I Love This Day!

As you all know already, I’m a ridiculous baseball fanatic, so there’s a big reason why I had a little extra jump in my step and a perma-grin on my face all morning long. The winter already has its obvious drawbacks with the cold, snow and ice, but one of the things that make it so difficult for me is the lack of baseball on my TV.

I know most of you don’t share the same love and a lot of you actually feel the exact opposite about it. If only I had kept count of all the times I’ve heard people tell me that they would rather watch paint dry or grass grow than watch baseball. You’re all entitled to your own opinion and I’m never going to try and change your mind about a game you don’t care about, but I love baseball to death.

To me, there’s something about the sound of the crack of the bat or the background noise of all the people in the stand as they chat away about their everyday lives. There’s the gasp in the crowd when a ball is well-hit and leaves the yard. There’s the smell of the grass and the shine of the sun on a perfect-looking infield as you get set to spend three hours tanning on a beautiful summer day.

I even love the idea of the constant one-on-one battles that happen within the game itself. There’s the obvious batter vs. pitcher, but there’s also runner vs. fielder, catcher vs. base-runner, manager vs. manager, reliever vs. slugger, and so on. It truly is a game of chess played on a big field with an element of contact mixed in.

I remember playing Little League as a kid and remembered the raw emotion that would come out of me when faced with a difficult battle against a tough pitcher. There was one kid that was the monster of the league. He was able to throw 75 miles an hour at 12 years old and it felt like 100 to me. I was scared to death about getting in the face with that. I was also scared about the embarrassment that would come with striking out to him.

I was always a patient hitter and was always willing to take a base via walk rather than swing at junk and hope to hit. The count got to 2-2. The next 7 pitches were high-heaters that were fouled away. I was literally shaking at pitch 12 because he was throwing so hard and I was so tired from swinging so many times. Pitch 12 was a ball. Pitch 13 was a ball. I had walked and won the battle. As weird as it is to say, that remains one of the things I’ll remember the most in playing sports.

As I write this, Game 1 of god-knows-how-many is in the books, but trust me, if I can get a chance, I’ll watch at least a portion of every single one. Baseball is back and it couldn’t come back soon enough!

World's Loudest Cat?

There's only a few people in the world that would be able to handle living with a cat that purrs as loud as busy traffic. Good thing rabbits make no noise whatsoever. I only have to deal with chewed-up cords, repeated sweeping of "messes" and the occasional bunny photo shoot.

By Raphael G. Satter of the Associated Press


No need to bell this cat: A gray-and-white tabby by the name of Smokey has catapulted to fame with purring so loud it has been recorded at a potentially record-setting 73 decibels.

The British community college that measured the sound said it peaked at 16 times louder than that of the average cat. By some estimates, that is about as noisy as busy traffic, a hair dryer or a vacuum cleaner.

The 12-year-old, ordinary-size feline first came to national attention last month when her owner, Ruth Adams, decided to run a local competition for the most powerful purr. That led to a local radio show appearance, and from there, media coverage snowballed, with the tabloids full of headlines like "Thundercat" and "Rumpuss."

"Sometimes she purrs so loudly it makes her cough and splutter," Adams said on a website devoted to the cat, which was rescued from a shelter about three years ago. Smokey "even manages to purr while she eats."

Hoping to see Smokey recognized as top cat, Adams asked Northampton College in central England to provide the equipment needed to submit a world-record application. Last week, the college dispatched a team with specialized sound equipment to record Smokey purring in the comfort of the family home in the village of Pitsford, about 70 miles northwest of London.

The recording has been submitted to Guinness World Records, the college said.

Seventy-three decibels is louder than ordinary conversation, which is generally around 60 to 70 dB. On a video posted on the website, the purring sounded like the cooing of an angry dove.

Guinness World Records spokeswoman Amarilis Whitty said she is eagerly awaiting the recording.

Got to Know When To Quit

Anyone that has ever played sports has been taught to do things consistently aggressive. Even if your efforts aren't going the way you thought, you try and try and try again. You could use that advice in life as well, but there's got to be a point where you choose to slow down. This woman would be wise to learn to pick her spot better.

By the Associated Press


A California woman facing nearly five years in prison for forging drug prescriptions showed up for sentencing with a phony doctor's note seeking a delay in the proceedings.

Michelle Elaine Astumian was free on $45,000 bail and pleaded no contest in January to felony counts of forgery and using a fraudulent check.

The 41-year-old woman arrived Monday for sentencing in a San Luis Obispo County courtroom and presented a note with a doctor's signature asking for a postponement.

Prosecutor Dave Pomeroy called the doctor, who said the note is a forgery.

The judge immediately ordered Astumian into custody and she collapsed to the floor. An ambulance took her to a hospital.

Pomeroy told the San Luis Obispo County Tribune that Astumian will be sentenced later, but he doesn't know when.

Only Fitting on MLB Opening Day

With six teams using their baseball bats in order to start their 2011 MLB season, it was only fitting that I run into a story of a woman using a baseball bat to thwart would-be burglars. True story: My grandma made the paper for doing the exact same thing years ago after a burglar tried to enter her apartment through the window.

By WXII12.com


A woman grabbed a baseball bat from her kitchen and used it on two men who had broken into her Bass Mountain Road home on Thursday, Alamance County deputies said.

Deputies said that as they were responding to a 911 call at the home, they came upon the suspects' vehicle along Highway 87 south.

After stopping the vehicle, deputies said Richard Guthrie Jr., 28, of Greensboro, and Jeffery Martin Moore, 42, of Burlington, were found bleeding from head injuries.

Deputies said they determined that the two kicked in a front glass door and began assaulting the woman.

That's when the woman used the bat to defend herself, striking both suspects in the head, deputies said.

They were taken to the hospital where they were treated for their injuries and released, deputies said.

Guthrie and Moore were charged with first-degree burglary, assault on a female and injury to personal property. Both were also served with outstanding arrest warrants.

They were each being held with bail set at $15,000.

2011 MLB Preview - Part 4: Top Rookies

I'm so giddy! Opening Day is here and I've got a date with my comfortable couch for the next few hours. Today, we break down the top rookies to look for in 2011 with Fantasy Baseball expert Kevin O'Brien from rotowire.com. Tomorrow, we round out the week with the top sleepers.

Climbing Buildings? Flipping off of Them? Difference?

Responding to Smack Talk

2011 MLB Preview - Part 3: Top 20 Picks

For those of you who haven't completed your fantasy baseball drafts as of yet, today through Friday will help you quite a bit. We'll talk about the top rookies on Thursday and top sleepers on Friday. Today, we'll talk about the top 20 picks of your draft. For the record, I chose Albert Pujols number one. :-)

MLB 2011 Preview - Part 2: National League

We took a look at the American League yesterday. Today, we break down the National League. I think there's gonna be some great battles in the NL Central and NL West this year and I'm really looking forward to seeing how the final standings break out. Here's the breakdown with Kevin O'Brien from rotowire.com

Interview with Bernard Hopkins Revisited

I noticed in the Monday headlines that Bernard Hopkins and Jean Pascal had a press conference in Montreal to promote their rematch after the controversial decision that went the way of Pascal in Quebec City a few months back. The two combatants directed punches at one another and had to be separated by security and handlers. Sad as it is to say, it’s usually par for the course at a boxing press conference. I wouldn’t blame anyone for thinking that it was staged and was a way for people to be coerced into watching the fight.

The only reason I wanted to write about this though is because I was thinking back to the interview that Lee and I did with Bernard Hopkins just days after their first fight. I think it’s the interview that I get asked about the most because of who the guest was, how poorly it came off for Hopkins and us. and because of how awkward it was to conduct and to listen to. I guess I’m just trying to kill a bunch of birds with one stone by telling you what was going through my mind throughout that whole process. For those who didn’t hear the interview or don’t really care for boxing, at least it’s a story.

The interview was set up a couple of days after the Saturday night fight. We received an e-mail from someone representing Bernard that asked if we would be interested in having him on to talk about the fight. As a boxing fanatic and having watched the fight, I was ecstatic to go after the opportunity. Lee doesn’t watch it as much, but knew the name and knew how much Hopkins has accomplished. It was a go and we worked it out.

The day of the show, we open the show with the usual banter and get to talking about the interview. Lee had asked earlier off-air about what kind of interview it might be. Off-air and on-air, I talk about smart he is and how good of a communicator he can be and that we could have a great interview ahead of us. For some reason though, I had this feeling that we were going to be let down. I saw his TV work on ESPN Friday Night Fights and thought he was excellent, but some sort of radio intuition kicked in.

Sure enough, the interview starts and right from the start, Bernard takes control of the interview and tells people how he got robbed and that he should be the champ and Pascal has no business walking around with the belt. That was to be expected, but the fact that he talked over both Lee and I and seemed to be in his own world did us no favours. It made the interview a complete disaster.

There’s a certain formula that goes with radio interviews. You try to make it as conversational as you can, but the main element is question/answer/question/answer and everyone is generally OK with that. I’ve always believed that the “formula” should only really be a base and that the best interviews are the ones that just turn into normal conversation. But enough about radio theory. This one had no semblance of formula at all and had me completely on edge about where it was going. It’s an interview that I’ll never forget. It wasn’t the best 10 minutes I’ve ever done, but it’s one that helped me learn quite a lot.

It’s interesting that as I write this, I’ve come to realize that it may have been unrealistic to expect the fighter that has never lived his life in a formulaic way to give you a formulaic kind of interview. It’s part of the charm of Bernard Hopkins, part of the mystique and a huge reason why as a boxing fan, you love him or you hate him. All he really cares about is whether you watch him and pay to see him. I wonder how many will when he fights again in Montreal…

Baseball Preview: Part 1

All week long, I'll be talking with Kevin O'Brien from rotowire.com to break down the 2011 MLB season from all different angles. Today, we talk about what to expect in the American League and we start the conversation right away with what the Toronto Blue Jays may do this season.

Cinderella is Alive

I was telling everyone within earshot before the NCAA tournament began that parody was going to be the theme word for this year’s edition. Unlike past years where we had clear cut number ones and dominant teams that were stockpiled full of talent, this year’s edition was full of good teams, but all with flaws. It was simply going to come down to which team was able to play their best at the right time.

The final four that we’ll see play for a national championship in Houston this upcoming weekend include a 3 seed in UCONN, a 4 seed with Kentucky, the 8-seeded Butler Bulldogs and the 11th-seeded Cinderella of the tournament, VCU. It’s only the third time in the history of the NCAA tournament that a one-seed has not been a member of the final four.

It’s a shame for a lot of fans that Butler and VCU are matched up in one semi-final because the dream matchup of an 8 vs. and 11 can never happen, but on the flip-side, at least a mid-major/Cinderella story is assured of making it to the big game. It’s the kind of story that people live for and a huge reason why so many allocate some time to watch a portion of the tournament.

It’s amazing how much we under-estimated Butler and their head coach/guru Brad Stevens. They made it to the finals last year against a talented Duke and were a mid-court shot away from doing the improbable and becoming national champions. Not much was expected of them this time around. Sure, they had a solid team and if they were able to put it all together, a Sweet 16 or Elite 8 birth was not out of the cards, but no one expected the Final Four.

It’s easy to disregard them because they don’t have the lottery selection that’s looking to take the next step. Outside of Matt Howard and Shelvin Mack, they don’t have household names. The two things they do have though are a hell of a coach and amazing team chemistry. Everyone always focuses on star power, but it’s funny how we always dismiss the best “teams” in any sport.

The same could be said for a VCU team that had to play an extra game in the tournament because of the added-play in games for 11 seeds in the tournament. Having lost 5 of their last 8, no one expected them to accomplish anything after beating USC to punch their ticket in the 64-team dance.

They don’t have a large lineup and don’t really have a lot of talent to speak of, but what they also have is a great team chemistry and hell of a coach in Shaka Smart. They could have folded against Kansas on Sunday as they were under immense pressure from the top-seeded Jayhawks. All they did was rally and run away to victory. Smart made a great adjustment to an ultra-small lineup and hoped for some good stops and some clutch shots.

This year’s Final Four may not have the star power that we’ve seen in past years, but it may be more compelling to the fair-weather fan or the common man who sees a basketball game here or there. The Cinderella story is still alive and kicking and we’ll see one make it all the way to the final dance next Monday.

Beware the Chickens!

I didn't go to a high school that was huge on pranks, but some of the pranks that I've heard go down in the States are legendary. I don't think this one hits the legendary category, but I'm sure it was pretty ridiculous to see some chickens running through the school hallways.

By Sergio Bichao - mycentraljersey.com


The chickens are coming home to roost for a couple of high school students who thought releasing live chickens into their school would make for a good senior prank last month.

But instead of chuckling at the fowl play, angry Woodbridge High School officials called the police and this week suspended the four students, who are now facing criminal charges.

The students and their parents are saying officials overreacted to the practical joke.

Tyler Bruno and Anthony Cesareo, both 17, and Bryan Pater, 18, were among the students suspended for five days. They'll also lose their "senior privileges,'' which include being able to attend their prom and walking during graduation ceremonies.

They were each charged with a disorderly persons offense and trespassing, charges that in the worst-case scenario could land them each six months in jail and a $1,000 fine, although such a harsh sentence would be unlikely, Woodbridge police Lt. Carl Lizzano said.

Principal Arthur Lee Warren has now barred other students from wearing black T-shirts depicting a cartoon chicken in support of the accused, an act the students say violates their freedom of speech.

Woodbridge police declined to release information about the underage students and wouldn't voluntarily provide police reports or names for the two 18-year-olds. But Bruno, Cesareo and Pater spoke with television reporters and the Home News Tribune about their punishment.

Bruno said the friends bought the red and black chickens in Newark and slid them through a first-floor window that had been left unlocked and open. A janitor reportedly found the chickens before the start of school that day.

Bruno said he cooperated with police after school officials fingered him as "a person of interest.''

Warren said students were disciplined based on information the police provided the school.

"I don't call it a prank; I call it an incident that should not have happened,'' Warren said. "We are not looking for a disruption of the school day or year.''

Lizzano defended the police department's response.

"We realize it's a prank and we don't want to charge people with crimes they shouldn't be charged with. But you don't want to make light of the incident. What's next, you bring a cow into the school?'' he said. "It was funny, but wrong.''

Cesareo hopes all the public scrutiny will convince school officials to restore their senior privileges.

"It makes them look bad. They're not letting kids (walk at graduation) over a chicken? It sounds ridiculous,'' he said.

Still, he admits they deserve some punishment.

"There should be a five-day suspension, but taking away the prom and not allowing us to not do anything, that's too much for that.''

Sammy Linked With the Outside World?

Maybe Sammy has gotten into a little bit too much of his own Cabo Wabo. Hey, it's the best tequila that I've ever had, but I never had enough to believe that I ever had an encounter with someone from the outside world. However, he's dead serious that he believes that he was probed by aliens.

By Jill Serjeant - Reuters


LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - No doubt Sammy Hagar, a former lead singer for Van Halen, has enjoyed a lot of far out experiences in life, but on Monday, the rocker told perhaps his farthest out tale to MTV. He was abducted by aliens.

Or, at least, his brain was.

In an interview for his new book, "Red: My Uncensored Life in Rock" at mtvhive.com, Hagar lets go of what even he admits might make him "sound like a crazy person" to some readers.

He and the reporter are talking about dreams he claims to have had about UFOs, and when asked whether he believed he had been abducted, Hagar answers: "I think I have."

The reporter seemed surprised. "What? Really? I was kidding. You seriously believe that?" he asks.

Hagar laughs and goes on to explain that a passage in the book described as a dream in which he is contacted by aliens from outer space in California was, in fact, reality.

The tale describes how the beings tapped into his mind through a wireless connection.

"It was real," Hagar told the reporter, according to the story on MTV's Hive website. "They were plugged into me. It was a download situation ... Or, they uploaded something from my brain, like an experiment."

Hagar goes on to describe another experience at the age of four where he believes he saw an alien space ship in broad daylight hovering over a country field where his family lived.

The rock guitarist and vocalist is no stranger to wild times. He was a part of several bands, including Montrose, during the "sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll" era of the 1970s and 1980s, and during its heyday Van Halen was among the biggest acts in rock music.

In his book and in the interview with MTV's Hive, Hagar lets the stories fly on the sex and drugs he did during those years, and he even has a few not-so-nice things to say about another Van Halen lead singer, David Lee Roth, whom Hagar replaced in 1985.

Any Poutine is Good Poutine in My Books

It seems so simple and yet it's just so good everytime you have it. Well, at least that's the way I think about poutine. I can't imagine what a lobster poutine would be like, especially when it's made from a chef that's good enough to have his own show and win the Iron Chef competition.

By CBC


Quebec chef Chuck Hughes has won the epic TV food battle, Iron Chef America, beating out his heavyweight competitor with a plate of lobster poutine.

The Montreal cooking show host was the second Canadian and first Quebecer to "reign supreme," as they say on the show, which aired Sunday night on Food Network Canada.

Hughes beat out Bobby Flay, one of the show's resident culinary masters, in the kitchen stadium battle, which featured the secret ingredient — Canadian lobster.

With his two sous-chefs from his Old Montreal restaurant, Garde-Manger, at his side, Hughes whipped up a multi-course menu in an hour that wowed the panel of judges.

"This really is a dream come true for me. It was one of the most intense challenges of my life, and I'm so proud and honoured to represent Quebec and Canada," said Hughes in a statement released Monday morning.

Having lobster as a surprise ingredient didn't hurt. Hughes likes the crustacean so much that he has a picture of one tattooed on his arm, along with shrimp, pie and bacon.

"I actually kind of knew exactly where we were going to go with it, so it was kind of a perfect-case scenario," he said.

I Can't Wait!

I Can't Believe It Actually Played Out in Real Life

The Next Stage of MMA?

I remember the first time I ever sat down to watch the UFC. I was in my first year of high school at the time and a friend of mine had a VHS tape that recorded the best fights in the first 3 shows that the UFC ever put out. The promoters came up with the idea of finding out: “What fighter had the best style?” At that time, Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter were popular as video games and they basically did the same thing. What would happen in real life?

In the first ever pay-per-view, you had eight fighters, including a boxer that fought with one glove (seriously?), a sumo wrestler, a pit-fighter, a karate guy and a jiu-jitsu master in Royce Gracie. All of them had a distinct style and fought with only that style to see how they would fare inside of the cage.

Everyone was one-dimensional and Gracie’s jiu-jitsu proved to be the best style on that night and many nights in the future. The evolution of the sport of mixed martial arts was on. Anyone that wanted to fight had to learn jiu-jitsu as a starting point or as something to add to their repertoire.

As the sport grew, more styles became prominent and fighters learned to add aspects such as wrestling, ground-and-pound, submissions and pure boxing. All of these fighters in the middle stages of the evolution of the UFC still had a base-dimension that they had a ton of experience in. They had to add skill sets that they weren’t necessarily comfortable with in order to keep up.

However, over the last year or so, I believe we’ve started to see the next stage in the evolution in the sport of mixed martial arts. We’re starting to see the first set of fighters that have never trained in just one aspect, but have been groomed from day one to be MMA fighers and UFC World Champions.

Cain Velasquez got the trend started by going through the heavyweight division in order to set up a date with UFC Heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar. People were split when it came to picking a winner in that championship fight, but when it was all over, Velasquez laid a thunderous beating on Lesnar that he may never fully recover from.

Jon Jones continued the trend on Saturday night. Despite being only 23 years old and having faced limited competition in his young MMA career, the kind of destruction he unleashed on former champion Mauricio “Shogun” Rua was one of a kind and may have been the best performance ever seen in the octagon.

These two represent the future of the company and could find themselves at the top of the division for a long time. They also represent the next evolution of the sport. At a time, it was OK to be one-dimensional as long as you performed that skill-set really well. Then you had to be multi-dimensional. Now being multi-faceted isn’t even enough anymore. Jones and Velasquez represent the first that were born and bred to be UFC champions. They have the belts now. The question is: Who’s going to take them?

Why I Love the Tournament So Much

I’ve always loved this time of the year. The start of March Madness always signals to me that spring is here. I used to take the Thursday-Friday off from school or work and watch the tournament with my dad. When I was younger, he had to explain to my mom why I needed to take the days off, but it was something special to him and it was something that was very special to me.

Thursday morning, I would always go out and buy the USA Today because they would have a 12-16 page special section that focused purely on the tournament, complete with bracket and a breakdown of every single team. I would research that section right up until the first tip at 12:15, so I knew as much as I could about the Iona Eagles or Hampton Pirates as I did the Duke Blue Devils or the North Carolina Tar Heels.

I would carefully cut the bracket out from the newspaper and put it up on a part of the wall that was visible to everybody. I knew that only my dad and I really cared about it, but just in case my mom or my sister wanted to know anything, I wanted to be quick on the draw to tell them anything they needed to know.

I had a routine where I would only write down the winner of each game when the game has officially finished. I didn’t care if a team was ahead by 50 with 2 minutes to play, I still waited. I wanted to write in the name so bad, but I stayed disciplined and waited. It felt so good once the game was over.

The games on Thursday and Friday would go from noon until midnight and I didn’t care because I would watch every single minute. I would catch my dad falling asleep from time to time because he always felt so comfortable in his favourite chair. I would let him sleep during the games that were lopsided or were just in the first half, but if there was a game that was close with only a couple minutes to go, I made sure to wake him up and we would watch the finish.

Just like everyone else, all we cared about was watching the upsets. For one day, I could say I was a big fan of the Harvard Crimson Tide or the Butler Bulldogs. Any team that made it past the opening round as a seed higher than 10 became our favourites and we cheered them all the way. I don’t know how much energy we wasted over the years on 16 seeds trying to knock off top seeds. I hope to see it sometime in my life and I’ll always cheer for it to happen.

By Saturday or Sunday, my dad would have to go back to his work duties, but I would have the weekend off at that point so I could continue to watch the games. It wasn’t the same without my dad and I would always go through some basketball overload. By Sunday, I was glad that CBS fit all the games in to accommodate for CBS.

The rest of the tournament always wasn’t as special as those first couple of days, but upon reflection, it had nothing to do with who was playing or what the final scores were, it was the fact that I got to share it with my dad.

A New Epic Soccer Fail and a Favourite Fail

NHL'ers Getting Some Camera Time

Think of the Possibilities

The rich get richer. The big get bigger, and any other cliché that you want to throw in about growth. I’m sure you’ll be hearing any of them over the next couple of days if you happen to read the UFC has purchased its biggest rival, Strikeforce, and all of the fighters that fight in that promotion.

Dana White continues his torrid pace of eliminating would-be opponents to him by simply suffocating them in any way possible and then putting the final nail in the coffin by purchasing them from desperate promoters that are losing money in a brave attempt to offer up some competition against the juggernaut.

Some people will have a problem with White being so Napoleon-like when it comes to the MMA world because they hate the idea of one person/group controlling anything there is to do with a sport. For me, it’s just another example of how cut-throat business really can be and all I can do is applaud the people at Zuffa for being so successful at what they do.

I’m not going to dwell on the financial and social ramifications that come with a non-competitive marketplace for MMA fans, but instead, I’m choosing to look forward to what kind of fights could be in place that could never have been put together before because of the competition between promotions. I’m also curious to see what will happen to former UFC fighters that were banished to the lesser promotions for various reasons.

Fighters like Paul Daley and Josh Barnett were told that they would never fight in the UFC again for different reasons. Daley punched his ticket out of the UFC by sucker-punching Josh Koscheck after their fight a couple of years ago in a vain attempt to get some revenge for a pitiful performance. Barnett failed a drug test several years ago ahead of a major fight and was given his walking papers.

Other fighters left on their own terms or never fought for the UFC because of financial constraints. The last time we saw Dan Henderson fighting in the UFC, he had just finished off a destruction of Michael Bisping. Fedor Emelianenko never fought in the promotion because he had managed to create his own promotion company, M-1. The relationship between M-1 and Dana White has never been friendly.

Strikeforce does have some talent coming with it though and the possibilities for great fights are endless if all the talent does come to an agreement to fight in the UFC. Imagine a fight between Alastair Overeem vs. Cain Velasquez or Fedor vs. Brock. How about a Hendo-Bisping rematch?

I think the UFC-Strikeforce merger of sorts gives MMA fans another breath of fresh air and could give us some tantalizing matchups over the next couple of years. There may be a lack of competition, but we’ll figure out what to do about that once we need to. I’m fine with forgetting about that for a little but as I daydream about what could be.

The Power of Skype

Lung infection, be damned! It wasn't going to stop a California couple from getting married, so they used technology in order to become united. The only difficulty would be the ceremony-ending kiss to make it official. They can make up for it during the honeymoon.

By Alex Dobuzinskis of Reuters


A California couple whose wedding plans appeared thwarted when a lung infection landed the groom in the isolation ward of a hospital were married over the weekend, in a ceremony conducted over Skype.

Samuel Kim and Helen Oh, both 27, had friends and family members traveling from as far away as their native Korea and from New York to their planned wedding ceremony in the southern California city of Fullerton on Saturday.

So when Kim began spitting up blood last week, he was initially too nervous to tell his bride for fear of causing her grief, he told Reuters.

When he finally did tell Oh later in the week, the couple improvised a solution by holding the wedding via the Web video conferencing system.

"Guests said it was inspirational, they really admired my fiance for being able to stand at the altar in the manner that she did, alone and not crying the whole time," Kim said from his bed at UCI Medical Center in Orange.

"She was able to hold her ground and I was able to hold my ground, not crying or anything," he said.

Oh said the Skype wedding was not the perfect way to have a ceremony, but that guests were happy.

"He said he will make up for it, he promised me he's going to be the best husband in the world," Oh said. "He felt really terrible that he wasn't there."

The afternoon wedding utilized five live cameramen at the couple's high-tech Korean church capturing the ceremony for guests watching on jumbo screens, and for Kim himself watching on a laptop in the hospital's isolation ward.

Kim's hospital is not very far from the church, and he said he did not feel distant from the ceremony and the 500 guests there.

The professional-style presentation included split-screen images and an audio crew that gave Kim his cue, before his face was to appear on screen.

Kim's hospital room was decorated with flowers that nurses bought with their own money, he said.

Oh said that she does not credit Web technology alone for making the wedding a success.

"I couldn't have done it without God," she said.

Up next for the couple: the honeymoon. Kim surprised Oh with plane tickets to Europe, where they will visit Paris and Prague, after he recovers from his lung infection.

Kim said that he expects to leave the hospital this week.

Damn Banana Peels!

If only I could find a way to cash in on my own stupidity like you can in the United States. A California woman is trying to follow in the footsteps of the person who collected millions of dollars from McDonalds for making their coffee too hot. The reason is just as ridiculous.

By Reuters


A banana peel, the torment of many a cartoon character, has allegedly become the real-life downfall of a woman in California. Ida Valentine, 58, is suing the 99 Cents Only store where she slipped on one last April.

She said that she suffered a herniated disk and tissue damage, spent $9,000 on medical bills and is seeking an unspecified amount in damages.

"She fell and landed on her backside," said Courtney Mikolaj of the Quirk Law Firm in Ventura, California, which is representing her.

Mikolaj said the 99 Cents Only store in Fontana, California, refused a proposed settlement of $44,000. Executives from the company, a deep-discount retailer with hundreds of stores in western states, were not immediately available for comment.

The image in popular culture of an unwary pedestrian tripping head over heels on a banana peel stems from the late 19th century, when bananas were a popular street food in American cities and the press portrayed them as a public nuisance.

In 1879, Harper's Weekly groused that "whosoever throws banana skins on the sidewalk does a great unkindness to the public, and is quite likely to be responsible for a broken limb."

Can I Borrow Your Tie?

I was about to start reading the story about a criminal who received a little bit of help from the judge to look a little bit better for his court day, but I'm not just fixated on the nickname "Vinny Gorgeous". One of the best nicknames I've ever heard. What do you think about "Philly Gorgeous"? Alright, never mind I asked.

By Reuters


An accused gangster nicknamed "Vinny Gorgeous" became even more dapper on Tuesday when the judge in his murder trial lent him a tie after jailers had refused him one.

Vincent Basciano is charged with murder and racketeering, crimes he allegedly committed on behalf of the Bonanno crime family in 2004, according to court documents.

Basciano, known for his sartorial style, appeared in Brooklyn Federal Court for jury selection without a tie. His discomfort was quickly noted by Judge Nicholas Garaufis, who lent him his own tie, said defense attorney George Goltzer.

The judge had previously allowed Basciano's family to supply him with a suit, socks and shoes for the trial, but a jail employee apparently read the order too literally and refused to permit a tie, Goltzer said.

"It's much ado about nothing now," Goltzer said. "The jail perhaps didn't accept ties but it's been resolved now. It was a simple misunderstanding with the parties that were involved."

He said the judge even suggested Basciano hold onto the tie until the end of the trial.

It's a Give and Take

These People Love Mondays...Why Can't You?

They Better Not Get Complacent

As we all know, the focus of hockey fans from now until the end of the year will be on the nightly scoreboard and how teams hovering around the 8th spot in either conference fared. It’s the most exciting time of year for fans and even though I have no rooting interest in any of these competing teams, I’ll be watching just as intently as all of you.

However, I’ll also be focusing on two teams in particular that a lot of you won’t. They happen to be the Vancouver Canucks and the Philadelphia Flyers. If you’re fans of either team, then I guess you’ll be with me in tracking their results, but a lot of you have just shunted them from your minds as they’ve pulled away from everyone else in their conferences.

If you haven’t noticed, they haven’t exactly been world-beaters lately and their results don’t necessarily reflect the kind of form that is becoming of conference champions. I understand that there’s going to be lulls in every team’s season and even the winning teams have difficulty here and there during the year, but as results have shown in the past, winning early and coasting to the playoffs hasn’t worked out too often for any team in any professional sports league.

Sure, there have been some teams that have been able to sleepwalk through the regular season only to flip on a switch in the playoffs and walk away with the trophy, but take a look at the recent history of champions in the major sports leagues and you’ll see that the team that is in “playoff mode” ahead of the playoffs have had a lot of success as well. There have also been a lot of examples of teams with regular season success that have done absolutely nothing once the games meant something.

Just take a look at the winners in the last calendar year. The Green Bay Packers were hit-and-miss just to make the playoffs with 2 weeks to go in the NFL regular season. All they did was win their remaining games and they hoisted the Vince Lombardi Trophy. The San Francisco Giants were a .500 team at the halfway point of the 2010 MLB season, but a late-season surge allowed for them to have positive momentum. That push guided them to a World Series title.

I know that the Chicago Blackhawks and the Los Angeles Lakers were teams that had monster regular-seasons and went through fits of coasting as well, so it’s not an exact science, but having 50% of this year's champions come from behind in order to win proves that heart and determination can overcome natural skill quite often.

There’s no doubt that the Canucks and the Flyers have a ton of natural ability, but I worry that the mindset that these teams are carrying heading into the playoffs may end up overshadowing all of that hard work at the start of the year. You just don't want to see a team chalk-full of talent have it go to waste because meaningless ergular-sesaon games dragged them down.

A Chat with Mike Sutherland

We chatted today about the NFL Scouting Combine. I didn't want to get into specific players with this one, so it's more about the process. I thought there were some really interesting stories from Sudsy about his experience of being poked and prodded by the NFL scouts.

A Chat with Kyle Turk

I haven't ventured too far into the business world with my interviews, but it's something that I want to do more of as the blog continues to progress. I chat with Kyle Turk, president and co-founder of Faces Magazine. You can check them out at facesmagazine.ca

Goodbye to Mice?

Having your eyes be in control of your laptop cursor seems like a really dangerous thing to me. I can't help but think of the poor college guy that has his buddies huddled around him as they look at the latest pictures from the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. We can only guess where that arrow is going to land...

By Peter Svensson of the Associated Press


Ever wish your eyes were lasers? A laptop prototype brings that wish closer to reality.

It tracks your gaze and figures out where you're looking on the screen. That means, among other things, that you can play a game where you burn up incoming asteroids with a laser that hits where you look.

In another demonstration this week, the computer scrolled a text on the screen in response to eye movements, sensing when the reader reached the end of the visible text.

In the future, a laptop like this could make the mouse cursor appear where you're looking, or make a game character maintain eye contact with you, according to Tobii Technology Inc., the Swedish firm that's behind the tracking technology.

The eye tracker works by shining two invisible infrared lights at you. Two hidden cameras then look for the "glints" off your eyeballs and reflections from each retina. It needs to be calibrated for each person. It works for people with or without eyeglasses.

Rather than a replacement for the traditional mouse and keyboard or the newer touch screen, the eye-tracking could be a complement, making a computer faster and more efficient to use, said Barbara Barclay, general manager of Tobii's Analysis Solutions business.

Tobii has been making eye-tracking devices for researchers and the disabled for nearly a decade. The laptop is its way of showing that eye-tracking could expand beyond those niches, Barclay said, calling it an "idea generator."

The laptop is made by Lenovo Corp., and incorporates Tobii's eye-tracking cameras in a "hump" on the cover, making the entire package about twice as thick as a regular laptop. But future, commercial versions can be slimmer and are perhaps two years away, Barclay said.

Lenovo and Tobii made 20 of the laptops and planned to demonstrate them at the CeBIT technology trade show in Hanover, Germany, on Tuesday.

Tobii's current, standalone eye-trackers cost tens of thousands of dollars, but Barclay said the cost of adding consumer-level eye-tracking to a commercial laptop could be much less.

New ways to use computers have been proliferating in recent years. Touch screens are becoming popular on smart phones and tablet computers such as the iPad. Nintendo Corp.'s Wii game console brought motion-sensing technology to the masses. Microsoft Corp. released an accessory for its Xbox games console last year that uses an infrared camera to sense the movement of bodies in three dimensions.

A Good Sign You've Had a Bad Night

One of my favourites scenes in the movie "The Hangover" is when the boys return to their trashed hotel room only to find an enormous tiger walking around. I couldn't help but think about that after reading this story in rural Alberta. Good thing everyone is OK.

By CBC News


Two Turner Valley, Alta. girls had a bit of a fright over the weekend.

RCMP said the two girls, both 13, encountered a cougar Saturday night after they rounded a corner and saw the animal standing under a streetlight in the middle of Royal Avenue.

Const. Joel Turcotte said the girls ran and the cougar briefly chased after them, but then disappeared.

"Police flooded the area. We were using night-vision goggles and heat-signature equipment to try and locate the animal, but we could not," Turcotte said.

He said there have been a number of cougar sightings in the foothills in recent months. It's a fairly routine call for Turney Valley RCMP, Turcotte said.

"All the reports that we've had, they were just sightings. The animals have never actually done anything or harmed anyone," he said. "People always call in when they have a cougar sighting, but we always ... try to respond very quickly to make sure the animal's left the area."

Residents were nonetheless urged to use caution in the aftermath of the search, and students at Turner Valley Elementary have been advised to travel in groups.

Wildlife biologist Brian Horejsi said the area is known for cougar sightings, but that this winter's repeated snowfalls and lack of chinooks could be adding to the problem.

"And that has a considerable impact on the distribution and movement of deer and elk, which are the prey animals for cougars," said Horejsi. "What [the weather] does is it moves deer populations down to lower elevations to try to avoid snow."

Horejsi said that while running from a cougar might be instinctive, it's not the best move.

"The idea I think is not to run away but to retreat [while] facing them, and do so promptly," he said. "In other words, disengage yourself."

Alberta Fish and Wildlife have been notified about the incident.

Turner Valley is about 30 kilometres southwest of Calgary.

The Groundhogs are Wrong?

Why are we always duped by people or animals claiming to be able to predict the weather? Why do we always look to meterologists, climatologists, weather experts or groundhogs to tell us what to wear and when to plan our southern vacations? Why am I asking these silly questions to myself?

By Pat Hewitt of the Canadian Press


What do the groundhogs know anyway?

Ontario's Wiarton Willie, Nova Scotia's Shubenacadie Sam and Pennsylvania's Punxsutawney Phil all predicted an early spring.

But Environment Canada's spring forecast suggests the rascally rodents got it all wrong.

The agency is out with its spring forecast for March, April and May.

Last year, Canada had one of the earliest springs ever, noted senior climatologist David Phillips, but this year, the season will be "reluctant to arrive."

Canada has had a "fickle and fitful" winter with temperature swings that are typical in a La Nina year, he said, and there will likely be more of the same in the spring.

About three quarters of the country will be colder than normal for the next three months, according to Phillips.

"March is going to roar in like a lion in parts of the Maritimes where they're talking about heavy snowfall and blizzard kind of conditions," said Phillips.

"On the Prairies it's more like frozen mutton because they're going to see one of the coldest beginnings to March they've ever seen across that region," he said.

Temperatures will be 18 to 20 degrees colder than normal Tuesday and Wednesday on the Prairies, he said.

British Columbia, the Yukon, the Prairies, the Northwest Territories, most of Ontario, and a good chunk of Nunavut will see colder temperatures during spring.

"We've done a lot of plowing and shovelling and pushing in some areas of Canada and it looks like they're going to continue that," said Phillips.

Eastern Nunavut, most of Newfoundland and eastern Nova Scotia will enjoy a warmer than normal spring.

Western Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Labrador, southern Quebec and eastern Ontario will have near normal temperatures, he said.

Southern B.C., most of Ontario, Quebec, Atlantic Canada and Nunavut will see a wetter than normal spring while precipitation will be near normal in northern Ontario and most of the Prairies.

But at least Canadians have something to put themselves in a sunny mood.

Residents in the southern half of the country are gaining about four minutes a day more daylight driving to work or heading to school, he said.

"This is the time of the year where the day length just gallops from one day to the next," said Phillips.

"That really lifts our spirit. Even though nature doesn't want to give us the spring that we think that we deserve, we see it in the daylight and that can be uplifting," he said.

NBA Vids

The Best of the NFL Combine

Death of Trade Deadline Day?

After Monday’s snoozer of a trade deadline day, anyone who took the day off had no excuse for being tired at work Tuesday morning. After all, they most likely would have fell asleep watching a bunch of guys break down the Toronto Maple Leafs war room and look ahead to who could be on the 2014 Canadian Olympic team. In other years, the network shows would try and cover up dead spots during the day, but not this year. Even hosts and panelists couldn't contain how silly things were getting.

As I watching nothing unfold Monday, I started to think more and more. It's what happens when you have some time on your hands and nothing to fill it with. I started thinking about whether or not this could be the norm and that we could be seeing the start of the death of Trade Deadline Day frenzy in this country. Sure, there might be some deals here and there, but I think there are too many things going against the networks to allow them to continue the countdown shows and gigantic panels.

The first thing is the increased comfort level with the salary cap. We all know that in a lot of ways, the NHL is still run by an old boys club that doesn’t adapt well to change and does more to fight it than embrace it. Unlike the NFL and NBA where trades are few and far between, the NHL has stayed true to their pre-lockout traditions despite the system being completely different.

However, as time goes on and GM’s are falling by the wayside because of their inability to embrace the new system or just not comprehend it, the GM’s that remain have clearly noticed the mistakes of the fallen and have to realize how powerful the salary cap can be against you.

But the biggest thing that could change the complexion of trading in the NHL could be a trend that was set this year by the most successful teams in the month of February. The teams that accomplished the most on trade deadline day actually did very little on February 28th.

Canadian teams like the Ottawa Senators and the Toronto Maple Leafs made most of their moves a week before and are now being applauded for it. Professional sports is a monkey-see, monkey-do business and the teams that weren’t able to get anything done Monday will no doubt be thinking about changing their strategy for next season’s trade deadline.

I really hope that things don’t change and that we have ourselves an exciting day to look forward to in the middle of February. After all, the only thing we have to look forward to at this point is the reward for a successful Valentine’s Day and the light at the end of the tunnel for winter’s end, but I have a sneaky feeling that we're losing grip on our beloved "Trade Deadline Day".