KarateKen

Colorado and Dallas become the first two teams to clinch playoff sports this season. Vancouver and the NY Rangers are the first two teams to have been officially eliminated. More of each will be coming soon. Playoffs start April 18.

Photos being passed around the internet from Norris's funeral are fake. Some AI photos went viral, but they are not real. It's gross that people will create and spread false information to get some clicks, especially about a dead man, but that is the social media world we now live in. One of the obvious ways it was proven fake...his name was listed as "Charles Norris" on the casket. His name was Carlos Norris. So stupid.

The NFL is exploring the possibility of using replacement refs again in 2026. Did we all forget the Fail Mary and the disaster that was the early 2012 season?? There are even conversations about high school officials working NFL games this fall if the CBA lockout extends into the season.

The NHL Department of Player Safety is a joke. AJ Greer gets a mere three game suspension for his dirty and illegal cheap shot on Connor Zary of the Flames. A terrible hit from behind and into the boards against a defenseless player. As I said in a previous post recently, the NHL needs to take a long and serious look at making changes to the department of player safety. First the Austin Matthews hit, and now this one on Connor Zary. These are serious hits that can end seasons and even players careers, and the league continues to hand out soft punishment. The NHL should be ashamed. George Parros should be fired, he has been a disaster, and the league should do a complete overhaul of the department this offseason before someone gets paralyzed from a dirty play. They need new leadership and a whole new team who does a better job. Furthermore, the punishment does nothing to harm the Panthers franchise, who are out of any playoff hopes this year anyway. This is disgraceful. Here they had a chance to send a message and let it be known they are taking these hits more seriously, instead they botched it yet again.

Congratulations @Zaine on 20 years and member of the month.

One of the running jokes online has been "Chuck Norris passed away 15 years ago, but death was afraid to tell him."

Some sad news this morning. Chuck Norris has passed away at the age of 86. Details are not known to the public, but he was hospitalized on March 19 with a medical emergency and died later that day. The family posted a statement on Instagram March 20, noting that his death was sudden and he spent his final moments with family. Just nine days earlier he celebrated his birthday by sparring with his training partner where he posted a video saying, "I don't age, I level up," kind of a play on the old Chuck Norris jokes that have been around for decades. Perfect last words. He died in Hawaii on the island of Kauai.

How about a huge Karate tournament where we all fight each other? All kidding aside, 25 years is a long time for a message board. This site started around the same time I took my first MA class, which was in the fall of 2000. I don't have any ideas right now, but if I think of anything I will let you know. Unless you do want a huge Karate tournament where we all fight each other!

This goes out to @Patrick who lives in Los Angeles and @sensei8 who lives in Las Vegas. Hope you are staying cool in this crazy record heat wave that is happening where you are. Same to anyone else out there who is in the southwest, including Arizona where in Phoenix it has been over 100 degrees! Triple digit temps in March is bonkers, even for Arizona. I mean, technically it is still winter. Stay safe out there!

I've got a sheet of these now and have used a few. They are pretty cool. Bruce is doing a flying side kick on it.

I was in line for them during the PRE SALE and there were still 299,317 people in front of me! I gave up quickly

Without looking, who is in first place right now in Atlantic Division? It is the BUFFALO SABERS! The Sabers have had a lot of tough years but at the moment they have one of the best records in the NHL, second seed right now in the east with 90 standings points. It has been I think 14 years in a row without the playoffs for the Sabers, the longest playoff drought of any team in the history of the NHL. That will finally end this year thanks to some great defense and goalie play. Sabers will be in the playoffs for the first time since 2011. Let's see if they can make a run for the cup. Other teams in good shape for the playoffs are the Hurricanes, Lightning, and Canadians in the east, but it gets really tight after that with teams like the Penguins and Islanders ahead of the pack. Out west the Avs have 97 points, most in the league, and are 20 points ahead of the Ducks who lead the Pacific division. Wow, can't remember seeing such a large gap in points between the first and second seed. In the east the gap between the top seed and the 8th seed is only nine points. The Stars (94 points) and Wild (90) are going to get in, and both have a chance at winning the Presidents trophy. Utah is hanging in there with 76 points, as some teams in the Pacific are fighting it out with the Knights (77) and Oilers (76) very much in the hunt. Kraken, Kings, and Jets are still alive but are on the outside looking in. Teams who have had tough seasons this year and won't make the playoffs include the Panthers, Rangers, Flames, Blackhawks, and the Canucks are dead last, a mere 48 points, putting them 11 points behind the second worst team, the Flames. The Pacific has been the worst division in the NHL this year. Each team has about 15 games left, give or take, so we are in the home stretch, and the playoffs are only a month away!

The Chiefs have traded for QB Justin Fields, sending the Jets a 6th round pick. Rumors are swirling that the Raiders are interested in Kirk Cousins. Raiders are expected to draft a QB with the #1 overall pick, but might want a vet in there for the first year or two or the youngster to learn under.

Auston Matthews is out for the rest of the season with an MCL tear that he suffered against the Ducks on March 12. Matthews is the Maple Leafs team captain and arguably the best American born hockey play in the world right now. The injury happened as a result of a cheap shot by Ducks defenseman Radko Gudas, who collided with Matthews with intent to injure, according to the officials. Gudas was ejected and has been given a five-game suspension. Way too short of a suspension. Gudas has a long history of suspensions, maybe not Tom Wilson long, but long. This was not a hockey play; it was an intent to injure. Gudas should have been suspended for much longer, maybe the rest of the season, but no surprise the NHL department of player safety got it wrong, as they often do. The league should take a long and serious look this offseason for how they hand out punishments like this. Too often the offender gets off easy. It's time for an overhaul.

Maxx Crosby now appears to be staying with the Raiders. NBC Sports reporting the Raiders have announced Crosby is no longer on the trade block. Could it be that Crosby's failed physical made the Raiders believe he isn't tradable? Maybe he would have failed the physical if he had been sent to another team. There were options, the Bears had expressed interest, according to Yahoo Sports. I am guessing they are not the only ones who would consider trading for one of the best defensive players in the league. Srange turn of events. The Vikings have signed Kyler Murray.

The NFL is now considering adding a game on the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. The change could be as early as this upcoming season. Hard pass. This is a bad idea for a few reasons. One is that the elements of scheduling it with short rest, and how that will work, since college football is still playing that Saturday. Are two teams going to play on Sunday then on Wednesday night? Or is there going to be a bye week before, and two of the teams coming off the bye will play? Or one team off a bye and the other off the Thursday game the week before? Where is player safety in all this? The NFL always talks about player safety but then they add games and shorten weeks. As usual, it is money before everything in the NFL. Even if all those questions had good answers, I still hope the answer is no. It's too much. We don't need an NFL game Wednesday night, three on Thanksgiving, then another game on black Friday, all in the middle of the week between full NFL days on Sunday's and the MNF game. The NFL continues to spread out the games over more dates and more different services. Network TV, cable TV, and multiple streaming services. It's simply getting too oversaturated for my liking, and too expensive. It is likely that if the Thanksgiving Eve game were to happen, it will be on a streaming service. Sometime in the next couple years the NFL will announce an 18-game regular season, with more games going overseas. The league has scheduled nine international games for 2026, with that number expected to grow in coming years. When the NFL announces, they are going to an 18-game regular season, and they will, it is possible there will be a push for a 20-game regular season, possibly eliminating the preseason all together. Why? Because the ratings and ticket prices for the regular season are much higher than preseason games. The quality of the product will go down while the revenue of the league goes up, which, in the end, is all the NFL really cares about.

If an event has tickets that are not selling, you can often get big discounts the day of the event, as you have experienced. A concert or game ticket that is going for 500 dollars at first, might be 50 dollars three hours before the show, if they are not selling. Ticket prices are flexible depending on demand, and since they can't be restocked, meaning once the game is over the tickets are gone, you can sometimes get much lower prices if you are willing to wait. Of course, the risk is that you miss the event all together, or the event sells out and the cost of tickets will be higher because the only thing available will be the resale market.

The high cost of Metallica tickets in Vegas has not lowered the demand. Ticket sales were so good that Metallica added more shows and most of their residency is already sold out, with the shows not even starting until October. Metallica fans from all over the world were trying to get tickets to The Sphere to see the band. That is why places like Las Vegas do so many residencies. Makes sense to the venue and the artist, and the fans are happy to go, and why tickets are so expensive. As long as enough people are going to pay for it, the prices will be what they are.

Now the Ravens have signed Trey Hendrickson just after backing out of the Crosby deal. Many people questioning the timing on that, saying it's possible that the Ravens learned they could get Hendrickson so used the physical as an excuse to back out of the trade. This way they get a star pash rusher without giving up the draft choices. You know how these online theories quickly pick up steam. Crosby recently had knee surgery, so maybe that was connected to the medical concerns the Ravens were having.

It is March 10th again, so another Happy Birthday to Chuck Norris, how is now 86. I don't know what Mr. Norris is doing for his birthday this year, but I will be watching an episode of Walker Texas Ranger tonight for sure!

I've run into some weird stuff. There was one place where the previous renter had allowed a pack of rats to live in the dishwasher. There was a place we went to look at, and when we got there, we were told by the owner it was off the market. They decided to rent it but left it on Zillow as for sale. Another time we went to see a place and the lady living there had no idea we were coming. We knocked and rang the doorbell, knowing there was a tenet, but no answer, so we went in, and a lady is standing there in nothing but a towel. She was in the shower while two strangers walk into her home unexpectedly. She was a relative of the owners who, for whatever reason, never communicated to her that we were coming to see the place. Other times the photos tell a different story from looking in person. There were two places we looked at where the photos looked good, but we got there and saw cracks in the walls, and the place was clearly not well maintained. My agent thought that one of them might have been used as an AIR B&B. One other note. A lot of people are buying up real estate as an investment. Somewhere along the line housing became less about buying a place to live in and more about maximizing profit. Problem is that when someone is looking to profit, they tend to do things on the cheap. They are not living there, and the goal is to make as much money as possible, so they cut corners. If the tenets trash the place, it is cheaper to replace the materials. Personally, I have no interest in real estate investing at all. It sounds miserable to me. Dealing with renters who don't pay on time, won't take good care of the place, ect. I hear nightmare stories from people who have had terrible renters in their properties and lost thousands of dollars because of it. No thank you.

Travis Kelcie will return for his 14th season. He signed a one-year contract with the Chiefs. Chiefs have also signed RB Kennith Walker III to a three-year contract. Walker was the Super Bowl MVP for the Seahawks on February 8th. He had over 1,000 yards rushing last season, so a big day for KC. Dolphins have released Tua. Falcons are expected to sign the QB. Dolphins have signed QB Malik Willis. Lions have traded RB David Montgomery to the Texans, getting OL Juice Scruggs, a 4th round pick in 2026, and a 7th round pick in 2027. This will make Jahmyr Gibbs the Lions primary back. The Raiders traded QB Geno Smith to the Jets. The trade includes the Jets getting a 2026 7th round pick, and the Raiders getting a 2026 6th round pick. Raiders have also signed kicker Matt Gay and LB Quay Walker. Cowboys have singed S Jalen Thompson. Bengals have signed Safety Bryan Cook. Steelers have traded for WR Michael Pittman. Patriots have signed WR Romeo Doubs, a four-year 68-million-dollar contract that could go as high as 80 million. Patriots also have released WR Diggs, who is now a free agent. 49ers have signed WR Mike Evans to a three-year deal. Evans had spent 12 seasons with the Bucs, winning a Super Bowl, and is a future HOF WR. There are many, many, more as the NFL free agency frenzy is in full swing.

Looks like Cardinals QB Kyler Murray is on the move as he was released by Arizona. No word yet on where he will end up but the rumored frontrunner is the Vikings. Murry is coming of an injury plagued season where he played five games, threw 6 TDs 3 INTs and 962 yards. The Cardinals were 2-3 in the games he started last year when he injured his foot in week 5 and missed the rest of the year. In 87 games with the Cardinals Murray has thrown 121 TDs, 60 INTs, and 20,460 yards, a QB rating of 91.6, with a record of 38-48-1. Besides the Vikings other possible teams are the Steelers, Dolphins, and Jets. Also, there is talk that the Oakland/Sacramento A's are interested. Murray was drafted by the A's so maybe he goes into baseball. Murray is a free agent.

You might have heard that Metallica is doing a residency at The Sphere in Las Vegas this fall. The ticket prices are high, with some being over 4,000 dollars a ticket before taxes. The cheapest are about 1k a ticket, but this can change, for better or worse, with the resale market. With the cost of sports, music, and other live entertainment being so much now, what is the most you would pay for your dream live entertainment experience? What is the highest you ever paid for a ticket to an event? I once paid 500 dollars per ticket for the VIP experience and floor seats (not front row) to see Guns N Roses when they partly got back together in 2016. The show was in San Diego, at the old Chargers stadium which has since been torn down. It was a lot at the time but seems like a bargain now compared to what some of the tickets are going for.

Unfortunately, they did not, Sabers won it 3-2. Fortunately, the Ducks lost 5-1 so the Knights remain in first place.