The Rundown: One Sick Puppy

So I woke up this morning feeling like ass and it hasn't subsided since. Thankfully, I'm off tomorrow, which affords me to opportunity to do nothing but the five things that make up today's Rundown...

Top Five Things To Do When I'm Sick

5. Sleep
Pretty much the most obvious of the list. Who doesn't like staying in bed all day, sick or not?

4. Watch Old Movies
Since no one can sleep all day, there doesn't need to be any getting out of bed and old movies are the perfect solution. You've seen them hundreds of times, so if you do pass out - or need to run to the bathroom - who cares? Personal favourites include Pretty Woman (it's the only movie we owned when I was in high school), Thank You For Smoking and High Fidelity.

3. A Nice, Hot Soak in the Tub
I understand that following up Pretty Woman with a nice, hot soak in the tub is going to make some question my masculinity, but I don't give a damn... It's not like I'm adding in lilac bath oils or having a bunch of candles lit or anything like that; I'm just saying a nice hot bath soothes the aches and pains is all.

2. Read Magazines
I'm quite certain that trashy magazines and sports books like SI and SLAM were created for days like I'm sure tomorrow is going to be. Easy to digest, quick to read and requiring absolutely no mental effort whatsoever... just the way we like them.

1. Being A Total Sook
The only thing better than the four that came first, is getting to stay in bed and have someone look after you by bringing you your favourite movies and trashy magazines, then drawing you a bath when you finally wake up from your mid-afternoon siesta. In an interesting twist, Sarah is off almost all day tomorrow... SWEET!

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Update to yesterday: Still no Passion in St. John's, plus the website doesn't go up until tomorrow or so it says today... if I get up in the morning and it says Friday, I'm going to start worrying.

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ESPN has a writer named Jemele Hill, who I have to say, makes me angrier than any one person in the world has to date.

Ms. Hill likes to interject race into every single article she writes, whether it belongs there or not. I agree that sometimes race is a factor, but her post yesterday on the tragic death of Washington Redskins Safety Sean Taylor was not the time or place. I was impressed with her coverage until this:

Although study after study shows black men are more likely to be victims of crime, rarely do they receive victim treatment. When black athletes are crime victims, the undertone seems to be they somehow were at fault. Eddy Curry, Antoine Walker and Bucs cornerback Phillip Buchanon all have been victims of home invasions that seem as orchestrated as the one that claimed Taylor's life. In March of 2006, Buchanon was stripped naked and tied up by seven men in ski masks who robbed him and jammed a gun in his mouth. This past July, Curry and his family were bound by duct tape as men robbed him at gunpoint in his suburban Chicago home. The Pistons' Flip Murray narrowly escaped the same fate, slamming the door on two gunmen on his porch before he called police. Yet we seem to think it's much more likely a black athlete is holding the gun instead of staring down the barrel of one.

I haven't heard anyone saying Sean Taylor was to blame or at fault for the unfortunate circumstances that took place, nor did I hear anything like that in regards to Curry, Buchanon or any of the other athletes mentioned. The simple fact is that Ms. Hill didn't have an appropriate angle to play the race card from, so she created one on her own.

To me - and I know this might seem like the easy opinion and notion, but whatever - race will become less of an issue when people stop making it an issue, from both sides. Not everything in this world is racially motivated. Someone at The World Wide Leader needs to make that clear to Jemele Hill.