MixBlog 3-22-11

Let's discuss a few topics, shall we? We'll start with sports and then move on...

Flyers' goaltending. Is it now back to being a weakness? Tonight's game against Washington, besides being the first of 11 games to finish the regular season, was the start of a five-game stretch which may well determine if they'll finish first in the Eastern Conference. Four of the games are against teams breathing down their necks: Washington, Boston and Pittsburgh (twice). Rookie goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky hasn't had wins in back-to-back games since January. Tonight he let in three weak goals in little over a period, and was yanked in favor of Brian Boucher. After the Flyers stormed back to take a 4-3 lead and were dominating the game, Boucher let in the tying goal late in the third period and was absolutely shredded in the deciding shootout (which shouldn't decide games anyway, but that's another story). The Flyers got a point but are only 1 point ahead of Washington now instead of the 4-point lead they could have had. Can one of these goalies get hot in time for the playoffs, please?

Phillies and Luis Castillo. Even though everyone who's seen him this spring thinks he's washed up, including the Mets, who released him, the Phils decided to bring him in. Since he signed a minor league deal the only way he'll be paid anything by the Phils is if he actually makes the team. So it's essentially a nine-game tryout to see if he can beat out the competition to hold down second base while Chase Utley is out (which, just because of the fact that the Phils brought in Castillo, seems like it will be for quite some time). They basically agreed to terms Sunday night, made it official Monday morning...and somehow Castillo failed to arrive until after game time today. It's been blamed on a "miscommunication," but come on. I'll be stunned if this stiff wins the job. The guys already competing for spots have done fine, from what I've heard.


My NCAA tournament bracket. Thank heavens I only bothered to fill it out on one site (Outsports). After a strong first day, where I was 13-3, I have sunk into a tie for 79th place out of 131 entries (plus five more who signed up but never filled out the bracket -- what's up with that?). No surprise, really, because I don't follow college basketball closely enough to have any real knowledge to work with when making my picks. (Oh, and what a complete waste the Big East was. Only 2 of the conference's 11 teams made it through to the Sweet 16, and that's only because those two played fellow Big East teams. And don't get me started on Villanova's monumental collapse down the stretch and their choke job in the last two minutes of their NCAA loss. They reminded me of those 2007-2008 New York Mets, except Villanova actually made their "playoffs.")

Chris Brown goes nuts. Again. Poor baby is tired of hearing about how he beat up Rihanna, whether it's from a has-been singer or Good Morning America. An extended period of good behavior would help those questions go away (as would actually answering those questions like a grownup instead of avoiding the subject), but this idiot isn't capable of that. And to think he passed his anger-management course!

RuPaul's Drag Race. Season three is headed to the finish line, and the latest contestant to "sashay...away" was Carmen Carrera. This is interesting because Carmen was given a nomination in Logo's NewNowNext award category, "Most Addictive Reality Star." I took this as a sign that she would be the eventual Drag Race winner, because the nominations were announced when the show had barely started, but she's gone and there are five queens still standing. So what was so "addictive" about Carmen? Sounds like the Logo honchos who gave her a nomination backed the wrong horse.