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Welcome to my thoughts page. I have
been a sports fan ever since I can remember, whether playing the sport,
pretending to play the sport or continuing to play the sport I have an
opinion on most major events. Mostly the local Pittsburgh teams have
my attention and for good reason, so if you don't like Pittsburgh, get the
fuck back to T2S Thoughts Page.
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THOUGHTS PAGE: |
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February 1, 2008: UPDATE: Chris Webber has signed with
the Golden State Warriors. Even better. Now, not only will I
predict that his broken ass body will not get 20+ minutes a contest, but
his ever all-star, used to be a stud mojo, will get in the way of the kind
of basketball the Warriors were playing perfectly. Not only will he
not be starting, he will not be getting 10 minutes off the bench for Don
Nelson. He doesn't fit into the Warriors running offensive attack.
If anything, he will bog down the offense into a half-quarter, give it to
me Webber in the high post and make the rest of the team jump shooters
approach -- which the Warriors ARE NOT. Check back in 90 days.
January 17, 2008:
That is unbelievable that I hear of a Chris Webber comeback (again).
This time possibly with the Lakers who are searching for a big man because
their center Andrew Bynum is out eight-weeks with an injury.
Previously Webber had pulled some strings (including being let go by the
76ers) and made brief appearance with his hometown Detroit Pistons that
failed to net him any hardware. This after a 2005 trade to the
Philadelphia 76ers from Sacramento (again, forcing his team at the time to
make the deal) that only netted him 114 games in that Sixers uni (and he
thought he and Allen Iverson could win a title, pshht). Now he is
trying to figure out another scam that will get his broken ass 35-year old
body on another contender that values his broken ass services.
Webber is washed up. He has bum knees and is injury prone (never
recorded 82 games in a season, never!) You couldn't even slide a
phone book under his vertical when he was playing for the Pistons last
year and he is now a year older! Webber continues to think he is the
greatest thing since sliced bread and has weaseled his way around the last
five years hoping to leach onto a contender and gain his coveted "Oh I
was a number 1 overall draft pick, a 10-time all-star, career 20-10
player, but never had the team around me to win a championship, so now at
an older age I want to be a complementary player on a contender" NBA
championship ring. (see: Karl Malone, Gary Payton, and soon-to-be
Kevin Garnett if the Celtics don't win it this year)
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December 3, 2007: With the Pitt Panthers
unbelievable upset of #2 ranked West Virginia Saturday night, an
e-mail from Jared's father Tom, and with my
cleaning out of my Microsoft Outlook e-mail inbox at work on Monday, I
came across an old, now deleted e-mail that made me smile. It is a
quick e-mail between myself and Rick Larkin in late February 2007, only
weeks before our good friend Jared Boone unexpectedly passed away.
It read something like this:
From: Eric
Venezie
Sent: Monday, February 26, 2007 12:51PM
To: Rick Larkin
Subject: (none)
Ok, so I have just got two unnecessary calls from Jared already today.
You know, the ones that begin with a Pitt basketball reference but then
just lead to dead, awkward silence before you hang up.
Rick's reply:
From: Rick
Larkin
Sent: Monday, February 26, 2007 12:55PM
To: Eric Venezie
Subject: RE: (none)
Haha, yeah. I think its a lot of that pent-up loneliness. He
told me, on top of having "Strep-throat", since Wednesday, he was home
alone, and had no food cause his wif.. er, girlfri.. er, mother of his
child was out of town, and no one was around to shop of cook for him.
So he probably wants to play and talk to his friends.
I love it. RIP
Jared. Go Pitt Panthers
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November 16, 2007: I got the privilege to
travel out to Phoenix, Arizona for two days for business. Its a long
trip, and a long amount of time to spend sitting next to strangers in an
Boeing 737. I came across a thought and its coming from more of a
casual traveler rather than a business traveler and probably will make
more sense to those who have traveled more than others. I also
needed to kill some time on the plane so I whipped open my laptop and
Microsoft Word and started rambling on about the NBA. The guy next
to me looks over and asks if I am a writer as I'm relentlessly keying in
worthless NBA knowledge, I reply "No, just trying to kill some time."
What seemed like 10 minutes later I had a 2,000 word document consisting
of half the NBA teams best players and my personal input. Anyways,
back to my thought:
I do not understand why
First Class gets to board the airplane first and are happy to do so. They
are just saddled up front. Sure they get situated first and can start
making their important business calls on the Bluetooths and PDAs, but they
are stuck, sitting there, waiting for the rest of plane to board. They
adjust their air circulation vents, read their USA Todays and try to look
important in their suits or collared shirts, but what they are really
doing is just waiting and trying to look busy as the other 120
casual travelers, most with some kind of irritable condition, dressed in
t-shirts and jeans, mosey by them. These people are bumping into the
first class seats with their purse or luggage, smelling, talking, and most
importantly looking down on these already seated first class passengers,
making snap judgments because these business suited professionals are
sitting in comfortable leather seats. The first class passengers have to
pretend to look busy so it seems they merit their position in the
front of the airplane.
My solution is to board
the plane back to front, coach class first, then let the First Class come
on last. There is going to be adequate overhead storage for their personal
item and they don't have to go through the rigorous boarding where they
are passed by everyone staring everything they are doing.
Now, onto my ridiculous
NBA Preview of worthless knowledge. Click
here for the preview if you feel like having a headache.
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October 3, 2007:
Here is how computer
illiterate my uncle Rodney is. I just get back into town and drop my
cousin and Rodney's son, Ricco, off at their house. Ricco's mother, and my
aunt, Lori walks out onto the porch to greet us. I roll down my window as
Ricco gets out and mention that I got some good pictures and that we had a
good time at the Pirate Field Day at PNC Park.
"I'll rip those pictures
off my camera and e-mail them to Rod," I say.
Lori's responds, "Are those the paperclip things in the e-mail? No. Rodney
doesn't know know how to open them."
"Ok, Ill have to print them out and drop them off again," I yammer the
entire time thinking: How do you NOT
know how to handle email attachments?
It's simple. You
double-click the mother fucker and it opens.
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July 20, 2007:
Ok, nothing against summer or
anything, but when your the sole sports team you can follow through the
days of summer is the Pittsburgh Pirates, you are in trouble. Here
is an update: They are not good. But I'm a
devoted Pirate fan. I'll admit that. I have been pulling for
them win for quite sometime now. Optimism always starts in spring
training, but by the dog days of summer the Pirates are games under .500
and double digit games out of first place. The 2007 season is not
different -- 40-54 record and 13 GB of first place. The season has
begun to turn for Pirate fans from looking at games behind first place to
games behind last place Cincinnati (which is now 0.5 for those scoring at
home). And guess what? I have tickets to Friday nights game
against the Houston Astros. With a loss and a Cincinnati win the
Pirates find themselves in a all to familiar place. Again.
Welcome Home Pirates.
Last Place.
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May
15, 2007:
Well it has been quite a
few days since I have updated any news or thoughts on the .com and since
yesterday was Mother's Day and I spent three hours at PNC Park with my
mother and grandmother, I figured I would throw out some random Pittsburgh
Pirate thoughts:
Well, Freddy Sanchez
broke out for three RBIs yesterday, but still for the season only has
seven RBIs, zero homeruns and only 5 extra base hits for the
season. AND HE BATS THIRD IN THE PIRATES LINE-UP. Ladies and gentlemen,
your 2007 Pittsburgh Pirates!!! He has hit safely in nine of the
last ten games, but those efforts are mainly 1-4 and 1-5 performances as
his season average still hovers around the .250 mark. He just sprays the
ball around and has no power to put fear in defenses. On an
inside pitch yesterday against the Atlanta Braves, he was so content on
going to right field with the pitch, he practically jumped back out of the
box and fisted the pitch to the right side -- double play ball. Freddy
needs to be dropped in the lineup.
On an even sadder note:
Former Pirate Oliver Perez was staked to an early 4-0 lead over the
Milwaukee Brewers, ends up going 8.2 innings, limiting the Brewers to
one hit through eight innings before giving up a meaningless solo
homer in the ninth inning on a 9-1 game. Perez strikes out six and
walks only two in winning his fourth game (4-3) of the season and lowering
his ERA to 3.00. Opponents are now only hitting .204 against Perez. Not
what Pirates fans want to see, a young player (Perez is still only 26)
with potential traded away and making his break with another team.
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April 1, 2007:
My Tommy TwoStep mall
experience has sadly ended. I have been blessed with a great opportunity
to promote my image, my product and my idea. I will take everything I
learned in the month at the mall and use to move forward with my product.
I also got to meet some cool people who worked at the other mall carts and
at other stores around the mall. Most notably:
Moses, 29 years
old, and originally from Israel. He moved to New York City to seek the
“American Dream”. He bounced around to Chicago, Atlanta, among other
cities work various odd jobs and somehow has ended up in Monaca,
Pennsylvania and the Beaver Valley Mall. [Note: *scratching head*]
He sells cell phone accessories at the cart beside mine.
Dave, or
'Brooklyn Dave' as I called him is 24 years old and was another
employee at the cell phone accessory cart beside mine. He was born and
raised in Brooklyn, New York, and, along with Moses, somehow ended up in
Monaca, Pennsylvania. Dave is real Brooklyn, hence the nickname, the
lack in height, the New York accent, the New York arrogance, he had it
all. Brooklyn style.
Some of my memorable experiences at the mall:
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March 15, 2007:
March Madness is here.
Bets anyone?
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The #2 ranked Georgetown Hoyas are favored
by 16 ½ over #15 Belmont in an opening round tournament game. The Hoyas
are the hottest team in college basketball right now and are coming off
a well-played championship run in the powerful Big East, which
rightfully exposed sensational forward Jeff Green. On the other hand,
the Belmont Bruins, although earning its second consecutive Atlantic Sun
Conference Championship and automatic bid, was only was granted a #15
seed for the second straight tournament. Last year’s performance? A
78-44 blowout loss to #2 UCLA, last year's powerful Pacific-10 Champion.
-
The #3 ranked Oregon Ducks are favored by
9 points over #14 Miami, Ohio in an opening round tournament game.
The game is being played in Spokane, Washington, practically a home game
for the Ducks while Miami will have to travel cross country to play in its
first NCAA tournament game in quite a few years, for which they are a part
of thanks to a last second buzzer beater prayer that was answered, and
banked in, to win the MAC Championship game. Miami is excited enough just
to be part of the Big Dance as they were not even predicted to win their
conference championship, but stand no chance against Pac-10 Conference
champion, Oregon, who is an offensive juggernaut and coming straight off a
monstrous blowout in its championship game. A double-digit win for a #3
seed in the opening round, I will take that.
-
The #2 ranked Wisconsin Badgers are favored
by 13 ½ points over #15 Texas A&M Christi in an opening round
tournament game. This game is being played in Chicago, Illinois, again,
almost like a home game for the higher-seeded and favored Badgers.
Although Wisconsin is not playing particularly well and are missing one of
their better interior players in Brian Butch, they are playing a Texas
Christi team that is playing in its first tournament game EVER, and
far, far away from the state of Texas. Alando Tucker and the Badgers need
a tune-up game before advancing in the tourney and will take overwhelmed
the Islanders.
UPDATE:
Friday NCAA tournament diary.
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March 1, 2007:
Below is a small excerpt
from my personal blog I kept of my first day at the Tommy TwoStep kiosk at
the Beaver Valley Mall:
1:29pm – It’s cold. Being stationed this close to the huge
fountain in the middle of the mall is like living in Cleveland, Ohio.
Speaking of Cleveland. I can’t imagine too many people from Cleveland
brag that their city is by the lake. It’s Lake Erie, for Christ’s
sake. Yeah, Clevelanders, go ahead and brag about the lake that is
named after a city that isn’t even in your state! Oh yeah, the
Browns aren't good a football.
2:08pm – All these gangsters stomping around in their Tims.
Stomp. Stomp. Stomp. That’s all it is during the day, gangsters
and old people walking around. They have nothing better to do. Ain’t
got no job and ain’t got nowhere to be.
2:18pm –
A welcomed visit
from my two good friends, Bryan and Brad. They stopped by and talk
for a few minutes about the kiosk, my shirts, and selling strategy.
Brad: “Start barking comments out.”
Bryan: “Just stare at the girl until she looks at you.”
[Note: I would make a mental note of these suggestions, but these
ideas would just end up in the part of my brain that houses irrelevant
shit and will be eventually whipped out after the next night of
drinking and/or inevitably alcoholism.]
Read the
entire blog
here.
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February 12, 2007:
Justin Timberlake plays musical instruments? I actually watched the
49th Annual Grammy's Award Show Sunday night? Both came as a shock to me
as I sat and watch the Grammy's Sunday night on CBS. I had not intended to
watch the greatest music award show, let alone even know it was even
broadcasting, but while channel surfing I came across
Timberlake's performance of 'What Goes Around' on the piano. Simply
amazing. Although I assume it only helped the song's harmony having twelve
other instruments being played along with Timberlake on the keys.
[Note: There was also a dude on the keys in the back. He had like five
keyboards, it was amazing to watch him play when the camera panned out for a
wider shot.] If you want my opinion, Timberlake played awesome and
carried himself very well on the piano. His stage presence was sick.
I was amazed to see his music talent come out other ways besides singing
and song writing.
He followed that up with
a
closing performance with the 'My Grammy Moment' selected chick,
Robyn Troup, and he again boggled my mind. The closing performance featured JT
[Note: Yeah I called him JT.] on yet another music instrument, this
time an acoustic guitar. Once again, his presence and control of the
guitar were amazing. The harmonizing 12-some-of-a-band in the background
could only help his music, and overall both songs sounded great.
I never really
appreciated Timberlake before his Grammy performance, to tell you the
truth, I never really like his popular music, but seeing Timberlake move
to other musical platforms and perform with other musical instruments
really made me appreciate his love for music and his creativity. I
actually spent time looking for some guitar and piano tabs for the two
songs he performed, unfortunately finding nothing that could fall into my
musical talent level [Note: talent level very low], I gave up in
and proceeded to spend the rest of the night on my recliner watching the
boob tube.
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December 31, 2006:
Casino Niagara for the New Year. I find the sports betting portion of
the casino and look to wager on a couple 1:00pm Week 17 NFL games. I find
the betting area and find sheets you have to fill out instead of telling
the teller the exact game and wager. I am confused by these betting sheets
[canadia, eh?] but finally figure out the three bets I told myself
I wanted to make twenty dollar wagers on. I fill in the bubble sheet and
proceed to turn the sheet into the lady working the counter.
My bets: Carolina -3 over
Saints. [Note: The Saints already clinched their number 2 playoff spot
and first round bye.] The Saints aren't going to be playing any
starters for a long amount of time so I take that spread. Next, Detroit getting
13 points at Dallas. 13 points? C'mon. [Note: Dallas just got
embarrassed by the Eagles and are probably devastated with all the turmoil
that is going on within their organization.] Plus Detroit needs to
put a good showing on for their fan base so they have something to look forward to next year.
An annual occurance for Detroit fans.
Third game, Kansas City -3 over Jacksonville at home. [Note: The Jags
are broke and K.C. at home is always a good bet this time of year.]
I submit my bet sheet and
get ready to fork over 60 bones for the three bets. But the lady only
tells me to pay 20. I am confused and give her 20 bucks thinking this was
just for the first wager. She gives me my receipt. I look at the receipt. Three team
teaser for 20 to win 120. FUCK. I'm all pissed off and start
complaining to my brother that I didn't know what in the hell I was just
doing. Oh well, three hours later it turns out all three teams covered and
I won the three team bet. I cashed out 120 smackeroos and was
looking like an all-star.
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