• The New York Islanders, who just promoted Goalie Garth Snow to the position of general manager, signed a player to a 15-year contract. And who says there’s not continuity in sports? Granted Rick DiPietro was a bitch to score on in NHL ’06, but I wouldn’t be giving him $67 million dollars over a decade-and-a-half for this accomplishment.

It is the longest pact in NHL history and the second-longest in American professional sports history, behind only the 25-year deal Magic Johnson signed with the Lakers in 1981.

The NBA gives Magic Johnson 25 years; the NHL gives Rick DiPietro 15. Ok then.

• First Steve Irwin gets killed by a stingray. Now this shocking development.

Hanoi, Vietnam (AHN)-In an ironic twist of fate, officials say a Vietnamese man who once appeared on national television to demonstrate his ability to resist electric shocks has been electrocuted while repairing a generator.

 

Nguyen Van Hung, who was in his early 40s, was killed in Tay Ninh province near the Cambodian border while repairing the generator without first cutting the power supply, with a local official telling Reuters, " When alive, he used to demonstrate at our office how he would insert two fingers into the electrical plughole without problems."

 

Hung, who was nicknamed "Hung Electric," had appeared on television's "Strange Stories of Vietnam."

• El Luchadore Magnifico may not be on my Top 103 Posters list, but his blog holds a special spot in my heart. Sure he may not talk sports like Bored and Al Keiper, "ramble" like Hawk34 or … um, well there’s always Lovecraft or whatever he’s calling himself nowadays, but how can you top this:

January 2: My brother's back in town and is mooching off of my father again. He has no job and isn't going to school, which leaves him plenty of time to constantly insult my father and drive me crazy. Also, the child of my dad's girlfriend is getting more belligerent and rude by the day, and his mother isn't doing a thing about it.

January 3: Yesterday sucked … Brother and dad's girlfriend's kid were around all day, slowly driving me crazy with their constant failed attempts at humor and overall idiocy (brother) and nonstop eardrum-piercing shrieks (kid) … Today was a lot better. … Minimal amount of contact with brother and kid.

January 6: My brother found and read my journal. That being the case, all further entries will be friend-locked.

• Gotta feel for the ladies on this one. You know how whenever you see a fellow person of the testicular persuasion catch one in the groin you give a little “sympathy cringe,” imagining what the pain must feel like? Well, I’m guessing popping out a 14-pound, 13-ounce kid would be the female equivalent.

• Uh-oh. Allah's going to be pissed. Again. From Ratzinger's speech:

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

Muslims, get the fuck over yourselves already. You think this and a couple of cartoons is bad? Just wait until you start shelling out your tax dollars (that is if you people have enough spare time from burning American flags and declaring jihads on infidels to actually have a job) for someone to submerge a picture of Mohammed (if one can be found) in a jar of pee or make a painting of him covered in cow poop. You know when I’ll start taking you people and your precious Allah seriously? When someone enters one of your market squares, rattles off a few Muslim jokes, and instead of the jokester getting beheaded you people say, “That’s a good one. Say, did you hear the one about the Priest at the confessional and the yellow holy water?” Until we get to this point, which will be never, I say to you and your jihad to Ratzinger and the rest of the West…

...bring it, bitches.