Moving on.....

Sports and relationships....not only is this what I mostly write about, the two actually share a lot in common.

The key difference is, every year in sports you start over. It's basically starting a brand new relationship each year.

In the beginning, when becoming a fan, you always look for a team that'll bring you joy in watching them perform every week. You cheer them on hoping every year is the one. The one to bring you to the promised land. Some seasons start undefeated (no arguments) and the anticipation builds. However, you'll receive commentary from friends, sportswriters, whoever, that'll jinx the season, by mentioning how great everything is going. It's a well known rule during a no-hitter, you don't discuss the no-hitter. The same rule should apply for relationships. When it's going well, don't bring up how great it is.

If you and your team's performance is consistent enough, you qualify for the post-season. You can equate this to whatever you'd like, serious relationship, sex, marriage, whatever floats your boat.

With every season/relationship you know there can only be one winner. Sometimes the elimination comes quickly and painless. Many times you can see it coming when you're faced with a tough match-up. Other times it's a huge upset, when no One saw it coming. Those are often times the most difficult to deal with. You question everything that's happened. You're inconsolable. Every highlight you watch reminds you of the potential things had months ago. Most people will throw on some Metallica, get drunk, or find the easiest team to cheer for, to cope with the heartache.

As everyone has learned, you eventually get through it. You look at yourself and your team, make some trades, spend money during the free agency period, and gear up for that next season and relationship. It's a brutal process, but so rewarding when the perfect season comes along.

However, there are those people/teams that just keep going through heartbreak after heartbreak. These are the teams I like to label as providing "stomach-punches". It's akin to your friend who just goes from one abusive relationship to the next. You're quietly thinking, "damn, how much worse can it get?", but somehow it does. You gotta give credit to them b/c they keep enduring it season after season.

Look out there at the examples, the city of Philadelphia had it the worst for the past 20 years, until the Phillies went back-to-back in the World Series. Now, Cleveland and Washington hold that distinctive title. You wanna sit down with them and tell them it'll be ok, but you secretly knew all along how things would turn out.

They were so excited at having a great team. What they didn't realize is their team/relationship lacked overall depth because they couldn't look past the physical appearance.

It happens all the time. My advice is to not base your fan-dom or relationships on appearance. It'll always end badly. Just because your team scores the most points (great looks), they may lacked defense (personality). If you can take anything away from this column, it's that defense wins championships. Just think about that comparison for a second. It's scary how true it is, but you never want to admit it.

If you see a friend cheering for a hopeless team, maybe introduce them to a new one. They'll thank you later when they've celebrated multiple championships.

Feel free to make whatever comparison to championships you'd like....just keep it PG-rated because kids are reading this.

Yo mama....

Jeff Ireland.

If you ever get an interview confirmation with this man's name on the email, you may want to avoid that job.

As reported by Yahoo Sports, apparently during an NFL pre-draft interview, Jeff Ireland dropped the biggest insult on a top prospect. Just imagine this scenario if you will. You're in an interview for a government job, they've delved into your past. The recruiter has asked you questions about how you'd deal with stress such as:

"Mike, tell us about a time where you were confronted by a superior and the end result".

This is a typical behavioral question, to see how well you handle these situations or how fast you can lie about one. Now perhaps for jobs such as the CIA or FBI you'll experience the mind games where, you'll ACTUALLY be submerged in a stressful situation, so they can gauge your reaction.

However, would you ever expect this from any "corporate" recruiter. After being asked about your greatest accomplishment, he hits you with this one:

"Mike, Is your mother a prostitute?"

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT? This actually happened.

The Miami Dolphins General Manager "GM", asked Dez Bryant this stunning question. Ok, so Dez has had character issues, he gets his advice from Deion Sanders and Michael Irvin, but does that mean you can ask anything you want?

I cannot ever see a situation where this is ok. Even the FBI recruiter is thinking "Damn man, that's low".

If you were close to your mom at all, would you not be tempted to either curse the guy out right there or go Mike Tyson on him? I would not have blamed Dez one bit if he did react that way.

The Dolphins have quickly tried to cover it up by explaining it was asked to see how'd Dez would react. Somehow I don't believe that's a standard question to all players. Everyone has to deal with stress at work, athletes deal with trash talk all the time. I have to imagine there are other ways to put them in a stressful situation during a formal interview. For that to be asked by an Executive of a company is unheard of and completely out of line.

So the warning is out there if Jeff Ireland doesn't get fired. Next time you're interviewing for that Manager position, you better prepare yourself for this one:

"I heard yo mama so nasty, that she pours salt water down her pants to keep her crabs fresh."

"Is it true?"

Paying for the extra baggage

This has nothing to do with the airline industry and everything to do with us. Us as people, as adults, as the next generation.

In prior generations (our parents) would date a few people before finding and settling down with that one person. Did they take the risk of missing out or perhaps something greater? Yes, I'm sure many did. For all they knew, there was no one better out there. They found someone who fit 7 or 8 outta 10 traits they were looking for, everyone approved, and wa-lah. However, a lot has changed from our parents generation and the numbers don't lie.

Since 1970 the percentage of married people has decreased from 71.7% of adults (18 yrs or older) to 60.3%. In the same time, the divorce rate has tripled from 3.2% to 9.5%.

Judging off the data, everyone is seemingly more picky about settling down and finding that one person. This is a great thing, since no one should really "settle for less", however it also leads to one problem in return. Less marriage, means more dating, and more dating equals jumping from relationship to relationship.

This effects everyone we know like a disease being spread. With each relationship one is involved in, they acquire and leave with more baggage like a cheap game show parting gift. Whether you end it or you get left, the baggage builds. Every relationship has some effect and leaves its scars.

I'm sure you're thinking right now, "I don't have any issues, I've gotten over every relationship I've been in". I'm here to say you're wrong. You probably see it in all your friends, but you need to realize they see it in you as well. They all question the actions of other male and females, due to an experience they had with prior exs. Unfortunately, you never truly find out about the baggage someone else has, until you're months or years into the relationship.

What's makes matters worse, is the people's penchant to jump from relationship to relationship like in a game of Frogger. Sure it seems easy at first, but as you advance (in age and experience) it'll only get more difficult.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is, you may think by passing up that person who fits 7 out of the 10 traits you're looking for may be a good thing, but in the end you're just increasing your own difficulty level. The baggage will weigh you down, and jumping out of the way of that speeding car labeled loneliness, won't be so easy. Maybe we should all start thinking about what type of baggage we're looking for in a person.

Personally? I'd prefer the Halliburton type of woman. You know they've been through a lot and yet still can be thrown around.


Editor's Note: Just kidding, I'd never advocate that type of violence.

Dilemma

No I'm not talking about the Nelly ft. Kelly Rowland song from a few years back. This is a moral dilemma I'm faced with.

It appears by the end of this weekend we'll know the match-ups for the Eastern Conference semi-finals in hockey. Right now, barring any monumental comeback, it'll be the Boston Bruins vs the Pens, and Caps vs Philadelphia Flyers.

That second match-up scares me. Somehow, the powers that be, thought it'd be funny putting two teams I despise against each other.

As much as I want to see a Caps vs Pens match up again (assuming we get past a resurgent Boston team), so we can tear out their hopes and dreams, a Pittsburgh vs Philly final could be amazing as well. Hold it in Beaver Stadium (Penn State's stadium) and I guarantee 90,000 people would show up.

I haven't been this torn on the lesser of two evils since 2004. Back then, it was the decision to vote for either Bush or Kerry. I'll admit that I was a Republican back then, but after the first four years, I couldn't possibly support a Bush re-election. All the Dems had to do was put up a functional monkey, even Bubbles the Chimp, and they would have ran away with it.

Instead they choose John Kerry, who couldn't even decide if he preferred Pepsi or Coke. His wife being Teresa Heinz-Kerry, the type of woman who would be showcased on a Real Housewives of Pittsburgh. I mean this has to be one of the biggest busts in political history. Even Bush was surprised. This was why he had no agendas ready for 2004-2008, he figured there was NO CHANCE, he'd get re-elected after the crapshoot of a job he performed.

I was ready to switch sides at that point to the Dems. After I saw what they offered up and basically rolled over, I decided to wait a few more years and stick with the G-Dubya train. As the saying goes, "better the evil you know, than the evil you don't know".

Therefore, following this sage advice, I will have to cheer on the Flyers to absolutely brutalize and wear down the Caps. The Flyers are a physical team, who surprisingly took down Buffalo with ease. The Caps are a high flying, free-floating offensive powerhouse. This should make for a nice clash of playing styles. The real question will be whose inexperienced goalie will hold up the best.

Either way we'll come out a winner, neither team will get through that series unscathed and that's all we can hope for.

Age of Innocence

In a recent conversation with a friend, we discussed the line where people go from being 20-somethings to adults. The conversation wasn't so much of a pleasant one, but more along the line of "what the hell happened to us?"

They never tell you at what age you officially become an adult. Sure, at age 16 you could get your driver's license and in most states, stay out till midnight. At age 18, you can buy cigarettes, go to Strip Clubs, and stay out past that curfew. At 21, you can drink legally, and drive home drunk (just kidding, I would never advocate this). Somewhere between the age of 13 to 40, you start to have sex, fall in love, and shed the skin of having "fake" friends, not necessarily in that order.

It seems somewhere in your 20's you officially make the realization that you can't be staying out till 3 am on weekends and having 10+ drinks a night (Aaron will contest this). Before you know it you're in a serious relationship and thinking about the future. Literally, this transformation from college-minded drunk, to "family-man" happens within a few months. It's scary...I know.

There is some switch that goes off. Seemingly for guys its a bit more natural, as opposed to women who can have theirs forcibly flicked to the "on" position, due to the maturation of all their friends. This refers to the phenomenon known in some circles as the "Lemmings" theory. This is a reference to an old-school video game, where the point was to get a giant gang of Lemmings to follow the actions of the one leader. Unfortunately, if he fell off the cliff, all the others followed.

Always the bridesmaid, never the bride, eventually breaks down any independent woman, and the switch happens. You see it all the time, one person gets into a relationship and 10 more follow. One breaks up, and the others question their relationships.

My question is, can that button ever be switched back? I personally equate this situation to skydiving. The idea always gets tossed around. Then one day you finally settle on actually doing it. Once you get up there, two things will happen. One, you crap the bed and want to head back to solid ground where things were "safe". This leads to the infamous, "I'm not where you are or I'm not ready for a serious commitment scenario". Also known as, it's not you it's me.

The other option is, two, you blindly leap out of the plane in an exhilarating fashion. This will either lead to the biggest rush in your lifetime (great success!) or you crashing into a million pieces (much like your heart).

I remember a year ago, having a group of 10-15 people going out every weekend, all of us having that switch in the "off" position. Here we are a year later, and out of those 10 people, I'd say 6 flicked it to the "on" position. I admittedly was one, but now am stuck either in "off" or "out of order". Looking back, the turnover rate is astonishing.

It's like Dane Cook once wisely said, ...."When you don't have love, it's like there's a party going on, and everybody was invited, except for you. And you just happened to be walking by that house in the rain...(sigh) "I wasn't invited to this party." But then, once you're IN love, that's like being inside that party, going "Where's my jacket? I wanna get outta here. where's my jacket? I been to this party six years and I wanna see other parties! Where's my jacket. Someone shit on the coats. I think someone shit on, about, or around the coats."

That boy has gone crazy

I believe it was Dennis Leary who said, "whatever happened to people just being crazy?"

The American Psychiatric Association has defined over 400 mental disorders (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mental_disorders_as_defined_by_the_DSM_and_ICD). With each passing year, more and more are added to this list.

I do believe many of them have some fundamental and educational basis to stand on. However, there are several types of disorders that only seem like more extreme everyday mood swings. Someone who is clinically diagnosed as "depressed" may just be really sad over some life event. This normal over-diagnosis usually isn't a problem, however when it is used as a crutch in everyday learning situations or crimes, that's where it becomes dangerous.

In school, some kids were unable to grasp concepts and thus fell behind to due their inability to educate themselves at the same pace of 90% of the class. Back then we simply diagnosed it as "stupidity". Over the years more "disabilities" have been discovered. Parents have become aware of this, and instead blame their shortfalls as a parent to keep their children focused on homework at home on their child's new found "learning disability".

Don't get me wrong and don't go all liberal on me, I DO believe there are several thousands of people out there with actual disabilities or diseases that hinder their brain development and intelligence. However, this is the way the world works. Some people are born to be super-geniuses, and others are born to greet at Wal-Mart. That's just the way it is. It's no different that being born short.

Does being short prevent me from participating in many life activities that are otherwise available to those over 6 feet tall? Undoubtedly yes. But you know what, once you come to terms with this realization that we all can't be born and bred the same way, you move on!



On the flip side is a "recent" newsstory about Mark Becker (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/24/ed-thomas-iowa-football-c_n_220184.html).

Mark was a disgruntled former student athlete under the tutelage of Ed Thomas, his high school football coach. Becker, one afternoon, went into the school's weight room and shot Ed Thomas (football coach) 6 times in cold blooded murder. After being questioned by authorities about his motive, he said, "The Devil told me to do it, that he was evil, and the only way to save the other kids, was to kill him".

Righteously, the jury convicted him of first-degree murder. However, the defense argued Mark Becker was insane at the time and suffered from Schizophrenia. To me that defense sounded nothing more than Mark realizing his life was basically over after killing someone and reached for an excuse to save him from jail time. It happens all the time, but this is the most recent case I've come across while watching the news.

It's unbelievable and only makes me believe even less in these clinically diagnosed disorders.

That's just my thought, but maybe I'm the one with schizotypal personality disorder.

Does Obamacare cover this?

Weekend Rumblings

I know my train of thought already wanders enough for most to be confused by it, but here's some random food to munch on...

* The news coming out of Coachella music festival was that Faith No More put on an amazing reunion show. It would have been great to see Jay-Z pair up with them instead of LCD Soundsystem. Faith No More was the original "rap/rock" type band, but I hate classifying them as such, because they are so much more. Mike Patton (lead singer) may have one of the most maniacal shows in the business, but can do so because of his amazing vocal range. I'd highly recommend checking out FNM's greatest hits (Who Cares a lot?). The cover of "Easy (like Sunday Morning)" is quite entertaining.

* In speaking with Gigs, I've found that on Match.com profiles, those that say "Loyalty is a MUST", just screams "I've been cheated on and am a bit paranoid about it".

* Caps fans can now rest easy and they no longer can scream about how the NHL is against them. The amount of calls they received Saturday night was ungodly, most of which occurred during the act of scoring their 4 comeback goals. Running into the goalie is now acceptable along with the Refs not calling for a freeze on the play when a goalie clearly has it covered.

* Bicycle riders in DC need to make up their mind. Either sidewalk or street. When I'm walking they seemingly take over the sidewalk, while driving they weave through traffic with reckless abandonment, you'd think they were on a suicide watch.

* Heard an interesting story Saturday from a bartender who said he was dating this girl for 6 months and she had a license plate "Pr1ncess". He was shocked when after the 6 months she approached him with concerns about him not buying her anything recently. Really? you were shocked? I know women check out guys; shoes, eyes, teeth, hair, in some order. If I were him, the first things I'm looking at are license plates, pictures up around her place, and the way she dresses for any clues towards craziness.

* The NFL Draft is now going PRIMETIME! Now millions of Americans will utilize words such as "upside", "coachable", "sleeper", and "bust" in their daily lives. Can't you just imagine, during your next break-up speech, "I'm sorry baby, this relationship had such a high upside, but ultimately through your actions recently, I'm gonna have to label you a bust." Best of luck in free agency.

* Best places to find those "sleeper" picks in women: bookstores and gym.

* Worst place to find "coachable" women, women's rights discussion groups.

* I'm not sure which MAJOR newsstory in the past week has been less shocking, Ricky Martin coming out or Goldman Sachs being accused of fraudulent activity by the SEC.

REALLY??

* Is it me or is the Volcano smoke story a bit absurd. No airplane can apparently fly through this smoke? Yet we are led to believe almost every major aircraft is equipped with an auto pilot mechanism and I imagine some type of "windshield wipers". Set the plane's destination, flick on auto-pilot, and once you clear the smoke spray some Windex. Here's a coupon in case the industry is really struggling ( http://www.windex.com/coupon/outdoor-all-in-one-march09/).

I mean this isn't "Smocke" or the smoke monster from Lost were talking about here, just fly around it!