Rosie O'Fat, you still suck, so does DWTDLS and how the MTV VMAs could have sucked a little less

- Wow, ABC must really be starved for programming, because I really cant think of any other excuse to make the premiere of Dancing With the (D-List) Stars an “three-night event.” Look, I know thousands and thousands of women in the 18-49 age bracket will watch this show because for whatever reason, women are more inclined to like dancing than men. Of course, that still doesn’t explain why anyone likes this bomb of a show, with people who are so far removed from being actual stars that not even a compass, map and GPS could get them in the same time zone as stardom. Calling it a three-night event doesn’t obscure what a joke your show is, nor does it lend it any legitimacy. The premiere of Lost will be a television event, the start of the NFL season was an event, but a bunch of hack D-list celebs all looking to jump start their acting careers that are deader than W.’s chances of being remembered as our greatest president ever, getting together and doing lame ballroom dances is not an event. Again, I ask how you morons cancelled a show like Traveler and yet you fill your hours of programming with this drivel? Why is it that the dumbest people in television are the ones making the schedule instead of the ones serving the Jell-O in the cafeteria?

- It was absolutely awesome to hear the news that Buffalo Bills backup tight end Kevin Everrett is likely to walk again after suffering a catastrophic neck injury in Sunday’s game against Denver. Originally the prognosis for Everett had not been good, with his doctor doubtful that he would ever make a full neurological recovery. Yet as the day progressed on Tuesday and updates began coming out, optimism that Everett would walk again soared. His doctor revised his prognosis and said that once Everett was allowed out of his heavily sedated state, he began to show major signs of improvement, moving all of his extremities voluntarily. I am thrilled to hear that he will make a full recovery, because his injury happened on such a normal looking play that you would never expect anyone to be hurt this seriously during it. Why is it, by the way, that the plays on which guys suffer serious neck and spinal injuries seem to so often look benign and harmless, yet the plays where a guy really gets blown up or hit hard don’t seem to be the ones resulting in such serious injuries? I’m sure as Everett went in to make the tackle, the idea that something like this could happen never crossed his mind. I don’t know if he’ll ever play again (I would doubt it, but you never know), but even if he doesn’t, simply by walking again he’ll have made a heroic effort. I also hope that the Bills, the NFL and the players’ association take care of him financially and medically if his career is indeed over, because he deserves all the those three can give him. Get well, Kevin, we all hope to see you back on your feet (literally) soon.

- There are few (possibly none) things you can point to, say “That’s wrong,” and have everyone agree. The world just doesn’t work that way because we’re all different and diverse – except for when it comes to the situation I’m about to mention. There is no way this is ok or acceptable on any level at any time, period. It happened recently when Brian Christopher Thomas, a University of Texas fan, walked into a Henry Henderson’s Pub in Oklahoma City, which is a bar normally packed with fans of the University of Oklahoma, Texas’ biggest rival. Thomas was sporting his burnt orange UT gear, which he had to know was going to cause some trouble. However, when I say “some trouble,” I don’t mean that he should have known that another bar patron would grab him by the package and slam him to the ground, all the while refusing to release his kung-fu death grip on Thomas’ junk. Yet there was 53-year-old Allen Michael Beckett, trying to perform his own unofficial sex change operation by removing Thomas’ bag, even as other patrons tried to break it up. Far be it from me to tell people what they can or can’t do for fun, but if you’re a 53-year-old and you still want to frequent sports bars and hang with the college crowd, the least you can do is not act like a drunk 19-year-old. What’s worse is that based on police reports from the incident, Beckett was the instigator, talking smack to Thomas as soon as he entered the bar and keeping it up even as Thomas paid his tab and went to leave. What Beckett did is wrong on so many levels, I wince in pain just thinking about it. You can get away with a lot in a bar brawl – gouging the eyes, elbows to the stomach, knee to the midsection, sucker punch – but you absolutely, positively can not, EVER, grab another dude’s package and pull on it. It’s wrong, period, and I hope that the judge in this case stands up for guys everywhere and levies the steepest penalty allowable under the law to one Allen Michael Beckett.

- I’m going to start encouraging everyone right now not to buy Rosie O’Donnell’s upcoming book, Celebrity Detox. There is absolutely no need to perpetuate the continual farce that is O’Fat’s existence and to make her believe that anyone cares or wants t ohear what her fat a** thinks. Do not put any more money in her pocket to buy her massive supply of Ho-ho’s, Ding Dongs, Ring Dings, doughnuts, cupcakes, brownies, pies, Moon Pies, Snowballs, Cheetos, pork rinds, Oreos, etc. The fact is, based on her idiotic and ill-reasoned opinions, reading her book would be a waste of time. Besides, enough of the more interesting tidbits will come out in the public anyhow, so that will give us plenty with which to mock O’Fat. Take, for example, her take on Barbara Walters. Babs needs to hang it up, according to O’Fat, even though at the the age of 77, Walters is still a thousand times sharper and more intelligent than O’Fat. “At some point, a person gets tired. It’s inevitable,” O’Fat writes in her book. Hey Rosie, the reason it’s inevitable that you’ll get tired is because at some point during the day, you’ll have to lug your fat a** up more than two stairs and you’ll end up winded and gasping for air. “Barbara Walters is almost twice my age….at some point it becomes necessary to step back. Everyone has to go. Going is part of the gig,” reads another excerpt from the book. Umm, O’Fat, here again you are showing that you aren’t smart or, as David Beckham might say, too good with the maths. See, you are 45 years old, Walters is 77. Twice your age would be 90, so no, she is not almost twice your age. Almost twice your age would be anyone 85 or over, but nice try. Also, on the part about stepping back and going away…..why don’t you try stepping back from the buffet line first, you fat cow. Second, isn’t it amazing that you wore out your welcome in less than a year and you were the one who had to leave, while Walters is still around and still doing ten times the job you ever did. No one likes you, no one respects you and no one thinks of you as anything other than a flabby, big-mouthed, crass, rude loser and you’re the one who needs to go away permanently. Do I need to pull out one of Donald Trump’s world-class verbal beatdowns of you to shut you up. “Rosie is disgusting, both inside and out,” quoth the Donald. “Rosie is a loser.” Well said Donald, well said.

- We all need to be thankful that the Kid Rock-Tommy Lee fight backstage at the MTV Video Music Awards went down the way it did. Two rail-thin, middle-aged dudes swinging at each other is not a big deal, and it could have been a whole lot worse. Both Rock and Lee are exes of Pamela Anderson, which probably had a lot to do with the fight. But just imagine if every musician or celebrity who had ever f****d Anderson had been involved in the brawl, do you know how bad that would have been? It would have made most prison riots seem small and tame by comparison. Be glad that only two or her former paramours (and two of the less physically imposing ones) were involved, but also be sad because I wish Pam had been there to step in and try to break things up, only to have her top ripped off in the process……but I digress. Bad blood and near-fights have been a part of the MTV Awards for as long as they’ve gone on, ever since the Guns N’ Roses v. Nirvana showdowns in the early ‘90s. Personally I would have rather seen the fight on stage in place of the train wreck that was Britney Spears and the worst lip-syncing effort of all time.

College football player turns killer, Greek ends Season One and the Patriots, the KGB of the NFL

- There are some crime stories involving collegiate athletes that can be taken with a dose of humor or at least not with a stern, serious approach. The story of University of New Hampshire quarterback Hank Hendricks is not one of those stories, to be sure. Late last week, Hendricks was indicted on murder charges by a California grand jury after he allegedly beat a professional surfer to death in May. According to a police report, Hendricks and four other men beat Emery Kauanui to death at his home in La Jolla on May 24. Kauanui died a few days later. Seth Cravens, Eric House, Orlando Osuna and Matthew Yanke also are charged with murder, assault and battery for the incident and have pleaded not guilty. I don’t know exactly what transpired, but this goes to show you that when in groups, guys (especially young guys) tend to do really stupid things. Bottom line, though, no matter whether this guy slept with your girlfriend, scratched your car, talked junk to you and challenged your manhood, stole money from you, when you make the decision that exacting revenge by beating him to death is your best choice you show just how dumb your really are. Now, all four of these guys are likely going to jail for a long, long time all because they couldn’t keep their machismo in check. On a side note, how amazing is it that a guy with a potential murder charge hanging over his head not only returned to school this semester but was actually allowed to remain on the football team up until his suspension once the charges came down. To be fair, Hendricks was a backup and didn’t play much last season, but how is he not indefinitely suspended long before now? Just asking. All in all, just a sad story that’s going to ruin the lives of a whole lot of people by the time it’s done.

- Greek ended its first season last night with a great season finale – assuming you don’t demand wall-to-wall happy endings in order to enjoy a finale. In fact, every single significant character ended the season on a downer, with almost none of the omnipresent humor that has been a staple of the show in its first season. The entire episode centered around an anonymous story published in the campus newspaper at Cyprus Rhodes detailing the wealth of inappropriate, shady and often-illegal activities going on in the Greek system at the university. Dean Bowman (guest star Alan Ruck) calls all of the Greek presidents together and lays down the law, promising serious changes to the Greek system next semester. This scene actually provided the only levity of the entire episode, predictably from Cappie as he challenged the dean as if an attorney in a courtroom. Asked by his sidekick Wade if he had once been pre-law (as per the show’s running joke of the many former majors of Cappie), he replied, “Not yet, but I’m digging the suit.” When Zeta Beta Zeta president Frannie leads everyone in a charge to find out who the mole is that has revealed the damaging information in the story, but that mole hunt doesn’t end up being the theme of the episode that you’d expect it to be. The hunt ends quickly when Jen K., ZBZ pledge and girlfriend of Rusty, confides that she’s the mole. In fact, she only rushed the sorority so she could get the inside scoop for the story, which gets picked up nationally, this forcing her to reveal her identity. From there, the dominos fall and close out a great first season with a sad ending. Rusty can’t handle the deception by Jen K. and what she’s done to the fraternity he’s come to love, so he ends their relationship (idiot! Jen K. is hot, smart and she loves him). The scandalous details in the story come largely from Zeta Beta, so a national representative from the sorority (guest star Charisma Carpenter) comes to investigate. This leads to Frannie trying to stonewall her and being ousted as president (sad ending #2), with Casey taking over as interim president after moving to diffuse the crisis. However, Frannie stirs the pot by putting ideas in Evan’s head about why Casey is with him and the resulting tension leads to Evan and Casey breaking up (sad ending #3). On the side was the Calvin-Ashleigh storyline, with Ashleigh kissing Calvin and him revealing to her that even though she dumped her long-time boyfriend, he’s not interested in her because he’s gay. She’s hurt but rebounds and tries to make amends, only to inadvertently reveal to Calvin’s frat brothers at Omega Chi that he’s gay. This leads to the demise of their friendship (sad ending #4) and Calvin’s decision to leave Omega Chi (sad ending #5). As the episode closes, we find that a drunken Cappie has slept with Casey’s nemesis, Rebecca Logan, despite he and Casey still having feelings for each other (sad ending #6). In the last scene, Rusty and Casey drive off into the sunset as the semester ends, capping nine fun-filled episodes. As I said, it was a dramatic finale with little to no real laughs, and it is rare to see a show end a season with an all-around downer like this, but it was still a good episode. The show will return early next year, and I’m already excited about what Season Two has in store.

- The New England Patriots were already so easy to despise, they really didn’t need to give us another reason to hate them. Nonetheless, Bill Belichick and Co. have done just that, committing one of the most egregious and despicable examples of on-field cheating the NFL has seen in years. According to the Pats’ opponent from last week, the New York Jets, the Patriots were guilty of having one of their video assistants on the sideline, filming the Jets’ defensive coaches making their play calls during the game. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has decided that the Patriots have in fact violated league rules and he will now research the matter further and levy some sort of punishment against New England. So why is what the Patriots did a big deal, you ask? It’s simple actually. Because an overheard Polaroid picture is taken of every single play in every single game, both prior to the snap of the ball and as the ball is snapped, teams can see what formations and alignments opponents are using. If the Patriots took their video from a given play, saw what signal was sent in and matched that up with the defensive formation the Jets used on that play, they would have a huge advantage. As the game went on, they could watch the signals being sent in and when they saw a particular signal, they would know exactly what defensive formation and scheme the Jets were going to use and adjust to counter that scheme. Speculation is that the penalty for this offense could be one or more lost draft picks or a hefty fine, but I’m hoping for both. Take away the Patriots’ first-round pick this year and a second rounder next year and fine them $1 million. Send the message to a team that already lies, deceives, manipulates and skirts the rules when it comes to being forthright on their weekly injury report that their KGB-style operations and undermining of the competitive balance in the NFL is unacceptable. Wipe the smug smirk off that a-hole Belichick’s face by telling him that he’s just lost those two draft picks and cost his team a million dollars because of his sleazy tactics.

- I just couldn’t let this event pass without one final salute, so you’ll have to forgive me for indulging my inner TV dork. Tonight, for the last time, Gilmore Girls aired on the CW/WB, ending an amazing, fantastic seven-year run for the best TV show I’ve ever watched. Yes, Gilmore Girls did have its official finale back in May, but throughout the summer, the CW has run the entire seventh season in its entirety in repeats and tonight was the re-air of the finale. Next week, the insipidly stupid next installment of TV’s second biggest waste of time (just behind American Karaoke and just ahead of Dancing with the D-List Stars) Beauty and the Geek, kicks off another season. So I, being the ultimate Gilmore Girls honk, felt compelled one last time to say thanks to everyone involved in my favorite TV show ever. So to all of the cast, crew, writers, producers and executives who were a part of any of the seven seasons, thanks so much to all of you. It was a wonderful ride and one that ended far too soon. Yeah, there are reruns on ABC Family and DVDs for all seven seasons (the complete series on DVD comes out in a package deal in November), but it just won't be the same. Watching tonight and realizing it was the last time I would ever see GG in its Tuesday night, 8 p.m. time slot was sad. There is talk of a possible Gilmore movie written by the show’s creator and longtime producer, Amy Sherman-Palladino, who was forced out after the shows sixth season, so keep your ears peeled for news on that. One last time, I just have to say that Tuesday nights just won't be the same without Rory, Lorelai, Luke and the rest of Stars Hollow. So adios to Gilmore Girls, you’ll be sorely missed. Copper boom!

- Y’know, if this continues, you’re going to start seeing more and more holdouts from terrorists training camps around the world. A California man was sentenced to 24 years in prison Monday for attending an al-Qaida training camp in Pakistan and returning to the United States “willing to wage violent Jihad.” Hamid Hayat, a U.S. citizen, was convicted in April 2006 of giving material support to terrorists and lying to FBI agents, crimes for which he could have received up to 39 years in prison. The true irony here as that Hayat had threatened to hold out from al-Qaida training camp unless the organization renegotiated his contract, which currently puts him in the lower 20 percent of terrorists worldwide in terms of annual salary. In response to those demands, al-Qaida had threatened to slap the franchise tag on Hayat, thereby preventing him from signing with other terrorist organizations unless those organizations provided al-Qaida with substantial compensation, such as two early-round picks in the upcoming terrorist suicide bomber draft. Honestly, training camp is a waste of time anyhow, because as we all know, the best terrorists don’t need to be in camp to get ready for the regular season……

B. Spears lives down to my expectations, I hope Asafa Powell is clean and one handyman you do not want to hire

- Congrats to Jamaica’s Asafa Powell on breaking his own world record and establishing a new mark for the 100-meter dash with his 9.74 clocking at a meet in Rieti, Italy over the weekend, here’s hoping his story doesn’t end the way most stories involving world-class sprinters do nowadays. Powell had previously held the record with a time of 9.77 seconds, a mark he had reached three times. Now I’m hoping he can outrun the seemingly inevitable positive test for performance-enhancing drugs that far too many elite track athletes get hit with once they reach the top. Tim Montgomery had it happen to him and lost his title as the world’s fastest man. Back in 1988, Ben Johnson won Olympic gold in the 100 only to lose it and his career after testing positive for ‘roids. Shot putter C.J. Hunter had his career crashed after a positive test, with all three of these guys adding fuel to the argument that track is neck-and-neck with cycling for the title of the dirtiest sport around. I don’t have any reason to suspect that Powell is taking anything he shouldn’t be taking, well, other than the fact that he competes in track and field. But there are no allegations against him and to the best of my knowledge he’s never failed a test, so that’s good news. Still, I cant say I will be at all surprised if, a few months down the road, I read that he has been popped for using steroids, suspended from competition and stripped of his record, if for no other reason than the fact that a whole lot of athletes from every sport you can think of are being linked to steroids on an almost daily basis. Stay clean, Asafa, and give us all a pleasant surprise that all sports fans could really use at this point.

- I’m not a huge fan of Westerns, because they can be some of the cheesiest, most clichéd movies you’ll ever see. There have been a few good Westerns made, though not as many in recent years. Other than The Quick and the Dead, which is kinda recent but still dated, I cant remember the last good Western I saw…..until 3:10 to Yuma, a remake of an old Western that hit theaters this past weekend. The original version was made in 1957 and was based on a short story written in 1953 by Elmore Leonard, a legendary American crime fiction author. It’s a movie with plenty of violence and action, yet set on the beautiful frontier in bygone times. The story centers on rancher Dan Evans (Christian Bale), who will lose his land to the coming raileroad unless he pays off massive debts on the land with money he doesn’t have. To earn that money, he agrees to be part of a group escorting the outlaw Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) to Yuma to board a prison train. Wade has numerous chances to kill Evans but doesn’t because even though he’s an outlaw, he operates on a sort of honor code when it comes to who he kills. I won't spoil any more of the plot for you, but over all it’s a well done film that has a gritty, real quality to it that makes it thoroughly enjoyable. The film was the top box officer earner for the weekend, taking in a modest $14.1 million. (Side note: Superbad was third with $8 million, which was enough to put it over the $100 million mark.) Sadly, 3:10 seems doomed for a disappointing run, as most of its audience thus far has been in the 50+ age bracket, not the ideal demographic for an action movie. I think it’s because many of those people remember the original 3:10 to Yuma and thus wanted to see the remake, but I’m surprised that not a lot of people from younger age groups wanted to see a Russell Crowe flick. No, he’s not Heath Ledger, Orlando Bloom or Johnny Depp, but Crowe still knows how to drink, brawl and chase chicks like those guys and he’s a good actor, so I’d suggest you give this movie a chance, you won't be disappointed.

- Kudos to Britney Spears for living down to expectations with her performance at the MTV Video Music Awards last night. Thankfully I didn’t watch that debacle of an awards show (although with MTV’s re-air rate for awards shows, I’ll have another 1,455 chances between now and Halloween), but I did see a few still images of Spears’ performance and also a über-brief audio snippet of her act and…..wow. Feel free to mix in a salad and cut down from five or six breakfast burritos and sausage biscuits with gravy to one or two, Brit. And before you criticize me to mocking someone’s physical appearance, first I recommend that you take a look at the pictures yourself and then I remind you that when someone wears the kind of revealing, gawd-awful outfit that Spears sported last night, they are fair game for any sort of analysis on their appearance that anyone can come up with. This is a lot more than a girl simply filling out as she grows up, this is a case of packing on the pregnancy pounds for two kids, adding on to that and then attempting some haphazard effort to get into better shape while still eating like a high school wrestler trying to pack on the pounds and move up a weight class for the big meet. Brit, you need to realize that with the abominable crap-ola you call music coming out of your mouth, well, actually coming out of the speakers as you lip sync to it, you had better look really hot if you expect anyone to want to see you perform. If you show up looking like you do right now, you’re nothing more than an out-of-shape, talent-deprived loser who might actually be more musically offensive than an American Karaoke contestant. Shape up or get lost, Spears, because as long as you’re flabby you’ve got no real skills at all.

- If you live in the San Francisco Bay area, I have a strong recommendation for you on one handyman that you should never, ever, under any circumstances hire. His name is Percy Honnibal, and there’s a very simple yet powerful reason not to hire him. It seems Percy, a 51-year-old carpenter from Oakland, has a predilection for plying his craft, um, in the nude. He was recently acquitted by Alameda County Superior Court Judge Julie Conger on charges of indecent exposure after he was spotted building cabinets in the nude at a home where he had been hired to work. The judge ruled that he wasn’t guilty of a crime because he wasn’t acting lewdly or seeking sexual gratification, which of course makes the emotional scarring for anyone who had to see him in that state any less awful. Percy needs to take a cue from one particular episode of Seinfeld where Jerry’s girlfriend liked to hang out naked around the apartment, but when he tried to prove that it bothered him by doing carpentry (specifically, sanding the floor) in the nude, she explained to him that there’s good naked and bad naked, and doing home improvement work in the nude is bad naked. Same goes for you, Percy. And no, I don’t care that you think it’s ok because it’s more comfortable working that way and it keeps your clothes clean. Bro, you’re a carpenter, if you’re worried about clean clothes, you’ve chosen the wrong profession. Also, the great thing about clothes is that they can be washed and you can also put on some less expensive, older clothes that you don’t mind getting dirty if that’s a problem. Plus, I can’t imagine that you sit down and explain to homeowners that you’ll be working naked before you start a job, because if that were the case, the only place I can see you finding steady work is at nudist colonies as a handyman. If you did explain your little perversion to prospective customers, I suspect that your carpentry career would have ended the same day it began. At least put some pants on, because there are plenty of carpentry and construction workers who might take their shirt off from time to time. Just don’t let the fact that you were acquitted in this case give you the impression that what you’re doing is acceptable, because it’s really not.

- Normally in divorce proceedings where one spouse is looking to jam the other, that spouse will claim that their partner was unfaithful to them and had an affair with someone else. Occasionally a sleazeball husband r wife will have foold around with more than one person, maybe two or three. It’s rare that someone is such a slut that she’s suspected of having cheated on her husband with eleven different men, but such is the case with country singer and former Dancing With the (D-List) Stars contestant Sara Evans. Craig Schleske, Evans former husband, has asked in a court filing that Evans admit to having had affairs or romantic relationships with just shy of a dozen men, including members of her band, singer (I use that erm loosely) Kenny Chesney, Richard Marx, member of the band 3 Doors Down and her former DWTDLS partner Tony Dovolani. So basically, she’s being accused of 1) being a whore, 2) having crappy taste in music and 3) being a rock groupie. Not only is a Kenny Chesney and 3 Doors Down concert one I’d pay not to see, it’s apparently the ideal place for Evans to find her next hookup. Evans hasn’t responded to the filing yet, but honestly I don’t know how you do respond to that. It’s one thing to deny that you cheated with one person, but when the number is alleged to be two shy of a baker’s dozen, it’s hard to argue that your ex is just being crazy and jealous and making things up. I guess the silver lining here is that with Evans now single, she has 11 solid choices in the search for her next husband……

A big night of TV tomorrow, more bad Chinese business news and my new campaign to fire Romeo Crennel

- Should I be relieved that there’s a story revolving around unsavory business practices in China and it doesn’t involve the Chinese exporting toothpaste containing a toxic chemical usually used in antifreeze? Decisions, decisions….I’m going to go with no on this one, because as thankful as I am to avoid any more toxic toothpaste incidents, a baby trafficking ring isn't really an improvement. Police in eastern China have broken up a major baby trafficking ring, arresting 47 people and rescuing 40 infants currently in the custody of those 47 lowlifes. Look, I know there are strict population control measures in place in China, so if you have one kid and then find out you’re going to have another, you need to figure out a plan because you could face severe punishment for breaking the law, but setting up a black market for infants is not the way to go. Or maybe these losers were looking to make some extra cash by selling babies to foreign couples looking to adopt, I don’t know and honestly, it doesn’t really matter. Baby trafficking is just one of those crimes where you don’t need to know all of the details, because no matter what it’s totally reprehensible and without justification. It almost makes toxic toothpaste seem lighthearted by comparison……almost.

- When is winning a lawsuit not really winning? When the losing party that you’re trying to collect a settlement from is none other than one of the United States’ most bitter enemies, Iran. Suffice to say that there aren’t a lot of warm fuzzies being exchanged between the U.S. and the Iranians, so I don’t think the families of 241 U.S. service members killed in the 1983 bombing of a U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut are going to be successful in collecting the $2.65 billion judgment levied against the Middle Eastern nation by a federal judge on Friday. The ruling allows approximately 1,000 family members of the deceased Marines to seek reparations from the Iranian government by seizing assets from sources around the world. If I believed in luck, I would wish all of these families good luck in getting that money, but it’s just not going to happen. Governments, especially ones in rogue nations like Iran, don’t exactly operate on the up and up when it comes to finances. They have all sorts of secret money and assets hidden in all sorts of obscure locations and they’re certainly not going to willingly turn over any of their money to citizens of a nation they despise simply because one of that nation’s judges said they have to. A new law that would make it easier for money to be recovered from foreign governments in cases like this one is under consideration by Congress, but even the potential passing of this new law doesn’t seem like it would be enough to successfully resolve this case.

- That you very much, Romeo Crennel, for doing your part to further my new campaign to fire Cleveland Browns coach Romeo Crennel. Aside from making asinine decisions like naming his starting quarterback on a week-to-week basis (which turned out to be a lie, but more on that in a minute) and refusing to admit who his backup quarterback would be, Crennel has also appeared inept and overmatched when it comes to in-game coaching tactics as well. The collective ineptitude of Crennel, his staff and his team were on display today in an awful 34-7 season-opening loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers that was every bit as bad as the score indicates, if not worse. The Browns turned the ball over four times and changed quarterbacks mid-game, proving that the team’s quarterback isn't on a week-to-week basis, but rather a quarter-by-quarter basis. Really it didn’t matter if it was Charlie Frye throwing the interceptions or if it was Derek Anderson. The supposedly revamped and improved offensive line was atrocious, giving up six sacks and threatening to send whomever was playing quarterback to the emergency room every time they dropped back to pass. The outcome was never in debut as the Steelers led 17-0 at the end of the first quarter. If this is how the Browns are going to look on a weekly basis, my campaign to get Crennel fired should be successful in 3-4 weeks, a record even for my über-powerful campaigns to bring down inept coaches and idiotic leaders. I look forward to hearing plenty of coach-speak and wheelbarrows full of clichés from Browns players and coaches this week as they try to spin this loss into something other than the utter embarrassment it is. Talk all you want about it being only one game with 15 more to go, Brownies, but realize how hollow those words are when you showed absolutely no indication on this day that you are good enough to win even one game this year. Fire Romeo…..chant it with me, Fire Romeo!

- Well the hits just keep on comin’ when it comes to global warming. As W. and his administration of ass hats continue to deny that global warming even exists and pressure scientists to alter their findings on the subject to conform with the fake truth that the administration wishes for us all to believe, the world’ ecosystem continues to take one body blow after another. On Friday, government scientists announced that by their calculations, two-thirds of the world’s polar bears will die off by 2050 because of thinning ice due to global warming in the Arctic. As America, Russia, Canada, Norway and others race to assert sovereignty over the oil and natural gas resources being revealed by the melting ice caps, the issue of polar bears being pushed to the verge of extinction hasn’t been raised once by W. or any of his stooges. Only in the northern Canadian Arctic islands and the west coast of Greenland are any of the world’s 16,000 polar bears projected to survive to the end of this century, a disturbing piece of news for sure. Extinction of the polar bears world definitely put a definite damper on the prospects of those great Coca Cola holiday ads featuring the polar bears drinking Cokes (I know they’re CGI, dammit, I don’t care), that’s for sure. And this is a U.S. Geological Survey, done by government scientists, so you can be sure that these researchers are already under pressure from W. and his minions to revise their report to say that polar bears are not in danger of extinction, but rather are thriving and their population is expected to triple by 2025. Wake up and smell the environmental devastation that your reign of terror in this country hath wrought, W.

- A couple of TV reminders for you as we kick off another week: First, Greek, my favorite summer show, has its season finale tonight with guest stars Alan Ruck (Spin City) and Charisma Carpenter (Charmed, Veronica Mars) on campus as Rusty, Casey and the rest of the Cyprus Rhodes crew wrap up their semester and first season. I have to admit that it surprised me to realize that there have only been nine episodes of the show, because it’s been such a good show that it seems like more. There will actually be an all-day marathon on the show in its entirety, beginning at noon tomorrow on ABC Family. Also tomorrow night, from 8-10 p.m., Prison Break will air the final two episodes from its amazing second season in preparation for the Season Three premiere next Monday night. As it turns out, the third season will begin with Lincoln on the outside of the prison walls, trying to break Michael out, a reversal from how the series began in the first place. Should be a great season, be sure to tune in.

MTV hits two new lows, college football starts on a high note and Vanessa Hudgens isn't very smart

- Wow, what a Saturday of college football. Since I watched a total of 24 games in a daylong effort that began before noon on Saturday and lasted into the wee hours of Sunday morning, I have more thoughts than I can possibly jam into a single paragraph, but I’ll try anyhow. First, there remains no better way to kick off a day of football than College Game Day on ESPN. I’m a sucker for the mascot-head stunt from Lee Corso with his weekly prediction of the game of the week, just as I’m a sucker for Miss Teen South Carolina Caitlin Upton, who ESPN managed to work into a story about Appalachian State and their upset of Michigan last week. As it turns out, Upton will be attending App State next year (yes, she was admitted, you sarcastic jerks) and so she helped by pointing out where the school is located on the map, showing a good sense of humor about her misspeak during the Miss Teen USA Pageant. Personally I would have been ok with her standing there, just smiling at the camera, but if she wants to talk, I’m fine with that as well. Speaking of Michigan, nice of UM to not show up this week against Oregon, getting trounced 39-7 at home, seeing their three star players injured and showing about as much interest as Rosie O’Donnell at a salad bar. Also in the early games I got the chance to see the lamest motivational ploy in sports firsthand in the game between the University of Miami and the Oklahoma Sooners. New Miami coach Randy Shannon has gone with the cheesy, worthless tactic of removing the player’s last names from the backs of their jerseys, a move that I think is supposed to inspire team unity by reminding players that they are supposed to play for the name on the front of the jersey, not the name on the back. It’s lame because it never works and because it doesn’t actually impact anything, other than my ability to know who the players are. Fact is, if you need to go to corny tactics like that, your team is in far more trouble than a simple sartorial switch can fix. Stop your guys from getting arrested and make sure they go to class, R., that should be more effective. I’d also like to congratulate Western Kentucky University and The Citadel for their verrrry sporting 87-0 and 76-0 victories over lesser opponents. Great job guys, way to pull back before you hit the century mark against significantly smaller and clearly overmatched schools. I draw the line at 60 points, in case you were wondering, because you can keep pushing to that point but once you get past 60 and the other team can’t score once, you’re just being classless. On the other end of the competitive spectrum there was the game between Texas A&M and Fresno State, a game that took three overtimes to finish, with A&M winning 49-47 in the sweltering Texas heat. The suspense was boosted by a lengthy replay delay in the first overtime that actually resolved in a fashion beneficial to both teams, which never happens. Also heading to overtime were Auburn and South Florida, with USF bailing out abysmally bad kicker Jose Alvarado, who was the reason the game went into overtime to begin with because he missed four short field goals in regulation, to win 26-23 on a Matt Groethe touchdown pass and stun the #17 Tigers on their home field. Hawaii also won an overtime thriller when Louisiana Tech inexplicably went for the two-point conversion in the first overtime on their home field instead of kicking the extra point and going to a second overtime, a mistake that resulted in a 45-44 loss to the Rainbow Warriors. Oh, and the reason I was able to watch a ginormously large number of games can be found in three words: Big Ten Network. With BTN added to my satellite package this week, I got eight games I normally wouldn’t have seen and I got to watch every Big Ten team except Indiana. While I worry that this pace might kill me if I attempt to continue it all season long, I’m already looking forward to next Saturday to see if I can do it all over again……

- I won't be watching Sunday night’s MTV Video Music Awards, live from Las Vegas, for a number of reasons, but this particular reason is motivation enough for any fan of real, legitimate, good music to abstain from viewing this debacle. The network that has worked its arse off to homogenize and bastardize music for two decades now will be featuring, as the show-opening performer for the broadcast, the lip-syncing, marginally insane pop tart known as Britney Spears. This nut job’s music blew before she went insane and packed on thirty or forty pounds, so I’m going to go out on a limb and say it hasn’t gotten any better since. Usually donning a naughty Catholic schoolgirl outfit and dancing like a skank isn't the high point of anyone’s career, well, unless your career is as a stripper, but it was definitely the high point for Spears. She will reportedly be performing her new single, which I don’t know the name of and have no motivation to find out. Still, Spears is assured of being the worst performer at the show, which is tough to do when other performers include Timbaland Nelly Furtado. MTV is promising that Spears will open the show in dramatic fashion and captivate everyone, which could be true, assuming everyone is captivated by something as exciting as watching a rock sit in place and with as much musical ability as a sack of potatoes. I know it’s been a long time since MTV was cool and actually relevant and unfortunately it’s not headed back in that direction any time soon, but is it too much to ask that you not resort to putting one of the biggest punch lines in music history on as the opening act for one of your signature events of the year? Not even a makeout session with Madonna could save this train wreck in the making……

- Score one for the everyman in the fight against the U.S. government’s continual blatant intrusion on the privacy of its citizens. U.S. District Court Judge Victor Marrero dealt a blow for the common man from a courtroom in New York with his ruling that invalidated several parts of the Patriot Act which would have forced Internet providers to turn over their records to the government without first notifying customers. Marrero ruled the investigators must have approval from the courts before they can turn over the records without customer notification, although the judge did immediately stay the effect of his ruling, which gives the government time to appeal. So I guess it’s a very minor victory for we citizens, but when it comes to W. and his army of ass hats and their ongoing battle to strip us of every last aspect of our privacy and rights to that privacy, you have to take any victory you can get.

- It’s always funny when a person, especially a celebrity or well-known athlete, has a revealing picture of themselves or a sex tape they’ve made that becomes public and then that person is angry, acts violated and tries to criticize everyone for talking about it. If you don’t want to picture or sex tape to come out, then don’t make them in the first place and you won't have that problem. Vanessa Hudgens does have that problem, and I’m sure that plenty of parents out there are peeved at her for it. Hudgens is one of the stars of Disney’s High School Musical and thus a hero to many teens and pre-teens who love those movies, but she also is the star of a far more revealing and far less celebrated production – a nude photograph which shows the 18-year-old actress standing naked in what appears to be a bathroom, with a red shower curtain serving as a backdrop. The picture is all over the Internet, but no worries, Hudgens’ spokesman has made a statement that should take care of all of this. “This was a photo which was taken privately,” the statement reads. “It is a personal matter and it is unfortunate that it has become public.” Yeah, because how many of us don’t regularly take nude photographs in bathrooms just for the heck of it? I think that’s something most everyone has in common – either that or it something that pretty much no one does and those who do it do so with the full knowledge that it could eventually be leaked out. Sorry, V., you seem like a nice girl, but putting that kind of ammo in anyone’s hands is a major risk because you never know when the person taking that picture may decide that they want to put it out there for whatever reason. Hey, at least Hudgens can be thankful that at the moment, Disney is denying that the mini-scandal will cause her to lose her spot in the upcoming feature film High School Musical 3. Take solace in that, V., and from now on keep your clothes on when any sort of camera is present unless you want those images going out to the whole world.

- Wow, two MTV mentions in one post, and neither one is remotely positive, can you imagine that? Well if you’ve watched much MTV lately, I’m sure you can. Clearly eager to prove that it is still working feverishly to plumb the absolute depths of the bottom of the barrel when it comes to programming, the network will soon be featuring a new reality show wherein 16 men and 16 women compete for the affections of bisexual MySpace icon Tila Tequila. Tequila, in real life Tila Nguyen, is one of those prototypical MySpace skanks with revealing pictures and 5,654 horny guys all vying for that elusive spot in her “Top Friends” portion of her page and MTV is desperate/stupid enough to give her a forum to advance her joke of a singing/modeling/acting career with the show A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila. Ahhhh, so clever, MTV, the whole pun of “shot” and tequila, you crack me up. This isn't even about the whole bisexuality issue either, because MTV has obviously done much more bizarre things than this. It’s about taking some random bimbo whose sole “accomplishment” is having a surgically enhanced body that she is trashy enough to exhibit for free to tens of thousands of desperate, horny, deviant losers with nothing better to do than cruise MySpace for hours on end and giving that bimbo a TV show. I knew the bar for getting your own show was low, but this low? What’s next, are you going to feature some of the sexual predator pervs on MySpace in their own reality series, A Shot at Being Arrested for Trying to Seduce 13-year-old Girls? C’mon MTV, even for you this is embarrassingly low.

Buddhist monks know how to protest, the NFL kicks off with a dud and a scientific study I can get with

- That was quite a kickoff party the NFL threw last night, wasn’t it? Umm, ok, maybe it wasn’t, I’ll admit that. First, a lame collection of musical acts including the man singing the most tired, over-played, irritating song-turned-commercial-jingle in America, John Mellencamp, a tired, Britney Spears/Avril Lavigne combo and former American Karaoke contestant, K. Clarkson and some country singer chick who’s more famous for who she’s married to than her music career (mostly because she’s a country singer and it’s hard to take any of them seriously (I think her name is Faith Hill, but since I skipped that pregame show, I can’t say for sure. Then there was the game itself, where the defending Super Bowl champion Indianapolis Colts took on last year’s feel-good story, the New Orleans Saints. Following a run to last year’s NFC title game in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Saints are many people’s favorites to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl this year…..or they were until they found themselves on the receiving end of a 41-10 beatdown by the Colts. The Saints didn’t score a single touchdown on offense, with their only score coming on a fumble return by cornerback Jason David. Of course, David was also burned by Colts’ receivers for three of the Indianapolis touchdowns, so his lone success of the evening cant be of much consolation. However, that has to pale in comparison to the clunker of a night turned in by a Saints offense that was arguably the NFL’s most explosive last season. To be fair, the game was 10-10 at halftime, so up to that point it was at least competitive. After halftime, Colts 31, Saints 0. Way to show up when it matters most, Saints, hopefully this isn't an indicator of how your season is going to go. It ended up being a great celebration for the Colts as they unveiled their championship banner, but for the rest of us it was an underwhelming start for the NFL season.

- Now here’s a scientific study I can get behind. I actually wish I had been a part of the study done by researchers at Liverpool John Moores University, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community health, a study of a sample of British and North American rock stars and other musicians and their premature mortality rate. It turns out, and this may shock you, that musicians tend to die much younger than the rest of the population. The study found that between two and 25 years after the onset of their fame, the risk of death for musicians was two to three times higher than that of the general population when matched up in terms of sex, age and ethnicity. What I wouldn’t give to have been a part of the research team as they sat down to study 1,064 musicians from rock, punk, rap, R&B and other genres to find out when they died and at what rate. What music fan wouldn’t love doing research on the lives and demises of Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley, Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin? No, I don’t know if they broke down causes of death and figured how many were via ham sandwich (a la Mama Cass) or how many were mysterious suicide (a la Cobain). I do know that those included in the study were artists with albums in the “All-Time Top 1,000,” a survey published in 2000. The average age at time of death was 42 for North American musicians, 35 for British artists. While it’s true that this study merely confirms what we already knew, that successful musicians tend to drink a lot, do a lot of drugs and live a pretty crazy lifestyle, I still don’t mind time and research dollars being used for it. Again, the only thing that pisses me off is that no one busted me a phone call to ask me to take part in the study…..

- Since we’ve all had an overload of stories about a certain NFL quarterback being exceptionally cruel to dogs, I’m glad to hear about a different NFL quarterback acting as a friend to man’s best friend. Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger may be the leader of the arch rival for the Cleveland Browns, but he’s still doing something good for the city of Cleveland by providing a much-needed explosive detection dog, a training course and a canine protection vest for the Cleveland Division of Police’s canine unit. Roethlisberger has a foundation that will be distributing grants to police and fire departments in Pittsburgh and the surrounding areas and will also make similar gifts to the communities of each of the Steelers’ regular season opponents. When Big Ben learned that Cleveland’s only explosive-detecting dog, Rex, is 11 years old and nearing retirement age, he decided to purchase a new dog for the city. The department didn’t have the necessary funds to purchase a new dog, so Roethlisberger stepped up to meet the need. See, now wasn’t that refreshing to read a story where no dogs were brutally murdered by hanging, electrocution or drowning? Every now and then it’s good to remember that not everyone in the world is a total classless act.

- Classes have just started back at colleges and universities around the country, with most schools in their first two or three weeks of the semester. Inevitably, there are a lot of kids around the country who aren’t thrilled with the roommate that they were assigned in their dorm room. Maybe one of them is a country, rural type and the other is a Goth, or maybe one is a jock and the other is a science nerd. Whatever the case, here’s hoping that no more bad roommate matches end up with the same result as one particularly bad (and fatal) pairing at the University of Arizona. A fight between two roommates there has left one of the girls dead and the other hospitalized with injuries not considered life-threatening. The 18-year-old woman who died last week as a result of injuries sustained in the fight told authorities she suspected her roommate of stealing from her. I get that you’d be very upset if you thought some jerk you’d just met a week or two before and had to live with in close quarters for an entire year was stealing from you, but how does it escalate to the point that you get into an all-out brawl that leaves one of you dead and their other hospitalized and possibly facing criminal charges? Do they not have RA’s at the University of Arizona or university police who could help out with this? I know campus police tend to be useless, what with the fact that they’re not really real cops, but this is the kind of situation that’s right in their wheelhouse. If nothing else, file a complaint and ask to be transferred to a different room, because otherwise things are going to end badly. Even if you choose to get physical and no one is seriously hurt, you’ve just upped the animosity a hundredfold for the rest of the year. Heck, buy a padlock for everything you own, or find a storage facility nearby to stash your belongings, just don’t get into a fight with a roommate who clearly is tough enough to kill you.

- You might know it as Myanmar, but it will always be Burma to me. Those immortal words were uttered by John O’Hurley as Mr. Peterman on Seinfeld, but they were the first thing that sprang to mind when I heard of an unusual anti-government protest march held in Myanmar on Wednesday. The protest was unusual because of who was staging it, namely a group of Buddhist monks. I’m not up on my Buddhist monk knowledge, but I believe these guys take a vow of silence, not exactly the optimum condition under which to stage a protest. Still, Martin Luther King Jr. proved that you can take a stand without being violent and physical, although I do happen to love protests with looting, pillaging, plundering, brawling, burning of cars and property destruction. The monks held their protest march in the central town of Pakokku and only halted their efforts when soldiers fired warning shots and arrested several of them. While the absence of the above-mentioned riot techniques does cost the monks points, they do earn some back for the multiple arrests. Also, most good protests are anti-government because let’s face it, governments are corrupt, often-oppressive entities that usually fail to serve their stated purpose. If citizens don’t speak out and stand up against their governments when they fail or take the wrong path in a given situation, government officials might get the misguided notion that they are actually right. So props to my Buddhist monk riot/protest pals for doing their part in their own way, good job fellas.

I lose respect for Harvard grads, Leigh Bodden loses his mind and that loser W. has a friend in Loser-ville

- I used to have a lot of respect for Harvard, but that level of respect has dipped substantially based on the revelation that the magazine 02138, a magazine aimed at Harvard alumni, has compiled a list of the top 100 “fascinating men and women whose work is changing the world,” and they have Al Gore at top of the list and that ass hat W. second. Now this is not to say that I’m not down with Gore’s work on behalf of the environment, because I am. Even if his film An Inconvenient Truth was one of the most boring pieces of film ever shot, he’s done much to raise awareness of environmental issues, especially global warming. Still, if Al Gore is the most fascinating person in your particular world, you live in a very, very sad and small world you live in. However, a much more egregious inclusion is W., a tool who is definitely affecting the world but is so far from fascinating that they’re not even in the same solar system. He’s ruining the world, creating unnecessary wars, directly causing the deaths of thousands of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians, but that makes him a moron, a dunce and an ignoramus, not fascinating in the list. I’m not even fascinated to know how a person can be that incredibly stupid and brain dead yet still walk upright. Shouldn’t Harvard grads be smarter and better educated than this? Shouldn’t the top of this list be populated by nuclear physicists, philanthropists, humanitarians and other, um, smart people? Step it up, Harvard-ians, you can do better than this.

- Look at my man Leigh Bodden, already in midseason form before the Cleveland Browns even kick off their 2007-08 campaign. Athletes are notorious for pulling the “Do you know who I am?” card with police, when they’re trying to get into a club or while they’re looking for special treatment in any place they go. They think they can big time people because they’re a professional athlete, but playing that card usually doesn’t result in a happy ending. Take Bodden, for example, when he went to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport on Wednesday. Bodden claims he was there to pick up his girlfriend and their two children, which shouldn’t be a big problem, right? Just pull into short-term parking, take a ticket on the way in and head on inside to the terminal to wait for your loved ones. That wasn’t how Bodden played it, because he either doesn’t understand the concept of airport security or figures that as a pro baller, he’s simply above the rules. According to Lt. Thomas Stacho of the Cleveland Police Department, Bodden was spotted at about 6:30 p.m. driving 2004 GMC Yukon the wrong way on the roadway for arriving flights at the airport. A police officer instructed Bodden to stop, but he initially refused before complying with a second command. Well, he kind of complied, pulling his vehicle to the curb and walking away. The officer then ordered Bodden to move the vehicle, but Bodden responded that he was there to pick up some people, which I guess he thought made it ok. Hey Leigh, I don’t know if you heard or not, but about six years ago we had this thing called 9/11, and ever since there’s been a much higher level of security at airports. You can no longer pull your vehicle up to the curb and just leave it. In fact, you can’t really linger near the curb long even if you remain in your vehicle. When the officer asked to see Bodden’s driver’s license, Bodden responded that it was in the vehicle. From there, the confrontation escalated, with Bodden reportedly becoming verbally abusive and using numerous profanities. Other officers were called in and witnessed Bodden’s temper tantrum, after which he was placed under arrest despite strong physical resistance. He’s been hit with charges of aggravated disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and various traffic offenses. Dude, next time hire a driver to take you to the airport, then you can get out at the curb and go inside to meet your loved ones while the driver takes the car to a parking lot and comes back to the door to pick you up in a few minutes. But if you absolutely must be the one driving to the airport, make use of the parking lots yourself, because I’ve actually used the short-term parking at the Cleveland Airport and it’s a pretty decent place, good lighting, plenty of spaces. Oh, and maybe next time listen to the officer when they give you simple requests like pulling over and moving your vehicle, because it sounds like you were one well-placed kick or elbow from a Taser blast, my man.

- Even the stupid need kindred spirits, and so our un-esteemed leader W. has his pal, Australian Prime Minister John Howard, to keep him company in Totally Wrong-ville when it comes to the war in Iraq. Howard clearly believes that stupidity should not go unsupported, so he has vowed to keep his country’s troops in Iraq, right beside the American troops who shouldn’t be there either, for the foreseeable future. “Our commitment to Iraq remains,” Howard stated. “This is not the time for any proposals of a scaling down of Australian forces.” Wow, it’s like a bizarro, Aussie version of W. come to life, spouting the same nonsensical, empty political rhetoric. Australia was one of the countries that participated in the ill-fated invasion back in 2003 that started this whole mess and still has about 1,600 troops left there, so it’s not as if they’re a player on the same level as the United States. Actually, chew on this for a minute: there have been more than three times as many American soldiers killed in Iraq as there are Australian soldiers left in the country. However, the Aussies have a distinct advantage over us Americans when it comes to a moronic leader keeping them in a conflict they shouldn’t be involved in: elections that are expected to be called within three months. Unlike the United States, Australia doesn’t have a regimented election system which dictates that a new leader can be elected only once every four years. No, elections for a new leader can be called for there, and Howard is trailing opposition leader Kevin Rudd in the polls already. Rudd, clearly a smart man, has already promised to pull Australian troops out of Iraq if elected. That’s the message that should carry the next American president to victory in the 2008 election as well. It is comforting, though, to know that as screwed as we are in terms of who’s leading our country, we at least have some company in our misery.

- Are you, like me, continually amazed at how David Beckham’s mere presence in America and in Major League Soccer has revolutionized the way soccer is perceived in this country? I mean, the way tens and tens of people actually give a crap about Becks and the L.A. Galaxy since he came to the U.S. are evidence enough of the chance he has made. Ok, so that’s an exaggeration. Tens and tens of people implies that there are more then five people who are paying attention to Beckham and the Galaxy, which is not a big deal because once again, Becks is hurt, not playing and is focusing his energy in other places than the place he’s earning $250 million to allegedly play soccer and be the face of a franchise and an entire league. Instead, reports from London have Beckham wanting to leave L.A. to head back to England in January to practice with the British national team for the 2008 World Cup. Instead of staying in L.A. and trying to build chemistry and cohesiveness with the team that’s paying him millions of dollars, Becks would rather go back home to England. Personally, I think we’d all be better off if he stayed there. If he’d stayed there to begin with, the Galaxy and MLS wouldn’t have wasted millions of dollars on a guy who plasyed ten meaningless minutes in his first game, then sat our the next few with an ankle ouchie, returned for two or three games and then had a “catastrophic” injury during a game that forced him to get his knee scoped and wonder if he shouldn’t just sit out and rest until his knee was healthy again. Right Becks, because we wouldn’t want you out there on the field when you’re in any pain, because heaven knows none of the athletes in the real, legitimate sports in this country every play in pain or with an injury. So Beckham may have only played five or six games and he may have generated no interest in his team or league after the hubbub of his debut game, but other than that you cant argue with soccer fan’s contention that he’s going to change how soccer is perceived in America…….

- Sorry for your troubles, Steve Jobs, I’ m doing my part, at least. As he announced that Apple will be reducing the cost of its uber-expensive iPhone by $200 and offer new iPods with touch screens and video games in an attempt to boost sales with the holiday season approaching and the company’s stock down by 5.6% last quarter. I happen to be typing this on my new Mac Book Pro, with my almost-new iPod video nearby, so Apple can’t blame its financial downturn on me, anyhow. The reduced cost of the iPhone is twofold, with the two-model system (4 GB and 8 GB) gone and only the 8 GB model now on sale for a reduced price of $399, which is still too expensive when you consider than monthly plans are in the $80-$100 range. “We want to put the iPhone in a lot of stockings this holiday season,” Jobs said, presumably with a straight face. Um, Steve-O, I don’t think a lot of people are going to be buying a $400 phone with a service plan in the $1,800-$2,000 range for two years as a Christmas gift, because in case you didn’t notice, most of America isn't rich. Not saying that the iPhone isn't a cool product, but it’s still far too expensive to be accessible to the majority of Americans. Talk to me when you knock another $150 off the price and have plans in the $50-$60 range.

Is Mike Vick in Addis Ababa, is a Wisconsin football player in trouble with the law and is Larry Craig quitting on being a quitter?

- This is a new one. I’ve heard of college football players being academically ineligible to play, being suspended from the team for disciplinary reasons and players missing games due to injury, but up until now I’ve never heard of a player not being able to play in away games because the judge in their battery case won’t allow them to travel across state lines. University of Wisconsin running back Lance Smith won’t be able to travel with his teammates when they head to road games at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, Ohio State, Penn State, Illinois and Minnesota because he’s currently facing battery charges and is not allowed to leave the state. On a side note, props to UW coach Brett Bielema for allowing Smith to remain a member of the team in good standing even though he is facing such serious charges, because you’re not going to become a national championship-caliber team unless you’re cultivating a culture of criminal behavior, general thuggery and recklessness. You need some solid criminals and accused criminals on your team if you aspire to be an elite program. I’d just love to be in the coaches’ meetings during the weeks of away games for UW, because you know it’s going to escape someone’s memory that Smith cant travel with the team. “Let’s see, depth chart for running backs this week, I figure we’ll have P.J. Hill in for about 85 percent of the plays and maybe we can work Smith in for – what’s that? Smith isn’t playing this week? Why? He’s healthy, he’s been doing well in practice all week….oh, he’s under court orders not to leave the state? Damn, I forgot about that.” Just another reason to love college football…..

- Duuuuuuuude, I though SoCal beach bums were supposed to be mellow, man. Isn’t it s’posed to be about chilln’, soakin’ up rays, catchin’ some gnarly waves and gettin’ a good tan? Apparently some Labor Day partiers on a beach in San Diego didn’t get that memo, because their holiday party got so out of hand that the cops were called and had to come in with their riot gear, smoke and tear gas to restore order. There were beer bottles and cans being thrown and general chaos on the beach, which I don’t see as a major problem unless someone was in physical danger as a result. However, some concerned citizen or member of the beach security guard unit called the disturbance in to the cops and this melee resulted. Sixteen people were arrested for their roles in the fracas, with most of them set to face charges of fighting and public intoxication. I’m all for having a good time on Labor Day, having a few pops and hanging out at the beach, but mass arrests tend to put a damper on the festivities. Also, please note that although riot gear was broken out by the police, this does not fall under the heading of an approved riot/protest in my unconditional support of protests and riots worldwide, because this was nothing more than a party that got out of control because a few knuckleheads got all fueled up and couldn’t keep themselves out of trouble. I don’t think these guys and girls were protesting anything, except the policemen’s orders that they put down their beer and stop throwing their bottles and cans.

- The only thing worse than being a quitter is to be a quitter at quitting. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, is reconsidering his decision to resign from the U.S. Senate following a guilty plea on charges of lewd behavior in a public restroom at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport. He announced earlier this week that he would resign on Sept. 30, but according to his spokesman Craig is now reconsidering that decision. “We’re still preparing as if Senator Craig will resign on Sept. 30, but the outcome of the legal case in Minnesota and the ethics investigation will have an impact on whether we’re able to stay in the fight – and in the Senate,” Craig’s representative Sidney Smith stated. First off, good use of the collective pronoun on that on, Sid, “we” are going to see if “we” can stay in the Senate. I do so love it when people use that word, “we,” and they actually have little or nothing to do with whatever it is they’re talking about. But anyhow……I don’t want to sound hypocritical, because I am on record as saying that I didn’t think Craig should resign based on a guilty plea to a misdemeanor, no matter how sexually perverted that misdemeanor was, but now that he made an offical statement that he was going to quit, he needs to stick with that decision. No one likes a quitter, L., but if you are going to quit something, stick with that quitting decision and don’t quit on quitting. It’s like a double negative in a sentence; it’s just not no way to do things. I don’t care what the Senate Ethics Committee says, if you didn’t want to quit then you shouldn’t have said you would. So take your sexually perverted, lewd-behaving, quitting a** and get out before the rest of the Senate kicks you out.

- Even thug rappers can’t get away with acting like, well, thug rappers. The Game, whose real name is Jayceon Jerrell Taylor, has been ordered to stand trial on felony gun charges after he allegedly pulled a gun on another player during a pickup basketball game at a South Los Angeles educational center. That’s right, this moron pulled a gun at a place where there are tons of kids around, all because he didn’t like how another dude was playing. To be fair, Taylor didn’t go for the gun first; he actually punched the opposing player first before retrieving the gun from his Cadillac Escalade and threatening to shoot the man. Taylor now faces charges of making criminal threats, possession of a firearm in a school zone and exhibiting a firearm on the grounds of a facility for minors. Look, Game, I know as a rapper you’re more into clubbing, ballin’, ho’s and Cristal, but just because you’re not really a role model for kids doesn’t mean that you can go pulling your piece out on a dude at a pickup basketball game on a school playground. Even you have to know better than that, my man.

- Did I miss something here? As part of his plea deal on federal dogfighting charges, was Michael Vick sentenced to serve time in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia? Oh, you mean to tell me that authorities in that city are just going to kill thousands of dogs and Vick isn't involved? Seriously? Well if he isn't involved he should be, because as everyone knows, when you need some dog-icide done, he’s the guy you call. But instead, officials in one of Ethiopia’s largest cities will be looking to combat rabies in their city before thousands of tourists descend next week to celebrate the Coptic millennium. They plan to kill the dogs by feeding them strychnine-laced meat, clearly eschewing the hanging/drowning/electrocuting/slamming-to-the-pavement-til-dead methods that Vick and his cohorts in the Bad Newz Kennels operation favored. Clearly city officials in Addis Ababa feel like they have too many stray dogs on hand and they don’t have a doggie octagon handy to pit them against each other in brutal dog fights, so the poisoned-meat strategy is the next best choice. I have no idea what the Coptic millennium is, but I’m guessing that having thousands of rabies-infested dogs roaming the already crowded streets of your city, terrorizing terrorists would be bad. Just goes to show you that there are still many countries in the world that do not view dogs in the same respected light that most Americans see them in.

Greek is winding its season down, Romeo Crennel is kicking off his final season with the Browns and what happens when you indulge TV networks

- The first season of the new ABC hit Greek is winding down, albeit with a hopeful vibe because the show has been picked up for a second season and will be returning later this season. Last night’s episode was billed as a sort of showdown night for different characters, with Rusty and Dale squaring off in a battle for control of their dorm room, Cappie and Rebecca Logan squaring off as part of a psychology experiment and Casey squaring off against Frannie (not sure there are actually any hot college girls with the name Frannie in 2007, but never mind that) in the race for the title of “Omega Chi Sweetheart” for the Omega Chi Fraternity, of which Casey’s boyfriend Evan is president. Actually, as the season has worn on, Casey has definitely become the more central character, as opposed to a focus on Rusty that the show promoted when it first started. The Casey-Cappie-Evan love triangle has become the centerpiece of the show, which is actually quite remarkable when you consider that there hasn’t been a single Evan-Cappie fight/showdown the entire season. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, the new “I used to be a _______________ major” for Cappie this week was psychology, and at this point I actually wish I had been keeping track of how many majors this guy has had, because there have to be at least seven or eight by now. Ironically, though, it was Frannie, the annoyingly proper, perky, matronly president of the Zeta Beta Zeta sorority, who found out in this week’s episode that she won’t be graduating on time. That led to a showdown with Casey because it means another year of Frannie at Zeta Beta, where Casey was fixing to take over. Meanwhile, Dale and Rusty squared off over control of their dorm room when Dale had his feelings hurt over Rusty spending all of his time with girlfriend Jen K. Ultimately, the story has a happy ending when Jen K. pointed out that Dale has been very helpful to Rusty and that they are more than roommates, they are actually friends. Again I have to ask what girl would actually be that understanding of an annoying roommate, be willing to attend a physics lecture (as happened in this episode as well) and openly state that one of her goals for the relationship would be to reach double digits in the having sex column? Yeah, girls like that aren't very realistic. The Cappie-Rebecca Logan story didn't evolve into much, serving only to teach us a bit about Cappie (his parents were irresponsible hippies) and to give him another chance to make amends with Casey by paying her back for bailing him out at the strip club by giving her the money he received for participating in the psychology experiment with Rebecca. Overall, this episode was mroe focused on the dramatic side of the equation as opposed to the comedic side, but it was still fun to watch and it set up what should be a great season finale with special guest stars Charisma Carpenter and Alan Ruck, next Monday, 9 p.m. on ABC Family.

- Romeo Crennel is a moron. Man, that feels good to say. The portly, secretive and often-cryptic coach of the Cleveland Browns is already showing why this should and probably will be his final season with the team. All offseason and preseason Crennel has been hedging, hemming and hawing about naming a starting quarterback. The Browns have incumbent started Charlie Frye, along with backup Derek Anderson, who started a few games last season when Frye was injured. They also have Brady Quinn, a highly touted rookie from Notre Dame who held out for the first week and a half of training camp in a contract dispute, which greatly impeded his chances to win the starting job. Going into training camp, Crennel billed the situation as an open competition, but neither Frye nor Anderson did much to distinguish themselves in preseason action. Quinn finally signed and got into camp, but he was so far behind that despite good play in his three preseason games, he was given no chance to win the start job. That left Frye and Anderson, with Frye’s play giving him a slight edge for the starter’s role to open the season. Crennel made the announcement yesterday that Frye is indeed the starter…..kind of….sort of….well, for the first week anyhow. That’s right, Coach Ass Hat is going with a week-by-week basis for starting quarterback. It’s the single dumbest thing I have seen from a football coach in a long time, for a number of reasons. First, the guy who’s starting, Frye in this case, is going to have one eye on the field and one eye on the sidelines every time he makes a throw, wondering if he’s about to lose his job. Second, what the hell does it say about you if you can’t pick a starter and at least publicly stand by them? Even if they are starting on a week-to-week basis, don’t say that publicly, you’re just needlessly inviting constant speculation and creating a circus. Third, every other team in the NFL has managed to decide on a starting quarterback without attaching a “for this week” tag, just like every other team in the NFL was able to do that last year, the year before and the year before that. The only time a guy is designated as a one-week starter is if he’s filling in for an injured or suspended player. This is taking the idea of a quarterback competition a little too far, extending it into the regular season indefinitely. Hey Coach Ass Hat, at some point you need to pick one guy and stick with him. And oh yeah, not only won’t Crennel name a starter beyond this week’s game, this tool won’t even say who the backup is going to be for this week’s game. Yes, that’s right, he won’t say who will be holding the clipboard and relaying in signs. Good one, R., because other teams will now have to spend all that extra time preparing for not one but two backup quarterbacks, doubling that time from about two minutes of prepation to four. Perhaps Crennel isn’t taking this concept far enough; maybe he needs to force all three quarterbacks to get identical haircuts and a la Mission: Impossible 2, have scientists give them the same exact face so you can’t tell them apart. Give them all the same jersey number, force them to keep their helmets on at all times and never speak so there is literally no way to tell them apart. Either that, or Crennel should just pull his head out of his ass and make a decision. This type of indecisiveness and refusal to make an actual decision beyond this week’s game shows a lack of testicular fortitude that I definitely would not want in the coach of any team I was on. Fortunately with the four-win season the Browns are headed for, Crennel should be fired at year’s end anyhow and then maybe the Browns can bring in a coach with the brains and balls to make an actual decision.

- Polls are normally a ginormous waste of time. They can be slanted, biased and set up to prove any point you want to make. They’re flawed and often unreliable, but on occasion a poll confirms something so blatantly obvious that it’s impossible to dispute it. In America, there aren’t very many topics you can definitively prove a point about and have overwhelming evidence to back it up. That our president is an incompetent, idiotic, inept moron is one such point, and recent polls show that most of America feels this way. A Wall Street Journal poll shows that a resounding two-thirds of Americans disapprove of the job W. is doing in office, a full five-percent jump from polls done nine months ago. An even greater percentage of Americans feel that our country is headed in the wrong direction, which isn’t surprising given the current lacking nature of our leadership. On the whole, Americans are more eager for the upcoming elections and the assurance of a new president than they have ever been, again not surprising. Maybe we can not only elect one who will end this atrocity of a war in Iraq, but won’t start any new unjustified, unnecessary, exorbitantly expensive abominations of wars AND won’t take a week’s vacation at his ranch in Texas two or three times a month instead of being at the White House, doing the job he was elected to do. Ah, the winds of change are about to blow, and it could not be a more welcome sight for America.

- A few brief notes from TV land: First, the first season of Heroes is now out on DVD, which I highly recommend purchasing ASAP. If you’re a fan of the show, then you know what an amazing first year it was, 23 thrilling, action-packed rides that left you hungry for more. If you didn’t watch last season, order the DVD and you have your chance to catch up on the phenomenon before this next season begins, which brings me to my next bit of news. The season premiere for Heroes is Monday, Sept. 24, which seems to be right in the middle of this year’s popular time frame for starting new seasons. Prison Break begins one week earlier on Sept. 17, while another of my favorites, Smallville, begins the same week as Heroes, with Clark Kent and friends set to return on Sept. 27. I was just scanning my memory bank, trying to figure out when the season premieres were for other favorite shows of mine, but then I realized that the CW has FREAKING CANCELLED NEARLY ALL OF THEM! (You still suck big time, Dawn Ostroff!) One Tree Hill doesn’t return until midseason, as is true for Lost and The Amazing Race. It’s not going to be a great fall for TV if what I’m seeing to this point is any indication, that’s for sure. Come to think of it, you may want to order that Heroes DVD right away because it’s the only way you’re going to find a decent show to watch several nights each week.

- See what happens when you encourage and indulge TV networks with the crappy, inane programming they put on the air, people? That crappy programming begets more crappy programming, as evidenced by the fact that ABC is now going to have a spin-off from its unwatchable, chick-flick of a reality show Dancing with the (D-List) Stars. The show, titled Dance War: Bruno vs. Carrie Ann, will feature two losers who apparently are judges for DWTDLS and will now square off in a six-week suck-fest to see which of them is a better dancer. Former DWTDLS winner (the ultimate oxymoron, because in a travesty like this show, there are no winners) will host the program, which will have the two loser judges taking teams of entrants any trying to mold them into the “ultimate dance team.” Now had there been more Americans out there with an IQ above 46, we could have given DWTDLS the zero Nielsen rating it so richly deserves and there would have been no spin-off. This is why you don’t feed the monkeys at the zoo, America, and it’s why you don’t give in to your petulant 4-year-old when he or she throws a temper tantrum, because it will only lead to bad things. From now on, don’t watch mindless, idiotic, lame TV shows and the networks will kill them off the way God intended (well, unless it’s Dawn Ostroff and the CW, then they’ll order five more seasons of it).

- Well whaddya know, another scientific study on a totally obvious fact turns up no new information and basically restates what we already knew. Still, even among redundant science, this study stands out as a massive waste of time and money. A new study published in the newest edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has found that despite men saying they look for certain deeper, less superficial characteristics in a potential mate, men end up deciding on who they marry based primarily on physical appearance. Men in the study listed characteristics they’d want in a mate beforehand, with many listing personality traits as opposed to appearance. Yet when it came time to make their choices, shock of all shocks, the men picked women who were hot. Dude, where do I sign up for a grant to study clearly obvious things like this? Can I get a grant to study whether college students like beer and free food? What about research money to figure out whether Ferraris are more fun to drive than 1975 Ford Pintos with rusted out floors and no engine? Or maybe I should just start my own scientific journal with a title like Stating the Blatantly Obvious: Studies Only Telling You Things That Everyone with More Than Five Brain Cells Already Knows. Ah science, isn’t it wonderful…..

Who to do coke with if you're a celeb, where to go for kosher dining hall meals and what has become of Mike Nifong

- Karma is proving to be a long and drawn-out ordeal for Mike Nifong, the former Durham County district attorney who so diligently prosecuted the case against three Duke University lacrosse players despite a lack of actual evidence, a lack of credible witnesses and having little or no chance to win the case. Sure enough, the case fell apart before it even went to trial and charges against all three players were dismissed, but the residual force of the case has been haunting Nifong ever since, even though we’re more than a year past the case ending. Already, he’s been forced to resign, he’s been disbarred and stripped of his license to practice law and publicly excoriated for his mishandling of the case. Now, he’s been cited for criminal contempt of court for lying to a judge while pursuing the rape case and has been ordered to spend a day in jail. Not exactly a harsh punishment, but it’s just one more indignity suffered by a man who so pompously and erroneously paraded in front of the cameras over and over again and tried to ruin the lives of three young men who were innocent of the charges he was trying to drum up against them, all to help him in his bid for re-election. Nifong was actually re-elected before being forced to resign, but other than that re-election, this really hasn’t turned out very well for him, has it?

- You’ll have to excuse me if I view the pledge by political leaders from Britain and France to increase their efforts to help the catastrophically awful situation in the Darfur Region of the Sudan. There isn’t a person or country in the world with any sort of knowledge bout the crisis in Darfur that doesn’t think it’s terrible, but in spite of that next to no one has actually stepped up and done anything significant to help the problem. However, British and French leaders have promised to step up the pressure on their allies to deploy more soldiers to the tumultuous region and ramp up the threat of increased sanctions against both sides in the conflict. In case you haven’t kept up with the grisly statistics from the conflict, it has now raged on for 4½ years, resulted in more than 200,000 casualties and forced 2.5 million people to abandon their homes and live the life of nomads. I hope that the Brits and French will also step up their own efforts in Darfur and I do wish them much success in spurring their allies to do the same, because those with the means to make a difference in this conflict, especially large nations with the resources to make a major impact, need to step in and help.

- So it appears that drunk driving convictions, shady financial practices and other miscellaneous crimes aren’t enough to get you kicked out of the U.S. Senate, but being a pervert who pleads guilty to charges of lewd conduct in an airport restroom is enough to get you railroaded out of the nation’s highest legislative body. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Id., will resign from the Senate on September 30 under heavy pressure from fellow senators, especially his Republican colleagues. It didn’t take long for the pressure to get to Craig, either; his resignation announcement comes a mere four days after he plead guilty to a reduced misdemeanor charge stemming from his actions in a restroom at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport on June 11. Not only that, but the state of Idaho already has a replacement chosen, Lt. Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter. By the way, may I say that Sen. Butch Otter has a nice, woodsy, lumberjack-ish feel to it, very appropriate for the state of Idaho. Craig’s biggest concern right now, besides leaving the Senate, appears to be reassuring everyone that he’s not a homosexual. “I’m not gay. I never have been gay,” he stated at a news conference. Man, I thought it was only athletes like Mike Piazza and Michael Vick who held news conferences to dispel rumors that they were gay, but apparently politicians do so as well. Adios to you, Craig, here’s hoping you and I never, ever walk into the same public restroom at the same time.

- Ah, political correctness, how I loathe thee. The University of Wisconsin-Madison has become one of the first in what will undoubtedly be a new movement on college campuses around the country to accommodate the dietary preferences of Jewish and Muslim students. The school has opened up a kosher-meat kitchen in one of its dining rooms to accommodate Jewish students and will also make special accommodations for Muslim students and their dietary standards. UW has about 4,000 Jewish students, making it one of the largest Jewish student populations at U.S. public universities. I don’t have a problem with Jewish or Muslim students needing special meals, I just hate the idea that we cant offend anyone, so we bend over backwards to ensure that no one is left out of anything, no matter what lengths we have to go to. Most college students make a point of avoiding dining hall food anyhow, so unless Taco Bell starts offering late-night kosher tacos and burritos, I don’t see the impact of this new trend being that big. UW spent more than $129,000 to buy equipment for the kitchen, which I’m sure they didn’t take out of their own pockets, but rather out of the pockets of their students and their student fees. Besides, I could be wrong but I believe that ramen noodles, mac n’ cheese and Doritos are bother kosher and acceptable by Muslim dietary standards, so what’s the big deal anyhow?

- Nothing is worse for a musician than being seen as a fake and a fraud. No artist wants their fans and critics to think that they don’t know anything about what they sing about, whether it’s rock, rap, hip hip, country, alternative, etc. When 50 Cent sings about bein’ in da club, you assume he’s rapping from experience. In that spirit, Amy Winehouse, the chanteuse responsible for one of the more annoying and irritating songs of this year, is reportedly living out the sort of lifestyle that would give her all of the source material she needs to write songs like Rehab. The dark, heavily tattooed popstress is reportedly a coke head of epic proportions. That’s the word from Courtney Love, a truly loathsome woman who nonetheless knows what she’s talking about when it comes to drugs and alcohol consumption. “I’ve been with lots of people when they’ve taken coke, including stars like Kate Moss and Lindsay Lohan,” Love was recently quoted as saying. “But I’ve never seen anyone take as much coke as Amy. Even I wasn’t that bad.” Well, apparently Courtney love is the preferred coke buddy for famous people, in case you’re scoring at home. Do celebs have her on retainer so when they’re looking to get their fix, they can have her on speed dial and fly her to wherever they are to do a few lines with them? And don’t tell me that you just happen to be around all of these people doing coke but you yourself aren’t doing any, C., I’m not buying it. Still, if C. Love thinks you’re out of control, then you probably have a serious coke problem.

Maybe the worst movie this decade, the New Pornographers with a great new album and the Michigan Wolverines stunned to the delight of many

- I laughed and laughed, then I laughed some more. In fact, it took me nearly the entire weekend to stop laughing after watching the University of Michigan football team lose its season opener to Division 1-AA Appalachian State. The Wolverines became the first-ever ranked Division I team to lose to a I-AA school, a loss that will not only cost UM its #5 ranking in the Associated Press poll but could knock them out of the poll entirely. The 34-32 defeat came in the sort of season-opening cupcake game that top teams schedule so they can start off their season with an easy win and impress the home fans in the process. Instead, there were looks of shock, awe and depression all around Michigan Stadium on Saturday afternoon. Despite questionable play calling by Appalachian State’s coaches, electing to kick a field goal on first and goal from the Michigan 5-yard line with 30 seconds on the clock and three time outs still in hand instead of at least taking a knee and forcing Michigan to use its timeouts, ASU got the win. Things definitely got interesting when UM got a good kickoff return and a 54-yard pass on its first play of the subsequent drive to move the ball all the way down to the Appalachian State 20-yard line. However, the Mountaineers blocked their second Michigan field goal attempt of the day and recovered the ball to secure the win. Aside from the sky-is-falling vibe emanating from Ann Arbor Saturday, the hilarity of the situation was further amplified late Sunday with video of somber, stone-faced Wolverine players arriving at the team’s practice facility for their film sessions. Seeing them with their grim expressions, waving off TV cameras and acting like convicted felons headed off to jail was the highest of high comedy. Whether you believe this is the biggest upset in college football history (it’s not, by the way), and whether or not you believe it should cost Lloyd Carr his job (it won’t yet, but another loss to Ohio State will), this was the highlight of the opening weekend of college football and at season’s end, it could definitely still be holding up as the highlight of the entire season.

- I’ve been eagerly anticipating Challengers, the new album from Canadian alternative artists the New Pornographers. Each of their first three albums (Mass Romantic, The Electric Version and Twin Cinema) have been awesome albums, full of odd beats, quirky lyrics, a consistently fast pace and the vocals of one of my longtime favorites, one Neko Case. Challengers goes in a different direction, falling into the trend of bands “growing” and “exploring their sound” once they’ve established themselves with a few good albums. Throughout this album, the Pornographers eschew the frantic, upbeat sound from their previous offerings and instead choose to incorporate mandolins, harps, acoustic guitars and French horns into a much more midtempo vibe. The opening track, My Rights Versus Yours, serves as the harbinger of this new sound, offering simply an acoustic guitar and the voice of singer/songwriter David “A.C” Newman. The familiar, always awesome voice of Case highlights the album’s title track, another acoustic groove about the challenges of finding love while also finding ways not to screw it up. The “old” Pornographers do show up for a few songs, bringing plenty of style and energy to songs like All the Things That Go to Make Heaven and Earth and Mutiny, I Promise You. In the end, those who give this album a chance and don’t reject it just because it’s not the same Pornographers they’ve become accustomed to will be rewarded. Challengers is a great album, even if it does take some getting used to.

- I have seen the future, and it holds what could easily be one of the five worst movies of the past half-century. The movie is Dragon Wars, a truly unimaginative movie set to hit theaters on September 24 that embodies the very essence of what unimaginative stands for because the movie is all about ginormous, hundred-foot-tall mutated lizards doing battle as the fate of humanity hangs in the balance. The problems with this movie are obvious and plentiful. First, Anthony Anderson plays one of the film’s main characters and although I have nothing against A.A. personally, every single movie he’s ever been in has been abysmal (Kangaroo Jack, anyone?). Second, giant mutated lizards terrorizing the world may be the single most absurd and idiotic premise in cinematic history. Third, that absurd, idiotic premise has been done over and over and over, including one specific ginormous movie lizard you may have heard of, Godzilla. Sadly, those early Japanese Godzilla films w/ their badly out-of-sync audio and terrible cinematography may actually be better than Dragon Wars. Seriously folks, this one could be a stinker for the ages.

- You can look at Andy Dick’s evening at the Funny Bone Comedy Club in Columbus, Ohio last weekend in one of two ways. You could see Dick’s act, with wildly inappropriate on-stage comments, groping patrons, taking women into the men’s restroom and urinating on the club’s floor and at least one patron and label it a thoroughly awful night. One of the club’s co-owners subscribes to this school of thought, calling it one of the worst performances in the club’s history. I, however, choose to look at things differently. At least this time, Dick didn’t have his a** kicked by Jon Lovitz like he did a few months ago at the bar in an L.A. comedy club when Lovitz bounced Dick’s head off the bar and administered an all-around beatdown on the waifish, weird comedian. By comparison, making a complete horse’s a** of yourself and bombing out on stage should rank as a pretty decent evening. So take heart, Andy Dick, because at least this time your face avoided any direct hits with blunt objects and/or fists. Too bad the same can’t be said about your badly flagging rep……

- Carlos Zambrano needs to learn that just as you don’t poke a sleeping bear with a stick, wave a Twinkie in front of a starving Rosie O’Donnell or leave your young son in a room alone with Michael Jackson, you do NOT, under any circumstances, take a shot at the uber-loyal Chicago Cubs fans in Chi-town and around the world. I am one of those fans, so when I heard Big Z rip those who booed him Monday at Wrigley Field following his fifth straight subpar start, I was pissed. Zambrano seems to think that fans shouldn’t boo him even though he’s pitching like a drunken, blindfolded wombat trying to throw a medicine ball through a two-inch wide target. He’s basically pitched like a giant sack of sh*t ever since signing the 5-year, $91.5-million contract he was so adamant about getting. His record in three starts since signing the deal is 0-3 with a beefy 9.56 E.R.A., making him just about the least effective starting pitcher in baseball over that span. Those stats come as his team is in the middle of a heated pennant race against not one, but two division rivals. (Milwaukee and St. Louis). Those stats also come from someone who is supposed to be the ace of the Chicago pitching staff and who acts (and is paid) like it. So when I hear Zambrano say that those booing him only care about themselves, I’m peeved and a bit confused. You mean, Z., that those of us who have been rooting our butts off for a team that breaks our heart year after year and hasn’t won a World Series in 99 years should be happy when you pitch like crap? You can’t turn in a single quality start right now and your pathetic performances are killing your team when they need you the most. What you need to do is stop sniping at the fans and start figuring out why opposing hitters are battering you around like a piñata at a child’s birthday party. Shut your mouth, Z., and while you’re at it, start shutting down opposing offenses.

My take on the CMA Awards, my take on the White House living in denial and I wonder aloud what's wrong with Texas

- So the 2007 Country Music Association Awards were announced yesterday, and guess what we learned? Country music still sucks! Personally I couldn’t care less who any of these yahoos are, but apparently some twangy, yodeling, warbling loser was nominated for Artist of the Year along with several other twangy, yodeling, warbling losers. Their songs all talk about drinkin’, NASCAR, losin’ yer woman, goin’ to the demolition derby at the county fair and bein’ a redneck, so clearly it’s going to be difficult to pick a winner from such a, um, distinguished group of nominees. Here’s what I’m proposing, and this would actually solve a lot of problems for all of us: on Nov. 7, the CMA Awards will take place in Nashville. On that night, you’ll have all of the “best” (or worst, same difference with country music) in country music gathered in once place. It’s the perfect time for: you guessed it, a live test of the latest top-secret, airborne neurotoxins being developed by elite American scientists for use by the U.S. military. Just release the toxins into the auditorium that night and wipe out country music in one fell swoop. The crippling blow should be enough to destroy this God-forsaken waste of time, a horrible genre of music that the world would be better off without. C’mon everyone, if we band together we can end this national nightmare and allow the healing to begin.

- I don’t think it’s a secret that MSNBC commentator Tucker Carlson is an ass hat. Anyone that white, the close-minded, wearing a bow tie and sporting that idiotic of a haircut is up to no good. However, even Carlson wouldn’t be stupid enough to think that making jokes about assaulting perverts who make unwanted advances in public restrooms is acceptable, right? Wrong-O. Appearing on MSNBC Live with Dan Abrams, Carlson was discussing the Sen. Larry Craig scandal and told an anecdote about an incident in high school where he was “bothered” by another man. “I went back with someone I knew and grabbed the guy by the – you know, and grabbed him and…..hit him against the stall with his head, actually!” Carlson jovially recalled. Whew, stop it T., you’re cracking me up! You and a buddy jumped a guy because he came on to you, ha ha! I’m sure glad that amuses you. Any reason you couldn’t just defend yourself one-on-one? Couldn’t you have just pushed the guy away, told him to stop being a perv and gone on your way? And why now, a couple decades later when you should be smarter and a bit more mature, do you still think it’s so funny that you did what you did all that time ago? Tucker, I don’t know if anyone has told you this, but even for a TV commentator like you, it is ok if you don’t verbalize every single thought that enters your mind.

- What the frak is going on in Texas? Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a man with a distinguished record as the head of the busiest death-penalty state in America, has actually halted the execution of a death row inmate in Huntsville. The pardon came down a mere seven hours before the man was scheduled to be executed for his role as a getaway driver for a killer. Man, if there was one thing you always used to be able to count on, it was the state of Texas getting the job done when it came to executing people. The state never used to fumble away chances to off people, whether they were guilty or not. Texas used to be the one state where there was always a line to get to the electric chair, but Gov. Pansy, er, Perry, has clearly softened up a bit. This is something that never, ever would have happened when that ginormous tool W. was in charge of your state, Texas……so on second thought, maybe this was a good decision by Perry.

- Danger America, danger! The electronic monitoring anklet has been removed from former astro-nut/adult-diaper wearer Lisa Marie Nowak, meaning she is once again free to terrorize the country while she awaits trial. A judge in Orlando ruled that Nowak could remove the anklet, which she had argued was expensive, bulky and uncomfortable. The judge rejected those claims, but said that Nowak’s behavior has been good enough to warrant removing the device. By the way, Nowak, those things aren’t meant to be comfortable and stylish, they’re there for our protection against nut jobs like you. If you don’t like having to wear an electronic monitoring anklet, then don’t put on an adult diaper, load up your car with pipes, knives, ropes and other weapons and drive all the way from Houston to Orlando to (allegedly) kidnap and possibly murder your romantic rival in an astronaut love triangle. Whatever you do with your newfound freedom, L., stay the heck away from Ohio, because I don’t want to be anywhere near you.

- Here’s a brief update on my riot brothers (and sisters) in Santiago, Chile: at least 750 arrests have now been made in conjunction with the extended protests going on in the capital city, with the rioting stretching on well into the night hours. Also, I am proud to report that one group of protestors who were demonstrating to demand higher wages added some quality looting and property destruction to their protest, which means that they just upped their riot grade to a 10 out of 10 on my Riot-O-Meter. Looting is a vital element in any truly great riot, so hats off to those involved in this great effort. Police also said that 98 protestors were injured during the day, but if you’re going to achieve anything truly great in virtually any walk of life, there will always be a few casualties. Riot on, Chileans, riot on………

- No one’s buying it, White House, so stop selling it. W. and his posse of poseurs have voiced great objection to an independent assessment concluding that Iraq has made very little political progress over the past few months. The report by the Government Accountability Office states that Iraq has reached only three of 18 benchmarks set by Congress and has partially satisfied two others. None of the benchmarks reached are among the most important, high-profile issues for the Iraqi government, including a national oil revenue sharing law that W. has cited as being essential to Iraq’s future. Among the portions of the report that the White House is disputing are claims that Iraq has failed to provide three trained brigades to support military operations in Baghdad and also that the government there has failed to ensure that the country’s security plan will not provide a safe haven for outlaws. Personally, I continue to be amazed as how W. and his crew are the only ones with the “right” perspective on the mess in Iraq and how everyone else – Congress, the American public, hosts of fake news shows, prison inmates, foreign nations, mental patients, the zebras at my local zoo – is completely wrong in believing that the situation in Iraq is terrible and that it’s getting worse, not better. Either the administration is lying to everyone or they’re just stupid (maybe both?), but their evaluation of the current situation in Iraq could not be further from the truth.