Last weekend, Smokey IX found himself in a little bit of controversy. Smokey, a Blue-tick Coon Hound, is the mascot for the University of Tennessee. During pre-game warm-ups, a player for the University of Alabama was allegedly bit by the Tennessee mascot. And now there are members of the media making Smokey out to be a bad dog.

I say allegedly, because Tennessee has not stipulated to the bite. The Alabama football player was seen with a hole in his uniform. Both sides disagree whether the dog drew blood.

I disagree that Smokey is a bad dog. See, during the warm-ups, the Alabama player went out of bounds, and fell onto the dog. We have a person that in considerably bigger than the dog, running his route on a play, moving pretty fast, falling onto the dog. And the player was wearing pads and a helmet. From the dog's point-of-view, he probably didn't even look human, and looked bigger than a normal human being.

And dog, no matter how docile, friendly or gentle, is capable of biting if startled. I would have to say that Smokey had to been very started to see this giant, monster looking creature falling out of the sky and lunging on top of him. How can you blame the dog for biting in this instance? I would say that Smokey really was defending himself, and was justified in doing so.

It is not like the Alabama player was trying to pet the dog, and the dog snapped. It's not like the dog escaped and attacked someone out of the blue.

If you want to blame someone, don't blame the dog. Blame the dog's handler. Why is the dog so blooming close to the action? There is a lot of room between the sidelines and the stands. There is no reason to have the dog that close to the action. The dog was on a leash. You don't let the dog close to the action. Plays tend to move out of the field of play in a rapid pace. And that's what happened here.

I do feel bad for the football player that got bit. But the dog bite will heal. Again, I point out that he was wearing pads and a helmet. The dog, was not. We're lucky that we're not reading a headline titled, "Tennessee Mascot Killed in Football Accident". This would have been a much sadder story to have to report.

Yesterday was a pretty good day. I gave another pint of my "o-", and I'm one donation away from my first gallon. Last night I went to the Punchline Comedy Club, and saw Ty Barnett and Chris Porter. They were the two runner ups from last season's "Last Comic Standing". It was great fun, and I got to shake their hands after, and give them praises for being so funny. They signed my ticket stub. :)

As far as the ER forum goes, yes I have decided to step away for a bit. I may come back someday, but I cannot promise that I will. There are some things that I'd rather not go public with, that made me decide this. Most of the people are great, and I'll miss being there. But I will still be around TV.com. PMs are welcome, as are posts on The Practice forum.

I don't want people to choose sides. That is why I'm keeping my reasoning to myself and not going public with it. I feel that would bring negativity to the forum. I'm leaving to help prevent that.

You heard right! I am now the editor for  The Practice! It took forever, because even though the current editor was online, he/she was not doing their job and approving the submissions. And then I thought I had enough points last week. But I found out that it's not enough to have more points than the editor, you have to have 80 more points!

And I had enough submissions to have the 80 points, but I had to wait for them to be old enough to go to the TV.com staff.

Now my long wait is over! I'm finally an editor!

My alarm clock woke me up early one morning for work. I didn’t hear Brooks & Dunn, traffic reports or witty banter from the disc jockeys. Instead, were the beginning stages of a bad dream. I actually needed to get out of bed, turn on the TV, just to see if I was dreaming. Alas, it was not a dream. It was a nightmare. But nothing like the nightmare that people felt in New York, Washington D.C. and in the skies over Pennsylvania.

Watching the television, the emotions started to emerge. But it was nothing like the heartbreak of those waiting in various cities such as San Francisco and Boston. Waiting for loved ones that would not arrive.

I do not remember when I stopped crying. But I do not even try to say I understand the paid of families and friends of those that died. It is so difficult to fathom the phone calls that could not go through. Nor listening to answer machine messages that delivered a final goodbye. Nor citizens that wandered through the streets of New York with a makeshift flyer of a missing friend.  

It was the worst day of American history. But at the same time, we saw the best that America has to offer. Heroes. People in an airplane denied their fate, and crashed into an empty field. Cops and fireman did not even blink before rushing into sure death. Citizens rolled up their sleeves and began digging, looking for survivors. And Americans across the country gave blood, money and badly needed supplies to help out.

Five years later, Osama Bin Laden is still out there. We cannot even carry a bottle of water onto an airplane. It is evidence enough to know that we cannot forget. Not as long as evil lurks. Not as long as evil believes that they will be celebrated by their god for suicide bombing that rids the world of infidels.

I don’t forget the other side of the coin, either. I don’t forget about the American spirit. And I don’t forget that in the face of disaster, that people do step it up, and come though for each other. We move forward. We rebuild. We are not afraid to live our lives. We were not beaten.

This blog is dedicated to the thousands of Americans killed on 9-11. God bless their souls.

I ran a battle of ER episodes over the last month and a half, and we've finally breezed through the finals. Here are the results.

Gold: Be Still My Heart/All in the Family

Silver: The Letter/On the Beach

Bronze: Orion in the Sky

Don't you hate it when you're really tired, you can't hardly keep your eyes open . . .

Then you try to go to bed and all of a sudden you're wide awake and can't sleep? How does that happen?

Yesterday, the Sacramento Kings announced that they would not extend the contract of head coach, Rick Adelman. And it's funny to listen to some of the fan reaction. "He got us to the next level, but it's not good enough" is a common battle cry among the fans.

So eight consecutive winning seasons, eight consecutive playoff seasons, is not good enough. I see. So maybe you forgot about the 13 consecutive non-winning seasons? Thirteen years were the Kings made the playoffs only twice, and to lose in the opening round both times. Thirteen years where they won a total of one playoff game. Thirteen years of being the laughing stock of the NBA.

Sure. Not good enough.

It is the nature of sports to always strive for the next level. I understand that. The owners have decided that Rick is not the man to take us to the next level. Change is scary, but change can be good.

But before we go to far in embracing this change, the fans should not merely discard the coach and what he's done for this team. Adelman never coached a losing team. He never coached a non-playoff team. I have lost count of the playoff wins during this run. The Kings are a team where good talent actually want to go play for. And they site "a chance at a championship" as a reason why. The Adelman-era Kings are a completely different team than they were when he came to Sacramento.

Let's not be to quick to forget that. The change may turn out to be good. But this wasn't a good day for Kings history.

I’m not having the best of luck with digital cameras. But hopefully, it will be better from here on out. Here is the long story.

 I got a Kodak 4 mp digital camera last year with a printer dock for my birthday. Great gift, Brian is happy. In June, I went to a NASCAR race for the first time ever, down in Sonoma. (Good wine country.) I managed to take 10 pictures, and then . . . Camera is not working. I’d turn it on, the lens would open and come out, and then retract. I changed batteries, changed again, nothing. (And Dale Jr.’s car was sitting right in front of my, taunting me, before the race started. And I could not take any pictures.)

I had to mail the camera back to the factory. It got fixed, without cost except for shipping to the factory. Based on the work order, I deduced that I must have left the camera on, or it came on accidentally, while it was in my pocket. It must have damaged the lens, which is why it would not stay on.  Ok, lesson learned. I got a better camera back to wear around my neck, so that I won’t keep it in my pocket any more.

Last March, I take my camera to the zoo to take some pictures. I had to use the restroom, which I did not want to do in public, but had no choice. Camera fell out of the top of my camera bag, and let’s just say that I literally had $150 go down the toilet. (Yes, that’s where the camera landed.) As disgusting as it was, I did try to salvage the camera. After all, it was a $150 camera when it was bought. But to no avail, the camera is ruined. And the factory does not cover if the camera is dropped or gets wet. In this case, I had both.

 Even if I did get the factory to fix the camera, I’d have to pay for it. And even if I was willing to pay for it, I have now decided that this camera is bad luck. It’s time to cut my losses, and move on.

 I did manage to save the memory card. It is worth $80. So the silver lining is that I lost $150 instead of $80.

I earned a $20 gift certificate from work, which I elected to use for Best Buy. I also earned enough points using my ATM check card to use for a $25 gift card to Best Buy. I asked my grandma for money. With all those resources, I bought a 6.1 mp Kodak camera yesterday.

I went with Kodak because I already have Kodak software installed on my computer, and because I have a Kodak printer port already.

Problem #1: Even though it has only been a year, the new Kodak cameras do not fit onto their own printer port. I’d have to buy a new one.

Ok. Not a big deal. I rarely printed directly from the camera anyways. I prefer to print from the computer; therefore, the printer really acts independently from the camera. The only use left was charging the Kodak battery while the camera was docked. I can use regular batteries, and look for another way to charge later.

Problem #2: The manufacturer packed two sets of RCA cables (to hook to your TV) and no USB cable (to hook to your computer). It is the latter that I really need. Hooking to your TV is ok, but not very useful. And, because Kodak likes to changes things up so much, the USB from my old is not compatible.

 I went back to Best Buy, and solved my USB cable problem.

Problem #3: With the USB cable, and the Kodak software, I got my camera all ready to go onto my computer, and transferred the pictures from the ill-fated Zoo day onto my computer. I went to print, and the Kodak software somehow deleted the fact that I had a Kodak printer. Now I’m mad. You would think that the Kodak camera and Kodak printer can co-exist, even though they’re a year apart in age, and I can use them independently of each other.

I chilled for 24 hours. I removed all Kodak software from my computer. I added my old software, and then my new software. It took a while, (longer than it took to write this story) but when I was done, the camera worked on my computer. The printer worked on my computer.

So after a long ordeal, a long story and a long process, life is back to normal.

And at the time, I was thinking, “What are they thinking?”. I made no secret at all that I was dead set against trading for Ron Artest. And I still say that I had good reason to be concerned. It’s hard not to, knowing his history. Knowing that the big brawl in Detroit was completely surrounded by him. Knowing that this teammates and coaches were done with him. Certainly, in Indiana’s eyes, Ron had to go.

But I really have to give credit where credit is due. If we had not traded for Artest, The Kings do not make the playoffs. That is a guarantee. When Artest joined the team, Sacramento was six games under .500.  The Kings had been under .500 the entire season, up to that point. They were in eleventh place and three spots away from the playoffs. We were headed for a horrific season.

The Kings finished six games above .500 and in eighth place, earning the last playoff spot. They were one of the hottest teams in the NBA, and a team that nobody really wanted to have to face.

Artest gave us something we lost when Vlade Divac left the Kings to play his final season in Los Angeles to retire as a Laker. Heart. Divac was, and still is, the biggest heart we ever had. When we lost Divac, a lot of our soul, leadership and spirit went with him. And the team was flat and lifeless. And slowly, season-by-season, got worse.

Artest gave us a heart again. And he gave us attitude. Not the bad attitude that got him into trouble. But the good kind of attitude, that makes us competitive. Defensive. Edgy. Luckily, so far, Artest has left the bad stuff where it belongs; in the past. He’s given us all of the good he has to give us, and none of the bad. No bad attitude. No fights. No technical. Ok, yes he did get a one game suspension for an elbow in game one of the playoffs. But the elbow was not intentional, and Artest handled it as well as can be expected. He took a potentially bad situation, and kept it from becoming bad. And the only ones screaming “bad call” was the fans.

For Artest’s part, this was his opportunity for a second chance. It was an opportunity to reinvent himself, to leave Indiana in his past. So far, he’s done a great job. He’s kept his nose clean. He has given all that he can to improve this team. He has given his all to improve the rest of the Kings roster. And without him, we miss the playoffs. Bottom line.

So now, we’re tied at two games apiece with the defending NBA champion, San Antonio Spurs. Is it enough to celebrate? No. Not unless we win four. Not until we win a game in Texas. It’s one thing to win at home. It is totally different winning on the road. Which is what need to happen. But, Artest gives us hope. He made the team better. We defend better. We rebound better.

I was wrong about the trade. And I’m happy to have crow for dinner tonight.