He’s just a man, and not a freak…

Nothing much new today. Seeing the oil refinery explosion and realizing that oil isn’t going to pull back below $90 anytime soon. My strategy is to wait for the next big pullback, hopefully into the mid 80’s and then, assuming that that pullback pulls down MRO Marathon Oil to a nice, sub-45 price, I load up on some Marathon Oil and am pretty certain I’ll see it at 60 sometime in the next 12 months. Remember though, I’m no Jim Kramer.

Also trying to figure out a way to see Liverpool-Inter tomorrow at 2:45pm here Eastern Standard Time or Daylight Time or whatever. Options now are to see if Fox Soccer Channel will air it and tape it while at work. The other option is to go to work at 5am and not take a lunch (mostly don’t anyway) and then ride down to the Bronx at 2:30 and go to Rory Dolan’s and watch it. That’s where I saw them win the European Cup in 2005. Which reminds me. I had thought to list my “top greatest sports thrills” list, for anyone who cares. Here goes:

And this is just me, ok?

Curling Sweeps Nation

It’s About Time, Sports Fans

I absolutely LOVE this. I have been hoping for years that American fans get together and do something similar. Maybe now with the internet, there is hope for us.

What am I talking about? Well, at the FA Cup Final (Britain’s Superbowl) at Wembley on May 19, the fans of Manchester United and Chelsea will be boycotting ALL of the non-ticket purchases at the Cup Final. As the English say every 5 minutes or so, “Brilliant!” The prices are too high and so they have gotten organized and decided not to buy any of it.

Prices at sporting events all over the country are out of control but somehow, dopey fans like us still pay them. Things like 15 to park at RFK in Washington. 10 for a beer at Yankee stadium. 15 for a clam roll in Fenway. Match programs that cost over 10 dollars and have no place to actually score the game! It’s insanity. And while they can charge whatever they want, we don’t have to pay it.

This fall at the playoffs, I snuck a huge bag of M&M’s into Shea Stadium in the front of my jeans, where I was pretty sure they wouldn’t pat me down. I bought one soda all night. 4 bucks. Ouch. I always try to eat before a game and to smuggle in candy or peanuts in my pants or my wife’s purse. But why should I have to resort to this nonsense?

American fans need to band together and protest some of these prices. Organize a day where no one goes to the park or no one buys any concessions or merchandise. Hit them where they are hitting us. Baseball has a monopolistic element in that if I’m a Met fan, there ain’t no candy store across the street I can go to. And once in their building, I am a prisoner for up to 4 hours and they are taking advantage of that. It ain’t right. But we have no one to blame but ourselves because we go like lemmings and pay it.

I will be closely following this boycott and wish it all the luck in the world. Good job Chelsea and ManU supporters. –fog

There is a season

This is the time of year that people will start yammering away at you for little reason about who they’ve picked in the NCAA office pool. Memo to all those guys: I don’t CARE who you “have” in the tournament.

Take me out to the rink

In the last week, I’ve attended 2 NHL games with my brother Ed and my nephew Max. He’s a big hockey fan and although I prefer baseball, we got real good Devils seats given to us and went out. I had such a good time that tonight, I drove us out to The Nassau Mausoleum and it was an interesting contrast, seeing the two so close together.  I kind of always wanted to see the place.  I had never been.  The Isles won 4 straight Stanley Cups and since that was really pre-Devils and my household hated the Rangers (because after you meet a Ranger fan, it’s kind of hard not to), so we rooted hard for the Bossy-Potvin-Arbour gang.  It took Gretzky to break that run up, no?  Anyway, here’s what I learned:

Valentine’s Day is a Scam

Nick is ripping me because I’m going to a Devils-Canadians game on Valentine’s Day. I countered with the fact that V-Day (as opposed to VE Day or VJ Day) is a made up holiday that primes the pump for the (1) Card (2) Flower and (3) Chocolate industries.

 

Nick says, “…how can you leave your pregnant wife home on Valentine’s Day to go to a hockey game?”

 

I said, “…ahh, I think Mrs. Pinetar is ok with it and anyway, we have several, random, ‘Mrs. Pinetar Days’ sprinkled throughout the calendar. To me, that is much more meaningful than St. Hallmark’s Day.

 

Besides, every Valentine’s day I think of my high school buddy who died in a ski avalanche at Telluride, on SVD in 1989.

 

Readers: Is this bad? Is Foggy way off? Women too, let’s hear from you. I was told to move my bloggy stuff to this site so people could comment on my stuff and yet the same 10 people are doing all the commenting! You won’t get spammed for putting in an email address. If you worry about that, take 5 minutes and set up a quick yahoo mail account for the sign up. C’mon. –fog