Kira and Yukon

Some people have children. I have dogs.

I try to be conscious of the fact that I tend to talk about my dogs the way a lot of people talk about their kids. And as someone who's not a parent, there is nothing more annoying to me than some stupid schmuck who won't shut up about every last mundane minutiae of his child's existence. Mike Greenberg of ESPN just wrote a book called "Why My Wife Thinks I'm An Idiot," and I saw a comment on a message board from someone complaining that Greenberg fell into the trap of writing as if his wife "is the only woman in the world who's ever given birth." Or something to that effect. The point being that nobody gives a rat's ass about most of what happens with other people's kids. I mean, you never hear anyone strike up a conversation with someone, like:
"Say, Dave, how did your little Bleetus do on that social studies test? He didn't get tripped up trying to remember all the key exports of Kazakhstan, did he? Oh, that's too bad. And his soccer season is over? That's terrible! You'll have to let me know when his basketball season starts."

I'll give you a moment to quit wretching.

Better now? Good.

So, I realize talking about my dogs could get on people's nerves. But I think it says something about a person when they love animals enough to have one as a constant companion. Or two, in my case.

Kira and Yukon ... Abbott and Costello, Laurel and Hardy .... Dumb and Dumber. They're my two idiots. Kira is a golden retriever/border collie mix, and she got the worst of both. There's the constantly shedding golden retriever coat and the constantly hyper border collie personality. She came from the pound at about nine months old. Yukon is a chocolate lab who I've had since he was a puppy. He's pure bred and dense as drywall. You look in his eyes and you can see he's got a brain like a blunt instrument. I tell people (who no doubt get annoyed listening to it) that if Yukon could talk he'd sound like Milton from Office Space:

"I was told that I would be fed at some point today, but there is no food -- no food -- in my bowl."

Kira is an attention hound, who would spend most of her time in my lap if I'd let her. She's one of those dogs that'll poke her nose under your hand and demand to be petted. Yukon is a little more independent. But he often wants to sit right next me even if there's no room, and instead of giving me the nose poke, he'll stand there with this poor, miserable look on his face and stare at me until I feel sorry enough for him to move and give him some space. I always start out resisting, figuring he'll eventually go find somewhere else. And then I always cave. He's got a bit of a stubborn streak. I'm always amazed at the amount of time he'll stand there waiting.

They're both middle aged now. She just turned seven, he'll be six later this year. They get hyped up when I have people over (which keeps me from having people over!) but most of the time they're pretty mellow, all things considered. It's a far cry from when they were younger. Man, what a circus. Hours would go by and they'd be bouncing off the walls non stop. Thankfully, those days are history.

Sometimes I think about what it would be like if they weren't here. I have to get home at the end of the day to let them out and feed them. It's a commitment. But they're part of my life and have been since 2000. I'm not sure what it would be like without them. The other day I was in the bookstore and saw a book written by a journalist about the life, and eventually the death, of his yellow lab. First of all, I figure if he can write a book about his dog, I can post a blog entry. But putting that aside, for whatever frustrations I sometimes have with them, I can't imagine what it would be like without them.

And bearing that in mind, my co-workers better hope I never have kids. No doubt I'll give annoying a whole new meaning.

Olympics and NBC: Broken rings and a not-so-proud peacock

What if they held the Olympics and nobody gave a rat's ass?

Well, I suppose we're in the process of finding out. I'm not sure which is worse, trying to get interested in not-so-ambiguously gay figure skaters and sports that were invented five minutes ago for the X-Games or listening to media people pretending they're interested.

It's not that I dislike the events or that I care whether Johnny Weir is gay or not. I've got no problem with snowboarders or gays. I guess what bothers me is that it's disingenuous of the media to bombard us with coverage of events that they neither know anything about, nor would care about if they didn't have the word "Olympics" attached to them. But such is the price we pay for living in a 500-channel universe. All that air time demands something to blab about, and right now, this is what there is. Poor NBC -- the network of the Olympics. They're stuck with this crapfest. The other day I watched the increasingly annoying Katie Couric interview Dick Button about men's figure skating on the Today show. We've got insurgents setting off bombs every day in Iraq and the Vice President shooting people in the face and a midterm election coming up later this year and NBC is spending every waking minute on this frenzied, sickeningly self-promotional clucking about the Olympics.

By the way, if Katie gets the big chair over at the CBS Evening News -- as has been the rumor for months -- Edward R. Murrow will roll over in his grave.

As much as I like NBC, they don't have much of a track record when it comes to Olympic coverage. Remember in 1992 when they tried selling people on three pay-per-view channels of Summer Olympic coverage? It worked so well they never tried it again. But that was a long time ago. NBC's problems with these Winter Games are many. There's the fact that nobody follows any of these sports, for starters. But then there's the little problem of the six-hour time difference in a world of instant information. No Internet in 1992. No live stats on the Web. No 24-hour ESPN News Network. Every day, NBC's people -- like IDIOTS -- are telling you to look away from the screen while they flash the results of events they're not going to show for hours.

News flash: It doesn't work anymore. Nobody is going to wait if they're at all interested. To me, it's the same concept that doomed the Star Wars prequels. The idea of waiting three years to find out what happened to Luke Skywaker worked in 1977. But not in 1999. And Jar Jar Binks didn't exactly help the cause either. But we were a more patient society 30 years ago. And, of course, back then we had an enemy to defeat at the Olympics. No more Soviets, no more drama.

Today, for drama, we look to American Idol and Dancing With the Stars -- proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that it doesn't take much to keep us entertained.

I shot the sheriff, but I did not shoot no Texas lawyer

So, the vice president shot a guy. Should we be surprised? Al Franken did a bit at the beginning of his show yesterday talking about how if it had been Bush that Cheney had shot, Bush probably would have tried to shoot back. And they would have ended up blasting at each other like a scene from a Tarantino movie. I'm just surprised Vice President Pace Maker didn't have a heart attack from the shock of the moment. What does it say about us that the No. 2 person in our government is running around in a field with a rifle and apparently not looking too closely at where he's firing? It's not enough for him that he and his cronies turned Iraq into a pile of rubble, he's got to go hunting on top of it. If he wants to shoot guns so badly, he should catch the next transport to Baghdad.

I pity the fool that don't eat my cereal!

OK, I'm in a bit of a weird mood tonight. I'm thinking about snow and cereal and Mr. T -- I watched an old rerun of The A-Team on TVLand today. Don't ask me why.

Like I said -- a weird mood. And to top it off, I've got the Olympics on TV, but it looks more like the X Games, because I'm watching snowboarding right now. When did snowboarding become an Olympic sport? I guess if curling made it, anything is possible.

So it snowed a good foot and a half and they still haven't brought a plow down my street yet. I'm hoping to get to work again sometime before the end of this month. It's so much snow, everyone on my street quickly ran out of places to shovel it all, and a fight almost broke out this afternoon over it because some moron got all territorial when one of the neighbors started dropping snow where he'd just shoveled.

The other day I was in the grocery store, and people were buying up bottled water and bread because they don't know what to do with snow here in Maryland. And I walked down the cereal aisle and stopped in my tracks when I saw -- I'm not making this up -- Pirates of the Caribbean cereal. It's chocolatey and it's got marshmellows, and I'm thinking, what the hell does this cereal have to do with the Caribbean? Shouldn't it be tropical fruit flavored? I think this was just Kelloggs' excuse to put out another cereal full of chocolate and marshmellows and enough sugar in one serving to put a healthy 200-pound man into a diabetic coma. Who the hell came up with the idea of putting marshmellows in cereal in the first place? Marshmellows! There's a food that just screams breakfast.

Then I noticed another thing in the cereal aisle. First, I saw Yogurt Burst Cheerios, where you get pieces coated with yogurt. And then I saw Yogurt Crunch Life. So obviously this is now the latest thing in cereal. You didn't know that? Yeah, I guess I missed the memo too. So look out for Yogurt Raisin Bran and Yogurt Chex Mix and Total with Yogurt.

And maybe even Pirates of the Caribbean with Tropical Fruit flavored Yogurt -- official breakfast cereal of the Winter X Games ... er, Olympics.

Super Steelers

It is nearly midnight on Super Bowl Sunday. I'm typing in a dark room in Maryland. Pittsburgh, no doubt, is lit up and alive, its entire population dancing in the streets. In Morgantown, which is still Steelers territory, they're probably burning couches in celebration.

The Steelers first four Super Bowl titles are history, part of the lore of the game. And perhaps once the title they won tonight is behind us a little, it'll mean more than it does right at this moment. It's almost as if I want to say, "is that all there is?" Their victory against Seattle was sloppy, the result of some fortunate twists ... a foot out of bounds here, or a timely penalty there. But then, that's the nature of the Steelers' entire postseason run. If not for a one-in-a-million tackle by Ben Roethlisberger against the Colts and a once-in-a-hundred missed field goal by Mike Vanderjagt, the Steelers never would have made the AFC title game. So it was fitting they won the way they did.

But at the same time, they won with the kind of electrifying plays that become the stuff of Super Bowl legend. Willie Parker's long touchdown run and Antwan Randle El's gorgeous reverse pass to Hines Ward are destined to rank among the Super Bowl's most memorable plays. And they'll be part of Steelers' lore, right there along with the Immaculate Reception, Lynn Swan's graceful effort against the Cowboys in Super Bowl 10 and John Stallworth's long bomb from Terry Bradshaw in Super Bowl 14. A new chapter of Steelers history has been written.

And another chapter ended tonight, as Jerome Bettis played his final game. His class, his work ethic, his willingness to sacrifice part of his salary the last two years in order to help the team sign other players ... he will take a place in Pittsburgh sports history alongside Willie Stargell, Roberto Clemente, Jack Lambert and Mario Lemieux.

I barely remember those Steelers titles of yesteryear. And I wasn't really attached enough to the Penguins to revel in their success. Hell, I didn't even actually see any of those games the two years they won the Stanley Cup, such was the pathetic state of the NHL's television coverage at the time. I was in college in Ohio, and I found out they won the first one, in 1991, by seeing the final score of the last game of the series on ESPN's :28 and :58 crawl at the bottom of the screen. But this one this year with the Steelers is different. I've followed these guys the whole way. Seen every up and down. I know their stories, their histories. These aren't just the Steelers. They're my Steelers. I actually feel like I own this one. The other four titles belong to another generation.

Now if we can just get a championship for the Pirates .... here's hoping whatever power there is didn't dole out all the miracles to the Steelers, because the Buccos are going to need a few.

Super Bowl Eve

OK, so it's not quite Super Bowl Eve yet ... close enough. Maybe it will be by the time I finish and post this. The game carries an extra meaning for me this year because I grew up in Pittsburgh and have lived and died (mostly died) with the Steelers for years. Sure, the Steelers have a great history -- the 1970s, four Super Bowl wins in six seasons. I was in second grade in January 1980, the last time Pittsburgh won the Super Bowl.

Things got bad for the Steelers after that. We're talking Mark Malone and Bubby "I ain't no mop-up man" Brister. All the while, we lived in the past. We rested on the laurels of those great Super Bowl teams and we expected the impossible of the mediocre squads the Steelers put on the field through most of the 1980s. There were nice playoff runs in 1984 and 1989. But we all knew it wasn't the same.

Then came Cowher and things finally got good again in the 1990s. But not quite good enough. How does Neil O'Donnell throw those two interceptions in Super Bowl 30, with the game on the line? How do you lose the AFC championship game at home four times?

It's all been leading up to this season. That's the thing about sports -- sometimes you don't understand things fully until enough time has passed -- until there's a chance to look at things with some perspective. When the Steelers became a force in the 1970s, it came after decades of futility. It was the reward for enduring years of frustration. It wasn't meant to come easily for Pittsburgh. It was meant to happen the way it did. Now, these last two seasons -- the rise of Big Ben and the development of the team into a multi-faceted threat -- this is the reward for so many playoff losses. It wasn't meant to be easy for this generation of Steelers either. They're a chip off the old block.

I only wish I could be home to experience what these last few weeks have been like. I'm sure I didn't have an appreciation for it when I was a little kid. But I think I got a taste of what it must have been like during the Penguins' Stanley Cup years. I remember during the summer of 1991, the city was still buzzing. I remember walking through downtown that July and so many storefronts still had their windows decorated with Penguins' stuff. Nobody wanted to let that feeling go. It's probably 100 times more intense these last few weeks for the Steelers. The place must be electric.

Wish I was there.

Hey Subway -- Eat This!

OK, I've eaten enough Subway sandwiches to help keep the place in business for at least a few years, but I'll be eating less of them now that they've phased out their Subway Stamps. You go in there now and they hand you some card that you scratch off, and for reasons that pass understanding, they have these Chinese fortune-cookie like messages on them. And then you've got to go online and type in some numbers to find out if you won anything. What the hell is that? Give me my stamps and my Subway card. Of course, those little stamps used to show up everywhere. In my car, in my desk drawer at work ... I can't remember the last time I dug into my wallet and didn't find a few of them crushed and folded over and stuck together. I lost track of how many times I was short on cash and managed to scrape together enough of those stamps to get a free sandwich. And now those days are gone forever. Thanks a lot Subway.

Quizno's rules!