THE DAILY DIVERSION

Well, before I got out of bed anyway! Man, I had a ton of crazy dreams last night, but one was pretty disturbing.

For some reason my parents are back together, but much younger. I'm my current age and Adrianne is hers, and we're together. However, I'm in high school again. To make matters crazier, I already know everything that happened after high school.

So, I'm piling books into a duffel bag and getting ready to head to school one morning. My Dad is laying on his stomach on the couch, apparently naked under just a small blanket. My Mom is sitting on the couch with him, right around where his torso is.

We're discussing something, but I'm not sure what it is. I know I'm talking about another male child, and I'm guessing that I have a younger brother somehow. Come to find out he was caught with comic books at school and all I can say is "I didn't know he liked comic books, where are they?"

So we continue chatting and I say to my Mom "Well, we already know that I graduated, so I don't understand why I'm going again". Which she replies "Well, don't get so cocky. You're not done just with school just yet."

I go to walk out of the door when all of a sudden there's a loud "BANG", much like a gunshot.

I immediately wake up (in real life). I sat up for a second and I couldn't hear anything. I got out of bed and kind of ran to the other bathroom where Adrianne was getting for work. I ask her "Did you just hear a loud bang, like a gun shot?"

She looks at me perplexed and says "No".

I go back to bed, but begin thinking, instead of sleeping. I start thinking about all of the things I've heard about brain aneurysms and how, supposedly, the last thing the person hears is a "BANG" or "POP".

So, I start thinking "Did I just die? Am I just laying here in bed, waiting for Adrianne to find me, dead? Oh, I hope that hasn't happened."

I'm pretty frazzled by it all. I've been having some premonitions of things that have been happening lately, and I was hoping this wasn't one of them. I even pinch myself to make sure I can still feel pain. It takes a few tries, but I finally pinch hard enough for me to feel it.

I stay awake until Adrianne comes into the room to let me know she's heading to work. I wanted to make sure that if I was dead that I saw her one last time.

She comes in, gives me a kiss on the cheek, and tells me she loves me. My day can finally begin the right way!

Here is the video from Tyrone Brazelton's dunk the other night against New Orleans. Enjoy!

Here are the pictures and the video that I took of their "halftime entertainment". Actually I think the video was shot during a timeout, but I can't remember. It was funny regardless. Enjoy! Check out the video ---> HERE!

Okay, so I'm a little behind, but I love this skit:

Well, my buddy PT and I started making our plans for a trip in March. We're planning on going to the Sun Belt Conference Tournament in Lafayette, Louisiana from March 3rd through the 6th.

Thus far, I've booked our hotel. We'll be staying at the Best Western Posada Ana, which is supposed to be pretty new and easily accessible. It doesn't hurt that it's only $70 a night, which is highly affordable when you're splitting it two ways. The hotel actually looks night, and I think Best Western has stepped up their building in the last few years. I remember when Best Western hotels/motels were the equivalent of staying at a HoJo, sans the "Jo".

I know for some it's not a big deal, but it sure does come in handy for me, but, the hotel has in-room high-speed internet. That'll work for me, especially since I plan on doing daily blog updates from the tournament. I had planned on, a couple of years ago, writing daily summaries of the NAIA National Tournament I went to, but, unfortunately, my buddy and I ended up staying out all night drinking, and I was far too wasted to put a single coherent thought together.

I'll try to do better this time around though. I'll also try to comment on the local cuisine, which I plan on sampling to the extreme (yikes, I just had the line "To the extreme, I rock a mike like a vandal" from Vanilla Ice's "Ice, Ice Baby" go through my head). I've already started a list of places I'd like to eat. Here's hoping I don't spend 99% of my trip sitting on the toilet!

Check out the links above for more information on the tournament and the hotel we're staying in. It would be nice to see some of our fellow Topper fans while away from "home", and to have some other folks to go out and have a little fun with. Be sure to let me know if you're making the trip!

The first step in recovery is admitting you have a problem.

Well, I have a problem and here I am stating it.

I AM A JUNKIE.

Now, before you really get worried about me, let me explain. There are good and bad junkies. Luckily, I don't do drugs (unless you've got some!), so I'm not that kind of junkie. However, I'm a good kind of junkie, unless you ask my wife.

Actually, I'm a junkie about a lot of things. I'm a video game junkie, a TV junkie, a music junkie, a movie junkie, a trivia junkie, a Suduko junkie, and the list goes on and on. However, first and foremost, I am a Sports Junkie. Yes, I capitalized both words, just so you know I mean business.

I am a sports junkie in the worst form. I'll take it any way I can get it. By being a newlywed, I have taken some time away from "the games" so as to not make my wife feel neglected. This, in turn, has forced me to deviant lifestyles. I used to just sit around and watch whatever game I chose. Now, I have to catch sneak peaks whenever I can.

If my wife and I are watching a show and she gets up to go to the bathroom, get a drink, or whatever, I immediately pull up the channel guide and find the closest game I can (which depends on what "season" we're in). Then, I have to make sure to time things perfectly so I don't hear "Did you change the channel to sports again?!"

I've also found myself staying up later than I really need to, just in order to catch the highlights of the day in sports. "Sportscenter" is no longer part of my daily regime. Both "Around the Horn" and "Pardon the Interruption" aren't the first things I see when I get home from work. I have to pick my spots and, usually, when I get home, I want to play a video game or two, since I have more chance of getting to watch bits and pieces of a game than playing video games later on in the evening.

So, here's where we are right now. The only games I get to watch (or listen to on most occasions) are the Hilltopper basketball games. I am given a specific allotment of time to do this every week (since usually Topper basketball games aren't on TV). My wife is no dummy either. If I'm still sitting there after 9:30 pm, with my headphones on, staring intently at my laptop, while banging away on the keyboard, she knows I'm messing around and not spending time with her. That's about the time I hear "I miss you!"

Yes, that is the worst thing in the world to hear for a sports junkie. We (sports junkies in general) want what we want, with no interruption or outside attachments, until we have our fill.

Now, last night, after my wife fell asleep, I stayed up way too late again. First of all, I wasn't tired. I was working on Suduko puzzles, but the light was keeping my wife awake. So, I turned the lights off and started flipping channels. Nope, didn't want to watch the World Series of Poker for the five millionth time (really, can ESPN2 not find something else to show?). I forget what was on ESPN, but it was lame. Fox Sports had their highlight show on, but I had seen what I wanted to of it. So, I wandered back around to ESPN Classic, hoping "Cheap Seats" or something else funny like that would be on. To my surprise I found the Mike Tyson - Trevor Berbick fight from 1986.

Yes, I was 11 at the time this fight took place. At the time I didn't think much of it, but now I have realized that Mike Tyson is the sole reason I started watching boxing, and the only reason I'm a fan. Here's where the junkie in me comes out.

I actually remember watching this fight on HBO back when I was a kid. I went out of my way to watch Mike Tyson fight back then. I don't remember there being a ton of hype to the fights then, like their is now, but this fight was a big one. This fight would make Mike Tyson the youngest Heavyweight champion ever, at just over 20 years old.

On to the fight... This fight didn't last very long. Few Tyson fights did back then. Tyson bumrushed Berbick early in the first round. Most of the time, the fighters meet in the middle of the ring to start pummeling each other. In Tyson's fights he was usually about three quarters of the way across the ring before his opponent knew what hit him.

It didn't take long, but Tyson was nailing Berbick with everything. He didn't knock him down in the first round, but he knocked him absolutely silly once. He knocked him so off balance that Tyson couldn't catch up with him to finish him off and knock him down (Berbick was wobbling and stumbling all over the ring, in case I didn't get that point across).

Now, the funny thing about watching sporting events in retrospect, especially when you know what's going to happen is the way the players, coaches (in this case trainers), announcers, etc. act prior to the end of the event. In this case Berbick, after getting knocked senseless in the first round, actually taunts Tyson by giving him the universal sign for "Come On!" (i.e. underhand waving toward yourself).

The reason it's amusing is because Tyson did "Come On" in the second round. He actually knocks Berbick down pretty quickly, but Berbick got right up. He didn't look hurt, even though the pounding Tyson gave him was pretty bad. After the first knock down it just got ugly.

Tyson methodically stalked Berbick around the ring and waited for the most opportune time to finish him off. Really, Tyson was like a shark back in the day. If he smelled blood, you could forget about him not finishing the job off. Well, the blood was in the water.

Tyson hits Berbick under his ribcage with a right, just to feel him out. Berbick winces a little bit, but seems unharmed. Tyson ducks low, then fires up a nasty right-handed uppercut, missing Berbick entirely. As the punch is missing, Berbick has this crazy look on his face. Its almost as his face is saying "Good lord! That would've killed me!"

Well, Trevor my fried, you weren't so lucky on the next punch. Tyson comes with an over-hand left and hits Berbick square on the right side of his face (encompassing the entire eye, temple, nose, and cheek area). Berbick just collapses to the ground. His legs looked like the road under Lois Lane in the Superman movie, when the earthquake hit. Yes, crumpled is the word.

He tries, vehemently, to recover and stand up, but all that ends up happening is he stumbles around the ring, falling all over the place. The first time he tries to get up, he falls nearly out of the ring into press row. The next time he tries to get up he stumbles all the way across the ring collapsing again to the mat. All of this happens right in front of Tyson who's just standing there, not in amazement or bewilderment, but with no expression on his face. I actually think he wanted to hit Berbick a few more times, if he would've actually gotten up.

Finally, Judge Mills Lane grabs a hold of Berbick and waves the fight over. Berbick is a mumbling, bumbling mess after the fight, while Tyson just stands there as if nothing had happened.

I've now thought back to watching Berbick stumble around the ring after getting clobbered by Tyson and all I can say is this... I've watched many a drunken fiasco, and I've never seen anyone as messed up as Berbick was after Tyson landed that over-hand left. Man, it was ugly!

Now, I'm done being a junkie and I'm going to get to work!

Well, I'm happy and I'm kind of disappointed, all at the same time. Last night the Toppers pulled off a heroic comeback and beat a team that they probably should've beat more handily, but, at the same time, Notre Dame looked like a big ol' pile of wet dog crap in their game against LSU.

I didn't get to see any of Western's game, but I listened to bits and pieces on the radio. We were down 3 with 5 seconds and change left on the clock. They had one of their best free throw shooters on the line and he clanks it. Courtney "Mr. Go To Guy" (for my boy Murph) Lee grabs the board and races down the court to drain a 3 to send it to overtime. The Toppers shut out Troy for most of the overtime and end up winning by 4. At this point in time last night, Notre Dame was still in the game, so I was still happy!

One reason I'm upset is that I can't believe I stayed up past halftime to watch that piece of crap,when, obviously, Notre Dame didn't. It was a good game in the first half. Notre Dame kept it close and came back to tie it after being down 14 very, very early. The defense was absolutely atrocious, and that continued all night long (wow, that puts the Lionel Ritchey song in my head, which makes me feel a little better). To make matters worse, the offense got three possessions in the 3rd quarter and did absolutely nothing with them, therefore forcing the much maligned defense on the field for nearly 10 minutes during the quarter. When that happens, you know it's not going to be pretty.

For the most part, the defense played decently. They stopped the run and force LSU to several field goal attempts. However, their Achilles Heal came back up and bit them thoroughly on the ass once again. Big play after big play sealed their fate. It's as if the defensive philosophy of the game was to stop the run, but try to play prevent defense at the same time. There was little to no pressure on the quarterback (nothing new there) and mini-Daunte Culpepper just sat back and picked apart the zone. I don't have enough fingers, toes, and appendages to count how many times one of their receivers was sitting down in the zone just waiting for JaMarcus Russell to lob the ball to him. It was silly. The worse part is that Russell rarely threw a good ball. Most of the time the ball came out of his wobbly or off target. That didn't matter though, because there was never a Notre Dame defensive back within 10 yards of their receivers to make a play on it.

Just to rub things in, the LSU faithful proved once again why they are some of the least classy fans in the world. It's not bad enough that they pelt visiting team buses with eggs and bags of urine is it? Well, last night, while leading 41-14, these classy bastards decided to break out the "OVER-RATED" chant. Umm... Folks... You're ranked higher than Notre Dame. I just thought I'd let you know that.

Yet another team I'll put on my "dislike list" because of their stupid fans. Maybe one day I'll actually write that list down?