Out with the old.

The holidays have arrived, and basketball is returning just in time for Christmas. While I am thankful that the NBA and its players have kissed and made up, I am still waiting patiently for baseball to kick up in February. I look forward to spending long weekends in Arizona watching my favorite teams get ready for a new season of freshness.

The Dodgers can look forward to new ownership and management, and hopefully the acquisition of some young and outstanding players. With the McCourts being forced out of the picture, hopefully the team can heal and re-establish its greatness within the league. I feel like 2012 could be a year to remember for the boys in blue.

Until all of my sports interests regenerate, I might be a little quiet. Football has been mostly disappointing to me this year, and I am hanging on for sports to come alive again in 2012.

For now, stay tuned for other things that interest me, like FOOD and MUSIC in my other blog.

Thanks for reading. Love, Kristin.

Loving this...not believing it.

I'm reading through the sports news, the emails, and the cheap cigar adverts in my inbox today, and I come across this headline:

"Celtics looking to slow Bryant in game 2"

You might ask, is this a Craigslist ad?

Is it a joke?

As much as I dislike Kobe Bryant and his Laker lackeys, I find this to be really funny. REALLY funny. So, I click on the headline to read more. Inquiring minds want to know! There is more!

"Celtics scheme ways to overcome Kobe in game 2"

Now we're scheming!! I wonder what we're coming up with in the locker room. I'm imagining Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett heating up a kettle of tar to dump at the doorway into the court. Maybe some banana peels. Koopa shells...I could go on. You get it.

How about instead of trying to slow one man down, you try and up your entire squad's game so that they have a shot at matching this one man and all his greatness. And by that, I mean man the hell up and don't let this one crybaby take you down that easily. At least let the other four in on the fun.

In the mean time, I'm still giggling about this scheming stuff...writers these days.

It's that time of the year!

I must say, this is my favorite time of the year! The sun is going down later, the days are getting warmer, and I just filled out five brackets for four different pools. I'm pretty stoked. It's NCAA March Madness - probably the most fun any sports fan can have in two weeks time. It's when we stop paying attention at work in attempt to listen to games on the radio or hold up bandwith to stream them online. I'm not allowed to do the latter in the office anymore. *Tear*

The #1 seeds in the tournament have well earned their places on the charts, but there are some teams to keep your eye on in the first round. There might be a few dark horses in the running. I had to split a couple first round games between brackets because I was pretty torn on some matchups. Cal and Louisville being the most questionable game of the tournament. Having attended school at Cal, and learned to love college basketball in Louisville, this was an emotional toss up for me. Louisville has mass potential if they go balls out, but Cal is definitely favored in this game if you're not a Cards fan.

Another game that could turn out a huge upset is Purdue and Siena. Purdue is without their top dog, Robbie Humell. Although Purdue proven to be a winning team throughout the season, they could easily be toppled by the team now being nicknamed "The Kings of Upsets," Siena. This will definitely be a game to watch that could possibly flip many peoples' brackets upside down.

I'm hoping to see Kansas, Kansas State, Villanova, and Kentucky in my Final Four (my favorite Final Four of the five brackets), with Kentucky taking it all against Kansas in the finals. Yeah, I know it's the most likely game when you look at the numbers. But I have money on this stuff.

I could go on and on, but we'll all have to just tune in this Thursday and hope we don't get too reamed for our lack of productivity over the next two weeks. Good luck!

Arenas on indefinite suspension.

I don't think he looks very apologetic. Regardless, Washington Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas has been indefinitely benched without pay by the NBA for "behavior that made him not currently fit to take the court."

This behavior includes pointing fingers at other players as if he were shooting guns shortly after going under federal investigation for bringing actual guns into the locker room.

Not that I condone the use of firearms for much of anything, but I bet lots of players bring guns into the locker room...remember Plaxico Burress? Yeah...barely. Oh well.

Luckily for Arenas, he has being a three time All Star player on his side. I don't think he will be on the sidelines for too long.

More Pitino, please.

I have to really take a moment to defend Rick. So, the man made a drunken mistake in a closed restaurant after hours. The bitch obviously went bat-shit crazy on the poor guy, and dragged her husband into it. Rick did the right thing by opening up and taking responsibility for the incident. Am I condoning what he did? No, but give the man a break.

To have journalists drag his name through the mud for not landing another coaching spot in the NBA because of a 'fall from grace' with the Louisville Cardinals is just plain ignorant. He made a mistake. We all make mistakes.

Think of what an accomplished college basketball coach he is. Yeah, he didn't really shine in his previous run with the NBA, but I would never say he fell from grace in the NCAA.

And his infidelity to his wife has absolutely nothing to do with him not scoring a job with the Sacramento Kings. Get a grip.

Tom Brady's life is better than yours.

Yeah, I read that somewhere else. Good stuff.

There's a bubble protruding from my ceiling. I can't wait to move [this weekend], and I've been slacking on the updates.

One day until the March Madness NCAA men's basketball tournament begins. I hope you have your brackets ready. I have four different pools going.

You can join one on Facebook!

http://apps.facebook.com/thebracketchallenge/?page=pool&id=88545&wclc=ba-10

That should link you to it.

Have fun, and good luck teams!

The most wonderful time of the year.

Honestly, screw Christmas. This is, by far, the most wonderful time of the year. NBA finals are closing in on us, and it's starting to look like we might have a repeat of last year. Kobe Bryant and his Lakers are 8 games up on the competition, with a 4-game winning streak. I'm not a huge Lakers fan, but when they're on a roll...you know. The Celtics are looking at a killer chance to up Cleveland by half a game tonight over Denver. But, at this rate, even if they manage to claw their way back into the finals, I think the end result is already apparent. We'll see what the coming weeks bring the NBA. Boston needs to sharpen up some tools a little bit. Call me crazy, I'd kind of just like to see Kobe eat it a little bit. That ego isn't going to fit in this city if we let it grow any further.

March madness is on it's way, and this is absolutely the best thing since sliced bread for me. I get two solid weeks of white knuckled distractions, lots of reasons to hit up the local brew spot with the guys, and before it's even all said and done, we get baseball. While most polls have their money on Connecticut right now, all four polls I've been keeping my eye on (AP, ESPN, RPI, and our very own Yahoo user's poll) have Oklahoma in second. UNC is taking third across the board, while Pittsburgh (ranked #1 by the Yahoo users), Louisville (go Cards! yes, I'm biased here), and Duke seem to be the three teams we'll be seeing fighting for their spot in the final four. As we know, anything goes at the beginning of this tournament. I'm thrilled to see who takes over my brackets.

With Manny Ramirez screwing with every team in the league, I'm curious to see where he ends up reporting for spring training. Although negotiations have intensified with the Los Angeles Dodgers, it's quite possible that his adamancy for a high ticket salary could leave him watching from the sidelines if he doesn't pick a dugout. Realistically, he'll end up somewhere. The question is where, and moreso, for how much.

The Boston Red Sox are weighing the strength of their team as they start training for their first full season without the powerhouse who managed to average a .396 in 187 at bats during 53 games after coming to the Dodgers mid-season through a three-way trade with Pittsburgh to give Boston left fielder Jason Bay. Although the Boston camp is talking optimisitcally, it will be interesting to see how the team fares without their wacky slugger.

(image via Yahoo! Sports)

Down in Florida, everyone is making a big deal out of a pulled hamstring. According to sources, New York Yankees short stop, Derek Jeter, was complaining about a sore right hamstring Sunday after drills. Jeter told press that "it's no big deal," and will continue training Monday. CC Sabathia, who apparently lost the right to have punctuation in his acronymic first name, also missed out on a day of training due to the flu. However, the left handed pitcher threw 40 pitches to teammates at batting practice the following day. The left-handed pitcher and batter is expected to open the Yankee season on the mound. Let's hope that $345 million infield proves to be worth all of that dough.

There will be much more said as the spring training games start rolling out, and we'll see how well these teams really work together. I'll be making some pretty happy travels out into the desert to check out some of these re-worked rosters as we make our way into the season in April.