Bartender Banter: Winter Doldrums Edition

God damn snow!

I used to hear people in Southern California say that people living in the Midwest were fools to endure such miserable weather. Well you know what? After spending 5 days in Laguna Beach for ThunderFest 2008 I'm finally in agreeance* (sic) with them. We're complete assholes for sitting through shitty winters up here.

Not much news about the Cubs discussed around here lately. I guess they signed Jon Lieber. Makes sense since bringing back Trachsel worked out so damn well. Next on their wish list, Kevin Tapani. Yeah he's 44 years old, but he's a spry 44.

I decided to put my name on the waiting list for Cubs season tickets, just to see where I would be in line. 79,363rd bitch! No budging.

Can we officially declare this the Dark Ages for sports talk radio? ESPN Radio isn't almost unlistenable now, it IS unlistenable. Seriously, how in the hell did Stephen A. Smith get his own show? All he does is yell at you. I feel like I did something wrong. Pair him up with Hillary Clinton and it feels like your parents are scolding you, but it's not like when you stayed out past curfew as a teenager. It's more like you did something unforgiveable like punch out a nun or something. In fact if I heard them both yelling at the same time I'd feel like punching out a nun. Don't even get me started on Stephen A's strange stints on MSNBC.

ANYWAY, back to sport talk. It's terrible. Apparently they all follow the same steps.

1. Find the hot button topic of the day.
2. State your stance on topic.
3. Continually repeat your stance over and over for 2 hours.
4. Take phone calls while you keep repeating stance.
5. Yell a lot and cut off your callers mid-sentence.
   
6. End show, go back to your lonely darkened apartment.
7. Drink scotch by your lonesome until you pass out in your easy chair.

That's about it. My personal favorite is when they talk about "not talking about" something. I kid you not, I once tuned in and listened to Linda Cohn talk about how she was not going to talk about the Michael Vick story. She talked about "not talking about it" for a full hour! Christ, fine if you're not going to discuss it, but move on and talk about something else then.

Not all is lost however. There are two shows I can still fully endorse out there. The first is the Dan Patrick Show. Dan was the anchor of ESPN Radio for years and without him that ship drifted out to sea and got lost. You can tune in to a live stream of his show in the mornings at his website http://www.danpatrick.com/. The second show is Tony Kornheiser, which made it's return this week after another hiatus for Monday Night Football. Kornheiser can be heard at DC radio station 3WT. He's still by far my favorite sports talk show, despite the fact he hardly talks about sports. You could almost say that TMS is the "Tony Kornheiser" of Cubs blogs. You know because of the lack of Cubs coverage, not for the exemplary writing.

What else? Oh yeah, the Cubs posted their depth chart on the official site. Thunder Matt is listed as Soriano's backup in LF. Thanks for playing Matt. We'll enjoy the occasional times you get a chance to pinch hit.

New England vs. New York in the Super Bowl, or as I called them, "God Dammit!" versus "Ahhh Horseshit!" I hope Eli contracts airborne AIDS.

If you haven't noticed the spiffy little button for TMS Radio in the sidebar yet, it's about damn time you acquaint yourself with it. We've pumped over 1100 songs into that son of a bitch at this point. I'm not going to guarantee you'll like every song but at least it's better than hearing the same .38 Special song at the same time every day on your shitty FM classic rock station.

Oh yeah we have another death to report. No, not Heath Ledger. Suzanne Pleshette passed away.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Suzanne Pleshette, best known for her role as Bob Newhart's wife on television's long-running "The Bob Newhart Show," has died, just days before a ceremony honoring her with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Pleshette, who underwent chemotherapy for lung cancer in 2006, died of respiratory failure Saturday evening at her Los Angeles home, said attorney and family friend Robert Finkelstein.

I'm a little too young to recall the original Newhart Show, but I do remember her in the movie "Hot Stuff" starring alongside Jerry Reed and Dom DeLuise. That movie earned a spot in the pantheon of "Movies that HBO constantly aired during the 80's that I always sat and watched". Other members of the pantheon include "Just One of the Guys" and "Midnite Madness".

Score 6 points to Tommy Buzanis in Death League.

That's all for now. Rockies in 6.

* I included the (sic) because I never feel like people will understand it's a lame joke about Fred Durst.