Oh. My. God.

That was awesome! Yes, I know the show was 72 hours ago, but it hasn't stopped me from talking about it. Those were the best action sequences in television history. If HBO wanted to, they could have just added another 30 minutes and threw that bloodbath in theaters to win Best Picture.

Where the hell do we begin?

Boobs, the lot of us. Not the pretty kind. Not the kind that are fun to squeeze. I mean the kind that wear tinfoil hats and talk on transistor radios and mistake airplanes for UFOs. Maybe "rube" is a more appropriate word, but Google tells me that "rube" means country bumpkin, and Buffalo isn't filled with country bumpkins. There's the HSBC building after all... and food tr...well there's lots of people. Well there's some people. Look: Not a lot of people are raising roosters in their backyards is what I'm getting at here.

What I'm talking about is the dramatic, rube-like nature with which Buffalo sports fans dissect and devour any sports-related transaction news. Vince Young signed? He's wearing Bills gym shorts, you guys. He's answering press conference questions in complete sentences, you guys. I bet you, based on only these outlying facts, that he'll totally compete with Ryan Fitzpatrick for the starting QB position. (Yes, I know he has won a national title in college and was a Pro Bowler as a rookie and then maybe was gay and almost killed himself from loneliness and got Jeff Fisher fired and became a mediocre back-up for Philadelphia and was kind of famous WHICH MAKES HIM AWESOMELY GOOD AT FOOTBALL NO MATTER WHAT! So there. Saved you the e-mail.)

Not exactly a great episode by any stretch. Frankly, the preview for next week's show was better than this week's outing.

Because I have a dream, I work lots of extra hours every week as a freelance writer. Some would call it moonlighting. Freelance writing is supposed to be one of the gateways by which you can get a steady, healthy job somewhere as a writer and/or reporter. But there is a paradigm shift happening in the world of media, where no one -- literally no one -- seems to fully understand or is capable of accurately predicting what things like "journalism", "reporting", "media" and so on actually mean going forward. The things that a reporter learned in a School of Journalism in 1992 are hardly true today. The things I learned in Media Communications -- a field of study designed specifically to combine the tents of journalism with the future of "new media" are out dated now, even though I set out on that venture less than ten years ago.

Everybody is mostly just a stick in the wind. 

I was inspired to write this because of Heather B.'s excellent piece on this site about the quality of our discourse with the "legacy" media, because of an excellent piece on Salon about the convergence of old and new media at the Final Four, and because I've found that, when I count it all out, my favorite sportswriters in this country all come from different backgrounds with different beginnings. It's left me feeling like there was no-one-way to get to the place I want to be. 

Still, in some circles of the old media, people like myself and like others who choose to contribute to sites like this are looked down upon as uninformed wannabes, journalist troglodytes -- jealous and pithy and lacking credibility. 

Those feelings have brought out the worst in all of us. I'm disappointed in some or many of these things. Not in the central point of them (I do believe that the thesis of everything I've written stands up), but rather in how I'd chosen to communicate them. Somewhere along the line, I'd decided that in the 14th months or so I've spent on Twitter, I wasn't going to be better than the lowest common denominator of both the fans and media who choose to bicker with one another. I spent a few moments feeling bad about that, and then I decided I wanted to start changing it.

When it comes to blogging and Tweeting, I'll shoot the sh#t about mostly anything. Movies, TV shows, jokes and snark. You name it, I'll tweet it.

However, when it comes to wrestling, I'm a tad shy about it. Alright, I'm embarrassed about it. I'm embarrassed to be a wrestling fan. It is the one TV series that if you admit you like, it means you are probably a dork. Maybe you're a cool dork. But you are without a shadow of a doubt a dork.

(Editor's note: SPOILERS FOR GAME OF THRONES SEASON ONE!  I MEAN, IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED IT YET THERE MIGHT BE SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOU BUT STILL, JUST IN CASE. There also appears to be a spoiler for the last season of Boardwalk Empire.  I don't care about that but hey, you might.  Yeah, YOU. -HB)

After the god awful season finale of Boardwalk Empire left me wanting to hang myself, I wanted to pick up a new series. I think a lot of it had to do with me being so down about Jimmy Dormody dying that I needed to take my mind off of my favorite character going to hell.

I'm weird when it comes to adapting to new shows. I'm always skeptical about it and whenever someone tells me, "This show is great! You gotta watch!" I'm usually unresponsive. Just a blank stare and maybe a nod followed by a "Really?"

---A lot has been made about Ryan Miller's comments about being upset with the Sabres trading Paul Gaustad. As I wrote on Twitter, I didn't think it was that big of a deal as star players tend to voice their displeasure whenever a teammate leaves. It was done when Bruce Smith complained about Darryl Talley leaving and I'm sure multiple players and coaches weren't happy when Briere and Drury bounced. This is the same guy he's shared a locker room with for almost 10 years dating back to their days in Rochester. Yes, he's going to miss his little buddy. Is that wrong? I think the people who were displeased about his comments were either media members who have grown tired of dealing with Miller on a everyday basis (Hell, I think the only media guy who likes him is Bucky.) or fans who just don't like him. Sorry, but if Derek Roy said this, it wouldn't be that big of a deal. Also, unless they trade the first round pick, the draft pick won't be up in Buffalo until probably 2015. By then, Miller will probably be gone.