- Board game dorks rejoice. Author Phillip E. Orbanes has written a book detailing the much debated, hotly contested and of paramount importance topic of: the history of Monopoly. No, not monopolies as in one company having total control of a particular industry, product or service. That book might actually be of some relevance and importance. No, Orbanes is looking into the history of the board game. What I really want to know are things like does this book tackle the fiercely acrimonious relationship between the top hat and the wheelbarrow, the meteoric rise in property taxes on Park Place and the sketchy past of the mustachioed dude on the cover of the game. Needless to say, this is a topic that we have all been breathlessly awaiting further research on, and I anticipate it will be the choice for next month’s edition of Oprah’s book club. Either that or no one will care about it and it will end up selling about four dozen copies, mostly to the author’s family.
- Britain isn't happy with the U.S. and its environmental policies. Far be it from me to be a turncoat and sell out America, but maybe the Brits do have a point and we do abuse the environment a bit………or egregiously. Yet the person the Brits are turning to for advice and analysis is……..Al Gore. Yes, he of the gargantuan weight gain, unsightly beard, the mysterious “lock box” he kept talking about in the 2000 election and the dubious claim of being the father of the Internet. Now Gore is attempting to recast himself as some sort of media mogul/environmental savant, launching a rather unsuccessful TV network aimed at young people and producing a documentary about the environment. Props to him for branching out into new things, but shouldn’t the British be looking to……well, someone with an actual scientific background who can actually provide qualified insight into the environment? No one in America takes Al Gore seriously nowadays, so I doubt we’ll be changing our policies because the Brits, at Gore’s urging, want us to.
- Europe in general appears pissed at the U.S., in fact. The International Olympic Committee’s decision to hold some swimming and gymnastic events for the 2008 Summer Olympics in the morning to accommodate NBC (i.e. American viewers) has rankled some Euros, because the new times for the events will be problematic for Euro viewers. This should definitely help the whole image as “Ugly Americans”, expecting the rest of the world to cater to us and realign their schedules and lives in order to accommodate us and our needs. Granted, these events are among the most popular of the Games, and American viewers do represent one of the largest chunks of the viewing population, but it’s not absolutely vital that I get to see the uneven bars or the 100 meter freestyle in prime time. I think I can live without them, thanks, or just see highlights on a nightly recap show.
- A disturbing development from the soccer world. Apparently, a clinic that deals with athletes suffering from various types of addictions, is expressing grave concern that many English Premier League soccer players online p. addiction. They explain that these mullet wearing, injury faking, man-perm sporting dorks are accessing online porn 14 or 15 times a day, and that during matches, their minds focus not on the game itself, but on getting their next fix of net porn. And I know, this isn't a phenomenon specific to EPL soccer players; dudes all over the world are in the same boat. But 15 times a day? Wow, that’s…….troubling. Anything you feel compelled to do 15 times a day that isn’t a) part of your job, b) part of a day working out at the gym, c) absolutely essential to your survival, i.e. going to the bathroom, is a problem. Not like I needed another reason not to watch EPL soccer, what with the rioting, looting, fans throwing flares onto the field at players and lack of actual excitement on the field, but now I will be extra sure not to tune in to see these freaks in action.
- Hats off to R.E.M. for their nomination for induction into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame. Even if the Rock H.O.F. isn't all that relevant or important and they do induct far too many bands and artist who neither rocked nor rolled at any point in their careers and wouldn’t know rock if smacked them with a ferocious pimp slap across the face, it is good to see R.E.M. recognized. They were largely the forerunners of the college/indie rock scene when they started in the 1980s, and songs like It’s the End of the World as We Know It and What’s the frequency, Kenneth? are still classics.
- Do television execs actually want to provide quality programming, or do they settle for the easiest, least-thought requiring alternative and slap it into their schedules? These television game shows that are reportedly great imports from England are just an easy way around developing fresh, new sitcoms and dramas that are worth watching. I got tired of seeing losers with IQ’s of approximately 85 try to win a million dollars answering questions about topics that no one cares about. There are a lot of people out there just dying to be on TV and who are dumb enough to think that they are actually going to win a couple million bucks on a show that is rigged against them. If I want to watch really stupid people do things I have no interest in, I’ll just go out on the expressway and watch the incompetent driving of the idiots on our nation’s roadways.
- Great job by the U.S. Army, which has apparently fed misleading information about the deaths of seven soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan to the families of those soldiers. As if the families of the deceased soldiers didn’t have enough of a burden, now the Army is either a) lying to, or b) too incompetent to tell the truth to them. These men and women gave their lives for their country, I’d say the least you can do is make sure you get the details right when you tell their families what happened. This comes after the whole Pat Tillman scandal in which his family was repeatedly misled by the military and it only came out more than a year after his death that he was killed by friendly fire. Small wonder that a country that can't even get the right cause for a soldier’s death also cannot figure out when or when not to invade a nation that poses no actual threat to them.
- A commitment to winning. No professional sports franchise embodies that philosophy more than the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals, they of the 1-7 record and one playoff victory in franchise history. This year’s incarnation of Cards is especially noteworthy because before the season began and people actually saw what the team looked like on the field, they were one of the trendy picks to go to the Super Bowl, at least among those with only marginal knowledge of football, such as Regis Philbin. No word on whether Matt Lauer and Al Roker also had the Cards as NFC favorites, but suffice to say things haven’t quite panned out for Arizona. They won their first game against the 49ers, and have since proceeded to lose seven straight. They’ve lost in blowout fashion (31-14 to a subpar Packers team), gut-wrenchingly chaotic collapse fashion (blowing a 20-point lead to the Bears in the course of the final 18 minutes of a Monday night game) and standard awful fashion (22-9 to the awful Raiders). They’ve benched their starting quarterback, had their running back bitch about a lack of touches even though he gets the ball more than any back in the NFL, and had their coach experience the most catastrophic breakdown in recent memory……..“The Bears are who we thought they were, and we let them off the hook!” Bet Denny Green wishes he could have that one back, just like Cardinal fans wish they could have the time they’ve spent watching their team the past two months back. Yet team president Mike Bidwell says the team won't fire Green because it “wouldn’t improve our chances of winning, and that’s our goal.” Nothing says winning more than retaining a coach who greatly resembles the “Nutty Professor” and sports a 12-28 record with the team. Keep up the good work, guys.
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Monday, October 30, 2006
Additional ruminations
- Props to Las Vegas for landing next year’s Tournament of the Americas Olympic qualifying basketball tourney after Venezuela was unable to follow up on its own winning bid and actually made proper preparations for the event. This should only deepen the goodwill and warmth between America and Venezuelan president/noted U.S.-hater Hugo Chavez. But maybe offer good ‘ol Hugo a free weekend stay at the Real World suite in the Palms and comp all of his meals, toss in a few hookers and a huge line of credit in casino and maybe he can still come and enjoy the event.
- Speaking of Hugo Chavez (and who doesn’t love talking about such a warm, fuzzy despot) an American company that manufactures touch screen voting machines is being investigated for alleged ties to this Venezuelan leader. Sequoia Voting Systems denies the allegations, but doesn’t it make you feel better to know that a company with such a large impact on our democratic process may have ties to someone who despises our country so vigorously? Who knows, maybe your vote is being secretly transmitted to some Chavez administration flunkie, who records it and puts you on a hit list if you vote for someone who Chavez disapproves of? Good times, good times. And how great that this little detail comes out the week before elections.
- The Barry Bonds Derby is now underway, sports fans. Our roid-fueled slugger and all-around super human being has filed for free agency, meaning that any team in baseball can have a chance to sign him. I, for one, advocate the Chibu Latte Marines of the Japanese League, to procure the services of Bonds. Maybe Major League Baseball and its teams can even take up a collection so the C.L. Marines can afford to pay Bonds. That way, baseball fans don’t have to suffer the indignity of seeing the steroid cloud hover over another MLB season and maybe, just maybe, we can enjoy baseball on a more simplistic level. Additionally, MLB doesn’t have to watch Bonds chase its most hallowed record while fully knowing he is doing it on the strength of performance enhancers. Enjoy Japan Barry, I hear they have great sushi and kabuki theatre.
- The Who are coming out with their first studio album in twenty-four years (it’s true, twenty-four years, the commercial says so) and I don’t know if it’s good or bad that a band so aged is putting out an album that will still be better than about ninety percent of the crap currently on record store shelves. The debate is usually are you a Stones fan or a Who fan, but I gotta go with picking both of them over the majority of what passes for rock music right about now.
- Legalized gambling is making another push in Ohio, in the form of slot machines at selected locations in our fine Buckeye State. We’ve also had, in recent years, a thrust for riverboat casinos, which was rightly defeated. Gambling sycophants can try to sell the imaginary benefits to the state’s education system and the fact that people leave to gamble in other states because they can't in Ohio; so f’ing what, I ask? Are you not aware that when gambling comes to an area, it’s a given that crime levels and other shady behavior increase exponentially? And if people want to go throw their money away gambling in Windsor, Detroit, Vegas, Atlantic City, whatever, go for it. I’d prefer that they throw their money away at my front door, but since that doesn’t seem likely to happen, let ‘em go and gamble elsewhere.
- Another measure on the Ohio ballot centers on smoking in public places. Save your breath, smokers (literally, you need all the fresh air and oxygen you can get), I don’t wanna hear it. It’s one thing to drink copious amounts of alcohol, because as long as you don’t drive drunk, the alcohol consumption doesn’t negatively affect my health. Same with gambling, you can throw away every cent of your income playing blackjack or craps, it doesn’t increase my chances of developing lung cancer. But when you choke down your cancer sticks and give off those noxious fumes, you directly and negatively impact my health and well being. So ban smoking anywhere and everywhere you possibly can, because I don’t want my life shortened because of the nicotine-addicted freaks who can’t put out their heaters and just quit.
- The verdict in the Saddam Hussein trial is due by November 5, shockingly just two days before Election Day. Even more stunning, those involved say the Bush administration had nothing to do with the timing out the decision. Mmmm hmmm…….just like the FBI’s harassment of John Lennon mysteriously stopped after Richard Nixon’s re-election? So a guilty verdict against the man whose country we pointlessly invaded and where hundreds of American soldiers are dying without cause two days before elections is just coincidence? It’s not a ploy to help Bush’s beleaguered Republican party, which is in danger of losing control of Congress? Forgive me if I’m having a hard time believing that one.
- Speaking of Hugo Chavez (and who doesn’t love talking about such a warm, fuzzy despot) an American company that manufactures touch screen voting machines is being investigated for alleged ties to this Venezuelan leader. Sequoia Voting Systems denies the allegations, but doesn’t it make you feel better to know that a company with such a large impact on our democratic process may have ties to someone who despises our country so vigorously? Who knows, maybe your vote is being secretly transmitted to some Chavez administration flunkie, who records it and puts you on a hit list if you vote for someone who Chavez disapproves of? Good times, good times. And how great that this little detail comes out the week before elections.
- The Barry Bonds Derby is now underway, sports fans. Our roid-fueled slugger and all-around super human being has filed for free agency, meaning that any team in baseball can have a chance to sign him. I, for one, advocate the Chibu Latte Marines of the Japanese League, to procure the services of Bonds. Maybe Major League Baseball and its teams can even take up a collection so the C.L. Marines can afford to pay Bonds. That way, baseball fans don’t have to suffer the indignity of seeing the steroid cloud hover over another MLB season and maybe, just maybe, we can enjoy baseball on a more simplistic level. Additionally, MLB doesn’t have to watch Bonds chase its most hallowed record while fully knowing he is doing it on the strength of performance enhancers. Enjoy Japan Barry, I hear they have great sushi and kabuki theatre.
- The Who are coming out with their first studio album in twenty-four years (it’s true, twenty-four years, the commercial says so) and I don’t know if it’s good or bad that a band so aged is putting out an album that will still be better than about ninety percent of the crap currently on record store shelves. The debate is usually are you a Stones fan or a Who fan, but I gotta go with picking both of them over the majority of what passes for rock music right about now.
- Legalized gambling is making another push in Ohio, in the form of slot machines at selected locations in our fine Buckeye State. We’ve also had, in recent years, a thrust for riverboat casinos, which was rightly defeated. Gambling sycophants can try to sell the imaginary benefits to the state’s education system and the fact that people leave to gamble in other states because they can't in Ohio; so f’ing what, I ask? Are you not aware that when gambling comes to an area, it’s a given that crime levels and other shady behavior increase exponentially? And if people want to go throw their money away gambling in Windsor, Detroit, Vegas, Atlantic City, whatever, go for it. I’d prefer that they throw their money away at my front door, but since that doesn’t seem likely to happen, let ‘em go and gamble elsewhere.
- Another measure on the Ohio ballot centers on smoking in public places. Save your breath, smokers (literally, you need all the fresh air and oxygen you can get), I don’t wanna hear it. It’s one thing to drink copious amounts of alcohol, because as long as you don’t drive drunk, the alcohol consumption doesn’t negatively affect my health. Same with gambling, you can throw away every cent of your income playing blackjack or craps, it doesn’t increase my chances of developing lung cancer. But when you choke down your cancer sticks and give off those noxious fumes, you directly and negatively impact my health and well being. So ban smoking anywhere and everywhere you possibly can, because I don’t want my life shortened because of the nicotine-addicted freaks who can’t put out their heaters and just quit.
- The verdict in the Saddam Hussein trial is due by November 5, shockingly just two days before Election Day. Even more stunning, those involved say the Bush administration had nothing to do with the timing out the decision. Mmmm hmmm…….just like the FBI’s harassment of John Lennon mysteriously stopped after Richard Nixon’s re-election? So a guilty verdict against the man whose country we pointlessly invaded and where hundreds of American soldiers are dying without cause two days before elections is just coincidence? It’s not a ploy to help Bush’s beleaguered Republican party, which is in danger of losing control of Congress? Forgive me if I’m having a hard time believing that one.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
More musings
- Hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween weekend and drank enough to forget that Halloween isn’t even a real friggin’ holiday. It has a wide appeal, granted, because kids love wearing costumes and getting loads of candy, enough to sugar them up for the next decade plus, and college kids love an excuse for another party and to get hammered. But what exactly are you celebrating? Christmas (the birth of Christ), Easter (Jesus’ resurrection), the Fourth of July (the declaration of America’s independence), Memorial Day (those who have died in wars), they all center on actual things to celebrate. Halloween, not so much. Enjoy the occasion, I guess, just don’t try to tell me it’s a holiday, that’s all. The next person I hear declare that, “Halloween is my favorite holiday,” may find themselves on the wrong end of a baseball bat to the head.
- The fact that Saw III was the top movie at the box office is something I am going to chalk up to it being Halloween weekend. Because it can't be that Saw is the best movie out right now, I’m neither ignorant nor stoned enough to believe that to be the case. I’ve seen some of the others pictures out now, and I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that a gore-fest sequel to a movie franchise that’s been clichéd and trite from the start isn't much of a cinematic masterpiece. Amazingly, the best movies always seem to fall into the gap where the general public isn't sharp enough to recognize them, but the awards shows are just a bit too snooty and pompous to honor them.
- From the realm of the bizarre and mildly disturbing……the state of Tennessee had enacted new state guidelines prohibiting sex offenders on probation or parole from attending Halloween costume parties this year or put up Halloween decorations at their homes that might attract children. I’m all for keeping kids as far away from sex offenders as possible (yes, Michael Jackson, I’m looking at you, just stay in Bahrain and don’t come back), but how exactly are you going to enforce the no costume party rule? Are P.O.’s gonna raid the ex-con’s closets for contraband Superman costumes or gorilla masks? Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t there adult Halloween parties, where these freaks could go and no be anywhere near kids? The rules apply to all sex offenders, not just those whose victims were minors, which is all the more curious. These offenders also can’t go to corn field mazes and other common Halloween attractions. Good to know that Joe Sex Offender can't dress up as Johnny Depp’s character from Pirates of the Caribbean and attend an adult Halloween costume party, I feel so much safer, thanks state of Tennessee.
- Am I the only one that’s horribly ashamed to live in a country whose music chart currently sports not one but two singles from the weasel-voiced, Michael Jackson wannabe, Justin Timberlake? It would help if this glorified American Idol rip-off didn’t inhale a tank of helium before he sings, but even that wouldn’t be enough. How awesome is it to see him try to grab some cred by collaborating with Timbaland on his new album, as if that can cover up the depths of his suck-itude. Are there really that many teenage girls out there buying albums and songs off of iTunes that Timberlake is so high on the charts? Yikes.
- Following up on a previous observation, the CW network has suffered its first show casualty of the season. Runaway, the hack-job of a show that replaced beloved drama Everwood, was yanked after three episodes. A few more moves like this and CW head honcho Dawn “Shoulda been an Enron exec” Ostroff will win the “Network Executive of the Year” award before November sweeps are over. And if you think this is just another excuse to take a shot at Ostroff and her team of brainless buffoons at the CW, you would be right. But they’ve earned it, and for the Everwood decision alone have earned at least another five years of outright mockery.
- Hands down the best show on TV most every week has been Veronica Mars this season. That the show is struggling to gain a bigger following is a shame, because nowhere else can you find the same smart, sarcastic and laugh out loud goodness that this show offers week in, week out. The butchering of the show’s opening credits and theme song notwithstanding (seriously, it looks like a bad impression of an early Law & Order season credits), the show itself is great. If none of its actors or writers receive Emmy nominations this year, it will only further solidify the Academy’s absolute ignorance and stupidity in honoring the truly great shows on TV.
- Election Day is just a week away, whooooo! Not excited, you say? Me neither. What’s so fun about voting for secretary of state, state auditor, county commissioner and the like? Somebody has to do it, I guess, and most years, I’ll go ahead and vote even though I’d rather not. This year I’m not feeling the urge, and I’m tempted to skip just to give the finger to all of the annoying candidates who fill my TV screen with ads 24/7 decrying the horrible deficiencies of their opponents while extolling their own amazing virtues. Here’s an offer: I will promise to vote for any candidate who can prove that they have never run a single TV or radio ad. Leave me alone and I’ll vote for you, sound like a good deal?
- The fact that Saw III was the top movie at the box office is something I am going to chalk up to it being Halloween weekend. Because it can't be that Saw is the best movie out right now, I’m neither ignorant nor stoned enough to believe that to be the case. I’ve seen some of the others pictures out now, and I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that a gore-fest sequel to a movie franchise that’s been clichéd and trite from the start isn't much of a cinematic masterpiece. Amazingly, the best movies always seem to fall into the gap where the general public isn't sharp enough to recognize them, but the awards shows are just a bit too snooty and pompous to honor them.
- From the realm of the bizarre and mildly disturbing……the state of Tennessee had enacted new state guidelines prohibiting sex offenders on probation or parole from attending Halloween costume parties this year or put up Halloween decorations at their homes that might attract children. I’m all for keeping kids as far away from sex offenders as possible (yes, Michael Jackson, I’m looking at you, just stay in Bahrain and don’t come back), but how exactly are you going to enforce the no costume party rule? Are P.O.’s gonna raid the ex-con’s closets for contraband Superman costumes or gorilla masks? Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t there adult Halloween parties, where these freaks could go and no be anywhere near kids? The rules apply to all sex offenders, not just those whose victims were minors, which is all the more curious. These offenders also can’t go to corn field mazes and other common Halloween attractions. Good to know that Joe Sex Offender can't dress up as Johnny Depp’s character from Pirates of the Caribbean and attend an adult Halloween costume party, I feel so much safer, thanks state of Tennessee.
- Am I the only one that’s horribly ashamed to live in a country whose music chart currently sports not one but two singles from the weasel-voiced, Michael Jackson wannabe, Justin Timberlake? It would help if this glorified American Idol rip-off didn’t inhale a tank of helium before he sings, but even that wouldn’t be enough. How awesome is it to see him try to grab some cred by collaborating with Timbaland on his new album, as if that can cover up the depths of his suck-itude. Are there really that many teenage girls out there buying albums and songs off of iTunes that Timberlake is so high on the charts? Yikes.
- Following up on a previous observation, the CW network has suffered its first show casualty of the season. Runaway, the hack-job of a show that replaced beloved drama Everwood, was yanked after three episodes. A few more moves like this and CW head honcho Dawn “Shoulda been an Enron exec” Ostroff will win the “Network Executive of the Year” award before November sweeps are over. And if you think this is just another excuse to take a shot at Ostroff and her team of brainless buffoons at the CW, you would be right. But they’ve earned it, and for the Everwood decision alone have earned at least another five years of outright mockery.
- Hands down the best show on TV most every week has been Veronica Mars this season. That the show is struggling to gain a bigger following is a shame, because nowhere else can you find the same smart, sarcastic and laugh out loud goodness that this show offers week in, week out. The butchering of the show’s opening credits and theme song notwithstanding (seriously, it looks like a bad impression of an early Law & Order season credits), the show itself is great. If none of its actors or writers receive Emmy nominations this year, it will only further solidify the Academy’s absolute ignorance and stupidity in honoring the truly great shows on TV.
- Election Day is just a week away, whooooo! Not excited, you say? Me neither. What’s so fun about voting for secretary of state, state auditor, county commissioner and the like? Somebody has to do it, I guess, and most years, I’ll go ahead and vote even though I’d rather not. This year I’m not feeling the urge, and I’m tempted to skip just to give the finger to all of the annoying candidates who fill my TV screen with ads 24/7 decrying the horrible deficiencies of their opponents while extolling their own amazing virtues. Here’s an offer: I will promise to vote for any candidate who can prove that they have never run a single TV or radio ad. Leave me alone and I’ll vote for you, sound like a good deal?
Friday, October 27, 2006
Shooting from the lip
- Is there an international organization more irrelevant than the U.N.? I mean, seriously, when even member nations blatantly ignore its decisions and its most prominent member, the U.S., is further behind in its membership dues than O.J. is in his search to find the real killers, who can take the United Nations seriously? The latest major piece of news is Russian opposition to U.N.-imposed sanctions against Iran for Iran’s nuclear weapons program. This after China refused to go along with some of the penalties and regulations against North Korea for its nuclear weapons testing. So apparently you can pick and choose which U.N. sanctions you want to abide by and act accordingly. Now that’s a political concept I can get behind, who doesn’t like the idea of only following the rules you agree with? Super duper.
- Another piece of sunny news from the war that never should have happened, the sham that is our unending invasion of Iraq: the death total for the month of October is nearing 100, currently standing at 96 after the announcement of five more deaths of U.S. service personnel. During the past year, there hasn’t been a month with a solider-death tally of under thirty, meaning that essentially we are averaging at least a death per day every month. But those lives are worth it when you consider what we’ve gained by…….what, we haven’t gained a friggin’ thing? Oh. B-B-But Iraq hasn’t attacked us since we invad - oh, they never have attacked us at all? Dang. Hey, though, at least now President Bush can have his own Vietnam and join the elite company of one Richard M. Nixon. All Bush needs to do is find a popular musician to hassle because he disagrees with the war and try to run him out of the country, a la Nixon and John Lennon. C’mon W., you still have two full years to go, you can do it.
- How pumped are you that Bob Sagat has a new gig? Yeah, me too, because after all, you can’t spend your entire career intro-ing those oh-so-funny and veeeeeeerrrrry fresh videos of guys getting accidentally blasted in the junk, animals performing wacky hi-jinks and people making asses of themselves at weddings and other events on America’s Lamest Home Videos. That show stopped being fresh and funny right around episode two, when everyone figured out that it was basically a copy of episode one and a preview of every episode from there on out. Now Sagat is hosting 1 vs. 100, where contests play yet another contrived game show and try to win copious amounts of jack. Who isn’t excited for that? After all, it’s not like we didn’t have a chance to mildly enjoy the concept with Regis and Millionaire, then see that show run into the ground worse than the Exxon Valdez. So you have the stunningly unfunny Sagat teamed with a stale game show concept? Count me in. And by in, I mean there’s a negative forty percent chance of me ever watching this piece of crap.
- Following up on a previous item highlighting the whereabouts and activities of Kevin “America’s Most Hated” Federline………residents of Northeast Ohio are absolutely devastated by the news that Mr. Spears has cancelled an upcoming concert in Cleveland. This is just a guess, but I am going out on a limb to say that there will be a few more unexplained “cancellations” by Federline on this tour. You know, when an artist (and I use that term very loosely with this wanker) mysteriously cancels a show and you later find out that they hadn't even sold enough tickets to pay the parking attendants at the concert? Call me crazy, but I just don’t see people plunking down their cash for a chance to hear this lyrical genius rock the mic.
- Props to India for passing a law that could result in jail time for men who beat, threaten or yell at their wives or girlfriends. Welcome to the 21st century, India, nice of you to join us. Look, I know the rest of the world isn't as politically correct and all about civil liberties as we are in the United States, but is it too much to ask that nowhere in the world men are allowed to beat their woman without some sort of punishment? Cultural norms differ greatly, I know, but this just seems like something that should be pretty automatic for everyone, kinda like not killing someone just for the heck of it.
- Not the best day for misogynists, apparently. Muslim cleric Sheik Taj Aldin al-Hitali of Australia (with a last name so close to Hitler, who could foresee something bad flying out of this guy’s pie hole) apologized for blatantly offensive and over-the-line comments he made about women last month but refused to resign from his post. He labeled women who don’t wear head scarves as “uncovered meat” who deserve rape. Wow. Hey bro, I know your religion values modesty in women to the point of oppression, but I don’t think that not covering her head with a scarf makes a woman a) meat, or b) inviting rape. Say they’re being sinful, whatever, but don’t insinuate that they are asking to be sexually assaulted. That’s crossing the line to the point that you can't even look back and remember where it was. But this should go a long way towards dispelling negative perceptions people have about Islam as a radical, far-out religion that advocates violence. Good job, Sheik Taj.
- The long overdue big fence on the U.S.-Mexican border looks like it will finally happen. President Bush signed a bill that will make the fence a reality, keeping out some of the illegal immigrants that are the true top problem for our country. Either that or the fact that hundreds of U.S. military personnel are dying fighting in a place they never should have been in the first place. Sure, illegal immigrants due pose a lot of economic and social problems and need to be dealt with, but the hubbub on this issue while Osama runs free and the debacle in Iraq rages on is more than a little comical. Hang in there, people, only two years left in this blatantly incompetent presidential regime.
- The World Series is almost over, and thank the Lord for that. Past Fall Classics have been riveting viewing and this baseball season was a great one, right up to the point that we began the worst Series I can remember in my lifetime. Bad weather, bad pitching, bad defense, awful hitting, what a combination. At this point, I don’t care who wins, although I am leaning toward the Cardinals simply because they are one win from ending this clunker and the Tigers would need to win three games to do so. I’m all for closing our collective eyes, covering our ears, yelling “La la la la la la!” at the top of our lungs and refusing to acknowledge this series ever happened. Just ignore it, get ready for spring training in February and pretend the 2006 World Series never happened.
- Thank you very much to the presidents of the University of Florida and Georgia, respectively, for some much needed comedic relief. These two tools have teamed up to denounce the moniker given to the annual UF-UGA football game as the “World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party.” They argue it promotes drinking, specifically underage drinking by their students. And I am 100% certain that no students under the age of twenty-one will attend this game and drink any sort of alcohol. Moreover, I am sure they will do so because they see that the contest is no longer being referred to as the “World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party.” Either that or they will drink even more than usual just to give a collective middle finger to the two university presidents. Tip one back for me, UGA and UF students, not that you all need any encouragement.
- NBA commish David Stern is apparently not happing with his gun-toting players. Stern wants players to stop carrying their nines and Glocks, although no one seems to be sure how he can actually legislate and enforce this. Currently the Association prohibits players from carrying guns to all team and league functions, but what they do on their own time would seem to be beyond the league’s reach. This comes on the heels of Indiana Pacer Stephen Jackson, he of the melee-inducing behavior in Detroit two seasons ago, shooting it up outside of a strip club. Look commish, you can take the steps of instituting a no-bling dress code and no arguing with the refs conduct code, but you simply cannot take the thug out of these guys. This is how NBAers roll, in their tricked out Escalades with tinted windows, filled with their dozen-strong posse, all of them strapped and ready to shoot it up. Makes me mildly sad that I stopped caring about the NBA about five years ago and now follow other more interesting sports pursuits.
- Another piece of sunny news from the war that never should have happened, the sham that is our unending invasion of Iraq: the death total for the month of October is nearing 100, currently standing at 96 after the announcement of five more deaths of U.S. service personnel. During the past year, there hasn’t been a month with a solider-death tally of under thirty, meaning that essentially we are averaging at least a death per day every month. But those lives are worth it when you consider what we’ve gained by…….what, we haven’t gained a friggin’ thing? Oh. B-B-But Iraq hasn’t attacked us since we invad - oh, they never have attacked us at all? Dang. Hey, though, at least now President Bush can have his own Vietnam and join the elite company of one Richard M. Nixon. All Bush needs to do is find a popular musician to hassle because he disagrees with the war and try to run him out of the country, a la Nixon and John Lennon. C’mon W., you still have two full years to go, you can do it.
- How pumped are you that Bob Sagat has a new gig? Yeah, me too, because after all, you can’t spend your entire career intro-ing those oh-so-funny and veeeeeeerrrrry fresh videos of guys getting accidentally blasted in the junk, animals performing wacky hi-jinks and people making asses of themselves at weddings and other events on America’s Lamest Home Videos. That show stopped being fresh and funny right around episode two, when everyone figured out that it was basically a copy of episode one and a preview of every episode from there on out. Now Sagat is hosting 1 vs. 100, where contests play yet another contrived game show and try to win copious amounts of jack. Who isn’t excited for that? After all, it’s not like we didn’t have a chance to mildly enjoy the concept with Regis and Millionaire, then see that show run into the ground worse than the Exxon Valdez. So you have the stunningly unfunny Sagat teamed with a stale game show concept? Count me in. And by in, I mean there’s a negative forty percent chance of me ever watching this piece of crap.
- Following up on a previous item highlighting the whereabouts and activities of Kevin “America’s Most Hated” Federline………residents of Northeast Ohio are absolutely devastated by the news that Mr. Spears has cancelled an upcoming concert in Cleveland. This is just a guess, but I am going out on a limb to say that there will be a few more unexplained “cancellations” by Federline on this tour. You know, when an artist (and I use that term very loosely with this wanker) mysteriously cancels a show and you later find out that they hadn't even sold enough tickets to pay the parking attendants at the concert? Call me crazy, but I just don’t see people plunking down their cash for a chance to hear this lyrical genius rock the mic.
- Props to India for passing a law that could result in jail time for men who beat, threaten or yell at their wives or girlfriends. Welcome to the 21st century, India, nice of you to join us. Look, I know the rest of the world isn't as politically correct and all about civil liberties as we are in the United States, but is it too much to ask that nowhere in the world men are allowed to beat their woman without some sort of punishment? Cultural norms differ greatly, I know, but this just seems like something that should be pretty automatic for everyone, kinda like not killing someone just for the heck of it.
- Not the best day for misogynists, apparently. Muslim cleric Sheik Taj Aldin al-Hitali of Australia (with a last name so close to Hitler, who could foresee something bad flying out of this guy’s pie hole) apologized for blatantly offensive and over-the-line comments he made about women last month but refused to resign from his post. He labeled women who don’t wear head scarves as “uncovered meat” who deserve rape. Wow. Hey bro, I know your religion values modesty in women to the point of oppression, but I don’t think that not covering her head with a scarf makes a woman a) meat, or b) inviting rape. Say they’re being sinful, whatever, but don’t insinuate that they are asking to be sexually assaulted. That’s crossing the line to the point that you can't even look back and remember where it was. But this should go a long way towards dispelling negative perceptions people have about Islam as a radical, far-out religion that advocates violence. Good job, Sheik Taj.
- The long overdue big fence on the U.S.-Mexican border looks like it will finally happen. President Bush signed a bill that will make the fence a reality, keeping out some of the illegal immigrants that are the true top problem for our country. Either that or the fact that hundreds of U.S. military personnel are dying fighting in a place they never should have been in the first place. Sure, illegal immigrants due pose a lot of economic and social problems and need to be dealt with, but the hubbub on this issue while Osama runs free and the debacle in Iraq rages on is more than a little comical. Hang in there, people, only two years left in this blatantly incompetent presidential regime.
- The World Series is almost over, and thank the Lord for that. Past Fall Classics have been riveting viewing and this baseball season was a great one, right up to the point that we began the worst Series I can remember in my lifetime. Bad weather, bad pitching, bad defense, awful hitting, what a combination. At this point, I don’t care who wins, although I am leaning toward the Cardinals simply because they are one win from ending this clunker and the Tigers would need to win three games to do so. I’m all for closing our collective eyes, covering our ears, yelling “La la la la la la!” at the top of our lungs and refusing to acknowledge this series ever happened. Just ignore it, get ready for spring training in February and pretend the 2006 World Series never happened.
- Thank you very much to the presidents of the University of Florida and Georgia, respectively, for some much needed comedic relief. These two tools have teamed up to denounce the moniker given to the annual UF-UGA football game as the “World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party.” They argue it promotes drinking, specifically underage drinking by their students. And I am 100% certain that no students under the age of twenty-one will attend this game and drink any sort of alcohol. Moreover, I am sure they will do so because they see that the contest is no longer being referred to as the “World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party.” Either that or they will drink even more than usual just to give a collective middle finger to the two university presidents. Tip one back for me, UGA and UF students, not that you all need any encouragement.
- NBA commish David Stern is apparently not happing with his gun-toting players. Stern wants players to stop carrying their nines and Glocks, although no one seems to be sure how he can actually legislate and enforce this. Currently the Association prohibits players from carrying guns to all team and league functions, but what they do on their own time would seem to be beyond the league’s reach. This comes on the heels of Indiana Pacer Stephen Jackson, he of the melee-inducing behavior in Detroit two seasons ago, shooting it up outside of a strip club. Look commish, you can take the steps of instituting a no-bling dress code and no arguing with the refs conduct code, but you simply cannot take the thug out of these guys. This is how NBAers roll, in their tricked out Escalades with tinted windows, filled with their dozen-strong posse, all of them strapped and ready to shoot it up. Makes me mildly sad that I stopped caring about the NBA about five years ago and now follow other more interesting sports pursuits.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Back and more awesome than ever
- I can’t shake the feeling that my IQ goes down five points every time I hear Michael Irvin talk on ESPN. Double that rate of decrease if Irvin is having an argument with Mike Ditka. These two team up to form one giant black hole of football commentary. Irvin couldn’t be more biased in favor of his beloved Dallas Cowboys and more of a sycophant for his buddy, Terrell Owens. Hey Mike, I don’t need another T.O. apologist who will try to excuse anything he does, hit the mute button if that’s your take. And Ditka…..this guy is so blasé and fails to say anything of significance or to take an actual position on any issue, what a waste of airtime.
- ESPN doesn’t stop with those two yutzes, though. No, the centerpiece of their NFL coverage is Chris Berman, who stopped being funny after the third or fourth successive “pick” of a Bills-49ers Super Bowl in the 90s. Berman’s tired gimmicks and cumbersome, unfunny nicknames for players are cause for wanting to jam an ice pick into both ears rather than listen to him. Dude has been trotting out the same tired, played out routine for a couple decades and apparently he and his bosses at the Worldwide Leader are the only ones that actually think that it’s still amusing.
- I’m sorry, but why is everyone so pissed that The Killers’ new album is such a departure from their first one? Sam’s Town sounds little to nothing like Hot Fuss, which was an overproduced, overly slick trendy rock piece of crap for the most part. I, for one, am glad these guys ditched the flashy outfits, synthesized sound and are at least attempting to sound like, as some have alleged, Bruce Springstein in his Born to Run days. Trendy rockers, as I have dubbed bands like The Killers (after their first album), XXXXXXXX, XXXXXXX, are the dregs of the music industry, almost as bad as the Britney’s and Christina’s of the world. They pretend to rock, but only in the hopes of appealing to the masses, with a hint of rock kitch but not actually rocking enough to lose their popular appeal.
- Movies disappoint, for the most part, when they are billed as highly as The Departed, the new Martin Scorscese film. So you know going in that the movie likely isn’t going to live up to the hype, and when it doesn’t, you’re disappointed, but not as much as you might have otherwise been. This movie, though, is the rare one that, for its firs two hours, makes you believe that it really is as good as advertised, then in the final half hour or so, pulls the rug out from under you with a trite, unimaginative and unoriginal ending. I won't give away the ending, but let’s just say it follows the way too obvious path and plays into the most obvious traps. Scorscese and Co. had the chance to cap off a great picture with an original, innovative ending, but they blew it. That shouldn’t invalidate great performances by Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and Martin Sheen. Still, The Departed, in the end, is really no departure at all from a million other crime thrillers.
- It may not be the British Invasion of a few decades ago, but a slew of great Euro bands are cropping up on the music scene, although they’re not mainstream enough for most to have heard of them. Snow Patrol (Northern Ireland), Arctic Monkeys (England), Ella Rouge (Sweden) and Minimum Serious (France) and are just a few good imports, some more recent, some more established. Good to know that Europe can produce more than club music/techno crap, even if not nearly enough people are taking notice.
- Is Hollywood that unimaginative, that two period films about magicians come out within weeks of each other? The Illusionist and The Prestige both have been well received, so this isn’t a slight on either of them. This is just to say that maybe, just maybe, someone could direct their creative energy toward finding concepts that aren't so similar to movies out at the exact same time.
- There are a few noteworthy TV shows that have made a splash this fall, two in particular that have caught my attention. Heroes, NBC’s new Monday night offering, had been absolutely fantastic, riveting TV since it hit the air in mid-September. The show features a string of strangers from across the world who discover that they each have a supernatural ability (i.e. flying, teleportation, painting scenes from the future, indestructibility, etc.). What has been extremely interesting has been the way the show slowly weaves together the paths of these characters, who are apparently tied together in ways we have yet to discover. Six Degrees is another new show of merit, a bit more in the traditional mold, but like Heroes, it examines the paths of strangers whose lives are inextricably intertwined. Six Degrees has the advantage of being based in Manhattan, which just happens to be one of my favorite places in the world, and it’s a place with so much going on and so many possibilities that the show should never get boring.
- Is there anything more aggravating for TV fans than having to wait an extra month and a half for their favorite shows to debut because of the World Series? Maybe it’s having an awesome show such as Prison Break interrupted for two weeks for the same reason. I love baseball and follow it intensely throughout the season, but is it too much to ask to have it on ESPN instead of clogging up the airways in lieu of the shows I love to watch? That’s exponentially more true this year, when the Series is a giant clunker, featuring two teams most people could not possibly care less about.
- A big fat “Ha ha!” to the execs at the CW network, most notably head imbecile Dawn Ostroff, who axed Everwood after last season to fill Monday nights with the insufferable and played out 7th Heaven and new drama Runaway, featuring Mr. Marky Mark Jr., Donny Wahlberg. As if being a member of New Kids on the Block wasn’t bad enough, he had to foist this giant, steaming turd of a show on the world. Shockingly, Runaway has gotten such awful ratings that it looks like a slam dunk to be cancelled. Oh, and the network shifted these two shows from Monday to Sunday nights because they were receiving a thorough ass kicking on Mondays. But hey, who could have seen this coming? Wait, I did? Several times, over a period of months? Wow, not only me, but loads of other fans and TV critics too? Wow, that is simply shocking, just blows my mind.
- Hate to keep pounding ESPN, but when someone hands you the hammer and points out the bright shiny nail right in front of you, what choice do you have? Who the f**k wants to see golf on a weekday afternoon in lieu of shows like Jim Rome is Burning and Pardon the Interruption? Those are two of the better shows on the network, yet the ESPN execs foist some inane, innocuous and nondescript golf tournament that no significant names are playing in on the sports watching public. Furthermore, what’s the point in following a golf tournament on the first two days? You’re watching a large number of guys who won't make the cut anyhow, so why waste TV time on them? And you actually want the right to televise these events? Grr-eat idea, ESPN, superb.
- If there was some sort of service that would allow you to block out all the crank enhancement ads from your TV, how much would you pay for it? You know the ones, make your crank bigger, stay active longer, etc. They show all of these old dudes and their wives saying how these pills have helped them to….well, never mind. Know what, old guys and drug companies? We don’t need to hear about this sort of thing. We get enough spam in our email inboxes for these drugs, seeing them seventy-four times during every sporting event on TV is really, really overkill. I would venture to say that guys who need those drugs know about them and can figure out to ask their doctor for information, so quit pounding away at us.
- Even more ubiquitous than the crank enhancement ads on TV, the “Is it Monday yet?” ad onslaught by ESPN has made me want to hurl my TV remote at the wall. The ads themselves are annoying enough, presumptuous in assuming that football fans are not interested in a slate of great games, 13 or 14 of them on Sunday, but rather by a single game on Monday night that all too often features a terrible matchup of teams that the network thought were going to be good this year but inevitably suck. No one is that ecstatic about the Packers or Ravens on a Monday night, ESPN. And we get the point, you now have Monday Night Football. Quit beating us over the head with the same lame ads all week, every week, hundreds of times.
- It’s not a new development, but the question needs to be asked: why in the world would you want to get your news from the nightly TV news shows as opposed to “fake” news shows like The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report? Yes, I know, these shows don’t cover all the news in the world, but they cover enough to give a general idea of what’s going on. And you can fill in the rest with your chosen medium (Internet, newspaper) and avoid the drudge of watching the nightly news, filled with depressing stories about the same topics over and over again. Not to mention, by watching the “fake” news with Stewart and Colbert, you can get plenty of laughs with your news and not wind up quite as depressed about this chaotic world in which we live.
- ESPN doesn’t stop with those two yutzes, though. No, the centerpiece of their NFL coverage is Chris Berman, who stopped being funny after the third or fourth successive “pick” of a Bills-49ers Super Bowl in the 90s. Berman’s tired gimmicks and cumbersome, unfunny nicknames for players are cause for wanting to jam an ice pick into both ears rather than listen to him. Dude has been trotting out the same tired, played out routine for a couple decades and apparently he and his bosses at the Worldwide Leader are the only ones that actually think that it’s still amusing.
- I’m sorry, but why is everyone so pissed that The Killers’ new album is such a departure from their first one? Sam’s Town sounds little to nothing like Hot Fuss, which was an overproduced, overly slick trendy rock piece of crap for the most part. I, for one, am glad these guys ditched the flashy outfits, synthesized sound and are at least attempting to sound like, as some have alleged, Bruce Springstein in his Born to Run days. Trendy rockers, as I have dubbed bands like The Killers (after their first album), XXXXXXXX, XXXXXXX, are the dregs of the music industry, almost as bad as the Britney’s and Christina’s of the world. They pretend to rock, but only in the hopes of appealing to the masses, with a hint of rock kitch but not actually rocking enough to lose their popular appeal.
- Movies disappoint, for the most part, when they are billed as highly as The Departed, the new Martin Scorscese film. So you know going in that the movie likely isn’t going to live up to the hype, and when it doesn’t, you’re disappointed, but not as much as you might have otherwise been. This movie, though, is the rare one that, for its firs two hours, makes you believe that it really is as good as advertised, then in the final half hour or so, pulls the rug out from under you with a trite, unimaginative and unoriginal ending. I won't give away the ending, but let’s just say it follows the way too obvious path and plays into the most obvious traps. Scorscese and Co. had the chance to cap off a great picture with an original, innovative ending, but they blew it. That shouldn’t invalidate great performances by Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and Martin Sheen. Still, The Departed, in the end, is really no departure at all from a million other crime thrillers.
- It may not be the British Invasion of a few decades ago, but a slew of great Euro bands are cropping up on the music scene, although they’re not mainstream enough for most to have heard of them. Snow Patrol (Northern Ireland), Arctic Monkeys (England), Ella Rouge (Sweden) and Minimum Serious (France) and are just a few good imports, some more recent, some more established. Good to know that Europe can produce more than club music/techno crap, even if not nearly enough people are taking notice.
- Is Hollywood that unimaginative, that two period films about magicians come out within weeks of each other? The Illusionist and The Prestige both have been well received, so this isn’t a slight on either of them. This is just to say that maybe, just maybe, someone could direct their creative energy toward finding concepts that aren't so similar to movies out at the exact same time.
- There are a few noteworthy TV shows that have made a splash this fall, two in particular that have caught my attention. Heroes, NBC’s new Monday night offering, had been absolutely fantastic, riveting TV since it hit the air in mid-September. The show features a string of strangers from across the world who discover that they each have a supernatural ability (i.e. flying, teleportation, painting scenes from the future, indestructibility, etc.). What has been extremely interesting has been the way the show slowly weaves together the paths of these characters, who are apparently tied together in ways we have yet to discover. Six Degrees is another new show of merit, a bit more in the traditional mold, but like Heroes, it examines the paths of strangers whose lives are inextricably intertwined. Six Degrees has the advantage of being based in Manhattan, which just happens to be one of my favorite places in the world, and it’s a place with so much going on and so many possibilities that the show should never get boring.
- Is there anything more aggravating for TV fans than having to wait an extra month and a half for their favorite shows to debut because of the World Series? Maybe it’s having an awesome show such as Prison Break interrupted for two weeks for the same reason. I love baseball and follow it intensely throughout the season, but is it too much to ask to have it on ESPN instead of clogging up the airways in lieu of the shows I love to watch? That’s exponentially more true this year, when the Series is a giant clunker, featuring two teams most people could not possibly care less about.
- A big fat “Ha ha!” to the execs at the CW network, most notably head imbecile Dawn Ostroff, who axed Everwood after last season to fill Monday nights with the insufferable and played out 7th Heaven and new drama Runaway, featuring Mr. Marky Mark Jr., Donny Wahlberg. As if being a member of New Kids on the Block wasn’t bad enough, he had to foist this giant, steaming turd of a show on the world. Shockingly, Runaway has gotten such awful ratings that it looks like a slam dunk to be cancelled. Oh, and the network shifted these two shows from Monday to Sunday nights because they were receiving a thorough ass kicking on Mondays. But hey, who could have seen this coming? Wait, I did? Several times, over a period of months? Wow, not only me, but loads of other fans and TV critics too? Wow, that is simply shocking, just blows my mind.
- Hate to keep pounding ESPN, but when someone hands you the hammer and points out the bright shiny nail right in front of you, what choice do you have? Who the f**k wants to see golf on a weekday afternoon in lieu of shows like Jim Rome is Burning and Pardon the Interruption? Those are two of the better shows on the network, yet the ESPN execs foist some inane, innocuous and nondescript golf tournament that no significant names are playing in on the sports watching public. Furthermore, what’s the point in following a golf tournament on the first two days? You’re watching a large number of guys who won't make the cut anyhow, so why waste TV time on them? And you actually want the right to televise these events? Grr-eat idea, ESPN, superb.
- If there was some sort of service that would allow you to block out all the crank enhancement ads from your TV, how much would you pay for it? You know the ones, make your crank bigger, stay active longer, etc. They show all of these old dudes and their wives saying how these pills have helped them to….well, never mind. Know what, old guys and drug companies? We don’t need to hear about this sort of thing. We get enough spam in our email inboxes for these drugs, seeing them seventy-four times during every sporting event on TV is really, really overkill. I would venture to say that guys who need those drugs know about them and can figure out to ask their doctor for information, so quit pounding away at us.
- Even more ubiquitous than the crank enhancement ads on TV, the “Is it Monday yet?” ad onslaught by ESPN has made me want to hurl my TV remote at the wall. The ads themselves are annoying enough, presumptuous in assuming that football fans are not interested in a slate of great games, 13 or 14 of them on Sunday, but rather by a single game on Monday night that all too often features a terrible matchup of teams that the network thought were going to be good this year but inevitably suck. No one is that ecstatic about the Packers or Ravens on a Monday night, ESPN. And we get the point, you now have Monday Night Football. Quit beating us over the head with the same lame ads all week, every week, hundreds of times.
- It’s not a new development, but the question needs to be asked: why in the world would you want to get your news from the nightly TV news shows as opposed to “fake” news shows like The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report? Yes, I know, these shows don’t cover all the news in the world, but they cover enough to give a general idea of what’s going on. And you can fill in the rest with your chosen medium (Internet, newspaper) and avoid the drudge of watching the nightly news, filled with depressing stories about the same topics over and over again. Not to mention, by watching the “fake” news with Stewart and Colbert, you can get plenty of laughs with your news and not wind up quite as depressed about this chaotic world in which we live.
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Thoughts and analysis galore
- Are you ready for some…….high school football? Apparently America is clamoring for it, at least based on the sudden surge of TV time given to high school ballers. Once a week during the current football season, ESPN has carved out some air time to show a high-profile HS game that features two top teams in the country, usually spotlighting a highly recruited player or two who is headed to Ohio State, Notre Dame, USC, etc. MTV got into the act with Two-a-Days, its reality show about the storied Hoover High School football team from Alabama. While I’m sure these kids love the attention and notoriety, I am banking on the fact that most sports fans, even avid football fans, aren't desperate to see inside the lives or even the on-field accomplishments of some pimple-faced seventeen year old defensive back whose biggest decisions are who to ask to homecoming and how to get out of detention today.
- Is the country’s biggest problem really North Korea doing nuclear testing? Am I missing something, was it North Korean terrorists who crashed the planes on 9/11? Or did the North Koreans declare war on America recently? Have they been threatening to overrun our borders and overthrow our government? National security and international relations are more detailed and filled with more confidential, hush hush information than any civilian will ever fully know, but America sure does spend a lot of time worrying about things that are very unlikely to ever pose a direct threat to us. Odds are North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, nearly an octogenarian, dies before his country ever produces a functional nuclear weapon. Buy hey, if they do, based on our success of finding the WMD’s in Iraq, we should be able to hunt it down, no problem, right?
- Notre Dame football coach Charlie Weiss needs to shut up. He’s whining, whining, whining about why his team is dropping in the CFB polls even though they continue to scrape by with narrow wins against inferior opponents. I don’t despise the Domers like I used to, mostly because I ran a marathon in South Bend that finished at Notre Dame stadium and I ended up loving the place, but Weiss’ sob story is pathetic. Coaches need to not spend time on that sort of thing when they have five games left in the season, because unless you win them all, Charlie, what does it matter?
- Props to Kevin Federline for trying to, um, I have no idea what the hell he’s doing, but he’s trying to do it by appearing on WWE’s Monday Night RAW. I suppose you can surmise that he’s not trying to improve his image as white trash by appearing on a pro wrestling show, because that’s like Tom Cruise trying to improve his image by jumping on Oprah’s couch like a meth head on jacked up on steroids. Maybe Federline (I’m not using that uber-lame nickname dude has tried to give himself) is simply trying a little levity by pandering to that white trash persona in the most obvious way possible. Either way, he’s the latest in a long line of “celebrities” who are famous despite having no discernable talents (Paris Hilton, Nicole Ritchie, etc.).
- What’s less interesting and more predictable than the weeks leading up to the November elections? Every year it’s the same story, scandal after scandal, accusation after accusation, all from candidates that the vast majority of the public has never heard of and doesn’t care about. Political enthusiasts will scream their heads off about that being the problem, that people don’t care, don’t vote and don’t get involved. Well, when people are smart enough to realize that things aren’t going to change all that much regardless of who they elect, where’s the incentive?
- Hopefully I’m not the only one enjoying the current absence of American Karaoke/Idol on TV right now. That monstrosity of a show seems like it’s on year round, a never ending cycle of talent-less schmucks willing to embarrass themselves on TV and be eviscerated by a trio of wannabe celeb judges. Annd best of all, you just know that the “winners” (I’d argue that like in a nuclear war, there are no winners here) are going to contribute so greatly to the music world, just like Lennon, Cobain, Seger, Clapton, etc. The fact that millions of people contribute to Idol being on TV by watching and patronizing this menace to music is a great reason for the rest of the world to hate America even more.
- Props to Madonna for kidnapping/adopting a child from Africa, I’m sure that the kid will become a super well-adjusted individual in time. What with a mother who portrays a mock-crucifixion scene in her most recent concert tour, writes graphic sexual books and changes her identity more than a drag queen. I’m sure once that kid gets the chance to watch his adopted mom’s horrific videos showing her as a leotard wearing freak, a cowboy, a black lace wearing weirdo and hundred other personas and gets the chance to read her book, he’ll be so proud. And what’s not great about celebs plucking kids out of third world countries and adopting them as if it’s some badge of honor or a trendy act of charity? If you really want to do something for them, why not splurge a few of your millions on getting running water and sewers for their villages and keeping them with their actual families?
- Not sure that there’s a solution for this, but what’s better than the gawd-awful weather plaguing the World Series? I know you can't rig the season so that teams from SoCal, Florida or Texas will be in the Fall Classic, but surely there has to be some way to avoid playing games in 37-degree weather with rain falling and fans shivering like penguins at the South Pole. Having played ball in that kind of weather, I can attest to how miserable it is, and it’s turning this year’s Series into something to suffer through rather than enjoy.
- Maybe this is a regional story right now, but in Akron, the big news story of the moment is the alleged rape of a 17-year-old girl at a local bar by a Girls Gone Wild cameraman. There are all kinds of angles: the bar promoting the event by inviting local girls underage ones at that, to come and “get things going” by dancing on the bar all night and drinking, the shady camera operators who seem to make a habit of preying on drunk girls and luring them onto the GGW bus, the bar serving to blatantly underage girls, etc. The question is how do you not see that things are gonna go this way, when this is what GGW does? You know what they’re about, and yet they freely caravan around the country staging these kinds of events? Nothing bad about having fun and being crazy, but when you give sleazebags like Joe Francis and his GGW crew free reign in a bar or nightclub, how can the end result go any other way?
- Umm, do I have to ask how many kilos of weed the studio exec who approved the new Borat movie smoked before making his or her decision? Even the lowest common denominator of movie going audiences (i.e. guys ages 18-25 or so) can't look at the promos for this picture and think it looks funny. Maybe someone needs to explain that the concept of foreigner who comes to America and struggles to adapt isn't automatic comedic gold. In this case, it looks pathetically lame, unless you consider a guy riding a subway car with a chicken in his briefcase and accidentally letting it out of the case to be hysterical. You don’t? Hmm, shocker.
- For the past couple years, MTV has been mining teen-drama gold with Laguna Beach, which has become even more of a hit than the TV drama, The O.C., that it supposedly showed the “real reality” of. The first two seasons of Laguna were good TV candy, superficially interesting, easy to follow viewing that could hold your attention well enough. This season, though, it looks like either the MTV folks have bled all of the interest out of this idea or they simply got a giant dud of a cast for it. This year’s roster includes a collection of characters with the same level of charisma as a bucket of sawdust and nearly the same IQ. They’re the lite beer equivalent of the previous seasons - half the intrigue, have the personality, half the brain cells (and seeing as the previous seasons weren't exactly filled with Mensa members, that’s a real problem). I’m sure preparations for a fourth season are underway, and if they’re at all smart, the producers will learn some important lessons from this third incarnation of their show.
- Is the country’s biggest problem really North Korea doing nuclear testing? Am I missing something, was it North Korean terrorists who crashed the planes on 9/11? Or did the North Koreans declare war on America recently? Have they been threatening to overrun our borders and overthrow our government? National security and international relations are more detailed and filled with more confidential, hush hush information than any civilian will ever fully know, but America sure does spend a lot of time worrying about things that are very unlikely to ever pose a direct threat to us. Odds are North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, nearly an octogenarian, dies before his country ever produces a functional nuclear weapon. Buy hey, if they do, based on our success of finding the WMD’s in Iraq, we should be able to hunt it down, no problem, right?
- Notre Dame football coach Charlie Weiss needs to shut up. He’s whining, whining, whining about why his team is dropping in the CFB polls even though they continue to scrape by with narrow wins against inferior opponents. I don’t despise the Domers like I used to, mostly because I ran a marathon in South Bend that finished at Notre Dame stadium and I ended up loving the place, but Weiss’ sob story is pathetic. Coaches need to not spend time on that sort of thing when they have five games left in the season, because unless you win them all, Charlie, what does it matter?
- Props to Kevin Federline for trying to, um, I have no idea what the hell he’s doing, but he’s trying to do it by appearing on WWE’s Monday Night RAW. I suppose you can surmise that he’s not trying to improve his image as white trash by appearing on a pro wrestling show, because that’s like Tom Cruise trying to improve his image by jumping on Oprah’s couch like a meth head on jacked up on steroids. Maybe Federline (I’m not using that uber-lame nickname dude has tried to give himself) is simply trying a little levity by pandering to that white trash persona in the most obvious way possible. Either way, he’s the latest in a long line of “celebrities” who are famous despite having no discernable talents (Paris Hilton, Nicole Ritchie, etc.).
- What’s less interesting and more predictable than the weeks leading up to the November elections? Every year it’s the same story, scandal after scandal, accusation after accusation, all from candidates that the vast majority of the public has never heard of and doesn’t care about. Political enthusiasts will scream their heads off about that being the problem, that people don’t care, don’t vote and don’t get involved. Well, when people are smart enough to realize that things aren’t going to change all that much regardless of who they elect, where’s the incentive?
- Hopefully I’m not the only one enjoying the current absence of American Karaoke/Idol on TV right now. That monstrosity of a show seems like it’s on year round, a never ending cycle of talent-less schmucks willing to embarrass themselves on TV and be eviscerated by a trio of wannabe celeb judges. Annd best of all, you just know that the “winners” (I’d argue that like in a nuclear war, there are no winners here) are going to contribute so greatly to the music world, just like Lennon, Cobain, Seger, Clapton, etc. The fact that millions of people contribute to Idol being on TV by watching and patronizing this menace to music is a great reason for the rest of the world to hate America even more.
- Props to Madonna for kidnapping/adopting a child from Africa, I’m sure that the kid will become a super well-adjusted individual in time. What with a mother who portrays a mock-crucifixion scene in her most recent concert tour, writes graphic sexual books and changes her identity more than a drag queen. I’m sure once that kid gets the chance to watch his adopted mom’s horrific videos showing her as a leotard wearing freak, a cowboy, a black lace wearing weirdo and hundred other personas and gets the chance to read her book, he’ll be so proud. And what’s not great about celebs plucking kids out of third world countries and adopting them as if it’s some badge of honor or a trendy act of charity? If you really want to do something for them, why not splurge a few of your millions on getting running water and sewers for their villages and keeping them with their actual families?
- Not sure that there’s a solution for this, but what’s better than the gawd-awful weather plaguing the World Series? I know you can't rig the season so that teams from SoCal, Florida or Texas will be in the Fall Classic, but surely there has to be some way to avoid playing games in 37-degree weather with rain falling and fans shivering like penguins at the South Pole. Having played ball in that kind of weather, I can attest to how miserable it is, and it’s turning this year’s Series into something to suffer through rather than enjoy.
- Maybe this is a regional story right now, but in Akron, the big news story of the moment is the alleged rape of a 17-year-old girl at a local bar by a Girls Gone Wild cameraman. There are all kinds of angles: the bar promoting the event by inviting local girls underage ones at that, to come and “get things going” by dancing on the bar all night and drinking, the shady camera operators who seem to make a habit of preying on drunk girls and luring them onto the GGW bus, the bar serving to blatantly underage girls, etc. The question is how do you not see that things are gonna go this way, when this is what GGW does? You know what they’re about, and yet they freely caravan around the country staging these kinds of events? Nothing bad about having fun and being crazy, but when you give sleazebags like Joe Francis and his GGW crew free reign in a bar or nightclub, how can the end result go any other way?
- Umm, do I have to ask how many kilos of weed the studio exec who approved the new Borat movie smoked before making his or her decision? Even the lowest common denominator of movie going audiences (i.e. guys ages 18-25 or so) can't look at the promos for this picture and think it looks funny. Maybe someone needs to explain that the concept of foreigner who comes to America and struggles to adapt isn't automatic comedic gold. In this case, it looks pathetically lame, unless you consider a guy riding a subway car with a chicken in his briefcase and accidentally letting it out of the case to be hysterical. You don’t? Hmm, shocker.
- For the past couple years, MTV has been mining teen-drama gold with Laguna Beach, which has become even more of a hit than the TV drama, The O.C., that it supposedly showed the “real reality” of. The first two seasons of Laguna were good TV candy, superficially interesting, easy to follow viewing that could hold your attention well enough. This season, though, it looks like either the MTV folks have bled all of the interest out of this idea or they simply got a giant dud of a cast for it. This year’s roster includes a collection of characters with the same level of charisma as a bucket of sawdust and nearly the same IQ. They’re the lite beer equivalent of the previous seasons - half the intrigue, have the personality, half the brain cells (and seeing as the previous seasons weren't exactly filled with Mensa members, that’s a real problem). I’m sure preparations for a fourth season are underway, and if they’re at all smart, the producers will learn some important lessons from this third incarnation of their show.
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