- A few token college basketball thoughts for your from this weekend. First, Memphis really doesn’t look like the best team in the country, do they? The Tigers needed a furious, desperate rally Saturday to beat a good, not great University of Alabama-Birmingham team 78-77. The Tigers may be 25-0, but that’s more a product of them not having played any really good teams than it is of them being better than everyone else. I have a strong feeling that Saturday, when #4 Tennessee comes calling, Memphis’ run as No. 1 will end. Also, I enjoyed watching the last gasps of a dying reign for Kelvin Sampson at Indiana Saturday night, with his Indiana Hoosiers mustering up enough for an 80-61 win over Big 10 rival Michigan State. IU may be 21-4 right now, but that doesn’t negate the fact that IU’s administration is basically covering its bases in investigating Sampson and making sure they have all the facts straight and do things by the rules when they fire him for committing the very same recruiting violations at their school that he committed before bailing out at Oklahoma and bringing NCAA sanctions with him to IU as a result. Enjoy the win, K., because you don’t have many left at Indiana.
- Nice try, Paul Lo Duca. Jason Giambi may have gotten a free pass for issuing a vague, ambiguous, apology-without-saying-what-I’m-sorry-for mea culpa a few years ago, but you shouldn’t have tried the same tact. With pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training this past week, Lo Duca reported to Florida where his new team, the Washington Nationals, have their spring training site. When the subject of his name appearing along with other steroid users in the Mitchell Report, Lo Duca offered a lame apology for “mistakes in judgment.” Sorry, Paulie, but that ain’t gonna cut it. By now, we’ve heard enough double-talk from ‘roiders and tweakers to know what that means. You may have said mistakes in judgment, but we all heard, “I knowingly injected or ingested illegal drugs, steroids and/or other performance enhancers, into my body in order to gain a competitive advantage.” I don’t know who you think you’re fooling here, other than yourself, but dancing around the issue is no longer a viable option. We’ve been fed far too much crap and double talk from guilty guys on this issue to choke down any more of it. We don’t think more of you because you didn’t actually admit to using ‘roids; we think less of you because now we know for sure that you used and just don’t have the balls to own up to it. Just be glad your career is on the downturn and you aren’t a major star anymore, because if you were people might actually care and keep pressing the issue. As is, you’re a role player on a terrible team who won’t be in the league for more than 2-3 more years, so try to play those years steroid-free if you can.
- I gave the new American Gladiators a chance, watching many of this season’s episodes and withholding my judgment until the entire season was complete. That being said, I’ve realized something: a huge part of the appeal for the old version of AG is that it’s so out-of-date and hasn’t held up well over time. Some shows do; Seinfeld comes to mind. But the original American Gladiators hasn’t aged well, which kinda makes it fun and appealing to watch because it’s always good for a laugh. The new version doesn’t have that going for it and as a result, it’s not as much fun to watch. Yes, new and modern touches have been added (water and fire on The Eliminator, water on other events and new events altogether like The Pyramid), and some of them are cool. However, decidedly uncool is the horrible announce team chosen for this new version. Hulk Hogan and Laila Ali aren’t simply not Mike Adamle and Larry Csonka, the original version’s announcers, they’re just flat-out terrible. The Hulk-ster, bless his heart, can’t stop using the word “brother” five times every sentence. Of course, I think he used it seven or eight times per sentence at the start of the season, so to be fair he has gotten better. But Laila Ali doesn’t appear to have a pulse most of the time, which is a bad characteristic for someone co-hosting a show all about aggression and competitive fire. Bottom line here is that if I were giving the show a grade, it’d hover in the B-/C+ range, and I really wish I could do better because I was hoping to really enjoy this show.
- For a girl who’s built a career out of being dumb, Jessica Simpson sure knows how to up the ante on her stupidity. The buxom blond bimbo with a creepy, overbearing father and walking papers from Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo has decided that, since she’s losing traction as a pop tart, going to Nashville to make a country album is a good idea. Worse yet, there are rumors circulating that she’s trying to set up another run at reality TV, following up as her stint on the ditzy, moronic, materialistic wife of former man-bander Nick Lachey on MTV’s Newlyweds a couple of years ago. Alas, those rumors appear to be untrue, as Simpson’s camp is saying that while she is in talks with CMT for a special on the network timed to help generate publicity for her new album. This is where I’m torn. Yes, Simpson’s album is going to blow if for no other reason than the fact that it’s a country music album and country music, by its very definition, blows. It’s just a fact, a rule of the universe that can’t be changed. But on the other hand, we have ample (and I do mean ample) evidence that succeeding in country music takes little more than blond hair and a giant rack. Just ask Dolly Parton, or as I like to call her, Jessica Simpson in about 45 years. So best of success in your country music career, Jess, just as long as I never have to hear any of your songs ever again.
- Thank God, those über-annoying Kirstie Alley commercials for Jenny Craig are over. Alley’s contract with the diet company has ended after three excruciatingly long years of commercials so freaking annoying that they make you want to claw your eyes out after exactly one viewing. Alley’s annoying voice combined with the hokey, lame nature of the commercials themselves just sent me over the edge early on. She’s never been funny, likeable or attractive, not even back in her days on Cheers. She’s always been loud and obnoxious, but when she decided to stop pushing away from the dinner table and bloated up to well over 200 pounds, she really became a problem. First she tried to use her girth as a selling point with a show titled Fat Actress, but stunningly there were no takers. People don’t want to see a flabby, cantankerous actress with marginal acting ability, imagine that. So Alley realized being fat didn’t sell and she went on a weight-loss campaign, which is where Jenny Craig came in. Don’t get me wrong, I salute her for deciding to stop beign fat. Obese people are disgusting and depressing to look at, so I’m glad Alley thinned down. I just didn’t need to see her on my TV screen every commercial break selling Jenny Craig. So good riddance, Kirstie, try not to go back to the fat side again.....
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