My hair is on fire! My hair is on fire! My hair is on fire!

I recently posted that I would need to either blog regularly or quit having a blog. Here I am at work at 2 a.m. and my content manager (the way I make the DeseretNews website compelling) has stopped working. I am counting on this being a temporary server issue since it needs to reset sometimes. The point is, it gives me time to blog so here is a whole lot of little tidbits of what is going on.



I am going to Comic-Con next Wednesday, as I have for years now. I have worked for SideshowCollectibles there and helped them in various ways, including interviewing Stan Lee and Elvira. This year they faced a hotel room shortage and decided to do it without me so I am a free agent. I will be laboring intently by updating TheOneRing.net, by co-presenting a panel (scroll down to the 10:30 a.m. programming) and conducting a couple of fan-participation events in conjunction with Weta.

Blah, blah, blah - no wonder I can't blog. Everything I type is a link and I work slow!

Anyway, I will also be writing for my own co-owned Website called *drum roll* www.GeekFreePress.com. You should bookmark that site and check it often, its not full of content at the moment but, we hope to make it great and I have good people helping me along the way. I have about every possible moment of my five days in San Diego scheduled already with video games, television, movies, books, Web casts and comics. I should be talking to Felicia Day, all the voices behind SpongeBob, see Gwar in concert (ha!), attend some screenings and so forth. Preparation for the event is maddening. I am also writing for the Deseret News and gathering a boat-load of future video games stories and writing a Weekend cover for the film "District 9" which has an entertaining trailer. See below.



The point is, my hair is on fire because, that is only one of my time sinks.

We are also, still, remodeling our kitchen. I would really like to write about it, but there is no time. Short version: We haven't had a functioning kitchen for six weeks. Its uh, inconvenient. Shannon wrote about it a bit.

And, at work I am working all nights this week, which is fine, but its hard to get things done and sleep at home. A big change is coming up soon at work, really as soon as I am back from Comic-Con, so again, my hair is on fire.

My good friend Scott Iwasaki, Dnews music critic, has asked me to review the Tool concert. This came up suddenly but I am excited! Anyway, sleep is a burden and my hair is on fire. None of this is a complaint though, all of these things will eventually be for my good and are the stuff life is made of.

The wonder of sports

I love sports and mostly have always. I enjoy watching, I enjoy fantasy sports and I enjoy playing them despite lugging around about 40 extra pounds of man.

Shannon and I play co-ed slow pitch softball and have off-and-on for years, mostly with the Deseret News team. This year the games were on Monday nights but the company is too poor to pay so individual players coughed up the cash.

As (bad) luck would have it, I missed many games and then showed up to two games that were rained out. For me it was a short season but I was able to be present for most of the playoff run.

The final day of the season the two best teams in the league were paired in one semifinal while we played a far inferior team in the other game. We played badly and squeezed out a win leaving us to face a very good team in the final.

If we played the team we met in the championship 10 times we might win two or three games but the final game was one of those, leaving us as the league champions with a solid 16-8 win. Our first basewoman is well into her 60s is literally unable to run. I credit our infield defense for more than solid play and we were both lucky and skilled with our bats, scoring enough runs to keep the pressure on the other team.

The wonder of sports is that the best team doesn't always win. It doesn't matter in championships or even just games which team is better, it matters who performs better right then. Utah beats Alabama in the Sugar Bowl, the Yankees don't win every World Series and Austin Peay beats Illinois in the NCAA basketball tournament. If you don't recall that win, it was in 1987 and outspoken announcer Dick Vitale famously said the best 64 teams should be in the tournament and that some great teams were left out and the Governors had no business being there and had no chance to beat Illinois. Vitale even said he would stand on his head if they won. He kept his promise. He has also changed his tune over the years, speaking in favor of teams that aren't in the biggest conferences but have great seasons having a chance to dance.

Locally, Weber State beat North Carolina in 1999 behind Harold Arceneaux and beat Michigan State in 1995.

Once upon a time a former D-league quarterback named Kurt Warner, after all the other guys got hurt, led the St. Louis Rams to the Superbowl. The best teams don't always win and that is what makes sports so fun.