Lately I've been keeping myself busy and staving off doing anything useful by feigning interest in the NBA Playoffs.

Basketball is not fabulously interesting for me. Of course, I like pretty much every other sport. Even Jai Alai, which exists only to save crossword puzzle creators who have painted themselves into a corner. I'm even crazy for horseshoes, which I defended in a lengthy argument with my wife, who was deriding horseshoes as not actually being a sport (it is). In fact I like pretty much any sport where you throw things at other things, but basketball ranks pretty low on my list.

Anyway, what I really wanted to say about basketball is that the face mask things that some of the players wear scare the bejeezus out of me.

The mask itself is just creepy as hell. It's transparent and make the player look like a psycho-killer

If your face is broke, as they say in big time sports circles, you shouldn't be playing. If I had to play against one of these guys, I'd be crying like a baby. "Coach! Don't put me in against that guy! What if his face falls off?"

I'm sure basketball players have nightmares after playing against the face mask guys, like in the old ghost story where the yellow ribbon is the only thing that keeps the girl's head atttached.

Oh hell. Now I'm all freaked out. If it's not someone's face falling off, it's their whole head.