Surfin' on a Saturday

Not for nothin', but apparently the Sox have a new pitcher, or something

Matsuzaka mania is cruising along like a well oiled machine. So far so good. He looked smooth, composed and well, damn talented, in his opener Friday night. I would rate myself a 9 out of ten on the 'I can not wait for..' scale, with this kid and his first regular season start.

My last 10 out of 10 on the 'I can not wait for..' scale? The Patriots AFC Championship game against the Colts, which they won as far as I am concerned, as I switched off and went to bed with them up 21-6. Yes, I am in denial.

Speaking of the Patriots, very nice pick up with sack-master Adalius Thomas coming to town. From ESPN;

The Patriots have reached an agreement in principle with former Baltimore Ravens linebacker Adalius Thomas, among the premier players in the unrestricted free agent pool, and the seven-year veteran appears to be a perfect fit for coach Bill Belichick's trademark 3-4 defensive scheme.

Thomas has had 28 and a half sacks the last three seasons with 11 last year, and is only 29 years old and it's very nice to see New England land this kind of free agent, considering how weakly they spent their surplus cash in '06. In related news, they have also signed Kyle Brady the veteran tight end to a two year contract. This means that there will be at least a few 'Brady, to Brady!' calls next season, which should be fun.

Just watched the excellent finish between Ohio State and Michigan, I now see what the fuss is about Greg Oden, and yes, I will be rooting against the Celtics for the remainder of the season in the somewhat unusual hope that they tank it in all the way home on the way to getting Oden in the draft. The kid is amazing, such size but also such great feet and hands.

By the by, blocked shots are pretty cool.


Late night writing playlist
Eclectic, moody and yet oddly enjoyable

'Twilight' The late great Elliot Smith - from ''From a basement on a hill''
'Mad world' The Gary Jules version
'Starman' by Seu Jorge from ''The Life Aquatic Studio Sessions''
'The Greek song' Rufus Wainwright from ''Poses''
'Alameda' by Elliot Smith from ''Either/Or''
'Tattoo' by Joseph Arthur off 'Come to where I'm from'
'Stripsearch' by Faith No More from 'album of the year'
'The trick is to keep breathing' by Garbage from 'Version 2.0'

Sports Guy, Sports Guy, what is going on. I have to admit, Sports Guy is a major part of my sports reading the last few years. His writings on the Patriots, Red Sox and Celtics are both funny and incisive, particularly the excellent 'Nomar Redemption' piece and the various articles he wrote as the Patriots stunned the NFL world in 2001. As he would say, good times.

Let's face it, everything changes, and Sports Guy is not immune to that fact. He's had kids, gone out West, mainstreamed himself up a bit I am sure even he would admit. He still maintains a certain edge to his writing though which, for me, makes him essential weekly reading.

However, the introduction to his latest Basketball Blog is a little, well, creaky. Straight off, he starts the piece with this paragraph;

''I hate writing a rebuttal to another writer's column. I hate it. These days on the Internet, people spend far too much time writing about other writers instead of just writing about sports. Pretty soon, there will be Web sites devoted to writers writing about writers who write about other writers. We're not headed in the right direction.''

He then goes on to write an enormous rebuttal to another writers column. My thinking is, what's wrong with writing about writing? If writing is, as I think it is anyway, a form of communication, surely writing and then discussion of writing is just communication? What's wrong with that? Is it not 'good to talk'?

As usual though with Sports Guy, for my money anyway, there's plenty of interesting parts to the piece to make it worthwhile. Good for him, for example, for sticking his neck out a little and basically calling the city of Las Vegas out for not being prepared for the NBA All Star weekend, and for the chaos that appears to have reigned for the duration of same.