“After further review… and further review…”

So it’s been three weeks with the NFL replacement officials.  Three weeks where the fans have been screaming over every disputed call, every controversial judgment, every time the play they see differs from the results called by the referees. The replacement refs have been maligned, they’ve been chastised, they’ve been nicknamed things like “scabs” and…

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My first day with NFL RedZone

A few years ago, back in my blogspot.com days, I spent the afternoon with Jon “Bowzer” Bauman, the former Sha Na Na lead singer and currently an advocate for musicians’ rights.  He and I were attending events at the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in Sharon, Pa., and we had a Sunday afternoon off from…

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Blogging with a “Y” chromosome

Times Union blogboss Mike Huber recently crafted a post about why it seems that there are very few male bloggers in the Times Union’s “Lifestyles” blog portal.  In fact, currently of the thirteen bloggers in that category, only two – myself and Roger Green – are men. Allow me to add my ingredients to the…

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The Soul of the Chance

I have to keep trying.  Keep pushing forward.  Never give up.  Never surrender.  By Grapthar’s hammer… Um… yeah. For those of you who find these “Chance” blogs and decide to read down to the bottom to find out if I got the postcard o’ doom, well, I didn’t get the postcard o’ doom this time.…

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Week 3 of the 2012-13 $2,000 Elbo Room Trivia Tournament

Thanks to the NFL Network’s exclusive broadcast of the New York Giants’ complete 36-7 beatdown of the Carolina Panthers, the Elbo Room had more patrons last night – and, by extension, more teams playing. Good.  More competition is a good thing. And if it weren’t for a miserable four-point question at the beginning of the…

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The return of Charlie Chaplin

Do me a favor.  Go put City Lights or The Kid or The Gold Rush or Modern Times on your Neflix queue.  Go order The Great Dictator or The Circus or Limelight from Amazon.  To watch these Charlie Chaplin films is to watch, without argument, one of the greatest actors of early cinema.  Chaplin’s “Tramp”…

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Sex, baseball and stupidity

This week, as the baseball regular season wound down and the playoff hunt wound up, I wanted to watch some baseball games and get excited about the upcoming pennant races.  Heck, there’s at least five National League teams with a clear opportunity to snag that second wild card playoff berth, and there’s a distinct possibility…

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