Stepping out of character

Though this is a sports blog, once in a great while yours truly gets this overwhelming need to vent on other topics. This is one of those times.

What is it with this nonsense? While watching your typical attack ad on TV during an election year, there were the magic words -- right on the screen. This content is "mostly true". Well obviously, that means at least some of it was lies. My theory on voting is simple. Whichever candidate's minions are the last to robo-call me, leave a flyer, come to my door, or attack the opposition before election day -- guarantees my vote for the other guy/gal. No doubt, I'll be switching back and forth a lot between now and November.

With Easter coming up, a lot of people will be buying hams. $1.37 a pound for semi-boneless ham? Not a bad deal. Wait a minute. Semi-boneless? What the hell is that? Is that anything like semi-pregnant? Either it has a bone in it or it doesn't. How to deal with people like this? Give them a dose of their own medicine. Load up on the ham and tell them you're writing them a check that's semi-cashable at the bank.

Turns out, that dude that's spent so much time in a flight simulator with a CNN reporter discussing every conceivable possibility about de plane, de plane, de missing plane, is a Canadian based in Toronto. And he just got fired. Not by CNN, by the guy that owns the simulator, which is also in Toronto. The boss man said his pilot employee was embarrassing all Canadians by the way he dressed on TV. After all, pilots don't wear shorts and sandals, right? They wear those fancy white uniforms with all the stripes on their shoulders and sleeves, and those spiffy caps like the Skipper on Gilligan's Island. But hang on again. This was only a simulator, as in -- not real. For that matter, who cares what REAL pilots wear anyway? If I'm sitting in that tube going 500 MPH at 35,000 feet, I want somebody that knows how to fly the damn plane, not a fashion plate. Once they lock the door to the cockpit, they might get naked for all we know. Who cares? Get me from point A to point B in one piece, and I'm a happy camper, with or without the little bag of stale peanuts.

Speaking of Toronto, isn't that the same city where that loveable Rob Ford still reigns as mayor? Maybe the owner of that flight simulator needs to have a little pep talk with him regarding embarrassing Canadians -- eh?

And if this clown is so worried about a dress code in Canada, how come he's been silent for the last 40 years when it comes to Don Cherry, whose outfits got more and more outrageous on TV every year? That's OK on Canada's flagship station, but a dude dressing casually in a flight simulator humiliates his countrymen while being a guest on an American cable channel? Something is very wrong with this picture.

Attitudes like that are almost enough to convince yours truly to wear more than a sparkly fluorescent thong when he sits down to right these posts. Almost.

Back to sports next time. The NHL playoffs are starting, with the NBA not far behind. And as the murder trial winds down I, for one, am highly interested in how the Oscar Pistorius case turns out. Stay tuned....