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GRID IRON..does it end like that for Brett Favre? You wouldn’t believe that finish if it were in a novel. After a season of redemption, a season when his gunslinger tendencies were controlled, Favre kneecaps his team with an unnecessary and senseless decision. Vintage Favre, vintage village idiot. The Vikings were the dominant team yesterday and made a very strong argument for the assertion they were, indeed, the best team in football. But a series of turnovers culminated with Favre’s colossal brain camp, and the Vikings tumbled out of the postseason…the playoffs were largely redeemed by a couple of excellent games yesterday afternoon though I was very troubled by the referee’s insistence, in overtime, that New Orleans get themselves in position to win. There were three horrendous calls on the Saints winning march - a pass interference call on a ball lobbed to avoid a sack, a first down awarded when a fourth down running play clearly fell short, and the ruling of a catch on a trapped ball. Was it pre-ordained? Did the NFL apply subtle pressure to ensure they got their Colts-Saints match-up? Or did the ref’s simply get carried away with the emotion of the moment? Your guess is as good as mine, but I had wicked recollections of “Bert Emmanuel” and the ref’s decision to stop the Tampa Bay Bucs all those years ago…Drew Brees vs. Peyton Manning in the flesh is particularly exciting after their battle for League MVP honours, an award given to Manning for the fourth time this year. I would have opted for Brees…does the game itself seem far too easy? Give the points and bang the over, Manning is going to run roughshod over the Boys from the Bayou…

ICE..interesting bit of gossip from Toronto Maple Leaf  play-by-play dude Dennis Bayek. He stated he has been asking players set to become unrestricted free agents if they would be interested in Toronto. The majority of players offered a resounding “no”…

PUG LIFE..Jorge Barrios, a former junior lightweight champ and an all-round outstanding, world class fighter, is in a world of trouble. Barrios lost control of his vehicle while vacationing in his native Argentina and ploughed into four people. There was one fatality, a pregnant woman, and Barrios is currently under arrest. We may not be seeing the charismatic pugilist for a long spell…

PONIES..jockeys at Penn National staged an uprising of sorts after another of notorious owner Michael Gill’s animals broke down. The jocks said they would not ride in any race which featured a horse owned by Gill. The owner has had fourteen of his stock break down in the last three months at Penn National. He is notorious for pushing his cheap claimers to their limits, endangering their lives and those of the jockeys in the race. A gutsy move from the Penn National colony…

MEDIA..you must check out the You Tube video, “Hitler mad at Bills for hiring Chan Gailey”. It’s original and hilarious…Mike Stafford on AM 640 had some interesting info on comics today. He reported Robin Williams is notorious for stealing other, lesser known, comedian’s material, to the extent that young comics often won’t perform at a club if they hear Williams is present. He also stated Jay Leno is generally despised in the field, seemingly for being an insufferable prick more than any malfeasance…I’ve never been able to comprehend anyone who would watch Leno, especially when the genius of David Letterman is available. Appalling, to this guy, are the whack jobs who say there is no difference between Leno and Letterman (they tend to be the people who believe Larry Holmes would have beaten a young Muhammad Ali)…the clock is ticking; Guns N Roses pull into Toronto on Thursday and there are plenty of seats available. I’ve met many at the Rail who are boycotting because they either despised Chinese Democracy, their latest release, or they simply can’t stand Rose the person. Axel has been taking the stage at about 10.45pm (another insult to his working class fans) but apparently putting on a tremendous two and a half hour show. To go or not to go, I suspect for many it will be a Wednesday or Thursday call…I was offered an eighth row ticket to Mariah Carey for a couple of hundred. I declined. I plan to get closer to my lovely Irish songstress (yes, her mother, Patricia Hickey, is Irish American, look it up)…I finished Susan Cooper’s “Dark is Rising” series recently. I first read the fantasy tour de force when I was about 12, and was curious to see if the material held up, particularly against the high profile stylings of J K Rowling. The series is comprised of five books with the second, The Dark Is Rising, and the fourth, The Grey King, generally considered the best. I found the visit with an “old friend” immensely enjoyable. Cooper is not shy about writing terrifying scenes, stuff I think young people really enjoy. It’s not at all maudlin or condescending, just tight prose and a series of riveting events and characters. The final book, Silver on the Tree, is the weakest, as Cooper dips entirely into fantasy, not grounding her writing in real places in England and Wales. Ironically, it is the book I least liked as a youngster and despite years of intervening life experience, I still found it wanting…I was so devoted to Cooper when I was young that the school librarian arranged a visit with the author when she was in Toronto. I was thrilled. Coopert asked me what my favourite book was (outside of her own, of course) and I replied, honestly, Tarzan. She burst into gales of laughter and told me I was charming! I had no idea the pulp fiction of Edgar Rice Burroughs wasn’t highly thought of by the literary set (again, I was twelve). To this day I can remember her laughter and my shocked, bewildered reaction…I’m working my way through Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse and, as with Firefly and Angel, find it a work of unmitigated genius. The thought that all three series were cancelled prematurely fills me with cold, searing revulsion…