- Now this is what I call setting an example for the next generation. Just a week ago, former Georgia Tech quarterback Joe Hamilton was hired as the school's assistant director of player personnel. Theoretically, his job was helping players on the GT football team grow and develop as players and people, meaning he would be counted on to set a strong example for those players to follow. What did Hamilton do with this exciting new opportunity? Did he seize the moment, plunge himself into his new role and start making a difference? Umm…no. He did make a difference and he did set a strong example, it was just the criminal kind. Hamilton has been charged with marijuana possession, driving under the influence of alcohol and hit-and-run early after being arrested early Tuesday morning. Hamilton, 31, also was charged with having an open bottle of beer in his Ford Expedition when arrested by Georgia Tech police shortly after midnight. He was pulled over by an officer who spotted his vehicle and realized it matched the description of a sport-utility vehicle involved in an alleged hit-and-run. When the arresting officer approached Hamilton’s vehicle, he smelled alcohol on Hamilton. Oops! That’s not good. When confronted with the allegation that he was involved in the hit-and-run, Hamilton admitted he hit another car from behind, according to the police report. Uh oh, that’s not good either! He proceeded to fail a series of field sobriety tests, and the officer reported that he found the open bottle of beer and a marijuana cigarette in the vehicle's ash tray. Say it with me everyone, that’s not good! For a fourth “uh-oh!” we go to the fact that Hamilton recorded blood-alcohol contents of 0.193 and 0.199 in two tests, again according to the police report. As with almost every state in the U.S., the legal limit in Georgia is 0.08. Yes, it’s “uh-oh!” No. 5! Kind of hard to develop players and quality young men when you’re getting high, drunk and rear-ending other vehicles before taking off. Hamilton's new job includes responsibilities in recruiting and serving players' needs, but most parents are unlikely to be down with sending their son to play for a alcoholic stoner who drives while impaired and pulls hit-and-run jobs. The alleged hit-and-run collision occurred near the Georgia Tech campus, where Charles Curry Jr. of Decatur told police he was stopped at a red light when he was hit from behind. Curry said the other motorist drove off. To be fair to Hamilton, who among us has good judgment when our blood-alcohol content is more than twice the legal limit and we’ve been smoking the hippie lettuce? Thankfully a witness took down a license plate number that matched Hamilton's, according to the police report. When he was pulled over, Hamilton’s black vehicle had white paint on its front bumper, a bad development because Curry's car is white. It’s “uh-oh!” moment No. 6, quite a night for Hamilton. I’d feel verrrry good about your football program right about now, Ga. Tech fan, because you obviously have fine, high-character leaders for your players….well, you have the high part of it covered anyhow….
- Last night’s episode of Smallville was, as it turns out, the penultimate show of this season. I didn’t realize the season finale was coming up next week, but clearly it is and the ride is about to come to an end for Season 7. This particular episode featured enough ritualistic carving of Kryptonian symbols into people’s chests for another five seasons and the whole symbol-carving thing is where the episode kicked off. With Lex in possession of the cryptograph device he retrieved the security deposit box at the bank in Zurich, he needed to find an expert in antiquities to help him figure out how it worked and what its purpose was. Reluctantly, Lex allowed this man to take the device back to his shop to study further, but no sooner had this guy left than a mysterious stranger broke into the Luthor mansion and assaulted Lex. Once he had incapacitated Lex, this man carved a series of three Kryptonian symbols into Lex’s chest using a dagger. The symbols, as Clark later realized when looking at pictures of Lex’s injuries, mean “Traveler”, “Savior” and “Sanctuary.” Lex is rushed to Smallville Medical Center and has surgery to address his wounds, but as soon as he was out of surgery he bolted the hospital. He recognized his attacker as the same man who attacked him at the bank in Zurich, which puts Lex’s guard up even further. He gets a clue where to direct his anger when the antiques expert informs him that the cryptograph device was made by a legendary German watch maker who was commissioned to build a bizarre, magnificent time piece that led him to go into seclusion so he could concentrate on the project that would become his legacy. The clock he made was for a noted philanthropist who donated it to St. Christopher’s Cathedral in Montreal upon his death. The philanthropist’s name? Dr. Virgil Swann, a member of the Veritas group and friend of Clark Kent when Swann was still living. Lex is on the Luthor jet immediately, flying to Montreal. Beating him there is Clark, who worked with Chloe to decipher the symbols on Lex’s chest using pictures of the wounds taken by Jimmy Olsen. While Jimmy digs into the symbols themselves and finds himself entrenched in the mystery of the Kowachi caves in Smallville, which were a heavy topic in early seasons of the series, Clark and Chloe realize that St. Christopher’s is the place Clark needs to go to figure out where all of the clues and artifacts are pointing. At the church, Clark meets Edward Teague, a member of Veritas who went into hiding once Lionel Luthor began killing the other members. Teague recognizes who Clark is after CK reads the Kryptonian inscriptions on a huge marble artifact at the church’s altar, follows the instructions and lifts up a bowl standing at the top of the artifact to read more symbols on the bottom. Teague approaches Clark and tells him that he’s been waiting all of his life to serve the Traveler, but when Clark shows reluctance to embrace what Teague feels is his destiny, a destiny that includes killing his adversary, Lex, Teague responds by subduing Clark using kryptonite and then performing a bizarre Kryptonian ritual designed to prevent Clark for ever being controlled by the device Lex is seeking and thus from becoming a force for evil in the world. This is where the whole ceremonial carving of symbols into the flesh of people comes back in, with Teague cutting another symbol into Clark’s chest after placing him on some sort of marble slab with grooves and symbols cut into its face so liquefied kryptonite can be poured into those grooves and surround Clark’s prone body. Following the ceremony, Teague leaves Clark alone and goes to a lower level of the church where he confronts Lex, wh has arrived and placed his cryptograph device inside the clock it was designed for, setting off a chain reaction that spins gears, plays an old Scottish folk song and turns a plate on the front of the clock, revealing a small black disk with the symbol of the German clock maker on it, the same symbol that was on one of the gears in the cryptograph machine. Lex takes the disk but is then met by Teague, who informs him that the Traveler is no longer relevant and for that reason, to balance the equation, the Traveler’s adversary must be killed. A battle breaks out and just as Lex has the upper hand and is about to kill Teague, Clark is freed from his restraints by Chloe, who figured out he was in danger after Jimmy showed her some of the Kowachi cave paintings and told her that they shoed a scene of human sacrifice. Chloe borrowed Oliver Queen’s private jet, flew to Montreal and saved Clark, which in turn allowed him to super-speed onto the scene, knock the weapon out Lex’s hand, destroy the clock and zoom off before Lex saw him. Lex initially believed it was Teague who had performed the miracle disarming, but Teague admitted it was the traveler. Lex didn’t hang around St. Christopher’s long, opting to jump back onto his jet and set course for Scotland on account of the folk song he’d heard the clock play. He recognized it as a song his father made him play when Lex was taking piano lessons as a kid, so he assumed there was a connection between it and his father’s obsession with the Traveler. The folk song came from the island of St. Kilda, which one of Lex’s researchers told him was also the home of a castle and a small village until a wealthy American bought the castle and hauled it away. That wealthy American was Lex’s father Lionel and the castle was the Luthor mansion, Lex’s own home. Instead of heading off the St. Kilda, which is now a bird sanctuary, Lex went home and set to tearing the mansion apart searching for the next clue in his quest. A team of researchers can't find what Lex is looking for, but remembering the lyrics of the folk song and figuring out the orientation and location of the castle at its original site in Scotland help Lex figure out the mystery. He locates the symbol of the German watchmaker (what is it with watchmakers and supernatural things, anyhow? This German guy and Sylar, the super-powered villain on Heroes just to name two) above the fireplace and uses a blunt object to break the concrete and reveal a multi-faced metal orb that has a small depression in it that’s the exact size and shape of the black disk Lex acquired in Montreal. When he places the disk in the slot, the orb expands, lights up and projects some sort of holograph of the Earth, which is where we leave Lex for the time being. Clark is left with his own conundrum, one he mulls over back at the Kent Farm. He’s in his familiar spot in the loft in the barn (seriously, he’s the only one living there, does he have something against being inside the house?), thinking things over when Chloe arrives and confronts him with a harsh reality. He needs to oppose Lex before Lex acquires the power to control him because while Clark wouldn’t harm Lex on purpose, Lex wouldn’t hesitate to destroy or control Clark if given the chance. It’s an issue for Clark to chew on, but Jimmy Olsen may force the issue by doing his own digging. Jimmy uncovers a cave painting pointing back to the story of Namaan and Segeeth, a tale from way back at the beginning of the series, a painting that shows that while in the story’s early stages Namaan and Segeeth are separate, warring individuals, in the final painting they are shown as one being, indicating a decisive battle. Chloe shows the picture to Clark and hits him with the reality that this is a battle between he and Lex. Maybe that battle will be fought next week in the season finale, so tune in then to find out…
- Lost definitely had one of its best episodes of the season Thursday night. Addressing one of my primary complaints about the season, the show managed to work nearly all of the primary characters into at least some of the action. Although the episode was John Locke-centric, there were scenes with Jack, Kate, Hurley, Ben Linus, Sayid, Desmond and the crew of the freighter. There were no flash-forwards this week, just flashbacks to the life of Locke pre-island. The story literally began at the start of his life, with the night Locke was born to a teenage mother who got knocked up by a man twice her age, hit by a car when six month pregnant and rushed to the hospital. Her son was born premature and kept in an incubator for months, but when little John Locke was finally allowed out of the incubator, his teen mother couldn’t bear to even hold him. Her own mother raised Locke in her stead, but in a bizarre twist, scientist Richard Alpert, the same man who recruited Juliet to the Dharma Initiative, was at the hospital when Locke was taken from the incubator and followed him throughout his early years. When Locke was five or six years old, Alpert visited his home and said he was from a school for special children. He gave Locke some sort of peculiar test for intelligence, didn’t like the results and left. Before he left, though, he saw a drawing Locke had done of a stick figure being attacked by a swirling black cloud, a bone-chilling foretelling of the black smoke monster on the island that Locke was decades away from ever going to. He popped up again when Locke was in high school, offering him the chance to come to Portland, home of the DI’s false-front company, for a summer science camp, but Locke refused. The last flashback of the episode showed Locke in the hospital following his paralysis, talking with an orderly who had a creepy, disconcerting demeanor about him. The tall, slender black man kept talking about miracles, saying Locke could walk again some day and that he need to go on a walkabout, an Australian soul-searching adventure. It’s the very trip Locke went on that took him to Australia and eventually onto Oceanic 815, so clearly he heeded the advice of the orderly, who also said that when they met again, Locke would have something to thank him for. Back in the present, Hurley, Locke and Ben are tromping through the jungle, searching for Jacob’s cabin. Locke has a lucid dream in which a now-deceased Dharma Initiative maintenance man named Horace tells Locke to find him and in so doing, he will find Jacob’s cabin. After roaming aimlessly (a good comedic scene there, with all three men saying they didn’t know where they were going and Ben humorously admitting he was only following Hurley, good times), the small posse visits the open mass grave where former DI members’ bodies were deposited. Locke sifts through the remains, finds Horace’s corpse and picks a blueprint out of his pocket that shows the location of the cabin. Using the map, he leads his group through the jungle and night and Hurley finally spots the structure. Hurley and Ben agree Locke should go in alone, which he does. Inside, Locke doesn’t find Jacob, but rather Jack and Claire’s father, the same man who led Claire away from her camp with Sawyer (one of the few absent from last night’s episode entirely) and Miles last week during the night. However, this man is now calling himself Christian and says he speaks on behalf of Jacob. He also has Claire with him and she seems bizarrely, dementedly happy and serene. Christian refuses to answer any of Locke’s questions outside of the one most pressing one: how to save the island. Once he has the message, Locke leaves and passes it along to Ben and Hurley. To save the island, they must move the island. Makes no sense, right? But it is Lost, so it’s not supposed to make sense. Back on the freighter, tensions are high. Martin Keeme and his men have come back from the island with their one man who was seriously injured by the black smoke monster while trying to apprehend Ben Linus. While Keeme and his men reload and restock their arsenal, they also have to deal with the traitor on the boat, who Keeme initially believes to be the ship’s captain. The captain tells him otherwise and points him to the real mole, Kevin Johnson, a.k.a. Michael Dawson, Oceanic 815 survivor. Michael is assaulted by Keeme, as well as being handcuffed to his bed and having his leg pinned beneath the collapsed metal frame of the bed. Meanwhile, Sayid and Desmond realize that Keeme intends to kill everyone on the island and decide they need to go back to save everyone. Sayid talks the captain into giving him the Zodiac motorized boat to go back, but Desmond refuses to go. He explained that he’d spent three years on the island and refused to set foot on it ever again. Sayid speeds off on his own, leaving Desmond on the freighter. Meanwhile, Michael tells the captain the truth about Keeme, leading the captain to confront him as Keeme is readying his men to fly back for the assault on the island. A firefight ensues and the captain is shot and killed by Keeme, who then forces pilot Frank Lapidus to fly the chopper back to the island. As the chopper passes over the beach camp, Lapidus tosses a rolled-up backpack containing a satellite phone out the side and into the middle of the camp. Jack is the first to the pack and takes out the phone. He sees a tracking map on it, showing the helicopter’s flight path. He thinks it means they are supposed to follow the chopper, which must be what Lapidus meant to have them do. Jack is under orders from Juliet to take it easy until the stitches from his emergency appendectomy have a chance to heal, but he may not have a choice at this point. The previews for next week seem to point to the first revelation of the Oceanic Six to the world as a group, so maybe we will see Jack, Kate, Sayid, Hurley, Sun and Aaron getting off the island. Stay tuned for that until next week…..
- This is one of the most sickening, revolting assault stories you will ever hear about. Former Minnesota Vikings defensive lineman Darrion Scott was charged Tuesday with assault and accused of holding a plastic dry cleaning bag over the head of his 2-year-old son. He was charged in Hennepin County Court with third-degree assault and domestic assault by strangulation, both felonies, and also hit with charges of endangerment of a child -- a gross misdemeanor -- for allegedly keeping a loaded, unsecured handgun in his unlocked nightstand, where a 2-year-old could have easy access to it. The gun charge is a side note here, because the image of a massive NFL lineman forcibly holding a plastic bag over the head of his 2-year-old son is disturbing on so many levels. As inexcusable and reprehensible as it is to strike a child when you become angry with them, at least you can call those temporary moments of losing your cool and becoming emotional. How anyone gets to the point where you are finding a plastic bag, placing it over a toddler’s head and holding it there for a prolonged period of time is very, very disturbing and almost beyond belief. According to the complaint, the boy's mother said she went to Scott's home on April 26 to pick the boy up when she heard the boy crying and found him with a dry cleaning bag over his head and Scott holding the bag tight around the boy's neck. Scott said he was playing with the child and wanted to see if the boy could get the bag off his head himself. Seriously, that’s all you came up with that you were playing? Right, because who hasn’t played a fun game of fake strangulation with their 2-year-old? I have many fond memories of my parents placing plastic bags of varying sizes and colors over my head when I was a you boy and seeing if I could forcibly remove that bag from my own head despite being deprived of air and weighing a small fraction of what they weighed, good times! I’m sure you have many such memories of your own, so you know what I’m talking about. The boy’s mother wasn’t buying this explanation, because she reported the incident to child protection and photographed red marks she saw on the boy's neck. This isn’t the first time this child has suffered injuries of some kind while under his father’s care either. According to the boy’s mother, Scott brought the boy to her home at the end of March or early April and asked to bathe him to get the boy ready for bed. dressed the boy in long pajamas, and the next morning the woman noted that the boy had marks on his arm and ear that appeared to be burns, the complaint said.
Although Scott denied knowing the cause of the injuries when asked about them, a doctor examined the boy and reported the marks appeared to be intentionally inflicted and were consistent with either a burn or impact injury, the complaint said. Going a little further back in time to February or March, the complaint said, the boy came home from Scott's with three lumps on his forehead. On that occasion, Scott came up with another gem of an excuse by telling the boy's mother that he and the boy were doing a “victory dance” when the boy's head hit the wood frame of a sofa. Scott admitted to throwing the child in the air to celebrate the boy's use of the toilet and that the boy fell and hit his head, the complaint said. I hate to be Captain Negative here, but this is a disturbing pattern and I’m not just talking about the pattern of this idiot coming up with some of the lamest cover stories in the history of cover stories. I’m referring more to the pattern of this child ending up with injuries and having his life and well-being put in danger by his dad. Darrion Scott needs a parenting class or ten and he also needs to learn to be a better liar. I’d work on the parenting thing first, but that’s just me.
- This is one of those stories where you’re really better off not knowing the whole tale. When you hear that 300 dead cats were founded in freezers at the Sacramento, Calif. home of 47-year-old Robert Louis Vondueren, just leave it alone and don’t ask any more questions. When you hear that 30 more live cats were found in the home by animal control workers over the weekend, be thankful that authorities arrived in time to save those animals and just keep on moving, nothing more to see here people. Do not, I repeat, do not under ANY circumstances devote any additional time or thought to how those cats died, why Vondueren had that many cats to begin with, what he did with them and what possessed him to store them in his freezers once they died. Don’t ask yourself if this was some sort of creepy, frozen cat cemetery or if he was doing scientific expiremtns on them. Don’t think about what would happen if someone was visiting Vondueren’s house and inadvertently opened the wrong freezer while looking for a popsicle. Just take this story at face value, realize that this is a sick, twisted pud and move on……
Friday, May 09, 2008
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Tom Hanks and me, ways to know if you have a gambling problem and Cedric Benson v. the police
- So what to do if you’re an alkie, disgraced pop-tart celebrity who can say no to the booze and often leaves the house without underwear on? How do you go about resurrecting a career that has gone down the crapper because you can’t get a handle on your partying ways? One of the go-to tactics for fallen starlets these days seems to be getting guest appearance on mediocre primetime comedies. First, Britney Spears tried to prove to America that she’s not just a crazy, alcoholic, clubbing, bad mother and total train wreck by guesting on CBS’ wildly overrated and unfunny How I Met Your Mother. Her turn as a quirky receptionist seemed to actually do some good in convincing people that she’s not a total lost cause - at least until the next time she’s out clubbing until 4 a.m., forgets to put on underwear and misses a custody hearing for her two sons. Her quasi-success has seemingly inspired the equally skanky, slightly less crazy Lindsay Lohan to try her own guest spot on ABC’s Ugly Betty, a show that is only slightly better than How I Met Your Mother. Lohan’s first episode will be the show’s season finale, which will air on May 22, but she’s signed for additional episodes and will be back next season in a role that has her playing a hard-luck friend of the show’s title character. If you’re looking to waste an hour of your time on May 22 or want to judge for yourself whether Lohan’s terrible acting in flicks like Mean Girls has improved at all, tune in and see for yourself.
- Seems like the police are telling a different story than Chicago Bears running back Cedric Benson about what happened when Benson was arrested Saturday night on Lake Charles in Austin, Tex. on charges of boating while intoxicated and resisting arrest. Benson had bloodshot eyes, a “strong” alcohol odor and slurred speech when stopped by authorities while boating last weekend on Lake Travis, according to a police report released Monday. Benson has been telling everyone who will listen that he was just having a good time on his boat when the cops showed up, harassed him, pepper-sprayed him and roughed him up for no good reason The details in the report differ greatly from Benson's account of the incident, which occurred Saturday night after the 30-foot boat was stopped for a random safety inspection. ‘There was no resistance on my part,” Benson stated in an interview. “Was I drunk? No.” He also said that “there was alcohol on the boat and others were enjoying themselves, but I wasn't drunk.” Oh, okay Cedric, there was booze on the boat but you didn’t have a few pops. What, were you the designated pilot for the boat that night? I’m a little less inclined to believe you than Sgt. Leonard Snyder, who sprayed and arrested Benson. Snyder wrote in his report that he believed Benson was intoxicated because he was "combative," "cocky," "insulting," and used "profanity," and at other times was "crying" and "cooperative." Now, do I believe that Snyder and his men may have used excessive force on Benson? It’s definitely possible and abuse of power by law enforcement is a real, pressing problem in countries around the world, especially the United States. But do I believe that the allegations that Benson failed sobriety tests applied by Snyder, who works with the Lower Colorado River Authority, and refused to come ashore for additional tests and “stood up from the position where I had him seated and suggested I could not tell him what to do,”? No. I don’t think those facts are made up, not in the least. The characterization of Benson as taking a “hostile” posture towards the arresting officers is a subjective matter, but the fact remains that he was clearly uncooperative and presented problems because of how he handled the matter. This could have turned out to be much less of an issue of Benson hadn’t (allegedly) acted like an ass on that boat. Now he’s in the middle of a huge mess that has a lot of quick-trigger-finger observers in and around Chicago calling for the Bears to release him. Well done, Ced, well done.
- Top 100 ways to know if you have a gambling problem….No. 14 on the list comes to us courtesy of a couple of morons from Southampton, N.Y. This married couple was so focused on getting their gamble on that they made a beeline for the local off-track betting parlor to bet on Saturday’s Kentucky Derby despite the fact that they had in their care their two-month-old son. That in and of itself is a problem, mostly because raising a child is expensive and losing money betting on horse races isn’t exactly the best way to build up Junior’s college fund or even buy diapers and formula. Those economic principles were lost on this couple, because they went ahead and threw their money away betting on the Derby. The best part of this story is that while they went inside to gamble, they left their infant son alone in their car, which they also left running. Good thinking, geniuses! For 20 minutes, you left your two-month-old son alone in a running car! What happens if someone steals your car because they see it running and essentially unoccupied? What happens if the inside of the car overheats or some other emergency happens? And did you think that no one is going to notice a running car with an unattended infant inside and point that out to the police? Be thankful that stupid isn’t something you can be charged with criminally, because if it were, the misdemeanor child-endangerment charges you two are facing right now wouldn’t be your only concern.
- When you become a disgraced former “World’s Fastest Man,” your life can take one of many turns. Whatever your reason for falling from grace (and in track, it’s almost always steroids), you lose the respect and admiration of many who used to look up to you. You most likely can't race anymore, so you need to figure out what your next move is. Not everyone is equipped to make that kind of tough decision and to seize control of their life. Thank God former world 100 meters champion Tim Montgomery isn’t one of those people. When his track career ended because he trained with a coach who was a ‘roid head and Montgomery himself juiced, you had to wonder where T. Montgomery would go. Where he went is to the world of fraud, counterfeiting and (alleged) drug dealing. The former 100-meter world-record holder is to be sentenced May 16 in a New York-based check-kiting conspiracy. He pleaded guilty in that case, admitting he helped his former coach, Olympic champion Steve Riddick, and others cash $1.7 million in stolen and counterfeit checks. He could be sentenced to as many as 46 months in prison for that one, but he wasn’t about to stop there in his criminal career. His new legal battle took its latest step Tuesday when a federal judge in Norfolk, Va. denied bond for Montgomery on federal heroin distribution charges. My man T. Montgomery appeared in U.S. District Court before Magistrate Judge F. Bradford Stillman, who set a July 9 trial date and denied bond in the process. The hearing came after the 33-year-old sprinter was arrested last week on a sealed indictment accusing him of dealing more than 100 grams of heroin in Virginia. Nice move, Monty. When facing four years in prison for some namby-pamby charges like fraud and counterfeiting, the best move is to take it up a notch. Commit a real crime, a serious one that leaves no doubt in the minds of those deciding your fate as to where you belong. Personally if I’m awaiting sentencing on the charges Montgomery was already facing, I’m staying down and launching a campaign of good works that would make mother Theresa look like a bad person by comparison. But that’s just me and I’m clearly not a competitive, tough, world-class athlete like Montgomery. He has a plan for his life and right now that plan appears to center on doing everything possible to make sure he goes to prison for a long, long time.
- You’ve put me in a bad position, Tom Hanks, and to be frank, I’m not sure what to do. On the one hand, your endorsement of Barack Obama for president is a great thing, a true act of patriotism in no small part because it also means you opposed the tyrannical reign of femi-Nazi Hank Clinton. I’ve gone on record as saying that anyone who opposes Hank is a friend of mine and a friend of America, but the means through which Hanks has chosen to make his support for Obama known poses a quandary for me. See, the endorsement came through a video posted on Hanks’ MySpace page, hence my dilemma. As opposed as I am to Hank Clinton, I am equally opposed to that haven for pedophiles also known as MySpace. In an Internet world rife with losers, degenerates, freaks and lowlifes, MySpace is pack to the rafters with the lowest life forms. If you don’t think thousands of child predators prowl that site on a daily basis looking for their next victim, you’re deluding yourself. So when Hanks posts a video saying that history will be made this November no matter who is elected and that he wants it to be Obama in part because he represents a race that has historically been looked down upon in this country, I’m glad for the support of Obama. However, I am also morally and ethically opposed to MySpace because I just can't get down with a webstie that is such a ginormous enabler for aspiring child molesters. So here’s what I’m going to do, Tom: pretend this whole mess never happened. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve made no statement at all concerning an endorsement for any of the presidential candidates. Now, if you’d like to make one through an acceptable medium, we can move forward and start fresh….
- Seems like the police are telling a different story than Chicago Bears running back Cedric Benson about what happened when Benson was arrested Saturday night on Lake Charles in Austin, Tex. on charges of boating while intoxicated and resisting arrest. Benson had bloodshot eyes, a “strong” alcohol odor and slurred speech when stopped by authorities while boating last weekend on Lake Travis, according to a police report released Monday. Benson has been telling everyone who will listen that he was just having a good time on his boat when the cops showed up, harassed him, pepper-sprayed him and roughed him up for no good reason The details in the report differ greatly from Benson's account of the incident, which occurred Saturday night after the 30-foot boat was stopped for a random safety inspection. ‘There was no resistance on my part,” Benson stated in an interview. “Was I drunk? No.” He also said that “there was alcohol on the boat and others were enjoying themselves, but I wasn't drunk.” Oh, okay Cedric, there was booze on the boat but you didn’t have a few pops. What, were you the designated pilot for the boat that night? I’m a little less inclined to believe you than Sgt. Leonard Snyder, who sprayed and arrested Benson. Snyder wrote in his report that he believed Benson was intoxicated because he was "combative," "cocky," "insulting," and used "profanity," and at other times was "crying" and "cooperative." Now, do I believe that Snyder and his men may have used excessive force on Benson? It’s definitely possible and abuse of power by law enforcement is a real, pressing problem in countries around the world, especially the United States. But do I believe that the allegations that Benson failed sobriety tests applied by Snyder, who works with the Lower Colorado River Authority, and refused to come ashore for additional tests and “stood up from the position where I had him seated and suggested I could not tell him what to do,”? No. I don’t think those facts are made up, not in the least. The characterization of Benson as taking a “hostile” posture towards the arresting officers is a subjective matter, but the fact remains that he was clearly uncooperative and presented problems because of how he handled the matter. This could have turned out to be much less of an issue of Benson hadn’t (allegedly) acted like an ass on that boat. Now he’s in the middle of a huge mess that has a lot of quick-trigger-finger observers in and around Chicago calling for the Bears to release him. Well done, Ced, well done.
- Top 100 ways to know if you have a gambling problem….No. 14 on the list comes to us courtesy of a couple of morons from Southampton, N.Y. This married couple was so focused on getting their gamble on that they made a beeline for the local off-track betting parlor to bet on Saturday’s Kentucky Derby despite the fact that they had in their care their two-month-old son. That in and of itself is a problem, mostly because raising a child is expensive and losing money betting on horse races isn’t exactly the best way to build up Junior’s college fund or even buy diapers and formula. Those economic principles were lost on this couple, because they went ahead and threw their money away betting on the Derby. The best part of this story is that while they went inside to gamble, they left their infant son alone in their car, which they also left running. Good thinking, geniuses! For 20 minutes, you left your two-month-old son alone in a running car! What happens if someone steals your car because they see it running and essentially unoccupied? What happens if the inside of the car overheats or some other emergency happens? And did you think that no one is going to notice a running car with an unattended infant inside and point that out to the police? Be thankful that stupid isn’t something you can be charged with criminally, because if it were, the misdemeanor child-endangerment charges you two are facing right now wouldn’t be your only concern.
- When you become a disgraced former “World’s Fastest Man,” your life can take one of many turns. Whatever your reason for falling from grace (and in track, it’s almost always steroids), you lose the respect and admiration of many who used to look up to you. You most likely can't race anymore, so you need to figure out what your next move is. Not everyone is equipped to make that kind of tough decision and to seize control of their life. Thank God former world 100 meters champion Tim Montgomery isn’t one of those people. When his track career ended because he trained with a coach who was a ‘roid head and Montgomery himself juiced, you had to wonder where T. Montgomery would go. Where he went is to the world of fraud, counterfeiting and (alleged) drug dealing. The former 100-meter world-record holder is to be sentenced May 16 in a New York-based check-kiting conspiracy. He pleaded guilty in that case, admitting he helped his former coach, Olympic champion Steve Riddick, and others cash $1.7 million in stolen and counterfeit checks. He could be sentenced to as many as 46 months in prison for that one, but he wasn’t about to stop there in his criminal career. His new legal battle took its latest step Tuesday when a federal judge in Norfolk, Va. denied bond for Montgomery on federal heroin distribution charges. My man T. Montgomery appeared in U.S. District Court before Magistrate Judge F. Bradford Stillman, who set a July 9 trial date and denied bond in the process. The hearing came after the 33-year-old sprinter was arrested last week on a sealed indictment accusing him of dealing more than 100 grams of heroin in Virginia. Nice move, Monty. When facing four years in prison for some namby-pamby charges like fraud and counterfeiting, the best move is to take it up a notch. Commit a real crime, a serious one that leaves no doubt in the minds of those deciding your fate as to where you belong. Personally if I’m awaiting sentencing on the charges Montgomery was already facing, I’m staying down and launching a campaign of good works that would make mother Theresa look like a bad person by comparison. But that’s just me and I’m clearly not a competitive, tough, world-class athlete like Montgomery. He has a plan for his life and right now that plan appears to center on doing everything possible to make sure he goes to prison for a long, long time.
- You’ve put me in a bad position, Tom Hanks, and to be frank, I’m not sure what to do. On the one hand, your endorsement of Barack Obama for president is a great thing, a true act of patriotism in no small part because it also means you opposed the tyrannical reign of femi-Nazi Hank Clinton. I’ve gone on record as saying that anyone who opposes Hank is a friend of mine and a friend of America, but the means through which Hanks has chosen to make his support for Obama known poses a quandary for me. See, the endorsement came through a video posted on Hanks’ MySpace page, hence my dilemma. As opposed as I am to Hank Clinton, I am equally opposed to that haven for pedophiles also known as MySpace. In an Internet world rife with losers, degenerates, freaks and lowlifes, MySpace is pack to the rafters with the lowest life forms. If you don’t think thousands of child predators prowl that site on a daily basis looking for their next victim, you’re deluding yourself. So when Hanks posts a video saying that history will be made this November no matter who is elected and that he wants it to be Obama in part because he represents a race that has historically been looked down upon in this country, I’m glad for the support of Obama. However, I am also morally and ethically opposed to MySpace because I just can't get down with a webstie that is such a ginormous enabler for aspiring child molesters. So here’s what I’m going to do, Tom: pretend this whole mess never happened. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve made no statement at all concerning an endorsement for any of the presidential candidates. Now, if you’d like to make one through an acceptable medium, we can move forward and start fresh….
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Idiotic adulterers, weekend movie news and Roid-ger Clemens news
- Watching the primary results roll in from Indiana and North Carolina last night, the emotions ran from sheer terror early in the evening to a sense of relief and confidence by the night’s end. Initially, the only results on the CNN election coverage screens showed Hank Clinton with a sizeable lead in Indiana, with results from North Carolina not posted yet. But just as the absolute horror of a landslide win for Hank in Indiana began to wash over me like a tidal wave of rusty razor blades soaked in lighter fluid, the tide began to turn. The results from Indiana became closer and closer as more precincts reported, especially as the urban areas (which voted heavily in favor of my main man Barack Obama) began to be counted. By 10 p.m., all of the major news networks were calling the race in Indiana a toss-up, too close to call. Not exactly the resounding victory for Obama I’d been hoping for and thus enough to drive a wooden stake through the heart of that femi-Nazi vampire Hank, but still an acceptable outcome. That’s largely because at the same time as the Indiana results were becoming very muddled, it was clear that Obama had won North Carolina by a wide margin. In a state ripe with minority voters (God bless you, minority voters!), Obama was predicted to do well and he did just that, scoring a win in the vicinity of the 57 percent to 43 percent in favor of B.O Suck it, Hank! Your hopes to win West Virginia and Kentucky in the next couple of weeks and keep your campaign alive are feeble at best. After tonight, the deficit in delegates will have grown wider and your hopes of being our femi-Nazi in chief will be that much closer to going up in smoke. So well done, voters in North Carolina and Indiana, I knew I could count on you to do the right thing!
- So Microsoft can't actually buy anything it wants, nice to know. Despite the widespread assumption that Bill Gates could pretty much buy the entire solar system with his massive fortune, the company he founded has finally met its match when it comes to hostile corporate takeovers. In its bid to buy rival Internet company Yahoo Inc., Microsoft has made every attempt to ram its will down the collective throats of the suits at Yahoo. They hit Yahoo executives with their best offer and when that didn’t work, they threatened to take their case directly to Yahoo shareholders, who could vote in a new executive board that would be favorable to the Microsoft offer. That clearly did not work either because the final word on the matter came when Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang received a letter from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer offering $47.5 billion, or $33 per share, for Yahoo’s stock, which is currently valued at $29.40 per share, and Yang didn’t take the bait. This led Microsoft to officially end its quest to buy Yahoo and thus take a major step toward dethroning its chief competitor in the world of online search engines and advertising, Google Inc. Sorry for your troubles Microsoft….actually, no I’m not. It’s pretty freaking awesome to see a major international corporation told to f’off and that it can't have what it wants because of its considerable wealth. Great to see the world doesn’t always work that way….
- Pulling a Giambi. That’s something you don’t want to be known for as a professional athlete, as the term has come to be associated with holding a press conference or interview and offering up a generic, vague apology without saying exactly what it is you’re apologizing for. Giambi did it a couple of years ago when he was all but handcuffed to baseball’s ongoing steroids scandal and a confirmer ‘roider. He held that press conference and apologized for making mistakes but didn’t say what those mistakes were. Everyone knew what he meant, but out of fear that the Yankees might terminate his contract if he admitted to ‘roiding up and other possible ramiprecussions, the burly slugger stayed in the gray in-between and offered no specifics. Now joining him in that world of gray is his former teammate, Roid-ger “Pocket Rocket” Clemens. Clemens is also dogged by steroid accusations, but his apology comes in response to a recent run on allegations that he’s sexed up nearly every attractive woman he’s ever come into contact with. All right, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but with one woman (or girl, as Mindy McCready was at the time of her alleged affair with Clemens) after another coming forward, it’s easy to get the impression that there’s a never-ending string of them. So Clemens held his own press conference to apologize for…..something. He didn’t say what he was apologizing for, other than hints that stories about his past “mistakes” and indiscretions were being blown out of proportion and that people he cares about are getting hurt in the process. He apologized to his family and fans, which I’m sure means a lot to them…or it would if they knew what they apology was for. At this point, even having this press conference was a huge mistake. Clemens gambled that he could fight against these allegations and accusations the same way he attacked opposing hitters during his career. But this time, there was no zipping a fastball at a batter’s head, no fractured piece of Mike Piazza’s bat to chuck at anyone to silence those who dared oppose him. Roid-ger should have handled this matter with class, honesty and dignity, but those are three things he’s never had much of and hasn’t acquired any of post-baseball. Now he’s dug a huge hole, his reputation is shot and he’s the butt of everyone’s jokes. Every maneuver he tries to extricate himself from this mess just digs a deeper hole, as did his non-apology apology. Admittedly I’ve never liked Clemens, so seeing him go down in flames is pretty funny to me. That being said, he really does need to just drop his protestations, his defamation lawsuit against former trainer Brian McNamee and just fade away…..
- A massive opening weekend for Iron Man proved that the summer blockbuster season really is upon us. Robert Downey Jr.’s action epic raked in more than $104 million for the weekend, easily outdistancing the crap-tacular runner-up, Made of Honor. Sorry ladies, but even for a chick flick that is one terrible movie. I know it features McDreamy…or McSteamy, or whichever doctor from the über-chick flick of TV shows Grey’s Anatomy that Patrick Dempsey plays, but even if my all-time favorite actress or actor were in a film and it was as abysmally bad as Made of Honor is, I still wouldn’t try to defend the film. Moviegoers seemed to agree with that sentiment, as the hordes of women dragging their boyfriends, fiancés and husbands to see the movie only bought enough tickets for the flick to gross a meager $15.5 million for the weekend. The werid thing is that Made of Honor was followed in the box office standings for the weekend by a film that was actually far worse - Baby Mama. (On a side note, in last week’s Real World, the cast members learned that their “job” would be training as an improv comedy troupe with the same woman who has trained, among others, Baby Mama stars Tina Fey AND Amy Pohler - how proud she must be to have trained the two leading ladies for the worst comedy I’ve seen in at least five years.) That train wreck made $10.3 million and was followed by Forgetting Sarah Marshall ($6.1 million) and Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay ($6 million). Quite a weekend when Harold and Kumar is actually the third-best movie in the top five earners……
- False rape accusations can have serious ramiprecussions, but rarely are they so deadly, so quickly at they were for Devin LaSalle of Arlington, Tex. Seems LaSalle was having an affair with Tracy Denise Robertson, 37, (if we know your middle name AND your age, chances are you’ve done something stupid) and the pair chose the idiotic location of a pickup truck in the driveway of the home shared by Tracy and her husband Darrell. Amazingly, Darrell discovered his wife and her lover getting after it while parked in his own driveway and predictably wasn’t happy about it. This being Texas, Darrell had his shotgun close at hand and put it into action. He did so after his quick-thinking but not exceptionally bright wife tried to cover her affair by crying rape. An incensed Darrell then fired four shots into LaSalle’s truck as LaSalle tried to flee the scene, killing his wife’s lover and earning himself an arrest by the local sheriff that ended with an odd twist. Instead of indicting Darrell for shooting and killing Mr. LaSalle, the grand jury indicted Tracy Robertson because of her false rape allegations that led to the shooting. She’s now facing a charge of involuntary manslaughter and a sentence of two to 20 years in prison. Maybe next time you’re having an affair and your husband finds you sexing it up in his own driveway, tell him the truth, k? Once you’re released from prison, that is….
- So Microsoft can't actually buy anything it wants, nice to know. Despite the widespread assumption that Bill Gates could pretty much buy the entire solar system with his massive fortune, the company he founded has finally met its match when it comes to hostile corporate takeovers. In its bid to buy rival Internet company Yahoo Inc., Microsoft has made every attempt to ram its will down the collective throats of the suits at Yahoo. They hit Yahoo executives with their best offer and when that didn’t work, they threatened to take their case directly to Yahoo shareholders, who could vote in a new executive board that would be favorable to the Microsoft offer. That clearly did not work either because the final word on the matter came when Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang received a letter from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer offering $47.5 billion, or $33 per share, for Yahoo’s stock, which is currently valued at $29.40 per share, and Yang didn’t take the bait. This led Microsoft to officially end its quest to buy Yahoo and thus take a major step toward dethroning its chief competitor in the world of online search engines and advertising, Google Inc. Sorry for your troubles Microsoft….actually, no I’m not. It’s pretty freaking awesome to see a major international corporation told to f’off and that it can't have what it wants because of its considerable wealth. Great to see the world doesn’t always work that way….
- Pulling a Giambi. That’s something you don’t want to be known for as a professional athlete, as the term has come to be associated with holding a press conference or interview and offering up a generic, vague apology without saying exactly what it is you’re apologizing for. Giambi did it a couple of years ago when he was all but handcuffed to baseball’s ongoing steroids scandal and a confirmer ‘roider. He held that press conference and apologized for making mistakes but didn’t say what those mistakes were. Everyone knew what he meant, but out of fear that the Yankees might terminate his contract if he admitted to ‘roiding up and other possible ramiprecussions, the burly slugger stayed in the gray in-between and offered no specifics. Now joining him in that world of gray is his former teammate, Roid-ger “Pocket Rocket” Clemens. Clemens is also dogged by steroid accusations, but his apology comes in response to a recent run on allegations that he’s sexed up nearly every attractive woman he’s ever come into contact with. All right, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but with one woman (or girl, as Mindy McCready was at the time of her alleged affair with Clemens) after another coming forward, it’s easy to get the impression that there’s a never-ending string of them. So Clemens held his own press conference to apologize for…..something. He didn’t say what he was apologizing for, other than hints that stories about his past “mistakes” and indiscretions were being blown out of proportion and that people he cares about are getting hurt in the process. He apologized to his family and fans, which I’m sure means a lot to them…or it would if they knew what they apology was for. At this point, even having this press conference was a huge mistake. Clemens gambled that he could fight against these allegations and accusations the same way he attacked opposing hitters during his career. But this time, there was no zipping a fastball at a batter’s head, no fractured piece of Mike Piazza’s bat to chuck at anyone to silence those who dared oppose him. Roid-ger should have handled this matter with class, honesty and dignity, but those are three things he’s never had much of and hasn’t acquired any of post-baseball. Now he’s dug a huge hole, his reputation is shot and he’s the butt of everyone’s jokes. Every maneuver he tries to extricate himself from this mess just digs a deeper hole, as did his non-apology apology. Admittedly I’ve never liked Clemens, so seeing him go down in flames is pretty funny to me. That being said, he really does need to just drop his protestations, his defamation lawsuit against former trainer Brian McNamee and just fade away…..
- A massive opening weekend for Iron Man proved that the summer blockbuster season really is upon us. Robert Downey Jr.’s action epic raked in more than $104 million for the weekend, easily outdistancing the crap-tacular runner-up, Made of Honor. Sorry ladies, but even for a chick flick that is one terrible movie. I know it features McDreamy…or McSteamy, or whichever doctor from the über-chick flick of TV shows Grey’s Anatomy that Patrick Dempsey plays, but even if my all-time favorite actress or actor were in a film and it was as abysmally bad as Made of Honor is, I still wouldn’t try to defend the film. Moviegoers seemed to agree with that sentiment, as the hordes of women dragging their boyfriends, fiancés and husbands to see the movie only bought enough tickets for the flick to gross a meager $15.5 million for the weekend. The werid thing is that Made of Honor was followed in the box office standings for the weekend by a film that was actually far worse - Baby Mama. (On a side note, in last week’s Real World, the cast members learned that their “job” would be training as an improv comedy troupe with the same woman who has trained, among others, Baby Mama stars Tina Fey AND Amy Pohler - how proud she must be to have trained the two leading ladies for the worst comedy I’ve seen in at least five years.) That train wreck made $10.3 million and was followed by Forgetting Sarah Marshall ($6.1 million) and Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay ($6 million). Quite a weekend when Harold and Kumar is actually the third-best movie in the top five earners……
- False rape accusations can have serious ramiprecussions, but rarely are they so deadly, so quickly at they were for Devin LaSalle of Arlington, Tex. Seems LaSalle was having an affair with Tracy Denise Robertson, 37, (if we know your middle name AND your age, chances are you’ve done something stupid) and the pair chose the idiotic location of a pickup truck in the driveway of the home shared by Tracy and her husband Darrell. Amazingly, Darrell discovered his wife and her lover getting after it while parked in his own driveway and predictably wasn’t happy about it. This being Texas, Darrell had his shotgun close at hand and put it into action. He did so after his quick-thinking but not exceptionally bright wife tried to cover her affair by crying rape. An incensed Darrell then fired four shots into LaSalle’s truck as LaSalle tried to flee the scene, killing his wife’s lover and earning himself an arrest by the local sheriff that ended with an odd twist. Instead of indicting Darrell for shooting and killing Mr. LaSalle, the grand jury indicted Tracy Robertson because of her false rape allegations that led to the shooting. She’s now facing a charge of involuntary manslaughter and a sentence of two to 20 years in prison. Maybe next time you’re having an affair and your husband finds you sexing it up in his own driveway, tell him the truth, k? Once you’re released from prison, that is….
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Greek, One Tree Hill reviews and Amy Winehouse still troubled
- No. No, no, no. That would be the one and only acceptable response by Congress to the latest war-funding request from our Ass Clown in Chief W. He’s sent a $70 proposal to Congress to keep the Mess O’Potamia, his own personal Vietnam, running through the spring of 2009. The proposal also covers funding for a war that actually is justified, the one in Afghanistan that is consistently taking a backseat to the debacle in Iraq. Congressional analysts say this new measure would bring the total spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to a whopping $875 billion. Imagine what the bulk of that money could do if it weren’t being wasted fighting a fraudulent war based on false pretenses in Iraq! Heck, we might have been able to put that money from that misguided endeavor into the battle in Afghanistan and actually accomplish our goals there AND have funds left over to address a country whose economy is going down the crapper under the (mis)guidance of the worst president we’ve ever had! The bad news here is that the president has Congress over a barrel on this issue, as Democrats are likely to capitulate to his demands in order to avoid a major battle as they try to shift their focus to the elections in November. I say you suck it up, you spineless Democrat bastards. Fight this thing and don’t give this lying, manipulating, Constitution-ignoring a-hole another dime for his own personal Vietnam for the duration of his term in office. This war isn’t going to end until someone has the kahones to stand up to this idiot and force him to back down. That needs to be your, Congress, and the time for it is now.
- It was the invasion of the parents last night on Greek. Freshmen Parents weekend was in full effect, creating no shortage of headaches for Rusty Cartwright, his roommate Dale, Rusty’s fellow pledges at Kappa Tau and even his sister Casey. Mr. and Mrs. Cartwright, both professors, came with a very defined, structured idea of what college should be like for their two children and what their kids should be up to at college. Suffice it to say that being a part of a fraternity or sorority wasn’t high on that list. Not helping matters was the fact that Rusty fibbed when telling them about Kappa Tau, saying it was a responsible, service fraternity. When his parents arrived on campus at Cyprus Rhodes, Rusty didn’t even plan to take them by the frat house so he could continue keeping the truth from them. However, an encounter with Beaver, a.k.a. Charles, exposed Rusty’s plan and he was forced to bring his parents to the Kappa Tau barbecue along with all of the other frat parents. Before the Cartwrights could make it there, though, they stopped by the Zeta Beta Zeta sorority to see Casey. She was busy hosting the sorority’s tea for visiting parents of their own freshmen, including Rebecca Logan’s father, the senator. As Casey bent over backwards to accommodate the senator, Rebecca did her own job of bending, doing everything in her power to keep her father from meeting her boyfriend, the immortal Cappie. She didn’t want their relationship exposed to the “meet the parents” microscope, which Cappie accepted until Rebecca found out that her father was having an affair with one of his aides and decided to use Cappie to piss her dad off as retaliation. Cappie figured out what she was up to and left her hanging at the Kappa Tau barbecue. The barbecue did a great job of fooling Rusty’s parents and the parents of the other KT freshmen, thanks to some last-minute cleaning and a faux buttoned-up atmosphere that included a ginormous banner in the foyer proclaiming it to be an actual service fraternity. Rusty almost pulled off fooling his parents but was done in by Casey, who couldn’t take any more of her parents praising Rusty, their favorite child, for being part of such an amazing group of upstanding young men. Casey literally whipped her car around, made a U-turn and ambushed Rusty at the KT house as they kicked off the real party that started once all of the parents left. When Mr. and Mrs. Cartwright saw the fraternity their son really belonged to, they demanded that he quit immediately. Rusty decided to stand up to them and told them he wasn’t quitting and also that they neded to show more respect to Casey for all she had accomplished, especially with her sorority. Part of Rusty’s epiphany came from Dale’s experience with his parents, who were every bit as stereotype-fulfilling and one-dimensional as Dale has been on the show. They too are fanatical religious zealots, people whose idea of the ideal movie is The Passion of the Christ and whop are so overbearing and doting that they literally roomed with Dale for the entire weekend, sleeping on air mattresses in his dorm room, following him around campus to every class, photographing his every move and being as completely embarrassing as possible. When Dale felt guilty for wanting some time away from them, Rusty reminded him that going to college, growing up and getting separation from his parents wasn’t a crime. That led Rusty to stand up to his own parents, who relented and agreed he could stay in the fraternity. Cappie and Rebecca made peace as well, with Rebecca admitting that she “maybe, quite possibly…cares about” Cappie. A.W.O.L. from the episode were Calvin, Evan Chambers and the rest of the Omega Chi house. But a fun episode, a lot of laughs and the fun hour I’ve come to count on from Greek. So until next time, kiddos…..
- Cold-hearted bastards and b*tches seemed to be the unofficial theme of One Tree Hill last night. With last week’s bombshell that Dan Scott has a fatal heart problem and has six months or less to live unless he gets a transplant, emotions were bound to be running high this week. Dan’s continued pleas to be included in the lives of sons Nathan and Lucas and of his grandson Jamie fell on deaf ears even as Lucas sought out Dan’s doctor to make sure he really was telling the truth about his condition and found out that Dan wasn’t lying. Dan continued to push for inclusion into his sons’ lives, mostly in the hopes of mending the relationships he destroyed when he murdered his brother Keith. Nathan turned Dan down at every stop, even when Dan showed up at the gym while Nathan was shooting hoops with Jamie. Lucas went to visit Dan as well and told him that even if Dan was dying, he was already dead to most of the people in life so it didn’t really matter. Both sons steadfastly refused to allow Dan back into their lives, with Lucas saying over and over that dying couldn’t happen to a better guy and that it was what Dan deserved. Nathan’s wife Haley was fighting her own Dan-related battle, trying to fend off Jamie when he kept asking about his grandfather and wanting to know why Dan wasn’t at his birthday party. Haley finally figures out a solution: allow Jamie to write Dan a thank-you note for his birthday gift. Even then, she simply throws the note in the trash after Jamie gives it to her, making her the third cold, hard b*tch/bastard of the show for the night. Coming in as the fourth member of that club is Lucas former fiancée Lindsey, who gets a visit from Peyton as Peyton tries to help fix Lucas and Lindsey’s broken relationship despite being the primary cause of the trouble. Lindsey wants none of it, handing Peyton a copy of Lucas’ new book and tells her to read it and see who he’s really in love with Lindsey also rejects an online video chat invitation from Lucas, showing she can be as cold and hard as the rest. Peyton’s trip all the way to New York to see Lindsey on the apparently magical, affordable flight always running from Tree Hill to NYC came after she went through her own hard day. It began when Lucas showed up early to go with Brooke and baby Angie, the infant she is temporarily in custody of while Angie is in the U.S. for necessary heart surgery. Peyton walks out of her room in her pajamas, nappy hair and all, the perfect start to her day. She then spends time in her new recording studio with Haley, who is working on her new album. Peyton then jets off to New York for her talk with Lindsey. Staying in Tree Hill is Mouth McFadden, whose decision to turn down an on-air position in Omaha so he can remain with girlfriend Millie has him treading water at work for now. But Mouth sees his fortunes change when his boss at the TV station asks him to fill in for the regular sports anchor who is sick. Mouth accepts the challenge but in the first of three hourly sports reports for the night, he bombs out as Millie watches on TV and sees him stumble. She comes to the station to boost his morale and in the second report of the night, he hits a home run and all is right in his world. He even tells Millie he loves her, a gesture she returns. Making a return of his own in Quentin Fields the talented-but-trouble basketball star that Lucas has kicked off the Tree Hill team and seen return once already this season. With his shooting hand in a cast for six weeks and his team’s playoff chances looking bleak, Quentin decides it’s time for him to quit. He reconsiders when Nathan talks to him and challenges him not to give up, which with encouragement for Jamie and Lucas’ new role for Q that will allow him to play injured is enough to bring back the egotistical star player. The strategy is to use Quentin as the team’s point guard and to have the team shoot all three-pointers and play a fast-paced game to compensate for their lack of a good low-post player. This was another good episode, which is kind of leading me to believe that when the show made its leap ahead in time four years from last season to this one, it just took time for it to find its groove in this new setting. Now that it has, the episodes are consistently good, as good as they’ve been at any time during the show’s run on the WB/CW. We’ll continue this discussion next week, though….
- Coming off of a lackluster season in which he bombed out as the featured running back for the Chicago Bears, you might think Cedric Benson would spend his offseason in the gym, busting his ass to get in top shape and working on his game so he could push his per-carry average past that elusive 3.5 ypc mark. But noooo, my friend, not the case. Instead of trying to prove he’s not a ginormous bust of a high draft pick and to silence the critics who say he’s a waste of time and money, Benson is taking, shall we say an alternate approach to his problems. That alternative would seem to be getting liquored up, getting into his super-expensive boat and going out on the water back in his home state of Texas. That’s where law enforcement just outside of Austin found my man C. Benson Saturday night, drunk off his ass and driving his boat around Lake Charles. When the Lower Colorado River Police observed his erratic driving and stopped him to see what the problem was, things went from bad to worse. Benson was clearly intoxicated and when the cops had the audacity to point that out to him, Benson became belligerent. He battled the officers who tried to arrest him and wound up getting hit not only with the charge of boating under the influence but also resisting arrest. He is alleged to have failed multiple sobriety tests, been hit with pepper spray by the arresting officers and released early Sunday morning. Benson is claiming the police accont of the incident is untrue and that he was wrongfully assaulted by the police after they took him from his boat onto theirs. Either way, spectacular work, Cedric. You clearly did something wrong, maybe not to the extent the police allege, but still, they didn’t just board your yacht, hassle you and beat you up for the heck of it. But this incident will definitely prove to everyone that you really are serious about turning your career around and earning the massive contract you got as the fourth overall pick in the 2005 draft! Well, either that or it will reinforce the fact that you’re an ignorant, irresponsible, reckless idiot who isn’t dedicated to anything except getting his drink on and partying the offseason away so he can come back this fall and deliver another mediocre year for his team. Have fun with that, Ced, because you’re the only one who’s going to…..
- Not that I don’t appreciate anything that will keep Amy Winehouse from singing on the soundtrack, but the explanation given by her producer for why her track for the movie won't happen is bogus. With reports circulating that Winehouse was finishing a song to appear in the new Bond flick Quantum of Solace, producer Mark Ronson said it would “take a miracle” for the song to be completed in time for the release of the soundtrack. He added that Winehouse “just isn’t ready to record any music” and just last week received a warning from police after another crazy night out. See, that’s where I have a problem with what Ronson is selling. My man, your girl Amy has never been ready to record anything close to resembling music, but that’s never stopped her before. The things she’s put out don’t even resemble music, but rather a drunken, slurred, brain-damaged mimicking of Bob Dylan on his worst day. As best I can tell, there are no actual lyrics to any of Winehouse’s “songs,” just a bunch of incoherent, indecipherable syllables slurred together over some recycled, sampled notes from other pop music. On top of that, all of those efforts have apparently been while she was either drunk or coked up, so why would being in that state now be enough to prevent her from recording? What, are you concerned that she’s going to be less understandable and less clear? Give whatever explanation you want, just not that one. I’m fine with whatever it takes to keep from singing, but give me a plausible explanation next time.
- It was the invasion of the parents last night on Greek. Freshmen Parents weekend was in full effect, creating no shortage of headaches for Rusty Cartwright, his roommate Dale, Rusty’s fellow pledges at Kappa Tau and even his sister Casey. Mr. and Mrs. Cartwright, both professors, came with a very defined, structured idea of what college should be like for their two children and what their kids should be up to at college. Suffice it to say that being a part of a fraternity or sorority wasn’t high on that list. Not helping matters was the fact that Rusty fibbed when telling them about Kappa Tau, saying it was a responsible, service fraternity. When his parents arrived on campus at Cyprus Rhodes, Rusty didn’t even plan to take them by the frat house so he could continue keeping the truth from them. However, an encounter with Beaver, a.k.a. Charles, exposed Rusty’s plan and he was forced to bring his parents to the Kappa Tau barbecue along with all of the other frat parents. Before the Cartwrights could make it there, though, they stopped by the Zeta Beta Zeta sorority to see Casey. She was busy hosting the sorority’s tea for visiting parents of their own freshmen, including Rebecca Logan’s father, the senator. As Casey bent over backwards to accommodate the senator, Rebecca did her own job of bending, doing everything in her power to keep her father from meeting her boyfriend, the immortal Cappie. She didn’t want their relationship exposed to the “meet the parents” microscope, which Cappie accepted until Rebecca found out that her father was having an affair with one of his aides and decided to use Cappie to piss her dad off as retaliation. Cappie figured out what she was up to and left her hanging at the Kappa Tau barbecue. The barbecue did a great job of fooling Rusty’s parents and the parents of the other KT freshmen, thanks to some last-minute cleaning and a faux buttoned-up atmosphere that included a ginormous banner in the foyer proclaiming it to be an actual service fraternity. Rusty almost pulled off fooling his parents but was done in by Casey, who couldn’t take any more of her parents praising Rusty, their favorite child, for being part of such an amazing group of upstanding young men. Casey literally whipped her car around, made a U-turn and ambushed Rusty at the KT house as they kicked off the real party that started once all of the parents left. When Mr. and Mrs. Cartwright saw the fraternity their son really belonged to, they demanded that he quit immediately. Rusty decided to stand up to them and told them he wasn’t quitting and also that they neded to show more respect to Casey for all she had accomplished, especially with her sorority. Part of Rusty’s epiphany came from Dale’s experience with his parents, who were every bit as stereotype-fulfilling and one-dimensional as Dale has been on the show. They too are fanatical religious zealots, people whose idea of the ideal movie is The Passion of the Christ and whop are so overbearing and doting that they literally roomed with Dale for the entire weekend, sleeping on air mattresses in his dorm room, following him around campus to every class, photographing his every move and being as completely embarrassing as possible. When Dale felt guilty for wanting some time away from them, Rusty reminded him that going to college, growing up and getting separation from his parents wasn’t a crime. That led Rusty to stand up to his own parents, who relented and agreed he could stay in the fraternity. Cappie and Rebecca made peace as well, with Rebecca admitting that she “maybe, quite possibly…cares about” Cappie. A.W.O.L. from the episode were Calvin, Evan Chambers and the rest of the Omega Chi house. But a fun episode, a lot of laughs and the fun hour I’ve come to count on from Greek. So until next time, kiddos…..
- Cold-hearted bastards and b*tches seemed to be the unofficial theme of One Tree Hill last night. With last week’s bombshell that Dan Scott has a fatal heart problem and has six months or less to live unless he gets a transplant, emotions were bound to be running high this week. Dan’s continued pleas to be included in the lives of sons Nathan and Lucas and of his grandson Jamie fell on deaf ears even as Lucas sought out Dan’s doctor to make sure he really was telling the truth about his condition and found out that Dan wasn’t lying. Dan continued to push for inclusion into his sons’ lives, mostly in the hopes of mending the relationships he destroyed when he murdered his brother Keith. Nathan turned Dan down at every stop, even when Dan showed up at the gym while Nathan was shooting hoops with Jamie. Lucas went to visit Dan as well and told him that even if Dan was dying, he was already dead to most of the people in life so it didn’t really matter. Both sons steadfastly refused to allow Dan back into their lives, with Lucas saying over and over that dying couldn’t happen to a better guy and that it was what Dan deserved. Nathan’s wife Haley was fighting her own Dan-related battle, trying to fend off Jamie when he kept asking about his grandfather and wanting to know why Dan wasn’t at his birthday party. Haley finally figures out a solution: allow Jamie to write Dan a thank-you note for his birthday gift. Even then, she simply throws the note in the trash after Jamie gives it to her, making her the third cold, hard b*tch/bastard of the show for the night. Coming in as the fourth member of that club is Lucas former fiancée Lindsey, who gets a visit from Peyton as Peyton tries to help fix Lucas and Lindsey’s broken relationship despite being the primary cause of the trouble. Lindsey wants none of it, handing Peyton a copy of Lucas’ new book and tells her to read it and see who he’s really in love with Lindsey also rejects an online video chat invitation from Lucas, showing she can be as cold and hard as the rest. Peyton’s trip all the way to New York to see Lindsey on the apparently magical, affordable flight always running from Tree Hill to NYC came after she went through her own hard day. It began when Lucas showed up early to go with Brooke and baby Angie, the infant she is temporarily in custody of while Angie is in the U.S. for necessary heart surgery. Peyton walks out of her room in her pajamas, nappy hair and all, the perfect start to her day. She then spends time in her new recording studio with Haley, who is working on her new album. Peyton then jets off to New York for her talk with Lindsey. Staying in Tree Hill is Mouth McFadden, whose decision to turn down an on-air position in Omaha so he can remain with girlfriend Millie has him treading water at work for now. But Mouth sees his fortunes change when his boss at the TV station asks him to fill in for the regular sports anchor who is sick. Mouth accepts the challenge but in the first of three hourly sports reports for the night, he bombs out as Millie watches on TV and sees him stumble. She comes to the station to boost his morale and in the second report of the night, he hits a home run and all is right in his world. He even tells Millie he loves her, a gesture she returns. Making a return of his own in Quentin Fields the talented-but-trouble basketball star that Lucas has kicked off the Tree Hill team and seen return once already this season. With his shooting hand in a cast for six weeks and his team’s playoff chances looking bleak, Quentin decides it’s time for him to quit. He reconsiders when Nathan talks to him and challenges him not to give up, which with encouragement for Jamie and Lucas’ new role for Q that will allow him to play injured is enough to bring back the egotistical star player. The strategy is to use Quentin as the team’s point guard and to have the team shoot all three-pointers and play a fast-paced game to compensate for their lack of a good low-post player. This was another good episode, which is kind of leading me to believe that when the show made its leap ahead in time four years from last season to this one, it just took time for it to find its groove in this new setting. Now that it has, the episodes are consistently good, as good as they’ve been at any time during the show’s run on the WB/CW. We’ll continue this discussion next week, though….
- Coming off of a lackluster season in which he bombed out as the featured running back for the Chicago Bears, you might think Cedric Benson would spend his offseason in the gym, busting his ass to get in top shape and working on his game so he could push his per-carry average past that elusive 3.5 ypc mark. But noooo, my friend, not the case. Instead of trying to prove he’s not a ginormous bust of a high draft pick and to silence the critics who say he’s a waste of time and money, Benson is taking, shall we say an alternate approach to his problems. That alternative would seem to be getting liquored up, getting into his super-expensive boat and going out on the water back in his home state of Texas. That’s where law enforcement just outside of Austin found my man C. Benson Saturday night, drunk off his ass and driving his boat around Lake Charles. When the Lower Colorado River Police observed his erratic driving and stopped him to see what the problem was, things went from bad to worse. Benson was clearly intoxicated and when the cops had the audacity to point that out to him, Benson became belligerent. He battled the officers who tried to arrest him and wound up getting hit not only with the charge of boating under the influence but also resisting arrest. He is alleged to have failed multiple sobriety tests, been hit with pepper spray by the arresting officers and released early Sunday morning. Benson is claiming the police accont of the incident is untrue and that he was wrongfully assaulted by the police after they took him from his boat onto theirs. Either way, spectacular work, Cedric. You clearly did something wrong, maybe not to the extent the police allege, but still, they didn’t just board your yacht, hassle you and beat you up for the heck of it. But this incident will definitely prove to everyone that you really are serious about turning your career around and earning the massive contract you got as the fourth overall pick in the 2005 draft! Well, either that or it will reinforce the fact that you’re an ignorant, irresponsible, reckless idiot who isn’t dedicated to anything except getting his drink on and partying the offseason away so he can come back this fall and deliver another mediocre year for his team. Have fun with that, Ced, because you’re the only one who’s going to…..
- Not that I don’t appreciate anything that will keep Amy Winehouse from singing on the soundtrack, but the explanation given by her producer for why her track for the movie won't happen is bogus. With reports circulating that Winehouse was finishing a song to appear in the new Bond flick Quantum of Solace, producer Mark Ronson said it would “take a miracle” for the song to be completed in time for the release of the soundtrack. He added that Winehouse “just isn’t ready to record any music” and just last week received a warning from police after another crazy night out. See, that’s where I have a problem with what Ronson is selling. My man, your girl Amy has never been ready to record anything close to resembling music, but that’s never stopped her before. The things she’s put out don’t even resemble music, but rather a drunken, slurred, brain-damaged mimicking of Bob Dylan on his worst day. As best I can tell, there are no actual lyrics to any of Winehouse’s “songs,” just a bunch of incoherent, indecipherable syllables slurred together over some recycled, sampled notes from other pop music. On top of that, all of those efforts have apparently been while she was either drunk or coked up, so why would being in that state now be enough to prevent her from recording? What, are you concerned that she’s going to be less understandable and less clear? Give whatever explanation you want, just not that one. I’m fine with whatever it takes to keep from singing, but give me a plausible explanation next time.
Monday, May 05, 2008
An Album to Avoid, one to love and horse racing is still not a sport
- What’s the price of fighting against oppression, fighting for freedom and standing up against the worst country in the world when it comes to violating human rights? The answer appears to be a jail sentence somewhere between three years to life. That lesson was learned this week by 30 people, including sic Buddhist monks, who had the audacity to take part in violent anti-Chinese riots in Tibet as Tibetans struggled to throw off the oppressive weight of Chinese rule in their country. These sentences could be a huge influence on how dissidents are dealt with in this revolution, as they are the first meted out to individuals who took part in assaulting, burning, looting and vandalizing (four of my very favorite things of all-time) Han Chinese and their businesses in Tibet’s capital city of Lhasa between March 14-16. Yeah, because that’s a great reason to put someone in prison for life, because they had the testicular fortitude to stand up to your overbearing, oppressive regime. Good one, Chinese courts! Keep reacting this way and you’ll shed that nasty rep as a disregarder and trampler of basic human rights and freedoms in no time….or not…..
- A more perfect marriage of entities that are steadily helping to poison and ruin music could not be made in a million years. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has become an absolute farce by inducting totally un-rock artists like the Material Skank, Madonna, showing that the only thing rock n’ roll about the place is its name. On the other hand, American Karaoke has done its own significant share of damage by collecting hack karaoke-ers, having them sing wretched renditions of song that generally sucked to begin with or ruining songs that were previously good and giving these losers and the three idiots who are the show’s “judges” the idea that they actually matter. So the announcement that next week’s AK theme will be “music from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame” could not be more appropriate. (They could save themselves some time and just term every week on the show “karaoke singers show totally blow giving lame performances of typically abysmal songs while egotistical, pompous, self-serving fake judges offer caustic and/or marginally insane and incoherent observations, just saying.) The songs will allegedly come from a list of the “500 Songs that Shaped Rock Music,” so the remaining karaoke singers on the show may have a chance to mangle and pummel some truly legendary songs, maybe even an AC/DC classic or two. This could be the week that the music really does die, or perhaps suffers a serious head trauma, bleeding in the ears and failure of internal organs due to inept, musically un-talented losers wrecking great rock songs.
- Oh, isn’t this just poetic irony at its best….a reading program initiated by a president who has more trouble with that very activity than most first graders is being called a failure. The Reading First program was started by our own Idiot in Chief W., which in and of itself is a problem. You don’t want Rosie O’Donnell starting a nutrition program for kids, you don’t allow Michael Jackson anywhere near kids, you don’t let Heidi Montag to teach your kids how to sing and you most definitely do not allow a borderline illiterate like W. to found a program that helps kids learn how to read. Even if he’s not involved in the day-to-day operations, it’s still bad karma by association. In its short time in existence, the program has been plagued by conflicts of interest, budget difficulties and now by the fact that the U.S. Department of Education says it is no more effective at combating illiteracy among children than programs that were already in place. Studies showed no difference in reading comprehension scores between children who took part in Reading First and those that didn’t. Congress recently cut funding to the program, so this news isn’t exactly going to help convince them that they were wrong to do so. It’s a key part of W.’s No Child Left Behind law, which was supposed to revolutionize the educational system in this country. Either that or offer up more of the same status quo bullsh*t that we’ve had before now. This is just another failure to add to a growing litany of them for the worst president in the history of civilization as he prepares to leave office later this year. But don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll add several more abject failures to his list of accomplishments before exiting stage left….
- Keep trying to pretend like you’re a real sport, horse racing. Last time I checked, true sports don’t have the overwhelming majority of their power, speed and energy provided by an animal. Sports are played by humans, and no, some midget riding on the horsie’s back and whipping him around a big oval doesn’t constitute playing. And oh yeah, I don’t remember any sport other than yours having one of its competitors euthanized on the field of play right after a race. But that’s just what happened at the 134th Kentucky Derby on Saturday, with filly Eight Belles fracturing both ankles, falling to the track and being euthanized on the spot after finishing second in the race. Nice ending, horse racing. Can’t say as I remember Olympic sprinter Michael Johnson pulling up lame after the 400 meter event and being humanely killed on the spot. Don’t recall marathon legend Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia breaking his ankles in a race and having to be put down at the finish line. What an awesome image and a great testament to the pageantry and majesty of your “sport.” Gotta love the rich people in ugly pastel outfits, women in butt-ugly hats and $1,000 mint juleps too. Let me help you out here, horse racing. Until the horses are riding on the backs of the humans or the humans are racing the horses around the track, it’s not a sport. It’s also not cool to have a competition where one of the competitors is humanely killed right on the track following the race. So just stop pretending that you’re a sport and just go away…..
- No “Album to Avoid” this week, just a great album that came out back on April 22 that I’ve been listening to regularly ever since I got it. The new disc from Tokyo Police club is called Elephant Shell, and it’s a fantastic album. This is a funky, fast-paced alt/punk album with an unorthodox style, smart lyrics and outstanding vocals all the way through. There’s also some great guitar distortion and a few spots where the guys manage to include a little keyboard action, something I’m usually not down with but enjoyed this time. Songs like the album’s lead track, “Centennial” give off a certain Death Cab for Cutie vibe, just more upbeat. The album’s fourth song, “Juno,” gets started with a catchy percussion sequence that sets the pace for a fast, radio-friendly tune. Another great track, “Your English is Good,” carries a message of not needing to change who you are in order to satisfy your critics. It’s a fantastic album from start to finish, a diverse range of sounds and some great lyrics as well, almost enough to make your forget all about needing a bad album to rip, one for me to tell you to avoid at all costs….aww, who am I kidding? I do have an “Album to Avoid” and it comes from an all-timer in this category, someone who has produced literally dozens of unlistenable albums that have been so bad the mere mention of them makes me ill. Yes, it’s the Material Skank herself, Madonna, back with a new album where in she once again tries to reinvent herself into a new genre while forgetting that no matter what genre she goes with, she still sucks. She’s tried dance, pop, techno…and now, hip-hop. Yup, a woman who is about as ghetto as milk and cookies is bringing her suckiness to a new musical world and I for one could not be less excited. The M.S. recruits hip-hop producers Pharrell and Timbaland (who will apparently whore himself out to any artist, no matter how much they blow, as long as they pay enough - seriously, Nelly Furtado, Justin Timberlake, Madonna, what hack won't this guy produce for?) to try and help her establish some rap cred, an attempt that bombs out miserably. The result is Hard Candy, an album even less appealing than that damn rock candy it takes its name after, a candy that nearly breaks all of your teeth and still manages to be more satiable than this terrible album. Songs like “Give It To Me” are the type of raunchy, garbage tracks you’ve come to expect from the Material Skank. Adding to the atrocious train wreck of an album is the M.S.’s attempt to incorporate another wreteched musical genre inot the mix, possibly the most horrifically bad genre of all-time: disco. That attempt comes on Beat Goes On, a really bad homage to Donna Summer. Yes, this is an ”Album to Avoid” for the ages, a true pantheon album that isn’t worth the cheap paper used for the liner notes…..
- A more perfect marriage of entities that are steadily helping to poison and ruin music could not be made in a million years. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has become an absolute farce by inducting totally un-rock artists like the Material Skank, Madonna, showing that the only thing rock n’ roll about the place is its name. On the other hand, American Karaoke has done its own significant share of damage by collecting hack karaoke-ers, having them sing wretched renditions of song that generally sucked to begin with or ruining songs that were previously good and giving these losers and the three idiots who are the show’s “judges” the idea that they actually matter. So the announcement that next week’s AK theme will be “music from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame” could not be more appropriate. (They could save themselves some time and just term every week on the show “karaoke singers show totally blow giving lame performances of typically abysmal songs while egotistical, pompous, self-serving fake judges offer caustic and/or marginally insane and incoherent observations, just saying.) The songs will allegedly come from a list of the “500 Songs that Shaped Rock Music,” so the remaining karaoke singers on the show may have a chance to mangle and pummel some truly legendary songs, maybe even an AC/DC classic or two. This could be the week that the music really does die, or perhaps suffers a serious head trauma, bleeding in the ears and failure of internal organs due to inept, musically un-talented losers wrecking great rock songs.
- Oh, isn’t this just poetic irony at its best….a reading program initiated by a president who has more trouble with that very activity than most first graders is being called a failure. The Reading First program was started by our own Idiot in Chief W., which in and of itself is a problem. You don’t want Rosie O’Donnell starting a nutrition program for kids, you don’t allow Michael Jackson anywhere near kids, you don’t let Heidi Montag to teach your kids how to sing and you most definitely do not allow a borderline illiterate like W. to found a program that helps kids learn how to read. Even if he’s not involved in the day-to-day operations, it’s still bad karma by association. In its short time in existence, the program has been plagued by conflicts of interest, budget difficulties and now by the fact that the U.S. Department of Education says it is no more effective at combating illiteracy among children than programs that were already in place. Studies showed no difference in reading comprehension scores between children who took part in Reading First and those that didn’t. Congress recently cut funding to the program, so this news isn’t exactly going to help convince them that they were wrong to do so. It’s a key part of W.’s No Child Left Behind law, which was supposed to revolutionize the educational system in this country. Either that or offer up more of the same status quo bullsh*t that we’ve had before now. This is just another failure to add to a growing litany of them for the worst president in the history of civilization as he prepares to leave office later this year. But don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll add several more abject failures to his list of accomplishments before exiting stage left….
- Keep trying to pretend like you’re a real sport, horse racing. Last time I checked, true sports don’t have the overwhelming majority of their power, speed and energy provided by an animal. Sports are played by humans, and no, some midget riding on the horsie’s back and whipping him around a big oval doesn’t constitute playing. And oh yeah, I don’t remember any sport other than yours having one of its competitors euthanized on the field of play right after a race. But that’s just what happened at the 134th Kentucky Derby on Saturday, with filly Eight Belles fracturing both ankles, falling to the track and being euthanized on the spot after finishing second in the race. Nice ending, horse racing. Can’t say as I remember Olympic sprinter Michael Johnson pulling up lame after the 400 meter event and being humanely killed on the spot. Don’t recall marathon legend Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia breaking his ankles in a race and having to be put down at the finish line. What an awesome image and a great testament to the pageantry and majesty of your “sport.” Gotta love the rich people in ugly pastel outfits, women in butt-ugly hats and $1,000 mint juleps too. Let me help you out here, horse racing. Until the horses are riding on the backs of the humans or the humans are racing the horses around the track, it’s not a sport. It’s also not cool to have a competition where one of the competitors is humanely killed right on the track following the race. So just stop pretending that you’re a sport and just go away…..
- No “Album to Avoid” this week, just a great album that came out back on April 22 that I’ve been listening to regularly ever since I got it. The new disc from Tokyo Police club is called Elephant Shell, and it’s a fantastic album. This is a funky, fast-paced alt/punk album with an unorthodox style, smart lyrics and outstanding vocals all the way through. There’s also some great guitar distortion and a few spots where the guys manage to include a little keyboard action, something I’m usually not down with but enjoyed this time. Songs like the album’s lead track, “Centennial” give off a certain Death Cab for Cutie vibe, just more upbeat. The album’s fourth song, “Juno,” gets started with a catchy percussion sequence that sets the pace for a fast, radio-friendly tune. Another great track, “Your English is Good,” carries a message of not needing to change who you are in order to satisfy your critics. It’s a fantastic album from start to finish, a diverse range of sounds and some great lyrics as well, almost enough to make your forget all about needing a bad album to rip, one for me to tell you to avoid at all costs….aww, who am I kidding? I do have an “Album to Avoid” and it comes from an all-timer in this category, someone who has produced literally dozens of unlistenable albums that have been so bad the mere mention of them makes me ill. Yes, it’s the Material Skank herself, Madonna, back with a new album where in she once again tries to reinvent herself into a new genre while forgetting that no matter what genre she goes with, she still sucks. She’s tried dance, pop, techno…and now, hip-hop. Yup, a woman who is about as ghetto as milk and cookies is bringing her suckiness to a new musical world and I for one could not be less excited. The M.S. recruits hip-hop producers Pharrell and Timbaland (who will apparently whore himself out to any artist, no matter how much they blow, as long as they pay enough - seriously, Nelly Furtado, Justin Timberlake, Madonna, what hack won't this guy produce for?) to try and help her establish some rap cred, an attempt that bombs out miserably. The result is Hard Candy, an album even less appealing than that damn rock candy it takes its name after, a candy that nearly breaks all of your teeth and still manages to be more satiable than this terrible album. Songs like “Give It To Me” are the type of raunchy, garbage tracks you’ve come to expect from the Material Skank. Adding to the atrocious train wreck of an album is the M.S.’s attempt to incorporate another wreteched musical genre inot the mix, possibly the most horrifically bad genre of all-time: disco. That attempt comes on Beat Goes On, a really bad homage to Donna Summer. Yes, this is an ”Album to Avoid” for the ages, a true pantheon album that isn’t worth the cheap paper used for the liner notes…..
Sunday, May 04, 2008
Adios Julio Franco, Grand Theft Auto IV and 32 years on the run ends for a female felon
- A truly memorable era came to an end in baseball yesterday. Julio Franco announced his retirement, ending a career that began way back in 1982, spanned 23 Major League Baseball seasons and extended all the way down into the Mexican League on multiple occasions, including this season, as well as stints iin Korea, Japan and the Dominican Republic. Franco was an iconic figure, a guy who was still going strong in his late 40s and underwent a major transformation from the point when he entered the majors as a skinny shortstop with a funky batting stance to recent years when he was a valuable reserve on some good Braves and Mets teams as a rocked up, muscular first baseman. He didn’t do it the wrong way, though; Franco was notorious for waking up at 3 a.m. to drink protein shakes and fruit beverages he made in his own juicer and working out like a fiend. One year late in his career, his teammates got the Franco a birthday cake and he actually didn’t eat any of it because he refuses to eat and sweets. For his career, Franco pounded out 2,586 hits, a number that would have far exceeded the 3,000 that almost guarantees entry into the Baseball Hall of Fame if not for those years spent in exile down in Mexico. My man Julio played for nine different teams in MLB, including Texas, Cleveland, Tampa Bay and Atlanta. He broke into the majors in 1982 with the Philadelphia Phillies as a shortstop and made a name for himself by hitting for a high average while having the most bizarre batting stance I’ve ever seen. He crouched down, knees bent, butt stuck way out, arms raised slightly forward and curling back up over his head, the bat running parallel to the middle of his head and pointing straight backwards. Franco’s MLB career ended with the New York Mets last season, 2,586 hits and a wealth of memories later. He was a true character with character, a good guy who worked hard in order to become a valuable player despite having been in baseball longer than some of his teammates had been alive. It’s sad that he didn’t reach his goal of playing in the majors until he was 50, but compared to all he accomplished, that’s a small footnote in his story. Congrats on an amazing career, Julio. You deserve huge round of applause and you’ll be missed.
- Summer blockbusters put themselves in a tough spot just on the basis of the sheer hype they receive. You see so many commercials and promos for them and their stars appear on so many shows trying to drum up interest in them that by the time they come out, you’re either going to love them or hate them. Expectations are so high that they either wow you or they fall woefully short, with too many recent summer blockbusters falling into the latter category. Just last summer, Spiderman 3, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End and Ocean’s Thirteen all fell short of lofty standards, although Ocean’s Thirteen was actually a pretty decent movie in my estimation. The only major motion picture to meet and possibly exceed expectations was the flat-out awesome Bourne Ultimatum, which provided a fantastic capper to the Bourne trilogy. Iron Man, starring oft-troubled Robert Downey Jr., finds itself in that blockbuster category as it opens this weekend. Based on what I saw, it falls much more into the “meeting expectations” category than into the category most of last summer’s major movies fell into. The movie centers on billionaire businessman Tony Stark, a wealthy weapons manufacturer with a massive ego to match his massive wealth. He’s a walking mass of contradictions, a man who loves building things but makes a living off of selling weapons that destroy things. Things take a significant turn for the worst when Stark is on a trip to Afghanistan to demonstrate an amazing new missile his company has developed and he’s kidnapped by a terrorist group that uses weapons of his own making to torture him. The only way they’ll let him go is if he creates a über-destructive weapon for their own use. Instead, Stark outsmarts the terrorists (always a safe ploy for a movie to cater to the audience) and builds a powerful metal suit (hmm, maybe this is where the movie gets its name…) that he miraculously manages to keep the construction of hidden from his captors. After escaping, Stark decides that he wants out of the weapons business, a move that doesn’t sit well with those at the top of his company. He also becomes obsessed with constructing a bigger, better version of the metal suit, a pursuit that threatens to consume him. Woven in is the prospect of a romance with his loyal assistant, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow). Although the movie does make some leaps on plauability, it is key to remember that it is adapted from a comic book, so you’re not exactly dealing with a traditional plot here. That being said, the action and drama are good enough to make the 2 hours, 6 minutes of the movie go by at a good pace and not drag much. The writing and dialogue are decent, especially for a comic book-based film. Overall, it’s a flick I’d rate a solid B+/A-, right on the border…..
- And you thought the omnipresent commercials for crank-enhancing pills like Viagra, Cialis, etc. during sporting events were bad here in the United States. Well…they are bad, awful, uncomfortable, awkward, weird and any other creepy, negative adjective you can think of. Hearing about those pills and seeing images of dudes pumping footballs through swinging tires or of people sharing adjoining outdoor bathtubs on a hill overlooking the sunset will be enough to make my stomach turn any day of any week. That being said, it could be worse. It could be like it is in one particular working class suburb of Santiago, Chile, where the local mayor launching a program to distribute free crank enhancer medicine to all senior citizens. He thinks geezers getting after it helps improve the overall quality of life. As many as 1,500 residents are eligible to receive up to four pills per month, which I’m sure won't fall into the wrong hands. I mean, no men who don’t need the pills will get them anyhow and then sell them off to make money, right? No one ever dares to abuse this kind of program, do they? Actually, I’d support a program like this here in the U.S…..as long as it meant the immediate and permanent discontinuation of those revolting, nasty commercials for the pills. Deal?
- The rich, uppity, elitist people in San Diego’s Carmel Valley neighborhood should have enough gossip for the next five years or more based on one single incident that happened in their ‘hood this past week. Their neighbor Marie Walsh, a.k.a. Susan LeFevre, was arrested and carted off by police after they received a tip that Walsh, who had been living in the area for years, was actually LeFevre, the same woman who escaped from prison in Detroit 32 years ago. When she escaped back in 1976, Walsh/LeFevre headed for the West Coast, got married and had three children. She settled down, raised her family and integrated herself into the posh surroundings of Carmel Valley. Now her neighbors can dish gossip about where they were and what they saw the day their neighbor was arrested and revealed to be a wanted fugitive, more than enough gossip to fuel their fires for months, if not years. Amazing that after all these years, some anonymous tipster happened to find out who this woman was, but I guess that every now and then, on rare occasions, justice is actually served in this country….assuming you’re not a rich, accused murderer, that is…..
- Wondering where all your guy friends between the ages of 18 and 34 have been the past week? I might be able to help you there if you haven’t already figured it out. They’ve been entrenched in front of their TVs, but not to watch a sporting event - unless you consider pretending to be a car thief running around assaulting, killing and sexing it up to be a sport. Yes, it’s the release of Grand Theft Auto IV, the next evolution in a game that has become the poster child for those looking to lament and bemoan the excess of sex, violence and debauchery in the video game world. You can pick it up for your Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, etc.) My question is who doesn’t love a game where you can get after it with hookers, beat up old ladies, bowl, play pool, rob people, steal cars, go on dates and kill people? Heck, there’s even a graphic, non-interactive S&M scene right as the game starts. How could you not love that? What parent isn’t buying this game and sitting down with their kids to play it? There’s blood, nudity and profanity galore, the trifecta of video game “musts.” The game continues to growing trend of having a story line and placing the player in the shoes of a character, living out their life and inserting themselves into a reality that the ostensibly will enjoy more than living their actual, real life his in the real world. The story in this game is that of Niko Bellic, an Eastern European who has just arrived in the United States. He hits the ground running in Liberty City, surprisingly like New York City. His cousin Roman meets him there and although Roman has been talking up America for years, Niko is met only with a crappy apartment and a bad job at a car service. But that job quickly turns into being an errand boy for a low-level mob boss, at which point things get really interesting. If you want to find out the rest, you’ll have to buy the game and walk the streets of Liberty City yourself, right alongside the hookers, dealers, pimps, junkies and average citizens. It’s a wild, graphic, colorful ride and one that can get very addictive very quickly, thus the realization that you probably haven’t seen a lot of your guy friends since Tuesday when they got their hands on the game….
- Summer blockbusters put themselves in a tough spot just on the basis of the sheer hype they receive. You see so many commercials and promos for them and their stars appear on so many shows trying to drum up interest in them that by the time they come out, you’re either going to love them or hate them. Expectations are so high that they either wow you or they fall woefully short, with too many recent summer blockbusters falling into the latter category. Just last summer, Spiderman 3, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End and Ocean’s Thirteen all fell short of lofty standards, although Ocean’s Thirteen was actually a pretty decent movie in my estimation. The only major motion picture to meet and possibly exceed expectations was the flat-out awesome Bourne Ultimatum, which provided a fantastic capper to the Bourne trilogy. Iron Man, starring oft-troubled Robert Downey Jr., finds itself in that blockbuster category as it opens this weekend. Based on what I saw, it falls much more into the “meeting expectations” category than into the category most of last summer’s major movies fell into. The movie centers on billionaire businessman Tony Stark, a wealthy weapons manufacturer with a massive ego to match his massive wealth. He’s a walking mass of contradictions, a man who loves building things but makes a living off of selling weapons that destroy things. Things take a significant turn for the worst when Stark is on a trip to Afghanistan to demonstrate an amazing new missile his company has developed and he’s kidnapped by a terrorist group that uses weapons of his own making to torture him. The only way they’ll let him go is if he creates a über-destructive weapon for their own use. Instead, Stark outsmarts the terrorists (always a safe ploy for a movie to cater to the audience) and builds a powerful metal suit (hmm, maybe this is where the movie gets its name…) that he miraculously manages to keep the construction of hidden from his captors. After escaping, Stark decides that he wants out of the weapons business, a move that doesn’t sit well with those at the top of his company. He also becomes obsessed with constructing a bigger, better version of the metal suit, a pursuit that threatens to consume him. Woven in is the prospect of a romance with his loyal assistant, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow). Although the movie does make some leaps on plauability, it is key to remember that it is adapted from a comic book, so you’re not exactly dealing with a traditional plot here. That being said, the action and drama are good enough to make the 2 hours, 6 minutes of the movie go by at a good pace and not drag much. The writing and dialogue are decent, especially for a comic book-based film. Overall, it’s a flick I’d rate a solid B+/A-, right on the border…..
- And you thought the omnipresent commercials for crank-enhancing pills like Viagra, Cialis, etc. during sporting events were bad here in the United States. Well…they are bad, awful, uncomfortable, awkward, weird and any other creepy, negative adjective you can think of. Hearing about those pills and seeing images of dudes pumping footballs through swinging tires or of people sharing adjoining outdoor bathtubs on a hill overlooking the sunset will be enough to make my stomach turn any day of any week. That being said, it could be worse. It could be like it is in one particular working class suburb of Santiago, Chile, where the local mayor launching a program to distribute free crank enhancer medicine to all senior citizens. He thinks geezers getting after it helps improve the overall quality of life. As many as 1,500 residents are eligible to receive up to four pills per month, which I’m sure won't fall into the wrong hands. I mean, no men who don’t need the pills will get them anyhow and then sell them off to make money, right? No one ever dares to abuse this kind of program, do they? Actually, I’d support a program like this here in the U.S…..as long as it meant the immediate and permanent discontinuation of those revolting, nasty commercials for the pills. Deal?
- The rich, uppity, elitist people in San Diego’s Carmel Valley neighborhood should have enough gossip for the next five years or more based on one single incident that happened in their ‘hood this past week. Their neighbor Marie Walsh, a.k.a. Susan LeFevre, was arrested and carted off by police after they received a tip that Walsh, who had been living in the area for years, was actually LeFevre, the same woman who escaped from prison in Detroit 32 years ago. When she escaped back in 1976, Walsh/LeFevre headed for the West Coast, got married and had three children. She settled down, raised her family and integrated herself into the posh surroundings of Carmel Valley. Now her neighbors can dish gossip about where they were and what they saw the day their neighbor was arrested and revealed to be a wanted fugitive, more than enough gossip to fuel their fires for months, if not years. Amazing that after all these years, some anonymous tipster happened to find out who this woman was, but I guess that every now and then, on rare occasions, justice is actually served in this country….assuming you’re not a rich, accused murderer, that is…..
- Wondering where all your guy friends between the ages of 18 and 34 have been the past week? I might be able to help you there if you haven’t already figured it out. They’ve been entrenched in front of their TVs, but not to watch a sporting event - unless you consider pretending to be a car thief running around assaulting, killing and sexing it up to be a sport. Yes, it’s the release of Grand Theft Auto IV, the next evolution in a game that has become the poster child for those looking to lament and bemoan the excess of sex, violence and debauchery in the video game world. You can pick it up for your Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, etc.) My question is who doesn’t love a game where you can get after it with hookers, beat up old ladies, bowl, play pool, rob people, steal cars, go on dates and kill people? Heck, there’s even a graphic, non-interactive S&M scene right as the game starts. How could you not love that? What parent isn’t buying this game and sitting down with their kids to play it? There’s blood, nudity and profanity galore, the trifecta of video game “musts.” The game continues to growing trend of having a story line and placing the player in the shoes of a character, living out their life and inserting themselves into a reality that the ostensibly will enjoy more than living their actual, real life his in the real world. The story in this game is that of Niko Bellic, an Eastern European who has just arrived in the United States. He hits the ground running in Liberty City, surprisingly like New York City. His cousin Roman meets him there and although Roman has been talking up America for years, Niko is met only with a crappy apartment and a bad job at a car service. But that job quickly turns into being an errand boy for a low-level mob boss, at which point things get really interesting. If you want to find out the rest, you’ll have to buy the game and walk the streets of Liberty City yourself, right alongside the hookers, dealers, pimps, junkies and average citizens. It’s a wild, graphic, colorful ride and one that can get very addictive very quickly, thus the realization that you probably haven’t seen a lot of your guy friends since Tuesday when they got their hands on the game….
Saturday, May 03, 2008
A felonious tradition in Cincinnati, W. tries to shift blame and LSU football gets rid of a moron
- Criminal activity by Cincinnati Bengals players, the gift that just keeps on giving…and giving….and giving. It never stops giving, actually. Not even when the team makes a concerted effort to get rid of its more felonious members and targets players in the draft who are good character guys. No, that kind of commitment to crime is something you can’t stamp out, like a dogged, determined wildfire that just won't die. Assuring the continuation of what has become a tradition in Ohio’s Queen City is Bengals linebacker Ahmad Brooks, who has been hit with a charge of misdemeanor assault for allegedly striking a woman in an altercation last month.
A Burlington, Ky. woman has accused Brooks of punching her in the face last month. Brooks was ordered to appear June 6 in Boone District Court on a complaint filed this week by Destiny Rosich. Based on the complaint, prosecutors charged Brooks with fourth-degree assault, a misdemeanor that carries up to a year in prison. Rosich's complaint claims that Brooks got into a loud disagreement with one of her neighbors in nearby Florence on April 9. When she tried to intervene, Brooks punched her in the left eye, temporarily knocking her unconscious, the complaint said. Well done, Ahmad. You really hit the trifecta here. An assault charge, hitting a girl and violating your team’s (and the NFL’s) expressed policy against the very sort of knucklehead behavior you just engaged in. Really, it’s a solid effort and one that shouldn’t go unnoticed. Don’t let anyone change you, Ahmad. Even if it means risking being cut by your team and suspended by the NFL, you keep abusing women, my friend. Be true to yourself, don’t ever change….either that or pull your head out of your ass and realize how much you’re about to throw away if you don’t turn things around, but one or the other.
- So it isn’t just angry feminists in the United States who hate Barbie anymore. Now Iran, always lagging a decade or twenty behind the times in social and cultural issues, is going after the anatomically disproportioned doll, saying the tiny plastic toy as “destructive” cultural and social consequences when imported into a country. Prosecutor General Ghorban Ali Dori Najafabadi (G.A.D.N. as his friends call him) penned an open letter to Vice President Parviz Davoudi labeling Barbie and other Western toys as “dangers’ that need to be stopped. Yeah, because Barbie is what’s going to destroy your backwater, behind-the-times country, you tool. How about you all work on treating the real, living women in your country like actual human beings and then worry about a plastic toy doll that is anatomically out of whack. Barbie’s unnaturally huge chest, tiny hips, etc. aren’t exactly a grave danger to one of the most barbaric, uncivilized nations in all of the Middle East. Way to keep your priorities straight, Iran. Any time you’re on the same page as vigilant femi-Nazis here in the United States, it’s time to reconsider your position on an issue.
- Some observers might say that now-former LSU quarterback Ryan Perrilloux threw away his football career at a perennial national power. I have to disagree with those people vehemently. Oh, it’s true that Perrilloux is no longer a Tiger because of his own actions, but he most definitely did not throw it away. Throwing it away would be having a bad attitude, getting bad grades, not being in good enough shape and never getting off the bench. What Perrilloux did could more aptly be described as dousing his career in gasoline, packing that mo-fo with C4 explosives, lighting a match and blowing the hell out of it, then running it over with a bulldozer to make sure it was dead. There’s just no other way you can describe a guy being given dozens of chances to turn his act around by a program the definitely needed his considerable talents and wasting every one of them. He was involved in a counterfeiting ring last year, not exactly standard fare for even the biggest college knucklehead. He was charged with using a fake ID while trying to gain access to a riverboat casino. He was consistently late for team meetings, didn’t go to class and had repeated run-ins with the law. He basically did everything he could to get kicked off the football team and he finally succeeded, with LSU coach Les Miles pushed to a point that even he couldn’t excuse Perrilloux’s actions any longer in the long-standing tradition of major college football coaches allowing their players to get away with most anything short of murder and still play. However, the offense that put Perrilloux over the top was a failed drug test, according to ESPN.com. That was pretty much all that was left for him anyhow, so maybe it’s good that he is gone from LSU. He’d done the counterfeiting thing, check….done the fake ID gig, check….missed classes and team meetings, check….the only one he may have missed was a nice assault and/or DUI, but no one’s perfect. Enjoy your career at whatever Division 1-AA school you transfer to and play at for a few months before getting suspended there as well, Ryan….
- Irony, thy name is Ashley Alexandra Dupre. You may remember Dupre as “Kristen,” the petite blonde hooker that former Gov. Eliot Spitzer used on repeated occasions for his sexual freakery while in our nation’s capital. For a girl who made her reputation off of taking it from strangers for money, Dupre seems awfully touchy about being seen on video getting after it and acting like a slut. She’s suing one of America’s most popular people to sue, Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis, for $10 million in a suit alleging that she never gave Francis and his company permission to use her name and likeness in videos. According to court papers filed by Dupre and her attorneys, she was 17 at the time these particular acts of skankiness took place in Miami Beach and thus was not of legal age to give said consent. The videos were shot in 2003, back before Dupre made her money by getting plowed by top politicians. At least she’s moving up in terms of being a whore and getting paid for it. Making $1,000 an hour as a call girl for some middle-aged politician is definitely higher on the ladder of slutty money making than appearing in a Girls Gone Wild video, so kudos on that, Ash….
- Oh no he didn’t…..oh wait, yes he did. W. tried yet another feeble, moronic ploy this week to shift blame from where it belongs (on his incompetent, IQ-deprived shoulders) and onto Congress when it comes to America’s flagging economy. Yes, our dollar might be worth less than the paper it’s printed on, gas and food prices might be soaring to unprecedented heights, jobs might be getting cut at an alarming rate and we might be spending tens of billions of dollars a month fighting an unnecessary, interminable war in Iraq, but how can you possibly blame that one the president? It’s not like he started that war or anything….damn, actually he did start it. Well, at least he didn’t reject a new economic stimulus package from Congress this week…damn, he did that too. For sure you can’t say that he led America into a series of disastrous political an economic decisions and then whined like a cranky toddler when Congress was hesitant to accept future suggestions from him…damn, he did that as well. Awfully convenient to suggest that we’d be better off listening to you this time around when your previous decisions have resulted in less success than Clear Pepsi, New Coke and your average Pauly Shore movie, W. What evidence do you have that you can even tie your own shoes, let along turn around a sagging economy? You claiming that you’ve sent Congress several proposals that would have turned around an economy being crushed by a mortgage crisis and student loan debacles only to see those proposals ignored or returned in the form of unacceptable alternatives is just cowardly bullsh*t. It’s like me claiming that I submitted a vaccine that cures cancer but the FDA ignored it. It sounds good and although I can’t actually prove the claim (because it’s a total falsification, just like your claims here), I can still pound my chest and say I did my part, so it’s not my fault. You, Mr. President, are a lying, deceiving, incompetent, moronic, stupid, inept idiot and our country is oh, so much worse for having suffered through your eight years in office, you ass clown. Now stop lying to us and get the frak out of the Oval Office so a competent person can sit in that chair.
A Burlington, Ky. woman has accused Brooks of punching her in the face last month. Brooks was ordered to appear June 6 in Boone District Court on a complaint filed this week by Destiny Rosich. Based on the complaint, prosecutors charged Brooks with fourth-degree assault, a misdemeanor that carries up to a year in prison. Rosich's complaint claims that Brooks got into a loud disagreement with one of her neighbors in nearby Florence on April 9. When she tried to intervene, Brooks punched her in the left eye, temporarily knocking her unconscious, the complaint said. Well done, Ahmad. You really hit the trifecta here. An assault charge, hitting a girl and violating your team’s (and the NFL’s) expressed policy against the very sort of knucklehead behavior you just engaged in. Really, it’s a solid effort and one that shouldn’t go unnoticed. Don’t let anyone change you, Ahmad. Even if it means risking being cut by your team and suspended by the NFL, you keep abusing women, my friend. Be true to yourself, don’t ever change….either that or pull your head out of your ass and realize how much you’re about to throw away if you don’t turn things around, but one or the other.
- So it isn’t just angry feminists in the United States who hate Barbie anymore. Now Iran, always lagging a decade or twenty behind the times in social and cultural issues, is going after the anatomically disproportioned doll, saying the tiny plastic toy as “destructive” cultural and social consequences when imported into a country. Prosecutor General Ghorban Ali Dori Najafabadi (G.A.D.N. as his friends call him) penned an open letter to Vice President Parviz Davoudi labeling Barbie and other Western toys as “dangers’ that need to be stopped. Yeah, because Barbie is what’s going to destroy your backwater, behind-the-times country, you tool. How about you all work on treating the real, living women in your country like actual human beings and then worry about a plastic toy doll that is anatomically out of whack. Barbie’s unnaturally huge chest, tiny hips, etc. aren’t exactly a grave danger to one of the most barbaric, uncivilized nations in all of the Middle East. Way to keep your priorities straight, Iran. Any time you’re on the same page as vigilant femi-Nazis here in the United States, it’s time to reconsider your position on an issue.
- Some observers might say that now-former LSU quarterback Ryan Perrilloux threw away his football career at a perennial national power. I have to disagree with those people vehemently. Oh, it’s true that Perrilloux is no longer a Tiger because of his own actions, but he most definitely did not throw it away. Throwing it away would be having a bad attitude, getting bad grades, not being in good enough shape and never getting off the bench. What Perrilloux did could more aptly be described as dousing his career in gasoline, packing that mo-fo with C4 explosives, lighting a match and blowing the hell out of it, then running it over with a bulldozer to make sure it was dead. There’s just no other way you can describe a guy being given dozens of chances to turn his act around by a program the definitely needed his considerable talents and wasting every one of them. He was involved in a counterfeiting ring last year, not exactly standard fare for even the biggest college knucklehead. He was charged with using a fake ID while trying to gain access to a riverboat casino. He was consistently late for team meetings, didn’t go to class and had repeated run-ins with the law. He basically did everything he could to get kicked off the football team and he finally succeeded, with LSU coach Les Miles pushed to a point that even he couldn’t excuse Perrilloux’s actions any longer in the long-standing tradition of major college football coaches allowing their players to get away with most anything short of murder and still play. However, the offense that put Perrilloux over the top was a failed drug test, according to ESPN.com. That was pretty much all that was left for him anyhow, so maybe it’s good that he is gone from LSU. He’d done the counterfeiting thing, check….done the fake ID gig, check….missed classes and team meetings, check….the only one he may have missed was a nice assault and/or DUI, but no one’s perfect. Enjoy your career at whatever Division 1-AA school you transfer to and play at for a few months before getting suspended there as well, Ryan….
- Irony, thy name is Ashley Alexandra Dupre. You may remember Dupre as “Kristen,” the petite blonde hooker that former Gov. Eliot Spitzer used on repeated occasions for his sexual freakery while in our nation’s capital. For a girl who made her reputation off of taking it from strangers for money, Dupre seems awfully touchy about being seen on video getting after it and acting like a slut. She’s suing one of America’s most popular people to sue, Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis, for $10 million in a suit alleging that she never gave Francis and his company permission to use her name and likeness in videos. According to court papers filed by Dupre and her attorneys, she was 17 at the time these particular acts of skankiness took place in Miami Beach and thus was not of legal age to give said consent. The videos were shot in 2003, back before Dupre made her money by getting plowed by top politicians. At least she’s moving up in terms of being a whore and getting paid for it. Making $1,000 an hour as a call girl for some middle-aged politician is definitely higher on the ladder of slutty money making than appearing in a Girls Gone Wild video, so kudos on that, Ash….
- Oh no he didn’t…..oh wait, yes he did. W. tried yet another feeble, moronic ploy this week to shift blame from where it belongs (on his incompetent, IQ-deprived shoulders) and onto Congress when it comes to America’s flagging economy. Yes, our dollar might be worth less than the paper it’s printed on, gas and food prices might be soaring to unprecedented heights, jobs might be getting cut at an alarming rate and we might be spending tens of billions of dollars a month fighting an unnecessary, interminable war in Iraq, but how can you possibly blame that one the president? It’s not like he started that war or anything….damn, actually he did start it. Well, at least he didn’t reject a new economic stimulus package from Congress this week…damn, he did that too. For sure you can’t say that he led America into a series of disastrous political an economic decisions and then whined like a cranky toddler when Congress was hesitant to accept future suggestions from him…damn, he did that as well. Awfully convenient to suggest that we’d be better off listening to you this time around when your previous decisions have resulted in less success than Clear Pepsi, New Coke and your average Pauly Shore movie, W. What evidence do you have that you can even tie your own shoes, let along turn around a sagging economy? You claiming that you’ve sent Congress several proposals that would have turned around an economy being crushed by a mortgage crisis and student loan debacles only to see those proposals ignored or returned in the form of unacceptable alternatives is just cowardly bullsh*t. It’s like me claiming that I submitted a vaccine that cures cancer but the FDA ignored it. It sounds good and although I can’t actually prove the claim (because it’s a total falsification, just like your claims here), I can still pound my chest and say I did my part, so it’s not my fault. You, Mr. President, are a lying, deceiving, incompetent, moronic, stupid, inept idiot and our country is oh, so much worse for having suffered through your eight years in office, you ass clown. Now stop lying to us and get the frak out of the Oval Office so a competent person can sit in that chair.
Friday, May 02, 2008
Free music, free TV shows, Lost and Smallville reviews
- Look what Radiohead done started, everyone. After the British rockers made their last album In Rainbows available for download on their website and allowed fans to choose the price they paid for it, leading to a lot of free downloads (me included), Chris Martin and the boys of Coldplay are following suit, albeit on a limited basis. With their own new album, titled Viva la Vida, dropping soon, the band decided to release the album’s first single for free on their website. Violet Hill is available for download for a week at www.coldplay.com, having been put on Tuesday morning at 7:15 a.m. and running through next Tuesday morning. I like the concept, mostly because fans get gouged so much by musicians for albums, concert tickets, merchandise, etc. It’s nice to see a band give fans something for free, even if it is just one song from an album. Of course, there are some people out there who find ways to get entire albums for free, but I can’t say I know anything about that. It’s not like I’ve ever borrowed a CD and ripped a copy for myself without paying or anything, never……
- A world without Clark Kent. That was the theme of Smallville this week, taking the Man of Steel out of the equation. As things got underway, we were in the present and Clark was telling Chloe that in spite of BRAINIAC traveling back in time with his cousin Kara and getting ready to kill Clark as an infant before he could be put in his spaceship and sent from Krypton to Earth, he wasn’t going to go back and try to stop it from happening. An S.O.S. message from Kara on 1989 Krypton urged him to take the metal disc that serves as a key to send Clark to the fortress and use it as a means to get back to 1989 Krypton fell on deaf ears. Clark told Chloe the world would be better off if he’d never arrived. It was then that the metal key began humming and giving off light. Clark was transported from the Kent barn to a bizarre world that gave him his own Miracle on 34th Street moment. He was dropped into a world where he had died on Krypton and never made it to Earth. In that world, Chloe was about to get married to some random guy, Jimmy Olsen was a bumbling photographer at the Daily Planet and Lois Lane was his Pulitzer Prize-winning editor. Lana was living in France, married to a wealthy philanthropist and the mother of two beautiful children. Lex Luthor was president and Milton Fine, a.k.a. BRAINIAC, was his chief advisor. Lex was busy with a plan for world domination, creating a major nuclear threat to the United States so he could launch a nuclear attack on the rest of the world. He had Lois seized by the Department of Domestic Security because she uncovered the plan. Lois’ contact, the woman Clark knew as Sheriff Adams in Smallville, told Clark in the bizarre world that Lois was a lost cause now that she’d been seized by the DDS. Clark continued to go throughout the bizarre world, starting at the Kent Farm and meeting the boy who was Clark Kent when he never came to Earth. Using information from Jimmy, Clark was able to track down Lois and save her from the government, but that was far from the end of his troubles. Back at Jimmy’s apartment, Lois shows Clark what President Luthor is really up to. Clark tells her who Milton Fine really is and that he’s the only one who can stop the plot. Lois helps Clark don a classic Superman look, the Clark Kent/dark suit/glasses get-up, and he goes to the press conference where Lex is set to announce his plans. There, Clark comes face to face with Kara, who in this world was found at Reeves Dam (just like in the world that actually happened), but by Lionel Luthor. She was raised as a member of the Luthor family and is one of Lex’s trusted advisors. She also stumbles on the plan to create a false pretense for nuclear war, but Lex tells her that it’s the right thing and that she needs to fall in line. When Clark clues her in to who Fine truly is and what’s going on, they go to Lex together to stop the nuclear launch. Lex tells them that the plan is to wipe out most of the world’s population, saving only the best and brightest in America and under Lex’s leadership, rebuilding and repopulating the Earth. That leads Lex to shoot Clark twice with Kryptonite bullets and shoot Kara as well. Kara is then carted off for treatment and Clark is left with Fine as Lex heads off to the NORAD command center to be safe from the upcoming nuclear war. Fine informs Clark that he plans to use Kara to release Zod, the Kryptonian warlord, from the Phantom Zone, and with Lex (the human vessel for Zod) under his control, he can pair Kara and Lex together to repopulate Earth with Kryptonians and recreate Krypton on Earth. At this point, Clark is shot again by Fine but is simultaneously taken back to the “real” world. There, Jor-El tells him that Clark’s own refusal to accept his destiny forced Jor-El to show him the glimpse into the world without him. Clark changes his mind and uses the key to travel to the Fortress of Solitude, where he can then be sent back to Krypton circa 1989. He and Kara manage to save baby Clark from BRAINIAC/Fine, sending the tiny tot on his way to Earth. Clark actually has the über-weird task of putting his own infant self into the ship to go to Earth, one of the weirder moments in the history of this or any other show. Kara takes on BRAINIAC as this is going on, stabbing him with a chunk of rock and then smashing his prone body with a huge hunk of the same material. However, a demented, laughing BRAINIAC seems to be mocking Kara as she does it. We find out why (sort of) when Lana remains in a coma even when BRAINIAC is destroyed, leaving Clark devastated. He thought killing BRAINIAC would heal her, but it didn’t . He and Kara made it back to present-day Earth, but both wonder about BRAINIAC. How is he still controlling Lana? Lex is concerned too, having sent his doctors to examine Lana and being told her condition is “alien,” unlike anything known on Earth. It’s also irreversible and she’s getting steadily worse, prompting Lex to ask Clark if he knows what caused the coma. Clark lies and says no, which Lex clearly doesn’t buy. At episode’s end, Clark is still researching her condition, trying to find help. Instead, he finds Lois, who offers to console him by buying him a beer. While the two of them go out for a drink, Kara is at the Kent Farm, getting a drink in the middle of the night when she collapses and gets an odd, far-out look in her eyes. It’s hard to tell if it’s because of what she’s looking at or maybe if it’s something going on inside her head. Either way, it’s eerily reminiscent of a scene from early in the series when Martha Kent collapsed while getting a drink in the very same spot in the kitchen. This time, we’re left hanging until next week, so until then, that’s all……
- In looking at last night’s Lost, you have to wonder if you’re being tricked or if you’re seeing things right because on the surface, it seems like an episode that didn’t accomplish much. In the flash forwards, we learn that Jack is able to get over his hang-ups and be a part of Kate and Aaron’s (Claire’s baby) lives. In fact, they live together and are doing quite well - or so it seems. Jack and Kate are in love, Jack proposes to her and she says yes. Jack is growing into the role of dad, he’s become a successful surgeon again and life is good. But a trip to see Hurley at the mental hospital sends Jack off the rails. Hurley has stopped taking his medication because he believes that he and the rest of the Oceanic Six are really dead. The world they think they’re living in is just the afterlife, according to Hurley. He still sees and talks to Charlie, who died on the island at the end of Season Three. Charlie even gives him a message to pass along to Jack, that Jack shouldn’t be raising Claire’s son. The talk with Hurley rattles Jack so bad that he starts seeing his father around at the hospital, even though his father died in Australia years ago. Jack gets a prescription for sleeping pills, starts hitting the hooch and gets into a confrontation with Kate. She’s been sneaking around, lying to Jack because she’s doing a favor she promised to do for Sawyer, who we learn “decided” to stay back on the island, according to Jack. Even off the island, even with Sawyer still there but Jack and Kate gone, the love triangle rages on. Back in the here and now, Jack’s appendix is about to burst and it’s up to Juliet to remove it before it does. The flash forwards come throughout Jack’s surgery, which is good because much more of seeing the cutting, the blood and his insides was going to make me nauseous….but I digress. Juliet was able to do the surgery only after sending Jin, Sun, Daniel and Charlotte to the medical station for surgical supplies. While there, Jin notices that Charlotte understands when he and Sun speak Korean. He later confronts her about it and she denies it until he threatens to hurt Daniel if she keeps lying. Once Jin gets her attention, he makes her promise that when the helicopter comes back, she’ll get Sun on board. Meanwhile, the surgery goes off well, despite Jack’s stubbornness. He insists on being awake during the procedure and having only the surgical area numbed so he can see what’s going on and talk Juliet through it. But when Jack becomes fidgety, Juliet and Bernard decide to chloroform him and knock him out. They send Kate, who has been holding a mirror up above Jack’s abdomen to help him see what’s going on, out of the tent. After that, the surgery goes along just fine and Jack pulls through. While this is going on, a different drama is raging in the forest. Sawyer, Claire, Aaron and Miles are heading back to the beach camp from the barracks, but they have to stop and camp for the night in the middle of the jungle. Before that happens, they have a near-miss with the SWAT-type assault team from the freighter, led by the angry captain of the boat named Keeme (sp). The captain and his men nearly find the small traveling party but the freighter’s resident helicopter pilot Frank Lapidus finds them first and warns them to take cover, lest Keeme and has men find them and kill them. Lapidus then tells the assault team that they need to get moving to make it back to the chopper by nightfall so he doesn’t have to navigate in the dark with only Daniel’s coordinates to guide him. As Sawyer, Claire, Aaron and Miles bunk down for the night, Sawyer warns Miles to keep his distance from Claire, but those words prove unfortunate when Claire wakes up in the middle of the night and wanders off. She initially sees her father, who is also Jack’s father (a fact neither of them is aware of), holding baby Aaron. In the morning, Miles informs a waking Sawyer that Claire walked off into the jungle during the night with a man she was calling “Dad.” Sawyer looks for her but finds only Aaron, wrapped in his blanket, safe and resting on a huge, sturdy leaf of a jungle plant. Claire is gone, nowhere to be found. That’s how things end for this week, so like I said, it seems like a fairly pedestrian episode, but with Lost, nothing is as it seems. Next week there is supposed to be a huge leap backwards in time, something that will explain a lot about the island’s mysterious nature, according to tvguide.com. That being said, see you back here next week……
- Well so much for stars of kids’ TV shows being role models for the millions of kids who watch them. Jamie Lynn Skank, er, Spears shot that idea to hell when the star of Nickelodeon’s Zoey 101 got knocked up at age 16 several months ago. Not exactly the best example for the kids, eh Zoey? But at least kids still had Hannah Montana to look up to, right? Umm, no. Miley Cyrus, daughter of the world’s most famous mullet, Mr. Achy Breaky Heart himself, Billy Ray Cyrus, has made a sexually-tinted mistake of her own that has to have millions of moms and dads cursing under their breath as they try to figure out how they’re going to explain why Hannah Montana is popping up in risqué pictures where she’s wearing nothing but a silk sheet. Famed celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz took the picture, which shows Cyrus with her back exposed and only a sheet covering the rest of her. No sooner did the pic hit the web than Cyrus began apologizing for it and issuing statements about how embarrassed she was. Should have thought of that before you agreed to let Leibovitz take the picture, M. You and your dad both had a chance to see it and you didn’t object until it came out. Now you’re scrambling because the negative reaction is hurting your career and your fans? Chalk this one up to a life lesson and move on, kiddo. See, this never happened with my childhood idol, Bozo the Clown. Bozo never appeared in any revealing photo shoots, nor did he become pregnant at age 16. They just don’t make kids’ heroes the same way in 2008….
- Speaking of things for free…Time Warner Inc.’s Warner Bros. Television group will be giving a little something back to loyal fans of its hit shows by creating a new website where episode of great, no-longer-running shows such as Friends, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dawson’s Creek, etc. will be available for viewing. The new site, TheWB.com, will be up and running some time in August and will be supported by ad revenue. It will be an on-demand video network aimed at 16-to-34-year-olds, which were always the WB’s target demographic anyhow. Ever since the WB merged with UPN and formed the CW (killing off tons of great shows in the process), a lot of shows fans loved were either inexplicably canceled or have just faded into oblivion. There will also be site-exclusive content that you can't get elsewhere, including shows by people like O.C. creator Josh Schwartz. Warner Bros. also plans on adding an application that will allow Facebook users watch shows on that site. A supplementary site called KidsWB.com will offer shows like Bugs Bunny and Scooby Doo. So if you’re unable to find your favorite WB shows on anywhere and don’t have the capability to borrow the DVDs and copy them for yourself have any other means to watch them, TheWB.com could well be the answer for you.
- A world without Clark Kent. That was the theme of Smallville this week, taking the Man of Steel out of the equation. As things got underway, we were in the present and Clark was telling Chloe that in spite of BRAINIAC traveling back in time with his cousin Kara and getting ready to kill Clark as an infant before he could be put in his spaceship and sent from Krypton to Earth, he wasn’t going to go back and try to stop it from happening. An S.O.S. message from Kara on 1989 Krypton urged him to take the metal disc that serves as a key to send Clark to the fortress and use it as a means to get back to 1989 Krypton fell on deaf ears. Clark told Chloe the world would be better off if he’d never arrived. It was then that the metal key began humming and giving off light. Clark was transported from the Kent barn to a bizarre world that gave him his own Miracle on 34th Street moment. He was dropped into a world where he had died on Krypton and never made it to Earth. In that world, Chloe was about to get married to some random guy, Jimmy Olsen was a bumbling photographer at the Daily Planet and Lois Lane was his Pulitzer Prize-winning editor. Lana was living in France, married to a wealthy philanthropist and the mother of two beautiful children. Lex Luthor was president and Milton Fine, a.k.a. BRAINIAC, was his chief advisor. Lex was busy with a plan for world domination, creating a major nuclear threat to the United States so he could launch a nuclear attack on the rest of the world. He had Lois seized by the Department of Domestic Security because she uncovered the plan. Lois’ contact, the woman Clark knew as Sheriff Adams in Smallville, told Clark in the bizarre world that Lois was a lost cause now that she’d been seized by the DDS. Clark continued to go throughout the bizarre world, starting at the Kent Farm and meeting the boy who was Clark Kent when he never came to Earth. Using information from Jimmy, Clark was able to track down Lois and save her from the government, but that was far from the end of his troubles. Back at Jimmy’s apartment, Lois shows Clark what President Luthor is really up to. Clark tells her who Milton Fine really is and that he’s the only one who can stop the plot. Lois helps Clark don a classic Superman look, the Clark Kent/dark suit/glasses get-up, and he goes to the press conference where Lex is set to announce his plans. There, Clark comes face to face with Kara, who in this world was found at Reeves Dam (just like in the world that actually happened), but by Lionel Luthor. She was raised as a member of the Luthor family and is one of Lex’s trusted advisors. She also stumbles on the plan to create a false pretense for nuclear war, but Lex tells her that it’s the right thing and that she needs to fall in line. When Clark clues her in to who Fine truly is and what’s going on, they go to Lex together to stop the nuclear launch. Lex tells them that the plan is to wipe out most of the world’s population, saving only the best and brightest in America and under Lex’s leadership, rebuilding and repopulating the Earth. That leads Lex to shoot Clark twice with Kryptonite bullets and shoot Kara as well. Kara is then carted off for treatment and Clark is left with Fine as Lex heads off to the NORAD command center to be safe from the upcoming nuclear war. Fine informs Clark that he plans to use Kara to release Zod, the Kryptonian warlord, from the Phantom Zone, and with Lex (the human vessel for Zod) under his control, he can pair Kara and Lex together to repopulate Earth with Kryptonians and recreate Krypton on Earth. At this point, Clark is shot again by Fine but is simultaneously taken back to the “real” world. There, Jor-El tells him that Clark’s own refusal to accept his destiny forced Jor-El to show him the glimpse into the world without him. Clark changes his mind and uses the key to travel to the Fortress of Solitude, where he can then be sent back to Krypton circa 1989. He and Kara manage to save baby Clark from BRAINIAC/Fine, sending the tiny tot on his way to Earth. Clark actually has the über-weird task of putting his own infant self into the ship to go to Earth, one of the weirder moments in the history of this or any other show. Kara takes on BRAINIAC as this is going on, stabbing him with a chunk of rock and then smashing his prone body with a huge hunk of the same material. However, a demented, laughing BRAINIAC seems to be mocking Kara as she does it. We find out why (sort of) when Lana remains in a coma even when BRAINIAC is destroyed, leaving Clark devastated. He thought killing BRAINIAC would heal her, but it didn’t . He and Kara made it back to present-day Earth, but both wonder about BRAINIAC. How is he still controlling Lana? Lex is concerned too, having sent his doctors to examine Lana and being told her condition is “alien,” unlike anything known on Earth. It’s also irreversible and she’s getting steadily worse, prompting Lex to ask Clark if he knows what caused the coma. Clark lies and says no, which Lex clearly doesn’t buy. At episode’s end, Clark is still researching her condition, trying to find help. Instead, he finds Lois, who offers to console him by buying him a beer. While the two of them go out for a drink, Kara is at the Kent Farm, getting a drink in the middle of the night when she collapses and gets an odd, far-out look in her eyes. It’s hard to tell if it’s because of what she’s looking at or maybe if it’s something going on inside her head. Either way, it’s eerily reminiscent of a scene from early in the series when Martha Kent collapsed while getting a drink in the very same spot in the kitchen. This time, we’re left hanging until next week, so until then, that’s all……
- In looking at last night’s Lost, you have to wonder if you’re being tricked or if you’re seeing things right because on the surface, it seems like an episode that didn’t accomplish much. In the flash forwards, we learn that Jack is able to get over his hang-ups and be a part of Kate and Aaron’s (Claire’s baby) lives. In fact, they live together and are doing quite well - or so it seems. Jack and Kate are in love, Jack proposes to her and she says yes. Jack is growing into the role of dad, he’s become a successful surgeon again and life is good. But a trip to see Hurley at the mental hospital sends Jack off the rails. Hurley has stopped taking his medication because he believes that he and the rest of the Oceanic Six are really dead. The world they think they’re living in is just the afterlife, according to Hurley. He still sees and talks to Charlie, who died on the island at the end of Season Three. Charlie even gives him a message to pass along to Jack, that Jack shouldn’t be raising Claire’s son. The talk with Hurley rattles Jack so bad that he starts seeing his father around at the hospital, even though his father died in Australia years ago. Jack gets a prescription for sleeping pills, starts hitting the hooch and gets into a confrontation with Kate. She’s been sneaking around, lying to Jack because she’s doing a favor she promised to do for Sawyer, who we learn “decided” to stay back on the island, according to Jack. Even off the island, even with Sawyer still there but Jack and Kate gone, the love triangle rages on. Back in the here and now, Jack’s appendix is about to burst and it’s up to Juliet to remove it before it does. The flash forwards come throughout Jack’s surgery, which is good because much more of seeing the cutting, the blood and his insides was going to make me nauseous….but I digress. Juliet was able to do the surgery only after sending Jin, Sun, Daniel and Charlotte to the medical station for surgical supplies. While there, Jin notices that Charlotte understands when he and Sun speak Korean. He later confronts her about it and she denies it until he threatens to hurt Daniel if she keeps lying. Once Jin gets her attention, he makes her promise that when the helicopter comes back, she’ll get Sun on board. Meanwhile, the surgery goes off well, despite Jack’s stubbornness. He insists on being awake during the procedure and having only the surgical area numbed so he can see what’s going on and talk Juliet through it. But when Jack becomes fidgety, Juliet and Bernard decide to chloroform him and knock him out. They send Kate, who has been holding a mirror up above Jack’s abdomen to help him see what’s going on, out of the tent. After that, the surgery goes along just fine and Jack pulls through. While this is going on, a different drama is raging in the forest. Sawyer, Claire, Aaron and Miles are heading back to the beach camp from the barracks, but they have to stop and camp for the night in the middle of the jungle. Before that happens, they have a near-miss with the SWAT-type assault team from the freighter, led by the angry captain of the boat named Keeme (sp). The captain and his men nearly find the small traveling party but the freighter’s resident helicopter pilot Frank Lapidus finds them first and warns them to take cover, lest Keeme and has men find them and kill them. Lapidus then tells the assault team that they need to get moving to make it back to the chopper by nightfall so he doesn’t have to navigate in the dark with only Daniel’s coordinates to guide him. As Sawyer, Claire, Aaron and Miles bunk down for the night, Sawyer warns Miles to keep his distance from Claire, but those words prove unfortunate when Claire wakes up in the middle of the night and wanders off. She initially sees her father, who is also Jack’s father (a fact neither of them is aware of), holding baby Aaron. In the morning, Miles informs a waking Sawyer that Claire walked off into the jungle during the night with a man she was calling “Dad.” Sawyer looks for her but finds only Aaron, wrapped in his blanket, safe and resting on a huge, sturdy leaf of a jungle plant. Claire is gone, nowhere to be found. That’s how things end for this week, so like I said, it seems like a fairly pedestrian episode, but with Lost, nothing is as it seems. Next week there is supposed to be a huge leap backwards in time, something that will explain a lot about the island’s mysterious nature, according to tvguide.com. That being said, see you back here next week……
- Well so much for stars of kids’ TV shows being role models for the millions of kids who watch them. Jamie Lynn Skank, er, Spears shot that idea to hell when the star of Nickelodeon’s Zoey 101 got knocked up at age 16 several months ago. Not exactly the best example for the kids, eh Zoey? But at least kids still had Hannah Montana to look up to, right? Umm, no. Miley Cyrus, daughter of the world’s most famous mullet, Mr. Achy Breaky Heart himself, Billy Ray Cyrus, has made a sexually-tinted mistake of her own that has to have millions of moms and dads cursing under their breath as they try to figure out how they’re going to explain why Hannah Montana is popping up in risqué pictures where she’s wearing nothing but a silk sheet. Famed celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz took the picture, which shows Cyrus with her back exposed and only a sheet covering the rest of her. No sooner did the pic hit the web than Cyrus began apologizing for it and issuing statements about how embarrassed she was. Should have thought of that before you agreed to let Leibovitz take the picture, M. You and your dad both had a chance to see it and you didn’t object until it came out. Now you’re scrambling because the negative reaction is hurting your career and your fans? Chalk this one up to a life lesson and move on, kiddo. See, this never happened with my childhood idol, Bozo the Clown. Bozo never appeared in any revealing photo shoots, nor did he become pregnant at age 16. They just don’t make kids’ heroes the same way in 2008….
- Speaking of things for free…Time Warner Inc.’s Warner Bros. Television group will be giving a little something back to loyal fans of its hit shows by creating a new website where episode of great, no-longer-running shows such as Friends, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dawson’s Creek, etc. will be available for viewing. The new site, TheWB.com, will be up and running some time in August and will be supported by ad revenue. It will be an on-demand video network aimed at 16-to-34-year-olds, which were always the WB’s target demographic anyhow. Ever since the WB merged with UPN and formed the CW (killing off tons of great shows in the process), a lot of shows fans loved were either inexplicably canceled or have just faded into oblivion. There will also be site-exclusive content that you can't get elsewhere, including shows by people like O.C. creator Josh Schwartz. Warner Bros. also plans on adding an application that will allow Facebook users watch shows on that site. A supplementary site called KidsWB.com will offer shows like Bugs Bunny and Scooby Doo. So if you’re unable to find your favorite WB shows on anywhere and don’t have the capability to borrow the DVDs and copy them for yourself have any other means to watch them, TheWB.com could well be the answer for you.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Wacky Ron Paul supporters, a human tiki torch and BCS bozos run amok
- You wacky Ron Paul supporters, you crack me up. Like the candidate you so pointlessly espouse, you have little or no connection to reality and no apparent concept of the world around you. You’re nutty, you’re unconventional and I love you guys. You’re constantly pulling stunts like the one you just staged at the Republican state convention in Nevada, where party leaders had to temporarily shut the convention down because of the disturbance caused by some rowdy Paul supporters in attendance. The process of selecting the state’s 31 delegates to the Republican Nationa Convention was suspended and set to be resumed at a different time after the Paul backers convinced a chunk of the convention’s 1,300 delegates to get a rule change positioning them for more national convention delegate slots than expected. That didn’t sit well with the party honchos, so the hiatus was called and those same honchos now have to regroup and figure out how to outwit the offbeat, reality-challenged supporters of a fringe candidate. Great work Nevada, maybe you should just forfeit your delegates to other, smarter states as stick to what your state does best - gambling and hookers.
- If it wasn’t so utterly predictable, this bit of news would be really sad and distressing. Citing what they idiotically view as an "unprecedented state of health" for the worst postseason setup in all of sports, the BCS, ACC commissioner John Swofford and the rest of the ass clowns running college football announced Wednesday that college football will not change the way it determines its national champion as it prepares to begin negotiations for future television contracts that will probably run through the 2014 season. Umm, if by unprecedented state of health you mean that it’s a total debacle on par with the war in Iraq, has a marginal chance of maybe, possibly getting the two best teams in the title game and has more flaws that Rosie O’Donnell’s flabby physique, then yes, I agree. “We will move forward in the next cycle with the current format,” said Swofford, who serves as BCS chairman. “I believe the BCS has never been healthier in its first decade.” That’s like saying a guy who got run over by a truck and has a broken collarbone, concussion, ruptured spleen, torn ligaments in both knees and is in a coma is healthier than he’s been in days because a paper cut he had on his finger healed up. You morons are so self-serving and hypocritical that it makes me nauseous. The only reason you’re sticking with the current format is because it lines your f’ing pockets with loads of cash. If we had guys in their with both brains and actual working testicles, we would get a new system in no time flat. The decision was made during a five-hour meeting of 11 conference commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Kevin in which the attendees apparently spent four hours and 59 minutes taking bong hits and drawing in coloring books and one minute deciding on the fate of the BCS. The one man in attendance with the juevos to propose something new and closer to the right choice (an 8 or 16-team playoff) was SEC commissioner Mike Slive, who made the plus-one proposal Wednesday morning but said there was little support among the commissioners. Big 12 commissioner Dan Bebee may be campaigning for chief of the idiots based on his comments regarding the discussion, saying that his league's member schools voted in March not to support any changes to college football's postseason. “There's a strong feeling in the Big 12 that what we have is working well,” Bebee said. “There's great satisfaction with the regular season and the postseason.” Well there’s a strong feeling that your conference members have a combined IQ of 17 if they really did vote that way, Beebe, so suck it you spineless piece of crap….
- File this one under über-creepy and disturbing on so many levels that it could literally make you queasy for days on end. Police in Austria finally found a woman who had been missing for 24 years, locating her in the cellar of her father’s house. She had been kept there for more than two decades and forced to have at least six children after being raped by her father. Authorities found the woman after a tip came in about her whereabouts, and than God for whoever phoned in that tip. This is just as revolting a crime as I can imagine, holding your own daughter captive and subjecting her to such violent sexual abuse….what kind of monster do you have to be to do that? With this piece of crap being 73 years old, he needs to spend every last minute of his remaining life in jail. Just a terrible, terrible story all around.
- Welcome in the most disingenuous nomad to ever coach in the world of professional sports, Charlotte Bobcats fans. The well-traveled, opportunistic, dishonest Larry Brown has reached an agreement to return to the NBA as coach of the Charlotte Bobcats. Brown signed a contract on Tuesday and the 67 -year-old Hall of Famer will be taking over his ninth NBA team. That would set a record for the most teams ever coach in any one pro sport by any one mercenary, er, coach. It will also be his first coaching job since a messy exit from the New York Knicks in 2006 after he teamed with the worst GM in the NBA, Isaiah Thomas, to ruin one of the Association’s preeminent franchises. Brown will replace Sam Vincent, fired on Saturday after going 32-50 in his one season. Brown has had success during his career, winning the NBA championship with Detroit in 2004 and the NCAA title with Kansas in 1988. He was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2002, is one of five NBA coaches with at least 1,000 victories, but he’s also a mercenary who openly campaigns for jobs other coaches already have and bails on teams more frequently than Elizabeth Taylor bails on marriages. He’s coming back because he has some sort of addiction to coaching, but before Bobcats fans get too excited realize that you’re getting this guy for two seasons, three at most, and that’s not nearly enough time to win an NBA title or even make your sorry squad into one of the top 3-4 teams in the Eastern Conference. Brown is a bigger mercenary than the Hessians and probably would have joined them during the Revolutionary War if they’d had a coaching vacancy.
- I think you all know by now where I stand both on social dissidence and specifically on demonstrations involving the Olympic torch as it makes it way to Beijing, a.k.a. Human Rights Violation Central: I’m for both in a big way. That being said, the happenings surrounding the torch as it made its way through Seoul, South Korea this week were maybe, possibly just a tad over the top. While I fully support anyone wishing to make a statement against the world’s biggest and most frequent violator of human rights and to do so through attacking the Olympic torch, but turning yourself into a human torch to protest the passing of the torch through your city, maybe a tad over the top. Chinese students in Seoul were out in force to greet the torch as it continued its trek to Beijing, throwing rocks and punches at police and creating a nice uprising to continue the torch’s eventful trip around the world. The insane self-igniter was a North Korean defector who attempted to set himself on fire to halt the torch relay, a tactic that for some odd reason did not work. Memo to all current or would-be social dissidents out there: Do not set yourself on fire. It is by far the worst riot idea. Set cars on fire (especially police cars), set buildings on fire, couches, torches, etc., but do not set fire to yourself. I don’t know if you know this, but you really can't come back from burning yourself up. If the fire gets going and consumes you, you’ll die. You are not a human tiki torch, so don’t try to act like one. Clearly this was not a well-trained rioter and it pains me to see uneducated, uninformed rioters make fools of themselves like this. Let’s just move on before this gets depressing….
- If it wasn’t so utterly predictable, this bit of news would be really sad and distressing. Citing what they idiotically view as an "unprecedented state of health" for the worst postseason setup in all of sports, the BCS, ACC commissioner John Swofford and the rest of the ass clowns running college football announced Wednesday that college football will not change the way it determines its national champion as it prepares to begin negotiations for future television contracts that will probably run through the 2014 season. Umm, if by unprecedented state of health you mean that it’s a total debacle on par with the war in Iraq, has a marginal chance of maybe, possibly getting the two best teams in the title game and has more flaws that Rosie O’Donnell’s flabby physique, then yes, I agree. “We will move forward in the next cycle with the current format,” said Swofford, who serves as BCS chairman. “I believe the BCS has never been healthier in its first decade.” That’s like saying a guy who got run over by a truck and has a broken collarbone, concussion, ruptured spleen, torn ligaments in both knees and is in a coma is healthier than he’s been in days because a paper cut he had on his finger healed up. You morons are so self-serving and hypocritical that it makes me nauseous. The only reason you’re sticking with the current format is because it lines your f’ing pockets with loads of cash. If we had guys in their with both brains and actual working testicles, we would get a new system in no time flat. The decision was made during a five-hour meeting of 11 conference commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Kevin in which the attendees apparently spent four hours and 59 minutes taking bong hits and drawing in coloring books and one minute deciding on the fate of the BCS. The one man in attendance with the juevos to propose something new and closer to the right choice (an 8 or 16-team playoff) was SEC commissioner Mike Slive, who made the plus-one proposal Wednesday morning but said there was little support among the commissioners. Big 12 commissioner Dan Bebee may be campaigning for chief of the idiots based on his comments regarding the discussion, saying that his league's member schools voted in March not to support any changes to college football's postseason. “There's a strong feeling in the Big 12 that what we have is working well,” Bebee said. “There's great satisfaction with the regular season and the postseason.” Well there’s a strong feeling that your conference members have a combined IQ of 17 if they really did vote that way, Beebe, so suck it you spineless piece of crap….
- File this one under über-creepy and disturbing on so many levels that it could literally make you queasy for days on end. Police in Austria finally found a woman who had been missing for 24 years, locating her in the cellar of her father’s house. She had been kept there for more than two decades and forced to have at least six children after being raped by her father. Authorities found the woman after a tip came in about her whereabouts, and than God for whoever phoned in that tip. This is just as revolting a crime as I can imagine, holding your own daughter captive and subjecting her to such violent sexual abuse….what kind of monster do you have to be to do that? With this piece of crap being 73 years old, he needs to spend every last minute of his remaining life in jail. Just a terrible, terrible story all around.
- Welcome in the most disingenuous nomad to ever coach in the world of professional sports, Charlotte Bobcats fans. The well-traveled, opportunistic, dishonest Larry Brown has reached an agreement to return to the NBA as coach of the Charlotte Bobcats. Brown signed a contract on Tuesday and the 67 -year-old Hall of Famer will be taking over his ninth NBA team. That would set a record for the most teams ever coach in any one pro sport by any one mercenary, er, coach. It will also be his first coaching job since a messy exit from the New York Knicks in 2006 after he teamed with the worst GM in the NBA, Isaiah Thomas, to ruin one of the Association’s preeminent franchises. Brown will replace Sam Vincent, fired on Saturday after going 32-50 in his one season. Brown has had success during his career, winning the NBA championship with Detroit in 2004 and the NCAA title with Kansas in 1988. He was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2002, is one of five NBA coaches with at least 1,000 victories, but he’s also a mercenary who openly campaigns for jobs other coaches already have and bails on teams more frequently than Elizabeth Taylor bails on marriages. He’s coming back because he has some sort of addiction to coaching, but before Bobcats fans get too excited realize that you’re getting this guy for two seasons, three at most, and that’s not nearly enough time to win an NBA title or even make your sorry squad into one of the top 3-4 teams in the Eastern Conference. Brown is a bigger mercenary than the Hessians and probably would have joined them during the Revolutionary War if they’d had a coaching vacancy.
- I think you all know by now where I stand both on social dissidence and specifically on demonstrations involving the Olympic torch as it makes it way to Beijing, a.k.a. Human Rights Violation Central: I’m for both in a big way. That being said, the happenings surrounding the torch as it made its way through Seoul, South Korea this week were maybe, possibly just a tad over the top. While I fully support anyone wishing to make a statement against the world’s biggest and most frequent violator of human rights and to do so through attacking the Olympic torch, but turning yourself into a human torch to protest the passing of the torch through your city, maybe a tad over the top. Chinese students in Seoul were out in force to greet the torch as it continued its trek to Beijing, throwing rocks and punches at police and creating a nice uprising to continue the torch’s eventful trip around the world. The insane self-igniter was a North Korean defector who attempted to set himself on fire to halt the torch relay, a tactic that for some odd reason did not work. Memo to all current or would-be social dissidents out there: Do not set yourself on fire. It is by far the worst riot idea. Set cars on fire (especially police cars), set buildings on fire, couches, torches, etc., but do not set fire to yourself. I don’t know if you know this, but you really can't come back from burning yourself up. If the fire gets going and consumes you, you’ll die. You are not a human tiki torch, so don’t try to act like one. Clearly this was not a well-trained rioter and it pains me to see uneducated, uninformed rioters make fools of themselves like this. Let’s just move on before this gets depressing….
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