Rich, disgruntled athletes, riot-blockers in Egypt and more BlackBerry outages - good times

- Welcome to the disgruntled athlete portion of our day, where we bring you the tales of two extremely well-paid athletes receiving incredibly bloated salaries and still managing to find reasons to be unhappy with their respective teams. First, let’s check in with Washington Redskins defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth, who signed a seven-year, $100 million contract with Washington during the offseason and has been injured or ineffective for nearly the entire season. Even as he’s battling back from his latest injury setback and his team is stumbling through a four-win season, Haynesworth isn't exactly focused on being a solid teammate and on-field contributor. Instead, he’s lashing out at his team's defensive game planning and the coordinator who oversees it. Haynesworth fumed that that he couldn't "survive another season in this system if it stays the way it is." Apparently $41 million in guaranteed money doesn’t make a person happy like it used to, because Haynesworth sounds pissed. . "If they keep this system the way it is, then they would label Albert Haynesworth a bust who didn't live up to the contract," Haynesworth stated. "Everybody would say he just took the money and ran off. And I'm still playing as hard as I possibly can. But you can only do so much within the system that's put around you. The players have been great. I couldn't ask for any better guys. I'm talking about the system. And [the coaches] can say whatever they want about that [the reason he was sent home Friday]. The main thing it's coming from is what I said after the game about leadership and about the team." For some odd reason head coach (for now) Jim Zorn wasn’t down with Haynesworth’s comments and sent the mountainous defensive tackle home Friday for what the coach called “disciplinary reasons.” What? Just because dude threw defensive coordinator Greg Blache right under the bus doesn’t mean you have discipline problems…..right? Maybe Zorn was referring to the fact that on Thursday, Haynesworth was fined $10,000 by the NFL for an altercation with Giants running back Brandon Jacobs late in New York's 45-12 victory at Washington on last Monday night. Actions like this aren’t going to help Haynesworth’s paranoid beliefs that the coaching staff is out to get him. "They're all against me or whatever," Haynesworth declared. "But I know what I'm saying is right because I've been in a scheme that works." I have to believe that this is not what the Redskins had in mind when they battled several other teams to sign Haynesworth during the offseason. Not were they expecting him to make little to no impact on a defense that is ranked right in the middle of the pack statistically, which is what he has done. But ol’ Albert isn't alone, because he has his pal (not really) Tracy McGrady of the Houston Rockets to keep him company in his discontent. McGrady is making a comeback from microfracture knee surgery after missing all of last season and despite him having has the highest salary ($23.2 million) of any player in the NBA, the Rockets don’t seem very eager to get him back out on the court so he can at least attempt to earn some of that money. After returning to the court a couple weeks ago, having missed the first month-plus of this season in addition to sitting out last year, McGrady played short stints of 7 or 8 minutes in each of Houston's next six games, then asked that his workload be increased. Coach Rick Adelman informed him that despite his request, his playing time would not increase. T-Mac didn’t take that well and with the team’s permission, he left them on their current road trip and returned home. The team stated that the situation will be addressed this week as it returns to Houston following from a back-to-back set against New Jersey and Cleveland. "That's what I'm trying to figure out: Where do we go, and still keeping the rest of the guys moving forward?" Adelman said. "It's kind of a balancing act in trying to figure it all out, and I do not have the magic answer. I wish I did.” Exacerbating McGrady’s concerns is undoubtedly the fact that he is in the final year of his contract and wants to prove that he can still play at an elite level. If nothing else, other teams expected the Rockers to showcase McGrady for a possible trade. So I can see where he would be frustrated, both from the standpoint of wanting to play for the sake of competition and also the chance for another team to see where he’s at health- and skill-wise in advance of a possible trade. "I'm a player, man," McGrady said. "I don't make these decisions. I just abide by whatever they bring to me. That's the plan. I'm not going to argue and fight with them -- just run with it. I felt it was time [to increase the routine of playing seven to eight first-half minutes].” As for the team’s point of view……I don’t know if they are merely being cautious with McGrady or if they worry that taking playing time away from other guys to boost his minutes would negatively impact the chemistry of the team, which is 18-13 and in seventh place in the Western Conference. What I do know is that the two sides need to figure out something quickly because this is an ugly situation that isn't going to improve until someone takes action. So there you have it, two disgruntled, high-priced athletes who just can’t get happy despite their fat bank accounts…………

- It may not have been the top earner heading into the weekend, but James Cameron’s Avatar ($75 million) rallied well to edge out newcomer Sherlock Holmes (no. 2, $65.4 million) for the top spot on the first of two straight holiday weekends. In third place was another new release, the animated Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, with $50.2 million. There was a sizeable drop-off to the fourth-place finisher, It’s Complicated ($22.1 million), which earned about $22.2 million more than it should have. Up in the Air ($11.8 million) rounded out the top five by adding 1,720 new theaters to its limited release, giving moviegoers nationwide a chance to see if the Oscar buzz for George Clooney and crew is actually justified. The weekend was not so kind to musical Nine, which proved once again that people are never as excited about the chance to see characters break into song constantly and communicate solely through singing as everyone would like to believe. Nine brought in a mere $5.5 million, which is less than expected by most observers. Its $3,926 per-site average is pedestrian at best, so keep an eye on this one to see if it continues to disappoint in the weeks ahead. Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus also debuted over the weekend in limited release and was solid, posting $130,000 at four sites. Overall, Christmas Day was the single best day in the history of the box office. The weekend’s largely unimpressive slate of movies racked up a record-setting $278 million overall haul, which is typically indicative of people not having anything else to do rather than the actual quality of the movies they are going to see. Still, congrats on your big day, Hollywood, now see if you can’t use that financial windfall to churn out a few movies that don’t totally suck………

- Have you ever asked yourself where young male deer do their grocery shopping? I can't say as this is true everywhere in the country, but in Pinellas County, Fla., the answer appears to be the Publix in Palm Harbor. According to reports, the deer made its way into the Publix at 500 E. Lake Road after running into a glass door of a nearby shop. "I was headed to the check out and I was right by the front door. And all the sudden I like got knocked into and something stepped on my foot," said shopper Caroline Harned. "And there was this deer that was like running by me slid and fell down." Perahps the deer heard about a great special on canned green beans and cereal and just couldn’t wait to get inside, I don’t know. Now some would have you believe that this deer, a male estimated to be about one year old, merely made a wrong turn on that sun-drenched Wednesday afternoon and ended up in the wrong place. I’m going with my explanation of the scene, but the most important thing is that after bumping into the glass door and browsing the aisles of the Publix, the deer was finally subdued by Publix staff and when sheriff’s deputies arrived, they blindfolded the deer to keep it calm. They then secured the animal's legs with duct tape in a move that surely will anger those freaks at PETA. Utimately, no one was injured and the Suncoast Animal League picked the animal up from the store. It was examined and released into Brooker Creek Preserve, where it likely came from. The only battle scar the deer incurred from its brush with the civilized world was a possible concussion, although Rick Chaboudy of the Suncoast Animal League theorized that the deer may have been hit by a car. "Hopefully, a good night's sleep and come tomorrow morning he's up and around and he remembers he's a deer," Chaboudy said. And hopefully he tells all his deer friends about the great deals they have down at the local Publix…………

- I have a real problem with you, Egyptian authorities, and we’re going to throw down right here, right now. You should not be banning hundreds of protesters from traveling across the Sinai Desert to the Gaza Strip to join in on the protesting goodness currently going on there. About 1,300 international activists are currently stuck in Cairo, riot-blocked by Egyptian authorities. The activists are still hoping to march to and through the Egyptian border with Gaza for a protest against Israel's ongoing blockade of the tiny enclave. But these hearty social dissidents aren’t taking their detainment lying down; many of them have also begun a hunger strike as part of their protest. This week marks the one-year anniversary of the date when Israel began bombing Gaza, a war it says was justified to stop the launch of missiles by Palestinian militants into southern Israel. I am absolutely not commenting on the bombings, their legitimacy or the war raging between Israel and Palestine. That’s a powder keg of emotions, politics and rage with so many layers and nuances that no one fully understands and appreciates it unless they are a part of it. However, what I can get with and support fully is the right of these 1,300 activists to march across the barren wasteland that is most of Egypt, cross the Sinai Desert and join in on the protests going on in the Gaza Strip. Stop detaining the people when it’s not even your country they want to demonstrate in, let them go free and allow them to get their inner social dissident on. I don’t think it’s asking all that much and it’s time for these Egyptian officials to step their game up…………

- How are you enjoying the BlackBerry that is perpetually affixed to your ear or hand, millions of RIM Blackberry users worldwide? Twice in the last week, you’ve suffered through complete email and text service outages. On two days, Tuesday and Wednesday, complaints flew fast and furious in all directions from frustrated CrackBerry users, who were unable to use their prized RIM smartphones. For people who are as dependent on their smartphones (and as addicted to them) as anyone in the world, it had to be a tough stretch for the BlackBerry users out there. he service losses began around 1:45 pm Eastern time on Tuesday, got worse around 6:30 pm and were getting better by around 11:30 p.m. However, service wasn’t fully restored until Wednesday afternoon, Canadian company Research in Motion, manufacturers of the Blackberry devices, explained. The cause of the outages seems to be a system-wide software upgrade, according to Research In Motion. Personally, as one of the five people in America without a cell phone, I had a lot of fun listening to the b*tching and complaining from all my friends with BlackBerries who were unable to either send or receive e-mails and instant messages. How they survived only being able to use their BlackBerries for phone calls, I will never know. In true big-business fashion, RIM would not disclose exactly how many subscribers were affected. Compounding users’ woes was the fact that this outage came on the heels of a similar problem last Thursday and these two service outages come after several similar outages earlier in the year. For a phone that has built its image on being reliable and consistent, these outages certainly aren’t helping matters. On top of that, RIM has built its company largely in the smartphone market and seeing its market share there diminish because users can't rely on consistent service would be a huge hit. The iPhone and Android are both making headway in the market and I can't remember anyone talking about the reliability of service for those two devices, at least not to the extent that there have been problems with BlackBerry. Step it up, RIM, or users could soon be stepping out on you in favor of an iPhone or Droid………