The Daily Dose/October 6, 2018
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy

In The News
The first trial resulting from the probe of alleged corruption in major division NCAA college basketball is underway in federal court in New York City. On trial are five men accused of wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to launder money in attempts get prized college basketball recruits to play at certain schools.

In order to have a crime you have to have a victim and who exactly is the victim here? Poor families who need the money? No.  NCAA schools? Maybe, maybe not. You cannot deny the schools achieved and maintained states of arousal over the prospect of landing a top player. Maybe, perhaps, the claim made in the indictment that the defendants opened the schools up to NCAA sanctions constitutes fraud. We’re not lawyers here – thank God – but the schools were willing participants in all this and hardly victims. 

Besides, what will the NCAA do anyway? They established in the Penn State child abuse imbroglio that their primary concern is keeping the money factory going. Yes, they issued significant penalties to Penn State, but they started rescinding them after a couple of years and now it is as if Penn State never kept a child molester on staff at all.

We read one of the indictments and we found this stuffed somewhere in the middle. It’s from the NCAA’s core values, so you know it’s going to be funny:

…student-athletes should be protected from exploitation by professional and commercial enterprises. 

Oh, this is rich. The NCAA obviously frowns on the exploitation of its athletes unless it’s exploitation conducted by the NCAA brilliant, as always, in their role as pimp, whore and john.

This trial is hardly a surprise. NCAA basketball has been a cesspool for generations. The NCAA and its major division members are so hell-bent on winning and making money that they all but requested this scandal.

Today at the Site
Sparrow picks up his dry cleaning for Tuesday’s candidate forum and the retailer is farting around with his schedule again on today’s edition of The Diary of a Nobody. Also, Sparrow remains pleased with Thursday’s haircut.

She nods her head solemnly and significantly as if she’s debating which strain of the clap to be infected with and I’m surprised she didn’t break out in prayer…It took her a couple of minutes before she actually decided to take the warranty which would have pleased me more if we got commissions on it, but we don’t.

The Thought for the Day is still enjoying some time off, so please enjoy this repeat from November of last year. It’s from Mark Messier, a former professional hockey player, who talks about slaying the dragon. Click here to read it.

While it is not always easy to slay our dragons, once you’ve slain one or two you might well look back and wonder what all the fuss was about. A plan for slaying your dragons, plus the courage to go and do it, aided by the patience to see them slain seldom fails to produce dividends. 

On This Date
In 1995 – The discovery of the first extrasolar planet orbiting another star, 51 Pegasi b, is announced in Switzerland by two astronomers with the University of Geneva. 51 Pegasi b is about 50 million light-years from Earth and is closer to its sun than Mercury is to ours. Its year is about four Earth days long and it is tidally locked, meaning it rotates on its axis at the same speed at which it orbits around its start, further meaning it presents the same side to its star all the time. This is the same relationship Earth has with the moon.

In 1984 – Steve Garvey of the San Diego Padres hits a two-run home run in the bottom of the ninth inning leading the Padres to a 7-5 win over the Chicago Cubs in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series (NLCS). The win ties the best-of-five series at two games apiece and the Padres would win their first National League pennant the following day.

In 1973 – Cher is at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with Half Breed. It was her second of four number 1’s as a solo act and spent two weeks at the top and also went to #1 in New Zealand and Canada. Cher had also spent three weeks at #1 with Sonny Bono with I Got You Babe.

Answer To The Last Trivia Question
The two songs that are ranked ahead of Mack the Knife on Billboard’s All-Time Top 100 are The Twist by Chubby Checker and Smooth by Santana featuring Rob Thomas. The Twist is at #1 on the chart and remains the only song to go to #1 in two separate chart runs. Smooth spent twelve weeks at #1 and stayed in the Top 10 for 30 weeks. It remains the only song to chart on two end-of-decade charts, the 1990’s and the 2000’s.

Today’s Stumper
To date, how many extrasolar planets have been discovered? – Answer next time!

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The Daily Dose/October 5, 2018
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy

In The News
If I were a United States Senator I would vote no on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the United States Supreme Court.

(I am not, of course, a United States Senator. I tried, in 2014, but the good people of Colorado only gave me enough votes to finish third in a six-candidate race.)

It has nothing to do with believing or not believing any of the testimony from the extraordinary hearing on September 27. Ms Ford’s testimony was compelling and believable and besides, what woman would put herself through this for a charade? Kavanaugh didn’t strike me as a liar and it is entirely possible both Ford and Kavanaugh genuinely believe they are telling the truth.

Other aspects of Kavanaugh’s testimony gave me pause, though. Part of it was his long opening statement. All he really needed to say was “These allegations are false, I am ready to field your questions”. Two, he was awfully cantankerous. More than anything, however, was his utter inability to directly answer a question. Time and time again a senator would ask a question and time and time again he would not answer it. Sometimes he would respond with a question of his own and other times he would go off on a tangent. More than once it occurred to me after he completed a response that he really hadn’t answered the question posed to him and that somewhere Richard Nixon is looking down on this and smiling.

We deserve better in a Supreme Court justice. We deserve someone who can directly answer a question.

Today at the Site
A busy day for Sparrow on The Diary of a Nobody, as he has two job interviews, has a follow-up appointment at the dentist and he gets a haircut. As a bonus, today’s entry is presented in chronological order.

I know from asking this question as an interviewer that it is best to come up with a fault or two in this circumstance…”I have no faults” is not an appropriate answer, so I said – and this is true enough – that I am a champion procrastinator.

The Thought for the Day continues to take some time off. Today we offer a repeat from the summer of 2017, from Minnesota Fats about being great. Click here to read it.

Fats was great himself and like many great men and women they had a great belief in others because they had a great belief in themselves. 

On This Date
In 1947 – President Harry S Truman becomes the first president to address the nation on TV from the Oval Office, urging Americans to eat less grain so America would have more to send to Europe. Truman would not make a similar address until his farewell speech in 1953. Richard Nixon had the most Oval Office speeches, 37, and President Trump so far has six.

In 1888 – The Pittsburgh Allegheneys defeat the Washington Nationals 5-1 with Pud Galvin becoming the first major league (ML) pitcher to win 300 games. (This was a National League game. The American Association was also a major league in 1888.) Galvin would retire after the 1892 season with 365 wins, which is still good for fifth on the all-time list.

In 1959 – Bobby Darin is at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with Mack the Knife for the first of six consecutive weeks and nine non-consecutive weeks. The song also went to #6 on Billboard’s R&B chart and to #1 in Great Britain and remains Darin’s only #1 song. Earlier this year, for its 60th anniversary, Billboard ranked Mack the Knife #3 on its list of all-time Top 100 singles.

Answer To The Last Trivia Question
Explorer 1 was the American satellite to orbit the earth. It was launched in January 1958, sent data back to Earth for four months and remained in orbit until 1970.

Today’s Stumper
What two songs are ranked ahead of Mack the Knife on Billboard’s all-time Top 100 list? – Answer next time!

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The Daily Dose/October 4, 2018
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy

In The News
Wrongful Conviction Day was Tuesday and we’ll forgive you if you didn’t throw an exoneration watch party or otherwise mark well the date. Most people didn’t. We are running for a seat in either the United States House or Senate for the third time this year and despite my emphasizing it, it has never really been an issue amongst the voters I have talked to. Our loss. It should be because convicting the innocent has no place in a country conceived in liberty.

It happens a lot, more often than some of us might be comfortable admitting. The National Registry of Exonerations lists 2,273 exonerations since 1989 with the innocent serving over 20,000 years for something they didn’t do. That’s an average of eight years, but 36 innocent men served at least 30 years before being exonerated and two of those served more than 40 years.

To think that these numbers are anything more than the tip of the iceberg is folly. Our own personal estimate, an educated guess really, is that 15 percent of those incarcerated did not commit the crimes they were sentenced for.

For a nation conceived in liberty, these numbers should cause all of us to go stand in the corner in shame. I don’t like crime any more than you do, but convicting the innocent in America is unacceptable. We deserve better. We deserve an America that does not convict the innocent.

Today at the Site
Sparrow scams lunch at the Mexican joint in the next county and he talks about options for his hair for the candidate’s forum next week on today’s edition of The Diary of a Nobody.

Regular readers of this crap know I’ve been using no less than three different things: Brylcreem, Vitalis and the latest, Clean and Groom…I’ve been giving all of them test runs this week, to see if one stands out but right now, frankly, they’re all in a three-way tie…

Nero Wolfe, a fictional private detective created by Rex Stout, has The Thought for the Day, concerning time and stealing a little bit of it occasionally.  This feature continues to take some time off, and this is a repeat from November of last year.

On the other hand, of course, our time is precious. 24 hours are all we have each day. We can’t borrow anymore and we can’t avoid some of them, either. They are there, waiting for us relentlessly. 

On This Date
In 1957 – The Space Age begins when the Soviet Union sends Sputnik 1, a 23-inch in diameter metal sphere that transmitted radio pulses, into orbit. Sputnik 1 would transmit beeps for three weeks before its batteries died and would fall to earth two months later. It was the first of several rather impressive firsts in space for the Soviets, though, of course, America remains the only country to put men on the moon.

In 1895 – The first US Open golf tournament is held in Newport, RI. It was won by Horace Rawlins of England who shot a 173 for 36 holes that day, two strokes ahead of Willie Dunn. (Par was not introduced into golf scoring until 1911.) Rawlins won $150, about $4,500 in today’s money. The US Open would remain a 36-hole tournament through 1897 and would become a 72-hole tournament the following year.

In 1947 – The novelty song Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette) by Tex Williams is #1 on the Billboard country chart, then known as the Most Played Juke Box Folk Records chart for the 12th of 16 non-consecutive weeks. Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette) also spent six weeks at #1 on Billboard’s Best Sellers in Stores chart, a precursor of the Hot 100 and remains William’s only #1 song on either chart.

Answer To The Last Trivia Question
 John Allen Muhammad declined to choose between lethal injection and electrocution, so he was executed by lethal injection in Virginia.

Today’s Stumper
What was the first American satellite to orbit the earth? – Answer next time!

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Friends, your favorite Daily Dose feature – In The News, On This Date and Trivia – will return.

Please enjoy The Diary of a Nobody and The Bottom Ten/NFL Week 6.

Gaylon

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The Daily Dose/October 2, 2018
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy

In The News
 The baseball playoffs begin today and it is possible the four opening rounds will not be completed until Thursday the 10th. This is entirely too long, especially for series that are best-of-five games. Here’s our proposal to liven things up, with the understanding they will be modified somewhat in years where there are divisional tiebreakers like there were this year.

• Play both wild-card games on Monday, the day after the regular season. Teams that whine about this should have won their division.
• Start all four division series on Wednesday and have all of them end by Sunday. No whining. Baseball is played every day. And stop making teams travel twice if the series goes five games, too. Give the team with the best record the choice of hosting the first two games or the final three games. Or, better yet, expand the division series to a best-of-seven series.
• After the first round, one league championship series can begin the following Tuesday and the other the following Wednesday.
• In this format, the World Series would start on Saturday, October 20.

Also, baseball should make it very easy for fans, especially younger fans who are avoiding the game in droves, to watch games on their phones. It would be the 21st-century equivalent of sneaking transistor radios into school and earpieces up the sleeves of our jackets.

If baseball did this, if the wild-card and all four division series were completed in one week, Wild Card Week would become an instant American classic, just like a 32- team college football playoff would.

Today at the Site
Today on The Diary of a Nobody, Sparrow explains the exciting new technology at the retailer that allows you to look up purchases with a customer’s debit/credit card. Also, he and Buzz have a really dull conversation about which closing page is the most important.

Buzz likes to warn people they’re in danger of getting locked in for the night, but as we’ve noted here before Buzz’s closing pages have all the warmth of a POW camp commander addressing the inmates, so what does he know…Personally, I think the ten-minutes-to-closing page is the most important…

It’s steady as she goes on The Bottom Ten/NCAA Week 6, as UTEP, Nebraska and Rice continue to occupy the Bottom Ten medal stand.

2. Nebraska  (0-4; lost to Purdue 42-28)
Mitigating Factors: Speaking of school-best losing streaks, Huskers retain B-10 runner-up spot with eighth straight loss…Thinking game was being played under experimental first-team-to-score-at-11:20-mark-of-first-quarter-wins rule, Huskers send in scrubs after scoring touchdown at 11:20 mark of first quarter to lead 7-0.
The Long And Winding Road: At 893-384 all-time, Huskers would have to lose every game from now until Week 5 of 2060 season to fall to historical .500 (not including ties). 
Next Loss: at Wisconsin

The Thought for the Day will return.

On This Date
In 1995 – What History refers to as the Beltway sniper attacks begin near Washington, DC. Over the next three weeks snipers John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, then 17, would kill ten people and injure three more. The two were arrested on October 24 at a rest area in Maryland and Muhammad was executed in 2009 while Malvo is serving multiple life sentences.

In 1908 – Addie Joss of the Cleveland Indians throws the fourth perfect game in major league (ML) history, defeating the Chicago White Sox 1-0. Joss threw 74 pitches, the fewest in any perfect game where a pitch count is available and with the win the Indians remained a half-game back of the Detroit Tigers, who got two in the ninth to defeat the St Louis Browns 7-6. The Tigers would eventually win the American League pennant.

In 1982 – John Cougar, now known professionally as John Mellencamp, is at #1 for the first of four weeks with Jack and Diane. The song also went to #1 in Canada and remains Mellencamp’s only #1 hit. It was from his album American Fool, which was #1 on Billboard’s album chart for the fourth of nine weeks.

Answer To The Last Trivia Question
Ben Williams was the first black football player at the University of Mississippi, appearing in his first game in 1972.

Today’s Stumper
How, and in what state, was John Allen Muhammad executed? – Answer next time!

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