it's a nice,clear,sunny friday and i'm delayed in the vegas airport.
i'm on my way to denver for a business trip. what kind business trip starts on a friday anyway?
needless to say this is my life.
although if i weren't traveling i would probably still be at work. so at the very minimum, at least i'm out of the office.

I finished Bing West's No True Glory a few days ago. It's good and I recommend you read it soon if you haven't already.

Bing West is a former Marine who served in Vietnam and is also the former Assistant Secretary of Defense during the Reagan Administration. He has been to Iraq many times and this is his second book about the war.

West pulls punches but in my view he pulls the right ones. He goes into enough description for you to get the point but doesn't over do it. Is the book for the faint of heart? No, but it is a rapid fire account of both of the battles in Fallujah.

Fallujah is a backwater according to West. It has little to no representation in Baghdad. The Marines did a helluva job and were, during the first battle of Fallujah, used as political pawns in West's view.

Yes West is a former Marine and is going to side with the leathernecks however he has a point and it is one worth restating. US Military personnel are not political pawns. If you order them to take a town then by God let them do it. Do not order them, have their comrades be injured or killed and then pull them out for political reasons. This is a shrewd way to put it and these are my words not West's but it is, in essence, what happened in Fallujah.

I know some people don't want to read books like this while others do. I think this book, while not as significant as Black Hawk Down, is an important book worth reading.

Why didn't anybody tell me that they were making a G.I.Joe movie!?

Dude, G.I. Joe...the movie!

You got Dennis Quaid playing 'HAWK' Christopher Eccleston playing 'Destro', and Marlon Wayans playing 'Ripcord'.

Dude!

This is like the coolest thing I've heard this year!

Someone should have told me this! Becuase as G.I.Joe would say, "and knowing is half the battle."

For some reason I've been thinking a lot about my time in Austin, TX. Or at least I've been thinking about Texas.

I don't know if Vegas reminds me of it or not. It just keeps getting brought back up a lot of the time.

Maybe it's the weather here in the high desert. It's March and I'm in a pair of crocs and shorts.

I read this article in the Sports Business Journal about how a PowerPoint done or at least support by other networks are taking shots at ESPN.

The long and the short of it is that ratings are down for leagues such the NBA, NFL, NASCAR and AFL (that's Arena Football to you and me)

Their are other complaints come from ad buyers as well saying that ESPN is pushing a digital strategy and makes it hard for them to buy just one thing.

ESPN has fired back by saying in a sense "are you kidding me?" Networks that are pushing this powerpoint are dinosaurs and have no idea where this medium is or going. ESPN has made a powerpoint counter-point. x

The only two legitimate claims that other networks or sports leagues have about ESPN is 1) not covering sports that are not carried by the network and 2) not drawing the line well enough in the news vs. sports broadcaster arena.

The NHL for example pretty much got dumped by ESPN a few years ago. Now they are on VS and I would have to say that coverage of them on Sportscenter has fallen off dramatically.

Hell the MLS which is carried by the "family of networks" also has a hard time being covered. Last year during the Eastern Conference Finals the league commissioner Doug Garber threw down the gauntlet saying that Taylor Twellman's game winning bicycle kick should be on Sportscenter ( He was on ESPN 2 at the time.)

The news vs. entertainment issue is always going to be sticky. The article says:

Leagues have been getting upset with the timing of some of ESPN’s investigative reports. The network ran several pieces on disabled retired football players at the start of the NFL season. It ran an exposé on alcoholism in baseball during the MLB playoffs.

I assume the leagues have a legit beef. On the other hand is that just good timing and promotion to capture the most amount of eyeballs?

I think that the article touches on a major point that could knock ESPN down to size...leagues staring their own networks. NFL network, NBA TV, etc. At some point I think that the leagues will just hit out on their own. The only reason they don't right now is because there is too much money to lose by ditching those lucrative TV contracts.

It's a decent article and if your in the industry it might be an interesting read.

1. This weekend the Charleston Battery bring in three MLS clubs for an exhibition called The Carolina Cup Challenge. I use to go to this every year especially on the first weekend when we've all been soccer starved for a couple of months and have all been watching the Premiership and Champions League games.

2. St. Paddy's weekend and I'm not in Savannah. It's one of the biggest parties in the US and I'm in Las Vegas. I've been through 3 St. Paddy's in Savannah. 2 working and 1 partying. Either way, it's funny and 9 times out of 10 the weather is a good as it gets in Southeastern Georgia.

...Sucking supplement. I have to work through the entire NCAA tournament. I do honestly miss the days working at a CBS affiliate in the Southeast this time of year. Why? I got paid to watch basketball. Tough gig I'm tellin' ya.

I got a pain in my neck. A kink. Something. It feels better when I put some Icy Hot on it. Some days it doesn't hurt at all and other days it hurts all day.

Once I saw a documentary about William Gibson. He was riding in a car from LA to Vancouver. He mentioned that his friend Bruce Sterling had an interesting thought.,that all of the business's got fed up and left the online world for the security of the real world. Security online was just not good enough. This in turn would give it back to those who were online originally.

Just someday's the weirdest things occur to you.

Liverpool beat Inter Milan to advance to the quarterfinals of the Champions League. They along with 3 other English League clubs (Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United) made it to through the first knock out round. That is the first time that 4 Premiership clubs made it through.

On Saturday I went to run some errands while wearing a Blackburn Rovers jersey I picked up in London. An American is their goal keeper so I figured I support the club. As I left the house I saw an Asian man walking his dog wearing a AC Milan jersey. When I made a turn onto a major street two kids where crossing the road and one of them had on a Manchester United jersey. Later in the day I saw a Mexican man wearing a jersey from a Mexican club.

Who says soccer or football will never go anywhere here?

In all of our protectionism, how did we let the fabled "ice cream truck" though? You know, that ghetto ass vehicle with the circus music tempting kids with it's icey treats.

The truck is the bain of parents across the country. Spoiling kids dinners and the driver....uh oh. He could be a "predator". I guess this is why parents move into gated communities. Perhaps the high walls and keypads could prevent the ice cream truck. Although it does let in the garbage folks.

Seriously, it's like the one last thing that remains before we initiated this "protect kids at all costs" bit.

You know, when I was young and we were wrestling or something outside it was called rough housing. Now it's a lawsuit.