Time for this old dog to do some howlin’ at the moon:

–I saw the perfect t-shirt for my younger sister, the proud owner of 3 dogs. It has a picture of a rather pensive looking hound on it, with a caption that reads:

“Seriously. Who let the f***king dogs out?”

–When asked why she and her husband have three canine companions, my Sis says that “One gets lonely; two compete with each other; three is a pack.”

–ESPN reporter Rachel Nichols is the Yassar Arafat of sports reporters: where Arafat never slept in the same place, Ms. Nichols never seems to report from the same locale—she’s constantly on the move, crisscrossing the country. Rachel must have some serious frequent flyer miles accumulated.

–Believe it or not, this Red Sox fan has actually reached the point where I’ve got too much of a good thing. For some reason, Comcast has graciously provided our house with the MLB all-access channels—for free! Part of the charm of following the Sox from a distance has always been that I didn’t get to see every game and had to wait until they came to town to play the Tigers or were on ESPN or Fox to get my fix. It gave me something to look forward to and savor, know what I mean? Not any more. Every single inning of each and every game is there if I want it. Mrs. Swampy is already threatening to call Comcast and alert them to their error.

–Of course, my first question was “Why the heck couldn’t they have screwed up like this last year???”

–Speaking of the Sox, here’s a great joke emailed to me by my aforementioned younger sister:

“A Red Sox fan used to amuse himself by scaring every Yankee fan he saw strutting down the street in the obnoxious NY pinstripe shirt. He would swerve his van as if to hit them and then swerve back, just missing them.

One day, while driving along, he saw a priest. He thought he would do a good deed, so he pulled over and asked the priest, “Where are you going Father?

“I’m going to give mass at St. Francis church, about 2 miles down the road,” replied the priest. “Climb in, Father! I’ll give you a lift!” The priest got into the rear passenger seat and they continued down the road.

Suddenly, the driver saw a Yankee fan walking down the road and he instinctively swerved as if to hit him. But, as usual, he swerved back into the road just in time.

Even though he was certain that he had missed the guy, he still heard a loud “THUD.”

Not understanding where the noise came from, he glanced in his mirror but still didn’t see anything. He then remembered the priest and he turned to the priest and said, “Sorry Father, I almost hit that Yankee fan.”

“That’s OK,” replied the priest, “I got him with the door.”

–And while we are on the subject of email humor, here are some more pearls of wisdom extracted from an email forwarded to me by my old WAVI boss Mike Jacques:

If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the
air, then the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, it means the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.

Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John
Hancock and Charles Thompson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn’t added until 5 years later.

Half of all Americans live within 50 miles of their birthplace

Most boat owners name their boats. The most popular boat name requested is Obsession.

Q. If you were to spell out numbers, how far would you have to go until you would find the letter “A”?
A. One thousand

Q. What do bulletproof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers, and laser printers all have in common?
A. They were all invented by women.

Q. What is the only food that doesn’t spoil?
A. Honey

Q. Which day are there more collect calls than any other day of the year?
A. Father’s Day

In Shakespeare’s time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes. When you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on. Hence the phrase……… “goodnight, sleep tight.”

It was the accepted practice in Babylon 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride’s father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the honey month, which we know today as the honeymoon.

In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts… So in old England, when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them “Mind your pints and quarts, and settle down.” It’s where we get the phrase “mind your P’s and Q’s”

Many years ago in England, pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim, or handle, of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get some service. “Wet your whistle” is the phrase inspired by this practice.

–Welcome, Kurt Huelsman! And thanks for the earlier-than-expected verbal commitment. One down, two to go, BG!

–If I had to guess, I would predict that those remaining “two” will be PG/SG James Dews and SG Adrion Graves, both out of Cincinnati.

–The NCAA says that former OSU Assistant Coach and current WSU Head Coach Paul Biancardi gave money to recruits; PB swears that he didn’t. Clearly, someone is “jiving our socks off” and call me naïve, but I don’t think it’s the NCAA.

–Just call him Bob “Lame Duck” Huggins.

–My best friend Gus back in my hometown of Leominster, MA just left me a voicemail that he became a grandfather for the first time. Boy, is he old.

–The Elder Swampette and I had a chance to catch Game 5 of the Pacers/Pistons series at the Palace. I’ve seen a lot of basketball in my time, but I have never witnessed such a complete defensive lockdown on the college or pro level. It was awesome!

That’s it “From the Swamp”