- If you needed any further proof that people in Minnesota are insane, here you go. Aside from the fact that they live in that frozen tundra of a state to begin with, the fact that 100 people showed up to run in the Frozen 5K in Spicer, Minn., and 75 people were dumb enough to jump enough to jump into northern Minnesota’s Lake Bemidiji on Saturday even though the air temperature was 15 degrees below zero. Polar Bear clubs have long existed, but I don’t know that even those guys make a habit of going into the water when the temp is 15 degrees on the wrong side of zero. Maybe if you live long enough in that awful climate, the cold freezes off a few of your brain cells, I don’t know. What I do know is that even being a diehard runner, I’m not running outside if the temperature is below 20 degrees, much less so when it’s below freezing. There’s a great new invention you people should hear about, it’s called a treadmill and it allows you to run inside when it’s North Pole-cold outside. Yup, Minnesotans are insane, no question about it. There’s a thin line between toughness and insanity, and you all have officially crossed it.
- Time for a review of last night’s episode of Prison Break, which as it turns out will be the last new one until Feb. 4, but more on that later. Things kicked off with Michael, Whistler, T-Bag and Mahone in tunnel with Lechero, resuming their escape plan now that Michael has returned from solitary confinement. The first thing the discover is that the hole they are digging through the top of the tunnel needs more bracing, so Lechero and T-Bag leave to get tools to build the braces, including a saw to cut the boards. Unfortunately, no sooner than Lechero sends T-Bag off the buy the supplies from another inmate, Lechero’s right-hand man Sammy comes into Lechero’s “office” and points a gun at his head, then declares that he is seizing control of SONA from Lechero. Sammy’s first act in power is to offers a case of rum to first man to bring him Scofield.
T-bag and Lechero decide that to save the escape plan, Sammy needs to be taken out. As always, T-bag has a plan and this time he gets Bellick to chicken foot Sammy, knowing that the same tactic of drugging his hand wraps that won Bellick his last fight could give him a win over Sammy as well. But of course Bellick can’t find acetone for his hand wraps this time around and gets his a** kicked by Sammy. However, just as Bellick is teetering on the brink of death, the fight stops when Sammy’s men see Scofield, Whistler and Mahone come out of the tunnel in a quest to find what’s taking T-Bag and Lechero so long to get the tools for the tunnel work. They hurry back inside the tunnel to escape, but Whistler is captured and beaten by Sammy and his men before he can make it to the tunnel. When beating Whistler doesn’t inspire Michael and Mahone to open the door, Lechero is then brought to punch in the code to the door lock. He’s threatened too, so Michael opens the door and pretends to be surrendering to Sammy and giving him the rights to the escape plan, but all along he’s been setting things up to trap Sammy by showing him the escape hole but rigging it to collapse on Sammy’s head, burying him in tons of dirt. Michael, Mahone and Lechero use the momentary surprise to take out Sammy’s men and in the end, Sammy and all of his men all die. Lechero reclaims control of SONA and the escape is back on, but Bellick is now in on the plan because of his willingness to chicken foot Sammy, as T-Bag offered in his deal. There is also a new worry for the would-be escapees; the possibility of a giant sink hole in middle of yard where the dirt collapsed into the tunnel, but there isn’t any sign of a sink hole…..yet. Meanwhile, on the outside, Michael’s brother Lincoln is tired of being a step behind Gretchen and the Company and taking orders from them, so he buys a bomb from one of Sucre’s contacts to get leverage on Gretchen. He also does some digging on who James Whistler, a.k.a. Gary Miller, is and finds that he’s actually from Scottsdale, Arizona. The plan to get to Gretchen backfires when she traces the money she gave Fernando Sucre for spying on Linc and figures out he’s lying to her and working with Linc, that Linc and Sucre staged their fight in the hotel lobby to trick her and that Sucre isn’t doing what she’s paying him to do. Gretchen also threatens to kill Sucre’s girl Maricruz if he doesn’t spy on Linc for real, then orders him out of her car. Sucre is forced to leave the bomb behind because he doesn’t have time to dig it out from the spot under the passenger’s seat where he dropped it before Gretchen revealed that she knew about his double-cross. The cell-phone triggered bomb remained in her car, but at this point will Linc have the balls to pull the trigger and will Sucre try to talk him out of it? At episode’s end, Linc visits Michael at SONA, where Michael tells his brother that he still has a plan and should be out within 48 hours. The previews for the next new episode reveal a two-week gap until next episode, why I don’t know. Also, the previews reveal that the escape plan apparently will include a power outage at SONA, and that Gretchen visits Michael at SONA to reinforce the fact that L.J. and Whistler’s girl Sofia will both be killed if the plan fails. So on Feb. 4 we’ll find out what all of this means, stay tuned…..
- Mark Cuban and other prospective owners waiting to save me and other destitute Chicago Cubs fans from a century of losing will have to wait a little longer. Apparently, the drawn-out process of Tribune Co. selling the Cubs may not end until midseason or later, the team's senior vice president said Sunday, in part because Wrigley Field must be sold off first. Crane Kenney (who the frak names their child Crane anyhow?) told attendees of the team's annual fan convention that new Tribune owner Sam Zell wants to put 94-year-old Wrigley into the hands of the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority -- the same state agency that funded stadiums for the Bears and White Sox -- before he accepts bids for the Cubs. Kenney said the maneuver would effectively "bind" the team's next owner to keeping the Cubs playing at Wrigley -- which also would receive maintenance and improvement funds. Not that I think that’s necessary, given the fact that the team has a thriving fan base and no reason to move from the nation’s second biggest city, but props on that one…I guess. "We'd like to find a new owner to play at Clark and Addison [streets] for the foreseeable future," Kenney said. He added that selling the team to the stadium authority "would put aside a substantial amount of money" for necessary changes at Wrigley, including renovations and other construction projects to provide amenities for fans and other needed upgrades to baseball’s most-famous old stadium. Zell, who also is invested in the crosstown Sox (conflict of interest, anyone?), bought the Tribune for $8.2 billion in April and the deal closed in December. Before that deal even became final, Zell made it clear he had no interest in owning or running the Cubs. “We want to get the stadium deal done by Opening Day,” Kenney said. "The sale of the team would follow. I've been asked when that will occur, and it's just really hard to predict. “If I had a guess, it's not until midyear, or until the end of the season.” Great, another reason for optimism for Cubs fans. We get to go through at least half a season with our team owned by a guy who doesn’t want them and is looking to unload them as soon as possible. I’m sure Zell will put tons of effort into improving the Cubs and making them a winner in 2008…..or not. Help, Mark Cuban, help!
- Don’t cave in so easily, Canadian foreign ministry. That agency has given in to American pressure and agreed to rewrite a torture manual listing the United States as a site of possible torture. In the manual, the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba is cited as an example of why the U.S. should be included with nations such as Israel, China, Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Syria as places you can expect to be tortured if the situation, um, merits it. For some reason, our government wasn’t down with being lumped in with those other nations, but that reason most definitely is not because we don’t torture people. Make no mistake, we belong on that list, what with the fact that the administration currently in power in this country embraces waterboarding and other forms of torture at secret prisons in foreign countries. The new attorney general refused to admit that waterboarding is really a torture method, people. Our government may not like being recognized for its diligent torture efforts (don’t be humble, guys), but the fact is that, unsavory company or not, the United States is a country that tortures. Heck, these past seven years with W. in office have been torture for all of us, but that’s a whole ‘nother story…..
- Dude, I knew stoners were a little slow, but this is ridiculous. One especially dense pothead who somehow managed to gain admission Washington State University in Pullman, Wash., was arrested for smoking pot twice in the same night last Tuesday. Pullman police said the unidentified 20-year-old WSU student was arrested that night with two other men for smoking in a parking lot, police said. They were cited, fingerprinted and released shortly after midnight. Less than TWO HOURS LATER, an officer saw three men passing around a pipe in a pickup truck and arrested the student again, along with two others, for possessing marijuana. You may like to get baked and mellow out, but bro, even Ricky Williams thinks you made a bad choice. It is a vicious cycle, I suppose. After all, there you are, minding your own business, burning some tree, trying to relax, and boom, a cop spots you and takes you in. You’re cited and released, at which point you have to be badly rattled and in need of a way to calm down, so what to do? Burn tree, of course. But that leads to a second arrest, which had to present an even bigger problem. After all, if you get arrested twice in the same night, how frazzled must you be? You’d need to roll a pretty big fattie and smoke it for a long time to calm down. The real surprise is that this guy didn’t get picked up a third time for weed. Oh, and no props to Pullman Police Commander Chris Tennant for his lame attempt at being funny when commenting on the situation. Tennant said he hopes the student isn't kicked out of WSU because it seems he needs a bit more education. Ahhhh, great attempt at comedy, Commander. Leave the funny business to someone else, idiot.
Say what you will about stoners, but they’re a determined group, you’ve got to give them that much. They’re getting baked at any expense, be it an NFL career, their grocery money for the week or the chance that they’ll be arrested twice in the same night….
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