- I really don’t have a favorite NFL team, but I most definitely have a favorite NFL player and his name is Ocho Cinco. O.C., better known as Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chad Johnson, is one of the best receivers in the league, annually posting 1,000-yard receiving seasons and ranking near the top among all receivers in touchdown catches. But the best part of Ocho Cinco’s act is that dude is utterly hilarious, a truly colorful character who puts on a show for everyone without being an egotistical jerk about it. His touchdown dances in the end zone are almost always entertaining, and the fact that he kept a checklist in his locker of defensive backs he had played against and beaten last year was too funny. However, O.C. has taken his act to a whole new level by racing a horse and winning. Yes, I said dude raced a horse and he won. Best of all, O.C. was talking smack to the horse before the race, saying in part, “You see him over there, he’s nervous, just like defensive backs are before they have to face me.” To be fair, Ocho Cinco was running on a track half the length of the one the horse ran on in order to level the playing field, but still this was a great event that raised money for charity. Normally this kind of sideshow act would be absurd and not entertaining, but with Ocho Cinco there’s always a reason to watch. Plus, he’s one of the very few members of the Bengals who you can count on to not get arrested, so he has that going for him as well.
- So The Sopranos is over and, in keeping with my approach to the show for the previous few years, I don’t give a crap. I’ve never watched the show and I don’t care that it’s gone, so all of the uproar over the series finale is lost on me. As a rule, series finales fall into one of two categories: those that give the audience everything they’ve been wanting the whole series but haven't gotten, or those that decide to go totally against the grain and shock the audience, which inevitably leads to disappointment. Depending on which camp you’re in, the Sopranos finale fell into one of those two categories. Part of my disinterest in the show stems from the fact that I’ve never had HBO with any cable or satellite package I’ve been on, but that’s not the whole story. The A&E network shows reruns from the series regularly, so I could get on board if I wanted. But I just can't sell myself on the prospect of watching a show that is so off base and inaccurate in portraying the world and the lifestyle it allegedly portrays. Don’t take my word for it, though, because a man by the name of Michael Franzese, a former mob boss and someone who actually lived that lifestyle, calls The Sopranos totally bogus in terms of its representation of the mob lifestyle. When I heard him speak, he actually laughed out loud when answering a question about the accuracy of the show in terms of representing what organized crime is really like (Goodfellas and Donnie Brasco were two pieces of work he said were good representations). So forgive me if I don’t have much interest in the debate over the quality of the series finale, because it’s hard to care about the finale of a series you never cared about to begin with.
- I don’t know much about Albania, to be truthful. As such, I can't make many statements or evaluations of Albania or its citizens, except to say that several thousand of them are absolute morons. On what basis can I make that kind of judgment, you ask? Simple. Those several thousand people came out to welcome and wildly celebrate a visit by our dysfunctional, inept leader W. and as such, those people are automatically morons. Here in America, where we’ve come to know and loathe this idiot, the only type of W.-centric event we’re turning out for en masse is a chance to pelt him with large rocks or rotten fruit. Heck, some of these Albanian idiots even wanted autographs from W., which is hilarious on several levels, not the least of which is that I’m not sure he’s even smart enough to sign his name without the pre-made rubber stamp he undoubtedly uses for things he needs to sign in the office. Tell ya what, Albania, why don’t you go ahead and keep W. and in exchange, send us your political leader, or perhaps a goat. Either would suffice and I’m certain that either could do a more competent job of running America than W. has done.
- Weekend box office results are in and not surprisingly, Ocean’s Thirteen was the big winner with $37.1 million in revenues. I haven't gotten to see the movie yet, so I’ll hold off on talking about the picture itself until I do, but it’ll be interesting to see if Danny Ocean and his crew will be able to avoid the same post-opening weekend fate that has befallen two other summer blockbuster sequels, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End and Spiderman 3. Both of those pictures saw substantial drop-offs in revenue after their first weekend in theaters and are on pace to finish well below the earnings level of the preceding movies in their respective series. Incidentally, Pirates was the second-highest grossing movie of this past weekend. Don’t think that the procession of third installments in big movie series is over yet, because the new Bourne movie is yet to come, and I wouldn’t be stunned if it were a better watch than Spiderman, Pirates or Ocean’s Thirteen. P.S. - I’m not sure if the fact that Knocked Up was the third-highest earning movie of the weekend says more about the quality of the movie itself or the lack of intelligence and cinematic discernment of movie goers, but based on what I’ve seen and heard, I’m going to say it’s the latter until proven otherwise.
- Time for the third segment in my seminar/curriculum for criminals and aspiring criminal masterminds: Why it’s a bad idea to enter a guilty plea then withdraw it because you now claim to “remember the event more clearly.” This questionable legal tactic is being employed by Chytoria Graham, the detestable woman who is charged with using her 4-week-old son like a baseball bat to assault her boyfriend. Set aside your despisal for Graham on that indefensible action for a moment if you can, however, and consider her legal maneuverings. On the very day she was to be sentenced to five years in prison as part of a plea deal, Graham withdrew her guilty plea and wants to go to trial. Look C., I know when you actually come face to face with the idea of going to jail it has to scare the crap out of you, but look at where you are. You’ve already pleaded guilty to the crime while under the guidance of legal counsel, and now you suddenly remember what really happened and you believe you’re not responsible for swinging your infant son like a Louisville Slugger and giving him a fractured skull in the process? Who is responsible, your boyfriend for using his body to crack the baby’s skull when you hit him with little Jarron? Or maybe you want to argue that a baby that is less than a month old is responsible because he allowed you to use him as a weapon? The lesson to be learned for all criminals here is that when you’ve committed a despicable, disgusting, loathsome act that any jury would want you to spend your life in prison for and you’ve secured a plea deal that will have you in prison for only five years, let your guilty plea stand and be thankful you’re not getting what you really deserve.
- Glad to see Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has backed off of his terrible decision to drop a near-ban on all national media whose coverage he deems too critical of the government, the country’s armed forces or likely to undermine national unity. In other words, his decree to sharply increase regulators’ ability to sanction media outlets that dared to speak out against him and his administration has gotten so much heat that P. Musharraf is having second thoughts. Now he is reversing field, undoing a decision he never should have made in the first place. What astonishes me is that this bozo thought he could make a unilateral, repressive decision like this in a country that is at least moderately advanced and forward-thinking and not have it cause a major uproar. No props to you, P., for finally doing the right thing only after tons of people threw a fit and more or less forced you into the choice.
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