Idle Hands

It has been a strange day in the news world. This morning, the local papers were all aflutter because Tom Brady was spotted wearing an air cast in NYC yesterday while going to his girlfriend's apartment. The Herald's now reporting it's a high ankle sprain, but a mild one. The New York papers had fun with it, calling him a "girly man," among other things. Ah, just 11 more days of this.

After I got back to my desk after a midday run, I found out the Leafs had finally fired GM John Ferguson Jr. and replaced him with former GM Cliff Fletcher on an interim basis. JFJ's four years on the job had been marked with bad move after bad move, taking a perennial contender and turning it into a non-playoff team the last two seasons. The Leafs are currently in last place in the Eastern Conference and hopefully Fletcher (who worked wonders with the team in the early to mid-90s) will move some of their high-priced veterans and stockpile draft picks and prospects. That includes captain Mats Sundin, who has a no-trade clause and would have to consent to a trade; even though he's one of the greatest players in team history, I think they should move him and get as much as they can. The current lineup of this team is going nowhere fast.

So then right before I left work for the day I heard about Heath Ledger's death, which appears to be a drug overdose. Dude was just 28. I don't get it. I was still in shock over Sam the Butcher and Suzanne Pleshette.

Play that funky music:

• In the spirit of National Novel Writing Month, next month is host to The RPM Challenge, in which musicians and wannabe musicians must record 10 songs or 35 minutes worth of music in 29 days. Pretty cool. If I had my shiznitt together musically, I would give it a shot, but it ain't gonna happen. But maybe my buddies OJ, Doobs, Briggy or Mahk may want to give it a shot. Besides, I'm probably going to give Script Frenzy a shot in April. Why the hell not?
• Check out the Flickr page for plenty of cute photos from the holidays and whatnot.
• With all the back-and-forth with Barack Obama lately, it's no wonder Bill Clinton nodded off during a speech by MLK III the other day. Unfortunately for him, he was sitting behind the podium and in full view of the video cameras. Of course, he isn't the only politician to be caught napping. And I can relate: I fall asleep in church all the time. I just don't get caught on camera. I hope.