- I still hate you, New England Patriots. I now have two weeks to decide whether or not to torture myself by watching the Super Bowl, where the Cheat-riots will face the New York Giants in Glendale, Ariz. The Pats used three touchdowns to defeat four field goals from the San Diego Chargers Sunday in frigid Foxboro, 21-12. Do the math, San Diego, touchdowns beat field goals. Maybe if you all had taken the myriad opportunities you had an punched them into the end zone, you could have ended the Cheat-riots season and made my day. Instead, the Giants will have the last chance to do so and also to avenge their 38-35, Week 17 come-from-ahead-to-choke loss at home against New England. The Giants won their tenth freaking road game in a row by going into Green Bay, where the game-time temperature was -1 degree Fahrenheit. They won in spite of a putrid kicking performance from kicker Lawrence “Wide Left” Tynes, who hooked two straight field goals in the fourth quarter, including on as time expired in regulation, but booted a 47-yard try through the uprights in overtime following Brett Favre’s second interception of the game. At least I’ll be spared the double-whammy of disgustingly overdone “great stories” we would have had if New England’s quest for a perfect season would have met Favre’s hero’s quest for one more title in the Super Bowl. Still, as much as I’d love to see the Giants win, I don’t think I can take the agony of being forced to see the smarmy, disgustingly arrogant, “we’re-just-so-humble-it’s-amazing” Cheat-riots and their lying, thick-headed bore of a coach, Bill Beli-cheat, win the title, a chance I’d be taking by watching. There are two weeks to debate this (thanks for that, ass hats at the NFL office, why the hell are there two weeks before the conference championship weekend and the Super Bowl? We’ll run out of worthwhile topics to discuss midway through week one and end up with moronic stories about things like what Eli Manning’s favorite kind of fruit juice is from there on out), but right now I’m leaning toward avoiding the whole spectacle.
- It was one final exciting week for The Amazing Race, with the three final teams racing from Taipei, Taiwan to the finish line in Anchorage, Alaska this week. The three remaining teams, Ron and Cristina (father-daughter), TK and Rachel (dating) and Nicolas and Don (grandson-grandfather) took off from Taipei on the same flight on China Air. They landed in Anchorage and went straight to the Sixth Avenue Sporting Goods store. There, they got their next clue as well as a bag full of gear for their next task. Ron and Cristina remained in first, followed by TK and Rachel, then Nic and Don. Unfortunately for Nic and Don, they compounded their last-place problems by forgetting their gear the first time and having to return to the store to retrieve it. The challenge was a Detour, which in Amazing Race terms means choosing between two tasks to complete. In this challenge, teams chose between gutting a fish to find their next clue, hidden in a small metal cylinder inside one of several 50-lb. monsters and finding a crab marked with race colors in a water-filled bin aboard a fishing boat. Ron and Cristina chose to gut the fish, as did Nic and Don,.TK and Rachel chose crabs (no giggles, please) and almost gave up before TK found a marked one and allowed them to remain on Ron and Cristina’s tails. After returning to get their gear, Nic and Don fell further behind as the teams next took a cab to Twenty Mile River, followed by a speed boat to Twenty Mile glacier, where both team members climbed face of glacier, with their next clue at the top of the ice mass. From there, they took a helicopter to Merrill Airfield, then a cab to Goose Leg Park for their next challenge. It was a memory challenge, forcing one member of each team to take 10 items representing stops from the race out of 15 items on hand and arrange them on a stage. The items had to meet certain requirements (i.e. three animals or animal byproducts, two means of transportation with wheels, one item per stop on the race, etc.), and there was only one correct way out of dozens of possible combinations that would fulfill every requirement and cause the next clue to pop up from the clue box at the back of the stage. Ron and Cristina arrived first, but Cristina struggled and TK and Rachel arrived next, but Rachel struggled as well. Nic and Don finally arrived and Nic was soon frustrated by the puzzle as well. After several dramatic shots of the three of them deep in thought over the puzzle, Rachel finished first, then she and TK took off in taxi to find a statue of Aaron Cook in another area of the city. There they found their next clue, which directed them to the Salmon Hooker, a colorful statue of a fish in downtown Anchorage where they found their next clue. Ron and Cristina were right behind them, and both teams then headed to the finish line at a local airport. TK and Rachel finished first and won the $1 million prize, Ron and Cristina came in second, Nic and Don in third. Don is still the coolest 69-year-old around, that’s for sure. All the teams previously eliminated on the race were on hand, as is the show’s custom, to greet the final three at the finish line. It was a great finale, not in the least because as I mentioned previously, all of the truly detestable teams in the race (Team Cougar, the ever-bickering duo of Nate and Jen, lesbian ministers Kate and Pat, etc.) had already been booted from the race and the three remaining teams were all “good guys,” so to speak. It was awesome to see TK and Rachel win, though, because they genuinely seemed like the most chill, cool people on the race. Congrats to them on their big win, I’m already looking forward to next season.
- Good leadership. It’s the secret to any successful group or organization. Find a person with vision, charisma and integrity to lead your group and people will follow. Either that, or find a leader who is willing to get plastered and assault a police officer on the street in the early hours of the morning. Really, either choice will work just fine, it’s simply a matter of preference. Some people like a leader who sets an example of responsible, respectable behavior and some people like leaders such as University of South Carolina student body president Nick Payne, who was arrested and charged with public drunkenness, resisting arrest and interfering with a police officer outside of Red Hot Tomato’s in the Five Points of Columbia, S.C. during the early morning hours of Jan. 5. According to an incident report obtained from the Columbia police department, Payne, a fourth-year economics student, approached the reporting officer from behind while the officer was responding to a fight. Payne was then warned several times to back up and leave the scene. Not surprisingly, the police report says that Payne appeared to be intoxicated. When the officer attempted to arrest Payne, he pushed the officer to the ground. Good job, Mr. President. Nothing says stand-up leader like getting drunk off your a** and assaulting a police officer. I hope that many of your fellow students following your stellar leadership, because you obviously know what you’re doing. When asked about the incident, Payne offered one of the lamest apologies I’ve ever heard from anyone involved in a crime, elected official or otherwise. “The events that took place Saturday morning were unfortunate and a complete misunderstanding,” said Payne in a statement released late Thursday night. “I take pride in my role as Student Body President and know what my peers expect out of me. I was elected by the students of the University of South Carolina to represent their best interests, and I intend to continue to serve my peers for the remainder of my term. It was a matter of wrong place, wrong time.” What, did you misunderstand to officer when he told you to back off? Or did he misunderstand you shoving him, as you were just trying to give him a pat on the back for apprehending someone who had committed a crime. When people take pride in their role of any kind, the way they show that pride is usually not assaulting a cop who isn’t even dealing with them. Well done, Payne, I’m sure your constituents are all verrrry proud of you.
- For months, J.J. Abrams’ newest creation, Cloverfield, has been a mysterious enigma, a whirling dervish of secrecy, teasers and speculation that didn’t seem to make much sense. However, the movie finally hit theaters this weekend and whether it was the curiosity factor or the reality that it’s a good movie, the film starring Michael Stahl-David and Jessica Lucas capitalized on those months of Internet hype by topping the weekend box office with $41 million, besting Star Wars: Special Edition's 11-year-old record for a January debut. (Watch the Cloverfield trailer here.) Regardless of how it does from here on out, besting the figure brought in by George Lucas and his legions of dorks, er, losers, errrr, fans is something to be proud of. I guess we’ll find out in the next few weeks whether Cloverfield is a legitimately great movie or just a one-week wonder. Coming in second at the weekend box office was Katherine Heigl's 27 Dresses, bringing in $22.4 million. Rounding out the top five were The Bucket List ($15.2 mil), Juno ($10.3 mil) and National Treasure 2 ($8.1 mil). Shockingly, a terrible excuse for a film, Mad Money, starring a mismatched, mediocre cast of Katie Holmes (still married to a nutcase), Queen Latifah and Diane Keaton, bombed out, earning just $7.7 mil to land at No. 7 for the weekend. Nice to see a bad movie actually get the tepid response it deserves for once….
- People love midgets. It’s one of life’s tried and true rules. You can try to fight it, or you can just give in and embrace the face that people enjoy seeing little people do silly things. It may seem insulting to those little people to think of them this way, but don’t concern yourself with that. The brothers at the Delta Upsilon fraternity at Northwestern University understand this lesson well. Of course, for that very reason they’re now in trouble for hiring the Half Pint Brawlers to "entertain" at one of their parties. The Daily Northwestern, the school’s student newspaper, is shocked, SHOCKED to find little people wrestling on their campus. "There's no place for such vulgar events at Northwestern. Students at this university are known for their intelligence -- NU has some of the top students in the country -- and midget wrestling is not something with which this university should be associated,” bellows an editorial in the paper. Lighten up, guys. The little people aren’t being sold into slavery. They’re compensated for their time and effort, I’m sure. Who are you to deny them the right to ply their trade and earn a living? They’re not coming to your newspaper and demanding that you stop publishing idiotic, poorly-reason editorials, are they? Leave them alone and leave this fraternity alone, because they’re just trying to bring great entertainment to your campus, something The Daily Northwestern doesn’t seem to be having much success doing. If you want to see the midget-y goodness for yourself, check it out. This video is an advertisement for Half Print Brawlers, which advertises that "midgets bleed for your enjoyment." Enjoy…….
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