Go Vick yourself!

Oh, Michael Vick, my heart bleeds for you:

Michael Vick's frustrations with fading playoff hopes and unexpected insults from home fans caused him to flash an obscene hand gesture on Sunday.

Excuses, excuses. The Cardinals are nowhere near the playoffs, but I don't see Matt Leinart flipping off the crowd. Even the Steelers, who are all but out of the playoff hunt now; I could never imagine Big Ben sticking it to the fans (if he knew which end was up).


Vick said that as he walked off the Georgia Dome field he heard an especially disturbing insult from a male fan.

Waaah. Shouldn't a professional athlete be used to this kind of behavior by now, especially a Pro Bowl quarterback who's been playing for 6 years? I'd expect that type of boorishness from Marcus Vick, not Michael.

GREAT discussion today on washingtonpost.com about the Ovechkin story. Here's an interesting question, and even more intriguing answer:

Washington, D.C.: While Ovechkin is arguably the biggest star today in the NHL, the Caps' average home attendance has consistently hovered near the bottom of the league ever since Alex began playing for Washington. While I am under the impression that he likes DC, do you think he might prefer to play in a City that actually appreciates hockey?

April Witt: I had that same question when I started working on this story. I have no way of knowing whether they are just being politic, but the entire Ovechkin family went out of their way to tell me repeatedly how thrilled they are that Alex is playing for the Caps. Alex's father told me that it's hard to say who is luckier in the deal -- Alex or the Caps. According to the dad, because Alex has been such a standout star on a team without a lot of stars he's gotten more exposure than he would have on a stronger team.

Slava Malamud: Alex and his family seem to genuinely enjoy being in Washington. His dad initially had some apprehension about DC because he thought that a capital of the United States must surely be a big city with lots of distractions. He actually would've preferred Alex to play in as unassuming circumstances as possible.
So, as you can see, the size of the market is not a big deal for them.
But Alex is so focused on hockey and hockey alone, he tends to defer other decisions to people who surround him. While currently he has absolutely no plans for switching teams, I could see him being persuaded to leave if the situation changes and whoever that represents him thinks he'd be a lot more marketable elsewhere.
But this is not something Caps fans should worry about just now.

Good point about being a standout on a team without stars. I know Ovie won't be here forever, but I hate to think about a Caps team without him.

Saw this on A Total Waste of Makeup and had to check it out for myself:

As I was looking around at other sites/blogs for my other blog, I came across the word cloud t-shirt generator. You plug in a website and then get a word cloud (conveniently ready to be put on a t-shirt) that randomly captures the essence of said website.



How cool is this? Check it out and make your own!