I have a riddle for you. When is a win not a win? When an official goes mad with power, runs amok and ejects the best player on either team with little or no justification. Such was the case last night in Dallas, where the Spurs went into a funk after Joey Crawford kicked Tim Duncan out of the game on a insane power trip and lost to the Mavericks.

After a long silence on the subject of basketball, the Benefactor weighed in on this subject today. Mark Cuban doesn't want you to send him emails complaining about the officiating in the NBA anymore. He wants you to email the owners or managers of the other NBA franchises to stir up grass roots action to change the face of NBA officiating.

Of course, as a blogger who has long been critical of his hypocrisy, I have to wonder whether the Benefactor would have been so quick to bow out because of the severity of any fine the league would levy prevents it from being worth his while had it been one of his players instead of Tim Duncan. I have to think that had Joey Crawford had so much as troubled the serenity of Dirk Nowitzki by mentioning the fact that the German government recently tried to draft a four week old child into its war machine or pointing out that David Hasselhoff's music sucks, the Benefactor would have manned the barricades and screamed bloody murder. But that's just me.

That gets to the root of my problem with the Benefactor. More even than his atrocious personal deportment in the crowd at games, which constantly evokes the image of a spoiled four year old throwing a temper tantrum because another child is playing with his favorite toy, the fact that his concern with the quality of NBA officiating begins and ends with how it impacts the Mavericks.

If Joey Crawford broke a chair over a player from any other team's head, kidnapped his family to force them to participate in some ill-conceived cross-country race or sold poisoned milk to school children, Mark Cuban would keep his mouth shut. But if he misses one call that the Benefactor thinks should have benefited the Mavs, and it's go time. Even if David Stern decided to forgo the standard fine and handed Mark Cuban over to black market organ harvesters to exact punishment, the Benefactor would move heaven and earth to get his two cents heard.

And Mark Cuban doesn't want to be bothered by fans looking for a mouthpiece to articulate their discontent with NBA officiating. It seems like he should have made that call a few years ago, before he set himself up as NBA gadfly to get people to notice him. And if you don't think it's about ego with the Benefactor, then maybe you shouldn't read this little piece about what a tool Mark Cuban is.

I have a solution to his little problem. Email Mark Cuban to complain about NBA officiating. Email him to talk about the umpires in Major League Baseball. Email him to talk about the weather in your town. Email him to ask pointless, unanswerable questions. Email him to talk about sailing ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings as though you were the damn Walrus from Alice in Wonderland. Email Mark Cuban several times a day to tell him no one cares about his opinion on Google and YouTube. Just email him to tell him he's a tool and a hypocrite and wish the Mavericks an early exit from the playoffs when you email him.

I think I have reasonable precedent for this. According to legend, the eminent comedian WC Fields would send Elanor Roosevelt and the IRS letters every day to complain about them. I think you should take the time to complain about Mark Cuban, provided of course that you want to. God knows, if I ever become famous, I'm going to send a letter to remind people (like John Henry, Theo Epstein, Larry Lucchino, Danny Ainge, Wyc, Steve, Irv, the rest of Banner 17, Bill Simmons, the CHB, Bob Ryan, Jay Mariotti, Mark Cuban and others) that I don't like them.

Just do me one favor if you decide to email Cuban, keep it clean and don't do anything illegal. And do not under any circumstances send any complaints to the IRS. That sounds like one hell of a good way to get an audit, and I just don't need that hassle.

Tonight, we have a combined tool of note segment and random thing I hate thing segment for the first time ever. They both come out of that colossal waste of time that is the Boston Marathon. While I hate the marathon, it is not the random object of my derision tonight. Instead, that honor goes to the space program.

Space exploration was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be a giant waste of time and money. So what if we got Tang, Velcro and pens that write upside down. I just don't see how that and all the and a little flag on the moon justifies the billions and billions upon yet more billions of dollars of the next dozen generations' money that the government spent on the space program.

Even if there is intelligent life in the universe (based on what passes for it on this planet, I sincerely doubt that intelligent life exists anywhere), I just don't see how sending people up in rockets to do experiments of little tangible value is going to help us here on Earth. So what if aliens invade the planet to probe rednecks or kidnap people or kill us all.

And among all of the colossal wastes of both time and money in the space program, there is this gem. A woman at the space station was tethered to a treadmill to run the Boston Marathon in spirit. And on both Tax Day and Patriots' Day. The Founding Fathers must have been rolling over in their graves. They revolted against a relatively benign tyranny over a 3 cent tax on tea, and now we have a woman in space running on a treadmill at the expense of billions of dollars of public money.

Even better, the woman was running the Boston Marathon in spirit as a gesture of solidarity with her sister. Aside from the gargantuan waste of money, this struck me as a total fraud. First, if there were gravity on the space station, why did they have to tether her to the treadmill? And if there was less than normal gravity shouldn't she have had to run further? And how does it count, even if she'd changed the incline settings at the appropriate times? It's not like she ran real, honest to goodness, no fooling hills in the rain.

And on top of everything else, the woman was a Red Sox fan. There they were on TV, the banners, trappings and paraphernalia of the team I hate as the woman was wasting an entire nation's money in an exercise that was so obviously fraudulent. A perfect storm, in the metaphorical sense, and with no pun on the miserable weather.

As a special bonus, here is a second tool, with a bizarre infatuation for the terribly pointless UPS whiteboard ads.

Thanks to the good people over at Deadspin, we have another tool of note segment to bring to your attention tonight. And for the first time, it is a member of the Boston Red Sox. Newly acquired relief pitcher JD Durbin is a tool. In fact, he might even be an archtool. Just look at the picture below, where he is rocking a cooler as a garment.



The only good thing to say about him wearing a cooler as though it counted as clothing is that it nearly conceals the fact that he is also rocking a banana hammock. I think we all know that the odds of a dude who has rocked a banana hammock at any point in his life being cool (or even remotely well-adjusted) are not very good. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that it would be impossible for a guy who had ever worn a banana hammock to be cool at any point thereafter if I didn't believe in miracles.

There are those who might say the Sox acquired Durbin because they are in dire straits in the bullpen. Those who know a little about the business of baseball know that there's no way that a brain trust of Henry, Lucchino, Epstein and Francona would hobble the best baseball team that will not win a title this season with a thin bullpen. They acquired a pitcher who needs a serious transformation to become mediocre like JD Durbin so that this team will have a bigger douche on the team than JD Drew.

They know that the average Red Sox fan is dumb enough or drunk enough to be easily confused by the same first initials and a similar sounding last name. So when JD Drew cools down and hits the DL for the first time six weeks from now, there will be another underperforming JD for Red Sox Nation to kick around. Otherwise the fans would start in on Drew, or maybe Lugo who will join Coco Crisp in the failed leadoff hitter category and Edgar Renteria and Alex Gonzales in the list of shortstops who haven't quite cut the mustard since they let Orlando Cabrera go.

It requires only a glance at JD Durbin's myspace page to see that he is a tool. A total tool, even. Based on the fact that he readily and articulately expresses his interest in both tits and ass, we can reasonably infer that Mr. Durbin is neither a gentleman nor a scholar, as a gentleman or a scholar would find a slightly subtler manner in which to convey his depravity. Fortunately, although its citizens believe themselves to be intelligent and sophisticated, Red Sox Nation is the perfect place for a shallow nitwit. It is, in fact, the perfect disguise to blend in with a crowd of Red Sox fans, regardless of gender.

Unfortunately, he has set his profile to private since Deadspin commenced to rip on him. Apparently, any one who has had a picture taken with Garth Brooks and Tricia Yearwood is cool enough to skate past the shallow headline, and the faux depth of the quote "what hurts the most is watching her walk away." Too bad Deadspin left more than enough incriminating evidence from his page to make him worthy of a tool of note segment.

First, he has a dog. When I quoted WC Fields maxim: Nobody who hates kids and dogs can be all bad, I meant it. I hate dogs. Dogs are very much like people, in fact they have better personalities than a depressingly large segment of the human race. But that's not exactly a ringing endorsement. That's even before treating the fact that he named his dog "Hoss." Naven R Johnson had a better name for his dog.

And there's the banana hammock and cooler ensemble. There is no way short of a gun or maybe one of those Crocodile Dundee type survival knives that I would be caught dead in a banana hammock. And it has nothing to do with insecurity. No man has the body type for a garment like that. Men who wear banana hammocks ought to be arrested.

What frightens me is that an idiot like JD Durbin could become a sort of cult celebrity in Boston, like a shallow, ignorant frat boy version of El Guapo. If he pitches remotely well, he'll be fighting off the sorostitutes in Daisy Buchanan's with a stick. God knows, he'll probably have his own reality show by season's end. And in the meantime, between Durbin and Papelbon, the Red Sox bullpen could be the dumbest unit on any team in any sport.

Sooner or later, lack of depth in the bullpen will hurt the Red Sox. What a shame it will be when that day comes. In the meantime, I'm trying not to let the beating they laid on Weaver and the Mariners this afternoon worry me too much.

I must admit that there is something very unpleasant about having to eat my words. I don't enjoy the taste. The Bears let me down and the Colts were better than I thought. And I had to do it, why I don't know, but I ripped Bob Sanders to shreds the other day, and damned if the Bears didn't make him look like he was the evolutionary hybrid of the great defensive backs of the past that I sarcastically made him out to be. Good thing I didn't throw Night Train Lane in the mix, otherwise Sanders would likely have scored three TDs on his own.

But I promised my own version of the Paper Lace song The Night Chicago Died. I know I've promised them for a while now, but now I guess it's finally time to deliver. I must warn you, it's not very good and certainly uninspired. But you have to bear with me. Like Marvin the Paranoid Android, I'm feeling very depressed right now. So here goes:

Lovie was a coach on the north side of Chicago,
Went down to FLA, had a bad, bad day
In the rain on a Sunday night, in the southeast's crown jewel
The team from Chicago choked, and I looked like a fool
The night Chicago died.
When a man named Peyton Manning tried to make the trophy his own
And he called his fake audibles and some coverages were blown

I heard my neighbor curse and storm and swear the night Chicago died
Brother what a game it really wasn't, in fact it really sucked.
I heard my neighbor curse and storm and swear the night Chicago died
Brother what a game it really wasn't, in fact it really sucked.
God help us.

The crowd of Colts fans did roar as Rex kept falling down
And the Bears came very close to competing for the crown
Until the went 25 minutes of 3 and outs
All in all, not one of their better bouts

I heard my neighbor curse and storm and swear the night Chicago died
Brother what a game it really wasn't, in fact it really sucked.
I heard my neighbor curse and storm and swear the night Chicago died
Brother what a game it really wasn't, in fact it really sucked.
God help us.

Then there was no sound at all, since I shot my TV set
So I didn't have to see the accolades Peyton'd get
Now Junior Simple heads to Disney World, and how it does reek
And I'm not going to watch ESPN for at least a week.

The night Chicago died.

I know it's not great. Meter isn't exactly my strong suit as a poet. In point of fact, poetry isn't my strong suit as a poet. But I said I do it, and now it's done. If it kills my readership before it even gets off the ground, so be it. But the depressing end to an otherwise good season has me wondering what to do about next year.

Just so you know, I didn't shoot my television. How could I, when it gives so much and asks so little? I just threw it in there because Elvis, according to legend, used to shoot his TVs when Robert Goulet came on screen. Seeing Goulet in the Emerald Nuts commercial and loathing Peyton Manning as much as I do, the connection fell into place.

In the process of contributing to the construction of the Bears bandwagon and rebuilding it after the near disaster in Arizona and honest to goodness disasters at home against Miami and Green Bay and on the road in New England, I have become emotionally invested in the Bears. But the loser of the Super Bowl had not made the playoffs since the Titans in 2000 until Seattle did this season. And even the Seahawks submitted a lackluster performance in a very weak division this season.

Questions remain for the Bears; actually they hang over the team like the sword of Damocles. Among the big ones: Will Rex Grossman actually develop any measure of consistency? Are his health concerns behind him? How badly hurt is Cedric Benson? If he comes back healthy, how long can he coexist with Thomas Jones? How long can the team afford two high-priced tailbacks without losing players like Desmond Clark or Bernard Berrian? Will Charles Tillman be a Bear next season? Will the defense stay as healthy, or will there be another Tommy Harris injury and some other key player as well? Will Devin Hester play more defense and less special teams? Will they lose coaches in the offseason?

Based on the defensive performance, or lack thereof, tonight, I am more hopeful of Ron Rivera staying on for at least one more year. If he's not going to be a head coach, I think one more year of a great defense in Chicago will be better for him than a lateral move to Dallas or another team. I don't see Lovie leaving, either. That would be too dumb for words on the part of Bears' management. I like him as a coach. He has a quiet strength and consistency about him, his persona radiates confidence. I don't want to see him go.

I'm not sure what effect the talk about Smith and Rivera as candidates in Dallas had on the team's preparation. But I don't think it helped. And that's part of the larger problem that is the Super Bowl now. It's not just a game anymore, it's a cultural event. It's a monstrosity. And it's too bad. It's hard now, just to watch the game. Now you need to see the ads so you can talk about them, blog about them and rate them until someone like me who just wants to watch the game for its own sake loses his temper and smashes a chair over your head. For the record, I abhor violence if I can get caught in the act or it happens to me.

And then, every channel but the network carrying the game has to glom onto the game's popularity and try to come up with an alternative lineup to catch the non-fan. For instance, TBS ran a My Boys marathon, and no one called for an investigation into that crime against humanity (or at least good taste). Animal Planet ran a Puppy Bowl, which was footage of a set built to look kind of like a football field while puppies frolicked about. It was heartwarming, or it would have been if I had been lobotomized recently or if I didn't believe WC Fields was right on the money when he said anyone who hates kids and dogs can't be all bad.

But today wasn't all bad. A friend told me about Michael Vick's alter ego "Ron Mexico." I know I'm late to the party on this one, Deadspin and the Smoking Gun reported it a long time ago. I guess I live under a rock, but I figured I'd throw it out there because I laughed like hell when I read the story. If you haven't seen it yet, check it out. It's a must read.

I guess I'm not really surprised that Michael Vick has VD. It happens. Sometimes people think they're bulletproof. What really surprises me is his almighty poor choice of an alter ego. Ron Mexico? Why not Ron Smith? Ron Mexico is a really half-assed choice. There is no subtlety there. Ron Mexico sticks out like a sore thumb. An alter ego should help you blend. It's not as though any reasonable person would look at Ron Mexico and ask "Are you related to Dave Mexico from Memphis?" Might as well print out business cards that say Michael Vick, I have herpes.

But there is this site that delights in the Michael Vick/Ron Mexico saga. It's a riot. I wasted a few minutes on the name generator. The Cincinnati Kid's Ron Mexico name is Franc Ecuador. It's a nice touch, Franc with a C instead of a K. Makes it sound more exotic.