ARGH!!! Broncos RB Henry busted for hippie lettuce

Jeromey Balderrama

From ESPN:

Denver Broncos tailback Travis Henry, the NFL’s leading rusher through the first four weeks of the season, is facing a one-year suspension for a repeat violation of the substance abuse policy… Henry, 28, was suspended by the league for four games in 2005 because of a repeat violation of the substance abuse policy. The substance for which he tested positive on that occasion is not known. Under the league guidelines, another test within a two-year period would trigger a one-year suspension. Henry would then have to apply for reinstatement and his compliance with the treatment program prescribed for him would be reviewed.

Idiot.  I can’t believe that this guy is pissing his career away like Ricky Williams.  I can’t believe this guy, and it couldn’t come at a worse time for the Broncos.  While he let down the whole team, I’m not too concerned about the Broncos.  Selvin Young, Cecil Sapp and Mike Bell will hold it together and we’ve seen most Broncos runningbacks have been successful under Shanahan’s system.  Still, this is nothing but had news for Travis Henry and the Broncos record with free agents.  Dale Carter anyone?

Rockies fever

Jeromey Balderrama

Like everyone else in Denver, I am plagued with Colorado Rockies fever.  Their recent hot streak that got them into the playoffs has been amazing to say the least.  I had the opportunity to be at the game on Sunday, experiencing the circumstances that got them into the 1 game tie-breaker with San Diego.  I did the unthinkable: missed watching a regular season Broncos game so I could watch baseball!

The energy was Coors Field was amazing as we were watching the Rockies overcome the Diamondbacks, while we also watched the scoreboard between the Brewers/Padres game as well.  Since the Rockies Inaugural year I’ve probably been to 30-35 Rockies games, but I had never felt the incredible energy that resonated in that stadium before until Sunday.  I can only imagine how Monday’s tie-breaker game surpassed Sunday’s excitement as well.

I’m not going to jinx anything, but I do believe that the Rockies do have a chance to do some major damage in the playoffs.  I didn’t get to see Game 1 against the Phillies, but it sounded like the Rockies were able ride the momentum and punch the Phillies in the mouth on Wednesday.

No one outside of Colorado is giving the Rockies a shot.  Some may attribute it to east-coast bias throughout the sports media, or simply the ignorance of sports commentators not knowing the Rockies players, or the stigma of playing half of your games at high altitude. Whatever it is, I hope the Rockies can shock some people.  Win or lose, the best part is that they have a young, home-grown core that can only continue to improve from here.

<br />My shot of the Rockies celebrating after they clinched the Tie-Breaker game with the Padres on Sunday

Bengals use "the laser"

Jeromey Balderrama

drevil I came across this story on SI.  It seems that the Bengals stadium has a problem with pigeons flying around and pooping on fans’ food & drinks.  It’s become such a problem that the Bengals got permission to use air-powered rifles to take the pigeons out.  Instead of going to the sniper route, they’ve decided to take a page from Dr. Evil’s playbook and use "the laser" to get rid of the rats with wings.

I kid you not:

Employees were to aim hand-held laser pens at the pigeons during the Bengals’ game with the New England Patriots … The Bengals hope the pigeons will become so irritated by the lasers that they’ll fly away from the beams and pipes above the stands.

That’s your plan?  Shine the lasers in the pigeons eyes and hope they’ll pick up their nest and leave?  What a waste of time – just take them out.

Newsgator hating Craigslist?

Jeromey Balderrama

I’m in a technology-griping mood, so this may be the first in a series of posts about tech things that bug me this week.

I’m an RSS junkie, and to facilitate my addiction I read all of my RSS feeds using FeedDemon, using the Newsgator Synchronization that was offered with purchasing FeedDemon.  I’ve been very happy with using Newsgator to give me my RSS feeds.  It allows me to use FeedDemon over my home computer and laptop and keep the feeds in sync.  They also have an awesome mobile web site that lets me read feeds on my phone when I have a few extra minutes.

All of this functionality is not without it’s drawbacks.  First, your reliant on Newsgator’s synched copy of the feed your reading.  For the most part it’s relatively quick, but there are instances where Newsgator’s copy of the feed has been out of sync for hours and sometimes 1-2 days.  I’ve ultimately accepted that, but now it’s been almost a week and Newsgator has yet to synchronize with any of my Craigslist feeds.  I thought maybe Craigslist changed the way they delivered RSS, but that hasn’t been the case.  My attempts to unsubscribe and re-subscribe through the Newsgator feeds only results in the delivery of the same old content (most recent was 9/23).

I don’t know if anyone else is experiencing this, but it’s really discouraging for a service that has normally been quite reliable.  I could disable the synchronization for the Craigslist feeds, but then that takes away my 2-computer and mobile abilities.  I’m almost half-tempted to use Google Reader, but I love the Feed Demon software and I don’t want to sift through two copies of my feeds.

Technorati tags: newsgator, feeddemon, rss

Why I’m watching Dancing With the Stars

Jeromey Balderrama

One reason: Mark Cuban

markcuban

When I heard that he had agreed to do the show, I was pretty skeptical.  However, after reading about his effort through his blog and especially after reading his last entry linked below.  I’ll admit that he wasn’t spectacular on Tuesday, and he did do the lip-syncing routine a little too much, but they need to keep this guy around for a while.  After watching him, I only ended up voting once, but you can guarantee that I’m going to vote my allotted 6 times next week.

DWTS – What a wave of emotions – Blog Maverick