Tuesday, 9 December 2008

Historic event...pffft.

I let an important(?) event slip by without mention. This past Sunday, a regular season NFL game was held outside of American soil. The Buffalo Bills played host to the visiting Miami Dolphins in a muchly hyped game here in Toronto this past Sunday. I am not and never have been a football fan, but it was difficult not to hear of this "spectacle".

I use quotes because unlike the excitement inherent in most any NFL game, from all accounts, this one was fairly dull. For one, there were few real fans. Not only because neither combatants brought many of their supporters, but because not enough interested Canadian fans could be found to fill the 54,000 seats. Apparently, I'm not the only non-fan--there were seats available at game time. I wonder how much it had to do with the fact that the Rogers family figured $575 a ticket was a fair price for the best seats.

Did I mention that the action on the field was even worse than the attendance? It turned out to be a field goal fest with the Bills on the losing end of a 16-3 final score.

The high point of the day came before the game even started when the girl singing the Canadian national anthem was singing too slowly and the entire stadium sang out loudly and at the right tempo completely drowning out the singer.

Is this heart-wrenching or what?

A dog is run over by what appears to be two vehicles. Another stray attempts to rescue the already dead dog by dragging him away from highway traffic to the safety of the median.





This pooch is also "dog's best friend" and deserves a medal of valour. It's times like these that the memory of my own deceased pet touches my heart. Sometimes, it's an insult to beasts to describe humans as "acting like animals". Our furry friends are often nicer than our fellow man.

Monday, 8 December 2008

I see cold people

I was very disappointed yesterday when I attended Woodbine, my local horse racing venue, and they cancelled thoroughbred races 3 through 13. According to the announcement, the jockeys felt it was too cold for them to ride. Having already paid $5 for a racing form and this being the final day of live racing until spring made it particularly upsetting.

Now, I've known them to cancel racing cards due to lightning storms and windy conditions, but this is the first time I've heard the excuse that it's just too cold for the jockeys. While I imagine it's happened before, it seems like a pretty flimsy excuse. After all, standardbred horses (trotters) and their drivers race all winter long through the worst that a Canadian winter can throw at them. Racing in blizzard conditions is almost commonplace. Many is the time when neither fans nor announcer can see the horses at all for much of the race!

I'm sorry if I'm going to upset people, but unless there is a safety concern that was never expressed by the announcer, "too cold for the jockeys" just doesn't cut it with me. The temperature was about 5 C degrees below freezing and there was bright sunshine. Granted, there were wind gusts that produced a wind chill factor, but how bad can it be to be outside for the less than two minutes it takes to run a race? As it was, horses and riders were going directly to the starting gate, dispensing with the post parade.

Most of the betting public spent considerably longer than two minutes walking from the parking lot to the grandstand. I wonder--would the jockeys and everyone else who makes a living from the races be understanding if the public informed them that they would not attend on account of it being too cold to walk from the parking lot? We make that trek even at 40 below! I'm guessing that Mr. Leading-jockey-who's-used-to-spending-the-winter-in-the heat-of-Barbados had a lot to do with the cancellation.

I also wonder why they staged two races before cancelling the rest of the card. It's not like the weather got colder during that time. If anything, it got warmer. Of course, if they had cancelled all the racing before it started, many people wouldn't have attended at all. Once they have us there, obviously we're going to wager on the simulcast races from other tracks. And buy forms and programs. And buy food. Am I the only one who smelled rotten fish?

Speaking of rotten fish, it left a very bad taste in my mouth. I and many others were looking forward to the last day of live racing before the long drought that lasts until April. Jockeys: Next time, bring your long johns.


Horsies frolicking on a beautiful winter day:


You always won every time you placed a bet...

Saturday, 6 December 2008

Ripped from the headlines

Man assaults girlfriend with cheeseburger


VERO BEACH, Fla. – A Vero Beach man faces a domestic violence charge after authorities said he assaulted his girlfriend with a cheeseburger. An Indian River County Sheriff's Office arrest report said a 22-year-old man and his girlfriend got into an argument as they sat in a car in front of their home.

The report said the man would not let the woman out of the vehicle, so she threw his drink out of the car. In response, the man allegedly grabbed her arm and smashed the cheeseburger into her face. The pair got out of the car, and authorities say the man again took the McDonald's sandwich and put it on her face.

The man was released on $1,000 bond Wednesday.

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I wonder how much the bail would have been if instead he had thrown chicken McNuggets at her.