Republicans ruled the roost. In Ohio and elsewhere. George W Bush was finishing up his first term and looking good for a re-election bid. Ronald Reagan was ill, but still over a month away from passing on. There were rumblings about an investigation in Cleveland of some Treasurer's office shenanigans.

Christopher Reeve was still fighting his battle for stem cell research. Anna Nicole Smith had the #1 show in the land. The Yankees signed Alex Rodriguez, and the Curse of the Bambino still lived. There was talk of a possible hockey strike after the NHL season ended. I still lived on Sycamore and weighed somewhere around 250 lbs.

Sea Biscuit had just lost out to one of the Lord of the Rings movies for the Best Picture Academy Award. "Yeah" by Usher was the #1 song in the land. Howard Stern had the #1 show on free radio. The Da Vinci Code was a popular book. This blog had not yet been created.

The economy was strong. Lehman Brothers still existed. Ken Lay had not yet been charged in the ENRON collapse. The Iraq war was favored by the majority of Americans. Global warming was not an issue yet. Little McGinley and the Glimmer were years away from being born.

It was March 29, 2004. Seem like a long time ago? Well, that's because it was, folks.

It was also the last time the Buffalo fucking Sabres beat the Columbus Blue Jackets. We've owned them ever since.

Now it's not as long of an ass owning as the Buckeyes over Michigan or championships over Buffalo sports in anything, but it's significant.

Those loser punks. We should start a tracker of how many days it has been since we lost to the Sabres. It's been a pretty sweet five year run if you ask me, which you didn't, but fuck you.

I illustrate this point because a) I'm fucking hilarious, but b) and perhaps more important, there are very few things in life that are given. Death, Taxes, the predictable Chancellor-launches-into-an-unprovoked-angry-tirade-against-McGinley-once-a-night occurrence, and the far-too-frequently-used-hyphenated-words blog post, but not much else. Ohio has had like six Attorneys General during this time. I have had - Jesus, I don't even want to count - let's just say several girlfriends since then. There just aren't very many things you can count on anymore. Us beating the Sabres is one.

Too bad we don't play them until February 6th. We could really use the win right now.

See you there, suckers.