- The offseason can be a trying time for college football players. Without the structure and organization of in-season practices and activities, there is extra free time to fill and thus additional chances to get into trouble. You could argue that going to class, studying and hanging out with friends in legal, ethical activities are all great ways to fill that time and theoretically, you’d be right. Life is no theoretical, though, and the truth is that a lot of college athletes are complete knuckleheads. Rather than lay low in the offseason and try to better themselves academically while also keeping in good physical condition with an eye toward next season, they have a habit of finding trouble. University of Missouri football player Marquis X. Booker knows just what I’m talking about, because he was arrested last weekend following an incident outside of an apartment near the Mizzou campus in which he grabbed his gun from his car following a dispute and threatened to “light the place up.” Apparently there was a heated disagreement and several of the participants threatened one another with weapons, but Booker was the only one to actually pull his piece from his car and look to take action. Thankfully no actual shooting took place, but one thing was killed that night: Booker’s football career. Coach Gary Pinkel dismissed him from the team following his arrest on weapons charges. I’m actually a little confused here. Arrest him? Kick him off the team? Why? Dude clearly sees himself as the next great shoot-‘em-up action star, so why aren’t you all supporting his dream. He aspires to be the next Jack Bauer, Rambo, James Bond or mob boss and you need to be encouraging his dream, not shutting him down. My man Marquis thinks he’s a hardcore gangsta and the fact that no one is getting behind him on this disappoints me. After all, what coach doesn’t want on of his players going “light this place up” on an apartment complex full of innocent people? Best of success in your new career as an action hero, Marquis, you have my full support.
- St. Patrick’s Day was already on my list of lame holidays. It’s not even a holiday, just an excuse for people to get hammered on green beer and wear stupid outfits. Ask 99 percent of the people throwing disgusting green beer down their gullets in a bar on St. Patty’s Day and they will have no clue what the holiday is even about. So kudos to professional sports teams everywhere for adding to the idiocy by wearing stupid outfits of their own to mark St. Patrick’s Day in the form of green jerseys. You may have noticed this if you saw highlights of Monday’s Chicago Bulls-New Orleans Hornets game wherein the Bulls, whose official team colors are red and black, inexplicably donned green uniforms. Good one, Bulls. Neither your nor your team name have anything to do with Ireland or anything even quasi-Irish, but go ahead and put on ugly green jerseys. Several Major League Baseball teams followed suit by wearing green unis for their spring training games on Monday, making the same mistake but on a less-visible stage. Let me save you all some time and effort for next year and years ahead. Green jerseys on St. Patty’s day aren’t cool, fresh or celebratory. They’re a lame marketing ploy and a horrible attempt to cash in on a holiday that no one wearing those green duds has a freaking clue about. Ditch the green gear and stop trying to be cutesy and clever.
- Paris Hilton has consistently contributed nothing of value to the world, so why should she start now? With all of her wealth and the fact that she’s famous for no apparent reason - well, other than being a slut who likes to get it on while being filmed - Hilton could actually do some good in the world by taking up a good cause and using her resources to support it. Instead, the only thing she seems interested in is stroking her own ego with another vanity project with MTV. The Skank Also Known As Paris will be co-producing a new series titled Paris Hilton’s My New BFF, a lame-duck of a series whose premise is Hilton sorting through 20 wannabe lackeys to find her next confidante/buddy. For starters, the premise is all wrong. If the show was about Hilton auditioning to find the next dude she’s going to make a sex tape with, then you might have something. As is, you have 20 desperate, low-self-esteem, attention-starved losers vying to prove themselves in the areas of loyalty, endurance and “girl politics” to one of the most spoiled, skanky, vapid bimbos of this or any other century. Of course, the show will follow the mandate that all crappy reality shows follow, that contestants must live together in a house filled with cameras. Supposedly, Hilton will teach them “the secrets of celebrity living - how to turn your enchanted life into a multimillion-dollar brand, how to manage public feuds and always rise above, how to survive scandal and then make it work for you, all while wearing 6-inch heels.” Funny, but last I checked, P. Hilton isn’t qualified to teach anything other than how to get plowed on camera and how to say “That’s hot.” When hot is the most complex word in your entire vocabulary, you should not be attempting to teach anything to anyone. So to the 20 idiots set to appear on this show, know this: there will be no true winner. You’re already losers just by taking part, a-holes.
- Now that’s what I call taking it up a notch. Over the weekend, Buddhist monks in Tibet escalated protests against Chinese rule in their country with property destruction and fire, leading to direct clashes with riot police and the dispersal of tear gas. Protests against the Chinese went from contentious to violent and destructive, sending plumes of smoke rising to the sky in the city of Lhasa and raising tensions to a new high. Even the Dalai Lama got involved, imploring the Chinese not to use force to end the largest protests in decades against its iron-fisted rule in Tibet. Photographs from the city show protestors chucking rocks at security forces, hotels and restaurants. Gunfire was also reported by Americans in the city, with a state-sponsored radio station in Lhasa reporting two fatalities. Two shops along main streets were also set on fire, both of them near the Jokhang temple, Tibet’s most sacred temple. Rebels also burned a Chinese flag in the street and a large bonfire smoldered nearby. A Tibetan activist group protesting outside the United Nations in New York City claimed that more than 70 people have been killed in the uprising and 1,000 more have been arrested, but those figures have yet to be substantiated. So let’s review here: clashes with police, property destruction, arson and the burning of the flag of the government you’re opposing. Check, check, check and check. Yes siree, I’d say we have a full-fledged, Grade-A riot on our hands here. This is great stuff, Tibetans. This is the kind of riot you can tell you grandkids about some day….well, assuming you aren’t shot and killed during it. Striking out at The Man in such vitriolic, hostile fashion is great and doing so with every major facet of rioting is even better. Keep it up, because the world is taking notice of what you’re doing and many people around the globe support you in your quest against those Commie bastards in China.
- Last night’s episode of One Tree Hill was surprisingly good, making back-to-back weeks of solid episodes for a show that I honestly had doubts about the CW even bringing back this year. There was plenty of drama this week, with the Lucas-Lindsey wedding being the center of it all. The one negative this week was the continual use of daydream/fantasy sequences from various characters, mostly because you never knew if they were real and you should be paying close attention or if they were in fact daydreams. There was Peyton imagining herself being the one marrying Lucas, Nathan imagining himself reuniting with Hayley, etc. But things kicked off with Lucas, Hayley and Hayley and Nathan’s son Jamie taking a drive along the back roads of Tree Hill, just as Lucas once did with his own uncle Keith and his mom. The road trip ends at the docks, where Lucas’ mom Karen is returning from the world’s longest European vacation. She’s home for the wedding and bringing Lucas’ little sister Lindsey and surprisingly, former and now current boyfriend Andy, the über-rich Aussie businessman/professor she dated back in Season Three. With everyone back together, things got interesting quickly. In large part, that was due to the return of Dan Scott to society. After hitting it with the sports store clerk chick last week, Dan got all dressed up to crash his estranged son’s wedding this week. He was intercepted in the parking lot by Hayley, his daughter-in-law and one of the many people in Tree Hill who truly detest him. Hayley told Dan to leave and never come near her or her family again, but of course he didn’t listen and that proved to be a good thing in the end. Why? Because OTH has an abundant supply of crazy, psycho stalkers and after last year’s Derek/Peyton’s fake brother/stalker sitch, this season got its own certified psycho where Carrie, the former nanny for Nathan and Hayley’s son Jamie, popped up at the wedding despite being fired as the family’s nanny and being warned to stay away from them. She abducted Jamie when he left the sanctuary to go to the bathroom during the wedding, taking him to a local motel and showing her true psycho colors by immediately looking to dye his hair so they could go on the run and not be recognized. Back at the church, things were also interesting. Skillz, Mouth and Mouth’s girlfriend Millie were tailgating outside of the church, enjoying a beer or two when they were joined by Peyton and Brooke. Skillz badgered Peyton about what she was going to do to stop Lucas from marrying Lindsey, but as it turned out, Peyton didn’t need to do anything. As the couple were exchanging their vows, Lindsey was remembering a line from Lucas’ new manuscript and realizing that the comet referred to in the book, the one whose appearance gave hope and meaning to the life of the book’s main character, was inspired by Peyton and her car, which just happens to be a Comet. Lindsey realized it was more than a Freudian slip and that Lucas was still hooked on Peyton despite also loving her. She raced from the church in tears, leaving a devastated Lucas in her wake. As the fallout from the bolting bride came down, Brooke told a hesitant Peyton that despite everything else happening that day, she needed to go after Lucas if she still loved him. Meanwhile, everyone else went into full-fledged panic upon realizing the Jamie was missing. Everyone assumed Dan was responsible, but in truth he was their best hope for getting Jamie back safe. He followed Crazy Nanny Carrie to the motel and when she left to buy hair dye for Jamie, he approached the motel room door and talked Jamie into letting him in. He then rescued the boy and took him home, where stunned, bewildered looks from Nathan, Hayley, Lucas, Brooke, Karen and Andy greeted him. That’s where things ended and where they’ll remain until April 14, when OTH returns and shifts to a new night, Monday. As always, great job by the CW, moving its shows around from night to night during the season, having ginormous gaps in between new episodes and generally making it as hard to follow its shows as humanly possible. Great job, tools.
No comments:
Post a Comment