Random Nonsense

Has anyone ever noticed that Bryan Adams "Run To You" and Tom Petty's "Refugee" are basically the same song? I was at a party the other night when a guy (well, not just any guy, but rather Stone Cold Andrew Austin) picked up a guitar and started playing a few tunes, including that I thought was 'Refugee.' So I started singing along, only to react in confusion when everyone else was singing about how damn it easy it is to make love to you.* For the record, 'Refugee' was written in 1980 and 'Run To You' was released in 1984, so the copycat onus is on Adams with this one. What a piece of shame for a Canadian musical icon. Next thing you know, we'll realize that Adams copied "The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me Is You" from a heretofore unknown R. Kelly b-side. (titled, of course, 'The Only Thing That Looks Good On You Is My Urine.')

* = What an odd lyric. Was Adams' previous experience with women limited to that chick from Men In Tights with the metal chastity belt?

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There's a FLASHMAN MOVIE?!?!?! Good lord! And young Malcolm McDowell is an excellent choice to play ol' Flashy. I might have to track this one down. btw, I checked out George Macdonald Fraser's IMDB listing just to make sure that no other Flashman films had escaped my attention, and Fraser's credits themselves are good for a chuckle. I didn't realize that he also wrote Red Sonja (yes, the Schwarzenegger movie) and Octopussy (the Bond movie). Huh.

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Went 5-for-11 on the UFC picks, with the most comically-wrong prediction coming in the Chuck Liddell fight. Poor Chuck....time to retire, big guy. If he's looking for something to do in retirement, he can start with this woman at the bar last night. I was sitting next to a table of people that included a couple, and this chick just could not stop going on about how attractive she thought Chuck Liddell was. Seriously. She kept saying he had such 'pretty eyes' and thought that if he shaved off his goatee, people would think he was a sex symbol. Needless to say, the rest of her table didn't agree. Her boyfriend disagreed vehemently enough that by the time the Liddell-Rua fight happened, he was openly rooting for Shogun. After the knockout, there was a big 'WHOA!' sound in the bar followed by a buzz of conversation. But after it died down, the girl chimed in with a perfectly-timed "Awwwww, poor Chuck!" that actually got a laugh due to her squeaky tone of voice. The boyfriend got off one decent line by saying that Chuck's pretty eyes just got closed (which wasn't technically true since it was a TKO, but still).

The punch line was that compared to this guy, Chuck Liddell was Brad Pitt. Now, I'm no prize myself, folks, but seriously, this guy was seven litres of ugly in a three-litre jug. He really had no call to be mocking his girlfriend's obviously skewed taste in men since it was clearly benefitting his gargoyle ass.

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During the Jays game today, it was mentioned that Jack Cust's 40-game streak of reaching base had come to an end. My curiosity was piqued so I looked up the all-time record for most consecutive games with at least one hit, walk or hit-by-pitch. You'd figure that this is one of those especially skilled records that would have to belong to an all-time great, and sure enough, Ted Williams reached base in 84 straight games in 1949. Eighty-four games! That's over half of the damn season! This just in: Teddy Ballgame was pretty good.

My favourite Ted Williams anecdote is the one about his freakish eyesight. I mean, literally freakish --- when he had his eyes tested upon entering the military for World War II, the doctors determined he was in the upper percentile of possible human vision. Unsurprisingly, he ended up serving as a pilot. So one day, Williams was talking with his teammates about how he could tell a pitch was going to curve because the stitches weren't turning, indicating a greater break on the ball. His teammates reacted with, "WTF? You can see the stitches on a pitched ball?" Not only that, Williams claimed he could tell where on the ball he made contact. So during batting practice, they loaded up his bat with pine tar and had Ted swing away, as he called out his contact points. Sure enough, the pine tar marks on the balls corresponded with the spots that Williams was calling. Gods may not answer letters, but in Williams' case, he could sure read them on an eye chart.