Just dropping in during halftime of the Italy-Germany game to comment on a few things.

The Rockies are still attached to .500 with a ball and chain it appears. With their rotation you'd think they ought to be able to get a bit of a streak going one of these days, but what do I know. As of right now one game separates the top four teams in the NL West and last place Arizona is only three and a half games out. One good week seizes control of this thing. Why not us? There was even an ESPN Insider piece the other day which used "Colorado" and "contenders" in the same sentence. No, really. And see if you don't notice a certain trend developing in the various baseball sites' power ranking columns. "Don't underestimate the Rockies," ESPN. "Nobody expected the Rockies to be in this kind of shape," SI. "The [Rockies] now rank fourth (fourth!) in the NL in ERA, and fourth (fourth!) in the NL in opponents' SLG," Fox. "Who says the AL is better? The Rockies went 11-4 against them. OK, so there's an exception to every rule," CBS. Wait, that last one isn't so nice. Well, you can't expect to overturn the biases associated with a decade of crumminess in a single half-season. Rome wasn't burnt in a day.

I'm happy the Bulls signed Ben Wallace, and so is Sam Smith. The Avalanche are having a tough offseason. The new Ghostface Killah record is really good. That's all for now.