I never would have believed it, but a very reliable source has advised me that Kurtis Gonsalves was in attendance at a very exclusive Westport Harbor beach last Saturday, rather than at the Blacktop where we all know he belonged. Ironic that, due to numerous injured participants, the Blacktop featured only 9 players on the Saturday morning in question. As everybody at the Blacktop questioned "Where's Kurtis?", the BoB champion, who would have made the all-important 10th player, was lounging and "studying" at the beach with his wife, Julie. Well, isn't that special?  I guess that Kurtis is tired of the beans that have been served to him so frequently, as of late, and decided that it was easier to burn his Blacktop pals, in order to placate his wife, than to do the proper thing. I would imagine that a certain amount of contentment comes with the winning of the BoB Tourney and that those competitive fires just don't burn as fiercely after such a huge victory, although you would think that loyalty and comraderie to your Blacktop associates would enter into such a decision. We've all seen before how a woman can change the priorities of a Blacktopper (witness Mike Croteau), but who would have thought that such a thing could happen to a man like Kurtis Gonsalves, champion that he is? Well, I'm here to tell you that the transformation has begun. I personally doubt that, now that he's a BoB champion, we'll be seeing much of Kurtis for the rest of this Blacktop campaign. I'm sure that Kurtis will attempt to tell us, if we ever see him again, that he had to study, at length, the intricacies of putting a pair of handcuffs on a badguy. It takes hours and hours of studying to get this function completed correctly. I'm sure that 51 years ago, when Kurtis' father Jose was in the Academy, Jose didn't touch a basketball for the entire time that he was at the Academy, due to the rigorous studying involved. Yeah right, and, if you believe that, Roberge is a good player. Of course, we all know why Kurtis chose to make the deSilva League play with 9 players last Saturday. The law has been laid down by the boss and Kurtis, as I've mentioned before, is sick of beans. So, I guess it's one BoB Championship and out for Kurtis. Farewell, former Blacktopper, and have a good life.    

     Last Saturday at the Blacktop (as mentioned above) only 9 players showed up ready to play. Jeff "The Assassin" Gardner showed up wearing some sort of silly Ace Bandage on his alleged injured left hand and then abruptly left the deSilva residence, without saying good-bye to anybody, to catch a flight to Athens so that he could jump some poor marathoner (see the Guestbook Page of the gardnertheassassin website for further info). Still, there was plenty happening worth writing about. First off, while I was reading the New Bedford Sub-Standard Times on Sunday, August 29th, I saw an interesting article on page B3. The article stated, and I quote, "The FBI investigation into whether classified information was passed to the Israeli government is focused on a Pentagon analyst who has served as an Air Force reservist ...". Immediately, I thought of our own Chad "Stigmata" Pimental, who is scheduled to leave for San Antonio, Texas on September 14th to begin training with the Air Force, with the ultimate goal of being an INTELLIGENCE OFFICER IN THE AIR FORCE RESERVE. Can you imagine Stig being home on leave and giving Hamhocks some Top Secret government information? Every Pepsi man and Frito delivery man east of the Mississippi would be sprouting our government's secrets from store to store. I will be immediately writing a letter to Homeland Security Chief, Tom Ridge, after I finish this writing. Speaking of Stigmata and Hamhocks, Hammy coerced Stig into admitting that he shaves his chest. That's right, Stigmata is SO vain that he actualy shaves his chest. Then, to make matters worse, Stig ratted out The King and some others who also have this fettish. Really, after Stigmata's admission, it actually got a little uncomfortable at the post-game festivities. Hamhocks, on a roll now after forcing Stig to admit to sufficient facts, began evaluating various other parts of Stig's physique, which made Stigmata very uncomfortable. So uncomfortable, in fact, that Stigmata called for his significant other, Hanna, I mean Jen, to report immediately to the deSilva residence. Luckily, Hanna, I mean Jen, reported in due time and, finally, Hamhocks stopped evaluating Stigmata's attributes. While mentioning Hamhocks, Hammy outdid himself when, acting uniformed, as always, in order to glean more information from his unsuspecting guest(s), Hammy asked where Jake's Twin Saloon was located. Now, this headfake may help when interrogating an unsuspecting Pepsi man, but we all had to laugh at Hammy's attempt to play ignorant in regard to Jake's. As we all know, Hamhocks' #1 amigo, Mike Herren, is a fixture at Jake's and there's no doubt that Hammy has been there in his company on many occasions. Nice try Hamhocks. Speaking of playing ignorant, how about Stigmata. Stig, who has made it very clear that he's "not a numbers guy", jumped into a conversation between me and Hammy where, being a summa cum laude Business major, I was using a term from accounting called FIFO. FIFO is used in inventories to indicate First In First Out, as far as product and/or numbers are concerned. Stigmata then decides to elaborate on his knowledge of numbers and accounting by mentioning LIFO (Last In First Out) and numerous other accounting-type jargon, until we were all sick of him showing off his expertise in the accounting field. This from a guy who swears that he's "not a numbers guy". Unbelieveable! Lastly, The King. I'm not going to spend a lot of time here since the King was in an obvious bad mood on Saturday, and this was even before he played rotten. Since The King was nowhere to be found contributing to his team on the Blacktop, I suggested that we should issue an Amber Alert  to locate Cliff. Although I thought that this was pretty hilarious, The King never even smiled or looked in my direction, Very unlike The King indeed. Whatever was bothering Cliff must have been serious for him to leave his usual jovial side at home on Saturday. When I began to refer to Cliff as Amber, instead of The King, I thought that he might attack me Gardner-style, although I don't know if Cliff could have gotten around behind me without me seeing him. At any rate, if The King decides to show at the Blacktop this Saturday (unless he pulls a Kurtis), I hope that it's under more enjoyable circumstances and that nothing was seriously wrong last week.     

The Picture of Cliff "The King" Furtado (shown above) will be removed as soon as possible. Although the King, a member of the Bridgewater Bears Basketball Team, believes himself to be a chick magnet, his picture, as shown above, is making me nauseous. Talk about too much of a closeup. Check out those nose hairs. 

Thought of the week: Do YOU have an executive secretary??

Question of the Week: Will Al Morrisette give Big Norm parking at Fall River Celebrates America or tell him to look on the back of the ticket??