Manic Monday: We Now Return to Our Regularly Scheduled Programming

Wow. If you're a sports fan, you've just seen an amazing six weeks of competition. Odd, isn't it, that at the same time we encounter the welcome shift to warmer weather, we also get a run of sporting events that send most of us inside to watch them, foregoing the blossoming beauty that is Spring. March and the beginning of April have give us: amazing NCAA tournament play, the opening of baseball season, three amazing editions of cycling's Monuments, a huge win for India in the Cricket world cup, and a Masters that saw not only the return of Tiger Woods to top form, but also one of the most dominant finishes to a major championship in memory by Charl Schwartzel.

Phew... take a breath...

Luckily, even though we will now have an empty hole where all that excitement lived, we can now take the time to go outside and do whatever it is we like to/should be doing. So it's time to get out there an fill it!

My Main Man George may not have won, and I fear that his window is completely closed, but I was heartened by the Belgian version of George taking the line in the Velodrome yesterday, muddy teeth and all.

Covered head to toe (and teeth) in road grime. Chapeau, Mssr, Van  Summeren

Proposing to your long time girlfriend in the Roubaix velodrome after a stunning, beautiful win. Best proposal ever? Best proposal ever.

At some point, Tiger will remember how to putt (maybe go back to that old Scotty Cameron?), and the golf world will run and hide.

Is it me or did CBS completely miss the endgame coverage of the Masters? Ogilvy birdies five out of the last six holes, and Schwartzel birdies the last four, but we had to watch Tiger and Adam Scott sling it all over the course? I know stars sell ads, but sheesh...

Adam Scott may be (according to my wife) a "dreamy surfer from Australia," but there I'm pretty sure the world would have spun off it's axis had he managed to win with that sweeper putter in his bag.

While I'm at it, some style points on the Masters:

• Faldo regarding Justin Leonard's green shirt/pink pants combo on Saturday: "I wonder if the light was on in the dressing room when he was getting ready."
• Dear Taylormade: white drivers and putters? No. Seriously. No.
• Rory McIlroy may have melted down, but he stood up to the mike and gave no BS answers afterwards. Class. Tons of it.

What appears to be a simple theme for a cooking competition can easily and unexpectedly get very difficult upon further review. The upcoming FTC session will be either awful, interesting or both...

Speaking of cooking, as a person that has long  happily and arrogantly eschewed reality television, I'm a bit horrified by my newfound love for Top Chef, All-Stars. Even more frightening is the I find myself making the Richard Blaise face whilst cooking.

Is he plating a dish, or pinching a loaf? You decide.

I made this comment on Facebook earlier, but it bears repeating: I have seen the gates of heaven, and they look astonishingly like the entrance to the Trappe Door on Washington Street in downtown Greenville. Get thee hither, early and often.

Anyway, I guess it's back to watching normal, questionably written television for the time being, so everybody get outside and have some fun....