By Kim J. Harmon

The trouble with the 20 inches of snow that fell on us Monday is that it got me to asking myself, “With the billions upon billions upon billions upon billions of snowflakes that fell on us, how could no two of them be alike, huh?”

But once I shake that off, I got some easier stuff to think about.

And here it is . . .

All-Star Boredom

If there is one thing the National Football League, the National Hockey League and the National Basketball Association should have figured out by now is that their idiot all-star games are so pointless as to be simply excruciating to watch.

I mean, a 14-12 hockey game? If the stupid goaltenders are all-stars, then how come they couldn’t stop any shots, huh? I didn’t see the game, though – did they even have goaltenders?

And then there is the Pro Bowl, where 300-pound guys refuse to hit each other.

And the NBA All-Star game where players freeze other players out and the worst sort of playground basketball (only with a infuriating clownish quality) takes over.

The best thing about the NHL All-Star Game, the Pro Bowl, and the NBA All-Star Game (which is this weekend) is the skills competitions the day before.

Now, those are fun to watch.

With hockey, there is speed drills and shooting drills and the hardest slap shot thing. With football, there is the passing and catching drills in a sort of modified touch-football atmosphere. And in basketball, there is the slam dunk competition, the three-point shooting competition, and the rookie game (which is pretty competitive).

All of that stuff is fun.

The games – well, those are just downright painful.

XFL Must Mean

Xtreme Futility League

Vince McMahon is a genius – an absolute magnificent intellect of such incomprehensible magnitude as to make my simple mind look puny in comparison. Only he – the high poobah of marketing – could take a chest-high pile of cow flop and make us think it’s goose liver patè.

Honestly, though, after I saw the Las Vegas Outlaws (cool name) and New York/New Jersey Hitmen (cool name) and then the San Francisco Demons (stupid name) and Los Angeles Extreme (stupider name) I thought to myself, hey, this isn’t horrible.

But where was the hitting?

Where was the mayhem?

This is supposed to be extreme?

I mean, no fair catches on punt returns? Come on. It makes it sound like the poor sap back there should be quaking in his boots every time he steps back there to receive a kick. But for crying out loud, the punt cover guys can’t release until the kick is off and then there is this stupid five-yard halo area around the punt returner to make sure he doesn’t get killed. The whole thing is wimpier than a fair catch.

One of the sports-talk guys on WFAN – Mike Francesca – did make a valid point on Monday, though, saying (basically) it takes a certain level of talent to be able to hand out these vicious, teeth-chattering hits and the XFL just doesn’t have it.

The Baltimore Ravens had the toughest defense in the National Football League, right? But how could Vince McMahon lead us to believe that the hitting in the XFL would be more violent and bloodthirsty and all that when, quite honestly, I saw harder hits on the high school football field last fall?

But, hey, McMahon is a genius. The XFL got a 10.5 rating on Saturday night which is, in a word, inconceivable. And the eight-something rating it got on Sunday afternoon on UPN is even more inconceivable.

McMahon sold us on it.

And we bought it.

Hook, line and sinker.

Sure, there was some excitement on the field (the San Francisco game was decided on a last second field goal) and the peripheral nonsense with The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin and the half-naked cheerleaders and the insipid sideline reporting and the bizarre, stomach-churning camera angles is enough to create a spectacle.

But how long can it go on?

Oh, probably a pretty long time . . . despite the poor level of play (if Tommy Maddox and Casey Weldon are going to be stars in this league, then something is seriously, seriously wrong). Wrestling – with all of its inanity – is still a huge success and everybody knows it’s scripted and with the kind of people who buy into that now getting into football, the XFL will probably be around for a while.