IX- The final day of offseason training activities wrapped yesterday and Mike Tomlin spoke with the media afterwords laying out his expectations for the season as well as his thoughts on the type of preparation the players will need to be ready for the training camp in Latrobe.  In typical Tomlin fashion he says something incredibly simple that comes out of his mouth sounding like Shakespeare.

"I am not concerned about what happened in '05, '06 -- '07 or '08 for that matter, I am a singularly focused guy. My single focus is on developing a world championship-caliber team for 2009."

X- Mike Wallace says he is by far the fastest player on the current Steelers' roster ,but he knows it will take a lot more than speed for him to make an impact in 2009.  I like Wallace's confidence because it shows he wants to be a part of this organization, but he is also not stupid enough to make guarantees and claim he will be a big time player.  I think Wallace has a chance to make an impact in Pittsburgh this season, although it will likely be on Special Teams.

XIII- A few more nuggets on the Steelers sixth Super Bowl Ring.  ESPN has a link to a picture of each ring starting with Super Bowl I and ending with the 2007 Giants ring, with a story behind each ring.  The New York Times explains how the rings represent our "bling-bling" times, but still remain uniquely Pittsburgh and explain more information about the process of creating the Super Bowl rings than you likely care to hear.

XIV- Joe Flacco's younger brother Mike was drafted in the 31^st round of the 2009 MLB draft by the Baltimore Orioles.  With the possibility of both Flacco's playing professional sports in the same city, the great people of Baltimore might start rocking playoff uni-brows as opposed to playoff beards.

XL-Michael Tunison is releasing a book shortly entitled "The Football Fan's Manifesto", which is sure to be hilarious and awesome if you know anything about the website Kissing Suzy Kobler, of which he is a co-founder.  Stop on over to KSK and enter your best site suggests and contributions and you could win a copy of the book, or even get first prize in which the winner will chose one piece of his beloved Steelers' memorabilia to burn on camera.  Perhaps if a Steelers fan wins we can save him the embarrassment. 

XLIII- Last but certainly not least the Pittsburgh Penguins will be playing game seven of the Stanley Cup tonight in Detroit.  Any Washington D.C. natives that would like to join me I will be watching the game at the Pour House.  If you're watching at home be sure to check out the Pensburgh, which is like a virtual bar of sorts, without the females and booze.  GO PENS!  Bring another championship to Pittsburgh!