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Tuesday
June 24, 2003

One of the worst feelings out on the road is to look up and see a cop pointing his radar gun at you. Ugh. The Tampa PD decided to do a little ballbusting this morning on the commuters going to work on the Crosstown Expressway. As if paying to drive on that road isn't bad enough, the boys in blue had to ruin the mornings of a number of people.

Maybe it's my lucky day, though, because amazingly I escaped without a ticket. I happened to be passing a slow driver at that point, and soon after I saw a squad car throw on its flashing lights. I pulled over, expecting a ticket. But, miraculously, the roller kept on going past me. Close one there. Just ahead there was a motorcycle officer on either side of the road, writing a ticket for the poor driver who had the misfortune of hitting the speed trap. Don't tell me that cops don't have ticket quotas.

My column on last night's Yankees/Devil Rays game has already drawn comment. This came from my friend Brook Gardiner in New York, NY:

Jim Leyritz
Jim Leyritz's home run in Game 4 spurred a Yankees comeback and turned the tide of the 1996 World Series.
"I find it absolutely astonishing that in an article about the Yankees and Devil Rays game, there is absolutely ZERO mention of the fact that the Yankees are your favorite team. This is a far cry from the Lou I know from Yankee Stadium in the summer of 1998. In addition, I also find it quite surprising that you almost TURNED DOWN a chance to see the Yankees given your past history. Is this a sign that your allegiances are changing? even more, could you be ..... da da dum... A FAIR WEATHER FAN???"

A fair weather fan? Hardly. Actually I was trying to describe the events of last night from an objective perspective for the sake of the column.

To set the record straight, I've been a Yankees since the summer of 1988, when my friend Joe Martin gave me a pair of Yankees wristbands at Oak Hill Day Camp. He was a Yankees fan, and so I ended up becoming a Yankees fan as well. Now in case you don't remember, the Yankees of the late 1980s weren't exactly a stellar team. They had first base superstar Don Mattingly... but unfortunately that wasn't enough to get them to the post-season in that era.

October 26, 1996
October 26, 1996 was a great day for Yankees fans everywhere.

My favorite Yankees team has to be the 1996 squad that came back from a 2-0 series deficit against the Atlanta Braves to win the World Series. The Saturday night that the Yankees won the World Series over the Braves is one of my favorite evenings from 1996, if not the past 10 years. Everything was flowing right that night. Good memories.

But as great as the championship Yankee teams of the past few years were, I'm certainly not a fair weather fan. For me, having the offer to go see the Yankees play came while I was at work and just an hour before the first pitch. It meant having to turn my entire evening upside down and sacrificing sleep. I know, you're probably thinking "cry me a river". But realize also that I was in Tampa, and Tropicana Field is way down in St. Petersburg. While spur of the moment can be fun, I did question if it would be a good idea to go to the game. As it turned out, it was a fun time, even though my Yankees lost. Hearing Devil Rays fans talk smack was worth the price of admission alone.

And rest assured, seeming fair weathered or not, I still get the business when the Yankees struggle and especially when they get bounced in the post-season. That's what I get for having friends and family who are Orioles fans (or worse, very bitter Indians fans). For example, in 1997 my friend Glenn Brown sent me a full page e-mail filled with HA HA HA HA when the Indians beat the Yankees in the post-season. I have two words for that, though: Florida Marlins. Now that's something to laugh about.

NHL 2003
NHL 2003 is tougher to play than you might think.
My lifetime record in NHL 2003 for the PS2 is 0-2 following a pair of losses against Scott Massey last night. The game has some nice features, though it plays decidedly slower than I'd like. I felt like my guys were stuck in molasses. I imagine that there's a learning curve to it all, but overall the game really didn't do it for me. Of course, maybe that's just sour grapes because I lost. I think I need to break out NHL '97 and have some old school hockey fun.

I watched Sex and the City on Sunday night, and as I mentioned in Sunday's column, that show has really fallen off. The first two seasons were outstanding, but then the egos got big and the clothes stayed on alot more. And don't get me started on the gay dude sub-plot (some hot girl-on-girl I can handle, but c'mon, this isn't Queer As Folk). Plus, to make matters worse, they added a baby to the plot. Isn't that the time-tested sign that a show has jumped the shark? I suppose that it's an obvious potential consequence for all that sex in the city, but enough is enough.

Kristin Davis
Sex and the City's Kristin Davis is gorgeous.
If HBO really wanted to cash in, they should just put all of the nude/sex scenes together in a little montage show. Call it "Sex and the City's Hottest Moments" or something. Sadly, Sarah Jessica Parker has from the beginning refused to get naked for the show (BOOOO!), but hey, can't win 'em all.

My plan is to someday write a Sex & The City-esque book, only based around the lives of four guys chasing women in a big city (or even a medium-sized city, like Tampa). Turn that into a TV series and see what happens. No problem with getting the female nudity; enlist some talented but poorly connected D-list actresses. If their ego gets a little too big and they decide to turn into a prude, then write them out and let them go back to waiting tables. I tell you what, this idea could be solid gold.

Matt Drudge's radio show on Sunday night was amusing. He had some sound clips from Sex & The City, and while I didn't agree with his argument about its place in prime time television, he argued his points well. Personally, I applaude HBO for not giving in to puritanical pressure. But Drudge had some interesting information about the weekend's box office numbers (including From Justin To Kelly, which came in at an embarrassing 11th place finish on its opening weekend), and his Hillary Clinton soundbyte montage was excellent. And I'm not sure who picks out Drudge's bumper/background music, but the person responsible does an excellent job.

One final thought, from the world of summer network television: the woman who's the host of NBC's Dog Eat Dog (Brooke Burns) is really, really, really hot. NBC made a great casting choice with her...


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