Guess who I'm rooting for tonight at RIR??

I'll be at my first-ever Indy Car race later tonight at Richmond International Raceway. Two words, my friends---

GO DANICA!!!!!!!!!

Where do I go from here.....

....so much to talk about, so much to discern, decipher, and digest.

Let's start with this:

The Benoit Tragedy: Let's wait for the toxicology reports, let's wait for what answers we'll be able to get. Then we'll get a better idea of what made Chris a real murderer, instead of the actor "The Canadian Crippler". Even his father is stunned.

WWE: NO MENTION of "Mr. McMahon" tonight on Smackdown! Maybe he finally, finally got the message, though in the worst way imaginable, that you do NOT use death in a wrestling storyline. Ultimately, he (the character) would have returned. Would we be looking for the holes in his hands then? Disgusting.

What's worse is two weeks ago tonight I told my wife, "What will WWE do if there REALLY IS a death in pro wrestling while they're doing this stupid storyline??"

About 20 minutes later, I read of Sherri Martel's death. That was scary. No one dreamed of what would follow.

Vince McMahon needs to do one thing, and quickly. Tell the world that despite their testing measures, et al, WWE has failed in its attempts to keep wrestlers from as much "damaging" substances/behaviors that they can do.

Apologize, don't pledge, BEGIN better surveillance immediately, and, do what this writer at my choice for wrestling news on the 'Net says, begin giving wrestlers "...predictable vacations".

Trying to grasp......

.....I simply cannot get my arms around this entire tragic, horrific event involving Chris, Nancy, and Daniel Benoit.

There's so much fingerpointing and allegations, and we're what, less than 36 hours from the discovery of the scene? That bothers me. Alot.

Was it heinous to kill your child? YES! Are there any excuses for that? NO!!!

BUT....there is also possibly circumstances involved which do NOT explain or excuse this behavior, but may provide insight into the life going on behind the doors of the Benoit home.

The WWE is getting creamed in the media for putting on a "tribute" show to Benoit last night. They had an appropriate statement at the start of their ECW show tonight which you can also see at WWE.com.

I'm sorry. The bodies are discovered, mid-afternoon, and they have a show to do at 8pm live on USA Network (three hours instead of the usual two, I might add). Apparently not having all the details surrounding the Benoit family, they did what they have done in the past and looked back at his career.

Had they known what we all know now at 4pm Monday, would the show have been different? Probably. But for the Dan Abrams of the world (MSNBC tonight, in for Joe Scarborough) to say, "...while we were getting details here in the newsroom, they are showing a tribute show."

Well, for the 299 million of us NOT in a newsroom, we didn't know. The first report on pwtorch.com, an extremely well run pro wrestling news site which is unbiased in reporting, posted their link to the first AP report regarding the fact it was apparently a murder-suicide at 10:38pm ET, near the END of the show.

The report, found via a provided link to myfoxatlanta.com, was last updated on that site at 1116pm Monday night.

The WWE (and I RARELY defend them) did the best they could with regard to programming with so little time, and, until Benoit, each situation was simply "tragic" in nature, no matter what the reasons may be. Murder never entered the picture.

The move tonight online and on TV was the correct move. No more "tribute", considering all the circumstances. Good call.

But, to Dan Abrams-----YOU are ridiculing the WWE for their "tribute" show, but YOU were the network to air the Virginia Tech killer video???

Now, in fairness, I supported the initial decision to air that; NBC's HUGE mistake was putting their name and logo in the corner of all things VT killer, which, in news terms means, "all my competitors cannot use this material without acknowledging who they received it from".

So, Abrams should check his newsroom before shaking the finger.

After the Tech video scandal, Nightly News ratings have dropped even worse than Katie Couric's.

Yes, I missed it....

....there was no blog-a-thon over the weekend; I honestly just didn't have the heart, which concerns me very much. It's one of my enjoyable pastimes, but I was so tired....

....well, I turned 40, and I'm okay. We may look back, et al, we may not. But, I'm around. :)

It's almost time.......

We're one hour away from "the day".

June 23, 2007.

Coming up during tomorrow's birthday blog-a-thon:

The 1970s, The 1980s, The 1990s, and the 2000s.....

Where I was, what I did, who was around....

What in the "world" happened to me.....

...might even look ahead. :)

When you are 16, 21, even 30....you see "40" as light years away. Suddenly, though, the time zooms by and the day comes.

BRING IT ON!! Blog ya tomorrow!

WOW! Where have I been???

Yes, I am alive.
Yes, I am not in self-imposed solitary confinement awaiting the kiss of death on Saturday.
Yes, I'm working too much (and that's it for that conversation)

SO---looks like the rest of my reviewing, thinking, previewing, and blood pressure checks, will be done mostly in the once in a lifetime event known as:

BLOG A 40TH BIRTHDAY!!

That's right, join us Saturday for continual coverage of just another day in the history of the world.

Along with the tributes, the flashbacks, the what ifs, and the singing of the Girl from Ipanema......

---I'll discuss Robbie and I going to WWE Raw Monday night
---I'll introduce the NEWEST member of the Witham Nation (hint: another four-legger)
---I'll begin psyching myself up to lust after...I mean...root for Danica Patrick June 30th.

So, come on and join us during the day, or cure your insomnia Sunday afternoon and take it all in at once!

HEY LOOK---it will have MUCH BETTER TASTE than the Vince McMahon "death" angle on wrestling right now.

....1969 and beyond....

....and we move on, looking at what I hath...well, I didn't....I lived while it was wrought....

"I guarantee it."---Joe Namath.

January 12---Super Bowl III---Jets 16, Colts 7.
January 19---One of my all-time favorite people born.
January 20---Nixon inaugurated as President. For years in my youth, I thought Nixon was always President, because he's the only one I'd see anywhere!
February 4---Yassar Arafat becomes head of PLO---Pizza Hut stocks soar on news as they order hundreds of thousands of new tablecloths.....
February 5---The U.S. population hits 200 million (I, a tiny crumb, as it were...)
March 1---Mickey Mantle announces retirement
April 17---Sirhan Sirhan convicted for assassinating RFK
May 10---Apollo 10 sends first ever color pictures of Earth to..well, Earth!
May 11---The birth of Monty Python, creators of the greatest film ever made
June 3---Final episode of Star Trek on NBC (the show was just getting started...)
June 15---Hee Haw premieres. My Saturday nights are cemented for years to come.

Warren Burger becomes Chief Justice on birthday #2 (I later was at a dinner which he attended, 16 years later).

July 16---Apollo 11 lifts off.
July 18---Sen. Ted Kennedy goes off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, MA. Mary Jo Kopechne dies in the crash. She doesn't get to see....

July 20---Apollo 11 lands on lunar surface; Neil Armstrong steps onto lunar surface, opening the latest U.S. golf course.

NOTE: When they got back July 24th, the astronauts were placed in "biological isolation" for several days, to make sure they didn't bring back "lunar germs". They didn't.

August 15---Woodstock begins, bringing mud to an almost worship level for a new generation.

August 17---Hurricane Camille slams into Mississippi.
August 19---Camille dumps horrific amounts of rain in the Virginia mountains; crippling Nelson County, causing record flooding in Richmond on the James River, and set out to the Atlantic, passing Virginia Beach on 8/20.

September 6---H.R. Pufnstuf hits TV screens while I get yet another diaper change.
October 16---The "Miracle Mets" destroy my Orioles four games to one. Only they weren't my Orioles yet.
November 10---Sesame Street premieres, bringing me one step closer to my imaginary friend, Susan. Yes, I had a female imaginary friend. :) :)


Oh, crap--I'm older than:

Christy Turlington
WWE Superstar Batista
Marilyn Manson (I'm also much, much more handsome!)
Jennifer Aniston (..don't think she'd think me handsome...or even look in my general direction! Oh, well....)
Joe Buck (HE'S GOT MY JOB!!!)
Renee Zellweger
Cate Blanchett
Emmitt Smith
Tracey Gold
Steffi Graf
John LeClair
Jennifer Lopez
Triple H
Diane Farr (Numb3rs---she's PRETTY!!)
Rachel Hunter
Gwen Stefani
Brett Favre
Nancy Kerrigan
Juan Gonzalez (I saw him hit an HR in the Metrodome in 1998, his MVP year)
Ellen Pompeo (Greys Anatomy, one of wifey's 26 favorite TV shows)
Ken Griffey, Jr (we all thought HE would be in Barry Bonds' position today)
Mariano Rivera (those stinkin' Yankees)
Kristy Swanson

I'M AFRAID I CAN'T REMEMBER......

President Dwight Eisenhower
Maureen Connolly
Judy Garland
Mary Jo Kopechne
Sharon Tate
Rocky Marciano
Sonja Henie

Onto 1970.......

....now, where was I......

.....oh, yeah.....

Those things we've left behind in 40 years....

--Curles Neck Dairy (their milk was our milk in elementary school!)
--Siegels Supermarket (complete with blue chicken!! Thanks for the reminder, Bro!)
--Kelly's
--Burger Chef (and Jeff, too)
--Azalea Mall (that one hurt!)
--Trainham Chevrolet
--Beaverdam Ford
--World Championship Wrestling
--Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling
--one word "mimeograph"
--MacIntosh
--Commodore 64
--Beta
--LaserDisc
--the one-minute network television commercial
--Beaverdam Advent Christian Church
--Lums and Bonanza restaurants (though Bonanza lives elsewhere)
--fax paper (roll it!!)
--topping your gas tank
--the gas tank under the back license plate
--"clickers". Wanna know what they are?
--"visible" Scotch tape
--25 cent Coca-Cola bottles
--No three-point line in college basketball
--The Washington Senators
--The Montreal Expos
--The Seattle Pilots
--The Buffalo Braves
--The Kansas City/Omaha Kings
--The ABA (including the Virginia Squires, Carolina Cougars and Kentucky Colonels)
--The California Golden Seals
--The Kansas City Scouts
--The Minnesota North Stars
--The WHA (including the Winnipeg Jets)
--The World Football League (can you say "Shreveport Steamer"?)
--The United States Football League (the Washington Federals??---actually, did you watch the first USFL Championship Game? If so, who won? Tell me the final score!)
--Ray Bentley's Midnight Movies
--Ridge Cinema
--The Ashland Theatre (SHUT UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
--Chelsea (the first non-alcoholic beer....what?!!??)
--real country music (HA! Did I just say that??)

and....finally.....

--my youth.

Yikes!

....we bade farewell to what.....

,With all thanks to USA Today......

Here's a random thought list of things that were once in my life and now, are, well, kinda like me. Obsolete.

Some are in the USA Today 25, others not.

--The record player.
--The record player needle.
--The pennies used to weigh down the needle so it would correctly play the album or single. They (the pennies, that is) went on to other pastures, or piggy banks.
--The 45" single. Though I still have some of mine.
--Eight-Tracks. I recorded all my favorite songs on the radio in the early to mid 1980s on 8-Track because my stereo had one, and not a cassette deck. By decade's end, they were (teary-eyed) on their way to the county landfill.

The following businesses (at least they've left this area):

Food Fair
Giant Open Air Market
Big Star Food Store and/or Colonial Stores
Standard Drug
Thalhimers
Miller & Rhoads
The Home Shop
Sight n' Sound
Gary's
Woolco and Woolworth
Murphy's Mart/G.C. Murphy
Ames
Sinclair Gas
Esso (now Exxon, ah, ExxonMobil, whatever)
American (now Amoco, or BP-Amoco, whatever)
Richfood
Grins & Smiles & Giggles & Laughs
Piedmont Airlines
Eastern Airlines
Braniff
American Motors
Plymouth
Oldsmobile
Chevrolet Vega (thank you, Lord)
Ford Pinto (Praise God from whom ALL blessings flow!)
AMC Matador (one of my elementary school teachers drove one)
Chevrolet Corvair, Citation, Chevette (MY FIRST CAR!!!)
Ford Grand Torino, LTD, Falcon.....
Cash & Carry Grocery, Beaverdam, VA
United Virginia Bank/Crestar.....
Bank of Virginia/Signet.....
Virginia National Bank/F&M Bank/Sovran Bank.....
Central National Bank/Central Fidelity Bank....
Dominion Bank....
Ginny, the Green Machine
Highs Ice Cream (boo!!!)
Sealtest Ice Cream and Milk

and I'll work on more in the morning. Gotta eat and zzzzzzzzzz...........you know, when 40 looms, you gotta get your eats and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz's!

Looking Back, Looking Ahead, part 2.....

...in my life circa 1968...

1) The horrible photo of the shooting of a VietCong officer by a South Vietnamese National Police Chief. One more stake in the heart of continuing the Vietnam War.

2) The beginning of the Boeing 747 era; maiden flight February 8.

3) Walter Cronkite's CBS documentary on his time in Vietnam ends with a commentary by Cronkite saying, "But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could."

4) LBJ decides not to seek re-election, March 31.

5) Martin Luther King, Jr. lost.
6) Robert F. Kennedy lost.

7) Hey Broadway, here comes "Hair"!!, April 29

8) One more reason to buy bon-bons---"One Life to Live" premieres on ABC, July 15.

9) Republicans go Nixon early August, Democrats go Humphrey late August, and chaos hits the streets of Chicago. Well, it wasn't Hubert's fault.

10) Summer Olympics held in Mexico City, two U.S. track medalists offer the black power salute on the medal stand.

11) A young lady named Peggy Fleming enters the American psyche on the ice of Grenoble, France at the Winter Games. 40 years later, she's still hot. Wow..... :)

12) "Oliver!", the film version of the London musical, hits U.S. theaters. About 8 years later, I premiere on the stage of Beaverdam Elementary School as "Mr. Brownlow" in our award-winning stage presentation of said musical.

13) December 24 - Apollo Program: U.S. spacecraft Apollo 8 enters orbit around the Moon. Astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William A. Anders become the first humans to see the far side of the Moon and planet Earth as a whole. The crew also reads from Genesis. (Thanks Wikipedia!)

14) Imagine astronauts reading from Genesis Christmas Eve, 2007. Barry Lynn would be so mad he'd probably propel himself to the moon.

AND....

I turned one. My brother turned ten. I started walking, which meant falling face first onto the wood floor wasn't far behind. Let's just say I couldn't keep a "stiff upper lip" very much my first few years. :)

The Packers won Super Bowl II (which means my future favorites, the Raiders, lost), and Lombardi said so long.

The Tigers won the World Series, defeating the great Bob Gibson in game seven.

I'm older than.....

--Cuba Gooding, Jr.
--Mary Lou Retton (NOTE!--she had surgery quietly in May, 1984 just days before my dad went in for his brain surgery at the same hospital here in Richmond. Two months later, she wins gold.)
--LL Cool J
--Lisa Marie Presley
--Gary Coleman
--Jeri Ryan (and her Star Trek alter-ego)
--Kenny Chesney (my friend at work LOVES him....wait. She loves ALL country music hunks.)
--Ashley Judd
--Kylie Minogue
--Shannon Sharpe
--Theo Fleury
--Barry Sanders (the best running back I've ever seen play)
--Debra Messing
--Rachael Ray (my daughter's FAVORITE personality. NOT!!!)
--Will Smith (older, but NOT as cool as him, obviously)
--Jesus...oh, sorry. I meant Jim Caviezel.
--Jordan. Sorry. Jill Hennessy. Whew--had she been in the junior class at my high school my senior year, I would have begged her for a date. She would have slapped me and walked away. :) :)
--Kurt Angle

I PASSED THEM ON THE ROAD OF LIFE.....

--Yuri Gagarin
--Helen Keller
--Tommy Armour (the golf clubs with his name were the first I ever used)
--Tallulah Bankhead
--Upton Sinclair
--John Steinbeck

....Lord have mercy, that's only one year?

And now, another example of liberal "tolerance"....

....oh, and of course, a little use of the race card.

Fox News makes a big mistake. They apologized on-air, and DC Bureau Chief Brian Wilson calls the office of the person offended (and I would have been, too), offering to come and speak with the Congressman in person. His office never called back.

Instead, Michigan Democratic Rep. John Conyers decides this is the perfect opportunity to reject an apology and show some of that famous liberal tolerance.

Click here.

Now...when I get time, I'm going to do a 'Net search to see if Conyers went ballistic on CNN's Wolf Blitzer during Katrina coverage in 2005 when he said those trapped in New Orleans were...."...so poor and so black...".

Of course Wolf misspoke. Anyone with some common sense knows that. A young production assistant made a big mistake. I'm sure they're wondering about the fate of their career at this early, early moment in their adult life.

I guess Conyers doesn't watch "TV Bloopers" programs. Give me a break.

Looking Back, Looking Ahead, Part 1 of ??

Anyone who knows me knows I'm very historical by nature, and also sentimental. So, therefore, what better time than now to look back, and at now, and ahead....

Tonight, random reminders of what the world hath wrought since June 23, 1967:

--On June 23, LBJ meets Soviet Premier Kosygin in New Jersey for three days of talking face to face, and muttering to aides between sessions. That day, Dr. Bullock also met me for the first time, and muttered to himself, "...there goes my streak of delivering cute babies...."

--Four days later, the first ATM machine (Yes! It was voucher-based) was installed in Barclays Bank in England. Later that day, my first credit card application came in the mail.

--October 2, 1967: Thurgood Marshall is sworn in as the first African American justice of the United States Supreme Court.

--November 7, 1967: LBJ signs the "Public Broadcasting Act of 1967", setting up the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. I would benefit for many pre-teen years thanks to Letterman, Jennifer of the Jungle, Fargo North Decoder, Ernie and Bert, Guy Smiley, and more.

Can you tell me if the Electric Company now serves Sesame Street??

More to come......

Yes, it's a countdown clock......

.....it's the ONE thing I'm allowing myself to do in order to "gear up" for the supposedly "big" day. Big "4-0". Whatever.....

:)

....otherwise, the upcoming day is anonymous. Hmmm....maybe I'll be at Ponderosa at 446pm. Or Friendlys. Heck, how about Cracker Barrel?

Ah, no. :)

May's Winning Numbers.....

.....13, 20, 23, 25 and 29.

Slow start...decent finish. Hmmmm...40th birthday winning numbers???

Don't know; but let's hope it's better than a Ric Flair "Whoo!!!!"

This one is for Uncle Frank!!!!! PRICE CHECK!!!!!