Scary Horoscope from The Onion

Anyone who knows me will realize the scary accurateness of this.

This is my horoscope from The Onion this week:

Gemini May 21 - June 21
Your reputation as a great conversationalist will be challenged this week, when you steer a discussion momentarily outside of the DC/Marvel universes.

Why I Hate The Fort Worth Brahmas

Lately, my intense hatred for the Brahmas has boiled up again. Why you may ask? Because I loved the Fort Worth Fire and the Brahmas killed my beloved home town team.

Right after the Fire wins the Levins' Trophy in the CHL in 96-97, the Brahmas then show up, lure away the Fire's best players, pretend to be a good Hockey team just long enough to steal fans away and cause the Fire to fold 2 seasons later.

Man, I HATE those guys. They went to the WPHL Championship Series in their first season, got blanked by El Paso and have then followed it up with almost 8 seasons of last place (or almost last place) finishes. Jerks.

I would like to say I cursed the team back in '97, but I didn't. Not that it looks like it matters since it looks like they're pretty well cursed anyway.

I WANT AN APOLOGY FROM THE JERKS!!!!! It's like New Coke all over again except that we don't get the original back.

Here's a look at the season-by-season breakdown:
(Source: Internet Hockey Database )

Currently, in the CHL's 2005-06 season, the Brahmas are.... LAST! Dead Last, worst team in the entire league. Probably ain't gonna change anytime soon.

In the meantime, if anybody knows where I can get a Fort Worth Fire jersey, let me know.

Dennis Franchione is an over-rated pussbag.

Here's one of my favorite targets of sport hate:

Dennis Franchione, the over-rated disloyal jerk of a football coach.

He of course is the amazing college head football coach that comes in and turns winners into teams that were previously losers. At least, that's his rep. I contend that his success has been over-hyped and his disloyalty to teams over prestige, visibility, and the almighty dollar exceed the norm for the cutthroat industry that is sports leadership.

Let's look at the over-rated part first. All anybody ever talks about is how he builds programs up or brings them back. He's been successful everywhere! Okay, well let's see:

Texas St. - 2 years, 13-9. Not bad I suppose
New Mexico - 6 years, 33-36. Uhhhhh.... Okay. Great? Analysis later.
TCU - 3 years, 25-10. Yeah, that's pretty darn good.
Alabama - 2 years, 17-8. Okay
A&M - 3 years, 16-19. Not so great.
Career - 16 years, 104-82, .559%

Okay so let's look at this. Texas St. A 6-5 season then a 7-4 season... improvement, yes. And over a ten year period 1985-1994, these were the only winning seasons for this team. But it's AA. Regardless, he has some moderate success then he bolts to...

New Mexico. His first four years (92-95) produced 1 winning season (6-5 in 1993). This team sucked before he got them true, but he improved them none at all his first season, 6-5 his second season then regressed almost back to where the team was when he came in by 1995 (4-7) Then he brought in this guy, Gary Patterson. Maybe you've heard of him. 2 seasons together they go 6-5 & 9-4. But, the team (although they won the WAC-Mountain Division Title in 1997, they lost the bowl game that year (Fran's only bowl appearance with NM) and they weren't ranked. But regardless, it's a little bit of success so of course that means it's time to flee to...

TCU. 3 years. 3 Winning Seasons. Builds into a damn fine program that is still going strong with that Gary Patterson guy in charge. Oh yeah, Patterson was there for Fran's three years too. A 2-1 bowl record and 1 top 25 final ranking in 3 years. That's pretty good. I'll admit that. But would it have been the same without Patterson? And it's what he does just before a bowl game that really draws ire. Fran, after a 10-1 season sees green in the Crimson Tide and bolts to...

Alabama. He then "rebuilds" the Tide over two seasons (3-8 the year before Fran got there) to go 7-5 and 10-3. Of course, it's not like Alabama was a perennial loser. They had an off year in 2000. In 99 they went 10-3. And Mike Shula has managed to build the Tide back in three seasons as well. But consider this, Shula did it with NCAA Sanctions to deal with. Fran didn't have those and in fact had some of the after effects of the violations that brought those sanctions down on the school to begin with. But regardless, Fran saw a school that would limit his ability to win so enter
Texas A&M. A team with at least as much heritage as Bama. He's had 3 years and really hasn't shown any major success yet. Can A&M not recruit as well as other big state schools? What's the problem? All the pundits point fingers everywhere but Fran.

This guy was a mediocre coach until he found a Defensive Co that could actually make him look good. He then rode that wave to a big school that has more recruiting opportunities, and then left before restrictions could make him look bad. He has a knack for taking a small amount of success and then turning that into a more high profile position. As soon as he has a good year, expect him to leave.

And the way he does it is just atrocious. He abandoned the Frogs before a bowl game. And the bowl game was in the city where his new team was. He was at the game! But he couldn't wait until after the game to make his intentions known. Nope, had to throw chaos into the team before the big game.

And then of course there's the Alabama departure. After rallying his team and motivating them to stay together (as opposed to transferring out when the sanctions hit) he gives all the players these great speeches about getting behind him and being strong for the university and then bolts as soon as A&M comes calling. And he doesn't even tell the team in person. He just left and told an assistant to tell everybody. I guess all that togetherness talk was really less about helping the school and more about helping him pad his resume so he can get the heck out of there.

He's a fraud. Don't be surprised if he CAN'T turn the Aggies around. He really hasn't shown that he's capable of doing it himself. Buyer Beware with this guy.

A sweet doggie needs a home

Last weekend, a friend of ours found a couple of dogs wandering around 8th Ave in Fort Worth. Not knowing what to do with two dogs (and her being a cat person), she brought them to us.
One of the dogs (pictured above... we've named her Sadie) appears to be a Sharpei & German Shepherd mix. She is very sweet and playful. She appears to have at least some housetraining (she had no accidents in our house while she was here) and loves people and appears to get along with other dogs as well (cats, we don't know). We think she would make somebody a great companion (she seems to be looking for some person to really bond with) or a family dog. She is smaller than a Shepherd, a medium sized dog that we guess is under 50 lbs. And she's adorable. How could you not love this dog.
We would have loved to have held on to her (we actually are going to adopt the other dog, a female basset/beagle mix), but 3 dogs is just a little much and I think that would be too much for our unsocialized beagle/rat terrier boy to handle.
The info for the Humane Society is available through the weblink above. Here is the address and telephone number:
1840 East Lancaster Avenue
Fort Worth, TX 76103-2124
817-332-HSNT (4768)
This is one of the sweetest dogs I've ever met and we really want to see her get a good home!
Thanks,
Rotten

How dumb are the Democrats?

So I heard at least one (I hope this isn't their only plan) strategy the Democrats plan to use over the next few years' elections. Are you ready for this?

"We can't do any worse [than the Republicans]"

That's it. That's the whole plan. You want to know how we got into the crummy state of affairs we're in now? Want to know how the Democrats became such a castrated and powerless party? This concept of winning voters should give you an idea.
For years, the Dems had most of the power. They may not have had the White House, but they had Congress. Then they got both Congress & the White House. You'd think that then they would've acted like they wanted to maintain that. But no. Instead they sat back, acted like it was deserved and like many Americans, acted with a sense of entitlement.
So, two years later, the Republicans, apparently scared silly at having lost pretty much any power, somehow managed to wiggle away the House and Senate from the Dems. They saw a lack of power base unappealing and got together, as a party, and somehow fought back with a real strategy (or "strategery" if you will). The came up with the goofy "Contract With America" which somehow convinced average joes that the Republicans actually wanted to work FOR the American people.
Then, after another 6 years of relative easy where the economy was good (although it was an illusion, otherwise, we wouldn't be following trials for Enron officals and individuals wouldn't be in so much personal debt), occasionally we'd go bomb some people that seemed kinda evil or something, and the worst we could come up with was a sex scandal (although Clinton DID lie under oath, let's not pretend that there wasn't anything wrong here).
Meanwhile, the GOP was strengthening their power base and refining their power plan so that by 2000, they managed to complete the Trifecta and add the White House (which presumably could allow them to get the "quadfecta" by getting the Supreme Court). The Dems response? They just whine about their candidate being beaten and saying that it was somehow unfair ,never mind the fact that BEFORE election day, the pundits we're predicting that Gore could win the electoral college and Bush win the popular vote, a situation the Dems seemed to have no problem with. As for Florida.... give it up. We'd still be recounting. It wasn't gonna happen. Bush won, Gore lost, it's history, deal with it.
But they didn't deal with it. They just whined. Rather than regroup, figure out how they got into this position of being the not-popular party in this country, they just decided to act like petulant children and complain. Which did wonders for their image.
Add to this the lack of leadership and vision and the party began to lose it's unity, splintering into little factions that can't even get along with other Dems.
So, in 2004, we were all "surprised" when, after 4 years of GOP rule where we saw the conservatives act like the exact opposite of what they philosophically claim to be, the Democrats lost even MORE power.
So that brings us to the present. And the Democrats strategy. Which is a joke. They still don't get it it. They lost power because they've had no real plan, no strategy, no leadership. For years, their standard operating procedure was to a) bitch and moan about what jerks the Republicans are and b) argue against virtually anything and everything the right presented. But what they didn't do was ever offer any sort of counter-option. They sat around acting pathetic and looking like clueless people, devoid of any ability to offer the American people other solutions to the Republican plans they criticized.
And that disillusioned just enough non-Republicans to not really want to vote for the liberals. Meanwhile, the right cemented their base by adding nutcase Christians to the mix to go along with the financial backing of large, corrupt corporations. The left's strategy was, what, "Hey look at us! We offer you absolutely nothing!"?
So, the Democrats and their complete ineptness and lack of action is part of the reason we're where we are today. And rather than regroup and go on the offensive, they still seem to think they can wrest control back by being wishy-washy and passive. I guess they are just content to wait until the American people boots the GOP out. But what they may find is those same voters may not turn to the left to replace the members of the right they kick out. Why should they? The Dems have given us absolutely NOTHING to grasp onto. They provide no solutions to problems facing us other than "The Republican way is WRONG!"
Look at Virginia Governor Tim Kaine's response to the State of the Union address this week. (I won't really comment on why the liberals picked this guy to head up the counter-attack instead of somebody who looks, acts, and sounds strong. Who decided that putting up a weak, boring, generic white guy up there was the way to go? They should have used somebody that showed some sort of minority interest who was easily recognizable, like Obama or Hillary). The only thing Kaine could come up with is "There is a better way". That's fine. And he even touched on some of those points. But until the party as a whole stops leaving flaming dog poo on the Republicans door step and actually shows the people exactly how they have come up with "a better way", they will never get power back. Stop playing the victim and become real leaders. Or shut the hell up and get out of the way.
If the public was smart (which they aren't) they'd realize that our present two-party system in no way represents the majority of the country and massive change is needed. Unfortunately, the public are also a group that as a whole doesn't want to actually step up and do what is necessary. At least, that's what it looks like since they keep voting the same inept power-hungry morons into office. Why are Ted Kennedy and Joe Barton still in Washington? Because it's easier to keep sending the same jerks rather than actually attempt to promote real change. Change is scary and requires a certain amount of courage to make it happen. But we, like the Democrats, are lazy and would rather complain about how we're being treated and hope that it'll somehow change without us having to lift a finger.
The next presidential election (as well as this years congressional elections) should be interesting. Things probably won't change for the better, but it'll be interesting to see if the liberals can maybe start seeing daylight instead of their own rectal cavities.