Does Edward Snowden asking Putin a question about US Secret Service in their "marathon" Q&A not freak anyone else out?

Because it scares the shit out me. Timing is not suspicious at all. Guy wants to take our moon and holds a "marathon" of his own all this week. If that doesn't set off any alarms, we are doing something wrong.

Chad Johnson wants us to kiss our bosses today

I gotta tell you, waking up to the words of wisdom from @ochocinqo really puts a pep in my step everyday. He just tweeted "hi, have a great day and leave the loving to me. I love you and kiss your bosses on the lips today just because." 

What does that even mean? This would be super awkward in not some, not the majority, but every manager/employee relationship in the world. Every where from the highest of high suits to construction sites, a nice unexpected manager-employee smooch makes for a weird start to a Thursday.

Unless there's some meaning of "kiss your bosses on the lips" that I am just not cool enough to understand? Keep on being you, Chad.

Trash police?

Is this what the next 5 days are going to be like? Trash police writing tickets on Boylston? Camera crew backpacks being blown up? Performances getting the best of us? I sure as shit hope not and we can cheer and cry like we've never done before on Monday. 

What did you do last night?

Because I sat at the 99 in Charlestown crushing popcorn, big boy Bud Lights, and boneless gold fevers while going 3 for 3 with wins from Pittsburgh, Montreal and Anaheim. Try to tell me you had a better night. Impossible. Could have offered me a beach chair in Aruba for my barstool ... No thanks, I'm set right here.

23 goals in 3 games? So much for playoff hockey ... What are your thoughts on bar TV's? I understand we are in Boston and we love the Red Sox, but I mean watching game 8 in April over playoff anything wouldn't even cross my mind? I don't care that 80% of the grandfathers at the bar had Sox hats on. It's the playoffs. Turn that shit off until August when Papi and I will start to care.

Overall though, great service, great people. Get busy living or get busy dying. That about sums up a night at the 99. With free popcorn, I don't really care either way.

Big slate of 4 more games tonight. May have to go back and start knocking off those 9 entrees for $9.99 one at a time. Let's keep 'er going.

NHL Series Locks

As you know, like Joffrey, @LodgeLocks is dead and your bank account may be feeling it,  so I'm going to make it up to you right now. Games start tonight, so no time for messing around, let's giddy up.

Easiest Money = St. Louis Blues - 110 over Chicago Blackhawks

I'm not going to tell you how many games it's going to go or what the scores will be, but the Blues are the best team in the NHL. Period. They have proven it all year (well until the last week or so), made the big move for Ryan Miller, and are going to go a long way. Starting with a W over last year's bullshit champ.

Good Money = New York Rangers -155 over Philadelphia Flyers and Colorado Avalanche -135 over Minnesota Wild

Yeah, two favorites, but there's a reason for that. Both are going to win the series. May go 7, who cares, pay me.

Upset Money = Los Angeles Kings +125 over San Jose Sharks and Montreal Canadiens -105 over Tampa Bay Lightning (-115)

The Kings are crazy value here and Quicky always seems to step up when he needs to. These will be boring, low scoring games and they will grind it out in 6. Habs over Lightning is a crap shoot and Tampa won our season total bet with ease, but don't think they have what it takes when it matters. I mean Montreal fans vs. Tampa fans? Sorry, Stevie Y, you are slightly outmatched.

Simple Winners (but wouldn't touch) = Pittsburgh Penguins -290 over Columbus Blue Jackets and Anaheim Ducks -190 over Dallas Stars.

There will be no upset here. Pittsburgh rolls. The Ducks v. Stars is the toughest pick of them all, especially because of Bombay's personal connection to Modano and the Stars, but think the experience takes over and Fulton and the boys get it done with some Game 7 Iceland-esque heroics.

No idea (and this line is way too big) = Boston Bruins -300 over Detroit Red Wings

Simply because it's Titletown and I want another rally. It's like picking your favorite sibling or child. These are my two squads and have been since I was about 6, so watching/attending these games will be like choosing a chicken parm sub over general gau's chicken for me. Great either way and whoever wins goes on to win the cup.

Happy Playoffs and thank me tomorrow. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IpHHtl8gC4

The Controversy of Professional Sports in Boston

That's it ... enough is enough.

This past weekend was the icing on the cake for me. Usually, I avoid Facebook and Twitter on Sundays, especially when the Pats are playing, but after the Gronk hit and the PI (pass interference) call in the endzone, I had to see what the world was saying. Guess what ... I regretted it immediately.

"The NFL wants the Patriots to win..."
"The refs give them every call..."
"That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen!"

First of all, no it's not the most ridiculous thing you've ever seen. Trust me. It's not. 

Secondly, and something I don't really want to get into, but there has been more than one occasion this year where the Pats have been on the other side of a bad or questionable call (e.g., Jets and Carolina).  


It's sports. It happens. Refs are human and enough time is spent looking at replays that we can't start analyzing every flag or whistle, even the most important ones. They are reacting in real time to the 2nd quickest sport out there (hockey being the quickest ... debate for another day if you disagree) and just because one of the guys in stripes decides to grab at the hanging yellow cloth from his back pocket, or NOT, and make what he felt was the right call, the NFL's in on it? It's the Patriots or even worse their fans fault? I disagree. 

So does TB... 

It has been a crazy year in the league for ALL teams. Not just the Pats or the Giants or Steelers or whoever else is your favorite team that you think the league is biased against. It's been crazy for everyone. Did you see that Minnesota/Baltimore game yesterday? Refs or no refs, that was awesome to watch and why we watch sports. You never know what is going to happen.

Side rant - I can't even imagine what being a Vikings fan is like. Feel like every week, you could skip the first three and a half quarters and watch the last 6 minutes of the game, because that's when everything happens ... and to always lose on top. Madness.

My big question and reason for this blog is why do people choose to complain and create these absurd theories that someone, somewhere, in the front office of each of the 4 major sports leagues, or every single referee in the world, favors the city of Boston? 

My second question is why do you care? 

It was an easy weekend to attack Boston sports after the Thornton cheap shot on Orpik (a guy who spent most of his life in this city) and we all HATE to see that no matter who it is on whatever team they play for. Am I crazy to think that because he's a Bruin that the national spotlight is paying more attention to it than say if it were John Scott or relatively enough, James Neal? Don't even get me started on the bombing related tweets ... 

Boston is a big sports town I get it. Without Boston, sports as they are today would not exist and we'd have to replay a bunch of finals and championships over the last 10 years over all of the major sports. It's the anger and hatred and conspiracy theories that are baffling me and they seem to be flowing in EVERY single Sunday. It's getting out of hand.

For my second question about why do you care ... if I were to look back on my social media posts and comments from the past decade or so, I think a safe bet would be to say that 90% of them have been around Boston sports during games with the other 10% referencing major sporting events -- Super Bowl, Masters, PBA, etc. Yes, Boston is where I live and those are my favorite teams, but my point is that them winning is my sole concern throughout the course of a season. Nothing else matters! Teams I hate can lose and players I loathe can score hat tricks after we trade them, whatever! Do I care about calls in the Seattle or San Fran game yesterday? No, I will watch the whole thing and be intrigued, make observations (mostly to myself) and questions plays and calls, but do I really care either way? Nope. I don't even care if the Yankees win a game because the umpire called 16 straight balls in the Bottom of the 9th and the winning run was walked in. Is it amazing? Yes. Do I think MLB is rigged? Ah, no. Am I glad to see the Yankees win? No, but it doesn't have any impact on my life. Good for them. Way to go. Now, how did the Sox do? If it's not my team, then I don't care and if it's not yours, you shouldn't either. 

The other side of the coin is those that classify themselves as sports fans and that's a lot of us -- will watch any and everything. We are "sports guys". Sports fans living in New England that cheer for teams in other cities means you are surrounded by our sports. I get it, that must be hard. My question is can't you just watch in silence and be like "wow, the Pats won on a miraculous come back again, that's crazy". Instead of, "Nooooooooo! What was thaaaaat?!?! Haaaaate the Pats!! Hate the NFL!!!". If you hate them and disagree with every call for or against them, why are you watching?

Hell, I hate Peyton Manning, but what he's doing this year is insane. It's fun to watch. If he beats Tom Brady's TD passes record, which he is well on pace to do, great. Both had memorable years, but if I could somehow use my researching skills to analyze the number of tweets claiming Brady cheated, Boston is a scam, or the refs gave him TD's, I guarantee it would trump the number of "conspiracy" tweets at Peyton. Yes, I'm using the world conspiracy. That's how crazy this is! Personal records of Boston athletes being questioned. If Manning wins the Super Bowl, great, but I certainly won't find myself insulting the Broncos or the city of Denver or even his truly ugly mug. He did whatever he needed to do to win and that's sports.

As the old saying goes, you win some and you lose some.

Anyway, I'm not even sure that I can provide a good answer to my first question which is why I'm asking it. If you honestly feel, in your heart of hearts, that there is justification in your claims and really think that Stern, Goodell, Bettman, and Selig ALL want Boston to win everything, I'd love to hear it. If you realize it's crazy, just stop posting about it -- week in and week out.

All I know is that the comments and tweets surrounding me are starting to hurt my brain. 

"Just block/delete them, Marshy." 

No chance, number of friends/followers is a key stat in today's Millennial age. 

Obviously, I know it's my fault because of where I, and the majority of people I know/follow, live, so clearly I'm seeing it more and more. I just hope people born and raised in Philadelphia and Dallas and San Francisco deal with the same thing and it's not truly a Boston hatred thing, but I really don't think that's the case.

Leave Boston alone. What is so bad about us anyway? I will never understand the hatred towards the Pats or the Sox. What did we ever do to you besides win? These are fun teams with good guys. Worry about the issues, drafts, and starting lineups of your squads and sit back to watch us win. Again. It's actually kind of fun and if you live here, enjoy it. 

I mean, this Pats team? Are you kidding me? These last minute wins are a trip, which unfortunately, may have just ended ... 

After everything this city has been through, I say keep the freakin parades coming and a few calls this way or that has ZERO to do with why we win titles. 

Personally, I think this whole conversation I am writing about is a waste of time.

#marshynews

That Time of Year Again

I have to tell you ... these past few weeks, especially these past few days, have made it extremely difficult to spend time on Facebook. Just like everyone else reading this, it's one of the first sites I open in the morning and one of the last I close at night, but yesterday and today have been painful, really really painful. 

That's why I'm not getting into that right now and want to blog about something else ... something a little more "light" ... Daylight Savings. See what I did there with light?

First and most obvious question, who invented daylight savings? Don't worry, I'm actually going to answer that, so Question 2, does anyone have a logical explanation for why it exists? If yes on 2, I would love to hear it. And 3rd question, why do we just do it? Seriously, we just change our clocks, adjust our whole lives by an hour without a blink. Well, I'm blinking. 

Wikipedia tells me it's "the practice of advancing clocks so that evenings have more daylight and mornings have less". 

Is that true? I mean that's what half of daylight savings is, but what about the other half? The half I just took part in and now I'm sitting at my desk at 3:30pm ET and it's basically dark out. 

I must say I am a little impressed by DS (yeah I call it "DS" now) when it comes to people just doing it. Literally, no one questions it. Not true, actually everyone questions it, because we don't know what the F it is, but at the end of the day, we abide by it. We say to ourselves, "well, it's that time of year again" and change our clocks. In today's digital world, we may not even do that and simply trust our phones to change (like going to California for a week) and we'll be right when we wake up. This is coming from the guy who has worn a non working watch for almost 6 months now, because I do what my phone says. Yea, I wear jewelry.

Side bar: one of my favorite DS debates of all time, mostly for college kids, is bar closing times. We have an extra hour at the bar! Wooooooo! It's going to be crazy!!!! Nat and I actually had our 30th bday this past Saturday when the clocks were changing and pretty sure we had two different 1am's. Not all bars allow for this ... but it was great. I think. Maybe the best thing DS has ever done for me.

To answer question 1, Wikipedia goes on to tell me daylight savings started during the First World War by somebody named George Vernon Hudson (that's our boy on the right there). BTW (bee tee dubbs) in 100 years will I be written about as Ryan Michael Marsh? Or R.M. Marsh? I hope so. 

Reading on, DS has apparently been both "praised and criticized" over the years and it has something to do with the earth in relation to the sun, but essentially, it's providing us with more light time hours. Again, is that true? It's dark out right now. Look outside, it's freakin dark, no? And it's going to be for the next 6 months until we go and do the first part of daylight savings all over again. You can't create a theory or plan that works HALF of the time. Not good. Not legit.

I have a thought - maybe it's an ongoing thing ... maybe if we didn't do it, then in like 200 years, it would be dark all the time. 

What? That can't be right. That makes no sense. From my limited knowledge and limited time actually thinking about this, DS should really be called "Summer rocks, Winter sucks" or "Screw you, it's November".

Strictly speaking as an East coaster, born, raised, and living, I am not the biggest fan of winter. Love hockey, love snow, Santa, fireplaces, Mariah's "All I Want For Christmas", all that jazz, but overall, can't really love the cold and the cold is winter. 

Nothing else really matters. 

The walks to and from work and shortened lunch walks are getting more painful every day. And darker.

Why throw darkness on top of cold? Who's benefiting? Thanks, G.V. Hudson ... good call. A theory that is half good, the whole world does twice a year, and no one challenges. Think he made bank off it?

I'm also super tired, but as Nat said, maybe that's because of the flu shots. Yet another pain to insert in humans at this time of the year. 

Someone tell me something good about DS!

Happy hump day,
Marshy