Tan

Since it's supposed to rain tomorrow and be cool on Sunday, I decided to take advantage of the sunny weather by getting some sun and reading out in Miami's picturesque Formal Gardens. So I'm no longer white, I'm white with some touches of brown, and it feels good.

Now, for your entertainment, I'm going to talk about sports on television that I just can't fathom people watching:

• Billiards. A sport that's fun to play but not nearly as fun to watch, especially on television. Curling is more exciting than this. You don't know exactly what the format of the match is, what the rules are, what's really going on, etc. I can see why the World Series of Poker gets so much TV time, but billiards??? We can do better.
• Trick Shot Bowling. I don't know if this is the correct name for this, but it may be the most absurd thing on TV sports-wise. A lot of people don't give a hoot about regular bowling, so why should trick shot bowling be any different??? I just don't get into throwing the ball across lanes to throw a strike, or roll 2 balls at once. What's the point???
• Ice Dancing. I've never understood this. During the Olympics, I'll watch men's, women's, even a little pairs figure skating. But I draw the line at ice dancing. You might as well have ballroom dancing because it would be the same, without the ice. Who wants to see dancing on ice when you can't do as many moves if you were on a ballroom, and there are no jumps (no athleticism for that matter). The old figure skating compulsories (how well you could trace a Figure 8, used to precede the short program) were more exciting than ice dancing.
• WNBA. Now, I don't mean for this to come off discriminatory. I actually liked the idea of the WNBA when it first started. Women's basketball was good basketball then, but not anymore. It's hard to imagine watching anything worse than the Pistons/Pacers game from tonight, but the WNBA finds a way to top it. There are some good players (Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi, Lisa Leslie, etc.), but talent depth is not there yet. I bet that if you added up the combined distance of all of Reggie Miller's field goals this year, it would be longer than all of the made field goals for the WHOLE WNBA during an entire season. It's painful watching WNBA games when players' shooting ranges are only up to 12 feet.

Now, instead of these sports filling up time slots, we should be watching more of these:

• AUSTRALIAN RULES FOOTBALL!!! Now, this is a man's game. This is tougher than football, hockey, even rugby. The only pads these guys wear are shinguards while they level into one another the whole game. The action never stops, and you can't beat the officials and their signal of a goal (think smokin guns). I remember when I was young, Sunday mornings, before 8:30 church, I'd watch Sportscenter at 7am, which was followed by Aussie rules at 7:30. Ahhh, those were the days.....
• Lacrosse, especially college. The Final 4 of College Lacrosse is apporaching, and I will watch. This is currently the fastest growing game in the U.S., and for good reason. It combines the power of football with the athleticism of soccer, and you don't have to be a certain size in order to be good at it. The intensity of lacrosse is hard to match. You either bring it for 60 minutes, or stay home.
• Arizona softball games. This is for my bro, who got me into watching Arizona softball last weekend. They're a softball powerhouse, with their softball skills, and their other skills. They're all All-American gorgeous women who make me want to get into softball more hehe.

Let's see, what else is going on:

• In the last 24 hours, it has become clear that Bob Huggins is no longer wanted by the UC administration to be the head basketball coach. They are reportedly trying to buy out the last 2 years of his contract, but Higgins will not step down. I wish I would've listened to Cincy talk radio today because it was nonstop Huggins talk. Listening to some on the news made me realize why UC basketball supporters are some of the most ignorant people out there. Huggins needs to go. I guess the letters DUI and the words, graduation rate, don't mean anything to these people. Huggins has only been to one Final 4 (92) and one Elite 8 (93). He is now the standard bearer of not reaching the Sweet 16 as often as he should've. Plus, he now recurits these junior college losers that are more thuggish than they are bball players who don't graduated and have either a troubled past, or get into trouble while they get into UC. These same people say Huggins has made the UC program what it is today. Well, if they mean the disrespected, thuggish, unexemplary part of it, they're right about that.
• On what is normally a benign Cottonwood Valley course outside of Dallas, the wind blew, the rough was high, and Tiger Woods had trouble finding the hard, narrow fairways, leading to a 72, which missed the cut by one stroke. This was Tiger's first missed cut in 142 tournaments, which is a phenomenal golfing stat. It will be weird not getting a glimpse of Tiger in his patented red shirt on Sunday.
  
• Finally, in the most shocking, at least for me, news of the day, Shavlik Randolph of Duke declared for the NBA Draft, and it appears he has signed an agent. WHAT IN THE WORLD IS HE THINKING?!?!?!?!?! Once a McDonald's All-American, this guy has shown those skills in maybe 7 of the games he played for Duke in the last 3 years. Last year, he missed a good part of the year with mono, and when he came back, he was ok, but nothing stellar. Honestly, if this guy gets drafted at all, it might be more of a shock than Maurice Clarett getting drafted. What a moron. I guess he didn't learn that much at Duke.

That's all I've got tonight, hope you enjoy.