he could pull it off if Big Brown bounced. Well, Big Brown didn't bounce, but, when you look at the payouts (2.40 win, 2.60 place, 2.40 show) for his really small odds, betting Big Brown to win was a sucker bet. The same $30 win/place/show bet on Big Brown would have paid back $37 which means you net $7. Macho Again paid $17.20 to place and $10.40 to show. So, that $30 bet paid back $138 for a nice $108 net. Remember, kids, you don't have to bet win every time.

A woman is suing the authorities because her son committed suicide while in solitary confinement. I find this interesting because there are a lot of people around the country trying to legalize doctor assisted suicide. If we accept assisted suicide, then shouldn't the next step be allowing people who want to kill themselves to do so? I'm willing to bet a lot of the terminally ill cases that are used as examples to push assisted suicide legislation also had issues with clinical depression. If a terminally ill person with depression is allowed suicide, why not just a depressed person? As for the young man who killed himself, he sounds like a real scumbag murderer who saved the state the cost of a trial, appeals and execution. In fact, I think his mom should be sued for raising such a rotten ass kid.

In another murder story, a 46 year old woman ran over her 90 year old husband after a parking lot fight. He died. My first thought was to give the old dude a thumbs up for nabbing a woman 44 years younger than him. Then I saw her picture. God, I hope his eyesight was failing. I don't know what her problem is. Was she too impatient for time to take care of this?

I was watching the early telecast of Preakness day on ESPN. Now, I realize sports journalists try to take themselves seriously, but ESPN has a vested interest in keeping the sport up. They carry the early races on Triple Crown race days. Yet, they were running all kinds of reports about what's causing the problem of horses breaking down. It would be like the pregame shows for the 1990 NCAA basketball championship discussing whether basketball should try to lessen the athletic part of the game because Hank Gathers died of a heart condition while playing. It would be one thing if we had a new and chronic problem going on, but not to harp on (or use a beating a dead horse pun) something I've mentioned before, the fact is the perception that horses are dying left and right during races is seriously flawed. Then I saw this little nugget. Someone who actually documents horse racing death says that we're actually seeing fewer of these deadly breakdowns in the past decade. Which actually undercuts all the arguments about breeding, training, whips and chains, and other "causes" of horses not being as strong as in the past. If the horses aren't actually breaking down as much as in the past, maybe anecdotal evidence about infirmities is wrong. In defense of ESPN, they did allow one geneticist to point out that claiming breeding styles of the past 10-15 years have led to genetic infirmities in horses is silly because that's not enough time for the genetics of horses to change like that.

Someone doesn't seem to understand how to burglarize a home. I would grab the goods and go. This guy decided to move in. In fact, he was caught by the police while taking a crap in the home's bathroom.

Yeah, the story is from The Sun so there is probably a question of validity, but it's still funny. Man suspects wife is cheating. Man tries to sell her on ebay. Complete with nice pic of wife. I have a couple of thoughts. One, he got some great bids considering the picture showed his wife picking her nose. Must be a British fetish. Second, why would you pay for her? If she's cheating on her husband, just find out where she lives. You might be able to find her and get her for the price of a couple of drinks.

Sadly, the Utah Jazz lost to the Lakers to be eliminated from the NBA playoffs. This leaves me a lot less interested in watching basketball especially if Cleveland loses and takes the only other reason to watch, LeBron James. That means baseball will be even more pervasive. I stumbled across some chump who gave reasons why baseball is great, and in doing so lists a few reasons why baseball really sucks. He actually likes the four hour games. I wouldn't have a problem with four hour games except in baseball, a good chunk of the four hours is doing nothing interesting unless you consider readjusting your junk (for fourth time) interesting. He mentions that baseball stats are "sacred". Well, I said it before and I'll say it again - stats in baseball are stupid. To begin with, they rejigger the rules constantly to change the advantages - i.e. too much scoring, raise the pitcher's mound. Even worse, how can you take home run numbers seriously when all the ballparks are shaped differently with no standard on distance to the walls? That would be like one basketball arena moving the 3 point line out because all their shooters stink. But the line that really got me was "'Field of Dreams' struck a deep chord with Americans because so much of the movie is true." I've long argued that Field of Dreams showing the pureness of baseball is complete garbage because here's what's true about it. It's waxing nostalgically about an era when a team took money to throw the World Series.

I like the other guy's column on why baseball sucks.

A big controversy is erupting in LA because some people think it would be smart to recycle the treated sewage water back into the drinking supply. Actually, to tell the truth, I don't see what's wrong with this. If people are squeamish, do like Japan and install "dirty water" pipes that go to toilets (or should have). Even better, kill two birds by building a pipeline out to the agricultural areas and have the treated sewer water used for irrigation so river water can be used for drinking. I saw the Dirty Jobs episode where he was at the processing plant and that water came out awful clean. Besides, it's not like river water isn't full of animal crap.

Science is finally studying the important stuff. Some group of doctors or possibly perverts got together and decided on a definition of "premature ejaculation". Apparently, it's if you can't last one minute. No word on whether that minute includes the time it takes to pull the money out of your wallet.

There are some stories that are cringe worthy, and this breast feeding one is certainly that. Now, I think breast feeding is good thing for children. Even if the woman wants to do it in public (discretely) and isn't horribly unattractive. But I have to question whether a seven year old child should still be breast feeding (and if you don't want to see a video of seven year old being breastfed or think it's not safe for work, don't click on the link). I also have to ask what kind of cult are you running when your grade school daughters are so obsessed with breast feeding that they name your knockers and it's the featured attraction in their artwork. I guess it's a good thing that the mother doesn't expect to still be breast feeding her daughter when she goes to college. That might seem a bit extreme.