- Most of the time when a couple breaks up, you side with one of them and hate the other. Picking sides is just a part of the breakup process, but a recent breakup has taught me that it’s possible to hate both parties in a breakup and side with neither of them. Of course, I’m referring to the (rumored?) breakup of reality TV tools Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt from MTV’s The Hills, a show that keeps on giving….as in giving us more crap we don’t want or need. Neither Heidi nor Spencer seems to bring any positive qualities – intelligence, musical ability, likeability, personality, maturity, etc. – to the table, yet MTV won't let this freaking show die and ironically, these two ass hats aren’t even the stars of the show. Yet the will they/won't they debate about their engagement rages on and Montag feels like her status as an E-list celebrity gives her the right to record and release an album, the first single from which is quite possibly the worst song I’ve heard in the past ten years. So stop surprising us with eight “bonus episodes” of The Hills, MTV, and make this headache go away. None of the people on your show are in the least bit worthy of any TV exposure, as being rich and driving Mercedes convertibles doesn’t make you a person that we need to see on TV for a half-hour each week. Spoiled rich people thinking they’re famous and relevant when they’re not is just a waste of time and air space…..
- Roger Clemens has always been synonymous with a-hole, piece of crap, classless jerk and bully on the baseball field, but now he has a new name off of it: cheater. Clemens is the most interesting and probably least surprising name to show up in the just-released Mitchell Report, an independent investigation into the steroid culture in Major League Baseball by former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell. In fairness, Clemens hasn’t been convicted of or formally charged with anything, and through his attorney, the Pocket Rocket has denied using any performance-enhancing steroids, but nonetheless, there his name is in the Mitchell Report with a detailed description of his alleged steroid use attached to it. His former personal trainer and also trainer while with the New York Yankees in his first stint with the team, Brian McNamee, told Mitchell Report investigators that he injected the Pocket Rocket with anabolic steroids and that on at least one occasion, Clemens was in possession of steroids from another supplier. Obviously, you’d expect Clemens to come out swinging – and he did, kind of. Through his attorney, Rusty Hardin, Clemens denied the allegations. Not exactly a vehement, guns-blazing defense and a promise to sue anyone and everyone involved in fingering him wrongly, is it? If you can’t speak for yourself and you aren’t angrier than Pocket Rocket apparently is after being labeled a steroid cheat, then you’re only going to fuel speculation that the allegations are true. Yes, McNamee is a sketchy character, but why would he lie to investigators after being threatened with prosecution if he fibbed? Presumably he only testified when forced to, so he didn’t seek out investigators in some sort of vendetta against Clemens. If his relationship with the Pocket Rocket is, or at least was, on good terms, then why would he lie about something so big? At this point, I’m leaning toward believing that Clemens did use ‘roids, although you can’t say for sure. There are mounds of circumstantial evidence, what with the fact that he actually pitched better in his mid 40s than he did a decade before, along with McNamee’s testimony, but no hard proof. Still, I’ve hated the guy as a player for a long time because he’s a classless a-hole on the field and whether he’s ultimately proven guilty or not, I’ll revel in seeing him scrutinized and degraded in the days, weeks and months ahead.
- Welcome back, Smallville. After a break of a few weeks, the show returned last night with a new, holiday-themed episode. Well, the episode was actually more bomb-centric, but with a holiday backdrop, especially an annoying melody of holiday muzak, as Chloe pointed out during the episode. Before I run through the episode, one caveat: a massive plot twist at the end of the episode turns nearly everything that happened during the show into a lie, so be prepared. As the episode opened, Clark was returning from a two-week stint at the Fortress of Solitude and everyone had missed him greatly, albeit for different reasons. Lois was upset that he hadn’t been around the fix her satellite dish, but she had her wounds salved when she was tabbed by Lex Luthor himself to write a major story centered on his business. Her ongoing affair with her editor Gabriel Gray (Zach from The O.C., a.k.a. Michael Cassidy) had a lot to do with it, but Lois was quickly thrown a curveball when a mysterious cell phone planted at her desk rang and the voice on the other end informed her that she couldn’t keep ignoring him and that unless she did exactly as told, a bomb on Chloe’s person would blow up and kill her. The mysterious psycho-terrorist turns out to be a man named Adrian, who claims that he’s LuthorCorp’s first functioning clone from Lex’s human cloning experiments. He directs Lois to write his story for publication and promises that if she tries to alert Chloe about the bomb or disable it, Chloe will die. That eventually leads Lois to try and sned an S.O.S. email to her cousin that doesn’t go because her computer’s network cable has been cut. She knows that her stalker is in the building, but it isn’t until Chloe and Jimmy Olsen are trapped in the elevator with the bomb and the elevator is disabled that she comes face to face with Adrian. He then steers her into an interview with Lex and Gabriel where Lois is directed to confront Lex about what he’s done to Adrian. Things don’t go as planned, though, and Lois pulls a gun on Lex that Adrian planted in her briefcase. She ends up getting knocked out by Lex, prompting Adrian to charge into the room and confront Lex. Through revealing the memories he’s been implanted with by LuthorCorp after being created, Adrian shows Gabriel, who Lex knows as his little brother Julian Luthor, that Gabriel is actually just a newer clone version of Adrian who Lex has implanted with the memories and life of his brother Julian, who died as an infant. Obviously, this leads to tension between Lex and Gabriel/Julian, who demands that Lex leave him alone and let him live his life instead of forcing him to continue playing the role of his brother. That doesn’t stop Lex from buying the Daily Planet, but it does lead Gabriel to break up with Lois because their relationship is just causing too much trouble. Back to the returning Clark….he comes up with a surprising request for Lana, who says she’s decided to drop her quest to bring down Lex. Clark insists that staying after him and joining forces will bring he and Lana closer, so she agrees and shows him all of her research and resources. Those resources include a former LuthorCorp scientist who was found comatose in an alley, babbling incoherently and showing toxically high levels of various metals in her body. The researcher is quarantined in the offices of Lana’s Isis Foundation, where Clark meets her and recognizes her speech as Kryptonian. He writes it down and he and Lana go looking for Chloe at the Planet. Using her super-hearing power, Clark hears Jimmy and Chloe trapped in the elevator with the bomb from Adrian, which has now been activated. He rushes in and saves the day and does so in super speed so that no one (except Chloe) knows what has happened. That rescue comes after a dramatic kiss between Jimmy and Chloe when both think they’re about to be blown up by the bomb. Chloe also reveals to Jimmy that she’s meteor-infected and that’s why she pulled out of their relationship. Afterward, she backtracks and downplays the kiss as a momentary lapse, much to Jimmy’s disappointment. Clark isn’t disappointed, though, when Chloe does break the code and finds it’s an error code computers emit when they try to boot up and are unsuccessful. The code keeps repeating, which means the “computer”, inside the LuthorCorp researcher’s body somehow, is continually trying to reboot. Clark takes his findings to Lana and tells her that the experience of seeing her upon his return from the Fortress of Solitude was like “falling in love with you all over again.” However, as the two embrace and we see a close-up of Clark with the sun hitting his face, it fractures, revealing that it’s been Bizarro Clark all episode long, the being the real Clark thought he destroyed in the season premiere. Instead, the Bizarro One has somehow trapped Clark in a block of ice in the Fortress and is now living in his place. I’d say I’m pumped to find out how this one is going to play out, but unfortunately it’s now time to bid the show adieu again. At episode’s end, there was no preview for next week’s episode or hint of when that next new episode will be, so we’re probably in store for another break. What the f’ing point of having this one episode surrounded by three weeks or so of off time? I’d blame this all on the damn writers’ strike, but the reality is that a retarded network like the f’ing CW does f’d up sh*t like this all the time on its own, writers’ strike or no writers’ strike. So until a time unknown, that’s all your Smallville action…..
- In the wild world of drugs, there is good news today, both for parents and convicted crack dealers. I know, it might seem contradictory to say that there is good news for such divergent groups, but this is one of those rare days when it’s true. See, parents can take comfort in knowing that the level of illicit drug use among teens decreased gradually last year, while convicted crack dealers have been given the ability to seek reductions in their prison sentences for crack-related offenses. On the positive side for parents, a federally funded study conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan surveyed eighth, 10th 12th graders nationwide and found that while abuse of prescription painkillers reminds popular among those age groups, use of drugs like meth and pot has decreased. On the positive side for convicted crack dealers (and really, who doesn’t love a silver lining to a dark cloud like a crack dealer?), the U.S. Sentencing Commission has voted to allow 19,500 of them to seek reductions in their prison sentences. The move comes as a retroactive part of the commission’s decision of reducing sentences for crack-related offenses. Most inmates could receive no more than a two-year reduction in their sentences, but an estimated 3,800 prisoners could be released within a year after the new rules go into effect on March 3. I for one couldn’t be more pleased about this development; after all, who deserves a break more than the hard-working crack dealers in our country? They toil long hours on dangerous streets and in filthy, run-down houses to bring crack addicts the drugs they so badly need, and what thanks do they get? Thrown in prison, that’s what. So props to the U.S. Sentencing Commission for showing compassion to those that society often treats with such a harsh indifference.
- I’m not a judge or a lawyer, so I can’t say this for sure, but I believe it’s typically best to show up at court-ordered depositions in child custody hearings if you actually want to regain custody of your kids. I believe this to be true, but Britney Spears clearly doesn’t, or she would have actually bothered to go to her aforementioned deposition in her custody case with K-Dirt Federline. K-Dirt’s attorney waited and waited, but Spears didn’t show and finally a call came in informing the attorney that she wasn’t feeling well and wouldn’t be coming. Of course, the irony here is that this may be K-Dirt’s attorney, but since he’s basically still freeloading off of the child and spousal support Spears pays him, he’s more her attorney anyhow. Still, not a good move sicking out of a deposition – well, unless “sick” is code for too drunk or stoned to show up, because in that case you’re better off trying to reschedule. But if sick really means sick with a cold or flu, then call me crazy, but I’m showing up. If you’re not in the hospital, then your kids and getting custody of them should probably trump you having a touch of the flu. Ultimately, the more Spears f’s up this custody battle, the better off they’ll be, so ultimately this could work for the best. They may have little chance to grow up well-adjusted with K-Dirt as their primary caregiver, but with Spears they have no chance at all.
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