Enter Blue Guy

It's funny, a lot of people who love Friends liken their fandom to a sad obsession. Me included. I honestly think nothing starts a day off work or school quite like sitting my ass in front TV, drinking coffee and watching a two hour block of Friends. After watching morning sports highlights, of course. We are a sad breed.

Only when Detroit is playing, I guess.

Thanks to John Madden, now I'm Martin Gramatica.

All my friends hate the Wings. All that does is give me more reason to continue to cheer for them every post season.

Do you know I've been pounding my head against walls for years now and so far I been rewarded with ZERO gold coins for such tasks.

I've been pulling for the Capitals too. Probably the only team in the East I can stomach cheering for. I'm picking Minnesota and Montreal in the finals, though.

When the Leafs are out of the playoffs, I automatically cheer for Detroit. It's a complete playoff thing, but it has given me shit to cheer for when there shouldn't be. So I will be wearing my size too small Wings' jersey with the sleeves cut off for extra tacky, playoff feel, as long as they are in.

There are so many single Chandler lines that I love. From TOW Phoebe's Ex-Partner, when they are watching the singer who turns out to be Phoebe's old singing partner. Chandler: I like her. Phoebe: Why, because she can sing and play guitar and do both at the same time? Chandler: ...Well, that’s pretty much all I’m looking for from these people.

EDIT: Also, If you want to do an EWB hockey pool, I set one up here at www.onlinepools.com pool name = EWB password = playoffs It's a free one, so it's just basic. It's set up so you can pick as many players from either conference, but for the sake of a pool it should split down the middle for both East and West. I have it set as 20 skaters and 4 goalies all together, but to split into East/West and positions it should be 6 forwards, 4 defense, and 2 goalies per conference. 2 points for a goal 1 point for an assist 2 points for a win 3 points for a shutout edit: shit, I meant to edit that to my last post, my bad.

Montreal over Boston in 4 Pittsburgh over Ottawa in 5 Washington over Philly in 6 Jersey over New York in 6 Detroit over Nashville in 5 Calgary over San Jose in 7 Wild over Avalanche in 6 Anaheim over Dallas in 7

You pick players from each conference separately (something like 6 forwards, 4 defense, 2 goalies per conference) and you get points for goals, assists, etc (you can usually add or take away any stats you like, but for playoffs it tends to be more simplified, just goals, assists, and wins for goalkeepers). Of course, since it's playoffs, the players drop out each round. There is no maintenance, you just picked what players you think will rack up the points, win games, and survive in the post season and they do the rest for you. It's better when it's for money, but harmless fun if there is an EWB one.

Ladder 49. Women (and most men) cry during Ladder 49.

Anybody up for a little playoff hockey pool action? I just need something to make the playoffs little more interesting. I'm doing a real one with people from work, but a friendly one at EWB would be fun.

Some poster on Sherdog said the fight would end with Cung Le winning via controversial stoppage due to injury. IIRC, he may have even called it ending in the 3rd, but I'm too lazy to dig the thread up to check. 50 million threads get made every day at Sherdog, lately a good number them have been about Cung Le/Shamrock, so fuck that. Anyways, the guy claimed to be a training partner of Le's, but later he apparently denied being as closely associated with Cung Le as he first said, if he even knew him at all. Frank's arm got pretty fucked up in that fight, enough to question why he'd want to work a finish that would require him to break his arm in order for it to be pulled off. Frank doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would willingly lose. He's pretty full of himself. It was an intense fight, neither guy looked like they were pulling any of their strikes, if there was no "training partner", there would be no questioning the legitimacy of the fight. Who really cares if the fight was worked, though. I mean, so much good came out of it. A great fight, more hype for Cung Le (good fro Strikeforce at least), and Frank's mouth getting shut. For the time being.

The thing about Friends is that episodes can be storyline oriented (for a network sitcom, I mean) and a lot of the jokes as the season go one become more "inside" to people who follow the show. Obviously there are the random events and smaller scale stories, but usually there is a big storyline taking place in each episode that would to string episodes together to follow from the current season or even previous seasons. Friends is a show that plays a lot on past events and knowing characters histories and personalities. Again, for a network sitcom, not comparing it highbrow, brilliantly written programing. So yeah, catching a random episode when you're not really fan isn't the greatest way to watch it. As a fan, I loved the way the series ended, no matter how lame and predictable it was. Realistically, Friends was ready to pack it in between seasons 7-9. it seemed like seasons 9 and 10 were done purely for the fans who kept the show relevant and successful even though they were getting on in the years. Season 10 especially. The series was milked creatively for all it was worth, the Ross/Rachel baby story in season 8 was the last original storyline for the show. The jokes in the last few seasons are campier, much more fan related and "popcorn" funny, very much a tribute to all the people who'd watched over the years. To have to show go out on any other way would have been horrible.

I've been going through an MMA burn out the last few weeks, but UFN 13 was good enough to end that. Very exciting, competitive fights, super enjoyable.

Well, Leonard Garcia just ruined what looked like a promising career at 145. Good for him. I thought if Faber beat Pulver, eventually Garcia and Faber would have matched up in a great fight.

Nick Diaz is a great fighter, but he gets way too much respect. He's quite the doofus.

EDIT: post 2x

So Tim Sylvia is leaving the UFC, he should make it official on Friday. I'm sure he'll be back, but a huge below to the UFC's heavyweight division. Heh, no wonder Dana has been trying to mend the fences with Arlovski so suddenly.

Bruce Willis.

I don't mean to hijack the thread, I'm assuming this was meant for the UK Apprentice only, but I really like Celebrity Apprentice. I've never liked the show before, my mom did so I've seen a bit of it, but this celebrity version is highly entertaining. Stephan Baldwin is probably the most unintentionally entertaining human being on the planet.

Tibau vs. Stevenson for UFC 86. Seeing how Tibau defended the takedown of Tyson Griffin, I think Joe Daddy might double leg slam Gleison through the cage. Joe by domination.

I love how the Raptors are stinking up the joint right around the time we should be forgetting about Leaf playoff hopes. If only the Leafs could play in the NBA East. What's next? I'm I supposed to cheer for the Blue Jays now or something?

As much as I love Mats Sundin, I really think it's his time to move on. Mats is the leader on that team, but man, too much of the load gets put on his shoulders. It seems like the team expects Mats to be "that guy" way too often. They aren't a high caliber team in the first place, but with Mats out of the line up, you notice the rest of the team plays better. They work harder to pick up the slack, they work as a team, there is no one guy expected to carry the heavy load. Mats is the star, but without him is when the team really becomes the cohessive unit. I mean, just cutting out Mats isn't the answer. Obviously no matter how hard they work they aren't going to set fires as is, but it's a great way to start rebuilding this team. As long as Mats is a Leaf, there is going to be that stigma that he is THE guy, he is THE team, the Leafs need Mats to succeed. Get rid of that. This should be the start of new foundation, find new leaders, new stars, new production players. As much I hate to say it, for the better of the team's future, let's close the book on the Mats Sundin era. Like MPH said, you shouldn't be expecting this team to make the playoffs next year anyways, with or without Mats. The message has been clear, this team is going to get overhauled, any fan who is going into next season expecting a quick fix needs to get their ass in check. The era of quick offseason fixes is over (I hope). The Leafs need a reason, a spark, something to get people realize things are going to change. They need to cut the safety net and work their way back up with something new. That's #1 on a long list of offseason chores, IMO. EDIT: I spent a longer time editing that over and over again then I did to write it.