SageAgainstTheMachine

Jalapenos, I love. Habaneros are intense, but I can tolerate them. Dude, put the ghost chili down and step away. I made the arrogant mistake of trying bhut jolokia before building up enough of a tolerance...I swear, I thought my eyes were going to pop right out of my skull. Including broken bones, torn ligaments and a shot to the groin by a golf ball (true story) this was the most unpleasant physical experience of my life.

Your son shares a birthday with Don Mattingly. And Hitler!

I don't think I've ever seen a team fall ass-backwards into a win quite like that. For anybody who didn't catch the game, The Avalanche get outshot 51-17 and then win in the first minute of OT because Sharks defenseman Dan Boyle puts it in his own net. I wonder if the NHL should officially mark this series as 1-1-1, instead of 2-1 Colorado. 1 win for the Avalanche. 1 win for the Sharks. 1 win for Craig Anderson. My money is still on the Sharks winning this series, and then eventually losing to the Blackhawks in the conference finals.

Howard, I have to admit I just forgot. Blatant omission. Rollins is a borderline star. He's got an MVP that he probably didn't deserve, and he's only the 3rd or 4th best hitter on his own team. Not what I'd call a star.

See, I'm not a Braves fan but I find it odd that you don't cite Maddux as a favorite. You could make a case for him being the most dominant pitcher of his era (though I personally think he's third to Clemens and Johnson), and unlike those guys he was a very popular teammate and quality human being to boot.

And honestly, baseball needed this. With the departure of Bonds and Griffey's game all but gone, baseball needs another black superstar. As of right now, there's Sabathia and basically nobody else that fits into the "star" category. Heyward and the Upton brothers might be able to fill this role.

Interesting, I'd never heard of those places. Seems west-coasty, is that where they're at?

Well if you lead an active lifestyle, you probably need more than 2,000 calories per day anyway. Counting calories isn't an exact science (an oversimplification, really) but here's a nifty calculator to use as a rule of thumb... http://walking.about.com/cs/calories/l/blcalcalc.htm I'm 6 foot 1, about 190 pounds, get about an hour of exercise each day...so I'm just above 3,000 calories per day.

No, it's not. I just don't like the notion of them telling us that eating buckets of KFC chicken is somehow going to HELP the fight against cancer. Unfortunately, people eat fast food for three reasons... 1. They're conditioned to think, the fattier the tastier. 2. It's cheap. 3. It's quick I wish there was a cheap, quick restaurant that sold legitimately healthy food, as opposed to your standard burgers, fries, fried chicken, etc. People are never going to stop eating fast food. Never. It's a permanent part of the American ethos. But shouldn't there be a joint where you can get couscous or quinoa instead of french fries? I saw another KFC commercial this morning, for something called the "Double Down Sandwich". Basically it's a "sandwich" where the bread is two huge pieces of fried chicken, and the sandwhich material is bacon, cheese, and some sort of mayo. Honestly people...this is what we're putting in our bodies? This generation of children is the first in centuries that will have a lower life expectancy than their parents, and it's because of sh*t like the Double Down Sandwich. Last night for dinner, I had a nice piece of grilled chicken breast, with sides of broccoli and brown rice pilaf. It was as cheap a dinner as you can imagine (probably cost the same as a KFC meal), didn't take long to prepare, and tasted good. Who knew you could eat chicken without the heart attack inducing fried skin??? Sorry for the rant, folks.

I don't have a ton of sympathy for people who abuse fast food and suffer health consequences. Even without the proper information (which virtually everybody knows at this point), it should be apparent which foods are bad for you just based on how they make your body feel. Fast food might be good to your tastebuds, but everybody who's eaten it a few times knows how lazy/crappy you feel afterwards. This isn't even to mention the obesity. People eat fast food 10 times a week and then wonder why they weigh 300 pounds or more? I just don't like the hypocrisy of KFC, trying to pretend like they're out for society's best interest. If they wanted to do something to prevent cancer, they'd shut down operations.

We used to do pangrams (sentences that use all 26 letters of the alphabet) like... The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

Just saw an advertisement on TV for KFC's "Buckets for the Cure", which will donate money to breast cancer research. Fatty, salty foods (especially from fast food joints) have been proven to be a major contributor to heart disease, strokes, high blood pressure, along with almost every type of cancer (there's a reason Americans suffer so much more cancer than the rest of the world). I just think it's funny that KFC is pretending to give a flying f*ck about anybody's health. If they had their way, we'd all spend 50% of our income at their restaurant and die at the age of 40.

I wouldn't sleep on the Mavericks...I believe they were the NBA's best team in the second half of the season.

Am I the only Bobcats fan on the board? After a miserable existence as a franchise, they finally scratched and clawed their way to the playoffs. The Cats aren't an offensively talented team, but seem to have a way of beating elite teams. They're 3-1 against the Cavaliers this season, and they've won 6 out of their last 7 against the Lakers. The smart money is on the Magic to win this 2-7 matchup, but don't be shocked if the Bobcats force a game 7 (they're GREAT at home) or even win the series.

Ok thanks...but that's just a bad example on my part. Being an offensive juggernaut is not a prerequisite for winning the cup. The Sabres are above average on offense, great on defense, and elite at goaltender. On special teams, they are mediocre on the power play and elite on the penalty kill. That's a formula that can win the Stanley Cup, no matter what the haters want to say.

Leonard Little, is that who you're thinking of?

I disagree wholeheartedly. Like most, I think the offense alone isn't talented enough to win the Stanley Cup. But I also don't think it's an albatross that will weigh us down. Our scorers won't put up 5 or 6 per game in the playoffs, but they can easily pot enough goals to support Miller and the defense. After all, defense and goaltending win championships. Just ask the Devils.

Yeah. Poor Lakers fans.

The offense isn't "anemic". Not out-of-this-world like the Capitals or Blackhawks, but not anemic. Didn't we rank 10th in goals scored this season?

I'm of this generation, so I learned at home when I was 6 and at school when I was 8. If you work at it long enough it becomes complete muscle memory, even to the point where you fix mistakes just as quickly as you type regularly. My Dad is a meteorologist, so he's constantly on computers...but for some reasons he still chooses to hunt and peck. I've encouraged him vigorously to learn typing, but he's just resistant to it for some reason. To me, it's a compulsory skill for our modern times.

I went for a hike up at Buttermilk Falls here in Ithaca (great trail if anybody is familiar with it), partially to clear my head. Along the way, I encountered a young couple with a 5 year old daughter and a little Australian Shepherd puppy out for its first walk. I guess the universe just felt like rubbing it in my face. Seriously though, it sort of just reminded me of the circle of life. Life ends, and then begins anew. I had my First Dog experience, and now that little girl gets hers. Someday my child will have his/hers.

No, Shipley is white so he gets an exemption. It's actually an interesting dynamic...Texas players are stereotyped as being lazy, but white players are stereotyped as being "high motor". It just doesn't fit!

Maybe you can answer this for me Buftex, as I'm not familiar with the Celtics front office...who the f*ck thought that taking a team built on chemistry and adding Rasheed Wallace to the mix was a good idea? I mean, maybe he doesn't play enough minutes to hurt the team THAT much, but his style of lazy whiny play is so far gone from the ethos of the 2008 championship team that it's ridiculous. GO BOBCATS!

Sadie was a real dummy too, but we loved her for it because she tried her best. She saw the mailman through the window every day for 14 years and still barked every day like there was an invasion on the house. FedEx, UPS, other dogs, people jogging by...they all got the same treatment*. I never minded the barking too much though, because I know she was just (in her mind) protecting us from all the evils of the world. I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she would have died for us without so much as thinking about it. In that way, dogs offer a genuine loyalty that we almost never find among us fellow humans. *For whatever reason, the garbageman was the exception. She never once barked when they came around, and if she encountered a garbage truck on her morning walk she would excitedly wag her tail. It was the weirdest thing.

Happy birthday Chef! Don't go easy on the wine