- If you think it’s going to be anything other than surreal to see Michael Vick take the field as the starting quarterback in an NFL game for the first time since Dec. 31, 2006, then you’re drunk, high, insane or some combination of the three. Seeing Vick look like a reasonable facsimile of himself in Sunday’s season opener against Green Bay was odd enough, but he gave the Philadelphia Eagles a lift and with starter Kevin Kolb still suffering the aftereffects of a concussion sustained Sunday, it appears that Vick will be under center this week when the Eagles take on the Detroit Lions. Plenty of people were already calling for Vick to start whether Kolb is healthy or not, but with Kolb being unable to pass his post-concussion neurological tests, the decision becomes much simpler for head coach Andy Reid. Kolb not being able to play will at least postpone the inevitable for a week….unless Vick tears it up, looks like Michael Vick circa 2005 and leads the team to a convincing win with his speed and improved passing. At that point, this week’s cries for him to be named the full-time starter will redouble in their intensity and Reid will face even more questions about who his start will be going forward. He is already on the record as saying that Kolb is the starter if healthy and the traditional maxim is that players don’t lose their starting jobs to injury. That debate has an added layer in this instance because Kolb is finally being given the chance to start after the Eagles traded longtime starter Donovan McNabb to Washington in the offseason for the very purpose of turning the offense over to Kolb, who had accumulated a lot of yards in two starts last season while subbing for an injured McNabb. Yanking a young QB after just one start could be traumatic and retard his development, possibly even kill his confidence for years to come. On the other hand, the NFL is a win-now league and the coach’s primary job is to put the team on the field that provides the best chance to win. If Vick is that guy, then who is Reid helping by keeping Kolb in the starting lineup? All in all, it’s the quintessential situation to illustrate why being an NFL head coach is one of the most stressful jobs possible and why guys who stay in the profession for any significant period of time age about five times faster than the rest of us. Oh, and all of this could become a moot point if Vick starts Sunday and fails to produce anything close to his performance against the Packers, when he completed 16 of 24 passes for 175 yards and one touchdown, and scrambled for 103 yards. "I had the old feel back," Vick said Sunday. "I still feel like I can play at a high level. I feel like if I had been out there for four quarters, maybe we would have had a chance to win the game.” That chance will almost assuredly come Sunday and no matter what the end result, there’s bound to be plenty to talk (and boo) about in Philly on Monday…………
- Tell me, is it horrifying or appropriate that two of the most offensive and abysmal reality television shows of our time have given birth, so to speak, to a horrifying mash-up that could set the world back decades depending on how it plays out? On the one hand, you have the travesty that is Real Houseskanks of New Jersey and all of the carved-up, drama-queen cougs who try to pretend that they’re half their actual age, engage in theatrics over the smallest perceived slight and think that being on a reality show means they’re actual A-listers. On the other hand, there’s the artificial, self-absorbed corner of the world occupied by Bravo’s The Millionaire Matchmaker, where a woman who dates a guy for six years and gets engaged before breaking it off right before the wedding upon realizing that her man truly doesn’t want kids attempts to fix up snooty, BMW-driving rich people with one another. Put them together and……wowsers. The first attempt to combine the two shows will feature the two sons of Real Houseskanks cast member Caroline Manzo, Albie and Christopher. Both will appear on the upcoming season of Millionaire Matchmaker, even though both of them are millionaires only in the sense that their family is wealthy and their trust funds or allowances from their parents keep them in a high tax bracket. Can Matchmaker Patti Stanger find the right match for two out-of-touch-with-reality sons of a Houseskank who has made her reputation by being a part of a group of rapidly aging cougs who appear ready to throw down with one another every time they are denied an invitation to the hot party for the weekend? Maybe Stanger can use the selling point that Albie recently graduated from the police academy and that brother Chris hopes to start his own worldwide strip club/car wash operation at some point. Or maybe, just maybe, there will finally be justice in the world and the earth will simply open up and swallow all parties involved in this disaster whole……….
- One question for you, Australia: Where did you think cocaine came from, the Coke Fairy? This shocking revelation that a majority of cocaine imported into Australia over the past two years came from Mexico seems to have caught some off guard, but not those in the know. Those in the know know that the majority of good Colombian nose candy these days come either from Colombia (shocker) or good ol’ Mexico. In a statement released by the Australian Crime Commission on Thursda the message was clear and pointed. "This is in part due to the strong links ethnic South Americans and Mexicans have with cocaine producers in Colombia, Bolivia and Peru," the commission said. "We are also seeing more dispersed criminal networks. In addition, it may indicate more networking by criminal groups who are effectively subcontracting distribution rather than take the entire risk." So where is the ACC getting its fact from? Apparently the intelligence came from a "comprehensive national picture of the overall illicit drug market," which involved data collected by a multitude of agencies. Now, if you’re going to go that far and suggest that sort of insane connection between your country and the well-respected cartels of Mexico, you’ve got to go all the way, right? Umm…..no. The report actually stopped short of naming the specific organized crime connection between Australia and Mexico. Seriously? What a bunch of Bolivian marching powder finger pointers hope to accomplish merely by throwing out shady claims and not fully standing behind them, I don’t know. But Australian government, if Mexico doesn’t provide blow for all of your coke addicts, then who will, hmm? In case you forgot, cocaine consumption in Australia is increasing and fueled by a total of 359 importations detected between 2008 and 2009. "Recent increases in cocaine arrests and reported use, as well as considerable seizures of the drug in recent years indicate potential expansion of the Australia cocaine market," the statement said. Sounds like a golden opportunity to me…………
- The ages-old question persists: How do you properly honor that special former mob boss in your life once he has departed from this mortal realm? If you’re Victor Bruno of Springfield, Mass., you open a restaurant named after dead old dad and make it a mob-themed restaurant tricked out with all the trimmings. Bruno, the son of reputed Springfield mob boss Adolfo "Big Al" Bruno, who was shot to death in the parking lot of the Mt. Carmel Society in November 2003, opened "Adolfo's" this week on Worthington Street in the city's entertainment district. Typically, Springfield is known first and foremost as the home of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, but Victor Bruno hopes that his new eatery will soon join the list of must-visit destinations for anyone blowing right through Springfield on their way to New York or Boston. “I had this idea to open a restaurant in honor of my father and I just want to dedicate it to him. With the food, the music, and the atmosphere, I just did it all around him,” Victor Bruno explained. The menu at Adolfo’s will feature southern Italian cuisine and the dining area features several TV screens showing old movies starring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Abbott and Costello. It certainly does seem like a fitting tribute to a man whose life (in a dream, movie world) was about eating linguini and having people whacked, so here’s hoping that Adolfo’s enjoys a very successful run and that more than a few people simply vanish into thin air after enjoying their meal there, only to be found years later, tied to cinder blocks sunk to the bottom of the nearest body of water………
No comments:
Post a Comment