Special thanks and apologies to Pat Angello. Mr. Angello is not only the only regular reader of Threat Watch who comments on it, he may be the only reader. He also was kind enough to let my son and I use his Avalanche tickets today as the Avs crushed the Calgary Flames. I must apologize, however, as he is a Cherry Creek High School alumnus and, well, if you read my last post, you know how I feel about that dark time in Patrick's life.

I can talk smack because the Mullen Mustangs handily defeated Cherry Creek to win the 5A state title. That same evening, my Wyoming Cowboys fought hard, but ultimately failed against the heavily-favored and NCAA-bound SDSU Aztecs.

In other good news, I have apparently been named to the unofficial Top Ten Hottest Dads list at Wilder Elementary. Sweeeeeeeet! All my campaigning finally paid off!

Hoops baby

The madness has begun.  For those of you keeping score at home, the Mullen High School Girl’s Basketball Team will be playing for the Colorado State 4A Championship Game tonight.  I’ll be there.

 

Last night, I had the pleasure of watching the Mullen High School Boy’s Basketball team frustrate the Smoky Hill High School team and earn a berth in the 5A Championship Game on Saturday.  This game has a special meaning to me as the Mullen team has three kids on it that I coached a few years back when they were in Junior High at St. Mary’s of Littleton.  The best part of it is that we weren’t even considered the best team at St. Mary’s.  All of the “good” players were on another team.  These guys stuck with it and are now playing with the best in the state.  That rocks.  Mullen also has 6’ 11’’ Providence-bound giant Ray Hall on their team who just dominates the floor.  Even with a rough night offensively and with rebounds, Ray owned the floor dictating where Smoky Hill could and could not shoot.

 

The best part about the championship for the Mullen boys is their opponent:  Cherry Creek.  I have this deep, irrational, hatred for Cherry Creek.  We have friends who probably going to end up sending their kids to Creek.  I hate that.  There is no other entity in the world that arouses such uncharacteristic emotions in me.  Dam the Creek.  Go Mustangs!

 

And to top off the basketball revelry, the Wyoming Cowboys who have been absolutely abysmal this season (13-17 overall, 5-11 in the MWC) upset the Air Force Falcons (24-6, 12-4) to move on to the next round of the MWC tournament on Saturday against Utah.  Go Pokes!  Go March!

Like any good filmphile, I watched and thoroughly enjoyed the Oscars. I love all of the pundits who take so much time to criticize the telecast. What's the freakin' point? I mean, if the Oscars were solely for entertainment value, they'd do a much different show. For one thing, they would get rid of all of those pesky awards. They tend to get in the way of watching the mimes wander around the stage. Who cares if Jon Stewart is or isn't as good as Billy Crystal? I'm not tuning in because of the host. I'm tuning in because of the films. I want to enjoy a celebration of the craft of flim making. Some other random thoughts:

I enjoyed Crash, but didn't feel it was the best pic of the year. I read Ebert's comments and he persuaded me a bit, but I'm still not convinced it was the best pic. By the same token, I'm definitely convinced Brokeback was not the best pic (see previous blogs).

Go Wyoming! If you didn't notice (and you probably didn't because you were taking a leak during this particular commercial break), Wyoming ran a tourism ad during the telecast. Go Wyoming! That is so cool. That is emblematic of Wyoming thinking. Everybody is going to be talking about Brokeback and how beautiful it us. Let's buy advertising to increase tourism. Perhaps this whole Crash/Brokeback controversy is really being stirred by some think tank in Cheyenne...

Twelve. I saw twelve of the feature films nominated for Oscars. I'm proud of that. I think it's the most I've ever seen. I even saw two of the documentary features. Cinderella Man came via Netflix a couple of weeks ago, but I'm still not interested in popping it in. Damn Russell Crowe and his mumbling.

I just saw Capote. Holy cow. I had been pulling for Joaquin, but Hoffman was amazing. Such a prick of a character. So self-centered. Amazing, amazing work. I really enjoyed the film too. It was just what I needed right now. Strangely, I came out with a feeling of... almost love - but more like humanitarianism. Capote was so human. So real. So utterly incapable of dealing with the dark side of the world in a way that resembled what we consider moral turpitude. So much like so many of us.