KRAC Blog

28 degrees, clear and calm was just the break in the weather I needed, and I got it back on track, more or less. Through Forest Lawn to Main, ot Main to LaSalle, back down Hertel to Colvin, round the Park the long way to the Delaware overpass, down Delaware and home. About seven miles, I'd say, and for the post part the footing was dry, the track fast. Not bad-- a little less than half of what I'll need to do, with nearly two months left to get ready.

Dick Cheney apparently consulted with Bill Belichik when he was packing to attend the memorial ceremony at Auschwitz. 

If I'd known about it, the Brooklyn Half Marathon might have been a more realistic choice. I mean, you can gut it through 13 miles without much strain-- 18, in Ontario, is starting to seem more daunting.

As a rule I find that Runner's World's shoe reviews are pretty useless. Maybe it is because I seem to have very specific shoe requirements, but reading the reviewer's comments seldom informs my purchasing decision. A trip to Fleet Feet and a discussion with them about what my mileage is like just works better, particularly since we have established that color doesn't matter. I am quite pleased with the addidas Climate Proof Supernova Control they have me in at the moment-- the first new shoe type I've used in two or three years. So I'd have to say that, as interesting as the concept is, the new addidas 1 tempts me not at all. As far as I can see this is a high-tech version of Rebok's Pump -- a gimmick that is irrelevant to actually working out.

I love January, don't get me wrong, but Januarys are tough. Sure, the holidays are over, so that's good, but the pace of work ramps up pretty quick once the new year starts, and January is when I teach, so there are some long days. Even so, I had put today aside to run at least 10k, and maybe 8 miles, and I was resolved to be undetered by weather. I suppose it may be technically possible to go out and run in weather like this-- I am sure that as I write this there are people doing it-- but I am not one of them. Look, I'm not proud of this, but I hadn't gotten a quarter mile before my original resolution changed to something entirely new. My new resolution began with an "F" and ended with a "this", and I cursed every step I'd taken away from the house as I retraced those steps, as fast as a pancake man. I suppose that if I'd had to get the serum to Nome I'd have found a way, but since, as far as I know, Nome has all the serum it needs, I'm done for the day. 

On the one hand, the Steelers are the team that ended New England's winning streak, and they are at home. On the other hand, when is the last time that a team beat Bill Belichik twice in a season? When is the last time that happened when the second meeting was in the playoffs?

Either the Falcons or the Eagles would make for an entertaining matchup in the Super Bowl. I'm interested in just what Belichik will come up with to stop Michael Vick, but I know he'll have something. Right now the Pats are looking the way the Joe Montana 49ers used to: genius coach, MVP quarterback who has all the support he needs, and a defense that gets it done. The rest of the league is playing catch up.

Bill Simmons' column today is about a Red Sox fan who was in a coma when the Scarlet Hose became just another team that's won the World Series. The poor guy is recovering, but it is a longer process than many people think, apparently. He notes: "In the movies, people spring out of a coma like Adrian in Rocky II, as if nothing happened. In real life, there's a tube jammed down your throat and enough drugs pump through your veins to bring Keith Richards to his knees."

The Lake. They make me crazy. Odd dreck of all types, followed by worn out "classic hits", then Dylan's "Watching the River Flow" and three songs later, "Don't Dream It's Over" by Crowded House. Loved it. And last Friday morning at 730am, they played "Blue Wind" from the 20-plus year old album "Jeff Beck and the Jan Hammer Group Live." Don't think I've EVER heard that on the radio.

Now if they'll just play "Stacy's Dad."

Curtis Martin says “Belichick is like the Bobby Fischer of football.” Does this mean that Fischer dresses like a homeless person, or that Belichick is an insane anti-semite who spent the last ten years laying low from the feds by commuting between Manilla and Tokyo? Or just that they both sleep in their clothes? 

WBFO was playing something notably awful, so I thought I'd drift over to The Lake and revisit the music of my late adolescence. The tune that came on had a bouncy, hand-drum sound, and it was sure familiar, but couldn't quite identify it. Then the vocal came in, and it was Dave Mason, "Feelin' Alright". Wow, Dave Mason-- can someone tell me what that was supposed to be about? Maybe they figured it would be a good idea to have a backup Eric Clapton, just in case. Maybe he was an Eric Clapton, from an alternate dimension, like the Spock with a beard. And wouldn't that episode have been better if everyone in the alternate dimension had a beard? It'd be like the ZZ Top Universe.

Dave Mason. Back when the Eric Clapton from our Earth was making a lot of records with Yvonne Ellman (he'd heard "Jesus Christ Superstar" and thought the world of it, I guess), Dave Mason made an album with Cass Elliot. I used to own it, but I only played it once, and I couldn't tell you anything about it today, except that it was a Dave Mason album with Cass Elliot. I couldn't make that up.

More or less the same reaction I got running down Niagara Street this afternoon. 

On the Bills front, the fans and radio hosts are all over the place concerning whether the Bills should go with Losman over Bledsoe next year. Although not surprised by the differences in opinion, I was surprised to hear from some of the radio guys that Bledsoe had to play because Losman wouldn't be ready to start next season. Sparked by the late-season mentions of the 1973 team, which was also a nine-win team which went down to the last game with playoff hopes, I looked up Joe Ferguson's 1973 stats. As a rookie in 1973, the Arkansas Rifle's line went like this:

Comp Att Pct Yds TD Int
73 164 44.5 939 4 10

Dennis Shaw chipped in with 22/46 for 300 yards and four INTs, and OJ Simpson chipped in with 2003 yards and 12 touchdowns.

By the way, Bob Chandler caught 30 balls and JD Hill caught 29.

Willis is not the Juice, but he, a good defense and an under-control young QB would not be a bad way to go. And I'm tired of watching Bledsoe.

Saw the movie "Sideways" over the weekend. What a blast! It's by the same people who made "Election" and is just great. Among other things,"Smoking Whiskey and Drinking Cocaine" by Pat Travers shows up to perfect effect. And, without disclosing the surprise to those who haven't seen it yet, there is a literary joke which will especially delight all members of KRAC and the Ladies' Auxiliary.

Watching football this weekend, I saw a commercial for the NFL Network which used Fountain of Wayne's "All Kinds of Time" as its soundtrack, which made me happy.

I hate the Jets. Growing up, of course, I loved the Jets, because they were cool then-- all sideburns and white shoes, but over the years they devolved into the Peagreens, a team doomed to mostly be horrible, and occasionally flirt with success, only to slide into the worst kind of mediocrity. The ultimate Jets session would be for them to go 8-8, make the playoffs, and then be blown out in the first round. I refuse to even look it up-- as far as I'm concerned that's pretty much what the Jets have been like my whole life.

Ordinarily I believe that the team you grow up with is your team for life, but the Jets were different. My parents were Giants fans, and the Jets were a mild kind of rebellion. Except that after-- long after--I'd worked out whatever mild issues I ever had, there I was, stuck with the Jets as my team. And they were dreadful, and snakebit, and the Peagreens, and when I moved to Buffalo I found that there was a better way. I invoked the "Go with the home team" rule and never looked back. One nice part about abandoning the Peagreens is that the Bills play them, so that I get to see my demons confronted twice a season.

So, Jets beat Bolts. Man, I thought better of San Diego-- I kinda liked them whomping the Peagreens, then maybe beating the Colts. I love watching the Colts at the moment, because they look just like the Bills used to, but you could see it happening. Now we have the Jets against the Steelers, and the Jets have, I think, a puncher's chance. Not to win the Super Bowl-- just to stumble into it, and be the worst AFC team to do it, and to end up in a Super Bowl with -- who? the Vikings? that'd be plenty ugly.

Right now I'm liking the Colts. C'mon Ponys!

25:08(08:05pace)at the Resolution Run. A top 30 finish in my age group, but that wasn't the best part: as I made the turn for the final stretch I passed 79 year old Dick Sullivan, and managed to hold him off to the finish. A's niece thought that was pretty hilarious, but hey, he's fast, alright? Now that Dave has us in the media spotlight, we gotta start taking it to some of the other running clubs. I don't see too many people from Checkers back where I'm running, so look out Belle Watling

I let myself get caught up with the Bills, and as a result spent an irritating Sunday afternoon that might have been better occupied by almost anything else. I did it in spite of knowing (a) that the Bills' run came against inferior competition; and (b) that Pittsburgh really is probably the best team in the league right now. Gregg Esterbrook breaks it down into smaller pieces: "Though the Bills sure made the second half of their season interesting, on the year they only beat two teams that finished with a winning record. Buffalo had boasted about scoring more points than Indianapolis over the previous six games, but yet the Buffalo offense recorded only seven points in the second half as starter after Pittsburgh starter bowed out of the contest. Buffalo has boasted a lot about its highly ranked defense, but in the club's three meetings with elite teams -- New England twice, then Pittsburgh -- the Bills surrendered 89 points. Anyway if you can't hold a lead against the other team's practice squad in the fourth quarter at home with a playoff invitation on the line, you do not belong in the postseason."

One further note: nobody seems to have mentioned it, but all of the Steelers subs-- and particularly Tommy Maddox-- were highly motivated. This was not an instance of getting some playing time for a bunch of guys with no experience-- this was a bunch of guys who have started, or would start for a number of good teams, playing to demonstrate exactly that. McGahee and Reed are a good foundation, the coaching staff seems to have a clue, the D is solid, likewise Special Teams (and the O-Line was better than expected). I hate to admit it, but Jerry Sullivan may be right. The hardest thing to get in the NFL is an elite QB, and the Bills don't seem to have one.

From Artie Shaw's obit: ""People ask what those women saw in me," Mr. Shaw said in an interview with The New York Times. "Let's face it, I wasn't a bad-looking stud. But that's not it. It's the music; it's standing up there under the lights. A lot of women just flip; looks have nothing to do with it. You call Mick Jagger good-looking?"

"[P]art of what's so nice to run in Buffalo," for as long as I've been doing it has been Michael Beebe's column. I spend a lot of time in other cities reading other city's sports sections, and I've never seen anything quite like it-- sometimes it had useful tips, sometimes it had news about the local running scene, sometimes it just had news about upcoming races, but it was always worthwhile, and always an important part of the local running scene. At every race there was always a vague buzz about something that had been in "Beebe's column". Buffalo prides itself as being a good sports town, and there is no question that it has a great running scene. I wish that the great running scene got better coverage, but there is no way that Beebe can be faulted for the gaps-- for my money his column was one of the few consistently worthwhile parts of the Buffalo News, and I'll miss reading it.