I am a rock.  I am a pillar of stability.

At least that's the way I think of myself a lot because it usually takes a lot to get me worked up about something.  By that I mean I don't go flying off the handle when someone's trying to jerk my chain.  I have resisted efforts from the most skilled of ass-whips.  Even when Sideshow Bob starts with trying to attach "the GREAT" to the front end of my name (which admittedly makes me a little nervous), I don't flinch.  But Bob has found something that pushes more buttons than I though I had.

He talks hockey to me.

Now, Bob's not a hockey novice.  He's stumped me on game trivia on more than one occasion.   But at any given moment he will turn into the "Insane Sideshow Bob" and spouting off, well for a lack of a better term, crap.   Take this email for example:

"Belfour, who appeared in 13 games for the Sharks in 1997, was replaced by Roman Turek after allowing THREE GOALS ON SIX SHOTS.  The nine shots allowed by the Stars was a FRANCHISE RECORD LOW, eclipsing the previous mark of 11, done twice before."

And this was against the WORST team in the NHL!

Belfour is a F****ING SPARE!!!

This missive woke me up fast than a vat full of coffee laced with a kilo of Wise County's finest.  To top everything off, he makes my man Eddie the brunt of this attack.  That, I have found, is the surest way to bring out the "angry, not-irrational-but-infinitely-more-likely-to-put-a-fist-in-your-mouth fan."  I'm pretty sure Bob knows I have a soft spot in my head for goalies, so he makes sure he goes after Eddie first.  I could really care less if he spouts of negatives about  the Dan Keczmers of the team (sometimes it's any team -- I found myself defending Patrick Roy one day) but leave the goalies out.  Unless they really are spare like Chris Osgood.

But, he doesn't stop there though.  Even after I kicked him off the bandwagon last season, he continues to stand at the door and spout his quasi-"this team is done" shtick .  It makes me CRAZY!!!

I guess as long as he doesn't pick on Dress Blues netminder Mark Followill, I'll be OK.

"Get out the A-1 sauce, I'm done."