For the second time in less than a year, my 86 year old Mom has had successful joint replacement surgery.

This go around? A re-replacement of an artificial hip joint installed 28 years ago. When installed, this revision of the surgery was meant to only last 12-15 years.

When nuclear winter comes, it’ll be my Mom against the cockroaches. 

Little scaly bastards don’t have a chance. 

I’m superstitious when it comes to college sports. Especially when I’m watching my Cards at home.

Tonight was no exception.

While watching the Louisville Cardinals struggle in the first half to Syracuse, I often switched channels just to help the team, and each time I came back, we were a little closer. Watching the final play of the half, I realized I hurt our chances watching as Earl Clark threw the ball out of bounds hoping to hit Edgar Sosa for a layup to end the half. Down four at the break, I thought I’d check in after the second half was underway.

Much to my chagrin, Syracuse came out hot and built a steady 10 point lead in the second half, so I stayed on other channels for a while. 

After the occasional check, the Orange was up 14 with around 10 minutes to play, and I gave up. We were toast, or so I believed.

I went online, popped up the score on ESPN and watched incredulously as we crept back into the game. I didn’t watch the game live mind you, just the stats on the ESPN scoreboard. And sure enough, with about 2 minutes to go, I tuned back in and Terrance Williams hit a three to put us ahead. And as I stuck with the boradcast for the final minutes, we pulled ahead, got the rebounds, hit our key free throws and won the game, coming back from a big deficit.

It was a monster win for Louisville, putting us at 5-2 in conference and tied for 2nd in the Big East.

This team is coming together nicely. Much more so than last year. And it’s starting to get fun.

Look out MSG in March. 

The diversity of ants in the world is truly amazing and scary at the same time.

In addtion to being the only other creature on the planet besides man to domesticate another animal (aphids are known to be “herded” by ants or their sugary secretions called honeydew), leaf-cutter ants also farm fungus that is their primary food whicht they grow from the leaf cuttings they collect and return to their nesting sites.

They’ve also evolved survival mechanisms that no other species can claim. Honeypot ants are memebers of a colony that are force fed by workers until their abdomens swell to the size of large grapes, and these ants become a living larder which others will feed on when foraging is difficult.

The Bullet Ant of Australia fame has a sting so strong, it has been know to kill humans and the sting is likened to a gunshot wound.

Chemicals are the language of ants, forming a level of communication we’re only beginning to understand.

Siafu ants of Africa when on expedition for food are known to threaten humans and ALL animals stay clear they are so fierce.

Another fact about ants is that the total biomass of ants on earth actually outweighs the human race.

I watch the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet a little bit too much I think.

I was never an English major, so his genius escapes me. I’ve made attempts at reading Ulysses, but it has been damn near impenetrable. I read most of Portrait of an Aritst as a Young Man and I was aghast.

I understand the craft, or maybe I don’t.

Never has one author split so many opinions. I love almost all of Ayn Rand, I can even appreciate the depressive Dostoyevsky, the suicidal Dickens, and many other classic authors.

Could someone please explain Joyce’s importance to me? Coherently of course.

There was nothing poetic or even artistic in the Louisville Cardinals basketball win at home against Connecticut this evening. Even the blank canvas provided by fans in the “White Out” night in Freedom Hall (all the fans wore white) only got ugly spatters of horrendous play. UConn is a very young team, but they’re fast, and their style contrasted wih Louisville so much as to make for a terrible shooting night for both teams and a foul fest.. Of Louisville’s final 22 points in the game, 20 were made at the free throw line. And for once this season, the Cards shot well at the charity stripe.

Even though it was ugly, I’ll take it this year since the Big East looks to have a lot of teams shifting around in the middle and only a few teams vying fr the top 3 spots in the league. Now at 4-2 in Big East play, Louisville looks to start building on its record to guarantee a spot in the Big East tourney at Madison Square Garden in NYC. Next up, Syracuse at home this Saturday.

NFC: Bears vs. Saints

This game was a sad foregone conclusion. Dome teams are 0-9 in games outdoors in the cold, and the 2nd half snow sealed the deal for the Bears. New Orleans got close coming out of the halftime and made it 14-16 Bears before imploding down the stretch for the 39-14 final score.

Good season Saints, and you future is bright.

AFC: Colts vs Patriots

An incredible game that had so many momentum shifts, I had to take Dramamine. The Pats dominated the first half and finished with a big lead 21-6. But the Colts stormed back in the 2nd half and scored the final TD with 1 minute to go for the final score of 38-34. Brady threw the tradtional Manning INT in the final minute to seal the deal for the Colts.

Although Peyton Manning exorcised his Patriot demons, he still has to win the big game against a defense even better than the Pats.

Best of luck Peyton, you’ll need it choke-meister.

Starts with good coffee. Possibly green or white tea, but usually a good brand of coffee, preferably Gevalia. Gevalia Kona is my favorite. Cristopher Bean makes a Jamaican Blue Mountain blend that is outstanding for the price (occasionally $4.99 at Kroger).

Drink it any way you like it, I’m no “drink it black” coffee Nazi.

The morning should include (while sipping coffee) a little SportsCenter, a little Imus. Also, some yogurt for fuel.

The rest of a good day should include:

A good dump.

About 64 ounces of water

A handfull of vitamins and supplements (A multivitamin, a B-complex, grean tea extract, echinacea, chromium picolinate, saw palmetto, flax seed oil, biotin, vitamin E twice a week)

At least 1 hour of good hard exercise. Followed by a shower. (Just walk. As fast as you can. For an hour. Trust me.)

3 ounces of protein with a salad for lunch.

Maybe an hour long bath, for reading purposes.

And cranking out 5-10 pages of good copy. 

Or at least, that’s the way things have been for me lately. How about you?

Torture, in the name of any reason, is bad.

We should not torture Iraqis for information about possible Al Quaeda cells. We become the beast we hunt, and it is morally an outrage.

Instead, I have a recommendation:

Force muslim extremists to watch our reality TV shows.

For example:

Flavor of Love II: New York is checking out the dudes now. And lord, it is ugly.

The Sweet Sixteen Party marathon on MTV. Rich girls and boys (mostly girls) and their tantrums, extrememly vulgar consumerism and just all around terrible behavior. Not to mention, the parents, who honestly, should be neutered so they can’t produce more pathetic offspring.

Bad Girls. Ripsy would scare the shit out of any extremist. Hell, she scares me.

American Idol: The new season, all that is wrong with our culture, no working your way up the ladder, instant gratification and then slavery servitude to a British arse when you win your contract. Wee.

The Real Wives of Orange County: Please show them this series especially. Never has one show done so much for the condemnation of American women and our value system, or lack thereof.

I’m telling you people, this could work, and we’d only be showing them what we sell to our citizens. We could dumb them down to our level. 

It could work! 

Seriously, outside of plane/car/train crashes, murders and other legal disputes, journalism is a dead art.

Journalism on the whole has been replaced by editorialism. The majority of “news” these days is opinion, not facts, and it is disturbing.

Even sports has been affected, editorial is now more important than box sores. 

News-specific channels are the worst culprits. They are masters of spin. And they’re also willing to say virtually any-fucking-thing to get good ratings. TV journalists are the new media whores, and it is sickening.

Bloggers are just pushing this whole agenda forward since the most controversial can get the best ratings.

It is a sad state.

Oh, and PS, fuck Bill O’Reilly.

One of the best semi-finals weekends in memory. Every game was excellent and there was drama to finish every contest. Just outstanding. If you missed any of the match-ups this weekend, you really missed out.

The AFC Championship game will be Indiana vs New England at Indy. Will Indy kick the Tom Brady monkey off their backs or will Peyton Manning make that ugly loser face yet again. Brady was magic late against the favored Chargers, leading the Pats to the win and 11 points in the last 4 minutes.

The NFC Championship game will pit New Orleans vs Chicago at Chicago in the cold. New Orleans is the feel good story, but the Bears return to excellence based on great defense was no surprise. The QB factor is the key to this game. Grossman vs Brees.