- Never saw this one coming…..oh wait, yes I did. A Nashville high school teacher accused of having an affair with one of her students has disappeared along with her two children after she was released from a mental hospital. Erin McLean has been missing for a week and a half now, as have her two songs, ages 11 and 8, after she was released from the nuthouse. How could she have custody of her children after all she’s done and been through? Well, if you remember her story, her husband is accused of killing to boy she was having an affair with, so by comparison she is the more fit (or available) parent. Look, I know that finding good teachers is hard, but is the situation so dire that standards have to be lowered to allow mentally unstable, pedophiliac, criminal individuals to be in the classroom? Call me crazy, but something like that should come up somewhere along the way and be a clear indication that maybe this person isn't someone you want teaching the children at your school. I just hope that someone finds McLean and her sons so they can be taken far away from her and her husband and raised by people who give them a semi-realistic show to grow up somewhat normally.
- I’m not sure you heard (pun intended), but world famous mime Marcel Marceau has died. I was trying to think of my favorite Marcel Marceau quote, but honestly I couldn’t come up with a single noteworthy thing that guy ever said. However, I’m sure that the mime community is devastated by his loss and that they’re all busy crying their imaginary tears. I do wonder, though, will they bury Marcel in an actual coffin, or will that fake box that mimes are always stuck in suffice? Also, will all of his mime friends ride their imaginary bicycles to his funeral? Will there be a moving tribute at the ceremony wherein all of Marceau’s mime pals climb their imaginary ropes together and bid their silent friend a silent farewell? Will everyone be required to wear white makeup over their entire face in order to attend, and what if you don’t have one of those funny-looking black berets to wear? Marceau was 84 years old, so his death couldn’t have been a surprise to him. If he had seen it coming, he would have said something, right? Also, you may not know this, but we can also thank M. Marceau for inspiring the King of Pedophiles, er, Pop, Michael Jackson, to invent his famous “moonwalk,” because the Pedophiliac One borrowed the idea from an M. Marceau skit, “Walking Against the Wind.” Here’s hoping that the same imaginary wind isn't blowing at your funeral, Marcel, that way those who loved you can pay tribute to you without fear of being blown away.
- This week’s Entrepreneurial Spirit Award goes to…..Jereme James, 33, of Long Beach, Calif., a man who put his prosthetic leg to good use instead of using it as an excuse. While many people with artificial limbs look for special treatment or accommodations, James put his synthetic leg to use by using it to smuggle iguanas from a nature preserve in Fiji and then selling them for a tidy profit here in the U.S. For some reason, the federal government doesn’t share the same appreciation of James’ business smarts that I have, because he’s been indicted on one count of smuggling, a charge that could land him in the hole for five years if he’s convicted. Yes, I understand that people bring foreign, exotic animals into this country without them being screen or approved by the established federal agencies poses some problems, but can we not give the man credit for turning what many would view as a liability into a successful asset? Jereme James saw what he wanted and he took it – then incapacitated it, shoved it in his prosthetic leg and transported it covertly to a foreign country where he sold it for a profit. He carpe’d the diem, if you catch my drift. Sadly, our government rarely sees the courage, industriousness and tenacity of talented entrepreneurs like James, so he’s going to face some jail time most likely, but don’t think I’m not busy printing my “Free Jereme James” t-shirts as we speak.
- Damn, now how are tens and tens of people going to make their way from the Alaskan town of Ketchikan, on one small island, to the town’s airport, located on another small island nearby? Gov. Sarah Palin has ordered state transportation officials to abandon the so-called “bridge to nowhere” project, ending one of the shining examples of wasteful, pork-barrel spending that the federal government is often ridiculed for. The $398 million bridge would have been one of the most expensive projects ever to help such a small number of people in such unnecessary fashion, but for some reason the governor wasn’t down with it. Instead, those wishing to go from Ketchikan to the Ketchikan Airport (and who isn't looking to make that trip) will have to continue to travel by ferry. Actually, what’s amazing is not that a political official had the kahones to put a halt to this kind of wasteful project, but rather that someone was willing to earmark nearly $400 million for an unneeded bridge in our nation’s coldest, most unlivable state. Thanks for that, Congress, glad you’re doing such a solid job keeping our nation’s finances on the straight and narrow!
- Not even when our un-esteemed leader W. goes abroad and returns home after he leaves office is he going to receive the kind of reaction former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori received upon returning to the country he once governed. Well, W. should receive a similar reaction but he won't, so let’s get that straight. But Fujimori was extradited Saturday from Chile back to Peru to face charges of corruption and authorizing death-squad killings. The ex-presidente fled Peru seven years ago when his government collapsed under the weight of the scandals he (allegedly) created. He was taken directly from the airport to a police base until a permanent detention facility can be prepared for him. Like I said, W. should get a similar reaction once he leaves office but he won't. He too has been responsible for the deaths of thousands, albeit soldiers fighting in a war he created and perpetuated, and he too has run a corrupt, dishonest, scheming, lying government that has left his country decidedly worse than it was when he took office. Now if only we could find a way to pressure W. into fleeing the country…..
Monday, September 24, 2007
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Scott Boras lies (shocker), TV premiere week and how KT Tunstall will be a part of it
- Major League Baseball is approaching its final week, and clearly the pressure of the playoff push is getting to players, coaches and even umpires. For example, the Milwaukee Brewers are wilting under the heat of their NL Central race with the Chicago Cubs, having dropped three of four games in Atlanta this weekend while the Cubs swept the Pirates in Chicago. Nowhere was the fraying of Milwaukee’s nerves so obvious as in Sunday’s game, when manager Ned Yost was ejected as his team was busy blowing a three-run lead and dropping another huge game. Throwing a tantrum, getting in the umpire’s face and getting thrown out of the game was as trite, predictable and clichéd a motivational ploy as a manager can make in a situation like this, but it didn’t work on this day and it isn't going to salvage the season for a Brewers team that is fading quickly. Of course, Yost’s tête-à-tête with an umpire wasn’t the most noteworthy incident to take place Sunday, thanks to noted hothead and perpetual ticking time bomb Milton Bradley. Bradley has had run ins with cops trying to give him speeding tickets, he’s thrown plastic bottles down at the feet of fans who were heckling him, he’s thrown baseballs out onto the field when ejected from games and he’s done so many other inexcusable things that there’s not room to mention them all. He’d been quiet so far this year, but you just knew he wasn’t going to make it through an entire season without making waves. During today’s game, Bradley was on first base after getting a hit and he took his lead off the base when things went sour. He called timeout emphatically and sprinted back to first, where he proceeded to spin around and head straight for first base umpire Mike Winters, who was stationed a few feet behind the bag in foul territory. Padres first base coach Bobby Meachem restrained Bradley, who was livid at Winters and was screaming at him and gesticulating wildly. Bradley contends that Winters was baiting him because of an incident in the previous game when Bradley was accused of throwing his bat at another umpire. He and Winters got into it over that incident and when Bradley pointed to the crowd and told Winters that they were all over the umpire’s case, Winters allegedly responded with a string of profanities and verbal challenges. It wasn’t long before Padres manager Bud Black came out of the dugout and entered the fray, which ended up being a decidedly bad thing for his team and his player. As Black pushed Bradley away from Winters, he inadvertently knocked Milton to the ground and injured him in the process. Once that happened, the incident fizzled out in short order, but now the Padres could be without one of their best offensive players as they try to hold on to a wild card lead and possibly catch Arizona for the NL West title. If the rest of this final week of the MLB regular season is anything like its first day, this is going to be a phenomenal week of baseball and then some…..
- I’ve got a deal for the Buddhist monks in Myanmar: You guys keep rioting and protesting and I’ll keep giving you props and posting regular updates on your exploits. These dudes are beasts, never-ending in their opposition to their country’s dictatorial, oppressive government and all who support that government. Already they’ve staged protest marches and engaged in property destruction to the stores of shop owners who support the government, and now they’re marching again. This time the monks marched right past police barricades to the home of Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, a move designed to further pressure the government by linking the monks’ cause to a woman who is an icon of Myanmar’s decades-old struggle for democracy. Again, I marvel at the chutzpah that these monks continue to show, not backing down no matter what measures the government tries to put in place to stop them. They’ve arrested monks, shot at them, put up barricades and still these guys keep coming. Fight the power, Buddhist monks, fight the power. You guys rock and you need to keep this up until you force your government to deal with the issues you’re raising.
- Finally…..the Rock has come back……to…..oops, wrong line. Finally, the time has come…..for my favorite shows to return…..with new episodes. Admittedly, that list of favorite shows with new episodes is much shorter this year, but I’m trying not to allow that reality to dampen my enthusiasm. Yes, with Prison Break getting an early jump on things last week, this week’s slate of premieres for me to be excited about numbers a paltry two: Heroes and Smallville. However, I’m hoping that the premieres of these two shows will be so phenomenal that they’ll take my mind off that other stuff. I’m especially pumped for Heroes because the show was so great during its first season and it continues to weave in new characters all the time. Last season everything built to a crescendo with Peter Petrelli and Sylar battling in New York’s Kirby Plaza and Sylar apparently being killed. Peter was about to explode from absorbing powers from so many other “gifted” people before his brother Nathan grabbed him and flew out of sight into the sky where a massive explosion could be seen from the ground. The questions to be answered are: 1) Where Sylar is, because we saw some weird sort of oozing sludge sliding into a sewer grate where he was killed and Zachary Quinto, who plays Sylar, is going to be back this season, albeit later in the season due to obligations on a Star Trek show whose name I don’t know because Star Trek is for losers, 2) What happened to the brothers Petrelli?, 3) Where is the über-funny Hiro Nakamura, because he appeared to teleport himself back in time at the end of last season and found himself in the middle of an ancient Japanese battle scene. There are actually a lot more questions, including the fate of Matt Parkman (Greg Grunberg), but those are the major ones I’ll be wondering about as Season Two kicks off Monday night at 9 p.m. on NBC. As for Smallville, I’ve read some news bits on TVGuide.com, but nothing huge to the point that it’s got me on the edge of my seat. Much of the early part of the season looks to be focused on the arrival of Clark Kent’s cousin from krypton , a girl who was sent to Earth at the same time as the Man of Steel but has been in some sort of suspended state of animation since then. The explosion at the dam in the season finale woke her and now she has to adjust to life on Earth with the help of her cousin. Also hanging in the balance are the fates of Lana Lang and Chloe Sullivan, both of who were left in perilous positions as last season came to a close. Chloe was in a weird trance/coma after her meteor power surfaced, while Lana was supposedly blown up by a car bomb even though we never saw her in the wreckage of the car and a delivery truck that she could have easily climed into passed by her car and hid her and her vehicle from view right before the explosion. I believe she’s not dead, although the season premiere could prove me wrong (doubt it). But tune in to the CW Thursday night at 8 p.m. to find out in what should be an awesome season premiere.
- Speaking of the new TV season, I’m sure that numerous network execs and producers are breathing a sigh of relief with the release of the new album from KT Tunstall, Drastic Fantastic. Why would this be such a big relief to TV networks, you ask? Well, if you think back to last season, you’ll remember that Tunstall’s songs became so ubiquitous that you literally couldn’t get away with them no matter what network you were watching. The CW used songs like Black Horse and the Cherry Tree and Suddenly I See for numerous shows, American Karaoke used Tunstall’s music for its glorified karaoke contest and the movie The Devil Wears Prada also featured Tunstall’s tunes. It got to the point that the use of Tunstall’s songs was so over the top that VH1’s Best Week Ever did a gag segment about it, which only happens if the topic is something that’s so blatantly obvious that everyone has noticed it. Well, Tunstall is back, full of folk, pop, soul and a few stabs at rock credibility that fall short of the mark. Her signature vocals remain, with their smoky, sultry vibe and if that’s what you’re looking for, then this is an album for you. If you don’t way to buy the album, though, just tune in to any TV network any night of the week and I’m guessing you’ll hear songs from it on your favorite shows this season.
- Nice try, Scott Boras. The über-agent who is largely responsible for negotiating some of the most obscene, outrageous contracts in the history of Major League Baseball is already on the campaign trail, angling for a new deal for his most famous client. Never mind that this client, one Alexander Rodriguez, already has a 10-year, $252 million contract with three years remaining. A-Rod can opt out of the contract after this season and because Boras feels his client can get an even more lucrative deal (and thus earn more money and attention for Boras, the spotlight whore that he is), that’s exactly what Rodriguez is expected to do. Boras will undoubtedly pull out all the stops in seeking a new deal, including flat-out lying, as he’s busy doing right now. Boras claims that a prospective new owner for the Chicago Cubs is already negotiating a new contrct with A-Rod, and that this new deal is worth $30 million per year and would include a partial ownership stake in the team. The first problem with this is that it’s against MLB rules for any team or team representative to negotiate with a player who is currently under contract with another team. That would be tampering, and no one in baseball is dumb enough to do that with the game’s highest-profile player. Also, there’s no way that a prospective buyer of a team is already negotiating a contract with anyone, because the execs and front office personnel currently with the team are still in control. Lastly, it is also against MLB rules for a player to have any sort of ownership share in a team while they are playing, nor can a player negotiate for a future ownership stake for after his career. T his entire “story” is nothing more than Boras trying to drive up the price for his client by creating an imaginary bidding war between suitors who don’t even exist yet. That’s not to say that if Rodriguez opts out that there won't be several teams vying to sign him, because a few can afford his steep price tag and they’ll go after him hard. It’s just amusing that Boras would throw out such obvious fabrications that no one with any sort of real baseball knowledge would believe and expect people to buy in. Nice try, S., but I’m not that gullible.
- I’ve got a deal for the Buddhist monks in Myanmar: You guys keep rioting and protesting and I’ll keep giving you props and posting regular updates on your exploits. These dudes are beasts, never-ending in their opposition to their country’s dictatorial, oppressive government and all who support that government. Already they’ve staged protest marches and engaged in property destruction to the stores of shop owners who support the government, and now they’re marching again. This time the monks marched right past police barricades to the home of Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, a move designed to further pressure the government by linking the monks’ cause to a woman who is an icon of Myanmar’s decades-old struggle for democracy. Again, I marvel at the chutzpah that these monks continue to show, not backing down no matter what measures the government tries to put in place to stop them. They’ve arrested monks, shot at them, put up barricades and still these guys keep coming. Fight the power, Buddhist monks, fight the power. You guys rock and you need to keep this up until you force your government to deal with the issues you’re raising.
- Finally…..the Rock has come back……to…..oops, wrong line. Finally, the time has come…..for my favorite shows to return…..with new episodes. Admittedly, that list of favorite shows with new episodes is much shorter this year, but I’m trying not to allow that reality to dampen my enthusiasm. Yes, with Prison Break getting an early jump on things last week, this week’s slate of premieres for me to be excited about numbers a paltry two: Heroes and Smallville. However, I’m hoping that the premieres of these two shows will be so phenomenal that they’ll take my mind off that other stuff. I’m especially pumped for Heroes because the show was so great during its first season and it continues to weave in new characters all the time. Last season everything built to a crescendo with Peter Petrelli and Sylar battling in New York’s Kirby Plaza and Sylar apparently being killed. Peter was about to explode from absorbing powers from so many other “gifted” people before his brother Nathan grabbed him and flew out of sight into the sky where a massive explosion could be seen from the ground. The questions to be answered are: 1) Where Sylar is, because we saw some weird sort of oozing sludge sliding into a sewer grate where he was killed and Zachary Quinto, who plays Sylar, is going to be back this season, albeit later in the season due to obligations on a Star Trek show whose name I don’t know because Star Trek is for losers, 2) What happened to the brothers Petrelli?, 3) Where is the über-funny Hiro Nakamura, because he appeared to teleport himself back in time at the end of last season and found himself in the middle of an ancient Japanese battle scene. There are actually a lot more questions, including the fate of Matt Parkman (Greg Grunberg), but those are the major ones I’ll be wondering about as Season Two kicks off Monday night at 9 p.m. on NBC. As for Smallville, I’ve read some news bits on TVGuide.com, but nothing huge to the point that it’s got me on the edge of my seat. Much of the early part of the season looks to be focused on the arrival of Clark Kent’s cousin from krypton , a girl who was sent to Earth at the same time as the Man of Steel but has been in some sort of suspended state of animation since then. The explosion at the dam in the season finale woke her and now she has to adjust to life on Earth with the help of her cousin. Also hanging in the balance are the fates of Lana Lang and Chloe Sullivan, both of who were left in perilous positions as last season came to a close. Chloe was in a weird trance/coma after her meteor power surfaced, while Lana was supposedly blown up by a car bomb even though we never saw her in the wreckage of the car and a delivery truck that she could have easily climed into passed by her car and hid her and her vehicle from view right before the explosion. I believe she’s not dead, although the season premiere could prove me wrong (doubt it). But tune in to the CW Thursday night at 8 p.m. to find out in what should be an awesome season premiere.
- Speaking of the new TV season, I’m sure that numerous network execs and producers are breathing a sigh of relief with the release of the new album from KT Tunstall, Drastic Fantastic. Why would this be such a big relief to TV networks, you ask? Well, if you think back to last season, you’ll remember that Tunstall’s songs became so ubiquitous that you literally couldn’t get away with them no matter what network you were watching. The CW used songs like Black Horse and the Cherry Tree and Suddenly I See for numerous shows, American Karaoke used Tunstall’s music for its glorified karaoke contest and the movie The Devil Wears Prada also featured Tunstall’s tunes. It got to the point that the use of Tunstall’s songs was so over the top that VH1’s Best Week Ever did a gag segment about it, which only happens if the topic is something that’s so blatantly obvious that everyone has noticed it. Well, Tunstall is back, full of folk, pop, soul and a few stabs at rock credibility that fall short of the mark. Her signature vocals remain, with their smoky, sultry vibe and if that’s what you’re looking for, then this is an album for you. If you don’t way to buy the album, though, just tune in to any TV network any night of the week and I’m guessing you’ll hear songs from it on your favorite shows this season.
- Nice try, Scott Boras. The über-agent who is largely responsible for negotiating some of the most obscene, outrageous contracts in the history of Major League Baseball is already on the campaign trail, angling for a new deal for his most famous client. Never mind that this client, one Alexander Rodriguez, already has a 10-year, $252 million contract with three years remaining. A-Rod can opt out of the contract after this season and because Boras feels his client can get an even more lucrative deal (and thus earn more money and attention for Boras, the spotlight whore that he is), that’s exactly what Rodriguez is expected to do. Boras will undoubtedly pull out all the stops in seeking a new deal, including flat-out lying, as he’s busy doing right now. Boras claims that a prospective new owner for the Chicago Cubs is already negotiating a new contrct with A-Rod, and that this new deal is worth $30 million per year and would include a partial ownership stake in the team. The first problem with this is that it’s against MLB rules for any team or team representative to negotiate with a player who is currently under contract with another team. That would be tampering, and no one in baseball is dumb enough to do that with the game’s highest-profile player. Also, there’s no way that a prospective buyer of a team is already negotiating a contract with anyone, because the execs and front office personnel currently with the team are still in control. Lastly, it is also against MLB rules for a player to have any sort of ownership share in a team while they are playing, nor can a player negotiate for a future ownership stake for after his career. T his entire “story” is nothing more than Boras trying to drive up the price for his client by creating an imaginary bidding war between suitors who don’t even exist yet. That’s not to say that if Rodriguez opts out that there won't be several teams vying to sign him, because a few can afford his steep price tag and they’ll go after him hard. It’s just amusing that Boras would throw out such obvious fabrications that no one with any sort of real baseball knowledge would believe and expect people to buy in. Nice try, S., but I’m not that gullible.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
College football fun, another Simpson who's an idiot and two video game losers
- It was a Saturday for favorites in college football. Nine of the top 10 teams in the country won, with only #10 Penn State suffering a defeat. The big dogs ran roughshod over subpar competition, with the lone exception being Florida, which scraped by in a 30-24 win over uppity Ole Miss. Otherwise, USC rolled over Washington State, #2 LSU handled #12 South Carolina in Baton Rouge by a 28-16 margin and Oklahoma was sitting by and watching it all unfold after thumping in-state rival Tulsa 62-21 on Friday night. The biggest thrashing doled out by a top team was Ohio State and its whooping of overmatched Northwestern by a score of 58-7. It’s hard to tell which is the more embarrassing loss for the Wildcats; this pummeling by the Buckeyes or last week’s home loss to the team that had the longest losing streak in the nation, the Duke Blue Devils. Coincidentally, the Dukies saw their winning “streak” end at one after dropping a 46-43 decision to Navy. One losing streak that didn’t end was Notre Dame’s run of losses to start the season, a streak standing at four games after the Irish were defeated 31-14 by Michigan State.
- How’s that taste, Seattle? Your professional basketball team has publicly asked an arbitrator to let it out of its lease at Key Arena so it can bolt from your city and move to a new location, probably Oklahoma City. Unless the SuperSonics can garner a deal for a new arena by the time the season kicks off next month, the team wants an arbitrator to give it the right to void the last three years of their arena lease. “As we approach the Oct. 31 deadline, we've seen nothing tangible,” Sonics chairman Clay Bennett said Friday, referring to movement toward a new, $500 million building and the deadline he created after the team filed a demand for arbitration with the American Arbitration Association this week. Ah, who doesn’t call AAA when they have a mishap along the road….well, usually that road is an actual road with asphalt and lane lines, not the road to a sparkling new basketball arena. Bennett is hoping for a decision from a three-person arbitration panel by January, which would give the Sonics plenty of time to file relocation papers with the NBA, which has a March 1 deadline for teams wishing to relocate for the next season to notify the league of their intentions. So Seattle as six weeks to capitulate to the request for a new arena or its basketball team is going to leave for Oklahoma City, where…..the Sonics are already angling for a new arena to replace OKC’s current basketball arena, the Ford Center? WTF?!?!? They’re not even there yet and already they want Oklahoma City to get them a new arena because their current one isn't good enough? Don’t believe me? Listen to Bennett in his own words: “I absolutely know the team can survive and be profitable in Oklahoma City,” Bennett said. “The Ford Center [there] is quite adequate -- but another building would be needed in the future.” Yes, that’s right, we’re anxious to come to your city…..so long as you don’t intend on making us play in that crap hole you call an arena for more than a couple years. Doesn’t it all just give you the warm fuzzies, seeing a team so concerned with its fans and making sure they’re loyal to those who support the team and make it possible for it to exist in the first place? By concerned for its fans, of course, I mean they don’t care at all about them and are looking only at their own financial interests to the extent that they’re willing to stiff, screw over or hold a gun to the head of anyone involved in this whole mess so long as it gets them the best deal for a new arena.
- Have you ever wanted to watch an hour and a half of footage featuring two dorky, pathetic losers for whom talking to an actual girl is frightening enough to send them into a full-fledged panic attack? If so, The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters is the movie for you, because it follows two men in their quest to be the world’s top player in one of the most popular arcade video games of all time. Billy Mitchell of Hollywood, Fla., is one of the two losers, er, subjects of the documentary. Mitchell is clearly the pinnacle of cool and manliness, as his “career” achievements include having the first-ever perfect score on Pac Man and being named the Video Game Player of the Century in 1999. I’m sure he can’t go more than five minutes without a hot chick hitting on him because he’s obviously just what any girl is looking for. His rival, Steve Wiebe of Seattle, is a high school science teacher with a wife and kids who plays religiously on a Donkey Kong machine in his garage. The plot of the documentary centers on Wiebe breaking Mitchell’s high score on Donkey Kong, a mark that had stood for 25 years, and mailing a video of his record-breaking performance (yes, this loser videotapes himself playing video games) and mailing it in to Walter Day, an Iowa man who runs a gaming website and is the chief scorekeeper for competitive gaming. Mitchell, clearly under the impression that he is something other than a 40-something, never-kissed-a-girl, needs-a-life loser, disputes the claim and so Wiebe travels all the way to Florida for a head-to-head challenge. The true humor in this is that these two dorks are so totally serious and intense about all of this, all the while oblivious to how absurd and pathetic they look to the rest of the world. I won't spoil the ending for you, but I’ll just say that you will be both stunned that such massive losers exist in this world and thoroughly amused by how incredibly stupid these two tools look in their quest for “greatness.”
- Fullbacks are a different breed, even among football players. They’re battering rams, 6’1, 240-pound dudes with no necks whose job it is to blast holes in the defense for the running back to follow and guys who like contact in large doses. That’s how a fullback should be on the field, but that’s not how a fullback should be off the field. Florida State football player Joe Surratt needs to learn that lesson quickly, because he’s landed himself in a whole heap of sh*t by doing things his way. Surratt and FSU teammate Geno Hayes, a junior linebacker for the Seminoles, have been suspended by the school on Friday after they were arrested in a bar fight that resulted in felony charges against Surratt. Surratt, 21, was charged with a felony count of battery on an officer. Hayes, 20, faces three misdemeanor counts: assault on an officer, resisting arrest without violence and disorderly conduct, a Tallahassee police spokesman stated. Hayes and Surratt were arrested early Friday at a bar near the Florida State campus, police and school officials said. Police said Hayes had to be subdued with a Taser and Surratt struck a police officer. On a side note, props to Hayes for forcing officers to break out their Tasers. someone has to carry on that longstanding athlete tradition and it’s great to see the next generation of knucklehead players step forward to carry the torch. Not to be done, Surratt took a swing at an officer, albeit in a misguided attempt to take up for his teammate. This whole incident got started when officers were patrolling outside of Potbelly’s Bar in Tallahassee, looking for underage drinkers. They spotted Hayes, 20, screaming profanities and waving his arms, so they decided to talk with him. He resisted and became aggressive before his friends pulled him away. Still, when officers tried to cuff him, he resisted, necessitating the Taser blast. Surratt was standing nearby and tried to help out his friend, but an officer pushed him away and Surratt went with the obvious response – striking the officer. Thus, the two teammates got to share a real bonding experience, being arrested and booked together and spending the night in jail together. All of this happened on an off week for the FSU football team, so of course this is a clear indication that the players made good use of their down time.
- Must be something about the surname Simpson that bestows incredible stupidity on the bearer. One Simpson is facing eleven criminal charges, including 10 felonies, after a commando-style raid on a Las Vegas hotel room, while another Simpson was arrested yesterday at Boston’s Logan International Airport after walking into the airport wearing a computer circuit board and wiring on her sweatshirt as an alleged fashion statement. Star Simpson, an MIT student flying out of Logan Intl., was arrested at gunpoint after airport security spotted her ensemble and judged her to be a threat. Simpson contends her sweater was art; authorities chose to label it as a fake bomb, thus the arrest. Hey Star, maybe you’re right and your sweater is a fashion statement. The statement is, “Hey, I’m a moron with bad fashion sense who just got arrested because couldn’t wear semi-normal clothes like everyone else.” Heck, you’d be better off wearing a turban or Muslim attire to an airport than you could be donning a shirt with a computer circuit board and wiring on it. After all, the government has so far overstepped its bounds in the name of national security that they can spy on all of your communication without reason and keep extensive files on anyone that might even be a remote threat in the next five decades, so it’s logical to assume that they’re going to overreact to this sort of situation in the name of safety. Now would be a good time to get rid of that “Nuclear Bomb on Board” t-shirt you’ve been itching to wear, Star, maybe just go with a plain t-shirt next time and save yourself the hassle of being arrested as a terrorism suspect.
- How’s that taste, Seattle? Your professional basketball team has publicly asked an arbitrator to let it out of its lease at Key Arena so it can bolt from your city and move to a new location, probably Oklahoma City. Unless the SuperSonics can garner a deal for a new arena by the time the season kicks off next month, the team wants an arbitrator to give it the right to void the last three years of their arena lease. “As we approach the Oct. 31 deadline, we've seen nothing tangible,” Sonics chairman Clay Bennett said Friday, referring to movement toward a new, $500 million building and the deadline he created after the team filed a demand for arbitration with the American Arbitration Association this week. Ah, who doesn’t call AAA when they have a mishap along the road….well, usually that road is an actual road with asphalt and lane lines, not the road to a sparkling new basketball arena. Bennett is hoping for a decision from a three-person arbitration panel by January, which would give the Sonics plenty of time to file relocation papers with the NBA, which has a March 1 deadline for teams wishing to relocate for the next season to notify the league of their intentions. So Seattle as six weeks to capitulate to the request for a new arena or its basketball team is going to leave for Oklahoma City, where…..the Sonics are already angling for a new arena to replace OKC’s current basketball arena, the Ford Center? WTF?!?!? They’re not even there yet and already they want Oklahoma City to get them a new arena because their current one isn't good enough? Don’t believe me? Listen to Bennett in his own words: “I absolutely know the team can survive and be profitable in Oklahoma City,” Bennett said. “The Ford Center [there] is quite adequate -- but another building would be needed in the future.” Yes, that’s right, we’re anxious to come to your city…..so long as you don’t intend on making us play in that crap hole you call an arena for more than a couple years. Doesn’t it all just give you the warm fuzzies, seeing a team so concerned with its fans and making sure they’re loyal to those who support the team and make it possible for it to exist in the first place? By concerned for its fans, of course, I mean they don’t care at all about them and are looking only at their own financial interests to the extent that they’re willing to stiff, screw over or hold a gun to the head of anyone involved in this whole mess so long as it gets them the best deal for a new arena.
- Have you ever wanted to watch an hour and a half of footage featuring two dorky, pathetic losers for whom talking to an actual girl is frightening enough to send them into a full-fledged panic attack? If so, The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters is the movie for you, because it follows two men in their quest to be the world’s top player in one of the most popular arcade video games of all time. Billy Mitchell of Hollywood, Fla., is one of the two losers, er, subjects of the documentary. Mitchell is clearly the pinnacle of cool and manliness, as his “career” achievements include having the first-ever perfect score on Pac Man and being named the Video Game Player of the Century in 1999. I’m sure he can’t go more than five minutes without a hot chick hitting on him because he’s obviously just what any girl is looking for. His rival, Steve Wiebe of Seattle, is a high school science teacher with a wife and kids who plays religiously on a Donkey Kong machine in his garage. The plot of the documentary centers on Wiebe breaking Mitchell’s high score on Donkey Kong, a mark that had stood for 25 years, and mailing a video of his record-breaking performance (yes, this loser videotapes himself playing video games) and mailing it in to Walter Day, an Iowa man who runs a gaming website and is the chief scorekeeper for competitive gaming. Mitchell, clearly under the impression that he is something other than a 40-something, never-kissed-a-girl, needs-a-life loser, disputes the claim and so Wiebe travels all the way to Florida for a head-to-head challenge. The true humor in this is that these two dorks are so totally serious and intense about all of this, all the while oblivious to how absurd and pathetic they look to the rest of the world. I won't spoil the ending for you, but I’ll just say that you will be both stunned that such massive losers exist in this world and thoroughly amused by how incredibly stupid these two tools look in their quest for “greatness.”
- Fullbacks are a different breed, even among football players. They’re battering rams, 6’1, 240-pound dudes with no necks whose job it is to blast holes in the defense for the running back to follow and guys who like contact in large doses. That’s how a fullback should be on the field, but that’s not how a fullback should be off the field. Florida State football player Joe Surratt needs to learn that lesson quickly, because he’s landed himself in a whole heap of sh*t by doing things his way. Surratt and FSU teammate Geno Hayes, a junior linebacker for the Seminoles, have been suspended by the school on Friday after they were arrested in a bar fight that resulted in felony charges against Surratt. Surratt, 21, was charged with a felony count of battery on an officer. Hayes, 20, faces three misdemeanor counts: assault on an officer, resisting arrest without violence and disorderly conduct, a Tallahassee police spokesman stated. Hayes and Surratt were arrested early Friday at a bar near the Florida State campus, police and school officials said. Police said Hayes had to be subdued with a Taser and Surratt struck a police officer. On a side note, props to Hayes for forcing officers to break out their Tasers. someone has to carry on that longstanding athlete tradition and it’s great to see the next generation of knucklehead players step forward to carry the torch. Not to be done, Surratt took a swing at an officer, albeit in a misguided attempt to take up for his teammate. This whole incident got started when officers were patrolling outside of Potbelly’s Bar in Tallahassee, looking for underage drinkers. They spotted Hayes, 20, screaming profanities and waving his arms, so they decided to talk with him. He resisted and became aggressive before his friends pulled him away. Still, when officers tried to cuff him, he resisted, necessitating the Taser blast. Surratt was standing nearby and tried to help out his friend, but an officer pushed him away and Surratt went with the obvious response – striking the officer. Thus, the two teammates got to share a real bonding experience, being arrested and booked together and spending the night in jail together. All of this happened on an off week for the FSU football team, so of course this is a clear indication that the players made good use of their down time.
- Must be something about the surname Simpson that bestows incredible stupidity on the bearer. One Simpson is facing eleven criminal charges, including 10 felonies, after a commando-style raid on a Las Vegas hotel room, while another Simpson was arrested yesterday at Boston’s Logan International Airport after walking into the airport wearing a computer circuit board and wiring on her sweatshirt as an alleged fashion statement. Star Simpson, an MIT student flying out of Logan Intl., was arrested at gunpoint after airport security spotted her ensemble and judged her to be a threat. Simpson contends her sweater was art; authorities chose to label it as a fake bomb, thus the arrest. Hey Star, maybe you’re right and your sweater is a fashion statement. The statement is, “Hey, I’m a moron with bad fashion sense who just got arrested because couldn’t wear semi-normal clothes like everyone else.” Heck, you’d be better off wearing a turban or Muslim attire to an airport than you could be donning a shirt with a computer circuit board and wiring on it. After all, the government has so far overstepped its bounds in the name of national security that they can spy on all of your communication without reason and keep extensive files on anyone that might even be a remote threat in the next five decades, so it’s logical to assume that they’re going to overreact to this sort of situation in the name of safety. Now would be a good time to get rid of that “Nuclear Bomb on Board” t-shirt you’ve been itching to wear, Star, maybe just go with a plain t-shirt next time and save yourself the hassle of being arrested as a terrorism suspect.
Friday, September 21, 2007
A Seattle Mariner goes bush league, Survivor gets started and Dan Rather is a bitter old dude
- It’s over for you, Floyd Landis, so how about you just admit that you’re a cheater and we’ll all move on? Everyone with more than two working brain cells has already reached that conclusion while Landis has been busy protesting his innocence, so even that admission of guilt won't carry as much weight now as it would have if he’d ‘fessed up to what he did before basically being forced to after exhausting every other option. People are funny that way, they don’t feel as good about your apology if you’ve tried every possible way to get out of being guilty and having to come clean and apologize only as a last resort when you’re screwed anyhow. Landis fought his positive drug test after winning the 2006 Tour, but he’s been shot down at ever stop as he’s tried to prove his innocence. Tests on backup samples have confirmed that he had illegally high levels of testosterone, including synthetic testosterone, in his blood during the race. He’s done interview after interview claiming he is clean, but his words have been the only thing declaring him innocent thus far. An arbiter ruled Thursday that Landis’ positive test result will stand and that he must forfeit his Tour de France win. There is still one place left to appeal – the Court of Arbitration for Sport – but if Floyd is smart, he won't go there. Having said that, you know he’s going to appeal because he doesn’t want to give up his title and to be labeled with a scarlet “S” on his chest, but it’s too late for that. By now, he IS a cheater to most everyone and nothing is going to change that because we know the facts and he’s been found guilty, so to speak, so many times throughout this process. As I have all along, I plead with you once again, Floyd, stop fighting this, go away and pray that everyone forgets about you because as long as you keep waging this battle, you’re in the spotlight and you in that spotlight as a cheater.
- I’m not a big fan of Survivor. It’s not that I don’t enjoy the show; it’s just that for most of its time on TV, Survivor has been slotted in the same time slot as some of my favorite shows, such as its recent Thursday night spot where it goes up against Smallville, which is one of my top-five faves. However, this season Survivor kicked off a week ahead of Smallville, and with slim pickings on the other networks, I figured I would watch the season premiere of the world’s most famous reality show. Boy, am I glad I did. The choice to watch was validated within the first five minutes, as each of the contestants was introduced and we got to meet Denise, a school lunch lady from Massachusetts who is rocking a hall-of-fame mullet that is reason enough to watch the show all by itself. This thing is an A+ Mississippi Mudflap/Tennessee Top Hat/Wisconsin Waterfall. This year’s edition of Survivor is set in China, which means lots of rain, some amazing views of a breathtaking landscape and lots of large Buddhas. I also noticed something that seems to be a Survivor theme, although because I don’t watch the show regularly I can't say for sure. It hails back to an episode of Seinfeld where Elaine notices that all of the waitresses at the restaurant that she, Jerry, George and Kramer frequent share similar physical attributes, most notably big racks. For some reason (I just can’t put my finger on it, hmmm…..), Survivor has an inordinate number of women with that same physical characteristic and those women end up spending much of their time on camera in a) bathing suits, b) their bras or c) nothing more than a bandana covering their upper half. Now this couldn’t possibly be because CBS is trying to pander to the lowest common denominator among male viewers, could it? On the topic of liking or disliking certain contestants and rooting for them, I don’t have any that I really am rooting for other than Denise and her mullet, although I’d like to see professional wrestler Ashley Massaro do well because 1) She’s hot and the better she does, the longer she’s on the show, and 2) As a wrasslin’ fan, I’d like to see a wrestler do well. On the dislike side…..only Courtney, a waitress from NYC, stood out, because she’s far too bitter, cynical and crabby to last long, especially when she’s thin enough to make Kate Moss look obese and has the thorniest personality on TV this side of Rosie O’Donnell. Of course, when Smallville returns next week, I’ll be watching it and will lose touch with Survivor, but it looks like it could be a good season for outwitting, outplaying and outlasting.
- You won't believe it, but 50 Cent wasn’t being serious and literal when he promised to retire from recording music as a solo artist if Kanye West’s new album, Graduation, outsold 50’s new album Curtis, during their opening week on shelves after both dropped on Sept. 11. Kanye’s album hammered 50’s, 957,000 to 691,000, in their first week according to Sound Scan. Predictably, the egotistical and self-promoting West celebrated his victory in style at GQ’s 50th anniversary party as a featured performer and then he had some words of self-congratulation afterward. “To be a champion, you’ve got to take out a champion,” West quipped, channeling his inner-Rick Flair. However, it doesn’t appear that 50 Cent is actually going to retire, because the week of the competition, I listened as he did a radio interview on Jim Rome’s radio show and 50 was in full spin mode. First, he reiterated that he didn’t promise to retire completely, just from being a solo rap artist. Then, he explained that he already had a new album in the can and mostly done as a follow-up to Curtis. Finally, he added that after this next new album, he’s done with his current recording contract and will be a free agent, so to speak, so he can just make music “organically.” Oh, and he also admitted, when asked directly about his promise to retire, that it was something he said to stir up interest in his album and create a buzz. In other words, he’s not retiring and everyone who bought into his words about that topic was just naïve and gullible. Imagine that, a celebrity lying or misleading people with their words in order to create more attention for themselves, shocking…..
- Tonight’s top story…..an excessive, petty, ludicrous lawsuit by a famous retired nightly news anchor that makes him look like a bitter, sniveling, egotistical b*tch. Yes, I’m looking right at you, Dan Rather, you and your $70 million lawsuit against CBS because you claim the network made you a scapegoat about a discredited story about W.’s National Guard service. Rather fingers CBS for “intentional mishandling” of the incident, which did major damage to his reputation. I’m not here to dispute those facts, because only the people involved in the case know for sure what happened and why. However, I am here to call out Rather for seeking a whopping $20 million in compensatory damages and $50 million in punitive damages. Hey you greedy old bastard, I’m sure you have enough money for the rest of your life and the lives of your kids and grandkids. So quit being such a money-grubbing whore and asking for amounts that are totally ridiculous for an incident that wouldn’t be worth that much money no matter what the facts were. Unless all of that $70 million is going to help the needy people in Darfur or to hurricane or flooding victims of some massive tragedy in the U.S. or aboard, then you’re every bit the greedy piece of crap you appear to be. Heck, even if you intend to give all $70 million to charity, it’s still impossible to defend attaching that financial figure to this lawsuit. You’re not dead or inflicted with some terminal illness because of it, nor are you physically disabled as a result of what you allege happened. You got your rep dented and you bore at least some culpability in the incident, so own it and at least knock the amount you’re asking for down to a more realistic figure, say $5 million. Otherwise, you just look like a very small and bitter person, one who isn't going to get anywhere near what he’s asking for anyhow.
- Bank robbers traditionally aren’t strong on the ethics front, but even those willing to use force and threats of violence to thieve thousands of dollars can't stoop this low, or at least they shouldn’t. A bank robber in Allentown, Pa. not only chose a sort of human shield to help carry out his crime, he picked up a toddler who was near him and threatened to shoot the boy unless the teller gave him thousands of dollars. The robber got his cash and released the infant, then left the bank with several thousand dollars and not one shred of integrity or humanity. This isn't to defend other bank robbers, but at least they don’t threaten to shoot defenseless toddlers if they don’t get what they want. Heck, I can even make more of a case for a robber who grabs an adult and takes them hostage while making demands for money more than I can defend this loser. Yes, people tend to be more compassionate and defensive of babies and toddlers, but that doesn’t mean you should capitalize on those emotions for your gain. What, you didn’t feel like pointing a gun at the teller would cut it? I realize that no one actually got shot in this heist, but whenever this a-hole is caught and brought to trial, neither the judge nor the jury should have any problem slapping him with the maximum sentence allowable under the law.
- I’m no baseball purist. I don’t take objection to parts of the game that rankle old school baseball guys, things like player styling after home runs, wearing their pants long and not sporting the traditional stirrup socks, showing excessive emotion on the field, etc. I also think it’s idiotic that teams engage in beanball wars, with teams throwing at an opposing player for a perceived sleight and that player’s team responding in kind. What exactly do you prove by doing that? You’re pissed off, we get it. However, getting hit with a pitch doesn’t usually injure a guy and you are putting a runner on base, so I don’t think it accomplishes much. Having said all of that, it’s clear why I so much enjoyed Vladimir Guerrero’s act last night in a game against the Seattle Mariners. The Mariners took umbrage when Guerrero’s team, the Anaheim Angels (yes, I’m still calling them Anaheim, that is where they play their games) hit Mariners catcher Kenji Johjima with a pitch. Seattle pitcher Jorge Campillo retaliated by sailing a fastball up near Guerrero’s head. On a side note, even purists who subscribe to the theory of hitting a batter to defend your own guy think it’s bush league to throw at a guy’s head, you just don’t do it. Guys get hurt that way and it’s not necessary. But after Campillo’s high, hard pitch, Guerrero fired back in a big way. He teed off on the very next pitch, sending it soaring into the night, some 400-plus feet over the center field wall for a home run. Vlad wasn’t done, though; he stood and admired his effort, then mixed in a nice bat flip to top off the metaphorical middle finger to Campillo and the Mariners. It was flat-out awesome, seeing a guy bounce right back from such a dirty, bush-league play to blast a ginormous home run and then stand there to watch it go, with a sweet bat flip to cap it off. Predictably, a low-class pitcher like Campillo threw at Guerrero’s head again the next time Vlad came to the plate, but this time the umpire did the right thing and ejected Campillo. Good for Vlad, firing back at a guy who was so far out of line that even the most hardcore baseball purist couldn’t defend him. This definitely has the appearance of sour grapes from a Mariners team that has fallen out of the playoff race in spectacular fashion and is bitter at the team that’s about to clinch their division title. Stop throwing at dudes’ heads, Jorge, because if you continue to do so, every team in the league is going to be coming after you with bad, bad intentions.
- I’m not a big fan of Survivor. It’s not that I don’t enjoy the show; it’s just that for most of its time on TV, Survivor has been slotted in the same time slot as some of my favorite shows, such as its recent Thursday night spot where it goes up against Smallville, which is one of my top-five faves. However, this season Survivor kicked off a week ahead of Smallville, and with slim pickings on the other networks, I figured I would watch the season premiere of the world’s most famous reality show. Boy, am I glad I did. The choice to watch was validated within the first five minutes, as each of the contestants was introduced and we got to meet Denise, a school lunch lady from Massachusetts who is rocking a hall-of-fame mullet that is reason enough to watch the show all by itself. This thing is an A+ Mississippi Mudflap/Tennessee Top Hat/Wisconsin Waterfall. This year’s edition of Survivor is set in China, which means lots of rain, some amazing views of a breathtaking landscape and lots of large Buddhas. I also noticed something that seems to be a Survivor theme, although because I don’t watch the show regularly I can't say for sure. It hails back to an episode of Seinfeld where Elaine notices that all of the waitresses at the restaurant that she, Jerry, George and Kramer frequent share similar physical attributes, most notably big racks. For some reason (I just can’t put my finger on it, hmmm…..), Survivor has an inordinate number of women with that same physical characteristic and those women end up spending much of their time on camera in a) bathing suits, b) their bras or c) nothing more than a bandana covering their upper half. Now this couldn’t possibly be because CBS is trying to pander to the lowest common denominator among male viewers, could it? On the topic of liking or disliking certain contestants and rooting for them, I don’t have any that I really am rooting for other than Denise and her mullet, although I’d like to see professional wrestler Ashley Massaro do well because 1) She’s hot and the better she does, the longer she’s on the show, and 2) As a wrasslin’ fan, I’d like to see a wrestler do well. On the dislike side…..only Courtney, a waitress from NYC, stood out, because she’s far too bitter, cynical and crabby to last long, especially when she’s thin enough to make Kate Moss look obese and has the thorniest personality on TV this side of Rosie O’Donnell. Of course, when Smallville returns next week, I’ll be watching it and will lose touch with Survivor, but it looks like it could be a good season for outwitting, outplaying and outlasting.
- You won't believe it, but 50 Cent wasn’t being serious and literal when he promised to retire from recording music as a solo artist if Kanye West’s new album, Graduation, outsold 50’s new album Curtis, during their opening week on shelves after both dropped on Sept. 11. Kanye’s album hammered 50’s, 957,000 to 691,000, in their first week according to Sound Scan. Predictably, the egotistical and self-promoting West celebrated his victory in style at GQ’s 50th anniversary party as a featured performer and then he had some words of self-congratulation afterward. “To be a champion, you’ve got to take out a champion,” West quipped, channeling his inner-Rick Flair. However, it doesn’t appear that 50 Cent is actually going to retire, because the week of the competition, I listened as he did a radio interview on Jim Rome’s radio show and 50 was in full spin mode. First, he reiterated that he didn’t promise to retire completely, just from being a solo rap artist. Then, he explained that he already had a new album in the can and mostly done as a follow-up to Curtis. Finally, he added that after this next new album, he’s done with his current recording contract and will be a free agent, so to speak, so he can just make music “organically.” Oh, and he also admitted, when asked directly about his promise to retire, that it was something he said to stir up interest in his album and create a buzz. In other words, he’s not retiring and everyone who bought into his words about that topic was just naïve and gullible. Imagine that, a celebrity lying or misleading people with their words in order to create more attention for themselves, shocking…..
- Tonight’s top story…..an excessive, petty, ludicrous lawsuit by a famous retired nightly news anchor that makes him look like a bitter, sniveling, egotistical b*tch. Yes, I’m looking right at you, Dan Rather, you and your $70 million lawsuit against CBS because you claim the network made you a scapegoat about a discredited story about W.’s National Guard service. Rather fingers CBS for “intentional mishandling” of the incident, which did major damage to his reputation. I’m not here to dispute those facts, because only the people involved in the case know for sure what happened and why. However, I am here to call out Rather for seeking a whopping $20 million in compensatory damages and $50 million in punitive damages. Hey you greedy old bastard, I’m sure you have enough money for the rest of your life and the lives of your kids and grandkids. So quit being such a money-grubbing whore and asking for amounts that are totally ridiculous for an incident that wouldn’t be worth that much money no matter what the facts were. Unless all of that $70 million is going to help the needy people in Darfur or to hurricane or flooding victims of some massive tragedy in the U.S. or aboard, then you’re every bit the greedy piece of crap you appear to be. Heck, even if you intend to give all $70 million to charity, it’s still impossible to defend attaching that financial figure to this lawsuit. You’re not dead or inflicted with some terminal illness because of it, nor are you physically disabled as a result of what you allege happened. You got your rep dented and you bore at least some culpability in the incident, so own it and at least knock the amount you’re asking for down to a more realistic figure, say $5 million. Otherwise, you just look like a very small and bitter person, one who isn't going to get anywhere near what he’s asking for anyhow.
- Bank robbers traditionally aren’t strong on the ethics front, but even those willing to use force and threats of violence to thieve thousands of dollars can't stoop this low, or at least they shouldn’t. A bank robber in Allentown, Pa. not only chose a sort of human shield to help carry out his crime, he picked up a toddler who was near him and threatened to shoot the boy unless the teller gave him thousands of dollars. The robber got his cash and released the infant, then left the bank with several thousand dollars and not one shred of integrity or humanity. This isn't to defend other bank robbers, but at least they don’t threaten to shoot defenseless toddlers if they don’t get what they want. Heck, I can even make more of a case for a robber who grabs an adult and takes them hostage while making demands for money more than I can defend this loser. Yes, people tend to be more compassionate and defensive of babies and toddlers, but that doesn’t mean you should capitalize on those emotions for your gain. What, you didn’t feel like pointing a gun at the teller would cut it? I realize that no one actually got shot in this heist, but whenever this a-hole is caught and brought to trial, neither the judge nor the jury should have any problem slapping him with the maximum sentence allowable under the law.
- I’m no baseball purist. I don’t take objection to parts of the game that rankle old school baseball guys, things like player styling after home runs, wearing their pants long and not sporting the traditional stirrup socks, showing excessive emotion on the field, etc. I also think it’s idiotic that teams engage in beanball wars, with teams throwing at an opposing player for a perceived sleight and that player’s team responding in kind. What exactly do you prove by doing that? You’re pissed off, we get it. However, getting hit with a pitch doesn’t usually injure a guy and you are putting a runner on base, so I don’t think it accomplishes much. Having said all of that, it’s clear why I so much enjoyed Vladimir Guerrero’s act last night in a game against the Seattle Mariners. The Mariners took umbrage when Guerrero’s team, the Anaheim Angels (yes, I’m still calling them Anaheim, that is where they play their games) hit Mariners catcher Kenji Johjima with a pitch. Seattle pitcher Jorge Campillo retaliated by sailing a fastball up near Guerrero’s head. On a side note, even purists who subscribe to the theory of hitting a batter to defend your own guy think it’s bush league to throw at a guy’s head, you just don’t do it. Guys get hurt that way and it’s not necessary. But after Campillo’s high, hard pitch, Guerrero fired back in a big way. He teed off on the very next pitch, sending it soaring into the night, some 400-plus feet over the center field wall for a home run. Vlad wasn’t done, though; he stood and admired his effort, then mixed in a nice bat flip to top off the metaphorical middle finger to Campillo and the Mariners. It was flat-out awesome, seeing a guy bounce right back from such a dirty, bush-league play to blast a ginormous home run and then stand there to watch it go, with a sweet bat flip to cap it off. Predictably, a low-class pitcher like Campillo threw at Guerrero’s head again the next time Vlad came to the plate, but this time the umpire did the right thing and ejected Campillo. Good for Vlad, firing back at a guy who was so far out of line that even the most hardcore baseball purist couldn’t defend him. This definitely has the appearance of sour grapes from a Mariners team that has fallen out of the playoff race in spectacular fashion and is bitter at the team that’s about to clinch their division title. Stop throwing at dudes’ heads, Jorge, because if you continue to do so, every team in the league is going to be coming after you with bad, bad intentions.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Teens being forced to smoke pot, I give a new TV show a chance and the NFL is too hard on T.O.
- Boy, this is a rarity. Normally you don’t have to hold teenagers at gunpoint in order to get them to smoke pot and have sex. Yet that’s exactly what three gunmen in Salemburg, N.C. were charged with after their arrest Tuesday. The three men also allegedly fired four shots into the floor of the home where they took the teens hostage. Again I have to ask, what kind of accomplishment is there in forcing teens to do something that most of them probably already do anyhow? That’s like pointing a gun at Lindsay Lohan and “forcing” her to have a drink or eight, or maybe point a 9mm at Paris Hilton and demanding that she have sex with the nearest available dude. Not that I advocate taking hostages for no reason and point guns at them (it’s OK for O.J., he’s already headed straight for eternal damnation, so anything he does from here on out can’t make matters worse for him, but the rest of you find another way to settle your disputes), but statistics show that most people both smoke weed and have sex before they turn 18, so exactly what do you get out of making them do those things. If it’s a thrill for you to make other people have sex and watch, then you’re just a sick perv. What high (pun intended) you get from making them smoke the hippie lettuce, I don’t know. Hope your few minutes of enjoyment is worth the time you’re going to spend in the hole, losers.
- Can anyone explain to me why I should waste $100 to buy the sixth season of The Sopranos on DVD? This isn't just because I don’t like the show and have never understood its appeal; I simply find it offensive that HBO Video would try to blatantly rip off people by charging them twice (or three times) as much for a season of this show on DVD as it would cost for a single season of superior shows like Lost, Prison Break or Gilmore Girls. I suppose I just have to hunker down and endure this last wave of Sopranos hysteria, because the show is now officially over and the awards it won at the Oscars Sunday night will be its last, along with the knowledge that the release of the show on DVD will end soon now that the series has ended. Gosh, this has to be the most overhyped show in the history of television, narrowly edging out the desperate-middle-aged-woman favorite Sex and the City.
- I would buy the O.J. Simpson book If I Did It: Confessions of a Killer, but I’m holding out. For what, you ask? Clearly, I am waiting for Simpson’s next book, If I Burglarized a Hotel Room and Stole Back My Memorabilia at Gunpoint, Here’s How It Happened. We all know the facs of how the Juice (allegedly) murdered his wife and her friend, but who doesn’t want to hear behind-the-scenes details of O.J. putting together his personal swat team at a wedding reception and setting up a sting in a Vegas hotel room where he and his crew conducted their very own commando-style raid? The first 200,000 copies of O.J.’s how-to murder book may be selling in rapid-fire fashion, necessitating the printing of 50,000 more copies, but I’d much rather hear about the ill-fated plot that has resulted in 11 criminal charges against the Juice, including 10 felonies. Also, I want the inside scoop on who was idiotic enough to decide that publicly alleging that O.J. is being set up and railroaded in this case as some sort of sinister legal payback for his getting over on the murder charges against him back in 1994. Simpson’s lawyer floated that idea out there, and it ranks near the top of the most laughable developments in this case thus far. You do have to love the irony, that Simpson could brutally murder two people (allegedly, probably, almost certainly) and get away with it, but he breaks in to a hotel room and steals some sports memorabilia and he could end up spending the rest of his life in jail for it because one of the knuckleheads in his posse was packing heat. Great plan, Juice, you’re the best. Now beat these charges and stay a free man because only you can find the real killers…..
- I actually was feeling generous with my TV time tonight and gave one of the CW’s new shows, Gossip Girl, a try. After one episode, I can honestly say I was neither impressed nor disappointed. The show was exactly what the promos portrayed it as, no more, no less. It was a so-so hour of television, a bunch of spoiled rich kids in Manhattan, drinking, partying and with all the normal drama of high school. The format of a narrator guiding the whole show all hour long took some getting used to. It helped that the narrator was one of my fave actresses, Kristin Bell (Veronica Mars, we miss you!). On a side note, Bell will also be appearing this season on Heroes, further cementing her role at the top of my list of awesome actresses. (She also had a chance to be on Lost but decided against it. Man, is this girl in demand.) I didn’t see enough from Gossip Girl to want to commit to watching it every week, but next Wednesday night if I’m in front of the TV and there’s nothing else of note on, I might give it another shot…..
- Nobody dislikes Terrell Owens more than I do, but even I don’t have a problem with T.O.’s antics following his touchdown reception in Sunday’s game against Miami. In case you missed it, T.O. caught a touchdown pass in the fourth quarter and sprinted through the end zone to a spot just beside/slightly behind the goal post. From there, he held the football up in front of him like an old movie camera and used his off hand to turn an imaginary crank, as operators of those old movie cameras had to do. Owens aimed his “camera” at the sideline, clearly making light of the recent controversy involving the New England Patriots blatantly cheating by filming the signals given by opposing coaches. The NFL fun police clearly were not down with T.O.’s act, because they fined him a crisp $7,500 for the celebration. I won't beat around the bush on this one – this fine is a total load of crap. The ruling by the NFL says that you can’t use the ball or other props in the end zone to do a touchdown celebration, because as we all know, that would bring the entire league crashing down. The apocalypse would set in if a guy came up with a creative touchdown celebration and he wasn’t fined and penalized heavily for it. The NFL needs to lighten up and remove that ginormous stick from up its butt, because of all the things T.O. has pulled, this is probably the least offensive. It’s not even as bad as him pulling a Sharpie from his sock, autographing a ball and tossing it to a friend in the stands as he did on Monday Night Football a few years ago. For once, T.O. was actually funny and not being an a-hole, but the NFL just had to fine him anyhow…..
- Can anyone explain to me why I should waste $100 to buy the sixth season of The Sopranos on DVD? This isn't just because I don’t like the show and have never understood its appeal; I simply find it offensive that HBO Video would try to blatantly rip off people by charging them twice (or three times) as much for a season of this show on DVD as it would cost for a single season of superior shows like Lost, Prison Break or Gilmore Girls. I suppose I just have to hunker down and endure this last wave of Sopranos hysteria, because the show is now officially over and the awards it won at the Oscars Sunday night will be its last, along with the knowledge that the release of the show on DVD will end soon now that the series has ended. Gosh, this has to be the most overhyped show in the history of television, narrowly edging out the desperate-middle-aged-woman favorite Sex and the City.
- I would buy the O.J. Simpson book If I Did It: Confessions of a Killer, but I’m holding out. For what, you ask? Clearly, I am waiting for Simpson’s next book, If I Burglarized a Hotel Room and Stole Back My Memorabilia at Gunpoint, Here’s How It Happened. We all know the facs of how the Juice (allegedly) murdered his wife and her friend, but who doesn’t want to hear behind-the-scenes details of O.J. putting together his personal swat team at a wedding reception and setting up a sting in a Vegas hotel room where he and his crew conducted their very own commando-style raid? The first 200,000 copies of O.J.’s how-to murder book may be selling in rapid-fire fashion, necessitating the printing of 50,000 more copies, but I’d much rather hear about the ill-fated plot that has resulted in 11 criminal charges against the Juice, including 10 felonies. Also, I want the inside scoop on who was idiotic enough to decide that publicly alleging that O.J. is being set up and railroaded in this case as some sort of sinister legal payback for his getting over on the murder charges against him back in 1994. Simpson’s lawyer floated that idea out there, and it ranks near the top of the most laughable developments in this case thus far. You do have to love the irony, that Simpson could brutally murder two people (allegedly, probably, almost certainly) and get away with it, but he breaks in to a hotel room and steals some sports memorabilia and he could end up spending the rest of his life in jail for it because one of the knuckleheads in his posse was packing heat. Great plan, Juice, you’re the best. Now beat these charges and stay a free man because only you can find the real killers…..
- I actually was feeling generous with my TV time tonight and gave one of the CW’s new shows, Gossip Girl, a try. After one episode, I can honestly say I was neither impressed nor disappointed. The show was exactly what the promos portrayed it as, no more, no less. It was a so-so hour of television, a bunch of spoiled rich kids in Manhattan, drinking, partying and with all the normal drama of high school. The format of a narrator guiding the whole show all hour long took some getting used to. It helped that the narrator was one of my fave actresses, Kristin Bell (Veronica Mars, we miss you!). On a side note, Bell will also be appearing this season on Heroes, further cementing her role at the top of my list of awesome actresses. (She also had a chance to be on Lost but decided against it. Man, is this girl in demand.) I didn’t see enough from Gossip Girl to want to commit to watching it every week, but next Wednesday night if I’m in front of the TV and there’s nothing else of note on, I might give it another shot…..
- Nobody dislikes Terrell Owens more than I do, but even I don’t have a problem with T.O.’s antics following his touchdown reception in Sunday’s game against Miami. In case you missed it, T.O. caught a touchdown pass in the fourth quarter and sprinted through the end zone to a spot just beside/slightly behind the goal post. From there, he held the football up in front of him like an old movie camera and used his off hand to turn an imaginary crank, as operators of those old movie cameras had to do. Owens aimed his “camera” at the sideline, clearly making light of the recent controversy involving the New England Patriots blatantly cheating by filming the signals given by opposing coaches. The NFL fun police clearly were not down with T.O.’s act, because they fined him a crisp $7,500 for the celebration. I won't beat around the bush on this one – this fine is a total load of crap. The ruling by the NFL says that you can’t use the ball or other props in the end zone to do a touchdown celebration, because as we all know, that would bring the entire league crashing down. The apocalypse would set in if a guy came up with a creative touchdown celebration and he wasn’t fined and penalized heavily for it. The NFL needs to lighten up and remove that ginormous stick from up its butt, because of all the things T.O. has pulled, this is probably the least offensive. It’s not even as bad as him pulling a Sharpie from his sock, autographing a ball and tossing it to a friend in the stands as he did on Monday Night Football a few years ago. For once, T.O. was actually funny and not being an a-hole, but the NFL just had to fine him anyhow…..
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Non-athlete Tasering, a desolate wasteland on TV and the danger for Saudi women seeking to drive
- Calling something a desolate wasteland is a severe statement, certainly not something you throw around lightly, but last night the selection of shows on TV was absolutely a desolate wasteland. I knew it was going to be bad because for the first time since last century, Gilmore Girls wasn’t a part of the lineup for the CW/WB in its usual Tuesday, 8 p.m. time slot. Furthermore, Veronica Mars had also been cancelled by the CW, and those were my two Tuesday night staples. However, I wasn’t even close to prepared for the absolute horr-a that I found when I turned on the TV. NBC was sporting one of the many fat people reality shows on TV, The Biggest Loser. CBS was offering up something called The Power of 10, which I guess is some sort of quiz show or game show based on popular opinion polls. I don’t know exactly what the show entails, but I do know that it’s hosted by Drew Carey, which is more than enough reason for me to skip it. Then you had the CW, perhaps the worst of all the major networks in this (and any other) night, with two full hours of Beauty and the Geek, which continues to crack me up, but not in a good way. How hilarious is it that this show is still being billed as a “social experiment,” when in reality it’s an excuse to laugh at nerdy guys and air-headed bimbo girls who are usually sporting fake racks and arrogant personalities. Oh, and now the CW is trying to push the idea that this is some sort of growth experience for these contestants to better themselves and become more accepting of others who aren’t like them? Yeah, because clearly this is an altruistic endeavor through and through. This show in no way exploits people who fit into an easily mockable social category. Making matters worse was that ESPN, a network I rely on for my sports fix, had neither a college football game nor a professional baseball game on. So what was ESPN rocking on this night? Yup, you guessed it, poker. For the last freaking time, poker is not a sport and it does not belong on a sports network. Welcome to Tuesday nights in Fall 2007, TV’s desolate wasteland…..
- Style can come with a price, but that price usually isn't a serious injury by way of an escalator. Kids wearing Crocs, the popular soft-soled clogs, are paying the price firsthand. An increasing number of incidents involving young children having their shoes get caught in escalators have been occurring lately, with most of the children escaping with minor injuries. These mishaps have occurred not only in the United States, but also in distant locations such as Japan and Singapore. Apparently the way Crocs are designed makes them susceptible to getting caught in the “teeth” at the top or bottom of escalators, or in the crack between the edge of the steps and the side of the escalator. One injury involving Crocs and elevators occurred in northern Virginia last month when 4-year-old Rory McDermott was riding up a mall escalator with his mother when his right foot became entrapped and he lost most of the nail on his big toe and suffered heavy bleeding after his mom was able to dislodge the foot and pull him free. Crocs Inc., the manufacturer of the shoes, predictably claims it doesn’t keep records of reported injuries to people wearing Crocs, but they’d better start doing so because I have a feeling they’re going to be getting sued by angry parents whose kids were injured while using their product. Some of those lawsuits will probably include the malls and the escalator companies too. However, I think we can all agree that at day’s end, the important question to ask is whether the kids look stylish in their Crocs and if so, what’s a little personal harm in the name of good fashion? Well done, Crocs Inc., you should be very proud.
- Saudi Arabia has long been the only country in the world with misogynistic driving laws. A group of women in the Middle Eastern nation is looking to change that, forming a committee to lobby King Abdullah to give women the right to drive. Currently, Saudi laws ban women from getting behind the wheel, and observers believe that those laws are likely to remain in place because the issue is a highly controversial and divisive one and the king unlikely to make such a major change. “We would like to remind officials that this is, as many have said, a social and not a religious or political issue,” explained Fowziyyah al-Oyouni, a founding member of the Committee of Demanders of Women’s Right to Drive Cars. “And since it’s a social issue, we have the right to lobby for it.” First, Fowziyyah, you all really didn’t do a great job of choosing the name for your committee. You do know that making your name excruciatingly long and cumbersome doesn’t have any effect on your impact and persuasiveness, right? But getting beyond the name, yes, you do have a right to lobby for driving privileges, but a monarchy is not a democracy and the will of the people often gets quashed by the rulers in a monarchy. Your king is going to take one look at your request and shoot it down, even if it is unfair and unjust that women are banned from driving simply because they’re women. Personally I’d like countries all over the world to ban drivers who can’t figure out how to use their gas pedal correctly, who can’t grasp the concept of not pulling out in front of people who are two seconds away from them and who drive in the freaking left lane even though they’re the slowest car on the road, but that ain’t happening either. For now, Saudi women are stuck riding the horses and camels, which actually get much better gas mileage than most cars anyhow, so be thankful for that.
- So the question has been answered: Sarah Wayne Callies will NOT be back on Prison Break. She had been out on maternity leave and gave birth to a daughter, then decided not to return to the show. It was apparently her decision, as per TV Guide’s word, but that bit of hope thrown out to fans during the season premiere when her name was mentioned by multiple characters and the storyline of Sara and L.J. being caught and held for ransom was nothing more than a tease. However that storyline plays out, it won't end with screen time for Dr. Sara Tancredi. As I wrote Tuesday, while it would have been nice to have Callies back, her departure from the show isn't a fatal blow from where I sit. This show is just so layered, fast-paced, detailed and is always weaving new characters into the plot to the extent that losing one character, albeit an important one, isn't a death blow. Obviously things couldn’t continue with out Michael and Lincoln, but other than them, anyone else’s departure can be overcome. This doesn’t dampen my enthusiasm for this season at all, and best wishes to Callies for whatever she decides to do next.
- Personally I think that anyone wasting their time at a John Kerry speech should run the risk of being Tasered, but that doesn’t mean I think it was right for university security to bum rush University of Florida student Andrew Meyer, 21, simply for taking up too much time in the Q&A portion of the speech and asking too many questions. Yeah, because when a dude starts asking Kerry if he was ever in the same Skull & Bones group that W. was reportedly in, you need to cut him off. Better yet, you need to tackle him and have three or four university cops hold him down and administer a Taser blast when he resists. What, did you all think he was some drunk pro athlete who refused to obey your directions when you pulled him over? That’s when you use a Taser, when you have some 300-pound lineman getting belligerent and threatening to harm you. You don’t need a Taser when one officer with a pair of handcuffs could subdue some guy whose biggest crime is being annoying. UF President Bernie Machen called the incident “regrettable,” a vast understatement and a bit of a disappointment in vocabulary from a man who certainly could come up with a better word to describe this egregious abuse of power. Hey kids, come to the University of Florida, where you can't ask too many questions and will be brutally assaulted by the police if you dare to challenge anyone in authority!
- Style can come with a price, but that price usually isn't a serious injury by way of an escalator. Kids wearing Crocs, the popular soft-soled clogs, are paying the price firsthand. An increasing number of incidents involving young children having their shoes get caught in escalators have been occurring lately, with most of the children escaping with minor injuries. These mishaps have occurred not only in the United States, but also in distant locations such as Japan and Singapore. Apparently the way Crocs are designed makes them susceptible to getting caught in the “teeth” at the top or bottom of escalators, or in the crack between the edge of the steps and the side of the escalator. One injury involving Crocs and elevators occurred in northern Virginia last month when 4-year-old Rory McDermott was riding up a mall escalator with his mother when his right foot became entrapped and he lost most of the nail on his big toe and suffered heavy bleeding after his mom was able to dislodge the foot and pull him free. Crocs Inc., the manufacturer of the shoes, predictably claims it doesn’t keep records of reported injuries to people wearing Crocs, but they’d better start doing so because I have a feeling they’re going to be getting sued by angry parents whose kids were injured while using their product. Some of those lawsuits will probably include the malls and the escalator companies too. However, I think we can all agree that at day’s end, the important question to ask is whether the kids look stylish in their Crocs and if so, what’s a little personal harm in the name of good fashion? Well done, Crocs Inc., you should be very proud.
- Saudi Arabia has long been the only country in the world with misogynistic driving laws. A group of women in the Middle Eastern nation is looking to change that, forming a committee to lobby King Abdullah to give women the right to drive. Currently, Saudi laws ban women from getting behind the wheel, and observers believe that those laws are likely to remain in place because the issue is a highly controversial and divisive one and the king unlikely to make such a major change. “We would like to remind officials that this is, as many have said, a social and not a religious or political issue,” explained Fowziyyah al-Oyouni, a founding member of the Committee of Demanders of Women’s Right to Drive Cars. “And since it’s a social issue, we have the right to lobby for it.” First, Fowziyyah, you all really didn’t do a great job of choosing the name for your committee. You do know that making your name excruciatingly long and cumbersome doesn’t have any effect on your impact and persuasiveness, right? But getting beyond the name, yes, you do have a right to lobby for driving privileges, but a monarchy is not a democracy and the will of the people often gets quashed by the rulers in a monarchy. Your king is going to take one look at your request and shoot it down, even if it is unfair and unjust that women are banned from driving simply because they’re women. Personally I’d like countries all over the world to ban drivers who can’t figure out how to use their gas pedal correctly, who can’t grasp the concept of not pulling out in front of people who are two seconds away from them and who drive in the freaking left lane even though they’re the slowest car on the road, but that ain’t happening either. For now, Saudi women are stuck riding the horses and camels, which actually get much better gas mileage than most cars anyhow, so be thankful for that.
- So the question has been answered: Sarah Wayne Callies will NOT be back on Prison Break. She had been out on maternity leave and gave birth to a daughter, then decided not to return to the show. It was apparently her decision, as per TV Guide’s word, but that bit of hope thrown out to fans during the season premiere when her name was mentioned by multiple characters and the storyline of Sara and L.J. being caught and held for ransom was nothing more than a tease. However that storyline plays out, it won't end with screen time for Dr. Sara Tancredi. As I wrote Tuesday, while it would have been nice to have Callies back, her departure from the show isn't a fatal blow from where I sit. This show is just so layered, fast-paced, detailed and is always weaving new characters into the plot to the extent that losing one character, albeit an important one, isn't a death blow. Obviously things couldn’t continue with out Michael and Lincoln, but other than them, anyone else’s departure can be overcome. This doesn’t dampen my enthusiasm for this season at all, and best wishes to Callies for whatever she decides to do next.
- Personally I think that anyone wasting their time at a John Kerry speech should run the risk of being Tasered, but that doesn’t mean I think it was right for university security to bum rush University of Florida student Andrew Meyer, 21, simply for taking up too much time in the Q&A portion of the speech and asking too many questions. Yeah, because when a dude starts asking Kerry if he was ever in the same Skull & Bones group that W. was reportedly in, you need to cut him off. Better yet, you need to tackle him and have three or four university cops hold him down and administer a Taser blast when he resists. What, did you all think he was some drunk pro athlete who refused to obey your directions when you pulled him over? That’s when you use a Taser, when you have some 300-pound lineman getting belligerent and threatening to harm you. You don’t need a Taser when one officer with a pair of handcuffs could subdue some guy whose biggest crime is being annoying. UF President Bernie Machen called the incident “regrettable,” a vast understatement and a bit of a disappointment in vocabulary from a man who certainly could come up with a better word to describe this egregious abuse of power. Hey kids, come to the University of Florida, where you can't ask too many questions and will be brutally assaulted by the police if you dare to challenge anyone in authority!
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Buddhist monks are same tough dudes, Prison Break kicks off in style and an Arkansas football player is both smart and stupid
- Clearly I’ve underestimated the Buddhist monks in Myanmar, because these dudes definitely mean business. Last week they staged a protest march that ended when the police opened fire on them with warning shots, but the monks were not to be deterred. I had thought of monks as peaceful, quiet, humble servants of God, but these monks either don’t know that code or have elected to ignore it, because their response has been violent and aggressive. They have vandalized the shops of those supporting the country’s dictatorship, they have briefly taken local leaders hostage and now they are threatening a boycott of the country’s military and the families of military members. Exactly how one boycotts the military, I don’t know. This isn't like refusing to shop at a certain store because you are boycotting their policies on dolphin-safe tuna. The military’s service is protection, so to boycott them you would either have to leave the country or openly enable those wishing to attack your country. Simply by living your daily life you’re basically using the “services” provided by the military. However, nonsensical thinking aside, I’m with the monks 105%. These guys know their scriptures, they can stage protests, they can dish out violence and property destruction and they oppose dictatorships. All of these are worthy ideals to espouse, and I hope that others in Myanmar step up to fight this worthy fight with the world’s most badass monks.
- Interesting, very interesting. The season premiere of Prison Break last night raised a lot of questions and took some time to digest, but as always, it was top notch. In typical PB fashion, some details about SONA were released, but those details raised more questions than they answered. As it turns out, SONA is some sort of reengage Panamanian prison where the inmates are so out of control and animalistic that the guards pulled out over a year ago. Martial law rules there now, with the inmates governing themselves and the government guarding the perimeter, shooting anyone who tries to escape but doing nothing else. The prison is run by a large black man whose name wasn’t given, but he has his own private “suite” with a flat screen TV and underlings who help him keep order. Disputes are settled by the two dissenting parties fighting to the death in the prison yard. Bellick is in with Michael Scofield, as is Mahone and later in the episode, T-Bag. Bellick is having the hardest time adjusting, stumbling around in a pair of tighty-whities (a disturbing image) the entire show and being given the dirtiest, most disgusting job. Mahone and Scofield are uneasy allies, with Mahone actually saving Michael’s life in a fight. T-Bag is his usual self, schmoozing, scheming and trying to get ahead. On the outside, we learn that Lincoln, L.J. and Sarah are still alive, but the good news ends there. While Linc fights to clear his brother’s name, Sarah and L.J. are captured and held hostage by the Company. Even after learning he’s been cleared of all wrongdoing, Linc has to hassle the American embassy to find Sara, get Michael transferred to a safer prison and work toward Michael’s trial on the charges against him resulting from the murdered woman setup that T-Bag sprung on him in last season’s finale. Just when it appears that Michael is about to get that transfer to a different prison, an old acquaintance of Linc’s, Pamela (XXXXX) meets him at the spot he was supposed to meet his son at and delivers a message. Linc passes that message along to his brother, that there is a man inside SONA he must rescue and help to escape if he wants his freedom. There’s also a mysterious stranger who visits SONA and offers Michael help in escaping and fleeing, but that’s about as far as that went this episode. Judging from the season preview at show’s end, most of the season is going to be at SONA, so escape doesn’t appear imminent. The questions raised by this episode are obvious. First, who is Kenneth Whistler, the man Michael is supposed to rescue? Second, why is Whistler trapped behind a wall in the wet, slimy, dungy basement at SONA? Thirdly, with Sara Wayne Callies’ name not in the opening credits and her face not in the show at all, is she really still a part of the cast? Fourth, where is Sucre and more importantly, where has Bellick hidden his beloved Maricruz? The preview, by the way, did show Sucre visiting Bellick at SONA, gun in hand, so ask this very question. Also, who is this mysterious inmate leading SONA and can Michael find a way to make peace with him? This is the kind of episode that was great when you watched it, but it’s twice as good once you get a chance to think about and digest it. I’m pumped for this season, which continues next Monday at 8 p.m. on Fox.
- University of Arkansas football player Ernest Mitchell has been suspended for UA’s game against No. 21 Kentucky this week after a confrontation with an opponent in last week’s game against Alabama. Coach Houston Nutt clearly wasn’t pleased when Mitchell grabbed an opponent’s helmet and hit him with it, but I wish Nutt were a sunny, positive, glass-half-full guy like me, because then he would see the silver lining in this situation. See, normally football players make the dumb mistake of punching an opponent in the head while that opponent is wearing a helmet, but not Mitchell. He was intelligent enough to keep his own helmet on, then grab his opponent’s helmet and hitting him with it. Let’s give Mitchell credit for using his head to inflict damage on someone else’s head, shall we? In a world where dumb jocks reign supreme, let’s applaud an industrious young man who took the tools available to him and used those tools to assault a fellow athlete while keeping himself protected. Good thinking, E., even if it did earn you a suspension and prevent you from being on the field to help your team as it looks to rebound from a tough loss against a good opponent.
- Amazingly, America wasn’t down with an Academy Awards broadcast that was excruciatingly long, boring, pointless and filled with wall-to-wall self-congratulation by wealthy celebrities. The show received what is believed to be the lowest ratings in Oscar history, with a paltry 13.1 million viewers tuning in to see the effeminate, metrosexual loser Ryan Seacrest host an awards show that was shockingly similar to the dozens of other awards shows that happen on a monthly basis in this country. The viewer numbers are 3 million less than last year’s broadcast on NBC and 700,000 lower than the previous record low of 13.8 million on ABC three years ago. It appears that America has lost its interest in canned, predictable, disingenuous acceptance speeches, scripted and lame on-stage banter and celebrities in expensive outfits sitting around giving out awards to one another.
- Degenerate gamblers, take notice, because if the governor of Massachusetts has his way, you could soon be throwing away your income and your life at one of three new casinos in his fine state. Gov. Deval Patrick has proposed the building of three full-scale casinos in Massachusetts, one each in the state’s western and southeastern regions and one in the Boston area. Patrick made the usual appeal that politicians make when they want to bring casinos into their area; namely, that the casinos will generate jobs and revenue for their state, city, etc. They ever seem to mention the rise in crime that comes in any area where a casino is built, nor do they ruminate on the negative effects a casino will have on people with gambling addictions in the area who now have a huge temptation in their neighborhood that will allow them to fully engage an addiction that could bankrupt them completely. The figure that the governor threw out was $2 billion annually in revenues from the casinos, but even if that figure is accurate (and you can be sure it’s not), at what cost in non-financial terms? Don’t we already have enough options for people looking to lose their money gambling? I refer you to the website of former mob boss Michael Franzese, who travels the country speaking to college and pro athletes, warning them about the dangers of gambling, if you have any doubts as to the powerful and negative impact gambling can have on lives. It’s michaelfranzese.com, and it’s an eye opener.
- Interesting, very interesting. The season premiere of Prison Break last night raised a lot of questions and took some time to digest, but as always, it was top notch. In typical PB fashion, some details about SONA were released, but those details raised more questions than they answered. As it turns out, SONA is some sort of reengage Panamanian prison where the inmates are so out of control and animalistic that the guards pulled out over a year ago. Martial law rules there now, with the inmates governing themselves and the government guarding the perimeter, shooting anyone who tries to escape but doing nothing else. The prison is run by a large black man whose name wasn’t given, but he has his own private “suite” with a flat screen TV and underlings who help him keep order. Disputes are settled by the two dissenting parties fighting to the death in the prison yard. Bellick is in with Michael Scofield, as is Mahone and later in the episode, T-Bag. Bellick is having the hardest time adjusting, stumbling around in a pair of tighty-whities (a disturbing image) the entire show and being given the dirtiest, most disgusting job. Mahone and Scofield are uneasy allies, with Mahone actually saving Michael’s life in a fight. T-Bag is his usual self, schmoozing, scheming and trying to get ahead. On the outside, we learn that Lincoln, L.J. and Sarah are still alive, but the good news ends there. While Linc fights to clear his brother’s name, Sarah and L.J. are captured and held hostage by the Company. Even after learning he’s been cleared of all wrongdoing, Linc has to hassle the American embassy to find Sara, get Michael transferred to a safer prison and work toward Michael’s trial on the charges against him resulting from the murdered woman setup that T-Bag sprung on him in last season’s finale. Just when it appears that Michael is about to get that transfer to a different prison, an old acquaintance of Linc’s, Pamela (XXXXX) meets him at the spot he was supposed to meet his son at and delivers a message. Linc passes that message along to his brother, that there is a man inside SONA he must rescue and help to escape if he wants his freedom. There’s also a mysterious stranger who visits SONA and offers Michael help in escaping and fleeing, but that’s about as far as that went this episode. Judging from the season preview at show’s end, most of the season is going to be at SONA, so escape doesn’t appear imminent. The questions raised by this episode are obvious. First, who is Kenneth Whistler, the man Michael is supposed to rescue? Second, why is Whistler trapped behind a wall in the wet, slimy, dungy basement at SONA? Thirdly, with Sara Wayne Callies’ name not in the opening credits and her face not in the show at all, is she really still a part of the cast? Fourth, where is Sucre and more importantly, where has Bellick hidden his beloved Maricruz? The preview, by the way, did show Sucre visiting Bellick at SONA, gun in hand, so ask this very question. Also, who is this mysterious inmate leading SONA and can Michael find a way to make peace with him? This is the kind of episode that was great when you watched it, but it’s twice as good once you get a chance to think about and digest it. I’m pumped for this season, which continues next Monday at 8 p.m. on Fox.
- University of Arkansas football player Ernest Mitchell has been suspended for UA’s game against No. 21 Kentucky this week after a confrontation with an opponent in last week’s game against Alabama. Coach Houston Nutt clearly wasn’t pleased when Mitchell grabbed an opponent’s helmet and hit him with it, but I wish Nutt were a sunny, positive, glass-half-full guy like me, because then he would see the silver lining in this situation. See, normally football players make the dumb mistake of punching an opponent in the head while that opponent is wearing a helmet, but not Mitchell. He was intelligent enough to keep his own helmet on, then grab his opponent’s helmet and hitting him with it. Let’s give Mitchell credit for using his head to inflict damage on someone else’s head, shall we? In a world where dumb jocks reign supreme, let’s applaud an industrious young man who took the tools available to him and used those tools to assault a fellow athlete while keeping himself protected. Good thinking, E., even if it did earn you a suspension and prevent you from being on the field to help your team as it looks to rebound from a tough loss against a good opponent.
- Amazingly, America wasn’t down with an Academy Awards broadcast that was excruciatingly long, boring, pointless and filled with wall-to-wall self-congratulation by wealthy celebrities. The show received what is believed to be the lowest ratings in Oscar history, with a paltry 13.1 million viewers tuning in to see the effeminate, metrosexual loser Ryan Seacrest host an awards show that was shockingly similar to the dozens of other awards shows that happen on a monthly basis in this country. The viewer numbers are 3 million less than last year’s broadcast on NBC and 700,000 lower than the previous record low of 13.8 million on ABC three years ago. It appears that America has lost its interest in canned, predictable, disingenuous acceptance speeches, scripted and lame on-stage banter and celebrities in expensive outfits sitting around giving out awards to one another.
- Degenerate gamblers, take notice, because if the governor of Massachusetts has his way, you could soon be throwing away your income and your life at one of three new casinos in his fine state. Gov. Deval Patrick has proposed the building of three full-scale casinos in Massachusetts, one each in the state’s western and southeastern regions and one in the Boston area. Patrick made the usual appeal that politicians make when they want to bring casinos into their area; namely, that the casinos will generate jobs and revenue for their state, city, etc. They ever seem to mention the rise in crime that comes in any area where a casino is built, nor do they ruminate on the negative effects a casino will have on people with gambling addictions in the area who now have a huge temptation in their neighborhood that will allow them to fully engage an addiction that could bankrupt them completely. The figure that the governor threw out was $2 billion annually in revenues from the casinos, but even if that figure is accurate (and you can be sure it’s not), at what cost in non-financial terms? Don’t we already have enough options for people looking to lose their money gambling? I refer you to the website of former mob boss Michael Franzese, who travels the country speaking to college and pro athletes, warning them about the dangers of gambling, if you have any doubts as to the powerful and negative impact gambling can have on lives. It’s michaelfranzese.com, and it’s an eye opener.
Monday, September 17, 2007
W. has made a decision, a down weekend at the movies and the Red Sox are torturing me
- This is about as easy a choice for an appointment to a major political office as you can get. Of course, when W. is involved, it’s also going to be an incredibly difficult choice to make. Our un-esteemed leader has made his decision on a replacement for Alberto Gonzales, naming Michael B. Mukasey as his nominee for attorney general. The easy part of the equation is that when you’re choosing a successor for a ginormous tool like Gonzales, no matter who you choose you’re almost guaranteed that he or she will be markedly better than ol’ Alberto. However, the downside is that it is still W. making the choice, and that man couldn’t decide between crunchy peanut butter or creamy if his life depended on it because he’s just not smart enough to make those kinds of challenging choices. Mukasey is retired federal judge from New York who has handled terrorist cases in the U.S. legal system for years. The choice of a nominee who is largely agreeable to Democrats is being pointed to as an indication of W.’s weakening political power, but let’s face it, he probably played a game of “Pin the Tail on a Nominee” and thus came up with Mukasey. Or maybe he just thought that Mukasey sounded like a funny name, so he liked that. Mukasey is actually a judicial advisor to Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, so at least he won't have any sort of divided attention. Odds are that Mukasey will be approved by Congress, so like it or not, he’s your next attorney general. But hey, if you don’t like him, no worries, in a year a whole new regime will roll into Washington…..
- You’re killing me, Boston Red Sox, absolutely killing me. You have me and every other Yankee-hating baseball fan across America behind you and you are slowly, steadily choking away what was once a 14-game lead in the American League East. With Monday’s loss to the mediocre Toronto Blue Jays, the Sox have seen their lead shrink to a measly 3.5 games over the hated Pinstripes, a lead that doesn’t feel even remotely safe despite the fact that only 11 games remain in the regular season. As much as I hate to admit it, the Yankees have been playing winning baseball for several months now, but that doesn’t excuse Boston giving back nearly all of that massive lead by playing some of the most inconsistent, uninspired baseball they’ve played in a long time. The reality that both teams are almost certain to make the playoffs does little to assuage my rage, because 1) I hate the Yankees and seeing them in the playoffs in any form is inherently repulsive, and 2) If the Yankees are going to make the playoffs, then let it be as the wild card so their run of division titles can end. I realize that Boston is missing Manny Ramirez and that Man-Ram is a major part of the offense, but many of Boston’s recent losses have been because of lackluster pitching, not offensive deficiencies. All it will take for the Sox to win the division is a run of 7-4 or 8-3 to close the season, because as well as they’re playing, the Yankees will lose a few down the stretch. Pull yourselves together, Red Sox, because a nation’s hopes are resting on you.
- A very underwhelming weekend at the box office, that’s for sure. When the leading earner in ticket sales is bringing in $14 million, as The Brave One did, you know people are finding much better ways to spend their time than going to the movies. The $14 million for that particular movie is actually what I would expect, because a movie starring Jodie Foster as a vigilante with a gun terrorizing criminals in a big city is about as believable as a prison movie starring Pee Wee Herman and David Spade. The runner up was 3:10 to Yuma, the remake of the 1950s Western starring Russell Crowe and Christian Bale. Coming in third was a movie I am definitely going to avoid, Mr. Woodcock, partly because the name creates a lot of bad mental imagery and partly because I’m sure the horr-a that is this movie would create even more bad imagery. That these three movies combined brought in just over what half of The Bourne Ultimatum raked in during its opening weekend is a definitive statement that the summer blockbuster season is over and that we’re in that dead period before the big holiday film season gets rolling.
- So the Oscars were an unqualified success, and there’s one simple reason for that: Britney Spears wasn’t performing or associated with the show in any way. That alone is reason to enjoy any event, because let’s face it, an over-the-hill, overweight, flabby, lip-syncing pop tart trying to fake her way through a performance of a song so gawd-awful that no one could make it sound good is an absolute buzz kill. Of course, the reasons to celebrate the Oscars begin and end there. Besides that small triumph, you have a room full of rich, spoiled, surgically-enhanced movie stars and their massive egos gathered together in one ginormous, self-congratulatory heap. Everyone applauds everyone else and pretends to act humble as they congratulate one another and give each other awards to celebrate their greatness. Oh, and the show was hosted by the patron saint of the man blouse, Mr. Ryan Seacrest. I’m betting he had his teeth bleached and his tips frosted especially for the show. I watched bits and pieces of the broadcast, but only because it’s hard to sarcastically mock something you didn’t see….hard, but not impossible. Still, the only truly funny moments of the night came when Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert presented an award together, with Colbert sporting a leaf blower on his shoulder that runs “on Al Gore’s tears.” Other than that moment of levity, it was every bit as bad as one might expect. The best part is that we now have about a day and a half to get ready for the next overblown, self-congratulatory awards show, then two more days to get ready for the one after that, and the one after that…..
- Welcome to Denny’s, would you like an appetizer and an offensive racial slur to get you started? I didn’t know that was an appropriate greeting at any restaurant, but at one particular restaurant in East St. Louis, Ill., that’s exactly what a black family of 15 received along with their meal at a local Denny’s eatery. The family then sued Denny’s and has won that suit, with the settlement in the amount of $600,000 for the entire family. That works out to $40,000 each for the 15 family members, although I’m sure if you ask them, they would have gladly taken paying for their meal, not having their waiter ignore them and use ugly racial slurs and not having to sue over the way things transpired. Part of me thinks that I’d happily take that sort of shallow, ignorant remark and indifference for a $40,000 payout, but I’m more amazed that there are still people out there who are not only bigoted and ignorant enough to think the way that waiter did, but some of them are so arrogant and idiotic as to say those things in public to people who can take action against them. Just goes to show you that trends come and go, but stupid never goes out of style.
- You’re killing me, Boston Red Sox, absolutely killing me. You have me and every other Yankee-hating baseball fan across America behind you and you are slowly, steadily choking away what was once a 14-game lead in the American League East. With Monday’s loss to the mediocre Toronto Blue Jays, the Sox have seen their lead shrink to a measly 3.5 games over the hated Pinstripes, a lead that doesn’t feel even remotely safe despite the fact that only 11 games remain in the regular season. As much as I hate to admit it, the Yankees have been playing winning baseball for several months now, but that doesn’t excuse Boston giving back nearly all of that massive lead by playing some of the most inconsistent, uninspired baseball they’ve played in a long time. The reality that both teams are almost certain to make the playoffs does little to assuage my rage, because 1) I hate the Yankees and seeing them in the playoffs in any form is inherently repulsive, and 2) If the Yankees are going to make the playoffs, then let it be as the wild card so their run of division titles can end. I realize that Boston is missing Manny Ramirez and that Man-Ram is a major part of the offense, but many of Boston’s recent losses have been because of lackluster pitching, not offensive deficiencies. All it will take for the Sox to win the division is a run of 7-4 or 8-3 to close the season, because as well as they’re playing, the Yankees will lose a few down the stretch. Pull yourselves together, Red Sox, because a nation’s hopes are resting on you.
- A very underwhelming weekend at the box office, that’s for sure. When the leading earner in ticket sales is bringing in $14 million, as The Brave One did, you know people are finding much better ways to spend their time than going to the movies. The $14 million for that particular movie is actually what I would expect, because a movie starring Jodie Foster as a vigilante with a gun terrorizing criminals in a big city is about as believable as a prison movie starring Pee Wee Herman and David Spade. The runner up was 3:10 to Yuma, the remake of the 1950s Western starring Russell Crowe and Christian Bale. Coming in third was a movie I am definitely going to avoid, Mr. Woodcock, partly because the name creates a lot of bad mental imagery and partly because I’m sure the horr-a that is this movie would create even more bad imagery. That these three movies combined brought in just over what half of The Bourne Ultimatum raked in during its opening weekend is a definitive statement that the summer blockbuster season is over and that we’re in that dead period before the big holiday film season gets rolling.
- So the Oscars were an unqualified success, and there’s one simple reason for that: Britney Spears wasn’t performing or associated with the show in any way. That alone is reason to enjoy any event, because let’s face it, an over-the-hill, overweight, flabby, lip-syncing pop tart trying to fake her way through a performance of a song so gawd-awful that no one could make it sound good is an absolute buzz kill. Of course, the reasons to celebrate the Oscars begin and end there. Besides that small triumph, you have a room full of rich, spoiled, surgically-enhanced movie stars and their massive egos gathered together in one ginormous, self-congratulatory heap. Everyone applauds everyone else and pretends to act humble as they congratulate one another and give each other awards to celebrate their greatness. Oh, and the show was hosted by the patron saint of the man blouse, Mr. Ryan Seacrest. I’m betting he had his teeth bleached and his tips frosted especially for the show. I watched bits and pieces of the broadcast, but only because it’s hard to sarcastically mock something you didn’t see….hard, but not impossible. Still, the only truly funny moments of the night came when Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert presented an award together, with Colbert sporting a leaf blower on his shoulder that runs “on Al Gore’s tears.” Other than that moment of levity, it was every bit as bad as one might expect. The best part is that we now have about a day and a half to get ready for the next overblown, self-congratulatory awards show, then two more days to get ready for the one after that, and the one after that…..
- Welcome to Denny’s, would you like an appetizer and an offensive racial slur to get you started? I didn’t know that was an appropriate greeting at any restaurant, but at one particular restaurant in East St. Louis, Ill., that’s exactly what a black family of 15 received along with their meal at a local Denny’s eatery. The family then sued Denny’s and has won that suit, with the settlement in the amount of $600,000 for the entire family. That works out to $40,000 each for the 15 family members, although I’m sure if you ask them, they would have gladly taken paying for their meal, not having their waiter ignore them and use ugly racial slurs and not having to sue over the way things transpired. Part of me thinks that I’d happily take that sort of shallow, ignorant remark and indifference for a $40,000 payout, but I’m more amazed that there are still people out there who are not only bigoted and ignorant enough to think the way that waiter did, but some of them are so arrogant and idiotic as to say those things in public to people who can take action against them. Just goes to show you that trends come and go, but stupid never goes out of style.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
O.J. Simpson is amazing, Duke football is finally a winner and Euros have a banking crisis of faith
- O.J. Simpson is a beauty. I don’t know anyone else who could pull the act that the Juice is pulling and still be laughing and smiling as he did it. After being arrested and charged with seven felonies in conjunction with a break-in and burglary in a Las Vegas hotel room, some amazing details are emerging about just how the Juice planned and pulled off his own personal sting operation. First, there’s the fact that the Juice allegedly put together his posse for the raid at a wedding cocktail reception. Yes, dude found four or five guys at a wedding reception and talked them into forming the Juice’s own personal S.W.A.T. team. Most single guys go to wedding receptions to pick up chicks, but O.J. goes there to recruit members for the J.S.W.A.T. Then there’s the fact that TMZ.com is floating an audio tape allegedly from the hotel room when the Juice and his crew burst in to steal back memorabilia he claimed was his. On the tape, a voice believed to be Simpson’s can be heard telling the rest of his posse to not “let anyone out of this room.” Simpson has admitted to being in the room and taking the memorabilia under contentious circumstances, but he also tried to tell police that he was unarmed. Well, apparently at least some of his guys were, which escalates things substantially. Also on the tape, an enraged Juice yells, “You think you can steal my sh*t and sell it? You think you can steal my sh*t?” over and over. The guys he’s screaming at are noticeably panicked (and rightfully so), with one of them trying to throw his buddy under the bus and placate the Juice by saying, “Mike took it.” Good one, because as much as I appreciate loyalty to one’s friends, I appreciate staying alive more and doing anything other than what this guy did could have caused him to receive the Ron and Nicole treatment. The hilarity of this situation doesn’t end with the end of the robbery, though. Apparently O.J. called one of the men he and his posse robbed the next day because in seizing some of his belongings, Simpson also picked up some things that didn’t belong to him. So after robbing these guys in plain sight with no disguise in the most heavily surveilled city in America, he calls one of the victims and leaves a voice mail for the guy, asking how O.J. can give his stuff back to him. The kicker is that when asked about the whole incident, the Juice went with the clichéd Vegas catch phrase, saying, “I thought what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.” Ahhhhh……good one, Juice, you’re hilarious. Or you would be if you weren’t the worst dude in the history of the world. Most of the time you can leave what happened in Vegas in Vegas, but not if you commit burglary and armed robbery, that you can’t leave in Vegas. Still, you have to love the sheer testicular fortitude of a guy who got away with a brutal double murder (allegedly), continues to act like everyone doesn’t know he really is a murderer, goes to Vegas to stage his own commando raid on a hotel room full of memorabilia and has the balls to crack a joke like that. Having said all of this, I have to ask, now that the raid has been completed and your plan executed, Juice, the one question we all want to know is: Has this brought you closer to finding the real killers? Just curious…….
- And the winner is……no one? For the first time in forever, not a single one of the five major TV networks has a schedule that is clearly the best as the fall TV season begins. Mostly that’s because on the whole, every one of the five schedules sucks. Not one of these networks has a single night, let alone a whole week, of shows that are great. For every Prison Break, there’s an Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, as is the case on Fox. Some networks, such as ABC, don’t even have their best show returning until January, as is Lost. Then you have Fox calling its new crime drama K-Ville a “landmark series,” even though it’s going to last about four weeks before being cancelled and is about as revolutionary as a peanut butter sandwich. Perhaps the most downtrodden of all networks is the CW, for whom I have no sympathy because the suits there have done this to themselves. They’ve systematically eliminated their best shows the past two years and are now left with a smorgasbord of rat feces on nearly every night of the week. The ONLY good show that the network has to offer during its premiere week is Smallville. Teen drama One Tree Hill is being retooled and will return in January with the show’s characters advanced ahead four years in time, past the college years the typically kill such shows. It remains to be seen if the revised version will work, but it definitely can’t be any worse than stinkers like Reaper and Beauty and the Geek. I honestly can't remember a year in which no new shows have excited me enough to watch. Even last season there were Heroes, Traveler and The Black Donnellys. This year there’s…..The Big Bang Theory, a lame half-hour comedy about a bunch of science nerds trying to pull chicks? Thanks, but I’ll pass.
- One college football note I neglected in yesterday’s posting was the ending of the longest losing streak in the nation, with the Duke Blue Devils snapping their 22-game skid. They hadn’t won a game since October 2005, but on Saturday night, the Dukies defeated Northwestern by a 20-14 score. Smart kid on smart kid violence isn't something I usually endorse, but in this case I’ll make an exception. Duke has long been known for two things – well, three if you count their irrepressible arrogance – and those two things are being smart and having a good basketball team that everyone outside of Durham hates with a passion. But for one glorious Saturday in September, the Dukies stopped sucking long enough to win a football game. Personally I’m happy to see it, because I’ve been on teams that go winless for prolonged periods of time and it absolutely sucks. The jubilation from the Duke players and coaches was awesome, and even if that’s the only win of their season, at least they’ve shed the dubious distinction of being the biggest losers in college football. The game came down to the very end, with Northwestern missing its final chance to win with just a few seconds remaining when quarterback C.J. Bachier’s pass fell incomplete in the end zone, sending the Duke sideline into a frenzy. Now if this were the Duke basketball team I would be rooting for their losing streak for reach 15,022, but I am glad to see this football team finally win. Their coach is not a loathsome, rat-like whiny bastard like Duke’s basketball coach, Mike Kryzewski. So well done, Dukie football, you all earned it.
- You know how it’s said that banks operate on the principle that money comes in from deposits, goes out on loans and if every with money in the bank came at once to withdraw their money, there wouldn’t actually be enough on hand to meet the demand. In other words, the bank would crash if everyone tried to take out their money at the same time. Well, many British bank customers seem eager to challenge that logic, because on Saturday, hundreds of customers lined up outside branches of the Northern Rock Bank, desperate to withdraw their money after news came out that the bank had applied for an emergency loan to remain financially solvent. At some locations police were called in to maintain order, but neither the police presence nor assurances from the government that their money was safe dissuaded the anxious Brits. If only they would all follow my lead and place their money in a far safer place…..at their local betting parlor on a wager that O.J. Simpson will officially be named the worst guy ever by the end of the decade……
- I haven’t seen the official numbers yet, but I’ll go out on a limb and say that the current World Cup of women’s soccer is producing some of the lowest ratings numbers of the year for ESPN. And before you pass that off as my bias against soccer or women’s sports (OK, so soccer is boring and women’s sports at any level are substantially less interesting than the same men’s sports at the same level), hear me out. With America being the soccer-loathing nation we are, exactly how many people do you think are tuning in at 4:55 a.m. for some exciting World Cup action between Korea and Nigeria? Yeah, that’s what I thought. I know ESPN is hard up for programming to the point that they regularly broadcast auto racing, poker, dog shows and spelling bees, but while soccer is actually an improvement over those choices, it’s a marginal improvement. People barely give a crap about the men’s World Cup and men’s soccer is a much more established sport. At least we can all take solace in the fact that the airtime being used up for this event is at a time when no one would be watching anyhow. That’s what happens when your games are being played in China, I suppose.
- And the winner is……no one? For the first time in forever, not a single one of the five major TV networks has a schedule that is clearly the best as the fall TV season begins. Mostly that’s because on the whole, every one of the five schedules sucks. Not one of these networks has a single night, let alone a whole week, of shows that are great. For every Prison Break, there’s an Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, as is the case on Fox. Some networks, such as ABC, don’t even have their best show returning until January, as is Lost. Then you have Fox calling its new crime drama K-Ville a “landmark series,” even though it’s going to last about four weeks before being cancelled and is about as revolutionary as a peanut butter sandwich. Perhaps the most downtrodden of all networks is the CW, for whom I have no sympathy because the suits there have done this to themselves. They’ve systematically eliminated their best shows the past two years and are now left with a smorgasbord of rat feces on nearly every night of the week. The ONLY good show that the network has to offer during its premiere week is Smallville. Teen drama One Tree Hill is being retooled and will return in January with the show’s characters advanced ahead four years in time, past the college years the typically kill such shows. It remains to be seen if the revised version will work, but it definitely can’t be any worse than stinkers like Reaper and Beauty and the Geek. I honestly can't remember a year in which no new shows have excited me enough to watch. Even last season there were Heroes, Traveler and The Black Donnellys. This year there’s…..The Big Bang Theory, a lame half-hour comedy about a bunch of science nerds trying to pull chicks? Thanks, but I’ll pass.
- One college football note I neglected in yesterday’s posting was the ending of the longest losing streak in the nation, with the Duke Blue Devils snapping their 22-game skid. They hadn’t won a game since October 2005, but on Saturday night, the Dukies defeated Northwestern by a 20-14 score. Smart kid on smart kid violence isn't something I usually endorse, but in this case I’ll make an exception. Duke has long been known for two things – well, three if you count their irrepressible arrogance – and those two things are being smart and having a good basketball team that everyone outside of Durham hates with a passion. But for one glorious Saturday in September, the Dukies stopped sucking long enough to win a football game. Personally I’m happy to see it, because I’ve been on teams that go winless for prolonged periods of time and it absolutely sucks. The jubilation from the Duke players and coaches was awesome, and even if that’s the only win of their season, at least they’ve shed the dubious distinction of being the biggest losers in college football. The game came down to the very end, with Northwestern missing its final chance to win with just a few seconds remaining when quarterback C.J. Bachier’s pass fell incomplete in the end zone, sending the Duke sideline into a frenzy. Now if this were the Duke basketball team I would be rooting for their losing streak for reach 15,022, but I am glad to see this football team finally win. Their coach is not a loathsome, rat-like whiny bastard like Duke’s basketball coach, Mike Kryzewski. So well done, Dukie football, you all earned it.
- You know how it’s said that banks operate on the principle that money comes in from deposits, goes out on loans and if every with money in the bank came at once to withdraw their money, there wouldn’t actually be enough on hand to meet the demand. In other words, the bank would crash if everyone tried to take out their money at the same time. Well, many British bank customers seem eager to challenge that logic, because on Saturday, hundreds of customers lined up outside branches of the Northern Rock Bank, desperate to withdraw their money after news came out that the bank had applied for an emergency loan to remain financially solvent. At some locations police were called in to maintain order, but neither the police presence nor assurances from the government that their money was safe dissuaded the anxious Brits. If only they would all follow my lead and place their money in a far safer place…..at their local betting parlor on a wager that O.J. Simpson will officially be named the worst guy ever by the end of the decade……
- I haven’t seen the official numbers yet, but I’ll go out on a limb and say that the current World Cup of women’s soccer is producing some of the lowest ratings numbers of the year for ESPN. And before you pass that off as my bias against soccer or women’s sports (OK, so soccer is boring and women’s sports at any level are substantially less interesting than the same men’s sports at the same level), hear me out. With America being the soccer-loathing nation we are, exactly how many people do you think are tuning in at 4:55 a.m. for some exciting World Cup action between Korea and Nigeria? Yeah, that’s what I thought. I know ESPN is hard up for programming to the point that they regularly broadcast auto racing, poker, dog shows and spelling bees, but while soccer is actually an improvement over those choices, it’s a marginal improvement. People barely give a crap about the men’s World Cup and men’s soccer is a much more established sport. At least we can all take solace in the fact that the airtime being used up for this event is at a time when no one would be watching anyhow. That’s what happens when your games are being played in China, I suppose.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Celebs give Kabbalah a bad name, controversial underwear and more lies about Iraq
- Not a stellar Saturday of college football, I have to say. Now that is a relative statement because even on its worst day, a Saturday of college football is still just about the best thing in sports. Wall to wall action from noon to well past midnight is impossible to beat, but on this particular Saturday, that action was lacking in drama for the most part. An overwhelming majority of top teams (thus teams with games on national TV) had laughers, starting with top-ranked USC. The Trojans embarrassed Nebraska in a 49-31 game that was much more of a blowout than the final score indicates. All of the hayseed, overall-wearing, John Deere-driving Nebraska fans who swore up and down that their boys would take it to those overrated Trojans from the land of botox, spoiled celebrities and tanning booths on every corner ended up with egg on their faces. The blowouts continued with second-ranked LSU (44-0 over Middle Tennessee), third-ranked Oklahoma (54-3 over the might Utah State Aggies) and fourth-ranked Florida (59-20 over Tennessee). Other highly ranked squads were #5West Virginia (by 17 over Maryland), #8 Cal (a 30-point victor over Louisiana Tech) and #11 Ohio State (by 19 over Washington). The best games of the day involved teams totally off the national radar. Ball State and Navy played an amazing back-and-forth contest that saw the Cardinals prevail 34-31 in overtime, despite more than 500 rushing yards for the Midshipmen. Tulsa and BYU also had a classic encounter, won 55-47 by the Golden Hurricane over the visiting Cougars. The only high-profile games to live up to the hype were Arkansas v. Alabama, which was decided on an Alabama touchdown pass with four seconds left for a 41-38 win, and Kentucky vs. Louisville, which saw Kentucky ruin the Cardinals’ national title dreams with a stunning 57-yard touchdown pass with 28 seconds left to snatch a 40-34 win and the Governor’s Cup in the process. Oh, and not only were there massive blowouts by ranked teams, there were blowouts going the other direction as well. UCLA, ranked #11 going into today, was attempting to win this year’s Mormon Challenge Cup by beating Utah following last week’s win over BYU, but the Bruins were smoked by the Utes 44-6. It was one of the most embarrassing losses for a ranked team I can remember seeing, as well as a game that lacked in drama and intensity throughout. The combination of mostly the chalk winning and the blowout nature of a majority of the games I watched put a damper on the day, but again it was a Saturday of college football, which means that it still rocked.
- Great news on the war in Iraq……Secretary of Defense Robert Gates says that the number of troops in Iraq, fighting a war they should never have been involved in, could be cut by as many as 100,000….if conditions in Iraq improve enough to merit their leaving. Pardon me if I’m not excited by that announcement, Bobby, because that’s the same as me saying that if tomorrow I wake up and find $900 million on my doorstep, I’ll buy a new home for every poor family in America. Neither one is going to happen, but in actuality the $900 million on my doorstep is more likely. Exactly what Gates means by his expression of, as he puts it, a hope rather than a definite plan by the W. administration, is unclear. He didn’t spell out what the progress would be that would allow those 100,000 soldiers to come home, but that is the way this administration operates. Lots of double talk, denials, vague statements and generic proclamations in order to avoid ever having to be held accountable or admit that they were wrong. Gates quickly retreated into approved administration rhetoric after making this out-of-character statement, attacking senators who dared call on W. to change the failing, floundering, directionless, worthless and pointless plan in Iraq because it isn't succeeding. This came after the Senate took in the testimony of Ryan Crocker, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, and Gen. David Petraeus, the commanding officer for the American forces in Iraq, and issued a report saying that the president’s plan for the war-torn nation is failing badly. So pardon me for being suspicious of your vague, dubious “hope,” Bob-O.
- I would say this is a fall from grace for Fred Durst, but let’s face it, Durst was never really esteemed that highly by anyone but Britney Spears for that one night of….never mind. The former (I think former, does anyone know if Limp Bizkit is still technically together? Does anyone care?) Limp Bizkit front man has pled no contest to not one, not five but seven misdemeanors, including assault, battery and reckless driving after intentionally hitting two people with his vehicle while driving in Los Angeles. Durst received a suspended 120-day jail sentence, a $1,500 and must perform 20 hours of community service as part of his plea. Additionally, Durst has been slapped with a restraining order by the people he hit and must remain at least 100 feet from them at all times. The incident itself actually happened in October 2006, with charges filed in January. And no, there is no truth to the rumor that Durst was merely driving along that night and just decided to “keep rollin’, rollin’, rollin’,” right into the victims……..
- Usually when there’s this much of a controversy over underwear, it’s because Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears aren’t wearing them. This time, however, it’s because several prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp were found to be wearing unauthorized underwear and now officials are investigating how the prisoners got the contraband undergarments. Two prisoners were caught wearing Under Armour briefs and one prisoner had a Speedo on, which is a whole ‘nother problem. Personally, I’m punishing the guard who gave the guy the Speedo more harshly than anyone, and I’m also punishing the guy who wore the Speedo severely as well. There are just some things that no one in this world should ever have to see, and one of them is a dude in a Speedo. The contraband items were not issued by the prison nor were they sent by regular mail, so there are concerns about smuggling and what other items could get into the hands of the prisoners. What could be more offensive than a guy receiving and wearing a Speedo, I don’t know.
- Ah, the allure of following the current trendy religion so you can be both stylish and spiritual at the same time…..it never fails to draw in celebrities. Madonna, Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore are three of the celebs on the Kabbalah train right now, and they were in Tel Aviv this week for a conference celebrating the Jewish New Year. It never ceases to amaze how celebrities bandwagon religious ideals like Kabbalah or Scientology, but it is funny when celebrities whose entire lifestyle screams excess, morally bankrupt behavior and a total lack of class espouse religious beliefs that stand in direction contradiction to those lifestyles. Take Madonna, for example, who has built her reputation on being crude, crass, sexually explicit and was photographed a week or so ago walking out of a store with a sex toy known as “The Purple Penetrator.” Yeah, because I’m sure the Kabbalah gives a thumbs up to that sort of thing, as well as to graphically sexual books like the one Madonna wrote. I’m also sure that the Kabbalah is down with movies about being a stripper, as Demi Moore has done, and ones all about getting high and wasted, a la Dude, Where’s My Car?, as Kutcher has done. Yes, I can think of no finer trio of celebrities to be representing my religion than these three, that’s for sure. Thankfully, I’m not a big Kabbalah-head, so I don’t have to worry about that.
- Great news on the war in Iraq……Secretary of Defense Robert Gates says that the number of troops in Iraq, fighting a war they should never have been involved in, could be cut by as many as 100,000….if conditions in Iraq improve enough to merit their leaving. Pardon me if I’m not excited by that announcement, Bobby, because that’s the same as me saying that if tomorrow I wake up and find $900 million on my doorstep, I’ll buy a new home for every poor family in America. Neither one is going to happen, but in actuality the $900 million on my doorstep is more likely. Exactly what Gates means by his expression of, as he puts it, a hope rather than a definite plan by the W. administration, is unclear. He didn’t spell out what the progress would be that would allow those 100,000 soldiers to come home, but that is the way this administration operates. Lots of double talk, denials, vague statements and generic proclamations in order to avoid ever having to be held accountable or admit that they were wrong. Gates quickly retreated into approved administration rhetoric after making this out-of-character statement, attacking senators who dared call on W. to change the failing, floundering, directionless, worthless and pointless plan in Iraq because it isn't succeeding. This came after the Senate took in the testimony of Ryan Crocker, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, and Gen. David Petraeus, the commanding officer for the American forces in Iraq, and issued a report saying that the president’s plan for the war-torn nation is failing badly. So pardon me for being suspicious of your vague, dubious “hope,” Bob-O.
- I would say this is a fall from grace for Fred Durst, but let’s face it, Durst was never really esteemed that highly by anyone but Britney Spears for that one night of….never mind. The former (I think former, does anyone know if Limp Bizkit is still technically together? Does anyone care?) Limp Bizkit front man has pled no contest to not one, not five but seven misdemeanors, including assault, battery and reckless driving after intentionally hitting two people with his vehicle while driving in Los Angeles. Durst received a suspended 120-day jail sentence, a $1,500 and must perform 20 hours of community service as part of his plea. Additionally, Durst has been slapped with a restraining order by the people he hit and must remain at least 100 feet from them at all times. The incident itself actually happened in October 2006, with charges filed in January. And no, there is no truth to the rumor that Durst was merely driving along that night and just decided to “keep rollin’, rollin’, rollin’,” right into the victims……..
- Usually when there’s this much of a controversy over underwear, it’s because Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears aren’t wearing them. This time, however, it’s because several prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp were found to be wearing unauthorized underwear and now officials are investigating how the prisoners got the contraband undergarments. Two prisoners were caught wearing Under Armour briefs and one prisoner had a Speedo on, which is a whole ‘nother problem. Personally, I’m punishing the guard who gave the guy the Speedo more harshly than anyone, and I’m also punishing the guy who wore the Speedo severely as well. There are just some things that no one in this world should ever have to see, and one of them is a dude in a Speedo. The contraband items were not issued by the prison nor were they sent by regular mail, so there are concerns about smuggling and what other items could get into the hands of the prisoners. What could be more offensive than a guy receiving and wearing a Speedo, I don’t know.
- Ah, the allure of following the current trendy religion so you can be both stylish and spiritual at the same time…..it never fails to draw in celebrities. Madonna, Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore are three of the celebs on the Kabbalah train right now, and they were in Tel Aviv this week for a conference celebrating the Jewish New Year. It never ceases to amaze how celebrities bandwagon religious ideals like Kabbalah or Scientology, but it is funny when celebrities whose entire lifestyle screams excess, morally bankrupt behavior and a total lack of class espouse religious beliefs that stand in direction contradiction to those lifestyles. Take Madonna, for example, who has built her reputation on being crude, crass, sexually explicit and was photographed a week or so ago walking out of a store with a sex toy known as “The Purple Penetrator.” Yeah, because I’m sure the Kabbalah gives a thumbs up to that sort of thing, as well as to graphically sexual books like the one Madonna wrote. I’m also sure that the Kabbalah is down with movies about being a stripper, as Demi Moore has done, and ones all about getting high and wasted, a la Dude, Where’s My Car?, as Kutcher has done. Yes, I can think of no finer trio of celebrities to be representing my religion than these three, that’s for sure. Thankfully, I’m not a big Kabbalah-head, so I don’t have to worry about that.
Friday, September 14, 2007
Mascot violence, Prison Break news and Ricky Williams on the comeback trail
- Too often people think of mascots as warm, fuzzy, oversized cartoon characters come to life. Kids love them and they mug for cameras during the game to the point that they can become annoying. Not the University of Oregon’s mascot, though. The UO duck is one tough mo-fo. The mascot, known simply as the Duck, will be serving a one-game suspension this Saturday as Oregon takes on Fresno State because back in Oregon’s opener on September 1, the Duck got into a mascot brawl with Shasta, the mascot for the University of Houston Cougars, who were UO’s opponent that day. The Duck took umbrage when Shasta (played by UH student Matt Stolt, who is also a walk-on with the football team) copied his patented touchdown celebration of doing push-ups equal to the number of points Oregon has scored in that particular game. The two mascots got into a fight on the sideline, with the Duck administering an animalistic beatdown of Shasta/Stolt, pummeling him with rights, lefts, kicks and pinning him to the ground. Well, as much as one can pummel someone else when both are wearing padded, furry mascot costumes. There were actually two separate altercations, the first a mere shoving match. "He kept coming after me so I pushed him off of me a little bit and then he kind of slapped my head gear around." Stolt said. The second encounter was the more violent of the two. "(I) went out there and did push ups," Stolt continued. “He came out, kicked me and it wasn't a hard kick. So, I figured he was just playing. Then he did something else. He made some obscene gestures and I lost it. I got up and that's the part where you see me running and tackling him.” As always, good to see mascots conducting themselves with class and dignity, two traits they are known for worldwide. The Duck’s actions continue a trend of violent and crazy behavior by mascots from the Pac 10 Conference, which saw the Tree, Stanford University’s mascot, suspended last basketball season because the student who plays the Tree at games showed up to a men’s basketball game drunk out of his mind. I’m not sure whether to be amused or disturbed by this, but I’ll err on the side of good humor and just laugh it off.
- Someone needs to brief O.J. Simpson on the laws in this country, because clearly the Juice doesn’t quite grasp them and their significance. Already he’s proven that he doesn’t understand that it’s wrong to murder two innocent people by turning them into human Pez dispensers, and now he’s demonstrated that he doesn’t get the notion of breaking and entering or what burglary means. Las Vegas police have officially named Simpson as a suspect in an incident at the Palace Station hotel/casino in which sports memorabilia was taken from a hotel room. Simpson admitted to entering the room and taking the memorabilia, but he claimed it was simply a retrieval of stolen mementos that included his Hall of Fame certificate and a picture of the running back with J. Edgar Hoover. Initially the incident had been reported as an armed robbery involving guns, but so far police have not recovered any weapons. Simpson said auction house owner Tom Riccio called him several weeks ago to say some collectors "have a lot of your stuff and they don't want anyone to know they are selling it.” Thus, the Juice set up his own sting operation, with Riccio posing as a potential buyer for the items. Then, the Juice and some friends raided the room and took the memorabilia, but the people whose room it was came back and discovered what was going on. Right now it’s not clear whose version of the story is true, but how about the absolute brass pair displayed by the Juice here, pulling this kind of stunt. Look, Juice, I know you think you’re smarter than the cops because you brutally murdered two people and got away with it, but that doesn’t mean you can do your own commando-style raid of a hotel room to recover some memorabilia you think belongs to you. This isn't one of those crappy action movies you’ve acted in where you can administer your own vigilante justice. If someone has something that belongs to you, rather than setting up one of the most poorly concocted, ill-conceived sting operations ever, just call the cops and let them sort things out. You’ve already cheated justice once in the most offensive fashion possible, so don’t push your luck. You should be sitting on death row right now but instead you’re free, so enjoy your freedom, maybe use your time in your quest to find the “real killers.”
- Call me crazy (go ahead, I’m used to it), but the will she/won’t she debate about Sara Wayne Callies’ return to Prison Break for this coming season hasn’t dampened my enthusiasm for the show one bit. For a while now, the prevailing belief has been that Callies is gonzo, as evidenced by her near-total absence from the season premiere, with only a back-to-the-camera appearance done by a body double. However, Fox has now issued a news release saying that Callies will have a “major role” in this season’s storylines, so you can choose who you want to believe on this one. As I said, I really don’t care that much, I think it will be a great season with or without her, although if given a choice, who wouldn’t want Dr. Tancredi back? However, with an amazing cast of great (and diverse) characters, PB could still have a great year without Callies. I’m much more interested to find out what the frak SONA is and why Michael is being held there. Either way, the show returns Monday at 8 p.m., so be sure to tune in for the one great show that Fox has. This will be the one week for a while you can focus solely on Prison Break on Monday night, because the show is getting a one-week head start on Heroes, soon to return on NBC.
- Few bets in sports have been safer in recent years than banking on the fact that as he tries his never-ending comeback to the NFL, Ricky Williams is going to screw up somehow and lose his shot to play football once again. This guy has tested positive for marijuana and other drugs so many times you’d think he was a regular passenger on Willie Nelson’s tour bus. But the Rick-ster is again on the comeback trail and plans on applying for reinstatement to the NFL once he becomes eligible on Oct. 1. Ricky has been suspended four tiems for violating the league’s substance abuse policy, with the most recent ban coming in April 2006. He played in the Canadian Football league last season, but hasn’t played in the NFL since 2004. He’s tried traveling the world, going into holistic medicine, living in India, playing Canadian football, but nothing has worked in terms of keeping him clean. His attorney, David Cornwell, spoke with the blunt-loving running back this week and relayed what Williams told him. "He sounds wonderful," Cornwell said. "He sounds like he's in a great place, and I'm confident that will come through to the commissioner.” Hmm, was he very mellow and laid back on the phone? Did it sound like he was munching on Cheetos and watching a Planet Earth DVD while talking to you? I’ll believe Ricky is clean when I see it, although I’m sure some NFL team will give him a shot if Commission Roger Goodell reinstates him.
- While I don’t know that his particular brand of comedy is ideal for an awards show, I’m glad to see that Jon Stewart will be hosting the Oscars again in 2008. The host of TV’s best fake news show will take to the stage on Feb. 24 for the 80th annual Academy Awards show. Stewart hosted in 2006 and did well, so he’s getting another shot at standing in front of a room of pompous, egotistical, self-important stars who are in full self-congratulatory mode as they give out awards to themselves. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences didn’t officially say why Stewart will host instead of 2007’s choice, un-funny comedienne Ellen Degenerate, er, Degeneres, but I have a guess. How about because Degeneres isn't funny, entertaining or interesting? How’s about because chicks should not be sporting the same haircut as dudes when that cut is as short as Degeneres’? As I said, Stewart’s self-effacing, sarcastic style might not be typical for award show hosts, but he’s a thousand times better of a choice than Degeneres.
- Stoners and rock fans of all ages rejoice, because for the first time in nearly two decades, Led Zeppelin will reunite as a band to play a show. Jimmy Page and Robert Plant will bring their band back together for a one-time gig to honor the memory of Ahmet Ertegun, the late co-founder of Atlantic Records. Led Zep hasn’t played together since 1987, but they will reunite to play the concert at the 02 venue on the banks of the Thames River in London on Nov. 26. John Paul Jones and the late John Bonham’s son Jason will join Page and Plant for what should be a great show.
- Someone needs to brief O.J. Simpson on the laws in this country, because clearly the Juice doesn’t quite grasp them and their significance. Already he’s proven that he doesn’t understand that it’s wrong to murder two innocent people by turning them into human Pez dispensers, and now he’s demonstrated that he doesn’t get the notion of breaking and entering or what burglary means. Las Vegas police have officially named Simpson as a suspect in an incident at the Palace Station hotel/casino in which sports memorabilia was taken from a hotel room. Simpson admitted to entering the room and taking the memorabilia, but he claimed it was simply a retrieval of stolen mementos that included his Hall of Fame certificate and a picture of the running back with J. Edgar Hoover. Initially the incident had been reported as an armed robbery involving guns, but so far police have not recovered any weapons. Simpson said auction house owner Tom Riccio called him several weeks ago to say some collectors "have a lot of your stuff and they don't want anyone to know they are selling it.” Thus, the Juice set up his own sting operation, with Riccio posing as a potential buyer for the items. Then, the Juice and some friends raided the room and took the memorabilia, but the people whose room it was came back and discovered what was going on. Right now it’s not clear whose version of the story is true, but how about the absolute brass pair displayed by the Juice here, pulling this kind of stunt. Look, Juice, I know you think you’re smarter than the cops because you brutally murdered two people and got away with it, but that doesn’t mean you can do your own commando-style raid of a hotel room to recover some memorabilia you think belongs to you. This isn't one of those crappy action movies you’ve acted in where you can administer your own vigilante justice. If someone has something that belongs to you, rather than setting up one of the most poorly concocted, ill-conceived sting operations ever, just call the cops and let them sort things out. You’ve already cheated justice once in the most offensive fashion possible, so don’t push your luck. You should be sitting on death row right now but instead you’re free, so enjoy your freedom, maybe use your time in your quest to find the “real killers.”
- Call me crazy (go ahead, I’m used to it), but the will she/won’t she debate about Sara Wayne Callies’ return to Prison Break for this coming season hasn’t dampened my enthusiasm for the show one bit. For a while now, the prevailing belief has been that Callies is gonzo, as evidenced by her near-total absence from the season premiere, with only a back-to-the-camera appearance done by a body double. However, Fox has now issued a news release saying that Callies will have a “major role” in this season’s storylines, so you can choose who you want to believe on this one. As I said, I really don’t care that much, I think it will be a great season with or without her, although if given a choice, who wouldn’t want Dr. Tancredi back? However, with an amazing cast of great (and diverse) characters, PB could still have a great year without Callies. I’m much more interested to find out what the frak SONA is and why Michael is being held there. Either way, the show returns Monday at 8 p.m., so be sure to tune in for the one great show that Fox has. This will be the one week for a while you can focus solely on Prison Break on Monday night, because the show is getting a one-week head start on Heroes, soon to return on NBC.
- Few bets in sports have been safer in recent years than banking on the fact that as he tries his never-ending comeback to the NFL, Ricky Williams is going to screw up somehow and lose his shot to play football once again. This guy has tested positive for marijuana and other drugs so many times you’d think he was a regular passenger on Willie Nelson’s tour bus. But the Rick-ster is again on the comeback trail and plans on applying for reinstatement to the NFL once he becomes eligible on Oct. 1. Ricky has been suspended four tiems for violating the league’s substance abuse policy, with the most recent ban coming in April 2006. He played in the Canadian Football league last season, but hasn’t played in the NFL since 2004. He’s tried traveling the world, going into holistic medicine, living in India, playing Canadian football, but nothing has worked in terms of keeping him clean. His attorney, David Cornwell, spoke with the blunt-loving running back this week and relayed what Williams told him. "He sounds wonderful," Cornwell said. "He sounds like he's in a great place, and I'm confident that will come through to the commissioner.” Hmm, was he very mellow and laid back on the phone? Did it sound like he was munching on Cheetos and watching a Planet Earth DVD while talking to you? I’ll believe Ricky is clean when I see it, although I’m sure some NFL team will give him a shot if Commission Roger Goodell reinstates him.
- While I don’t know that his particular brand of comedy is ideal for an awards show, I’m glad to see that Jon Stewart will be hosting the Oscars again in 2008. The host of TV’s best fake news show will take to the stage on Feb. 24 for the 80th annual Academy Awards show. Stewart hosted in 2006 and did well, so he’s getting another shot at standing in front of a room of pompous, egotistical, self-important stars who are in full self-congratulatory mode as they give out awards to themselves. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences didn’t officially say why Stewart will host instead of 2007’s choice, un-funny comedienne Ellen Degenerate, er, Degeneres, but I have a guess. How about because Degeneres isn't funny, entertaining or interesting? How’s about because chicks should not be sporting the same haircut as dudes when that cut is as short as Degeneres’? As I said, Stewart’s self-effacing, sarcastic style might not be typical for award show hosts, but he’s a thousand times better of a choice than Degeneres.
- Stoners and rock fans of all ages rejoice, because for the first time in nearly two decades, Led Zeppelin will reunite as a band to play a show. Jimmy Page and Robert Plant will bring their band back together for a one-time gig to honor the memory of Ahmet Ertegun, the late co-founder of Atlantic Records. Led Zep hasn’t played together since 1987, but they will reunite to play the concert at the 02 venue on the banks of the Thames River in London on Nov. 26. John Paul Jones and the late John Bonham’s son Jason will join Page and Plant for what should be a great show.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Soccer fan goes soccer fan, Greg Oden goes down and so does the metric system
- It’s almost as if soccer fan just can’t help himself. Soccer fan must stay true to his nature and go soccer fan at some point, no matter what the circumstances. Never was this more evident that last night during a European Cup match between the Netherlands and Albania, when a flare thrown from the stands hit an Albanian player in the head and forced the premature end of a match that had a few minutes left on the clock. To be fair, the Albanian team did have the audacity to be losing 2-1 to the Dutch, so I guess the Albanian players deserved a lit flare to the head, right? Way to go soccer fan, thanks for reminding the rest of us why you’re such a bunch of degenerate a-holes. Things don’t go your way, riot. Your players don’t play as well as you think they should or make a single mistake, throw a lit flare or urine bomb at them. Opposing fans getting on your nerves? Start a full-on gang war in the stands, setting things on fire and using any blunt object you can find as a weapon. It’s great that you all love your soccer team and follow them so passionately, but did you know that you can still be fanatical about your team without rioting and throwing flares at the players? Stadiums should not have to erect barricades and barbed wire fences around the field to protect the players, but many Euro venues do for soccer games. Seriously, you Euro soccer fans make Philadelphia fans booing Santa Claus and cheering opposing players suffering concussions seem classy by comparison.
- Sam Bowie and Bill Walton, meet Greg Oden. Oden, the top pick by the Portland Trailblazers in June’s NBA Draft, today had arthroscopic and microfracture surgery to repair articular cartilage damage in his right knee and will miss the entire upcoming season. Oden joins Walton and Bowie as Trailblazer centers who have had their promising careers wrecked by injuries, although Oden’s career hasn’t even started in earnest. He only played two summer league games before having a tonsillectomy and missing the rest of the summer schedule. Now, he will be MIA for a team that wasn’t counting on him to be the cornerstone of its resurgence. This is a catastrophic setback for the franchise, which has been donut-like in its continual inability to fill the hole in its inside game for years. Ironically, this injury by the top lottery pick in the 2007 draft could propel Portland to the bottom of the standings and a very good shot at the top pick in the 2008 draft. You do feel bad for Oden because although he did sign his rookie contract guaranteeing him several million dollars, he now has to sit by and watch the team he was supposed to help to prosperity struggle through another losing season. Also, coming back from microfracture surgery is a huge challenge, and until Amare Stoudemire did so last year, there really hadn’t been a single athlete who had undergone the procedure and made it back to anything close to the level of play he or she had been at before surgery. Best wishes to Oden for a full recovery, but this is just about the worst start to an NBA career that you could cook up in your worst nightmare.
- So the U.S. Senate isn't really buying what W. administration honks like Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Gen. David Petraeus are selling. Why that is, I really don’t know, because I felt that both Crocker and Petraeus were verrrrrry convincing as they sat before the various Senate committees looking like they were facing a firing squad armed with AK-47s. In no way did it sound like they were just administration lackeys, spouting rehashed and recycled political speak supplemented by some colorful charts they had done at Kinko’s the night before the hearings like two slacker college students trying to score a passing grade on their big project. And I for one found it extremely convincing when Crocker and Petraeus tried to explain how, despite the situation in Iraq becoming less stable and more violent by the day, we can still win if we just do a whole bunch of things that we can’t possibly do in reality. It was also nice to see how the senators did such a nice job of remaining neutral and balanced, because in no way could I tell what the opinions of congressmen like Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., were as he opened the hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with a ten-minute monologue openly criticizing every aspect of W.’s plan in Iraq. The senators just didn’t seem enthused by the fact that the number of civilian deaths in Iraq has recently gone down from a whole bunch to only quite a few and that some of the many warring tribal factions within Iraq have expressed “some interest” in cooperating with American plans for the country. Oh, and I guess Crocker and Petraeus just didn’t get around to explaining why we’re in Iraq to begin with, because I’m sure they both had very good explanations for that, what with the mythical weapons of mass destruction ultimately proving to be a figment of W.’s imagination. None of the senators in the hearings, not even the Republicans, seemed to accept what Crocker and Petraeus were saying. This was supposed to be a major milestone in the war in Iraq, the September trip to Capitol Hill by administration representatives to update Congress on the Mess O’Potamia. It turned out to be nothing more than a depressing confirmation of what we already knew, that things are going poorly in Iraq and they’re not going to get better any time soon. Even Crocker basically admitted as much, saying that any progress we make won't have any highly visible, tangible benchmarks that we can point to. In other words, you want us to believe that things will get better, we just won't be able to see it. Yeah, pardon me if I don’t believe you when you say that. After watching those hearings, my feelings are even stronger that we need to leave Iraq - NOW.
- Well a big, hearty F’you right back at ya, Bolivia. Apparently the Bolivian government is like an annoying seven-year-old who just got made fun of on the playground, because on Tuesday the South American nation announced that it will begin requiring visas for U.S. tourists beginning Dec. 1, following through on a promise to treat Americans in the same fashion that Bolivians entering the United States are treated in, a fashion the Bolivians find unfair and objectionable. A 30-day tourist visa for an American visiting Bolivia will cost $134, an amount shockingly similar to the one paid by Bolivians visiting the U.S. According to Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca, U.S. citizens will now fall under Bolivia’s most highly regulated migratory category. Yeah, that’s really necessary. Like a lot of Americans are going to want to stay in your crap hole of a country for a prolonged period of time. Nice of you to basically copycat everything we’re doing, Bolivia, it shows a total lack of both creativity and maturity. You can’t even come up with own original visa policies, you have to mimic ours out of spite. Let’s face it, you always have been and always will be an afterthought for anyone looking to take a vacation to South America. I’ll stick to Brazil with maybe a side of Argentina and Chile…….
- Haven't we all heard this lie before……the metric system is coming and pretty soon, we’re all going to be using it so you’d better learn it and learn to love it. Every generation since World War I has heard the same spiel, I think, yet none of us has ever seen the metric system come to be the rule in America and it’s a good bet that we never will. The people of Ireland and Britain are right there with us, as they have successfully fought off the European Commission’s attempts to impose the metric system on their countries. Back in 1999, the European Union drafted rules designed to phase out imperial measures like the mile and the pint by 2009, but public outcry over the impending change forced the EU to reconsider and now the Brits and Irish will get to keep their systems of measurement. Personally, I’m glad to see it, because it just wouldn’t feel right to see Irishmen ordering a liter of Guinness at the local pub. It’s a pint now and it should stay a pint. Besides, now we can stop having absurd stories like the one that came out a few years ago when a British grocer was convicted of a crime for selling bananas by the pound rather than by the kilo. We’ve got the metric system on the run now, keep up the fight………
- Sam Bowie and Bill Walton, meet Greg Oden. Oden, the top pick by the Portland Trailblazers in June’s NBA Draft, today had arthroscopic and microfracture surgery to repair articular cartilage damage in his right knee and will miss the entire upcoming season. Oden joins Walton and Bowie as Trailblazer centers who have had their promising careers wrecked by injuries, although Oden’s career hasn’t even started in earnest. He only played two summer league games before having a tonsillectomy and missing the rest of the summer schedule. Now, he will be MIA for a team that wasn’t counting on him to be the cornerstone of its resurgence. This is a catastrophic setback for the franchise, which has been donut-like in its continual inability to fill the hole in its inside game for years. Ironically, this injury by the top lottery pick in the 2007 draft could propel Portland to the bottom of the standings and a very good shot at the top pick in the 2008 draft. You do feel bad for Oden because although he did sign his rookie contract guaranteeing him several million dollars, he now has to sit by and watch the team he was supposed to help to prosperity struggle through another losing season. Also, coming back from microfracture surgery is a huge challenge, and until Amare Stoudemire did so last year, there really hadn’t been a single athlete who had undergone the procedure and made it back to anything close to the level of play he or she had been at before surgery. Best wishes to Oden for a full recovery, but this is just about the worst start to an NBA career that you could cook up in your worst nightmare.
- So the U.S. Senate isn't really buying what W. administration honks like Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Gen. David Petraeus are selling. Why that is, I really don’t know, because I felt that both Crocker and Petraeus were verrrrrry convincing as they sat before the various Senate committees looking like they were facing a firing squad armed with AK-47s. In no way did it sound like they were just administration lackeys, spouting rehashed and recycled political speak supplemented by some colorful charts they had done at Kinko’s the night before the hearings like two slacker college students trying to score a passing grade on their big project. And I for one found it extremely convincing when Crocker and Petraeus tried to explain how, despite the situation in Iraq becoming less stable and more violent by the day, we can still win if we just do a whole bunch of things that we can’t possibly do in reality. It was also nice to see how the senators did such a nice job of remaining neutral and balanced, because in no way could I tell what the opinions of congressmen like Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., were as he opened the hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with a ten-minute monologue openly criticizing every aspect of W.’s plan in Iraq. The senators just didn’t seem enthused by the fact that the number of civilian deaths in Iraq has recently gone down from a whole bunch to only quite a few and that some of the many warring tribal factions within Iraq have expressed “some interest” in cooperating with American plans for the country. Oh, and I guess Crocker and Petraeus just didn’t get around to explaining why we’re in Iraq to begin with, because I’m sure they both had very good explanations for that, what with the mythical weapons of mass destruction ultimately proving to be a figment of W.’s imagination. None of the senators in the hearings, not even the Republicans, seemed to accept what Crocker and Petraeus were saying. This was supposed to be a major milestone in the war in Iraq, the September trip to Capitol Hill by administration representatives to update Congress on the Mess O’Potamia. It turned out to be nothing more than a depressing confirmation of what we already knew, that things are going poorly in Iraq and they’re not going to get better any time soon. Even Crocker basically admitted as much, saying that any progress we make won't have any highly visible, tangible benchmarks that we can point to. In other words, you want us to believe that things will get better, we just won't be able to see it. Yeah, pardon me if I don’t believe you when you say that. After watching those hearings, my feelings are even stronger that we need to leave Iraq - NOW.
- Well a big, hearty F’you right back at ya, Bolivia. Apparently the Bolivian government is like an annoying seven-year-old who just got made fun of on the playground, because on Tuesday the South American nation announced that it will begin requiring visas for U.S. tourists beginning Dec. 1, following through on a promise to treat Americans in the same fashion that Bolivians entering the United States are treated in, a fashion the Bolivians find unfair and objectionable. A 30-day tourist visa for an American visiting Bolivia will cost $134, an amount shockingly similar to the one paid by Bolivians visiting the U.S. According to Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca, U.S. citizens will now fall under Bolivia’s most highly regulated migratory category. Yeah, that’s really necessary. Like a lot of Americans are going to want to stay in your crap hole of a country for a prolonged period of time. Nice of you to basically copycat everything we’re doing, Bolivia, it shows a total lack of both creativity and maturity. You can’t even come up with own original visa policies, you have to mimic ours out of spite. Let’s face it, you always have been and always will be an afterthought for anyone looking to take a vacation to South America. I’ll stick to Brazil with maybe a side of Argentina and Chile…….
- Haven't we all heard this lie before……the metric system is coming and pretty soon, we’re all going to be using it so you’d better learn it and learn to love it. Every generation since World War I has heard the same spiel, I think, yet none of us has ever seen the metric system come to be the rule in America and it’s a good bet that we never will. The people of Ireland and Britain are right there with us, as they have successfully fought off the European Commission’s attempts to impose the metric system on their countries. Back in 1999, the European Union drafted rules designed to phase out imperial measures like the mile and the pint by 2009, but public outcry over the impending change forced the EU to reconsider and now the Brits and Irish will get to keep their systems of measurement. Personally, I’m glad to see it, because it just wouldn’t feel right to see Irishmen ordering a liter of Guinness at the local pub. It’s a pint now and it should stay a pint. Besides, now we can stop having absurd stories like the one that came out a few years ago when a British grocer was convicted of a crime for selling bananas by the pound rather than by the kilo. We’ve got the metric system on the run now, keep up the fight………
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