It’s a big day in RandBall history. Jon has claimed the coveted second COW. For those who are unfamiliar, the COW is short for Commenter of the Week. The COW calendar is basically Friday-Thursday, and the RandBaller who brings the funk the hardest, strongest and often funniest is awarded a 300-word guest post on a topic of their choosing on Friday morning. Jon is our first two-time winner, and the first one chosen by a panel of judges (past COWs) instead of a very un-democratic vote of one. Jon is also a repeat winner, having scribed last week about the NHL. This week, appropriately enough, he has chosen a “Groundhog Day” theme. Rumor has it the little fella (not Jon) is predicting spring is right around the corner for a change. Seems logical since all of our extremeties are tingling right now. All of them. But we digress. Jon, for one, is not afraid of his shadow. His words are here:

By the time you read this, it will have been Groundhog Day for a good solid ten hours or so. Punxsutawney Phil has emerged to make his prediction. We Minnesotans are left to reflect: Phil would not be so popular if he was, say, Pipestone Phil, because it is not particularly entertaining to watch a bunch of Midwesterners pull a dead, frozen groundhog out of a hole. My February 2nd routine is always the same: nothing but lines from the movie “Groundhog Day.”  Admit it, this morning when you woke up and Mike Lynch said the temperature was -5, you mumbled to yourself, “Don’t forget your booties because it’s coooold out there today.  What is this, Miami Beach?” The movie has now become just as much of a tradition as the holiday itself, and so I’d like to take this opportunity to award the Weatherman Phil Connors Awards.  These are given out to those Minnesota sports figures who have demonstrated the ability to do the same thing over and over and over again, regardless of the outcome.

*Ron Gardenhire, for moving again this year to go with a “veteran presence,” despite the fact that the specters of Tony Batista and Juan Castro still haunt my nightmares.
*Glen Taylor, for constantly making changes to everyone on the Timberwolves staff, except for Kevin McHale, the root of all of the problems in the first place.
*Brad Childress, who just called a third-down pass play that fell five yards short of the down marker, even though it’s the middle of the off-season.

I’d like to thank these three for keeping all of our lives predictable, and I say to them: please, ignore those old sayings about the definition of insanity. I’m sure you’ll be getting different results any day now.

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I feel the need at this juncture to explain the genesis of the name “The National Anthem Before A Cubs Game.” (RandBall note: That’s Jon’s blog, which you can find right here.) The title comes from an old “Bloom County” cartoon. “It’s just the usual formality before the chaos begins,” says young Oliver Wendell Jones, “like playing the national anthem before a Cubs game.” I think I’ve thrown a few people off since I’m not a Cubs fan, but whatever. I know of three people in the world who get that joke, and that’s a good enough ratio for me.

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