After the pandemic put a damper on the summer of 2020, this summer will be closer to normal.
The only problem is, it coincides with the emergence of Brood X Cicadas in my area.
Originally, I thought “meh, I’ve seen these things before. They’re annoying but it won’t be too bad”. This past week, it rained here on Wednesday and Thursday. Then it cleared up and got much warmer as the weekend arrived.
Then, on Saturday, like the fans returning to sporting events over the past month, they emerged in greater numbers…
Yeah, those suckers are loud and have no sense of direction. Like high school seniors at after-prom, they are wandering around aimlessly trying to get lucky.
Just hours after I wrote this post, a cicada caused thousands of dollars in vehicle damage locally…
The last time I experienced a cicada emergence was at my cousin’s bachelor party in southwest Pennsylvania five years ago. We were in the Laurel Highlands near Seven Springs Mountain Resort and they were everywhere. Haven’t seen anything yet in Cincinnati that compares to that, but even as I don’t see a lot of them, I can definitely hear them and we are reportedly nearing peak emergence.
Here’s your Mix & Match Monday: Week of June 7 Edition…
–One of the podcasts I have been tuning into since the start of the year has been “The Dan Le Batard Show w/Stugotz”, especially now that Le Batard and crew have departed ESPN Radio and the company all-together, while he and former ESPN President John Skipper have created a new media company called Meadowlark.
To begin a 3-year, $50 million partnership with Draft Kings, Dan Le Batard, his radio team and others joining him at Meadowlark did a live, 24-hour show on YouTube from his studio in Miami at the Clevelander which ran from Noon Friday to Noon Saturday (well, technically 11:50 a.m., but it doesn’t matter).
I watched the first 9.5 hours, and then tuned in at times during work, then slept a little bit, waking up just in time for the final hour. At times there were some sounds issues, which are expected when you’re doing a marathon like that without ESPN helping out, but it was a success. Big names in sports like Bob Costas, Jim Rome, Dan Patrick, Pat Riley, Charles Barkley and others appeared, with pre-taped bits, live animals, drunk people, cursing, eating hot peppers to raise money for ALS research and even Jim Brockmire appeared.
The full, 24-hour video will soon be available, but here’s a good 11-minute recap.
You’ll enjoy it more if you “Get the Show”…
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–My girlfriend and I watched “The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel” on Netflix, which told the story of Elisa Lam’s disappearance at the seedy, downtown Los Angeles hotel near Skid Row, where she wound up being found dead inside a water tank on the roof, with police ruling Lam’s death an accidental drowning.
Many times during the four-episode documentary, I said out loud “I f***ing hate YouTubers”. Don’t get me wrong, there are entertaining YouTube channels with people who put out great content. But like true crime podcasters, internet sleuths who try to be keyboard detectives/journalists really annoy me. Most were wrong at every turn, speculating like crazy, and when they didn’t get the final cause of death they wanted, they, like the Q’Anon wackos, went further down the rabbit hole, even going as far as to accuse an innocent man of killing Lam. They saw he stayed at the Cecil Hotel the same month as she did, but were too lazy to realize that he was there a year prior to Lam’s visit.
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-The Montreal Canadiens seem to like pandemic hockey.
Last season, when the league restarted in bubbles set up in Toronto and Edmonton, they were the lowest-seeded team in the Stanley Cup Qualifiers, beating the top-seeded Pittsburgh Penguins 2-1 in the best-of-3 series, moving on to the first round, eventually losing to the Philadelphia Phillies. If the pandemic doesn’t happen, Montreal likely misses the playoffs in 2020 for a third-straight season.
This season, they finished 4th in the all-Canadian team North Divsion, and appeared to be dead in the water down 3-1 to the Toronto Maples Leafs in the first round. But the Maple Leafs were, well, the Maple Leafs, and blew the series as the Canadiens won three-straight. Now, they are up 3-0 in their second round series against the Winnipeg Jets and are one win away from playing either the Colorado Avalanche or Vegas Golden Knights in the third round.
The last time a team from Canada won the Stanley Cup was 1993, and it was Montreal who raised it. Maybe they do it this season as the underdog?
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-The United States Men’s National Team winning the first-ever CONCACAF Nations League Final 3-2 in extra time against Mexico in Denver Sunday night was an incredible match. The kind that gets you excited about watching U.S. men’s soccer again and gives Americans a chance to learn about VAR and really hate it.
Christian Pulisic scored on a penalty in the 114th minute, after a VAR review, to put the U.S. ahead, but Mexico would later get a chance after VAR was utilized again, as U.S. goalkeeper Ethan Horvath made the stop on the penalty, preventing the match from going to penalty kicks to decide the championship.
Mexico fans looked bad.
Frustrations led to them throwing bottles and empty beer cups onto the pitch at U.S. players while doing a homophobic chant as Pride Month has just begun in the United States.
Where’s Sam Wyche when you need him?
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-This is the final week of my 31st year on this planet and it wasn’t all bad. The 32nd year will happen should be a little more like the 30th.
SEAN GALLAGHER HAS THOUGHTS 