Observations.

This truely has been a year of the strange.

From the rampant earthquakes and near-disasterous nuclear leaks in Japan to the frequent and deadly storms still rolling across the American Midwest, from the political unrest in Libya (I suppose not all that surprising) to the sickening celebrations of a nation over a man's death (yes, I mean Bin Laden...I could have written an entire post about America's barbaric reactions to his demise, but alas, the time has passed). And then there was the rapture of the world....or lack of it.

(The rest of this will be about sports so feel free to avoid it)
I say this not only from the broader view of the world, however, but from other, smaller aspects as well. Exhibit "A": Sports. Green Bay won the super bowl after their playoff run being decided in the final season game. A team with 9 wins made it in while other teams with 10 wins on the season found themselves out. Long-time staples of the NBA were ousted early in the playoffs of that sport as well, with the Lakers being swept, and severely outplayed, by the Mavericks in round two shortly after the West's top team lost to the bottom seed from that side when the Spurs were ousted round one. Hockey has seen nearly two more down 3-0 comebacks since its post-season has begun.

As an unashamedly passionate fan of anything auto-racing, it's more in my interests when I say that that world has been no different. Just earlier today an Indy Series rookie was poised to take it all in the hallowed grounds of Indianapolis when he saw his race fall apart after smacking the wall in the final corner, coasting to a second place finish on three wheels. Similarly, Kevin Harvick led only two laps on route to his Coca Cola 600 win, essentially handed down to him after nearly half of the top 10 ran short of fuel just after the final restart. Earlier races in the season have seen a rookie win the Daytona 500, the series' biggest race, won by a driver in his first start at the track, and second start in the series. They've seen a first time winner in Regan Smith at one of the series' hardest tracks at Darlington. It seems every week holds a new twist or surprise that no one had seen coming. One pleasant surprise (for me at least) was the introduction of previous F1 champion Kimi Raikkonen into the NASCAR ranks, starting a Camping World Truck, then Nationwide race in sequential weeks. Across the ocean, the F1 circuit has seen two winners in 6 races, after Vettel won his fifth of the season earlier today at Monaco. This is slightly less surprising, as he did win the driver's championship last season, but I sincerely doubt anyone had expected him to run so dominantly so far this year.

I neither pretend to subscribe to doomsday predictions or anything of the sort, nor do I believe it is anything ochestrated or planned. It is simply a string of very strange coincidences that lead to an overly odd year. Enjoy.