Granite State Destroyer

Hola. Sorry for the state of bloggio silence this week. Things have been extraordinarily busy around here. Last night, I went to the Hockey East semifinals at the TDBanknorth FleetBostonGarden. My friend Rick had a last-minute cancellation and hooked me up since my alma mater UNH was playing BU in the first game; Boston College and Maine played in the second game. This had all the makings of a great night of college hockey. Unfortunately for me, UNH just fell apart after the first period. They trailed 5-2 going into the third and there was still a glimmer of hope. But the third period was just ugly. BU totally dominated them and UNH ended up losing 9-2. Terrible. BC took out Maine in a much more competitive game, 3-1, setting up the final tonight between the Beanpot rivals. Meanwhile, UNH waits to find out if its season was good enough to get it into the NCAA tournament.

I'll be back at the rink today when Deb and I go to the Bruins-Carolina game at noon; I won fourth-row seats in a raffle at work. Carolina's been one of the best teams in the league this year, so hopefully it'll be a good game.

Speaking of the NCAA, the March Madness hoops tournament is underway. It's the only time of year I really follow college basketball because I fill out the brackets for our office pool. I'm just mad because I left my picks at work, so I'm not sure how I made out in last night's games. I think I'm in good shape; only the Iowa upset yesterday is really damaging to me because I think I had them winning again in the second round.

Drop the puck:

• It's hard to believe South Park has been on the air for 10 seasons (although not quite 10 years), but the controversial animated show has made some noise lately. First soul legend Isaac Hayes--who provided the voice of Chef since the show began--quit the show, claiming it had gone too far in lampooning his religion, Scientology. Then Comedy Central this week pulled a repeat of a show making fun of the religion and its main proponent, Tom Cruise, purportedly because Cruise had threatened to skip all publicity duties for the upcoming Mission Impossible 3, which is owned by Comedy Central's parent Viacom. This is interesting to me because I used to love South Park the first few seasons, but haven't watched a single episode since I saw the SP movie, which was absolutely hilarious. I don't have any good reason for not watching it; I'll have to rent the show on DVD one of these days. As for Hayes and Cruise, they need to lighten the hell up.
• CBS finally announced who the "secret band" is for its upcoming Rock Star show, and it's not Van Halen or Alice in Chains. Instead, it's Supernova. Who, you ask? It's a new outfit formed by Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee, former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted and former Guns 'n' Roses guitarist Gilby Clarke. They'll be auditioning singers for their new band, which I would hope would rule out the musical theater twits who showed up on the previous edition of the show trying to take over for the late Michael Hutchence in INXS. One good thing about this is the new person won't have to fill the shoes of someone like Hutchence or David Lee Roth. I'll check out the first few episodes at the very least.
• This woman in China redefines the term "tall drink of water." She's about 7 foot 9. Dang. Wonder if they added an annex at the Dress Barn Beijing for her.