My web consulting business, Sparks by Kosmo, is off to a solid start, buoyed by reviews on The Digerati Life and Out of Debt Again.  It’s throwing some chunks of revenue my way without consuming a huge amount of time.  That’s a win.  In celebration, I’ve launched a super-secret fiction coaching academy that will kick off with the first class in March.  The first class is already full, but I’ll be advertising spots in subsequent classes at a later time.

I’m going to make an attempt to push Mountains, Meadows, and Chasms into the world of literature.  The compiled edition of stories is now 80,000+ words – featuring more than 70 of your favorite stories (I’ve cut out some of the chaff).  I’m looking for a literary agent – I’ll keep you up to speed on things.

My baseball card book has been getting a bit of traction, and we’ll be ramping up publicity a bit in the coming months, including a media appearance.  ESPN?  Er, well, no.

I had a pretty lousy Super Bowl Sunday.  In my early years, I was a Bears fan.  In my early teens, I became a Vikings fan.  For the past two years, I’ve have been Favrecotting the NFL until my least favorite player (any guesses who he is?) resigns.  During that entire span of time – a quarter of a century – I have hated the Green Bay Packers.  Imagine my disgust when they won.  To make the spectacle even worse, the Fox “dream team” broadcasting the game was Joe Buck, Troy Aikman, and the stupid robot (a/k/a/ nepotism, pretty boy former QB, and stupid robot).  Excuse me while I make my way to the vomitorium.

Four hundred fans with tickets to the game were left out in the cold when temporary seating could not be deemed safe prior to the game.  After being herded like cattle while a decision about their fate was made, they were eventually given the option of watching from standing room only areas or viewing on TVs within the stadium.  The fans will be given triple refunds (triple the face value, not triple what they paid to scalpers) and tickets to next year’s Super Bowl … but watching a Lions – Brown Super Bowl next year probably wouldn’t be as much fun to a Packers or Steelers fan as watching this game would have been – not to mention the expenses they incurred for travel and lodging to attend an event that they really didn’t “attend”.

The NFL announced the 2011 Hall of Fame class.  While all of the inductees are deserving, the complaint is that a lot of deserving players are not getting in.  Indeed, you could make a case for all fifteen of this year’s finalists.  However, no matter how great they are, only five of them were ging to be inducted, per the rules.  In other words, if the all time best quarterback, running back, receiver, linebacker, defensive end, and defensive back all retired at the same time, it would be an absolute certainty that one of them would not be a first ballot hall of famer.  Contrast this to baseball, where a writer can list as many players as they wish – the only issue is whether they are named on 75% of the ballots.

Longtime Texas Ranger Michael Young is on the trading block.  In recent years, the Rangers have bounced Young around the infield like a ping pong ball as they wedge other players (Elvis Andrus, Adrian Beltre) into the lineup.  Now they want Young to play DH.  One of the teams reportedly interested in Young – and his $16 million salary – are my Colorado Rockies.  Young slumped in the second half of 2010, and is in his mid 30s … but if he can put up number similar to what he had a few years back, he’d be an interesting guy to have in the lineup.

LeBron’s former team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, recently lost their 25th consecutive game.  That’s very impressive to me.  Regardless of how bad a team is, you’d think at some point they’d have a night where luck went their way and every close shot went in.