- What a colossal choke job by the USC football team against archrival UCLA. Southern Cal needed only a win, be it by one point or fifty, to ensure a berth in the national title game on January 9 against Ohio State, but the Trojans choked big time, falling by a 13-9 margin and going down in flames in their biggest game of the season. In the process, they have doomed us to a dreaded rematch of OSU-Michigan in the title game, a no-win situation for college football fans. How you can only put up nine points against a defense more porous than the U.S.-Mexican border in rural New Mexico is astonishing. Guess it goes to show that even though they were able to string together a 10-1 record coming into this weekend, the Trojans were every bit the flawed ball club that lost to Oregon State in Corvallis a few weeks ago. Thanks for nothing, USC, a flameout in last year’s title game and gagging big time before you could even make it to this year’s title tilt.
- This is a bit premature, but I’m going to go ahead and say after five episodes that The O.C. is actually better without Mischa Barton and her Marissa character. Not a knock on her, but the show has gotten better by going in a new direction, one it wouldn’t have taken if she’d still been a member of the cast. Truthfully, the character was getting a bit tired and played out, which, if you read quotes from the show’s execs, was a large part of why they killed Marissa off. Willa Holland, who plays Marissa’s sister Caitlin, has aptly filled that general role of troublemaker/party girl on the show and isn't nearly as annoying and predictable (not yet anyhow) as the Marissa character had become. Not as much humor on the show yet this year, although coming off the “death” of a main character in last season’s finale, you had to figure that the first few episodes were going to be more serious. But overall, very good stuff so far, let’s keep it going.
- Michael Irvin is an idiot. I knew that, you knew that, we all knew that. I’ve said it too many times to count, and I’ll keep saying it as long as that idiot, Michael Irvin, being the idiot that he is, keeps acting like an idiot on TV. This time, the idiot made insensitive remarks about the heritage of rising quarterback Tony Romo of the Dallas Cowboys. The remarks weren't enough, at least in the eyes of ESPN, to warrant firing or suspending Irvin, but they weren't right. I find a lot of things Irvin says offensive, as in offensive to my intelligence and actual working knowledge of the English language and the proper way to use it, but racially based comments like the ones about Romo are dumb even by Mike Irvin standards. But I sincerely hope that he doesn’t stop here, because as I said, these comments aren't going to get him fired. So Mike, you need to dig down deep (get some help if you need it) and come up with some really insensitive, wildly inappropriate comments and blurt them out on air. Offend multiple ethnic and racial groups if need be. Do whatever you need to do, just make sure it’s enough to get you canned so I don’t have to listen to your biased, idiotic, self-serving blathering that comes tumbling out of my TV speakers every time you’re on the air.
- The Michael Richards Apology Tour 2006 continues. After appearances on Letterman, Jesse Jackson’s radio show and an apology to Rev. Al Sharpton (is Al really the person most in need of your apology?), Richards will now apologize personally to the four men he insulted with racial slurs in his comedy club tirade. Even by “I made a terribly offensive racial comment” standards, this apology tour de force is above and beyond the call of duty, which is a good thing. As I said before, I am going to give Richards the benefit of the doubt this time unless and until it is shown that he either has already done, or again in the future does, something along the same lines as what he did here. So this apology conference, which will have a mediator, will hopefully be the last we hear of it.
- Famous musicians aren't the only ones hauling large quantities of illegal drugs. No, bingo-lovin’ grannies are doing it too. Take Arizona senior citizen Leticia Villereal Garcia’s bust by police for carrying 10 bundles of pot in her car, a total of 214 pounds of the hippie lettuce, as an example. She explained to jurors at her trial that she survives on a $275 welfare check each month, along with any money she is able to earn playing bingo. Forgive me if I don’t see the logic in playing bingo, i.e. gambling, if you have such a limited income. However you slice it, though, trafficking massive amounts of the chronic is not the way to supplement your income, Leticia. If they’ll bust Snoop and Willie, then they’ll bust anyone.
- Erie, Pa., where attempted censorship is alive and well. A local bishop is vehemently opposing local Cathedral Prep’s production of the musical Urinetown, because he considers it offensive. The school is forging on, albeit restraining from using the actual name of the musical in promoting it or printing it on tickets for the show. However, since the word “Urinetown” appears scores of times in the lyrics of the musical, people are likely to figure out what play it is quickly. To Anonymous Bishop in Erie, Pa., I give a hearty “Stick in the Mud” salute and encourage him to join the rest of us in the real world, where urine is not a sufficiently offensive term to warrant protesting a musical by a group of high school kids.
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