KRAC Blog

For sale on e-Bay: DKNY Men's Leather Pants I Unfortunately Own. "I have not worn these leather pants for the following reasons:

I am not a member of Queen.

I do not like motorcycles.

I am not Rod Stewart.

I am not French.

I do not cruise for transvestites in an expensive sports car.

These were not cheap leather pants. They are Donna Karan leather pants. They're for men. Brave men, I would think. Perhaps tattooed, pierced men. In fact, I'll go so far as to say you either have to be very tough, very gay, or very famous to wear these pants and get away with it." (Via The Morning News.)

An alphabetical listing of Turkey Trot finishers, 1981 to date. It looks like I'll be out of town for it this year, which makes me sad. (My 10:17 in 1996 was the year I was in the picture on the front page of the Buffalo News. I developed pneumonia and broke a rib from coughing. Good times.)

I guess this is just about the point in a typical Bills season where we say, "Maybe not this year." I saw flashes yesterday, but a free 30 yards on the Falcons first touchdown drive? Arrgghh! This is about the level of team that the Bills need to beat if they are going to be competative-- I'd say that Atlanta is probably no better than the fifth or sixth AFC team this year, and we know that Buffalo isn't going to play up to the level of the Colts or New England or Pittsburgh or, I guess, Cincinnati or San Diego.

An amusing gallery of error messages, via Bifurcated Rivets 

Inspiration. Others may wish to go here, here or here.. Or here. 

Good luck to Judy and Tom at the Lake Placid Half Marathon tomorrow! I can't wait for the pictures.

Looks like bad news for Billy "the Mime" Altreuter!


. . . Sorry, I just had to work that in somewhere.

When the Lake Placid Half was conflicted out of my schedule my Plan B was to run the Baltimore Half in mid-October. That's not going to work, either, so Plan C was Philly, in November. Philly, it turns out, offers the choice of a full marathon or an 8k. Obviously I'm not running the whole shot, and I really don't see a trip to the City of Brotherly Love for an 8k the week before Thanksgiving either. Damn. I wanted one more long race this year.

A reminder (because I needed one): the Linda Yalem is September 25, 2005. Last year I ran and Jim piped the runners in. This year it'd be a nice recovery run for Judy and Tom. 

King Kaufman makes some nice points in his annual NFL predictions column-- or, at least, some points that sound good to me in my regularly scheduled state of wishful thinking: "Just as the NFC East comes down to "Can anyone catch Philadelphia?" the AFC East is a matter of "Can anyone catch New England." Only in the AFC East, there are actually some candidates.

"The Bills went 9-7 last year despite a 1-5 start. They went into the final game of the season on a six-game win streak during which they simply abused people, beating the Seattle Seahawks by 29 points on the road, pounding the St. Louis Rams by 20, the Browns by 30, the San Francisco 49ers by 34.

"They outscored opponents 228-89 during the streak. Those foes ranged from mediocre to astonishingly bad, but I don't care if you're playing the Little Sisters of Charity, 38-15 is a pretty impressive average score.

"All the Bills had to do was beat Pittsburgh in their last game to make the playoffs. The Steelers were 14-1, but they rested their first string. The Bills lost, and stayed home.

"The Buffalos bring back their powerful defense, maybe the best in football, and powerful runner Willis McGahee. The big difference is at quarterback, where Drew Bledsoe has been replaced by J.P. Losman, a second-year man out of Tulane.

"It's rare for a young quarterback to step right in and succeed, but Losman is a good athlete with a strong arm, and he's in the right situation to be the exception, on a running team with a strong defense. Just ask Ben Roethlisberger. If he can keep his mistakes to a minimum and manage the ball-control attack, the Bills will be a playoff team."

Amen, King. Preach it, brother! The Jets will always be the Jets, and Miami has Ricky "Rastaman Vibration" Williams coming out of the backfield. Somebody is going to come in second in this division, and I can see this team beating up on some non-division opponents (Tampa Bay? Oakland? C'mon, they gotta be able to take Kerry Collins apart. October 2 against the Rupert Mundys?) I can see ten wins, I think, and that ought to do it. Plus they are taking the field against Houston in the old school helmets. That's some powerful mojo right there, isn't it?

Last Wednesday I was in Buffalo and Utica. Thursday I was in Utica, Saratoga and Lake Placid. Friday, Saturday and Sunday I was in Lake Placid. Monday and Tuesday I was in Brooklyn. Tomorrow I will be in NYC. Other upcoming trips between now and October 15th: Lake Placid, Baltimore, NYC, Bethel, VT and San Diego.

I'm starting to feel like Bill.

By the way, the Yanks aren't getting the pitching they need, and even if they squeeze into the wild card it won't be pretty. This weekend's series with Boston should be interesting.

Glub. That's the sound of the Amazin's season going down for the third time. Willie Randolph was quoted the other day as saying that things can turn around "at the drop of a dime," and while I don't think that means what he meant to mean, I also think that it is done, done, done for the Mets. If they can't win when they need to with their ace going for them, there is no reason to think that anybody could kick this particular mule in the ass and expect it to become a race horse. If they'd made it, I'd say Willie should have been Manager of the Year-- as it is, he showed the rest of baseball that he has been long overdue for a shot at managing a club. Meanwhile, the Yanks are getting shutouts by Arron Small. (And speaking of small, was that Randy Johnson getting dinged around last night?)

It's never to early to plan ahead. This year the Around the Bay will have an indoor finish, at center ice in Copps Coliseum. Spectator friendly!

Pedro Martinez has been a stud all season, and the Mets have utterly failed him, so I can't howl the way I'd like to howl about last night's game. It was painful last week to find myself surrounded by people in BoSox caps, particularly since (a)the Mats were on a West Coast swing, so the box scores were always a day late; and (ii) The Globe barely acknowledges the existence National League under the best of circumstances. The Mets have been having a tantalizing season-- almost good enough, but never quite there. I suppose I should be happy, since I reckoned they'd be doing well if they managed to flirt with .500, but instead I find myself thinking that they should be a Wild Card, and they could be even with the Tribe and the Yanks-- but they aren't. You can't even say that this is the kind of year that they can build on? Build on what? If your foundation is flukiness, you're living in Toonville.