- Don’t you ever, EVER scare me like that again, Detroit Lions. I do NOT need you doing stupid sh*t like jumping out to a 17-0 first-quarter lead at home against Tampa Bay on Sunday, period. No one appreciates you channeling your inner Jerry Rice for a 15-yard touchdown catch, Calvin Johnson. And what the hell was that, scooping up a fumble and returning it 44 yards for a touchdown, Daniel Bullocks. Okay, okay….I can’t do this anymore. I’m totally lying….I wasn’t scared at all. To be honest, 17-point lead or 27-point lead, these are the Detroit Lions, folks. Clearly they have their eyes on the prize and are dedicated to, week in and week out, not doing what it takes to win. They know the dream is well within reach, the dream of an 0-16 season to go down in NFL history and make my year. So armed with that 17-point lead, the Lions came roaring from ahead to go down in flames. They gave up touchdowns every way you can imagine - running, receiving, punt return, interception return - to complete a rare trifecta of giving up a TD in every facet of the game - offense, defense and special teams. Things got so bad that starting quarterback Daunte Culpepper was pulled in the fourth quarter for the immortal Drew Stanton, who came though with a very Lions-like 2 for 6, 13 yards passing effort to help cement the loss. Now, you look ahead to the team’s remaining schedule and you have to like what you see. This week, they have a short week and play on Thursday in their traditional Thanksgiving slot. The game is against the Tennessee Titans, one of the three best teams in football and a team coming off of its first loss of the season, an embarrassing 34-13 drubbing by the New York Jets. After that, every team on the Lions’ schedule entered this week with a .500 or better record and all of them maintain legitimate playoff hopes. It’s Tennessee, Minnesota, Indianapolis, New Orleans and Green Bay to wrap up, all of them eminently loseable games. So as I do every week, I will now implore the Lions to keep not being focused, keep not doing what it takes to win and don’t lose sight of the prize, it’s now nearer than ever……
- Well this is certainly one way to combat the sagging stock market. If the stocks aren’t going the way you want them to, just do a little manipulation of the market and see if that doesn’t make you the richest person in your country, eh Wong Kwong Yu of China? Yu, the wealthiest man in mainland China, finds himself under investigation by Chinese police and trading in his company, Gome Electrical Appliances Holding Ltd., halted while the probe goes on. The Chinese electrical appliances company has helped to build Yu’s estimated net worth to $6.3 billion, but now it appears that much of those gains were ill-gotten. The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong indefinitely halted trading of Gome amid reports of a investigation of Yu, the company's chairman, executive director and controlling shareholder, for stock market manipulation. According to the 2008 China Rich List, Yu is the richest man in mainland China and it marks third time in five years he has topped the list. As you might expect in China, the government wasn’t exactly forthcoming with information, as thus far police have declined to comment on the report. Gome is trying to spin this mess in its favor, saying that as of yet it hasn’t received any official word from the government on the matter and that trading was suspended Monday "to avoid any disorderly market and volatility in the securities of the company that may result from further release of unverified allegations in the media.” Uh huh, sure. Look, I realize you have 587 stores last year in 160 Chinese cities -- 572 traditional stores, 13 digital stores and two flagship stores - but trying to protect your little empire doesn’t lessen the severity of what’s being alleged, nor can you semantic your way out of this one with double-talk and non-denial denials. Ironically enough, the company was incorporated in Bermuda, and isn’t that where all legitimate, law-abiding business look to set themselves up, in a place with lax tax and financial regulations. Stay tuned on this one, it should be interesting…..
- Double crossing was the order of the day on last night’s Prison Break. As you’ll recall, the last episode ended with Michael Scofield inside the Scylla vault, preparing to steal Scylla and bring down the Company in the process. Also, General Jonathan Krantz was headed for the vault with his security team to stop Michael. This week began with Krantz and his men entering the vault, seeing only Michael and then having guns pointed at the backs of their heads by Linc, Mahone and Sucre, who were waiting to ambush them. Michael then forced the General to hand over his Scylla card, the one the group hadn’t been able to get previously. Using all six cards, Michael was able to unlock the casing holding Scylla and get inside, pulling out a small hard drive that held big implications. He did so despite Krantz smugly watching him every step of the way and taunting Michael every time it seemed he had hit a dead end breaking into Scylla. With the hard drive in hand, the four remaining men in Michael’s team forced the General to accompany them into the elevator and up to his office. That served two purposes, the first being avoiding Gretchen/Susan and T-Bag, who were waiting for them at the other end of the tunnel they had gotten to Scylla through, the tunnel that originated from the storage closest in the office T-Bag occupies at GATE Industries while posing as Cole Pfeiffer. The second purpose is to get inside the General’s office and watch the escape portion of the plan unfold. It appears they are trapped when the General’s security triggers a total lockdown of the building. The General also tries psychological warfare, attempting to bribe each of the four members of Michael’s team in his office. They all turn him down, despite his telling Michael and Linc that their father worked for the Company and just as he tried to bring it down and failed, so would they. But the escape plan also involved the fifth and final member of Michael’s team, Sarah. She had sneaked into the restroom at the police luncheon that Lisa Tabak, one of the other Scylla cardholders, was attending, and bribed a server to spill a plate of food on Tabak’s lap, forcing her to take a trip to the restroom to clean up. There, Sarah was waiting to hold her at gunpoint and force her to call the General. When she did, he was told that she was being held at gunpoint and we also learned that Lisa is the General’s daughter - well, one of them. That was the piece of information Gretchen passed along to Michael last week via Don Self, and it proved to be useful. Michael told the General that he and his team were to be given safe passage out of the building, with Scylla, or Sarah would shoot Lisa. And so it was that Michael and the others pulled out of the Company HQ in a Company armored car, headed for the Ontario Airport. Once there, Sucre and Mahone went one way and Michael and Linc went the other - inside the airport. The General’s men tracked them to the airport and followed Michael and Linc inside, catching up with them at a security checkpoint. However, Michael had a plan for that, too; he had given Scylla to Sucre and Mahone, who also called in a tip to airport security about the backpack Michael was carrying and the man who had it - and that man turned out to be the head of the General’s security team after he “forced” Michael to surrender the backpack. But as the pack was handed over, airport security came on the scene and detained its new owner, freeing Michael and Linc to get away. Getting away was also what Gretchen and T-Bag had in mind once it became clear that Michael and Co. weren’t coming back with Scylla. Unfortunately, T-Bag/Cole’s boss spotted their cache of automatic weapons under T-Bag’s desk and was about to call the cops, forcing Gretchen’s hand. She elected to whip out her automatic rifle and hold the entire office hostage under she and T-Bag’s control. The kink in their plan came when Trishanne, the secretary in the office who was really an undercover Homeland Security agent working with Don Self, snuck in and began taking the restraints off of the hostages and freeing them. She and Self had escaped from being held up Mr. Xang, the potential Scylla buyer that Gretchen had set them up to be captured by last week, and made it out of the house where they were being held by killing Xang and his men. Trishanne, whose real name is Miriam, had a plan to get the hostages out two at a time, but when the boss, Mr. White, tried to make a run for it on his own, Gretchen spotted him and opened fire, killing him. That led to a firefight in which Gretchen and T-Bag fled to the lower levels of the parking deck adjacent to the building. Gretchen started to turn on T-Bag and was prepared for double-cross and shoot him dead when Miriam sped onto the scene in her car, causing Gretchen to hop into a ride of her own and get away. T-Bag wasn’t so fortunate, getting captured by Miriam and taken with her to the site where she was to meet Self after he got Scylla from Michael and Co. That first exchange happened at the warehouse the group has called home all season, with Self getting Scylla and promising to take it to those who could use it to take down the Company and Michael, Linc, Mahone, Sucre and Sarah getting an envelope with their transfer papers and instructions to wait for a convoy to take them to the nearest Homeland Security office to be processed and released. Michael was also told an ambulance was coming to take him to the hospital for his surgery, but after an hour passed with no word from Self, the group began to worry - with good reason. At his meeting with Miriam, Self revealed himself to be a traitor, shooting his partner and setting off to sell Scylla for his own gain. Back at the warehouse, Michael looked inside the envelope and found that there were no transfer papers - just blank pieces of paper. Self had set them up - but why and how? As the previews for next week show, Self plans to make it look like Michael and his crew turned on him and tried to kill him, thus sending the feds after them and allowing him to make his escape with Scylla. So just when you thought things were about to come to a conclusion, another curveball comes down the pipe, how very Prison Break of the show. Should be an awesome episode this week in what has become easily one of the best season of the four the show has had……
- Score one for the power of teary-eyed women ages 15 to 49 when it comes to the weekend box office results. Chicks everywhere clearly flocked to theaters to see the vampire romance "Twilight" and it showed in the final totals, with the movie taking in $70.6 million in its opening weekend to lead the earnings race. Additionally, in news that feminists will love, Catherine Hardwicke's film also enjoyed the biggest opening ever for a female director, blowing right past the previous mark of $41.1 million set by Mimi Leder's "Deep Impact" in 1998. Buoyed by a huge fan base of teenage girls, who are heavily into Stephenie Meyer's novel of forbidden love between a brooding vampire and a nerdy bookish high schooler, "Twilight" earned a stunning $20,636 per theater. Clearly, those numbers will only bolster the plans of Summit Entertainment, which released "Twilight," to get going on production of "New Moon," based on the second book in Meyer's best-selling series. Not bad for a studio in Summit that has only been around since April 2007 and made "Twilight," its sixth release. The film cost just $37 million to make, so clearly it is going to be ginormously profitable by the time it finishes its run in theaters. The movie wasn’t scheduled to open until Dec. 12, but when Warner Bros. pushed "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" from this weekend to a July 2009 debut, Summit moved up the date and reaped the benefits. Slipping to second on the weekend was last week’s top film, “Quantum of Solace,” which fell way behind the pace and only madder $27.4 million to edge out Pixar’s new animated comedy “Bolt,” featuring the vocal talents of John Travolta and Mr. Mullet, Billy Ray Cyrus’, daughter Miley. “Bolt” made $27 million, a solid opening but not what Disney was hoping for. Here’s how the top 10 unfolded from top to bottom: 1) "Twilight," $70.5 million, 2) "Quantum of Solace," $27.4 million, 3) "Bolt," $27 million, 4) "Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa," $16 million, 5) "Role Models," $7.2 million, 6) "Changeling," $2.6 million, 7) "High School Musical 3," $2 million, 8) "Zack and Miri Make a Porno," $1.7 million, 9) "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas," $1.67 million, 10) "The Secret Life of Bees," $1.28 million. Two animated films, a teeny bopper musical and a movie about losers making a porno…..yes, a weekend to remember at the movies……
- Of all the things Michael Vick needs right now - a fresh start, a way to power wash the images of his as a dog killer from the public’s minds, a way out of prison, a soul - new details about how he personally killed at least seven dogs was not on the list. Yet on the eve of a critical court appearance, there comes new information from federal investigators about how Vick personally killed at least seven of his fighting dogs by hanging or drowning. In responding to a Freedom of Information Act request, federal investigators revealed the grisly details about Vick’s dog-murdering ways and also that Vick failed police polygraph tests in which he denied killing animals. Among the other details revealed in the documents was the fact that Vick decided to start his dogfighting ring just days after being drafted by the Atlanta Falcons in 2001. In other words, this was something of a lifelong dream for him, one of those things he had penciled in to do as soon as he went pro and started making serious bank. Some guys want a nice house and a few new whips, maybe to set their momma up for life, but not Mike Vick. No, dude wanted to become a big-time dog fighter and sure enough, he got his wish. This information came as Vick was readying himself to receive punishment upon entering a guilty plea to state dog killing charges in Sussex, Va. Initially, the thinking was that he had gained leniency by pleading guilty, but this new information can’t help that cause. Nothing like leaving a federal lock-up in Leavenworth, Kansas, taking a break from serving a 23-month sentence for a federal dogfighting conspiracy and coming back home to face state charges as a new wave of damning details comes your way. Enjoy it, Mike, because God knows you’ve earned every last bit of it…..
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