Lou Pickney's Online Commentary
Permission To Leave The House
Saturday
September 28, 2002
"Insomniacs should always travel abroad"
-Adam Duritz
"Everyone has that one buddy who constantly makes up lame excuses because his wife or girlfriend won't let him leave the house"
-Bill Simmons
"Even though it's complicated
We've got time to start again
I don't know if you can hear me
Some things I'd change but it's too late"
-Teenage Fanclub "Start Again"
"Florida is more southern than the South"
-Pittsburgh native Carli Segelson, at work on Friday
It was great to see everyone who came out last night for Ted Daniel & Amy Leone's going-away party at Mangroves. I hadn't been there before, but it's a nice place. Very much in the typical Hyde Park mold, but classy and fun. An interesting mix of people from work showed up, which created an unusual but nonetheless enjoyable variety.
As for Ted, he's an excellent reporter, and whatever station that ends up with him next will be gaining a good worker. So good luck to Ted...
Waiting on a major decision to come down next week that should have a major impact on my long-term future in Tampa. From a personal standpoint, I really hope it works out. I love Tampa; this is a very fun place to live. But like Velvet mentioned in an e-mail this week, everything happens for a reason. I'd like to believe that's true. So we'll see.
As I type this, Iowa is putting a beating down on Penn State. Gotta love the unpredictability of college football. Louisville's win over FSU on Thursday night was great as well. I'm all about a non-BCS team putting a beating on a Top 5 squad. WTSP midday producer (and FSU grad) Alexander Quince is lucky he happened to have Friday off from work. The trash talk would've been great...
The hits keep on rolling in for the Hot Talk portion of my webpage. It's remarkable to see how much the traffic on here has increased since it became listed in Google and other similar search engines. September is blowing away all previous months as far as hits and what not go.
Tried a new cereal called Honey Frosted Mini-Wheats.. and I'm sad to report it's a major disappointment. Stick with the regular Frosted Mini-Wheats, I say.
I caught the end of the Lakers/Sixers Game 6 of the 1980 NBA Finals on CBS last night on ESPN Classic. The NBA needs to bring back that funk-guitar theme music for this year. I'm sure that'd go over well with ABC.
Have you caught the latest season of Survivor? I really lost interest in the show when they rushed Seasons 3 and 4 to air back-to-back so quick. But... this time around I'm enjoying it. Not in a Season 1 and 2 kind of way, but nonetheless it's TV worth watching. Mark Burnett and the production team are very smart about the way they put things together. With that said, I hope they don't pull a switcheroo with the tribes this time around. That only served to really confuse me and all the other casual viewers.
Can't wait for the Devil Rays season to come to an end. Two reasons-- one it'll mean that Phil Hendrie will get his full 6-10 PM timeslot back on 970 WFLA, and two it'll mean the onset on playoff baseball. And I love playoff baseball. Regular season is more or less boring to me (one out of 162 games is not that big in the grand scheme of things). But make it best-of-5 or best-of-7, and then we're talking. Scott Massey mentioned to me that he wishes they'd do away with baseball and hockey and just have football and basketball year-round. I don't agree with that, but still it's hard to argue about wishing we had NFL in that type of capacity. He's more of an NBA fan than I am, so that can be expected. Normally I'm the super-knowledgable (or pseudo super-knowledgable) sports fan in a given group of friends or conversation, so it's good I suppose to have Scott put me in my place from time to time when he starts referencing obscure b-ball players whose names are completely unfamiliar to me. Time to read more of the sports page, I guess.
I'm getting excited about the big trip to Nashville next weekend. Of course work just so happened to schedule a pair of meetings for that Friday morning. They never do that, so naturally it falls on a weekend where I can't go. That's the breaks, eh. I've confirmed that I have Christmas off -- hope to find out soon if I'll be able to land the two days after as well (I've had a request in for that since February, so I figure finding out by October isn't an unreasonable wish).
Right now Miss. State is losing at LSU. C'mon Bulldogs. It's on the jabroni JP Sports "game of the week" deal (broadcast locally on WBBA), but at least it's on here. I was hoping to see them riding a winning streak going into the Troy State game I'm going to in two weeks.
Is there a worse insult that comparing someone's ability to Ryan Leaf? Well I'm sure there is, but it was a perfect analogy in describing someone in a conversation on Friday. Inexplicably sought after and desired, drafted high, and proving to be an absolute bust, complete with attitude. About the only worse sports-related description to be saddled with would be Bill Buckner, or even worse than that, Doug Christie. Incidentally, Neal Boling gets the Doug Christie jersey for pussing out on going to the Mangroves party last night. Neal, buddy, you tell me you're "domesticated". No disrespect, but I think there's another word for it man...
Please, someday if I meet the right girl and get hitched, don't let me become one of those guys who suddenly disappears from the social scene and drops out of sight. Please. It's happened way too much to friends of mine in the past few years.
Time to figure out what the plan is for tonight. Until later...
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